@the_spyder Okay, I stand corrected. I'd never heard of any of those terms before World of Warcraft, but then, I don't have much of a history of RPGs before Baldur's Gate, and didn't even play PnP until the last 5 years or so.
@Archaos True, but that's less about characters being balanced against each other, and more about characters being equally useful within the game. Make a campaign where the bounty hunter's abilities are important to the storyline and people will be asking "who plays a swashbuckler over a bounty hunter?".
@the_spyder Okay, I stand corrected. I'd never heard of any of those terms before World of Warcraft, but then, I don't have much of a history of RPGs before Baldur's Gate, and didn't even play PnP until the last 5 years or so.
I have been playing RPGs since long before Baldur's Gate (I first played ADnD in 1980). Maybe some of those terms like DPS where around before WoW, but it was certainty WoW that popularised them.
Of course balance is important. Who would play, let alone make, an intentionally unbalanced game?
I'd complement that by saying that that's what "hard mode" stands for.
No, there's a difference between difficult and balanced. I'm pretty sure we're talking about balance between classes. And yes, classes have to be relatively balanced, because if one or two classes are *wildly* overpowered than no one will use the other ones. And yes, you might say "well, I would play it for RP, I don't care about balance." And that might be true. But for most people, it isn't. I've heard a lot of people say that they play/have played beast master or wizard slayer of shapeshifter for RP reasons, but keep in mind that you are an experienced, veteran player. Basically everyone who clicks on this thread is. The average person is probably going to take class combat ability into account. And That said, playing a wizard slayer isn't really a great example for how balance is unimportant. Baldurs Gate is a balanced game. You can basically solo the game with any character if you know what you're doing, and you probably had a party when you played that wizard slayer anyway. The divide between shapeshifter and berserker is not really that huge, considering it's the divide between one of the weakest, and one of the strongest. Balance doesn't mean everyone is exactly equal. It means the game is relatively playable no matter who you want to RP.
'balance' is appropriate for some games and kills others. One thing I like is the idea of a character that has a rough start, battling against lots of disadvantages against it in the early game, where you are rewarded with a power curve that pays off at the end - you have to earn those superior abilities. The classic example here is the D&D mage. Of course, one of the problems with that is figuring at what point you break even, and when you see the rewards. If the mage is rewarded in power by the end of BG1, then by definition it would be overpowered for even the start of BG2, and is widely derided as cheese by the time you reach ToB. On the other hand, if you pitch it to pay off in the closing stage of SoA, or early ToB, then there would be very little incentive to play one through BG, especially when ToB is not even conceived of when making that first game.
@the_spyder , I thought that point you made about Spiderman vs. the Hulk being epic storytelling was especially insightful. For a skilled player of a game, it can be very satisfying to play a character with a Spiderman level of power and go up against a character with a Hulk level of power.
In BG, that might mean taking a wizard slayer, a totemic druid, a shapeshifter, or a beastmaster up against Sarevok, Irenicus, and Melissan, and we see that actually happening in various no-reload threads on this forum.
That brings up a concept from the second video that @Dee posted in the old thread. There's such a thing as "balancing for skill", and it's important to the replayability and longevity of a game.
Mages are always difficult to balance, conceptually because magic is supposed to be awesome, and if it's not awesome it doesn't feel like magic. You either have something that's too powerful, as is the case with late-game mages, or too weak, as is the case with early-game mages, or so tightly balanced with other classes as to not feel like a mage anymore.
Fifth Edition mages tow the line a bit better, with spells that always feel just a bit stronger than a fighter's longsword, but that never become so potent as to make the fighter obsolete. For my part, I always thought that magic should come at a cost other than spell slots--I had a homebrew system a while ago where casting a spell cost hit points; part of a wizard's training involved learning the self-control needed to not kill yourself. It wasn't necessarily balanced, but it was fun and exciting.
I remember the LARP system we played at uni, the balancing of mages was interesting. Rather than D&D spell slots, they had a mana system, where the you got level-squared +2 mana per day. Spells cost 1-10 mana (cantrips for free), and the game capped at 8th level (which was plenty). However, in addition to mana, you also paid from your life total to cast spells as well, (spell-level+2 - mage level) squared, so 9 life for a spell of the same level as you, 25 for a spell 2 levels about you, 1 for a spell 2 levels (or more) below. For perspective, you start with 30 life, and gain 1 per level, for 37 at the max level.
So yes, the end result was a low level mage who was quite weak, and would spend the early levels hiding in the middle-rear of the party, looking for the opportunity for their 1-shot to make a difference on the day. They could and frequently did lend a significant role-playing contribution though, and could hack it in a fight in an emergency with a spear or dagger if the the player was physically skilled enough to not get hit (or blew hit one-shot on a decent armor spell for the next 5 minutes...)
