Balancing all Classes to be of roughly equal tiers: Can it be done? How?

[DarkOne-Rob]

I have done alot of theory-crafting/reading/musing on the subjects of balance, class tiers, and game design lately. The more I think about it all, the more convinced I am that the huge disparity between the different tiers of classes is a result of two things: spells and rule specificity.

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Spells stand out as the first game-breaking component for high tier character classes. Basically every tier 1-3 class has a variety of spells available to them, and in many cases this is where the power creep occurs. If spells were re-written to avoid the exponential jump in power/versatility that occurs over time, would this "fix" the disparity in class tiers?

I would have to include that summoned monsters are also directly connected to the spell-power-creep. Is there a good way to manage this and still allow summoning in a game without it resulting in a vastly more powerful/versatile character simply due the the fact that there are more actions and abilities allowed a character who can summon help as opposed to one who cannot?

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Rule specificity is a very hindering thing to non-spellcasters in my opinion. Where a 3rd level wizard can effectively climb any wall and move along any surface they want with the Spider Climb spell, a 3rd level Rogue with max ranks in all appropriate skills and feats to support the decision will never come close to the same results by that level. Is this because the Spider Climb spell is broken? I would say it isn't, though without magic I cannot argue that a "vanilla" mortal could do the same. However, in a game system this results in a vastly unfair advantage when other classes can easily outperform a character who chooses to approach a problem using skills, feats, combat maneuvers, etc...instead of magic spells.

Every skill, every feat, and every combat action has a set of rules that guides the adjudication of a character attempting an action. However, most of those rules are completely overpowered by a choice spell or two. Given the nature of a role playing game, we need those rules to make the game work. However, is there a way to make the rogue a comparable equal to the wizard without giving them magic?

If the rules remain as specific as they are, then the skill junkie/combat maneuver bruiser will spend vastly more character resources (skill points, feats, etc...) to accomplish a more narrow and inferior result. Could we loosen the reigns on these rules? What if we do a further skill collapse? If we allowed combat maneuver-support feats to be less specific and instead apply to most/all combat maneuvers? Would this even scratch the surface of the problem (it surely wouldn't make people suddenly choose to be rogues/fighters instead of wizards...)?

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Is the better approach to make each class weaker at (or incapable of doing) different things? What if a wizard could out-"climb" a rogue, but needed that rogue to do something else they couldn't do? In 3.5 the Trapfinding class feature at least made a Trapfinding class strongly recommended for a party. Today, a Cleric can find the traps better and the party ignores, avoids, or deliberately sets off the traps so that they are inconvenienced the least possible.

Should Pathfinder "2.0" or D&D 5.0 or whatever attempt to deal with things in this manner, or is there a better way?

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I haven't even begun to talk about utterly broken (as in, don't work" character classes. Is this just poor design, or a lost cause? Does anyone have any good thoughts on this?

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Thanks for your thoughts and input. I would sure enjoy a helpful discussion on this topic. Who knows, maybe we can find a satisfying way to let a player make a fighter in the same party as a wizard and not feel so useless for the decision...

- DarkOne7141981

[Captnq]

No.

Look. There was a game that was very balanced. It was called TWIRPS. You had one stat, strength. It was dull as hell.

Now, Amber, that didn't even have dice. You just had four stats. But you know something, there was quite a bit of "other" in that came. In fact, I would say parts were quite broken. "I have pattern, you have logrus, our stats are roughly equal, I win." But you know, it was fun.

d20 3.0/3.5 if you include 2nd party, 3rd party, and all that jazz is simply the largest game rule set EVER. This is more byzantine then anything before it or since. And that's why it's fun.

Trying to "fix" it is basically trying to make it dull. You can't fix it. You can never make it "fair", because fair is a relative term. Monk is a Tier 5, I'm told. Yet for the player's I run for, the monk is simply a terror. Why? The player is a terror. She is a god-damn optimizing machine.

It's always going to be imbalanced and it's up to the individual DMs to handle rebalancing because balancing is also dependent on the player.

There ARE things you can do:

You can streamline. You can remove things that slow down play. You can look at things nobody ever uses and add things to encourage people to use them. But you have to make changes slowly. Because, as I said, it's the largest rule set EVER. Any change, no matter how small, could result in rendering the game unplayable. You change a little, see how it goes, move onto something else, and just keep tweeking, over and over and over.

[Gavinfoxx]

No. Next question.

