D&D 5E The Fighter/Martial Problem (In Depth Ponderings)

[Micah Sweet]

See, that's why I find the definition of balance that includes maximizing player choice more useful that whatever unstated definition of balance you're using that deem a terrible, choiceless game somehow 'balanced.'

What is that definition, BTW?

Thus the requirement those choices be both meaningful and viable.

I mean, the latter is /better/ wouldn't you agree?

A better balanced game will tend to offer more agency.

The cost of balance is less imbalance, honestly. Complaints about 'how a system is balanced' typically boil down to some of the choices seeming less meaningful - which means it's not actually as well-balanced as it could have been.


If you layer too many restrictions on a system to 'balance' it, you're effectively reducing player choices again, which means you're not balancing it, you're just working with the imbalances it presents. It's similar to taking an imbalanced system with a number of non-viable choices, and just excising those choices. The result is a smaller game that wastes less space and avoids offering 'traps,' but it's still not any better-balanced, because it isn't providing any /more/ choices that are both meaningful and balanced than it did before.

That's another thing useful about this definition, it recognizes that banning or otherwise removing choices is not as good a solution as fixing choices that are non-viable or render other choices non-viable.


Making choice of character meaningless would be self-defeating if you're trying to get a better balanced game.

Perfect balance, is impossible, of course, so trivially it's true that you cannot balance a game for an infinite number of possible ways it might be run.
But improvement is always possible. 5e, for instance, might be balanced in a game that consisted of little more than time-important, 6 or so encounter 'days' consisting almost entirely of combat vs enemies the party outnumbers. That's /very/ narrow. Balance in every conceivable campaign might be unattainable, but balance in more than just /that/ is not too much to ask, indeed, balance in the mode of play surveys show to be the most common 1-3 encounter days, would seem prudent...


With 'viable' as the bar rather than optimal, that's not an impractical thing to work towards. D&D traditionally fails very badly at establishing any sort of balance across campaigns with different emphasis because it makes some classes very flexible and others more highly specialized. Fighting Man and Thief, very specialized, Cleric, less so but forced into healing primarily, Magic-User as flexible as his spell list. Casters in general and wizards in particular have become ever more versatile as the game evolved ("changed slowly over time," 'k? Developed. Whatever), while non-casters have at times become even more specialized.
Classes (if a game goes with them at all) can be differentiated without being given functions so limited and inflexible that they might sit out sessions, or theoretically, even whole campaigns. When they aren't you have "the netrunner problem" which, of course, is a failure to balance classes....

Starting to honestly wonder if there are any games that meet your standards of balance. Do you have any examples?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So I snipped the semantics bit. I just say that I think you're conflating different things thus making communication harder. Balance is each participant having equal impact over the course of the game. Yes, a game that offers the participant more ways to affect the course of the game might be deemed better, but not because it is balanced better. Balance is about the parity of the agency, not about the amount of it. These are separate things, please stop confusingly conflating them.

Perfect balance, is impossible, of course, so trivially it's true that you cannot balance a game for an infinite number of possible ways it might be run.
But improvement is always possible. 5e, for instance, might be balanced in a game that consisted of little more than time-important, 6 or so encounter 'days' consisting almost entirely of combat vs enemies the party outnumbers. That's /very/ narrow. Balance in every conceivable campaign might be unattainable, but balance in more than just /that/ is not too much to ask, indeed, balance in the mode of play surveys show to be the most common 1-3 encounter days, would seem prudent...

But again, you're merely replacing one assumption with another. As long some classes rely more on limited expendable resources than others there will be some refresh rate at which they will be balanced, and if you veer from that imbalance will occur*. Now you could do what 4e did and homogenise classes by giving them all the same resource structure. However, this was not well received.

(*Note, you don't need to always hit this for game to be balanced, if some days favour some classes and some other days some other classes, as long as it roughly averages out the game remains balanced.)

With 'viable' as the bar rather than optimal, that's not an impractical thing to work towards. D&D traditionally fails very badly at establishing any sort of balance across campaigns with different emphasis because it makes some classes very flexible and others more highly specialized. Fighting Man and Thief, very specialized, Cleric, less so but forced into healing primarily, Magic-User as flexible as his spell list. Casters in general and wizards in particular have become ever more versatile as the game evolved ("changed slowly over time," 'k? Developed. Whatever), while non-casters have at times become even more specialized.
Classes (if a game goes with them at all) can be differentiated without being given functions so limited and inflexible that they might sit out sessions, or theoretically, even whole campaigns. When they aren't you have "the netrunner problem" which, of course, is a failure to balance classes....

Yeah, it is a fair point that more flexible classes are less impacted by the varying situation. But should we then force all classes to be the same level of specialisation? Cannot focused specialists exist, or is it that jack of all trades like bards cannot exist? Or do we say that flexibility should have "cost" and we lower the power of generalists? But how much, based on what assumptions? And aren't specialists then just plainly overpowered in campaigns that focus on their specialisation? Seriously, this stuff is complicated.

