"But mah class balance!"

So I've had some recent discussion on the idea of class balance. Now personally I think this becomes a slippery slope where eventually you just end up simulating an MMO because every class has to be equally viable in every situation. I prefer having things classes clearly can't do. A fighter can't just alter reality, a cleric can't pick a lock, and a wizard can't go 10 rounds in the ring bare knuckle brawling with an ogre.

Obviously there will always be some issue somewhere. 3.5e had plenty of issues, probably compounded by many poor feat choices, then not entirely solved with prestige classes (and those were clearly not balanced around each other).

How much balance is too much and how much is not enough? That seems to depend more on the group than the actual game to me.

>eventually you just end up simulating an MMO

You described it yourself: a fighter can't just alter reality, a cleric can't pick a lock, and a wizard can't go 10 rounds in the ring bare knuckle brawling with an ogre.

That's called niche balance. The problem 3.5 had was that Wizards could do literally everything: they could alter reality, they could pick locks (Knock spell, or failing that, just disintegrate the lock), and if they really wanted to brawl an ogre (even though it would be easier to just disintegrate the ogre) they could just load themselves up with buffs beforehand.

If you want to bring real class balance to 3.PF, you need to place real restrictions on casters. There needs to be things they simply cannot do, period, no matter how many spells they know. Either that, or have certain spells come with a price that cannot easily be paid, such as how spells in CoC can make you lose SAN.

>they could just load themselves up with buffs beforehand.
Well yeah the level of buff spells was too much. But then I suspect part of the issue is wizard faking spell lists. Sorcs were far more limited on how many spells they had overall so if they massed up on buff spells they'd have less for anything else.

stoneskin.
bull strength.
enlarge.
done.

Hey man, glad you're back.

How's it going?

Forgot the dick gun and skull codpiece.

you could have two guns come out the eyes for extra hardcore mega violence.
and another come out the mouth.
no homo.

>every class has to be equally viable in every situation

This is not and has never been the point of balance.

Balance does not mean everyone operates identically or that nobody has distinct capabilities. It means that, overall, everyone has a roughly equal ability to interact with and make meaningful choices in the context of the game.

It can include rules and guidelines to ensure everyone is equally viable in a certain context. In a game built around fantasy combat, like D&D, everyone being roughly equally able to fight makes sense.

Likewise, if you designed a game entirely around the idea of hacking, you'd want every possible character within the system to be equally capable at hacking.

But, again, 'equally capable' does not mean 'the same'. Even if you define a specific context that everyone needs to be mechanically competent in, you can still accomplish this in different ways, whether by defining roles or categories of activity or by having multiple distinct and interesting mechanics to play with, with the combination also working very well.

It's always a misunderstanding that balance means everyone can do everything, and aside from ultra rules light systems I can't think of any RPG systems where that is actually the case.

In Pathfinder Society, they handle this by making 12 the max level.

>”Classes were a mistake.”
There, now that that's out of the way...

>How much balance is too much and how much is not enough?
There are two answers, depending on your preferred method of play:

First, there are Rollplayers who are just playing a character class as merely a component in a game.
If this entirely valid method of play is the case, then too much balance is when any unit is virtually exchangeable for another. Differentiation of the classes adds complexity and interest to the game and by homogenizing them to the point where a sniper and gladiator can easily do each other's jobs, then why bother having different classes at all?
Too little balance is when the game is easily figured out and broken by units that are absurdly powerful in one situation and useless in another, thereby making the game about only pursuing and exploiting favorable situations.

continued...>

you mean on the codpiece right?

kiss right arm, spin your gat. kiss your left arm, rev chainsaw. do a squat, missile launchers come out. flip em off with both middle fingers. codpiece flips up, guns come out of eyes, then mouth. Mad Dog em, guns pop out of your eyes and mouth.
"Sup?"

Tiers are noticeable at 1st, and considerable starting at around level 4. That is the point at which casters become quadratic.

honestly, its pretty fucking weird to roleplay as traditional medieval classes. Its hard to put yourself in the mind of someone with the power of a god.

I mean ffs, if clerics could heal wounds just by touching people why would you even have doctors?

