What's not fun?

[Reynard]

On save or die, energy drain and other extreme threats from monsters:

There is a certain satisfaction, especially with experienced players, in the looks on the players' faces when you introduce the monster that can make them dead, turn them to stone or suck their hard earned experience levels. That look is far, and it rocks. It makes them play harder and better.

 

[Glyfair]

Besides, buff spells are easy to figure out. Do the Hours long buffs first, the minute longs buff spells just prior to combat, then the round long buff spells, if you even bother, in the first round or two. Simple.

And how simple is it when a dispel magic takes down some of the buffs on a heavily buffed character? Not all, not none, but some.

 

[Greg K]

What's not fun for me..

Races
-having non biological aspects in racial write-ups.: Racial skills, weapon familiarity and combat modifiers verse certain creatures should be seperate from race

-not having cultures as per Rolemaster/HARP: Having culture that grant skills, weapon famialrity and other bonuses seperate from racial biology it easier to customize races by campaign.

-immunities

Classes
-immunities (e.g., paladin's immunity to disease, a monk's immunity to disease (i.e. purity of body) and poison (i.e, diamond body): a deity of poison or disease should have a chance to affect them as should certain powerful monsters using those attack types. Better. imo, to give a really good save bonus, but leave room for failure.

Multiclassing: I dislike the current multiclass rules.
-Jumping between classes: I shouldn't have to jump between classes every level to have a warrior-mage or swashbuckler under the core rules. In my opinion, a class skill selection that remains consistant from level is improtant for verisimilitude in reflecting my character's background training.
-getting the +2 save bonus twice.
-being able to pick up a new class just because I leveled when there is nobody around to train the character or there is no time for the character to have trained.

Skills
-Combined skills
-Removing skill points: As a player, not being able to to determine just how good my character's skills are by spending points or not spending skill points on individual skillsis not fun.


Combat
-not having class defense bonuses so that defense rises without needing magic
-not having armor reduce damage
-not having penalties for hit point loss
-10 hit points for death: I like the death and dying option from UA
- maneuvers that anyone should reasonably be able to try being feats (e.g. throwing sand in someone's eyes)
- maneuvers that a trained person should be able to try being tied to a class and level.

Martial, simple, exotic weapons. I find weapon groups much more fun.

Magic
-Vancian Magic
-Per encounter abilities
-Spells that are reduced in effect by the target's level or hit die


Monster Gimmicks:
Regenerating trolls that require fire or acid to prevent regeneration and, Monsters thresholds. They work great the first time that the player encounters them, but after that the gimmick just wears off.


Monster classes (per savage species)
Blood lines (per UA)
Level loss:

 

[Hussar]

Waiting 45 minutes or more at the beginning of a game session while the players figure out their buff spells and the effects of which buff stacks with what - not fun.

Waiting 15 minutes while a player calculates his attack roll, his AC or his saving throw bonus - not fun.

Spending half an hour or more recalculating everyone's attack bonus, AC, and saves without magic items when in an antimagic zone - not fun.

Checking a dozen different buffs on someone to see which ones are dispelled by a dispel magic - not fun.

Checking a dozen magic items to see which ones are destroyed after being struck by Mordenkainen's disjunction - not fun.

Playing a character who can't seem to ever affect the opponents the party faces - not fun.

Having to carefully calculate treasure division after a session because wealth/magic items are essential for character effectiveness - not fun.


Having all mental control abilities nerfed by the first level spell Protection from Evil - not fun for a DM.


Absolute defenses against whole classes of abilities (such as death ward, freedom of movement, mind blank, true seeing, energy immunity or energy resistance 30, etc.) - not fun

If 4e fixes these things, D&D will definitely be more fun.

QFT. These are definitely things that could do to be changed. Typically, they are only things that happen at high level play, which, hardly coincidentally, people have the most problems with.

I really, really think that low level 4e will look an awful lot like low level 3e. There will be changes, sure, but, the biggest substansive changes will kick in at about 10th level when all the above issues start to become issues.

 

[ArmoredSaint]

Not fun = spending thousands on awesome new armour and the bad guys still hurt you more than 50% of the time. I want armour to do something for you every time you get hit. Armour as DR sounds like a good way of doing that, but I'm intrigued by rumors I hear about armour adding to both your reflex and fortification saves in SWSE and/or 4E.

 

[Nifft]

Armour as DR sounds like a good way of doing that, but I'm intrigued by rumors I hear about armour adding to both your reflex and fortification saves in SWSE and/or 4E.

Armor in SW Saga is interesting, but remember that in SW Saga you have no separate Reflex save -- your Reflex defense is also used against attack rolls, and thus is effectively AC.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Hejdun]

Save or die
Energy drain
Death
Damage
Vanican magic
Running out of resources (spells etc)
Gnomes
Iterative attacks
Sleeping (for new or to change spells)
Hit points
Failing skill checks
Missing attack rolls
Failing saving throws

I've got to totally disagree with your list. Some things are just zero fun (example being Energy drain, which sucks because you're almost guaranteed to lose a ton of experience).

But failing a skill check? Come on, why bother rolling the dice then? If there's no chance of failing at something, where's the fun? Failing a single check or attack or save might suck, but without that chance to fail, nothing would be fun.

I think genuinely un-fun things are:

-Having a character have zero chance of contributing to an encounter in some way. DnD is a game, and if you're sitting there doing nothing, you're not having fun. There's no reason why a player should have no options. I'm glad that in 3.5, damage reduction turned from a "you can't breach it so you're worthless" to a "you can still contribute, just not as much" ability.
-Energy drain sucks for reasons mentioned above. Getting the drained levels back is guaranteed to cost you experience, potentially a LOT of it. Getting energy drained is essentially the same as negating months of playing time for the character. Nothing sucks worse than that.
-Save or die spells suck because there's nothing that you can do to prevent them, and they're far too dependent on luck. Now, spells that take you out of the fight aren't bad, because at least your mates can cover for you. But 'roll a 1 and you're just dead' is just lame.

 

[Shade]

• Rule zero.
• The "5-foot step" being standard for something the size of a fly and something the size of a castle.
• Magic items and spells granting complete immunity to key parts of the game (I'm looking at you, fortification armor property)
• Ray of enfeeblement