D&D vs. Point-Buy System Balance

[Tinydwarfman]

Was browsing around BG and saw a thread about min/maxing in other systems. Though I'd post my opinions about it and see what the playground though.

While point-buy systems have huge amounts of options and combinations, the biggest exploits always come from bad design. D&D really dropped the ball with the inherent balance of 3.5, as core is all over the place. I actually wonder how much long they could have worked on it with such blatant unbalances in base classes. They just had to look at the stats of a fighter vs. a druid and his companion to see it. While PB systems like GURPS (only point-buy system I know well) reward system mastery, a magic user will not always outclass a melee fighter. While you could attribute this to the immense variability in character creation, the fact remains that most options are relatively equal.

Some people say that it's just the mindset of D&D that causes this problem, and GURPS just doesn't have enough min/maxers, but GURPS also has online forums, and is a very crunchy system, so I think that people would have figured it out already.

What do you think? Is D&D poorly designed? Are GURPS and other point-buy systems just inherently unbalanced?

[Yora]

D&D doesn't have much problems if you don't play with optimizers and play as a team. Some druid abilities are really unneccessary, but if a cleric or wizard player takes up the role of supporting the other party members, there aren't that much problems.

[Traveler]

The people I play with generally pick want they want to be based on flavor or they want to play a character in a certain way. So generally, while magic users tend to show show the rest of the PCs up on power after a while, they still arn't optimized when stats are concerned so the D&D system works for us.

[erikun]

I'm not sure what minmaxing has to do with anything. After all, you're talking about the game design of the basic classes - that is, unoptimized play styles. From the games I've played, there are some pretty clear balance issues between, say, a Fighter and a Cleric.

[oxybe]

D&D doesn't have much problems if you don't play with optimizers and play as a team. Some druid abilities are really unneccessary, but if a cleric or wizard player takes up the role of supporting the other party members, there aren't that much problems.

the main problem with that argument is that you're effectively telling the wizard to hold back so the others can catch up and it's a bit insulting to both parties involved: you're telling the fighter or monk that he can't pull his own share of the weight without a bull's strength from the wizard to boost him up, and that the wizard can't flex his reality warping muscle since as he'd like to so the fighter doesn't feel left out.

the main problem with 3rd ed is the versatility of the casters. from one day to the next, the wizard, cleric and druid could swap out their abilities on a daily basis (the druid did have a few unnecessary abilities... casting+shapeshange+strong pet who shares buffs... ouch). nothing wrong with the wizard or cleric classes in themselves, but they were far too versatile thanks to their spells. to balance out the casters, you need to fix the spell lists first.

to go back to the GURPS, a "true" D&D caster is kinda like having a GURPS character with a floating pool of X points that they can re-allocate every day on a specific, albeit very large, list of abilities. it's not too overpowering at the start, but as the pool grows larger and larger, they become too versatile.

the problem is that unlike D&D GURPS doesn't really benefit from overspecialization past a certain point. D&D classes are set archetypes, and already specialize to a certain degree. you can try to go outside of that archetype, but you're usually better off staying within the expected scope of your class and start focusing. this is because even though you're focusing on one thing (let's say you're making a power attacking Frenzied Berserker), other variables are still going up at the same time. you're focusing on your damage, but even as you level up, you keep gaining a bigger BAB, Saves, Skill points, HP, ect...

in GURPS, you generally only get a few XP at a time, so if you keep funneling them into one or two things, you'll only be able to do one or two things... period. sure, some skills default to skill/attribute X-Y but you're usually better off kinda focusing on a handful of skills and rounding out your character with the rest.

all systems can be broken when you start digging deep enough in the mechanics to eke out benefits.

[Flickerdart]

PB systems aren't inherently balanced, though: just take a look at M&M where there are any number of ways to create absolute monsters with minimal PP expenditure while others will have something like +1 to punching for the same cost.

[PinkysBrain]

Balance for a fantasy game isn't done by word play, D&D despite it's lack of balance has produced the only reasonable test ... the Same Game Test ...

A challenge for all those who always say they can convert anything to GURPS ... give me a conversion of the same game test for say 200 point adventurers with 100 point disadvantage limit (GURPS + Fantasy + Magic + Banestorm).

Once we have such a test we can throw some of the classical D&D archetypes at it and see how much better it does.

[Dr Bwaa]

The reason 3.5 is the way it is seems to be largely attributable to the fact that Wizards thought, when they designed the system, that everyone was only going to play tropes. That is, Cleric=Healz, Wiz=Fireball, Druid=Control Weather (with animal companion literally a companion), Fighter=fighting-style specialist, barbarian=power attack, and so on. What they failed to realize is that if the party worked together or used any ingenuity at all, certain classes (namely, those with the most options) would be much, much more effective than others.

So I guess in general I'm agreeing with you--the exploits in D&D come from Wizards refusing to consider that players might play characters other than obvious tropes. From these "unorthodox" categories, you get Batman, CoDzilla, etc.

[Tinydwarfman]

Balance for a fantasy game isn't done by word play, D&D despite it's lack of balance has produced the only reasonable test ... the Same Game Test ...

A challenge for all those who always say they can convert anything to GURPS ... give me a conversion of the same game test for say 200 point adventurers with 100 point disadvantage limit (GURPS + Fantasy + Magic + Banestorm).

Once we have such a test we can throw some of the classical D&D archetypes at it and see how much better it does.

I'm sorry, but what is the save game test exactly? I've never heard of it.

