Why does the party need to be balanced?

[Cluedrew]

[QUOTE=Quertus;24198707Also, we've got to be careful of word games here, since you're defining "balanced" in terms of contribution, whereas most (including myself in recent posts, iirc) are speaking of mechanical balance.[/QUOTE]Yes but balance is still balance. That is to say when I say balance I am referring to mechanical balance - or the comparison of mechanical ability - just like everyone else (well probably some difference, but nothing major). Balanced is then just the difference in total mechanical ability that I think is acceptable, also how I think most people would describe it.

Where the meaningful contribution comes in is that is what sets the range on balanced. If a character is so weak mechanically they cannot make a meaningful contribution than they are underpowered. Because mechanical power (or your Universal Balance Index) has no meaning on its own, it has to be given a context and meaningful contribution is my way picking the most important part of that context out. Also overpowered would be so strong mechanically you prevent others from making a meaningful contribution. And with only two unbalanced characters there is no difference between one being overpowered or the other being underpowered, the distinction exists outliers in a larger group.

One final note, it is the ability to make a meaningful contribution, not the actual act of doing so. You could be sitting on the strongest character in the game and do nothing with it and it would still be strong. In fact this is a pretty simple strategy to widen the acceptable range of balance, a strong character an avoid overwhelming others contributions (and hence not be "overpowered") by being inactive or ineffective with their options most of the time. Still I think it only stretches so far and in my mind that is the players making up for the game designer's mistake.

[NichG]

In cases of RPG balance 'dead weight' is usually something with a fairly literal interpretation. Specifically, a character who is sufficiently weak that other characters must actively protect them in order to prevent their death. People worry about this quite commonly, even in highly balanced games like MMOs, where players regularly fear having to be 'carried' through group content or complain about having to carry others. And, in MMOs and other video games this can even be mathematically modeled - such as characters not hitting necessary DPS benchmarks in order to successfully complete encounters. While tabletop scenarios are nowhere near as strict it remains a fairly obvious balance issue is one character is completely unable to force any sort of meaningful resource expenditure from an enemy, or conversely if another is able to easily solo a group encounter.

This is kind of my point - the more balance-focused the design is, the more you basically build that kind of blind spot of not being able to see how to not be impacted by other characters' balance points. An MMO is a type of game that is often quasi-competitive (in a sort of coop-competitive sense, you're trying to climb the stratification of the player base), so it focuses a lot on the fairness of that quasi-competition. As a result, having, say, 20% of a difference in achievable DPS might be make or break, because the game is trying to level the playing field so much while maintaining that kind of tension. That's one type of game, and abilities and challenges and so on in that sort of game work a certain way. The 'reward' is coming out on top somehow - your team winning, doing this bit of content very efficiently, climbing player rankings, etc.

Another type of game, or approach to a game, is that the experience of interacting with the game itself is the actual reward. In this kind of game, the idea is to make the main gameplay loop pleasurable or interesting in itself, rather than making it about a comparison between ones-self and the surrounding player base. In something like Minecraft for example, if one player had say ten times the mining speed as another player, it might have an impact on the game but it would have far less impact than someone having 10x the power of someone else would have on an MMO or competitive game. If you're playing for the feeling of mining, or for the creative experience of building things, or so on, then the fact that someone else is doing it more easily/more quickly/better just doesn't matter.

My argument, in the context of these examples at least, is that the mindset of worrying about balance first makes one approach the tabletop RPG as if it has to end up being the same kind of game as an MMO. But it doesn't - if anything, the open-endedness and flexibility of the tabletop setting makes it better suited for the other type of game.

What someone else starts the game not simply immortal, but able to give you immortality right off the bat? This is quite possible in D&D if you start in the mid-levels, congrats you're now a necropolitan and is certainly the case in other games. For example, in the oWoD one of the possibly long term goals of a vampire could be to stop being a vampire and regain your humanity - well as it turns out, the only people who could do that in the oWoD were Mages, meaning that this titular goal of one splat was utterly dependent upon another, considerably more powerful, splat.

Well, lets see. If this is a world where that's already commonplace, then I would choose for the character to have a certain angle on the transhumanist ideas to explore - for example, 'Why do people reject immortality?' What do you do when your loved ones refuse it, etc?' or even just something like crusading to make sure that everyone knows about this wonderful option that everyone should take. There's plenty of stuff to do in that direction, no problem. Since we've angled D&D, there's a whole interaction with the afterlife and 'what is death really?' to be explored.

If this is a world where its not common, then there's the whole thing about 'What if other people find out? what will happen? I want to spread the knowledge, but then it puts me in danger, maybe my patron doesn't want me letting this get back to them, etc'.

In a campaign with a longer timescale, either way I'd still get the core experience of watching the ages go by while others perish, etc.

If the idea itself is intrinsically interesting to me (that is to say, I choose well and play something that I care about for what it is and how it interacts with the setting), then whether or not I can find joy in it isn't a function of those around me, it's a function of me.

[Quertus]

Quertus I’m asking for an actual example of what happens, not a generalized formula

Gimping an otherwise strong character class/race/build is easy, making a normally weak class/race/build stronger is usually not, especially without significant homebrew. Do your characters that have “strong” choices always need to reign themselves in, or do you have an actual way of making the characters with “weaker” choices stronger.

So part of the point I’m making (though not the whole of it), is that it’s easy to make a weak wizard, the problem is making a strong fighter.

I will point out that “strong” as used in this text is not only combat strength, but in terms of overall ability to contribute to the success of the party. Even a combat god would be a fairly weak character compared to someone who can be a combat god and also good at exploring and socializing.

1) in 3e, someone built a 1st level Commoner to solo the Tarrasque. How hard do you really think it is to boost a weak chassis?

2) what does "good at exploring" mean to you? What does it look like at your table? How much spotlight time does it get? Because, at my tables, in a dungeon crawl, it means player skills of drawing maps, using flour/marbles/chalk/string/etc (which is, granted, helped by having a high Strength, to carry everything, so Fighters are OP there, too). Outside a dungeon crawl, it means either the Wizard teleports us there (maybe 5 seconds spotlight time), or the Ranger gets the spotlight for several hours / sessions. Did I mention martials are OP? So, if we know "no teleporting Wizard" and "lots of overland travel", then a powerful, smart, charismatic Ranger would be OP. So, if someone builds that, they realize their mistake, and choose differently.

3) for making weak characters stronger… just look at all the build advice threads. It looks like that. "I've got a Rogue, they're great, except that they cannot hurt undead, constructs, etc" "well, there's an ACF…”

Okay, though I feel like I'm being yanked around here. I've done as asked, but the criteria keep changing (or so it seems).

Apologies if I am. I'm too senile to remember where we started. I'll need to reread the thread. I'm not quite at "ef, a tale of memories" yet, but I'm often guessing at context anymore.

Hold your horses: there's a strong, and very arguable, assumption hidden in here. That is, the assumption that the system provides characters within that range that are compatible with the group's tastes. Which is one of the core assumptions I'm attacking. D&D does not do this. D&D does not provide Fighters that are in the same balance range as casters for most party-interest-sets.

Another highly arguable assumption. I have known many DMs, even played in their games, who were extremely reluctant to let any character rebuild whatsoever, regardless of the reason for doing so. They have, in fact, been especially suspicious of "my character is too weak for this group" reasons!


