D&D = The Unbalanced Game

[Omegas]

You know I have always hated this debate. We as players demand diversity from the writers while criticizing any imbalance. Do players really want every character to do the same damage, same defenses, everything, etc regardless of what class they choose? Simply defining that they achieve their abilities in different ways?

I think a great deal of the imbalance is an outright misconception of playing style on the part of the players. There is no debate in D&D that Casters "CAN" overshadow Fighters, but just because they can does not mean they "MUST". If a party has a good thief there is no reason to prepare or fill a spell slot with the knock spell.

To get the full advantage of D&D a party should be composed of a rounded group. The DMG recommends at least one combative, expert, and caster type. This however can conflict with player desires. Too often players do not consider the needs of the party when creating their characters. As a result the DM must adjudicate out elements of the game or present the party with challenges that they may not have the resources to overcome.

As a result the writes gave spells the versatility needed to make up for missing class elements. As pointed out above, although a caster can overshadow other classes it is usually the fault of the player not the writers when they choose to do so.

Characters do not need to be the biggest kid on the sand pile. They just need to be stronger then the BBEG, or Big Burly Good Guy if playing an evil campaign. If other party member's are carrying their weight in the game then it is a bad caster that intentionally overshadows them. AKA spells like knock that give casters the ability to be any class when the class is already present in the party. Now if a class or an ability is missing then by all means these spells serve a vital purpose.

Also if the fighter is finishing off the last foe and it appears they have it well under hand, then it is simply bad form for a caster to step in and waste a spell to wipe the foe out. A good caster would buff and encourage the fighter or demoralize the foe.

As the DMG suggests; It is when a caster steals the lime light that they become imbalanced. The point of D&D is to tell a story that challenges players intellectually, while keeping them interested with a balanced amount of problem solving and combat. If your players hang around a tavern waiting on the next fool to run in screaming "Please save us" from some monster, then they should be playing miniatures or click games, not D&D.

A good D&D campaign is a balance between skill oriented story telling, combat, and group problem solving. It is foolish or at least naive to expect seamless balance between the endless diversities of game play styles that we demand of the writers.

Also; D&D like many games is evolving. Foresight is often difficult to obtain even with beta testing. Looking back at Alpha or Advanced D&D the game has come a long way. The writers are learning from their mistakes while attempting to retain a unique identity from other RPGs. I think the greatest problem we as players face is that we expect fair balance while demanding diversity and flawless foresight from the writers. We also expect the game to fit our play style while not accepting that millions of players do not play the same way.

Additionally I am tired of people comparing the very best with the very worst without taking into account the hundreds of other classes. Ed Stark even stated that - "Fighters" are weak because they did not expect players to invest levels in Fighter beyond meeting prerequisites, but a straight Fighter is an easy NPC class to factor. To this day I have never seen a player take a bard all the way up. I am sure someone has but the raw advantages to multi or prestige classing is daunting. Many classes were never intended to be compared. Regardless even well designed prestige fighter types can be overshadowed by elite caster builds, because caster were designed to make up for many of the lacking skills and abilities in a party and debaters assume the mage always has time to prepare their spell list for a duel. I have made multiclassed fighter types that presented a special difficulty for even well played mages, simply by choosing the right gear and tactics.

If you disagree I am interested in hearing your point of view.

[Tvtyrant]

There is no debate in D&D that Casters foreshadow Fighter and Expert classes on the battle field, but D&D is not just about combat. Granted a great many DMs focus solely on battles, but that is not the writers fault. That is just poor story telling on the part of a lazy DM. The point is to tell a story that challenges players intellectually, while keeps them interested with a balanced amount of problem solving and balanced combat. If your players hang around a tavern waiting on the next fool to run in screaming save us from some monster, then they should be playing miniatures or click games, not D&D.

If you disagree I am interested in hearing your point of view.

Okay, I will start here. Cooperative story telling is a fantastic goal, and the primary reason we (my group and I) play the game. However if one member of the party solves a disproportionate number of problems it becomes "Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit."

So I want to know what out of combat problems you think will be better solved by none-casters than casters? Or even as well.

[NotScaryBats]

4e has a lot of balance between the classes. A lot of people think its great, but a lot of people are mad about the things that had to be given up in order to meet that balance.

So, I think it can certainly be more balanced than 3.5 has it.

That said, I really enjoy 3.5 and think that a lot of the High Optimization Arguments that people use don't actually come up in the majority of games. Certainly, it has been my experience that a game that starts at level 1 and peters out at level 3-4 doesn't really show the disparity between the classes that exists in the High Op Games. And those are the sorts of games that I actually seem to play -- DMs generally don't seem to want to do high level campaigns.

The Argument, of course, is that a Wizard is going to be better at everything than the Fighter and Expert, through clever use of scrolls and sourcebook diving, to come up with solutions that handily solve every problem. Again, this tends to happen in High Op Environments, which may not be where you are operating.

[eggynack]

Do players really want every character to do the same damage and have the same defenses regardless of what class they choose? Simply defining that they achieve their damage and defense in different ways?
it's very much possible to have a game with a ton of different classes with a much better balance level than we have now. Take a tier three only game, for example, and you have everything from classic casting to psionics to incarnum and a bunch of stuff in between, all packed into a game that's pretty balanced, if not perfectly so. Balance can be achieved by making everything the same, but it's only a sufficient, rather than a necessary, condition.


There is no debate in D&D that Casters foreshadow Fighter and Expert classes on the battle field, but D&D is not just about combat. Granted a great many DMs focus solely on battles, but that is not the writers fault.
Casters don't just overshadow mundanes on the battlefield. In fact, that's where balance is at its best, with fighters capable of applying all of their combat abilities to the task at hand. Which of the fighter's abilities contribute to puzzle solving, or diplomacy, or trap finding, or anything but combat? There's not much.


A good D&D campaign is a balance between skill oriented story telling, combat, and group problem solving. It is foolish or at least naive to expect seamless balance between the endless diversities of game play styles that we demand of the writers.
And a caster is better at pretty much all of those things, and many things besides.

[BrokenChord]

Ever heard of the Snowbluff axiom? This game is only fun BECAUSE everything is horribly flawed and unbalanced. Sure, people will complain, but there is literally no game that could ever get made ever that won't have people bitching about something.

[Tengu_temp]

There are many games that are better balanced than DND 3e, while offering a wide variety of options. For example, every other edition of DND. Or Mutants and Masterminds, a game that lets you build pretty much anything, and despite the instrinctive imbalance of a universal, superpower-based system, still manages to be more balanced than DND 3e.

Also, balance through combat vs non-combat is a fallacy. Most events where all the players participate and face a challenge together are combat. Non-combat stuff usually is handled by one character, and when more than one player is involved, it's usually through roleplaying and not rolls. Balancing a character by making them horrible at combat but awesome at something non-combat is not really balancing in most games.

[BrokenChord]

There are many games that are better balanced than DND 3e, while offering a wide variety of options. For example, every other edition of DND. Or Mutants and Masterminds, a game that lets you build pretty much anything, and despite the instrinctive imbalance of a universal, superpower-based system, still manages to be more balanced than DND 3e.

Also, balance through combat vs non-combat is a fallacy. Most events where all the players participate and face a challenge together are combat. Non-combat stuff usually is handled by one character, and when more than one player is involved, it's usually through roleplaying and not rolls. Balancing a character by making them horrible at combat but awesome at something non-combat is not really balancing in most games.

{{scrubbed}}

The rest of your post is right on the money. Cookies to you.

[AMFV]

There are many games that are better balanced than DND 3e, while offering a wide variety of options. For example, every other edition of DND. Or Mutants and Masterminds, a game that lets you build pretty much anything, and despite the instrinctive imbalance of a universal, superpower-based system, still manages to be more balanced than DND 3e.

Also, balance through combat vs non-combat is a fallacy. Most events where all the players participate and face a challenge together are combat. Non-combat stuff usually is handled by one character, and when more than one player is involved, it's usually through roleplaying and not rolls. Balancing a character by making them horrible at combat but awesome at something non-combat is not really balancing in most games.

That really depends on your game to be honest, there are games where noncombat can be very very important, and games where it's less so. But it's certainly possible to have a game where a combat focused character has almost no time to shine, and vis versa (though the reverse is more common)

Also I'm not really sure that "balance" was really that much of a design goal in 3.5, mostly they were trying to tie up some rules that had gotten really bloated, like racial level caps, multiclassing rules, greater character customization was a main goal

[Snowbluff]

Ever heard of the Snowbluff axiom? This game is only fun BECAUSE everything is horribly flawed and unbalanced. Sure, people will complain, but there is literally no game that could ever get made ever that won't have people bitching about something.

Oh yeah. That happened. I guess I'm GitP famous now. :smallredface:

[Augmental]

Do players really want every character to do the same damage and have the same defenses regardless of what class they choose? Simply defining that they achieve their damage and defense in different ways?

Class balance does not automatically mean class sameness.


There is no debate in D&D that Casters foreshadow Fighter and Expert classes on the battle field, but D&D is not just about combat.

The problem is that casters overshadow fighters and experts in noncombat situations as well.


That being said I will not debate that a fighter requires investing all if not more of their wealth into their gear merely to remain competitive, but keep in mind several of the base classes were designed to be gateways to prestige classes. Ed Stark even stated that - "Fighters" are weak because they did not expect players to invest levels in Fighter beyond meet prerequisites, but Fighter does serve to make a good NPC class.

If the fighter class was designed to be a gate into prestige classes, there should have been a mention of that somewhere in the class description.

[AuraTwilight]

There are many games that are better balanced than DND 3e, while offering a wide variety of options. For example, every other edition of DND. Or Mutants and Masterminds, a game that lets you build pretty much anything, and despite the instrinctive imbalance of a universal, superpower-based system, still manages to be more balanced than DND 3e.

Also, balance through combat vs non-combat is a fallacy. Most events where all the players participate and face a challenge together are combat. Non-combat stuff usually is handled by one character, and when more than one player is involved, it's usually through roleplaying and not rolls. Balancing a character by making them horrible at combat but awesome at something non-combat is not really balancing in most games.

Not to nitpick, but in M&M it's extraordinarily trivial to build a character with superpowers such as telekinetically killing anyone in the universe telekinetically regardless of distance or to create literally any object and then transform literally any object and thus be a high-tier Reality Warper.

The only things that keep this from happening is a DM saying "lolno", and the same really goes for D&D 3E.

[TheIronGolem]

First, "foreshadow" doesn't mean that. The word you want is "overshadow".


We as players demand diversity from the writers while criticizing any imbalance.
Yes, and there's no contradiction there. Diversity of classes does not necessitate that some classes be flat-out inferior to others. Areas of specialization, yes, but Caster Supremacy goes far outside that scope.


Do players really want every character to do the same damage and have the same defenses regardless of what class they choose? Simply defining that they achieve their damage and defense in different ways?
That's a strawman. What we want is an overall parity between classes, of which "damage and defense" is only one piece. It's fine for some classes to be better at combat than others. It's not fine for some classes to be better than all others at everything, and it's especially not fine for those classes to be better at other class's specialties than they themselves are.


There is no debate in D&D that Casters foreshadow Fighter and Expert classes on the battle field, but D&D is not just about combat.Well, first, this goes back to my previous point: that casters are better at fighting than the martial classes that are supposed to be the best at fighting, and that this is bad design.

More importantly, though, the Caster Supremacy problem isn't just about combat either; in fact it's actually a lot worse off the battlefield than on it.


Granted a great many DMs focus solely on battles, but that is not the writers fault. That is just poor story telling on the part of a lazy DM. The point is to tell a story that challenges players intellectually, while keeps them interested with a balanced amount of problem solving and balanced combat. If your players hang around a tavern waiting on the next fool to run in screaming save us from some monster, then they should be playing miniatures or click games, not D&D.
Not only does this point have nothing to do with whether Caster Supremacy is justified, but it's also completely wrong. Kick-in-the-door dungeoncrawling is every bit as legitimate a playstyle for D&D as any other, and running a campaign that way is not automatically a sign of "laziness", "poor storytelling" or otherwise bad DMing.

Side note: Anyone know if the above fallacy has been codified a la Stormwind or Oberoni?


Also; D&D like many games is evolving. Foresight is often difficult to obtain even with bata testing. Looking back at Alpha or Advanced D&D the games has come a long way.

I agree with this part. I feel that Caster Supremacy was actually quite a lot worse in the older editions (sorry grognards, but "wizards can't use swords" was not a balancing factor). However, this progress does not eliminate or justify the problems that still exist.


In my campaigns a caster dares not adventure without a good fighter and expert type in the party. The non-caster types bring as much to the table as the mage. It is all in how they play it.

Sorry, but it isn't. It's also in gentleman's agreements, houserules, and DM fiat (in addition to "how they play it", as you say). Those things can make an individual game lots of fun, but they don't invalidate the fact that a problem exists.


That being said I will not debate that a fighter requires investing all if not more of their wealth into their gear merely to remain competitive, but keep in mind several of the base classes were designed to be gateways to prestige classes. Ed Stark even stated that - "Fighters" are weak because they did not expect players to invest levels in Fighter beyond meet prerequisites, but Fighter does serve to make a good NPC class.
If Ed Stark said that, then Ed Stark should have known better. Prestige Classes are great, but they're not always the right fit for a given character concept. If they didn't expect anyone to play a 20th-level Fighter, they shouldn't have made Fighter a 20-level class.


My players invest in their fighter types. Meaning the fighter types end up with the most wealth followed by the expert types and finally the casters. This is their choice not something I imposed on them. They do what they can to make up for the imbalance within the game and as such they have more fun. That is the real point of the game.

Of course having fun is the real point of the game. Nobody has ever suggested anything to the contrary.

And it's good that you have fun at your games. We all do, else we wouldn't still be playing.

However, it's important to understand that just because you're having fun in spite of the balance problems doesn't mean that those problems don't exist or aren't actually problems.

[DR27]

it's very much possible to have a game with a ton of different classes with a much better balance level than we have now. Take a tier three only game, for example, and you have everything from classic casting to psionics to incarnum and a bunch of stuff in between, all packed into a game that's pretty balanced, if not perfectly so. Balance can be achieved by making everything the same, but it's only a sufficient, rather than a necessary, condition.This.

The OP framed this discussion as "imbalance or diversity, choose one." The thing is, you can have it both ways. It's way deeper than causing damage or preventing damage - players need multiple viable options throughout the game, and 3.5 fails to do that for a number of classes. 3.5 has created a situation where the most viable option is to play a caster of some variety because they have so few situations that they can't handle, but also includes classes that can't handle more than one situation. 3.5 is unfair to players who fail to choose that most viable option because they do not have an equal chance of contributing to encounters.

In short, I think that 3.5 could have been a game where each player had entirely different options but was balanced against one another. Instead of looking at things as "imbalance or diversity" I think what happened was "balance, diversity, and development time" - pick two. You do the math as to what WotC chose.

[Omegas]

The only things that keep this from happening is a DM saying "lol no", and the same really goes for D&D 3E.

Exactly :redcloak:

[Big Fau]

Do players really want every character to do the same damage and have the same defenses regardless of what class they choose? Simply defining that they achieve their damage and defense in different ways?

This is the major point that I will contend. The numbers being equal doesn't mean the game is balanced. For 3.5 damage and defenses are not the biggest issue (they are screwed up, but because the RNG is very easily bypassed); The issue is a caster can literally stop time/create demiplanes/enslave cities/outright erase someone from existence and the noncasters can only hit things with sticks. The fore-mentioned Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit video may be a joke, but it is accurate. I'm personally fine with spellcasters having some powerful options, but only if the noncasters can do something more interesting than hurting things.

I do find some amusement when someone bemoans noncasters for being a one-trick pony when spellcasters have only ever had one trick of their own: Standing on their high horse and lording over the game.

[Tvtyrant]

Exactly :redcloak:

Yeah, using a character who is a full caster and whose summons are themselves a difficult fight for a party is truly convincing. How much banning do you plan to do?

[OldTrees1]

Exactly :redcloak:

3.5 was well worth my money (worth it 2x over).
However it would be worth it 3x over if I had to fix it with DM fiat half as much without sacrificing the diversity that makes it so great.

This forum's homebrew and the later 3.5 products prove that 3.5 could have been done much better.

[Telonius]

Ed Stark even stated that - "Fighters" are weak because they did not expect players to invest levels in Fighter beyond meeting prerequisites, but Fighter does serve to make a good NPC class.
If you disagree I am interested in hearing your point of view.

I need to check up on this (http://www.enworld.org/ericnoah/3eoldnews9.htm) site, but if it is, at all, reliable...

Shenanigans.


"Dungeons & Dragons is really built around the fighter."
- Ed Stark, April 15, 2000.

EDIT: Double Shenanigans.

When asked which of the known prestige kits could a straight fighter have the easiest time to get into, he [Ed Stark] replied, "Of those in the DMG, none are really easy to get to that way. Prestige Classes have lots of requirements, many of which can't be met while staying inside one class."

[AuraTwilight]

Exactly :redcloak:

I was not agreeing with or supporting a single thing you said, sir.

[chaos_redefined]

As has already been stated, balance =/= sameness.

So, I'll tackle some of your other premises.

A campaign that is mostly combat is not a bad campaign. There are players and DMs who enjoy this, and, essentially, you are telling them that they are having badwrongfun.

Next off, if the fighter isn't good at fighting, what is he supposed to be good at? Also, casters are useful out of combat: the majority of the divination school is for out of combat use, enchantment and illusion has plenty of out of combat use, etc... So... casters are useful in and out of combat, while fighters are less useful at both.

Finally, the claim that the game evolved too much and we're asking WotC to see things better... Go look at the druid's wild shape ability. This is something that the WotC playtesters thought would only be used for out of combat. I mean, who would seriously want to turn into an animal? It's not like there are any animals that would be capable in combat. The same class gives you an animal to help you fight... This can only be explained as blatantly ignoring combat potential of abilities. This is sloppy design.

Also, a quick google check did not show that quote... Can you please source the part about Ed Stark saying fighters were supposed to go into prestige classes?

[Gnaeus]

I don't have a problem with 3.5's imbalance. It really isn't an issue to our group. I don't think it is a flaw.

The flaw to me is that there is really bad transparency. A player with low system mastery is likely to not realize that if they want to be good in melee, Druid is a better choice than Fighter or Monk, both of which bill themselves as good combat classes, but kind of stink at it. If Fighters were actually one of the best classes at fighting, that would be different. It isn't so much Angel Summoner vs. BMX Bandit, it is Angel Summoner vs. BMX Bandit where the Bandit doesn't know how to ride a bike.

[Wargamer]

For me, the big flaw in 3.5 is rigidity.

If I want my Barbarian Berserker to leap up out of his seat, vault the table and bust someone's head in with a tankard of mead then I need to make a dozen dice checks and I'll inflict about D3 non-lethal damage. In a film, book or possibly even a videogame that move would be a one-hit KO every time.

For non-casters especially, D&D quickly devolves into dice rolling where you just declare the action, not try to come up with epic events. It was why I liked the 5.0 Beta notes so much - that above example of mine could easily be resolved in a single attack role with a fair and satisfying outcome.

But this core issue is one that neither 4.0 nor Pathfinder really addressed. 4.0 seemed to just copy WoW and give everyone the pen and paper equivalent of an Action Bar, while Pathfinder made everyone a spellcaster. Neither is a satisfying solution for someone who wants a Kung-Fu Monk able to grab an attacker's wrist with one hand and break his elbow with the other...

[Rejusu]

There's no debate? If only that were true, you've never seen a Monkday thread have you? You're mistaken in saying that it's just the battlefield where this occurs though.

I do agree that you lose diversity with balance. It's why I don't like fourth. However system balance is less important in a tabletop game. The rules are flexible. 4E might put you closer to the mark but there's nothing to stop you having a balanced game in 3.5.

[Wargamer]

I think D&D in general would benefit from the sort of glass divisions the likes of Dark Heresy has. To cover the core concepts...

Most of the direct combat classes either have an organisation they are tied to (the Imperial Guard, the Arbites or the Priesthood) or are literally scum. This can crop up in various ways; an Arbiter must obey the law at all times, while Scum would be in deep trouble if they were caught helping the law...

Techpriests possess knowledge of technology beyond the understanding of their peers. In D&D Rogues have certain unique abilities like Disable Device, but in Dark Heresy it goes further, to the point where Techpriests are essential for almost any task more complex than driving a car.

Psykers provide the "magic", but suffer both from social stigma and the very real danger of driving themselves insane, "burning out" or even accidentally summoning Daemons! Understandably, the power they command make them very unpopular, and so they struggle in social situations unless they hide their powers.

All the classes have areas where they clearly excel beyond all others. The superior equipment of an Arbiter compared to a Guard Veteran might make him better in combat, but old soldiers love to smoke illegal drugs, drink illegal spirits and gamble (illegaly, of course). When the only leads you have to finding the Witch Cult lie in the hands of a disgruntled group of ex-Guardsmen, that Arbiter can roll natural 05s to Diplomacy all day long (Lower is better in Dark Heresy) and they will never talk... but a fellow soldier who can compare war wounds and grumble about Commissars as they drink the night away? Why even roll a dice? Automatic success!

D&D can do this, but it doesn't jump out by default so much. There's nothing in the core rules that hint at the Church of Pelor not wanting to talk to outsiders, or Wizards being shunned for their supernatural powers. In the last campaign I ran I had a Dwarven Ranger growing increasingly annoyed at how he felt next to useless in combat because of the casters, and yet I struggled to find any situation where he was necessary. Sadly, magic ensured that his role could always be filled by either the party Druid or the composite mage built from three sourcebooks...

[Chronos]

Not only does balance not require sameness, but it actually requires a lack of sameness. Make everything exactly the same, and of course that'll be balanced, but it'll also be boring. Make only small changes, though, and those changes will be called into stark contrast.

Does anyone else remember Warcraft II? In that game, the orcs and humans were almost identical. A human footman had the same stats as an orc grunt, a human knight was the same as an ogre, a griffon-rider was the same as a dragon, and so on. Nearly the only difference was that the spellcasters on the two sides had different spells... And the ogre mage's Bloodlust spell was better than any of the paladin's spells. As a result, the orcs were just plain better, and there was no mechanical reason to ever play humans.

Compare that to Blizzard's next game, where they figured it out: In Starcraft, the three races were completely different, in nearly every way. The Zerg were better at producing huge swarms of small units, and so if that's what you preferred, you played Zerg. The humans were better at strategic mobility and long-ranged attacks, so if that's what you preferred, you played humans, and so on. Everyone was different, and everyone had something they were best at, and something they were worst at.

That's what's missing in D&D. It would be fine if fighters were the best at fighting (which you would kind of expect, given the name), and casters were best at something else. But that's not what we got.

[evilserran]

Why do people always say 4ed is more abalanced? I have ended campaign bosses by myself in 2 turns with both a sorcerer and a barbarian. The barbarian at level 7 dished out over 300 points of damage in 2 turns, the sorcerer did 212 in one turn.....(also only level 7)

Any version of dnd can be broken if you try. Casters have more tools to break, but if you peruse enough you can beat them at specific things. Their power is the versatility, which can still be shut down by antimagics. Half their spells can be ignored through items (if not more) so unless the caster has forknowledge, theres still a shot their spells arent going to work. That being said, MOST broken characters ARE casters, but most definatly not all.

