For me personally most balance issues come from the story effect, aka, when a player tries to narrate something that isn't covered by the rules, or supported by the rules, but makes perfect logical sense, but when the logical action is allowed (for which the system didn't account for) it very blatently unbalances the game, while simultanously sets the said action up as a "new good action to take" because obviously its potent (setting the prescedent).
This is usually the result of bad GMing on my part, at least to say bad on the fly designing on my part, but I always fault the system for failing to support me in the first place and putting me in a position where I have to create/design something on the fly that should be covered by the rules. In my opinion a good rules system will within the rules cover every concievable possible event that could ever happen by being a broad system, rather than a system of specifics, though a system of specifics can also work if the system is again very thorough. Systems that have problems more of often are ones that focus on the specific details of resolutions for one side of the game, like combat for example, but fail on the other side (narrative actions for example).
This is why I think systems need to be thorough, as all and all, once a system is created, while not always perfectly balanced, its almost always a lot closer than anything I can make at the table on the fly. Another words, I rather reference a poorly written rule, than try to invent one at the table.
All and all though this is usually the only situation in which balance is an issue. In as a whole if I find something by the rules that's unbalanced, because I have a starting point for the rule its much easier to adjust it. For example if a spell is super powerful, or is breaking the game somehow, I can find a simple house rule adjustment to limit it within the rules already as written. For example the Fly spell.... easily fixed by cutting the duration of the spell heavily... for example instead of lasting minutes have it last seconds or rounds, or have it create some sort of drawback like your hands turn into wings so you no longer have digits.. something like that. Its much tougher if their is no fly spell and you need one, because now I have to invent something that doesn't exist and if I have to do that during a session.. its even tougher. Maybe not the best example here but you get the idea... its much easier to have something to work with, some sort of starting point or reference.
Different classes having different strengths? Why that almost makes them...classes
The biggest issue in this regards is that each and every DM places different importance on each of the three pillars. My Saturday campaign for example is 80% combat, 10% exploration and 10% social interaction (players' choice - I personally prefer a more equal mix), but the Tuesday game I am a player at has a lot less combat and lot more exploration and social interaction. If a class is specialized on a certain pillar, then it becomes practically impossible for a DM to let that particular PC shine in equal messure to another PC more focussed on another pillar except by changing the game the DM is running. One of the reasons Vencian casters are so powerful is that they are all equally useful in each of the pillars, and can change their focus after an extended rest. It means that regardless of what adventure the DM designs, they have a role unless the DM goes out of his way to specifically target the casters which gets old real quick.
There are two sollutions for the designers, design a game where all classes have an equal impact on the different pillars OR add a section to each class clearly noting how much they focus on each pillar. If rogues are crappy at combat, the DM and players at least know to avoid it in a dungeon crawl. Personally I prefer the first since that gives me as a DM the most leeway in the type of games I run, but if that indeed somehow creates to homogeneous a game for the majority of people, at least admit to the downsides of it and make things as clear as possible for DMs and especially players
Side note: Iokare, nothing is more frustrating for a rogue then a barbarian triggering a trap for some damage. Healing is cheap and in the previous editions the rogue still risked taking damage since they could fail the check and more often then not they would die if they took the damage. You run exactly into a situation where one PC steps into the limelights at the cost of another. The real frustration is that even if you design really lethal traps for the rogue to disable, if the rogue is successful it is resolved in seconds and the impact of failure never felt. In short, the avoided trouble lets the rogue shine a LOT less then a 60 minute long fight lets the fighters and casters shine.
That's because most of the time when "Balance" is brought up, it means some significant degree of homogeneity. We've many examples of that in the 100+ page thread, where people want to tack on non-class features so they're "Balanced in all of the pillars and can participate", where "participate" means being one of the best at a given pillar(s).
It's very rare when people championing balance actually want the type of situational balance that is healthy, most often, it's a demand for their preferred class or classes to be as good as a paragon in a certain area.
This is mostly just you putting words in the mouths of those who don't agree with you.
