DMs: Balance and fair play

[LadyLexi]

I am DMing a game for several players, we have a pretty good group playing but I'm having difficulty with the various power levels of the different characters. Some are very strong, able to easily win fights for their challenge rating, while others are significantly ill equipped for combat equal to their level.

The lay out kind of it goes: A Bard, A monk, A evocation wizard, A barbarian, and a Warlock. The Bard and the monk(Str mod 0) are newish players who don't deal much damage on the turns that they manage to hit. The wizard throws spells around without caring about the other party members, the barbarian crushes everything and the player has ridiculous luck with criticals, and the warlock flys and shoots down attacks from the sky, she's actually very effective and rarely gets hurt.

Enough about my game, How do you manage with deal with uneven character power in your games? Do you do things to help the weaker characters, send things that focus on the weaknesses of the stronger characters, or just ignore if things seem unfair, even if there are complaints?

[NavyBlue]

I try to create situations that have multiple solutions, or that require muktiple types of play to solve. Since the party rarely has two of the same class, this tends to give everyone something to do.

My players and I usually hang around after each session to chat. I'll usually try to gauge their level of interest/ enjoyment at this time. If they are all having fun, I take that as a success and keep going the way we have been.

[That_guy_there]

you're probably going to have to talk to the more experienced players and see if they'll be willing to tone down or reel in their characters a bit. I'm not saying make them suck but give the "lesser" characters a little more of a role. this happens every few games in the group i play with and this is the "best" solution we've come up with.

You also might need to tailor every few encounters to exploit the short comings of the "power PCs". But if you do this too often they'll probablly try to compansate and widen the power gap.

[kharmakazy]

Here is a misconception. Everyone doesn't have to be good at combat. Some characters are built to avoid it entirely. That's ok.

Now I'd talk to your monk and bard and see what they have to say about things. If they are having fun, that's fine. Lot's of newer players like to stand in the back and watch things get done for a while. If they are having a problem I would try and tailor things toward them a little bit. Possibly even going as far as working in loot that will make them more effective.

Also, I'd keep an eye on your barbarian's dice rolls. I've seen more than a few players fudge dice rolls and get crits all the time. It's silly, but people do it.

The wizard blasting party members should sort it self out. When the party gets tired of being blasted they will just clock him over the head or steal his spellbook.

[SowZ]

Well, is the bard a skillmonkey? I assume he is good socially? Give him more opportunities to use his good skills and social influence. As for combat, maybe he should use his songs more.

As for the monk, yeah, that is a class that is only good in combat except that he totally sucks in combat. Really, you should use some homebrews on him. At the very least, give him full BAB and take away the penalty to hit for flurry of blows!

When a power gap widens, you can give better gear to the weaker players. Give the stronger ones trinkets/new toys, too, just give the weak guys strong magic items if you can work it in.

[kharmakazy]

Give the monk a stone dragon belt so at least he can actually break boards with his hands...:smalltongue:

[LadyLexi]

Also, I'd keep an eye on your barbarian's dice rolls. I've seen more than a few players fudge dice rolls and get crits all the time. It's silly, but people do it.

The wizard blasting party members should sort it self out. When the party gets tired of being blasted they will just clock him over the head or steal his spellbook.

I've watched the rolls closely before, he doesn't cheat, he just is imbued with a bizarre luck when it comes to attack rolls. His skill checks usually fail with some comical effect.

The wizard is our most experienced player, he has read all the books, including the novels and every setting book. He knows the game better than I have the attention span to ever know. He's just not very considerate of others. The wizard is the reason most battles go down as quick as they do.

The Monk, she's having fun, this is her second game of D&D. Her monk isn't too bad, she has a monk's belt and generally uses her high mobility to beat up archers or casters, particularly those who stay far behind. She has clarified upon discovery that it was possible that she only hits for subdual damage. Despite not being very high in charisma, she is often acting as the secondary party face.

The bard likes doing what shes doing, and the fact that the other characters often forget the +1 to hit means that the pointed out bonus from the Bard is usually a big game changer. The player, she doesn't quite understand spells however. I've been trying to help with this though. I like her because she often takes charge if the other players are indecisive. Pushing the group forward into actions they might not otherwise take. Like to go fight pirates, or to save the villagers from Owlbears when the wizard says that they should move along.

Our warlock, a woman I have been in many campaigns with, plays her warlock just fine. Usually just fires at whatever the biggest thing is and takes her turns in under a minute unless fancy maneuvering needs to be done. She's great though and helps the newer players with their leveling up and item selection.

[SowZ]

I've watched the rolls closely before, he doesn't cheat, he just is imbued with a bizarre luck when it comes to attack rolls. His skill checks usually fail with some comical effect.

The wizard is our most experienced player, he has read all the books, including the novels and every setting book. He knows the game better than I have the attention span to ever know. He's just not very considerate of others. The wizard is the reason most battles go down as quick as they do.

The Monk, she's having fun, this is her second game of D&D. Her monk isn't too bad, she has a monk's belt and generally uses her high mobility to beat up archers or casters, particularly those who stay far behind. She has clarified upon discovery that it was possible that she only hits for subdual damage. Despite not being very high in charisma, she is often acting as the secondary party face.

The bard likes doing what shes doing, and the fact that the other characters often forget the +1 to hit means that the pointed out bonus from the Bard is usually a big game changer. The player, she doesn't quite understand spells however. I've been trying to help with this though. I like her because she often takes charge if the other players are indecisive. Pushing the group forward into actions they might not otherwise take. Like to go fight pirates, or to save the villagers from Owlbears when the wizard says that they should move along.

