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horseboy
2007-12-07, 02:00 AM
It only doesn't qualify for high-magic by your absurdly narrow definition of high magic. It's a world where spells, supernatural monsters, and artifacts of legend all run rampant. As for the supernatural aspects of the main fighters? The absolute extent of it is that they hit things really, really hard. And the Commando character isn't even superhuman at all; the closest he gets is a steroid boost. In short, under any reasonable definition of high-magic world, there is no inherent reason whatsoever that casters should be superpowerful.
Well, Buffy would be a TOB character, at least. The commandos were being experimented heavily on through chemical and manipulations making them closer to juicers than anything I know of in D&D. So sure Xander gets to be the fighter, and summery group buttmonkey.

Jayabalard
2007-12-07, 02:06 AM
And yet you don't reiterate or try to better explain the points. You just insult me. I've seen categorical statements that balance is bad, but never any extensive explanation of how it hurts you or why you can't achieve the same effect by starting at different levels. Sorry... You said that you haven't seen X explained in the thread; I have seen it explained. Either you didn't read it, or you did read it and you've dismissed it as not valid. I'm not sure what part of that was insulting.


It only doesn't qualify for high-magic by your absurdly narrow definition of high magic. It's a world where spells, supernatural monsters, and artifacts of legend all run rampant. Like I said, I'm no buffy buff, but just because the show focuses on supernatural occurances doesn't have much to do with how common they are. The vast majority of the people in the world are ignorant of magic and the supernatural, are they not? That alone is enough for it to fail to qualify as a high magic world.


In short, under any reasonable definition of high-magic world, there is no inherent reason whatsoever that casters should be Like I said above, superpowerful.This doesn't follow from your other arguments; the problem here is in the definition of "high magic world"

I use the term specifically to mean

Magic is common and is fairly easy to use; lots of people use it. Ordinarily people run into it as a regular ocurrance.
People who use magic are far more powerful than people who don't use magic; at a certain point people who use magic cannot be matched by people who do not use magic.


I find this to be a reasonable definition of the term.


Well, Buffy would be a TOB character, at least. The commandos were being experimented heavily on through chemical and manipulations making them closer to juicers than anything I know of in D&D. If you mean anything like a RIFTS juicer, then I think that easily qualifies them as superhuman.

Mando Knight
2007-12-07, 02:14 AM
I think that a Cleric should be able to out Fighter a Fighter... if the Fighter's an idiot (deciding to take weapon specializations that he'll never use, like a quarterstaff when he uses swords...) and the Cleric is focused in his melee combat abilities.

Also, if the Wizard gets to be a magic-throwing powerhouse; then I think that a Fighter should be a magic-buffed, sword-swinging powerhouse, without even realizing that he's using magic!

In a high-magic environment, magic can become a subset of reality... a separate set of physical laws. Thus, the Fighter should be able to use his sword to kill stuff following that realm's form of "physics," which just so happens to be different from ours because of a set of rules in their realm that we in ours would call "magic."

horseboy
2007-12-07, 02:19 AM
I think that a Cleric should be able to out Fighter a Fighter... if the Fighter's an idiot (deciding to take weapon specializations that he'll never use, like a quarterstaff when he uses swords...) and the Cleric is focused in his melee combat abilities.

Also, if the Wizard gets to be a magic-throwing powerhouse; then I think that a Fighter should be a magic-buffed, sword-swinging powerhouse, without even realizing that he's using magic!

In a high-magic environment, magic can become a subset of reality... a separate set of physical laws. Thus, the Fighter should be able to use his sword to kill stuff following that realm's form of "physics," which just so happens to be different from ours because of a set of rules in their realm that we in ours would call "magic."

Then I would suggest Earthdawn.

illathid
2007-12-07, 02:25 AM
If you take a balanced system where wizard level x = fighter level x, and add y to the wizard's level then there exists a fighter who is as powerful as that wizard (it happens to be level x+y), no matter how high of level the wizard is.



That is a false claim. Having x+y level wizards in no way necessitates that there are x+y level fighters. We know this because it can be assumed that since the DM is the one who decided that the game was going to be run in an imbalanced manner. Because he is the DM, he can decide exactly how many NPC's have how many levels in which ever classes he chooses.

Assuming a balanced game, would the following house rules make the system work for you?

*All wizards cast spells as a wizards of level x+y (x=current level)
*Fighters can never have more than y-2 levels.

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

Thinking this over some more, If I wanted an imbalanced game I would probably let full spellcasters cast as if they were 2 levels higher, and make all other classes else use E6 (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=200754).

Draco Ignifer
2007-12-07, 02:26 AM
Jayabalard - The system you're looking for is Mage: The Ascension with Paradox removed. D&D is not the system you're looking for. The reason why I say this is because non-mages ARE capable of violating the laws of physics. Rogues are capable of completely avoiding any damage from being trapped in a 20x20 room and being blasted with a fireball. Fighters are capable of, in less than a minute, breaking down a foot thick wall of iron with their bare hands. Monks are capable of running at ~52 miles per hour. If you want a system where only magic can violate the laws of physics, D&D should be exquisitely disappointing.

Now that this is out of the way, the question isn't whether D&D should be that system, but, given that it's not, why should wizards be able to violate the laws of physics better than fighters, given the same relative training and ability.

Skjaldbakka
2007-12-07, 02:26 AM
If you take a balanced system where wizard level x = fighter level x, and add y to the wizard's level then there exists a fighter who is as powerful as that wizard (it happens to be level x+y), no matter how high of level the wizard is.

Just because a level X+Y fighter would be more powerful than a level X wizard in a balanced system, doesn't mean that a level X+Y fighter exists. Take a look at critiques of Anselm if this concept isn't clear to you.

In a balanced system, all you have to do to make magic users more powerful (in accordance with your preference), is to make then higher level. Since, by your own admission, you don't care about party imbalance, making some characters higher level shouldn't be a problem for you.

In an imbalanced system, in order to make the non-magic users on-par with the magic-users, you have to rewrite the system until it becomes balanced, because once the magic user hits a certain threshold, it doesn't matter how high level the non-magic user is.

If we take as out basis assumption that there are an equal number of players that prefer balanced and unbalanced game-play, it follows that it is better for the game as a whole to be a balanced one, because it takes a great deal of effort to balance an unbalanced game, whereas it takes very little effort to unbalance a balanced one.


If we decide to throw balance completely out the window, there is still the issue of versimilitude:

Why is it just as hard to learn how to swing a sword really well as it is to learn how to use magic? In a world where it is just as easy to learn how to use magic as to swing a sword, why are there any classes that don't use magic?

Fighters having a faster XP progression for leveling is one of the things I miss about 2nd ed. Wizards were still more powerful, and the game wasn't really any more balanced than it is now, but at least the fighter had an edge, if not terribly significant one.

Jayabalard
2007-12-07, 02:28 AM
Assuming a balanced game, would the following house rules make the system work for you?

*All wizards cast spells as a wizards of level x+y (x=current level)
*Fighters can never have more than y-2 levels.Nope.

I think you have a typo in there somewhere... "y-2" doesn't make any sense.


Jayabalard - The system you're looking for is Mage: The Ascension with Paradox removed. No, definitly not. I've never been a fan of any of white wolf's games.


why should wizards be able to violate the laws of physics better than fighters, given the same relative training and ability.Because wizards use magic and fighters don't. That seems obvious to me.


it takes a great deal of effort to balance an unbalanced game, whereas it takes very little effort to unbalance a balanced one.False; this requires approximately the same effort in both directions.


Fighters having a faster XP progression for leveling is one of the things I miss about 2nd ed. Wizards were still more powerful, and the game wasn't really any more balanced than it is now, but at least the fighter had an edge, if not terribly significant one. That is, unfortunatly, one of the things that get lost when someone comes along to simplify a system.

illathid
2007-12-07, 02:33 AM
Nope.

I think you have a typo in there somewhere... "y-2" doesn't make any sense.

I was using y as variable.

Here, I'll fill in the numbers.

*All wizards cast spells as a wizards of level x+6 (x=current level)
*Fighters can never have more than 4 levels.

See? in this case y=6

Bosh
2007-12-07, 02:42 AM
Jayabalard - The system you're looking for is Mage: The Ascension with Paradox removed. D&D is not the system you're looking for. The reason why I say this is because non-mages ARE capable of violating the laws of physics. Rogues are capable of completely avoiding any damage from being trapped in a 20x20 room and being blasted with a fireball. Fighters are capable of, in less than a minute, breaking down a foot thick wall of iron with their bare hands. Monks are capable of running at ~52 miles per hour. If you want a system where only magic can violate the laws of physics, D&D should be exquisitely disappointing.

Now that this is out of the way, the question isn't whether D&D should be that system, but, given that it's not, why should wizards be able to violate the laws of physics better than fighters, given the same relative training and ability.

This.
There's nothing wrong with the kind of game system Jayabalard is proposing, it just isn't the sort of thing that D&D is designed to be. Sure you could take D&D and make it what he wants it to be (have mages cast spells above their level, level cap non-casters) but it goes against the grain of D&D (CR mechanics, niche protection class deisgn) and you'd be more having fun DESPITE D&D rules than having fun BECAUSE of D&D rules.

I love low magic gritty historical/realistic worlds. D&D 3.5ed does a crappy job of handling them. I tried for a while to force D&D to do what I wanted (making casters cast at level x .75 etc. etc.) but, while it was a lot of fun, it wasn't playing to D&D's strengths and I've found other game systems out there that handle that kind of game a lot better than D&D.

Jayabalard
2007-12-07, 02:47 AM
This.
There's nothing wrong with the kind of game system Jayabalard is proposing, it just isn't the sort of thing that D&D is designed to be. Sure you could take D&D and make it what he wants it to be (have mages cast spells above their level, level cap non-casters) but it goes against the grain of D&D (CR mechanics, niche protection class deisgn) and you'd be more having fun DESPITE D&D rules than having fun BECAUSE of D&D rules.D&D actually works pretty well, as is, with hardly any house rules.

Bosh
2007-12-07, 02:52 AM
D&D actually works pretty well, as is, with hardly any house rules.
What about:
-the physics-bending stuff people with high skill points can do.
-people being able to walk away from falling off a cliff without any magic.
-people being able to be dunked in lava and come out mostly OK wiothout any magic.
-people without any magic being able to kill dragons and giants in one hit (shock trooper charge monkeys).
-the CR system.
-epic-level non-casters.
-etc.

Sure casters can whipe the floor with non-casters (especially at high levels) but high level non-casters can do some ridiculously silly **** at high levels and basically ignore a whooooooooooooooole lot of laws of physics.

Draco Ignifer
2007-12-07, 03:04 AM
Because wizards use magic and fighters don't. That seems obvious to me.

Completely tautological argument. Wizards should be stronger because their superpowers are called magic, as opposed to just being called "that damn awesome?" I can say Fighters should be stronger because waving a sword is inherently more dangerous than waving a piece of wood, or your hands, or just screaming at things and pointing, and I'd be just as correct.

Your argument would be valid if one could violate the laws of physics and one couldn't. However, all of my arguments are completely valid under the d20 mechanics. A level 20 fighter with 22 strength (18 + 4 for his level), no magic items, power-attacking that piece of iron, does a maximum of 19 damage, after factoring in hardness. Iron has 30 HP per inch. So, punching down that iron would actually only take him 4 rounds, best-case scenario. I could get into the math, and it'd still come out that he'd break the wall on average... however, the fact that he can shows that he can... and that means he just told the laws of physics to go sit down and shut up.

Mihawk, by the way, is an excellent level 20 fighter-type. I'm not sure how many HP a ship has, but assuming that he's just an elite array candidate, and the "best sword in the world" is a mere +5, he's doing 54 damage per shot if he's power-attacking the ship, after accounting for its hardness, and hitting every time, what with attacking a collossal target with 0 dexterity (AC -3) with a minimum iterative attack of -3. That's 212 damage, which seems like enough to give a galley a bad day. He's not a fighter, though -he's either a Warblade, what with the Adamantine Tempest or whatever it's called... or playing with 3.0 Supreme Cleave.

Regardless, saying the ship-carving scene is what you don't want in your game is like saying "I shouldn't play d20."

Jayabalard
2007-12-07, 03:06 AM
What about:
-the physics-bending stuff people with high skill points can do.I'm not sure I know what you mean.


-people being able to walk away from falling off a cliff without any magic.HP also represents luck, and since there are documented cases of people surviving even through a parachute not opening, I think this one is a non issue.


-people being able to be dunked in lava and come out mostly OK without any magic.Keep in mind that hp represents things other than damage and injury, so "getting dunked in lava and surviving" may actually mean "was about to fall into the lava but didn't through sheer luck" (like in joe vs the volcano)

regardless, it's fairly simple to houserule in increased damage caused by lava.


-people without any magic being able to kill dragons and giants in one hit (shock trooper charge monkeys).Both dragons and giants are biological creatures. Well placed single blows should be able to kill either one. Nothing breaking the laws of physics here.


-the CR system.I don't understand the relevance of this one. this is a metagame concept, so it doesn't have anything to do with physical laws.


Completely tautological argument. Wizards should be stronger because their superpowers are called magic, as opposed to just being called "that damn awesome?" I can say Fighters should be stronger because waving a sword is inherently more dangerous than waving a piece of wood, or your hands, or just screaming at things and pointing, and I'd be just as correct./shrug

Magic = Breaks the laws of physics. That's what it does, by definition.

Without magic you're stuck with as close as the game can model to real world physics.


Your argument would be valid if one could violate the laws of physics and one couldn't. However, all of my arguments are completely valid under the d20 mechanics. A level 20 fighter with 22 strength (18 + 4 for his level), no magic items, power-attacking that piece of iron, does a maximum of 19 damage, after factoring in hardness. Iron has 30 HP per inch. So, punching down that iron would actually only take him 4 rounds, best-case scenario. I could get into the math, and it'd still come out that he'd break the wall on average... however, the fact that he can shows that he can... and that means he just told the laws of physics to go sit down and shut up.In what way?


Mihawk, by the way, is an excellent level 20 fighter-type. I'm not sure how many HP a ship has, but assuming that he's just an elite array candidate, and the "best sword in the world" is a mere +5, he's doing 54 damage per shot if he's power-attacking the ship, after accounting for its hardness, and hitting every time, what with attacking a collossal target with 0 dexterity (AC -3) with a minimum iterative attack of -3. That's 212 damage, which seems like enough to give a galley a bad day. He's not a fighter, though -he's either a Warblade, what with the Adamantine Tempest or whatever it's called... or playing with 3.0 Supreme Cleave.

Regardless, saying the ship-carving scene is what you don't want in your game is like saying "I shouldn't play d20."as I recall, he swings once only, and The Dreadnought Saber (the ship he cuts in half) is enormous, and it's certainly not a galley since it has sails; it's more than 3 time as big as Baratie, which has 3-4 decks. So in order to cut the ship in half, he's doing far more damage in a single swing than what you're suggesting.

Skjaldbakka
2007-12-07, 03:09 AM
False; this requires approximately the same effort in both directions.

Prove it. If you can provide evidence to support this claim, then a balanced game is exactly as good as an unbalanced one. At that point, all I have to point out is that there are not an equal number of people that prefer an unbalanced game to a balanced one. Which means in order for me to agree that an unbalanced game is a better baseline than an unbalanced one, you have to either demonstrate that it is difficult to unbalance a balanced game, or that it is easy to balance an unbalanced game. Then you would have to demonstrate how there are more people that favor an unbalanced game than a balanced one (a tricky proposition). Otherwise the field is assumed to even there, which makes a balanced game equally good with an unbalanced one.

Here is my evidence for how easy it is to unbalance a balanced game:

For the sake of argument, and because it is easier to type out repeatedly than 'the class you want to be more powerful', I will call that 'magic-users', and 'the class you want to be less powerful' non-magic users. The following is what you could do in a mythical 'balanced game' to unbalance it in favor of magic users:

-Give the magic users more levels. After all, they spent the better part of a decade learning how to use magic, why shouldn't they be higher level?

-Give the magic users higher wealth by level. After all, if magic is inherently superior, why shouldn't the more powerful also be more wealthy?

-Let the magic users players research new, more powerful (or lower level) versions of existing spells. Magic is something that should improve over time. Why shouldn't wizards come up with better spells as the years go by? Certainly what wizards figured out to do with great effort a hundred years ago has been improved by now? Why shouldn't a fireball, which it took a level 5 wizard to cast 100 years ago, have been improved so that a level 3 wizard can cast it now, or so that the explosion is more powerful than it was before?


Before you begin to form your counter argument, take into the consideration the fact that 3.5 was an attempt to balance an unbalanced system. Did it succeed? How many people were working on that project? Whose job it is to design games?

SmartAlec
2007-12-07, 03:16 AM
I don't understand the relevance of this one. this is a metagame concept, so it doesn't have anything to do with physical laws.

Well, you're the one who opened up the discussion from merely looking at the balance issues between classes, to everything in the system.

"D&D actually works pretty well, as is, with hardly any house rules." See? Major thread derailment/topic avoidance, there.

At any rate, even the things you try to rationalise don't quite fly. The HP system is inconsistently applied, which you manage to illustrate wonderfully by pointing out that HP = luck as well as stamina/physical endurance/amount of damage sustained, but then claiming anything should be able to die from one well-placed hit.

Anyway, you've dragged us a bit off-topic, so...

Can anyone think of a reason why the concept and implementation of magic should not be rewritten and made much less powerful, if it means casters are brought to a similar level of utility and power as other classes?

Note: Because this is a 'meta' question, dealing with the foundations of the game itself, answers concerning fluff ("Because magic should be etc etc") aren't really applicable. This is a question *about* the fluff, as much as anything else.

EDIT to avoid small double-post:


Actually, Jayabalard is talking about the topic, which is essentially "is a balanced game a good thing or a bad thing?"

Is he? I understood that Jaya's argument was that D&D was fine, regardless of balance/unbalance, which kind of sidesteps the question, I felt.

