Inconsistant/Arbitrary rules...

I have to agree with 3e falling damage.

My high level (15) Dwarf barbarian/rogue was on the back of a dragon, facing an evil dragon rider (Dragonlance game.) Being cool, he leaps off his dragon, falls onto the other dragon (not that far down) and wrestles with the dragon rider. They both fall to the ocean, 150 feet down.

He lives, and drowns the (still barely concious) dragon rider. His dragon comes, picks him up and he flies back up.

Craziness. Cool, but crazy.

Arbitrary or just-plain-odd rules:

1e - many of the ones that bugged me have already been mentioned in posts above. Perhaps the one rule that always made the least sense to me other than from a straight gamist balance viewpoint was non-Human level limits combined with the difference in multi-classing mechanics between Humans and non-Humans.

One I've not seen mentioned is that monsters didn't get their strength bonuses to hit and damage.

From reading this thread, I'm very glad never to have adopted anything from Oriental Adventures.

2e - others with more knowledge can speak here.

3e - the problem with the rules here was not their arbitrariness, but their volume. Too. Many. Rules.

Illusions being unable to affect touch or taste never worked for me; a decent illusion should affect all 5 senses, and be able to make the victim think they've taken damage if done well.

Damage caps on spells seemed arbitrary.

4e - square fireballs, 1-1-1-1 diagonal movement, and the massive gap in abilities and hit points between minions and levelled beings are all arbitrary; only done in the name of unnecessary simplicity.
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All that said, there needs to be a corollary thread outlining the most elegant rules from each edition...forking now...


Lan-"1e Giants with strength bonuses really hurt!"-efan

Thought of another one:

3e - undead and constructs immunity to criticals. Purely arbitrary; as who's to say a particular lucky blow can't hit the key bit that holds the rest together...

Lanefan

Lord Xtheth said:

I seem to recall there being "Massive damage" rules somewhere in the book.
I don't feel like looking it up, but wasn't every point above 50 damage a +1 to the DC of a DC 10 fort save and if you fail you die?

120-50=70... 10+70=80
DC 80 fort save = Pretty dang tough

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From the SRD:

"Massive Damage
If you ever sustain a single attack deals 50 points of damage or more and it doesn’t kill you outright, you must make a DC 15 Fortitude save. If this saving throw fails, you die regardless of your current hit points. If you take 50 points of damage or more from multiple attacks, no one of which dealt 50 or more points of damage itself, the massive damage rule does not apply."

So, 1) For falling damage to count as an attack would require a house rule, and 2) the DC is a flat 15 - not that hard to make for high level characters, although 1's always fail, I suppose.

Non-human level limits were (per DMG, p. 21) not "gamist balance" but humanocentrism.

Monsters not getting strength bonuses? I'll look into that. I recall thinking dragons' claws and bites were treated oddly, but other than that it did not stand out to me. Hit dice presumably account for better chances to hit, but poor damage in AD&D (or Greyhawk) should be notable. Ogres definitely had an explicit bonus. For beasts, I'm not sure there's a set basis for the factors; I figure they were done by "feel".

A little off the beaten path, but cute:

Iron Heroes raised the DCs for the diplomacy skill. A (probably unintended) consequence of this is that if two average (chr 10, no ranks in diplomacy) people who start at indifferent should talk to each other, they will, most of the time, become more hostile towards each other.

For general D&D, many editions:

Clerics can wear armor, have d8 hit dice, some weapons, and can choose from all available cleric spells (limited by spell level and a very few alignment oppositions).

Wizards/Magic-Users can't wear armor (or can't without a few feats or a special multi-class), have d4 hit dice, less weapons proficiencies than the cleric, and can choose from a limited subset of the available wizard spells by level, that subset being "what the wizard has in his spellbook so far".

And one of my favorites from B/X D&D. Halfling is one of the available languages that characters with high intelligence can learn. Apparently, however, halfling characters don't automatically know the halfling language.

For inconsistency, I believe saving throws for some characters changed between B and X, and thief ability scores changed (for the worse at low levels) between Moldvay and Mentzer (the latter spreading it out over 36 levels). I suppose that might count as "errata" and "edition change" respectively, though.

