Where did my options go? - The New Paradigm

[JDillard]

Completely RAW.

Then I envy your 3.5 group. My group was a fun bunch during the RP, but combat was often boring and repetitious. I did my best to spice things up as the DM, and think I helped a bit. When I wasn't DM'ing it honestly painful at times.

 

[Lizard]

Ah, but some of us old 1e-ers actually remember the limitations of that system and don't look at it through rose-colored classes.

A 1e Fighter/magic-user:

- couldn't cast spells in armor (until they got elven chain).
- had more hit points than a mage, but fewer than a fighter.
- had a better to-hit chance than a magic-user, but not as good as a fighter.
- had the fighter's weapon skills (about a level behind after 1st).
- had the wizard's magic skills (about a level behind after 1st).

Actually, a F/MU could wear full plate at first level, and use all fighter weapons, and used the fighter 'to hit' rolls.

Just checked my PHB.

The only 'drawbacks' were racial level caps and split XP. He was usually one level behind the rest of the party, but was, in effect, two characters -- a fighter and a magic-user. (Hit points were averaged).

 

[MadMaligor]

Actually, a F/MU could wear full plate at first level, and use all fighter weapons, and used the fighter 'to hit' rolls.

Just checked my PHB.

The only 'drawbacks' were racial level caps and split XP. He was usually one level behind the rest of the party, but was, in effect, two characters -- a fighter and a magic-user. (Hit points were averaged).

You could wear it but you couldnt cast in it. Taking armor on and off was also a no no in combat even back then.

 

[Hussar]

Define "balance", because the 4E definition is a new definition, one made specifically for 4E. it means balance and parity over the course of a single encounter, which has never, ever been an aspect of balance in D&D in any previous edition. The wizard and cleric were quite balanced in 1E and 2E (for very different reasons) and, assuming a DM that enforces the actual rules, pretty well balanced in 3E, over the course of the game. This last bit is important because D&D has always been intended to play over the long term. Early weak levels balance out powerful high levels; role-playing restrictions balance out power disparities.

"Over the course of the campaign"? No, this is not balance. This is two periods of imbalance which does not equal balance.

What it means is, half the time, someone is useless, and the other half the time, the other guy is useless. That's not balance.

The sooner people realize that two points of imbalance do not equal a balanced system, the sooner we'll have better games.

3e tried to have class parity at all levels and failed. It wasn't bad though. It kept the sweet spot for about half the levels, where no one was really more powerful than anyone else. For the most part. Unless you played a bard.

But, this has always been the holy grail of game design - making a level based system where everyone is roughly equal in effectiveness at all points in the game. 1e and 2e failed miserably at this. The M/U was a dagger throwing peasant for 4 levels and then par for about two levels, then totally dominating after that. 3e managed to spread that out over more levels.

Hopefully, 4e will succeed at spreading it out over 30 levels and the entire campaign.

So, let me repeat, two points of imbalance =/= a balanced system. It just means that the system is broken at two different points.

 

[small pumpkin man]

Define "balance", because the 4E definition is a new definition, one made specifically for 4E. it means balance and parity over the course of a single encounter, which has never, ever been an aspect of balance in D&D in any previous edition. The wizard and cleric were quite balanced in 1E and 2E (for very different reasons) and, assuming a DM that enforces the actual rules, pretty well balanced in 3E, over the course of the game. This last bit is important because D&D has always been intended to play over the long term. Early weak levels balance out powerful high levels; role-playing restrictions balance out power disparities.

So what you're saying is 4e is the only version that's balanced for the way people actually play D&D in the real world, as opposed to to some theoretical ideal? I agree.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Then I envy your 3.5 group. My group was a fun bunch during the RP, but combat was often boring and repetitious. I did my best to spice things up as the DM, and think I helped a bit. When I wasn't DM'ing it honestly painful at times.

I'm always a little surprised by things like this. There are a /lot/ of RPGs out there - new, old, supported, and nearly forgotten - I drag my mainly-D&D group over to Hero about a third of the time, and another player runs the occassional 1st-Ed Star Wars game. There's no need to stick with a system that's not doing it for you until there's a new edition.

D&D started it all, and it really /didn't/ succeed, at all, in modeling it's genre (high fantasy or swords and sorcerery). Rather, it created it's own genre of archetypes, treasure hunting, exploring dangerous underground labyrinths, fighting bewildering varieties of monsters and collecting scads of magic items. The only time you see fantasy fiction that's remotely like a D&D game, is when its' based on a D&D setting.

3e did an excellent job of updating the venerable D&D propperty to something resembling a modern RPG while not only holding onto, but enhancing the feel of the original. D&D was never a well-balanced game, it's magic system was hardly deserving of the 'system' part, and there are many - /many/ - technically superior games. Indeed, most games, as systems, judged only by thier mechanics, are superior to D&D - better balanced, more sophisticated, more realistic, more whatever they're trying to model (unless they're trying to model D&D, which is so often the case!).

D&D can never compete on being a balanced or realistic or 'simulationist' or 'storytelling' game. It can compete on being D&D. 3e did that extremely well. As different as 4e may seem on a read-through, a lot of the core things that make it D&D are still there. You still have the hit point abstraction. You still have classes. You still have miniatures and maps of improbably 10x10 corridorred 'dungeons.' You still have flaming longswords and dwarven throwing hammers that return to your hand and bags of holding - and you still need a collection of magic items to get by at high level. You still need to kill monsters and take thier stuff. OK, you've mostly gotten rid of 'vancian' casting, just a little hint of it with the Wizard. That's a risk. But it's a risk that made class balance a lot easier to deliver, and class balance was being complained about a lot there towards the end.

