Worst REAL house rules you've used

[Anonymouswizard]

Knock does need to be balanced, because in addition to resource use we also have to take into account resource regeneration.

D&D, especially 5e, tends to have resources regenerate fast. You get all your spells back at the end of the day. At low levels you get few enough slots that using a utility spell might be a significant choice, by the time mages become powerful the use of a first or second level spell to bypass an encounter is nothing.

Now if resources regenerate slowly then spells can be more powerful. If it takes a Mage days to regenerate their MP then a spell that spends half that MP should be big and impressive. But in D&D mages end up with so many spells that it's up to the GM to make sure that they don't hog the spotlight, especially when they can end up with six encounter ending spells per day.

Now my favorite version is where there's no MP or Slots, and magic is limited by not being too powerful, being incredibly difficult, or material components. Sure, in my settings spells theoretically exist which wipe cities off the map, but are either so difficult you won't be about l able to actually cast it, or take hundreds of mages chanting in unison in a magic circle for hours with precisely arranged material components. Getting a big spell off is a challenge that everybody can be involved in setting up.

[Lalliman]

The thing is, knock doesn't need to be balanced. If the wizard wants to spend one of their sharply-limited spells per day to be able to do once what the rogue can do for free all day, every day, that's their lookout.

Theoretically, sure. But how often do you have to pick several locks per day? It's more likely the DM will give you a variety of challenges, e.g. get through a locked door, get across a chasm, then convince a guy to do a thing. The rogue can pick locks all day, the barbarian can jump chasms all day, and the bard can swindle people all day, but the wizard can do all three better. He has limited uses, sure, but that doesn't matter when this is the whole challenge. I find that this kind of design just makes things harder on the DM. You have to expand the scope and length of challenges beyond what seems reasonable in order to prevent the wizard from being able to solo it. It's not fundamentally a bad idea, but (as the ironically-named Anonymouswizard said) it's easy to misalign how much a spell can do with how many can be cast day-in day-out.

[awa]

5E does that, thus making the spell worthless, like pretty much everything else in the spell list that isn't direct damage.

The thing is, knock doesn't need to be balanced. If the wizard wants to spend one of their sharply-limited spells per day to be able to do once what the rogue can do for free all day, every day, that's their lookout.

What needs to be balanced is the cheapness and ease of making or buying a magic item that lets you do it fifty times without touching your actual spell slots.

see my earlier point you simply dont see enough locked doors for it to matter, now ill admit i was thinking more about 3rd edition where the resource expenditure of the rouge was much higher and the resources expended by the wizard much lower. (ive never seen a game that required 50 locked doors to be opened)

part of the problem is they act as if locked doors are a scaling problem with ever increasing dcs but then provided a hard-counter that ignores that scaling. For 3rd edition the rogue has to spend an every increasing number of skill pts to keep his door opening skills relevant but the value of the wizards spell slot is ever decreasing as he get more gold and spells to spend.

[GreatWyrmGold]

The thing is, knock doesn't need to be balanced. If the wizard wants to spend one of their sharply-limited spells per day to be able to do once what the rogue can do for free all day, every day, that's their lookout.

I really don't like this line of logic.

First off, balancing "you can be awesome once per day" against "you can be mediocre all day" is a terrible idea and I don't know how it became D&D standard. Under ideal circumstances, everyone gets the same amount of usefulness, with one spreading it out evenly over the day and the other getting it in bursts, but this is dang near impossible to balance; if your party isn't doing just the right amount of stuff per day, the balance falls apart. It also relies on the assumption that doing the same amount of "stuff" is going to be equally fun whether it's being consistently kinda useful all day or taking the spotlight a few times to solve a problem all by yourself. Finally, even under ideal circumstances, it requires a lot more skill at balance than anyone working on D&D has ever displayed...with the exception of 4e, which (for all of its flaws) actually found a way to balance Conan and Gandalf. I look forward to WotC trying that again, only without all the aforementioned flaws.

Sorry for the tangent. Anyways, as a second point, unlocking doors is a rogue's "thing" (along with a few other, rarer kinds of challenges that wizards can also overcome with ease). Giving the wizard the ability to step in and stop the rogue from having their moment in the spotlight is stupid, especially since the rogue is one of the classes which is mediocre all day (and hence won't have many other natural spotlight opportunities). At least they can't also fight better than fighters, like they could in older editions.
Third, it's not just knock. I alluded to spells like invisibility and detect traps and snares which let the wizard solve the rogue's problems without any effort beyond a little planning and a spell slot or two—and probably better than the rogue. The wizard also has spells which can solve combat encounters; while charm person and glitterdust and whatnot aren't as bad as they were in (say) 3.5, casters still have access to plenty of spells which will have a bigger effect on the battle than any critical hit or sneak attack. In a game where a party is expected to consist of multiple classes fulfilling multiple roles, letting one class do things in another's role as well or better than that class kind of defeats the point.
Finally, your argument is that the spell doesn't need to be balanced because of its balancing features. You...might not have the best grasp on what "balance" generally encompasses.

[Quertus]

Wizards kill orcs with fire, rangers with arrows. Same stuff, different flavor, right? If you're not going to segregate the game into the part where Regdar can do something, the part where Mialee can do something, etc, you're going to have the "problem" of different classes doing basically the same thing.
I mean, yeah, the example given was "wizard rolls dice to unlock door" compared to "rogue rolls dice to unlock door," but the only ways to avoid that are to either invent overly-complex rules for unlocking doors or let one automatically unlock the door (and sadly, it's probably going to be the one who can already bend reality, not the one specialized in lockpicking).

