Is the game better when everyone is equal in combat?

[f5anor]

I recently read the following exchange in another thread, one forumite quipped that equal characters lead to a bad playing experience, another forumite then responded incredulously implying that every character being equal is highly desirable.

This exchange puzzled me, and I have been thinking about it since.

I can see both sides of the argument, on the one hand we all play the game to see our characters shine, how can this happen if they are just run of mill equivalents? Or even worse, what's the point of your character when some newfangled build (usually based on magic) can be better at your own shtick, than yourself?

On the other hand, there are many interesting ways to build characters, as the ingenious builds floating around the net prove, it would be a pity to miss out on those by restricting character abilities to some roles.

What does the playground say?

[Gurgeh]

If the game is structured in such a way as to put important mechanical emphasis on things that are not combat, then it's perfectly fine to have some characters clearly outperform others on the battlefield, provided the less capable combatants can bring something more to the table in other fields.

For better or worse, D&D is very often structured in such a way as to make combat the most frequent and the most impactful mechanical element; in that case, it's much more important for everyone to be able to make a contribution of roughly equivalent value (if not necessarily of identical shape and colour).

[Mastikator]

It's rather hard to compare two PCs- especially if they're doing very different things. How could you say that a CC or DPR is better? And not all players are equal, you will find that having equal PCs leads to unequal results in combat. Some players will consistently forget about their class and race abilities which makes them significantly weaker, others will consistently find creative use that makes them significantly stronger.

Also combat is but 1/3rd of the game and some classes are worthless outside of combat, it feels really bad if you were merely equal in combat while that's all your good at.

[Leon]

I recently read the following exchange in another thread, one forumite quipped that equal characters lead to a bad playing experience, another forumite then responded incredulously implying that every character being equal is highly desirable.

This exchange puzzled me, and I have been thinking about it since.

I can see both sides of the argument, on the one hand we all play the game to see our characters shine, how can this happen if they are just run of mill equivalents? Or even worse, what's the point of your character when some newfangled build (usually based on magic) can be better at your own shtick, than yourself?

On the other hand, there are many interesting ways to build characters, as the ingenious builds floating around the net prove, it would be a pity to miss out on those by restricting character abilities to some roles.

What does the playground say?

Take anything thing written on here (Gaming forums in general really) with a grain of salt

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I don't think the players at my table would be happy if they were poor at combat in every encounter, but that generally doesn't happen. Sometimes the rogues get to scout ahead, gain surprise and hit hard before the fighting gets going. Sometimes the blasters exterminate a horde of mooks. And despite all the talk of caster superiority, a big target with a lot of resistances and immunities usually gets taken down predominantly by the martials. So I guess I don't really agree with the premise of the question; with good DMing all combats are not created equally. Probably the only character I've DMed that was a bit of an exception to this was the Shepherd Druid; it was really difficult to create encounters that he couldn't dominate.

I personally wouldn't want to play a character that didn't regularly interact with at least one of the other pillars. One of my current characters, an Assassin/Cleric is obviously our scout, and I'd kind of expected that with the Cleric element he'd be a bit more support and not quite keeping up in combat in a straight up fight, and I would be OK with that.

[Nidgit]

Equal doesn't mean interchangeable. Every PC should be able to shine the brightest in some way or another, and ideally those different ways should occur equally frequently.

Roles can overlap, but players will often build their characters to be distinct from others, particularly if they feel overshadowed in some regard.

[Xervous]

The game system serves a purpose. Until you decide what purpose the game is trying to serve its hard to talk about something in isolation with relative terms like “good”. I personally think X is terrible because I don’t ever want Y, but X was designed to unerringly yield Y. Others might not see it that way. But I’m not going to say X fails at producing Y.

[NotPrior]

Personally and at my tables... yeah, absolutely. Combat is fun and time consuming, so we spend a lot of time on it and anyone who can't contribute has got to be happy with being an observer, which is uncommon (although not unheard of).

5e, for all its talk of pillars, is a combat game first, with roleplay being something you do or do not do, not something you play. I may be biased in this regard because I bloody despise roleplaying mechanics, but when two of the classes are nearly useless outside of combat (fighters and barbs can of course do things outside of combat, but their class offers them almost nothing in this regard), and magic is increasingly the best option for everything but fightan with a series of win buttons, I feel I'm at least somewhere near reasonable to say it's a war game you roleplay in.

