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I'm sick so I haven't been posting to my blog lately but I managed to get out my fever-induced ramblings about 3pp products and balance.
Tell me what you think. Am I right? Is there something I should have added? Is this kind of article something you'd like to see more of?
That's a nice article. I think more could be said about balance, but more can always be said about balance.
One issue that has come up concerning balance is that some people actually don't see to know where balance is now. It's my opinion that the rogue gets a bad rap, and was never as bad as some people said it was. But it's very difficult for me to see how anyone could argue seriously against it being the absolute weakest class. It has basically one thing going for it, extraordinary skill use, and spellcasters can expend resources to cover most of the functions anyway. Sneak attack is limited. If sneak attack were actually the balancing factor of the rogue, it would do 1d6 per level, like a spell. So it really needs to be understood that sneak attack is not the special thing the rogue brings to the table; it's a situational bonus that exists to make the rogue less bad at combat. That's the reality of balance, before you even look at things like whether martials *should* be better at certain things.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Malwing, interesting read. I don't really agree with the supposition you start with though that wizards are the most powerful class, and martial classes aren't. For one thing, I don't buy into the supposition that the classes are a competition, and instead look at things from more of a party point of view. Sure a wizard can do some awesome things, but a party of all wizards is in for a lot of challenges compared to one with the classic wizard, rogue, cleric, and fighter. I much prefer thinking of balance comparing like things to each other. I compare a combat feat to other combat feats, a 4th level arcane spell to other 4th level arcane spells, and a 9-level spellcasting class to other 9-level spellcasting classes. For me the biggest issue with balance, whether from 3pp materials or from new Paizo products is comparing to what's out there.
For example, if a magic item is created that grants bonuses to archery, but is clearly better then bracers of archery, at half the cost, then that's not balanced. (I'm looking at your Bracer's of Falcon's Aim)
@RJGrady - Not sure I agree that sneak attack should be 1d6/level like a spell. Rogues get it on multiple attacks a round often (yes it's situational, but off the top of my head I'd say that they get it roughly between 60-80% of their attacks). Spells get used up and aren't usable at will. Yes, you can argue that spells start to affect multiple targets at the time where rogues get to make multiple attacks per round, but a rouge can sneak attack every round no matter what, while spellcasters run out of spells. I think it's a trap to try to equate the two, since that leads towards making all classes feel the same.
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I have to admit, my first question is never, "Is this balanced."
It is always, "Can a player play this, have fun, and feel useful to the party."
And part of that question almost always relies less on the game and more on the GM.
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Well, it is the word of the day whenever 3rd party is brought on other parts of this forum.
Someone asks for advice on a building a niche character (if the OP doesn't state from the get go "my DM doesn't allow 3rd party"), someone suggests a 3rd party class that fits the description, a couple of posts later, here they come: "3rd party is unbalanced/overpowered/sucks", usually mentioning one feat or spell.
But it seems the fear of actually being caught doing something unbalanced drove most compatible publishers to strictly play it safe. Like you mention in the blog post, everybody balances around bard (or paladin, ranger, etc), staying as far away as possible from wizard but also overshadowing the ill-famed rogue with no mercy (well, even Paizo retconned him on Unchained).
Nice work, Malwing.
I think it's worth mentioning that a sizable percentage of PF 3PP material has balancing mechanics that are attuned to proprietary campaign setting mechanics. So porting-over a feat/spell/class/etc from a given 3PP campaign setting over to, say, Golarion will often require tweaking to make it work. Same might apply to vice-versa.
So it's not like a given set of 3PP mechanics are bad, wonky or over/underpowered ... they often work just fine for their home setting but not-so-much in another.
I like you blog. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your writing.
Design Manager
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Malwing, interesting read. I don't really agree with the supposition you start with though that wizards are the most powerful class, and martial classes aren't. For one thing, I don't buy into the supposition that the classes are a competition, and instead look at things from more of a party point of view. Sure a wizard can do some awesome things, but a party of all wizards is in for a lot of challenges compared to one with the classic wizard, rogue, cleric, and fighter.
