Core Rules Survivor: FINAL ROUND!

[Ridley's Cohort]

Personally I think that any PC that gets into melee once you hit the middling levels is begging to be Improved Grabbed. If you did not take the Close Quarter Fighting feat, it is on your own head. If you found yourself in melee accidentally, well, luck runs that way sometimes.

Getting away from something that has swallowed you is a big problem, as it should be. Unless you are really really strong you should be killing it rather than bother trying. And if you are really really strong maybe you should be killing it anyway.

I do hate the "cut yourself out" rules from swallowing. As far as I am concerned, if you do enough damage, a regugitation reflex should propel you out, so I just picture it that way.

 

[blargney the second]

I do hate the "cut yourself out" rules from swallowing. As far as I am concerned, if you do enough damage, a regugitation reflex should propel you out, so I just picture it that way.

I like that. It's coming home with me.
-blarg

 

[Nifft]

Apparently from the last poll, people actually liked MDS. I'm somewhat confused.

It's all relative.

Compared to a bath in fire ants, I like having one fingernail pulled out.

Ouch, -- N

 

[Mistwell]

There are fine alternatives to the turn undead mechanic, in the WOTC books themselves. I personally prefer one of the variants where a turn check just does damage to undead within a certain radius of you.

 

[UltimaGabe]

And to UltimaGabe: Do you play in my group? Because that happens every gosh darn time we play /sigh

No, afraid not. When I DM (half the time) I avoid grappling like the plague, and when I play, I avoid grappling like the plague and usually make spellcasters that have lots of ways to get out of it. The shark incident happened to me, though, when I was playing my undead-slaying barbarian, and, oddly enough, he managed to climb his way out. It was incredibly annoying, and frustrating, and I'm still convinced the DM let me have it (despite the fact that he's the kind of DM that doesn't hide his rolls), and I ended up losing half of my gear to the acid in its stomach. (We rolled some saves here and there and I would up with almost nothing but my armor and my sword.) However, I found some items in that adventure (possibly as the DM's way of apologizing) that made me never have to worry about that happening again. Namely, a ring of Freedom of Movement.

I then promptly tracked down and killed the shark. Just for the heck of it.

 

[Nail]

When I DM (half the time) I avoid grappling like the plague, and when I play, I avoid grappling like the plague and usually make spellcasters that have lots of ways to get out of it.

That's the point of the Swallow Whole ability, I think => PCs should figure out ways to deal with it when it happens.

In the "Bbn swallowed by a shark" case, a handy dagger would have been all that's needed.

In fact, last time my PC killed the Tarasque, we discovered it was far better to be swallowed whole and attacking from the inside. By round 3 we had the Bbn and the Mnk in there, pounding away.

....anyway: Grappling is tough on PCs. So are any number of other tactics. That doesn't mean those are Rules You Should Hate.

Turn Undead is a bad rule set, outdated, clunky, and doesn't do what we all think Turning Undead should do.

Axe it!

 

[IanB]

I didn't vote grappling as my 'most hated' because it is hard on PCs or casters or whatever, I voted for it because the rules are so unclear, especially when improved grab, iterative attacks for monsters, etc., come into the picture. It is never clearly spelled out from beginning to end. If anything in the core rules needs a rewrite just for clarity, it is grappling.

 

[Bad Paper]

I had to go with the choice that has never reared its head in one of my games: the whip/chain stuff. When equipment has its own attached rules, and draws everything down into its black hole of Suck, well, you get my vote.

The other rules aren't bad enough that I steer around them. hell, I've even used counterspelling.

 

[Delta]

If "Massive Damage Save" is out, then I've got nothing to vote for. That rule, to me, is a truly hideous blot right in the center of an otherwise elegant core rule mechanic. I always delete it from any game I'm running.

I'd almost vote for "Counterspelling", except that it would be so easy to fix and then it would be an excellent mechanic. First of all, you've got to make it not targeted at a single solitary person (ready to respond to any caster is what the rule's just crying out for). Possibly open it up to respond to any attack on your forces, magical or mundane, and then you've got something.

 

[argo]

Gotta go with Dodge, which is probably in close competition with Toughness for the "Most Universally Houseruled Feat" award.

Close second is Turn Undead. Two rolls (one using a non-core mechanic) and a look-up table? Ugh