(3.5) Scout/ranger sniper/skirmisher with bowblades and a greatbow is disgusting powerful at range, has a longer range most the time and can deal just as much if not far more damage at short and med range, and is undetectable at long range. Level 13 cat folk one could shoot over 500', thats around -50 to spot him, +20 (with a 1 rolled) or so hide check, sniping penalty reduce to a 5 or 10 from feats, i forget which exactly = roughly a 65 spot check if his hide sucked. Furthermore if you do see him... you dont have much options to do anything back, capable of moving over 100' per round of combat as a normal move action, you cant close on him, run feat with ranger endurance and he can run another 400-500 feet away if you start getting close. Sure you can teleport closer and try something, but with the saves he had/items you'd better make it count or you are dead when he goes. This was my most favorite personally made broken character.

Killed a level 13 fighter king, his level 15 archmage attendent and both room guards level 10 paladins in 3 turns from outside the city.

[eggynack]

Why do people always say 4ed is more abalanced? I have ended campaign bosses by myself in 2 turns with both a sorcerer and a barbarian. The barbarian at level 7 dished out over 300 points of damage in 2 turns, the sorcerer did 212 in one turn.....(also only level 7)
Because you just described a situation in which two separate classes did about the same thing. I mean, you could say, "These other classes can not do this," but what you've shown here is not indicative of imbalance.


Their power is the versatility, which can still be shut down by antimagics.
Not really. A good chunk of spells work perfectly fine in an antimagic field, and a wizard is reasonably likely to prepare them, because they want things that will work in an antimagic field.

Half their spells can be ignored through items (if not more) so unless the caster has forknowledge, theres still a shot their spells arent going to work.
That just seems horribly inaccurate. A massive pile of spells are pretty much untouchable through items, and even those that can be stopped need incredibly specific stuff. Realistically, it is the item user that needs exact foreknowledge of what their attacker intends to use, or else their defenses will utterly fail. Besides, even if half of spells can be ignored through items, that's just a reason to use the other half. It's why mind affecting stuff should be prepared only sparingly, if at all.

[evilserran]

I did not need to state the other classes cannot do this, it was fairly implied, which is how, precisely, you picked up on it. Blasters can be shut down through energy immunities. Death magics can be shut down with death ward. Dimensional anchors long cast can stop planeshifting/teleporting. If you focus on saves through the right conglomeration of feats, they can keep right in line with the casters save dc's. "overpowered spellcasters" is a dm issue imo. Sure, random monsters, you'd crush, but so would that level 20 whirlwind barbarian, or archer. The difference? Wizards can/do eventually run out of spells. Yes yes wands scrolls blah blah, there goes your money for everything else. What? you say you dont need it for anything else? DM issue. Make tollbooths, pass papers, taxes, etc. Reduce the ability to acquire "magic ink" I believe it is stated in several books, the rules are the rules, but should be used with dm descretion. I would still rather play a range character over a caster ANY day. For the use of skills and combat powers without having to rely on spells, that you wont always have time to cast.

[Psyren]

The Snowbluff Axiom should probably say "anyone" rather than "everyone."

Anyway, I like this topic but I think the OP is approaching it from the wrong angle. It is not that casters dominate in combat and not at other forms of problem-solving. Quite the opposite, the caster is often the best equipped to solve non-combat problems as well.

Rather, the argument should be about core engagement - i.e. why does someone want to be a fighter? Certainly there's a bunch of us out there who want the challenge of "I'm a plucky guy using nothing but my wits and sword-arm to defeat superhuman challenges." There is room for that in D&D, sure, but that player is unlikely to be satisfied for long because a caster who puts forth even a modicum of effort can overcome those challenges more easily still.

But there is another core engagement of the fighter, and that is simplicity. Less resource management, less choices to make; just sit down and play with your friends while learning the more complex aspects of the game (or even not.) Some never want to graduate beyond that level of understanding, and that's okay - mundane classes are there for them regardless.

[Wargamer]

The problem is none of your fixes are in the core rules.

From about 3rd [spell] level onwards, Casters get it all. They have more raw damage, more battlefield control, more freedom of movement, better diplomacy / threats ("I can blow up your town" beats "I can slightly damage your front door" any day) and just all-round superiority.

The core game should have addressed this, but it doesn't. "Fighter" should be a class that is the supreme combat class - he should be equal or better than anyone in a straight up fight. But he's not. He's not even in the top 5 of the PHB!

As I mentioned, tell people you are running a Dark Heresy or WFRP campaign and they will actively BEG not to be a Psyker / Mage. Why? Because that raw arcane might comes with a price they don't want to pay. They don't want magic when that magic is slowly killing them. They don't want to be seen as a Wizard when they'll be lynched by the village mob who think they are why Katie-Lee has smallpox. They sure as hell don't want to be a Psyker when the Commissar is under orders to blow their brains out if he even THINKS they are under Daemonic influence.

Power with a price. Psychic powers in DH and Magic in WFRP are amazingly powerful, but the penalties are too high for many players to stomach.

I'm not saying that's the right way to handle D&D Magic, but it does need to be handled - you can't have that kind of power for free.

[eggynack]

I did not need to state the other classes cannot do this, it was fairly implied, which is how, precisely, you picked up on it.
Yeah, but you can't just imply stuff like that. You have to actually say, "These classes can do this, demonstrated thusly, and these classes can only do this, and the latter is worse." Balance is relative, and you need both the high and low powered elements to show it isn't there.

Blasters can be shut down through energy immunities. Death magics can be shut down with death ward. Dimensional anchors long cast can stop planeshifting/teleporting. If you focus on saves through the right conglomeration of feats, they can keep right in line with the casters save dc's.
That's a really specific set of things you're stopping, and you're not even necessarily stopping them that successfully. Energy immunities can be shut down by everything from searing spell, to using a different energy, to not using an energy at all, and death ward can be bypassed by just using a different SoL, of which there are many. Dimensional anchor only stops those things if you spend an entire round in combat using it, which is valid, but that's a round that the opponent can do things to you. It's not even an item, which I thought was the main goal here. Casters can stop casters just fine. As for focusing on saves through the right conglomeration of feats, that just makes your character suck, and the caster can just use their mighty no save spells, of which there are many.


"overpowered spellcasters" is a dm issue imo. Sure, random monsters, you'd crush, but so would that level 20 whirlwind barbarian, or archer. The difference? Wizards can/do eventually run out of spells. Yes yes wands scrolls blah blah, there goes your money for everything else. What? you say you dont need it for anything else? DM issue. Make tollbooths, pass papers, taxes, etc. Reduce the ability to acquire "magic ink" I believe it is stated in several books, the rules are the rules, but should be used with dm descretion. I would still rather play a range character over a caster ANY day. For the use of skills and combat powers without having to rely on spells, that you wont always have time to cast.
The difference between a caster and a barbarian and an archer is that the caster has a million different tricks, and they're not that easy to stop, while the other two have one or two tricks that are rather trivial to stop. If you want to fundamentally alter the game in ways that harm casters, that could theoretically work (though I'm rather doubtful of the efficacy of your plan), but that's just falling into the Oberoni fallacy. The fact that something can be fixed does not mean that it wasn't broken.

[Knaight]

You know I have always hated this debate. We as players demand diversity from the writers while criticizing any imbalance.

Do players really want every character to do the same damage, same defenses, etc regardless of what class they choose? Simply defining that they achieve their abilities in different ways?

There is no debate in D&D that Casters overshadow Fighter and Expert classes on the battle field, but D&D is not just about combat.

You're setting up a false dichotomy - you can have a diverse system which is also reasonably well balanced. Balance is, fundamentally, the way the mechanics work to keep the spotlight divided between the characters. A highly competent warrior stands out in combat, a highly competent explorer stands out in wilderness navigation, a highly competent socialite and diplomat pretty much takes the spotlight in social situations. These are all meaningfully different, and yet still balanced. For that matter, take Shotgun Diaries - one of the ways it balances spotlight is by having a character who is a complete inept buffoon, along with mechanics that provide an incentive all the other characters to keep said inept buffoon around, thus letting the inept buffoon stand out.

In D&D though? The casters stand out on the battlefield, taking a chunk of spotlight. The casters stand out in an even bigger way off the battlefield, taking a chunk of spotlight - utility spells are a thing, and they are often extremely impressive. The mechanics pretty much consist of a set of different ways to point the spotlight at casters and have them dominate the game, and entirely too much of the DM's job is in pointing them elsewhere and preventing them from drifting back too much.

[Dr. Cliché]

Do players really want every character to do the same damage, same defenses, etc regardless of what class they choose? Simply defining that they achieve their abilities in different ways?

I don't believe so. I think things can be better balanced without the game turning into 4th edition.

Really, I think it could be broken down into 2 major gripes:

- Casters are too strong. Now, them being more versatile than fighters is expected as, to some extent, is them being stronger. However, there are some spells that just push it too far - polymorph for example. Or, from the cleric list, Divine Power. Clerics are already only a little worse than fighters, in exchange for full spellcasting abilities - and with this spell they become better fighters than actual fighters.

The point is, if wizards and clerics can use magic to become superior to fighters in melee, then where does that leave fighters?

- Fighters suck in general, and have too few options. With regard to the second part, there just tend to be too few things that fighters can actually do in combat. I think manoeuvres were a step in the right direction, and it would have been nice for fighters to have something along those lines - even if it was toned down a little.

As for the first part, there are too many feats that seem like they should be innate abilities for fighters (or, which should come as an extra to another feat like Weapon Focus). E.g. why does an archer need to take 2 feats (Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot) just to be worth a damn? That would be like if wizards had to take feats like these:

Clear Speech - "Grants ability to cast spells without mumbling or slurring the verbal components of spells."
Hand Waving - "Allows the mage to perform the complex somatic components of a spell, without accidentally slapping himself or his allies."
Material Mastery - "With this feat, the mage intuitively knows the right time to utilise any materials required for his spells - so that his enemies are always struck by fireballs, and never by a handful of bat guano."

[Togo]

I'm with Snowbluff on this one. I don't want a balanced system. I consider it to be actively bad. I want a system with lots of different design options that are at best loosely equivalent.

I think it's also important to distinguish between two different games. There is the table-top roleplaying game, and there is the character design meta-game.

In the table-top game you need to work on character balance. It needs to be maintained, making sure that different player characters have sufficient screen time, ability to change the outcomes of the game, that their backgrounds and personalities influence the plot and the NPCs, that those characters that need to develop in certain directions do so, and do so in an observable way, and so on.

As a sub-set of that, characters each need to have mechanically useful capabilities. Ideally, I work towards a situation where each character contributes in a unique way, or failing that, in a unique combination of ways. I then work to make sure each character is roughly equivalent in usefulness, through a combination of how useful a capability is, how often it comes up (manipulating how often it is called upon, if necessary), and how much better at it they are than the rest of the party.

In comparison to that is the character design meta-game, where various people try and work out character builds in abstract. This is fun, and shows up some interesting comparisons between sets of builds, by class, by design goal, etc. However, any attempt to reify these into abstract principles of system balance based on abstract categories has little or no relevence for the games I run, because I'm balancing individual character builds based on their role in my game and who is running them, without reference to what category they may fall into.

So I don't really have any use for complaints that the system is broken. It does exactly what I want it to, and it does it very well. I don't want a system that enforces balance, and I don't want a system that you can't use to make abusive builds. So, to me, the game works as intended.


In practice, even when other people are running games, I find I can play non-full casters and contribute perfectly well, even at high level. In many cases, I have to stop myself from overshadowing other characters.

The critical factor seems to me to less the class, or the player, and more what the DM rules as permissable or not permissable. The most caster-friendly enviroments are those with fairly permissive rulings, lots of downtime and static challenges, and those where the DM has already got it into their head that a magical solution should be better than a non-magical solution, even where the rules don't specify as such. The least caster friendly appear to be those where the rules are more strictly followed, there is little downtime, challenges are not static, and vary widely in number per day.

Once of the concepts I've found useful is 'local meta'. This is the idea that, within a particular local group, certain assumptions and patterns remain constant, but that a different group will have a different local meta, a different set of assumptions and patterns. If you play a lot while travelling between groups, such as on the tournament circuit, the differences are very pronounced. For example, in one group, the DM will assume you're looking out for things all the time, and ask you to make rolls only when there is something to see. In another, not constantly requesting to make spot rolls is a declaration that you're not keeping a look out.

How useful a caster is critically dependent on your local meta. Sweeping statements of the form of 'casters all do this', or 'casters are always better at that' are simply wrong. In the games you are used to playing, and the assumptions you are used to making, that may be the case, but someone else's local meta may be different.

[Melcar]

If I was the DM I would try to balance the game (fighter vs Wizard) by allowing for some either homebrew options for the fighter or by opening up for PF and 3rd party stuff for te fighter. There is a lot of good well balanced stuff in betwene the broken power stuff, that people tend to forget when they just automatically ban PF or 3rd party in the official, core, RAW hype.

We are talking more options for trip, disarm, grapple, AC, damage, to hit... so many options that will balance thing out while in no way break the game.

IMO that is!

Oh yeah... and I personally hate that every class have to be balanced. I like when a fighter is a strong person and a wizard a god!

[eggynack]

I'm with Snowbluff on this one. I don't want a balanced system. I consider it to be actively bad. I want a system with lots of different design options that are at best loosely equivalent.

True enough. There isn't much balance, and that creates some pretty big problems, but I probably prefer it this way. It's the kinda craziness that can be produced in this system that gives things texture. I just wish that the issues in game balance could be integrated into the system somewhat, such that newer players wouldn't be suckered in by the allure of monks, and get crushed under the weight of the game's nature.

[Psyren]

I'm not saying that's the right way to handle D&D Magic, but it does need to be handled - you can't have that kind of power for free.

Does it? The thing is that easy magic for the casters means easy magic for everyone. And all-caster parties rarely have any problems, so the belief that easy magic is an issue doesn't really work.

[daryen]

Finally, the claim that the game evolved too much and we're asking WotC to see things better... Go look at the druid's wild shape ability. This is something that the WotC playtesters thought would only be used for out of combat. I mean, who would seriously want to turn into an animal? It's not like there are any animals that would be capable in combat. The same class gives you an animal to help you fight... This can only be explained as blatantly ignoring combat potential of abilities. This is sloppy design.

I dunno, to me the whole point of the Druid class is the wild shape capability. Who wants to be able to turn into an animal? Me! Really, who wouldn't? That's an awesome ability, not even counting combat.

Ignoring combat, it is so cool. You can fly around as an eagle. You move faster than everyone else and you can scout ahead. Also, who needs feather fall when you can just turn into a bird? You can glide around as a mountain lion (or some other medium sized cat). Plus, it makes escaping much, much easier.

And how anyone could not see the combat potential is beyond me. A druid has, quite frankly, a crappy set of weapons to select. Turning into a wolf gives you the same combat capability as a druid is going to have using a scimitar or staff. (A staff being a "double-weapon" is irrelevant without the proper feat that is usually not available to a typical druid build.) Being a mountain lion or black bear change the equation some, but are still better combat choices than that scimitar or staff. And that is just 5th level (4th in Pathfinder. Hit 8th level (6th in Pathfinder) and you can move up to a grizzly or polar bear (or lion or tiger).

[Telonius]

I dunno, to me the whole point of the Druid class is the wild shape capability. Who wants to be able to turn into an animal? Me! Really, who wouldn't? That's an awesome ability, not even counting combat.

Ignoring combat, it is so cool. You can fly around as an eagle. You move faster than everyone else and you can scout ahead. Also, who needs feather fall when you can just turn into a bird? You can glide around as a mountain lion (or some other medium sized cat). Plus, it makes escaping much, much easier.

And how anyone could not see the combat potential is beyond me. A druid has, quite frankly, a crappy set of weapons to select. Turning into a wolf gives you the same combat capability as a druid is going to have using a scimitar or staff. (A staff being a "double-weapon" is irrelevant without the proper feat that is usually not available to a typical druid build.) Being a mountain lion or black bear change the equation some, but are still better combat choices than that scimitar or staff. And that is just 5th level (4th in Pathfinder. Hit 8th level (6th in Pathfinder) and you can move up to a grizzly or polar bear (or lion or tiger).

They did eventually see that Druid was too powerful; I think PHB2's variant was their way of saying, "Whoops, our bad." Even the variant is powerful just because of the spell list, but that's a harder problem to tackle.

[killem2]

So I want to know what out of combat problems you think will be better solved by none-casters than casters? Or even as well.

I tend to let the players sort that out by themselves, I give problems they work together and enjoy doing it. Even if it sometimes is one sided in nature.

[Gettles]

Does it? The thing is that easy magic for the casters means easy magic for everyone. And all-caster parties rarely have any problems, so the belief that easy magic is an issue doesn't really work.

If all caster parties rarely have problems than that is an issue. Because if you can roll in with all casters and not suffer at all for it, than what the hell are non-casters for?

[Psyren]

If all caster parties rarely have problems than that is an issue. Because if you can roll in with all casters and not suffer at all for it, than what the hell are non-casters for?

Challenge. Variety. Simplicity. There's plenty of reasons to play a "muggle" - I don't consider the fact that sheer power or even sheer versatility are not among them to be barriers to choice or play.

Also, there are indeed disadvantages to "all-caster" parties, because there are disadvantages to relying on magical augmentation/proxies in place of innate ability.

[Killer Angel]

So I want to know what out of combat problems you think will be better solved by none-casters than casters? Or even as well.

Outside combat, probably a skill monkey could make a stand. At least you'll have various options.

[chaos_redefined]

I dunno, to me the whole point of the Druid class is the wild shape capability. Who wants to be able to turn into an animal? Me! Really, who wouldn't? That's an awesome ability, not even counting combat.

Ignoring combat, it is so cool. You can fly around as an eagle. You move faster than everyone else and you can scout ahead. Also, who needs feather fall when you can just turn into a bird? You can glide around as a mountain lion (or some other medium sized cat). Plus, it makes escaping much, much easier.

And how anyone could not see the combat potential is beyond me. A druid has, quite frankly, a crappy set of weapons to select. Turning into a wolf gives you the same combat capability as a druid is going to have using a scimitar or staff. (A staff being a "double-weapon" is irrelevant without the proper feat that is usually not available to a typical druid build.) Being a mountain lion or black bear change the equation some, but are still better combat choices than that scimitar or staff. And that is just 5th level (4th in Pathfinder. Hit 8th level (6th in Pathfinder) and you can move up to a grizzly or polar bear (or lion or tiger).

I'm sorry for not being clear, but I think you're agreeing with my point without realizing it was my point.

Basically, anyone who looks at wild shape realizes it's potential. But the playtest crew thought it was an out-of-combat utility thing, and therefore ignored it. If I recall correctly, the person playtesting the druid took Weapon Focus(Scimitar) as their 6th level feat.

The playtesting that they did was almost as productive as the pathfinder beta test when it comes to determining balance. The only way it makes sense is if we assume they blatantly ignored the goal of determining if the system was balanced.

[Gemini476]

I dunno, to me the whole point of the Druid class is the wild shape capability. Who wants to be able to turn into an animal? Me! Really, who wouldn't? That's an awesome ability, not even counting combat.

Ignoring combat, it is so cool. You can fly around as an eagle. You move faster than everyone else and you can scout ahead. Also, who needs feather fall when you can just turn into a bird? You can glide around as a mountain lion (or some other medium sized cat). Plus, it makes escaping much, much easier.

And how anyone could not see the combat potential is beyond me. A druid has, quite frankly, a crappy set of weapons to select. Turning into a wolf gives you the same combat capability as a druid is going to have using a scimitar or staff. (A staff being a "double-weapon" is irrelevant without the proper feat that is usually not available to a typical druid build.) Being a mountain lion or black bear change the equation some, but are still better combat choices than that scimitar or staff. And that is just 5th level (4th in Pathfinder. Hit 8th level (6th in Pathfinder) and you can move up to a grizzly or polar bear (or lion or tiger).

I thought the point of the Druid was to be a Neutral Cleric psuedo-prestige class that's more focused on nature-y spells than alignment-based spells and has to play Druid Highlander to advance in level after a certain point.

...Although to be honest the shapeshifting is also a pretty neat ability. It certainly helps differentiate it from the cleric. It's just that shapeshifting in general is pretty unbalanced in 3.5.

Come to think of it, they could have axed the entire spellcasting aspect and still had a very druid-y class.

[Elderand]

I thought the point of the Druid was to be a Neutral Cleric psuedo-prestige class that's more focused on nature-y spells than alignment-based spells and has to play Druid Highlander to advance in level after a certain point.

3rd edition has been out for 14 years. You'd think that by now people would have realised there isn't any limits to druid numbers anymore.

[bekeleven]

As for the first part, there are too many feats that seem like they should be innate abilities for fighters (or, which should come as an extra to another feat like Weapon Focus). E.g. why does an archer need to take 2 feats (Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot) just to be worth a damn? That would be like if wizards had to take feats like these:Aah yes, the Guy at the Gym Fallacy, AKA real activities have real limits.

My favorite example of a balanced game is Nobilis. Every player character can end the world. If you can't solve a problem, you're probably just not being creative enough.

[Isamu Dyson]

Eh. Balance can be overrated.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Eh. Balance can be overrated.
That said, there's very different bands of balance. Precise balance is not something I need to have in an RPG. Broad balance is much more desireable and (I would argue) necessary. Even Magic: the Gathering (which has deliberately bad cards to promote a skill-based game in deckbuilding) has broad balance.

[Dr. Cliché]

That said, there's very different bands of balance. Precise balance is not something I need to have in an RPG. Broad balance is much more desireable and (I would argue) necessary. Even Magic: the Gathering (which has deliberately bad cards to promote a skill-based game in deckbuilding) has broad balance.

Sorry for my ignorance, but what's the difference between precise balance and broad balance?

[Isamu Dyson]

In an RPG, I prefer balance to be a rough baseline...not a dominating theme.

[Dr. Cliché]

In an RPG, I prefer balance to be a rough baseline...not a dominating theme.

I agree.

Really, I think RPGs like D&D suffer a lot less than other games as a result of poor balance. Having a DM to adjudicate and adjust challenges can make balance far less essential.

And, given the choice, I'd take the variation and flexibility of 3.5 over the balanced but rigid and samey 4th edition any day.

[georgie_leech]

Sorry for my ignorance, but what's the difference between precise balance and broad balance?

Precise balance requires something like Chess, where all players have the same options and capabilities. Broad balance is more like StarCraft, where different options and capabilities are present, and despite an elaborate system of counters and counter-counters, no single option is clearly better than the others. Either form is difficult to create, especially in a complex tool set like 3.5's class system. Precise balance can result in minute differences wrecking the balance (a la Warcraft II), or result in choices feeling "samey" (a common complaint about 4E). Broad balance requires a great deal of work to get right, and that amount of work increases exponentially as you add options. StarCraft only has 3 distinct races. 3.5 has 7 races, 11 classes, dozens of feats, even more spells, and thousands of possible item and enchantment combinations. In core alone. Without a consistent design philosophy (Druids have Fighter-Lite as a class feature? Really?), every single combination would have to be tested in order to achieve balance. Frankly, it would have taken a miracle to get anything resembling parity between the choices. WotC got better at this over time, where new casting classes had nowhere near the versatility that the original 4 had, and the non-casters gained utility and versatility that they badly needed; classes were flavourful and unique without having too many outliers in terms of capability.

