D&D (2024) Rules that annoy you

[pukunui]

By putting on herbs and tying bandages duh

What if your herbs and bandages are packed away when you first reach the dying person? Wouldn't it take you more than 6 seconds to get them out? What if the person is wearing armor and you can't access the wound without taking the armor off? What if the person has been poisoned rather than stabbed or burnt?

I very much feel like your answer is as oversimplified as the game mechanic is. I remain unconvinced.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What rules annoy you (either mechanically or conceptually)? What, if anything, do you like to do about them?

Being perfectly honest...exactly the kinds of rules changes you proposed in the OP, and many of the other proposed changes in this thread. They sound like absolutely the antithesis of a fun, entertaining evening; they turn even the smallest acts into the worst sort of bean-counting.

I want to have a relatively fun time being a heroic adventurer who fights evil princesses and rescues beautiful dragons, who does the right things for the right reasons, who shows mercy because it is both morally upstanding and actually worth doing.

Your "knock someone unconscious, it lasts for up to 24 seconds" rule, for example, has just made taking prisoners alive against their will essentially impossible. It has made it so every session where I advocate for a nonlethal approach to dealing with combatants, I am actively being a detriment to everyone in the group, including myself.

Such ill-considered efforts, pursued out of an aesthetic or meta-aesthetic desire for the rules to look and feel nice rather than for the rules to perform well as a fantasy roleplaying game experience, are the bane of far too many games today.

That's what annoys me about rules nine times out of ten. When they prize on-the-page prettiness or geometry or so-called "realism" (even though "realism" and reality often do not intersect...) ahead of being well-structured, effective rules that achieve the designer's intent for the gameplay experience.

 

[pukunui]

I want to have a relatively fun time being a heroic adventurer who fights evil princesses and rescues beautiful dragons, who does the right things for the right reasons, who shows mercy because it is both morally upstanding and actually worth doing.

I want that too!

Your "knock someone unconscious, it lasts for up to 24 seconds" rule, for example, has just made taking prisoners alive against their will essentially impossible. It has made it so every session where I advocate for a nonlethal approach to dealing with combatants, I am actively being a detriment to everyone in the group, including myself.

I would quibble with that. Just because someone wakes up after a few rounds of combat doesn't mean they'll jump right back into the fight! It also doesn't automatically mean they'll resist being taken alive, either. I'd be willing to compromise with having it be minutes rather than rounds. That's still more believable than having people lying around unconscious for hours without suffering any brain damage!

(I am speaking as someone who has vasovagal syncope.)

But honestly that's just a quibble. I see what you are saying, and for the most part, I agree with you. I absolutely understand why certain rules are the way they are. That doesn't mean I can't still find them annoying or idly toy with ways to "fix" them. That's all this thread was really about.

 

[GobHag]

What if your herbs and bandages are packed away when you first reach the dying person? Wouldn't it take you more than 6 seconds to get them out? What if the person is wearing armor and you can't access the wound without taking the armor off? What if the person has been poisoned rather than stabbed or burnt?

I very much feel like your answer is as oversimplified as the game mechanic is. I remain unconvinced.

Yeah you just need 6 seconds to do all of that.

 

[Pauln6]

I'm frustrated that they ruined Phantom Steed because it now lacks scaling and lasts only for an hour.

Would it kill them to have Lv4 slot - ignore difficult terrain, lvl5 walk on water, lasts 8 hours, lvl6 walk on air to cross chasms (there are easier ways to fly but it's just kind of cool). And hey, more generally, where's my shadow magic at? Answer - a high level illusionist class feature. Shadow sorcerer is sad.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

you are either doing them either way, or you consider your spell slots too valuable to continue doing them. Either one is an improvement. It exists to reign in the caster dominance, and that is a worthwhile goal

And for the price of flavor fail that causes a powerful archmage to suddenly forget basic utility spells and caster players SITTING ON THER ASSES NOT DOING ANYTHING IN COMBAT because they had to put all these utility spells into their spell slots. And price of arguments about who takes what utility spells, and frustration of players really excited to try new spell but never being able to prepare it because utility and other necessary spells need to take priority...it kinda exposes vacian casting as a bad rpg system.

How? If anything, it creates roleplaying opportunities! If you're the DM, and you've got a player whose PC is thumbing their nose at their would-be warlock patron, have the patron send their minions after them! Bring the "outsmarting" into play. Don't just throw your hands up in disgust and walk away from it!

You also talk about nipping things in the bud earlier. Firstly, we're talking about levels 1 and 2, which the 5e designers deliberately made to be the training wheels / tutorial levels that shouldn't last more than a session or two. The 2024 PHB even recommends that more experienced players start at level 3!

Secondly, you can easily nip this sort of thing in the bud during session 0. If one of your players indicates they want to play a warlock, talk to them. Find out what they're thinking. If they intend to go at least to level 3 and make a pact with a patron, great! You can start foreshadowing that from session 1. If they're not sure or make it clear they just want to dip into warlock (either at first or later on), then you don't have to "waste" your time building up to something that the player would rather avoid.

I think it's a bad design when you do stuff like that and yet still insist on every adventure to begin with the training wheels. It also still opens the issue of multiclassing and how players use early levels to grab things without comitting to anything. I have already seen this with Paladins, when players will take two levels and then do everything to have lore-wise excuse to avoid third one, because that's comittment to specific oath and players don't want commitment. I once had a player who would rather put off leveling up and then gave Paladin levels away entierly, than pick up an oath. Now this issue will spread to Warlock, when it was once a class that gave you best connection between the PC and the setting. It serves no one but powergamers and murderhobos.

