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Thoughtbot360
2007-10-22, 08:05 PM
I've been thinking about game balance recently (and if you've been reading the "wizards aren't so bad!"-"One word: Force cage." "But I can surprise the wizard and somehow kill him in one round! And thats two words!:smallannoyed: " "Even if you could kill him, you'd never ambush him" "But I'll wish myself to be undetectable!" "And then the DM will twist your words and you will wish yourself out of existence!" "No fair!" topics out there, you might be too) and its not a bad idea that we try to look at what a "balanced system would look like.

For help, lets reference Musashi's game design theory (http://www.mu.ranter.net/theory/index.html), specifically the balance section's Zero Sum Rule (http://www.mu.ranter.net/theory/balance.html):


(Thoughtbot notes will be in red.)

There are a few basic considerations for combat: how fast is the unit, how much damage does the unit do, how fast does it do damage, how hard is it to hurt, and how much damage can it take before it is disabled (not neccessarily killed). In an RPG or FPS, the unit is the player character or their opponents; in a strategy game this refers to the combat units of all sides.

[snip (he goes on to talk about each of those five "basic considerations" in detail]

As a blance (balance?) to all these values, cost must be determined. Cost may have up to three factors, intitial cost, upkeep cost, and time to produce. Intiatial cost should be the least of these. The three should balance out to give a negative cost which reflects the potential usefullness of the attack or unit. This cost, when added to the above values, should give you a zero sum. The net effect is that all attacks, if you've done it right, should be balanced.

How this works:

For an RTS you might have infantry that would be slow, weak, but cheap. Cavalry might be much faster and have a stronger attack, but be weak on hit points and cost more. A dragon might be stronger, faster and harder to kill, but the cost and upkeep would be outrageous.

For a pen and paper RPG, a CRPG or an MMORPG a fighter might have a good fast attack with his sword that does moderate damge and costs him one stamina per round to use while a mage might have a fireball that does huge area effect damage at range, but takes 3 turns to fire and costs 10 mana to cast.

These values work best if stats are kept as low as possible. If the weakest character has 3 health and the strongest has 10 and most attacks do 2 to 4 damage, there is a good spread and all characters will be fun to play. If the weakest player has 10 health and the strongest has 250 and attacks do anywhere from 10 to 100 points a shot then any character with low hitpoints will be perpetually one-shotted whereas the high hit point players/units/monsters will completely invalidate the use of any but the most numbercrunched weapons.

So, therefore everything thats really, really useful has a set of weaknesses greater than that of lesser power. How do we apply this to an pen-and-paper RPG where diversity of character types is what makes its smexy? And how can you really balance "telling the laws of physics to shut up and sit down" with "the guy who can swing a sword really, really hard?" I mean Musashi, since I've brought him up, has listed in his magic section a chapter that is outright called "Why Magic Destroys Perfectly Good Games" (http://www.mu.ranter.net/theory/magic.html#why).

Well, lets just focus on three basic attack types (like say, Spells, Swords, and Guns. Most of the characters in RPGs, computerized or otherwise, use those specialize in one of those three) and balance them. Three attack types that -while they are not all the tricks in the world- have some fundamentals to them that all other character archetypes will play by at least similar rules. Ultimately, I mean to categorize say, Swordplay, fist-fighting, archery and other fighting skills that rely on muscularity into a single unit I'll call Martial Arts (yes, the use of broadswords and all those weird weapons and horseback tactics developed in medieval europe are also considered a form of martial art, as are many fighting styles the world over, its not just Karate and Kung Fu and Ju-jitsu for the people who didn't know that yet, so Martial arts is a great name.:smalltongue:) and try to balance that with Magic and another catergory that includes guns and crossbows and all other trigger weapons and devices that do not rely on strength , which I'll label as Technology

Now, the real difficulty lies not in just balancing these categories with each other but with everything in the category itself. With martial arts, I need to balance swords with spears and make sure theres at least a situational use for unarmed skilled, for instance. Its also important to keep in mind that certain weapons get outdated, and most of the exotic weapons in 3.5 edition are entirely ceremonial weapons (http://www.mu.ranter.net/theory/weapons.html#ceremonial) and then theres improvised weapons, so its limited to the technological era of the game in question. On this note, its a heck of a lot easier to balance guns with swords (and perhaps bows, however the armies of the world will still use guns while the bow and arrow using PC will be a bit of an oddball archery fanatic, simply because guns are cheaper. However, if he's particularly good at his archery, his training might pay off.:wink: ) if the guns are cap and ball revolvers, muskets, and flint locks (and other single-fire, long to reload, innaccurate early guns).

I'll post more on this later tonight.

horseboy
2007-10-22, 11:48 PM
There is one solution that seems possible to me, a way to make mages relatively uncommon while not hamstringing them into comas. It involves requiring a quest of sorts in order to become a mage in the first place, i.e. you cannot start as a mage. I thought of this while drawing up design specs for a radically modified Sphere shard that I never finished, and as of yet I haven't had a better idea, so here it is, in summary:Oh look, it's the hologrind. No, it's not better.

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-23, 12:10 AM
Quick question: What makes this musashi guy credible at all? Seriously, I take a few issues with some of the things he's saying here, being something of a study in game design myself.

For example, he often seems to follow the idea that historical accuracy or basis in reality is somehow grounds for balance in a game. Such as here:


The Grandfather Clause of Stupidity

Probably the biggest single source of bad rule and mechanics decisions comes from the fact that most game designers, rather than actually going to a library, base most of their research on the work of other game designers.

Yeah... if we're talking about game mechanics, what are we getting out of the library other than sources on game mechanics? Fluff doesn't impact the functionality of mechanics. The writer is committing a logical fallacy here (and he repeats it tons throughout his rantings).

Or how about this?


Abstract Values Don't Roll Well. Noncombat skills people tend to make use of in an RPG setting are typically skills like Investigation, Disguise, Alchemy, etc. These are rather simplistic terms for very complex and hard-to-quantify activities that have a lot of other abstract factors influencing the "chance of success." Pen and paper rules for the use of these skills are usually extremely long, describing ways to reduce these outside influences to a die roll modifier, and when all else fails, the GM assigns arbitrary modifiers based on how the player describes his activities. Obviously this doesn't work at all in any sort of computer-refereed setting. On the other hand, combat is relatively simple. You roll to hit, you roll damage. Any factors that modify this roll like range, target size, attacker position, etc., are easy to define, and factoring them in becomes less of a judgment call and more a matter of how complex your attack algorithm is. Since when did combat systems tend to be SIMPLER than noncombat systems? Seriously, I can't think of a video game craft system (off the top of my head) with more depth than many combat systems. I can't think of a skill in D&D that's "extremely long and abstract" compared to the abstraction of the combat round in D&D.

Here's another quote:


In games that are not persistent, like Age of Kings (early), the trebuchet was horribly unrealistic and therefore could be used to devastating effect. This commits a logical fallacy! "Something is not realistic" != "It is overpowered." The two elements are completely unrelated. *And he says things very similar to this (talking about realism in relation to balance or mechanical design) throughout his rantings.* The thing is, it's actually irrelevant. Something that's horribly unrealistic can also be totally underpowered, for example. Such as guns being able to be blocked by something as simple as a leather jacket (this happens in d20 Modern, actually). That's unrealistic of guns, and it certainly doesn't make them more devastating.

Remember kids, don't listen to arguments that use logical fallacies.

I mean, I've only just skimmed this, but... what's supposed to make this guy credible at all? Who is he? And why do we care? :smallconfused:

___

As to creating a truly balanced system... as long as you're maintaining variety and choice, perfect balance is quite literally unachievable (especially in the case of a pen and paper game). Perfect balance actually requires players to all have the same capabilities (which actually happens in many multiplayer video games or board games). Instead, we strive for balance within a tolerable range, even though perfection isn't actually possible.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 12:53 AM
OneWinged4ngel, agreed on your assessment of the article. One point:


As to creating a truly balanced system... as long as you're maintaining variety and choice, perfect balance is quite literally unachievable (especially in the case of a pen and paper game). Perfect balance actually requires players to all have the same capabilities (which actually happens in many multiplayer video games or board games). Instead, we strive for balance within a tolerable range, even though perfection isn't actually possible.

A tolerable balance can be easier to achieve within the scope of a particular genre/theme than universally. An idea might be to have a points-buy system in the manner of GURPS, but with different price lists for different campaigns depending on the utility of the respective abilities for said campaigns.

Thus, while the mechanics can be generic and universal allowing for all types of theme, you pay for them differently depending on what your GM has in mind for the story.

Ninja Chocobo
2007-10-23, 01:02 AM
"One word: Force cage." "But I can surprise the wizard and somehow kill him in one round! And thats two words!:smallannoyed:"

Forcecage actually is one word.

Just a minor nitpick, carry on.

Erk
2007-10-23, 01:24 AM
I find it interesting that the standard hallmark of D&D balance debate is that the classes should be balanced "against" each other. A wizard and a fighter, going toe-to-toe at the same level, should be equal. The "pros and cons" way of balancing classes assumes this as well, be it by likening classes to a RTS or whatever.

I think that's an oversimplification. The assumption, I think, is that D&D - and RPGs as a genre - should be played as a group. Therefore, group members should not be balanced against each other, they should be balanced with each other. Each class should fit into a vital party role, should excel within its role, and should always feel like a critical part of party function in a reasonably balanced party. Please note, I am not making an argument in favour of present D&D, which I feel has failed at this kind of balance. Even 2nd edition did it better, at least when I played it.

Really, balancing numbers doesn't mean a lot. It's more important to check that the cleric cannot buff himself and take over the fighter's job, that the rogue disarming traps is more worthwile than just asking the barbarian to step through them, and such. A balanced system doesn't mean wizards can't have fun, just that their ability to massively alter the battlefield does not stop the other characters from playing their parts.

If this means that, say, fighters need far more expansive powers than logic dictates be possible with a sword, I don't see how that is a problem... they're running alongside folks that can stop time and create totally indestructible walls of force, and they need to have something to offer to these guys besides being a meat shield. Even if number-crunching says they are a massively effective meat shield, equal in effectiveness to the wizard that can bend and warp reality, it's still a boring way to play.

Sorry for digressing, but this is something I have been thinking about a lot. A balanced character doesn't need to be equal in a fight, it just needs to always have something fun to do.

Jerthanis
2007-10-23, 01:27 AM
I think a balanced system would look a lot like Green Ronin's Mutants and Masterminds game. For a game with a point based character creation system, it's amazingly difficult to break. Also, what's presented in that game is equivalent access to damaging, disabling, protecting, and mobility powers. Your only limits are staying within your concept, and unless you're a genius of inefficiency, your sum total powers will be about equal in usefulness to every other character of your same power level.

Except if the player abuses the heck out of Array powers, and the DM lets him get away with power stunting all kinds of stuff... but that's mostly the DM's fault. Or if one player takes the stated maximums as suggestions for what the character should have, and starts a PL 10 game with +15 in every save, +20 impervious protection, and a level 10 blast with +10 to hit... and the rest of the party took the limits to mean they should have powers and abilities at about half that level... but that's a problem with characters not knowing what to expect from the system, which is also the DM's fault... and still, the characters who didn't adhere to any maximum values in anything will have like, twice the points to spend on useful utility powers, and will almost certainly contribute as much, or more than the pile-o'-numbers style character.

Anyway, I really like Mutants and Masterminds.

Kompera
2007-10-23, 02:13 AM
Balance is mostly thrown out the window when any one class can use an ability (we'll call it a 'spell' for the sake of this discussion) which allows them to put themselves in a position of being able to attack without a reasonable hope of return attack.

Many of these spells are representations of very typical fantasy story elements, and removing them from the game will perforce change the game dramatically.

A sample list, by no means a complete one could be:

Flight
Improved Invisibility
Teleport
Time Stop

Another unbalancing factor is the number of options available to any given class. For melee types, the options don't change a lot as the character advances. They become better at swinging a sword or shooting an arrow, but they are still swinging a sword or shooting an arrow. The same is fairly true of skill types as well. They get better at their skills, or begin to invest in a new skill, but this is a gradual increase in their options.

Casters spell lists don't follow this pattern, instead their options increase dramatically every time a new spell level is obtained. Sharply curtailing the number of spells available would help to keep balance. One method of doing this would be to offer only more potent versions of lower level spells at the higher levels, and only occasionally introduce brand new spells. So, Magic Missile would no longer scale with the caster level, but would be replaced by more potent versions of the same spell effect available at higher spell levels.

And finally, the scope of the players impact on the game environment needs to be balanced. If one character can try to break down a door or cleave a weapon or shield while another can either create or destroy large amounts of matter, balance can not be maintained.

Cybren
2007-10-23, 02:20 AM
Complete balance is boring. A degree of asymmetry is needed to make things interesting.
"Balance" in a P&P RPG is only necessary so that everyone is having fun. Depending on the system this may mean everyone has to be able to contribute to combat in different ways, or it will mean everyone will have to contribute a variety of abilities in different ways. The most balanced system you could play is having each player roll a die, then the DM will roll a couple of them, and if any of the players have a higher roll than the DMs total, the players go up a level and use a larger die. To continue to challenge them the DM will roll another die.

Pronounceable
2007-10-23, 05:23 AM
Balance is overrated. It's not an integral part of fun, contrary to what DnD tries to impose.

And total balance is just nonexistant. Even in chess (which is probably one of the fairest games) someone goes first and therefore is advantaged.

There's one important and valid point:


These values work best if stats are kept as low as possible. If the weakest character has 3 health and the strongest has 10 and most attacks do 2 to 4 damage, there is a good spread and all characters will be fun to play. If the weakest player has 10 health and the strongest has 250 and attacks do anywhere from 10 to 100 points a shot then any character with low hitpoints will be perpetually one-shotted whereas the high hit point players/units/monsters will completely invalidate the use of any but the most numbercrunched weapons.

A normal (bell curve) distribution within a small range is best to maintain a passable amount of balance. As such, it's my belief that level based systems are on the wrong track about balance issue.

A game where characters are mechanically static (maybe with some upgrades) will lend itself very well to balance <=> stability (as in RTSes), but then there'll be the matter of progress. A PC is not a unit in a RTS. Players will want to advance.

The real problem in my opinion is to "balance" progress vs stability in a system. One can avoid this issue by dropping one or the other. DnD drops stability in favor of progress (WotC has to profit after all). On the other hand, I homebrewed my way into game mechanics and dropped progress (levels) in favor of system stability (I don't have to sell stuff, so I can afford to be static).

Also, things can take a strange (and offtopic) turn with the "professional RPG designers have to make games that are open to future expansions, while homebrewers have no such constraints" statement.

InaVegt
2007-10-23, 05:48 AM
And total balance is just nonexistant. Even in chess (which is probably one of the fairest games) someone goes first and therefore is advantaged.

This has not been proven, it's theoretically just as likely that in chess going first delivers a disadvantage. As long as it has not been proven what the outcome is when two perfect players play against each other, we can't say someone is at an advantage for going first.

Winterwind
2007-10-23, 06:25 AM
This has not been proven, it's theoretically just as likely that in chess going first delivers a disadvantage. As long as it has not been proven what the outcome is when two perfect players play against each other, we can't say someone is at an advantage for going first.Nevertheless, at professional level the advantage of white is considered to be so large (and the statistics of which side wins how often confirm this) that the black player is awarded twice or thrice the number of points the white player is if (s)he wins.


As for a balanced system, it can be rather simply done by having a system where everything is decided by skills, which are (for example) added to a dice roll and compared to some target number, and that's the whole system. It would be up to the gamemaster to make sure every skill is, roughly, equally important, of course.

I think, however, that balance is overrated.

For instance, in my favourite RPG the starting equipment of a character depends on her/his background, and can differ by a huge margin (one character might start with a spear and no money, the other might have a shotgun, a motorbike and a rather huge sum of money). Balanced? Definitely not. Fitting to represent who the characters are and where they come from? Definitely yes.

KIDS
2007-10-23, 06:48 AM
I found the "Why Magic destroys perfectly good games" article quite interesting, albeit written from a gestapo "I know everything" perspective and not really to my taste. But there is some good insight to be found in there.

Dausuul
2007-10-23, 07:57 AM
I found the "Why Magic destroys perfectly good games" article quite interesting, albeit written from a gestapo "I know everything" perspective and not really to my taste. But there is some good insight to be found in there.

He makes some good points, but I think he suffers from a lack of imagination in many areas. For one thing, he points up the common issue of "Swiss Army magic"--that is, magic can do anything and thus becomes, as he puts it, "air superiority, rifled barrels, and force fields, all in one package." That's certainly a big problem, and a large part of the reason Batman wizards are so grotesque in D&D.

But the only solution he proposes is "constant vigilance and hardcore balancing," which is applying a crunch solution to what is really a fluff problem. A much better solution is to address magic from a conceptual perspective. Take away the black box aspect, or at least push it a few steps further down the line; instead of handwaving the mechanics, ask yourself, what exactly is happening when a wizard casts a spell? All that hand-waving and chanting, what is it doing? How is it doing it? Is the wizard invoking spirits to do his bidding? If so, where do the spirits come from, what are they capable of, and what happens if they don't want to do what the wizard says? Is he speaking the true name of the thing he wishes to enchant, and commanding it in the True Speech which only wizards know? If so, how does he discover the true name, and what commands does the True Speech allow? Is he shaping raw elemental energies with the force of his will? If so, what can elemental energies be made to do?

Answering these questions often reveals ways in which the wizard's versatility can be limited. If the wizard is invoking spirits, he's limited by what spirits will obey his command and what a spirit is capable of doing. If he's using the True Speech, he's limited by what commands the True Speech allows and his own ability to uncover the name of the thing commanded. If he's shaping raw elemental energies, he's probably not going to be teleporting about. Et cetera.

Solving the conceptual problem of "what can a wizard do?" is critical, not only to game balance in the usual sense, but also to developing the flavor of the class. An elemental-energy wizard should be very different, both in fluff and in crunch, from a true-naming wizard, and that wizard is going to be different from the spirit-invoker.

The author also misses an obvious solution to the "everyone's a wizard" problem. In my gaming group, everyone acknowledges the uberness that is D&D magic. Despite this, out of five regular players, there are only two who play casters with any frequency. Why? Because the other players don't like being casters! They don't like being fragile, they don't like keeping track of spell slots and remembering what a zillion spells do, and they want the straightforwardness of being able to run up and hit stuff.

An excellent way to deal with "everybody's a wizard," then, is to make it so that the wizard play style appeals to a smaller cross-section of your player base. If a wizard has very little direct damage and is all about debuffs and battlefield control, they won't appeal to players who want the visceral thrill of dismembering the enemy; the only people who play wizards will be those who prefer a colder, more tactical approach to combat. Moreover, this makes balancing wizards considerably easier, because a debuffer/battlefield controller can be extremely powerful but still need a guy with a big sword to deal the killing blow. (The reason this doesn't help with D&D wizards is their huge array of save-or-die/save-or-lose spells, which let them dispense with the fighter entirely.)

One other thing: The author's claim that you can't implement innate magic in an MMORPG is just wrong. He seems to be assuming that innate magic is inherently randomized; which is preposterous. See the warlock for an example of innate magic in action.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 09:49 AM
Just a few counterpoints to the naysayers above:

It is fallacious to argue that you should not strive for balance simply because perfect balance is impossible. You might as well argue that car safety regulations are a bad idea because cars will never be perfectly safe; or that crime-fighting is a bad idea because there will always be some crime. Obviously, car safety and crime are vastly more important issues than game balance, but the fallacy remains.
Any imbalance that may exist in chess is so many orders of magnitude less than that of D&D that that excusing the existing imbalance in D&D and related games by invoking those of chess and similar is simply not valid. Obviously the nature of chess means that it will be inherently more balanced, but this is like Ted Bundy using the defense that Joe Average is presumably aggressive from time to time (again, a rather extreme example, but still true :smallwink: ).
The game can be played in several ways. This includes a relaxed and "fun" way or a more serious and competitive way. Whether an imbalanced game is "fun" depends on which kind of game you are looking for. It seems a bit off to argue that you must try and enjoy D&D in a particular way for it to be enjoyable. After all, it wouldn't cease to be fun for the former kind of player if it were more balanced.

Snooder
2007-10-23, 10:23 AM
Personally, I don't see the concept of balance all that hard to resolve. All you have to do is give everybody the same basic mechanics and then differ those mechanics based on what class they are.

For example, lets say a fireball does 30 points of damage on average. The typical fireball will hit 3-4 people. To balance this, a sword should do about 90 points of damage to one person, or with a "whirlwind strike" 30 damage to each of 3-4 people. That's pretty simple, no?

Spells are overpowered. That's kinda integral to the definition. To balance this, physical and sneaky types need to be given overpowered abilities to compensate. Now, we could make up a different system of powers and abilities for each class, but that's hard to balance. How do we compare Rage to Sneak Attack? It gets used only once a day while Sneak Attack is theoretically infinite.

The best way to do this is to come up with a generic system for every class. I speak of course of balancing D&D. Other methods of balance work best for other kinds of systems, Mutants and Masterminds for instance has a "powers" system that works fine for a superhero RPG, but in a fantasy RPG, no pure fighter has any business casting mage hand.

I see this as a three tiered system. You have constant, per encounter, and per day abilities.

Constant abilities are things like power attack, sneak attack, e.t.c. A PC can use these at any time as often as he/she wants. All classes get the same number of these let's say 7, and they tend to do similar things. For best results these abilities should be scaleable. For example, a Fighter can get Power Attack to do extra damage equal to level in exchange for lowered to-hit (not based on the amount of damage, but static like -2 or -4). Rogues can get sneak attack to do the same extra damage, but only when flatfooted. A Wizard can cast Magic Missile to do only his level in damage, but it's a touch attack.

Per encounter abilities are more exotic. These are where most spells would fall. Things like "Dominate Person" don't need to be constant because then people would simply spam that until someone fails a save. On the other hand, making them per day requires every group out there to play the same number of encounters per day to balance it out. Whereas constant abilities are the bread/butter of the class, per encounter is where the variations and diversity within the class comes from. The basic mechanic is that a class gets 3 at first level, and 1 more every level afterward. The "spell level"/"maneuver level" system is rather attractive for this, as it allows the designer to specify what abilities are supposed to be available at certain levels.

So while an Enchanting specialized wizard would have Hold Person, and a blasty caster would have Fireball, a fighter might have a "Whirlwind Attack" or "Crushing Blow". They'd all, like the constant example above, do about the same amount of damage, or its equivalent. This poses problems for the non-damaging spells/abilities, but if we simply equate 1 creature disabled to about 5hp per HD, we can balance several of those too.

The per day abilities are the "AWESOME" abilities. This is where the more gamebreaking spells would go and some new abilities for every one else. Forcecage, Timestop, I'm looking at you. Give everyone something to compete with these. Like "Time Stands Still" for the fighter, or "Deathstrike" for the rogue.

The basic idea is that everyone will have the same basic, underlying mechanic. But, each class will have different abilities to use that mechanic on so that they're balanced, but unique.


p.s. to everyone who is bothered by the idea of balance, it's not that the PCs are in direct competition. But it's easiest when qualifying how abilities compare to compare them directly. Otherwise you could do things like argue that Power Attack is better than Invisibility since it actively hurts things while Invisibility only lets you run away.

Jayabalard
2007-10-23, 10:39 AM
Just a few counterpoints to the naysayers above:

[LIST] It is fallacious to argue that you should not strive for balance simply because perfect balance is impossible. You might as well argue that car safety regulations are a bad idea because cars will never be perfectly safe; or that crime-fighting is a bad idea because there will always be some crime. Obviously, car safety and crime are vastly more important issues than game balance, but the fallacy remains.On the other hand, it's not fallacious to argue that you should not strive for balance because it is not desirable.


After all, it wouldn't cease to be fun for the former kind of player if it were more balanced.False

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 10:43 AM
On the other hand, it's not fallacious to argue that you should not strive for balance because it is not desirable.

And just why is it "not desirable"?


False

Bull. It is perfectly possible to have fun even with the player characters being more or less equal in power. And even if that were not the case, you can simply play a campaign with the PCs being at different levels.

Snooder
2007-10-23, 10:46 AM
I found the "Why Magic destroys perfectly good games" article quite interesting, albeit written from a gestapo "I know everything" perspective and not really to my taste. But there is some good insight to be found in there.

Oddly enough, I found his observations very astute, but I disagree with his conclusions. It's clear that most mages in fantasy literature are not playable characters. Gandalf and Merlin are NPCs. You shouldn't be allowed to play them. It is also clear that magic cannot be unique and special and still be available to PCs.

Where I differ, is that I don't see this as a tragedy or problem to be fixed. Yes, in a fantasy world where magic is available it won't be mysterious or special. That's kinda the point. You don't need to over-nerf mages, or require obscenely long quests to keep mages from taking over. Just balance them so they aren't the obvious choice, and then people who like the flavor will play that, and those who don't won't. If you want the number of mages to be really small, tough noogies, that's not how the world works. Unlike literature where the answer to "why isn't everyone a magic user" is "because the author said so", in an RPG (MMO or P&P) you can't just hand-wave that restriction. Either the answer is "everyone can be" or its "nobody playable can be". There's not really a middle ground.

Jayabalard
2007-10-23, 10:48 AM
And just why is it "not desirable"?Why would it be desirable?


Bull. It is perfectly possible to have fun even with the player characters being more or less equal in power. And even if that were not the case, you can simply play a campaign with the PCs being at different levels.characters at different levels means that the system has an inherent lack of balance... some characters can be higher level than others.

There are players that specifically enjoy the differences in what each character brings to the table and the fact that those aren't necessarily equal. Those people would indeed have less fun, or cease to have fun at all if the game were more balanced.

Snooder
2007-10-23, 10:51 AM
On the other hand, it's not fallacious to argue that you should not strive for balance because it is not desirable.

False

Um, competitive players prefer a balanced system. Enjoying a non-balanced system just means the player likes to cheat.

Jayabalard
2007-10-23, 10:53 AM
Um, competitive players prefer a balanced system. Enjoying a non-balanced system just means the player likes to cheat.you should probably fix that quote:

Liking an unbalanced system has nothing to do with cheating; just as an easy example, someone who enjoys playing characters that are mechanically weak compared to the rest of the players in their group has nothing to do with cheating.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 10:54 AM
Why would it be desirable?

I already explained why in my first post in this thread: some people prefer a more competitive approach to gaming, and an unbalanced system leaves them out in the cold.


characters at different levels means that the system has an inherent lack of balance... some characters can be higher level than others.

That is not what is implied by a "balanced system": obviously characters can improve themselves. What is meant is that characters of the same level are (more or less) balanced against one another, or that the differences are at least not outrageous enough to make the "level" yardstick all but useless.


There are players that specifically enjoy the differences in what each character brings to the table and the fact that those aren't necessarily equal. Those people would indeed have less fun, or cease to have fun at all if the game were more balanced.

Again, that is not what is meant by "balance" in the given context. Balance does not mean that the characters are as identical as checker pieces.

Jayabalard
2007-10-23, 10:57 AM
I already explained why in my first post in this thread: some people prefer a more competitive approach to gaming, and an unbalanced system leaves them out in the cold. How about for the people who don't take such an approach? how would that be, in any way, desirable?


That is not what is implied by a "balanced system": obviously characters can improve themselves. What is meant is that characters of the same level are (more or less) balanced against one another, or that the differences are at least not outrageous enough to make the "level" yardstick all but useless.If someone can play characters of different levels, there is an inherent imbalance to the system... some characters can be more effective than others.

just because you find that an acceptable type of imbalance doesn't make it "balanced"

Indon
2007-10-23, 11:00 AM
My personal take on it is that synergy leads directly to imbalance.

Say you have mechanically effectively identical functions A, B, and C. Both give +5 to your effectiveness. This is balanced if either A, B, and C all equally stack with each other, or none stack.

But if A and B stack with each other, but neither stack with C, A-B is now imbalanced.

"Just make everything stack equally!" you say. Is it so easy?

Replace A, B, and C with Power Attack, 2-handed weapons, and Two-weapon Fighting. Does it make sense to get as much damage from swinging hard with your broadsword as it does with your rapier and dagger? Would anyone take such a system seriously?

For an even more extreme example, replace A, B, and C with Archery skill, Melee skill, and Flight. Synergy doesn't have to be simply mechanical; it can be logistic/strategic/tactical, as well.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 11:04 AM
How about for the people who don't take such an approach? how would that be, in any way, desirable?

As already said, they can play characters of unequal levels if they really want characters of unequal power. That the competitive players are also capable of getting what they want shouldn't undermine the former group's fun, unless they are colossal jerks.


If someone can play characters of different levels, there is an inherent imbalance to the system... some characters can be more effective than others.

just because you find that an acceptable type of imbalance doesn't make it "balanced"

[Scrubbed] I have already explained what "balanced" means in the context. :smallconfused:

Of course the possibility of allowing a voluntary handicap does not means that it imbalanced. For instance, you can play chess with one player willingly taking fewer pieces as a handicap, does that make chess "imbalanced"?

valadil
2007-10-23, 11:08 AM
If I wanted balance I'd play rock paper scissor. I'll take D&D instead. Unbalance is more interesting.

With regard to wizards, I think they'd be played very differently if they didn't expect to get their spells back at the end of the encounter. Casters in general are a front-loaded bunch. It's balanced by the idea that after they've used up their power they can't do a whole lot, but the fighter can swing his sword as long as he stays standing. The way we play though involves a combat being over before a caster is spent, and then the group rests. And why wouldn't they? The group as a whole wants their wizard to be helpful in the next fight rather than a frail liability.

If you ask me, it's up to GMs to do a better job of keeping parties on their toes instead of letting them rest 8 hours mid dungeon. It would be anal at first and probably really irritate the wizard, but I think once the group got used to holding back a little it would make things more interesting. Yes the wizard can always timestop/forcecage/cloudkill, but that's a lot of spells to invest and even if it's worthwhile, how many times can that happen per day?

While we're on the topic I also think that strictly enforcing material components and the procurement thereof (meaning sulfur may not be allowed in cities that don't want to be burned down) would be another good way to limit magic if only it didn't involve so much excessive paperwork.

Morty
2007-10-23, 11:11 AM
How about for the people who don't take such an approach? how would that be, in any way, desirable?

Then they should play system that's meant to be imbalanced. Which D&D isn't. That, and you can have unbalanced characters in balanced system if you want. If you want one warrior to be just plainly better than other, you can easily do this.


If someone can play characters of different levels, there is an inherent imbalance to the system... some characters can be more effective than others.

just because you find that an acceptable type of imbalance doesn't make it "balanced"

It's been said few times what is the definition of balance for the purpose of this thread. If you want to argue about other definition just to prove you're right, it's pointless.


With regard to wizards, I think they'd be played very differently if they didn't expect to get their spells back at the end of the encounter. Casters in general are a front-loaded bunch. It's balanced by the idea that after they've used up their power they can't do a whole lot, but the fighter can swing his sword as long as he stays standing. The way we play though involves a combat being over before a caster is spent, and then the group rests. And why wouldn't they? The group as a whole wants their wizard to be helpful in the next fight rather than a frail liability.

There are two problems with this:
1. Wizards have got many ways to cover their weakness, frality, which is why they're imbalanced.
2. Party needs to rest from time to time anyway, if only to heal frontliners.


If you ask me, it's up to GMs to do a better job of keeping parties on their toes instead of letting them rest 8 hours mid dungeon. It would be anal at first and probably really irritate the wizard, but I think once the group got used to holding back a little it would make things more interesting. Yes the wizard can always timestop/forcecage/cloudkill, but that's a lot of spells to invest and even if it's worthwhile, how many times can that happen per day?

What about adventures that don't take place in dungeons, and don't have several encounters per day because DM doesn't want to drop his plot and concept just to stop wizard from being broken?

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 11:16 AM
My personal take on it is that synergy leads directly to imbalance.

Say you have mechanically effectively identical functions A, B, and C. Both give +5 to your effectiveness. This is balanced if either A, B, and C all equally stack with each other, or none stack.

But if A and B stack with each other, but neither stack with C, A-B is now imbalanced.

"Just make everything stack equally!" you say. Is it so easy?

Replace A, B, and C with Power Attack, 2-handed weapons, and Two-weapon Fighting. Does it make sense to get as much damage from swinging hard with your broadsword as it does with your rapier and dagger? Would anyone take such a system seriously?

For an even more extreme example, replace A, B, and C with Archery skill, Melee skill, and Flight. Synergy doesn't have to be simply mechanical; it can be logistic/strategic/tactical, as well.

A possible solution would be to require the player to pay points for the end result of his capabilities, after synergies and suchlike have been included. The number of feats and skill points permitted would still be determined by a "class level", but the real yardstick would be the post-synergy power rating. Might be a bit difficult to implement, though.

Dausuul
2007-10-23, 11:16 AM
How about for the people who don't take such an approach? how would that be, in any way, desirable?

What do they care? Balanced, unbalanced, it's all the same to them.

If the system is balanced, everybody's happy. If the system is not balanced, some people are happy and others are unhappy. Therefore, it is better to have a balanced system.


If someone can play characters of different levels, there is an inherent imbalance to the system... some characters can be more effective than others.

just because you find that an acceptable type of imbalance doesn't make it "balanced"

Balance is not about making sure that everything in the universe is equal to everything else. It's about making sure no one character type outperforms the others overall. Obviously a high-level character is stronger than a low-level one, but since high-level characters are not supposed to be adventuring alongside low-level ones, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison.

