# Should the game be "balanced" and what does that mean?



## Malmuria (Jul 19, 2022)

I recently came across a twitter thread criticizing the lack of DM support in 5e that seemed to gain a lot of traction.  The argument was this:


It seems to me a pretty common complaint, and especially one that pushes people to Pathfinder 2e (and perhaps also to Level Up or products like Flee Mortals from MCDM).  The main objection with the lack of DM support is that the game  is not "balanced" in a way that allows for the DM to play it with "mechanical integrity."  I think this means that the author here wants as a DM to present authentically challenging encounters (where they don't have to fudge dice or HP) while still generally having the players emerge victorious if they are tactically competent.  In sum, "combat as sport."  This would supposedly enable WOTC to add in more character options (classes, feats, etc) without "breaking" the game (also similar to pathfinder 2 (apparently; I have no experience with pathfinder).

Now, contra some of the claims of the OSR, concern for game balance is not new to wotc editions.  But "balance" and "breaking" are terms we use a lot in talking about games, and it might be worth interrogating what we really mean.  What do we want if we want the game to be "balanced"?  What counts as "breaking" the game?  What does more DM support look like--a more streamlined game or one with more precise math?  Extensive rules and subsystems (strongholds, magic item economy, water combat) or more vague advice on how to design your own?

For example, one response agreeing with the above twitter thread gave a very specific example of the 5e being unbalanced and not supporting DMs: random encounter tables that are not balanced for party level, so that 1st level characters have a chance of randomly meeting a manticore, which will tpk them.  Because players will have their characters fight the manticore, rather than parlaying or running away.  Is that what balance means?  And if so, should a design ethos focused on balance and explicit and extensive rules underpin the game as a whole?

Note: this issue probably doesn't matter to most 5e players, and so perhaps shouldn't even be a concern for the revised edition.  Carry on.


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## Jer (Jul 19, 2022)

I had to go back to the very first post to see what he was talking about in context.

And then I laughed for a full 5 minutes.

Nearly 50 years of game play and revisions and new editions and that very first post with the complaint in it could have come from a Dragon Magazine letter written in 1983.  Heck I probably can dredge up an issue that has a very similar Forum letter in it.  Except it would have been written about AD&D 1e.

Anyway what is balance? Balance is the game runs at my table without me having to do a lot of work to make it run.  What is an unbalanced game? An unbalanced game is one that gets away from me and my players in a way that makes it unfun for us because it turns into a job instead of a game.

I will also take issue with his second Tweet that you quote above - 5e actually IS a game whose mechanics, EXCEPT FOR THE COMBAT ENGINE, are a narrative focused rules-lite game.  The game basically boils down to "roll a d20, add a number, try to beat a difficulty number" outside of combat - it doesn't get much more rules lite than that.  It's a narrative focused rules-lite game with a slightly more complex tactical combat engine bolted onto it.  The mistake is in thinking that because it has a somewhat crunchy somewhat tactical combat engine that means that all three "pillars" of the game are equally crunchy - and it really isn't.

And he's actually doing what I actually encourage folks who are thinking along these lines to do - start looking at other games!  D&D is not and should not be the be-all end-all engine when it comes to RPGs.  It's a great intro to the idea of roleplaying, and for some folks it's exactly in the sweet zone for rules and they never need to look any farther.  But if you're hitting the limits of what the system can do and it's causing you to lose enjoyment in the system then trying a different game is exactly the right thing to do!  It's what we always did once AD&D started to chafe.

Edit - on thinking about it further - "narrative focused' is wrong because there's actually no focus in the non-combat portions of the game at all.  D&D's non-combat rules are a freeform improv framework.  The focus has to be brought by the DM and the players at the table rather than by explicit rules to reinforce a narrative.


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## payn (Jul 19, 2022)

Well the random monster table sounds like its bad adventure writing and not an unbalanced game. This is a long held tradition of random tables. Some folks think there should be Froghemoths that 1st level characters can encounter if they are unlucky in the draw. Smart players should run away. Thats a bit old school of an idea I think. In nu skool, random encounter tables are  constructed with thought in that any encounter on the table makes both narrative sense, and is something that the party should be able to handle. Further, bounded accuracy makes this actually work better than it has in the past. So, I don't find this argument about 5E very compelling.

Now the tweet in the OP, seems to be talking about missing rules for perceived important things. Sounds like some chafe against rulings over rules philosophy. You dont need a rule for every instance, the GM can just arbitrate it as necessary. This being seen as a weakness or imbalance, is sort of why rules over rulings was popular about 20 years ago. There certainly is a difference in playstyle here, but im unsure what it has to do with balance?


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## Malmuria (Jul 19, 2022)

payn said:


> There certainly is a difference in playstyle here, but im unsure what it has to do with balance?



For example, players who want a magic item economy in which the power of a magic item is quantified in a more explicit way.  But yes balance and dm support are somewhat conflated here


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## payn (Jul 19, 2022)

Malmuria said:


> For example, players who want a magic item economy in which the power of a magic item is quantified in a more explicit way.  But yes balance and dm support are somewhat conflated here



Yeap, all part of the rulings over rules. Folks found even in the 3E era where they tried to explicitly make economies in the rulebook, they still made no sense. To me, this is like a macro complaint of the "only can do things on my character sheet" only its now "I can only do things in game that are in the rulebook." Both players and GMs could learn to be a little more flexible and quick on their toes with the game. Of course, some tastes like that combat as sport codified gaming style and its totally valid too. Though, they should keep in mind 5E is not a rules lite game. Its a rules lite D&D edition.


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## Jer (Jul 19, 2022)

payn said:


> To me, this is like a macro complaint of the "only can do things on my character sheet" only its now "I can only do things in game that are in the rulebook." Both players and GMs could learn to be a little more flexible and quick on their toes with the game.



I think that's a bit harsh - I do think that 5e does not do a great job of explaining what kind of game it actually is and expectations get set in wrong ways.  Because it looks like the kind of game that wants to give you all of the answers - I mean, there are 3 whole books of rules! Long tables of equipment! Pages and pages of magic items and a whole DMG full of stuff! Shouldn't all of your answers be in there somewhere?  

And I think that lack of explanation of what kind of game it is stems from its origin as a compromise edition between the folks who thought 3e and 4e were just too much complexity and wanted to go back to a more freeform handwavy game and the folks who liked the structure that 3e and 4e brought but thought that it took things too far.  And I personally also suspect that Wizards basically thought this edition was going to be the "caretaker edition" where they'd keep the game in print and the brand active as a low selling game with a reduced staff to support it so they didn't need to really engineer the heck out of the game they way they did with 3e and 4e - and then were surprised to find out that the market was hungry for an _under_-engineered game again.  I think that they don't explain what kind of game it is because they didn't really know what they were making when they made it and stumbled into something by accident. Heck sometimes I'm not sure they've figured out what kind of game they've made even after 8 years of shepherding it...


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## Malmuria (Jul 19, 2022)

payn said:


> Yeap, all part of the rulings over rules. Folks found even in the 3E era where they tried to explicitly make economies in the rulebook, they still made no sense. To me, this is like a macro complaint of the "only can do things on my character sheet" only its now "I can only do things in game that are in the rulebook." Both players and GMs could learn to be a little more flexible and quick on their toes with the game. Of course, some tastes like that combat as sport codified gaming style and its totally valid too. Though, they should keep in mind 5E is not a rules lite game. Its a rules lite D&D edition.




