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PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-15, 09:22 PM
I've been hearing quite a few people proclaim "don't nerf the strong, build the weak" as if it's a generally-applicable policy, or as if nerfing is disfavored/generally inappropriate. My opinion is that nerfing is quite often justified and appropriate, but so is buffing.

My basic policy: decide what range of power levels your system and current table can handle and desire. Anything that falls below that minimum power level should be buffed or removed from play. Anything that falls above that maximum power level should be nerfed or removed from play.

Every system and every table has a "sweet spot" (rather a sweet range) at which it works best. Going outside of that, while it may stroke power fantasies (or the reverse, maybe call them oppression fantasies?) generally causes issues. There is a decided limit to which you can (as the DM) strengthen the challenges to keep up with a growing party. Conversely, there's also a decided limit to how much you can weaken challenges (although IMO that's a line that depends much more on the narrative/world than on the exact mechanics). Not every system/table/DM can handle a PO T1 (in the 3.5e meaning) party. In fact, 3e itself strains at it mightily unless heavily modified. Which means you probably shouldn't decide that wizard is the line to match for 3e balance. Conversely, a full T6 party is also probably not a good balance point.

In addition, only buffing leads to positive feedback loops. Unless your balance is perfect, it's easy to overshoot. And then you have to buff everyone else, and the cycle repeats. The same is true of only nerfing, just in reverse (still a positive feedback loop, just spiraling toward 0 instead of +infinity).

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As a side point, I also believe that buffing and nerfing should be based primarily on actual play. Sure, there are some abilities that theorycrafting alone can show are inappropriate (in either direction). But just as programmers are supposed to profile before optimizing, DMs and system designers should be guided by actual experience with the abilities in the context of actual scenarios from the game. And DMs, especially new DMs, shouldn't rush to rebalance things based on forum feedback without seeing what matters for their actual party. I, for one, have never had to rebalance martials vs casters in my 14 parties of 5e so far. Whether that's about play style, scenario design, or what, but it's just never been a problem at my tables. And the adjustments people propose would have been (because I've tried a few of them for other reasons and uniformly got negative feedback).

Mechalich
2021-04-15, 09:28 PM
Humans are extremely loss averse, a nerf, when inflicted during play counts as a loss, and it tends to make people very angry (ie. the most hated and feared monster in D&D is the Rust Monster).

As such, nerfs are best used as a design principle or laid out during a session zero while buffs are best used during play.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-15, 09:50 PM
Humans are extremely loss averse, a nerf, when inflicted during play counts as a loss, and it tends to make people very angry (ie. the most hated and feared monster in D&D is the Rust Monster).

As such, nerfs are best used as a design principle or laid out during a session zero while buffs are best used during play.

I prefer to play with people who act like adults, able to put their loss aversion aside for the good of the game. I'd never do it without discussing it with the people, as people (ie OOC). But there have been times I've had to pull back on items I've made. And that's known up front.

But I generally agree. However, buffs can also come across as nerfs--if you're giving everyone except one character stuff, that doesn't go over any better than just putting same limits on the over powered things that are causing the issue.

gijoemike
2021-04-15, 10:47 PM
As a GM I would not discuss the enemies tactics prior to the party meeting said enemy. PhoenixPhyre, you say you would discuss this up front. Do you mean session 0 mentioning stuff will get broken from time to time? Do you mention that if you anger rich and powerful NPCs they will pay for assassins?

I have been on the battlefield where OH SHIZ rust monsters happen. And the fighter lost his magic plate mail. It was not replaced that fight. The "Tank" character lost +10 AC in that fight. I have also seen fights against npc swordsman who will a round or 2 into the fight sunder a shield or weapon, I have had invisible thieves yank a headband of intellect right off the wizard in the surprise round. I have had horses killed while my PC was riding them. And during ambushes like these I would never expect the GM to explain tactics or discuss taking items. How you deal with it in the moment is important to the flow of the game.

Sometimes those NPC's get away with the loot. Sometimes it is destroyed and your character is a a major loss for sessions at a time. Random dice rolls, poor battlefield placement all contribute.


To your OP though.

You mention 3.5 and I assume you have experience with it. You also mention 5e and 5e has a WAY WAY lower ceiling than 3.X. The buff instead of nerf argument comes specifically from the desperate need to buff martials in 3.X games as compared to even poorly built casters. A wizard can full move and get off its full offensive power every round (and have multiple ways of extending and changing that mode of travel). If a martial moves more than 10 ft of their limited move types, they instead get only 1/3 or 1/4 of their total offensive ability. There are a select # of items, and class abilities, & feats that offset that to a point. And the wizard has the greater offensive power of caster vs martial. So don't try to nerf casters which would radically change the format of the game. Instead buff the martial by giving them a few extra already available abilities.


T1 theorycrafting characters are almost completely universally stupid/absurd. Those players are abusing specific readings of abilities and items and combining them in a way the designers never ever intended. TO handle most T1 characters the GM just needs to enforce the general ruling of items and feats. And when a player says "but when combined with" .... The gm interrupts with "No."

I believe that Lower T2 and Upper T3 is the sweet spot for 3.X

PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-15, 11:36 PM
As a GM I would not discuss the enemies tactics prior to the party meeting said enemy. PhoenixPhyre, you say you would discuss this up front. Do you mean session 0 mentioning stuff will get broken from time to time? Do you mention that if you anger rich and powerful NPCs they will pay for assassins?


I mention that the world will react to you. And what I meant with "discussed up front" was that I will tone down things I homebrew that end up causing issues for the game. And I'll do so OOC, discussing that fact with the people and figuring out how to tone it down with the minimum hurt. I don't fight against my party, I work with my party.



I have been on the battlefield where OH SHIZ rust monsters happen. And the fighter lost his magic plate mail. It was not replaced that fight. The "Tank" character lost +10 AC in that fight. I have also seen fights against npc swordsman who will a round or 2 into the fight sunder a shield or weapon, I have had invisible thieves yank a headband of intellect right off the wizard in the surprise round. I have had horses killed while my PC was riding them. And during ambushes like these I would never expect the GM to explain tactics or discuss taking items. How you deal with it in the moment is important to the flow of the game.

Sometimes those NPC's get away with the loot. Sometimes it is destroyed and your character is a a major loss for sessions at a time. Random dice rolls, poor battlefield placement all contribute.


Depending on the group, I could do that. But I've rarely had to put my thumb on the scale, and basically only due to badly balanced items I've made.

But none of those are IC discussions. There are some tactics I won't use, because my party doesn't find them fun (even if they're "fair"). There are other things I will do.



To your OP though.

You mention 3.5 and I assume you have experience with it. You also mention 5e and 5e has a WAY WAY lower ceiling than 3.X. The buff instead of nerf argument comes specifically from the desperate need to buff martials in 3.X games as compared to even poorly built casters. A wizard can full move and get off its full offensive power every round (and have multiple ways of extending and changing that mode of travel). If a martial moves more than 10 ft of their limited move types, they instead get only 1/3 or 1/4 of their total offensive ability. There are a select # of items, and class abilities, & feats that offset that to a point. And the wizard has the greater offensive power of caster vs martial. So don't try to nerf casters which would radically change the format of the game. Instead buff the martial by giving them a few extra already available abilities.


T1 theorycrafting characters are almost completely universally stupid/absurd. Those players are abusing specific readings of abilities and items and combining them in a way the designers never ever intended. TO handle most T1 characters the GM just needs to enforce the general ruling of items and feats. And when a player says "but when combined with" .... The gm interrupts with "No."

I believe that Lower T2 and Upper T3 is the sweet spot for 3.X

I agree that T3 is probably the best balance point for 3.X. But to get there, you have to both heavily buff the T4 and T5 people AND nerf the everliving daylights out of all the T1 and T2 people. Or, as is probably more practical due to the insane power differences even within tiers, drop everything outside of the low T2-high T4 range entirely. And all the supporting builds/spells/etc that can get abused to break the game.

But even in 5e, there's lots of people complaining that casters are leaps and bounds above "martials". I don't necessarily agree--I haven't run into that issue at all. But for those that do, the suggestion is always made to balance to the wizard (who is, again, the one causing the complaints) and lots of complaints any time anyone suggests even just enforcing the existing casting rules (like not giving everyone free subtle spell just for "clever" descriptions or letting spells do way more than they say they do). That's when the "buff, don't nerf" mantra comes out. And my point is that it's a misleading statement. You can and should do both. Especially as a game designer.

Mastikator
2021-04-16, 01:19 AM
Having played both martial and casters in 5e recently I can say that yes, casters are *better*. They have more tools in combat and more tools outside combat. As such I'm very wary when someone wants to nerf martial classes, not because of loss aversion but because it's not justified. Even if a well built martial class can *finally* outshine caster class in one thing, DPR does not mean it's over powered. There are 3/5ths of combat a caster will do better and 2/3rds of the game a caster will do better.
A well built caster can easily fall into "I am the MAIN protagonist"-mode in a way that a martial class just can't. (Unless you count Warlock Hexblade as a martial class, but I don't)

Rynjin
2021-04-16, 01:32 AM
The problem with nerfing, at least when it comes to things which are merely overtuned, rather than gamebreaking, is not just loss aversion.

The difference is fairly simple: nerfs REMOVE OPTIONS, while buffs ADD OPTIONS. That is really all.

If you decide that, say, fighting with a Greatsword is too powerful, and nerf it to deal a d10 or something, you have effectively removed the Greatsword as a viable option to use, as A.) the fantasy no longer fits the stats and B.) there are now objectively superior options (the Bastard Sword, for instance).

Obviously this is simplified, but it illustrates the point. Removing options is not often a desirable choice to make when it comes to core character concepts. If someone wants to make Conan the Barbarian, but greatswords suck, they're going to be sad. And this is especially bad if it leaves behind a plethora of other options (such as the Earthbreaker) which are mechanically equivalent in strength to a greatsword untoucched. That just makes bad feelings, because you're essentially telling someone that they're not allowed to enjoy a certain flavor of character; not at your table anyway.

A nerf should really only come down if there's no way to play the option in a balanced manner. And the form that nerf should take is...a ban. Because if you're going to remove an option, simply remove an option. It's much better to do so up front instead of in a roundabout way.

That is, unless you're willing to put in the work to rework the offending piece of material rather than nerf it. And that is a much harder target to swing for than a straight nerf. Even professionals have a hard time getting that right; see the infamous nerfs to Crane Wing that Pazio put out years ago, and the backlash to it.

If something is merely overtuned in a small way, it's probably just safe to allow as-is. If the option is nominally balanced, but is "breakable" in some way, it's simply better to tell someone "don't do the thing that breaks this". Stuff like Simulacrum is a good example. There are well known ways to make Simulacrum ridiculously overpowered...but if you're not doing stuff like farming wishes, or making your character's dream body, it's really not that bad of a spell. Powerful, of course, but no more so than casting a Summon spell at high levels of play.

If someone insists on doing so, the problem is not with the option, but with the player. And those are just as easily removed from the equation.

Batcathat
2021-04-16, 02:03 AM
Obviously this is simplified, but it illustrates the point. Removing options is not often a desirable choice to make when it comes to core character concepts. If someone wants to make Conan the Barbarian, but greatswords suck, they're going to be sad. And this is especially bad if it leaves behind a plethora of other options (such as the Earthbreaker) which are mechanically equivalent in strength to a greatsword untoucched. That just makes bad feelings, because you're essentially telling someone that they're not allowed to enjoy a certain flavor of character; not at your table anyway.

This can be true, but so can the opposite. A wizard who can do almost anything is a lot less interesting of a concept to me than a wizard who's focused on a particular type of magic, for example.

As I've frequently stated in response to "just buff every class to top tier", I don't want characters to be able to handle almost any situation in ten different ways. There should be options, yes, but there should also be limits.

Mastikator
2021-04-16, 02:13 AM
This can be true, but so can the opposite. A wizard who can do almost anything is a lot less interesting of a concept to me than a wizard who's focused on a particular type of magic, for example.

As I've frequently stated in response to "just buff every class to top tier", I don't want characters to be able to handle almost any situation in ten different ways. There should be options, yes, but there should also be limits.

I totally disagree with this sentiment. A wizard who can do almost anything is a thousand times more interesting to play than a fighter who can only do one thing and isn't even as good as the wizard at it. Simply by the fact that you, the player, get to do stuff a lot of the time. Whereas the fighter is wondering if he should bother showing up.

If you honestly think that Angel Summoner is just as boring as BMX Bandit then we are at an impasse.

Batcathat
2021-04-16, 02:16 AM
I totally disagree with this sentiment. A wizard who can do almost anything is a thousand times more interesting to play than a fighter who can only do one thing and isn't even as good as the wizard at it. Simply by the fact that you, the player, get to do stuff a lot of the time. Whereas the fighter is wondering if he should bother showing up.

If you honestly think that Angel Summoner is just as boring as BMX Bandit then we are at an impasse.

Sure. If I had to pick between the two, I would also pick the wizard. However, I would prefer something in between – doing almost everything and doing barely anything are not the only options.

In my ideal system, the fighter would be boosted but the wizard would also be nerfed, so they could meet somewhere in the middle.

Mechalich
2021-04-16, 03:20 AM
Increases in character power erode character differentiation. If one playable option is 'a wizard who can do anything' then all other options must all be able to 'do anything' and at that point actual mechanical differentiation between characters ceases to exist and you just have fluff aesthetics.

Balancing characters with wildly different power schemes is much easier to do at lower levels of power - something that has held true across essentially every game ever created. The Disgaea series, in which initially tiny variances like a 0.5% different in growth rate balloon into multiple orders of magnitude differences in damage when the levels crank to 9999, is a highly illustrative example.

What a game needs to do is to stabilize the core offered player concepts throughout the power growth curve available to characters. Note that this include hard caps they may leave the characters several steps below the true powers of the world, if that's the nature of the game. Concepts that don't match the power growth curve for whatever reason, such as their maximum power level topping out well below that of the overall max or a minimum power vastly higher than the starting floor, should not be supported. And most games do this. VtM, for example, does not support playing a mortal (too weak) or a mage (too strong) alongside a vampire. The game only supported various forms of vampire as core concepts (they weren't balanced against each other, of course, because WW, but you get the idea).