I'll draw an analogy with currency here. Let's say we have a currency system based on gold and silver, where the value of a coin is theoretically equal to the bullion value of the metal. Let's further say that silver is underpriced; five silver dollars actually contain six dollars' worth of silver. So everyone is trying to dump their gold coins for silver, so they can melt the silver down and sell it on the international market.

Those of us arguing for class balance are saying that we need to make the silver coins smaller, so that a silver dollar is worth the same as a gold dollar. Meanwhile, you're saying that dollars are imbalanced because they're worth more than cents.

Fishy
2007-10-23, 11:23 AM
A balanced system looks like Spirit of the Century.

What?

Jayabalard
2007-10-23, 11:56 AM
What do they care? Balanced, unbalanced, it's all the same to them.They care because it's not the same to them...


If the system is balanced, some people are happy and others are unhappy. If the system is not balanced, some people are happy and others are unhappy. Fixed that for you


It's about making sure no one character type outperforms the others overall./shrug

I like the fact that one character can outperform another character overall; I see it as a positive feature of class/level based systems, and it's the primary reason that I play those systems when I do play them.


Then they should play system that's meant to be imbalanced. Which D&D isn't. That, and you can have unbalanced characters in balanced system if you want. If you want one warrior to be just plainly better than other, you can easily do this.Actually, as a class and level based system, with magic items that make a large impact on the abilities of the characters, and magic that is available to some classes and not others, it's quite clearly a system with intended imbalances, regardless of what some of the designers have said.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 11:59 AM
They care because it's not the same to them...

Then they can play a game with characters of different levels as has been said already.


I like the fact that one character can outperform another character overall; I see it as a positive feature of class/level based systems, and it's the primary reason that I play those systems when I do play them.

See above.


Actually, as a class and level based system, with magic items that make a large impact on the abilities of the characters, and magic that is available to some classes and not others, it's quite clearly a system with intended imbalances, regardless of what some of the designers have said.

No.

Jayabalard
2007-10-23, 12:03 PM
Then they can play a game with characters of different levels as has been said already.and people who want a balanced system can play rock paper scissors; those have identical relevance to whether balance is, in and of itself, a good thing.


No.yes.


I have already explained what "balanced" means in the context. Link or quote please. I don't see a clear definition... Nor do I agree that it would be all that relevant, since you seem to be using the word "balanced" to mean something other than balanced...

Jorkens
2007-10-23, 12:07 PM
I like the fact that one character can outperform another character overall; I see it as a positive feature of class/level based systems, and it's the primary reason that I play those systems when I do play them.
Sorry, could you clarify that a bit. Do you mean that you wouldn't want to play a fighter at high levels if it meant you were going to have the same impact on the game as the party druid or wizard?

Jayabalard
2007-10-23, 12:15 PM
Sorry, could you clarify that a bit. Do you mean that you wouldn't want to play a fighter at high levels if it meant you were going to have the same impact on the game as the party druid or wizard?Yes.

If I'm playing in D&D, and I'm playing someone who cann't use magic, I expect that anyone who can use magic is going to bring much more to the table than I will.

internerdj
2007-10-23, 12:18 PM
Replace A, B, and C with Power Attack, 2-handed weapons, and Two-weapon Fighting. Does it make sense to get as much damage from swinging hard with your broadsword as it does with your rapier and dagger? Would anyone take such a system seriously?

Balance there in the theoretical would deal with an interaction between chance to hit and strength of hit(and perhaps several other things but we will concider just the two). Swinging hard with your broadsword will deal more damage but it is less likely to hit because a big old powerful attack especially by someone who hasn't fought much is really easy to read. The rapier and dagger deal less damage per hit due to physics but being able to work tandem weapons gives alot more opportunity to score a wounding hit.

Jorkens
2007-10-23, 12:20 PM
Yes.

If I'm playing in D&D, and I'm playing someone who cann't use magic, I expect that anyone who can use magic is going to bring much more to the table than I will.
A lot of people would expect it. But why is it a good thing? And why is it a natural thing, apart from the fact that that's how the rules as they are at the moment say it is?

Indon
2007-10-23, 12:22 PM
Replace A, B, and C with Power Attack, 2-handed weapons, and Two-weapon Fighting. Does it make sense to get as much damage from swinging hard with your broadsword as it does with your rapier and dagger? Would anyone take such a system seriously?

Balance there in the theoretical would deal with an interaction between chance to hit and strength of hit(and perhaps several other things but we will concider just the two). Swinging hard with your broadsword will deal more damage but it is less likely to hit because a big old powerful attack especially by someone who hasn't fought much is really easy to read. The rapier and dagger deal less damage per hit due to physics but being able to work tandem weapons gives alot more opportunity to score a wounding hit.

And that's an excellent balance between 2-handed weapons and two-weapon fighting alone (I'm pretty sure that without Power Attack and other additional variables, 2-handed fighting and 2-weapon fighting are much more comparable); but when you introduce additional options in the game that work better with some things than others, you have imbalance.

So either:

You balance 2-handed weapons and TWF alone, which overpowers 2-handed weapons when used with the synergy of Power Attack.

Or

You balance 2-handed weapons and Power Attack with TWF, which renders 2-handed weapons underpowered because additional investment is required to make it viable.

Jayabalard
2007-10-23, 12:25 PM
A lot of people would expect it. But why is it a good thing? And why is it a natural thing, apart from the fact that that's how the rules as they are at the moment say it is?it comes pretty simply from the assumption that magic is indeed magical...

it's why when talking about strength, divine/sorcery > sword is such a common theme in literature/folklore/mythology. If the normal warrior wins over the wizard or divine character it's almost always from exploiting some sort of weakness, cleverness, luck, or some combination of the three.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 12:27 PM
{Scrubbed}

Morty
2007-10-23, 12:28 PM
Actually, as a class and level based system, with magic items that make a large impact on the abilities of the characters, and magic that is available to some classes and not others, it's quite clearly a system with intended imbalances, regardless of what some of the designers have said.

How so? None of these imply imbalance, of course unless you claim that characters differing in character level and optimization level is somehow imbalanced.


I like the fact that one character can outperform another character overall; I see it as a positive feature of class/level based systems, and it's the primary reason that I play those systems when I do play them.

You can still intentionally gimp your character in balanced system, either by making bad choices or scrapping your class abilities. Nothing stops you from doing so.


and people who want a balanced system can play rock paper scissors; those have identical relevance to whether balance is, in and of itself, a good thing.

No, they can't, because they want to play high fantasy heroic setting, not rock-paper-scissors.


Link or quote please. I don't see a clear definition... Nor do I agree that it would be all that relevant, since you seem to be using the word "balanced" to mean something other than balanced...

Everyone on this board seem to know what the common definition of "class balance" is, when someone mentions it, and that means all classes having equal potential to be strong or weak- in this thread, Dasuul explained it preety well. It's not our problem you have some other bizzare definition that's convenient to you.

internerdj
2007-10-23, 12:29 PM
And that's an excellent balance between 2-handed weapons and two-weapon fighting alone (I'm pretty sure that without Power Attack and other additional variables, 2-handed fighting and 2-weapon fighting are much more comparable); but when you introduce additional options in the game that work better with some things than others, you have imbalance.

So either:

You balance 2-handed weapons and TWF alone, which overpowers 2-handed weapons when used with the synergy of Power Attack.

Or

You balance 2-handed weapons and Power Attack with TWF, which renders 2-handed weapons underpowered because additional investment is required to make it viable.
I guess this is going to end up a game of what if, but power attack and 2-handed weapon must be balanced against power attack and 1-handed weapon. Which is going to mean doing something with that free hand, simplest balance is to add additional miss chance through a shield(although other archetypes need to be concidered). Both are then balanced against two weapon fighting.

Also side note, realism and balance conflict as much as any system we can come up with. If bows were balanced with guns, then we wouldn't have guns. If Leather armor was balanced with kevlar, kevlar wouldn't exist. Every "balanced" game must ask the player to not think "too" hard about realism.

Deepblue706
2007-10-23, 12:38 PM
A balanced system would make armor not suck, shields not suck, bows and crossbows not suck, spellcasters vulnerable, spells harder to cast, combat more lethal. It would make damage translate into wounds that actually hinder actions, would grant more options to all PCs, it would make flaws far less exploitable, and it would not allow some PCs to excell at multiple job tasks simultaneously (and render others redundant or useless). Mounted Combat would be significantly better, morale would play a larger part, and all PCs should care about each and every single one of their stats.

Indon
2007-10-23, 12:40 PM
I guess this is going to end up a game of what if, but power attack and 2-handed weapon must be balanced against power attack and 1-handed weapon. Which is going to mean doing something with that free hand, simplest balance is to add additional miss chance through a shield(although other archetypes need to be concidered). Both are then balanced against two weapon fighting.


And that's possible, by causing all options to synergize equally with Power Attack.

But now when you introduce a second feat into your game, you need to balance it with 2-weapon fighting, 2-handed fighting, and Power Attack. Maintaining mechanical balance becomes exponentially more difficult as you increase mechanical diversity.



Also side note, realism and balance conflict as much as any system we can come up with. If bows were balanced with guns, then we wouldn't have guns. If Leather armor was balanced with kevlar, kevlar wouldn't exist. Every "balanced" game must ask the player to not think "too" hard about realism.

I agree, and would take it a step further.

I would propose that the more we want our system balanced, the more we have to ask people to look the other way in terms of its' vermilissitude (sp), or 'realism'.

internerdj
2007-10-23, 12:44 PM
all PCs should care about each and every single one of their stats.
Agreed with a big but...I can write a super balanced game to make everyone care about every stat they have and then if the GM will not use the effects of a stat it is worthless.

Someone mentioned on a thread a while back about if the party was present everyone had to roll for bluff checks not just the mouth. Great way to make everyone care about Charisma, unless of course bluff checks aren't necessary for your game.

Balance is 2 parts game design, 2 parts GM steering, and 1 part player attitude. (Numbers are arbitrary but make the point.) Balance is not just in the shoes of the designer.

Sidenote to the above poster: Yes balance complexity is exponential growth. That is why it is impossible for even a professional company to maintain a balanced system as they release more and more modules.
And yes the more we want balance from a system, the more realism we must overlook. Which is why it is difficult to please both crowds.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 12:45 PM
Also side note, realism and balance conflict as much as any system we can come up with. If bows were balanced with guns, then we wouldn't have guns. If Leather armor was balanced with kevlar, kevlar wouldn't exist. Every "balanced" game must ask the player to not think "too" hard about realism.

The balance between different tech levels is not what is being asked for, only between different player character classes. This is a red herring.


Balance is 2 parts game design, 2 parts GM steering, and 1 part player attitude. (Numbers are arbitrary but make the point.) Balance is not just in the shoes of the designer.

Very true; though that doesn't mean the game designer can be lax about his job.


I agree, and would take it a step further.

I would propose that the more we want our system balanced, the more we have to ask people to look the other way in terms of its' vermilissitude (sp), or 'realism'.

I couldn't disagree the more. Characters can be built with a combination of points, templates as well as class levels; more powerful combinations require more points and/or appear at higher levels. This doesn't mean realism goes out the window by any measure.

Indon
2007-10-23, 12:48 PM
The balance between different tech levels is not what is being asked for, only between different player character classes. This is a red herring.

Well, then.

It would make sense that a wizard could easily deflect massive numbers of arrows easily, with a simple manipulation of wind; but Wind Wall is hideously unbalanced, now isn't it?

Edit: Or that a Wizard could turn invisible, for that matter. Invisibility is another source of great cheese.

Or flight.

Dausuul
2007-10-23, 12:48 PM
I like the fact that one character can outperform another character overall; I see it as a positive feature of class/level based systems, and it's the primary reason that I play those systems when I do play them.

All I can say to that is, you're in a very decided minority. I've never met anyone else who thinks class balance is actually a bad thing.


Actually, as a class and level based system, with magic items that make a large impact on the abilities of the characters, and magic that is available to some classes and not others, it's quite clearly a system with intended imbalances, regardless of what some of the designers have said.

Your conclusion does not follow from your premises.

Classes are not intended to create imbalance; in fact, they're a balancing tool.
Levels are not intended to create imbalance because the game is built on the expectation that all PCs are the same level.
Magic items are available to everyone, and the intent of the design is to make all magic items of a given price equally useful to their intended users (i.e., a wizard who dumps 2K on a wand should get as much use out of it as a fighter gets from dumping 2K on a weapon).
Magic that's available to some classes is intended to be balanced by giving the other classes greater non-magical skills. Hence fighters having more hit points, better attack bonus, et cetera.

Obviously, not all of these attempted balance efforts succeeded, but your claim that they aren't intended to succeed is just bizarre.


Well, then.

It would make sense that a wizard could easily deflect massive numbers of arrows easily, with a simple manipulation of wind; but Wind Wall is hideously unbalanced, now isn't it?

Edit: Or that a Wizard could turn invisible, for that matter. Invisibility is another source of great cheese.

Or flight.

That depends entirely on what magic is capable of and what its limitations are. Questions of "realism" do not apply, since magic isn't real. You might say that creating a wall of wind is a simple matter. I might say it's obviously a complex and difficult spell which only a master of magic could hope to achieve. In the absence of a clear explanation of the underlying principles of magic (and D&D has no such thing), neither of us could prove the other wrong.

Jorkens
2007-10-23, 12:50 PM
it comes pretty simply from the assumption that magic is indeed magical...

it's why when talking about strength, divine/sorcery > sword is such a common theme in literature/folklore/mythology. If the normal warrior wins over the wizard or divine character it's almost always from exploiting some sort of weakness, cleverness, luck, or some combination of the three.
Having weaknesses to exploit is a form of balancing in itself. And 'guy with a sword' heroes seem to do alright for themselves in fantasy.

But essentially, even if you're saying that magic shouldn't in itself be balanced against the mundane, there's no reason that a wizard and a nonwizard together in an adventuring party (ie with the same XP) shouldn't be balanced with each other in such a way that they're both still useful. The wizards in fantasy and legend who are so hard to beat have often spent a great deal of time getting that good (if they aren't actually a demigod or something), rather than just spending a few years bashing orcs in dungeons.

Snooder
2007-10-23, 12:50 PM
But now when you introduce a second feat into your game, you need to balance it with 2-weapon fighting, 2-handed fighting, and Power Attack. Maintaining mechanical balance becomes exponentially more difficult as you increase mechanical diversity.


True. Obviously what should be done is to define what can synergize and what can't. Probably the best way is by using a whitelist, rather than a blacklist, so that you enumerate what synergizes. So you say that Power Attack can be used with Cleave/Great Cleave. And if a new feat comes out that doesn't say it can be used with Power Attack, then it can't.

Probably be best to do this with general categories. Like Attack, Defense, Mobility. Or high level, mid level, low level. Then the onus is on the feat designer to figure out what categories the feat fits in so it can't synergize in an unexpected manner.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 12:50 PM
Well, then.

It would make sense that a wizard could easily deflect massive numbers of arrows easily, with a simple manipulation of wind; but Wind Wall is hideously unbalanced, now isn't it?

Edit: Or that a Wizard could turn invisible, for that matter. Invisibility is another source of great cheese.

Or flight.

Why would that "make sense"? And again, you can balance things by controlling at which level they appear, or the cost of using such and such an ability.

Or you can allow countermeasures for the other classes.

Snooder
2007-10-23, 12:53 PM
it comes pretty simply from the assumption that magic is indeed magical...

it's why when talking about strength, divine/sorcery > sword is such a common theme in literature/folklore/mythology. If the normal warrior wins over the wizard or divine character it's almost always from exploiting some sort of weakness, cleverness, luck, or some combination of the three.

Unfortunately, the wizard/divine character in literature/folklore/mythology isn't a playable character. Saying that sword is unbalanced against those is like saying that a PC can't compete with a god. True, but brings nothing to the discussion.

Indon
2007-10-23, 12:53 PM
All I can say to that is, you're in a very decided minority. I've never met anyone else who thinks class balance is actually a bad thing.


I think balancing D&D would be catastrophically bad, for reasons I've stated earlier.

Synergy, at best, makes it exponentially more difficult to introduce new mechanical choices to the game. D&D is built around being able to introduce wildly varying mechanical choices, in order to model such diverse environments as, say, Eberron from Forgotten Realms. This produces an impossibility which presents a few choices:

-Build the system such that nothing synergizes. Good luck on that, by the way, when simple tactical options such as cover and usage of mounts introduce that element.
-Restrict new mechanical choices to a small, carefully balanced set.
-Disregard balance.

You don't have to pick just one, of course, you can give and take a little from each. But I'd rather have a mechanically interesting, diverse system without balance than take the other choices.

internerdj
2007-10-23, 12:56 PM
The balance between different tech levels is not what is being asked for, only between different player character classes. This is a red herring.
I think people are asking for several different things here. Which is why this issue is so heated. Some want tech level balance, because hey I want to wield a club with my cool barbarian, but I can't cause a club is technologically inferior to a steel sword. I need balance between weapons.

Others are saying that they want balance between Character classes. But then the measure is under question. This is where I think the biggest input is for the DM. A burden on the DM is to use their players skills, and not always play their weaknesses. While D&D really messed this up by letting certain classes fill other(all other) classes roles(better than the intended class), part of the issue is that DMs aren't handwaving the realism enough(Wouldn't every caster really super optimized just because of survival of the fittest?) in favor of fun for all the players.



Very true; though that doesn't mean the game designer can be lax about his job.
Agreed.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 12:58 PM
I think balancing D&D would be catastrophically bad, for reasons I've stated earlier.

Synergy, at best, makes it exponentially more difficult to introduce new mechanical choices to the game. D&D is built around being able to introduce wildly varying mechanical choices, in order to model such diverse environments as, say, Eberron from Forgotten Realms. This produces an impossibility which presents a few choices:

-Build the system such that nothing synergizes. Good luck on that, by the way, when simple tactical options such as cover and usage of mounts introduce that element.
-Restrict new mechanical choices to a small, carefully balanced set.
-Disregard balance.

You don't have to pick just one, of course, you can give and take a little from each. But I'd rather have a mechanically interesting, diverse system without balance than take the other choices.

I suggested a way to deal with that issue earlier: pay for what you get, post synergy. And while perfect balance may be a chimera, improvement is hardly going to be the end of the world.


I think people are asking for several different things here. Which is why this issue is so heated. Some want tech level balance, because hey I want to wield a club with my cool barbarian, but I can't cause a club is technologically inferior to a steel sword. I need balance between weapons.

Others are saying that they want balance between Character classes. But then the measure is under question. This is where I think the biggest input is for the DM. A burden on the DM is to use their players skills, and not always play their weaknesses. While D&D really messed this up by letting certain classes fill other(all other) classes roles(better than the intended class), part of the issue is that DMs aren't handwaving the realism enough(Wouldn't every caster really super optimized just because of survival of the fittest?) in favor of fun for all the players.

Balance between classes of the same ostensible level at the same level of technology is clearly what is being discussed, as explained by myself, M0rt, Dausuul, etc. To assume that we are speaking of characters of different levels and/or tech levels is frankly a little silly, since obviously the scope of the game has to cover a range of possible scenarios.

Morty
2007-10-23, 01:07 PM
I think balancing D&D would be catastrophically bad, for reasons I've stated earlier.

Synergy, at best, makes it exponentially more difficult to introduce new mechanical choices to the game. D&D is built around being able to introduce wildly varying mechanical choices, in order to model such diverse environments as, say, Eberron from Forgotten Realms. This produces an impossibility which presents a few choices:

-Build the system such that nothing synergizes. Good luck on that, by the way, when simple tactical options such as cover and usage of mounts introduce that element.
-Restrict new mechanical choices to a small, carefully balanced set.
-Disregard balance.

You don't have to pick just one, of course, you can give and take a little from each. But I'd rather have a mechanically interesting, diverse system without balance than take the other choices.

That's why we're talking about balancing basics here, not the whole system. It's impossible for every possible option to be balanced with each other, but it is possible to balance such basic choices like classes or combat style. You preety much can't make sure everything player comes up with will be balanced, but you can make sure player is not handicapped for choosing fighter rather than cleric or two weapon fighting or shield rather than two handed weapon.

Snooder
2007-10-23, 01:11 PM
I think balancing D&D would be catastrophically bad, for reasons I've stated earlier.

Synergy, at best, makes it exponentially more difficult to introduce new mechanical choices to the game. D&D is built around being able to introduce wildly varying mechanical choices, in order to model such diverse environments as, say, Eberron from Forgotten Realms. This produces an impossibility which presents a few choices:

-Build the system such that nothing synergizes. Good luck on that, by the way, when simple tactical options such as cover and usage of mounts introduce that element.
-Restrict new mechanical choices to a small, carefully balanced set.
-Disregard balance.


Not really true. A game system isn't like the real world. The designer is designing from the ground up, creating the "physics" so to speak. If he/she is careful, it's not impossible to plot out the ways in which things can synergize and limit the gamebreaking or highly unbalancing possibilities.

For example, it is clear from the description of Power Attack that it is supposed to synergize with Two Handed Weapon. This is not a problem in the balance of the game. The slow blow that misses but does a lot damage when it hits is supposed to come from a large weapon, not a small one. The problem is that the designers neglected to provide feats that do the same for the other styles. This doesn't mean that balance is impossible, or would make the game not fun, just that the designers made a mistake.

Oh, and FYI, D&D isn't about wildly varying mechanical choices. Otherwise you could play a Half-Celestial Half-Fiend Paragon Elder Wyrm Red Dragon with the vampire template at level 1. Oh yeah, and it's a gestalt Wizard/Sorcerer/Cleric/Druid. Let's call him Victor. I can imagine a plausible story reason for Victor to exist in an RP game. I can also imagine a power-gaming bastard who'd play Victor in a crunch/roll heavy game. Hell, with enough GM connivance you might even get to play Victor in your game.

But Victor is an aberrant blot on the rules of D&D. PCs aren't supposed to play Victor. You can do it if you really want to, that's what rule zero exists for, but the game isn't and shouldn't be designed to with it in mind.

Everyone who seriously thinks that balance isn't a worthy goal, think about Victor. He's the logical extension of your statements.

internerdj
2007-10-23, 01:14 PM
Balance between classes of the same ostensible level at the same level of technology is clearly what is being discussed, as explained by myself, M0rt, Dausuul, etc. To assume that we are speaking of characters of different levels and/or tech levels is frankly a little silly, since obviously the scope of the game has to cover a range of possible scenarios.
Well my examples were intentionally far apart historically(absurd) to narrow in the focus. At any period of time there is a "best" weapon. The only balances are cost of ownership, availability, and skill to use. We can't lay out that a sword is equal to a spear because it is in fact not balanced at any given tech level. Skill is a large part, but at some signifigant level there is a disparity that either must be ignored for balance or must be embraced and break balance.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 01:17 PM
Well my examples were intentionally far apart historically(absurd) to narrow in the focus. At any period of time there is a "best" weapon. The only balances are cost of ownership, availability, and skill to use. We can't lay out that a sword is equal to a spear because it is in fact not balanced at any given tech level. Skill is a large part, but at some signifigant level there is a disparity that either must be ignored for balance or must be embraced and break balance.

Not really an issue, since while we are talking about balancing different classes against one another, that doesn't mean that all characters will unavoidably be equal. It just means that they have the opportunity to be that, rather than some of them being intrinsically hidebound. Where their development goes is in the hands of the player and GM also: see your earlier breakdown on that score, yes?

Indon
2007-10-23, 01:19 PM
There've been a number of claims that by restricting purely mechanical synergy, this balances the system. I do not agree, and I think that by far, the most extreme examples of imbalance result from nonmechanical synergy; it's just easier to demonstrate the problems with purely mechanical examples.

For instance, movement. Having a climb speed isn't all that potent, is it? It just lets you climb fast, and well.

But what if you're an archer (or crossbowman, if it matters)? Anywhere you can access a climbable surface, you can pick off melee opponents with impunity, unless of course, they also have a climb speed.

How do you balance such a tactically massive advantage? Does your bow just stop working when you've got your legs wrapped around an outcropping?

Or do you make having a climb speed a very high-level ability, on par with flight, just because it can be used effectively by a small group of characters? If you do, why would anyone want it when they can just get access to flight instead?

Edit: Snooder, D&D is the only major system in which anything resembling Gestalt even exists, let alone has such a vast variance of class/race/template options; D&D might not be about mechanical variety, but it has it in spades, and balancing the system (even mechanically) would be giving it up.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 01:22 PM
There've been a number of claims that by restricting purely mechanical synergy, this balances the system. I do not agree, and I think that by far, the most extreme examples of imbalance result from nonmechanical synergy; it's just easier to demonstrate the problems with purely mechanical examples.

For instance, movement. Having a climb speed isn't all that potent, is it? It just lets you climb fast, and well.

But what if you're an archer (or crossbowman, if it matters)? Anywhere you can access a climbable surface, you can pick off melee opponents with impunity, unless of course, they also have a climb speed.

How do you balance such a tactically massive advantage? Does your bow just stop working when you've got your legs wrapped around an outcropping?

Or do you make having a climb speed a very high-level ability, on par with flight, just because it can be used effectively by a small group of characters? If you do, why would anyone want it when they can just get access to flight instead?

That's where play-testing comes in. And the climb speed you mention would be less effective than flight, because the latter is more versatile.

Indon
2007-10-23, 01:23 PM
That's where play-testing comes in. And the climb speed you mention would be less effective than flight, because the latter is more versatile.

How does play-testing fix your problem? You don't need to test to know the problem exists, and if you have no good solution, how's testing it to make sure the problem is there going to help?

Edit: And yes, climb speed would grant an easy victory in less situations than flight would; but it still grants easy victories.

There are creatures that can see invisible things, too, or dispel flight effects. That doesn't mean people don't consider those extremely powerful tactical options.

Dausuul
2007-10-23, 01:24 PM
Well my examples were intentionally far apart historically(absurd) to narrow in the focus. At any period of time there is a "best" weapon.

Not true. Otherwise why do we have an Army, a Navy, and an Air Force, all with different weapons and equipment? Combined arms is a vitally important doctrine. Air power can lay waste to infrastructure but can't hold territory. Infantry can take out artillery emplacements but not pound down fortifications. Et cetera.

D&D applies the same idea in the form of the mythical "balanced party"--fighter, cleric, rogue, wizard. The idea is that each class brings something different to the table, and the resulting party is more capable and versatile than any party made up of just one class. At the low- to mid-levels (4th through 9th or thereabouts), it even works.

The nice thing about this is that it makes balance a lot easier. Each class has its specialty, and each class is (or should be) supreme in its specialty. The main questions you need to ask are:

Is this specialty the correct width (neither too narrow nor too broad)?
Is this class treading on another class's toes (i.e., outperforming it in its own specialty)?

The reason D&D has balance problems at high levels is that some classes have overly broad specialties (e.g., the Batman wizard), and other classes step on their fellows' toes (e.g., CoDzilla).

Morty
2007-10-23, 01:26 PM
There've been a number of claims that by restricting purely mechanical synergy, this balances the system. I do not agree, and I think that by far, the most extreme examples of imbalance result from nonmechanical synergy; it's just easier to demonstrate the problems with purely mechanical examples.

For instance, movement. Having a climb speed isn't all that potent, is it? It just lets you climb fast, and well.

But what if you're an archer (or crossbowman, if it matters)? Anywhere you can access a climbable surface, you can pick off melee opponents with impunity, unless of course, they also have a climb speed.

How do you balance such a tactically massive advantage? Does your bow just stop working when you've got your legs wrapped around an outcropping?

Or do you make having a climb speed a very high-level ability, on par with flight, just because it can be used effectively by a small group of characters? If you do, why would anyone want it when they can just get access to flight instead?

That's not balance, that's tactics. The role of balance and playtesting is to make both acces to climb speed and archery in a way that doesn't allow such tricks so easily. But there's nothing wrong with it of course, archery is about striking enemies when they can't fight back.


Edit: Snooder, D&D is the only major system in which anything resembling Gestalt even exists, let alone has such a vast variance of class/race/template options; D&D might not be about mechanical variety, but it has it in spades, and balancing the system (even mechanically) would be giving it up.

No, it wouldn't.


How does play-testing fix your problem? You don't need to test to know the problem exists, and if you have no good solution, how's testing it to make sure the problem is there going to help?

Edit: And yes, climb speed would grant an easy victory in less situations than flight would; but it still grants easy victories.

There are creatures that can see invisible things, too, or dispel flight effects. That doesn't mean people don't consider those extremely powerful tactical options.

I don't see your point here at all. Climb doesn't necessarily grant easy victories, as if it's done properly, you can't achieve permanent climb speed easily.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 01:36 PM
How does play-testing fix your problem? You don't need to test to know the problem exists, and if you have no good solution, how's testing it to make sure the problem is there going to help?

Edit: And yes, climb speed would grant an easy victory in less situations than flight would; but it still grants easy victories.

There are creatures that can see invisible things, too, or dispel flight effects. That doesn't mean people don't consider those extremely powerful tactical options.

Um, I believe we have spoken of balance "overall". That does not mean the characters are perfectly identitical in all situations. If that were the demand, then checker pieces are the only solution, and as I have said already, that's not what is being asked for at all.

Indon
2007-10-23, 01:39 PM
That's not balance, that's tactics. The role of balance and playtesting is to make both acces to climb speed and archery in a way that doesn't allow such tricks so easily. But there's nothing wrong with it of course, archery is about striking enemies when they can't fight back.


Then Batman isn't unbalanced, he's tactical? I think not. Anything that can grant a tactical advantage can be unbalanced in the same way that a mechanical advantage can be, only you can't compensate for them nearly as effectively.



No, it wouldn't.


It's exponentially difficult to balance mechanical synergy alone, and that's only scratching the surface of the problem. There is no way you would be able to balance all the options extant in D&D, or even a large fraction of them, while maintaining balance.



I don't see your point here at all. Climb doesn't necessarily grant easy victories, as if it's done properly, you can't achieve permanent climb speed easily.

Well, in present D&D, you need one level of Barbarian (Ape Totem Variant).

But in an ideal system, when would you introduce it? In order to make it not grant a massive advantage in select combats, you'd need to allow an easy counter for it, such as flight. But the availibility of such a counter would discourage people from bothering to get a climb speed in the first place.

And if you don't make the counter equally availible to the climb speed, then you have some levels in which climb speed is overpowered and others when it's worthless.

Stam
2007-10-23, 01:41 PM
I think this has been said elsewhere, probably numerous times, but...the key to balance in a lot of the issues is probably to remove features from classes that end up being the overpowered ones and beefing up your poor fighter with *some*thing.

Common ideas are Cloistered Cleric variant, banning of spells that grant Clerics/Wizards the ability to out-melee the fighter, ban Natural Spell, and similar ideas.

Boosting the fighter is something I don't really have experience in, but I don't like the general approach that ToB is the way to go. A fighter is a Fighter, your common battle-hardened mercenary, not a pseudo-mystic samurai-type who can walk on air. Both should exist, of course - not trying to knock the contemplative fighter - but one should not be able to vastly overpower the other.

Morty
2007-10-23, 01:46 PM
Then Batman isn't unbalanced, he's tactical? I think not. Anything that can grant a tactical advantage can be unbalanced in the same way that a mechanical advantage can be, only you can't compensate for them nearly as effectively.

Oh, come on. Batman breaks the game. Archer who gets onto high surface to gain tactical advantage doesn't. Y'know, because he's not unbeatable and doesn't off enemies in one standard action.


It's exponentially difficult to balance mechanical synergy alone, and that's only scratching the surface of the problem. There is no way you would be able to balance all the options extant in D&D, or even a large fraction of them, while maintaining balance.

Which is why noone is talking about balancing all D&D, but you seem to consistently ignore it. Yes, player who plays smart can gain advantage over player who doesn't. But choosing wizard instead of fighter or THW over TWF isn't smart playing.


Well, in present D&D, you need one level of Barbarian (Ape Totem Variant).

But in an ideal system, when would you introduce it? In order to make it not grant a massive advantage in select combats, you'd need to allow an easy counter for it, such as flight. But the availibility of such a counter would discourage people from bothering to get a climb speed in the first place.

I would probably rule that you can't fight while climbing. Or that you can't hang in one place too long. You know, something that'd make climb useful but not very much so in combat. And I'd probably make so that you can't gain climb speed if your race doesn't grant you that without using magic.


And if you don't make the counter equally availible to the climb speed, then you have some levels in which climb speed is overpowered and others when it's worthless.

Which is why I wouldn't bother with designing counters and instead limit the climb speed itself.

Dausuul
2007-10-23, 01:50 PM
Boosting the fighter is something I don't really have experience in, but I don't like the general approach that ToB is the way to go. A fighter is a Fighter, your common battle-hardened mercenary, not a pseudo-mystic samurai-type who can walk on air. Both should exist, of course - not trying to knock the contemplative fighter - but one should not be able to vastly overpower the other.

ToB's mechanics (maneuvers, stances, et cetera) can be used to simulate either type of fighter. ToB happens to have been designed around a quasi-Asian-mystical-martial-arts theme, but the same mechanics easily could be (and, from what I hear, will be in 4E) used for a more Western-style warrior.

Rex Blunder
2007-10-23, 02:15 PM
One of the problems with D&D balance is that, short of a new edition, there is no way to recall overpowered material.

WOTC puts out a lot of stuff. Even if WOTC's playtesting were better, there would still be a lot of emergent strategies and combinations which lead to a particular build being more powerful than intended.

The only available balance mechanism is put out new material for other classes and builds [and monsters], to raise the general power level to match the leaders.

A more efficient strategy would be to ban the problematic feats/classes/spells. But no one wants to be told that a bunch of the cool stuff in their new book has been recalled.

