I feel a little awkward about having players of mixed game experience being in the same party.
Last week I was playing in a game. We are a 4-man party of lvl 5 PCs facing off against a CR 9 Daemon that seemed like it would be a 'boss battle'. Before it's first full attack one PC just walks up and deals 10d6 damage to it and cripples it for 1 minute. After that the daemon didn't last long. The week beforehand things went similarly. A big bad evil wizard wins initiative and nearly kills half of us with one shot before being pummeled to uselessness during our round, and dying the next.
However the group that I'm DMing (5-man level 6 party) I pitted against two CR 4 hags. The battle took ten rounds and a lot of desperation.
The group that I'm DMing is full of new-ish players while the one I'm playing has two semi-optimized characters. This includes myself but I've been nerfing myself because the other half of the party consists of relatively new players.
This is leading me to believe that slight mastery over the rules (I'm not even a very masterful player) leads to a HUGE power difference.
Yes, rules mastery leads directly to PC power.
It's only a problem if either the player is using his mastery to make the game un-fun for the other players, or the DM isn't experienced enough to handle PCs of differing powers.
In the longest game I've played in, my character was significantly stronger in combat than most of the other PCs. Our DM, however, is very experienced. He knew my PC would always charge the biggest threat, so our encounters typically consisted of mutiple foes. None of them were pushovers or ignorable, so while my PC and the barbarian tackled the biggest threat immediately, the others had plenty of other foes that needed attention.
And sometimes he just threw something at us that was so powerful that regardless of individual PC strength, it felt like it took every last one of us to prevail.
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Because of how much useless stuff clutters pathfinder, game mastery is a skill.
I find it is a pretty boring skill to test, but that is just me
From what I heard this was on purpose, which sort of makes sense, giving a sense of discovery to the game but I can also see how this is a terrible thing to do to people.
Well, they are until you make the right choices next time...
Yes, it does.
This is not a bad thing.
Let the more skilled players help the others optimize a bit, then you can beef up the challenge to slightly more epic levels and everything evens out.
Part of the problem is also that single bad guy vs. the entire party encounters are highly problematic for Pathfinder. It's just not a good way to design encounters.
"skilled"
The players who have read more, haha. It is pretty bad because once you learn the correct choices you get to play with powerful characters. It would be nicer if there were fewer choices that lead to more interesting decisions.
Yes. This is how any game works, especially RPGs.
Bad choices lead to bad characters.
Good choices lead to good characters.
From what I heard this was on purpose, which sort of makes sense, giving a sense of discovery to the game but I can also see how this is a terrible thing to do to people.Because of how much useless stuff clutters pathfinder, game mastery is a skill.
I find it is a pretty boring skill to test, but that is just me
Really? Has someone from Paizo actually said this? In my innocence I'm assumed it was choice. Choice for players to make the kind of character they wanted (with the DM recognising that that character and giving it a chance to shine). I certainly didn't think the Core Rulebook was a trap for the unwary.
Cheers
Mark
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From what I heard this was on purpose, which sort of makes sense, giving a sense of discovery to the game but I can also see how this is a terrible thing to do to people.Because of how much useless stuff clutters pathfinder, game mastery is a skill.
I find it is a pretty boring skill to test, but that is just me
Really? Has someone from Paizo actually said this? In my innocence I'm assumed it was choice. Choice for players to make the kind of character they wanted (with the DM recognising that that character and giving it a chance to shine). I certainly didn't think the Core Rulebook was a trap for the unwary.
Cheers
Mark
There were some pre-Pathfinder words about it during 3.x. Ivory tower game design or somesuch.
Personally, it's a poisonous idea that primarily serves to frustrate players and discourage certain kinds of characters, even some very basic fantasy archetypes.
It's not a lot of fun for a player to have the character they've invested in have their mechanics fall apart because they made intuitive choices or because they trusted options to do what they advertized.
Things improved in the shift to Pathfinder(compare 3.5 Toughness to Pathfinder Toughness for example), but there's still a lot of baggage left to shed that snuck in through backwards compatibility. Ultimate Campaign's retraining rules are one example of how this issue is being confronted. The upcoming Strategy Guide may be another.