Skjaldbakka
2007-12-07, 03:19 AM
Actually, Jayabalard is talking about the topic, which is essentially "is a balanced game a good thing or a bad thing?" I appreciate the opportunity to sharpen my debating skills, whether I turn out to be proven wrong or not.

Drascin
2007-12-07, 03:22 AM
In a high-magic environment, magic can become a subset of reality... a separate set of physical laws. Thus, the Fighter should be able to use his sword to kill stuff following that realm's form of "physics," which just so happens to be different from ours because of a set of rules in their realm that we in ours would call "magic."

Thanks for expressiong my opinion so concisely - it saves me a lot of typing :smallwink: .

Bosh
2007-12-07, 03:26 AM
In D&D skills can make reality sit down and shut up:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm

If you don't consider those uses of skills reality-bending then you must have a strange conception of reality.

OK, if HPs are luck and being able to jump off a cliff and walk away is an example of luck then if someone can jump off a cliff and 100% of the time he's lucky enough to survive the trip down then that kind of luck is pretty damn reality bending.

Maybe high level non-casters can't tell reality to sit down and shut up, but they can sure beat it into submission.

Skjaldbakka
2007-12-07, 03:31 AM
Is he? I understood that Jaya's argument was that D&D was fine, regardless of balance/unbalance, which kind of sidesteps the question, I felt.

What I see his argument as being is that D&D is fine, because it is unbalanced. He prefers a game in which casters are more powerful, because he feels they should be. Which is his opinion, and one that cannot be proven or disproven, because it is a matter of personal preference. The argument is whether the system which is the baseline for the game should be balanced. I say it should be, because it is easier to unbalance a game than it is to balance one.

All of which seems to be exactly what this thread is about.

Jayabalard
2007-12-07, 03:36 AM
Well, you're the one who opened up the discussion from merely looking at the balance issues between classes, to everything in the system.

"D&D actually works pretty well, as is, with hardly any house rules." See? Major thread derailment/topic avoidance, there.Huh?

Someone suggested D&D wouldn't work, and suggested a different game system. Since D&D is currently quite an unbalanced system, with magic users far outstriping non-magic users, it works fairly well for my purposes with very few houserules. So his claim that D&D is a bad system for me to use is false.

I didn't avoid anything... I responded to a couple of suggestions that were made directly to me to let them know that they were incorrect.


Can anyone think of a reason why the concept and implementation of magic should not be rewritten and made much less powerful, if it means casters are brought to a similar level of utility and power as other classes?Because it's not what I want out of D&D; I specifically want casters to be more powerful. It's the fluff that I like, and it's why I bother to play D&D at all.

if I want to play a lower magic game, I'll play a different system, one that does it better than D&D.


Is he? I understood that Jaya's argument was that D&D was fine, regardless of balance/unbalance, which kind of sidesteps the question, I felt.Nope, my argument is that unbalanced systems are fine; they're what I like. In that specific case, I was asserting that D&D is fine because it is unbalanced in favor of Magic.


Prove it. If you can provide evidence to support this claim, then a balanced game is exactly as good as an unbalanced one. Provide a balanced system to start with and I'll start on it. In a couple of months or so when I get through turning it into a good unbalanced system, I'll let you know exactly what is involved in fixing it and what sort of progress I've made.


OK, if HPs are luck and being able to jump off a cliff and walk away is an example of luck then if someone can jump off a cliff and 100% of the time he's lucky enough to survive the trip down then that kind of luck is pretty damn reality bending.But not physically impossible; it violates no laws. It's possible to flip a coin from now until the end of time and always have it land on heads.

since we're talking about a heroic fantasy game, this isn't a problem.

As far as the epic skills, I'd forgotten about them; I don't think that that sort of thing has been allowed in any game that I've played in (which is why I said limited houserules rather than no houserules).

Skjaldbakka
2007-12-07, 03:42 AM
Provide a balanced system to start with and I'll start on it. In a couple of months or so when I get through turning it into a good unbalanced system, I'll let you know exactly what is involved in fixing it and what sort of progress I've made.

Thank you for conceding the point. That there are no balanced systems proves that it is very difficult to balance an unbalanced game. It also proves that unbalanced games are easy to make. It follows that a balanced game would be easy to unbalance.

SmartAlec
2007-12-07, 03:45 AM
Because it's not what I want out of D&D; I specifically want casters to be more powerful. It's the fluff that I like, and it's why I bother to play D&D at all.

if I want to play a lower magic game, I'll play a different system, one that does it better than D&D.

The fluff is variable. The fluff differs from homebrewed setting to sourcebook to anywhere. The whole point of D&D is that it is supposed to fit any of these. High magic, low magic, no magic, whatever.

What I'm asking is, why should the game be unbalanced? Why should the game start with an imbalance built in? Why not have the core system as the baseline, where all classes are set to be roughly equal in utility and power? Would this not make it easier for individual gaming groups to customise for low-magic or high-magic play, by either powering or depowering classes?

Or, if you're going to have an unbalanced system, shouldn't it be made clear that it is an unbalanced system?

Bosh
2007-12-07, 03:46 AM
As far as the CR system goes its built around the assumption that all characters are of equal use in overcoming challenges. Get rid of that and the whole CR/exp system dies. Not that that makes SUCH a bit deal, but still...


But not physically impossible; it violates no laws. It's possible to flip a coin from now until the end of time and always have it land on heads.

since we're talking about a heroic fantasy game, this isn't a problem.

What about:
1. Being able to tell if something is magic.
2. Being able to walk on a cloud.
3. Being able to make simple magical items (like the sunrod)
4. Being able to mimic the effects of the read magic spell.
5. Being able to pass through a wall of force.
6. Read someone's surface thoughts.
7. Be able to spot invisible things.
8. Be able to swim up a waterfall.
9. Ignore ALL falling damage when falling from outer space.
10. Mimic the effects of the animate rope spell.
11. Be able to look back at someone scrything from you at a distance.

As a non-caster who has no magic items.

High level D&D characters aren't highly skilled and lucky normal humans, they're freaking demi-gods.

Jayabalard
2007-12-07, 03:48 AM
It follows that a balanced game would be easy to unbalance.Nope, this is just an assumption. Everything that was considered for balance when making the balanced system would have to be considered when unbalancing the system, so the level of effort required is identical.

Nowhere Girl
2007-12-07, 03:49 AM
as I recall, he swings once only, and The Dreadnought Saber (the ship he cuts in half) is enormous, and it's certainly not a galley since it has sails; it's more than 3 time as big as Baratie, which has 3-4 decks. So in order to cut the ship in half, he's doing far more damage in a single swing than what you're suggesting.

Not only that, but the Straw Hat Pirates (of whom Zoro, whose goal is to defeat Mihawk and become the world's greatest swordsman, is the second-strongest member behind Luffy) have already confronted and defeated people who are capable of moving and attacking so quickly they can't be seen moving at all by normal people. This isn't just invisibility; it's literally moving too quickly to be tracked by the naked eye. In fact, Luffy first defeated one such person (Kuro) early in the series, and nearly all of the Straw Hats have since stood up to and defeated people capable of moving that fast or even faster with much better control (CP9 agents).

They're only perhaps halfway through the series, is my understanding.

Since Mihawk is Zoro's end-goal, by implication, Mihawk is at least as fast as anything seen so far in the series, and probably faster still. He'd have to be to be able to keep up with the man Zoro has already become, much less the man he's rapidly becoming.

A round is, what, six seconds? In six seconds, early in the series, Luffy could have punched, conservatively, around 50 times or so (Gomu Gomu no Gatling Gun). At that point, Mihawk would have taken him apart effortlessly.

So, no, Mihawk isn't a 20th-level fighter, or even a 20th-level warblade, because as portrayed, he would rip either apart effortlessly. You could stand up to him with a really broken ubercheese D&D character and defeat him easily with Pun-Pun, but you're not doing it with a level 20 fighter.

Edit: But I'm straying from the point a little here. I didn't bring up Mihawk in order to gush about how powerful he is. I just brought him up to show that there's still another precedent in fiction (along with Conan, etc.) for sword-swinging warriors who can do ridiculously physics-defying things and make it look easy.

Draco Ignifer
2007-12-07, 03:49 AM
In what way?

Find me a human being capable of demolishing a solid foot thick wall of iron in a space of a minute with his bare hands. Find me any animal capable of doing that. It's simply not possible... a person's bones would shatter and their meat would splatter even if they could POSSIBLY apply that level of force to a solid piece of iron. Hell, find me a machine capable of doing that... capable of slamming into a piece of steel that thickness the same way a human could and breaking through it.


as I recall, he swings once only, and The Dreadnought Saber (the ship he cuts in half) is enormous, and it's certainly not a galley since it has sails; it's more than 3 time as big as Baratie, which has 3-4 decks. So in order to cut the ship in half, he's doing far more damage in a single swing than what you're suggesting.

Correction. We SEE him swing once. He leaves several cuts in it, though - we see two, but they're also quite big, and it's perfectly possible that the second two hit the cuts made by the first two, expanding them. At the very least, he made some level of iterative attacks.

That's flavor, though - fluff, not grit.

Bosh
2007-12-07, 03:53 AM
Nope, this is just an assumption. Everything that was considered for balance when making the balanced system would have to be considered when unbalancing the system, so the level of effort required is identical.

Wah? Making a balanced game is very hard, you have to consider every variable. Because of this it can't be done perfectly so people use means like niche protection to get it in the right neighborhood. Unbalancing a game is very very very easy, you just change one variable and *poof* its unbalanced.

Just take an imaginary D&D game that is balanced and:

1. Cap non casters at the level that you think is appropriate.
2. Have casters cast spells as if they were one level higher then their actual level.

Simple.

How many house rules do you think would be necessary to turn the real 3.5ed into an ideal balanced 3.5ed? More than two I would think...

Jayabalard
2007-12-07, 03:53 AM
The fluff is variable. The fluff differs from homebrewed setting to sourcebook to anywhere. The whole point of D&D is that it is supposed to fit any of these. High magic, low magic, no magic, whatever.I disagree; D&D is not intended to fit low magic or no magic, which is why it does them so poorly. If you want low or no magic, try a different system.


What I'm asking is, why should the game be unbalanced? Why should the game start with an imbalance built in? Why not have the core system as the baseline, where all classes are set to be roughly equal in utility and power? Would this not make it easier for individual gaming groups to customise for low-magic or high-magic play, by either powering or depowering classes?I'm pretty sure that I've answered this at least 5 times in the last page or so. It's because that's not what I want out of the game.

if I want a balanced system, I'll play one that is fairly balanced. If I'm looking for an unbalanced system, where magic > all, I'll go with D&D.

Skjaldbakka
2007-12-07, 03:54 AM
Nope, this is just an assumption. Everything that was considered for balance when making the balanced system would have to be considered when unbalancing the system, so the level of effort required is identical.

Nope. If something is balanced, perfectly, if you add something anywhere, without taking something from somewhere else, you have unbalanced it, by definition. What you are actually saying is that it is difficult to make the game the way you want it to be, if it was balanced to begin with.

Jayabalard
2007-12-07, 03:56 AM
Wah? Making a balanced game is very hard, you have to consider every variable. Making a good unbalanced game is very hard, you have to consider every variable.


Unbalancing a game is very very very easy, you just change one variable and *poof* its unbalanced.Balancing a game is very very very easy, you just eliminate everything so that there are no variables and *poof* its balanced.


of course, neither of these methods produce very good systems, balanced or unbalanced.


Nope. If something is balanced, perfectly, if you add something anywhere, without taking something from somewhere else, you have unbalanced it, by definition. What you are actually saying is that it is difficult to make the game the way you want it to be, if it was balanced to begin with.yes... which was kind of the point, wasn't it?


Correction. We SEE him swing once. He leaves several cuts in it, though - we see two, but they're also quite big, and it's perfectly possible that the second two hit the cuts made by the first two, expanding them. At the very least, he made some level of iterative attacks.

That's flavor, though - fluff, not grit.are you basing this off of the linked video, or the original scene/manga? My recollection is that it is explicitly a single swing.

SmartAlec
2007-12-07, 04:01 AM
I'm pretty sure that I've answered this at least 5 times in the last page or so. It's because that's not what I want out of the game.

if I want a balanced system, I'll play one that is fairly balanced. If I'm looking for an unbalanced system, where magic > all, I'll go with D&D.

And as has been said, there are plenty of games in which the imbalance is supposed to be part of the game. D&D is not supposed to be one of them. The DMG goes into detail about the nature of balance, and how the addition of subtraction of factors can tweak the game.

Your answer is, essentially, "Yes, I know the system doesn't work properly, but I like it that way." Well, I'm sorry, but some people want to see the system working properly.

See, I find it somewhat ridiculous that you say


If you want low or no magic, try a different system.

when you have disregarded that same advice ("try a different system, if you want high-magic")from other people.

Jayabalard
2007-12-07, 04:08 AM
See, I find it somewhat ridiculous that you say
when you have disregarded that same advice ("try a different system, if you want high-magic")from other people.Why?

D&D doesn't do low magic very well; if you're looking for it, you should use a system other than D&D.

D&D does unbalanced, high magic, magic > all quite well; if you want that, you can use D&D with minimal house rules.

Satyr
2007-12-07, 04:11 AM
I'm pretty sure that I've answered this at least 5 times in the last page or so. It's because that's not what I want out of the game.

So a balanced game is bad because your personal preferences are more important than those of other people who disagree foolishly with you? Interesting position.

SmartAlec
2007-12-07, 04:13 AM
Why?

D&D doesn't do low magic very well; if you're looking for it, you should use a system other than D&D.

D&D does unbalanced, high magic, magic > all quite well; if you want that, you can use D&D with minimal house rules.

And yet, it's a system that is touted as being able to handle low magic just as well as high magic, simply by tweaking the game.

Again, I say - why not fix the core system as a baseline? Given that you've already said that it takes an equal amount of effort to unbalance a balanced system as it does to balance an unbalanced one, I don't see why you'd have a problem; unless your problem is, "I just don't want to have to do the work involved".

Edit: There! That's "why balance" - so both Jaya and I are equally happy with the same system.

Draco Ignifer
2007-12-07, 04:13 AM
Making a good unbalanced game is very hard, you have to consider every variable.

Balancing a game is very very very easy, you just eliminate everything so that there are no variables and *poof* its balanced.


of course, neither of these methods produce very good systems, balanced or unbalanced.

yes... which was kind of the point, wasn't it?

are you basing this off of the linked video, or the original scene/manga? My recollection is that it is explicitly a single swing.

Off the video. So, let me clarify... that video is a good example of a 20th level Warblade/Supreme Cleave using fighter. And the part of the video which deals with the ship is probably a good example of a 20th level fighter.

Unless someone has stats for ships, that is... I'm sure they have to be out there somewhere. Regardless, that's enough to take down a bloody whale, so it would still give a ship a pretty bad day.

Idea Man
2007-12-07, 04:57 AM
Here's a point to a balanced game being bad: The fighter is the wizard, is the rogue, is the cleric, and so on. They will all be equally capable at all levels. :smallsigh:

Final Fantasy Tactics (old playstation) was a good example of that. Each class, taken in and of itself, was balanced almost perfectly. The only way to min/max was to mix two related class abilites (base game feature) to produce superior effects. Mixing two unrelated effects made for a very utilitarian character, but still useful. The game got boring because you could throw together any two classes, and the end result was about the same (generally useful or focused overkill).

The reason people seem to expect the game to be balanced is that if I spend 20 levels in fighter, I don't want to play second-fiddle to the guy who put 20 levels in wizard. Same amount of experience, gameplay, design effort, but he gets to one-shot the villain while I hope he has henchmen my wizard buddy doesn't take out with collateral damage.

I can see their point.

Saying D&D is a high-magic system can be misleading. I would call it a magic-friendly system, and wizards have the magic. So do clerics, druids, sorcerers, etc., whereas fighters, monks, and barbarians, etc., do not. The half-casters tend to be pretty versatile as well, with some magic tricks, but a focus on some other game aspect.

The problem is that the base assumption of the game, by design, is that there are these basic types of classes. The system favors magic, so those with magic can outshine those without. This applies to any system (c'mon, Jedi!), and promotes unbalance. As far as I can tell, it has always been this way. Wizards have always been better than fighters, the disparity of power is just greater now.

Why do we play a game that has never been the perfect game we (seem) to wish it was?

I think it's because it's what we've come to expect from D&D. How many people didn't want to switch to third edition, ranted and raved, and now play happily with that system? They switched because the core concepts didn't change, the options improved, the system became more defined, it became a much better game (yes, I understand opinions will vary:smalltongue: )

The devils (of imbalance) are in the details. Prestige classes grant more and more power to spellcasters than any non-caster prestige class can hope to obtain. Spells of reality-bending power take no more time to cast than cantrips he learned in appenticeship. Magic spells can remove the need for certain skills entirely, or make them so rediculously easy that they might as well have.

I won't go into game-breaking spells. Redundant, and this post is taking too long as it is.

So, why balance? To bring value to underpowered classes. Would that enhance the game? I reply with a question: Would that be D&D?

Balance is possible, and can be fun. Imbalance is far easier, can be fun, and makes for cool splatbooks. :smalltongue: You want something approaching balance? Play Slayers d20. Everybody can cast spells, but swordsmen get physics-defying manuvers, shrine maidens get (a lot of) spell defense and enhaced support magic, and sorcerers get (some) spell defense and powerful attack magic. (BTW: if you hate anime, remember, you don't have to draw it. :smalltongue: It's just rules, paper, pencils, and dice, just like D&D)

If balance is the end-all-be-all of life to you, go to a point by system with no exclusive rules for magic, as in everyone can learn it if they want. GURPS should work fine. You get what you pay for, and so does everyone else. If someone's combo works better than yours, buy something else.

