D&D (2024) Rules that annoy you

[TiQuinn]

Similar thing occurs in BX/1e - in Keep on the Borderlands there's a potion you can find that de-stones medusa victims, and as far as I know that's the only instance in the game where that potion ever appears.

I've never considered the possibility that magic item lists were locked down in a such a way that you couldn't do this in any other edition. Want a Potion of De-petrification? Sure! Why not?

 

[Blue]

That's not what D&D is emulating now.

Time was, it did that emulation just fine at lower levels before getting more over-the-top at mid-high levels. In other words, it could and did do both.

Somehow that changed, and I'm simply pushing back against that change.

"Pushing back against the change"...

I'm positive you know that there are 2024 books coming out. I'm almost as positive that you share the though that there is very, very little chance there will be an actual new edition in the next few years. So there's no vehicle to incorporate genre changes.

"Pushing back" isn't something that can be done effectively at this point.

 

[Lanefan]

I've never considered the possibility that magic item lists were locked down in a such a way that you couldn't do this in any other edition. Want a Potion of De-petrification? Sure! Why not?

Oh, I completely agree! My point was more the oddity of an official and widely-distributed module introducing an item that does not go on to become part of the core game.

 

[Lanefan]

"Pushing back against the change"...

I'm positive you know that there are 2024 books coming out. I'm almost as positive that you share the though that there is very, very little chance there will be an actual new edition in the next few years. So there's no vehicle to incorporate genre changes.

Yet.

"Pushing back" isn't something that can be done effectively at this point.

Disagree. Sooner or later there'll be either a 6e or a split; and there's no saying pushback now might not influence things then.

Hell, this strategy has worked great for the players of mages lo these many decades...

 

[Not a Decepticon]

You don't thing Dex grapples and punches are close to a weapon mastery?


Typical barbarian weapons swing so hard they deal damage though armor, or swing so wide they hit multiple enemies, or knock enemies down.

All of which can easily be run as swinging without thinking.

Monk got dex to attacks before and it was a necessity for it, getting it to grapples is not enough to keep up with vesritality gained by weapon mastery, especially when grapple in 5e doesn't do anything without having knocked the target prone first.

And it's only worse tat so much in barbarian lends itslef ot playing reclessly...and the class still comes out as having much better understanding of ideas like tactics, technique or actual martial arts, while Monk is now canonically the moron of martial classes, who seemingly doesn't know how to fight aside just blindly swinging their fists.

 

[Undrave]

This is one of the things about D&D I would consider "purely lame". It's actively uncool. Because it means no interesting or narratively-cool solutions, nor complex solutions, and parties forced to have access to certain things to just "not die", and if you do have the right spell, fixing the problem is just totally trivial and meaningless and forgettable. That the only narrative about saving Throknar from the Doom-Curse is just "Oh yeah we did a Long Rest and then cast Remove Curse on him", rather than anything remotely interesting.

The worst I’ve seen in 5e is the Clay Golem. For reasons that go unexplained (justified by nothing but legacy), when a Clay Golem damages you your maximum HP also goes down! Punishing the tank of the party for doing their job and taking away part of their class feature. How do you cure this curse? A fifth level spell. A single spell. That’s it. It’s already a non-sensical effect for a CLAY golem, but that it only has one option to deal with it is absurd.

 

[pukunui]

a) above makes sense from a design perspective, though better would be to have those things kick in at level 1 and ban those classes from being part of a multiclass combo. b) however doesn't, in that the character can happily take two levels in those classes without becoming tied to anything within the class; and that tie-down is (at least in my eyes) the great big drawback that pays off all the other benefits you get.

I mean, say I'm a Rogue looking to dip into Warlock for whatever reason. If doing so meant I had to tie myself to a patron right away with all the inherent headaches that entails, I probably wouldn't do it; but as I can take two levels without that drawback why wouldn't I, so as to allow myself to spontaneously cast spells that maybe help my Rogue-ing.

Because those first two levels of warlock represent your rogue "delving into tomes of forbidden lore, dabbling in invocations meant to attract the power of extraplanar beings, or seeking places of power where the influence of these beings can be felt".

If you were a player in one of my games, and you took two levels of the new warlock, I would use that as an RP prompt and have your PC attract the attention of one or more potential patrons who would tempt you to take a third level and make a pact with them.

... especially when grapple in 5e doesn't do anything without having knocked the target prone first.

Uh, it sets the grappled target's speed to 0, meaning they can't go anywhere. Yes, it's more effective if you can knock them prone so they can't stand up, but it's not doing nothing.

That being said, the 2024 version of grappling makes it so a grappled target has disadvantage on attack rolls against all targets except the creature grappling them, so it now does more!

 

[Undrave]

a) above makes sense from a design perspective, though better would be to have those things kick in at level 1 and ban those classes from being part of a multiclass combo. b) however doesn't, in that the character can happily take two levels in those classes without becoming tied to anything within the class; and that tie-down is (at least in my eyes) the great big drawback that pays off all the other benefits you get.

I mean, say I'm a Rogue looking to dip into Warlock for whatever reason. If doing so meant I had to tie myself to a patron right away with all the inherent headaches that entails, I probably wouldn't do it; but as I can take two levels without that drawback why wouldn't I, so as to allow myself to spontaneously cast spells that maybe help my Rogue-ing.

I'm personally not a fan of the pick and choose style of multi classing where you just GET the level.

Are Warlock even tied up to their patron anyway? The rules as is are pretty loose when it comes to PC obligations.

 

[pukunui]

Are Warlock even tied up to their patron anyway? The rules as is are pretty loose when it comes to PC obligations.

Yeah, not really. It's always been up to the DM to bring the patron into play in any noticeable way outside of the PC's specific class abilities.

The worst I’ve seen in 5e is the Clay Golem. For reasons that go unexplained (justified by nothing but legacy), when a Clay Golem damages you your maximum HP also goes down! Punishing the tank of the party for doing their job and taking away part of their class feature. How do you cure this curse? A fifth level spell. A single spell. That’s it. It’s already a non-sensical effect for a CLAY golem, but that it only has one option to deal with it is absurd.

Yeah, all of the golems are kind of weird. Clay golems not only have the power to reduce your max hp with a punch (Mike Mearls once told me it was because of "crippling force"), but they can also magically speed themselves up! Why? Who knows?!

Stone golems can slow people down. Why? This one at least gets an explanation: "Creatures that fight a stone golem can feel the ebb and flow of time slow down around them, almost as though they were made of stone themselves."

Iron golems can breathe poisonous fumes. Why? Who knows?!

I'm sure once upon a time, these abilities had in-game explanations, but you'd have to delve into past editions to find out what they were, since 5e's authors didn't seem to care to tell us.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The worst I’ve seen in 5e is the Clay Golem. For reasons that go unexplained (justified by nothing but legacy), when a Clay Golem damages you your maximum HP also goes down! Punishing the tank of the party for doing their job and taking away part of their class feature. How do you cure this curse? A fifth level spell. A single spell. That’s it. It’s already a non-sensical effect for a CLAY golem, but that it only has one option to deal with it is absurd.

WotC have a good opportunity to fix a lot of this jank with the new MM, but I feel like their total failure to acknowledge any of it means they won't address it at all.

I miss Dragon, honestly, because if Dragon was still around, we'd probably have had an issue with like "Alternative Cures" or something, for most of this junk, which would have been very popular. But instead we only get 3PPs, which don't have the reach or light-touch-ness of Dragon, and UAs, which tend to be extremely cautious and almost never touch monsters.