Nerfs and buffs, applied during play, are a means to keep PCs on the generalized power curve that they have departed from for some reason. Buffs are a generally superior method of doing this for psychological reasons, but they do have the side effect that they tend to move the party up the curve at an accelerated rate, which may result in reduced overall character lifespan (the solution for when the characters get too powerful for the game system to handle is to stop playing those characters and make new ones, not to try to mangle the system to handle a scale it was not designed to operate at). Nerfs do have their place, especially when characters have grown too powerful due to over-reliance on some non-intrinsic ability like a piece of gear or an allied NPC, but they are more difficult to apply, especially in the case of a character that grew overpowered not out of any deliberate min/max plan, but simply because a character took a specific option of combo that they thought was cool and it turned out to be incredibly powerful.

D&D (especially in 3.PF versions, but in other editions too) has this problem particularly bad, as players may build characters that turn out to be vastly more powerful than expected without either the player or the DM realizing it until several sessions in.

Anonymouswizard
2021-04-16, 03:47 AM
You can and should do both. Especially as a game designer.

The issue with doing both as a TTRPG designer is that tables essentially get to decide which patches to use. It's why 5e has mainly focused on buffing via subclass, sometimes problematically (see: Hexblafe being the best choice for Bladelocks by a mile). It's also why 3.X mainly solved the issue by adding new options like the Dread Necromancy and Tonne of Battle.

Really, the easiest way to apply nerds is to release a new edition to create a new paradigm, which is why 5e managed to return in wizards (mostly, they're more powerful but less powerful). Buy when the opportunity does present itself yes, I'll agree that designers should nerf options unless they are intentionally powerful*.

* Stuff like letting characters with shields give each other bonus AC, my game includes intentionally unrealistic shield walls.


I totally disagree with this sentiment. A wizard who can do almost anything is a thousand times more interesting to play than a fighter who can only do one thing and isn't even as good as the wizard at it. Simply by the fact that you, the player, get to do stuff a lot of the time. Whereas the fighter is wondering if he should bother showing up.

If you honestly think that Angel Summoner is just as boring as BMX Bandit then we are at an impasse.

I've watched that sketch, Angel Summoner does one kind of magic. Sure, summoning a horde of celestial superbeings is an incredibly useful form of magic, but it's still just one kind of thing.

Which means that the issue is not limiting magicians, but by making magic one note. Which is something I'm struggling with in a fantasy game I'm trying to write, limiting mages to one discipline makes options like pyromancy too limiting, while letting them have free reign of all the spells might be problematic even with the relatively steep XP cost per spell (the same as a new Talent/Feat, plus the need to increase it as if it was a skill).

MoiMagnus
2021-04-16, 03:48 AM
Another interesting question is, "what is the goal of a nerf?"

With numbers, assume the expected strength of a power is 50 (of an arbitrary metric).
Most powers are in the range 40-60, which is reasonable. One power is OP at 80.
What should be the goal of the nerf?
(A) Kill it, reducing the power to 40, to be sure 100% sure it isn't OP anymore, and force a change in the meta?
(B) Reduce the power to the average of 50?
(C) Keep the power as stronger than average, but more reasonable, so 60?

IMO, (A) is probably a very bad answer in a TTRPG, but could make sense in a videogame environment where the goal is not that much to be fair, but to maintain a constant change of meta to renew the game.

I think that (C) is the best choice for change in the middle of a campaign. The best thing that can happen after a nerf is the player thinking "well, that's still the choice which is the most powerful for my character, so I guess that's a fair nerf". By aiming at (B), there is a significant chance that another choice you didn't nerf becomes "more optimal" than the option you nerfed for the character. And even if you allow for the players to change their mind on any ability you nerfed, that's still not pleasant.

Mastikator
2021-04-16, 04:13 AM
I've watched that sketch, Angel Summoner does one kind of magic. Sure, summoning a horde of celestial superbeings is an incredibly useful form of magic, but it's still just one kind of thing.

Which means that the issue is not limiting magicians, but by making magic one note. Which is something I'm struggling with in a fantasy game I'm trying to write, limiting mages to one discipline makes options like pyromancy too limiting, while letting them have free reign of all the spells might be problematic even with the relatively steep XP cost per spell (the same as a new Talent/Feat, plus the need to increase it as if it was a skill).

Doesn't matter if it's one spell that can overcome any challenge or 100 different spells that can each overcome one challenge, they do it better than BMX bandit and he can only overcome a narrow list of challenges.

My point is that if then the BMX Bandit is so good at popping wheelies that in this one situation that relies on it that he totally outshines Angel Summoner that is a good thing and he should not be nerfed.

I'm using this as an analogy for comparing Martial Classes and Caster Classes in 5E D&D. If a Martial class happens to out-DPS a caster by a lot that is a good thing. If anything its the casters who should be nerfed, limit their cantrip use, be more strict about their spell interpretations.

MoiMagnus
2021-04-16, 05:22 AM
I'm using this as an analogy for comparing Martial Classes and Caster Classes in 5E D&D. If a Martial class happens to out-DPS a caster by a lot that is a good thing. If anything its the casters who should be nerfed, limit their cantrip use, be more strict about their spell interpretations.


IMO, one of the problem is that you can't specialise caster enough.

You should be able to build an blaster-spellcaster that gives up all its subtlety and versatility to kill things as efficiently as a martial, to accommodate for tables that only care about killing monsters without any subtlety but still want a variety of ways (sword, fireball, etc) to do it.

Lack of specialisation of casters mean that each time a designer think that "obviously, magic should be able to do THAT very well", suddenly almost every caster is able to do it very well.

Azuresun
2021-04-16, 07:23 AM
I've been hearing quite a few people proclaim "don't nerf the strong, build the weak" as if it's a generally-applicable policy, or as if nerfing is disfavored/generally inappropriate. My opinion is that nerfing is quite often justified and appropriate, but so is buffing.

People don't want to lose their stuff, and are terrible at recognising when their stuff is breaking a game.

There's also a very insidious effect from having overpowered outliers that I've seen several times, when the fans start demanding that everything be as good as that outlier. Just look at any thread here where X sucks because it's not as powerful as an optimised wizard played by someone with precognition.

I played the minis wargame Warmachine for a while, but one of the things that pushed me out was a relentless cycle of player-feedback-driven "buff everything, now buff something else to make it as good as the things we just buffed", and the power creep devoured the game whole within five years.

Cluedrew
2021-04-16, 07:42 AM
If you decide that, say, fighting with a Greatsword is too powerful, and nerf it to deal a d10 or something, you have effectively removed the Greatsword as a viable option to use, as A.) the fantasy no longer fits the stats and B.) there are now objectively superior options (the Bastard Sword, for instance).Which is actually why a single overpowered option can be much more destructive. An underpowered option will only remove itself as a viable option, an overpowered option could remove EVERYTHING else as a viable option.

I agree with bit of fitting the fantasy although in terms of abstracted damage you could push them around a dice size and it would generally be fine. But for a different example (also from D&D) I think the caster/martial disparity solution is about 1/3* caster nerfs and 2/3* martial buffs, at least for me. There are some parts of casters that feel problematically strong just in general (wish for example) but most martials just don't feel up to the general promise of "epic level".

* Very rough numbers.

Anonymouswizard
2021-04-16, 08:27 AM
Doesn't matter if it's one spell that can overcome any challenge or 100 different spells that can each overcome one challenge, they do it better than BMX bandit and he can only overcome a narrow list of challenges.

My point is that if then the BMX Bandit is so good at popping wheelies that in this one situation that relies on it that he totally outshines Angel Summoner that is a good thing and he should not be nerfed.

I'm using this as an analogy for comparing Martial Classes and Caster Classes in 5E D&D. If a Martial class happens to out-DPS a caster by a lot that is a good thing. If anything its the casters who should be nerfed, limit their cantrip use, be more strict about their spell interpretations.

Oh sure, I don't disagree with you, but honestly most of the time I see 'limit the caster' arguments they're more about bringing casters down to the level of Angel Summoner, so the usage rubs me the wrong way a bit.

I mean, it's not when I'm talking about limiting casters, but I think that D&D magicians cast too much magic.

Otherwise I agree with what you say, although I've rarely seen people make such statements, it's almost always arguments over whether or not casters are better than mundanes in 5e, which is highly dependent on your resting frequency (one encounter a session plus a long rest at the end of every session? Yes I've been in it, and it made even low level casters too strong).

Now at the end of the day if you try to balance the two you're going to make somebody unhappy. If you buff the Fighter to match the Wizard people who want to play Conan instead of Thor aren't going to be happy. If you limit the wizard to the Fighter's level people who want to play Doctor Strange rather than, I dunno the Lords frmo Thomas Covenant, won't be happy. If you try to find a middle ground anybody who doesn't want to play somebody like Captain America or Spiderman for their fighter is probably disappointed. Which hits at the actual[/I issue with D&D, not the power level of any particular class but that beyond the relatively low levels it doesn't know what power level it wants and splits into two/three tracks. Even in 5e, where casters start to get a lot of [I]new big things even if they've traded in rare frequency for magnitude, whereas mundanes mostly do what they already did better. 5e's main responses seems to have been 'make everybody we can a caster'.

The differentiation is fine to a point, as long as the table agrees that an 8th level Fighter can be more like Guts than Conan. Plus honestly D&D isn't the only game which such a problem, most systems which try to allow for high powered gameplay fail to balance all their archetypes (assuming the designers understand their system, hello Scion and the default gunfighter with no Epic Dexterity). But I'm rambled enough for now, time to get back to work.

Berenger
2021-04-16, 09:17 AM
If you honestly think that Angel Summoner is just as boring as BMX Bandit then we are at an impasse.

But Angel Summoner is completely, 100% boring. There are neither meaningful stakes nor relevant threats nor any true conflicts whenever he is around, and those are literally indispensable for any interesting story.

Lord Raziere
2021-04-16, 09:18 AM
This is why you need a proper setting.

without a proper setting to define what is the range of power and progression a character SHOULD experience in their time of playing a world, you get people demanding things should be buffed for no reason.

DnD of course has a maybe-a-setting in its corebook, a default setting of Forgotten Realms that is just likely as to be ignored to create one's own setting as to be adhered to, Eberron, then everything else. and that isn't a good recipe for defining a setting well at all.

without a power ceiling you don't have a setting, you have an inevitable fragile playground of supergods spiraling upwards in power, reducing everyone else to spectators to their own doom as they watch a glorified circus of reality-warping and/or destruction. the story becomes more about the whims and lives of these supergods than the normal people living in them. On the other hand, a power floor of street level human stories comes naturally. Examples of this failure to establish power ceiling are: DC, Marvel, Dragon Ball, Doctor Who.

MoiMagnus
2021-04-16, 10:45 AM
This is why you need a proper setting.

Choosing a proper setting would force to make a unique choice of power level, which just cannot work without losing half of the player base.

Setting-free approach allows to make different choices depending on the level range.
There is already plenty of tables that have a high preferences for the level 1-4, and plenty of tables (like mine) that will probably never play below level 5 in the future.

And I think that's the way to go: accept that while the core rules remain the same, different Tiers of gameplay target different players, and hence different powerlevel. And accordingly, different settings depending on the power level (let individual settings put a recommended level cap or a higher recommended starting level).

Lord Raziere
2021-04-16, 11:00 AM
Choosing a proper setting would force to make a unique choice of power level, which just cannot work without losing half of the player base.


Good!

Bigger isn't always better. The more you try to make a franchise big, bland and generic the more you leave it someday to be bloated, watered down, unable to please anyone and overwrought, becoming an overdesigned parody of itself. Like DC, Marvel, Pokemon, Star Wars, and many others.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-16, 11:08 AM
Good!

Bigger isn't always better. The more you try to make a franchise big, bland and generic the more you leave it someday to be bloated, watered down, unable to please anyone and overwrought, becoming an overdesigned parody of itself. Like DC, Marvel, Pokemon, Star Wars, and many others.

You don't need one specific setting, you just need higher constraints or guidance so that the settings that do exist are coherent. And you can do that at the mechanical level. Sure, you cut out all those potential out-of-power-band settings out, but :shrug:.

And I'd strongly object to forcing D&D into one particular, pre-written setting. Because I'm never happy about other people's settings. Not just the details, but the metaphysics. I need full power to adjust things, and tying the mechanics to the setting too heavily means that I can't do that without breaking everything. I'm much more willing to accept the need to do some power adjustments myself, as long as the baseline isn't too off[1].

[1] 3e is way too far off, I'd need to take a machete and flamethrower to the entire list to get close. It's broken by design. 5e is close enough that I rarely have to meddle, for at least my own tastes and play style.

MoiMagnus
2021-04-16, 11:42 AM
Good!

Bigger isn't always better. The more you try to make a franchise big, bland and generic the more you leave it someday to be bloated, watered down, unable to please anyone and overwrought, becoming an overdesigned parody of itself. Like DC, Marvel, Pokemon, Star Wars, and many others.

But that's the whole point of a big franchise. That's the only reason why you would use the name D&D, to put a common name over a whole set of set of different gameplay that peoples recognise as being D&D. It's a feature, not a bug.

If you want something more specific, tailored to a specific kind of players or power level, that's why there are tons and tons of other medieval fantastic RPGs, that are less widely known in particular because they target a smaller audience. But that doesn't mean they are lesser RPGs in term of quality.

[Arguably, D&D could be split into different subRPGs (with slightly different set of rules) that target different groups, which is not that different from having different Tier of a single RPG have different gameplay. But that could easily end up to be quite a mess]

Tanarii
2021-04-16, 11:45 AM
OP options are usually few, obvious, and outliers with the entire rest of the system.

Buff don't nerf is definitely a back to front mentality to take towards fixing game balance, as a general principle. Nerf, but not into oblivion (worse than all other options) is usually the most beneficial general policy for a GM to take.

Pex
2021-04-16, 11:49 AM
Nerfing isn't the problem; it's overcompensating. It can be objectively agreed that some Ability or Power is too powerful for the game. Even if one disagrees something is too powerful you can appreciate how others do, and it's not a hill to die on to acquiesce toning it down or getting rid of it completely. The problem comes in taking away too much or piling on restrictions, conditions, and payments that makes doing the Thing not worth the effort, banning by passive aggresiveneess instead of direct admittance. As I like to say, don't punish a player for doing something you said he could do. If something is so horrendoulsly powerful to you how dare anyone do it don't have it in the game at all. Don't make a player wish he never did it. If you get rid of too much don't blame the players who disagree and refuse to play at all. It's your problem, not theirs.

