The Question of Balance

[Crothian]

One interesting trend through many threads is the opinion that many third party books are unblanced and that is the reason people stay away from them. However, in threads that specifically talk about balance problems it is always the WotC prodcuts being discussed. I have a a decent collection of the third party books and for the most I have never found them to be better or worse over all in terms of balance.

Is it just an excuse or false premise that makes people stay away from third party books? Is it possible that the more widely known 3.0 books were the ones that had rules problems and people just assume that since they had problems the current ones have problems? Or are there still third party books being writen in the past year or so that have balance problems?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've playtested one WotC book and a few third party products. The playtesting for the WotC product and several fo the third party products used basically identical processes.

Of course, balance problems crept through anyway, and sometimes big things crept through. (No, it wasn't always the playtesters' fault, but I'd love it if WotC would use some people from the Character Optimization boards for their products.)

I don't believe WotC products are more or less balanced than third party products. There's too much variation in the skill of the author and playtesting methods to reliably say that. There might be some third party companies that tend to do things well or less well, but even that is subject to change over time, new writers, and "evolving" playtesting methods.

Banning or avoiding non-WotC products might be a survival strategy. No product is perfect, so letting in somthing increases the amount of unbalanced material that can enter a campaign. No DM can memorize enough of a large variety of books to avoid potentially unpleasant surprises (not always of the "broken!" variety either). Some third party products might be too "niche" to allow in, and even if the reasoning for banning them isn't sound, they still might not be a good thing to let into a game.

That analysis only works for people who have large gaming budgets; enough to buy any WotC and non-WotC product they want. If they have a limited budget, obviously there must be some kind of limit as to how many books they will buy, even if the limit is arbitrary.

 

[Andor]

I think most non-gms tend to avoid 3rd party material because of the perception that it's harder to get your GM to accept non-WOTC books into their campaign. 3rd party material I think varies so much in quality, or did in the early days of 3ed that I think most GMs don't want to take the time to go through it to see if it's a gem or a stinker. I suspect it's more a matter of quality than balance. I see balance as the great bugaboo of 3.x D&D. It's an all important yet undefined and undefinable something. Yet woe betide you if you don't have it. I think it's an illusion. As long as everyone at the table has something to do and gets thier due of GM attention all will be well.

 

[Victim]

One interesting trend through many threads is the opinion that many third party books are unblanced and that is the reason people stay away from them. However, in threads that specifically talk about balance problems it is always the WotC prodcuts being discussed.

It's generally the WotC stuff that being discussed, period. Since most of the discussion is about WotC products, most of the balance discussions are generally going to be about WotC products.

 

[Crothian]

It's generally the WotC stuff that being discussed, period. Since most of the discussion is about WotC products, most of the balance discussions are generally going to be about WotC products.

I understand which is why in the other part of my post I asked specifically about balance problems in third party material.

 

[Mark CMG]

WotC faces the same dilemma as any other publisher using a system that is five or six years old. It's hard to either find new areas not already covered in which to create new material (non-rules, component-oriented bits like spells, feats, etc.) or to create new rules for areas not covered that blend seamlessly into the existing and extensive ruleset that has been building for over half a decade. The temptation is always there (witness the 2E rules-arms-race), and grows with each product, to scrap some rules that already exists in the system in favor of a new idea, new concept, or an alternate way to handle some aspect of the game. This is the area in which the new rules can most often be unbalanced, IMO. Rules for areas not already covered can sometimes be unbalanced, also, but are easier to construct by basing the mechanics on existing rules and thus have a better chance of being balanced on their face. New materials (non-rules, component-oriented bits like spells, feats, etc.) that seem poorly constructed are the features I most often read being described as unbalanced on message boards perhaps because there is so much of it available.

 

[Victim]

I understand which is why in the other part of my post I asked specifically about balance problems in third party material.

I can't really speak of anything released recently, since I've vastly slowed my purchases of both WotC and 3rd party products. I can read WotC releases at any of the major book chains, but the 3rd party stuff usually doesn't make it there.

In the past, I've found many well designed 3rd party products. But there's also lots more stuff that I passed up. I'm not really sure if the pre errata versions of Sword and Fist or DotF were really all that much better than say some of the Quint books.

 

[MerricB]

One interesting trend through many threads is the opinion that many third party books are unblanced and that is the reason people stay away from them. However, in threads that specifically talk about balance problems it is always the WotC prodcuts being discussed. I have a a decent collection of the third party books and for the most I have never found them to be better or worse over all in terms of balance.

The reason that people talk about balance problems in WotC products is because...

...d20 products other than D&D aren't allowed to be discussed (much) on General.
...more people (factor of 500?) get the D&D books than any single d20 book
...there aren't many d20 rules supplements this day anyway.

Choose which suit.

Cheers!

 

[Crothian]

The reason that people talk about balance problems in WotC products is because...

...d20 products other than D&D aren't allowed to be discussed (much) on General.

That's actually false. Its the B5, Conan, and other d20 games that get moved away from general. But standard third party books for the D&D game go in general.

But that's not the point of the thread. The point is are third party books real;ly as badly balanced as people seem to think. And if the answer is yes, provide examples of books within the last year or so.

 

[Glyfair]

The point is are third party books real;ly as badly balanced as people seem to think. And if the answer is yes, provide examples of books within the last year or so.

Yes & no. I don't think that 3rd party books are inherently more "broken" than WotC books. Yes, the horribly balanced books are non-WotC books (counting PDFs as books) because the requirements to publish, especially online, is so low. Still, those books get so little attention that no one really discusses them (or considers them worth discussing).

However, I've noticed that I'm using very, very few 3rd party books in my game, even though I'm not inherently against 3rd party material. Looking back I see two main reasons, both related to the idea that WotC books are the baseline assumptions for a standard game.

The first reason focuses mostly on the early days of d20. If you grant that WotC books give what most consider the baseline D&D experience, a lot of 3rd party books don't measure up. To me they operated with a completely different balance level and didn't feel right. Often classes, monsters, etc. were too powerful or not powerful enough (yes, WotC does this, but less often). Sovereign Stone to me was an excellent world, but had a much lower power level balance, that meant you either used all of it or none of it.

The second reason applies to books that didn't have the same balance issues. Books like Monte Cook's Book of Eldritch Might was well balanced within the WotC baseline. However, it required you to fit in large swaths of material in some places. The whole concept of Eldritch feats really requires most of it be added to work.

Another book I want to use, but find myself using little is Hyperconcious. One problem is that a good part of the book makes assumptions about the dream world. However, I run my game in Eberron and there are different assumptions about the dream world. So, I can't use that as written. I'd have to make some changes, and its just not worth the effort to me. I don't really need it.

To grab another Monte Cook book, I love Unearthed Arcana. The magic system is great, I love many of the concepts. However, it's different enough that, for the most party, you use all or nothing. I could go through and rewrite the D&D magic system so there are diminished spells, but that's not really worthwhile. So, I'll use all of the magic system, or none. Mostly, people choose none. Those that choose to use all rarely see any balance issues within it.

So, I think a lot of it is that many (or even most) 3rd party books are built having a different base for the power balance. If you have a standard D&D game, you likely don't like them. If you do, then you likely feel they have the proper balance.