Why balance classes?

[kensai]

To play the devil's advocate here, should the classes be balanced? Or not?

If some class is inherently weaker than another, it still makes for great tales. For example, spell casters may well be stronger than everybody else of the same level, assuming that they are few, which they may well be. Not everyone has the spark for magic, after all. Further, giving the richness of the rules and details out there, loopholes and combinations that give an unexpected edge are bound to come up again and again, so balancing classes perfectly is like fighting windmills. Not that that should stop people from trying - the material creative folks come up with is very useful and interesting.

To get back to basics, balance imo does not mean that everyone should be equal. Rather, it means no one is superior to everybody else. The simplest case of such a balance is the rock-scissors-paper kind of balance; A defeats B most of the time; B defeats C most of the time; and C defeats A most of the time.

Here, it could be, for example, fighters vs. wizards vs. rogues. Those three could be designed so that one of the three kinds of characters is at a disadvantage vs another kind, and has an edge against the third. But who beats whom?

Perhaps, very early on fighters are practically spell-proof against the humble magics that a wizard can hurl, but they are usually not perceptive enough to detect rogues, and tend to get their throats cut. Novice rogues however lack the means to get past rudimentary arcane defenses, and are detected and defeated by simple spells. However, an advanced rogue gradually manages to avoid and spot spells and wards, and to hide his presence from scrying. At the same time, fighters get so tough that a rogue, a sure loser in a fair fight, is hard-pressed also in an unfair fight. An advanced wizard gets access to devastation massive enough to defeat the fighter.

Or, it could work the other way around, as long as the principle A > B > C > A remains intact. D20 as I know it does not aspire for that kind of a balance, as spellcasters start humble but eventually outgun everybody and everything else.

I wonder if that's a good thing?

[KoDT69]

I agree 100%. Not every class is the best or the worst given any situation. The skill of the player can make a legendary Bard with all 10 stat scores, while the inexperienced player having a Wizard with all 18 stats could be mediocre at best due to gaming exprience.

[Druid]

The gane doesn't have to be completely balanced, the problem is that the gap between classes is astronomical. I do like your idea for a balance system, but what happens to classes that span multiple character roles, such as rangers of duskblades?

[elliott20]

The problem that people often forget two things:

1. context:

The context of the campaign should set the frequency, and at the same time, the power of a particular class. Not everyone is going to be a wizard and not every wizard should be able to achieve wielding the 9th level spells, nevermind actually casting them 3-4 times a day.

So, how do you achieve this control of frequency? You have to make sure that if a character is as powerful, he needs to really pay for it. You want the power to see the future as it unfolds? Give up your left eye. You want the power to smite heathens with a single wave of your hand? Your other hand needs to be a stump. that, or you need to be ridiculously special to have this power. That way, even if your fighter finds himself routinely outclassed by the party wizard, you know that said party wizard had to pay a huge price for this power and deserves to be that powerful.

These are all things that are not inherent within the mechanics themselves.

The problem is when you leave this control of context in the hands of the GM and not in the hands of the system, while controlling every other aspect of the game. That is, if we follow game system's progression, the wizard merely needs to do the same amount of work as the fighter (as by virtue of the XP they must earn) to gain power that is exponentially more than the fighter.

So, while fighter A and Mage B have been adventuring the same amount of time, the two of them have done pretty much experienced similar events, Mage B has managed to achieve exponentially greater than fighter A. And this is supported by the very mechanics itself. The wizard doesn't need to expend more xp, or more of anything else, to gain the new spells that can make reality his biatch. no, he just needs to level up with the fighter at the same time and guess what, the fighter is now basically his beefed up henchman.

Granted, if the GM knows how to play his hand right, he would make the casters really earn every bit of overwhelming power they have over their peers. And that's fine. But when you force a GM to balance out a system that is inherently and mechanically balanced, you leave some people with less thought on the matter out in the cold.

