D&D 5E What is balance to you, and why do you care (or don't)?

[GMforPowergamers]

So a lot of discussions about the game come down to balance. Is it a goal? Should it not be a goal? I really hope this doesn't bog down in arguments, as all I want is opinions. I have my own feelings on the topic, which often clash with those of others. Every gamer is different and has differing desires for a game system.

I feel balance should be A goal...maybe not the main one.

as for what I mean... well that is complex because I mean 3 different things when I say balance (and you can perfectly balance on one and mess up the other two)

1) Balance of Player Vs Nonplayer (not player vs dm). I want a system that has in place a system where I can at a glance see if a monster or npc is a good challenge to my party. (I think 5e falls down hard here...okay maybe jjust D&D in general).
so if an average group of 5 PCs run into a dragon today and a hoard of undead tomorrow and 2 hobgoblin archers and 2 shadows the day after that and they are all worth the same XP, they should all be close to the same challenge.

2) Balance of options. When a Player sits to make a character there should NEVER be trap options. there can be slightly better slightly worse, but in general the system should go out of it's way to not make 1 set of choices much better then another.
so if I sit down and make a fighter with a 16 str, a long sword a 13 dex and 15 con with a breast plate, I should have as much fun as if I made a hexblade with a 16 cha 15 dex 13 con.


3) Balance PC vs PC. this is kind of related to both 1 and 2. but if 2 players sit down to my table and both make fighters, I don't expect 1 to have an AC 23 100hp, have +13 to hit for an avarage of 30 damage per hit and the guy next to him to have an AC 15 69hp, have +10 to hit for an average of 8 damage per hit...



for all the talk of 4e being the most balanced (and I love me some 4e) it also has the best example I have of IN PLAY Pc vs PC unbalancing... we had 2 martial strikers (a teifling rogue and an elf ranger) we were somewhere near the begining of paragon, and everyone knew the ranger was throwing more damage than the rouge but we didn't have numbers... until the round from heck.

the rogue crit on his daily attack... he did so much damage everyone cheered we knew it was the most we had seen him do (he even got up and did a little dance) it was in the low 120s (i want to say 122)... in the same round 1 or 2 inititives later the ranger used an encounter multi attack power and got 1 crit and 2 hits... his total was int the 130s and got mad... it was too low of damage. That momwnr blew us away.... we knew he was more optimized and doing more damage... but for 1 striker to get the highest on a daily and another to do more with an encounter and being mad about it being low made us ask the Ranger to respek)

edit: to add another example... if I take a preset dungeon, it should challange all parties roughly the same (luck and player skill of course mean some fluxution... a night where the DM dropped 5 20's willl look diffrent than one with 5 1s) however if I have a fighter a rogue a paliden and a sorcerer go through and it is hard almost TPK then run 2 druids a warlock and a wizard through it and it is a cake walk that ALSO shows inbalance

 

[Blue]

Balance is a bit of a sticky wicket. Let me start with a slightly different definition and then I will show how that matches - or doesn't - a common definition depending on context.

Balance means to me that two characters will have a balance in amount of time in the spotlight, specifically being the hero.

Now, having them balanced (but different) in power, the common definition I was mentioning, is a good fit for a game like D&D. To unpack that, D&D (a) caters to the widest range of DMs, so should make that as easy as possible on them, and (b) the longest mechanical scene is combat, so balance around combat power is often the discussion point. And that's important, where an ineffective character in combat may have a lot less chances mechanically to grab that spotlight, and need (but not necessarily get) DM intervention to balance between all players.

I need to reach outside D&D to show why that context is important. Marvel Heroic Roleplay is perfectly happy with Thor and Hawkeye having a buddy night out on the town, even though when there is a large power disparity between them. That's both represented mechanically as well as by the conventions of the source material, comic books. (I've heard MHR called more a comic book RPG than a superhero RPG, which is a subtle but important difference.)

