Balance by Spotlight [Archive] - Wizards Community

Balance by Spotlight [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Levi_Kornelsen
02-06-07, 07:27 PM This may not be a new idea to you. It's new-ish to me.

People occasionally discuss attempting to balance the D&D classes by rewriting those classes. On the whole, I'm not sure I agree with this way of seeking the elusive bugaboo that is game balance. Y'see, if you fine-tune the classes to give equal play in your style, you're setting them up to deal with the encounters you think will be common. And that's good for your game, if you know those kinds of encounters ahead of time.

But reversing the issue is also possible, and strikes me as potentially more fruitful. That is, balancing the characters by creating spotlight stuff for them.

Let's say that you have a party made up of a sniper-type ranger, a heavy-evocation sorcerer (who favors lighting bolts), and a brute fighter/barbarian hybrid. Now, you could sit down and try to sort out their comparative strengths and weaknesses in the whole gamut of challenges. Or you could just engineer a few encounters - say, three per character - so that each encounter built in advance allows one of the characters to truly strut their stuff, and leaves the others in a generally defensive role. Some quickie examples:

For the ranger, a situation where both sides have piles of hard cover, and the enemies are many, very weak, and spread well out. The Sorcerer can't fit more than one or two in their area-blast spells, the Barbarian can only fight one a round, and there are lots of foes. The ranger shines, here; he doesn't have to break cover, and won't run out of juice.

For the sorcerer, a few groups attack cautiously and in formation here and there, from both sides of in various narrow corridors. They should have good AC, a bit of reach, and will "set against a charge". The ranger and the barbarian need to slog for this one, but the Sorcerer can lay down the FWAKOOOM!!!, and the day is won.

For the barbarian, ambush the group with close-up melee. Lots of attacks of opportunity on ranged attacks and magic, held actions to disrupt casting, and so on. Lots of smackdown, even some grappling. He's the king here.

Maybe you could do even better dreaming up different situations where each member of your party is The Man. With a little practice, you might even be able to look over the encounter you have planned and go "Huh. Our Monk isn't suited to this big chasm-fight I've got planned. A couple of these, a couple of those, and we're rolling. Now he can be just as cool as everyone else."

But it's a thought.
tombowings
02-06-07, 08:59 PM I dont have all that much to say, never having tried anything like this, but I really think it would be a good way to "balance" the classes out. Kudos to you.
OneWinged4ngel
02-06-07, 10:00 PM This may not be a new idea to you. It's new-ish to me.

People occasionally discuss attempting to balance the D&D classes by rewriting those classes. On the whole, I'm not sure I agree with this way of seeking the elusive bugaboo that is game balance. Y'see, if you fine-tune the classes to give equal play in your style, you're setting them up to deal with the encounters you think will be common. And that's good for your game, if you know those kinds of encounters ahead of time. Not really... that's not something that nescessarily happens when you're refitting a class. It is, however, a common pitfall that inexperienced class designers can fall into.

But reversing the issue is also possible, and strikes me as potentially more fruitful. That is, balancing the characters by creating spotlight stuff for them. This doesn't work, for a variety of reasons, up to and including "My class is better than your class at its own specialty niche, and you just suck."

Let's say that you have a party made up of a sniper-type ranger, a heavy-evocation sorcerer (who favors lighting bolts), and a brute fighter/barbarian hybrid. Now, you could sit down and try to sort out their comparative strengths and weaknesses in the whole gamut of challenges. Or you could just engineer a few encounters - say, three per character - so that each encounter built in advance allows one of the characters to truly strut their stuff, and leaves the others in a generally defensive role. Some quickie examples:

For the ranger, a situation where both sides have piles of hard cover, and the enemies are many, very weak, and spread well out. The Sorcerer can't fit more than one or two in their area-blast spells, the Barbarian can only fight one a round, and there are lots of foes. The ranger shines, here; he doesn't have to break cover, and won't run out of juice. ...the sorceror can do that pretty easily too, actually... through a great variety of methods. Splitting up rays to hit many targets? Can do. Using a reserve feat? Buffing yourself so you can use a bow well? You get the idea.

And also, dang, talk about a specialized scenario, just for the sorceror. Too bad these are unlikely to come up frequently without the players catching on to you making them win on purpouse... because *you* made them do well, not because they did well themselves. That's railroading, and taking fun and a sense of accomplishment away from the PCs.