I don't think that's at all true in Pathfinder. I've actually been in a party that consisted of Wizard (Diviner), Sorcerer (Draconic), Wizard (Teleportation subschool), and Wizard (Wood). We played from 1st level through 12th level, the majority of the Mummy's Mask campaign, and we pretty much steamrolled it. It definitely went much better for our group of all casters than it went when I ran the first book a few months back for a group that had a Rogue, Investigator, Paladin, Sorcerer (Dreamspun), and Cleric. I honestly think the "classic 4" are probably about the weakest grouping in modern Pathfinder, at least as much as a group that includes two of the strongest classes can be. You can replace a Rogue with a Ranger or Alchemist and have the same level of skill utility with drastically improved combat options, and more ways to be a team player with buffing and utility options. You can replace a Fighter with a Barbarian or Paladin, and again, you end up with a stronger and more flexible group. Note that this assumes a certain level of system mastery; you can't really an AP with 4 wizards the same quality as the Paizo iconic, which sits very near the wizard's theoretical power floor (not including choices made to deliberately undermine a character build).
What becomes interesting in the realm of 3pp design is that if a 3pp designer put out a class that had the same power ceiling as a wizard, they'd be laughed off the market, run out for not knowing anything about class design, so as Malwing noted, many 3pp companies will put out Wizard equivalents who are actually balanced against Bards (still probably the best balanced and one of the more powerful classes in Core, but designed with a broad base of utility in many areas , with generally lower ceilings on everything but skills and buffing). This actually creates an interesting dynamic in how 3pp products are received- many people's first question about a new class is "Can it replace X?" where X is one of the 4 traditional classes or roles. That's actually a little awkward, because for many classes, they've evolved far beyond their traditional role, and really, Pathfinder is playable with almost any combination of 4 classes, with some very obvious exceptions. You couldn't, for example, play through a Paizo AP with 4 Fighters and expect to make it to book 3 without a very large degree of luck, but you could do so with 4 Wizards, 4 Clerics, 4 Paladins, 4 Alchemists, or 4 of many other classes.
So if, like I did, you design a 3pp class called the Vizier, and the class is a robe-wearing intellectual with an array of spell-like abilities at their command, the natural question is going to be "Can a Vizier replace a Wizard?" and the answer very much depends on what you expect from a Wizard in your group. In most instances, I'd say "Yes, a Vizier can take the place of a Wizard in your group", but if you either
A) Play at a very high level of system mastery with an adversarial GM
Or
B) Have a group that is traditionally carried by the Wizard and is heavily on reliant on him for all solutions
then I'd be forced to admit that no, the Vizier cannot actually replace the Wizard for you.
As I alluded to earlier, this can in part be blamed on the fact that a 3pp company would potentially have a difficult time justifying a class with as much potential as the Wizard. It's also because many designers don't see the Wizard's potential ceiling as something that adds to the game. Even Pathfinder's designers have noted that the math behind the game gets more and more askew with every level past 10th, to the point that they design most APs to end right around 16th level. A big part of this issue is the sheer number of options available to high level spellcasters, which can make them so potent and unpredictable that even a seasoned GM can find themselves stymied when trying to craft a suitable challenge. If you ratchet down the power a notch and look at a class like the Bard or Inquisitor, you find classes with the toolsets to react in unexpected ways, as an adventurer should, but lacking most of the raw narrative-breaking power of the full casters. These classes are often considered the most fun to play by a pretty big group, and their relative lack of game-breaking options combined with good functionality in whatever field they choose to specialize in plus competence in a few other areas means that you can often effectively play or GM for one from 1-20 pretty satisfactorily. That's why you find so many classes, regardless of their character theme, balanced towards that Bard/Inquisitor baseline. You've got a whole lot of room to play with abilities and options, you're swinging below the narrative-disrupting power of most full casters, and you avoid the often 2-dimensional gameplay inherent to classes like the Fighter.