I'm willing to bet the hags had a significant home field advantage that would raise the effective CR of the encounter.
Ivory Tower Game Design is an article by Monte Cook that is often taken somewhat out of context. A link.
To summarize the contents of the article I'll quote this line from it:
This is the approach we took in 3rd Edition: basically just laying out the rules without a lot of advice or help. This strategy relates tangentially to the second point above. The idea here is that the game just gives the rules, and players figure out the ins and outs for themselves -- players are rewarded for achieving mastery of the rules and making good choices rather than poor ones.
Nope, factually incorrect
Yes. This is how any game works, especially RPGs.
I take it you don't play games much.
Because otherwise I don't see how you could say that with a straight face.
Pretty much what I was talking about although when it's brought up it's seen in a bit more extreme light, that bad choices are abundant and sometimes misleading to reward you for figuring out how to not suck.
Ya, there's definetly not Street Fighter Tourneys... where Akuma totally isn't the character to beat. Where Akuma is basically a better Ryu (I'm simplifying)... that you pick.
And there definitely aren't moves that have priority, and if you use the wrong ones you get your ass handed to you on a silver platter by someone who knows the game better.
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... choice for players to make the kind of character they wanted (with the DM recognising that that character and giving it a chance to shine).
This is where we end to agree. While I agree that people should be allowed to make the kind of character they wish to play, I also think that being expected to cater to the special snowflake character is not my job as a GM.
I'm here to tell the story about a party of brave adventures, not to make a single, sub-standard, character look good. If the party is a little raw around the edges - as it seemes in the case of the hag fight - I should plan for that, but I should never have to work harder for a single individual when I have the story, group, npc's, treasure, dungeons, etc. to think about as well.
Sorry if it seems kinda harsh, but I can't waste my time making oddball look good, that's his players job, not mine.
I think there is a difference between picking something before playing, and choosing your options while in the game.
You apparently do not, oh well
Because there isn't, in effect.
RPGs are all about build choices, because those determine your exact capabilities.
Other games are about action choices, which determine what pre-determined capabilities you utilize.
Both have a certain degree of skill that comes from knowing the mechanics inside and out.
We'll throw another genre in there, the FPS. TF2 specifically, because it's a game I can remember intricate facts of off the top of my head.
While it's possible to play the game normally, and do fine among unskilled people, there comes a time when knowing your exact capabilities and options becomes very important.
A decent player might not know that the regular Grenade Launcher for the Demoman is superior to the Loch-N-Load. The reason for this is that on the surface, the stats seem superior.
"Oh the projectiles move faster and can one-shot some enemies because of the extra damage, it doesn't matter that it has 2 less shots in a clip!"
However, a skilled player knows the falsity of this. The Grenade Launcher, while dealing slightly less damage, retains a higher clip size (4) as well as the same refire rate (.6 seconds) while still only having 20% less damage.
What this means is that the time the LnL spends reloading drops its DPS below that of the regular GL, making it a flat out inferior (if annoying to classes with 125 HP or less) to the GL.
To add insult to injury, while they may seem insignificant to a newer player (due to unreliability of direct damage), more skilled Demomen realize the extreme value of rollers (grenades that hit the ground and will explode after 3 seconds) as area denial and smaller amounts of damage gleaned from missed shots, and this is something the weapon lacks.
In effect, while in-game experience and skill is helpful and very necessary, "build" knowledge is still essential to avoid sub-optimal choices.
The same goes for strategy games (choosing correct troop placement, right units for the job, and even race/faction for your playstyle) fighting games (high priority moves + high tier characters + class counters) and any other game genre.
Metagame knowledge is highly important. RPGs just tend to utilize that knowledge as a core mechanic rather than a supplementary one.
Leveling up between sessions makes sure that the more experienced players can help the newer guys make better choices. Otherwise the new guys are always welcome to come and ask me about their ideas if nobody else is available.