The fighter class started with a little more health, but gained 6 health per level, here a 'single' hit would do 6 damage, so basically on extra hit per level. They eventually became more skilled or stronger, so by the time they reached 8th level they might hit for double damage all day, or several times a day, and they would be wearing armor equivalent to a mage using spells. The all-day durability of the fighter still made him viable against the potent make-a-splash mage, although less so if you limit the day to a single encounter. As per BG, generally the best strategy was the mage powering the fighter and/or disabling the bad guys, rather than going direct damage. But the square effect really focussed attention, allowing the mage to reach for spells strictly beyond their comfort zone, when the right potent spell at the right time might swing the day, or alternatively running all day as a light support role, making small but effective contributions that would bring the party home.
In a communal LARP system balance is probably more important than a single player game, yet we managed to have very different power curves for classes that played quite differently to each other, where even the relative merits would ebb and flow over the day in a single adventure. Clerics and rogues had their own way of doing things again, and somehow it all worked.
In my homebrew system, a mage has a d12 hit die, putting him on par with the barbarian, and filling a similar role of "I go until I run out of hit points". So mages in my system aren't squishy, but they also become a kind of interesting mix of tank and glass cannon; cast your spells too quickly, and you'll be out of commission before the day really gets going.
I had the whole thing in a PDF, maybe I'll work it again and post it on the forums here someday.
Comments
@Archaos True, but that's less about characters being balanced against each other, and more about characters being equally useful within the game. Make a campaign where the bounty hunter's abilities are important to the storyline and people will be asking "who plays a swashbuckler over a bounty hunter?".
And That said, playing a wizard slayer isn't really a great example for how balance is unimportant. Baldurs Gate is a balanced game. You can basically solo the game with any character if you know what you're doing, and you probably had a party when you played that wizard slayer anyway. The divide between shapeshifter and berserker is not really that huge, considering it's the divide between one of the weakest, and one of the strongest. Balance doesn't mean everyone is exactly equal. It means the game is relatively playable no matter who you want to RP.
In BG, that might mean taking a wizard slayer, a totemic druid, a shapeshifter, or a beastmaster up against Sarevok, Irenicus, and Melissan, and we see that actually happening in various no-reload threads on this forum.
That brings up a concept from the second video that @Dee posted in the old thread. There's such a thing as "balancing for skill", and it's important to the replayability and longevity of a game.
Fifth Edition mages tow the line a bit better, with spells that always feel just a bit stronger than a fighter's longsword, but that never become so potent as to make the fighter obsolete. For my part, I always thought that magic should come at a cost other than spell slots--I had a homebrew system a while ago where casting a spell cost hit points; part of a wizard's training involved learning the self-control needed to not kill yourself. It wasn't necessarily balanced, but it was fun and exciting.
I remember the LARP system we played at uni, the balancing of mages was interesting. Rather than D&D spell slots, they had a mana system, where the you got level-squared +2 mana per day. Spells cost 1-10 mana (cantrips for free), and the game capped at 8th level (which was plenty). However, in addition to mana, you also paid from your life total to cast spells as well, (spell-level+2 - mage level) squared, so 9 life for a spell of the same level as you, 25 for a spell 2 levels about you, 1 for a spell 2 levels (or more) below. For perspective, you start with 30 life, and gain 1 per level, for 37 at the max level.
So yes, the end result was a low level mage who was quite weak, and would spend the early levels hiding in the middle-rear of the party, looking for the opportunity for their 1-shot to make a difference on the day. They could and frequently did lend a significant role-playing contribution though, and could hack it in a fight in an emergency with a spear or dagger if the the player was physically skilled enough to not get hit (or blew hit one-shot on a decent armor spell for the next 5 minutes...)
The fighter class started with a little more health, but gained 6 health per level, here a 'single' hit would do 6 damage, so basically on extra hit per level. They eventually became more skilled or stronger, so by the time they reached 8th level they might hit for double damage all day, or several times a day, and they would be wearing armor equivalent to a mage using spells. The all-day durability of the fighter still made him viable against the potent make-a-splash mage, although less so if you limit the day to a single encounter. As per BG, generally the best strategy was the mage powering the fighter and/or disabling the bad guys, rather than going direct damage. But the square effect really focussed attention, allowing the mage to reach for spells strictly beyond their comfort zone, when the right potent spell at the right time might swing the day, or alternatively running all day as a light support role, making small but effective contributions that would bring the party home.
In a communal LARP system balance is probably more important than a single player game, yet we managed to have very different power curves for classes that played quite differently to each other, where even the relative merits would ebb and flow over the day in a single adventure. Clerics and rogues had their own way of doing things again, and somehow it all worked.
I had the whole thing in a PDF, maybe I'll work it again and post it on the forums here someday.