D&D 5E Silly/Senseless Rules You Have Found

[Salamandyr]

Silliest rule that I've found is that archery specialization for fighters and rangers gives a bonus to hit. So apparently, with a little bit of training, it's easier to hit someone a hundred feet away than it is to hit them in melee.

This is one of those things that's going to annoy me for the life of the product, but is too small to be worth house ruling. But it's a major flub in my book.

 

[Paraxis]

Silliest rule that I've found is that archery specialization for fighters and rangers gives a bonus to hit. So apparently, with a little bit of training, it's easier to hit someone a hundred feet away than it is to hit them in melee.

This is one of those things that's going to annoy me for the life of the product, but is too small to be worth house ruling. But it's a major flub in my book.

I understand what you are saying, but in all honesty the bonus is just there to counter act the soft cover bonus of +2 to AC that most targets that are engaged in melee with your allies get.

You could just say it lets them ignore partial cover, or give out that cover bonus more often to counteract the bonus.

 

[KarinsDad]

Silliest rule that I've found is that archery specialization for fighters and rangers gives a bonus to hit. So apparently, with a little bit of training, it's easier to hit someone a hundred feet away than it is to hit them in melee.

This is one of those things that's going to annoy me for the life of the product, but is too small to be worth house ruling. But it's a major flub in my book.

Is it? Arrows come in real fast. Sword swings, not so fast.

Arrows are hard to block. Sword swings in melee, block the elbow or wrist, block the swing. Alternatively, step back from the swing, step to the side, whatever.

I think it makes a lot of sense that archers are experts at hitting and that melee guys are experts at doing damage if they hit.

 

[Sadrik]

I think that you are confusing saves with DCs here.

Even removing the 8, that seems pretty high since the core rule is stat+prof for the best saves. You are increasing the best save by 2 (immediately) and the worse save by 2 (immediately) and 6 (by level 17), at least if I am understanding you.

We use:

stat+prof for the best saves.
stat+half prof for the worse saves.

This tends to result in:

Level 1:
best: +3 to +5
worst: +0 to +2

Level 17:
best: +7 to +11
worst: +3 to +5

Yes my goof, I was regurgitating past example and did not check what i was saying. Thanks for the catch.

So the best in my book is (stat + prof -2) for all saves except the good ones which are just (stat + prof).

 

[Sadrik]

Silliest rule that I've found is that archery specialization for fighters and rangers gives a bonus to hit. So apparently, with a little bit of training, it's easier to hit someone a hundred feet away than it is to hit them in melee.

This is one of those things that's going to annoy me for the life of the product, but is too small to be worth house ruling. But it's a major flub in my book.

An excellent house rule is give single weapon wield +2 to hit and move the +2 to damage to the great weapon. taking care of two problems the wonky great weapon reroll ability and fixing the melee =/= ranged attack bonus.

 

[KarinsDad]

Yes my goof, I was regurgitating past example and did not check what i was saying. Thanks for the catch.

So the best in my book is (stat + prof -2) for all saves except the good ones which are just (stat + prof).

That's a good rule.


With our houserule, the bad saves get a +1 bonus at level 1 and a +3 one at level 17, with your houserule they get a +0 bonus at level 1 and a +4 one at level 17.

Both rules are fairly comparable with each other.

 

[Mr Fixit]

Not exactly a senseless rule, but a confusing choice of words: armour proficiency.

In every single instance "proficiency" means adding your level-dependent proficiency bonus to the relevant d20 check. Weapon, skill, tool, save proficiencies... If you have it, add your +2 to +6 to d20+ability modifier. Except for armours, that is. I'm willing to bet there's a not insignificant number of people adding proficiency modifiers to their AC. A simple change in wording would have been enough: armour mastery, for example.

As for tools/skills discussion, I'm of the opinion that the system itself is more or less OK. What tends to confuse people is that the rules for these closely-related systems are split into two different chapters. Speaking for me personally, as an experienced gamer, I had some initial problems figuring them out and had to carefully re-read Tools section of the Equipment chapter before I could fully grasp the intent.

I'd like to see two ease-of-use changes. One, don't call both tools and non-tools "kits". It's mighty confusing. Two, consider moving Tools section from Equipment chapter into Using ability scores chapter, right after Skills. Maybe it isn't that elegant (tools are equipment, after all), but I really feel both skills and tools should be discussed side by side.

 

[Mr Fixit]

(...) move the +2 to damage to the great weapon. taking care of two problems the wonky great weapon reroll ability and fixing the melee =/= ranged attack bonus.

A few days ago I ran some numbers on Great Weapon Fighting style. I don't know if that's what devs intended, but your damage boost is noticeably smaller than with Dueling style, which seems...odd. For example, if you use a longsword in one hand, you'll dish out 6.5 damage on average (4.5 weapon + 2 Dueling style). If you wield it with two hands, you'll inflict 6.3 damage on average with GWF style. So, you don't get to use a shield, thus lowering your AC, AND you get lower damage to boot? That can't be right.

 

[Sadrik]

That's a good rule.


With our houserule, the bad saves get a +1 bonus at level 1 and a +3 one at level 17, with your houserule they get a +0 bonus at level 1 and a +4 one at level 17.

Both rules are fairly comparable with each other.

Agree for pcs it is the difference of up to a 1 point difference. Where I see it might break a little bit is because the slope of 1/2prof increases at a different rat and monsters with higher than 20 levels/HD it begins to separate some. Good bad idk, that's why I thought slope-2 would be best.

 

[KarinsDad]

Agree for pcs it is the difference of up to a 1 point difference. Where I see it might break a little bit is because the slope of 1/2prof increases at a different rat and monsters with higher than 20 levels/HD it begins to separate some. Good bad idk, that's why I thought slope-2 would be best.

The slope of 1/2 doesn't really matter. Your idea works out +1 better at higher levels and mine at lower levels. In the middle levels of 5 through 12, the two systems are the same:

+1 +0 Level 1 to 4

+1 +1 Level 5 to 8
+2 +2 Level 9 to 12

+2 +3 Level 13 to 16
+3 +4 Level 17 to 20

At higher levels, PCs have a plethora of abilities and spells to handle a difference of +1 to saves. At lower levels, not so much. Also, the game is played mostly at levels 1 to 12, so I'm not as concerned with levels 13 to 20. There are just so many ways for PCs to get advantage on a save at higher levels that the larger delta doesn't mean that much.

Both systems are better than nothing. But, neither system removes bad saves because quite frankly, there is only so many good ability scores to go around.