Because you've assumed that the game allows museums and skyscrapers to have similar heights, and that the person running the game allows demolish-and-replace if a building isn't going to reach the expected height range, and both of those assumptions are, at very least, not always right. Anecdotally--you're still accepting anecdotes, right?--they are both wrong frequently.

I'm pretty sure, though, that, in this case, you've missed the context: namely, for an example of how it works at my tables.

The things other GMs do to make their games fail have no relevance in how my tables succeed.

Meaningful contribution has mechanical impact. If your contribution cannot even in principle touch the mechanics, I don't see how it is contributing anything. I would, however, be very interested to see any examples you have of a character doing something I'd call "meaningfully contributing" that does not, in fact, touch any mechanic. I understand that that's kind of a hard request, since I can't just beam into your head my definition of "meaningfully contributing," so it might end up feeling (or even just being) arbitrary and unfair, but...I don't know any other way to address it. I'm asserting meaningful contribution always has, somewhere along the line, mechanical impact (preventing/causing battles, avoiding/adding expenditures, consuming time when time is tracked, etc.) If you can demonstrate something that clearly matters for the party's goals, but cannot and will not ever affect the party's mechanical representation, then I will concede this point gladly.

My Sentient Potted Plant had no ability to interact with mechanics. But he could affect the party's mechanics - by your definitions - by suggesting ideas, or answering questions like, "dude, where'd we park?". So one need no be capable of making a mechanical contribution - by my definition - to make one by yours.

I guess? The point isn't really that nobody can have fun in non-balanced situations. It's that non-balanced situations near-axiomatically exclude certain kinds of fun, while balanced situations can be made to include the kinds of fun found in non-balanced situations.

Without first making them unbalanced?

Alright. Can you name even one class like this, in all of 3e and PF?

Others have already done so. I'll add that the low-op, low-level Fighter is so much better than their Wizard comrad.

Personally, I think focusing on "class" is less important than "build". Are there individual characters where the Muggle is stronger than the Wizard? Sure. Although that was more common in 2e (one of the reasons that I like 2e better).

and expecting an equal amount of charop behind the two (so no comparing a triple-cheese TO Fighter build with an actively un- or even anti-optimized caster-like character).

As I said, it still exists (low-op, low-level). But this is a… counterproductive requirement. If you care about Balance, why cripple your efforts by confining yourself to a single optimization strata? Which do you care about: balance, or optimization?

People who like Wizard-ish characters can always choose to be more powerful than Fighter-ish characters, but never choose not to be more powerful (except by ignoring their options,

Humans are always as influential as major political figures, unless they ignore their options? Humans are always billionaires, unless they ignore their options?

I think that we have to be a little careful, because extremes of only looking at omniscient high op will look nothing like (most) actual play.

which you've already said is Not Acceptable).

I did? I mean, it seems fair that when comparing the mechanical playing piece, that suboptimal choices in play would be irrelevant to that evaluation.

Quertus (my signature academia mage, for whom this account is named) is an extraordinarily powerful playing piece. But his personality and tactics make his contribution… suboptimal. To the point that, over ~10 levels, he could have been replaced with a bag of flour. OK, to be fair, it probably would have taken at least two bags of flour to match his contribution.

So, it depends on what we're measuring. Yes, measuring player choice is invalid in measuring pure mechanical balance.

People who like Fighter-ish characters can always choose to be less powerful than Wizard-ish characters, but can never choose to be more powerful (unless someone else intervenes, which for *me* is not acceptable).

Depends on a lot of factors. But, trivially, use Candle of Invocation chaining or "I was Pun-Pun in a past life" to be a "Fighter-ish character" balanced to the Wizard however you want to be.

Which begs the question, do you have any concept for a "Fighter-ish character" that is balanced with your concept of Wizard-ish characters? If not, then it's not a fixable problem, even with the above extreme methods.

How come we only cater to people who want more-powerful Wizards and less-powerful Fighters, but never to the people who want less-powerful Wizards and more-powerful Fighters?

That would be terrible. I'm glad 3e isn't that.

Why does imbalance always favor a specific, repeated pattern that denigrates one set of preferences over another?

(Incidentally, I'm using "powerful" in the same way AdAstra is using "strong"--holistically, referring to a variety of different kinds of power, rather than strictly one singular axis or enumeration. Which, yes, means I'm counting "versatility" as a form of "power"...but if you've ever read any Wizard guides, as I'm sure you have, you know that that was already an accepted truism among Wizard players.)

IMO - and correct me if I'm wrong - guides discuss optimization, making the optimal foo (for whatever "foo" the guide discusses). Making suboptimal build choices (to, for example, "balance to the table") is enabled (and, perhaps, even encouraged) by good guides, that include all relevant options, not just the most optimized ones.

[Morty]

1) in 3e, someone built a 1st level Commoner to solo the Tarrasque. How hard do you really think it is to boost a weak chassis?

You keep using this as if it means something or proves a point. Three things: first, explain how it's actually done. Second, explain how it's not a massive system flaw that you can take an NPC with no combat ability and defeat a supposedly legendary monster capable of wrecking entire countries. Third, explain the leap of logic from "you can exploit your way into killing a Tarrasque as a commoner" to "it's easy to correct major imbalance on the spot".

[AdAstra]

Quertus I’m not sure why you put “good at exploring” in quotes, since I literally never mentioned it. Regardless, I would point out that a druid’s animal companion (if it was big) could probably carry about as much stuff if not more. The fighter could reasonably be replaced by a couple of burly hirelings. The wizard almost certainly could not, unless your game world has mid-level wizards just hanging around waiting to teleport adventurers for a few bucks. For that matter, with teleport, the wizard could probably just port the party back to their base of operations, drop off the treasure, then port back, maybe after a rest.

I’m not asking you to make a cheese build designed for a specific challenge, That commoner might be able to kill a tarrasque, but can they kill other stuff as well? Tarrasques aren’t the only thing an adventurer will face, so any fighter build meant to equal a wizard would need to be able to take on similar foes to the wizard.

edit: all the builds I can find on google involve using Alips to drain its wisdom, which only works because the tarrasque has no way of hurting them, which tells me 3e just has holes in it like any other game. This is not brilliant game design. This isn’t an intentional balance range. People skewer other games for having far smaller problems than this. I will also point out doing this technique as a commoner involves abusing dark pacts, splat stuff, and flaws (including chicken infested), and torturing a guy until he commits suicide. Also, literally using the character's name to abuse some fluff text.

This is not a build you use to fulfill your character concept, it’s a build that defines your character concept for you (ie, a person who’s willing to torture a person to suicide and makes pacts with evil entities in order to kill a monster, that also must be named Madness), which is the exact opposite of Quertus’s supposed ideal of being able to do anything.

[Cluedrew]

Which begs the question, do you have any concept for a "Fighter-ish character" that is balanced with your concept of Wizard-ish characters? If not, then it's not a fixable problem, even with the above extreme methods.

Yes.

I will attack the ideal that wizards inherently stronger than fighters until the end of days. Strength/power-level is not inherent to either concept really. And for me pretty much every setting where one would have adventurers wandering around the best adventurer wizards are usually over shadowed by their fighter counter-parts. In one the strongest monk can beat up the strongest mage. In another hybrids win over both extremes but the pure wizards rarely can do as well on the field as a physical opposite. In my highest powered setting no one* beyond a certain power level uses magic in combat except to support weapons and fighter-ish combat techniques. In another heaven exists because a fighter-god punched it into existence. And in settings where you don't have adventurers, that wizard has no business on the battlefield except as some magic combat engineer.