I like D&D, the way it is. I have to assume that, if you're posting here, you like D&D too, one way or another, or you wouldn't waste your time here. I better go, before I type something mushy. It's waaay past time for my nightly bout of unconsciousness...failed Will save...*thump*

:smalltongue:

Snooder
2007-12-07, 07:47 AM
The reason people seem to expect the game to be balanced is that if I spend 20 levels in fighter, I don't want to play second-fiddle to the guy who put 20 levels in wizard. Same amount of experience, gameplay, design effort, but he gets to one-shot the villain while I hope he has henchmen my wizard buddy doesn't take out with collateral damage.


Exactly.



The problem is that the base assumption of the game, by design, is that there are these basic types of classes. The system favors magic, so those with magic can outshine those without. This applies to any system (c'mon, Jedi!), and promotes unbalance. As far as I can tell, it has always been this way. Wizards have always been better than fighters, the disparity of power is just greater now.


Not true. Wizards are and have always been supposedly equal to fighters. The difference is that in 2e the balance was achieved through varying experience totals and the fact that the wizard was SIGNIFICANTLY weaker at lower level. People found however that this method of maintaining balance didn't really work because you ended up with both sides being unhappy, wizard at low levels, fighter at high. So they tried to make the wizard less crippling at low levels. Unfortunately, they also make some other changes like improvements to the Cleric that made the original balancing points for those classes not the same anymore.




So, why balance? To bring value to underpowered classes. Would that enhance the game? I reply with a question: Would that be D&D?


Yes, and yes. As someone stated earlier in this thread, D&D is a solidly gamist RPG. It has rules that don't really make sense in terms of the real world, and don't always foster a good plot. This is FINE. D&D is supposed to work like that. D&D is supposed to have a general equality of choice so that a fighter can play the game and have as much fun and be as useful as a wizard as a cleric as a rogue. The fact that they aren't is clearly a mistake. One that the designers have tried repeatedly to rectify. Remember when rangers got the same hit die as fighters? Divine Metamagic as cheesy as it is, was obviously intended as a way for clerics to get some use out of a disused class ability so they wouldn't be bored and healing all the time.



If balance is the end-all-be-all of life to you, go to a point by system with no exclusive rules for magic, as in everyone can learn it if they want. GURPS should work fine. You get what you pay for, and so does everyone else. If someone's combo works better than yours, buy something else.


Magic vs No Magic has nothing to do with balance. A rogue for instance has trapfinding while a fighter does not. The two classes are still roughly balanced. For that matter, a PALADIN has spell casting and is roughly balanced with a fighter. The problem comes when the rules for magic allow it to superplant the class abilities of everyone else.



D&D does unbalanced, high magic, magic > all quite well; if you want that, you can use D&D with minimal house rules.


But it's not SUPPOSED to. D&D is supposed to be balanced. You cannot argue otherwise. The rules are clearly designed and intended to foster that approach. The problem is not that the rules foster imbalance, it's that the rules have loopholes that can be exploited to create imbalance.

And in any case, I just have to call back to the point that imbalance is easier to create than balance. Why? Simple physics. Stability is harder to create than instability. The universe tends to a state of entropy if you will. To create balance, you have to take into account every possible ability and all it's myriad uses, and then quantify them somehow and figure out how the numbers add up. More importantly, you have to accurate in your measurements. Is rage worth the same as evasion? If it isn't should rogues get sneak attack as well? Is spellcasting equivalent to high BAB and more hp? What about the value of armor? This all has to be taken into account and is extremely difficult.

To create imbalance on the other hand, all you have to do is NOT CARE. Sure it makes the system completely unworkable as a game and will lead to accusations of unfairness if the Wizard has a d20 hd and Power Word: Kill is a 1st level spell. But you have stated that you don't care about balance anyway.

In sum, and to answer OP's question once again, and hopefully clearly. Why balance? So that the game is fair. And I think we can all agree that unfair games are not much fun.

Arakune
2007-12-07, 08:04 AM
Some arguments of Jayabalard:

Ban X spell/magic/item/whatever

Why this is a bad Idea: you first need to allow it, someone need to use it then break the game with it (we are talking form novices to veterans here, just because you have X years of experience you can't expect to know everything). But then you realize it was a bad Idea so you go for your 'fix', but then the player that got the option are complaining that's not fair (and it's not, you can't prove he take that option and break the game intentionally except in extreme cases) and you decide to ban it on the next game.

Game 2: He didn't take that option, but take another. After some time that option become 'broken' and the circle restart, so you decide to look in all books to eliminate all broken options.

What we learned? A good DM will fix the game, but the options are there, there is noting preventing another game table to find the brokenness. Some people will have success, others will have problems. Can YOU 'fix' the problems of everyone? Even if you suppose that a lot of people like to play the way you like (which seen unlikely considering this thread) there are still a lot of people that will smash his face in the wall.

That's what I like/want/expect for D&D/high-magic/whatever

So, are you saying that: Magic are superior because magic can do things clearly powerful or can breaks the laws of common sense (it's not always just the laws of physics, sometimes it breaks other kinds of laws, but still the common sense screams 'that's not supposed to happen!'), thus full casters should be uber-powerful above everyone else.

Well, let me introduce you with this: crazy sh!@ a 9th level character can do (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=12393614).

In this topic he explain what a 9th level character can do.
They can do things clearly powerful or can breaks the laws of common sense (and let's note enter in epic where they can clearly make crazy, as in, divinely crazy things) without aid of magic or with relatively low level magic items, something anyone at that level can afford.

What we learned? Other classes have access to things that can scream 'WFT!", thus they should be uber-powerful or effective? But if that's so, then everyone should be uber-powerful or effective (but you can see it? no? a 20th level fighter is as better or at least not much weaker than a 20th level wizard? it is?), why the need to unbalance it?

Magic is clearly superior to anything else

Let's suppose this: wizard A have 17 years, is talented, a genius. He, in much less time than someone else achieved power enough to alter the laws of physics with his mind. That's all good, really.
But just tell me why, oh why in the name of that's all is holly, he can alter the laws of physics spending the same effort than a non-caster to go to level 20th?

If this is a high-magic setting then everyone or at least a massive amount of people should have access to magic, not only in magic items, but in raw magic power. If that's the case, why someone in his sane mind would try to go against dragons, beholders, demons, fallen angels, liches, 'creatures that should not be named or else we are all death' with a freaking piece of metallic sharp stick! Sure, maybe that guy doesn't have even a single drop of magical aptitude, but then how, and for emphasis I will say it with capital letter and bold it, HOW there is 20th levels in non-caster levels? Their survivability keep dropping every time they go up a level!

So he switch to another option, maybe scouting and stealth? But after a while a spell caster can do it better if it's really necessary. Track? Druids can do it if they choose to. Heal? Clerics can do it too, but they are supposed to do it so it's fine. Be stubborn and want to impale things with sharp point sticks? Funny to ask, remember the cleric? He can do it too but better, easier and still can heal (but why bother, this is a high-magic setting right? so healing items should be lying around or be cheap, right?).

What we learned? If you don't have magic but have some talent in other fields you are as useful as a 10th ft pole for full casters after some dead line. If you don't have any magical aptitude you are a redshirt. Maybe a mauve shirt if you're lucky.

In game terms? "I don't want to play wizards, I will go play a fighter" and then realize that after some time he are just playing cards in the corner where the full-casters are blasting/killing/surpassing things up, being a meat shield (as if they really need after some point. Maybe they need it for comic relief?)


This is just a opinion but just like most of my opinions (or any other in this thread, as it looks like) this one will be quickly ignored, I will just say:

If you want to post arguments, try to post other arguments except these. It's becoming quite tiresome and you should realize by now that no one are going to buy it. This thread is about discussing and convincing people about your opinion, or else the flame war didn't started in the first place. If you can't came up with some other argument, then you are not helping your case.

Maybe you already posted another kind of argument, but considering some replies about you (circle logic, going back to start, magic is powerful because is powerful, etc), looks like you use these ones a lot. So much it's irritating some people.

Werewindlefr
2007-12-07, 08:08 AM
I think that this thread is an excellent example of why, if you strip away Ron Edward's arrogance and biases, the GNS (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/3/) model makes a whole lot of sense.

Although hybrids are often a lot of fun, there are basically three different ways to go about designing a game:
[post too long, don't want to flood the forum]

Okay, see, I agree 100% 75% (especially because I think alignment is a gamist approach) But D&D isn't just D&D. It also brings a gaming system, with a rule structure that other companies are going to use. I've stopped playing vanilla D&D because I was no "gamist" - but I'm still playing something that uses a great deal of the SRD as a basis, namely Arcana Evolved. What makes it possible is that the structure of D&D 3.x itself isn't gamist: it's flexible and rather unbiased towards any style of play - what isn't is the set of classes, spells, races, etc. . That they make 4th edition "balanced"(Which, IMO, means nothing more than "tactically balanced in an average-setting, and stops being so if you do not play in such a setting". Something working for one group of player won't for another.) through class and spells redesign doesn't matter to me. However, if the rules' structure itself reflects this balance, it's a lot more worrying. I know nothing is certain yet, but if the skill system in D&D4 is like SAGA's, it forces the gamist approach into the very structure of the game, not allowing any departure from it in a game using the same mechanics but with a different flavor that would not take the full-gamist approach. That's what I'm worried about the most: that they make the gamist approach the only thing achievable with the very structure of the new rules.

AKA_Bait
2007-12-07, 08:25 AM
As far as the CR system goes its built around the assumption that all characters are of equal use in overcoming challenges. Get rid of that and the whole CR/exp system dies. Not that that makes SUCH a bit deal, but still...

Not really. I think it was expected with the item crafting rules, spells with exp components, and WBL being vitally important to appropriate CR that it was expected that the casting classes would be a little poorer on exp and loot than the noncasters. That hardly ever happens in a real game of course...

Look, I'm not arguing that D&D is balanced, or even that the CR system works particularly well, just that the two are not directly related.


I disagree; D&D is not intended to fit low magic or no magic, which is why it does them so poorly. If you want low or no magic, try a different system.


QFT. This is, in fact, why there are tweaks and changes suggested in the DMG if you want to play those kinds of games.


And as has been said, there are plenty of games in which the imbalance is supposed to be part of the game. D&D is not supposed to be one of them. The DMG goes into detail about the nature of balance, and how the addition of subtraction of factors can tweak the game.

Your answer is, essentially, "Yes, I know the system doesn't work properly, but I like it that way." Well, I'm sorry, but some people want to see the system working properly.


Sure some do. That doesn't mean the current system isn't acceptable to those who want that kind of game. Just because it failed to achieve the goal of balance it set for itself doesn't mean that it doesn't work 'properly' for that goal. There have been many inventions and products over the years that don't do what they were intended to do particlarly well but are really good at doing something else entirely, so we use them for that.



To create imbalance on the other hand, all you have to do is NOT CARE. Sure it makes the system completely unworkable as a game and will lead to accusations of unfairness if the Wizard has a d20 hd and Power Word: Kill is a 1st level spell. But you have stated that you don't care about balance anyway.


Now that's a bit much. Creating a system that is unbalanced to the degree you would like is still a balancing game and one that is unbalanced doesn't become inherently unworkable. Creating a system where spellcasters are more powerful than non-spellcasters but the nonspellcasters don't feel completley usless most of the time (which D&D does pretty well in pretty much every game I've played btw) is by no means any easier than creating one that goes the other way. If anything, it may be harder since you need to get the scale to tip but not too much.

Snooder
2007-12-07, 08:39 AM
Now that's a bit much. Creating a system that is unbalanced to the degree you would like is still a balancing game and one that is unbalanced doesn't become inherently unworkable.


The system is unworkable as a game. You can't have a game where one player has a significant advantage over the other.



Creating a system where spellcasters are more powerful than non-spellcasters but the nonspellcasters don't feel completley usless most of the time (which D&D does pretty well in pretty much every game I've played btw) is by no means any easier than creating one that goes the other way. If anything, it may be harder since you need to get the scale to tip but not too much.

Ok, so when you say you want "imbalance" you really mean you want things to be imbalanced, but not so imbalanced that the non-casters feel useless?

Frankly, that's not possible to do in a commercial game. Everybody has their own limit for uselessness and a lot of people would find the very fact of imbalance to be that limit. The simple truth is that a quite sizeable portion of people who play fighters don't enjoy playing second fiddle to the casters. And they aren't supposed to. If YOU want to play in that game fine, go ahead. But it's more appropriate to leave that sort of judgement up to a DM, rather than leaving the judgement for balancing things up to him.

BTW, lest we forget, the putative underpowered melee class already exists. It's called a Warrior.

KoDT69
2007-12-07, 09:15 AM
And here is where I will receive the most criticism:

I think (my opinion only) that the main problem with D&D is the magic system. All of the other things can be tweaked with minimal effort, but the magic system is another ball of wax.

First off, spells without saving throws. Bull$^%*! Why is it that you get a save vs. Destruction at higher level, but never against Ray of Enfeeblement? Not only is that rediculous, but completely unbalanced and unfair, even used on other casters. In my campaigns all spells offer a saving throw, and if it requires an attack roll, you just have to consider if it's a good option (2 chances for the spell to fail).

Second, the untouchable-by-non-caster stuff like Wall of Force and Forcecage. In previous editions you could beat down a force wall and if you were lucky it was only a minor inconvenience. Now in 3rd edition, this magical "solid" wall can hold you back but not take damage from a weapon. What? How is that even remotely sensible? It's magic is no excuse. It's a cheap excuse to overpower casters. If it's solid enough to hold you, it's solid enough to have a HP total that can be worn down. I could see if it was like telekinesis and the caster had to concentrate while keeping line of sight, but then that would give the non-caster a saving throw.

Third, the common acceptance that magic "should" be untouchable. The rules are likewise based on this concept, further perpetuating the crap.

Fourth, spells like Celerity and Time Stop. Do I even need to explain???

Fifth, the belief that feats broke the game is only true in some aspects. It's more like METAMAGIC feats broke the game. Quicken Spell is horrible for balance. In previous editions if you casted a spell, that was your turn, none of this "Quicken first spell then use metamagic rod of maximize with second spell of the combo for a 5th level wizard win on just about anything". That's crap, sorry.

Sixth, the belief that a non-caster must remain "mundane". Not true at all. In a world where magic is a dominating force in the world, even those not choosing to become a caster can still learn some things about it and maybe even touch it a little (huh huh that sounds dirty don't it? :smallbiggrin:). Why would it not be fair to have a fighter who just happened to have some other magical races blood in his lineage that allows him to learn to do things like channel a bit of fire through his weapon? He could have been a Sorcerer but no, he chose to be a fighter. This thought line could justify the Desert Wind stuff from ToB now couldn't it? Why not, everything else in the world can learn to use magic. Maybe he was a Hogwart's dropout after the first 2 school years! :smallwink: There are things like Spelltouched feats too, so I know I'm not off my rocker (yet) in letting a Fighter take a Flame-touched Warrior feat to allow some bonus firey damages in melee. And stuff like Freedom of Movement? I can see walking unhindered through a solid fog or web spell, but immunity to grappling? The spells make area effect that move when force is applied, but a barbarian and wrap his arms around you and pick you up. How should this spell be fair? The wizard has only 2 weaknesses, being suprised and being grappled. Hmm, premonition and freedom of movement, and now you win. Premonition should be a psionic ability only but that's another story altogether. I made feats that allow a PC to make a grapple check vs the 4th level spell's DC to overcome the magic. It works out quite well, although it's normally the PC caster being grappled against, and no complaints :smallsmile:

Seventh, non-scaling feats. We all know it. I homebrewed my own variations, easy enough.

Eigth, skill points. We all know this doesn't make sense on all angles either. Some should scale with level and others should not go up unless you specifically devote time to working on them directly. I made a college system for my games!

Ninth, fighters altogether. They should get Mettle as a Duskblade at the very least, and every other bonus feat a wildcard, changable with 1 hour of downtime. And the belief that the unmodified fighter is a one-trick pony even at 20th level just annoys me. 18 - 19 feats depending on if human makes you a lot more versatile than people give credit for. How can you NOT be good at more than 1 thing? In a proper wealth-by-level game, a fighter can have plenty of magic items to fill in gaps in mobility and help ensure he gets that full-attack.

Tenth, MONKS! Really, I did a complete rebuild of the class that is playable, but the one in the book? Crap. Total crap. In a mid-level campaign we had a fully-optimized (as much as can be possibly expected) monk who constantly got owned by CR equivalent challenges unless he did the old hit and run spring attack, and then he wasn't contributing as much as the sub-par gnome bard 4 / sorcerer 4, and trust when I say a 3rd level NPC warrior could match it :smallsigh:

Finally, full progression casting PrC's. Seriously, why do the casters need more and more and more and more powers without any sacrifice? A lot of class features in PrC's could just be added as optional feats for the base classes. I'm not a huge fan of PrC's, except for a few really balanced and fun ones.

Bosh
2007-12-07, 09:44 AM
Werewindlefr: I'm having a hard time following some bits of your post. I THINK that one thing that could be causing the disconnect is how much freeform roleplaying takes place in a lot of D&D games.

I'm guessing that if your campaign deviates a lot from the standard dungeon hack there's long stretches of play with very little, if any, dice rolling (maybe a skill check or three but not a whole lot of rules-based structure). And then when combat hits the whole tone of gameplay changes and dice start flying left and right.

This is because D&D is a very gamey game and it (on purpose) leaves a lot of holes in the rules so that it can concentrate on tactical crunch. People often want to concentrate on things besides tactical crunch and since the rules for that in D&D aren't the best they end up doing a lot of freeform RPing.

This freeform roleplaying can focus on being tactical, strategic, narrative, realistic or whatever since its taking place mostly outside of the structures of D&D rules, which are pretty purely gamist and not especially flexible in that regard.

There's nothing at all wrong with this but it is VERY different from the kind of gameplay that results in games in which as much dice rolling takes place during a costume ball as during a sword fight.


I've stopped playing vanilla D&D because I was no "gamist" - but I'm still playing something that uses a great deal of the SRD as a basis, namely Arcana Evolved.
I'm not familiar with Arcana Evolved (aside from that it has more elegant mechanics for magic and pretty much everyone uses magic in it). What about it is less gamist than vanilla D&D?


