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

[Quasqueton]

I love the D&D game and rules. But there is one core item that just bugs me to my soul. It disturbs me on a visceral level. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard. It makes me wince just thinking about it, almost literally.

The fact that all creatures except halflings and humans have either low-light vision or darkvision, or both (or blindsight). I have made a house rule to "fix" this, but it requires a lot of attention from me, as the DM.

Ironically, this concept of seeing in the dark is not new to D&D3. All through the editions, many creatures have had infravision. But it is only now that the concept has started bothering me, after 25 years of playing.

Although, with thinking on it, I beleive it is the problem of having to describe a scene in three different ways: the human and halfling sees the dungeong room lit out to 20 feet (torch light), then shadowy out to 40 feet; the dwarf and orc sees normally out to 20 feet, then in black and white out to 60'; the elf and gnome sees normally out to 40', then shadowy out to 80'. This is something that didn't happen in earlier versions of the game (since the torch ruined the infravision of the non-human characers).

So, my questions in this post are this:

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

Am I right in the probable reason why this is just now bothering me, after 25 years of play?

Do you have any deep, gut-wrenching problem with an aspect of this game?

What is your favorite color?

Quasqueton

 

[Shade]

My deep, gut-wrenching problem has been with me since 1E. I absolutely loathe material components. With the inclusion of natural casters, like the sorcerer, it bugs me even more.

My solution: Every spellcaster essentially gets Eschew Material Components for free. For any pricy material component spell, just give up the equivalent amount of gold, gems, whatever to pay the price (solely to maintain the balance). Instead of 1,000 gp worth of cow dung, you can cough up a 1,000 gp ruby and we'll call it even.

 

[MerakSpielman]

This came to bug me only after I tried proofing/editing a module for somebody. He had put in the "gray text" boxes where the DM reads the room's description phrases like "The ceiling vanishes into darkness..." But that requires the DM to change the description based on whether members of the party have different kinds of vision, or if they're using a light source at all. So I was going through, as an editor, just deleting such descriptive, evocative flavor text, in fact, I was deleting references to light and dark whatsoever. It was annoying.

 

[cmanos]

purple

 

[Mercule]

Yeah, the vision thing bugs me. I've strip it from many, many humanoid races IMC.

It really shifted into an overdrive hatred after we set up a "themed" stealth group. We were da bomb in stealth -- everyone had it as an in-class skill by some means. The only problem was that we were going through dungeons (specifically, RtToEE). Nothing seemed to need light. At least not at the levels we made it to.

I've got a decent mind for sneaky stuff. There is just no way to do it as an adventurer -- at least not without a boatload of magic. Absolutely enfuriated me.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I don't really like the prevalence of darkvision and low light vision among monsters and humanoids. Everything can see better than humans can!

 

[nopantsyet]

I find the vision point mildly irritating, but then again, by otherworldy happenstance one of the PCs has recently acquired Tremorsense 30', so who am I to criticize?

I long ago gave up on the idea that the DM has to describe all aspects of each character's perception in order to maintain verisimilitude. The players roleplay their characters' capabilities; they know if they can or cannot see what I describe, but everyone can enjoy the mood and description. I think you lose more by trying to do too much.

But I can't say there's anything that really gets me worked up. If there were, I'd probably find another system. Like I said in another thread, in my current campaign, I have no house rules. I use a number of supplements, but only add to, rather than subtract from or modify the core rules. So there are some warts; like I'm going to create anything less warty in my spare time?

 

[fafhrd]

The vision issue is annoying but my peeve is magic/spell resistance. I hated the normal/magical fire dichotomy in earlier editions, and I still hate the concept that a fireball isn't hot to the spell resistant frost being x% of the time. I find it galling because I'm not particularly fond of classifying magic as an effect. It's a whole lot trickier to rectify than the prevalence of darkvsion.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

The problem with infravision was that infravision is a very scientific concept and once you have a good idea how infrared light works, it gets all buggered. There's a zillion examples, but one of the big ones was that someone with infrared vision to 60' couldn't, like, see a fire elemental 120' away. Oops. Also, there's the part where a torch really wouldn't affect infravision anymore than it would affect normal vision. Then someone told AD&D developers about the ultraviolet spectrum and then, from a scientific view, things really got silly.

And believe me, this kind of stuff comes up all the friggin' time when you DM a bunch of college engineering students.

So now we have lowlight and blindsight. Which are also problematic, but you don't have some Dr. Science wannabe giving lectures on heat dispersal.

 

[barsoomcore]

The entire magic system.

Hit points (though I usually put up with those).

Elves, dwarves, halflings, half-orcs, half-elves, gnomes, orcs, and beholders.

Alignment.

Experience Points.

Probably a few other things that I just cannot put up with. And usually don't.

Oh, and if somebody could explain to me how a Reflex Save helps you avoid damage from a fireball going off beside you in a bare room, that'd be great.