Core concept or rule that just bugs you beyond your ability to put up with it?

[der_kluge]

There's a lot here to hate, that's for certain. Oddly enough, some of it doesn't bother me so much. Alignment isn't that big a deal to me, really. I do have a funny story about darkvision/low light, etc. In our last campaign, the party was in this ancient fortress fighting Slaad, and I commented that there was no light source of any kind. It didn't matter - the minotaur had darkvision, the genasi had some sort of darkvision, or low light at least, the dwarf could see, the sorcerer had cast darkvision, and there were a few other things acting which pretty much made light a non-issue for the party.

I thought I'd be clever before-hand and buffed up some slaad who were going to ambush them, and I had them emerge from the lower level with mirror image and blur, and figured out, that none of it even did any good at all!


No, I think the thing that gets my goad more than anything else is the Bard class. Let's see, you've got a "jack of all trades" that can't really do very much of anything, and he can't even learn new spells from his travels, because he's a charisma caster, and the musical effects are, for the most part, completely lame. Ugh, I hate the bard class.

I also hate the way magic item creation works. You have to take one feat to make a ring of water walking, and another feat to make boots of water walking. STOO-PID. That, and you can't make anything if you *just* reach your next level, and have no excess XP to spare for item creation. Dumb. The whole "xp required" for magic item creation just baffles the bejeesus out of me. It's why I wrote the Artificer's Handbook. It's magic item creation rules that make sense to me.


Someone brought up psionics, but psionics aren't core, so I don't have to deal with those.

And I also hate the monk class. I also hate its existence in HARP, but it's easy enough to just remove it from both of them.

 

[Tewligan]

Running – In d20 running doesn’t make you go faster, it makes you go farther.

Isn't going farther in the same amount of time the same thing as going faster?

 

[KB9JMQ]

My biggest peeve. Spell levels in relation to spell caster level.
Why can't the level of spell you cast be equal to the level the caster is.
As in a 4th level spellcaster can cast 1-4th level spells.
Then when they become fifth level they can then cast 5th level spells.
Why is it set up that to cast 3rd level spells you must be 5th level.
Can't the spells just be rescaled to fit the level of the spellcaster.?

 

[Wombat]

While I am not fond of the magic system, levels, hit points, and several other points, the only one that "bug (me) beyond (my) ability to put up with it" is alignment. I bugged me in OD&D. It bugs me now. I just refuse to use it anymore. Yeah, it calls for changing spells and some specific abilities, but once you get into the groove of that, it's pretty easy.

Most of the rest, though far from my fave rave notions, I can at least live with

 

[arwink]

I was just talking with somebody about my "pet peeve rule" early today. I can let just about everything in D&D go on the basis of "it's magic" or "it's just a game" but the one that I cannot abide is the Spellbook rules.

Sez Rel - "So if you lock an Elf Wizard, with a 25 Int, in a tower with spellbooks containing every known spell in existence for 500 years he can't learn any of them?"

The Lost Books Primer contains a few options to get around this, depending on how easy you want to make it in your campaign.

And it's a free download.

 

[Aethelstan]

More rules that bug me:

-Psionics: all of it and the very idea of it. What is a rules set with abilities like "Psycholuminescene," "Ectoplasmic Armor," and "Biofeedback" doing in a quasi-medieval fantasy game like D&D?! As these names make clear, psionics draws its inspiration from sci-fi and the modern world and thus belongs in RPGs that focus on these eras. I never understood why Gygax tacked psionics on to 1st ed. and I am baffled that it survived into 3rd ed.

-Monks: The Asian inspiration of the monk makes them an odd fit with the all the other PHB classes, which draw largely on European architypes. Plus the class is overloaded with lots of weird bells and whistles.

-Wizards /Sorcerers: The only real difference between these classes is number of spells known and spells per day. W & S are just two variants of the same class. To be interesting, they should be as different and distinct as the Cleric and Druid.

-Feat and Prestige class bloat: Too many new feats and PrCs, too little playtesting and balance. Does D&D really need more of either?

 

[Razz0putin]

Am I the only one bugged by *this* concept?

yes, seriously though I see your point of view and having to describe things three differerent times is a load.

Am I right in the probable reason why this is just now bothering me, after 25 years of play?
It's how you feel admitedly I think at this point I've just taken it for what it is

Do you have any deep, gut-wrenching problem with an aspect of this game?
Alignment, alingment takes all thought and puts it into 9 categories then people with detect evil come along and go 'ping' he's evil let's kill em. I much more prefer the Arcana Unearthed method of no alingments. How do you tell who's the bad guy you ask the same way you do in real life by their beliefs and actions.

What is your favorite color?
aquamarine

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Level Adjustments bug me, as currently written, because Effective Character Level isn't. It doesn't take into account the differing levels of synergy between monster abilities and class abilities - an ogre wizard is not as "effective" as an ogre fighter, even though his increased physical prowess does give him an advantage over other wizards. Level Adjustments should scale according to such considerations.

Most everything else that people have mentioned, I accept as more fun than the "sensible" alternative (hit points) or simply doesn't bother me (alignment - it is descriptive, after all).

 

[Swiftbrook]

Silence Please

Silence. That bugs me to no end. In 3e/3.5e Silence became an illusion spell. Ya right. It became a glamer which can not create any physical effect, but silence can cause a physicall effect. Somewhere I have a page or two write up on the argument as to why Silence should not be an illusion spell. This is just one of those many rule changes that the writers made just to cause problems. You know, you can't have a set of rules that works all the time. What woudl be the point of a revision or new edditon?

-Swiftbrook

 

[Masquerade]

I agree with a lot of the previously expressed opinions, but I'm willing to deal with hit points, experience points, and everything else.

The only thing that I cannot stand is penalizing multiclassing. This is the only thing that is consistently house ruled against in my games.