Man_Over_Game
2021-04-16, 11:52 AM
I played the minis wargame Warmachine for a while, but one of the things that pushed me out was a relentless cycle of player-feedback-driven "buff everything, now buff something else to make it as good as the things we just buffed", and the power creep devoured the game whole within five years.

A bit off-topic, but I saw the exact same thing happen in real-time with Borderlands 3 over the course of about 4 months. Made me realize that giving people what they ask for won't make them happy, even when it comes to games.

People don't like nerfs, but it still might be good for them.

Xervous
2021-04-16, 12:11 PM
A bit off-topic, but I saw the exact same thing happen in real-time with Borderlands 3 over the course of about 4 months. Made me realize that popular opinion can't be trusted.

I’ve seen something vaguely similar happen to Grim Dawn over the course of four years. Fortunately the devs there have a decent grasp on what their target performance band is and aren’t afraid of calling idiots out, but some changes they made led to too much power creep when they changed FOUR different areas over time to address the same problem and didn’t peel off the earlier bandaids.

Biggest takeaways I have from GD are that bandaids should be avoided because the end users will view them as final intended features. That and the first thing a new player will ask is “wots da best buildz?”

Grim Dawn wasn’t a competition as much as the Russians tried to (and succeeded at) poison the community with that mindset. Neither are TTRPGs generally.

As for popular opinion the Grim Dawn forums are a treasure trove of nonsense...

Dev: “okay enlightened user, how do you propose we buff the recently nerfed hammer of this set piece without putting back the retal property that did not fit with our intended use case?”

Next post: “set is dead without retal property, put it back”


So yeah, nerf the outliers, keep your system doing what you want it to do.

Starbuck_II
2021-04-16, 12:15 PM
IMO, one of the problem is that you can't specialise caster enough.

You should be able to build an blaster-spellcaster that gives up all its subtlety and versatility to kill things as efficiently as a martial, to accommodate for tables that only care about killing monsters without any subtlety but still want a variety of ways (sword, fireball, etc) to do it.

Lack of specialisation of casters mean that each time a designer think that "obviously, magic should be able to do THAT very well", suddenly almost every caster is able to do it very well.

In 3.5:
But isn't a Warmage basically a super specialized wizard almost?
Granted, he is missing a lot of splatbook damage spells that keep forgetting him.

However, even then, they didn't go far enough.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-16, 01:18 PM
A bit off-topic, but I saw the exact same thing happen in real-time with Borderlands 3 over the course of about 4 months. Made me realize that giving people what they ask for won't make them happy, even when it comes to games.

People don't like nerfs, but it still might be good for them.

This is a key takeaway. It's like cheat codes. Sure, you get victory...but it often leaves a hollow taste. At least in single-player games...competitive games you get the boost from "pwning the noobs" or whatever the current lingo is. But D&D (especially, but most TTRPGs) should not be approached with that same kind of competitive attitude, where "winning" is the only thing that matters at the player level.

I think the keys to well-received nerfs are
a) a sane base system so any nerfs are for obvious outliers/obvious unintended and broken interactions, of which there aren't many. This lets you (as the DM or dev) reserve your nerfing hammer for things most people agree really need it.
b) Communication. Including sharing what you mean by "OP" and why X is OP by those standards.
c) Communication. At the individual table level, you can talk to the players involved, OOC, and come to an agreement about how to handle things. Much of this should happen at Session 0. But if a hotfix is needed, talk to the players. Get their buy-in. Or accept that it may not be broken enough at your table to need changing for this campaign.

Telok
2021-04-16, 01:27 PM
But that's the whole point of a big franchise. That's the only reason why you would use the name D&D, to put a common name over a whole set of set of different gameplay that peoples recognise as being D&D. It's a feature, not a bug.

If you want something more specific, tailored to a specific kind of players or power level, that's why there are tons and tons of other medieval fantastic RPGs, that are less widely known in particular because they target a smaller audience. But that doesn't mean they are lesser RPGs in term of quality.

[Arguably, D&D could be split into different subRPGs (with slightly different set of rules) that target different groups, which is not that different from having different Tier of a single RPG have different gameplay. But that could easily end up to be quite a mess]

One solution, which was somewhat done in D&D in TSR times is to do what many supers games do. Explicitly support different power levels with tailored advice, settings, and splats. Street level, world level, and cosmic level play all use the same rules with different power levels. You pick your power level and play that. If you want, there are splats for each with more specific npcs, monsters, setting stuff, and advice.

Current D&D does this, but not explicitly and not well. There's basically an official setting with everything that's supposed to support everything from "fight small town thugs" to "smack down low-medium gods on your weekends", and games can do any of that. But D&D automatically pushes characters into new power levels without addressing in play or in explicit advice, how it changes things. What isn't happening is admitting that the character concept of Wolverine (wandering bum sticks knives in stuff & heals real good) dosen't inherently scale up into Dr. Strange (gank extra planar demigods with one trick out of 30) while the rest of the game and other characters do.

So the whole buff/nerf thing arises from having both street level supers and cosmic level supers in the same party and facing the same challenges. Scale the challenges to "stab with knife" and the characters who zap godlings are too strong. Scale chalenges to "gank demigods" and the characters who can only stab stuff struggle to be relevant. The "supported" D&D solution is playing in only the first 6 to 10 levels.

Anonymouswizard
2021-04-16, 01:49 PM
This is a key takeaway. It's like cheat codes. Sure, you get victory...but it often leaves a hollow taste. At least in single-player games...

I mean, I think there's a difference between playing the game for a challenge, and messing around to be silly. If I play Saint's Row with cheat codes on I'm probably not trying to complete the missions, or I'm replaying it because I've beaten it already and don't feel the need to prove myself.

I'm currently playing Strnge Journey Redux, is the fact that I've used the March to Death sub-app since I first got the option going to make my victory hollow because the game was designed to throw up a fail state if trhe main character dies? I think we need to take the intended purpose of a cheat into account, whether it's meant to be a dev tool, an optional difficulty reduction/increase, or a bit of fun when you don't want to play seriously.

As a side note, I think every game should have an easy mode and you shouldn't be told off if you decide to use it. This includes tabletop RPGs, but generally that's just 'create a more powerful character'.

Sorry, no offence meant.


I'm off to try to convince people to play Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-16, 01:57 PM
I mean, I think there's a difference between playing the game for a challenge, and messing around to be silly. If I play Saint's Row with cheat codes on I'm probably not trying to complete the missions, or I'm replaying it because I've beaten it already and don't feel the need to prove myself.

I'm currently playing Strnge Journey Redux, is the fact that I've used the March to Death sub-app since I first got the option going to make my victory hollow because the game was designed to throw up a fail state if trhe main character dies? I think we need to take the intended purpose of a cheat into account, whether it's meant to be a dev tool, an optional difficulty reduction/increase, or a bit of fun when you don't want to play seriously.

As a side note, I think every game should have an easy mode and you shouldn't be told off if you decide to use it. This includes tabletop RPGs, but generally that's just 'create a more powerful character'.

Sorry, no offence meant.


I'm off to try to convince people to play Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e.

No, I basically agree. And I've been known to "cheat" in some single-player games, and I definitely played Nier: Automata on Easy with auto chips enabled. Because I suck at that style and was more into the story.

At the TTRPG level, since it's a social thing, it depends on the social contract. My games, personally, aren't challenge-seeking. They're pretty much "easy mode". You can survive just fine with horribly unoptimized (ie baseline-optimization for 5e) characters. Because I'll create the necessary story supports (and point you at challenges) that make sense for the party I have. The issue comes in when you have a wide disparity of personal styles at the same table. When ChallengeMcChallengeson and EasyMcEasyson are playing together, neither will be happy if there's huge disparity. The challenge-lover won't be happy if the challenge level match's easy's level, and vice versa. Plus you get narrative (worldbuilding, often) and just plain mechanical breakage when power levels are out of whack. So the TTRPG needs to have a "baseline range" of "power" it can handle and anything outside of that needs to get nerfed/buffed or just cut out entirely.

NichG
2021-04-16, 04:12 PM
My general game design philosophy is that every player should feel like they're getting away with something OP, but at the same time not want to trade with each other, and should still feel able to be rewarded for growibg even further (either by deeper investment into what they have, or augmenting with versatility) by the game.

I want 'this is already totally broken, but if I could push it just a bit further then X, Y, Z become possible for me'

So I reserve nerfs for things that make progression meaningless, rather than things that just get ahead of the curve.

Anonymouswizard
2021-04-16, 05:49 PM
No, I basically agree. And I've been known to "cheat" in some single-player games, and I definitely played Nier: Automata on Easy with auto chips enabled. Because I suck at that style and was more into the story.

Oh, sure. I just react badly to anything that looks vaguely like hanger elitism, due to disabilities making me really bad at certain genres.


At the TTRPG level, since it's a social thing, it depends on the social contract. My games, personally, aren't challenge-seeking. They're pretty much "easy mode". You can survive just fine with horribly unoptimized (ie baseline-optimization for 5e) characters. Because I'll create the necessary story supports (and point you at challenges) that make sense for the party I have. The issue comes in when you have a wide disparity of personal styles at the same table. When ChallengeMcChallengeson and EasyMcEasyson are playing together, neither will be happy if there's huge disparity. The challenge-lover won't be happy if the challenge level match's easy's level, and vice versa. Plus you get narrative (worldbuilding, often) and just plain mechanical breakage when power levels are out of whack. So the TTRPG needs to have a "baseline range" of "power" it can handle and anything outside of that needs to get nerfed/buffed or just cut out entirely.

Sure, and I'm not disputing any of that. Heck, my personal preference runs towards profit removing death as a failure state (instead limiting it to dramatically suitable points), and I've heard of groups where the entire point was to try and out optimise each other. I personally try to avoid encounters without escape routes, there will always be one direction the enemies haven't covered.

And yes, systems need to be certain of where they want to be. You can write a system that does multiple levels or styles, but I've found in general one will be preferable for various reasons (ironically in the system I own that does this explicitly, Modern AGE, probably the least balanced is the one other games in the line use).

Plus power levels go along several axes, and they're not all equal. It's why people have problems with 5e martials, DPR is ready to measure but most other benefits can be highly variable or hard to notice. How useful is an Artificer's Expertise with Tools? It varies wildly from tool to tool and game to game, but it can be incredibly powerful.

Silly Name
2021-04-16, 05:49 PM
In 3.5:
But isn't a Warmage basically a super specialized wizard almost?
Granted, he is missing a lot of splatbook damage spells that keep forgetting him.

However, even then, they didn't go far enough.

Warmage, Beguiler and Dread Necromancer were all fine options that kinda addressed the "Wizard problem": by having classes dedicated to a specific school of magic, not only was their power level easier to control, they also got to have thematic abilities that tied into their chosen school that couldn't have fit on the base Wizard chassis.

The problem is that D&D has eight schools of magic, and filling the PHB with 8 "specialist wizard" classes would have required too much space.

5e theoretically provides a better framework for this via subclasses, but the Wizard's spell list is still large enough that they will have spells outside their chosen school, and some of the better spells will likely be taken by any caster who can regardless of theme - for example, Polymorph is really too good to pass up. My party's White Draconic Sorcerer who focuses on blasting and battlefield control took it because getting to turn his buddies into T-rexes is both fun and powerful.

Incidentally, there are a few abilities and spells in various games that I'd be more than happy to nerf, even if I generally subscribe to the "buff before nerfing" school of thought. Polymorph in D&D (both 3.5 and 5e) is just too damn good to be left as-is, even if you bring up other classes.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-16, 07:05 PM
5e theoretically provides a better framework for this via subclasses, but the Wizard's spell list is still large enough that they will have spells outside their chosen school, and some of the better spells will likely be taken by any caster who can regardless of theme - for example, Polymorph is really too good to pass up. My party's White Draconic Sorcerer who focuses on blasting and battlefield control took it because getting to turn his buddies into T-rexes is both fun and powerful.

Incidentally, there are a few abilities and spells in various games that I'd be more than happy to nerf, even if I generally subscribe to the "buff before nerfing" school of thought. Polymorph in D&D (both 3.5 and 5e) is just too damn good to be left as-is, even if you bring up other classes.

I agree. My personal opinion is that the 5e wizard needs to lose something like half his list. And then get back pieces based on subclass, along with actual class features that aren't "I have all the spells." But that's just as much because I think the wizard is a horrible design (bland, no coherent theme, no levers to tweak) than about power directly I much prefer putting the cool things into class features, not generic spells any wizard can grab.

And some spells are bad as well. They're a case of needing nerfs because they distort the decision making and cause "solved game" problems.

SimonMoon6
2021-04-18, 01:21 PM
My general thought is that magic should be nerfed hard.

I have heard a lot of people disparagingly say that they don't want their D&D characters to be too much like superheroes. Like, you know, "Superheroes, ew, yuck." And so they think that fighters are already too powerful because they can, I don't know, not die when falling off a cliff or something. But wizards in D&D... they're way more powerful than superheroes.

See, the great thing about superheroes is that they have their list of powers... and that's it. Cyclops can shoot beams out of his eyes... and that's it. The Falcon can fly... and that's it. Batman can do nothing... and that's it. Even people with long lists of powers have just that list of powers. Like, Aquaman has super-strength, resistance to physical damage, the ability to see in the dark, the ability to swim at incredibly fast speeds, the ability to breathe underwater (and survive at great depths), the ability to command creatures of the sea (etc)... and that's it.

They don't change their powers overnight. They don't select new powers whenever they feel like it. They don't swap out old powers for new powers. They don't find a scroll that suddenly lets them turn people into rabbits from now on. That doesn't happen. Yes, occasionally, new powers pop-up or old powers change... but it's usually a huge plot point (in effect, the DM takes control and says, "Hey, Invisible Girl, just turning invisible is pretty lame, so now you have force fields too.").

And, yes, I know, there are the occasional "I can do anything" superheroes, such as most wizard-types (Zatanna, Dr. Fate, Spectre, Dr. Strange) or others with poorly defined abilities (like the pre-Kyle version of the Green Lantern rings that could do *anything* the wielder could imagine, such as turning invisible, phasing through walls, or even shrinking a villain to size small enough to store him within the ring itself). But even these characters have more disadvantages than a D&D wizard who could layer one contingency upon another. I mean, Dr. Strange was defeated by Plant Man once. Plant Man!