So, curiously, the Knight and the Bishop are roughly equal pieces in chess, yet they don't do the same thing.

It is entirely possible to build things that are different but equal. Heck, just in combat, just in 3e, we've got buff, debuff, BFC, disarm, behead, SoD, grapple, theft, counter spell (technically possible by damage, theft, grapple, sunder, and spell), healing, movement, and conversion, on top of damage. And I'm probably missing some options. Lots of different. And we've plenty of tools to use to ratchet up (or down) the power level on these options to make most of them for within the table's balance range of equal. After all, a party of 3 will get different benefit from an AoE buff than a party of 15 will, even at otherwise the same table, so I'm glad of this toolkit.

I really don't like this line of logic.

First off, balancing "you can be awesome once per day" against "you can be mediocre all day" is a terrible idea and I don't know how it became D&D standard. Under ideal circumstances, everyone gets the same amount of usefulness, with one spreading it out evenly over the day and the other getting it in bursts, but this is dang near impossible to balance; if your party isn't doing just the right amount of stuff per day, the balance falls apart. It also relies on the assumption that doing the same amount of "stuff" is going to be equally fun whether it's being consistently kinda useful all day or taking the spotlight a few times to solve a problem all by yourself. Finally, even under ideal circumstances, it requires a lot more skill at balance than anyone working on D&D has ever displayed...with the exception of 4e, which (for all of its flaws) actually found a way to balance Conan and Gandalf. I look forward to WotC trying that again, only without all the aforementioned flaws.

Sorry for the tangent. Anyways, as a second point, unlocking doors is a rogue's "thing" (along with a few other, rarer kinds of challenges that wizards can also overcome with ease). Giving the wizard the ability to step in and stop the rogue from having their moment in the spotlight is stupid, especially since the rogue is one of the classes which is mediocre all day (and hence won't have many other natural spotlight opportunities). At least they can't also fight better than fighters, like they could in older editions.
Third, it's not just knock. I alluded to spells like invisibility and detect traps and snares which let the wizard solve the rogue's problems without any effort beyond a little planning and a spell slot or two—and probably better than the rogue. The wizard also has spells which can solve combat encounters; while charm person and glitterdust and whatnot aren't as bad as they were in (say) 3.5, casters still have access to plenty of spells which will have a bigger effect on the battle than any critical hit or sneak attack. In a game where a party is expected to consist of multiple classes fulfilling multiple roles, letting one class do things in another's role as well or better than that class kind of defeats the point.
Finally, your argument is that the spell doesn't need to be balanced because of its balancing features. You...might not have the best grasp on what "balance" generally encompasses.

Well, there's a lot here. I'll not go into full details, but, as I've said the many times that this has come up before, there are many factors to balance in the epic task of dealing with a lock: speed, noise, repeatability, failure rate, ability to be reversed, and after effects. The Barbarian totally has the Rogue outclassed for opening doors, in that they can do so all day long, and, with 2-handed power attacking - let alone übercharger shenanigans - lack the Rogue's failure rate.

The value of "at will" vs "1/day" will vary from table to table. Clearly, at your tables, they hold similar value; at mine, they do not. This is one of many reasons that I suggest making all spells etc into "at will" abilities, to make balancing them easier. If you want balance straight out of the gate. I don't. I much prefer the bay toolkit of 3e, and the option to balance to the table.

Also, is it horrible that the Rogue gets to spend skill points to invalidate my Harry Potter espy (sp?) and his use of Aloha Mora? Let alone how the Barbarian gets to invalidate it for free? Personally, I'm glad that the party isn't absolutely required to have exactly one cookie cutter configuration or be utterly unable to bypass the epic challenge of a locked door.

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I don't think 4e represents skill at balance, given that the numbers don't "just work". 4e represents an utterly skilless attempt at balance by mashing everything samey, and still failing utterly. Let's not see its like again.

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And then there's the proper balance of well-roundness to niche protection, and of "contribute" to "shine", which will vary from table to table. Clearly, you prefer a higher balance of niche protection and "shine", whereas I generally prefer well-rounded and contribute.

[Cluedrew]

On Knock: I'm going to mostly skip my problems with D&D's "magic=yes" thing except for this mention as it is much more general. My main issue with the rate based balancing is... things that enforce it tend to feel artificial. That wasn't the one I was going to talk about but the spell slot system feels so artificial and not part of the world and I don't really like it. The one I was going to talk about which I guess is the third problem is that the balancing then becomes focused on the person with less frequent but more potent resources.

In essence, it makes it the rogue job to not open doors, but to open doors that it isn't worth the wizard's spell slot to open. (This includes when the wizard didn't take knock for more important things... because if opening doors was really important I guess they would have taken knock.)

So yeah, feels kind of demeaning to me.

[Luccan]

On Knock: I'm going to mostly skip my problems with D&D's "magic=yes" thing except for this mention as it is much more general. My main issue with the rate based balancing is... things that enforce it tend to feel artificial. That wasn't the one I was going to talk about but the spell slot system feels so artificial and not part of the world and I don't really like it. The one I was going to talk about which I guess is the third problem is that the balancing then becomes focused on the person with less frequent but more potent resources.

In essence, it makes it the rogue job to not open doors, but to open doors that it isn't worth the wizard's spell slot to open. (This includes when the wizard didn't take knock for more important things... because if opening doors was really important I guess they would have taken knock.)

