When did balance become such a big deal?

[Cuddly]

Older play styles expect mages to be more powerful than their smashy counterparts, at higher levels. I was reading some stuff by Gygax (some 3.0 splatbook), and it was expected that magic be mysterious, powerful, and dangerous. Even as late as 3.0, it's implicit that magic should be more powerful than non-magic, given the PrCs and feats out there. I haven't played much of the older editions, but from my experience, the magic users were just as powerful back then, only in a different sort of way.

When was it decided that every class should be equally powerful? Blizzard? The internet? Civil rights?

[Azerian Kelimon]

The lulz. Because everything, EVERYTHING, is orchestrated by the lulz.

[The Rose Dragon]

Fun factor decides that, mostly. We, players of monks and warlocks, would like to feel like we're doing something to have fun, and cannot do that if wizards up-stage us all the time. And fun is why we play the games, right?

[Drakron]

"Balance" is a quest for people that for some bizarre reason cannot have fun unless everyone have the same damage output.

Even more curious there must be "balance" on a PARTY system.

Balance will never be achieved because nothing is created equal.

[Paragon Badger]

Oh boy, let's play D&D!

Rogue: I'll handle this!
Wizard: Nah. Knock!
Rogue:

Fighter: I'll kill this! Great Cleave!
Wizard: Nah. Fireball!
Fighter:

DM: There's a large crevasse, you're forced to fight the plot-centric terrasque!
Wizard: Nah, Overland Flight.
DM:

[Talya]

I do believe the concept of power balance in characters started with 989 studios/Verrant/Sony Online Entertainment.

[Artanis]

"Balance" is a quest for people that for some bizarre reason cannot have fun unless everyone have the same damage output.

Even more curious there must be "balance" on a PARTY system.

Ok, you can have fun poking the goblin with a stick for ten turns without killing it while the rest of us go take out a dragon, then come back and save you from the goblin who has probably dropped you into negatives by that point.

Sound like fun?

[Azerian Kelimon]

Wizard: I'll handle this! Finger of Death!
Wizard: Not so fast, Bucko! I activate my trap....I mean, spell turning!
Wizard: Idiot! Now we'll be destroyed and I shall indulge in sesquipedalian loquaciousness to show how I'm better than everyone else, who use smilies to represent their moo....

[Zincorium]

Balance comes up because no one should automatically suck just because they like a particular type of character.

The 'magic is so much more powerful' thing always bugged the heck out of me, because magic is also so very easy in 3.x. The same amount of training that can make a fighter capable of going toe-to-toe with a giant also gives the wizard the option to simply snuff it's life out. First and second edition had the varied experience gain, but that was, to put it mildly, clumsy. Nobody ever leveled at the same time.

I don't see why it's so hard to understand that just because magic can do something, it doesn't mean magic users have to be given that ability. At least not in the normal range of play. You could easily spread a wizard's spell progression out so that they get around 6th level spells by level 20 and just get more of them overall.

[Drakron]

Balance come before that Talya, its more of a "wargame" term about how each side is balanced despite having strong/weak units and specialization.

The point in having balance is being able to play one side without being crippled in some way, of course there are many layers of "balance" were you can have a side that have bad units at start but end up with powerful units at the end and its forced to "turtle" until he can produce those units and that is usually accepted as balanced.

In RPGs it seems to really come from the "MMORPG generation" that care about how "good" his character is against everyone else, a side effect of PvP but also from solo players (yes, playing a solo Cleric in WoW is harder that say a Hunter).

[Drakron]

Balance comes up because no one should automatically suck just because they like a particular type of character.

I am sorry but I REFUSE to play in a system were a completely broken character is allowed to "not suck", that is not balance ... its kindergarten.

[Artanis]

Balance come before that Talya, its more of a "wargame" term about how each side is balanced despite having strong/weak units and specialization.

The point in having balance is being able to play one side without being crippled in some way, of course there are many layers of "balance" were you can have a side that have bad units at start but end up with powerful units at the end and its forced to "turtle" until he can produce those units and that is usually accepted as balanced.

In RPGs it seems to really come from the "MMORPG generation" that care about how "good" his character is against everyone else, a side effect of PvP but also from solo players (yes, playing a solo Cleric in WoW is harder that say a Hunter).

That's a hell of a backpedal from what you said earlier.

Also, WoW doesn't have a Cleric class.


Edit: ninja'd

I am sorry but I REFUSE to play in a system were a completely broken character is allowed to "not suck", that is not balance ... its kindergarten.