If you want a game where being a non combatant is a viable strategy I would really say 5e is not it. Try something with Worlds in the title.

[Sneak Dog]

Given the amount of gametime combat takes, I'd say it's better when everyone is at least competent in combat. And if one option/class is more competent at this major part of the game than another, the system ought to advertise it. 5e does combat balance very well, save for the advertising. I'm impressed by this at least.

Equal though? Weird goal. Playstyles, interpretations of rules and GM-style should vary up the context so much that equal can't really happen.

[KorvinStarmast]

Is the game better when everyone is equal in combat?
The question's wrongly framed, in my opinion. The point of D&D 5e is to form a team that is effective by drawing on the contributions of each member; synergy is what you are trying to achieve when combat happens, and it is also achievable during exploration.

The party I DM'd for last night were confronted with something now, mysterious and confusing as they explored the underground portion of a ruined manor/keep. It was interesting to watch them put their heads together to over come the obstacle. The bard (who ended up being enlarged by a chaotic blast of energy) ended up holding the rope while everyone else climbed down. Teamwork. That's what it's about.

@SneakDog: so long as everyone can contribute to the team effort, yes.

Take anything thing written on here (Gaming forums in general really) with a grain of salt Fair point.

We had an interesting thread a few months ago about party optimization, rather than PC optimization. It's worth thinking through party optimization as an approach.

[Gurgeh]

I would like to point out that while your first quote names me, the content of the quote is simply the title of the thread (which I did not create). As such, I'm not sure which elements of my post you're responding to, and can't really make a reply.

EDIT: aha - I was not the only one confused! Please disregard my quibble. :P

[KorvinStarmast]

I would like to point out that while your first quote names me, the content of the quote is simply the title of the thread (which I did not create). As such, I'm not sure which elements of my post you're responding to, and can't really make a reply.

EDIT: aha - I was not the only one confused! Please disregard my quibble,
It was a multiquote boo boo that I corrected. :) Not your fault, but mine. :smallsmile:

[DigoDragon]

Equal doesn't mean interchangeable. Every PC should be able to shine the brightest in some way or another, and ideally those different ways should occur equally frequently.

My opinion leans closest to this; as long as everyone feels they're contributing to each encounter, I think that's pretty good balance as it is.

[Catullus64]

For me, the ideal situation to be in is one that averages out to something like equality in contribution, but which is strikingly unequal moment-to-moment. I like it if every fight, or near to every fight, in some way plays against certain characters' strengths, and makes other characters shine the brighter. But of course it becomes a problem if the same characters are the same ones getting marginalized over and over.

This is my preference specifically for D&D, where every class has lots of combat-centric features. In systems that give you the option to play a character with little to no combat ability, more inequality is good, as it emphasizes the consequences of such character choices.

[Hael]

At a fundamental level, D&D is a wargame.

That means that your actions and abilities should correlate with how well your PC performs. As a corollary this implies that not every PC will be as effective in combat… Even if builds are equalized (and thats a separate story).

It makes no sense to me that you would want a table, where players that don’t use their abilities properly, are somehow equalized to the ones that do. That just kills the ‘game’ part and trivializes the fun of improvement and the steady progression of system understanding.

Now should all builds be equal? Also probably not, however you don’t want a situation where one guy swings a sword and hits for 100d10 and the other guy who’s build is supposed to do the same thing swings a sword for 1d10. Thats not fun either. System and build mastery should be rewarded, but not so much that we re-enter 3.5 territory.

Possible options to enforce the latter might be gentle DM build hints (eg don’t take tavern brawler here, maybe GWM is more appropriate)..

[Rashagar]

I recently read the following exchange in another thread, one forumite quipped that equal characters lead to a bad playing experience, another forumite then responded incredulously implying that every character being equal is highly desirable.

This exchange puzzled me, and I have been thinking about it since.

I can see both sides of the argument, on the one hand we all play the game to see our characters shine, how can this happen if they are just run of mill equivalents? Or even worse, what's the point of your character when some newfangled build (usually based on magic) can be better at your own shtick, than yourself?

