Animate rope is mechanically limited and can't be used in combat.
Ok, but players can still choose it, right?
And if so, are you saying that we must divide spells into two categories: spells that can be used in combat, and spells that can't?
You could do it that way, but you could also just make a category called "takes no action" or "DM improvises results". For example, even if you could cast animate rope in combat and make a rope dance (ie. not interfering with anyone), then that is functionally equivalent to standing still and not taking an action. If the DM decides that making a rope dance has an effect on combat, like distracting someone, then he has effectively changed the spell to do something improvised, which should be part of the balance formula in a similar way to the various damage charts by level in 4e, hopefully expanded to include effects. In the end, there is only a limited number of combat relevant effects that need to be adjudicated. For the purpsoes of balance, making someone smile for a second is functionally equivalent to taking no action, so you don't need to worry about it.
Let me see here....in these posts you imply that balancing via programming could be done very cheaply and quickly: Post #259 "It would be trivial to program this kind of stuff into a computer..." Post #260 "I'll tell you what, if you pay me to do the developers jobs I'll bang it out over a long weekend, if I can't find the software that will do it already. If nothing else I could recommend a company that would do it for a small fee."
In this post, you claim that WotC would be one of the only ones capable of affording it: Post#268 "You must misunderstand the industry. Table top RPG makers are not hug corporations with endless dollars. Most of them barely make enough profit to continue to exist. WotC is about the only one with a real budget."
In these two, you're back to saying that WotC is on a trivial budget: Post #280 "...that's all up to the choices of WotC and all of the other shoe string budget table top RPG companies out there." Post #379 "What, you mean the richest table top RPG companies that operate on a budget that a middle class house wife would laugh at?"
Which is it? Cheap and easy (able to do over a weekend or for a "small fee"), or out of the reach of every major RPG developer, including WotC/Hasbro?
There are a couple of things here. Something can be easy, but still time consuming. Something can take a little time when you have few variables and add new variables in slowly as they are made instead of trying to create a system to cover thousands of existing elements, like adding a character builder now which covers all existing 3e martial from WotC.
Also, I read the quotes you mention here and I don't see where it says it would be "cheap". There is claims of easy, but easy is not cheap. When Lokiare talks about doing it over the weekend, he wasn't being clear if that meant just the base system and might not have included data entry for the monsters, class, feats, skills, and effects that you want to add to the system, which would take some time. Although, given that he talks about this being out of the reach of small companies implies that it would have a general high cost, which implies it would take time to have everything. This is also the same reason why most game companies don't have a character builder (online or offline) for their RPGs. These would always be added value for a game, but most don't have it because it is an extra expense. This is similar. Also, budgets are relative. Something can be the largest in its industry and still be considered tiny relative to other industries.
Those who are talking as if Math can magically fix balance are doing math and balance a disservice. To see why, imagine the easiest case - a only fighting d&d with only 1 class fighters, who always hit. Now, imagine you have two weapons - d12 and 2d6. Now, those are pretty close, and most people will consider the balanced enough, but in order for them to be perfectly balanced, you need to make sure that your monster hp are cleverly chosen, with some having hp favoring the d12 (11 hp) and some favouring the 2d12 (2 hp). If you add any monsters, you need to limit their hp to maintain that equation. And that's with 2 weapons, intentionally chosen to be balanceable. If you add a d4, you need to play with accuracy, and now your bestiary has hp and AC requirements. Even in that trivial system, it's easy to show that it's impossible to add only 1 monster and retain perfect balance.
And, remember, we're not even trying to figure out how to balance things that people actually have opinions on. To balance ranged vs melee, you need to figure out what percentage of dms create maps that favor one vs another, and what percentage of dms create encounters that Favor one vs another.
And remember, even in this hypothetical perfectly balanced scenario; it doesn't stop dms from accidentally breaking balance. If sneak attack is balanced against being bad at undead, and clerics are balanced against bein good against undead, then the perfectly balanced system (with 42.3% undead) will still fail when the dm decides to run ravenloft, or dark sun.
Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that balance is pointless or subjective, or not worth fighting for. Perhaps a better solution is, instead of aiming for perfect balance, aim for a system that restores balance. If the fighter can only fight, but is great at it, then the balance point is fragile - the dm has to balance combat/non combat carefully. If the wizard can rule an encounter, but only some times/day, then the number of encounters per day needs to be strictly controlled.
Both of those are "balanced", hypothetically, but fragile. A better design would be to allow for less domination/day (which expands the number of acceptable encounters/day) and give the fighter more out of combat utility (which expands the number of combats/non-combat possibilities while still remaining balanced )
Now, it's fair to argue that specialization is fun, and that by expanding balance, we remove specialization. But specialization can ruin balance. After all, the ultimate specialization was the early psionic - if you rolled psionic, you dominated the entire adventure - if you didn't roll psionic, then someone else ruled instead. Which is the ultimate in specialization - your entire capability is based on one die roll. Even if that is hypothetically balanced, it's never possible to be practically balanced.