So yeah, feels kind of demeaning to me.

It's true that in the fiction of most settings "spells per day" doesn't seem to come into play. Strange when you consider it comes from Jack Vance stories, where preparing a limited number of spells and knowing how many you had prepared was very much a thing.

[awa]

My understanding though was that was built into the setting in a way d&d does not really do, and certainly not when it emulates other settings.

[Quertus]

On Knock: I'm going to mostly skip my problems with D&D's "magic=yes" thing except for this mention as it is much more general. My main issue with the rate based balancing is... things that enforce it tend to feel artificial. That wasn't the one I was going to talk about but the spell slot system feels so artificial and not part of the world and I don't really like it. The one I was going to talk about which I guess is the third problem is that the balancing then becomes focused on the person with less frequent but more potent resources.

In essence, it makes it the rogue job to not open doors, but to open doors that it isn't worth the wizard's spell slot to open. (This includes when the wizard didn't take knock for more important things... because if opening doors was really important I guess they would have taken knock.)

So yeah, feels kind of demeaning to me.

That's... Quite the interesting take. Definitely food for thought.

So, I'm the kind of person who almost based their life on the concept of "having more important things to do". That is, my senility seems a logical step from my absentmindedness, which was cultured from a desire to focus on what others weren't. Which had such fun repercussions as me never bothering to know the day or the year, because surely someone else knew that, so I'd dedicate my thoughts to other matters.

In other words, I don't vilify "having more important things to do" - quite the opposite, in fact.

In an RPG, then, the Wizard should have "more important things to do" than to step on the Rogue's toes. From my PoV, then, having "more important things to do" is a solution, not a problem.

Still, I suppose it becomes a problem if the Wizard is alone in having "more important things to do" - when does the Rogue ever have "more important things to do"?

Personally, my answer to that question is, the Rogue is the party's primary DPS - the Rogue has more important things to do than to buy a bunch of wands and pretend to be a Wizard, when he can just give his foes the "dead" condition.

Now, I'm all about having a backup plan, and letting the Wizard carry a scroll of Knock, just in case, and letting the Rogue carry a few scrolls / 1-4 charge wands, just in case, but it is generally suboptimal for either of their primary schticks to involve stepping on one another's toes.

That's my gut reaction, at least. Thoughts?

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's... Quite the interesting take. Definitely food for thought.

So, I'm the kind of person who almost based their life on the concept of "having more important things to do". That is, my senility seems a logical step from my absentmindedness, which was cultured from a desire to focus on what others weren't. Which had such fun repercussions as me never bothering to know the day or the year, because surely someone else knew that, so I'd dedicate my thoughts to other matters.

In other words, I don't vilify "having more important things to do" - quite the opposite, in fact.

In an RPG, then, the Wizard should have "more important things to do" than to step on the Rogue's toes. From my PoV, then, having "more important things to do" is a solution, not a problem.

Still, I suppose it becomes a problem if the Wizard is alone in having "more important things to do" - when does the Rogue ever have "more important things to do"?

Personally, my answer to that question is, the Rogue is the party's primary DPS - the Rogue has more important things to do than to buy a bunch of wands and pretend to be a Wizard, when he can just give his foes the "dead" condition.

Now, I'm all about having a backup plan, and letting the Wizard carry a scroll of Knock, just in case, and letting the Rogue carry a few scrolls / 1-4 charge wands, just in case, but it is generally suboptimal for either of their primary schticks to involve stepping on one another's toes.

That's my gut reaction, at least. Thoughts?

The problem is that the Wizard's MITTD (More Important Things to Do) include and supercede the best MITTD that the rogue can offer. Damage? Wizard can do both more and better (SoD spells bypass those pesky hit points). Utility? Anything the rogue can do, the Wizard can do better. Social? Need spells or diplomancy (often aided by spells) for that. Making/using items? A Wizard has better INT and can afford those extra skill points--rogues have other uses. Stealth? You guessed it, spells.

And the Wizard can do all those things without even significantly cutting into his own MITTD, which the rogue can't even begin to touch.

[awa]

part of this depends on play style and edition, third edition seem balanced around a small number of challenging encounters where a wizard really shines.

The more a party is forced to do in a day the less a caster can overshadow every one else. Which brings up other problems. Locks are a bad challenge either you can bypass them or you cant, and they only leave room for a single player to make die rolls with little room for creativity or really impute of any-kind.

[Anonymouswizard]

The problem is that the Wizard's MITTD (More Important Things to Do) include and supercede the best MITTD that the rogue can offer. Damage? Wizard can do both more and better (SoD spells bypass those pesky hit points). Utility? Anything the rogue can do, the Wizard can do better. Social? Need spells or diplomancy (often aided by spells) for that. Making/using items? A Wizard has better INT and can afford those extra skill points--rogues have other uses. Stealth? You guessed it, spells.

And the Wizard can do all those things without even significantly cutting into his own MITTD, which the rogue can't even begin to touch.

This is why I've grown to like the 5e Sorcerer. It's spell list allows it to pick a number of roles, but it's limited spells known means that the Sorcerer is keeping at the party power level at one or two things. The Sorcerer can, assuming they don't switch out spells for higher level ones, know three first level spells, two spells each of levels two through five, and one spell of levels six through nine. Even when swapping out they have to ask if they want to take low level utility spells, and even then there's a decent chance that there are still low level spells useful to your role.