What makes it possible is that the structure of D&D 3.x itself isn't gamist: it's flexible and rather unbiased towards any style of play
I wouldn't agree with this. The rules don't focus on being realistic (or emulating genre conventions in a specific sense), there's no mechanics for the emotions of characters, their cares and desires, etc. There's also no mechanics for players to influence the world aside from the actions of their characters. You can do all of this in D&D but only by doing freeform gaming outside of the rules, they're not incorporated into the structure of the rules.


However, if the rules' structure itself reflects this balance, it's a lot more worrying. I know nothing is certain yet, but if the skill system in D&D4 is like SAGA's, it forces the gamist approach into the very structure of the game, not allowing any departure from it in a game using the same mechanics but with a different flavor that would not take the full-gamist approach. That's what I'm worried about the most: that they make the gamist approach the only thing achievable with the very structure of the new rules.
I'm not following you here about the structure of the rules. I agree that SAGA/4ed are moving towards more purely gamist (a good thing I think) but I don't see what the skill system has to do with this...

AKA_Bait
2007-12-07, 09:52 AM
The system is unworkable as a game. You can't have a game where one player has a significant advantage over the other.


Oh nonsense. Have you never given a free peice to a less skilled opponent in chess? Or played haires and hounds in checkers? Or started anyplace but South America or Australia in Risk? You can certianly have a fun and workable game where all sides are not equal, especially one where there is a DM to keep things from getting too out of hand.



Ok, so when you say you want "imbalance" you really mean you want things to be imbalanced, but not so imbalanced that the non-casters feel useless?


For the record, I never said I want imbalance. I'm merely defending the position that an imbalanced game can be fun too. D&D is not balanced. D&D is fun.



Frankly, that's not possible to do in a commercial game.

Oh ye of little faith. It's frankly no more or less possible to have a game so balanced be a commercial sucess than to have one that is perfectly balanced. How much free PC and book sales would WotC have if there wasn't a new gamebreaking thing in every splatbook? ;-)


The simple truth is that a quite sizeable portion of people who play fighters don't enjoy playing second fiddle to the casters. And they aren't supposed to.

The simple truth is that most players who play fighters, in the real functioning of gameplay, neither want to nor do play second fiddle to casters. Most games take place at midlevels, where the game is more evenly balanced. Most games have a DM that will specifically put monsters in for the fighter to get his wacks on. Most games will, at higher level, find the fighter getting niftyier toys too to do a little on the fly balancing. I have honestly, in my 6 years of playing 3.x, never had a signifigant problem with respect to the fighter feeling left out and underpowered. Granted, this is a function of my group not optimizing to the nines, as a result of some not knowing how and the others being mature enough not to (and typically playing the fighter types) and is not a reflection of the overshadowing that is possible under the current mechanics but still, if it's happening all the time in games you play in, it's time to ask yourself why you are playing that way.


If YOU want to play in that game fine, go ahead. But it's more appropriate to leave that sort of judgement up to a DM, rather than leaving the judgement for balancing things up to him.


Thanks, I will. As will the various groups I DM for if they want to play that kind of game too, and some of them do. I always prefer to have permission you know. :-)


BTW, lest we forget, the putative underpowered melee class already exists. It's called a Warrior.

Warrior is not a PC class.


Stuff about how magic breaks the game

Yes. Magic is the reason for the unbalance in the game. Were it implemented differently and some spells removed/nerfed, it really wouldn't be a problem. It's possible to do arcane type classes that are not overpowered. Observe the warlock and the beguiler.



The rules don't focus on being realistic (or emulating genre conventions in a specific sense), there's no mechanics for the emotions of characters, their cares and desires, etc.

Well there are ways to influence the attitudes and emotions of players/npcs. Diplomacy, bluff, intimidate, calm emotions, suggestion, charm person...

Alex12
2007-12-07, 09:55 AM
Here's an idea I've heard before: Think of spells below, say, 4th level as "open source" meaning that wizards can get them for free when they level. At 4th level or higher, they have to be developed or learned from another wizard. After all, if I invented a spell that let me reshape reality to my whims, I wouldn't let just anybody learn it.

Bosh
2007-12-07, 09:58 AM
Most games take place at midlevels, where the game is more evenly balanced.
Right, there's a big gap between D&D theory and D&D practice. In a thread a while back about balance in practice in a HUGE chunk of games had meleers coming out on top as the most powerful character in the group because of bad caster tactics (fireball!), relatively low levels, casters multiclassing and losing caster levels and DMs fudging dice rolls vs. casters using save or die spells to avoid their critters getting taken out with a single spell. Often the skill monkeys were the weakest (often by far) because the people who liked playing skill monkeys were the least interested in character power. But on the other hand, the characters that blew the rest of the party out of the water and dominated gamplay in game-breaking ways were pretty much exclusively casters (wizards and druids mostly).

Casters are mostly only unbalanced if they play in ways that deviates pretty strongly from the way most people tend to play those archetypes in computer games etc., which often means that casters are more powerful the less the act like the fictional archetypes they're based on, which is pretty wack.

AKA_Bait
2007-12-07, 10:06 AM
Casters are mostly only unbalanced if they play in ways that deviates pretty strongly from the way most people tend to play those archetypes in computer games etc., which often means that casters are more powerful the less the act like the fictional archetypes they're based on, which is pretty wack.

Well, maybe. I'm not sure how wack it is. It's basically just a symptom of the game designers expecting most people to play the game... the way they are playing the game. Granted, they could have done a much better job of dealing with the scenario where the wizard is not a blaster but if the problem is that game balance gets shot the more people play in a way unexpected by the designers that's not the worst black mark against a system I can think of and it clearly doesn't make the system 'unplayable' which has been suggested.

Bosh
2007-12-07, 10:14 AM
Well, maybe. I'm not sure how wack it is. It's basically just a symptom of the game designers expecting most people to play the game... the way they are playing the game. Granted, they could have done a much better job of dealing with the scenario where the wizard is not a blaster but if the problem is that game balance gets shot the more people play in a way unexpected by the designers that's not the worst black mark against a system I can think of and it clearly doesn't make the system 'unplayable' which has been suggested.

Right, the point I was trying to make was that wizards in and of themselves aren't all that power powerful so much as wizards that are played in a way that's very different from how the designers thought they would be played (as howitzers in robes).

Most people who want to play high fantasy-style wizards want to play them like Final Fantasy black mages. So casters mostly only get powerful if they stop acting like the sort of casters that a lot of people who want to play high fantasy-style wizards want to play. The more low-key people play wizards the more powerful they tend to be, which is fairly ironic...

AKA_Bait
2007-12-07, 10:18 AM
Right, the point I was trying to make was that wizards in and of themselves aren't all that power powerful so much as wizards that are played in a way that's very different from how the designers thought they would be played (as howitzers in robes).

Most people who want to play high fantasy-style wizards want to play them like Final Fantasy black mages. So casters mostly only get powerful if they stop acting like the sort of casters that a lot of people who want to play high fantasy-style wizards want to play. The more low-key people play wizards the more powerful they tend to be, which is fairly ironic...

I dunno... when I think about the more powerful people in the world or within a given field, they tend to be the low key ones who use simple strategies that are still not the norm. Look at Warren Buffet. The man is worth billions, still lives in the same house his parents owned, has owned at total of 2 cars over the past 20 years and refuses to invest in things like gold.

Dausuul
2007-12-07, 10:21 AM
Casters are mostly only unbalanced if they play in ways that deviates pretty strongly from the way most people tend to play those archetypes in computer games etc., which often means that casters are more powerful the less the act like the fictional archetypes they're based on, which is pretty wack.

Depends on the caster. Arcane casters, definitely; you have to get into the non-blasting, Batman mindset before you see how broken they can be. ClericZilla is a little easier to stumble across, but you still aren't likely to build your cleric as a heavy combat tank from the get-go (and CZilla is overrated anyway IMO, since it relies on DMM/Persist to avoid needing to buff every fight, and you can't reasonably expect your DM to let that fly).

The biggest problem class among the casters is the druid, because you don't have to try to break the druid. You can do it purely by accident, playing the class out of the box--I know because I've done it. And the druid is stronger at mid-levels than the cleric or the arcane casters.

AKA_Bait
2007-12-07, 10:25 AM
The biggest problem class among the casters is the druid, because you don't have to try to break the druid. You can do it purely by accident, playing the class out of the box--I know because I've done it. And the druid is stronger at mid-levels than the cleric or the arcane casters.

This is sadly true. Despite that, I think because it doesn't conform to any particular age old fantasy archetype, I've found very few new players actually play druids. That's not much of a saving grace, I know, but it's the best I got.

Bosh
2007-12-07, 10:35 AM
This is sadly true. Despite that, I think because it doesn't conform to any particular age old fantasy archetype, I've found very few new players actually play druids. That's not much of a saving grace, I know, but it's the best I got.

And a lot of wannabe munchkins don't want to play something that sounds like a hippie.

AKA_Bait
2007-12-07, 10:38 AM
And a lot of wannabe munchkins don't want to play something that sounds like a hippie.

Well yes. It takes more creativity to make a really cool druid since there isn't an archetype waiting to be used.

Werewindlefr
2007-12-07, 10:59 AM
Werewindlefr: I'm having a hard time following some bits of your post. I THINK that one thing that could be causing the disconnect is how much freeform roleplaying takes place in a lot of D&D games.

I'm guessing that if your campaign deviates a lot from the standard dungeon hack there's long stretches of play with very little, if any, dice rolling (maybe a skill check or three but not a whole lot of rules-based structure). And then when combat hits the whole tone of gameplay changes and dice start flying left and right.

Not really. It's just much less combat intensive (and oriented towards personal goal-achievement and overcoming obstacles no limited to combat encounters) and because I'm not tailoring combats for player (who therefore have learned to not solve everyhing using greatswords and fireballs.)




I'm not familiar with Arcana Evolved (aside from that it has more elegant mechanics for magic and pretty much everyone uses magic in it). What about it is less gamist than vanilla D&D?

A lesser focus on encounter-based abilities. A greater focus on things revolving around the characters, such as ceremonies, interactions with the world. Lots of class abilities just aren't made to deal with tactical encounters.





I'm not following you here about the structure of the rules. I agree that SAGA/4ed are moving towards more purely gamist (a good thing I think) but I don't see what the skill system has to do with this...
It simplifies character definition in order to make gameplay smoother. It has the advantage of making the "gamist" gameplay easier, first by allowing everyone to have a reasonable chance at succeeding actions, second by making character creation easy.
However, it prevents players to create and play characters they really want to. I don't see why a 20th level fighter or wizard shouldn't be helpless in water - some can't swim because they've just never learned! from a simulationist view, it's unrealistic, from a narrative point of view, it's a restriction put on player choices, and a destruction of the uniqueness of characters. Besides, there's nothing more flavorful than the 2nd level rogue who bluffs the 10th level fighter, because the latter has never had the occasion to become less naive, busy as he was to kill monsters in the swamp.


but then again, I do not understand why D&D should become more gamist than it already is. By refusing to acknowledge that many gaming D&D group do not have that approach, they're basically reducing the 4th ed. player base*.




*Which I find a bit nonsensical - gamist gameplay is better and better imitated by video games, except that computers are hugely better at handling the mechanics. I would say that the presence of a DM is less and less required for the "gamist" style, and tends to only be necessary in tables that, include at least partially narrative or simulationist styles.
Most gamists I know are playing NWN, WoW, DAoC, or are going to play AoC or WAR. That's hardly enough for a sensible statistical conclusion, but I still take it as a clue.

streakster
2007-12-07, 11:19 AM
I contend that the classes are, in fact, balanced.

A wizard trades in a significant portion of his hit points, and takes a limitation on the number of times he can act per day, in order to be given great power.

A fighter does not lose hit points, and can act as often as he likes. Therefore, he must be weaker - he has traded less for his power.

A warlock, for example, has weaker magic than the wizard, but has no limitation on its use.

I also highly recommend this. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=951742)

Dausuul
2007-12-07, 11:43 AM
I contend that the classes are, in fact, balanced.

A wizard trades in a significant portion of his hit points, and takes a limitation on the number of times he can act per day, in order to be given great power.

A fighter does not lose hit points, and can act as often as he likes. Therefore, he must be weaker - he has traded less for his power.

No, the fighter cannot act as often as he likes. He can act until he runs out of hit points, or fails a saving throw. Then he drops dead and stops acting. At high levels, this happens very very fast. The wizard, meanwhile, is safe behind layers of magical defenses. Hence, the high-level wizard is better at combat than the fighter. Since combat is the fighter's specialty, this is a balance problem.

streakster
2007-12-07, 11:57 AM
No, the fighter cannot act as often as he likes. He can act until he runs out of hit points, or fails a saving throw. Then he drops dead and stops acting.

As does the wizard, and the bard, and the troll you are fighting - every character can only act until dead! The wizard runs out sooner. And saves? A level 20 wizard and fighter both have equal saves - 6, 6, 12. Distributed differently, but equal.


At high levels, this happens very very fast. The wizard, meanwhile, is safe behind layers of magical defenses. Hence, the high-level wizard is better at combat than the fighter. Since combat is the fighter's specialty, this is a balance problem.

Till he runs out of magical defenses, or comes across something that can get through them. Real DnD doesn't have Schrodinger's Spellbook, you know. The fighter, on the other hand, is enjoying higher HP and AC to all damage he takes. It is again a trade-off - would you like lower average damage, or the capacity to block all damage for a short time? Either way, balanced.

Combat isn't the fighter's specialty - martial combat is. Hitting things with other things, that's his skill. Wizards are specialized in magical combat, and are very good at it. No problems there.

Craig1f
2007-12-07, 12:01 PM
I think that, another problem is that DMs don't really follow the "5-6 encounters in one day of adventuring" rule very well. Wizards and Clerics start complaining that they don't have time to recover their spells, so the DM gives in, and lets them rest. Or players rest after each encounter.

If you have 10 or so encounters, without rest, with 5 of them being extremely easy, and another 5 being somewhat difficult, the fighters will shine. The barbarian will probably run out of rages, but he'll still be able to hold his own. The wizards and clerics will be worthless by this time, unless they brought wands, or did not contribute to some of the fights up to this point.

Granted, you need a way to heal after each fight (wands, potions), but all the non-magic types will still have their power.

Fawsto
2007-12-07, 12:52 PM
Yes, the class would be balanced if the general casters would be afraid of expending their magic powers every encounter. But wait, this doesn't work like that.

4-6 encounters per session? Won't work. Or the encounters are hard and take long enougth so the caster needs to cast a spell to finish it, thus making 4-6 encounters a waste of time, or they are simply too easy and fast to resolve, something the wizard wouldn't care to act trought ( "Don't bother me with anything less than a 11 cr encounter" or something like that, remember?). So, in the few 2-3 battles that happens during a session, the casters will rule, because they are not afraid to burn their precious magic to finish the encounter as soon as possible. Also, even if they use up to any of their magic slots, they still have wands and scrolls, making possible for then to fight a few more encounters easily.

Also, if the adventure is mostly of social interaction or/and combat is something secondary or of the same importance, then the meleers go down even deeper. HP won't help you in Social. AC won't help you in social. A big sword and power attack won't help you either. What would help you is Magic and Social Skills, something that neither melee class possess in a decent amount.

That is the basis of class balancing: Making everybody usefull in every possible encounter they face. Ok, if the fighter could use Diplomacy to bypass a guard or other sentient obstacle, he would be less effective than the Wizard, but still able of doing something else than attacking with a sword till the enemy is down. Intimidate is a social skill, ok... I buy that, but every fail and many successes on a Intimidate check result in a conflict of forces somehow, where the wizard would, again, rule.

That's it... There is a ancient dictate that says "Every road leads to Rome" in DnD we could turn it into "90% of the problems are solved by the Casters". This is DnD problem, that gets evident after level 11. Got it?

Indon
2007-12-07, 01:05 PM
Wow, thread's seen a lot of traffic. Okay...


If you dont care about balance, there is no reason for everyone to be the same level. A balanced system can be easily made unbalanced by introducing a range of levels. Which is enough to counter the "narrative weakness" that you claim is inherent to a balanced system (but which you haven't shown is there". You statement is the very picture of a circular argument.


I addressed this argument on page 5 of this thread. To quote myself:



Similarly, differing levels do not cover diversity of gameplay. A single 'balanced' system can not, for instance, both display a world in which magic is so easy that flight is commonplace, and a conan-esque world in which regardless of how powerful players are, magic never allows such as flight... not without heavy houseruling to make system balancing look, again, easy.

It's quite clearly not a circular argument, 'cause I have an example of how it works right there. I can explain it to any neccessary level of depth to aid in comprehension.



Also, if you favor storytelling so much over game balance, there are much better systems. Check out BESM (which is only as balanced as you allow it to be), and WoD. For fantasy D10, check out Exalted. Those systems all focus more on the storytelling than on making claims to 'balance'.

I play Exalted as one of my groups' campaigns (running a mixed-type group, in fact; no balance concerns either). It is a very good system and if 4'th edition decides to suck it up by balancing badly, it is indeed my contingency plan. Between it and Old WoD I could probably hack up any genre into a playable game.

But D&D is a good, well-balanced system with massively diverse material, and I want to retain that kind of something-for-everyone game.



First, what is the definition of "high-magic world?"

I see two main possibilities. #1, "high-magic world" is defined as "world where wizards are super-powerful." #2, "high-magic world" is defined as "world with a lot of magic in it."

If we're going with definition #1, then you cannot argue that wizards ought to be super-powerful because it's a high-magic world; that's saying that wizards ought to be super-powerful because wizards are super-powerful, which is circular logic.


No, that's not how that fallacy works. If you want a high-magic world in which wizards ought to be super-powerful, then wizards should be super-powerful, period. The counter-argument is not crying fallacy, but instead postulating that D&D's design intent is for a different kind of high-magic world, and simply saying that there's no evidence that D&D's design intent is for this form of high-magic (well, except for how it turned out, anyway).



