# Older Editions and "Balance" when compared to 3.5



## Melkor (Sep 9, 2010)

So I know people have issues with how 3.5 was "balanced," and subsequent products like Pathfinder and Trailblazer attempt to "fix" some of the apparent issues that caused headaches for some gaming group.

My question to you folks is: How well were the older editions "balanced?"

I know my gaming group and I have played together since the late 80's, and our longest campaigns of AD&D lasted years, but we only got to around 10th level. We never, at the time, noticed that the game had "balance" issues in play, but then again, none of our players are really power gamers, and we largely ignored the Skills & Powers stuff.

Our experience with 3rd Edition was roughly the same. We played for a decade, but would either start new adventures or take long breaks, so our characters never got above 10th level, and we never noticed major issues with balance in our games. Again, none of the players really looked for loopholes to exploit either.

All of that said, I have heard horror stories of 3rd Edition games at high levels that just got out of hand, the CoDzilla stuff, etc. 

That just made me wonder if "balance" in the older editions (pre 3E) was a factor, of it was something that noone ever noticed or worried about, and the game was just played and enjoyed without all of the angst.....and if so, is it possible to do the same thing with newer editions - throwing "balance" to the wind?

This is an honest question, and not in any way an attempt to start an edition war. Please leave that kind of thing out of this discussion, and just focus on your experience and opinions with regards to balance of older editions (or lack thereof), and how you feel that compares to balance in the 3rd Edition.

Thanks.


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## steeldragons (Sep 9, 2010)

Thanks for posting this. I am (was) a "gamer" from pre-3e myself and from looking at various boards in recent months I've really wondered this myself...so now I'll throw in my 2 coppers. 

I don't recall us EVER having debates or complaints about "balance."..and we DID get into some higher levels...think my high school group was averaging levels in the mid to high teens...that's what I think of when I think "high" levels.

All of the time and energy and product after product after product, forum after thread after forum, talking and gravely concerned with "balance." It just baffles me.

The game is (or should be) balanced among the players (and DM) themselves. Everyone's good at something different...the fighter fights, the cleric clerics, the thief thiefs, etc. etc. I understand "Oh gods, the mages get soooo powerful."...Yeah, I guess they could be...when (if ever) they're over 8th-10th level or so. (or used to be...who knows what level with the game as it is now?) And it took, if memory serves, PAINFULLY FOREVVVVER to even get to 5th! 

At the same time, at/around 7th-8th level, the fighter was laden with magical armor, weapons, massive hit points and most likely strength enhancing magic items. Thieves had a bevy of items (probably something for invisibility or flying or climbing or silence...if not all of the above), greatly heightened stealth skills and (probably) amassed riches they could have accrued by then. Clerics got their butt-kicking spells too (along with the magic armor and weapons and items)...soooo who was so much more powerful/unbalanced than whom?

I don't see how mages were so outrageously "overpowered" or making the game "unbalanced" as seems to be the common consensus.

BUT, as I've said before, I am sorely out of the loop when it comes to actual game play for a few "editions" now...so I'll leave that kinda analysis to the mechanics & rule-mavens to hash out.

For me, the game (D&D or AD&D or OD&D or however you want to label...pre-3-3.5) was always more about imagination, story telling and character CREATION (as in developing a Character, capital "C", not just the rolling stats & pick a name part) than feats, scores, "balance" or character BUILDS...Oh yeah...and FUN. It was about fun and being social too.  "Balance" never really entered the equation.

Just my thoughts.
SD, the great and powerful, has spoken. 
That is all.


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## Odhanan (Sep 9, 2010)

"Game balance" is not the same thing as "rules balance". Rules balance is just one of the _many_ components of actual game as-it-is-being-played balance, which also includes various GM skills, collaboration between the participants of the game, spotlight given to characters and the situations that allow such spotlights, play styles (game balance between thespian players will not mean the same thing as game balance between tactical players) and so on and so forth.

The rules are not the game. The game is not the rules.

Rules balance being the be-all end-all of game balance, and thus requiring near-perfection, is a fallacy. 

When you realize that, you can free yourself from the present paradigm and look at older editions of the game as what they are: very well-crafted, entertaining games indeed.


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## Hussar (Sep 9, 2010)

I'm really curious where this idea comes from that the only people who could possibly have balance issues were power gamers.  I mean, the groups I played with in latter half 1e and 2e weren't power gamers.  I'm discounting my earlier experiences with AD&D because, well, we were twelve years old and heh.  Good times.

But seriously, why do people assume that only power gamers have balance issues?  We played pretty high rp games and we had balance issues all the time.  Campaign after campaign blew up under the weight of serious mechanical balance issues.  

But, I think that the myth that balance is somehow mythically achieved by special role players who didn't care about the mechanics they used really needs to be taken out behind the barn and beated with chickens.


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## Umbran (Sep 9, 2010)

Melkor said:


> My question to you folks is: How well were the older editions "balanced?"




To my mind, poorly.

I'm not saying that the games were not playable or fun.  I'm saying that the rule structure placed a greater burden on the GM to make sure all the PCs had effective and cool stuff to do in the game.  Balanced design takes some of that burden off the GM, and makes it inherent to the system.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 9, 2010)

I've always been concerned with balance. I remember playing in 2e D&D games in the early 90s where some PCs were much more powerful than others, and seeing it as a problem - casters overpowering non-casters (even extending to PvP) because we only had one or two encounters each day, people cheating on their stat rolls, some PCs having like twenty magic items and cheated stats while others had two magic items and rolled stats - there could be a huge disparity.

In one particular AD&D 2e game, starting at 1st level, the DM banned one PC after the first session, because he had 18/00 strength and full plate armor, while the next strongest PC had something like a 17 strength. The 18/00er was thus doing about twice as much damage as the next best character. The reason the 18/00 PC's strength was so high was that his player, Stan, used to have a folder full of characters he had 'rolled up' and played in games back in his home town. He only used the best chars from the folder, or perhaps a char had to have very good stats just to make it into the folder. I dunno, I never looked at its horror. The rest of us folderless fools just rolled up our chars then and there and took what we got, so Stan had a significant advantage. Another player in my wider play circle at that time, Russell, was the most appalling cheat, I don't think he ever actually rolled a dice, he'd just place them.

In the mid-80s I played in a Champions 1e game where one PC was built on 300 points, and had something like a 20d6 attack, while the rest of us were 200 pointers and had 10d6 attacks. The player, Benny, had paid for the 300pts with numerous disadvantages such as lots of Berserks, with predictable consequences. There always seemed to be lots of PvP when Benny was a player, I think he regarded killing other players' PCs as a sign of skilled play. Fortunately he mostly used to GM.

EDIT: To be fair, in my teens I was a filthy cheat too. When we made up high level PCs for Against The Giants I 'rolled' 18/99 for my strength (I thought it would be that little bit more plausible than 00) and I also 'rolled' up a two-handed sword of giantslaying in the tables in Dragon. I recall also reading the module beforehand and using that knowledge to my advantage.


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## FireLance (Sep 9, 2010)

(Slightly modified from an old post of mine.)

I don't think that older editions were poorly balanced. Rather, the point of reference for balance has shifted over the years.

The primary point of reference for 1E and earlier editions appears to be the ongoing game. Players are expected to have multiple characters, and/or characters are expected to die or retire and be replaced in the course of the game, so even if you are lucky (or unlucky) enoiugh to get a really good (or bad) character now, there is no guarantee that your next character will be the same. The game thus emphasizes equality of opportunity during character creation because there are assumed to be many opportunities to create characters. This paradigm can break down if the players are expected to create a single character and then play it over the course of an extended campaign.

2E's primary point of reference is the campaign. Certain races and classes were more effective at low levels and others were better at high levels, and certain classes were more effective in certain situations and less so in others, but this was expected to even out over the course of an entire campaign spanning many levels and incorporating many different types of challenges. However, this paradigm can break down if the campaign ends after only a few levels, or if the DM does not include challenges that enable all the characters to shine.

3E's primary point of reference is the adventuring day. Characters with daily abilities are expected to manage their resources carefully, and at low levels, when they have fewer uses of their abilities, this means that they will use few or none of them in certain fights. Even at higher levels, when they had access to more uses, it meant that they would have to go through some fights using only lower-level abilities. However, this paradigm can break down if the PCs fight only one or two encounters per day.

4E's primary point of reference is the (usually combat) encounter. Character abilities are designed so that characters will be able to contribute more or less equally to the party's success over the course of an encounter. This does not mean that they deal equal amounts of damage - Leaders buff and heal, Defenders draw attacks and Controllers shape the battlefield and inflict conditions on the enemies. This paradigm doesn't seem to have broken down yet, but it has been criticized for being dull, boring and repetitive.


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## Dausuul (Sep 9, 2010)

If you never go past 10th level, you won't ever see most of 3E's really heinous class-balance issues; the main power differential between PCs is going to be between the system-savvy and the system-ignorant.

Even at high levels, the problem may not come up. A tolerably well-built fighter will have no problem keeping up with a blaster wizard and a healbot cleric. It's when wizards discover the wonder of save-or-lose and utility magic, and clerics decide to buff themselves up because they want to take a more active hand in combat, that fighters and rogues get left in the dust.

Before 3E, casters still had an advantage at high levels, but not nearly as much of one, for a couple of reasons. First, saving throw mechanics didn't allow for save DCs; your chance to save against an archmage casting _finger of death_ was the same as against an apprentice wizard casting _charm person_, and a powerful foe was likely to shrug off both. So you didn't get the phenomenon of save-or-lose spells dominating the game. (On the other hand, lower hit point totals and the tendency for hit points to plateau past 9th or 10th level meant blasting magic was quite a bit stronger.)

Second, each class had its own experience table, and casters typically leveled much slower than non-casters once they got up around level 10-12. So a 15th-level caster might dominate a 15th-level fighter, but you wouldn't see them in the same party.

Third, just as saving throws didn't have variable DCs, magic resistance was a fixed percentage. A foe with 90% magic resistance shrugged off 90% of spells, period. It could get to be a real headache.

Finally, you just didn't get as many spells per day in older editions.


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## Melkor (Sep 9, 2010)

Hussar said:


> But seriously, why do people assume that only power gamers have balance issues?




Hi Hussar,

It wasn't my intention to insult anyone who considers themselves to be 'power gamers.' and I wasn't saying that somehow, the players in my gaming group were superior roleplayers with no need for 'that powergaming crap.'

Rather, I was just stating that in my own experience, we never really worried about tried to play the most powerful build of character we could generate, and my long-term DM never sought to create enemies that did the same thing, so I have no experience with that style of play....and that style of play, I have noted over the years of 3rd Edition, has exposed several rules that people feel are 'unbalanced.'

Again, in 25+ years of playing, I have NEVER had a character over 10th level, so a lot of perceived balance issues with any edition were never something I personally experienced.

My real point in posting was to wonder if 'balance issues' in older editions were the same as they are in 3rd edition - in other words, there is a possibility for major issues to crop up in previous editions just as much as in 3.5, but having played older editions for nearly two decades, and not having any problems, would it be just as feasible to play 3.5 at high levels with my gaming group without ever experiencing the balance issues experienced by others?


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## Dragonbait (Sep 9, 2010)

I started playing D&D during the 2ed era, and looking back I'd have to say that things were horribly balanced as time went on. 

My last 2ed campaign utilized all the Player Option's books, along with the Planescape and all the race and class guides. We all assumed that if it was published by TSR, it should work with a D&D game without problems. I had the group encounter a great wyrm green dragon with maximum hit points. The aasimar swordswoman with grand mastery and whatever other powers her dual katanas had tacked on killed the dragon in a single round (I'm throwing out fake names. It's been something like 15 years so I can not recall the actual rules the character used).

That was when I realized that some books, powers, and such did not always work smoothly with all other books. I learned about power creep and game inbalance that day. I started seeing it a lot as we used more books, like the Complete Psion, Ninja's handbook and the like. 

As for the uclass imbalance, I only recall that most monsters were no longer a challenge by the time PCs reached level 10 to 12. Only one player complained about how weak his character was after about 9th level, and he was playing a 2ed bard. So in my personal experience, class imbalance was not an issue.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 9, 2010)

The important thing to note about older editions is that balance was over the long term - years of play. Characters were supposed to die a lot, so one would be frequently rolling up a new character, rather like hands in Poker. Poker has a lot of randomness, at the level of individual hands, but because many, many hands are drawn, the luck should even out over time. It was intended to be the same with early D&D, each player would roll up a great many characters. Ofc someone like Stan could game this system by rolling up many more characters than the other players and only using the best ones.

The balance of the magic-user versus the fighter was also intended to be over the long term. A magic-user is supposed to be weaker than a fighter at low levels, roughly equal at mid-level, and definitely more powerful at high level - 9th+. This balance can only work if one plays long campaigns, where PCs can rise to name level, and then retire one's chars at that point. If the majority of play takes place at name level or higher, m-us are OP.

Likewise, Vancian magic is unbalanced if there are few encounters per day. The game assumes dungeon play, or a similar situation where there are many encounters each day.

If one doesn't use dungeons or doesn't play from 1st to around 10th and then stop, or roll up and play lots of new characters, then old school D&D isn't balanced.


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## Gothmog (Sep 9, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> If you never go past 10th level, you won't ever see most of 3E's really heinous class-balance issues; the main power differential between PCs is going to be between the system-savvy and the system-ignorant.
> 
> Even at high levels, the problem may not come up. A tolerably well-built fighter will have no problem keeping up with a blaster wizard and a healbot cleric. It's when wizards discover the wonder of save-or-lose and utility magic, and clerics decide to buff themselves up because they want to take a more active hand in combat, that fighters and rogues get left in the dust.
> 
> ...




Yep, Dausuul nailed it.  

I never had balance problems with older editions, but in 3E balance became a huge problem.  In 1e and 2e, the different XP advancement was the main means of balance, and I actually liked the XP discrepancy between wizards, druids, etc and the more mundane classes.  While the spellcaster was potent, he was very limited in what he could do per day, and had to plan to use his abilities to best effect.

With 3e, the differential XP advancement was gone, AND more spells were allowed per day, AND the spells were pretty much identical to previous editions (meaning very potent), AND more buff spells were present, AND save DC bumps were easy to obtain.  The result is obvious- immensely overpowered spellcasters compared to non-spellcasters.  This was an issue in ever 3e game I played in or ran past 5th level.  Add on to this how easy it was to make a way overpowered build with certain feat/PrC combos, and 3e never had a prayer of balance.  3e had some great innovations and developments, but balance, well-considered game design, and implications of design changes were not among them.  To this day, no 3e-derived game has even begun to able to solve these problems to my satisfaction.


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## billd91 (Sep 9, 2010)

The games (1e, 2e) were balanced better than I believe most people realize.

Wizards had awesome powers at higher levels without needing a lot of magic items (though they did like them). So the treasure tables in 1e were skewed in favor of disposables and the armor wearers and weapon users rather than wizard-oriented items. This seems to have disappeared in 3e in favor of tables based more around cash value. 

Magic items were also a lot harder to make, keeping wizards (or other spellcasters) from kitting up powerful stuff on the relative cheap compared to fighters who were buying up their stuff retail in 3e.

Saving throws were kept to values covered by a d20, so there was no ability to spike a save DC higher compared to your enemy's target saving throw. Save or Die effects became a lot weaker as PCs progressed. Not only did that favor high-level characters surviving, it prevented wizards from being an instant win button with a save or die effect... barring a fortunately bad save from the opposition. The tactic was a lot less reliable.

Wizards and other spellcasters were much easier to disrupt in 1e/2e than in 3e. They had to be a lot more careful on the battlefield what spells or actions they would take. Fire off a weak but quicker low-level spell or invest more time (and gain a worse initiative) with a more effective higher level spell thus increasing the risk of being attacked and disrupted? 

AC was pretty much confined to 10 to -10 barring exceptional types of enemies. It was very hard for any AC to be completely out of a moderately made character's reach.

Touch attacks were based on the full AC of the target - add in the increased likelihood of disruption and you don't see very many harm spells cast in a fight.

Some changes made in 3e, generally for gamist reasons, actually hurt the balance of the game compared to 1e/2e. Cyclical initiative. After the ease of playing with it, who would want to go back? Yet it makes the turn order of the wizard predictable after being initially set. Combine that with spells being cast in 1 standard action rather than variable segments affecting turn order and the spellcaster is much harder to disrupt.

3e also brought in open-ended bonuses for things, particularly AC and save DCs. This meant that a power-gamer (or anyone with a modicum of sense about improvement) could focus on building up a character with a very high bonus, dwarfing the normal less optimized players or monsters. Easy to work into the rules from a gamist perspective, maybe not so good for game balance.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 9, 2010)

error


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## Dausuul (Sep 9, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> The important thing to note about older editions is that balance was over the long term - years of play. Characters were supposed to die a lot, so one would be frequently rolling up a new character, rather like hands in Poker. Poker has a lot of randomness, at the level of individual hands, but because many, many hands are drawn, the luck should even out over time. It was intended to be the same with early D&D, each player would roll up a great many characters. Ofc someone like Stan could game this system by rolling up many more characters than the other players and only using the best ones.
> 
> The balance of the magic-user versus the fighter was also intended to be over the long term. A magic-user is supposed to be weaker than a fighter at low levels, roughly equal at mid-level, and definitely more powerful at high level - 9th+. This balance can only work if one plays long campaigns, where PCs can rise to name level, and then retire one's chars at that point. If the majority of play takes place at name level or higher, m-us are OP.




Does it seem to anyone else that these two approaches to balance are diametrically opposed?

I mean, if people are going to roll up new characters on a regular basis, then balance across a character's adventuring career (the M-U has to suffer through the weak low levels to get the awesome high levels) is meaningless. Unless you also expect new characters to start off at level 1 every time.



Doug McCrae said:


> Was there spell disruption in 2e? I'm not saying you're wrong but I don't recall it. The one thing I remember is that level affecting casting time was an optional rule in 2e, as a wizard player argued for it in a game I ran - he thought it made for more interesting tactical decision making.




It was definitely a big concern for the wizards I played. If you got a bad initiative roll and some lucky enemy got a whack in before your initiative came up, say goodbye to your spell. Concentration check? What's that?


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## billd91 (Sep 9, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> Was there spell disruption in 2e? I'm not saying you're wrong but I don't recall it. The one thing I remember is that level affecting casting time was an optional rule in 2e, as a wizard player argued for it in a game I ran - he thought it made for more interesting tactical decision making.




Yep, whether you used the optional spellcasting time or not, you declared what you were doing before rolling. If you got hit before your turn (and you didn't get your Dex bonus to AC), you weren't casting, baby. Not only could you not get the spell off, it was lost - disrupted.

Using the optional spell casting time (in 2e, not optional in 1e but the initiative rules weren't as well written so the use was a bit more arcane) made it that much more dicey on the higher level and generally slower spells.


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## NewJeffCT (Sep 9, 2010)

I found 1E and 2E to be poorly balanced overall.  You could be an elf fighter/wizard and be level 4/3 and have the same XP as a human wizard of level 4 or human fighter of level 5.  So, you would be almost as good a wizard or fighter, plus have another whole extra class' worth of abilities as well. Heck, at the end of our last 2E campaign in 1999, my human ranger was level 8 and fighting alongside an elf fighter/wizard who was level 7 in both. There was no incentive to be human unless you wanted to play a weaker race.

DM: "The white dragon swoops in to attack and you can both get off one attack before it gets into breath weapon range."
Human Ranger: "I shoot it with my shorbow... hit... 4 points of damage."
Elf Fighter/Wizard: "I cast fireball at it, 7d6 damage, 22 points of damage, save for half"

And, in a lower magic campaign like I usually played in 2E, a lot of "save or die" spells meant PC death. At least 3E seemed to give you a decent chance of beating "save or die" spells.

Plus, cleric spells stopped at level 7 - so, no divine equivalent to Wish. Rogues pretty much stunk in combat as the game went up in level, as they had to surprise somebody from behind to get a backstab bonus.

To summarize, we had balance issues in 2E when the game passed level 3 or so because of multi-classing being overpowered compared to straight classes.  And, I just ran a 2 1/2 year long 3.5E campaign where the players went from level 1 to 18 and really had few balance issues at higher levels... my old 3.5E group was: human Sorcerer, human Cleric, halfling Psion, Dwarf Fighter, human Rogue/Spellthief, elf Paladin, Goliath Barbarian and a part-time human fighter.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 9, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> I mean, if people are going to roll up new characters on a regular basis, then balance across a character's adventuring career (the M-U has to suffer through the weak low levels to get the awesome high levels) is meaningless.



I believe it was expected that one would be rolling up new characters even if the old one hadn't died. You would have a big stable of living PCs (and many more dead ones), just like Stan with his folder. Characters would adventure with others of roughly the same level. So your surviving 8th level wizard, Lusaud, would often adventure with my surviving 7th level fighter Ercem Good, even though we might both have many other PCs ranging throughout the levels.



> Unless you also expect new characters to start off at level 1 every time.



OD&D does. AD&D 1e is fine with creating new chars at higher level to fit in with an existing group*. Gary feels that new players should begin with a 1st level character but once one has experienced 1st level play, it's fine not to go back to it, to start new chars at higher level.

Ofc this borks one of the fundamental precepts of m-u balance, but balance had been getting more and more borked pretty much since day one, or at least day two. 1e and even Supplement I Greyhawk promote the idea of playing beyond 10th level, which borks the balance between m-us and fighters. Thieves were born borked because m-us could do everything they could. Even OD&D's balance is a little borked as, for some reason, m-us can go up to level 16, whereas fighters and clerics are capped at 10.

*There's definitely a contradiction here. I've been saying that a large stable of PCs is expected but Gary's advice in the 1e DMG seems to indicate a group mostly playing at a particular level, even with a very limited number of chars. It could easily be that tastes changed, and 'stable play' declined, or that Gary's group preferred to play their high level chars and/or were unwilling to play at low level any more.


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## dagger (Sep 9, 2010)

NewJeffCT said:


> I found 1E  <snip>




Well we never had any problems in 1e even up to and beyond 15th level. It all just seemed to be balanced and just work really well.


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## Remathilis (Sep 9, 2010)

There were balance issues, but that was because the rules were created hodge-podge across multiple authors, eras, and supplements with often little concern for a "greater whole". In that way, old D&D was designed almost organically as need arose, rather than from a top down "even" balance like 3e and 4e has been.

In effect, it made a usable system that stll felt like a horrible mess. 

The biggest problem was the idea of the role of magic in the game and how powerful it should be. Things that seemed good in one view fell apart quickly against another. Case in point: the 2nd level spell invisibility. One casting, 24 hours of invisibility, but you can't "directly" attack. Sounds good. I balances against a thieves hide in shadows because while the former is automatic, the latter can be re-used and re-used. The former also costs a mage one the 4 spell slots he has for that level. So far so good.

Then we get the ring of invisibility. Which gives ANYONE the best of both worlds; re-usability and reliability. Suddenly, the mage doesn't need to spend a spell slot to become invisible; he can do it, attack, and do it again. Similarly the thief no longer has a % of failure, he's good to go forever!

One item breaks the spell-slot economy and the % skill set. That's one example, there are 1,000s more. The only hope a sane GM has is to NEVER give one of those things out in his campaign. Of course, then there is the elven cloak... ::bangs head::


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## TheYeti1775 (Sep 9, 2010)

We didn't need no stinking balance.
So what kobolds were found in groups of 10-100.  
You fought, ran, or were invited to dinner as the main course. 


Actually never noticed a real balance issue as we played either, course we weren't looking for balance just fun.
That and outside a few rare circumstances did we take characters into the upper teens and beyond in Red Box and 1E.  Most ended up retiring and fostering our future characters as their apprentices and stuff.

In 2E, we played several up into the high teens, and a few limited number above that.  Again didn't notice balance, or we didn't care.  Never really got into the Skill Option books though.

I will admit it did confuse me when all the classes used the same progression chart and multi-classing now added your classes together .


In all pre 3.0E, as far as disruption we used the Spell Casting Time in conjunction with Initiative.
You had your initiative and you declared what you were casting at your initiative time and started.  If it was Fireball (3 segment if I recall correctly) and your initiative was 10, than you started the casting at 10 and finished casting at 13 (remember low was good on initiative back than).  That became the time frame you could be distrupted 10 - 13.
Same with weapon speed.


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## S'mon (Sep 9, 2010)

Currently running OSRIC (1e clone) 1st-4th so far.  My impression is that Thieves seem a bit weak, otherwise the classes are well balanced.  M-Us are vulnerable to Fs and vice versa, as it should be.  Clerics are decent but not overpowered.


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## Imperialus (Sep 9, 2010)

One thing a lot of people overlook when it comes to balancing during previous editions, particularly balancing casters vs the fighting classes is the sheer amount of time spell memorization takes at high levels.  A lot of DM's in my experience (which is mostly confined to 2nd ed) would ignore this because it wasn't 'fun' but according to the PHB it takes a magic user 15 minutes per spell level to memorize a spell for the 'day'.  To use a 10th level MU as an example, this means that if he is starting with a 'blank slate' he needs to spend 9 hours and 45 minutes memorizing spells.

In 2nd ed the memorization time is lowered to 10 minutes, but that still means that the wizard in this case needs to spend 7 hours 40 minutes memorizing.


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## Sabathius42 (Sep 9, 2010)

The thing I thought was most unbalance about both 1e and 2e was the utter lameness of a fighter vs. a ranger or a paladin.

The ONLY time someone played a fighter was when they specifically wanted to be in the background and not contribute as much as anyone else, or else to poke fun at the system itself.

DS


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## Imperialus (Sep 9, 2010)

Sabathius42 said:


> The thing I thought was most unbalance about both 1e and 2e was the utter lameness of a fighter vs. a ranger or a paladin.
> 
> The ONLY time someone played a fighter was when they specifically wanted to be in the background and not contribute as much as anyone else, or else to poke fun at the system itself.
> 
> DS




Or you can't make the Ability Score requirements but still want to hit things with something sharp.  With a 17 Cha requirement for a Paladin you had approximately a 1.5% chance of getting that 17, plus you needed a 13 Wis, and a 10 Str.  Paladin's and Rangers were more powerful for sure, but they showed up pretty rarely, plus the Paladin code was a lot more restrictive.


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## S'mon (Sep 9, 2010)

Sabathius42 said:


> The thing I thought was most unbalance about both 1e and 2e was the utter lameness of a fighter vs. a ranger or a paladin.
> 
> The ONLY time someone played a fighter was when they specifically wanted to be in the background and not contribute as much as anyone else, or else to poke fun at the system itself.
> 
> DS




Haven't encountered any problem in my OSRIC game.  Fighters advance quicker than Paladins, they gain multiple attacks faster, and Paladin abilities aren't so amazing as to overshadow the Fighter PCs.

My current OSRIC PC group:
Fighter-4
Paladin-3
Fighter-3
Paladin-3 NPC (girlfriend of the Ftr 4)

+sometimes
Fighter-2
Ranger-3

I haven't noticed any overshadowing, they all have their different strengths, eg the Fighter-4 has the lowest stats but the most XP, the only magic weapon, and a 'hawt' 3rd level Paladin girlfriend.


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## Traveon Wyvernspur (Sep 9, 2010)

I was first introduced to D&D during 2nd Edition in my early 20's. It was an amazing experience and from there I played a few games and then started DM'ing as well. I have to admit that yes Wizards were a bit overpowered at higher levels, but that's what you come to expect when dealing with these characters that were able to survive beyond their apprenticeship and journeyman years. I think balance can and was achieved by the DM ultimately. Magic items were fun to have and give away to the fighters and thieves in the groups to help them gain an edge and try to keep up with the wizards who became more and more powerful. But when you think about it and if you've ever read any of the Dragon Lance or Forgotten Realms books, who are the most powerful beings around? That's a no brainer, you look towards Raistlin, Kelben BlackStaff and Elminster. Of course you also get semi-powerful characters like Drizzt or Tanis, but the ones who you remember and EVERYONE knows are the uber powerful wizards who are almost demigods. 

In campaigns I ran, yes the monsters "would" have gone down fast against the more powerful PCs, but I didn't like that happening so I'd amp up the HPs, damage, etc to make it a more balanced fight and give it more dangerous feel. Hence, why I say DM's are ultimately in charge of the overall balance in the game.

I once ran a campaign w/ just my best friend. He played 2 characters, one was a big dumb Barbarian meatshield and the other was a half-mad brainiac Necromancer. It was probably the most fun I've ever had as a player or DM running that campaign as the wizard progressed he would gain more powers/spells and ended up becoming a demigod and the Barbarian ended up becoming the king of the northern barbarian tribes. 

I later brought the demigod necromancer back as an NPC and used him to mess with my friend's next character, transplanting him into Ravenloft... but that's a story for another time.


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## Diamond Cross (Sep 9, 2010)

I personally disagree with the game has balance issues.

Different classes are going to be more powerful with certain abilities than other classes. A fighter is going to be a much better combatant but not a powerful spell caster. A spell caster also starts out weak but his only real strength is in his ability to cast spells. A fighter is not supposed to cast spells either. If a spell caster were to pick up a sword he might even be too weak to lift it. A long sword is more effective against daggers as well. So a spell caster is not a very effective fighter.

That's why he casts magic, and powerful magic at that. That's why they are artillery, not front line fighter.

Ah, but his learning would know what weak spot a monster would have. A fighter might know it, but more than likely would know more through experience rather than book learning.

So, the complaint is the spells often overcome non sepll casters?

I think this balance thing is simply people arguing more over why their favorite class should the biggest baddest tough guy around.

This is also why team are formed. And why team work is important. You form a team with people who's skills is meant to compliment each other and to take up the slack where there is a lack of an important ability. No one person can do it all people. 

Kirk wasn't very intelligent, but was very intuitive. Spock was very intelligent, but not all that intuitive. Together, they compensated for each others weaknesses, and that made them an unbeatable team.

Of course there's Mary Sues like Superman and Batman, where one person can do everything and beat anybody with the right preparation, but that is really not very realistic.

The realism is that nobody can do everything, and sometimes needs to form a team to help them.


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## Verdande (Sep 9, 2010)

I currently play Labyrinth Lord and I haven't noticed any balance issues. Seriously. Everybody has a useful role to play, and the party functions coherently. Isn't that what the game is about?


Sure, not everybody's as "good" in combat, but the game isn't about combat. Everybody contributes to the party's success, both in and out of combat, in a large part because the game's about challenging the players, not the characters.


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## DragonLancer (Sep 10, 2010)

I cannot recall whether 1st ed AD&D was balanced or not. It's been twenty years and my memory isn't that hot.

With 2nd ed AD&D I always wrapped up around 10th or 12th level because past that point we found magic got out of hand and very unbalanced.

With 3rd ed D&D that imbalance was there but not as bad unless someone powergamed.

Don't play 4th ed so cannot comment.

Now playing Pathfinder we've found that it the same as 3rd ed but at higher levels things remain more balanced that they were under 3.X .

That's just the insight of myself and regular group.


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## Umbran (Sep 10, 2010)

Diamond Cross said:


> I think this balance thing is simply people arguing more over why their favorite class should the biggest baddest tough guy around.




I'm sorry you think that.  I'm pretty sure that view is not supported well by what folks are saying here.



> Kirk wasn't very intelligent, but was very intuitive. Spock was very intelligent, but not all that intuitive. Together, they compensated for each others weaknesses, and that made them an unbeatable team.




Ah, but you see, if you watched Trek, you'd know - in the third season, there were a hole bunch of episodes where you didn't really need Kirk or McCoy or Scotty.  Spock was so super-special that he had all the answers.

"Mr. Spock, don't Vulcans have the ability levitate, juggle three balls behind their back, and do time-travel calculations in their head while blindfolded?"

"Yes, Captain, but it takes intense concentration."

_*Poof!*_

"Well, I guess it wasn't all that much concentration after all..."

That's the sort of thing some folks here are talking about.  At low levels, the wizard had maybe a couple of spells a day, and then had to wait out being bored while the fighters hacked things to bits for the rest of the day.  At high levels, the roles reversed, and the fighters tended to stand around while the wizards blasted things to bits.  That's a problem, as some folks end up bored.



TheYeti1775 said:


> We didn't need no stinking balance.




Well, no, you don't _need_ it.  But you didn't need a +5 Holy Avenger, either.  Doesn't mean you don't want it, or that it isn't nice to have.  




> Actually never noticed a real balance issue as we played either, course we weren't looking for balance just fun.






dagger said:


> Well we never had any problems in 1e even up to and beyond 15th level. It all just seemed to be balanced and just work really well.




As above - you don't _need_ the rules to be balanced to have the game play well.  A good GM can have Superman and Indiana Jones in the same game, and have the players of both feel like they've both played major roles and had a good time.  But, it takes more work or effort on the GM's part.


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## Hussar (Sep 10, 2010)

Imperialus said:


> Or you can't make the Ability Score requirements but still want to hit things with something sharp.  With a 17 Cha requirement for a Paladin you had approximately a 1.5% chance of getting that 17, plus you needed a 13 Wis, and a 10 Str.  Paladin's and Rangers were more powerful for sure, but they showed up pretty rarely, plus the Paladin code was a lot more restrictive.




Unless, like us, you used Unearthed Arcana and now the paladin player is rolling 9d6, take the best 3 to get his paladin.

Or, prior, you just let people roll until they got the character they wanted.  

Which might contribute to the balance issues we had.  

