There are so many threads and posts about balance that it seems worthy of its own thread. Maybe that will stop us from having this conversation in dozens of places.
I don't want to speak for any group, but I'm pretty sure that most of us who advocate balance in DDN are using the term in a way that isn't what some others may think. When I talk about a balanced game, I mean the following:
1) No class is strictly better than another. For example, the fighter is strictly better than the warrior in 3E, in a very straightforward way. The fighter has better hit points and feats and the warrior has nothing the fighter doesn't have (which is why warrior is an NPC class). Other classes may be less obviously better/worse in this regard. For example, it's hard to come up with a way the sorceror can be superior to the wizard without getting into edge case stuff like needing to spam a spell the sorceror happens to know but the wizard didn't prepare enough times. Much more often though, the greater variety of spells, the bonus feats, and the faster acquisition of higher spell levels make the wizard strictly better, but there is some room for debate (not that I want that debate here - this is an example not a thesis).
2) No class is able to excel in more phases of the game than others. This is meant broadly. I don't care at all if clerics can't open locks well or bards can't be the best greatsword wielders. If a class has abundant tools for certain broad types of encounters (like "social encounters") while another is likely to be minimally involved or ineffectual barring DM heavy-handedness, that's an imbalance in the game mechanics.
3) No class has all the plot power. Getting tricky now! If one class is built to dramatically change situations through clever choices and another is built to plod along in a useful but monotonous fashion, that's another imbalance. For example, the "healbot" cleric concept is what I would call useful but monotonous. Before cleric spells became so varied in 3E and damage prevention (i.e. killing/neutralizing the other guy first) became so much better than in-combat healing in most cases, some clerics simply cast a healing spell (or condition-removal spell) on whoever needed it every round. This is a vital role, but not an interesting one. Compared to a class that has less obvious decisions, the healbot's job seems unenviable. Sure, he has some resource management to do, but it doesn't take much work to get that right. In other words, "balance" can also mean opportunities to make non-trivial and non-obvious choices that influence the outcome of an encounter about as often as everyone else does.
Balance isn't sameness though. I don't think anyone wants to see essentially the same tools in every class's hands. I don't think anyone is saying that every PC should contribute equally to every actual encounter (as opposed to every broad type of encounter). What am I missing here though - what are elements of balance that I overlooked or mischaracterized?
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves.
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
I agree, but I would have described 2 differently, mostly to push the game a little in an area it has yet to be balanced.
2) Every character should be able to contribute equally to each "pillar" (combat, social, exploration). This is not to say that every character should contribute equally to each encounter: a rogue is going to contribute more to an encounter with a trap that needs to be disarmed, a fighter to an encounter where you need someone to leap over a chasm, a druid to one where you need to survive in the wild. It means that, over the course of a few levels, everyone gets equal spotlight time in each pillar, everyone gets a moment when they can do something no one else can do as well.
i hope they go "how does this class handle these situations?" instead of "which classes should be good at this situation?"
every character should be able to help in any situation. while their contribution might not be the same, but you shouldn't be in a situation where "whelp, we don't got a rogue. time to sit on our thumbs until the lock rusts" is the only possible outcome. "we don't have a healer/skillmonkey/fishmonger, guess we can't continue" simply should not pop up in a discussion, be it about an in-game event or adventure design.
The post says that no class should be able to excel in MORE phases (pillars) than any other. It did not say that each class is as good at THE SAME pillars as every other. It works for fantasy and for 'balanced' mechanics for some classes to be better in different (paratied) ways. It is NOT balanced, according to the post, for the Fighter's "I'ma punch the door down" to be the same as the Rogues "lockpick". Characters with skills should serve a purpose, but that is for another post. I think the system that the devs have talked about solves a majority of the problems. For comedy's sake I will provide what I hope, and what I think, will be the case.
DM: You come across a Locked Door. Fighter: I want to break the door down with my Strength. Wizard: I want to use my Intellect and examine the lock, then tell the Ranger how to disable it. Ranger: I want to disable the lock with my Dex. Cleric: I... well, I want to use my Cha to motivate my group... and ready my shield/weapon. Rogue: I want to pick the lock, using my lockpick skill that I got from selecting my theme or background. DM: Uhh... roll initiative. Whoever wins gets to the door first.
Thus each class can do something in this situation (bad example for the Cleric, but I'm sure you get the point) and if you did not have a skillmonkey you could quite easily get through the door. This example does not deal with Combat or Social pillars, but following this line of thought gets us on the right track... I hope.
It's also important to differentiate between class and character when we talk balance. I don't care if *a* fighter doesn't really excel in social encounters as long as he can contribute sometimes and the player made the choice. I do care if fighters *period* can't bring a lot to social encounters, or if doing so has a ridiculous cost (like dumping Con to pump up Cha or something).
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves.
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
I think this actually sets the bar a little low. Take the Fighter & Warrior example. The fighter is strictly superior. What if we gave the warrior Wilderness Lore, Sense Motive, and 4 skill points instead of 2? The fighter is no longer strictly superior, but the Warrior isn't suddenly a balanced PC class.
2) No class is able to excel in more phases of the game than others.
The next question becomes how many phases. If there are three phases (the three pillars), and characters can each excel in two of them, that's very different than if they each excel in one, or are all capable in all three.
3) No class has all the plot power. Getting tricky now! If one class is built to dramatically change situations through clever choices and another is built to plod along in a useful but monotonous fashion, that's another imbalance.
That is a subtler one, but still important.
Balance isn't sameness though.
Sameness is another form (or symptom) of imbalance. If you break the tennets of balance above, for instance, and have one class that is strictly superior to all others, has all the 'plot power,' and excels in all phases of the game, why would anyone play anything else? Once everyone has figured out that there's only one worthwhile class, only that class is played: sameness. It doesn't matter what 'unique mechanics' you give the inferior classes - they're inferior, there's no reason to play them beyond ignorance or masochism.
