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I feel like we went off topic.
Probably. My point is that there is a subset of Pathfinder fans who like mechanical imbalance (or rather who favor including flavor choices in the balance metric). That's part of the problem - Paizo are designing for a very wide class of players. I'm not going to get entirely what I want and you're not going to get what you want.
.(Probably even the designers arent going to get exactly the game they want, either).
Because I value something more if I've paid for it, I suppose. I should hasten to point out that I dont think it's a superior way of thinking about it, but it's an aesthetic preference I've come to realise I have and not one that people who favor balance in RPGs tend to give much credence to. (I regularly get told "you can just nerf yourself in a balanced game anyway" for example).
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RPGs which have "flaws" for which you get compensating benefits (via extra points in character development or some kind of extra ability tied to your limitation) are not as enjoyable to me. I lose all interest in navigating my way through a bunch of 'balanced' options and just come up with something bland.There's a comment attributed to Sean Reynolds (although I havent seen his original post, so it might be unfair) about Vow of Poverty - essentially saying that taking that is supposed to make your character worse. It's a noble thing and isnt meant to be compensated for via some other boost. That's exactly the kind of choice I like to make.
I fail to see why there is some sort of prize for taking a deliberately suboptimal stylistic choice. I played a lot of AD&D and the Bastard Sword was a pretty common choice for front-line fighters back in the day. However with the shift of Bastard sword to exotic weapon proficiency it's one of the poorest uses of a precious feat slot.
So I ask why a weapon that really isn't that much more difficult to use than a longsword (of course a D&D longsword hardly represents a real world long sword but that's a different argument) requires a stylistic cost?
Or why does using a non-western weapon suddenly impose a feat tax? Is a kama really that difficult to use in real life? Especially since it's basically a improvised farm implement.
Why are polearms martial even though conscripts have used them for ages? Why do spears suck? Why is there not an option for a one-handed spear? Even though you can use a trident one handed?
There are tons of decisions that were made in 3.0 in regards to weapon balance that simply haven't proven to be particularly great from a verisimilitude or a gamist perspective but because it's a relatively minor issue it basically seems to get ignored in the shifts between 3.0 and 3.5 because by the time you get to mid levels most weapons become a relatively minor percentage of the overall dpr of a fighter.
I dont think having stylistic choices incur mechanical costs is superior game design (I dont think there are any objective, universal goals to game design - maybe clarity of rules?). It's just a feature of games I prefer.
I feel like we went off topic.Probably. My point is that there is a subset of Pathfinder fans who like mechanical imbalance
You never explained why you like it though... Most people don't like getting shot in the foot to do something they enjoy.
Regardless it's not even that having weaker options is bad. As long as they are clearly marked as weaker. The crossbow is presented as an equal alternative, with archetypes supporting it and everything. At very worst, being a simple weapon vs a martial, it should be 1 feat investment behind getting to the same baseline as a bow.
If there was a weapon category called "inferior weapons" with stuff like "peasants bow, gnomish tinkerknife, practice crossbow, wooden sword" etc. clearly marked as bad weapons not fit for adventurers, I'd say go ahead and use those. But there aren't. These are all presented as weapons of war.
I definitely agree with you there. I'd like there to be a class of feats/class features/abilities or whatever clearly called out as being weaker than the optimal ones.
.It doesnt happen at our table (since we're not good enough with the rules to notice it) but I'm sure "trap options" are a real thing and I think it should be clear exactly what they are. (Whether they be termed "flavor feats", "style feats" or whatever).
You never explained why you like it though... Most people don't like getting shot in the foot to do something they enjoy.I feel like we went off topic.Probably. My point is that there is a subset of Pathfinder fans who like mechanical imbalance
I tried to. "Because I value something more if I've paid for it, I suppose."