Since I'm spending most of my day sleeping I was hoping that my wording would keep this from being a martial/caster discussion. I was trying to convey that its that classes and options have a nebulous balancing point. I tried to use the term 'capable' (and failed at being consistent with it. Sorry I'm literally typing this week on lots of meds.), meaning that There's things that more capable classes can just do. A party of 4 wizards has some glaring vulnerabilities, mostly against ambushes from grappling monks, I've seen it first hand, but they generally have a chance in most situations. Meanwhile a party of 4 fighters got absolutely nothing in a LOT of situations. For example, if the bestiary can be believed you're expected to fight monsters that you pretty much need magic to defeat and sometimes even to approach them. There's some high level monsters I can't even think about defeating without some seriously well honed spellcasting like the dragon that can go back in time and make sure you're never born. That said, GM fiat solves quite a bit. You're not there to make the players lose so if they're stuck and struggling a GM is likely to adjust whether they are a group of fighters that can't handle the monster that can pull soul sucking incorporeal creatures from another dimension to help it fight or a group of wizards that get jumped by a bunch of monks. but in terms of raw capability most third party classes tend to fall along the lines of Bards or Inquisitors. Unless it's a straight wizard clone that actually casts spells I've never seen anything come close and martials are often pound for pound better than the Fighter making things look unbalanced despite all of them kind of working around the same middle ground.
I actually love this article. I'm a GM who runs a lot of 3pp material, and my players have loved it so far. Ranging from the Medusa (who is the grappling champ of the world right now) by Rite Publishing to psionics to a bunch of Rogue Genius Games stuff. None of them have been that imbalanced, none of them outshone the other players (minus one who only wanted to be a fighter and was slightly air-headed about the game).
Compared to the shenanigans a wizard can pull, almost every 3pp thing is way more restricted and balanced
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Design Manager
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Since I'm spending most of my day sleeping I was hoping that my wording would keep this from being a martial/caster discussion. I was trying to convey that its that classes and options have a nebulous balancing point. I tried to use the term 'capable' (and failed at being consistent with it. Sorry I'm literally typing this week on lots of meds.), meaning that There's things that more capable classes can just do.
Sorry if I was contributing to a derail into an already well-trod subject, I was just trying to touch on a design perspective that contributes to what you traditionally see in 3pp classes. It's unlikely that you'll see many 3pp classes whose chassis is as limited as a Fighter's, for example, because the Fighter already exists. He's the best at hitting (non-magical) things and gets a ton of bonus combat feats, so that's covered. It's also less likely that you'll see many classes with wizard levels of potential running around, because they'd either have to have a way to glom on to existing materials or be part of an absolutely huge book of options (plus, there's some stuff out there for the traditional 9 level casters that's just crazy OP).
Most 3pp classes I've seen are a lot like my Vizier- they've got the tools to potentially be good at a lot of things, but being excellent requires them to focus their resources and slowly limits their options. The sniper Vizier build, for example, can be a wicked good damage dealer, but he's going to have to trim his other options, probably sacrificing control, defense, and/or utility to varying degrees to accomodate his damage potential. This is essentially how an Inquisitor works in core; they start out as a class that can be a melee beast, an awesome archer, a skilled problem solver, an effective tank, a back-up healer, even the party face, but as the character is built and develops those potential roles get trimmed down, so you end up with all that class potential being executed as a character who is maybe excellent at one of those things and functional in one or two more, or maybe excellent in nothing but good in 3 areas.
Now, to continue this discussion I'm going to briefly step into some topics that may smack of martial/caster disparity bait, but I'm going to try to dwell there as little as possible and quickly get to the point I want to make.
When it comes to the core classes, Fighters and Wizards tend to be the outlying extremes. Fighters have so few options outside of "ways to hit things with weapons" that they'll often find themselves stymied by problems that can't be addressed by hitting them, and wizards have so many options that a smartly built and played one may have a solution for every problem he encounters (this isn't a Schroedinger's wizard thing, btw, this is the majority of wizards I used to see at my table before replacing Vancian casting). In my personal opinion, both of these are bad.
In the Fighter's case, yes, he can hit things, but so can most other classes, often as well, better, or not quite as well but literally so close that it makes no functional difference in the outcome of the battle, and most other classes have some additional benefit on offer for the party. This is a big part of why so many "Fighter replacement" options in 3pp feel like they're unbalanced to the Fighter- the Fighter itself is negatively unbalanced to much of the rest of the game. If you look at classes like the Barbarian, Paladin, and Ranger though, you'll find they often are much more comparable to the 3pp offerings.