Okay okay...


Just play Legend

http://ruleofcool.com/

[Lanaya]

Not without so drastically changing those classes that they are no longer recognisable. But you can rebalance things so that every class is T3 or so. Keep the current T3 classes, cut all the rest and you're basically done. You've got potent martial classes from ToB, specialised and flavourful magic-users (bard, beguiler, binder and dread necromancer), natural warriors (wildshape rangers), skill monkeys (factotum) and gishes (duskblade and psychic warrior). Some other classes can be added with a few simple adjustments, such as adding more invocations known to the warlock to make it T3, but the big outliers such as wizards, clerics, druids, fighters and monks aren't going to hit that sweet spot without massive reworking.

[eggynack]

To go against the grain, yes. However, it would require rewriting a solid majority of the spells and psionic powers in existence, which is a hassle. In other words, no, or at least not without ending up with a totally different system. If you want all classes to be of roughly equal tiers, just ban everything that's outside of some tier range from the game you're playing. It's much cleaner.

[visigani]

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=284494) has worked wonderfully for my gaming group.

[The Trickster]

I think 3.5 is far to broken to be completely fixed. The best way to "fix" it would be to have a simple Gentleman's Rule that states that the players will refrain from using broken stuff (broken being at the discretion of the players and the DM).

I have played games where I was a wizard and someone else was a fighter. I was that "magic missle" using guy. Not because I wanted to, but because I knew that I could make the fighter feel weak if I decided live up to my potential. Doing this solved many of the problems, and we all had fun. That is probably the best way to go about it.

[lunar2]

i'm also going to say no, not without creating a new system in the process. your best bet is to either limit class choices to within certain tiers, or homebrew classes within those tiers.

[Isamu Dyson]

Not really.

[137beth]

Many people have written T3 fixes for every core base class, and some others. Not only can it be done, but it has been done, many times.

Most existing fixes for low-tier classes work by combining different classes, beefing up their class features, and/or adding/modifying combat feats.

You can lower the tier of a caster by going in the opposite direction: chopping up its spell list, and splitting each tier 1 caster into several classes, with manageable lists. Remember that the healer is a tier 5 full caster because its spell list is too limited--the target when making a tier 2-4 spell list is to make it bigger and more versatile than the healer's list, but much less expansive than a wizard's spell list.
Alternatively, just get rid of high level spells.

...so, not without a lot of work. But it's still not as much work as writing a whole new system.

[johnbragg]

My best effort:

"Mundane classes" means classes who do not get spells (or manifest psionic powers, or invocations, etc) at first level.

Iterative attacks are at full BAB, one extra for every six Mundane levels. (2 at 7, 3 at 13, 4 at 19.)

Tier 1-2.
Rebuilt Sorcerers lose access to spells above 4th level. They use the spell slots for metamagic for lower level spells. Instead of getting higher level Spells Known, they get 10 spell levels to "spend" on new 1st-4th level spells, or on upgrading a 1st level spontaneous spell to an at-will spell. (Upgrading a known 1st level spell costs 1 level)

Rebuilt Wizards act as Int-based Sorcerers, using the Sorcerer tables from 1-9 and following the same rules as the Rebuilt Sorcerer. They are spontaneous casters, but they learn their spells from books. This limits their selection of spells a bit, but they can also make Spellcraft checks to cast spells from a spellbook, even if they haven't learned the spell.

Pseuocleric a class designed for gestalting.
As Commoner, plus:
Turn Undead
Cast Domain Spells (and only domain spells) from 4 domains appropriate to your deity. (Everyone can take healing.) At every odd-numbered level, you add a new spell level up to 9th.

Warrior//Pseudocleric, Pseudocleric//Adept, Pseudocleric//Paladin

Rebuilt Druid. No Wildshape for druids.
Spontaneous Divine Caster.
Spell List: Druid Spell List
Spells Known: Use PHB/SRD Sorcerer table, plus Summon Nature's Ally at each level
Spells Per Day: As Pseudocleric//Adept.

Wildshape Variant Ranger.

Fighter gets to Tier 4 if he can get a few more feats as good as Power Attack. Shield feats that adds 1/2 your BAB to your AC, allowing you to intercept attacks on others. A TWF feat that allows you to use your off-hand weapon to make special attacks (Combat Expertise, Disarm, Trip etc) while the other hand is attacking. Throw in some skill points and let him declare 2 skillls as "background" skill, which are in-class.

