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

mmadsen said:
The classes cannot be "balanced period" if they differ at all. Think about it.

Well, I didn't mean to imply perfection of balance in all situations. What I meant was they should be balanced in group-based conflict no matter the source without campaign-style assumptions. If they would drop things like vancian magic, times per day, and +X magical items then the classes would maintain balance independent of play style.
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Many of the things that bug me about DND are things that bugged me in previous editions and were not changed with 3e which is why I will not run DND (at least as written).

Hit Points

Armor Class

Having too many abilites that are built into the classes (hit dice, bab, armor proficiency, weapon proficiency, special abilities (e.g., animal companion, familiar, rage, sneak attack).

Specialist Wizards not having unique spell lists based on their specialty

Vancian Magic

Hit Diced Based Spells

Magic items being too common


The New Things that bug me:

The standard rate of leveling.

Not enough guidelines in the phb or dmg for customizing classes.

Favored Class

multiclassing

Summon Spells
Greyhawk specific assumptions and material in the PHB

Creating Magic items
 

reanjr said:
I've never quite understood this stance. What is it about shopping list magic items makes it fun? Is it just the number-crunching aspect? (trying to get the most synergy out of disparate magical buffs)
Well, for some of us (for me and most of my group, at least), the fun comes in customizing your character, down to the equipment. And even that is only half the fun. The other half is actually doing something really cool with that character.

The fun doesn't come in finding magic items. Adding the Doohickey of Absolutely No Game Effect to my character sheet doesn't excite me. The fun doesn't come in owning magic items. What's the point of a Gizmo of Never Gets Used?

Frankly, unless the DM is so good that he can select equipment that would fit my character concept better than I can, it would make me happier if I can choose the equipment I want, whether I find it, buy it, make it, or have it given to me as a gift. And unless the DM is worried about game balance, or just wants to frustrate his players, I don't see why it would be such a big deal for him to give me what I want.

It is a philosophy I adopt myself when I DM. Every time a character gains a level, his equipment refreshes to the standard equipment value for a PC of his new level. He can select whatever equipment he wants, with the sole restriction that no single magic item can be worth more than half his total equipment value. If he has the relevant item creation feats and is able to make an item, he gets a 25% discount off the price. How the character's equipment improves is up to him to decide - if he says his organization keeps him supplied with gear, that's up to him. If he wants to have the Magic Sword of Llamedos, which increases in power with the weilder, that's fine too. If his aunt is a wizard who keeps adding magical abilities to his armor, why should it bother me? After all, the player is happy, and I'm happy because I don't have to worry about magic item placement and whether I'm giving out too much or too little treasure.
 

FireLance said:
Frankly, unless the DM is so good that he can select equipment that would fit my character concept better than I can, it would make me happier if I can choose the equipment I want, whether I find it, buy it, make it, or have it given to me as a gift. And unless the DM is worried about game balance, or just wants to frustrate his players, I don't see why it would be such a big deal for him to give me what I want.
Your philosophy and mine differ. I see your approach as overly player-centered for my tastes, and not character-centered enough. I'm thinking organic growth, you're thinking design. My character concept doesn't include any magic items per se - he'll find some in the course of adventuring, but his life is full of events beyond his control. He can't choose the treasure he finds. That's part of the adventure. He can't know what's going to happen, what he's going to find, or who he's going to meet.

Now, if he hears a rumor of a powerful magic item that would be a good fit with his abilities, he might seek it out. And he did take Craft Wand to make a healing wand, mostly because I as a player despise both magic shops and PCs napping in monsters' lairs. But the character just happening to find the things he wants... life isn't like that, and my character's life shouldn't be like that either. He should make do with suboptimal equipment, things that he hopes he can find a use for, things that he doesn't know how to activate. It makes his life (and my game) more interesting.
 

Rel said:
But what I think it getting missed in your analysis is that the Wizard and Cleric also have or don't have that same amount of gear. They also have a +2 cloak of resistance, +2 ring of protection, +2 amulet of natural armor, +2 headband of intellect, a wand of Scorching Ray, 2 pearls of power and a potion of Invisibility.

I don't foresee a "low magic item" campaign to mean that the spellcasters suddenly have no need for the "meatshield" types...

Have you actually _played_ a low magic item campaign? I've played in 2 - admittedly the first was in 3.0, when spellcasters were even more dominant. In both cases the spellcasters dominated play once they got access to 2nd level spells like Invisibility & Web (& 3.0 Bull's Strength), and totally dominated when they had 3rd level spells like Fly & Fireball. While Clerics remain overpowered at any magic item level, items make a huge difference to Fighters & Rogues' ability to compare with Wizards & Sorcs.
 

I've playered in a low magic campaign. My character was one of the few wizards remaining. After 6th level or so, we noticed a very significant power scale. At long range, the wizards dominated. At short range, the fighters dominated. In my party I had damn well hide behind our ranger if the trolls got close, because they would shred me if I went spell to claw with them. And, in an indoor environment, short range happed most of the time.

Baron Opal
 

I have very few complaints about 3.5E. Like most, I don't agree with the gay version of darkness and related spells as currently written but that has been house-ruled out of my game so that darkness is, well, dark.

However, the thing that really, really, REALLY annoys me is how the tanar'ri are immune to electricity and there does not seem to be a single logical reason for this to be so (but at least 3.5E finally made the great flaming balor immune to fire).

A related issue is how badly the fiends are designed. They seem less like the epitome of evil than grab-bags of randomly determined abilities that rarely reflect what they are.
 

Eremite said:
I have very few complaints about 3.5E. Like most, I don't agree with the gay version of darkness

Oh dear.

A related issue is how badly the fiends are designed. They seem less like the epitome of evil than grab-bags of randomly determined abilities that rarely reflect what they are.

D00d, 1E had a random demon generation table. Makes perfect sense to me that horrible, brain-melting denizens of the lower planes should not make perfect sense to me.
 

hong said:
(snip) D00d, 1E had a random demon generation table. Makes perfect sense to me that horrible, brain-melting denizens of the lower planes should not make perfect sense to me.

Fellow D00d,

That's the problem. D&D's fiends don't scream out "brain-melting" or even "horrible". They're just "blah", in the main.
 

S'mon said:
Have you actually _played_ a low magic item campaign? I've played in 2 - admittedly the first was in 3.0, when spellcasters were even more dominant. In both cases the spellcasters dominated play once they got access to 2nd level spells like Invisibility & Web (& 3.0 Bull's Strength), and totally dominated when they had 3rd level spells like Fly & Fireball. While Clerics remain overpowered at any magic item level, items make a huge difference to Fighters & Rogues' ability to compare with Wizards & Sorcs.


I'm tempted to continue this debate but I won't because I've already done something that I meant not to do by getting into a discussion on this topic. This thread is supposed to be about "pet peeve" rules and pet peeves are, by definition, things that bother you that most people are not terribly bothered by. This doesn't mean that a given rule is the worst thing ever put on paper. It just means that it bothers YOU (or ME as the case may be). I'm amused that every time somebody says that a rule bothers them that somebody else immediately pops in to say how they shouldn't be irritated by it.

So I'm just going to shut up now with the understanding that I support S'mon's right to be bothered by this issue even if it doesn't bother me. ;)
 

Remove ads

Top