[DR27]

Frankly, it would have taken a miracle to get anything resembling parity between the choices. WotC got better at this over time, where new casting classes had nowhere near the versatility that the original 4 had, and the non-casters gained utility and versatility that they badly needed; classes were flavourful and unique without having too many outliers in terms of capability.Those two sentences kinda contradict each other. It didn't take a miracle, it took time, effort, and testing. WotC didn't take the time or do much testing early on. It's not that they needed a miracle, it's that they needed more dedication and a larger budget to actually do things right.

[OldTrees1]

I'm with Snowbluff on this one. I don't want a balanced system. I consider it to be actively bad. I want a system with lots of different design options that are at best loosely equivalent.

Forgive me, but isn't "a system with lots of different design options that are at best loosely equivalent" exactly what people want when they say they wish 3.5 was better balanced?

3.5 is not "a system with lots of different design options that are at best loosely equivalent". It has lots of different design options and the majority of it is loosely equivalent. However it also has Truenamer and Druid and doesn't have Tier 2 mundanes or Tier 3 Generalist Wizards (they do have Tier 3 specialists though).

[Knaight]

Really, I think RPGs like D&D suffer a lot less than other games as a result of poor balance. Having a DM to adjudicate and adjust challenges can make balance far less essential.

And, given the choice, I'd take the variation and flexibility of 3.5 over the balanced but rigid and samey 4th edition any day.

I'd agree that poor balance is a much bigger issue in competitive games than cooperative ones in general, particularly when there's someone to try and mitigate it. That said, there are options beyond the 3.5 and 4e methods. There are balanced, varied, and flexible systems out there - D&D issues are just consistently not among them.

[Worira]

Precise balance requires something like Chess, where all players have the same options and capabilities.

White OP, nerf White

[Togo]

Forgive me, but isn't "a system with lots of different design options that are at best loosely equivalent" exactly what people want when they say they wish 3.5 was better balanced?

No, I don't think so. What they want is a system where you can't build characters that are so different in effectiveness as to be near-unplayable in the same party. I'd rather have a system where you can, and then choose for myself where the balance point should be.


3.5 is not "a system with lots of different design options that are at best loosely equivalent". It has lots of different design options and the majority of it is loosely equivalent. However it also has Truenamer and Druid

Both of which I played with, and neither of which I'd want to get rid of.


and doesn't have Tier 2 mundanes or Tier 3 Generalist Wizards (they do have Tier 3 specialists though).

Well of course not, because a 'mundane' is simply a design restriction that's been made up - all characters in the game are intended touse magic in one form or another, and only three of the 11 base classes can't cast their own spells.

As for the Tiers - what exactly are you wanting here? Tiers are based on flexibility. You're not comfortable reducing the options available to spellcasters yourself, so you want the system to do it for you?

[Boci]

White OP, nerf White

There's a very simple fix for that. Black gets two queens, but every 4th turn white can move 2 pieces on the same turn.

[Knaight]

No, I don't think so. What they want is a system where you can't build characters that are so different in effectiveness as to be near-unplayable in the same party. I'd rather have a system where you can, and then choose for myself where the balance point should be.

No, what we want is a system where building characters that are so different in effectiveness that they are near-unplayable in the same party is, at least deliberate. D&D 3.x is so borked, that this is basically what happens if you stick a powerful caster in a party with a non caster unless you specifically build around it. There are already ways to move the balance point, starting with what level the characters are, wild variation in capability between classes really isn't necessary.

[huttj509]

No, what we want is a system where building characters that are so different in effectiveness that they are near-unplayable in the same party is, at least deliberate. D&D 3.x is so borked, that this is basically what happens if you stick a powerful caster in a party with a non caster unless you specifically build around it. There are already ways to move the balance point, starting with what level the characters are, wild variation in capability between classes really isn't necessary.

*nod* Accidental "Oh, I seem to have totally eclipsed and made irrelevant your entire character" sucks. I've been on both sides of that one.

[Togo]

No, what we want is a system where building characters that are so different in effectiveness that they are near-unplayable in the same party is, at least deliberate. D&D 3.x is so borked, that this is basically what happens if you stick a powerful caster in a party with a non caster unless you specifically build around it.

Not in my experience. Sure it can happen, but it's rare. In general even if you make a classic mistake like a wizard casting polymorph on themselves to compete with the fighter, you end up with something that's less effective than the fighter is at fighting, and less effective than the wizard could be at doing something else. Now sure you can build a cleric or druid that's as effective as a poor op fighter by choosing the right spells in combination, but you're not going to get an all-day fighter replacement by accident. You have to work at it.


There are already ways to move the balance point, starting with what level the characters are, wild variation in capability between classes really isn't necessary.

If there are already ways to move the balance point, then reducing wild variation isn't necessary.

All this talk of balance seems to come down to the idea that some things are possible that you would prefer to be impossible. Why do you need to change the game system to avoid the things you don't want in your game?

[Actana]

There's a very simple fix for that. Black gets two queens, but every 4th turn white can move 2 pieces on the same turn.

Don't forget the trap squares. Those are vital in order to prevent the black queens from getting too much of an advantage, and in order to impede white's every fourth turn from winning the game in a single round.

[Tengu_temp]

I'll disagree with your first point... 4e doesn't really have options, because everything is the same.

Simple question: have you played 4e? It's a more streamlined system that uses similar mechanics for all classes, but that's actually a good thing, because you don't have to learn a completely new system each time you play a new class. Look at the history of DND, every edition is more streamlined than the previous one.

Different classes play differently in 4e; not as different as the difference between casters in 3e, but certainly more different than various 3e non-casters. And non-casters have actual options in combat (as opposed to options in character building) instead of just autoattacking and/or doing the single trick they were built for, which is also important.

I don't really like 4e much, because I think it's a dry and slow system. But let's pay credit where it's due.


That really depends on your game to be honest, there are games where noncombat can be very very important, and games where it's less so. But it's certainly possible to have a game where a combat focused character has almost no time to shine, and vis versa (though the reverse is more common)

It's true that there are many games with much smaller focus on combat than the average. Hell, that might be a lot of my own games. However, even in those games, combat is the most common challenge the party overcomes together. A non-combat challenge is usually handled by a single character, the one who has the best skills to handle it, and everyone else has at most a support role.


Also I'm not really sure that "balance" was really that much of a design goal in 3.5, mostly they were trying to tie up some rules that had gotten really bloated, like racial level caps, multiclassing rules, greater character customization was a main goal

I think they wanted to balance the game, they were just really bad at it, and also didn't consider that people will play 3e differently than AD&D. In a game of sword and board fighters, fireball-throwing blaster wizards and healbot clerics who stay away from the front lines, DND 3e is mostly balanced.

[Pan151]

Look at the history of DND, every edition is more streamlined than the previous one.

No, it's not. 3e is definitely more complex than 2e, and 5e is more of a return to 2e-3e than an improvement on 4e.

4e has very little mechanical variety in it, because every class worked more or less in the same way. There was little mechanical difference between a sword swind, a magic missile and a Disintgrate spell. That is the failing of 4e.

[Actana]

Simple question: have you played 4e? It's a more streamlined system that uses similar mechanics for all classes, but that's actually a good thing, because you don't have to learn a completely new system each time you play a new class. Look at the history of DND, every edition is more streamlined than the previous one.

Different classes play differently in 4e; not as different as the difference between casters in 3e, but certainly more different than various 3e non-casters. And non-casters have actual options in combat (as opposed to options in character building) instead of just autoattacking and/or doing the single trick they were built for, which is also important.

I don't really like 4e much, because I think it's a dry and slow system. But let's pay credit where it's due.

This is mostly true. While some classes do play fairly similarly (for example, a melee ranger vs a melee rogue), the classes are distinct from each other. The best example would be defenders and leaders, of which there are many different types. A bard and a warlord are completely different leaders: warlords enable other characters to act, while bards give enemies tons of debuffs. Both classes can heal, but they play very differently.

Even beyond just classes, you can actually build a character in entirely different, sometimes crazy, ways. In an extreme example I recently built two fighters: one a fairly traditional, sticky melee combatant. Entirely competent, though highly unimaginative. The other fighter I built as Int-based who doesn't even have fighter powers outside a select few, and not a single fighter attack. Instead, he has wizard attacks for the most part, with a lot of control while still retaining the tanky characteristics of the fighter. The two fighters aren't at all similar, even though the character sheet has just the same old green, red, grey and yellow powers everywhere. Granted, the latter character has a high starting level requirement and gets into his own only around mid-paragon tier.

In any case, 4e is more structured than "samey". It uses the same core framework for each class, which eases learning a lot. On a simple glance the classes might look identical because the powers look identical, but the different class abilities and additional features the characters gain make everyone play differently. At lower levels it might not be as visible, but at higher levels the variety definitely start to show itself.

[Dr. Cliché]

No, it's not. 3e is definitely more complex than 2e

Really?

I thought that the 3.5 core mechanics were simpler - it was just the increased options and such that made it more complicated.

But then, it's been a long time since I played 2nd edition, so I could just be misremembering.

[Tengu_temp]

No, it's not. 3e is definitely more complex than 2e, and 5e is more of a return to 2e-3e than an improvement on 4e.


3e is more complex in that it has more things, but it's also more streamlined. Its mechanics all work similarily, they are mostly consistent. AD&D has different mechanics for everything, every aspect of the game has its own rules that are not used anywhere else. Just look at how AD&D ability scores look like.

[Gwendol]

No, it's not. 3e is definitely more complex than 2e, and 5e is more of a return to 2e-3e than an improvement on 4e.


I'm not sure about that. 2e is/was rather complicated: different XP advancement tables for different classes, the dual-class and multiclass rules, saves, AC, THAC0, "skills", etc.

[Brookshw]

I'm not sure about that. 2e is/was rather complicated: different XP advancement tables for different classes, the dual-class and multiclass rules, saves, AC, THAC0, "skills", etc.

I'm kind of inclined to agree with you here. I still hate those dual-class multiclass rules and non-weapon proficiencies were a massive headache. Don't forget the rules/tables for having more than one attack.

[Togo]

Different classes play differently in 4e; not as different as the difference between casters in 3e, but certainly more different than various 3e non-casters. And non-casters have actual options in combat (as opposed to options in character building) instead of just autoattacking and/or doing the single trick they were built for, which is also important.

Disagree. Bard and barbarian play very differently. Or by 'non-casters' did you mean the 3 out of 11 base classes in the PHB that don't cast spells? And within the same character, you have many more options than in 4e. I certainly missed the ability to trip, grapple, bull rush, swap between weapons that had significantly differnet mechanics, mix and match enchantments that again made a significant difference, and utilise a wide range of items that had effects on combat that didn't reduce to debuff, buff, damage or healing.

[OldTrees1]

No, I don't think so. What they want is a system where you can't build characters that are so different in effectiveness as to be near-unplayable in the same party. I'd rather have a system where you can, and then choose for myself where the balance point should be.

Personally, as someone that wishes 3rd edition was better balanced, I want a system where I can choose both the tier/balance point and the character I want to play. However Tier 2 non-casters were not included with my copy of 3.5.



Both of which I played with, and neither of which I'd want to get rid of.

But wouldn't you have preferred the author's realizing and fixing that detail of DC scaling faster than the modifier?



Well of course not, because a 'mundane' is simply a design restriction that's been made up - all characters in the game are intended touse magic in one form or another, and only three of the 11 base classes can't cast their own spells.

As for the Tiers - what exactly are you wanting here? Tiers are based on flexibility. You're not comfortable reducing the options available to spellcasters yourself, so you want the system to do it for you?

I was using mundane to represent non-caster[Bard is the border between caster and non-caster. It could be see as either depending on if the Music or the Spells are louder]. (I know players that don't like the feel of spellcasting mechanics)

I have been in mixed tier groups where I could not play a Wizard without being expected/obligated to play as Tier 1. (This was especially annoying since it was PF only and I was trying to mimic the Dread Necromancer character concept/class)
I have also had to deal with a player that has difficulty dialing themselves back when they want to dial back. They would have welcomed a similar class with a lower optimization ceiling .

[Sploggle1]

I don't see casters as being overshadowed to badly. At the first few levels yes but later on they catch up very quickly. The only unbalanced class is the monk, which becomes a god at 20th level. (Me and a 30 year DND vet fixed that quick and in a hurry lol)
Again a caster is only good as the player. Myself I am a horrid caster but I have seen great casters. (Another way me and my fellow DM pulled sorcerers from our games as a core class and put them as prestige only) So other classes can shimmer a bit more like the bard, which is to me very overshadowed.

[Psyren]

I don't see casters as being overshadowed to badly. At the first few levels yes but later on they catch up very quickly. The only unbalanced class is the monk, which becomes a god at 20th level. (Me and a 30 year DND vet fixed that quick and in a hurry lol)
Again a caster is only good as the player. Myself I am a horrid caster but I have seen great casters. (Another way me and my fellow DM pulled sorcerers from our games as a core class and put them as prestige only) So other classes can shimmer a bit more like the bard, which is to me very overshadowed.

What is this I don't even

[Dr. Cliché]

I don't see casters as being overshadowed to badly. At the first few levels yes but later on they catch up very quickly. The only unbalanced class is the monk, which becomes a god at 20th level. (Me and a 30 year DND vet fixed that quick and in a hurry lol)

Well, there went my brain. I hope you're happy.

[eggynack]

I like to think that it was a post intended for brain destruction, instead of a post intended to make accurate comments about the game's balance. I like to think a lot of things.

[Karnith]

Hm, Monks becoming gods at 20th level. Granting Divine Rank 0 would actually be a legitimate capstone for a class that's supposed to be about attaining perfection.

I think I like it. Certainly more than I like what Perfect Self actually does.

[jedipotter]

My players invest in their fighter types. Meaning the fighter types end up with the most wealth followed by the expert types and finally the casters. This is their choice not something I imposed on them. They do what they can to make up for the imbalance within the game and as such they have more fun. That is the real point of the game.

If you disagree I am interested in hearing your point of view.

I agree. Not everyone likes to Auto-Win. That is such an odd concept, and you see it a lot with video game players. As soon as the game comes out they rush home and play it until they beat it. They want to say ''Oh Awesome War 12, yea, beat that game in four hours''. Now other video gamers buy the game and take weeks and weeks to finish the game. Both are having fun, it is just different.


And take D&D. It is fun for some players to teleport past everything, get into the evil lords bedroom and kill him in a sneak attack. So twenty or so minutes of game play and they are done, they beat the game. Some players have their characters walk into the Lands of Doom and slowly fight through dozens of encounters until they get to the evil lords castle and then fight him in a climatic battle. This takes six hours (or more). Both are fun to the players that do each of them.

[eggynack]

Hm, Monks becoming gods at 20th level. Granting Divine Rank 0 would actually be a legitimate capstone for a class that's supposed to be about attaining perfection.

I think I like it. Certainly more than I like what Perfect Self actually does.
Definitely agreed. Probably not overpowered at all, and full of both cool points and flavor. I don't remember if it's necessary, but there should probably be some sort of clause there that stops you from gaining more divine ranks, cause I think that's a thing. Maybe not though, cause monks actually being a bit overpowered at 20 sounds kinda awesome.

[Psyren]

Hm, Monks becoming gods at 20th level. Granting Divine Rank 0 would actually be a legitimate capstone for a class that's supposed to be about attaining perfection.

I think I like it. Certainly more than I like what Perfect Self actually does.

There's even precedent - Zuoken and Irori both attain divinity this way.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Forgive me, but isn't "a system with lots of different design options that are at best loosely equivalent" exactly what people want when they say they wish 3.5 was better balanced?

3.5 is not "a system with lots of different design options that are at best loosely equivalent". It has lots of different design options and the majority of it is loosely equivalent. However it also has Truenamer and Druid and doesn't have Tier 2 mundanes or Tier 3 Generalist Wizards (they do have Tier 3 specialists though).
Right. That's what I'm talking about when I say "rough balance" over "precise balance". The options should be in the same ballpark of power; I don't care whether they're at exactly the same power levels.

[Augmental]

I agree. Not everyone likes to Auto-Win. That is such an odd concept, and you see it a lot with video game players. As soon as the game comes out they rush home and play it until they beat it. They want to say ''Oh Awesome War 12, yea, beat that game in four hours''. Now other video gamers buy the game and take weeks and weeks to finish the game. Both are having fun, it is just different.


And take D&D. It is fun for some players to teleport past everything, get into the evil lords bedroom and kill him in a sneak attack. So twenty or so minutes of game play and they are done, they beat the game. Some players have their characters walk into the Lands of Doom and slowly fight through dozens of encounters until they get to the evil lords castle and then fight him in a climatic battle. This takes six hours (or more). Both are fun to the players that do each of them.

The problem comes in when you combine both power levels/playstyles in one party.

[TheIronGolem]

Hm, Monks becoming gods at 20th level. Granting Divine Rank 0 would actually be a legitimate capstone for a class that's supposed to be about attaining perfection.

I think I like it. Certainly more than I like what Perfect Self actually does.

Not if it's the capstone for the 3.x monk as currently written. Then it's just an appeal to the same kind of "vaguely symmetrical imbalance equals balance" fallacy that it used to justify Caster Supremacy in the first place.

As a capstone for a Monk class that gradually ramps up to that power level (and assuming other classes have a similar progression to a similar endpoint), then sure, it's great.

[georgie_leech]

And within the same character, you have many more options than in 4e. I certainly missed the ability to trip,

Most classes, especially the melee folks, have a plethora of attacks that knock the enemy prone.


grapple,

That's a thing you can do, under the "Grab" option in the PHB "Actions in Combat" section,. There is also a group of Fighter powers that gives you the ability to make your Grabs much nastier, including deal more damage, Grab things beyond your size categories, rake your fingers across their eyes when they try to escape...

bull rush,

Seriously, this is another option for your Standard Action from the PHB. On top of that, again, their are extra powers in nearly every class that enables forced movement of the enemy.


swap between weapons that had significantly differnet mechanics,

You mean like the difference between a Dagger, which can be wielded in the off-hand and can be thrown, and a Halberd (or other Polearm), which enables reach (without taking away the ability to hit adjacent enemies) and can be specialised in to move and prone enemies hit by it, and the Mordenkrad, the Giant Hammer that outdamages every other weapon in the game, and the Spiked Chain, which can be treated as a double weapon with reach and is both a Light Blade and a Flail...


mix and match enchantments that again made a significant difference,

If you mean the way that 3.5 let you take whatever enchantments and apply them to your weapon in any order, no, 4E doesn't do that. That's a fair point.


and utilise a wide range of items that had effects on combat that didn't reduce to debuff, buff, damage or healing.

Not sure if you're referring to magic items in general, in which case I'll point you to the items that give flight or the ability to walk through walls or teleportation or concealment (which can let certain Rogues Hide), or if you're referring specifically to Wondrous Items and the like, in which case I should point out that objects like the Seed of War (gain a temporary minion), Horn of Dismissal (dispel nearby conjurations) and Exodus Knife (create a temporary extra-dimensional space. There's even an entire class of items (Immurements) that cause terraforming, making flying platforms or miniature forests or lava or draconic graveyards or rapids or...

[eggynack]

Not if it's the capstone for the 3.x monk as currently written. Then it's just an appeal to the same kind of "vaguely symmetrical imbalance equals balance" fallacy that it used to justify Caster Supremacy in the first place.
It wouldn't be all that imbalancing though. DR 0 just grants a bunch of pretty reasonable bonuses that aren't out of scale with what you'd expect on a 20th level character. The really wacky stuff only comes online when you hit DR 1.

[Karnith]

It wouldn't be all that imbalancing though. DR 0 just grants a bunch of pretty reasonable bonuses that aren't out of scale with what you'd expect on a 20th level character. The really wacky stuff only comes online when you hit DR 1.
Pretty much. The main points of DvR 0 are:
Maximum HP at each Hit Die
Faster land speed
Cha bonus to AC (in the form of a deflection bonus)
Immunity to polymorphing, petrification, and other attacks that alter its form
Immunity to energy drain, ability drain, and ability damage
Immunity to mind-affecting effects
DR 10/epic (and, consequently, Epic Strike)
Fire resistance 5
SR 32
Immortality (of the "not dying of old age" variety)
You may get the Outsider type and appropriate alignment subtypes; it's kinda vague.
Of those, the max HP, immunities, and epic strike are actually going to be relevant, and by 20th level you really ought to have most of the immunities anyway.

Of course, I pretty much never use the actual base Monk anyway, nor do the players in my game. When it shows up, it's either heavily ACFed, houseruled, part of a dip, or some combination of the three.

[Psyren]

The problem comes in when you combine both power levels/playstyles in one party.

Playstyles absolutely, power levels not necessarily. Wizards and fighters have been in the same party since Basic, and the game has lasted this long even so.

While power differences are the cause of many problems, they require playstyle differences to stay that way.

[Snowbluff]

The Snowbluff Axiom should probably say "anyone" rather than "everyone."

It really can't. Anyone would mean that someone is happy with the game. People who play low powered games are happy to play a system with minimal power levels. Everyone would mean a game that literally everyone could play. While some people would complain about balance, I went on to say in the original post that effectively communicating how the power levels worked with the players/developers/GMs is clear.

[Psyren]

It really can't. Anyone would mean that someone is happy with the game. People who play low powered games are happy to play a system with minimal power levels. Everyone would mean a game that literally everyone could play. While some people would complain about balance, I went on to say in the original post that effectively communicating how the power levels worked with the players/developers/GMs is clear.

I understand your point - but I do want to convey in some way that it doesn't mean everyone is happy with the game simultaneously, rather than the actual case, which is that they are happy with the game when it is played to their particular preferred echelon.

[eggynack]

Perhaps it should be something like, "if you want the maximum potential quantity of people to be happy with them." Seems kinda onerous though. I'd just keep it as is, and accept that trading a little bit of accuracy for a decent amount of catchiness is worthwhile. For example, people pretty much never use the phrase, "Thou shalt not give up caster levels, unless you're gaining class abilities that make up for that major loss by increasing your casting ability by a commensurate amount, as is the case for war weaver and malconvoker," even if it may technically be more accurate than, "Thou shalt not give up caster levels." Such is the nature of things.

[Seharvepernfan]

I'm sure some of what I'm about to say has been said already, as I haven't read the thread.

I think that the game is best played in one of two ways, when it comes to caster/warrior imbalance: either the players are new and inexperienced or are intentionally unoptimizing, where the wizard picks less-than-optimal spells or otherwise just doesn't Batman - doesn't cover all his bases, OR you give everybody spells (take my houserules for example, I've made it so that your typical party is going to be a cleric of war/str who fights in heavy armor, a bard who picks locks/disables traps [and has access to sneak attack], rangers and paladins who have upped abilities and more/better spells, and clerics/druids/wizards/sorcerers who are still quite powerful, but can't do everything and are a bit more limited in some key areas).

[DrDeth]

There is no debate in D&D that Casters overshadow Fighter and Expert classes on the battle field, but D&D is not just about combat. .

