Most superfluous rule?

[lukelightning]

How about random heights and weights, and random starting ages. Does anyone actually use them?

 

[timbannock]

The note under Mage Slayer (CWa) that says that you have to declare that an opponent has this feat.

I can see some balance issues with the feat, but declaring it? What other abilities do you have to declare to your players when they get in a fight with an opponent?

 

[Nifft]

How about random heights and weights, and random starting ages. Does anyone actually use them?

I've used them.

-- N

 

[Flynn]

They renew their *slots* without the need of rest by praying at a specific time. But once renewed, not all slots need to be filled up with prepared spells.

Open slots to be filled later = more versatile clerics, wizards, druids, rangers and paladins.

Maybe I should have been more clear that this only applies to divine magic. The rules are rather specific about when divine casters (not wizards, as you listed above) can prepare spells.

Time of Day
A divine spellcaster chooses and prepares spells ahead of time, just as a wizard does. However, a divine spellcaster does not require a period of rest to prepare spells. Instead, the character chooses a particular part of the day to pray and receive spells. The time is usually associated with some daily event. If some event prevents a character from praying at the proper time, he must do so as soon as possible. If the character does not stop to pray for spells at the first opportunity, he must wait until the next day to prepare spells.

The last sentence in the "Time of Day" section under Divine Spellcasters in the SRD clearly states that the character must wait until the next day to prepare spells if they don't do so at their first opportunity. Thus, empty spell slots cannot be filled, because you have to wait until the next day to prepare them if you don't fill them up at the start of your day.

The rules also say that the divine caster doesn't have to fill all of their slots, but it does not indicate that divine casters can fill those slots later on in the day, as time permits. However, the arcane spellcasters have that clause specifically listed:

Spell Selection and Preparation
Until she prepares spells from her spellbook, the only spells a wizard has available to cast are the ones that she already had prepared from the previous day and has not yet used. During the study period, she chooses which spells to prepare. If a wizard already has spells prepared (from the previous day) that she has not cast, she can abandon some or all of them to make room for new spells.

When preparing spells for the day, a wizard can leave some of these spell slots open. Later during that day, she can repeat the preparation process as often as she likes, time and circumstances permitting. During these extra sessions of preparation, the wizard can fill these unused spell slots. She cannot, however, abandon a previously prepared spell to replace it with another one or fill a slot that is empty because she has cast a spell in the meantime. That sort of preparation requires a mind fresh from rest. Like the first session of the day, this preparation takes at least 15 minutes, and it takes longer if the wizard prepares more than one-quarter of her spells.

Given that the v3.5 rules are so carefully self-referencing and repetitive as possible, and this was glaringly left out of the divine caster descriptions, my group came to the conclusion that a difference between divine and arcane casters is that arcane casters can leave slots open and then fill them later on in the day, while divine casters can leave slots open but cannot fill them in later on in the day. (I don't know the game philosophy behind it, but that's just how it reads to us. YMMV, of course.)

Hope this helps,
Flynn

 

[Mistwell]

I've yet to see anyone post a superfluous rule. Plenty of you have posted rules you dislike or ignore......and that's got precious little to do with "redundant".

Listing an alignment is redundant, particularly since the alignment changes based on how your character acts. You play your character however you play your character. That you can put a label on their general behavior at that time doesn't actually have a whole lot of meaning. It's redundant to the actual behavior your character displays.

 

[mvincent]

How about random heights and weights, and random starting ages. Does anyone actually use them?

We used them once when two players with gnome PC's were competing with each other to see who got to be the shortest.

 

[lukelightning]

We used them once when two players with gnome PC's were competing with each other to see who got to be the shortest.

Did the axe-weilding half-orc barbarian offer to help them "cheat"?

 

[mvincent]

Listing an alignment is redundant, particularly since the alignment changes based on how your character acts. You play your character however you play your character. That you can put a label on their general behavior at that time doesn't actually have a whole lot of meaning.

I used to agree, but then I noticed that (in the D&D setting) alignment is actually a concrete, tangible aspect that affects a whole lot things (how spells affect you, what spells you can cast, etc.). In standard D&D worlds the nine alignments (unlike stats) are fully named, labeled, and have whole planes devoted to them. So alignment isn't so much an abstract reflection of one's general behavior (which could be entirely different at times), but more a belonging to certain 'group'.

Alignments could be removed be removed for your own games (especially if simulating an alignment-less setting), but then the spells would have to be reconfigured.

 

[Mistwell]

You could also determine a person's alignment at the time they try to cast a spell. Which, technically speaking, is how it's supposed to work. Since alignment changes with behavior, fixing it on paper makes little sense to me in a role playing game. It just has a tendancy to ignore changes to alignment based on behavior except in the most extreme cases, which makes it not only redundant to the rules but a redundancy that creates both laziness and an actual ignoring of the rules regarding alignment changes.

You want to cast protection from evil? Well, let the DM determine if you have been evil that day, or good. If you have been more evil then good, then the spell will not work. That's technically how it's supposed to work. Looking at what you wrote on your piece of paper to determine your alignment rather than your behavior was never the intent of the rules from what I can tell.

 

[Nifft]

You want to cast protection from evil? Well, let the DM determine if you have been evil that day, or good.

"Good grief, now feeding orphans is part of my daily spell preparation ritual?"

-- N