IMO, a "balanced system" is one in which no one character option (be it a feat, class, magic item, or whatever) is clearly superior to another in a mechanical sense; that is, from an optimizer's point of view and disregarding fluff, there is a valid reason to pick any given option, and this remains the case across the entire level range.


Sure, I agree with it. I think your example is a poor one, however, because given your system's setup, a party of Bards may well be superior than a party of Fighter/Rogue/Wizard/Cleric, making the Bard overpowered and the system unbalanced. Best to not have more than four classes.



*DM intervention is not a valid consideration where questions of balance are concerned, because what the DM does or does not do is outside the scope of the rules. Individual DMs may succeed in fixing these issues at their own gaming tables, but that doesn't fix the system as a whole. The system should assume a "strict-constructionist" DM, that is, one who will play by the rules as written except when doing so would be clearly absurd, and who will not attempt to correct perceived balance problems.

Disagreed. DM interaction, because there is no default type of encounter, monster, combat, and so on, is absolutely an issue. Imagine A Cleric variant that is supposedly equally useful in combat to the Rogue. In an undead-heavy campaign, the Cleric's effectiveness skyrockets while the Rogue's effectiveness plummets. If this problem becomes significant enough, we have a balance issue, now don't we?

In short, there are no RAW challenges, thus the DM will always control balance to a degree simply by designing them. (Ironically enough, Exalted, with no claims to balance, would not rely on the Storyteller for balance because of its' detailed standard setting)



Does anyone believe that "balance," as defined above, is actually a bad thing?


Yes. Even a hideously super-simple pseudo-D&D can have balance problems after introducing more than 4 classes (well, technically Class Roles+1 is where the problem arises); trying to enforce balance over a nominal, lets-not-have-imbalance-completely-break-the-game level can be crippling to mechanical diversity.

Now, I'm not saying that imbalance is neccessarily good, or that balance is neccessarily bad. I've already discussed how functional balance could maintain mechanical and narrative diversity - a 'best of both worlds' paradigm. But such a system would be viewed as imbalanced by your definition.

In more detail, I ideally would have a system in which multiple 'tiers' of power exist, which are all balanced with the options of the same tier, but not balanced with other tiers. You want balance for your game, restrict all systems to the single 'tier' that best reflects your level of power. You want imbalance, use multiple tiers. You want something like Exalted, let only the PC's use higher tiers while their environment is lower. You want danger or horror? Do it the other way around.

Or, in short, flagging imbalance and providing alternatives makes it easy to pick the best option, for anyone.

Arakune
2007-12-07, 01:17 PM
Incredible how this thread got back to starting position so quickly :smallsigh:

Maybe it's time to stop since both parties walking in circles like a dog trying to catch his own butt? (the tail was cut of, sadly, because it would be fun for the dog to catch it and give a big bite on it :smallbiggrin: )

Woot Spitum
2007-12-07, 02:49 PM
I think the argument on the high magic world goes like this.

1)In a high-magic world, magic is the most powerful aspect.

2)Wizards focus more on magic than anyone else.

3)Therefore, in a high-magic world, wizards are more powerful than anyone else.

If you want fighters to be the most powerful though, then you need a setting where in the above statements the word "magic" is replaced by the word "fighting" and the word "wizards" is replaced with the word "fighters."

As for balance, no matter what you do, a significant amount of people will complain that the game is not balanced because their favorite type of character is weaker (and unless every character is exactly the same, there will be a type of character that is weaker). Note that if these same people play a system where those roles are reversed, a majority of them will call this new system balanced, and possibly even "realistic."

Renegade Paladin
2007-12-07, 05:33 PM
No, that's not how that fallacy works. If you want a high-magic world in which wizards ought to be super-powerful, then wizards should be super-powerful, period. The counter-argument is not crying fallacy, but instead postulating that D&D's design intent is for a different kind of high-magic world, and simply saying that there's no evidence that D&D's design intent is for this form of high-magic (well, except for how it turned out, anyway).
What he said wasn't a circular argument, but it's still fallacious: The argument he stated was the very picture of an is/ought fallacy (http://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/fallacies/isought.htm); that wizards are the most powerful class, therefore they ought to be the most powerful class.

Jayabalard
2007-12-07, 05:43 PM
What he said wasn't a circular argument, but it's still fallacious: The argument he stated was the very picture of an is/ought fallacy (http://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/fallacies/isought.htm); that wizards are the most powerful class, therefore they ought to be the most powerful class.it looks like you've misunderstood... noone is deriving the statement that "[wizards] ought to be the most powerful class". This is the assumption. It's a statement of preference. It can't be an is/ought fallacy, since that statement is not being derived from itself; it simply follows from "this is what I want".

this also has nothing to do with the statement that was called a "circular argument".

streakster
2007-12-07, 05:54 PM
Yes, the class would be balanced if the general casters would be afraid of expending their magic powers every encounter. But wait, this doesn't work like that.

To offer the same level of proof as you did in the above statement: does too.


4-6 encounters per session? Won't work. Or the encounters are hard and take long enougth so the caster needs to cast a spell to finish it, thus making 4-6 encounters a waste of time, or they are simply too easy and fast to resolve, something the wizard wouldn't care to act trought ( "Don't bother me with anything less than a 11 cr encounter" or something like that, remember?). So, in the few 2-3 battles that happens during a session, the casters will rule, because they are not afraid to burn their precious magic to finish the encounter as soon as possible. Also, even if they use up to any of their magic slots, they still have wands and scrolls, making possible for then to fight a few more encounters easily.


Wait, what? So because you play, on average, 2.5 encounters a session, everyone else does too? Proof! I need proof!

And, yeah, obviously the wizard is going to rule that situation. Scenarios with few encounters and long rest times are his forte. Just like if you held 6 or more battles, it would be the fighter shining - that's what he's good at.

And everybody can learn UMD! Some easier than others, yeah, but rogues can learn it and they are a no-magic class! Your point here?


Also, if the adventure is mostly of social interaction or/and combat is something secondary or of the same importance, then the meleers go down even deeper. HP won't help you in Social. AC won't help you in social. A big sword and power attack won't help you either. What would help you is Magic and Social Skills, something that neither melee class possess in a decent amount.

That is the basis of class balancing: Making everybody usefull in every possible encounter they face. Ok, if the fighter could use Diplomacy to bypass a guard or other sentient obstacle, he would be less effective than the Wizard, but still able of doing something else than attacking with a sword till the enemy is down. Intimidate is a social skill, ok... I buy that, but every fail and many successes on a Intimidate check result in a conflict of forces somehow, where the wizard would, again, rule.

No No No No NO! Everybody should NOT be useful all the time! Each class is useful in certain situations - Bards rule intrigue and court politics, Rogues excel at traps and locks and sneaking, Paladins are exceptional against evil, Rangers are best outdoors, etc. Complaining that the fighter is worse than the Bard or the Rogue at their specialty is pointless - why must they be good at everything to be useful? They hit things. The party needs people to do that, so Fighters are useful. Also, they do have a social skill, as you said - and that business about all failed checks (let alone successful ones) in bunkum, my friend.

Everyone should not be good at everything - but when put together, the party should be.



That's it... There is a ancient dictate that says "Every road leads to Rome" in DnD we could turn it into "90% of the problems are solved by the Casters". This is DnD problem, that gets evident after level 11. Got it?

"Every road leads to Rome" has nothing to do with "Ninety percent of all problems are solved by casters." - a statistic, that, as far as I can see, you just made up. Wizards can do a lot of cool stuff, sure - and fighters have great hitpoints, average damage, weapon choices, AC, and more. If you add in the ToB, they can even match the cool factor.

DnD is balanced. Got it?

Craig1f
2007-12-07, 05:59 PM
I would just like to point out that everyone on this thread sounds like Eugene Greenhilt.

streakster
2007-12-07, 06:05 PM
Hey, I like Eugene! He reminds of a cranky sorcerer I played once...

But yeah, we do. Pointless debate is fun, though!:smallsmile:

Arakune
2007-12-07, 06:15 PM
I would just like to point out that everyone on this thread sounds like Eugene Greenhilt.

Don't ever say that. If they really start talking like that every fighter in their group are enduring a living hell! :smallyuk:

Renegade Paladin
2007-12-07, 06:21 PM
it looks like you've misunderstood... noone is deriving the statement that "[wizards] ought to be the most powerful class". This is the assumption. It's a statement of preference. It can't be an is/ought fallacy, since that statement is not being derived from itself; it simply follows from "this is what I want".

this also has nothing to do with the statement that was called a "circular argument".
Let's review:
If we're going with definition #1, then you cannot argue that wizards ought to be super-powerful because it's a high-magic world; that's saying that wizards ought to be super-powerful because wizards are super-powerful, which is circular logic.
That's what I was talking about. Arguing, as he said, that wizards ought to be super-powerful because wizards are super-powerful (definition #1 that he gave of a high-magic world) is, in fact, a textbook is/ought.

Titanium Dragon
2007-12-07, 06:22 PM
1) Dungeons and Dragons is primarily a social interaction game. The purpose of D&D is for a group of people to get together, socialize, and have fun in the context of a pre-scripted spontaneously role-played adventure.

2) As such, everyone needs to be roughly equivalent in overall power level so that everyone gets the same amount of "screen time", because people all want to interact maximally (being a social game).

3) This does not mean that everyone needs to be able to do the same things; indeed, that's bad (typically). Rather, segregation of roles ensures that everyone has some time to "shine" in character, and this time should be roughly equivalent accross the characters in the party.

4) Because combat is common, everyone needs to be able to contribute; to ensure this, each person should be able to do a number of interesting things in combat, from throwing fireballs to getting in an epic sword fight. These should be equally interesting.

5) Because out of combat is also common, everyone should have something to do. If you're in the city, people should have options; if you're in the wilderness, people should have options. Everyone should have things they can do in both environments which are interesting and which help the party progress towards its goals.

6) As such, if certain character types have the ability to do more things, and/or to strictly superscede other character types in a large number of situations, that person will be able to monopolize interaction to a greater degree; they will get more "screen time", as it were, and will get to interact more than the other people. Though this person will generally enjoy themselves, this causes the enjoyment of other players to decrease, as it is a social game and everyone wants to contribute.

This is why balance is essential.

streakster
2007-12-07, 06:31 PM
Titanium, I completely agree. If number six on your list was true, DnD would be unbalanced and in need of correction.

Arakune
2007-12-07, 07:25 PM
Titanium, I completely agree. If number six on your list was true, DnD would be unbalanced and in need of correction.

I fail to see why six are not true? CodZillas can 'steal' the screen time from fighters/barbarians, druids from fighters/barbarians/rangers, wizards from bards/rogues (enchantment spells and utility spells). It becomes even worse if you go to high levels. THAT'S what people are arguing since the beginning of this thread.

Kyeudo
2007-12-07, 07:42 PM
I fail to see why six are not true? CodZillas can 'steal' the screen time from fighters/barbarians, druids from fighters/barbarians/rangers, wizards from bards/rogues (enchantment spells and utility spells). It becomes even worse if you go to high levels. THATS what people are arguing since the beginning of this thread.

Sacrasm does not travel through the internet well.

Layman's Terms: Streakster was agreeing with Titanium Dragon, but voicing it sarcasticly. He meant that his statement was actualy false, so therefore D&D is broken and needs fixing.

Mando Knight
2007-12-07, 07:42 PM
I think that the problem is that the Fighter only does average damage, not huge or excessive damage when his basic class description is "hit things hard with a big metal stick," whereas the Wizard causes excessive damage with his spells when his description is "blow things up with magic."

Every class should be best at doing what it was meant to do. When the Wizard and the Fighter are both capable of optimizing themselves to the same relative power level (using a benchmark like a Great Wyrm black dragon or some other high-CR monster...), then the game is relatively balanced. The Fighter should be able to wound the dragon, in one round, as a Wizard of the same level to the same type of dragon in the same time period.

Reel On, Love
2007-12-07, 08:11 PM
Um... wizards don't blow things up with magic for more damage than fighters. Do you really think a third-level character can't do 4d6 (Scorching Ray)? 2d6 greatsword, 18 STR for +6 damage, +1 weapon--same average damage.

And that's low levels, before feats and iterative attacks come into play.

streakster
2007-12-07, 08:29 PM
Sacrasm does not travel through the internet well.

Layman's Terms: Streakster was agreeing with Titanium Dragon, but voicing it sarcasticly. He meant that his statement was actualy false, so therefore D&D is broken and needs fixing.

I'll thank you to remove your words from my mouth.

I meant what I said - I agree with Titanium's position, and if what he said in 6 were true, DnD would be broken. Six is not, and therefore DnD is whole, unbroken, and balanced.

Kyeudo
2007-12-07, 08:46 PM
I just interpretted your words in the only way that made sense. :smallconfused:

streakster
2007-12-07, 08:53 PM
I'm sorry if I was harsh, but I shall reiterate my position again.

DnD is balanced.

Ralfarius
2007-12-07, 08:55 PM
I'm sorry if I was harsh, but I shall reiterate my position again.

DnD is balanced.
So... All these people who talk about how wizards/clerics/druids can, and do, outshine noncasters, making the class almost worthless to play (in comparison) in a sense of group utility, citing specific examples... What, they're wrong?

Arakune
2007-12-07, 09:03 PM
So... All these people who talk about how wizards/clerics/druids can, and do, outshine noncasters, making the class almost worthless to play (in comparison) in a sense of group utility, citing specific examples... What, they're wrong?

Apparently. Funny, isn't? :smallannoyed: :smallsigh:

streakster
2007-12-07, 09:04 PM
Yup. Numbers do not equal ethos, and the examples they cite are never actual game stories - just hypotheticals.

Also, please read this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=951742). Debunks the myth of overpowered spellcasters pretty well.

Kyeudo
2007-12-07, 09:10 PM
Yup. Numbers do not equal ethos, and the examples they cite are never actual game stories - just hypotheticals.

Also, please read this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=951742). Debunks the myth of overpowered spellcasters pretty well.

Step over into my office. I am head ref over at the Arena Tournament, where we are playing an actual game (although an arena game) which so far has not gotten past level 2. Still, the most feared gladiators are Wizards, Clerics, Sorcerers, Warblades, and Barbarians. Why? The buffs and save-or-lose spells of the casters and the raw damage of the barbarian and warblade classes. We have yet to see a Fighter make it to level 2.

As for your link, it took me about thirty seconds to find a gaping hole in their logic.

Woot Spitum
2007-12-07, 09:13 PM
1) Dungeons and Dragons is primarily a social interaction game. The purpose of D&D is for a group of people to get together, socialize, and have fun in the context of a pre-scripted spontaneously role-played adventure.

2) As such, everyone needs to be roughly equivalent in overall power level so that everyone gets the same amount of "screen time", because people all want to interact maximally (being a social game).

3) This does not mean that everyone needs to be able to do the same things; indeed, that's bad (typically). Rather, segregation of roles ensures that everyone has some time to "shine" in character, and this time should be roughly equivalent accross the characters in the party.

4) Because combat is common, everyone needs to be able to contribute; to ensure this, each person should be able to do a number of interesting things in combat, from throwing fireballs to getting in an epic sword fight. These should be equally interesting.

5) Because out of combat is also common, everyone should have something to do. If you're in the city, people should have options; if you're in the wilderness, people should have options. Everyone should have things they can do in both environments which are interesting and which help the party progress towards its goals.

6) As such, if certain character types have the ability to do more things, and/or to strictly superscede other character types in a large number of situations, that person will be able to monopolize interaction to a greater degree; they will get more "screen time", as it were, and will get to interact more than the other people. Though this person will generally enjoy themselves, this causes the enjoyment of other players to decrease, as it is a social game and everyone wants to contribute.

This is why balance is essential.But even if balance is perfect, people can still end up hogging the spotlight through force of personality. The way I see it, if someone is hogging the spotlight through an overly powerful character, and refuses to change the way they play for the benefit of the rest of the party at the DM's request, it is a symptom of a larger problem. The problem being, that this particular player cannot enjoy himself if he is not always the center of attention.

Balance doesn't get rid of problem players. It just changes how they ruin the game for everyone else.

Arakune
2007-12-07, 09:13 PM
Yup. Numbers do not equal ethos, and the examples they cite are never actual game stories - just hypotheticals.

Also, please read this (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=951742). Debunks the myth of overpowered spellcasters pretty well.

Man, if you want to look at that forum or even the previous wizards forums you can get arguments for everything with examples. Like the guy that deal a bajilion of charge damage, pun-pun, onmiscefer, etc.

Just look at this to know some ways to abuse. Campaign Smashers (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=897351)

And can you say that this is only hypothetical? Do you go to everyone gaming table to check to see if it's true?

Just think: do you need to jump from 1,5km of height and land it with your head to know that you will die?

Edit: rephrased some things

streakster
2007-12-07, 09:15 PM
Step over into my office. I am head ref over at the Arena Tournament, where we are playing an actual game (although an arena game) which so far has not gotten past level 2. Still, the most feared gladiators are Wizards, Clerics, Sorcerers, Warblades, and Barbarians. Why? The buffs and save-or-lose spells of the casters and the raw damage of the barbarian and warblade classes. We have yet to see a Fighter make it to level 2.

As for your link, it took me about thirty seconds to find a gaping hole in their logic.


Care to say what that hole is, or just refer to it obliquely?:smallsmile:

So, only 3/5 of the highest competitors in this arena competition are spellcasters, despite the fact that spellcasters excel in this sort of scenario, as I stated above?

Oh, and really quick read -that thread is 22 pages.

Nice office.:smallbiggrin:


Man, if you want to look at that forum or even the wizards forums you can get arguments for everything with examples. Like the guy that deal a bajilion of charge damage, pun-pun, onmiscefer, etc.

Just look at this to know some ways to abuse. Campaign Smashers (http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=897351)

And can you say that this is only hypothetical? Do you go to anyone gaming table to check to see if it's true?

Just think: do you need to jump from 1,5km of height and fall with your head to know that you will die?

That is the Wizards Forums.