On the other hand, there are many interesting ways to build characters, as the ingenious builds floating around the net prove, it would be a pity to miss out on those by restricting character abilities to some roles.

What does the playground say?

I'm not sure if I've ever seen two equal characters in the same party (I've been in parties with 3 clerics, or 2 wild magic barbarians, but even then the characters haven't felt equal due to different races and characterisation decisions) but I think if I brought a character to the table which was the same class and race and used the same weapons/spells as another player's character I would have a "well one of us has to change" reaction.

I know that I like to know everyone else's characters when I'm joining a game just so I can try to make sure I don't step on anyone's toes, and that some people have tried to talk me out of that mindset (because they then worry that I'm not playing something I actually want to play).

I'm assuming the 2nd person meant that "everyone being equivalently optimised is highly desirable", which I'm not sure I'd necessarily agree with either. Not just because you'd be more likely to have 3 variant human sharpshooter archers or web slinging wizards in that case, but the best combat experiences for me have always been when people vibe with their characters (for want of a better phrase), and not necessarily when people have been making equivalently optimum build/combat decisions. Like, that person who doesn't have a lot of system knowledge but because of that isn't afraid to ask "can I try this mad thing no one has asked about yet?", or the person who says "well my character would want to prioritise X, so can I try to do Y in pursuit of that goal", both have fit really well in parties which also have that person who's picked features that optimise damage output or CC or whatever.

[heavyfuel]

For dungeon crawler hack-n-slash type games? Probably. I'm currently in a campaign that is very rail-roady with plenty of Deadly combats and little to no meaningful Social/Exploration encounters. I knew what I signing up for, so I'm fine with it, but I wouldn't want to play a character who sucks in combat in this game.

If it were a more open ended campaign with a focus on role playing like the Pathfinder campaign I also play in, then I'm fine with not shining in combat, because I know might affect the world /story in other ways.

However, I do think every character should be, at the very least, decent in all three pillars, which is a problem with D&D that dates back all the way to first edition. A lot of characters are notoriously terrible in Exploration and Social encounters, so when other characters are also pretty good in Combat, these "fighting" characters don't really shine.

If I have a Fighter that deals a crap-ton of damage and nothing else, and you have a Druid that also deals a crap-ton of damage, but is also a master of the Exploration pillar, I might start to feel inadequate.

[Aalbatr0ss]

There is some fixation I’ve seen in this forum on “fixing” this game by limiting the perceived stronger classes. My experience is almost all tier 1/2 but I have never seen this as a problem at a table.

If people start having an advantage compared to others in encounters they tend to use it cooperatively to coordinate with the “weaker” players and help set them up to do well. Obviously if one character is always coming out strongest in every scenario the game will start to drag.

I’ve seen our hexadin with winged boots find something else to do (heal an injured bystander) so our monk could have a chance to shine in a dramatic rooftop battle scene.

Is the problem that someone gets the most powerful character at the table and then spends every encounter showboating? Because maybe the actual problem is having that player at your table.

[KorvinStarmast]

There is some fixation I’ve seen in this forum on “fixing” this game by limiting the perceived stronger classes. My experience is almost all tier 1/2 but I have never seen this as a problem at a table. Similar experiences in Tier 1/2.

I’ve seen our hexadin with winged boots find something else to do (heal an injured bystander) so our monk could have a chance to shine in a dramatic rooftop battle scene.

Is the problem that someone gets the most powerful character at the table and then spends every encounter showboating? Because maybe the actual problem is having that player at your table. A case of the "powergamer problem" perhaps?

[Aalbatr0ss]

Similar experiences in Tier 1/2.
A case of the "powergamer problem" perhaps?

Yeah. I guess if you’re a powergamer at a table of them and you’re not keeping up, that’s on you. If there is a player at your table who is not power gaming I would hope human empathy would kick in and you’d still try and make sure the person playing a game with you has a good time.

[Catullus64]

There is some fixation I’ve seen in this forum on “fixing” this game by limiting the perceived stronger classes. My experience is almost all tier 1/2 but I have never seen this as a problem at a table.

