I'd love to see what people think is balance.
Yes, I know it's like porn in that you just know it when you see it. But I'm wondering if anyone has tried to codify it at least partially.
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Balance is a player not having to worry about playing a useless character because they made a choice they did not know was not mechanically optimal, or a character that overpowers and outshines everyone else at the table for the same reasons.
Balance is simple, but it is also complicated. It should, however, be as invisible as possible. A game where a player is constantly told they must not do this or that because it would not be balanced is just as unfun as a game where characters wind up useless or overpowered due to mechanical accidents.
A balanced option is one that allows a player to pursue level appropriate challenges with the same level of competence as similar options, even if said options mean pursuing different challenges.
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In my games, balance has always meant that:
In the right circumstances, you are the best party member. In other circumstances you may have to defer to someone else. You are never the best party member at all times.
What the circumstances are, how often they come up, etc. vary. Your GM is the final arbitrator of balance. Your mileage may vary.
A balanced option is one that allows a player to pursue level appropriate challenges with the same level of competence as similar options, even if said options mean pursuing different challenges.
I agree with this.
Balance is an illusion. If your game is fun, it is balanced from your perspective.
I agree with the sentiment of this, as well.
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This is how I define game balance.
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Game Balance (in Pathfinder/D&D terms) - A game system is balanced when a wide variety of characters are equally effective at meeting the challenges of adventuring.
The Combat Ratio Corollary of Game Balance - The more an adventure focuses on combat, the more important it is that all characters be equally effective in combat. The less an adventure focuses on combat, the less important it is that all characters be equally effective in combat.
One reason that second part is important, is that it's at the root of many arguments about game balance both on forums and among game designers.
If you run a game where 90% of character actions take place in combat, all XP and treasure comes from combat, adventure objectives can only be solved via combat, and where noncombat scenes are often abbreviated (Scenes with NPCs are not acted out, buying & selling is hand-waved from books rather than negotiated between characters, etc.), then it doesn't matter how many non-combat abilities a character has, and a non-combat abilities should not be factored into game balance.
On the other hand, if you run a game in which a 4-hour game session includes 1 hour of combat and 3 hours of non-combat situations, where XP & treasure can be acquired through non-combat means, and where non-combat actions are likely to attain most player objectives, then combat capability is only a small part of game balance, and non-combat abilities should be weighted heavily.
The Rogue example. Lets call the heavy combat game, "Game A" and the low combat game "Game B". Rogues are simply not as effective in Game A as some other classes are. For example, they'll deal less damage than a Fighter, and have less overall battlefield impact than a Wizard or Cleric. This difference can be minimized by ignoring many of the Rogues strengths and focusing only on combat, but never entirely eliminated.
In Game B, however, the Rogue can excel, with the highest number of skills points and class skills in the game, a Rogue can shine in a wide variety of situations. Building a Rogue for Game B, a player can freely emphasize any aspect of Rogue abilities (combat, stealth, social interaction, devices) and still be quite effective.
Balance is an illusion. If your game is fun, it is balanced from your perspective.
My glasses are enchanted with True Seeing, so nyah.
Less TOZ specific now...
What about over powered options?
Who do you compare new content against: rogue, fighter, or barbarian?
What builds do you compare against?
Do you assume optimal teammates? Non-optimized? (skill focus (profession(sandwich artist))
What if an archetype is overpowered compared to a rogue, but is balanced against the base class. How do you determine how balanced on a whole it is? Should you weaken the base class through archetypes so it is balanced on a whole?
Thus you condemn yourself to never see balance, always striving for the unattainable.
My glasses are enchanted with True Seeing, so nyah.
Yep. I'm not sure if balance can ever be reached.
Balance is designing the mechanics in such a way to optimise the following variables:
The amount of fun any given player will have.
The amount of fun any given GM will have.
The amount of fun any given group will have as a whole.
The above must account for different player, GM and group dynamic archetypes.
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Yep. I'm not sure if balance can ever be reached.Thus you condemn yourself to never see balance, always striving for the unattainable.
My glasses are enchanted with True Seeing, so nyah.
It can't.
Balance is countering opposing forces. When you stand, you are constantly adjusting forces to achieve balance. This is why it is an illusion.