And in most fiction (including a surprising proportion of D&D based literature) I've read the same ideas seem to hold. What I have read is not everything and I haven't done statistics on it. But still I think D&D is really the odd one out in this regard. Magic creating great world changing feats is not unusual, being able to do it so conveniently and regularly really is.

On The Topic: What is the topic at this point? I exaggerate slightly but I'm also wondering. Like the answer to "Why does the party need to be balanced?" was something like it doesn't have to be but that is usually a good idea because of [various reasons]. And for the all the arguments, analogies and anecdotes I'm not sure what conclusion anyone wants me to draw from any of them anymore.

[NNescio]

You keep using this as if it means something or proves a point. Three things: first, explain how it's actually done. Second, explain how it's not a massive system flaw that you can take an NPC with no combat ability and defeat a supposedly legendary monster capable of wrecking entire countries. Third, explain the leap of logic from "you can exploit your way into killing a Tarrasque as a commoner" to "it's easy to correct major imbalance on the spot".

Easy.

You torture and injure someone to qualify for Pact Insidious. (max out Knowledge: Religion and Spellcraft, obviously) Next you sell your soul and grab Arcane Disciple: Luck (use Magical Training and flaws to qualify) and a 9th level spell slot. Torture the guy until he's crazy, then torture him even more until he suicides. Command the resulting allip. If that fails, just run towards the Tarrasque while tossing chickens along the way. Assume the allip will Wis drain Big T to unconsciousness. Find some way to deal nonlethal damage to Big T (bury it under chickens, for example), then Miracle it to death.

What, not willing to be evil? Not willing to torture someone? Not willing to sell your soul to achieve the power you need? FC II cosmology not on the table? DM not allowing you to (retroactively) add flaws and feats? DM not willing to make the NPC suicide? DM not willing to spawn the allip and try to pull "it's not guaranteed you get one"? Allip preferentially targets you instead? Big T targets you instead of the chicken? DM doesn't let you deal nonlethal damage quickly enough while the allip now has its attention shifted back to its erstwhile tormentor?

Clearly both you and your DM aren't working hard enough to achieve the "balance" you so desire. It's all on you. You should have tried harder. If little ol' Commoner 1 can do it, why can't you?

Seriously it's just a Chewbacca Defense style non-sequitur. Like sentient potted plants that most tables wouldn't even find fun to play or play with. But worse because while I can see a table potentially allowing the potted plant or a Psion sandwich, virtually no DM will allow the Pact-Allip-Miracle at Level 1 'exploit' except maybe for a one-off "go crazy and optimize as much as you want" session. And even that relies on a generous DM playing the NPCs and monsters exactly as the player has planned.

[Morty]

Easy.

You torture and injure someone to qualify for Pact Insidious. (max out Knowledge: Religion and Spellcraft, obviously) Next you sell your soul and grab Arcane Disciple: Luck (use Magical Training and flaws to qualify) and a 9th level spell slot. Torture the guy until he's crazy, then torture him even more until he suicides. Command the resulting allip. If that fails, just run towards the Tarrasque while tossing chickens along the way. Assume the allip will Wis drain Big T to unconsciousness. Find some way to deal nonlethal damage to Big T (bury it under chickens, for example), then Miracle it to death.

What, not willing to be evil? Not willing to torture someone? Not willing to sell your soul to achieve the power you need? FC II cosmology not on the table? DM not allowing you to (retroactively) add flaws and feats? DM not willing to make the NPC suicide? DM not willing to spawn the allip and try to pull "it's not guaranteed you get one"? Allip preferentially targets you instead? Big T targets you instead of the chicken? DM doesn't let you deal nonlethal damage quickly enough while the allip now has its attention shifted back to its erstwhile tormentor?

Clearly both you and your DM aren't working hard enough to achieve the "balance" you so desire. It's all on you. You should have tried harder. If little ol' Commoner 1 can do it, why can't you?

Seriously it's just a Chewbacca Defense style non-sequitur. Like sentient potted plants that most tables wouldn't even find fun to play or play with. But worse because while I can see a table potentially allowing the potted plant or a Psion sandwich, virtually no DM will allow the Pact-Allip-Miracle at Level 1 'exploit' except maybe for a one-off "go crazy and optimize as much as you want" session. And even that relies on a generous DM playing the NPCs and monsters exactly as the player has planned.

That's... even more absurd than I expected. Yes, "Chewbacca Defense style non-sequitur" seems about right and I don't see what bearing it has on the imbalance that'll come up during actual play.

[AdAstra]

That's... even more absurd than I expected. Yes, "Chewbacca Defense style non-sequitur" seems about right and I don't see what bearing it has on the imbalance that'll come up during actual play.

He brought it up as an example of a normally “weak” class able to do god-wizard-esque stuff. There’s a meaningful point there, but it also very much does not address the main issue that I and others talked about. It’s a cherry-picked example, but not an outright distraction argument.

[Quertus]

Quertus I’m not sure why you put “good at exploring” in quotes, since I literally never mentioned it.

Um…

I will point out that “strong” as used in this text is not only combat strength, but in terms of overall ability to contribute to the success of the party. Even a combat god would be a fairly weak character compared to someone who can be a combat god and also good at exploring and socializing.

I'm pretty sure you did.

Regardless, I would point out that a druid’s animal companion (if it was big) could probably carry about as much stuff if not more. The fighter could reasonably be replaced by a couple of burly hirelings. The wizard almost certainly could not, unless your game world has mid-level wizards just hanging around waiting to teleport adventurers for a few bucks. For that matter, with teleport, the wizard could probably just port the party back to their base of operations, drop off the treasure, then port back, maybe after a rest.

So, is that your answer for what it looks like? So, the same as mine - either a few seconds of spotlight for the Wizard to teleport people, or hours to sessions of "watch the Ranger play the game" and/or player skills augmented by carrying capacity?

I’m not asking you to make a cheese build designed for a specific challenge, That commoner might be able to kill a tarrasque, but can they kill other stuff as well? Tarrasques aren’t the only thing an adventurer will face, so any fighter build meant to equal a wizard would need to be able to take on similar foes to the wizard.

edit: all the builds I can find on google involve using Alips to drain its wisdom, which only works because the tarrasque has no way of hurting them, which tells me 3e just has holes in it like any other game. This is not brilliant game design. This isn’t an intentional balance range. People skewer other games for having far smaller problems than this. I will also point out doing this technique as a commoner involves abusing dark pacts, splat stuff, and flaws (including chicken infested), and torturing a guy until he commits suicide. Also, literally using the character's name to abuse some fluff text.

This is not a build you use to fulfill your character concept, it’s a build that defines your character concept for you (ie, a person who’s willing to torture a person to suicide and makes pacts with evil entities in order to kill a monster, that also must be named Madness), which is the exact opposite of Quertus’s supposed ideal of being able to do anything.

Good. Now we can begin.

Yes, the Tarrasque-killing commoner was half snarky, but you have done an absolutely amazing job of hitting all the salient points. Kudos!

