Robillar's Gambit

Our group just played the final session in a somewhat lengthy campaign last night, and I was kind of disappointed with the way it ended. By the end, my character was a Warblade 17/Barbarian 1/Frenzied Berserker 7 with Robillar's Gambit, Combat Reflexes, Improved Combat Reflexes, and Deft Opportunist. The problem was that the BBEG was actually a former PC (the father of one of the current PCs in a Dynasty campaign) who was turned into a death knight by a ritual gone awry, and although he was very powerful, he was entirely overmatched by my character (I annihilated him in one round on his turn). He started off his turn by attacking and killing his son (my character's cousin, some 26-level combination of Fighter/Wizard/Abjurant Champion/Eldritch Knight), and after completing this task, he made the mistake of attacking me.

What I hadn't really realized until earlier that night was the fact that, unless I was bereft of any uses of the Frenzy ability, not only was I essentially invincible in melee combat barring a lucky roll with a vorpal weapon or something similar, I could also use this fact to automatically win a trading of blows with Robillar's Gambit (which my foe and I could both use unlimited times per round because of Improved Combat Reflexes). Unless my opponent was also unkillable, highly resistant to my attacks, or something similar, I would eventually win the exchange. Period. This actually happened twice in that session--the first time, we actually started to roll it out, and I stopped, thought about it, and said, "Wait a second... I just... well... win this. There's no way for me to lose." I explained why, and the DM agreed--he could have opted not to attack back after one of my attacks, but if he did that, I would have survived until my turn by virtue of my hit points and either I by myself or all of us together would have just killed him anyway.

When this same situation occurred with the BBEG, a BBEG in which we as players actually had quite a bit invested, it seemed really anticlimactic. I apologized to the DM, and I think we both walked away pretty disappointed. I really hadn't meant for my character to be quite that cheesy, but the gaming group is made up of relative powergamers and the DM compensates for it, so I was trying to stay on par. I didn't want a character who would just automatically win, but it ended up that way, and now I'm really starting to scrutinize Robillar's Gambit. Since we first tried it out, just about every fighter-type PC has picked it up at 12th level, and it really is starting to seem abusive to me, especially when combined with the Warblade's int bonus to AoOs and the Deft Opportunist feat.

Has anyone else had this type of experience with Robillar's Gambit? I'm thinking of banning it from my games and simply not picking it up for my PCs from here on out. It's just not fun anymore. (I'm also thinking of banning Belts of Battle and Boots of Temporal Acceleration, but that's a different story.)

Are you sure Robilar's Gambit is the broken part? What about Frenzied Berserker?

You're right about Belts of Battle, they're definitely broken.

Doug McCrae said:

Are you sure Robilar's Gambit is the broken part? What about Frenzied Berserker?

You're right about Belts of Battle, they're definitely broken.

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Well, yeah, Frenzy is pretty sick, but Robillar's Gambit has seemed pretty cheesy for a while now with several different builds. On your turn, you Power Attack for everything you have, and you probably miss on most of your attacks, but on your opponents' turns (with Deft Opportunist) you get to attack them as many times as you get attacked not at your best attack bonus, but at your best attack bonus plus four. I would do this all the time before I added Frenzied Berserker, and I was capable of dealing far more damage when it wasn't my turn than I ever would have been when it was.

this is just a side effect of high level play in my humble opinion. The more levels you acquire, the more opportunities you have to make an invincible character. Just think of some of the nasty tricks a wizard could have done in such a situation, and it most likely wouldn't have involved a save

useridunavailable said:

Well, yeah, Frenzy is pretty sick, but Robillar's Gambit has seemed pretty cheesy for a while now with several different builds. On your turn, you Power Attack for everything you have, and you probably miss on most of your attacks, but on your opponents' turns (with Deft Opportunist) you get to attack them as many times as you get attacked not at your best attack bonus, but at your best attack bonus plus four. I would do this all the time before I added Frenzied Berserker, and I was capable of dealing far more damage when it wasn't my turn than I ever would have been when it was.