One thing I've learned reading about earlier editions that generally stops me from making too specific comments about them, is that the game I played and the game that was sitting on my shelf, were pretty much related only in name.


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 10, 2010)

I started with basic D&D, and we played that for several years before I got my AD&D hardbacks. Our games were all over the place on the balance spectrum. We played through horrible killer dungeons, powergamed Monty Haul fests that would have been laughed off as jokes by "serious" gamers and other kinds of campaigns in between. At no point during any of the absurdities that were taking place did we point fingers at the rulebook and say "that's broken!!!" 

Having read the rules of the game we were all informed quite clearly that any game balance or lack thereof was either to our credit or our fault.

[Moldvay Basic set p.B60]
"*The DM is the Boss". *The DM decides how these rules will be used in the game. A good DM talks about problem areas with the players and considers reasonable requests by them. The players should realize,however, that the final decision is the DM's: not theirs and not this booklet's!"
[End Quote] 

With that firmly in mind I will address this:



Hussar said:


> But seriously, why do people assume that only power gamers have balance issues? We played pretty high rp games and we had balance issues all the time. Campaign after campaign blew up under the weight of serious mechanical balance issues.




I for one do not make this assumption. I freely admit to _being _a powergamer at times, especially during some of those early days. What is called mechanical balance these days didn't really occur to us simply because the rules sat us down on a stump like a good dad and said :

OK. Here are some rules you can use to help fairly judge the action in your game. These rules are presented in a straightforward manner for you to use, alter, or discard as you desire. We are going to assume that you will be playing with imaginative, mature people who have gathered together to have a great time and the you will conduct yourselves accordingly. Now, go have fun. 

If that concept was understood by the participants then what could possibly "blow up" that wasn't the fault of the people playing? 




Hussar said:


> But, I think that the myth that balance is somehow mythically achieved by special role players who didn't care about the mechanics they used really needs to be taken out behind the barn and beated with chickens.




"Special" roleplayers are not and were never required to run a decent game. 

What needs to be taken behind the barn and beaten with chickens is the philosophy that rulebooks to an rpg should be written in airtight, keyworded, legalese because the default assumption of such rules is that one will be playing with the kind of turdheads that would have been tossed out of our games 30 years ago.


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## Hussar (Sep 10, 2010)

Special roleplayers may not have been, but special DM's apparently were.

See, the idea that the game designers can simply foist off responsiblity for the quality of the game onto this mythical DM who runs games well, despite never seeing an RPG before in his life is something I've never really understood.  

"Here are the rules for running a good game.  However, these rules don't really work all the time, so it's up to you to make sure you run a good game" basically means that the primary assumption is that the GM will know what constitutes a good game.  

I chalk it up to the prehistory of the game where the designers just didn't understand that "good" GM's are nowhere near as common as they seemed to think.


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 10, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Special roleplayers may not have been, but special DM's apparently were.
> 
> See, the idea that the game designers can simply foist off responsiblity for the quality of the game onto this mythical DM who runs games well, despite never seeing an RPG before in his life is something I've never really understood.
> 
> ...




Special DMs were no more common than special players in groups that were all learning the game together. 

Let me ask this: Do you believe that there are multiple valid playstyles? 

Even further, do you believe that a group that has a blast together is "doing it right" no matter how they are playing? 

Does some game designer, regardless of talent, know better than you what is import in balancing the game for _your _play group?

Here's a mind blowing concept for you- thinking that game balance ought to be provided between the covers of a book is a form of one-true-wayism.


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## Votan (Sep 10, 2010)

NewJeffCT said:


> I found 1E and 2E to be poorly balanced overall.  You could be an elf fighter/wizard and be level 4/3 and have the same XP as a human wizard of level 4 or human fighter of level 5.  So, you would be almost as good a wizard or fighter, plus have another whole extra class' worth of abilities as well. Heck, at the end of our last 2E campaign in 1999, my human ranger was level 8 and fighting alongside an elf fighter/wizard who was level 7 in both. There was no incentive to be human unless you wanted to play a weaker race.
> 
> DM: "The white dragon swoops in to attack and you can both get off one attack before it gets into breath weapon range."
> Human Ranger: "I shoot it with my shorbow... hit... 4 points of damage."
> ...




I must admit I had a very different experience than you did (with the Elf F/MU and the ranger).  It is true that multi-class characters were good but careful enforcement of the rules made spell casting a lot trickier to pull off.  You needed that fireball memorized (and it was lengthy to do so).  You needed to declare it before you rolled initiative or you faced losing the spell.  With a dragon it could breathe which made that a tough gamble.  If you were in a confined space that fireball could be deadly to the caster.  Without bonus spells casters had a lot fewer spells to cast.  

That is not to say that 1Eand 2E were more balanced than 3E (they were not) but I did find it possible to have a fairly enjoyable game with these editions with a variety of classes.  My major (personal viewpoint) difference is that I seemed to enjoy warrior classes (like Fighter) a lot more in 1E and 2E than 3E which seemed to be very caster friendly in comparison.


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## Sabathius42 (Sep 10, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Unless, like us, you used Unearthed Arcana and now the paladin player is rolling 9d6, take the best 3 to get his paladin.
> 
> Or, prior, you just let people roll until they got the character they wanted.
> 
> ...




Yup.  We used the 4d6 (drop the lowest) seven times stat rolling method, and if you needed a slight bump to be a paladin or ranger or whatnot you could get that for free.

Experience was a non-issue as far as advancement went, since everyone ended up within a level of each other anyway.  IIRC that due to the XP doubling for each level you could always just be one-level behind and be multiclassed.

DS


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 10, 2010)

Sabathius42 said:


> Experience was a non-issue as far as advancement went, since everyone ended up within a level of each other anyway. IIRC that due to the XP doubling for each level you could always just be one-level behind and be multiclassed.
> 
> DS




Before thinking that multiclass was an easy path to more power remember that training costs needed to be paid for each class trainer. At lower levels, getting the gold to pay for single classed training was tough enough, imagine trying to come up with the dough to pay 3 trainers! 

That would result in a fair bit of adventuring being done by these multi-classed wonders without XP gain since they had to actually attain the new level before any more xp could be earned. 

Of course those rules could be swept aside and forgotten but then how can the product be blamed for the power creep of multi-classed characters.


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## Henry (Sep 10, 2010)

Melkor said:


> My question to you folks is: How well were the older editions "balanced?"



Rest of thread sight-unseen, my answer is, "Not worth a tinker's damn." To heck with this piddly "balance" mewling!  In the words of Mike Mornard, one of the original Kuntz and Gygax players, _"We just made stuff up we thought would be fun."_ Gary et. al. Might have had a passing thought to balance, but the rules themselves were not balanced very well at all.

However, their secret balance-weapon, was, quite frankly, the DM. In the older games, it was up to the DM's rulings to forge balance from a set of rules that were unbalanced. To quote the Old School Primer, "Rulings, Not Rules" are the secret to a well-balanced and fun game of older D&D.



> ...Please leave that kind of thing out of this discussion, and just focus on your experience and opinions with regards to balance of older editions (or lack thereof), and how you feel that compares to balance in the 3rd Edition.




Based on my experiences of playing over the years, and the words of people like Gary Gygax, Mike Mornard, Skip Williams, and the rest, a DM getting a feel for their players, player style, and player rules-lawyering skills, is essential to running a balanced D&D game. Without it, it's only part of a game, and not a complete one at that. But in the hands of a good DM, an OD&D or AD&D game can come completely alive.


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## Stormonu (Sep 10, 2010)

Back before late 3.5, balance was never an issue I concerned myself with.  I knew better than playing a game in the teens, but beyond that if the game was having "balance" issues I had always thought that it was the duty of the DM to roll up his sleeves, analyze the situation and fix the issue himself - either stiffening the competition or pulling out the ban/nerf hammer.

Thus, I find it hard for me to objectively state if older editions were balanced, but again, usually any problem I had with my game I felt it was my failure to keep an eye on the ball - still do, to an extent.  Overall, I don't remember anything being out of whack so bad it ruined my fun with the game.

Nowadays, I do appreciate games that make an effort to be a bit more balanced from the start (to the end) because I don't have the time to fiddle and worry about things like I used to.  However, balance is still a low concern to "is it fun?"


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## Majoru Oakheart (Sep 10, 2010)

We didn't really think too much about game balance back when we played 2e.  I mean, the rules were just there to help simulate a fantasy world.  If that fantasy world meant that Wizards were immensely powerful and had the ability to defeat 10 enemies to every 1 a Fighter could defeat, it only meant they were doing their job properly.

It wasn't until I had started DMing that I began to notice balance issues.  It was around the time someone in my group chose to be a race from Spelljammer(in a Spelljammer game) that got a +1 to Strength.  So, he rolled an 18 and then had a 19 strength.  Then he took a kit that made him even better at hitting.  He was able to hit most enemies on a very low roll and the damage bonus he had from his strength ended up killing most enemies in one hit.

When the rest of the party noticed his ability to take care of the enemies much faster than they could, they started giving the best magic items they found to him without even arguing.  If the rest of the party had +2 items, he had the one +3 item.

When I realized that nearly every battle for 5 sessions had gone the same(I miss with 90% of my attacks, he hits with 90% of his and kills enemies outright) I decided that the game needed to be a bit more challenging.  I started to increase the strength of the enemies I used against the party.  Unfortunately, they were defeated just as easily.  So I increased the power again, which actually caused the rest of the group to start participating in combats again(previous to this, they kept saying "I'm not going to waste spells, the fighter has this"), but with the help of the rest of the party it was just as easy.  I wanted them to actually worry about their lives, so I increased the power of the enemies AGAIN the next session.  And killed everyone except the fighter.  He barely took any damage.

It was about that time that I decided to really take notice of balance issues.  The rules were getting in the way of the atmosphere I wanted at the game I was running.  I started considering what I could do to fix it.  I started telling players that they couldn't just have any kit they wanted, they had to run each and every one past me.  The more I reviewed them, the more I realized how many of them had overpowering abilities.  I had to say no over 50% of the time.

We weren't extremely conscious of the Wizard/Fighter gap, but only because we just took it for granted.  Wizards were supposed to complain that they didn't have anything to do after they cast their only spell at level 1.  They got to sit in the corner doing nothing during combat.  That was their punishment for making everyone else feel useless when they got to higher level and defeated entire encounters with one fireball.  Once WOTC came along with 3e and said "Maybe Wizards should be just as powerful as Fighters?  Wouldn't that be more fun?" that all of us jointly looked at each other and thought "Wow!  Wouldn't that be nice?  But it's rather impossible."


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## RoryN (Sep 10, 2010)

I'm like many who have already replied here:  started out playing the boxed sets, then moved to 1E, and then on to 2E.  When 3E came out, it had been some time since I actually played, but I got into a group and had fun with it.  I felt that a lot of the feats could possibly get out of hand at higher levels, but we never played long enough for me to see if it would happen or not.

One thing I always got in to was the "why" of characters abilities/traits/feats/etc.  If a fighter had certain feats or abilities to allow extra damage or attacks, I would ask the player why.  It helped flesh out the character as well as let me know where this player's head is as far as adventuing goes and what they're looking for.

Most of my experience was with 2E, and the only times we ever really had anything that might be a "balance" issue was with a player's high level monk.  Sure, the fighters could wade into a battle with a huge monster and hack their way through after a few rounds, the wizard could blast it with fireballs or lightening bolts, but if a monk could get in and just touch the thing (delivering quivering palm), you could save all those spells from the wizard (and the healing spells for the fighters).  Another issue we had occassionally was with a player's assassin, but I think that was more a player issue than any balance issue.

I always felt (and still do) that the whole act of balancing the game was upon the shoulders of the DM.  Afterall, the DM was the one witnessing the rolling up of characters, was the one stocking the adventure world with critters and treasures, so he/she was the one that should be aware of anything that could possibly put things out of balance.  Did you stock that cloak of invisibility in the chest that the party shouldn't have found behind the hidden door?  Then you're the one that needs to compensate for it during the following encounters, whether it's by means on a magical item used by a villian or powerful monster, or something else.

One thing we used to do was to automatically give monsters maximum hit points per HD as we became more experienced with the game and the races/classes as that seemed to make things more balanced as far as most combat went.  Characters were allowed max HP at 1st level, but after thatt, it was all random.  I recall several fighters with less than 20 HP at 3rd level, which I believe is rather rare in any edition.

I never really saw a balance problem with magic because those of us who DMed for our group were pretty good at keeping the threats against the party challenging, which included equipping the more powerful villians with magical items and/or spells to challenge the character's power.


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## billd91 (Sep 10, 2010)

NewJeffCT said:


> DM: "The white dragon swoops in to attack and you can both get off one attack before it gets into breath weapon range."
> Human Ranger: "I shoot it with my shorbow... hit... 4 points of damage."
> Elf Fighter/Wizard: "I cast fireball at it, 7d6 damage, 22 points of damage, save for half"




How about:
Human wizard: "I cast a fireball at it, 8d6 damage, 26 points of damage, save for half."

If you're seeing multiclassing being a problem in the example you've made up, I'm not seeing where it comes from. I can see the difference between the ranger firing a bow and the wizard tossing off a fireball. But that's got nothing to do with the multiclassing issue.


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## JoeGKushner (Sep 10, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> Before thinking that multiclass was an easy path to more power remember that training costs needed to be paid for each class trainer. At lower levels, getting the gold to pay for single classed training was tough enough, imagine trying to come up with the dough to pay 3 trainers!
> 
> That would result in a fair bit of adventuring being done by these multi-classed wonders without XP gain since they had to actually attain the new level before any more xp could be earned.
> 
> Of course those rules could be swept aside and forgotten but then how can the product be blamed for the power creep of multi-classed characters.




Did a lot of people use the training costs? I generally used them to siphon funds away from characters but when they were in 'broke' periods skipped over it.


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## billd91 (Sep 10, 2010)

Hussar said:


> I'm really curious where this idea comes from that the only people who could possibly have balance issues were power gamers.




It's a question of odds. Power gamers, redlining the system, are likely to uncover more problems than players who don't.


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## billd91 (Sep 10, 2010)

JoeGKushner said:


> Did a lot of people use the training costs? I generally used them to siphon funds away from characters but when they were in 'broke' periods skipped over it.




We used to have to find other sources of income to come up with the training costs in 'broke' periods.


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## JoeGKushner (Sep 10, 2010)

billd91 said:


> We used to have to find other sources of income to come up with the training costs in 'broke' periods.




There were times when I'd want to advance the timeline a bit so I do recall having characters pay with service. Not quests mind you, but actual guard duty, training duty, etc... That seemed to work well too.


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## WheresMyD20 (Sep 10, 2010)

Melkor said:


> That just made me wonder if "balance" in the older editions (pre 3E) was a factor, of it was something that noone ever noticed or worried about, and the game was just played and enjoyed without all of the angst.....




I doubt "balance", as we understand it these days, was really a design goal of the older editions.  After all, real life isn't at all balanced.  Most characters in fantasy novels aren't balanced.  Sorcerers are often portrayed as major powers in fantasy stories.  Thieves rarely are.  If one of the goals of an RPG is to create the illusion of a fantasy world, then having a little imbalance might not be such a bad thing.

I think there was some effort made in older editions to ensure that no character class or race would be completely useless and boring to play.  After all, *it's not so important that every character be equal.  It's important that  every character can play a productive and meaningful role in the party.*

I doubt the designers had much concern over precisely balancing all the classes, races, or characters mechanically.  It is incumbent upon  the DM to make sure things didn't get so out of hand as to spoil the  group's fun.  That is the important thing.


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## Imperialus (Sep 10, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> Before thinking that multiclass was an easy path to more power remember that training costs needed to be paid for each class trainer. At lower levels, getting the gold to pay for single classed training was tough enough, imagine trying to come up with the dough to pay 3 trainers!




But the converse of this is that demi-human characters typically didn't have to sock away money for the eventual construction of a stronghold once they hit name level, since with the exception of Dwarven fighters, none of the demihumans can reach 'name level' except as thieves*.

*And a few assassins.


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## MerricB (Sep 10, 2010)

JoeGKushner said:


> Did a lot of people use the training costs? I generally used them to siphon funds away from characters but when they were in 'broke' periods skipped over it.






			
				Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> from here
> 
> When I ran my AD&D campaign, training was generally quite informal and considered to be done "on the job" as it were. Only if a virtual windfall of XPs came at once did I call for PCs to take a protracted period of time from adventuring to do their studies, train, be educated, gain experience, and practice what they had learned. A week to a month was the normal period. Otherwise, it was subsumed that the time between adventures was spent thus.




Elsewhere, Gary talked about how multiclasses _did_ need to pay the different costs for levelling each individual class... (here)


			
				Col_Pladoh said:
			
		

> The multi-class character needs training in each class possessed when ready to rise in level.




For my own part, training rarely came into it, especially as we were playing things like the Slavelords... where training time? What time?

Cheers!


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## MerricB (Sep 10, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> Before thinking that multiclass was an easy path to more power remember that training costs needed to be paid for each class trainer. At lower levels, getting the gold to pay for single classed training was tough enough, imagine trying to come up with the dough to pay 3 trainers!
> 
> That would result in a fair bit of adventuring being done by these multi-classed wonders without XP gain since they had to actually attain the new level before any more xp could be earned.




Erm... the problem here is that needing proportionally more XP, they also gained proportionally more gold. A fighter/magic-user would have double the gold of a regular fighter by the time he reached the 4000 XP he needed for 2nd level fighter...

Cheers!


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## Majoru Oakheart (Sep 10, 2010)

WheresMyD20 said:


> I think there was some effort made in older editions to ensure that no character class or race would be completely useless and boring to play.  After all, *it's not so important that every character be equal.  It's important that  every character can play a productive and meaningful role in the party.*




I agree completely.  The problem is that what sounds good IN THEORY doesn't work out in practicality.  It was easy to sit back and say "Wizards only have so many spells per day and they have low hitpoints and poor AC, so they die easily, while Fighters have good AC and lots of hitpoints and can attack infinitely, and although thieves aren't good at attacking normally they can get a huge amount of damage in rare circumstances...besides, they are the only ones who can find traps and open doors, so they have their use, Clerics are the only ones who can heal."  Unfortunately, in play when groups insisted on resting and recovering spells long before the Wizard ran out, it often made them much more useful to the party than the rest of the characters.  The same thing happens when the only locked doors you come across can be easily opened by a knock spell.

In practice having your entire character replaced by a ring of regeneration, a potion of healing, or a knock scroll made you feel like you didn't have a "productive and meaningful role in the party".

I admit, some groups didn't have a problem with this at all.  I ran into them on my travels.  They were so wrapped up in the roleplaying of their characters and the idea that the game was supposed to model "reality" that the idea that the game might be more fun if they felt as useful in the group as the other characters never occurred to them.  After all, when they chose to play a Thief instead of a Wizard, they KNEW they weren't going to be as useful to the group.  It wouldn't be very realistic if they were.

But our group grew beyond that idea pretty quickly.  Nearly everyone was multiclassing, because you were just better that way.  Pretty much everyone was triple classed if their DM would let them.  After all, you got all the advantages of 3 different classes without the disadvantages of any of them.  And in exchange, you just had to be a level or 2 lower than everyone else.  Which didn't mean much.  The only time someone didn't pick that option is when we started at 1st level.  Until you were about 3rd or 4th level, you were actually a little weak.  If the game started above that, it was a no-brainer.


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## Bluenose (Sep 10, 2010)

WheresMyD20 said:


> I doubt "balance", as we understand it these days, was really a design goal of the older editions. After all, real life isn't at all balanced. Most characters in fantasy novels aren't balanced. Sorcerers are often portrayed as major powers in fantasy stories. Thieves rarely are. If one of the goals of an RPG is to create the illusion of a fantasy world, then having a little imbalance might not be such a bad thing.




I can't remember the exact quote, but Gary Gygax said in a thread over on Dragonsfoot that the reason clerics were only given blunt weapon proficiencies was a balance issue. He also wrote about it in his book on GMing, where I'm pretty certain he said it was more important than realism. I'm pretty confident that he and Arneson did consider balance - it might not have been the sole consideration, but it mattered. 

As for sorcerers as major players, and thieves not. How often is the sorcerer a major figure in the setting, and a thief a relative novice? It's perfectly plausible to say high level characters are major powers and low level ones aren't. And if we're taking examples from novels, well; Let's look at Conan. He gets knocked unconscious three times. Once by magic; twice by sling stones.  Clearly, slings should be more powerful than magic. Convenient for thieves.


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## joela (Sep 10, 2010)

steeldragons said:


> Thanks for posting this. I am (was) a "gamer" from pre-3e myself and from looking at various boards in recent months I've really wondered this myself...so now I'll throw in my 2 coppers.
> 
> I don't recall us EVER having debates or complaints about "balance."..and we DID get into some higher levels...think my high school group was averaging levels in the mid to high teens...that's what I think of when I think "high" levels.
> 
> ...




Total awesome.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 10, 2010)

WheresMyD20 said:


> I doubt "balance", as we understand it these days, was really a design goal of the older editions.  After all, real life isn't at all balanced.  Most characters in fantasy novels aren't balanced.  Sorcerers are often portrayed as major powers in fantasy stories.  Thieves rarely are.  If one of the goals of an RPG is to create the illusion of a fantasy world, then having a little imbalance might not be such a bad thing.



That might be true of 2e, definitely not 1e or OD&D which are both heavily gamist and intended to be balanced.



> The logic behind it all was drawn from game balance as much as from anything else. Fighters have their strength, weapons, and armor to aid them in their competition. Magic-users must rely upon their spells, as they have virtually no weaponry or armor to protect them. Clerics combine some of the advantages of the other two classes. The new class, thieves, have the basic advantage of stealthful actions with some additions in order for them to successfully operate on a plane with other character types...
> 
> It is the opinion of this writer that the most desirable game is one in which the various character types are able to compete with each other as relative equals



 - Gary Gygax, Strategic Review 2.2, 1976



> Each gaming character must provide interest for the participant through its potential, its unique approaches to the challenges of the game form, and yet be roughly equal to all other characters of similar level...
> 
> Were fighters to be given free rein of magic items in AD&D, and spells relegated to a potency typical of most heroic fantasy novels, for example, then the vast majority of participants would desire to have fighter characters. This would certainly lessen the scope of the game...
> 
> Keep roles from novels in their proper place-either as enjoyable reading or as special insertions of the non-player sort. The fact that thus-and-so magic-user in a fantasy yarn always employs a magic sword, or that Gray Mouser, a thief, is a commensurate bladesman, has absolutely nothing to do with the balance betwen character classes in AD&D.



 - Gary Gygax, Dragon #31, 1979


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## S'mon (Sep 10, 2010)

Imperialus said:


> Or you can't make the Ability Score requirements but still want to hit things with something sharp.  With a 17 Cha requirement for a Paladin you had approximately a 1.5% chance of getting that 17, plus you needed a 13 Wis, and a 10 Str.  Paladin's and Rangers were more powerful for sure, but they showed up pretty rarely, plus the Paladin code was a lot more restrictive.




The Cha 17 requirement is a huge evener-up.  The player with a Paladin PC IMC got lucky and rolled a 17 as one of his 6 stats (best 3 of 4d6 any order).  He could have put it in STR (+1 to hit +1 damage, and would have gone to 18 due to Age mods +1 STR +1 CON, giving him a % exceptional STR roll, from +1/+3 to +3/+6).  He could have put it in DEX (+2 to hit with missile weapons, -3 AC) or CON (+3 hp, > 18 gives +4 hp/die, where monsters mostly do around 4-5 dmg/hit).  Putting it instead in CHA, which has no direct combat effect, is a huge commitment IMO.  It meant he was no better in combat than the Fighter PC whose highest roll was a 13, and who advances faster too.


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## S'mon (Sep 10, 2010)

Verdande said:


> I currently play Labyrinth Lord and I haven't noticed any balance issues. Seriously. Everybody has a useful role to play, and the party functions coherently. Isn't that what the game is about?




I've seen an issue at 1st level with LL in that Elves are just so much better than Magic-Users in every way.  I solve it by starting everyone at 2500 or 5000 XP, this puts Elves 1 level behind Magic-Users and Thieves 1 level ahead, making them all fairly well balanced options.


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## Aegeri (Sep 10, 2010)

Reading those quotes, it's easy to see why Gygax held such distain for third edition. One of the things that rapidly became apparent as I played more high level 3rd was that concentration really removed the disadvantages from spellcasting. When spellcasters could get metamagic and sustain buffs for an entire day on themselves without having to recast them (therefore preserving spell slots for actually useful abilities) it got way out of hand. When my players figured out the "Batman" wizard the fun levels in my games just went down massively.

Perhaps it was an age thing, but I don't recall these problems in the time I ran 2E. Generally things were pretty even actually and spellcasting wasn't the be all and end all. Losing a spell if you were hit, the fact they could take multiple rounds to cast and other issues helped keep a spellcaster in line with the other party members (you also got less spells per day). The lack of free multiclassing all over the place was also a good thing (that I recognize now, but not at the time to be honest). Players that could dip into the best of numerous things were able to combine tons of mechanics in really unintended ways. Some classes became "one rank wonders" like Rangers as they were so useless beyond level 1, but so top heavy in class features at low levels.

One of these days I'm going to have to pull out my 2E stuff and see how it holds up now I'm more mature, my friends know their DnD a lot better and we won't get sidetracked with Dwarf fighters called bottom (don't ask).


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## S'mon (Sep 10, 2010)

BTW while I think that 0e& Classic were well balanced (except 1st level Elves in Classic), 1e PHB-only was well balanced but leaning towards Clerics & Rangers, and OSRIC's 1e+UA Weapon Spec is well balanced but leaning towards Fighters & their subclasses, Unearthed Arcana did introduce a lot of unbalanced elements - notably Cavaliers, also Drow and Deep Gnome PCs.  And 2e removed or reduced many 1e balancing factors by eg raising demihuman level limits, or the appalling 2e Stoneskin spell.  Overall I'd say the drift was *away* from balance, culminating in 3e with its worthless high level Fighter and CODzillas.  4e has made a serious effort to restore balance to the Force... to the game.  Although I'm not certain that's made it more _fun_.


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## S'mon (Sep 10, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Unless, like us, you used Unearthed Arcana and now the paladin player is rolling 9d6, take the best 3 to get his paladin.
> 
> Or, prior, you just let people roll until they got the character they wanted.
> 
> Which might contribute to the balance issues we had.




Yes, both of those approaches (and lots of the stuff in UA) destroy the balancing factors in the 1e PHB.


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## Beginning of the End (Sep 10, 2010)

First, it's important to remember that there are Many Types of Balance.

Unfortunately, what most people seem to mean when they talk about balance seems to be "combat equivalency". Which, when it comes to a fully-rounded roleplaying game, is a highly suspect measure. OTOH, I would tend to agree that the balance of pre-3E D&D was basically so nonexistent that it's a non-issue. (Case in point: When people talk about how "easy" it was to make house rules for pre-3E versions of the game, what they generally mean -- whether they realize it or not -- is that the balance was so completely screwed up that you could basically change anything you want and it was virtually impossible to end up with anything more busted/unbalanced than the RAW.)

Nonetheless, D&D worked as a game because:

(1) It leveraged spotlight balance exceptionally well.
(2) It was a fully cooperative game.

If your PC fighter and PC wizard get into a deathmatch, the "balance problems" of the game will cause problems. But if the group thinks of itself as acting like a collective unit (able to enjoy and revel in each other's successes), then the strong mechanical spotlight support of the class system pretty much carries the weight.

This is why I generally only run into problems with balance in D&D when I have two PCs who are both in the same niche with wildly disparate builds allowing one PC to be much more effective than the other. (This can generally be solved, particularly in 3E, by tweaking the build.)

(Of course, if you have a player (or are a player) who obsesses over whether or not their DPS is equal to the other PCs, then the balance issues in the rule system are going to cause problems.)

There is another factor at play here, too: 3rd Edition was the first edition to give any sort of truly meaningful guidelines for gauging appropriate encounter strength. This is a useful tool when used correctly.

When people become convinced that the only "right" encounter is a perfectly "balanced" encounter, however, the system is being abused. That's when you get people obsessing over PCs who aren't optimally built; or PCs that are performing "above their level"; or party builds that aren't capable of meeting the challenges they're "supposed" to be facing. The fetishization of balance is poison.

And finally: I think it's also true that a lot more people saw high level play in 3E than they did pre-3E (largely because I think the vast majority of pre-3E groups ignored the "XP for treasure" rules, which meant they leveled much more slowly). Since the big balance issues don't start cropping up until high levels, the problems weren't seen by as many people.



Melkor said:


> All of that said, I have heard horror stories of  3rd Edition games at high levels that just got out of hand, the CoDzilla  stuff, etc.
> 
> That just made me wonder if "balance" in the older editions (pre 3E) was  a factor, of it was something that noone ever noticed or worried about,  and the game was just played and enjoyed without all of the  angst.....and if so, is it possible to do the same thing with newer  editions - throwing "balance" to the wind?




This is an effect of the internet making international discussions on a mass scale possible. If you weren't participating in that kind of community pre-3E, then you didn't see this stuff. If (like me) you _were_ participating in similar communities, then you saw this exact same kind of stuff for 2E. (Except more egregious examples of it because 2E had more balance issues.)

You get a thousand monkeys typing away furiously at their keyboards, and they're pretty quickly going to ferret out all the corner cases in a ruleset that can be horribly abused.



Bluenose said:


> I can't remember the exact quote, but Gary Gygax  said in a thread over on Dragonsfoot that the reason clerics were only  given blunt weapon proficiencies was a balance issue.




The idea may have eventually been altered in order to become a balancing tool, but one can say with absolute certainty that in a game where all weapons regardless of type do 1d6 points of damage (i.e. OD&D in 1974) that any differences in weapon proficiencies were entirely a matter of flavor text.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Sep 10, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> When people become convinced that the only "right" encounter is a perfectly "balanced" encounter, however, the system is being abused. That's when you get people obsessing over PCs who aren't optimally built; or PCs that are performing "above their level"; or party builds that aren't capable of meeting the challenges they're "supposed" to be facing. The fetishization of balance is poison.



I disagree entirely.  The entire point of having this tool was so that you could make encounters and know what effect they'd have on the players.

One of the major frustrations for me (and many DMs) prior to 3e was that you'd pick monsters entirely for story reasons and simply HOPE that they didn't kill off your PCs and have to start a new game.  Often, due to experience, you were right.  But other times, you'd miss your guess and an enemy's AC would be so good that no one in the party could hit it, and it'd TPK your party.

But very few DMs WANTED a TPK.  They wanted to have a fun time fighting a combat that was challenging, but not TOO challenging.  So, that's what the system in 3e was designed to do...to tell you which encounters would be in that range(i.e. appropriate challenges).

It's the exact thing that 2e did so badly.  Each encounter had the possibility of killing your PCs, whether that was your intention or not.  So most DMs erred on the side of caution and would purposefully use very weak enemies.

Having a system that could accurately predict how much of a challenge a particular enemy or group of enemies would be for your players is pretty much the holy grail of DMing.  That was, YOU get to choose if you want a weak or strong encounter instead of allowing randomness to do so.  That's the entire idea of balance.  In theory, if each class were perfectly balanced and the system of rating challenges worked perfectly then the DM would be completely in charge of their own game and it's difficulty.

Too bad there isn't any game that has achieved perfect balance and perfect challenge rating ability.  Although, IMHO, 4e has come closest to this.


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## S'mon (Sep 10, 2010)

1e rated monsters by Level, 1 to 10, indicating the typical level of PCs expected to fight them and the typical dungeon level on which they'd be encountered.  Level was calculated with an actual system (unlike 3e) - look at the stats, crunch numbers, determine threat level.  This is the opposite of 4e where numbers (AC etc) derive from threat level rather than vice versa.  Monsters immune to non-magic weapons were all 3rd level or higher, AIR, the level at which PCs typically started acquiring magic weaponry.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Sep 10, 2010)

S'mon said:


> 1e rated monsters by Level, 1 to 10, indicating the typical level of PCs expected to fight them and the typical dungeon level on which they'd be encountered.  Level was calculated with an actual system (unlike 3e) - look at the stats, crunch numbers, determine threat level.



I admit, I'm not extremely familiar with 1e, having started with 2e.  However, I was not aware of any system for monsters of a certain level.  Nothing the book ever explained.  It appeared to me as if the designers had guessed the difficulty of monsters and put them at that level.

I know there was the random dungeon tables which suggested "level 1" monsters and so on.  But if memory serves me, monsters often appeared on multiple "levels" in that chart and that certain monsters were obviously way too powerful for the levels they were put on, since they were intended to be the "random extremely hard monster" for that level.

And, unless my memory is failing me, most of the monster books to come out later didn't specify the level of the monsters.

But, yes, it was an alright estimate in most cases.  However, my experience was that it wouldn't tell you how MANY monsters to use and sometimes individual monsters were way harder than their estimates.  I know there was a recommended number for each monster, but rarely did anyone actually follow that.  Fairly often, I'd see DMs go "Grey ooze is appropriate for your level, so is a beholder, so is a dragon.  You fight all of them".



S'mon said:


> This is the opposite of 4e where numbers (AC etc) derive from threat level rather than vice versa.