Exactly. Every time balance is brought up someone has to trot out the "balance == sameness" fallacy and try to win arguments with emotional appeals instead of logic. I think they need to sticky at the top of every thread a list of logical fallacies and have making logical fallacies against the CoC. That would cut way back on edition warring and arguments in general...
Opinions are often entirely illogical. We are currently expressing our opinions about things. Even if our basis for not liking something is entirely illogical its totally fine because that is our opinion. We aren't talking about anything life effecting. We aren't talking about some kind of crazy life philosophy that is offense to others or violent to others (hopefully). We are talking about a game. It is entirely okay to have an illogical opinion about what types of games you like.
I mean even if it isn't true for you many people do feel that balance always results in a level of homogeneity that they do not like. They might not even feel it results in complete sameness, just a level of sameness they do not like. Doesn't matter if balance = sameness isn't true, it is what they feel to be true. Their feelings about what they like is entirely okay, and expressing their discontent with the absolute balance some strive for, and saying it results in a sameness they dislike is entirely okay. Even if it is not entirely true it is still okay to say that is why you don't like it because it feels like it is true to them. If everything feels homogeneous to them then there is still a problem and they are expressing their discontent and what they feel the problem is.
That's why using, "Because it is balanced", as a reasoning tool never works, and never seems to win anyone an argument. Some people don't care, and/or see the concept as one that ruined some other aspect of gaming for them. If they raise a concern about something being a part of a class, stating homogeneity as their reason for disliking it, and the only argument you can come up with is, "Because it is balanced", congratulations the argument fails. Doesn't matter if yes it balances, and isn't exactly the same. It feels to homogeneous to them and that is an entirely valid problem to have.
Its the fact that they are conflating the two, and it is possible to have a 'wrong' opinion, especially if its based on faulty logic. Hopefully we can get these people to realize the balance does not mean '4E' and that we can move past that and have a balanced game that reminds them strongly of their favorite edition, but with less need for house rules and more fun and easier to run.
Balance is essential because it allows all players to participate for equal amounts of time and doesn't let any one player outshine the others or allows everyone to shine an equal amount of time. It allows everyone to be able to play the character they want without falling into trap choices and allows them all the equal opportunity to have fun. So when we say 'its not balanced' we are implying all of the above.
The main problem is you can have balance without homogeny. The example I always use is the Fighter dealing 1d12+5 (average 11.5) damage every round and the Rogue dealing 2d8+14 (average 23) every other round. Suddenly you have balance, but its not homogenous. If the Fighter can walk through a trap and take a few points of damage or the Rogue can disable the trap and not take any, then there is balance. If the Fighter can intimidate a subject into an action and a Rogue can manipulate a subject into the same acton there is balance but not sameness.
So when someone says it can't be balanced because balance == sameness, they are simply factually wrong...
It is homogenous because they are in fact bringing the same thing to the table in the exact same manner. They are both bringing 11.5 damage per round achieved via making attack and damage rolls. Doesn't matter the speed or the tactic because in the end it is in fact the same thing once you break down what the contribution to the adventure was. They are bringing the exact same thing. Even if the rogue does it with a dagger and sneaky tactics, and the fighter does it up front with a great axe they both brought 11.5 damage per round to the table. Why don't we find different things to bring to the table in different ammounts. The fighter brings 11.5 DRP, and the rogue brings about 8 DPR, but also is the guy fencing all of your hard to sell items, and is the guy that is saving the group from traps and opening locked doors and chests or something else. The problem is created because you demand the rogue bring the exact same thing (11.5 DPR) to balance things out in one area. This means you must balance all areas because the rogue is now equal to the fighter in some regard so from there, depending upon how you prioritize things, something will always seem gimmped. Now if you instead make the rogue's 8 DPR the baseline acceptable region of DPR then both the fighter and the rogue are bringing something effective to the adventure, and something extra to the adventure without bringing the same thing (11.5 DPR) to the game. The rogue is bring baseline damage and some other stuff. the fighter is bringing baseline damage and extra damage. The fighter is also bringing a far better flexibility in combat, and the rogue is bringing a better flexibility in skill usage. They are both in fact bringing different yet equally useful things to the adventure. You in fact are suggesting they bring the exact same thing, 11.5 DPR, to the table just that it is skinned differently. That is by deffinition a level of homogenity that some dislike. It isn't wrong of them to dislike that, even if they can't properly articulate it.
