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TheThan
2009-09-15, 07:32 PM
The other day, a friend (and fellow Dm) and I were discussing various things about DnD 3.5 when the discussion turned to intra-party balance. While we generally agree on what is broken, we both have different points of view on how to fix this balance problem.

My friend’s usual dnd group consists of several power gamers. Which means his point of view has been shaped by his dnd group and is a bit skewed. He believes that the weaker classes should be “buffed” and brought up to similar power levels of the various “broken” things that exist. He feels that this is the only way to make the game fun for all the players. He insists that by nerfing the overpowered that you are taking the fun out of the player’s hands and keeping them from having access to things they “should’ have access to. His point of view breaks down to “if everything is broken, then nothing is off balanced.”

My point of view is that these overpowered things need to be nerfed, so that the weaker classes can’t get stepped on. My dnd group (which are hardly power gamers) has shaped my perceptions about the game as well, however I have the wonderful resource of the GITP boards at my disposal. So I like to think I have a more fair and balanced point of view when it comes to rpgs. I believe that by nerfing the overpowered you are not taking the fun out of the game, you are simply allowing all party members to contribute effectively. My point of view breaks down to “if nothing is broken, then nothing is off balanced.”

By buffing the game, you ramp up the power of the whole group, and give everyone the potential to ruin encounters, break plot points and generally run amok. But by nerfing the game, you take that away and force the players to play through what you had planned.


So I’m interested in what others think. Should a Dm in order to bring balance (or maintain it) buff the weak or nerf the overpowered?

Milskidasith
2009-09-15, 07:36 PM
Buffing underpowered things is way easier than nerfing overpoweered things... regardless of your ideology on what players should and shouldn't be able to do, it's much more practical to buff everybody, and only nerf stuff that can allow them to totally break the world (mindraping commoners into loving your enemy, then Love's Paining them to kill your enemy with no save, or Pun Pun, or something like that.)

Kylarra
2009-09-15, 07:43 PM
My opinion is that you need to find a level of optimization that everyone is comfortable with and stay within that degree of optimization. TO is fun as a thought exercise, but doesn't make for very interesting games (imo). It's "easier" to bring things up to par than nerf things down, but all that matters is relative party balance anyway.

Raum
2009-09-15, 07:59 PM
So I’m interested in what others think. Should a Dm in order to bring balance (or maintain it) buff the weak or nerf the overpowered?The answer is going to depend on what power level the players are most comfortable at and how entrenched they are in the current system. If you're comfortable at low power levels it's easy to say nerf the abusable classes...but, if you like playing god-like characters, adding to underpowered classes is better. My personal preference is some middle ground - fighters are too weak, many spells are too powerful, warlocks and warblades* are about right. So my answer would be 'both' - nerf the powerful and boost the underpowered. But that's just my answer - others will have different preferences.

It's also worth pointing out something every MMO designer learns, people hate having something taken away...even if it's only in their minds. The more entrenched players are in a game system the greater sense of entitlement they'll have...and resentment against unilateral nerfing will grow. This doesn't mean you don't nerf, it just means you have to sell it...get the players to buy in to the idea.

The last item to consider is 'what is abusable'. If it's just one ability, it's fairly easy to fix. But when it's many, it's far more difficult. Take the Wizard as an example...the class itself isn't really a problem. Some, perhaps many, of the spells are potential problems. That makes nerfing difficult...you need to identify the spells you dislike and then fix or remove them. It's usually easier to boost power.

*Some of the high end maneuvers approach over-powered for my taste but, overall, I like the ToB classes.

sofawall
2009-09-15, 08:00 PM
Coming from a party not big on optimizing, Gleemax, BG and GitP, as well as a game or two of heavy optimization and experience as a rules adjudicator for the ToS on these forums, I feel that some things need to be banned or nerfed, but most things cannot without changing it totally, and it's much easier to simply buff everything else.

I like seeing lots of high numbers, too.

The New Bruceski
2009-09-15, 08:05 PM
I figure you find a good middle point, buff the weak things up, nerf the big things down, so everything plays at the same level. Then again, I'm a 4E fan and that's what they did, so it figures that'd pop into my head first.

