The Three Pillars and Class Balance

[avin]

That's why "Character options should allow trading skill in one pillar for skill in another."

The default for classes should be archetypal if not stereotypical.

And then, Wizards won't trade anything, they just change memorized spells from one day to other, being a "superior class".

Not a good solution in my book.

When I play a RPG I want to be able to envision a character and build it up using rules. Being forced to play a stereotype in a game ruled by imagination isn't something I look for.

A Ranger should be better in exploration than a Fighter, agreed, but there should be options to create a Fighter that's good on tracking and survival, without trading combat stuff.

Every class should be good at combat.

Ability scores ruling skills in DDN is something I'm a bit worried about...

 

[Hassassin]

And then, Wizards won't trade anything, they just change memorized spells from one day to other, being a "superior class".

I didn't say they should be able to freely choose what they are good at from day to day. School specialization, class features and skill choices may constrain them. I said they should be balanced so that rules out them being superior - how it is achieved is out of this thread's scope.

When I play a RPG I want to be able to envision a character and build it up using rules. Being forced to play a stereotype in a game ruled by imagination isn't something I look for.

That's what I said: "Character options should allow trading skill in one pillar for skill in another."

That way you can build a character that goes against stereotypes and have it be balanced.

A Ranger should be better in exploration than a Fighter, agreed, but there should be options to create a Fighter that's good on tracking and survival, without trading combat stuff.

My suggestion was for fighter to have "4" in exploration, so yeah I think that should be the default, even.

Every class should be good at combat.

Good, but not equally good, IMO.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Every character should be as effective when all 3 pillars are considered.

Character options allowing for some trade off between effectiveness in one pillar for another should be permitted.

I do not think that all characters should have to be equally good in combat. If you start with that assumption then you are saying it is by far THE MOST important pillar and that you are then, by default, designing a combat game with a bit of other stuff sprinkled for flavor.

If that is the case, design a combat game. Fighting is where its at and everyone does it great.

If not, then design a roleplaying game and make sure that every facet of that game is equally meaningful. The base game should not favor any particular pillar. Class abilities across the board should represent equally across the pillars. The mix for each class by default may vary.

Which pillar is the most dominant is an individual group decision. What people find the most fun will vary from table to table. Modular rules should go well with this idea. If DM Bob says he is planning on running a very combat action heavy campaign then players can create characters accordingly and there should be rules modules to support that. If DM John says that he wants to run an exploration focused game he should be able to do that with the same level of support.

 

[Bluenose]

My opinion: Every class should be as good when considered across the pillars. Character options should allow trading skill in one pillar for skill in another.

The default could look something like the below. 1-5 are how good the class is at the thing; c, e, i are the pillars.

Cleric: 4c, 3e, 4i
Fighter: 5c, 4e, 2i
Rogue: 3c, 3-5e, 3-5i (sum 11)
Wizard: all 1-5 (sum 11)

Think of the number as a level adjustment when comparing characters. A 3rd level rogue, 2nd level cleric and a 1st level fighter would be about as good in combat by default.

If you made it so that the Wizard was 1-4 in anything - capable of being very good, but not as good as someone specialised in the field - then that might be workable. But I suspect you're more likely to get a situation where magic automatically is more reliable and effective than mundane skill, and defences against magic are poor, and suddenly your spellcaster is operating on a scale of 3-7. If not in core, at least as soon as you get a series of supplements with more options for the Wizard that any can take, while the non-Vancian characters don't get to remake themselves every day.

 

[Mattachine]

I voted none. I think all classes should be capable in all areas, but the amount of capability can vary somewhat.

 

[Dausuul]

Every class should have a basic level of competence in all pillars. Then you get some additional competence to assign based on class and player decisions. Just to throw out some numbers:

70%: Core competence. Everyone has this.
0%-15%: Class competence. This is added to core competence based on your class.
0%-15%: Discretionary competence. This is assigned by the player using feats, skills, and so forth.

Important: I am not proposing that PCs actually get a pool of "competence points." This is just an example of how one might approach the question during game design. You could balance a class with the idea that "this class is +10% at roleplaying and +5% at combat," or a feat with the idea that "this feat will add +5% to exploration at level 1." Of course this will involve some fudging and guesswork, since roleplaying and exploration are tough to turn into hard numbers.

So, maybe you've got Bob the Invincible, Fighter. The fighter class is heavily combat-oriented, so he gets 15% class competence in combat, and Bob wants to be really good at fighting, so he's put all his feats and special abilities into combat stuff, getting 15% discretionary competence as well. He's 100% in combat.

Then you've got Jane the Tricksy, Rogue. Rogues are not a combat-heavy class in this version (this is just by way of example), so her class competence in combat is 0%. She picks up a combat feat, worth about 5% or so. End result, she's 75% in combat.

When a fight breaks out, having Bob the Invincible on your side is worth about one-third more than having Jane the Tricksy. Bob will certainly outshine Jane, but Jane can still contribute substantially. On the other hand, when trying to sneak into an enemy fortress, Jane is going to do substantially better.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Accross pillars.