The only way to achieve balance without constant adjustment is for each force to be perfectly equal. And in a game, perfect equality is impossible. Unless you like playing RPS.
Game balance to me comes directly from the DM and in how he challenges his PCs during the game. Combat encounters are a good portion of exploration and adventure and if the DM makes combat encounters engaging for ALL included then he's doing a good job of balance. Of course there are going to be times when one PC shines at what he's good at, like a Rogue picking a lock or a fighter holding off enemies at a narrow bridge while his allies escape. As long as everyone is having fun and feels that their character is participating on the same level as everyone else then balance is achieved.
Over-powered characters can throw a wrench into the mix with a Cleric acting like a super-buffed Fighter 24-hrs a day or a Wizard owning an encounter with one or two spells, so you have a decision to make. For one I'd cut out 24-hr buffs and exile save or die spells all together. These are two easy suggestions right off the top of my head. In addition, these do NOT inhibit classes performance unless they see themselves as the sole answer to most encounter problems.
This is more of a problem, however, in editions prior to 4E but don't be fooled as 4E has a lot of over-powered character builds that do the same thing. I think though that 4E does a better job of making it harder to cheese out system flaws and most people I game with don't even bat an eye to optimized character because they perform only slightly better than non-optimized characters.
Please no edition warring. What Diffan said was fine.
What about over powered options?
Who do you compare new content against: rogue, fighter, or barbarian?
What builds do you compare against?
Do you assume optimal teammates? Non-optimized? (skill focus (profession(sandwich artist))
What if an archetype is overpowered compared to a rogue, but is balanced against the base class. How do you determine how balanced on a whole it is? Should you weaken the base class through archetypes so it is balanced on a whole?
I only consider options to be "over powered" or "under powered" in relation to the party they're used in. So the answer to most of your questions is, "It depends what the rest of the party is doing."
When evaluating new material without regard for a particular campaign, party, or play group, I first compare like to like. That is, I'll compare a PC race to the most similar PC races, ones that are likely to take the same classes. I'll compare a weapon to similar weapons (martial to martial, exotic to exotic . . .). And I'll compare a new class to base classes with similar strengths. To do anything else is to tinker with the balance of the game on a larger scale. (eg a new melee class shouldn't be better at melee than a Fighter, and a new caster shouldn't be better than a Wizard.)
Second, I look for unexpected synergies and combos. For example, does a new melee class look a lot like a Fighter, but give more emphasis to Dexterity? If so, then its interaction with feats like Two Weapon Fighting and Dervish Dance should be explored. Is it a caster? Then its spell list should be searched to see if it includes a combination of all the best arcane and divine spells.
In my games, balance has always meant that:
In the right circumstances, you are the best party member. In other circumstances you may have to defer to someone else. You are never the best party member at all times.
What the circumstances are, how often they come up, etc. vary. Your GM is the final arbitrator of balance. Your mileage may vary.
+1! It's something that is even more difficult to accomplish in d20 systems, where the system encourages thinking along the lines of...
Attributes 12 and below make the character unplayable...
or...
Attribute X is a dump stat
or...
The feat Vow of Poverty (as released by Paizo) is a pointless feat to take
I could put more, but these are the statements I see on these boards and in my own groups that is making gaming not as fun for me anymore. It's almost as though everyone wants Superman-like ability without the drawback of Kryponite or Blade-like strength and speed without having the drawback of the Hunger/Serum dependency.
It can't.
Balance is countering opposing forces. When you stand, you are constantly adjusting forces to achieve balance. This is why it is an illusion.
The only way to achieve balance without constant adjustment is for each force to be perfectly equal. And in a game, perfect equality is impossible.
This.
What is balance? It's a philosophical debate, and or a running process. It is not a concrete definable entity.
Asking "what is balance," is akin to asking "Quid est veritas?"
