Presitige Classes for Regents

[Mark_Aurel]

But since you mentioned it I actually do object to the mechanics for design
of prestige classes. If for no other reason than because I haven`t really
located any. Oh, there have been essays written on how to design a
prestige class, but essentially even those articles propose that they be
designed in what is still an ad hoc manner. There are no real mechanics
for designing a prestige class.

That's the point. One of the stated purposes of prestige classes is to serve as a platform for giving PCs powers that aren't otherwise available. Further, the mechanics you're suggesting sounds like a good way to create broken classes or characters. I've seen similar attempts before, and they tend to end up with amusing results. 3e D&D itself can't be broken down to a huge formula like some people seem to think; it wasn't made that way. It is internally balanced pretty well, though, but the balance is also pretty circumstantial. If you do something that's popular among BRers, as near as I can tell, and "lower the magic level," you'll end up crippling fighters and rogues.

If I might frame the argument thus, the question is really whether a BR
update should be BR 3e or BR D20. I`d suggest that there really is no such
thing as D&D 3e per se. The majority of my objections to 3e can be
summarized by describing it as what it _really_ is... "Forgotten Realms
D20." D20 is what 3e should have been in the first place, but instead they
went with a marketing concept in which they promoted a "core" campaign
setting and mixed it right on into the core rules. Because 3e has so much
FR (and some Greyhawk) influence many of the core rules are, in fact,
campaign specific. The examples are too many to really list, but if you
excise the Forgotten Realms influenced stuff from the core books there`s an
awful lot that gets altered. This goes right down into the core classes,
many aspects of which have a distinct FR flavor, and it`s certainly the
case when it comes to prestige classes.

What, exactly, are you referring to? Let's look a bit at our history, shall we? What was first? The Realms or D&D? Obviously, D&D, for which FR is a campaign setting. So, FR gets shaped by the rules of the game. Had it been a purely literary world, it might've been different. The point here is - at its heart, FR is a _D&D_ world. A big and detailed one. Now, in 2e, you got Birthright, which, IMNSHO, was a much better world. Did it change any of the core rules of 2e? No. BR, too, was a D&D world. You certainly have interesting additions and world-specific rules - but, overall, less radical ones than were probably found in most campaigns. Al-Qadim, FR, Dark Sun - they all had some pretty different magic systems. BR didn't. What BR did was add more interesting _flavor_ to it. In terms of mechanics, BR is as good a D&D world as either FR or Greyhawk. All three worlds share the thing in common that they were built with, and for, a set of D&D rules.

That's pretty different from, say, the Wheel of Time, or Conan - either exists as literary works on their own, with no connection to games mechanics - the mechanics get adapted to the world instead. Thus, you see more radical departures from standard D&D. For Birthright, however, this really seems pointless, since, Birthright, at its heart, is a _D&D world_, as much as it is a vision of its own. The really important aspect, that sets it apart from other D&D worlds, isn't game mechanics - it's the flavor.

As for your thoughts on 3e being "FR" in nature - no, I don't think so. It's a rules system, first and foremost. They use examples from Greyhawk to breathe some life into the rules, without really going into that world. I haven't seen any indications of 3e's inherent "FR-ness" anywhere, really. I might venture a guess that's a common complaint - the treasure level. Yeah, 3e plays at a lower magic level than previous editions - isn't that good for BR players?

An awful lot of prestige classes
are campaign specific.

*rolls eyes* ,,, and the point being?

Where better? Essentially, the only change I`m suggesting should be
adopted in creating BR prestige classes is that we should not make them
organization-based. That`s it. It`s not a terribly radical change. It
just means we won`t wind up with a "Patriarch of the Orthodox Imperial
Temple" prestige class along with a "Patriarch of the Northern Imperial
Temple" prestige class and a "Patriarch of the Western Imperial Temple"
prestige class. Using the assumptions presented in the DMG it isn`t very
difficult to justify that.

You seem to be missing the point a bit. There's no inherent reason why _every_ "organization" needs to have a prestige class - that wouldn't make prestige classes very "prestigious." If you can point to a deep line of separation, an idea or concept that sets an organization apart somewhat, then you might have something. Now, in the BR rules as written, many domains have character, certainly - but not necessarily sufficient enough to sponsor a prestige class, let alone many. The more prestige classes you make, the less interesting each of them become, while the concept itself becomes ever more irrelevant and uninteresting.

In the end, making a bunch of "generic" prestige classes would only serve to make the concept pointless. You'd probably be better off making a bunch of new feats, or just new standard classes. What you want to do, will only hollow out the concept, and really leave it pointless.

[geeman]

At 03:01 AM 10/10/2002 +0200, Mark_Aurel wrote:

>

But since you mentioned it I actually do object to the mechanics
> for design of prestige classes. If for no other reason than because I
> haven`t really located any. Oh, there have been essays written on how to
> design a prestige class, but essentially even those articles propose that
> they be designed in what is still an ad hoc manner. There are no real
> mechanics for designing a prestige class.

