Sacred Cows You Hope Die?

[Nebulous]

Good god, how did I forget that one? This cow should definitely be put down. It's a relic from another age.

I hated it too, but easily house-ruled it. No level loss was EVER permanent in a campaign. You'd get it back eventually, just don't get drained to "0". Then you're screwed.

 

[danzig138]

I don't really feel I was that rude. I simply said this to clarify my position. Written word is a lot hard to get across then speaking with someone.

I don't feel that you were all that rude either, especially compared to a host of other posts lately. I was simply offering the suggestion. I try to follow it myself both in online interaction and in person. If I'm having a bad day, I'd just as soon hold off on the interaction so as not to be unintentionally rude. So, if you're having a bad day, you probably shouldn't post. Go have a beer, or soda or nap or something, and come back to it later.

We'll still be here I imagine.

 

[HugeOgre]

It seems a slippery slope between not wanting level draining abilities and then not wanting stat-draining abilities. Both all but STOP the game when they happen, but used judiciously can be a good threat to the PCs well being without threatening death. Id leave them both in, but find ways to penalize a PC without bringing the game to a halt.

I would like to see these tasty burgers served up though.

Remove Barbarians, Paladins, Bards, and Monks as classes
[sblock=why?]These are mixes of the core four, or are flavorful constructs that could easily be created through multi classing or feat tree combinations.
[/sblock]
Half Races
Racial Class level limitations
+x magic items
[sblock=Why?]I think these WILL go, and are just holdovers from when monsters had variable levels of magic resistance to DR.
[/sblock]
Death at -10, or any fixed number for that matter.

[sblock=why?]So many times players metagame their comrade who is lying on the floor bleeding profusely, his body a mangled mess after the troll rended it apart just seconds before.

"Oh, what are you down to?"

"-4"

"Oh, we have 5 more rounds before we have to stabilize you."

Talk about killing the drama of death. Even if you manage to squelch the table talk, people can TELL when death is imminent, reading other players or casually looking at where the player is keeping track of those all too important rounds.

Id replace it with a variable -number of rounds, + CON modifier or something, to make it random, and thus a little more unpredictable. [/sblock]

Well, thats good enough for now.

 

[jeffh]

Raise Dead. Alignments. The ranger. The monk. "Per day" abilities as the default. Teleportation. Much of the high end of the magic system. Cheesecake art.

A newer sacred cow that seems to have appeared, or at least become much more prevalent, in the 3E era - ridiculously impractical weapons and armour, and a generally punkish rather than medieval look to most major characters and many other setting elements. They don't look cool, they look stupid. Given the choice of cover artist for 4E, though, I'm not holding out much hope for that one.

I forgot my biggest one. The distinction between arcane and divine magic. Die, die, die!

 

[Aloïsius]

I forgot my biggest one. The distinction between arcane and divine magic. Die, die, die!

Looks like WotC won't hear you. In fact, they need even more distinction, so that their "power source" thingie can work. You will have divine, arcane, psionic, music, nature... magic.

 

[jeffh]

Totally. I'm a "random fan", but the point-buy should be in there for sure. Alternative options to D&D rules should be endorsed for all those cases where they indeed offer an alternative, or where they fit the flavour of the setting in question.

I couldn't decide between them and so use use the following rule:

You may use three methods to generate your ability scores:
· The standard method (4d6, drop the lowest, do six times, arrange as desired). If your best score isn’t at least 14 or your modifiers add up to less than +2, you may reroll the whole set.
· The organic method. Roll 4d6 and drop the lowest six times to generate the six ability scores in order. Then you may reroll any one score (you don't have to keep the reroll), then you may swap any two scores. If your best score isn’t at least 14 (before the reroll) or your modifiers add up to less than +2,1 you may reroll the whole set.
· Point buy as described in the DMG, page 169 (pages 19-20 if you have the 3.0 version). If you choose this method, you get 28 points to spend.

Create two sets of ability scores and use the one you prefer. You can, but do not have to, use the same method for both. (Hint – use a random method for the first, then you can fall back on point-buy if you really aren’t happy with the first set, guaranteeing that you won’t get stuck with awful scores.)

Interestingly, the random methods are overwhelmingly more popular than point buy, I guess because people do as I suggest in the hint and generally like the results, even those who would normally prefer point-buy.

In a Harn game a few years back with about eight players, the GM gave us a choice of random or point-buy, and I was the only one who went point-buy. And I wouldn't do so today, if I had it to do over again.

 

[Kent H]

The sacred cow I wouldn't mind seeing dropped? Tolkienism.

 

[Kent H]

If you're killing the sacred cows...

Cards instead of dice...
Core mechanics that scale in time and level of conflict...
Stake-setting...

it's so beautiful in my mind.

TSR tried cards instead of dice with Dragonlance 5th, but it didn't seem to take.

 

[Wormwood]

The sacred cow I wouldn't mind seeing dropped? Tolkienism.

Man, don't get my hopes up.

 

[J. R. Scherer]

Ooooh, i HATE Detect Evil!!!! Sounds so great in theory, but it is the bane of DM's across the globe. The best i would give Detect Evil is detecting extraplanar creatures with an evil descriptor; Evil personified, if you will. Not evil as in "The LE barkeep who didn't pay his taxes and is cheating on his wife."

That's how Detect Evil works in my group's games. The spell or ability detects Evil with a capital E--beings with an aura of evil, like clerics, or creatures with the evil subtype--not ordinary everyday jerks. We do tend to give the evil subtype to necromancers and undead more often, though, in order to offset the fact that it doesn't come in nearly as handy overall. When it does work, though, you know for sure that bad dudes are around.


I'd like to see Attacks of Opportunity/Free Attacks bite the dust. They just get in the way and slow things down, and can keep characters from even trying to do something fun and cool.

I also want to see class/race limitations officially removed, particularly in the case of paladins and monks multiclassing.

If action points are instituted in 4E (which I'd love!) I'd like to see better rules than was presented in Eberron and Unearthed Arcana. Something more like Spycraft or Adventure! d20 would be more to my tastes.