So you've reached fifth level. Do you want fireball? Fly? Counterspell? Dispel Magic? Gaseous Form? Haste? Major Image? There's probably two or more of these that are useful to you, but are you willing to give up Shield, Comprehend Languages, or any of your other low level spells to get them?

That's the point at which the rogue being able to open locks is handy. You have no need to spend your precious spells known on knock even if opening locks is important, because opening locks isn't what you cover. The Rogue covers that and so you can happily take Enchance Ability over Knock. Every time you take a spell that does something the rogue does you're hurting your character, because you become worse at what you do.

And this is why I don't like the prepared casters. It's worst with Clerics and Druids, but even with Wizards you can just swap out spells as needed. Are locked doors going to be a problem, but the ceilings will all be low? Just prepare knock instead of fly. Of course you have access to knock, it's not like it cost you anything important, like spells known, only money.

Or to be a bit more specific, casters aren't a problem as long as they don't have access to too many spells. There are games like The Dark Eye, which has cut the number of starting spells a Mage got in half in order to better balance them (as even only with the AE to reliably cast a couple of spells a day Mages were just too good at solving problems). It's even worse when a game is designed with the idea that all or most of what a Mage will be doing is casting spells, as then either they're being better than everybody else (not fun for those not playing mages) or not able to do anything (not fun for the mage), and D&D is a major offender there.

So the short answer I have to this problem is that magic-users are too magic focused. Let's dial back on that, if we're using scholarly magic users let's increase the amount of focus Lore skills have in a game, or maybe we could have mages know a number of utility spells but have to use weapons for combat. Or potentially there is only combat magic, and utility spells don't exist.

If magic supplements a character's mundane skills without replacing them then mages aren't left with the choice of overshadowing or being useless. Imagine a wandering wizard with a focus on magical healing and divination, they probably also have some social skills, some knowledges, and maybe something like Survival as well as knowing mundane ways to treat wounds.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Or reduce the breadth of spell lists--make everybody choose a focused subset of spells. So if you're a pyromancer specialist, you'll struggle to learn very many arcane teleportation stuff. And if you're a teleportation specialist, you might find direct combat applications hard to come by.

Opportunity cost for everyone!

[awa]

both of those are good, either in part or together, though i particularly like emphasizing the lore aspect because knowing stuff is a major part of most caster archetypes as depicted in other mediums.

[vasilidor]

a though I just had, in order to fumble an attack in a d20 combat system, all attack roles granted by skill (or level increase) have to be a 1. so at level 1 your fighter has a 1 in 20 mischance, at level 6 a 1 in 400, at level 11 a 1 in 8000, level 16 1 in 160000. if even one of those roles is anything other than a 1, you just miss.
just a thought

[Lord Torath]

a though I just had, in order to fumble an attack in a d20 combat system, all attack roles granted by skill (or level increase) have to be a 1. so at level 1 your fighter has a 1 in 20 mischance, at level 6 a 1 in 400, at level 11 a 1 in 8000, level 16 1 in 160000. if even one of those roles is anything other than a 1, you just miss.
just a thought

I think that very mechanic was discussed a page or two ago in this very thread.

Yes, here it is:

Hmm. If crit fumbles have to be used, how would you feel about a fumble only happening if ALL (or possibly above X%, depends on balance) of your attack rolls that turn are a natural 1? That would vastly decrease the chance of it happening at higher levels, as would be expected.

Magic is, of course, another issue.

[Arbane]

a though I just had, in order to fumble an attack in a d20 combat system, all attack roles granted by skill (or level increase) have to be a 1. so at level 1 your fighter has a 1 in 20 mischance, at level 6 a 1 in 400, at level 11 a 1 in 8000, level 16 1 in 160000. if even one of those roles is anything other than a 1, you just miss.
just a thought

Not bad, but that only works on full attacks. Single attacks remain as failtastic as ever.

[Quertus]

Locks are a bad challenge either you can bypass them or you cant, and they only leave room for a single player to make die rolls with little room for creativity or really impute of any-kind.

Og may not get lock to work, but Og make door break real good.

Who says that it's pass/fail, or that there's no room for creativity?

[awa]

breaking a door is bypassing it. Smashing it isn't creative or interesting and still comes down to the same binary either you can get through it or you cant.

[vasilidor]

ok, so if you roll a 1 on your single attack, you just roll again to see if it comes up with another 1, repeat until you get something other than a 1 or run out of attacks (these are not to hit rolls, just checks against a fumble)

[EldritchWeaver]

Then it just takes longer to break the door. Still binary.

[The Big Bear]

I’ve never really been a fan of being able to use a potion as a bonus action. I realize our DM does it because having to use a potion is usually an “oh s***” moment, but if someone is chugging a potion then they probably don’t have time to attack.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Spoiler: Quertus

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The value of "at will" vs "1/day" will vary from table to table. Clearly, at your tables, they hold similar value; at mine, they do not. This is one of many reasons that I suggest making all spells etc into "at will" abilities, to make balancing them easier. If you want balance straight out of the gate. I don't. I much prefer the bay toolkit of 3e, and the option to balance to the table.

