D&D 5E Why Balance is Bad

[billd91]

What Gygax said about Wizards and balance:

Magic-use was thereby to be powerful enough to enable its followers to compete with any other type of player-character, and yet the use of magic would not be so great as to make those using it overshadow all others. This was the conception, but in practice it did not work out as planned. Primarily at fault is the game itself which does not carefully explain the reasoning behind the magic system. Also, the various magic items for employment by magic-users tend to make them too powerful in relation to other classes (although the GREYHAWK supplement took steps to correct this somewhat).

...

The logic behind it all was drawn from game balance as much as from anything else. Fighters have their strength, weapons, and armor to aid them in their competition. Magic-users must rely upon their spells, as they have virtually no weaponry or armor to protect them. Clerics combine some of the advantages of the other two classes. The new class, thieves, have the basic advantage of stealthful actions with some additions in order for them to successfully operate on a plane with other character types. If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D & D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly, or the referee is forced to change the game into a new framework which will accommodate what he has created by way of player-characters. It is the opinion of this writer that the most desirable game is one in which the various character types are able to compete with each other as relative equals, for that will maintain freshness in the campaign" (from the Strategic Review #7, in 1976).

This is actually a fairly interesting quote that helps identify one particular place 3e went so differently from previous editions and probably underscores a failure in design intention compared to outcome. Notice that the wizard, as described by Gygax, is little more than his spells. Weak weapon choices, no armor to speak of while fighters have strength and equipment. 1e's magic item tables reflected that idea in the sense that, although scrolls were pretty common, durable magic items focused on a wizard's desires were considerably more rare than armor and weapons - the fighter's stock and trade. Building an elaborate magic item value economy and making such items easy to obtain at will (and made by just spell casters no less) played havoc with that difference in class conceptions. Wands, very rare and focused on enabling a wizard to use some spells in close combat, suddenly became common and capable of stealing the thunder of other classes, particularly rogues, with relative ease.

And that saddest part of all of that was the designers were, most likely, responding to a pretty deep well of customer demand to include a more robust magic item creation system than the ad hoc, DM-whim based one that 1e and 2e had. So the 3e team delivered and, for the groups that allowed the system to be heavily exploited, it turned out to be a significant game changer. For any players out there who wanted such a system but were then dismayed at utility wand ubiquity, quantum wizards always having the right scroll on hand, the Big 6 magic items, and heavy item-based optimization of stats, you may get what you want… and still not be very happy.

I think WotC, in making a new edition to fix problems stemming from this aspect of 3e, deviated even further from Gygax's thinking - making matters even worse for those of us who valued that older concept of the game. The distinctions between fighters and wizards (and other classes) blurred even further with 4e's structure, in the name of balancing what 3e had (completely unwittingly) tipped out of balance.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

Yes, this thread is sad. No wonder the first one got locked on WotC.

Also sad that I'm starting the new year by adding another edition warrior to my ignore list.

Well it's not sad for me because you and a few others here have a default answer to anything that mentions a previous edition as 'it's edition warring" so I would be honored to make it to your ignore list.

 

[Herobizkit]

Just to reiterate: in MY experience playing 1e and 2e, the only "real" issues our group cared about or even noticed were Minotaur Barbarians with 20 Con (1e Unearthed Arcana) and the Bladesinger (Elven Fighter/Mage kit from 2e Complete Book of Elves).

And you're all correct, they who commented on that pre-internet that forum buzz about imbalance was limited to paper-printed forums (of which I had little to no access at said time). And maybe because of the internet did I see such buzz about balance issues with later editions of D&D...

I guess I miss being young and "naïve" and just playing the game instead of analyzing the mechanics and putting "tier" value on classes and optimization and the like.

 

[Grydan]

The thing about Balance Over Time—regardless of whether that timeframe is a 30-level span, 20-level span, a campaign, an adventure, or any other arbitrary division of time longer than a single session of play—is that it fails to actually achieve balance over any time other than the span it was designed for (assuming, for the moment, that it manages even that). So, if you consider balance desirable (and clearly, there are many here who for whatever reason find it undesirable), you're tied to playing a specific length of time in order to achieve it.

A Magic-User is supposed to be trading low utility and low survival rates at low levels in for power at higher levels, assuming they can live that long. In any campaign that ends before reaching those higher levels (intentionally or not), the player of the Magic-User has traded something for nothing.

Conversely, if the campaign starts at higher levels, the player of the Magic-User has traded nothing at all for their power.

The Fighting-Man is left in the opposite situation. The balancing trade-off of being tougher, more effective, and more likely to survive the lower levels is that you gradually fall behind in effectiveness as you reach higher levels. But if the campaign ends prematurely, then you've got all gain for no loss.

And again, in the high-level starting campaign, you're in the situation of trading something for nothing.

----

Then there's the matter of having the Magic-User as 'picking Hard Mode' (and conversely, Fighting-Man as 'Easy Mode').

The first problem with this is that the rules are typically silent on the matter. They present the classes as equivalent options, with no caution on the Magic-User that you should only pick it if you want a challenge, and no caveat on the Fighting-Man that says advanced players might find it insufficiently challenging.