Who says a completely broken character still won't suck in 4e? All that people are wanting - which you seem to refuse to understand - is for "playing something other than Wizard" to NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN "completely broken and thus sucks".

[Zincorium]

I am sorry but I REFUSE to play in a system were a completely broken character is allowed to "not suck", that is not balance ... its kindergarten.

That's absurd. What you're saying is that you want things to be screwed up, so that it prevents anyone who's not paying attention from being any good? What kind of antisocial elitist dogma is that? 'This looks cool, and I'd like to roleplay it' should be the ONLY deciding factor on what people play, and punishing people for doing just that is terrible game design.

Personally, I'm ticked off whenever I've paid for a book and it has pages of stuff that's obviously way underpowered or way overpowered, because that's a waste of my money on stuff I have to change to use.

[Drakron]

Yes, WoW have Priests ... same thing, I played one before the first expansion come out so I can say I had ... issues with the class since I soled.

Also its not a back pedal, let me put this way ... the argument you are "not having fun" does not apply if you ... say want to use tank rush tactics when your side is a "infantry".

RPG that have a party system require each character to specialize in some field, of course a "merman bard" is going to under perform in a dungeon crawl.

The complain about wizards I think its valid and invalid at the same time, wizards at start are weak and they became godly after the later half of the levels but the notion the wizard is from the start playing in "god mode" is absurd, also what wizard would waste a "knock" spell when there is a rogue around?

The issue I have is the "Kindergarten" notion everyone must have fun and when it means everyone it means EVERYONE, including the Cha 8 half Orc Bard ... the moment the system is catered to never failed to "be fun" its a nanny system.

[Artanis]

Yes, WoW have Priests ... same thing, I played one before the first expansion come out so I can say I had ... issues with the class since I soled.

I was mostly messing with you on that one, since it's a common mistake

Now, onto the meat of the issue:

Also its not a back pedal, let me put this way ... the argument you are "not having fun" does not apply if you ... say want to use tank rush tactics when your side is a "infantry".

RPG that have a party system require each character to specialize in some field, of course a "merman bard" is going to under perform in a dungeon crawl.

The complain about wizards I think its valid and invalid at the same time, wizards at start are weak and they became godly after the later half of the levels but the notion the wizard is from the start playing in "god mode" is absurd, also what wizard would waste a "knock" spell when there is a rogue around?

The issue I have is the "Kindergarten" notion everyone must have fun and when it means everyone it means EVERYONE, including the Cha 8 half Orc Bard ... the moment the system is catered to never failed to "be fun" its a nanny system.

Well no effing kidding the Mermaid Bard is going to suck in a dry-land campaign, as is a Charisma-based caster with 8 CHA. That much is obvious.

However, you have been arguing that anybody who plays a Fighter deserves to suck. Not a Pixie Fighter, not a Fighter with 4 CON, a Fighter. Any Fighter. Because making a Fighter capable of contributing to the party would be "kindergarden" and "treating you like a child" for making "an obviously broken character not suck".

And the same goes for...well, pretty much every class short of a Wizard or CoDzilla.

And I take exception to the notion that saying "I would like to play something other than a spellcaster this time" somehow makes me deserving of being ground into the dirt until I have no fun playing a game.


Edit: Why would a Wizard waste a Knock spell when a Rogue is around? Because he can. That Rogue is liable to take a hell of a long time opening the door if it's a hard lock, and he's liable to get poisoned or hit by a trap or something. It's much faster and easier for everybody involved if the Wizard waves his hands around for six seconds and expends a spell slot that otherwise would've gone unused anyways.

[Kurald Galain]

Older play styles expect mages to be more powerful than their smashy counterparts, at higher levels. I was reading some stuff by Gygax (some 3.0 splatbook), and it was expected that magic be mysterious, powerful, and dangerous.

You nailed it down right here. In earlier editions, magic (and in particular, high level magic) could be dangerous. Examples include lightning bolt backlash, haste aging, deafening yourself with shout, and of course the ill-worded wish.

Third edition has made a point of explicitly removing any and all of these drawbacks. It is no wonder that as a result, magic becomes more powerful. 3.5E and 4E follow this idea, that there shall be no repercussions for anything.

[Yakk]

Balance became a big deal when I was playing RuneQuest the other day. I looked at the system, and tossed together a holy priest warrior type.