I'm not sure that's a good thing.  Better to guarantee that a monster is the appropriate challenge than hope that your formula generates the right difficulty.  Since most formulas are at least slightly flawed.  Most when it comes to extreme numbers.  After all, what difficulty is the 2e monster with an AC of -10 with only 10 hitpoints, but with a THAC0 of 20 that also has a special attack that causes enemies to save or die?  It is super low because it can barely hit and dies to low level spells or super high because it is nearly impossible to hit with weapons and can kill you outright?


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## MerricB (Sep 10, 2010)

S'mon said:


> 1e rated monsters by Level, 1 to 10, indicating the typical level of PCs expected to fight them and the typical dungeon level on which they'd be encountered.  Level was calculated with an actual system (unlike 3e) - look at the stats, crunch numbers, determine threat level.  This is the opposite of 4e where numbers (AC etc) derive from threat level rather than vice versa.  Monsters immune to non-magic weapons were all 3rd level or higher, AIR, the level at which PCs typically started acquiring magic weaponry.




This is incorrect. It didn't indicate the level the PCs were meant to be. Monster level was related to the level of the dungeon they appeared on, but it had no relation to party level.

There was a system that related monster HD and abilities to party-level to work out appropriate XP, but it was a very hit-or-miss affair.

Cheers!


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## Kerranin (Sep 10, 2010)

S'mon said:


> BTW while I think that 0e& Classic were well balanced (except 1st level Elves in Classic), 1e PHB-only was well balanced but leaning towards Clerics & Rangers, and OSRIC's 1e+UA Weapon Spec is well balanced but leaning towards Fighters & their subclasses, Unearthed Arcana did introduce a lot of unbalanced elements - notably Cavaliers, also Drow and Deep Gnome PCs.  And 2e removed or reduced many 1e balancing factors by eg raising demihuman level limits, or the appalling 2e Stoneskin spell.  Overall I'd say the drift was *away* from balance, culminating in 3e with its worthless high level Fighter and CODzillas.  4e has made a serious effort to restore balance to the Force... to the game.  Although I'm not certain that's made it more _fun_.



I have to say that demi-human level limits were never a great balancing factor, and I know many house-ruled them.
The idea that you'd get to a certain level and then just stop advancing was just plain silly. One of the major elements for any player, in any rpg designed to be played in a campaign, is the idea that the characters improve over time. If this stops happening then you remove a major prop of the campaign.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 10, 2010)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I admit, I'm not extremely familiar with 1e, having started with 2e.  However, I was not aware of any system for monsters of a certain level.  Nothing the book ever explained.  It appeared to me as if the designers had guessed the difficulty of monsters and put them at that level.




You will find it in the 1e DMG.  In addition, from Fiend Folio onward, all monsters have their Monster Level listed in the monster books.



MerricB said:


> This is incorrect. It didn't indicate the level the PCs were meant to be. Monster level was related to the level of the dungeon they appeared on, but it had no relation to party level.




In that a 1st level party could, potentially at least, find themselves on level 10 of the dungeon, this is true.  However, dungeon level was an indication to the players as to general level of difficulty, so that they could guage risks (as opposed to having the DM do this for them).

Lower dungeon levels = greater threats = greater rewards.

The game was to figure out how much you could deal with, get the best rewards you could, and escape with your lives.



> There was a system that related monster HD and abilities to party-level to work out appropriate XP, but it was a very hit-or-miss affair.




It worked out XP to the point where individual hit points mattered.  If it was a "very hit-or-miss affair", then CR is not even in the ballpark.


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## Umbran (Sep 10, 2010)

Raven Crowking said:


> It worked out XP to the point where individual hit points mattered.  If it was a "very hit-or-miss affair", then CR is not even in the ballpark.




Now, let us not confuse precision with accuracy.


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## pemerton (Sep 10, 2010)

MerricB said:


> There was a system that related monster HD and abilities to party-level to work out appropriate XP, but it was a very hit-or-miss affair.



I think Don Turnbull's Monster Mark system was superior. Also, the way Turnbull approaches the issue of monster level and encounter difficulty shows that encounter balancing was a concern for at least some of those playing early D&D.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 10, 2010)

Umbran said:


> Now, let us not confuse precision with accuracy.




Or semantics with meaningful dialogue.  

The 1e system had both precision and accuracy.


RC


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## NewJeffCT (Sep 10, 2010)

Votan said:


> I must admit I had a very different experience than you did (with the Elf F/MU and the ranger).  It is true that multi-class characters were good but careful enforcement of the rules made spell casting a lot trickier to pull off.  You needed that fireball memorized (and it was lengthy to do so).  You needed to declare it before you rolled initiative or you faced losing the spell.  With a dragon it could breathe which made that a tough gamble.  If you were in a confined space that fireball could be deadly to the caster.  Without bonus spells casters had a lot fewer spells to cast.
> 
> That is not to say that 1Eand 2E were more balanced than 3E (they were not) but I did find it possible to have a fairly enjoyable game with these editions with a variety of classes.  My major (personal viewpoint) difference is that I seemed to enjoy warrior classes (like Fighter) a lot more in 1E and 2E than 3E which seemed to be very caster friendly in comparison.




Oh, I still had a ton of fun playing 1E and 2E, and we had a fantastic DM for that 2E campaign with my human ranger and the elf fighter-mage (and 8 other PCs!), so that certainly helped.  Plus, since 1E was fairly simple, it was not a hard job for a DM to balance things out.  However, as somebody stated above, most of the campaigns in those early days did not progress beyond reaching "name" level.  Those "big" spells (level 6 & above) were almost never used in game, except for possibly the finale with the villain casting one of them at the PCs, or a special Resurrection cast by an NPC cleric.

And, while 3E/3.5E were more balanced, it required a ton of work on my end as DM to create encounters for my big group of players (all those high level spells that just took up space in my 1E PHB were used by both PCs and bad guys (Delayed Blast Fireball, Otto's Irresistable Dance, Maze, etc)  Heck, it was a memorable moment in game when my evil wizard cast "Maze" on the party tank - a goliath barbarian - and the goliath barbarian needed a natural 20 on her INT check to escape the maze, and she rolled it!)  So, while it was more balanced, it was more work for me as a DM.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 10, 2010)

It is worth remembering, too, that the original model for D&D had most players controlling multiple characters, and the composition of a party was negotiated by the players amongst themselves.  

In such a paradigm, you might have a character that can wipe the snot off anyone's nose, but if no one wants to go adventuring with your superman, it does you very little good (apart from solo adventuring).

Likewise, if Bob from Accounting tends to have his PCs kill off or steal from other PCs, the inter-player dynamic automatically corrects the problem.


RC


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## Umbran (Sep 10, 2010)

Raven Crowking said:


> Or semantics with meaningful dialogue.




Semantics are required for meaningful dialog. 



> The 1e system had both precision and accuracy.




Given that it went down to the level of individual hit points, I'll grant you the precision.  Accuracy?  That one's debatable, especially in the current context of discussing balance - whether it is accurate depends on what target you're trying to hit.


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## Dausuul (Sep 10, 2010)

Diamond Cross said:


> I think this balance thing is simply people arguing more over why their favorite class should the biggest baddest tough guy around.




I've been playing wizards and sorcerors for twenty-two years. If my goal was to have my favorite class be the biggest baddest tough guy around, I'd be a hardcore 3E advocate* and my mantra would be "The game is perfectly balanced the way it is."

[size=-2]*That's 3E, mind you, not 3.5E. The changes to _haste_ and the reduced duration of the 2nd-level ability score buffs nerfed wizards so bad they're practically useless in 3.5. Also, half-elves and monks are grossly overpowered and Pun-Pun is a perfectly reasonable build.[/size]


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 10, 2010)

NewJeffCT said:


> And, while 3E/3.5E were more balanced, it required a ton of work on my end as DM to create encounters for my big group of players




Making sure that "What you get out of it" is more than "What you put into it" is probably the most important type of "balance" for a game to have.  This is where 3.x falls down, in spades.



Umbran said:


> Semantics are required for meaningful dialog.




Yes, but that is two posts now rolling "20" on the semantics and "1" on the meaningful dialogue.


RC


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## Melkor (Sep 10, 2010)

Sabathius42 said:


> The thing I thought was most unbalance about both 1e and 2e was the utter lameness of a fighter vs. a ranger or a paladin.
> 
> The ONLY time someone played a fighter was when they specifically wanted to be in the background and not contribute as much as anyone else, or else to poke fun at the system itself.
> 
> DS




The one character I did manage to get to 10th level in AD&D 1E/2E was an Elf  Fighter, and I never had any issues with that.

I don't dispute your assessment at all....Just wondering why that kind of thing never actually came up when we were playing.


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## S'mon (Sep 10, 2010)

MerricB said:


> This is incorrect. It didn't indicate the level the PCs were meant to be. Monster level was related to the level of the dungeon they appeared on, but it had no relation to party level.
> 
> There was a system that related monster HD and abilities to party-level to work out appropriate XP, but it was a very hit-or-miss affair.
> 
> Cheers!




But PCs were "supposed" to be on a Dungeon Level corresponding to their character level - unless they chose to Delve Deeper!  Didn't you know that?


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## S'mon (Sep 10, 2010)

Kerranin said:


> I have to say that demi-human level limits were never a great balancing factor, and I know many house-ruled them.
> The idea that you'd get to a certain level and then just stop advancing was just plain silly. One of the major elements for any player, in any rpg designed to be played in a campaign, is the idea that the characters improve over time. If this stops happening then you remove a major prop of the campaign.




You're supposed to retire maxed-out PCs.  It's a 1e thing, pre Dragonlance style endless quest campaigns.  I find it works fine if you understand EGG's preference for an 80%+ human campaign (like my current 1e campaign).  You're not generally supposed to play demi-humans!


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## Umbran (Sep 10, 2010)

Raven Crowking said:


> Yes, but that is two posts now rolling "20" on the semantics and "1" on the meaningful dialogue.




It seems to me that the point that what you consider accurate depends on what you think the target is has significant meaning and relevance in this context.  You, in particular, seem to have some rather particular views on what the target is, for you and your personal system, so I would have thought you'd consider it a juicy point.

You seem to have chosen to pass on it.  Your choices are not my fault.


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## DragonLancer (Sep 10, 2010)

Raven Crowking said:


> Likewise, if Bob from Accounting tends to have his PCs kill off or steal from other PCs, the inter-player dynamic automatically corrects the problem.




Unfortunately, I don't think Bob from Accounting is around any more.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T1NV7-Pbsg]YouTube - Magic: the Gathering "Bob the Accountant"[/ame]​


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 10, 2010)

Umbran said:
			
		

> It seems to me that the point that what you consider accurate depends on what you think the target is has significant meaning and relevance in this context. You, in particular, seem to have some rather particular views on what the target is, for you and your personal system, so I would have thought you'd consider it a juicy point.





I have no idea what that first sentence is intended to convey.  Rephrase please.


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## Hussar (Sep 10, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> Special DMs were no more common than special players in groups that were all learning the game together.
> 
> Let me ask this: Do you believe that there are multiple valid playstyles?
> 
> Even further, do you believe that a group that has a blast together is "doing it right" no matter how they are playing?




Yup, to both questions.  



> Does some game designer, regardless of talent, know better than you what is import in balancing the game for _your _play group?




Let me rephrase the question.  Does some game designer, who has spent hours and hours pouring over the minutia of the system, possibly has education in game theory, and a wealth of background in the system in question know better what is important in balancing a game for my play group?

Absolutely.  100% yes.  If he doesn't, why in heck am I buying his game?  If I, amateur gamer who spends a couple of hours a week playing some game, can identify points of balance better than the game designer can, then that's one seriously piss poor game designer.

I would hope that any game designer is better at identifying the importance of balance in the system than I am.




> Here's a mind blowing concept for you- thinking that game balance ought to be provided between the covers of a book is a form of one-true-wayism.




Possibly true.  OTOH, presuming that a GM will "fix" the game is lazy design.  I give older versions of RPG's a pass on this because, well, in 1976, I doubt that a lot of the concepts had really been thought of all that much.  For the same reason I don't blame Ford for not including ABS brakes on a Model T, I don't fault Gygax for not including a skill system in the game.

But, thirty years and millions of hours of game play experience between D&D gamers?  No, you don't get a pass anymore.

Think of it another way.  If you rely on the DM to "fix" the game for his group, you are presuming that the DM has the ability to do so.  You are, in other words, presuming a good DM.  What percentage of tables have DM's with that ability?  I don't know and neither do you.

How can you presume a total unknown?

If DM's capable of adjudicating in fun ways for their groups is 95%, then fantastic, presume away.  If, OTOH, it's only 50%, then you've just told half the gaming tables out there that they are going to have sucky experiences because the designer couldn't be bothered to produce a complete system.

Is it still good if half the tables suck?  How many sucky tables is acceptable?  25%?  10%?  Wouldn't it be better for the designers to use the experience that they have accrued over the past three decades of game play to produce a system that is actually balanced?  It might not be perfectly balanced, but, it's a hell of a lot closer than earlier D&D was.

It's true, you'll never achieve perfect balance, and, honestly, I don't think we ever should.  But, shoveling off responsibility onto the unknown abilities of the GM is not acceptable anymore.  We should know better.


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## Spatula (Sep 10, 2010)

Melkor said:


> My question to you folks is: How well were the older editions "balanced?"
> 
> I know my gaming group and I have played together since the late 80's, and our longest campaigns of AD&D lasted years, but we only got to around 10th level. We never, at the time, noticed that the game had "balance" issues in play, but then again, none of our players are really power gamers, and we largely ignored the Skills & Powers stuff.



Older editions were not really balanced at all, and you didn't have to be a power gamer or look for exploits to take advantage of that. From my personal experience, I would say that balance issues didn't crop up all the time because most everyone at the table knew what the sub-standard character options were and avoided them. There were still problems though - the 1e cavalier class (or hell, most anything from the 1e UA), many 2e kits, playing a thief in a combat-heavy game or a 2e bard in a dungeon crawl game, etc.

Playing 3e or 4e, the balance problems become more glaring, for a number of reasons. #1, we're adults now and have less free time to game or to read over books. #2 is that the sheer number of character options creates serious balance issues. The difference between a haphazardly made PC and an optimized one is HUGE. When you're playing in a group of people that have varying levels of system mastery, that's a problem.



Melkor said:


> That just made me wonder if "balance" in the older editions (pre 3E) was a factor, of it was something that noone ever noticed or worried about, and the game was just played and enjoyed without all of the angst.....



Not in my experience. But back then one didn't have the ability to bitch and moan in an online echo chamber about things, so it was much less visible. If message boards like this existed back then, I guarantee you that we would have the same state of affairs.



Melkor said:


> and if so, is it possible to do the same thing with newer editions - throwing "balance" to the wind?



Well, sure. But what does that mean in practice, throwing balance to the wind? Not caring about rules balance is as easy as ignoring the online discussions & arguments and not using the errata. Plenty of people play the game that way already - the folks that post here or on other RPG message boards are a tiny minority of the player base.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 10, 2010)

Spatula said:


> Playing 3e or 4e, the balance problems become more glaring, for a number of reasons.





I would say, #1, the steeper power curve means that even small differences have major impacts.  This is the same reason why 1e Monster Level works, but 3e CR can produce very wonky results.


RC


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## Lord_Blacksteel (Sep 10, 2010)

_I can't remember the exact quote, but Gary Gygax said in a thread over on Dragonsfoot that the reason clerics were only given blunt weapon proficiencies was a balance issue._

_The idea may have eventually been altered in order to become a balancing tool, but one can say with absolute certainty that in a game where all weapons regardless of type do 1d6 points of damage (i.e. OD&D in 1974) that any differences in weapon proficiencies were entirely a matter of flavor text._

In 0E this was tied to magic swords - the only magic weapons were swords, so if the cleric couldn't use them it made the fighter stronger. Later (1E) this magic restriction wet away and the blunt weapons only limitation was discussed and debated heavily in Dragon.

Older editions were not balanced for the combat encounter equivalence (noted in an early post in this thread) as 4E is, so in that sense, no - they were not 4E balanced.

There was however a balance built into the system and the most obvious was the class-specific experience table. Thieves take 1250 XP's to get to 2nd, Wizards take 2500. At higher levels given a fixed number of XP's a Thief will typically be 2 levels higher than the wizard and 1 level higher than everyone else. Thus an adventuring party might range in levels from 10 for the wizard to 12 for the thief. Things were campaign-balanced, not encounter-balanced.

Another concept that has faded since those days was the use of non-combat restrictions to balance combat abilities. The Paladin's alignment and other restrictions are a good example here. He is better than a fighter in many ways but can only have 10 magic items, has to give away a lot of cash, and has to be lawful good - this doesn't really hurt him when fighting the red dragon, but it is a set of restrictions he has to deal with within the game, just not necessarily within combat. 3E and 4E went with the idea that combat advantages should be balanced with combat restrictions while 1E and 2E did not. 

The idea that balance is something that should or must be left to the designer is just not practical in play. 

Examples: In 1E finding a +2 Giant Slayer just as you start G1 is a huge deal. 1E assumes you will figure this out and admittedly not everyone will, players or DM's. 

In 3E finding a Giant Bane sword just as you start an updated G1 is a huge deal, but 3E tries to tell you that it has the same value as finding a Dragon Bane or Rabbit Bane or any other Bane weapon - it' doesn't. 3E tries to wrap this in a framework, stick a number on it, and call it a balanced system to make everyone feel better, yet something like this is still very situational and often misleading. How is a later edition better in this case, as in more "balanced?" - it isn't. It's a guideline at best. 

The DM has to play a major role in this kind of thing knowing by his party, his players, and his campaign regardless of the system being used. It's part of the job, whether you're playing 1E or 4E.


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 10, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Think of it another way. If you rely on the DM to "fix" the game for his group, you are presuming that the DM has the ability to do so. You are, in other words, presuming a good DM. What percentage of tables have DM's with that ability? I don't know and neither do you.




I would say rather that you are presuming a DM that wants to learn to become a good one. Like many hobby activities, one grows in ability with time and practice. Games that claim you can be a great DM right out of the gate based purely on the product alone are selling snake oil.




Hussar said:


> How can you presume a total unknown?




All games must do this to some degree. The designers must presume that potential players will like what they see enough to want to play the game. 




Hussar said:


> If DM's capable of adjudicating in fun ways for their groups is 95%, then fantastic, presume away. If, OTOH, it's only 50%, then you've just told half the gaming tables out there that they are going to have sucky experiences because the designer couldn't be bothered to produce a complete system.




I hear the terms 'complete system' and 'incomplete system' thrown around quite a bit. I don't consider a game that lists creative and imaginative participants as required components for play to be incomplete simply because rules elements that make these traits unnecessary are not included.



Hussar said:


> Is it still good if half the tables suck? How many sucky tables is acceptable? 25%? 10%? Wouldn't it be better for the designers to use the experience that they have accrued over the past three decades of game play to produce a system that is actually balanced? It might not be perfectly balanced, but, it's a hell of a lot closer than earlier D&D was.




Who determines that a given table sucks? A group could be playing and having fun for many years blissfully unaware that they do in fact suck because they don't play D&D the way some other yahoo plays it. The original intent of the game was for the people playing to unlock their own imaginations and create a game together that doesn't suck _for them._

The closer D&D comes to becoming a single balanced by the rules pre-packaged experience the more meaningful contribution of the players' imagination gets shoehorned out. 



Hussar said:


> It's true, you'll never achieve perfect balance, and, honestly, I don't think we ever should. But, shoveling off responsibility onto the unknown abilities of the GM is not acceptable anymore. We should know better.




So the rules get heavier and heavier with endless updates and revisions that get shoveled to off to the DM instead. The level of burden is largely the same only instead of the satisfaction of learning to become better at making rulings the poor DM is merely exhausted implementing the patches someone else thought of while being drained financially in the process.

This is the type of progress that is aimed at churning out a more mindless consumer and not a better DM.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 10, 2010)

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> The idea that balance is something that should or must be left to the designer is just not practical in play.



Yeah, but the designer still has to do the best job possible. He has to make assumptions, about things like campaign length, frequency of new PC generation, what level the game is played to, average number of encounters per day, and so forth. If his assumptions are wrong then his design will be less good than it could be.

You make an interesting point about whether a broken points value system (gold piece value being the points in the case of the 3e magic item system) is worse than no system at all. I've been finding with games like Champions, at least up to 4th edition, and M&M, that their balancing mechanisms are so borked as to be worse than useless. One is better off ignoring the point cost and just looking at the PC's capabilities.

Otoh I feel that 1e AD&D ought to have had some sort of system for determining how many magic items the typical PC has at a given level. Gary spends a lot of time in 1e talking about how vital it is to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of Killer DM-ing and Monty Haul-ism. Yet at no point does he give us a metric. At no point does he spell out how many PC deaths make a Killer DM (assuming average player skill) or what quantity of giveaway makes a Monty Haul DM. It seems to me rather pointless to talk about it at all if no metric is provided.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 10, 2010)

Can someone XP ExploderWizard for me?


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 10, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> Gary spends a lot of time in 1e talking about how vital it is to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of Killer DM-ing and Monty Haul-ism. Yet at no point does he give us a metric. At no point does he spell out how many PC deaths make a Killer DM (assuming average player skill) or what quantity of giveaway makes a Monty Haul DM. It seems to me rather pointless to talk about it at all if no metric is provided.






ExploderWizard said:


> Who determines that a given table sucks? A group could be playing and having fun for many years blissfully unaware that they do in fact suck because they don't play D&D the way some other yahoo plays it. The original intent of the game was for the people playing to unlock their own imaginations and create a game together that doesn't suck _for them._





One post rather answers the other, IMHO.


RC


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 10, 2010)

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> Older editions were not balanced for the combat encounter equivalence (noted in an early post in this thread) as 4E is, so in that sense, no - they were not 4E balanced.



4e isn't balanced around the combat encounter. The use of action points, dailies, magic item dailies and consumable resources (which cost gp), can have a huge influence.

It's balanced, I believe, around a unit of roughly four encounters, what is estimated to be the typical adventuring day's worth.

EDIT: That said, Vancian powers and consumables have far less of an effect than in previous editions, so 4e comes much closer to being balanced round the encounter than any other edition. It still isn't, though.


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## Beginning of the End (Sep 10, 2010)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> > When people become convinced that the only "right" encounter is a  perfectly "balanced" encounter, however, the system is being abused.  That's when you get people obsessing over PCs who aren't optimally  built; or PCs that are performing "above their level"; or party builds  that aren't capable of meeting the challenges they're "supposed" to be  facing. The fetishization of balance is poison.
> 
> 
> 
> I disagree entirely.




That's certainly your prerogative. But it is also incontrovertible fact that the CR system was _not_ designed so that every single encounter could have an EL equal to the party's average level. Those using the tool for that, or anything remotely resembling that, are explicitly not using the tool in the way it was meant to be used.



> Having a system that could accurately predict how much of a challenge a particular enemy or group of enemies would be for your players is pretty much the holy grail of DMing.




It's also impossible unless you take away all player initiative in choosing and building their characters. (And you'd probably have to take away their ability to actually choose the actions they take in combat, too.)

The best you will ever achieve in the real world is a ballpark estimate built on an assumed baseline. And 3E's CR system achieves that.



> Although, IMHO, 4e has come closest to this.




And it got closer to your theoretical "ideal" by taking away player choice in character builds.



Lord_Blacksteel said:


> _The idea may have eventually been  altered in order to become a balancing tool, but one can say with  absolute certainty that in a game where all weapons regardless of type  do 1d6 points of damage (i.e. OD&D in 1974) that any differences in  weapon proficiencies were entirely a matter of flavor text._
> 
> In 0E this was tied to magic swords - the only magic weapons were  swords, so if the cleric couldn't use them it made the fighter stronger.




(Checks Volume 2 of the White Box.)

Yeah. Just like I thought. That's not true: You can find the magical daggers, axes, bows, maces, war hammers, and spears on page 24. The maces and war hammers would obviously be usable by clerics.


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## Dausuul (Sep 10, 2010)

I agree that each table will have its own set of priorities, and a universally balanced game is essentially impossible.

But that doesn't mean the game designer has no part to play. I'm an inveterate tinkerer--I bang on the rules all the time--and I have found that 4E is a dream to work on compared to older editions, because it presents me with a "standard model of play" that is solidly balanced. That means I only have to worry about balance when I knowingly diverge from the standard model. If I make a 10th-level monster with +22 to hit and AC 17, I know right away that this is going to result in a monster that's stupidly easy to hit but never misses, because I'm going way above the standard attack bonus and way below the standard AC.


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## S'mon (Sep 10, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> Otoh I feel that 1e AD&D ought to have had some sort of system for determining how many magic items the typical PC has at a given level. Gary spends a lot of time in 1e talking about how vital it is to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of Killer DM-ing and Monty Haul-ism. Yet at no point does he give us a metric.




Well there are the item generation tables for NPC adventurers, who are stated to be similar to PCs and should be GM'd as such.  They have a *lot* of magic, more than 3e PCs of equivalent level get.

In fact I find the bodies of NPCs are usually the main source of magic in a 1e game, the MM treasure tables (and the DMG dungeon generation tables) are actually very stingy.  Classic doesn't have equivalent tables, and Classic NPCs and PCs seem to have far less magic IME.

That said, I find 1e accommodates a huge range of different magic levels very well.  It's not hardcoded into the system the way it is in 3e & 4e.  5th level PCs with no magic items can still have exciting adventures, though they may advance more slowly than a magic-heavy group.


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## S'mon (Sep 10, 2010)

Raven Crowking said:


> Can someone XP ExploderWizard for me?




Sorry, I already tried & got a "must spread" again


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## Umbran (Sep 10, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> The original intent of the game was for the people playing to unlock their own imaginations and create a game together that doesn't suck _for them._




Yes, and you can do that if you ignore everything that isn't in your own head, but it'll take a while.  There's something to be said for learning from other people's mistakes and experience.  

Any set of rules aims you in the general direction of what those rules do well.  It pays for the ruleset to give you some guidelines.  Gary tried to do that in 1e, but he lacked the experience of later decades and several other systems' worth of trial and error to do it as we would today.  His vagueness was not a feature, but nobody else could have done a better job at the time, so it really wasn't a fault, either.  



> So the rules get heavier and heavier with endless updates and revisions that get shoveled to off to the DM instead.




Oh, how we forget - the updates and revisions are there because we asked for them.  Relentlessly.  Back before the internet was on everyone's phones, it began with letters and questions to Dragon Magazine.  The more that technology has made rapid dissemination of information possible, the more we've demanded errata and updates, and griped (loudly) when the producers didn't have them post haste.

Don't blame a company for giving the customers what they ask for.  If the other players are asking for things you don't like, that isn't the company's fault.



> The level of burden is largely the same only instead of the satisfaction of learning to become better at making rulings the poor DM is merely exhausted implementing the patches someone else thought of while being drained financially in the process.




Exhausted implementing patches?  

Whose fault is that?  You want to patch your rules, that's your choice.  WotC isn't coming to repossess your game if you don't.  Heck, WotC provides a Compendium and character builder such that you don't have to lift a finger to get the updates.  

Yes, there's money involved.  You say that accusatively, as if there's any other hobbies out there that don't call for expenditure of resources.  We buy the next cool book, the model train aficionado buys the next cool engine, the tennis player buys new shoes and racket, the comic fan buys the next graphic novel, the knitter buys more yarn, and so on.  Suggesting that hobbies are somehow not supposed to cost you money is not terribly realistic.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 10, 2010)

Umbran said:


> Oh, how we forget - the updates and revisions are there because we asked for them.  Relentlessly.





Perhaps.  But that "we" is not universally inclusive.


RC


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## Majoru Oakheart (Sep 10, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> That's certainly your prerogative. But it is also incontrovertible fact that the CR system was _not_ designed so that every single encounter could have an EL equal to the party's average level. Those using the tool for that, or anything remotely resembling that, are explicitly not using the tool in the way it was meant to be used.



How is it a fact that the CR system was not designed for that reason?  The DMG actually tells you the percentage of EL you should use against a party in an average adventure.  The numbers escape me right now, but it was something like 50% should be EL=APL, 30% should be EL=APL+1, 15% should be APL+2 and 5% should be APL+3 or higher.

It was the section of the DMG that we based he adventure creation rules for Living Greyhawk off of.  We actually had a mandate from HQ(WOTC themselves) that monsters had to be level appropriate and average out to the pattern described in the DMG since that was the "standard" 3e experience and LG was trying to give the D&D experience the way that WOTC intended it.

You can use whatever monsters you want, of course, level appropriate or not.  But it was certainly the intention of the rules that monsters were always appropriate(that's why every published adventure from WOTC had only level appropriate monsters).



Beginning of the End said:


> It's also impossible unless you take away all player initiative in choosing and building their characters. (And you'd probably have to take away their ability to actually choose the actions they take in combat, too.)



That's not true.  You do need to minimize the impact of those choices, however.  A system that allowed you to spend 1 million points any way you liked amongst damage, defenses, roleplaying special abilities, attack rolls, stats, perks, and so on is the ultimate in player choice.  But you are just as likely to end up with a character who has +499,999 to hit and damage and 1 hitpoint and 1 ac as you are the character with +0 to hit and damage because all their points are put into basketweaving.

This means that there is no way to tell if your enemy who has 1000 hitpoints and +1000 to hit is too powerful or too weak for starting level characters.  You can only get approximately what people will put into their abilities.  But because the numbers vary so much, your guess has almost no chance of being right,

On the other hand, if you can say "All 1st level monsters have a 16 AC and 20 hp.  All players have +6 to hit and do 5 damage." then you can nail down precisely the percent chance of winning.  But being that predictable would be a little too boring.  So, you allow enough choice for it to be meaningful without allowing enough that it becomes completely unpredictable.  if you allow players to choose options that vary their to hit and damage up and down 15% then you create a 35% difference between highest power and lowest power.  Then you can add the ability to attack different defenses and then vary the defenses up or down 15% and you create more randomness and meaningful player choice.  You add some tactical and situational modifiers and you add a little more.

But when you add them all together, the numbers are close enough that you can still predict the approximate difficulty of any given creature with a high degree of accuracy.



Beginning of the End said:


> The best you will ever achieve in the real world is a ballpark estimate built on an assumed baseline. And 3E's CR system achieves that.



I disagree.  3e's system is mostly guessing.  There is a chance that the CR 8 creature in any particular book might have an AC anywhere from 10 to 40.  Same with all the rest of it's saving throws.  So, when the designers looked at each creature and decided on a CR, it was mostly just guessing.  They've admitted this themselves.  It was a matter of "This creature has about as many hitpoints as this other CR 8, but it's attacks are significantly higher.  We'll write in CR 9 and call it a day."



Beginning of the End said:


> And it got closer to your theoretical "ideal" by taking away player choice in character builds.



Yep, it did sacrifice some player choice in character builds in order to get there.  I don't have any problem with that at all.  I started playing D&D in 2e where Wizards couldn't wield a sword, ever...simply because "They already got spells, you can't give them a sword as well".  I think I can live with "choose amongst about 5000 different builds, about 4800 of which are good ideas for a character and completely balanced" vs "choose amongst 10 million different builds, only 2000 of them are worth playing, make any sense and fit within the narrow balance range that the game is designed for".

Plus, my experience with 3e eventually proved to me that not all choice is good choice.  Mainly the 2nd campaign in a row that I ran where the PCs wiped 95% of the encounters I sent at them without even a small chance of anyone dying or losing.  They all complained that they had no fun because there was no challenge, I had no fun because I felt like I was picking up dice and rolling for an hour and a half just to prove a forgone conclusion.  Yes, this included the time I threw a EL 22 encounter against them while they were 16th level.  Which, according to all estimates should have ended in a TPK of the party.  Instead, the enemy got 3 actions, and all of them didn't actually hurt the party.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 10, 2010)

pemerton said:


> I think Don Turnbull's Monster Mark system was superior. Also, the way Turnbull approaches the issue of monster level and encounter difficulty shows that encounter balancing was a concern for at least some of those playing early D&D.



That's a very good point. Turnbull's system was incredibly mathematically rigorous, like nothing we've seen until 4e (or perhaps Trailblazer). It was determined to get the numbers right, or as right as possible when there are so many weird monster powers. It does show that the concerns which inform 4e were present from the very early days.



> I was trying to provide a systematic method of assessing a monster's relative malignity, so that new monsters (from Strategic Review, Dungeoneer etc. - and I wonder how many of you use EPT monsters in non-EPT dungeons?) could be assigned with reasonable accuracy to levels. As it happens, revised monster level tables are not the only product of the system, particularly in its newer refined form. Many have criticised the Greyhawk experience points table, for instance, and this method provides a basis for quite accurate reappraisal.
> 
> The method gives dungeonmasters better guidance than previously available on the thorny question of *how many wandering monsters should appear against a party of a particular size and strength*. Also - is a 4 dice +2 Su Monster about as nasty as a 4-dice Giant Snake? This method clothes the bare bones of intuition.



 - White Dwarf #1, 1977

Emboldening mine. Check the level appropriate encounter!

Here's some more foreshadowing of 4e (and E6) -



> D&D is most fun for third to sixth level characters, who are strong enough to adventure without fear of immediate death, strong enough to have more combat options than flight, melee and sleep spells, but not so strong that they can laugh at monsters



 - Lew Pulsipher, Introduction to D&D, White Dwarf #24, 1981


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## TarionzCousin (Sep 10, 2010)

The "balance" I remember from 1E was having your character get killed. With your new character in a similar situation the "next" time, you would do something different--unless you were Egli. He always charged headfist into battle. 