For the sorcerer, a few groups attack cautiously and in formation here and there, from both sides of in various narrow corridors. They should have good AC, a bit of reach, and will "set against a charge". The ranger and the barbarian need to slog for this one, but the Sorcerer can lay down the FWAKOOOM!!!, and the day is won. Intelligent enemies tend to avoid this... or are you purpousely making the enemy soldiers act completely retarded, moving in a tactically useless formation down a narrow corridor cautiously, just waiting to get fireballed?

For the barbarian, ambush the group with close-up melee. Lots of attacks of opportunity on ranged attacks and magic, held actions to disrupt casting, and so on. Lots of smackdown, even some grappling. He's the king here. Of course, magic-users can out-melee melee classes, because the classes are unbalanced, remember?

Maybe you could do even better dreaming up different situations where each member of your party is The Man. This would be the ideal case. With a little practice, you might even be able to look over the encounter you have planned and go "Huh. Our Monk isn't suited to this big chasm-fight I've got planned. A couple of these, a couple of those, and we're rolling. Now he can be just as cool as everyone else."

But it's a thought.

According to your purely hypothetical example that intentionally compares in simplistic terms with simplistic classes and builds, and tries to just cover up the disparity of class balance with a thin veil of coverups that don't really work so effectively in actual practice, at least to the extent you seem to expect them to. What do you do when the tank-build sword and board fighter can't compete with the tanking ability of the druid, for example?

It's like you're trying to say "Hey, let's ignore our problems and pretend they don't exist, and cover it up with more work for the DM and keeping the characters only situationally useful in the case of tailored encounters made to suit their own special abilities."

Anyways, your examples are pretty bad. Ranger one is definitely too specialized (VERY weak enemies, spreaf far out, all under cover?) and sounds easy for anyone to beat by any of a hundred different methods, including just running up to them and hitting them. Heck, if you actually are worried about their weak little arrows hitting your or something, use a smokestick or something similar. Bam, you go right up behind them. Sorceror one is also mook-clearing, which is easy for anyone. Barbarian one assumes that the enemies have no capacity to fight up close... and thus are probably played badly (magic users are by no means particularly vulnerable up close), which is what's really compensating for the balance here. Intentionally playing stupid.

It's good to give people the spotlight now and then, and it's good for a person to get a chance to show off. A good DM will do this for just about all the players, all the time. However, it's not an excuse to ignore balance issues.
Levi_Kornelsen
02-06-07, 11:48 PM Anyways, your examples are pretty bad.

Well, yeah.

I've never actually tried to engineer encounters to put down a spotlight in play before - just noticed places where it happened on it's own in the course of play. I'm still tossing the basic concept around.

It does strike me that there's could be some hypothetical, bizzaro-world list of encounters under which, were it the only list, the existing classes would have perfect balance. It's a neat thought; I'm just not sure if it's useful.

I also suspect that if DM #1 and DM #2 believe different things about what's broken, it may speak just as strongly to their idea of a "normal" encounter as to any other factor.
fatal error
02-07-07, 12:03 AM Well, in general all the classes should perform the same in a basic type of encounter. A handful of enemies, not just one, not over five. Without a lot of crazy terrain, but with some, etc.

I have, however, designed encounters with a certain character in mind. The level my group's Swordsage got Death Mark I put in an encounter that involved about two dozen mooks running out to help the "boss," giving the Swordsage a good target for his new AoE maneuver. I also made a fight on a boat for the Swashbuckler, but he ended up hiding behind some crates on the shore to crossbow them. How unswashbucklerish of him!
BlueBlazer
02-07-07, 11:35 AM I completely agree that it behooves the DM to set up a variety of challenges that play to the strengths of the various classes _ even if that class isn't represented in play (some groups like the kind of play you described, where everything Seems To Go Their Way, where the challenges are easily handled by at least one PC present, but a truly 'balanced' game will have a variety of challenges regardless of PCs playing... there will still be traps if no one decides to play a rogue, for example... and just because you described a party-friendly encounter doesn't mean that's what you always use; just talking about your example). I also agree that this will take care of a good chunk of the power differences (or seeming differences) between classes... there have been plenty of times I've read a post on these boards where some DM complains that a certain PC is overshadowing the party and gives examples of the many monsters that PC has smashed and all the monsters are weak where that PC is strong. I know there are many who believe (to pick an example) that casters are more powerful than non-casters, especially at higher levels. I actually generally agree with this sentiment, as it seems to be borne out not only in my reading of the classes/spells/blah but also in play... however, the DM can reduce that disparity by picking a good variety of challenges. Maybe not eliminate it entirely, but reduce it... monsters with SR and classes with evasion and lots of other tricksy bits can take the edge off of casters, and are an important part of a balanced breakfast.

