D&D General War- What's it Good For? How to Handle Rules Conflicts

[Lazybones]

These threads are mostly just reminding me of how much better modern D&D is than it was in the Olden Days (IMHO, YMMV, etc.). Is my Discord full of rules discussions that go into dozens of pages on the minutiae of the 5.0/5.5e rulesets? Yes. Do the current rules make more sense than the 1e rules? Also yes.

 

[Silam]

If there's one thing we all know, it's that the only thing more satisfying than a dead elf is two dead bards.

I’m a fan of elves myself, but I hate bards sufficiently to be onboard with this statement nonetheless

Great post, as usual

 

[FrogReaver]

Elves were the original Bards. Discuss?

 

[Byrd]

Elves were the original Bards. Discuss?

The Hin of the Five Shires might disagree.

 

[MGibster]

No game has the prolixity of a legal code, and if it did, we wouldn't want to play it. Moreover, the more complexity that is added to explain things and handles different situations, the more likely there is to be an unintended rules conflict.

You really hurt GURPS' feelings with this gratuitous attack. (Star Fleet Battles is waiting in line too.)

Moreover, the more complexity that is added to explain things and handles different situations, the more likely there is to be an unintended rules conflict.

There's a board game called Carcassonne that I used to love playing. It's a relatively simple game that's quick and fun to play and I started snapping up every expansion for it. The first two expansions made the game fun to play, but the ones after that made the game play too clunky and it just wasn't fun any more. So I stopped buying expansions and just stuck to the first two they released.

"Boardgames aren't RPGs" you say? Darn it! I'm using some poetic license here. It's true, the more rules you add the more likely you are to have unintended consequences. No doubt the 2nd edition folks didn't mean for the Book of Complete Elves to introduce the terrible Bladesinger Kit. I wonder if D&D has another problem these days. Some of us are so entrenched with our idea of what D&D is that we might fail to take into account what the rules actually are.

 

[Milieu]

Elves and spirits: I have occasionally wondered if is an unexcised artifact from before the D&D/AD&D schism.

If elves were meant to be loosely associated with the elemental/inner planes instead of the outer planes, and raise dead targets the outer planes...

The spirit/soul divide could also partially explain the BECMI elf's immunity to undead paralysis* (you ain't got a soul to suck, 'cause yer a spirit...) instead of sleep/charm.

I don't know if the soul/spirit thing is specifically addressed, but I do know the OD&D Raise Dead says "This spell works with men, elves, and dwarves only." It excludes halflings.

I think from 2e on elves could not be raised but resurrected. But the cost for a raise was harsh and you had to roll a percentile dice to see if it worked and permanently lost a point of con if i remember right. I cannot recall if ressurection also had these limitations.

In 2e, Raise Dead still excluded elves from the list but added "(other creatures may be allowed at the DM's option)". And you're right that it requires a resurrection survival roll (percentile chance based on Con) and permanently reduces their Con by 1. And they are at 1 HP, AND they are helpless until they get at least 1 full day of bed rest for each day they were dead, rounded up.

Resurrection explicitly says it "is able restore life and complete strength to any living creature, including elves". The resurrection survival roll is still required, but it does not reduce the target's Con and they come back with full HP; instead, the caster pays a price: aging by 3 years and requiring 1 day of bed rest for each level (or HD) of the target.

And apparently the result of Die, Vecna, Die! was to give 3e elves souls. (And apart from True Resurrection, the cost of coming back to life was standardized to 1 level, or 1 point of Con if you're level 1.)

 

[Silam]

You really hurt GURPS' feelings with this gratuitous attack. (Star Fleet Battles is waiting in line too.)

I never played GURPS but this comment intrigued me. For a hot second I had a thought to learn more about it. Until…

No doubt the 2nd edition folks didn't mean for the Book of Complete Elves to introduce the terrible Bladesinger Kit.

Takes off gauntlet and SLAP

Ok, now I see why this thread is titled War. This is it.

The 2e Bladesinger was the best ever and all editions afterwards have been in an eternal struggle to try and match its beauty, both in terms of flair and potency.

Only someone jealous of their might would fail to appreciate them

 

[Willie the Duck]

In 2e, Raise Dead still excluded elves from the list but added "(other creatures may be allowed at the DM's option)". And you're right that it requires a resurrection survival roll (percentile chance based on Con) and permanently reduces their Con by 1. And they are at 1 HP, AND they are helpless until they get at least 1 full day of bed rest for each day they were dead, rounded up.

Resurrection explicitly says it "is able restore life and complete strength to any living creature, including elves". The resurrection survival roll is still required, but it does not reduce the target's Con and they come back with full HP; instead, the caster pays a price: aging by 3 years and requiring 1 day of bed rest for each level (or HD) of the target.

In addition, that caster who just took the aging hit has to make a system shock or they will die. Either way, "a character‘s initial Constitution score is the absolute limit to the number of times the Character Can be raised or resurrected from death."

 

[Mannahnin]

As usual, your posts are insightful and a pleasure to read. That said, I'm not convinced of this.

The PHB came out a bit more than a year before the DMG did, so there's a non-zero chance that those three wands were moved into the "any" category after the PHB went to print.

Concur. I think this the third strong possibility, and I'd be inclined to let Illusionists use them in my own campaign under an interpretation doctrine that where the DMG (later published) conflicts with the PH, DMG takes precedence.

The 2e Bladesinger was the best ever and all editions afterwards have been in an eternal struggle to try and match its beauty, both in terms of flair and potency.

Only someone jealous of their might would fail to appreciate them

I was a deep-dyed elf lover who couldn't stand the Complete Book of Elves and what it did to them, and has thus never played a Bladesinger despite the concept practically having been written for me. :/

 

[Lanefan]

To the long OP there's a one word answer: kitbash.

When there's a rules conflict (and as noted, there were some big ones!), it's on the DM to bash those rules into shape and-or change them in order to make the game be something s/he wants to run and the players want to play. Further, it's also on the DM to write these new rules out, and then stick to them.

As for the specific examples: the Elves-can't-be-revived rule struck me as dumb right from day one, so it's 40-years gone. What IME more often prevents Elves from revival is their usually-poor Constitution* which gives them a lower resurrection survival chance. Hasn't raised any balance issues so far.

Illusionist item restrictions also never made sense; they're a sub-class of Magic-User and thus should be able to use anything a MU can use, just like the Fighter subclasses can use anything a Fighter can use.

* - and it gets poorer each time they revive!