D&D General Things That Bug You

[el-remmen]

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.

We found it a lot easier to say "I hit AC 16 Blunt" and then compare against the target's Blunt AC than to do it as the rules suggested and be like I am using a blunt weapon and you are using a chain shirt, thus I get +2 more to hit you.

We used those rules for like 13 years.

 

[Minigiant]

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.

D&D typically doesn't display or represent real world cultures that don't have swords in it's settings.

 

[fearsomepirate]

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.

Pfff next you'll be telling me you didn't check for infectious disease every month based on an assessment of the past 4 weeks' weather conditions and social interactions.

 

[jasper]

Who wants realism in their fantasy game?

I want the Job of Dragon pooper scooper for my one horse town. Said Daffy Duck.

 

[Reynard]

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.

One of the reasons "martial" characters were seen as less interesting in the AD&D era was that people ignored all the rules that made them interesting. Weapon types vs AC, weapon lengths, weapon speeds, etc.. all added depth to the martial aspect of the game, and fighters especially were useful because they could potentially use all of the weapons. But people did not like keeping track of that stuff so the only things that mattered for weapons were damage and range (and maybe handedness for shield use). This basically nerfed one of the fighters' most important abilities.

Of course all that stuff was leftover from the wargaming roots of D&D and I'm not saying people were wrong to ditch it for faster, more cinematic combat. I am just saying it had an impact that was rarely compensated for.

 

[Lanefan]

Dragon flight isn't realistic? I don't care, I can relate to flying dragon as an accepted fact from all the images I've seen and stories I've read.

Once you've seen a 747 get into the air, relating to dragon flight stops being an issue.

 

[Laurefindel]

Once you've seen a 747 get into the air, relating to dragon flight stops being an issue.

Heh, I mostly included that because it keeps being used as an example of the futility of realism.

But honestly, dragons in GoT, Harry Potter, and even the classic Disney Maleficent transformed as a dragon, don’t look that blatantly unrealistic to me. I can buy that those can fly.

(it also betrays my preference for four-limbed dragons rather than winged, four-legged heraldic dragons)

 

[Faolyn]

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.

I dunno. I played GURPS for a long time and I found few things as frustrating as a player than getting a solid hit in only for it to get soaked by the armor.

I just assume that, for D&D, you frequently hit on "misses," its just that the armor absorbs the damage. Which is the same thing as having armor reduce damage, but without having to make the damage die roll.

 

[JEB]

I just assume that, for D&D, you frequently hit on "misses," its just that the armor absorbs the damage. Which is the same thing as having armor reduce damage, but without having to make the damage die roll.

4E's "damage on a miss" powers certainly back up this assumption.

 

[pogre]

5e - Wall of Force - I know all of the official rulings on it, but I still find it a troublesome spell.
3.x e - Mordenkainen's Disjunction - perhaps the most unfun spell in the history of D&D.