If D&D wizards and clerics were more like superheroes, in having a narrow range of abilities, they would steal a lot less of the spotlight. If they can't solve EVERY problem, then they wouldn't be so overpowered.

You might think, wow, Aquaman has such a huge range of powers, how can anybody ever challenge him. (Or substitute someone else for Aquaman.) But the thing is... once you know exactly what he can and can't do, then he can be challenged. That will never happen with a D&D wizard.

Starbuck_II
2021-04-18, 10:40 PM
My general thought is that magic should be nerfed hard.

I have heard a lot of people disparagingly say that they don't want their D&D characters to be too much like superheroes. Like, you know, "Superheroes, ew, yuck." And so they think that fighters are already too powerful because they can, I don't know, not die when falling off a cliff or something. But wizards in D&D... they're way more powerful than superheroes.

See, the great thing about superheroes is that they have their list of powers... and that's it. Cyclops can shoot beams out of his eyes... and that's it. The Falcon can fly... and that's it. Batman can do nothing... and that's it. Even people with long lists of powers have just that list of powers. Like, Aquaman has super-strength, resistance to physical damage, the ability to see in the dark, the ability to swim at incredibly fast speeds, the ability to breathe underwater (and survive at great depths), the ability to command creatures of the sea (etc)... and that's it.

They don't change their powers overnight. They don't select new powers whenever they feel like it. They don't swap out old powers for new powers. They don't find a scroll that suddenly lets them turn people into rabbits from now on. That doesn't happen. Yes, occasionally, new powers pop-up or old powers change... but it's usually a huge plot point (in effect, the DM takes control and says, "Hey, Invisible Girl, just turning invisible is pretty lame, so now you have force fields too.").

And, yes, I know, there are the occasional "I can do anything" superheroes, such as most wizard-types (Zatanna, Dr. Fate, Spectre, Dr. Strange) or others with poorly defined abilities (like the pre-Kyle version of the Green Lantern rings that could do *anything* the wielder could imagine, such as turning invisible, phasing through walls, or even shrinking a villain to size small enough to store him within the ring itself). But even these characters have more disadvantages than a D&D wizard who could layer one contingency upon another. I mean, Dr. Strange was defeated by Plant Man once. Plant Man!

If D&D wizards and clerics were more like superheroes, in having a narrow range of abilities, they would steal a lot less of the spotlight. If they can't solve EVERY problem, then they wouldn't be so overpowered.

You might think, wow, Aquaman has such a huge range of powers, how can anybody ever challenge him. (Or substitute someone else for Aquaman.) But the thing is... once you know exactly what he can and can't do, then he can be challenged. That will never happen with a D&D wizard.

Oh, it gets worse.
Aquaman has magic powers.
He only uses them underwater (in fact almost half his people can use them), but he has them. His people can use them above ground (Young Justice has one of his people Aqualad as a member). Aquaman has to look out for his kingdom, unlike Batman/Green Arrow, his minions can't take over his company problems (his drawback).
Also, in the comics, he is resistant to heat like lava like it doesn't hurt him much (same for heat beams, etc).

Batman's power is being rich and being allowed to spend it on gear. Green Arrow similarly get away with that, but must spend on arrows and gear. But Batman gets away with spending it on car/planes/motorcycles as well.
Also, Batman is a ninja, a samurai, a detective, a cowboy, etc. He wears armor so he doesn't get pasted when hit. Aquaman can just take the hit and laugh.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-18, 11:14 PM
Oh, it gets worse.
Aquaman has magic powers.
He only uses them underwater (in fact almost half his people can use them), but he has them. His people can use them above ground (Young Justice has one of his people Aqualad as a member). Aquaman has to look out for his kingdom, unlike Batman/Green Arrow, his minions can't take over his company problems (his drawback).
Also, in the comics, he is resistant to heat like lava like it doesn't hurt him much (same for heat beams, etc).

Batman's power is being rich and being allowed to spend it on gear. Green Arrow similarly get away with that, but must spend on arrows and gear. But Batman gets away with spending it on car/planes/motorcycles as well.
Also, Batman is a ninja, a samurai, a detective, a cowboy, etc. He wears armor so he doesn't get pasted when hit. Aquaman can just take the hit and laugh.

I'm no follower of comic books. But it seems to me, from the little I do know, that superhero comics are the worst place to look for anything like consistency, especially for the long-running ones. Each writer has their own ideas, and very few of them have anything like consistent worldbuilding. What a particular comic book character can do is entirely dependent on the plot, with new powers appearing "for this episode only" and are never heard from again.

Frankly, Batman has superpowers in any kind of consistent world. He survives hits that physics demands would be lethal because plot armor beats real armor any day. He knows things and is prepared for things which he has no reason to be. But he wins and loses exactly as demanded by the plot.

-----------------

But the general point about D&D wizards being too much "I can do anything" is true, at least in my opinion. At least for 5e (I can't speak for 3e), if you removed wizards from the picture, the "casters have infinite versatility" argument goes with them, and the "casters can do anything" argument loses a lot of its force.

I absolutely agree that "martials" need to be allowed to be fantastic as well. Stop allowing magic to be the answer to everything and start allowing non-magic to matter.

Mechalich
2021-04-19, 01:48 AM
'Magic' still tends to win in terms of characters with strictly delineated power-sets, especially outside of combat.

Even at extremely high levels of power, like in the FATE/ series, extremely high-level spirits mostly have discrete power sets that can do a fairly constrained range of things, except Caster-class spirits, who can do whatever the plot demands because they can do 'magic.' This is common even at much lower levels of power. Urban fantasy series often have vampires, werewolves, and mages/witches. The Vampires and Werewolves usually have discrete power sets, while the witches can do whatever the plot demands because they can do 'magic.' This happens even when the vampires or werewolves can easily take the witches in a straight fight.

Ultimately, it is extremely useful for storytelling to have a certain class of being in the story with a highly variable power that can be used to create and, when necessary, solve, plots. However, from the perspective of game design is generally extremely bad if the part has access to such powers because they will attempt to use them to bypass the plot and the GM either has to resort to cheating (1e AD&D modules were full of this, the famous Tomb of Horrors breaks the game rules in basically every single room) or never-ending power escalation to deal with the issue. Video games, quite often, simply restrict such powers to NPCs. In some really blatant examples certain NPCs will actually lose access to abilities they displayed earlier in the game upon being defeated and joining the hero's party.

This is harder to do in tabletop though.

icefractal
2021-04-19, 04:48 AM
Ultimately, it is extremely useful for storytelling to have a certain class of being in the story with a highly variable power that can be used to create and, when necessary, solve, plots. However, from the perspective of game design is generally extremely bad if the part has access to such powers because they will attempt to use them to bypass the plot and the GM either has to resort to cheating (1e AD&D modules were full of this, the famous Tomb of Horrors breaks the game rules in basically every single room) or never-ending power escalation to deal with the issue. Video games, quite often, simply restrict such powers to NPCs. In some really blatant examples certain NPCs will actually lose access to abilities they displayed earlier in the game upon being defeated and joining the hero's party.
Honestly, IMO, that trope always annoys me, and I'd be perfectly happy to never see it again. Like - alternate approach: if a power is "extremely bad" for the party to have, don't put it in the world at all! Useful for storytelling? Sure, but not indispensable, you can find another way to make things work. And besides, other media are better for pure storytelling anyway.

Of course, YMMV, it depends on what your agenda is for a good TTRPG experience. Personally, a good story is a positive, but it's far from my top priority. I'd rate having agency and the world feeling consistent/'real' higher almost every time.

Silly Name
2021-04-19, 05:35 AM
Honestly, IMO, that trope always annoys me, and I'd be perfectly happy to never see it again. Like - alternate approach: if a power is "extremely bad" for the party to have, don't put it in the world at all! Useful for storytelling? Sure, but not indispensable, you can find another way to make things work. And besides, other media are better for pure storytelling anyway.

There are quite a few things you can insert in the world that's not accessible to the PCs and which make perfect sense. In a Star Wars game where the PCs are Jedi, the Dark Side exists but isn't normally "available" to the PCs. A Lord of the Rings RPG isn't going to make Sauron's sets of skills, powers and resources available to the PCs. If you play as Iron Man, you don't get to have Loki's mastery of illusions.

That said, those things are "bad" for the characters to have not because of balance conceits, but foremost because they don't fit with the story you want to tell or the character concept.


Of course, YMMV, it depends on what your agenda is for a good TTRPG experience. Personally, a good story is a positive, but it's far from my top priority. I'd rate having agency and the world feeling consistent/'real' higher almost every time.

Which is part of my complaint about D&D magic. To me consistency means there are, eventually, upper bounds to things as a consequence of rules, but D&D magic has no "rules": there's no real definition of what magic can and cannot do, so the assumption is that D&D magic can do anything. If you need a problem solved, there exists a spell that solves it. If the spell doesn't exist, it can be created.

Limits make for more interesting stories and powers. A wizard may still be able to solve the problem du jour, but if he has to figure out how to apply the spells he knows to the problem rather than simply go looking for the right spell for the situation, it makes for a better story usually, even is the character is still tremendously powerful.

I don't recall reading any fantasy stories where magic was implied to be able to do just about anything. Sometimes the rules are explicit (Earthsea, for example, heck, even the Genie from Aladdin has rules he can't break and he's a literal wish-granting being), other times they are implicit (Lord of the Rings), but a good magic system always feels like there are rules in place.

Batcathat
2021-04-19, 05:39 AM
Honestly, IMO, that trope always annoys me, and I'd be perfectly happy to never see it again. Like - alternate approach: if a power is "extremely bad" for the party to have, don't put it in the world at all! Useful for storytelling? Sure, but not indispensable, you can find another way to make things work. And besides, other media are better for pure storytelling anyway.

Of course, YMMV, it depends on what your agenda is for a good TTRPG experience. Personally, a good story is a positive, but it's far from my top priority. I'd rate having agency and the world feeling consistent/'real' higher almost every time.

I completely agree. Everything an NPC does should be at least theoretically doable by PCs (even if it might be impossible in practice sometimes).

A good (well, bad) example is Baldur's Gate 2. I love that game to bits, but it has always annoyed me how no PC can use Dimension door (despite being able to in Baldur's Gate 1) but pretty much every NPC – caster or not – seem to use it at will. There are practical reasons for it, of course, since PCs having it could possibly break sequences and absolutely lead to PCs getting stuck in places and it's a handy way to ensure NPCs escaping when they have to, but it's not really good for the immersion.


There are quite a few things you can insert in the world that's not accessible to the PCs and which make perfect sense. In a Star Wars game where the PCs are Jedi, the Dark Side exists but isn't normally "available" to the PCs. A Lord of the Rings RPG isn't going to make Sauron's sets of skills, powers and resources available to the PCs. If you play as Iron Man, you don't get to have Loki's mastery of illusions.

I think there's an important distinction between an ability not being available for a particular PC and not being available for any PC ever. The examples you use are fine, but it would annoy me if I wasn't able to create a character with Dark Side powers in a Star Wars game or illusion powers in a Marvel game. Not having Sauron's powers available would probably be acceptable since he was basically created with most of them.

EDIT: I just came up with a concise way of putting it: It's okay if not all characters have access to all abilities as long as it's for an in-universe reason.

kyoryu
2021-04-19, 10:01 AM
One solution, which was somewhat done in D&D in TSR times is to do what many supers games do. Explicitly support different power levels with tailored advice, settings, and splats. Street level, world level, and cosmic level play all use the same rules with different power levels. You pick your power level and play that. If you want, there are splats for each with more specific npcs, monsters, setting stuff, and advice.

Well, and in most supers games, those different levels are represented differently in a mechanical way - more points/xp/levels whatever. You don't have "Level 1 Superman" and "Level 1 Hawkeye". You have "250 point Hawkeye and 1500 point Superman" or whatever.


So I reserve nerfs for things that make progression meaningless, rather than things that just get ahead of the curve.

I like to think in terms of broad balance and narrow balance.

Broad balance is basically saying "classes should be good at the things they're supposed to be good at, and bad at the things they're bad at. Generally obvious relative statements should be true."

Like, if you have a Cleric and a Fighter, the Fighter should be better at fighting and withstanding abuse, while the Cleric gets magic. So long as these statements are true, you've achieved broad balance, and you're not in major need of a fix. If the Cleric is a better fighter than the Fighter, and gets magic, something is needed to be done.... depending on "how much better" that may be best served by nerfing the Cleric or buffing the Fighter... if the Cleric is way too much better at fighting due to some combinatorial complexity issue that was unforeseen, and there's a number of fighty classes? Nerfing is probably the easiest and most effective solution.

On the other hand, if the Cleric is 80% as effective at fighting as the Fighter, and you really anticipated them being 75%? Leave it alone. This is "narrow" balance, and I don't worry about it much at all, with the caveat that at extreme levels it becomes more akin to "broad" balance. Like if the Cleric is 99% of a fighter, plus has magic? That's close enough to "being as good as a fighter" that it is the same thing in play.


Sure, and I'm not disputing any of that. Heck, my personal preference runs towards profit removing death as a failure state (instead limiting it to dramatically suitable points), and I've heard of groups where the entire point was to try and out optimise each other. I personally try to avoid encounters without escape routes, there will always be one direction the enemies haven't covered.

100%. "Plot" consequences are better than death almost every time, in every game. If for no other reason than the danger of plot consequences can be realized every session, or even multiple times a session. With non-death consequences, it can be a very real danger every encounter

Snails
2021-04-19, 10:11 AM
This can be true, but so can the opposite. A wizard who can do almost anything is a lot less interesting of a concept to me than a wizard who's focused on a particular type of magic, for example.

If that Wizard is genuinely good at one kind of magic, I would probably agree. But the Generalist Wizard rules all in the D&D we have. You have to go back to the 1e Illusionist (or perhaps the 3.5 Psions) to have a specialist that is actually more interesting than the generalist.

Snails
2021-04-19, 10:16 AM
I agree. My personal opinion is that the 5e wizard needs to lose something like half his list. And then get back pieces based on subclass, along with actual class features that aren't "I have all the spells." But that's just as much because I think the wizard is a horrible design (bland, no coherent theme, no levers to tweak) than about power directly I much prefer putting the cool things into class features, not generic spells any wizard can grab.