If people start having an advantage compared to others in encounters they tend to use it cooperatively to coordinate with the “weaker” players and help set them up to do well. Obviously if one character is always coming out strongest in every scenario the game will start to drag.

I’ve seen our hexadin with winged boots find something else to do (heal an injured bystander) so our monk could have a chance to shine in a dramatic rooftop battle scene.

Is the problem that someone gets the most powerful character at the table and then spends every encounter showboating? Because maybe the actual problem is having that player at your table.

I think its a very common problem that a lot of players get stuck in a mindset that focuses excessively on making their own characters look cool, and that the combat experience suffers from it. The mindset even carries beyond the table into the discussion forum; I cannot count the number of times I've encountered the argument "D&D is a game about a power fantasy and having your character do cool stuff, and therefore (insert design decision or suggested rule change being argued about)." And I think that fixation upon balancing classes and player options stems in large part from this limiting mindset.

[Xervous]

I’ll counter that the game is better when it’s up front about the power level of various options and encourages the players and GM to discuss what is appropriate for the table. Forcibly constraining everything to a narrow range yields consistency. If the focal point is undesirable for a group then the narrow, opaque system fails to provide as much enjoyment for that group. D&D has a cultural background of adjusting things in spite of the lack of guidance put forth by the primary sources. Some might say it’s because explanations and highlights have always been missing, so adaptation or abandonment were inevitable.

[Tanarii]

It depends entirely on if your game has combat be a last ditch resort that you need a few specialists to resolve and others contribute as they can, or if it's a core game function.

In other words, do you want to play TSR D&D or WotC D&D?

There's also the danger you'll end up with Shadowrun if the game takes it too far, where you've got 4 mini-games (one being combat) and you you need a specialist for each while the others twiddle their thumbs

[Aalbatr0ss]

Has anyone ever tried a game where full casters are banned? That would seem so solve much of the power disparity in late game. When the wish-less lead the wish-less I guess people will start wanting to nerf paladins?

[Tanarii]

Has anyone ever tried a game where full casters are banned? That would seem so solve much of the power disparity in late game. When the wish-less lead the wish-less I guess people will start wanting to nerf paladins?
I've run a no Multiclassing and no feats campaign. Plenty of combat. Martial heavy parties were much stronger than full caster heavy parties. Martials roundly dominate combat in Tier 1 and early Tier 2, and hold their own through early Tier 3.

It's worth noting that even with 5e's lightning fast advancement, if you're playing only once a week you're still going to be about 9 months before you get to "late game" enough to worry about possible imbalances.

Or, yknow, if you permit Multiclassing dips for armor, and to a lesser degree Warcaster/Resilient (con) for concentration casters.

[KorvinStarmast]

The mindset even carries beyond the table into the discussion forum; I cannot count the number of times I've encountered the argument "D&D is a game about a power fantasy and having your character do cool stuff, and therefore (insert design decision or suggested rule change being argued about)." It seems to come across as a fusion of power fantasy and wish fulfillment. (But I think this is a bit of topic drift, and I will say that I have always found the teamwork aspect to be what builds good tables and even friendships that last for years).

[Willie the Duck]

Fundamentally I agree with those who say it is important because 5e makes combat the hegemon tier, as well as the one with the most mechanical definitiveness. In another game (many other games), being significantly less combat-capable would be perfectly fine. There are two points of nuance I think I have comments on:..


I can see both sides of the argument, on the one hand we all play the game to see our characters shine, how can this happen if they are just run of mill equivalents? Or even worse, what's the point of your character when some newfangled build (usually based on magic) can be better at your own shtick, than yourself?

On the other hand, there are many interesting ways to build characters, as the ingenious builds floating around the net prove, it would be a pity to miss out on those by restricting character abilities to some roles.

