D&Disms That Make You Go "Huh?"

[DragonLancer]

Mine do. Always.
One time the PCs were exploring and found the outhouses. One of them was a duck blind - the hole led to a secret chamber full of goodies. The PCs figured out quickly the hole was very deep, so they came up with a novel solution. They tied a rope around the protesting halfling and pushed him down.
Of course, he came back up again due to the reverse gravity effect halfway down the shaft. And then he fell up the hole and hit the ceiling.
And then he bounced off.
And fell back down the hole.
And then he bounced back up again and hit the ceiling again.
Good times.

Wouldn't that make going to the loo somewhat messy?

 

[Fifth Element]

IME there's usually a Strength difference too...

...Yes, that was mentioned in the post I believe. But that can be overcome with a superior BAB, for example, not to mention the potential 19-point spread in d20 rolls.

That it's not "impossible", as was claimed, is my only point.

 

[Huw]

Horses aren't 10 feet wide any more than humans or goblins are 5 feet wide. It's just the space they require to maneuver around freely in combat. Horses can fight in a smaller space, but the squeezing rules would apply.

Nicely put - I'll remember that. In other words, 10ft isn't its base size, it's its turning circle.

Speaking of 10 foot and weird D&Disms, how about the buildings with corridors wide enough to drive cars through and rooms the size of concert halls?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Nicely put - I'll remember that. In other words, 10ft isn't its base size, it's its turning circle.

Speaking of 10 foot and weird D&Disms, how about the buildings with corridors wide enough to drive cars through and rooms the size of concert halls?

I ran a LEW adventure with the tagline "You must be this short to take this job." it was in the sewers and anyone who was bigger than size small needed a shrink person spell or to squeeze.

 

[sjmiller]

Horses aren't 10 feet wide any more than humans or goblins are 5 feet wide. It's just the space they require to maneuver around freely in combat. Horses can fight in a smaller space, but the squeezing rules would apply. See this thread for a zipped powerpoint presentation.

How does that work with Large or larger snakes or other sinuous creatures? I never did understand that change in 3.5, which is one of the reason my group stayed with 3.0.

 

[RFisher]

Hide and Move Silently being separate skills. This is something that's always bothered me since the Basic D&D rules, but it's even worse in 3rd edition. Who ever picks up one skill but not the other?

Since 3e doesn't have variable costs for skills, this is one way the designers can keep an important skill from being "too cheap".

As for classic D&D: Hide wasn't a skill at all. The thief's hide in shadows skill was separate from his move silently skill because they were mutually exclusive and there was no good reason to arbitrarily force the same percentage on both of them. (You could make all thief skills a simple level check but, IMHO, the game was better for climbing sheer surfaces having a higher chance of success than hiding in shadows.)

All languages are apparently grammatically and phonetically separate, with no similarities between them.

Would even the most ardent supporter of "take the DM out of the equation" disagree that this is the sort of detail best left to a judgement call?

 

[Kahuna Burger]

All languages are apparently grammatically and phonetically separate, with no similarities between them.

Would even the most ardent supporter of "take the DM out of the equation" disagree that this is the sort of detail best left to a judgement call?

Since I am not that ardent, and I strongly disagree, I'm gonna guess "yes".

As long as there is a "common" language and everything else is flavor, the completely artificial language rules are merely silly, but if you wanted to have communication between races and cultures be a meaningful part of the game, the language rules are just awful. It would take less than half a page to have rules for partial fluency and bonuses to language checks for related languages. Judgement calls would still exist, as with all social skills, but a framework to make them in would be a great addition to the system for the kind of games I like to run and play in.

 

[cmrscorpio]

Small creatures take a -4 penalty to grapple; Huge creatures gain a +8 bonus. The spread of 12 can be overcome with favourable d20 rolls. The Small creature can also have a better BAB which helps as well.

Unless by "impossible" you meant "unlikely"?

According to Step 3 of the process of starting a grapple, you automatically lose an attempt to hold if the target is two or more size categories larger than you are.

 

[FireLance]

How does that work with Large or larger snakes or other sinuous creatures? I never did understand that change in 3.5, which is one of the reason my group stayed with 3.0.

I've always imagined them as being coiled up, or otherwise trying (with some degree of success) to minimze the number of people who can attack them at one time, which tends to translate into a something like a square.

 

[DreadPirateMurphy]

Since I read quite a bit of fairy tales and mythology when I was younger, the following D&Disms were quite jarring when I first encountered them:

1. A gorgon was a bull-like monster with petrification breath instead of a woman with snakes for hair.

2. A basilisk turned people to stone with its gaze instead of killing them.

3. The key distinguishing trait of a troll was that it regenerated instead of turning to stone in sunlight.

Very good list of D&D monster sources:
http://www.geocities.com/rgfdfaq/sources.html

The D&D gorgon comes from a description in a somewhat fanciful medieval bestiary, the term "basilisk" used to be synonomous with "cockatrice," a creature whose gaze or touch could turn people to stone, and the D&D troll is similar to the ones in Poul Anderson's "Three Hearts and Three Lions," a book that was at least as much as Tolkein.