Why does the party need to be balanced?

[Satinavian]

Among other things… Beholders are flying, action economy breaking, ranged magic slingers? The other is… able to learn and adapt instantly, in case their BFC and nigh unresistable spells are insufficient? Both look at lone, melee-only threats and chuckle how paper covers rock, no matter how skilled/powerful the rock. Which… in ShadowRun, rocks - and especially lone rocks - are rare.

Flying, action economy breaking, ranged magic is trivial in Shadowrun, while adaptibillity powers exist, but are severely limited for balance reason. If you want those powers, take the breaks and limitations off and you can make your mindflayer, easily houseruled. In the other not-Gurps system i mentioned, Myranor-TDE, you won't get action economy breaking for PCs without pets, but it is a common monster ability and both flight and ranged magic are widespread. Actually you hardly have to do much more to get your beholder than refluffing some demon. The adaptibility of your mindflayer is easily reproducible. Actually too easy, we nerved those powers at our table to make regularly learned abilities more impressive.

Hmmm… less "zero to hero", and more "these concepts are highly disparate, no matter what point in advancement they share". But if you can look at (for example) a party of balanced starting characters, and can intentionally create a starting invisible fairy warrior that lives anywhere from "OP MVP" to "dead weight", then other systems have more variance than I have them credit for. And 3e isn't quite as impressive in comparison.

When 3.0 was fairly new, i too was impessed by the huge variety of possible characters. With classes feats, multiclassing, prestige classes and being able to play half the monster book with level adjustment, it was impressive compared to most other systems.

As time went on, however, i noticed that the restrictions coming from the rigid level system with many cool class features locking you into X levels of a class, the limited number of feats taken at precicely given time, the halfbaked skill system and so on meant you didn't actually get more variety in character concepts than quite a lot of other systems provided. Many of which expanded in scope during the time of 3.x anyway. The only thing in variety that 3.x has still going is your choice of playable races. And that is mostly because of D&D being a fantasy kitchen sink and many other systems simply don't have that many creatures. But even here D&D is not actually leader because some systems have "build-your-own-species" rules and let you play those.

So overall, while D&D is fairly complex and unwieldy, its variety in supported character concepts is not really that impressive today. It still beats most systems, but it is nothing special anymore.

In addition, classless system often make it easier to build the character you want and make it even more easier to adjust the balance of the result because having ability X,Y and Z that are central for your concept don't lock you into certain classes or feat chains or whatever and you can adjust everything that is not central to your comcept to fit the intended balance range or campaign.

What is something that most other games don't have, is D&Ds power spectrum. Often you won't find powers or monsters/threats beyond or below a certain power because that is considered too far outside the scope of the game.

[Mechalich]

Why is it such a problem to write "this is how we intended the game to be played" and "this is what we aimed to do" in clear text?

Because if you do that, the players may actually hate you more.

White-Wolf, as a studio, was actually remarkably honest in writing about how they intended their various games to be played and what they intended to do. Unfortunately, players broadly rejected how the philosophy of how the game should be played and broadly thought what they had aimed to do was stupid and went off to play games that rejected roughly 90% of White-Wolf's design philosophy to play Underworld: the Vampions instead.

D&D, on the other hand, tries to sell itself as being one thing, while in fact being something completely different.

D&D tries to sell itself on being everything, or at least everything within pre-industrial fantasy. In actuality it's a dungeon-crawl (or wilderness-as-dungeon crawl) simulator for a fairly tightly wound set of concepts. When you reduce it down to that - as various isometric D&D video game RPGs have done - it can be great, Planescape: Torment is still one of the most acclaimed RPGs of all time. it's when you step out of the box that it get's bad. For various reasons though, it is extremely important to preserve the illusion that you can go outside the box.

[Quertus]

is only available for spellcasters,

Or winged creates (fairies, half- things, or even creatures with the "winged" template), people with flying mounts, or even characters with a pet Wizard. Oh, and magical items can grant flight, too.

Hank's bow is a magical item so it's not even in the player's control.

I think I found your problem. If you don't give the players the agency to build their characters - like the system expects - then, yeah, they can fail.

Crazy stealth + sneak attack are all rogue abilities, which are not options if your intent was to play a fighter or a ranger.

No, you said you wanted to run a "swashbuckler", not that you wanted to "play a fighter or a ranger". A rogue makes an excellent (both useful and thematic) swashbuckler. If you choose to instantiate your concept poorly, that's on you.

[Morty]

What is something that most other games don't have, is D&Ds power spectrum. Often you won't find powers or monsters/threats beyond or below a certain power because that is considered too far outside the scope of the game.

What D&D has, above all else, is volume. Or, well, 3E and 4E certainly did - 5E cut back on it a lot, which I think is to its credit. Most of 3E's extra material honestly wasn't good for much, but pile up enough of it and it manages to make up for the constraining nature of the class/level system and clunky design.

4E and 5E deserve credit for not trying to do something they could never do and trying to be respectively balanced and predictable, at the expense of claims of diversity. Though, again, 5E manages to offer more freedom than 3E did in its core rules, simply by not piling up quite as many obstacles in some concepts' paths.

No, you said you wanted to run a "swashbuckler", not that you wanted to "play a fighter or a ranger". A rogue makes an excellent (both useful and thematic) swashbuckler. If you choose to instantiate your concept poorly, that's on you.