I think this contains two major point of contention. One is when some other build can completely coopt your role, along with doing things you cannot do. There's a lot of back and forth as to whether (and when in level progression) a given version of D&D might do this, but in general people seem to consider it a flaw in the system (and for the most part, I agree). The other is the entire concept of 'builds,' optimization, system mastery, and the like. For some people, this is a great part of the game's fun, and love the mixing and matching and trying to predict what situations will come up such that selecting this character-creation or -levelling option instead of another will be the optimal choice. For others, the fun is in the play session and actually running into those situations and if they have to spend my out of game time learning to optimize to stay relevant in their party, that's deleterious to their enjoyment of the game. That ones a harder nut to crack and tends to end up being a 'people with like attitudes on this question should game mostly with each other' scenario.


There's also the danger you'll end up with Shadowrun if the game takes it too far, where you've got 4 mini-games (one being combat) and you you need a specialist for each while the others twiddle their thumbs
This is another big part of things. Sitting for long stretches without meaningful contribution is unfun. Being the magic user who just hides every combat (or throws daggers/flasks of oil) was never fun, nor was being the martial guy who just runs defensive perimeter while the spellcaster has the combat-ending solution. That's why I generally like the idea of spellcasters having more spells that they use more often but with lesser overall effect. Whether that actually is what has come about is still up for debate.


Take anything thing written on here (Gaming forums in general really) with a grain of salt
I had a comment about how big can a grain be before it's not a grain and those salt mines where they carve whole underground cathedrals out of salt, but the comparison got away from me. Simply put, I emphatically agree.

[tiornys]

When we have three separate citations early in the thread saying that issues show up in the vicinity of tier 3, I'm not sure why anyone would expect to see problems at tiers 1 and 2.

edit: I'm getting my threads confused. The problems don't show up in tiers 1 and 2, as is discussed in the linear/quadratic thread.

[Sorinth]

I disagree that 5e is fundamentally a Wargame that has some roleplay elements, I think it's very much the opposite it's a roleplay game with some wargame elements.

I don't think everything has to be perfectly balanced for combat, but relatively balanced, yes. It should be hard to make a character that can't contribute at all to combat, but it's fine for the character who spends their build points on combat things to be a little better then the character who spends their build points on non-combat things. The wargame elements of combat should rely more on teamwork and tactics then picking the right features. So there should be balance between a sword and shield or a 2-handed sword, or a Bow, or a Crossbow. Those fighting style choices should offer differentiators between them but still be as equal in power as possible without making everything generic..

[heavyfuel]

I disagree that 5e is fundamentally a Wargame that has some roleplay elements, I think it's very much the opposite it's a roleplay game with some wargame elements.

That really depends on the DM. I play with 3 different groups, 2 of which that definitely validate your opinion.

1 group, however, is 100% Wargame with RP elements sprinkled on top. Yeah, you can choose to go to a tavern and drink ale or whatever, but you're not going to be making a series of checks to either avoid combat entirely any time soon. And that's a "good thing" in this group, since combat is the only way to acquire XP :smallsigh:

[Slipjig]

I think that really depends on your table. If your DM runs his campaign with a heavy emphasis on combat while ignoring the other two pillars, then combat parity is pretty desirable. That doesn't mean all characters should be identical, it's okay if one character is better at knocking out hordes of mooks, one character excels at crowd control, and a third shines in single-target damage. But it becomes a problem if one character is the best at ALL of these things, or if any character doesn't have at least one thing they are the best at.

That's one reason I dislike the ability to use mental stats (especially CHA) for +Atk and +Dam in physical combat: the high-CHA character is probably already dominating social interactions, it's reasonable for them to pay for that by being slightly less effective in a brawl. Plus, just from a verisimilitude standpoint, if you are a klutz with noodle-arms, no amount of "but I'm sexy and strong-willed!" is going to make you a melee badass.

[Aalbatr0ss]

That's one reason I dislike the ability to use mental stats (especially CHA) for +Atk and +Dam in physical combat: the high-CHA character is probably already dominating social interactions, it's reasonable for them to pay for that by being slightly less effective in a brawl. Plus, just from a verisimilitude standpoint, if you are a klutz with noodle-arms, no amount of "but I'm sexy and strong-willed!" is going to make you a melee badass.

Yes! (I'm playing an armorer who adds INT to attacks in one game, so I'm also a hypocrite) But the other effect here is: Many power builds are some kind of charisma multiclass, which means the PC in the group with 20 charisma MIGHT belong to the player (hexadin, sorlock, etc.) with the least actual interest in the social tier. So the players most interested in RP may need to funnel all critical social interactions through the party's chaos-monkey or constantly be failing persuasion checks.