Anything that could threaten my character would insta-gib the other party members. The DM either would have to work to rebalance the mechanics, or conspire against my character.

That wasn't good. I'd rather have had a group where everyone was roughly equally challenged and useful by the events, and everyone could be useful. But because the game balance of RQ was so delicate, simply assigning a few skill points better than my fellow players broke the balance of the game.

A system with better balance might have:
A> Made it harder for the other members of my party to suck (have you ever seen a new D&D player want to multiclass Bard and Sorcerer?)

B> Made my small choices not produce as effective a combat result, while

C> Allowing all of us to follow our character concepts.

[FlyMolo]

You seem to be under the misapprehension that badly optimized characters are nannied under a balanced system.

Under a balanced system, a given character class can actually contribute.

for example, Soulknife. They spend 4 feats to equal a fighter, but without bonus feats.

You have to optimize like crazy just to reach standard effectiveness, while a wizard can make halfbaked spell choices and still not only contribute, but overpower the rest of the party.

That's balance. Being able to contribute without having to build Pun-Pun because your character class stinks THAT much.

[FinalJustice]

Answering directly the question: When people realized that playing a balanced system is simply more fun, for the reasons stated above.

You can have lots of fun roleplaying the concept you like, but when a concept gets gimped by a poor implementation in the rule system, the game begins to fail on being fun. On a combat-centric system like D&D, this is even more evident.

And, about kindergartening, utter nonsense. When a system is able to provide playabilty to oddballs and unoptimal concepts, IMHO, it is an awesome system, because it frees the players from the 'it would suck' restrain. An obvious example is the infamous Blind Seer. A blind character is gimped out of the bat, but fiction provides ways to make a blind character rock, why wouldn't a RP-system allow the same?

[Rutee]

I do believe the concept of power balance in characters started with 989 studios/Verrant/Sony Online Entertainment.

You would be wrong. Welcome to the Wide World of Fighting Games, where characters are tierred somewhat, but an effort is mostly made.

I am sorry but I REFUSE to play in a system were a completely broken character is allowed to "not suck", that is not balance ... its kindergarten.

I refuse to play in a system where everything but the casters is brokenly bad by default.

[SofS]

The thing about magic users in older D&D is that they did actually have a significant balancing factor in the form of their levels requiring around twice as much XP as a fighter. Fighters were usually several levels higher than their wizardly companions and thus really quite good at giving and taking damage. Now, I'm certainly not saying that those editions were balanced because of this; I'm simply saying that it was a good idea that might have been tossed too quickly.

As for balance being a big deal, I think that happened when it actually started being used as a selling point. Lots of RPGs have no balance and don't care even slightly. The makers of D&D have always cared at least a little, though, and it seems to be a really big concern nowadays. Personally, I find that GURPS is actually more balanced between magic and physical fighting, but that's probably because using magic in combat is basically a different form of fighting on which you have to spend plenty of points.

[Azerian Kelimon]

I don't think using GURPS in a comparison works. Because, quite simply, GURPS is to RPG's a Silver Age Superman or Batman, noth in crunch AND fluff.

[horseboy]

I didn't know balance was so important until I started playing games that were better balanced then came back to D&D. It's funny I really didn't even know it was that important until I had gotten used to it. Guess it's one of those things that once you know you can't go back.

The thing about magic users in older D&D is that they did actually have a significant balancing factor in the form of their levels requiring around twice as much XP as a fighter. Fighters were usually several levels higher than their wizardly companions and thus really quite good at giving and taking damage. Now, I'm certainly not saying that those editions were balanced because of this; I'm simply saying that it was a good idea that might have been tossed too quickly.

One of the other things also was that the magic-user's job wasn't to take out the BBEG with a quick Save-or-die. They were pretty crappy against single targets, since everybody could save or had Magic Resistance out their sphincter. A magic-user's job was to clear the path for the fighter to slowly chip away at their BBEG hit points. 3.x screwed up evocation badly, made magic resistance a joke and powered-up too many spells. As has been said, it's not the wizard class, it's the spells.

[Project_Mayhem]

I UTTERLY fail to understand the arguements against balance. What, so someone should be screwed because they didnt choose a full caster class, or made sub-optimal feat choices. Thats absolute rubbish.

Dnd, and other such games, are first and foremost about fun. If I'm not having fun, then why am I playing? I don't know about other people, but fun tends to suggest that I'm capable of at least making a valid contribution. If my class abilities are rendered irrelevent by another player picking a class supposed to do something entirely different, then I feel at the best superfluous, and at worst, a liability.

