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9 months ago ::
Oct 12, 2012 - 2:17AM
#11
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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In reality, that's more or less how I design encounters: I look at the players in front of me and make a judgement of what they can handle based on what i know about the characters (everything) and the temperament of the players (usually a fair bit). It's not uncommon for me to ditch the plan half way on the basis of new information. I'm not sure any such system will ever be even 80% accurate. If they get it to 70% they'll be doing pretty damn well, but the systems we have no aren't especially accurate so what the hell, let's try it. The easiest way to go about this would probably to assign levels to magic items and then add them up. That'd skew the charts in a massive way, espcially if you go with whole numbers, but that's the most simple way. The other thing is some magic is worth different things in relative terms. One of the biggest things people talk about is handing the cleric the gauntlets of ogre power. For a fighter with a 17 str, those gloves might be worth half a level, but for the cleric it's possible (depends on what buffs it replaces) to be worth significantly more. Unless you calibrated it by assigning a pregenerated "standard" character at intervals? Like by lvl 5 everyone's expected to deal X damage and have a hit bonus of Q.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 12, 2012 - 3:41AM
#12
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The main danger of constructing a detailed power assessment system is that it may cause backwards feedback that would force hard balancing to the entire system. 4E suffered quite a bit from this.
I mean.. once such a system is in place, the only way to keep it in place is to construct everything in the game according to that measure. The measurement system becomes the blueprint and everything gets hard-balanced.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 12, 2012 - 7:51AM
#13
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Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2007
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I've suggested the same idea in a slightly different format before, so I think it is a good idea. One important thing he doesn't cover though is that the effective level of the characters can't really be computed via some mathmatical formula. A rough guideline can be figured but the DM has to adjust from there. A highly optimized character will be more effective then a random character, even if their stat levels and magic items are on par. Even more indirectly, the overall effective level for the party may be higher or lower then the combined EL of the characters. Some groups are simply better or worse at tactics and group coordination. This needs to factor in the XP budget and rewards for encounters also.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 12, 2012 - 8:51AM
#14
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JayM has a good point -- some players are good at tactics and will always play good characters. In 4e, the level of monsters was balanced well internally, so if you consistently threw level +4 monsters at the party and the party steamrolled over them, it was easy enough to give them level +6. I hope that 5e will have as balanced monsters, so that we don't have to compute effective party level, just start with a guess and bump it up or down as necessary.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 12, 2012 - 8:59AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Mar 22, 2008
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One 'cut to the chase' option would be to have magic items that don't add bonuses, just bump you a level if your class is apropriate to the item.
A 1st level fighter with a "+3" sword is a 4th level fighter - but without the Green Destiny, she is nothing. A 7th level wizard with a Staff of the Magi is a 12th level wizard, and can blow up a Balrog.
That's interesting and something I might do with the odd artifact, but I don't think it should be common. It involves a ton of record keeping, since gaining levels involves much more than just a bonus to hit and damage. The player would have to keep two sheets and level both of them when he gains a level.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 12, 2012 - 10:01AM
#16
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Date Joined:
Sep 25, 2009
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I agree with the principle - come up with some formula that modifies character level based on items and potentially other things (if you rolled exceptionally well/badly for attributes, if you're playing without backgrounds/specialties, if you have particular bonuses or lack average bonuses vs particular foes e.g. you have no cleric and your fighting undead or you have a sword of dragonslaying and you're fighting dragons). It would really help with the being able to balance encounters. That said, it doesn't actually work with bounded accuracy.
Contrary to 9/10 critiques on that blog, being able to balance encounters and predict which encounters are easy, challenging, or impossible is an unequivocally and logically undeniably good thing. This in no way means that all encounters should be balanced as a difficult but surmountable challenge. By all means, put dragons in your first level dungeons, and force your players to do something other than kill it. But if you want to put in a challenge that the players cannot overcome with swords, you should be reasonably certain that your players cannot, in fact, overcome it with swords. I would not be at all surprised if an 8th level Next part could, in fact, defeat 300 orcs. I don't think there is any merit to the argument that giving DMs the ability to accurately predict encounter challenge levels in any way force them to or even give them the impression that they should balance them at all times. Furthermore, I think that making challenge levels more predictable will actually encourage players to take the non-sword way out, rather than just assume that they can defeat anything in combat because the encounters the system tells them are balanced are in fact a cakewalk. There is benefit, there is no downside, so why the heck not?
Now why doesn't it work with bounded accuracy? Hit/miss ratios are about more than just DPR and encounter balance. They fundamentally affect the rhythm of the game. Even if you adjust damage/HP to match so that it takes the same number of attacks to kill a monster, a game where you rarely hit but do substantial damage when you do feels very different from one in which you almost always hit but just chip away at your opponent's HP block when you do. WotC made a judgment call that the right ratio for PCs was about 65%, and the right ratio for monsters was about 35%. I don't agree with those ratios, personally (at least the PC one, and the fact that PCs and monsters are so very different), but that was the call they made. And then they said, "well, if you want to play in a high magic campaign, actually you're going to change those ratios to 80% PCs and 20% monsters." Why should the high/low magic decision be inextricably linked to the rhythm decision? You can't fix that by simply increasing the level of the monsters, because their attack and defenses don't increase much with level. It'll still help you balance encounters a bit - not perfectly, because lower hit ratios makes the game a bit more swingy and rewards high initiative - but it won't fix the more fundamental problem.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 12, 2012 - 2:15PM
#17
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Date Joined:
Mar 10, 2003
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Why should the high/low magic decision be inextricably linked to the rhythm decision?
