Post/Author/DateTime	Post
nastynate 07-16-06, 03:43 AM	I have seen more threads recently about the over-powered classes and under-powered classes than I can shake a stick at, and while I completely understand that a certain measuring stick is essential for the health of a game, I hope people realize that perfect balance is not possible. The only way the classes can be completely balanced is if they all have the exact same options. Classes by their very nature divide up the options available to characters. Some options are more valuable than others in some circumstances, and some options may even completely invalidate others at times. So long as D&D has character classes, each with their own set of different class features it is impossible for everyone to be equal. True balance in a class based system is about assignment and adherance to a role within the party. The four major roles are the healer (or the character that removed, cures, and dispels hostile effects like damage, posion, level loss, resurrection, etc), the warrior, the arcane caster, and the skill based character. Eveything else is little more than a variant upon these roles, or a combination of them. Any character that deviates from their role infringes upon the role of another character. Some classes are more guilty of this than others (druids for example), but to some extent all classes are somewhat guilty. The problem is that in D&D the roles themselves are not balanced. Many spells infringe upon the other roles, and some high level spells completely invalidate them. Skills are frequently valuable in non-combat situations, but sadly much of D&D is centered on combat and most of the XP earned is earned in combat situations; that of course means that those who focus on skill points are valuable to their party, but not to substantial accumulation of experience points. I could on and on... Ultimately balance is only achieved when the players are gracious enough to accept weaknesses in their own characters (which is difficult because with minimal optimization it possible to overcome many of them), and allow other party members to pick up the slack in those areas. Additionally the DM must make certain to provide equal opportunity for each character to to make the most use of their role. Once a DM stops custom building every encounter to perfectly fit the party, the game balance gets skewed. You either need to run a predictable game (with balance) or a dynamic unique game (and leave the balance in the hands of your players). If you leave the balance in your players' hands, they have to handicap their characters so they won't invalidate the other characters' roles. Even if the druid would be better off shape changing and handling the melee himself, he needs to hang back and let a fighter do his thing...that's equally unappealing. Why should a player not play his character to his fullest potential? I really enjoy the generic classes from UA for this very reason, but I wish there were no classes at all in D&D. It is one of the biggest flaws in the game, and most people don't even realize it, because we're just so accustomed to them. Every year I find that D&D becomes more intricate and complicated, and it makes me sad that such a complex set of rules is still so woefully flawed. Personally to me D&D feels more like a tactical minatures game than a role-playing game from a rules standpoint. I love the game and probably always will, but it has become a tactical excercise in one-ups-manship like never before. I am almost compelled to write my own rules, and just steal the fluff from WotC, but only the rules are OGC...I suspect this is why other gaming systems exist. Don't get me wrong here. I role-play with the best of them, but role-playing is not central to the rules system itself (at least in D&D it isn't). I wish I had a solution. Anyone else feel this way? -Nasty-
Talen Lee 07-16-06, 03:46 AM	Neither is world peace, but we should still try. Ultimately, new design space is one of the hardest things to work with, so classes that do new, outlandish things, are hard to balance. Hell, the PHB2 is one of the first official books that's actually explored what a fighter can do with a feat at level 15.
Anthriel 07-16-06, 03:58 AM	Well, I have only one solution, and that is dynamic class rebuilding. Whenever someone feels some character is overpowered and takes too much of the spotlight, ways to change this are discussed in the group, and if enough players agree, the character/spell/feat gets nerfed. You need a very mature group for that though, groups that don't need rules to determine ability scores or class abilities, because they choose reasonable ones for their characters, or are willing to change them later if they turn out overpowered. But well, yeah, at that point, you certainly don't play the RAW anymore.
BlaineTog 07-16-06, 03:59 AM	I have seen more threads recently about the over-powered classes and under-powered classes than I can shake a stick at, and while I completely understand that a certain measuring stick is essential for the health of a game, I hope people realize that perfect balance is not possible.Defeatism ftl. I really enjoy the generic classes from UA for this very reason, but I wish there were no classes at all in D&D. It is one of the biggest flaws in the game, and most people don't even realize it, because we're just so accustomed to them. If it weren't "The Sorcerer is underpowered," it would be "the choice of options commonly known as the 'sorcerer'-type character is underpowered," or "the Pheonix line is underpowered." It has nothing to do with the classes. Classes are an integral part of D&D. I know how it sounds to say this, but if you don't like them, maybe you should go game shopping.