If you're the kind of person who likes specialization, and doesn't mind the balance problems, good for you. I think it's fair for the advanced rules to cater to that style - since your advanced dm will have more experience dealing with forcibly rebalancing campaigns. But, if we want dming to be easy, then we want it to work in a variety of circumstances, which argues the basic rules shouldn't allow for such specialization that the dm needs to force balance when the system becomes unbalanced.
Which argues for more robust, less specialized base characters.
To see why, imagine the easiest case - a only fighting d&d with only 1 class fighters, who always hit. Now, imagine you have two weapons - d12 and 2d6. Now, those are pretty close, and most people will consider the balanced enough, but in order for them to be perfectly balanced, you need to make sure that your monster hp are cleverly chosen, with some having hp favoring the d12 (11 hp) and some favouring the 2d12 (2 hp). If you add any monsters, you need to limit their hp to maintain that equation. And that's with 2 weapons, intentionally chosen to be balanceable. If you add a d4, you need to play with accuracy, and now your bestiary has hp and AC requirements. Even in that trivial system, it's easy to show that it's impossible to add only 1 monster and retain perfect balance.
So show it, if it is so easy to show that it is impossibe. Your system has three weapons and a handful of properties (damage, hit points, AC, and attack bonus). Also, a 1d12 damage dice and and a 2d6 damage dice are "pretty close" as you say, so if your goal is to get balance to be pretty close, then your work is already done, if not, then determine which one is "better" in the system and give the worse one a balancing factor.
You also have to recognize that you cannot just balancing things in isolation. For example, maybe a 1d4 dagger in the hands of a Fighter is always going to be worse in a combat situation then a 1d8 longsword and there is nothing wrong with that because the Knife Killer class is based around using the dagger and is balanced against the Fighter with this in mind.
To balance ranged vs melee, you need to figure out what percentage of dms create maps that favor one vs another, and what percentage of dms create encounters that Favor one vs another.
I don't think that level of percision is necessary to create a balanced scenario.
In case my previous post skipped some steps: if you have a monster with 11 hp, the 1d12 has a 1/6 chance of one shotting. The 2d6 has a 1/12 chance of one shotting. If you have a monster with 2 hp, the 2d6 will always one shot, but the 1d12 will not one shot 1/12 chance. So, to make sure that the 2d6 and 1d12 are perfectly balanced, we need to make monsters such that there are the same number of monsters with 2 hp as 11. That makes sure that both of them have a mathematically identical chance of one shotting a monster. Now, in that perfect world, there no hp value between 1-12 that keeps the chance of one shotting identical for both. This is because, for monsters 7 hp and less, the 2d6 has a slight advantage. For monsters 8 hp and more, the d12 has an advantage.
Which is why I say that, even in this example, "perfect balance" is impossible. Understand me - I'm not saying balance isn't good, measureable, or fun - just that this fantasy of using math to perfectly balance d&d is fantasy. They could use math to get it closer, sure, but perfect isn't possible.
As I said though, I think there's more value in asking "how many assumptions are required to keep balance and how far off do they run if the assumptions are broken." In Aedu, balance was unaffected by number of encounters/day, allowing the dm to pick any. When essentials came out, the number of encounters per day was assumed to keep balance - making it more brittle and more work for the dm.
In case my previous post skipped some steps: if you have a monster with 11 hp, the 1d12 has a 1/6 chance of one shotting. The 2d6 has a 1/12 chance of one shotting. If you have a monster with 2 hp, the 2d6 will always one shot, but the 1d12 will not one shot 1/12 chance. So, to make sure that the 2d6 and 1d12 are perfectly balanced, we need to make monsters such that there are the same number of monsters with 2 hp as 11. That makes sure that both of them have a mathematically identical chance of one shotting a monster. Now, in that perfect world, there no hp value between 1-12 that keeps the chance of one shotting identical for both. This is because, for monsters 7 hp and less, the 2d6 has a slight advantage. For monsters 8 hp and more, the d12 has an advantage. Which is why I say that, even in this example, "perfect balance" is impossible. Understand me - I'm not saying balance isn't good, measureable, or fun - just that this fantasy of using math to perfectly balance d&d is fantasy. They could use math to get it closer, sure, but perfect isn't possible. As I said though, I think there's more value in asking "how many assumptions are required to keep balance and how far off do they run if the assumptions are broken." In Aedu, balance was unaffected by number of encounters/day, allowing the dm to pick any. When essentials came out, the number of encounters per day was assumed to keep balance - making it more brittle and more work for the dm.