I agree...I think 5e could handle being a rules lite game with rules medium combat when it was just the PHB.  Looking at the new UA, it strikes me that every addition and change (feats, races, class features) makes the combat part of the game more complex and slower without, seemingly, satisfying the subset of players who want a more balanced, tactical combat-as-sport game.  I know this happened with 3e--bloat--but if they want to make revised 5e and continuation of the current, I don't know what exactly they can (except to stop publishing new character options)


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## Umbran (Jul 19, 2022)

Malmuria said:


> I recently came across a twitter thread criticizing the lack of DM support in 5e that seemed to gain a lot of traction.




First, just to clear the air here - 5e does not pretend to be a narrative-focused, rules lite game.  This is just... incorrect.  It may be seen as _slightly_ more narrative focused and lite than some previous editions.  But it has no pretensions of being lite or narrative as compared to the broader gaming ecology out there.

I have seen this assertion before in discussions here - they are usually the result of someone taking what another person has said, driving it to a pole, and asserting the game itself claims to be thus.  But in all honestly, if you look at the game itself, it doesn't.

That aside, and ignoring other nitpicks on the twitter thread, yes, I think going forward the game should be balanced.  And I mean balance in the sense that by and large, most choices available to players should be fairly effective ones.  Balance, from my perspective, is a quality of a system that means the GM does not usually need to work hard to correct for mechanical disparities that lead to disparities in spotlight time and effectiveness.  A player should be able to open the book, make standard choices, and not end up feeling like they made errors, or are stupid, or their character is worthless to the party.

I don't care about balanced economic systems, for example - real economics is tedious, picayune, and poorly understood even by economists.


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## Vaalingrade (Jul 19, 2022)

For all the disparaging of people wanting the rules they paid for to actually have rules and rather insist they be able to improv...

Then the books should have some discussion and instruction on how to improv.

If every answer to the players' questions is 'ask you DM', then the DMG should be telling the DM how to answer and how to arrive at those answers.

And I get why it's not. I'm writing a DMG-type section right now and it's _hard_, especially when you're 20 years deep into DMing by the seat of your pants and can throw out new NPCs like ninja stars. But the fact of the matter is, anyone actually trying to read the thing is not going to be a seasoned game-runner and is going to need guidance on hoe to get there.

Guidance that, not just in 5e, but historically, across most of the hobby, has not been there in the books.


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## Ancalagon (Jul 19, 2022)

To me the balance that matters is balance _between the PCs_.  You don't want a BMX Bandit/Angel Summoner situation.  The DM can always make encounters smarter/tougher, sometimes merely by changing tactics.

And I've been discovering that the balance between PCs is... fraught, because player skill matters almost as much (and sometimes a LOT MORE) than the PC's powers.


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## Jer (Jul 19, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> Then the books should have some discussion and instruction on how to improv.



yes.  This.  They absolutely should.  And it's so much easier now than it was 30 years go because the basics are all right there - have the players roll a die and add a number and decide what happens.  The DMG would be far more useful to new players - though far less useful to me personally - if it had just some casual essays on DMing from different points of view and how to make those kinds of decisions rather than what DMGs have tended to be over the decades.  Just knowing that there's more than one way to make these decisions and that's why you get to make the decisions is like half of figuring these things out.


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## Brotton Goodfellow (Jul 19, 2022)

I think, broadly speaking, that balance means the game is fun to play. Is D&D 5E fun to play? The game as written in the PHB? I believe so. Maybe not as fun as I think it could be (hence the homebrew rules I’ve made), but fun enough that if a friend were to invite me to a basic game I’d jump at the chance. No TCoE or XGtE needed. 

So yes, balance is needed.


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## Mort (Jul 19, 2022)

Ancalagon said:


> To me the balance that matters is balance _between the PCs_.  You don't want a BMX Bandit/Angel Summoner situation.  The DM can always make encounters smarter/tougher, sometimes merely by changing tactics.




Exactly correct. The DM has (edited)huge amounts of room to adjust encounter difficulty, but if the PCs themselves are imbalanced, the play experience suffers.

As for what that means? It means any given PC needs to be to allow the player to adequately contribute during the game session. And yes, contribution is certainly player dependant but if some PCs are able to do anything another one can do AND still do their own schtick, play will suffer for PC white playing second fiddle.



Ancalagon said:


> And I've been discovering that the balance between PCs is... fraught, because player skill matters almost as much (and sometimes a LOT MORE) than the PC's powers.




I think there are elements of this. Interestingly, I've found that player skill tends to matter in different ways than people think.

For example, conventional wisdom is that casters require more player skill than non casters and that players tend to play them once they get better with the rules.

But I've found it usually takes greater player skill to design and effectively play a non caster because non caster players have to know the rules better and how to use them better than caster players in order to effectively keep up. Especially in multiple tiers of play.


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## Shardstone (Jul 19, 2022)

Vaalingrade said:


> For all the disparaging of people wanting the rules they paid for to actually have rules and rather insist they be able to improv...
> 
> Then the books should have some discussion and instruction on how to improv.
> 
> ...



This, this, this, a thousand times this.

I have only been GMing with this edition, since 2015. Learning how to GM is/was very difficult, and is a perishable skill, especially early on. Figuring out how to balance different player expectations, the nebulous rules of exploration and social interaction, when rewards should be given out, and how to pace the game should be done for me in the DMG. I shouldn't have to go trawling up youtube videos, hopping on tiktok, or digging into 50 year old forums in order to run the game.

Almost every single RPG in print right now indeed suffers this same flaw.


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## Shardstone (Jul 19, 2022)

On top of that, the word "balance" _ought to have an official definition!_ If it is THAT important to the game, then the game should explain to you what literally BALANCE means. Not doing so and leaving it to us to argue is assinine!


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## Malmuria (Jul 19, 2022)

Shardstone said:


> On top of that, the word "balance" _ought to have an official definition!_ If it is THAT important to the game, then the game should explain to you what literally BALANCE means. Not doing so and leaving it to us to argue is assinine!



The manticore example struck me, since what was seemingly annoying about it is that it is an unbalanced encounter for level 1 characters.  Unbalanced there means that it is overly deadly if engaged in straight combat.  I personally don't see the problem with that; that's when you come up with other strategies (including running away).


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## TwiceBorn2 (Jul 19, 2022)

Malmuria said:


> For example, one response agreeing with the above twitter thread gave a very specific example of the 5e being unbalanced and not supporting DMs: random encounter tables that are not balanced for party level, so that 1st level characters have a chance of randomly meeting a manticore, which will tpk them.  Because players will have their characters fight the manticore, rather than parlaying or running away.  Is that what balance means?  And if so, should a design ethos focused on balance and explicit and extensive rules underpin the game as a whole?
> 
> Note: this issue probably doesn't matter to most 5e players, and so perhaps shouldn't even be a concern for the revised edition.  Carry on.




I concur with those who would like relative balance between PC powers at a given level. PC powers don't need to be absolutely equal at every level, but they should be roughly comparable so that everyone feels they can contribute equitably.