First off, you're making a lot of assumptions, the worst being that anyone who points out the problems of balancing via Vancian mechanics is not only having trouble with those at the table, but having a very specific kind of trouble.
Second, I have yet to see a convincing argument for balance not being included in RPGs. This argument, that the DM can balance things at the table, is probably the worst one (yes, even below the "guy at the gym" fallacy). The DM can balance things themself, yes...but they can also make a whole new game system if they want. Aren't we paying the game designers at WotC to design a good game we want to play? Doesn't that mean it's bad if there's stuff the DMs have to fix themselves?
Third, you are entirely circumventing what I'm talking about, which is that the classes are designed with entirely different types of mechanics. The wizard gets to do incredible stuff, balanced only by how often they get to do stuff. The fighter gets to do stuff all day, but their stuff is only the kinds of stuff anyone can do, just better than those other people. That's the one thing I like about 4e; instead of designing each class in a vacuum, they made sure every class was being designed with the same general tools. We can argue if they went too far or not, but I'm glad they tried.

Also, is it horrible that the Rogue gets to spend skill points to invalidate my Harry Potter espy (sp?) and his use of Aloha Mora? Let alone how the Barbarian gets to invalidate it for free? Personally, I'm glad that the party isn't absolutely required to have exactly one cookie cutter configuration or be utterly unable to bypass the epic challenge of a locked door.

Personally, I think it's kind of dumb that the game was designed to have one-quarter of its party members specialize in locked doors, traps, etc...but if you're going to go with that, don't give other classes abilities that invalidate them. It would be like if the cleric was the primary healer class, but wizards and fighters and such got healing abilities, often ones which were more powerful than the cleric's healing.
Also, alohomora isn't a core part of the wizard's arsenal the way Open Lock is to the rogue. That's a pretty lousy equivalence. While equating the rogue unlocking doors to the barbarian knocking them down is better, it fails because A. there are endless situations where unlocking doors is better and B. nobody goes "We need a barbarian in the party so we can knock down doors and smash traps and stuff."

I don't think 4e represents skill at balance, given that the numbers don't "just work". 4e represents an utterly skilless attempt at balance by mashing everything samey, and still failing utterly. Let's not see its like again.

It is entirely possible to build things that are different but equal. Heck, just in combat, just in 3e, we've got buff, debuff, BFC, disarm, behead, SoD, grapple, theft, counter spell (technically possible by damage, theft, grapple, sunder, and spell), healing, movement, and conversion, on top of damage. And I'm probably missing some options. Lots of different. And we've plenty of tools to use to ratchet up (or down) the power level on these options to make most of them for within the table's balance range of equal. After all, a party of 3 will get different benefit from an AoE buff than a party of 15 will, even at otherwise the same table, so I'm glad of this toolkit.

Interesting. Are you saying that 4e doesn't include most or all of those options? Are you just saying you don't like the execution of powers? Or are you just saying that you don't like "the guy at the gym" having powers that are limited the same way spells are?
(Also, keep in mind that I'm comparing the skill used to balance 4e to the skill used to create the CoDzilla and the beastmaster ranger. It's a low bar.)

And then there's the proper balance of well-roundness to niche protection, and of "contribute" to "shine", which will vary from table to table. Clearly, you prefer a higher balance of niche protection and "shine", whereas I generally prefer well-rounded and contribute.

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about here. Maybe I'd understand better if you explained why you think that unspecialized characters who don't get many moments to shine are good.

My understanding though was that was built into the setting in a way d&d does not really do, and certainly not when it emulates other settings.

Which ties into a problem D&D has in general. Its setting tries to be as generic fantasy as possible, because it's trying to be an RPG anyone can get into, because it's going to be the first TRPG most people who try TRPGs will play. But at the same time, its mechanics (and some aspects of its setting, e.g. anything relating to the outer planes and their denizens) are very specific, because they have to be. But they don't back up the specific parts with enough setting material to make it make sense. There's no solid or consistent explanation for why spell slots exist, or the relationship between powerful outsiders and gods of similar alignment, or even what alignment is (that last one is mostly a case of inconsistency).
I'm not sure what the best solution is. There are two general paths I see; they could try to go a bit more modular and release alternate rules, a la 3.5's Unearthed Arcana, or they could lean into the ways their mechanics and whatnot make their fantasy world distinct from all the Middle Earth copycats. I'm a bit tired of Middle Earth copycats, so I'd like to go with the latter. In fact, I think I'll start a thread in the worldbilding subforum about it.


[QUOTE=Anonymouswizard;It's even worse when a game is designed with the idea that all or most of what a Mage will be doing is casting spells, as then either they're being better than everybody else (not fun for those not playing mages) or not able to do anything (not fun for the mage), and D&D is a major offender there.

So the short answer I have to this problem is that magic-users are too magic focused. Let's dial back on that, if we're using scholarly magic users let's increase the amount of focus Lore skills have in a game, or maybe we could have mages know a number of utility spells but have to use weapons for combat. Or potentially there is only combat magic, and utility spells don't exist.[/QUOTE]
I like this idea, though I'd probably take it in the opposite direction. Give everyone some magic, perhaps like the Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight archetypes in 5e (or the monk, paladin, and ranger). Everyone specializes in one general portfolio of skills and magic.
The fighter can enhance his strength, teleport to foes, and maybe conjure weapons and armor in a pinch, but still backs it up with a core of martial skill; the rogue stealths normally, but with dozens of minor spells that can give them an edge in a pinch (along the lines of Corvo from Dishonored, the title character of RONIN, and other stealth game protagonists); clerics have various holy-themed spells passed down by the church and knowledge of all things profane and unpleasant; and so on. Mages in this kind of world would be like scientists or engineers, focusing on understanding magic on a deeper level than most; they would have a wider array of magic known and would be able to do stuff with magic (e.g, counterspelling), but would have fewer mundane skills.

breaking a door is bypassing it. Smashing it isn't creative or interesting and still comes down to the same binary either you can get through it or you cant.

