4E's Padded Sumo a Xanatos Gambit?

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

For people not savvy with tvtropes.com (best Internet website ever), a Xanatos Gambit is when a mastermind appears to do something to get a reaction they want for their real plan. For example, the plots of Die Hard 1 and 3 are classic Xanatos Gambits. Bane slowly wearing down Batman and breaking his back in an ambush is another one. Xenahort tricking Sora into killing lots of Heartless for him is yet another one.

So why do I bring this up?

Okay, everyone talks about how boring and lame 4E's padded sumo mechanics suck. And I agree. But let's consider something wild and crazy for a second here.

Imagine a 15th level fighter in 3E when the books first came out. I'm talking back before friggin' Sword and Fist that's how old-skool we're going. A 15th level fighter, even before we figured out how to break the game really, was just stupid. It was quite possible that you would have two weapon focus/specializations (like the idiot example build in the DMG). And you'd almost certainly have the whirlwind chain because, hell, why not?

Now take a look at 3E in two years with the splatbooks. The two fighters are almost completely unrecognizable by now. The future fighter has stuff like supernatural critical and karmic strike and improved shield bash and divine shield.

And this is before we get into things like prestige classes and magic items!

The base mechanics of the fighters have not changed in the least, but the future fighter would completely rapestomp his contemporary counterpart.

Ability inflation happens. It just sells because, let's face it, dumpster diving is really fun and new books are really fun. Shadowrun is a pretty sane game as far as splatbooks and ability inflation goes, but a Street Magic Mage is leaps and bounds better than a Core Mage. D&D kicks it up a notch as time goes on; it's been like that in every edition and is as much of a part of the gaming experience as looting dungeons.

What I'm trying to say is that maybe the 4E designers anticipated the inevitable ability bloat. They're planning for the long haul.

What do you think?

[Voss]

Nope, or at least, not intentionally. Because if they do that, every single ability and, essentially, class in the original book can be tossed out the window. If they don't stick to the excessively limited range they gave powers, they essentially destroy everything written before.

Now, this doesn't mean that if you end up playing 4e, that it won't become a situation where you cherry pick the 1 or 2 powers from each book that are recognizably better than the others and put together a class that is almost interesting and effective. That will probably happen, but it won't be intentional, and it won't be that far outside the current power model.

The real effect the multiple source books will have is make the multiclass cherry picking absolutely necessary so you can stack up stun-lock powers that actually use the same attribute. For example, you'll see a lot more half-elf Star Warlocks taking powers from the next Con-based class. And taking their racial ability from yet another, so that they can just turn the enemy into a mindless target while the rest of the party beats on it.

[rapa-nui]

Probably not, but maybe. I mean, by giving the base classes an initially low power level, they might be wagering that as options increase in the future, the chances for uber combos will decrease, or the combos that do occur will be altogether less uber.

The reason I don't think this is the case is that they have already established guidelines for what abilities are and aren't allowed to do at X level (and by and large that's Y damage and Z effect for 1 round or until save... that's it).

[Amra]

I think they've purely and simply stayed away from anything that would be hard to code for as an online game. I've been absolutely convinced that they'd do that since hearing the Q&A session at GenCon last year, and it makes me very sad to see that it does indeed seem to be the case.

Of course there's no reason why third-party splatbooks couldn't or wouldn't break this mould, but the core material, I suspect, is going to stay as horribly uninteresting as the existing stuff. Otherwise, as Voss has pointed out, they'd have to set light to the material in the first books.

The more I have a chance to peruse 4e, the less I like it. Despite the fluff text proclaiming otherwise, D&D has become less like a roleplaying game and more like a miniatures strategy game than at any point since Chainmail.

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

The reason I don't think this is the case is that they have already established guidelines for what abilities are and aren't allowed to do at X level (and by and large that's Y damage and Z effect for 1 round or until save... that's it).

Of course there's no reason why third-party splatbooks couldn't or wouldn't break this mould, but the core material, I suspect, is going to stay as horribly uninteresting as the existing stuff. Otherwise, as Voss has pointed out, they'd have to set light to the material in the first books.

This just might be ineptness on the part of the game designers, but there are already abilities in the game that break this mold.

For example, the Ranger's Avalanching Blade ability. Combine this with Epic Trickster and you can single-handedly kill Orcus (strongest printed monster in the book) in one round. If you have an item that lets you teleport, there is literally nothing he can do about it. There isn't any rules finagling or even a lot of dumpster-diving.

Or if we're just talking about first-level silliness, the wizard's Orb Initiate ability is already broken. It sends the DPS/lockdown past what the designers intended from the word 'go' and only gets worse as time goes on.