A rogue isn't an "excellent" swashbuckler, because it relies on flanking to deal damage and is generally fragile, making it unsuited to duelling enemies like a swashbuckler ought to. The system gives options that purport to serve this purpose better - the Duelist PrC and the Swashbuckler class - but they're not worth the paper they're printed on.

And your continued argument is to blame the players for expecting the material they bought to do what it's advertised to do instead of twisting themselves into knots working with something else instead. Only for the end result not to be any more impressive than someone who grabbed Power Attack and a big axe. Of all the hills to die on, this is one of the weirder I've seen.

[ezekielraiden]

Any thoughts on my last post, @Quertus? I had hoped, at least, for an "alright, we're talking about different things" or the like.

[Lorsa]

Or winged creates (fairies, half- things, or even creatures with the "winged" template), people with flying mounts, or even characters with a pet Wizard. Oh, and magical items can grant flight, too.

And if you are limited to core races, which isn't that uncommon, winged creatures are not an option to play. Flying mounts may be possible, but that will only come into effect at later levels. Yes, magical items can grant flight, but again, the presence of magical items lie outside of the p

I think I found your problem. If you don't give the players the agency to build their characters - like the system expects - then, yeah, they can fail.

I am really speaking generically. Not all DMs would include every single magic item. Magic-Mart is not a sure thing to exist in all D&D settings. In fact, just reading D&D, it seems as though the way the system expects magic items to occur is through loot. Which is either in the hands of randomness or DM fiat. Typically that is.

No, you said you wanted to run a "swashbuckler", not that you wanted to "play a fighter or a ranger". A rogue makes an excellent (both useful and thematic) swashbuckler. If you choose to instantiate your concept poorly, that's on you.

Actually, I had two examples. One being an "archery-focused martial class". This could indeed be a rogue, but the most natural choice would be to play a ranger, since that class was made to fit the common "bow-using forest-dwelling character" type of concept. But, to narrow it down, let's say you have two players. Both want to play fighters. One focuses on ranged, the other on melee. Seems like two choices that would both be fairly viable and have their respective uses. However, the ranged specialist will end up very unhappy with their choice. For no good reason.

The second example was to make a swashbuckler on par with a two-handed-weapon using paladin, where the paladin actually has slightly better ability scores (using dice to determine them).

[Lorsa]

Because if you do that, the players may actually hate you more.

White-Wolf, as a studio, was actually remarkably honest in writing about how they intended their various games to be played and what they intended to do. Unfortunately, players broadly rejected how the philosophy of how the game should be played and broadly thought what they had aimed to do was stupid and went off to play games that rejected roughly 90% of White-Wolf's design philosophy to play Underworld: the Vampions instead.

I don't think players hated WW for being honest with how they intended their games to be played. They simply disagreed. The good thing with being upfront with your design philosophy is that you, as a player, can understand why the game might not run the way you want it to if you decide to go outside of the intended play.

D&D tries to sell itself on being everything, or at least everything within pre-industrial fantasy. In actuality it's a dungeon-crawl (or wilderness-as-dungeon crawl) simulator for a fairly tightly wound set of concepts. When you reduce it down to that - as various isometric D&D video game RPGs have done - it can be great, Planescape: Torment is still one of the most acclaimed RPGs of all time. it's when you step out of the box that it get's bad. For various reasons though, it is extremely important to preserve the illusion that you can go outside the box.

Yes, it does indeed try to sell itself on being everything. As you said, they should be honest that it's simply a dungeon-crawl simulator. Unfortunately, many people want the kind of game D&D advertises itself to be, so if they did they might loose customers. Better idea would simply be to make what it is advertised.

[Chauncymancer]

Why is it such a problem to write "this is how we intended the game to be played" and "this is what we aimed to do" in clear text?

If I remember, as per Mechalich's note on WoD, WotC actually tried this: It was hashed out in Dungeon Magazine in the late nineties and early two-thousands that 3e was designed around a straight dungeon crawl in generic settings with an emphasis on resource management and rules tuned to battle game style pawn stance. This turned out to be super controversial and basically flame bait, so WotC backed way, way off from saying that 3e was designed with any specific play style in mind

D&D tries to sell itself on being everything, or at least everything within pre-industrial fantasy. For various reasons though, it is extremely important to preserve the illusion that you can go outside the box.

From a marketing perspective, the greatest strength of 3e is not that it was a good game, but that it was a game that would be great if you just added one more rule/class/race/subsystem/setting. So you kept DMs on the constant chase for one more spat book to make the game really come together and be great.

I am really speaking generically. Not all DMs would include every single magic item. Magic-Mart is not a sure thing to exist in all D&D settings. In fact, just reading D&D, it seems as though the way the system expects magic items to occur is through loot. Which is either in the hands of randomness or DM fiat. Typically that is.

Because of the necessity of specific magic items for certain builds, it is a popular house rule to the point where many people do not know it's a house rule, that players can cash in their WBL for magical items not through some in game mechanism, but simply as an alternative feat-xp equivalent system. Even if no wands of fireball or people with the magic initiate feat exist in the world, I can still take a wand of fireball or the magic initiate feat, because I am exchanging a game token for a power, not interacting with a game world element.

[NichG]

D&D 3.5 isn't a very good dungeon crawl simulator though... For dungeon crawls to be meaningful there should be ways in which consequences of how one area is handled propagate to the next. But the arc of D&D from 1ed to 4ed at least has reduced persistent consequences and resource costs with each subsequent edition. On the subject of balance, making dungeon crawls meaningful is actually a design space in which I would agree it's important.