I'm not proposing a change here, but it can get annoying. (The hexadin and sorlock in my main games are played by solid roleplayers. This isn't necessarily an indictment of the classes, just a problem that can pop up)

[Sorinth]

That really depends on the DM. I play with 3 different groups, 2 of which that definitely validate your opinion.

1 group, however, is 100% Wargame with RP elements sprinkled on top. Yeah, you can choose to go to a tavern and drink ale or whatever, but you're not going to be making a series of checks to either avoid combat entirely any time soon. And that's a "good thing" in this group, since combat is the only way to acquire XP :smallsigh:

Sure but that goes to show how the game itself isn't fundamentally a wargame. You can for sure play it that way, just like you can have a game with virtually no combat whatsoever. Both extremes are supported fairly well, D&D has always had a strong take what you want and ignore what you don't aspect to it.

[heavyfuel]

Sure but that goes to show how the game itself isn't fundamentally a wargame. You can for sure play it that way, just like you can have a game with virtually no combat whatsoever. Both extremes are supported fairly well, D&D has always had a strong take what you want and ignore what you don't aspect to it.

Indeed. I'm not disagreeing with you that D&D is a RPG with wargame elements, but a lot of groups do play it as if were a wargame.

It doesn't help WotC themselves apparently see the game as mostly a wargame, since every published adventure I've played (not that many, tbf) is pure railroad and combat.

[Sorinth]

Indeed. I'm not disagreeing with you that D&D is a RPG with wargame elements, but a lot of groups do play it as if were a wargame.

It doesn't help WotC themselves apparently see the game as mostly a wargame, since every published adventure I've played (not that many, tbf) is pure railroad and combat.

I don't think that's how WotC sees it. It's more that railroady adventures with an emphasis on combat are much easier to write/publish. They are also a lot friendlier for beginning players/dms since they rely on much more on the highly structured aspect of the game.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think that, if combat's going to be a regular thing, then characters should all be able to contribute meaningfully, on average, but shouldn't be able to carry the load alone. Equal? Apples =/= Bananas, but both are able to contribute to fruit salad meaningfully and a fruit salad without one of the two[0] is worse off for the lack.

And the same goes for other interactions. In the other pillars, it mostly comes down to (in my experience) player willingness to contribute, plus a table culture that isn't all about "only the person with the highest numbers gets to talk" or "everything requires a check and the DC will be high enough that only specialists can help". And a table culture focused more around the in-universe fiction than the mechanical bits and bobs that go with the game aspect. Where yes, the barbarian tribe leader is going to respect the gruff, tough strong guy[0.5] more than the cultured fop, no matter what their Charisma modifiers are.

If we create a (hypothetical) 0-4 contribution scale, where the average challenge requires a total of 4 "points" to overcome (so one person with a 4 rating, 2 with a 2, 4 with a 1), I prefer if characters have some areas where they're a 3 (can mostly carry things, but need someone to step in and help) and some areas where they're a 1, but mostly are 2s. Characters that are 4's or 0's in any area are, in my mind, not preferred. Sure, some challenges may require 5 "points"; others may only take 3[1].

[0] substitute any two fruits you choose, or pick a different metaphor if you like.
[0.5] more a matter of characterization and background than class or anything else mechanical.
[1] I'd hesitate to call anything below that (where one or two people operating in their area of weakness can overcome it successfully) a challenge. Doesn't mean those don't happen, they're just not challenges or anything to compare about.

[MoiMagnus]

I recently read the following exchange in another thread, one forumite quipped that equal characters lead to a bad playing experience, another forumite then responded incredulously implying that every character being equal is highly desirable.

This exchange puzzled me, and I have been thinking about it since.

I can see both sides of the argument, on the one hand we all play the game to see our characters shine, how can this happen if they are just run of mill equivalents? Or even worse, what's the point of your character when some newfangled build (usually based on magic) can be better at your own shtick, than yourself?

On the other hand, there are many interesting ways to build characters, as the ingenious builds floating around the net prove, it would be a pity to miss out on those by restricting character abilities to some roles.