Yes there is, and I'll debate it right now. It's absolutely true that one of the tenets of OD&D was the really high Magic Users were demiurges, etc. That's how Gygax and Arneson invented it. It's supposed to be that way.

But taking PF & 3.5, I find that warrior types rule levels 1-4 and full spellcasters rules levels 17-20. Much more playing is done levels 1-4 than 17-20. So, actually there's balance in the world.

Now, the levels in between, and where the 'sweet spot' is, depends heavily on the campaign and what's allowed. For example, if you allow freaken EVERYTHING but BoNS for 3.5, no surprise, spellcasters will take a early lead. Add in BoNS and be just a little selective, and you can have strong martials out thru levels 12-14 or so. (With PF, there is no BoNS, but again, be a little selective, don't allow crud like Blood Money or Sno-cone wish machine and you're still fine in the middle levels).

4th Ed is a little boring due to over-balance. So, too much balance isn't a good thing, either.

That's not to say 3.5 or even PF is balanced. It's absolutely true that as more stuff comes out the DM must be selective.

[Togo]

Personally, as someone that wishes 3rd edition was better balanced, I want a system where I can choose both the tier/balance point and the character I want to play. However Tier 2 non-casters were not included with my copy of 3.5.

Sure they were. Look at the Tier system, including the prestige classes, and there are plenty of T2 combinations. My favourite is wildshaperanger/Master of Many Forms (Ranger is T4, and MoMFs is +2) but there are lots of others.


But wouldn't you have preferred the author's realizing and fixing that detail of DC scaling faster than the modifier?

Sure, but that's not an effort to rebalance it between classes, that's just poor design within a class.


...
I'm probably underestimating 4e.

[TheIronGolem]

But taking PF & 3.5, I find that warrior types rule levels 1-4 and full spellcasters rules levels 17-20. Much more playing is done levels 1-4 than 17-20. So, actually there's balance in the world.

First, what you're describing isn't balance. It's imbalance in two different phases of the game.

Second, the conventional wisdom that martial characters rule the lower levels only holds true in very low-op games; casters can shut down entire encounters from day one with even moderate optimization. But it's typically around level 7 or 8 (when 4th-level spells start coming online) when they really start dominating.


4th Ed is a little boring due to over-balance. So, too much balance isn't a good thing, either.


The fact that 4th Ed is balanced isn't what causes its problems. It's the way it achieved balance. There is more than one way to balance a game, as other posts in this thread have noted.

[eggynack]

First, what you're describing isn't balance. It's imbalance in two different phases of the game.

Second, the conventional wisdom that martial characters rule the lower levels only holds true in very low-op games; casters can shut down entire encounters from day one with even moderate optimization. But it's typically around level 7 or 8 (when 4th-level spells start coming online) when they really start dominating.
Even that limited balance doesn't even hold true for druids. Realistically, martial characters don't so much dominate the low levels as they do possess different strengths. The fighting guy is probably better at offing kobolds, while the wizard is obviously better at charming a diplomat or setting an alarm, though it may take preparation. At later levels, meaning not level 17, the caster moves from better off the battlefield to better pretty much everywhere, and that balance no longer holds. So, even when martial characters are at their best, I still wouldn't call them anywhere near strictly better than casters.

[Knaight]

If there are already ways to move the balance point, then reducing wild variation isn't necessary.

All this talk of balance seems to come down to the idea that some things are possible that you would prefer to be impossible. Why do you need to change the game system to avoid the things you don't want in your game?

Wild variation in power levels in a system as focused on character power as D&D is is something that throws the spotlight around wildly. It has a major effect, and as such is only the sort of thing that should be chosen deliberately. Levels provide a way to do that that is transparent, making it a conscious choice of the group. Classes, feats, spells, etc. being horribly unbalanced in a number of different ways is an obtuse and opaque version of the same thing. It's usable by people with system mastery, but until they have that it just gets in the way.

There's also the matter of design elegance. Having power scale with level is an elegant method that achieves what it seeks to do with no fuss. Having class be a major part as well without the system even acknowledging it is an issue.


It wouldn't be all that imbalancing though. DR 0 just grants a bunch of pretty reasonable bonuses that aren't out of scale with what you'd expect on a 20th level character. The really wacky stuff only comes online when you hit DR 1.
The issue isn't that it is too powerful. The issue is that if you strap it onto the monk, levels 3*-19 or so still have problems with sucking. Even if it was enough to bring the monk up to par with better balanced classes at level 20, the 3*-19 problem persists.

*3 is somewhat arbitrary. The point of sucking more accurately starts somewhere between 3 and 7.

[OldTrees1]

Sure they were. Look at the Tier system, including the prestige classes, and there are plenty of T2 combinations. My favourite is wildshaperanger/Master of Many Forms (Ranger is T4, and MoMFs is +2) but there are lots of others.



Sure, but that's not an effort to rebalance it between classes, that's just poor design within a class.

MoMF is rated +1 tier. Although I did find some other examples by looking at that list. Although I am not sure if those boost Tier 4 to Tier 2. The non casting PrCs on the +2 list seem to be +2 for Tier 5 classes and +1 for Tier 4 classes

Fixing the poor design of Truenamer would remove Tier 6. In general this is considered a good idea and is part of rebalancing the game. I think your definition of "rebalance" is much more extreme than the definition used by those in favor of the idea.

[Psyren]

Yes there is, and I'll debate it right now. It's absolutely true that one of the tenets of OD&D was the really high Magic Users were demiurges, etc. That's how Gygax and Arneson invented it. It's supposed to be that way.

{{scrubbed}}



But taking PF & 3.5, I find that warrior types rule levels 1-4 and full spellcasters rules levels 17-20. Much more playing is done levels 1-4 than 17-20. So, actually there's balance in the world.

I think this is a key part of the issue. Not only are most actual groups willing to houserule or otherwise tweak their problems away, the majority stick to levels where the issues are less pronounced and melee feels more like they're contributing.

So those groups that play higher on a regular basis see the seams more.

[TheIronGolem]

{{scrubbed}}
I'll admit, it sure is convenient to have all of the very worst arguments for Caster Supremacy collected in one place like that. Appeal to tradition, literary cherry-picking, the very same "two wrongs making a right" thing we were just discussing - it's all right there!

[Psyren]

Appeal to Tradition doesn't apply if you're saying "this is how things got the way they are." It also doesn't apply if you're arguing against "it never used to be like this!" (Which he is.)

But I must admit I do enjoy reading the reactions of folks who look at it :smallbiggrin:

[eggynack]

I'll admit, it sure is convenient to have all of the very worst arguments for Caster Supremacy collected in one place like that. Appeal to tradition, literary cherry-picking, the very same "two wrongs making a right" thing we were just discussing - it's all right there!
Indeed. I think we've done the thing where we utterly destroy pretty much the entire thing before. It was pretty fun.

[Gemini476]

Yes there is, and I'll debate it right now. It's absolutely true that one of the tenets of OD&D was the really high Magic Users were demiurges, etc. That's how Gygax and Arneson invented it. It's supposed to be that way.
This is true. However, casters have also gotten stronger than then - did you know that in BECMI Contingency is a 9th level spell and only works for spells 4th level and lower? Or that back then even Fighters had ways of staying relevant at high levels? (Rules Cyclopedia was Fighter Edition, after all.)

The issue is that 3.5 nerfed the Fighter (even the AD&D Fighter) while buffing the Wizard and Cleric - for the Wizard it was probably to make them more fun to play at lower levels (extra spells! Extra HP from Con!) and for the Cleric it was probably to make it less healbot-y and get 'em into melee.
A big way that they nerfed the fighter was by gicing his toys to everyone else as well - there is nothing that a Fighter can do that another class could not do as well, in contrast to Basic's Fighter Combat Options or Advanced's percentile strength and additional attacks.


But taking PF & 3.5, I find that warrior types rule levels 1-4 and full spellcasters rules levels 17-20. Much more playing is done levels 1-4 than 17-20. So, actually there's balance in the world.
Now, the levels in between, and where the 'sweet spot' is, depends heavily on the campaign and what's allowed. For example, if you allow freaken EVERYTHING but BoNS for 3.5, no surprise, spellcasters will take a early lead. Add in BoNS and be just a little selective, and you can have strong martials out thru levels 12-14 or so. (With PF, there is no BoNS, but again, be a little selective, don't allow crud like Blood Money or Sno-cone wish machine and you're still fine in the middle levels).
As someone who finds starting below level 3 to be a horrible idea (unless you want to reroll your character often, that is - you don't get out of the killed-in-a-crit zone until level 4!), I will disagree on levels 1-4 being more important than 17-20. Especially since Wizards get overpowered at levels 7-16 as well, and that's two thirds of the game.



4th Ed is a little boring due to over-balance. So, too much balance isn't a good thing, either.

That's not to say 3.5 or even PF is balanced. It's absolutely true that as more stuff comes out the DM must be selective.
I don't really find 4E boring but that's purely a subjective thing so yeah. It's just a different game, and by no means the most balanced game that I've seen - that trophy goes to some light-weight game like Sputnik Lost or RISUS or Big Mother***ing Crab Truckers.
Then again, it's easy to be balanced when you have few rules to worry about. It's just that the 3.X devs decided to stay cool as a cucumber throughout the entire edition. Imbalance? What imbalance?

They might have overcorrected a bit for 4E, but I still love some of the silly things that you can make in it. (Werewolf Revenant Vryloka Vampire Vampire Noble Archlich is a thing, and that's five different types of undead at once. You'll need to hybrid with an Arcane class, but still. Oh, and toss in that vampiric bloodline feat to be even more of a vampire.)

[TheIronGolem]

Appeal to Tradition doesn't apply if you're saying "this is how things got the way they are." It also doesn't apply if you're arguing against "it never used to be like this!" (Which he is.)

He's not hauling out those quotes from older editions as a rebuttal against claims that "it never used to be like this" (a claim that he never mentions in the article), he's using the fact that it was that way in past editions as a justification.

Although I just realized he forgot to include the Guy At The Gym Fallacy, so I guess it's not quite a comprehensive list after all.

[Actana]

They might have overcorrected a bit for 4E, but I still love some of the silly things that you can make in it. (Werewolf Revenant Vryloka Vampire Vampire Noble Archlich is a thing, and that's five different types of undead at once. You'll need to hybrid with an Arcane class, but still. Oh, and toss in that vampiric bloodline feat to be even more of a vampire.)

Your Werewolf Revenant Vryloka Vampire Vampire Noble Archlich is nothing compared to my Werewolf Revenant Warforged Vampire Ninja Pirate God!

[bekeleven]

MoMF is rated +1 tier. Although I did find some other examples by looking at that list. Although I am not sure if those boost Tier 4 to Tier 2. The non casting PrCs on the +2 list seem to be +2 for Tier 5 classes and +1 for Tier 4 classesMoMF can absolutely be optimized into campaign-shattering power. It has campaign-ending power above and beyond the average tier 3, on par with highly optimized Beguilers and Dread Necros. The ability to wield and use any weapon or magical item, unlimited 1st and 2nd level spells/day, breaking initiative, raise an army of infinite zombies, sprout HD, abuse the action economy, or simply wield a dozen gargantuan one-handed weapons at once is generally enough to destabilize a party of initiators, bards and warmages.

If the Zceryll binder is popularly considered to be tier 2, despite not meeting JaronK's definition, then so is the MoMF.

[OldTrees1]

-snip-

If the Zceryll binder is popularly considered to be tier 2, despite not meeting JaronK's definition, then so is the MoMF.

Fair point.

[Psyren]

He's not hauling out those quotes from older editions as a rebuttal against claims that "it never used to be like this" (a claim that he never mentions in the article), he's using the fact that it was that way in past editions as a justification.

Although I just realized he forgot to include the Guy At The Gym Fallacy, so I guess it's not quite a comprehensive list after all.

Ah, the so-called "Guy at the Gym Fallacy" - I remember that thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16015509#post16015509) quite well.

[Togo]

MoMF is rated +1 tier. Although I did find some other examples by looking at that list. Although I am not sure if those boost Tier 4 to Tier 2. The non casting PrCs on the +2 list seem to be +2 for Tier 5 classes and +1 for Tier 4 classes

Depends on which version of the pclass adjustments you look at. Certainly I'd have no hesitation in playing a ranger/MoMFs amongst Tier 2 characters, and since you can use it as a the basis for a Pun-Pun ascension, I'd argue that there isn't really a cealing on how far it can be optimised.


Fixing the poor design of Truenamer would remove Tier 6.

Yes and no. Tier 6 is a special category for classes that simply don't function through the full range. The problem with a Truenamer isn't that it's poorly balanced, compared to other classes, but that its mechanics don't actually work.


I think your definition of "rebalance" is much more extreme than the definition used by those in favor of the idea.

No, I don't believe so.

One of the reasons for the existing situation is that the authors wanted to balance mechanics against importance. They saw the melee front-liner, the guy with the sword fighting the dragon, as the focus of the group, the character with the spotlight on him. The reason why so many other classes are more powerful is because they're less important, so you need to bribe people to play them with better mechanics. Wizards have several early levels where they are sub-par, druid class abilities are tied to outdoors, and clerics get abilities showered on them to make up for healing people, an unpopular and unromantic job, and so on.

Now it's obvious in retrospect, that this was not a particularly good decision. But it worked for their group, and it was done to maintain balance assuming a certain playstyle.

And that's why I don't want to change the game to promote 'balance'. Because there is no single golden set of considerations that is balanced. You can only ever balance the game accoridng to a set of assumptions, and the more balance you want, the harder you lean on those assumptions. Rest assured someone out there will find whatever you propose even less balanced than what we have now, because it won't be based on the assumptions underlying their game.

[DrDeth]

Agreed *points to sig*



I think this is a key part of the issue. Not only are most actual groups willing to houserule or otherwise tweak their problems away, the majority stick to levels where the issues are less pronounced and melee feels more like they're contributing.

So those groups that play higher on a regular basis see the seams more.

That..that..cite is ... wonderful!!!:smallcool:

MoMF? :smallconfused:

[Augmental]

Indeed. I think we've done the thing where we utterly destroy pretty much the entire thing before. It was pretty fun.

Do you have a link?

[Boci]

MoMF? :smallconfused:

Master of Many Forms from Complete Adventurer. Druid gives up spellcaster for greater versatility with wildhsape, can also be accessed as a wildhsaping ranger.

[Togo]

Master of Many Forms from Complete Adventurer. Druid gives up spellcaster for greater versatility with wildhsape, can also be accessed as a wildhsaping ranger.

Notable because it's a quadratic progression for a non-caster, and ends up with arguably a larger variety of powers than even a high level sorceror. Gets eclipsed by shapechange when 9th level spells come but recovers in epic levels with epic feats and because shapechange hits a HD cap.

[Perseus]

Note: I prefer 4e over 3.X but I play 3.X from time to time. I defend 4e for what it is but it isn't the only game I enjoy playing.

The biggest problem with 3.X isn't a balance issue of Wizard versus Fighter. The balance between the classes is just the surface of the big old' iceburg.

The problem is that, around level 7, the mundanes stop being useful to the party and become a liability. The only way to stop this is if the DM holds their hand and purposely makes the game revolve around the mundanes in such a way as they can shine from time to time.

Obviously you can make a king of smack, but that king of smack can easily be taken out of the game with low level magic.

I don't care if a wizard is unbalanced against a fighter. But damnit if I invest my time into a class, any class, that has 20 levels of game play I damn well sure better be able to go straight class and not be punished by the game for it.

The DM has a ton on their plate that they shouldn't have to worry if certain members can keep up. It is unfair to the DM at that point... If you have a party of level 12's you better not have to plan as if some are level 5's (discounting new players, that's a fight all on its own).

One of the biggest sins of pathfinder is that they knew of this problem and yet turned a blind eye to it. Seriously, I remember the conversations and remarks. I'm ok with dumping the balance between fighters and wizards (they originally said that was a plan but ditched it and then kicked people off their message boards when they brought it up) but to dig the same pit and willingly jump into it? A company doesn't deserve my money.

I now never play mundanes in PF and only play ToB martials in 3.5. Anything else just doesn't cut it and I become a liability... Which is one of the worst feeling while sitting at a table (unless you purposely do this I guess).

One of the reasons I've seen for developers making games like this is the Fighter Glass Ceiling effect. Mundanes are created with the limitation of low fantasy, essentially they may only do things that normal real world people could do. However casters, because they are magic, can do anything because magic can do anything. They get to play in the world of high fantasy and look down through the glass ceiling to the ones that can never touch them.

But oh well... Even D&D Next is ditching all the cool options for the fighter (seemingly).

[Boci]

Note: I prefer 4e over 3.X but I play 3.X from time to time. I defend 4e for what it is but it isn't the only game I enjoy playing.

The biggest problem with 3.X isn't a balance issue of Wizard versus Fighter. The balance between the classes is just the surface of the big old' iceburg.

The problem is that, around level 7, the mundanes stop being useful to the party and become a liability. The only way to stop this is if the DM holds their hand and purposely makes the game revolve around the mundanes in such a way as they can shine from time to time.

Obviously you can make a king of smack, but that king of smack can easily be taken out of the game with low level magic.

I don't care if a wizard is unbalanced against a fighter. But damnit if I invest my time into a class, any class, that has 20 levels of game play I damn well sure better be able to go straight class and not be punished by the game for it.

The DM has a ton on their plate that they shouldn't have to worry if certain members can keep up. It is unfair to the DM at that point... If you have a party of level 12's you better not have to plan as if some are level 5's (discounting new players, that's a fight all on its own).

One of the biggest sins of pathfinder is that they knew of this problem and yet turned a blind eye to it. Seriously, I remember the conversations and remarks. I'm ok with dumping the balance between fighters and wizards (they originally said that was a plan but ditched it and then kicked people off their message boards when they brought it up) but to dig the same pit and willingly jump into it? A company doesn't deserve my money.

I now never play mundanes in PF and only play ToB martials in 3.5. Anything else just doesn't cut it and I become a liability... Which is one of the worst feeling while sitting at a table (unless you purposely do this I guess).

One of the reasons I've seen for developers making games like this is the Fighter Glass Ceiling effect. Mundanes are created with the limitation of low fantasy, essentially they may only do things that normal real world people could do. However casters, because they are magic, can do anything because magic can do anything. They get to play in the world of high fantasy and look down through the glass ceiling to the ones that can never touch them.

But oh well... Even D&D Next is ditching all the cool options for the fighter (seemingly).

Sticking to tier 3 can help alleviate that problem, its depends on the group.

[Perseus]

Sticking to tier 3 can help alleviate that problem, its depends on the group.

But it doesn't.

The only tier 3 mundanes are ToB, which I love, but many DMs still freak out about. You would think after all this time they would have learned a bit about it and how it really isn't overpowered.

Some DM's call it anime, I tend to counter with Beowulf, but that gets a "whaaa".

In PF, there is no mundane that is over tier 4, as the current thread has been talking about (made by Person Man).

Besides, I like high fantasy. Why would I want wizards stop being wizards? The answer shouldn't be to punish everyone but to increase the tier 4's and lower up to mid to high fantasy.

The problem with 4e was this. They made everyone tier 4 or 3 in power/versitility at a base level compared to 3.5, even the wizards.

What they should have done is made every class tier 3, 2, and 1 compared to 3.5, even the mundanes.

Then give the DM the power to challenge them...

So if you wanted to play a low fantasy, low powered game you wouldn't become a liability BUT you also could go high powered high fantasy.

All of this from level 1 to 30.

[eggynack]

Do you have a link?
Nah, I don't remember what the thread was. I think it was just an incidental argument that took place in a relatively unrelated thread. One of the basics of the argument, if I'm not mistaken, was that many of the premises which he claimed about old editions no longer hold true with this one, and that the imbalance has if anything gotten worse, so the main argument of that website is an illogical one.

[Boci]

But it doesn't.

Hence the "depends on the group clause", because not all groups will use the material.


The problem with 4e was this. They made everyone tier 4 or 3 in power/versitility at a base level compared to 3.5, even the wizards.

They went a bit further than that. Looks at the mechanical variety between those tiers in 3.5: shadow casters, binding, martial adepts, incarnum, advanced casters, factotum. 3.5 was a mess, but it did prove that it was possible to have distinct subsystems and yet retain balance.


What they should have done is made every class tier 3, 2, and 1 compared to 3.5, even the mundanes.

Then give the DM the power to challenge them...

So if you wanted to play a low fantasy, low powered game you wouldn't become a liability BUT you also could go high powered high fantasy.

All of this from level 1 to 30.

That would be ideally yes, and with enough homebrew I think 3.5 qualifies, or at least comes the closest to it.


Nah, I don't remember what the thread was. I think it was just an incidental argument that took place in a relatively unrelated thread. One of the basics of the argument, if I'm not mistaken, was that many of the premises which he claimed about old editions no longer hold true with this one, and that the imbalance has if anything gotten worse, so the main argument of that website is an illogical one.

Was this it? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312906

[Psyren]

Was this it? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312906

That's the one - I enjoyed that discussion a lot, it was very bracing.

The sticking point of course was that he used "magic-users" instead of "wizards" (despite the two terms being synonymous in OD&D, but eh) because the points don't apply so well to clerics and druids. Though I don't think they were wholly inapplicable either.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Note: I prefer 4e over 3.X but I play 3.X from time to time. I defend 4e for what it is but it isn't the only game I enjoy playing.

The biggest problem with 3.X isn't a balance issue of Wizard versus Fighter. The balance between the classes is just the surface of the big old' iceburg.

The problem is that, around level 7, the mundanes stop being useful to the party and become a liability. The only way to stop this is if the DM holds their hand and purposely makes the game revolve around the mundanes in such a way as they can shine from time to time.

Obviously you can make a king of smack, but that king of smack can easily be taken out of the game with low level magic.

I don't care if a wizard is unbalanced against a fighter. But damnit if I invest my time into a class, any class, that has 20 levels of game play I damn well sure better be able to go straight class and not be punished by the game for it.

The DM has a ton on their plate that they shouldn't have to worry if certain members can keep up. It is unfair to the DM at that point... If you have a party of level 12's you better not have to plan as if some are level 5's (discounting new players, that's a fight all on its own).

One of the biggest sins of pathfinder is that they knew of this problem and yet turned a blind eye to it. Seriously, I remember the conversations and remarks. I'm ok with dumping the balance between fighters and wizards (they originally said that was a plan but ditched it and then kicked people off their message boards when they brought it up) but to dig the same pit and willingly jump into it? A company doesn't deserve my money.

I now never play mundanes in PF and only play ToB martials in 3.5. Anything else just doesn't cut it and I become a liability... Which is one of the worst feeling while sitting at a table (unless you purposely do this I guess).

One of the reasons I've seen for developers making games like this is the Fighter Glass Ceiling effect. Mundanes are created with the limitation of low fantasy, essentially they may only do things that normal real world people could do. However casters, because they are magic, can do anything because magic can do anything. They get to play in the world of high fantasy and look down through the glass ceiling to the ones that can never touch them.

But oh well... Even D&D Next is ditching all the cool options for the fighter (seemingly).

This simply isn't true.

Playing as a mundane after level 7 isn't necessarily easy but unless the DM is screwing the mundanes by limiting magic item access they can roll just fine unless there's a caster overshadowing them.