I have no problems helping people making a viable character, but I can't be expected to work harder to make them shines if they refuse all help and end up with an inefficient character.
Now I am aware that playing the stereotypical fighter isn't much fun in the long run, he has few skills and all his feats are dumped into the black hole that is making him better at using his one or two weapons of choice. But why should I as GM be punished for a player trying to make a fighter into a rogue or pet-less ranger?
My point is that when you chose to play a class you should play that class and not try to make it into something else. If you play a fighter, then be a fighter, if you don't want to be a fighter then pick another class, don't try to hammer the fighter into something else because you will fail. So make the character you want to play, but make sure that it's the right class and that if you're in doubt about anything, ask a more experienced player. It's never shameful to learn through advice ...
If you want an '07 example, there was absolutely no reason to play a Pyro when the game came out, but many didn't realize its fundamental flaws until the average skill level increased.
You do have a lot of choices in-game. Tactics is still a thing.
Character building is a fundamental, and fun part of RPGs in general. I see no reason to change that, except maybe to make retraining poor options a viable option (current rules from UCamp assume large amounts of downtime) when a player achieves a higher level of mastery.
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I think where Pathfinder and D&D tend to massively differ from the norm for most games when it comes to balance is there's actually a rather strong anti-balance sentiment amongst both the players and the developers. Sure, every game is going to have some strong options and some weak options, but the general goal is to make things balanced. People might disagree vehemently about what needs to be balanced, but there's general agreement that balance is something you should strive for.
That's not the case for D&D and Pathfinder. Pretty much any discussion on balance in Pathfinder will have people come and say that the game should be unbalanced. I can't think of another game in existence where imbalance is stated design goal which a potion of the game community finds desirable.
Sure, the exact reasoning for why there should be imbalance varies a lot: sometimes people cite versimilitude, sometimes the idea that balancing the game would require killing flavor/turning it into 4th edition, but the reasoning isn't really relevant. It's the basic attitude that the game shouldn't be balanced. Can you imagine someone going into a Team Fortress 2 Forum (Or whatever game you prefer) and saying "Yes, the Heavy is better than every other class, and that's how the game should work, because if the Heavy isn't better than everyone else TF 2 will be exactly like Call of Duty." or "Yes, the Spy doesn't work as a class, and it shouldn't be fixed because he uses knives, and in real life knives are worse than guns."
Hopefully the point I'm aiming for is clear. Every game is going to have some imbalances that make mastery a factor, but Pathfinder and D&D are the only games I can think of where imbalance is deliberately built into the game, and a noticeable portion of the fanbase wants the game to be unbalanced in some way.
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There were some pre-Pathfinder words about it during 3.x. Ivory tower game design or somesuch.
Personally, it's a poisonous idea that primarily serves to frustrate players and discourage certain kinds of characters, even some very basic fantasy archetypes.
It's not a lot of fun for a player to have the character they've invested in have their mechanics fall apart because they made intuitive choices or because they trusted options to do what they advertized.
Things improved in the shift to Pathfinder(compare 3.5 Toughness to Pathfinder Toughness for example), but there's still a lot of baggage left to shed that snuck in through backwards compatibility. Ultimate Campaign's retraining rules are one example of how this issue is being confronted. The upcoming Strategy Guide may be another.
I agree only partially.
I'd rather see "part-time" bad choices, that become situationally better than the rest. Choice concept at its finest.Rather than retraining (I wish I could retrain my university degree, but I can't), strategy guides that say "this part of the game is better than the other, combo this way", system mastery that awards experts players while giving more workload to the GMs.
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That's not the case for D&D and Pathfinder. Pretty much any discussion on balance in Pathfinder will have people come and say that the game should be unbalanced. I can't think of another game in existence where imbalance is stated design goal which a potion of the game community finds desirable.
This hits the nail on the head. And it's endlessly infuriating to people like me who (a) enjoy Paizo's adventure writing, but (b) also prefer a relatively well-balanced game.
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I share the sentiment Kirth has, and that's all I can say for now.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Well looks like I'm going to be that guy that shows up to the balance discussion defending imbalance, exactly as predicted by Chengar.