Second, there are Role-players that consider their characters to be people that exist and interact within the game world.
If this entirely valid method of play is the case, then too much balance is when a character is restricted from behavior that a person would engage in, simply because of the game abstraction of their “Class.”
If the Cleric can't even try to pick a lock if he's trapped in a cell with a lockpick, if the fighter can’t even try to use an active magic device, or if a wizard can’t try to tumble out of the way of the ogre and throw a skull into the gate release to drop it on the ogre’s head, or if there is any simple action that could be attempted but is restricted because of Class, then balance has gone too far.
A bard that takes the Class Feat “Chandelier Swinging” should always be better at it than a character that doesn’t. But if a person in the game world decides to try to swing from a chandelier, they should not be prevented from the attempt due to rules.
The Cleric, as a person, has the ability to put the lockpick in the lock and try to unlock it, even if their ability and skill stats would mean they have no chance of success.
They might not be able to succeed at picking the lock, but they should be able to succeed at picking up a small tool, placing it in a small hole, and moving it around ineffectively.

Too little balance, from a role-playing perspective, is when there are some Classes that are so clearly superior in situations that the party find themselves in, that there is no longer any plausible reason for the party to stay together. If one or two characters could easily take on all the challenges presented and the other characters, as people, have no reason to be there, then they shouldn’t be and that is a problem for the continued game.

I'd like to take this opportunity to post some cool robots

and that is all.

To be frank, from a roleplaying perspective, I just don't see what the point of the traditional classes are. I mean, obvious, paladins, rangers, fighters and rogues all have obvious historical roles, but since when can people call down fireballs, heal with a touch without praying for a miracle, or just do all the outrageous shit casters get away with at level one?

None of this shit fits within the historical, medieval paradigm. Even the mythology is bastardized and hashed together in some crude amalgam.

I don't care whos right.
I don't care who wins.
I'm fighting for the side with a star spangled robot dinosaur on it.

What I'm saying is, each mythology has its own flavor. And each flavor has a different taste. You might like each flavor on its own, but that doesn't mean you should mix them all together.

You'd think for people who cringe when people put ketchup on eggs, that this wouldn't be that hard a concept to understand.

>its pretty fucking weird to roleplay
>Its hard to put yourself in the mind of someone
Yup.
Fun too.

>with the power of a god.
Well, blessed with power from a god.
Subtle difference.

>I mean ffs, if clerics could heal wounds just by touching people why would you even have doctors?
This is more of a world building question, but they're simply different avenues of healing.
Prehaps clerical healing is not readily available everywhere.
Perhaps knowing how to tend wounds when you can't get magical healing immediately would be common place.
Perhaps some choose not to be healed because they worship an opposing deity without healing as a domain.

But yeah, if healing clerics were everywhere and cheap, there would be almost no doctors, just like it's rare to see an apothecary nowadays.

Rifts will always be the exception.
Like that time you tried sushi and actually liked it.
Or that time when you were a kid and you mixed all the soda flavors together.

I mean, I get why other people don't like it. I just wish people didn't have to give me crap about it. Its my one, trashy dime novel pulp paperback treasure.

>What I'm saying is
While I don't disagree, I do wonder what you're talking about.
Besides the ketchup and eggs thing.

Although I've done that, more out of a celebration of ketchup than an attempt to dine well.
I like ketchup.
Vinegar.
Tomato.
Dash of sugar maybe.
It's good stuff.

But putting it on a remotely decent steak is criminal.

I'm not quite sure what your point is? Are you criticising the very premise of D&D style cultural mishmashes?

I was saying clerics and mages break the game and are retarded. there is no historical precedent for wizards or clerics, they do not belong to any mythology and are nothing more than a bunch of con artists and hucksters.

YES.

Its a terrible idea. Your combining cultures that have nothing in common, using them as generic templates and then applying the most debased, filtered and watered down version of each.

Rifts at least tries to take other cultures and ideas and give them each their own unique stylizing.

Rifts just has a western flavor, is all. If people don't like westerns, action movies and old cartoons they won't like rifts.

>Balance does not mean everyone operates identically or that nobody has distinct capabilities.
Well there are those that cry their fighter should be able to flex his muscles and bend reality and teleport without magical items to assit them. I think they also often complain about "weaboo fightin magic" though too.
But really though ensuring that every player has the ability to interact and make meaningful actions in the game is between players and the DM more than the system IMHO.