The main problem with your argument is that no one is aiming for super perfect balanced on the head of a pin 'balance'. We are looking for 'these options are equally valuable across a multitude of common situations'. So something like 2d6 vs. 1d12 doesn't even pop up on our radar. Stuff like 1d10 vs. 1d12 barely makes it on the radar and only if other factors are also unbalanced.
In case my previous post skipped some steps: if you have a monster with 11 hp, the 1d12 has a 1/6 chance of one shotting. The 2d6 has a 1/12 chance of one shotting. If you have a monster with 2 hp, the 2d6 will always one shot, but the 1d12 will not one shot 1/12 chance. So, to make sure that the 2d6 and 1d12 are perfectly balanced, we need to make monsters such that there are the same number of monsters with 2 hp as 11. That makes sure that both of them have a mathematically identical chance of one shotting a monster. Now, in that perfect world, there no hp value between 1-12 that keeps the chance of one shotting identical for both. This is because, for monsters 7 hp and less, the 2d6 has a slight advantage. For monsters 8 hp and more, the d12 has an advantage. Which is why I say that, even in this example, "perfect balance" is impossible. Understand me - I'm not saying balance isn't good, measureable, or fun - just that this fantasy of using math to perfectly balance d&d is fantasy. They could use math to get it closer, sure, but perfect isn't possible. As I said though, I think there's more value in asking "how many assumptions are required to keep balance and how far off do they run if the assumptions are broken." In Aedu, balance was unaffected by number of encounters/day, allowing the dm to pick any. When essentials came out, the number of encounters per day was assumed to keep balance - making it more brittle and more work for the dm.
The main problem with your argument is that no one is aiming for super perfect balanced on the head of a pin 'balance'. We are looking for 'these options are equally valuable across a multitude of common situations'. So something like 2d6 vs. 1d12 doesn't even pop up on our radar. Stuff like 1d10 vs. 1d12 barely makes it on the radar and only if other factors are also unbalanced.
Can't accurately say noone when a Charops forum exists.
I As I said though, I think there's more value in asking "how many assumptions are required to keep balance and how far off do they run if the assumptions are broken." In Aedu, balance was unaffected by number of encounters/day, allowing the dm to pick any. When essentials came out, the number of encounters per day was assumed to keep balance - making it more brittle and more work for the dm.
I like the term Robustness.. the fewer assumptions the more robust the balance and the more it holds up to varying play styles/habits.
Orkkiller - I tried to make it clear - a balanced approach like yours (and mine) that looks for flexible options under a variety of circumstances is good balance, and one that I endorse. I take issue with those who think that math and computers will solve the problem for us - no amount of math will rescue us from brittle design, and no algorithm can lead to perfect balance. If you weren't arguing for perfect balance then we agree
If those who were arguing for "setting things equal" and writing computer programs for balance were assuming rough balance and not perfect balance, then I've just argued against a point that no one believed. (Oops). But, I get the feeling that some people who think that balance can be achieved through math haven't thought through how to do the design well. (For instance, if long sword is almost always better than dagger, but there's a dagger build whose is so good that daggers are "balanced", what that really means is that daggers are broken if you min/max, a trap if you don't, and longswords are a mistake for those who lack system mastery enough to use daggers. While that might be mathematically balanced (out of 1000 playtesters, daggers and longswords averaged the exact same damage), it's practically the definition of brittle design - once the dagger build leaks to the Internet, now daggers are just too good for those with system mastery, and dms need to use monsters immune to daggers. It's why I think we need to focus on a different measure of balance - not things equalling each other in average, but things being equal in general. It's sort of the difference between me taking $0.25 cents from you verses me taking $100 from you except if you roll a 1 on a 10000 die, when I'll give you 1 million. Sure, they may be equal on average - but one is going to make you very unhappy very very often. If we're designing a game, we should focus on removing designs that make our customers unhappy. And that's a part of balanced design I don't see brought up In this math discussion.
The main methodology of balance is to simply ensure that every choice is viable in some way from a powergamer viewpoint. Basically that means that for every class, ability, etc. You need to be able to give both a reason why you wouldn't want to take it over similar abilities and a reason you would, and that reasoning must be entirely mechanical based.
Then you get to actual monster design, which is honestly a part a lot of people gloss over. It's absolutely necessary to have a variety of challenges. A big reason 3E spellcasters were godly is because the melee superpower monster was common, but there were hardly any monsters at all that were weak agaisnt melee. So naturally against a bestiary of stuff weak agasint ranged attacks, the ranged attackers are naturally going to be better.