Fine, you don't like my example. Try this one. The Fighter deals 11.5 DPR, the Rogue uses a sand in the eyes trick that blinds the target and allows everyone else in the party to increase their base DPR to an added total of 11.5. So in effect the Rogue is doing 11.5 DPR through the other party members because he blinds opponents.
Now they provide a system that is by my deffinition not homogenous because different people bring different things to the adventure. Then they make optional systems that can be pinned to the system and add the ability for everyone to reasonably add in all pillars. Literally giving you want you want. Backgrounds and Specialties literally do exactly what you are asking for. They give everyone the chance to have capability in every pillar, while not taking away the ability to specialize (because you only need minimal training in an area to be reasonably proficient at it), and while making sure every character still has something they will be exceptional at. Then you slap it away and say no MY way is the only way if I can't play MY way using the least ammount of optional rules then the system is broken. The truth is that so long as by using these things you can fill out all archetypes you can think of, no matter the combination of things you might need to pull off said archetype (even if that includes needing to use the optional modules), the system is sound. You can build your character concept, the one you wanted to build, sorry you can't build it the exact way you thought you were going to be building it. It doesn't even matter if you use rogue or fighter as your base so long as you use the other options to fill out other pillars, without removing my option to not do that. Then you have to balance my super specialized character's ability so it isn't overly game breaking in its capability as compared to your non specialized in the field capability. Basically cap how far I can specialize before I am expanding sideways rather than up. Just because it is hard to moderately balance like this it is not impossible.
Uh no, actually backgrounds and specialties don't do that for classes without any out of combat utility. Simply because the other classes can take the same backgrounds or specialties and still show the combat class up. Even with the background and specialty, the combat class is still less than the non-combat class. In the case of the Fighter and the Rogue, you end up with a Fighter that has 4 skills, if they take the Expert Specialty by the time they hit level 3 they will have the same number of skills as the Rogue (8), but the Rogue still has their skill mastery which is advantage on the skill dice not just when using skills, but anytime they roll the skill dice. At level 6 they get one skill that they can't roll a 9 or less on, but still don't get any advantage on any skills until level 9 when they gain advantage on the same skill. Now that doesn't come close to making them equal to a Rogue who doesn't take the Expert specialty. That Rogue has Skill Mastery which gives advantage on skill dice for all skill rolls, has 8 skills with a background and can take 20 several times by level 20 on any skill check trained or not. On top of that they get certain skill tricks that can be used in or out of combat to further increase their out of combat utility. The Fighter with a background and even the Expert specialty doesn't even match up to just a regular Rogue. Its really that simple, and I sure hope that Rogue doesn't grab the Expert specialty because they then they would be totally untouchable and no Fighter could ever build themselves up to that level of ability.
You have all even admitted that perfect balance is not needed just that the disparity between the trained and the untrained (system mastered and non system mastered) not be blindingly large, So long as they keep this true which as of right now it kinda is different characters can in fact bring different things to the table because everyone is still reasonably good with everything (as most mainish characters in a story are anyways). Especially so long as they keep things like combat and interaction and exploration moving quickly. As in the time it takes to work through a scene containing any of those pieces takes a seemingly determinable ammount of time that is reasonably similar. For example it takes 9.5 - 11 minutes for your average comat scene, 9.5 - 11 minutes for your average interaction scenes, and 9.5 - 11 minutes for your average exploration session. So long as that is a viable statement (not that it hold true) then it is fine. things are moving so quickly no gets a chance to feel useless because by the time they would their skills are needed. Yes when combat takes 40 minutes, interaction takes 10 minutes, and exploration takes like 5 minutes you feel like you need to be contributing to combat no matter what but that is because the bulk of your time is spent in combat. if you spend equal short periods of time in the different pillars and not hours at a time in them then the I'm useless feeling tends to not show up as much.