2. efficiency

of course, we make the problem out like it's a routine david vs. goliath but truth of matter is, it shouldn't be as bad as people make it out to be, if the campaign world is built to feel more human.

why? Because humanity is not inherently efficient. Not every character of every class is going to immediately go for that golden combination of spells or feats or classes because it is UBER. There are an infinite amount of reasons why a 20th lvl mage might never have a single awesome power spell that destroys reality in his spell book. He might have decided that his magic would only be used to make people's lives easier and have dedicated his time to creating spells to create tools for everyday living, or maybe he's just too lazy to actually research wish and all that crap, or maybe he just doesn't like those spells.

But that's just my take on it.

[MrNexx]

As I have added, there's also the narrative aspect. Unless your party does not have primary spellcasters, you cannot have a BBEG who is not a primary spellcaster (and I include psionics in the spellcaster slot) after a certain point; the necessity of anti-magic magic is too great for a non-spellcaster to be a credible threat.

[Merlin the Tuna]

To play the devil's advocate here, should the classes be balanced? Or not?

If some class is inherently weaker than another, it still makes for great tales.

This is true; in stories, characters frequently aren't equal, and it works out okay. No one is terribly upset if Sturm gets trumped by Caramon in every situation ever, if Superman has everyone's superpowers only better, or if Maud'Dib can see the future of everything everywhere and no one can do jack about it. (Just searching for examples here. No need to get picky about the ones I've given, I know they're not flawless.)

There's an important difference here, thought; those are stories, not games. We're dealing with a story written by (usually) a single author. And even if there are multiple authors, no one is strictly in charge of a single character in the story, and as the storytellers they can make anything happen that they deem appropriate.

D&D isn't like that, though. As a player, you have a core connection to a single character, and you don't have complete control over what happens to him -- that's what the rules are for. You don't get to say "Sturm moves forward and cuts down the entire enemy army." You get "Sturm advances and attacks. Bah, I missed." And since you've only got control over one character, you have a vested interest in his performance. If your character isn't doing anything significant, you're not doing anything significant. And if you're not doing anything of importance at the table, you're probably not having fun, which means that an in-game problem is likely to cause out-of-game problems. And that ain't good.

That isn't to say that these problems happen automatically. Sometimes the group isn't supposed to be equal; maybe you're the squire to a knight or paladin, and you're deliberately playing second banana to another PC (or, heavens forbid, a DMPC). Maybe you went into the campaign planning to be a non-combatant. The important thing here is intent. You wanted a less effective character, so it's acceptable (and even desired) when that's the outcome you get. But if you go into a normal game, typically the idea is to work as a team and contribute more or less equally -- class balance, or the lack thereof, forces this condition. Thus, it's a pretty key problem.

[Shazzbaa]

I would consider the idea of everyone being the best at something to mean that the classes ARE balanced. In that respect... there should be balance of some kind... whether everyone's equal in power, or everyone has their niche of speciality. I personally prefer the latter, but I'd consider both to be balance.

Imbalance happens when someone's job becomes irrelevant, because someone else (A) eliminates the need for his job or (B) is better at his job than he is.
That's the problem that people are wanting to fix.

[clarkvalentine]

In my experience, if players share roughly equal "spotlight time" - meaning everyone gets their moment to be important, about the same number of opportunities to do cool stuff and advance the story, then the PCs will appear to be balanced, even if one is vastly more powerful than another.

Edit: Of course, that's easier to pull off if the PCs are roughly equivalent in power level.

[Iron_Mouse]

In D&D, and all, or at least most, other RPGs, including not only P&P but also CRPGs etc., we have archetypes. Let's just look at D&D.
We have 4 basic archetypes:
1. A warrior, who is supposed to fight at the frontline, to "tank" and to kill enemies in combat. That's the fighter.
2. A skillmonkey, who is supposed to scout, to bypass various obstacles (like locks or traps) who does other smart stuff outside of combat and in fights he stabs foes in the back. That's the rogue.
3. The priest, who is healing and supporting the other partymembers, is strong against undead and can maybe fight a little to help the warrior. That's the cleric.
4. The mage, who knows cool spells to blast foes with and help the party in various situations, who is really smart and knows a lot but is physically weak so that he needs the protection of a group. That's the wizard.