This forum could fill up with answers to the question, and might even fill up with a lot of answers that agree. That does not, however, mean that that is the real answer. Simply put, balance is each person's interpretation of what it is. Balance for me, might be (and probably is) different than what you perceive as balance. The fact that the question can be asked, and subsequently answered, in so many different ways, in a short period of time relays why this is. If you had opened a forum and entitled it "what is a sword." There probably would have been three answers, that all agreed, and no one else would have bothered reply. Of course that is the great thing about playing a game like this, it leaves open the world of fun to each person's definition of what that is. :)
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In my games, balance has always meant that:
In the right circumstances, you are the best party member. In other circumstances you may have to defer to someone else. You are never the best party member at all times.
What the circumstances are, how often they come up, etc. vary. Your GM is the final arbitrator of balance. Your mileage may vary.
Agreed.
Forcing mechanical balance (math-wise) in each and every given situation has a fearsome number of consequences, from the leveling of inherent value of the option which results in overall blandness, to an unpleasant effect of diminishing returns of fun in the medium-long run.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Gendo, good thing that VoP isn't a feat. But VoP is an entirely different subject.
Good to see a discussion going!
Here are my own thoughts on character options when designing things:
* Martial characters have more leeway. They are weaker than casters, and they could use help. This doesn't mean anything goes, just that I am concerned less with super balance. Rogues get the most leeway :)
* An unbalanced character is unbalanced because it marginalizes the contributions of the other party members, above and beyond what is assumed by the core game.. This does not mean a rogue is overpowered since only they can disable magical traps (I know that's not the case, but just go with it). But if one character can singlehandedly do most encounters, they probably aren't balanced against everything else. Is a high level wizard more useful than a high level fighter? Yes, no doubt. This is assumed by PF though.
* A class (or archetype) is not balanced if it completely obsoletes another class (except rogue).
* If a character's options are extremely powerful, but they almost exclusively improve other characters, then that's fine. Why? Because it brings everyone else up to a higher level. There have been many threads about one character being super powerful, and how the GMs have a hard time challenging their character, but not screwing over the other players. With this idea, then everyone is brought to a higher level of optimality.
To be honest, the reason I made this thread was due to thoughts I had concerning one of the archetypes I made for the Secrets of Tactical Archetypes. There is an archetype in there called the Inspiring Commander that has some extremely good abilities. We're talking move action Aid Another at range (similar to the Cloistered Cleric's ability), move action Tactician, inspire courage, etc. It is really powerful, but only shines in a group of other martial characters (other than inspire courage, I guess). After massaging the abilities, I'm fairly happy with how it turned out, and convinced myself that it's balanced. It was this that convinced me that a character is only overpowered if it marginalizes the other characters in a group.
For example, haste. It's extremely good. But a wizard, who gets very little from it other than small bonuses to defense and mobility (which I guess is good). They're spending their expensive actions to buff up the martial characters so they can shine.
Or a bard. Bards will spend the first few rounds buffing up allies to be awesome. The vanilla bard is basically built on the assumption that you'll be making everyone more awesome.
It can't.
Balance is countering opposing forces. When you stand, you are constantly adjusting forces to achieve balance. This is why it is an illusion.
The only way to achieve balance without constant adjustment is for each force to be perfectly equal. And in a game, perfect equality is impossible.
This.
What is balance? It's a philosophical debate, and or a running process. It is not a concrete definable entity.
Asking "what is balance," is akin to asking "Quid est veritas?"
Which is the point of this thread. My phrase up ahead about not being sure if balance can ever be reached was mostly to leave open the possibility of me being convinced else wise with an amazing argument.
I would like a discussion on what many different people think balance is, and from all those personal definitions, I (and others) can get an aggregate understanding of balance.
Everyone thinks they know what balance is, or that they can spot it when they see it. I want to learn what others see it as.
Also, the answer to "quid est veritas" is 42.
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Balance is when I look at an option or group of options and I am not certain which one I want to take. The pain you feel when choosing one feat over another, or trading out the abilities for an archetype/alternate class feature. That is balance.
Balance is when I look at an option or group of options and I am not certain which one I want to take. The pain you feel when choosing one feat over another, or trading out the abilities for an archetype/alternate class feature. That is balance.
Could be dementia too.
Which is the point of this thread. My phrase up ahead about not being sure if balance can ever be reached was mostly to leave open the possibility of me being convinced else wise with an amazing argument.
I would like a discussion on what many different people think balance is, and from all those personal definitions, I (and others) can get an aggregate understanding of balance.