I am not in favour of complete balance in random encounter tables. As far as I'm concerned, appropriate thematic content in those tables is more important than balance between PCs and adversaries. And within that thematically appropriate content, the tables should contain a range of difficulties, from easy to difficult (i.e., you'd best hide or runaway). We don't live in a "level-balanced world," and I don't think the PCs in the fantasy RPGs I run should, either. They shouldn't be able to outright slaughter everything they encounter. The game has far more tension and excitement when the PCs have reason to fear some of the creatures they encounter, and question their ability to take them head on.

And I make that clear to my players when I start an adventure or campaign. "You are not playing in a level-balanced world. You may encounter things that are deadly and not realistic for your characters to take on. It's up to you to assess risk, and to live with the consequences if you assessed an encounter incorrectly." Of course, I as DM am responsible for dropping a few clues in advance regarding the potential lethality of any given encounter. If the players pick up on the clues, excellent... if they overlook or ignore them, oh well, live and learn.

I am grateful that my players are on the same page and enjoy my approach to GMing. YMMV.


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## MGibster (Jul 20, 2022)

I don't think WotC or any of the writers have ever asserted that D&D is a narrative focused rules lite game.  I would laugh at such an assertion if I ever heard anyone voice that opinion followed by a confused, "Wha-?  You're serious?" I admit to having a hard time figuring out what player characters can do with all the loot they accumulate.  Yeah, the possibilities are near endless, but a lot of the ideas aren't usually possible for itinerate adventurers who don't spend a lot of time in one spot.  D&D has gone far beyond its simply dungeon roots, maybe it's time to rethink how treasure works.  And I do know the DMG has some ideas for rewards to give players aside from gold.


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## Oofta (Jul 20, 2022)

I think perfect balance is a myth, as well as calling D&D rule lite or crunchy is danged nebulous.

You can hand two people exactly the same PC and one will likely be more effective than the other.  It's just reality.  In my home game we have a 16th level monk ... who rarely spends more than 1 or 2 ki points per day.  We have a battlemaster fighter that's used maneuvers so few times I could probably count them without taking off my shoes. 
Every once in a while I remind him he can do an action surge because otherwise he never uses them.

I'm glad they're in my group and we have a lot of fun, but there is no way that they are as effective running their PCs as I have been with similar PCs.  As far as we're concerned though, the game is still enjoyable and balanced because everyone feels like they contribute.

I've never used random tables straight out of the book in any edition, they never made a lot of sense to me.  Fortunately they aren't exactly a core tenet of the game.

As far as rule "lite" or "heavy", it's a spectrum.  Want a truly lite game?  Go out in your back yard and play cops and robber shouting "bang" at each other. I think 3.x was far more rules heavy, but then again for certain aspects so was 2E.  It just depends on what you're looking at and, to a large degree, personal preferences and expectations.  I'm not even sure how I would rank 4E because powers and interactions were very explicitly defined but could be quite complicated in play.

I guess I read things like this and simply think "Okay, D&D 5E isn't for you.  Can't you just say that and move on?  No game can work for everyone, all of this feels like fluffery to prop up your opinion.  That's fine I suppose, but it's not really saying much and just as important it's not necessary."


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## jmartkdr2 (Jul 20, 2022)

Malmuria said:


> The manticore example struck me, since what was seemingly annoying about it is that it is an unbalanced encounter for level 1 characters.  Unbalanced there means that it is overly deadly if engaged in straight combat.  I personally don't see the problem with that; that's when you come up with other strategies (including running away).



This is a distinct lesson the books don't teach.

For players, the lesson is "there are many ways to deal with creatures. Fighting is one, but only one. Running, talking, sneaking past, and others."

For dm's, the lesson is "don't start the encounter by rolling initiative. Players should always have a chance to see things coming and if they see it they should have a choice in how to approach it." 

So the manticore is fine on a level 1 random encounter table *IF* the dm knows that rolling a manticore should be followed by 'evidence of a manticore in the area' and not 'a manticore attacks.'


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## payn (Jul 20, 2022)

Malmuria said:


> The manticore example struck me, since what was seemingly annoying about it is that it is an unbalanced encounter for level 1 characters.  Unbalanced there means that it is overly deadly if engaged in straight combat.  I personally don't see the problem with that; that's when you come up with other strategies (including running away).



I think im fine with it as long as there _are _options, including running away. In some games, like PF2, you wouldn't be able to. (Though, PF2 is pretty clear not to send manticores at level 1 characters.)


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## GMforPowergamers (Jul 20, 2022)

payn said:


> I think im fine with it as long as there _are _options, including running away. In some games, like PF2, you wouldn't be able to. (Though, PF2 is pretty clear not to send manticores at level 1 characters.)



my issue is more with shadows and intellect devourers that have instant death effects on a low CR>


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## Reynard (Jul 20, 2022)

Malmuria said:


> The main objection with the lack of DM support is that the game  is not "balanced" in a way that allows for the DM to play it with "mechanical integrity."



I am always clamoring for more DM support in 5E, and this is absolutely not why. The rules of 5E are simple, the math is transparent and for the most part it is easy to come up with stuff that is "balanced" when it comes to a new monster ability, a magic item or some terrain effect. The reason why 5E needs better DM support is because without it the game gets stuck in the rut of being a game about people that go on adventures and punch stuff and it's frankly not great at that. DM books that life up the exploration and social pillars, that allow PCs to rule nations and lead armies, that make it fun to craft artifacts or work toward immortality, expand the game into spaces that are fun nad interesting and frankly better than another romp through a forest and dungeon to fight a mid level boss to get a clue to the next forest and dungeon where the big boss lives. THAT's why 5E needs DM support -- because DM support expands the game and the game is better when it is about more than fighting bad guys.


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## Malmuria (Jul 20, 2022)

payn said:


> I think im fine with it as long as there _are _options, including running away. In some games, like PF2, you wouldn't be able to. (Though, PF2 is pretty clear not to send manticores at level 1 characters.)



Really?  You can't run away in pathfinder?


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## aco175 (Jul 20, 2022)

Malmuria said:


> For example, one response agreeing with the above twitter thread gave a very specific example of the 5e being unbalanced and not supporting DMs: random encounter tables that are not balanced for party level, so that 1st level characters have a chance of randomly meeting a manticore, which will tpk them. Because players will have their characters fight the manticore, rather than parlaying or running away. Is that what balance means? And if so, should a design ethos focused on balance and explicit and extensive rules underpin the game as a whole?






Malmuria said:


> The manticore example struck me, since what was seemingly annoying about it is that it is an unbalanced encounter for level 1 characters.  Unbalanced there means that it is overly deadly if engaged in straight combat.  I personally don't see the problem with that; that's when you come up with other strategies (including running away).



Does anyone remember the Essential Box DoiP and the 1st level quest that has a manticore.  There was a lot of flak about it being too hard for 1st level, but others said it was a good opportunity for roleplay.


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## payn (Jul 20, 2022)

Malmuria said:


> Really?  You can't run away in pathfinder?



