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4 years ago ::
May 26, 2009 - 7:33AM
#11
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House rules exist for a reason. Personally I prefer 2e with BD&D combat rules and some 3e-isms.
[/rant]
Its far easier to house rule in imbalance, than the reverse.
You want to give elves 2 full classes so there's never a reason to play a human? Go nuts. Since you dont care about the consequences, its easy. I, on the other hand, would have a harder time coblling together a playable game out of 2nd edition, since I actually do care about good rule design and balance.
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4 years ago ::
May 26, 2009 - 7:33AM
#12
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[rant]
Honestly, why do so many people complain about how X is unbalanced compared to Y? I've been a D&D player since 1991 and only had once slight problem with game balance (I played a human monk in a campaign with STR 50 tieflings in 2001). If you ask me, balance hurts the game. It's the things that unbalance a character that make that character interesting and unique.
The whole point of the game is to have fun. I don't think people are having fun when they nitpick about classes being unbalanced. It may be that they have lesser powered characters.
House rules exist for a reason. Personally I prefer 2e with BD&D combat rules and some 3e-isms.
[/rant]
Define fun. If fun for you is stomping the enemy into a whole lotta ooze, then yeah 4e killed your fun. If fun for you is being able to do things unrestricted and being "godlike", then 4e at first glance killed your fun. If fun for you is being able to munchkin without anything to stop you or rain on your party, then 4e isn't your game.
For me, however, 4e is pretty good. Not perfect, but good enough.
Hmm...
"why do so many people complain about how X is unbalanced compared to Y?"
Maybe it's because people are expecting WotC to spoonfeed them everything their DMs could houserule since they want to be sure they're doing stuff right (I guess that makes them rules lawyers in varying degrees). Even if this was 2e vs 1e people would complain about balance if they had DMs who weren't able to find things to match up to their players' playing preferences.
"If you ask me, balance hurts the game."
Anything done in its excess would hurt the game. Too much balance and you lose some players, too little and you lose even more players.
"It's the things that unbalance a character that make that character interesting and unique. "
Then create an unbalanced character! Everybody pretty much agrees that the Demigod Epic Destiny is seriously broken, and even at Heroic tier there are ways to inflict hundreds of points in damage in just one turn (heck, there's a thread here where they tried to get the highest amount of damage one can do in a single turn, and one winner had like more than 500 damage against a single target, and the other had a little over 1000 damage against a mob!). And if the issue is being "interesting and unique" then all you have to do is ignore the "advises" of those that hail from the Character Optimization forums because their job -- min/maxing your character -- would obviously not apply to you.
I consider my character(s) interesting and unique precisely because when min/maxers would look at them they'd probably scoff at the build since it isn't "optimized"... but even though it's not optimized statistics-wise it's still optimized for the flavor I picked for my own character, and they have absolutely no right to say that my character would suck eggs or what not.
Plus they even removed the need for Armored Arcana and similar restrictions to my character, allowing me to create builds that would seem sick and twisted and more fitting for other classes, but may actually work if done right... like a Dwarven Battlerager/Cosmic Sorcerer Demigod who specializes in Full Plate + Shield + Dagger and can rain hell at any range without even flinching.
(In 3e and below that had to be houseruled, now it's possible by RAW)
The way I see it, 4e now is both well-balanced and imbalanced -- a weird assessment, true, but considering that they've pretty much opened the gates on what a DM and player can do in their game (even without the houseruling), that there are houserules that have to tone down player abilities since they're already close to munchkin level to the dismay of others...
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4 years ago ::
May 26, 2009 - 7:37AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2007
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The key reasons I prefer it is:
- It allows for easier conflict building for a DM. I can quickly access the power of my players and build conflicts where I know that each player won't be swamped or breeze through it.
- The other is that it allows much more ease in character building. One can simply build a character as they choose and not be heavily penalized for being built, "sub-optimal". It allows the game to be a roleplaying game where you play what you want, not what you need to survive.
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4 years ago ::
May 26, 2009 - 7:39AM
#14
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Date Joined:
Apr 12, 2009
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People are obsessed with balance because we despise the feeling of helplessness. In our games we want to have the opportunity to do something awesome, not hold the wizards bags while he takes care of the problem.
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4 years ago ::
May 26, 2009 - 7:42AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Mar 24, 2007
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House rules exist for a reason.
So your argument is people shouldn't worry about balance because they should just make up their own games? I don't think you get the point.
"why do so many people complain about how X is unbalanced compared to Y?"
