Wait, is THAT how that works?!

[Ancalagon]

When playing 1e, 1” of distance was 10 feet underground and 10 yards above ground. This was his weapon and spell ranges worked. However, I mistakenly thought it applied to spell areas too. We had really big fireballs.

that's roughly the equivalent of summoning a plane that drops a bomb on an area... wow.

 

[Iry]

My first DM made us roll percentage dice every time we cast a spell to see if it failed. Not a save, just a general fizzle chance.

 

[Fromost the Grimm]

First ever session, first ever character -- half-elf ranger -- got hit by the evil cleric's spell and took damage, the DM flavoured it up by saying my character's blood heated up and turned to lava!

As a newbie player, this freaked me out a little. This was my first ever play of the game, and my character's blood had been turned to lava! A death sentence, surely?

The party Cleric suggested he cast Cure Light Wounds on my Ranger. I argued against this, as I didn't see my character's blood being turned to lava as a light wound ...

 

[Nytmare]

In either 1e or basic D&D as kids we thought "Turn Undead" meant turn into one, of the type that the cleric was high enough level to turn.

In college, just after 3rd Ed came out, one of my friends played their first cleric, walked up to some random human enemy, exclaimed "I turn undead!", and held his character sheet out triumphantly to show everyone the awesome special ability he had that we had all obviously missed. He was in that same boat, and thought that it would let him turn into a zombie or something.

No idea how he managed to make it that long without ever noticing one of the numerous clerics he had adventured with use the term.

 

[cbwjm]

Because I don't really pay too much attention to high level class abilities (too busy seeing what lower level characters can do), I only found out today that a wizard's spell mastery feature requires them to prepare the 1st and 2nd level spell, i had thought they were always prepared. Not sure if I got the signature spells ability mixed up with it or if I never really read the ability properly.

 

[Musing Mage]

When playing 1e, 1” of distance was 10 feet underground and 10 yards above ground. This was his weapon and spell ranges worked. However, I mistakenly thought it applied to spell areas too. We had really big fireballs.

There are people who still argue this point even though it's clearly incorrect. One guy on another site even argues that you increase AoE to outdoor scale and to 'prove' his position he cites a blog link that discusses it, written by HIM, wherein he states everyone else is wrong and he is right, then cites a Dragon Magazine article as proof... but reading the article (by Gary Gygax) clearly states you keep the AoE to indoor scale.

There are special circumstances under which you alter the AoE, but yes, it mostly stays in the 1" = 10 ft scale.

As for my 'D'oh' moment...

RoF during surprise in 1st Ed... One passage in the DMG states that if you're prepared with missile fire ready and you gain surprise, you triple your RoF. And since during surprise, melee actions are 1 segment = 1 round, I had been playing missile fire the same way... So yes, it was strange that an archer could get 6 shots in a single 6-second segment... Suddenly all archers became Lars Anderson!

It wasn't until later when I realized (even though the DMG is silent on this point) that the triple RoF is meant for the whole ROUND, not each surprise segment...

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Running 1st level PC's through a bar fight with Holmes edition. DM had given one of the patrons a wand of fireballs.
"It does HOW MUCH damage? That CAN'T be right... It would kill EVERYTHING! Okay, we'll say it only does that much at the center and the damage reduces by 1d6 for every 5' further from the center you are."
It still killed everybody.

 

[MarkB]

My first DM made us roll percentage dice every time we cast a spell to see if it failed. Not a save, just a general fizzle chance.

That is actually a thing in some editions - 3.5e specifically, from my experience - but only if you're an arcane spellcaster who's wearing armour.