A Word About Balance and Fixing Stuff

[OneWinged4ngel]

..

[Orion]

I wanted to just say one thing that I think always needs to be said in "balance" discussions: balance isn't just about combat. One of the elements of 4e that doesn't attract is that instead of balance, we have math. As you say, variety is a big part of the goal of the game design. Just making sure everyone can do the same damage with the same percentage chance of success isn't "balance." It's uniformity.

I like your test that if you feel yourself not sure of which option to take, that's a good balance. I'd just like to emphasise what seems to be lurking behind what you're saying, that that kind of balance could exist between a Tank build and a Face build. It's not just about killing/surviving potential in a fight.

Finally, similar to your note about Pun Pun: ultimately, if the people sitting around the table go out of their way to build a character or power that's clearly head-and-shoulders more powerful than all the others, that's the players' faults. You can hardly blame a hammer manufacturer if someone hits you with a ball-peen. RPG designers have their own share of the blame, of course, but the players have to take some responsibility for their own game play. Table-top RPGs aren't video games. You're not trying to "win" against a machine or a system. You're playing with your friends. It's an important difference.

[NineInchNall]

-When you can feel the indecision between two different choices (for purely mechanical reasons), that's balance, right there. There should be some sort of tradeoff of benefits that makes both options attractive for different reasons.

I disagree, or at least require some clarification.  What do you mean by purely mechanical reasons?  Do you mean when building for pure power or for when attempting to realize a build goal?

-I see a lot of conversations about "breaking 4e" and the like, and arguments about Cascade of Blades and the like, looking for the next Pun Pun. The reality is, Pun Pun doesn't break a GAME SYSTEM, he breaks a few isolated ability combinations. In fact, Pun Pun is one of the least broken problems in 3rd edition! Indeed, he is such a tiny gap in the system that he *never affected any real games.* That's right, *Pun Pun never ruined someone's game.* The things that ACTUALLY break a game as a SYSTEM are the broader, wider design issues. Things like 4th edition's "padded sumo" where you run out of interesting abilities by round 3 and fall into an endless at-will slugfest on giant hp bags past low levels is the sort of thing that hurts the SYSTEM. Things like unbalanced itemization that make everyone wear the same armor and weapons and examples of things that hurt the SYSTEM's balance. Things like 3rd ed diplomacy work towards breaking the system. Thing like individual super-abuses rarely devalue a system, unless they are difficult to avoid or simply houserule away with a minor tweak or change of interpretation of a rule. The reality is that subtler balance issues tend to actually be a far more common problem in real games. And underpowered things that lead to shoehorning are just as problematic as overpowered things.

Yea verily.

[OneWinged4ngel]

I disagree, or at least require some clarification.  What do you mean by purely mechanical reasons?  Do you mean when building for pure power or for when attempting to realize a build goal?

  By purely mechanical reasons, I mean to say that you're not feeling the indecision because "this ability looks sexy."  You're feeling it because "this ability is good, and this ability is also good, and there's a tradeoff between their differring benefits that makes both worth considering."

Yea verily.

It's very true.  I've never actually seen Pun Pun or a planar shepherd or anything of that sort damage anyone's game.  Ever.  Seriously, if the DM is actually dumb enough to include such things his game, odds are their game will fail *anyways* due to DM incompetency.

Armor imbalances, on the other hand, affected more or less every 3.5e game I've ever seen and was an endless source of headaches for many.

Therefore, one should think that logically you'd see more threads about how to fix armor than you would about fixing the planar shepherd, because the planar shepherd is a no-brainer and armor isn't.  Yet somehow I don't see this trend emerging on the GitP or WotC boards (though it does on some others, like The Gaming Den).

I wanted to just say one thing that I think always needs to be said in "balance" discussions: balance isn't just about combat. One of the elements of 4e that doesn't attract is that instead of balance, we have math. As you say, variety is a big part of the goal of the game design. Just making sure everyone can do the same damage with the same percentage chance of success isn't "balance." It's uniformity.

