I really don't get it: Bulmahn&Co. and Game Balance

[Psychic Robot]

I just don't get it. I just can't comprehend it. Do they not understand what makes something balanced or unbalanced?

1. Bards get a DC 40+ save-or-die.
2. Monks become even more useless with their DR-bypassing abilities limited by their ki pool.
3. Barbarians still spend 8 rage points to +1d6 elemental damage on their attacks for one round. They can spend 4 rage points to get +20 damage on one attack (at level 20).
4. Wizards are still broken. So are clerics.

I mean, this is all stuff that is fairly fundamental design balance stuff. I just don't understand it. Do they not understand the concept of balance?

(It's just very frustrating to see this sort of thing.)

[Jerry]

You don't need to be a probability expert to write a D&D supplement. Game balance doesn't even need to be your design goal.

[Harlune]

4. Wizards are still broken. So are clerics.

Well they have nerfed SoD's and the 'Yay! I'm better than a equal level fighter now and can still cast all my spells' buffs what else can they do to balance clerics that won't also drag them down to the level of an Everquest style healbitch cleric? There has to be some good middle ground between the 2e and 3e cleric.

[virgil]

I suppose they nerfed Save or Die, except for the fact that they really just put a greater emphasis on Save or Lose, which hasn't lost anything. As for the cleric, being better than the fighter was more of a side job, because being better than crap and still casting spells isn't much of an accomplishment.

[Voss]

You don't need to be a probability expert to write a D&D supplement. Game balance doesn't even need to be your design goal.

No, its true, you don't. But it helps if the designer isn't a blithering moron who can't even read the text he writes and realize its fucked up beyond belief.

Really, the man wrote up the bard ability, put the pdf up, someone immediately pointed out the obvious problems, and his reply?

'Oh, its at the top of my fix list'.

What the hell? The problem didn't even exist until he wrote it- why include it if its that fucked up?


As for balance... yes. If your goal is for some players to have fun, and other players not to have fun, yeah, you can totally ignore that. Perfect balance isn't likely to happen, but you can and should make a reasonable attempt at it.

[Jerry]

For a game that you guys supposedly like, you sure complain about the rules a lot.

[Calibron]

Har har, that's certainly something we've never heard before.

[Leress]

For a game that you guys supposedly like, you sure complain about the rules a lot.

If we didn't like it we won't give a damn how well it functions. Also I personally complain more because this guy is getting paid to do this, so I expect higher quality when it comes to making rules and such. Doing the let's just snatch form other d20 product and see what sticks is just not good. I would expect this from homebrewers on forums but not form people who get paid. It is made worse because the rules and whatnot he is taken have already been shown not to work...like at all. The A3 release was up for less than a day and there are already major problems with the monk, bard, and ranger. Save or Die spell are beaten to a pulp, but Save or Suck spell have pretty much been left alone.

He seem to chasing problems instead of cutting them off at the pass.

[Leress]

Har har, that's certainly something we've never heard before.

*coughCaptainBleachcough*

[Jerry]

Har har, that's certainly something we've never heard before.

*coughCaptainBleachcough*

LOL. But unlike him, I don't really take much said here seriously.

[JonSetanta]

For a game that you guys supposedly like, you sure complain about the rules a lot.

Ouch! My irony lobe is aching.

[Koumei]

Who say we like 3.P? I prefer to think that we dislike it (but not hate it, because I tend to reserve that for Nazis and Scientologists), but that it at least qualifies for our ire, whereas 4E has done a complete faceplant and we stopped caring.

Whereas we like 3.5 enough to make changes to the bad parts to the good majority can be awesome.

[Jerry]

Who say we like 3.P? I prefer to think that we dislike it (but not hate it, because I tend to reserve that for Nazis and Scientologists), but that it at least qualifies for our ire, whereas 4E has done a complete faceplant and we stopped caring.

Whereas we like 3.5 enough to make changes to the bad parts to the good majority can be awesome.

I meant 3.5 in general.

[Koumei]

In which case, I refer you back to "We like it enough to make changes to the bad parts."

But to change those bad parts, Captain, you need to make them known.

[Jacob_Orlove]

Har har, that's certainly something we've never heard before.

*coughCaptainBleachcough*

LOL. But unlike him, I don't really take much said here seriously.

How do you know who he was?

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I think you've got a perfect storm of three factors coming together in Pathfinder:

1. You've got one guy basically doing all the design work by himself (possibly as his first major game design, as opposed to adventure writing) project.

2. He didn't get the job because of his vast design resume, but rather because he happened to work at Paizo and have some 3.5 revision ideas scrawled down.

3. The lead designer is naive enough to expect to get things mostly right his first time out and is genuinely shocked when people point out major problems with his work.