Not all the Campaign Smashers are magic classes, if that was what you meant. Ever heard of the Lockdown Fighter? Not to mention that Charge damage guy in the thread you linked.

Do I go to anyone gaming table to see if it is true? Sure, some of them - who hasn't tried out Pun-Pun? Not to mention, those are builds. I'm talking overpowered casters here.

Your last sentence - I have no idea what that refers to, or even means. "Fall with my head?"

Kyeudo
2007-12-07, 10:17 PM
Care to say what that hole is, or just refer to it obliquely?:smallsmile:

So, only 3/5 of the highest competitors in this arena competition are spellcasters, despite the fact that spellcasters excel in this sort of scenario, as I stated above?

Oh, and really quick read -that thread is 22 pages.


The first hole was the claim that a group of clerics has more trouble vs traps. 2 words: Summon Monster. Common enough spell, due to its versatillity. Simply set the trap off, find where it is, and smash it with a hammer. Problem solved.

Another is the claim that "Melee characters outperform casters at low levels" which I have found patently untrue in actual play. There are others, but I don't want to type that much. I also didn't read the whole thread, just the first argument.

As for the Arena, there are other successful builds, but the majority of our level twos have come from those 5 classes, particularly Wizards. Other level twos include Wilders, Beguilers, and at least one Warlock.



Nice office.:smallbiggrin:


Thanks. :smallbiggrin:

streakster
2007-12-07, 10:33 PM
do you need to jump from 1,5km of height and land it with your head to know that you will die?

Nope, because I've seen people fall and get hurt.


The first hole was the claim that a group of clerics has more trouble vs traps. 2 words: Summon Monster. Common enough spell, due to its versatillity. Simply set the trap off, find where it is, and smash it with a hammer. Problem solved.

Unless the trap is intelligent. Or only attacks spellcasters. Or will go off when smashed with a hammer. Or will hurt the clerics even if set off from a distance - Indiana Jones' Rolling Boulder, anyone? Or can't be smashed with a hammer - giant block of stone that descends from ceiling and then retracts, like in that one cool Elder Scrolls section where the NPC gets butchered?

Not to mention that's only if the clerics have some method of detecting traps - you can't just send a summon to open every door and walk down every hallway. Sure, find traps will help - if you have some reason to turn it on, and slots left to prepare it, and the trap isn't difficult.

I'll stick with the rogue, thanks.


I also didn't read the whole thread, just the first argument.

Really should, if you're interested in this topic. It's good reading.


As for the Arena, there are other successful builds, but the majority of our level twos have come from those 5 classes, particularly Wizards. Other level twos include Wilders, Beguilers, and at least one Warlock.

Naturally - casters are best at short-term combat with breaks. That's arena fighting to a tee.

Good to hear a Warlock made it. My favorite class.

Werewindlefr
2007-12-07, 11:41 PM
1) Dungeons and Dragons is primarily a social interaction game. The purpose of D&D is for a group of people to get together, socialize, and have fun in the context of a pre-scripted spontaneously role-played adventure.

2) As such, everyone needs to be roughly equivalent in overall power level so that everyone gets the same amount of "screen time", because people all want to interact maximally (being a social game).

3) This does not mean that everyone needs to be able to do the same things; indeed, that's bad (typically). Rather, segregation of roles ensures that everyone has some time to "shine" in character, and this time should be roughly equivalent accross the characters in the party.

4) Because combat is common, everyone needs to be able to contribute; to ensure this, each person should be able to do a number of interesting things in combat, from throwing fireballs to getting in an epic sword fight. These should be equally interesting.

5) Because out of combat is also common, everyone should have something to do. If you're in the city, people should have options; if you're in the wilderness, people should have options. Everyone should have things they can do in both environments which are interesting and which help the party progress towards its goals.

6) As such, if certain character types have the ability to do more things, and/or to strictly superscede other character types in a large number of situations, that person will be able to monopolize interaction to a greater degree; they will get more "screen time", as it were, and will get to interact more than the other people. Though this person will generally enjoy themselves, this causes the enjoyment of other players to decrease, as it is a social game and everyone wants to contribute.

This is why balance is essential.

1)I never saw "pre-scripted" written in the definitions of RPGs or the basics of D&D

3) and 4) Or you could just have some characters better at combat and less good at social, and some that are exactly the opposite. That way, they all shine, but not at the same time. You could also have inventive player who overcome their lack of sheer power with smart and original ideas, or who just like to roleplay their character well, no matter what level of power they have. Someone did talk about the need for diversity before, so I'll just say "read previous posts or more about this". Also, the combat/non-combat ratio will vary greatly, depending on the DM's style and the players' style.

Fawsto
2007-12-07, 11:56 PM
Well.. Streakster, my point of argument lies on my gameplay experience, that is completing 5 years in a few weeks. Ok, probably one of the shortes gameplay experience times here in the foruns, I begun playing already in 3.0. Anyways... Lets talk here.


Well, if a Wizard is traveling with his party and they expect to figth a Powerful Dragon in the end of the day, but they are now entering the caves that lead to the Dragon's lair. Now, the dragon is sending a few constant waves of enemies to weaken the PJs. Well, will the wizard blow every single horde of enemies with his mid to high level spells and have none to blast the mighty dragon by the end of the day, or he will buff the fighter a little and let him kill most of the monsters without expending any necessary spells? Obviously a inteligent caster would go the second alternative. This is what WotC expected from a standard 4-men party. This is a situation where the wizard is "afraid" to destroy everything now and ruin the fight with the BBEG, aka the Dragon.


Now, second argument: How much time a decent fight takes from a RPG group? My gameplay experience states that a encounter o the proper level to the Party CR takes from 20 to 60 (a extremely hard or multipourpose/"out of the book"/unusual encounter) minutes depending on the number of monsters, their average power and availbility of a full caster present by the time. Meaning that if you take your group trought 4-6 encounters in one gaming day you will get from 80-360 minutes expent into resolving fights with monsters. Ok, this is probably oe of the most un things in DeD, to kill monsters. But if you spend and average of 220 minutes fighting, you won't get much time for expanding the story or the roleplaying. Well, at least I am not used to have more tah 6 hours availble to go into RPG, neither any o my group mates are. So, for us, having that ammount of encounters per day is impossible. This is probably our problem, but it is waht my experience tells.

Third Argument: Ok, not everybody should excell in everything. I agree. And I never stated that. I said that the fighter and other classes should be able to bypass different dificulties without resorting to the force of arms. I am not saying that the fighter should excell socialy, I am saying that he should have a chance in such an encounter. Wizards, if given the time and resources, can overcome most of the obstacles: fights, diplomacy, traps, sneaking around, finding people. Sometimes they can do these better. While the other classes can only do one of those things in a proper way, and no matter how many resources or time you give to them tehy will not do the other things in a better way. That is why no one complains about the rogue, they can do, at least, 3 things well: They can contribute to a fight, they can use quite good skills and they can interact socialy very effectively.

I am complaining here of the lack of versatility meleers suffer. And I am saying that they would shine in their role if the casters would not simply blast everything away just because they can.

I maybe wrong, but I say the following: Casters are not that all overpowered, some few spells and the Druid are, but they are versatile and always fun to play. Core meleers are not versatile, they can only fight and try to socialize to the best they can. That is the problem.

Also, most of my opinions lie in the fact that in am more used to Core only and just a few other books like the completes, for example.

streakster
2007-12-08, 01:07 AM
Ah, OK.

The dragon example: Yeah, that's it exactly! The Wizard can't own the little guys, cause he has to save up!

The timing: Yeah, sounds about right. Whether wizard or fighter reigns supreme all depends on the group, DM, length of encounters, current quest/module, etc. There's plenty of times we only have a few encounters a session - and others, we're trapped in the goblin caves, swarming with groups of weak enemies, and the only story is "Get out alive!"

I don't agree with the blasting bit - generally only a quarter of my loadout is blasty goodness, and a Wizard should shine in magical combat as a fighter does in martial combat. If a Wizard focuses just on blasty, though, that's not right of him - he has a duty to the team to help out, like the Medic in TF2 - he should be casting Greater Invisibility on the rogue and divining the fastest way out as well.



Casters are not that all overpowered, some few spells and the Druid are, but they are versatile and always fun to play. Core meleers are not versatile, they can only fight and try to socialize to the best they can. That is the problem.

Thank you for this. It clears things up nicely. I'll happily agree that Wizards are a thousand times as versatile as a Fighter. I was arguing that in combat, they are equally effective. I'd support the melee classes getting more choices any day. (Tome of Battle, anyone?) Their main function is long-term combat, though, as has been said many a time in this thread, so adding other skills to them is hard to do.

So, combat - fairly equal, out of combat - clear caster advantage depending on what spell the caster prepares. A caster set up to match the rogue won't be able to match a fighter, for example. A caster can match a fighter, or a rogue, or a bard or what-have-you, until they run out of spells, at which point the wizard might as well be a level one dirt farmer with a few ranks in UMD. Again, a trade-off - you can be good at one thing all the time, or good at anything for a little while, provided you know what you want to be good at 9 hours ahead of time.

Serenity
2007-12-08, 01:58 AM
3) and 4) Or you could just have some characters better at combat and less good at social, and some that are exactly the opposite. That way, they all shine, but not at the same time. You could also have inventive player who overcome their lack of sheer power with smart and original ideas, or who just like to roleplay their character well, no matter what level of power they have. Someone did talk about the need for diversity before, so I'll just say "read previous posts or more about this". Also, the combat/non-combat ratio will vary greatly, depending on the DM's style and the players' style.

It is never fun to be doing nothing at all. Every character ought to be capable of contributing something interesting and at least moderately effective in any given encounter, and if one character is consistently outperforming another character to the point of redundancy in a wide variety of areas, that is a problem. I don't have the patience to be a real optimizer, and the games I've played have been highly RP-based. My fun isn't based in the slightest on the knowledge that my character is extraordinarily powerful. However, I feel that it hurts my RP when one of my teammates makes me all but irrelevant.

horseboy
2007-12-08, 02:09 AM
Find me a human being capable of demolishing a solid foot thick wall of iron in a space of a minute with his bare hands. Find me any animal capable of doing that.

The naked mole rat can chew through it.


Provide a balanced system to start with and I'll start on it. In a couple of months or so when I get through turning it into a good unbalanced system, I'll let you know exactly what is involved in fixing it and what sort of progress I've made.

I'd start with Earthdawn, let the people that want to be weak play non-adepts. It grants far more "variations" of magic for those that want to be more powerful to choose from. Course, you'd probably have to spend a while untangling the crunch from 4th Earth.


Unless someone has stats for ships, that is... I'm sure they have to be out there somewhere. Regardless, that's enough to take down a bloody whale, so it would still give a ship a pretty bad day.

Ships have 1 hull point per ton, 1 hull point=10 hit points. Spelljammer, ftw.



DnD is balanced. Got it?You couldn't get me to believe that even when I'm drunk.


And that's low levels, before feats and iterative attacks come into play.
What are these "iterative attacks" of which you speak? :smallamused:

Armads
2007-12-08, 02:13 AM
Unless the trap is intelligent. Or only attacks spellcasters. Or will go off when smashed with a hammer. Or will hurt the clerics even if set off from a distance - Indiana Jones' Rolling Boulder, anyone? Or can't be smashed with a hammer - giant block of stone that descends from ceiling and then retracts, like in that one cool Elder Scrolls section where the NPC gets butchered?

Are there traps that only attack spellcasters?


That is the Wizards Forums.

Umm, your link to the 'debunking the myth of overpowered classes' is also to the wizards forums? Isn't that double standards?



Not all the Campaign Smashers are magic classes, if that was what you meant. Ever heard of the Lockdown Fighter? Not to mention that Charge damage guy in the thread you linked.

The lockdown fighter isn't a campaign smasher. Also, the charge damage characters extensively use spells (the old one used Miracle, the UberERcharger uses Polymorph, the Billions-of-damage one uses a huge variety of spells, such as Bite of the Werebear).



Do I go to anyone gaming table to see if it is true? Sure, some of them - who hasn't tried out Pun-Pun? Not to mention, those are builds. I'm talking overpowered casters here.

What do you mean? I don't understand what you're saying.



DnD is balanced.

Do you have any evidence? Your current evidence seems to be


"6) As such, if certain character types have the ability to do more things, and/or to strictly supercede other character types in a large number of situations, that person will be able to monopolize interaction to a greater degree; they will get more "screen time", as it were, and will get to interact more than the other people. Though this person will generally enjoy themselves, this causes the enjoyment of other players to decrease, as it is a social game and everyone wants to contribute."
isn't true without any supporting evidence.



Yup. Numbers do not equal ethos, and the examples they cite are never actual game stories - just hypotheticals.

Also, please read this. Debunks the myth of overpowered spellcasters pretty well.

It seems to be contradictory. On one hand, you say "actual game stories" are the ones that matter, not "hypotheticals", and on another hand, you link to the "debunking the myth of overpowered casters" thread, where some of the arguments are hypothetical (mainly the "Perfect DM does not allow this" arguments). Also, the poster has some facts wrong with his statements (e.g. "ray of enfeeblement doesn't work" thing, where it does work).

tyckspoon
2007-12-08, 02:30 AM
Are there traps that only attack spellcasters?

It'd have to be keyed on some kind of divination that could identify a person's ability to cast spells, but it's possible. I have to disagree with Streakster on the all-cleric party's ability to handle the traps: If you have four clerics, the party as a whole has spell slots to burn. One cleric can dedicate all his second-level slots to Find Traps and as many other spells as he wants to Summons and not significantly hurt the party's overall effectiveness. He'll cross-class Search and spend some portion of his wealth on increasing his Search check and probably get a wand or two of Find Traps. If he wants to step outside core, I'm sure there are domains that make Search a class skill and grant Trapfinding. With those changes, the cleric is exactly as good at looking for traps as the standard rogue. Even without them, he's not that far behind; Find Traps gives the cleric Trapfinding for long enough to search a suspicious area (searching takes a full round action per five-foot square. Do any rogues honestly search each and every dungeon square they encounter? Slows up the party something horrible.) and the spell's bonus helps cover for the lower cross-class limit.

Armads
2007-12-08, 02:42 AM
It'd have to be keyed on some kind of divination that could identify a person's ability to cast spells, but it's possible. I have to disagree with Streakster on the all-cleric party's ability to handle the traps: If you have four clerics, the party as a whole has spell slots to burn. One cleric can dedicate all his second-level slots to Find Traps and as many other spells as he wants to Summons and not significantly hurt the party's overall effectiveness. He'll cross-class Search and spend some portion of his wealth on increasing his Search check and probably get a wand or two of Find Traps. If he wants to step outside core, I'm sure there are domains that make Search a class skill and grant Trapfinding. With those changes, the cleric is exactly as good at looking for traps as the standard rogue. Even without them, he's not that far behind; Find Traps gives the cleric Trapfinding for long enough to search a suspicious area (searching takes a full round action per five-foot square. Do any rogues honestly search each and every dungeon square they encounter? Slows up the party something horrible.) and the spell's bonus helps cover for the lower cross-class limit.

The kobold domain for clerics grants trapfinding and the trap-related class skills.

Alex12
2007-12-08, 02:46 AM
The kobold domain for clerics grants trapfinding and the trap-related class skills.

...What? There's seriously a Kobold domain? Let me guess, Races of the Dragon?

Mando Knight
2007-12-08, 02:46 AM
The naked mole rat can chew through it.

Through solid iron in a minute? If it can... wow.

tyckspoon
2007-12-08, 02:49 AM
...What? There's seriously a Kobold domain? Let me guess, Races of the Dragon?

Your source for all Kobold-related awesomeness.

Titanium Dragon
2007-12-08, 03:12 AM
It isn't just powergamers who say that spellcasters are broken; its normal gamers. Once you hit upon being clericzilla, suddenly it is the most natural thing in the world. Worse still is batman, who isn't even a twink - he's just an ordinary wizard (or even a sorcerer). You don't even need to go outside of core for wizards and clerics and druids to be hideously powerful; all you need is sufficient levels and experience playing the game. This has the added unfortunate consequence of really hurting new players who enter; people WANT to make their own characters, but I often have to make someone's character so that they can blend with the party's power level in D&D (though lately, I've been playing a lot more GURPS (which I'm not sold on) and Alternity (totally sold on, it is awesome for post-modern settings)). When I play with a group of non-power gamers who only moderately optimize their characters and are very nice to each other, this isn't a problem, but not every group is ideal as that.

When I played here (e.g. where I am now), it wasn't a problem. I go away to college, and there, it is a RAMPANT problem. And the issue is that people don't even understand WHY it is a problem; they think making their characters strong is the way to go because they're used to having to compete with the other characters for attention. It is an ingrained mindset, and drove me mad. You will not always have a group of awesome people playing; sometimes the people will be less than awesome and will have this mindset, and it is very difficult to break them of it. I'm back, and it isn't a problem again - or at least, is less of one. The mage STILL takes over encounters, but he isn't obnoxious about it and it makes the other players feel less bad as we spend less time playing actually playing anyway. The longer we play, though, the more evident this becomes, and I'm at the point where I'm thinking that my next campaign will either be GURPS, Alternity, or a made-up system of my own devising.


But even if balance is perfect, people can still end up hogging the spotlight through force of personality. The way I see it, if someone is hogging the spotlight through an overly powerful character, and refuses to change the way they play for the benefit of the rest of the party at the DM's request, it is a symptom of a larger problem. The problem being, that this particular player cannot enjoy himself if he is not always the center of attention.

Balance doesn't get rid of problem players. It just changes how they ruin the game for everyone else.

People -can- end up hogging the spotlight regardless of the balance of the system or the lack thereof. That being said, a balanced system fixes the problem that the game itself gives someone the spotlight; then it is down to the DM. When the game itself is against the DM, that's a major problem. People don't like being told they can't do something because it is overpowered, and people simply don't want to read through three hundred pages of personal errata in word document telling them that their wizard cannot cast the following spells X, Y, and Z, that feat R is banned and feats Z and Q work differently together, ect.

