Balancing Melee/Wizard skirmishes

[HeatDeath]

So, allowing for variances such as dice rolls, tactics, and Lanchester's Laws, is it really just as simple as making sure each side has the same total number of attribute points?

[hcobb]

Wizards have the advantage in a single big fight. Heroes have the endurance to take on several closely spaced challenges.

[HeatDeath]

But if it's just heroes vs. heroes/monsters, or wizards vs. wizards, it's just total the attributes on each side [modulo the issues noted above], correct?

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by HeatDeath

But if it's just heroes vs. heroes/monsters, or wizards vs. wizards, it's just total the attributes on each side [modulo the issues noted above], correct?

If you use point totals it will be fairly balanced as long as you don't choose weird weapon/armour combos or have one side with all Missile weapons and the other with none, etc.

[Skarg]

No, it's not as simple as total attribute points.

Even without talents, spells and equipment to consider, more powerful fighters start to become superior to lesser fighters with just a few points difference, but the "entry cost" to get even an incompetent fighter is about 24 points (ST+DX+IQ at 8), which has extremely low combat value.

e.g., A ST 14 DX 14 IQ 8 warrior (36) can kill quite a few ST 10 DX 10 IQ 8 warriors (28), and a ST 15 DX 17 IQ 8 warrior (40) can kill often knock out two or three DX 12 or lower foes per turn with sweeping blows.

Design matters a lot, too. And talents (especially in Legacy Edition) can be worth several points' worth of advantages without costing more than 1-3 points.

If you want fair balance, I would suggest either:

System A:

Each side has the same number of figures at the same point totals. e.g. Maybe 2 x 30-point, 4 x 32-point, 2 x 36-point, per side.

System B:

Describe one side, and then one player describes a force they think can beat that force. Then the other player chooses which force description they want to play.

example:

Start with 4 36-point dwarves, one of which can be a wizard.

Player 1: I think I can defeat the dwarves with 8 30-point hobgoblins and 4 32-point orcs.

Player 2: Ok, so do I! I choose the orc force!


It may also be wanted to take talents into account in your descriptions. Such as, and talents that give a combat bonus count as half their memory points when valuing that character.

[hcobb]

If you want to balance monsters with special attacks and abilities against your fighters then you'll need either a deep understanding of the rules or some sort of firepower table to squish the different aspects down to a single number that can be summed.

https://www.hcobb.com/tft/firepower.html