I think Point 3 is the most interesting one here. Any time you try to do a big job like revising 3.5, you're going to get parts wrong no matter who you are (though I still wonder how he decided ki strike was so awesome its use needed to be limited). That's because you probably haven't had a chance to analyze or observe every element of the system in detail. Therefore, when you post your playtest pdf on the internet, somebody who's obsessed with some part of the system that you only have passing experience with (like the guy who really likes the monk concept and has made a million variants in an attempt to improve them) is going to pick that area apart. You need to expect that, and not accuse people of being antagonistic when somebody's thread title says your fix is like a bandaid on a mortal wound.

[Username17]

Point 3 is certainly the most perplexing part of that. 3rd edition D&D is like Linux - it's modular and people make home modifications to it all the time. This version has been out in various forms for 8 years, more than enough time for people to have tried a lot of crazy crap.

If you present a concept to the internet, you shouldn't be at all surprised when someone stands up in another part of the world and says "We tried exactly that, it didn't work and I wouldn't suggest going that route." And what you really shouldn't be is offended when that happens. I mean sure, you should take what people say on the internet with a grain of salt, but automatically discounting people because they tell you that they have experience working on the problem you are working on and that your proposed angle of attack proved unfruitful is batshit insane.

It's an 8 year old product which has been hammered on by "enough monkeys with typewriters" for that entire period. Pretty much anything you make as a minor change has been tried by someone in some form or another. The least you could do is hear what they have to say.

-Username17

[shirak]

Jerry, I'm curious about something. You say we take the game too seriously and complain too much about rules. So why do YOU come here?

I mean, me, I like the atmosphere. I like people giving me mathematical proof that my argument sucks. What do you get out of it? Are you a masochist? Do you just not care and came here "for the lulz", as you put it?

Because your behavior perplexes me. Hell, Captain Bleach annoyed the hell out of me with his requirements out of every game system known to man. You don't even do that. You're like Twoflower only without a many-legged bloody-minded piece of magical wood.

I feel like when we write the annals of the Gaming Den we'll put "Jerry was there too" at the end of a few paragraphs. So seriously. Either start contributing or at least entertains us. This reserved indifference is just weird.

[K]

3. The lead designer is naive enough to expect to get things mostly right his first time out and is genuinely shocked when people point out major problems with his work.

I like to call that "arrogance."

Seriously. The Internet is a meeting place. Smart guys might not even live on your continent, but they are still smart guys and as long as they can back up their ideas with objective data or logical arguments, then listening to them is smart.

I understand that being smart is hard. Pride stings, but to be good at anything you need to let that shit go.

[NoDot]

I feel like when we write the annals of the Gaming Den we'll put "Jerry was there too" at the end of a few paragraphs.

I'd hate to ask, but where am I in these annals of the Gaming Den?

[Leress]

I feel like when we write the annals of the Gaming Den we'll put "Jerry was there too" at the end of a few paragraphs.

I'd hate to ask, but where am I in these annals of the Gaming Den?

I would like to know too?

[Koumei]

I feel like when we write the annals of the Gaming Den we'll put "Jerry was there too" at the end of a few paragraphs.

I'd hate to ask, but where am I in these annals of the Gaming Den?

I'm hoping my name doesn't only crop up there in reference to penises being mentioned/dirty things being said.

You're like Twoflower only without a many-legged bloody-minded piece of magical wood.

A pity, too, considering how awesome the Luggage was.

[Judging__Eagle]

I feel like when we write the annals of the Gaming Den we'll put "Jerry was there too" at the end of a few paragraphs.

I'd hate to ask, but where am I in these annals of the Gaming Den?

I'm hoping my name doesn't only crop up there in reference to penises being mentioned/dirty things being said.

When we talk about justifiably angry Australian lesbians.

Which is like, never. In my experience, usually we talk with you about the above, not about you.

Or weapons appropriate for level 10+ characters. Which, funny enough, seldom, but more often than the above.

Your writing up of "Eleven!!oneonetwo! Testicles" will probably be associated with you. I mean, eleven testicles, how painfully awesome would that be?

[CatharzGodfoot]

Your writing up of "Eleven!!oneonetwo! Testicles" will probably be associated with you. I mean, eleven testicles, how painfully awesome would that be?

Given the amount of time game balance gets "kicked right in the nuts", pretty painfully.

[Maxus]

I feel like when we write the annals of the Gaming Den we'll put "Jerry was there too" at the end of a few paragraphs.

I'd hate to ask, but where am I in these annals of the Gaming Den?

I'm hoping my name doesn't only crop up there in reference to penises being mentioned/dirty things being said.

You're like Twoflower only without a many-legged bloody-minded piece of magical wood.

A pity, too, considering how awesome the Luggage was.

I just laughed my ass off. Someone on the GITP forums has statted out the Luggage. And you just made me remember it...

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/archive/ ... 20985.html