Nuclear weapons of D&D Rules

[Bront]

We oddly had very little use of Disarm in our group.

Grapple has made it's way into our game, doesn't seem too bad.

I think people avoid Sunder because it has the potential to destroy loot, but I don't see a huge problem with the rules beyond the adamantine issue.

As with all things, a tactic that gets overused can be delt with. Grapple too much? Well, here comes a biggun. Trip? Ditto. Sunder? Send in the Monks.

As for Disjunction, never been in a game where it's been used, so I had to look it up. Seems rough, but so is Wish and a few other 9th level spells.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Personally, I don't like any of the insta-kill spells. I'd rather characters be incapacitated for the battle and, maybe, secondary saves later on for possible death (like poison). I find myself holding back on NPCs/monsters using insta-kill spells just b/c it takes some of the fun out of the game (the PCs in our game have been around for a long time and permanently killing them would be a major disruption).

 

[kigmatzomat]

IMC I've got a grappler monk who is quite effective (he has successfully grappled a corpse gatherer and a huge dragon). The rest of the party don't get involved in grapples by choice as often by they will use it to nerf casters or create opportunities for the rogues if they aren't otherwise being effective.

Sunder is usually a DM ploy. I don't use it constantly as NPCs have the same interest in keeping loot as PCs, but the larger races don't have the same concerns. The archer tends to suffer the most but that's what he gets for being a deepwood sniper/rogue/ranger with an elemental damage bow and a quiver of magic arrows that do horrific amounts of damage.

Tripping has been used 2-3 times, usually when PCs fight monks or wolves. The party does have a war dog mount that has trip but it is mainly used as a means of letting the dog retreat to protect its rider's flank. (20th level party)

Disarm is the thing that has almost never happened IME. I've used it once in a one-shot and that's the only time I've ever seen it used.

 

[Vrecknidj]

I wonder if all the changes to the polymorph spell(s) indicate that the whole concept of polymorphing is one of the nukes in the game. In one of the groups where I'm a player, we've all sort of changed the way we deal with polymorph w/o appeal to the changes that WotC has made--so, from the perspective of the article as written, it was a "damage" that we navigated around.

Dave

 

[Infernal Teddy]

You know, my group still uses Polymorph as in the book. I think the whole Polymorph Redux thing was because it became a problem in Organized Play. If this is the case, I wonder why they didn't just say "Okay, you can't have it in Living Whatever", and be done with it.

Nobody I know finds it problematic as written, so why was there such a fuss? I would be grateful if someone could explain it to me...

... before my players find out...

 

[DanMcS]

A good example of this is the 3.0 Evard's Black Tentacles spell. It was a huge pain in the butt- first you randomly determine the number of tentacles you got, then figure out where they appeared (typically drawing their origin on the battle mat), then figure out which characters each tentacle can reach, then figure out which one it goes after, then resolve the grapple attempt.

We used it once the 3.0 way, and then swore it off.

The 3.5 way was a huge improvement- it has an area of effect, everyone within that makes an opposed grapple check, move on. Grapple in itself isn't bad, it was the 4 previous steps that made the 3.0 tentacles obnoxious.

 

[Gundark]

It's funny that this topic came up. The people that play in the game that I run have sometimes wanted to negotiate certain "no use" spells like the save or die or some other nasty ones. Sometimes it's been a quiet agreement, they have actually said "I'm not casting spell X, cause if I do then he'll (me) use it on us".

There are certain monsters that are "nuclear weapons". The Spellgaunt from the MM2 is an example (it destroys magic weapons), I know if I stuck one of those in an adventure I would hear the whine turn up.

 

[Whimsical]

For those who don't like save or die effects, here's a save or "be mostly dead" house rule

Save or Die: If your hit points are above zero, any spell or effect that will kill you outright if you fail a saving throw will instead leave your hit points at zero minus the spell level of the death effect, and you are bleeding. If the effect would have destroyed or mutilated your body, then you will need to immediately make a second save to avoid that from occurring. If it occurs, then the spell works as written.

 

[Nomad4life]

I know you were probably looking for rules that concern the players, but I think this concept can apply to the GM side of things too- I remember that there have been times as a GM that I did not play a particular monster to the fullest capacity that I could have, for no other reason than it was late, and I just didn’t feel like trying to make sense of the special attack/ability rules at the time. I can’t think of any specifics at the moment, but I definitely remember feeling “guilty” afterwards. Does anyone else know what I mean?

 

[Agent Oracle]

Nobody I know finds it problematic as written, so why was there such a fuss? I would be grateful if someone could explain it to me...

... before my players find out...

Easy answer? there were players who would number-crunch to determine which monsters were most effective in combat for their hit dice. I seem to recall my Evil DM (who was, in and of himself a munchkin) giving our wizard (his girlfriend) a chart which said exactly which monsters from each monster manual she should turn into. The first creature was a Hydra... (think about it: 8 attacks, all at +8 to-hit, with 1d10+4 damage each, and a 10 foot reach... the thing could pick apart a group of monsters that summed up to be a CR 8 encounter in a matter of a few rounds with three other PC's backing it...) After that I'm a bit sketchy, since she never cast polymorph again.

So really, the subschool is a big improvement, and a welcome change from players being able to scour every monster manual book for exactly what shape they want to be when they polymorph.