What rules don't work?

[sniffles]

Conversly, I'd rather take away iterative weapon attacks than add iterative natural attacks. High level D&D can already involve huge numbers of attacks on both sides. The lastthing it needs is to give them more.

glass.

That's an interesting thought. I wouldn't personally want to remove multiple attacks, but they do have certain drawbacks. My group has noticed that at higher levels there is a tendency for characters to just stand in one spot and keep pounding on the same opponent until that enemy falls, then move on to the next. It makes for a very static combat. When characters only have one attack per round there seems to be a greater tendency to move between attacks, even when the enemy hasn't gone down yet.

Perhaps it would be better to limit the number of attacks per round to a maximum, say 4. But I can see where introducing this idea as a house rule would be really difficult.

 

[DrZombie]

Funny, this. one group clamoring for less complicated rules and more DM freedom, and the other group yelling for more rules....

The beauty of D&D is that it's D20. For most problems posed here about combat someone, somewhere has made a ruling or a different subsystem. You want to have a health bar instead of HP? Go grim 'n gritty. DR instead of increased AC? OGL ancients or Conan. Unearthed Arcana or Arcana Unearthed. The system is completely adaptable.

And some problems described are player problems, not system problems.


2 cents

 

[boredgremlin]

The grappling rules aren't hard per se, they're just clunky. I would like them to be more streamlined and offer more options (sounds like a contradiction, eh?) I am thinking of options concerning things other than just pinning, such as lifting/throwing, chokeholds, injury to limbs, rendering them unusable...

We made grapple a skill, instead of using your unarmed attack bonus. Its modified by either STR or DEX. You make a touch attack to grab them and make opposed grapple skill checks for whatever you want to do.
The unarmed damage is done as a skill check. 1d3 +1 per 4 pts you beat your opponents roll. Or you can do temporary ability damage of 1 +1 per 5 pts your beat your opponents grapple check. You can affect STR or DEX. If you totally reduce a score to zero then you broke a limb and its useless. Choking requires a fort save from the opponent. With a DC equal to your skill check or you pass out for 2d4 rounds.
Throwing has two categories. High throws and low throws.
a) high throws./ Your character must make a touch attack to grapple then have enough STR to life the opponent over his head (from the encumbrance table). You can throw the opponent 2 ft+ 3 ft per point of strength bonus. Or slam them on the ground for either 1d8 or 1d10 depending on whether the ground is soft or hard. This addes 200% your STR bonus.
b) low throws./ anyone can do a low throw. Its like a hip toss or a side suplex. You slam the opponent for either 1d4 or 1d6 damage depending on the ground plus 150% of your STR bonus.
We also use armor as soak. Being slammed is like falling, an armors soak is ignored for damage.
Hope it gives you a base for what you want in grappling.

 

[mmadsen]

Modern humans are significantly healthier than anyone in a pre-industrial world. Improvements in diet, medical technology, and so on have made modern humans bigger and stronger than in the past.

Modern humans are bigger and stronger than pre-industrial-but-post-agricultural humans. The fossil evidence points to tall, strong humans up until the development of agriculture -- after which only the aristocratic classes remained tall and strong.

 

[penance]

Make 'em d12s . . .

Ha. I just felt that I had to reply to this (and i havent even read the whole thread.. bad me!)

anyways, here ya go. (from order of the stick)

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c83/penance_of_discord/Justcuzimcoollikethat/d12.jpg

as far as HP's go, i agree; they dont work. vp/wp = awesome.

not to say that that system doesnt ahve it's own problems, but i guess nothing's perfect.

 

[Lanefan]

Annoying rules:

Grapple: on the few occasions it's come up, we just wing it completely (and rather simplistically).

Spells: damage caps are annoying. A fireball from a 20th-level wizard *should* hurt. A lot. Other than that, lots of minor annoyances, easily (though time-consumingly) houseruled.

Multiclassing: far too easy to "dip". I'd rather see a rule something like "no class may be less than half the level of your highest-level class"; where someone picks up a class later only the new class could advance till it caught up. Oh, and no more than two classes per character, ever.

Prestige classes: instead of having them as separate classes, make them add-ons to a base class...a branch, if you like. This'd be more flexible, I think, in the long run.

Spells again: do away with pre-memorization; make all casters work more like Sorcerors do now (and then do away with Sorceror as a class as it becomes redundant).

Skills: should never be useable as a substitute for role-playing; Bluff, Diplomacy, etc. need to be re-written in such a way as to hammer this point home. Some other skills can be combined (Spot-Listen = Perception, for example).

Simplify where possible: too many variables on something as simple as to-hit and damage make combat take far longer than it should.

General tone: one pre-designed character sheet I saw the other night didn't get to character description (height, weight, hair colour, etc.) until page 4! To me, this just emphasizes that imagination and personality have taken too much of a back seat to hard numbers...

There's more, but this'll do for now.

Lanefan

 

[Psion]

So, who wants to start a pool on how long it takes Ryan to rename his raised thread...

 

[DungeonMaester]

The only rules I have a problem with are the ones for every small detail, such as sundering and magic and other small things.

Rule of thumb is: Dm makes the jugment call. Flexability always players to seek more creative combats attacks, while not being game breaking.

Varouis little rules, in the hands of Dm. Problem solved.

I'll compile a 'complete' list of dumb small rules if at all possible.

---Rusty

 

[RFisher]

I have NEVER liked armor as a means to make you harder to hit. Armor should absorb damage. Period.

First, with all the abstractions going on with D&D, you can't really say that armor in the game makes you harder to hit. The "to hit" roll & the "damage roll" have never really been meant to discretely simulate the things they are named after.

Second, even in less abstract games, it's all a wash. All that matter is whether damage is inflicted, not where in the formula each variable falls.

In fact, in my experience, the "harder to hit" kind of mechanics tend to work better than the "damage absorbing" mechanics.

(At least, for my definition of "work".)

3) Up or down - You never show the effects of your injuries until 0 hp. Until then, you receive no penalties. Any after a knock down drag out fight, you usually are just spiffy the next day.

This is actually pretty realistic. Research has shown that combatants tend to be fully effective until the moment they are rendered ineffective. (...which doesn't necessarily mean dead or even knocked out. You just aren't a significant factor in the combat anymore.) A damaged-but-still-partially-effective combatant is the exception rather than the rule.

(Well, at least that's what the research I've read said. I'll fully admit that all I really know about real life combat is what I've read.)

And that's not even considering the fact that most people I've known find death-spiral systems the opposite of fun.

 

[blargney the second]

1) Combatants tend to be fully effective until the moment they are rendered ineffective.
2) And that's not even considering the fact that most people I've known find death-spiral systems the opposite of fun.

1) I can believe that.
2) Given the choice between death spiral and no death spiral, I much prefer a game without it. I like it when games give underdogs a chance to catch up.