IMNSHO the 3.5 Psion showed us the right compromise for D&D. There is a general list that has a variety of solid options. And there is your specialist list, which narrow but a cut above in potency. The idea is easily adaptable to the Wizard, with a subclass for each specialty. And, yes, I would start by trimming down the generalist spell list by about half, and pushing most of the very interesting and powerful spells aside for the specialist lists.

Batcathat
2021-04-19, 10:38 AM
If that Wizard is genuinely good at one kind of magic, I would probably agree. But the Generalist Wizard rules all in the D&D we have. You have to go back to the 1e Illusionist (or perhaps the 3.5 Psions) to have a specialist that is actually more interesting than the generalist.

I agree (well, I haven't actually played 1e so I'll take your word for that part). My comment was more about what I want than what is. D&D is pretty bad about both magic doing everything and every mage doing all sorts of magic.

vasilidor
2021-04-19, 07:37 PM
one issue I have had is that trying to recreate something like Conan in DnD is generally really hard for most beginner players. I remember in one of the movies Conan was ripping the horn off of a demon with his bare hands in order to kill it. UI know that there are uber grabbler builds out there that can do this and probably still be good at killing with a sword, but the new player will be overwhelmed by the 5 or more books he needs to go through to create this in 3.5. in 5th ed. it would probably require multiclassing into monk. based on how a lot of things do not stack in 5th edition this is a bad idea overall.

the monk and barbarian ac boosts used to stack, but that got nerfed fast. so did multiclassing in general as when the game first came out if you had 3 classes you could have all the saving throws. that you can no longer do that kills most of my interest in multiclassing in 5th edition, which was probably the point.
then there are options made deliberately bad, like taking a monster race in 3.5. they, by deliberation, decided to make it so that if you had a straight pc character of equal level after level adjustments, the pc character would be stronger.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-19, 07:47 PM
one issue I have had is that trying to recreate something like Conan in DnD is generally really hard for most beginner players. I remember in one of the movies Conan was ripping the horn off of a demon with his bare hands in order to kill it. UI know that there are uber grabbler builds out there that can do this and probably still be good at killing with a sword, but the new player will be overwhelmed by the 5 or more books he needs to go through to create this in 3.5. in 5th ed. it would probably require multiclassing into monk. based on how a lot of things do not stack in 5th edition this is a bad idea overall.

the monk and barbarian ac boosts used to stack, but that got nerfed fast. so did multiclassing in general as when the game first came out if you had 3 classes you could have all the saving throws. that you can no longer do that kills most of my interest in multiclassing in 5th edition, which was probably the point.
then there are options made deliberately bad, like taking a monster race in 3.5. they, by deliberation, decided to make it so that if you had a straight pc character of equal level after level adjustments, the pc character would be stronger.

Conan is not a D&D character of any level. Nor does D&D attempt to replicate characters from outside the system. D&D is not a generic fantasy simulator. And hasn't sold itself as one for decades (at least). Nor are superheroes D&D characters.

This is not a failing of D&D--it doesn't do what it doesn't even attempt to do. D&D does D&D. Nothing more, nothing less.

SimonMoon6
2021-04-19, 08:22 PM
I'm no follower of comic books. But it seems to me, from the little I do know, that superhero comics are the worst place to look for anything like consistency, especially for the long-running ones.

Depends on the era, to some extent. There are definitely long stretches of absolute consistency, like "Here is the list of all the powers that Superman has and he doesn't have any other powers except maybe extrapolations of powers in the list". Of course, if you think of Superman as one character (instead of the five or six explicitly different characters he has been in the comics), then things might seem inconsistent. "Superman can fly? Since when? Wonder Woman can fly? Since when?" (about 1941 and 1959, respectively)

In the Golden Age of comics (the WWII era and a little after), things could be completely insane. Superman has "face molding" powers to change what he looks like, his ability to jump is extrapolated into flight, and his x-ray vision is extrapolated into heat vision. And, I mean the Golden Age version of the Black Canary (a skilled martial artist who didn't even have a sonic scream power yet) was able to summon a swarm of birds (canaries that were black in color) one time, with no particular explanation and she never did it again. So, yeah, *some* comics had powers coming out of nowhere.

But for the most part, once you get to the Silver Age (mid 1950's), there was a big change. The writers realized that the readers might take their stories seriously, so they started writing their stories with that in mind. So, we have a list of powers that Superman has and no others. Likewise, Wonder Woman has her well-defined powers and gadgets and no others (somewhere along the way, she lost her Telepathic Radio and spent very little time with her mother's Magic Sphere). Some people like Green Lantern might still have deliberately vague limitations on what they can do, but most characters can only do the things that they can do, possibly learning new tricks with the powers that they already have (like Superman using superspeed to time travel). Sure, there could be the occasional exception (such as Black Canary suddenly having a device in her locket that she can use for freezing an enemy that there was no explanation for, either at the time or since then). But really, there was a remarkable amount of consistency, leading to DC readers sending in questions when things weren't obeying the rules established by previous stories, while Marvel readers would try to send in explanations that explained why a story problem wasn't a problem in an attempt to earn a "No Prize" (an envelope that Marvel would send you that contained nothing (no prize)).

Writers desiring to not be bound by consistency has been a much more modern thing, probably started by DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths in the mid-to-late 1980's, which started a spate of reality being rewritten or ignored by writers as they wished. But for the most part, powers don't appear out of nowhere unless it's part of the story. You'll never again see Black Canary suddenly summoning black canaries or freezing her enemies without some huge explanation.

Satinavian
2021-04-21, 03:36 AM
If that Wizard is genuinely good at one kind of magic, I would probably agree. But the Generalist Wizard rules all in the D&D we have. You have to go back to the 1e Illusionist (or perhaps the 3.5 Psions) to have a specialist that is actually more interesting than the generalist.
I think Beguiler was a good idea. Arguably Dread Necromancer, Artificer and Pathfinders Summoner and Alchemist as well.

The problem is that nearly all the other limited list casters were completely combat focused gishes, so that nearly every magic theme led you back to wizards and that none of them could do anything a wizard (or cleric) wouldn't be able to do better anyway.

Just deleting the wizard won't work because you just don't have all those other focused caster classes. D&D magic would need to be rebuild completely to get the focus towards specialists. People try that all the time that is why we get sphere casting and similar alternative systems. Or you could just use another system altogether.

Rynjin
2021-04-21, 04:55 AM
[RE: Limited List/Theme casters]: Pathfinders Summoner and Alchemist as well.

These are pretty bad examples of what you're talking about, unless I'm misunderstanding. The Summoner essentially has the entire Wizard list scrunched down into 6 levels of casting, with all the versatility; you even get many spells at the same level as the Wizard does.

The Alchemist has a more reasonably balanced 6 level casting list, but it still has a wide, eclectic array of Extracts to choose from, with everything from buffs to condition removal to healing to damage to summoning.

Satinavian
2021-04-21, 05:13 AM
That is partly why i wrote arguably. The summoner is supposed to all about summoning and buffs for the summons and a bit control and gets a special personalized summon in exchange for the rest of magic. The alchemist is supposed to be only about magic that makes sense as some potion (which is unfortunately not a good category) and gets pretty lackluster bombs and some nice self-modifiction in return for the rest. Those concepts are not bad as such. One could argue about implementation. Personally i don't see a problem with summoners getting spells at the same character level as wizards. Why should a less focused wizard get the spells earlier than the more focused summoner ? If they are not OK at that level, neither should get them. Of course, if the summoner would not have to exist with the already existing caster classes, it could get away ith a much leaner spell list.

Rynjin
2021-04-21, 05:23 AM
I think their implementation is quite good (less so the Summoner, but the Alchemist is one of the best balanced classes Paizo ever put out), was just looking askance at them being a Pathfinder equivalent to something like a Beguiler, which IIRC was 100% focused on Enchantment spells.


Personally i don't see a problem with summoners getting spells at the same character level as wizards. Why should a less focused wizard get the spells earlier than the more focused summoner ?

Because the spells they get at the same time are often "out of theme". Eg. a Summoner gets Haste of all things at 4th level (a level before the Wizard). I don't have an issue with, say, their Summon Monster spell-like (in terms of its progression, anyway...) but in many ways a Summoner is similar to like...a Sorcerer with Wizard progression, but slightly lower spell DCs and access to a permanent super-summon.

The Summoner's spell list has always been the problematic point of its balance, hence why the "Use the APG Summoner, but the Unchained Summoner spell list" is an extremely common houserule nerf for tthem.

Satinavian
2021-04-21, 05:40 AM
No, Beguiler also had lots of illusions and quite a number of general utility, among them haste as well. But i don't really want to discuss summoner vs. chained summoner or anything like that. I wrote that the concept is OK and both share the same concept.

Pex
2021-04-21, 06:44 AM
Pathfinder did goof with the Summoner spell list. Summoners were able to cast Teleport as a 4th level spell. That means Summoners could create wands of Teleport. They fixed it in a later splat book, redoing Summoner and moved Teleport back to 5th level. Haste was also their 2nd level spell, which they returned to 3rd level. Trouble is some players weren't happy with changes to the Eidolon, again showing you can never please everyone.

Anonymouswizard
2021-04-21, 06:48 AM
Even the Warmage was okay as a concept, being a caster intentionally dedicated entirely to combat. It had issues, namely the immediately obvious no real ability to contribute outside of combat, but it was valid in concept. Maybe a rewrite could give it more Skill Points? But then I'm that person who once played a human fighter with 14 int just because I felt like it was the only way to get decent skills (and as this was Pathfinder I took the +1SP per level rather than the hp bonus).

But honestly, I don't think the issue is as much as the size of the list as it is to change your Spells Known very easily. While Sorcerers are considered to still have problems the fact that they only got to swap spells out on level up (and in a limited fashion) tends to cause them to have weaknesses and areas they don't dominate.

Also, in 5e why on earth does the Wizard effectively get both a larger Spells Known list than the Sorcerer and the ability to change it from day to day? Oh, throw that question out to both the Cleric and Druid as well, Clerics even get an additional set of always memorised spells on top of the wizard like number of flexible spells, just from a more limited list.

Xervous
2021-04-21, 07:10 AM
Also, in 5e why on earth does the Wizard effectively get both a larger Spells Known list than the Sorcerer and the ability to change it from day to day? Oh, throw that question out to both the Cleric and Druid as well, Clerics even get an additional set of always memorised spells on top of the wizard like number of flexible spells, just from a more limited list.

Are you accusing 5e of being robust and well balanced? They didn’t have that anywhere in the initial design intent.

Anonymouswizard
2021-04-21, 11:21 AM
Are you accusing 5e of being robust and well balanced? They didn’t have that anywhere in the initial design intent.

No, I'm implying that 5e's design decisions are weird and not conductive to balance. But yes, I recognise that you are asking sarcastically.

It's a shame that, despite all the issues it had (radical shift from two/three standard class chasises to one, broken skill challenges, lack of adequate playtesting) 4e's focus on balance was thrown aside to a focus on not actually giving rules and making everything look as similar to 3.X as they could.

Pex
2021-04-21, 12:57 PM
No, I'm implying that 5e's design decisions are weird and not conductive to balance. But yes, I recognise that you are asking sarcastically.

It's a shame that, despite all the issues it had (radical shift from two/three standard class chasises to one, broken skill challenges, lack of adequate playtesting) 4e's focus on balance was thrown aside to a focus on not actually giving rules and making everything look as similar to 3.X as they could.

People wanted 3E. That's why Pathfinder became so popular. 4E's problem was it sacrificed everything in the name of balance. It made everyone and every magic item "samey". Yes, there was the portable hole and such, but magic items were mainly another word for daily powers. Magic weapons only changed the type[color] of damage, not the amount of damage nor odds of hitting. If it did anything special it was another daily power. Class powers were X[weapon] damage of type [color] plus Condition or Someone Moves. If Condition is harmful, save ends. Wizard did have some powers that were not this chasis. Encounter powers were at will powers with bigger numbers. Dailies were encounter powers with bigger numbers.

There's nothing wrong with balance, but it matters how it's done. Though I'm not a fan of the Tier System of 3E, it acknowledges 3E has balanced classes - those in Tier 3. Pathfinder has its balanced classes.

icefractal
2021-04-21, 04:20 PM
Pathfinder did goof with the Summoner spell list. Summoners were able to cast Teleport as a 4th level spell. That means Summoners could create wands of Teleport. They fixed it in a later splat book, redoing Summoner and moved Teleport back to 5th level. Haste was also their 2nd level spell, which they returned to 3rd level. Trouble is some players weren't happy with changes to the Eidolon, again showing you can never please everyone.Summoners (original version) are only a problem if you expected them to be weaker than full-casters based on their limited progression. And actually they are weaker, but only in some areas; in summoning/binding, transportation, and to an extent ally boosting, they're as good as a full caster. But why wouldn't they be? Summoner never promised to nerf casters, it's simply a very specialized one. And personally, I would find it bad design if the answer to "how to make a good summoning-focused character" was "sor/wiz is actually the best at it, summoner is a flavorful but weaker choice".

The spell level thing is only a problem with magic item creation (which itself is questionably balanced for anything using a fixed formula - some wands/scrolls/etc are much better than others). And honestly, does a Wand of Teleport break anything? That's a rather expensive item.

As for why I dislike the Unchained Eidolon - it changes it from "here's a class where you can build exactly the companion you imagine, not pick off a list like Druid etc" to "here's a class where you can tweak a bit Paizo's ideas of what an Eidolon should look like".

Although if anything, even the original Eidolon is too melee focused, with the SLA options being terrible. The Spheres of Power Conjuration companion rules are much more versatile.

Lucas Yew
2021-04-21, 08:39 PM
Also, in 5e why on earth does the Wizard effectively get both a larger Spells Known list than the Sorcerer and the ability to change it from day to day? Oh, throw that question out to both the Cleric and Druid as well, Clerics even get an additional set of always memorised spells on top of the wizard like number of flexible spells, just from a more limited list.

Rage material alone, that one is. I'd prefer that the fixed list casters should have had more than what an equal leveled prep caster had each day (the current 5E Bard is a good start; Sorcerer's utter lack of personal spells is a massive felony) + have the latter prepare less spells per day than Level + CastMod (like Level/2 + CastMod or something similar)...