Everyone thinks they know what balance is, or that they can spot it when they see it. I want to learn what others see it as.
Also, the answer to "quid est veritas" is 42.
I'm pretty sure that's the second time I've seen you use that Hitchhiker reference. :)
I totally get what you're asking. I wasn't trying to troll. I just wanted to point out that, in the end, what balance is, at best, is your informed opinion of what it is based on other people's opinions. I don't think there is anything wrong with gathering a bunch of people's ideas on it. In fact I love the gathering of individual ideas for the purposes of making your own idea. More specifically, I just wanted to put forth my opinion that balance is defined by its undefinability, and the search for empirical data to form a definition will more than likely end up fruitless. Again, that doesn't make the gathering of opinions at all fruitless. It is through gathering the ideas of others that one can learn to define themselves. So gather away. :)
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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What about over powered options?
For me, an overbalanced option is what DM fiat is for. Fiat being described as either asking the player 'can you lay off the X combo? It's hampering my/other player's fun' or hitting the player with his own combo until he gets the hint.
Who do you compare new content against: rogue, fighter, or barbarian?
Bard :P Seriously it depends on the role. A new Melee type shouldn't be able to always* out fight the fighter, or out mage the mage, or out rogue the rogue.
What builds do you compare against?
Iconics mostly. One of the wonders of PDFs/online docs, is I can adapt on the fly.
Do you assume optimal teammates? Non-optimized? (skill focus (profession(sandwich artist))
I assume competent team mates. Not ones that will automatically be the best at what they do, but also not fighters who spent all their bonus feats on things like Weapon Focus: Sap.
As an example, my Damascaran can quicking a small amount of spells per day. It's designed to allow the character to throw up a shield or false life and still be able to attack. It was pointed out that he could overwhelm foes with the '15 minute adventuring day' mindset by quickening his most powerful offensive spells to quickly take out a solo foe. I don't design things to protect from the 15 minute adventuring day. (Well that, and most of the spells on the list are self or single target)
What if an archetype is overpowered compared to a rogue, but is balanced against the base class. How do you determine how balanced on a whole it is? Should you weaken the base class through archetypes so it is balanced on a whole?
Not sure how to answer this. If an archtype is more powerful than the base class at X level, equal at Y level and less powerful at Z level then it's balanced in my book.
To use another example, in my experience the (3.x) Battle Sorcerer is more powerful than the Sorcerer at 1st - 5th level (the slightly worse spell selection is balanced by the better HP/BAB) about equal at 6-12th level (The BAB and armor help keep him alive and a bit more flexible, but the loss of spells hurts) and falls behind at 13+ level (Those spells known REALLY hurt, and they aren't going to be in melee as much anymore)
Edit: forgot my foot notes, and another thing.
Balance is when everyone is having fun.
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I think this is the problem with the Ninja, for example. It flips this on its head. Except for trapfinding, the ninja out rogues the rogue.
In my opinion Balance has to do with how powerful players are compared to the encounters they have to deal with. Balance occurs when the players are challenged by APL appropriate encounters. The Balance is broken when the players are no longer challenged or can not deal the encounter.
A player feeling useless or failing to shine is just symptom of the above balance being off. Balance is easily thrown off by high stats, too much wealth for the level, unusual races. Optimizing vs not optimizing presents some minor balance issues but if stats, wealth and races are normal this isn't a huge problem. Adding in new material can add broken elements to the game. A good example of this was the initial play test version of the Summoner but that is why it was a play-test. I've seen some 3rd party material that I've not used but might break the balance.
Balance means that the characters all contribute to the group's success, and that the yardstick by which the monsters are measured is accurate. In other words, it's a four-way scale: PC vs. PC, and party vs. monsters.
Balance is an illusion. If your game is fun, it is balanced from your perspective.
The pursuit of ideal balance is an asymptotic quest, but it is not an illusion. Unless you want to argue that things like fun, success and freedom are also 'illusions.'
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It depends.
That said, that statement encompasses a lot of things. Balance is an ideal we can strive for, but as people will be people, and people will be diverse, it would be impossible to achieve to an exact degree.
