Question About Balance Issue In D&D 3.5

[Bartmanhomer]

Why is there a balance issue in Dungeons & Dragons 3.5? I always wonder about that. :confused:

[Gellhorn]

Because 3.5 is a huge system with lots of individual parts. Even if the designers were amazing (and lets be honest here - they weren't the best, and neither were the playtesters), you'd still have balance issues.

Basically the same answer as for any game system.

[Bartmanhomer]

Because 3.5 is a huge system with lots of individual parts. Even if the designers were amazing (and lets be honest here - they weren't the best, and neither were the playtesters), you'd still have balance issues.

Basically the same answer as for any game system.

Will you explain some examples please? :smile:

[eggynack]

Do you mean why did they make the game imbalanced, or in what ways is the game imbalanced? First case, I guess they'd just been slowly reducing the downsides to casting, making it stronger in the early game while being perhaps even better late, meaning that there's no point in the curve where mundanes have a definitive advantage. Also, they made mundanes particularly mediocre, setting them up poorly even against more balanced later designs.

Second case, I tend to point out the first level monk to druid comparison, for such is my nature. Read the first level monk, and think about how well it does in combat. Then read the riding dog, and think about how well that does in combat, relative to the monk. They have equal CR. The monk is rarely gonna be too far ahead, even at higher optimization ranges. Now give the riding dog some barding, probably leather. The riding dog is now running some actively good numbers in the comparison. They're just better in some ways. Finally, consider that the armored riding dog has a friendly druid, capable of casting several spells a day which are capable of doing stuff like lock down movement on the battlefield, or significantly buff the dog, or do various utility things. And they also have a sling, to add to the offensive situation. This is where the comparison between the druid and monk is nearly at its most monk favorable. Except for maybe second level, where the monk gets an HD and the dog doesn't, it's basically all downhill from here.

[noob]

It is hard to balance something when you want to cram abilities from all the fairy tales you imagined or read into casters.
Then when you want to make 342^685 new manuals which have a bad effect: With new rules the rules interactions and the bugs you did not fix and the employees who just write horrible stuff all stack up as a mess.
Also somehow they did put some classes (all the classes that are not T1 casters) that had their roles entirely included in abilities of casters(which is a mistake why keep all those classes? Even if they wrapped up all of them in one they would still not have a role in a team with a T1 caster)

[Nupo]

Why is there a balance issue in Dungeons & Dragons 3.5?
There isn't. What I mean is, yes it's not balanced, but no it's not an "issue."

Life is not balanced, and neither is fantasy. Yes, some people are stronger, or smarter, or more powerful than others. That's what makes it interesting. I don't understand this obsession with trying to make everyone's characters exactly equal. If you get your feelings hurt because someone else in the party has a "better" character than you, I say, "grow up." Maybe it's a case of too many kids sports where they don't keep score, and everyone gets a participation trophy.

[Bartmanhomer]

There isn't. What I mean is, yes it's not balanced, but no it's not an "issue."

Life is not balanced, and neither is fantasy. Yes, some people are stronger, or smarter, or more powerful than others. That's what makes it interesting. I don't understand this obsession with trying to make everyone's characters exactly equal. If you get your feelings hurt because someone else in the party has a "better" character than you, I say, "grow up." Maybe it's a case of too many kids sports where they don't keep score, and everyone gets a participation trophy.
I don't have any issue with unbalanced and balanced characters. I was just asking in general that's all.

[Gellhorn]

Will you explain some examples please? :smile:

Examples for what? The playtesting thing is mostly the anecdotes I've heard about how their human wizard was fighting a balor at 15th level by shooting it with a bow, or how the druid was iirc not using his animal companion, spells, or wildshape to do anything other than scout.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Why is there a balance issue in Dungeons & Dragons 3.5? I always wonder about that. :confused:
Because 1st level Fighters stab monsters, and 1st level Wizards can put a crowd to sleep or turn enemies into friends. Because 10th level Fighters stab monsters, and 10th level Wizards teleport thousands of miles and and turn people into newts. Because 20th level Fighters stab monsters, while 20th level Wizards can stop time and bind archdemons to their service.

Because it's very, very, very hard to balance a game where some characters do one thing-- the same thing-- over and over again with slightly larger numbers, while other characters get a vast list of ever-more-powerful options.

Because the iconic mundane character remains Conan, and the iconic magical character has become Dr. Strange.