Maybe it's because people are expecting WotC to spoonfeed them everything their DMs could houserule since they want to be sure they're doing stuff right (I guess that makes them rules lawyers in varying degrees). Even if this was 2e vs 1e people would complain about balance if they had DMs who weren't able to find things to match up to their players' playing preferences.[/quote]
Obviously neither do you. WotC created a game with a defined system. Saying "house rule it" neither removes the fact the WotC created a specific system nor does it fix it. If you are saying "house rule everything" why the hell are you even paying WotC? Your argument to a broken game is make everything up yourself. Why waste money on WotC products at that point? House ruling does not fix the problem and implying it does in a holier-than-thou way just makes you look dumb.
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4 years ago ::
May 26, 2009 - 8:01AM
#16
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Balance is a good thing, if only because it gives a real meaning to game constructs like character level and combat role. By looking at a character's level and role, you have a pretty good idea of how strong the character is and where his strengths lie. Without intrinsic balance in class design, this is not possible. For example, without specifying the character's class, we can't really have a good idea of how strong a 13th-level character was in 3E. This being said, it's not because there exists intrinsic balance in the game that every game needs to be completely balanced. If you want wizards to be made of awesome sauce, have them begin play at a higher level. There's no reason why a wizard should be stronger than a fighter, when both are of the same level, since level is a measure of their awesomeness.
People are obsessed with balance because we despise the feeling of helplessness. In our games we want to have the opportunity to do something awesome, not hold the wizards bags while he takes care of the problem.
I think the term "uselessness" would be more appropriate here, rather than "helplessness."
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4 years ago ::
May 26, 2009 - 8:02AM
#17
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Date Joined:
May 29, 2008
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*puts on Devil's advocate hat*
While balance is a fine thing to be sure, there is the dread of having Pleasantville syndrome, everyone is good at everything, everyone can take on this challenge with a bit of trying, everyone has X to hit for Y[W] damage, EVERYONE has the same powers and hit points, with all uniqueness being a glimmer of fluff slapped on at the end.
*takes off hat*
www.youtube.com/user/TheBoj0 Watch me battle pogeymanz
So according to all those online things, I'm an Artifact, lv 2 Zombie with stats of 3.14, googleplex, and purple, and my personality type is LMNO. Also, I am always the comic relief character of that stupid anime you like. That sounds pretty close...
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4 years ago ::
May 26, 2009 - 8:07AM
#18
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Date Joined:
Sep 17, 2007
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*puts on Devil's advocate hat*
While balance is a fine thing to be sure, there is the dread of having Pleasantville syndrome, everyone is good at everything, everyone can take on this challenge with a bit of trying, everyone has X to hit for Y[W] damage, EVERYONE has the same powers and hit points, with all uniqueness being a glimmer of fluff slapped on at the end.
*takes off hat*
Ahem...
What else can I say?
Mountain Cleave Rule: You can have any sort of fun, including broken, silly fun, so long as I get to have that fun too (e. g., if you can warp reality with your spells, I can cleave mountains with my blade).
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4 years ago ::
May 26, 2009 - 8:07AM
#19
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Date Joined:
Apr 28, 2005
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*puts on Devil's advocate hat*
While balance is a fine thing to be sure, there is the dread of having Pleasantville syndrome, everyone is good at everything, everyone can take on this challenge with a bit of trying, everyone has X to hit for Y[W] damage, EVERYONE has the same powers and hit points, with all uniqueness being a glimmer of fluff slapped on at the end.
*takes off hat*
While it's true that everyone might be balanced if everyone is the same, it's not true to say that the only way to balance things is to make everyone the same.
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4 years ago ::
May 26, 2009 - 8:41AM
#20
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Date Joined:
May 29, 2008
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While it's true that everyone might be balanced if everyone is the same, it's not true to say that the only way to balance things is to make everyone the same.[/quote]
I agree, it is possible to balance a game without carbon copies, in the link Armisael provided, it was shown how a game can have balance by throwing together such a crazy mish-mash of powers and abilities then just laying down some straight up anti-cheese rules. Like if there was a rule that said "At X level, you can only do at max, Y damage" (while this is a terrible example and gimps strikers, it's still an example) it makes a conscious effort on the developers to say that those shenanigans are not okay.
www.youtube.com/user/TheBoj0 Watch me battle pogeymanz
So according to all those online things, I'm an Artifact, lv 2 Zombie with stats of 3.14, googleplex, and purple, and my personality type is LMNO. Also, I am always the comic relief character of that stupid anime you like. That sounds pretty close...
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