Our warlock, a woman I have been in many campaigns with, plays her warlock just fine. Usually just fires at whatever the biggest thing is and takes her turns in under a minute unless fancy maneuvering needs to be done. She's great though and helps the newer players with their leveling up and item selection.

The barbarian is effective, the wizard knows what is up and is powerful if sometimes a liability, the warlock is helpful and efficient and effective, the monk is having fun and has found a niche that makes her useful, the bard is acting like a leader which bards kind of are... I don't see a problem. Unless the monk and bard complain about combat, not much needs to be changed. But I would still give the monk full BAB because good gods.

[kharmakazy]

Wait, the monk thinks it does subdual damage? No. It doesn't. You know... unless it wants to.

You can make sure there are enough encounters per day to exhaust the wizards spells so he can't just nova on every fight then go to sleep.

[NavyBlue]

The barbarian is effective, the wizard knows what is up and is powerful if sometimes a liability, the warlock is helpful and efficient and effective, the monk is having fun and has found a niche that makes her useful, the bard is acting like a leader which bards kind of are... I don't see a problem. Unless the monk and bard complain about combat, not much needs to be changed. But I would still give the monk full BAB because good gods.

I agree... Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves, so there doesn't appear to be any real issue.

[danzibr]

Wait, the monk thinks it does subdual damage? No. It doesn't. You know... unless it wants to.

You can make sure there are enough encounters per day to exhaust the wizards spells so he can't just nova on every fight then go to sleep.
I think that's important (the encounters per day). I'm playing a game where we rest after every 1 or 2 encounters (not terribly tough encounters, either), giving casters a huge advantage, obviously.

[Togo]

Spells, action for action, are supposed to be better than other alternatives. The balancing factor is that they are a limited resource. Even a primary spellcaster has only 6-9 spells of his highest three levels in any given day.

So you need to make sure the days are longer. My favourite method is using plots that have time limits, so the party can't afford to wait for 8 hours just because the spells are runnnig low. Aim for longer days, 4-5 encounters a day on average, and the wizard will need to start planning his usage more. Oh, and don't tell people how many encounters to expect.

As it stands, it sounds like he's blasting everything because you run out of encounters before he runs out of fireballs.

But it sounds like you have a good balance of combat and non-combat, so you're definitely on the right track in terms of worrying about keeping all the players happy.

[Featherman]

You can make weak combatants feel useful (and really be useful) by making lots of skill checks both in and out of combat. When they are interacting with NPCs try to present possibilities for small bluffs, diplomacy or intimidate and change the attitude slightly if they are successful. Give them many opportunities to use listen, spot, search and survival and give minor but interesting information based on the checks. My favorites however are the various knowledge skills. They can provide information both in and out of combat and you can find uses for them practically anywhere. You can find surprising amount of use even for the "miscellaneous" skills like heal and appraise such as rolling heal in combat to judge how wounded a monster is. If you hard enough you can find an use for a skill in almost every situation.

Try to direct the bard towards skills that other group members don't have when they next level up. For example present the opportunity to use Knowledge: Religion, ask if anybody had that skill and after the session comment that it would be useful to study the cultists/undead/fiends in service of the dark god. When she uses an information-related skill explain the information to her character not just the group in general (for example: Gimble realizes he has seen these dark symbols before!). But you shouldn't probably force her to take skills that don't fit her character. Also don't forget the Bardic Lore!

You can increase the combat strength of the monk by providing a powerful item that will most likely go to her such as a monk weapon, something powered by stunning fist attempts or something that provides wisdom in addition to combat benefits. Don't make it too obvious that you are just trying to increase her combat strength and don't overdo it.

I find that the gestalt variant from UA makes for much more balanced and useful characters. It is much harder to "ruin" a gestalt character than it is for a normal one. Even though the character creation make be slightly more complicated for new players I find that overall it results in much more useful and balanced characters. There are a few obvious bad combinations (sorcerer/wizard is the most obvious) but from my experiences no one really wants to do those and generally people want two classes with different abilities. Also I have a houserule that every character gains extra three feats. As long as they aren't abused I feel it helps in making every character useful and makes creating a failure character much harder. While it is too late to apply these now for your game think about them the next time you DM.

[Killer Angel]

for the combat part, use groups of enemies of different strenght and abilities and divide 'em.

[Acanous]

Giving the monk the Half Celestial template for free seems to fix a lot of a monk's problems. Most notably the ability to fly. A couple of the abilities are nice, like the resistances.

Half-Celestial human Monk can actually keep up with the party, if they spend gold and put ranks in UMD.

[Cor1]

Mechanically, yeah, I second the encounters per day argument. My Psion made the party roflstomp everything we happened to meet, and could as well solo everything. Thrown three more encounters without time to rest or recharge, and it's suddenly much less dangerous.

[The Boz]

Bard: I have no idea what to do with a Bard in combat. Direct his attention to the CC side of his spell repertoire, warn him that casting those spells on stronger creatures is a dull idea, and make sure you make plenty of social situations in your campaign? That sounds like a start. I could never get Bards.
Monk: Shameless self-plug. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13536035#post13536035) Otherwise, they suck hard unless you're the type of DM that uses weak enemies with almost no AC, pitfalls and cliffs, poisons, diseases, fireballs and marathon running exclusively.
Wizard: Evocation wizards are kind of good. As long as he isn't using 4 or fewer spells to replicate entire classes, it's all good.
Barbarian: Not a problem.
Warlock: Rocs. Also, wyrms. Dire eagles. Dire bats. Spellcasters. Ready action archers.