What does the playground say?

It's better for every character to be equal in every part of the game that will take 50% of the gameplay time or more.

If your combats take 15min to resolve and not that frequent, it's fine to have completely unbalanced combats. If 4h out of the 6h of the session are about resolving combats, you'd better make sure that everyone can contribute somewhat equally.

An important point is that equality doesn't require symmetry, especially in a RPGs where the GM can adapt the rules on the fly. Symmetry and "everyone is the same but with different hats" is the easiest way to balance characters, but also the most boring one.

A point even more important is that balanced characters is only an imperfect measure of balanced enjoyment. Since every player is different, it's difficult to craft rules that ensure everyone get their fun, so it make sense for the rules to aim at mathematical balance between characters as a way to ensure that a table of "average players" get the same enjoyment. Houserules can be adapted to your specific table rather than a table of "average players".

[Pex]

How does one define equal? Everyone contributes in their way. It can be obvious when one particular PC is the MVP of the combat due to some action taken, but that takes nothing away from other players' contributions. Who the MVP is changes depending the combat and sometimes, often times, the MVP is party teamwork. The only issue that matters is for everyone to have their place and do their part. If one PC is not contributing find out why and fix it. It could be benign as the player is willing to play that day so that the game session can happen but for whatever reason isn't in the mood to be very active up to and including malicious intent by the DM to screw over that player. Thankfully the supermajority of the time it's somewhere in between and well within a benign cause.

[Eldariel]

Take anything thing written on here (Gaming forums in general really) with a grain of salt

IDK why so specific. Take anything written or said anywhere with a grain of salt.

[Florian]

What does the playground say?

As so often, this is pretty much about how we design and handle the balance point of a system and especially what happens when we don´t manage to meet the requirements for it.

Example metric: 5 Combats, 100 points of damage.
Class A: Steady 20 pts per combat.
Class B: 1x 60 pts, 4x 10 pts.

Now let's say in actual play some people only have two combats, others have 20, therefore our balanced system is quite out of whack.

The "obvious" solution would be to just look at the easiest balance point, which could be the main focus on 1 combat and maybe an extended look at up to three combats.

.... or just drop the idea that something like balance should be enforced by the game system ;)

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Has anyone ever tried a game where full casters are banned? That would seem so solve much of the power disparity in late game. When the wish-less lead the wish-less I guess people will start wanting to nerf paladins?

Not banned, but one of the current groups I'm playing in contains no full casters. We have a ranged Battlemaster, Gloomstalker, Artificer, and my Assassin with Cleric 2 or 3. We're 5th level and I am going to make a thread once we've gone a bit further into tier 2 to report. My sense so far is that it's really enjoyable for all. We don't have any way of just overpowering a lot of obstacles, whether combat or otherwise, so skills have been a lot more relevant, and I think will continue to be for some time... maybe the duration of the campaign. The lack of 3rd level spells keeps hordes a real problem.

[Lokishade]

I recently read the following exchange in another thread, one forumite quipped that equal characters lead to a bad playing experience, another forumite then responded incredulously implying that every character being equal is highly desirable.

This exchange puzzled me, and I have been thinking about it since.

I can see both sides of the argument, on the one hand we all play the game to see our characters shine, how can this happen if they are just run of mill equivalents? Or even worse, what's the point of your character when some newfangled build (usually based on magic) can be better at your own shtick, than yourself?

On the other hand, there are many interesting ways to build characters, as the ingenious builds floating around the net prove, it would be a pity to miss out on those by restricting character abilities to some roles.

What does the playground say?

I believe that equality is boring. Equality makes me feel like I contribute nothing significant.

Of course I get a kick out of being the very best, just like the next guy. It's a very common mentality and DnD works, not despite that, but because of that.

People want to be the best, but not at everything at once. There is a place for the best healer that saves the day. There is a place for the best nova that gets rid of that really dangerous mage. There is a place for the best consistent DPR that gets the party through a long dungeon designed to drain resources.

Is that equal? Heck no. Is that fun? Heck yes.

Diversity is how we cheat our way through inequality.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I believe that equality is boring. Equality makes me feel like I contribute nothing significant.