In the Wizard's case, he has so many options, and often a single one of those options is sufficient to resolve a given problem or encounter. A single polymorph spell can often be sufficient to allow him to run amok as a damage dealing beast on the battlefield, a single casting of invisibility can give him an unbeatable stealth check, etc. In many instances, the wizard can specialize to be extra good at a particular function without actually losing any functionality elsewhere, since most of his specialization options don't devour resources or penalize other paths. Because the wizard is so versatile, and has so many non-exclusive options to excel in different areas, it's very rare to find a 3pp option that offers the same degree of utility and functional power.
So, as Malwing noted, most 3pp classes fall towards the middle, more versatile and capable than a Fighter, but not reaching the heights of utility and options available to something like the wizard. I think if you used the Alchemist, Bard, Inquisitor, Magus, Paladin, and Ranger to form your "baseline", you'd find that most 3pp classes fall easily within it, with those creeping above that line generally being intended as wizard replacements (Dreamscarred's Psion, for example, is a bit more versatile than the aforementioned classes, though not quite at the Wizard level), and those falling below it being either very niche (such as Alluria Press' Marauder class) or intended for a lower fantasy game.
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I also notice that a lot of classes that use the Fighter or Rogue as a measuring stick kind of fail at it in an interesting way. For example; The Soulknife and Fighter have a similar frame. The differences mostly even out except every 'equal' thing is way better. The Soulknife gets a bonus feat and then blade skills at the rate of the fighter getting bonus feats. The blade skills are pretty much way better than feats and offering defenses like absorbing spells. It's incremental number changes theoretically compare to armor/weapon training but basically amounts to a 162,000gp discount on items and completely negates it's 'disadvantage' of not being proficient in all martial weapons. and somehow losing heavy armor, tower shields and bravery means getting Super Vital Strike and access to weird psionic feats. I can see the points where the Soulknife is obviously trying to equal itself with the fighter technically but its just all kinds of better.
So very true Marc, so very true.
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I work largely as an "editor" and/or "developer" for Fat Goblin Games these days, and one of the most annoying aspects of my job is looking at really cool and new materials by freelancers, then having to be the a-hole whom asks "is this going to be overpowered somehow?" or "in this circumstance this is perfect, but what about if some munchkin tried to do this?"
And the reason, in a sense, is that the concern of an entire publisher, not just a product by a single writer, etc. exists and it can come from one tiny thing. People often give sweeping "I'll allow any 3PP from XXX, YYY, or ZZZ." and it's typically because that person feels that those publishers only release "balanced" or at least "good" products. There's an inherent fear that people will see one magic item in a Call to Arms line, in one book, slipped in by one particular freelancer that this may be their one and only book written for Fat Goblin Games, and yet that person's work is being taken out of context and then leads to a mass generalization about at least the whole line, possibly the whole publisher, etc.
Some of you may not see why "one person" could matter so much, but in my experience so far, when "over 100 copies sold" is a "hit" etc. that isn't just 1 person in a faceless mass that will have little effect, it's 1% or more of the buying public. And the ones that don't like your stuff are more likely to be the ones talking about it than the ones that like it.
So thanks Malwing for taking this issue up. It's nice to read someone on the other side "getting it" a bit.
I also notice that a lot of classes that use the Fighter or Rogue as a measuring stick kind of fail at it in an interesting way. For example; The Soulknife and Fighter have a similar frame. The differences mostly even out except every 'equal' thing is way better. The Soulknife gets a bonus feat and then blade skills at the rate of the fighter getting bonus feats. The blade skills are pretty much way better than feats and offering defenses like absorbing spells. It's incremental number changes theoretically compare to armor/weapon training but basically amounts to a 162,000gp discount on items and completely negates it's 'disadvantage' of not being proficient in all martial weapons. and somehow losing heavy armor, tower shields and bravery means getting Super Vital Strike and access to weird psionic feats. I can see the points where the Soulknife is obviously trying to equal itself with the fighter technically but its just all kinds of better.
