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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition (A5E)
Class Balance In A5E: How Much Damage Should A Damage Dealer Deal?
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<blockquote data-quote="CapnZapp" data-source="post: 8086191" data-attributes="member: 12731"><p>The proper way to balance any game is to design for the extremes.</p><p></p><p>It's better if the developers mistakenly believe a build intended to be a top tier damage dealer does 110 DPR at some level, but in reality players struggle to get over 90 DPR (say). The worst case scenario here is that other builds get explored and preferred by the player base. This increases choice.</p><p></p><p>The opposite scenario, where the designers mistakenly think their build tops out at 110 DPR, but canny players get it to do maybe 140 DPR, is worse, since every other damage-dealing build is now clearly inferior. This reduces choice.</p><p></p><p>In the case of 5th Edition, the situation is excruciating. Some builds deal easily twice the damage, without any discernible drawbacks. (And I'm not comparing to obviously ineffective builds. I'm comparing to builds the game clearly expect to be viable. But how much must you love a particular build to justify being <strong>half</strong> the hero of someone better at charbuild?!) The devs create monsters for non-optimized builds with minimal crunch, making nearly every min-maxed build using the tools provided by the PHB run circles around monsters.</p><p></p><p>It's much easier to nerf an encounter than to meaningfully improve upon it. That is, if three Blorgons is too much for a newb party, or one where nobody cares about DPR, the GM can easily use two Blorgons. Or use half-strength Blorgons. Or use lower-levelled monsters. Or simply play the Blorgons ineffectively.</p><p></p><p>But if three Blorgons is a joke to a hardcore group of veteran minmaxers that love crunch, the GM can't easily fix that without rewriting the encounter from scratch. Just doubling the hp (or the number of monsters!) is deeply unsatisfying in a game already accused of making big bags of hp. Just arbitrarily increasing attack or defense values isn't a very good fix either. Switching out monsters for higher-levelled foes often rewrite the encounter, since now maybe flight or teleportation can short-circuit intended challenges. And if the party is already level 14 or so, even CR 20 monsters might not stand a chance. This significantly reduces choice. This significantly reduces the worth of 5th Edition.</p><p></p><p>Any group that might consider moving over to PF2 simply to get more crunch that work better (especially at high levels) will hopefully get a better option in Level Up! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CapnZapp, post: 8086191, member: 12731"] The proper way to balance any game is to design for the extremes. It's better if the developers mistakenly believe a build intended to be a top tier damage dealer does 110 DPR at some level, but in reality players struggle to get over 90 DPR (say). The worst case scenario here is that other builds get explored and preferred by the player base. This increases choice. The opposite scenario, where the designers mistakenly think their build tops out at 110 DPR, but canny players get it to do maybe 140 DPR, is worse, since every other damage-dealing build is now clearly inferior. This reduces choice. In the case of 5th Edition, the situation is excruciating. Some builds deal easily twice the damage, without any discernible drawbacks. (And I'm not comparing to obviously ineffective builds. I'm comparing to builds the game clearly expect to be viable. But how much must you love a particular build to justify being [B]half[/B] the hero of someone better at charbuild?!) The devs create monsters for non-optimized builds with minimal crunch, making nearly every min-maxed build using the tools provided by the PHB run circles around monsters. It's much easier to nerf an encounter than to meaningfully improve upon it. That is, if three Blorgons is too much for a newb party, or one where nobody cares about DPR, the GM can easily use two Blorgons. Or use half-strength Blorgons. Or use lower-levelled monsters. Or simply play the Blorgons ineffectively. But if three Blorgons is a joke to a hardcore group of veteran minmaxers that love crunch, the GM can't easily fix that without rewriting the encounter from scratch. Just doubling the hp (or the number of monsters!) is deeply unsatisfying in a game already accused of making big bags of hp. Just arbitrarily increasing attack or defense values isn't a very good fix either. Switching out monsters for higher-levelled foes often rewrite the encounter, since now maybe flight or teleportation can short-circuit intended challenges. And if the party is already level 14 or so, even CR 20 monsters might not stand a chance. This significantly reduces choice. This significantly reduces the worth of 5th Edition. Any group that might consider moving over to PF2 simply to get more crunch that work better (especially at high levels) will hopefully get a better option in Level Up! :) [/QUOTE]
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Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition (A5E)
Class Balance In A5E: How Much Damage Should A Damage Dealer Deal?
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