Dungeons and Dragons Wiki talk:Article Balance

XPH + ToB < Wizard/Cleric

It looks like you have a rather rough gradient here for the balance distinction that really matters. XPH and ToB tends to be weaker than wizards, clerics, and Frank and K stuffs. I foresee problems with users who want an XPH level of balance not knowing where to categorize. Is it an overpowered rogue or an underpowered wizard? Another layer might help avoid this problem. --Andrew Arnott (talk, email) 01:16, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

I personally would just rank the Psion with the Sorcerer and the PsyWar with the Rogue. Warblade definitely goes with Rogue. Does anyone disagree with this? (I really don't think anything I listed is better than the Rogue, and the Psion is basically a Sorcerer with a little more suck added on.) I don't want the layers to get too fine-grained is all. Surgo 01:22, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

Here are some more classes for how I see the breakdown:

• Monk level: Paladin, Ranger (not paired with Scout), Healer, Swashbuckler (not paired with Rogue)
• Fighter level: Warlock, Warmage, Hexblade, Spellthief (except under specific circumstances in a spellcaster-heavy campaign), Scout, Marshal
• Rogue level (balanced classes): Rogue, Ranger (when paired with Scout), Swashbuckler (when paired with Rogue), Warblade, Swordsage, Duskblade, Psychic Warrior, Crusader, Factotum, Dread Necromancer, Bard. A lot of Tome material, especially the base classes written up by Frank and K (though not so much their Prestige Classes, or some of the others written by other people) balance at this level, and this is where I believe true balance to be found.
• In between Rogue and Wizard level: Sorcerer, Psion, Erudite (no spells-to-power variant), Wilder, Favored Soul, Beguiler,
• Wizard level: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Artificer, Archivist (actually unsure about this one, might be a tier lower), Erudite (spells-to-powers variant)

That said, I think it would be a good idea to mention that the classes that are higher tier are not powerful if you don't build them right; for example, in many campaigns I've played online, I see wizards preparing spells like Magic Missile, Scorching Ray (no metamagic), Fireball, Cone of Cold, etc. These characters would probably fit closer to the Fighter level, perhaps even below the Warmage than they would at the highest tier. --Ghostwheel 01:37, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

I just want to underscore again, before we go any further (and before I reply to anything here), that these aren't supposed to be definite rankings of classes or even all that finely-grained; their one large purpose is to say to a prospective viewer "if your campaign includes (this Wizards thing), this article (is / is not) okay to use." Surgo 02:46, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm more concerned about how these balance points apply to ratings. Do we give a bad rating to something that has a balance point in between rogue and wizard? I'd hope not if it was intended to be balanced that way. --Andrew Arnott (talk, email) 13:45, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

Oh, certainly not. These really shouldn't apply to how ratings work -- this is a tool for DMs. Surgo 14:11, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

So where do we, as a wiki place "balanced"? Let's say there's a class that gets clerical casting (including 2 domains), d8 HD, armor/weapon proficiencies as the cleric, and has no Turn Undead; however, at first level they get a +1 luck bonus to attack and damage that rises by another 1 every 3 levels (to a max of 3), at level 7 they gain a permanent +6 enhancement bonus to str and their BAB rises to meet their character level, and at ninth level they gain a size category, +4 str, DR, etc (sound familiar?) Would this class be considered balanced when it's at the same power level as a DMM cleric?

At any rate, my point is... what's balanced here? Are things that have the same/more power than the wizard level balanced? Things that have the same power as the rogue level? Or those that have the same power as the fighter level? Or is everything perhaps simply balanced according to its power level? (So clerics are balanced to the wizard power level while healers are not underpowerd, but are instead balanced to the monk power level?) --Ghostwheel 17:47, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the question of where the wiki places balance is relevant, or rather, I don't think it should be answered site-wide. Balance is something that happens in an indvidual campaign, it's not something that happens across the entire wiki on a single point. As for your example class...yeah, that class would be thrown in at "wizard" level and would fit in okay there, probably.

So when a class shows up and it declares "I'm trying to be around this level", that's what I'm going to judge it as. I'm not going to try to answer the question site-wide whether there's One True Balance Point because while all my campaigns are tome campaigns, there are seriously people out there who think that the Monk is the One True Way (seriously). These people are weird and in my opinion pretty stupid, but the wiki can service their campaigns as well. No need to get more restrictive than that, is my opinion. So I guess my long-winded answer to this is "balance is campaign dependent" (which doesn't mean it can't be argued, because it totally can within where you're trying to set something down (like your arguments that some Tome caster PrCs are overpowered) but it does mean that some people are going to play at the Monk level and be at least okay).

This wasn't asked or even noted but I feel like saying it too -- this is one of the multitude of reasons we have a rating committee to rate the quality of classes posted. I mean, it's pretty clear by now at this point in 3.5's life cycle that there is no function that takes in a class and decides balance (or even how well it does against monsters, really) or goodness and that's why we've got 9 pretty smart guys and gals here to do that job. Surgo 18:57, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

Some balance point metaphors. Cause I'm hungry. --Jay Freedman 19:00, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

• Vegetarian (bread and sauce.) (no use, broken)
• French Dip (all meat. no lettuce and tomato.) (over use, munchkin)
• B.L.T. (lettuce and tomato, but no meat.) (some use, fighter & paladin)
• Turkey Sandwich (good mix.) (useful, ranger & rogue)
• Everything Burger (it has it all.) (useful anytime, wizard & sorcerer)

Please avoid posting this useless nonsense here when people are trying to have a useful discussion. Surgo 19:01, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

So judge classes based on the power level tier they're shooting for, gotcha. That sounds fair. Perhaps we should add a section to the class-creation template of what tier of power the author is making it for? (Choose on of the following options, Monk, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard?) --Ghostwheel 19:12, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