Most things have the speed to keep up. There are some optional chase rules you can engage when retreat is called, but if you are that outmatched its not going to go the way you think. /Mike Erhmantraut


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## payn (Jul 20, 2022)

Reynard said:


> I am always clamoring for more DM support in 5E, and this is absolutely not why. The rules of 5E are simple, the math is transparent and for the most part it is easy to come up with stuff that is "balanced" when it comes to a new monster ability, a magic item or some terrain effect. The reason why 5E needs better DM support is because without it the game gets stuck in the rut of being a game about people that go on adventures and punch stuff and it's frankly not great at that. DM books that life up the exploration and social pillars, that allow PCs to rule nations and lead armies, that make it fun to craft artifacts or work toward immortality, expand the game into spaces that are fun nad interesting and frankly better than another romp through a forest and dungeon to fight a mid level boss to get a clue to the next forest and dungeon where the big boss lives. THAT's why 5E needs DM support -- because DM support expands the game and the game is better when it is about more than fighting bad guys.



The social and exploration pillars always go neglected.


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## Reynard (Jul 20, 2022)

payn said:


> The social and exploration pillars always go neglected.



Only in D&D it seems. Even way back in the day other games managed to do SOMETHING with them.


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## tetrasodium (Jul 20, 2022)

I think that linking to that tweet & trying to start a thread asking for a definition of  "balance" kind of misses the point of the tweet chain where the only use of the word balance is "_If you want to run the game with any mechanical integrity, you spend half the time compensating for rules that just aren't there, and the other half wrestling with the rules that ARE because they're poorly tuned, such as CR and class balance._" kind of ignores the many broader points in the chain itself.  5E is certainly not a rules light narrative system, but it absolutely cuts and designs against a lot of areas while going heavy on "ask your GM" to chase a player facing toehold in a lot of areas.  In that light it's entirely reasonable to reference the rules light efforts of 5e's design with so many years of wotc pushing how 5e  was designed to be easier/less complex or how various simplifications were deliberate choices made to  somehow enable ease of homebrew.

This video did a nice job of getting to the heart of the problem in the tweet linked though


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## Malmuria (Jul 20, 2022)

tetrasodium said:


> I think that linking to that tweet & trying to start a thread asking for a definition of  "balance" kind of misses the point of the tweet chain where the only use of the word balance is "_If you want to run the game with any mechanical integrity, you spend half the time compensating for rules that just aren't there, and the other half wrestling with the rules that ARE because they're poorly tuned, such as CR and class balance._" kind of ignores the many broader points in the chain itself.  5E is certainly not a rules light narrative system, but it absolutely cuts and designs against a lot of areas while going heavy on "ask your GM" to chase a player facing toehold in a lot of areas.  In that light it's entirely reasonable to reference the rules light efforts of 5e's design with so many years of wotc pushing how 5e  was designed to be easier/less complex or how various simplifications were deliberate choices made to  somehow enable ease of homebrew.
> 
> This video did a nice job of getting to the heart of the problem in the tweet linked though




Yeah this is the video that ends with the manticore example, and the video itself talks about the difficulty of building encounters and making monsters that have a predictable CR.  In terms of balance, I think I would still ask why an encounter needs to be balanced, and what does balance means.  It seems to mean that you can play the monsters without fudging dice, and provide a challenging minigame that nevertheless reliably results in PC victory as long as they are decently tactical.  While I agree that encounter building could be more intuitive, I think it's an open question as to whether balance in that sense is a valuable design goal.

The other point in the video is that the DMG and supplements should have reliable subsystems for specific kinds of fantasy rpg things: magic item economy, crafting, strongholds, etc.  That would be helpful!  The dmg is a mess.  Some of those rules might be better left to specific supplements (ship rules in GoS, war rules in the upcoming Dragonlance).


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## payn (Jul 20, 2022)

Malmuria said:


> Yeah this is the video that ends with the manticore example, and the video itself talks about the difficulty of building encounters and making monsters that have a predictable CR.  In terms of balance, I think I would still ask why an encounter needs to be balanced, and what does balance means.  It seems to mean that you can play the monsters without fudging dice, and provide a challenging minigame that nevertheless reliably results in PC victory as long as they are decently tactical.  While I agree that encounter building could be more intuitive, I think it's an open question as to whether balance in that sense is a valuable design goal.
> 
> The other point in the video is that the DMG and supplements should have reliable subsystems for specific kinds of fantasy rpg things: magic item economy, crafting, strongholds, etc.  That would be helpful!  The dmg is a mess.  Some of those rules might be better left to specific supplements (ship rules in GoS, war rules in the upcoming Dragonlance).



I summed this up the other day for my needs and tastes. If I am playing an old school sandbox game, then the manticore is a possibility. To be fair to the players, it will/should be sign posted. Though, its a reality they can encounter and will need to figure out how to survive. If I'm running an adventure path, its a theme that usually has the PCs as good guys who do heroic things. Encounters here are more like set pieces heavily flavored and engaged because they drive the story and enforce the theme. It's not an open game of chance, and wiping out the heroes because of a random roll feels like garbage. 

Now, any way you slice it, I think balanced encounter levels or guidelines are important. You want a baseline to judge what the PCs are facing. Games with bounded accuracy make the manticore thing a bit more survivable than level based games like PF2. The designers need to decide how that plays out at the table. Otherwise, its an entire crapshoot and GMs and players are just guessing what they are capable of.


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## MichaelSomething (Jul 20, 2022)

payn said:


> The social and exploration pillars always go neglected.



I thought lots people liked it that way because they want the "fiction" or the DM's judgement to dictate the situation instead of rules??


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## payn (Jul 20, 2022)

MichaelSomething said:


> I thought lots people liked it that way so that they want the "fiction" or the DM's judgement to dictate the situation instead of rules??



For sure when it comes to social pillar, definitely not so much for exploration pillar. Social doesn't need to be a combat system, it can be a way of downtime, fame, faction play, rise to nobility, maintain a keep/tower, etc... I think folks just like to have a free form handle on how they RP.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 20, 2022)

Shardstone said:


> This, this, this, a thousand times this.
> 
> I have only been GMing with this edition, since 2015. Learning how to GM is/was very difficult, and is a perishable skill, especially early on. Figuring out how to balance different player expectations, the nebulous rules of exploration and social interaction, when rewards should be given out, and how to pace the game should be done for me in the DMG. I shouldn't have to go trawling up youtube videos, hopping on tiktok, or digging into 50 year old forums in order to run the game.
> 
> Almost every single RPG in print right now indeed suffers this same flaw.



You might want to look at Apocalypse World. D&D 4e and 1e also both had pretty good GMing advice because they knew what they were trying to be.


As for balance, balance is information. The key thing about the balance between casters and non-casters is that _at the same level_ the implication is that the power is the same. No one cares that they aren't balanced in Ars Magica; it tells you that on the tin. But the game implies that characters of the same level are the same power - and it lies.


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## Reynard (Jul 20, 2022)

payn said:


> For sure when it comes to social pillar, definitely not so much for exploration pillar. Social doesn't need to be a combat system, it can be a way of downtime, fame, faction play, rise to nobility, maintain a keep/tower, etc... I think folks just like to have a free form handle on how they RP.



There is a difference between "rules" and "support" from the perspective of giving the GM tools and advice to make a thing worthwhile in the game.