[eggynack]

Was this it? http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=312906
Ooh, yeah. That was some good arguing right there. I'ma reread that now. I remember using some pretty good logic in that one.

Edit: I was accurate in my assessment. Past me was doing good stuff. I'ma high five my laptop with that thread on the screen now, to show my support of the stuff past me said.

[Hurnn]

Not in my experience. Sure it can happen, but it's rare. In general even if you make a classic mistake like a wizard casting polymorph on themselves to compete with the fighter, you end up with something that's less effective than the fighter is at fighting, and less effective than the wizard could be at doing something else. Now sure you can build a cleric or druid that's as effective as a poor op fighter by choosing the right spells in combination, but you're not going to get an all-day fighter replacement by accident. You have to work at it.




Or be a druid level 8 or above who took wild casting at 6. Oh no wait that probably makes you better than the fighter at fighting and you can do all your other cool sh!t too. Ooops Forgot my pet who is also probably as good as the fighter at fighting, and all the dudes I can summon who are also as good as the fighter at fighting, and, and, and,......

[Perseus]

This simply isn't true.

Playing as a mundane after level 7 isn't necessarily easy but unless the DM is screwing the mundanes by limiting magic item access they can roll just fine unless there's a caster overshadowing them.


So it isn't true unless X Y Z... When X Y Z routinely happens?


Casters don't have to try to overshadow a mundane. Some/most have basic abilities that far outdo anything a mundane to do.

My first character was a cleric. I knew nothing of optimization in 3.5 and yet I chose all the basic power spells for the cleric and was a beast.

I'm not sure about everyone but I have yet to run into a DM that said "any magic item for anyone" in a real life game. This isn't about trying to mess over the mundanes but to stop the magic mart from taking over, to get back to the 2e feel of magic items, or because they want a low fantasy game (which accidently hurts mundanes) (again, my experience).

Once you hit level 7 you might as well retire because in a mild optimize group (one that the people aren't purposely making bad choices) the mundanes become obsolete. And in PF it just gets worse with the summoner.

I'm not saying 3.X isn't playable, but I am saying that it has a huge flaw in terms of balance of Player Class versus Game. Heck even the wizard is unbalanced versus the game, but in the opposite way.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So it isn't true unless X Y Z... When X Y Z routinely happens?

When X, Y, and Z are not part of the system it's not the system's fault that those things happen. Magic item availability is clearly defined in the rulebooks and it's not the system's fault if the DM changes that. Casters -choosing- to overshadow their mundane allies instead of supporting them is also the fault of the one running the caster, not the system itself. Even then being overshadowed is not the same as being a liability.



Casters don't have to try to overshadow a mundane. Some/most have basic abilities that far outdo anything a mundane to do.

They don't have to try, they do have to choose. Virtually all casters have magics that, when they use them on themselves, allows them to completely overshadow their mundane allies. When they use those same features to boost those allies instead they typically result in a greater power than the caster or the mundane is capable of reaching on their own. This is supposed to be a cooperative game, after all.


My first character was a cleric. I knew nothing of optimization in 3.5 and yet I chose all the basic power spells for the cleric and was a beast.

Good for you?


I'm not sure about everyone but I have yet to run into a DM that said "any magic item for anyone" in a real life game. This isn't about trying to mess over the mundanes but to stop the magic mart from taking over, to get back to the 2e feel of magic items, or because they want a low fantasy game (which accidently hurts mundanes) (again, my experience).

I'm a DM that says, "If it's cost is within the settlement's GP limit, you can find it with relatively minimal effort," unless the item is remarkably specific. Even then you can get it on commission.

If you want the 2e feel of magic items, play 2e. If you want a low-fantasy game, don't half-ass it. Make all of the rules tweaks necessary to make it work instead of just screwing the non-casters by rarifying magic items and doing nothing else.


Once you hit level 7 you might as well retire because in a mild optimize group (one that the people aren't purposely making bad choices) the mundanes become obsolete. And in PF it just gets worse with the summoner.

In a mild optimization group where magic items are rarified well beyond how they're supposed to be and the DM has done nothing to compensate, sure. But who's talking about conditions X, Y, and Z now? :smallamused:


I'm not saying 3.X isn't playable, but I am saying that it has a huge flaw in terms of balance of Player Class versus Game. Heck even the wizard is unbalanced versus the game, but in the opposite way.

This isn't anything I don't already know. You're just severely overstating the problem.

[Boci]

I'm not sure about everyone but I have yet to run into a DM that said "any magic item for anyone" in a real life game. This isn't about trying to mess over the mundanes but to stop the magic mart from taking over, to get back to the 2e feel of magic items, or because they want a low fantasy game (which accidently hurts mundanes) (again, my experience).

That's not what the DMG tells you to do. Players get access to their WBL, and any settlement with a gp limit higher than the items market price has that item. If the DM changes that, its not the games fault.

[ideasmith]

The sticking point of course was that he used "magic-users" instead of "wizards" (despite the two terms being synonymous in OD&D, but eh) because the points don't apply so well to clerics and druids. Though I don't think they were wholly inapplicable either.

The terms 'magic-user' and 'wizard' were not synonymous in OD&D. The term 'magic-user' was the name of a class, while the term 'wizard' was a level title. Since any explanation I could give of level titles would be bizzarre enough to invite disbelief, here are some links:

https://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4alum/20090206
http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~leirbakk/rpg/adnd/classesandkits/level.html
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/level-titles.html
http://rpgathenaeum.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/six-aspects-of-legacy-dd-that-should-make-a-comeback/
http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/04/the_12_most_insane_old_school_dungeons_dragons_rul .php
http://rjbs.manxome.org/rubric/entry/1943

[Psyren]

*shrug* Conceptually then. The "magic-user" was the guy in the old artwork with the dress and pointy hat, same deal.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I want to try and give my opinion on this, but D&D balance is hard to talk about because of how highly contextual everything is. Roleplaying vs puzzles vs combat balance and all that jazz. I think the best way to explain my stance is to simply explain my problems with magic and fighter/rogue. I'm creative, don't cha know.

Initially both of these were multi-paragraph entries that rambled without really getting to the point. I'll just make them lists instead.


The Wizard The Magic System:
A large swath of spells that negate the skill system when necessary
Can indirectly affect a result by easily aiding their teammates.
Has enough power that players can accidentally break a story or negate future challenges
Teleportation breaks all narrative structures and tension unless very diligently planned for ahead of time

The Fighter:
High DPR is the only thing they are really good at, and it's a niche that is incredibly annoying to deal with as a DM
Any *player* class in a high magic setting that has zero way to overcome physical limitations through magical, SP, SU, or EX abilities doesn't make conceptual sense to me
Their class features aren't actual class features but feats
They have few ways to directly aid their teammates


I should probably also say that if I were to try and "fix" D&D, I would probably not try and really break the wizard as much as I would try to fix the fighter. I understand why the wizard exists in D&D, and don't have too much of a problem with that conceptually, I am just frustrated by how easy it is for the class to break the world over it's knee. The fighter is a dude with a sword trying to kill a dragon or demon that isn't dumb enough to land/stand next to him or not just leave when he's losing.

Though, honestly, that's more of a problem in high level D&D (let's say 13 or 15 and up), which is a generally terrible experience for me anyway.

[VanIsleKnight]

D&D, it's a bad and poorly designed system. It's not the best for fairness, and it never will be. It's the most popular though because it's one of the oldest.

There is literally nothing a mundane can do that a caster cannot do better, faster, stronger in or out of combat. Mundanes need powerful magic items to be cool and awesome, spell casters just have to be.

[Omegas]

Well here is a question - how much would you have to nerf magic to make mages balance?

1? Decrease all damaging spells by reducing dice per spell level (minimum 1) same with other limited bonuses except reduce points by spell level. [harsh]

2? Reduce the dice multiplier by increasing the number of levels to add dice? [limiting]

3? Reduce the save DC of their spells to make them easier to overcome or evade? [forcing them to select spells based on the target's class]

[Boci]

Well here is a question - how much would you have to nerf magic to make mages balance?

1? Decrease all damaging spells by reducing dice per spell level (minimum 1) same with other limited bonuses except reduce points by spell level. [harsh]

2? Reduce the dice multiplier by increasing the number of levels to add dice? [limiting]

3? Reduce the save DC of their spells to make them easier to overcome or evade? [forcing them to select spells based on the target's class]

Its more about limiting spell access. Advanced casters are tier 3. Another idea is to add the following rules to wizard:
1. Wizards have spell point system, but:
2. Spell point of is (spell level squared) and
3. Wizard also keep the spell slot system. In order to cast a spell, they must have the spell slot un-expended and the necessary amount of spell points.

[Dr. Cliché]

Well here is a question - how much would you have to nerf magic to make mages balance?

Well, for a start, it shouldn't just be about nerfing magic. You also want to make mundane classes a bit better - e.g. giving the fighter actual class features, rather than just feats (and maybe also grouping some weapon-related feats).

Anyway,


1? Decrease all damaging spells by reducing dice per spell level (minimum 1) same with other limited bonuses except reduce points by spell level. [harsh]

Are damaging spells the main problem with casters? Sure, they have some good ranged-touch ones (scorching ray, the orb spells). However, I thought that it was the utility spells like teleport and polymorph that made mages broken.


2? Reduce the dice multiplier by increasing the number of levels to add dice? [limiting]

Again, I just don't see damage dice as the real issue with casters. You could maybe tone down ranged-touch spells but, as above, I just don't see damage spells as being a major balance issue for wizards (at least, compared to their other spells).



3? Reduce the save DC of their spells to make them easier to overcome or evade? [forcing them to select spells based on the target's class]

This seems like fixing the wrong part of the problem. In my experience, DCs already scale dubiously compared to saving throws. Furthermore, this would make evocation spells (which are already pretty bad) outright terrible.

I think the real problems in this regard are:

1) Spells that allow no saving throw because they have to hit (e.g. Ray of Enfeeblement, Enervation) However, the ease with which most targets can be hit by ranged touch attacks makes these spells much more likely to work than ones which require a saving throw. It's not so bad when ranged touch spells just deal damage, but when they drain up to 4 levels, or cripple a creature's strength, they can effectively win an encounter then and there.

2) There are too many spells that are effectively 'save or die'. Or, more precisely, 'save or lose'. Basically, the problem is when you have spells that are all or nothing - mainly because they completely ignore a creature's hp. Does your babarian have 300hp whilst raging? Flesh to Stone doesn't give a crap - now he's a statue.

But then, that's just an extreme example - you also have Sleep, Glitterdust, colour spray, etc. And, whilst they might not kill creatures that fail their saves, they can still cripple them enough to effectively end the fight (bar a few more sword swings or some coup de graces).

3) What's the DC for polymorph or teleport? Oh, wait, there isn't one. I know I basically said this earlier, but I think it bears repeating. See, if you want to fix magic/casters, you have to start by looking at the spells that really break them - virtually all of which would ignore the nerfs you're suggesting.

[Omegas]

See, if you want to fix magic/casters, you have to start by looking at the spells that really break them - virtually all of which would ignore the nerfs you're suggesting.

None of what I suggested was a solution, I never expected them to work but they were a nudge to get you and others talking.

So lets hear it. What is a real fix for mages and magic in comparison to fighter / expert types.

The whole point of this threat is that I am tired of people complaining about imbalance with no intent on suggesting a viable solution to the perceived problem.

I hate to be sentential but I think a lot of it can be chalked up to simple elitism. Being competitive many players are only interested in the best possible build compared to other players. Who has the highest DPR, etc and so forth. The thing is D&D is not about having the best character but simple being better then the BBEG. A party of all mages can be quite boring. (not saying it has to be) It still falls down to how a group plays the game.

I don't think any of my players have played the same build twice. We played campaigns where everyone's stats =10 to start and they still had fun, including the mage. I have seen crappy mage builds that could not hold a candle to a well build Warrior = an NPC class. When you focus only on the elite perspective you miss the big picture. [note this is not directed at anyone] It is suppose to be a fun game you share with 3 to 4 friends in a "TEAM" play environment, not your character is the uber king of the hill and all others need to bow down before your dress like robes and point toed slippers.

To be Clear = I am not saying a mage cannot invest their abilities into obsoleting another party members. I am saying that if they are, then the problem lies with the player not the game. Example = if there is a talented thief in the party then there is no need for the mage to take or prepare the knock spell. It's not about whether or not they "CAN" as much as it is "WHY ARE THEY?" Well rounded characters are great but not at the expense of another character.

Regardless I have heard this debate on every forum and more over then not it is a complaint because the poster fail to offer viable solutions. Look at this threat. In a handful of days this threat is pages long with little help from the composer, while other threads where posters are asking for help get less attention. I hope that instills a point to forum readers. Complaining is not productive. Solutions are productive. If your not working on a solution then your part of the problem. And I know we have all seen posters that fall into that definition.

[Augmental]

None of what I suggested was a solution, I never expected them to work but they were a nudge to get you and others talking.

So lets hear it. What is a real fix for mages and magic in comparison to fighter / expert types.

The whole point of this threat is that I am tired of people complaining about imbalance with no intent on suggesting a viable solution to the perceived problem.

I hate to be sentential but I think a lot of it can be chalked up to simple elitism. Being competitive many players are only interested in the best possible build compared to other players. Who has the highest DPR, etc and so forth. The thing is D&D is not about having the best character but simple being better then the BBEG. A party of all mages can be quite boring. (not saying it has to be) It still falls down to how a group plays the game.

I don't think any of my players have played the same build twice. We played campaigns where everyone's stats =10 to start and they still had fun, including the mage. I have seen crappy mage builds that could not hold a candle to a well build Warrior = an NPC class. When you focus only on the elite perspective you miss the big picture. [note this is not directed at anyone] It is suppose to be a fun game you share with 3 to 4 friends in a "TEAM" play environment, not your character is the uber king of the hill and all others need to bow down before your dress like robes and point toed slippers.

To be Clear = I am not saying a mage cannot invest their abilities into obsoleting another party members. I am saying that if they are, then the problem lies with the player not the game. Example = if there is a talented thief in the party then there is no need for the mage to take or prepare the knock spell. It's not about whether or not they "CAN" as much as it is "WHY ARE THEY?" Well rounded characters are great but not at the expense of another character.

Regardless I have heard this debate on every forum and more over then not it is a complaint because the poster fail to offer viable solutions. Look at this threat. In a handful of days this threat is pages long with little help from the composer, while other threads where posters are asking for help get less attention. I hope that instills a point.

Is that all sarcasm? :smallconfused:

[eggynack]

None of what I suggested was a solution, I never expected them to work but they were a nudge to get you and others talking.

So lets hear it. What is a real fix for mages and magic in comparison to fighter / expert types.

The whole point of this threat is that I am tired of people complaining about imbalance with no intent on suggesting a viable solution to the perceived problem.
People suggest solutions to balance problems all the time. Like, a lot. There are four separate ones of varying effectiveness suggested in the tier system alone, and those are far from the only ones available. I think you're trying to solve a problem, a lack of dialogue about possible solutions to the balance issue, that doesn't exist.

[Omegas]

People suggest solutions to balance problems all the time. Like, a lot. There are four separate ones of varying effectiveness suggested in the tier system alone, and those are far from the only ones available. I think you're trying to solve a problem, a lack of dialogue about possible solutions to the balance issue, that doesn't exist.
If this is true then whey is it one of the more dominant threats, that I see on various message boards? I get that people have great ideas for problems but for the most part they dont reply them on every post that pops up about them. They reference where they where discussed and continue the conversation where more perspective has been presented.

Else why has this thread not fallen to the waste side while people continued the conversation on "Re:Why would somebody play any non-caster?"

[eggynack]

If this is true then whey is it one of the more dominant threats, that I see on various message boards? I get that people have great ideas for problems but for the most part they dont reply them on every post that pops up about them. They reference where they where discussed and continue the conversation where more perspective has been presented.
Because while there are solutions discussed, there aren't any universally agreed upon solutions, and there certainly aren't any easy solutions. 3.5 is a deeply unbalanced game. Also, as the Oberoni fallacy states, just because a problem can be fixed, that doesn't mean that the problem isn't there, and it's a problem worth discussing and measuring in its own right.

[Augmental]

Else why has this thread not fallen to the waste side while people continued the conversation on "Re:Why would somebody play any non-caster?"

Well don't jinx it! :smallannoyed:

[Omegas]

Is that all sarcasm? :smallconfused:

Not at all. There is a real parody between gamers that focus on Elitism while not appreciating the game for being a game. I will never say D&D is perfect or that the writers forseen it all but we as players could do more if we werent focused on our characters inadequacies compared to other characters.

[eggynack]

Else why has this thread not fallen to the waste side while people continued the conversation on "Re:Why would somebody play any non-caster?"
I'm not really sure what you're asking here. That thread still continues to exist, as does this one. They're different discussions.

Edit:
Not at all. There is a real parody between gamers that focus on Elitism while not appreciating the game for being a game. I will never say D&D is perfect or that the writers forseen it all but we as players could do more if we werent focused on our characters inadequacies compared to other characters.
The issue was mostly that you had the whole thing done up in blue, which is generally accepted hereabouts as sarcasm-text.

[Omegas]

The issue was mostly that you had the whole thing done up in blue, which is generally accepted hereabouts as sarcasm-text.

Really???? I really did not know that, LOL thanks fot the intel I will avoid that from now on. :smallwink:

[Togo]

Or be a druid level 8 or above who took wild casting at 6. Oh no wait that probably makes you better than the fighter at fighting and you can do all your other cool sh!t too. Ooops Forgot my pet who is also probably as good as the fighter at fighting, and all the dudes I can summon who are also as good as the fighter at fighting, and, and, and,......

Only if you aren't any good at running a fighter. Druid will have less to hit chance, do less damage, have worse AC, and may well have fewer hp. Granted you can still cast spells, but then if you're doing that, you're not fighting, so what's the problem here? Similarly, your pet will be worse than the fighter, and the summoned creatures much worse than the fighter.

Now if you spend all the druid's resources trying to match a fighter's capabilties, then you might well make it, but you'd still be better off leaving the fighter to fight, and concentrating on the things only druids can do.

[eggynack]

Only if you aren't any good at running a fighter. Druid will have less to hit chance, do less damage, have worse AC, and may well have fewer hp. Granted you can still cast spells, but then if you're doing that, you're not fighting, so what's the problem here? Similarly, your pet will be worse than the fighter, and the summoned creatures much worse than the fighter.

Now if you spend all the druid's resources trying to match a fighter's capabilties, then you might well make it, but you'd still be better off leaving the fighter to fight, and concentrating on the things only druids can do.
That may have been a bit overstated, as the individual components are likely worse than a fighter unless you're pushing things a bit (something like venomfire could probably manage it), but the totality of stabbing forces is likely greater than what a fighter can pull off, even without spells. Therein lies the problem, for you probably reach those fighter besting forces with just the animal companion and wild shape. Summons+animal companion is also likely enough, leaving you able to fly around out of harm's way.

[Dr. Cliché]

None of what I suggested was a solution, I never expected them to work but they were a nudge to get you and others talking.

So lets hear it. What is a real fix for mages and magic in comparison to fighter / expert types.

The whole point of this threat is that I am tired of people complaining about imbalance with no intent on suggesting a viable solution to the perceived problem.

Well, if I was going to suggest some possible solutions:

Fighters:
- make them more like Swordsages - i.e. give them some variation in terms of what they can do, and manoeuvres (or somesuch) that they can use in combat.
- Or, failing that, at least give them some class features that aren't feats.
- Group some weak feats into single feats (e.g. point blank shot and precise shot; weapon focus and weapon specialisation etc.). Basically, don't make fighters need a ton of feats because they all give such minute bonuses.

Casters:
- Perhaps limit spellbooks in some way so that wizards can't know every spell.
- Raise the level of problematic spells, or reduce their power in some other way.

If my solutions seem a bit dubious it's probably because I rarely give the matter much thought. Honestly, I just can't recall any games where the caster/mundane imbalance in 3.5 has become especially bothersome. Maybe it's just that, in my group, the guys playing fighters tend to optimise more than those playing mages - so the difference is rarely that pronounced. Basically, I've never had much reason to seek out solutions to the magic vs mundane problem.

[Qwertystop]

A lot of the issue is that, in the few cases where crazy-good utility spells have flaws/limits (presumably intended to make them less OP), some other writer looked around, saw the flaws as problems, and wrote more spells to fix it, or other spells already exist. Or metamagic.

Planar Binding, for example, requires a Magic Circle Against [X] spell, and has a variety of ways to break out. Many methods, though, can be solved with more magic - teleporting to escape can be stopped with Dimensional Anchor (suggested in the Magic Circle spell), many ranged attacks with a multi-layered Wind Wall, Charisma checks with any sort of Charisma damage... The biggest counter is the special diagram mentioned in the Magic Circle spell, which has the downside of not being guaranteed until you can get +19 to Spellcraft. Magic (partially) solves that, too - boost your INT or Spellcraft. If the diagram doesn't disappear when the binding ends, use Shrink Item (draw it on cloth or something) and store it for the next time you want to bind something. For getting the creature to actually do what you want, magic can boost your Charisma or create payment. And all that's just in core - I wouldn't be suprised if some other book has a spell that just makes a better binding circle.

And... hmmm. Actually, that's the only one I can think of that has built-in flaws and downsides, other than the "DM is encouraged to misinterpret things" ones like Wish and Miracle that aren't usually needed anyway. Might have been a bit hasty with the beginning of this post.

[Gemini476]

A lot of the issue is that, in the few cases where crazy-good utility spells have flaws/limits (presumably intended to make them less OP), some other writer looked around, saw the flaws as problems, and wrote more spells to fix it, or other spells already exist. Or metamagic.

Planar Binding, for example, requires a Magic Circle Against [X] spell, and has a variety of ways to break out. Many methods, though, can be solved with more magic - teleporting to escape can be stopped with Dimensional Anchor (suggested in the Magic Circle spell), many ranged attacks with a multi-layered Wind Wall, Charisma checks with any sort of Charisma damage... The biggest counter is the special diagram mentioned in the Magic Circle spell, which has the downside of not being guaranteed until you can get +19 to Spellcraft. Magic (partially) solves that, too - boost your INT or Spellcraft. If the diagram doesn't disappear when the binding ends, use Shrink Item (draw it on cloth or something) and store it for the next time you want to bind something. For getting the creature to actually do what you want, magic can boost your Charisma or create payment. And all that's just in core - I wouldn't be suprised if some other book has a spell that just makes a better binding circle.

And... hmmm. Actually, that's the only one I can think of that has built-in flaws and downsides, other than the "DM is encouraged to misinterpret things" ones like Wish and Miracle that aren't usually needed anyway. Might have been a bit hasty with the beginning of this post.

You can take 20 on drawing the circle, if you have three hours and twenty minutes to spare.

As for spells with flaws, what about Teleport and mishaps? Divination solves that almost completely. Or things like Mental Pinnacle, where a Theurge just laughs and laughs and laughs.

Really though, there aren't many flaws left in the spells - most of them were removed in the transition from 2e to 3e. Like Teleport having an up/down mishap that either killed you or had you fall terrible distances, or Haste aging you, or spells in general aging you, or creating permanent magic effects causing con loss... Yeah, there were a bunch of weaknesses that are gone now.