I like the 4e innovation that goes: "Everyone can contribute to everything!" I don't think that Always Fails or Always Wins should really be valid "balance" choices. Someone should always be able to try, and should never be assured a victory.

But, there's a HUGE realm between "I will always fail" and "I am equal to the rest of the party in this respect."

I could see a valid design direction trying to ensure that characters are equal inside each pillar, but I don't think such a design would reflect a robust class system, and I don't think such a design would reflect what people expect from the D&D brand name. It's valid, but I don't think it works well for our purposes here.

I don't want my bards to be equal fighters to my fighters, or for my clerics to be able to spy as well as my rogues and assassins. I WANT the difference.

I do want it to be flexible -- themes, feats, multiclassing, all that rot, should certainly be able to affect the balance of what you're good at and what you're not so good at. If you want to play a social fighter who gives up their skill at climbing mountains for skill at climbing atop maidens, you should be able to.

But there needs to be an element of that in the class design, and I'd think it would be a weakness of 5e if this were not the case.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Part of what we have all been dancing around since the pillars were brought up is avoidance of "flaws" or "disadvantages". That is, weakness are defined by what you didn't take that you might need, as opposed to what is normal for your class/archetype/stereotype/etc. but that you gave up. It really doesn't make much difference in how the character plays (absent some more creative use of "flaws"), but it makes a lot of difference in how you generate that character.

That's the only real issue with Dausuuls' proposal--or rather the fault line between 3E and 4E methods that has no easy answer. If you define "normal minimum competence" as 70%, that is probably fine for the vast majority of characters. Then you have that one guy that wants to trade in swimming or weapon use or being moderately diplomatic or something else to fit the conception. That's the 4E model, and you'll have to complicate it with a flaw system to give that guy what he really wants. OTOH, you can say everyone starts at zero in everything, give them lots of options to buy up, and expect them to cover everything they care about. That's the 3E model. Now, you have a lot of work to get to that "base normal" that the vast majority wants in some form--albeit at different levels--along with the possibility that you miss things.

You'll note that neither 3E nor 4E were pure in this. That's why 3E had the wizard getting a little BAB (whether he planned to use weapons or not) and why 4E still made you positively allocate skill training from zero. (The pure 4E form would been something greater than the +1/2 level in all skills flat, then skill allocation coming only from feats, which you got more of.)

Various kinds of swaps, talent trees, and the like are efforts to evade this issue. I am beginning to suspect that it might be cleaner to come up with a good flaw/disadvantage system.

 

[Dausuul]

Part of what we have all been dancing around since the pillars were brought up is avoidance of "flaws" or "disadvantages". That is, weakness are defined by what you didn't take that you might need, as opposed to what is normal for your class/archetype/stereotype/etc. but that you gave up. It really doesn't make much difference in how the character plays (absent some more creative use of "flaws"), but it makes a lot of difference in how you generate that character.

Yeah, this is a tricky one. I acknowledge that some people want the ability to have zero competence, or near-zero, in a given pillar. At the same time, I think those people are pretty rare, and people who want "core competence" are common. So "core competence" should be the default and you should have to go out of your way to get the zero-competence option. Furthermore, "zero-competence" should not be optimizer fodder. You are entitled to a small benefit in exchange for sacrificing access to one of the pillars, but you should not be able to zero out Roleplaying and Exploration in order to completely dominate Combat.

Building on the 70%-15%-15% approach I proposed above, perhaps there is a module (of course) that allows you to drastically reduce your "core competence" in one area, in exchange for a small amount of discretionary competence. Something like, subtract 35% from your core competence in Pillar X to get +5% discretionary competence, which you would then distribute among Pillars Y and Z.

So you could take your core competence at combat down to 0%, in exchange for +10% competence in roleplaying and/or exploration. The system should ensure that your competence in any one pillar can never exceed 100%, to prevent uber-specialization.

 

[pauljathome]

The three pillars are awfully limiting and simplistic.

I've seen all sorts of characters concentrate on things that aren't really in the 3 pillars. Examples include Knowing Stuff, Building Stuff, knowing a guy who knows a guy, healer.

Also, some pillars really need to be split into sub pillars. For example, some characters are very good at wilderness exploration but only passable in cities (or vice versa).

Even combat is too broad a scope. Ranged combatants differ from melee, tanks differ from sneaky types, etc. While I do agree that MOST characters in MOST D&D games should be able to contribute meaningfully to combat even that shouldn't be required. I've had fun playing characters who were barely combat capable.

I think that there need to be quite flexible trade offs so the player can decide where to focus his character and where the weak points will be. Silo'ing powers will just lead to some interesting characters being too hard to build.

Before people ask, yes I am aware that D&D is a class based game and that non class based games tend to allow for far more flexible character creation . But I can actually come close to what I want in something like Pathfinder.