Rules that never made sense to you?

[Vegepygmy]

Hyp, are you sure one can ready a grapple and have it work?

Since once you touch the defender in step 2 with your readied standard action, step 3 is impossible since readying only gives you a standard action, move or free action.

Step 3: Hold. Make an opposed grapple check as a free action.

"You can perform one or more free actions while taking another action normally." PHB, page 139.

 

[Particle_Man]

"You can perform one or more free actions while taking another action normally." PHB, page 139.

I really wish I had known this last night. My Hexblade could have, while Expeditious Retreat enspelled, charged an opponent from 100 feet away, Cursed him (free action), and then attacked with the charge attack.

 

[Kmart Kommando]

-10 you're dead is even worse than -1 to -9 bleeding out. it seems to always come down to character A has < 10 hit points left and Monster B hits for 30+ damage, and there's nothing anyone can do to prevent it from hitting character A. Ever. Gets worse the higher level you are, because hit points don't seem to scale as fast as damage taken, and to hit scales much faster than AC. Add in the fact that you need lots of magic just to not fall too far behind..

 

[Sejs]

Obviously fighting something invisible that is a much, much better grappler than you are would be ... oh, just really... really bad. Invisible dire bear? owwwwwwwwwwwww.

Bringing back memories of the triceratops with improved invis our DM threw at us at one point.

We still wince over that one.

 

[KarinsDad]

"You can perform one or more free actions while taking another action normally." PHB, page 139.

In a normal round, you can perform a standard action and a move action, or you can perform a full-round action. You can also perform one or more free actions.

Additional free actions are only allowed within a normal round. A readied action is not a normal round.

The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun.

...

You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action.

Ready only allows one action (the word "an" being singular and the ready action explicitly stating standard, move, or free).

If the designers had wanted free actions in addition to move or standard actions in a ready round, they would have not written it this way and they would have said so.

 

[Endur]

In fact, I am coming to the conclusion that fewer house rules are better.

I came to "no house rules" conclusion a long time ago. It gets reinforced every time someone shows me a book full of house rules for their campaign.

My most recent peeve with the 3.5e rules is the rules for a wizard preparing spells out of a borrowed spellbook.

PHB p.178: "A wizard can use a borrowed spellbook to prepare a spell she already knows and has recorded in her own spellbook, but preparation success is not assured."

A wizard can't use a spellbook to memorize spells unless the spells were already written in his own spellbook. An apprentice wizard can't try casting a spell out of the Master's spellbook?

If the PC wizard loses his spellbook and obtains a replacement spellbook, he can't cast any of the spells in the replacement spellbook, unless those spells were already in the PC spellbook. Or until he copies the spells into yet another spellbook.

This is a rediculous rule, one I'd immediately house-rule, if I believed in house rules.

 

[Infiniti2000]

2) The prereque rule on feats. You can take cleave and great cleave at the same time. Cool so I can get my 1st and 2nd degree black belt at the same time? This is just stupid. I house rule this also that taking prereques and coreques is taken on a case by case basis.

Actually, the rules would disallow you to get your 1st and 2nd degree black belts at the same time. You cannot advance more than one level at a time. I hope you'd agree that a black belt is closer to the concept of a level than a feat, right?

I came to "no house rules" conclusion a long time ago.

I maintain that it's impossible to have no house rules.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Additional free actions are only allowed within a normal round. A readied action is not a normal round.

There is nothing in the rules that limits free actions only to a "normal" round (nor does the rule I quoted use the phrase "normal round"). The rules simply leave open the possibility that, in an abnormal round (whatever that is), the usual rule may not apply.

Ready only allows one action (the word "an" being singular and the ready action explicitly stating standard, move, or free).

And since you can take free actions whenever you take another (i.e., one) action, the fact that Readying allows you to take one action (again, the word "only" does not appear in the text) is not a bar to taking additional free actions.

If the designers had wanted free actions in addition to move or standard actions in a ready round, they would have not written it this way and they would have said so.

Let's not pretend you are privy to the designers' thoughts, okay?

 

[pemerton]

Hyp, are you sure one can ready a grapple and have it work?

Since once you touch the defender in step 2 with your readied standard action, step 3 is impossible since readying only gives you a standard action, move or free action.

I can follow the technical reasoning here.

But given that a grapple can be used as an AoO (as per footnote 7 to the Actions table in the SRD), surely it can be readied. It's surely not the designers' intent that AoOs be more flexible than readied attack actions.

 

[Hypersmurf]

But given that a grapple can be used as an AoO (as per footnote 7 to the Actions table in the SRD), surely it can be readied. It's surely not the designers' intent that AoOs be more flexible than readied attack actions.

You can initiate the grapple, which happens in place of a melee attack (in an attack action, charge action, full attack action, or AoO). But the free action is a separate action that you are eligible to take if you reach a certain point in the grapple sequence.

Just as you cannot drop your dagger (free action), Quick Draw your greatsword (free action), and make an attack when an AoO is provoked (since, with certain exceptions like speaking or casting PHB Feather Fall, free actions cannot be taken outside your turn), you cannot take the free action required to establish a hold when grappling as an AoO.

So while you can use grapple as an AoO, as written, you can't use it very effectively...

-Hyp.