>I was saying clerics and mages break the game and are retarded.
Huh.
It didn't sound like that.

>there is no historical precedent for wizards or clerics, they do not belong to any mythology and are nothing more than a bunch of con artists and huckster
Huh.
You didn't sound retarded.
Are you on the spectrum or similarly affected in some way that leaves you troubled by concepts such as "fantasy"?

FFS, that dude in Conan had to have an entire legion of followers in order to turn into a giant snake. You can summon 3 of them at first level if your a druid.

And if I happen to enjoy global fantasy, cultural mishmash and kitchen sinks?

I can understand not liking them, but a personal preferences on your part isn't exactly universalisable.

Are culture-specific settings fun? Sure! I've played in a bunch of interesting ones focusing on a particular style and theme and it's been interesting.

But there's also a simple joy in a setting where western dragons, hydra and eastern dragons all coexist alongside judeochristian paladins, wuxia martial artists and pagan priests. It's a bizarre blend that doesn't quite make sense, but screw it, why not?

>Your combining cultures that have nothing in common, using them as generic templates and then applying the most debased, filtered and watered down version of each
As opposed to...?

Are you of the opinion that reality should be meticulously copied in a fantasy setting?

Entirely depends on the system. In a system with powerful mages, it makes no sense to constrain fighters to the laws of reality. Systems like the Tome of Battle make sense in that case.

And while to some degree you are correct, the system still needs to provide a baseline and it is not an excuse for poor design that a GM can or should work around it.

If one player has every option they need to make interesting decisions on their sheet, while another needs to consistently play 'Mother May I?' with the GM to get anything done, that is worthy of critique.

what I'm saying is there is nothing to support the idea that insanely overpowered PC's make for good drama at the table. Why is magic so immensely powerful?

It completely breaks the immersion, in all your traditional sorceror/ wizard tropes cantrips and charms are nothing compared to the godlike feats casters pull off on a routine basis, and a laying on hands is an honest to god miracle in most stories, it happens, at most, once or twice in a lifetime.

D&D just completely breaks immersion by indulging in these insane power fantasies.

What you mean to say is 'I do not like or enjoy high powered games'

Which is fine. You do you. But anything else is just badwrongfun stupidity.

>And if I happen to enjoy global fantasy, cultural mishmash and kitchen sinks?

Thats my point.
They don't.

It comes out as generic and bland and doesn't really appeal to anyone. Its just that its the only game thats got a brand logo that people recognize.

> doesn't really appeal to anyone

...So, you're stating that your personal preferences and opinions override massive global sales figures and popularity? Beyond simple direct statements to the contrary in this thread.

I mean, I'm not particularly fond of D&D for a lot of reasons, but this is just ludicrous.

What I'm saying is that you have poor taste and should be ashamed of promoting it in others.

Ahh, so you are indulging in badwrongfun stupidity. Well, at least you're being honest about it now.

>massive global sales figures
the only thing you have is brand recognition. You have a brand, it sells, you're going to ride it until the wheels fall off then your going to blame me for telling you the truth about why it sucks and why nobody wants to play it.

You know in Rifts there are classes that range their power from vagabonds and city rats all the way to cosmo knights. So obviously there is a complaint "Well the game isn't balanced." Well it's not D&D, the idea of classes in Rifts is very different, hence why there is such a long list of them. There are classes that fit not only different styles of play and roles but different styles of games. You don't worry about cosmo knights in a campaign designed for a group of city rats. That's like saying D&D is unbalanced because a dragon is stronger than a goblin.

No, see, there is a difference.
There is a difference between recognizing you have cancer and finding others who have cancer and building a support group, and injecting yourself with cancer and spiking the water supply so others will too.

>in all your traditional sorceror/ wizard tropes
>in most stories, it happens, at most, once or twice in a lifetime.
You are fiercely adhering to a scope not shared by everyone.

>D&D just completely breaks immersion by indulging in these insane power fantasies.
This is at least a defensible point.
Magic in D&D is often too exponentially powerful to make sense internally.

But check out the 4400.
There was a character that developed the ability to, essentially lay on hands.
He set up a health ministry and cured dozens of people a day.

Stop pretending that your myopic ideal of "What Magic SHOULD Be" is the only reasonable or acceptable one.