Let's see if I can list them: the Tarrasque killer is highly specialized, it's a joke that requires a tortured reading of RAW, the Tarrasque has several weaknesses, I believe that characters who can interact with the game are better than those that cannot. And a takeaway regarding the system.

I think we're on the same page on the first two.

The Tarrasque having a weakness, that you call a loophole, I view as a feature. I doubt we'll come to an agreement here, but afaict, that shouldn't matter for the topic at hand.

My ideal is for all players and/or PCs to be able to interact with all parts of the game. Which is not quite identical to "do everything" - that does not encapsulate my ideal. Maybe the Wizard has a spell to unlock doors… but it isn't silent, and doesn't prevent intelligent foes from closing and locking the doors behind us. Maybe my muscles Barbarian can sunder them to splinters, but that isn't stealthy, and we cannot shut (or loot) the doors. Maybe my Rogue can pick the lock, but it isn't fast. And all of these can fall (warded against magic, just stuck, materials too durable, lock too good). Oh, and the "guy who fights"? Maybe he can challenge the door to a fight (in case it's sentient / in case it's a mimic)? Not terribly useful, IMO.

Now, the problem is the takeaway from the Tarrasque. I've always seen that I can build any chassis to most any power level, so I just see this story as the (il)logical extension of that. This silly story is just memorable enough for me to use as an edge case example of just how far one can take a 3e character.

Now, sure, this character is specialized, and silly. But the first step is to clearly define your target. Then you can use the vast array of tools available in 3e to achieve that goal.

[Quertus]

Yes.

I will attack the ideal that wizards inherently stronger than fighters until the end of days.

Oh, I'm sure you can. And I not only can, I prefer them that way. The question was, can @ezekielraiden?

IMO, having that firm conceptual target is (usually) the first step towards building that character.

[AdAstra]

Quertus Oh, my bad, sorry about that. Probably should’ve avoided the topic of exploration entirely, since certain classes in DND can literally warp what exploration even means (ie class that always sees secret doors entirely removes “searching for secret doors” as a distinct activity)

On your point about selecting a balance target first: many people do not want to do that. A great many people, imo most players, think of a character concept first, THEN try to figure out how to build it using the rules of the game. Once they are done, then maybe they would start looking into how it meshes with the rest of the party in terms of power. Very few people start off saying “I want to build a tier 3 character”, most go “I want to play a knife-throwing daredevil” or “I want to play Draxton Vess, Chainbreaker of Ur”

In 3e, some entire character concepts are traps. The mechanics, on a basic level, do not allow a character who does x to be as effective as a character who does y, even if x and y accomplish the exact same goal. So if you want your character to do x, then you just have to accept that someone who does y will outclass you. Then there are the mistakes you can make during chargen that will mess you up if you don’t have access to the relevant knowledge. The opposite also applies. A person who wants to play a summoner shouldn’t have to worry about breaking the game by doing it.

There are certainly people who find a rules interaction or evocative subclass and build a character around that instead, I’m one of those people. But very few people do that for all of their characters, and those who don’t shouldn’t be ignored. Plus even the mechanics-first players can suffer a lot under unbalanced systems, since it restricts their options if they’re looking to be optimal.

There’s a lot to be said on why balance in a game system is good, and what that means. Probably something that can’t be discussed well over text though.

[Morty]

He brought it up as an example of a normally “weak” class able to do god-wizard-esque stuff. There’s a meaningful point there, but it also very much does not address the main issue that I and others talked about. It’s a cherry-picked example, but not an outright distraction argument.

I mean... it's arguable if it works at all, and if it works, then it shouldn't work. If a CR 1/2 character (technically, but a level 1 commoner is such a non-threat that CR means little) can defeat a CR 20 monster, then the entire system loses meaning. And even if we swallow those two, then this absurd theoretical example has no bearing on the reality of, say, trying to play a swashbuckler. Or a dual-wielding ranger. Or an evoker wizard. Or a crossbow-user. And so on. It's a non-sequitur.

Of course, the Tarrasque is already more or less a joke against a moderately competent level 20 party, because it's a beefy melee monster in a level range where being beefy and fighting in melee are pretty much the least threatening things you can do. Thus this legendary, iconic monster is easily handled by a party with means of flying, ranged attacks and spells. Which brings us right back to the game not working the way it's advertised.

[Mechalich]

In 3e, some entire character concepts are traps. The mechanics, on a basic level, do not allow a character who does x to be as effective as a character who does y, even if x and y accomplish the exact same goal. So if you want your character to do x, then you just have to accept that someone who does y will outclass you. Then there are the mistakes you can make during chargen that will mess you up if you don’t have access to the relevant knowledge. The opposite also applies. A person who wants to play a summoner shouldn’t have to worry about breaking the game by doing it.

This is hardly unique to 3e. It's an issue of a system permitting too many concepts without thinking about how power interactions work. The Allip vs. Tarrasque is actually a tolerable example here - because it illuminates how sometimes the numbers are irrelevant because one ability simply 'paper covers rock' another. This happens a lot of fights between single-power characters (ie. most superheroes and shounen anime characters) because it is extremely common for one power set to either autowin or autofail against another power set to the point that it becomes difficult to setup interactions where characters can plausibly role dice against each other - which is why video games that put superheroes up against each other Marvel vs Capcom style have to distort actual abilities in massive ways.

D&D's conceptual base is functionally 'everything in fantasy ever' which is madness. It'll never work out unless you artificially constrain the inputs and outputs to the point that you're running a fighting game (which isn't necessarily a bad idea if you're willing to just ad hoc everything else). To even begin to make game balance work you have to decide which concepts you'll support and then stick to them, and it helps if all PCs share a specific core concept that helps provide them with a viable 'floor' level for the principle sorts of challenges they're expected to face. For example, if your game is about a group of military personnel, everyone should start with a package that represents having been through basic training. D&D characters are assumed to be 'adventurers' and they should all probably start with some sort of shared set of adventurer skills, but they don't.

There’s a lot to be said on why balance in a game system is good, and what that means. Probably something that can’t be discussed well over text though.

TTRPGs are a cooperative game, and for the most part cooperative games flow the most smoothly when everyone is around the same level of capability. This minimizes inter-player fiction, reduces the number of stoppages in play, and provides everyone with the opportunity to have measure accomplishments in game. Now, capability includes both the variance between concepts supported by the rules and player skill, but at the design level you can only control for the former. Since there's going to be variance in the latter no matter what you do, it's best to try and minimize the variance in the former. It is, of course, expected that the game will be actively managed to mitigate player skill based imbalances. Large scale games like MMOs use leagues and other gatekeeping devices to try and segregate players according to skill level. That's not possible in tabletop, but it reveals how the GM needs to fill that role instead.

One important caveat here is that balance is far more important is you're playing the game straight. That is, if the players are actually invested in the story and the characters and trying to have an experience that makes at least some amount of narrative sense. A significant margin of tables aren't doing this. Instead they're a bunch of friends gathered together to mess around and have a good time and the game is just as interesting for the wacky hijinks and absurd situational comedy that ensues during play rather than any actual outcomes ('camp' roleplaying as it were). Balance is much less important in such a game because the gameplay has ceased to be about the game at all. A system or setting that is designed to embrace this style of play (like Planescape, which is intended to advance wacky philosophical brainstorming through a theater of the bizarre) or one that is clearly ridiculous no matter how serious the product design (like RIFTS) can laugh in the face of balance because the game has ceased to be about the game.