So, the only way to get rid of legacy cruft is to make a new edition every couple of years. That's not really ideal, since a new edition throws away a lot of balanced stuff in favor of untested stuff.

Ideally, it would be nice if there were some way for WOTC to tweak already-published rules to adjust things on the fly. I don't know how this would work, though, unless WOTC wants to ship us new paper copies of the PHB every month.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 02:27 PM
One of the problems with D&D balance is that, short of a new edition, there is no way to recall overpowered material.

Well, there is 4th edition coming up. :smallwink:


WOTC puts out a lot of stuff. Even if WOTC's playtesting were better, there would still be a lot of emergent strategies and combinations which lead to a particular build being more powerful than intended.

The only available balance mechanism is put out new material for other classes and builds [and monsters], to raise the general power level to match the leaders.

A more efficient strategy would be to ban the problematic feats/classes/spells. But no one wants to be told that a bunch of the cool stuff in their new book has been recalled.

So, the only way to get rid of legacy cruft is to make a new edition every couple of years. That's not really ideal, since a new edition throws away a lot of balanced stuff in favor of untested stuff.

Ideally, it would be nice if there were some way for WOTC to tweak already-published rules to adjust things on the fly. I don't know how this would work, though, unless WOTC wants to ship us new paper copies of the PHB every month.

Naturally it will probably always be possible to compose powerful builds; one may still strive to limit that.

The amount of brokenness is really not just a matter of providing fixes for the game, but also a matter of the philosophy that is seemingly so prevalent at WotC, to just publish whatever is deemed "cool" at the time and expect the DMs to fix any problems that might arise with it.

Nonetheless, I maintain that a better core framework can make the task of avoiding brokenness that much easier.

Indon
2007-10-23, 02:56 PM
Oh, come on. Batman breaks the game. Archer who gets onto high surface to gain tactical advantage doesn't. Y'know, because he's not unbeatable and doesn't off enemies in one standard action.


Batman breaks the game by having immense tactical advantages. Which is my point; tactics can be unbalancing too, just like mechanics, and in fact tactics are harder to balance.



Which is why noone is talking about balancing all D&D, but you seem to consistently ignore it. Yes, player who plays smart can gain advantage over player who doesn't. But choosing wizard instead of fighter or THW over TWF isn't smart playing.


Yes, and my point was that no 'balanced' game could have mechanical variety like D&D does, because balancing the game precludes mechanical variety (or, more accurately, causes the introduction of significant mechanical variety to be prohibitively difficult).

We're talking about what a hypothetical 'balanced' system would look like. It looks less mechanically varied than D&D. I personally find that not to my taste, because I feel it uninteresting.



I would probably rule that you can't fight while climbing. Or that you can't hang in one place too long. You know, something that'd make climb useful but not very much so in combat. And I'd probably make so that you can't gain climb speed if your race doesn't grant you that without using magic.


Which is a good ruling for balance that sacrifices a degree of both verisimilitude (in the case of 'can't fight while climbing'), and mechanical variety (for the strict limitation of what can grant climbing ability).

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 03:01 PM
Batman breaks the game by having immense tactical advantages. Which is my point; tactics can be unbalancing too, just like mechanics, and in fact tactics are harder to balance.

And where does it say that Batman must be the only one to have such powerful tactical options? The issue at hand is that some classes have far more tactical options and flexibility than others.


Yes, and my point was that no 'balanced' game could have mechanical variety like D&D does, because balancing the game precludes mechanical variety (or, more accurately, causes the introduction of significant mechanical variety to be prohibitively difficult).

We're talking about what a hypothetical 'balanced' system would look like. It looks less mechanically varied than D&D. I personally find that not to my taste, because I feel it uninteresting.

Not so. See: GURPS and other systems. Variety does not automatically correlate with brokenness. Granted, all systems have their loopholes (in the case of GURPS, it is the high-power telepath :smallsigh: ), though the simple relation you postulate is not the reality.

Morty
2007-10-23, 04:00 PM
Batman breaks the game by having immense tactical advantages. Which is my point; tactics can be unbalancing too, just like mechanics, and in fact tactics are harder to balance.

No. "Batman" wizard breaks the game by being extremely hard to kill and having lots of options to quickly kill or inanticipate an opponent. Also, class balance means all classes have got more or less equal number of tactical options. Wizards, twinked out or not, have got much more tactical options than melee fighter, who can just beat things up, and in some cases -namely high-level Fighter- isn't even very good at it.


Yes, and my point was that no 'balanced' game could have mechanical variety like D&D does, because balancing the game precludes mechanical variety (or, more accurately, causes the introduction of significant mechanical variety to be prohibitively difficult).

We're talking about what a hypothetical 'balanced' system would look like. It looks less mechanically varied than D&D. I personally find that not to my taste, because I feel it uninteresting.

As Lord Zentei pointed out, variety and balance aren't mutually exclusive.


Which is a good ruling for balance that sacrifices a degree of both verisimilitude (in the case of 'can't fight while climbing'), and mechanical variety (for the strict limitation of what can grant climbing ability).

:smallconfused: What? It doesn't break verisimilitude at all. If you use Climb skill, you can't fight -or can't fight well in any case- for preety obvious reasons of having your arms occupied and your mobility limited. If you have some sort of climb speed that allows you to either crawl or walk vertically. In the latter case you could maybe fight, but such thing should't be so easy to get. So as you see, it doesn't break verisimilitude or variety.

Jayabalard
2007-10-23, 06:19 PM
The concept has already been explained to you repeatedly. Please cut the crap, there's a good fellow.just curious, does that mean that you didn't actually define it, so you can't link or quote the post where you did? I thought it was a fairly reasonable request, since you specifically claimed that you had already defined it, and I didn't see it.


Everyone on this board seem to know what the common definition of "class balance" is, when someone mentions it, and that means all classes having equal potential to be strong or weak- in this thread, Dasuul explained it preety well. It's not our problem you have some other bizzare definition that's convenient to you./shrug

Dasuul is not the one who replied to me and claimed to have already defined it in the thread...nor was Zentei's term "class balance" it was "balanced system" which I don't agree is is the same thing at all, which is why I mentioned imbalances that go beyond class balance in the first place.

Nor does the OP say "class balance" ... he says "system balance" and makes remarks about balancing things that are unrelated to class balance.

Nor do I agree that balance (system, class or otherwise) is in and of itself a good thing. I'd rather have variety, with options that aren't necessarily balanced.


Unfortunately, the wizard/divine character in literature/folklore/mythology isn't a playable character. Saying that sword is unbalanced against those is like saying that a PC can't compete with a god. True, but brings nothing to the discussion.False;they can indeed be played, they just can't be played in a system where balance is one of the primary design goals.


As Lord Zentei pointed out, variety and balance aren't mutually exclusive. If balance is not a requirement then you can have more variety. If there are X possible classes that are balanced, and Y possible classes that are not balanced (where both X and Y are positive integers).

Game with balanced classes can only have X classes
Game where class balance isn't important can have X+Y classes.

class Balance restricts variety.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-23, 06:35 PM
just curious, does that mean that you didn't actually define it, so you can't link or quote the post where you did? I thought it was a fairly reasonable request, since you specifically claimed that you had already defined it, and I didn't see it.

I explained on page 1 of this thread that the idea was that characters of the same level were more or less of equal power. Multiple posters have also stated that the meaning of the phrase was clear. You yourself even managed to post the following:


If I'm playing in D&D, and I'm playing someone who cann't use magic, I expect that anyone who can use magic is going to bring much more to the table than I will.

So don't come around claiming that you don't know what was being spoken about.


Dasuul is not the one who replied to me and claimed to have already defined it in the thread...nor was Zentei's term "class balance" it was "balanced system" which I don't agree is is the same thing at all, which is why I mentioned imbalances that go beyond class balance in the first place.

Class balance is implied when one speaks of a balanced system.


Game with balanced classes can only have X classes
Game where class balance isn't important can have X+Y classes.

class Balance restricts variety.

Nonsense. You can have the same number of classes as before, you merely correct their impact upon the game at differing levels.

Jorkens
2007-10-23, 10:11 PM
Batman breaks the game by having immense tactical advantages. Which is my point; tactics can be unbalancing too, just like mechanics, and in fact tactics are harder to balance.

The point is, a climbing archer has a tactical advantage against specific sorts of enemies in specific sorts of situations. If you're in a room with a low ceiling or an open space with nothing to climb or you're fighting something that can climb, fly or use ranged attacks itself then you're going to need another option, like someone who's good at taking damage and dishing it out at short range. Unless there's a whole class whose basic contribution to the game is meant to be getting onto high ground and sniping at things and moreover they don't do it as well as your climbing archer, then the climbing archer isn't game breakingly unbalanced. Whereas a batman wizard or a druid can render whole classes redundant in the situations where they're supposed to excel. Which is bad if someone wants to play one of those classes and still feel like they're contributing.

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-24, 02:48 AM
He makes some good points On the contrary, I felt it was pretty much tripe, rife with all sorts of logical fallacies and misinformation that seems representative of some random guy just ranting angrily for a long time.

warmachine
2007-10-24, 06:28 AM
One of the problems with D&D balance is that, short of a new edition, there is no way to recall overpowered material.

WOTC puts out a lot of stuff. Even if WOTC's playtesting were better, there would still be a lot of emergent strategies and combinations which lead to a particular build being more powerful than intended.

The only available balance mechanism is put out new material for other classes and builds [and monsters], to raise the general power level to match the leaders.

A more efficient strategy would be to ban the problematic feats/classes/spells. But no one wants to be told that a bunch of the cool stuff in their new book has been recalled.
Umm... errata? Cheese that's obviously broken on its own, such as Radiant Servant of Pelor, can be fixed by reducing a few features like spellcasting progression. In the case of combinations, one component can be fixed to work on its own as normal but break synergy. For example, the bonus from Nightsticks could only be used to turn undead, not used in the Divne Metamagic abuse. This keeps the original intent of Nightsticks but stops the abuse. WotC already issue errata, they just need to put more effort into it.

This is better than releasing more books that creates more classes and feats to match the leaders. If a publisher sometimes creates an overpowered class, they will sometimes overpower their patches to other classes or roles, creating the problem all over again.

Dausuul
2007-10-24, 07:20 AM
Umm... errata? Cheese that's obviously broken on its own, such as Radiant Servant of Pelor, can be fixed by reducing a few features like spellcasting progression. In the case of combinations, one component can be fixed to work on its own as normal but break synergy. For example, the bonus from Nightsticks could only be used to turn undead, not used in the Divne Metamagic abuse. This keeps the original intent of Nightsticks but stops the abuse. WotC already issue errata, they just need to put more effort into it.

This is better than releasing more books that creates more classes and feats to match the leaders. If a publisher sometimes creates an overpowered class, they will sometimes overpower their patches to other classes or roles, creating the problem all over again.

I think splatbook balance issues are a comparatively minor problem--not that splatbooks don't create balance problems, and not that WotC shouldn't do its best to avoid them, but broken stuff in a splatbook is much more easily dealt with. When a splatbook causes problems, it's usually the result of one single feat, ability, et cetera; and solving the problem is as simple as not allowing that feat or ability. Don't want Pun-Pun? Don't allow Sarrukhs (or if you do, don't let them have Manipulate Form). Don't want Divine Metacheese? Don't allow Divine Metamagic. Don't like foresight/celerity? Ban celerity.

Because everything in a splatbook is optional, it's not a problem to rule chunks of it out--or rule out the entire book if you feel it's too troublesome. Finding the balance problems is a pain, but once you've found them, you can nix them with minimal fuss.

It's the balance issues in Core that are hard to work out, because if you go around whacking out chunks of Core willy-nilly, you screw with the fundamental structure of the game.

Morty
2007-10-24, 09:42 AM
Dasuul is not the one who replied to me and claimed to have already defined it in the thread...nor was Zentei's term "class balance" it was "balanced system" which I don't agree is is the same thing at all, which is why I mentioned imbalances that go beyond class balance in the first place.

Nor does the OP say "class balance" ... he says "system balance" and makes remarks about balancing things that are unrelated to class balance.


Balanced class-based system requires balanced classes.


False;they can indeed be played, they just can't be played in a system where balance is one of the primary design goals.

Which is why they can't be played in D&D and D&D isn't designed for them, seeing as fighters and wizards are equal classes.


If balance is not a requirement then you can have more variety. If there are X possible classes that are balanced, and Y possible classes that are not balanced (where both X and Y are positive integers).

Game with balanced classes can only have X classes
Game where class balance isn't important can have X+Y classes.

class Balance restricts variety.

False. Balanced system does not limit options, just requires that options are equally useful. If 3.5 D&D were to be balanced out, no class would have to be removed. They'd just have to be strenghtened or weakened.

Indon
2007-10-24, 10:32 AM
Not so. See: GURPS and other systems. Variety does not automatically correlate with brokenness. Granted, all systems have their loopholes (in the case of GURPS, it is the high-power telepath :smallsigh: ), though the simple relation you postulate is not the reality.

Having not played GURPS, I can only guess that they balance their system the same way that other systems I've seen have tried to balance; by removing as much synergy as possible.

And when your system has no synergy, how mechanically varied is it? Of course, hey, I may be wrong.



No. "Batman" wizard breaks the game by being extremely hard to kill and having lots of options to quickly kill or inanticipate an opponent. Also, class balance means all classes have got more or less equal number of tactical options. Wizards, twinked out or not, have got much more tactical options than melee fighter, who can just beat things up, and in some cases -namely high-level Fighter- isn't even very good at it.


He's extremely hard to kill for tactical reasons; he's hard to reach, he's hard to catch, he can block entire categories of attacks.

His potency comes from tactical usage of his options; selecting his opponents weakness and exploiting it.

A wizard who does not use their tactical options is considered right in line with the fighter.



:smallconfused: What? It doesn't break verisimilitude at all. If you use Climb skill, you can't fight -or can't fight well in any case- for preety obvious reasons of having your arms occupied and your mobility limited. If you have some sort of climb speed that allows you to either crawl or walk vertically. In the latter case you could maybe fight, but such thing should't be so easy to get. So as you see, it doesn't break verisimilitude or variety.

Having a climb speed means you aren't flat-footed. It means you do not lose your mobility when climbing. And having one hand free when climbing is easy, and it's all you need for a crossbow.

And if climbing requires a large investment to gain, then your character is going to suck outside of those circumstances in which you can exploit the tactical advantage of climbing.


The point is, a climbing archer has a tactical advantage against specific sorts of enemies in specific sorts of situations. If you're in a room with a low ceiling or an open space with nothing to climb or you're fighting something that can climb, fly or use ranged attacks itself then you're going to need another option, like someone who's good at taking damage and dishing it out at short range. Unless there's a whole class whose basic contribution to the game is meant to be getting onto high ground and sniping at things and moreover they don't do it as well as your climbing archer, then the climbing archer isn't game breakingly unbalanced. Whereas a batman wizard or a druid can render whole classes redundant in the situations where they're supposed to excel. Which is bad if someone wants to play one of those classes and still feel like they're contributing.

Yes, the tactic is awesome when you can use it, and horrible when you can't. That's what tactical options are like... the problem is that both "This is awesome!" and "This is horrible!" are unbalanced.

If a character can access a simple tactic like that easily, then they can access multiple tactics for different situations and always have one for any given situation. See: Wizard.

If a character can only access a limited pool of tactics, or has difficulty accessing tactics, then you're useless unless you have access to your specialty. See: Almost every class considered underpowered in D&D that can still do one thing effectively (like trip-fighters, or Warlocks).

And if a character is awesome in some circumstances and bad in others, well, that's its' own category of balance problems, now isn't it? (See: Comparative class power by level)



False. Balanced system does not limit options, just requires that options are equally useful. If 3.5 D&D were to be balanced out, no class would have to be removed. They'd just have to be strenghtened or weakened.

If I recall, there's a "Survivor" prestige class in one of the 3.5 splatbooks. It gets a D12 HD, all good saves, SR, and so on. I imagine you can guess what it's supposed to do.

Considering the tactical makeup of D&D, how do you make useful a class whose sole premise is survival? You'd have to extend the premise of the class by giving him taunting abilities or something, now wouldn't you.

This is because survivability isn't a good tactic in the game, so anything built around it will be underpowered.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-24, 11:50 AM
Having not played GURPS, I can only guess that they balance their system the same way that other systems I've seen have tried to balance; by removing as much synergy as possible.

And when your system has no synergy, how mechanically varied is it? Of course, hey, I may be wrong.

Actually, there is quite a bit of synergy (plus skills can default to each other); however there are limits to the amount of "global boosts" you can gain (or at least there are limits to how easily you can gain them) as each maneuver is a separate skill that has to be paid for separately.

Another difference is that there are no "classes" where one class can potentially gain vastly more options than another: you can take templates but these are theoretically all composed from core build units. Thus your build selections are not going to hogtie you later on, since anyone can in principle buy whatever advantage or skill is available to the campaign (as limited by GM fiat, of course).

That is not to say that broken builds don't exist in GURPS, but they are less common, and easier to deal with, and some PCs are not better off than others in the options available to them.

Snooder
2007-10-24, 11:55 AM
And when your system has no synergy, how mechanically varied is it? Of course, hey, I may be wrong.


First, synergy isn't the huge problem you envision it as. Lets take your example of a climbing archer for instance. He is slightly better than a regular archer in certain specific situations. The regular archer who spent his skill points or feats on something else, like swim, is better in OTHER situations. Moreover, it's not all that hard to get to the archer. A longbow, or even someone else with a climb speed and a dagger can take him out. And it's not hard to get a climb speed.

The problem is when you have abilities that are more powerful than stuff anybody else gets. For instance, the Fighter has a lot more opportunities for synergy than a Wizard with all his feats. Is the Fighter better than the Wizard? No, because no matter how well the fighter powergames his feats into doing something insane, the Wizard and his 9th level spells still trump it.



He's extremely hard to kill for tactical reasons; he's hard to reach, he's hard to catch, he can block entire categories of attacks.

His potency comes from tactical usage of his options; selecting his opponents weakness and exploiting it.

A wizard who does not use their tactical options is considered right in line with the fighter.


But that isn't why the wizard is broken. A rogue has more tactical options than a fighter due to skills. But without UMD (which basically makes a rogue a bad wizard) they aren't too unbalanced.



Yes, the tactic is awesome when you can use it, and horrible when you can't. That's what tactical options are like... the problem is that both "This is awesome!" and "This is horrible!" are unbalanced.

If a character can access a simple tactic like that easily, then they can access multiple tactics for different situations and always have one for any given situation. See: Wizard.

If a character can only access a limited pool of tactics, or has difficulty accessing tactics, then you're useless unless you have access to your specialty. See: Almost every class considered underpowered in D&D that can still do one thing effectively (like trip-fighters, or Warlocks).


Actually Warlocks are generally considered balanced rather well with other classes. It's just that they suck compared to the brokenness of the regular casters, so there's not much reason to choose them.

Besides, the idea is to limit the range between "awesome" and "terrible" to what people actually play in. As many have stated, the Wizard is horrible in a campaign with more than 4 encounters per day. Unfortunately, nobody plays these. Same with a campaign with Anti-Magic Fields everywhere or rust monsters roaming the plains. A Warlock is a one-trick pony. But not many things can't be hit by eldritch blast, so he's consistently able to contribute.

And spiked-chain trip-fighters are an example of the ungodly unbalanced. Not true synergy, but because the designers got the numbers for their DCs wrong.



And if a character is awesome in some circumstances and bad in others, well, that's its' own category of balance problems, now isn't it? (See: Comparative class power by level)


No, that's actually one way of balancing classes. Unfortunately it's harder to implement because different campaigns require different circumstances and the designer can't really enforce their idea of how campaigns should be run.

Jorkens
2007-10-24, 12:54 PM
Yes, the tactic is awesome when you can use it, and horrible when you can't. That's what tactical options are like... the problem is that both "This is awesome!" and "This is horrible!" are unbalanced.
Unbalanced in what sense? I would have said that one tactic being awesome in one lot of situations and useless in another and one being useless in the first lot and awesome in the second is pretty much the definition of balance. Sure, if your entire campaign consists of fighting zombies in a forest then a climbing archer is unbalanced, but any sensible DM (or pretty much any normal campaign) is going to start introducing enemies that can climb, enemies that can fly, enemies with ranged attacks, enemies that can cut down trees, enemies that can lure the characters onto the open plains or into caves, or even problems that can't be solved by shooting them full of arrows. Conversely, it seems unlikely that your entire campaign world will be devoid of climbable surfaces.

If a character can access a simple tactic like that easily, then they can access multiple tactics for different situations and always have one for any given situation. See: Wizard.
The thing is, not many characters can access an awesome tactic for every situation. Most characters have awesome tactics for some situations, fair to middling tactics for other situations and no useful tactics for other situations. Provided a fair mix of situations come up, every character gets to contribute to the game to a fair extent and the classes are balanced.

That some characters (eg wizards) can have an awesome tactic for any situation is precisely where things become unbalanced and what people consider to be a problem - in situations where a fighter has no useful options, the wizard can do some awesome useful stuff so the fighter is useless, and in situations where the fighter's good options come in, the wizard can do better stuff so the fighter is still useless.


And if a character is awesome in some circumstances and bad in others, well, that's its' own category of balance problems, now isn't it? (See: Comparative class power by level)
Eh? Why? Do you consider it 'unbalanced' that a fighter can't pick locks and a wizard can't heal? I'd consider that sort of thing to be the beginning point of a varied but balanced system. You have a range of different characters and they each make a useful contribution. The fighter really shines when there are foes to wallop, the rogue gets more useful when you need to get into somewhere you shouldn't be or get something you shouldn't have, the wizard can do some really smart stuff from time to time but has to stay back a bit when swords start swinging and so on. The problem only comes when the wizard can rattle off a few low level spells to do most of what the rogue can do, and polymorph into a dragon when the swords start swinging.

Morty
2007-10-24, 01:46 PM
And when your system has no synergy, how mechanically varied is it? Of course, hey, I may be wrong.

You seem to worry a lot about synergy, but frankly I don't get you point. What is "synergy" supposed to mean here?


He's extremely hard to kill for tactical reasons; he's hard to reach, he's hard to catch, he can block entire categories of attacks.

His potency comes from tactical usage of his options; selecting his opponents weakness and exploiting it.

No. His strenght comes from having spells that let him kill his opponents quickly while being nigh-invincible. It's not about tactical usage of options, it's about having options that are just plainly too good.


Having a climb speed means you aren't flat-footed. It means you do not lose your mobility when climbing. And having one hand free when climbing is easy, and it's all you need for a crossbow.
And if climbing requires a large investment to gain, then your character is going to suck outside of those circumstances in which you can exploit the tactical advantage of climbing.

We're not talking about 3.5 here, but about hypothetical balanced system in which characters don't get spider climb so easily. Besides, you explained it to yourself- you can build a character that'd exploit forms of easy climbing, but he's going to suck when he can't climb. That's balance.


Yes, the tactic is awesome when you can use it, and horrible when you can't. That's what tactical options are like... the problem is that both "This is awesome!" and "This is horrible!" are unbalanced.

No. This is balanced. If you focus on being unkillable in one specific circumstance, you're going to be screwed when in ohter, which is fair.


If a character can access a simple tactic like that easily, then they can access multiple tactics for different situations and always have one for any given situation. See: Wizard.

If a character can only access a limited pool of tactics, or has difficulty accessing tactics, then you're useless unless you have access to your specialty. See: Almost every class considered underpowered in D&D that can still do one thing effectively (like trip-fighters, or Warlocks).

Again, I don't get your point. Every class should have stuff it's good in, and stuff it can't do very well. Fighter is supposed to reliably kill off enemies but lack supernatural abilities and skills, wizard is supposed to cast mighty spells but is squishy and reliant on spells etc. It's balance. But if wizard or cleric does fighter's job better and can't be reliably defeated by fighter of the same level, it's unbalanced.


And if a character is awesome in some circumstances and bad in others, well, that's its' own category of balance problems, now isn't it? (See:
Comparative class power by level)

No, it's not. It's balanced, but not in the best way.


If I recall, there's a "Survivor" prestige class in one of the 3.5 splatbooks. It gets a D12 HD, all good saves, SR, and so on. I imagine you can guess what it's supposed to do.

Considering the tactical makeup of D&D, how do you make useful a class whose sole premise is survival? You'd have to extend the premise of the class by giving him taunting abilities or something, now wouldn't you.

This is because survivability isn't a good tactic in the game, so anything built around it will be underpowered.

So there should be no base classes focused on survivability. PrCs or base class "talent trees" can focus on this, as they're already meant to focus character on one role. Survivability is good thing, but too situational -it's usually better to kill foe quickly- to focus base class on it.

Indon
2007-10-24, 03:45 PM
In regards to balance:

It appears to be that so long as you take a weakness, you can have a strength, and that this is considered balanced.

So what about choices which would allow for effective covering of weaknesses; for instance, being weak against melee, in exchange for tactical options which render melee ineffective?

And synergy is when you gain two features that, when combined, produce a greater effect than either feature used alone. For instance in my Power Attack example, using a 2-handed weapon lets you make fewer swings, while hitting less. Power Attack lets you deal more damage, while hitting less.

But 2-handed Power Attack lets you deal more damage, while hitting less, at a better rate than standard Power Attack, due to synergy.

As an example, the Exalted system (1ed anyway) has very little synergy. A die, is a die, is a die, unless you're a Sidereal. It's also, mechanically, pretty well-balanced.

Similarly, tactical options synergize better with various character abilities, such as climbing capability and ranged attacks.

Another feature which makes tactical options hard to balance is (as noted earlier in the thread) the lack of a default campaign. Situational abilities, which have been said to be balanced, can vary wildly in power depending on how often the situation comes up.



So there should be no base classes focused on survivability. PrCs or base class "talent trees" can focus on this, as they're already meant to focus character on one role. Survivability is good thing, but too situational -it's usually better to kill foe quickly- to focus base class on it.

Wouldn't that be an example, then, of the limiting of options mentioned earlier? You can not make a class with a less-effective concept.

It would seem you also can't make one with a more-effective concept, by the same token; the prestige class centered around magical defensibility for the magically offensive class would make the spellcaster too powerful.

And one more thing: Wizards are collosally screwed when they lose their spellbook; does this justify greater power in another situation?

So is it balanced? Or, because the disadvantage will never be invoked because it is too extreme, is it just another kind of imbalance?

The degree to which a disadvantage will be 'used' to maintain this sort of situational balance is another wild card factor which makes balance difficult to obtain.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-24, 04:02 PM
In regards to balance:

It appears to be that so long as you take a weakness, you can have a strength, and that this is considered balanced.

Well, that helps. What is really required is that all classes can bring more or less equal amounts of capabilities to the game, and that no class gets to do better whatever the other classes are supposedly best at.


So what about choices which would allow for effective covering of weaknesses; for instance, being weak against melee, in exchange for tactical options which render melee ineffective?

Depends on the extent of it; are you eliminating or compensating for the capabilities of the opposing class entirely such that it becomes essentially redundant?

I'm really not concerned with synergies -- building powerful tactics isn't "lack of balance" IMHO; it's part of the tactical options of the game -- that is, as long as one class doesn't have overwhelmingly more of them than the others.

For instance, consider the complex maneuvers possible in chess: no-one considers that "broken" because both players can do it. Yet, they are clearly examples of "synergy" as you have defined it here: combinations being more powerful than each component individually.


Wouldn't that be an example, then, of the limiting of options mentioned earlier? You can not make a class with a less-effective concept.

It would seem you also can't make one with a more-effective concept, by the same token; the prestige class centered around magical defensibility for the magically offensive class would make the spellcaster too powerful.

Just add more stuff to the less powerful classes, or do away with the "all class levels cost the same amount" rule. That rule was supposed to make the game more flexible for multi-classing, but frankly if the classes are this far apart tactically, such parity is a lie. Again, what you get is what you should be paying for.


And one more thing: Wizards are collosally screwed when they lose their spellbook; does this justify greater power in another situation?

So is it balanced? Or, because the disadvantage will never be invoked because it is too extreme, is it just another kind of imbalance?

Yeah, I'd say that if a balancing factor doesn't come up, it isn't what it is claimed to be. If the only balancing act is to do something that basically screws the character completely, that's not really viable. Besides, any high level caster worth his salt is likely to have spare spellbooks, place them in an AMF, and/or with contingency cast on them and so on.


The degree to which a disadvantage will be 'used' to maintain this sort of situational balance is another wild card factor which makes balance difficult to obtain.

As a rule, one shouldn't assume that the DM has to go out of his way to ruin a character's career simply to balance things.

Indon
2007-10-24, 04:29 PM
Just add more stuff to the less powerful classes, or do away with the "all class levels cost the same amount" rule. That rule was supposed to make the game more flexible for multi-classing, but frankly if the classes are this far apart tactically, such parity is a lie. Again, what you get is what you should be paying for.


Adding more stuff to less-powerful classes may not be viable, due to the concept surrounding the class.

I'd be condusive towards class levels being cheaper or more expensive again, though. I think a system of payment for this sort of utility maintains much of the benefits of imbalance, while significantly reducing its' downsides.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-24, 04:45 PM
Adding more stuff to less-powerful classes may not be viable, due to the concept surrounding the class.

Well, the less powerful classes can be given more stuff that is still within the scope of their concept (like more feats and skill points), though I know what you mean.

(Still, seeing as wizards can take a Marital Weapon Proficiency, and seeing as people can multi-class, the idea of a "Arcane Dabbler" feat or some such allowing a handful of arcane spells shouldn't be terribly off the mark. Sort of like the Wild Talent feat from the Psionics rules. One could even use this kind of thing as the basis for the spellcasting abilities Paladin and Ranger classes, though of course, they use Divine spells instead...)

Alternatively, one could take away stuff from more powerful classes, such as restricting wizards to one school except for spells of half their maximum spell level or less, for example. And by reducing the effectiveness of abusive spells and metamagic; I'm sure we can all think of a few examples of these. Or restrict the number of spells wizards and clerics can learn, rather than allowing them essentially their entire lists.


I'd be condusive towards class levels being cheaper or more expensive again, though. I think a system of payment for this sort of utility maintains much of the benefits of imbalance, while significantly reducing its' downsides.

"Benefits of imbalance" is a contradiction. :smalltongue:

Anyway, if the less powerful classes cost less, it's not imbalanced anymore: then it's not the "same level" that is the yardstick, but "the same amount of XP" (which previously was synonymous).

Indon
2007-10-24, 04:49 PM
"Benefits of imbalance" is a contradiction. :smalltongue:


That's been in contention for much of this thread.



Anyway, if the less powerful classes cost less, it's not imbalanced anymore: then it's not the "same level" that is the yardstick, but "the same amount of XP" (which previously was synonymous).

There's no doubt still imbalance, just less of it. Our Survivor still can't really do anything, but at least he's probably multiclassed into something that can.

I imagine we should probably try to distinguish between an active measure to enforce balance and a mitigating measure to decrease or counteract imbalance. How to do that, though, may be tricky.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-24, 05:17 PM
That's been in contention for much of this thread.

And you seem not to have trouble with humor either. :smallsigh:

But you don't seem to have been arguing not for there being "benefits to imbalance" as much as there being prohibitive problems with fixing it.


There's no doubt still imbalance, just less of it. Our Survivor still can't really do anything, but at least he's probably multiclassed into something that can.

The Survivor class then becomes a "bonus" class to the core ones.


I imagine we should probably try to distinguish between an active measure to enforce balance and a mitigating measure to decrease or counteract imbalance. How to do that, though, may be tricky.

I'm not really sure that's necessary, since it's more a sliding scale than a clear either/or thing.

warmachine
2007-10-24, 05:18 PM
It's the balance issues in Core that are hard to work out, because if you go around whacking out chunks of Core willy-nilly, you screw with the fundamental structure of the game.
You have the understanding of an engineer. Indeed, any alteration of core rules risks a crash of the fundamental mechanics. As an engineer myself, I know some parameters can be carefully adjusted to lessen the impact of design flaw. The power of high level spellcasters can be trimmed by reducing the spells-per-day for lower level spells. As levels progress, the total spells-per-day remains constant and pushed to the high end with the lower level slots reduced to zero. If a player wants to cast a spell with none-per-day at its level, he'll have to use a higher slot.

Of course, this'll encourage players to rest more often. I cannot get around the design flaw of spellcasters burning their spells and calling a stop after a battle. Gah!

Lord Zentei
2007-10-24, 05:28 PM
You have the understanding of an engineer. Indeed, any alteration of core rules risks a crash of the fundamental mechanics. As an engineer myself, I know some parameters can be carefully adjusted to lessen the impact of design flaw. The power of high level spellcasters can be trimmed by reducing the spells-per-day for lower level spells. As levels progress, the total spells-per-day remains constant and pushed to the high end with the lower level slots reduced to zero. If a player wants to cast a spell with none-per-day at its level, he'll have to use a higher slot.

Of course, this'll encourage players to rest more often. I cannot get around the design flaw of spellcasters burning their spells and calling a stop after a battle. Gah!

4th edition rumors for that issue sound interesting. Casters gain:

"X per day" spells.
"X per encounter" spells.
Lots and lots of use spells.

One quote went "so while a mage won't run out of Magic Missiles, he only has a limited number of Mordenkainen's Sword..." or words to that effect.

Temp
2007-10-24, 05:51 PM
I honestly can't understand the desire to create imbalance between classes of equal level. I mean, the very basis of the level system is to have a basic approximation of a character's power, no? If you want group dynamics based on differing power levels couldn't you mix up the actual levels of the characters in what might be an otherwise well-balanced system?




