What D&Disms have you never liked?

[jaerdaph]

Salvatore used existing D&D rules to make the single most famous character in D&D fiction history. The players he inspired did the rest---and since the 2e developers did not enable Drow as a playable race at launch, they shifted 2WF to Rangers instead.

Drizzt was cool. Too Cool for School (Old or otherwise).

Everyone and their brother wanting to play a Drizzt clone PC - not so much.

Might as well have had rules for Drow trench coats and katanas.

 

[Ariosto]

Lack of useful, sensible crafting rules.

Like tables of calculated bonuses and penalties and matrices of calibrated dice-results for macramé and decoupage?

 

[Antithetist]

Salvatore used existing D&D rules to make the single most famous character in D&D fiction history. The players he inspired did the rest---and since the 2e developers did not enable Drow as a playable race at launch, they shifted 2WF to Rangers instead.

So it really does come down to Drizzt. Ho hum. Anyhow, thanks for the answer and the history lesson.

 

[Wormwood]

So it really does come down to Drizzt. Ho hum. Anyhow, thanks for the answer and the history lesson.

Note that I also disliked 2e's dual-wield Ranger rule.

I just didn't think it was iconic enough a D&Dism to call out in this thread.

But since it has survived into every subsequent edition, perhaps I was mistaken

 

[Wormwood]

Everyone and their brother wanting to play a Drizzt clone PC - not so much.

In all fairness, Drizzt's crossover appeal brought two new players into our game---both of whose only exposure to D&D was reading the Dark Elf Trilogy.

 

[Goblyn]

Shields provide very little in the way of protection.

Now, I'm not some H2H combat guru IRL, but this always just seemed ... wrong to me.

Also, to Wormwood: Lol @ your sig.

 

[Antithetist]

Note that I also disliked 2e's dual-wield Ranger rule.

I just didn't think it was iconic enough a D&Dism to call out in this thread.

But since it has survived into every subsequent edition, perhaps I was mistaken

Indeed.

It's not that I have anything against Drizzt as such, I enjoyed those stories back in the day too. It's even reasonable to give players the option of playing a Drizzt clone, if that's what they want to do... I'm not (quite) such an ass that I'd want to deny people the possibility just because I think it's dumb.

It's just the premise that every melee-focused Ranger has to dual-wield that irks me, much as Mercule said in the first place.

 

[Oni]

For me it's the Vancian Magic system. More specifically it's so flavorful and specific that I think it's applied too broadly in D&D (well past editions anyway). If it were limited to one class, or a subset of one class I would appreciate it more, because after all it has flavor, but wizards and clerics both having it just makes it seem weird and awkward to me. Secondly as the predominant spellcasting system in past editions of D&D it has such strong flavor it automatically colours the flavor of any D&D world with its mere presence, it doesn't fade into the background well IMHO.

Also armoured clerics. Why the heck are all all clerics heavily armoured warriors? I never like that particular assumption and feel that niche should have been left to the paladin or allowed via some sort of multiclassing or the like. IMHO unarmoured clerics are a much more rational default assumption.

 

[Mercule]

I just didn't think it was iconic enough a D&Dism to call out in this thread.

But since it has survived into every subsequent edition, perhaps I was mistaken

Yeah. That's why it was only there in my second post. Then I realized it's been part of the game for 21 years (1989) with it being absent only for 15 years (if you go with 1974 for OD&D). Since psionics has always been a tack-on system, the TWF ranger may be more of a D&Dism than psionics is. It's got to be more D&Dist than THAC0 or weapon vs. AC.

 

[The Human Target]

Leveling= New abilities and an increase in numerical power.

I'd much rather gaining a new indicate a gaining of new abilities (powers, feats, class abilities, whatever) but the numbers hardly ever change (so if you have a +7 to hit at 1st level you'll probably have a +7 to hit at 30th.)