It's Friday so it's time for a look around the web to see if there's anything to comment on. This post over at Points of Light caught my attention. It's all about how the Paladin is in fact a balanced class in 4th Edition.
I find the point somewhat amusing. The Paladin, a divine warrior- balanced? To ask the question is to highlight that something is missing out of the gate. There is no ratioanl reason for a Paladin to be 'balanced', they are called by God (or god for those multiple deity worlds although IMO splitting Paladins from their Judo-Christian background is a serious mistake). They were called to BE unbalancing. They are there to correct a wrong that cannot otherwise be corrected. Anything else does the concept a disservice.
This is what they were in original D&D. ALL the abilities of a Fighter plus MORE. In exchange for such power, they had a number of social limits. Only that wealth (in money and gear) needed for the task combined with a very high bar of alignment behavior. To fail in meeting those limits was to become a mere Fighter.
So balance as Points of Light is considering it (i.e. combat balance) is absurd on its face. Let Paladins be Paladins, they are more than just a difference of style or professional choice.
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26 comments:
I think you misunderstood his post. He was more talking about how paladins didn't suck, actually. Most people think Paladins in 4e are weak because they depend on multiple ability scores. This doesn't have anything to do with your original point, but I just thought I'd point it out. Balance can also mean that something is too weak to play well, not just that it's too strong to be allowed.
Additionally... balancing with RP (which is what the tithing and alignment structures are) is still "balanced". It's just balanced by a non-game mechanic that allows them to be "more powerful" in a mechanical way. And honestly, I think that's poor design. It relies on a uniform application of intangibles (what is an appropriate amount of money? What constitutes a breach of faith/alignment?) and while that can work in a small scale local way, applying that as a general feature for use in everyone's game is much more difficult.
And it also depends on how you are defining paladin as a role, and what you feel it needs to fil lthat role.
@Wyatt: I think I understood his point, i.e. that he was defending Paladins as 'balanced' because they weren't too weak. And that is the wrong way to defend them IMO or rather if you're defending them at that level there is a serious problem already present. They should be so much stronger than other class options that the question shouldn't come up.
@anonynos: Most of a RPG campaign in my view (see Layers of Design) is intangibles (i.e. meta-game). If it's poor design, than we should give up RPGs completely.
As to Paladins being balanced at the Meta-Game levels, of course. That's why I specifically stated "(i.e. combat balance)" in my post.
The intangibles, in my opinion, are the primary of appeal of table top roleplaying games.
I would say if we can't design for the intangibles, then we might as well be making a video game that constrains everything.
@Mad Brew: If everything in the campaign was moved to the Game Layer, we'd have an automated model that that would play the rpg without human interference.
Not exactly what I'd want out of an rpg.
My concept of a paladin doesn't even suggest any need for greater power than other characters. I always thought of them as dedicated to god, not selected by god because they are better.
Even assuming that they need to be better than others, I would say that it is possible to make them both superior to fighters, and mechanics wise combat balanced with the fighter. If intangibles are used to balance them, why not use intangibles to make them powerful.
In a system that uses point buy, the necessary rarity of the paladin that was enforced through say the 17 Cha of previous editions disappears. Without this restriction, why not play the superior class? If it is just intangibles, and those intangibles are debatable, then there is no reason to play another class. It selects for munchkins.
The RP aspects of the paladin are not eliminated by balancing them with respect to the combat abilities of each of the classes. In the interest of diversity of the party, there should be no mechanical reason to choose one class over another, besides theme.
I think that is more than reasonable to make the paladin have more power and more responsibility, both in the intangibles.
I do not see the issue with the 4e paladin. It plays well, it fits the theme, and it has many great RP possibilities.
Oh this bring me back to when the Paladin was a reward for players who rolled high for their stats in AD&D.
"although IMO splitting Paladins from their Judo-Christian background is a serious mistake"
OMG are you f'ing serious?
*sighs*
Fine. RP is a great balancer for mechanical bonuses.
@Precocious Apprentice: There is so much wrong with your reply that its difficult to begin. I think I'll pass and just state that there was nothing in your comment that I'd agree with.
