D&D 5E Why the claim of combat and class balance between the classes is mainly a forum issue. (In my opinion)

[TerraDave]

Balance is an old concern, and pre-dates forums. How classes were balanced has changed, and finding it can be elusive...but there is nothing new here.

One possible reason: players don't like characters that feel conspicuously underpowered. I have never met one, across many personality types and editions. Very few of those players ever spent any time on forums like this one.

 

[Umbran]

I don't think we can establish anyone as having statistically relevant data on the subject. I suspect no organization outside WotC has such data, and if WotC has it, they aren't publishing it.

Nor do I think personal anecdotal evidence is useful other than for dispelling absolutes. If someone asserts, "This never happens!" then an anecdote can get us past that. But, no matter how long you've been gaming, personal anecdote won't tell us if a thing happens often enough to be relevant for design of a game that wants broad market reach.

That being said, here's a thought on the matter:

Yes, many people don't consider average damage per round when choosing a character. Many folks just go for concept, and don't worry about effectiveness.

That's fine, so long as the designers have worried about effectiveness for them. If the designers have not, and the GM does not, then you can have an issue at the table. The fact that you didn't worry about effectiveness when you created the character, and don't think you really care about it at the table, does not mean you can't have a bad or boring game experience resulting from your choices.

As an example that has nothing to do with combat - I have seen three different occasions in which a player chose a character style they thought would be cool, but then had a horrible play experience based on the choice. In each case it was a choice of the "Laconic, lone wolf character". Gee, if you play a character who doesn't talk or cooperate much with others, you won't have fun in a game based upon social interactions between players! Go figure!

In a well-designed game and/or a well run game (adjustment can be made in design or runtime, or both) it is possible to make sure everyone has fun, in theory.

That it is possible to do without it in theory does not mean we should not worry about it in practice.

 

[Transformer]

I care about class balance in combat, so I'm going to disagree.

First, XunValdorl, your examples of experiences that led you to believe that few people care about this issue are the Pathfinder Society and conventions. I don't think those are the best settings for making the judgment you've made here. Conventions usually mean one-shot games, often with strangers. If I were playing a one-shot adventure at a convention, and my character were getting repeatedly outshone, I would just put on a friendly face and deal with it. After all, it's just a one-shot, and I want to make a good impression. But if I were in a two year campaign, and week-in and week-out my character were getting outshone, then I would be unhappy. So I wouldn't judge based on conventions. As for the Pathfinder Society, well, I imagine the Pathfinder Society would attract more people who aren't too concerned with class balance, while all the people who really care a lot about it would gravitate toward organized 4th edition play instead. So I wouldn't make the judgment you've made based on the Pathfinder Society either.

Second, I think you're mischaracterizing the issue a bit. When I say I care about in-combat class balance, I'm not saying every reasonably-optimized character needs to deal the same amount of damage. I'm not saying every character needs to be useful in every situation. I'm not saying a player shouldn't be able to specialize for out-of-combat stuff, and so, end up less effective in combat. I'm not even saying it's a travesty if my fighter deals 30 damage per round and my friend's barbarian deals 50 damage per round. That's not that huge a difference.

The inequalities in class balance in 3rd edition were much more dramatic than that. A reasonably optimized 18-level wizard doesn't just deal a little more damage than a reasonably-optimized 18th-level fighter; the former absolutely curbstomps the latter. The fighter isn't just less effective, he's totally unnecessary. The wizard can incapacitate the bad guys in a single round without any help at all (save-or-suck spells). The fighter isn't slightly overshadowed by the wizard; he's the wizard's clean-up crew. What if I'm playing that fighter, and I'm trying to role-play an awesome badass who's an expert at combat? How about that: class balance just became a roleplaying issue.

Unless someone is deliberately roleplaying an ineffective character, or a character who is ineffective in combat (which is great; more power to her), her character should not be so overshadowed by another character as to be entirely superfluous. A reasonable approximation of class balance is, in fact, a worthy goal.