Anyway, with the current D&D system the problem is that balance is supposed to be achieved via "per day" mechanics. First, either spellcasters need to lose the ability to win encounters in a single round (through Glitterdust/Stinking Cloud/Web) or warrior-types need to gain this ability a certain number of times per day.

The best solutions I can see would be:

1:Removing area save-or-lose spells from a low-level wizard's spell list entirely as well as every instant Fighter-nullifier (Wind Wall for instance).

Spells like Sleep should stay around, but should only affect one opponent at a time. They shouldn't have to deal with the Spells-per-day mechanic either, instead they could have to deal with reduced spell lists and longer casting times (the time to cast a spell that will defeat an opponent should be about the same time a fighter would take to beat it. At low levels, this means part of a turn for weak mook-killing spells and more than a turn to beat a tough enemy. Maybe this could mean dropping saving throw DCs--or whatever the equivalent is--and allowing the spell-caster to keep trying until reaching success).

2:Buff spells should have their targets increased to affect groups (like Haste), making the Wizards less comparatively powerful with abilities like Mirror Image and Overland Flight.

3:Fighters should gain encounter-winning abilities at higher levels. A high-level Barbarian, for example, may generate a Fear effect through his Rage; a Swashbuckler might Fascinate enemies with his swordplay. A high-level fighter may be able to do hammer foes through each others' areas, damaging and tripping multiple enemies with each blow.

4:Spell Effects like Confusion or Fear should allow saving throws each round until they reach their durations. This would stop non-casters from being completely obliterated by equal-level spellcasters without removing too much of the casters' power.

5:Fighters should be able to match Wizard out-of-combat utility, but Rogues and Scouts should still dominate outside of battle (and should be kept slightly below the other two in battle).


(Still, seeing as wizards can take a Marital Weapon Proficiency, and seeing as people can multi-class, the idea of a "Arcane Dabbler" feat or some such allowing a handful of arcane spells shouldn't be terribly off the mark. I would think that anything as drastic as gaining the ability to cast spells would be better illustrated through classes, not feats. Feats seem to be better used as minor tweaks to a character, either improving abilities they already have (Heighten Spell, Power Attack, Rapid Shot) or synergizing different abilities (Arcane Strike, Natural Spell, Swift Tracker).

And this means I think the Multiclass system should be improved. ToB has a far better system than anything else in 3.5 and something should probably be used along its lines, if only to determine the caster level of the low-level spells a multiclass character will have.

Dausuul
2007-10-24, 06:54 PM
(Still, seeing as wizards can take a Marital Weapon Proficiency...)

Marital weapon proficiency? Does that make you proficient in the Cold Shoulder, the If You Really Loved Me Speech, and the Extra-Long Workday?

Squee_nabob
2007-10-25, 11:55 AM
I've found HERO system by HERO games to be very well balanced (and by this i mean it's fairly obvious at character creation when something is broken, not that broken things can't be made). It requires the GM to look at everything and veto abilities that are abusive, but the work is worthwhile.

hewhosaysfish
2007-10-25, 01:18 PM
I honestly can't understand the desire to create imbalance between classes of equal level. I mean, the very basis of the level system is to have a basic approximation of a character's power, no? If you want group dynamics based on differing power levels couldn't you mix up the actual levels of the characters in what might be an otherwise well-balanced system?


This makes me think that an alternative definition what we're looking for would be "a reliable measure of character power".
Not that all characters should be equal (because as some people have pointed out, we want characters to level up) but that we should at least be able to compare them.

We currently have a vague idea. We know Wiz1 < Ftr1 and Wiz15 > Ftr15 but what about Wiz7 and Ftr7? Are they equal? If not, which one is greater?

If we could say for certain that ,for example, WizX = (FtrX^2)-1 then Jaylabard could work out what sort of level he could create a character without worrying about accidentally being as strong as anyone else in the party and the rest of us could have parties where all characters have equal ability.

This sounds like a lot of irritating maths but I don't think it's so far from what was done in previous editions, with the xp needed to level varying from class to class (so the X in my formula would be xp rather than level - big deal). In 3.x all classes level up at the same rate so presumably the intention was that FtrX=WizX=RogX=BrbX=...etc.
It doesn't actually work out that way but we still expect it too and we get confused and angry when we find out we were wrong.

Alex12
2007-10-25, 01:48 PM
One partial solution to the problem of wizards utterly dominating could be to require XP expenditure to copy spells into their spellbook. Any spell that doesn't have an XP component to cast could cost 25 XP, a spell that does have an XP component could cost 1/4 of the cost of casting it once or 25 XP, whichever is more.
Also, get rid of the components pouch that lets them have unlimited spell components, make it so they have to collect or purchase the required things.



Or just strip out wizards entirely and replace them with psions, which are actually balanced.

Innis Cabal
2007-10-25, 02:12 PM
the problem with balance, leaving it to the control of the DM and all that is when i DM i dont want to baby sit. I dont want to spend 6 hours saying, nope, ok, naw the other guys wont like it, looks good to me etc etc. I want to play. Simple as that. Imbalance is the stuff of life ladies and gents, pure and simple its how things work. Dont like it? Get a helmet

Dausuul
2007-10-25, 02:17 PM
the problem with balance, leaving it to the control of the DM and all that is when i DM i dont want to baby sit. I dont want to spend 6 hours saying, nope, ok, naw the other guys wont like it, looks good to me etc etc. I want to play. Simple as that. Imbalance is the stuff of life ladies and gents, pure and simple its how things work. Dont like it? Get a helmet

...which is exactly why so many of us want the system to be balanced, or at least close to balanced. That way we can just run the dang game without worrying so much about whether all of the players have something to do.

Innis Cabal
2007-10-25, 02:24 PM
my point is balance is wholey unrealistic. There needs to be a reason to play class A over Class B other then simple "well this one casts and this one uses a sword, even though they do both just as well as the other at level X" thats boring, unimaginative, negates the need for tactics on a fundemental level, and once more wholey unrealistic. A man with a gun/sword/melee ranged attack WILL NOT and SHOULD NOT be more powerful or even equal in power to the guy that blows crap up with his mind. They both do what they do equally well at level X, just Class A has more power then Class B by merit of what they do. Sorry thems the breaks

Indon
2007-10-25, 02:27 PM
...which is exactly why so many of us want the system to be balanced, or at least close to balanced. That way we can just run the dang game without worrying so much about whether all of the players have something to do.

But nearly all the imbalance that can be dealt with by modifying the system (that is, the more extreme imbalances) are pretty easy to identify and (well, in 3.5 D&D) very easy to change.

It's a negligable expenditure of energy to say, "No, you can't play an artificer, you'd be more powerful than the rest of the group."

Lord Zentei
2007-10-25, 02:31 PM
Marital weapon proficiency? Does that make you proficient in the Cold Shoulder, the If You Really Loved Me Speech, and the Extra-Long Workday?

Presumably yes. Very useful abilities, all.

Goit. :smalltongue:


But nearly all the imbalance that can be dealt with by modifying the system (that is, the more extreme imbalances) are pretty easy to identify and (well, in 3.5 D&D) very easy to change.

It's a negligable expenditure of energy to say, "No, you can't play an artificer, you'd be more powerful than the rest of the group."

That's not something the DM should have to deal with to the extent he does in D&D. I mean, there is a reason games go through cycles of play-testing and redesign.

Saying "well the DM can deal with it" is almost like saying that patrons to a restaurant can deal with the crappy food they get by bringing their own spices. Wikipedia uses this excuse also ("just edit it, lol"), but at least they don't require you to pay money for their stuff.

An exaggeration, perhaps, but then so is the statement that fixing things is straightforwards. :smallwink:

hewhosaysfish
2007-10-25, 02:56 PM
There needs to be a reason to play class A over Class B other then simple "well this one casts and this one uses a sword, even though they do both just as well as the other at level X"

I disagree entirely. The choice of class should be entirely based on which supports the more interesting character, not which one has a power level of over 9000.



thats boring, unimaginative, negates the need for tactics on a fundemental level,

Negates tactics? In the same way that chess has no tactics because both sides are (roughly) balanced (in fact, largely equal)?
Choosing a class and building a character in an RPG is like writing an army list for a wargame or building a deck for a CCG (ok, these are competitive but I think the comparison holds): It should merely be the set-up for the actual game and if it completely determines the outcome of play then something has gone badly wrong.


and once more wholey unrealistic. A man with a gun/sword/melee ranged attack WILL NOT and SHOULD NOT be more powerful or even equal in power to the guy that blows crap up with his mind.

So a guy who can "blow up -with his mind- anything that is a conceivable threat to him" is an acceptable break from reality but a guy who can blow things up with his mind but with difficulty and a need concentration allowing a guy with a gun to get the drop on him from time to time" is not?

Dausuul
2007-10-25, 03:05 PM
my point is balance is wholey unrealistic. There needs to be a reason to play class A over Class B other then simple "well this one casts and this one uses a sword, even though they do both just as well as the other at level X" thats boring, unimaginative, negates the need for tactics on a fundemental level...

Please justify these statements instead of merely asserting them.


...and once more wholey unrealistic. A man with a gun/sword/melee ranged attack WILL NOT and SHOULD NOT be more powerful or even equal in power to the guy that blows crap up with his mind. They both do what they do equally well at level X, just Class A has more power then Class B by merit of what they do. Sorry thems the breaks

No matter how many times I see this argument, it continues to make no sense. Being able to do stuff with your mind does NOT automatically make you more powerful than a guy who uses a sword. It depends on how powerful your mental abilities are and how hard you had to work to get them.

If I have the power to create a fireball equal to, say, a Molotov cocktail by concentrating for six seconds and waving my hands in the air, that's bully for me, but it doesn't mean I'm as powerful in combat as my Marine buddy with an M16. Even if I too have an M16, I don't know how to reload it, I'm not skilled enough to hit much of anything with it, and I don't know what to do if it jams. Hell, I don't even know how to turn the safety off. I'm certainly never going to be as effective with it as a guy who's trained with it for years--years that I spent learning to make mental firebombs.

Does that make me useless? Certainly not. My power is silent, concealable, doesn't run out of ammo, and can set things on fire much better than a bullet can. But there's nothing inherently special about magic that makes the magic specialist more powerful than the non-magical combat specialist. It's just another way of doing things.

Indon
2007-10-25, 03:07 PM
That's not something the DM should have to deal with to the extent he does in D&D. I mean, there is a reason games go through cycles of play-testing and redesign.

Saying "well the DM can deal with it" is almost like saying that patrons to a restaurant can deal with the crappy food they get by bringing their own spices. Wikipedia uses this excuse also ("just edit it, lol"), but at least they don't require you to pay money for their stuff.

An exaggeration, perhaps, but then so is the statement that fixing things is straightforwards. :smallwink:

I think it more like using the fruit-flavored syrups provided to you at IHOP. Mmm, boysenberry...

And I don't think it an exaggeration, since I was only speaking of the biggest violations of balance. More subtle imbalances, such as the weakness of sword-and-board styles compared to Two-Weapon Fighting and 2-Handed weapon Power Attack, and in general the offense-defense imbalance which encourages extremely fast combat, are much more difficult to fix than just removing problematic spells.

And as for play-testing, there's very little that can be done without a strictly-enforced default environment to be tested. The fact that D&D can be played in any concievable campaign in any of multiple styles will simply lead to problems if the classes are built around any specific one of them (for instance, the style the gameplay style 3.x was actually playtested in).

Innis Cabal
2007-10-25, 06:22 PM
just in your argument youve satated limits to the mages ability. Im not here to argue wether one is more powerful then the other, its pretty clear. Second, if it really came down to picking a class for it being a better character there wouldnt be these discussion threads, it wouldnt matter if mage a is better then swordude b, it would be a matter of mage a being a crappy character over sword guy b instead. In fact why have class's if thats your stand point? Class's arnt made to be balanced against each other, nor should they be.

Another thing i never understood was this, why complain about a game when there are enough third party games, and even main stream games to strangle a well bred donkey. If you dont like it, change it and leave the forum of what ever game it is you have a problem with alone to let people who dont have a problem discuss without threads like this to muck up things and stir up dessension

Squee_nabob
2007-10-25, 06:38 PM
the problem with balance, leaving it to the control of the DM and all that is when i DM i dont want to baby sit. I dont want to spend 6 hours saying, nope, ok, naw the other guys wont like it, looks good to me etc etc. I want to play. Simple as that. Imbalance is the stuff of life ladies and gents, pure and simple its how things work. Dont like it? Get a helmet

I don't know if this is an indictment of HERO system, but since I did mention it took GM oversight and planning, it seems reasonable you would respond to that.

First off, the time spent reviewing characters at creation is a one time occurrence (ie the first time), and actually takes less time than going over a DnD character (of moderate level built from several books) (assuming a moderate HERO character), because all the material is in one book and marked (nothing meaning generally harmless, yield for "hey think about this" and STOP for "This has the potential to screw stuff up big!" (meaning things like faster than light travel and extra dimensional movement).

Secondly I think you'll disagree with what ever I say because I view game balance and ease of playability (in that order) more important than realism.

Innis Cabal
2007-10-25, 06:57 PM
[/quote]Secondly I think you'll disagree with what ever I say because I view game balance and ease of playability (in that order) more important than realism.[/quote]

its really up to player commnication, if your players dont talk before character creaetion then youll have incompatability. Another thing people seem to forget is, yes wizard have pretty shiney spells, but not all at once all the time. You want tactics? hold off till the end of the day and stab the man, NO MAGE is so super parinoid that they cloister themselves behind a wall of blades, a magical fortress and a gaes affect that makes you sing rain drops keep falling on my head untill the end of the night so he can blast you to nothing. And if you fo play that type of mage its just as unrealistic as the swordsman that can beat a caster at a distance one on one

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-25, 07:00 PM
Secondly I think you'll disagree with what ever I say because I view game balance and ease of playability (in that order) more important than realism.

its really up to player commnication, if your players dont talk before character creaetion then youll have incompatability. Another thing people seem to forget is, yes wizard have pretty shiney spells, but not all at once all the time. You want tactics? hold off till the end of the day and stab the man, NO MAGE is so super parinoid that they cloister themselves behind a wall of blades, a magical fortress and a gaes affect that makes you sing rain drops keep falling on my head untill the end of the night so he can blast you to nothing. And if you fo play that type of mage its just as unrealistic as the swordsman that can beat a caster at a distance one on one

Why wouldn't they be that paranoid? I mean, seriously, when you have robes that could be sold in exchange for a nation's riches or godlike demons with grudges against you, you earn the right to be paranoid, if you can even call it that. After all, it's not paranoid if they really are out to get you :smallwink:

I know that *I* would use spells that way if I were in that position. In fact, it seems far more questionable to me that people think that wizards would instead act stupidly and incautiously (because that's totally how they got to level 20 in a very hostile world.)

Squee_nabob
2007-10-25, 07:31 PM
Don't they just make a rope trick and sleep in that or something?

I'm sure there is an answer

and the inherent imbalance of classes is fixed by player communication? or if the players communicate it can make up for the fact that some classes are just worse than others?

And I don't mean to be here spreading dissent, if you'd rather I shut up, I will. I plugged the balanced option.

Innis Cabal
2007-10-25, 07:33 PM
perhaps i was a little to broad :P. Its not that they have no right to be parinoid, i mean the points raised ar enot only valid but acceptable and probably the best case scenario, its that the rest of the party has access to the same sort of protection, and if they dont the wizard is a jerk and will quickly be brought to call on such. its usually in bad taste to let your whole party get eaten alive by said demons. Also those spells are spells that could have better gone to say....a fire ball in a combat situation or a scry in a war type set up. My point is simply this. The Wizard/Cleric/Druid/What have you is simply not a win button because it CAN do what it can do. Its a win button because of what it can do and HOW people use it. Cant use a fighter as well? cant be creative and fly by the seat of your proverbial pants? Well guess thats to bad. Those people that sit around for hours upon hours looking for rules to exploit and bend to their benifit deserve something for all the time they put in. Balancing the game would certianly clear up their social que and leave them nothing to do on a saturday night. And even if the game is "balanced" how long will it take for said person to find a break in the system? And then how long will it take for someone to complain about it? And after that how long will it take for someone to bring both of them to call, such as the situation is atm here. Long story short, its not going to end, period. Sorry all but once again, thems the breaks

Lord Zentei
2007-10-25, 08:02 PM
And as for play-testing, there's very little that can be done without a strictly-enforced default environment to be tested. The fact that D&D can be played in any concievable campaign in any of multiple styles will simply lead to problems if the classes are built around any specific one of them (for instance, the style the gameplay style 3.x was actually playtested in).

The sheer scale of the more obvious flaws and the number of the lesser ones does suggest to me that they're not really trying that hard at all, if you don't mind my saying so. It's not a matter of campaign world to remark that a mage or cleric can outperform the fighter in the area where he is supposed to shine.




Class's arnt made to be balanced against each other, nor should they be.

Actually, yes they are meant to be that. The whole idea of the "level" concept is that the characters are in the same ballpark.


Another thing i never understood was this, why complain about a game when there are enough third party games, and even main stream games to strangle a well bred donkey. If you dont like it, change it and leave the forum of what ever game it is you have a problem with alone to let people who dont have a problem discuss without threads like this to muck up things and stir up dessension

... "stir up dessension [sic]"?

So you are saying that if people don't like the game, they can just go away and make their own? As though people cannot legitimately voice their disapproval of certain aspects of a product?

This is a discussion forum. Here, we exchange our ideas about what we think the game is like and what we would like to see.

Innis Cabal
2007-10-25, 08:08 PM
there is a rather large difference between discussing something, and beating a dead horse. After about hte 30th thread on this topic in a month, its the latter and honestly counter productive.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-25, 08:16 PM
there is a rather large difference between discussing something, and beating a dead horse. After about hte 30th thread on this topic in a month, its the latter and honestly counter productive.

Dead horse? Multiple ideas have been forwarded as to how the imbalances can be fixed.

If the topic bores you, why are you here? To tell people not to post? :smallannoyed:

Jayabalard
2007-10-25, 08:20 PM
Please justify these statements instead of merely asserting them.Since this is a thread where people are quite obviously talking about their opinions, this kind of demand seems kind of ludicrous to me. There's nothing wrong with people stating their opinion, and there really isn't any need to justify them.


Class balance is implied when one speaks of a balanced system.Not in the slightest... classes are not required for a system, so classes are not implied for a balanced system.


False. Balanced system does not limit options, just requires that options are equally useful. If 3.5 D&D were to be balanced out, no class would have to be removed. They'd just have to be strenghtened or weakened.In a Balanced system there are no options where some classes are weaker or stronger than others.

In an Unbalanced system there are options where some classes are weaker than others, some classes that are stonger than others, and some have the same strength as others.

Unbalanced systems can have all of the options that are in balanced systems, and can include options that cannot be in the balanced system.

Clearly, balanced systems limit options... the fact that you consider those options to not be important isn't really meaningful...


No matter how many times I see this argument, it continues to make no sense. Being able to do stuff with your mind does NOT automatically make you more powerful than a guy who uses a sword. It depends on how powerful your mental abilities are and how hard you had to work to get them.This is dependent on how powerful those "mind powers" are in that particular game world... in a high magic game world (ie D&D), this means that being able to do stuff with your mind absolutely does make you more powerful than a guy who uses a sword. If it doesn't, you're not playing in a high magic world.

Temp
2007-10-25, 08:25 PM
This is dependent on how powerful those "mind powers" are in that particular game world... in a high magic game world (ie D&D), this means that being able to do stuff with your mind absolutely does make you more powerful than a guy who uses a sword. If it doesn't, you're not playing in a high magic world.

High-Magic Worlds are not required for a gaming system. As such this point evades me.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-25, 08:28 PM
Not in the slightest... classes are not required for a system, so classes are not implied for a balanced system.

This has to be the silliest argument ever.

We are talking about a system with classes. Therefore, if it claimed that it is balanced, the classes must be balanced against one another, along with the other features of the particular system under discussion.

Temp
2007-10-25, 08:35 PM
We are talking about a system with classes.
When did we say we were talking about D&D?

Lord Zentei
2007-10-25, 08:56 PM
When did we say we were talking about D&D?

Whatever do you mean by that? And who the heck is this "we"?

People here have been referencing D&D classes and discussing problems with D&D mechanics for almost the entire thread. :smallannoyed:

Jayabalard
2007-10-25, 09:12 PM
Whatever do you mean by that? And who the heck is this "we"?

People here have been referencing D&D classes and discussing problems with D&D mechanics for almost the entire thread. :smallannoyed:I think that by "we" he means that people posting in this thread.

people have also referenced classes generic classes (and that's about as classless as D&D gets), as well as non-d20 classless systems (hero, GURPS).


High-Magic Worlds are not required for a gaming system. As such this point evades me.High magic is one of the primary places where a balanced systems breaks down, since one of it's defining characteristics is that wizards are indeed more powerful than non-wizards. Sure, you can sacrifice that genre in the name of balance, but in doing so you lose variety that you'd otherwise have if you weren't so wrapped up in balance.

Temp
2007-10-25, 09:48 PM
Whatever do you mean by that? And who the heck is this "we"?

A balanced system may well look entirely different from D&D. And by "We" I meant posters in general. There's no conspiracy here.



Anyway, I think the point was that the class-based D&D system can't be balanced just because different classes aren't going to be equal just due to their... well, their differences.

To balance seperate classes against each other, you would have to entirely remove the fighter from non-combat situations, entirely remove the Thief from non-trapfinding situations, eliminate the Bard from non-social situations and remove the Wizard from non-book-keeping situations while keeping each equally important to the holistic game environment.

Or you could give everyone the same abilities with different names (The Fighter does Xd6 damage with his sword, the Mage does Xd6 with his spell and the Bard does Xd6 with his song... you'd probably have to limit all attacks to 5 ft. range with this approach).



Neither of these is conductive to a fun group game--which is what D&D is probably primarily aimed at becoming as people are more apt to buy books of a gaming system they enjoy--so exact balance has to be forfeit.

And how do you measure balance, exactly? You can approximate combat efficiency, but outside of bashing generic foes there is very little to keep things in order. To all classes have identical out-of-combat ability, aspects of the game have to be over-simplified or removed entirely. Wizard casting, for instance, would need to have anything resembling out-of-combat utility removed. This just wouldn't be as fun as the casting now.

This isn't saying spellcasting should be the end-all ultimate power it currently is.

This is saying that balance can't be quantified. Something will always be the most powerful option. The only way of determining anything is constant playtesting, trying to gauge every new combination of abilities' power relative to the rest of the game. And that isn't considering the varying comprehensions players will have of the rules--What can a system do to bring a Bard to the same level as the otehr classes? The majority of RL gamers I've met see it as one of the weakest classes in the game, badly needing a power-boost. The heaviest optimizers consider it top-tier. A boost (or a nerf) would balance the class for some people and knock it horribly off the average power level for others.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-25, 09:50 PM
I think that by "we" he means that people posting in this thread.

people have also referenced classes generic classes (and that's about as classless as D&D gets), as well as non-d20 classless systems (hero, GURPS).

I am one of those who spoke of GURPS. In fact, I seem to recall being the first to mention it.

Nonetheless, his point was nonsense, since on the particular topic of class balancing, the discussion on this thread has very much concerned itself with D&D classes, nor does it change the fact that a system involving classes has to balance said classes if it claims to be balanced.




Anyway, I think the point was that the class-based D&D system can't be balanced just because different classes aren't going to be equal just due to their... well, their differences.

To balance seperate classes against each other, you would have to entirely remove the fighter from non-combat situations, entirely remove the Thief from non-trapfinding situations, eliminate the Bard from non-social situations and remove the Wizard from non-book-keeping situations while keeping each equally important to the holistic game environment.

Or you could give everyone the same abilities with different names (The Fighter does Xd6 damage with his sword, the Mage does Xd6 with his spell and the Bard does Xd6 with his song... you'd probably have to limit all attacks to 5 ft. range with this approach).

That is a bit of a black/white fallacy: balance does not mean that the classes must be identical, but that overall, each can bring about as much to the table as the others, and not dominate the game.


Neither of these is conductive to a fun group game--which is what D&D is probably primarily aimed at becoming as people are more apt to buy books of a gaming system they enjoy--so exact balance has to be forfeit.

And how do you measure balance, exactly? You can approximate combat efficiency, but outside of bashing generic foes there is very little to keep things in order. To all classes have identical out-of-combat ability, aspects of the game have to be over-simplified or removed entirely. Wizard casting, for instance, would need to have anything resembling out-of-combat utility removed. This just wouldn't be as fun as the casting now.

Fun for whom? The Mage who gets to dominate the game, or the fighter who, well, doesn't?

This isn't saying spellcasting should be the end-all ultimate power it currently is.

This is saying that balance can't be quantified. Something will always be the most powerful option. The only way of determining anything is constant playtesting, trying to gauge every new combination of abilities' power relative to the rest of the game. And that isn't considering the varying comprehensions players will have of the rules--What can a system do to bring a Bard to the same level as the otehr classes? The majority of RL gamers I've met see it as one of the weakest classes in the game, badly needing a power-boost. The heaviest optimizers consider it top-tier. A boost (or a nerf) would balance the class for some people and knock it horribly off the average power level for others.

Black/white again: just because you cannot quantify something perfectly doesn't mean it cannot be estimated so as to make things less imbalanced.

Temp
2007-10-25, 10:28 PM
What Lord Zentei said

How do you balance classes, then?


You repeat that classes should all have equal versatility with no actual suggestions I see other than making the game less class-centric (which would be non-D&D, which we aren't discussing here) or tending towards equivalent classes (giving Fighters a feat to emulate Wizard casting).

How do you estimate class versatility precisely enough to remove imbalance from a system?

The fact that different human beings are using the system will play a massive factor. In the current system, you could easily see Wizards as the weakest class because they lose all their class features as soon as they misplace a spellbook. They're also the most powerful because they can use Edvard's Black Tentacles and Polymorph on allies. They're also a very balanced class because they do less damage than a fighter to multiple enemies, all in all a rather average ability.

The Paladin can be seen as the most powerful class because it has good defenses, a powerful nova ability that will turn him into a horrific threat for about 1 round per day and access to a mount that won't die from an arrow shot or two. It's also horribly weak because it doesn't have enough offensive class features to have any sort of consistant damage output in the dungeon setting that characterizes D&D or enough skill points to make up for it out of combat.

Lord Zentei
2007-10-25, 10:44 PM
How do you balance classes, then?


You repeat that classes should all have equal versatility with no actual suggestions I see other than making the game less class-centric (which would be non-D&D, which we aren't discussing here) or tending towards equivalent classes (giving Fighters a feat to emulate Wizard casting).

How do you accurately estimate class versatility precisely enough to remove imbalance from a system?

Classify what each class is supposed to bring to the table as well as their supposed weaknesses, and then try to minimize the extent to which the spellcasting classes can compensate for their supposed weaknesses and outdo the others in what they are best at. This entails eliminating certain spell combinations and metamagic, and/or limiting spellcasters to a more narrow range of spells.

An example would be the DruZilla's Wild Shape ability; I'm sure you know what I'm talking about here. Another is the Cleric's ability to approach the fighter in combat ability with his boosts and still have full caster ability. The Mage with his Celerity, Timestop and Forcecage nonsense.

Consider for a moment that a party of clerics (and/or druids) can trounce a party of characters with different Core classes, even though the latter is allegedly more versatile due to the sundry capabilities its different members bring to bear.


For everyone who finds Final Fantasy In-Combat-only spellcasters arbitrary and ridiculous.

It is the idea that out of combat casting needs be removed from the game for balance to be possible that I find suspect.

Idea Man
2007-10-25, 11:18 PM
For this execise, I will be using D&D, just so there's no mistake. :smallcool:

Looking at the basics, what balance were the game designers trying to achieve? A party of four can take on four encounters of their level, expending approxomately 25% of their resources in each battle; I believe that was the original intent.
This implies that the party should face four encounters of their ability before resting. Obviously, fewer encounters means higher challenge, more means lower, etc., to achieve the desired effect. Resources between the classes vary, but melee-types can expect that to come out in potions and HP, skill-types from their bag of tricks and HP, and magic-types from spells available and, quite possibly, HP.

So far, this has been a big, generalized duh. Or I missed something. Or I made a mistake. It could happen. :smallwink:

I think it has been mentioned that the reason wizards, and, to a lesser degree, other spellcasters, dominate an encounter is due to the "single encounter" scenario. The players know they don't have to be conservative, so they apply maximum force. At the highest levels, they aren't even touching half of their available spells, including boosters, in this one-shot. A non-caster is still applying everything in his arsenal too, but he can't spend hit points any faster.
Assuming this is all more or less accurate, what is the imbalance? Improper game playing, really. We aren't playing the game as designed. A lot of us are running fewer encounters than intended without increasing the amount of resources needed to handle them, or reduce the resources available.

Okay, so far I have produced another long wided post. Please, forgive me, I'm almost done. Hey, do you think I could submit this for my writing assignment in English class? :smalltongue:

I try to run by the base standards. I love running wizards into the ground, and generally, they enjoy pulling last-minute solutions out of their star-and-moon covered hats. Sometimes the one-shot is the only way, or the best way. I just plan for a higher level of danger, and they accept that they can't afford to hold back. Of course, sometimes there's a surprise second encounter, but a DM's base alignment is evil, right? :smallbiggrin:
Still think spellcasters need toned down? Knock down the number of spells they can cast per day. Find a level that fits your group. Just remember: this is a role-playing game, and the spellcaster needs to shine somewhere. A lot of their spells are combat-oriented, but they have a lot of utility, too.

Now, personally, I want to do a rework on wizards and sorcerers, down and up, respectively. I'll start a new thread for that, though. :smallwink:

Dausuul
2007-10-25, 11:37 PM
I think it has been mentioned that the reason wizards, and, to a lesser degree, other spellcasters, dominate an encounter is due to the "single encounter" scenario. The players know they don't have to be conservative, so they apply maximum force. At the highest levels, they aren't even touching half of their available spells, including boosters, in this one-shot. A non-caster is still applying everything in his arsenal too, but he can't spend hit points any faster.

That's one reason, but there are many others. At high levels, a caster can take on four encounters a day and still outperform a warrior of equal level. Not only that, but it becomes increasingly more difficult to push the caster into four encounters a day if he doesn't want to fight them.


Assuming this is all more or less accurate, what is the imbalance? Improper game playing, really. We aren't playing the game as designed. A lot of us are running fewer encounters than intended without increasing the amount of resources needed to handle them, or reduce the resources available.

As I said in another thread--if a large percentage of the people who use your system are using it wrong*, that means there's something wrong with your system. In this case, lots of DMs don't want to have to build all their plots around forcing the wizard into four encounters a day. That's all very well in a dungeon crawl, but many campaigns are not that combat-intensive.

*Of course, I should probably expand this to "using it wrong in such a way that their enjoyment suffers." Obviously, with a game system, if you're having fun, it doesn't matter whether you're using it as intended. It's when fun suffers that the problem arises.

Temp
2007-10-25, 11:42 PM
Assuming this is all more or less accurate, what is the imbalance?
The imbalance comes from the fact that a single spell from a non-optimized spellcaster has the ability to all-but-entirely defeat an enemy or a group of enemies while it takes a non-optimized Barbarian/Fighter/Monk/Paladin multiple rounds of fighting and HP loss to defeat the same foe.




It is the idea that out of combat casting needs be removed from the game for balance to be possible that I find suspect.

You'll see I deleted that bit before I thought anyone had seen it, but I suppose I still have to justify that satement.

Players are going to think for themselves based on their situations. The introduction of an unquantifiable ability is going to skew any sort of numeric balance a designer is trying to implement. The section that was originally in question was speaking about balancing a system formulaically so the assumption of quantitive versatility was appropriate in context.

[Looking over that last bit, it's pretty clear I've had to read too many poorly-written textbooks lately.]

Anyway, just having the ability to put people to sleep is going to overlap stealth skills. The ability to magically make people your friends is going to overlap social skills. The ability to summon monsters to do your will is going to overlap all sorts of things.

Removing every ability that can overlap a different class (beside a direct damage source) is going to leave casters with buffs, debuffs, divinations, healing and very little else.

In combat, there can't be any sort of overlap between class roles or one will come out notably superior to the other, so all spellcasters would have to be rolled into the above role (which might as well do away with the stupid multiple magic types). There should probably be Ranger, Thief, Archer and Fighter classes as well, focusing on Animal/Wilderness skills, People/Urban skills, Archery and Melee combat respectively.

...I'm digressing, but I'm not certain I really had a point on this topic in the first place... Which is why I deleted the section you quoted before I thought anyone had seen it.

I should stop typing now.

Idea Man
2007-10-26, 12:25 AM
The imbalance comes from the fact that a single spell from a non-optimized spellcaster has the ability to all-but-entirely defeat an enemy or a group of enemies while it takes a non-optimized Barbarian/Fighter/Monk/Paladin multiple rounds of fighting and HP loss to defeat the same foe.

True enough, Temp, but most spells are based on a save. Some enemies will be more likely to fail than others. If the spell fails, it frequently has little or no effect. If you have a lot of enemies at once, the odds go up that some will pass. Yes, high-level spells can be pretty devastating, but if the challenge is intended for your spellcaster, your opponents should be resilient if casting isn't their strong spot, or be bright enough to prepare defenses if it is.
Base point: if you're playing a group of spellcasters, you need to face spellcaster-oriented foes. If you don't, they just aren't as challenging, and no one want to face an an advanced melee enemy so high that, to be challenging, has to be lethally absurd, like the Divine Pseudonatural Advanced Crab, or worse. I don't want to make worse. :smalleek:
Not to be picky, but balanced is not the same as equal. Melee-types don't wipe out groups in one round, but they do wipe them out. If they have as many HP as the spellcaster at the end of the fight, aren't they balanced? Not as flashy, but on par.