[IronFist]

It can be done.

It's called D&D 4e.

[molten_dragon]

It could be done, but a lot of classes, particularly spellcasters, would end up being nearly unrecognizable when you got done.

Let's say you were aiming at tier 3 or 4 for example. It would be relatively easy to bring the classes lower than that tier up.

Taking the Tier 1 and 2 classes down is where it gets tough.

For a wizard, you'd need to create something like the warmage/dread necromancer/beguiler where they cast off of a limited list. Probably one for each school of magic.

The cleric you could limit them to getting 9 levels of spellcasting from only the domains their deity offers, and maybe getting up to level 3 or 4 general cleric spells.

The druid you'd have to completely break apart. Wild shape by itself (maybe with a few buffs) would make a decent tier 3 or 4, do something with the animal companion, and you'd still have to limit their spellcasting to bring them down to 3 or 4.

If you want something where the classes are all balanced nearly equally, play 4th edition, it's much more balanced from what I've seen. It's boring though, because every class looks pretty much the same.

[Eldan]

Look at Morph Bark's Homebrew class Tier thread. Pick only classes from tier 3. That should be more than enough to cover pretty much any game concept.

[Vaz]

Trying to "Fix" it is basically trying to make it dull. You can't fix it. You can never make it "fair", because fair is a relative term. Monk is a Tier 5, I'm told. Yet for the player's I run for, the monk is simply a terror. Why? The player is a terror. She is a god-damn optimizing machine.

Colour me intrigued.

[Emperor Tippy]

Colour me intrigued.

Optimized monks can be nasty if the player knows how to use them, and that isn't punching people.

This is true even without multiclassing, with multiclassing the monk can become really nasty.

Necropolitan Gray Elf Swashbuckler 3/ Factotum 1/ Invisible Fist Decisive Strike Martial Monk 9/ Factotum 7 with Kung Fu Genius and Faerie Mysteries Initiate along with Craven, Assassin's Stance, and Shadowblade.

Select Spring Attack as your first Martial Monk bonus feat.

Martial Study: Cloak of Deception as your 6th level feat and Martial Stance: Assassin's Stance as your other 6th level feat before paying to Embrace/Shun Martial Study into Shadowblade now that it is no longer necessary.

Pick up Craven as your 9th level feat.

In combat you basically criss cross the battlefield hitting selected foes for a lot of damage (+Str, +Dex, +2xInt to anything that isn't immune to sneak attacks or critical hits, +Str, +Dex, +Int to anything that is) while regularly being invisible. You can also grab Int to Attack when you need it (and you use Dex instead of Str for attack rolls). If you decide to start next to a foe (or use a belt of battle to get an extra move action) then you do a Decisive Strike to double all of that bonus damage.

Factotum 3 (ECL 15) get's you +Int to initiative and all Str or Dex skills. ECL 16 gives you the ability to really nova against anything that isn't immune to sneak attacks.

At ECL 20 you get to take extra standard actions. And that means that 1 foe per round get's to suffer a decisive strike followed up by another couple of double damage attacks. A Great Wyrm Red has 660 HP.

Minimum damage for each attack that hits is +110 if a sneak attack lands (+70 without SA). The Monk can drop 8-10 of those in a round.

Throw on an Extended Persistent Selective Antimagic Field (can be bought from a scroll with appropriate metareducers applied for 3,825 GP) to bring down magical defenses and items and you have a really nasty little scout/assassin.

Pick up a Skin of Proteus, a Belt of Magnificence +6, and a Third Eye Conceal along with a flight method.

You aren't a tier 1 caster but you can compete favorably with tier 3 at every level, you are primarily using Monk abilities, and you aren't a drag on the party. You can scout, skill monkey, and contribute in combat while not being overly reliant on items (at least not more than most every other non Tier 1-2 class in the game).

You are definitely melee biased but you can contribute at range fairly well when you need to.

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If you want good pure monks outside of really high optimization then you want archery monks. You can build a core only archery monk that is actually one of the best archery builds in core. With all sources you can make really nasty archery monks.

[Jormengand]

Yes. Make anyone who wants to be a spellcaster play bard, magus (PF), inquisitor (PF). Make anyone who doesn't play a ToB class. Or, Morph's homebrew collection has a ton of T3 classes for your amusement.

