3E Balance thread

[theoutsiders68]

Joe...

If you dont have a fighter at high level

are you telling me the enemy cant reach the wizard ever boy he better win initiative all the time.

No player is that silly they believe that a straight wizard is not in danger if a fighter gets toe to toe with them.

They are more likely to dim or teleport away if they know whats best for them.

So yes the game is balanced if you know what your doing as a group.

If your asking are the classes balanced then no but its a group game and all the core classes are important.

Have you played much 3.5 ?

[malyss]

All the pictures are blocked at my work

[malyss]

So while the fighter isn't always going to lose, the deck is stacked against him vs spellcasters.

I don't think you have proven this completely. In this situation, yes, the deck is against him. How many encounters take place in these situations?

Who has a better chance in this fight:
Fighter v. 3 mooks or wizard v. 3 mooks

And lets assume the mooks don't just stand in a nice triangle/square for the wizard to hit them with colour spray or sleep...

The point is - you can craft any situation to be more beneficial to one character or another. That has nothing to do with balance.

The point of the game system isn't to balance a character class - it is to balance a party. A balanced party has various roles filled. Sometimes a class can dip into another role to vary the flavour, but it doesn't mean that the class is now "unbalanced."

I still don't understand why this is a competition between whose class is better - they are different. That's all. They are supposed to be greater than the sum of their parts as a party.

As GM, I could have you make any character you wanted to - and I could either kill your character by deigning an encounter that wasn't suited to you and that you couldn't possibly overcome on your own, or I could make an interesting story that played to your strengths and challenged you in fun ways that you could overcome with some ingenuity.

Don't blame the player or class if you can't make an interesting and challenging story.

[Mckma]

I wanted to check/clarify, since the impression I had was just Ross commenting that the system was inherently unbalanced, not necessarily that this was a bad thing.  Is this how you felt?  The issue of blaming the system because of players'/GMs' incompetence never really seemed to come up on the unbalanced side.  Of course I read most of this late last night, so I could have easily missed something...

[Tadanori Oyama]

So yes the game is balanced if you know what your doing as a group.

I feel that that statement is inherently flawed. If the players and the GM have to activally work to keep the game balanced, than the game, in its pure form, isn't really balanced. It is being held in an artifical state by the actions of those playing it.

[ethan_dawe]

Hey Ross,

You've been running 4E for awhile now, how do you find the balance? I assume it's more balanced than 3/3.5. I've been playing it between sessions of my game, but not enough to have a definitive opinion. It seems more balanced, but combat also seems to take longer. I love how the classes work together from what I've seen. It feels much more teamworky.

[Boyos]

I think combat only takes longer due to people still trying to figure out what they want to do. Most people that I have played with if you know what you want to do its still just 3 or 4 dice rolls and some quick math. I think its the amount of Options that slows the combat down, when you have a player that either dont check what he wants to do, while everyone else is checking, or is just not paying attention to turn rotation, or watching the other people play. And it is all still new to most people, seeing like you still playing games of 3/.5 ed still inbetween, its a system that I feel will take longer to learn compared to older versions. (well other then fucking thaco I hated that shit, still dont fully understand it!)

[malyss]

I think combat only takes longer due to people still trying to figure out what they want to do. Most people that I have played with if you know what you want to do its still just 3 or 4 dice rolls and some quick math. I think its the amount of Options that slows the combat down, when you have a player that either dont check what he wants to do, while everyone else is checking, or is just not paying attention to turn rotation, or watching the other people play. And it is all still new to most people, seeing like you still playing games of 3/.5 ed still inbetween, its a system that I feel will take longer to learn compared to older versions. (well other then fucking thaco I hated that shit, still dont fully understand it!)

What he said. Basically.

One thing is the amount of on-going stuff that you need to keep track of - it can add up pretty quick... (multiple on-going damage of different types, plus multiple conditions etc.)