But the goal of balance is for every player to have, over time, to have roughly the same amount of time in the spotlight and equal fun.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Balance means to me that two characters will have a balance in amount of time in the spotlight, specifically being the hero.

to borrow from your later anology to comics, I am fine with playing batman next to superman, or black widow next to thor becuse both 'human' characters are not stuck to realistic limits... I don't want to play 'Joe the bouncer from down the street'

 

[Blue]

to borrow from your later anology to comics, I am fine with playing batman next to superman, or black widow next to thor becuse both 'human' characters are not stuck to realistic limits... I don't want to play 'Joe the bouncer from down the street'

I agree - a comic book game is focusing on the heroes and their interactions. Not on Joe the bouncer unless it's his origin story and he's about to become a super. But that's more about the types of stories told around the table even before mechanical balance.

You could create a shopkeeper PC in D&D, but that doesn't mean that the types of games traditionally run in that system will give equal spotlight to someone who wants to stay home and run a shop. (On the other hand, Tolkien as a D&D ancestor makes good use of The Everyman who is thrust into adventure and grows into it, just like Joe the bouncer could fall into the irradiated pit of chemicals and turn into a super.)

 

[James Gasik]

Thor and Hawkeye fighting on the same team, even against the same villains is, sadly an artificial construct. While Hawkeye's skills are beyond impressive, he needs a plot coupon, like a special Negative Zone arrow or something, to be able to even faze most of Thor's rogues gallery.

I've always seen this working in-universe as sometimes, Superman is too much for certain threats. The risk of him accidentally using his powers to seriously maim or harm "street-level" thugs, means it's important to have a wide variety of skills and powers available to a team (and if you need to see what unrestrained supers can do, The Boys is a good example).

D&D isn't like that, however. The foes and challenges your party faces, and must take down with teamwork, all have to be in the same ballpark of power. The game isn't designed with the idea that Class A takes on "the real threats" and Class B takes out "trash tier minions".

At least, I hope it's not.

I agree, if everyone is having fun, balance may seem less important. However, I feel that having the game be designed with balance in mind makes it easier for everyone to have fun in the first place.

A lot of people say "not having balanced rules gives the DM more opportunities to make the game fun for everyone", as this is somehow a superior approach. But the role of the DM has always been to be the final adjudicator of the rules, sitting above them, if you will.

So what's the difference between "making up rules as needed" and "being able to ignore/alter rules as needed"?

I submit that the second option reduces the workload of the DM. Now an experienced DM knows how to make rules out of whole cloth, and have pages of house rules, or have even attempted to design their own games and may not feel they need the second option.

But the novice DM? The new DM? The thing I think we need the most? The less they have to figure out initially, the more guidance they are given, until they get that experience, the better. And if your friends say "we want to play D&D, and you tell the best stories", and you decide to take up the DM mantle, plunking down 150 bucks for books that say "so, do whatever you want, man" might not be all that helpful to them.

Of course, that having been said, some people are fine with being dunked into the deep end and being forced to learn to swim.

But others might not be.

 

[Stalker0]

So far, I think most of the discussion has been around DMs at their table, with their players, play a campaign they designed. And that is likely a large portion of dnd so it makes sense.

That said, there is another section of gamers that the word "balance" holds special meaning. There are DMs that only run stock adventurers, and there are things like Adventurer's League where often a DM is working with a group of players for the first time. In these scenarios, the DM has less leeway in how they can manipulate circumstances to highlight players. As such, this is often where "balance issues" can come into play. If your running a combat module and one character is "OP in combat", that's going to be noticeable.

 

[ad_hoc]

Balance in an RPG is achieved when decisions have meaning to them.

If I choose to play a sneaky rogue but a fighter is just as sneaky as a baseline then my decision didn't have meaning, I might as well just play a fighter to be sneaky.

If I play a rogue so that I can have precise devastating attacks but a fighter just takes sharpshooter and does as much or more damage per attack with more attacks then that decision doesn't have the meaning I want.