nastynate 07-16-06, 04:16 AM	The design space is actually part of the problem. In D&D your character is two things: a concept and a combination of classes, feats, skills, spells, and equipment. In order to build your concept you have to find a combination of rules to support it...once you start exploring the rules you often lose sight of what it was you were in the first place. Without classes you just build out from the concept and the only abilities you have are those you learn and use (or increase through experience) ala WoD, Gurps, and heck every other system I've ever played. D&D has hundreds of classes and yet you are still more limited than systems that don't have them at all. That is a whole lot of wasted rules from my point of view. You need to write new rules to do new things, because in D&D the mechanics are the class. Whatever fluff you come up with to support the concept actually has nothing to do with the rules at all. That's just RP. It's not that I don't want balance between classes, but I certainly don't want to rewrite every class to meet some arbitrary standard of balance. The plethora of supplimental rules, house rules, and balance issues are clear evidence that system itself has terrible flaws. PHB2 just started exploring more powerful feat options for fighters...yay more rules. Adding new fixed rules and support for flawed rules does not make the core game any better. It just makes it more complicated and rediculous. Each new rule has potential interaction with the thousands that came before it. The play testers cannot possible foresee every disasterous combination, and the more rules we have the less likely game balance is to prevail.
Archangel62 07-16-06, 04:30 AM	Balance doesn't mean that every class is equally powerful, balance means that every class gets a chance to contribute something and can have a moment in the spotlight. The skilled classes shine in situations that involve traps and npc interaction, combat classes shine in combat, etc. The problem of over or underpoweredness is that the mechanics of the game have, inadvertently or on purpose, reshaped how the game works. Core only combat classes are affected far more than a core only caster class. Certain classes make great 'double up' classes as a secondary something but are nowhere near as useful if they're the prime character in that. In a game I'm currently running the group had 4 main combat characters, Totemist, Duskblade, Knight, and Fighter/Dervish. Each one did some cool things but looking at it, if the Knight was the only melee class he would be far less effective than a standard fighter and dishing out damage. As a secondary fighter he's incredible, but he's no good as a solo act. The duskblade can play solo more easily but is the opposite side of the knight, she can't tank, can only deal massive damage amounts. New feats, spells, mechanics and tactics have altered the way that the game is played. I can do different things with each class, and I can show how by themselves they are obscene. However, what most people fail to notice is that a party full of people that are uber but don't work well together falls apart like a house of cards if they face a decently optimized cohesive group. Individual class power is debatable as well as numbers of actions it takes to do each thing, relative quality of strike, and comparison to similar classes can tell us what works and what doesn't but it doesn't go back to the main issue. We keep seeing balance as an issue of power and capability, I will argue that the druid and cleric need a bit of modding as they can fill 2 roles well and 2 others competently it does make me see it as a bit of a problem. However, the real problem involving most of these imbalance issues are simply that they involve a metric ton of mechanics. Most of these superbuilds require several books from multiple campaign settings and if you look at many of them organically they fail to work properly. Some of these designs turn into terrors around level 13-15 but by then many things are powerful as well and they're sucking before that. The idea of balance isn't an issue so long as people can enjoy themselves and no one is taking over the entire game.
mlasater 07-16-06, 08:13 AM	The secret to balance within the game is the GM telling the players "no" or "don't do that". No set of game mechanics is ideal and they will all start to break down if pushed hard enough or the characters get enough experience. Without classes you just build out from the concept and the only abilities you have are those you learn and use (or increase through experience) ala WoD, Gurps, and heck every other system I've ever played. Sure you can build a GURPS character on a concept or you can just collect the most powerful collection of advantages possible. GURPS is a system which seem to brings out the worse min-maxing tendencies and yet can be stifling to a developing concept. Under the rules you can't develop most advantages if your character doesn't start with them - so the concept has to fairly fixed from the beginning & is harder to change than in D&D. To top off the problems, the system has real basic balance issues - the cost of magic vs psionics/exotic powers for one. I'm running a GURPS camapign, so I'm dealing with the ugly side of its mechanics. WOD (at least the previous version, I've never read the current version) has enough problems to not be worth covering. I ran a great vampire campaign, but a good system with even basic elements of balance Vampire wasn't. The rest of the balance issue - and I suspect some of the reason for the endless threads on underpowered & overpowered issues - for the same class - is the players. I've seen players with mechanically uber-powerful character who couldn't manage to be effective at anything & I've seen players with a character clearly mechanically weaker than the rest of the party (lower level, lower stats and so forth) become the character that legends get written about. So, I'd say all that game balance needs is a GM to reign in the rampant abuses & creative players willing & able to utilize the strengths of their characters. The rest will take care of itself.
