Odd things I found in the rules

[Greenfield]

It's always fun to find a true oddity in the rules.

I'm not talking about the things they never clarified, like what happen when a Shrink Item spell ends, but there isn't room for the item to go back to normal size.

I'm talking about the "WTF are these guys thinking?" kind of items.

One D&D 3.5 oddity that made it into Pathfinder is the table for combat adjustments in an aquatic environment.

Table: Combat Adjustments Underwater
————— Attack/Damage —————
Condition .................. Slashing or Bludgeoning ..............Tail ............Movement .........Off Balance?4
Freedom of movement .... normal/normal ................ normal/normal ..... normal ................. No
Has a swim speed ............... –2/half ........................ normal ........... normal ................. No
Successful Swim check .........–2/half1 ........................–2/half ..... quarter or half2 .......... No
Firm footing3 ...................... –2/half ........................ –2/half ............ half ................... No
None of the above ............... –2/half ........................ –2/half .......... normal ................ Yes
1 A creature without a freedom of movement effects or a swim speed makes grapple checks underwater at a –2 penalty, but deals damage normally when grappling.
2 A successful Swim check lets a creature move one-quarter its speed as a move action or one-half its speed as a full-round action.
3 Creatures have firm footing when walking along the bottom, braced against a ship’s hull, or the like. A creature can only walk along the bottom if it wears or carries enough gear to weigh itself down—at least 16 pounds for Medium creatures, twice that for each size category larger than Medium, and half that for each size category smaller than Medium.
4 Creatures flailing about in the water (usually because they failed their Swim checks) have a hard time fighting effectively.
An off-balance creature loses its Dexterity bonus to Armor Class, and opponents gain a +2 bonus on attacks against it.

The entry in question is the "None of the above" line, in the Movement column. If a character neither succeeds nor fails on a Swim check (as in, doesn't even try), doesn't have a Swim speed nor a Freedom of Movement effect in place and isn't walking on the bottom, they move in water at full normal speed.

So, by this rule it's foolish to try and outswim anything if you don't have some aquatic movement advantage. Instead, just run at full speed.

So, what's your favorite rules oddity?

(By the way, I know it isn't supposed to work the way I've just described it, but that's the way it's written.)

 

[Fuseboy]

On another forum, I wrote about the totally insane rules for personal temperature in the AD&D Wilderness Survival Guide:

Okay, these rules seem well intentioned, but I can't see anyone using them .. without software. Even then. 15 types of armor/clothing, each of which affect your personal temperature differently based on the ambient temperature. 13 different penalty bands for various personal temperatures, each of which with separate penalties to Str, Dex, Con, movement rate and attack rolls.

The stat penalties have separate values depending on whether you're exerting yourself or not, and even so, there are completely separate temperature rises for exertion, with the rise amount, period and maximum effect dependent on three variables. Same with the rate of cooling (which isn't the same number even for the same inputs).

Just hiking uphill with periodic rests means you'll oscillate between four different penalty bands, with different penalties for each of three stats.

My first question was what the playtest feedback was like, if there was any playtest at all. This is ridiculously complicated for a peripheral rule.

Has anyone ever used these rules as is, without chopping them down to something drastically less fiddly?

 

[Greenfield]

In 1st edition, everything had a 10% chance of speaking Common. Not every creature, every thing. So, as written, any given door might be able to tell you what was on the other side.

 

[Dandu]

In 1st edition, everything had a 10% chance of speaking Common. Not every creature, every thing. So, as written, any given door might be able to tell you what was on the other side.

But one door always lies, and the other always tells the truth.

 

[Greenfield]

But one door always lies, and the other always tells the truth.

And the third one has a trap for people who ask tricky questions...

 

[delericho]

The entry in question is the "None of the above" line, in the Movement column. If a character neither succeeds nor fails on a Swim check (as in, doesn't even try)

I don't think they get to choose not to make that check - the description of the Swim skill would seem to indicate you have to roll each round you're in the water. And if you fail, you don't get to move at all.

(By the way, I know it isn't supposed to work the way I've just described it, but that's the way it's written.)

 

[Greenfield]

The rules for the Swim skill, of course, discuss the use of the Swim skill, and presume that you are using the Swim skill in their language. However, since "walk on the bottom" is an option, the decision not to try and swim is effectively documented as available.

I honestly don't know what they were thinking of when they wrote this. I mean, the options would seem to be limited: You either walk, sink or swim. But the rules do seem to allow for a fourth choice in "None of the above", and since I'm just laughing at the rules (rather than actually trying to rationalize or apply them), I guess that's good enough for me.
***
Moving on...

In first edition rules, there was a table called Weapon Speed Factor that was seldom used. By those rules, the preferred weapon when fighting a man with a spear, or even a sword, was the dagger. Since there were no Attack of Opportunity rules per se (there were "zone of control" rules, but they were different), and the dagger was the faster weapon, you could always bypass the longer reach of the spear or longer blade and get your strike in first.

Kind of made the Roman pike-and-shield line useless.

 

[delericho]

Don't the 1st Ed rules for initative, as a whole, count as an "odd thing"?

 

[TarionzCousin]

On another forum, I wrote about the totally insane rules for personal temperature in the AD&D Wilderness Survival Guide:
...

Has anyone ever used these rules as is, without chopping them down to something drastically less fiddly?

Not more than once.

I remember when that book came out. I was the only DM in our group so I bought it. I never used any rules from it; they were needlessly complex.

 

[Greenfield]

Don't the 1st Ed rules for initative, as a whole, count as an "odd thing"?

Yes and no. They had their version of "Attack of Opportunity" against spellcasters.
that if a spellcaster faced a fighter in melee, the fighter would use his own Initiative, or the caster's, "whichever is applicable". Despite the odd wording, the intent was clear: Spellcasting in melee (by chance, the title of the rules entry) was a bad idea. The fighter attacks as soon as the caster began a spell.

I played with a lot of people who didn't read, or were perhaps misinformed about the Initiative system, and were often confused about the time sequence. Rounds were a full minute. Some I knew argued that a "combat round" was somehow different, a mere six seconds. They were wrong.

But because they didn't understand how that was supposed to work, they figured that one swing of a blade shouldn't be followed by 59 seconds of standing around. But the round was supposed to represent a full minute of combat, parry, thrust, ripost and counter, a full exchange complete with defense. Once in that time a fighter could find or create an opening when they had a chance to actually score. As they got better (and thus got more attacks) it simply meant that they were able to see and take advantage of smaller openings in the opponent's defense. But there was no "waiting around" time in melee.

When a spell caster began to cast a spell, they had to stop dodging and parrying, stand still and then chant and gesture for the casting time. Casting time was in segments (6 seconds each), so spells like Fireball (3 segments) meant that they were wide open for 18 seconds.

So the Initiative system could seem "odd", if you didn't understand what the time frame represented.