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## Oofta (Jul 20, 2022)

MichaelSomething said:


> I thought lots people liked it that way because they want the "fiction" or the DM's judgement to dictate the situation instead of rules??



I absolutely want minimal rules for the social pillar. Honestly not sure what people want on the exploration side.


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## Reynard (Jul 20, 2022)

MichaelSomething said:


> I thought lots people liked it that way because they want the "fiction" or the DM's judgement to dictate the situation instead of rules??



There is a difference between "rules" and "support" when it comes to providing the GM the tools and advice needed to make the social pillar valuable and fun.


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## Oofta (Jul 20, 2022)

Reynard said:


> There is a difference between "rules" and "support" when it comes to providing the GM the tools and advice needed to make the social pillar valuable and fun.




Such as?  With a side of is a rule book really the best way to do it, or is it better to show via modules?

Not saying I disagree,  just don't know what people want. It's not like we've ever had all that much support in the core books.  I guess you could count some of the zillion 2E splat books. Nowadays there are 3PP books, blog posts and video streams that cover it.


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## Undrave (Jul 20, 2022)

Jer said:


> Anyway what is balance? Balance is the game runs at my table without me having to do a lot of work to make it run. What is an unbalanced game? An unbalanced game is one that gets away from me and my players in a way that makes it unfun for us because it turns into a job instead of a game.



Exactly! A DM should be able to grab any ol' adventure at the shop, or off their notes, bring it to ANY table with the appropriate number of players and not have to modify a thing just because the party doesn't include a Cleric, or a Wizard, or a front line fighter. Maybe a certain party composition will make it more difficult, or less difficult, but it will not make it impossible nor a slog.

A game where the players have the tool to overcome challenges, and good tactics can overcome a wonky party composition.

Sometimes the issue can be the adventures themselves, but if it's the basic tools used to build that encounter then the game has a problem. 

Looking at _YOU_, Clay Golem... 

And of course, games where you don't need to contort your narrative or change the rest schedule to include enough encounters to strain the casters and make the Fighter work...


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## Reynard (Jul 20, 2022)

Oofta said:


> Such as?  With a side of is a rule book really the best way to do it, or is it better to show via modules?
> 
> Not saying I disagree,  just don't know what people want. It's not like we've ever had all that much support in the core books.  I guess you could count some of the zillion 2E splat books. Nowadays there are 3PP books, blog posts and video streams that cover it.



WotC just offloading the work of providing GM advice to new folks onto the internet is one of my biggest peeves with their strategy.

Aside from that they just need a DMG2 or the equivalent of the PF Gamemastery guide: a deep dive into all the procedures of the game and how to apply them to everything from courtly intrigue to mass combat to item creation to domain management. The game is poorer for just presenting adventures and ignoring all the other, often much cooler, stuff players can be doing.


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## MGibster (Jul 20, 2022)

payn said:


> The social and exploration pillars always go neglected.



I think one of the reasons the social pillars get ignored is because some classes just aren't good at it.  If I sat down and he told me his campaign was going to be full of interactions with NPCs and it would be important to form social bonds with them, I'm not making a Fighter.  I'm probably going to make a character with Charisma as their main attribute like a Sorcerer, Bard (sorry Snarf), or a Warlock or at the very least something that gets a lot of skill points like a Rogue.


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## Reynard (Jul 20, 2022)

MGibster said:


> I think one of the reasons the social pillars get ignored is because some classes just aren't good at it.  If I sat down and he told me his campaign was going to be full of interactions with NPCs and it would be important to form social bonds with them, I'm not making a Fighter.  I'm probably going to make a character with Charisma as their main attribute like a Sorcerer, Bard (sorry Snarf), or a Warlock or at the very least something that gets a lot of skill points like a Rogue.



That's a failure of the design. If each pillar was equally important,  character generation would provide resources for each pillar, not make you choose between them.


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## payn (Jul 20, 2022)

MGibster said:


> I think one of the reasons the social pillars get ignored is because some classes just aren't good at it. If I sat down and he told me his campaign was going to be full of interactions with NPCs and it would be important to form social bonds with them, I'm not making a Fighter. I'm probably going to make a character with Charisma as their main attribute like a Sorcerer, Bard (sorry Snarf), or a Warlock or at the very least something that gets a lot of skill points like a Rogue.



Yeah, the fighter isn't very good at exploration either. I think the dominate on pillar design needs to be rethought if the game is going to acknowledge three of them. This is an area that no edition has been great at balancing.


Reynard said:


> That's a failure of the design. If each pillar was equally important, character generation would provide resources for each pillar, not make you choose between them.



Yeap, I suggested a bunch of fighter options in a thread a few months ago. Things that give them an edge with military folks and law enforcement. Some type of leadership ability that gives them a place in the social pillar. Not sure if I came up with much for exploration at the time or not.


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## FrogReaver (Jul 20, 2022)

IMO, everyone implicitly agrees that a game must have some degree of balance - for example: no one wants there to only be CR 20 dragons in the world for the level 1 PC's to fight.  That's not balanced!

Since this establishes some degree of balance is to be strived for, the real question is how balanced should the game be?  I'd say a game should be balanced around the characters having strengths and weaknesses and that it's easy to create encounters that challenge any given weakness while not making a PC feel targeted or totally useless for doing so.  As an example 5e does this really poorly for melee PC's (flying/ranged enemies) and allows casters to overcome their weaknesses far to easily (single level multiclass dip for martial AC and single feat to shore up most of their biggest weaknesses (constitution/concentration saves).


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## payn (Jul 20, 2022)

Reynard said:


> WotC just offloading the work of providing GM advice to new folks onto the internet is one of my biggest peeves with their strategy.
> 
> Aside from that they just need a DMG2 or the equivalent of the PF Gamemastery guide: a deep dive into all the procedures of the game and how to apply them to everything from courtly intrigue to mass combat to item creation to domain management. The game is poorer for just presenting adventures and ignoring all the other, often much cooler, stuff players can be doing.



There appears to be a large number of folks just fine with what the rulebooks provide. Even in this thread, posters seem to not understand what folks want beyond it. I agree with you, but there doesn't seem to be a drive to produce it. Maybe that's once bitten, twice shy of the splat era? Maybe, Paizo doled out their GM options because they had to introduce new territory on an older system? Maybe, WOTC is keeping that option in their back pocket when sales slow? Not sure the reason, but it might bring old dogs like me back if they start making it.


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## FrogReaver (Jul 20, 2022)

payn said:


> Yeah, the fighter isn't very good at exploration either. I think the dominate on pillar design needs to be rethought if the game is going to acknowledge three of them. This is an area that no edition has been great at balancing.
> 
> Yeap, I suggested a bunch of fighter options in a thread a few months ago. Things that give them an edge with military folks and law enforcement. Some type of leadership ability that gives them a place in the social pillar. Not sure if I came up with much for exploration at the time or not.



Honestly, fighter is too broad a class for a simple design.  Broad classes need ample mechanical choices to mold them into something more specific and 5e fighters are the 'simple class'.


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## FrogReaver (Jul 20, 2022)

Reynard said:


> That's a failure of the design. If each pillar was equally important,  character generation would provide resources for each pillar, not make you choose between them.