However, even with the most nutritionally minded DM (okay, I'll drop the analogy), there do seem to be obvious disparities between certain classes. "Fixing" something incorrectly can make things worse, but that's true of anything one tries to fix, and I don't think there are many, DM or player, who would say there's no room for improvement, and providing a variety of challenges doesn't always address this.

Take, for example, the sorcerer v. wizard debate. The sorc gets a slightly better choice of weapons (which usually has little to no effect... ooh, a mace rather than a quarterstaff... for a melee-shy class) and more spells per day, plus the tactical advantage of spontaneous casting. The wizard gets a better progression (learns higher level spells sooner), no limitation on number of spells known (other than monetary, and will end up knowing more spells than the sorc even without spending any money at all, MUCH more than the sorc if the wiz spends a little cash), the scribe scroll feat (not a huge deal, but quite handy), bonus metamagic feats (which make her spells more handy and/or powerful), and the convenient synergy of having INT as the casting stat (I'm not going to get into an argument over whether some stats are inherently better than others. However, even if you assume all stats are equal the sorc is better at CHA based skills, like bluffing and diplomacy, and the wizard is better at magic based skills, like Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana) AND has more skill points (because she's got a higher INT)... the wiz's stat plays to her (spellcasting) strength and gives more skill points which means advantage: wizard). The tactical advantage of spontaneous casting can be great, but it assumes the sorc has a relevant spell on her list... the wizard often has the "wrong" spell memorized for an occasion and the sorc often has the "wrong" spells, period... so this tactiacl advantage isn't as pervasive as it might seem. The sorc's extra castings per day can be great (especially when taken advantage of, like casting quickened spells and a higher level spell every round), but a) that quickened magic missile isn't really packing all that much punch, b) the wizard can do the same... just not as many times per day, and c) would you rather be a sorc 11 and cast your quickened scorching ray plus your cone of cold, or a wiz 11 and cast your disintegrate (maybe with a quickened scorching ray too, if the wizard likes the overkill)? Granted, somewhat loaded example, but the access to higher level spells does come into play a lot, and how long do your players adventure, anyway? For the sorc to actually use all those castings per day she either has to unload a quickened (lower level spell) at every opportunity, or the party has adventure for a while (usually the cleric will run out of spells before the sorc, and what party adventures when the cleric is running on empty? And what arcane caster, sorc or wiz or whatever, keeps adventuring when she's down to 2nd and 1st level spells?).

Now plenty of people play sorcs and like sorcs (I think they're great, by the by)... they're more "user friendly" than wizards, and for some strange psychological reason it's more reassuring to not have the right spell at all than to have it but not have it memorized (the sorc who doesn't know fly period doesn't care much when flying would be apropos, but the wiz who has it in her book but doesn't have it memorized feels like a berk). And there are probably arguments for sorcs and against wizards I'm not thinking of... but regardless, none of this will be addressed by what the DM throws at the party. So if a player decides to play a sorc (because being slightly more powerful isn't always as appealing as being more fun, and quite a few people just find sorcs easier and more fun), and the DM decides to do some balancing by, say, giving the sorc eschew materials as a free feat, or, Olidammara forbid, a d6 hitdie (like the warmage... don't even freaking get me started on the freaking warmage, or, as I like to call it, the "oh, yeah, that's kinda what we were going for with the sorc... oh well, new class"), how does this either break the game or involve Fixing Where You Could Just Plan Encounters Better?

