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

aco175 · Jul 15, 2019

Monayuris said:
Agree with potions. I also don’t think you should be able to pour one down an unconscious character’s throat. Most of my players seem to think that is a thing.

What do you mean, this is not a real thing. We can not have been doing this wrong for 30 years.

Aebir-Toril said:
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.

The delicious ones are the Keebler sub-race, the others are icky.

BookBarbarian · Jul 15, 2019

Xaelvaen said:
1. Dragon alignment based on color. Almost the first fact we disregard anytime we play D&D. I find this s silly dislike because that's just the lore in the worlds D&D runs, and that's cool - we just never play in those worlds, and always make our own, so dragons are just dragons, and color is just a species, and morality and spirituality are all individual concepts.

A while back I houseruled that all dragons are born brown, and it's their emerging personality that determines color and breath weapon.

CleverNickName said:
Far and above, my biggest problem that I have...and I say this as a cis-het American dude...is the breast fetish.

Armor with breasts. Reptiles with breasts. Gargoyles with breasts. FRIGGIN WARFORGED WITH BREASTS?! Seriously, this needs to stop. Please. I'm begging you.

Now I am imagining a warforged designed to provide sustenance for non-warforged soldiers. This is... not a thought I would have predicted I would have today.

Celebrim · Jul 15, 2019

Lanefan said:
The Book of Erotic Fantasy very vaguely - and IMO very badly - waved at this, but that was it as far as I recall....

No, I'm pretty sure it was published by Mongoose in their Encyclopedia Arcane series. But I don't own it and can't tell you how on point it was.

generic · Jul 16, 2019

More pedantry:

How long are Elven Telomeres exactly? This is valuable information that I need for intense scientific research.

Why do 5e Undead not have vulnerability to Radiant damage? Sure, they're not immune or resistant to it, but why use Radiant at all if it's not any more effective than Force or Fire?

How on Toril do Orcs cross-breed with Ogres? How? HoW? hOw? HOW?

Seramus · Jul 16, 2019

BELTS! Why are you wearing so many?!

generic · Jul 16, 2019

BookBarbarian said:
Now I am imagining a warforged designed to provide sustenance for non-warforged soldiers. This is... not a thought I would have predicted I would have today.

Urkhgg, that's not a thought that I'm going to be able to banish for a long time.

Charlaquin · Jul 16, 2019

Celebrim said:
He may be right in the sense that any single edged weapon is a backsword, but be as that may, when I picture in my head a falchion I picture something that is tip heavy much like a machete.

That’s a common misconception due to the silhouette, particularly of the Elmslie type 1a, but really they don’t handle like machetes at all. The blades are extremely thin, and tapered so that the balance, while slightly more tip-heavy than a typical arming sword, is optimized for quick, fluid cutting movements, not hacking like a machete or an axe.

Celebrim said:
For a movie example, the 'Green Destiny' is very much a Chinese variation on the same sort of sword design as an arming sword, but Michelle Yu's character prefers a sword that is translated as 'machete' and it's clearly very much after the same pattern as a Falchion. So these weapons would, at least in my head, despite the cultural differences get put in to arming sword and falchion families.

Yeah, the blade on Yu’s sword looks pretty much like an Elmslie 4c+ or maybe ++ in silhouette. The prop looks like it has a MUCH thicker blade than a Medieval European backsword, and it certainly doesn’t have the appropriate fullers, but that doesn’t mean much since it is a prop, and I don’t know enough about Chinese swords to make a guess about whether it would handle like a medieval European backsword or not. But in D&D I’d absolutely put it in the same category (and Green Destiny in the Arming sword category).

Celebrim said:
By contrast, when I picture in my head a backsword I picture something that often has a basket hilt of some sort and which is very much not tip heavy and often highly tapered and obviously designed to balance cutting and thrusting. Generally speaking when I speak of a backsword, I'm speaking of a straight bladed single edged weapon, or else I would use a more specific term like sabre or scimitar or what not. So in my head I might think there is more similarity in employment and purpose and function between a Kilij and a Falchion, than I would between a Falchion and a Backsword.

I don’t know much about Kilij, but the basket hilted backsword is a direct evolution of the medieval European backsword, many of which were very much built to be able to thrust as well as cut.

You should look into the Elmslie Falchion and Messer typology if you’re interested in this stuff.

GreenTengu · Jul 16, 2019

Aebir-Toril said:
How on Toril do Orcs cross-breed with Ogres? How? HoW? hOw? HOW?

Huh. My interpretation of the D&D setting is that Orcs are more closely related to Ogres than they are humans.
Humans can breed with Orcs. Humans can breed with Ogres.

But looking at Orcs and Ogres, they kind of seem to be the same basic genus-- just Ogres are the bigger, dumber species within it.

So why wouldn't Orcs be able to breed with Ogres?

generic · Jul 16, 2019

GreenTengu said:
Huh. My interpretation of the D&D setting is that Orcs are more closely related to Ogres than they are humans.
Humans can breed with Orcs. Humans can breed with Ogres.

But looking at Orcs and Ogres, they kind of seem to be the same basic genus-- just Ogres are the bigger, dumber species within it.

So why wouldn't Orcs be able to breed with Ogres?

Because Ogres are Large, it just doesn't seem physically possible. Furthermore, they don't really seem like the same Genus as Orcs to me, but it could be a matter of interpretation.

As a note, I like your interpretation, I've never encountered that particular thesis about Humans, Orcs, and Ogres before.