D&D 4E The Quadratic Problem—Speculations on 4e

[Cheiromancer]

The problem obviously is that we have no real guidelines yet on how to gauge the power of a spellcaster, especially since we concentrate on power per round or per combat, not per day.

This is a problem in our estimates for fighter types, too. We don't know how the "per encounter" abilities interact with with our estimates of power. Healing is an especially crucial factor- if a character can heal himself with per encounter combat maneuvers (maybe like the crusader in Bo9S) then he could have practically infinite power according to our formula. That's because he has practically infinite hit points.

Practically speaking, players will use up some of their "per day" abilities when the tide of battle swings against them- and eventually they may wear down and have to rest. But if WotC are trying to get rid of the "15 minute adventuring day" they might have a way of encouraging multiple encounters per day. Abilities usable 1/hour or something.

Our power formula is basically based on one combat that goes to the death, and our assumption is that this is the same as four combats that use up 25% of resources. But maybe this assumption is flawed.

 

[howandwhy99]

I'm not sure how they are balancing "infinite combats / day", but right now it appears that CRs apply mostly to PC Character Level with slightly to how many spells they have left or other resources they've used. That's because many more now will be replenished between "attacks" than in 3e.

I find a great deal of faulty logic in most Per Encounter mechanics, but the one that is irking me in regards to CRs and and Encounter Difficulties is they seem to have a misguided understanding about what happens out of combat in D&D.

Out-of-Combat is/was a wargaming, strategic mentality. If you couldn't handle more than one more fight, it's probably best to try and get to somewhere safe in the dungeon. Keep that ability to survive one more fight handy as getting to safety is part of the difficulty.

It may be that another fun part of the game, the need for players to learn how to set goals, read a situation, plan ahead, etc. etc., is being taken out.

 

[Cheiromancer]

Arg! The WotC people are reading these threads and they don't know what we mean by "more powerful". See here

It's funny. I actually had to go and ask Chris Perkins and Andy Collins this morning what people mean when they're asking whether Fourth Edition characters will be "more powerful" than Third Edition characters of the same level. I assumed the question was relative, and it made no sense to me. 4E characters will be just as challenged by encounters of their level as 3E characters would be if 3E encounter design actually worked. The power level, from that mindset, is the same.

That just shows how immersed I am in 4E, I guess. Andy explained that what he thinks people want to know is whether characters will have more hit points and do more damage. Purely a question of raw numbers, rather than of what those numbers mean in the world.

I think my question basically boils down to this:

"If 2 monsters are a challenge to a party of level n, then 4 of that same kind of monster will be a challenge for a party of what level?"

I'm expecting something like "n+2" or "n+4". Or maybe "when the party's level is 40% higher than it currently is" or something. Does this make sense?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Arg! The WotC people are reading these threads and they don't know what we mean by "more powerful". See here

Well, I think they do.

A longer quote:

Comparing Power
It's funny. I actually had to go and ask Chris Perkins and Andy Collins this morning what people mean when they're asking whether Fourth Edition characters will be "more powerful" than Third Edition characters of the same level. I assumed the question was relative, and it made no sense to me. 4E characters will be just as challenged by encounters of their level as 3E characters would be if 3E encounter design actually worked. The power level, from that mindset, is the same.

This seems to answer the question as to whether a "moderate" encounter remains a "moderate" encounter.

That just shows how immersed I am in 4E, I guess. Andy explained that what he thinks people want to know is whether characters will have more hit points and do more damage. Purely a question of raw numbers, rather than of what those numbers mean in the world.

I find that needlessly dismissive of what the numbers mean in the real world and within the context of years of 3e experience, which is our only real frame of reference.

Snarky Aside:[sblock]
I'm getting annoyed with their tendency to give us drips and dribbles of information (sometimes deliberately misleading) with absolutely no context and, at the same time, "chiding" us for our ignorance and failure to put things in context. It smacks of the DM standing behind the DM Screen with ALL OF THE ANSWERS and turning up his nose at the players who can't seem to figure out his genius puzzle from the few "obvious" clues he has left them. (Guilty.)[/sblock]

Obviously starting fighters at 1st level with 30+ hit points is "different" than our current expectations.

But obvious, also, is the expectation that WoTC will be putting this higher number in context. (Duh?)

Given that 3E is inherently unbalanced—low-level characters are too weak and high-level characters are too powerful—I guess the right answer is that low-level characters will be more powerful and high-level characters will be less so. Everyone will be balanced, because we've erased the accident of math.

This matches the expectations raised in this thread and elsewhere.

When it comes to sheer numbers, though, I guess the answer is that we've worked hard to adjust the scale of the math so that the numbers feel right. The math of the system would work the same if our baseline weapon damage were 3d6 as it would if the baseline weapon damage were 1d6, assuming that everything scaled properly from that baseline. But the 3d6 baseline would make all the numbers feel inflated, and 4E characters would seem a lot more powerful than their 3E counterparts. So we've tried to set the baselines at a level where the numbers will feel comparable to historical numbers. Even if fireball no longer does 1d6/level.

I think that makes sense.