[AdAstra]

Mechalich that’s not what I meant by x being better than y. I don’t mean x beats y or sometimes x is better than y, I mean x and y are meant for exactly the same task (and nothing else), and y performs way better at that task than x does. This would work fine if x was labelled as say, power level 3 and y was power level 7, but then there should ideally be a PL7 version of x and a PL3 version of y.

A simplified example would be if you could choose between using an axe or a sword, and the sword was just always way better. Maybe it has way better damage, or sword-specific feats where axes get none, or most classes get bonuses when using swords but not axes. But the sword and axe are presented as equal choices, or a set of tradeoffs, when they’re not. They’re both “means of dealing damage with a weapon”, and the axe is a less effective means to the same end. That’s what I mean.

[KineticDiplomat]

So, D&D is pure and unforgiving power fantasy. In both nature and mechanics, it revolves around getting in a series of fights of “appropriate level.”

Yes, it’s a terrible Role-Playing Game, quite crap in that regard, but it’s obviously a giant in the world of Roll-Playing.

So we have a game that focuses on Rolls and expects your main and possibly sole “real” activity to be fighting your way through a plot line of dungeons. And in the world where only punching matters and the story is “get stronger by fighting through dungeons with drama around it”, then yeah, player balance matters.

Because who wants to be easily outclassed in a world where your role play is irrelevant and the nature of reality shifts to give you “only solvable by being more awesome” challenges? Sure, in another game, maybe being sneaky or a research wiz or a politico would all be viable...but d&d? Can’t max out the fight and do magic brah? Well, hope you liked levels 1-4, cause now you’re worthless.

[Satinavian]

Yes, it’s a terrible Role-Playing Game, quite crap in that regard, but it’s obviously a giant in the world of Roll-Playing.

It is only big in markets where it had a headstart and could establish itself as common ground for gamers.

In countries where translation arrangements took a bit of time and local alternatives were earlier or roughly around at the same time, D&D is often pretty weak. Even with all that international presence which obviously does work as advertising.

So i don't think the "it is the biggest, ist must be good" argument has a lot of merit.



Also this thread was not meant to be about D&D.

[ezekielraiden]

1) in 3e, someone built a 1st level Commoner to solo the Tarrasque. How hard do you really think it is to boost a weak chassis?

Okay, if we're going to bring in bovine-fecal theoretical-optimization stuff, then sure, you're right. You will always be able to achieve literally anything with 3e's rules, because 3e's rules are self-defeating; with enough twists, sufficiently tortured logic, and an infinitely permissive DM, you are correct that literally anything is possible in theory. In fact, I pretty much already said that (more than once, as I recall) and implicitly asked you not to go there. In the interests of being explicit, though...

I refuse to accept any examples that require literally any one of those things (infinitely-permissive DM, tortured logic, end-runs on probability, etc.), so I really doubt we're going to make any progress on that front. I am perfectly fine with surprising rules results. Frex, in 4e, a Barbarian with a certain Barbarian feat and a certain Monk multiclass feat can rocket punch, which is hilarious and funny and requires zero tortured-logic scenarios (it's literally just the main effect of the two feats--one enables throwing weapons with certain keywords, the other gives Monk unarmed strike which count as a weapon with those keywords). But "you have to have a DM not just catering to you, but planning a full three-day weekend with seven-course dinners"? No.

Think of it as resembling the "reasonable person" standard in tort law. A reasonable DM adapts and works positively with her players, but she's not infinitely permissive and actively catering to every need. She may even block an otherwise-reasonable request at times, if it conflicts with something of great importance to her or her campaign. A reasonable player can discover novel interactions, but won't force tortured logic to achieve a goal. Nor will a reasonable player expect that they are guaranteed a needed, but extremely rare, random result. (Of course, Dragon Magazine complicates this somewhat by being...ahem...mechanically unsound with alarming frequency, but that's an aside.)

I'm pretty sure, though, that, in this case, you've missed the context: namely, for an example of how it works at my tables. The things other GMs do to make their games fail have no relevance in how my tables succeed.

So...remind me exactly where we're at, here. Because up to this point, it had very much sounded like you were arguing that "balance" is wrong in the abstract (hence you equating to vindictive totalitarian bean-counters, and talking of extreme abstractions like your "UBI"). Now you turn it around and start arguing solely from your particulars--YOU don't need balance in YOUR game. But that's not kosher. Either we're arguing that NOBODY needs balance in ANY game, or we're arguing that YOU don't need it in YOURS, and the two run in very different directions and apply to very different things.

I have been, consistently, arguing that game design principles can and should be made to empower and enable DMs and players to achieve what they want. Hence why I keep stressing "pre-play" and "in-design" and setting statistically-testable goals etc. I have done literally everything possible to focus on that, because that's where all of my arguments lie. In other words, your repeated "let's try another tack" stuff keeps bouncing off of the specific context I'm operating in, and asserting your own context in its place. This situation frustrates me. Being completely forthright with you: I feel, at least in part, like you aren't arguing in good faith. That feeling could be entirely wrong, and it's not a certainty, just something that strikes me now and again. I engage, and am told to go elsewhere; I engage there, and am told to try a different tack; I try that tack, and am told I've missed context when I have been entirely consistent about my context.

My Sentient Potted Plant had no ability to interact with mechanics. But he could affect the party's mechanics - by your definitions - by suggesting ideas, or answering questions like, "dude, where'd we park?".

That's....that's not meaningfully contributing to the game. You are meaningfully contributing outside of the game, entirely external to it in fact, literally the meta-game. Giving reminders and offering strategies is something anyone can do, even people who aren't "participants" at all. Your analogy would be equivalent to saying that the person who writes the playbook for football games is, herself, an actual player in every game employing that book. Or that the authors of class guides or (for a non-TTRPG example) champion build guides for games like League of Legends, are personally participating in every game where someone listens to their advice. All of which (at least as far as I see it) is patently ridiculous and self-evidently false.

Without first making them unbalanced?

Nope! By making them imbalanced, with help. Because I'm perfectly okay with people electively creating imbalance where they want it. That's why I have repeatedly talked about how it's easier to build/create imbalance from balance than the other way around, and about the books including advice and suggestions on how to deviate from the listed rules. In the truly ideal case, they'll address how to deal with unwanted consequences that came up during testing, too. As an example of this, 13A's rules for Backgrounds. Firstly, they specifically go over how, during internal testing, they originally used varying numbers of background points (e.g. Bard got 10, Sorcerer got 6, etc.) but weren't sure--and their players vehemently decried it and requested everyone get equal resources for Backgrounds (8 points)--they then included optional buy-in for other classes that might warrant more points, and discussed the whole issue in the book itself. Second, after the books were published, the authors responded to user feedback, and discussed the "problem" of "good at everything" Backgrounds at +5, in other words, "overpowered" ones. And they straight-up said they're a problem, and also NOT a problem, depending on what you're seeking and how you go about it. Again, literally providing the DM and players with tools and advice for tuning the rules to their interests, while still *starting* from a position of overall balance. And 13A, while heavily narrative, is still an extremely well-balanced game, enough that some call it 4e's successor (I don't hold that view, but it definitely looks like a game that 4e's lead designer took part in creating).

