Balancing a group

[Yenner]

Hello there, I'm DMing a new campaign, the group is made by a cleric, a druid, a swashbuckler (more like an archer build) and a factotum. What would you do to balance them? Aside from giving magic items to the two weaker (obviously the fighter and the factotum) PCs, would it be ok to give them some template? Like chosen of some god but not as OP as the chosen of Mystra.
I saw this post as a guideline : http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?448029-Post-Your-Chosen-Templates-Here

Or maybe silver fire or something similar?

Thanks for the reply!

[Biggus]

What level is the group?

[LordBlades]

While Party balance is obviously important, an equally important question that IMO needs to be asked before you start taking steps to address the problem is: how will everybody else take it?

Will the other two players be happy to see their weaker companions be brought up toward their level, or will the be upset that making a weaker character is getting rewarded?

[pabelfly]

See if there's a problem to start with. If you have experienced players they will likely be aware that there are differences in power between casters and nom-casters and the casters may well play so that they don't overshadow the weaker players.

[Dekion]

Character level, player experience, and overall optimization level of the game and all characters is important in asking a question like this. A "weaker" class played by an experienced optimizer is likely to perform better than a "stronger" class played by an inexperienced non-optimizer. This all also depends on how optimized the challenges are as well. Just handing something out to a character because their player's choice gave them less potential isn't a good idea. Is there a specific reason that you feel like these characters are going to be underpowered, or are you just going by a tier system or word of mouth? I have found that seeing how things progress is important in making balance decisions as experience often carries more weight than theory where variables like this are involved.

[Zecrin]

Personally, I would allow the Fighter to Gestalt with a tier 3 or lower class, and allow the factotum to gestalt with a tier 4 or lower class. Then I might give the druid natural spell as a 7th level bonus feat, and the cleric divine metamagic as a 7th level bonus feat. This way, you give the casters a seemingly powerful buff, which doesn't actually change much about their characters aside from the fact that natural spell will likely come out one level later, and the cleric may hold off on some crazy prestige class for a little longer.

[Yenner]

What level is the group?
They freshly started Lv1!

[Yenner]

Character level, player experience, and overall optimization level of the game and all characters is important in asking a question like this. A "weaker" class played by an experienced optimizer is likely to perform better than a "stronger" class played by an inexperienced non-optimizer. This all also depends on how optimized the challenges are as well. Just handing something out to a character because their player's choice gave them less potential isn't a good idea. Is there a specific reason that you feel like these characters are going to be underpowered, or are you just going by a tier system or word of mouth? I have found that seeing how things progress is important in making balance decisions as experience often carries more weight than theory where variables like this are involved.

Well, 3 of them are very experienced and like to optimize a lot, the last one is a complete newbie but the others made the PC for him (a swashbuckler). I expect the worse because cleric and druid will use anything I don't ban and are very good players who can easily break the game.. and I don't want to put them in challenges too hard for them neither.

[Yenner]

While Party balance is obviously important, an equally important question that IMO needs to be asked before you start taking steps to address the problem is: how will everybody else take it?

Will the other two players be happy to see their weaker companions be brought up toward their level, or will the be upset that making a weaker character is getting rewarded?

You are right, but I plan to give something useful to everyone, I was in their shoes in another campaign so I know the feeling.

[Zaq]

Be open to the possibility, but don't start waving around a solution in search of a problem. Let them spend some time together. If the problems manifest, then yeah, take corrective action, but level 1 (and the early game in general) is such a crapshoot that there's no guarantee that you'll need to start directly rebalancing people.

Incidentally, different groups will handle this differently, but if your high-tier players (not characters, mind you) aren't extremely savvy when it comes to the D&D metagame and why casters are dominant, they might resent watching their friends get a ton of cookies they don't get (even though the high-tier characters don't need them). Open communication is the key, but it can also help to give everyone a template or a homebrew ability of some kind... just make sure that the high-tier characters get mostly flavor ribbons rather than things that directly contribute to primary power level. (Again, tell them what you're doing and why, but even armed with the knowledge that you're trying to raise the baseline of those who are falling behind, it can be comforting to still get a silly trick rather than nothing at all.)