Take the example of the developer laying out a road. When laying out the road, there are more than just the mechanics to consider. A road requires the proper allocation of resources, negotiation, contracts, supply and demand, ordinances, historical data, social considerations...
Balance, then, is complicated. It's more complicated when approaching something as diverse as a gaming hobby.
Does it mean it cannot be achieved?
It means that it cannot be perfectly achieved. There are two reasons for this:
- The diversity of human nature (what is balanced to one is not balanced to another)
- The diversity of the game/hobby/experience itself
It doesn't mean that we can't get close--it just means that getting even that far is difficult, and once we are there we may be better off with a healthy market and more diverse set of systems, suited to a variety of tastes, needs, and desires.
I didn't say the pursuit was an illusion, I said that balance itself is an illusion.
Which is an incredibly vague statement, to the point of being useless. Calling something an 'illusion' in a thread about that very thing is likely to be inflammatory to others, and I think you know that.
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Thus you condemn yourself to never see balance, always striving for the unattainable.
My glasses are enchanted with True Seeing, so nyah.
Perfect balance is an unattainable illusion.
'Balanced enough so that everybody is having fun' is not, IMO. Balance should always service fun. Balance for balance's sake is tilting at windmills.
Balance is the thing, that if you don't have it, somebody ends up on their keister.
Damnit, I never expected it to end up in this forum.
And I expanded on it in later posts.
Maybe next time you'll start with something meaningful, and not need to expand on it later.
Snappy one-liners are often more trouble than they're worth.
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Balance means that a duck weighs as much as a witch.
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And I expanded on it in later posts.Maybe next time you'll start with something meaningful, and not need to expand on it later.
Snappy one-liners are often more trouble than they're worth.
It wasn't a snappy one liner...it was pretty correct...i don't see a reason for you to try to 'police' what others say...plus i didn't see that anybody had a problem with what TOZ said, unless they didn't actualy read what he wrote.
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I too believe that 'balance' is sort of a philosopher's stone, whereas the pursuit of balance and the reflections it engenders are more important than 'perfect balance at all costs'.
As much as a lack of balance can ruin a game system, obsession in the pursuit of balance can lead to equally flawed system. Such a system's flaws are unlikely to be mechanical; but I sometimes find that the pursuit of balance results in a dilution of the original system's 'soul'. Taken too far, this can equally ruin a system.
Lately, I've been more forgiving toward systems that do their main 'mojo' very well, even if they don't universally do everything that well.
Personally, I've made peace with the martial/caster disparity in D&D and it heirs (including my homebrew system derived from the OGL). There is so much that isn't (and shouldn't be) hardwired into a game system that can reestablishes any game unbalance.
'findel
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Balance is when I look at an option or group of options and I am not certain which one I want to take. The pain you feel when choosing one feat over another, or trading out the abilities for an archetype/alternate class feature. That is balance.
I agree with this.
I didn't say the pursuit was an illusion, I said that balance itself is an illusion.Which is an incredibly vague statement, to the point of being useless. Calling something an 'illusion' in a thread about that very thing is likely to be inflammatory to others, and I think you know that.
Yeah I've heard such things said before and elsewhere on balance. It sounds catchy, it is what he wants to say, so it gets repeated.
I too have harped on about balance, but I want to suggest another facet of balance, something important for a game to be balanced, for classes to be balanced:
Balance is always having a weakness.
*A class that gives a great deal and has no weaknesses, is not balanced.
*For a player, to have so many magic items, that they no longer have any weaknesses, that is not balanced (magic items also become less extraordinary and note-worthy, hence why I ban magical crafting).
*If the player and party are far more powerful than everything else in the gaming world, if they can do as they wish and none can stop them, this is not balance.
*Balance is to be challenged, if there is little challenge, there is no balance.
Ommmmmmmm
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When you ask your players if they think that every character (not player) is able to contribute the same amount to the groups success in your specific game and you get a yes, you know that you have attained balance for your game and your game only.
Thus balance is in so far an illusion that objective balance doesn't exist and not that you can't attain balance in your game.
In fact one of the main design goals of 4e was to make it easier for the DM to create a game where all players would answer with yes and thus make the game "easier to balance" - which many read as "more balanced".