[Kelb_Panthera]

D&D, it's a bad and poorly designed system. It's not the best for fairness, and it never will be. It's the most popular though because it's one of the oldest.

There is literally nothing a mundane can do that a caster cannot do better, faster, stronger in or out of combat. Mundanes need powerful magic items to be cool and awesome, spell casters just have to be.

I think calling it a bad system is a bit much. Brand recognition alone couldn't have held the community's interest this long.

The second paragraph is fairly accurate though. That's the major issue that a lot of people have with the system once they've sat down and really come to understand it. This doesn't make non-casters non-viable or prevent them from being fun to play but it is, doubtlessly and unfortunately, true.


Well here is a question - how much would you have to nerf magic to make mages balance?

1? Decrease all damaging spells by reducing dice per spell level (minimum 1) same with other limited bonuses except reduce points by spell level. [harsh]

2? Reduce the dice multiplier by increasing the number of levels to add dice? [limiting]

3? Reduce the save DC of their spells to make them easier to overcome or evade? [forcing them to select spells based on the target's class]

The problem doesn't lie in the magic system itself but in specific, problematic spells. Eliminating or adjusting those spells very nearly fixes the problem all by itself.

To get to balance from there you need to either boost mundanes; increase their options, reduce their reliance on magic items, etc; or further nerf casters; increase casting times as suggested above, reduce available spell slots, remove items that restore spent spell slots, remove or tweak expendable spell generating items (wands mostly); or some combination of the two.

[DMJeff]

I am writing this in response to the thread "Re:Why would somebody play any non-caster?"

You know I have always hated this debate. We as players demand diversity from the writers while criticizing any imbalance.

Do players really want every character to do the same damage, same defenses, etc regardless of what class they choose? Simply defining that they achieve their abilities in different ways?

There is no debate in D&D that Casters overshadow Fighter and Expert classes on the battle field, but D&D is not just about combat. Granted a great many DMs focus solely on battles, but that is not the writers' fault. That is just poor story telling on the part of a lazy DM. The point is to tell a story that challenges players intellectually, while keeps them interested with a balanced amount of problem solving and combat. If your players hang around a tavern waiting on the next fool to run in screaming "Please save us" from some monster, then they should be playing miniatures or click games, not D&D.

A good D&D campaign is a balance between skill oriented story telling, combat, and group problem solving. It is foolish or at least naive to expect seamless balance between the endless diversities of game play styles that we demand of the writers.

Also; D&D like many games is evolving. Foresight is often difficult to obtain even with beta testing. Looking back at Alpha or Advanced D&D the game has come a long way. The writers are learning from their mistakes while attempting to retain a unique identity from other RPGs. I think the greatest problem we as players face is that we expect fair balance while demanding diversity and flawless foresight from the writers. We also expect the game to fit our play style while not accepting that millions of players do not play the same way.

In my campaigns a caster dares not adventure without a good fighter and expert type in the party. The non-caster types bring as much to the table as the mage. It is all in how they play it.

That being said I will not debate that a fighter requires investing all if not more of their wealth into their gear merely to remain competitive, but keep in mind several of the base classes were designed to be gateways to prestige classes. Ed Stark even stated that - "Fighters" are weak because they did not expect players to invest levels in Fighter beyond meeting prerequisites, but Fighter does serve to make a good NPC class. Regardless even well designed prestige fighter types can be overshadowed by elite caster builds, and smart caster builds can make up for many of the lacking skills and abilities. Regardless Elitism is usually less fun and makes for poor game play.

My players invest in their fighter types. Meaning the fighter types end up with the most wealth followed by the expert types and finally the casters. This is their choice not something I imposed on them. They do what they can to make up for the imbalance within the game and as such they have more fun. That is the real point of the game.

If you disagree I am interested in hearing your point of view.

Imbalance isn't an issue with a few well purchased item's or a group that works well together!

[The Trickster]

D&D, it's a bad and poorly designed system. It's not the best for fairness, and it never will be. It's the most popular though because it's one of the oldest.


I think calling it a bad system is a bit much. Brand recognition alone couldn't have held the community's interest this

Hmmm. If you are both talking about D&D in general, then Kelb makes a good point. But...

Maybe this is just me...but it seems like people are far less interested in 5th edition then previous editions. Perhaps people are getting sick of the brand name now, especially after 4.0 was kinda "meh" in a lot of people's eyes?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Hmmm. If you are both talking about D&D in general, then Kelb makes a good point. But...

Maybe this is just me...but it seems like people are far less interested in 5th edition then previous editions. Perhaps people are getting sick of the brand name now, especially after 4.0 was kinda "meh" in a lot of people's eyes?

I'm reasonably confident we were both talking about 3.X D&D specifically; that being the system the topic is centered on and the system around which this entire subforum basically revolves, with the occasional nod to other d20 system games and a fairly sizable chunk discussing pathfinder which is essentially the same game (except for gradually approaching "broken even worse" status). I was certainly talking about 3.5 specifically, anyway.

[Psyren]

Hmmm. If you are both talking about D&D in general, then Kelb makes a good point. But...

Maybe this is just me...but it seems like people are far less interested in 5th edition then previous editions. Perhaps people are getting sick of the brand name now, especially after 4.0 was kinda "meh" in a lot of people's eyes?

That proves Kelb's point even more though (minus the "broken even worse" bit of meaningless hyperbole.) 3.5 is what a large chunk of tabletop players wanted, to the point that even a brand new IP simply rereleasing 3.5 with a fresh coat of paint was able to topple D&D from its lofty throne.

[Knaight]

I think calling it a bad system is a bit much. Brand recognition alone couldn't have held the community's interest this long.

Brand recognition is only one of the major things D&D has going in its favor which have nothing to do with the quality of the game. It has a large market share, which means that most people get into it before other games - this has nothing to do with the quality. Because of that, it has a very large network effect, as the one game that is reliably known by most everyone who plays RPGs.


Not at all. There is a real parody between gamers that focus on Elitism while not appreciating the game for being a game. I will never say D&D is perfect or that the writers forseen it all but we as players could do more if we werent focused on our characters inadequacies compared to other characters.
Being a game is a low bar to clear - there are a great many RPGs out there. As such, I really don't see any reason to appreciate D&D just for being a game. There are still things I appreciate it for (it certainly has a wide variety of built in stuff), but that doesn't mean I should ignore its flaws, one of which is that character capability is wildly variable even within the context of what is supposed to roughly equalize it (levels).

Deliberately ignoring that flaw is, admittedly, one way to better enjoy it. Another is to simply play a different game entirely. Another is to understand how and where it breaks to counteract it. Options two and three seem better to me. Option two in particular stands out, as all that involves is finding a good game out of the huge number of other games out there.

As for elitism - I really don't see this. Wanting to play a good game isn't elitist. Wanting to get to play as much as the other players do - which is what balance is all about, when it comes down to it - isn't elitist. Elitism would be something like saying that the people who play it one way (such as by willfully ignoring the discrepancies in character capability) are better players who can do more than those who do so another way.

[Kelb_Panthera]

That proves Kelb's point even more though (minus the "broken even worse" bit of meaningless hyperbole.) 3.5 is what a large chunk of tabletop players wanted, to the point that even a brand new IP simply rereleasing 3.5 with a fresh coat of paint was able to topple D&D from its lofty throne.

That wasn't hyperbole.

I'll be the first to admit that I don't follow Paizo's developments all that closely but their eye for balance is well known for being...... inaccurate. I -have- recently seen something about an open beta for some new classes, amongst which was the arcanist; a class that gets the best part of both the wizard and sorcerer casting mechanics. Then, of course, there's the summoner which has been problematic, balance wise, since its creation.

I'm reasonably confident that, unless they start seriously listening to people who objectively analyze their mechanics, PF material will surpass WotC material for "broken" at some point.

I won't say anymore on this matter after this post. We don't want to derail this thread into an edition war.


Brand recognition is only one of the major things D&D has going in its favor which have nothing to do with the quality of the game. It has a large market share, which means that most people get into it before other games - this has nothing to do with the quality. Because of that, it has a very large network effect, as the one game that is reliably known by most everyone who plays RPGs.

That explains how the community got so big in the first place but not why the community continues to be so active not only 10 years after the initial release but for several years after the rules-set's publication was discontinued.

If it was a genuinely bad system it would be showing much stronger signs of dying off by now.

[Psyren]

That wasn't hyperbole.

Of course it is. "Broken" means "doesn't function" - PF and 3.5 clearly do.

There is some imbalance certainly - and a lot of it is intentionally left up to individual DMs to resolve, in part because we bicker to this day on exactly what is wrong and how to fix it (or whether it even needs fixing.)

[The Trickster]

That wasn't a hyperbole.

That explains how the community got so big in the first place but not why the community continues to be so active not only 10 years after the initial release but for several years after the rules-set's publication was discontinued.

If it was a genuinely bad system it would be showing much stronger signs of dying off by now.

It's a hyperbole, but I always kinda thought it was one of those times where the word just...kinda changed meanings. Heck, people complain about "broken" things all the time in video games, usually refering to a powerful move or weapon or whatever. I think my friend Keven is a "cool" guy, but not because I put a thermometer in his mouth every time I see him.

As for the community, maybe another reason why they don't leave is because...why should they? It's not like 4.0 blew that many people off their feet, and Pathfinder didn't do what many people thought it was going to do (many people thought PF was going to be a fixed 3.5, even if that was never suppose to be the case or not. Not really looking to debate that). I don't see as many people interested in 5.0 either.

[Hurnn]

Only if you aren't any good at running a fighter. Druid will have less to hit chance, do less damage, have worse AC, and may well have fewer hp. Granted you can still cast spells, but then if you're doing that, you're not fighting, so what's the problem here? Similarly, your pet will be worse than the fighter, and the summoned creatures much worse than the fighter.

Now if you spend all the druid's resources trying to match a fighter's capabilities, then you might well make it, but you'd still be better off leaving the fighter to fight, and concentrating on the things only druids can do.


So the fighter at lvl 8 is going to out perform: me a VoP druid as a dire lion, my brown bear companion with a perminancied greater magic fang, and animal growth, and the 1d4+1 greenbound dire wolves I summoned round 1. He must be a pretty god damn amazing fighter.

[eggynack]

So the fighter at lvl 8 is going to out perform: me a VoP druid as a dire lion, my brown bear companion with a perminancied greater magic fang, and animal growth, and the 1d4+1 greenbound dire wolves I summoned round 1. He must be a pretty god damn amazing fighter.
Actually, Togo's argument is that the fighter would outperform any one of those. It's plausible, I think, though a druid could probably work their magic such that their individual elements are fighter-superior.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Of course it is. "Broken" means "doesn't function" - PF and 3.5 clearly do.

There is some imbalance certainly - and a lot of it is intentionally left up to individual DMs to resolve, in part because we bicker to this day on exactly what is wrong and how to fix it (or whether it even needs fixing.)

Poor choice of words then. My point was that PF will likely become more unbalanced than 3.5 if things keep going like they're going.

[Psyren]

Given the absence of products like ToB, PF is already more imbalanced than 3.5.

However, what many people (especially people here on this forum) don't realize, is that's okay. The reason being that PF happens to have a very key advantage 3.5 did not - namely, being completely open - so for those tables that do care about balance and want to fighters to have nice things etc., it is much, much easier for them to get their hands on third-party solutions to that perceived problem, because it is much easier for third-party publishers to create those solutions in the first place. And when one person finds this underappreciated gem and wants to introduce it to the community, they can do so without fearing reprisal, because the third-party stuff has to be open too.

For example, when Paizo creates a new rule for melee (such as Style or Teamwork feats) and publisher X comes along and says "I like the concept, but these are too weak" - they can make a bunch more of their own without getting their pants sued off, and every DM wins - the ones that thought they were fine as-is, and the ones that agreed with X and thought they were weak, both get new toys to play with.

[Abrahadabra]

So the fighter at lvl 8 is going to out perform: me a VoP druid as a dire lion, my brown bear companion with a perminancied greater magic fang, and animal growth, and the 1d4+1 greenbound dire wolves I summoned round 1. He must be a pretty god damn amazing fighter.

I think you missed the point here:

Now if you spend all the druid's resources trying to match a fighter's capabilities, then you might well make it, but you'd still be better off leaving the fighter to fight, and concentrating on the things only druids can do.

You might make it, but you have to concentrate resources on it. So you're spending resources of a druid to make it as good as a fighter, but the fighter (and party) would probably rather have the fighter in the front and the druid doing what only he can do (instead of investing resources to do what the fighters can). It seems like an appeal to roles in a party, and I agree with it.

Then if the player who wants to play a fighter just decides to get a second druid focused on fighting, good for him, but it will be a druid that's worse than an average one on everything else and much better in physical combat. So his point seems to be: yes, fighters can't do what wizards can and wizards can do what fighters can, but they have to dedicate a bit to that. It's like an specialization of some kind: you sacrifice your other sides to do that. And if your class is capable of everything, that doesn't make it overpowered - it would be if it made your character capable of everything at once. And your character isn't capable of having the same mailman power of a focused mailman if you decide to invest in feats like power attack and divine disciple (war), because those feats could give place to something different, like more metamagic, CL-increases, etc.

Of course, there's still the argument of "ok, but past a certain point the melee wizard will be better than the fighter", well, I'm sorry, but that's magic. It's supposed to be better than steel and wood, I got no problems with the "want more power, get more magic" philosophy, I think it's how it's supposed to be after all. "But I like using swords and I want AoE attacks that hit like fireballs!", I like swords too, but in that case I'd suggest to go play Tera online or watch anime, because in any worthy classic fantasy world like D&D, I think the dude who wields or somehow has access to great magic has to be the scarier one. That's what I want to see and feel in the scenario, both as a wizard and a fighter, and the system has to express that.

edit: I do think the fighter class is crap even for combatants though, and I love some homebrews to fix them (and monks like Jiriku's and rogues like Grod's)

[eggynack]

I think you missed the point here:

Now if you spend all the druid's resources trying to match a fighter's capabilities, then you might well make it, but you'd still be better off leaving the fighter to fight, and concentrating on the things only druids can do.

You might make it, but you have to concentrate resources on it. So you're spending resources of a druid to make it as good as a fighter, but the fighter (and party) would probably rather have the fighter in the front and the druid doing what only he can do (instead of investing resources to do what the fighters can). It seems like an appeal to roles in a party, and I agree with it.

Then if the player who wants to play a fighter just decides to get a second druid focused on fighting, good for him, but it will be a druid that's worse than an average one on everything else and much better in physical combat. So his point seems to be: yes, fighters can't do what wizards can and wizards can do what fighters can, but they have to dedicate a bit to that. It's like an specialization of some kind: you sacrifice your other sides to do that. And if your class is capable of everything, that doesn't make it overpowered - it would be if it made your character capable of everything at once. And your character isn't capable of having the same mailman power of a focused mailman if you decide to invest in feats like power attack and divine disciple (war), because those feats could give place to something different, like more metamagic, CL-increases, etc.
I rather disagree with the core claim here, which is that a druid has to invest a lot, and sacrifice many of their build resources, in order to compete in a melee way. They really don't, and in fact, shouldn't. It might be correct to invest a feat in natural bond, and maybe get exalted companion in order to VoP out the animal companion, but past that druidic melee style is pretty much free.

Deciding that you want to toss out a giant crocodile in the middle of combat requires absolutely no build or daily resources, and summoning feats tend to be good enough in general that picking one or two up isn't going too far out of a druid's way. The same goes for the animal companion, which just kinda beats face out of the box, and the same also goes for wild shape, which can turn you from a defensively oriented bat into some sort of dinosaur within six seconds, with no in-game preparation.

Perhaps each of these factors isn't up to fighter levels, but it is the confluence of class features that allows the druid to win on the fighter's terms. So, you say that it would only be overpowered if an individual druid were capable of doing all of these things at once. Well, they pretty much can. There may be a few bases that the druid cannot cover in class, and it takes some effort to cover those, but you can easily do so without sacrificing melee potential, and you can easily melee without sacrificing base covering potential. As I sometimes like to say, a druid is always a couple of rounds away from breaking the game. You're wandering around wild shape'd into some completely ordinary dog, all of your spell slots filled with detect poison for some reason, when suddenly foom, now you're a fleshraker, and oh no, there go some spontaneously summoned huge elementals, and oh crap, now oreads are coming out and creating earthquakes. Completely crazy, and it cost the druid absolutely nothing on a preparatory scale.

[Psyren]

Deciding that you want to toss out a giant crocodile in the middle of combat requires absolutely no build or daily resources, and summoning feats tend to be good enough in general that picking one or two up isn't going too far out of a druid's way. The same goes for the animal companion, which just kinda beats face out of the box, and the same also goes for wild shape, which can turn you from a defensively oriented bat into some sort of dinosaur within six seconds, with no in-game preparation.

This is certainly the case in 3.5 and was a huge problem there. In PF however, both the companion and summons have been toned down quite a bit (and cost resources besides) while wild shape was also heavily nerfed. So in that system, Abra's italicized point is a bit more salient.

[3WhiteFox3]

Given the absence of products like ToB, PF is already more imbalanced than 3.5.

However, what many people (especially people here on this forum) don't realize, is that's okay. The reason being that PF happens to have a very key advantage 3.5 did not - namely, being completely open - so for those tables that do care about balance and want to fighters to have nice things etc., it is much, much easier for them to get their hands on third-party solutions to that perceived problem, because it is much easier for third-party publishers to create those solutions in the first place. And when one person finds this underappreciated gem and wants to introduce it to the community, they can do so without fearing reprisal, because the third-party stuff has to be open too.

For example, when Paizo creates a new rule for melee (such as Style or Teamwork feats) and publisher X comes along and says "I like the concept, but these are too weak" - they can make a bunch more of their own without getting their pants sued off, and every DM wins - the ones that thought they were fine as-is, and the ones that agreed with X and thought they were weak, both get new toys to play with.

This is true, however, 3.5 has an advantage that you aren't considering. High-quality homebrew, something that this forum specifically has in bulk quantities. Now a pathfinder game could convert that homebrew, but conversely a 3.5 game could convert any necessary 3rd party material.

[Psyren]

This is true, however, 3.5 has an advantage that you aren't considering. High-quality homebrew, something that this forum specifically has in bulk quantities. Now a pathfinder game could convert that homebrew, but conversely a 3.5 game could convert any necessary 3rd party material.

That's not really an advantage for the very reason you noted - namely that PF can convert all of that exact same homebrew too, plus has homebrew all its own. If both sides have the same advantage, it's not really an advantage anymore, just an attribute.

More importantly however - it's a lot easier to make money homebrewing for PF. The protection of the OGL is stronger (all splats are fair game for inspiration or downright reference, rather than merely Core + a few others), and of course PF is current so you have an audience actively looking for material. So you end up with the more talented homebrewers able to become full-fledged designers and dedicate considerably more time to creating and playtesting their material, even quitting their regular jobs in a few cases. This in itself doesn't guarantee quality of course, but it certainly does a good job of creating brand recognition. (There's also the assumption that a designer who is so willing to stand behind their work that they spend money getting it illustrated and printed is probably at least a little concerned with its quality.)

[Abrahadabra]

I rather disagree with the core claim here, which is that a druid has to invest a lot, and sacrifice many of their build resources, in order to compete in a melee way.

I didn't say that. I said they have to invest resources, and they do. Yes, if your class has 9th level spells, you can do everything at once. You can be a wizard 5/incantatrix 10/abj champion 5 and simply with power attack/wraithstrike/divine power from DD (war)/arcane strike/sniper's eye and so and so, still do stuff in melee better than a fighter, ranged better than a ranger, AND still have battlefield control/massive AoE spell damage, all that while also having utility spells like teleport. But aside from utility spells, you're worse at everything than another wizard who focuses on any single one of them, not just because of the build itself, but also because of the actions you choose to take each round. The party role point is that instead of making the wizard become the fighter - just make him be a wizard and the fighter be the fighter, it's better for the party that way.

Of course, that means that if you want the fighter wizard numbers and his utility, you have to ditch your mundane dude for a caster, and now the party has 2 wizards instead of fighter+wizard. Well, someone in the party wanted more power, and like I said at the end of the post, I like and agree with the "want more power, get more magic" mentality, I think it makes sense in the D&D environment (or the environment that D&D tries to recreate). If I wanted something else, I'd just play another game, like 4e, which is much better for that (I say another game mostly because I lost that feeling in 4e).

[eggynack]

The claim that there is even some action investment is less true for a druid though, for whom the animal companion can often act as a fighter equivalent without much work, feat or otherwise. I mean, no matter what the fighter is tossing out, you can't be doing that much worse with a riding dog at first or a fleshraker at fourth. Druids are weird sometimes.

Edit: Also, it's worth note that I consider wild shape based beat stickery to be a plan only to be used when spells are running tight. Thus, the bear based fighting does not really detract from spell based awesomeness. Summoning is somewhere in the middle of the two, I think, being a more common go-to strategy than wild shape, while lacking the all the time nature of an animal companion. The relevant thing, I think, is that a druid is a fighter when fighters are good, and they are a not-fighter when fighters are not good. And also still a fighter when fighters are not good. Because of the animal companion. Because druids are weird sometimes.

[3WhiteFox3]

That's not really an advantage for the very reason you noted - namely that PF can convert all of that exact same homebrew too, plus has homebrew all its own. If both sides have the same advantage, it's not really an advantage anymore, just an attribute.

More importantly however - it's a lot easier to make money homebrewing for PF. The protection of the OGL is stronger (all splats are fair game for inspiration or downright reference, rather than merely Core + a few others), and of course PF is current so you have an audience actively looking for material. So you end up with the more talented homebrewers able to become full-fledged designers and dedicate considerably more time to creating and playtesting their material, even quitting their regular jobs in a few cases. This in itself doesn't guarantee quality of course, but it certainly does a good job of creating brand recognition. (There's also the assumption that a designer who is so willing to stand behind their work that they spend money getting it illustrated and printed is probably at least a little concerned with its quality.)
Then we should ignore Pathfinder's homebrew/3PP for the same reason, it's not an advantage since both sides can take advantage of it.

Also, I'm not really sold that people being payed for work makes it better. Most of my experience is that the best artists don't care about payment and want to make better work regardless (not that those people couldn't get be getting money off of it). Besides 3PP has to worry about accessibility issues that Homebrew doesn't (do something for free and you don't have to reduce quality in order to appeal to the masses). I don't know from experience, but I assume that 3PP has things that it has to worry about that homebrew wouldn't (the aforementioned accessibility, marketing, the temptation to do what's successful/profitable instead of what's takes the most effort) IMO I've seen way too many 'professional' artists who are being paid phone in there work for a paycheck instead of producing quality work (I'm talking about artists in other fields). For example, there is certainly good music in the pop scene today, but there's a lot more of it freely available on the internet, freedom from monetary pressures seems to promote quality work.

I dunno, I'm not an expert here, but I'm just not at all sure that 3PP is really all that different quality-wise than homebrew.

[Hurnn]

I think you missed the point here:

Now if you spend all the druid's resources trying to match a fighter's capabilities, then you might well make it, but you'd still be better off leaving the fighter to fight, and concentrating on the things only druids can do.

