What are the biggest rules debates?

[billd91]

No, the rules say you have to move "directly toward" not "slightly to the side of". In other words, you must move in a path that would end with you running into the opponent. That's what "directly toward" means in plain English.

The trouble is, being for a game with abstracted combat, D&D rules aren't plain English. They are meant to be interpreted with the rest of the structure of the rules. To that end, if there are 3 or more squares that, by the rules, conform to being closest in the practical terms of being the fewest number of movement points away (the only reasonable means of measuring distance in the grid), then all of them count to being "directly toward".
They also have the benefit of potentially making a ride-by attacks possible or even knights tilting at a list (to be more concrete), something your interpretation does not allow.

 

[Scion]

The clarification about the spontaneous metamatic spells full round action being different from a 1 round casting time wasn't in the 3.0 version of the rules. Created lots of trouble because all 1 round casting times took a full round action to accomplish.

Ahh.. so it was a problem with people not bothering to look up the definition of actions. Ok

 

[Storm Raven]

I personally have some issues with the rules for AoO, but not enough to really get bent out of shape like some of the guys in my group do. Gads...it can get ugly.

You are still being quite opaque. The rules for AoO, especially the rules for AoOs from movement, are trivially easy to remember. Where does the problem lie?

 

[The Grackle]

1. Ring of Sustenance vs. Vampiric hunger – does it work?

Undead do not sleep, breathe, or eat. So vampires don't have to drink blood, they just like to.

 

[Deset Gled]

You are still being quite opaque. The rules for AoO, especially the rules for AoOs from movement, are trivially easy to remember. Where does the problem lie?

Not to be insulting, but I would bet the problem lies in the fact that previous editions of D+D didn't have AoOs in them.

Sometimes I think it's important to remember that for every person out there who sees a rule and wants to change it because it isn't balanced, doesn't make sense, is mechanically clumsy, or is just plain inconsistent, there's going to be at least one other person out there who will fight to the death about not changing the rule, because that rule is how D+D is supposed to be played, and is vitally important to the spirit of the game. Sometimes, I truly do pity game designers (not that often, though )

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

You are still being quite opaque. The rules for AoO, especially the rules for AoOs from movement, are trivially easy to remember. Where does the problem lie?

It has nothing at all to do with the complexity of the rules. They just HATE AoO's, though some less than others. Doesn't matter if they're the ones attacking or being attacked. I've never even gotten a clear answer from them as to why, either.

 

[dcollins]

You are still being quite opaque. The rules for AoO, especially the rules for AoOs from movement, are trivially easy to remember. Where does the problem lie?

Perhaps for a hard-core gamer. I had a close friend, but a casual gamer, who ran several warrior characters perfectly well, but could never-ever-ever remember the rules for AOOs.

You can get pretty far in D&D knowing "in a round I can move, and attack, and roll a d20 when I do". But the AOO need to analyze this-space/that-space/out-of-another-space/who's-got-reach is really a different story, as I've witnessed.

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

...if there are 3 or more squares that, by the rules, conform to being closest in the practical terms of being the fewest number of movement points away (the only reasonable means of measuring distance in the grid), then all of them count to being "directly toward".

I agree that that is the only way to measure game distance, but just because two paths are the same distance does not necessarily mean that they are both "directly toward" the same object. It sounds like you're focusing on "closest space" while I am focusing on "directly toward".

Long and short of it, I cannot find anything in the rules that definitively proves you or Hyp or Patryn wrong, because "directly toward" is never clearly defined in the rules. It really is a matter of how one interprets that phrase. So, I guess Rule Zero is in effect. Too bad Rule Zero didn't make it to 3.5!

They also have the benefit of potentially making a ride-by attacks possible or even knights tilting at a list (to be more concrete), something your interpretation does not allow.

Ride-by is definitely possible by my interpretation. In fact, I am arguing that ride-by paths and charge paths are mutually exclusive. There are paths that you can use for ride by, and there are paths that you can use for charging, but there exists no path that allows you to choose between the two.

BTW, tilting is ride-by.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

Perhaps for a hard-core gamer. I had a close friend, but a casual gamer, who ran several warrior characters perfectly well, but could never-ever-ever remember the rules for AOOs.

You can get pretty far in D&D knowing "in a round I can move, and attack, and roll a d20 when I do". But the AOO need to analyze this-space/that-space/out-of-another-space/who's-got-reach is really a different story, as I've witnessed.

My experience has been different. In the game I currently play in--which started a bit over a year ago--our druid is played by a girl who'd never played D&D before. She's not a "hard-core" gamer. Pretty much, she spends minimal (if any) time outside of the game thinking about it. But she's managed to catch onto the concept of AoOs fairly quickly. I have to agree with Storm Raven on this one.

 

[molonel]

Flanking with ranged weapons.

I know you're right, and people like to debate about that, but it is still a mystery to me how there is any debate about this.

There is a small, yet potentially significant, change in the wording of the Flanking rules in the conversion from 3.0 to 3.5. The line, "If a character is making a melee attack against an opponent, and an ally directly opposite the character is threatening the opponent, the character and the character's ally flank the opponent." was omitted. Accordingly, the only way to determine whether or not someone is flanking became: When in doubt about whether two friendly characters flank an opponent in the middle, trace an imaginary line between the two friendly characters’ centers. If the line passes through opposite borders of the opponent’s space (including corners of those borders), then the opponent is flanked. Some believe that the melee-only part is understood, and the whole argument is hogwash. Others, like me, believe that this change results in the likely-unintended consequence of allowing flanking at range.

Except that missile weapons don't have a threat area, which makes the whole question moot.

If someone runs through your line of sight, you don't get an AoO on them just because you are wielding a longbow.