Now, do these classes fit into the archetypes? Not really.
1. The fighter, due to the lack of spells, class features and skills, can only do one thing: Fight. That's his job, that is the one and only thing he invests his training (=his XP) in. Nothing wrong with that, so far.
Now I would expect that he truly is the most badass warrior existing, who can stand at least a few rounds against every kind of enemy he encounters, without support. The strongest melee character around, even in a party with a conjurer, a wildshaping druid AND a war domain cleric. But he isn't. He's overshadowed, in his *own field*, by characters who are actually focusing on something different. He might be overshadowed, a little, by a raging barbarian or a smiting paladin. That's okay, rage and smite evil are limited.
But never by a caster.
2. The rogue (actually one of the better designed noncaster classes, imho) has good skills. This should be one of his strengthes. After all, skills are an important part of the game, right?
Well, if so, then WHY are many skills made completely obsolete by spells? Some of a pretty low level, actually? Knock is level 2, and it's pretty absolute. Absolute in a way that it opens ANY lock, even if it's DC 200 or something. No roll, no limit, just automatic. I wonder why the people in a D&D world actually bother with making locks when any apprentice wizard can open them anyway. Other skills, like jump or climb, are made useless by spells like fly, traps can be triggered with summons. Hide? Invisibility. Disguise? Alter self. Etc. pp..
Lucky rogue, still he gets sneak attack for stabbing around. But that shouldn't be his only role. At least imho.
3. The so called "priest" is quite not what one would expect. Not only he walks around in full plate wielding good weapons (which actually is ridiculous to begin with), he can also buff himself into the stratosphere and steal the fighter the show. Easily. Now you say, that's a selfish priest. He should rather buff the fighter and let him do his job! But he can't. His best buffs are self-only. His other buffs suck and he is forced to heal by touch.
People often say that it's no fun to play a support-only cleric. Yes, and I know why, because he totally SUCKS at this role. He actually was designed to be a self-buffed super-warrior from the start. Additional to healing, to turning undead, to having utility spells. In other games, I met people who actually enjoyed playing a (more or less pure) supporter, so I think it is quite possible. Something *is* really wrong here...
4. Oh yeah, the wizard. What is he doing? The wizard is not helping the party to solve problems, he is solving them by himself. He is not helping the party win fights, he wins them alone. At least he needs the protection from his comrades to survive, right? No, at least not at later levels, since insane protection spells make him more or less untouchable. The other characters are not even needed to mop up the foes that the wizard has incapicitated. They only save him a spell or two, which he otherwise had to use on summons or dominate...

Of course, there are many more classes, but most are more or less variations or hybrids of these archetypes. The main problem is still there, though. The druid is overpowered in a very similar way to the cleric, the sorcerer is not much better than the wizard and the barbarian has similar problems as the fighter.

In an ideal game, the perfect party needs a fighter just like it needs a wizard, it needs a rogue just like it needs a cleric. All classes are, more or less, equally useful, at every level from 1 to 20. All have their own fields where they can shine, and no one else touches them there. No class features, skills, feats etc. are ever made obsolete by some spell (or other class feature, skill or feat). Everyone can give his best, without worrying that he might outshine someone else.
After all, every class needs the same XP to level up. No class should get noticeably "more" for the same effort.

[MrNexx]

Actually, I think part of the problem comes from the change from 2nd edition's "memorization" to 3.x's "preparation".

"Memorization" assumed that the spells were still mostly uncast... you had to cast them from square one, and so the casting times were fairly long.

"Preparation" assumes that the spells are mostly cast, and just need to be released, so casting times are very short... the wizard doesn't need his protective screen, because he's got standard action (or faster) self-buffs that can take care of it.

[Bosh]

Because in games people don't like to be constantly overshadowed. Lack of balance isn't fun. Marry and Pippen didn't have any players who complained that they weren't as good at killing things as Aragon and Boromir.

[Jamin]

The real question is why not balance class?

Real a little inbalance is fine but DnD although bearable is just dumb.