Temet Nosce
2009-09-15, 08:22 PM
So I’m interested in what others think. Should a Dm in order to bring balance (or maintain it) buff the weak or nerf the overpowered?

As far as the actual system goes, neither. Balance is inherently impossible to attain in this kind of game, because there's no universal set of mechanics by which to judge effectiveness and even if there were the mechanics would have to be completely identical for everyone to be balanced. If you want to play a balanced game, well... try chess.

As far as on a practical scale, you should talk to your players beforehand and try to keep them all in a range they're comfortable with. If problems pop up during play, speak with the players involved and try to figure out what precisely the problem is rather than arbitrarily doing one or the other without consideration for the situation.

Raum
2009-09-15, 08:27 PM
If you want to play a balanced game, well... try chess.Chess isn't balanced! The Queen is broken and Pawns are underpowered! :smallbiggrin:

<Ducks for cover...>

Kylarra
2009-09-15, 08:32 PM
Chess isn't balanced! The Queen is broken and Pawns are underpowered! :smallbiggrin:

<Ducks for cover...>No, no. The King is underpowered, I mean you need to keep it alive and it can only move one space?

The pawn is actually OP because it means by RAW you can have 9 queens!

Akal Saris
2009-09-15, 08:46 PM
Man, I used to teach chess part-time...darned kids just couldn't figure out when to trade pieces and when to sacrifice.

Personally, I tend to balance on the buffing/status quo end more than the nerfing, since as others have said it makes the PCs happier most of the time. My groups vary in power scale - some are power gamers, others are more casual - generally with the power gamers I don't nerf things, but I almost never buff things either; while with the casual group I typically buff characters with useful items or whatnot.

I also have to design different challenges for the different groups (the power gamer group has the HPs of monsters automatically doubled, for one thing), but that's something every DM has to deal with.

Yukitsu
2009-09-15, 08:57 PM
I'll explain to you how things tend to shake down in my campaign group. When the DM gets into a heavy handed ban mode making lots of house rules for balance, we, as players instinctively think the DM is trying to make it so we can't do certain things, like breaking the game. Instinctively, we huddle into a group of 3-4 of us who are good at optimizing with the house rules in hand, going over it all word for word, which makes the DM... Twitchy. We then proceed to make something that by far stretches the boundary of what the homebrew system was supposed to allow, and coincidently, make appropriate challenge impossible. Doubly so because it's 3-4 of us that get together and optimize, and we're in a 7 person group. We have 3 full casters who are pretty much dominating the encounters, since one of us +3 meat shields + all our skeletons means we can each solo 2 encounters. That's 6 encounters per day.

Inversely, the other group I'm in only nerfed teleportation, by making it wild surge in addition to the normal affect. In that campaign, I play an elven paladin/rogue, with a stat array of 16/22/14/18/20/26 after applying my belt of magnifecence +6 at level 17. I can barely hit anything that isn't evil, have shockingly few hit points and have a ton of non-optimal choices, but this guy is a blast to play for RP reasons.

I enjoy theory op, so character 1 is still fun for me, but I can tell it's not fun for the DM to try to plan it all. Inversely, the latter DM just pulls crap from the monster manual and we're pretty much good to go. Basically, people will always meet your expectations. If you make nerfs filled with house rules to prevent rules exploits because you expect them, you will get players who look for exploits. If you expect your players to be well behaved, they generally will.

Edit: As an aside, the only nerf my latter DM implimented, the one about the the teleports got the karmic shaft when I had my unicorn teleport payment to a DMPC item crafter, and we rolled up disjunction in his magic workshop. Neither the character nor the DM could blame me, since it was precisely what the NPC had asked for. :smallamused: Yet another reason the fates say that nerfing things sucks.

PinkysBrain
2009-09-15, 09:17 PM
By buffing the game, you ramp up the power of the whole group, and give everyone the potential to ruin encounters, break plot points and generally run amok.
Wow, of all the bad reasons.

I wouldn't mind taking away the high encounter ending potential from casters in the form of SoDs/SoSs/damage ... but taking away the flexibility of casting and it's infinite ability to find detours/shortcuts in your carefully crafted railroad? Oh hell no ... of all the reasons to nerf casters you pick the absolute worst one in my mind.