Yeah, its actually not true that there is no disparity between an optimized and unoptimized character. You can completely optimize a Fighter for out of combat and have it completely overshadowed by a random Rogue build that is optimized for combat, or not optimized at all. Also different groups have different times for their scenes. A combat heavy group is going to spend way more time in combat than in social or exploration. A socialization group is going to spend way less time in combat or exploration. You are making the same blanket assumptions that the developers are and it is going to make the game unplayable unless you have a very specific time for each of the three pillars and even then you'll still have players standing around doing nothing for long periods of time.
Yet again this is why you build the adventure while the characters are being made.
Yet again some DMs don't build adventures, they buy them and WotC likes to sell them, so its in their best interest to make adventures and the game where you can just buy an adventure and run it...
Reading some of the balance or lack there of concerns come as no surprise to me. Half dragon/giant/minotaur/tarasque are not core rules for a reason, use them at your discretion.
"I can't do anything outside of combat" is most times a combination of not enough role playing or too much focus on combat in character development. Like any great movie combat should support the story not be the plot. Fighters are some of the richest sources for role play / personality development. Hardened by frontline combat they can range from battle weary to raging berserker to logical tactician. They can be reclusive or needing social contact and humor and light hearded interaction to distract from the horrors of battle.
"My caster was able to do everything that the Thief wanted to do and makes my characters obsolete." I am NOT calling for the return of the Vancian magic system but making character memorize spells went a long way in preventing the Wizard from casting Invisibility, Silence, Knock etc because they didn't know if they were going to need those slots for combat.
"Wizards in my campaigns trump every encounter at higher levels and make the rest o fthe classes feel trivial." Spell resistant creatures really put a damper on high level casters. Making certain spells legendary or artifact spells so they are much harder to learn or find helps that a lot as well. If I am a Wizard I am not going to just teach any other Wizard Disintegrate because they may try to use it on me. Also find ways to put them in melee with high volume fights to test them with Concentration checks. Have enemies cast silence on them or other control spells like Hold Person. Have them ambushed by a stealther.
"Fighters are junk." That is because the story does not build in scenarios where they shine. Not every encounter has to be CR = party. Why not throw in some lower level high volume fights that showcase a fighter's strengths. Be flexible as a storyteller and find ways to showcase the fighters resilience, when the Wizard has burned his spells or wants/needs to save them for another encounter.
"Sneak attacks are too powerful." Inititative stackers and surprise attacks have really made things hard for me at times. Rogue with Sneak attack from surprise and then because they win initiative have made some of my tactical encounters challenging but there are ways around this. Detect Thoughts goes a long way.
"My players have +30 to hide and move silently! They are undectable by normal means!" Skills, and this goes for the section directly below this, never have spell like effects. I do not let a player sneak into a well lit circular room where there are three guards all diligently watching the golden chalice lightly just because thy have +30 something to a skill, getting bonuses from magic items however do make it alot more explainable.
The only mechanic I have been driven mad with was social combat skills like Diplomacy. I had a Bard that abused the "I hate you and will kill your family. *insert Diplomacy roll*. Here take all my gold and items and I will chop off my hand if you will be my best friend." That being said I would rather have to tweak a social combat system or in the case of 3.X house rule it till it made my head hurt then not have a social system in the game. This makes classes that would be rendered relatively useless by a module or standard dungeon crawl more fun. The hard part is working / playing with people that are willing to compromise and trust that sometimes for the sake of telling a story of weight and with authority and is organic you just can't make friends with some people.
These are just some ways to bring balance into the game. I never go out of my way to try and trump a player, I don't have to. I try to use savvy and smart NPCs and strategies and let the players try to find their way through them. If you approach D&D from the stand point of a MMO or boardgame and try to build power player you will build a weakness in your character if played correctly. I have only found one character that was broken and he was a flavor NPC a friend made out of two seemingless innocuous Druid Prestige classes. One was able to absorb spells and one made him ethereal when he was low on hit points and came from the Quintesential Druid supplelments (as many have said the supplements should be used with great discretion).
