Can we build the math from the ground up? (And does Vancian help or hurt that?)

[Man_Over_Game]

I think it works well within the context of a specific encounter. If you set things up so that the standard encounter has 5 enemies and lasts 3 rounds (or whatever numbers), variable resources within that encounter give DMs a powerful tool to fine-tune balance during their game. If the Warlock (who gets at-will Invocations) is underperforming, have a longer fight. If the Wizard (who gets a bunch of AoE effects) is underperforming, have fights with larger numbers of enemies. And so on and so forth. Even if your game is mechanically perfectly balanced, it won't be balanced in practice, so you need to give people tools to adjust in practice. In this case, it also simply makes for more interesting gameplay.



There's a limit to which this is possible. Many abilities aren't clearly divisible into "combat" and "non-combat". A classic example would be Silent Image. You can use it in combat to trick enemies, but you can also use it to avoid combat entirely, or in social situations. I agree with your general point that you cannot and should not be balancing characters as having a total number of points to stick into a combination of "combat stuff" and "non-combat stuff", but neither can you treat them as entirely separate.

On the first point, I do agree that you can have those mismatches, it's just important to call them out and identify them and when they can be an issue.

I think a better way of implementing it than, say 5e's version of "You get At-Will powers, while you get Long Rest powers", is allow people the option of choice. Maybe have a feature for Wizards to recharge some of their Long Rest powers on a Short Rest, to bridge that gap. 5e does have some of that (with Wizards in particular), but it's not very consistent (Rogues generally get no resources whatsoever).


On the second point, I disagree. Combat can easily be broken down into a fairly simple list of rules, conditions and criteria. It's all of the noncombat stuff that gets really complicated. All you'd really have to do is steamline a lot of the effects someone could expect to occur in combat.

For example, what happens when someone encounters an illusion in combat? This is something that 5e has no suggestions for, despite having about 10 different powers that do so.

You wouldn't need to do everything, you'd just need to implement broad conditions/triggers that occur during very basic circumstances. For example "When a creature that is 'unstable' spends an Action to Attack or Cast A Spell, they must make a Concentration Check if they are Concentrating on a spell, and they provoke an Opportunity Attack from all adjacent creatures that aren't suffering from the same effect". That's not specific to Sleet Storm or Grease, or any other instance of an effect that'd make a creature unstable.

You can "combatify" non-combat effects into making them combat effects. The problem is the disparity. If a Wizard gets Silent Image, and the Barbarian gets Grapple, how does the Barbarian use Grapple in a non-combat situation? Maybe you can make one example, but can you make enough for everyone?

Can you make enough nonviolent Fighter features for them to compete with a Bard or a Wizard in the same element?