Innis Cabal
2007-10-26, 12:31 AM
thank you Idea man

Gort
2007-10-26, 07:57 AM
Balance is mostly thrown out the window when any one class can use an ability (we'll call it a 'spell' for the sake of this discussion) which allows them to put themselves in a position of being able to attack without a reasonable hope of return attack.

Many of these spells are representations of very typical fantasy story elements, and removing them from the game will perforce change the game dramatically.

A sample list, by no means a complete one could be:

Flight
Improved Invisibility
Teleport
Time Stop


I often remove specific spells like Flight, ESP and Invisibility because they have far too large an effect on the game world. Flight negates a lot of dungeon designs. Alternatively I bump them up to higher levels and give the characters weaker substitutes like a camoflage spell instead of invisibility.

I find it helps with intra-party balance with casters and non casters. It also allows me to create more useful plots with BBEGs who aren't significant casters.

Charm person if far too powerful out of combat for a 1st level spell. Why not start with an influence effect first.
Long term invisibility as a 2nd level spell? That goes so far to negating a large part of the rogues ability and it's just second level.

I don't mind that these 'powerful' magics exist. I would like there to be few levels of useful and interesting spells before uber powerful effects come into the game. Wizards should look at this when they try to balance 4th edition.

Morty
2007-10-26, 09:38 AM
In a Balanced system there are no options where some classes are weaker or stronger than others.

In an Unbalanced system there are options where some classes are weaker than others, some classes that are stonger than others, and some have the same strength as others.

Unbalanced systems can have all of the options that are in balanced systems, and can include options that cannot be in the balanced system.

Clearly, balanced systems limit options... the fact that you consider those options to not be important isn't really meaningful...

What options can't be included in a balanced system? Before you mention that, I never said I consider some options not important, I merely said that focusing on defense is hard to be balanced un D&D-like game.
Also: system where some classes are weaker than others from the start can be balanced, as long as it is clearly said that they aren't supposed to be equal in power. D&D already has got NPC classes.


This is dependent on how powerful those "mind powers" are in that particular game world... in a high magic game world (ie D&D), this means that being able to do stuff with your mind absolutely does make you more powerful than a guy who uses a sword. If it doesn't, you're not playing in a high magic world.

First, this makes one think that maybe high-magic worlds aren't meant to be played in RPG games, or at least wizards shouldn't be playable in them? Wizards in D&D are theoretically equal to fighters. Second, this argument is meaningless anyway, since in D&D wizars are far more broken than it could be justified by "mages should be stronger" argument. Nothing in high-magic says that wizards are supposed to be unkillable. Third, you seem to think that every wizard in high fantasy in someone on level of Elminster or somesuch. Which is not true. Of course, I'll grant you one thing- low-magic systems are better.
More on topic: I really don't understand the "game can't be 100%" balanced argument. Right, it can't. But it can be balanced to the point where it's not so glaringly unbalanced as D&D is now. Also, "wizards shouldn't be as powerful as warriors" is rubbish too. Who ever said that magical power brings combat ability? Wizard is still frail scholar who dies from a single blow. Problem is, D&D wizards can make themselves almost invincible and make enemies useless in a matter of two-three rounds. High level wizards are practically unkillable. Balanced system is, in my opinion, a system where wizard can kill his enemies with his spells, but warrior of equal level can do this either quicker, easier and with expending less resources or with less risk of being splattered all over the nearest wall. Of course, warrior hasn't got many options that wizard's got through his spells. Similiarly, wizard could probably do thinghs rogue can, but rogue can do this easier and quicker. Again, it'd be balanced by the fact that wizard can do things rogue can't.
The "you're playing the game wrong" isn't very meaningful either. If DM wanted and tried hard, he could maybe limit the high level gamebreaking spellcaster. But that'd require additional time, effort and, most importantly- tailoring the adventure for this. Some people don't want that. Some people don't want to make their adventures series of encounters, because it doesn't fit the plot concept DM's got. Sometimes, people -either players, DM or both- want to have an adventure where there's one big encounter instead of series of smaller. You know, some people don't want to build their whole campaigns just so wizard can have four encounters per day so that he's not broken.

Indon
2007-10-26, 10:58 AM
The sheer scale of the more obvious flaws and the number of the lesser ones does suggest to me that they're not really trying that hard at all, if you don't mind my saying so. It's not a matter of campaign world to remark that a mage or cleric can outperform the fighter in the area where he is supposed to shine.


Then those aren't the class of imbalance that playtesting would isolate, are they?

You can outline a simple theoretical scenario in which one class can always outperform another, and say "So, yeah, that's imbalanced."

Playtesting should isolate flaws such as, "Wow, Turn Undead is very powerful because undead occur with great frequency and it causes the Cleric to take the spotlight a lot of the time," but it can't, because nothing about encounter frequency can be known.



In a Balanced system there are no options where some classes are weaker or stronger than others.




That is a bit of a black/white fallacy: balance does not mean that the classes must be identical, but that overall, each can bring about as much to the table as the others, and not dominate the game.


You know, from comments like these I get the impression that we're discussing radically different degrees of balance. I guess that's unsurprising, considering such a degree was never specified.


What options can't be included in a balanced system? Before you mention that, I never said I consider some options not important, I merely said that focusing on defense is hard to be balanced un D&D-like game.
Also: system where some classes are weaker than others from the start can be balanced, as long as it is clearly said that they aren't supposed to be equal in power. D&D already has got NPC classes.


Mutants and Masterminds is extensively modified from the standard D20 system with the intent of balance; the book even describes how stats were effected in order to do this.

Yet, the book explicitly describes powers which can be unbalanced in player hands, and suggests actively barring them, or simply trusting your players not to exploit more powerful abilities.

This system which has gone to such lengths to balance still has powers that are vastly more potent than others, simply because you can not play a super-hero game without them. And they aren't like NPC classes, either, as they were made with the intention of being usable by players.

Now, certainly the best way to deal with imbalance in a system is to explicitly note the imbalance, so that it doesn't surprise anyone and becomes much easier to deal with if so desired. But that's how best to run an imbalanced system, nonetheless.

Morty
2007-10-26, 11:11 AM
Mutants and Masterminds is extensively modified from the standard D20 system with the intent of balance; the book even describes how stats were effected in order to do this.

Yet, the book explicitly describes powers which can be unbalanced in player hands, and suggests actively barring them, or simply trusting your players not to exploit more powerful abilities.

This system which has gone to such lengths to balance still has powers that are vastly more potent than others, simply because you can not play a super-hero game without them. And they aren't like NPC classes, either, as they were made with the intention of being usable by players.

Now, certainly the best way to deal with imbalance in a system is to explicitly note the imbalance, so that it doesn't surprise anyone and becomes much easier to deal with if so desired. But that's how best to run an imbalanced system, nonetheless.

If an imbalance is explictly stated, it's not imbalance anymore. I'm not familiar with Mutants & Masterminds here, so I'll use a different example: if wizard were explictly said to be higher tier class than fighter, possibly requiring more experience to level up, it wouldn't be imbalance, as those classes would be out of comparision. Fighter would be instead compared to, let's say, ranger, and wizard to druid or cleric. And would be balanced in comparision to them. But as-is, all these classes are theoretically balanced to each other- on lower levels it actually works in practice, but when it stops to, it's an imbalance. We already have thing like that in D&D in form of NPC classes.
Though frankly, for D&D playstyle I'd just like a balanced system without any "tiers" or anything.

Indon
2007-10-26, 11:17 AM
If an imbalance is explictly stated, it's not imbalance anymore. I'm not familiar with Mutants & Masterminds here, so I'll use a different example: if wizard were explictly said to be higher tier class than fighter, possibly requiring more experience to level up, it wouldn't be imbalance, as those classes would be out of comparision. Fighter would be instead compared to, let's say, ranger, and wizard to druid or cleric. And would be balanced in comparision to them. But as-is, all these classes are theoretically balanced to each other- on lower levels it actually works in practice, but when it stops to, it's an imbalance. We already have thing like that in D&D in form of NPC classes.
Though frankly, I'd just like a balanced system without any "tiers" or anything.

Personally, I'm of the mind that if the book explicitly calls a facet of their game unbalanced, that doesn't mean it's balanced, it means it's unbalanced.

I'm not sure we can reconcile this disagreement, though, as it appears to be with the very definition of 'balance'.

And NPC classes explicitly aren't intended to be played by characters. That's why they're called NPC classes, and why I specifically noted that the unbalanced M&M powers are, by their RAW (which I don't think is held nearly as sacred in the M&M system as it is in D&D, by the way), availible to players. I think if something is intended for player usage, it is a distinguishing factor as well.

Example: Divine Ranks in present D&D are not balanced with other mechanics; but it's pretty clear that they are inaccessable to almost all PC groups, so nobody complains.

Morty
2007-10-26, 11:26 AM
Personally, I'm of the mind that if the book explicitly calls a facet of their game unbalanced, that doesn't mean it's balanced, it means it's unbalanced.

I'm not sure we can reconcile this disagreement, though, as it appears to be with the very definition of 'balance'.

And NPC classes explicitly aren't intended to be played by characters. That's why they're called NPC classes, and why I specifically noted that the unbalanced M&M powers are, by their RAW (which I don't think is held nearly as sacred in the M&M system as it is in D&D, by the way), availible to players. I think if something is intended for player usage, it is a distinguishing factor as well.

Example: Divine Ranks in present D&D are not balanced with other mechanics; but it's pretty clear that they are inaccessable to almost all PC groups, so nobody complains.

Alright then, I guess I have to start with my definition of imbalance: imbalance is when two or more options are supposed to be equally benefical to character, but one is blatantly stronger than others, either because one is too powerful, or others are too weak. Situations like that is with TWF and THF- they're supposed to be equal fighting styles, but it's not worth it to fight with two weapons from mechanical point of view. Now, if two options aren't meant to be equal, then it's alright if one thing is more powerful than other. If wizard was described as more powerful class than fighter and therefore not to be compared with him, that'd be balance, just in different way. For example, careers from WFRPG- they aren't supposed to be balanced, so noone claims that WFRPG is unbalanced. Though on the other hand, WFRPG wizards aren't as overpowered as D&D ones even despite that.

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 11:58 AM
If an imbalance is explictly stated, it's not imbalance anymore. I find this statement absurd. If something is imbalanced, and that imbalance is explicitly stated, then it's imbalanced.... it is, in fact, explicitly imbalanced.



In a Balanced system there are no options where some classes are weaker or stronger than others.

That is a bit of a black/white fallacy: balance does not mean that the classes must be identical, but that overall, each can bring about as much to the table as the others, and not dominate the game.You know, from comments like these I get the impression that we're discussing radically different degrees of balance. I guess that's unsurprising, considering such a degree was never specified.Using his definition of balance, it's easy to show an example of something that can be in a unbalanced system that cannot be in his balanced system: You cannot have a situation where one class can consistently can bring more to the table another.

Which means that his balanced system has less options than an unbalanced system can have, and those lack of options are directly caused by removing things in the name of balance.

Morty
2007-10-26, 12:11 PM
I find this statement absurd. If something is imbalanced, and that imbalance is explicitly stated, then it's imbalanced.... it is, in fact, explicitly imbalanced.

Well, this may've been awkward statement, but I belive I've pointed out what I mean preety well in rest of my posts- enen in the post you're quoting. In short, if classes or options aren't supposed to be equal, it's not imbalance. In D&D, they are.


Using his definition of balance, it's easy to show an example of something that can be in a unbalanced system that cannot be in his balanced system: You cannot have a situation where one class can consistently can bring more to the table another.

Which means that his balanced system has less options than an unbalanced system can have, and those lack of options are directly caused by removing things in the name of balance.

No, not removing. Changing. In order to have balanced core D&D, you wouldn't have to drop anything, just change what is unbalanced. Maybe *gasp* ADD something. And if you absolutely *must* have character that's just plainly more powerful than everyone else, you just make him absurdly high level or give him/her powerful stats or double his/her class abilities. That's easier than balancing unbalanced system.

Alex12
2007-10-26, 12:18 PM
I find this statement absurd. If something is imbalanced, and that imbalance is explicitly stated, then it's imbalanced.... it is, in fact, explicitly imbalanced.

Using his definition of balance, it's easy to show an example of something that can be in a unbalanced system that cannot be in his balanced system: You cannot have a situation where one class can consistently can bring more to the table another.

Which means that his balanced system has less options than an unbalanced system can have, and those lack of options are directly caused by removing things in the name of balance.

Personally, I disagree. If a certain class can bring more to the table in certain situations, but other classes have a chance to shine in other situations that are of similar interest and importance (and I don't mean like in solo adventures or in the "Cleric shines as a healbot, Rogue can disable traps, but Wizards are best in every situation that is actually interesting" sense) then it's balanced.
Make it so that the Rogue's skills at sneaking around are actually useful, or the monk is actually a half-decent character to play.

Put it this way. Which is more common, flying enemies (which render the melee characters like the Fighter and Barbarian effectively useless) or AMF fields (which do the same to spellcasters). If you said AMF fields, I am going to reach through these tubes and hurt you.

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 12:25 PM
No, not removing. Changing. In order to have balanced core D&D, you wouldn't have to drop anything, just change what is unbalanced. Maybe *gasp* ADD something. And if you absolutely *must* have character that's just plainly more powerful than everyone else, you just make him absurdly high level or give him/her powerful stats or double his/her class abilities. That's easier than balancing unbalanced system.Yes, removing. those "changed" classes can exist in the unbalanced system right along next to the balanced one. The unbalanced options are removed. The unbalanced system can be a superset of the balanced one, including things that cannot be in the balanced system.

Or are you seriously claiming that you can have a class that can consistently bring more to the table than any other and dominate the game or a class that consistently bring less to the table than any other in a system where "each can bring about as much to the table as the others, and not dominate the game?"

Those options are quite clearly removed in the name of balance. If you change those classes so that they no longer are weaker or stronger than the other classes, then have removed the option to play a class that is stronger or weaker than other classes.

Morty
2007-10-26, 12:29 PM
Yes, removing. those "changed" classes can exist in the unbalanced system right along next to the balanced one. The unbalanced options are removed. The unbalanced system can be a superset of the balanced one, including things that cannot be in the balanced system.

Are you seriously claiming that you can have a class that can consistently bring more to the table than any other and dominate the game or a class that consistently bring less to the table than any other in a system where "each can bring about as much to the table as the others, and not dominate the game?"

Those options are quite clearly removed in the name of balance. If you change those classes so that they no longer are weaker or stronger than the other classes, then have removed the option to play a class that is stronger or weaker than other classes.

Why make a class which sole purpose is to be better than others? If you want a character that consistently brings more to the table than other, it's childishly easy to do this with balanced classes.
Also, if they made two versions of wizard, one broken and one not broken, I wouldn't complain. I'd just ignore the broken one, as it's not useful in the slightest. But in D&D I don't have that choice.

Indon
2007-10-26, 12:29 PM
Alright then, I guess I have to start with my definition of imbalance: imbalance is when two or more options are supposed to be equally benefical to character, but one is blatantly stronger than others, either because one is too powerful, or others are too weak. Situations like that is with TWF and THF- they're supposed to be equal fighting styles, but it's not worth it to fight with two weapons from mechanical point of view. Now, if two options aren't meant to be equal, then it's alright if one thing is more powerful than other. If wizard was described as more powerful class than fighter and therefore not to be compared with him, that'd be balance, just in different way. For example, careers from WFRPG- they aren't supposed to be balanced, so noone claims that WFRPG is unbalanced. Though on the other hand, WFRPG wizards aren't as overpowered as D&D ones even despite that.

Well, my definition of balance is when one option has significantly more power or utility than another at an equal or lesser investment. Imbalance, then, would be anything that violates that.

It seems our definitions are close, but that mine is more generic and yours focused more on designer intent. My definition works towards balance/imbalance simply being another aspect of the game's development, and thus neither a good nor a bad thing, while yours is tailored to largely mean errors in game development, and thus almost totally a bad thing.

I think that's the big disagreement going on here; those of us who view imbalance as yet another game feature are simply being more inclusive on what imbalance is than those of us who feel that imbalance provides no advantages.

The biggest distinction would come about with the introduction of what I consider to be intentional imbalance; a system can be balanced by your reckoning, while including copious amounts of imbalance by mine.

So, I think we could resolve this by postulating a system in which various levels of power/utility-for-investment are possible, but this system is noted as such.

Please note that levels or other uniform indicators of power do not fulfill this function because they represent an increase in character investment for an increase in power, and thus present no inherent imbalance capability by my definition. Only a power-by-rate measurement, which would model exponential power/utility growth by character investment, would be appropriate here.

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 12:33 PM
Personally, I disagree. If a certain class can bring more to the table in certain situations, but other classes have a chance to shine in other situations that are of similar interest and importance (and I don't mean like in solo adventures or in the "Cleric shines as a healbot, Rogue can disable traps, but Wizards are best in every situation that is actually interesting" sense) then it's balanced.
Make it so that the Rogue's skills at sneaking around are actually useful, or the monk is actually a half-decent character to play.

Put it this way. Which is more common, flying enemies (which render the melee characters like the Fighter and Barbarian effectively useless) or AMF fields (which do the same to spellcasters). If you said AMF fields, I am going to reach through these tubes and hurt you.I don't understand what you are disagreeing with. I'm talking strictly about the number of options in a more balanced system vs the number of options in an less balanced system. Nothing that you state here has anything to do with that, so I don't see how you are disagreeing, or how you are making a counter argument. Did you quote the wrong poster by mistake?

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 12:43 PM
Why make a class which sole purpose is to be better than others? Just because you do not find value in a particular option does mean that it doesn't exist.


If you want a character that consistently brings more to the table than other, it's childishly easy to do this with balanced classes. Not character.... CLASS. If you want to show that no options are removed in making a system with balanced classes, then you need to demonstrate a way to have a CLASS that can "consistently bring more to the table than any other and dominate the game" in a system with balanced classes, where "each [class] can bring about as much to the table as the others, and not dominate the game."


Also, if they made two versions of wizard, one brokenunbalanced and one not brokenunbalanced, I wouldn't complain. I'd just ignore the brokenunbalanced one, as it's not useful in the slightest. But in D&D I don't have that choice.I think the topic at hand is a theoretical balanced system, not D&D specifically, so I fail to see the relevance of what D&D offers.

Morty
2007-10-26, 12:44 PM
Well, my definition of balance is when one option has significantly more power or utility than another at an equal or lesser investment. Imbalance, then, would be anything that violates that.

:smallconfused: It may be due to my english not being perfect, but I don't see anything in your definition that I'd connect with balance.


It seems our definitions are close, but that mine is more generic and yours focused more on designer intent. My definition works towards balance/imbalance simply being another aspect of the game's development, and thus neither a good nor a bad thing, while yours is tailored to largely mean errors in game development, and thus almost totally a bad thing.

I think that's the big disagreement going on here; those of us who view imbalance as yet another game feature are simply being more inclusive on what imbalance is than those of us who feel that imbalance provides no advantages.

It indeed looks like that.


The biggest distinction would come about with the introduction of what I consider to be intentional imbalance; a system can be balanced by your reckoning, while including copious amounts of imbalance by mine.

So, I think we could resolve this by postulating a system in which various levels of power/utility-for-investment are possible, but this system is noted as such.

Such system would make sense, but I don't think it's necessary to do this in D&D. In theoretical balanced D&D, if you want to make someone differ in power, give them different stats or just arbitrarily give them or take from them some class features, and most players want their characters to be equally useful.


Please note that levels or other uniform indicators of power do not fulfill this function because they represent an increase in character investment for an increase in power, and thus present no inherent imbalance capability by my definition. Only a power-by-rate measurement, which would model exponential power/utility growth by character investment, would be appropriate here.

No disagreement here. Though I still think that levels reduce the need for intentional diversity in power or utility.


Just because you do not find value in a particular option does mean that it doesn't exist.

It's funny when you say it, as so far you've been dismissing the idea of balance just because you don't like it.


Not character.... CLASS. If you want to show that no options are removed in making a system with balanced classes, then you need to demonstrate a way to have a class that can "consistently bring more to the table than any other and dominate the game" in a system with balanced classes, where "each [class] can bring about as much to the table as the others, and not dominate the game."

Which is my whole point. If you want one character to bring more than other, there's no need to create classes specifically for that. So you lose nothing.


I think the topic at hand is a theoretical balanced system, not D&D specifically, so I fail to see the relevance of what D&D offers.

Why? D&D is system as any other, so I might as well use it as an example. Especially since D&D is unblanced, but it's not meant to be like this. And anyway, in no matter what system if two options gave my character the same -in this case ability to cast spells- but one was broken and one wasn't, I'd just ignore the broken one.

Indon
2007-10-26, 01:00 PM
:smallconfused: It may be due to my english not being perfect, but I don't see anything in your definition that I'd connect with balance.


Oops! I'd meant to write the definition of imbalance, but apparently mixed myself up.



Such system would make sense, but I don't think it's necessary to do this in D&D. In theoretical balanced D&D, if you want to make someone differ in power, give them different stats or just arbitrarily give them or take from them some class features, and most players want their characters to be equally useful.


In theoretical multi-tiered D&D, it would be easier to introduce varying power functions by simply using, say, the Wizard over the Magic-User, rather than having to rewrite the Magic-User class. (Much like it is easier in the theoretical balanced D&D to balance classes than it is in standard D&D)

You may not use that feature. But I think it evident that at least a few people in this thread would.

Temp
2007-10-26, 01:04 PM
Not character.... CLASS. If you want to show that no options are removed in making a system with balanced classes, then you need to demonstrate a way to have a CLASS that can "consistently bring more to the table than any other and dominate the game" in a system with balanced classes, where "each [class] can bring about as much to the table as the others, and not dominate the game."
How about this: We put each individual character on a sort of power "tier"... a "level," if you will. Then we try to balance the classes against each other according to these "levels" so some character [on a higher "level" than the others] can consistantly "bring more to the table than any other and dominate the game"--just in case there are a couple groups who like playing in such an environment.

Morty
2007-10-26, 01:06 PM
Oops! I'd meant to write the definition of imbalance, but apparently mixed myself up.

Ah. Well, now your definition makes sense.


In theoretical multi-tiered D&D, it would be easier to introduce varying power functions by simply using, say, the Wizard over the Magic-User, rather than having to rewrite the Magic-User class. (Much like it is easier in the theoretical balanced D&D to balance classes than it is in standard D&D)

You may not use that feature. But I think it evident that at least a few people in this thread would.

True. But this thread is about balancing a system, so the discussion's gone a bit offtopic, I think. But I agree that multi-tiered system has its merits even if it causes a bit off mess. . However, I still think that muli-tiered system would be indeed balanced.

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 01:15 PM
It's funny when you say it, as so far you've been dismissing the idea of balance just because you don't like it.Totally different situations

I dismiss the value of balance, because I don't think it has any value. I am not denying that it exists.

you are dismissing the options themselves, because you don't think that they have value. You are denying that the even exist.


Which is my whole point. If you want one character to bring more than other, there's no need to create classes specifically for that.That's not the requirement... the requirement is to have a CLASS that can "consistently bring more to the table than any other and dominate the game" in a system with balanced classes, where "each [class] can bring about as much to the table as the others, and not dominate the game." otherwise, you are losing an option (the fact that it's an option that you don't value doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.)


True. But this thread is about balancing a system, so the discussion's gone a bit offtopic, I think. But I agree that multi-tiered system has its merits even if it causes a bit off mess. . However, I still think that muli-tiered system would be indeed balanced.The topic is Thoughts on what a "balanced" system would look like, not balancing some specific system, so people's thoughts on the value of that balancing itself, as well as alternatives that give a better mix of the advantages of balance and imbalance are certainly on topic.

Morty
2007-10-26, 01:18 PM
Totally different situations

I dismiss the value of balance, because I don't think it has any value. I am not denying that it exists.

you are dismissing the options themselves, because you don't think that they have value. You are denying that the even exist.

I don't. I deny their value, just as you do. I deny the value of having an option to play a stronger class just for the sake of it being stronger.


That's not the requirement... the requirement is to have a CLASS that can "consistently bring more to the table than any other and dominate the game" in a system with balanced classes, where "each [class] can bring about as much to the table as the others, and not dominate the game." otherwise, you are losing an option (the fact that it's an option that you don't value doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.)

But why would you want to have such an option if you don't have to? This option certainly exists, but it's just an option for the sake of being an option.

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 01:31 PM
I don't. I deny their value, just as you do. I deny the value of having an option to play a stronger class just for the sake of it being stronger.Actually, I'm pretty sure that you stated "Balanced system does not limit options" ie, you're denying that options exist that cannot be done in a balanced system.


But why would you want to have such an option if you don't have to? This option certainly exists, but it's just an option for the sake of being an option.Because it can be fun, even if you don't enjoy it?

It strikes me as the same as asking "why make a sci-fi RPG when there are fantasy based ones that you could be playing instead?"

Morty
2007-10-26, 01:37 PM
Actually, I'm pretty sure that you stated "Balanced system does not limit options" ie, you're denying that options exist that cannot be done in a balanced system.

If you consider meaningless option an option, you have a point. But then every single system except freeform limits your options.


Because it can be fun, even if you don't enjoy it?

It strikes me as the same as asking "why make a sci-fi RPG when there are fantasy based ones that you could be playing instead?"

I know well it's fun for some people. But you can do this with balanced classes. Your comparision with sc-fi/fantasy is utterly missed, as those are two different things. Plus, it works both ways. Some people want to play balanced system -the reasons have been repeated several times- and that's the purpose of this thread.

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 01:45 PM
If you consider meaningless option an option, you have a point. Yes, I consider an option an option, even if you think that it's a meaningless one.


I know well it's fun for some people. But you can do this with balanced classes.Nope, you can't. There are abilities that quite simply cannot be balanced against.


Your comparision with sc-fi/fantasy is utterly missed, as those are two different things.people like to have options.

Some people like to have options that other people don't like.

That doesn't mean that is "just an option for the sake of being an option." any more than having a sci-fi based RPG is.

In both cases, it's an option for the sake of people liking it.


Plus, it works both ways. Some people want to play balanced system -the reasons have been repeated several times- and that's the purpose of this thread.people who want to play in a balanced game can limit themselves to the balanced classes... there's no need for the system to do it for them, and there's no reason that a system can't include classes that are balanced against each other in addition to ones that aren't; an unbalanced like that has options for everyone, and is far superior to one that forces all of it's options it the same sort of mold.

Morty
2007-10-26, 01:51 PM
Nope, you can't. There are abilities that quite simply cannot be balanced against.

Your point? I wasn't talking about balancing any abilities, but that you can have power diversity in balanced system, you just need to unbalance it.


people who want to play in a balanced game can limit themselves to the balanced classes... there's no need for the system to do it for them, and there's no reason that a system can't include classes that are balanced against each other in addition to ones that aren't; an unbalanced like that has options for everyone, and is far superior to one that forces all of it's options it the same sort of mold.

And people who want to play balanced systems can unbalance balanced ones without any effort. Or they can just play systems that are meant to be unbalanced. Either way, the purpose of this thread is to concieve ways for the system to be balanced. Finally, belive one thing: some people just prefer to play balanced systems no matter how much you'll dismiss them.

Dausuul
2007-10-26, 02:04 PM
people who want to play in a balanced game can limit themselves to the balanced classes...

If they know what those classes are, and if the system is built such that leaving out the unbalanced classes does not deprive them of options appropriate to the game and the setting.

For example, if I'm playing D&D, a swords-and-sorcery game, it is appropriate to the game and setting to have an arcane caster option. Therefore, there ought to be a balanced arcane caster option. In 3.5E Core, this is not the case. Therefore, the imbalance in 3.5E Core is a bad thing.

You could, I suppose, include a blatantly unbalanced arcane caster option as well, and say, "This class is blatantly unbalanced. Do not allow this class if you care about game balance. Here are the consequences that often follow allowing the use of unbalanced classes..."

I still don't understand why you'd want that, and if I were a WotC designer, I'd consider making such a class to be a waste of my time. I'd be inclined to say "If you want an unbalanced caster, we suggest a gestalt wizard/cleric with spontaneous casting of every spell he knows, who's 2 levels higher than the rest of the party." But it could be done.

What I do strongly object to is a system where the only arcane caster classes available are unbalanced.


there's no need for the system to do it for them, and there's no reason that a system can't include classes that are balanced against each other in addition to ones that aren't; an unbalanced like that has options for everyone, and is far superior to one that forces all of it's options it the same sort of mold.

Contrary to popular belief, more options is not always a good thing. Each option adds to the cognitive overhead of the game, both from a design and a play perspective. Not only that, but it adds to the cost of the books--you have to pay someone to design and test each option, you have to pay for the extra pages, you have to pay for the binding and the ink.

The best designed games are the ones that provide great flexibility in play, with a limited number of mechanical options.

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-26, 02:05 PM
Guys. Come on. If you want to have the option for one player to play a stronger character, why not have all the classes be balanced and let that player start at a HIGHER LEVEL? After all, players expect power to be balanced by level, and thus making that choice is a good deal more intuitive (and intuitive mechanics is pretty much universally recognized as good design). The option to play an overpowered character is available even in a theoretical perfectly balanced system, because you can just play a higher level than the other characters. It's the same effect you already get, after all.

So all this about "you can't have balance because we want the option to be more powerful" is tripe. The option exists as long as levels do.

Indon
2007-10-26, 02:12 PM
Nope, you can't. There are abilities that quite simply cannot be balanced against.


Not by the way you and I view balance, no, but by the way M0rt views balance, there's a way around it; by simply labeling more or less potent options as a higher or lower "tier" of power, options can be addressed and categorized so that they are invoked when needed.

For instance, a lower-power "tier" may never introduce true flight with its' magic, while a higher-power tier may introduce it early or even readily allow non-magical individuals to gain it through some variant of sheer awesomeness. These two tiers are unbalanced against each other, but some may feel that because they are balanced among themselves, that is sufficient to describe the system as balanced.

Morty
2007-10-26, 02:18 PM
Guys. Come on. If you want to have the option for one player to play a stronger character, why not have all the classes be balanced and let that player start at a HIGHER LEVEL? After all, players expect power to be balanced by level, and thus making that choice is a good deal more intuitive (and intuitive mechanics is pretty much universally recognized as good design). The option to play an overpowered character is available even in a theoretical perfectly balanced system, because you can just play a higher level than the other characters. It's the same effect you already get, after all.

So all this about "you can't have balance because we want the option to be more powerful" is tripe. The option exists as long as levels do.

QFT here, plus you can always make your character arbitrarily more powerful if DM and other players agree.


Not by the way you and I view balance, no, but by the way M0rt views balance, there's a way around it; by simply labeling more or less potent options as a higher or lower "tier" of power, options can be addressed and categorized so that they are invoked when needed.

For instance, a lower-power "tier" may never introduce true flight with its' magic, while a higher-power tier may introduce it early or even readily allow non-magical individuals to gain it through some variant of sheer awesomeness. These two tiers are unbalanced against each other, but some may feel that because they are balanced among themselves, that is sufficient to describe the system as balanced.

Or by simply claiming that flight is very powerful ability even in terms of spellcasting and make him hard to attain, which means making it high-level spell, limiting its duration and so on. This works both with tiers and without them.

Dausuul
2007-10-26, 02:21 PM
If you have a properly balanced measuring system, then a one-ounce lead weight will weigh the same as a one-ounce bag of feathers.

That does not mean a one-pound lead weight will also weigh the same as a one-ounce bag of feathers.

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 02:22 PM
What I do strongly object to is a system where the only arcane caster classes available are unbalanced.Funny, that's what I expect and want out of D&D... it's pretty much the only reason that I play it, when I do. If I want to play low magic, or magic that is more gritty and balanced, I'll play one of the systems that does that well.


You could, I suppose, include a blatantly unbalanced arcane caster option as well, and say, "This class is blatantly unbalanced. Do not allow this class if you care about game balance. Here are the consequences that often follow allowing the use of unbalanced classes..."You can also include less-than-blatantly-unbalanced arcane caster option as well. Several different layers of them.

and I'm not sure what sort of idiots you think are playing D&D who would need a warning label for character classes...


more options is not always a good thing. Yep, more options are always a good thing. less options are always a bad thing.


If you want to have the option for one player to play a stronger character, why not have all the classes be balanced and let that player start at a HIGHER LEVEL? </snip> It's the same effect you already get, after all.No, it's not the same effect. Being a fixed number of levels higher does not have the same affect of changing the balance of power between characters as they advance; that one character is always more powerful, and always by the same amount, while with unbalanced classes that difference may change over time, or even invert itself.


Not by the way you and I view balance, no, but by the way M0rt views balance, there's a way around it; by simply labeling more or less potent options as a higher or lower "tier" of power, options can be addressed and categorized so that they are invoked when needed.Actually, in this specific case he's talking about replacing unbalanced classes with balanced ones and then giving a level advantage, which simply does not allow for the same types of imbalances...

while the tiers thing is an interesting idea, I'm not sure that it can be done without losing all of the flavor that makes the game system worth playing in the first place.

OneWinged4ngel
2007-10-26, 02:28 PM
No, it's not the same effect. Being a fixed number of levels higher does not have the same affect of changing the balance of power between characters as they advance; that one character is always more powerful, and always by the same amount, while with unbalanced classes that difference may change over time, or even invert itself.
Make the lower level person gain more XP, so they eventually pass them, then. All too easy.