>
>That`s the point.

No mechanics is the point? Ad hoc character classes is the point? This
sounds like some sort of bad Zen koan; the rules of no rules.

>One of the stated purposes of prestige classes is to serve as a platform
>for giving PCs powers that aren`t otherwise available.

How`s that purpose served by designing them using only ad hoc
guidelines? Wouldn`t it make more sense to have some way of rating special
abilities and other class features to create prestige classes that have
some sort of actual balance?

>Further, the mechanics you`re suggesting sounds like a good way to create
>broken classes or characters. I`ve seen similar attempts before, and they
>tend to end up with amusing results. 3e D&D itself can`t be broken down to
>a huge formula like some people seem to think; it wasn`t made that way. It
>is internally balanced pretty well, though, but the balance is also pretty
>circumstantial. If you do something that`s popular among BRers, as near as
>I can tell, and "lower the magic level," you`ll end up crippling fighters
>and rogues.

From time to time people get so wrapped up in their objections to new
ideas that they actually suggest that tweaks are going to cripple character
classes, break character classes, etc. All I can tell you is that I`ve
never seen that happen even with far more extreme changes than the ones
I`ve suggested here. The rules simply aren`t so brittle as to be broken
that easily. Nothing I`ve suggested has been any more radical than you
could find in several issues of Dragon, and much less radical than you`d
find in any particular supplement, D20 product or issue of Polyhedron.

Also, I have to note that the rhetoric you`re using is so extreme as to
make it hard to sift through and find the actual points you`re trying to
make, and winds up being counterproductive to your argument. For instance,
you assert above that one can`t create a system of balancing character
classes by assigning point values to the various class
features. Attempting to do that is "a good way to create broken classes or
characters." In fact, D&D can be broken down into such a formula. I`ve
done it. Other people have done it. D&D game designers have done it in
various texts before 3e came around. Other RPGs do it all the time. Not
only does it work, but doing so illustrates how D&D characters aren`t
actually balanced as you`ve suggested. Now, you can frame your objection
with phrases like "you`ll end up crippling fighters and rogues" but I can
assure you that such comments not only fly in the face of the experience of
people who have used such systems, but betray the weakness of your
argument. A point based character class design system would not cripple
fighters and rogues. The assertion just doesn`t stand up in the objective
light of reality.

In any case, what are you basing your assertion that the D&D 3e core
classes are "internally balanced pretty well" on? Since you seem to have
so little interest in assigning values to them and, in fact, think that
kind of thing is probably going break character classes how do you come to
that conclusion? Is it the product of any sort of objective analysis or is
it just an impression? It sounds like an ad hoc assertion based on ad hoc
interpretation of the purpose behind character classes that were developed
on an ad hoc basis. Is there actually some rhyme and reason to it?

>

The majority of my objections to 3e can be summarized by describing
>it as what it _really_ is... "Forgotten Realms D20."

>
>What, exactly, are you referring to? Let`s look a bit at our history,
>shall we? What was first? The Realms or D&D? Obviously, D&D, for which FR
>is a campaign setting. So, FR gets shaped by the rules of the game.

When 3e came out WotC said that they were adopting FR as "the core setting"
for the game, and cited their marketing/sales figures as the reasoning
behind that decision. Most campaign settings are not profitable enough for
them to support (we must count BR, I`m afraid, as one of those) while core
rules are, so at that time they decided to focus on a single campaign
setting. Since FR was their most popular (read: best selling) they went
with that. I`m sure many folks could point you to references for this that
might still be on the Internet.

How did that influence 3e? I guess the easiest way of illustrating the
point is to take a look at the D20 rules presented in later texts and just
look at how many of them differ from the core rules. Many of the basic
ideas of 3e have a decidedly FR feel to them. I would even attribute the
rate of XP awards to the flavor of the FR campaign setting. FR was based
on many 2e assumptions, of course, but if they hadn`t been trying to
continue those assumptions by based 3e on FR then they could have done away
with many of the issues that make 3e different from D20, and we could
dispense with the arguments about how changing little things like having
non-lawful good paladins (which was even done in the 2e version of BR)
disagrees with D&D 3e.

>Had it been a purely literary world, it might`ve been different. The point
>here is - at its heart, FR is a _D&D_ world. A big and detailed one. Now,
>in 2e, you got Birthright, which, IMNSHO, was a much better world. Did it
>change any of the core rules of 2e? No. BR, too, was a D&D world. You
>certainly have interesting additions and world-specific rules - but,
>overall, less radical ones than were probably found in most campaigns.
>Al-Qadim, FR, Dark Sun - they all had some pretty different magic systems.
>BR didn`t. What BR did was add more interesting _flavor_ to it. In terms
>of mechanics, BR is as good a D&D world as either FR or Greyhawk. All
>three worlds share the thing in common that they were built with, and for,
>a set of D&D rules.