Or you can just be a Ranger-archer that takes Eternal Seeker and slap Blur onto your ability list. Because Rangers can already literally burn every single ability they have on perfect defenses and Twin Strike shoots their normal DPS past the other classes, they'll pretty much outlast anything in the book including, yes, Orcus.

Or you could just have three rangers and have all of them take the Pathfinder paragon path that lets them gain extra actions whenever someone in their party takes one. Combine this with Eternal Seeker and Twin Strike and things get really interesting (dumb). Be sure to stagger your action points.

Or you could be an Elf and take the Demigod path. Get rid of every encounter ability you have except for one. Now enjoy your infinite rerolls on your elven accuracy power. Again, not very interesting except for the critical-fetish this game has. You're pretty much telling the DM 'I'm going to hold the game hostage until you give up and declare that every attack I make from now on is a critical.'

Mind you, this is nothing compared to the cheese attainable by 3rd Ed, especially since you have to be fairly high level. It's not even very interesting, you just skew the ratio of 'I attack the DARKNESS!'/'In Soviet Russia, Darkness attacks YOU!' towards your favor.

...

But the point I'm trying to take is that even though they tried very, very hard to put everyone on the RNG, the fact is that you can't make every ability in the game 3d6+stat damage and push the enemy. So the designers still have to put rulebreakers in; they can be subtle ones like the Epic Trickster's ability to force the DM to once a day roll a one, fundamentally broken ones like Blade Avalanche, ones you go Sailor Moon Alpha Strike on your enemy like the Pathfinder, or just long-term broken like the Eternal Seeker. But they're going to be put in.

So you're faced with some very unattractive alternatives.

1) Bite the bullet and made every ability in the game some variation of 3d6+stat damage and push the enemy. You can go ahead and do that, but then no one is going to buy your boring-ass books. They still haven't released the druid and monk and barbarian and if these classes are just warlock and rogue and ranger with the names filed off and a facelift then no one is going to give a shit and you lose $$$.

2) Put in the rulebreakers. Hope no one by and large notices and shuffle all of the work of 'balance' onto the GM. Alternatively, you can completely decide to embrace rulebreakers and go 'fuck it, here are some new at-will abilities that don't suck and here are some magic items that replenish all of your abilities anyway. Have fun, assholes.' You pretty much declare that from now on people are only allowed to play a 3rd Edition Rogue, Wizard, Cleric, or Druid with the names filed off.

3) Take a third option. Go the 3rd edition route and make all of the classes their own variation of minigames. For example, the druid class becomes a tactical miniatures minigame with ANIMALS, the psion class goes back to its 2nd edition roots and grinds the game to a halt to have an epic one-on-one battle with different rules, the illusionist class becomes a 'I know you know you know that the archer is just an illusion but I'm enhancing it with actual arrows so what do you do now buttmunch', and the monk class doesn't suck anymore. The third option, unfortunately, requires a lot of creativity and design rework that I know no one has the patience for.


I honestly believe that by and large future books will embrace the second option. It's easy and sells books. People hate rocket launcher tag less than padded sumo and if you give everyone rockets instead of just the spellcasters then people can't even cry 'unfair!'.

[K]

I think they've purely and simply stayed away from anything that would be hard to code for as an online game. I've been absolutely convinced that they'd do that since hearing the Q&A session at GenCon last year, and it makes me very sad to see that it does indeed seem to be the case.

Not just hard to code as an online game, but hard to code as a Flash game. That implies a level of complexity equal to the best that 1989 has to offer.

[SphereOfFeetMan]

I think they've purely and simply stayed away from anything that would be hard to code for as an online game. I've been absolutely convinced that they'd do that since hearing the Q&A session at GenCon last year, and it makes me very sad to see that it does indeed seem to be the case.

Of course there's no reason why third-party splatbooks couldn't or wouldn't break this mould, but the core material, I suspect, is going to stay as horribly uninteresting as the existing stuff. Otherwise, as Voss has pointed out, they'd have to set light to the material in the first books.

That is a very good point Amra.

Wotc has constrained themselves within the boundaries of the 4e Phb, and their online components. Padded Sumo becomes more and more of a problem as you go up in level. Too many abilities last 1 round b/c of Save Ends. Rituals won't be used because they cost too much.

Third party books don't need to adhere to these structures. They can just look at the 4e Phb and say "Fuck it. This is stupid. Lets make some classes with actual abilities."

It wouldn't be that hard. They could make more interesting rituals that don't cost anything. They could have status effects that last more than one round. They could have powers that did a lot more damage. They could have cinematic battlefield altering abilities that wouldn't fit on WotC's online battlemat.

