Why do all classes have to be balanced?

[GreyICE]

I would be up for this, I think the results might be revealing.

Although I would have thought we'd used the wizard, thats traditionally the class thats bemoaned about. I suspect you picked the druid because there are problems with the druid in 3.x, which recieved so much needed attention in pathfinder.

What I find a problem is when people argue that the magic/vancian system is incompatible with the at will fighter. A better therefore would be either a 3.x wizard vs fighter, or a druid vs fighter from pathfinder.

I picked the Druid because the statement was 'the 3.X fighter was not invalidated by the other classes.' Not the Wizard. The Wizard breaks the game in amazing and fascinating ways, but as a solo party member these ways become less apparent. For instance, Stinking Cloud can disable an entire group of enemies, to be picked off at whim. But... how does the Wizard pick them off? He either expends precious spells, or asks someone else to do it. In this manner a Wizard and a Fighter together can kill 4 fighters with ease, and do it all day long. But a Wizard alone would have to expend most of his spells to just do the volume of damage needed to kill the fighters.

The Druid, on the other hand, not only can disable all 4 fighters with ease, he can then kill them with ease.

Spellcaster versus fighter - the best PHB class versus the... well... not the worst (MONK SAY HI) but pretty bad.

Also, I love Druids, and know them like the back of my hand. I played Druids in AD&D and 3E, and when 3.5 came out it was like... say what? You took a class that was powerful and flexible and removed every limitation on the power and flexibility. It makes it very easy for me to design a character for this test, whereas I would have to look through a bunch of stuff for the wizard (thematically, I don't really like Wizards. Irritating bookworms with superiority complexes).

P.S. I don't really care for Pathfinder. I played it once, it didn't really do much for me. So I'm not really going to try to do anything with their rules, I don't know jack about them.

 

[hanez]

I picked the Druid because the statement was 'the 3.X fighter was not invalidated by the other classes.' Not the Wizard. The Wizard breaks the game in amazing and fascinating ways, but as a solo party member these ways become less apparent. For instance, Stinking Cloud can disable an entire group of enemies, to be picked off at whim. But... how does the Wizard pick them off? He either expends precious spells, or asks someone else to do it. In this manner a Wizard and a Fighter together can kill 4 fighters with ease, and do it all day long. But a Wizard alone would have to expend most of his spells to just do the volume of damage needed to kill the fighters.

The Druid, on the other hand, not only can disable all 4 fighters with ease, he can then kill them with ease.

Spellcaster versus fighter - the best PHB class versus the... well... not the worst (MONK SAY HI) but pretty bad.

Also, I love Druids, and know them like the back of my hand. I played Druids in AD&D and 3E, and when 3.5 came out it was like... say what? You took a class that was powerful and flexible and removed every limitation on the power and flexibility. It makes it very easy for me to design a character for this test, whereas I would have to look through a bunch of stuff for the wizard (thematically, I don't really like Wizards. Irritating bookworms with superiority complexes).

P.S. I don't really care for Pathfinder. I played it once, it didn't really do much for me. So I'm not really going to try to do anything with their rules, I don't know jack about them.

Fighter vs wizard, I think the wizard would probably fair worse in 3e, although I could be proven wrong depending on the build.

Druid would win hands down, which shows a number of the flaws in the druid design in 3e. 3e in general seems to give extra carrots to the healing classes to encourage ppl to play them.

I dont play pathfinder much either, I was simply trying to say that the problems are fixable with tweaks and arent some inherent flaw. The druid and cleric in particular are ripe for fixing., but the minor kind, spell pruning, shapeshift ability modification, etc.

With specifically the wizard vs the fighter matchup I think they would be close enough to contrast the "fighter holding the wizards candle" trope we often hear. Especially at 6th level with multiple variable encounters and healing, I would be shocked to see the fighter do significantly worse after a few battles. (Then again I've never seen an "optimized build" that ppl refer to, so maybe there are things Im missing.)

 

[GreyICE]

Why are we restricting this challenge all of a sudden?

If the existence of a Druid completely invalidates the entire article labeled 'fighter' in the PHB, doesn't that prove the point that everyone is saying? That Fighters are a terrible choice for a character from a power level perspective, and that they will feel marginalized and useless very quickly, which is a bad thing from a personal satisfaction perspective (and from a corporate marketing perspective, since unhappy customers rarely buy things).

I assure you, the existence of a Druid does NOT invalidate the Wizard. In point of fact Druids love having Wizards along.

It's simply that Wizards are far more of a party animal than Druids. Because they are so very bad at inflicting damage repeatedly, they love having other party members along.

As an example, the Wizard glitterdusts the Ogre, which blinds it. The ogre now can barely hit anything, and gets massive penalties to defense which guarantee it will shortly be dead. But the Wizard still has to, well... kill it. And that consumes spells. And therefore, without a way to constantly damage things with a renewable resource, they are forced to consume spells rapidly and enter the '5 minute workday' paradigm.