I can`t really disagree with the facts and opinions of that assessment. In
fact, I`d go a step or two further in certain cases. BR is IMO an outright
better campaign world than FR or GH, and not only did other campaign
settings like Al-Qadim and DS did have different magic systems (though FR`s
wasn`t very different) but those magic systems were superior to D&D`s core
system.

I do, however, disagree with some of your conclusions for a couple of
reasons. First, because BR was developed after 2e it wasn`t really
possible for BR to influence 2e without a rerelease of the 2e core books,
and unfortunately, BR never took off in a way that would have made WotC
decide it should be a significant influence on 3e. (More`s the pity.) D&D
3e was developed after FR, and many FR paradigms were incorporated into the
3e core rules. This isn`t any secret. They came right out and said they
what they were going to do that. Second, I disagree that what BR did was
take D&D and add more interesting flavor to it. BR represents a pretty
serious departure from D&D. It contains a whole new system of rules and
play at an entirely new level. BR should be at least as different from 3e
as WoT is, and I think quite a bit more. Not only should we do away with
the FRish influences on 3e for a BR adaptation, but the differences between
BR and 3e are significant enough to justify it being it`s own D20 product.

>That`s pretty different from, say, the Wheel of Time, or Conan - either
>exists as literary works on their own, with no connection to games
>mechanics - the mechanics get adapted to the world instead. Thus, you see
>more radical departures from standard D&D. For Birthright, however, this
>really seems pointless, since, Birthright, at its heart, is a _D&D world_,
>as much as it is a vision of its own. The really important aspect, that
>sets it apart from other D&D worlds, isn`t game mechanics - it`s the flavor.

Birthright is "a D&D world" because it came out before 3e/D20. If it were
written after the 3e/D20 I have little doubt it would look substantially
different from how it does now, and why shouldn`t it? The magic system
should be radically different from that of 3e/FR. Part of the basis of BR
is difference between "low" and "high" magic. The domain level is
drastically different than anything that exists in any other D&D
product. Characters have semi-divine powers.0

>As for your thoughts on 3e being "FR" in nature - no, I don`t think
>so. It`s a rules system, first and foremost. They use examples from
>Greyhawk to breathe some life into the rules, without really going into
>that world. I haven`t seen any indications of 3e`s inherent "FR-ness"
>anywhere, really.

Really? Wow. I find that assertion amazing. FR`s influence on the 3e
core rules seems to obvious to me that I`m surprised anyone could even try
to deny it let alone go so far as to say that it`s not there at all.

>I might venture a guess that`s a common complaint - the treasure level.
>Yeah, 3e plays at a lower magic level than previous editions - isn`t that
>good for BR players?

The treasure level of 3e is lower than previous editions? How do you figure?

>

An awful lot of prestige classes are campaign specific.

>
>*rolls eyes* ,,, and the point being?

*blinks* Was that not clear? The point being that campaign specific
prestige classes are less useful to the D&D community as a whole. That`s
not the kind of thing that should go into core materials where one should
be attempting to create products as useful as possible to as many readers
as possible. Similarly, organization-specific prestige classes are less
useful to a particular DM/player of a campaign setting because those
prestige classes will not be useful to the population that plays that
setting as a whole. Prestige classes designed with a more general emphasis
would be more useful to a larger percentage of D&D players since they could
then be tweaked to make them more campaign specific. More general BR
prestige classes in the same way be more useful to the BR community as a
whole because they could also be tweaked by DMs to fit into particular
organizations.

>In the end, making a bunch of "generic" prestige classes would only serve
>to make the concept pointless. You`d probably be better off making a bunch
>of new feats, or just new standard classes. What you want to do, will only
>hollow out the concept, and really leave it pointless.

Designing prestige classes without basing them on particular organizations
will hollow out the concept and leave it pointless? There already are lots
of generic prestige classes. The Church Inquisitor is a generic prestige
class. You could use it in just about any pre-modern campaign
setting. Most of the prestige classes in the DMG are generic (maybe not
the Shadowdancer or the racially based ones.) We could easily compile a
list of generic prestige classes.... In fact, here`s a link to a past
thread on the subject in the BR-l archives:
http://oracle.wizards.com/scripts/wa.exe?A...D=0&H=0&O=T&T=1

Gary

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[Mark_Aurel]

No mechanics is the point? Ad hoc character classes is the point? This
sounds like some sort of bad Zen koan; the rules of no rules.

You could call it shish kebab for all I care; it's the stated law for how to balance them - basically, "try to not make it look any stronger on paper than existing classes, and then playtest it a bit."

How`s that purpose served by designing them using only ad hoc
guidelines? Wouldn`t it make more sense to have some way of rating special
abilities and other class features to create prestige classes that have
some sort of actual balance?

Balance isn't obtained by some magic formula. The way the 3e rules were balanced was by first putting them together, then massively playtesting them, and changing them to fit experience. Rating special abilities isn't possible under the D&D rules - you need to consider that a given ability may have different levels of power in different situations, and thus, any system where you try to assign a simple rating to everything is doomed to fail. If you assign a more complex rating, you'll wind up with a monstrously unwieldy system that would probably take a lifetime to do. You could likely do a system that approaches some semblance of balance, but it'd require some "common sense" and ability to interpret it anyway, which is basically just what is being done anyway.

