Also, when we talk about balance, we're not just talking about character classes being balanced in the pillars of the game.

One thing I hear often from 4e fans is that the number and type of encounters must be balanced in the adventuring day.  Largely because of how the powers are per-encounter and per day.  If I'm not mistaken, the 4e rules tell you explicitly how many encounters per day, and what level they should be.

For examples, you won't find a 3rd level party have an encounter with a single goblin.  Likewise, you won't have a 3rd level party have an encounter with level +6 monster either, regardless if that creature happens to be visiting the orc chieftain for some in-game plot.

For me, I don't think that is well balanced and I don't like it.  You're literally changing what would happen in a living game world to cater to party level.  Horrible metagaming.

D&D has gone from playing in a living fantasy world, to WoW-esque zones, and it was the DMs job to make sure the zones were always catered to the PCs.

Thankfully they seem to have realized their mistake and Next doesn't have this.

Quote from: The Traveller;680333It can be but it shouldn't have to be. Or rather imbalances should be minimised where possible.

The game should first make sure it gets the feel of whatever its trying to emulate right, then balance to a reasonable degree within that emulation. Making sure there isn't a way to piss all over someone elses good time just because you can isn't the games job. If we were talking about a competitive game, priorities would differ.

Quote from: The Traveller;680333Charop and minmaxing isn't the hallmark of an asshole, just an optimiser. They might also be epic roleplayers. There's nothing inherently wrong with wanting to get the most out of the rules as written.

The ability to roleplay does not by itself, make an asshole. Likewise the ability to optimize. Getting the most out of the rules as written is a competitive aspect of gameplay. It might not be the traditional us vs them type of competition it could be the "look how awesome I am" contest. Once again, if this was competitive play then this would be a feature, not a bug.

Quote from: The Traveller;680333Who said anything about rigid rulesets? A game can be reasonably balanced while still remaining pretty freeform, just keep a weather eye out for laser ninja loopholes.

The more comprehensive and "complete" the rules, the more loopholes there are to worry about. Every time more content is added to the game, more loopholes are created until more time is spent playing whack-a-mole with loopholes than playing the game.

B/X is fairly loose and reasonably balanced. That doesn't mean it doesn't need the group to still equalize the balance.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;680344The game should first make sure it gets the feel of whatever its trying to emulate right, then balance to a reasonable degree within that emulation. Making sure there isn't a way to piss all over someone elses good time just because you can isn't the games job. If we were talking about a competitive game, priorities would differ.

A lot of things are going without saying here, including that a game about warrior mages should live up to its ambitions and have more of a focus on warrior mages than druids, but that's not the point. You seem to be setting this up as an either-or proposition which is very much not the case. Just because it's not possible to regulate out assholery entirely doesn't mean that designers should slop out any old crap without some regard for balance between broad options.

Also you again seem to be conflating someone who wants to choose the most powerful options with an asshole.

One oft forgotten example from D&D was the thief class. For the first few levels they were utterly crap at thieving, single digit percentages of achieving any of their abilities. In fact they'd most likely fail at everything until they were of quite a high level. Since thieving was all they did, nobody ever played a thief. That's a poor balancing act.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;680344Getting the most out of the rules as written is a competitive aspect of gameplay.

If you mean competing against the challenges they are likely to face rather than competing against other players, I agree.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;680344The more comprehensive and "complete" the rules, the more loopholes there are to worry about.

Only if you have shitty rules to start out with. A patch on top of a kludge on top of a bandage will of course leak. It reminds me of a guy I knew in school who told me that the longer an essay I wrote, the more mistakes I'd make. No my friend, the worse a writer you are the more mistakes you make.

Quote from: The Traveller;680356Also you again seem to be conflating someone who wants to choose the most powerful options with an asshole.

The determining factor is the reason for doing so.

Quote from: The Traveller;680356One oft forgotten example from D&D was the thief class. For the first few levels they were utterly crap at thieving, single digit percentages of achieving any of their abilities. In fact they'd most likely fail at everything until they were of quite a high level. Since thieving was all they did, nobody ever played a thief. That's a poor balancing act.

Even more oft forgotten was the notion that you could do things unless the rules forbid them instead of the other way around. As soon as the thief abilities showed up in supplement 1, it was assumed (incorrectly) that the thief was now the only class that could sneak around.