What am I missing here though - what are elements of balance that I overlooked or mischaracterized?
One of the best definitions of balance I've heard is that for every decision point there are plenty of meaningful, viable choices. You're talking about classes, above, but class is only one decision point. Race is another example - so are skills, feats, weapons, implements, exploits, spells, and so forth.
In D&D, class has always been a major choice that opens up other choices, making balancing classes extremely difficult (I won't say impossible, but it was never achieved in a stable manner). 4e finally balanced the classes by giving each class basically the same decission points: build, powers, skills feats. Of course, it really only balanced them in the one pillar, 'combat.' Combat has always been a major focus of the D&D rules - most RPG rule sets, really. It's not that combat is always a major focus of the game, it's just one that cries out for a lot of detailed resolution mechanics. 4e dropped the ball on the other two pillars (which, like roles and sources, have always been there, just never been given formal names before).
If Wizards were out to make a better game instead of a better marketing strategy, they might do well to retain the advances 4e made in class balance in combat and extend them to the other two pillars.
It's also important to differentiate between class and character when we talk balance. I don't care if *a* fighter doesn't really excel in social encounters as long as he can contribute sometimes and the player made the choice. I do care if fighters *period* can't bring a lot to social encounters, or if doing so has a ridiculous cost (like dumping Con to pump up Cha or something).
An excellent point.
Another day, another three or four entries to my Ignore List.
I think this actually sets the bar a little low. Take the Fighter & Warrior example. The fighter is strictly superior. What if we gave the warrior Wilderness Lore, Sense Motive, and 4 skill points instead of 2? The fighter is no longer strictly superior, but the Warrior isn't suddenly a balanced PC class.
Well, the warrior is better in that case, but not caught up. He still sucks at combat and is unlikely to have the ability scores to support much skill use unless he wants to suck even more. In the new context we'd compare the warrior to the ranger and say it's still strictly inferior to something. I actually believe that plenty of previous edition classes are strictly better than others, but I wanted to stick to tame examples here. Someone out there would probably argue that the sorceror is as good as the wizard, so I don't want to invite more controversy by comparing the paladin and the druid or something like that.
2) No class is able to excel in more phases of the game than others.
The next question becomes how many phases. If there are three phases (the three pillars), and characters can each excel in two of them, that's very different than if they each excel in one, or are all capable in all three.
I tried to say this a little better in my second post here. It's cool if my particular wizard is useful but not great in social encounters. Maybe I'm weak in both Wis and Cha and therefore all skills that derive from those. I have some social resources that see use but not as many or as strong as what the paladin in my party has. Not an inherent flaw in the game IMO, as long as I had the option to invest in social stuff and be more valuable.
On the other hand, there's some bad imbalance if I can be great in social encounters and exploration and combat without the same investment someone else made. That leads to your "may as well all be THAT class" idea.
I'm not arguing for hyperspecialization here, btw, but obviously some builds and classes are going to be better at one thing or another. If I make a bard and a wizard with the same backgrounds and themes, the bard will be the better socializer by virtue of his main ability, even if the wizard cares about Cha to some extent. Overall I think it makes sense for all characters to excel in 2 of 3 pillars, with "excel" probably up for debate.
3) No class has all the plot power. Getting tricky now! If one class is built to dramatically change situations through clever choices and another is built to plod along in a useful but monotonous fashion, that's another imbalance.
That is a subtler one, but still important.
Balance isn't sameness though.
Sameness is another form (or symptom) of imbalance. If you break the tennets of balance above, for instance, and have one class that is strictly superior to all others, has all the 'plot power,' and excels in all phases of the game, why would anyone play anything else? Once everyone has figured out that there's only one worthwhile class, only that class is played: sameness. It doesn't matter what 'unique mechanics' you give the inferior classes - they're inferior, there's no reason to play them beyond ignorance or masochism.
What am I missing here though - what are elements of balance that I overlooked or mischaracterized?
One of the best definitions of balance I've heard is that for every decision point there are plenty of meaningful, viable choices. You're talking about classes, above, but class is only one decision point. Race is another example - so are skills, feats, weapons, implements, exploits, spells, and so forth.
Right on about the other decision points. I think class is the main one, since that's the heart of most archetypes. But if there is a bias (like treasure tables full of magical long swords or goofy orb wizard lockdowns or whatever) then that shuts down some options as well. The game loses something when things converge on an optimum.
Ed_Warlord, on what it takes to make a thread work: I think for it to be really constructive, everyone would have to be honest with each other, and with themselves.
Areleth: How does this help the problems we have with Fighters? Do you think that every time I thought I was playing D&D what I was actually doing was slamming my head in a car door and that if you just explain how to play without doing that then I'll finally enjoy the game?
T rovide what I hope, and what I think, will be the case.
DM: You come across a Locked Door. Fighter: I want to break the door down with my Strength. Wizard: I want to use my Intellect and examine the lock, then tell the Ranger how to disable it. Ranger: I want to disable the lock with my Dex. Cleric: I... well, I want to use my Cha to motivate my group... and ready my shield/weapon. Rogue: I want to pick the lock, using my lockpick skill that I got from selecting my theme or background. DM: Uhh... roll initiative. Whoever wins gets to the door first.
Thus each class can do something in this situation (bad example for the Cleric, but I'm sure you get the point) and if you did not have a skillmonkey you could quite easily get through the door. This example does not deal with Combat or Social pillars, but following this line of thought gets us on the right track... I hope.
Cleric took the feat called.. Invocations of Freedom and Justice, and cries at the top of his lungs justice will not be denied... and the lock shivers splits. See this blog.