.If every option I had was mechanically equivalent, I wouldnt care as much. My favorite fighter was a dagger wielding guy who liked knives (for example). If specialising in dagger brought a whole bunch of benefits to compensate for using such a puny weapon, I doubt I'd have bothered. (My favorite example is the separatist cleric archetype - strictly mechanically worse than having a cleric with no deity, but one I'd prefer).
It's an aesthetic preference, not a logically deduced conclusion from some previously adopted axiom. It's a guiding principle in itself.
I tried to. "Because I value something more if I've paid for it, I suppose."You never explained why you like it though... Most people don't like getting shot in the foot to do something they enjoy.I feel like we went off topic.Probably. My point is that there is a subset of Pathfinder fans who like mechanical imbalance
Which doesn't really explain it. Worse, saying its the type of game you enjoy means you want to apply it to everyone who ever chose that option.
Which doesn't really explain it. Worse, saying its the type of game you enjoy means you want to apply it to everyone who ever chose that option.I tried to. "Because I value something more if I've paid for it, I suppose."You never explained why you like it though... Most people don't like getting shot in the foot to do something they enjoy.I feel like we went off topic.Probably. My point is that there is a subset of Pathfinder fans who like mechanical imbalance
Okay, so I can't explain it. Suffice it to say I have no opinion about what happens at your table, so I really dont "want" anything to apply to you.
You never explained why you like it though... Most people don't like getting shot in the foot to do something they enjoy.I feel like we went off topic.Probably. My point is that there is a subset of Pathfinder fans who like mechanical imbalance
I do! (OW!)
It's no different really to making that wizard with a 7 CON score to represent the wheezing, sickly character you have in mind, despite knowing it's going to cause you problems in combat.
If you're only interested in the mechanics as far as they can be used to help model the chances of given characters in the story succeeding at specific tasks, then any idea of balance tends to go by the wayside in favor of wanting the narrative outcomes to feel right.
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You never explained why you like it though... Most people don't like getting shot in the foot to do something they enjoy.I feel like we went off topic.Probably. My point is that there is a subset of Pathfinder fans who like mechanical imbalanceI do! (OW!)
It's no different really to making that wizard with a 7 CON score to represent the wheezing, sickly character you have in mind, despite knowing it's going to cause you problems in combat.
Its a lot different actually. Its the difference between saying everyone should be shot in the foot for this particular style of play and having the option to be inferior an option separate from the style. Get what I mean? What you described is a flaw, and that's fine. An entirely optional flaw. Not every wizard has to have 7 con. Now... if you look at crossbows, every guy who ever wanted to use a crossbow is gimped, not just you. What does he get out of it? He gets to use his beloved crossbow he envisioned his character with, at the cost of the guy to the right of him using a longbow being inherently better than him for less investment.
If you're only interested in the mechanics as far as they can be used to help model the chances of given characters in the story succeeding at specific tasks, then any idea of balance tends to go by the wayside in favor of wanting the narrative outcomes to feel right.
I'm actually very interested in narrative, that's why I hate inferior options. I hate being inferior when it comes to narrative or options to customize my character especially. Those mechanics do have some control over your narrative power. I'm really forced to give a damn about mechanics in a game with a bunch of trap options or inferior options.
Its a lot different actually. Its the difference between saying everyone should be shot in the foot for this particular style of play and having the option to be inferior an option separate from the style. Get what I mean? What you described is a flaw, and that's fine. An entirely optional flaw. Not every wizard has to have 7 con. Now... if you look at crossbows, every guy who ever wanted to use a crossbow is gimped, not just you. What does he get out of it? He gets to use his beloved crossbow he envisioned his character with, at the cost of the guy to the right of him using a longbow being inherently better than him for less investment.
As far as choice of feats go, it's not really that different (although I agree with what Steve said earlier, that "inferior" feats probably ought to be labelled as such so people that care about balance can avoid them)
With weapons, then yes, we're more in a grey area, as that's pretty much down to the designers evaluations of which weapons should work better than others (and we'll forever have pages and pages of threads arguing about it, no matter what they do.)