The second problem is that tying challenge to character archetype excludes players who want the concept of a Magic-User, but aren't looking for Hard Mode, and players who want to be Fighting-Men, but don't want Easy Mode. There's nothing intrinsic to either concept that says it has to be simple or complex: actual physical combat can be tremendously complex, and magic can work however we want it to work. We've certainly seen more complicated approaches to fighters than the original Fighting-Man (both inside of various D&D editions and in other games), and simpler spell-casters than the Magic-User.

I think systems that divorce 'intentional choice by the player to take on a greater challenge than the other players' from 'choice of archetype' are the stronger for it. Hard Mode should be available to anyone who wants it, with Easy Mode for those who want it, and probably at least one level of difficulty in between, all regardless of what kind of character the player wants to play.

 

[pemerton]

Long story short, every single character concept that involves being bad at fighting or completely defenseless in combat while still extremely useful out of it cannot be properly played if everybody has to have the same mechanical effect in combat for balance sake.

Why is balance being defined in terms of combat capability? It is possible to have a balance of mechanical effectiveness across PC builds without having all PCs be equally effective in combat - for instance, by having some be better at social conflict.

Admittedly this does depend upon the RPG in question having action resolution mechanics that extend beyond combat as a site of conflict, but that particular hurdle in RPG design was cleared 15 years ago or more.

I want to play a very classic white mage, someone who hasn't invested a single resource into becoming good at fighting and instead invested it all on becoming a superb healer and whose basic offensive capabilites are below average.

I'm not sure what system you have in mind. The only edtion of D&D I know of where this particular build is possible is 2nd ed AD&D (using some priest variant) - in all other editions clerics, who are the best healers, are also at least passably effective melee combatants.

4e permits approximations to it via pacifist cleric builds.

if all characters have to conform to a limited range for combat capability, my character's combat abilites will be far better than they should be, and cannot be a lot better at healing than other clerics that didn't focuss on healing, at this point the obvious answer would be "But hey just pretend to be worse than you actually are, just because 99% of your sheet is about combat doesn't mean you have to use it!" but then if my character is actually capable of more things than what the original concept needed, and the system is actually expecting me to use those abilitees to the fullest, then my character is actually hindering the party by not fully contributing to combat

I don't entirely see how this is an argument against balance. If you're against balance, what does it even mean to say that the system "expects" a player to be mechanically effective to some or other degree?

The whole idea that I could trade down offensive capability in return for healing capability, and thereby remain a valuable contributor to combat, seems to rest on an assumption that balance of mechanical effectiveness is important and should be preserved acros builds.

When I think of systems that do permit the building of a "white mage", like Rolemaster or Burning Wheel, having such a character in a combat team is a hindrance. (Those systems have little to no magical healing at a speed that is relevant in combat.) That is not to say that a balance of mechanical effectiveness is not possible in such systems (although it is not particularly a concern of either of them); it's just that any such balance would occur across the entirety of play, and not simply within combat.

I don't really see how the character concept issue is more of a 2nd edition thing when discussions of playing a concept and using the build flexibilities of 3e to

I meant that it arose with 2nd ed AD&D. It has certainly continued to the present time, although as an observer of 3E conversations (though not a player of 3E) I would say that at least sometimes "concept" is defined in purely mechanical terms, rather than fictional/story/archetypical terms, which is what I think the idea of "character concetpt" originally referred to.

I don't think this idea of "character concept" was widely used in thinking and playing of classic D&D. Look, for instance, at [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION]'s quote from Gygax: characters are to be judged in terms of the way they participate in "the competition", not in terms of their exemplification of some fictional type.

it's not only common to see wizards and priests with reality warping powers in fantasy games while martial characters lack them, I think it's appropriate. Giving such powers, in considerable numbers without some kind of equipment (which is certainly possible to do), to martial focused characters places the gamism above the simulationism

OK, but there is no edition of D&D which even approximates this, so it seems something of a red herring (or perhaps a straw man?) within the overall discussion.

 

[pemerton]

The thing about Balance Over Time—regardless of whether that timeframe is a 30-level span, 20-level span, a campaign, an adventure, or any other arbitrary division of time longer than a single session of play—is that it fails to actually achieve balance over any time other than the span it was designed for (assuming, for the moment, that it manages even that).

<snip analysis>

I agree with all this.

Then there's the matter of having the Magic-User as 'picking Hard Mode' (and conversely, Fighting-Man as 'Easy Mode').

The first problem with this is that the rules are typically silent on the matter.

<snip>

The second problem is that tying challenge to character archetype excludes players who want the concept of a Magic-User, but aren't looking for Hard Mode, and players who want to be Fighting-Men, but don't want Easy Mode.

<snip>

Hard Mode should be available to anyone who wants it, with Easy Mode for those who want it, and probably at least one level of difficulty in between, all regardless of what kind of character the player wants to play.

The 1st ed AD&D PHB, and Molvay Basic, are not silent on the easy mode/hard mode thing: they state flat out that playing a low-level MU is tough. It's also pretty obvious with even a cursory review of the PC build rules.