If you want to say that 4th edition sacrificed too much on the altar of balance when it based all classes on the same mechanical sub-system, hey, maybe you have a point. But all those people posting on forums, advocating for class balance? They're not alien robots or something, they're players just like you, who clearly do care about this stuff. Their forum posts are no less representative of the concerns of real-world gamers than yours.

 

[ImperatorK]

I care about balance in general.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I want to (again, I know I have posted this here and on wiz and gitpg, and Rpgnet before) say my experience with balance is what I think people who don't think it matters need to keep in mind.

In the 90's we played AD&D, we had a lot of fun. I ran a rather loose game more focus on fun then rules. I was in high school when we started and we had plenty of free time. Some times people would make note of "Wow, you made an awesome X Y or Z, but no one ever put too much thought into it. We even had house rules that make me cringe now just thinking about them.

My freshmen year of college (still 90's) that all started to change. We started and RPG club at the local community college, and met new players for the first time. (up until then we introduced the game to others, but never had someone who played before join)

We met 3 players that changed the game hard core. 1 always played wizards, no matter what. 1 wanted to play a psion 9 out of 10 times, the other always wanted to play a fighter, she thought spells were weak. Up until then we all played everything. The two players who liked mages and psions told us some of there house rules, and we adopted some and didn't others. Then we played.

Boom every game the wizard was doing amazig, and the psion too. They said it was all tactics and knowing your character. The girl that wanted to play the fighter was the first person I ever heard compare her self to other players, and she felt she was doing something wrong. Slowly the power gamers in my orginal group all wanted to be wizards, and even me and the other guy that DMed a lot found our big bads were more often then not casters.

By the time I heard that the magic card game people bought out TSR we were already having to choose are players carefully. We would have whole campaigns that would start with the phrase "No wizards" or we would take away the ability of the player to make his spell book and instead make it random rolls.

when 3e came out we had a small split. The girl who played fighters kept to 2e for years, and the guy who always wanted to be mages was not able to game anymore (now married with twins on the way) but everything had already changed. There was also a new gameing store in town and as such our group had changes and added new blood again. Some people came in and were great some we didn't hit off... but by and large by the time 3.5 came out EVERYONE WAS A CASTER... We had a party at one point of a Barbarian 1/Cleric X, a fighter 2/sorcerer X, a Bard 5/Druid X, and a fighter 2/rogue 3/ Monk 2 going for shadow dancer... when he decided to re draw a wizard I saw a problem.

I was on the internet back then, but not really on the char op boards... then in 2004 or so I meet a guy who knew of all of these 'builds'


n my 1st 4e game I ran we had a Ranger (Elven Archer) and a Rogue (Teifling) we were running the adventure path and were in the troll warrens. The rouge had the best round ever... He used a daily and crit, and action pointed an encounter with multi attacks and one of them crit... he did 119 damage... he got up and did a victory lap around the table. the next round the Ranger was pissy he rolled low on his encounter power and 'only did 123" neither of them go to opt boards, but as strikers you notice that difference.


The numbers are only an answer when you already see the problem, but you can't unsee it either. If your group runs more like I did in the 90's and never meet your chris... then great, but if you do then you see it.

I don't track who does x damage, but when I have my fighter/weapon master have a lower AC and hit less often and do less damge then your cleric, I start to notice over time... especialy when you pull out big spells I don't hae ON top of one upping me.

It happens when I build worlds too. Emperor X needs to be bad ass, and I want my party to fear him even at 12th level, so if he is a fighter he needs magic items to counter spells, or a court wizard... wait isn't the court wizard and evil cleric way more bad ass?

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

In 3.5 I encountered the problem of some players picking broken combos dominating any combat, so that other people felt useless.

I want to focus on this. Anytime I was in a game where this came up, the DM simply said "sorry, that's not going to be used in my games".

The possibility of say "Pun Pun" for instance, doesn't bother me because I know no DM worth his hat would allow something like that.

I don't want excessive amounts of time spent on trying to balance everything when a simple "no" from a DM will suffice. I also don't want creative and still balance rules to be eliminated just because when paired with another set of options could lead to a possibility of something being overpowered.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

I don't think we can establish anyone as having statistically relevant data on the subject. I suspect no organization outside WotC has such data, and if WotC has it, they aren't publishing it.