Hmmm... come to think of it, all of his characters died pretty quickly, too.


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## billd91 (Sep 10, 2010)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> How is it a fact that the CR system was not designed for that reason?  The DMG actually tells you the percentage of EL you should use against a party in an average adventure.  The numbers escape me right now, but it was something like 50% should be EL=APL, 30% should be EL=APL+1, 15% should be APL+2 and 5% should be APL+3 or higher.




You really should look over the text you're quoting and responding to again. The info you're providing here is illustrating exactly what he's saying. The CR system was *not* designed with the intention of every encounter having an EL equal to the APL. There were expected to be encounters of varying levels, some substantially lower, some substantially higher, some hard but easier if you had the right solution to the situation, etc.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> I disagree.  3e's system is mostly guessing.  There is a chance that the CR 8 creature in any particular book might have an AC anywhere from 10 to 40.  Same with all the rest of it's saving throws.




Unless you actually find a CR 8 creature with AC 40, I'm going to call shenanigans and say a 0% chance.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 11, 2010)

billd91 said:


> Unless you actually find a CR 8 creature with AC 40, I'm going to call shenanigans and say a 0% chance.



There's the Thrym hound from MM5. It has an AC of 39 and it's CR10. The monsters generally got tougher throughout the MM series, just as PCs using Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, PHB2, etc were tougher than those that didn't.

I've actually fought and killed a thrym hound as a player. Party of three, ninth level - warblade, rogue, marshal + a cohort. Opposition was a thrym hound and a frost giant. It was an incredibly hard fight, my PC ended on something like 1 hit point.

You could give a CR6 Will-o'-Wisp (AC29) levels in monk and sorcerer, for _mage armor _and _shield_, and it would have an AC of 40 (more with the elite array) and be CR8. Conveniently the _shield_ spell also covers one of the Wisp's few vulnerabilities - _magic missile_. OP, you say? If the level 8 PCs aren't packing a scroll of _maze_ for just such an eventuality, they only have themselves to blame!

Ah, it's all coming back to me! Anyone fancy a game of 3e? All books allowed ofc.

EDIT: I just realised that the Wisp might be immune to its own shield and mage armor spells, sadly. Unless it can switch its immunity off, a la spell resistance. The text does indicate its immunities are like SR. Hmm, the perplexing mysteries of 3e D&D.


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## Plane Sailing (Sep 11, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> I believe it was expected that one would be rolling up new characters even if the old one hadn't died. You would have a big stable of living PCs (and many more dead ones), just like Stan with his folder. Characters would adventure with others of roughly the same level. So your surviving 8th level wizard, Lusaud, would often adventure with my surviving 7th level fighter Ercem Good, even though we might both have many other PCs ranging throughout the levels.




As an illustration of this point, I'll dig out my folder of 1E characters, my 'stable' from those days. Apologies for the non-originality of the names!

Aragorn the Ranger (16th Ranger)
Ged the Wizard (21st level wizard)
Arma the Barbarian (6th level - barbarian class from white dwarf 4)
Hassan the Ninja (6th level thief)
Dominic the Bard (4th level homebrew bard - a sort of fighter-thief)
Greyhalm the grey elf paladin (7th level grey elf paladin)
High Priest Oriel (11th level evil high priest, dual classed (originally 7th level monk)
Anduin the Druid (12th level druid)

There were probably a few others who had gone missing, but those were the main PCs in my stable, and an appropriate one was brought out for the adventure of the week (or so).

Cheers


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## TarionzCousin (Sep 11, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> Apologies for the non-originality of the names!



Oooh! It's like a memory test! 

Aragorn the Ranger - Lord of the Rings
Ged the Wizard - Earthsea
Arma the Barbarian - Amra was one of Conan's other names
Hassan the Ninja - "Hassan Chop!"
Dominic the Bard - ???
Greyhalm the grey elf paladin - ???
High Priest Oriel - ???
Anduin the Druid - Anduin is a river in Lord of the Rings, IIRC.

Does anyone know the others?

I would think "Oriel" might be the name of someone from fiction. "Grayhalm" is made up, and "Dominic" was a friend of Plane Sailing's cousin.


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## WheresMyD20 (Sep 11, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> (Checks Volume 2 of the White Box.)
> 
> Yeah. Just like I thought. That's not true: You can find the magical daggers, axes, bows, maces, war hammers, and spears on page 24. The maces and war hammers would obviously be usable by clerics.




Just a point of clarification here:  There are magic weapons other than swords in 0e, but swords are special.  All magic swords (and only magic swords) in 0e are intelligent weapons.

Page 27:  "Among magic weaponry swords alone possess certain human (and superhuman) attributes.  Swords have alignment (Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic), an Intelligence factor, and an egoism rating (as well as an optional determination of their origin/purpose)."

The fact that magic swords are the exclusive domain of fighters is supposed to be a major advantage for fighter characters.  (_Note: Supplement I allows thieves magic swords as well._)

Page 6: "All magical weaponry is usable by fighters, and this in itself is a big advantage."


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## Votan (Sep 11, 2010)

Umbran said:


> Oh, how we forget - the updates and revisions are there because we asked for them.  Relentlessly.  Back before the internet was on everyone's phones, it began with letters and questions to Dragon Magazine.  The more that technology has made rapid dissemination of information possible, the more we've demanded errata and updates, and griped (loudly) when the producers didn't have them post haste.
> 
> Don't blame a company for giving the customers what they ask for.  If the other players are asking for things you don't like, that isn't the company's fault.




Perhaps this is my transformation to grognard but the real change seems to have been towards systematic errata instead of ad hoc patches (in which each group worked out it's own set of solutions).  I found this approach awkward with Star Fleet Battles and it stays that way with D&D 4E.  

I wonder if the inherent complexity of the ruleset isn't the issue?  There are a lot fewer moving parts in the (core part of) early editions.  Class and rolled ability scores (plus hit points) dominate the character in AD&D.  In 3E and 4E character add in feats, dynamic multi-classing and, in 4E, lengthy power lists for all classes.

Now, I don't want to be accused of arguing that complexity is bad (it isn't, not inherently  -- I love Star Fleet Battles, for example).  But perhaps a high rate of errata is inherent in these complex rules sets?  SFB managed to have hundreds of pages of it (scattered through a dozen magazines) long before the internet created easy communication.  

This is, I think, the appeal of Castles and Crusades as well.  By reducing variability it is a lot harder to find actual breaks in the system.  

Or maybe I am looking at a second order effect?


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## Vegepygmy (Sep 11, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> EDIT: I just realised that the Wisp might be immune to its own shield and mage armor spells, sadly.



Neither _shield_ nor _mage armor_ are subject to spell resistance, so no problem there.



			
				Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> Unless it can switch its immunity off, a la spell resistance.



It can. PHB, page 177.



			
				Doug McCrae said:
			
		

> The text does indicate its immunities are like SR. Hmm, the perplexing mysteries of 3e D&D.



Not really any "mysteries" here, actually. It's all pretty well traveled ground.


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## WheresMyD20 (Sep 12, 2010)

Votan said:


> Perhaps this is my transformation to grognard but the real change seems to have been towards systematic errata instead of ad hoc patches (in which each group worked out it's own set of solutions).  I found this approach awkward with Star Fleet Battles and it stays that way with D&D 4E.
> 
> I wonder if the inherent complexity of the ruleset isn't the issue?  There are a lot fewer moving parts in the (core part of) early editions.  Class and rolled ability scores (plus hit points) dominate the character in AD&D.  In 3E and 4E character add in feats, dynamic multi-classing and, in 4E, lengthy power lists for all classes.
> 
> ...




I think one needs to also consider customers' expectations.

4e markets itself as a carefully balanced system, so it's only natural that 4e players will be more scrutinizing of the balance in that system and be less tolerant of "breaks".  There is also be a greater desire for "official" fixes rather than house rules.  House rules may be perceived as messing up the balance even more or as diverging from the way the game is supposed to be played.

C&C markets itself as a much more "fast and loose", "rulings not rules" system, so there isn't the same level of careful game balance expectation among its players.  Players will be more tolerant of "broken" rules.  In fact, I think they're more likely to just make up their own house rules to fix "broken" rules and not care about anything "official".

Complexity certainly plays a role, but the expectations that companies build with their customer bases regarding the product also plays a role.  The style that the companies choose to have their respective products embrace certainly drives those customer expectations.


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## Plane Sailing (Sep 13, 2010)

Votan said:


> I wonder if the inherent complexity of the ruleset isn't the issue? There are a lot fewer moving parts in the (core part of) early editions. Class and rolled ability scores (plus hit points) dominate the character in AD&D. In 3E and 4E character add in feats, dynamic multi-classing and, in 4E, lengthy power lists for all classes.




I'm sure that this is the case. The more moving parts there are, the more that there is to go 'wrong' (in the sense of unexpected consequences from a new combination or permutation of things).

In addition, the more tightly rules attempt to define something, the more questions are often raised (e.g. the "that depends upon what 'is' is" kind of interpretational argument!) which 'demand' an official response. Where rules are less complex, people just wing it until some kind of supplement or equivalent appears in most cases IMX.

Cheers


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## Lord_Blacksteel (Sep 13, 2010)

WheresMyD20 said:


> Just a point of clarification here:  There are magic weapons other than swords in 0e, but swords are special.  All magic swords (and only magic swords) in 0e are intelligent weapons.
> 
> Page 27:  "Among magic weaponry swords alone possess certain human (and superhuman) attributes.  Swords have alignment (Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic), an Intelligence factor, and an egoism rating (as well as an optional determination of their origin/purpose)."
> 
> ...




This is what I was trying to say. The powerful stuff was Fighters-only, at least for a while.



Doug McCrae said:


> You make an interesting point about whether a broken points value system (gold piece value being the points in the case of the 3e magic item system) is worse than no system at all. I've been finding with games like Champions, at least up to 4th edition, and M&M, that their balancing mechanisms are so borked as to be worse than useless. One is better off ignoring the point cost and just looking at the PC's capabilities.




I don't know, Champions has been around for almost 30 years and has been beaten on by stat-geeks probably more than D&D and most players seem to think it works just fine. Point-systems are abusable, sure, but after some public exposure and an edition or two they seem to work pretty well. Champions 4th is 20 years old so it may have changed somewhat for the better since then.



Doug McCrae said:


> Otoh I feel that 1e AD&D ought to have had some sort of system for determining how many magic items the typical PC has at a given level. Gary spends a lot of time in 1e talking about how vital it is to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of Killer DM-ing and Monty Haul-ism. Yet at no point does he give us a metric. At no point does he spell out how many PC deaths make a Killer DM (assuming average player skill) or what quantity of giveaway makes a Monty Haul DM. It seems to me rather pointless to talk about it at all if no metric is provided.




Monty-Haul is easy to spot in most cases, the Killer DM is more tied to player expectations IME. It was probably worth more discussion and it was - mostly in Dragon. As far as D&D I think more abstract guidelines actually work better than trying to make a mathematically precise system where the designer doesn't know the players nor does he know the situation. More precision = more likely to be broken as in my giant-slayer sword example. Something like "10th level characters might typically have 10 magic items. Fighters will have a weapon, armor, a shield or a backup weapon,  a ring, 2 miscellaneous items, and 4 or 5 potions or scrolls." Something like that for 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th has some value. Items have a lot of power relative to inherent character power in 1E/2E so anything detailed is going to be really really tricky. If we're about to invade the homebrew 9th level adventure Tomb of the Vampire King then a mace of disruption is a pretty big deal and makes the cleric a nastier fighter, possibly counting as a level or two higher than he really is. Next adventure is Against the Giants and now it's basically a +1 mace, kind of a crappy weapon against large creatures compared to even a +1 Longsword. That kind of variability is tough to account for in a system designed to balance overall combat capabilities.

Plus, assuming you do put a ton of work into figuring this out what is the benefit?  Remember the mindset at the time of 1E was that we were trying to simulate a fantasy world in some respects. Areas of the countryside weren't necessarily zoned by level. Players were expected to know the difference between an ogre and a troll and whether they could take one on or not - running away was an acceptable response to "You see 2 trolls coming down the road." The idea that all encounters should be fair or balanced did not exist at the time. Rigorous analysis of the math was not going to happen because most players didn't care - it wasn't an aspect of the game that mattered to most players or DM's. 

Now with 3E/4E there is some positioning of "balance" as a selling point - well now of course you have to do some work in that are because you're promising it on the box. I thought both CR and Item cost worked alright as a guideline with 3E, but you have to know your party and the situation or it's worse than useless - it gives a false sense of balance that's potentially going to wreck your game. The DM is the control mechanism that makes it work. 

I've only recently started running 4E so I can't say a whole lot about it but setting all levels to the same scale - level 1 character is even with a level 1 monster and would typically have a level 1 item - certainly smooths out the granularity. Even there the situational variables can still make a big difference. For example, typed damage should be a part of the game but if the party is great at taking and dishing out fire & cold but runs into something with some variable resistances that dishes out toxic or necrotic damage then they are fighting at a lower level than what's on the label and it could get tricky. Items and powers both play a part there and in some ways that part is no different than the older versions of the game - you still need to know your players and their characters to really keep an eye on things.


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## AllisterH (Sep 13, 2010)

At a minimum, in 2e, I always assumed that players had what the "followers" of the Fighter sub-class were allowed to have in terms of magical wealth.


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## Beginning of the End (Sep 14, 2010)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> > But it is also incontrovertible fact that the CR system was _not_ designed so that every single encounter could have an EL equal to the party's average level.
> 
> 
> 
> How is it a fact that the CR system was not designed for that reason?  The DMG actually tells you the percentage of EL you should use against a party in an average adventure.  The numbers escape me right now, but it was something like 50% should be EL=APL, 30% should be EL=APL+1, 15% should be APL+2 and 5% should be APL+3 or higher.




Seriously...?

I mean, you're clearly aware that not all encounters should have an EL equal to the party's average level. You've even gone so far as to half-heartedly cite some of the relevant passages from the DMG.

And yet you're still asking me how it's a "fact"?

Because, as you yourself point out, even under the _strictest_ interpretation of the rules from the DMG, the CR system was never designed so that all encounters would have an EL equal to the average party level. Period.

The citation you're looking for, BTW, is Table 3-2 on pg. 49 of the DMG.

But to interpret even this table as the "one true way" of encounter design espoused by the DMG is to take it out of context, because on page 48 of the 3.5 DMG we read: "If you decide to use only status quo encounters [...] some of the encounters you place in your adventure setting will be an appropriate challenge for the PCs, *but others might not be*. For instance, you could decide where the dragon's lair is *long before the characters are experienced enough to survive a fight against the dragon*." (emphasis added)


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## thecasualoblivion (Sep 14, 2010)

In my experience, older editions (OD&D/1E/2E) were very unbalanced in theory but ended up having much better balance in practice. 3E/3.5E made a serious attempt at being balanced in theory, but ended up being very unbalanced in practice.


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## NewJeffCT (Sep 14, 2010)

thecasualoblivion said:


> In my experience, older editions (OD&D/1E/2E) were very unbalanced in theory but ended up having much better balance in practice. 3E/3.5E made a serious attempt at being balanced in theory, but ended up being very unbalanced in practice.




I found just the opposite with the older editions - PCs were unbalanced as written.  You were just more powerful out of the box if you chose non-human races and multi-classed. What made it fun was that we were younger and didn't care so much about fairness - and, we all knew D&D because we had grown up playing it.  

And, because we knew 1E/2E so well, it was easier for the DM to accommodate the wildly divergent power levels in game.  As I stated earlier, witout magic items, the multi-class elves (or dwarves) were far more powerful than straight classed humans with the same overall XP.  The DM would need to give the weaker characters special situations in order to level the playing field - be it special encoutners, extra magic items, etc.  However, even then, the better race/class combos still excelled at the table.

With 3E/3.5E, I found characters to be more reasonably balanced than prior editions, both in theory and in practice.  I was involved in two long term campaigns – one with 3E, and one with 3.5.  The 3E campaign was as a player, while 3.5 was as DM.  There really was nobody that took a backseat to the rest of the group in terms of how powerful their characters were in game.  Sure, there were situations where somebody did not do well for a particular encounter, but over the course of the campaign, everybody was in the ballpark in terms of overall power level.

Where 3E and 3.5 have problems is when somebody would try to build a character towards a particular prestige class or special class or template or whatnot.  Then, things can get unbalanced quickly.  But, you could have had similar in 2E with kits instead of prestige classes (elf bladesinger anybody?)
3.5 was also a ton of work for me as a DM – part of which I spent making sure each PC would have their moments to shine

I have not played or DM’d 4E enough to comment enough on it, other than saying it seems much easier to DM than 3.5.


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## S'mon (Sep 14, 2010)

NewJeffCT said:


> With 3E/3.5E, I found characters to be more reasonably balanced than prior editions, both in theory and in practice.




You think a 3.5 Cleric-15 is balanced vs a Fighter-15?  A Druid-10 vs a Fighter-10?  A Wizard-17 vs a Fighter-17?


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## NewJeffCT (Sep 14, 2010)

S'mon said:


> You think a 3.5 Cleric-15 is balanced vs a Fighter-15?  A Druid-10 vs a Fighter-10?  A Wizard-17 vs a Fighter-17?




It certainly played out that way at the table, both when I was a player and when I was a DM.  The only problem I found was in the mid levels (8-12 or so), the party psion kind of stood out in certain situations, but that subsided after that stretch.  

The 10 players that were in the group where I was a player for 3E were almost all there from 1E/2E days as wel and the group certainly found the characters in 3E to be more balanced than prior editions.  I don't think the group suddenly matured and grew innate senses of balance and fairness.

The players I DM'd for my 3.5 campaign were all new as well.  So, it wasn't like they were the same players.

And, a 1E rogue 17 (or rogue 18, 19 or 20 for that matter) can't hold a candle to a 1E wizard 17, or even a 1E wizard 15.


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## thecasualoblivion (Sep 14, 2010)

NewJeffCT said:


> I found just the opposite with the older editions - PCs were unbalanced as written.  You were just more powerful out of the box if you chose non-human races and multi-classed. What made it fun was that we were younger and didn't care so much about fairness - and, we all knew D&D because we had grown up playing it.
> 
> And, because we knew 1E/2E so well, it was easier for the DM to accommodate the wildly divergent power levels in game.  As I stated earlier, witout magic items, the multi-class elves (or dwarves) were far more powerful than straight classed humans with the same overall XP.  The DM would need to give the weaker characters special situations in order to level the playing field - be it special encoutners, extra magic items, etc.  However, even then, the better race/class combos still excelled at the table.




While this is true to some extent, the difference between power levels really wasn't that big, especially compared to 3.5E shenanigans. Mulitclassing was good, but I never found it gamebreaking, at least not to 3.5E levels of gamebreaking. An older editions multiclass is far less gamebreaking than an optimized 3.5E Wizard or Druid.



NewJeffCT said:


> With 3E/3.5E, I found characters to be more reasonably balanced than prior editions, both in theory and in practice.  I was involved in two long term campaigns – one with 3E, and one with 3.5.  The 3E campaign was as a player, while 3.5 was as DM.  There really was nobody that took a backseat to the rest of the group in terms of how powerful their characters were in game.  Sure, there were situations where somebody did not do well for a particular encounter, but over the course of the campaign, everybody was in the ballpark in terms of overall power level.




Your experiences are far from typical. 



NewJeffCT said:


> Where 3E and 3.5 have problems is when somebody would try to build a character towards a particular prestige class or special class or template or whatnot.  Then, things can get unbalanced quickly.  But, you could have had similar in 2E with kits instead of prestige classes (elf bladesinger anybody?)
> 3.5 was also a ton of work for me as a DM – part of which I spent making sure each PC would have their moments to shine
> 
> I have not played or DM’d 4E enough to comment enough on it, other than saying it seems much easier to DM than 3.5.




In 3E/3.5E, building towards a particular prestige class or whatever is a core concept of the game. If playing towards one of the core concepts of the game causes problems in balance, the game has problems with balance. Playing the game in opposition to its design by gentleman's agreement does not make the design any less flawed. 

If playing a vanilla Druid to the best of your ability unbalances the game, the game has a problem with balance.


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## Hussar (Sep 15, 2010)

S'mon said:


> You think a 3.5 Cleric-15 is balanced vs a Fighter-15?  A Druid-10 vs a Fighter-10?  A Wizard-17 vs a Fighter-17?




Name an edition of D&D where that wasn't true.  That's hardly a 3e issue.  

Caster vs non-caster has always been problematic.  1st level wizard with sleep wins against anything a 1st level character could reasonably face.  Granted, he only wins once, and then he automatically loses.  The 1st level fighter might win or he might lose, depending on a lot of factors.  

This is balanced?  One first level character auto-wins one encounter of his choice and then (pretty much) loses any other encounter, vs a character that might or might not win vs any reasonable encounter.

I have to admit that my experiences are far closer to NewJeffCT's.  AD&D was unbalanced out of the gate, and, if the campaign lasted long enough, you moved from the Monster Manual to the Dieties and Demigods to get a reasonable challenge for your players.  3e, by and large, was balanced.  

Can you unbalance a balanced system?  Of course you can.  It's generally not all that difficult.  But, trying to balance an unbalanced system means the DM has to be aware of how to fix problems all the time.  And if he makes a few mistakes, the campaign goes into a tailspin.


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## Plane Sailing (Sep 15, 2010)

thecasualoblivion said:


> In 3E/3.5E, building towards a particular prestige class or whatever is a core concept of the game.




I don't think this is true (or at least it certainly didn't start out as true). As you remember, 3.0e introduced prestige classes in the DMG as optional choices that a DM might want to introduce into his campaign to give extra campaign specific flavour and options.

Now, to my mind it is unfortunate that WotC went hog-wild in producing hundreds of 'prestige classes' which became seen as player focused PC powerup options. 

It certainly became a problem with balance when people cherry-picked their way through certain prestige classes (as NewJeffCT said), and the problem existed because of what prestige classes eventually became... but I don't think that they were (or were intended to be) a core concept of the game. The last 3e campaign I played in went from 1st to 20th level without any prestige classes; it was core rules (phb, dmg) + psionics only, no prestige classes allowed. I would say that core concepts of the game couldn't be ommitted - feats, skills, multiclassing etc.

Cheers


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 15, 2010)

Hussar said:


> 1st level wizard with sleep wins against anything a 1st level character could reasonably face.





1st level elf thief.  Just saying.   

Or anything that sneaks up on him.  Or beats his initiative with a ranged weapon, or in melee range.

Frankly, if you think a 1st level wizard with _sleep_ can autowin any single 1st-level encounter, your 1st-level wizards would probably drop like flies in any 1e game I have ever played.  There is no auto-win button!  Playing like there is will not ensure character survival.  

1e didn't assume that 1st level characters should be out adventuring alone, however, or facing each other one-on-one in an arena somewhere.  The dynamic is not based on a single encounter, but what can be done over the course of an adventure or a play session -- keeping in mind resource tracking (including the time to memorize spells in 1e, which isn't just a little bit, and tracking ammunition for missile weapons).

I've played every class in 1e except the bard, and they all contributed.  I found them all fun to play.  I didn't have any balance issues with any of them -- even with UA, although I stuck to the 4d6, arrange as desired method, as both player and DM, which might have helped to curb that book's excesses.  Certainly, my DMs had no problems challenging me -- lethally, even! -- if I went too deep, picked the wrong battle, or my hubris got the better of me.

Part of the reason that 1e balances well, when played as intended, is that the players are choosing the balance.  They decide what risks they can take, and they decide which player characters adventure together.  They can choose to play it safe, taking easy victories for small rewards, or they can risk more in hopes of getting more.  Obnoxious players or overpowered characters simply are not invited on an expedition -- the players, not the DM, make this determination.....Although the DM, too, has a say!  

The more risks the characters take -- and survive -- the more they grow, so more active characters do better overall.  You can bumble about with 15-minute adventuring days, if you like, but your friends will soon pass you by.

The farther you go from the core assumptions, though, the harder it is to balance the game.  Likewise for all games, I suspect.  3e is certainly easier to balance when you plan the encounters based on APL, when the party hits the standard wealth, and is of standard size.  

It is also easier to balance a game with a shallower power curve than a steep one.  The steeper the curve, the more impact small changes will have.  

All IMHO and IME, of course.


RC


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 15, 2010)

When comparing pre- 3X editions to older editions lets remember a few facts about balance. 

1) The older editions never claimed to be balanced out of the box, especially combat balanced between PC's.

2) The game rules instructed the DM to consider game balance before permitting new material in the game.

3) Combat was not the only assumed measure of balance.

4) Any RPG system that claims to be balanced out of the box will become the proverbial gauntlet thrown down before powergamers and rules lawyers everywhere. It WILL fail sooner or later. This cycle just becomes the RPG version of the malware/antivirus escalation which is endless. 

5) Looking at older systems and expecting to see the types of balance concerns that preoccupy the minds of so many players today is pointless madness. 

6) A game with rules written to be played with and interpreted by people is best balanced by those people. Such balance is fluid, flexible and much harder to hack than RAW code.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 15, 2010)

ExploderWizard shows much wisdom.......!


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## thecasualoblivion (Sep 15, 2010)

Another place where OD&D/1E/2E does a better job at balance than 3E/3.5E is niche protection and everyone having a specific role to play. In older editions:

1. Fighters(and Paladins/Rangers/ect) completely outclassed other classes at trading hits with big sacks of HP with sharp claws. It wasn't even close. 
2. No other class could match the utility of Thief skills
3. Wizards had a clear role as artillery and problem solvers, and their role was important enough and their resources limited enough that they had a responsibility to fill it and not dabble in other people's stuff. In addition, many monsters where heavily and unavoidably resistant to magic.
4. Clerics healed.

In 3E/3.5E:

1. Monster HP inflation lessened the impact and effectiveness of the Fighting classes offense, and as the levels increase the Fighter becomes more and more fragile thanks to monster offense increasing faster than his defenses and his weak saves compared to the earlier editions Fighter who was fairly invincible at high levels.
2. Low level Wizard spells do a better job at the Thieving type skills, and at higher levels wands and scrolls become trivial. 
3. The increased effectiveness of Save or Die effects combined with the reduced effectiveness of damage spells reduced the resources a Wizard needed to contribute to offensive magic. 3E/3.5E Wizards also typically face fewer encounters between rests, and have bonus spells from high Intelligence. Combine this with greater access to scrolls and wands, and the Wizard can now do it all by itself without much hassle. There were also such strong tools against magic resistant monsters that a well designed Wizard wasn't really hassled by them.
4. The most efficient form of healing in 3E/3.5E is not the Cleric, but the Wand of Cure LIght Wounds. On the other hand, with a modest investment, Clerics and Druids can nearly match the Fighter classes as meat shields, and combine the meat shield role with a big pile of spells for utility the Fighting classes can't hope to match.


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## thecasualoblivion (Sep 15, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> I don't think this is true (or at least it certainly didn't start out as true). As you remember, 3.0e introduced prestige classes in the DMG as optional choices that a DM might want to introduce into his campaign to give extra campaign specific flavour and options.
> 
> Now, to my mind it is unfortunate that WotC went hog-wild in producing hundreds of 'prestige classes' which became seen as player focused PC powerup options.
> 
> ...




The thing is, this sort of character building isn't always about prestige classes. One of the most notorious examples of imbalance is the Druid class, and aside from a ridiculously broken Eberron prestige class no sane DM allows the the Druid is best served by sticking with the base Druid class all the way to 20. Its nearly the same with Clerics and Wizards, who while they become powered up by Prestige Classes where they sacrifice little to nothing to enter, don't lose a lot by just sticking with the base class.

Also, in a more general sense, building a strong character was hardwired into the game. Monte Cook discussed the concept of having good and bad options hardwired into the system, making character building(like deck building in M:tG) a game in and of itself.


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## thedungeondelver (Sep 15, 2010)

Why is there this endless obsession with "play balance"?

"Oh boo hoo my 1st level magic user isn't calling down a rain of pure antimatter every combat segment, wah."

Play balance _*COMES FROM HOW YOU PLAY*_ - DM and players both.  Sitting around and asking the rules to prettyplease make sure everyone is a special snowflake is d-u-m-b dumb.


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## thecasualoblivion (Sep 15, 2010)

thedungeondelver said:


> Why is there this endless obsession with "play balance"?
> 
> "Oh boo hoo my 1st level magic user isn't calling down a rain of pure antimatter every combat segment, wah."
> 
> Play balance _*COMES FROM HOW YOU PLAY*_ - DM and players both.  Sitting around and asking the rules to prettyplease make sure everyone is a special snowflake is d-u-m-b dumb.




Play balance becomes an obsession when the lack of it damages or ruins your game. This wasn't a big problem in my experience pre-3E, but became a significant problem during 3E/3.5E. The difference in my opinion was that game smashing imbalance in OD&D/1E/2E required the player to be a real jerk(munchkinism, cheating, Bladesinger) and/or the DM being weak or stupid. Preferably both. In 3E, a player could imbalance the game without necessarily being a jerk, and anything short of a master DM could have problems maintaining balance in a game with optimizing players. Optimizing is not on the same level of douchebaggery as cheating and munchkinism, and is actively encouraged by the 3.5E system.

I don't consider playing a vanilla Druid and choosing the smart options and playing well being a jerk, and a well built and played vanilla Druid will cause balance problems.


On a side note, I don't think the Wizard example is a good analogy. A Wizard having one spell and sitting on their hands for the rest of the night is a boredom issue more than a balance issue.


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## NewJeffCT (Sep 15, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> When comparing pre- 3X editions to older editions lets remember a few facts about balance.
> 
> 1) The older editions never claimed to be balanced out of the box, especially combat balanced between PC's.




True, it never claimed to be balanced - however, this thread was started to discuss older editions and balance, and many have responded on here stating that 1E and 2E were more balanced.



> 2) The game rules instructed the DM to consider game balance before permitting new material in the game.



I believe that is stated for 3E and 4E as well.



> 3) Combat was not the only assumed measure of balance.



True, in 2E you had NWPs and 3E and 4E have skills. However, role-playing has always been group specific and you can have it or not have it in any edition. Combat is something that can be quantified, though. A group that favors more roleplaying over hack-n-slash isn't suddenly going to change its stripes by switching from 1E to 3E or from 4E to 2E or any which way. 



> 4) Any RPG system that claims to be balanced out of the box will become the proverbial gauntlet thrown down before powergamers and rules lawyers everywhere. It WILL fail sooner or later. This cycle just becomes the RPG version of the malware/antivirus escalation which is endless.



True, but powergaming has existed in every edition of D&D, and I know my old group DM had a whole notebook full of house rules for 2E, whereas had very little for 3E, and I did not have many for 3.5.



> 5) Looking at older systems and expecting to see the types of balance concerns that preoccupy the minds of so many players today is pointless madness.



Again, this is a thread about older editions and balance.



> 6) A game with rules written to be played with and interpreted by people is best balanced by those people. Such balance is fluid, flexible and much harder to hack than RAW code.




As I stated above, we had far more house rules back in 2E days than we did with 3E and 3.5, and those house rules were often to maintain a balance in game.  That said, because we had grown up playing 1E and 2E, a lot of these rules and house rules were 2nd nature to us.


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## thedungeondelver (Sep 15, 2010)

thecasualoblivion said:


> On a side note, I don't think the Wizard example is a good analogy. A Wizard having one spell and sitting on their hands for the rest of the night is a boredom issue more than a balance issue.





I wasn't talking about wizards though; I was referring to prestidigitators.  Wizards have 4 1st, 4 2nd, 4 3rd, 3 4th and 3 5th level spells.

Wizards have PLENTY to do.


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## thecasualoblivion (Sep 15, 2010)

thedungeondelver said:


> I wasn't talking about wizards though; I was referring to prestidigitators.  Wizards have 4 1st, 4 2nd, 4 3rd, 3 4th and 3 5th level spells.
> 
> Wizards have PLENTY to do.




Semantics

A 1st level Wizard(what you are discussing) had one spell, two if specialized or playing 3E/3.5, or three if specialized and playing 3E/3.5E.

A creative player could find things to do when the spells ran out, but not all of us are that gifted.

Compare this to the 4E level 1 Wizard who has four Cantrips and two(three if Human) At-Wills they can cast all day long, every round. 

Even your name level Wizard can't burn a 15ft by 15ft area every six seconds for 24 hours straight. 


And again, this isn't a balance issue. Its a having something to do issue.


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## Umbran (Sep 15, 2010)

thecasualoblivion said:


> And again, this isn't a balance issue. Its a having something to do issue.




"Balance" is a word with may possible definitions in the RPG context.

To me, if one of your party members is frequently sitting around unable to assist in a combat, needing to be protected - acting as as a tactical burden and detriment, rather than a resource - that's a balance issue.  Same goes for other scenarios outside of combat, honestly.


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## billd91 (Sep 15, 2010)

thecasualoblivion said:


> And again, this isn't a balance issue. Its a having something to do issue.




For good or ill, some people consider this a balance issue - as in balance of fun things to do inherently part of the class and between players at the table. As Umbran observes, balance means a whole lot of different things to different people and between different editions of the game.

I'd buy into the idea that general balance in opportunities to have fun at the table, no matter what your class, is probably the most important balance for an RPG to have, but I wouldn't necessarily buy into the idea that those things have to be built into the class or left to it via niche protection.