(Admittedly the presence of elven F/MUs somewhat muddies the waters, though in Moldvay Basic at least these are somewhat limited by stat and XP requirements.)

On the issue of separating "concept" from the degree of play challenge, I can see considerations pushing both ways. One school of thought has it both that (i) in the fiction, it is harder to be a wizard than a warrior, and (ii) in the game, the experience of the player should somewhat emulate that of the experience of the PC within the fiction, and therefore (iii) it should be more challenging, as a player, to play a wizard than a warrior.

You present the argument for the opposite school of thought. I personally prefer your approach to the one I stated in the previous paragraph. The only edition of D&D I know of to try and approximate your approach is 4e + Essentials: there are hard fighters (eg the polarm melee controller in my own 4e game) and easy fighters (the slayer); and their are hard casters and easy casters (eg the elementalist sorcerer).

 

[Zardnaar]

He's new, and only here because he had a bad experience on the WOTC boards because the mods came down on him over something.

No I can still post at WoTC boards I just don't as most of the old crowd bailed a long time ago and most of the forums there are now dead as FR posters left in droves and the 4E board gets a handful of posts per day.

 

[ImperatorK]

For me, the problem with balance is that too much pursuit of it leads to an unbalanced role playing game.

There's nothing wrong with my roleplaying, thank you very much. I have it in spades. That's why you don't see me posting threads like "Why Roleplaying is BAD".

Giving such powers, in considerable numbers without some kind of equipment (which is certainly possible to do), to martial focused characters places the gamism above the simulationism and, I think, throws the balance between the two issues out the window.

You would have a point if this wasn't fantasy. But it is and classes should allow to simulate fantastical warriors. It misses the point of a fantasy game when one character is a powerful mage and another a mundane warrior.

No I can still post at WoTC boards I just don't as most of the old crowd bailed a long time ago and most of the forums there are now dead as FR posters left in droves and the 4E board gets a handful of posts per day.

He wasn't talking about you.

 

[Minigiant]

I liked your post and mostly agreed with it - but I wanted to pick up on this bit and add something to it.

In a Legends and Lore column a year or two ago, Mearls characterised a classic D&D magic-user as playing in "hard" mode: no hp, no AC, no meaningful melee attack, and only a handful of spells (at least until mid levels). I think this is right. So when the game is played in the Gygaxian style (of skilled play in overcoming or circumventing challenges so as to collect treasure and thereby earn XP), keeping a MU alive, and earning levels, is a sign of being a skillful player. I think this option can have appeal even if the campaign is not going to be a long, multi-level one: you still get to show off that you can prosper playing an MU even if it's only at low levels.

But I don't see many of the contemporary critics of balance grounding their criticism in this sort of play - ie that having unbalanced options creates an opportunity for skilled players to strut their stuff. It seems to be more in terms of "playing a character concept", which to me is more of a 2nd ed AD&D thing. (And personally I'm with those who don't understand how comparable mechanical effectiveness preclues the playing of a character concept.)

I think it appeals to someone else. It appeals to someone who's running a campaign of indeterminate length. If you don't know where your campaign is going or how long it will last, if you don't know how long your character will be played, or that he will survive to high levels, then playing a primary caster creates an interesting risk assessment in this context.

There's a basic psychological paradigm wherein a research subject is paid money, and asked whether they want $10, or whether they want to flip a coin and get $20 on heads and nothing on tails. Numerous variations change the probabilities, the transparency of probabilities, the amount of money, and so on. The interesting thing is that on some level these experiments are very precisely delineating a certain personality style: how much risk the person is willing to take.

If you're playing a D&D character, you may have kind of a similar choice. The fighter is like the guaranteed money. You all but know that by playing a fighter, you have a character that will regularly attack and deal damage, and that will be pretty tough defensively. There's some variance in how well the character will play, but not all that much. Conversely, if you play the wizard, you may end up with a wide spread of outcomes over the long term. You may or may not get the rewards of playing at high level, and even if you do, they may not play out all that well. But you can read the descriptions of high-level spells and imagine some pretty crazy scenarios that the fighter will never have.

Playing a wizard has a fascinating aspirational quality to it.

***

FWIW I tend to agree that short-run games disincentivize people from playing spellcasters.

It's all about picking a balance type your fanbase likes. If "balance via PC survivability", "balance via system mastery" or "balance via PC risk" are not desired by the a majority fanbase, it makes not using it. If it is, it doesn't makes sense not to use it. We as a group barely agree on how to balance a mage to a fighter.

The baseline point to to discover what you fanbase actually wants. Something hard with D&D's broken base.

 

[pemerton]

The baseline point to to discover what you fanbase actually wants. Something hard with D&D's broken base.

I think WotC has a reasonable handle on what a good chunk of their potential market wants, and is building a system to deliver that. I would describe it as "concept first, PC build mechanics second". It therefore appears to rely heavily on the GM to modulate or override the resolution mechanics in order to make sure that the outcomes in play correspond, at least roughly, to the concepts that the PC builds were meant to express.