You might make it, but you have to concentrate resources on it. So you're spending resources of a druid to make it as good as a fighter, but the fighter (and party) would probably rather have the fighter in the front and the druid doing what only he can do (instead of investing resources to do what the fighters can). It seems like an appeal to roles in a party, and I agree with it.

Then if the player who wants to play a fighter just decides to get a second druid focused on fighting, good for him, but it will be a druid that's worse than an average one on everything else and much better in physical combat. So his point seems to be: yes, fighters can't do what wizards can and wizards can do what fighters can, but they have to dedicate a bit to that. It's like an specialization of some kind: you sacrifice your other sides to do that. And if your class is capable of everything, that doesn't make it overpowered - it would be if it made your character capable of everything at once. And your character isn't capable of having the same mailman power of a focused mailman if you decide to invest in feats like power attack and divine disciple (war), because those feats could give place to something different, like more metamagic, CL-increases, etc.

Of course, there's still the argument of "ok, but past a certain point the melee wizard will be better than the fighter", well, I'm sorry, but that's magic. It's supposed to be better than steel and wood, I got no problems with the "want more power, get more magic" philosophy, I think it's how it's supposed to be after all. "But I like using swords and I want AoE attacks that hit like fireballs!", I like swords too, but in that case I'd suggest to go play Tera online or watch anime, because in any worthy classic fantasy world like D&D, I think the dude who wields or somehow has access to great magic has to be the scarier one. That's what I want to see and feel in the scenario, both as a wizard and a fighter, and the system has to express that.

edit: I do think the fighter class is crap even for combatants though, and I love some homebrews to fix them (and monks like Jiriku's and rogues like Grod's)

Except that I don't. The bear is free, and will potentially do as well as a fighter, the average 3.5 dire wolves will probably do the same, and in shifted form I would be competitive. The thing is I don't need to be ahead on any 1 aspect I get them all and then some.

Ok so I personally wont fight and for arguments sake I summon 4 greenbound direwolves and send my pet into melee turn 1. They are out fighting the fighter and I will do what? battlefield control? check, buff and debuff check, direct damage spells? I suppose... But really for the most part out side of control my spells are better used out of combat so great 1st round or 2 I entangle and fog then stand around? Or turn in to a dire lion and charge and eat somethings face? I out fought the fighter and still did all my stuff.

[Knaight]

Also, I'm not really sold that people being payed for work makes it better. Most of my experience is that the best artists don't care about payment and want to make better work regardless (not that those people couldn't get be getting money off of it).

As regards homebrew - there is a lot of really, really terrible stuff out there that would never have made it past WotC or Paizo editing. There's also a lot of good stuff, but the filter within a high profile and reasonably well liked company does serve to up the standards some. That doesn't mean that there isn't also homebrew that blows WotC and Paizo work away (there's plenty on this forum), but it's something that has to be looked for and vetted. As such, the advantage is actually pretty small unless you're invested enough in the game to identify the good stuff or invested enough in a community which is that it gets pointed out.

[Psyren]

Then we should ignore Pathfinder's homebrew/3PP for the same reason, it's not an advantage since both sides can take advantage of it.

But not in the same ways. Both editions' homebrew can build off official material, but 3.5 homebrew can never monetize any of it because it's closed content (e.g. skill tricks.) They can't even publish/distribute it pro-bono widely, save for tucking it away in the homebrew sections of various forums and hoping people meander by to take a look. Meanwhile everything in PF being open means you can put it in the homebrew section, make your own website for it, make a book, make an SRD etc.



Most of my experience is that the best artists don't care about payment

Er, what? The best artists absolutely care about their bottom line. Just try to get a Wayne Reynolds, Rebecca Guay, John Avon etc. to illustrate your homebrew for free/cheap and see what kind of response you get.



Besides 3PP has to worry about accessibility issues that Homebrew doesn't (do something for free and you don't have to reduce quality in order to appeal to the masses).

It's just as fallacious to believe something with mass appeal automatically has poor quality as it is to believe that it automatically has superior quality. There is no correlation between the two attributes.

Rather than quality, I'm speaking to the effort put in instead. You can certainly put just as much effort into unpaid homebrew as into work destined to be published and sold of course, but the one that has a better chance of paying for itself still has an advantage to the creator all the same.

[Abrahadabra]

The claim that there is even some action investment is less true for a druid though, for whom the animal companion can often act as a fighter equivalent without much work, feat or otherwise. I mean, no matter what the fighter is tossing out, you can't be doing that much worse with a riding dog at first or a fleshraker at fourth. Druids are weird sometimes.

Yea, I know what you mean. But I don't think the druid's fleshraker can be as good as a fighter with the same level of optimization - unless the druid sacrifices some of his own power (in the form of gold, feats or spells), making my previous point valid. If they could, then it would be a simple problem of specific number-tweaking, not really a design issue. I still hate fleshraker animal companions though, those things just aren't supposed to exist :smalltongue:


Edit: Also, it's worth note that I consider wild shape based beat stickery to be a plan only to be used when spells are running tight. Thus, the bear based fighting does not really detract from spell based awesomeness.

But like I said, the spell based awesomeness detracts from bear based fighting awesomeness. You gotta focus in one of the two or be a master-of-none because someone out there is focused and you're not, and they're the true masters.

[Lanaya]

Of course it is. "Broken" means "doesn't function" - PF and 3.5 clearly do.

Broken does mean that, but it's also meant 'overpowered' in many gaming communities for quite a long time, so there's nothing wrong with using it to mean that in those contexts.

[Psyren]

Broken does mean that, but it's also meant 'overpowered' in many gaming communities for quite a long time, so there's nothing wrong with using it to mean that in those contexts.

This is Appeal to Tradition fallacy (with some sprinklings of Bandwagon). Just because a word or term is misused for a long time or by a large group doesn't make it okay.

(His statement was also kind of silly. "Broken" is a binary state - either something is broken or it isn't. "Even more broken" is like saying "even more dead.")

[Boci]

But not in the same ways. Both editions' homebrew can build off official material, but 3.5 homebrew can never monetize any of it because it's closed content (e.g. skill tricks.) They can't even publish/distribute it pro-bono widely, save for tucking it away in the homebrew sections of various forums and hoping people meander by to take a look. Meanwhile everything in PF being open means you can put it in the homebrew section, make your own website for it, make a book, make an SRD etc.

But if 3.5 groups can use pathfinder homebrew/third party stuff, how is this relevant?


This is Appeal to Tradition fallacy (with some sprinklings of Bandwagon). Just because a word or term is misused for a long time or by a large group doesn't make it okay.

Isn't that how language changes? Plenty of older gamers insist their is no difference between powergamer and munchkin.

[Kelb_Panthera]

This is Appeal to Tradition fallacy (with some sprinklings of Bandwagon). Just because a word or term is misused for a long time or by a large group doesn't make it okay.

(His statement was also kind of silly. "Broken" is a binary state - either something is broken or it isn't. "Even more broken" is like saying "even more dead.")

Hey hey, if I can call somebody turned to hamburger (figuratively) more dead than somebody whose taken a bullet to the head, I can call one game more broken than another. Colloquialisms and turns of phrase are weird like that.

Getting my ducks in a row doesn't involve water fowl, getting my ass kicked rarely involves any trauma to my buttocks, and going on a wild goose chase doesn't necessarily involve running after an undomesticated bird. Lighten up (not a suggestion to bleach your skin or hair). :smalltongue:

[georgie_leech]

This is Appeal to Tradition fallacy (with some sprinklings of Bandwagon). Just because a word or term is misused for a long time or by a large group doesn't make it okay.

At this point you're splitting hairs; plenty of people have used "broken" to mean things other than unplayable quite often on this forum. Especially after the meaning has been clarified, it seems silly to quibble over definitions like that.


(His statement was also kind of silly. "Broken" is a binary state - either something is broken or it isn't. "Even more broken" is like saying "even more dead.")

Nah, things can be more or less broken in the sense that more work needs to be done to fix something that is more broken. For instance, despite both of them not working at all anymore, this TV (http://www.conceptcupboard.com/resource-centre/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/broken-tv.jpg) could quite reasonably be considered less broken than this one. (http://scratchbomb.com/images/brokenTV.jpg)

Also given the number of afterlives and undead of various states of decay and mindlessness, "even more dead" works pretty well in D&D. :smalltongue:

[Elderand]

Also given the number of afterlives and undead of various states of decay and mindlessness, "even more dead" works pretty well in D&D. :smalltongue:

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/6f/33/c5/6f33c59226effbd264ab80fb577b360f.jpg

[TuggyNE]

This is Appeal to Tradition fallacy (with some sprinklings of Bandwagon). Just because a word or term is misused for a long time or by a large group doesn't make it okay.

If a term is misused by enough people, it becomes proper usage, and that does make it OK. For example, "pea" is not the proper spelling at all: it used to be "pease" until enough people misunderstood that terminal S sound as a plural. And now Firefox puts a squiggly red underline beneath pease to tell me that it's a misspelling. That is how language works.

It is not how you determine objective fact, of course, but since language is not objective and is not based on any particular set of facts beyond consensus, that standard does not and cannot apply.

[Lanaya]

This is Appeal to Tradition fallacy (with some sprinklings of Bandwagon). Just because a word or term is misused for a long time or by a large group doesn't make it okay.

(His statement was also kind of silly. "Broken" is a binary state - either something is broken or it isn't. "Even more broken" is like saying "even more dead.")

As others have said, that's not at all how language works. Every word you or I use evolved at some point because enough people felt like using it that way for long enough. But if we want to talk fallacies, picking on a word that you believe someone used incorrectly despite knowing exactly what they meant (especially when they did use that word correctly) and acting like you've somehow defeated their argument is absolutely one of those.

[Togo]

Yea, I know what you mean. But I don't think the druid's fleshraker can be as good as a fighter with the same level of optimization - unless the druid sacrifices some of his own power (in the form of gold, feats or spells), making my previous point valid.

Precisely. The example given of minimum investment was two feats, which is fairly substantial. A 10th level druid, half way to 20th, only has four to choose. Even then the animal companion isn't as good as a fighter, and nor is the druid, and nor are any summons, and all of them suffer from problems that the fighter doesn't.

[The Trickster]

Getting my ducks in a row doesn't involve water fowl, getting my ass kicked rarely involves any trauma to my buttocks, and going on a wild goose chase doesn't necessarily involve running after an undomesticated bird. Lighten up (not a suggestion to bleach your skin or hair). :smalltongue:

I have nothing to add, but this made me laugh. You get one cookie from me.


Originally posted by Togo
Precisely. The example given of minimum investment was two feats, which is fairly substantial. A 10th level druid, half way to 20th, only has four to choose. Even then the animal companion isn't as good as a fighter, and nor is the druid, and nor are any summons, and all of them suffer from problems that the fighter doesn't.

While I have never been a fan of the "druid's pet > fighter" argument, it is fair to say that many druid pets (and summons) have more versatility then many fighters do.

[Morty]

That explains how the community got so big in the first place but not why the community continues to be so active not only 10 years after the initial release but for several years after the rules-set's publication was discontinued.

If it was a genuinely bad system it would be showing much stronger signs of dying off by now.

You greatly underestimate gamers' willingness to stick to what's familiar and rationalize away its flaws.

[Omegas]

Imbalance isn't an issue with a few well purchased item's or a group that works well together!

Thank you. More so the second part but that has been a major part since I started this thread. If a mage is creating an unnecessary imbalance then the problem is with the player not the game.

[roko10]

Getting my ducks in a row doesn't involve water fowl, getting my ass kicked rarely involves any trauma to my buttocks, and going on a wild goose chase doesn't necessarily involve running after an undomesticated bird. Lighten up (not a suggestion to bleach your skin or hair). :smalltongue:

Can I sig this?

[Boci]

Thank you. More so the second part but that has been a major part since I started this thread. If a mage is creating an unnecessary imbalance then the problem is with the player not the game.

That's not necessarily true though. How is a 4th ed wizard going to cause imbalance problems? Sure, with player understanding of the system and co-oporation the problem can be avoided/mitigated, but you cannot shake off all blame from the system.

[Qwertystop]

Getting my ducks in a row doesn't involve water fowl, getting my ass kicked rarely involves any trauma to my buttocks, and going on a wild goose chase doesn't necessarily involve running after an undomesticated bird. Lighten up (not a suggestion to bleach your skin or hair). :smalltongue:


Can I sig this?

Same question here.

[The Trickster]

Thank you. More so the second part but that has been a major part since I started this thread. If a mage is creating an unnecessary imbalance then the problem is with the player not the game.

You have been much luckier them I have with groups. I have had newer players do extraordinarily powerful things with casters, while other stuggle with non-casters, and this has happened more than once.

[eggynack]

Precisely. The example given of minimum investment was two feats, which is fairly substantial. A 10th level druid, half way to 20th, only has four to choose. Even then the animal companion isn't as good as a fighter, and nor is the druid, and nor are any summons, and all of them suffer from problems that the fighter doesn't.
I wouldn't say that two feats was stated as a minimum investment at all. Something as simple as natural bond, or perhaps companion spellbond, keeps a fleshraker easily fighter competitive for a good long while. I don't even know if that single feat investment is a necessary thing, especially at level four, when the HD is equal. Pumping in natural bond, which is, shall I say, a natural choice (ho ho ho), gets the fleshraker two HD ahead of the fighter, and they have a few natural advantages, like free pounce, poison attacks, and above all else, disposability.

[Omegas]

That's not necessarily true though. How is a 4th ed wizard going to cause imbalance problems? Sure, with player understanding of the system and co-oporation the problem can be avoided/mitigated, but you cannot shake off all blame from the system.

I would not disagree with you on that, but my point retains it's validity. How people play the game is a heavy poker chip on the scale of this debate and overlooking it decrees the merit of many points. As I sad "A" major part not "the" major part. Thus it is just one chip but I think it helps keep us in perspective.

And although I dont want the deter from the debate you have to admit that 4e is an entirely different game. That is why in many circles 3.5 is still favored over 4e.

[Boci]

I would not disagree with you on that, but my point retains it's validity. How people play the game is a heavy poker chip on the scale of this debate and overlooking it decrees the merit of many points. As I sad "A" major part not "the" major part. Thus it is just one chip but I think it helps keep us in perspective.

This is true for anything though. The thing is, unless unbalanced is a stated goal, the players and DM shouldn't have to compensate.


And although I dont want the deter from the debate you have to admit that 4e is an entirely different game. That is why in many circles 3.5 is still favored over 4e.

If course its a different game. For example, balance is a centre point of mechanical design.

[Psyren]

But if 3.5 groups can use pathfinder homebrew/third party stuff, how is this relevant?

The difference matters more directly to the 3PP than to the player. If you 'brew something based on 3.5 closed content - e.g. new Skill Tricks - you have to rely on your audience already knowing how those things work because you can't reproduce the underlying rules to go with it. Whereas if you 'brew something based on open content (e.g. new Style feats) you can include a blurb at the top copy-pasting the base style feat rules and your work is that much more accessible as a result. While people will need to have CSco to understand the former, even people without UC can pick up and play with the latter.



Nah, things can be more or less broken in the sense that more work needs to be done to fix something that is more broken. For instance, despite both of them not working at all anymore, this TV (http://www.conceptcupboard.com/resource-centre/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/broken-tv.jpg) could quite reasonably be considered less broken than this one. (http://scratchbomb.com/images/brokenTV.jpg)

This relies again on the assumption that "fixing" is needed. If through some miracle both of those TVs were watchable, then their actual damage level wouldn't matter because they still do the thing they were meant to do.



Getting my ducks in a row doesn't involve water fowl, getting my ass kicked rarely involves any trauma to my buttocks, and going on a wild goose chase doesn't necessarily involve running after an undomesticated bird. Lighten up (not a suggestion to bleach your skin or hair). :smalltongue:

What does reciting a bunch of idioms have to do with misusing an adjective?

[Boci]

You really going to stick with that Psyren? Discard the possibility for words to have multiple meaning and language to evolve?

You do realize by your definition no pen and paper RPG is "broken". Even an incomplete or unfun one can still be played. How can you have a "not functioning" pen and paper RPG?

[Psyren]

You really going to stick with that Psyren? Discard the possibility for words to have multiple meaning and language to evolve?

You do realize by your definition no pen and paper RPG is "broken". Even an incomplete or unfun one can still be played. How can you have a "not functioning" pen and paper RPG?

So are PF and 3.5 incomplete and unfun? I'm just trying to divine where you and Kelb are drawing the line here. If they were truly "broken," why are they still so widely played and enjoyed?

[Boci]

So are PF and 3.5 incomplete and unfun? I'm just trying to divine where you and Kelb are drawing the line here. If they were truly "broken," why are they still so widely played and enjoyed?

No, and even if they were, my whole point was even an unfun and incomplete game is not "broken" by your definition of the word.

Your definition of "broken" i.e. non-functional, does not work when applied to pen and paper RPG, because short of a blank rules book, it will always be functional. Ironically enough, your definition of "broken" is broken (as in non-functional) when you attempt to use it in the context of pen and paper RPGs.

[Psyren]

No, and even if they were, my whole point was even an unfun and incomplete game is not "broken" by your definition of the word.

Your definition of "broken" i.e. non-functional, does not work when applied to pen and paper RPG, because short of a blank rules book, it will always be functional. Ironically enough, your definition of "broken" is broken (as in non-functional) when you attempt to use it in the context of pen and paper RPGs.

And by your definition even high-quality and very functional games are "broken" so which ones aren't? 4e? Monopoly? Hearts?

[Boci]

And by your definition even high-quality and very functional games are "broken" so which ones aren't? 4e? Monopoly? Hearts?

I never said they were. I was just pointing out you cannot use a binary definition of broken when there is no clear purpose to a system, like a roleplaying game.

[Psyren]

I never said they were. I was just pointing out you cannot use a binary definition of broken when there is no clear purpose to a system, like a roleplaying game.

So we're left with a colloquial one that is so broadly applicable it actually means nothing. Is it that much harder to type "imbalanced?" Keyboards aren't that large, y'know?

[Boci]

So we're left with a colloquial one that is so broadly applicable it actually means nothing.

No, I never said that.

[georgie_leech]

This relies again on the assumption that "fixing" is needed. If through some miracle both of those TVs were watchable, then their actual damage level wouldn't matter because they still do the thing they were meant to do.


You're missing my point; things can have varying levels of brokenness. Those TV's likely don't work at all; my old laptop had a smashed screen and was unquestionably broken, but I could still use it if I hooked it up to another screen like a TV. "Broken" does not have to mean "completely non-functional," it can also mean "not functioning properly," (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/broken?s=t) and many people on this forum use it when something of the game runs differently than initial expectations, such as the vast gulf between Magic and Mundane classes.

By all means, if it's not a problem for you continue debating with people who say it is a problem for them. Just don't do it because of the words they use when the meaning is clear for most, and especially after they clarify that meaning. It's intellectually lazy and distracts from salient points.

[Psyren]

it can also mean "not functioning properly," (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/broken?s=t) and many people on this forum use it when something of the game runs differently than initial expectations, such as the vast gulf between Magic and Mundane classes.

And what is the so-called "proper functioning" then? That mundane should be equal to magic?

That's the crux of the issue, and the interpretation that the designers by all evidence have consciously chosen to reject. Past a certain level you do need magic, even if only in the form of items, to keep up.

In short, working as intended - not improperly, and therefore not broken, even by your definition.

[Boci]

And what is the so-called "proper functioning" then? That mundane should be equal to magic?

That's the crux of the issue, and the interpretation that the designers by all evidence have consciously chosen to reject. Past a certain level you do need magic, even if only in the form of items, to keep up.

In short, working as intended - not improperly, and therefore not broken, even by your definition.

And that would be fine, if magic items were all that was needed for melee and casters to be equal, but it isn't.

In a game about teamwork, you expect each career to be roughly equal, baring a statement to the contrary. Does pathfinder ever say "casters should be better than melee"?

[Psyren]

"Equality" was never the goal. That's 4e talk.

There is a minimum standard of effectiveness, i.e. level-appropriate CRs. If the warrior and mage can both clear those challenges, it doesn't matter that one can do it more easily or in more ways - the minimum standard is still met.

[georgie_leech]

And what is the so-called "proper functioning" then? That mundane should be equal to magic?

That's the crux of the issue, and the interpretation that the designers by all evidence have consciously chosen to reject. Past a certain level you do need magic, even if only in the form of items, to keep up.

In short, working as intended - not improperly, and therefore not broken, even by your definition.

Let me try again then. To many people, the existence of "overpowered" options, whatever that might mean to them, is the system not functioning properly. They can use the word "broken" to thus describe their opinion of the system, i.e. that the existence of overpowered options interferes with their enjoyment of the game on some level. For you, "overpowered" is meaningless; you tend to look at varied power levels and different styles of play instead. That's fine, you don't associate "broken" with the gulf between Martial and Magic. That does not make it a fallacy, whether Appeal to Tradition or Bandwagon or any other, to hold a different opinion.

[Psyren]

I don't have a problem with the opinion because it's different; I have a problem because it's hyperbolic. It distorts the state of the game into something that is implied to function either poorly or not at all, when in practice this judgment couldn't be further from the truth.

[Boci]

"Equality" was never the goal. That's 4e talk.

There is a minimum standard of effectiveness, i.e. level-appropriate CRs. If the warrior and mage can both clear those challenges, it doesn't matter that one can do it more easily or in more ways - the minimum standard is still met.

So in your opinion, as long as a non-magical group (say, rogue, cavalier (sp?), ranger and gunslinger) can take out all CR expropriate enemies at all levels, PF cannot be considered broken?

[OldTrees1]

And what is the so-called "proper functioning" then? That mundane should be equal to magic?

That's the crux of the issue, and the interpretation that the designers by all evidence have consciously chosen to reject. Past a certain level you do need magic, even if only in the form of items, to keep up.

In short, working as intended - not improperly, and therefore not broken, even by your definition.

I doubt the authors intended for magical martial to fall so far behind magical casters.

Furthermore "authorial intent" is not a good definition of "proper functioning". If the person designing a class intended the class to get weaker as it leveled up, I would not call such a class "functioning properly".

[georgie_leech]

I don't have a problem with the opinion because it's different; I have a problem because it's hyperbolic. It distorts the state of the game into something that is implied to function either poorly or not at all, when in practice this judgment couldn't be further from the truth.

Hyperbolic to you, perhaps. For other people, particularly people who spend a great deal of time and energy trying to find or create ways to "fix" (whatever that means to them) the gap, it is a section of the game that isn't functioning as intended.

If you think something is hyperbolic, call it so, but don't accuse it of being a fallacy. As long as we're dealing with the implications of words, calling something a fallacy implies an accusation of dishonest debate, which won't ever get anywhere positive.

[Psyren]

So in your opinion, as long as a non-magical group (say, rogue, cavalier (sp?), ranger and gunslinger) can take out all CR expropriate enemies at all levels, PF cannot be considered broken?

Precisely.


I doubt the authors intended for magical martial to fall so far behind magical casters.

The benchmark is pretty simple. "Can a level X party beat a CR X encounter using WBL X?" The answer is yes for all classes, even if some classes do it more easily.


Hyperbolic to you, perhaps.