King of Nowhere
2021-04-23, 10:09 AM
I must point out that D&D 3.5 is intentionally needing nerfs and bans and it was always intended to run heavily on rule 0. The dmg is fulll of "at the discretion of the dm", "the dm decides whether to allow", "the dm sets up stuff", "variant rules". it was never meant as a free for all. 3.5 does not function as it is, it only works if you tamper with it and take a subset of its options.
But this grants greater flexibility. you can play the game at different power levels, with different tones, widely different settings.
forcing balance always happens at the cost of freedom.
much better to balance to the table. but that requires, implicityly, bans and nerfs. because if everyone at your table agrees to not play an ubercharger, what's that if not a ban?

kyoryu
2021-04-23, 10:41 AM
But this grants greater flexibility. you can play the game at different power levels, with different tones, widely different settings.


For different power levels, I'd rather just play at different level bands. Want to play an uber-powered game? Start at level 10. Want to player a lower-powered game? Do something like E6.

Having all the classes at the same effective tier doesn't stop you from doing games at different power levels - it just standardizes on one tool for determining "power".

Anonymouswizard
2021-04-23, 11:40 AM
But this grants greater flexibility. you can play the game at different power levels, with different tones, widely different settings.
forcing balance always happens at the cost of freedom.

If I wanted flexibility I'd play Fudge, or possibly GURPS. But United you're going to be a toolkit you can't promise freedom, and people are always going to assume that everything is on the table unless told otherwise.

If you want multiple tiers it might be best to split archetypes between them explicitly, as Wrath & Gory. There you get four tiers: worthless cannon fodder, Rogue Traders (and occasionally Rouge Traders), Glory Stealers, Everybody Expects The Imperial Inquisition, and grand heroes (actually just called Tiers 1-5, but the descriptions help grasp the power level). Every Archetype has a Tier, and every Archetype above Tier 1 had a points cost. You can't play an archetype from the campaign's Tier or below, and if your Archetype is below the campaign Tier you have to boost it up by buying an Accessible Package to show how you're not just a Guardsman, Ganger, Sanctioned Psyker, or Tactical Marine.

This can lead to the Guardsman lugging around four rifle sized weapons (say a lasgun, grenade launcher, meltagun, and bolter), or swapping one out for Carapace or Powered Armour, buying their Ballistic Skill up to six, and purchasing both a Reticule Eye and Subdermal Armour, just because they're in a Tier 3 campaign and have to compete with Space Marines (who have to pay 150BP just to purchase the right to be a Tactical Marine). But that also makes sense for some games (say basically being the personal retinue of an Inquisitor who likes to delegate, a Guardsman might reasonably end up there and would have ready access to such weapons from their position).

King of Nowhere
2021-04-23, 12:30 PM
For different power levels, I'd rather just play at different level bands. Want to play an uber-powered game? Start at level 10. Want to player a lower-powered game? Do something like E6.

Having all the classes at the same effective tier doesn't stop you from doing games at different power levels - it just standardizes on one tool for determining "power".
but you'd have to strictly restrict builds to achieve that uniformity. the more moving part you allow in a build, the more you create the potential for unforeseen powerful combination. nobody created the ubercharger or the mailman, they come together as a combo of different powers from different books, none of which is broken when taken individually. so, you either forbid multiclassing and ban most interesting feats, or leaving freedom is going to result in some high power combos.
freedom or equality. you can't have both.

aside from that, a low-op level 10 or a high op level 5 may have similar powers, but playing them has a much different feel. it's definitely not the same thing.

Anonymouswizard
2021-04-23, 04:17 PM
3.X was designed for low op characters? What world-shattering news!

Honestly a game being narrow and limited in concept isn't bad. Paleomythic won't let you play anything but a member of a stone age tribe, with a decent number of Talents on the hunter/gatherer side, but apart from a couple of niggles (mainly chargen being fixed cost and progression being scaling cost) does it very well/ Despite a couple of powerful talents, mostly the various minion focused ones, nothing is outright broken and it's focus has helped it. Plus it has the decency to have the entire game in one book, so if I want to play something else it's not like my Paleomythic collection is stopping me from buying something else.

D&D having a wide variety of play doen/t tell me it's suitable for a lot of things, it tells me that it probably doesn;t do it all well. It's why one of my projects is a fantasy RPG at a specific power level and an included setting, I feel that it would run mucvh better at it's intended level.

kyoryu
2021-04-23, 08:15 PM
but you'd have to strictly restrict builds to achieve that uniformity. the more moving part you allow in a build, the more you create the potential for unforeseen powerful combination. nobody created the ubercharger or the mailman, they come together as a combo of different powers from different books, none of which is broken when taken individually. so, you either forbid multiclassing and ban most interesting feats, or leaving freedom is going to result in some high power combos.
freedom or equality. you can't have both.

aside from that, a low-op level 10 or a high op level 5 may have similar powers, but playing them has a much different feel. it's definitely not the same thing.

Uh, yes, that's my point. I'd rather handle varying power levels through levels rather than tiers.

In other words, I'd prefer if everything in 3.x was effectively Tier 3, and if you wanted to play higher power levels, you'd play at a higher level.

How to apply that to Actual D&D 3.x is beyond the scope of this discussion. I'm not interested in opening that can of worms.

King of Nowhere
2021-04-24, 08:36 AM
Uh, yes, that's my point. I'd rather handle varying power levels through levels rather than tiers.

In other words, I'd prefer if everything in 3.x was effectively Tier 3, and if you wanted to play higher power levels, you'd play at a higher level.

How to apply that to Actual D&D 3.x is beyond the scope of this discussion. I'm not interested in opening that can of worms.

huh.... my point is kinda the opposite. i don't want every class to be tier 3. i want to be able to mix and mash my classes and have a wide variety of options of different power level. and then we choose with my table what's the target

Batcathat
2021-04-24, 08:50 AM
huh.... my point is kinda the opposite. i don't want every class to be tier 3. i want to be able to mix and mash my classes and have a wide variety of options of different power level. and then we choose with my table what's the target

How is that different from a theoretical system where every class is about the same tier but can vary in power depending on their level? Except that such as system would be more honest and easy to understand than the actual one.

Mechalich
2021-04-24, 05:04 PM
How is that different from a theoretical system where every class is about the same tier but can vary in power depending on their level? Except that such as system would be more honest and easy to understand than the actual one.

Classes are effectively character concepts, rendered broadly, and not all concepts are created equal in power. 'guy who hits people with sword' and 'master of the mystic arts' are not equal concepts (yes there are high-powered martial concepts, but they're things like 'legendary swordsaint' or 'Hulk').

A system that offers all classes of the same tier is balancing concepts, it includes those concepts it can manage along specific measured progression. A system that allows for vastly different concepts and only hopes to balance the ultimate outputs is different. GURPS, for example, will let you build anything you want at a certain point value, and then claim that all things at the same point value are balanced (which is not necessarily true, of course, but that's the idea).

Now, from a design perspective if you're going to have classes at all, then every effort should be made to balance them against each other. This is admittedly challenging in tabletop because its difficult to manage outputs very well, especially out of combat (video games, which can manage outputs arbitrarily, handle classes much more effectively).

Rynjin
2021-04-24, 10:34 PM
How is that different from a theoretical system where every class is about the same tier but can vary in power depending on their level? Except that such as system would be more honest and easy to understand than the actual one.

It differs in the sense that locking character progression directly to power scaling results in pushing out everyone who wants characters to grow in versatility or a little in power out of playing the game, pretty much.

People crave some sort of progression in their RPGs, and systems typically provide one of three advancement paradigms.

1.) Advancement provides "more of what you are". This is how D&D and other d20 systems typically handle it. A Fighter gets more fighter-y, a Wizard gets more Wizard-y over time.
2.) Advancement provides more options. This would be something like Savage Worlds, where characters don't get very much demonstrably stronger in terms of numbers over time (though they do a bit), but they get more things they CAN do.
3.) A combination of both or neither. Systems like Mutants and Masterminds where raw power progression (numbers) and options progression are not necessarily tied. You can use Power Points for both, but only within pre-defined limits; a Power Level 10 character at a certain point caps out on numbers, but can still keep earing Power Points to boost the number of different things they can do.

These are the systems that work, and they each have their own benefits and drawbacks. Notice that none of them involve ascending directly to a new tier of power, universally, based on a simple leveling system. Because that's just really darn clunky. A level 1 Fighter should not be "just a dude with a sword" while a level 20 Fighter is, like...Maui or Thor or some other semi-cosmic deity figure. It just doesn't make very much sense.

Instead, a Fighter should not ideally start off being "just a guy at the gym" at all; he should have something that delineates him as a superhuman physical paragon in waiting. At least, if you plan to have that level 20 demigod endpoint in mind, in any case.

Conversely, a Wizard should not be starting as just some nerd and attaining godhood from there. A Wizard should be a Wizard from the start, and just get more Wizard-y as time goes on.

Basing Tier (which is entirely a measurement of versatility/problem solving) as well as numbers entirely on level is not going to end up with the effect you may think it will.

PhoenixPhyre
2021-04-24, 11:11 PM
Basing Tier (which is entirely a measurement of versatility/problem solving) as well as numbers entirely on level is not going to end up with the effect you may think it will.

And, I will note, extreme differences in power during a campaign make for tonal shifts that can be difficult to handle. For the DM, they're effectively playing 3 different games as the levels go on--

Low levels are action heroes, mid-levels are superheroes, and if you're doing the full T1-style, high levels are "reshape reality/xanatos gambits". And those take different competencies, really.

Mechalich
2021-04-25, 12:18 AM
These are the systems that work, and they each have their own benefits and drawbacks. Notice that none of them involve ascending directly to a new tier of power, universally, based on a simple leveling system. Because that's just really darn clunky.

There are systems where character power is supposed to be broadly tied to a single metric, one that increases over time and may even have 'levels.' Exalted, for example, works like this, in that all characters have Essence and as your essence score increases so does overall power (actually a number of high-powered WW games did this, just using different labels each time). And this sort of thing is reasonable for certain kinds of stories, especially the kind of shounen anime style ones where all power is based on the manipulation of Qi or Chakra or some other universal mystic energy source.

The problem with such systems is that it requires precisely balancing abilities against mana cost or you can kiss any idea of balance goodbye and it becomes all about getting the good abilities and not taking the bad ones. For a D&D example, imagine a party where everyone plays sorcerers: balance then shifts to spell selection, because the spells aren't balanced against each other at all.

In order to make this work the powers available to each character need to be very limited. This works well in video game tactical RPGs, where each character might have only a handful of moves even as max level, but it has problems in tabletop, including the tendency to make the moves 'samey' that afflicted 4e (this is also true of video games, but they have shiny visuals with which to hide the issue).


And, I will note, extreme differences in power during a campaign make for tonal shifts that can be difficult to handle. For the DM, they're effectively playing 3 different games as the levels go on--

Low levels are action heroes, mid-levels are superheroes, and if you're doing the full T1-style, high levels are "reshape reality/xanatos gambits". And those take different competencies, really.

There's also the world-building difficulties attendant to such massive shifts in scale. Effectively different games need effectively different settings for the characters to stomp around in. They don't have to be completely different settings, it's fine if the characters reach superhero levels of power and then the demon invasion happens and so forth, but characters operating on a different scale also need a backdrop of a different scale.

MrStabby
2021-04-25, 04:20 AM
So I have written about this a few times, but always in the context of 5th edition.

With respect to buffing or nerfing, sometimes you need to nerf. That a fix that buffs will cause more problems than it fixes.

Some problems are quantitative- things like damage, and a bit of scaling to bring outliers (at either end) towards the middle works. Others are qualitative, that the act of doing something disrupts the game.

My favourite example is from one of my games (5E) we had a ranger. The ranger's thing was to be a wilderness guide, a scout, and a survival expert. This faced some challenges but the last nail in the coffin was when the wizard picked up teleport. The character that would shine on a three week trek accross the mountains just saw their area of expertise removed from the game.

How do you buff ranger to avoid this problem? Giving ranger teleport doesnt fix it - your class fantasy of being a wilderness guide is reduced from a few sessions of spotlight time to a few seconds of casting one spell.

To preserve one character's class fantasy another character need to give something up.

I think that this also covers part of the challenge - it is really context specific. Teleport is not usually a "broken" spell but it is in the context of stepping on another class' toes. Invisibility isnt often a broken spell but if you have a rogue that has invested a lot of their class abilities in being unseen, then it is. In this case a buff may not fix things but can help (letting high stealth rolls turn you invisible).

So yeah, nerfing is sometimes needed and even if you wanted to, not everything can be fixed by buffs.

Add to that, that if some spell or ability is causing balance issues in a game then players want to see it fixed. Changing half a dozen abilities that are not the problem ability won't have the same confidence boosting impact than changing the abilities that have been problematic.

Rynjin
2021-04-25, 04:49 AM
I think that this also covers part of the challenge - it is really context specific. Teleport is not usually a "broken" spell but it is in the context of stepping on another class' toes. Invisibility isnt often a broken spell but if you have a rogue that has invested a lot of their class abilities in being unseen, then it is. In this case a buff may not fix things but can help (letting high stealth rolls turn you invisible).


You know the funny thing is, in Pathfinder anyway this is a weird parabola. At low levels, Invisibility thrashes Stealth. +20 bonus that stacks with everything else is too good.

Then at high levels, everything has so many ways to see through Invisibility and standard Stealth, that a true Stealth skill specialist begins to shine more and more, as they're not inconvenienced by See Invisibility, and can overcome issues like Blindsight and Scent making both Stealth and Invisibility irrelevant.

It takes investment, but it works.

Pex
2021-04-25, 07:52 AM
Sometimes something might need a nerf, but the nerf is only necessary for the one doing it not a universal truth of need. People have different tolerance levels of power. For games that increase power over time some players can't or won't adjust and blame/resent the game. The game is not at fault. It would be nice and helpful for a game to explain and demonstrate the different power levels, so you can fault a game that doesn't adequately do this but the game is still not at fault for being that way. It is on purpose design feature for the PC to be that powerful at the relevant time the power is acquired. There is nothing inherently wrong with a PC having that power. The wrongness of it is only relevant to the individual who just can't stand it.