Others have already done so. I'll add that the low-op, low-level Fighter is so much better than their Wizard comrad.

Ah, and see, now you're throwing on restrictions I never mentioned--and don't accept. I don't accept that a game should have to be confined to low level. 13th Age, 4e D&D, and Dungeon World all manage to be pretty reasonably balanced (in very different ways) across their entire level range (heck, I literally have broken the level range wide open in the DW game I run, and it still manages to be incredibly resilient.)

So. I won't accept your move to just restrict it to low level. I'm saying it's not just possible, but beneficial to produce a system that starts off balanced at most levels/tiers/whatever of play. And then you provide advice on how to spindle, fold, and/or mutilate that situation to suit your tastes.

Personally, I think focusing on "class" is less important than "build". Are there individual characters where the Muggle is stronger than the Wizard? Sure. Although that was more common in 2e (one of the reasons that I like 2e better).

Why stop at just build? Why not talk about the distribution of builds, the prevalence and incidence of problematic elements, etc.? Because, y'know, that would ram things right back to what I'm talking about. A durable consensus says that the Fighter requires more optimization to play along with other classes, and that even with that, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up past level 13 or so without cheese/active DM catering/tortured logic.

As I said, it still exists (low-op, low-level). But this is a… counterproductive requirement. If you care about Balance, why cripple your efforts by confining yourself to a single optimization strata? Which do you care about: balance, or optimization?

Balance. I only mentioned optimization as a more general, less emphatic way of rejecting what I have now explicitly and emphatically rejected above. Comparing a blaster-wizard to the triple-cheese-deluxe commoner is obviously not a reasonable comparison, and using things like it as though it were *even when I requested that you not* is part of why I sometimes question if you're arguing in good faith.

Humans are always as influential as major political figures, unless they ignore their options? Humans are always billionaires, unless they ignore their options?

I think that we have to be a little careful, because extremes of only looking at omniscient high op will look nothing like (most) actual play.

I have no idea what you're trying to say with this. Like, I genuinely tried to respond twice already and still don't have a coherent understanding of what you're saying.

I did? I mean, it seems fair that when comparing the mechanical playing piece, that suboptimal choices in play would be irrelevant to that evaluation.

Isn't that what this whole paragraph is about?

If you want to play as yourself in a game, and I hand you Thor's character sheet, and I say, "just don't use the bits that don't fit" are you going to feel that the system has succeeded in modeling you? Is it going to feel like you?

This clearly comes across as a pair of Socratic questions designed to demonstrate that no, it is not acceptable to say, "just don't use the bits that don't fit." If that's not what you meant, well, I have no idea what you DID mean.

Quertus (my signature academia mage, for whom this account is named) is an extraordinarily powerful playing piece. But his personality and tactics make his contribution… suboptimal. To the point that, over ~10 levels, he could have been replaced with a bag of flour. OK, to be fair, it probably would have taken at least two bags of flour to match his contribution.

So....you literally chose not to use the features available to you. To the point that you chose...uh...not to use any features at all. My complaint is not systems that allow players to simply...choose not to contribute in the first place. My complaint is systems that capriciously de-power or empower specific archetypes, while constantly, consistently, and uniformly presenting all offered archetypes as the same, and portraying themselves as systems specifically for largely-equal cooperative play. Asymmetrical gameplay is a perfectly valid format; D&D does not, and the vast majority of tabletop games do not, present themselves as asymmetrical cooperative games. They present themselves as symmetrical games. I am standing up for the principle that maybe, just maybe, they should actually live up to that SOME of the time? Particularly in the game that sets the tone for the entire gorram industry?

So, it depends on what we're measuring. Yes, measuring player choice is invalid in measuring pure mechanical balance.

Invalid is a strong word! I don't think it's entirely invalid. But it's also not as simple as just instantly accounting for it either. That's why there's a major need for statistically-testable goals, and rigorous playtesting (ideally, as comprehensive as one can get--I recognize that there are market externalities that prevent perfectly comprehensive playtesting.)

Depends on a lot of factors. But, trivially, use Candle of Invocation chaining or "I was Pun-Pun in a past life" to be a "Fighter-ish character" balanced to the Wizard however you want to be.

See above: I find this sort of example extremely frustrating when I have explicitly asked that you not offer this sort of thing.

Which begs the question, do you have any concept for a "Fighter-ish character" that is balanced with your concept of Wizard-ish characters? If not, then it's not a fixable problem, even with the above extreme methods.

Sure! 4e. Or 13th Age. Or (well, more loosely but I'm more or less comfortable with it) Dungeon World. Or Fate. That's four different games, two in the D20 family, them plus a further one in the overall D&D milieu, and a fourth completely outside the D&D-like structure, that all contain or can produce a "Fighter" character and a "Wizard" character that start play reasonably balanced and can be modified from there to create any desired imbalance.

Beyond that? It's a matter of:
1. Set goals (concepts and targets).
2. Define testable measures of those goals.
3. Perform data collection (playtesting).
4. Evaluate how successfully you have met those goals.
5. Where those goals have not been met, revise the goals and go back to step 3.

It's

That would be terrible. I'm glad 3e isn't that.

Then why do people keep constantly having these debates? Why are there so many people so COMPLETELY frustrated with the limits of the 3rd edition system? Why did even Paizo, who literally built their corporation on "We've stayed true to 3e," finally OPENLY admit that there were severe, uncontestable balance problems that could ONLY be addressed by creating a new system?

You keep insisting that it's a walk in the gorram park to make a balanced system out of 3e. I point to literally this entire thread, and thousands of threads that have preceded it, as emphatic evidence to the contrary. I have personally witnessed three games (two of which I actually played in) fall apart specifically because of how EXHAUSTING it was to beat the 3rd edition rules into some vague semblance of balance, for players and DMs alike.

So maybe, instead of flippantly insisting that there's nothing wrong with 3e and that literally everyone should always be happy with it, you could recognize that LOTS of people have consistently had EXTREME difficulty producing the fun they want from it? Specifically BECAUSE of its extreme unbalance after only a few levels?

IMO - and correct me if I'm wrong - guides discuss optimization, making the optimal foo (for whatever "foo" the guide discusses). Making suboptimal build choices (to, for example, "balance to the table") is enabled (and, perhaps, even encouraged) by good guides, that include all relevant options, not just the most optimized ones.

Just for fun, I went looking for Fighter optimization guides previously. I heartily recommend that you do the same. Compare the results to the results for Wizards, Druids, Clerics, Bards, and damn near any other full-caster or two-thirds-caster class. You will, I hope, notice a rather significant...difference...between the breadth, power, and variety of options provided to any of the latter group compared to those available to the Fighter. You may also note a pronounced lack of enthusiasm for certain kinds of options, and rather more finality.

I wasn't talking "options" as in "how to make a foo that can socialize." I was talking "options" as in "Fighters constantly get marginalized and limited, casters constantly get empowered and diversified." The game actively limits Fighters to solely what everyday normal humans (not even Olympic humans, for God's sake!) can achieve, unless Fighter players cheese things out the wazoo. A literally bog-standard Wizard or Cleric has a guaranteed, inherent path to rewriting reality, on a gorram DAILY basis. Do you REALLY mean to argue--particularly if we do something like what an ENORMOUS number of DMs do in order to "keep the game balanced," and stick to core books only--that the Wizard and the Fighter were designed on a level playing field, each given the same opportunities to affect their world and influence their future success?