Where D&D 3.5 shines is gonzo anime escalation fests. Thus, if you e.g. want a ranged martial, Hulking Hurler or Palm Throw dancing shuriken machine gun with Cha to damage across a dozen attacks per round are very much the on-theme way at least going into higher level ranges...

[patchyman]

I think I found your problem. If you don't give the players the agency to build their characters - like the system expects - then, yeah, they can fail.

Most modules do not have a “Magic Mart” where players can purchase magical weapons and items. Many DMs believe that “Magic Marts” are unrealistic and break verisimilitude. Some DMs strongly believe that loot should be rolled for randomly, and the system encourages that play style by including extensive loot tables.

Lorsa’s expectation isn’t wrong. On the contrary, it seems to me that the characters being able to generally choose their magical gear is the exception rather than the rule.

[Gallowglass]

Most modules do not have a “Magic Mart” where players can purchase magical weapons and items. Many DMs believe that “Magic Marts” are unrealistic and break verisimilitude. Some DMs strongly believe that loot should be rolled for randomly, and the system encourages that play style by including extensive loot tables.

Lorsa’s expectation isn’t wrong. On the contrary, it seems to me that the characters being able to generally choose their magical gear is the exception rather than the rule.

Patchyman, you have no idea how much I agree with you.

However, you are going to find next to no support on this board for that point of view.

On this board, for the vast bulk of the people who post here, who, I suspect spent 95% of their "role playing" related time making 20th level characters that will never actually see play, being able to hand pick/buy equipment is "the norm"

[kyoryu]

Yes, it does indeed try to sell itself on being everything. As you said, they should be honest that it's simply a dungeon-crawl simulator. Unfortunately, many people want the kind of game D&D advertises itself to be, so if they did they might loose customers. Better idea would simply be to make what it is advertised.

Historically it was a dungeon crawl simulator.

Over time it's become less so - a lot of the "dungeon crawl" aspects have been removed from the game. Nowadays it seems more aimed as an "adventure path engine", to create an interesting series of combats with random plot stuff between them.

Mechanically, of course. What a group does with the game is up to them.

[JNAProductions]

Patchyman, you have no idea how much I agree with you.

However, you are going to find next to no support on this board for that point of view.

On this board, for the vast bulk of the people who post here, who, I suspect spent 95% of their "role playing" related time making 20th level characters that will never actually see play, being able to hand pick/buy equipment is "the norm"

It's hard to roleplay a character that doesn't see play, you know.

But I suspect your suspicions are wholly inaccurate once they hit the table. Plenty of people here spend lots of time optimizing, tweaking builds, finding new and fun loopholes in the rules, seeing how good they can make a Monk in 3.5, etc. etc.

However, when they're ACTUALLY PLAYING, while they certainly want a powerful character, they'll also be roleplaying better than your average Joe at a gaming store.

[Xervous]

seeing how good they can make a Monk in 3.5, etc. etc.

However, when they're ACTUALLY PLAYING, while they certainly want a powerful character, they'll also be roleplaying better than your average Joe at a gaming store.

The first bit brings a tear to my eye as I recall the trials of the elder evils. Monk(ish) 20 saves the world.

When it comes to a narrative system that is governed by whimsy I’ll just say what I damn well know my character is doing within the realm of reasonable actions. Arrive at a system governed by probability and numbers? I still want the opportunity to eloquently describe the attempted actions and knowing the language of the numbers lets me map character concept to a functional implementation.

[Quertus]

Any thoughts on my last post, @Quertus? I had hoped, at least, for an "alright, we're talking about different things" or the like.

I'm still waiting on sufficient, uh "anti-senility" to be able to read through our conversation. Because that sentence I just typed? That's the only thing I remember about our conversation. My memory's not what it used to be.

(Just like I remember I was talking with cluedrew about something… and I'll need to read back through to see what it was. But, today, I've forgotten I was writing this twice already, so… probably not today)

And if you are limited to core races, which isn't that uncommon, winged creatures are not an option to play.

Please, it's not like I need any more ammo for "core only is bad for balance". Although this is a bit of a play on words, as there are plenty of races with wings in core, just not the "Winged" template.

Flying mounts may be possible, but that will only come into effect at later levels.

And, until then, they'll just have their "twice as many attacks" to comfort them as they cry themselves to sleep at night? I've never had an archer complain (about how much they needed to optimize) before flying mounts came online.

Yes, magical items can grant flight, but again, the presence of magical items lie outside of the p

Item creation feats are a thing. So not really.

I am really speaking generically. Not all DMs would include every single magic item. Magic-Mart is not a sure thing to exist in all D&D settings.

And not every GM allows the "Fighter" or "Ranger" classes. I kid you not. So that's a pretty useless metric for having a conversation, if you ask me.

Actually, I had two examples. One being an "archery-focused martial class". This could indeed be a rogue, but the most natural choice would be to play a ranger, since that class was made to fit the common "bow-using forest-dwelling character" type of concept. But, to narrow it down, let's say you have two players. Both want to play fighters. One focuses on ranged, the other on melee. Seems like two choices that would both be fairly viable and have their respective uses. However, the ranged specialist will end up very unhappy with their choice. For no good reason.

The second example was to make a swashbuckler on par with a two-handed-weapon using paladin, where the paladin actually has slightly better ability scores (using dice to determine them).

Well, I always knew you had 2 examples. Reading back through, it looks like I got confused as to which I was responding to at that point. My bad. So, it would have to be, "you said 'archer', not 'Fighter'", which I'll admit isn't as strong a claim. But I have seen more awesome rogue archers than I have rogue swashbucklers.