[Desaril]

I agree with Elliot20 that game balance is not something that happens through mechanics. The designers, who are apparently very thoughtful, mature, experienced players, created a system of mechanics to 1) support the genre and 2) provide game balance. I'm not sure, but I believe that #1 was more important that #2. In other words, the rules are designed to simulate the characters in heroic fantasy.

Rule based game balance goes out the window once you have a GM who doesn't run his game like the designers did in playtesting. If the skinny 14 yr old who was picked on by bigger stronger kids and played Magic the Gathering is the DM, fighter types may have a harder time in his game (consciously or not).

Even if the GM is a mature, insightful and creative person trying her best to be fair to the players and faithfully represent the genre, it will still differ from the designers intent.

Each GM has the opportunity to make the game great or ruin it. Balancing classes is a GM-based solution, not a rules-based solution.

Furthermore, I find that most posters who find the classes unbalanced are comparing them to each other. I don't believe the designers tested class balance against each other. D&D does not have a truly unified system of creature/character creation. PC classes are supposed to be used primarily for PCs, who don't fight each other NPCs with PC classes are supposed to be exceptional threats). So the question should not be whether a high level fighter can defeat a high-level wizard, but whether they can contribute meaningfully to a campaign.

To me, 10th level is high, so I may have a different perspective, but all of the classes are still relevant at that level. If instead, your campaign is beginning to unbalance toward the casters, the GM should award them less experience and magic and the fighters should increase in levels and power to balance the game. If the fight is easier for the wizard, they deserve less experience.

[Indon]

I wonder why the people in a D&D world actually bother with making locks when any apprentice wizard can open them anyway.

Because most DM's play a higher-magic environment than their sourcebooks would imply.

So there's one level 19 archdruid on the planet; so what? The PC Druid reaches whatever level he feels like without having to kill and scheme his way up a chain of ever-more-powerful druids. He can even hit 20 if he so pleases.

Generally, NPC wizards have tiny spell lists compared to even semi-optimized PC wizards. Why? Magic ain't _that_ common. Even if you practice it.

People, even rich people, die every day. And yet for them, Raise Dead services are rarely availible. But if you're a PC, there might as well be a ressurect-o-matic in every town... more likely one in your party.

[Khantalas]

Actually, if you play nice and proper, there is no raise'r'us in every town. Because the cost of raise dead puts the spell over the cost of spells more or less available to general public.

[ExHunterEmerald]

The short answer is, anyone who isn't slinging magic around is getting trampled--not just the characters, but their players.
People are getting a backseat to other people by virtue of the fact they like the warrior archetype over the mage one--or even if they just want to play one.
Everyone wants to contribute and have fun, and generally finding yourself outclassed at every instance is a bit frustrating.
So, while it makes sense for someone who can rearrange existence on a whim to be stronger than a guy with a big stick, it doesn't (necessarily) make for fun gameplay for the entire group.
Besides, one could argue that as well-maybe PC classes are meant to be like the legendary warriors of old, the Hectors, the Achilles, th--...I'm going to stop here, because I've been reading the Iliad and I can't get past the Greek heroes.

[Bloodred]

..., but what happens to classes that span multiple character roles, such as rangers of duskblades?

Are you implying that Rangers are actually useful??

[Wonderboy]

So, um, does anyone else actually not have the whole Wizards being far more powerful problem coming up?

I haven't really dealt with it at all.

[clarkvalentine]

So, um, does anyone else actually not have the whole Wizards being far more powerful problem coming up?

I haven't really dealt with it at all.

Honestly, our group hasn't had to deal with it, we tend to really, really not optimize our PCs. The tank (fighter/platinum knight) in our Dragonlance group was by far the most dangerous in a fight. My wizard PC was really underoptimized, but the mechanics fit the character concept.

[Indon]

So, um, does anyone else actually not have the whole Wizards being far more powerful problem coming up?

I haven't really dealt with it at all.

Honestly, neither have I. Probably because while my group loves optimizing characters, they mostly love optimizing _quirky_ characters. Playing yet another spellcaster-with-readied-action-for-everything probably gets boring after a while... but honestly, I've never done it since it _already_ seems boring for me.