A point based character class design system would not cripple
fighters and rogues. The assertion just doesn`t stand up in the objective
light of reality.

Read what I said again. It was actually a digression - what would cripple fighters and rogues isn't the magic "point based character class design system" that comes up every so often, but reducing the magic level.

Blah, blah, yadda, yadda about 3e and FR

Nothing you say is really making any sense - you make vague references to "well, everyone can see it" and the like, the only evidence you offer, however, is based upon XP. Now, what the designers have stated about XP is basically that they did market research about it - and based the XP progression more closely on how long the average campaign lasts. Unlike previous versions of the game, the XP progression actually makes sense now, both internally, in terms of math, and in terms of playing time versus in-game progression. I.e. the average campaign lasts roughly 1.5 years, according to WotC's findings, thus the XP progression was adjusted to reflect that average. It is _very_ easy to slow that down or speed it up, of course. And, incidentally, it has _nothing_ to do with "FR." It might have something to do with Diablo on some level, though.

In any case, what are you basing your assertion that the D&D 3e core
classes are "internally balanced pretty well" on? Since you seem to have
so little interest in assigning values to them and, in fact, think that
kind of thing is probably going break character classes how do you come to
that conclusion?

Beep. Does not compute. You're chaining one thing to another, when they aren't strictly related. I didn't mean to say that you can't examine class balance mathemathically; what is the point is rather that you can't do it the other way around - you can't create a system to reliably build balanced classes mathemathically. I hope you understand the difference, especially in the context of what I've previously stated. You can design, analyze, playtest - but, in the final analysis, you can't accurately create a system for _creating_ character classes in a purely mechanical fashion.

Second, I disagree that what BR did was
take D&D and add more interesting flavor to it. BR represents a pretty
serious departure from D&D. It contains a whole new system of rules and
play at an entirely new level.

I don't think anyone disagreed with that. The point, though, remains - BR didn't touch the character, combat or magic rules substantially at all - it simply added lots of flavor material. BR _added_ things to the core system, but it wasn't substantially _different_. Magic was still Vancian, longswords still did 1d8 damage, clerics still cast healing magic and wizards fireballs, and rogues stole stuff. The fact that BR introduced mechanics to deal with issues not found in other worlds does not make BR less D&Dish at heart.

Really? Wow. I find that assertion amazing. FR`s influence on the 3e
core rules seems to obvious to me that I`m surprised anyone could even try
to deny it let alone go so far as to say that it`s not there at all.

Substantiate. I could say that BR has had a substantial influence on the 3e rules - really. Just look at all the little things, such as Elves with low-light vision and strange sleeping habits, the Diplomacy skill, crossbows - and, not least, the Bard spell list. Surely that falls a lot closer to the BR version than anything else published before 3e, right? Based on those pieces, brushing everything else aside, I'd quickly assess that 3e is indeed too strongly influenced by BR. Or, I could just accept that it's a rules set that is _D&D_ at heart, nothing else. And that there were a lot of D&D worlds published, and that BR is as much one of them as any of the others. What's the difference between a Birthright fighter and a Forgotten Realms fighter? If you look at wizards, there are some differences, but that's more of a flavor thing than a mechanical difference - a special requirement to qualify, making wizards feel "rarer."

BR is IMO an outright
better campaign world than FR or GH

I agree. Go us!

The treasure level of 3e is lower than previous editions? How do you figure?

Simple. A 9th-level character in 2e would likely have lots more treasure than a 9th-level character in 3e. Thus, the treasure level in 2e was a lot higher. Of course, that blatantly ignores the concept of how XP progression works in the different editions, and that it'd take about five years to get to 9th level in 2e. The point, though, remains - level by level, 3e characters will have less valuables than their compatriots in previous editions. Furthermore, previous editions did not have a "wealth by level" chart. I think it's this, more than anything else, that revolts so many people, and makes them think the magic level has been "raised." It has actually decreased, if you judge by level. Session by session, it's probably about the same, or slightly higher. I think that having a wealth by level chart is a very good improvement - it lets you tell what's Monty Haul and not pretty easily (as if you couldn't already). It's also another tool which you can use to set the flavor of a campaign, and you have some numbers to do so by. A 9th-level character in 3e has 36,000 gp to buy equipment for. A 9th-level character in previous editions could acquire a castle of his own, and probably owned magic items worth lots more than 36,000 combined. It's not the magic level that's increased, it's the experience you earn per encounter, and thus the speed at which you gain more powerful items. If you simply divided all rewards by the same number (easy thing to do), to get the rough experience progression of previous editions, you'd probably end up with a much lower level of magic at 9th level, just to keep that point of reference. Further, with the introduction of a stricter hierarchy of items, you simply won't find too powerful, disruptive items in the hands of PCs by using the default tables.