The only thing I have to add is, you don't use dice and random stats if you care about strict balance IME, so that's a rather odd conjunction of events. But my original statements still stand - more optimization of "add x to Y", and especially Iaijutsu Master (who surprisingly well fits your concept of "duelist") can narrow or even jump the gap.

[Mechalich]

Most modules do not have a “Magic Mart” where players can purchase magical weapons and items. Many DMs believe that “Magic Marts” are unrealistic and break verisimilitude. Some DMs strongly believe that loot should be rolled for randomly, and the system encourages that play style by including extensive loot tables.

Lorsa’s expectation isn’t wrong. On the contrary, it seems to me that the characters being able to generally choose their magical gear is the exception rather than the rule.

D&D 3.5 has built in equipment based benchmarks that characters are expected to hit in order to match the power curve of standard monsters (this is, as usual, much more important for martials than casters, but it matters for everyone), however, it is actually quite unlikely that randomly rolled loot will hit these benchmarks, particularly with regard to the main ability score boosting items all classes are assumed to acquire and periodically upgrade (belt of giant's strength, headband of intellect, etc.). As a result, you either play with some form of 'magic mart' in existence or you accept that characters will be underpowered.

Of course, the existence of magic marts has other impacts that drastically shift the game. For example, the ready availability of wands of any spell you desire has a massive impact on gameplay in 3.X, as it not only drastically changes the availability of utility spells but fundamentally offers how HP - which is one of the game's central resource metrics - is handled. The original design assumption of clerics healing with their spells was totally overridden by the continual use of healing wands, but no DM is required to make healing wands available at all.

D&D is a game where equipment is of vast importance (it's not unique in this), and as such the mechanics of how equipment is to be handled have a huge influence on gameplay, but this sort of thing is extremely difficult to codify in design form.

But I suspect your suspicions are wholly inaccurate once they hit the table. Plenty of people here spend lots of time optimizing, tweaking builds, finding new and fun loopholes in the rules, seeing how good they can make a Monk in 3.5, etc. etc.

However, when they're ACTUALLY PLAYING, while they certainly want a powerful character, they'll also be roleplaying better than your average Joe at a gaming store.

While character optimization, build manipulation, and system mastery are not in any way oppositional to good roleplaying, people on RPG forums are unrepresentative. Specifically they spend far more time thinking about gaming than the average player. For the average player there's a limited amount of total time available to be invested in the gaming hobby and time spent mechanically optimizing competes directly against time spent detailing an interesting character in this case as a result of this zero sum scenario.

This is actually the nature of high system mastery games, and there's a significant trade-off involved. D&D 3.X is much more interesting from a theorycrafting, experimentation, and even homebrew standpoint than even other editions of D&D, never mind far more simplistic games. The OGL launched basically an entire industry of third-party homebrew that simply wouldn't have happened in most other systems. In fact, it's arguable that some of 3e's runaway success had to do with it being a game that was extremely interesting to talk about on the internet that was launched at the very moment talking about games on the internet became a thing.

This actually matters in a marketability sense. In tabletop gaming a small fraction of the overall playerbase, mostly dedicated GMs, buys a huge portion of the books/subscriptions/figures/etc. So you have to maximize the size of this group in order to increase profits, a huge hoard of players who never buy anything but the core book is far less useful than a handful of dedicated fanboys who buy literally everything. Onyx Path more or less proved this principle publicly through its kickstarter funded nostalgia printings, in which a few hundred backers who spent hundreds of dollars per product are enough to keep production going.

So 3.X D&D has features that actually make it worse as a game - because it has incentives to include endless options that contribute to paths that break the game and impose a huge system mastery tax on prospective DMs - but better as an overall product by enhancing the not-actually-playing portion of the fandom.

[Quizatzhaderac]

So I just read this whole thread, and I think I have a handle on where the disconnects are.

An extensive game can be thought of a consisting of several sub-games. For D&D they are combat, exploration, socialization, and character creation.

Quertus' play style (I'm guessing)is heavy on the character creation section. They play it as as a sandbox where they're not trying for a specific goal, but an arbitrarily chosen goal. For that game to work, there must be rules and consequences. Homebrew removes the rules, so it's no longer even a game at all. Being unable to chose badly removes the consequences. Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon are both games that are centered on this (or rather, deck building and party creation), however they are games where one is only stuck with the decision for a short time.

Many video game RPGs also fit this pattern, but notably one typically can go away, level up, and face the content they failed at before.

The pro-balance camp isn't strictly opposed to this sub-game but thinks 1) it should have minimal impact in terms of general power 2) basic competency should be easy 3) Choice of class should be a lateral move (unless noted, like the NPC classes) 4) A typical 3e.x player can't expect to rebuild discard their mistakes (an possibly that including that is just a patch no a broken system) 5) A player should be able to try to build the most powerful character they can and not worry about trivializing content or other players.

Everyone plays as Quertus (my signature academia mage for whom this account is named). Perfect balance. Done. So, I guess I'd say that, technically, balance is easiest, because it requires producing the fewest options - 1 - while imbalance requires at least 2 options.

Balance: A situation in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions.

That situation isn't balanced. Both balance and imbalance require two options. Balance requires options and some proportionate relationship between them. That's what the artist earlier in the thread was trying to explain, that the concept of balance/imbalance doesn't even apply unless we assume differences.