Which is the problem with giving locked doors such an important role as challenges. Of course, generic combat challenges aren't a lot better; the only variable is how many hit points and spell slots you have left over. The combat can be designed to be more interesting (e.g, enemies escaping, or an objective other than "kill everyone with green skin"), but that option really isn't available for doors. Which, again, leads to me grumbling about why D&D has an entire role set aside for dealing with tasks that are almost impossible to make not binary pass/fail...

[awa]

Which is the problem with giving locked doors such an important role as challenges. Of course, generic combat challenges aren't a lot better; the only variable is how many hit points and spell slots you have left over. The combat can be designed to be more interesting (e.g, enemies escaping, or an objective other than "kill everyone with green skin"), but that option really isn't available for doors. Which, again, leads to me grumbling about why D&D has an entire role set aside for dealing with tasks that are almost impossible to make not binary pass/fail...

I would argue that while you could design a combat system like that, d&d has more nuisance when it wants to. Using clubs against skeletons, taking advantage of a zombies slow speed and mindless nature with rough terrain or environmental hazards. There are a lot of ways combat is far more complex then opening doors.

That said yeah doors are a bad challenge they just don't work well. There are things you could do with a door like encountering them while sneaking or with a time limit but these things don't come up often enough for the kind of investment it takes to be decent with doors. If lock picking was part of say a thievery skill that included trap disarming/making and pick-pocketing it would be fine at least in my opinion.

[Luccan]

The first thought that comes to me to make doors interesting is to make them unlock with a puzzle. That kinda defeats the niche protection that goes on with locks in-game, but honestly that's kind of a hold-over from when D&D was mainly dungeon crawls and getting the drop on an enemy could be necessary to win (thus lockpicking was better than breaking a door down). But, as the game has moved away from that, more people have also become able to handle the original thief/rogue tasks and rogues have obtained a wider set of abilities.

I mean, even back in the day a thief got a bunch of other abilities because they knew just being "the door guy" wasn't fun.

[Quertus]

@GWG - Wow, our play styles are even more dissimilar than I thought. That's awesome! It means that we get to disagree in even more dimensions, and I get to learn something. Based on your questions, it looks like you're looking to learn something, too. Excellent.

Spoiler: GWG

Show

So, I'm probably going to seem to ignore a lot of the primary content of our discussion for the moment, because I'd like to hammer out our stances / PoV / experiences first. That is, I don't think we'll understand each other's answers to the main questions without understanding some of the surrounding details first. Hopefully that makes sense.

Or, at least, that's the goal, but, instead, I've been rambling randomly. Darth senility.

First off, you're making a lot of assumptions, the worst being that anyone who points out the problems of balancing via Vancian mechanics is not only having trouble with those at the table, but having a very specific kind of trouble.

...

Second, I have yet to see a convincing argument for balance not being included in RPGs. This argument, that the DM can balance things at the table, is probably the worst one (yes, even below the "guy at the gym" fallacy). The DM can balance things themself, yes...but they can also make a whole new game system if they want. Aren't we paying the game designers at WotC to design a good game we want to play? Doesn't that mean it's bad if there's stuff the DMs have to fix themselves?

Well, no. My stance is, the GM can keep his big nose out of it. The table should work to create the right balance range. "Never get into an arms race with your players, because they cannot win". The GM should* create a static difficulty, and let the players create appropriate characters for the level of challenges that they enjoy / for the table's balance range.

Let me put that another way. Thor is not balanced with Hawkeye. But I prefer a superheroes game that lets you play as Thor, or lets you play as Hawkeye - and, if your group doesn't care about balance, would even let you play Thor and Hawkeye in the same party. In point of fact, I played a sentient potted plant in a party with a Thor-like character, while the rest is the party was more "normal", and it was awesome.

A game with enforced balance could only do one of Thor or Hawkeye, and certainly could never have them in the same party. Allow for the greatest range of possible characters, and leave balance to the table, not the system.

Or are you saying that Thor and Hawkeye are not both valid superheroes?

To put it a third way, (character >) player > build > class. Chess may be nearly perfectly balanced, but a chess grand master playing against a nearly clueless 7-year-old is not going to be a balanced game. In order to have balanced contribution from unbalanced players, you need to have other dials to turn. Thankfully, 3e has a big'ol "character power" dial to turn, to allow everyone at the table to have fun.

To hit it from a fourth angle, a lot of game balance considerations make a lot of assumptions that may not be true any given table. For example, think about the value of buffs and debuffs (SoS and NSJS). Now, consider how those values change between the standard 4-man party, vs a solo adventurer, vs my preference double-digit players, each allowed to run up to 3 PCs. Consider how their value changes vs armies of fodder vs a single overpowering raid boss. If you've balanced things perfectly for a 4-man party fighting level-appropriate challenges, you'll find things out of balance at actual tables. Same for any other assumption under which you balanced the game.

And, for a 5th angle, the important part of game balance is subjective, not objective. Just because you believe that you've got the statistical value of casting healing magic vs bfc vs dealing damage calculated to be perfectly balanced, when you hit the groups that are so dumb that they believe you have to deal damage or you're not contributing, well, they'll have a very different take on how "balanced" your classes and abilities are.