Under RAW, there is no point at all to playing a fighter, one of the most iconic characters of heroic fantasy, and that is a sad thing. I, for one, look forward to the day when each class is an equally good choice.

[Sucrose]

The thing about magic users in older D&D is that they did actually have a significant balancing factor in the form of their levels requiring around twice as much XP as a fighter. Fighters were usually several levels higher than their wizardly companions and thus really quite good at giving and taking damage. Now, I'm certainly not saying that those editions were balanced because of this; I'm simply saying that it was a good idea that might have been tossed too quickly.

As for balance being a big deal, I think that happened when it actually started being used as a selling point. Lots of RPGs have no balance and don't care even slightly. The makers of D&D have always cared at least a little, though, and it seems to be a really big concern nowadays. Personally, I find that GURPS is actually more balanced between magic and physical fighting, but that's probably because using magic in combat is basically a different form of fighting on which you have to spend plenty of points.

I'd add that old editions' ideas could be interpreted as just having parity at the same level, and equal XP gain, if levels change from representing mastery of the system that gives you power to simply actual ability.

Thus, while a level 10 Fighter and a level 10 Wizard under an ideal system would have roughly equal ability, it's not because they're equally skilled, but because the fighter is the best damn swordsman in the country, and the wizard is still nowhere near the limitations of magic.

Now, on topic, balance is a concern because players want to be able to affect the game roughly as well as everybody else (barring a few pricks, who want to hog the spotlight). This is invariably true, whether they want to affect the game through a well-oiled combat machine, or through excellent RP.

If the game has any mechanical element, for everyone to be able to affect the game equally, the classes must have options that are roughly equal in power. Thus, the need for balance.

[Rutee]

I don't think using GURPS in a comparison works. Because, quite simply, GURPS is to RPG's a Silver Age Superman or Batman, noth in crunch AND fluff.

Oh crap it's dark. Better set myself on fire.

[Overlard]

Being gimped because your character concept is inherently weak is OK. If I want to play a blind swordsman with a gammy leg and a terrible stutter, I expect that to cause me problems.

Being gimped because your character class is inherently weak is not OK. If I want to play a fighter, I don't expect to be outshone in virtually every field, including the speciality my very class is named after.

Everyone likes being able to contribute, and some classes just don't lend themselves to this, especially at high level play. Some, like the wizard, are highly effective in all but the most unusual circumstances. Others, like the fighter, only come into their own once in a blue moon.

[SofS]

I don't think using GURPS in a comparison works. Because, quite simply, GURPS is to RPG's a Silver Age Superman or Batman, noth in crunch AND fluff.

I should remember to put asides in parentheses. To be more specific, I was thinking of playing a similar level of fantasy in GURPS, like Banestorm or Dungeon Fantasy. Those are similar in feel to D&D, I think, and they present a decent balance between PCs of different builds.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Indeed. The whole point behind GURPS was that it was intended to be the best of the best of the best repeat ad infinitum at everything, and that anyone should be able to do SOMETHING useful with it, no matter the character concept. And I believe it did work. As you say, balance is much greater there, even when you can munchkin your character concept.

[Da Beast]

"Balance" is a quest for people that for some bizarre reason cannot have fun unless everyone have the same damage output.

Even more curious there must be "balance" on a PARTY system.

Balance will never be achieved because nothing is created equal.

I'm tired of hearing this. Yes, it's a system intended for multiple players. Why does that make it a good idea for two of them to be able to outclass everyone else in ever area of game play? And this isn't just a high level problem. At level one the wizard can end an entire fight with one sleep spell and a druid's animal companion is almost as good as any sword swinger by itself.

I'm also tired of the idea that casters should be better because magic is magic. Magic isn't real. That sounds obvious but no one in the anti balance brigade seems to understand what exactly that means for the game world. Magic is only as powerful as the designer dictates. In any given fantasy world magic can be strong enough that even a fairly unskilled mage can level cities or it can be so weak that even the most powerful of wizards are limited to pretty unimpressive feats such as talking to birds. If the game world is going to be closer to the first end of the spectrum then that's fine, but the design should reflect that. If magic is the be all end all of power available to mortals then make just make a game where everyone is some sort of wizard and be done with it. The idea of character levels suggest that a wizard and a fighter of the same level should both be around the same level of power and the capabilities of magic within the game world ought to reflect that.