When the DM says one thing, and the rules another, the DM is always right, but... the reality is that the rules are the rules. This isn't to say they MUST be followed, but they create a basic expectation for the game. If I tell someone I'm running a D&D campaign, they can at the very least make some general assumptions. When you change those general assumptions you may make them not want to play anymore, simple as that. This is why I am always very explicit when I make games, and nowadays I typically run core-only not because it is more balanced but rather simply because it prevents whining when I tell them that no, they cannot, in fact, be X. I might add options personally (mostly races and PrCs) and the odd feat (I substitute Improved Toughness for Toughness) but in general, I stick with the core rules base so that people can have certain common expectations and no one will feel sleighted that I won't allow obscure book X, Y, or Z. It also means I don't have to read every single supplement in order to know what my characters are capable of doing.


So, only 3/5 of the highest competitors in this arena competition are spellcasters, despite the fact that spellcasters excel in this sort of scenario, as I stated above?

Uh, no. He said what they always WERE, but... when did he give you percentages? For all we know, it is as follows:

90 Wizards
40 Clerics
30 Sorcerers
3 Warblades
1 Barbarian

That'd make it over 95% spellcasters.

Not to mention, pitting characters against each other is, by and large, completely irrelevant and indeed has nothing to do with game balance (well, little to do with it). What actually matters is what obstacles characters run into. Many people are preoccupied by the fact that a wizard can kill pretty much any other class effortlessly with little twinking. What is important is whether they can overcome encounters effortlessly.

And this is the core of why D&D is a broken system. I don't care that a wizard can completely stomp a fighter in combat because, while it comes up from time to time, it isn't all that important. What is important is that if I give a party the quest of going through the temple of melty, screamy pain whether everyone in the party can contribute (and, interestingly, I find the journey to the temple, plus the temple itself, a pretty good gauge of whether something is balanced). At low levels, all is well and good; the rogue finds and disarms the traps and opens the locks and maybe finds secret passageways and occaisoinally helps in combat, the cleric heals and fights effectively in combat and has the odd spell that is helpful, the wizard can read the ancient language and toss the occaisional powerful spell to weaken the most powerful of the enemies greatly, and the fighters basically chop merrily along in combat and take the limelight when they're fighting.

At higher levels, though, and this starts around level 5, but really gets bad once you get into the 7+ territory, the fighter's role in combat drops considerably. The rogue no longer is needed to find traps, a spell can do that, and doesn't need to climb the idol to pry out the gem, because the wizard can fly up there and pluck it out. The wizard can toss spells pretty indiscriminately and fry groups of enemies, and the cleric, now buffed with powerful self-buffing spells, will wade in and kill any really powerful enemy. This leaves the fighter and rogue with the resonsiblity of mopping up weak enemies not worth wasting spells on - a menial role at best, and something that could be done via NPCs. The role of the fighter and the rogue are completely taken over by the wizard and the cleric casting various useful spells. The further you get in levels, the worse this problem becomes. While it is tolerable at the 7th level point, the tolerability rapidly decreases and really, I shouldn't need to tolerate it in the first place as a DM OR as a player.

I might add that, playing as a spellcaster in D&D, I've found that I had way more options and really, way more interesting things to do. And this is a problem; every class should have as many interesting things to do, but really, wizards and clerics have lots, while the non-spellcasters have very few. This is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that wizards and sorcerers get hundreds of pages in the DMG, as compared to the other classes, which get far fewer for their unique abilities.


Another is the claim that "Melee characters outperform casters at low levels" which I have found patently untrue in actual play. There are others, but I don't want to type that much. I also didn't read the whole thread, just the first argument.

Until wizards get Fireball, they're actually quite hapless; the same is true (though to a lesser extent) of sorcerers. They really do have problems, though they can still do a lot - its just that their main power lies outside of combat. It isn't true at all of clerics, bards, and druids though; they're always useful at low levels (though bards, too, drop in effectiveness as time goes on, though at least THEY have a unique out of combat role - indeed, the most unique of them all in many ways).


1)I never saw "pre-scripted" written in the definitions of RPGs or the basics of D&D

I think this is largely true. When I set up an adventure, that is scripting. I don't tell the characters what to do specifically, but I do set things up generally. I give them a reason to go to the tower of the mad mage Alkahest, situated on top of the Cliffs of Insanity, a thousand foot high set of cliffs created during the Abberation War which are nearly unscalable, but there may be a way up through an ancient temple of a forbidden god. I also put things in their way for them to run into, like a bunch of fire beetles investigating their campsite at night or a caravan of halflings being attacked by gnolls. They don't have to react in any specific way, but these are things they'll encounter, and there are actions which they're likely to take (I might add that this does not always go as planned; most parties would attack the beetles on sight, assuming they were hostile, but these ones were just wandering around and didn't really want to get in a fight, so the party, by just watching them, avoided expending resources. Unexpected, but fine). But I do expect that they will go to the Cliffs, find some way up them, and go through the tower. And I think you do too.

It is true that you sometimes will run a spontaneous session, but this is much rarer.


3) and 4) Or you could just have some characters better at combat and less good at social, and some that are exactly the opposite. That way, they all shine, but not at the same time. You could also have inventive player who overcome their lack of sheer power with smart and original ideas, or who just like to roleplay their character well, no matter what level of power they have. Someone did talk about the need for diversity before, so I'll just say "read previous posts or more about this". Also, the combat/non-combat ratio will vary greatly, depending on the DM's style and the players' style.

I think you don't really understand what I was saying, or really, just how important what I said was.

You cannot have a character type who is good at combat and not good at non-combat, and vice-versa. This is a recipe for disaster. There are a wide variety of reasons why this is a bad idea, but I think the biggest one is what you stated in your post: campaigns vary considerably in their proportion of combat to non-combat. This is a good thing. But this also means that my statement is true: combat is common, and non-combat is common. A system needs to be able to handle both, and every character type needs to be able to handle both. Otherwise, those character types are not universal; each character type should be useful in both kinds of campaign, and moreover, they should be -equally- useful in both kinds of campaign.

The secondary reason for this is that no system is going to be perfectly balanced no matter how much you test it. As such, having some amount of redundancy is a good thing; by having every character good at both things, if one character type is actually worse at combat than was anticipated, then at least it is still good at non-combat stuff, and vice-versa. That should not be your design goal, however, and a game designed with that in mind is a flawed one.

And yes, some people will enjoy playing underpowered characters, but first off, few people enjoy it all the time, and second, most people don't enjoy it at all, especially when they didn't MEAN to play an underpowered character. Saying the player needs to be more clever or the gamemaster needs to be more clever is to say you don't understand the purpose of a gaming system. An RPG system exists such that we all have a common set of basic assumptions about what can and cannot be done and how to do it, and moreover, that system should be balanced in and of itself. Its okay for it to put out underpowered characters, but it shouldn't put out underpowered characters accidentally. People should know going into something that it is, in fact, underpowered; it should be there in the book. Diversity is a good thing, but balance is actually more important than diversity, because without balance, you don't have a fun game.

Alternity, my example of a really good RP system, gives everyone access to EVERY skill - classes of sorts exist, but they are far less rigid and, moreover, characters are expected to be and have the ability to be well-rounded, picking up various other things. So while you might be a rifleman, you've also got some survival skills, some knowledge of the military, and some knowledge of security systems, along with the ability to operate a motor vehicle better than the average bear (this is not universal, just an example; any particular combat spec might be different). Conversely, a cybersurgeon may excel at surgury, but he also knows about cybernetics, robotics, biology, chemistry, high society, and maybe some other technology related things. He may not even know how to fire a gun, but that's okay, because while there are gunfights there are other things for him to do pretty much all the time (not to mention not last very long when people are unconcious after just a few shots).


Now, second argument: How much time a decent fight takes from a RPG group? My gameplay experience states that a encounter o the proper level to the Party CR takes from 20 to 60 (a extremely hard or multipourpose/"out of the book"/unusual encounter) minutes depending on the number of monsters, their average power and availbility of a full caster present by the time. Meaning that if you take your group trought 4-6 encounters in one gaming day you will get from 80-360 minutes expent into resolving fights with monsters. Ok, this is probably oe of the most un things in DeD, to kill monsters. But if you spend and average of 220 minutes fighting, you won't get much time for expanding the story or the roleplaying. Well, at least I am not used to have more tah 6 hours availble to go into RPG, neither any o my group mates are. So, for us, having that ammount of encounters per day is impossible. This is probably our problem, but it is waht my experience tells.

This is actually quite common. I suspect the reality is that the supposed 2-3 hour play time in the book is more or less made up; in my experience, a very short session is 2 hours, a short one is 3 hours, and an average one is 4-5 hours. It is "long" if it goes to 6 hours. This is the way the game is "intented" to be played, unfortunately, which doesn't work out quite right. As such, with a 2-3 hour playgroup, you split up sessions like this. It is possible, after all, to end a session without the characters being asleep; cliffhangers are fun, and a good way to get around it (though ending in the middle of combat is bad). I think it is a flaw of the system that a 2-3 hour session is often insufficient.

Jayabalard
2007-12-08, 03:13 AM
DnD is balanced. Got it?This is irrelevant... the topic is "why would you want balance?" not "is D&D balanced?"

Alex12
2007-12-08, 04:20 AM
Your source for all Kobold-related awesomeness.

What page is it on? I looked, and can't find it.

Armads
2007-12-08, 06:04 AM
...What? There's seriously a Kobold domain? Let me guess, Races of the Dragon?

It's not actually in the book, but it's on a web enhancement for RotD here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a)

Alex12
2007-12-08, 06:28 AM
It's not actually in the book, but it's on a web enhancement for RotD here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a)
I love it. I just love it. Trapsmith Clerics. That is so appropriate and at the same time awesome.

Issabella
2007-12-08, 12:12 PM
Very very late to the debate, my apologie.

The reason balance is expected is because each level costs the same, which leds to the assumption that each level in class x is as valuable as class y. Which in actuality is pure nonsense.

When I stated playing, each class had different exp costs to level. The magic user actually cost the most, followed down by others. Rogues could get exp based on the gold they stole (which frequently meant the rogue was +5 levels rather quickly with a big score at early levels) The reason was, as the designers admitted some classes where more powerful then others.

Irreverent Fool
2007-12-08, 04:28 PM
This is something that has bothered me for a long time as I read the boards.

Why do we expect classes to be balanced?

I mean, seriously, think about it.

Should a fighter be on the same level as a wizard? No; because one swings a sword, the other changes the laws of physics.

Should a monk be on the same level as a cleric? No; because while one takes the human(oid) body to it's limits, the other has an all-powerful diety on his/her side.

I see a lot of complaints about how powerful the batman-wizard or Cleric/Druid-zilla is, and my first thought is "well...yeah, they use magic. It's powerful stuff."

In one of the recent threads about Tome of Battle, there was a comment that ToB helped bring melee characters to the level of spellcasters again. This is not a good thing. No matter how well you can swing a sword, you shouldn't be able to beat someone who can stop time, make things spontaniously combust, summon demons to his/her aid, and utter words so powerful that things die just by hearing it.

I've got some theories about why people rant about balance (which I'll put in the spoiler below), but on a fundamental level, why do you think we expect the classes to be balanced?

Some of my theories for people wanting balance are:
- They are trying to "beat" d&d as if it were a video game
- They are trying to impress other people with how awesome their make-believe character is
- They really enjoy throwing lots of dice
- They can’t stand losing the spotlight
- They don't want to accept that the unfairness of real-life carries over into make-believe life.
- They are trying to rectify cool character concepts with competitiveness to be better than those around them.
Note: Most of these are very tongue-in-cheek. Except for the last one, that’s one I really do believe is the case 92% of the time


You are a breath of fresh air, my friend. While I doubt you'll get much support, you remind me of the good ol' days of 2nd ed. Hear hear! Why should a guy that hits things with sticks be on an equal footing with a guy that can teleport to other dimensions at will? WHY?

Of course, in 2nd ed., this was 'balanced' by a low number of spells per day, a slower level progression, and even more squishieness. Alas!

EvilElitest
2007-12-08, 04:50 PM
It seems like most of these arguments only involve comparisons of how much damage can be dealt and the like. I dunno, I don't think that works. Not all classes are meant to deal a lot of damage. In the case of spellcasters, too (I suppose druids and clerics largely excluded), the die a lot, or at least are at risk of it. A party isn't just attacking, it's being attacked, too. You want a party to be balanced? Then stop playing the enemies like idiots, and have them take out the wizard and cleric first.
There's also the fact that, although wizards and sorcerers and the like can deal horrendous amounts of damage, that's not what they're for. I can't remember where I read it (Logic Ninja's Guide?), but they're meant to control the battlefield, not obliterate it. The fighters are meant to be the major damage-dealer, and furthermore they have plenty enough adaptability to carve their own niche in the party.
It seems to me that most, if not all, the "balance" issues of the classes are easily solvable by creative character creation, DM fiat ("I'd prefer it if you didn't take Natural Spell"), and/or inter-player communication.
wait, the fact that the Dm has to go out of his way for every combat just to allow the players of the fighters to feel useful is a problem in its self
from,
EE

fortebraccio
2007-12-08, 06:09 PM
Why balance? Because D&D is a game. And games are meant to be challenging. Playing chess with twice the starting pieces of your opponent would be challenging? Playing basketball with blindfolded people would be challenging?

Why magic shouldn't be that powerful? Because D&D spells take only a few seconds to cast, their casting is never risky nor taxing, they are automatically learned by characters for free just like the class abilities of any mundane class. What about the old fantasy clichè "great power comes at a great price"? Old, stale and unsuitable for a game? Think for a moment about the D&D alternative: great power comes for free! Wow.

Woot Spitum
2007-12-08, 07:31 PM
Why balance? Because D&D is a game. And games are meant to be challenging. Playing chess with twice the starting pieces of your opponent would be challenging? Playing basketball with blindfolded people would be challenging?In chess, whoever goes first has an advantage. In basketball, the team with taller and/or faster players has an advantage. In spite of this, people still enjoy both these games tremendously. And no one goes around suggesting that chess turns should be simultaneous or that special rules should be added to basketball to make up for physical disparities. Why should D&D be any different?


Why magic shouldn't be that powerful? Because D&D spells take only a few seconds to cast, their casting is never risky nor taxing, they are automatically learned by characters for free just like the class abilities of any mundane class. What about the old fantasy clichè "great power comes at a great price"? Old, stale and unsuitable for a game? Think for a moment about the D&D alternative: great power comes for free! Wow.You can do this easily if you ditch the current XP system and make leveling up much longer and more difficult for everyone, perhaps even ruling that no one levels up until the DM thinks they've done enough to warrant it.

HadrianLivius
2007-12-08, 08:08 PM
In chess, whoever goes first has an advantage. In basketball, the team with taller and/or faster players has an advantage. In spite of this, people still enjoy both these games tremendously. And no one goes around suggesting that chess turns should be simultaneous or that special rules should be added to basketball to make up for physical disparities. Why should D&D be any different?

Because the disparity you are talking about in basketball or chess is one of ability, not the rules. The rules in both are the same for every player; the black player in chess doesn't get more pieces than the white player, for instance. A player with more experience in D&D will be more powerful than a novice no matter the classes, just because he or she's been at it longer and knows all the tricks.

But to answer the question "why balance?" you need to look at something touched on by a number of posters above: balance is necessary so that the CR and level system makes sense.

The whole point of the CR system is so that a DM can construct a challenging encounter for a party that won't get them killed but won't be a push-over. Sure, a DM with years of experience who's played with a groups of PCs can figure out this without such a system, but the whole idea was to create a short hand that can assist DMs who don't have the experience or time to perform the necessary calculations. So, in the end a CR 8 encounter, for example, should be appropriate for a party of roughly four Level 8 characters. Maybe it could be handled by some Level 7 parties or be to much for some Level 9 parties, but the range isn't supposed to be very large.

Now, wouldn't it be great if it didn't matter what the composition of that party was in terms of class? If my players all want to be fighters they could handle it just the same as if they were all wizards?** Sure, the tactics would be different and maybe a less diverse party would have a harder time of it (specifically in special circumstances or against special monsters) but I wouldn't inadvertantly kill the party by having them face too much of a challenge or be giving them a cakewalk, i.e. I could rely on the Levels and the CR to match up.

The problem right now is that levels aren't equal. A Level 8 fighter has the same combat power of a Level 5 wizard (just an abstract example, please don't start arguing that this isn't true). A Level 8 cleric has the power of Level 10 rogue. Sure, as a DM I can create a conversion to figure out were my party falls in terms of CR, but I shouldn't have to. If the classes were balanced in terms of their power by level it would be easier on the DM. And while some people have the time to figure out solutions of their own, a balanced system would be infinitely more helpful to a casual DM than an unbalanced one.

And that's why there should be balance.

**I know someone will respond to this by protesting that the CR system is designed for a team of cleric, wizard, rogue, and fighter specifically and that deviations from this will invalidate the CR/Level system. I don't dispute this. But if the classes were balanced in their power this wouldn't happen. And since the whole debate is why one might want balance, this isn't really an on-point argument.

Arakune
2007-12-08, 09:01 PM
Titanium, I just have a little disaggrement with you in the matter that everyone should be good at combat and non-combat stuff. Sure, you don't need to be a mad/psyco/killer/too-much-shy-it's-irritating (unless you are female. Yes, it's double standard, bite me :smalltongue: ), but you don't need to be an expert or have enough proficiency to fill a role. Just enough to not be 'me fighter, me smash stuff to death'.

If you get the fighter, he should be good at intimidating (of course), maybe should have some healing skills (they tend to be hurt a lot), and the all good and why-on-earth-this-isn't-class-skills-for-every-melee-class listen and maybe spot, handle animal is a plus since they can ride and they can show some moments of aptitude (but not always useful when you have a druid or a ranger, but he can be good), one free knowledge field or nobility/tactics-warfire/nature/history/etc .

Not best thing. It's even not that GOOD, but not entirely useless outside of combat.

