D&D (2024) Rules that annoy you

[Shardstone]

I wouldn't do no repeats, with the exception of spells. I mean, that poor sad little fighter who just swung his sword at the ogre and can't do it again with his second action, just staring at the spellcaster lobbing two spells.

What I would do is say if you cast a spell, the second action has to be a spell that uses a lower spell slot. So if you cast a fireball with your first action, the second has to be 2nd level or lower. If your first spell is a cantrip, you blew it. Highest spell has to go first. Though I would make an exception for cantrips. Two cantrips seems fine.

Id keep the extra attack feature.

 

[mamba]

That is somewhat the purpose of a trade language, which is my point. If Common is the default trade language of the setting, adopted so that disparate species can communicate with one another, then it should have been developed and adopted by the elder races before humans showed upon the scene.

I understand the point of a trade language, now show me how often in human history two parties came up with a new language in order to use that to talk to each other…

And give me an explanation for why every species other than human came up with one, but humans somehow did not.

Look at worlds like Tolkiens, the old races sit around in isolated locations while the majority of the land is occupied by humans. You think the dwarves being first to dig into a mountain somehow prevented the human language to be the one that spread?

Some settings do have other Human tongues (like the Forgotten Realms with Thorass, Chondathan, and more, some of which are now effectively dead languages), but most have fallen by the wayside, replaced by Common. Still a bit weird that every other race clings to their native tongue while also learning Common and Humans just sort of...didn't.

look at English, same principle

And yes, I understand the Doylist reasoning here, that it was done this way because Humans used to be the most populous and important race in settings, but even in settings where that isn't true, we're stuck with Humans only speaking Common and everyone else speaking Common with no Watsonian explanation.

familiarity / practicality or laziness I guess


If you want a different explanation chances are you can find one and use it, the most likely and logical conclusion is that common is the human language.

 

[mamba]

According to the 2024 PHB, Common originated in Sigil.

jeez, they have to squeeze their multiverse into everything

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I mean, I certainly wouldn't have assumed that "common" of Athas and "common" of Faerûn are actually the same language. I would have assumed that "common" refers to the most widely used language of each setting, and those would obviously be completely different languages in different settings.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

And in older editions, common was just 'me trade this' rough way for everyone to conduct some sort of business, but you wanted the real languages to actually be, you know, proficient in speaking.

Now it's just english. Which, as all scifi shows have taught us, is universally known.

 

[Voadam]

I mean, I certainly wouldn't have assumed that "common" of Athas and "common" of Faerûn are actually the same language. I would have assumed that "common" refers to the most widely used language of each setting, and those would obviously be completely different languages in different settings.

When I played spelljammer going from home brew to Krynn to Faerun to Melnibone common was common.

One explanation was Elric dream plane, another was Zelazny Pattern variations.

 

[Daztur]

What Gygax seems to have based Common on is Sabir/Mediterranean Lingua Franca which was a sailor's language based on romance languages with simplified grammar and a bunch of other languages mixed in. Nobody spoke it as their native or main language but it was easy enough to learn that a lot of sailors could talk to each other in various versions of it. The versions we have recorded are fairly late versions of it, a good bit different from the earlier versions that grew up in the era of the Crusades but it makes for a very interesting read if you know a Romance language:

Se ti sabir,
Ti respondir;
Se non sabir,
Tazir, tazir.
Mi star Mufti:
Ti qui star ti?
Non intendir:
Tazir, tazir.

Lingua Franca Texts

 

[Clint_L]

And in older editions, common was just 'me trade this' rough way for everyone to conduct some sort of business, but you wanted the real languages to actually be, you know, proficient in speaking.

Now it's just english. Which, as all scifi shows have taught us, is universally known.

Addendum: now it's just English in English language editions of D&D. Or Italian in Italian language editions, and so on.

But yeah, it's basically a cinematic language. It's what the audience needs it to be for the story to easily work.

 

[el-remmen]

I see Common as a shared dialect that emerged from the proximity of two or more local languages being spoken by people with common commercial or cultural interests. It may over time become its own thing, but remains understandable (sometimes with some effort) between itself and the languages that inform it.

However, this means that if you suddenly travel to another continent or something with little contact with your part of the world, they might speak a different "Common." In which case, you might have to rely on the "older" languages (elven, dwarven, giant, draconic - which also contribute to words and constructions in Common) to help communicate until you pick up the local dialect. Books tend to be written either in one of the older languages or in a local dialect, not "Common." And when it is, this explains why sage and scholars have to pore over tomes, they are trying to decipher the pidgin of languages and contexts any given instance of Common might be!

At least, that's how I run it in my games - giving characters a home dialect in addition to "Common." It also means that two characters from the same part of the world can converse in their home tongue and likely not be easily understood.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well with elves and gnomes and maybe a number of other especially long-lived and widespread species leading the initiative, fairly accessible unlimited range communication magic and a class of people who wander the globe and further professionally, i can quite easily see how that might occur, how it might be considered useful to have a universal tongue that got spread about, someone mentioned maybe it was the leftover language of an older empire, maybe it’s ‘elvish common’

We have most of that in our world, but everyone still speaks different languages.