Of course I get a kick out of being the very best, just like the next guy. It's a very common mentality and DnD works, not despite that, but because of that.

People want to be the best, but not at everything at once. There is a place for the best healer that saves the day. There is a place for the best nova that gets rid of that really dangerous mage. There is a place for the best consistent DPR that gets the party through a long dungeon designed to drain resources.

Is that equal? Heck no. Is that fun? Heck yes.

Diversity is how we cheat our way through inequality.

This is probably true. I'm not sure I can remember playing a game where everyone (or nearly everyone) had very similar strengths/ roles, but I don't think it would be that fun. Also, I think tiny differences would actually appear bigger; for example multiple characters built around ranged single target damage and little else might start to be in competition rather than co-operation.

[Rfkannen]

It depends a TON on what type of game it is:

I am in teen detective campaign using the system Bubblegumshoe: my character is by FAR the best in a fist fight, but that doesn't really matter because the genre means fist fights shouldn't be happening regularly.

I ran a game of old school essentials where the fighter was WAY better at combat than all the other players, but most of the campaign was spent trying to avoid combat. Most people agreed that the halfling made the biggest contribution with the player's ideas for getting past traps.

If you are in a system where you don't fight every session, or combat is a failsafe, than I think having characters who are specialized in combat makes a lot of sense.

5e is a system where most of the rules are about combat, if you aren't fighting you are mostly not interacting with the game mechanics at all. In a system like that, I think all characters need to be at least roughly equal in combat. However, in combat heavy games, I like it when characters are good at different things in combat, one is the damage character, one is the tank, one is the speedster, etc. I feel like 5e isn't great at having diffrent combat roles.

[BW022]

I recently read the following exchange in another thread, one forumite quipped that equal characters lead to a bad playing experience, another forumite then responded incredulously implying that every character being equal is highly desirable.


I always try to break down statements like this into what they really mean. "Equal" is too vague to pin down. I'd look at why equal is both fun and unfun. I'd rephrase this more like...

"Players have more fun if they feel they are contributing."

We can all imagine that a character who is 3rd-level, brought into a 10th-level campaign is probably not going to have fun. Likewise, a character who makes an social build isn't going to like an undead heavy campaign while a combat heavy build might hate mystery campaign. And we have issues that a character might not contribute much to 75% of the combats, but do really well in 25%. Or characters who are contributing (buffing, healing, sneaking, etc.) but feel they aren't contributing because others are doing so much damage. Or we have players who just play really well and can make any character play well while others struggle in situations they aren't optimized for.

Ultimately, I'd say any system needs to be roughly balance so that a DM doesn't have to work too hard to try to keep every player involved and contributing. IMO, 3.5e was so open that it was easy to make characters completely hopeless through large campaigns, yet utterly overpowered in other cases. IMO, 4e was pretty much impossible not to make a character which couldn't be useful. 5e is kind of a happy median. As a DM, I find it rare (baring massive level swings) that I need to massively adjust encounters because one player is being left out. I don't find as much "I'm useless" moments, but the is some swing between how might save the day or stand out in any given combat.

This isn't to say I can't do that with 3.5e. It's just a bit more work. I often scale back combat in D&D and rely more on roleplaying such that combat differences (in 3.5) aren't so overwhelming. I also look at characters more often and if I can see one getting really messed up, I'll adjust encounters more often.

[greenstone]

I'm on the "equal is good" side.

Disparity is fine in media, but it sucks at the table if you are playing Stanley Tweedle and someone else has Zev.

[Florian]

The question is always: How is equality understood?

Two of my most fav. game systems have something in common: They are skill-based and the equivalent of classes only plays into their speciality. So all characters have skills that come up in the various sections of the game and as they behave the same for each character, things like skill ranks in swords, negotiation or pathfinding work the same, no matter the class. On the other hand, what each chosen class brings to the table is unique for that class.

Edit: Mapped to D&D 5th, it would roughly translate to: We have one "Adventurer Class" going from 1-20 with each player picking one very specific speciality for the 1-10 range (Say, Berserker of the Wolf Totem tribe) and one for the 11-20 range (Say, grizzled Spirit Speaker).