Jalor
2009-09-15, 09:37 PM
The elusive Balance here is Tier 3 classes. Every single one can feel useful even when unoptimized, yet none can break games as badly as a Tier 1 class. I try to aim for Tier 3 when running games, and I plan accordingly. It works well.

Take a party of Warblade, Factotum, Dread Necromancer, Egoist. It has a meat shield, a skill monkey, an arcanist, and a buffer. All are around the same power level and it takes little effort to run a game with them. Everyone gets a chance to shine.

Now look at Fighter, Cleric, Rogue, Wizard. If the Fighter's not optimized and the Wizard's a blaster, the Fighter and Rogue feel terrible at dealing damage because the Wizard's spells hit harder. The Fighter feels terrible in general, because the Cleric is a better fighter. Optimized, it's worse. The casters crush everything, and the ubercharger fighter is a one-trick pony.

Tier 3 classes for the win.

TheThan
2009-09-16, 02:25 AM
Wow, of all the bad reasons.

I wouldn't mind taking away the high encounter ending potential from casters in the form of SoDs/SoSs/damage ... but taking away the flexibility of casting and it's infinite ability to find detours/shortcuts in your carefully crafted railroad? Oh hell no ... of all the reasons to nerf casters you pick the absolute worst one in my mind.

You miss understand.
It’s not a matter of railroading plots. It’s a matter of accomplishments. Many Dms spend a lot of time to create interesting, engaging and otherwise entertaining encounters. Then a player uses some ability/spell/whatever to bypass that encounter and ruin the game for the DM (who is a player as much as the others) as well as the other players who have not gotten to even do anything during that encounter. They have not really defeated that encounter, and have not accomplished anything. Also the Dm who is looking both to entertain and to have his encounter defeated by his players has not accomplished his goal as well. As the other players have not had the chance to act or accomplish anything on their own because one single player decided to ruin the game.

By increasing the power of the weaker classes, you are creating a situation where there are more things that have the potential to ruin and break games. Even then, it’s not so much that it will happen, it’s that the potential is there.

Tehnar
2009-09-16, 03:54 AM
From a DM's perspective, I find it easier to nerf things then to buff them. Its easier because when I have to use a monsters (or traps, or whatever) out of the blue (or am just plain lazy in prep) I can pull it out of the MM and with very little modification becomes a challenging encounter.

Most of my nerfs to spellcasters (aside from some spell changes and clarifications on my rulings regarding certain spells) were just in restricting access to some spells and prestige classes. I didn't like the fact that the cleric or druid, when presented with a challenge could just flip through spell lists and find the perfect spell for the job, and have it next day, no effort included. I just restricted their spells known to about 20 per spell level.

But mainly I think that it boils down to a agreement between the players and the DM, that they wont try to break the game.

Nero24200
2009-09-16, 05:01 AM
I'd agree with tonning high tier classes and abilities down, rather than brining the weaker ones up.

Let's face it, in high level D'n'D, if the upper tier classes want somthing done, it'll get done. Boosting the other classes to that level might make the game more balanced, but it also makes it a nightmare to keep the PC's in check. Writing a high level quest can already be a problems for DM's, since some high level spells can just allow the PC's to bypass everything altogether. I don't see how making such abilities common allows for more fun, I'd personally rather tone things back.

Then again, I always prefer grttier stuff. I remember a while back I DM'ed a game with the PC's at level 1, and I noticed right away that the players acted differenetly. They were attempting to get into a small villlage overrun with zombies.

Truthfully, I expected them to try and hack their way through, but instead, they actually came up with a reasonable plan. I was impressed. Due to the actions of another (not so smart) PC, one of the buildings on the ouskirts collasped, distracting the hordes of zombies. The PC's used this distraction to sneak past the zombies.

A few games later, the party are fighting Derro, and due to some really unlucky rolls, the concealment granted by the Darkness is preventing the PC's from hitting. Suddenly I get complaints that the encoutner s too hard, even though the PC's have done nothing other than try to hit them. Conviently, once I tell them to actually think of somthing they step out the darkness and suddenly find they're tearing them apart.