I would argue that the soulknife and fighter are balanced. The fighter does more damage than a soulknife when it is standing right next to the thing that needs a smackdown.
If my nomad's primary tactic was ferrying martials to their target then the fighter is more useful to me than the soulknife because all I need is damage.
The soulknife is just more fun to play and far better designed than the fighter, but tactically they are asymmetrically balanced tools. A properly coddled fighter is just a dangerous as the soulknife plus team members doing something other than coddling the soulknife.
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I work largely as an "editor" and/or "developer" for Fat Goblin Games these days, and one of the most annoying aspects of my job is looking at really cool and new materials by freelancers, then having to be the a-hole whom asks "is this going to be overpowered somehow?" or "in this circumstance this is perfect, but what about if some munchkin tried to do this?"
And the reason, in a sense, is that the concern of an entire publisher, not just a product by a single writer, etc. exists and it can come from one tiny thing. People often give sweeping "I'll allow any 3PP from XXX, YYY, or ZZZ." and it's typically because that person feels that those publishers only release "balanced" or at least "good" products. There's an inherent fear that people will see one magic item in a Call to Arms line, in one book, slipped in by one particular freelancer that this may be their one and only book written for Fat Goblin Games, and yet that person's work is being taken out of context and then leads to a mass generalization about at least the whole line, possibly the whole publisher, etc.
Some of you may not see why "one person" could matter so much, but in my experience so far, when "over 100 copies sold" is a "hit" etc. that isn't just 1 person in a faceless mass that will have little effect, it's 1% or more of the buying public. And the ones that don't like your stuff are more likely to be the ones talking about it than the ones that like it.
So thanks Malwing for taking this issue up. It's nice to read someone on the other side "getting it" a bit.
As an advocate for the use of 3PP material in Pathfinder games, I applaud your work. People like you are how we have such overall high quality work.
If you can create a class that's not weaker than the weakest class, nor stronger than the strongest class, you've done a good job. And it can be harder than it sounds.
If you can create something that people argue about whether it's very weak, or very strong, and it's substantially different in some ways from existing offerings, you have done something amazing.
I also notice that a lot of classes that use the Fighter or Rogue as a measuring stick kind of fail at it in an interesting way. For example; The Soulknife and Fighter have a similar frame. The differences mostly even out except every 'equal' thing is way better. The Soulknife gets a bonus feat and then blade skills at the rate of the fighter getting bonus feats. The blade skills are pretty much way better than feats and offering defenses like absorbing spells. It's incremental number changes theoretically compare to armor/weapon training but basically amounts to a 162,000gp discount on items and completely negates it's 'disadvantage' of not being proficient in all martial weapons. and somehow losing heavy armor, tower shields and bravery means getting Super Vital Strike and access to weird psionic feats. I can see the points where the Soulknife is obviously trying to equal itself with the fighter technically but its just all kinds of better.I would argue that the soulknife and fighter are balanced. The fighter does more damage than a soulknife when it is standing right next to the thing that needs a smackdown.
If my nomad's primary tactic was ferrying martials to their target then the fighter is more useful to me than the soulknife because all I need is damage.
The soulknife is just more fun to play and far better designed than the fighter, but tactically they are asymmetrically balanced tools. A properly coddled fighter is just a dangerous as the soulknife plus team members doing something other than coddling the soulknife.
I would disagree. Mostly because the Fighter does do a lot of damage, but there's a point where I have enough damage to be considered a 'bruiser' and the Soulknife reaches that point and still has some other stuff to do. I do agree that a coddled Fighter is just as dangerous as an uncoddled Soulknife but that just means that a coddled soulknife is even more dangerous and because it's dangerous in more ways than straight damage it's only superficially balanced towards the fighter. And that's disregarding that some of the class features are pretty lackluster in it's own context.
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If you can create a class that's not weaker than the weakest class, nor stronger than the strongest class, you've done a good job. And it can be harder than it sounds.
If you can create something that people argue about whether it's very weak, or very strong, and it's substantially different in some ways from existing offerings, you have done something amazing.