Balancing weapons for the sake of balance leads to a feel of it being artificial and - well, if you'll excuse the term - "gamey". I think that's something they're specifically trying to avoid.
Let's be perfectly honest the 3.0 rules were written to be "gamey" with deliberately good and deliberately bad choices baked into the fundamental game design.
Yes some weapons are going to be objectively better at certain tasks than others but if you go down that road too far you risk needing to bring in 1e's weapon modifiers vs AC or 2e's weapon type vs AC modifiers and that way lies madness.
So in the interest of making a workable game weapons and armor are heavily simplified and abstracted because let's be honest if we wanted total verisimilitude in our game we'd be playing something different.
So instead of "realism" which is a bogus goal anyway you decide to balance the weapons on a narrativist and gamist methodology which isn't entirely a bad idea. However you want to reinforce that some weapons are tacitly inferior (simple weapons) whereas some have some mechanical advantages in certain circumstances, or advantages that show up at higher levels or when some feat chains get unlocked (Falchion I'm looking at you).
Of course EWP pretty much get consigned to the scrapbin unless you get it as a result of your racial selection because +1 base damage simply isn't worth the feat cost.
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I thought the concept of a "balance-centric" game had already been tried and abandoned when the previous industry leader lost their top spot and has since ceased its production in favor of revising to the next edition.
Ultimately, Paizo put out a game of unequal choices because that's the game they wanted to sell (partly due to their preference and partly due to compatibility to the lion's share of the existing market). It's popularity is at least partial proof that gamers are willing to accept it, whether they think it's flawed or not, play it and make it their own.
People like what they like, regardless of the preferences of others, and shouldn't be pushed to answer for it (so long as it isn't illegal). You'd think after all the edition wars and wailing, gnashing of teeth, and rending of garments the last few years, we'd be past the the "I don't like what you like" arguments. You don't like what I don't like? That's cool. Let's move on to something we both like.
To the OP: it's been addressed by the debs and, long story short, it's not something they're overly concerned about.
-Skeld
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I don't think the Paizo staff think people are doing it--that is, playing the game-wrong. But that the perspectives expressed on the internet comes from a loud minority who are looking at a very narrow set of circumstances, play styles, and theories that do not actually prove themselves true at the majority of game tables. Where the "wrongness" is is the assumption that everyone is having exactly the same experience in game. Looking at game design and balance is sticky and complex and involves a rich spectrum of play styles, which the theorycrafters often sadly ignore, so it makes it hard to discuss it with them.
More to the point, that in RPGs, there is no perfect mechanical system that works the same way for everyone, and so when discussing balance you have to look at how the game is played, not just how it is written (ETA: even if looking at how it is written and evaluating that is still important).
At least, that's my sense of it. Much of my own perspective sneaked in there, though, I admit.
The issues you bring up are good, but I disagree with the conclusions. You are correct--there is a playstyle issue, but you seem to be saying the theorycrafters play differently and so they're screwed and that's fine.
The Devs seem to mostly share a playstyle, and they designed the game for that style.
This is, in and of itself, not a problem. It's great to be able to write a game for yourself, and people who don't play that way can just adapt however they like, and that's fine. I loved AD&D, but I can guarantee I didn't play it the way the developers did, and that was ok. Table variation was the standard--you played the way the GM liked, and if he was smart, he made sure the players liked it, too, so they stayed his players.
Unfortunately, a few different factors contribute to making it a problem now:
1) Increased communication creates increased pressure to conform to a standard. When I use Houserule X at my table, and you use Houserule Y, it's harder to have a meaningful conversation about the game because we're going to be coming at it from such different perspectives. This sort of cross-pollination creates subtle pressure to conform--the closer my game is to yours, the more we are able to talk on the same page. So, a "standard" play style has arisen, and deviating from that subtley frowned upon.