The only real conclusion I could draw was that having more power made them think less. It's true, when I asked about there low-level strategy, it was simply "Well, even if we can take them, one lucky hit will kill us". Meanwhile, at higher levels where theres no chance of that happaning, the game focuses more on the PC's trying to use their shiny powers and brute force rather than actual planning.

Not having semi-omnipitant powers forces players to think more.

Roog
2009-09-16, 05:11 AM
As far as the actual system goes, neither. Balance is inherently impossible to attain in this kind of game, because there's no universal set of mechanics by which to judge effectiveness and even if there were the mechanics would have to be completely identical for everyone to be balanced. If you want to play a balanced game, well... try chess.

So - it would therefore be impossible to make the game any more balanced or less balanced than it is now?

lesser_minion
2009-09-16, 08:15 AM
I think I would most likely mix the two methods together, moving everything to be much closer to the tier 3 balance point (I absolutely agree with the suggestion that this is the ideal balance point for the game).

I'd probably try to make sure that every character adheres to a particular level of competence in a variety of situations, however. When an orc attacks a sorceress in melee, I think it makes more sense for her to respond by smashing the orc around the face with something sharp and possibly pointy than for her to step back and cast "Sign of Agonising Doomy Doom Of Deadly Doom", even if she prefers to deal with orcs using the aforementioned spell rather than the aforementioned potentially-pointy sharp object.

daggaz
2009-09-16, 09:01 AM
Chess isn't balanced! The Queen is broken and Pawns are underpowered! :smallbiggrin:

<Ducks for cover...>

Lol, you just made me giggle. :smallsmile:

I also go for a middle ground. Certain wizard spells are flat out broken, bringing the rest of the game to that level just breaks it more. I dont want mechanics that can win almost any encounter in the space of an action or two, all by themselves.

As well, other classes are so pathetic, that putting everybody down to that level is like playing sticks and stones, where a scratch puts your guy down for days and getting in a fight with a dog is life threatening. Its a game of high fantasy (generally) so lets enable those higher end aspects some.

So in all, I generally nerf wizard spells, force the druid shapeshifter variant from PHBII and ban natural spell, prune the cleric (heavy armor is often a good step, DMM never existed in any form in any book) and then give some goodies to the meleers, I think Fax's invested feat system is a great start.

Thats for my general lvl games, which I prefer personally. I will as well keep an eye on players, if somebody is new or just a poor optimizer, I wont nerf their character as much if at all. And if everybody is a powergamer, then only mild nerfing of high end truly game-breaking things, and massive boosts to the samurais.

PinkysBrain
2009-09-16, 10:19 AM
You miss understand.
It’s not a matter of railroading plots. It’s a matter of accomplishments. Many Dms spend a lot of time to create interesting, engaging and otherwise entertaining encounters. Then a player uses some ability/spell/whatever to bypass that encounter and ruin the game for the DM (who is a player as much as the others) as well as the other players who have not gotten to even do anything during that encounter.
At least half the PCs tend to be dumb as a brick with the social graces of a gnat ... the only area where there will ever be parity in ability to overcome a challenge is in combat. I'm not big on puzzle/social encounters (which isn't to say I don't like roleplaying, I just don't like having to be in game intelligent or rolling dice to "win" during a conversation). They are fine for variety, but the meat and bones of D&D encounters are combat ... if bypass by magic is possible for social/puzzle encounters so be it, that's entertaining too in it's own way and it was going to be a one or two man show anyway.

IMO getting rid of excessive SoDs/SoSs/damage is enough ... sure walls/illusions/teleportation/etc can still vastly simplify encounters by splitting up enemies, but they still need to be damaged to die, so there is still work to do for everyone ... it's also easier said than done. Those kind of spells mean dumb monsters are generally not a big challenge except in ambushes, but I don't have a problem with that either. If I wanted to have everything end up in a hitpoint slog I'd go play 4e.

As for bypassing a combat encounter altogether, more power to the PCs ... but leaving enemies alive in your back doesn't always work out so well.

Oslecamo
2009-09-16, 10:39 AM
So - it would therefore be impossible to make the game any more balanced or less balanced than it is now?

