What happens to game balance when expected opponents don't come from the core MM?

[Quasqueton]

I see many threads here debating the power/effectiveness/utility/etc. of the various races/classes/feats/spells/skills [X]. Often in these debates, the expected opponents for the character are used as examples of situations were the X would be useful or shine.

For instance, it is said that a paladin's immunity to fear is really useful when fighting dragons.

A dwarf's +4 AC vs. giants is useful at higher levels where such opponents are expected.

Improved Disarm is useful against "humanoid" creatures weilding weapons.

But what happens to game "balance" when the opposition does not come out of the core Monster Manual?

Is the paladin class substantially weakened by not having dragons? Is the dwarf race substantially weakened by not having giants? Obviously the Improved Disarm feat is knocked down to nigh useless if the main enemies use natural weapons. How much are other classes and feats and whatnot affected by altering the expected opponents throughout a campaign?

A cleric's turning ability is useless in a campaign without undead. (Assuming core rules only.)

I've seen complaints in here from Players playing a rogue character in a campaign where most of their enemies are undead, constructs, etc.

My campaign world takes place on a newly discovered continent. The vast majority of creatures in this world are not from the core Monster Manual. (In fact most are my own creations based on minis I buy.) Although I have a vast array (probably about 50 so far) of creatures for my world, I don't know if they match the MM for expected variety. [There are very many creatures in the MM that never get used in any campaign.]

So, basically what I'm asking here, how heavily are the aspects of the game balanced based on the expected opponents from the core MM? How badly out of whack do things get when the expected variety of campaign bad guys is drastically altered?

Quasqueton

 

[mikebr99]

If you campaign is going to purposefully limit some classes... then it is probably best to give this kind of info to the players, before they've created their characters.


Mike

 

[Quasqueton]

I agree. But my question is how badly can a DM inadvertantly limit some classes by not picking encounters out of the core MM?

For instance, thinking on it, I don't think my campaign's "MM" has many/any Giant-type creatures. It has a lot of Monstrous Humanoids, though.

(Why aren't lizardfolk and trolls Monstrous Humanoids instead of Humanoid and Giant respectively? Was their typing related to game balance?)

Quasqueton

 

[MerakSpielman]

As a DM I feel a faint twinge of annoyance towards Clerics, Rogues, Paladins, Rangers, and Druids. I feel like they're expecting my campaign to contain elements that I might not necessarily be planning.

Clerics: Good versus undead!
Rogues: Good versus sneak-attackable opponents! Put some traps in so they'll feel useful.
Paladins: Good versus undead and evil. Likes to adventure outdoors with his mount.
Rangers: Collect a bunch of favored enemies I have to feel guilty if I don't include in some way.
Druids: at their best above ground.

This is only faint annoyance mind you.

 

[mikebr99]

Clerics: Good versus undead!
<snip>
Druids: at their best above ground.

This is only faint annoyance mind you.

Clerics and Druids will rock, irrespective or the above noted conditions.


Mike

 

[Silveras]

First, I think the question is a little off-target. What you really want to know is, "How does the DM's selection of opponent types affect campaign balance ?" It has little to do with the MM specifically; the FF, the MM2, and other monster books are all affected the same way.

That being said, yes, the DM can significantly "rock the boat" on balance by the selection of opponents. Giants, as one example, are an archetypal foe; not having giants (or Dragons, for that matter) is not crippling, but it slightly weakens classes and races that have a benefit against them.

To really unbalance things, though, the DM would need to significantly shift things around. Choosing not to use a type of monster in planned encounters, for example, but letting them still come up as random encounters is not as unbalancing as removing the type altogether.

Much also depends on player expectations. Undead, as a type, are an excellent example of how exclusion can thwart a player's expected experience. If you and the players plan a political campaign, an abundance of undead can be really threatening to the skills-based (i.e., Rogue) characters. Likewise, if your players are expecting a series of dungeon crawls and you send them against wyverns in the mountains... they may have a right to complain the game is "not as advertised".

Most combat abilities are not so specific to one type that removing a type or two from the game affects them much (Dwarf bonus vs. Giants being one of the few that IS one-type-specific). To significantly unbalance a campaign, you would have to lead your players to expect a shift to the "left" and then play it far to the "right" - like lead them to expect a campaign of large surface battles, then send them on spy missions into the underdark.

As long as your players "know what they are getting into" beforehand, it should not be a problem.

 

[Kalendraf]

Certain classes are much more easily affected by changing up the monster menu.

In my first long-running 3e campaign, I used a lot of published adventures which happened by sheer coincidence to include a large number of undead and/or constructs. In other words, a lot of monsters that were immune to sneak attacks and critical hits.