Prestige classes designed with a more general emphasis
would be more useful to a larger percentage of D&D players since they could
then be tweaked to make them more campaign specific.

Most classes are fairly easy to adapt as they are. You can't expect them ALL to be so; 25% is a good number, considering the purpose.

Designing prestige classes without basing them on particular organizations
will hollow out the concept and leave it pointless?

Yes. Read what Monte wrote again. "City Guardsman - Greyhawk Watchman." If, as you seem to want, WotC published a bunch of "City Guardsmen," "Super-Sheriffs" and "Power Patriarchs," you'd really depart a lot from what the concept is all about. I don't really see how anything would change by publishing unanchored reams of stats - it wouldn't be any easier to adapt them, and they'd likely be a whole lot blander, which would remove another part of the justification for them. I really don't see what the problem is in adapting a good chunk of the prestige classes we have now - you can't expect to see a Ninja of the Crescent Moon next to a Cavalier, unless you just rename the Ninja to the Sisterhood of Eloéle or you're running a really pulp-style campaign.

[Starfox]

Gary <geeman@SOFTHOME.NET> wrote at 02-10-10 05.03:

> FR`s influence on the 3e core rules seems to obvious to me that I`m surprised
> anyone could even try to deny it let alone go so far as to say that it`s not
> there at all.

I think you will have to rovide some examples here, because this is not at
all obvious to me.

The only example I can think of is the dual-weapon fightig of the ranger.
Sure, this is annoying enough...

FR has an entire new set of metamagica spells, for example (spells that
affect other spells). Almost none of these made it into DnD. Nor did the
concepts of gnome artificers or of a zillion dieties for all occassions. In
fact, in standard DnD, a cleric need not even have a patron, while in FR,
every divine spellcaster must have one. So I feel that DnD and FR are quite
distinct.

The setting that was included in the core books was Greyhawk - but even that
was basically only is the set of example religions.

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[Onwen Agelmore]

Take a look at the legendary class I posted (True King)

[Birthright-L]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2002, Mark_Aurel wrote:

> Gary wrote:
> > No mechanics is the point? Ad hoc character classes is the point?
> > This sounds like some sort of bad Zen koan; the rules of no rules.
>
> You could call it shish kebab for all I care; it`s the stated law for
> how to balance them - basically, "try to not make it look any stronger
> on paper than existing classes, and then playtest it a bit."

I agree with Gary. This may be the law, but it is fairly useless without
any regulations to aid in implementing it. I don`t see why you object to
having some numerical system expressly for the purpose of making it easier
to follow this "law". As he said, it`s been done several times before in
official D&D products, and in many other game systems -- I don`t
understand why the idea of having a straightforward way to quickly test if
something is roughly somewhat balanced should upset you so much. I would
like to follow that law, but I would also like a tool to help me do so.

The statement you quote, without any mechanics to support it, is just as
useful for making a balanced and playable character class as making the
entirety of the rules on combat consist of the statement, "Make up a way
to see who hits whom and how hard. It should be fair," would be for
making a balanced and playable combat system. Numbers help.

> > How`s that purpose served by designing them using only ad hoc
> > guidelines? Wouldn`t it make more sense to have some way of rating
> > special abilities and other class features to create prestige classes
> > that have some sort of actual balance?
>
> Balance isn`t obtained by some magic formula.

It sure would be a lot easier with that formula in hand. Sure, it would
never be perfect, but neither is "try to not make it look any stronger on
paper than existing classes." Personally, some formula -- nearly any
formula -- seems to me to be a lot more perfect than that.

> The way the 3e rules were balanced was by first putting them together,
> then massively playtesting them, and changing them to fit experience.

And that is precisely the way a system of ability rating numbers should be
designed. Indeed, a really good system, which I have never seen any game
attempt to implement, would consider second-order interaction effects:
since some abilities make others more or less powerful, then if you have
both you should pay the costs for each one separately, and the additional
cost (possibly negative) of the pair-as-a-unit. This is probably much too
time-consuming to do for every pair of possible abilities, but it doesn`t
seem too hard to look for a few of these synergies (as 3e calls them in
the skills system) and account for them appropriately.

There is also this problem -- you seem to believe the 3e rules are well
balanced as they stand. I disagree, and I think Gary and many others do,
too. I think at least part of your objection to a numerical system is
that it could be applied to the existing classes, where it would show that
they are not actually very well balanced against each other after all.

> Rating special abilities isn`t possible under the D&D rules - you need
> to consider that a given ability may have different levels of power in
> different situations, and thus, any system where you try to assign a
> simple rating to everything is doomed to fail.

And therefore the system of character levels in general is doomed to fail.
D&D *does* rate special abilities to a certain extent -- I fail to see why
you are so worried about expanding that system and trying to make it more
coherent and self-consistent.

> If you assign a more complex rating, you`ll wind up with a monstrously
> unwieldy system that would probably take a lifetime to do.