I did not find it hard to pick up, and it is easier to do a lot of very cinematic stuff in it. It certainly suits that play style very well.

[Tadanori Oyama]

For all my love of 4th Edition, I hear that combat is too slow way to often for it to be an individual thing. If everyone is having the same problem than it's either an element of the system or a mental block shared by all its players so I think 4th Ed has to cop to that one.

That said, my average combat turn is around thirty seconds because I've already selected my target and my power before my turn comes up. As Controller (my preferred role) I get to hang back and do the stunning, dazing, and in general chip-kill the enemies.

[clockworkjoe]

I've run a lot of 3E games. A LOT. Everything from level 1 to epic level campaigns. I've even run an epic level battle that lasted 2 sessions and had over 10 epic level characters on BOTH sides of the fight - the players decided to attack a mind flayer city. Ask Patrick about it. The mind flayers had a balrog on their side but it had to hit and run with teleport attacks because it couldn't last more than one or two rounds against his paladin before it was almost out of hit points.

If you thought 4E combat is slow, you haven't tried epic level 3E combat. Every character worth its salt can cast a dozen or so buff spells that last 24 hours so you have to try to peel them off with dispel magics and shit like that. I mean you have no idea what high level combat is like in 3E if you think 4E combat is more complex and time consuming. No idea.

3E is much worse than 4E about tracking modifiers by the time you get to epic level it's fucking insane

Every buff spell in 3E had different ways to compute (attribute modifier spell? Welp recalculate all the shit that attribute modifies) plus shit like negative levels, plus metamagic spells that increased duration and so on.

HEY HOW ABOUT 3E GRAPPLING

By the time a cleric is level 7, he can cast divine power

Calling upon the divine power of your patron, you imbue yourself with strength and skill in combat. Your base attack bonus becomes equal to your character level (which may give you additional attacks), you gain a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength, and you gain 1 temporary hit point per caster level.

Which makes him equal to a fighter in raw attacking power. Plus, I'm sure there's probably an easy way to extend its duration to 24 hours.

Anyway you are right that there are some situations that a wizard isn't probably going to handle as well as a fighter - such as facing 3 mooks at level 1. And you are right that it is about team balance - but what is the fighter bringing to the table that another spellcaster can't?

A druid can use the animal companion and wildshape to tank enemies. A cleric wears heavy armor and can heal himself to do the same thing. All of the spellcasters can summon monsters to tank.

So if I were to make the best possible 4 person adventuring team out of core 3E classes I would go

Wizard
Cleric
Druid
Bard - max out diplomacy - make enemies friends and all that.

Trapfinding is the only weakness but that's easily fixable with a few spells until someone can take a rogue cohort.

[Tadanori Oyama]

I'll defer to Ross on this one since my highest level 3.0 game was only to level 14 or 15 and with players who purposefully took as few frills as they could with their characters. Even the Wizard was very toned down. At 15th level they still thought of themselves as street level dudes.

[Setherick]

I'll defer to Ross on this one since my highest level 3.0 game was only to level 14 or 15 and with players who purposefully took as few frills as they could with their characters. Even the Wizard was very toned down. At 15th level they still thought of themselves as street level dudes.

Ever had a character reduce a balrog to 2 hit points in a single round. I have.

[clockworkjoe]

hell you don't have to take my word for it. Look up 3E character optimization or high level/epic level pit fights on wizards' message boards or rpol.net or any number of places.

I mean look at this epic level gestalt arena fight http://rpol.net/display.cgi?gi=38169&ti=13&date=1257249704&msgpage=&show=all

it's worse than fucking exalted

[theoutsiders68]

Hi joe

I respect your thoughts and its a great thread.

However we both have different views

Check out my thoughts!

[Tadanori Oyama]

Hi joe

I respect your thoughts and its a great thread.

However we both have different views

Check out my thoughts!

You know that "joe" is Ross, right? Guy who runs the show? Mr. Payton if your nasty.