[Raum]

So, um, does anyone else actually not have the whole Wizards being far more powerful problem coming up?

I haven't really dealt with it at all.

Not very often, but then the group I play with seldom gets into the higher levels (Our 2+ year campaign has just recently leveled into the teens.).

Of course I also don't believe that not playing games where it is a factor means I should stick my head in the sand and pretend there's no problem.

[Renegade Paladin]

Are you implying that Rangers are actually useful??

Ummmm... Yes?

[Wehrkind]

How can you say that game balance doesn't come through mechanics? The rules are there to keep one person from saying "I win" and it being fact. They define the framework for determining success or failure. It has very little to do with how you run the game, and everything to do with the potential of each class in this case.

I will say that again: The POTENTIAL power of each class is what is important to balance. Just because your players don't optimize and play sub-optimal characters doesn't make the game balanced, it makes the characters balanced. If someone can do something within the rules that makes them vastly more powerful, that is where imbalance comes up.

Real world analogue: Country A and Country B. A has nuclear weapons; B does not. A is nice and does not threaten nuclear war with B, and negotiates with them as an equal. Are they equal in power balance? Obviously not. Country A has capabilities far beyond that of B, whether they use it or not.

In D&D, a wizard can by the RAW becomes terrifyingly powerful at high level with relatively little effort. A cleric can outclass a fighter at fighting by RAW at moderate level. I am not talking in terms of "OMG the DM totally is a magic fanboy and gives the casters easy breaks". That would be house ruling. I am talking Rules As Written (by the game designers.) Basic Wealth By Level Guidelines and spell progression and aquisition, etc.
Surely, a cleric or mage can nerf themselves by making decisions away from power ("doing it wrong" to quote Logic Ninja) but they just as easily can do it right, and make everyone else look like school girls at an NFL game.

The simple fact that so many people say "Clerics and Mages are not ubar in my games because of (we don't allow easy access to spells) or (we don't optimize)." demonstrates the fact you either have to house rule the system (changing RAW, which is what most proponants of balance desire) or have players who like to make sub-optimal choices, at which point you might as well house rule in sub-optimal choices as required, and call it a day.

[CuthroatMcGee]

I think a lot of people assume that wizards and sorcerers (and the other casters) are playing the game to dominate it; that they're only working with the party until they hit, say, level 10-12, at which point they plan on destroying everything and establishing themselves in an invincible tower, plane-jumping and killing whatever they feel like. I think people assume players play as spellcasters because they make a conscious decision that they want to show up the rest of the party.

I play my wizard and my fighter-cleric because I like them. I like the wizard's dedication to knowledge, and I like my warrior-priest of St. Cuthbert's dedication to law and justice, and his willingness to fight and die for it. People usually play the characters they do because that's what interests them, not because those classes are the most powerful. If the players are considerate of their teammates (as I would hope everyone is) then they won't show up the party's fighter or rogue or bard or whoever.
Remember, no one 'wins' at D&D.

[Wehrkind]

*sigh* it isn't a question of "OMG I want to play DER UBAR character and win at D&D and make my friends think I am a god!!!!!!" It's a matter of the fact that some classes CAN do it, and other NEVER can.
Essentially your position seems to be that even though the Wizard can show up every class in every encounter, he shouldn't because that would be inconsiderate, and thus the rules are ok. So essentially, so long as the wizard does not play his class to it's potential, i.e. makes sub-par decisions on how to solve a given problem, there is no power imbalance.
My position is: Why allow a power imbalance in the rules that forces a class to sit on it's thumbs in order to not show up either players.

Ever see the Incredibles? It is sort of like that. It is no fun to be capable of doing something, but having to wait for your comparatively slow team mates to do it so they feel "special." Yes, it can be roleplayed to make sense, but if every wizard is a dottering fool, or an unfocused fool who doesn't know how to wield their power, it sort of gets a little old. It is much more fun for players to be able to improve their skills and abilities to the best they can, exulting over new and clever combinations than to say "Eh, what the hell, I will just cast lightning bolt... can't be too good."