I think the idea of defending "imbalance" comes from the 3.5/4e edition wars. Many of us thought we wanted "balance" in our games but then saw what 4e did and said, "If that's balance then maybe I don't want it."
I'll go ahead and say what I want from a class/options based RPG isn't true "imbalance" exactly, where option A is always better in all situations than option B. I want carefully balanced imbalance - where option A is truly different than option B, and both options have an opportunity to shine. This is really difficult to do. Attempting this sort of careful imbalance can result in a bunch of options that are never the best choice. I don't think anybody writes a feat or archetype laughing to themselves about the poor suckers who choose it.
I wouldn't say only D&D and PF. It's pretty common among RPGs. Point build systems are generally even worse: Something like Champions is full of trap options. You can easily build completely ineffective characters. Even more so than in D&D.
You can do so, but I'm not sure I would characterize them as "trap" options. They're options that may be appropriate in some contexts and in some proportions but not others. This is fundamentally true of D&D and PF as well and that could really stand a bit more discussion at the rule level, which is, I think, the real message of the ivory tower game design. Even in 3e, Toughness had its place. It made a good option for making a creature a little tougher and use his feats without actually making the creature more complicated. In other words, good for NPCs and pregens for convention games. PF took toughness and made it more consistently worthwhile for virtually all characters to take, something that simplified the issue of understanding what the feat actually does.
Part of the problem is that RPGs really differ from more traditional games. They're far more open ended and far less competitive. Even than the video game RPGs.
Balance is one design goal, but being able to support a broad range of characters is another. Some people approach the game from a System Mastery point of view, looking for ways to use the system to build more competitive, more effective characters and usually gravitating to concepts that the system supports well. Others approach the game with a concept first. They may use their knowledge of the system to make that concept more effective, but that doesn't change that the system itself makes some concepts less effective than others.
I think these are extremely important points and many RPGs are like this. A TL15 marine with battledress and a FGMP-15 in Traveller is worlds away from a TL3 barbarian with a broadsword even if they both spent 4 terms in their professions, have the same number of skills, and have the exact same stats. How they work together (or fail to) is a function of how the GM runs the game and how the PCs choose to play - not really of the rules nor how balanced or unbalanced they are. And this is only a part of the freedom RPGs offer when it comes to player choices. I won't even get into the differences between player groups who prefer to go dirtside armed with ACRs and body pistols to deal with an infestation of offworld scavengers personally compared to the group who would rather drop a black market nuke from orbit.
This is part of the brilliance of RPGs and part of the challenge that game designers, GMs, and players face. The freedom to do anything they can conceive, play any character they can conceive, and yet still make it work together so everybody has fun.
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I have no problems helping people making a viable character, but I can't be expected to work harder to make them shines if they refuse all help and end up with an inefficient character.
Now I am aware that playing the stereotypical fighter isn't much fun in the long run, he has few skills and all his feats are dumped into the black hole that is making him better at using his one or two weapons of choice. But why should I as GM be punished for a player trying to make a fighter into a rogue or pet-less ranger?
I remember this happening in Skills and Powers era (aka AD&D 2.5), which opened the door for players to pick'n'mix from a buffet of class abilities. A friend at the time complained about the players in his game, going overboard with the new freedom, and the party consisting of 'wizards who had traded away their spells for the ability to wield a sword badly, and fighters who had traded away their ability to fight, in exchange for some cantrips'.
I was glad I never signed up to that game. The other game in town at that time had the opposite problem, with the players deliberately whoring the class and race point-builders, especially the options to trade away the racial laundry lists of abilities that rarely saw use ("Determine sloping passages? Why don't I just buy a spirit level?"), or pick 'disadvantages that weren't considered disadvantages'.The game worlds of the 1990s must have wondered what divine plague had afflicted their populations with so many colour-blind psychopaths, who were Quick to Anger, and Couldn't Tell A Lie.
Well looks like I'm going to be that guy that shows up to the balance discussion defending imbalance, exactly as predicted by Chengar.