But it would take a lot *less* of a lifetime than exhaustive playtesting
would! That`s what I`m really after -- I want people to be able to
produce classes that are relatively well balanced without needing to spend
years getting hundreds of people to playtest. I want the knowledge gained
in that part of the work which has already been done -- namely how
different abilities interact in different settings, and how relatively
useful they turn out to be -- to be made available to everyone who wants
to design their own class. I think that can most efficiently be
accomplished by providing a numerical rating scale, even one that has
"APPROXIMATELY" stamped across it in letters twelve feet high.

> You could likely do a system that approaches some semblance of
> balance, but it`d require some "common sense" and ability to interpret
> it anyway, which is basically just what is being done anyway.

Yes, it would. But I think it would make the different interpretations
less different than they are now. Numbers make things clearer and more
uniform, which is exactly what we want if balance is the goal.

> Beep. Does not compute. You`re chaining one thing to another, when
> they aren`t strictly related. I didn`t mean to say that you can`t
> examine class balance mathemathically; what is the point is rather
> that you can`t do it the other way around - you can`t create a system
> to reliably build balanced classes mathemathically. I hope you
> understand the difference, especially in the context of what I`ve
> previously stated. You can design, analyze, playtest - but, in the
> final analysis, you can`t accurately create a system for _creating_
> character classes in a purely mechanical fashion.

You can`t make it perfect, but you can make it better than it is now!
Don`t make the perfect the enemy of the good. A mathematical system to
assist in the balancing of classes is one of many things that *helps*
people to design character classes more easily. It is not the only thing,
but it should not be prevented from helping a little just because it can`t
do the whole job itself.

> Yes. Read what Monte wrote again. "City Guardsman - Greyhawk
> Watchman." If, as you seem to want, WotC published a bunch of "City
> Guardsmen," "Super-Sheriffs" and "Power Patriarchs," you`d really
> depart a lot from what the concept is all about.

OK, heresy time. Just because Monte wrote it doesn`t mean it`s the best
way to think about it. It might be, but "founders` intent" does not equal
truth. This is not consitutional law, this is figuring out what works
best in a gaming group. "What the concept is all about", to me, is a way
to make characters more powerful per XP than they would otherwise have
been. You can argue that that`s not what it was supposed to be, but
that`s clearly how it has been used in the vast majority of the more than
a hundred PrC descriptions I`ve read. That`s the other problem -- there
are just too damn many of the things! I like the idea that PrCs can
provide greater variety and versatility, to get away from the, "Ho-hum,
it`s just another 5th-level fighter, who is exactly the same as every
other 5th-level fighter we`ve ever met" syndrome, but I think a table for
picking abilities with points would make the idea much easier to
implement: there would be less need to paw through every single supplement
ever published in search of the one thing you want.


Ryan Caveney

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[Grimwell]

I keep typing long posts and deleting them before posting.

I'll try to be brief:

You make a system where abilities have values and I'll show you a horde of gamers salivating over the chance to build a 'custom' PrC with your 'balanced' system. Each of them will come up with nightmare level abuses of the system pointing out all the flaws in yoru design. Flaws that would not matter if the person designing the PrC was made to fit a campaign.

Rules, once codified and delinated, make lovely targets for abuse.

Do as you will for your game :) I know I will.

[Mark_Aurel]

Oh, goodness, these posts are getting too long. I'll try to be brief.

"Make up a way
to see who hits whom and how hard. It should be fair," would be for
making a balanced and playable combat system. Numbers help.

But the thing is, numbers don't tell the whole story in this case. In combat, it's fairly easy. The 3e combat system is excellent - it flows fast, and yet it still retains a far superior number of options and "realism mechanics" than previous incarnations. A 1d8 weapon does, on average 4.725 damage per hit, yes? That's easy to calculate; the circumstances are always the same.

Now, as for the class balance thing - I'll share one of those anecdote things first. I play a lot of computer games, RTS amongst them - games like Age of Empires, Warcraft, Empire Earth. In some elements, these games are similar to computerized RPGs - you have units - "characters" - with different attributes. They can be mathemathically balanced pretty well, because all the units function under a limited set of variables, and the number of other unit types they can potentially interact with is limited. For RPGs of the pen and paper type, neither of these statements hold true. Only if you reduce D&D to the base level of Diablo could you create a mathemathically balanced system, and even then, it would be easy to abuse.

Next, let's look at the existing subsystems - table II-8-40, for instance. This table isn't a bad idea as a guideline; however, it must also be used in conjunction with common sense - in some cases, a spell will be worth far more under certain circumstances. Being able to cast magic missile at will is probably more useful than detect secret doors. Boots of striding and springing is an excellent example of an oft-abused object, created by a "system." The table requires massive input of DM tweaking to really work.

With classes, the number of variables shoots up so high compared to this, that you can't really assemble a remotely sensible working system for it. It'd be a haven for widespread abuse, a LOT more than II-8-40. There are many problems with it - it would, in all likelihood, hold the potential to produce severely unbalanced characters, and lend them an air of legitimacy, due to the "rules support" they have. I think that's one of the single biggest reasons for not assembling such a system for the DMG, even a rough one.