Verelor 07-16-06, 04:17 PM	There is no reasonable way to make everything perfectly balanced. Period. I am amazed that there are so many current efforts to attempt it regardless when all it takes to make the game fun is relatively sane balance (which D&D has achieved in very non-arbitrary ways), not absolute balance (which cannot be achieved).
Viper2 07-16-06, 05:04 PM	I feel ya about the balance of classes, although I haven't heard as much complaining as you might have, as evidenced by the writing of that article to begin with. However, I feel differently about the game as a whole than you do if you feel it is just a miniatures game with minimal roleplaying. Personally I make sure players realize the roleplaying part of the game (telling them that rolelaying is 2/3's of an rpg), so that they aren't just creating a set of stats, they're creating a personality to go along with it. I like backstories because I might incorporate an old friend or family member into the campaign for a player to run across and so the other players get to know that character better. I do know and play in campaigns where roleplaying is second to combat, but I haven't played in one where combat was more than 75% of the game or so. If you wanted a majoirty of roleplaying, there's always Vampire to turn to, or forum-based RPG's where everyone basically takes 20 (or more) at every skill they have and where powergaming is hard to avoid rather than something frowned upon.
Dnjscott 07-16-06, 06:11 PM	I think the main problem isn;t the class system per se (it's limiting, but I agree that DND - classes = ??) but the fact that all levels are supposed to be balanced against one another. Magic is more powerful than melee. OKie dokie, so slap the equivalent of a LA on wizards. I mean, they did it in second, right? I guess it would get complicated with ten thousand classes, but I bet people would like simple characters better if they got levels faster, as they did pre-3.0.
TekknoMancer 07-16-06, 07:50 PM	I think the main problem isn;t the class system per se (it's limiting, but I agree that DND - classes = ??) but the fact that all levels are supposed to be balanced against one another. Magic is more powerful than melee. OKie dokie, so slap the equivalent of a LA on wizards. I mean, they did it in second, right? I guess it would get complicated with ten thousand classes, but I bet people would like simple characters better if they got levels faster, as they did pre-3.0. YES! In 2e, wizards progressed faster at low levels since they were weaker than fighters. Then at high levels, a fighter with equal XP as a wiz would be a few levels higher. With 3e, I might attach % bonuses to attaining the next level when the last class taken was a "weaker" class. Thus if you take a fighter level for level 10, all XP gained to reach level 11 has a % bonus applied. If you take a level of wizard upon reaching 11, you no longer receive this bonus until you take a class that gives the bonus. I would prefer a %XP bonus (or even a penalty) as opposed to an LA. An LA would be seriously screwy when taking a new class with it and would KILL multiclassing.
Ariath Ska'Vhor 07-16-06, 08:20 PM	I think what people aren't thinking about is that D&D is made so people work together, complimenting eachother's powers. So who cares if the cleric is a little more powerful than most of the party, he's still on your team! go with it
PoorHobo 07-16-06, 09:11 PM	If its balance your after bonuses to XP isn't going to solve anything. Whoopy a 21st level fighter is 6 - 12 more HP less usueless than a 20th. But wait! The 21st fighter has an Epic feat! Oooh prowress......... Wich is useless beacuse the fighter is on an alternate bab progression. Unless there was some sort of errata a Wizard in 2ed had to get more XP even at low levels. A fighter needed 2000 and wizard 2250(approx) and a Rogue needed something like 1650(approx). too my knowledge the whole chart continues like that.
Kresalak 07-16-06, 09:21 PM	Your premise, that the only way for balance to be reached is for everyone to have the same ability, is incorrect. Balance is when every class can contribute equally to the party. If you're saying this is impossible, I don't know what to say. The word is balance, not equality.
angryman 07-16-06, 10:57 PM	IMO, balance equals 1) Everybody is having fun 2) Everybody feels like they're contributing 3) Noobdy feels like their niche is covered by another class Why is this impossible?