[Yenner]

Personally, I would allow the Fighter to Gestalt with a tier 3 or lower class, and allow the factotum to gestalt with a tier 4 or lower class. Then I might give the druid natural spell as a 7th level bonus feat, and the cleric divine metamagic as a 7th level bonus feat. This way, you give the casters a seemingly powerful buff, which doesn't actually change much about their characters aside from the fact that natural spell will likely come out one level later, and the cleric may hold off on some crazy prestige class for a little longer.

My bad, it's a swashbuckler not a fighter! Gestalt seems a bit too much IMO. The cleric already has divine metamagic, but you idea of a bonus feat seems good to me!

[Biggus]

They freshly started Lv1!


Well, 3 of them are very experienced and like to optimize a lot, the last one is a complete newbie but the others made the PC for him (a swashbuckler). I expect the worse because cleric and druid will use anything I don't ban and are very good players who can easily break the game.. and I don't want to put them in challenges too hard for them neither.

I'd suggest not doing anything straight away; the differences between tiers are much smaller for the first few levels, and as others have said you need to see how the group plays together before you decide what action needs to be taken. For example, if the casters regularly buff and otherwise aid the non-casters, you may not need to do much.

Having said that, since Cleric and Druid are two of the strongest classes in the game and Swashbuckler one of the weakest, you're probably going to have to do something to help him at least. One simple way to do it would be to give him bonus feats on all of his dead levels (4,6,9,12,16,18).

The Factotum, while obviously not a match for the casters, in skilled hands can probably still contribute in quite a few situations, so you may not need to do so much there. Again, possibly a bonus feat at his two dead levels (6,18).

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Swashbuckler is made a lot stronger with the simple use of Daring Outlaw, giving you full SA progression for your levels in Swashbuckler. You mentioned that the character is ranged; are they a Halfling? If so, they can meet the SA requirement for the feat with just one level of Rogue by using the Halfling Rogue racial substitution level. However, it's still probably worth taking the three levels of Rogue for the Penetrating Strike ACF, so they can still get SA on immune enemies.

[Quertus]

Mostly, I just wanted to recommend GMs not make problems trying to fix problems that don't exist. Happily, several Playgrounders have beat me to it.


Well, 3 of them are very experienced and like to optimize a lot, the last one is a complete newbie but the others made the PC for him (a swashbuckler). I expect the worse because cleric and druid will use anything I don't ban and are very good players who can easily break the game.. and I don't want to put them in challenges too hard for them neither.

"Very good players" and "break the game"? I'd think that good players would balance to the group, and avoid breaking the game. Perhaps you mean "skilled"?

In any event, how much you have to care depends on how much they care about Balance, how much they care about Challenge, how good they are at fixing such mechanical problems themselves, and how good they are at communicating what needs fixing when they cannot themselves fix it.

[Yenner]

Mostly, I just wanted to recommend GMs not make problems trying to fix problems that don't exist. Happily, several Playgrounders have beat me to it.



"Very good players" and "break the game"? I'd think that good players would balance to the group, and avoid breaking the game. Perhaps you mean "skilled"?

In any event, how much you have to care depends on how much they care about Balance, how much they care about Challenge, how good they are at fixing such mechanical problems themselves, and how good they are at communicating what needs fixing when they cannot themselves fix it.