The real world is unfair. Fantasy stories take place in unfair places and situations. A system wich seeks to put the players into a fantasy story should thus also be unfair.

It's all a matter to decide if you care more about the game part or the simulation part. If it's the later, there will be choices in your character's life that can screw them or grossly benefit them.

Each group has their likings. It's up to them to decide what they consider more important.

Tiki Snakes
2009-09-16, 10:48 AM
You're both right. So there. :P

I'll second the 'aim for tier 3' stance, though, personally.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-09-16, 11:20 AM
As has been noted, buffing weaker classes is generally (A) easier to do and (B) more satisfying for the player than the reverse.

(A) It's easier because you don't have to think of what to nerf/remove. Is teleport broken? Sometimes. Is Wild Shape broken? Depends on the books you can access. Is gate broken? Almost always...if you can boost your CL. See what I mean? There's almost never an ability that is always, 100% overpowered that should be cut, it's usually a case of "X is overpowered in conjunction with Y or in scenario Z."

Conversely, it's easy to boost things. "I think fighter feats don't give enough of a benefit. Dodge gives a pathetic AC boost. I will try out having Dodge give a +3 dodge bonus against all enemies." If the boost isn't enough, keep increasing it (or improve it another way); if it's too much, you can always start from scratch, and there are infinitely more ways to add something than to take something away.

(B) It's more satisfying because people like benefits. Saying "Yeah, your fighter's fine, and your warblade's fine, and--oh, sorry, Joe, I was looking at my adventure design and I banned that spell you've focused your character around, try again" makes the wizard player unhappy; saying "Yeah, your wizard's fine, and your warblade's fine, and--oh, Bob, you were thinking about going sword-and-board with your fighter? I took a look at the S&B feats and was underwhelmed, so here are a few boosted feats that'll make it worthwhile for you" lets the guy who avoided S&B because it's worse than 2HF feel good about being able to play what he wants.

Artanis
2009-09-16, 11:49 AM
I know I'm probably going to be yelled at for this answer, but...it depends.

If I have no idea what the players like or the DM can handle, I'd go with the suggestion to nerf/buff everything towards tier 3. If I know what the players like, I'd try to work with them to nerf/buff them towards each other if they're willing to do so.

I'll give an example of a recent campaign I participated in. The party had a Wizard, a Druid, a Warlock, and a Swordsage. Pretty wide spread, right? Well, the Wizard was playing a blaster, and the Druid was largely a summoner (with the occasional bonk from his staff). Meanwhile, the Warlock got a Cleric cohort and the Swordsage wound up with being turned into a Janni (with the LA and stuff waived). They all wound up being pretty much the same in terms of usefulness.

PinkysBrain
2009-09-16, 12:52 PM
I'll give an example of a recent campaign I participated in. The party had a Wizard, a Druid, a Warlock, and a Swordsage. Pretty wide spread, right?
It's not a wide spread, they all have magical utility for a start. It's really nothing compared to the spread in a high level iconic party in core. Handing out goodies is a decent way to balance the game, but with say the monk you end up with an artifact in every item slot and a cohort which outshines him.

Artanis
2009-09-16, 01:17 PM
Well, the Swordsage did start out as a Bard...:smalltongue:

woodenbandman
2009-09-16, 01:31 PM
I like the Buff most things and nerf some specific things. Wizards are still gods, they just don't get polymorph, shivering touch, and celerity. And a few select other things.

Temet Nosce
2009-09-16, 01:59 PM
So - it would therefore be impossible to make the game any more balanced or less balanced than it is now?

The word isn't even applicable. We're speaking about an activity based on simulating a fantasy world where each player takes on the individual role of a different character they built themselves. The rules have no way to account for the efficiency of even things like roleplaying itself, much less utility abilities, or BfC, etc. The entire premise is inherently imbalanced, and in such a way you can't even measure it objectively. The game isn't trying to provide rules for a balanced match that you can win - D&D isn't really based on winning.

A better question to ask in this kind of situation would be whether each character is fulfilling the archetype they chose to play. Basically, is the game succeeding at portraying what it was supposed to.