There have been attempts at such systems before. The best attempt, I saw over at ENWorld, a year or so back - it had huge tables, inputted with every value in the book, each given a mathemathical value of some kind. The funny part of it was that wizards came out looking like the weakest class, whereas monks looked the strongest. Now, simply looking at the number of class abilities, monks have the most. Looking at what actually happens in-game, though, I'd probably rather have a wizard for utility in a party than a monk. The bottom line is, by forcing a mathemathical system where there was none as a basis, you made the rules look imbalanced in areas they were not.

I'll assert the following:

1) Any point-based class-creation engine will likely be abusable, even highly so;
2) Any point-based class-creation engine cannot possibly be used to take into account every circumstance which may arise, especially in various game worlds;
3) Thus, any point-based class-creation engine will be useless for what it was intended for at first, and the original system, which uses strict DM rule, is better, for all purposes;
4) Any effort that goes into creating such a system is probably wasted, better spent actually creating something of direct utility for your game - prestige classes you'll want to use.

OK, heresy time. Just because Monte wrote it doesn`t mean it`s the best
way to think about it.

Must be good to be a heretic. Rebelling and all that. It's always cool to go against the authorities; shows how different you are and how much of an individual thinker you are. Now, what I said had everything to do with what the concept is all about, to begin with, and nothing to do with how poor game designers are abusing it like a poor woman gets abused in the slum.

Ok, so brevity is currently beyond my abilities.

[Birthright-L]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2002, Grimwell wrote:

> You make a system where abilities have values and I`ll show you a
> horde of gamers salivating over the chance to build a `custom` PrC
> with your `balanced` system. Each of them will come up with nightmare
> level abuses of the system pointing out all the flaws in yoru design.

Exactly! And then you fix it, and thank them! The much-derided "rules
lawyers" are a great boon in designing any rules system, because they
point out those places where the rules most need improvement. This is
supposed to be a feedback process, and people who carefully sift the rules
looking for weak spots make it much more efficient.

I also fail to see how this is worse than the current system, where there
are no rules to violate, so literally anything goes.

> Flaws that would not matter if the person designing the PrC was made
> to fit a campaign.

I disagree. I consider most of the published PrCs to be "nightmare
abuses" of what Marc Aurel described as "the law": "try to not make it
look any stronger on paper than existing classes." And whether or not a
class is designed to fit a campaign has no bearing on whether it happens
to be balanced. Yes, it may change the target of what it is supposed to
be balanced with, but not whether or not it actually is balanced.

> Rules, once codified and delinated, make lovely targets for abuse.

But without codification, you simply cannot tell what is or isn`t abuse.


Ryan Caveney

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[Birthright-L]

On Thu, 10 Oct 2002, Mark_Aurel wrote:

> But the thing is, numbers don`t tell the whole story in this case.

The right set of numbers could. D&D is nothing more than a huge pile of
numbers, to be used for certain purposes. Yes, even discounting luck,
creative people can get different results from the same input parameters,
but in the end it`s all just numbers. The roleplaying and storytelling
and camaraderie and anything else other than numbers is not part of D&D
per se -- it is equally characteristic of any other roleplaying game, and
a great many things that are not RPGs. The only thing that makes an RPG
an RPG is a specific, if somewhat large, set of numbers.

> A 1d8 weapon does, on average 4.725 damage per hit, yes? That`s easy
> to calculate; the circumstances are always the same.

4.5, actually. The more interesting calculation is damage per swing,
which depends on attacker BAB and target AC (and criticals), and is
therefore very situation-dependent; however, it is also more useful to
know when trying to decide which weapon to use against a particular foe --
the one that does more damage, or the one you have Weapon Focus with?
This also appears in the magic weapon design tables -- is "keen" really
the power equivalent of another +2 to hit? Well, that depends not only on
the base weapon`s damage, threat range, and critical multiplier, but also
on the wielder`s chance of actually hitting a typical opponent. If most
of the baddies in the campaign have +2/30 damage reduction or are immune
to criticals, a +1 keen weapon is useless compared to a plain +3 one; and
there are situations where the reverse is nearly true.

But the real point is this: just because these calculations take some
thought and include assumptions doesn`t make them bad -- in fact, by
forcing the user to explicitly state their assumptions and allowing all
parties concerned to see the effects of those assumptions, it becomes
easier for beleaguered DMs to actually make the rulings required of them.

> Only if you reduce D&D to the base level of Diablo could you create a
> mathemathically balanced system,

And since there is no balance that is not mathematical, or at least
statistical, all discussions of balance in D&D therefore must restrict the
discussion to certain situations. Whatever attempt was made to balance
the core classes, was done with some sort of campaign style in mind -- in
particular, it seems, a stereotypical dungeon crawl. They may therefore
be not at all balanced when considering the differential performance of
the classes in a fundamentally different setting, such as regents in
Birthright, for example. Yes, you might have to use different numbers
depending on whether you were doing an adventuring-only campaign or a
domain-turns-only campaign, but that`s a refinement to the system that
could be well worth doing for all the classes, not just PrCs.