OK. But what if, much like going after a specific balance point, you are after a specific imbalance point? ..... Is that less than an hour's work?

Imagining a new balanced system: It will be a lot of work to home-brew to the specific imbalance point.

Imagining a new imbalanced, baroque, system with 50 splat books: It will be a lot of work. One would need to read the many splat books and consider them in context of each other and play experience with the system. For 3.x you've already done most of that work and you enjoy the work, so it doesn't seem like more work than homebrew, but it really is.

I don't begrudge you your enjoyment, but you seem to be playing in a super system-mastery centered way. For me, what your doing would feel like "homebrew, but while technically avoiding creating my own content".

I was trying to demonize those "stupid/malicious" GMs who will let players "fail at character creation".

And, for the record, I've not only seen, I've been that GM. Probably still am, in some ways too subtle for me to notice.

So you would agree that the payers should have limited (but maybe non-zero) consequences to building the character badly?

D&D is a game where equipment is of vast importance (it's not unique in this), and as such the mechanics of how equipment is to be handled have a huge influence on gameplay, but this sort of thing is extremely difficult to codify in design form.

So two options stick out, that seem obvious to me.
1) Make the "expected" equipment common (at that encounter level), or (as GM) just periodically throw the players a piece while pretending to be random.

2) Magic marts exist. They contain the "expected" equipment, a few randomly rolled items, and some situational items that are (or will be) important for the module /setting.

So I feel like I'm missing something because something "seems obvious" but isn't being done.

[Morty]

If a build requires a very specific magic item, it should mean that it's a specialized, uncommon build. If something as banal as an archer requires a specific magic item and, apparently, a way to gain flight, it means that the concept of the archer is crippled on the outset for no good reason. It doesn't matter what a particular GM's approach to magic items happens to be. Trying to shift the discussion to the topic of acquiring magic item is yet another attempt at distraction.

[vasilidor]

on the examples of shadowrun, a combat blasty mage (who has fireball and lightning bolt as spells) is generally going to be out performed by a guy with a grenade launcher and a decent submachine gun (all this is available at character creation). now if the mage has invisibility, a good stealth skill, and a decent gun, that mage will be scarier than mr. fireball. A street samurai (it is the most common combat focused character type) will likely outperform both in terms of raw damage output if he has a decent weapon group (combat ax, smg, grenades). now if the mage who does blasty combat has instead manabolt and manaball, that is an altogether different monster than the fireball and lightning bolt mage, because he is targeting different defenses and the street samurai is going to be sol if the mage is also invisible (most likely). but that same mage is then screwed if he does not have some sort of defense or weapon against sonar equipped drones (at character creation you can get them equipped with rocket launcher), that the street sam is able to take out in his sleep. every strategy has an effective counter strategy in the game, which is why shadowrun is best as a group activity with different characters taking different roles.

big eyes small mouth is bonkers. fun, but bonkers.

[Quertus]

So I just read this whole thread, and I think I have a handle on where the disconnects are.

An extensive game can be thought of a consisting of several sub-games. For D&D they are combat, exploration, socialization, and character creation.

Quertus' play style (I'm guessing)is heavy on the character creation section. They play it as as a sandbox where they're not trying for a specific goal, but an arbitrarily chosen goal. For that game to work, there must be rules and consequences. Homebrew removes the rules, so it's no longer even a game at all. Being unable to chose badly removes the consequences. Magic: the Gathering and Pokemon are both games that are centered on this (or rather, deck building and party creation), however they are games where one is only stuck with the decision for a short time.

Many video game RPGs also fit this pattern, but notably one typically can go away, level up, and face the content they failed at before.

The pro-balance camp isn't strictly opposed to this sub-game but thinks 1) it should have minimal impact in terms of general power 2) basic competency should be easy 3) Choice of class should be a lateral move (unless noted, like the NPC classes) 4) A typical 3e.x player can't expect to rebuild discard their mistakes (an possibly that including that is just a patch no a broken system) 5) A player should be able to try to build the most powerful character they can and not worry about trivializing content or other players.

That situation isn't balanced. Both balance and imbalance require two options. Balance requires options and some proportionate relationship between them. That's what the artist earlier in the thread was trying to explain, that the concept of balance/imbalance doesn't even apply unless we assume differences.

Imagining a new balanced system: It will be a lot of work to home-brew to the specific imbalance point.

Imagining a new imbalanced, baroque, system with 50 splat books: It will be a lot of work. One would need to read the many splat books and consider them in context of each other and play experience with the system. For 3.x you've already done most of that work and you enjoy the work, so it doesn't seem like more work than homebrew, but it really is.

I don't begrudge you your enjoyment, but you seem to be playing in a super system-mastery centered way. For me, what your doing would feel like "homebrew, but while technically avoiding creating my own content".
So you would agree that the payers should have limited (but maybe non-zero) consequences to building the character badly?

I don't recognize your name - have we talked before? Because you're a bloody genius!

Now, I'm still going to disagree on a few points, because that's just the way that I am, but, overall, that's an excellent post. But, first, to answer your question… with a story.

"long ago", there was a thread that asked the question about just how much better/stronger/more performance/whatever system mastery should allow you to make a character. I was alone (as far as I remember) in stating that my/the answer was a negative number. I believe that characters should work just fine out of the box, and that advanced system mastery should allow you lateral or detrimental changes.

Not a popular opinion, I know.

Now, I'm fine with default options being unbalanced - so long as they're clearly labeled as such.

In short, I believe that you should be capable of building unbalanced parties, but that doing so should be an intentional act.

