Why is the Mule considered a Game Breaker?

[Jonathan Drain]

I suspect the mule was omitted from 4e for balance as much as anything else. In a 3e game of mine, players were able to loot a hundred useless +1 swords from a battlefield for a sale price of 100,000gp - all for an investment of a few hundred pack animals!

Now that 4e lets wizards cast Magic Missile indefinitely, I think we're seeing a similar "infinite loot" issue. Players can not only loot the dungeon, they can loot the DUNGEON: drill it out brick by brick, and sell it for the value of the stone.

At this rate, pack animals would quickly pay for themselves, and the game would devolve into simulating a mining operation. I'm certain that's what Wizards is trying to avoid.

 

[olshanski]

What about flying donkeyhorses?

 

[Obryn]

The real problem is that mules can carry more weight than they, themselves, weigh. So it creates an infinite loop.

Let's say a mule can carry 1.5 mule-weights (mw).

First, pack one mule onto another mule. The first mule still has .5 mw left over, and the second can still carry the full 1.5mw. This amounts to a single mule now carrying 2 mw.

Pack a third mule onto the second one. Well, now we have two mules with .5 mw left over, and a third with a full 1.5 mw of weight to bear. This totals 2.5 mw, all carried by a single mule.

You can repeat ad-infinitum, stacking your mules sky-high, gaining an extra .5 mw every time. I remember when my 1e group went in with a 40-mule stack to bear treasure out of the Temple of Elemental Evil...

It was awesome for carrying around our 200 10' poles. (We didn't want change for the gold piece.)

-O

 

[Zaran]

The real problem is that mules can carry more weight than they, themselves, weigh. So it creates an infinite loop.

Let's say a mule can carry 1.5 mule-weights (mw).

First, pack one mule onto another mule. The first mule still has .5 mw left over, and the second can still carry the full 1.5mw. This amounts to a single mule now carrying 2 mw.

Pack a third mule onto the second one. Well, now we have two mules with .5 mw left over, and a third with a full 1.5 mw of weight to bear. This totals 2.5 mw, all carried by a single mule.

You can repeat ad-infinitum, stacking your mules sky-high, gaining an extra .5 mw every time. I remember when my 1e group went in with a 40-mule stack to bear treasure out of the Temple of Elemental Evil...

It was awesome for carrying around our 200 10' poles. (We didn't want change for the gold piece.)

-O

Oh come on! Everyone knows that Mule bonuses don't stack with each other.

 

[terraleon]

Well, sure.

In desperate situations, people would break their mule to inflict catastrophic damage.

They're like artifacts, but smellier.

-Ben.

 

[weem]

What about flying donkeyhorses?

I considered using that image on the cover, haha.

Thanks for the comments all

 

[ExploderWizard]

You can do all kinds of things with a Mule!

Ok this is getting nasty now.

"...met her at a donkey show, she was minutes past thirteen................."

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Aren't Donkeyhorses related to the Tarrasque? Fierce beasties...

Besides, once you open up the game to include the Donkeyhorse, its only a small (potentially slippery and smelly) step until the players start asking for Llamas.

And we all know what Llamas lead up to...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbwkkXGmFrI]YouTube - Monty Python Llama Sketch[/ame]

which then leads to the inclusion of Møøse, whose bytes kan be pretty nasti...

Nø, realli!

 

[Woas]

I think they took mules out of the base game because WotC was aiming for PG13-ish rating.

Err wait, that would be donkeys...

 

[Scotley]

In 4e you can't have animals that do useful stuff unless it is a class ability or power. You don't need to stat out the mule, you need a Muleskinner class. No doubt one will be in Players Handbook 4 or maybe 5.

Besides average treasure parcels are carefully constructed so that a balanced party can carry them without quadruped assistance.