[tyckspoon]

I'm sorry, but what is the save game test exactly? I've never heard of it.

Same game test. That is, you design a scenario covering a broad range of challenges, consisting of skill/combat/social/etc, all the jobs that you would want party members to fill. This is your game. Then you build a bunch of characters of all the classes you want to test, using all the variants you want to test, and you run them all through that game. Do it a couple dozen times or more, to level out any runs of abnormal luck. Track the results and you find out which classes and abilities can approach almost any problem, which ones are just following the party around until they hit the one thing they can do, which ones find a party to be more of a convenience than a necessity.. basically, it's running an empirical test on D&D where the controlled factor is the game they all contend in (hence 'Same Game'.)

[Chrono22]

No, point buy systems are not inherently broken or badly designed. The trick is to guide/reinforce "positive" players choices via the interplay of the rules. Make the opportunity costs of overspecialization extremely expensive. If niche protection is a priority for you, use prerequisites to encourage "healthy" levels of specialization. Make a balanced character the optimum choice for play.

I rather think class-based systems are inherently poorly designed, since the concept of a class is entirely artificial and exists only in the abstract. It also doesn't lend itself well to the requirements of immersion play, but it does add to expediency (which I guess helps if you want to run combats). It also doesn't really let a player exert total creative control (and therefore doesn't promote ownership/attachment) for their character.

[Fiery Diamond]

No, point buy systems are not inherently broken or badly designed. The trick is to guide/reinforce "positive" players choices via the interplay of the rules. Make the opportunity costs of overspecialization extremely expensive. If niche protection is a priority for you, use prerequisites to encourage "healthy" levels of specialization. Make a balanced character the optimum choice for play.

I rather think class-based systems are inherently poorly designed, since the concept of a class is entirely artificial and exists only in the abstract. It also doesn't lend itself well to the requirements of immersion play, but it does add to expediency (which I guess helps if you want to run combats). It also doesn't really let a player exert total creative control (and therefore doesn't promote ownership/attachment) for their character.

I think most people were agreeing with you on this.

However, I do have a comment to make on your last sentence. NO system (other than freeform, if you consider that a system) allows a player to exert total creative control for their character. Having total creative control would mean having no limitations at all. Most actual games don't work very well if there are no restrictions; so all games (barring freeform) have some form of restriction framework. Point-buy systems have a different, and looser, restriction framework than class-based systems, but neither allows complete control.

[Chrono22]

However, I do have a comment to make on your last sentence. NO system (other than freeform, if you consider that a system) allows a player to exert total creative control for their character. Having total creative control would mean having no limitations at all. Most actual games don't work very well if there are no restrictions; so all games (barring freeform) have some form of restriction framework. Point-buy systems have a different, and looser, restriction framework than class-based systems, but neither allows complete control.
Um, if you wanted to take it to that extreme, you could even say that free form doesn't allow total creative control, since it inherently requires certain levels of cooperation and compromise (thereby limiting choice).
Let's not niggle over inconsequential technicalities. I was referring to the system itself reinforcing/pushing particular character concepts/builds/roles, when (IMO) the system should reinforce a player's conception of his character. I think a system that works like play dough instead of legos is going to be better at shaping to the users' desires.

[Sinfire Titan]

No, point buy systems are not inherently broken or badly designed. The trick is to guide/reinforce "positive" players choices via the interplay of the rules. Make the opportunity costs of overspecialization extremely expensive. If niche protection is a priority for you, use prerequisites to encourage "healthy" levels of specialization. Make a balanced character the optimum choice for players.

Oberoni Fallacy. 'Nuff said. PB systems favor optimization, and have a higher unbalance potential than other systems due to sheer number of possible interactions. No one DM is able to catalogue all of them, but this goes for mostly every system.

[Chrono22]

Oberoni Fallacy. 'Nuff said. PB systems favor optimization, and have a higher unbalance potential than other systems due to sheer number of possible interactions. No one DM is able to catalogue all of them, but this goes for mostly every system.
The trick is that you DON'T have to catalog all of the interactions. Only the ones the players intend to use. It is the responsibility of the players and GM to identify and communicate their objectives and intentions for play, and then abide by them. It's not a matter of fixing a broken rule- it's a matter of compromising and agreeing to a particular playstyle/genre and then using the rules to reinforce and support it.
Note that a player using an exploit in one game is breaking it, and in another he is using the tools at hand. The problem of balance arises from conflicts between the GM's and players' intentions for play, not because of the rules.
Bad design is when the rules don't do what they are intended to. That's why, IMO, the best rules are the ones whose purposes are guided by the players' and GM. Assist me, guide me, but get out of my way.

And you are misapplying the oberani fallacy, which really doesn't support your argument that point buy is inherently bad design in the first place.

[Tinydwarfman]

Oberoni Fallacy. 'Nuff said. PB systems favor optimization, and have a higher unbalance potential than other systems due to sheer number of possible interactions. No one DM is able to catalogue all of them, but this goes for mostly every system.

You see, people say this, but I'm just not seeing this. Even limiting to just core, D&D is unbalanced with so few choices. D&D with all of it's splatbooks actually probably has more options and configurations than GURPS, because of the huge amount of crunch support that is received in latter books. (95% of the crunch is in GURPS core, as latter sourcebooks provide mostly flavor and advice)
The more choices = more system unbalance also doesn't stack up when in core, you make the most important decision - the choice between classes. There are only 11 options, but huge amounts of power is lost or gained depending on what you choose. I'd say the class-based systems are more unbalanced because they put too much weight on one choice.