Lastly, I ran into a GM who would harp on game balance, then first encounter TPK. Then rant about game balance, second encounter TPK. Then... Sigh. Clearly, not everyone has the same idea what "balance" means. You think I want some idiot setting my table's balance for me? No thank you.

So, in conclusion, let the individual table decide what they consider balanced, and give them the tools to build "balanced" characters.

Seen a compelling argument yet? Or do you not get what I'm saying?

* Yes, this is rather CaS. CaW gets more complicated.

Third, you are entirely circumventing what I'm talking about, which is that the classes are designed with entirely different types of mechanics. The wizard gets to do incredible stuff, balanced only by how often they get to do stuff. The fighter gets to do stuff all day, but their stuff is only the kinds of stuff anyone can do, just better than those other people. That's the one thing I like about 4e; instead of designing each class in a vacuum, they made sure every class was being designed with the same general tools. We can argue if they went too far or not, but I'm glad they tried.

"Having the same tools" is, IMO, a fail case. The fact that the Crusader plays differently than the, uh, senility, that other class from the same book (War something, I think), and that those play differently than a Psion, which plays differently than a Wizard, which plays differently than a Sorcerer, which plays differently than a Binder, which plays differently than a Warlock, which - etc etc etc - is, IMO, a good thing.

Just as I'm all about playing at different power levels, I'm also all about playing characters that feel different. I'm not interested in choosing between fifty shades of grey.

Personally, I think it's kind of dumb that the game was designed to have one-quarter of its party members specialize in locked doors, traps, etc...but if you're going to go with that, don't give other classes abilities that invalidate them. It would be like if the cleric was the primary healer class, but wizards and fighters and such got healing abilities, often ones which were more powerful than the cleric's healing.

The 3e Rogue is under no obligation to have a clue how to deal with a locked door.

Also, alohomora isn't a core part of the wizard's arsenal the way Open Lock is to the rogue.

Um, my Harry Potter clone would care to differ. As would my Diplomacy DPS Rogue.

The ability to open a locked door is a function of the concept, not the class.

If we had agreed to strict niche protection, and I said I was running Harry Potter, I would cry foul if you took ranks in Open Lock, because that is clearly my niche.

Obviously, Harry Potter and (insert some famous lock-opening thief here) could not adventure together in a strict niche protection party.

That's a pretty lousy equivalence. While equating the rogue unlocking doors to the barbarian knocking them down is better, it fails because A. there are endless situations where unlocking doors is better and B. nobody goes "We need a barbarian in the party so we can knock down doors and smash traps and stuff."

Interesting. Are you saying that 4e doesn't include most or all of those options? Are you just saying you don't like the execution of powers? Or are you just saying that you don't like "the guy at the gym" having powers that are limited the same way spells are?
(Also, keep in mind that I'm comparing the skill used to balance 4e to the skill used to create the CoDzilla and the beastmaster ranger. It's a low bar.)

Well, those bits you quoted don't exactly go together.

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You opened with the notion of making "deal damage with fire" and "deal damage with sword" be fundamentally the same thing. While I may agree that they are, I consider attempting to make classes more "samey" to be a fail state.

Everyone* should have the ability to deal with a locked door, but how they can deal with it should be roughly balanced, and present interesting questions.

Everyone should have the ability to deal with invisible foes, but how they can deal with it should be roughly balanced, and present interesting questions.

Everyone should have the ability to deal damage, but how they can deal it should be roughly balanced, and present interesting questions.

Damage, in particular, I prefer if everyone's character has several options to choose between, based on the situation and their objectives.

As for 4e... Rather than continue tbo9s, which had cool, different refresh styles, 4e choose to make everything samey. And still failed horrifically at giving groups balance.

So, again, **** the game designers trying to produce balance (especially at the cost of coolness) - give us coolness, and the tools to make balance for ourselves.

* Replace all instances of "everyone" with "most everyone"

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I played in a homebrew where you could play as anything from Thor to a sentient potted plant*. It was awesome. Balance is irrelevant to fun. Or, rather, balance is only as required the table makes it.

* Actually, you could play things outside those bounds, too.

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But what was I saying? Hmmm... I was trying to address that "balanced" doesn't need to mean "equal".

And also to hint at how impossible balancing truly interesting questions is. How effective does "striping your foe naked" (slight of hand + disarm) need to be for it to be balanced against dealing damage? How much of a character's resources should each consume? How effective should healing be compared to preventing damage in the first place with buffs / debuffs? How much of a character's resources should each consume?

Note that "striping naked" is ineffective against most monsters, and "healing" is ineffective against attacks that don't deal damage, and certain buffs and debuffs are ineffective against certain attacks.

Do you honestly believe that you can make a game this interesting balanced for my table, sight unseen? That, with our particular levels of skills and inclinations, we could take some random pre-built characters from you, which utilize the vast array of 3e combat options, and call our play experience "balanced"? Do you really have that level of hubris?

For something as complex as an RPG, I fear that balance is a much more personal matter than it is in chess. And, even in chess, I'll spot my opponent pieces to make a more balanced game.

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Nearly unrelated, but, no, neither I nor those I've gamed with have seen the diversity of actions in 4e as we have in 3e.

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about here. Maybe I'd understand better if you explained why you think that unspecialized characters who don't get many moments to shine are good.