@Questing GM: The 'reward' for high rolls is something I kept for my own homebrew rules. But I don't really think of it in those terms. It's just that Paladins tend to be impressive in the source material for them- and I carried that over to the stat requirements.
@Red Jason: Yes, very serious.
@anonynos: Yes, it is. Maybe you try it sometime. Original D&D certainly did.
*sigh*
So... I've spent far to much time debating how to reply. To a large degree I've decided that my reaction to your tone is "Someone's wrong on the internet!". Which makes it a stupid and loosing proposition. And further more, the more I look at your argument, and follow up, the more I think that our lines of thought are actually tangential to one another. I'm dealing with the mechanical structure of a class, you (seem to be) dealing with the /role/ of something arbitrarily called "paladin" in world you are playing in. And at that point we're not even in the same discussion. So I'll leave you to it.
@anonynos: your greatest error here is the same one that infested the Forge- you think that the mechanics are the total experience. You couldn't be more wrong.
What should and should not be covered by mechanic is the heart of game design *and* game play.
@Precocious Apprentice: From here on I'm deleting your comments. You have nothing to gain here and you've crossed over into personal attacks that have caused me to lose patience with your poor reasoning.
This isn't a message forum, it's blog. Here you're a guest. Goodbye.
I am so glad you are not in my gaming group.
@Red Jason: That sword has two edges.
Why should the paladin be singled out for unbalancing? The cleric is called by *god* as well, the wizard commands the science of the world, the warlock and sorcerer command the raw power, the primal classes draw upon the ancient power of the earth and the primordials, who are more powerful than gods...
This is the "rational reason" for classes to be balanced out of the gate. In this kind of game, how can you single out one class and say "those guys should clearly be the most powerful of all?"
@Thasmodious: If one reads the article, you'll note that I was speaking of the differences between Fighter (and the Fighting classes) and Paladins. Paladins aren't better than other non-fighting classes at what they do (magic, or picking locks, or whatever), because that's not what Paladins do.
I understood your article perfectly well. The point is that the classes in the game are all powerful aspects. I should have included fighter or warlord in my example, as I can see how you reach the conclusion you do. But the Fighter isn't just a normal guy with a sword surrounded by all these magical superbeings. He's as a bad-ass a warrior as it gets.
The argument you are making is that class balance is bad and I disagree. It had long been a design goal for D&D and 4e was the first edition to actually accomplish it. We can argue the merits of class balance, that is a valid discussion. But arguing that it is a flaw in a game that seeks balance to achieve it (because one guy is religious and another is not, no less) is a bit... off.
@Thasmodious: one can have class balance as a design goal, and that's fine. I have no problem with it.
However there are concepts that by it's very nature are not balanced. A Paladin is as bad-ass as a warrior gets- PLUS he's backed up by the wil of God himself.
If class balance is all important to D&D, it should remove Paladins from the game. That it didn't is nothing less than a smear against the concept of the concept.
@Thasmodious: To say nothing that like others you're ignoring non-combat balancing options.
Why is it that people think the only important options and limits have to be game-layer mechanics? It's plainly not true.
"A Paladin is as bad-ass as a warrior gets- PLUS he's backed up by the wil of God himself."
I disagree. A paladin's magic is to help make up for the deficiencies in bad ass warrior training he passed while whipping himself in some dank temple closet while chanting. The fighter is and should be the better pure fighter. The paladin has other things going for him. The fighter leaves and breathes every aspect of combat. No matter how holy, they both have the same number of hours in the day and the paladins is split between fighting and praying.
Your argument would be like saying that a heirophant in 3e should be better than a wizard and not lose any caster levels because he's a wizard for god, which makes him awesome-er than a regular wizard.
And I'm not ignoring non-combat balancing, I'm ignoring meta-game balancing that tells a DM how he must run his game. "You must play just like this or the paladin is overpowered, we leave it up to you to play the 'right way' and make it all work." That's weak, lazy design.
The balance 4e strives for is specifically contained within the mechanics of the system. It does not claim to balance concept or character, merely the numbers of the system. This is sound design in my book, the rest is up to the group.
Er, "the fighter lives and breathes"
@Thasmodious:"That's weak, lazy design"
Ah, so your own "One True Way" shows it's face.
We disagree Thasmodious, there is nothing left to say.
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