Third party publishers could do all this, and the only thing they would sacrifice would be Padded Sumo. Instead of high level fights lasting 10-20 rounds, they would last a more reasonable 5-10. (It's kind of ironic that the only thing they need to sacrifice is a problem in its own right.)

[Username17]

It is my assumption that there is nothing interesting to be had at high level because they never playtested it and had no intention of writing material for it in anything but the vaguest skeleton.

I suspect that future releases will not only have more powerful character classes, but also have more potent abilities for character classes that already exist. The Illusion Patch for low level Wizards was a straight power up at several levels. All of them low levels. I would not put money down against them making more such patches for the higher levels.

In a few hundred dollars we might even have a good game. But I'm not holding my breath.

-Username17

[The 13 Wise Buttlords]

It is my assumption that there is nothing interesting to be had at high level because they never playtested it and had no intention of writing material for it in anything but the vaguest skeleton.

Actually, IMHO that the only interesting things to do right now are at high level.

Low level combat is profoundly uninteresting for all involved. You do like 3 things in one combat and you might seriously burn through all of them in one round. It is very possible that you might go into the next battle with two encounter powers to your name. That is seriously it. Oh, and combat lasts a lot longer this edition. WTF?

Things start to get a bit (mind you, a bit) more fun at really highly level when a ranger can throw out seriously 8 attacks without even expending higher levels or an Epic Trickster says 'fuck this' and regains all of his abilities or fighters just throw up their hands and stops time. They can't do anything while time is stopped, but shit bro, TIME HAS STOPPED.

It's still not as interesting as 3rd Ed high or even medium level but completely kicks the shit out of 4th low level.

[RandomCasualty2]

I suspect that future releases will not only have more powerful character classes, but also have more potent abilities for character classes that already exist. The Illusion Patch for low level Wizards was a straight power up at several levels. All of them low levels. I would not put money down against them making more such patches for the higher levels.

In a few hundred dollars we might even have a good game. But I'm not holding my breath.

I doubt it. Breaking thier own fixed rules for damage numbers, as they did with the wizard illusion patch, will only lead to trouble. The PHB abilities are more or less balanced right now, but throw that patch in, and now you've created a must take ability, which in a game where you choose one ability of each level, is really bad and actually makes the game worse.

Power creep never really improves a game, it's solely a marketing tool, because assuming a balanced game, once you buy the book on rangers, you throw the ranger out of balance, and now you've got to buy the book on the other 7 classes.

Generally splatbook stuff is less playtested (or not playtested at all) and ruins the game as a whole.

[Voss]

It is my assumption that there is nothing interesting to be had at high level because they never playtested it and had no intention of writing material for it in anything but the vaguest skeleton.

Actually, IMHO that the only interesting things to do right now are at high level.

Low level combat is profoundly uninteresting for all involved. You do like 3 things in one combat and you might seriously burn through all of them in one round. It is very possible that you might go into the next battle with two encounter powers to your name. That is seriously it. Oh, and combat lasts a lot longer this edition. WTF?

Things start to get a bit (mind you, a bit) more fun at really highly level when a ranger can throw out seriously 8 attacks without even expending higher levels or an Epic Trickster says 'fuck this' and regains all of his abilities or fighters just throw up their hands and stops time. They can't do anything while time is stopped, but shit bro, TIME HAS STOPPED.

It's still not as interesting as 3rd Ed high or even medium level but completely kicks the shit out of 4th low level.

However, at low levels, you can get through a combat by using your 2 abilities plus your at wills 2-3 times. At high levels you really have to plow through 20+ rounds of doing jack shit. There might be some flavor text flying about (like time stop), but really, time hasn't stopped. Its dragging itself out round after round, and the game is slowly killing you by inches as you shave miniscule amounts of HP off your foes.

@RC- well, the problem with your argument is that they *did* release the illusion patch. And its really officially and quite possibly a sign of things to come. I suspect they will keep it fairly bland and uninteresting over all, but power creep is probably in the cards (not so much the xanatos gambit thing above), just because their only goal is to sell books. And power creep is pretty much the only thing their audience will grasp. Real illusions and functional charm spells and all of that good shit won't be in, because the player base they've chosen to cater to has spoken, and all that stuff is too hard.

So, yeah, this:

Power creep never really improves a game, it's solely a marketing tool, because assuming a balanced game, once you buy the book on rangers, you throw the ranger out of balance, and now you've got to buy the book on the other 7 classes.

Is pretty much they only way they can milk 8 years of sales out of this turd before they release 5th edition.

[Talisman]

Power creep never really improves a game, it's solely a marketing tool, because assuming a balanced game, once you buy the book on rangers, you throw the ranger out of balance, and now you've got to buy the book on the other 7 classes.