But I still have a hard time grasping the fundamental nature of the question. The real answer is that characters will be balanced, across 30 levels.

That's a no brainer, but otherwise a non-answer. God, I hope that answer isn't in any way related to the questions posed in this thread. The answer assumes that the question is simplistic, and misses (or dodges) the real question that underlies the focus on numbers:

HOW did you balance the game across 30 levels?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

HOW did you balance the game across 30 levels?

They could tell you that, but WotC Non-Disclosure-Policy would require them to kill you afterwards.

I'd like to know too. Maybe I know in May 2008, or a few months later (once DMG and MM have been released). :/

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think one way to balance it better is to avoid overspecialization.

Today, a 10th level Fighter has a 5 point advantage in attack bonus compared to a wizard of the same level as a base.
Then, he might have gone the Weapon Focus route and have a further +2 to +4 points of difference to the wizard.
Then, he has a "raw" ability score that is probably 3 points higher.
Then, he has a magical item increasing this ability score, increasing it again by 2 points.
Then, he has a magical weapon, increasing his attack by another 2-3 points compared to the wizard.

This gives him a difference of around 17 points. This is nearly outside of the range of a d20 roll, which means that an enemy that the fighter can hit with a 50 % chance can only be hit by the wizard with a 5 % chance (thanks to natural 20s only!).

The difference between wizard and fighter is probably the highest possible, but we are only at 10th level, not yet 20th, where the assumptions work pretty similar for Rogues and Clerics compared to Fighters.

This is just balance across one level and for attacks. If we consider the difference between levels, similar comparisons turn up. Skills also have a similar problem (you usually have 0 ranks, 1 rank, 5 ranks, max ranks for a skill, plus an additional modifier that is usually higher if the skill has more ranks)

So far, we have only discussed the quadratic advancement of characters. But we haven't taken into account that the method used to generate "successes/hits" relies only only the granularity of a d20.

If D&D numbers were as they are today, but we would use 2d20 (and 20 as base for AC and Saving Throw DCs instead of 10), the balancing would probably turn around differently at higher levels (but at low levels, it would make little difference what classes, equipment and other enhancement you have)

 

[mmadsen]

I think one way to balance it better is to avoid overspecialization.

I don't think it's the overspecialization so much as the large number of stacking bonuses that creates the problem.

As you point out, the Fighter doesn't simply have a large BAB; he also has feats that add to his attack bonus, ability scores that add to his attack bonus, magic items that add to abilities that increase his attack bonus, and magic weapons that add to his attack bonus.

If a 10th-level Fighter simply had the higher BAB -- or if he got fewer magic items, or fewer of the "right" magic items -- things wouldn't get out of hand quite so quickly.

This gives him a difference of around 17 points. This is nearly outside of the range of a d20 roll, which means that an enemy that the fighter can hit with a 50 % chance can only be hit by the wizard with a 5 % chance (thanks to natural 20s only!).

The difference is even bigger than that. An enemy the Fighter can hit 90 percent of the time (natural 3 or higher), the Wizard can only hit 5 percent of the time (natural 20).

Of course, the Wizard's role is not to hit enemies in close combat. To balance the two classes, the game system has to make sure the Wizard's abilities don't rely on making a to-hit roll -- and they generally don't.

 

[SavageRobby]

HOW did you balance the game across 30 levels?

I wonder if the answer is simplistic. Raise the initial power level, drop the target power level, and make the upgrades in between far more incremental.

Imagine if at each "level", you chose whether you wanted to raise your HP, raise your attack bonus, take a feat/manuever/new spell/whatever, increase your spellcasting capacity (spells per day/encounter/whatever). That changes the way you've been looking at the equation. I don't think it will be quite that simple, but lowering the goodies at each level (HP, attack, saves, skills, feats, spell and special abilities) to a much smaller subset make achieving those design goals easier.

 

[MojoGM]

That's actually possible?!?! I mean, ducking calculus, or even Trig, okay. But I can't imagine giving a high school diploma to someone that hasn't passed first-year algebra or its equivalent. I mean, you can't do high-school level science without algebra.

Not to derail the thread (sorry Wulf), but yes, it is possible. Now, I graduated way back in 1990, but I didn't touch Algebra until college, and then it was only a little.

And to tell the truth, I've forgotten all I learned then. Hasn't really impacted my life much.

Good reading though, I'm not sure I got all of it but you did explain it throughly enough for me to get most.

 

[helium3]

So if we return to the basic equation for the models here: Combat Power = Damage over time x combat staying power, you will note that while DOT is going up, CSP is dropping. So high level parties are not actually more powerful than their medium level ones, but simply that the fights decrease in length.

An example is that an 8th level party fightning a CR 8 monster might last for 4 rounds. A 20th level party vs a CR 20 monster will often last a single round.

I didn't find this to be the case when my party played through levels 15 to 20 over the last year. High level combat generally took a lot longer, both in terms of the number of rounds and the sheer amount of actual time it took. Of course, almost all of the encounters consisted of large numbers of EL appropriate creatures, so maybe that had something to do with it.