Different classes having different strengths? Why that almost makes them...classes
The biggest issue in this regards is that each and every DM places different importance on each of the three pillars. My Saturday campaign for example is 80% combat, 10% exploration and 10% social interaction (players' choice - I personally prefer a more equal mix), but the Tuesday game I am a player at has a lot less combat and lot more exploration and social interaction. If a class is specialized on a certain pillar, then it becomes practically impossible for a DM to let that particular PC shine in equal messure to another PC more focussed on another pillar except by changing the game the DM is running. One of the reasons Vencian casters are so powerful is that they are all equally useful in each of the pillars, and can change their focus after an extended rest. It means that regardless of what adventure the DM designs, they have a role unless the DM goes out of his way to specifically target the casters which gets old real quick.
There are two sollutions for the designers, design a game where all classes have an equal impact on the different pillars OR add a section to each class clearly noting how much they focus on each pillar. If rogues are crappy at combat, the DM and players at least know to avoid it in a dungeon crawl. Personally I prefer the first since that gives me as a DM the most leeway in the type of games I run, but if that indeed somehow creates to homogeneous a game for the majority of people, at least admit to the downsides of it and make things as clear as possible for DMs and especially players
Side note: Iokare, nothing is more frustrating for a rogue then a barbarian triggering a trap for some damage. Healing is cheap and in the previous editions the rogue still risked taking damage since they could fail the check and more often then not they would die if they took the damage. You run exactly into a situation where one PC steps into the limelights at the cost of another. The real frustration is that even if you design really lethal traps for the rogue to disable, if the rogue is successful it is resolved in seconds and the impact of failure never felt. In short, the avoided trouble lets the rogue shine a LOT less then a 60 minute long fight lets the fighters and casters shine.
Reading some of the balance or lack there of concerns come as no surprise to me. Half dragon/giant/minotaur/tarasque are not core rules for a reason, use them at your discretion.
"I can't do anything outside of combat" is most times a combination of not enough role playing or too much focus on combat in character development. Like any great movie combat should support the story not be the plot. Fighters are some of the richest sources for role play / personality development. Hardened by frontline combat they can range from battle weary to raging berserker to logical tactician. They can be reclusive or needing social contact and humor and light hearded interaction to distract from the horrors of battle.
"My caster was able to do everything that the Thief wanted to do and makes my characters obsolete." I am NOT calling for the return of the Vancian magic system but making character memorize spells went a long way in preventing the Wizard from casting Invisibility, Silence, Knock etc because they didn't know if they were going to need those slots for combat.
"Wizards in my campaigns trump every encounter at higher levels and make the rest o fthe classes feel trivial." Spell resistant creatures really put a damper on high level casters. Making certain spells legendary or artifact spells so they are much harder to learn or find helps that a lot as well. If I am a Wizard I am not going to just teach any other Wizard Disintegrate because they may try to use it on me. Also find ways to put them in melee with high volume fights to test them with Concentration checks. Have enemies cast silence on them or other control spells like Hold Person. Have them ambushed by a stealther.
"Fighters are junk." That is because the story does not build in scenarios where they shine. Not every encounter has to be CR = party. Why not throw in some lower level high volume fights that showcase a fighter's strengths. Be flexible as a storyteller and find ways to showcase the fighters resilience, when the Wizard has burned his spells or wants/needs to save them for another encounter.
"Sneak attacks are too powerful." Inititative stackers and surprise attacks have really made things hard for me at times. Rogue with Sneak attack from surprise and then because they win initiative have made some of my tactical encounters challenging but there are ways around this. Detect Thoughts goes a long way.
"My players have +30 to hide and move silently! They are undectable by normal means!" Skills, and this goes for the section directly below this, never have spell like effects. I do not let a player sneak into a well lit circular room where there are three guards all diligently watching the golden chalice lightly just because thy have +30 something to a skill, getting bonuses from magic items however do make it alot more explainable.