D&D needs to dial it back a bit, not have PCs wait a lifetime for a miracle.

Rifts is a pill for hyperactives and legit retards to focus on while they are trying to get their shit under control.

D&D is an autism accelerator.

>...So, you're stating that your personal preferences and opinions override massive global sales figures and popularity?
I'm pretty sure he's saying his personal preferences and opinions override everything

>Stop pretending that your myopic ideal of "What Magic SHOULD Be" is the only reasonable or acceptable one.

Its not what magic SHOULD be, its what people are willing to accept when they suspend their disbelief.

You might convince an old man that you caught a really big fish, but hes not going to believe you caught a whale.

What I'm saying is that without suspension of disbelief, your story will cease to be immersive, it will come off as boring and cliched, and you'll be stuck with a lame ass setting with people checking their phones and waiting for when its time to leave.

Okay, so what system is good then?

Honestly you sound so intelligent right now that yous should make a kickstarter to do a video on how "if you like system X you're dumb even though I have no data on it, I'll just say it's true so it is" and plan 25 videos and take 5 years to only get the first 6 done and deny any scientific data that opposes your thoughts. (If you don't get it I just insulted you)

I've heard people tell fish stories more engaging than most d&d adventures. That's how fucking boring they are.

>But really though ensuring that every player has the ability to interact and make meaningful actions in the game is between players and the DM more than the system IMHO.
While this is true to an extent, if the system gives one class pure versatility and power and gives another class neither, it kinda puts extra strain on both the players and the DM to work together to have fun in SPITE of the egregious balance issues.

Putting it another way, you can't have a weight lifting competition where a 16 year old varsity weight lifter and Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime are in the same weight class, mainly because what's difficult for one is easy for the other and what's easy for the other is damn near impossible for the one.

>(If you don't get it I just insulted you)
go to be, kid

You can answer this stupid, stupid question for yourself if you have a functional process for evaluating the success of a game. You just need to figure out a grading rubric. Your question reflects not a desire to learn so much as a staggering inability to make decisions and think critically.

>Its not what magic SHOULD be, its what people are willing to accept when they suspend their disbelief.
It's not what people are willing to accept when they suspend their disbelief, it's what YOU are willing to accept when you refuse to suspend any disbelief.

>You might convince an old man that you caught a really big fish, but hes not going to believe you caught a whale.
And you are asserting that nobody can tell any old man that they caught any fish bigger than a minnow, because you don't think it's possible.

Also, PEOPLE HAVE CAUGHT WHALES!

FUCK YOU
IM THE BIG KID NOW
GIVE ME YOUR LUNCH MONEY

JOKES ON YOU
I'M BROKE NIGGA!
CATCH THESE HANDS!

Honestly, somebody just needs to shove your head in a garbage can and give you a wedgie.

Nobody can take me down a peg without removing me from the board.

>Rifts is a pill for hyperactives and legit retards to focus on while they are trying to get their shit under control.
>Rifts
You misspelled "Pathfinder" m'boy.

What i'm saying is, Rifts helps unfocused people focus.

Pathfinder makes people who are already too focused focus harder.

This!

Once you get into it and you understand what you're doing, 3.PF boils down to
>Did you pick a mage?
>>If yes, cast X spell to win.
>>If no, (full) attack until HP is gone or mage wins.

I can play a D&D game while having solitaire que'd up on my laptop and all I have to do is pick a martial and say "I attack the closest enemy within range of my sword/bow."

What I'm saying is, "Yet at the same time,".

Well I've been in a D&D game where I rolled a rogue but then the entire adventure gave me no opportunity to do anything as a rogue and mostly I got kicked in the nuts the whole game. I really only made the character to fill out the group's roles. If I had been t old to go for something else or given the chance to switch I would have... probably didn't help the DM of that game thought being nasty to me would endear himself to my sister (never did).

Really though it's easy to slant an adventure or even just part of one for a particular class, and if your entire adventure is slanted for warrior skills it is annoying for everyone else to just sit there and watch as much as it is when the wizard solves everything... or the DMPC does everything while the party is forced to watch.

Not gonna argue, but D&D can be fun.
I doubt you can be.
Boring games are boring because of boring people.

>probably didn't help the DM of that game thought being nasty to me would endear himself to my sister (never did).
What kinda fucked up thought process is this? Do you and your sister fuck with each other a lot and he mistook that as you two hating each other or something.

