D&D General What term or rule really confused you, when you first started playing?

[Marc_C]

I didn't understand how attacking and negative AC worked. I couldn't put the pieces of the puzzle together. Luckily I met a guy who knew how to play D&D.

What term or rule really confused you, when you first started playing?

 

[LordEntrails]

The inch symbols on spells. And that an inch was different (?) depending if you were in inside or outside. i.e. why did a fireball have a different diameter depending upon if you cast it inside or outside?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I agree with Lord Entrails- the absolute hardest initially was the distances, expressed in inches, that varied from indoor to outdoor.

Other things I remember-

1. The weapons table in PHB. You didn't have the internet to look those things up. Why can't a cleric use a lucern (sic) hammer?

2. Level. Character level. Spell level. Dungeon level (which also was, kinda sorta, CR). There were more levels than a construction site.

Weirdly, the negative AC thing always made more sense to me. Intuitively, for whatever reason, I always thought that the AC should go down.

 

[univoxs]

Way back in the day Caster Level confused me. I got muddled between Caster Level and Spell Level. The function of picking two domains was confusing to me once upon a time. We used to get AoO all wrong and played that way for a long time. Anyone moving INTO combat got one whacked for free unless they did it in a single 5 foot move. Made for a much deadlier game I will tell you that.

 

[Yora]

When I first encountered AD&D 22 years ago, I couldn't wrap my head around how you make attacks rolls.
I still don't know why inverted armor class even exists.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Armor Class going lower as it gets better.

 

[Maxperson]

I didn't understand how attacking and negative AC worked. I couldn't put the pieces of the puzzle together. Luckily I met a guy who knew how to play D&D.

What term or rule really confused you, when you first started playing?

Hit points and Hit Dice. I conflated them through a misreading of the rule. I couldn't understand why they'd print that a Hippogriff had 3+3 when they could have just told me that it had 6 hit points. I figured it out fairly quickly, but the players had a pretty easy time for a bit.

 

[Davies]

When I first encountered AD&D 22 years ago, I couldn't wrap my head around how you make attacks rolls.
I still don't know why inverted armor class even exists.

First class armor is better than second or third class armor; thus armor class 1 is better than armor class 2 or 3.

I didn't say it was a good reason.

 

[Yora]

Minus fourth class is better than zeroth class.

 

[aco175]

THAC0 math did take a bit, but seemed to make sense once you got used to it. Until 3e when I had the A-HA moment with d20 simplification.

Never got used to swing speed so we never used it, but still used caster time for longer spells. That and trying to disrupt spells caused a lot of arguments in 2e.