You're right, in that a variety of challenges is important AND that it can eliminate SOME of the power disparities between classes... but it's no panacea. DMs who want to balance the scales a bit should be responsible (consider all the ramifications, change rules only when something else wouldn't work), but Fixing Responsibly doesn't mean Never Fixing.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Levi_Kornelsen 02-06-07, 07:27 PM	This may not be a new idea to you. It's new-ish to me. People occasionally discuss attempting to balance the D&D classes by rewriting those classes. On the whole, I'm not sure I agree with this way of seeking the elusive bugaboo that is game balance. Y'see, if you fine-tune the classes to give equal play in your style, you're setting them up to deal with the encounters you think will be common. And that's good for your game, if you know those kinds of encounters ahead of time. But reversing the issue is also possible, and strikes me as potentially more fruitful. That is, balancing the characters by creating spotlight stuff for them. Let's say that you have a party made up of a sniper-type ranger, a heavy-evocation sorcerer (who favors lighting bolts), and a brute fighter/barbarian hybrid. Now, you could sit down and try to sort out their comparative strengths and weaknesses in the whole gamut of challenges. Or you could just engineer a few encounters - say, three per character - so that each encounter built in advance allows one of the characters to truly strut their stuff, and leaves the others in a generally defensive role. Some quickie examples: For the ranger, a situation where both sides have piles of hard cover, and the enemies are many, very weak, and spread well out. The Sorcerer can't fit more than one or two in their area-blast spells, the Barbarian can only fight one a round, and there are lots of foes. The ranger shines, here; he doesn't have to break cover, and won't run out of juice. For the sorcerer, a few groups attack cautiously and in formation here and there, from both sides of in various narrow corridors. They should have good AC, a bit of reach, and will "set against a charge". The ranger and the barbarian need to slog for this one, but the Sorcerer can lay down the FWAKOOOM!!!, and the day is won. For the barbarian, ambush the group with close-up melee. Lots of attacks of opportunity on ranged attacks and magic, held actions to disrupt casting, and so on. Lots of smackdown, even some grappling. He's the king here. Maybe you could do even better dreaming up different situations where each member of your party is The Man. With a little practice, you might even be able to look over the encounter you have planned and go "Huh. Our Monk isn't suited to this big chasm-fight I've got planned. A couple of these, a couple of those, and we're rolling. Now he can be just as cool as everyone else." But it's a thought.
tombowings 02-06-07, 08:59 PM	I dont have all that much to say, never having tried anything like this, but I really think it would be a good way to "balance" the classes out. Kudos to you.
OneWinged4ngel 02-06-07, 10:00 PM	This may not be a new idea to you. It's new-ish to me. People occasionally discuss attempting to balance the D&D classes by rewriting those classes. On the whole, I'm not sure I agree with this way of seeking the elusive bugaboo that is game balance. Y'see, if you fine-tune the classes to give equal play in your style, you're setting them up to deal with the encounters you think will be common. And that's good for your game, if you know those kinds of encounters ahead of time. Not really... that's not something that nescessarily happens when you're refitting a class. It is, however, a common pitfall that inexperienced class designers can fall into. But reversing the issue is also possible, and strikes me as potentially more fruitful. That is, balancing the characters by creating spotlight stuff for them. This doesn't work, for a variety of reasons, up to and including "My class is better than your class at its own specialty niche, and you just suck." Let's say that you have a party made up of a sniper-type ranger, a heavy-evocation sorcerer (who favors lighting bolts), and a brute fighter/barbarian hybrid. Now, you could sit down and try to sort out their comparative strengths and weaknesses in the whole gamut of challenges. Or you could just engineer a few encounters - say, three per character - so that each encounter built in advance allows one of the characters to truly strut their stuff, and leaves the others in a generally defensive role. Some quickie examples: For the ranger, a situation where both sides have piles of hard cover, and the enemies are many, very weak, and spread well out. The Sorcerer can't fit more than one or two in their area-blast spells, the Barbarian can only fight one a round, and there are lots of foes. The ranger shines, here; he doesn't have to break cover, and won't run out of juice. ...the sorceror can do that pretty easily too, actually... through a great variety of methods. Splitting up rays to hit many targets? Can do. Using a reserve feat? Buffing yourself so you can use a bow well? You get the idea. And also, dang, talk about a specialized scenario, just for the sorceror. Too bad these are unlikely to come up frequently without the players catching on to you