>Boring games are boring because of boring people
Bad games are often bad because of bad people too. "That Guy" stories generally blame "That Guy" for their autism or shitty attitudes, not the system they're playing.
Are there systems that are objectively bad or have poor aspects to them? Yeah. But we're not talking about playing FATAL here.

>the entire adventure gave me no opportunity to do anything as a rogue
>I really only made the character to fill out the group's roles.
>If I had been given the chance to switch I would have
>the DM of that game thought being nasty to me would endear himself to my sister
I was not expecting THIS flavor of stupid in this thread.
You've added unexpected spice to this tepid gruel of banal stupid shitposting.
Thanks.

In the past me and my sister fought a lot. She had some issues when I joined the D&D group because they were "her friends."
There was a game years later run by the guy she married where one of the other players picked up on a bit of our fighting and started being nasty to me in game. My sister actually spoke up about it before I did in that case and it ended it real quick.

>I doubt you can be.
No, I can be quite fun when I actually give a shit about the game and my character has more than two options worth a shit talking.

>tepid gruel of banal stupid shitposting.
noice

Sounds like she felt sorry for you because you were retarded.

I feel sorry for you because you can't find your way back to Livejournal.

Sure, classes have niches and there always wil be specialists, but a situation with fightmans who can only swing their weapon really hard (plus maybe one or two noncombat tricks) and fullcaster shenanigans needs a fix.

Sure, we risk the problem of 4e, but that is not a necessary conclusion. A warblade, a beguiler, a dread necromancer and a psychic warrior make for a viable, balanced party while each of them has sufficiently unique mechanics and playstyle.

Balance doesn't need to be made at the cost of flavor, that is the lazy way out.

Classes are unnecessary. Build your character in whatever way you want.

Or get rid of vancian magic because it's fucking terrible
You might as well just not play 3.pf, it's possible to find worse systems but you really have to try.

At some point we have to just accept that D&D was never about historical accuracy in the slightest and learn to enjoy it anyway.

It was a high fantasy adventure game that essentially came out of wargamming. Anyone that thinks it was supposed to follow some aspect of history needs their head examined.

So people who can't make shitty systems be fun are destined to never have any fun, and people who are fun can make any system work? Is this the fucking Calvinism of game design?

>So people who can't make shitty systems be fun are destined to never have any fun, and people who are fun can make any system work?
So very close.
"People who can't make flawed systems be fun are destined to never have any fun, and people who are fun can make any system work."

I don't think options need to be balanced on the high end, people will find the best and they'll abuse it, so it's not worth making the time and sacrifices to get a wide spread of options for the really optimized.

But I do want balance on the low to mid end. I don't mind playing something weaker, roleplaying is my first priority in a roleplaying game and I'll take sub-optimal choices if it gets me the flavour I want. The problem comes when there're trap options or broad styles too weak to compete with others, because at that point it starts to impair roleplaying. It's frustrating when you can't play your character concept because the game requires too many resources into making something effective for you to afford flavour, or when your desired options aren't strong enough for you to play your character competently that they won't be useless.

>you just end up simulating an MMO because every class has to be equally viable in every situation
You have never played an MMO have you? That barely describes GW2, and that's it.
Also
>obvious bait comparing level 20 wizards to level 1 fighters

Having people capable of different things is fine. It's when you clear overlap or allow someone to render others useless that it gets bad.

I mean, imagine an RPG where all the classes are Olympic athletes. Somebody might be good at running fast, somebody might be good at lifting weights, somebody might be good at rhythmic gymnastics. This is fine, as long as all of these skills can contribute to what the game is about in some form.

If however, you add on top of this a Wizard class whose ability is to shapeshift into any Olypmic athlete for a combined total of 1 hour per day, it'll be hard to keep people relevant. I mean, how often is any given skill needed for a long enough period that the Wizard spending 5 minutes as that class wouldn't be better?

That's the sort of thing you need to be careful of with balance. It becomes unfun when a player starts to question why they even picked their character and had them along on this adventure when another character of the clearly better class would have been so much better.

The issue is 3e. Not even DnD, just 3e. And it's very easy to figure out why.