As a result, the rogue felt nearly worthless in combat, since his sneak attacks were "nerfed" by the monster selection. A couple characters that focused on improving their critical hit capabilities also felt like they were much less effective than they should have been. From my perspective as DM, I did see that the rogue was pretty negatively impacted, but didn't see that bad a drop off on the other characters. Meanwhile, the cleric had a field-day against all the undead, finding Extra Turning to be a well-spent feat. However, he had a charisma penalty, so he wasn't nearly as useful there as he may have been.

I suspect other classes might see problems against certain sets of creatures, though I haven't seen anything quite as bad as what I mentioned above. A lack of giants doesn't nerf a dwarf, and a lack of dragons certainly doesn't nerf a paladin. On the other hand, a full onslaught of monsters that are all magic-immune will greatly reduce wizards and sorcerers effectiveness, and a continuous battle against damage resistant foes will make melee and ranged attackers less useful. It's really the DM's job to ensure some sensible balance here.

If your campaign is going to feature certain specific creatures (party will be continously repelling the invading army of Anarchic Oozes for the next 20 levels of their careers!), then it's only fair to let them know some of those details in advance. Then if they still choose to take a race/class/weapon/spell/feat/skill/whatever that is essentially nerfed, they have only themself to blame.

 

[Vrecknidj]

You can tweak things a bit. I have a player who wanted to play a dwarf who came from a community of dwarves that had spent generations fighting mountain-dwelling dragons instead of giants. We worked out an agreement, and he gets his AC bonus against dragons. No big deal. I did require him to come up with the backstory for this, and to provide good NPC dwarves for that community. He did his work, I granted him his wishes.

I could see a cleric exchanging the turn undead ability for some other power.

If my campaign were different enough from the core material, I'd probably work out some alternatives ahead of time, and offer them as variations for my players.

As to the more direct question, I think that rogues without traps, clerics without undead, and disarmers without disarmees would in fact alter the nature of the game and its challenges.

Dave

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Balance issues will primarily come up when the creature selection uses or doesn't use a class's main ability.

The rogue's primary combat ability: sneak attack is useless against plants, undead, constructs, and elementals. If that's even close to a majority of the encounters, the rogue will spend 1/2 or 1/3 encounters providing a flank bonus (if he's lucky). He can do other things in combat, but not too much or too well.

Similarly, what does a paladin get in exchange for not being a fighter? Mostly, a warhorse, Detect Evil, smite evil, good saves, and immunity to fear and disease. None of these separately are as important as sneak attack is to a rogue. However, if 90% of your campaign is being fought against neutral humanoids, elementals, constructs, and animals, the paladin is going to start feeling left out. It's a similar situation if his immunity to fear never shows up. That doesn't mean dragons necessarily. There's a horde of fear causing monster from Krenshar to clerics with Cause Fear to wizards with the Fear spell or Phantasmal Killer to outsiders like the Ossyluth with their fear aura to liches to dragons. Some of those should turn up every now and then so that the paladin doesn't start to think "the first two levels were nice what with detect evil and Divine Grace" but I shouldn't have bothered with the other 14. I'd be a better 16th level champion of Heironeous is I'd got greater weapon specialization as a feat and bought a fancy warmount like the bronze griffon." The same goes for Detect Evil actually yielding useful information. (I've been playing a paladin for six months in a home game and I've only ever detected evil once--not even false positives; every other time, it turns out there are no evil people in the whole town).

Dwarves are another kettle of fish entirely. First, they're a race rather than a class so the dwarf bonusses define a character's abilities far less than a character's class does. So it's harder to nerf a race than a class. For 10' of movement (not sufferred in armor) and -2 to charisma, dwarves get some free exotic weapon proficiencies, +2 con, +2 to saves vs. spells, +1 to hit goblins, orcs, etc, stonecunning, +2 to craft skills, their movement isn't hampered by encumberance, darkvision, and a bunch of other bonusses. +4 to AC vs. giants is nice but really, dwarves have enough bonusses that they'd still be overpowered without any of the +1 to hit these guys and +4 to AC vs. those guys traits. If I were playing a dwarf, I would only expect some of the abilities to be useful over the life of the campaign and only some of the time. Unless the campaign had no giants, had no orcs, had no foes that liked to trip, always took place in well-lit conditions, and placed a lot of emphasis on lightly armored lawful footmen marching at a rate of 30' per round, I wouldn't feel like my dwarf was being nerfed. Though I might be dissatisfied if I wasn't allowed to have him drink beer, wear fullplate and a long, braided beard, wield an axe, be greedy, swear in a bad scottish accent and still be lawful good.