All of a sudden 3/4 of the adventuring population became unable to hide, be quiet, or even climb because these abilities showed up on a table that they didn't have access to. Thus the thief as a self justifying class was born.

The thief percentages were a supplement to the things everyone could do, not a replacement for them. Thus the thief got the same chance as anyone else to be quiet (even better than some due to the lighter armor, soft boots, etc.) AND a chance to move silently. Move silently was not a "stealth check". It meant what the frick it said, which was the same as if the character was wearing elven boots.

A gross misunderstanding of the rules does not make them unbalanced.  It is an indication that they could have been written more clearly though.

Quote from: The Traveller;680356If you mean competing against the challenges they are likely to face rather than competing against other players, I agree.

More likely an edge in the "being awesome" department. This includes the "doing everything better than everyone else because I can get the most out of the rules" department.

Quote from: The Traveller;680356Only if you have shitty rules to start out with. A patch on top of a kludge on top of a bandage will of course leak. It reminds me of a guy I knew in school who told me that the longer an essay I wrote, the more mistakes I'd make. No my friend, the worse a writer you are the more mistakes you make.

What I'm try to explain is that "shitty" is subjective depending on the group. If there were an objective level of shitty then no group could play with all the terrible broken rulesets being played with every day.

If your #1 rpg rule goal at the commencement of design is the prevention of anyone being a dick via the mechanics should they desire, your game has failed before design begins.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;680372The thief percentages were a supplement to the things everyone could do, not a replacement for them.

All that does is make thief abilities even less attractive. You're not helping your case here.

Thieves were brutally poor at the only things they had that others hadn't (and now you're saying everyone had them as well) as a result of which there was zero point in playing a low level or even a mid level thief. More often a group would have had to bail them out since some of their abilities had to do with finding and disarming traps, or sneaking into fortified areas.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;680372More likely an edge in the "being awesome" department.

More awesome is a bad thing now?

In most games we fight powerful enemies, sometimes powerful because there are lots of them, sometimes because they are more powerful, sometimes both. Choosing to increase your chances of success against these challenges is not the mark of a showboating dickhead. Showboating dickheads may also choose that route but the two are not mutually dependent. Obviously.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;680372What I'm try to explain is that "shitty" is subjective depending on the group. If there were an objective level of shitty then no group could play with all the terrible broken rulesets being played with every day.

The thief class was shitty. It's an excellent example of why baking a little balance into character options is a good idea.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;680372If your #1 rpg rule goal at the commencement of design is the prevention of anyone being a dick via the mechanics should they desire, your game has failed before design begins.

Are you saying anyone who picks a more powerful class is a dick? Because it sounds like that's what you're saying.

Anyway when push comes to shove my main point is this: the amount of effort a group should have to spend compensating for poor rule balance in character creation should be and can be minimised. Disagree if you like but I'm very comfortable with it.

Quote from: The Traveller;680381Anyway when push comes to shove my main point is this: the amount of effort a group should have to spend compensating for poor rule balance in character creation should be and can be minimised. Disagree if you like but I'm very comfortable with it.

When that compensation minimization gets to a certain level you get 4E, a game that is all about balance first, and the actual game second. You get something that no longer really resembles the game it is supposed to be.

I would rather get the world feel that I want and compromise with the group to achieve balance.

When balance gets priority one you end up with stupid shit such as flying monsters unable to do chew gum and actually fly at the same time because melee builds will feel deprotagonized fighting a flying enemy. WTF?

I hate builds with a passion because they breed the kind of niche specialization that in turn leads to entitlement, which then become rules that turn an immersive world into a turd all in the name of balance.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;680405When that compensation minimization gets to a certain level you get 4E, a game that is all about balance first, and the actual game second. You get something that no longer really resembles the game it is supposed to be.

I honestly don't know enough about 4E to be able to comment on the system, although from the little I know it sounds like a minmaxer's paradise. It sounds as though the game is trying to compensate by spiking everyone up in ability, not levelling them out, which is my preferred approach; 4E is pandering to munchkinry in other words, rather than being the end result of this train of thought.