Because skills and BAB don't really scale, and spells do.


EDIT:

There isn't. What I mean is, yes it's not balanced, but no it's not an "issue."

Life is not balanced, and neither is fantasy. Yes, some people are stronger, or smarter, or more powerful than others. That's what makes it interesting. I don't understand this obsession with trying to make everyone's characters exactly equal. If you get your feelings hurt because someone else in the party has a "better" character than you, I say, "grow up." Maybe it's a case of too many kids sports where they don't keep score, and everyone gets a participation trophy.
RPGs aren't life. They're a thing we play precisely because they're not life. A thing we do for fun, to feel good about ourselves. A fantasy we want to enact, and while I can't speak for everyone, I don't fantasize about being my friends' sidekick.

[Venger]

Examples for what? The playtesting thing is mostly the anecdotes I've heard about how their human wizard was fighting a balor at 15th level by shooting it with a bow, or how the druid was iirc not using his animal companion, spells, or wildshape to do anything other than scout.
unfortunately this one is true (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/tt/20050809a) and is extremely painful to read


Why is there a balance issue in Dungeons & Dragons 3.5? I always wonder about that. :confused:

the above have explained most of the basics, and this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFuMpYTyRjw) always pops up in threads about tier disparity, so here it is, it also does a good job touching on most common issues like with druid/monk or wizard/fighter.

[Bartmanhomer]

Examples for what? The playtesting thing is mostly the anecdotes I've heard about how their human wizard was fighting a balor at 15th level by shooting it with a bow, or how the druid was iirc not using his animal companion, spells, or wildshape to do anything other than scout.
You don't need to be rude. I was just asking you could give me examples of how it balance and unbalance the game is. That's all. But many people cover it already. :mad:

[King539]

You don't need to be rude. I was just asking you could give me examples of how it balance and unbalance the game is. That's all. But many people cover it already. :mad:

:smallconfused: I'm afraid I don't see how this post was rude.

[Gellhorn]

Yeah, I'm not sure how you read my post as being rude. I just wanted to know what exactly you wanted examples of. I assumed you meant the playtesters comment, but hey I could've been wrong for all I knew.

[Bartmanhomer]

Yeah, I'm not sure how you read my post as being rude. I just wanted to know what exactly you wanted examples of. I assumed you meant the playtesters comment, but hey I could've been wrong for all I knew.

I exactly meant the game itself but hey don't worry about it. :wink:

[ngilop]

Because 1st level Fighters stab monsters, and 1st level Wizards can put a crowd to sleep or turn enemies into friends. Because 10th level Fighters stab monsters, and 10th level Wizards teleport thousands of miles and and turn people into newts. Because 20th level Fighters stab monsters, while 20th level Wizards can stop time and bind archdemons to their service.

Because it's very, very, very hard to balance a game where some characters do one thing-- the same thing-- over and over again with slightly larger numbers, while other characters get a vast list of ever-more-powerful options.

Because the iconic mundane character remains Conan, and the iconic magical character has become Dr. Strange.

Because skills and BAB don't really scale, and spells do.


EDIT:

RPGs aren't life. They're a thing we play precisely because they're not life. A thing we do for fun, to feel good about ourselves. A fantasy we want to enact, and while I can't speak for everyone, I don't fantasize about being my friends' sidekick.

Literally this very thing is the most single perfect explanation of D&D balance.

I'll add a ' humans here on earth can't jump hundreds of feet at a time so the mundanes in D&D are not going to be able to anything like that. Oh the wizard yeah he can totally ignore the earth law of physics as well as bind eldritch horrors to his will"
The biggest issue is even though this is supposed to be a fantasy world with completely different 'in universe' rules for existence things without spells are beholden to earth laws of reality and things with spells are not, how is that even close to fair let alone balanced.

This is an awesome thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?276366-The-Fighter-Problem-amp-How-to-Fix-It) from Zeigander, that I recommend everybody read. ignore the fact that a thread I started earlier was saying the exact same things on but instead of praise I got 3 or 4 pages of insults before I got it deleted.

[Lazymancer]

Why is there a balance issue in Dungeons & Dragons 3.5? I always wonder about that. :confused:
Because you need PCs to behave in predictable manner when you are railroading them. PCs need to be neither too weak, nor too unpredictable for railroading to work. Additionally, all PCs are supposed to do something to make themselves feel useful. This is known as "balance".