You are right. One of them wanted to take the greenhorn feat for his druid. I don't usually ban things, but that was really too much for a 1st lvl party. I asked him to take it later, and maybe I can houserule that the monsters summoned with that template are a couple HD lower than the normal one (so he must take this some level later). Tell me what do you guys think about that.
Thank you

[Biggus]

You are right. One of them wanted to take the greenhorn feat for his druid. I don't usually ban things, but that was really too much for a 1st lvl party. I asked him to take it later, and maybe I can houserule that the monsters summoned with that template are a couple HD lower than the normal one (so he must take this some level later). Tell me what do you guys think about that.
Thank you

I can't find the Greenhorn feat, do you mean Greenbound Summoning?

If so, it was intended to be metamagic feat with a +2 level increase, as the original author says here (https://www.enworld.org/threads/what-have-i-missed-about-greenbound-summoning.128424/page-3#post-2195156), but somehow it didn't come out like that in the book.

[Divine Susuryu]

Will the other two players be happy to see their weaker companions be brought up toward their level, or will the be upset that making a weaker character is getting rewarded?

That's an important thing to consider - incentives to make your characters weak can really rankle those who like to make non-weak characters.

[Biggus]

That's an important thing to consider - incentives to make your characters weak can really rankle those who like to make non-weak characters.

You'd have to give out some incredibly good loot to make a Swashbuckler even close in power to a Cleric or Druid, never mind equal or better, so it's not really giving people much of an incentive unless you go really OTT with it.

[LordBlades]

You'd have to give out some incredibly good loot to make a Swashbuckler even close in power to a Cleric or Druid, never mind equal or better, so it's not really giving people much of an incentive unless you go really OTT with it.

It can still be very frustrating if not discussed beforehand. Many people don't take very well to what feels like playing favorites in a group game, no matter how good the reasons behind it may be.




"Very good players" and "break the game"? I'd think that good players would balance to the group, and avoid breaking the game. Perhaps you mean "skilled"?



While a good and reasonable player should balance to the expected power level of the game, it's something pretty hard to do in cases like this. You have 2 high powered characters and 2 low powered ones. Which one is the 'correct' power level the other half of the party should adjust to?

[Divine Susuryu]

It can still be very frustrating if not discussed beforehand. Many people don't take very well to what feels like playing favorites in a group game, no matter how good the reasons behind it may be.
Exactly. Playing favourites is playing favourites, even if someone thinks there's a good reason. If everyone involved is onboard with that, then it works fine - I have a player who is notoriously bad at character building, and the other players know ahead of time that I'll be deliberately handing out things to put her on par with them, and they're fine with that. But that's only because I let them know and explained ahead of time. If I had just started doing that without saying, they'd feel like that because they already made their characters decently that they're being denied fun tools in game.

[Yenner]

I can't find the Greenhorn feat, do you mean Greenbound Summoning?

If so, it was intended to be metamagic feat with a +2 level increase, as the original author says here (https://www.enworld.org/threads/what-have-i-missed-about-greenbound-summoning.128424/page-3#post-2195156), but somehow it didn't come out like that in the book.

Yes, that was the feat, and IMO RAW it's really OP. In the end I ruled that he can take it but not at 1st level, and wen he use it the summoned mobs are 3 HD lower than that of his normal summons.
Edit: I read the author's post, a spell slot 2 level higher seems pretty fine.

[Yenner]

Exactly. Playing favourites is playing favourites, even if someone thinks there's a good reason. If everyone involved is onboard with that, then it works fine - I have a player who is notoriously bad at character building, and the other players know ahead of time that I'll be deliberately handing out things to put her on par with them, and they're fine with that. But that's only because I let them know and explained ahead of time. If I had just started doing that without saying, they'd feel like that because they already made their characters decently that they're being denied fun tools in game.

That seems ok to me. In my case I already told them before that I will give more usefull loot and maybe some extra powers to the two weak PCs. I'm not going to give them any other special treatment. I hate to be like this but it seems to me the only way to run this campaign, especially with two powerplayers, one of which deliberately wants to break the game (and I'm really trying to not kicking him before he starts.. for anyone reading my other posts he's the one that I wanted to kil in another campaign l.. but never did even if I had multiple chances).