D&D 5E Odd things in the rules that bug you?

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That RAW, Somatic components cannot be performed with the same hand as a spellcasting focus unless the spell also has Material components with no cost and that are not consumed.

 

[AliasBot]

The inconsistency with which spells have been assigned to schools comes to mind:

• There's no reason for Darkness to not be an Illusion spell - or at least, no good reason.
• Speak with Animals, Beast Bond, and Tongues are Divination spells; Message and Speak with Plants are Transmutation spells; Sending is an Evocation spell. Pick a school for communication magic and stick with it, ffs. (Personally, I'd go with Divination.)
• Similarly, sensory-enhancement spells seem to be pretty consistently considered Divination...and then Darkvision is a Transmutation spell for some reason.
• Tidal Wave (an instantaneous elemental spell) is Conjuration, but Wall of Water (an ongoing elemental spell) is Evocation; Ice Storm (an instantaneous elemental spell) is Evocation, while Sleet Storm (an ongoing elemental spell) is Conjuration. I'd argue all four of these should be Conjuration - unlike fire, which blurs the line between energy and stuff, water and ice are very clearly stuff - but at the very least, one of these pairs should be flipped.
• For that matter, Wind Wall and Whirlwind are Evocation (those make sense: wind is not stuff), while Control Winds is.....Transmutation? Why?
• Barkskin is Transmutation, but Stoneskin is Abjuration. (Based on spell descriptions, the latter should be the one to change: it's not a case of different effects that happen to have similar names, Stoneskin is literally described as altering the flesh of the target.)
• Bit more subjective, but imo, Necromancy spells that are just "blasts of energy that deal necrotic damage" should be Evocation spells. (Honestly, I think Necromancy is just redundant as a distinct school of magic, but that moves beyond the topic of the thread.)

 

[Minigiant]

There's no reason for Darkness to not be an Illusion spell - or at least, no good reason.

Darkness isn't an illusion. Itisn't foling senses. darkness the spell is either destroying light or creating anti-light. In 5e, that's evocation but see me later in this post.

Speak with Animals, Beast Bond, and Tongues are Divination spells; Message and Speak with Plants are Transmutation spells; Sending is an Evocation spell. Pick a school for communication magic and stick with it, ffs. (Personally, I'd go with Divination.)

I think the first 3 hark back to an idea that divination magic itself is linked to the gods and those three are seen as divine powers. All f them sound be divination if you go that route. If not, transmutation makes most sense.

Similarly, sensory-enhancement spells seem to be pretty consistently considered Divination...and then Darkvision is a Transmutation spell for some reason.

Again it's te whole divine powers thing. Darkvision is guess isn't considered divine inspired.

Tidal Wave (an instantaneous elemental spell) is Conjuration, but Wall of Water (an ongoing elemental spell) is Evocation; Ice Storm (an instantaneous elemental spell) is Evocation, while Sleet Storm (an ongoing elemental spell) is Conjuration. I'd argue all four of these should be Conjuration - unlike fire, which blurs the line between energy and stuff, water and ice are very clearly stuff - but at the very least, one of these pairs should be flipped.

Evocationand Conjuration is not a matter of energy or stuff.
Evocation is using magical energy to create something that was not there before.
Conjuration is using magical energy to move something that was not there before.

Tidal wave teleports water from another plane (usually the elemental plane of water) to the spell location.
Wall of Wall turns the spell's energy into water.

I believe in older editions this mattered because conjurations were natural and real so they could not be dispelled by magic. You could only dispel the conjuration if the magic was the thing tethering the conjured item to the place. Such rules were dropped but some DMs still houserule it this way.

For that matter, Wind Wall and Whirlwind are Evocation (those make sense: wind is not stuff), while Control Winds is.....Transmutation? Why?

Same as the above.
Control winds doesn't create wind, it alters the wind.

Barkskin is Transmutation, but Stoneskin is Abjuration. (Based on spell descriptions, the latter should be the one to change: it's not a case of different effects that happen to have similar names, Stoneskin is literally described as altering the flesh of the target.)

This one makes no sense. It seems to be just to give abjuration more spells.

Bit more subjective, but imo, Necromancy spells that are just "blasts of energy that deal necrotic damage" should be Evocation spells. (Honestly, I think Necromancy is just redundant as a distinct school of magic, but that moves beyond the topic of the thread.)

Personally I think Evocation does too much creation.