The only mechanic I have been driven mad with was social combat skills like Diplomacy. I had a Bard that abused the "I hate you and will kill your family. *insert Diplomacy roll*. Here take all my gold and items and I will chop off my hand if you will be my best friend." That being said I would rather have to tweak a social combat system or in the case of 3.X house rule it till it made my head hurt then not have a social system in the game. This makes classes that would be rendered relatively useless by a module or standard dungeon crawl more fun. The hard part is working / playing with people that are willing to compromise and trust that sometimes for the sake of telling a story of weight and with authority and is organic you just can't make friends with some people.
These are just some ways to bring balance into the game. I never go out of my way to try and trump a player, I don't have to. I try to use savvy and smart NPCs and strategies and let the players try to find their way through them. If you approach D&D from the stand point of a MMO or boardgame and try to build power player you will build a weakness in your character if played correctly. I have only found one character that was broken and he was a flavor NPC a friend made out of two seemingless innocuous Druid Prestige classes. One was able to absorb spells and one made him ethereal when he was low on hit points and came from the Quintesential Druid supplelments (as many have said the supplements should be used with great discretion).
Most of this post is refuted by this simple example:
Fighter "I grab the chandelier and swing across the pit of lava."
Rogue "I grab the chandelier and swing across the pit of lave, but with advantage on my skill dice roll, and if I still fail I use Ace in the Hole to automatically get a 20."
"You can role play it." is a horrible excuse, because everyone can role play, not just the Fighter...
Reading some of the balance or lack there of concerns come as no surprise to me. Half dragon/giant/minotaur/tarasque are not core rules for a reason, use them at your discretion.
"We stopped pretending to give a crap past the PHB" is a very poor reason. As the gaming audience, we should not accept such.
"Wizards in my campaigns trump every encounter at higher levels and make the rest of the classes feel trivial." Spell resistant creatures really put a damper on high level casters.
Bull. Spell resistance, even spell immunity was a joke in 3.x. When confronted with a spell immune opponent, spells were still #1. That's how screwed it was.
"Fighters are junk." That is because the story does not build in scenarios where they shine. Not every encounter has to be CR = party. Why not throw in some lower level high volume fights that showcase a fighter's strengths.
Because this equally, if not more, highlights the wizard's strengths.
Be flexible as a storyteller and find ways to showcase the fighters resilience, when the Wizard has burned his spells or wants/needs to save them for another encounter.
Not interested in writing all my stories around the wizard, sorry. That is not flexibility, it's adherence to once general case.
"Sneak attacks are too powerful." Inititative stackers and surprise attacks have really made things hard for me at times. Rogue with Sneak attack from surprise and then because they win initiative have made some of my tactical encounters challenging but there are ways around this. Detect Thoughts goes a long way.
"My players have +30 to hide and move silently! They are undectable by normal means!" Skills, and this goes for the section directly below this, never have spell like effects. I do not let a player sneak into a well lit circular room where there are three guards all diligently watching the golden chalice lightly just because thy have +30 something to a skill, getting bonuses from magic items however do make it alot more explainable.
Who says this?
These are just some ways to bring balance into the game.
All of these are, to a greater or lesser degree, valid ideas about how to make an existing ruleset work for you. However, that isn't what we're limited to doing with DDN. At least in theory, our feedback matters, which means we do not have to figure out how to be useful within an existing system. We can, instead, determine the parameters of that system.
Seriously, though, you should check out the PbP Haven. You might also like Real Adventures, IF you're cool.
Knights of W.T.F.- Silver Spur Winner
4enclave, a place where 4e fans can talk 4e in peace.
Reading some of the balance or lack there of concerns come as no surprise to me. Half dragon/giant/minotaur/tarasque are not core rules for a reason, use them at your discretion.
"We stopped pretending to give a crap past the PHB" is a very poor reason. As the gaming audience, we should not accept such.
Please, by all means, use content not initially calculated and developed within the matrix that the game was built and then voice issue that it isn't balanced, but don't blame the core values.