However, 3rd Edition failed to provide sufficiently uniform chassis. Some classes ended up too weak, others ended up too unpredictable. Consequently, we have "balance issue" in 3.5 D&D.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Because you need PCs to behave in predictable manner when you are railroading them. PCs need to be neither too weak, nor too unpredictable for railroading to work. Additionally, all PCs are supposed to do something to make themselves feel useful. This is known as "balance".

However, 3rd Edition failed to provide sufficiently uniform chassis. Some classes ended up too weak, others ended up too unpredictable. Consequently, we have "balance issue" in 3.5 D&D.
Incorrect.

At the most basic level, players need to be able to contribute equally to the emergent gameplay and narrative. That doesn't mean that their characters need to be equally powerful, or high-ranking or whatnot, merely that they all have to be equally important to the larger experience. It's fine to have a game of, say, Emperor Regdar and His Merry Minions, but you absolutely should not set up a game of Steve and his merry minions, if that makes sense-- the "minions" should be able to affect the gameworld just as much as the emperor... somehow.

And that's where 3.5 D&D, as a specific ruleset, falls apart. In very old-school editions, as I understand, the game was much more about the player's ability than the characters, meaning even the guy with the 1st level commoner could contribute via clever play. In games like Fate and Cortex, there are rules revolving around narrative manipulation, and characters with more mechanical power tend to have less narrative power to compensate. In games with less rigid level-and-class systems, like GURPS or Exalted, characters can invest in radically different fields so you can have the fighter, the talker, and the scholar who all do different things very well without overlapping.

3.5...3.5 doesn't do any of that. The only form of power, of agency it offers is mechanical power. Often combat power specifically, for a whole mess of largely cultural reasons. (Wargame roots, dungeoncrawling tradition, "roleplay not rollplay" outlooks in regards to social rules, etc). In theory all characters of level X should have equal amounts, but...for all the reasons discussed above, that didn't wind up happening. Classes with a lot of one sort of power (magic) tend to get lots of other kinds lumped in. And the baked in class/level system makes it's hard to compensate for that.

So, uh... yeah. That's my high-level amateur game design perspective on the matter, if it helps anyone.

[Lazymancer]

I'm not going to pretend: I don't understand what exactly you think is incorrect.

Was it not DnD that created the concept of "Balance"?
Was it not scripted story-adventures that were the cause of this?
Was it not expectation of PCs behaving in a predictable manner that is the basis of any story-adventure and, consequently, the necessity of "Balance"?


At the most basic level, players need to be able to contribute equally to the emergent gameplay and narrative.
And I can't agree with this.

First and foremost, the word "need" is hardly appropriate. Who exactly "needs" it? Players? Some players aren't interested in tactical skirmishes, others don't give a damn about negotiations or logistics. New players often are simply unable to contribute, since theey don't know enough.

Secondly, it is nigh impossible to say if players contribute equally, since it is hard to measure contribution of players.

I.e. not only this "need" is doubtful, it is also practically inapplicable.

At the most basic level, players (including GM) want to have fun. Everything else is subordinate to this want and this is what you should default to. Not some abstract "need to contribute".


That doesn't mean that their characters need to be equally powerful, or high-ranking or whatnot, merely that they all have to be equally important to the larger experience.
I think you yourself understand a certain problem here. This is system-agnostic question. Consequently, it has nothing to do with "lack of balance" in DnD.


And that's where 3.5 D&D, as a specific ruleset, falls apart. In very old-school editions, as I understand, the game was much more about the player's ability than the characters, meaning even the guy with the 1st level commoner could contribute via clever play.
This "clever play" is currently called "munchkinery".

And by the standards of New School, Old School is extremely imbalanced. Look at the basics: rolled stats. No, the question of balance does not arise (at least, to the level of 3.5) in the "very old-school games" not because of some extremely balanced ruleset, but because of the different play style. There are no "PCs have to be this tall, but not taller" expectations that are enforced by level-appropriate story-adventures. That's the difference.

[jdizzlean]

in general, people that are worried overly much about "balance" in any game system, tabletop or online, are also those people that get in group chat and immediately ask what the "BEST X" is for everything. They follow the cookie cutter skill trees, and generally speaking put zero individual effort into their own character.

there will always be a "balance" issue in any game system as has already been stated, that is until the only option is to play a one class system where everyone progresses exactly the same.