2) Global, "living" games like PFS require standardization to function and, especially as is the case with PFS, their ubiquity and "introductory" nature is basically teaching people that this standardized form of the game is the only one. At its simplest, this is an extension of #1. If I'm going to come and play with you, a stranger, we can't each bring our own houserules (especially if some directly contradict each other). There has to be a standardized playstyle for a game like this to function, and I get that.
Unfortunately, most new roleplayers play PFS first, so the standardized playstyle is not just an oddity required for the game--it appears to be the only way to play. The devs get bugged for official rulings (mostly on playstyle related questions), and the idea of houseruling something or making a judgment call is a novelty at best. In short, it marginalizes people with playstyles other than the "standard."
3) All this standardization actually contributes to the caster-martial disparity. With varied playstyles, spellcasting is basically as powerful as the table allows. Normally, the GM can veto obvious abuses, orchestrate non-combat situations to make sure nobody feels useless, and social contract limits a spellcasters to doing "spellcaster stuff," and not stepping on other people's toes.
However, in a "standard" game, especially something like PFS, the GM is depowered and expected to follow the standard, not do his own thing. He's not supposed to houserule away abuses--only the devs can apparently decide what is abusive. He's not supposed to let Fighters just talk, they have to make them roll Diplomacy checks or whatever. There's no social contract since most of the players will basically be a revolving cast of strangers anyway.
Everything about it basically encouraging the kind of playstyle that feels the caster/martial disparity hardest.
So, I think the real problem is that paizo is pushing PFS (and in turn, a standardizedversion of the game) which prevents houserules and social contract from coming into play, but the devs are still writing the game assuming that houserules and social contract will take care of any playstyle issues that might arise.
Ultimately, I'd want the game to either be totally behind table variation or totally against it (and written more carefully and consistently to actually allow a functioning game to exist without table variation).
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My guess why Paizo and some players (including me) are not super concerned with balance because we don't think optimization is the end all of gaming. A lot of players just don't obsess over whether any other option is inferior to something else that exists. And they don't map out every little feat or level they take in their character's life and shout obscenities to the gods about a perceived wasted feat. Its simply a choice of play style.
I like that classes are not all equally suited to the same tasks, or that every weapon, feat, or spell is not of exactly equal use. While there is a danger in going overly detailed in the rules and trying to mimic reality to too great an extent, there is also a danger in overly balancing classes, weapons etc. After all, we could just state all base weapons do d8 damage, and give all classes similar abilities. But then I think that every character will lose any sense of individuality it has
I thought the concept of a "balance-centric" game had already been tried and abandoned when the previous industry leader lost their top spot and has since ceased its production in favor of revising to the next edition.
Not really. There's a lot of information behind 4E and how it did. Worse, stating "they tried it once it automatically sucks" is a terrible protocol, because there are 100 other reasons anything happens. I've always thought it created more of a mantra about how homogenization isn't the route you want to take to balance. It also ignores several decades of table tops, alternative games, and people who purchase based on legacy rather than quality.
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So, I think the real problem is that paizo is pushing PFS (and in turn, a standardizedversion of the game) which prevents houserules and social contract from coming into play, but the devs are still writing the game assuming that houserules and social contract will take care of any playstyle issues that might arise.
Much as I hate to knock PFS in any way (I think it's a fantastic idea), I have to agree that many of the "problems" I see people talking about stem from the "because PFS" argument.
PFS is the ultimate argument for needing balance in the rules, the GM can't perform their intended role of ensuring that balance exists which leaves the rulebook in the role of final arbiter, something it's just not suited for.
On the one hand, you have a set of rules designed as a toolkit for GMs to build a game from and to smack around with heavy items until it fits the requirements of their group. On the other, you have PFS which requires it to work perfectly out of the box and forbids the GM from performing many of the tweaks they would be doing in home games.
Essentially, PFS tries to turn the Pathfinder rulebook into an MMORPG without the O, where many of us enjoy it because it doesn't play like an online game whose playerbase demand everything be fair and equal.