The previous is about the power existing in and of itself. It's a different topic when talking about two characters having disparate power when the game intends for them to be equivalent. This would be the game's fault because it's a mistake in its rules design. However, the mistake is not automatically the fault of the higher powered character. It could be, just not by default.

Cluedrew
2021-04-25, 08:15 AM
Classes are effectively character concepts, rendered broadly, and not all concepts are created equal in power. 'guy who hits people with sword' and 'master of the mystic arts' are not equal concepts (yes there are high-powered martial concepts, but they're things like 'legendary swordsaint' or 'Hulk').I'm not going to launch into the caster/martial disparity side of this (I'm so tempted but this is not the thread) but I will cover two points. Neither are actually counter points exactly to what you said but might go in a different direction.

First role-playing games have a pretty broad balance band because its not a competitive game. Characters don't need to have equal output they just need to be making meaningful contributions (and that band gets even wider when you consider the non-mechanical weight of "is a character in the story"). And although this sort of shoves the work to defining it to meaningful contributions but its usually good enough.

Second as wide as that band is it is still very easy to go outside of it. And I don't think a system should do that, its characters should always (or as close as possible) fit into one band. The individual concepts might be valid but they just don't belong together. You should not have a legendary swordsaint and struggling single mother herbalist in the same group (on the other hand that sounds like the basis for a romantic comedy), they belong to different games. And if you want to put them in the same system you should make that very clear.

King of Nowhere
2021-04-25, 09:12 AM
How is that different from a theoretical system where every class is about the same tier but can vary in power depending on their level? Except that such as system would be more honest and easy to understand than the actual one.

this theoretical system is just that: theoretical.
and it cannot be made to exhist.

the thing is, you start to create all classes equal. ok, you can do it. then you add a bunch of extra material. at this point it won't matter how you do it, there's bound to be some combinations of class/level/feats that are stronger than others. Even if you somehow managed to make all classes equally powerful in theoretical balance (which would require so much tweaking as to make it completely impractical; 3.5 was supposed to be balanced, and to most casual players it is balanced except that monks are too strong and wizards are nerfed sorcerors. We only know how to abuse it because of years of gameplay practice and internet forums), then a skilled player can still build a stronger character.
notice that it's not a problem with class power, but with player skill. give a wizard and a druid to two bad players, look at them be useless.

So, if you don't want skilled players to build stronger characters than unskilled players, the only thing you can do is handing everyone pregenerated characters and forbid them to every touch their build.

Or, you can give them multiple options and expect them to sort them out balancing issues among themselves like adults.

Tanarii
2021-04-25, 09:20 AM
Sometimes something might need a nerf, but the nerf is only necessary for the one doing it not a universal truth of need. People have different tolerance levels of power. For games that increase power over time some players can't or won't adjust and blame/resent the game. The game is not at fault. It would be nice and helpful for a game to explain and demonstrate the different power levels, so you can fault a game that doesn't adequately do this but the game is still not at fault for being that way. It is on purpose design feature for the PC to be that powerful at the relevant time the power is acquired. There is nothing inherently wrong with a PC having that power. The wrongness of it is only relevant to the individual who just can't stand it.
Nerfing isn't about people. It's about an option being out of line with other options for the same character option.

If option A is always a better pick than option B through Z for the same character option, then option A should be nerfed to bring it in line. Or gotten rid of.

Examples from 5e:
- if a class were the flat out best class, nerf the class (spoiler, none are)
- if a subclass is flat out the best subclass for the class, nerf the subclass (IMO Hexblade)
- if feat(s) are far superior to all other feats and ASIs, nerf them (IMO GWM/SS)
- if an ability score is a god stat nerf it (some folks say Dexterity, but IMO none)
- if a skill is always necessary to pick, nerf it (some folks say Perception, but IMO none)

And the opposite goes true for buffing. If it's subpar compared to the other options, buff it or get rid of it. (Looking at you 5e Performance skill.)

Edit: To address you point properly ... no it's not universal, it's all about opinions. But it should be demonstrable independent of e.g. the other characters in a campaign or the challenges the GM is putting forth. By comparing it to the other options/choices available

Pex
2021-04-25, 03:03 PM
Nerfing isn't about people. It's about an option being out of line with other options for the same character option.

If option A is always a better pick than option B through Z for the same character option, then option A should be nerfed to bring it in line. Or gotten rid of.

Examples from 5e:
- if a class were the flat out best class, nerf the class (spoiler, none are)
- if a subclass is flat out the best subclass for the class, nerf the subclass (IMO Hexblade)
- if feat(s) are far superior to all other feats and ASIs, nerf them (IMO GWM/SS)
- if an ability score is a god stat nerf it (some folks say Dexterity, but IMO none)
- if a skill is always necessary to pick, nerf it (some folks say Perception, but IMO none)

And the opposite goes true for buffing. If it's subpar compared to the other options, buff it or get rid of it. (Looking at you 5e Performance skill.)

Edit: To address you point properly ... no it's not universal, it's all about opinions. But it should be demonstrable independent of e.g. the other characters in a campaign or the challenges the GM is putting forth. By comparing it to the other options/choices available

If you want to change something, change it. If you don't change it, don't punish the player for choosing it when you said they could, such as denial of magic items. :smallwink:

Tanarii
2021-04-25, 03:13 PM
If you want to change something, change it. If you don't change it, don't punish the player for choosing it when you said they could, such as denial of magic items. :smallwink:
Agreed, it's much better to nerf something before it's chosen, so they know the value of the option. Such as the explicit denial of Magic items as a balancing factor. (Which is not the same thing as not guaranteeing finding specific Magic items to go with a build.)

Batcathat
2021-04-25, 03:28 PM
this theoretical system is just that: theoretical.
and it cannot be made to exhist.

Depends on what we're talking about. 100 percent balanced classes? Sure, that's probably impossible. Classes at roughly the same power level (or at least take turns being the most powerful, depending on the situation)? That's very much doable. Most RPGs don't have D&Ds miles wide power gaps, after all.


Even if you somehow managed to make all classes equally powerful in theoretical balance (which would require so much tweaking as to make it completely impractical; 3.5 was supposed to be balanced, and to most casual players it is balanced except that monks are too strong and wizards are nerfed sorcerors. We only know how to abuse it because of years of gameplay practice and internet forums)

I disagree. Sure, the most broken stuff might require some degree of system mastery (of the individual player or someone else), but even at the "default" level of skill the classes are far from equal. Even a very unoptimzed wizard have a ton more tricks than most martials.


notice that it's not a problem with class power, but with player skill. give a wizard and a druid to two bad players, look at them be useless.

Sure, and if I raced a formula one champion with me in a formula one car and the champion in my crappy car, I would probably lose. That doesn't mean my car is balanced against a formula one car and fit for same competitions.


So, if you don't want skilled players to build stronger characters than unskilled players, the only thing you can do is handing everyone pregenerated characters and forbid them to every touch their build.

Or, you can give them multiple options and expect them to sort them out balancing issues among themselves like adults.

Or we give them multiple options where some options aren't objectively several times more powerful and versatile as some others.

Yes, mature players can handle even the most unbalanced system without conflict, but wouldn't it be better if they didn't have to?

Zombimode
2021-04-26, 07:20 AM
Even a very unoptimzed wizard have a ton more tricks than most martials.

An unoptimized wizard has picked bad/niche/redundant spells, feats that don't do anything for this character, has neither replaced the familiar with a ACF nor does anything with the familiar (outside of fluffy character moments), and consistently picks the wrong spell for the situation/target. A fighter on the other hand can botch all of their feat choices can still function at base competency thanks to hit dice, attributes and equipment alone.


Or we give them multiple options where some options aren't objectively several times more powerful and versatile as some others.

Which is hard to do in any high-fidelity systems that want to represent widely different kinds of abilities. And: most options do not stand in a objectively better/worse relation to each other. The context matters. What is usefull for one character build is useless in another. The game designer can very likely not know of all possible applications of any option.

Furthermore, game designers thinking too much about balance can be detrimental for a game that is interesting. "Polymorph? Way too flexible, this can't be in this game!" "Teleportation? Flying? But then my The Chasm of Death adventure will not work at all!" "Safe-or-Die? Trip? Any kind of action denial? But then all my single enemy encounters will not work!"
Balance never adds something to a game. All it can ever do is taking things away.
If you make balance your primary concern in your design then you will most likely not put many different things in your game. That may be ok, especially if you want a competative game.

Personally I don't care about competativeness in RPGs, but I do care about flashy interesting abilities, sprawling amount of options and aspects, and high-fidelity in character building. I would rather deal with balance issues when they crop up personally by talking with my fellow players then having balance concerns influencing the content of the game beforehand.

Batcathat
2021-04-26, 07:33 AM
An unoptimized wizard has picked bad/niche/redundant spells, feats that don't do anything for this character, has neither replaced the familiar with a ACF nor does anything with the familiar (outside of fluffy character moments), and consistently picks the wrong spell for the situation/target. A fighter on the other hand can botch all of their feat choices can still function at base competency thanks to hit dice, attributes and equipment alone.

True. But the fighter – even if significantly more optimzed than the wizard – can still basically just hit things and get hit in return. Meanwhile, even the unoptimized wizard have (or can get by learning new spells) abilities that cover far more than just dealing or recieving damage.

Personally, I'm less bothered by power imbalance in combat than the extreme difference in versatility. If I play a rogue or some other sneaky-stabby type character, I'm totally okay if other characters are better at killing on the battle field than I am. I'm less okay if other characters out-perform mine in my supposed speciality (while also being better at killing and almost everything else).

patchyman
2021-04-27, 07:13 AM
An unoptimized wizard has picked bad/niche/redundant spells, feats that don't do anything for this character, has neither replaced the familiar with a ACF nor does anything with the familiar (outside of fluffy character moments), and consistently picks the wrong spell for the situation/target. A fighter on the other hand can botch all of their feat choices can still function at base competency thanks to hit dice, attributes and equipment alone.

I disagree. Being bad at your class doesn’t really have a floor, so there is no value in using it as any kind of metric.

noob
2021-04-27, 12:44 PM
You can always play the fighter worse(ex: waste all the time weapon swapping and not actually attack) but it can take dedication and you might want to switch to commoner for optimal worseness.

kyoryu
2021-04-27, 02:01 PM
You can always play the fighter worse(ex: waste all the time weapon swapping and not actually attack) but it can take dedication and you might want to switch to commoner for optimal worseness.

Even less blatantly, you can make poor weapon, maneuver, and positioning choices.

Talakeal
2021-04-27, 02:49 PM
Balance never adds something to a game. All it can ever do is taking things away.

Hard disagree.


If there is one clearly sub-optimal option, it might as well not exist.

Likewise, one clearly optimal option renders all others effectively nonexistent.

Pex
2021-04-27, 05:46 PM
Hard disagree.


If there is one clearly sub-optimal option, it might as well not exist.

Likely because no one would take it. Those who do take it learn the hard way and never take it again.


Likewise, one clearly optimal option renders all others effectively nonexistent.

Not necessarily. If the other options are good enough people will take them. Despite the optimization of 5E paladin/hexblade players still play single class paladin, multiclass paladin/not warlock, and multiclass paladin/non-hexblade warlock. They also play single class hexblade and single class non-hexblade warlock.

Rynjin
2021-04-27, 06:02 PM
An unoptimized wizard has picked bad/niche/redundant spells, feats that don't do anything for this character, has neither replaced the familiar with a ACF nor does anything with the familiar (outside of fluffy character moments), and consistently picks the wrong spell for the situation/target. A fighter on the other hand can botch all of their feat choices can still function at base competency thanks to hit dice, attributes and equipment alone.

Here is a quick example illustrating the problem with even an unoptimized caster vs an unoptimized martial.

It is my first ever Pathfinder game. We are playing Serpent's SKull, an Adventure Path.

I am playing a Monk.

The rest of the party consist of a Rogue, a Druid, a Ranger (archer), something else...I really don't remember, and a pair of GMPCs; a Cleric and a Barbarian.

Everybody makes it through the first book, relatively unoptimized, but I'm pretty unsatisfied with my character. I make a new Monk, much more optimized with the help of the forums. I begin to have a lot more fun, because I can actually punch people real good.

Anyway, we move on to book 2 with my new character. The Rogue dies. Because he's a Rogue, and his saves suck.

The Ranger is just kinda big chillin' the whole time, because he's a Ranger. They basically build themselves; a feature, not a bug.

The Druid is one of the most poorly built piece of **** characters I've seen in...ever. This Druid has 13 Wis. This Druid tries to cast spells as much as possible. This Druid has stuff like Skill Focus (Handle Animal) because we all thought it worked on Wild Empathy; these kinds of Feats fill up all their Feat slots.

This Druid is the strongest (non-GMPC) member of the party, besides maybe my rebuilt Monk. Because as it turns out, a ****ty Druid is still...a Druid. He can Wild Shape into stuff that puts the rest of the party to shame. He can, over time, learn how to take spells that don't really care about his borked stat scores, because he can change out his entire spell list every day.

Because he has more options to gain strength just within his class than most character have available from all intersecting options.

And that, in the end, is the difference between a poorly optimized martial, and a poorly optimized caster. The latter is still "good enough".

awa
2021-04-27, 09:42 PM
I would argue that is less about casters in general then about the fact that the druid has a very high floor with individual class features almost equal to entire classes.

That said all the wizard needs to do to get good is pick better spells, finding just one good spell can change the entire situation. Some of them are so powerful they render everything else irrelevant.

Max_Killjoy
2021-04-28, 09:51 AM
As a general observation of both tabletop and video games, what tends to happen that turns people off to nerfs in particular is wildly overdoing it. Big nerfs happen far more often, even when small nerfs or tweaks would do.

kyoryu
2021-04-28, 10:09 AM
As a general observation of both tabletop and video games, what tends to happen that turns people off to nerfs in particular is wildly overdoing it. Big nerfs happen far more often, even when small nerfs or tweaks would do.

In video games at least, those "big" nerfs are almost always because somebody has found some combination that is wildly out of line, and has to be brought back in. The people using the ability "as intended" are the unfortunate victims.

While that sucks, it's pretty necessary because once the exploit spreads, it can seriously destroy the overall game balance/economy/etc.

noob
2021-04-28, 10:35 AM
The Ranger is just kinda big chillin' the whole time, because he's a Ranger. They basically build themselves; a feature, not a bug.