making them win on purpouse... because you made them do well, not because they did well themselves. That's railroading, and taking fun and a sense of accomplishment away from the PCs. For the sorcerer, a few groups attack cautiously and in formation here and there, from both sides of in various narrow corridors. They should have good AC, a bit of reach, and will "set against a charge". The ranger and the barbarian need to slog for this one, but the Sorcerer can lay down the FWAKOOOM!!!, and the day is won. Intelligent enemies tend to avoid this... or are you purpousely making the enemy soldiers act completely retarded, moving in a tactically useless formation down a narrow corridor cautiously, just waiting to get fireballed? For the barbarian, ambush the group with close-up melee. Lots of attacks of opportunity on ranged attacks and magic, held actions to disrupt casting, and so on. Lots of smackdown, even some grappling. He's the king here. Of course, magic-users can out-melee melee classes, because the classes are unbalanced, remember? Maybe you could do even better dreaming up different situations where each member of your party is The Man. This would be the ideal case. With a little practice, you might even be able to look over the encounter you have planned and go "Huh. Our Monk isn't suited to this big chasm-fight I've got planned. A couple of these, a couple of those, and we're rolling. Now he can be just as cool as everyone else." But it's a thought. According to your purely hypothetical example that intentionally compares in simplistic terms with simplistic classes and builds, and tries to just cover up the disparity of class balance with a thin veil of coverups that don't really work so effectively in actual practice, at least to the extent you seem to expect them to. What do you do when the tank-build sword and board fighter can't compete with the tanking ability of the druid, for example? It's like you're trying to say "Hey, let's ignore our problems and pretend they don't exist, and cover it up with more work for the DM and keeping the characters only situationally useful in the case of tailored encounters made to suit their own special abilities." Anyways, your examples are pretty bad. Ranger one is definitely too specialized (VERY weak enemies, spreaf far out, all under cover?) and sounds easy for anyone to beat by any of a hundred different methods, including just running up to them and hitting them. Heck, if you actually are worried about their weak little arrows hitting your or something, use a smokestick or something similar. Bam, you go right up behind them. Sorceror one is also mook-clearing, which is easy for anyone. Barbarian one assumes that the enemies have no capacity to fight up close... and thus are probably played badly (magic users are by no means particularly vulnerable up close), which is what's really compensating for the balance here. Intentionally playing stupid. It's good to give people the spotlight now and then, and it's good for a person to get a chance to show off. A good DM will do this for just about all the players, all the time. However, it's not an excuse to ignore balance issues.
Levi_Kornelsen 02-06-07, 11:48 PM	Anyways, your examples are pretty bad. Well, yeah. I've never actually tried to engineer encounters to put down a spotlight in play before - just noticed places where it happened on it's own in the course of play. I'm still tossing the basic concept around. It does strike me that there's could be some hypothetical, bizzaro-world list of encounters under which, were it the only list, the existing classes would have perfect balance. It's a neat thought; I'm just not sure if it's useful. I also suspect that if DM #1 and DM #2 believe different things about what's broken, it may speak just as strongly to their idea of a "normal" encounter as to any other factor.
fatal error 02-07-07, 12:03 AM	Well, in general all the classes should perform the same in a basic type of encounter. A handful of enemies, not just one, not over five. Without a lot of crazy terrain, but with some, etc. I have, however, designed encounters with a certain character in mind. The level my group's Swordsage got Death Mark I put in an encounter that involved about two dozen mooks running out to help the "boss," giving the Swordsage a good target for his new AoE maneuver. I also made a fight on a boat for the Swashbuckler, but he ended up hiding behind some crates on the shore to crossbow them. How unswashbucklerish of him!
BlueBlazer 02-07-07, 11:35 AM	I completely agree that it behooves the DM to set up a variety of challenges that play to the strengths of the various classes _ even if that class isn't represented in play (some groups like the kind of play you described, where everything Seems To Go Their Way, where the challenges are easily handled by at least one PC present, but a truly 'balanced' game will have a variety of challenges regardless of PCs playing... there will still be traps if no one decides to play a rogue, for example... and just because you described a party-friendly encounter doesn't mean that's what you always use; just talking about your example). I also agree that this will take care of a good chunk of the power differences (or seeming differences) between classes... there have been plenty of times I've read a post on these boards