If noticeably increasing the amount of magic in the campaign doesn't make the characters noticeably deadlier on offense and tougher on defense, then there's no point in playing a high-magic campaign. Excess magic should make players feel like superheroes. If it doesn't, something's amiss.
You can't fix that by simply increasing the level of the monsters, because their attack and defenses don't increase much with level.
An excellent observation, but it doesn't need to negate the usefulness of the approach I proposed. At least, I don't think it does.
Among other things, bounded accuracy is another way to keep all level X characters within a defined power range. One of the purposes of restricting that range is to preserve what you call the hit/miss rhythm of combat. That rhythm will be disrupted more in a bounded system than in an unbounded one when characters exceed the range of bonuses that the monsters are tailored for because there isn't a perpetual stack of monsters with infinitely expanding stats.
Perhaps a partial answer lies in specifically defining more than one bounded range. If your campaign limits ability score bonuses to +2 and magical bonuses to +1, you're playing a gritty, low magic campaign; allowing ability score bonuses up to +4 and magic bonuses up to +3 is a default campaign; and ability score and magic bonuses up to +6 each make for a high-magic, superpowered campaign. Go beyond +6/+6 and the game will begin collapsing around you. Now here's how to control each type of campaign and balance combats for them.
Steve
If your only tool is a warhammer, every problem looks like a gnoll.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 12, 2012 - 2:56PM
#18
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Date Joined:
Apr 10, 2009
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I want to raise a counter argument.
The "Howling Tower" argument is (as I read it) this (focusing on those who are more powerful than the curve for now):
As players gain magic they can become more effective than a character of their level normally would be.
This can be expressed as an 'effective level' which would be greater than their 'true level'.
To properly challenge the party, the DM should build encounters which are scaled to their effective levels, rather than their true levels.
This sounds logical and it has a lot to recommend it.
My issues is this: The reason players like to get 'stuff' (magic items, etc) is to make themselves more powerful. If becoming more powerful just means that the DM makes the encounters more powerful, is the player really gaining anything?
This sounds like the type of logic that lead to the 4E 'red-queen's race'/ treadmill of monster improvement moving in lockstep with PC improvement.
If my getting a +1 longsword just means that I face things with a +1 high AC, have I gained anything? Has my character gotten more powerful? If I increase my defenses and the monsters still have the same chance to hit - what was the point?
And, yes, this problem may go deeper than this issue (the same arguments can be made for gaining levels - if I have gained new levels and the monsters all scalel up with me, have I gained anything?) But gaining new levels also comes with new powers and new tricks to use and thus hopefully represents a gain of some type - even if that gain doesn't necessarily mean you really get a chance to feel that much more powerful.
But I've never been a big fan of the 'all encounters are carefully balanced to be the perfect challenge for the PCs. I'm more of the old school view that the monsters are what they are - and if you can't defeat the gnoll lair at level 3 you wait and come back at level 5. And in this case, what this means is that- rather than coming back at level 5 you might come back at level 4 after finding the greatsword of killing stuff with fur.
For those who do buy into the 'tailored encounter' approach - I agree with whatt Howling Tower has said;- although I do think it would be easier to make a rough adjustment then to try to apply a hard and fast rule (just looking at DPS would not do it, for example - you have to consider defenses, hp and special abilities). I'm just not sure the game is really well served by tailoring encounters to the PCs. But that is a game style question and 5th is supposed to work for all of us..
And it is worth noting that Steve also points out that carefully balanced encounters aren't necessarily a good thing. His point is that the DM needs to know the correct relative power of the encounter, not necessarily that the encounter needs to be balanced to the PCs (subtle, but important, distinction imho).
\
Carl
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9 months ago ::
Oct 12, 2012 - 3:39PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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The more I think about this the more I think it hits on why I'm really not liking the flattened math of the playtest: it makes it harder to know what the relative power levels are. I've read some things about 4e going way too far in the other direction and I can understand why people want to level the playing field, but when there are significant differences between a lvl 4 character and a lvl 7 character just from the levels alone I have an easier time DMing for the party. I'm sure I can get used to the flattened math side and maybe once the monsters aren't totally bonkers I'll see how this is supposed to work, but right now with what I'm given I honestly feel a bit thrown to the wolves when I'm trying to devise stories for my players. This effective level thing would be a half decent way of illustrating power disparity if the flattened math thing fails to draw lines that are easy to understand.
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9 months ago ::
Oct 12, 2012 - 3:56PM
#20
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Date Joined:
Apr 23, 2009
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As a DM I believe I can eyeball this most of the time. But some system to help wouldn't bother me at all and might prove useful at times. Until 3e, I always eyeballed everything. It was my gut. Sometimes the encounter was a little too tough and sometimes too easy. It all worked out. I do think that monsters with magical should use that magic against the PCs until defeated.
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