Small but annoying things D&D never got right

[Sadrik]

Ick, no.

The problem with armor as DR is that it is so much more difficult to balance it across a range of potential damages.

Either you make it impossible for someone with a knife to ever hurt someone in plate, or you make it so that the plate doesn't even slow down the dragon, so why bother?

Alternatively, you massively scale down the differences in weapon damage, so that knives and greatswords and T-rexes do similar amounts of damage. Do you really want that?

I would be happy with DR gone and armor giving you bonus HP instead same effect but doesnt ignore minutia damage which I assume you are worried about.

+2 armor give you +20 hp
+8 armor gives you +80 hp
or per level might make more sense:
+2 armor give you +2 hp/level
+8 armor gives you +8 hp/level

Well, maybe those numbers are off a bit but I think you get the concept.

 

[Sadrik]

Yes, that's certainly one that D&D never got right. IMO, they should simplify encumbrance even more than they did in 3.x even at the expense of realism. Perhaps they could have "packages" of equipment so that if you have X type of armour + Y number of weapons + Z standard adventuring equipment, you're encumbered if your strength is lesss than A. The formula makes it seem complicated but it needn't be.

Encumbrance could be your STR score plus your skill ranks in "athletics" or whatever similar skill they wind up with.

Then everything costs encumbrance points
Plate mail 10 ENC
Greatsword 3 ENC

for instance a 12 STR character with 10 ranks in "athletics" can carry 22 ENC worth of gear.

Also, rather than having two burdened categories, just have 1. no medium load and heavy load- just burdened or not burdened.

 

[Howndawg]

Clerics being better necromancers than wizards.

Rangers with magic.

Monks being called monks. My image of "monk" is more up the line of the archivist.

In 3e, spears being 2-handed. In many cultures, warriors fought with spear and shield just fine.

Scimitar wielding druids.



Howndawg

 

[JohnSnow]

My list:

- 5+ levels of "dead"
- Alignment as a tangible, detectable thing
- Spellcasting rangers
- wizards who can't heal
- wizards who can't animate objects- certain powers coming into play too early
- Clerical "spellcasting"
- magic is divided in an almost scientific, rather than mystical way

Personally, I'd like to see the differentiation between arcane and divine "spells" get a bullet in the head. I have no problem with a class or two that get their powers from a "divine" source, but those powers should NOT feel like wizard spells.

My two cents.

 

[Clavis]

Elves are short.

Orcs and hobgoblins are not the same thing; also, orcs are not goblinoids and have pig snouts (which varies a bit by edition).

Both done to emphasize that D&D is NOT Tolkien. Gygax dislikes Tolkien's writings, and putting the Tolkienesque stuff in there was only done because players wanted it. The first "market-based" decision for D&D.

I. for one, am happy it was done that way. I like my elves a bit more like lusty amoral fey, and less like Tolkien's stuck-up Aryan ubermen.

 

[Clavis]

Alignment-aligned planes always seemed as silly to me as alignment languages. They are a metamechanic which shouldn't have spells, alignment-restricted magic items or even planes attributed to them.

"This plane is aligned to fighters, only".

"This weapon can only be used by people with a d10 for hit dice"

"This inn restricts anyone of Neutral Good alignment from entering it"

It is just silly.

Another quibble - Protection from Good, Protection from Evil, Protection from Law, Protection from Chaos. I mean, why?! Why not just a Protection spell that gives you general bonuses while hedeging out specific TYPES of summoned creatures?

Alignment in D&D was based on Moorcock's writings. Chaos and Law were real, metaphysical forces fighting in the Universe, and a person could be aligned, in a soldier-like sense, with one or the other. The original idea of Alignment in D&D was not just as a description of someone's behavior in a psychological sense, but as a tag designating which side they take in the war for the Cosmos. Hence, alignment language and the "Great Wheel" cosmology.

 

[Clavis]

Rangers with magic.

Done to replicate Aragorn's healing abilities in LOTR. I never really liked it either, though.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Alignment in D&D was based on Moorcock's writings. Chaos and Law were real, metaphysical forces fighting in the Universe, and a person could be aligned, in a soldier-like sense, with one or the other. The original idea of Alignment in D&D was not just as a description of someone's behavior in a psychological sense, but as a tag designating which side they take in the war for the Cosmos. Hence, alignment language and the "Great Wheel" cosmology.

The axis of Law vs. Chaos is also present in Three Hearts and Three Lions, by Poul Andersen.

 

[The_Gneech]

Done to replicate Aragorn's healing abilities in LOTR. I never really liked it either, though.

But I thought you just said it was good to differentiate from Tolkien! ;P

-The Gneech

 

[Drkfathr1]

The Economy.