What rules don't work?

[D-rock]

that's just in HUMANS, so I think it should be impossible to win a grapple with a dragon,
that being said, I do like to use the tactical feat from complete warrior that lets you climb on a big enemy.

I agree, aginst colassal monsters you should have next to no chance of winning a grapple. So the fact that they have huge bonuses for size and their raised strenght dosn't bother me.

Swallow whole I don't mind either.

Most of the other stuff on this thread I thinks comes down to the fact that no set of rules can become a reality simulator. I think we have a choice of either leting our DMs try to fairly interpret situations that are too far away from reality for their taste, or just excepting the imperfections in the system as a cost of playing the game.

If somebody is holding a knife to your throat make him suffer a cou de grace if it gets slit.

If you are bull rushing multiple opponents have the check aginst the person with the highest modifier and add bonuses for each additional person your trying to go through.

Don't make Natural Armor and regular armar stack if you don't want it to.

Makeing fighting rules that were totally realistic would require a more complicated game than this and that would just covered nothing but combat and it still wouldn't be realistic.
Some of the problems don't seem to be hard to get around, perhaps its just holding iron clad to the rules when they don't make sense thats the problem. Although, I don't have players that through a fit if something is slightly altered either, so it might be different for me.

 

[D-rock]

Oh, my God! What a group of halflings with brass ones those would be!

The Victual Brigade!

They would be the Gutbuster Brigade...........literaly

 

[Telas]

Great, now everyone has 5 ranks of Tumble. It's just like the days of 2e nonweapon proficiencies.

See other section re: Tumble. I think Tumble is hugely powerful for a skill with a set DC. The best test to see if something is too powerful is to see how many characters in the RPGA have it. (Tumble, Spiked Chain, etc. Note: Not all RPGA players are munchkins, but IME the best examples hail from there.)

The more I play 3.x, the more I realize that the rules-set as a whole doesn't work.

The key to getting 3.x to work is the same as for getting any system to work: have a quality DM. WotC tried to get the DM out of the equation by providing rules for everything, but they've unleashed a whole new generation of rules lawyers:

"I trip him and get my AoO as he falls. When he gets up, I'll trip and AoO him again." (Subsequently fixed to preclude this by reinterpreting Trip and AoOs while getting up.)

"What do you mean I can't long-jump over a fourty foot gap? The rules say I can!" (The world record long jump is under 30 feet, and they're not carrying any gear.)

"I'll just jump off the cliff. It's only fifty feet, and I've got 30 hit points; I should make it."

"Delay your action and wait for me to get over there, then shift five to here, so that we can gang up on the guard and keep him from moving. That way the rogue can get to the spell caster and keep him from casting any spells."
"No, I'll attack, and if you walk over this way, we can flank him without me shifting five, and I can attack now."
"But if you attack now, you won't get the bonus from flanking, and if you shift five, you're blocking him better. And it opens up a clearer path for the rogue to get to the spell caster."
(In six seconds, while you're fighting.)

Telas, Keeper of the One-Minute Combat-Action Decision Timer, and Enforcer of the Six-Second Talk Limit.

 

[Gez]

So under your house rule, if you've only taken "luck/dodge/fatigue" damage from that wyvern, do you have to make a Fortitude save against its poison?

Yep. I said no rules modified. While the sting may not have pierced the skin, the poison may still work just by contact.

 

[Thanee]

On this count, I like the GURPS method. You have one second. Act. OK, you drew a weapon. Next guy. OK, you cast a spell. Next. OK, you moved up to your foe. Next....

I like Midgard. It's similar to D&D (it has 10 second rounds and there is something akin to AoO).

However, it also has a system to break down the 10 seconds into segments of 1 second each, when you need to find out, whether you are fast enough to get somewhere before a spell is finished casting, etc. This level of detail overcomplicates things normally, but sometimes you want it, so they simply offer both.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Psion]

So under your house rule, if you've only taken "luck/dodge/fatigue" damage from that wyvern, do you have to make a Fortitude save against its poison?

That's part of the reason I prefer my rule.

http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=656090&postcount=2

 

[Laman Stahros]

True, this is a little problem... Especially since it means that the healthiest barbarian takes much longer to heal than the sickly elven wizard. That's a bit why I've houseruled Toughness (see the thread about Toughness and Improved Toughness in the Rules forum) to speed up natural healing when you have that feat.

Link, please. Come on, Gez, don't tease!

 

[DonTadow]

I thought about the luck damage thing for a bit, and I even told my players that it makes sense and seems logical to do it like that. There is so much stuff I saw on here and said, man, this is brilliant stuff. Then I got home, popped in God's of War and saw some of the most awesome, fluid, unrealistic combat in the world and said.... this is why. I ended up meeting with a couple of my players about 11pm lastn ight to play heroscape, and they were telling me how much they love maiming and destroying things. I felt kind bad, because my DM quest for realism almost stepped on their idea of the game. As a logical dm I can feel the need for changes in the hp system, but for someone like one of my players who loves to hear how daggers punture lungs and axes sever vertibre, i'm not sure if its always good.

Someone also argued with me (the smart ass medical student in my campaign) that wheras a human body can gain muscles to take more stress, the human immune system actually weakens as we age, despite the muscle factor. ) Taking this into account I guess the hp recovery system makes some bit of since.

 

[LostSoul]

I don't like any rule that says you can't even try to do something.

Example: I want to run down the hallway, taking swings at all those guards as I go.

You can't do that. If you don't have spring attack, you can't even swing your sword once. And you can't even try to do it, with massive penalties or such.

Or trying to get through an occupied space. If you don't have any ranks in Tumble, you can't even try.

I also don't like the jumping off the cliff thing. In a recent game, we got ourselves into deep trouble and I seriously considered jumping off the 70-foot cliff. I was running a 6th level Ranger with 12 Con, and I would have been amazed if I was under 10 hp after the leap.

 

[Kelleris]

I don't like any rule that says you can't even try to do something.

Example: I want to run down the hallway, taking swings at all those guards as I go.

You can't do that. If you don't have spring attack, you can't even swing your sword once. And you can't even try to do it, with massive penalties or such.

Ooh, yeah, this is the only thing that annoys me to distraction. Something simple would be easy to work up anyway, so it irks me that they didn't do it.

"That skill is trained-only, and you have no ranks in it. Take a -4 penalty on the roll and take a shot at it."

"You want to run down the corridor hacking up guards? Well, okay, but you'll be faking four feats (Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, a hypothetical feat that allows multiple attacks), so you take a -16 on all of your attack rolls."

And there should definitely be better guidelines for taking (x) penalty on a skill to pull off some impressive trick, like the ELH stuff, but within sane bonuses and a lot more of them...

(*It has come to my attention that this board requires a : pondering : smiley.)