BlaineTog 07-17-06, 12:07 AM	The design space is actually part of the problem. In D&D your character is two things: a concept and a combination of classes, feats, skills, spells, and equipment. In order to build your concept you have to find a combination of rules to support it...once you start exploring the rules you often lose sight of what it was you were in the first place. Without classes you just build out from the concept and the only abilities you have are those you learn and use (or increase through experience) ala WoD, Gurps, and heck every other system I've ever played.Ah, no. First, a lot of the time, it works in the other direction: you see a mechanic or class that intrigues you, and it inspires a character. That's how my Shaper and Warlock characters were born, and they were both extremely fun, well-developed characters. Second, the process you're describing is really no different in a classless system: because the mechanics are inherently different from the concept (that's practically the definition of "mechanics"), you will always have to fit your mechanics to the concept. Of course, in a classless system, you'll likely have an easier time form-fitting the character sheet to the concept, but you'll also, often, have even worse balance problems. (And note: that reverse effect I mentioned above is still useful if you already have a character concept. Knowing what the game allows you to do can give you ideas to help flesh out your character that you might have otherwise not thought of) D&D has hundreds of classes and yet you are still more limited than systems that don't have them at all. That is a whole lot of wasted rules from my point of view. You need to write new rules to do new things, because in D&D the mechanics are the class. Whatever fluff you come up with to support the concept actually has nothing to do with the rules at all. That's just RP.Ok, history lesson: once upon a time, there was a group of little kids. These little kids, like all little kids, had active imaginations. They would sometimes let their imaginations flow together, building stories between each other in which each was a powerful magician or a hard-swinging swordsman. But, there was a problem with this that always seemed to turn up: each of the kids wanted their part of the story to be the best, the most powerful, the truest expression of might. But they couldn't all be the superlative, so they would try to out-do each other. The magician who, before, had been able to make puffs of flame bound out from his fingers suddenly aquired the ability to fill whole rooms with fire. The swordsman was moments ago only able to kill a man after swinging his longsword for minutes and minutes, but now slices all in half in but one. When he, eventually, takes a swing at the magician, he laughs as the magician's torso slides off his legs, but is shocked to discover that nothing of the sort happened; the magician is perfectly fine, because of magic, and he then burns the swordsman to a crisp; but actually, that's not what happened at all, because the swordsman deflected the fire off his sword and back at the magician, who is definatelly dead now because magic killed him, but no, swords can't do that, and besides he didn't shoot anything at him, yes you did, no I did not, you're a liar, oh call me a liar will you, well you're dead now because I blow up everyone on the earth except me, well I still live because my helmet is made of magicci and I hit you into the sun, well I bounce off the sun and make everything in the universe turn to dust, you're a jerk I'm going home. I'm sure you're familiar with the problem. Hence, mechanics, of any variety. Let's just spell out what you can and cannot do, so we're not constantly competing to see who's idea of the way things work rules out (ie the last one to stomp away in a huff). Board games make each side exactly equal: you have the same resources at hand no matter who you are. However, role-playing games have to offer more leaway, and each character needs to have different abilities. As such, it is the game's job to strike a balance between so many options that they don't restrict at all, and so few options that it becomes impossible to play more than one single character. You clearly don't like how D&D's decided to strike its balance. Others, such as myself, think this class system is just fine, at least a lot of the time, and although there are a lot of kinks, it, all in all, works pretty well. The game is more or less balanced well enough, but it could be so much better, and it's not as idiot-proof as it could be. And, it's kinda fun to theorize about ways to make it better. So, we post and we post, and although the game is certainly playable right out of the box, we post on.
LordPendragon 07-17-06, 12:51 AM	Nice little anecdote there. I'm not going to say anything pertaining to the issue... this always seems to be a loaded topic.
Delanish 07-17-06, 09:30 AM	1) Have Fun 2) Nott everyone monster Bash 3) Let people play what they want SmallRant:(I will never play a fighter again my own 3 wizards in my party almsolt killed me a number of times and whine that they don't divide up the plate mail i found and sell it or if i help a dwarf i'm stupid if i go for a chest i can jump to i'm evil :p ) 4) Not everyone is combat based.. but everything can proove useful Rangers have been falling since DNd 1st edition but believe me they can save your butt in a forest but in combat i rather have a rogue at my side :) 5) Most important Huge your fighter and healer once and awhile they keep you alive :)
Kresalak 07-17-06, 11:59 PM	If not everything is about combat, the fighter is even weaker than you might think. Fighters can't do anything BUT combat-they have few skill points, no social skills, and no abilities that do anything but "hit monster with pointy stick".