[13_CBS]

If all of the classes are adjusted to be around the same Tier, it's possible you might get something like this:


I actually played around with this idea by making a new set of 11 core classes to replace the old. Note this makes some use of T4 classes.

Wizard, Rogue -> Factotum
Druid -> Wild Shape Ranger (regular Ranger also available)
Sorcerer -> Warmage, Warlock, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer
Cleric, Paladin -> Crusader
Fighter, Barbarian -> Warblade
Ranger remains, but Wild Shape Ranger is allowed
Bard remains
Monk -> Unarmed Swordsage (regular Swordsage also available)
Binder added

So the new base classes are Factotum, Ranger (including Wild Shape Ranger), Warmage, Warlock, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Crusader, Warblade, Swordsage (including Unarmed variant), Bard, and Binder. You've got nice quick and easy translations of the old classes... obviously a Crusader or Wild Shape Ranger can't do everything a Cleric or Druid can, but we wouldn't expect a T3 class to completely duplicate a T1.

JaronK

[Lans]

You can get just about any class up to tier 3 with out changing them to be unreconizable, past that you lose the mundane classes.

For example fighters- give them an additional bonus feat per level starting at 3, more class skills and skills, then look at the various fighter ACFs and add them in. Should be about tier 3.

[mabriss lethe]

I think the consensus here is that there are 3 ways to do it, one of them isn't viable and another would still be a lot of work.

1. The easiest. Limit your players' access to only the classes and source material in the tiers you wish represented.

2. Difficult, but not impossible: Build a new game from the core conceits of 3e, keeping in mind the pitfalls and traps that break the source material. This is still dependent upon a limited amount of sources. The more material added, the more chance for power creep and broken combinations.

3. So difficult as to be unfeasible: Rebuild and repair 3.X class by class and rule by rule, remembering that every change made at the top will cascade down through the rest of the material that depends on those rules and classes, making some prone to abuse in ways you never dreamed possible, and some completely incompatible with the current iteration of the rules until you work your way down to that source, change it to fit the top most alterations and start the cascade all over again.

[Big Fau]

It can be done.

It's called D&D 4e.

4E is more balanced than 3.5, but it comes with a steep price: Versatility. Characters in 4E are little better than low Tier 4's, and almost universally specialize in dealing damage. The entire point of 4E is numerical bonuses and playing "Keep up with the CR system", all the while being strangled by the roles that the Devs forced each class to fulfil.

4E is balanced on the vertical scale, but achieved that by completely forsaking the lateral scale that D&D has had since AD&D.

[afrenchpenguin]

You could have them all play commoners.

Commoners who get together to be fantasy heroes in a tabletop game.

In which they play commoners.

[DarkOne-Rob]

Original post-writer here:

Ok, a couple of things have gone off in the thread that have been informative and interesting. The discussions of feats, collapsing them, and their different values to the martial classes brings up some interesting thoughts. The discussion of 4th edition's efforts to balance things was one of the ideas that sounded good at first and then went south very fast in my opinion.

What I am asking for is a discussion of the following things:

1. Rules that are under-utilized that should be used to better limit the higher-tier classes. Examples might include spellbook issues for wizards and such, spell limitations for divine casters based on divine fiat, utilizing spell components even for low-cost components, carefully reading casting times and adjudicating complicated spells strictly, etc...

2. Spells that do too much or are simply too powerful. I am not necessarily referring to combat spells, though they can be included. I am mostly trying to talk about the spells that present so many (more) options (than a spell should) and allow them to (inappropriately) fulfill rolls outside their usual niches. This could include class abilities like wildshape/transformative spells, summoning spells, divinations (?), game altering spells like Genesis, etc...

3. Buffing the severly handicapped classes. While the fighter is a great example of simple tier 4/5 class, the real disasters are the tier 6 classes and cases like the Rogue (where many people have simply stopped utilizing them entirely). Feel free to continue to discuss feat solutions, but let's fix the very flavorful but incapable classes too.

4. I am actually interested in designing serious revisions to classes, so if the subject is that the base class is too strong/weak, I want to consider fixes for that. While I realize you cannot ignore spells when considering the tier 1 classes, is the basic spell progression FUBARed? Should we take away bonus feats from the Wizard? Does anyone think the bloodlines for Sorcerors are too much? If so, what should we do to make those classes flavorful, well designed, balanced (?) classes?

Thanks for the continued discussions!

[Eldan]

Wizards and other prepared casters could probably be brought down to tier 2 quite easily: give them a limit on spells written in their spellbook. Slightly more than a sorcerer's spells known.

