Forked from: Interview with PATHFINDER lead designer Jason Bulmahn
So anyway, that's my take on it. Are there any other major holes in the rules that you perceive need to be patched up?
Roman said:Although I have never had a situation come up where I felt I needed specific rules for stairs, I definitely think that there are several glaring holes in D&D rules for situations that do turn up fairly often - certainly often enough to justify some sort of rules-treatment.
The biggest hole in D&D rules for me is the lack of rules for running/chases/escapes and so on. Technically speaking, rules for running exist, but they are so suckastic that I don't even count them. These rules cannot be used for any exciting chases/escapes/pursuits and so on, because they are determnistic and give essentially all medium creatures the same speed. This comes up so often in my games that I have actually come up with my own system (compatible with the standard D&D system) for this and codified it for my games.
Another hole is the lack of rules for sleep - what happens when characters miss sleep and how difficult it is to avoid falling asleep. This doesn't come up as often as the chase/escape/pursuit/race issue, so I adjudicate it on an ad-hoc basis rather than creating an integrated/unified system as I did for racing/escapes and so on, but it does come up fairly often - probably often enough to justify a few lines in the rules.
Ironically, though, I am now so happy with my running/racing/chase/escape/pursuit system that if this glaring hole in the D&D rules were to be patched, I would almost certainly keep on using my own system - so you could say that I no longer want it to be patched (unless, of course, my rules were used, ha ha ha) so that players don't expect the default.
So anyway, that's my take on it. Are there any other major holes in the rules that you perceive need to be patched up?