Ultimately, I'd want the game to either be totally behind table variation or totally against it (and written more carefully and consistently to actually allow a functioning game to exist without table variation).
I've ditched an RPG in the past for being totally against table variation. Table variation is the only way, IMO, you can get an RPG of this complexity that a large enough audience can be content with.
There's a lot of information behind 4E and how it did. Worse, stating "they tried it once it automatically sucks" is a terrible protocol, because there are 100 other reasons anything happens. I've always thought it created more of a mantra about how homogenization isn't the route you want to take to balance. It also ignores several decades of table tops, alternative games, and people who purchase based on legacy rather than quality.
Have to agree with the point of it not being easy to define what about 4E turned off a lot of 3E/PF players, simply because I thought the homogenization part was one of its good points ;)
Here's another issue though - even if you managed to balance every individual item/feat/spell in the game, the next problem you'll run into is someone discovering certain combinations of those are more powerful. That's a level you can never manage past a certain point of complexity without going the 4e route and writing a whole new game from scratch. Once you do that, though, it's not Pathfinder any longer - and then you run into the issue of why Pathfinder was created in the first place.
So, I think the real problem is that paizo is pushing PFS (and in turn, a standardizedversion of the game) which prevents houserules and social contract from coming into play, but the devs are still writing the game assuming that houserules and social contract will take care of any playstyle issues that might arise.Much as I hate to knock PFS in any way (I think it's a fantastic idea), I have to agree that many of the "problems" I see people talking about stem from the "because PFS" argument.
PFS is the ultimate argument for needing balance in the rules, the GM can't perform their intended role of ensuring that balance exists which leaves the rulebook in the role of final arbiter, something it's just not suited for.
On the one hand, you have a set of rules designed as a toolkit for GMs to build a game from and to smack around with heavy items until it fits the requirements of their group. On the other, you have PFS which requires it to work perfectly out of the box and forbids the GM from performing many of the tweaks they would be doing in home games.
I do think that a more balanced Pathfinder is still going to be useful for home games, since it means GMs need to spend less time worrying about balance as opposed to storytelling and running the campaign. I know when I GM, I only have so much time to spend on the game I'm running; time spent on game balance is time taken away from everything else I could be doing.
Maybe we'd discuss what a great game we had where everyone contributed equally at the table and nobody felt like they were less useful because of a stylistic choice they made.I like paying mechanic costs for flavor benefits. Not everyone would be happier.
And some would be unhappy even if everyone was equal, and some would be unhappy if they weren't more powerful, and most would be unhappy as it would be a rather bland game, methinks.
Even in 4th ed not everyone can contribute equally and some choices are better. Even in chess some choices are better.
Like this.?
We should discuss the accuracy of crossbows reload time maybe?
This is my favorite video that ever gets put up from this debate.
Because it's always used as "proof" that crossbows are slow to fire, but never used as "proof" that longbows only fire about twice as fast (not 6-8x as fast, as the game mechanics would let you believe).So, really, longbows should get off about twice as many arrows as light crossbows (hand-spanned) get off bolts. Add a bolt or two into the equation for heavy crossbows (windlass), and that seems "fair." And what does that math leave us with? Two arrows per round. Yeah, archers would totally be okay with that, amirite? :P
(And before someone shows up with a "speed firing" video, those aren't medieval longbows they're using! They're tournament-weighted composite shortbows! An English Longbow had a draw-weight of between 110 and 150 lbs. - For an idea of how heavy that pull is, watch how much this guy struggles with a 123lb longbow - He can't even get a full draw on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLlBNnQg6Bs)
Why is there not an option for a one-handed spear?
One-Handed Melee Weapons:
Shortspear 1 gp 1d4 1d6 ×2 20 ft. 3 lbs. P —
Or if you want to use a longspear:
Phalanx Fighting (Ex): At 3rd level, when a phalanx soldier wields a shield, he can use any polearm or spear of his size as a one-handed weapon.