[ezekielraiden]

I will attack the ideal that wizards inherently stronger than fighters until the end of days. Strength/power-level is not inherent to either concept really.

If you're saying that in concept "The Iconic Wizard" does not need to be more powerful or more versatile than "The Iconic Fighter," then you have my agreement, 110%. If you are saying that in practice, in 3.x D&D/PF, "the Wizard class in this game" is not inherently stronger than "the Fighter class in this game" (that is, saying the former DOES NOT have a higher power ceiling, wider range of effects, or a lower required effort to achieve similar results), then I absolutely have to disagree.

On The Topic: What is the topic at this point? I exaggerate slightly but I'm also wondering. Like the answer to "Why does the party need to be balanced?" was something like it doesn't have to be but that is usually a good idea because of [various reasons]. And for the all the arguments, analogies and anecdotes I'm not sure what conclusion anyone wants me to draw from any of them anymore.

In game design, nothing "has" to be anything, so the original question is (in effect) inherently malformed; it's asking for an answer that cannot even in principle exist.

However, if you're going to offer a game that is (a) explicitly cooperative, (b) explicitly designed and explicitly described as offering equal options, and (c) is meant for average Janes to get the intended experience without a lot of effort, then I argue that yes, the party needs to be balanced--because your priorities required that. But, VITALLY, it is also important that you teach gamers how to go their own way with your game as a starting point, and do your best to equip them with functional tools and advice to do exactly that thing, so that if they find themselves constrained, they are not only enabled, but empowered and educated on breaking those constraints AND what consequences may come from doing so.

TL;DR: You don't have to make a game that generates balanced parties. But if you tell people your game is balanced, it kinda should be balanced.

[Cluedrew]

Oh, I'm sure you can.

Well nice to see my work on the god-martial getting recognized.

Joking comments aside I work also like to hear your main point (again?). What is your main point? I don't think it is the optimization adjusting power level thing (which is certainly true but not as easy as you have portrayed it). It might be that some stories require unbalanced characters which is true, but many also require balanced characters. Is it one of those? Is it something else?

Also this thread was not meant to be about D&D.

But it's such a great case study in bad game design! Well not everywhere, but definitely in this area. Its a system that thematically leans very heavily on a group of (approximate) equals going around and has some of the worst game balance I've seen. I've played systems with less expectations of balance that are much more balanced. For the rest, Playgrounder's Fallacy.

If you're saying that in concept "The Iconic Wizard" [...] If you are saying that in practice, in 3.x D&D/PF,

Definitely the former the I don't care much for D&D beyond it being a useful common language for discussion. And see the case study comment. I bring that up because the second option is really "in practice, in 3.x D&D/PF", there are plenty of systems that do balance those options so in practice it can come out any direction. I mean you are also correct about D&D 3.0/5/P, this is just a general reminder that other systems exist and have done it better.

Also your second section is good and I have nothing I could add that I haven't already said.

[KineticDiplomat]

I’m not saying D&D is good. I find it awful for human play, though not a bad video game.

Regardless of its merit, it is however, huge. And can’t be ignored. Particularly in a post about balance, given how many systems basically throw balance out the window...but also throw the biggest need for balance - mechanistic crunching of very specific capabilities with the assumption all problems must be solvable in an immediate combat mechanically viable way - it will come to the fore.

[Mechalich]

Particularly in a post about balance, given how many systems basically throw balance out the window...but also throw the biggest need for balance - mechanistic crunching of very specific capabilities with the assumption all problems must be solvable in an immediate combat mechanically viable way - it will come to the fore.

I completely disagree with the thrust of this argument. Combat capabilities are often the easiest portion of a game to balance. Ultimately, combat boils down to a numeric simulation that can be rigorously adjudicated and forced into a rough equality. Many video games, where combat is often the only non-scripted condition, achieve quite effective balance across the range of permitted concepts (these tend to be much more tightly constrained than those available in any tabletop case of course, even in games directly based on tabletop rulesets). Even in 3.X D&D balancing combat is rarely insurmountable, builds exist to make martial classes perfectly viable alongside casters and simple encounter design decisions - such as forcing combat to take place within a literal box as video games do - can further mitigate the ability of casters to take advantage of their vast versatility.

The real problem comes with insuring characters can contribute beyond combat, in the far more free-form scenarios of social encounters, exploration, investigation, logistics, and more. Such scenarios permit a far greater range of inputs and outputs and therefore are far more difficult to balance in pretty much any system and it is in this region that many games that are not D&D reveal huge balance issues. In fact the difficulty of balancing such more freeform scenarios, and the seeming impossibility of building a good social interaction rule set in RPGs is part of what has led to the proliferation of rules-lite games that broadly disregard trying to balance such things and leave everything up to the individual table. In FATE, for example, non-combat balance is heavily dependent upon the GM insuring that characters can't take overpowered aspects (ex. 'Is Batman') or extras.

[noob]

A thing about party balance is that regardless of character balance there is a gap between the talents of the varied players which makes that if all actions are not equivalent then necessarily some players will more often participate efficiently to progressing the adventure (or disintegrate more efficiently the plot or derail the train harder up to the point it goes backwards and toward a star at near light speed)
which can trigger jealousy.
Furthermore due to the human element regardless of actual efficiency players can be jealous of the screen time another player gets or of the ability to fail dramatically of another player.

[AdAstra]

A thing about party balance is that regardless of character balance there is a gap between the talents of the varied players which makes that if all actions are not equivalent then necessarily some players will more often participate efficiently to progressing the adventure (or disintegrate more efficiently the plot or derail the train harder up to the point it goes backwards and toward a star at near light speed)
which can trigger jealousy.
Furthermore due to the human element regardless of actual efficiency players can be jealous of the screen time another player gets or of the ability to fail dramatically of another player.

Player skill is certainly going to be a factor that can “unbalance” players even in a balanced game, but the idea is to give everyone as level a playing field as possible, not to make everyone’s outputs the same.

For most games, you want to make sure that anyone with a reasonable level of competency (what’s reasonable can vary from game to game) can achieve a reasonable degree of success, and do enough cool things that they don’t feel actively left out of the fun.

There’s also the element of perception, which as you said can make characters seem unbalanced even if they are in most respects. However, player perception as ABSOLUTELY something designers can influence. It’s arguably the most important part of balance! The key is to not just have the numbers match up, but to give every character interesting things to do. You need variety in theme and mechanics, you need “active” abilities that give rhythm and agency to the player’s choices, and those abilities need to be cool and powerful enough to actually be useful/entertaining. If designers can’t give players access to mechanics, abilities, items, etc. that feel good to have and use, then they are likely not going to make a very fun game.

Basically, a good way to make players less jealous is to give them toys of their own.

[ezekielraiden]

I completely disagree with the thrust of this argument. Combat capabilities are often the easiest portion of a game to balance.

