Balance...huh...yeah What is it good for?

[veector]

Just wondering about this on my drive into work...

In designing 4e, the designers strove for balance between the PC classes, especially in combat. Is this a necessity for modern roleplaying systems?

Not trying to start a debate on the merits of 4e, trying to help the Pathfinder designers.

[Ungoded]

See also this thread.

[hogarth]

I think there was a thread on this same topic before, but I'm too lazy to search.

The upshot: every class should have something interesting to do at every level. So, for instance, if a 20th level Swordloser can't even hit a single CR 20 creature while a 20th level Spellninja is killing them in droves, combats are either going to be boring for the Swordloser or the Spellninja.

That doesn't mean that the Swordloser and the Spellninja both need to do exactly 20d6 damage with a 40% chance of success, though; it just means that they have to be fun to play somehow.

EDIT: I see someone was less lazy than me. Good show!

[veector]

Ouch. Thanks for the link.

[Charlie Brooks]

It really boils down to a preference thing. Some players want to be able to have their characters take an active role in overcoming every challenge. Others prefer their characters to be specialists in one area and mediocre or poor in others.

Personally, I prefer games where the characters are not necessarily balanced, but where they fill individual niches. I like that a wizard is more powerful than a fighter, but that a fighter can keep going long after the wizard has burned up his spells. I like that rogues are better at exploration, trap removal, and other important but non-combat situations than the other classes. I like that rangers are not as good in a stand-up fight as fighters, but that they can be downright dominant in the wilderness.

The downside to my preferences is that it requires the GM to do a bit more work on adventures in order to make sure each PC gets a chance to shine. For people who prefer to play modules as written with very little modification or who prefer one specific type of challenge over all others, the 4th edition paradigm of all classes being equally effective in all things, particularly combat, is probably preferable.

[jay jackson]

I really feel like this issue will always truly boil down to non-magic using characters and magic using characters, as a symbol of balance. However that, I believe, is a mistake in itself. When has anyone ever stopped and truly believed that a fighter should be as powerful as a wizard? The whole fantasy basis is that magic, like science, can be used to do more awesome (referring to grand) things than any one soldier/warrior could do. So what happens science/magic gives the soldier/warrior a gun,bullet proof vest,grenade,medical pack,night vision goggles/enchanted sword,enchanted armor,alchemist fire,cure light wounds potion,circlet of low light vision in order to level/destroy the playing field. And then if you wanna get technical, you have the super smart scientist/mage who figures out how to build the atomic bomb/cast a giant sized meteor swarm spell and kill half a large island. Besides in what fantasy have you ever heard of a warrior being able to match the power of a wizard?

I agree with Charlie on the point of giving each character a niche. This is downright necessary at times for good game play. Now some niches that my group usually enjoys using are: Melee combatant, ranged combatant, scout (usually a rogue, or a ranger), sage (a person with many knowledge skills, several people can fill this roll), spell caster (this role could be anything from a blaster wizard, to a battle field control druid), and generalist (this is like the swiss army knife of the group, when all else fails try the generalist. Sorcerers do this very well). There are others but these are basically the main ones that we use. I have even found that two or more people in a group can fill the same roll and not only work well together but totally dominate because of it. Such as two ranged combatants. These characters are very scary when paired up to be a defense for the spell casters, or even the leading line of pain before the enemies crash against the melee fighters.

[hogarth]

Charlie Brooks wrote:

The downside to my preferences is that it requires the GM to do a bit more work on adventures in order to make sure each PC gets a chance to shine.

That's fine, as long as the adventure doesn't end up with each player excited 25% of the time and stone bored 75% of the time. That's "balanced", but not in a good way!