Wildshape ranger is the ultimate "build itself" class.
Not only are your characteristics irrelevant thanks to wild shape but it also have the self building aspect of rangers.

icefractal
2021-04-29, 02:45 PM
Another factor with the Druid - summoning tends to be strong in low-op games and weaker in high-op ones, since the stats are relatively static.

If your offense is an ubercharger and your defense is a stack of persistent buffs, then a summon is maybe a one round speedbump. If your party is more like a sword-n-board Fighter, a Rogue who spends every other round hiding, and a Wizard who thinks that Magic Missile and Fireball are the ultimate apex of spellcasting, then summoned creatures will be the MVP.

King of Nowhere
2021-04-29, 03:29 PM
Here is a quick example illustrating the problem with even an unoptimized caster vs an unoptimized martial.

It is my first ever Pathfinder game. We are playing Serpent's SKull, an Adventure Path.

I am playing a Monk.

The rest of the party consist of a Rogue, a Druid, a Ranger (archer), something else...I really don't remember, and a pair of GMPCs; a Cleric and a Barbarian.

Everybody makes it through the first book, relatively unoptimized, but I'm pretty unsatisfied with my character. I make a new Monk, much more optimized with the help of the forums. I begin to have a lot more fun, because I can actually punch people real good.

Anyway, we move on to book 2 with my new character. The Rogue dies. Because he's a Rogue, and his saves suck.

The Ranger is just kinda big chillin' the whole time, because he's a Ranger. They basically build themselves; a feature, not a bug.

The Druid is one of the most poorly built piece of **** characters I've seen in...ever. This Druid has 13 Wis. This Druid tries to cast spells as much as possible. This Druid has stuff like Skill Focus (Handle Animal) because we all thought it worked on Wild Empathy; these kinds of Feats fill up all their Feat slots.

This Druid is the strongest (non-GMPC) member of the party, besides maybe my rebuilt Monk. Because as it turns out, a ****ty Druid is still...a Druid. He can Wild Shape into stuff that puts the rest of the party to shame. He can, over time, learn how to take spells that don't really care about his borked stat scores, because he can change out his entire spell list every day.

Because he has more options to gain strength just within his class than most character have available from all intersecting options.

And that, in the end, is the difference between a poorly optimized martial, and a poorly optimized caster. The latter is still "good enough".
well, let me tell you a different story, then.
I had a druid player in my first party, and he was bad.
He would never buff before combat, because remembering to do it would be too much. he had a wold companion that was the laughing stock of the table, to the point that we all cheered whenever it managed to actually do something.
he would start combat in human shape. first thing, he would try to wild shape, thus losing a turn and losing all the benefits of most of his equipment.
then he would take big damage. at this point he may realize the mistake, and try to wild shape again back into human.
or he would cast call lightning.
and that's despite coaching him. trying to coach him. after three years he became more competent and his druid became better (because, yes, you can still swap out bad spells for good ones). but he still was a support.
though that's mostly for the specific campaign; it was a high magic, high wealth campaign fighting against other npcs. So all the druid's buffs were useless because everyone had magic loot that duplicated those effects, and the animal companion and summons were useless because they couldn't realiably hit the enemies' armor class. and druid's damage spells are mostly sub-par, and getting fire resistance is trivially easy anyway. there may be optimization tricks i'm missing, but in my experience the druid is terrible at hurting foes with good defences.
he turned out pretty useful by summoning disposable stuff to use as walls.

on the other hand, there was a barbarian guy. also inexperienced. he tried to make a dual wielding ranger, of course he sucked. i told him that's not a good approach, and he was better off with a zweihander and power attack as much as possible. he took the tip, and he became - with a single-classed barbarian - the most powerful character at the table. on a party with a druid, a wizard, and a cleric. at some point, around level 10, he was probably strong enough that he could have soloed everyone else in the party. without any special optimization trick.

so no, a poorly optimized caster is not "good enough". a poorly optimized caster can suck much harder than anyone else.
and it's much easier to get "good enough" with a martial: just get a polearm and buff your strenght.
getting "good enough" with a caster requires knowing a bunch of useful spells. a little thing for us, but a steep wall to climb for the casual newb.

the one undeniable advantage of casters is that they can change spells. it's never too late for them to learn and get some basic effectiveness. while a martial with the wrong choices locks himself forever.
unless the dm is generous with retraining; and every dm should be generous about retraining first characters.

Rynjin
2021-04-29, 04:10 PM
There's a difference between poor optimization (making bad build choices) and being an idiot (making poor decisions that make no sense). Your example falls into the latter category.

It doesn't help that your game was, admitted by you, houseruled so far outside the normal assumptions for the game that it caused problems of its own

icefractal
2021-04-29, 04:14 PM
Eh, I've seen extremely ineffective casters due to poor spell selection, which I'd say counts as a build choice. And for spontaneous casters, not a choice that's easily changed. Even for a Wizard, if you're out in the wilderness you're pretty much stuck with what's in your book.

Mechalich
2021-04-29, 05:25 PM
and it's much easier to get "good enough" with a martial: just get a polearm and buff your strenght.


Until you run into a flying enemy, or an incorporeal enemy, or a controller enemy. The latter's particularly important. One of the great weaknesses of the base Martial classes is that their low will saves make them vulnerable to being turned into the best weapon to use against the rest of the party.

At higher levels, brute enemies become rarer and rarer, almost everything characters of level 10+ fight has some special abilities of some kind, and that's when the martial/caster disparity becomes particularly acute. High-level martial characters often remain perfectly viable in terms of their DPS, but they struggle to actually come to grips with the enemy. One reason high-level martials retain much greater viability in D&D-based video games is that staged encounters make it much easier for such characters to actively engage.

Nerfs that compress encounter range are therefore particularly useful in terms of flattening the overall power growth curve. Just flat out removing flight from the game - no flying powers, no flying monsters - is a massive leveler (now D&D can't do this since the game is named Dungeons & Dragons and dragons gotta have wings).

King of Nowhere
2021-04-29, 06:19 PM
There's a difference between poor optimization (making bad build choices) and being an idiot (making poor decisions that make no sense). Your example falls into the latter category.

so judgmental.

it was merely a case of not knowing what his own skills did.
which, for a martial, is quite easy. you move close to the enemy, you roll a d20 plus a bonus, if your roll is high enough you roll 2d6 plus a bonus. you want to increase that bonus if you can. you don't even need to be actually able to calculate that bonus, you can just declare you attack and the friendly dm will help you along.
for a caster, making informed decisions requires a passable knowledge of most of your spell list. for a druid, it requires that, and knowledge of your critters, and your abilities. it took me years to be able to handle polymorphs.
A green player will just pick the abilities that sound cool or have impressive descriptor. turn into a big animal to kick asses? nice. throw lightning at my enemies? great!
they don't have the knowledge to understand how the first is only good if adequately prepared, and the second sucks. and unless they are dedicated, the infrequent playing schedule (stemming from busy real lives) is not enough to learn very well.



It doesn't help that your game was, admitted by you, houseruled so far outside the normal assumptions for the game that it caused problems of its own
huh?
I gaveg everyone - including npcs - higher wealth, and I used npcs as main enemies. Where's the houseruling in that?

but the result was
- everyone has higher armor class thanks to loot, but the barbarian can still hit. he'll deal less damage, he'll power attack for less, but he still can hit the first attack reliably and smack for significant hit points. and he can use the extra items to cover most martial weaknesses
- everyone has higher saving throws thanks to loot, but the wizard can still hurt people. save-or-die will work less often, damage spells will damage for less, combat takes a bit longer; still, those spells are effective. same for the cleric, and people taking less damage actually makes healing more effective
- druids, on the other hand, couldn't reliably hurt people anymore.
and i've seen many druids, in different tables, built and played by different people, and i've never seen one that was effective against an opponent with heavy defence.
it's just that at my table, that was the most commonly encountered type of opponent.

Rynjin
2021-04-29, 07:19 PM
huh?
I gaveg everyone - including npcs - higher wealth, and I used npcs as main enemies. Where's the houseruling in that?



In...the first sentence, my guy. Giving NPCs PC wealth is a +1 CR adjustment. Giving them higher than PC wealth is likely an extra +1.

You basically gave everyone the Advanced template in a roundabout way, making the game significantly harder than the average assumption.

icefractal
2021-04-29, 08:23 PM
In...the first sentence, my guy. Giving NPCs PC wealth is a +1 CR adjustment. Giving them higher than PC wealth is likely an extra +1.
So ... they were a higher CR than they would have been without gear? But we don't know what level they were relative to the PCs, so we can't even say they were higher CR than "normal".

Using foes of higher CR than the PC's ECL is not a houserule anyway. Sandbox games don't care about the PCs' level, and any game with optimized PCs is likely using CR >> ECL for anything that's supposed to be remotely a threat.

Rynjin
2021-04-29, 08:29 PM
So ... they were a higher CR than they would have been without gear? But we don't know what level they were relative to the PCs, so we can't even say they were higher CR than "normal".

Using foes of higher CR than the PC's ECL is not a houserule anyway. Sandbox games don't care about the PCs' level, and any game with optimized PCs is likely using CR >> ECL for anything that's supposed to be remotely a threat.

Let me put it this way, it's the exact same type of houserule as the ol' lazy standby of "I'm going to give every monster the Advanced template". Maybe not technically a houserule because it's within the rules, but it's the kind of encounter design no sane person would think is correct for a party of unoptimized characters.

icefractal
2021-04-29, 11:44 PM
Let me put it this way, it's the exact same type of houserule as the ol' lazy standby of "I'm going to give every monster the Advanced template". Maybe not technically a houserule because it's within the rules, but it's the kind of encounter design no sane person would think is correct for a party of unoptimized characters.Putting the Advanced template on what? Unless you're running a preset module, there is no "every monster" to compare it to!

Like, three Vrocks, CR 12. Two Advanced Vrocks, also CR 12. All that Advanced, or extra gear, or anything does is change the CR from one number to another number. And either the first or second number could be more appropriate to the party you have.

For that matter, you're implying that the party was being overwhelmed by too high a level of challenge. Which, from the post, they weren't. The Druid was simply the weakest link in a party that was overall doing fine.

I feel like you're trying to "no true Scotsman" this situation, but I simply don't agree that this is so bizarre it needs an extra factor to explain. While casters are stronger in general, the floor is still quite low, low enough for one to be underpowered relative to the rest of the party.

I don't agree that Druids are poor in political intrigue games though. They've got the stats to spare for decent Charisma, Diplomacy on their list, Wildshape is excellent for spying, and while not as wide as a Sor/Wiz in this area, their spell list does contain plenty of applicable stuff.

Rynjin
2021-04-30, 12:23 AM
It matters because when we're talking about the basic skill floor of a class, taking actions that raises the global skill floor required to compete is going to completely change the metrics.

And you know full well what I mean by raising the CR. When you take global actions like that, everything is more powerful. Nobody is doing that so that they can then go back and use lower base CR encounters that are raised by the CR increasing effect; that's such a bizarre and convoluted way of thinking.

The only logical reason I can think of for making a blanket increase in enemy power is because you want the game to be more difficult. King of Nowhere can feel free to chime in if he was, for whatever reason, just intending for a CR 1 peasant to become a CR 2 peasant via gear or whatever.

icefractal
2021-04-30, 01:09 AM
Except this isn't a generic increase in power, this is about having NPCs (who tend to be anemic unless you optimize them; decent gear makes them at least ok for their CR) as the primary opponents.

I still don't get how running a campaign that isn't an evenly random selection of all possible opponents is some outlier than makes results invalid. I'd say the majority of campaigns are themed to some extent - in particular I've seen a number of undead-focused ones.

Like, nobody is even saying that Druid isn't in general a strong class. Are you really arguing the position that "Druid will always be MVP in all campaigns, and if they weren't it doesn't count"?

Rynjin
2021-04-30, 02:24 AM
No; the metric was that a poorly optimized caster is "good enough" (my words) for standard content. Touting non-standard content as a rebuttal is just weird.

King of Nowhere
2021-04-30, 08:14 AM
Let me put it this way, it's the exact same type of houserule as the ol' lazy standby of "I'm going to give every monster the Advanced template". Maybe not technically a houserule because it's within the rules, but it's the kind of encounter design no sane person would think is correct for a party of unoptimized characters.

You keep being more judgmental at every sentence. you know nothing of my table, yet you presume.

It would actually take a long time to explain the specific situation. among the factors to be considered
- the party was also more equipped, so they gained power just as much as those npcs
- the main reason was worldbuilding, in any case. this is a high magic world, this is a world where it is normal to be covered in magic loot at earlier levels.
- for all their poor optimization, the party was still mopping the floor with anything that was remotely level-appropriate. because that's what happens if your party is even remotely optimized. yes, even my party. for all that the druid had no idea how to hurt his opponents and the wizard did nothing but cast fireballs, they still were more optimized that the expected foes. even taking into account a cr increase for their wealth
- and frankly, i never cared about CR and EL after the first few sessions. they are too swingy to be of much use. nowadays i eyeball the difficulty, if it's too easy i make the next encounter harder, if too hard i make it easier.
- the campaign was fun, and nobody complained about fights. it's worth repeating, they were still winning.


No; the metric was that a poorly optimized caster is "good enough" (my words) for standard content. Touting non-standard content as a rebuttal is just weird.
but my rebuttal is that the poorly optimized caster was weaker than the poorly optimized melee. doesn't have anything to do with opponents.if those opponents had less AC the druid would deal some damage, but the barbarian could have used full power attack and dropped them in one round.
that may depend on how you define "poorly optimized"; the barbarian was certainly closer to its ceiling that the druid is, and was overall a solid build with solid numbers, so you could call it decently optimized.
but then again, it took virtually no effort to build the barbarian, except to tell him to get a greatsword, power attack, and buff his numbers as much as possible.
the druid got a lot more advice, and still sucked.

originally, i was rebutting to the idea that new players will necessarily be stronger with casters.
the thing is that, yes, at 0 optimization a druid is still better than a sword-and-board fighter. and at high optimization druids rule.
but it takes very little effort to move a melee to decent optimization. the same effort applied on a druid will merely avoid some of the most egregious trap options (like the aforementioned shapechanging at the wrong moment).

EDIT: also, you already called my friends idiots and me insane. i suggest you revise your vocabulary in favor of a more respectful one if you want to have a civil discussion