→Reverted indentation to one colon

Yeah, once this page is finished up I'll be editing the preloads and author template for just that purpose. Surgo 19:16, September 7, 2009 (UTC)

While most of the classes up here are straightforward, it's difficult to get a sense of what the balance levels mean for some of the classes that change based on how they're played. It might be helpful to include classes+playstyles for the really variable classes, like how the single barbarian entry is already done. Blastan wizards at fighter level, regular wizards at rogue level, and optimized tactical wizards at wizard level (or whatever) would give a better idea of what the levels represent. TarkisFlux 22:33, September 10, 2009 (UTC)

Award Balance Ratings

I'd like to start giving different content on the wiki ratings of Monk, Fighter, Rogue, or Wizard, and if the author disagrees they can change it and/or rebalance it to fit the tier they're shooting for. Is there any template that I could use to start this? If anyone disagrees with the rating given, we can start talking about it on the talk page, but while I'd like to start giving preliminary ratings, the author will be the final decider. --Ghostwheel 00:27, September 18, 2009 (UTC)

I second the motion! Slap them puppies with balance. The authors can consider it feedback and change it later. Oh and, good luck. --Jay Freedman 06:40, September 18, 2009 (UTC)

That was the end goal, which I haven't been able to do myself because, well, grad school. There is no actual template to use, it's just a parameter in the author template. |balance=Monk, |balance=Fighter, |balance=Rogue, or |balance=Wizard. (What |balance=(thing) actually will do is link (thing) to an anchor in this page.) Surgo 18:16, September 19, 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've got the basics of this sorted out over here, but I don't want to move it into the author template just yet (after last night, I'm taking my time and I may give the author template some cleaning in general). There are also two behaviors we need to choose from for when people specify invalid balance types for their work. In case 1 it throws up a note that the balance point is specifically not to wiki guidelines and links them to the balance page, and in case 2 it just tries to find the balance point anchor on this page and fails, linking them back to the balance page but not indicating the failure otherwise. Neither is harder to implement, so it really is a question of preference. Anyone have one?

Revised author template is live now (and I fixed a spacing issue in there). I went with the "This page doesn't meet standard guidelines" balance entry for when people pick weird crap, if there's any desire for the other way I'll do that one instead. We may need to re-edit and save all of the pages with the tag on it already, since it doesn't seem to auto-update pages with the template on it when the template changes, unless someone wants to bot it. - TarkisFlux 02:05, September 24, 2009 (UTC)

Balance of Races

Human's a good rogue-level benchmark for virtually all classes. Ask yourself, "Is this the same in power as a human in the class that it would be most powerful at?" If yes, it's rogue-level as well. If it's weaker, it might be fighter or monk level. If it's stronger, it's probably wizard tier. So a gray elf is stronger than the human at being a wizard (+2 int > bonus feat for wizards), while half-orc is weaker than a human at being a warblade/crusader (meleers REALLY need those feats), and as a warblade or crusader the dwarf is about as good as a human (bonus feat is nice, but dwarves get all those yummy bonuses). Same to the halfling as a rogue. Half-elf doesn't compare to human almost anywhere apart from super-specialized builds, so it would receive the monk balance level. Also, some people might say that in the long run one's race doesn't matter, since ability bonuses are overcome through items; however, given the same items, a gray elf wizard is always going to have a higher DC than a human (the same difference as level one) as well as a bonus (two, perhaps) spell (also the same as at level one). --Ghostwheel 02:55, September 23, 2009 (UTC)

I strongly believe races should be handled differently, the balance point system is pretty but i don,t think it can universally applied everywhere. I may have my own little idea on how to do so, since we don't want to split the balance system too much it going in the same direction as balance point. I would so totally prove my point and write my system but I feel lazy today. --Leziad 03:00, September 23, 2009 (UTC)

So based on Mibbit discussion we seem to have come to the consensus that do to its versatility, human is a good rogue-level benchmark for rating races. There was some disagreement, however, over the universality/finality of the placement of each race. For example, no one seemed to disagree that a half-lunar sorcerer was effectively wizard-level in that combination, but the current page does not provide for the combination, it only states a race. Therefore I propose that races be followed in parentheses by the classes that they are assumed to be progressing in, for example: Half-Lunar (Sorcerer) or Strongheart Halfling (Rogue) would be wizard-tier for their respective classes, while a half-orc wizard would be monk level or worse (not that you need every combination under the sun). -- Jota 03:01, September 23, 2009 (UTC)

As is, this so doesn't work. IMO, races should not have a balance point unless they are a ECL race that involves taking it instead of class levels. Noone is going to try to balance around the half-orc or half-elf, and I don't think we should encourage that. Races are also a lot trickier. The gray elf is rated as "wizard tier", while the hill dwarf is rated as "rogue tier". Why? Isn't giving +1 HP/level, the ability to tumble in full plate, +2 to all saves, huge bonuses vs poison, and the awesome stonecunning to fighter equal to what is basically +1 to spell DCs and AC at the cost of HP? The gnome, point-for-point, has some of the smallest racial benefits, but when applied to a focused illusionist or beguiler they suddenly become totally awesome. This I feel makes the system unworkable. Races should be handled on a case-by-case basis - figure out what classes the race is best for, and compare them to the other races that are best for that class. Figure out how much they're ahead or behind by, and if it's acceptable amount. Even if they're outright better, that can be OK - a race especially well suited to a class that doesn't have a race already well suited to is perfectly balanced. Karrius 05:04, September 23, 2009 (UTC)

Upon thinking it over again (sorry guys), Karrius is pretty much right here. Balance points for races should probably be omitted. Surgo 14:59, September 23, 2009 (UTC)

Done and done. --Ghostwheel 16:57, September 23, 2009 (UTC)