I had so much fun teasing potential patrons for PCs willing to take Warlock levels, even gave freebies like "if you want to take this entity as your patron, you can use your Intelligence instead of Charisma for Warlock levels", which allowed to do this whople "temptation" aspect naturally. In 5.24 version I will have to ban multiclassing into Warlock and never start a game before level 3, because one of best things go removed for the sake of powergaming convenience.

Not sure why you couldn't still have the patron demand attention.

On the flip side, no other class has to deal with it either.

And what patron can do? GFet clowned on. They gave someone power for free, they cannot take it back (by the rules Patron cannot depower the Warlock) and cannot really do anything but seethe. It just takes great powers that were supposed to be major players of this world and makes them idiots the players can play for fools. And if you keep pressing the issue, then you're bad DM ruining player's fun or build.

And the second argument makes no sense - let's remove thing that makes Warlock interesting, make it a non-issue you can sidestep by never taking level 3, because we didn't built in similiar things for other classes? Nevermind the fact that Cleric and Druid and Paladin say otherwise. Yes, you can be atheist Cleric or Druid, but I still encourage the players to pick a diety because it makes game more interesting to have something I can include into the plot. This change is actively optimizing fun out of the game.

 

[pukunui]

Yeah you just need 6 seconds to do all of that.

Your’re really not selling it with these one-line responses, my dude.

Please explain it to me like I’m an 8-year-old. I want to believe you, and I would love to know more, so please don’t leave me hanging like this!

 

[pukunui]

And for the price of flavor fail that causes a powerful archmage to suddenly forget basic utility spells and caster players SITTING ON THER ASSES NOT DOING ANYTHING IN COMBAT because they had to put all these utility spells into their spell slots. And price of arguments about who takes what utility spells, and frustration of players really excited to try new spell but never being able to prepare it because utility and other necessary spells need to take priority...it kinda exposes vacian casting as a bad rpg system.


I think it's a bad design when you do stuff like that and yet still insist on every adventure to begin with the training wheels. It also still opens the issue of multiclassing and how players use early levels to grab things without comitting to anything. I have already seen this with Paladins, when players will take two levels and then do everything to have lore-wise excuse to avoid third one, because that's comittment to specific oath and players don't want commitment. I once had a player who would rather put off leveling up and then gave Paladin levels away entierly, than pick up an oath. Now this issue will spread to Warlock, when it was once a class that gave you best connection between the PC and the setting. It serves no one but powergamers and murderhobos.

I had so much fun teasing potential patrons for PCs willing to take Warlock levels, even gave freebies like "if you want to take this entity as your patron, you can use your Intelligence instead of Charisma for Warlock levels", which allowed to do this whople "temptation" aspect naturally. In 5.24 version I will have to ban multiclassing into Warlock and never start a game before level 3, because one of best things go removed for the sake of powergaming convenience.

And what patron can do? GFet clowned on. They gave someone power for free, they cannot take it back (by the rules Patron cannot depower the Warlock) and cannot really do anything but seethe. It just takes great powers that were supposed to be major players of this world and makes them idiots the players can play for fools. And if you keep pressing the issue, then you're bad DM ruining player's fun or build.

Everything you label a “flavor fail” is just a communication fail in my book. All of these so-called fails can be addressed simply by setting expectations in advance. It seems to me like, if your players’ commitment-phobia is really that big a deal for you, then maybe just ban multiclassing all together. Save yourself the headache.

OR you could keep an open mind and just go with what your players want to do instead of banging your head against the wall when they won’t do what you want them to do.

I don’t see how any of this is the rules’ fault. These seem more like you problems than rules problems.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

Everything you label a “flavor fail” is just a communication fail in my book. All of these so-called fails can be addressed simply by setting expectations in advance. It seems to me like, if your players’ commitment-phobia is really that big a deal for you, then maybe just ban multiclassing all together. Save yourself the headache.

OR you could keep an open mind and just go with what your players want to do instead of banging your head against the wall when they won’t do what you want them to do.

I don’t see how any of this is the rules’ fault. These seem more like you problems than rules problems.

So that means I now have to either remember an increasing number of problems I have to adress and solve beforehand, whichwere not problems before or just sacrifice what I consider some of best times of roleplaying with my players to instead make world feel less real, less lived-in, less immersive, for the sake of powergaming convenience and removing all possible ties PCs may have to the world, that could prevent murderhoboism. It's frustrating to see the game aggressively fighting off good thing it had going for it, for the sake of something that is an unadressed issue.

 

[pukunui]

So that means I now have to either remember an increasing number of problems I have to adress and solve beforehand, whichwere not problems before or just sacrifice what I consider some of best times of roleplaying with my players to instead make world feel less real, less lived-in, less immersive, for the sake of powergaming convenience and removing all possible ties PCs may have to the world, that could prevent murderhoboism. It's frustrating to see the game aggressively fighting off good thing it had going for it, for the sake of something that is an unadressed issue.

Nope. You don’t have to do any of those things. That said, I’m really getting the sense that you have a fixed mindset here, so nothing I can say will have any affect. You do you, my dude.