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What rules don't work?
- Thread starter RangerWickett
- Start date
Telas
Explorer
Jeff Wilder said:
I'll hazard a guess, since I pretty much do the same thing.
That wyvern hit you, just not badly. It's stinger found a chink in your armor, and tagged you about as badly as getting hit with a half-inch knife blade. However, it was covered in poison, which immediately seeped into the wound (or not, depending on your save).
Telas
Telas
Explorer
I haven't really thought out solutions to these, but I'll gripe anyway:Attacks of Opportunity - They bog down combats, and create an incentive against movement in combat, with the exception of Monks and some Rogues. If you turn to run away, and I try to trip you, how do you get to hit me back? :\ I think these should be limited to simple attacks only, no trip/grapple/etc, and should be more easily avoidable.
Tumble - The name bothers me a lot, and I think it should somehow be tied to a feat, like Mobility (I.E. Mobility allows you to use a Balance check to avoid an AoO). And the fact that it's the only skill that directly affects combat.
Ironclad Class Skills - Why can't a Fighter learn Survival? I'm toying with a House Rule that allows additional Class Skills equal to your Int mod, declared at first level or whenever the Int mod is permanently increased (not just Ioun Stones).
Goofy Weapons - I've done a fair amount of martial arts, including a number of weapons-based arts. In any interpretation, a Spiked Chain is a horrible weapon. Same for many of the double weapons. Which is why you won't find them in my campaign. (OK, I do have an answer to this one.
)Grappling - Did I mention martial arts? Five years of grappling does not jibe at all with D&D grappling rules. Why should a pin only last one round? Why can't one grappler submit (or choke out) the other? To top it off, nothing provokes a round of groans from the rest of the players like "I attempt a grapple". Ten minute combats suddenly take most of an hour.
Too Damned Many Rules - At times, I ache for "D&D Lite", a game whose rules can be written in a small booklet, and relies on a good DM for judgement calls. "Why can't I wear leather armor under plate?" "Because the DM said you can't! If you don't like it, go find another game."
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Like I said, I don't have answers to all these (or I'd have House Ruled them already
). But these are the major speed bumps on my road to D&D happiness. Telas
3catcircus
Adventurer
The more I play 3.x, the more I realize that the rules-set as a whole doesn't work. Specifically because there are way too many rules that keep getting added on and because the ones already existing are written in such a way as to allow players to turn the game into a one-sided, one dimensional munchkinfest where it is *expected* that the PCs will always get their way. Where, because of the rules, players want to carry and use weapons and armor that make no sense. Where, because of the rules, the DM is constrained and made to felt like it is wrong to simply throw out or alter rules he doesn't want to use. Imagine if a DM said "No prestige classes at all, no wierd races, no Uber-Paragon replacement levels, no attacks of opportunity, no feats." Imagine the player outcry.
Instead of being flexible enough to say "My character concept is a knife-throwing Sembian merchant. Mr. DM, I'd like him to be able to use his knives to knock stuff out of people's hands and disarm them or be able to throw many knives, rapid-fire like a ninja throwing stars," and let the DM decide if a given situation warrants it, the player simply picks and chooses the right combination of feats and classes. Instead of character development, we have chinese menu items (2 feats from column A, 1 PrC from Column B, and for dessert a flaming bane keen almond cookie +2.)
An example of this is that the other players in my group wanted me to come up with rules to allow the PCs to buy/sell items on a large scale because they intend to make money by conducting trade/commerce, using a ship that they stole from slavers.
First of all - the player most vocal about requesting it wanted the rules to allow him to determine (beforehand) how much profit he would make - implying that the whole goal of the rule was to have *a rule, any rule* to justify to the DM that they should just get a set amount of money for hauling stuff from point A to point B, regardless of chance, market factors, weather delays, etc. To this, of course, I sort of just nodded and smiled, fully intending to come up with a system that was more realistic (i.e. you wouldn't be guaranteed a set profit, or even to make a profit at all.)
Since we play in FR, I looked at all of the regions and saw what the imports/exports were - including commodities, as well as sizes of population centers. While researching some economic theory, I found out that Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe had an economic simulator and picked up a copy. It was everything I wanted because it is simple, easy to use, and adequately reflects how buying/selling and bargaining is really done.
I discussed it with the DM (and explained it to another player, who said that it seemed pretty cool) and tried to demo it last night. Immediately, the player making the request in the first place declared it to be "stupid" because it didn't allow him to use his Diplomacy skill (which he complained that he had purposely spent ranks in anticipation) to affect the die roll and that it wasn't expanding upon the "Diplomacy as haggling" in Complete Adventurer.
