D&D General Things That Bug You

[Dioltach]

Falling down 30 feet isn't a realistic threat as soon as your character reaches level 2 or 3? That bugs me because I can relate to falling from heights. I'm often called to work 30ft+ above ground, and I definitely wouldn't want to fall uncontrollably, or even jump down voluntarily.

Pfff, that just means you're only 1st level.

 

[el-remmen]

To this day I have a friend that complains that his first D&D character EVER (which was in a game I ran back in 1993) died from falling into a 10' deep pit trap.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Alluded to earlier in the thread, but one thing that bugs me is Armour Class, as a concept.

I grew up playing Warhammer, and only came to D&D as an adult. It took me a while to acclimatise to the nonsensical abstraction of AC. The Warhammer approach (copied over into WFRP) makes much more intuitive sense. Amour affects how much damage a hit does (as, for that matter, does strength), not whether the hit is likely to hit. I get that it's all a gamey abstraction; but D&D already has a 'roll to hit/roll to wound' distinction. Which makes it even weirder to me that they moved part of what, conceptually, belongs to the damage roll into the 'to hit' roll.

 

[Reynard]

Alluded to earlier in the thread, but one thing that bugs me is Armour Class, as a concept.

I grew up playing Warhammer, and only came to D&D as an adult. It took me a while to acclimatise to the nonsensical abstraction of AC. The Warhammer approach (copied over into WFRP) makes much more intuitive sense. Amour affects how much damage a hit does (as, for that matter, does strength), not whether the hit is likely to hit. I get that it's all a gamey abstraction; but D&D already has a 'roll to hit/roll to wound' distinction. Which makes it even weirder to me that they moved part of what, conceptually, belongs to the damage roll into the 'to hit' roll.

One potential problem with armor as damage reduction is that you have to make room for the kinds of weapons and effects that bypass the armor (totally or partially). For example, chainmail is much less effective against bludgeoning attacks than piercing attacks, and warhammers (not the big fantasy mauls but the actual medieval weapons) were designed specifically to punch through plate mail. D&D combat just isn't fiddly enough to bother with all that and so making armor into DR is going to end up unbalanced and even less realistic than it already is.

 

[prabe]

One potential problem with armor as damage reduction is that you have to make room for the kinds of weapons and effects that bypass the armor (totally or partially). For example, chainmail is much less effective against bludgeoning attacks than piercing attacks, and warhammers (not the big fantasy mauls but the actual medieval weapons) were designed specifically to punch through plate mail. D&D combat just isn't fiddly enough to bother with all that and so making armor into DR is going to end up unbalanced and even less realistic than it already is.

To an extent, this was the purpose for the "Weapons vs. AC" tables in 1E (and maybe in 2E--I didn't play that enough to say for sure), which everyone that I know of mostly ignored.

 

[turnip_farmer]

One potential problem with armor as damage reduction is that you have to make room for the kinds of weapons and effects that bypass the armor (totally or partially). For example, chainmail is much less effective against bludgeoning attacks than piercing attacks, and warhammers (not the big fantasy mauls but the actual medieval weapons) were designed specifically to punch through plate mail. D&D combat just isn't fiddly enough to bother with all that and so making armor into DR is going to end up unbalanced and even less realistic than it already is.

Not sure why this should be seen as a problem. All the issues you mention exist with the AC system; they're not new problems created by counting armour's effect only in the damage phase. I don't get how you find it less realistic. Chainmail is equally effective against all attacks in both approaches.

If you did want to solve the issue of different weapons effecting armour differently, though, it's easier to do that if the effect of armour is not wrapped into one number together with how quickly you dodge. They do this in WFRP, although for some reason longbows are effective at piercing armour while crossbows aren't. Maybe someone will explain to me that this is in reality accurate, but it seems odd to me.

 

[el-remmen]

To an extent, this was the purpose for the "Weapons vs. AC" tables in 1E (and maybe in 2E--I didn't play that enough to say for sure), which everyone that I know of mostly ignored.

We used a variation on this that we houseruled all the way into 3.XE. Everyone wearing armor had five possible ACs: Slashing, Piercing, Blunt, Touch and Flat-footed (and I guess a sixth would be flat-footed touch). Thus some wearing chain shirt (and no dex bonus) would have a basic AC of 16/14/12 (slashing/piercing/blunt).

 

[turnip_farmer]

We used a variation on this that we houseruled all the way into 3.XE. Everyone wearing armor had five possible ACs: Slashing, Piercing, Blunt, Touch and Flat-footed (and I guess a sixth would be flat-footed touch). Thus some wearing chain shirt (and no dex bonus) would have a basic AC of 16/14/12 (slashing/piercing/blunt).

This sounds like the kind of idea I would love in principle but never remember to keep track of in practice. Like most of my failed houserules.

 

[Minigiant]

Alluded to earlier in the thread, but one thing that bugs me is Armour Class, as a concept.

I grew up playing Warhammer, and only came to D&D as an adult. It took me a while to acclimatise to the nonsensical abstraction of AC. The Warhammer approach (copied over into WFRP) makes much more intuitive sense. Amour affects how much damage a hit does (as, for that matter, does strength), not whether the hit is likely to hit. I get that it's all a gamey abstraction; but D&D already has a 'roll to hit/roll to wound' distinction. Which makes it even weirder to me that they moved part of what, conceptually, belongs to the damage roll into the 'to hit' roll.

It's essentially the same.

Warhammer just has lower "Hits" so more importance is put on avoiding a wound. So Armor avoids a wound instead of avoiding a hit that causes a wound. Especially in the war game, the defender drop like flies if they actually get hurt. Heroes shift their wounds to cannon folder. In the RPG, you are the fodder.

In D&D, stronger heroes and characters actually take their hits. But hits come with tons of riders Avoiding being hit is a lot more important.

 

[Greg K]

Here's another thing that bugs me


Everyone has a version of the longsword and the battleaxe. Only Dwarves and Orcs culturally would develop and train with a double-ax. Humans, elves, hobgoblins, rabbitfolk, and snipped would not.

Really? Everyone? It was not historically true among cultures in our own world and there is no reason for it to be true in all fantasy worlds.