 

[ECMO3]

It just strikes me as strange that two characters of the same level can have wildly different effectiveness and power.

It is not just two characters of the same level it is 2 characters of the same level, class, subclass and race can have wildly different effectiveness.

Back in the TSR days, this made a little more sense since the xp tables (kind of) reflected that: Thieves didn't get a whole lot from leveling, so they went up levels faster, Fighters get the best improvements so they went up slower. Rangers and Paladins got a little boost over Fighters, so they took even more xp.

This argument is not true in actual 1E play. There were much wider variations in power in the TSR days, in part because of how the ability scores affected each class.

Rangers and Paladins theoretically got a little boost over fighters and theoretically paid for in xp, but in practice it was difficult to actually roll high enough to play either of these classes (near impossible to roll high enough to actually play a Paladin). If you did actually roll high enough you would blow the other characters out of the water because your abilities were so much higher than theirs were.

This idea that balance existed in 1D&D is complete nonsense, there is far les than there is today.

 

[Umbran]

You certainly give that impression with everything else that you say.

Mod Note:
Could you stop making this personal? Thanks.

 

[Aldarc]

But again, you're merely replacing one assumption with another. As long some classes rely more on limited expendable resources than others there will be some refresh rate at which they will be balanced, and if you veer from that imbalance will occur*. Now you could do what 4e did and homogenise classes by giving them all the same resource structure. However, this was not well received.

(*Note, you don't need to always hit this for game to be balanced, if some days favour some classes and some other days some other classes, as long as it roughly averages out the game remains balanced.)

I don't think that the same resource structure is necessarily the problem. If you put 5e class resources on a short rest mechanic, it probably would have been better received than 4e's Encounter Powers. Part of the problem with 4e was in its presentation, namely its bare naked design around encounters. That was perceived as too gamey for some people as it was not rooted in encounters rather than in-game time, which peeved many of the simulationists. (Of course encounter powers also required a short rest to recharge, but still.) But when you look at the warlock, it's all there: at-wills, per short rest abilities, daily abilities, and even rituals.

Moreover, WotC has been increasingly moving in 5e towards homogenizing classes with spells. (I do think that 5e has done far more in making everyone a spellcaster than 4e ever did.)

That said, I would not be opposed to different recharge mechanics, varied class mechanics, or more interesting asymmetric class design, but I don't think that 5e would dare rock the boat. It's overall far too conservative.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I don't think that the same resource structure is necessarily the problem. If you put 5e class resources on a short rest mechanic, it probably would have been better received than 4e's Encounter Powers. Part of the problem with 4e was in its presentation, namely its bare naked design around encounters. That was perceived as too gamey for some people as it was not rooted in encounters rather than in-game time, which peeved many of the simulationists. (Of course encounter powers also required a short rest to recharge, but still.) But when you look at the warlock, it's all there: at-wills, per short rest abilities, daily abilities, and even rituals.

Moreover, WotC has been increasingly moving in 5e towards homogenizing classes with spells. (I do think that 5e has done far more in making everyone a spellcaster than 4e ever did.)

That said, I would not be opposed to different recharge mechanics, varied class mechanics, or more interesting asymmetric class design, but I don't think that 5e would dare rock the boat. It's overall far too conservative.

it's a shame that Wizards was so desparate to distance itself from anything 4e, i think the AEDU design could've been a nice and effective counterpart for 5e martial design to caster's spells and slots design

 

[Aldarc]

it's a shame that Wizards was so desparate to distance itself from anything 4e, i think the AEDU design could've been a nice and effective counterpart for 5e martial design to caster's spells and slots design

13th Age had an interesting mechanic dealing with their escalation die. An escalation die increases every round, which increases to-hit and damage chance. But there were also class mechanics that were tied to this. So a player could decide how early they could use their abilities: early on in the fight as soon as they could or would they wait when they had more favorable conditions with the escalation die. I think that something like this would be interesting for fighters and other martials. But you could also put recharges on the escalation die as well. So maybe you can regain a Maneuever if combat reaches the fourth round.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So I snipped the semantics bit. I just say that I think you're conflating different things thus making communication harder. Balance is each participant having equal impact over the course of the game. Balance is about the parity of the agency, not about the amount of it.

OK, so under that definition, 5e is profoundly imbalanced with a vast gulf between martials and casters - but you could fix that by removing the non-caster sub-classes from the game, entirely, since removing options has no effect on that definition of balance.

But, then, you'd have a game with fewer options, including having excised the most popular option.

By the same token, you could eliminate all sub-classes with any spells at all, making the game a lot more 'rules lite,' /and/ better-balanced, with all of 5 choices in the PH.
How is a definition of balance that would lead you to making games worse a useful definition?

But again, you're merely replacing one assumption with another. As long some classes rely more on limited expendable resources than others there will be some refresh rate at which they will be balanced, and if you veer from that imbalance will occur.