I like your test that if you feel yourself not sure of which option to take, that's a good balance. I'd just like to emphasise what seems to be lurking behind what you're saying, that that kind of balance could exist between a Tank build and a Face build. It's not just about killing/surviving potential in a fight.

Absolutely!  Conversely, if they're really basically the same choices, it's not balance, it's just actually having less options in your game (while giving the appearance that there's more to the gullible and stupid).

Finally, similar to your note about Pun Pun: ultimately, if the people sitting around the table go out of their way to build a character or power that's clearly head-and-shoulders more powerful than all the others, that's the players' faults. You can hardly blame a hammer manufacturer if someone hits you with a ball-peen. RPG designers have their own share of the blame, of course, but the players have to take some responsibility for their own game play. Table-top RPGs aren't video games. You're not trying to "win" against a machine or a system. You're playing with your friends. It's an important difference.

Right.  If you have to go significantly out of your way to do something overpowered, it generally isn't actually a problem and won't come up in real games that matter.  That is to say, if they are coming up, odds are the DM is so incompetent that the game will crash for reasons completely unrelated to classes.  Like if Faelrynith ran a campaign.

This is not to say that you shouldn't call out the designers for being stupid enough to make such mechanics.  It's just to say that these actually aren't as severe balance issues as many other things you can encounter in a system, on a practical level.  Basically, if it takes a minimally competent DM less than 30 seconds to handle houseruling the problem, then it's not a big problem (not to be confused with the Oberoni fallacy.  It *is* a problem.  I am addressing the perception of severity).

[NineInchNall]

I disagree, or at least require some clarification.  What do you mean by purely mechanical reasons?  Do you mean when building for pure power or for when attempting to realize a build goal?

  By purely mechanical reasons, I mean to say that you're not feeling the indecision because "this ability looks sexy."  You're feeling it because "this ability is good, and this ability is also good, and there's a tradeoff between their differring benefits that makes both worth considering."

Ah, well ... That would be the ideal.  Sorry, I'm having a hard time separating this thread's premise from the Class Design thread.

It's very true.  I've never actually seen Pun Pun or a planar shepherd or anything of that sort damage anyone's game.  Ever.  Seriously, if the DM is actually dumb enough to include such things his game, odds are their game will fail *anyways* due to DM incompetency.

This roundabout insult to a DM includes the assumption that all players are doing their utmost to win.  At the risk of calling down the wrath of Oberoni, I must note that even the most overpowered character can be played down to the level of the rest of the party.

[dman11235]

And once again OW4 you out do yourself.

You've managed to say what I've been thinking but haven't realized it for quite some time.

[OneWinged4ngel]

And once again OW4 you out do yourself.

  Pssh, you're too kind, it's just an old rant reposted.

[dman11235]

Ah, but I haven't seen this one, and thus it was just created. 

[nemafow]

Well said but I have a small thing to add.


You talk about balance and fixing stuff, and removing something isn't fixing it. If the DM and all the players agree that removing something is good, is that imbalancing?

I personally think the only way to play d&d 3.5 balanced is to stick with the core rulebooks. PHB, DMGs and Monster Manual.

I find every class, prestiege, spell ect, out of any of the other books (official or player made) to be unbalancing.

Might just be me though, but vanilla d&d is tonnes more fun when players are not pulling out spells and using exotic classes that you forgot about, or simply did not know about (this is from a players point of view, and a DMs point of view)

Vanilla all the way baby.

[dman11235]

It's not unbalancing, really (at least, not on its own), but it's not fixing it.  It's restricting it.

However, core is the least balanced bit of 3.5.  Cleric, wizard, druid, many of the worst spells, they're all core.  And with core only you're restricted in play quite a bit.  It's insanely hard to play a mobile character with core only.  However with CAdv, you have the Scout.  Now you can play that constantly moving guy you want with ease.  In core you don't have psionics.  Or Incarnum.  Or Binders.  All great systems, and those last two: miles more balanced than vancian spell casting, psionics a good bit more balanced than vancian casting (not as balanced as Incarnum or binders).  Core: non-spell casters are terrible.  Outside, you have ToB.  And because of non-core I've made monks respectable again.  And archers can now compete, with the introduction of Swift Hunter and others.  If you restrict to core only, you are cutting off many avenues.