-----

For character creation… I have several modes / "moods". I would say that you very accurately described my primary mood, yes. Although "heavy on character creation"… is true in the "personality" sense more than the "mechanical" sense (reading time-consuming rule books is a sunk cost; the time spent explicitly on this character's mechanics is comparatively small. So it depends on your PoV).

Occasionally, I'm just in the mood to brew. But, yeah, for my most common mood, homebrew is very much equivalent to writing my own MtG cards.

Do note that I advocate the use of brew (and rebuilding, and any other tool in the group's toolkit) for those who care about balance.

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For how your description of the pro-balance camp compares to my "balance or imbalance" stance, I say 1) no 2) yes 3) close enough 4) huh? (or, maybe, if I read it right, "that sounds like a bad GM - why not?") 5) interesting.

So, 1&5 seem worth discussing.

For 1, if it had minimal impact, you cannot create sufficiently unbalanced parties for some forms of fun. I see no reason for it to be so limited, so long as traps are well labeled and/or hidden away in dumpster diving spats.

For 5… it's complicated. But, at the risk of oversimplify, to me that sounds like the optimization counterpart to "my guy". I want to be able to roleplay my character and say "that's what my character would do", without worrying that it'll mess up the game. And that's… complicated. A worthy goal, but… complicated.

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For the "everyone is Quertus"… eh, whatever. Hardly seems worth more words to discuss, especially after your post covered most everything.

[Satinavian]

For 1, if it had minimal impact, you cannot create sufficiently unbalanced parties for some forms of fun. I see no reason for it to be so limited, so long as traps are well labeled and/or hidden away in dumpster diving spats.

I don't see how just using different build point totals or whatever equivalent can't give you the imbalance you specifically seek whenever you play with balanced options.

[Mechalich]

I don't see how just using different build point totals or whatever equivalent can't give you the imbalance you specifically seek whenever you play with balanced options.

Of course it can. Obviously a game is going to have power variance. The point of balance is to make it possible to measure that variance along a single axis. In most games this gets called Experience Points, Character Points, or something similar. It might or might not be codified into steps as 'levels' or it might be fluid, but that doesn't really matter. The game might also enforce some sort of 'point distribution' method in order to minimize variance as total points rise. The FATE pyramid for skill advancement for instance.

Now, in most cases the game will be complex enough that the XP/CP measure is going to be some sort of approximation or conglomeration of other measures, which is fine, as long as it retains accuracy. Accuracy in this sense is highly valuable beyond reasons of balance - because the ability to effectively approximate power levels between PCs/NPCs/Monsters off a single statistical point is incredibly useful in order to streamline play. If your game is insufficiently balanced to provide such information, that's more work it imposes on everyone.

[Quertus]

I don't see how just using different build point totals or whatever equivalent can't give you the imbalance you specifically seek whenever you play with balanced options.

Of course it can. Obviously a game is going to have power variance. The point of balance is to make it possible to measure that variance along a single axis. In most games this gets called Experience Points, Character Points, or something similar. It might or might not be codified into steps as 'levels' or it might be fluid, but that doesn't really matter. The game might also enforce some sort of 'point distribution' method in order to minimize variance as total points rise. The FATE pyramid for skill advancement for instance.

Now, in most cases the game will be complex enough that the XP/CP measure is going to be some sort of approximation or conglomeration of other measures, which is fine, as long as it retains accuracy. Accuracy in this sense is highly valuable beyond reasons of balance - because the ability to effectively approximate power levels between PCs/NPCs/Monsters off a single statistical point is incredibly useful in order to streamline play. If your game is insufficiently balanced to provide such information, that's more work it imposes on everyone.

So every first level town guard should be Conan, every Drow soldier should be Drizzt? It's an esthetic thing, just like "low magic" or "is Thor" or "isn't a caster", that cannot be solved with just a single axis. Some people are just better than others, even when they're "the same level". Some artists naturally blend form and color; some cooks naturally balance flavor, texture, and nutrition; some GMs naturally blend rules, agency, and storytelling. Some can vary what they produce to match their intended audience; others, not so much. These aren't accurately represented by a linear "XP/level" metric.

[Talakeal]

So every first level town guard should be Conan, every Drow soldier should be Drizzt? It's an esthetic thing, just like "low magic" or "is Thor" or "isn't a caster", that cannot be solved with just a single axis. Some people are just better than others, even when they're "the same level". Some artists naturally blend form and color; some cooks naturally balance flavor, texture, and nutrition; some GMs naturally blend rules, agency, and storytelling. Some can vary what they produce to match their intended audience; others, not so much. These aren't accurately represented by a linear "XP/level" metric.

NPCs and PCs typically don't follow the same rules, and you would get a very different experience playing Conan or Drizzt the Drow when they were still learning their trade than you do at the point in time where the novels are set and they are fully grown, well trained, and seasoned professionals.

[MrSandman]

So every first level town guard should be Conan, every Drow soldier should be Drizzt? It's an esthetic thing, just like "low magic" or "is Thor" or "isn't a caster", that cannot be solved with just a single axis. Some people are just better than others, even when they're "the same level". Some artists naturally blend form and color; some cooks naturally balance flavor, texture, and nutrition; some GMs naturally blend rules, agency, and storytelling. Some can vary what they produce to match their intended audience; others, not so much. These aren't accurately represented by a linear "XP/level" metric.

They aren't accurately represented by imbalance among classes either. What point are you trying to make?

