D&D General What are your Pedantic Complaints about D&D?

Charlaquin · Jul 15, 2019

I think it’s in the spirit of the thread to point out that a lot of these grievances are nitpicks, not pedantry.

Tony Vargas · Jul 15, 2019

MNblockhead said:
Interesting that most of the pet peeves shared here don't bother me much.

They're supposed to be examples of nitpicking over small details, rather than real problems like...

With D&D, as a DM, I what I still struggle with the most is

... unlikely to qualify as pedantic, unless you mean it ironically...

planning for player-character magic. More than any other action, selecting spells and applying magic effects seem to slow down the game. I found I that magic tended to surprise me and trivialize many encounters. Further, magic in D&D pushes the game into gonzo territory pretty quickly.

Nope, that sounds serious.

Totally off topic.

...to try to get back on topic, why is it called Faerie Fire? Everywhere else the game used American spellings. Why not Fairy?

Was Sustare just being pedantic?

ccs · Jul 15, 2019

Some of mine:

*6 second combat rounds.
I've solved this by stating that in games I run, round length varies by plot. In games I play in? I just don't worry about it.

*Ability score bonuses starting at 12 & progressing up to +5.
I greatly prefer the older range from 1e, where things (generally) capped out at stat 18/+3 bonus.

**Crit hits.
I HATE crits. More, I hate that only positive crits exist.

*Non-LG Paladins.

*In general, that there's a separate class for every word that "Magic User" used to generically cover back in 1e. Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Witch, War Mage, blah blah blah & so on. And yes, I thought it overkill in 1e to have both the MU & the Illusionist as separate classes. Some editions are worse for this than 5e. And at least 5e made the Warlock more than a 1 trick pony - even if many are still seduced to spamming EB.

Lanefan · Jul 15, 2019

Somewhat surprised to see more than one mention here of non-LG Paladins being a pet peeve, where my biggest gripe with them up until recently was the opposite: that they could only be LG.

Reason this was a problem was that their rigid codes etc. very much restricted what alignments/classes/character types other players could hope to play. With Paladins having more than one alignment option, a Paladin can be made to fit the party rather than the somewhat-tiresome reverse of the party always having to suit the Paladin.

Imaculata · Jul 15, 2019

1. Dragon Alignments and breathweapons by color. Just because a dragon has a certain color, doesn't mean it isn't evil, and it doesn't mean it spits lightning/poisongas/ice instead of just fire.
2. Automatic Crossbows. Get that nonsense out of here.
3. Studded Leather Armor. What do the studs even do?
4. Elves and orcs. Yawn!
5. Classes that have boring new abilities (filler) at higher levels.

Bitbrain · Jul 15, 2019

Nevvur said:
Just an observation, if the only switch between Fighter-Sux and Fighter-Roxtoomuch is +1d8 damage on attacks, you could ... make it +1d4/6?

And then your porridge will be just right.

I've tried that before. +1d6 doesn't help. They still seemed to be outshined by everyone else except the ranger.

DND_Reborn · Jul 15, 2019

Charlaquin said:
Do we really even need combat rounds to represent a specific, standardized amount of time? Frankly, I think it would be better to leave it abstract - a round could simply represent an exchange of blows, which might be anywhere from a few seconds to half a minute or more, as suits the narrative.

Very true. The game could state that a combat round is the length of time needed for all participants to complete their actions, with the caveat that this is generally from 6-10 seconds, but can be longer as needed. But I have a feeling that for some others, this would be too willy-nilly.

generic · Jul 15, 2019

Here is one more of mine:

1. Why does everything hate Elves and want to eat them? Are Elves delicious or something? I'm now considering making a homebrew setting where Elves are so delicious that it becomes comical. Oh, wait, there is one, it's called the Forgotten Realms.

Fenris-77 · Jul 15, 2019

What do the studs do?! You are a simple soul aren't you? The studs look COOL. And adding shiny metal accents to your black leather is what any righteous EMO elf ranger needs, right up there with eye shadow and a tortured back story. What do the studs do, honestly... :erm:

I think my personal fav came form a non-WotC release. Someone wrote some rules for a sword cane (which is cool, who doesn't love a sword cane?). It did a d8 blugeoning as a cane, or you could surprise the holy hell out of someone, reveal the hidden sword within, and do a d4. Surprise!!

About the round length. 6 seconds makes it possible to scale to minutes for duration reasons, which is helpful. The abstraction part is no less irksome that the above example where it's the time it takes everyone to do their thing. The longer that takes the more ridiculous it becomes that PCs doing quick stuff couldn't have done it two or three times. Anyway, I try not to squint to hard at the abstractions, it gives me a headache.