Agreed!
I would disagree. Mostly because the Fighter does do a lot of damage, but there's a point where I have enough damage to be considered a 'bruiser' and the Soulknife reaches that point and still has some other stuff to do. I do agree that a coddled Fighter is just as dangerous as an uncoddled Soulknife but that just means that a coddled soulknife is even more dangerous and because it's dangerous in more ways than straight damage it's only superficially balanced towards the fighter. And that's disregarding that some of the class features are pretty lackluster in it's own context.
I would disagree. A coddled fighter is stronger than an uncoddled Soulknife. A coddled fighter is not stronger than an uncoddled soulknife plus what his or her party is doing instead of coddling them.
Now if your party is designed for coddling one member, then you want a fighter over a soulknife. If your party is not designed for coddling one player then you want a soulknife. Both groups are equally powerful. So the classes are tactically equivalent even though the soulknife is normally the better choice and is overall a better designed class for other factors than tactical balance.
18 12 16 10 10 8
Skills: Acrobatics (Dex), Climb (Str), Perception (Wis), Stealth (Dex), Autohypnosis (Wis)
1. Form Mind Shield (Su), Form Mind Armaments, Shape Mind Armaments, throw mind blade, wild talent, Power Attack, Skill Focus(stealth)
2. Improved Mind Shield
3. Enhanced Mind Armaments +1, psychic strike +1d8, Full Enhancement
4. Improved Armor
5. quick draw, Powerful Strikes
6. Enhanced Mind Armaments +2, Wing Clip
7. psychic strike +2d8, Expand Shield
8. Enhanced Mind Armaments +3, Bladewind, Skill Focus(acrobatics)
9. Absorbing Blade
10. Trade Blows
11. Enhanced Mind Armaments +4, psychic strike +3d8, Reaper’s Blade
12. Improved Enhancement
13. Enhanced Mind Armaments +5, Knife to the Soul
14. Reflective Blade
15. psychic strike +4d8, Fire Blade
16. Enhanced Mind Armaments +6, Bladestorm, Skill Focus(Perception)
17. Lightning Blade
18. Enhanced Mind Armaments +7, Ice Blade
19. psychic strike +5d8, Thunder Blade
20. mind blade mastery, Whiplash
I could have built it to be closer in fighter damage, but I'd rather not contribute to the rocket tag meta. I do like how Trade Blows can turn the full attacks of enemies against them. And how things like expand shield and absorbing blade make melee really the only way to deal with you. Psychic strike and bypassing DR go a long way to keep your damage decent even if the enemy decides to ignore you.
I also like how this one build isn't the only build of this class I could see myself playing.
1 |Toughness, Intimidating Prowess, Combat Reflexes
2 |Bravery, Power Attack
3 |Armor training, Cleave
4 |Great Cleave, +1 Strength
5 |Weapon training(Blades, Heavy), Blind-Fight
6 |Bravery, Lunge
7 |Armor training, Iron Will
8 |Quick Draw, +1 Strength
9 |Weapon training(Bows), Deadly Aim
10|Bravery, Weapon Focus(longbow)
11|Armor training, Greater Weapon Focus(longbow)
12|Point-Blank Shot, +1 Dexterity
13|Weapon training(Spears), Rapid Shot
14|Bravery, Manyshot
15|Armor training, Precise Shot
16|Improved Precise Shot, +1 Dexterity
17|Weapon training(Close), Pinpoint Targeting
18|Bravery, Farshot
19|Armor mastery, Improved Critical(longbow)
20|weapon mastery(greatsword), Improved Critical(greatsword), +1 Dexterity
Instead of going full ham on melee, I tried the idea of a brute that slowly turns into a switch hitter. It's kind of meh, but I think it plays to the fighter's strength without going martial master mutagen warrior eldritch guardian (mauler familiar) VMC bard. Which if you want a fighter that is more equivalent to the soulknife then I recommend the archtype combo even though it feels clunkier (what amuses me is that that combo is stronger but your group will be less likely to think it is cheese because it comes from paizo instead of a 3rd party source).