If you could make a character 3x as good at combat by sacrificing social and exploration then that would theoretically work fine, it's just the fighter at best is slightly better than some other classes at combat (and he's arguably worse than most of the naturally charismatic classes).


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## FrogReaver (Jul 20, 2022)

Malmuria said:


> Yeah this is the video that ends with the manticore example, and the video itself talks about the difficulty of building encounters and making monsters that have a predictable CR.  In terms of balance, I think I would still ask why an encounter needs to be balanced, and what does balance means.  It seems to mean that you can play the monsters without fudging dice, and provide a challenging minigame that nevertheless reliably results in PC victory as long as they are decently tactical.  While I agree that encounter building could be more intuitive, I think it's an open question as to whether balance in that sense is a valuable design goal.
> 
> The other point in the video is that the DMG and supplements should have reliable subsystems for specific kinds of fantasy rpg things: magic item economy, crafting, strongholds, etc.  That would be helpful!  The dmg is a mess.  Some of those rules might be better left to specific supplements (ship rules in GoS, war rules in the upcoming Dragonlance).



IMO, all one has to do is consider a game where level 1 PC's always fought CR 20 dragons to realize why that is a valuable design goal.


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## Ancalagon (Jul 20, 2022)

Shardstone said:


> This, this, this, a thousand times this.
> 
> I have only been GMing with this edition, since 2015. Learning how to GM is/was very difficult, and is a perishable skill, especially early on. Figuring out how to balance different player expectations, the nebulous rules of exploration and social interaction, when rewards should be given out, and how to pace the game should be done for me in the DMG. I shouldn't have to go trawling up youtube videos, hopping on tiktok, or digging into 50 year old forums in order to run the game.
> 
> Almost every single RPG in print right now indeed suffers this same flaw.



I was thinking about this the other day.  It's not rare for a DMG to give examples for certain scenes - a chase is a common one.  But I think it would be a good idea to have short examples of other typical scenes - a or warlock infiltrating an enemy camp, a sneaky rogue doing the same, an ambush, a lock opening scene... it would help a lot I think.


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## MGibster (Jul 20, 2022)

Reynard said:


> That's a failure of the design. If each pillar was equally important, character generation would provide resources for each pillar, not make you choose between them.



I'm in agreement.  At least with combat, every character class can easily make meaningful contributions to defeating the bad guys.  And while each class can certainly roleplay and support social encounters in some way, the rules don't really offer a whole lot of support for that.  I've had many games where those playing Monks, Fighters, Rangers, and sometimes even the Rogue (depending on build) essential sit out of social encounters specifically because their characters aren't "good" at them when the other classes outshine them.  I'd like to say that's just stinkin' thinkin', but their not entirely wrong.  

I think every character should be good at talking to NPCs.  Maybe not all NPCs, maybe just a select group of them (soldiers, other students of the arcane, members of their neighborhood, nobility, etc., etc.), but good at talking to someone.  Role playing is what separates D&D from table top war games or board games.  If you're going to have players sit out of social encounters because their not good at them, you might as well play Descent or Warhammer Quest.  



payn said:


> Yeah, the fighter isn't very good at exploration either. I think the dominate on pillar design needs to be rethought if the game is going to acknowledge three of them. This is an area that no edition has been great at balancing.



I guess the Druid and Ranger are pretty good at exploring.  Who else?


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## Ancalagon (Jul 20, 2022)

FrogReaver said:


> If you could make a character 3x as good at combat by sacrificing social and exploration then that would theoretically work fine, it's just the fighter at best is slightly better than some other classes at combat (and he's arguably worse than most of the naturally charismatic classes).




I would say that I feel that the 5e fighter has better "out of combat support" than many prior editions because of the backgrounds.  A fighter can be a sort of backup ranger or rogue for example.  Some of the subclasses also help. 

But it's still a sparce kit compared to some other classes.  And that's why the ranger (well, phb ranger at least) or the monk have gotten flack for being weak in combat - if they were as good as a fighter, why would you ever play a fighter?!?


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## Undrave (Jul 20, 2022)

MGibster said:


> I'm in agreement. At least with combat, every character class can easily make meaningful contributions to defeating the bad guys. And while each class can certainly roleplay and support social encounters in some way, the rules don't really offer a whole lot of support for that. I've had many games where those playing Monks, Fighters, Rangers, and sometimes even the Rogue (depending on build) essential sit out of social encounters specifically because their characters aren't "good" at them when the other classes outshine them. I'd like to say that's just stinkin' thinkin', but their not entirely wrong.



The worst part is when they use Intimidate as an exemple of a skill you can misuse and cause a situation to get worse and it's often the only one a Fighter or Barbarian gets naturally....

It's too easy to make things worse if you're not good at social stuff, to the point where you prefer to sit back and stay quiet.

A lot of people who, coincidentally, might enjoy D&D are also prone to the same attitude in real life... so that doesn't help.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jul 20, 2022)

What is balance, in the TTRPG sense? It is:

Defining the purpose and intended experience of play in clear and useful language,
Forming specific, testable design goals based on the previous definition,
Writing provisional rules which seek to implement those design goals,
Setting ranges of acceptable performance for meeting those design goals,
Performing rigorous, thorough testing, preferably statistical in nature, 
Modifying the rules from step 3 where they fail to fall within the ranges from step 4,
Repeating steps 3-6 until no further areas remain which are outside the parameters, OR until you come to believe the design goal you set is not feasible, at which point, return to step 2 and revise that goal, then proceed as before.
Any game which performs these functions will, by definition, be balanced. This does not guarantee that it will be a good game, nor a game that is enjoyable. Those qualities are bound up in the decisions the designer must make, that is, they are about making wise design choices and correctly identifying what players value _about_ the gameplay experience.

Balance cannot make a poor game idea good. But imbalance can make a great game idea fail. That is the crux of design: you must have an idea worth pursuing and a solid execution of that idea. Stumble in either part and you lose.


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## Reynard (Jul 20, 2022)

FrogReaver said:


> If you could make a character 3x as good at combat by sacrificing social and exploration then that would theoretically work fine



I disagree. if the game is designed around those 3 pillars, then each character needs to be able to equally contribute to each of those pillars. In such a game, social and exploration would be just as important as combat and so making yourself useless in the others to be awesome in one would, at best, be bad form. I remember many arguments during the 3E era about whether it was okay to create suboptimal characters fir "roleplay" purposes.


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## FrogReaver (Jul 20, 2022)

Ancalagon said:


> I would say that I feel that the 5e fighter has better "out of combat support" than many prior editions because of the backgrounds.  A fighter can be a sort of backup ranger or rogue for example.  Some of the subclasses also help.
> 
> But it's still a sparce kit compared to some other classes.  And that's why the ranger (well, phb ranger at least) or the monk have gotten flack for being weak in combat - if they were as good as a fighter, why would you ever play a fighter?!?



The thing is, outside specific builds using the -5/+10 feats, the ranger and monk tend to be just as good in combat as the fighter for most of the game.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 20, 2022)

Reynard said:


> I disagree. if the game is designed around those 3 pillars, then each character needs to be able to equally contribute to each of those pillars. In such a game, social and exploration would be just as important as combat and so making yourself useless in the others to be awesome in one would, at best, be bad form. I remember many arguments during the 3E era about whether it was okay to create suboptimal characters fir "roleplay" purposes.



