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

[doctorbadwolf]

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.)

Receiving information via magic, changing a thing’s nature, and projecting magical energy to carry a message, in order.

 

[jasper]

There are no bugs.
Really there are no bugs
A giant wasp are medium beast
a Giant spider is a large beast
a Giant Centipede is a small beast.
AGAIN There are no bugs rules.

 

[CleverNickName]

There are no bugs.
Really there are no bugs
A giant wasp are medium beast
a Giant spider is a large beast
a Giant Centipede is a small beast.
AGAIN There are no bugs rules.

The multiclassing and grappling rules weren't buggy enough for you?

 

[pogre]

Certain classes that work best solo or away from a group like gloomstalker rangers and certain rogue builds. To give these players a spotlight requires everyone else to do nothing and wait. I have not banned these classes, but they do bug me.

 

[Ace]

The multiclassing and grappling rules weren't buggy enough for you?

I needed a laugh though the mutliclassing rules are heads and tails above every other edition.

 

[Iry]

You could; the DM would just have to come up with rules for creating non-adventuring player characters, as those currently don't exist.

I am the DM.

 

[Azuresun]

The ruling that the warlocks power explicitly has no debt or obligation or consequences feels so gamist that it's absurd. Here's a bunch of cool flavor and possible character hooks from making a Faustian bargain... except, nope, you just got power for nothing. That's what cosmic horrors, fairy courts, and literal demon and devil lords are famous for: consorting with mortals and just giving them stuff for free with no strings attached. Sorry, can't have the possibility that some DM might be mean to you by making your back story be relevant to the campaign!

I'd guess that hearing 3.24 billion tales of paladins losing their powers for not petting a cute kitten might have led them to leave out "the DM can switch off your class features on a whim" element for any future classes, and I like the freedom to determine what the pact actually is. That said, I wouldn't have minded some example pacts and patrons--one of the things I really liked about the Wildemount book was including some entities that form warlock pacts, with a wide variety of motivations and agendas. And the Hexblade patron should never have seen print as described.

 

[RobJN]

Not a fan of adding Dex bonus to damage.

 

[Lanefan]

My other irritation is the metric monetary system. 3E decided that it was too hard for people to do math, so they dumbed down the currency. In AD&D the metal coins were based (estimated) on the historic value comparison by weight, which gave us 10 cp per sp, and 20 sp per gp. I don't know if electrum and platinum were accurate, but it worked well enough.

This one's easy to fix: just overlay the old British system onto D&D coinage such that 12 c.p. = 1 s.p. (shilling) and 20 s.p. = 1 g.p. (pound). One e.p. can still be worth 10 s.p. or half a g.p.; and a p.p. can still be worth 5 g.p.

The 10 ft passage was a staple of the original game, as they used 10 ft (or 100 ft outdoors) as the standard grid size. However, spacing was much closer to 3 ft per human, as a front line typically consisted of 3 characters. I'm not certain, but I assume that's because that's what it was in miniature wargaming of the era. I do recall in 1E they had a required area to use certain weapons (e.g. a greatsword required at least 6 ft around you to swing properly) which impacted this. I think this is a far better system, as it also remove the "moving through other's space" situation, since you just can't do it.

On a broader note: the 'bug' is trying to match up 'squares' to characters at all.

 

[Lanefan]

Levels 1-2 don't go by quickly at every table, either - you might take a month or two in real world time before reaching level 3.

A month or two IS "quickly"!

A year or two - well, then you might have a point.

Maybe.

That, and not giving characters all their kewl powerz right at level one means there's something to aspire to later. Level one characters IMO should be more or less commoners-with-extras.