Seriously though, "pay for it now, rock later" or "be good now, but suck later" is just a bad idea, because most games are not going to go from 1-20.

Indon
2007-10-26, 02:30 PM
Or by simply claiming that flight is very powerful ability even in terms of spellcasting and make him hard to attain, which means making it high-level spell, limiting its duration and so on. This works both with tiers and without them.

That wouldn't allow you to introduce flight early. That would in fact force you to create a late-game character in order to introduce the ability.

Morty
2007-10-26, 02:32 PM
That wouldn't allow you to introduce flight early. That would in fact force you to create a late-game character in order to introduce the ability.

And why should flight be introduced early? Ability to fly isn't something that should be taken lightly even in high magic world.

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 02:32 PM
Make the lower level person gain more XP, so they eventually pass them, then.

Seriously though, "pay for it now, rock later" or "be good now, but suck later"are not a good basis for balance in any sense, because most games *don't go 1-20*.Nope... still doesn't work.

and what would I care about whether it's a good basis for balance, since I don't value balance in the slightest?

I like the fact that some classes start off weak/strong/in the middle, and then get stronger/weaker/both over time. To me, that's one of the main features (meaning "good things") of a class and level based system, and without it I don't seen any reason to bother play in that system.


And why should flight be introduced early? Ability to fly isn't something that should be taken lightly even in high magic world.Why not? Skeeve learned it in the first book, and he's pretty crappy as magicians go...

Morty
2007-10-26, 02:38 PM
Why not? Skeeve learned it in the first book, and he's pretty crappy as magicians go...

I'm not familiar with this Skeeve... what book he appears in? Anyway, just because it appeared in a book doesn't mean it's good. Flight spells shouldn't be taken lightly, balanced system or not, in my opinion. They let you friggin fly, after all.

Indon
2007-10-26, 02:40 PM
And why should flight be introduced early? Ability to fly isn't something that should be taken lightly even in high magic world.

Have you ever seen the anime Dragonball? Not Dragonball Z, but its' predecessor.

Though I'll give another example. There's an epic feat that grants +1 Base Attack Bonus. With different tiers, you could have a lower-level character who takes that feat once, reflecting that he is even better at combat than an equal-level fighter, through sheer skill. Without different tiers, he needs to be epic... and if you have an epic character in a non-epic campaign, the guy doesn't need the feat. If anything, you'd need to vastly reduce his BAB, as well as every one of the guy's other level-based capabilities.

"Just make a custom feat!" you say. "Rule 0 lets you DM however you want even when the game isn't condusive to your style of play."

To which I reply, "Then why did we need to balance it in the first place?"

Clearly, the answer is to get what we want out of the game with minimal editing, to include versatility of the system.

Dausuul
2007-10-26, 02:43 PM
Funny, that's what I expect and want out of D&D... it's pretty much the only reason that I play it, when I do. If I want to play low magic, or magic that is more gritty and balanced, I'll play one of the systems that does that well.

So, it's fine to have the unbalanced arcane caster that you want because I can just play without it, but it's not fine to have the balanced arcane caster that I want because you can't be bothered to rule it out of your games?


and I'm not sure what sort of idiots you think are playing D&D who would need a warning label for character classes...

Oh, I don't know, maybe people who've never played D&D before? Not everyone is a veteran. Or maybe people who've never played certain classes, or seen them played skillfully, and thus haven't spotted the balance issues yet?

I know this seems bizarre to someone steeped in the lore of this forum, but MOST OF THE BALANCE ISSUES IN D&D ARE NOT IMMEDIATELY OBVIOUS. Most of the classes, feats, and so on look relatively well-balanced at a glance. It's only when you really dig into the numbers and try them out in play that the problems become apparent. Indeed, some of the classes that initially look overpowered are in fact quite weak--the monk being a case in point.

A well-built game does not demand that its players be game designers themselves. If the designers are going to deliberately include unbalanced classes for some bizarre reason, they ought to at least mark them as such and put in warnings for novice players.


Yep, more options are always a good thing. less options are always a bad thing.

No, they're not, for the reasons I already explained. If you have a counter-argument, please make it.


No, it's not the same effect. Being a fixed number of levels higher does not have the same affect of changing the balance of power between characters as they advance; that one character is always more powerful, and always by the same amount, while with unbalanced classes that difference may change over time, or even invert itself.

Okay, then, give one player a special effect that makes them start out two levels higher, then gradually fall back as they advance, until they're two levels lower. An XP penalty, as an increasing percentage based on level, might do the trick.


while the tiers thing is an interesting idea, I'm not sure that it can be done without losing all of the flavor that makes the game system worth playing in the first place.

Bwah? Explain. What flavor exactly are you talking about?


Nope... still doesn't work.

Does too.

(I've decided that this is the only appropriate response to these unsupported assertions.)

Serenity
2007-10-26, 03:08 PM
Funny, that's what I expect and want out of D&D... [unbalanced arcane casters are] pretty much the only reason that I play it, when I do. If I want to play low magic, or magic that is more gritty and balanced, I'll play one of the systems that does that well.

You can also include less-than-blatantly-unbalanced arcane caster option as well. Several different layers of them.

Except whenever we try to talk about what a balanced arcane caster would look like, you come along and say that 'balance has no value'. In the same breath there, you condemned the idea of balanced options as something that would ruin D&D for you, then tell us we can just deal with our dislike of imbalance by adding balanced options. Do you really not see the contradiction here?

You think balance has no value? Fine, that's your opinion, and you're free to have it. Just like the rest of us are free to say that imbalance has no value. Honestly, I have no idea how a party made up of Commoners and a Druid could be fun for anyone but the Druid.

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 03:36 PM
Except whenever we try to talk about what a balanced arcane caster would look like, you come along and say that 'balance has no value'. In the same breath there, you condemned the idea of balanced options as something that would ruin D&D for you, then tell us we can just deal with our dislike of imbalance by adding balanced options. Do you really not see the contradiction here?No, sorry, you're inventing the contradiction

I said that I do not put any value on class balance since it removes my reason for playing D&D. I said that having unbalanced arcane casters are a feature that I like from D&D.

By less-than-blatantly-unbalanced I still unbalanced.

I do not say that there is any problem also adding arcane casters that are more balanced, so adding a balanced arcane caster would not "ruin D&D for me" as long as those unbalanced ones are still present.

The designers adding a balanced arcane caster without removing the unbalanced one does not make the game a balanced system, but makes the game playable for people who are concerned about class balance, without getting rid of the advantages of imbalance for the people who like it.

I fail to see a contradiction in any of that.


I'm not familiar with this Skeeve... what book he appears in? Anyway, just because it appeared in a book doesn't mean it's good. Flight spells shouldn't be taken lightly, balanced system or not, in my opinion. They let you friggin fly, after all.Skeeve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythAdventures): a prototypical inept apprentice that over the next few books blossoms into a less-than-competent magician (though not bad for a Klahd). Levitation/flight is one of the simpler types of magic in that world.


Okay, then, give one player a special effect that makes them start out two levels higher, then gradually fall back as they advance, until they're two levels lower. An XP penalty, as an increasing percentage based on level, might do the trick.That just lets them start off strong and then gradually get weaker in an entirely linear manner... it doesn't even come close to approximating the subtle (or even not so subtle) difference that happen between classes as they level; it only allows for one type.

And having to plan out the imbalances is not the same as just going with the flow and not worrying about it and enjoying them as they happen.


Bwah? Explain. What flavor exactly are you talking about?Flavor, it's the stuff that makes a game worth playing...

Specifically, I meant that a tiered design sounds like it's going in the same direction as one of the OP suggestions, where a wizard would just be using attack_tier3 with type magic and subtype fire while the warrior is using attack_tier3 with type melee and subtype slashing.... it doesn't really matter what sort of cool names you slap on it, it sounds pretty flavorless to me.

Dausuul
2007-10-26, 03:52 PM
That just lets them start off strong and then gradually get weaker in an entirely linear manner... it doesn't even come close to approximating the subtle (or even not so subtle) difference that happen between classes as they level; it only allows for one type.

And having to plan out the imbalances is not the same as just going with the flow and not worrying about it and enjoying them as they happen.

Then multiply each of your XP awards by 1d20 x 10%. Or write up your own XP table. Whatever.

The thing is, you're asking for a system where we have to house-rule balance in. I think it's just as valid to ask for a system where you have to house-rule it out--in fact, rather more valid, since it's one whole hell of a lot easier to take a balanced system and unbalance it than it is to do the opposite.


Specifically, I meant that a tiered design sounds like it's going in the same direction as one of the OP suggestions, where a wizard would just be using attack_tier3 with type magic and subtype fire while the warrior is using attack_tier3 with type melee and subtype slashing.... it doesn't really matter what sort of cool names you slap on it, it sounds pretty flavorless to me.

Would you like another straw man?

Nobody is arguing for any such system. I agree that a system like that would be fantastically boring, but there are plenty of ways to make class abilities balanced within the tiers--not perfectly so, perfect balance is unattainable in any system that allows characters to be different, but reasonably well-balanced.

Thoughtbot360
2007-10-26, 04:20 PM
First of all, I'd like to apologize for my long absence since starting this thread. I had a rough draft of ideas, but I wasn't certain how to introduce them without dominating the debate I wanted to start with this thread. It seems I had nothing to worry about there, this place has exploded.


I think it more like using the fruit-flavored syrups provided to you at IHOP. Mmm, boysenberry...

And I don't think it an exaggeration, since I was only speaking of the biggest violations of balance. More subtle imbalances, such as the weakness of sword-and-board styles compared to Two-Weapon Fighting and 2-Handed weapon Power Attack, and in general the offense-defense imbalance which encourages extremely fast combat, are much more difficult to fix than just removing problematic spells.

Actually, I'm glad you brought up the different weapon styles. I once thought D&D did do this right. And I thought the optimal weapon choices were

Bastard Sword (or Dwarven Waraxe) and Shield (for AC and accuracy)
Greatsword (for accuracy and damage)
Dual-weilding bastard swords (for really high damage -2d10- at cost of accuracy)

I thought I was clever when I made a Dwarven dual-wield Ranger (Dwarves get Dwarven Waraxes for free with martial weapon proficency, and they are equal to Bastard Swords, pretty much.) Till someone pointed out to me that the to-hit and damage penalties actually put me below a Great Sword and that dual wielding a Great Sword with Armor Spikes (on the elbows I guess, they just exploited some errata that lets them use Armor Spikes offhand) does 3d6 + 1.5 str with great sword + .5 str with spikes. More reliably because armor spikes are a light weapon.

However, since we are talking a different system, a simple description of a possible balance between weapon and shield, 2 weapon, and 2-handed could be:

2 weapons: In reality, two weapon fighters use one weapon to parry while using the other one to strike. They might say, defend with a dagger because its small and easy to maneuver (and less likely you will hit your other arm) and attack with a rapier because it has more reach. Only occasionally will the swashbuckler actually attack with the dagger. He will parry and attack, at the time. And this is a difficult skill, so a little bit of a feat tree (or whatever, I actually kind of like as a non-level system and just say this skill is very expensive in experience points to learn and improve) is appropriate, but supposedly, its worth the hassle. This is the true model of the two-weapon fighter, not the ninja from Final Fantasy Tactics. However, a shield will provide better protection. So why not use a shield? Lets explore that one next, and find out.

Sword-and-Shield: The sword and shield are bit easier to learn and provide better protection. However, shields tend to get destroyed. I'm going to quote Musashi (http://www.mu.ranter.net/theory/economy.html#decay) again for this one: ...in a spoiler.

Shields are a special case. Shields are always mishandled in fantasy RPG's, unless you happen to playing GURPS with every little impossible to find variant rule in the book. Shields were considered disposable items. A typical shield was made primarily of layered wood, edged with metal to absorb chops to its sides, and maybe reinforced with bands, though this made them cumbersome. The proper use of a shield was as an angled deflector to shove kinetic energy to the side, or (if you were feeling lucky) you might try to catch an incoming swing on the metal bands to catch or break an enemy's weapon. Regardless, you can only punish a shield for so long, and they were generally discarded after one battle. The all-metal shield model so popular in fantasy imagery would be too damn heavy to lug around on the field, let alone carried on a mountain trek. A buckler might be made primarily of metal, but bucklers are exceptionally small and require great skill to use effectively, and still aren't indestructible.
So shields will be around for only one or two battles and they cannot be repaired. The weapons are a liiiiiittle bit more durable. So a two weapon fighter might in fact have better defense over the course of the day. And even if you have back up shields (sashed away somewhere...) you will spend at least some of the battle with a broken shield when it finally dies (or when it has a gaping hole right through it). Another limitation is that you cannot hold up your shield to protect yourself and attack at the same time. Maybe the system is turn-based like D&D and you have your own cushy little turn to be free to attack, but that can still allow for this diversity.

You just need to either allow for the dual-wielder to "counter-attack" anyone who attacks him; or shield users need to have the option to spend a move-equivalent action (or whatever) to do defensive maneuver that basically boils down to "hiding behind your shield" which means your shield bonus to AC is higher than when you don't take this action; or both! In that same vein, shield bashing should be weak, of situational use, or damage the shield. Possibly all the above if the designer feels its necessary.

The perishability of shields means there will be nobody like for instance, Goofy from Kingdom Hearts.

Goofy: I'm a shield-bash Fighter, hyuk! (http://sephyrfaith.deviantart.com/art/Knight-Goofy-Of-Kingdom-Hearts-66953833) (Yes, that is the best image I could find on short notice.)

Silence, Goofy. :smallannoyed: Anyway, losing this.....archetype....such as it is, and narrowing down the range of viable weapon skills is a price I'm willing to pay.

2 handed: Some weapons really do take two hands to use, but sometimes, people dual wield a one-handed weapon for better damage and/or reach (and if they don't have a shield or other weapon, what else can they do with that hand?) Just having both hands improves your grip and reduces the chances of being disarmed, but also means you have better control over a weapons momentum, therefore it also allows you to power attack.

Cleric with a shield and mace: He hides behind his shield then extends his arm, and swings it forward less than 45 degrees and with a flick of his wrist *whack!* he lands a blow into the side of his enemy's ribcage. Oooh! That smarts!

Barbarian, also with a mace...but no shield: He lifts his mace over his head and swings it down hard in a diagonal motion. *BOOM!* Hey, don't worry Mr. Orc, I'm sure that if you get that arm in a splint.. oh wait, now it fell all the way off, it was just slow.....ew. *BOOM!* Oh, yeah, don't worry about that either...you didn't need that brain anyway:smalleek:.

The only problem is you will be vulnerable to attacks, particular ranged attacks. Now, Two-weapon fighters might not be known for parrying incoming arrows, but they are better because you at least have two weapons to cover a larger area. Even if they can't, they will be protected from melee with their parrying skills as they close the distance between the archer and themselves. Shields have a little better endurance against arrows than other weapons, but when the shield falls of its own handle from 50 pounds of added arrow weight, the shieldbearer is going to be as naked as anyone. The two-hander starts out naked, and thats a problem.

Ta-daa! Balanced! At least in theory, but then again, theory is the point of this topic.

Dausuul
2007-10-26, 04:57 PM
I don't think I credit Musashi's claims on the disposability of shields. If shields were throw-away items, the story of Spartan mothers telling their sons to come back "with your shield or on it" would make no sense. It also seems unlikely that a Roman legion operating in the field would carry the mountains of shields required to replace them after every battle! And the descriptions given on this site (http://www.myarmoury.com/feature_shield.html) strongly suggest that too much workmanship went into shields to just toss them aside after a single fight. I'm sure they eventually got too banged up to function, or outright broke, but I'd bet they lasted longer than Musashi claims (though he does seem to be right that very few shields were made wholly of metal, ceremonial shields aside).

Fantasy RPGs generally don't bother keeping track of damage to equipment, anyway. Simplest to assume that mundane equipment is so cheap that replacing it is trivial, while magical equipment is magically durable and doesn't break except in extraordinary circumstances.

Anyway, back to balancing: I think the way to start balancing the three fighting styles would be to identify what each style ought to be good at, and design feats and maneuvers to play to those strengths.

For example, here's a possible approach (though not necessarily the only or the best one):

Sword-and-board provides the best defense of the three. More importantly, you can use your shield to cover the man standing next to you as well as yourself. Ideal for a fighter whose primary job is to protect the caster. The cost of this is reduced offensive ability.

Dual wielding allows for a wide variety of maneuvers requiring precision and speed, as well as granting a decent offense. The down side is that you have less defense than the sword-and-boarder, and your attacks won't pack as much of a punch as the two-hander's. Overall, the dual wielder has less raw power (in terms of attack power multiplied by defensive power) as the other two styles, but has access to many more clever tricks.

Two-handed weapons offer a powerful offense and superior reach. However, the lack of an off-hand item limits your defense and reduces the maneuvers available to you.

Temp
2007-10-26, 05:32 PM
Since this still hasn't been addressed and is still relevant:


Quick question: What makes this musashi guy credible at all? Seriously, I take a few issues with some of the things he's saying here, being something of a study in game design myself.

...

This commits a logical fallacy! "Something is not realistic" != "It is overpowered." The two elements are completely unrelated. *And he says things very similar to this (talking about realism in relation to balance or mechanical design) throughout his rantings.* The thing is, it's actually irrelevant. Something that's horribly unrealistic can also be totally underpowered, for example. Such as guns being able to be blocked by something as simple as a leather jacket (this happens in d20 Modern, actually). That's unrealistic of guns, and it certainly doesn't make them more devastating.

Remember kids, don't listen to arguments that use logical fallacies.

I mean, I've only just skimmed this, but... what's supposed to make this guy credible at all? Who is he? And why do we care?

Jayabalard
2007-10-26, 05:44 PM
Then multiply each of your XP awards by 1d20 x 10%. Or write up your own XP table. Whatever.Neither of those work; like I said above, it doesn't even come close to approximating the subtle (or even not so subtle) difference that happen between classes as they level. And having to plan out the imbalances is not the same as just going with the flow and not worrying about it and enjoying them as they happen.

The thing is, you're asking for a system where we have to house-rule balance in. I think it's just as valid to ask for a system where you have to house-rule it out--in fact, rather more valid, since it's one whole hell of a lot easier to take a balanced system and unbalance it than it is to do the opposite.Not really... Sure, it's easy to take a balanced system and add unbalanced garbage until it's unbalanced, but that doesn't make it fun, or even playable (which is equivalent to balancing D&D by cutting all classes except for fighters).

It's just as hard to take a balanced system and tweak it into a good unbalanced system as it is to take an unbalanced system and build a good balanced system out of it.

I'm not sure where you think I'm asking for any kind of system... I'm just stating my preferences.


Would you like another straw man?

Nobody is arguing for any such system. I agree that a system like that would be fantastically boring, but there are plenty of ways to make class abilities balanced within the tiers--not perfectly so, perfect balance is unattainable in any system that allows characters to be different, but reasonably well-balanced.In order to be a straw man I'd have to be implying that someone is arguing for that... I thought that was pretty obviously not the case, since I'm stating my own fears about the direction that a tiered design is likely to go, since that's probably the easiest way it can be done... which is why I said "I'm not sure that it can be done without losing all of the flavor that makes the game system worth playing in the first place."

Lord Zentei
2007-10-26, 06:00 PM
It seems, Jayabalard, that you are arguing a black/white fallacy with regards to what can be achieved with regards to balance, and to the effects this has upon gameplay.

From there we get to the position "balance is bad, so screw it".

And now, you're playing "no true scotsman" with possible fixes.

Rather tedious, I must say.

Dausuul
2007-10-26, 08:23 PM
Okay. Jayalabard, why don't you tell us what distinguishes a good unbalanced system from a bad unbalanced system? It hasn't been very clear thus far.

Thoughtbot360
2007-10-27, 12:15 AM
Hmm...I couldn't get back to the thread before it was flooded with comments, so I overlooked this one, but if you think its important, Temp, I'll do so.


Quick question: What makes this musashi guy credible at all? Seriously, I take a few issues with some of the things he's saying here, being something of a study in game design myself.

For example, he often seems to follow the idea that historical accuracy or basis in reality is somehow grounds for balance in a game. Such as here:

Yeah, that would be a logical fallacy, if thats what he said. However, there was also this chapter (http://www.mu.ranter.net/theory/weapons.html#realism):
that kind of concedes the point that the designer is free to implement whatever he wants to.

Realism is a good thing. If nothing else, it serves as a model of how things will develop. It is useful to know which weapons really work and how they are used, but it also applies to the stuff you make up. If you decide to use a bagh nahk even though it is a stupid, useless weapon in real life, and you decide to call it a nekode, consider the stats you give it. If it is faster than any other weapon and does more damage in a given time and is easier to learn than any other weapon, why would anyone ever want to use a quarterstaff?

So, basically, you are free to throw in a made-up weapon, but be careful you don't invalidate the other weapons. Actually, magic is a made-up weapon, and we see in D&D how it has invalidated any weapon that a fighter might pick up. Magic is pretty unrealistic, too, but Mu hasn't really called to ban it (even if he has a few choice words for it). He just says we need to balance it by limiting the power of player mages, or we could step way back and limit it to ritualistic magic that can not be done in an emergency by an adventurer, or we just leave magic up to NPCs. But he doesn't


Lets take a look at the larger paragraph your quote was written in.

Probably the biggest single source of bad rule and mechanics decisions comes from the fact that most game designers, rather than actually going to a library, base most of their research on the work of other game designers. In this way errors are compounded, unrealistic ideas are perpetuated, and design flaws from the earliest of games become commonplace in all modern iterations.

The issue actually isn't obsession with historical accuracy or realism. Its with an unwillingness of designers to start from scratch and try to design all-new mechanics, preferring to borrow from an earlier designer's work, who borrowed from another designer's work, who borrowed from, etc. etc. leading back to the Chainmail miniatures game, waaaay back in the late 60s early 70s.


Yeah... if we're talking about game mechanics, what are we getting out of the library other than sources on game mechanics? Fluff doesn't impact the functionality of mechanics.

Again, nobody is saying Fluff is impacted mechanics. I'm not sure what you mean by "we're only getting sources on game mechanics," but the story is more likely to be affected by the logical conclusions of the mechanics, not the other way around.

I believe Mu was talking about going to the library to get information on what weapons were used in a specific era (like what the game's setting is supposed to be based on) and why there were so powerful, or why the weapon in question was not. Its not about realism persay, as much as it is about dispelling any romanticized preconceptions that the designer might have had about a certain element he's including in his game (say, swords) and it might open his mind to new aspects and possibilities that come with another element he hasn't thought about much, but he was going to include in his game just because they fit the environment (say, spears).

But indeed, it might not be necessary. The chapter this was posted in was titled "the Grandfather Clause of Stupidity" and it is mostly complaining about people making "Chainmail clone X, only better." Its about originality. Its also about a handful of bad rules that apparently irritate Mu that he keeps seeing in new systems. Ultimately, it might be because he looks at it from a different angle than you do, One.



Since when did combat systems tend to be SIMPLER than noncombat systems? Seriously, I can't think of a video game craft system (off the top of my head) with more depth than many combat systems. I can't think of a skill in D&D that's "extremely long and abstract" compared to the abstraction of the combat round in D&D.

The fact that the video game systems are simpler is the problem. The computer can not make noncombat skills more than a simple algorithim that translates into point and click. You can not play Quicksilver T'ong (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35511&highlight=horrors) in a computer game. Whether or not noncombat skills are more complicated than combat rules in a pen and paper RPG is not the point. Its that complicated combat can be handled by a computer, but these player-driven activities cannot unless it was part of the story to begin with:


he is clearly just filling in a niche (Two niches at once actually: Negotiater and healer) that needs to be filled and can't be up to no good, right? Wrong. He's made deals with various sinister underworld organizations and has gathered multiple connections with monster clans that he has convinced to attack farmlands when the party is in the area. He then uses the emergency as a bargaining chip to (under the party's nose) weasal property rights of certain resources in addition to the sum of gold he shares with the party. He handles all negotiations and sometimes leads the party to attack another group of humanoids that his monsters don't like or don't care about. With Suggestion, Change self, and a minor image in the shape of a halfling with the priceless artifact the guards were questioning Quicksilver about under his arm, Mr. T'ong has screwed over countless NPCs.

You simply cannot do that. Nor can you negotiate peace between two nations. Nor can you do any social achievement with an NPC in a computer environment. Because you cannot talk just whenever. Because the computer has no way of accurately telling what you want to say (I mean what you really want to say, not just the options the game gives you) or who you want to say it to, or what their reaction should be.


In games that are not persistent, like Age of Kings (early), the trebuchet was horribly unrealistic and therefore could be used to devastating effect.


This commits a logical fallacy! "Something is not realistic" != "It is overpowered." The two elements are completely unrelated. *And he says things very similar to this (talking about realism in relation to balance or mechanical design) throughout his rantings.* The thing is, it's actually irrelevant. Something that's horribly unrealistic can also be totally underpowered, for example. Such as guns being able to be blocked by something as simple as a leather jacket (this happens in d20 Modern, actually). That's unrealistic of guns, and it certainly doesn't make them more devastating.


Remember kids, don't listen to arguments that use logical fallacies.

*Sigh* Again, you ignore the context. He was talking nerfing, and he was talking about how this *particular* weapon (trebuchet) in this *specific* game that didn't patch and fix its stats (Age of Kings) was a broken weapon because it had some qualities to it that were, by the way, unrealistic as well as game breaking. Never does he come out and say unrealistic=unbalanced.


I mean, I've only just skimmed this, but... what's supposed to make this guy credible at all? Who is he? And why do we care? :smallconfused:

You question his credibility after you only just read a little of this and that of an article on HOLISTIC game design? Sorry, but the entire article begins with, and revolves around, the idea that if this thing doesn't work, then these other things don't work. You have to read the whole thing to get it. And besides, I've been debunking all your above points repeatedly on the assertion that you didn't read it so that you understood what he was talking about at the moment. I'm beginning to suspect that somehow you read something early in your "skimming" that ticked you off, rubbed you the wrong way, and therefore, your subconscious put words in his mouth.

As for his credibility, I can't give you his college creditials, and I doubt he has a job actually designing games. He wrote this article back in the days when the only MMOs out there were Ultima Online and Asheron's Call. I know very little about him outside of his website. But I'd say he has as much credibility as well, anybody here.

However, it hurts that I don't know what kind of "credibility" you mean when you ask that question. He's just expressing his opinions on games, he's not giving a weather report, or spreading some kind of rumor. I'm afraid you need to be more specific.


As to creating a truly balanced system... as long as you're maintaining variety and choice, perfect balance is quite literally unachievable (especially in the case of a pen and paper game). Perfect balance actually requires players to all have the same capabilities (which actually happens in many multiplayer video games or board games). Instead, we strive for balance within a tolerable range, even though perfection isn't actually possible.

No arguments there. Just make it so that the fighter (and the monk- He's like Bakura, gets no screen time) doesn't look like a glorified NPC class, and make sure Forcecage (or anything like it where you cannot escape and you cannot evade) aren't seen again, and we'll call it a day.

Thoughtbot360
2007-10-27, 12:35 AM
Oh yes, on the note of the unrealistic, unbalanced trebuchets (you know, Mu's "logical fallacy), I found this from his comments (http://www.mu.ranter.net/theory/comments.html) section:



Subject: Re: Quick note for you
Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 11:38:19 -0400
From: Musashi <[email protected]>
To: Jeff Sandler <[email protected]>

The problem with the AoK trebuchet in my experience is that it doesn't act like a real trebuchet. A trebuchet is something the siege force builds on-site, because there's no way to transport it even disassembled. And, if a real trebuchet is attacked by any sort of reasonable force, it stops firing, the engineers are killed or driven off, and the lines cut. This happens immediately. The problem with the AoK trebuchet (besides the fact that it's still one unit) is that you can roll say 24 of them into a town, set them up, and destroy the town, then pack up and move on, all while under attack and unguarded... who cares if you lose a few? :P

Subject: Re: Quick note for you
Date: Tue, 15 May 2001 11:14:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jeff Sandler <[email protected]>
To: Musashi <[email protected]>

Heh. Not to let a good point (i.e. nerfing is important) morph into an tangential argument about this one game

Let me stop here and say: Thats what Onewinged4ngel did. He cherry picked a single sentence from a long article about nerfing. And morphed it into a tangential argument, this one over "realism does not equal balance."


but I gotta say I respectfully disagree.

True, they don't behave realistically. (Absolute realism rarely equates to good gameplay, of course)

But I've never seen anyone even come close to doing what you're talking about in a competitive game.

1) They're expensive to make. And can only be made at a castle (an expensive, slow-to-make building that depends on the most limited resource in the game, stone) and slowly-made at that.

2) They're lousy against anything BUT buildings

3) (most importantly) They're quickly roxxered by any non-piercing attack unit. Fully upgraded infantry or cavalry knock them down in mere seconds.

Judging from what you're saying, I think you may have only played the game in environments where opponents let you build up to huge forces relatively unmolested, or where archery is favored above all other tactics. (Perhaps you played before I started; before the game was patched to limit the range of garrisoned town centers?)

In the games I've played (and in the recorded "expert" games I've watched), by the time trebs are available, you've got worse problems on your hands; like champion floods, light cavalry raids, and massed siege (in some civs, like celts/koreans).

Even assuming you've massed 24 trebs, if that's all you have, and I have 24 of any imperial age melee unit, you won't be destroying much of my town. You'll get the buildings on the edge, and then those trebs will get boned, at a price of 200w, 200g each and many minutes of production time. Not a good trade.

Anyways, just thought I'd pass that along. I'd hate to see an RPG designer be reading the excellent points in your article and come across the part about AoE and say "This guy's crazy". :-)

*Sips tea* Quite. It would be embarassing if that exact line hes talking about caused some kind of confusion.



....Actually, the irony of that last line is too amusing for words. ROFLMFAO!

horseboy
2007-10-27, 02:10 AM
But indeed, it might not be necessary. The chapter this was posted in was titled "the Grandfather Clause of Stupidity" and it is mostly complaining about people making "Chainmail clone X, only better." Its about originality. Its also about a handful of bad rules that apparently irritate Mu that he keeps seeing in new systems. Ultimately, it might be because he looks at it from a different angle than you do, One.

I'd be more curious if he had pointed out some of these "Chainmail clone X" problems in oh, say, Rolemaster, Traveler, Shadowrun or White Wolf. I acknowledge it was probably written before Harn or Earthdawn, so I won't bring that in to the conversation. I really don't think he's got a big enough data base for PnP RPG's, he did pretty good for video games, but I really get the impression that he didn't actually play a whole lot of the PnP.

Balog
2007-10-27, 02:49 PM
Hi all, I'm usually just a lurker here but seeing Mu referenced takes me back. I haven't read him since before I got married. Oh, and as far as I know he's talking about video game (specifically MMORPG) design, with limited applicability to pen/paper games.

Anyway, just a couple thoughts on balance. I'd agree that it is almost impossible to balance magic without changing it at a fundamental level, esp in non-combat situations.
I suppose I should clarify that I'm an inveterate skill monkey and tend to view balance in terms of "Ways to make it fun and useful to be a character not optimized for combat." Which is also why I have generally enjoyed Star Wars more than D&D; I prefer sword and sorcery to sci-fi but I'm more useful as a tech spec than a rogue.
No matter how pimped my Open Lock is, Knock still beats it. Silence and Invis beat my Hide and Move Silent etc. And in combat terms casters have the advantage of both range and AoE, something nothing else has. Combat is probably easier to balance, but it's still a tough one.

Oh, and to the poster who keeps going on about how he dislikes balance because it reduces his options; why in the world are you posting to a discussion of how to balance a system? It's like an atheist joining a Christian forum and continually disrupting theological discussions by arguing that "It's irrelevant, God doesn't exist anyway."

Thoughtbot360
2007-10-27, 03:18 PM
I'd be more curious if he had pointed out some of these "Chainmail clone X" problems in oh, say, Rolemaster, Traveler, Shadowrun or White Wolf. I acknowledge it was probably written before Harn or Earthdawn, so I won't bring that in to the conversation. I really don't think he's got a big enough data base for PnP RPG's, he did pretty good for video games, but I really get the impression that he didn't actually play a whole lot of the PnP.


Actually, He knows about White Wolf. He has a page (http://www.mu.ranter.net/rpg/sfstg.html) revolving around on of their games (Street Fighter: the Storytelling game) and his article on that game (http://www.mu.ranter.net/rpg/sfarticle.html) acknowledges certain mechanics in White Wolf systems:

In fact, he mentions the time when he first got White Wolf:

In those days, my friends and I were using the GURPS system by Steve Jackson Games as a role-playing vehicle; flawed as it is, it remains one of the most flexible systems for role-playing in almost any genre. However, always on the lookout for new systems to play (or steal from), I eventually decided to check out White Wolf’s World of Darkness (WoD) line. From the bolded area, might we assume that he knows a few systems?

In fact he even mentions how much he likes the original version of Street Fighter in his design theory (http://www.mu.ranter.net/theory/general.html#limiting) talking about Limiting maximum player power:


Street Fighter, my personal favorite for beer and pretzels combat-heavy RPG systems, is fantastically balanced, and works incredibly well. That is, until supplements are considered. *continues to discuss how bad supplements ruined the game*

So he knows about White Wolf, and has at least one system from them that he likes. He's never mentioned Traveller or Rolemaster, though. But I get the impression he's been playing a good deal of PnP

horseboy
2007-10-27, 06:14 PM
So he knows about White Wolf, and has at least one system from them that he likes. He's never mentioned Traveller or Rolemaster, though. But I get the impression he's been playing a good deal of PnP
Eh, from that link it looks like he's played many games, but few systems. If he doesn't see the interconnection between SR and WW, he's clearly never played SR, which in it's time was arguably bigger than GURPS. Then there's that whole he's bitching the whole time about how RPG's focus on combat, gets a system that doesn't and bitches about them being "lazy". There is no pleasing this guy, is there?