The real world is unfair. Fantasy stories take place in unfair places and situations. A system wich seeks to put the players into a fantasy story should thus also be unfair.

It's all a matter to decide if you care more about the game part or the simulation part. If it's the later, there will be choices in your character's life that can screw them or grossly benefit them.

Each group has their likings. It's up to them to decide what they consider more important.

Agreed, like I said the premise itself stops the game from being balanced. Can you adjust the game so that each character feels useful? Absolutely, but it still isn't balanced... You're just adjusting time in the spotlight so people enjoy the game and fulfill what they envision for their character.

Artanis
2009-09-16, 02:11 PM
A better question to ask in this kind of situation would be whether each character is fulfilling the archetype they chose to play. Basically, is the game succeeding at portraying what it was supposed to.

That's just the thing though: the closer to each other the characters are, the easier it gets to make sure that this happens. If you put a low-tier class in a party with a high-tier class, it gets harder and harder to make sure that the weaker characters have a chance to shine. Fighter and Cleric in the same party? Good luck giving the Fighter face time when the Cleric is beating the Fighter at his own job. Warmage and Sorcerer in the party? Have fun finding stuff for the Warmage to blow up that the Sorcerer can't. CW Samurai in a party with pretty much anything else? I pity the DM...and the Samurai's player.

The more balanced the classes are, the more a game is able to give everybody a time and place to shine.

Steward
2009-09-16, 03:17 PM
So - it would therefore be impossible to make the game any more balanced or less balanced than it is now?

You could probably make it more balanced or less balanced, but you couldn't make just plain balanced. The mechanics of each class are just too different; the only way you could make them have the same power is if you granted each class the exact same mechanical abilities but changed the fluff (Let melee characters cast magic missile shoot strength rays out of their swords and wildshape arbitrarily develop the strength of ten lions)

I agree with the statement that it's more important to make sure that everyone has fun than it is to try and make sure that every class is equally powerful. Someone who is exceptionally skilled at the game and very charismatic might be able to pull this off without ruffling feathers, but it seems like a daunting challenge in most other situations.

Raum
2009-09-16, 06:06 PM
You miss understand.
It’s not a matter of railroading plots. It’s a matter of accomplishments. Many Dms spend a lot of time to create interesting, engaging and otherwise entertaining encounters. Then a player uses some ability/spell/whatever to bypass that encounter and ruin the game for the DM (who is a player as much as the others) as well as the other players who have not gotten to even do anything during that encounter. They have not really defeated that encounter, and have not accomplished anything. Also the Dm who is looking both to entertain and to have his encounter defeated by his players has not accomplished his goal as well. As the other players have not had the chance to act or accomplish anything on their own because one single player decided to ruin the game. Hate to say it but you're simply listing justifications for railroading. Not certain I agree either, going off script is usually a player decision* which has little to do with mechanics. But, even if all are true, forcing X to happen is still railroading. Just make sure the players signed up for a railroad if this is your intention.

There are plenty of good reasons to adjust or even nerf classes though, no need to avoid doing so just because it may make laying tracks easier. The trick is to involve the players in the decision.

*Since leaving the tracks is a player decision, I'd look carefully at any situation where they did so unexpectedly. Finding out why the player chose to head another direction can help us adjust future games to something they're more likely to choose and enjoy.

TheThan
2009-09-16, 09:51 PM
It’s not about railroading or “going off the tracks”. Dms can do little to prevent that without becoming a tyrant.

Having access to overpowered stuff just ramps up the power of the game. All the pcs can very easily start defeating (or worse bypassing) encounters that are either plot important or just a “challenging” encounter with very little to no effort on their part.

This forces the Dm to start ramping up “his game” and start throwing more and more powerful encounters at the party, or worse start to actively use tactics to counter his pcs. Things like anti-magic field, disjunction, walls you can’t Teleport through etc. all this is to just provide a challenge for his OP party.

Now when this powerful stuff gets hit with the “nerf bat” then the pcs don’t have the power (or at least not as much power) to ramp up the game. The Dm doesn’t have to counter his pc’s he can simply provide entertaining and engaging encounters for his players to enjoy.