Party Balance and Class Descriptions / capacities

[tetramorph]

I am old school enough not to want too much "game balance."

But by game balance I mean party vs. challenges. I do not mean the party itself, as a unit, nor, therefore, classes and their description and capacities.

I like a "balanced party." I like this for the "game" aspect of the game. I want everybody to have fun, have a specialty, feel like they are needed and each to have a "time to shine."

I also like it because I think it "games" the classical legendaria of our medieval west pretty well. Some medieval legend was of the "solo hero" type. But then there were the allegories. In these, the virtues, personified, had to team up to defeat the personified vices. I think this is something we engage in D&D, with the prime requestits representing the key "virtues" that each character class personifies. The complete ("Christian") "soul" needs all these in balance in order to clear the Underworld and the Wilderness and bring Law out of Chaos, etc.

So here is what I did:

In my Dun Kells rules I've made both prime requisites and secondary characteristics. And they are exactly spaced two distant from each other (I think this is particularly cool from the design sense. I think it is elegant. The elegance is pleasing to me). The prime requisite gives you 10% increase to XP PER BONUS (yes, that is right, and I use the BECMI bonus curve, as discussed in a previous post) and 5% increase to XP per bonus for the secondary characteristic. Hypothetically, that means a character could get as much as a 45% increase to XP: if they were astronomically lucky in the rolls and got an 18, twice, spaced exactly one apart! Let me show you what I mean:

Class	Prime +/-10%	Secondary +/-5%
Knights	STR	WIS
Magi	INT	DEX
Clerics	WIS	CON
Scouts	DEX	CHA
Dwarves	CON	STR
Elves	CHA	INT

Here are some other ways that I tried to differentiated the six core classes so that they would truly compliment one another and so that each added something interesting to the mix and each needed something from the other. It is based upon differences in core mechanics that progress by level, and they are always shared by two classes. The mechanics are level change rate by XP accrual, combat skill ("to hit" progression), relative AC together with HP accrual and renewal rates, and base saving throws:

Level change rate by XP accrual from fastest to slowest:

*Clerics and Scouts
*Knights and Dwarves
*Magi and Elves

Skill in combat from best to worst:

*Knights and Scouts
*Clerics and Elves
*Magi and Dwarves

Quality of AC from best to worst AND Hit point accrual and renewal rate from best to worst (so, defensive capacity):

*Knights and Dwarves
*Clerics and Elves
*Magi and Scouts

Base saving throw from best to worst:

*Clerics and Dwarves
*Magi and Elves
*Knights and Scouts

I web-logged about this recently. I am open to y'all's comments and thoughts about all this.

[Admin Pete]

Sweet, and although having a variety of classes in the party is very useful for the party, it is also fun to have an unbalanced party give it a go too. You can learn a lot when players do odd things.