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## Imperialus (Sep 15, 2010)

Plane Sailing said:


> I don't think this is true (or at least it certainly didn't start out as true). As you remember, 3.0e introduced prestige classes in the DMG as optional choices that a DM might want to introduce into his campaign to give extra campaign specific flavour and options.
> 
> Now, to my mind it is unfortunate that WotC went hog-wild in producing hundreds of 'prestige classes' which became seen as player focused PC powerup options.
> 
> ...




Which if you think about it, is also how Kits were introduced in 2nd ed.  They were flavor options, that a DM may or may not include.  DM's really need to cherrypick what they'll allow.


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## Neonchameleon (Sep 15, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> That's certainly your prerogative. But it is also incontrovertible fact that the CR system was _not_ designed so that every single encounter could have an EL equal to the party's average level. Those using the tool for that, or anything remotely resembling that, are explicitly not using the tool in the way it was meant to be used.




All balance is is _information_ to give to the DM and players.  It allows the DM to have a good estimate of what he is throwing at you.  Anyone criticising balance as a goal is proposing that the DM shouldn't have a clear idea of the power dynamics of the game world.



> It's also impossible unless you take away all player initiative in choosing and building their characters. (And you'd probably have to take away their ability to actually choose the actions they take in combat, too.)




Balance is impossible.  So is a frictionless environment.  Doesn't mean that engineers don't spend millions working to get as close to a frictionless environment as possible - and with good reason.



> And it got closer to your theoretical "ideal" by taking away player choice in character builds.




While at the same time widening the range of possible character _concepts_ - the true advantage of a class based system.  The level of detail is less.  But there's a lot that I can make easily in 4e that was difficult in 3e (and I was damn good at character optimisation).


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## Voadam (Sep 15, 2010)

WheresMyD20 said:


> Just a point of clarification here:  There are magic weapons other than swords in 0e, but swords are special.  All magic swords (and only magic swords) in 0e are intelligent weapons.
> 
> Page 27:  "Among magic weaponry swords alone possess certain human (and superhuman) attributes.  Swords have alignment (Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic), an Intelligence factor, and an egoism rating (as well as an optional determination of their origin/purpose)."
> 
> ...




I think I would often prefer an axe or hammer +1 to a sword +1 with an alignment, intelligence, and ego.

Ego means they can take you over right?

Alignment means it will zap you if you are a different one and try to use them right?

Those are my memories from 1e and basic.

Did they give any special bonus powers the way they did in AD&D?


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## Majoru Oakheart (Sep 15, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> I mean, you're clearly aware that not all encounters should have an EL equal to the party's average level. You've even gone so far as to half-heartedly cite some of the relevant passages from the DMG.



Yeah, but the passages do say that they should all be close to the EL of the party.  Sure, not equal.  But the game was (according to the rules) created so that PCs of Level 8 could take on encounters of EL 8-12 with varying degrees of difficulty, but likely success.  The ELs are there so the DM can estimate how much difficulty the party with have with an encounter.



Beginning of the End said:


> Because, as you yourself point out, even under the _strictest_ interpretation of the rules from the DMG, the CR system was never designed so that all encounters would have an EL equal to the average party level. Period.



No, but they do say they should be close.  I think the difference between all encounters being EXACTLY EL=APL and them being within 4 of the APL is kind of semantics.  The point of the EL system was to make encounters "level appropriate", which means not too easy and not too hard and also to help predict how big of a challenge an encounter would be. 



Beginning of the End said:


> But to interpret even this table as the "one true way" of encounter design espoused by the DMG is to take it out of context, because on page 48 of the 3.5 DMG we read: "If you decide to use only status quo encounters [...] some of the encounters you place in your adventure setting will be an appropriate challenge for the PCs, *but others might not be*. For instance, you could decide where the dragon's lair is *long before the characters are experienced enough to survive a fight against the dragon*." (emphasis added)



Yes, the entirety of the DMG is written this way.  There is a rule promptly followed by a sentence or paragraph saying "Oh, and if you don't want to use this rule...you are the DM, you don't have to."

That entire section of the book reads to me as "Here's how to find the difficulty of an encounter.  You should use an spread of fairly easy to fairly difficult encounters so that your PCs are challenged and have fun.  Here's the percentage we recommend.  The monster manual is filled with CRs for monsters to make this process easier for you.  Remember, enemies too low level don't even give out XP, and ones too high are so powerful they'll just wipe out your group. which isn't fun for anyone.....oh, and as a side note, you don't have to follow these rules if you really want to use a really easy or really hard encounter...but don't say we didn't warn you."

But to say the EL rules weren't there to help DMs plan out appropriate challenges is kind of silly.  If it didn't matter what the power level of an encounter you used in your game, then the EL system wouldn't be needed at all.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Sep 15, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> You could give a CR6 Will-o'-Wisp (AC29) levels in monk and sorcerer, for _mage armor _and _shield_, and it would have an AC of 40 (more with the elite array) and be CR8. Conveniently the _shield_ spell also covers one of the Wisp's few vulnerabilities - _magic missile_. OP, you say? If the level 8 PCs aren't packing a scroll of _maze_ for just such an eventuality, they only have themselves to blame!




That's the least of the things you could pull.  You could create a monster with a combination of templates and classes that would keeps it's CR very low while giving it a super high AC, immunity to all sorts of things and increase it's power dramatically beyond its own CR.

Adding levels of Monk to various creatures was a common tactic amongst Living Greyhawk authors.  Especially enough levels to get evasion.  It turns out Oozes with Monk and Sorcerer levels can go from AC 2 to nearly 30 if done right.  With the ability to take no damage from a fireball on a save.

The other common trick was to add a level of Warrior to enemies.  Since you needed to add at least 2 levels of an NPC class to a monster to increase its CR, but a level of Warrior gave it more hitpoints, and possibly more stats and feats if you added it at the right time.

Another good one was to take enemies with a large number of attacks that had low to hit bonuses and give them the spell from the Spell Compendium that made all their attacks into touch attacks for a round.  Preferably by making them Sorcerers so they also got Shield, Mage Armor, and the ability to cast the touch attack spell multiple times.



Doug McCrae said:


> EDIT: I just realised that the Wisp might be immune to its own shield and mage armor spells, sadly. Unless it can switch its immunity off, a la spell resistance. The text does indicate its immunities are like SR. Hmm, the perplexing mysteries of 3e D&D.



I'm fairly certain that 3.5e said to treat immunities like infinite SR.  SR can be turned off at will.  So, it could turn it off long enough to cast spells on itself then turn it back on.


----------



## Diamond Cross (Sep 15, 2010)

> 1. Fighters(and Paladins/Rangers/ect) completely outclassed other  classes at trading hits with big sacks of HP with sharp claws. It wasn't  even close.
> 2. No other class could match the utility of Thief skills
> 3. Wizards had a clear role as artillery and problem solvers, and their  role was important enough and their resources limited enough that they  had a responsibility to fill it and not dabble in other people's stuff.  In addition, many monsters where heavily and unavoidably resistant to  magic.
> 4. Clerics healed.




This is nonsensical. That;s why they're called classes and each class has a role to play with different skills. 

How do you balance the different skills?

Fighters are supposed to dish out the most weapon damage. That's why they're front line people.

Let's at least try to put this into a real world perspective.

Not everybody on a football team can be the quarterback. Not everybody on a football team can be a linebacker. You need linebackers and other defenses to protect the quarterback. 

It's also like complaining that a car mechanic is not an electrician nor is like a carpenter. They're all a part of the same team and all have their  role to play.
It's not like you have three people on the team doing everything.

A fighter's main ability is to dish out heavy damage through weapons. A magic-user's ability is to dish out heavy damage through spells.

Survivability depends upon how creative a player can get in using those class abilities and skills. It doesn't depend upon making a character or character class an everyman with everybody's skills in one package with all skills or just beef up the skills they do have.

And if that's what gaming is all about, then, you might as well just stop playing. 

Games are based on creativity, not having uber stats and skills and having a team of Mary Sues.


----------



## Diamond Cross (Sep 15, 2010)

> 1. Fighters(and Paladins/Rangers/ect) completely outclassed other  classes at trading hits with big sacks of HP with sharp claws. It wasn't  even close.
> 2. No other class could match the utility of Thief skills
> 3. Wizards had a clear role as artillery and problem solvers, and their  role was important enough and their resources limited enough that they  had a responsibility to fill it and not dabble in other people's stuff.  In addition, many monsters where heavily and unavoidably resistant to  magic.
> 4. Clerics healed.



This is nonsensical. That;s why they're called classes and each class has a role to play with different skills. 

How do you balance the different skills?

Fighters are supposed to dish out the most weapon damage. That's why they're front line people.

Let's at least try to put this into a real world perspective.

Not everybody on a football team can be the quarterback. Not everybody on a football team can be a linebacker. You need linebackers and other defenses to protect the quarterback. 

It's also like complaining that a car mechanic is not an electrician nor is like a carpenter. They're all a part of the same team and all have their  role to play.

It's not like you have three people on the team doing everything.

A fighter's main ability is to dish out heavy damage through weapons. A magic-user's ability is to dish out heavy damage through spells.

Survivability depends upon how creative a player can get in using those class abilities and skills. It doesn't depend upon making a character or character class an everyman with everybody's skills in one package with all skills or just beef up the skills they do have.

And if that's what gaming is all about, then, you might as well just stop playing. 

Games are based on creativity, not having uber stats and skills and having a team of Mary Sues.


----------



## Voadam (Sep 15, 2010)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> Yeah, but the passages do say that they should all be close to the EL of the party.  Sure, not equal.  But the game was (according to the rules) created so that PCs of Level 8 could take on encounters of EL 8-12 with varying degrees of difficulty, but likely success.  The ELs are there so the DM can estimate how much difficulty the party with have with an encounter.
> 
> 
> No, but they do say they should be close.  I think the difference between all encounters being EXACTLY EL=APL and them being within 4 of the APL is kind of semantics.  The point of the EL system was to make encounters "level appropriate", which means not too easy and not too hard and also to help predict how big of a challenge an encounter would be.



I do not remember it saying _all_ ELs should be close to APL.

Can someone look up and post the specifics please? I remember the 3.0 DMG suggesting a spread of suggested ELs with most hovering around APL but I remember the high end being very high like APL +5 or so to the point where avoiding/running away/negotiating/super prep should be preferred to straight on fighting. 

I remember this being reflected in the second 3.0 AP Forge and Fury having a CR 10 roper in it, in a module designed for 3rd level characters.

I really wish this type of crap was included in the srd.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 15, 2010)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> Adding levels of Monk to various creatures was a common tactic amongst Living Greyhawk authors.  Especially enough levels to get evasion.  It turns out Oozes with Monk and Sorcerer levels can go from AC 2 to nearly 30 if done right.  With the ability to take no damage from a fireball on a save.
> 
> The other common trick was to add a level of Warrior to enemies.  Since you needed to add at least 2 levels of an NPC class to a monster to increase its CR, but a level of Warrior gave it more hitpoints, and possibly more stats and feats if you added it at the right time.
> 
> Another good one was to take enemies with a large number of attacks that had low to hit bonuses and give them the spell from the Spell Compendium that made all their attacks into touch attacks for a round.  Preferably by making them Sorcerers so they also got Shield, Mage Armor, and the ability to cast the touch attack spell multiple times.



Interesting stuff. I know that touch attack spell, it's called Wraithstrike (had to look it up tho). I used it for a PC, a drider gish with levels in the Daggerspell Mage PrC from Complete Adventurer.

That crazy magic kung fu master who keeps teaching oozes how to be sorcerer/monks is a menace. There should be an adventure where the PCs finally catch up with the madman, after encountering a slew of OP oozes.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 15, 2010)

Voadam said:


> Can someone look up and post the specifics please?



Here's several interesting quotes from the 3.5 DMG regarding encounters, pages 48-50.



> *TAILORED OR STATUS QUO*
> Just as with motivations, encounters can be tailored specifically to
> the PCs or not. A tailored encounter is one in which you take into
> consideration that the wizard PC has a wand of invisibility and the
> ...






> *DIFFICULTY*
> Sometimes, the PCs encounter something that’s a pushover for
> them. At other times, an encounter is too difficult, and they have
> to run away. A well-constructed adventure has a variety of encounters
> ...






> *Difficulty Factors*
> You have several options for making an encounter more or less difficult
> by changing the circumstances of the encounter to account
> for some feature of the PCs’ surroundings or the makeup of the
> ...


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## NewJeffCT (Sep 15, 2010)

Diamond Cross said:


> .
> 
> Not everybody on a football team can be the quarterback. Not everybody on a football team can be a linebacker. You need linebackers and other defenses to protect the quarterback.
> 
> ...




The problem with that, though, is that the football team is almost always centered around the quarterback, who is clearly the most important piece of the puzzle.  The quarterback is usually the one the gets the most glory when the team wins and most of the blame when the team loses. And, for professional teams, the quarterback is usually the highest paid player.

And similarly, a wizard in older editions of D&D is the quarterback of an adventuring party.


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## Beginning of the End (Sep 15, 2010)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> Yeah, but the passages do say that they should all be close to the EL of the party.




There is a point at which someone is so wrong that you can only point at them and say, "You're wrong." You have reached that point.

But allow me to elaborate on the precise nature of your error.

First, let's agree that we're talking strictly about the DMG guidelines for tailored encounters. Because, self-evidently, the DMG guidelines for status quo encounters contradict you entirely (and you admit as much).

With that being said, let's look at Table 3-2 on pg. 49. Here we find that the appropriate encounters for a party vary from "EL lower than party level" to "EL 5+ higher than party level".

This is obviously still inconvenient for your thesis. So let's limit ourselves even *more*: Let's drop that pesky "+" and assume that "lower than party level" can also be limited to 5 levels.

Still, 5 is a pretty small number, right? That's "close to the EL (sic) of the party", right?

Well, not really. Let's take the example of a 10th level party: We've now defined a range of encounters from EL 5 to EL 15. That's a total of 11 different ELs. The core game is only designed to support 20 levels. In other words, the range of encounters we're talking about is 50% of the game's total range.

So when you say that "they should all be close to the EL (sic) of the party", it's like saying "everyone west of the Mississippi lives close to Los Angeles". It's just flat-out wrong.



> But to say the EL rules weren't there to help DMs plan out appropriate challenges is kind of silly.




Man, that _would_ be pretty silly. It's probably a good thing nobody said that, right?


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## thecasualoblivion (Sep 15, 2010)

Diamond Cross said:
			
		

> This is nonsensical. That;s why they're called classes and each class has a role to play with different skills.
> 
> How do you balance the different skills?
> 
> ...




Did you really read what I posted? What I was saying was that in pre-3e editions the roles generally worked. Then, in the part you left out, I contrasted how the roles didn't really work at all the way they were intended in 3e/3.5e.


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## Voadam (Sep 16, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> Still, 5 is a pretty small number, right? That's "close to the EL (sic) of the party", right?
> 
> Well, not really. Let's take the example of a 10th level party: We've now defined a range of encounters from EL 5 to EL 15. That's a total of 11 different ELs. The core game is only designed to support 20 levels. In other words, the range of encounters we're talking about is 50% of the game's total range.




Just to nitpick, 

Players are designed for up to 20 in the core game, the monsters and ELs still go up past 20s so you get those above APL suggested ELs and down below 1 for those low level easy ones. So from a 1/10 CR bat to a CR 25 great wyrm blue dragon.

So turn it to ELs of -4 to 25 and a ten(eleven actually) level spread comes out to a little more than 33% of the game's range.


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## Diamond Cross (Sep 16, 2010)

NewJeffCT said:


> The problem with that, though, is that the football team is almost always centered around the quarterback, who is clearly the most important piece of the puzzle.  The quarterback is usually the one the gets the most glory when the team wins and most of the blame when the team loses. And, for professional teams, the quarterback is usually the highest paid player.
> 
> And similarly, a wizard in older editions of D&D is the quarterback of an adventuring party.




Actually in older editions, the leader was generally determined by who had the highest Charisma. The way my group played though is we took turns being the leader.


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## Hussar (Sep 16, 2010)

For me, the basic problem is that older editions were meant to be balanced "across the span of a campaign".  The unit is too large and includes WAY too many play assumptions.  I mean, just in this thread, people have limited balance in older editions to the following:

1.  Frequent replacement of PC's.
2.  Balance through rarity.
3.  Frequent replacement of equipment.
4.  Large groups using henchmen and the like.


I could go on, but those 4 are pretty much required for AD&D to balance.  Remove any of those, play by a different style, and balance goes straight out the window.

RC, you take my example and extrapolate all sorts of elements.  1e Sleep is an autowin in any given encounter.  If the wizard gets it off, he wins.  End of story.  Sure, you could sneak up on him, but, then, you could sneak up on any character and kill him too.  What's the difference?

"Oh, it would never happen that way in my campaign" is just another way of saying, "Oh you're doing it wrong."  Onetruwayism at its best.  If I don't play exactly by your playstyle, suddenly all my balance issues are 100% my fault and not the fault of the system.  If everyone would simply play the way you play, then we have no balance issues.  Nice.

IME, 1e and 2e go kerblooie about 8th level plus.  As soon as you get into name level, the game gets ridiculous.  But, that was my experience.  OTOH, IME, 3e worked pretty darn well into double digit levels.  Again, this was my experience.  Were there problems?  Oh sure.  But nothing on the level that I saw regularly in AD&D.

The central problem with the idea of balance of the course of a campaign is that you never actually have balance.  What you have is a series of imbalanced periods that average to balance.  But, you never actually get to play in that average.  All you get to play in is the unbalanced times.

Which means that at any given point in time, you have players sitting on their hands staring into space because they have nothing to contribute.  The wizard's blown his three spells and goes and plays with his Intellivision.  The thief can't backstab in the middle of combat and is doing a d4+1 points of damage to a giant.  Heck, the wizard's doing more damage with DARTS.

That's MY experience with "balance" in older editions.


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## FireLance (Sep 16, 2010)

Umbran said:


> "Balance" is a word with may possible definitions in the RPG context.
> 
> To me, if one of your party members is frequently sitting around unable to assist in a combat, needing to be protected - acting as as a tactical burden and detriment, rather than a resource - that's a balance issue.  Same goes for other scenarios outside of combat, honestly.



You know, I think this post made another piece of the balance puzzle click into place, at least for me. 

D&D evolved from wargames. And one of the characteristics of wargames is that one player usually controls multiple units. Each of those units would have individual capabilities, relative strengths and relative weaknesses, and it is up to the player to deploy his units so that they build on each others' strengths and shore up each others' weaknesses. Issues such as the need for certain units to be to protected by other units, or units held in reserve and not used until they are needed would thus be internalized within a single player. An artillery unit might have long-range attack capabilities, for example, but be vulnerable to close-range attacks. A player might thus decide to deploy an infantry unit close to the artillery unit to defend it against such attacks. Other units might be capable of making a single, devastating attack once per engagement, and a player who chooses to deploy such units should be prepared to leave them unused until needed, and ensure that they are protected until then. 

Similarly, when creating a party of characters for a single-player computer or console RPG, you don't really care that your fighter needs to protect your wizard, that your thief doesn't contribute much in a fight, or that your cleric spends all his actions healing the other characters. As a player, you are controlling the entire party. You only care that the party as a whole has the abilities required to overcome the challenges that you encounter in the game ("balanced", from one perspective ). 

However, if one player only controls one character, then such issues can no longer be internalized, and imbalances between characters become more stark. I think the expectation in earlier editions was for players to be more accepting of these differences and to take turns to be in and out of the spotlight. 

On the other hand, the 4E approach is to make all characters more generally useful so that they can contribute in all situations (although not necessarily equally, or in the same way).


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 16, 2010)

Hussar said:


> RC, you take my example and extrapolate all sorts of elements.  1e Sleep is an autowin in any given encounter.  If the wizard gets it off, he wins.  End of story.




Only to someone unfamiliar with the rules.

There are creatures specifically immune to _sleep_, including elves (why I mentioned the elf), undead, etc.  There is a Hit Die limitation to what is effected, as well as an area of effect.  If those kobolds are spread out, _sleep_ isn't an autowin button at all, at all.  Sleep also doesn't descriminate enemies, but rather by Hit Dice, so Crom help you if you try to _sleep_ that lone bugbear after he's engaged your 1st level fighters.  Or if he has a few goblins backing him up.

Take a look at the spell rules, take a look at the Level One wandering encounter tables in the 1e DMG, and get back to me.  Look up the creatures in the 1e MM if you must, so that you can see which ones don't really care about _sleep_ spells and which ones do.

Your "autowin" is a situational win at best, and has, IME, been the death of many a PC when used carelessly by magic-users who fail to read their spell descriptions.


RC


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## Hussar (Sep 16, 2010)

Ok, for the overly pedantic:

Sleep is an autowin for any encounter which does not feature creatures specifically immune to the Sleep spell, which, from hit dice less than 1 to 4+1, the majority of creatures are NOT immune to sleep.  While there might be situations in which sleep is not autowin, they are not in the majority.

Happy?

My point, which you keep missing, is that a wizard with Sleep will face one of the following three choices:

1.  Autowin - the creatures all fall asleep.
2.  Useless - the creautres are immune.
3.  Mostly useless - the spell is already used and the wizard is reduced to plinking away with darts.  If he actually gets into melee, he's got a life expectency closely related to small squishy things on busy highways.

And this is what you consider balanced design?


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 16, 2010)

Want to go through the moathouse in Village of Hommlet with me and see how many encounters are "autowin"able by _sleep_?

It is hardly "overly pedantic" to point out that your idea of _sleep_ as an autowin is simply wrong.  And there is nothing the matter with being wrong, btw, so long as you are able to learn from it and stop making the same mistake.

And, from personal experience with playing many 1e magic-users, and from DMing many players playing the same, I can say that a 1st level magic-user armed with _sleep_ faces more than the three choices you are able to see.  

Heck, in 2e I played a _*diviner*_ that managed quite well with no offensive spells at all!

D&D is not -- or, historically, has not been -- just a series of fights.  Certainly it does not have to be, regardless of edition used.



RC

.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 16, 2010)

Hussar said:


> "Oh, it would never happen that way in my campaign" is just another way of saying, "Oh you're doing it wrong."  Onetruwayism at its best.  If I don't play exactly by your playstyle, suddenly all my balance issues are 100% my fault and not the fault of the system.  If everyone would simply play the way you play, then we have no balance issues.  Nice.




This is probably the tiredest of tired canards.  Don't you think it is time to retire it?  Not just for you, but for all of us?  I mean, is there any purpose to it apart from attempting to godwin the thread?

If a game is balanced on the assumptions of X, regardless of game, and regardless of X, divergence from X is going to alter the balance.  That isn't "onetruewayism" -- it is common sense.  It is like saying if a car is designed to run on regular gas, you might experience problems with leaded gas or diesel.  Ya think?

Gee, I know 4e is balanced around combat encounters and specific formulae for skill challenges, but I don't use said formulae, and resolve everything by skill challenges.  I don't use the combat rules at all.  Heck, I don't use the rules, or the advice given in the rulebooks.  I want to play it with my own playstyle!

Yet I am having balance problems.  

And you dare claim it isn't the fault of the rules?!?!?!  

_*Onetruewayism!*_



Really, when someone points out something common-sensical, like "rules are balanced based on a game's play assumptions", do you imagine that "onetruewayism" is an autowin?  If so, time to go back to plinking away with darts, methinks!  

Can we give spurious cries of onetruewayism a rest?  Please?


RC


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## Diamond Cross (Sep 16, 2010)

Raven Crowking said:


> This is probably the tiredest of tired canards.  Don't you think it is time to retire it?  Not just for you, but for all of us?  I mean, is there any purpose to it apart from attempting to godwin the thread?
> 
> If a game is balanced on the assumptions of X, regardless of game, and regardless of X, divergence from X is going to alter the balance.  That isn't "onetruewayism" -- it is common sense.  It is like saying if a car is designed to run on regular gas, you might experience problems with leaded gas or diesel.  Ya think?
> 
> ...




Being right is serious business on the internet.


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## S'mon (Sep 16, 2010)

Raven Crowking said:


> D&D is not -- or, historically, has not been -- just a series of fights.  Certainly it does not have to be, regardless of edition used.




Agreed - I think the design intent is that every PC can contribute meaningfully over the course of a typical session, which pre-3e is likely to be at least 80% non-combat, especially at lower levels since fights are fast and PCs cannot survive a lot of them.  In a typical adventure most time is spent on exploration, not combat rolls.  A typical dungeon-delve session of 4 hours 
 might involve a couple easy fights, where the smart M-U doesn't use his spell, an encounter with undead where the Cleric comes to the fore, and a major encounter where the M-U can employ Sleep or Charm Person to good effect, possibly saving the party.  Out of 240 minutes play time, only about
40 to 50 minutes would be spent on resolving the 4 combats. IME, YMMV etc.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Sep 16, 2010)

Voadam said:


> I do not remember it saying _all_ ELs should be close to APL.
> 
> Can someone look up and post the specifics please? I remember the 3.0 DMG suggesting a spread of suggested ELs with most hovering around APL but I remember the high end being very high like APL +5 or so to the point where avoiding/running away/negotiating/super prep should be preferred to straight on fighting.




Now that the specifics have been posted so I can remember them....it suggests that 65% of all encounters be between APL to APL+4, with another 5% at APL+5.  It suggests only 10% of encounters be below the APL of the group.  With another 20% easy only if fought properly(assumably these encounters are EL=APL or higher with some mitigating factor that can make the battle easier if the players figured it out).

The rules we used for LG encounter generation was that the average of the encounters in an adventure needed to be APL+2.  So, you could use an EL=APL encounter, a APL+2 encounter and an APL+4 encounter in the same adventure and it would be legal.  But never more than APL+4 unless you got explicit permission from the higher ups, since it was a living campaign and using APL+5 encounters was basically certain death.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Sep 16, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> With that being said, let's look at Table 3-2 on pg. 49. Here we find that the appropriate encounters for a party vary from "EL lower than party level" to "EL 5+ higher than party level".



I agree that 90% of the encounters should be EL=APL or higher(with 20% of them having some "key" to winning that makes them as easy as an EL<APL encounter).

It does say 10% of them should be lower.  However, every DM I played with quickly got rid of the idea of running any encounters with EL<APL.  They were always so easy that it wasn't worth our time to roll for initiative.  It was likely the PCs wouldn't take any damage at all unless the monster(s) was(were) extremely powergamed(and due to the nature of EL calculation, the more monsters there were, the easier they were).

In LG, most authors abandoned the idea of using them as well, for the same reasons.  That, and the rule in LG that required the average Encounter be APL+2 meant that if you used too low an encounter, you had to balance it with something WAY too hard later.



Beginning of the End said:


> So when you say that "they should all be close to the EL (sic) of the party", it's like saying "everyone west of the Mississippi lives close to Los Angeles". It's just flat-out wrong.



Well, 90% of them should be between APL and APL+5.  So, let's assume that is the "standard range" and anything else is statistical outliers.  Also, since the game goes to level 20, you need EL25 encounters to throw up against those level 20 PCs.  So, 90% of the time you are using a 6 level range out of 25 possible levels.  And one of those levels is supposed to only be used 5% of the time, so the vast majority of the time, it is only a 5 level spread in 25 levels.  And 50%-70% of all encounters are supposed to be EL=APL, meaning 1 level in 25.



Beginning of the End said:


> Man, that _would_ be pretty silly. It's probably a good thing nobody said that, right?





Beginning of the End said:


> That's certainly your prerogative. But it is also incontrovertible fact that the CR system was not designed so that every single encounter could have an EL equal to the party's average level. Those using the tool for that, or anything remotely resembling that, are explicitly not using the tool in the way it was meant to be used.



I'm saying that although it wasn't meant to have every encounter equal to EL, that it was meant to keep the vast majority of the encounters very close to EL.

I'm telling you that I've been told directly by the campaign staff of Living Greyhawk that its explicit purpose was to make encounters close to EL=APL so as to make them challenging, but not too challenging.  And that as the "default" campaign for 3/3.5e D&D, we needed to adhere to the rules as closely as possible by WOTC order(the same order that prevented us from banning any spells or feats from the PHB, since they were Core D&D and MUST be allowed in their flagship campaign).


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## S'mon (Sep 16, 2010)

The 3e DMG suggestion is that 5% of encounters be *"5+" * EL over APL, not +5 over APL.  The point being that this 5% of encounters be *overwhelming* and the party should *run away* or otherwise evade the encounter.  Obviously Living Greyhawk was doing it 'wrong', or at any rate not as per Monte's suggested encounter level distribution.


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## S'mon (Sep 16, 2010)

Incidentally, an EL of +2 over APL encounter is supposed to be a very tough one per the RAW, which should use up 50%+ of party resources and be a good 'boss fight'.  Maybe there's some slippage due to min-maxed PCs & highly optimised play, or maybe you (Living Greyhawk) used classed NPCs whose level rarely matches their nominal CR. 

A EL = party level should use up 20-25% of party resources for a 4-PC party.  In practice for a single monster this means a monster roughly equal to half the party, since it'll be putting out half as much damage and has half the hp, it should drain 1/4 of party resources before going down.   Since an NPC of level = APL is only about as tough as 1/4 of a party, his effective CR is usually actually Level -2, not the nominal CR = Level.  

This means that an encounter 2 NPCs of level = party level will nominally be "EL = APL+2", but in fact will only drain ca 25% of party resources.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Sep 16, 2010)

S'mon said:


> Incidentally, an EL of +2 over APL encounter is supposed to be a very tough one per the RAW, which should use up 50%+ of party resources and be a good 'boss fight'.  Maybe there's some slippage due to min-maxed PCs & highly optimised play, or maybe you (Living Greyhawk) used classed NPCs whose level rarely matches their nominal CR.




Yeah, in practice it never resembled how the rules described it at all.  Which was my main beef with the EL system.  An encounter with EL=APL+2 could very in range from extremely easy to impossibly hard.  It was simply a matter of whether there was only 1 monster or many monsters, WHICH monsters you used, did the monsters have templates or levels, or were they just NPCs with levels.

The rules told us that it didn't matter.  If you used 8 level 3 fighters, it was an EL 9 encounter.  Which was just as easy to defeat as that Level 9 Fighter, that CR 9 monster, or that CR 7 monster with 3 levels of sorcerer, a level of monk, a level of warrior, a template that didn't increase CR, terrain that favored it(terrain doesn't factor into CR or EL, although the books say to reward more xp for especially hard terrain), and a large number of useful magic items or effects(Magic items don't factor into CR or EL).

In practice, a APL 7 party would defeat 8 level 3 fighters without taking any real damage, they'd beat the level 9 fighter almost as easily, any individual CR 9 monster could vary from super easy to a TPK, and they'd come near TPK with the multiclass templated creature of death.

The practice of abusing this system in LG came to a head the day we played an adventure where all of the monsters were buffed with a list of 12 different spells cast by a 20th level caster before the beginning of the combat.  The spells came from 3 different classes.  They weren't factored into the EL of the encounter because spells cast by creatures don't increase or decrease EL.

When I asked the author how they could have gotten that many buffs from 3 different classes right before the battle started(some of which had a personal area of effect), he said "There's ways to do it, some Ioun stones and other items let you store spells and cast them on yourself even if you aren't the appropriate class".

When I pointed out that none of the creatures in question were carrying any of those items and there were no indications that anyone else in the entire building had them, he told me that "They were demons about to go to war with devils, they just plane shifted in the round before the PCs get there.  They have powerful demons willing to cast buffing spells on them before they go."


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 16, 2010)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> Yeah, in practice it never resembled how the rules described it at all.





Agreed.

It was an attempt to rewrite the 1e Monster Level system that, simply put, both failed to be as accurate as the original and made caluclating XP more difficult.  As a result, the 4e system (if I understand correctly) works more like 1e, where the first step in determining difficulty is determining XP.


RC


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 16, 2010)

Raven Crowking said:


> D&D is not -- or, historically, has not been -- just a series of fights. Certainly it does not have to be, regardless of edition used.





This assumption that the whole of the game is just one big combat encounter is the primary reason that some see balance in such a skewed fashion. 

Lets take a look at 3E and the wonderful balance we have there _outside _of combat. Joe fighter is tough, strong and good with a sword. 
 Lets plop him into an exploration scenario for a bit. Oh wow look at those skill points, and that selection! Assuming we need to constantly jump,climb, swim or ride we shall let Joe do his thing. Meanwhile Felix the rogue is doing all kinds of cool stuff like searching, picking locks, deciphering strange writing, disarming traps..... and hey if a fight does break out he can do damage on par with Joe thanks to getting to constantly sneak attack without having to be very sneaky at all.

Oh yeah, that's balanced. Maybe later in the campaign things get better for poor Joe............nope, the future looks even worse.


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## Hussar (Sep 16, 2010)

S'mon said:


> Agreed - I think the design intent is that every PC can contribute meaningfully over the course of a typical session, which pre-3e is likely to be at least 80% non-combat, especially at lower levels since fights are fast and PCs cannot survive a lot of them.  In a typical adventure most time is spent on exploration, not combat rolls.  A typical dungeon-delve session of 4 hours
> might involve a couple easy fights, where the smart M-U doesn't use his spell, an encounter with undead where the Cleric comes to the fore, and a major encounter where the M-U can employ Sleep or Charm Person to good effect, possibly saving the party.  Out of 240 minutes play time, only about
> 40 to 50 minutes would be spent on resolving the 4 combats. IME, YMMV etc.




