Sacred Cows You Hope Die?

[outsider]

Random hitpoints per level. It is far too easy to gimp a character through no fault of your own just by rolling badly for hit points a couple of times. That sucks.

Random rolling of attributes. I've always hated this one, almost as much as random hitpoints. Random attribute generation is such an outdated and unfair mechanic, but in my experience -every- group still uses it despite the existence of perfectly serviceable point buy systems. The only way they are ever going to kill this one is if they don't even mention the idea of rolling attributes in the book. As long as it's mentioned even as a variant rule, most people are going to use it. Heck, even if it's not mentioned in the books whatsoever, I suspect it'd take at least 2 editions before random attribute rolling dies off. I'm probably pretty much alone on this one, as most D&D players still fanatically worship this cow, but man, do I ever want it dead. It wouldn't surprise me if this particular cow manages to outlive me.

Most of my other cow killing desires were already addressed in 3rd edition, or are being addressed in 4th edition.

 

[JoeGKushner]

well outsider, you hit some of my 'wishlist' items that I didn't bother posting here because I felt they were different. (wish list as opposed to death to cows!)

 

[ArmoredSaint]

I had been really hoping that Armour Class was one of the "sacred cows" they'd slaughter and replace with Armour as DR, but it looks like I'm going to be disappointed if what I read in the latest Design and Development article is true. Pity. Knights in shining armour should be much harder to kill than people in loincloths.

 

[Yair]

Hit points. But they're alive and well I prefer wound systems as I think they're easier to track. No need for all that adding or subtraction, which really is a problem I find.
"Ok, so you roll 6d6+12, let's see that's a 1+2+6+4+6+2 - so, errg, 21, plus 12 that's 33, minus his fire resistance of 10 that's 23. Now he has... where did I write this... ah, yes, 54 hp left, minus 23 that's 31. Right. Now it's his turn, so he fast-heals 7 points, so he's at 38 hp." - all this math and counting of dice takes a lot of time and effort! Each calculation is small, but they sure add up quickly, and then done for every attack...
Compare with -
OK, so you add +17 to your attack roll for DC 31 damage - except he has DR 5 so that's DC 26, which makes him... Heavily Wounded. Right. Now it's his turn, so his fast-healing reduced this to a Light Wound. His turn...

Unrationalizied level advancement. It's great if you kill someone and get infused with their energies highlander-style, or if you train and increase your level, or if you get blessed by a god and increase your level.... but just rising in levels (and very often too) doesn't make sense. I wish the game would include in-built ways and rationale to increase your levels, rather than let your level increases when you defeat X monsters.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Vancian Magic

The arbitrariness of the current Arcana/Divine split, especially the "wizards can't heal" rule, when the spell system they use is otherwise identical.

+n magic weapons and armor. Also, any item that gives +n to any stat.

Monsters which assume the characters have said +n items.

The chromatic/metallic dragons. especially with pre-set alignment, and the anoying designer comments that they don't make new dragon types "because all the good colors and metals are already taken" (not an exact quote by far). Gem dragons and, even worse, ferrous dragons, need to die even more. Why not just have fire dragons, thunder dragons, sky dragons, common dragons, earth dragons, evil dragons, etc?

The fly spell.

 

[Aus_Snow]

The magic system.
The health system.
The combat system.
The class system.

But that is what house rules are for, IMO. I'm quite happy to do it that way, as I have done with every game system ever.

 

[Renfield]

The mentality of: oh-my-god-it's-useful-in-combat-therefor-it-must-be-broken-let's-castrate-it! That seems to have plagued wizards. I'm a frickin' DM and I didn't find Spell Focus to be too powerful with a +2 bonus, heck, give it a few levels and anything with spell resistance is either already easy to beat or impossible to beat as is.

Elves as a core race, make 'em monsters so I can justify my players committing infanticide on the pointy eared tree hugging sissies

The Half-Orc as a core race, never liked it, I allow it but I cut the poor bastards a break by nixing their -2 to intelligence. The way I see it all stats are equally valuable. My players +2 to strength did little to help them when a diplomacy roll was needed to keep them from getting swarmed but too many potential foes. But then I've already voiced my 'combat doesn't mean everything' ideals

Never liked the AC system, we use the Defense system from Unearthed Arcana, works fine.

Gnomes... damnable gnomes.

 

[Kabol]

as much as I hate to admit it. But we no longer need the numbered attributes anymore. ditch the 3-18 and just stick with the +'s.

Count me in the crowd for having standardized Hps/lvl based on class. for the simple fact that, a poor roll or two, and your pretty much screwed.

I guess most of my, dislikes are for the randomness. I understand their need is combat and such, but out of combat. a low roll on search can mess up an entire game session. Guess thats why I always take 10

 

[Darkness]

Others mentioned all that came to my mind, as well as a couple that did not. So I'll just quote them:

Racial level limits/XP penalties/favored class ...

For me, it's get rid of the cleric and paladin being in the same book or change one or the other's roles tremendously. A LG cleric and a paladin could be brothers!

Alignment as a mechanic in its current form. Pretty obvious, I think.

Magic item dependency. A relatively young sacred cow, but already ripe for the slaughter. Make magic items magical and RARE and COOL, not +x to y required to not die.

Gameplay death and resurrection as default assumptions. My Gamist side doesn't need them to feel challenged, and they sure as heck don't represent the source material. Death should be dramatic, death should be either agreed upon or due to resource expenditure, and death should be FINAL except for artifacts.

Spell levels. I'd rather they be CALLED something different, but either remove them or make them synch up with character levels.

The only one I wanted to die that seem to be still living is Alignments.

Random hitpoints per level. It is far too easy to gimp a character through no fault of your own just by rolling badly for hit points a couple of times. That sucks.

Random rolling of attributes.

Vancian Magic

Gnomes... damnable gnomes.

... we no longer need the numbered attributes anymore. ditch the 3-18 and just stick with the +'s.

 

[jeffh]

Raise Dead. Alignments. The ranger. The monk. "Per day" abilities as the default. Teleportation. Much of the high end of the magic system. Cheesecake art.

A newer sacred cow that seems to have appeared, or at least become much more prevalent, in the 3E era - ridiculously impractical weapons and armour, and a generally punkish rather than medieval look to most major characters and many other setting elements. They don't look cool, they look stupid. Given the choice of cover artist for 4E, though, I'm not holding out much hope for that one.