I think the idea of defending "imbalance" comes from the 3.5/4e edition wars. Many of us thought we wanted "balance" in our games but then saw what 4e did and said, "If that's balance then maybe I don't want it."
I'll go ahead and say what I want from a class/options based RPG isn't true "imbalance" exactly, where option A is always better in all situations than option B. I want carefully balanced imbalance - where option A is truly different than option B, and both options have an opportunity to shine. This is really difficult to do. Attempting this sort of careful imbalance can result in a bunch of options that are never the best choice. I don't think anybody writes a feat or archetype laughing to themselves about the poor suckers who choose it.
Have you seen the Worst Feat topic? If those feats were designed without laughing about the poor suckers that take them, then I'd want to bring the design abilities of the people that wrote them into question.
The only way players master the game is as they play, make mistakes, learn from their mistakes, and moreover, learn from the players who have mastered the game before them.
It can be hard to deal with players of different skill levels, but that's okay. The more all of them play, the more things will improve.
Don't hold yourself back. Your fellow players may learn from you. Make sure you're also engaging in teamwork tactics so the players can see the benefits of using certain tactics and ways of thinking. Also, pay attention to them--sometimes new players can surprise old skoolers with a new approach. You can even offer to teach them -- but make it an offer, don't force them or overwhelm them with advice (that can cause people to shut down).
The other thing to note is --sometimes, there's that one guy who just never seems to improve on his tactics. While this can be frustrating -- often, it's because that guy is playing because he gets something else out of the game. Maybe he likes roleplaying. Maybe he likes the story. Maybe he just likes watching everyone else play and perform. If he's having fun, he probably doesn't care that your character is pressing the win button more often than he is. So in that case, don't worry about it.
If that one guy's tactics are bringing everyone else down, it might do to have a polite word with him. But otherwise, as long as he and you are both enjoying yourselves, then the game is successful.
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I'd like to say that my main problem with bad options being in the game is that...
1) it makes for a lot of rules that intimidate the new or slightly lazy. when I'm making a character there are a lot of feats to look through and it takes a lot of effort and research to build a character for a game that I don't technically 'win'.
2) making a bad character is a bit easy to do. A campaign can last for months so that weighs heavily on you for a long time. not only that but it seems the power disparity is a bit huge. in the end helping means 'tell me about your character and I'll make the thing for you', because they're bored from jumping hoops just to start the game.
3) New players are already bad at playing tactics-wise, do they really need fresh ways to mess up before they start playing?
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My general ethic is I don't DM up.
Thats to say if a bunch of folks show up who want a fun game, one's a newbie and one is some Serpentor combination of Gygax, Brian from KODT, and Ghenghis Khan, I keep the difficulty at the normal level.
The guy with superior mastery will 'get it over on me' but its worth it as long as everyone has a fun time. If he starts trying to dominate everybody, then the issues start.
My general ethic is I don't DM up.
Thats to say if a bunch of folks show up who want a fun game, one's a newbie and one is some Serpentor combination of Gygax, Brian from KODT, and Ghenghis Khan, I keep the difficulty at the normal level.
The guy with superior mastery will 'get it over on me' but its worth it as long as everyone has a fun time. If he starts trying to dominate everybody, then the issues start.
So far I've been compelled to keep the CR at APL or less. I started with a dungeon crawl that was stronger as it was sort of a test run to see just how well they do. I also decided to make every 4th session a mini painting and advice session to help chug things along and allowing minor restats.
Hopefully the point I'm aiming for is clear. Every game is going to have some imbalances that make mastery a factor, but Pathfinder and D&D are the only games I can think of where imbalance is deliberately built into the game, and a noticeable portion of the fanbase wants the game to be unbalanced in some way.
Have you ever played Rifts? The deliberate imbalance in the game design is crazy. It's the only game I've ever played where one character does 3d6x10 and another does 1d6. Starting at level 1 and basically staying that way.
Just to put things in perspective. :P
There is something to be said about encounters with 1 creature versus multiple creatures as well.
True but in the same group we've lately twice stumbled on a room full of enemies (more than 10) and ended combat fast. One situation me and another optimized player encountered two dozen zombies and a necromancer while in another room our less optimized players fought two zombies. These two battles took about the same amount of time.
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I'm with Ryric in that I want balance to mean differently balanced, but clearly so.
Take the rogue. Most people will agree than it's a weak class. Many of the fixes try to improve its DPR so it can compete in a fight. Well fair enough, because fighting is important. But the rogue isn't really about fighting; it's supposedly about traps and stealth and l337 skillz and being versatile and hard to catch. So IMHO the balance for it should revolve around making it the best skill character with some ability to do para-magical things.
Instead we get lots of cruddy talents, some of which are strictly worse than nothing, like Powerful Sneak. And if you don't have some understanding of probabilities, you'll fall into that trap.
When someone puts a skill point into Profession: Architect, he knows it's a substandard choice and he'd be better off with Perception; it's a deliberate RP choice. But the choice between Vital Strike or Furious Focus isn't remotely as clear.
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The single enemy boss fight is something Pathfinder and 3e aren't suited for. 3e broke the 'damage barrier' so to speak, allowing even common, non-optimized builds to lay out enough damage to smash down a brick wall in a turn.
This plays merry hobb with single target monsters who have to rely on defenses of dubious value while dealing with issues of 'action economy.' This I imagine is why 4e, attemtped a fix to the 'problem' by tacking on more hit points so the monster could 'do its thing' without being ganked.
Dragons no longer really get down and dirty with the party, instead playing a dangerous game of keep away like Japanese Zeros, strafing around them. Because to land is to invite full attack, and while the dragon's is indeed mighty, so are the attacks of equivalent level PCs (and woe betide the draconic schlub if someone's going to dimension door full attackers to him).
Generally you need more of a League of Evil approach to 'boss fights' where the party has multiple threats. Although a smart party will still 'concentrate fire.'
To get off of my 'boss fights' diversion though...
Having the 'guy with mastery' direct the party. Can get old. Fast.
He starts attempting to play multiple characters and begins grooming everyone to form an illogical conherent whole of overlapping feats. I've seen it happen. I've also seen the whole plan fall down like a house of cards the second one or two players don't go along with it and throw his carefully designed plans to ruin.
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Game Mastery is strong.
Blathering prattle.
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Well looks like I'm going to be that guy that shows up to the balance discussion defending imbalance, exactly as predicted by Chengar.
I think the idea of defending "imbalance" comes from the 3.5/4e edition wars. Many of us thought we wanted "balance" in our games but then saw what 4e did and said, "If that's balance then maybe I don't want it."
I'll go ahead and say what I want from a class/options based RPG isn't true "imbalance" exactly, where option A is always better in all situations than option B. I want carefully balanced imbalance - where option A is truly different than option B, and both options have an opportunity to shine. This is really difficult to do. Attempting this sort of careful imbalance can result in a bunch of options that are never the best choice. I don't think anybody writes a feat or archetype laughing to themselves about the poor suckers who choose it.
The big issue I tend to take with the whole "4th edition was balanced, so balance is evil!" line of thought is that 4th edition was a pretty horrible implementation all around. Plus, as people have pointed out before, 4th edition wasn't balanced: it didn't have the severe caster/martial disparity of 3.5, but it introduced a whole slew of hew balance issues to compensate for that.
To be honest, I'm not seeing the big difference between "Carefully balanced imbalance" and just plain balance. Well, unless you think that just plain balance requires that every class have completely identical mechanics and no character options. Heck, a balanced game expands your character options, because you get more viable choices instead of being heavily pressured to pick the best options mechanically, or finding out your character concept won't work because the rules are set up to screw them over because one of the devs thinks that's more 'realistic.'
Personally I would be more in favor of options being reasonable but some wind up better than others, otherwise they are less of options and more like traps. If options were intended to be balanced there would still be options that are better than others because players are clever and weed those things out. but when the design approach specifically makes some good options and a number of bad options then it feels bad when you're stuck with a lackluster option because it doesn't do what it seems like it does.