This can occur for power in general. If one option is far superior than others then even if they have different themes it might still invalidate the others. Better to have a character still alive to do the things I want them to do.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

There has been a lot of good input already on this, particularly from @EzekielRaiden but I'd say in D&D's context specifically, the balance that matters to me is:

A) Combat is the central focus of 5E (and most editions). I will not hear arguments to the contrary. It is, in terms of rules, class design, even race design. Also, just looking at sessions, it and RP (with few/no dice rolls) tend to take up a huge proportion of most sessions, and streaming has only made this more obvious and confirmable.

THEREFORE, the balance I want means all characters can contribute very significantly and similarly (in terms of overall impact) to combat. Pre-4E, I was of the misguided opinion that maybe contributing less in combat but more out of combat was fine. It isn't. That's wrong, in my experience, in D&D at least (in less combat-centric games I think it can be true). Players who don't have much to do in combat, even if they're technically "contributing" just have less fun, and this is a drag on the whole experience - a small drag maybe, but it is one, and it's not needed.

So balance to me in D&D means all characters contributing strongly to combat. 5E isn't bad at this. After 4E, it's the best. but there's more of a gap than I feel entirely comfortable with. Especially as some subclasses which seem conceptually combat-centric actually do the opposite (Assassin springs immediately to mind).

B) No characters should be totally or even largely obviate the need for another character out of combat. Thus balance in this case means a spellcaster shouldn't be able to lean on say summons and cantrips in combat and be huge there, and then totally obviate the need for the Rogue by still also having so many spells with so much utility that he might as well not exist. Every class should have significant out-of-combat utility. D&D has not always done well here. 4E did better than 5E, because it was very easy, with a Feat or two (which were plentiful) for even say a Fighter to get in on the act. It wasn't perfect, but 5E's approach returns to creating situations where the non-combat pillars tend to be ruled by spellcasters, and where spells potentially obviate the need for just about anything. 5E was not brave enough to fix this. Perhaps a 6E will be (though I doubt DND2024 will be). Mostly in D&D's case this means nerfing spells and spellcasters, but the amount that is needed can be reduced by giving non-spellcasters more skills, tools, expertises and just outright abilities outside combat (or which serve a dual purpose).

This also contributes to D&D being less fun after L10, even in 5E. Warlocks show a potentially good path here, but more boldness is needed.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

This also contributes to D&D being less fun after L10, even in 5E. Warlocks show a potentially good path here, but more boldness is needed.

I wish all the classes were balanced closer to warlock.

look at the GENERAL overview of warlock

at 1st level you choose a subclass, 2 atwill abilities and 2 abilities that you can use 1 of them once per short rest. by level 10 you have gotten a 2nd subclass (that can mix and match with the 1st level ones) You now have 4 at wills 11 abilities you can use them 3/ per short rest... and all of them level up to the equivalent of a 5th level spell... from this point on you get more short rest useable powers and some long rest big guns (6th-9th level spells) BUT you also get these mini class spesfic feats (Invocations) that can give you new at wills or daily abilities...

you could use this to rebalance all the classes

 

[Swarmkeeper]

For our 5e games, balance means sharing the spotlight. And by spotlight, I mean giving each player the opportunity to play their character in the way they see fit (conforming to the basics of the social contract, of course) regardless of how flashy or heroic the action is. IME, it's very achievable for a DM - and indeed the other players at the table - to make sure each player gets a chance to describe how their PC thinks/acts/talks whether the scene is combat, social interaction, exploration, or some combination of those. The 5e mechanical "balance" between PCs is not something we focus on in our games in which the party is cooperatively trying to achieve some goal(s) and the challenges presented vary in difficulty. We play with a large pool of characters which results in parties with a mixed assortment of PC levels. Some additional creativity is helpful: for example, against a foe that was immune to non-magical damage, the 2nd level ranger used her turn to carry the 8th level ranger's beast companion closer to the enemy so the beast could then successfully reach the enemy and get off its magical attack on its turn. Rather than despair at the perceived lack of usefulness for their low level PC in the encounter, the player came up with a clever team play that everyone appreciated - really what amounted to one of the plays of the night in that it was among the most memorable and fun for the group.