[Cluedrew]

To Quertus: You are veering off into "some animals are more equal than others" territory. If two characters are the same level (or point-total) than that is what they should be. Sure optimization will make some difference, but hopefully they give pay out. For instance there is the one town guard who is really good at fighting, best in town except when adventurers come through town, but the old head has years of experience and can better lead other guards (there could be actual mechanics for this), another is a hunter and is good with a bow and can sneak and navigate better than those. So one might be just better than the others at some basic guarding skills, but that doesn't mean they aren't balanced. So I guess there are two points, don't make all characters the same level and don't expect all characters of the same level to be the same.

So really I think you can get all the imbalance you want out of a system like this. It might not be in the same way as before, but there will be some good with that as well.

[ezekielraiden]

"long ago", there was a thread that asked the question about just how much better/stronger/more performance/whatever system mastery should allow you to make a character. I was alone (as far as I remember) in stating that my/the answer was a negative number. I believe that characters should work just fine out of the box, and that advanced system mastery should allow you lateral or detrimental changes.

Given that this is quite literally how I have defined balance before, I am concerned you and I have been engaging in two completely unrelated conversations that happened to be at the same time and directed toward one another. That is, I would 100% assert that:
1. in a balanced game, almost all characters should just work out of the box,
2. system mastery should both not be allowed to make dramatic changes in effectiveness
3. hyper-optimization should come with legit actual costs so that the maximin (maximizing the minimum return) strategy is competitive with the minmax strategy (usually taken to mean "hyperfocus your core, 'waste' no resources elsewhere")

Now, I'm fine with default options being unbalanced - so long as they're clearly labeled as such. In short, I believe that you should be capable of building unbalanced parties, but that doing so should be an intentional act.

Literally 100% of all published systems, this is the case, both because of homebrew and because of DM adjudication. You will always have this, in every possible state of affairs. Balance, on the other hand, is extremely difficult to achieve, but even moreso at the actual table where you are saddled with the characteristics of the system you have.

Do note that I advocate the use of brew (and rebuilding, and any other tool in the group's toolkit) for those who care about balance.

Something to think about, then: Why is it your preference is the one that should be enshrined in rules, while others must rewrite to achieve it? That seems more than a little self-serving. Particularly given, as I have said, the difficulty of creating balance post-facto.

For 1, if it had minimal impact, you cannot create sufficiently unbalanced parties for some forms of fun. I see no reason for it to be so limited, so long as traps are well labeled and/or hidden away in dumpster diving spats.

Ah, and here we get into some interesting but fraught waters. What's "unbalanced enough"? Since you've been so keen on asking for examples, do you have any examples of games that, in the actual texts themselves, go to the efforts of labelling and/or sidelining these trap options? Also, why is it only trap options, but not overpowered options, need to be hidden away/labelled? It would seem like deviation in either direction should be treated equally as A Problem To Be Addressed.

Perhaps you should not be so blithe about ignoring #4. Game design isn't just theory, it requires practical decisions too. A lot of DMs are simply not experienced, not comfortable, or not aware enough to embrace that much in the way of homebrew. It's a difficult job and, somewhat like politics, it requires a certain amount of ambition and self-assurance for someone to willingly go into it, and we've had people talking about the flaws of that sort of thing for literally 2500 years. (I can't recommend the work overall, but Plato's The Republic really does have some good things to say on this specific subject.) Given that I think we are agreed that meaningful balance--where there are a variety of options, and those options are kept within a reasonable power band--is difficult to achieve, it would seem you are expecting a much greater and harder request of DMs than even the base game requires, and that baseline already results in a severe shortage of DMs compared to players. Given that it requires a very good--not merely adequate--DM to produce balanced homebrew and judge player-offered content, this seems to be another point in favor of "balance is hard, imbalance is easy."

For 5… it's complicated. But, at the risk of oversimplify, to me that sounds like the optimization counterpart to "my guy". I want to be able to roleplay my character and say "that's what my character would do", without worrying that it'll mess up the game. And that's… complicated. A worthy goal, but… complicated.

Any game I would call a balanced game--and I have in fact straight-up called 4e this--would 100% enable you to do this, as long as the thing you want to roleplay isn't "I'm just better than the people I choose to keep in my presence while I adventure." I have quite literally said, to multiple people, that the absolute best thing about 4e's balanced design is that I don't have to worry about being suboptimal by making the choices I like. For the majority of those choices, it won't hold back the group. And for the ones that would...I'll usually know in advance, or pick up on it very quickly, and the official retraining rules let you address that no later than your next level (and possibly sooner, with a friendly DM).

[Satinavian]

So every first level town guard should be Conan, every Drow soldier should be Drizzt? It's an esthetic thing, just like "low magic" or "is Thor" or "isn't a caster", that cannot be solved with just a single axis. Some people are just better than others, even when they're "the same level". Some artists naturally blend form and color; some cooks naturally balance flavor, texture, and nutrition; some GMs naturally blend rules, agency, and storytelling. Some can vary what they produce to match their intended audience; others, not so much. These aren't accurately represented by a linear "XP/level" metric.

"More build ressources" does not translate always and directly to "higher level". Because level carries way too much other baggage and way too much restrictions on what you can do with it.

But even D&D 3.5 provides other things for that. "More build ressources" could also mean "higher stats". And it does as both Drizz't and Conan likely didn't start with the standard array. Actually modifying ability score generation methods is even meant to adjust the power level of character. And if you want them to have a wide array of still level appropriate abilities you can give them Gestalt rules. Or you could just give out extra feats which would also be "more build ressources".