[XagencyX]

Interesting points made by all, and a fine post by Wehrkind. I would like to point out that the knowledge of individual players also plays a major role in the perceived balance of classes. For example, in our group, we tend to try and kill each other on a regular basis. As such, we have learned little tips and tricks developed solely to aid us in killing off PC classes. As a fighter/rogue 12/4, Half-Celestial Elf, my character in our last game completely destroyed a level 20 wizard. In my experience, a good balance can be achieved through knowledge, tactics, and luck. But then again, I may be horribly wrong, heh.

[CuthroatMcGee]

I see what you're saying, Wehrkind, but I don't think it's a question of choosing to play an unoptimized character. I think it's a question of recognizing other player's strong points.
If there was a good rogue on my team, I wouldn't bother even learning Knock, because unlocking locks is already covered. I would put some other spell in my level 2 slot, to maximize the group's power. I wouldn't need Invisibility or Summon Monster 4 or Boar's Strength, because those are covered by the rogue and fighter. I'd take things like True Seeing or Acid Arrow or Shatter, because those provide things that my groups probably needs. Optimizing the spells for the group's benefit, not for my own. I don't think the wizard needs to justify to the group his staying there.

[Shazzbaa]

So, um, does anyone else actually not have the whole Wizards being far more powerful problem coming up?

I haven't really dealt with it at all.

I haven't played high levels yet, and we have no arcane caster, so no. But as I've said before, our cleric has already shown that we need him a lot more than he needs us.

I think a lot of people assume that wizards and sorcerers (and the other casters) are playing the game to dominate it; [...] I think people assume players play as spellcasters because they make a conscious decision that they want to show up the rest of the party. [...]If the players are considerate of their teammates (as I would hope everyone is) then they won't show up the party's fighter or rogue or bard or whoever.
Remember, no one 'wins' at D&D.

I do agree with you; the aforementioned cleric is quite good at letting all of us melee people have a whack at the bad guys while he does his spell-casting thing. He's only used Righteous Might once, when he really, really needed to. This strikes me as a good thing, and a good attitude for the cleric/wizard/whathaveyou's player to have.
However.
I've heard enough real-life stories on one of the other balance threads (...they're all starting to run together now...@_@) that I can see that it isn't always the wizard's fault. Sometimes it's just a guy who wants to play a wizard, knows how he wants to play his wizard, and discovers to his horror that playing said wizard has put him leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the party. He can try to hold back, but "holding back" is different from "not stepping on the others' toes," and I can understand a player being frustrated by needing to hold back.

If you can take Action A or Action B, and ActA is already being taken care of by the fighter, and you decide to take ActA, and do it BETTER than the fighter, then you're stepping on his toes.
However, if all you get is ActionC, and ActC makes ActionsA and B irrelevent... then there's not a whole lot you can do about the fact that you're unbalanced. You could hold back take ActC poorly... but nobody really wants to do that.

I do agree that steps should be taken to avoid stealing others' thunder, and I totally advocate letting the Fighter handle Action A while you take Action B in the former situation,... but it seems like the scenario with Action C has, in fact, happened more than a few times to people in high-level games, and that's the point where there's something wrong with the mechanics to the point that it needs to be fixed.

****

Of course, note, I say all of this on principle. I haven't had a bad experience with arcane casters yet, and if I never do, I'll never worry about whether they're balanced or not because it won't much matter. However I agree that, in terms of the RAW being Fair and Balanced, the rules need to be rewritten for classes to be balanced for every group, and for people to be able to play what they want to play without worrying about being hated for being too powerful.

[XagencyX]

One question I've got. I've mostly played Core, with a few supplements thrown in on occasion. So, what happens in the many, many extended rulesets when someone activates an antimagic field in the middle of your wizard or cleric's doom bringing? Aside from Silver Fire, in the FR setting, is there really anything that cancels that out, besides a hefty fighter or paladin?

[Renegade Paladin]

Other than getting the hell out of the antimagic field? Not a whole lot.