Nuclear weapons of D&D Rules

[Noldor Elf]

High variation of grapple modifiers is indeed one thing that also leads grapple rules to be ignored. When character has no chance of winning grapple, they are quite eager not the got on those situations. Enter Free movement.

 

[IceFractal]

The grappling rules aren't bad once you practice them a bit, but after playing a grappler for a while, I noticed that grapples tend to be fairly one-sided. Against most humanoids (especially mage types), I was able to grapple them with no effort at all, and they could almost never break out. Against big, strong monsters, I had pretty much no chance to grapple them, I was better off just throwing rocks.

 

[Hussar]

I wonder if it wouldn't be easier to reduce some of the size bonuses to grapple. And then maybe add in some racial bonuses for certain creatures - things with tentacles or constrictor snakes for example.

Although, this would maybe result in ridiculous situations where the medium sized barbarian pins the 15 foot tall giant. Mass matters a lot in grappling. Not sure how the rework could be done.

I do wish I could see rules for throwing though. Being able to throw from a grapple would be cool.

 

[iwatt]

I do wish I could see rules for throwing though. Being able to throw from a grapple would be cool.

Iron Heroes has rules for throwing people in a grapple. let me check if it's OGL.

EDIT:

In Chapters Seven, Eight, and Nine, all the material that also appears in the System Reference Document is open, and all other material is not.

I'm guessing this means I can't quote the throwing while grappling rules. :\

I'll kinda of give you an idea though: Instead of pinning, you can make a grapple check to lift your opponent, with a suitable penalty to the check. You can then either hold, slam, or throw them.

Although the grapple checks aren't simpler, I think Mearls did a good job in cleaning up the language some. I'd reccomend Iron Heroes, but I leave that in the hands of a far more capable Iron Pimp: Hong.

 

[lukelightning]

Druids have a great big nuclear weapon: Animal companion + Summon Nature's Ally + Animal Growth. Watch as the amazing druid first grinds the game to a halt as he figures out the stats for all his creatures, then the huge tiger and three large leopards charge and pounce and bite and claw and claw and rake and rake and grapple....

 

[Von Ether]

My players have "nuked" most of these because they find them less "efficient" than charges, 3rd party damage feats and wild PrC combos.

Yeah. The whole "fair play, retire the loophole PC" part of the column was good laugh for my group. For me it was wishful thinking.
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=163062

 

[ruleslawyer]

I find grappling works fine as a mechanic. The problem for me is that grappling bonuses can be completely crazy, even within the same ballpark-CR area. You have scrawny wizards with a grapple check of maybe +5 at 10th level, and you have multi-tentacled monsters with +50 at CR 10. Even your bog-standard CR 10 brute monster can have a grapple check of around +25-30, way more than a 10th level fighter. This makes it difficult to run grapples that aren't a walkover for one side (typically the monsters), and makes magic to escape grapples (dim door, freedom of movement) a necessary part of your loadout at higher levels.

True, but I have to confess I don't mind. It's very easy for PCs to avoid getting grappled at high levels, and that, as you note, is where the problems kick in. Moreover, it's nice to have a mechanic whereby monsters can throw their size around in a way that means something without causing instant death.

 

[Chaldfont]

Wildshape/Polymorph is so annoying. Its probably one of the coolest things a magic-based character can do. Who wouldn't want to be able to transform into other creatures!? But it takes soooooo much bookwork. Our party druid/master of many forms just picked like one or two forms and made up the stats ahead of time because it was such a pain to do on the fly. But how much more fun would we have had if he felt comfortable just changing into any animal at any time?

No matter how they write up the rules governing this ability, there will always be some chump min/maxer who games the system. Stop changing the rules and just make shapechanging fun again.

Another one we quit using much was improved invisibility. Its very hard to do with miniatures and keep everyone honest. Either you mark the mini as invisible, but everyone still knows where it is, or you keep it hidden and slow the game down trying to keep track of it. Plus, any combats involving arcane spellcasters broke down as both sides tried to dispel/purge the invisibility effect. And talk about a frustrating and annoying fight if one side does not have a way to defeat the invisibility!

 

[Tzarevitch]

I think grapple is fine, to be honest. There are several rather annoying nukes:

1) The holy word spells, when properly maxed out by caster level increases (spell power, prayer beads, etc.)

2) mage's disjunction (eesh!)

3) time stop

4) sunder

5) scry-buff-teleport (perhaps the biggest)

...and a bunch of other ones. IMHO, all of these need fixing, including sunder (which, IMHO, is a lot better in 3.5 than in 3.0 due to the new rules on sundering magical weapons and hit points and hardness). Of course, all of these are reasonably easy to fix in a campaign by judicious application of house rules, and I prefer that rather than the MAD treaty approach.

Holy Word, Blasphemy etc.: I wish they would fix these spells. I agree that these spells are a bit busted since every half-outsider creature knows them and can sometimes cast them at VERY high caster levels for their CR.

Mordenkainen's Disjunctrion: I love this spell. Our other DM uses it a lot too. It isn't really all that uber by they way. Bear in mind that attended items get the wearer's save. In practice, by the time PCs run into anyone who can cast it, they should have decent saves. Some items will be lost but not that many in practice. The spell is less dangerous than a save or die because it isnt all that crippling. Its most powerful function is to auto remove an enemy's buff spells. Hell, my high level NPCs use this spell in traps.

Time Stop: The 3.5 revision makes this spell a lot less powerful than it used to be. There is a very limited set of things that a caster can do that have any effect on the outsider world. DMs just have to be on their toes to be sure that the player isn't violating the rules.

Sunder: This manouver is actually fairly hard to use, even if you have the feat. The things you most want to sunder are too tough unless you have a high strength or an adamantine weapon. Magic weapons and shields are hard to destroy particularly if made of tougher than steel alloys or highly enchanted. And if you don't have the feat you take an AoO for your trouble. Works best on wands and staves.

Scry-Buff-Teleport: This tactic is a boogeyman really if the DM enforces the rules. For starters it is rather hard to scry anyone under 3.5 rules. The DC is rather low unless you have some real tangible connection to your target, it takes an hour to cast (unless greater scry), and you can only make 1 attempt every 24 hours. Plus the scry foci are either very big heavy or totally immobile, unless you use a crystal ball (which has a low save DC).

Teleporting into a scried area also counts as "seen once". You have about a 3/4 chance of arriving properly unless you use greater teleport.

Bear in mind also that ordinary lead sheeting automatically blocks scry sensors, making it impossible to scry someone in his own sanctum if he doesn't want you to and he is willing to spend a bit of money.

Lastly, it isn't that difficult for an intelligent target to spot the sensor and prepare a nasty reception for you, or use any number of other tactics disperse the sensor to prevent you from getting real-time updates of his preparations.


Tzarevitch

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Watch as the amazing druid first grinds the game to a halt...

After the first time IMC, any person who plays a Druid who doesn't have most of his preferred animals chosen and statted (on flash cards or whatever) isn't going to be able to use the tactic.

I'm not going to penalize someone who has a flash of insight that X animal that he doesn't usually use would be best for a particular encounter, but if you have to look up the same tiger again and again- forget about it- your spell will be disrupted somehow.