[oldrobotsneverrust]

I second Nema.

I think people are being too harsh on DM's though. It's not always possible to instantly catch a game-ending broken character.
It has happened to myself and many of the groups I have been a player in. SWSE's condition monkey, any caster in Arcana Evolved, half of the trash out of Gamma World, and a good deal of the obscure builds in endless 3.5 books, you can't be aware of what is brewing in the devilish minmaxer's mind from first level. When the character is ingrained in the plot and ridiculously overpowered, you can't just fix it on the fly.

[nemafow]

It's not unbalancing, really (at least, not on its own), but it's not fixing it.  It's restricting it.

However, core is the least balanced bit of 3.5.  Cleric, wizard, druid, many of the worst spells, they're all core.  And with core only you're restricted in play quite a bit.  It's insanely hard to play a mobile character with core only.  However with CAdv, you have the Scout.  Now you can play that constantly moving guy you want with ease.  In core you don't have psionics.  Or Incarnum.  Or Binders.  All great systems, and those last two: miles more balanced than vancian spell casting, psionics a good bit more balanced than vancian casting (not as balanced as Incarnum or binders).  Core: non-spell casters are terrible.  Outside, you have ToB.  And because of non-core I've made monks respectable again.  And archers can now compete, with the introduction of Swift Hunter and others.  If you restrict to core only, you are cutting off many avenues.

Yes its 'restricting' it, but if no one wants to use it.. Then whats the problem?

I think the worst spells come from out of the non core books.

I think psionics are broken.

I never said restricted to core, but the fun leaves when other material enter into the playing field. It's my own point of view anyways.

In the end I guess its personal point of view and interpretation.



Gotta admit I agree with oldrobotsneverrust as well, the DM is only human, not everyone sees it before it happens.

[dman11235]

Okay, first off, have you actually read the psionics rules?  It's quite a bit more balanced than vancian casting.

That aside, you shouldn't have to "catch game endingly broken characters", the players shouldn't use them.  There is a reason TO exists, it's for those things that actually break the game into little tiny pieces if played.  That's not grounds for everything being nixed though.  I mean, Pun-Pun is game endingly powerful.  This is true.  It's a very small set of rules that get twisted around due to poor wording and unintended interactions that make it this way.  Individually, the components of Pun-Pun are actually fairly tame (except the Saruhk, that's pretty borked).  One of the old ones, and maybe the current one, I'm not sure if it still uses this, uses the Tattooed Monk PrC.  That PrC is pretty bad.  And the tattoo used: terrible.  Except in this one instance.

However I digress.  Players should not use game endingly powerful characters, because it's no longer D&D if that happens, it's who has infinite power first?  And that's no fun.  There's no interaction, a key part of the game, and there's little actual play.  There's no incentive to play that.  Powerful characters, optimized to their fullest, are great to have.  As long as the DM can handle it (and most, if not all, DMs here can), then optimization actually makes for better characters, and ones more fun to play.  And if core is opened up to allow more stuff in, that's an arbitrarily higher number of possible character builds you can works with, theoretically, at least.  Add in homebrew and that's even more.  I know I couldn't do my enlightend fist, swift hunter, sacred fist, psionics, incarnum, binder, warlock, etc. builds without splats.  All they do is add more options.

EDIT:

It's not always possible to instantly catch a game-ending broken character.

  You speak as if from the view of a powergamer will ruin my game, and the only way to stop him is to ban stuff.

...devilish minmaxer's mind from first level.

  And here you speak as if optimization is a bad thing.  It's not.  It's a very good thing.

[oldrobotsneverrust]

It's not a bad thing. But there's just a thin line between optimization and approaching Pun-Pun-hood. An epic caster that cannot be hit by anything because of the fifteen obscure spells dug up from different books that work well together most certainly ruins a game. But does a fighter built to have an extremely high AC ruin a game? Some players do it knowingly, but others stumble (or claim to stumble) over that line.

