Rarely used rules

[Sam]

We have players who refocus just to feel good... (shrug)

Initiative envy?

 

[HeavyG]

Another neglected option is "ready an action against a charge." Have you ever seen anyone use it? Ready action, sure, but I have yet to see a spear weilding opponent or player use this. It's just me, isn't it?

Most of the time, the opponents won't charge after you set you spear. So it acts more like a disuasive than anything else.

However, once in RttToEE, my players turned both front-liners invisible and had them ready actions vs charges as the party sorcerer turned a corner to fireball a pair of trolls. When the trolls tried to charge the sorcerer, they were speared by the invisible fighters. One rolled a critical hit and knocked down the troll in one blow, too. That was the only time we ever used that rule, but it worked well.

 

[Henry]

I have to say our group has NEVER counterspelled a single spell in two years of play. We've grappled (uncommon, but often enough to happen in one out of every four sessions or so), bull rushed, I've even disarmed once with a halfling knife thrower (of all things). But I cannot recall a single instance of counterspell.

Refocusing is almost never done - in fact, readying is done in preference to refocusing nine times out of ten. The only time a refocus is preferable is when they wish to do a full round action that round they act, rather than a partial action.

In fact, can someone give a detailed example of a time when Refocusing actually helped better than taking their regular action? (or can the poster who gave their example earlier go into a little more detail?)

The other rule I see us almost never use is the scribing costs for a wizard putting a spell into their spellbooks. We've never used it, and I am wondering if we should. (I know I don't plan to use it in my home-brew campaign, because I tend to keep money a little tighter than D&D book standard.)

 

[Sam]

The other rule I see us almost never use is the scribing costs for a wizard putting a spell into their spellbooks. We've never used it, and I am wondering if we should. (I know I don't plan to use it in my home-brew campaign, because I tend to keep money a little tighter than D&D book standard.)

I don't know if my players use the rules for scribing costs or not. As a DM, I don't really track the GP level of my characters much. I kind of keep them on the honor system with that and it seems to have worked well. I suppose I should just ask to make sure that they are tracking costs like that.....

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I've never got round to using Sunder - but I have to say the idea appeals. A fighter that used his brains (ie took Disarm, Sunder and Trip) could really screw up the DM's plans, at least until he cottoned on.

Never used counterspelling either, nor Bull Rush. I guess these things just take a memorable encounter to set them up well in the groups mind.

 

[ForceUser]

We use grapples quite a bit, actually. Comes with the territory with monks. What we don't see enough of are sunder attempts and attacking a weapon. The general consensus is A) why attack a weapon when you can attack the bad guy holding the weapon and B) why potentially damage our future loot! (sigh, that's borderline Monty Haul, I know ).

 

[Henry]

I actually saw that in a game once - big evil fighter is attacking the party with a shocking weapon and being rather effective.

Player #1 has his PC try to sunder the obviously magic weapon of the NPC.

Player #2 immediately cries out, "AAAH! NOT MY WEAPON!"

 

[Omegium]

We seldomly use sundering, often out of fear for destroying the soon-to-be-our weapons.
We do grapple, since it is the best thing you can do against wizards, and we have had some monsters and animal companions with improved grab and the like.
Another rule we never use are the rules for exhaustion, it just never happens anyone wants to run for an hour.

 

[Pielorinho]

I use grapple all the time. As a druid, plenty of my summoned and companion animals get improved grab, and when my tiger/bear/crocodile grapples, it's fun for the entire family. By now, I'm intimately familiar with those rules.

I think we've only used disarm once in two years of playing, and that was bending the rules -- we allowed a monk/sorcerer to make a disarm attempt to snatch a magic wand from an enemy.

We've never used sunder. Bull rush has come up a couple of times, but not often; trip has come up reasonably often.

Because we use the index-card initiative system (one card per combatant, put in order based on initiative roll, and cycled through), combat doesn't have discrete rounds, and so refocusing isn't an option, and you can delay for as long as you'd like.

We play fast and loose with encumbrance, with experience, with light radii, with reaction modifiers, and with a host of other rules.

Daniel

 

[ForceUser]

Because we use the index-card initiative system (one card per combatant, put in order based on initiative roll, and cycled through), combat doesn't have discrete rounds, and so refocusing isn't an option, and you can delay for as long as you'd like.

We use cards too - aren't they great?

When someone delays we remove their card from the initiative order and remind them that they need to inform the DM when they want to reinsert. When someone readys an action we turn their card sideways to indicate they're on a ready. If someone wants to delay and refocus, we've got the initiative totals written down, so we note who's closest to 20 and stick the refocused PC before or after the high-initiative character. Combat is more fluid as a result.