Nor do I think personal anecdotal evidence is useful other than for dispelling absolutes. If someone asserts, "This never happens!" then an anecdote can get us past that. But, no matter how long you've been gaming, personal anecdote won't tell us if a thing happens often enough to be relevant for design of a game that wants broad market reach.

That being said, here's a thought on the matter:

Yes, many people don't consider average damage per round when choosing a character. Many folks just go for concept, and don't worry about effectiveness.

That's fine, so long as the designers have worried about effectiveness for them. If the designers have not, and the GM does not, then you can have an issue at the table. The fact that you didn't worry about effectiveness when you created the character, and don't think you really care about it at the table, does not mean you can't have a bad or boring game experience resulting from your choices.

As an example that has nothing to do with combat - I have seen three different occasions in which a player chose a character style they thought would be cool, but then had a horrible play experience based on the choice. In each case it was a choice of the "Laconic, lone wolf character". Gee, if you play a character who doesn't talk or cooperate much with others, you won't have fun in a game based upon social interactions between players! Go figure!

In a well-designed game and/or a well run game (adjustment can be made in design or runtime, or both) it is possible to make sure everyone has fun, in theory.

That it is possible to do without it in theory does not mean we should not worry about it in practice.

I know there are of course people out there that are concerned with balance, but I would bet my life that it isn't as widespread as it's being made out to be.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

In a well-designed game and/or a well run game (adjustment can be made in design or runtime, or both) it is possible to make sure everyone has fun, in theory.

That it is possible to do without it in theory does not mean we should not worry about it in practice.

A well designed game is purely subjective. There is no science to it like there is with say a car's engine. Balance does not automatically equal fun, 4th edition is a testament to that.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't track who does x damage, but when I have my fighter/weapon master have a lower AC and hit less often and do less damge then your cleric, I start to notice over time... especialy when you pull out big spells I don't hae ON top of one upping me.

Well, even if that did happen, it's entirely possible that everyone just notes that in this game, divine worship has its benefits and moves on. After all, if there aren't some benefits, why are people swearing themselves to the service of extraplanar ideologues?

Then again, this isn't a typical scenario in any version of D&D that I'm aware of. Even in the Divine Power buffed up example, the fighter is typically better, and spells are limited in duration and subject to dispelling.

It happens when I build worlds too. Emperor X needs to be bad ass, and I want my party to fear him even at 12th level, so if he is a fighter he needs magic items to counter spells, or a court wizard... wait isn't the court wizard and evil cleric way more bad ass?

At what point in history have power figures ever been the most individually skilled and effective people? In the very fuzzy time periods and locales that D&D is based on, you had monarchs who were frequently children and suffered disabilities due to their lifestyle choices and inbreeding, and were often, in the modern lens, myopic bigots with delusions of grandeur. And yet people bowed to them. They had plenty of smarter and stronger people in their service. Why do you think that is?

And for that matter, why doesn't Arthur work for Merlin, why isn't Gandalf the King, and why isn't Elminster in charge of the Realms?

And, whatever answers you see for these questions, why not apply the same logic to your D&D game?

 

[Morrus]

Why the claim of combat and class balance between the classes is mainly a for...

I want to focus on this. Anytime I was in a game where this came up, the DM simply said "sorry, that's not going to be used in my games".

The possibility of say "Pun Pun" for instance, doesn't bother me because I know no DM worth his hat would allow something like that.

I don't want excessive amounts of time spent on trying to balance everything when a simple "no" from a DM will suffice. I also don't want creative and still balance rules to be eliminated just because when paired with another set of options could lead to a possibility of something being overpowered.

In a rules-heavy game like D&D, a DM is not always able to do or see that in advance. Expertise should never be a requirement to play a game. The game itself, therefore, should endeavour to stop that happening.

That said, while balance is a consideration, it is not the only consideration; and it can be sacrificed - to a reasonable extent - in exchange for flavour.