Ultimately, I definitely found that there was much less temptation in 3.5 for players to construct ridiculous (and unrealistic) builds to break game mechanics when using only the core rules. There were alot more plain old paladins. And that definitely put some more focus on character.

But of course, this is just my opinion.

[dman11235]

I've found it much easier to create unique characters using splat books and homebrews.  Especially homebrews.  I mean, without the Avatar d20 project, I wouldn't have Peniuwo Nelei, waterbender.  I'd have yet another cleric.  Or yet another wizard.  Or yet another barbarian.  Or a rogue, sorcerer, druid, or bard.  And that leaves me 15 or so characters I can play.  Paladins aren't worth it, since clerics are better at being paladins.  Rangers aren't worth it because fighters, druids, or rogues are better at being one of the three facets to the class.  Fighters aren't worth it since barbarians are better at being fighters than they are.  And clerics and druids are better at being them as well.

Using various sources allows for more creativity in character creation.  Yes, this means more overpowered things.  But guess what?  Core is the worst offender (more overpowered spells/classes/etc than any other book).  And a few overpowered feats or PrCs doesn't mean you should ban the entire book, or even the overpowered feat or PrC or whatever.  It's eliminating so many characters that it's not worth the artificial balance.  It's not even balance, just eliminating options, for reasons described in the OP.

But there's just a thin line between optimization and approaching Pun-Pun-hood.

More like a thin line separating a power gamer from very powerful combinations, and a very, very thick line between powerful combinations and Pun-Pun.

Optimization is NOT finding the most powerful character.  That's powergaming (my definition).  Optimization is finding the most efficient way to execute a character concept, and a secondary goal is finding the most efficient way for a given character concept to work in a campaign.

Ultimately, I definitely found that there was much less temptation in 3.5 for players to construct ridiculous (and unrealistic) builds to break game mechanics when using only the core rules. There were alot more plain old paladins. And that definitely put some more focus on character.

But of course, this is just my opinion.

First off, I'd like to point out the inconsistencies between the bolded segments.  I mean, come on!

Now, ask yourself this.  Was it because they weren't tempted, or was it because you banned everything?  And were they going to try to find ways to break game mechanics if you allowed non-core?  I mean, personally, I'd try to break the game more if it was core restricted, because I might want to play a character that's not possible with core only rules.  Like a swift hunter.

Also, how is it more focus on character when you have "alot more plain old paladins"?  That seems to me to be very...bland.  And boring.  Playing the same character over and over and over and over.  My last three characters?  Water bender, wolf crusader//shifter (homebrew based on PHBII druid shapeshift: I shifted into a wolf) tripper,  raptoran swift hunter.  Then I've got four arena characters, a halfling knife thrower, a crusader chain tripper, a dwarf warlock, and a cleric swift hunter (different style than the raptoran: he hides, this one doesn't).  Then I've got one more maybe, a monk tripper (I like swift hunters and trippers) or a battlefield control archer.  I repeated the same character concept exactly zero times.  I repeated the same build zero times as well.  I don't think I could stand to have to do the same build every time I wanted to do a tripper: fighter 2/barbarian 18 with a spiked chain.  Or an archer: nothing (archers aren't good core only).

[Callix]

I feel compelled to speak:

1. Core is not balanced. Past about fifth level, the difference between Wizards/Clerics/Druids and everyone else starts escalating. Power is one, but the real kicker is flexibility. Consider the cleric. Through liberal application of Flame Strike and Blade Barrier, along with either the Air or Fire domain, you can blast competitively with a sorceror. The Air domain, several good Fog spells and Blade Barrier make them a strong battlefield controller. Divine Favor/Divine Power/Righteous Might makes them a better tank than any full-BAB class. The Animal domian, with Summon Nature's Ally and Shapechange, along with Find Traps, makes the cleric a scout to rival the rogue. And, of course, they are the iconic healer. So a nature cleric (domains Animal and Air) is able to fill whatever role the party needs. So why play anything else?