Being responsive to the complaints of your fans is not a bad thing - even if some of those complaints may have been a little overboard.

 

[Hussar]

Y'know, some time ago, I posted a thread on the General Forum talking about how, despite the mechanical changes in editions, D&D hadn't actually changed all that much. At least at the table. Strangely enough, despite some criticisms that I was trolling for another edition war (I wasn't), most people tended to agree. Sure, there are differences in play, but, stepping back a bit and taking a somewhat wider view, in all editions of D&D, when you sit down a play, everyone instantly knows that you are playing D&D and not some other system.

I truly, truly think, in a year or so, we'll be saying the same thing of 4e.

 

[Reynard]

But, this has always been the holy grail of game design - making a level based system where everyone is roughly equal in effectiveness at all points in the game. 1e and 2e failed miserably at this. The M/U was a dagger throwing peasant for 4 levels and then par for about two levels, then totally dominating after that. 3e managed to spread that out over more levels.

Hopefully, 4e will succeed at spreading it out over 30 levels and the entire campaign.

So, let me repeat, two points of imbalance =/= a balanced system. It just means that the system is broken at two different points.

The holy grail for whom? See, here's the thing:

-- wait, let me throw in a caveat: I am no longer a 4E hater; I own 2 PHBs, for goodness sake, and am going to give it an honest try. this does not, however, mean that I am blind to, if not its flaws, its differences --

Anyway, here's the thing: whether or not a game is "balanced" depends entirely upon the point of the game, the playspace. 4E's balance, or more accurately its focus on PC parity, is built around a combat centric model. Now, D&D has always featured combat (and I am talking rules here, not necessarily how any given group plays the game), but it has never focused so specifically on it before. 4E has delved so deeply into balance and parity in encounters that, in order to do so, the designers were forced to leave things out that disrupted that balance or were to far awy from the "let's fight" model to include -- things that have always been a part of D&D (perhaps less OD&D -- I have never played it). The obvious ones include: summoning, followers and henchmen, long term resource management. the whole "economy of action", the foundation on which play in 4E is built, precludes these fundamental aspects of D&D as we've known it.

Now, none of this is to say that 4E isn't designed well for its intended purpose, but it narrows the focus of play to a very specific playstyle, one that while perhaps WotC's market research says is the most popular playstyle certainly is not the only playstyle. So, you are right in a way: D&D was never balanced the way 4E was balanced, but it was never intended to be, because decriers aside, D&D is not, in fact, about killing things and taking stuff any more or les than it is about epic storytelling or simulating Lord of the Rings style fantasy or allowing players to rule nations. It is all of those things.

4E narrows the field considerably, though, using the excuse that all that non combat stuff doesn't need to be statted anyway. Well, 1) some people want it to be statted, and 2) it is a temporary argument until they decide to start putting out Dominion and War Machine rules.

Again, 4E isn't bad or wrong and I assume it is fun (my first session as a player is Sunday), but to argue that it is as broad and as permissive in its design as pervious editions is a case of either deliberate obtuseness or a failure to see underlying playstyle in the game design.

 

[Hussar]

D&D is not, in fact, about killing things and taking stuff any more or les than it is about epic storytelling or simulating Lord of the Rings style fantasy or allowing players to rule nations. It is all of those things.

The problem is, whenever D&D tried to do any of those things - allowing players to rule nations, forex - it failed miserably. Other than the Companion rules, D&D never really did Feudal Sim very well. What you had were a number of subset rules that worked if you were willing to make them work.

But, this is a different issue anyway. Your original claim was that the system was balanced because a weak character at the outset got stronger at the end. I've shown that to be false.

I never claimed anything about the other elements your are talking about.

 

[Reynard]

The problem is, whenever D&D tried to do any of those things - allowing players to rule nations, forex - it failed miserably. Other than the Companion rules, D&D never really did Feudal Sim very well. What you had were a number of subset rules that worked if you were willing to make them work.

Subsystems are a good thing: they are plug and play. Integration causes problems with modification and /or introduction of new stuuf. Example: some d20 products, including WotC's tried to broaden play through the use of feats. this is ba dbecause you are telling players they can't be Beowulf -- they can't be a badass and rule a nation, because they've a limited number of coolness resource points (feats) and now they have to spend them on leadership stuff. PHBII got it right, I think, because it created new subsystems for joining or running an organization not dependent on using already scarce resources to do these things. But now I am drifting way off topic...

But, this is a different issue anyway. Your original claim was that the system was balanced because a weak character at the outset got stronger at the end. I've shown that to be false.

I never claimed anything about the other elements your are talking about.

The reason i brought it up is because the "balance for encounters" thing is predicated around a narrow playstyle: kill and take, whereas balance over the course of a campaign is built around a broader set of playstyle assumptions.

Don't get me wrong: I understand why they did it, and I understand why many people like it that way. But I think it is short sighted to assume that the whole game should be built to accomodate this playstyle. IME, people start out playing like that -- wanting to be a badass and get loot -- and eventually either drift away of change their playstyle to encompass more things as the possibilities spread out before them. If those possibilities don't exist or are obscurred by a very strongly presented (in mechanics of gameplay, I mean) preferred playstyle, they'll just stop.

A while back, I did a poll about what percentage of 3E play was combat and the spread was amazing -- aside from the extreme ends of the spectrum (I did it by 10% increments), every catergory was well represented. Some people like 70% combat, and an equal number like 20% and the people at 50% weren't that much larger of a percentage. Obviously, WotC's market research showed something different. I never did do the poll to find out how important people thought it was that their character be as effective in combat as the other PCs, though.