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

[Algolei]

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

So true. I don't mind the Greyhawk-specific stuff so much, but I do change it for my own homebrew world. (I also play a Greyhawk campaign, though, so I actually have a use for them as is.)

What miffs me the most*, though, is FEATS. I hate the dang things with a passion. You took the right ones with your old dwarven Fighter and you were a killing machine; switch 'em up for a change with your new dwarven Fighter and you're a waste of combat space.

"I have Power Attack and Cleave, and next level I'm taking Weapon Focus: Dwarven Waraxe. What about you?"
"Uh, let's see. I took Alertness and Skill Focus: Spot. Next level I'll take Improved Initiative, how's that sound? Then when the goblins come, I'll tell you and you can kill them for me, 'kay?"

:\ The halfling rogue with the high Bluff skill has triple my kill count right now.





*At the moment. It'll change again soon, I'm sure. And soon after that, it'll change again. And again, and again, until in the not too distant future, it will be FEATS again.

 

[Turjan]

The fact is though, that the "Golden Age" is a very common cliche. Like so many other things, I blame Papa Tolkien.

You can blame Tolkien, but he's not the culprit. The myth of a 'Golden Age' is common to most human cultures. The term itself is derived from Hesiod's 'The Ages of the World', with mankind living a happy and easy life in the 'Golden Age' under the titan Kronos, and this later gradually deteriorated to the 'Iron Age' of Hesiod's present time.

 

[Testament]

You can blame Tolkien, but he's not the culprit. The myth of a 'Golden Age' is common to most human cultures. The term itself is derived from Hesiod's 'The Ages of the World', with mankind living a happy and easy life in the 'Golden Age' under the titan Kronos, and this later gradually deteriorated to the 'Iron Age' of Hesiod's present time.

Damn you and your historical facts. Damn you to Hades!

 

[S'mon]

The rules lawyers have defeated Fun, gentlemen and ladies. And they have begun to beat us with Fun's severed head.

When it comes to debating with Rules Lawyers, rule number 1 is:

"Do Not Engage! Repeat - Do Not Engage!"

If you just ignore them, they're harmless.

 

[Gnarlo]

A number of things listed peeve me to various degrees , one that hasn't been mentioned yet is the finality of the maximum age. You're a monk or druid with a timeless body that can know no disease, no poison, no aging, and no infirmities, and one day you are walking across the field contemplating your navel and BAM your clock quits running and you fall over dead.

And no potions of long life or anti aging charms either, unless you are the campaign creator's pet NPC, errrr, I mean the Chosen of someone or other.

 

[Verequus]

Level advancement is too quick, but slowing the pace of advancement screws with the amount of treasure that is owned and used by the bad guys and how much of it gets taken by the good guys. That's my only real peeve.

The solution is simple - just reduce the treasure by the same factor as the level advancement.

 

[woodelf]

When you add in the core rules, how much does that come to in USD?

Well, Elements of Magic is a, what, $10 PDF? I don't know what "BoHM" is, but we'll assume a $30 hardcover. DanMcS's proficiency rules are free. The D20SRD is free. So, grand total: <$40.

 

[woodelf]

I never played 1e. Do you mean (in effect, if not in implementation) allowing something like an immediate action to follow an opponent when they move?

If so, I agree. It would add a huge amount of realism with no real slow-down to the game. I think it would also engender team-work. Archers and casters would need their melee allies to protect them as they wouldn't be able to just move-cast or move-attack as easily.

It worked like this, roughly: some sort of skill/ability check if you want to change your engagement status with a foe, and if that foe doesn't want to let you, it's an opposed check. So, if you want to retreat, and your foe wants to keep bashing you, you both make a check. If you succeed, you've retreated/disengaged. If your foe succeeds, she's successfully pressed you, and thus stayed with you as you retreated, so you're still engaged. Similarly, if you want to close with someone who does'nt want to be closed with, they can fend you off.

There's a lot more to it, but that's the basic idea. The checks, of course, should take into account skill, mobility, and weapon used, to varying degrees.

 

[woodelf]

Maybe so. I don't know Earthdawn, but I wasn't aiming to make a blanket statement.

The fact is though, that the "Golden Age" is a very common cliche. Like so many other things, I blame Papa Tolkien.

Earthdawn is very cool in a number of ways. The goal of the design of the game was to provide for high-fantasy dungeon crawling, with ecologically-impossible monsters around every turn, magic items just lying around, and heroes who totally overshadowed mundanes--IOW, all the D&D tropes. So, they sat down and figured out how you could have a setting that provided all these things, and yet still made sense. Thus, the world of Earthdawn. It's really very cool--it's like D&D that's been clobbered with the "it makes sense" stick a whole bunch.

 

[Belen]

Darkness that creates light.

Invisibility that requires hide.