DDXP characters - unexpected tactics?

[Donovan Morningfire]

In so far as the halfling pally goes, it could well be that in most of the original playtests, the folks playing the paladins simply didn't use such a cowardly tactic. Most folks that I've seen play paladins play them as the stand-up and stand tall do-gooders that lead from the front.

I've seen it in many cases where a player never conceives they could do something becuase it is so blatantly against type. So it's not impossible that this particular loophole wasn't spotted until it was too late, becuase the folks playtesting the paladins never thought to go outside the "heroic do-gooder" box. Could also be the designer intent was crystal clear to them, but not everybody sees or reads things the same way.

Also, I don't recall seeing anything as to when the DDXP characters when to press. Given the projected number of Scalegloom delves they were anticipating, it could have been quite some time prior to the event that things were sent to be printed. I strongly doubt they decided to start getting all those pages printed just a few days before the event.

I can picture both Rouse and Mearls with a collective "aw frell" expression when the paladin loophole did come up

 

[Irda Ranger]

So...the playtesting does its job--notices a bug, reports it, and gets it fixed--and you're worried about the playtesting not working? Umm....huh?

Whether the playtesting did its job or not is a question we can't answer. I say that because its "job" is to find mistakes in a reasonably quick manner so the rules can iterate quickly towards a final version. We simply don't know how long the "bug" was in the system before they caught it. Maybe a 1 day; maybe 2 months; who knows.

 

[keterys]

They'd actually talked about having changed marking for paladins and fighters not all that long ago in a blog (pre-DDXP), and the DDXP character sheets were indeed ordered to be printed before they noticed and could fix things without serious cost.

I'd just like them to post the darn fix.

 

[Wolfspider]

It didn't.

The character sheets for DDXP were in production. The internal testers found the issue, made a change, and it's apparently sorted. But the change was too late for the DDXP sheets... so the people at DDXP had the pre-change version.

What startled some of the designers, apparently, was how quickly the players found the loophole that had already been fixed in the rules they didn't have yet.

-Hyp.

The character sheets were "in production"? Aren't they just PDF documents? It isn't like they sent the handouts off to a professional printer, right?

Even if they did send everything off to a professional printer and the deadline for changes had passed, they could have easily send out an electronic document correcting these problems to the folks running the games. Sure, some of them might not have gotten it in time, but I think most would have.

If I make a mistake on a handout or syllabus or whatever, I can get a corrected copy out to my students through the class website and/or email in less than 10 minutes. I can't believe that a major corporation would not also be able to do so at least as well as I can.

 

[Cadfan]

We don't know, but that certainly won't stop us from spreading innuendo!

 

[Wolfspider]

We don't know, but that certainly won't stop us from spreading innuendo!

I'm not spreading innuendo, so I don't appreciate your innuendo.

I'm genuinely puzzled.

 

[helium3]

So...the playtesting does its job--notices a bug, reports it, and gets it fixed--and you're worried about the playtesting not working? Umm....huh?

Oi. I'll try to be more clear, now that I have a little more info. Here's the chronology as I understand it.

(1) Approximately five weeks ago, the pregen character sheets were printed with soon to be incorrect mechanics for the Paladin.
(2) The incorrect mechanics involved the Paladin using the marking ability, something also available to (as far as we know at this point) the Fighter, Rogue, Range and Warlock. Sure they call it something different, but it's basically the same thing.
(3) The reason for the needed change (without taking into account flavor issues related to cowardly Paladins) is that the Paladin's mark did damage if the creature doesn't attack the Paladin, ultimately creating a situation where a Paladin can kill just about anything simply by marking it and then making a quick getaway.

So, at this late stage of the game (four months to release and who knows how soon to printing) they had either:

(1) Only recently added this ability to the Paladin's suite of powers and just as quickly modified it.

Or

(2) Had only recently realized that a 1st level power that should at this point be thoroughly play-tested was suddenly discovered to have what seems like a pretty obvious glitch.

Like I said. It concerns me. They've been working on this for two years and they're adding glitchy powers to classes this late in the game?

 

[helium3]

Having done game design, I know how hard it can be to spot loopholes when you're too close to the source material.

External play testing exists for just this reason. Why didn't they catch it?

 

[helium3]

We don't know, but that certainly won't stop us from spreading innuendo!

Dude. If you don't have anything worthwhile to contribute to the thread, please refrain from doing so.

 

[helium3]

They'd actually talked about having changed marking for paladins and fighters not all that long ago in a blog (pre-DDXP), and the DDXP character sheets were indeed ordered to be printed before they noticed and could fix things without serious cost.

I'd just like them to post the darn fix.

I think the glitch you're referring to (because I recall having a conversation about it before DDXP occured) was where you had two defenders in a group that marked the same creature, giving it a negative modifier to hit no matter which Defender it attacked. Apparently it created situations where groups with multiple defenders were far more powerful than they were supposed to be.

These are exactly the sorts of unexpected syngeries I'm worried are going to crop up all over the place in 4E and require "Errata."