The thing is the three pillars aren't equal in terms of how much contribution is needed at once or the consequences for a weak link. Everyone fights and fights are to the death. Meanwhile if one person scouts that's normal - and one person leads the talking. And both rarely directly lead to death.


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## FrogReaver (Jul 20, 2022)

Reynard said:


> I disagree. if the game is designed around those 3 pillars, then each character needs to be able to equally contribute to each of those pillars. In such a game, social and exploration would be just as important as combat and so making yourself useless in the others to be awesome in one would, at best, be bad form. I remember many arguments during the 3E era about whether it was okay to create suboptimal characters fir "roleplay" purposes.



I don't think so.  Once upon a time I played in a party that the DM had houserules benefiting a particular character that made the PC very strong in combat.  I mean like SS+SBE+Precision attack battlemaster strong with no investment whatsoever.  I had thought of making a more combat focused character, but instead I made a non-combat focused sorcerer and it was really fun.  In combat I spent most of my time failing at my attempts to grapple the enemies.  So why exactly do you think it's necessary for all characters to contribute equally in all pillars?


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## Reynard (Jul 20, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> The thing is the three pillars aren't equal in terms of how much contribution is needed at once or the consequences for a weak link. Everyone fights and fights are to the death. Meanwhile if one person scouts that's normal - and one person leads the talking. And both rarely directly lead to death.



That's because D&D isn't actually _designed_ around the 3 pillars. The vast majority of the design is directed at combat, with next to none pointed at the social pillar.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 20, 2022)

FrogReaver said:


> The thing is, outside specific builds using the -5/+10 feats, the ranger and monk tend to be just as good in combat as the fighter for most of the game.



I can't agree here. The ranger and the monk are good in combat _at what they do_. A ranger archer is about as good as a fighter archer. But rangers don't tank well and there's basically no good strength-based ranger while paladins out of combat are niche other than a decent charisma.

Also you talk about builds using the -5/+10 feats. The fighter should reach [Stat 20] with a combat feat by level 8; the ranger only gets there four levels later. Meanwhile the fighter archer gets their third attack at level 11. It's not really "specific builds" where an archer takes sharpshooter.

On the flipside I'd point out that the more recent fighter subclasses (Rune Knight, Echo Knight, Psi Warrior, Tasha's Battlemaster) don't actually lose to non-shadow monks out of combat.


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## payn (Jul 20, 2022)

FrogReaver said:


> I don't think so.  Once upon a time I played in a party that the DM had houserules benefiting a particular character that made the PC very strong in combat.  I mean like SS+SBE+Precision attack battlemaster strong with no investment whatsoever.  I had thought of making a more combat focused character, but instead I made a non-combat focused sorcerer and it was really fun.  In combat I spent most of my time failing at my attempts to grapple the enemies.  So why exactly do you think it's necessary for all characters to contribute equally in all pillars?



I know you didn't ask me, but I'm going to chime in on this. You attest to the problem itself with your caster example. You got to choose what the character was good and bad at. As a caster the character can focus on combat, exploration, or social. Often times, all three at later points in the game. The fighter doesn't get any choice in the matter. It's only combat for them. So, that sets up the class discrepancy issue the game has long been known for. Giving all classes some choice in how they contribute opens up variety and makes the game more interesting.

It is also not necessary for every character to contribute _equally, _but they should be able to contribute _something _in each pillar. I don't like sitting around while somebody else explores or socializes. Again, in your example, even the caster can occasionally grapple something and contribute. They may suck, but they are not doing nothing either. More importantly, the caster can change spells or gain new ones and stop sucking in combat organically through play if they like. Not so much for other classes.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jul 20, 2022)

Neonchameleon said:


> Tasha's Battlemaster



Not meaning to get too involved in this specific discussion, but did Tasha's rewrite the Battle Master? I don't recall having ever heard such a thing.


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## Bacon Bits (Jul 20, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Not meaning to get too involved in this specific discussion, but did Tasha's rewrite the Battle Master? I don't recall having ever heard such a thing.



It added a number of maneuvers, including several non-combat maneuvers.


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## EzekielRaiden (Jul 20, 2022)

Bacon Bits said:


> It added a number of maneuvers, including several non-combat maneuvers.



...oh. That's...disappointing.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 20, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> Not meaning to get too involved in this specific discussion, but did Tasha's rewrite the Battle Master? I don't recall having ever heard such a thing.



Tasha's added a collection of maneuvers, several of which let you use your superiority dice on skills effectively giving you something close to Expertise. The important three (particularly the latter two) are below.
Ambush​When you make a Dexterity (Stealth) check or an initiative roll, you can expend one superiority die and add the die to the roll, provided you aren't incapacitated.​Commanding Presence​When you make a Charisma (Intimidation), a Charisma (Performance), or a Charisma (Persuasion) check, you can expend one superiority die and add the superiority die to the ability check.​Tactical Assessment​When you make an Intelligence (Investigation), an Intelligence (History), or a Wisdom (Insight) check, you can expend one superiority die and add the superiority die to the ability check.​
With 17 skills in 5e and either six skills in two maneuvers or seven in three that's a pretty decent range. It also IMO goes some way to fixing the critique of the battlemaster that at level 7, 10, and 15 you can only pick maneuvers that weren't good enough for you at level 3 when three of your maneuvers extend your range into non-combat pillars rather than are competing for when you'd use them with the other combat maneuvers. (Of course the two at L15 are still pretty redundant).


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## Bacon Bits (Jul 20, 2022)

EzekielRaiden said:


> ...oh. That's...disappointing.



Eh. They're pretty narrow. One is Stealth (or Initiative). One is Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion. One is Investigation, History, or Insight.

Besides, the game is on it's pendulum swing back towards more narrative focus. I don't expect WotC not to listen to criticism that free-form roleplay and off-stat skill checks alone aren't compelling enough options outside of combat. Especially when they're finding the short rest focus of the class to be more of a drawback than a benefit for many tables.


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## Reynard (Jul 20, 2022)

Bacon Bits said:


> Eh. They're pretty narrow. One is Stealth (or Initiative). One is Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion. One is Investigation, History, or Insight.
> 
> Besides, the game is on it's pendulum swing back towards more narrative focus. I don't expect WotC not to listen to criticism that free-form roleplay and off-stat skill checks alone aren't compelling enough options outside of combat. Especially when they're finding the short rest focus of the class to be more of a drawback than a benefit for many tables.



Having to give up a limited resource for a non combat ability weakens the class rather than expands it. It would be better if all maneuvers worked like Ambush and had both in and out of combat applications.


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## Umbran (Jul 20, 2022)

Shardstone said:


> I shouldn't have to go trawling up youtube videos, hopping on tiktok, or digging into 50 year old forums in order to run the game.




I'm going to push back on that a little bit.

The actual rules of non-competitive chess are short.  You can pick them up and read them, and play the game.  But, let's face it - that will yield you only the most basic play possible in the game.  If you want to play chess at higher levels, you need to _study_ the play of chess.  You need to read books, watch and analyze the play of others, and play the game frequently.  There have been tens to hundreds of thousands of publications (books, magazines, articles, and so on) about chess that avid players consume with relish.