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If you're not taking the attack penalty from Power Attack on those Robillar's Gambit attacks, then logically you shouldn't be getting a power attack damage bonus for those attacks. That's a perfectly fair ruling the DM should have made.

Where's Deft Opportunist from though and what does it do?

I don't see how Robilar Gambit by itself can be abusive though since your opponent gains a +4 bonus to both their attack and damage rolls.

Personally, I'd be more concerned with the Frenzy ability.

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Doug McCrae said:

Are you sure Robilar's Gambit is the broken part? What about Frenzied Berserker?

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I really think this is a classic case of the "too many sourcebooks without enough thought" issue. When you start mixing expansion products together you are going to have combinations that weren't designed in consideration of each other. You need to consider the ramifications of the combination and reign in the abuses. You don't even need to ban anything, just ban combinations (or adjust how they work together).

Look at what you have interacting here:

Warblade (Tome of Battle)
Frenzied Berserker (Complete Warrior)
Robilar's Gambit (PHB II)
Improved Combat Reflexes (Epic Level Handbook)
Deft Opportunist (Complete Adventurer)

The issue isn't necessarily any one of these things, but the combination of them. Plus, it's not just one non-core book, it's 5 different ones. There is no way to playtest all the possible combinations from mixing the books together. Add in the fact that many are considered powerful and in some cases abusive*, then it's a mess waiting to happen.

* The Epic Level Handbook is powerful and the fact of it. Everyone knows the Frenzied Berserker has not just one issue, but several of them.

The problem is that Deathless Frenzy, besides being broken by itself, breaks Robilar's Gambit by removing the downside of the feat. The penalties from the feat (taking more damage in melee via reduced AC and giving your foes bonus damage) are of no consequence when you basically immune to damage.


I place most of the blame on the Frenzy part though. If you can't actually be killed by attacks, then enemies who attack you in melee are pretty much screwed anyway. Enemies that can't go around Deathless Frenzy's defense will lose to you regardless. The only issue might be what happens to the rest of the party - if the foes spend time attacking you before everyone else is dead, then they'll come out okay. So the ability to kill them faster via a Robilar's exchange is not so significant. You're not going to lose anyway, so winning a little faster isn't that big of a deal.

Glyfair said:

I really think this is a classic case of the "too many sourcebooks without enough thought" issue. When you start mixing expansion products together you are going to have combinations that weren't designed in consideration of each other. You need to consider the ramifications of the combination and reign in the abuses.

Click to expand...

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I've really noticed how different books written exclusive of one another can really lead to a build that might not have been intended by individual designers. I deal with this every Sunday. My players have taken feats from Complete Warrior, Complete Adventurer, Complete Scoundrel, etc., and have really made some tough cookies.

Take the ranger/fighter. He uses a two-handed weapon, favored power attack (Com War), leap attack (Com Adv), and combat brute (Com War) to get x4 on his power attack modifier, and it's spelled doom for BBEGs on more than one occasion. In a perfect world, the designers of Complete Adventurer might have asked, "Um, should we allow leap attack to increase the power attack modifier again? I mean, remember that in Complete Warrior PCs can increase their power attack modifiers using favored power attack and/or combat brute. Things could get out of hand if a PC takes all three and mops the floor with every encounter tailored for his character level."

I don't ban anything, simply because I want my players to be able to pick what they want and be happy (and because it's a cheap move on my part), but it is a bit frustrating when players know their builds can't be touched... and when those power-built PCs get hurt, it gets even more annoying when players whine, assuming their PCs should never get hurt, let alone touched.

As far as Robilar's Gambit, I suggested it to the half-orc fighter, but he didn't seem interested. Maybe I'll point him to this thread... Then maybe he'll stop tripping everything with his spiked chains, combat reflexes, and improved trip.