Do I have to preface all my posts with "in my opinion?" I would think that's implied given that I am posting it.



If you think something is hyperbolic, call it so, but don't accuse it of being a fallacy.

Lanaya said it's okay to use it that way because "many communities have done so for a long time." That might be a true statement but it's not related to the term's definition. For a long time many communities thought the earth was flat, and the center of the universe as well. That was the fallacy I was referring to.

[OldTrees1]

The benchmark is pretty simple. "Can a level X party beat a CR X encounter using WBL X using about Y% of their daily resources?" The answer is yes for all classes, even if some classes do it more easily.

Use the whole benchmark or use it not at all.

Your incompletely stated benchmark did not address my comment.

I doubt the authors intended for magical martial to fall so far behind magical casters.

The full benchmark supports my conclusion that the authors did not intend as large as gap as they created.

[georgie_leech]

Lanaya said it's okay to use it that way because "many communities have done so for a long time." That might be a true statement but it's not related to the term's definition. For a long time many communities thought the earth was flat, and the center of the universe as well. That was the fallacy I was referring to.

That's entirely related to the term's definition. That's literally how definitions of words come about. While facts (such as the world being round and not flat) have an intrinsic quality to them, words only have the meaning we ascribe to them; people using words as shorthand for complex descriptions is how language forms, grows, and evolves. So no, pointing out that many people use a word to mean something doesn't indicate a fallacy, it's the actual "mechanics" of language. "Many communities have done so for a long time" is the only reason we have language at all.

[Psyren]

Use the whole benchmark or use it not at all.

Why? What does your addition change about it? Especially considering that many melee classes don't even have daily resources.


That's literally how definitions of words come about.

It's also how misconceptions and exaggerations get widely spread.

[Boci]

Why? What does your addition change about it? Especially considering that many melee classes don't even have daily resources.

HP, consumables, magical items and class features that can be activated X number of times per day. If you do not like that wording then you can replace it with: "will survive 4 CR appropriate encounters per day".

[Lanaya]

Lanaya said it's okay to use it that way because "many communities have done so for a long time." That might be a true statement but it's not related to the term's definition. For a long time many communities thought the earth was flat, and the center of the universe as well. That was the fallacy I was referring to.

You're still trying to apply that logic to language, where it simply doesn't work. Angels did not descend from the sky thousands of years ago bearing complete copies of the current Oxford English Dictionary, thus providing us an objective and accurate defintion of every word that might ever be used. Every single word in every single language came into being because one or more communities used that word in that way for long enough. It is not a fallacy to claim that the usage of word X is correct because that's how everyone says it, it's the way language functions. Language is a social construct, and the meaning of every word is defined by the consensus of those who use it. Comparing this situation to people getting objective scientific facts wrong is a broken analogy; it compares two totally different things and fails to make the point it was intended to as a result.

[georgie_leech]

It's also how misconceptions and exaggerations get widely spread.

Perhaps you might consider that it isn't a misconception for them then. They enjoy the game as they play it, but clearly they believe the base rules could have been written/designed better. You disagreeing with that position doesn't make it a misconception any more than them disagreeing with you makes your position a misconception.

[OldTrees1]

Why? What does your addition change about it? Especially considering that many melee classes don't even have daily resources.

Sorry, I thought you were using the benchmark from the DMG. The one that described the intended relationship between CR, ECL, Challenge and expended resources (like hp since the benchmark was printed before unlimited out of combat healing, ability scores vs drain and levels vs negative levels).

Since you are not using that benchmark, then how did your benchmark address my comment about authorial intended gap width?

[Psyren]

So it's broken despite the fact that it works? I'm sorry, that's just nonsensical to me and always will be.


HP, consumables, magical items and class features that can be activated X number of times per day. If you do not like that wording then you can replace it with: "will survive 4 CR appropriate encounters per day".

They can do that just fine.


Sorry, I thought you were using the benchmark from the DMG. The one that described the intended relationship between CR, ECL, Challenge and expended resources (like hp since the benchmark was printed before unlimited out of combat healing, ability scores vs drain and levels vs negative levels).

Since you are not using that benchmark, then how did your benchmark address my comment about authorial intended gap width?

I'm using the one from the CRB actually. "Table 12–4 lists the amount of treasure each PC is expected to have at a specific level." Nothing about "daily resources" or any of that.

[OldTrees1]

I'm using the one from the CRB actually. "Table 12–4 lists the amount of treasure each PC is expected to have at a specific level." Nothing about "daily resources" or any of that.

CRB? (Can't be Core Rule Book since the DMG does not have a 12-4 table although it does have a WBL table)

[VanIsleKnight]

You greatly underestimate gamers' willingness to stick to what's familiar and rationalize away its flaws.

Quoted for truth, requesting to sig this.

[Lanaya]

So it's broken despite the fact that it works? I'm sorry, that's just nonsensical to me and always will be.

Flammable and inflammable meaning the same thing is also nonsensical. Unfortunately for everyone it's also completely correct. If you want logic and consistency perhaps English isn't for you.

[Morty]

Quoted for truth, requesting to sig this.

Sure, go ahead.

[Psyren]

CRB? (Can't be Core Rule Book since the DMG does not have a 12-4 table although it does have a WBL table)

CRB as in Pathfinder.


Flammable and inflammable meaning the same thing is also nonsensical. Unfortunately for everyone it's also completely correct. If you want logic and consistency perhaps English isn't for you.

The prefix "in" in "inflammable" means "in/on" rather than "not." As in, "inflame." Perhaps it is your relationship with English that needs re-evaluating?

[Lanaya]

The prefix "in" in "inflammable" means "in/on" rather than "not." As in, "inflame." Perhaps it is your relationship with English that needs re-evaluating?

I'm well aware of the etymology, thanks. I figured something genuinely counterintuitive, despite making sense if you understand where the oddness comes from, was stranger and more confusing than something as simple as 'broken' having two meanings. Your dislike of something that is broken but still works makes about as much sense as being upset that you can have a bow in your hair which can't be used to fire arrows.

[Dimers]

The Oxford English Dictionary has been in use for well over a hundred years. They're massive and authoritative and stuffy. Yet they still make changes -- not just additions, changes -- on a continual basis, recognizing popular usage. I hate the fact that people more often use the word literal to mean "very" than they do to mean "exactly what it says on the tin" ... but I have to accept the fact that it's popular usage and is now being printed as a valid use in dictionaries. Incorrect or not, the use of "broken" to mean "suckful" is valid too.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Can I sig this?


Same question here.

Go for it.


What does reciting a bunch of idioms have to do with misusing an adjective?

*reads the previous page of this thread*

For pete's sake, man. I was using the term "broken" in the colloquial. I should think it was pretty obvious by bringing up a few idioms, colloquial uses of phrases to invoke a meaning other than is literal. If I actually thought the game didn't work, as in it was -literally- broken, I wouldn't bother discussing it at all. I wouldn't feel it was worth my attention and I very seriously doubt that I'd be alone in that.

Wait..... don't you work for one of the 3rd party companies that produces PF content? Something to do with psionics? That would certainly explain you being a tad oversensitive to it being called broken; seeing it as a pejorative, perhaps. If that's the case then I apologize for any offense.


The prefix "in" in "inflammable" means "in/on" rather than "not." As in, "inflame." Perhaps it is your relationship with English that needs re-evaluating?

I've never heard the term "inflammable" used to mean capable of being ignited, only "flammable." I am, however, reasonably sure that it's "enflame" not "inflame." I'll double check though.

Edit: It's not the first time I've been wrong. It won't be the last.

[Psyren]

I'm glad you at least acknowledge that the literal definition is different than the one you're using here. That's all I was getting at.



Wait..... don't you work for one of the 3rd party companies that produces PF content? Something to do with psionics?

No, I don't (I may have to put that in my sig.) I am a dedicated fan of Dreamscarred Press, not an employee or affiliate of any kind. (My actual job is about as far from game design as you can get.)

[Scow2]

When X, Y, and Z are not part of the system it's not the system's fault that those things happen. Magic item availability is clearly defined in the rulebooks and it's not the system's fault if the DM changes that. Casters -choosing- to overshadow their mundane allies instead of supporting them is also the fault of the one running the caster, not the system itself. Even then being overshadowed is not the same as being a liability.If the system has a glaring hole by not covering a situation the system's gameplay regularly handles, it IS a fault of the system, because it's essentially unplayable.

And a non-caster- which has no way to get a permanent Mind Blank, decent will save, or even full-time Protection From Evil/Good/Chaos/Law is stuck with two choices - Either be useless so he can't threaten the party when he inevitably gets Mind Controlled, or be strong enough that he's a liability when he gets mind controlled. A mundane character is ALSO a liability because he saps resources - the wealth a party finds that's spent on the fighter-type's weapons, armor, and Mandatory-To-Keep-Up items is wealth that can be spent on resources to amplify the force of the casters. He also requires casters to spend spell slots and actions to haul his ass out of dodge whenever he's sent into a situation he's incapable of handling.


They don't have to try, they do have to choose. Virtually all casters have magics that, when they use them on themselves, allows them to completely overshadow their mundane allies. When they use those same features to boost those allies instead they typically result in a greater power than the caster or the mundane is capable of reaching on their own. This is supposed to be a cooperative game, after all.A shame so many of those good buffs are "Range: Personal". No, your familiar is not another party member.

I'm a DM that says, "If it's cost is within the settlement's GP limit, you can find it with relatively minimal effort," unless the item is remarkably specific. Even then you can get it on commission.

If you want the 2e feel of magic items, play 2e. If you want a low-fantasy game, don't half-ass it. Make all of the rules tweaks necessary to make it work instead of just screwing the non-casters by rarifying magic items and doing nothing else.



In a mild optimization group where magic items are rarified well beyond how they're supposed to be and the DM has done nothing to compensate, sure. But who's talking about conditions X, Y, and Z now? :smallamused:



This isn't anything I don't already know. You're just severely overstating the problem.[/QUOTE]

[Pan151]

I'm glad you at least acknowledge that the literal definition is different than the one you're using here. That's all I was getting at.


There are so many words whose literal definition is not their most common meaning that this is kind of pointless arguement to have.

Especially among different circles of people, the same word can have different primary meanings. It just so happens that, amongst gamers, "broken" is used first and foremost as a synonym to "overpowered". Trying to argue about how that is not the correct usage of the word, based on the original meaning of it, is just a waste of time. You might as well be argueing how cooks use the word "sweat" incorrectly, or chemists the word "oil" incorrectly. It's not a case of difference in grammar/spelling/syntax, it's just different terminology.

[DrDeth]

This is Appeal to Tradition fallacy (with some sprinklings of Bandwagon). Just because a word or term is misused for a long time or by a large group doesn't make it okay.

(His statement was also kind of silly. "Broken" is a binary state - either something is broken or it isn't. "Even more broken" is like saying "even more dead.")

There are no fallacies here. We're not in a High School debating team.

And yes, words change. "Broken" can also mean so OP or UP that it's game-breaking. Mind you, few things are., so the term is often used incorrectly.

Back to the OP:

I was running a WB, and we had a Scout, a very powerful cleric who specialized in buffing, and a warmage. My WB was far and above the most powerful member. This was thru 13th level. True, part of this was due to being buffed by the cleric, but that's what he did. Buffed the party. And due to some of his special abilities the WB could contribute other than

Then the Warmage died, and a druid with a VoP came in. Now my WB was still more powerful that the druid OR his bear, but not better than both together.

Then we had a kind of re-do, since there was a plane-shift accident.

My WB was replaced by a OA Samurai with a powerful vorpal sword. The cleric player left, and a sorc came in. The sorc specialized in polymorph self dragon forms. (Dragon kolbold). Then we lost the druid, and he was replaced by a cleric who could cast shapeshift.

We were now 17th level. Yes, at this point in time, my samurai was completely outmatched in everything by the two spellcasters. With shapeshift the cleric could go into a dozen forms which were more dangerous than my samurai in melee, and with several/many spells, so could the dragon sorc. In other words, they both could & did beat the tank at his own game. He became useless.

So, thru at least 14th level, the Warblade was able to hold his own and do amazing things. It wasn't until 17th level when there was no use at all for a tank.

In PF, now 13th level mythic1, our fighter is still far and way our most dangerous party member, even more so than my sorc. True, sometimes my best use for that rounds spell is buffing the fighter like with a Fly spell, but still, we have no seen any martial/caster disparity.

[eggynack]

There are no fallacies here. We're not in a High School debating team.
Psh. Fallacies aren't inextricably linked to some formal method of argument. If you're making an argument, and it uses fallacious reasoning, then that argument is mistaken in that fashion regardless of where it is. Saying, "This is falling under the appeal to tradition fallacy," is just a convenient shorthand for the idea that your argument is mistaken in a specific and predetermined way, and someone can theoretically reference that fallacy and be reasonably well understood (even if a Google search may occasionally be involved, for I can not claim a perfect encyclopedic knowledge of all fallacies). So, yes, there are fallacies here. A lot, actually, for none of us is perfect in the form of our arguments. It is what it is.

[Just to Browse]

(My actual job is about as far from game design as you can get.)

I'm honestly curious what this is. I'm imagining Psyren gets up in the morning, drives to work, punches in, says hi to fellow co-workers, and then lights twenty copies of the PF core rule book on fire.

[Psyren]

There are so many words whose literal definition is not their most common meaning that this is kind of pointless arguement to have.

Sure, but most of those common meanings don't have overwhelmingly negative connotations.


I'm honestly curious what this is. I'm imagining Psyren gets up in the morning, drives to work, punches in, says hi to fellow co-workers, and then lights twenty copies of the PF core rule book on fire.

This discussion is getting pretty heated :smalltongue:

[Seerow]

I'm honestly curious what this is. I'm imagining Psyren gets up in the morning, drives to work, punches in, says hi to fellow co-workers, and then lights twenty copies of the PF core rule book on fire.

For the record this would be an awesome job.

[Snowbluff]

This discussion is getting pretty heated :smalltongue:

I had an actual response about the Snowbluff Axiom referring to an ideal system, and that 3.5 is close but not perfect, etc. I'm more interested in this. I guess government work, but it's the same thing. :smalltongue:

[DrDeth]

Psh. Fallacies aren't inextricably linked to some formal method of argument. If you're making an argument, and it uses fallacious reasoning, then that argument is mistaken in that fashion regardless of where it is. Saying, "This is falling under the appeal to tradition fallacy," is just a convenient shorthand for the idea that your argument is mistaken in a specific and predetermined way, and someone can theoretically reference that fallacy and be reasonably well understood (even if a Google search may occasionally be involved, for I can not claim a perfect encyclopedic knowledge of all fallacies). So, yes, there are fallacies here. A lot, actually, for none of us is perfect in the form of our arguments. It is what it is.

No. Let's take the one I commented on "Appeal to Tradition fallacy". Saying that we do such & such because it's traditional is not a fallacy nor is it mistaken. Sure, just because something is traditional doesn't make it the best way of doing things.

So, it's not a mistake at all. Many "logical fallacies' claimed are not "logical fallacies" at all, either. It's a fallacy of relevance.

Many such "fallacies" are in no way wrong. They are simply not allowed in High School debate clubs as the idea is to prove something by logical argument alone. Obviously, this doesn't occur here. In fact, since we're arguing pure opinion, a Argumentum ad populum is not only acceptable but a good idea. And of course a argumentum ab auctoritate is perfectly legit when we're arguing facts, such as classes that have a full BAB.

So, saying somebodies opinion is a "logical fallacy" is a cheap debating trick here on the boards.

[Psyren]

So, saying somebodies opinion is a "logical fallacy" is a cheap debating trick here on the boards.

It's a very fast way of saying "I don't consider your argument to be valid because it has a faulty premise." Sure it's cheap, but if this discussion taught me anything, it's that people here tend to go for convenience of language rather than accuracy, so if you can't beat 'em you may as well join 'em right?

[Abrahadabra]

So, saying somebodies opinion is a "logical fallacy" is a cheap debating trick here on the boards.

Your opinion seems to be the same as his. You don't think fallacies don't exist outside high school debates, you just think people use the word where they shouldn't. Like people who say you're using ad hominem when in reality you're just "decorating" your argument with many "compliments". Calling that a fallacy would be wrong wherever you are, just like fallacies are fallacies wherever you are. You seem to agree with it, it's just the high school debate thing that is kinda wrong.

It looks to me that you really just wanted to call the other guy a "high school debater" for maybe doing something that you don't like (clearly a hidden ad hominem from you, sir). :smalltongue:

(I say maybe because I didn't read it)

[DrDeth]

It's a very fast way of saying "I don't consider your argument to be valid because it has a faulty premise." Sure it's cheap, but if this discussion taught me anything, it's that people here tend to go for convenience of language rather than accuracy, so if you can't beat 'em you may as well join 'em right?

Which would be OK, except that the premise is just fine and not 'faulty" outside of a High School debate.

[Psyren]

Which would be OK, except that the premise is just fine and not 'faulty" outside of a High School debate.

You're quite welcome to think so.

[Just to Browse]

Many such "fallacies" are in no way wrong. They are simply not allowed in High School debate clubs as the idea is to prove something by logical argument alone. Obviously, this doesn't occur here. In fact, since we're arguing pure opinion, a Argumentum ad populum is not only acceptable but a good idea. And of course a argumentum ab auctoritate is perfectly legit when we're arguing facts, such as classes that have a full BAB.


This is an interesting point of which I have not thought before.

[Augmental]

No. Let's take the one I commented on "Appeal to Tradition fallacy". Saying that we do such & such because it's traditional is not a fallacy nor is it mistaken. Sure, just because something is traditional doesn't make it the best way of doing things.

I thought the appeal to tradition was when someone says that a thing is better because it's traditional?

[OldTrees1]

This is an interesting point of which I have not thought before.

Furthermore, even if a fallacy happens to be used appropriately, it cannot discredit the conclusion reached without using the fallacy fallacy.

If a fallacy is pointed out it says nothing about the conclusion and the conclusion needs to be addressed separately from the invalid argument that was used to reach that conclusion.

[DrDeth]

I thought the appeal to tradition was when someone says that a thing is better because it's traditional?

And, sometimes aren't they? I find doing things the way they are because it's traditional is better than changing them just because change is better. Mind you, sometimes change is good, but often not.

To me "that's the way we have always done it" is a OK argument- but not necessarily a convincing argument. "That's the way we have always done it... and so far no one has come up with anything better" is, to me, a convincing argument. Why fix what ain't broke?

(Not saying that D&D can't use some 'fixes", mind you).

[Psyren]

And, sometimes aren't they?

No, they aren't. A thing is good because it's good, whether it is brand new or has been done for 5000 years. All history does is give you more time to find the flaws with it, and even that is imperfect since some flaws can arise suddenly when conditions change.

[huttj509]

"That's the way we have always done it... and so far no one has come up with anything better" is, to me, a convincing argument. Why fix what ain't broke?

The point is that the first half of that sentence is irrelevant, and the second half is often dropped.

"No one has come up with anything better" is a fine reason, as long as it's not being used to counter "I came up with something better."

"That's the way we've always done it (with the implied addition "so that's the way we should keep doing it")" is not, in and of itself, when trying to discuss if X is better than Y.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'm glad you at least acknowledge that the literal definition is different than the one you're using here. That's all I was getting at.

Well that was rather pointless then. So is most of the rest of forum discussion on the internet so I guess that's okay.




No, I don't (I may have to put that in my sig.) I am a dedicated fan of Dreamscarred Press, not an employee or affiliate of any kind. (My actual job is about as far from game design as you can get.)

Must've been thinking of someone else then.


If the system has a glaring hole by not covering a situation the system's gameplay regularly handles, it IS a fault of the system, because it's essentially unplayable.

It's not something the system's gameplay was designed to handle because it was assumed, erroneously, that people would actually follow the guidelines it sets out. It's a hold-over from a previous system, not part of this one. You're blaming the system for people discarding part of the system. That's nonsensical.


And a non-caster- which has no way to get a permanent Mind Blank, decent will save, or even full-time Protection From Evil/Good/Chaos/Law is stuck with two choices - Either be useless so he can't threaten the party when he inevitably gets Mind Controlled, or be strong enough that he's a liability when he gets mind controlled. A mundane character is ALSO a liability because he saps resources - the wealth a party finds that's spent on the fighter-type's weapons, armor, and Mandatory-To-Keep-Up items is wealth that can be spent on resources to amplify the force of the casters. He also requires casters to spend spell slots and actions to haul his ass out of dodge whenever he's sent into a situation he's incapable of handling.

This is a gross exaggeration. The casters don't -need- to be amplified. They're well beyond powerful enough already and mind control effects aren't -that- common. If the casters do need amplification because the DM is throwing challenges of that magnitude at them, ignoring the CR system and/or frequently using NPC casters and using them to near full potential, the mundanes will be useless no matter how much money you throw at them.

Even so, there -are- items that grant mind blank or constant PoE. Having no access to such items is the DM's fault, not the system's.



Things I said

Why did you leave all this in that post if you weren't going to respond to it?

[Pan151]

Sure, but most of those common meanings don't have overwhelmingly negative connotations.

How is that in any way, shape or form relevant?

[Psyren]

Well that was rather pointless then. So is most of the rest of forum discussion on the internet so I guess that's okay.

Indeed.


How is that in any way, shape or form relevant?

"Broken" has a far more negative connotation than "imbalanced" or even "overpowered." Even if the person using it doesn't literally mean it is broken, it's still an indictment bordering on slander.

[Talionis]

I understand why someone "wants" to play a mundane (non-casting) character in a D&D world. They aren't crazy, they want a different experience than what the way in which casters handle things. But as the game progresses and threats become more magical, its becomes harder and harder to overcome encounters without the use of a lot of magic as a player character. No amount of realism overcomes the fact that your opponents have access to magic and use it in ways that can dwarf what you can do.

None of this is a problem if your DM keeps everyone on the same Tier. But when magical characters tend to be the answer to every encounter, it becomes boring for the non-magical characters that get overshadowed.

[eggynack]

And, sometimes aren't they? I find doing things the way they are because it's traditional is better than changing them just because change is better. Mind you, sometimes change is good, but often not.

You should also not change things just because change is better. That's a separate fallacy, which would be appeal to novelty if I'm not mistaken. Sometimes change is good, when the change makes the thing better, and sometimes it's not, when the change makes it worse.

[DrDeth]

How is that in any way, shape or form relevant?

When some people are losing a debate, they try to focus the debate away from the main subject to something else, often trivial.

OTOH, it seems to have worked. :smallbiggrin:

[Pan151]

"Broken" has a far more negative connotation than "imbalanced" or even "overpowered." Even if the person using it doesn't literally mean it is broken, it's still an indictment bordering on slander.

Again, this is irrelevant. It is a word used with a meaning different than the original within specific context. Because of that specific context, there is no issue with the word having a "far more negative connotation" than its original meaning, because its original meaning is irrelevant.

If it is used within context, "broken" obviously means "imbalanced" and not flat-out non-functional.

Likewise, when used within context, "I'm dead" can mean "I'm tired" or "I'm in a bad situation" - rather than, you know, the rl equivalent of -10 hp. And people do not have any problem with any negative connotations there - unless you do, in which case you obviously take the English language far more seriously than I ever could.