ShadowRun is the paragon of the "Shine" mentality. The Decker gets to Shine in cyberspace, because no one else can participate in that minigame. The Driver gets to Shine in diving, because no one else can participate in that minigame. The Shaman gets to Shine in the Astral, because no one else can participate in that minigame. It's "all spotlight, all the time", with no team effort at the tactical level. Cooperation exists almost entirely at the strategic level.

Similarly, there's a board game (or several, now that I think about it) I play where the players work as a group against the game, but each individual character can only fight monsters alone. There is no such thing as a group effort take down a monster.

Despite being a ****, I'm a cooperative sort of person (I'm batting for team Le, after all). I prefer challenges that we can work together to solve.

This sentiment - this desire to work together, rather than have one person take the spotlight and shine alone - is most often expressed by others, IME, as a dislike for SoD effects. Where, if they make the save, that contributed nothing; if they fail the save, them the damage that had been dealt contributed nothing.

Personally, much like how I think 4e is an idiotic attempt at game balance, I think that this particular gripe with SoD is among the most wrong-minded versions of caring about the spotlight and contribution.

If you haven't got a backup plan to deal with monsters that you can't defeat through HP damage, then, as Batman would say, "you're a ****ed fool".

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Anyway, point is, I believe that, most encounters, most characters should feel that they "contributed". "Shining", aka taking the spotlight, should be rarer.

Now, occasionally, you've got a really great group, like the BDH party, where everyone feels like they got to "Shine" in almost every encounter. And that's great, too, if you're after a shiny feel. But, sometimes, you want something dimmer. In those cases, "shine" is the enemy of "contribute", and I prefer the latter.

Which is the problem with giving locked doors such an important role as challenges. Of course, generic combat challenges aren't a lot better; the only variable is how many hit points and spell slots you have left over. The combat can be designed to be more interesting (e.g, enemies escaping, or an objective other than "kill everyone with green skin"), but that option really isn't available for doors. Which, again, leads to me grumbling about why D&D has an entire role set aside for dealing with tasks that are almost impossible to make not binary pass/fail...

There's nothing wrong with binary pass / fail. In 2e, you might roll well, and could get through the first locked door, but then roll poorly, and fail at the second. OK, now what? Suddenly, you have an interesting question to answer. Is this door worth the single Knock spell the party Wizard has memorized? Is it worth attracting attention by trying to break the door down? Is it likely that the Wizard will be alive for you to "come back to it later"? Is it worth the time to try to figure out what's on the other side of the door before answering these questions?

I'm not seeing the problem with binary pass / fail.

[Anonymouswizard]

I like this idea, though I'd probably take it in the opposite direction. Give everyone some magic, perhaps like the Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight archetypes in 5e (or the monk, paladin, and ranger). Everyone specializes in one general portfolio of skills and magic.
The fighter can enhance his strength, teleport to foes, and maybe conjure weapons and armor in a pinch, but still backs it up with a core of martial skill; the rogue stealths normally, but with dozens of minor spells that can give them an edge in a pinch (along the lines of Corvo from Dishonored, the title character of RONIN, and other stealth game protagonists); clerics have various holy-themed spells passed down by the church and knowledge of all things profane and unpleasant; and so on. Mages in this kind of world would be like scientists or engineers, focusing on understanding magic on a deeper level than most; they would have a wider array of magic known and would be able to do stuff with magic (e.g, counterspelling), but would have fewer mundane skills.

I mean, the end result is reducing the gap between 'minimum magic' and 'maximum magic', my preference is just towards bring the ceiling down a lot because I like such games. Although I'm totally not against non-scholarly magic users, because they're totally cool.

My homebrew game moves between having one magic using class which draws a handful of spells from a big list to many magic using classes with small lists, and I'm honestly leaning towards the latter. But as I said, raising the floor or lowering the ceiling has the same effect in practice.

[Luccan]

I actually don't care for setting each character up with magic without a choice. I like 5e, but I don't care for how more and more races are getting some form of inherent magic. That said, in 5e it would be pretty easy to set everyone who wants it up with magic at level 1. Just give everyone a free feat (and ban or alter Variant Humans so they don't start with two)*. If someone doesn't want magic, they can still obtain a useful ability.

*Edit: I suppose I should say, for those who don't know, there are two feats in 5e that pretty much anyone can take that give some kind of spell casting: Magic Initiate and Ritual Caster. Some races can also get racial casting feats.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I actually don't care for setting each character up with magic without a choice.

Why would that be a problem, especially with "magic" being defined so broadly as to encompass super-strength and other "mundane" powers?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Why would that be a problem, especially with "magic" being defined so broadly as to encompass super-strength and other "mundane" powers?

I'm totally on board with this "everybody is/does magic" idea. It makes things so much smoother to assume that while, yes, no real human can do X, fantasy people can do X as a matter of course because they're all suffused with magic. Not all people/creatures do organized magic (cast spells), but all the creatures from the most humble are (at least partially) magic.

With that foundation, the whole magic/mundane divide disappears and the only remaining question is how and how much magic you do/are. Dragon's flight? Magic, but not organized magic. Antimagic fields? Just stop organized magic, because the universe itself is magic so cutting off that is like turning off the (real world) strong force. Barbarian's Rage? Magic. Fighter's Action Surge? Magic. And it also explains the limited resources thing--going beyond "normal" capabilities requires drawing from limited supplies of energy which replenish relatively slowly and require rest. A hand-wave and an abstraction, to be sure, but much less of one than the purely mundane explanations.