"Wizards in my campaigns trump every encounter at higher levels and make the rest of the classes feel trivial." Spell resistant creatures really put a damper on high level casters.
Bull. Spell resistance, even spell immunity was a joke in 3.x. When confronted with a spell immune opponent, spells were still #1. That's how screwed it was.
Not true at all. There are a few feats that give bonuses to punching through spell rsistance but savings throws, concentration checks in addition to spell resistance are very effective counters to casters.
"Fighters are junk." That is because the story does not build in scenarios where they shine. Not every encounter has to be CR = party. Why not throw in some lower level high volume fights that showcase a fighter's strengths.
Because this equally, if not more, highlights the wizard's strengths.
No it doesn't. You put a Wizard into a high volume setting with modestly tough melee combatants he will have to over come more savings throws, risk concentration check failures and burn valuable spells that could b used in other encounters.
Be flexible as a storyteller and find ways to showcase the fighters resilience, when the Wizard has burned his spells or wants/needs to save them for another encounter.
Not interested in writing all my stories around the wizard, sorry. That is not flexibility, it's adherence to once general case.
If you can't be bothered to write and develop a campaign or session to cater to the characters then maybe D&D is not the game for you? Stick to Stratego?
"Sneak attacks are too powerful." Inititative stackers and surprise attacks have really made things hard for me at times. Rogue with Sneak attack from surprise and then because they win initiative have made some of my tactical encounters challenging but there are ways around this. Detect Thoughts goes a long way.
"My players have +30 to hide and move silently! They are undectable by normal means!" Skills, and this goes for the section directly below this, never have spell like effects. I do not let a player sneak into a well lit circular room where there are three guards all diligently watching the golden chalice lightly just because thy have +30 something to a skill, getting bonuses from magic items however do make it alot more explainable.
Who says this?
No clue why you even addressed this as it doesn;t seem to apply to you or your campaigns but it has been an issue in my campaigns.
These are just some ways to bring balance into the game.
All of these are, to a greater or lesser degree, valid ideas about how to make an existing ruleset work for you. However, that isn't what we're limited to doing with DDN. At least in theory, our feedback matters, which means we do not have to figure out how to be useful within an existing system. We can, instead, determine the parameters of that system.
My feedback is just as valid as any other but the very approach to gaming that some people take are not conduscive to balance. Some people want to manipulate and take advantage of the rules at the expense of the spirit of the game. Until we address that there will be no perfect or balanced system. I have been able to, as a DM, find resolutions to power gaming within the context of the game as it has been presented. I am sorry that whatever grossly offensive thing I have said triggered you to be so dismissive about my feedback. I use previous version as example because they are referrence points, the building block for the next iteration and I personally (even if I may be wrong) don't think that some of the frustrations some other people have voiced are as glaring or an issue at all to ME.
For me personally most balance issues come from the story effect, aka, when a player tries to narrate something that isn't covered by the rules, or supported by the rules, but makes perfect logical sense, but when the logical action is allowed (for which the system didn't account for) it very blatently unbalances the game, while simultanously sets the said action up as a "new good action to take" because obviously its potent (setting the prescedent).
Improvising and coming up with clever and creative ways to solve a situation should not be seen as a bad thing, should it? Dnd and the guys at the top incourage that sort of play. The rules will never cover everything, Defining rules for every situation and thinkable event, is not a good idea if you want a smooth game experience! Not letting players do what makes narratively sense to their characters in a given situation, be it an encounter or not, is just wrong in a roleplaying game! The rules should not restrict what your character should be able to do, just because it isn`t covered in the rules. A good DM does not need to plan out every event, but needs to be able to run with things on the fly, improvise and deal with the players curve balls. Railroading is not a good thing, not in the adventure and not in an encounter either! If a player does something clever or creative, reward it, don`t let the rules stand in the way! Good and smooth rules are great, 4e is a good system with well designed mechanics. But no matter what system you are running, knowing when to bend the rules or ignore them, is a skill every good DM should have! Use the rules as an aid and a guideline, but let players be creative, without rules hindering them, as long as it makes sense!