What?  Really?  80% non-combat?  Are you serious?

Wow.  I don't think, back in the day, we ever had a session that wasn't 80% combat.  

RC - the problem is, none of the play assumptions are actually called out, and, many, many groups didn't play under those assumptions.  

You've said that my autowin doesn't work because I'm not playing the way that you play and that you're way of playing is the "presumed" way.  How exactly is that not onetruewayism?  

I'll also note that you ignore the actual meat of the arguement in order to nit-pick.  So, I'll repeat myself:

Balance over the campaign is not balance.  It is a series of imbalanced points that might over the long term, average out to a balance.  However, play is never conducted over the long term.  Play is always in the present, which means, at any given time, the system is actually imbalanced.

There's nothing wrong with saying that 1e was not a particularly well balanced system.  It's not.  If it was, then more systems would follow the campaign method for game balance.  The fact that no other system, and certainly no system published in the last decade follows this method* speaks volumes as to how effective a method of game balance it was.

* Overly Pedantic Caveat - I am of course excepting retro-clones which aren't really new games, but simply rewrites of AD&D.

Meh, this isn't going to go anywhere.  I'm rather tired of AD&D being the Heisenburg edition - it's in all superpositions at the same time.  It's the incredibly detailed tactical game that runs simply in fractions of the time later editions play in.  It's perfectly balanced in all aspects of play no matter what.  It's all things to all people at all times and no criticism may ever be leveled at the system.

I'm out of this one.


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## NewJeffCT (Sep 16, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> This assumption that the whole of the game is just one big combat encounter is the primary reason that some see balance in such a skewed fashion.
> 
> Lets take a look at 3E and the wonderful balance we have there _outside _of combat. Joe fighter is tough, strong and good with a sword.
> Lets plop him into an exploration scenario for a bit. Oh wow look at those skill points, and that selection! Assuming we need to constantly jump,climb, swim or ride we shall let Joe do his thing. Meanwhile Felix the rogue is doing all kinds of cool stuff like searching, picking locks, deciphering strange writing, disarming traps..... and hey if a fight does break out he can do damage on par with Joe thanks to getting to constantly sneak attack without having to be very sneaky at all.
> ...




And, how is that different than 1E and 2E D&D?  At least with 3E, a fighter can put ranks into a thief skill or the diplomacy skill or similar if they so choose.  With 2E, you had NWPs where you could take Diplomacy to have a social skill, but you were still at a loss if you went to pick a lock or pick a pocket.  And, in 1E, you were at a complete loss to do anything but fight until NWPs came along late in the process with Oriental Adventures.  But, outside of fighting, a 1E or 2E fighter had even less chance to contribute than in 3E.


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## NewJeffCT (Sep 16, 2010)

Diamond Cross said:


> Actually in older editions, the leader was generally determined by who had the highest Charisma. The way my group played though is we took turns being the leader.




Yes, the group spokesman/leader was the one with the highest charisma - however, once you get past the first few levels, the most important PCs were the wizards and/or the elf fighter/wizards.  They were like Kirk & Spock, while straight classed human PCs were Sulu & Chekhov... still pretty cool at times, but clearly not the stars.


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 16, 2010)

NewJeffCT said:


> And, how is that different than 1E and 2E D&D? At least with 3E, a fighter can put ranks into a thief skill or the diplomacy skill or similar if they so choose. With 2E, you had NWPs where you could take Diplomacy to have a social skill, but you were still at a loss if you went to pick a lock or pick a pocket. And, in 1E, you were at a complete loss to do anything but fight until NWPs came along late in the process with Oriental Adventures. But, outside of fighting, a 1E or 2E fighter had even less chance to contribute than in 3E.




I can't argue with very much of that. However in 1E especially once combat started the thief wasn't right there on par with the fighter was he?
There might be a chance to hide and get in a good backstab but the fighter was clearly better at _fighting_. Imagine that. 

The entire point of this exercise was not intended as an attack on 3E but to illustrate the issues that arise when speaking of balance in terms of absolutes either purely for combat or without it. When comparing balance it isn't a fair comparison unless _both _modes of play are represented.


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## Dausuul (Sep 16, 2010)

Hussar said:


> You've said that my autowin doesn't work because I'm not playing the way that you play and that you're way of playing is the "presumed" way.  How exactly is that not onetruewayism?




You have a point, but it's not the point you think you have. 

Raven Crowking is right that balance can only be understood in terms of the baseline assumptions of the game. If you deviate from those assumptions, the game will not be balanced. That's not onetruewayism, it's just a fact of life.

If you play 3E and don't throw 4 encounters per day at the party, you're not playing according to the baseline assumptions, and there are apt to be balance issues as a result. If you play 4E and 75% of the encounters consist of swarms and minions, likewise. It doesn't mean you're _wrong_ to run your game this way (which is why it's not onetruewayism)--however you run your game, if everyone is having fun, is the right way. But it means you may face some challenges that someone with a different playstyle would not face.

(For the record, I seldom had more than 1 fight per day when I ran 3E. And yes, there were balance problems because of that, and I'm glad 4E doesn't rely so heavily on pushing the party through X encounters between extended rests.)

The point that you do have is that AD&D was... unhelpful in terms of telling you what the baseline was. I'm not even convinced there _was_ an explicit baseline, although it's been a long time since I paged through my old DMG, so maybe it's got more useful material than I'm remembering.


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## billd91 (Sep 16, 2010)

Hussar said:


> What?  Really?  80% non-combat?  Are you serious?




I think he's serious. I believe him too. We spent a LOT of time exploring empty room, searching around for things (what snarky detractors now call "pixel bitching"), a lot less time fighting in 1e days.



Hussar said:


> Wow.  I don't think, back in the day, we ever had a session that wasn't 80% combat.




Well that's you, now isn't it? That's not him. Why do you feel the *need* to question him just because your experiences are different? Is he playing it wrong or something?



Hussar said:


> RC - the problem is, none of the play assumptions are actually called out, and, many, many groups didn't play under those assumptions.




They may not be called out as assumptions, but there's a *lot* you can infer from the DMG. And, frankly, with the design of 1e, there's a lot more tolerance in the system than in the over-designed 3e and 4e. So minor deviations from the assumptions won't exactly shatter the balance in the system... unlike 3e and 4e.



Hussar said:


> Balance over the campaign is not balance.  It is a series of imbalanced points that might over the long term, average out to a balance.  However, play is never conducted over the long term.  Play is always in the present, which means, at any given time, the system is actually imbalanced.




How big a time frame are we considering as "in the present"? Is it an instant in time? A day? An adventure? A segment, a round, a turn, an hour? I ask because this exact thing can be said about all editions of D&D. 4e characters run into a trap and only the rogue has taken Thievery as a trained skill. Where's the balance there? Is the "present" in that situation the task of dealing with the trap?

Just because 1e doesn't meet *your* definition of balance doesn't mean it's not a better balanced game than you realize.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 16, 2010)

When I was a teenager, we once spent most of a session trying to figure out a mystery the GM had concealed in a long poem he'd written. That was a very bad rpg session, but it certainly wasn't combat heavy.


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## Jhaelen (Sep 16, 2010)

thecasualoblivion said:


> In my experience, older editions (OD&D/1E/2E) were very unbalanced in theory but ended up having much better balance in practice. 3E/3.5E made a serious attempt at being balanced in theory, but ended up being very unbalanced in practice.



Wow, my experience was completely different.

I've played OD&D and AD&D 1e with a bunch of DMs who didn't have the slightest clue about balance and regularly managed to kill off one or more pcs because of it.

Or are you talking about 'balance' between character classes?

There wasn't any, at least in the 'modern' sense. It was generally accepted that magic users started out weak and dominated the game in the higher levels. That didn't keep anyone from playing classes that were perceived as being 'weak', though.

Apparently, not only the concept of balance has changed but also the mindset of players.


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## NewJeffCT (Sep 16, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> I can't argue with very much of that. However in 1E especially once combat started the thief wasn't right there on par with the fighter was he?
> There might be a chance to hide and get in a good backstab but the fighter was clearly better at _fighting_. Imagine that.
> 
> The entire point of this exercise was not intended as an attack on 3E but to illustrate the issues that arise when speaking of balance in terms of absolutes either purely for combat or without it. When comparing balance it isn't a fair comparison unless _both _modes of play are represented.




In 3E and 3.5, the rogue still was not an equal to the fighter in combat, as there are a whole host of monsters/baddies that are immune to critical hits, and therefore immune to sneak attack damage.  Plus, the fighter had the advantage of a higher BAB and more attacks per round.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 16, 2010)

That Moathouse offer stands, if anyone still imagines _sleep_ was an autowin in 1e.


RC


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## S'mon (Sep 16, 2010)

Hussar said:


> What?  Really?  80% non-combat?  Are you serious?
> 
> Wow.  I don't think, back in the day, we ever had a session that wasn't 80% combat.




The AD&D campaign I ran back in high school starting at 3rd level with twinked-out Unearthed Arcana characters was combat-heavy, although I don't think it came close to 80% combat - I don't even think my current 4e campaign is 80% combat, and that's with fights taking vastly longer.  

But the 1e, OD&D and BX games I've GM'd and played more recently eg on dragonsfoot have been about 20% combat at most, and that tallies with eg what I've read about the Dwimmermount campaign on Grognardia, or what I can glean from the 1e DMG about the designer's intent.  The simple fact is that low level BTB D&D combat prior to UA was just so lethal that smart players learned to both actively avoid it and heavily stack the odds so that it was nasty, brutish and short - for the enemy.  

I think some of the published tournament modules were significantly more combat heavy than this, usually with the expectation of high PC attrition, and usually being written for higher levels.  But certainly when I ran non-tournament, 1st level, U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh recently, we spent well under 20% of the time in combat.


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## S'mon (Sep 16, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> The point that you do have is that AD&D was... unhelpful in terms of telling you what the baseline was. I'm not even convinced there _was_ an explicit baseline, although it's been a long time since I paged through my old DMG, so maybe it's got more useful material than I'm remembering.




The 1e PHB has much advice on 'successful play' which demonstrates the game's baseline assumptions.  In the 1e DMG there is also the sample dungeon and the random dungeon generation tables - note eg that most rooms do not contain monsters.  From what I can tell, in the default mode the PCs gather, the PCs & players plan an expedition into the local dungeon, they go on an 'adventure' into the dungeon, deciding where to go, how deep to delve etc, have several combat & noncombat encounters, and hopefully return safely home at the end of the session.


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## Diamond Cross (Sep 16, 2010)

NewJeffCT said:


> Yes, the group spokesman/leader was the one with the highest charisma - however, once you get past the first few levels, the most important PCs were the wizards and/or the elf fighter/wizards.  They were like Kirk & Spock, while straight classed human PCs were Sulu & Chekhov... still pretty cool at times, but clearly not the stars.




In all honesty, I've never had that experience though.


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## Dausuul (Sep 16, 2010)

billd91 said:


> They may not be called out as assumptions, but there's a *lot* you can infer from the DMG.




This is where I take up Hussar's argument that AD&D is becoming a sort of Schrodinger's game which can be observed to have whatever properties are convenient for its proponents' debating points.

Some people played AD&D and didn't have balance problems. Other people played AD&D and did have balance problems. If the game had a clear set of baseline assumptions, we could observe what happens when you play according to those assumptions and determine whether the game was balanced or not.

But when you have to fall back on "inference from the DMG," you're admitting that the game _has_ no clear set of core assumptions--because inference is totally subjective. I played in a number of different groups back in the day, and they _all_ drew inferences from the DMG and the PHB about how the game was supposed to work, and they _all_ thought their inferences were obvious and logical. And every dang table was playing the game a different way.

Either there is a baseline or there isn't. If people are arguing about it, there probably isn't.



billd91 said:


> And, frankly, with the design of 1e, there's a lot more tolerance in the system than in the over-designed 3e and 4e. So minor deviations from the assumptions won't exactly shatter the balance in the system... unlike 3e and 4e.




Or, it's nearly impossible to see how any given change affects balance, because 1E-style balance includes ideas like "It's balanced over the course of a campaign" and "Some characters are more powerful in combat, but that's balanced by other characters having more options out of combat." I mean, how could you possibly show something is unbalanced under those conditions? There's always room to reply, "The campaign just didn't run long enough (or it ran too long)," and "Your game just has too much combat (or not enough)."

Hence the need for an explicit baseline if any discussion of balance is to mean anything. You can't say whether characters are balanced over the course of a campaign unless you know how long a campaign is supposed to be. You can't say whether combat is balanced against noncombat unless you know how much combat there is.


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## Dausuul (Sep 16, 2010)

S'mon said:


> The AD&D campaign I ran back in high school starting at 3rd level with twinked-out Unearthed Arcana characters was combat-heavy.






S'mon said:


> But the 1e, OD&D and BX games I've GM'd and played more recently eg on dragonsfoot have been about 20% combat at most, and that tallies with eg what I've read about the Dwimmermount campaign on Grognardia, or what I can glean from the 1e DMG about the designer's intent.






S'mon said:


> I think some of the published tournament modules were significantly more combat heavy than this, usually with the expectation of high PC attrition, and usually being written for higher levels.




This is exactly what I mean when I say 1E didn't have a baseline. You did it one way in high school--but you do it a different way now, and you think the 1E DMG supports that--but the published tournament modules did it a third way!

AD&D was a game where each and every DM had his or her own idea of how things were supposed to work, and so did each and every game designer. That was part of its charm, really; it was crazy and fun and idiosyncratic, and its very incoherence justified, nay, _mandated_ bashing it into whatever strange beast your evil little DM heart desired. There was no "This is how it's supposed to be" lurking in the back of your head or coming out of your players' mouths*. But it made a hash of the very idea of balance.

[size=-2]*Well, okay, sometimes it did come out of the players' mouths, but it was easier to scoff at them.[/size]


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## S'mon (Sep 16, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> This is exactly what I mean when I say 1E didn't have a baseline.




OK... but I was just talking about my experience of how much combat there is in a session.  You can certainly say "There is no baseline for the amount of combat in a 1e session" and I wouldn't disagree.  I would think that for 1st level PCs to be spending 80%+ of every session in combat would have to have been an outlier, though.  Without tweaking the system, 1e and 2e 1st level PCs were just not that robust.  

I can recall one session that was maybe 80% combat.  I ran a twinked out solo 5th level Half-Ogre PC through "Against the Cult of the Reptile God", which is designed for 1st level PCs, and he merrily trashed everything in sight.


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## Diamond Cross (Sep 16, 2010)

Well, what do people mean by baseline? This is a concept I've never heard of before for RPGs.


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## Beginning of the End (Sep 16, 2010)

Majoru Oakheart said:


> They were always so easy that it wasn't worth our time to roll for initiative.   It was likely the PCs wouldn't take any damage at all




And here we begin to see what the disease of "all encounters should have EL = APL" creates: That encounters are only "interesting" if they statistically ablate party resources according to the expected baseline.



> Yeah, in practice it never resembled how the rules described it at all.   Which was my main beef with the EL system.  An encounter with EL=APL+2  could very in range from extremely easy to impossibly hard.




And here's another common symptom: The expectation that every single encounter will always conform to the statistical average.

This is not only a questionable ideal to hold; it's also fairly irrational and betrays a very poor understanding of what the word "average" means. It's like saying, "The average NFL team scores 17.8 points per game. Ergo, all NFL football games end in ties with both teams having scored 17.8 points." And then getting irate when reality fails to conform to your expectation.


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## Dausuul (Sep 16, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> And here's another common symptom: The expectation that every single encounter will always conform to the statistical average.
> 
> This is not only a questionable ideal to hold; it's also fairly irrational and betrays a very poor understanding of what the word "average" means. It's like saying, "The average NFL team scores 17.8 points per game. Ergo, all NFL football games end in ties with both teams having scored 17.8 points." And then getting irate when reality fails to conform to your expectation.




That seems a bit disingenuous. Obviously the luck of the dice, player tactics, and character builds will have an effect on encounter difficulty; but _after controlling for those things_, an EL 9 encounter should be roughly on par with another EL 9 encounter. If one EL 9 encounter is _consistently_ much harder than another--especially if you can look at the numbers and see that one of them is substantially stronger in every respect--the EL system isn't working right for at least one of them.

Compare a dire wolf to That Damned Crab (scroll down on second link). That's a classic (if extreme) example of the CR system breaking down right there. It's not a statistical artifact, it's That Damned Crab.


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## Umbran (Sep 16, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> Either there is a baseline or there isn't. If people are arguing about it, there probably isn't.




Don't confuse the lack of a clearly stated baseline from the lack of an actual baseline.

Gygax, et al., probably had some pretty solid assumptions of how the game was supposed to run, at least in some ways. But, they were still pretty new at writing books for such a complex game.  The problem with being the first to do something is that you make some mistakes - they probably didn't yet fully understand the value of clearly stated assumptions to someone who didn't learn the game from them.  

Heck, I think that value was only really recognized fairly recently.  1e, 2e, early White Wolf, and most other games from the 1980s and much of the 1990s lack clear statements of their baselines. 



Diamond Cross said:


> Well, what do people mean by baseline? This is a concept I've never heard of before for RPGs.




There are two different things one might refer to as "baseline".

Baseline assumptions: the basic assumptions about how the play will proceed or be structured.  

For example: the rules of 4e are designed with the idea that the basic four roles (defender, striker, leader, controller) will be filled.  If you don't have all of them filled, things may go rough for the PCs unless you make allowances.

Baseline performance:  How the system behaves if you run it "by the book", using the baseline assumptions.

For example:  if you have the basic 4 party, and they go through the assumed number of encounters per session, and you play one session per week, you'll reach level 20 in (on average) some particular number of months of play.


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## Dausuul (Sep 16, 2010)

Umbran said:


> Don't confuse the lack of a clearly stated baseline from the lack of an actual baseline.
> 
> Gygax, et al., probably had some pretty solid assumptions of how the game was supposed to run, at least in some ways. But, they were still pretty new at writing books for such a complex game.  The problem with being the first to do something is that you make some mistakes - they probably didn't yet fully understand the value of clearly stated assumptions to someone who didn't learn the game from them.
> 
> Heck, I think that value was only really recognized fairly recently.  1e, 2e, early White Wolf, and most other games from the 1980s and much of the 1990s lack clear statements of their baselines.




If a baseline falls in the dungeon, and no one reads it, was it unbalanced? 

We can certainly guess that Gygax had ideas about how the game was expected to play out. In fact, given that he himself ran games, he surely did. But were those ideas shared by his fellow designers? I rather doubt it; I suspect every designer at TSR had his or her own concept of how D&D was played.

In any case, since he didn't write those ideas in the books, we can only speculate as to what they were at any given point (they undoubtedly changed over time) and how well the game would or would not work if you followed them. I'm not criticizing Gygax for being a pioneer--as you say, everybody was new to RPGs back then, and it's no shame on Gygax for not spelling out his underlying assumptions. But he _didn't_ spell them out.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 16, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> But when you have to fall back on "inference from the DMG," you're admitting that the game _has_ no clear set of core assumptions--because inference is totally subjective. I played in a number of different groups back in the day, and they _all_ drew inferences from the DMG and the PHB about how the game was supposed to work, and they _all_ thought their inferences were obvious and logical. And every dang table was playing the game a different way.



The strange thing is, one of the main goals of AD&D was to reduce the differences between D&D play groups, to get everyone playing in, more or less, the same way. I don't think Gary achieved the clarity he sought in AD&D, nonetheless that was the aim.



> Where D&D is a very loose, open framework
> around which highly imaginative Dungeon Masters can construct what
> amounts to a set of rules and game of their own choosing, AD&D is a
> much tighter and more structured game system.






> Because D&D allowed such freedom, because the work itself said
> so, because the initial batch of DMs were so imaginative and creative,
> because the rules were incomplete, vague and often ambiguous, D&D
> has turned into a non-game. That is, there is so much variation between
> ...






> While D&D campaigns can be those which feature comic book spells,
> 43rd level balrogs as player characters, and include a plethora of trash
> from various and sundry sources, AD&D cannot be so composed.
> Either a DM runs an AD&D campaign, or else it is something else. This is
> ...



 - The inimitable Gary Gygax, in Dragon #26



> This uniformity will help not only players, it will enable DMs to carry on a meaningful dialogue and exchange of useful information. It might also eventually lead to grand tournaments wherein persons from any part of the U.S., or the world for that matter, can compete for accolades.






> Similarly, you must avoid the tendency to drift into areas foreign to the game as a whole. Such campaigns become so strange as to be no longer "AD&D". They are isolated and will usually wither. Variation and difference are desirable, but both should be kept within the boundaries of the overall system.



 - 1e DMG Preface


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## green slime (Sep 16, 2010)

Bah!

Discussions about "Balance"....

The only thing important in a game is, if the participants are having fun. Which is basically provided by the DM. Whether the characters are "balanced" or not is completely irrelevant. The characters could be balanced out the wazoo, and the game be boring as hell.... Is that Epic fail or what? 

The DM challenges the party, and everyone participates in the game.


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 16, 2010)

green slime said:


> Bah!
> 
> Discussions about "Balance"....
> 
> ...




Bolded- my only nit pick. Fun should be provided by ALL participants to all other participants. If everyone plays to to have fun and see to it that others are having fun too, balance can be forgotten. The DM needs to have fun like everyone else.


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## Votan (Sep 16, 2010)

NewJeffCT said:


> And similarly, a wizard in older editions of D&D is the quarterback of an adventuring party.




In my experience (although play variability with AD&D is large) this is correct but in a positive sense.  The quarterback is crucual but casting a spell during combat is always a nerve-wracking experience (due to the spell interuption rules and never knowing what your initiative order is going to be).  Without a good support team, the wizard is in deep trouble.

In later editions (with defensive casting, tricks to get far more hit points plus a better AC and more spells) a wizard is more able to pull off being a solo superstar.  Plus, saves become harder to make as a wizard optimizes aroudn them whereas in 2E damage was usually the way to go.  Spell resistance was easier to avoid and so forth.  

That is, in my opinion, the key to 2E balance.  Nobody else can learn the Theif skills.  The fighter was really tough (relative to the other classes) on both hit points and saves (notice the truncation of constitution bonuses to hit points for non-fighters).  The cleric and the wizard have separate spell lists that (at least in 1E AD&D) have a modest amount of overlap.

It is hard to succeed without a party and teamwork is key to success.  In 3rd edition this is less true with high level spellcaster designed to be survivable.


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## Umbran (Sep 16, 2010)

green slime said:


> The only thing important in a game is, if the participants are having fun. Which is basically provided by the DM.




Yes.  So, do you use game rules?

In theory, a GM could provide fun with no rules at all.  The rules aren't strictly necessary - the rules are a framework, a tool to use in providing fun, to make it lots easier.  Since most of us are using some set of rules, we can reasonably assume we tend to find the job easier to do with some tools to help us.  

Balance is a quality some folks find make a better framework, an improvement in the tool for what they want to do.    



> Whether the characters are "balanced" or not is completely irrelevant.




Irrelevant to you, perhaps.  Maybe some other GMs find it takes a lot more work to provide fun with a notably unbalanced game.  If you don't have the need, and don't run into the problems, well, maybe you should consider counting your blessings.


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## green slime (Sep 17, 2010)

People get hung up on discussions of "balance", and lose sight of what is important.

Fun.

Because alot of what is discussed in forums about "balance" really is very minor details indeed. The level of balance sought in these forums at times borders on the inane.  

If a party can consist 5th - 8th level characters, (in any edition (even 4th...)) and everyone has fun, where is the problem?


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 17, 2010)

green slime said:


> People get hung up on discussions of "balance", and lose sight of what is important.
> 
> Fun.
> 
> ...



For some people, such as myself, balance is what makes the game fun. Or at least, it's a very important factor.

Just as for others, the simulation of a secondary world, verisimilitude, is what makes the game appealing, while for yet another group the rpg itself is secondary, what's important is the opportunity to spend time with one's friends, the social aspect.

From your perspective we're "thinking too hard about balance" just as, from my perspective, some people think too hard about verisimilitude.


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## Walking Dad (Sep 17, 2010)

green slime said:


> ...
> 
> If a party can consist 5th - 8th level characters, (in any edition (even 4th...)) and everyone has fun, where is the problem?



The problem is how to achieve this.
It isn't impossible and maybe very easy , when being with your friends and listening to a good story is the only goal.
But if you also want to affect the story and be meaningful to it, it becomes harder. The player of 5th level fighter will maybe have fun at the diplomatic banquet, but if the skills and abilities are used as said in the rulebook, the talk of the 8th level bard will affect the outcome more. (at least in 3+)
The 5th level rogue who invested many skill points (in 3+, or thief skills before) in open locks will not feel doing something meaningful standing next to the 8th level wizard with his knock wand...


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## Aus_Snow (Sep 17, 2010)

AD&D 1e PHB, p. 6:

"Classes have restrictions in order to give a varied and unique approach to each class when they play, as well as to provide play balance."

. . . and p. 7:

"The characters and races from which the players select are carefully thought out and balanced to give each a distinct and different approach to the challenges posed by the game."

Game balance is not some passing fad, nor a new concern, by any means.

That was simply the very first "old skool" D&D book to hand. Given time, I'm sure there would be a veritable _flood_ of balance-related quotes available. But perhaps those will serve, to illustrate the point.


edit: Oops - I totally missed the Gygax chapter and verse, upthread. Hopefully, there's no overlap.


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 17, 2010)

There are a few elements of 1e AD&D that are not balanced in either short or long-term play - demihuman thieves and half-orc assassins - which are both permitted unlimited advancement. I'm not sure what the thinking was here, as non-humans are just better than humans. Infravision is particularly useful for stealthy classes.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 17, 2010)

Aus_Snow said:


> Game balance is not some passing fad, nor a new concern, by any means.




Not by any means.

But you will, I hope, note that balance to give "each a distinct and different approach to the challenges posed by the game" is a very different kettle of fish from balance to ensure that all can contribute equally to every approach that might be taken.

One requires a series of adventure environments wherein different approaches _can be taken_ and probably _*should be taken*_ (or the balance doesn't work; see Hussar's example of 80% combat games where _sleep_ is a clear autowin).

The other is perfectly fine with a string of combats with preprinted battlemats, intended to be approached only as a string of combats.  If might even tell the GM exactly when some other approach (skill challenge) is to be used.  It may also mandate ignoring verisimilitude in the rules, because that tricky V word almost ensures that different problems are going to require different approaches, and that different people will be clearly better at some approaches than others.

Both games are going to be better suited for a limited set of playstyles as a result.  What your playstyle is will very likely determine (or at least factor highly in) the type of balance you prefer.  And, probably, how you think of other types of "balance" as expressed in other games.

Balance.  The same word is being used, but the same meaning is not.

"Balance" is not a new concern; the sort of balance 4e offers is.  

And I have come to regard that as a good thing.  Different games should be concerned with different things, because different people are.  As this thread clearly shows.  Having different styles of balance out there makes it easier to play what you want.  

And life is too short for games that you don't find fun.



RC


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 17, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> There are a few elements of 1e AD&D that are not balanced in either short or long-term play - demihuman thieves and half-orc assassins - which are both permitted unlimited advancement. I'm not sure what the thinking was here, as non-humans are just better than humans. Infravision is particularly useful for stealthy classes.




Assassin is capped at 15th level so unlimited isn't truly unlimited. For really high level play a human could reach 15th level as an assassin then start another class. A non-human must multiclass from the start. 

Thieves are a bit more of a mystery. Except for the poor half orc (whose only "unlimited" class is capped) every race can advance unlimited as thieves. Based solely on the XP tables, thief is the weakest class and a non-multiclassed demi-human thief can never aquire another class. 

Even so there is little mechanical reason beyond wanting to gain a second class later to play a single classes human thief.


----------



## Beginning of the End (Sep 17, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> In any case, since he didn't write those ideas in the books, we can only speculate as to what they were at any given point (they undoubtedly changed over time) and how well the game would or would not work if you followed them. I'm not criticizing Gygax for being a pioneer--as you say, everybody was new to RPGs back then, and it's no shame on Gygax for not spelling out his underlying assumptions. But he _didn't_ spell them out.




I'm trying to figure out where this idea that Gygax didn't write it into the rulebooks came from. Gygax's rulebooks are filled with procedural methods for content generation which will result in providing a very specific and detailed baseline for play.

OD&D, for example, told you:

(1) Exactly what the average encounter density in the dungeon should be.
(2) Exactly what monsters should be encountered on each level of the dungeon.
(3) Exactly how much treasure should be located on each level of the dungeon.
(4) The general pace of monster encounters versus other content (by means of the wandering monster system and monster reaction tables).

Wandering monster encounters also serve as a control mechanism on the "nova" technique. Blowing all your resources in one or two encounters and then pulling back to rest for the day doesn't actually work all that well if you're playing OD&D by the RAW: There's no such thing as "clearing" a section of the dungeon. You might be able to lower your risks by rooting out some of the set encounters (although the DM is explicitly told to periodically refresh those), but if you retreat from the 3rd level of the dungeon you're going to have to work to get back down there before you can push further. (And your rewards for doing so will be lessened because you'll have already cleared out the treasure from those sections.)

All of this content is, in fact, "spelling out" the baseline of the game.



Walking Dad said:


> The 5th level rogue who invested many skill  points (in 3+, or thief skills before) in open locks will not feel doing  something meaningful standing next to the 8th level wizard with his  knock wand...




Tangentially: I have a party in which there's a rogue and a _knock_. The rogue loves having that resource to fall back on when her lockpicking skills can't beat a tough lock. While it's true that if the wizard went around whapping every locked door with his wand the rogue would get annoyed, everyone else at the table would also get annoyed: Wands cost money. The wizard should stop wasting it.



Dausuul said:


> Compare a dire wolf to That Damned Crab  (scroll down on second link). That's a classic (if extreme) example of  the CR system breaking down right there. It's not a statistical  artifact, it's That Damned Crab.




I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking at there. The questionable CR due to the ill-bethought Constrict ability? Are you claiming that the class system is broken if somebody designs a class that gets 5 _wish_ spells per day at 1st level?


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## Doug McCrae (Sep 17, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> Gygax's rulebooks are filled with procedural methods for content generation which will result in providing a very specific and detailed baseline for play.



Yeah, but they are also filled with exhortations to ignore them. Do those tables describe the intended world, or are they merely something for the DM to fall back on when he has nothing prepared? And even when they are used, Gary says the DM should sometimes ignore results.



> But lo!, everytime you throw the ”monster die” a wandering nasty is indicated, and the party’s strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area. Spells expended, battered and wounded, the characters trek back to their base. Expectations have been dashed, and probably interest too, by random chance. Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die.



 - 1e DMG pg 9



> It is highly recommended that you develop an overall scheme for both population and habitation. This is not to say that a random mixture of monsters cannot be used, simply selecting whatever creatures are at hand from the tables of monsters shown by level of their relative challenge. The latter method does provide a rather fun type of campaign with a ”Disneyland” atmosphere, but long range play becomes difficult, for the whole lacks rhyme and reason, so it becomes difficult for the DM to extrapolate new scenarios from it, let alone build upon it. Therefore, it is better to use the random population technique only in certain areas, and even then to do so with reason.






> Thoughtless placement of powerful magic items has been the ruination of many a campaign... This is in part the fault of this writer, who deeply regrets not taking the time and space in D&D to stress repeatedly the importance of moderation. Powerful magic items were shown, after all, on the tables, and a chance for random discovery of these items was given, so the uninitiated DM cannot be severely faulted for merely following what was set before him or her in the rules. Had the whole been prefaced with an admonition to use care and logic in placement or random discovery of magic items, had the intent, meaning, and spirit of the game been more fully explained, much of the give-away aspect of such campaigns would have willingly been squelched by the DMs.






> Initial placement of magic items in dungeon and wilderness is a crucial beginning for the campaign. In all such places you must NEVER allow random determination to dictate the inclusion of ANY meaningful magic items.



- 1e DMG pgs 90-92

Even OD&D recommends that the major encounters and treasures be determined by the DM, not randomly rolled.



> It is a good idea to thoughtfully place several of the most important treasures, with or without monsterous guardians, and then switch to a random determination for the balance of the level. Naturally, the more important treasures will consist of various magical items and large amounts of wealth in the form of gems and jewelry. Once these have been secreted in out-of-the-way locations, a random distribution using a six-sided die can be made as follows



 - Vol 3 The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures pg 6


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 17, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> Yeah, but they are also filled with exhortations to ignore them.




As well as advice for when to do so.

A baseline, plus advice for how and when to vary from it, plus advice for how to follow the baseline without using random tables.

What, exactly, is the problem here?  I mean, wouldn't (say) CR and EL have worked (far) better with some direct advice to ignore the math when throwing on templates, if the result didn't seem right?



RC


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## Voadam (Sep 17, 2010)

Raven Crowking said:


> That Moathouse offer stands, if anyone still imagines _sleep_ was an autowin in 1e.
> 
> 
> RC




Sure, list them out. 

Other than the undead and green slime what is immune versus affected? Its been a while so I don't remember everything that is in there.

Giant Toads? Rats? Humans? Giant Crayfish? Bugbears? Ogre? Ghouls? Green Slime? Spider? Anything else?


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## Voadam (Sep 17, 2010)

Stats mattered a lot in AD&D. 