StuffA main problem when discussing balance is opinions like these.
They range from "In real life this sucks so it should suck here" to ones like Steve's "I think bad options are great, because I don't think there is a difference between choosing between two good options and one good and one bad option".
They are not really disagreeing that the balance is awful, they just kind of clog up the thread because the people who want to actually discuss solutions offer proofs and whatnot to show them how bad it is. It is actually pretty frustrating haha, because the good houserule solutions that I have gotten from ashiel and kirth are hidden among hundreds of posts vs ciretose.
It would be nice if the people who don't care about balance didn't respond in balance threads
Fair enough (although note that your paraphrase is not my position - if I held the view you ascribed to me, I'd be ambivalent to balance, not averse to it).
I just wanted to clarify that better balance is not actually an improvement for everyone. It appeared to me that it was being implicitly taken as axiomatic that balance is desirable.
I don't really see the point in pro-balance people just talking to themselves, but I'm happy to stay out of this thread if you think it will help.
StuffA main problem when discussing balance is opinions like these.
They range from "In real life this sucks so it should suck here" to ones like Steve's "I think bad options are great, because I don't think there is a difference between choosing between two good options and one good and one bad option".
They are not really disagreeing that the balance is awful, they just kind of clog up the thread because the people who want to actually discuss solutions offer proofs and whatnot to show them how bad it is. It is actually pretty frustrating haha, because the good houserule solutions that I have gotten from ashiel and kirth are hidden among hundreds of posts vs ciretose.
It would be nice if the people who don't care about balance didn't respond in balance threads
Fair enough (although note that your paraphrase is not my position - if I held the view you ascribed to me, I'd be ambivalent to balance, not averse to it).
I just wanted to clarify that better balance is not actually an improvement for everyone. It appeared to me that it was being implicitly taken as axiomatic that balance is desirable.
I don't really see the point in pro-balance people just talking to themselves, but I'm happy to stay out of this thread if you think it will help.
I actually find your position incredibly enlightening if that helps at all. It never even occurred to me that there would be a group (however small) that were not happy with the idea of being competent adventurers WHILE getting all of their flavour options in.
No sarcasm intended, that is a completely alien position for me.... I still wish I could use a crossbow though, preferably once a round with DR negation or something to emulate the armor piercing qualities of the weapon.
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Honestly the verisimilitude argument is pretty bogus anyway due to the fact that D&D and PF in no way function as a real world simulator. In terms of simulationism they best simulate D&D physics rather than anything resembling reality.
No. Absolutely not. Most RPGs depend on a sense of verisimilitude because of their nature. Being open-ended games in which a player can try to achieve nearly anything, yet having a finite rulebook, a typical RPG needs to depend on the GM (and players' at the table) to be able to adjudicate results outside the rules in a reasonably predictable manner. To do this, we rely on our shared sense of reality. Rules that take lengths to violate this leave the table playing something in which our senses of reality offer no (or little) predictive analysis and the results, ultimately, feel arbitrary and meaningless.
And honestly I'm okay with realism being abandoned in order to make a better game. Ultra realistic combat goes down the Phoenix Command route and that's madness and it's not D&D. That being said having clearly inferior options that aren't clearly labeled as such isn't a great design either.
There's always a balance to strike between simulationism and gamism. You want enough simulationism that the results make sense for our understanding of reality. Yet you also want to achieve those results in a fun manner that's no more complex than it needs to be. So you abstract the simulation some to promote better game play - but you usually don't want to completely ignore the simulation. Exactly how much simulation a game incorporates is a matter of taste. D&D and PF incorporate loading differences between the longbow and crossbow as part of the simulation they don't want to lose. And, no, I don't want to see that realism-based difference abandoned.