So - because it didn't modify an existing, official WoTC published rule (modified in such a way as to favor the PCs), it was stupid? How about we do what the DM would be perfectly happy with and *not* have a rule at all and roleplay out the haggling... Because it isn't *exactly* what you wanted and not specifically designed to give you a lopsided advantage, it is stupid?
This is the same player who came up with a critical hit chart that would require NPCs and monsters to roll a higher d% roll in order to do the same critical effects as the PCs (i.e. in order to do the same result as a PC with a roll of 11, an NPC would have to roll a 41). This is the same player who dismissed, out of hand, a new crit chart that actually made sense - critical effect severities depending upon die rolls and hit locations (hitting a hand may disarm you or break your wrist, hitting a leg may reduce your mobility, hits to the groin will cause you to be stunned and nauseated, etc.)
While the above is a somewhat longwinded example of things - the point is that the more rules there are in 3.x (in addition to adding unnecessary complexity), the more possibilities for those rules to be abused by players who look at the game as an instant-gratificiation ego-stroke instead of a chance to explore a fantasy world. I constantly see our DM having to spend time to reign-in gross abuses of the intent of his rulings and the spirit of the game because of the rules themselves.
The more I play 3.x, the more I long for the opportunities to find people to play old-school RPGs such as Top Secret, TW:2K, 1st edition D&D, Star Frontiers, and TORG and a pleasant new surpise to me - HARP.
Instead of being flexible enough to say "My character concept is a knife-throwing Sembian merchant. Mr. DM, I'd like him to be able to use his knives to knock stuff out of people's hands and disarm them or be able to throw many knives, rapid-fire like a ninja throwing stars," and let the DM decide if a given situation warrants it, the player simply picks and chooses the right combination of feats and classes. Instead of character development, we have chinese menu items (2 feats from column A, 1 PrC from Column B, and for dessert a flaming bane keen almond cookie +2.)
An example of this is that the other players in my group wanted me to come up with rules to allow the PCs to buy/sell items on a large scale because they intend to make money by conducting trade/commerce, using a ship that they stole from slavers.
First of all - the player most vocal about requesting it wanted the rules to allow him to determine (beforehand) how much profit he would make - implying that the whole goal of the rule was to have *a rule, any rule* to justify to the DM that they should just get a set amount of money for hauling stuff from point A to point B, regardless of chance, market factors, weather delays, etc. To this, of course, I sort of just nodded and smiled, fully intending to come up with a system that was more realistic (i.e. you wouldn't be guaranteed a set profit, or even to make a profit at all.)
Since we play in FR, I looked at all of the regions and saw what the imports/exports were - including commodities, as well as sizes of population centers. While researching some economic theory, I found out that Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe had an economic simulator and picked up a copy. It was everything I wanted because it is simple, easy to use, and adequately reflects how buying/selling and bargaining is really done.
I discussed it with the DM (and explained it to another player, who said that it seemed pretty cool) and tried to demo it last night. Immediately, the player making the request in the first place declared it to be "stupid" because it didn't allow him to use his Diplomacy skill (which he complained that he had purposely spent ranks in anticipation) to affect the die roll and that it wasn't expanding upon the "Diplomacy as haggling" in Complete Adventurer.
So - because it didn't modify an existing, official WoTC published rule (modified in such a way as to favor the PCs), it was stupid? How about we do what the DM would be perfectly happy with and *not* have a rule at all and roleplay out the haggling... Because it isn't *exactly* what you wanted and not specifically designed to give you a lopsided advantage, it is stupid?
This is the same player who came up with a critical hit chart that would require NPCs and monsters to roll a higher d% roll in order to do the same critical effects as the PCs (i.e. in order to do the same result as a PC with a roll of 11, an NPC would have to roll a 41). This is the same player who dismissed, out of hand, a new crit chart that actually made sense - critical effect severities depending upon die rolls and hit locations (hitting a hand may disarm you or break your wrist, hitting a leg may reduce your mobility, hits to the groin will cause you to be stunned and nauseated, etc.)
While the above is a somewhat longwinded example of things - the point is that the more rules there are in 3.x (in addition to adding unnecessary complexity), the more possibilities for those rules to be abused by players who look at the game as an instant-gratificiation ego-stroke instead of a chance to explore a fantasy world. I constantly see our DM having to spend time to reign-in gross abuses of the intent of his rulings and the spirit of the game because of the rules themselves.
The more I play 3.x, the more I long for the opportunities to find people to play old-school RPGs such as Top Secret, TW:2K, 1st edition D&D, Star Frontiers, and TORG and a pleasant new surpise to me - HARP.
