What rules don't work?

[Vanye]

Also combat in general is often just standing there and trading blows, while combat normally is more maneuvering and movement and less attacking. However, there is often no advantage in maneuvering ('cept flanking and cutting off retreat), and more often even a disadvantage (AoO).

While it's not spelled out in the rules as such, I've always thought that the "5ft square" you control in combat is related to the moving in a fight. You don't just stand in one spot, you take a few steps forward, a few back, a step to the left, you put your knees inside (Sorry, channeld Rocky Horror for a sec...).

You are moving back and forth, but the game just simplifies it to "you take 5ft of space in combat."

 

[Slife]

The trap-making rules as presented in the SRD need a lot of work. Doubly so for the magic trap making rules.

 

[RFisher]

That makes sense if we are thinking of D&D as a mass combat system where we do not really care if the "removed figure" is dead or merely disabled.

It is odd that someone taken out of the fight is almost always extremely close to death. Which seems to be the opposite of realism, as you are describing realism here.

In my classic D&D campaign, I'm currently using a house rule where hp don't really reflect physical damage at all. (In fact, 8 hours of rest fully restores hp.) Once you've reached zero hp, though, every hit thereafter has a chance of causing an injury or death. (Not so different from Warhammer FRP--at least the original version.) So, you can get taken out of a fight without really being close to death.

Although, I can't say I've been entirely happy with it. It's only really come into play once, which ended with a PC losing an arm. There was another time when it might have, but the monster was doing non-physical damage.