Dungeons and Dragons originally stuck to Greyhawk, which was a very low magic setting. So the Physical prowess of Fighters was extremely dependable while wizards were often a liability. Having someone in the party who couldn't defend themselves was DANGEROUS, but wizards made up for that with a bunch of utility. But it was still... not a great class. But it was the thing that drew in new people to the game with curiosity.

They started working on 3e as just another normal version of DnD. Fighters were fucking GOOD at fighting, but not much else. Then they got to developing Wizards and went "Hey, these are kind of our money maker. Why don't we go with a HIGH MAGIC setting instead of the normal one, and make Wizards baller as hell?" And they did, without ever changing the Fighter for the new context. So you specifically had low-magic setting Fighters alongside high-magic setting Wizards, and it kinda fucked up the balance.

In a setting where EVERYTHING is magical and magic powers are considered mundane, there is no reason for martial characters to not have some access to magic. Are you seriously gonna tell me your character has been practicing with the sword for decades, and in that time never dedicated ANY time to learning the spell True Strike? In a world were a good tenth of the population can probably cast that spell? Bullshit.

Fighters should have had access to some basic levels of magic in a way that fit their play style. Maybe not 4e levels of bullshit, but they should have at least had something, instead of being literally autistic sword weilders who refuse to use magic in a setting where it's extremely common without any actual reason for brushing it off.

Please tell me this thread is just trolls trolling trolls.

You can't all be this retarded.

I made a serious response to the OP question, but most every other post seems exactly that.

>eventually you just end up simulating an MMO because every class has to be equally viable in every situation
What is that even supposed to mean? An MMO with classes where every class is equally viable in every situation is a pretty damn shitty MMO.

Ssssh, he's trying to rag on 4e for being "too balanced", don't ruin it with logic.

>You described it yourself: a fighter can't just alter reality, a cleric can't pick a lock, and a wizard can't go 10 rounds in the ring bare knuckle brawling with an ogre.
and this is why point buy is superior to non-point buy.
Every.
Single.
Time.

>they could alter reality, they could pick locks
Which is the same.

Well, Frank, it really depends on how much magic exists in the setting. If you as the GM think the setting would be better with less magic, then there's less magic in your setting. Of course, talk to your players before making that call; they are just as important to the game's enjoyment as you are.

Also keep in mind that lv.1 wizards should be considered as apprentices or rookies; they're curious, (relatively) young, and just getting the hang of this magic thing. Pic related.

This.

>i want to play a covet holy warrior who acts like holy assassin
>you can just get holy powers and invest in stealth!
>thanks you point buy!
Vs
>nuh paladin and cleric is heavy armor no rogue stelth

Tbh class cucks arent human.

You know you can do a DEX Pala/Cleric in all modern D&Ds (technically 4e has a dedicated Avenger class for them)?

And be inferior in everyway to either rogue or non stelth paladin/priest while point buy gets you to play your character tailor made as how you like, see and want?


Again you seem to be a class cuck who doesnt grasp this go multiclass paste with your mouth.

>Boring games are boring because of boring people.
Huh, so my group just suddenly became boring at the point we switched systems, and then became interesting when we switched again. Weird. It's almost like it's easier to have a fun game in a fun system, assuming you're not one of the two extreme ends of the spectrum of "interesting," but that clearly can't be the case.

You seem to be ducking user's point, which is that each of the end goals (reality is altered, the door is opened, and the ogre is defeated) can easily be accomplished by the caster, whereas the fighter and rogue can each only accomplish one of the three.

>classes

You could but 1) you'd be shittier at DEX based skills than the Rogue or Bard due to the way that class proficiencies work and 2) you'll be shittier than every other Cleric/Paladin of equal level who invested in the right stats.

As opposed to point buy where I can be a holy assassin who garrotes heathens in the name of our lord at the cost of X points, which everyone else in the party would have, which scales with how many levels I bought in those abilities.

>and a wizard can't go 10 rounds in the ring bare knuckle brawling with an ogre.
Clearly you aren't talking about D&D, because wizards can obliterate ogres in a barefisted brawling

>How much balance is too much and how much is not enough?
True balance is hard to achieve, at least reach a point in where everybody is useful, instead of a couple of classes outclassing in every field ever literally everybody else.

Kek, no, even faster
Polymorph, now wheres that ogre?