Characters in my games start at a very decent level of competence straight out the starting gate, but the rules are set up so that even a champion swordsman isn't going to be able to tackle a dozen orcs head on, at least not without locking them in a tavern and setting it on fire first. It's also laughably impossible to gauge how many and how powerful encounters a group can handle on any given day, because their chosen tactics are going to be far more important than their raw skills.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;680405When balance gets priority one you end up with stupid shit such as flying monsters unable to do chew gum and actually fly at the same time because melee builds will feel deprotagonized fighting a flying enemy. WTF?

And I'm certainly not saying that monsters need to be balanced.

Quote from: The TravellerIf one class gets superninja powers and can shoot laser beams from its eyes, and the other specialises in rabbit farming and sequin pattern matching, these are obviously not mechanically balanced. This means the concept of balance does exist - players may choose to ignore the imbalance but it still exists. Following on from which is that imbalanced mechanics can be made more even so, which helps players who then don't have to put in the effort.

Of course that brings us round to what we're talking about when we speak of balance. What people usually mean is balance in combat. If your game or setting doesn't feature much combat that particular kind of balance is of little importance since it doesn't take up as much screen time - other forms of balance may then become a factor. So balance can be said to be important to whatever type of activity the game pivots on.

This is a two way street as well, since a heavy mechanical focus on say research, with lots of rules for research, will usually lead the players to engage in lots of research. Games with no insanity mechanics rarely if ever feature insanity.

It's a question which is deeply interleaved at every level of a game's design from premise and setting to character generation. Basically the best idea is to identify the kind of activity the game hinges on and make sure options exist to allow players to hold their own in these areas even if they want to have other mechanical options, or make it such that even a heavily minmaxed character will still need to rely on the group the rest of the time. Personally I prefer a mixture of both.

Let me just say +1.

These sound right out of my own playbook, and I heartily endorse them.  The game should be balanced so different roles/classes/groups can contribute in the game area the game is built for, combat, social, research, underworld, or whatever.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;680241Games will never be balanced because people have different opinions and preferences of what balance means to them.  4e fans say that 4e is incredibly well balanced, but then again, apparently they think 4e is just as lethal as AD&D at low levels.


So if you've already got a big disparity between what people think is equivalent, how can you ever expect everyone to agree what balance is?  Never.  Not for something as complex as a detailed role playing game.  There are simply too many variables at work.

The fundemental difference between level 1 combat in 1E and 4E is that level 1 (sometimes higher) characters can be one-shot in 1E, and it takes at least two hits in 4E.

1E also phases in 'save or die' effects that in 4E take 2-3 or mor erounds and multiple saves to kill you, and are likely weaker than that even.

I decree that means 1E is more lethal.



The argument on that posted thread that 1E and 4E are equally lethal seems to have a logic flaw.  Just because everyone has more hp, it does not make the combat 'equally lethal'   Well, I don't think so anyway.

I find myself agreeing a lot with Traveller in this thread and I feel funny about it. :eek:

Quote from: Sacrosanct;680341One thing I hear often from 4e fans is that the number and type of encounters must be balanced in the adventuring day.  Largely because of how the powers are per-encounter and per day.  If I'm not mistaken, the 4e rules tell you explicitly how many encounters per day, and what level they should be.

Whether you mean it to be or not, this is a textbook example of a strawman argument. Instead of discussing things people have actually said you're arguing against things no-one in this thread has said and things that the published 4e books do not contain. I like 4e, feel free to ask me a question if you want.

Quote from: soviet;680447Whether you mean it to be or not, this is a textbook example of a strawman argument. Instead of discussing things people have actually said you're arguing against things no-one in this thread has said and things that the published 4e books do not contain. I like 4e, feel free to ask me a question if you want.

First, I did not say it was arguments only made in this thread.  Ironic that you'd use a strawman term when that's exactly what you've just done.

Secondly, there is a discussion on the G+ D&D Next forum where they do say what I paraphrased.

Quote from: The Traveller;680419And I'm certainly not saying that monsters need to be balanced.

The whole point of the rule isn't about monster vs party balance.  Its about player to player balance.

Because of the "need" for all character types to contribute equally in all combats, monsters can only "hop" as flight while fighting. This has less to do with overall monster power than it does making sure the melee focused builds get to use their primary powers.