The Druid can just Blinding Spittle the Ogre to shut it down, then beat it to death with their claws. Same with the Cleric, except slightly less so until they find Divine Metamagic, then slightly moreso (it kinda varies). Anyway, Cleric, Druid, Wizard x 2, fairly invincible party. The Wizards shut everything down, the Cleric and Druid beat it to death in short order, and if the Wizards are shut down for a bit, the Cleric and Druid have so much backup power it's insane. Also the Druid can immediately become an army whenever, and the Cleric can probably beat an army in single combat if he needs to.

 

[CroBob]

He isn't. But then any other character wouldn't be him. Are your characters exactly the same if someone else played them? I certainly hope not because that would be admitting yourself as a useless meatbag that just rolls dice. A player adds quality to a character that you can't find recorded on the sheet.

I was trying to read the whole thread before adding my few cents, but this one really has me going. Are you listening to yourself? You're arguing against people who think classes should be mechanically balanced, and your argument is "It doesn't matter what your class can do mechanically, because you can define your character in ways totally unrelated to the mechanics of the game."

So then why are we discussing a game, which is defined by it's mechanics, at all? Let's all just do theater, or something!

This is a discussion about balancing classes based on the mechanics of the game. The personality traits and actions your character does which are not defined by those mechanics are totally irrelevant!

 

[Doug McCrae]

The 3E system was broken

The problem, one that the last few dozen posts in this thread have revealed very well imo, is that in 3e the gulf between a well played, well optimised PC and one that isn't is absolutely vast.

When 3e was first playtested, the playtesters didn't know how to optimise. How could they, in a system with so many options? In fact in the early days of 3e a significant number of people thought the monk was OP. Although the designers did intend for the cleric and druid to be stronger than the rest, in order to incentivise players to pick the unattractive 'healer classes', their full power wasn't understood. We have reports of playtest druids attacking with a scimitar for 1d6 damage. Optimisation 'tech' simply wasn't advanced back then.

If players never learn that tech, then 3e is a lot more balanced. Sometimes ignorance is a virtue.

 

[CroBob]

You know what? I think this contest would be best if the wizard would be used. Sure, the wizard may not be as super-beast as the druid in solo play, but I think it's unfair to say the wizard would be totally unready or unable. The only real power is that this is a sixth level thing, and the wizard simply hasn't acquired those cosmic powers, yet. It is, on the other hand, a perfect opportunity to display how a druid can totally invalidate any fighter. How about you each get two classes to run through this? Not as a group, but one at a time, in whichever order the player controlling the characters prefers? Hell, take all three tier one PHB classes through the gauntlet, and the other take any three of the others PHB classes? How about that?

 

[Neonchameleon]

There's a huge question with gauntlet scenarios - what counts as winning? Do you have to kill the enemy or just bypass or even convert them. And a smaller question - how long between rounds.

To illustrate, Fly is one minute/level. If one of the challenges is an Indiana Jones style trapped corridor and the wizard simply flies across in about 30 seconds, never once worrying about the pressure plates, how to spell the safeword, or even bothering to find the invisible bridge, how much fly does he have left for the next four encounters. Four and a half minutes?

Also if the goal of the next encounter is to make it past the orc patrol, the fighter can smash his way through - is the wizard simply allowed to fly invisibly over them? Because almost any time there's a solution that doesn't involve hitting things until they are dead the wizard has a massive advantage.

That said, to be truly effective the wizard would need an equivalent to an animal companion. Stinking Cloud may take most of the enemies out for four and a half rounds - but you then need someone strong enough to finish them off.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

If you want classes that are balanced by the numbers then go play 4th edition, simple.

4th edition had it's chance and it blew it. Like the 4vengers of yesteryear used to tell us "The WoTc ninja's didn't come in and take your 3rd edition books", well now is the time to take your own advice.

There are other ways to balance a system than what 4th edition did.

5th edition needs to be it's own thing with the classes being different mechanically.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

The problem I'm seeing is scenarios that are built to always favor the argument.

There are so many factors that come into play during a game that you can't really get a solid opinion. I see that Stinking Cloud is mentioned, well what happens if you memorize Stinking Cloud and you come up against a lot of undead, well that spell is useless. Fly is cool, but enemies can fly, cast spells, and have ranged attacks.

To be perfectly honest, the scenarios are useless as an argument. Some people have troubled with classes in their games while others don't. I have seen a lot of complaints come down to the rules not being used correctly, and while this is not always the case, a good bit of it does.

5th edition doesn't need to be like 3rd edition because Pathfinder has that market locked tight and it doesn't need to be like 4th edition because that market sunk.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I was trying to read the whole thread before adding my few cents, but this one really has me going. Are you listening to yourself? You're arguing against people who think classes should be mechanically balanced, and your argument is "It doesn't matter what your class can do mechanically, because you can define your character in ways totally unrelated to the mechanics of the game."

So then why are we discussing a game, which is defined by it's mechanics, at all? Let's all just do theater, or something!

This is a discussion about balancing classes based on the mechanics of the game. The personality traits and actions your character does which are not defined by those mechanics are totally irrelevant!

You are the one sitting down to play a game. You are the one that has a good time or doesn't. These are the facts and whats on a character sheet doesn't change them. Call me a loon if you like but I find the input of the person at the table to be very relevant to the play of the game.