Taking the tier 2s down to tier 3 is quite harder. You'd have to go over the spell list and cut out everything too powerful.

[eggynack]

Wizards and other prepared casters could probably be brought down to tier 2 quite easily: give them a limit on spells written in their spellbook. Slightly more than a sorcerer's spells known.

Taking the tier 2s down to tier 3 is quite harder. You'd have to go over the spell list and cut out everything too powerful.
Well, you cut cut everything out, or you could divide everything up. I dunno how many classes you would need to contain all wizardly archetypes into a pile of tier 3's (I suspect that some schools would need to be subdivided) and get a bunch of beguilers.

[lunar2]

Original post-writer here:

Ok, a couple of things have gone off in the thread that have been informative and interesting. The discussions of feats, collapsing them, and their different values to the martial classes brings up some interesting thoughts. The discussion of 4th edition's efforts to balance things was one of the ideas that sounded good at first and then went south very fast in my opinion.

What I am asking for is a discussion of the following things:

1. Rules that are under-utilized that should be used to better limit the higher-tier classes. Examples might include spellbook issues for wizards and such, spell limitations for divine casters based on divine fiat, utilizing spell components even for low-cost components, carefully reading casting times and adjudicating complicated spells strictly, etc...

2. Spells that do too much or are simply too powerful. I am not necessarily referring to combat spells, though they can be included. I am mostly trying to talk about the spells that present so many (more) options (than a spell should) and allow them to (inappropriately) fulfill rolls outside their usual niches. This could include class abilities like wildshape/transformative spells, summoning spells, divinations (?), game altering spells like Genesis, etc...

3. Buffing the severly handicapped classes. While the fighter is a great example of simple tier 4/5 class, the real disasters are the tier 6 classes and cases like the Rogue (where many people have simply stopped utilizing them entirely). Feel free to continue to discuss feat solutions, but let's fix the very flavorful but incapable classes too.

4. I am actually interested in designing serious revisions to classes, so if the subject is that the base class is too strong/weak, I want to consider fixes for that. While I realize you cannot ignore spells when considering the tier 1 classes, is the basic spell progression FUBARed? Should we take away bonus feats from the Wizard? Does anyone think the bloodlines for Sorcerors are too much? If so, what should we do to make those classes flavorful, well designed, balanced (?) classes?

Thanks for the continued discussions!

2. alter self, polymorph, polymorph any object, shapechange, summon X, wish, miracle, grease, divine power, righteous might, forcecage, sleep, entangle, black tentacles, knock, etc... that's a short list of spells that are broken at the level you get them, for whatever reason. all of them share one of two things in common. they either allow the caster to function in another role at least as well as someone in that role, or they can bypass encounters entirely. it is spells like these that need to be nerfed, raised in spell level, or done away with entirely, depending on the spell.

3. actually, the rogue is more versatile than the fighter, it just has trouble hitting it's numbers. a simple buff for it is increasing the HD to D8, the BAB to full, and changing trap sense from a bonus to AC and saves to a bonus on search and disable device checks related to traps.

most of the T6 classes are NPC classes, and so are fine where they are. the samurai is completely replaceable by the fighter, so dropping it entirely is better/easier than trying to fix it.

[Psyren]

Should Pathfinder "2.0" or D&D 5.0 or whatever attempt to deal with things in this manner, or is there a better way?


Should they? Absolutely not. The potential power attainable by T2 and T1 classes is seldom realized in real-world games; the fabled god-wizard seldom exists outside messageboards and TO treatises. And almost every attempt to curb its potential results in removing texture, flavor and creativity from the system as a whole.

[Kelryn_grey]

Should they? Absolutely not. The potential power attainable by T2 and T1 classes is seldom realized in real-world games; the fabled god-wizard seldom exists outside messageboards and TO treatises. And almost every attempt to curb its potential results in removing texture, flavor and creativity from the system as a whole.

This, a thousand times.
Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in seeing Fighters become a little more versatile outside of combat, but the problems people attribute to Fighter vs Wizard have been around since 2E.
If you pick up a different d20 game, like Arcana Evolved, for example, you can look at the classes and they feel different and a bit weird. D&D/PF has a long history and a feel that has developed over the years. When you tweak those roles it seems strange. Fighters aren't like Solar Exalted, and Wizards aren't like secretive cultists in Conan books.