I would limit the creation of light, darkness, and radiant damage to Illusion, poisons and poison damage to Transmutation, and necrotic damage to Necromancy.

Necromany also suffers from lake of creativity in the fantasy community. There should be a lot you can do with the glimpse and echoes of the recent dead and long slain. You should be able to copy a lot of other spell effects provided someone died near the location or with the information.

 

[Zsong]

Because we should go back to the days of a couple dozen different types of pole arms?

In my dreams

 

[Zsong]

Your enemies all get a free swing against you if you move too far away from them...but not if you take a moment to drink a bottle of liquid in the middle of a fistfight. And not if you take a moment to flawlessly recite a paragraph from a scroll. And not if you take a moment to reload a crossbow. And etc. But watch out if you dare to move too far away.

I rule that drinking a potion is an action and a bonus action that draws an attack of opportunity with advantage and if you are hit you drop the potion and it’s destroyed. That’s how stupid it is for me to see someone drinking a potion in combat while someone is trying to kill you. I would like to see George foreman try that against Muhammad ali.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Because we should go back to the days of a couple dozen different types of pole arms?

One of these days for a silly game:

Polearm master fighter, noble (knight) background, and one of his servants is a polearm caddy.

"What do you think, Poncho? The bec de corbin?"

"I would advise sir to use the partisan this time. I'm not sure the spike would quite reach this ogre's head."

 

[Zsong]

One of these days for a silly game:

Polearm master fighter, noble (knight) background, and one of his servants is a polearm caddy.

"What do you think, Poncho? The bec de corbin?"

"I would advise sir to use the partisan this time. I'm not sure the spike would quite reach this ogre's head."

Don’t mock the polearms

 

[FXR]

I don't know where you're getting that notion. The overwhelming majority of people were agricultural workers and would work pretty much from sunrise to sunset. In the winter this meant shorter hours and more sleep (nobody stayed up late browsing the internet, for instance), but they routinely worked long weeks with only Sunday as a day of rest. True, their were other holidays throughout the year, but people didn't have nearly the amount of leisure time we in the West enjoy today. Producing food using nothing but human and beast labor and without modern fertilizers was very hard. They certainly worked at a slower pace than many of us do today, but they had to put in a lot of hours just to get by (and death by starvation--or at least death because you had been weakened by undernourishment--was not at all unheard of).

Please note that my comment was about how long people work and not how much they work. There is a difference.

My wife has a master degree in History while one of my best friend has a degree in History. They both arrived to the same conclusion: medieval workers work much harder than we did (or at least, those that work similar jobs) but they work less in terms of work hours. There were several holidays.

My wife being her, she also scolded me and reminded me that the Middle Ages lasted about a thousand years (from the fall of Rome to either the (re)discovery of America by Columbus or the invention of the printing press, depending on who you ask). During these centuries, societies evolved and changed and, as such, the life of a peasant in 678 was different than the life of his descendant in 1378.

 

[Don Durito]

Your medieval peasant would have worked around the clock to bring in the harvest in. On the other hand, once the harvest was planted there probably wasn't all that much to do for a while.

 

[Ace]

Please note that my comment was about how long people work and not how much they work. There is a difference.

My wife has a master degree in History while one of my best friend has a degree in History. They both arrived to the same conclusion: medieval workers work much harder than we did (or at least, those that work similar jobs) but they work less in terms of work hours. There were several holidays.

My wife being her, she also scolded me and reminded me that the Middle Ages lasted about a thousand years (from the fall of Rome to either the (re)discovery of America by Columbus or the invention of the printing press, depending on who you ask). During these centuries, societies evolved and changed and, as such, the life of a peasant in 678 was different than the life of his descendant in 1378.

My understanding is that factoring in the surges in work during harvest, various feasts and festivals the medieval work week was roughly 40 hours all told. And note that religious holidays played a roll in Europe that I don't think anyone in modernity has ever come close to experiencing. It was a core part of that society and trying to make people work on Saints Day in some places could result in riots or worse

Now harvest was an absolute beast of a couple of months, sun up to sundown but all in all people worked only as hard as they had too and often as witnessed by all the constant complaints by rich people about lazy serfs.

Also of interest in some places the political conflict over the 40 hour work week was framed as "restoring what we had" and as "traditional" in rather than as a measure of progress.

City people so long as they has money also didn't work as hard as they didn't have serf obligations nor likely as long. However as most people didn't write things down we don't really know for sure.