Whether you had good or poor stats was determined by the generation method you used and luck. Those with lower stats from rolling mostly just got the short end of the stick.

Two fighters, one with a 16 strength and one with an 18 strength were hugely disparate and felt so at the table. The difference also got wider as the campaign went on due to xp bonuses for good stats.

Powerful classes and human dual classing required powerful stats. 

Level mattered a lot. A party had a different balance of power between the same PCs at 1st, 5th, 10th, and 15th level. Some classes were comparatively more combat powerful at different levels. If you were playing a one shot or for only a couple levels the campaign balance concept of balance across levels was inapplicable. 

Race matters for balance with racial powers and multiclassing twisted by its own level balance of level caps and roleplay stuff.

Non combat stuff balanced against combat stuff. A paladin was more powerful than a fighter.

The party could vary significantly in level. Some games started from 1st when you came in so your human thief 1 could be next to an elven fighter magic user thief 8/8/8 with a ton of accumulated magic items.

AD&D had a lot of room for imbalance.


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 17, 2010)

[_QUOTE_=Voadam;5323764]Sure, list them out. 

Other than the undead and green slime what is immune versus affected? Its been a while so I don't remember everything that is in there.

Giant Toads? Rats? Humans? Giant Crayfish? Bugbears? Ogre? Ghouls? Green Slime? Spider? Anything else?[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't call "affected by" or "subject to" equal to autowin in every situation. There is suprise, initiative, and such to consider. Remember how fragile low level characters were. A 4 segment suprise differential could render most of the party (including the magic user with _sleep _still locked within his severed head ) out of action before initiative is even rolled. 

Would you call a lich with _power word kill_  prepared an autowin against a character with 60 hitpoints or less?  What if that character is a specialized archer with an _arrow of slaying undead _at the ready?


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 17, 2010)

Voadam said:


> Sure, list them out.




Okay; see below.



> Other than the undead and green slime what is immune versus affected? Its been a while so I don't remember everything that is in there.
> 
> Giant Toads? Rats? Humans? Giant Crayfish? Bugbears? Ogre? Ghouls? Green Slime? Spider? Anything else?




Been a while for me, too, but it is _*the*_ iconic low-level 1e adventure, written by the game's creator.  I didn't check the monsters before offering.  Maybe there's a bunch of _sleep_-able stuff there!  

But recall the claim disputed was that "anything you were likely to encounter" would be automatically won if the magic-user got the spell off.  Let's not change the goalposts now!

OK, we've got:

SURFACE

Area 1:  6 Giant Frogs, 2 with 2 HD, 4 with 1 HD.  Autowin.

Area 4:  Huge Spider, HD 2+2.  Autowin.

Area 7:  Brigands.  8 normal men and 1 2nd level fighter.  Not an autowin, but the Die Roller says the m-u wins.

Area 12:  Giant Snake, HD 4+2.  50% chance.  Die Roller says the m-u squeaked by.

Area 13:  13 Giant Rats, 1/2 HD each.  4d4 are put asleep.  Die roller says 9.  4 rats nibble our caster's toes.

Area 16:  Giant Tick, HD 3.  Autowin.

DUNGEONS

Area 1:  Green Slime, 2 HD.  Not affected.

Area 4:  12 Zombies, 2 HD each.  Not affected.

Area 7:  Ogre, HD 5+1.  Not affected.

Area 10:  6 Bugbears, HD 3+1.  1-2 are affected.  The other 4-5 wail on the magic-user.  Die roller rolls low; looks like 5 bugbears to play with our magic-user.  How many hit points has this guy got again?  

Area 12:  9 Gnolls, HD 2.  2d4 are affected.  At least one is there to wail on the magic-user or wake the others.  Die roller says, 5 are sleeping and four remain alert and ready to play.

Area 13:  Giant Crayfish, HD 4+4.  50% chance.  Nope.  The die roller says Pinchy is still awake.

Area 14:  4 Ghouls, HD 2.  Not affected.

Area 16:  6 normal Guardsmen and 1 Sergeant (6 HD).  4d4 guardsmen are affected.  The die roller says 7, so all the normal guardsmen are affected.  The Sergeant wails on the magic-user.  

Area 17:  12 Guardsmen and 2 Sergeants (as above).  As above, but now there are two sergeants.  The die roller says 8, so there are four more guardsmen as well.

Area 18:  5th level cleric.  Not affected.

So much for sleep as the autowin button for all encounters you could reasonably face.  I hope that magic-user wasn't so cocky as to go solo, even with his _*Ring of Automatic Sleep At the Start of Each Encounter*_.  Was sleep useful?  Sure.  Especially if you are guaranteed to always have it available, never be surprised, always have your opponents conviniently bunched up, and always go first.  But *even then* you'd better consider when it is wise to use it, and have someone else to help you when it fails.  And I don't think that "even then" applies to most AD&D 1e games.

So, can we put this "autowin" theory to....err....to sleep?



RC


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## Voadam (Sep 18, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Ok, for the overly pedantic:
> 
> Sleep is an autowin for any encounter which does not feature creatures specifically immune to the Sleep spell, which, from hit dice less than 1 to 4+1, the majority of creatures are NOT immune to sleep.  While there might be situations in which sleep is not autowin, they are not in the majority.
> 
> ...






Raven Crowking said:


> Want to go through the moathouse in Village of Hommlet with me and see how many encounters are "autowin"able by _sleep_?
> 
> It is hardly "overly pedantic" to point out that your idea of _sleep_ as an autowin is simply wrong.  And there is nothing the matter with being wrong, btw, so long as you are able to learn from it and stop making the same mistake.
> 
> ...




Just so there is no shifting of goalposts or forgetting of the specific statement you were contesting with the Moathouse as your example.

Hussar was factually incorrect, an encounter with creatures subject to sleep could have more creatures in the encounter than a sleep spell will overcome. 

His MU only autowins half of the encounters on the top level. He won two of the remaning three with a die roll and got 9 out of the 13 rats in the one he did not win outright.

In the dungeons he starts hitting things that sleep can't affect because of HD or immunities and many encounters have more affectable creatures than can be stopped by sleep.

On that surface level (typically when the party is level 1) the sleep spell is a big encounter autowin or at the very least a very big gun. Deeper down it becomes mostly a big gun for non undead and non bosses.


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## Beginning of the End (Sep 18, 2010)

Doug McCrae said:


> Yeah, but they are also filled with exhortations to ignore them.




Rule 0 and exhortations to common sense didn't exactly disappear in 1989. If saying, "Ignore this baseline when it seems like a good idea" means there is no baseline at all, then 3rd and 4th Edition don't have baselines, either.



Raven Crowking said:


> I mean, wouldn't (say) CR and EL have  worked (far) better with some direct advice to ignore the math when  throwing on templates, if the result didn't seem right?




MM3.5, pg. 294: "*Estimating CR*: Assigning a challenge rating is a  subjective judgment, not an exact science -- meaning that you have  control over what the CR of a monster with class levels should be. If  you find a class combination that improves a monster's capabilities  significantly -- or not as significantly as this guideline supposes --  you should modify the CR as seems logical. Err on the side of  over-estimating: If a monster has a higher Challenge Rating than it  deserves, it's less likely to kill off an entire party than if you had  erred in the other direction."


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## Stormonu (Sep 18, 2010)

Also, considering _sleep_ spell vs. the Moathouse, that's 16 encounters and *1* sleep spell the M-U has.  Which one is he going to use it on?  There's 13 where success is iffy and 5 that outright will have no effect.  

He may autowin one, maybe two if the top level vs. dungeons are tackled with a rest between, but that's still an additional 14 encounters to survive.


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## Odhanan (Sep 18, 2010)

Sleep an autowin in the Moathouse? 

Now, when you reach that kind of silliness, you know it's time to let the point drop. Seriously.


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## Odhanan (Sep 18, 2010)

Voadam said:


> I do not remember it saying _all_ ELs should be close to APL.
> 
> Can someone look up and post the specifics please? I remember the 3.0 DMG suggesting a spread of suggested ELs with most hovering around APL but I remember the high end being very high like APL +5 or so to the point where avoiding/running away/negotiating/super prep should be preferred to straight on fighting.



It was beyond APL+4, at which point the book specifically advised to rarely use these types of encounters since the death of a PC at the very least was close to unavoidable, and there was a fine line between a challenge and a frustrating encounter, or somesuch. It's from memory, but I'm pretty sure I'm not far off the mark, since we've had these types of arguments on ENWorld about the CR/EL system about... a billion times before.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 18, 2010)

Voadam said:


> Just so there is no shifting of goalposts or forgetting of the specific statement you were contesting with the Moathouse as your example.




Yep.  It was apparently "overly pedantic" to point out that sleep didn't autowin every encounter, or every encounter a 1st level m-u was likely to encounter, when those were proposed.  And, still, as you say, the contested point was "factually incorrect".

And it is not simply that "an encounter with creatures subject to sleep could have more creatures in the encounter than a sleep spell will overcome" -- all it requries is that they are not bunched in a group.  

For example, I generously listed the giant frogs as an autowin, because it is conceivable that a DM might have them all bunched up in a group.....although that seems unlikely to me.  Likewise, the rats are not necessarily bunched up, nor any of the humanoid encounters.

I also ignored the bit in the DMG about sleep spells, because it isn't necessarily clear how the DM will adjudicate that, which also affects the frog encounter (turning it from an autowin to a likely win).

So, again, I was giving the module the _*most generous reading possible*_ for Hussar to be correct.  And he was still "factually incorrect".  

(Is there some other kind of incorrect, btw?  Does this mean anything other than "wrong"?)

It is clearly and obviously true that, in 1e at least, our poor magic-user better not travel alone.  Even with a _*Ring of Automatic Sleep At the Start of Each Encounter*_, he fails to trump the other classes.

The sleep spell is useful to the party, but the magic-user needs the party if he wishes to survive.  And sleep is not an autowin for what he is likely to encounter, even if he can somehow take those encounters one at a time, regain the sleep spell between each encounter, always win initiative, and never get surprised.

Anyone who thinks differently will have a short-lived magic-user in 1e.



Stormonu said:


> Also, considering _sleep_ spell vs. the Moathouse, that's 16 encounters and *1* sleep spell the M-U has.  Which one is he going to use it on?  There's 13 where success is iffy and 5 that outright will have no effect.




So, what you're saying is that situations in which sleep is not autowin are in the majority?



Odhanan said:


> Sleep an autowin in the Moathouse?
> 
> Now, when you reach that kind of silliness, you know it's time to let the point drop. Seriously.






It was a silly idea long before we got to the Moathouse.



RC


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 18, 2010)

Beginning of the End said:


> Rule 0 and exhortations to common sense didn't exactly disappear in 1989. If saying, "Ignore this baseline when it seems like a good idea" means there is no baseline at all, then 3rd and 4th Edition don't have baselines, either.




Yup.

And thanks for the quote from the 3.5 mm; I never picked one up (stayed at 3e).  Was that in 3e too?  Mine is not easily at hand right now.


RC


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## JRRNeiklot (Sep 18, 2010)

For sleep to work on any intelligent creature, ALL of them must be affected.  If even one of them is not, all he has to do is slap the others around.  Then the mus spell pretty much only gives the rest of the party a free round of actions.  Potent, certainly, but hardly autowin.   But I tend to ignore any sentence with the word "win" pertaining to D&D anyway.


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## Hussar (Sep 19, 2010)

Sigh.

I really didn't want to come back in here.

It appears that my point has been missed by RC's mischaracterization of what I said.

What I actually said is that the MU would autowin ONE encounter and then spend the rest of the time plinking away with darts (Ie. being pretty much completely inneffective).

This is considered balanced design?  I win once and then ride the pines while the rest of the group acts until such time as they graciously decide to rest and let me get my one spell back?

Nowhere did I say anything about soloing modules.  My entire point was that the wizard, in the group, gets to press the I Win button once and then be pretty much completely inneffective until such time as he gets to recharge his I Win button again.

That's not balanced, IMO.  Balanced would mean that he would have several options available to him at all times, none of which are I Win and none of which are, "I sit in the corner and cower".

Just popping in to clarify a point that was very obviously missed.


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## JRRNeiklot (Sep 19, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Sigh.
> 
> What I actually said is that the MU would autowin ONE encounter and then spend the rest of the time plinking away with darts (Ie. being pretty much completely inneffective).
> 
> ...





A magic user is hardly ineffective.  A first level magic user has the exact same chance to hit as a 4th level thief and ONE less than a 3rd level cleric or a 2nd level fighter.  That's hardly ineffective.


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## LostSoul (Sep 19, 2010)

Hussar said:


> What I actually said is that the MU would autowin ONE encounter and then spend the rest of the time plinking away with darts (Ie. being pretty much completely inneffective).




Ineffective?  The first Pit Fiend I used as a DM was killed by the M-U's darts!  (Granted, Shelor the Great was 25th level at the time - finding 20 million GP in an unguarded closet because the DM is 11 and tired when rolling up the dungeon helps.)  

I think when he fell over with a dart in his head he crashed through a locked door.  Talk about taking over the Thief's role!


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## Hussar (Sep 19, 2010)

And, what weapon is he using?  How many hit points does he have?  What's his AC?  

If he gets into melee, he dies.  End of story.  The cleric and fighter both have easily 5 point advantages on AC and likely twice as many hit points.

... Wait... hang on.

I will not get drawn into this again.  We're going to head back into Heisenberg edition again where the game becomes quantum in nature - PC's are perfect machines of tactics, unless, of course, that would result in their gaining advantage, and then they suddenly develop huge blind spots and miss half the things in the dungeon.

Nope, I've seen where this discussion goes and it never ends well.

I wanted to clarify my position and I have done so.  You're free to disagree, but, at least now, you're disagreeing with what I said, and not what Raven Crowking claims that I said.


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## billd91 (Sep 19, 2010)

Hussar said:


> And, what weapon is he using?  How many hit points does he have?  What's his AC?
> 
> If he gets into melee, he dies.  End of story.  The cleric and fighter both have easily 5 point advantages on AC and likely twice as many hit points.
> 
> ...




Oh, this is lovely. You won't get drawn into this again? Then why not just delete your post or navigate away rather than Submit Reply and getting involved in this again? Why waste either of our times?


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## S'mon (Sep 19, 2010)

Hussar said:


> That's not balanced, IMO.  Balanced would mean that he would have several options available to him at all times, none of which are I Win and none of which are, "I sit in the corner and cower".




Your definition bears no relation to the word 'balance'.  Balanced against what?


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## bagger245 (Sep 19, 2010)

LostSoul said:


> Ineffective?  The first Pit Fiend I used as a DM was killed by the M-U's darts!  (Granted, Shelor the Great was 25th level at the time - finding 20 million GP in an unguarded closet because the DM is 11 and tired when rolling up the dungeon helps.)
> 
> I think when he fell over with a dart in his head he crashed through a locked door.  Talk about taking over the Thief's role!




It is these unpredictable outcomes that makes rpgs great to play.. for me.


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## awesomeocalypse (Sep 19, 2010)

> How big a time frame are we considering as "in the present"? Is it an  instant in time? A day? An adventure? A segment, a round, a turn, an  hour? I ask because this exact thing can be said about all editions of  D&D. 4e characters  run into a trap and only the rogue has taken Thievery as a trained  skill. Where's the balance there? Is the "present" in that situation the  task of dealing with the trap?



This from a few pages back.

Its worth noting that 4e actually *does* deal with this. Traps in 4e are no longer the sole domain of the rogue which involve him rolling through a minigame while the rest of the party twiddles their thumbs. They are either:

Skill challenges, which require multiple players to contribute. For example, the party stumbles across an ancient dwarven trap which, through a combination of ingenious design and magic, causes the room to shrink in around the party,eventually crushing them like a trash compactor if it isn't stopped. Thievery can disable the mundane mechanisms, Arcana can disable the spells, and Athletics allows one to literally hold the walls in place. History (of the dwarves at the time) and Dungeoneering are secondary skills which can help the people using thievery and arcana by offering insight into what they are facing. So the rogue gets to work messing with the device, while the wizard does the same with spells, the fighter holds the ceiling in place long enough to keep it from crushing them while the others work, and the Cleric offers advice to the rogue and wizard based on his knowledge of the trap creators or dungeon.

or

They are components of combat. For example, there is a device pumping poison gas into the room, being guarded by a bunch of monsters immune to poison. The rogue is the only one who can disable it, but doing so will leave him helpless to the monsters, so the rest of the party must work to defend him.


In other words, 4e specifically _avoids_ the sort of imbalance called out in the point above. It isn't a game about a spotlight which moves from one character to the next. Its a game about a big-ass spotlight which is focused on all the characters at all times.


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## Imperialus (Sep 19, 2010)

Hussar said:


> Sigh.
> 
> I really didn't want to come back in here.
> 
> ...




I'm not sure how other groups handled this, but in my BD&D game our (now 4th level) MU and the Elf also manage our hirelings and 'friends' from their charm spells.  My Clerics henchman is largely under the MU's control too since he had taken over the role of her 'bodyguard'.  I think you may be forgetting that up until 3rd ed parties (especially low level parties) were assumed to have a lot more people in them than just the PC's.  At least that's how we always ran things.

Even in our 3rd ed campaign we had a Druid character who had quite the traveling circus following him around.  Combat basically consisted of "Flamestrike!  Flamestrike!  Send in the Clowns to mop up."

As a matter of fact the lack of rules for hirelings and and the assumption that a 'party' consists only of PC's is one of the things that my group had an exceptionally tough time adapting to with 4th ed.


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## Diamond Cross (Sep 19, 2010)

Funny, I've never used hirelings. They tend to be even more squishy than a mage. And then you have to deal with their family when one dies.


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## Imperialus (Sep 19, 2010)

Going from the 2nd ed DMG 2GP a month will get a footman plus some investment to get them armour, a shield and a weapon though you can keep this to around 10GP if you go for leather armour until you get more gold.  They have 1d8+1 HP.  Whenever I played a Wizard, hiring or charming (or hiring and then charming) a bodyguard was always one of my top priorities before I'd even set foot in a dungeon.

And don't forget either that by higher levels the situation has reversed and the fighters now have a retinue that they can call on to do some of the heavy lifting.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 20, 2010)

Hussar said:


> It appears that my point has been missed by RC's mischaracterization of what I said.




Yeah, those exact quotes of what you said are one heck of a mischaracterization.  Especially when another poster was so kind as to supply the exact claim in a post prior to my analysis of the Moathouse encounters.  EDIT:  And that poster did so to ensure that the goalposts wouldn't be shifted.....And until your post, they had not.



> What I actually said is that the MU would autowin ONE encounter and then spend the rest of the time plinking away with darts (Ie. being pretty much completely inneffective).




Now, this _*may*_ be true.  However, it certainly doesn't _*have to be*_ true.  If you insist that it _*is true*_, you are simply wrong.

It very much depends on exactly what you believe you bring to the party.  Are you just a single spell and some darts?  Or did you choose to play a magic-user because you tend to be smart enough that you contribute loads to the party even when firepower isn't the issue?

I have played many magic-users, and run many a game of 1e AD&D.  And I have to say that the player who thought all his character could do was cast one spell and then plink with darts tended to have characters a short lifespan.  At least when playing magic-users.

If that's really all you imagine you can contribute with that character, perhaps you should play something else.  Because, I guarantee you, other people can and have contributed far, far more.

But, on at least one previous occasion, you admitted that you shouldn't argue about the AD&D 1e rules because you keep getting shown that your understanding of them is wrong.  Or words to that effect.  

Perhaps, just perhaps, this is another of those cases?  


RC


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## fanboy2000 (Sep 20, 2010)

S'mon said:


> Your definition bears no relation to the word 'balance'.  Balanced against what?



I don't know what Hussar's definition of balance is. But for me, a game is balanced when every player and the DM, over the course of a single game session, have the same amount of fun.

Thus a game balances each player's role against the other players and the DM. 

So if we could quantify fun, a game is balanced if, given equally skilled players, 
each player has a fun quotient within one of each other. 

For example, on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being watching Star Wars for the first time back in 1977, 0 being a root canal, and 5 being a normal night of hanging out with people you can stand, a game would be balanced if everyone had a fun quotient of 5, 6, or 7 in a single game session.



Raven Crowking said:


> (Is there some other kind of incorrect, btw?  Does this mean anything other than "wrong"?)



Yes there is "artistically incorrect." For an example, watch _The Producers_.

There is also the closely related "opinionated incorrect." For example, anyone who says "in my opinion, vi rules and emacs drools" is opinionated incorrect.


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## S'mon (Sep 20, 2010)

fanboy2000 said:


> I don't know what Hussar's definition of balance is. But for me, a game is balanced when every player and the DM, over the course of a single game session, have the same amount of fun.
> 
> Thus a game balances each player's role against the other players and the DM.




Is this why modern editions of D&D make DMing less fun?  So the DM won't have more fun than the players?


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## AllisterH (Sep 20, 2010)

fanboy2000 said:


> I don't know what Hussar's definition of balance is. But for me, a game is balanced when every player and the DM, over the course of a single game session, have the same amount of fun.
> 
> .




Um, wouldn't this mean that pre 3e was NOT balanced in your opinion. Pre 3e D&D was always balaned over the length of a campaign...

P.S. Since when did Sleep NOT become an auto-winner? It sure as hell was always recommended as the BEST spell for a 1st level mage to take (after Charm Person of course)


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## green slime (Sep 20, 2010)

Actually, it is possible to deal with traps as skill challenges in any edition of the game, just because it wasn't done so by many, does not mean the earlier editions of the game cannot do the same.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 20, 2010)

AllisterH said:


> P.S. Since when did Sleep NOT become an auto-winner? It sure as hell was always recommended as the BEST spell for a 1st level mage to take (after Charm Person of course)




Not really sure to make of your post.  The longsword was a great weapon of choice for most fighters, yet nary a play of said fighter I ever met therefore concluded that they were going to autowin encounters because their character was so equiped!

Again, we have the encounters in the Moathouse as stark evidence that sleep is not an autowin, and why this is so. 

Sleep became NOT an auto-winner when the you read the spell descriptions and follow the rules.  Ergo, it follows that sleep is an autowin only when the spell descriptions are not read, and the rules not followed.

Useful =/= autowin.

BEST =/= best (after X, of course).

Of course, we can have a "We don't read the rules, and we are finding 4e unbalanced, but it is the fault of the rules, and not our fault, and we refuse to learn from our mistakes when you point them out, therefore CaGI is an autowin" discussion, if you really like, but I seriously doubt it would be any more productive!   



RC


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## AllisterH (Sep 20, 2010)

From Memory:

Sleep is ineffective versus elves, creatures of 4 HD and higher and undead.

That's a LOT of creatures that you encounter in lvls 1-3 which Sleep WAS an auto-win. At the least, it would significantly change the outcome of a battle unlike say magic missile 

The only times when sleep was "useless" in my experience was versus undead (Sleep becomes an auto-fail in Ravenloft to use the "auto"-meme) and "boss fights - the ogre is the endboss of a level for example

The elves ability to NOT be subject to sleep was rarely used against opponents since elves frankly were rarely the bad guys AND most DMs weren't as "fair/mean" (- take your pick) to use sleep versus the party.

Sleep IMO definitely fits the category of BEST/Upper-Tier spells in pre 3e. 
Hell, it became so annoying that once my DM even offered a player the choice of gaining double the number of 1st levels spells if they were randomly picked versus picking the 1d4 number of spells you got to choose by the rules IIRC.

The player STILL took the latter option.


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 20, 2010)

A magic user that loses initiative and ends up with 1d4 kobold javelins in his corpse doesn't feel much like an autowinner. I have played a few of these. Because of sleep and other powerful magic, monsters learn to kill the guy wearing the dress first. 

Remember that before 3E, actually getting to cast that "autowinner" was in no way a certainty. A combination of being the softest target AND the most heavily targeted made the odds 50/50 at best.


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## AllisterH (Sep 20, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> A magic user that loses initiative and ends up with 1d4 kobold javelins in his corpse doesn't feel much like an autowinner. I have played a few of these. Because of sleep and other powerful magic, monsters learn to kill the guy wearing the dress first.
> 
> Remember that before 3E, actually getting to cast that "autowinner" was in no way a certainty. A combination of being the softest target AND the most heavily targeted made the odds 50/50 at best.




This I agree with, but the same could be said for ANY of the 1st level combat spells (which is why Charm Person rocked so hard..). Sleep was the best of the combat spells for ye old 1st level newbie magic. Sure, by 5th level, I would've loved to have either Magic missile or Chromatic Orb instead of Sleep, but Sleep is probably the reason which allowed you to BECOME a 5th level mage.

As an aside, the above initiative rules and others is why I personally don't consider 3e easy to convert and tend not to see 3e as simply AD&D codified.

The basic underlying "rules" for magic were changed and frankly, that SHOULD have a much bigger effect on the game and the participants than say the introduction of encounter/daily powers for martial characters.

We went from a world from magic was quite frankly HARD (hard to find spells, hard to create magic items, hard to USE magic) to one where magic was relatively easy in comparison.

From the fact that in 3e, as a DM, I found that you HAD to consider not just the use of spells being all types of more common but the fact that they would actually be used more often?

I always come back to it, but take a look at say the KNOCK spell. It is a ritual in 4E now while it was basically the same way written as before in 3e, yet the 4e version affect on the world is about the same as the 1e/2e IMO since the "rules" underlying magic made the Knock spell much more of a headache in 3e for a typical DM.

What I mean is, a 1e/2e/4e world is not really going to need to assume anti-KNOCK precautions since there are limitations on said spell (1e/2e - rarity, 4e- time), in 3.x, I do think a DM needs to take into account the fact that Knock is only a few gp away...


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 20, 2010)

AllisterH said:


> From Memory:




I didn't go by memory; I looked up the rules.  

"Able to effect XdY" isn't an auto-win.  Period.

Do I need to cut & paste the Moathouse encounters again?  Esp. for those monsters where the XdY range includes a potential result of 0, or where the number of creatures encountered falls outside the maximum of XdY.  

Even where the number of creatures falls within the range of XdY, it is only an autowin if the number is the minimum of XdY.

And, since sleep affects creatures in a 30-ft diameter, the creatures must be bunched up.  Sleep is not an autowin against even two giant rats, if they are more than 30 ft. away from each other.

Again, "useful" =/= Autowin.

Not autowin =/= not useful.

I can cut & paste the Moathouse encounters for you again, if you need me to.

Or we could have that discussion about how 4e is unbalanced because a player doesn't know the rules, refuses to accept the rules when they are pointed out, and nonetheless blames the rules rather than himself.  I'm sure it'll be a hoot.


RC


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## green slime (Sep 20, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> A magic user that loses initiative and ends up with 1d4 kobold javelins in his corpse doesn't feel much like an autowinner. I have played a few of these. Because of sleep and other powerful magic, monsters learn to kill the guy wearing the dress first.
> 
> Remember that before 3E, actually getting to cast that "autowinner" was in no way a certainty. A combination of being the softest target AND the most heavily targeted made the odds 50/50 at best.




True, within reason...

Once a DM had a skeleton rush past two fighters, (provoking AoO from each) to attack my wizard, which had been hanging back in the background. Sunless Citadel apparently had skeletons that were vicious members of the anti-spellcaster league. 

IOW, if the DM sucks, the DM sucks, and there isn't much you can do about it in game. Basically, it comes down to "fun". 

The question is, is it reasonable for a kobold to feel threatened by pale, wheezing Jimmy wearing pyjamas, or Tornado, the ½-orc wielding an axe bigger than the kobold, especially when the latters is starting to froth at the mouth and screams bloody murder? How often have the kobolds experienced magic vs how often have they been bullied by bigger creatures? How often have they plundered treasure from non-magical foes, vs magical foes? How often have they traded and bartered with the humans? How about taking prisoners and getting ransom? Must be far better than just stabbing everything to death... However, YMMV.

At lower levels, IMC, intelligent opponents are much more likely to capture for ransom, than kill outright. You really need a reason to kill, because it messes up the whole neighbourhood. And in the end, Fresh meat just tastes better: Keep them alive until it is time to put them in the pot.

PS: above sentiment applies to ALL versions of the game... even Basic D&D.


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## Bedrockgames (Sep 20, 2010)

I personally liked 3E a lot. But I think what people are talking about when they take issue with balance in 3E versus earlier editions, is the multiclassing system (at least that is where I saw most of the holes in the game). One of the things I loved about 3E was its versatile multiclassing system (which allowed you to make all kinds of interesting characters). But because each class is basically a list of powers you get over time, there are all kinds of combinations that strain the game. Especially when the splat books introduced new material at a steady clip. That and the feats. A player who knew how to work the feat and multiclassing combinations, could devise an overpowered character fairly easily. By the same token someone who didn't understand the system could unintentionally create an underpowered one. 

In my experience about half of the people in my group saw this as a feature, the other half saw it as a flaw. I think this is largely a matter of taste. For some, having a system where power imbalances are possible is important because it means character creation and development choices have significant mechanical consequences. For others this was problematic because it required system mastery in order to fully enjoy and participate in the game (but there are tons of threads on that discussion here I am sure). And others in my group thought balance was important, and felt 3E could be balanced provided the GM kept an eye on character creation choices, and ruled against broken combos.  

Earlier editions certainly had balance issues (wizards have always been more powerful than fighters at high level--that sort of thing). But from what I remember, it was really hard to achieve the scope of imbalance in 2e or 1e that you could in 3e. GMing 2e I definitely encoutnered min maxers and they were able to push the game in places and find loopholes. But there just weren't the number of combinations and loopholes that existed in 3E due to the multiclassing/feats.  

I haven't really played much 4E, so I can't comment on the balance in the new edition. But from what my friends who play it tell me, many of the issues created 3E multiclass system, have been eliminated. However, I am also told, there are still ways to push the system (though I don't know to what extent).


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## Votan (Sep 20, 2010)

green slime said:


> The question is, is it reasonable for a kobold to feel threatened by pale, wheezing Jimmy wearing pyjamas, or Tornado, the ½-orc wielding an axe bigger than the kobold, especially when the latters is starting to froth at the mouth and screams bloody murder? How often have the kobolds experienced magic vs how often have they been bullied by bigger creatures? How often have they plundered treasure from non-magical foes, vs magical foes? How often have they traded and bartered with the humans? How about taking prisoners and getting ransom? Must be far better than just stabbing everything to death... However, YMMV.




I would intelligent opponents acting the way average poeple would in a world where the rules were different.  Let's consdier the sleep spell to be equivalent to carrying around a grenade.  If wheezing Jimmy is carrying a grenade than modern folks would see him as the primary threat.  Similarily in a fantasy world where the decision not to wear armor while adventuring is either a sign of reckless overconfidence or an "I am a spellcaster" logo.  

Futhermore, Jummy has to declare he is casting before initiative is rolled.  Even if the grenade was not obvious in advance, it sure will be when he pulls it out.  It doesn't mean that a grenade is bad (it is very, very good) but rather that it is never ideal to be the most obviosuly dangerous thing around.

Ask the people who had the displeasure of carrying flame throwers into combat . . .


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 20, 2010)

green slime said:


> True, within reason...
> 
> Once a DM had a skeleton rush past two fighters, (provoking AoO from each) to attack my wizard, which had been hanging back in the background. Sunless Citadel apparently had skeletons that were vicious members of the anti-spellcaster league.
> 
> ...




The year is 1981:

What is this AoO thing you're talking about? 


The year is 2000:

Assuming 3E rules the sleep threat becomes MUCH nastier:

1) The wizard decides ON HIS TURN what if any spell will be cast. Disruption of the spell requires not only that the kobolds recognize that the robed fella is dangerous, but to be both faster AND tactically savvy enough to ready an action just in case he _might _cast.

2) The wizard may move before or after casting in order to "shoot" after popping out from behind cover or a corner. This includes waiting to cast until after the kobold charges and stabs at him-then doing a simple step back to cast without provoking the AoO.


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## Nagol (Sep 20, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> The year is 1981:
> 
> What is this AoO thing you're talking about?
> 
> ...




Except that _Sleep_ acquired a saving throw, had its variability removed, had its radius reduced to 10', and took a full round to cast so the enemy can interrupt without a held action so long as they go before the caster goes again.  Oh, and saving throws became much easier to make as well (DC is 11 + casting modifier -- probably 14-15 so even if the opponent had no bonus to Will saves at all, 25-30% of the enemy are unaffected).


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## NewJeffCT (Sep 20, 2010)

Diamond Cross said:


> Funny, I've never used hirelings. They tend to be even more squishy than a mage. And then you have to deal with their family when one dies.




I played 1E for many years - all throughout the 80s and into the early 90s... the players in my group almost never used hirelings - they didn't want to give up a share of both the XP and treasure for a 5th wheel hireling.


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## fanboy2000 (Sep 20, 2010)

S'mon said:


> Is this why modern editions of D&D make DMing less fun?  So the DM won't have more fun than the players?



I don't know, I had a blast DMing 3e and 3.5. I'm having a blast DMing 4e. But I don't have much experience with prior editions to compare it to.



AllisterH said:


> Um, wouldn't this mean that pre 3e was NOT balanced in your opinion. Pre 3e D&D was always balaned over the length of a campaign...



I don't know, I didn't play enough pre 3e D&D to form an opinion on the matter. The only pre-3e edition I played was AD&D 2e.

However, I would find it weird if someone kept playing a game where they would often spend the whole game session not having fun.