> Next, let`s look at the existing subsystems - table II-8-40, for
> instance. This table isn`t a bad idea as a guideline; however, it must
> also be used in conjunction with common sense

So what`s wrong with asking for a guideline table for a different kind of
design? I see no essential difference between trying to balance magic
items and trying to balance prestige classes.

> Being able to cast magic missile at will is probably more useful than
> detect secret doors.

Yes -- which means the problem is in the way the table assigns numbers.
Spell level alone is a very poor indicator of the utility of a given
spell, which perhaps means that the core need is for spells and spell
levels themselves to be redesigned.

> The table requires massive input of DM tweaking to really work.

Then turn the input into a revised and expanded table, and publish that.

> it would, in all likelihood, hold the potential to produce severely
> unbalanced characters, and lend them an air of legitimacy, due to the
> "rules support" they have.

Indeed it would. But at present, in the absence of any kind of
comparative rating system, all PrCs have exactly equal claims to
legitimacy, whether or not they are in any way reasonably designed.
It`s a question of tradeoffs -- a numerical formula both solves old
problems and creates new ones. I think it`s worth it, you don`t.

> The funny part of it was that wizards came out looking like the
> weakest class, whereas monks looked the strongest.

Then the specific numbers in the tables need to be improved. It doesn`t
prove that the mere use of number tables at all is inherently bad.

Unless, of course, they were designed to be balanced for a game world in
which most of the opponents a typical party encounters have high spell
resistance and are immune to most metal weapons, in which case wizards
really are weakest and monks strongest.

> 1) Any point-based class-creation engine will likely be abusable, even
> highly so;

Yes; but no more so, and I think much less so, than the nonexistent engine
we currently have.

> 2) Any point-based class-creation engine cannot possibly be used to
> take into account every circumstance which may arise, especially in
> various game worlds;

Yes; neither can any amount of playtesting. The best anyone can hope for,
with explicit numbers or without, is "it seems to us that in most of the
situations we`ve considered, X is better than Y." It is also the case
that, since in the end all differences between classes are in fact
expressed as numbers, all balancing decisions, even those made by those
people who don`t think they are using a numerical table, really are using
numbers at a fundamental level, even if only implicitly. In order to
balance, for example, monk open-hand attack damage per level vs. sorcerer
spell progression, or any of the other scores of tables in the PHB filled
with nothing but numbers, someone at some point had to say something like
"I think 4d4 per strike *is about equivalent to* -- or *is fair with
respect to* -- 3 fireballs", which is using a numerical table without
actually writing it down.

> 3) Thus, any point-based class-creation engine will be useless for
> what it was intended for at first, and the original system, which uses
> strict DM rule, is better, for all purposes;

Does not follow. You have listed the flaws of the system I favor while
glossing over those of the system you favor. What you are saying is that
you refuse to give hardworking DMs any assistance in the peformance of
their multitudinous and ever-expanding duties, and revile anyone who tries
to give them one small tool to maybe help them out a little sometimes.

> 4) Any effort that goes into creating such a system is probably
> wasted, better spent actually creating something of direct utility for
> your game - prestige classes you`ll want to use.

But I don`t want to use any that I don`t think are balanced, so if we`re
discussing what`s best for my personal game, the answer to me obviously is
that I ought to make just such a system, and then redesign every class to
be consistent with it, because it will be of direct utility.

> Must be good to be a heretic. Rebelling and all that. It`s always cool
> to go against the authorities; shows how different you are and how
> much of an individual thinker you are.

Must be good to be an unthinking automaton, and mindlessly parrot whatever
the holy dogma says; it`s always cool to be a well-greased cog in the
machine that devours both reason and creativity.

Perhaps I shouldn`t have said that, but then neither should you have said
what you did. I would like to think they now cancel out.

> Now, what I said had everything to do with what the concept is all about,

Listen to me again: just because Monte Cook said that`s what he thinks the
concept is about, has little or no bearing on whether any of the many
prestige classes that have actually been published which were not
personally designed by him paid any attention to what he wanted them to
be. It is at least as valid to take the view that the definition of the
concept as currently practiced -- which is all that matters to someone who
wants to use those prestige classes that actually exist, as opposed to
those which might have existed in a perfect world where every game
designer agreed on what they were supposed to be like -- is that which is
expressed as some set of common features of all existing prestige classes;
from what I have read, that commonality is basically, "more powerful than
core classes and with fewer levels of advancement, but you can`t take them
until you have fulfilled some prerequisites."

Furthermore, even if every prestige class ever published had followed what
you interpret Mr. Cook`s design philosophy to be, it still would not
follow that said philosophy was the best possible way the concept of
"prestige class" as a category could have been designed. Saying "this is
the way it is" has no bearing on whether that way is good or bad, even
irrespective of whether or not that statement is correct. Everything is
always up for discussion and re-evaluation, which is the stated purpose of
this list.


Ryan Caveney

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