Inconsistant/Arbitrary rules...

[the Jester]

2nd edition specialty priest design guidelines. Depending on which book you looked in, specialty priests either rocked way too much ass or they sucked so bad that you'd wince to play one.

Also 2e, pretty much the entire skills & powers book was full of unbalancing options that were a min-maxer's wet dream. It was easily possible to make a cleric with a fighter's THAC0 and hit dice, and yet still having full cleric saves and spells.

The distance between psionics and magic in 3e- if only the 3.5 psionics system had been in the magic system too!

 

[Ariosto]

Heh, AD&D exceptional strength tripped me up as well. In the original (D&D Supplement I) presentation, 18/01-50 was just the same as a straight 18.

Speaking of power creep, how about the way Oriental Adventures classes thoroughly outclassed their occidental counterparts? East is East and West is West ...

 

[Jeff Wilder]

My "favorite" peeve was 1e/2e exceptional strength.

Heh. My first-ever 1E character was a port from BD&D ... your basic fighter. I'm at the game shop, surrounded by 15 clamoring geeks (including the DM), and they ask me what Toric's Strength is.

"18," I say.

"Roll for exceptional Strength!" Eagerness all around.

"I already did. I got a 47."

Silence. Then, "Just roll until you get over 90."

There was general agreement. So I did. And then, on my next character, I rolled a 23 or some such for psionics. Naturally, I just kept rolling until I got over 90. That's how I was taught it was done, right?

 

[Ariosto]

Falling again: Lord (10th) with 16 constitution = average 70.5 hit points when fully bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Great intoxication adds +3 h.p..

However, note the PHB observation that "it is probable that your referee will simply use a hit points damage computation ..." (emphasis mine).

I agree with Jeff Wilder on a straight miss chance being more appropriate to cover.

 

[slwoyach]

2nd edition specialty priest design guidelines. Depending on which book you looked in, specialty priests either rocked way too much ass or they sucked so bad that you'd wince to play one.

My favorite was the specialty priests of Horus. They were paladins, except they were chaotic good and cast spells as clerics of equal level. Ridiculous.

 

[Ariosto]

I thought The Complete Priest's Handbook was pretty internally consistent, although (as noted therein) the PHB cleric was by its standards over-powered.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

Again, 1d6 per 10' falling damage used to be more of a threat in 1st ed., when characters had way less hit points (you capped your hit dice around 9th-11th level, and then got a few hit points per level after that, unmodified by con - and even hit dice were not modified by con that much, since the mods were smaller and only applicable to really really high con scores). They changed hit points without changing falling damage rules.

I seem to recall there being "Massive damage" rules somewhere in the book.
I don't feel like looking it up, but wasn't every point above 50 damage a +1 to the DC of a DC 10 fort save and if you fail you die?

120-50=70... 10+70=80
DC 80 fort save = Pretty dang tough

 

[jdrakeh]

I just had Arm's Law/Claw Law, tried to use it with 1E AD&D and still couldn't figure out what armor type should be assigned to creatures. And it mattered alot more on those charts.

All of that information has been in Arms Law/Claw Law from the beginning, but getting familiar with reading Rolemaster shorthand does take some work.

As for my own contribution to this thread, the seemingly completely arbitrary nature of XP advancement in early editions of D&D (and in some modern games based on those early editions) drives me up a wall. I suspect that this approach was supposed to introduce some sense of mechanical balance between classes though, IMHO, it really didn't (and still doesn't).

As for inconsistent rules, the earliest examples that I can think of are the various discussions on how the six core abilities of a character effect actual play. The relevant section in Book 1 of OD&D goes on at some length about how certain abilities effect certain action, only to never mention those things again or to later ascribe entirely different effects to ability ratings.

 

[Ourph]

I always thought the max Dex bonus to AC for certain armors in 3e was really arbitrary and weird. A guy with a Dex bonus of +4 took a penalty for wearing Chainmail, but a clumsy buffoon with a Dex penalty of -2 was unaffected by the weight and encumbrance of his armor. WTF?

Plus, the max Dex bonus penalty affected AC and then you also had a separate penalty (the ACP) to skills, but neither affected the Dex bonus to Reflex saves or any other Reflex-based numbers (like the number of AoOs you got with Combat Reflexes or your ranged attack bonuses).

 

[Dire Bare]

I was lucky enough during most of my play experience as a lad to play in groups that emphasized roleplaying over mechanics . . . so I never even realized how unbalanced D&D was until the 3rd Edition, when everything became ridiculously balanced (for the most part). And that trend has been taken even further by 4th Edition . . . and now I can't go back!

Ignorance can be bliss!