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## billd91 (Sep 20, 2010)

AllisterH said:


> Um, wouldn't this mean that pre 3e was NOT balanced in your opinion. Pre 3e D&D was always balaned over the length of a campaign...




No. If his players were having about the same amount of fun in a session, it wouldn't even matter if the PCs were of wildly different levels, the game would still be balanced.


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## amerigoV (Sep 20, 2010)

I can only compare 1e (my high school daze) to 3e:

3e tried to balance the classes to each other, with some variance. Everyone had something to do in combat that was meaningful. It was not perfect, but it was pretty solid. 4e seems to want to balance everything at every step, but I have only played a bit of it.

1e character creation for my groups went like this:

 The guy that like to smash stuff and be effective from the get-go ran the Fighter
 The guy that like magic, wanted a more complex class, and was willing to wait it out for more power ran the Magic User (sadly that was me - and the campaign tended to end just when my boy really got to kick some butt)
 The troublemaker that did not care that much about combat ran the thief
 The last guy to the session ran the cleric, cuz whomever ran the cleric had to pray for mostly healing spells to keep the rest of us alive (or the cleric was the NPC we dragged along).


I do not know much about 2e (kits and such), but 1e was not as worried about pure combat balance. The classes all had something they were good at, but not in a combat sense. For example, since 1e was still in the dungeon crawl days, thieves got a lot of limelight in the exploration phase of the game vs. the pure combat side.


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## Diamond Cross (Sep 20, 2010)

Sleep is an auto-win because there is no saving throw for it. From the First Edition AD&D PHB:



> Sleep (Enchantment/Charm)
> Level: 1
> Range: 3" + 1"/level
> Duration: 5 roundsAeve1
> ...




However, just because there's no saving throw to the spell, it doesn't mean that the scenario is an auto win. Because if there's more monsters than the spell can handle, those monsters might be able to wake up their sleeping friends.

All it really does it gives the party a super really extra big advantage.


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## Mournblade94 (Sep 20, 2010)

fanboy2000 said:


> However, I would find it weird if someone kept playing a game where they would often spend the whole game session not having fun.




I agree.  According to some posts on this board there were many people forced to play 3rd edition with all of its inequities, and suffered like good martyrs for the good of their gaming group.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 20, 2010)

Diamond Cross said:


> Sleep is an auto-win because there is no saving throw for it.




Let's not shift those goalposts!

Sleep as an autowin was supposed to automatically win an encounter unless the creature was specifically immune to the spell (such as undead or elves), and very specifically was supposed to autowin against anything a 1st-level (or low-level) magic-user was likely to encounter.  

This belief is the result of a shallow reading/understanding of the spell and/or the rules.

The mitigating factors ("However, just because there's no saving throw to the spell, it doesn't mean that the scenario is an auto win. Because if there's more monsters than the spell can handle, those monsters might be able to wake up their sleeping friends.") are what prevent the spell from being an autowin.

If sleep cannot autowin against the scenario, one must wonder exactly how it can be classified as an "autowin".  It is, instead, a big advantage over a *single encounter* (unless, as in my Moathouse examination, the GM really does hand out _*Rings of Automatically Casting Sleep At the Beginning of Each Encounter*_ -- and, if she does, it is no fault of the rules that she does!), and provides the possibility of a situational win, _*if and only if*_ it is used wisely.

If you look at the Moathouse encounters, you can probably see some cases where _sleep_ would make a real difference to the PCs, and other cases where it might not.  The magic-user who uses _sleep_ in the later cases, and therefore doesn't have it for the former, will be a short-lived magic-user.  IME, anyway.

No matter how you slice it, though, not allowing a save is not sufficient to make a spell an autowin.  I mean, CAGI can be used to gain a big advantage, can't it?  There is no save.  Is it an autowin?



RC


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## Dausuul (Sep 20, 2010)

_Sleep_ is a potential insta-win. This is different from an auto-win. It's also much less of a big deal in old-school D&D, because you don't expect any individual encounter to take very long anyway, so the occasional insta-win does not break the game.

Ironically, I find _sleep_'s insta-win potential to be a bigger deal in 4E than it was in AD&D or BECMI. It's less likely to happen, but because every enounter in 4E is a big set-piece battle, it feels much more anticlimactic when it does.


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## AllisterH (Sep 20, 2010)

Diamond Cross said:


> All it really does it gives the party a super really extra big advantage.




How is this NOT an auto-win?

You go from an even fight or even one slightly where the odds are agaisnt you to one where most likely the odds have heavily tilted in your favour?

If Sleep wasn't an auto-win spell, then all those articles, comments, questions in DRAGON that talked about and dealt with Sleep were my imagination?

Mending sure as heck never got as much attention, even Magic Missile never did.


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## Voadam (Sep 20, 2010)

Stormonu said:


> Also, considering _sleep_ spell vs. the Moathouse, that's 16 encounters and *1* sleep spell the M-U has.  Which one is he going to use it on?  There's 13 where success is iffy and 5 that outright will have no effect.
> 
> He may autowin one, maybe two if the top level vs. dungeons are tackled with a rest between, but that's still an additional 14 encounters to survive.




Nobody took on 16 encounters in one day. Nobody cleared the whole thing at 1st level.

I remember it took the group I DM'd five assaults and I forget how many PC deaths and close calls to finally clear out Lareth after first coming upon him (granted I had him keep animating dead soldiers and spend his treasure on buying new security like shriekers in between their assaults).


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## billd91 (Sep 20, 2010)

AllisterH said:


> How is this NOT an auto-win?
> 
> You go from an even fight or even one slightly where the odds are agaisnt you to one where most likely the odds have heavily tilted in your favour?
> 
> ...




Sleep's a powerful spell, but if you're going to cling to the cannard that it's an auto-win despite the caveats people have brought up multiple times in this thread, there's not much point in trying to communicate here. 

It's not an auto-win because there's no assurance that it can be deployed (remember the initiative rules and spell disruption) and there's no guarantee that it won't be relieved by additional creatures in the encounter. It's a *powerful tool* that can net a significant advantage, perhaps even a quick win, if circumstances don't prevent it from happening. 

Seriously, the whole auto-win label should be relegated to the trash.


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## Imperialus (Sep 20, 2010)

NewJeffCT said:


> I played 1E for many years - all throughout the 80s and into the early 90s... the players in my group almost never used hirelings - they didn't want to give up a share of both the XP and treasure for a 5th wheel hireling.




Well in 2nd ed at least, Hirelings only gain a share of the group experience award.  Its the individual awards that IME make up the bulk of experience earned.  I tend not to give hirelings individual awards, and unless a hireling was particularly skilled or a longstanding member of the party they did not get a share of the treasure, but rather a flat weekly rate negotiated with the party.

Even in 1st ed or B/X a hireling earning 1/2 the experience of a PC and a 1/2 share of treasure made a lot of sense at low levels.  It slowed your advancement, sure but it also increased survivability by a significant margin, which depending on the rules your DM used for replacement PC's actually sped up overall advancement.  It's a more conservative playstyle, for sure, but certainly a valid one.


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## green slime (Sep 21, 2010)

Votan said:


> I would intelligent opponents acting the way average poeple would in a world where the rules were different.  Let's consdier the sleep spell to be equivalent to carrying around a grenade.  If wheezing Jimmy is carrying a grenade than modern folks would see him as the primary threat.  Similarily in a fantasy world where the decision not to wear armor while adventuring is either a sign of reckless overconfidence or an "I am a spellcaster" logo.




Seriously? Does every commoner wander the world dressed in armour? the outlying farmer, taking his goods to market, dresses up in chain mail, and straps on a bastard sword, in case he gets waylaid by a band of nomadic bandits? The Noble, delivering a diplomatic message? The caravan merchant plying a trade route? Both the noble and the merchant would be accompanied by strong warriors, but probably wear attire more suitable to their station. How common is magic? How common is being brutally killed by a swordsman? What has the average Kobold seen more of? IF the kobolds have seen and understand the power of arcane magic, AND understand the PC in question is a wielder of arcane power, are they not then more likely to panic and flee, rather than chuck a few ineffectual javelings?!? The wizard hardly has a notice on his forehead saying "1st level spells only (2, 1 used)".

If you want to kill the wizard, just do so. But don't wrap it up in a "spellcaster-logo" excuse. Because while the light-clad jimmy might be a dangerous (or a noble, or a merchant, or a scribe, or a human donkey, or a former captive, or a .... you get the idea) the axe wielding ½-orc most definitely is dangerous

I'd argue, that much of what is normal in our world is normal in DnD, but the spotlight is on the unusual, because that is what makes for interesting adventures.  I don't want a dishwashing skill challenge for 3rd level characters. In any edition of the game. 



Votan said:


> Futhermore, Jummy has to declare he is casting before initiative is rolled.  Even if the grenade was not obvious in advance, it sure will be when he pulls it out.  It doesn't mean that a grenade is bad (it is very, very good) but rather that it is never ideal to be the most obviosuly dangerous thing around.
> 
> Ask the people who had the displeasure of carrying flame throwers into combat . . .




The Kobolds should also have to "declare" (iow, the DM should think what the kobolds are trying to do, before he lets the players' intentions colour their plan). Additionally, there is a reason why kobolds are not top of the food chain... 

It is not obvious that a grenade or a flamethrower is dangerous, unless you have seen the effect of one, or had one described to you. In the modern world, we are quite well informed of modern weaponry. How informed is a tribe of kobolds, eeking a living stealing from farmers' fields, and avoiding lizardfolk? Secondly, are you expecting to see it? Your concentration is divided amongst 4 or 5 antagonists, especially some rather large and threatening ones much, much closer to you. To continue your allegory: there is a M1 Abrams between you and the flamethrower guy, and it is heading towards you!! So Mr Al-qaeda guy, you gonna be cool and try to take a shot at Flamethrower guy, or hunker down in your foxhole and hope no one sees you, or maybe, just maybe you gonna run?

Furthermore, I'll reiterate: it is even less obvious that kill or be killed is the best solution to the situation at hand. 

If we go back to a DnD situation, There are always other options:

1) negotiation
2) surrender
3) flight
4) capture

However DND, in all versions, has always had a majority of players that never negotiate, nor surrender, always pursue, and very seldomly show any form of mercy. 

I just like to make it clear in my games: word gets around, and you reap what you sow. Regardless of version.


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## green slime (Sep 21, 2010)

Apparently the most dangerous clothing to wear, is non-armour, because you are then automatically a wizard, and doomed to be designated primary target by all manner of creatures. 

Survival tips for wizards:
#1 Wear heavy armour (borrow the fighter's gear)
#2 Get in the front line and stay there.
#3 Convince the ½-orc to stay naked in rear, for your own good.

Yep, makes perfect sense to me.

Sounds like it's gonna be a lot of fun!


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## Nagol (Sep 21, 2010)

green slime said:


> Seriously? Does every commoner wander the world dressed in armour? the outlying farmer, taking his goods to market, dresses up in chain mail, and straps on a bastard sword, in case he gets waylaid by a band of nomadic bandits? The Noble, delivering a diplomatic message? The caravan merchant plying a trade route? Both the noble and the merchant would be accompanied by strong warriors, but probably wear attire more suitable to their station. How common is magic? How common is being brutally killed by a swordsman? What has the average Kobold seen more of? IF the kobolds have seen and understand the power of arcane magic, AND understand the PC in question is a wielder of arcane power, are they not then more likely to panic and flee, rather than chuck a few ineffectual javelings?!? The wizard hardly has a notice on his forehead saying "1st level spells only (2, 1 used)".




Substitute club, quarterstaff, or long knife for bastard sword and padded/leather for chain mail and yes -- at least if the farmer knows he's leaving the King's Road and is at risk for hostile wandering encounters!

After all, wearing chain and carrying a bastard sword for a farmer is liikely to get *him* hanged as a bandit by the first patrol that encounters him.

The caravan merchant hires guards and gets the best armour (and maybe a decent weapon) that he can justify for the cost -- probably chain shirt or chain mail.  To do otherwise is asking for trouble.  He's have a nice suit in luggage for "down time" when hosting with more noble patrons, but he'd wear armour when traveling.

A noble would take advantage of his noble station to wear heavy armour and carry noble weapons (here's your bastard sword and likely plate -- at the very least chain); it's a way to advertise his station as well as a defence.

The kobold is likely to have seen the power of magic (arcane or divine is probably a quibble here) as his shaman/adept has it.  It's not like the default campaign setting hangs a particular mystery around magic -- there are a lot of of casters in the population -- even hamlets and thorps have a very good chance of having a caster.


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## green slime (Sep 21, 2010)

Nagol said:


> Substitute club, quarterstaff, or long knife for bastard sword and padded/leather for chain mail and yes -- at least if the farmer knows he's leaving the King's Road and is at risk for hostile wandering encounters!




Probably can't afford armour, and knives and quarterstaves are sure signs of wizardry, and get him javelinned to death, if we are to believe previous posters. Highwaymen and bandits have existed on the King's road until very late in historical times indeed in England (19th century), but equipping yourself and wearing armour, you better be ready to fight. More likely, the average farmer taking goods to market could probably get past the bandits by negotiating a reasonable price (sack of potatoes at most), but probably wouldn't even register as a mark at all. 



Nagol said:


> After all, wearing chain and carrying a bastard sword for a farmer is liikely to get *him* hanged as a bandit by the first patrol that encounters him.




No argument there.



Nagol said:


> The caravan merchant hires guards and gets the best armour (and maybe a decent weapon) that he can justify for the cost -- probably chain shirt or chain mail.  To do otherwise is asking for trouble.  He's have a nice suit in luggage for "down time" when hosting with more noble patrons, but he'd wear armour when traveling.




Or probably not, depending on the circumstances. 1) it is very uncomfortable. 2) He's paying the mercenaries for guard duty, hiring another guard is  cheaper than buying a set of arms and armour for himself. 3) In extremely dangerous areas, yes, he might wear armour himself. 4) But unless he is reasonably fit and skilled he'd may be better off unarmed: Fat, wealthy merchants can be held for ransom. Dead corpses cannot, and if he looks like one of the guards, he'll be treated like one of the guards, even if the rest of the guards run away. 5) It is bothersome wearing armour



Nagol said:


> A noble would take advantage of his noble station to wear heavy armour and carry noble weapons (here's your bastard sword and likely plate -- at the very least chain); it's a way to advertise his station as well as a defence.




Or probably not, that's what the klutz bodyguards (AKA "Knights") are for. Wearing armour is tiresome, bothersome wardrobe activity. Taking 60 minutes each morning to strap on the old plate isn't fun, and it starts to smell really bad after wearing the same armour for a few days. It doesn't look refined, and not everywhere you go do you want to like like a porcupine. It doesn't impress when you are riding around the countryside. In fact, wearing armour while examining your estates would probably be seen as a sign of weakness or insecurity. Unless you are expecting imminent battle, you wouldn't want to put the bothersome stuff on. Only wierdo maverick adventurers would wander around in armour constantly. Gold chains, stylish footwear and a proper collar supporting a well-groomed head better advertise station. Yes, the noble is more likely to have his sword along with him. 



Nagol said:


> The kobold is likely to have seen the power of magic (arcane or divine is probably a quibble here) as his shaman/adept has it.  It's not like the default campaign setting hangs a particular mystery around magic -- there are a lot of of casters in the population -- even hamlets and thorps have a very good chance of having a caster.




Shaman may have the power of magic (or maybe not), but does that auto-mean the thinly clad bespectacled youth hiding behind the snorting ½-orc can wield such power? And given that the shaman may use divine magic & wear armour, where then is the auto-wizard logo? 

Just because the law of gravity pulls the apple to the earth, doesn't mean every semi-intelligent inhabitant understands the principle at work behind the apple's fall. Likewise the division of arcane and divine magic, and arcane spell failure in armour...


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## Votan (Sep 21, 2010)

green slime said:


> Shaman may have the power of magic (or maybe not), but does that auto-mean the thinly clad bespectacled youth hiding behind the snorting ½-orc can wield such power? And given that the shaman may use divine magic & wear armour, where then is the auto-wizard logo?
> 
> [\QUOTE]
> 
> ...


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## green slime (Sep 21, 2010)

Votan said:


> green slime said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 21, 2010)

green slime said:


> What has the average Kobold seen more of? IF the kobolds have seen and understand the power of arcane magic, AND understand the PC in question is a wielder of arcane power, are they not then more likely to panic and flee, rather than chuck a few ineffectual javelings?!? The wizard hardly has a notice on his forehead saying "1st level spells only (2, 1 used)".




The "average" kobold is defined by the gameworld that he lives in. The reaction to a worker of magic will depend on the experience of a given group of kobolds. 

PC's facing kobolds are usually inexperienced. Those kobolds are kind of weak monsters but may or may not be inexperienced. Are the PC's going into a dangerous area where others have gone and failed to return? Perhaps those others who were not so fortunate provided the kobolds with a bit of battle experience? 



green slime said:


> If you want to kill the wizard, just do so. But don't wrap it up in a "spellcaster-logo" excuse. Because while the light-clad jimmy might be a dangerous (or a noble, or a merchant, or a scribe, or a human donkey, or a former captive, or a .... you get the idea) the axe wielding ½-orc most definitely is dangerous .




As DM I don't want to kill anyone. The kobolds may very well want to. The advantage of a tabletop game is that monsters can learn from experience and do not have to follow any set patterns of whom they should consider dangerous. 



green slime said:


> I'd argue, that much of what is normal in our world is normal in DnD, but the spotlight is on the unusual, because that is what makes for interesting adventures. I don't want a dishwashing skill challenge for 3rd level characters. In any edition of the game.




Who is suggesting such a thing?





green slime said:


> The Kobolds should also have to "declare" (iow, the DM should think what the kobolds are trying to do, before he lets the players' intentions colour their plan). Additionally, there is a reason why kobolds are not top of the food chain...




If the kobolds have casters among their ranks who are preparing spells it is certainly fair to make sure the PCs are aware of any of this activity that they can perceive. What is good for the goose and all.




green slime said:


> Furthermore, I'll reiterate: it is even less obvious that kill or be killed is the best solution to the situation at hand.
> 
> If we go back to a DnD situation, There are always other options:
> 
> ...




If we are rolling initiative and choosing targets then negotiations have broken down if they were even begun. Flight, surrender, or capture may still happen but are unlikely at the very beginning of an engagement unless one side or the other believes they have no chance to win the combat. This is what morale is for. Typical kobolds faced with strong attackers will usually break, thus the low morale score. Anything that wouldn't fight at all should just be listed as a non-combatant. 



green slime said:


> However DND, in all versions, has always had a majority of players that never negotiate, nor surrender, always pursue, and very seldomly show any form of mercy.
> 
> I just like to make it clear in my games: word gets around, and you reap what you sow. Regardless of version.




This is largely group dependent and independent of game system. If a DM constantly makes the PC's regret showing mercy then such behavior will certaintly stop.


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## Dausuul (Sep 21, 2010)

Votan said:


> The logo is when he makes the strange noises and starts to cast a spell.  In older editions of D&D (BECMI, AD&D) you declare spell casting at the beginning of the round and then roll initative.  Any hit disrupts the casting and fighters do not get opportunity attacks.




You also declare attacks at the beginning of the round. How come the wizard has to announce she's casting a spell and then all the monsters get to announce they're shooting the wizard? The way we always played it, everybody decided what they were doing, then declared it (on your honor not to change your decision if you happened to declare after an opponent), and then actions got resolved in initiative order.



green slime said:


> Apparently the most dangerous clothing to wear, is non-armour, because you are then automatically a wizard, and doomed to be designated primary target by all manner of creatures.
> 
> Survival tips for wizards:
> #1 Wear heavy armour (borrow the fighter's gear)




There are a couple of magic armors that can disguise themselves as normal clothing. I've always thought one of the best magic items for an early-edition wizard would be the opposite--normal clothing that disguises itself as armor. You'll give yourself away once you start flinging fireballs, of course, but it could buy you that crucial first round to cast your "auto-win" spell.


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## green slime (Sep 21, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> The "average" kobold is defined by the gameworld that he lives in. The reaction to a worker of magic will depend on the experience of a given group of kobolds.




Obviously. But to go from there to auto-javelin a lightly clad individual merely because he is not wearing armour?



ExploderWizard said:


> PC's facing kobolds are usually inexperienced. Those kobolds are kind of weak monsters but may or may not be inexperienced. Are the PC's going into a dangerous area where others have gone and failed to return? Perhaps those others who were not so fortunate provided the kobolds with a bit of battle experience?




Excellent points, not arguing against my main point: without further explanation, auto-javelining travellers because of their lack of heavy attire is just wierd.



ExploderWizard said:


> As DM I don't want to kill anyone. The kobolds may very well want to. The advantage of a tabletop game is that monsters can learn from experience and do not have to follow any set patterns of whom they should consider dangerous.




Indeed! And had any witnessed first hand the arcane spellcaster wreaking havoc and survived, I would expect them to attempt a ruthless vengeance. But such is hardly auto-javelining a traveller for wearing pyjamas.



ExploderWizard said:


> Who is suggesting such a thing?




But it is "balanced". Except between editions.




ExploderWizard said:


> If the kobolds have casters among their ranks who are preparing spells it is certainly fair to make sure the PCs are aware of any of this activity that they can perceive. What is good for the goose and all.






ExploderWizard said:


> If we are rolling initiative and choosing targets then negotiations have broken down if they were even begun. Flight, surrender, or capture may still happen but are unlikely at the very beginning of an engagement unless one side or the other believes they have no chance to win the combat. This is what morale is for. Typical kobolds faced with strong attackers will usually break, thus the low morale score. Anything that wouldn't fight at all should just be listed as a non-combatant.




Right. But it is still a possibility. Even if you realise that you will win; you risk losing valuable resources (at the very least healing spells/potions) and time... 



ExploderWizard said:


> This is largely group dependent and independent of game system. If a DM constantly makes the PC's regret showing mercy then such behavior will certaintly stop.




IMX, it isn't the DM making the PC's regret showing mercy, its the PC's never showing mercy. Never accepting surrender, never taking prisoners. Completely bloodthirsty. YMMV

In one battle, a goblin tried to surrender to a player, the player chopped its head off, the next goblin committed suicide by throwing himself out the third story window. That made the player think.


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 21, 2010)

green slime said:


> Obviously. But to go from there to auto-javelin a lightly clad individual merely because he is not wearing armour?
> 
> Excellent points, not arguing against my main point: without further explanation, auto-javelining travellers because of their lack of heavy attire is just wierd.
> 
> Indeed! And had any witnessed first hand the arcane spellcaster wreaking havoc and survived, I would expect them to attempt a ruthless vengeance. But such is hardly auto-javelining a traveller for wearing pyjamas.




OK. Enough with the wardrobe targeting. This line of discussion has spun off of the premise that a sleep spell = autowin. If the jammie clad individual in question is not making movements that opponents may perceive as casting (sleep or otherwise) or perhaps pointing a big-batta-boom device (such as a wand) in their direction then such targeting will be much less likely to occur. 

So the sickly looking robed guy in the back may not be a high priority target if he is observed going for a dart or dagger.  Better?


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## NewJeffCT (Sep 21, 2010)

Dausuul said:


> _Sleep_ is a potential insta-win. This is different from an auto-win. It's also much less of a big deal in old-school D&D, because you don't expect any individual encounter to take very long anyway, so the occasional insta-win does not break the game.
> 
> Ironically, I find _sleep_'s insta-win potential to be a bigger deal in 4E than it was in AD&D or BECMI. It's less likely to happen, but because every enounter in 4E is a big set-piece battle, it feels much more anticlimactic when it does.




Interesting - I've found 4E to be have fewer big 'set piece' type battles than 3E and 3.5E.  Combats seem to run quicker.

And, we had WAY more huge "set piece" battles in 2E than we did in my last 3.5E campaign.  That was mostly because it was easier in 2E and combats of similar size took less time.  

In 2E, the DM thought nothing of throwing 50-100 bad guys at us, and having 10-20 allies on our side for the battle.  (i.e., the 20 sailors on our ship that was assaulted by 80 sahuagin; the 20 caravan drivers and 10 additional guards vs the 60 lizardmen & their 15-20 swampy allies)

I was a player in a 2E campaign that started off with the same low level adventure as the 3.5E campaign that I DM'd.  As an homage to my old DM, I followed up the adventure with a big showdown in a local grove inhabited by a dryad.  While the two groups got there differently, it was a similar showdown involving slavers, drow, orcs and giants as the bad guys.   The big battle in 3.5 with me as DM involved about 1/3 the number of bad guys than did our 2E campaign (1 hill giant vs 3; 15 orcs vs 50; 5 drow vs around 15; etc) and I still had a near TPK when I DM'd the 3.5 game.  However, it took 3 times as long to run the 3.5E combat as it did the bigger 2E combat... however, that was also partly due to my DMing a less experienced group and my not being a master of the rules of 3.5, either.


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## green slime (Sep 21, 2010)

ExploderWizard said:


> OK. Enough with the wardrobe targeting. This line of discussion has spun off of the premise that a sleep spell = autowin. If the jammie clad individual in question is not making movements that opponents may perceive as casting (sleep or otherwise) or perhaps pointing a big-batta-boom device (such as a wand) in their direction then such targeting will be much less likely to occur.
> 
> So the sickly looking robed guy in the back may not be a high priority target if he is observed going for a dart or dagger.  Better?




Yes, much . But it is all part and parcel of the whole _sleep_ issue. It never was an auto-win. It was a powerful tool. It requires some forethought and planning on when is an apropriate time to unleash it, and/or some risk taking. Which was one of the better parts of playing arcane spellcasters in pre-4th edition (IMO) : to do it properly required intelligence.


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## Lord_Blacksteel (Sep 21, 2010)

green slime said:


> Actually, it is possible to deal with traps as skill challenges in any edition of the game, just because it wasn't done so by many, does not mean the earlier editions of the game cannot do the same.




Skill challenges are a mechanical construct of 4E. BECMI and 1E had no skill system for anyone but the thief, so mechanically you aren't going to run traps as skill challenges approaching anything like 4E. Back when it was usually a 1-shot skill roll for the thief on the simple stuff like poison needles with an occasional talk-your-way-through-it option for the more elaborate room-sized traps, but there was not usually a mechanical element in those. 

Also keep in mind that back then I don't recall anyone thinking of the thief making a roll or two to disarm a trap as a "minigame" or hogging the spotlight - it was his _job_ - that's why we brought him along in the first place. They were kind of like an NFL kicker - a specialist brought in mainly for a few specific situations. If they managed to contribute in other ways, great. If they blew too many trap checks you dumped them and got a new one


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## fanboy2000 (Sep 21, 2010)

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> Skill challenges are a mechanical construct of 4E. BECMI and 1E had no skill system for anyone but the thief



D&D Rules Cyclopedia Chapter 5: Other Character Abilities details a fairly involved skill system.


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## green slime (Sep 21, 2010)

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> Skill challenges are a mechanical construct of 4E. BECMI and 1E had no skill system for anyone but the thief, so mechanically you aren't going to run traps as skill challenges approaching anything like 4E. Back when it was usually a 1-shot skill roll for the thief on the simple stuff like poison needles with an occasional talk-your-way-through-it option for the more elaborate room-sized traps, but there was not usually a mechanical element in those.
> 
> Also keep in mind that back then I don't recall anyone thinking of the thief making a roll or two to disarm a trap as a "minigame" or hogging the spotlight - it was his _job_ - that's why we brought him along in the first place. They were kind of like an NFL kicker - a specialist brought in mainly for a few specific situations. If they managed to contribute in other ways, great. If they blew too many trap checks you dumped them and got a new one




Not strictly true:

Skill challenges existed for 3e, they just weren't referred to as such, nor described in such detail. 

2e had "nonweapon proficiencies", which were actually carried forward from Oriental Adventures, Dungeoneers Survival Guide & Wilderness Survival Guide, all of which were 1e products. So it isn't so far from 4e skill challenges as it may first appear. 

And using checks based on stats has always been encouraged. Skills are just a method of differentiating focus and inate ability. In previous versions of the game, a stat check with a bonus for level would've sufficed, if it was deemed reasonable that the character possibly had the knowledge of the skill in question. 

Thus it is perfectly possible to recreate a similar feel to that of a 4e skill challenge. That the rules at the time didn't describe this is hardly a surprise, but that does not prevent those rules from flexing to accommodate the idea. In fact, the early rules were expected to be bent by creative players. No, it isn't "By the BOOK rulez!" But it is acknowledging a good idea...


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## green slime (Sep 21, 2010)

fanboy2000 said:


> D&D Rules Cyclopedia Chapter 5: Other Character Abilities details a fairly involved skill system.




Yes that too...


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## Jhaelen (Sep 21, 2010)

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> If they blew too many trap checks you dumped them and got a new one



Actually, they didn't need to get dumped, since they were usually already very dead 

Thieves never got very far in our 1e games...


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## ExploderWizard (Sep 22, 2010)

Jhaelen said:


> Actually, they didn't need to get dumped, since they were usually already very dead
> 
> Thieves never got very far in our 1e games...




The XP tables even took that into account. If they had the life expectancy of a fruitfly then why not give them the rapid maturity to go along with it.


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## Lord_Blacksteel (Sep 22, 2010)

fanboy2000 said:


> D&D Rules Cyclopedia Chapter 5: Other Character Abilities details a fairly involved skill system.




That's great if you started playing Basic D&D in 1990. For those of us who started 10 or 12 years earlier there was no skill system.


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## Lord_Blacksteel (Sep 22, 2010)

green slime said:


> Not strictly true:
> 
> Skill challenges existed for 3e, they just weren't referred to as such, nor described in such detail.




I didn't mention 3E but if they weren't called skill challenges nor were they described in detail it doesn't sound like it's "not strictly true" - it sounds like they didn't exist in 3E either as a concept presented in the rules. That matters. I'm not disagreeing that you can make them work (better than any of the earlier editions) but it is a retrofit one might want to mention when starting a campaign.



green slime said:


> 2e had "nonweapon proficiencies", which were actually carried forward from Oriental Adventures, Dungeoneers Survival Guide & Wilderness Survival Guide, all of which were 1e products. So it isn't so far from 4e skill challenges as it may first appear.




Yes, 1.5 had some NWP's added on late. IME they were rarely used and little loved. Even today I don't see retro 1E games using NWP's (it's kind of a dividing line for 1E vs. 2E fans) so I don't think an "NWP Challenge" is going to be a feature of 1E games. They played a much bigger role in 2E being part of the core rules and you could rig up something like a skill challenge there pretty easily.




green slime said:


> And using checks based on stats has always been encouraged. Skills are just a method of differentiating focus and inate ability. In previous versions of the game, a stat check with a bonus for level would've sufficed, if it was deemed reasonable that the character possibly had the knowledge of the skill in question.




But a skill challenge would involve multiple stat checks - that's kind of the point - and you're likely to end up with "OK now the mage rolls an INT check, OK, now the Cleric rolls a Wis check, OK," etc. In effect each character has 1 good skill, maybe 1 or 2 OK skills, and a few average to poor skills. There's not enough detail there to make it very interesting. As a concept the Skill Challenge/NWP Challenge works great when there's a skill system to support it but the two versions of the game I specifically mentioned don't have one in their original versions which were played by most people at the time. 

You could probably get more out of a "Party Challenge" - to get across this weird bridge the fighter has to cut a rope or hold back a wooden lever while the thief disarms a trap and the mage casts knock -all at the same time. Let them use their class abilities rather than a slapped-on skill system or a series of stat checks and make it count for something. You would probably need a diagram like something out of Grimtooth's Traps to make sense of it but a lot of the old dungeons featured some pretty weird mechanical or magical devices or traps or rooms and something like this could liven it up a bit.



green slime said:


> Thus it is perfectly possible to recreate a similar feel to that of a 4e skill challenge. That the rules at the time didn't describe this is hardly a surprise, but that does not prevent those rules from flexing to accommodate the idea. In fact, the early rules were expected to be bent by creative players. No, it isn't "By the BOOK rulez!" But it is acknowledging a good idea...




I don't think it is a similar feel - 4E players know that skill challenges are part of the system and it's a consideration during character creation as in "what do I want to be good at besides straight-up combat." They can use ability score placement, trained/untrained skill selections, feats, powers, multiclassing, and even magic items to design for this. Basic/1E players don't have to worry about this as the system primarily describes combat and leaves the rest to the players and DM to work out. Quantifying non-combat/thievery character abilities in a Basic/1E game is a fairly significant change that goes way beyond letting you add skill challenges - typically it stomps on the Thief class in particular - so it's not as simple as just bolting something on. Player expectations are a factor too as a lot of the appeal of the old games is that they are fast and loose outside of combat and adding a skill system can drag that down

I'm not disagreeing that it's possible to rig up something like a skill challenge in any edition - I'm saying that we didn't then and that it's not a good fit with some of them. I could add a powers system onto a Basic game if I wanted to but that doesn't make it a good idea. There is an emphasis on different things in each edition and some of them work fine with it - 3E gives a player most of the same tools as 4E to optimize for skill challenges, losing the powers angle but gaining multiclassing flexibility - but some of them don't. 

Your original comment was that you could rig up a skill challenge system for traps in any edition - In 1E the Thief has the trap-defeating skills so he's the guy who does it when mechanical resolution is called for. When the DM wants more it involves descriptions of who's looking where and for what. I just haven't seen a huge demand for an in-between step like a skill challenge in those games and the mechanics and class structure don't really support it.


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