And chess is a game with a strictly delineated set of moves a player can legally make at any given turn.  D&D, on the other hand, is a game where the space of options for a player at any given moment is vast, and not clearly demarcated.

So, I'm going to suggest that we should consider exactly what our expectations of play are on a reading of the rules, vs what we expect out of years of play and study of the game.


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## Neonchameleon (Jul 20, 2022)

Reynard said:


> Having to give up a limited resource for a non combat ability weakens the class rather than expands it. It would be better if all maneuvers worked like Ambush and had both in and out of combat applications.



The resource (number of battlemaster maneuvers) wasn't a bottleneck so giving other things to spend it on strengthens the class. I agree that the combat + non-combat setup of Ambush is a better structure and if re-writing the battlemaster the maneuvers should be written that way - but as a patch adding some actual non-combat maneuvers works well. It moves the battlemaster out of combat out of the territory of "commoner with good PR" into the can do something league


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## Bacon Bits (Jul 20, 2022)

Reynard said:


> Having to give up a limited resource for a non combat ability weakens the class rather than expands it. It would be better if all maneuvers worked like Ambush and had both in and out of combat applications.




I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Your argument is that Fireball and Tongues should use different resource pools?


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## Reynard (Jul 20, 2022)

Bacon Bits said:


> I'm not sure what you're suggesting. Your argument is that Fireball and Tongues should use different resource pools?



I wasn't really thinking that way, but now that you mention it, yes. Personally I would go with the difference between "fast casting" and "ritual casting" but that's a little farther afield than the thread topic.


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## SubrosaGames (Jul 20, 2022)

payn said:


> Well the random monster table sounds like its bad adventure writing and not an unbalanced game. This is a long held tradition of random tables. Some folks think there should be Froghemoths that 1st level characters can encounter if they are unlucky in the draw. Smart players should run away. Thats a bit old school of an idea I think. In nu skool, random encounter tables are  constructed with thought in that any encounter on the table makes both narrative sense, and is something that the party should be able to handle. Further, bounded accuracy makes this actually work better than it has in the past. So, I don't find this argument about 5E very compelling.
> 
> Now the tweet in the OP, seems to be talking about missing rules for perceived important things. Sounds like some chafe against rulings over rules philosophy. You dont need a rule for every instance, the GM can just arbitrate it as necessary. This being seen as a weakness or imbalance, is sort of why rules over rulings was popular about 20 years ago. There certainly is a difference in playstyle here, but im unsure what it has to do with balance?



I've always kind of disliked the mechanic where the difficulty of the 'monster' depends on the species of monster. While it is true that some powers/defenses are species-dependent, I like to run games where how powerful a monster is depends on its age. That way, a low level adventurer group can still run into <and defeat> a metallic dragon, say, and hopefully that group will level up fast enough in the story to be ready for the full-powered mother dragon (or perhaps the offended paragon) that hunts them down for revenge...


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## SubrosaGames (Jul 20, 2022)

Reynard said:


> I wasn't really thinking that way, but now that you mention it, yes. Personally I would go with the difference between "fast casting" and "ritual casting" but that's a little farther afield than the thread topic.



Agreed - and not so much off topic of 'balance,' as pertains to character (instead of DM) balance. We have MTAP (magical tapping power pool) and Synergy (non-magical pool that goes off the 'synergy' of your attributes). This type of dual-pool powers structure has allowed several interesting Classes to flourish in our game: Politicians, Minstrels, and the like who have very powerful Synergy-based powers that have nothing to do with magic (or even many times, combat for that matter). We have it so the class you choose has more or less Magic/Synergy than another class, but it is generally expected that everyone has Synergy, and most have at least some access to Magic, at least so you can cast a defensive spell on yourself if you're playing just a straight Warrior.


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## payn (Jul 20, 2022)

SubrosaGames said:


> I've always kind of disliked the mechanic where the difficulty of the 'monster' depends on the species of monster. While it is true that some powers/defenses are species-dependent, I like to run games where how powerful a monster is depends on its age. That way, a low level adventurer group can still run into <and defeat> a metallic dragon, say, and hopefully that group will level up fast enough in the story to be ready for the full-powered mother dragon (or perhaps the offended paragon) that hunts them down for revenge...



Well, a lot of this depends on how you view leveling. For me, the earliest levels are the start of your adventuring career. How you went from just learning to hold a sword to being a legendary swordsmen. Some folks like to start with a background of _dragon slayer_ even at level 1. Bounded accuracy makes this slightly possible (not a solo dragon slayer, but perhaps a member of a large group). So, I would say 5E is capable of doing what you want, but its not a typical situation and one you may need to manufacture. Which is totally acceptable to me. If I wanted a dragon to seek revenge on a party, I'd likely use a low level ally of the dragon and have the PCs interrupt an important mission. Either way, I dont think default encounter rules should account for noobs killing super powerful dragons out of the box. YMMV.


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## Shardstone (Jul 20, 2022)

Umbran said:


> I'm going to push back on that a little bit.
> 
> The actual rules of non-competitive chess are short.  You can pick them up and read them, and play the game.  But, let's face it - that will yield you only the most basic play possible in the game.  If you want to play chess at higher levels, you need to _study_ the play of chess.  You need to read books, watch and analyze the play of others, and play the game frequently.  There have been tens to hundreds of thousands of publications (books, magazines, articles, and so on) about chess that avid players consume with relish.
> 
> ...



There's a world of difference between chess and DnD. Even ignoring that, looking up tips or ideas shouldn't be seen as a stand in for explaining the game in any amount of detail. It's cool these resources exist for DND but that doesn't mean WotC isn't slacking od on prepping me to run the 150 dollar game I just bought.


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## SubrosaGames (Jul 20, 2022)

payn said:


> Well, a lot of this depends on how you view leveling. For me, the earliest levels are the start of your adventuring career. How you went from just learning to hold a sword to being a legendary swordsmen. Some folks like to start with a background of _dragon slayer_ even at level 1. Bounded accuracy makes this slightly possible (not a solo dragon slayer, but perhaps a member of a large group). So, I would say 5E is capable of doing what you want, but its not a typical situation and one you may need to manufacture. Which is totally acceptable to me. If I wanted a dragon to seek revenge on a party, I'd likely use a low level ally of the dragon and have the PCs interrupt an important mission. Either way, I dont think default encounter rules should account for noobs killing super powerful dragons out of the box. YMMV.



We allow people to start as Master Scholars (which means they have greater access in all 15 schools of magic (which means they can cast more various types of spells)), BUT they pay for it DEARLY with a huge increase in their Fortune Point Ratio (which means they will level up much more slowly than a PC who chose to begin the character with more humble abilities). The system is such that a Level 0 Master Scholar has a huge social advantage, and can do all sorts of spells, but still does not have a huge Casting ability and certainly has no Greater Magic, so s/he would still need to apologize or flee from an Immortal or even a nonmagical Politician of higher level. In the many years of playing, I've had both scenarios -- even people starting their characters as slaves specialized in only one or two skills. Both paths, starting with/without power, have their challenges and the advantageous starting characters did not unbalance the game at all if their were other party members (Players) without such advantages, since the latter leveled up much faster. But perhaps that type of thing wouldn't work in most of the game systems out there, and probably not in 5e.


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