Rules Misunderstandings Over The Years

[Hellzon]

I remember reading somewhere the account of a player whose group all thought you rerolled your HD for HP at every level. So if your Ftr went from 5th to 6th, he might find he had gone from 25Hp to 60+...or just over 6!

We sort of do that in the OD&D game I'm in. At levelup, you get either the result of rerolling all your hit dice, or your previous maximum hp, whichever is highest. Taken from Philotomy, IIRC.

No no, we never misunderstood a single thing. We are smart.

*cough* We thought the exp cost in magic item creation was exp you gained when you made the item. */cough*

Wasn't that how it was in older editions?

 

[TarionzCousin]

Somewhere along the line, though, we mixed up hp and xp, so every time we killed a monster, we added the xp gained to our hp totals. When our 1st-level PCs were walking around with several hundred hp each, it suddenly occurred to us, "Wait, I'm pretty sure that's not right...."

This is similar to mine. A friend told me that when he first started playing AD&D1, he thought that characters gained the HIT POINTS of the monsters they killed (added to their own HP total, of course). The cure light wounds spell suddenly became much more useful once they realized their mistake.

The original DMG had the experience point values for the monsters listed as something like this: Ogre 300XP +4/hp. So if the ogre had 20 hit points he was worth 380 XP.

Our group instead gave out 300 XP and 4 hit points. That was how we survived so long without a cleric.

 

[jonesy]

Wasn't that how it was in older editions?

This was the latest in 2007.

 

[Zhaleskra]

Not so much with the table top rules, but the SSI D&D based games, I once thought "Turn Undead" turned you into an undead creature. So I'd keep on using it and wondering why it wasn't working.

 

[SSquirrel]

(the specifics of the XP tables escape my memory, but I remember Thief being the fastest-rising class)

Yes, Thief was the fastest leveling class and Wizards (Mages, whatever it was then heh) were the slowest. To keep things easy, we used to ask what level characters were being made at and it would be things like "5th level Wizard". Which meant 7th level Rogue. I was a big fan of that 5th level Wizard XP that got used pretty often, especially since most of my friends didn't enjoy Wizards and I got to fling Fireballs heh.

 

[pawsplay]

I was in a Shadowrun 2e game in which one player played a Physical Adept... and instead of getting his Magic rating in enhancements (about 6 points) he spent a high priority on Resources and spent his Spell Points (for Mages) on enhancements, that is to say, I think 20 points of enhancements. This was only noticed because I became curious how he managed to have improved reflexes as high as superior Wired Reflexes and a superhuman Armed Combat skill, when I knew either one was 5 points by itself.

 

[Stormonu]

When I first got my hands on AD&D after having played basic, I misread the bonus spells for Clerics. I thought that they got those bonus spells starting at 1st levle, so the 18 Wis cleric had 2 bonus first, a 2nd level spell, a 3rd level spell and a 4th level spell.

 

[slwoyach]

When 3e came out my friends and I rushed out to buy it and played our first session from Friday night to Sunday night. We had it in our heads that rogues could flank with ranged weapons and our two rogues tore everything to pieces with sneak attacks from a safe distance.

 

[Janx]

My 2 examples are more of how i cheated because i vaguely remember a reference to a rule in the new game we just started.

In our first ever d&d game (solo halfelf f/t) i had the 1e ph and 2e dmg. I was about to die from yet another hit from the dms monster which he was making up as we had no monster stats.

I claimed i was supposed to get a save vs. Death it was somewhere in the rules. Which though there really was a save vs death, it was covered in the 2e ph which we didnt have yet... Still he bought it, i got a dice roll and my 1st pc lived a ripe old age

In 3e my half orc barbarian in the northern tundra was getting some beer. He decided to help fight the evil 18th level sorceror who was starting some trouble with the hot elven chick. My first blow was a crit and the dm described it as being so hrd he flew back into the wall 10' away and bounced back. I called AoOsince he left my square and re entered my threatened square. I killed him with a second critical hit. Not bad for the first encounter with first level pc

 

[Rabulias]

Not so much with the table top rules, but the SSI D&D based games, I once thought "Turn Undead" turned you into an undead creature. So I'd keep on using it and wondering why it wasn't working.

I was introduced to D&D way back in the dark ages of AD&D 1E. My friends explained the classes to me so I could decide what I wanted to play. I was unfamiliar with the term "cleric" (outside of clerical work, which did not sound like glory and treasure to me...), so I asked what they did. They said "Clerics can fight OK (but only with blunt weapons), they heal people, and they turn undead." I imagined clerics turning into zombies and skeletons and such, and I said "That sounds useless. Tell me about wizards..."