Yes, making resource management a critical part of a cooperative game, then presenting some options which contribute many such resources and other that contribute few or none, is bad for balance (again, either definition), for agency, for playability, for designing challenges - it's just plain bad design.

Now you could homogenise classes by giving them all the same resource structure.

That's not homogenizing classes, tho, its simplifying/consolidating mechanics. It's what 5e did when it made all full casters use the same 9 level progression with a new spell level at each odd numbered level 1-17, cast spells spontaneously using slots, and have at-will cantrips. Then, did some more, by making psionics use spell formats and mechanics.
It's not innately a bad thing by any measure, really, not balance (my preferred definition or yours), not agency, certainly not playability since it reduces complexity...
Now, homogenizing classes could be done by re-cycling abilities, the way 5e gives Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger Combat Styles rather than just fighter getting them, or the way most spellcasting classes have only a minority of their spell lists unique to themselves (in the PH at launch, the Wizard was the champ with 33 - about 10% of all spells presented - uniquely Wizard-only spells, and Sorcerers were the whipping boy, with exactly 0)

Yeah, it is a fair point that more flexible classes are less impacted by the varying situation. But should we then force all classes to be the same level of specialisation?

Force? Classes are choices, class design is not done by the player, so the design of classes isn''t being forced, it should just be trying to present the player with as many good choices as possible. So, specialization in the form of 'dominates play in a narrow scope in return for being worthless most of the rest of the time' - in a cooperative game, probably a bad idea. Even if it were, say, mathmatically balanced over a long, currated, series of situations, it doesn't seem like recipe for good play experiences.... I've already mentioned "netrunner problem," right?

Now, if the players have significant agency to shape the situations they face, it may make sense to make that a primary focus of play. Players devise characters that are optimal for a specific situation, then apply said agency to bring about that situation. The game is won or lost in engineering situations, not in resolving them.
Doesn't actually change anything, the game would still need to be balanced, this time the balance would be around the plotting that brings about the desired situation, which in effect becomes a foregone victory.
This style of game is sometimes called 'CaW'

Cannot focused specialists exist, or is it that jack of all trades like bards cannot exist? Or do we say that flexibility should have "cost" and we lower the power of generalists? But how much, based on what assumptions? And aren't specialists then just plainly overpowered in campaigns that focus on their specialisation? Seriously, this stuff is complicated.

It depends on the scope of the game and the variability of that scope. D&D presents itself as a generic fantasy game for characters as minor as apprentices, or as earth-shaking as the gods themselves. It delivers a system that may arguably be balanced if you run little more than 6-encounter dungeon crawls that must be finished w/in 24 hours and consist mostly of combat encounters where the monsters are outnumbered, and the party's level is in the range of 3-10.
So, yeah, if you want a game with a narrowly defined, consistent scope, you can have characters who are tightly specialized in something common/important w/in that scope, and others that are nearly as effective, more generally with virtually everything w/in that scope and maybe other things outside it that may happen once in a blue moon.
If you want a game with a more expansive scope that might be run with very different emphasis w/in that, then, no, idiot-specialist is not a good design option even if you make it wildly effective if it ever comes up, every character will need to be usefully, and distinctly, contributing most of the time.

 

[Oofta]

it's a shame that Wizards was so desparate to distance itself from anything 4e, i think the AEDU design could've been a nice and effective counterpart for 5e martial design to caster's spells and slots design

I understand why the version had it's fans but they left it behind because it didn't work very well for what people want out of D&D. They did extensive polling, surveys and gathered feedback there simply wasn't demand to continue that particular experiment.

The AEDU structure made playing different classes oddly similar to me, along with what to me was the supernatural nature of powers, was a big drawback for me and for the vast majority of people I played with. Out of 20+ people that stuck around until the end, 1 person was dissapointed to leave 4E behind.

 

[James Gasik]

It is not just two characters of the same level it is 2 characters of the same level, class, subclass and race can have wildly different effectiveness.



This argument is not true in actual 1E play. There were much wider variations in power in the TSR days, in part because of how the ability scores affected each class.

Rangers and Paladins theoretically got a little boost over fighters and theoretically paid for in xp, but in practice it was difficult to actually roll high enough to play either of these classes (near impossible to roll high enough to actually play a Paladin). If you did actually roll high enough you would blow the other characters out of the water because your abilities were so much higher than theirs were.

This idea that balance existed in 1D&D is complete nonsense, there is far les than there is today.

Well, as for Paladins and Rangers, not really. Don't forget that higher ability scores don't generally mean much in AD&D until you get to very high numbers. I mean, let's look at the Paladin for example.

Str 12, Int 9, Wis 13, Con 9, Cha 17. I can't recall if Paladins gain bonus spell slots for high Wisdom, but even if they do, that 13 means they get an additional 1st level spell slot at level 9. So the only real benefit here is that 17 Charisma for the 10 Henchman and +30% loyalty bonus and reaction adjustment. I don't know if that's blowing other characters out of the water, it probably depends on the campaign, but in my personal experience, I never saw that as being the case.