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

[Thanee]

I tolerate one and completely ignore the existence of the other.

Psionics are not core, tho.



I mostly loathe the 3.5 darkness rules (making light in a dark room with a darkness spell), which are really stupid.

Other than that, I'm fine with the rules mostly. Would like something here and there better (i.e. reasonable facing rules instead of that flanking stuff), but overall the rules work fine. Some rules are even very well thought-out and work perfectly well.

If I'm looking for a more realistic game instead of the more flashy heroic D&D, I play another system. D&D just doesn't do that with its levels, hit points, and so on.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Storm Raven]

One more... how the hell is a scythe not a simple weapon? Is it or is it not a peasant's tool? Granted, it's not normally swung at people, but if you have ever harvested an entire field using a scythe, I don't think hacking at somone is going to be a huge stretch for you.

Proficiency isn't about just being able to hack someone with a particular weapon. Its being able to hack someone well. Farmers may use scythes to cut crops all day, but still not be very good at using them as weapons against people.

 

[Storm Raven]

2. Magic isn't magical. Magic items are just another type of item to be bought or sold like groceries. These things should be effectively priceless, damnit!

The only way to truly make magic "magical, priceless, and mysterious" is to take it out of the hands of the PCs.

 

[Storm Raven]

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?"

Or, he could just make a Spellcraft check at DC 15 + spell level to prepare a spell from any of those books. (Check the Spellcraft skill description).

 

[glass]

Three pages and nobody has mentioned my pet hate yet: apparently you can search a chest from ten feet away! WTF?



glass.

 

[Li Shenron]

Wow, so many rants here Many of these things have annoyed me as well, but I have become used to them, and nowadays I quite accept that this is D&D...

Maybe one more thing I didn't notice already mentioned is Poisons. I don't understand why this category caused a major fantasy drain from the author, and ALL poisons must always have an immediate effect followed by a secondary effect 1 minute later. Never having effects with long or very long terms means a huge list of story opportunities to be missed

BTW, the trouble with Reflex save IMO is pretty much the same trouble with 2ed Infravision.
Once people got stuck in their mind that infravision was exactly the same as seeing with a real IR visor, people argued this and that and rules HAD to be fixed to accomodate it.
Once people get stuck now with the idea that a Fireball is exactly a sphere of fire completely filling its space (which is not even scientific AFAIK, since when "real fire" has a shape? or a bomb blast is spherical? and "saving" may mean just to turn & switch your delicate face with your not-so-delicate-butt for half damage) then the rules of the game seems inadequate.
In both cases, the group has to make a choice: please the nervous player(s) with a HR and take responsilibility that this may require other HR later to fix the consequences, or accept the core rule and move on with the game.

A smile here to make myself forgiven the rudeness...

 

[The Shaman]

The magic system. My hat knows no bounds.

Hit points. Barely tolerable.

CR. Challenges are rated assuming I give out boatloads of magic items? Feh.

 

[S'mon]

Man, if low light vision is dazzled by torch light, how the hell do elves ever go outside in sunlight without going blind?

By using their high-light vision, same as humans (or cats). I just treat low-light vision like it works for real-world creatures like cats.

 

[VirgilCaine]

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?"
...Sez Rel - "Well, f--- that!"

Reread the PHB. It explains all this.
Each wizard has a personalized version of the language wizards use to talk about spells. They have to translate spells in other spellbooks into their version of this language. Spellbooks aren't written in normal language, it's like legalese, and every lawyer has a different dialect.

Wizards gain the spells they gain at level up from practicing and researching in their spare time and suddenly struck with insight into how the spell works when they level up, not because they are suddenly struck with a vision of the spell formulae when they level up.

Why do people not read the flavor text?

 

[der_kluge]

If I may take this opportunity to make a couple of plugs here - neither of which I get any money for, btw.

HARP just released HARP Lite over at http://www.harphq.com - check it out. I've recently fallen in love with HARP. It has a lot of the same concepts as d20, but it's a lot more flexible, and most of these rants are gone in that system. No alignment, no specific class abilities (everything is a talent, so you choose what you want), there are professions, which are like classes, but they are nothing more than collections of skill categories, so you could completely eliminate the professions and go with a "class-less" system very easily. Everything is a skill - including hit points, so you could make a high hit point wizard very easily. There are not tons of spells, instead you focus on a few spells and increase their power as you gain levels. Check it out - it's FREE!.


Also, for everyone here that has complained about magic item creation, and the costs of magic items, etc. Check out the Artificer's Handbook by Mystic Eye Games. I wrote it, and no, I don't get extra money for shilling it. Not only that, I never even got paid for it! I just happen to think it's an excellent book that totally makes magic item creation make sense. It has a formula-based mechanic for pricing magic items, which removes most of the guesswork, and because it's a formula, you can modify the gold piece multiplier to make magic as costly or as cheap as you want it to be. So, there are rules for low magic campaigns in there. It also has socketed items, gestalt sets, rules for item history, and a host of other things.