Yes some weapons are going to be objectively better at certain tasks than others but if you go down that road too far you risk needing to bring in 1e's weapon modifiers vs AC or 2e's weapon type vs AC modifiers and that way lies madness.<snip>
So instead of "realism" which is a bogus goal anyway you decide to balance the weapons on a narrativist and gamist methodology which isn't entirely a bad idea. However you want to reinforce that some weapons are tacitly inferior (simple weapons) whereas some have some mechanical advantages in certain circumstances, or advantages that show up at higher levels or when some feat chains get unlocked (Falchion I'm looking at you).
You know, if you reintroduce those weapons vs armor type modifiers from 1e, some of those simple weapons (like the heavy crossbow) stop sucking so much.
Problem is that some of the kick that was packed into a crossbow was lost. Heavy crossbows don't, or at least shouldn't, require you to hit someone more than once. If you can put a heavy quarrel through a suit of plate in reality you should be able to simulate some of that stopping power in the game. I don't think increasing dice one step does that.
I read recently that a crossbow bolt from the heaviest crossbows have about the same kinetic energy as an assault rifle round at 100 meters. That is pretty astonishing.
So basically its an M14 that only gives you one shot :P
And if you reintroduce the disparity in the leveling charts of individual classes from 2e..., while you add 'inconvenient and possibly confusing disparity' back into the system.... and even in doing so introduce a lack of balance from one perspective... You restore a balance that was removed that people seem to complain about a lot.
If at the final battle of the AP, you'd all made the exact same amount of xp but your thief was L21, your cleric was L18, your Fighter was L17 and your wizard was L16...... That was a form of balance that worked pretty well back then. I wonder how much traction an idea like that would have at helping people not think thieves were getting rooked.
The bad reputation that fighter gets in pathfinder, maybe they should be put up there with thieves... so if the same amount of xp could get you either a 16th level wizard or a 21st level fighter or thief... is that... balance? And in the spirit of mythbusters, if the answer is 'no' then how many extra levels would it take to be unquestionably a yes....?
•2d8+2 base damage light. 2d10+3 base damage heavy.
•Able to use the Vital Strike line of feats.
•Does not work with any techs that increase rate of fire.
•Ignores some armor class from manufactured/natural armor: 1pt light/2pts medium/3pts heavy/2pts natural
Seems a fair and balanced crossbow to me.
Is it a lot of damage, though?
At level 11, a Fighter using a heavy crossbow can do 6d10+9 once every other round (avg ~42) to a single target with a required attack roll.
Compare that to any offensive caster's standard action. Or the Greatsword, Power-Attacking, version of the same level 11 Fighter. Etc.
That's a terrible way to balance.
If something is good for 2 levels, and then absolute s%~% for 18 more, it doesn't need to be made so it's absolute s~~# the first two levels too.
And it's a faulty comparison since your average 1st level 2H Fighter will have 18 Str and be attacking for an average of 13 anyway. More with Power Attack.
I have no problem with weapons of varying quality either, but here's the current situation:
•The iterative attack system makes any and all thrown weapons an awful choice, because you will either have to unrealistically cover yourself in your chosen weapon, invest in uber-specific magic, or simply run out of your attack option long before the fight is over.
•Bows have been given the god-treatment. They far surpass what they can actually achieve in reality, making them far better than they should be (also, somewhat related to the iterative attack system - but mostly just caving in to the fantasy archer trope).
•Crossbows, on the other hand, are stuck dealing with "reality," but suffer even further as a single die-step doesn't really match the difference in penetrating power of a bow vs a crossbow.
When you add up the facts, we don't have a situation of, "one is better than the other, and that's okay." Instead we have a situation of, "bows are so good, that they make every other option a trap option by comparison."
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Hunting Longbow draw strength: ~60lbs
High-end longbow draw strength: ~150lbs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow#Draw_weights)
Hunting crossbow (basically light crossbow) draw strength: at least 150. Modern ones go up to 225 easily. Not sure if they should be light or heavy though.
http://www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/154682/hunting/how_much_draw_we ight_do_i_need_for_crossbow_hunting63.htmlI'm leaning towards light.