2. Psionics is not broken. They have a couple of decent novas, but there's a reason you don't see complaints about wizard novas: wizards don't need to nova. Black Tentacles + Stinking Cloud kills anyone who doesn't have Freedom of Movement. Two spells! The psion is of a comparable power to the Sorceror. He's fairly Tier 2 - strong, but without the endless flexibility of the Big 5 (or 6, if you count Spell to Power Erudite). The Psychic Warrior and Wilder are of fairly comparable power to the rogue. The Wilder is so hamstrung by lack of powers known that they have almost no tactical flexibility, while the Psychic Warrior has 3/4 BAB in a melee class, but gets buff powers to make up for it. The Soulknife is weak as all hell. If they didn't have such restricted weapon abilities, they might be interesting, but that list is seriously useless.

Rule #1 of Psionics: You cannot spend more power points than your Manifester Level at once. A couple of things can raise your manifester level for a power (Wild Surge, Overchannel), but you can't ignore that PP cap.

[nemafow]

Hang on - for expressing my opinion my karma was changed negetively? Wow. Bravo.

I don't see any of my posts directly causing anyone to lose some sleep.

[OneWinged4ngel]

You talk about balance and fixing stuff, and removing something isn't fixing it. If the DM and all the players agree that removing something is good, is that imbalancing?

  No, it fact it can make the game as a whole more balanced by removing the unbalanced element.  The difference is that it does not FIX the unbalanced element.  It's not imbalancing to a game, it just isn't fixing the game, and it's removing a conceptual  option from the game (unless there is a ready replacement that fits the same niche, which really can be considered a "fix").

Hang on - for expressing my opinion my karma was changed negetively? Wow. Bravo.

I don't see any of my posts directly causing anyone to lose some sleep.

While on the subject... what exactly is Karma?  I'm new here.

Besides that... I would love for this topic not to devolve into a debate about stupid overgeneralized stereotypes like "psionics is broken" and "core is not balanced" and so forth.  Seriously, I expect that on the GitP or WotC boards.

The reality is, parts of core are broken.  But you know what, SO ARE PARTS OF PSIONICS.  It doesn't mean that psionics is broken, it just means that synchronicity and the like is.  I'm sick of people overgeneralizing about these things.   

[yellerSumner]

While on the subject... what exactly is Karma?  I'm new here.

Karma, Gameology-fu, g-fu.  Also.

Yes its 'restricting' it, but if no one wants to use it.. Then whats the problem?

If no one wants to use it, then what's the problem? Why restrict it?

[Callix]

Hang on - for expressing my opinion my karma was changed negetively? Wow. Bravo.

I don't see any of my posts directly causing anyone to lose some sleep.

While on the subject... what exactly is Karma?  I'm new here.

Besides that... I would love for this topic not to devolve into a debate about stupid overgeneralized stereotypes like "psionics is broken" and "core is not balanced" and so forth.  Seriously, I expect that on the GitP or WotC boards.

The reality is, parts of core are broken.  But you know what, SO ARE PARTS OF PSIONICS.  It doesn't mean that psionics is broken, it just means that synchronicity and the like is.  I'm sick of people overgeneralizing about these things.   

I'm sorry. I'll stop derailing, after pointing out that I'm not a rabid fanboy. Synchronicity is as broken as PAO, and I don't think people should go there with either system. On the bread-and-butter spells/powers, though, magic comes out ahead most of the time.

On-topic, I agree that removing the unbalanced is not fixing it. It's what Frank Herbert called "the morality of the knife" - if it isn't right, find the part that isn't right and remove it. Then it's right. 4e is the natural conclusion of this logic: a system that is so closed and inflexible that you simply cannot execute a diversity of builds and/or tactics. If you like it, then go for it. But I, for one, prefer to try and find a better way, rather than just removing options from people. I agree that there are times when this is needed, but I believe it is better to replace than to remove.