Just for Fun repeat: The "Stupidest Rule" contest

[TarionzCousin]

We used Weapon Speeds and other "optional" rules for Initiative in 2E. So the fighter with the Greatsword almost always went last. Monsters with "natural weapons" had +0 to initiative and almost always got to attack first.

My players hated that rule.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

1) weight calculations for creatures of small size: you can carry 3/4 as much as a medium-sized creature, but your equipments all weighs half of that used by medium-sized creatures. Hello, carrying capacity buff!

The exact numbers might be off, but in real life smaller creatures have higher carrying capacities in relation to their own body weight (the classic ant carrying 100 times its own weight is an extreme of this).

 

[Tuft]

Speaking of Shadowrun...

This happened in one of the Shadowrun iterations (might have been houseruled):


In Shadowrun, if you had enough initiative boost (through cyberware or magic) you got multiple actions during the same combat turn. In this particular instance of the initiative rules, first everybody acted in initiative order, then those with two or more actions acted again in the same order, then those with three or more yet again, etc...

However your move was by combat turn, so you had to split your movement among your actions.

So, my character got chased by a particularly vicious overgrown dog.

* I had twice the movement rate of the dog.

* I had enough initiative boost to get four actions in the turn as opposed to the dog's one.

* I had a head start of a few meters.

On my first action, I started running - but since I got four actions that turn, I could only move 1/4 of my movement rate.

On its first action, the dog got to run its full movement, since it only had a single action that turn. Now, its movement was half mine, but that easily beat the quarter of a move I had gotten to use, plus my head start. Cue nasty bite and drag-down...

So, because the dog reacted much slower, it managed to catch up...

 

[Greenfield]

Not a house rule.

 

[Greenfield]

I was in a D&DNext playtest, early on, at a convention. In that iteration, anyone could move-attack-move, and Attack of Opportunity wasn't there.

Monsters formed a Conga line, taking turns stepping between defenders to attack the relatively squishy spell caster in the back, then retracing their steps out to make room for the next of their group. According to the playtest DM, this was not an aberation in the rules, this was intended to work that way.

There's a reason I never did another play-test of that system.

I guess that games, like laws and sausage, are better if you don't see how they're made.

 

[ExploderWizard]

My vote goes to the falling object rules in 3.X. A falling object does 1d6 damage per 10 feet per 200 lbs. A Cave bear weighs in at 4 tons. If a druid has it do a flying elbow from the top turnbuckle (i.e., drop 10 ft), it deals 20d6 damage and takes none itself. Meanwhile, the 75 ton great Red Wyrm only deals 2d8 damage with a crush (i.e., "flying drop") attack.

In the proper spirit of pro wrestling the cave bear should sustain that damage on a missed attack.

(with the possibility of a crtitical fumble on the roll of a 1. In that case " Now we go to school" was shouted prior to the attack.)

 

[the Jester]

Pretty much everything in the entire line of RIFTS products.

Well... okay, pretty much everything in the entire line of Palladium products.

Great lore, awesome flavor, mechanics and systems that have needed a good editor and revision since day 1... and haven't received it in, what, 30 years?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There was a revision some years ago- system wide or just for particular books, I cannot say. I looked at it and couldn't see any fixes for any of the issues I had with the system, so I passed.

 

[Storminator]

In 3.5, Darkness cast in an area of total darkness lets you see:

"This spell causes an object to radiate shadowy illumination out to a 20-foot radius. All creatures in the area gain concealment (20% miss chance)."

PS

 

[Greenfield]

Oooh, that's a good one. I'd forgotten about it.

We'd used it in games when exploring underground. Every time we used a light source, it advertised our presence and position to the enemy. But Darkness let us see without our "light" being visible for any distance.