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PaulGreystoke
First Post
I know we're in the minority on this one, but I dislike this rule too. Whether you have thick skin naturally or because you wear it (as armor) shouldn't really matter. But the game system encourages a naturally thick-skinned character (or monster) to wear armor too, even if that armor is actually less protective than his own skin. And of course armor-clad characters are yelling "Barkskin" to their druidic teammates or quaffing a potion in almost every battle in order to up their AC. It's icky.gizmo33 said:
Why does an armor-clad character get the benefit of heightened AC by having his skin under the armor toughened by Barkskin - while he doesn't get any AC benefit by instead wearing a tough artificial skin (leather armor) under his armor? Armor & Natural Armor should be the same bonus & hence shouldn't stack.
3E made a great stride forward with the stacking rules. But there are simply too many bonus categories. Trimming category bloat woud make for a better game.
John Morrow said:
Exactly. In HERO, you have facing rules, penalties for being attacked from behind, generous combat rounds ("phases") structured not unlike D20's, and no AoO's. So what happens? Every character learns to run behind their foes (or fly or teleport) and attack their opponent at Defensive Combat Value cut in half.
D20's long combat rounds lead to other sorts of scenarios that I will not fall into the trap of describing as "unrealistic", but rather will say they are illogical as hell and make for scenarios that one has extreme difficulty envisioning. Imagine if you will, two characters: one is armed with loaded crossbow, the other with sword. They are both prepared for battle when they suddenly become aware of each other from 60 feet away. Should the swordsman really be able to charge the crossbowman and cut him down while the latter is still flat-footed from that far away? Even heroic characters take some time to traverse 60 feet. Even guys like Conan didn't pull crap like that.
On this count, I like the GURPS method. You have one second. Act. OK, you drew a weapon. Next guy. OK, you cast a spell. Next. OK, you moved up to your foe. Next....
It's better in pretty much every way. You don't get to do a whole bunch of stuff right away, but your turn comes much faster because everyone isn't overanalyzing their turn (ever seen someone taking five minutes agonizing on how to make a double-move that doesn't provoke a single AoO?).
Attacks of Opportunity are also a massive waste of time IMO. They discourage intelligent tactics, and they don't discourage the aggrivating tactics they were supposed to prevent. People still dance around the bodyguards to reach the caster without consequence (because everyone gets too much movement in a round). The caster still casts in threatened areas (because Concentration allows it, and he's not really forced to make painful choices about where to put skill points).
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Telas said:
Well, a fighter can learn survival.
I'm toying with a House Rule that allows additional Class Skills equal to your Int mod, declared at first level or whenever the Int mod is permanently increased (not just Ioun Stones).
Telas
Great, now everyone has 5 ranks of Tumble. It's just like the days of 2e nonweapon proficiencies.
cool hand luke
First Post
wow, I actually like grappling rules, if anything the size bonuses aren't near high enough.
Look at olympic wrestling, and how broken down the weight classes are. why? because they know that no matter how good a great 120 lb wrestler is he stands NO chance against a 200 lb wrestler of anywhere near equal talent.
that's just in HUMANS, so I think it should be impossible to win a grapple with a dragon,
that being said, I do like to use the tactical feat from complete warrior that lets you climb on a big enemy.
swallow whole is stupid.
Look at olympic wrestling, and how broken down the weight classes are. why? because they know that no matter how good a great 120 lb wrestler is he stands NO chance against a 200 lb wrestler of anywhere near equal talent.
that's just in HUMANS, so I think it should be impossible to win a grapple with a dragon,
that being said, I do like to use the tactical feat from complete warrior that lets you climb on a big enemy.
swallow whole is stupid.
Particle_Man
Explorer
How odd. One of my friends invented exactly this prestige class for his homebrew.
Originally Posted by RangerWickett
The other thing about big creatures is that the easiest way to kill them is to jump into their mouths with a +1 wounding dagger, since they all have much lower ACs on the inside. Cutting your way out is a sinch, especially compared to cutting your way in. I'm imagining there's a group of halfling assassins out there who specialize in "Into the Mouth" combat techniques.
Henry said:Oh, my God! What a group of halflings with brass ones those would be!
The Victual Brigade!
Originally Posted by RangerWickett
The other thing about big creatures is that the easiest way to kill them is to jump into their mouths with a +1 wounding dagger, since they all have much lower ACs on the inside. Cutting your way out is a sinch, especially compared to cutting your way in. I'm imagining there's a group of halfling assassins out there who specialize in "Into the Mouth" combat techniques.