Thoughtbot360
2007-10-27, 10:43 PM
Eh, from that link it looks like he's played many games, but few systems. If he doesn't see the interconnection between SR and WW, he's clearly never played SR, which in it's time was arguably bigger than GURPS.

Um, by the way you said that it sounds like because he didn't play Shadowrun (and too be honest, we don't really know that he hasn't, he just doesn't have much to say about it if he did play it) he is automatically loses all credibility in the argument. I thought the question was that he played a sufficient number of non-Chainmail-esque systems, not that he played a specific system (in this case, Shadowrun.) You might want to rephrase this a little.


Then there's that whole he's bitching the whole time about how RPG's focus on combat, gets a system that doesn't and bitches about them being "lazy".

You might want to rephrase this one, too. Simply because your meaning is lost. What are you talking about when he says:

A) Which system that doesn't focus on combat, that he got, are you talking about?
B) That he complains about the designers (Well, I think you mean that he's talking about the designers) of that system being lazy?


There's no pleasing this guy, is there?

He does acknowledge that combat has a place in RPGs (he tends to focus on MMORPGs, but all RPGs benefit from different sections of his design theory). He has a chapter calledthe Merits of Mindless Slaughter (http://www.mu.ranter.net/theory/writing.html#slaughter), after all.

the_tick_rules
2007-10-28, 12:29 AM
well i think a lot of people are missing the point entirely. mages and meele pc classes designed to work together against monsters, not to balance them against each other.

horseboy
2007-10-28, 12:33 AM
Um, by the way you said that it sounds like because he didn't play Shadowrun (and too be honest, we don't really know that he hasn't, he just doesn't have much to say about it if he did play it) he is automatically loses all credibility in the argument. I thought the question was that he played a sufficient number of non-Chainmail-esque systems, not that he played a specific system (in this case, Shadowrun.) You might want to rephrase this a little.He commented on how the WW mechanics were unique, when they're actually a bastard offspring of SR's. It's extrapolatible that since he prides himself on seeing common connections, he would have brought them up if he knew of the connection. His "bell curve" definition of game mechanics could include the games using GDW's mechanics. (Traveller, Dark Conspiracy, Twilight 2000) However, given his concern about how a character "over levels" the setting then it's also extrapolatible that he would have mentioned those games that don't have a leveling mechanic, such as those, built into it as a means (for good or ill) of solving such a thing. Gamers in general and he displays a joy in name dropping. Especially in the more rare games. After all, he brought up the Street Fighter Game, that's right up there with Whispering Vault.




You might want to rephrase this one, too. Simply because your meaning is lost. What are you talking about when he says:

A) Which system that doesn't focus on combat, that he got, are you talking about?
B) That he complains about the designers (Well, I think you mean that he's talking about the designers) of that system being lazy?
White Wolf. Granted, I've seen it used more for PvP than anything else, but that's not the direction it's written from. Combat is a chapter in the back of a book, almost an appendix.
As for B he actually called the Storyteller's lazy. Here's just one of the times,
Is the extensive background information an advantage? This depends on whether or not the information is well-liked by the participants (again, a purely subjective factor) and how lazy the gamemaster is. And another in the same paragraph:

This is a lot of work, something that many GM’s are unable to do because of time constraints, lack of raw ability, or laziness.
Then there's also how it completely eludes him how campaign background focus is one of the solutions to inhibit splat book power creep that he fears so much. Though I do agree with him on LARPing. Though I do find it amusing how he holds pre-generated settings in disdain in point 2, then points out why to do it in both 1&3 without realizing it.

Temp
2007-10-28, 01:20 AM
well i think a lot of people are missing the point entirely. mages and meele pc classes designed to work together against monsters, not to balance them against each other.
There's no reason for a Rogue to invest in stealth skills if the party Wizard and Cleric are going to be Invisibility Sphere/Silencing the whole party anyway. There's no reason for the Rogue to invest in Trapfinding/Search/Disable Device when the Wizard and Cleric are going to have Detect Traps, Disintegrate and Knock available. There's no reason for the fighter to be there if the Wizard can end battles before his initiative comes around.

Those examples are only slight stretches from the current D&D system (and then only in terms of the times per day a Wizard can cast spells before the party breaks for booze and cards in Mordekain's Mansion).
Some people like the concept of playing spellcasters sometimes and some people like playing non-spellcasters sometimes. Most players (with an exception or two) like to feel like contributing group members. An imbalanced system can very easily get in the way of this goal.

Thoughtbot360
2007-10-28, 04:43 AM
well i think a lot of people are missing the point entirely. mages and meele pc classes designed to work together against monsters, not to balance them against each other.

I mostly agree with what Temp just said above, but I'm also going to throw in a few other things:

1) As has already been said that flying monsters that invalidate melee types (and I personally believe this includes other monsters that shut down other non-caster and half-caster classes and character archetypes) are more common than monsters that use Anti-magic to negate casters. So versus MONSTERS, they are not balanced.
2) The Big Bad Evil Guy (tm) and his high-ranking goons will likely have character classes more often than not. Heck, in OOTS, Xykon is a Sorcerer (well, he's a lich, he HAS to be a spellcaster) and Red Cloak's a cleric. IAnd sometimes, you DO fight some people who are not entirely unlike the Linear Guild. f you get into a situation where the party Fighter has to take down the enemy mage all on his lonesome (or vice versa, the DM might even had made the main villian of his long-winded plot a Fighter), he gets shot down. Reference the recent fights between Xykon and Roy (Roy won the first one because there happened to be a highly explosive gate to Bull Rush Xykon into while his guard was done. It was kind of a Deus Ex Machina.....) In short, its not just against monsters. Sometimes there are events were one character class will end up having to fight another. While some classes (Bards, White Mages from final fantasy that haven't learned Holy yet, depth/skill-oriented characters that have skimped on combat stats, etc.) should already be avoid fights with anything that looks too dangerous with some serious support from the rest of the party. This doesn't apply to the dwarf Barbarian, who might accept a buff spell, but he did not choose to be a Barbarian with 20+ constitution to be shut down in the first round of combat by a stupid win button like Forcecage. The same goes for a monster with a Forcecage Spell-like ability for that matter.
3) Out-of-combat imbalance is just as bad as in combat imbalance, and that doesn't even apply directly to the PCs battle against monsters.
4) Seriously, why are there so many people who bring up this point? I mean, its like you guys think we forgot that D&D wasn't a fighting game (or any other PVP-heavy genre) and think that the players are supposed to be fighting each other. However, one measure of how effective a particular class (particularly that is supposed to be oriented mostly for combat) is might be measuring if there is even some remote possibly of it better the other combat oriented classes (assuming the players are playing the class intelligently, but are not abusing a few poorly-implimented rules to twink them out beyond the possibility of defeat....) So fights between classes can be seen as analogies for their overall effectiveness. After all, if the high level wizard can protect himself to the point where his d4 hit die don't matter (to the point where you simply cannot assassinate this guy unless you're a god.....or a better wizard than the target), what can he do for the rest of the party? Granted it might not be a perfect analogy, but its not an entirely ignorable one either.

Morty
2007-10-28, 05:48 AM
Besides from what Thoughtbot360 already said, duels and solo adventures happen from time to time. Even if PCs aren't involved in them, NPCs likely are.

Idiotbox90
2007-10-28, 10:28 AM
well i think a lot of people are missing the point entirely. mages and meele pc classes designed to work together against monsters, not to balance them against each other.

The CR system works in that, in theory, any PC of ECL X has a 50% chance of defeating an CR X creature.

Now, here is a list of core non-dragons of CR 17:

Aboleth Mage, Frost Giant Jarl, Formian Queen, Marilith.

The core fighter loses to every one of these creatures. The core wizard does not. This is what is meant when it is said that fighters and wizards are unbalanced.

Idea Man
2007-10-29, 01:18 AM
The CR system works in that, in theory, any PC of ECL X has a 50% chance of defeating an CR X creature.

Now, here is a list of core non-dragons of CR 17:

Aboleth Mage, Frost Giant Jarl, Formian Queen, Marilith.

The core fighter loses to every one of these creatures. The core wizard does not. This is what is meant when it is said that fighters and wizards are unbalanced.

I disagree in part.

The fighter should be able to beat the aboleth mage and frost giant Jarl. The formian queen is essentially a mage-warrior with both sides on par with the character, so the fighter should lose. The marilith is the granddaddy of melee challenges, so also very likely to lose.

The wizard should be able to trump the aboleth mage, no problem. The frost giant Jarl can't contend with the wizard's mobility, so only local conditions could invoke a giant victory. The formian queen is formidible, and with a decent spell selection would be a credible threat. The marilith, even if immobilized, would still have a chance to summon another of its kind, making victory unsure, since it(they) could take a lot of punishment.

The fighter isn't just melee, he's range, too, and most opponents won't be immune to that, at least, not all the time. The wizard is definitely at an advantage in a one-shot battle, being able to unleash any spell he thinks will win.

Not all CR 17 encounters are created equal. :smallwink:

Dausuul
2007-10-29, 07:56 AM
The fighter should be able to beat the aboleth mage and frost giant Jarl. The formian queen is essentially a mage-warrior with both sides on par with the character, so the fighter should lose. The marilith is the granddaddy of melee challenges, so also very likely to lose.

The CR on the aboleth mage is clearly wrong, just as it is for the mind flayer sorceror. Wizard is a non-associated class for the aboleth, so the CR for an aboleth with 10 levels of wizard should be 13, not 17. (The aboleth has 8 HD, so the first 8 levels of wizard only count for half; base CR 7 plus 4 for the first 8 levels of wizard plus 2 for the last two equals 13.) Plus it doesn't even have equipment. So I don't think you can really count the aboleth in this list.

A CR 17 aboleth mage would be a 14th-level wizard, and the fighter would have a lot more trouble with that... particularly if the aboleth had equipment like it's supposed to.

As for the formian queen--she's not a mage-warrior. She has no physical attacks. Her AC is only 23. She can't even move. She's a 17th-level sorceror with no non-magical mobility but with extra hit points and some SLAs.

If we bring in the CR 17 dragons, there's the old brass dragon, the mature adult bronze dragon, and the very old white dragon, all of which are fearsome foes for a 17th-level fighter; although their greatest strength is melee, and melee is the one thing fighters can do halfway competently, so I'm not sure I'd count the fighter out. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the CharOp boards and half a dozen splatbooks.

But the fighter would have to be very heavily optimized, not to say twinked, in order to win such a battle; a wizard who was optimized to a similar degree would have several levels in IotSV and be using spells like shapechange and gate.


The wizard should be able to trump the aboleth mage, no problem. The frost giant Jarl can't contend with the wizard's mobility, so only local conditions could invoke a giant victory. The formian queen is formidible, and with a decent spell selection would be a credible threat. The marilith, even if immobilized, would still have a chance to summon another of its kind, making victory unsure, since it(they) could take a lot of punishment.

The ability of the marilith to withstand "punishment," in terms of hit point damage, is irrelevant when we're talking about a 17th-level wizard. The wizard doesn't do hit point damage. He just unleashes a barrage of save-or-die, save-or-lose, and no-saving-throw-you-just-lose. With SR 25 and a +14 Will save, the marilith won't last long.

(Greater dispel magic takes care of anything she summons. Such creatures are summoned by a spell-like ability, so they're legit targets, and the marilith's caster level is only 12. If he rolls a 6 or higher on his dispel check, the wizard can blow her summoned critter away. Considering the marilith's summon only has a 50% chance to succeed in the first place, and a mere 20% if she uses it to get another marilith, this is not much of a threat.)

The formian queen is caster versus caster, but the queen's optimization-fu is very poor. She only has Charisma 20, no equipment, and nothing to boost her save DCs. SR 30 is sturdy, though--40% failure chance for a 17th-level caster with Greater Spell Penetration--so she'd give the wizard a fight at least... unless the wizard is allowed the cheese that is assay spell resistance.

Jayabalard
2007-10-29, 08:46 AM
It seems, Jayabalard, that you are arguing a black/white fallacy with regards to what can be achieved with regards to balance, and to the effects this has upon gameplay.

From there we get to the position "balance is bad, so screw it".I'm not sure what you mean; either a system is balanced or it isn't; I prefer the "isn't" since I like several of the features that are unique to an imbalanced systems.


And now, you're playing "no true scotsman" with possible fixes.How so? If one of the things that someone likes about an imbalanced system is "imbalanced classes" ... which has been stated ... then it's absurd to suggest that playing with balanced classes and doing X is somehow an acceptable substitute...


There's no reason for a Rogue to invest in stealth skills if the party Wizard and Cleric are going to be Invisibility Sphere/Silencing the whole party anyway. There's no reason for the Rogue to invest in Trapfinding/Search/Disable Device when the Wizard and Cleric are going to have Detect Traps, Disintegrate and Knock available. There's no reason for the fighter to be there if the Wizard can end battles before his initiative comes around.Those are adventure design issues, not system design issues.

it's fairly trivial to create situations where a rogue stealth/lockpicking/etc can handle a situation, but magic cannot (especially true once magic starts being the assumed way of doing things); it is less trivial to give a fighter the spotlight, but certainly not impossible, or even overly difficult.

Dausuul
2007-10-29, 09:02 AM
How so? If one of the things that someone likes about an imbalanced system is "imbalanced classes" ... which has been stated ... then it's absurd to suggest that playing with balanced classes and doing X is somehow an acceptable substitute...

What Lord Zentei means is that you still haven't clearly explained what it is that you like about imbalanced classes, that cannot somehow be replicated with a simple mod to a balanced-class system. Instead, you just smack down all proposals by saying "Nope, doesn't work because [requirement that you'd never mentioned before]."

Simply unbalancing a balanced system is not enough for you. Fine. We get that. Then what is enough? What "subtle differences between classes as they level" do you want to have? Specific examples please.

Jayabalard
2007-10-29, 09:38 AM
I don't understand... what I like about unbalanced classes is the fact that they are not balanced. Magic using classes have a very strong tendency toward the higher end of the power spectrum, with high level wizards telling the laws of physics to sit down and shut up in a way that non-magic using classes cannot hope to ever achieve* (ie, no amount of additional levels will work), so that after a certain level, a wizard is always more powerful than a fighter*. I like the fact that some classes are always weak because they're mainly good at things that don't fit into the standard-well defined roles. I like that some classes are in the middle of the road, some start weak and get stronger, some start strong and get weaker, and some vary widely level by level. I like that some classes start off with a boom gun and Glitter Boy armor, and some are lucky to have a side arm and any kind of MDC armor at all.

I like everything that having unbalanced classes brings to the game.

* assuming a fantasy based game; if you add in ultra-tech along with magic, then they should both offer advantages, but it's not necessarily for them to be balanced against each other.

Morty
2007-10-29, 10:19 AM
Those are adventure design issues, not system design issues.

it's fairly trivial to create situations where a rogue stealth/lockpicking/etc can handle a situation, but magic cannot (especially true once magic starts being the assumed way of doing things); it is less trivial to give a fighter the spotlight, but certainly not impossible, or even overly difficult.

No, it's not. Your solution requires DM to specifically tailor his/her adventure if s/he doesn't want non-casters to be obsolete. That's more than sometimes problematic.


I don't understand... what I like about unbalanced classes is the fact that they are not balanced. Magic using classes have a very strong tendency toward the higher end of the power spectrum, with high level wizards telling the laws of physics to sit down and shut up in a way that non-magic using classes cannot hope to ever achieve* (ie, no amount of additional levels will work), so that after a certain level, a wizard is always more powerful than a fighter*. I like the fact that some classes are always weak because they're mainly good at things that don't fit into the standard-well defined roles. I like that some classes are in the middle of the road, some start weak and get stronger, some start strong and get weaker, and some vary widely level by level. I like that some classes start off with a boom gun and Glitter Boy armor, and some are lucky to have a side arm and any kind of MDC armor at all.

I like everything that having unbalanced classes brings to the game.

Nothing you mention here would take more than minute to achieve in balanced system simply by changing few rules. A whole lot easier than balancing an unbalanced system. Not to mention time and book space it saves.

Serenity
2007-10-29, 10:34 AM
I don't understand... what I like about unbalanced classes is the fact that they are not balanced. Magic using classes have a very strong tendency toward the higher end of the power spectrum, with high level wizards telling the laws of physics to sit down and shut up in a way that non-magic using classes cannot hope to ever achieve* (ie, no amount of additional levels will work), so that after a certain level, a wizard is always more powerful than a fighter*. I like the fact that some classes are always weak because they're mainly good at things that don't fit into the standard-well defined roles. I like that some classes are in the middle of the road, some start weak and get stronger, some start strong and get weaker, and some vary widely level by level. I like that some classes start off with a boom gun and Glitter Boy armor, and some are lucky to have a side arm and any kind of MDC armor at all.

I like everything that having unbalanced classes brings to the game.

What does any of that bring to the game except frustration for the people who are stuck unarmed and unarmored in a warzone while the other guy gets to play the invincible one man army? Seriously, you sit down at the table, and the DM tells you that you'll be playing Jimmy Olsen while the other players get the Justice League, and your reaction is 'Yippee, unbalance'? You want to spend your campaign staying out of the way while Superman tosses buildings, Batman Batmans, and Green Lantern does whatever the hell he can think of? And if that's what you want, how is that unachievable by simply starting at hugely different levels?

Jayabalard
2007-10-29, 10:42 AM
No, it's not. Your solution requires DM to specifically tailor his/her adventure if s/he doesn't want non-casters to be obsolete. That's more than sometimes problematic.Yes... exactly... that's why it's an adventure design issue.


Nothing you mention here would take more than minute to achieve in balanced system simply by changing few rules. A whole lot easier than balancing an unbalanced system. Not to mention time and book space it saves.It would take more than a minute alone to add sufficient spells to have a good unbalanced wizard to a system where magic is balanced with non-magic classes... and that's only a tiny portion of the unbalancing that would need to be done. Classes would have to be created, and nearly all existing classes would need to be altered (or even removed). New abilities would have to be thought up (and that type of creative process can take time); revision of the general game mechanics as a whole to eliminate design that is based on balance. Playtesting and design changes based on that playtesting.

Nope, making a balanced system into a good unbalanced system is no easier than making a unbalanced system into a good balanced system.

suggesting that it can be done in a minute is akin to suggesting that you can create a balanced classes out of D&D by removing all classes except for one... which can also be done in a minute. The results that you get from that sort of time expenditure are equivalent.


What does any of that bring to the game except frustration for the people who are stuck unarmed and unarmored in a warzone while the other guy gets to play the invincible one man army? sounds like a badly done unbalanced game system to me... a good example of why it might take more than a single minute to create a good unbalanced system.

to answer your facetious question: Fun.


Seriously, you sit down at the table, and the DM tells you that you'll be playing Jimmy Olsen while the other players get the Justice League, and your reaction is 'Yippee, unbalance'? You want to spend your campaign staying out of the way while Superman tosses buildings, Batman Batmans, and Green Lantern does whatever the hell he can think of? Sounds like a horrible GM... if your party is made up of batman, superman, green lantern and Jimmy Olsen, then why is the only thing in the adventure building throwing level combat?


And if that's what you want, how is that unachievable by simply starting at hugely different levels?Unique abilities that cannot be balanced, wizards that cannot be equaled by any level warrior, ... I think I've covered this in an earlier post.

note that I've not suggested that anyone should be forced to play any particular class... just that I want the options. So your "the DM tells you that you'll be playing Jimmy Olsen" example is absurd. If you were to switch it to "you choose to play Jimmy Olsen" then it might be correct, and if a player chooses that, then why are you concerned? The player gets to play what they want.

Dausuul
2007-10-29, 10:53 AM
Yes... exactly... that's why it's an adventure design issue.

No, that's why it's not. An adventure design issue is one where the root of the problem lies in the process of designing adventures--i.e., the problem results from adventures being badly designed. If the problem continues to crop up even in adventures which are well designed by any sensible measure, then it's not an adventure design issue.

At high levels, the DM really has to go to extreme lengths to make the non-caster relevant. I sat down once and tried to design an adventure which would challenge a 20th-level party, giving all four characters a chance to shine without arbitrarily nixing the spells that would normally cause problems (teleport, Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion, et cetera). It required an unbelievable amount of planning and effort, and even then there was always the possibility that I'd forgotten about one spell, somewhere, somehow, that would bypass everything and turn the whole adventure into a cakewalk.

Jayabalard
2007-10-29, 10:57 AM
No, that's why it's not. An adventure design issue is one where the root of the problem lies in the process of designing adventures--i.e., the problem results from adventures being badly designed. If the problem continues to crop up even in adventures which are well designed by any sensible measure, then it's not an adventure design issue.Nope, it's an adventure design issue; well-designed adventures are designed for the people actually playing in them. Adventures that are not tailored to the specific people playing them are not "well designed by any sensible measure"

Dausuul
2007-10-29, 11:12 AM
Nope, it's an adventure design issue; well-designed adventures are designed for the people actually playing in them. Adventures that are not tailored to the specific people playing them are not "well designed by any sensible measure"

It is insane and unreasonable to expect any adventure design process to work when the specific people playing in the adventure are Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and Jimmy Olsen. Unless every single adventure features villains loaded down with kryptonite, a stock market crash that wipes out Bruce Wayne's finances and leads to the Batcave being repossessed, and Green Lantern's ring being stolen by a super-powered thief, Jimmy Olsen just isn't going to be able to keep up. And, frankly, an adventure that does feature all those things is not a well-designed adventure, because it arbitrarily wipes out the capabilities of three of the PCs, which is very bad DMing.

Serenity
2007-10-29, 11:34 AM
Sounds like a horrible GM... if your party is made up of batman, superman, green lantern and Jimmy Olsen, then why is the only thing in the adventure building throwing level combat?

It's not. But there is absolutely nothing that Jimmy Olsen could do that one of the superheroes couldn't do better. Same with fighters. All they can do is fight, and Druids and Clerics easily outclass them at that. With the enemies they're facing at that level, they can't even act as effective meat shields, not that the casters need them to do that.

Let me try to rephrase the question: Do you think it would be fun to play Jimmy Olsen in a game where the other characters are superheroes who can do anything you can do, but better, and then some? Do you think its fair to other players to have a character who outclasses them to such an enormous extent?

Jayabalard
2007-10-29, 12:30 PM
It is insane and unreasonable to expect any adventure design process to work when the specific people playing in the adventure are Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and Jimmy Olsen.If as a Game Master you are unwilling to deal with such a group, you should tell your players that. It's perfectly reasonable to agree to some boundaries on power levels either as the GM or as a group, just like it's reasonable to agree to boundaries on Genre.


It's not. But there is absolutely nothing that Jimmy Olsen could do that one of the superheroes couldn't do better. Same with fighters. All they can do is fight, and Druids and Clerics easily outclass them at that. With the enemies they're facing at that level, they can't even act as effective meat shields, not that the casters need them to do that.Yes, I agree, the superheroes are more powerful... I don't have any problems with that.


Let me try to rephrase the question: Do you think it would be fun to play Jimmy Olsen in a game where the other characters are superheroes who can do anything you can do, but better, and then some?Yes

It seems likely to me that anyone who would intentionally choose Jimmy Olsen as their character would enjoy it regardless of how powerful the superheroes are.


Do you think its fair to other players to have a character who outclasses them to such an enormous extent?if that's what they want to play, then yes. Who are you to deny them the ability to play what they want?

Alex12
2007-10-29, 12:37 PM
Let me try to rephrase the question: Do you think it would be fun to play Jimmy Olsen in a game where the other characters are superheroes who can do anything you can do, but better, and then some?Yes

It seems likely to me that anyone who would intentionally choose Jimmy Olsen as their character would enjoy it regardless of how powerful the superheroes are.

if that's what they want to play, then yes. Who are you to deny them the ability to play what they want?[/QUOTE]

But what if they want the roleplay opportunities? To continue the analogy, Superman, Batman, GL, etc are trying to save lives, while Olsen is trying to get the story. What if the person playing wants to roleplay that?

In a D&D setting, what if someone wants to roleplay a less-powerful class? I mean, I for one wouldn't want to play a Cleric, or a Druid, or a Wizard (unless it's in the campaign I'm in now, which features antimatter grenades, cloaking devices, and dark-matter-conversion swords, among other similar things) because in terms of roleplaying, I just don't want to do that.

Jayabalard
2007-10-29, 01:04 PM
you got your quoting off by one... you need an additional [ quote ] before "Let"

Temp
2007-10-29, 01:14 PM
But it's just as possible to play Jimmy Olsen with a lvl 20 3.5 Wizard as it is with a Fighter: you just don't use all the powers available. To play a Superman role with a Fighter, you have to stretch the rules to their breaking points with Polymorph (with Disguise Self if you're attached to the Knight-in-Shining-Armor image) or other cheese.

Not having the option to make certain archetypes equally powerful is a problem (just look at the numbers of people whining against imbalance compared to the incredibly few posters* arguing for it). Even if someone wanted imbalance, I don't see how having the ability to make characters equally powerful means players have to do so.



*I'm not even certain that word should be plural.

Jayabalard
2007-10-29, 01:24 PM
But it's just as possible to play Jimmy Olsen with a lvl 20 3.5 Wizard as it is with a FighterActually, nether of those classes manage if very well. They both have abilities that are quite a bit beyond Jimmy


*I'm not even certain that word should be plural.While I'm a little more adamant about it than most, I'm not the only person in this thread to speak in favor of the "benefits of imbalance"

Yakk
2007-10-29, 01:29 PM
Talents known:


L 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 2 1 - - - - - - - - -
2 3 2 - - - - - - - - -
3 3 2 1 - - - - - - - -
4 3 3 2 - - - - - - - -
5 3 3 2 1 - - - - - - -
6 3 3 3 2 - - - - - - -
7 3 3 3 2 1 - - - - - -
8 3 3 3 3 2 - - - - - -
9 3 3 3 3 2 1 - - - - -
10 3 3 3 3 3 2 - - - - -
11 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 - - - -
12 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 - - - -
13 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 - - -
14 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 - - -
15 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 - -
16 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 - -
17 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 -
18 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 -
19 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 1
20 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2


Each class has it's own list of talents. Classes sometimes use each others list, in which case the two class levels add together to determine how many talents a character knows.

Note that "L 0" Talents are not as weak as cantrips, and "L 10" Talents are not more powerful than wish.

The name of the Talents varies with class.
Fighters have Moves.
Rogues have Tricks.
Wizards have Spells.
Priests have Blessings.

Classes have abilities above and beyond their Talents.

Talents fall into 3 general categories:
Free Talents can be used as many times per day as the character wants. Many Free Talents have a "cool down", sometimes randomly determined, indicating how many rounds must pass before you can use the Talent again.

Encounter Talents are Talents which can be used once per encounter.

Daily Talents are Talents that can only be used once per day.

...

A character's Talent access in a class is based off of the average of their character level and their level in the class, to a maximium of twice their class level. This prevents multi-classing from being punative.

A L 6 Fighter L 6 Rogue has access to Talents as a L 9 Fighter/L 9 Rogue.
A L 10 Fighter L 2 Rogue has access to Talents as a L 11 Fighter/L 4 Rogue.
A L 8 Fighter L 4 Rogue has access to talents as a L 10 Fighter/L 8 Rogue.
A L 11 Fighter L 1 Rogue has access to Talents as a L 11 Fighter/L 2 Rogue.

...

Whenever a character gains an effective Talent Level in a class, she gets to replace two existing Talents with alternative ones.

Often there are higher level versions of lower level Talents. These Families of Talents might include an entire "Fireball" tree, with various tweaks on it to change it's Talent level. So when the character gains a level, they would replace their lower level Fireball with one that is tweaked upwards a tad.

...

And now all you have to do is balance Rogue Tricks against Wizard Spells. :) And balance Wizard "as you gain level" abilities against Rogue "as you gain levels" abilities.

As a nice touch, variant Wizards (like the Sorcerer) fall out cheaply: replace the Wizard "as you gain levels" abilities with new ones, and you can reuse the Wizard Spell list.

Magical PrCs naturally let you continue progressing as a Wizard Talent, but replace the per-level Wizard abilities.

Serenity
2007-10-29, 09:45 PM
In a D&D setting, what if someone wants to roleplay a less-powerful class? I mean, I for one wouldn't want to play a Cleric, or a Druid, or a Wizard (unless it's in the campaign I'm in now, which features antimatter grenades, cloaking devices, and dark-matter-conversion swords, among other similar things) because in terms of roleplaying, I just don't want to do that.

Exactly. No one should have to choose between effectiveness and playing the character they want to. If you really want your character to be weaker, it's easy enough to gimp them starting from a balanced template, and if you really want to play a stronger character it's easy enough to pump them up, both to about the same effect as is now in D&D.

But the way I see things, if one player is vastly weaker than the rest of the party, most of the players get frustrated because he can't contribute. If one character is vastly stronger than the rest of the party, it becomes frustrating to most that they are the unnecessaries.

horseboy
2007-10-29, 10:48 PM
Fighters have Moves.
So fighters hang out at the Roxbury? :smallamused: That analogy is made all the worse by fighters not being able to dance. :smallannoyed:

Thoughtbot360
2007-10-30, 02:43 AM
Talents known:
{snip}

Each class has it's own list of talents. Classes sometimes use each others list, in which case the two class levels add together to determine how many talents a character knows.

Note that "L 0" Talents are not as weak as cantrips, and "L 10" Talents are not more powerful than wish.

The name of the Talents varies with class.
Fighters have Moves.
Rogues have Tricks.
Wizards have Spells.
Priests have Blessings.

Classes have abilities above and beyond their Talents.

Talents fall into 3 general categories:
Free Talents can be used as many times per day as the character wants. Many Free Talents have a "cool down", sometimes randomly determined, indicating how many rounds must pass before you can use the Talent again.

Encounter Talents are Talents which can be used once per encounter.

Daily Talents are Talents that can only be used once per day.

...

A character's Talent access in a class is based off of the average of their character level and their level in the class, to a maximium of twice their class level. This prevents multi-classing from being punative.

A L 6 Fighter L 6 Rogue has access to Talents as a L 9 Fighter/L 9 Rogue.
A L 10 Fighter L 2 Rogue has access to Talents as a L 11 Fighter/L 4 Rogue.
A L 8 Fighter L 4 Rogue has access to talents as a L 10 Fighter/L 8 Rogue.
A L 11 Fighter L 1 Rogue has access to Talents as a L 11 Fighter/L 2 Rogue.

...

Whenever a character gains an effective Talent Level in a class, she gets to replace two existing Talents with alternative ones.

Often there are higher level versions of lower level Talents. These Families of Talents might include an entire "Fireball" tree, with various tweaks on it to change it's Talent level. So when the character gains a level, they would replace their lower level Fireball with one that is tweaked upwards a tad.

...

And now all you have to do is balance Rogue Tricks against Wizard Spells. :) And balance Wizard "as you gain level" abilities against Rogue "as you gain levels" abilities.

As a nice touch, variant Wizards (like the Sorcerer) fall out cheaply: replace the Wizard "as you gain levels" abilities with new ones, and you can reuse the Wizard Spell list.

Magical PrCs naturally let you continue progressing as a Wizard Talent, but replace the per-level Wizard abilities.

Not a bad system, Yakk. I especially like the multiclassing rules. The only conceivable problem I might see with it is that the class talents might be seen as "a lot of the same." However, a nice place to start to combat this problem is to make sure moves look like moves (Counter attacking, Acrobatic Slashes, Deflecting multiple projectiles with a single swing of your weapon, etc.) and tricks look like tricks (Like that thing Thief does when he's in the front of the group one second, then in the back the next (http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=020624), avoiding obstacles, and maybe a few fighting moves that applicable in improving survival when scouting all on your lonesome/slowing down pursuers/shutting down guards to avoid detection, but have less application when the rogue has to fight a long, drawn-out battle in a team.) spells and blessings are the hardest, because it depends on how you want magic to work in your world, and how priestly and wizardly magic work differently from each other and from the aforementioned Moves and Tricks.

Of course, there is another idea that makes classes even more useful, yet doesn't break balance (unless it was already broken): Each class will have more defenses against its talents. This makes sense. Generally, If you learn how to do an attack, you know its fundamentals, its limits, its weaknesses. And these defenses also apply to monsters that use attacks similar to certain talents. Therefore:

Fighters know defensive maneuvers, but also tend to wear armor and be extremely strong and healthy. This lets them stand toe-to-toe with huge monsters like Giants, Dragons and Dire Animals. And of course any humanoid monsters that have been trained as soldiers.

Rogues can guess what an enemy Rogue might be up to, and can deny them Sneak attack damage. Quick Reflexes and Keen Senses also help the rogue deal with ambushes from the likes of Giant Scorpions and Assassin vines. Monsters can be tricky, too, after all. Its Halloween. Theres likely a Movie about one on TV right now.....

Gods fight over worshipers, and their Priests brand each other as heretics. Since the battle against heresy is the primary focus of a anything a Priest gets that can be considered combat training, most of the Priest's time will be spent how to protect his soul from the influence of another god's power. This applies to battles with Priests of the humanoid races....and the not-so-humanoid ones....