In 1st ed AD&D, high level druids, assassins and monks not only had to fight to get their top levels (failure leaving them at the lower level, having to earn XP again) but if the DM felt particularly mean, they might after attaining those high levels have to face challenges from up and comers, again losing a whole level if they lose the fight! Druids had a ticket out if they survive and prosper long enough to take Heirophant Druid levels in Unearthed Arcana, and monks possibly having a way to reduce problems if they found their own monastery. Assassins just have to watch their backs, I guess.

In fact, that was a weirdness in AD&D - some classes had level limits, even for humans. Others did not.

Jeff Wilder said:

I think it's exactly backward, myself.

If you're behind cover, a miss chance makes sense: you hit the cover instead of your target. If you're cloaked in shadow, an effective attack penalty makes sense: you're harder to target in general.

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This just shows that you can justify it either way. And if that's possible, you might as well streamline it, IMO.

the Jester said:

The distance between psionics and magic in 3e- if only the 3.5 psionics system had been in the magic system too!

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...and was that a step forward from earlier editions! I vaguely remember mental attack bonus (MTHAC0) and mental armor class. IIRC, the numbers were so off that a psionicist could destroy the hell out of just about any opponent.

Lanefan said:

3e - the problem with the rules here was not their arbitrariness, but their volume. Too. Many. Rules.
[...]
4e - square fireballs, 1-1-1-1 diagonal movement, and the massive gap in abilities and hit points between minions and levelled beings are all arbitrary; only done in the name of unnecessary simplicity.

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Seems like they traded the bad for the worse here, doesn't it?

Ariosto said:

Ogres definitely had an explicit bonus. For beasts, I'm not sure there's a set basis for the factors; I figure they were done by "feel".

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That must have been the famous Ogre Strength. Y'know, like in Gauntlets of Ogre Strength, granting their owner STR 18/00 (+3/+6). Ordinary ogres from the MC, however, only have a modifier of +2/+6, and that only if they are wielding weapons. Barehanded, their THAC0 is as 17 as every 4 HD monster's.
In fact, I'll quote the whole passage:

AD&D 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium said:

In small numbers, ogres fight as unorganized individuals, but groups of 11 or more will have a leader, and groups of 16 or more usually include two leaders and a chieftain. Ogres wielding weapons get a Strength bonus of +2 to hit; leaders have +3, chiefains have +4. Females fight as males but score only 2-8 points of damage and have a maximum of only 6 points per die. Young ogres fight as goblins.

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Now try to remember all that in an actual combat. I give the designers credit for their simulationist approach, but this is over the top! And what does "2-8 damage, maximum 6 per die" mean? Is this a cap on their strength bonus?

Lanefan said:

4e - square fireballs, 1-1-1-1 diagonal movement, and the massive gap in abilities and hit points between minions and levelled beings are all arbitrary; only done in the name of unnecessary simplicity.

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Bolded for emphasis. This was absolutely arbitrary — but not "only done in the name of unnecessary simplicity" as you say. More to the point, it was done specifically with the goal of helping D&D better emulate heroic fiction and other genre source material than it has in the past (in such source material, protagonists almost always outclass nameless or insignificant foes).

This has been discussed ad nauseum by several D&D designers at multiple forums (including Enworld) in the months leading up to the release of 4e and in the months after its initial release. It has a clear precendent in the vast majority of heroic fiction and, to a slightly lesser extent, in folklore. I'm not sure why wanting to make a game that is ostensibly about heroic fantasy emulate. . . erm. . . heroic fantasy is such a bad thing.

Tilenas said:

Now try to remember all that in an actual combat. I give the designers credit for their simulationist approach, but this is over the top! And what does "2-8 damage, maximum 6 per die" mean? Is this a cap on their strength bonus?

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From the context, I think it's a cap on the hit points for female ogres. Prior to 3e, monster hit dice (to determine hit points) were all d8s.

I see...makes sense. But since the whole paragraph is mainly concerned with attacking, I would never have thought of this referring to HD.