It is subverting the way the setting works in the name of balance. It all begins with builds and the entitlement attitude that the world will indeed conform to my build in order to make sure I am more awesome.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;680405I hate builds with a passion because they breed the kind of niche specialization that in turn leads to entitlement, which then become rules that turn an immersive world into a turd all in the name of balance.

God, this so much.  Everyone wants "weapon specialization", but forget that it just moves the baseline up, and makes you incompetent with everything else.

I like rules that push decision-making to table-time, and away from build-time.

Quote from: The Traveller;680419I honestly don't know enough about 4E to be able to comment on the system, although from the little I know it sounds like a minmaxer's paradise. It sounds as though the game is trying to compensate by spiking everyone up in ability, not levelling them out, which is my preferred approach; 4E is pandering to munchkinry in other words, rather than being the end result of this train of thought.

No, I think 3.x is the minmax paradise.  I look at overall balance as a few things:

1) How effective is a "baseline" build - that is, a build that a newbie to the system, making "logical" choices would make?
2) How much more powerful is an optimized build?
3) Can optimization make a character that's more effective in what "should be" his weak areas than a baseline character that specializes in those areas?
4) Can most characters contribute in most scenarios, in at least some way?

I think that by all of those criteria, 3.x is "worse" than 4e, whatever other faults 4e may have.

Quote from: The Traveller;680419It's also laughably impossible to gauge how many and how powerful encounters a group can handle on any given day, because their chosen tactics are going to be far more important than their raw skills.

This is ideal.  Again, I prefer table decisions to build decisions.

Quote from: LordVreeg;680431These sound right out of my own playbook, and I heartily endorse them.  The game should be balanced so different roles/classes/groups can contribute in the game area the game is built for, combat, social, research, underworld, or whatever.

Absolutely.  Balance really only becomes a serious issue when that's not true.  When some players are twiddling their thumbs, there's a problem.  And when they feel outshined in their areas of specialties by other characters that aren't specialists in that area, there's also a problem.

Quote from: Bill;680435The fundemental difference between level 1 combat in 1E and 4E is that level 1 (sometimes higher) characters can be one-shot in 1E, and it takes at least two hits in 4E.

More like 3-4.  That's one of the things I *like* about 4e as compared to 3.x.  It's very realistic that the game has changed from the "paleo" campaigns where death was common and cheap, and players had a portfolio of characters.  From what I've seen, most GMs today won't kill a character due to a random roll, and will fudge the dice instead.  So actually having the mechanics support that is, I think, a good thing, if "not killing 1st level characters on a single bad roll" is in fact how you're playing.

Quote from: Bill;6804351E also phases in 'save or die' effects that in 4E take 2-3 or mor erounds and multiple saves to kill you, and are likely weaker than that even.

Yeah, 4e pretty much gets rid of Save-Or-Die, and Save-Or-Suck effects.

Quote from: Bill;680435I decree that means 1E is more lethal.

I don't think anyone in their right mind could really argue that.  Of course, any game is as lethal as the opposition you face, but what 4e gets rid of is a lot of the "instadeath" that was common in earlier versions.

Quote from: Bill;680435The argument on that posted thread that 1E and 4E are equally lethal seems to have a logic flaw.  Just because everyone has more hp, it does not make the combat 'equally lethal'   Well, I don't think so anyway.

There's a couple of things that 4e does differently, that makes comparisons somewhat sketchy.  It gets rid of the vast majority of the "boom you're dead" kind of effects, and vastly increases the "unconscious" zone.  But on the other hand, the game isn't really designed around the idea of your hit points getting slowly worn down over the course of the day.  If you're looking at relatively "even" challenges, characters should get knocked out pretty much every fight.  They just get back up.  The system seems to be designed to make more fights feel like they're on the edge and increase the impression of danger.

You can still kill characters, of course.  Difficult encounters will do that, and I've seen characters die in "even challenges" by doing stupid things.  But the "insta-death" scenarios are mostly gone.

Quote from: elfandghost;679739Following on from this thread .

Should there be game balance at all? And if so, should it be mechanical (within the rules); through role-playing (cultural differences) and/or through the GM?

No balance needed.

Play the role that you want to play.

If one guy wants to initiate an arms race, then it will eventually reach a ridiculous level, and that's that.