Wizards know how magic works, they know how to make it not work. Halving the duration and penalties of debuffs (save-or-suck spells), Spell resistance, and just plain old counterspelling help defeat enemy Spells (and Spell-like abilities)

This makes a varied party desirable, and makes multiclassing even better (particularly if you play in a solo or undermanned game). However, I'd like to forbid anything that totally blocks certain talents (like how Uncanny Dodge defeats Sneak attack, no matter how many levels the attacking rogue gets over the Uncanny Dodger. A relatively low-level Barbarian can beat higher level Rogue..depending on the magic items the rogue has...).

Thoughtbot360
2007-10-30, 02:47 AM
So fighters hang out at the Roxbury? :smallamused: That analogy is made all the worse by fighters not being able to dance. :smallannoyed:

He means moves like these. (http://www.cjas.org/~leng/kenshin.htm)

I assume you're being sarcastic.:smallannoyed:

Yakk
2007-10-30, 11:52 AM
That is good -- and by defense, one should mean "protect the entire group against that ability" to a certain extent.

So if you are lacking a Wizard, you run into problems when fighting Arcane magic.

Although, I'm in favor of the D&D 4e idea that "NPC challenges need not line up with PC classes". PC characters should take time and care to build, with lots of neat details, that stack up as you gain levels. Monsters who take the same amount of time/care are bad ideas: they boost the time the DM takes to construct an encounter or an enemy without making the encounter significantly better.

...

Tossing out a model for how a Talent Family might work:
Sample Mage Talent line:
Ray of Flame [Evocation, Fire]
Creates a ray of fire. Reflex for no damage. Free Spell.
1d8 round cooldown, Close range (25' + 5' for every 2 levels).
0: 1d4 damage,+1 per 2 levels of the Mage.
1: 1d8 damage,+1 per level of the Mage.
2: 1d6 damage per level of the Mage.
4: 1d8 damage per level of the Mage.
7: (4+1d4) damage per level of the Mage.
10: 8 damage per level of the Mage.

Enhancements:
+1 Level: Change to Beam of Flame, an area attack that hits everyone in a 5' wide path, and extra 50' range. On a successful save, target can Evade by Movement.

+1 Level: Change to Ball of Flame, an area attack that hits everyone in a 10' radius. Reflex save for half. On a successful save, target can Evade by Movement.

+2 Level: Change to Cone of Flame, an area attack that hits everyone in up to a 20' wide, and up to base range far away, cone. Reflex save for half. Cannot Evade by Movement.

+1 Level: Change to Spear of Flame. Attack does half damage on a successful Reflex save. Cannot Evade by Movement.

+1 Level: Change range to 75'+5' per level of the mage (does not work on Cone).
+2 Level: Up to double area in all dimensions.
+2 Level: Change range to 150'+20' per level of the mage (does not work on Cone).
+1 Level: Upgrade to Ignite. On a failed Fortitude save, does half initial damage (round down) for 1d4 rounds.
+1 Level: Reduce cooldown to 1d4 rounds.
+2 Level: Reduce cooldown to 1 round.

Here are 5 possible L 5 Spells that can be produced using the Ray of Flame:
Ball of Burning Flame: 1d6 damage per level of Mage. Boost range. Ignite. 1d8 round cooldown.
10' radius, 75'+5'per level of the Mage range. Reflex for half, can Evade by Movement. Fortitude or take half initial damage for 1d4 rounds.

Beam of Flame: 1d8 damage per level of Mage. Beam. 1d8 round cooldown.
5' wide path, 75'+5' per 2 levels of the Mage range. Reflex for half, can Evade by Movement.

Impalement of Flame: 1d8 damage per level of the Mage, Reflex for half. 25'+5' for every 2 levels range. 1d8 round cooldown.

Burning Spear of Flame: 1d6 damage per level of the Mage, Reflex for half. 75'+5' for every level range. Fortitude save or take half initial damage for 1d4 rounds. 1d8 round cooldown.

Ignite: 1d8 damage per level of the Mage, Reflex for none. Fortitude or take half damage for 1d4 rounds. 25'+5' per 2 levels range. 1d8 round cooldown.

Touch of Flame: 1d6 damage per level of the Mage, Reflex for half. 25'+5' for every 2 levels range. 1 round cooldown.

These are five distinct spells, all fire based, and all L 5 Spells.

L 10 Spell Geometry of Flame: 1d8 damage per level of the Mage. Beam. 400'+40' per level of the mage, 10' wide. Fort or Ignite for half damage for 1d4 rounds. Can Evade by Movement. 1d8 round cooldown.
(on a 20th level mage, that's 20d8 damage in a line 10' wide and 1200' long (!), with a fort or take half damage, castable every 1d8 rounds...)

....

Note the reasonably long cooldowns. That means a Wizard will want to husband a given Spell, and spam-casting the same effect every round is expensive (it costs you two spell slots 2 levels higher than the effect you are creating).

I'd envision that a character would create "cards" for each ability (out of card-stock). These cards would have the basic rules for the ability written on it.

When you used an ability, you'd show the card. After use, a per-day card would go into the per-day discard pile, a per-encounter card into the per-encounter pile, and a free card with a cooldown would be placed in front of you. You'd roll the cooldown, and place the number on top of the card.

Each round, the first thing you would do is decrement the die on your cool-down abilities. Those with a 1 you'd remove the dice. Those with no dice on them you'd pick up and put them back in your "hand".

With 1d8 cool downs being about the longest, you would never have more than a handful of spells waiting to reactivate in front of you.

I'm also thinking that higher level talents will tend to have longer cool downs. This encourages the use of lower level talents even in higher level characters, and means it is less likely that a lower level character will be reduced to not having any talents for an extended period of time.

And yes, I used the term "moves" because the ToB term "maneuvers" is pretty branded into people's mind to have specific mechanics, and because "moves" is so much easier to spell and type. :)

Indon
2007-10-30, 12:50 PM
Each class has it's own list of talents. Classes sometimes use each others list, in which case the two class levels add together to determine how many talents a character knows.


Personally, I'd rather not have an everyone-uses-vancian-spellcasting-but-its-renamed-for-the-nonspellcasters system for my D&D. While it's all right as an option (Tome of Battle), if I want everyone to run on the same mechanic, I could just play Exalted; everyone uses charms, they're all made for me, system's already balanced, time is saved.

Yakk
2007-10-30, 02:45 PM
Sure: and you could write a class that had a completely different structure to it's "Talent" tree.

Note that there are 3 kinds of talents. Of them, only one resembles Vacian spellcasting -- the "once per day" kind.

A fireball you can cast and has a 1d8 round cooldown doesn't look like Vacian spellcasting. A power attack that does extra damage doesn't look like Vacian spellcasting.

Does lay on hands resemble Vacian spellcasting?

The point of the Talent table is that you can look and say "are the Rogue L 7 tricks about as good as the Wizard L 7 spells?" Under the current D&D system, the abilities that the Rogue or Fighter gets when the Wizard gets L 7 spells are, quite frankly, utter trash.

The Fighter is mostly stuck purchasing feats that he could have purchased half a dozen to a dozen levels ago, which either provide small static bonuses or another option for a special situation.

There are a handful of narrow classes that do provide a selection of powers as you gain levels -- such as the Barbarian. I rolled that in by expecting each class (from the Wizard down to the Rogue) to have "per level" abilities on top of any Talents.

Heck, you could even have a class whose Talent table looks nothing at all like mine: maybe they get fixed abilities based on Talent level. One can then determine if the Talent table replacement is good enough by doing a direct comparison with the abilities that a Talent table class gets.

...

The fact that the Talents are listed as "known" rather than "per day" should clue you in. It is the Talent that determines if it is a per day, per encounter or free with cooldown Talent. You could even have a Talent simply grant a constant bonus to something (a passive Talent).

But hey, it is only an off the cuff attempt. :)

Indon
2007-10-30, 03:37 PM
Note that there are 3 kinds of talents. Of them, only one resembles Vacian spellcasting -- the "once per day" kind.


That just means you're balancing the system off of the Vancian spell levels rather than character levels.

When the system's balance is based off of Vancian spellcasting, you're homogenizing the system to look like Vancian spellcasting.

Edit: Not that there's anything neccessarily wrong with that, or with any other balancing idea. But between the choices of picking a new, balanced system with less mechanical diversity, and an existing, balanced system with low mechanical diversity, what does the new system have to offer?

Thoughtbot360
2007-10-31, 02:08 AM
That is good -- and by defense, one should mean "protect the entire group against that ability" to a certain extent.

So if you are lacking a Wizard, you run into problems when fighting Arcane magic.

Well, generally. It can get kind of silly if the Fighter has a Move that acts as an Area of Effect defensive buff (I'm looking at you, "Watch Yourself!" from Guild Wars). But the Rogue is likely to be alert and attentive, and can counterspy an enemy Rogue with ease, therefore foiling his "Ambush" Trick.

However, the thing I had in mind was an enemy Wizard would cast a AOE save-or-suck spell over the party, and the party Wizard's magical aura would reject the intrusion from foreign magic, therefore causing the Wizard to be debuffed less than the entire party. Or, of course, you could also give the Wizard the Astral powers that Mages and Shamans have in Shadowrun (those came with the ability to spy on the party from Astral Space, the ability to lock your spells via a link between Real and Astral Space, and quite a few ways to counter all this tomfoolery after you notice what the enemy is up to with you Astral Perception.) Fighting magic without magic in Shadowrun is a headache and a half. Technically, all of these abilities affect the Mage, and the mage only, but they help out the party by limiting the enemy mage's oppurtunites to exploit weakness.

The other problem is to try not to turn a battle between two balanced parties into a stale mate due to preventative abilities. So limiting these protections to one character (who would still be equal to his counterpart....depending on how much said counterpart munchkinned his talents....) and in scope (so a Multiclass Fighter/Rogue would not be able to shrug off a high lever pure rogue's sneak attack damage) is of some importance.

I'm not sure what you mean by "NPCs shouldn't have as much detail as PCs." Granted, you don't need to give the average kobold you plan to die as soon the players can reach him a whole lot of skills and equipment, but sometimes, you do have a reoccurring foe. Sometimes you are fighting a villain that will retreat or is only fighting you just to delay you. What he might be doing offscreen has some importance as well. Also, while most monsters will not have Moves and Tricks and Spells of their own, some monster attacks are similar enough that principles a fighter has learned that are used in defending against another fighter, that can be applied in fighting the monster. For instance, how different is a medusa's gaze, or a dragon's breath, or a plant monster's sleep pollen from certain wizard spells, really? And can't monsters be tricky? Don't they believe in anything? I mean, I here there's this one guy called C'thulu who has an insanity cult or something......

The Alexandrian (http://www.thealexandrian.net/archive/archive2007-08.html) has a bit of a rant on the design ethos at WotC, and disagrees with the idea that a completely new mechanic is necessary to design for every monster in the book, that equipment raped by a rust monster should miraculously de-corrode after the fight, and other things. Heres a summary of the design ethos section of the rant on 4th edition:


If D&D were simply a skirmish game, Noonan would be right: You'd set up your miniatures and fight. And the reasons behind the fight would never become important. But D&D isn't a skirmish game -- it's a roleplaying game. And it's often the abilities that a creature has outside of combat which create the scenario. And not just the scenario which leads to combat with that particular creature, but scenarios which can lead to many different and interesting combats. Noonan, for example, dismisses the importance of detect thoughts allowing a demon to magically penetrate the minds of its minions. But it's that very ability which may explain why the demon has all of these minions for the PCs to fight; which explains why the demon is able to blackmail the city councillor that the PCs are trying to help; and which allows the demon to turn the PCs' closest friend into a traitor.

And, even more broadly, the assumption that detect thoughts will never be used when the PCs are around assumes that the PCs will never do anything with an NPC except try to hack their heads off.

Now, I've been thinking that Once-per Encounter tricks are kind of corny and strange, but they indeed might apply to some talents, specifically, some of the Rogue's Tricks. Depending on what they are, some tricks might involve feints, traps the rogue set up, throwing sand in their face, or a sudden use of deception and distraction to get the upper hand in the fight.

Xuincherguixe
2007-10-31, 02:57 AM
At some point, I might be making a system of my own. Which translated means probably not going to happen.

But if it does, my plan is not to use classes but to come up with a large set of abilities of which players would choose from several of. Let's say that a default amount would be 7, but higher or lower power games could have more or less points respectively.

*casts spells* wouldn't be a category. One would grab a batch of spells. If they want more, they can get another.

It might end up that some things are more useful than others, and so how many points they take up could be adjusted.


Chances are it still won't be totally balanced, but it gives better opportunities for each character to shine. Everyone can get "that one really awesome thing". Or those four really awesome things. But if they don't get different skill sets it might not be very interesting.


Monsters would be built in comparable ways. As some players might want to bw monsters, and it lets one come up with challenges easier.

Yakk
2007-10-31, 12:30 PM
Naw, not "I give everyone AC", but rather "I intercept enemy warrior-types and prevent them from getting at my group". The warrior-type is built to soak warrior-type attacks, and can intercept warrior-type attacks and protect the party.

Rogues with their Tricks can bypass the warrior's defenses, but an in-group Rogue has a chance to intercept and interfear with the attacking Rogue.

When the Wizard casts "Ball of Burning Flame", the enemy wizard can dispell/deflect/protect his group against the damage.

Same goes for the Priest vs Priest.

Now, each category can have attacks that are harder to soak, and even soaked attacks should be somewhat useful -- it is just that, lacking a Priest, enemy Priest attacks are more effective than other kinds of attacks.

You don't counter perfectly, you soften the blow.

...

I used 11 levels because I wanted you to gain at least 1 Talent at each character level. I wanted L 1 characters to have more than 1 Talent. I wanted each level to be roughly as good -- so you either gain a 2nd top level talent and a 3rd next-to-top, or you gain a single top-level talent.

I wanted the power of talents to scale up relatively smoothly as you gain levels. This means I wanted higher level characters to pick up better talents.

I didn't want low-level talents to become completely useless or obsolete, hence keeping 3 low-level talents.

The 10 level structure fell out of that.

Also note that twice first level is only slightly better than second level: which means a 1/1 character isn't godly compared to a level 2 character.

...

My point is that a demon being able to read peoples minds is a story-element. The DM can say "the demon can read people's minds", and it impacts the story. Having it in the MM doesn't help the DM balance any encounters, and if anything causes damage to the DM's story (because there is a decent chance that a player knows that that monster can read minds, having read the MM).

...

Per-encounter simply reflect the idea that you need to rest and recollect yourself to reuse this ability. With my concept of "cooldowns" this might not be needed.

The "cooldown" concept, where you roll a die after you use an ability, and it becomes unusable until your cooldown expires, is intended to prevent the "I do what I did last round" to be the default action. Having a collection of moves or spells now becomes as useful as having a single more powerful one. This also brings into importance lower level abilities. Sure your L 3 fireball is effective, and you can cast it all day -- but you need time between uses.

The length of that cooldown can reflect "how long before the move becomes appropriate" to "how long it takes to recover the mana" to "how long before the enemy leaves themselves open for it again". How exactly that works is a matter of storytelling.

Dausuul
2007-10-31, 01:11 PM
I don't really like the cooldown idea. Too much bookkeeping for not enough return.

What about abilities that build on each other? Say you have one ability which can deny an enemy its Dex bonus for one round. Then you have another ability which only works on an enemy that's denied its Dex bonus, and causes that enemy to be stunned for one round. Then you have a third ability which only works on an enemy that's stunned... et cetera.

Yakk
2007-10-31, 03:21 PM
That requires lots of careful design. :)

The advantage of cooldowns is that your best abilities? You don't always want to use them. Holding them in reserve for when you do use them. And every fight isn't the same combo of abilities in the same order.

Combo abilities have the problem that they have to be good: if they aren't good, you skip it. They can end up breaking the game if you aren't careful (see VT's flaming balls of doom guy). And if abilities are built and balanced assuming they are used in particular combos, it restricts what you can do to build a good character.

Combos should fall out, and be useful situationally -- but I don't want to force the design of combo-type ability chains for the game to be balanced.

I also don't want a character saying "I do what I did last round" 3 rounds in a row. The cooldown mechanic helps force each round to be a different decision. And I want the "sub best" abilities being a decent choice to use sometimes.

In D&D 3.5, this is forced on wizards by the "per day" mechanic, which created lots of other problems. If you go pure "per encounter", you end up with lots of encounters being "I use my best ability, then my next best ability, then my next best ability, then my next best ability, then I ran out of best abilities!"

If you go "at will" abilities, you often end up with the "I use my best ability", "I use my best ability", "I use my best ability": while it is laudable to attempt to demand dynamic encounters in which the situation changes so much every round that you have to reevaluate what you are doing, in my experience characters often find that building oneself to be really good at say "tripping" is a good way to deal with entire classes of opponent.

If you can only pull off the highly effective "trip" move occasionally: sure you trip some bad guys and take a bunch out. But next round you do something different (a whirlwind attack? a power attack? a stunning blow?), even if all you are fighting is a legion of uniform orcs trying to get through a narrow doorway.

Dynamic encounters can add to the dynamism of the fight, but don't become required.

Temp
2007-10-31, 03:41 PM
I think that short cooldowns (d6 at most) would be the best if you were going for that approach. Keeping track of the last six rounds' actions and durations could be a major pain.

I like the idea of being allowed to spam an ability [each round] indefinitely, but the ability having a chance of suceeding inversely proportional to its power. This would effectively give more powerful spells/attacks/whatever longer casting times than weaker ones.

This would have the same effect as the cool-down fix (do you want to spend your turn gambling on the 10% chance of your instant-death effect or the 30% chance of your "send the other guy flying" effect or the 80% chance of success on your damage effect?) while reducing the book-keeping.

It's the complete reverse of the D&D philosophy where more powerful effects are more likely to succeed and everything is limited in its potential uses, but I think it may be a better mechanism.

The problem still exists where players will do the same thing round after round (though they'd essentially just be using an extended-casting-time mechanic). Perhaps making battle-altering abilities (stunning, battlefield modification, blindness, mobility effects) more prominent in every class' ability list would keep combat situations changing from encounter to encounter.

horseboy
2007-10-31, 11:18 PM
I'm not a fan of the "cool down" either. It still allows alpha striking, which is the problem with mages in D&D. They would work much better with a "build up" mechanic. Having a low level wizard be able to end an encounter with sleep or color spray or even a high level one ending it in any of several ways wouldn't be so bad if it took him a couple of rounds to get the spell off.

I really would suggest some sort of comparison to the spells level and to the caster's level. There would be some spells, like oh, say, magic missile, that would be an exception to this rule, to help balance spells of the same level. That way every body else gets to do something while the mage is channeling enough energy for a big spell, or he can use his quicker, lower level spells and do less over all uber, but something different every round.

Yakk
2007-11-01, 11:53 AM
Sleep, being an "AOE save-or-die" effect, would be a per-day mook-only talent. (ie, it would let you defeat a medium number of mooks once per day in a single action, but big-bads would tend to shrug it off or be less effected by it).

Another way to restrict a spell like "sleep" is to have it work less well on "alert and aware of enemies" targets, just making them drowsy. Having it have a 2 or 3 round casting time is another decent option.

Having failure chances just changes which move is ideal -- it doesn't encourage changing tactics. And I'm not against status effects: but should one rely on them?

Sometimes, the DM will say "there are 100 orcs attacking your position". And the clear choice for round 1, 2, 3, and 4 is always the exact same spell, or the exact same combat technique, because it isn't a rapidly changing situation. With random cool-downs, there is at least some dynamic changes to what happens in a given round.

(Hmm: a better name for Fighter Talents is "Technique".)

The mechanic of "have a piece of paper (a piece of card-stock with talent rules written on it) for each talent, and place the die on it" is intended to reduce the bookkeeping needed. For the DM, they can even be played face-down, so players don't have to look at them.

And, as noted, a group of bad guys shouldn't individually be as complex as a player character: the DM shouldn't have 4 to 8 times as much bookkeeping as a player, but at most 1 to 3 times.

Thoughtbot360
2007-11-01, 06:18 PM
I have a solution:

Why not reduce the cooldown time to a single round? In other words, some techniques you cannot use twice in a row, and some cause you to forfeit your next move (the wizard overloaded his spell to increase damage, but is winded from the effort; a rogue draws an odd clawshot like device and it grabs the enemy archer's longbow on the other side of the room, and he spends next round playing tug-a-war with the archer, etc.)

Now, some abilities might indeed take a "buildup" period instead of a cooldown. Actually, loading a cannon or a primitive gun is takes awhile. So does lighting an arrow on fire. And maybe a long casting time is a good way to deal with too-powerful save-or-lose spells. You can still abuse your power and do things like put the guards to sleep or mind control the king, but when a fighter has already seen you and he is charging you, summoning a minion, conjuring a thick cloud of (non-solid) fog, or letting loose with with a barrage of fireballs to pin him down might be a better idea than taking the time to go through the complex ritual needed to cast teleport or dominate person. Especially if you are forbidden to make a Concentration check to endure the damage, and any interruption ruins your spell. This allows the BBEG to turn society into a dystopia with his magic as the GM's story requires, but prevents him (and any PC wizards) from dominating (probably literally (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/dominatePerson.htm)) the battlefield where the epic struggle to set things right again will take place.

A few other ideas on making classes good against themselves:

-If one of the Rogue's tricks is throwing sand in someone's eyes (or maybe they can make their own smoke bombs), then maybe Rogues have learned how to blindfight. If so, they are still blinded, so they can't reliably see where the enemy rogue is, but isn't helpless. Blindfighting sounds more like a warrior/monk shtick, but then again, it could be a useful thing for Rogues too. Sometimes, when you're surrounded by guards, but have access to the light source, darkness becomes your best friend. This also means that Rogues can reenact this (http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=070412) on a regular basis.
-Another thing that counters the powers a class has is increased offense against a fellow member of your class. However, this would be better as a counter attack vs. a particular attack type (Catch & Return Arrows, Deflecting punch that only activates if the enemy punches you. With his fist.) if you can disguise (play card face down, and if you waited long enough, turn the card over) the skill you are using when employing a buildup skill. If you are building up, you are vulnerable, if you are preparing a counter, attacking you might be a mistake. So there is another strategic element to your system. The problem is having mechanics that make the counters useable and damage return that makes them desirable. A counter might totally cancel the enemy's attack, too.


Changing the subject: When I posted this thread, I had an outline for my own less class-oriented system, but I decided to scrap my original post because it was too wordy and focused on details of already existent systems as an example too much. However I found a single system that can demonstrate the point I wanted to make without too much hassle. I'll post it (hopefully for real) later tonight.

Temp
2007-11-01, 07:50 PM
Having failure chances just changes which move is ideal -- it doesn't encourage changing tactics. And I'm not against status effects: but should one rely on them?
What I don't understand is why the variations between combats have to be internal to the characters.

And what I meant was that a more flexible style to combat with the nature of the battlefield constantly rearranging in the form of changing positionings, abruptly shiftting statuses and physical battlefield alteration would keep combat varying from encounter to encounter.

horseboy
2007-11-01, 09:56 PM
-Another thing that counters the powers a class has is increased offense against a fellow member of your class. However, this would be better as a counter attack vs. a particular attack type (Catch & Return Arrows, Deflecting punch that only activates if the enemy punches you. With his fist.) if you can disguise (play card face down, and if you waited long enough, turn the card over) the skill you are using when employing a buildup skill. If you are building up, you are vulnerable, if you are preparing a counter, attacking you might be a mistake. So there is another strategic element to your system. The problem is having mechanics that make the counters useable and damage return that makes them desirable. A counter might totally cancel the enemy's attack, too.
eh, that's a little "Ah ha! You have triggered my trap card!" for my tastes. After all, aren't we trying to not get WotC to turn D&D into a CCG?

Thoughtbot360
2007-11-01, 11:05 PM
eh, that's a little "Ah ha! You have triggered my trap card!" for my tastes. After all, aren't we trying to not get WotC to turn D&D into a CCG?

heh. Actually, Yakk already turned it into a card game (the cardstock thing), I was just trying to expand upon it.

Also, I only know know of one instance when cards really become useful in a Pen-and-Paper RPG. And that was Street Fighter: the Storytelling game. But even then only when using Musashi's countup (http://www.mu.ranter.net/rpg/rulescombat.html#countup) house rule (Yes, Mu made another rant that includes all his rulings on SF:STG. Not all are 'corrections' to the system, some are just new mechanics that help the GM.) Basically, the GM counts up from the lowest speed any PC or NPC has a maneuver on, and Players flip their cards when their speed is annonced, and then another player can interrupt (attack the guy whose 'turn' it is before he gets his attack through) with a faster attack or abort (forfeit his maneuver for a defensive one).

The official rulebook for this game tells you to make cards (but of course it lists an option that can play with no cards: the paragraph describe how this changes the game is...quite short), but has rules where you go around the table and every announces the attack they are using and the speed it goes off on. You could just use a sheet of paper with all the attacks and there stats written on it, and if you want to prevent cheating, force everyone to touch the attack before asking the players what their attacks are, and tell them to keep their fingers on the attack they choose before knowing who's doing what. It has a flaw because the group might will not be willing to check what the sheet for every attack of every round of every battle, but its a little hard lying through your teeth when you are literally pointing to the truth. Besides, you can only cheat so badly in this system.

As I think on it, I don't know why Yakk is using cards (besides the fact that he can hide the stats from players by playing his cards face down. "I play two cards face down and end my turn" "Then prepare for your doom, little Yugi!")

horseboy
2007-11-01, 11:15 PM
As I think on it, I don't know why Yakk is using cards (besides the fact that he can hide the stats from players by playing his cards face down. "I play two cards face down and end my turn" "Then prepare for your doom, little Yugi!")Yeah, I remember WoD:Combat. I was actually thinking about that (and the Changeling game, oh and TORG), trying to remember any games that might use cards, and how they worked.

Jayabalard
2007-11-02, 07:23 AM
Yeah, I remember WoD:Combat. I was actually thinking about that (and the Changeling game, oh and TORG), trying to remember any games that might use cards, and how they worked.Deadlands used regular playing cards.

Yakk
2007-11-02, 11:49 AM
I proposed cards to simplify the bookkeeping, and have a place to store the rules of your ability (reduce "look up in manual-itis").

With every L 10 character having about 15 abilities, and every L 20 having about 30, it could get confusing, and character sheets could get bulky.

With cards, you can:
A> Have "discard piles" for per-day/encounter abilities to physically go to indicate you can't use them again. No more ticks and erasing! End of combat, just pick up the per encounter abilities and you are done.

B> Have places to put cooldown timers on: on top of the ability card. Until the die is removed, you don't get the card back, so it is harder to accidentally use it.

I know of "spell cards" that go back as far as 1st edition D&D. They had a sketch of the rules needed to use the spell on them.

But in my case, you don't need fancy playing cards: index cards work great, each representing a talent.

Thoughtbot360
2007-11-02, 07:51 PM
Notice: the system detailed below is meant to be a point-buy system. There are no classes and you can spend experience points in any of the three categories below as fits your character concept.

Okay, when I originally posted on this thread, I talked about three attack type categories from which all combat-oriented characters use throughout pretty much all genres: Martial Arts, Magic, and Technology.

Lets first define these categories.

Magic (Pick a card, any card): You know what this one is. Here are its important qualities:
-Magic is the ultimate portable tool, because it doesn't technically have any physical form. A wizard is never unarmed, which makes holding him prisoner a bit messy. It is pretty much a part of the one who uses it, and his ability to do so is improved with a single stat like Intelligence or Willpower (or just call it Magic) that isn't much harder to raise than Strength (Martial arts' pet stat). Thats hard to disarm.
-Magic has been balanced fantastically in Warhammer: Fantasy Roleplay, but only by making it riskier and turning it into another way to drive the PC who uses it mad unless he very careful (and then there's bad dice rolls waiting to get you anyway.) Those who don't like games that endorse the "uphill battle" approach WFRP takes basically cannot use this system. Therefore, massive disadvantages to magic are problematic.
-Really, magic is just a handful of effects that occur because the fantasy world's warped physics allow them too. There's no limit on what you can use magic for, but there is also no rule saying you can't bar certain types of spells (say you hate Resurrection because you hate PCs having the power to tell death that he can just buzz off.) and with some forethought, you can keep magic from muscling in on other people's territory/ruining the plot.

Muscling in: Transformation spells can turn the mage into an animal with strength and natural weapons superior to that of a human being. As we know from the Druid, this can threaten to not only make the Mage on equal footing with the fighter (which is bad because they can still cast, even if they have to transform back first) but surpass him. Also, magical artifacts can take the place of technological devices, and creation spells can create from thin air what could have been crafted by a skill monkey.

Martial Arts (Everybody was Kung fu fiiiighting): This category includes all weapons that are part of the body, or become extensions of the body. Strength plays an important part in all attacks detailed below:
-Includes all unarmed attacks, whether you stretch out to your enemy with a punch or kick, or pull him in to grapple him, or if you simply charge and slam your entire body into him.
-Throwing projectiles are small weapons that can be thrown in fast succession, but have shorter range than slings or bows and arrows. However, THOSE weapons require you to stand both still AND tall (reduces evasion and defense, and you can't fire from a crouching position) to use them, and you have to take time string your bow. Only a few of the throwing weapons can be used non-disastrously at close range, however, if the enemy cannot easily close the distance between you and him, you can score a lot of damage with any projectile weapon. None of these weapons can be used from a prone position like the gun or the crossbow (which are tech weapons).
-Melee weapons have better reach than your unarmed attacks, and their damage actually comes in other flavors than "bludgeoning." The first "common sense" drawback of weapons is that you can be seperated from them. They can be stolen, broken, disarmed, or outlawed. Swords and Knives can be drawn and used to attack with the same action in addition to having the most techniques, Flails are spun around at high speeds while whips can be used to grab a faraway opponent (and a regular old Chain can be used for both of these things), Clubs and axes are simple-to-use high speed weapons that can knockdown opponents, and Polearms have the best reach of all weapons.
-Martial artists' training makes them fitter than other characters and therefore tend to be tougher and more athletic. This might translate to a kind of buy two, get one free discount on physical stats when your character spends points in skill with weapons and other athletic talents.

Muscling in: Some Fighters strive for self-perfection, and train to do some amazing feats. Jumping high into the sky, or striking the earth to cause a tremor, or just channeling your ki into a fireball start looking less like combat techniques and more like magical spells. Proceed with caution.

Technology (She Blinded me with science): Most pre-industrial weapons are simple machines (they have very few parts), however some of them are very complex machines that require no more strength (and certainly not any magical talent) than to pull the trigger. The tech-oriented character's strength lies in building, and she can make ammunition and complex traps from even improvised materials!
-Includes guns and crossbows, damage is static, improved only with character's aim and ability to modify the weapon.
-Also, the ability to use armed vehicles or other artillery is considered a tech skill, but those things are a little useless on a dungeon crawl or stealth mission.
-Include bombs, which technically have no damage limit (you can always squeeze more gunpowder into a spot, even if you don't have C4 yet) but the blast radius will likely be corresponding large. Also, when carrying bombs, getting the wet will ruin them, but a single spark will.....
-Technological characters can build, repair, or sabotage devices. Therefore, Rogue/Scout-type characters will learn how to disarm traps from learning how to build them in the first place.
-There are also many gadgets that have been seen in games, from Final Fantasy 6's Tools to Legend of Zelda's Double Clawshot, gadgets have a place in an adventurer's lives.

Muscling in: Chemists can brew poisons, and apply them to weapons. Now, simply adding tranquilizers to your crossbow bolts isn't much of a problem. Adding poison to all sorts of weapons might well be. In futuristic games, cyberware and energy-based weapons like Light sabers are melee weapons that don't rely on strength. In modern games, steroids can artificially increase muscle mass, reducing the need to spend points in improving strength (at the cost of the char's liver, but it'll take longer than the campaign to manifest those consequences.)

Here are some other concerns:

The stage of technological development the setting is in will affect the tools that are used there. Basically its better to add negatives to primitive technology than to add bonuses to high tech, but the GM should decide on an era and stick with it.

The usefulness of magic technically is a product of how skilled the individual mage is, not of how far society has come up the technological ladder. This could be used to explain why technology still advances and people train their bodies in a magical world however, because the presence of mages that can use magic to do the things that need to be done isn't something that can be counted on. The only problem there is if technology surpasses even the strongest magic one day. But, if thats a threat, then you can easily find a period in time when magic and technology were in fact, balanced. Generally, magic doesn't advance with the march of history. Or at least, I don't think it would....

Technology has the opposite problem. If the setting is stuck in Late Medieval Europe, then the GM will have to prevent characters from inventing a six-shooter, or a steam engine. This limits the amount of power a tech-oriented character can have. A renaissance character might have a single-shot pistol and a rubber ball stuffed with gunpowder and a fuse, but machine guns and C4 is a no-no. Most pre-industrial tech should be made with pulleys and levers and low-grade combustible substances/gunpowder weapons. And complex machines shouldn't exceed more than 10-12 parts (a crossbow has a a bowstring, two arms, a trigger, a platform to place the bolt on, and a crack to pull the platform and the bowstring back. Six parts total not counting the ammunition. And it was expensive to make.) in such an era. Imagination is needed, but that can be why play a tech character is so fun.

Martial arts are the easiest to adapt to the setting. Just use the weapons that best represent the era in question and say they are made of the right kind of material (Bone, Stone, Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Stainless Steel, Space-age alloys, etc.) and say everything else isn't available or is an outdated weapon. Melee weapons in modern times is a bit trickier, especially since you aren't allowed to just casually carry a katana with you where ever you go. However, in these settings, concealable weapons and unarmed techniques (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t_JeJhmM4M) come into their own.