Generally splatbook stuff is less playtested (or not playtested at all) and ruins the game as a whole.

Expanded options =/= power creep. As long as the stuff in the ranger book isn't intrinsically more powerful than the basic ranger stuff, rangers don't suddenly become uber.

I realize that, in practice, splatbooks usually = power creep, but I felt the need to point that out.

[Psychic Robot]

Real illusions and functional charm spells and all of that good shit won't be in, because the player base they've chosen to cater to has spoken, and all that stuff is too hard.

Tell me more...

[Amra]

The Illusion Patch for low level Wizards was a straight power up at several levels. All of them low levels.

So it would appear, but your thesis rather relies on the assumption that they intended to create a Wizard power-up, or at least that they noticed that they'd done so before releasing it. And I believe that's far from necessarily the case.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if future classes had abilities that were more powerful, but at this point I wouldn't care to put any money on that being intentional, nor on the abilities being anything actually interesting.

I would, however, place a small wager on them not publishing anything in Core that can't readily be represented via their online graphical tabletop.

Meh, I'm just bitter because I have always loved open-ended illusions and similarly flavourful spells and abilities; it just doesn't feel like D&D without them, to me.

[zeruslord]

and everything is core, so they won't publish anything that isn't pretty and easy to code for their online tabletop.

[Voss]

Real illusions and functional charm spells and all of that good shit won't be in, because the player base they've chosen to cater to has spoken, and all that stuff is too hard.

Tell me more...

Page through the more fanatical ENworld posts. They don't want that stuff, because its hard. It doesn't matter how much it adds to the game (or rather, how much the lack of it detracts from the game), if its difficult, they really don't want it.

I'd cite specific posts, but its really unnecessary. (Its also useful to go there, since they're more fanatically pro-wotc than the wotc boards).

[Psychic Robot]

Sigh. If only the WotC boards allowed us to be as free with our tongues as TGMB does.

[Psychic Robot]

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=228419

...Why?!

[Username17]

Awesome. Someone comes in and says "Magic doesn't do anything interesting, creative, or world altering." and six people come in to tell him that it's a feature before one person comes in to say that he can see both sides of the issue.

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

That sounds like an exciting and wonderful way to have played that out in 3e.

In 4e you can't do that.

In 4e, you can do a skill challenge. Have your players use creative skills to save the boat during combat. The fighter uses endurance to bail out buckets of water while having to fight at the same time!! The wizard uses an int check to do the math and figure out a good way to plug the hole. The rogue uses streetwise to quickly determine find out among the crew whose the man for the job, and the paladin uses diplomacy (or intimidate) to get that person working as fast as possible.

We all have to recognize that there things in 4e you can't do compared to 3e, but we do have new tools to work with. Let's try these new tools out, and see if in the long run we like them better.

That thread probably belongs in the "Threads that Make Us Cry" thread.

[Tydanosaurus]

The wizard uses an int check to do the math and figure out a good way to plug the hole.

Yes, because fun games always involve lots and lots of math. And the uberfun games involve simulations of you doing math.

*Mommy! Mommy! Look! It's Calculus the RPG! Please, Mommy?*

I almost want to get an Enworld id to mock them.

[Psychic Robot]

Now, now, that assessment isn't the least bit fair. First off, D&D has always been about math. Second of all, he wasn't talking about the players actually doing math.

[Voss]

That sounds like an exciting and wonderful way to have played that out in 3e.

In 4e you can't do that.

In 4e, you can do a skill challenge. Have your players use creative skills to save the boat during combat. The fighter uses endurance to bail out buckets of water while having to fight at the same time!! The wizard uses an int check to do the math and figure out a good way to plug the hole. The rogue uses streetwise to quickly determine find out among the crew whose the man for the job, and the paladin uses diplomacy (or intimidate) to get that person working as fast as possible.

We all have to recognize that there things in 4e you can't do compared to 3e, but we do have new tools to work with. Let's try these new tools out, and see if in the long run we like them better.

That thread probably belongs in the "Threads that Make Us Cry" thread.

Probably. This post hurt me the most:
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4 ... ostcount=8

Its pretty much exactly what I meant.
Particularly the bits on sundering, rope trick and illusions.

[Psychic Robot]

MAKE WHOLE IS BROKEN, according to ENWorld. Therefore, we should remove sundering so we don't have to worry about it.

/facepalm

[Voss]

And this is why the like 4e. Make whole is wrong. Rope trick is seriously wrong. In fact, any utility spell you care to name is better than any 9th level spell.

Yeah. So. Apparently, 4e was written for a completely different audience, and everything wrong with it is actually a feature.