But in a pointbuy system you don't have to such roundabout things and just hand out more points if you want stronger characters. Or less, if you want weaker than standard characters. It is only because D&D is not really that versatile that you can't get your preferred power by just adjusting one axis.

[Quertus]

I already lost a larger post when my phone locked up. So this is just what I could salvage, plus a few things I feel go together.

Cluedrew & ezekielraiden: is this the thread that I need to reread in order to respond to both of you?

Given that this is quite literally how I have defined balance before, I am concerned you and I have been engaging in two completely unrelated conversations that happened to be at the same time and directed toward one another.

That is always a risk.

That is, I would 100% assert that:
1. in a balanced game, almost all characters should just work out of the box,
2. system mastery should both not be allowed to make dramatic changes in effectiveness
3. hyper-optimization should come with legit actual costs so that the maximin (maximizing the minimum return) strategy is competitive with the minmax strategy (usually taken to mean "hyperfocus your core, 'waste' no resources elsewhere")

I disagree on #2 - I believe that system mastery should enable you to create charters that are dramatically worse than what you get "out of the box". Otherwise, sounds reasonable (but see below).

Something to think about, then: Why is it your preference is the one that should be enshrined in rules, while others must rewrite to achieve it? That seems more than a little self-serving. Particularly given, as I have said, the difficulty of creating balance post-facto.

Because people are idiots. I've covered this.

You cannot make a system that is balanced at my tables. I cannot make a system that is balanced at your tables. The way that an individual table will play the game, what they will measure when they talk about "balance" - these are all black boxes, into which the developer has only the keyhole of their own table.

3e D&D is such a great example, because the developers actually had access to some of the best data imaginable: decades of experience with the previous edition(s) of the game. And when, filled with all that arcane knowledge, they play tested the game, they found it well balanced*.

I'm not saying that developers should not make a balanced game - I am saying that they cannot. Because the myth of a "balanced" game requires that my UBI be a reality. Or do you think that you can develop a replacement for the 3e Monk that satisfies all of a) tables that nerf Monk; b) Playgrounders who think that Monk is trash; c) the Playgrounder who, in a recent thread, claimed that Monk is the strongest muggle class; d) the 3e developers, who thought that Monk was just right? While keeping all the coolness and unique flavor of the Monk, of course.

* for their standards of "people with system mastery"

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But, since you asked,

Why are my preferences better?
(or why 3e is perfect)

So, first, let me explain why 3e hits all the check boxes for a perfectly balanced system.

Are characters balanced straight out of the box? Check.

The 3e developers carefully designed and tested the 3e characters in accordance with "the way D&D was played". Under that most reasonable of paradigms, the characters are balanced, straight out of the box.

Did the developers provide templates / sample characters, in case the players lack the system mastery necessary to create balanced characters? Check.

Each class comes with a sample character. For the core classes, at least, those were tested to be balanced. (I'm guessing that the rest probably were, too, but I've never heard that explicitly stated)

If someone has a different concept of balance, can they produce characters that meet their criterion for balance? Check.

There are a sufficient number of sufficiently unbalanced components for players to mix and match to produce characters with most any concept / chassis that hit most any balance point in most any paradigm of balance I've heard of.

If the players want to create unbalanced parties, can they do that? Check.

As above, there are a sufficient number of sufficiently unbalanced components for players to mix and match to produce characters for most any concept / chassis that hit most any imbalance point in most any paradigm of balance I've heard.

Could 3e have been better? Maybe. With sufficient prescience, they could have chosen something that would become a more popular balance paradigm than "the way D&D is played" (ie, the way 2e is played). If books auto-updated, they could try to hit a moving target, like MMORPGs do.

But ignoring such concepts, and recognizing that UBI is a pipe dream, 3e is a perfect example of what a balanced system looks like, in practice. Because, with enough system mastery, one can make it as balanced (or as unbalanced) as they want, for whatever concept of "balance" flies at their table. Or play it straight out of the box as balanced, if they play it the "right" way.

[Cluedrew]

Because people are idiots. I've covered this.

If you accept the premise that everyone in this thread is a person and know a thing about formal logic you can see where this is going. Also I'm glad we didn't chase you off.

For re-reading the thread, that depends on what you want to reply to. If you want to reply to my last thread that amounts to "in a well balanced game the only thing you need to change a character's power-level is power-level" that is a pretty self contained argument. If you are replying to my larger argument I have restated it several times so you can just reread that and start asking questions.

By the way the high level few is (imperfect) balance is making sure everyone at the table is capable of making a meaningful contribution.

But now I would like to ask you several questions about your four measures (signs?) of balance:

• Are characters balanced straight out of the box?
  Actually the question is about the part where you say "the way D&D was played" what time are you referring to? 3e's time or 2e's time?
• Did the developers provide templates / sample characters, in case the players lack the system mastery necessary to create balanced characters?
  Doesn't this contradict the previous point? Or rather the fact that players lack system master implies' that system mastery beyond what could be expected for your first game is required? Which is to say things don't work out of the box? If not what is the distinction?
• If someone has a different concept of balance, can they produce characters that meet their criterion for balance?
  How can the concept of balance change? People formalize it differently and different people allow bigger or smaller variations, but I have never heard of the concept of balance changing. What does that mean?
• If the players want to create unbalanced parties, can they do that?
  I'm not saying this isn't a good feature, but I am saying you are going to have to explain to me how it contributes to a system's balance.