Rules Misunderstandings Over The Years

[Diamond Cross]

This thread is not about the abuse of rules, but rather the misunderstandings of how rules are properly used.

Here's the kind of thing I mean. In our 1e days we didn't understand how xp was rewarded. We thought that the xp went to the person who killed the monster and that treasure based xp was based on who got the treasure. So we had situations in which our fighter would dish out a lot of damage, often reducing the monster to one or two hp. Then the mage would use a dagger, sling, or magic missile and deal one or two points of damage, killing the creature. That meant the mage often got the xp. But in order to get around that kind of thing the group decided to fight defensively in order to take turns getting the xp reward. It took us several months to find out that xp rewards was shared equally among the characters, as long as they weren't knocked out of the fight.

For 3e, our DM initially thought that the Base Hit Tables in the classes were added together instead of incremental increases. For example, he thought that a +1 bonus to hit at 1st level was added to a +2 at third level for a grand total of +3 instead of increasing by +1 to +2 for a total increase of +1 to hit.

So what other misunderstandings of the rules for any edition have you come across?

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I think the single rules section that gave (the most players) (the most trouble) was provocation of AoOs. I never really understood why it was so difficult for so many people to grasp, but it was, especially provoking by movement.

Another huge one that we fell prey to (and that was pretty common) were the buffed cure spell rules for Radiant Servants of Pelor. That section of that prestige class was written ... poorly.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

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!

 

[Jeff Wilder]

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!

The irony is that this is a fairly common house-rule, and one that I've actually strongly considered.

 

[Nimloth]

Way back when elves were a class and they didn't have hardback rulebooks, a friend thought your class level = what level of spells you could cast. 3rd level wizard with 3rd level spells.

 

[jonesy]

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*

 

[Moleculo]

When my brothers and I were young, we learned to play using the reissued basic D&D box set. Eventually we got more interseted and somehow got our hands on AD&D material without it being clear that there was a book called "The Players Handbook." For a long time, working through reverse engineering and intuition, we came to the conclusion that a monster's hit dice was what you rolled when it hit. It was okay at level 1, but it left us wondering how one made it to level 20.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

When I started playing D&D (2nd Ed.) a guy in one of my classes helped me make my first character. Multiclassing (or was it dual classing?) sounded cool, so I decided to play a multiclassed gnome Rogue/Illusionist. I followed his instructions because he was a seasoned D&D player. He basically created my character as a gestalt character with the best elements from both classes. None of the other players in my group ever tried a multiclassed character so I never learned about my error until years after 3rd Ed. when I looked through the 2nd Ed. rules for nostalgia.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Had a DM recently running Pathfinder come to the bizarre conclusion that a ring of counterspelling only worked for the wearer. So if it was loaded with a fireball and the party got nuked then the ring magically protected the wearer with some counterspell forcefield while everyone else fried.

The big problem was that when the entire table of players explained how he was wrong and even quoted various sources we got a little tirade of how "he didnt run his table the way so and so at WOTC runs their table".

Needless to say I didnt stick around long. Getting the rules wrong is no big deal. Getting them wrong then defending your mistake by being an buffoon though is a different story.

 

[Ranes]

When I first played 1e, one of the first characters I created was an illusionist. I knew what an illusion was. But that didn't stop me from misunderstanding how illusions worked in the game.

It's day one, level one, for my illusionist. I'm being chased through city streets by half-orcs. I nip down an alley and create the illusion of a doorway at the dead end. Then I try to - oh, this is so embarrassing - go through the door.

My DM didn't lose his composure as he explained to me, as one might to a small child, what an illusion was.