Some historians claim heavy crossbows go up to 300 but those required some mechanisms to operate.
Let's take it to another thread, as you didn't take the size and weight of bolts into consideration in your physics (pro-tip, it matters). You start the thread and I'll join you there with citations.
I'm going to join in on saying that my preference is for things to not all be balanced. I've enjoyed a lot of characters over the years that were intentionally made to use a suboptimal weapon and it's a fun challenge to build those characters. To my mind the game is much more interesting if there are actual meaningful differences between weapons and classes and the like. I don't want weapons to all come to the same average damage per round on an optimised build.
You can have relatively balanced options and still have meaningful differences.
In other news, here are more post by a dev on balance. Link.
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As ciretose pointed out I asked Jason directly what he though about game balance, and I felt he gave a simple, but direct & insightful answer. Is there some discrepancy between the martial and casters, yes, but it isn't as drastic or important as people make it out to be. Honestly compared to 3.5, pathfinder is practically overloaded with both interesting and mechanically valid option (which I really love).
Balance... that's what kills Role Play part of RPG. I'm afraid that most new players look at most powerful classes rather than on what it fun to role play. People make builds and choose prestige classes not because they want them to appeal to their imagination of their character but because they can deal 1d8 more damage. Tell me, which character is better? Guy that has 40 AC and can wipe his own team in one turn + 1 shot elder dragon or a the guy whose roleplaying skills made game much better for the rest of group?
Balance, is the main thing that pushed me away from D&D 4.0. I'm not saying that D&D 4.0 is well balanced RPG but the class mechanic is designed in a way that it can be much easier to balance classes without changing their concept which leads to one problem - all classes look the same, there is nothing unique about them.
In most scenarios it is GM's fault that player feels that his character is less useful than others (unless he is just dumb and can't use his class when opporunity arises).
BTW, there is no balance in RPG game where imagination is your main weapon. Why would you want to fight a dragon in a dark caveren system when you can collapse entire mountain on his head?
P.S.
Sorry for my English, it's not my mother language.
The crossbow replaced the bow because it was a simple weapon that required a lot less training and skill to use. A skilled archer was actually very valuable, but not as efficient.
Something I learned incidental to researching things for the sling staff was that the crossbow also often replaced the bow among elite archers in continental Europe - even in the Balkans and Eastern European steppe/plains regions where the crossbow came to dominate horse archery. Which makes me doubt that it was just a worse-but-simpler dynamic, otherwise highly skilled archers wouldn't have wanted to abandon their bows for crossbows.
In Medieval Europe crossbow was banished from use by knight orders because it was so deadly. Why would you fight honour battle when you can just point a "piece of stick" at the other guy and he drops dead? Crossbow power was so big that it could penetrate through most armor types (maybe with exception of full plate armors). Ofc it didn't stop armies from using them, just it never was a weapon in hands of a knight.
@Edit:
Crossbows were brought to Europe by first Crusades. It was a dangerous and very efficent weapon. In year 1139 crossbow was banished from using against other Christians. Later on pope Innocent III officialy banished them.
In Medieval Europe crossbow was banished from use by knight orders because it was so deadly. Why would you fight honour battle when you can just point a "piece of stick" at the other guy and he drops dead? Crossbow power was so big that it could penetrate through most armor types (maybe with exception of full plate armors). Ofc it didn't stop armies from using them, just it never was a weapon in hands of a knight.
Only in Western Europe, by the Catholics, and even that was unsuccessful. In Eastern Europe, where there was a stronger social acceptance of combined arms fire/shock among the elite troops since ancient times, you see mounted knights (or the military equivalent, e.g. the descendants of the early medieval Eastern Roman cataphracts) discarding the horse bow in favor of the crossbow - so you end up with lance-and-crossbow cavalry as the favored knightly equivalent in those regions.