where some DM complains that a certain PC is overshadowing the party and gives examples of the many monsters that PC has smashed and all the monsters are weak where that PC is strong. I know there are many who believe (to pick an example) that casters are more powerful than non-casters, especially at higher levels. I actually generally agree with this sentiment, as it seems to be borne out not only in my reading of the classes/spells/blah but also in play... however, the DM can reduce that disparity by picking a good variety of challenges. Maybe not eliminate it entirely, but reduce it... monsters with SR and classes with evasion and lots of other tricksy bits can take the edge off of casters, and are an important part of a balanced breakfast. However, even with the most nutritionally minded DM (okay, I'll drop the analogy), there do seem to be obvious disparities between certain classes. "Fixing" something incorrectly can make things worse, but that's true of anything one tries to fix, and I don't think there are many, DM or player, who would say there's no room for improvement, and providing a variety of challenges doesn't always address this. Take, for example, the sorcerer v. wizard debate. The sorc gets a slightly better choice of weapons (which usually has little to no effect... ooh, a mace rather than a quarterstaff... for a melee-shy class) and more spells per day, plus the tactical advantage of spontaneous casting. The wizard gets a better progression (learns higher level spells sooner), no limitation on number of spells known (other than monetary, and will end up knowing more spells than the sorc even without spending any money at all, MUCH more than the sorc if the wiz spends a little cash), the scribe scroll feat (not a huge deal, but quite handy), bonus metamagic feats (which make her spells more handy and/or powerful), and the convenient synergy of having INT as the casting stat (I'm not going to get into an argument over whether some stats are inherently better than others. However, even if you assume all stats are equal the sorc is better at CHA based skills, like bluffing and diplomacy, and the wizard is better at magic based skills, like Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana) AND has more skill points (because she's got a higher INT)... the wiz's stat plays to her (spellcasting) strength and gives more skill points which means advantage: wizard). The tactical advantage of spontaneous casting can be great, but it assumes the sorc has a relevant spell on her list... the wizard often has the "wrong" spell memorized for an occasion and the sorc often has the "wrong" spells, period... so this tactiacl advantage isn't as pervasive as it might seem. The sorc's extra castings per day can be great (especially when taken advantage of, like casting quickened spells and a higher level spell every round), but a) that quickened magic missile isn't really packing all that much punch, b) the wizard can do the same... just not as many times per day, and c) would you rather be a sorc 11 and cast your quickened scorching ray plus your cone of cold, or a wiz 11 and cast your disintegrate (maybe with a quickened scorching ray too, if the wizard likes the overkill)? Granted, somewhat loaded example, but the access to higher level spells does come into play a lot, and how long do your players adventure, anyway? For the sorc to actually use all those castings per day she either has to unload a quickened (lower level spell) at every opportunity, or the party has adventure for a while (usually the cleric will run out of spells before the sorc, and what party adventures when the cleric is running on empty? And what arcane caster, sorc or wiz or whatever, keeps adventuring when she's down to 2nd and 1st level spells?). Now plenty of people play sorcs and like sorcs (I think they're great, by the by)... they're more "user friendly" than wizards, and for some strange psychological reason it's more reassuring to not have the right spell at all than to have it but not have it memorized (the sorc who doesn't know fly period doesn't care much when flying would be apropos, but the wiz who has it in her book but doesn't have it memorized feels like a berk). And there are probably arguments for sorcs and against wizards I'm not thinking of... but regardless, none of this will be addressed by what the DM throws at the party. So if a player decides to play a sorc (because being slightly more powerful isn't always as appealing as being more fun, and quite a few people just find sorcs easier and more fun), and the DM decides to do some balancing by, say, giving the sorc eschew materials as a free feat, or, Olidammara forbid, a d6 hitdie (like the warmage... don't even freaking get me started on the freaking warmage, or, as I like to call it, the "oh, yeah, that's kinda what we were going for with the sorc... oh well, new class"), how does this either break the game or involve Fixing Where You Could Just Plan Encounters Better? You're right, in that a variety of challenges is important AND that it can eliminate SOME of the power disparities between classes... but it's no panacea. DMs who want to balance the scales a bit should be responsible (consider all the ramifications, change rules only when something else wouldn't work), but Fixing Responsibly doesn't mean Never Fixing.