Woot Spitum
2007-12-09, 12:11 AM
Because the disparity you are talking about in basketball or chess is one of ability, not the rules. The rules in both are the same for every player; the black player in chess doesn't get more pieces than the white player, for instance. A player with more experience in D&D will be more powerful than a novice no matter the classes, just because he or she's been at it longer and knows all the tricks.Going second in chess has nothing to do with ability and everything to do with the rules. You can overcome this disadvantage, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a disadvantage. Some people may be better at basketball than others, but some people are better at making strong D&D characters than others as well. But as long as everyone is having fun, why change anything? This is even more true about D&D than other games as D&D isn't meant to be "won."

Indon
2007-12-09, 01:03 AM
In chess, whoever goes first has an advantage.

I might note that Chess is not known to have an advantage to the first or second player, though many suspect such an advantage exists. Chess is very hard to analyze completely.

And no, the first player does not have an advantage in all games. In Nim, in fact, the second player is proven to have an advantage.


It isn't just powergamers who say that spellcasters are broken; its normal gamers. Once you hit upon being clericzilla, suddenly it is the most natural thing in the world. Worse still is batman, who isn't even a twink - he's just an ordinary wizard (or even a sorcerer).

No. It's people experienced with powergaming who say that. Even if they themselves don't practice it.

The "normal" gamers who come onto this forum are the ones who, despite having played the game for years (and no, they probably aren't all gibbering morons either!) still post on the forums things like "So I hear spellcasters are overpowered? Why?" and "So what houserules do you use to tone down the monk, 'cause they rock too hard in the games I play." They don't 'hit upon' clericzilla or Batman; they are told about them. Even the people who do figure them out generally only figure out a comparatively small facet... and they learn the rest on a forum such as this.

But, it's a fact that when people get together, they talk, and they groupthink up optimal courses of action, and they shun and mock anyone who disagrees or who doesn't care for the same gameplay paradigm, and so on, so it's quite reasonable to expect the Internet to produce a significant number of people who expect spellcasters to be overpowered whenever they're played. I see the same phenomenon occur continuously on the forums of an MMO I enjoy playing (and after seeing it for years, I swear I still find it fascinating).

And that phenomenon is something that the makers of, well, any popular role-playing game must deal with, as it'll only get bigger with time.

horseboy
2007-12-09, 01:36 AM
But as long as everyone is having fun, why change anything? This is even more true about D&D than other games as D&D isn't meant to be "won."
Well, for starters, as one of the proponent's for D&D even points out, they, when they DM, spend 6-11 hours before a cession starts getting ready. I MIGHT spend an hour creating a from scratch magic item, complete with back story. That'll be the faucet I spend the most time working on. There's no need to have to fight the system that hard to be able to have fun.

Kompera
2007-12-09, 07:58 AM
We're talking about the downside of having it [balance]; namely, the restriction to diversity. A balanced system is simply narratively weaker, because it is balanced.Nonsense. Narrative is purely a construct of the imagination. It has absolutely nothing to do with the game system. Any narrative which can be crafted in RAW D&D can also be crafted in a hypothetically balanced D&D, or in any other game system.

There is zero downside to balance. While the downside to imbalance is many fold.

Here's an example based on the 'narrative' theory of imbalance being a fine thing. Take a survey. Ask potential players, or your current group of players, the following:

"I plan on running a D&D game which I am going to turn into a novel. That said, there will be a main character and there will be extras. One of the players will therefore be be the main character. S/he will be doing most of the talking, overcoming most of the challenges faced, defeating most of the monsters fought, and beating the most epic of traps and the most notable of opponents.
The rest of the players will be extras. You'll be skilled in certain things, and can help out in certain ways. But you're mostly extras and minor characters who will not be of the same power level as the main character. Some of your abilities will be unique to you, but most of them will be possessed by the main character, or s/he will have spells which approximate them in such a way that those abilities will be redundant. Most of what you can do, the main character will be able to do better.
Who is interested in playing in this game?"

While I'd wager that there are indeed players who would not have any issue with this, I'd also wager that the vast majority of players would not care to play if they were to be assigned to be one of the extras.


I think one key question that needs to be asked is this: If I'm playing a fighter, or a monk, or a Paladin, or an , and some of the other players are going to be playing clerics and wizards, [i]will I still have fun? If the answer is yes, then I think that whining and moaning over balance is irrelevant. If the answer is no, then it's relevant.I believe that most players would enjoy a game in which their character could do something which no other character could, over a game in which all of their characters abilities are equaled or exceeded by one or more of the other player's characters. I know that I personally will look over the existing group and then select a character concept and class/feat selection which will give me a niche in which I can shine within the group. There is little fun in being mediocre, or equaled or exceeded by one or more of the other player's characters on every ability possessed by your own character.


An equal CR encounter should take 20 to 25% of the resources of a party of four. It follows that an equal CR encounter for a lone adventurer should take 80-100% of his resources.Not really. Four players working in unison against a single monster have a huge amount of synergy over a single player working alone. Four actions, and the ability to focus all of their attacks on the sole monster make for a completely different fight than a single player against that same monster. Over the duration of the fight the group of four will take far less damage total than the solo player, since it'll take much longer to kill by the solo player. And the group has the advantage of support. If one player is wounded severely the group can act to protect, heal, or rotate out of combat that player while the rest continue the fight. The solo player has no such option.

EvilElitest
2007-12-09, 12:56 PM
Why balance? Are you kidding? Do you know how hard it is to walk over an oiled makeshift log bridge above a 200 foot chasm? Jeesh.

I did that just last week, it took ages, and just after I finished a bloke on a unicycle did it faster than me. Jerk:smallmad:
from,
EE

Ralfarius
2007-12-09, 03:18 PM
I did that just last week, it took ages, and just after I finished a bloke on a unicycle did it faster than me. Jerk:smallmad:
from,
EE
Ahh, man. Made you look like a chump! :smalltongue:

Koga
2007-12-09, 03:39 PM
Magic should be awesome, you're right.

But power is not easy to obtain, and even harder to keep.


Instead of paladins always fearing loss of paladinhood, it should be clerics. Paladins are inspired, but not active worshippers of dieties. Yet I see more strict alignment penalties on them. Which is bullcrap.


If I'm a diety, and i'm like "hey guy, you should kill people for me", I don't expect him to know he can't eat pork on fridays or whatever.


A cleric should, and that's how "game balance" comes about. It's not the mechanics fault that GM's don't innitiate enough balance through RP. Clerics should have to tediously worship to gain the respect and trust of thier diety.


They could be in the heat of battle, and the cleric not fight, why? Because this is the time of the day he's suppose to be praying. Regardless of what's going on around him. A baby could be hanging from a rope, and yeah, a paladin would go running to save the baby, most people would.

But a cleric aint just somebody. They're worshippers first, and adventurers second.



Druids too, druids should be much more cautious of thier spells because damage effects everyone. It effects the sorroundings, it effects the atmosphere. Abusing the enviorment obviously is not good etiquite for a druid.


And more importantly, why doesn't a GM ever implement a backfire mechanic? Concentration exsists for a reason..


If a spellcaster fails thier concencration check, best case scenario, the spell fails, and nothing happens.

Worst case scenario, something terrible happens. You cast fireball, you failed concentration check.

"Where the hell is that fireball?!"
*Everyone looks up and sees a huge ball of fire hurdeling towards them*
"Oh there it is.."


Common sense would dictate that sorcerers/bards have less extreme backfire results of spell's failing because hey, they cast spells "naturaly". (Also it explains why they suck compared to other casters..)


Obviously it's not a strict book sense of rules, but more of a take it by individual basis set of rules. Which I assume D&D was like at some point in time.

Woot Spitum
2007-12-09, 04:46 PM
A cleric should, and that's how "game balance" comes about. It's not the mechanics fault that GM's don't innitiate enough balance through RP. Clerics should have to tediously worship to gain the respect and trust of thier diety.
They could be in the heat of battle, and the cleric not fight, why? Because this is the time of the day he's suppose to be praying. Regardless of what's going on around him. A baby could be hanging from a rope, and yeah, a paladin would go running to save the baby, most people would.
But a cleric aint just somebody. They're worshippers first, and adventurers second.
Druids too, druids should be much more cautious of thier spells because damage effects everyone. It effects the sorroundings, it effects the atmosphere. Abusing the enviorment obviously is not good etiquite for a druid.Actually, it doesn't make much sense for clerics or druids to choose adventuring over taking care of their congregation/natural habitat. But the party needs its healbot, so we're stuck with the current system. (Lidda: I don't see how you find the time to worship considering we end up fighting all the time. Jozan: If I miss the morning prayer, I pray twice in the afternoon. Pelor is very understanding.)



And more importantly, why doesn't a GM ever implement a backfire mechanic? Concentration exsists for a reason..
If a spellcaster fails thier concencration check, best case scenario, the spell fails, and nothing happens.
Worst case scenario, something terrible happens. You cast fireball, you failed concentration check.
Because it adds even more stuff for the DM to constantly keep track of. The price you pay for being a spellcaster is spending more time making your character, as well as spending a lot of time bookeeping and carefully planning your spellcasting.

Indon
2007-12-09, 06:45 PM
Nonsense. Narrative is purely a construct of the imagination. It has absolutely nothing to do with the game system. Any narrative which can be crafted in RAW D&D can also be crafted in a hypothetically balanced D&D, or in any other game system.


A short time after making that comment, I made a simple example: A 'balanced' system can not model both a world in which magic is rare, difficult, and such powers as flight are unattainable (such as Conan's world), and a world like Eberron or Forgotten Realms, without essentially rewriting (and probably unbalancing) the magic system.

There. Narrative weakness, manifest. But feel free to try to describe the hypothetically balanced D&D that can pull it off, because in our unbalanced D&D I can just say "Binders and Truenamers are this world's wizards and sorcerors, other arcanists don't exist" and I'm done for the first, and obviously D&D supports the second easily.

Edit: Actually, can Binders fly? I don't know much about the higher-level Binder powers...

Serenity
2007-12-09, 06:55 PM
Presuming our hypothetical balanced system still uses level based spellcasting? Restrict arcanists to casting only up to a certain level of spells. Having set that limit, it's a quick matter to drop any spells within that much smaller selection that don't fit the flavor. Done.

Sstoopidtallkid
2007-12-09, 07:06 PM
If you increase the number of spells they can cast a day, then it will still be close to balanced while preserving the flavor. Not perfect, but at least close.

Indon
2007-12-09, 07:06 PM
Presuming our hypothetical balanced system still uses level based spellcasting? Restrict arcanists to casting only up to a certain level of spells. Having set that limit, it's a quick matter to drop any spells within that much smaller selection that don't fit the flavor. Done.

So if I want to run an enemy in a Conan-like universe, my BBEG is going to be Sorceror 2/Fighter XX? My PC's will discover that the Dark Paths of Sorcery take little more than a month of adventuring before, well, you're done, and you might as well learn to hit things harder now?

Edit: I know I didn't specify a good solution, but I should think it's implied.

Serenity
2007-12-09, 07:24 PM
No, they can only learn so many spell levels. They can still advance to level 20, at which point the sheer number of times that they can cast will still make them a force to be reckoned with. Sorry if I phrased it poorly.

Yahzi
2007-12-09, 08:37 PM
In chess, whoever goes first has an advantage.
The short answer is, "no."

The long answer is, it's such a small advantage that it doesn't matter, because a good player will beat a bad player regardless of who is black and who is white.

The problem with D&D is that a well-built and and well-played Fighter cannot beat an adequately build and adequately played Wizard.

Sleet
2007-12-09, 09:52 PM
The short answer is, "no."

The long answer is, it's such a small advantage that it doesn't matter, because a good player will beat a bad player regardless of who is black and who is white.

And in (edit: most) tournament play, players play several games against each other, alternating who is white and who is black, thus eliminating any (real or imagined) advantage to white.

Titanium Dragon
2007-12-10, 06:40 AM
And in (edit: most) tournament play, players play several games against each other, alternating who is white and who is black, thus eliminating any (real or imagined) advantage to white.


No. It's people experienced with powergaming who say that. Even if they themselves don't practice it.

I suspect its actually at least partially the level of intelligence of the people you're playing with, as well as the diversity of people you play with. Thing is though, I've known for years that spellcasters were better than nonspellcasters simply on the grounds of diversity. Spellcasters have so many more options than non-spellcasters. This doesn't inherently make them more powerful, but it does make them more fun to play.

Added to this problem is the fact that they are, in fact, more powerful. Sure, I didn't realize how good some spells were until I saw them in action, but they weren't always at the hands of a powergamer - I figured out a number of them via casting them myself or someone else memorizing it as a one-off and it completely changing an encounter. The first time someone turns into a creature with burrow movement to bypass major dungeon obstacles, and this will happen in an intelligent group sooner or later, polymorph becomes broken. Worse still is when the DM hasn't realized this yet and continues to put forth obstacles so easily circumvented by clever use of polymorph. Once someone uses polymorph or shapeshifting capabilities clever once, they're forever after problematic.


The "normal" gamers who come onto this forum are the ones who, despite having played the game for years (and no, they probably aren't all gibbering morons either!) still post on the forums things like "So I hear spellcasters are overpowered? Why?" and "So what houserules do you use to tone down the monk, 'cause they rock too hard in the games I play." They don't 'hit upon' clericzilla or Batman; they are told about them. Even the people who do figure them out generally only figure out a comparatively small facet... and they learn the rest on a forum such as this.

I don't think a lot of people understand how good batman is even throughly non-optimized until playing as both a DM and as a PC. If you haven't been on both sides of the table, and really, been in all three positions (the supercharacter, the supercharacter's sidekick, and the DM who has to deal with the supercharacter) you really do not understand the problems it causes. Thing is, batman is a problem even when someone isn't playing him conciously; it happens unconciously all the time. At some point I started to realize that certain players were taking over because their characters could do everything, and I saw the pattern time and again. It was always, and is always, versatility. As a DM, I figured out the problem was not the other PCs, nor even the player of the problem PC, but the rules of the game itself. The rules ALLOW such dominance and indeed, once you've seen it, it always is there. Sure, I'm sure some people see it for the first time on forums...

...but most don't. You're under the terrible, terrible misconception that this is a problem caused by forums. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. I have gamed with a wide variety of people, and in any group of intelligent gamers you'll find that casters are problems and have to be built around, and even then they can and do cause problems by being too powerful or too versatile. I've seen this in many people who have never even seen a D&D gaming forum. This has nothing to DO with D&D gaming forums. The out of the box power of the cleric, druid, and wizard is vastly out of whack with the other classes. Sure, you can get away with SOME other classes but the reality is that the casters always have more options and more power, even amongst people who don't know how good Solid Fog is. This is a fairly common defensive mechanism; "WotC wouldn't make a broken game" or "casters aren't -really- broken" or "But it takes so much optimization!" These are all defensive mechanisms to avoid the truth: That D&D is a fundamentally flawed system and that you paid large quantities of money to Wizards of the Coast for a defective product. You want to blame it on everyone but the people whose fault it is.


But, it's a fact that when people get together, they talk, and they groupthink up optimal courses of action, and they shun and mock anyone who disagrees or who doesn't care for the same gameplay paradigm, and so on, so it's quite reasonable to expect the Internet to produce a significant number of people who expect spellcasters to be overpowered whenever they're played. I see the same phenomenon occur continuously on the forums of an MMO I enjoy playing (and after seeing it for years, I swear I still find it fascinating).

MMOs are rather a different ball of wax, mostly because MMOs are not actually fun so much as they are an addiction. People with addictions have rather different problems; nerfing wizards might get D&D players moaning and groaning, but we'll move on. MMO players will not because they're addicts. Its like the people who smoked cigerrettes and couldn't handle that they were bad for them.

The reality is that there is no expectation that spellcasters will outshine everyone else; the reality is that spellcasters DO outshine everyone else in D&D because of design flaws inherent to the system which have never been dealt with, probably because WotC spends more money on R&D for Magic than anything else.


A short time after making that comment, I made a simple example: A 'balanced' system can not model both a world in which magic is rare, difficult, and such powers as flight are unattainable (such as Conan's world), and a world like Eberron or Forgotten Realms, without essentially rewriting (and probably unbalancing) the magic system.

Ah, but there's a major difference between the two worlds: in the Conan world, you can be any class. In a high-magic world, everyone should be spellcasters. And I'm not saying this as in "this is character optimization"; I'm saying this as in "this should be a basic premise of the system".

Basically, if D&D wants to have fighters, they need to be low Magic. If they don't want to have fighters, that's fine, but there shouldn't be anyone who isn't a powerful spellcaster available as a core character class.

Craig1f
2007-12-10, 09:47 AM
Pi is exactly 3.

Indon
2007-12-10, 11:23 AM
No, they can only learn so many spell levels. They can still advance to level 20, at which point the sheer number of times that they can cast will still make them a force to be reckoned with. Sorry if I phrased it poorly.

But it won't. Aside from pouring through the spell lists and selectively restricting every spell that doesn't fit for my environment (a task significantly more time-consuming than simply balancing the 3.5 magic system in the first place, I might add), I'm basically telling my casters that after a low level, they gain almost nothing from gaining a level. Now, I could fix _that_ by giving them more non-spellcaster features, like raising HD and armor proficiencies, and so on... but by now, I've basically made entirely new classes, and completely revamped the magic system, anyway. Which is precisely what I didn't want to have to do.

Jayabalard
2007-12-10, 01:12 PM
MMOs are rather a different ball of wax, mostly because MMOs are not actually fun so much as they are an addiction. I suggest starting this as a separate topic if you want to preach to people about this; beyond the fact that it's kind of rude, it has nothing to do with the topic at hand.


There is zero downside to balance. False; just because you don't dislike some of the things that balance brings to the game does not mean that they are not downsides to other people.

Morty
2007-12-10, 06:13 PM
False; just because you don't dislike some of the things that balance brings to the game does not mean that they are not downsides to other people.

You do realize, of course, that it works the other way around as well? Just curious.