And yet so many tabletop games don't! It's super frustrating for me, as a gamer, because actual systematically-balanced TTRPGs are few and far between, and most D&D-alike game designers have literally zero mathematical training. Even Rob Heinsoo, who pushed so hard for 4e to offer a balanced baseline, is trained in theology rather than math or statistics. I once tried to track down what things people who worked on D&D had degrees in; I believe there were only two people on the entire staff of 3e, 4e, or 5e (whose degrees were publicly stated somewhere, anyway) that had anything even vaguely math- or science-related. The vast majority were humanities--art, communications, journalism, design. I believe one of the science-related ones was geology? Or something like that? It's been years. Regardless: there is an extremely frustrating deficit of knowledge among game designers regarding math, statistics, and (perhaps worst of all) psychology and survey construction.

Even in 3.X D&D balancing combat is rarely insurmountable

My experience significantly differs, on both sides of the screen.

The real problem comes with insuring characters can contribute beyond combat, in the far more free-form scenarios of social encounters, exploration, investigation, logistics, and more. Such scenarios permit a far greater range of inputs and outputs and therefore are far more difficult to balance in pretty much any system and it is in this region that many games that are not D&D reveal huge balance issues.

Well...other than 4e D&D, 13th Age, Dungeon World, and (as you mentioned) Fate...I also disagree with your interpretation of Fate. Fate is an example of an extensible framework. Sure, it requires that the DM actively participate in setting targets, and tweaking things if they fail to produce the desired range of outcomes. But the framework covers damn near anything you might want to do. Holding that sort of thing against Fate is like saying that you cannot possibly balance combat because people can use (consciously or unconsciously) terrible tactics. Likewise, 4e has Skill Challenges. They weren't always well-received, and being a novel approach to stuff that was previously very freeform, but I've seen them work wonders for giving enough structure to non-combat scenarios to permit balance, while not so much structure as to excessively constrain the kinds of situations they capture. (Of course, in at least two of those cases, the DMs in question looked beyond the strict letter of the rules to see further refinements that didn't contradict anything the SC rules said, but fleshed them out or made them more vibrant in play.)

[Quertus]

Yesterday, I made a huge post, lots of replies, and, several hours in, I typed the fateful "I'll stop here so that I don't lose the post.". And that's when I lost the post. So, today, I'll make several posts.

What is your main point? I don't think it is the optimization adjusting power level thing (which is certainly true but not as easy as you have portrayed it). It might be that some stories require unbalanced characters which is true, but many also require balanced characters. Is it one of those? Is it something else?

I have lots of different points, as I'm trying to build a more holistic picture of a larger thing than just one point. But, if I had to pick one as my "main" point, it would probably be

TL;DR: You don't have to make a game that generates balanced parties. But if you tell people your game is balanced, it kinda should be balanced.

Quertus Oh, my bad, sorry about that. Probably should’ve avoided the topic of exploration entirely, since certain classes in DND can literally warp what exploration even means (ie class that always sees secret doors entirely removes “searching for secret doors” as a distinct activity)

Why are you sorry? I consider exploration a great backdrop for the discussion of balance.

On your point about selecting a balance target first: many people do not want to do that.

If people are going to do things wrong, and then complain that they messed up, but don't want to fix it, why should i care?

A great many people, imo most players, think of a character concept first, THEN try to figure out how to build it using the rules of the game. Once they are done, then maybe they would start looking into how it meshes with the rest of the party in terms of power. Very few people start off saying “I want to build a tier 3 character”, most go “I want to play a knife-throwing daredevil” or “I want to play Draxton Vess, Chainbreaker of Ur”

So, to do things my way, one could start with *both* the concept of DVCoU (about whom I, personally, know nothing, btw) *and* the sample characters. "OK, the closest sample character has an expected DPS of 17.2, and 3 relevant skills at 'Adept'. <Works on build> well, I've got 19.7 DPS, 'fleen nut gathering' at 'Master' level, and 4 other relevant skills at 'Studied'. That should fall within our group's balance range of the sample characters, and feels like DVCoU to me. Done."

Or one could create a character that feels appropriate, and then wait for a game where they will fit within the group's balance range.

In 3e, some entire character concepts are traps. The mechanics, on a basic level, do not allow a character who does x to be as effective as a character who does y, even if x and y accomplish the exact same goal. So if you want your character to do x, then you just have to accept that someone who does y will outclass you. Then there are the mistakes you can make during chargen that will mess you up if you don’t have access to the relevant knowledge. The opposite also applies. A person who wants to play a summoner shouldn’t have to worry about breaking the game by doing it.

Yeah, I've tried to face tank with a Wizard, but with their d4 HP and no armor, it's hard! Thanks to feats like Trollblooded and Roll With It, I was able to come close to achieving my vision - something I couldn't have done in a system with exclusively "balanced" components.

There are certainly people who find a rules interaction or evocative subclass and build a character around that instead, I’m one of those people. But very few people do that for all of their characters, and those who don’t shouldn’t be ignored. Plus even the mechanics-first players can suffer a lot under unbalanced systems, since it restricts their options if they’re looking to be optimal.

Are they looking to be optimal, or to be balanced? Because those are two opposed stances.

[Satinavian]

But it's such a great case study in bad game design! Well not everywhere, but definitely in this area. Its a system that thematically leans very heavily on a group of (approximate) equals going around and has some of the worst game balance I've seen. I've played systems with less expectations of balance that are much more balanced. For the rest, Playgrounder's Fallacy.

If it would be used that way, it would be fine.

Instead the talk about what is wrong in D&D nearly always moves on to how to tweak D&D while keeping it D&D. And then it is about D&D minutiae and sacred cows of D&D and people argueing against change because they don't want to give up specific things.

But we already have hundreds, if not thousands of D&D tweaks. A good portion trying to make it more balanced while keeping most of the rest. Most are not particular successful or popular, often because they either don't work or they do work but produce something that doesn't feel like D&D or something that works at acomplishing its goals but is inferior to other games that had the same design goals from the onset. There is really no need to produce more of the same or argue about how D&D 3.5 should be improved (but changed less than 4E or 5E).

[Morty]

Yeah, I've tried to face tank with a Wizard, but with their d4 HP and no armor, it's hard! Thanks to feats like Trollblooded and Roll With It, I was able to come close to achieving my vision - something I couldn't have done in a system with exclusively "balanced" components.

This also doesn't follow. There's nothing about the notion of balance as people actually use it - distinct from the "balance means everything is dull and boring" strawman you're using - that prevents using resources to shore up your character's weaknesses. Indeed, part of D&D's balance problem is that it's easy for some classes to cover all their bases while others struggle with it.

[Satinavian]

Yeah, I've tried to face tank with a Wizard, but with their d4 HP and no armor, it's hard! Thanks to feats like Trollblooded and Roll With It, I was able to come close to achieving my vision - something I couldn't have done in a system with exclusively "balanced" components.

In a proper point buy system it is likely trivial to just buy tanking/defensive abilities to go with your spellcasting abilities. That is only a problem because you want a D&D wizard

Even in D&D you could have just used full armor and shield, accepted the miscast and the armor penalties and called it a day without even building for it. (Not to mention that D&D already has dozens of things specifically intended to make armored or durable arcane casters)

[noob]

In a proper point buy system it is likely trivial to just buy tanking/defensive abilities to go with your spellcasting abilities.

Even in D&D you could have just used full armor and shield, accepted the miscast and the armor penalties and called it a day without even building for it.

It is a misconception: armor does not makes someone tanky.
There is so many things that ignore armor from rays(only touch ac counts)(and many other magical things) to lava and fire and falling damage you will feel as frail with a full plate than without.