The last sentence spoils the fun

[DaveMage]

Hmmm... much better. The shame of the feat is much more in your face. The original version left it up to player to put his lusts into play. Can't believe I missed that!

"When game designers go bad" - on the next Geraldo!

 

[Mercule]

I have an even worse problem of that sort - a player who reads the name of the spell, skims briefly through the description and then pretty much makes up how he thinks it would work.

One of my players is playing a Warlock. He took the "Devil's Sight" invocation, but only read the brief description, where it says, "Can see normally, even in magical darkness" (or some such). In the full entry, it says, "Only out to 60 feet". Man, was he ever ticked.

 

[swrushing]

i encounter this on occasion.

i think one of the mkost fun was with the globe spells and a player that insisted it move with him. So i asked him to read the spell descrip outloud...

it went something like...

"creates an immobile sphere centered on the caster"...

player: "see, it moves with me, "centered on me"///"

GM: "what about the word "immobile"?"

player "well. thats unclear..."

GM: "what about the section later where it talks about what specifically happens if the caster leaves the sphere and comes back."

player " well thats unclear too."

gm : "uh huh!"

 

[MarkAHart]

Our group has a player who tends to overlook or misread spells -- he tends to play sorcerers. He doesn't make these mistakes intentionally, his mind just somehow interprets things differently from the printed word.

In a previous campaign, I let him play a sorcerer variant. He had a wider selection of spells he knew (compared to the core class), but he wasn't allowed to read the spell descriptions in the books until the character had actually cast the spell and seen its effect -- then he was able to read the spell description (a sort of wild mage, without the wild surge). Thus, he tended to cast spells based on those with "kewl" names. This resulted in some truly humorous (and sometimes tragic) adventures...Strange thing was, even AFTER he was allowed to read a spell description, he still forgot things like area of effect. (Brought a whole new meaning to the term "friendly fire.")

 

[wingsandsword]

We completely derailed an adventure like that one time in an old campaign. We were supposed to climb a tall tower to stop a lich at the top. The tower was shielded against scrying, teleportation and ethereal travel, and flying sentinels and turbulent weather made flying to the top very risky at best. It was clearly meant to be a dungeon crawl to the top.

Transmute Rock to Mud changed all that. I cast it at the base of the tower, and I could catch almost the entire base in the area of effect. Timber! It fell and it went from being a dungeon crawl to a huge field battle with the creatures that survived the fall and later an archaelological dig through the ruins for treasure.

Unfortunately, neither the players nor the DM saw that little line in the spell description that said that it works only against natural, unworked stone, so you can't use it to demolish towers and castles with one spell. Ah well, he got us back for it the next week by making the wreckage of the liches lab mix with some of the corpses and create this horrible Lovecraftian tentacled monstrosity that rose from the debris to hunt us down after we'd pillaged the ruins and left.

 

[Monte At Home]

I have an even worse problem of that sort - a player who reads the name of the spell, skims briefly through the description and then pretty much makes up how he thinks it would work. I really don't think he does it deliberately - he believes he's using the rules, but his bizarre versions of spells are always a lot better than the actual versions and never have negative aspects!

I have one of those too. And then when she's told the actual way the spell works, she tries to convince me that her original perception is actually better than what's written.

Of course, since she's arguing with one of the people who wrote the rules, this rarely (read: never) works. But then again, since she's my wife... well, that makes for interesting game sessions.

 

[Castellan]

Fury of the Blade [General]
In the midst of battle, your lust for blood transforms you into a killing machine.
Benefit: You gain a +4 bonus to damage with all melee attacks. When you gain a bonus attack due to Cleave or Great Cleave, you gain a +4 bonus to that attack. Also, you are incontinent. At the end of every combat, you enjoy crapping in your pants.

I have a player who'd take this in a heartbeat. His reasoning would be: "Well, crapping my pants isn't covered in the rules, so it causes no effect! Cool! I'll take it!"

Then, if I impose Charisma (and Diplomacy, yadda, yadda, yadda) penalties, he'll cry, "But that's not fair!"

So, if you ever create this sort of work (which I'd probably buy, anyway) please include real penalties, or at least include somewhere in the text, "Some of the effects contain 'role playing' penalties. Your DM may choose to impose penalties to Skill Checks, Attack Rolls, etc, etc, etc." It'd make my life easier!

 

[Castellan]

But then again, since she's my wife...

And I thought having my wife play in my games was rough... I couldn't bear the arguments ending with, "Well, I didn't write the rules, but I would have done this differently!" And then enduring that stare... The one that means she's casting a silenced, stilled April's Angry Agrument-Winner on me.... I dread that extra-dimensional space with only a couch to sleep on... *shudder*

 

[Tassadar]

Ah well, he got us back for it the next week by making the wreckage of the liches lab mix with some of the corpses and create this horrible Lovecraftian tentacled monstrosity that rose from the debris to hunt us down after we'd pillaged the ruins and left.

That might just be one of the funniest monsters I've ever heard of. Most of our monsters were very bland, you know, Dragons with the Tumble skill, but a Lovecraftian tentacled monstrosity...I would be proud to fight that.

 

[Bullgrit]

Also, many players miss the casting time. Everyone seems to assume the casting time for all spells is 1 action.

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit