Worse Rules that game designers have made?

[Psion]

And the analogy to level limits doesn't work,

Oh, I beg to differ.

in that those varied by race and class.

So does favored class.

My point was, to repeat, that the books are setting down an arbitrary roadblock telling me what I CAN do, instead of allowing me less than optimal choices that may work great for my purposes. The analogy to level limits applies.

 

[Fishbone]

At third level the LevelX2 Cap is the exact same as the Level+3 cap. Where is the problem? And the only thing levelX2 does is release classes from having to spend a bunch of gear on skill boosting equipment at the sacrifice of versatility. I want to try it out. The only thing I can see it being broken for are things like Plants and Aberrations, things that get HD by the bucketful and excel at one or 2 things. But hell, wouldn't it be great if the sneaky aberration could actually get the drop and a surprise round on a party for a change?

 

[delericho]

Absolutely. Without arbitrary restrictions you're going to end up having to allow stupidities like 6-class characters, or lesser evils such as single-level dips that make sense only from a numbers perspective and characterization be damned.

At the risk of sounding snarky: so what? On one level, classes are just a set of mechanical building blocks. Sure, generally they have a flavour associated with them, but the fact is that no matter how many classes are developed for the game, there will always be some characters that cannot be built using a single class, or even a combination of two classes.

So, if a player wants to craft a character with abilities from half a dozen classes, why is that necessarily a bad thing? Such a character will be vastly sub-optimal anyway, and the 'jack-of-all-trades' archetype is just as valid as any other.

I just don't understand this need to impose an arbitrary limit on the number of classes a character can take.

 

[Plane Sailing]

At third level the LevelX2 Cap is the exact same as the Level+3 cap. Where is the problem? And the only thing levelX2 does is release classes from having to spend a bunch of gear on skill boosting equipment at the sacrifice of versatility. I want to try it out. The only thing I can see it being broken for are things like Plants and Aberrations, things that get HD by the bucketful and excel at one or 2 things. But hell, wouldn't it be great if the sneaky aberration could actually get the drop and a surprise round on a party for a change?

I've run a game with this system to try it out, and it has benefits and problems.

For starters it makes statting up NPCs much easier

I found that you still have to put a cap on maximum total ranks of +23 or something, otherwise past 10th level characters get untouchable. The good points of this is that once someone has 20 or so ranks at 10th level, even if they have specialised, they then need to broaden their skill base as they can't progress farther than perfection in their key skills. The other good point is that you can have 10th level specialists give near epic level PCs a run for their money in certain skills without giving the merchants and cutpurses near epic level themselves.

The other bad thing is that the levels of skill amongst party members can vary much, much more widely.

Overall, I don't think the arrangement works all that well, but it does have its attractions.

Cheers

 

[ruleslawyer]

I'd like to see objective XP values for monsters return, calculated like the original AD&D game (perhaps without factoring number of hit points). Keep the CR listing in the statblock as an additional tool for determining difficulty and EL, etc.

Ick. Even 1e didn't use "objective XP values"; the DMG had a (very complicated) rule by which XP was reduced for overly easy encounters.

 

[Pants]

I hated class restrictions by race in previous editions, and I hate 'em now.

How is a small penalty suddenly a 'restriction?'

I see no problem with favored classes, though I wouldn't care if they were to suddenly disappear.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Well, one way to do away with multiclassing barriers and "dipping" is to do away with classes altogether- if the system were more fluid, like HERO, for instance, you could easily build the PC you want...

Of course- that wouldn't quite be D&D, now would it.

OTOH, giving each class a menu of class-specific options available at various levels would make for a great variety of PCs (like what they did with 10+ level Rogues)...especially if they weren't unique to a particular class. Blur the lines, if you will.

For example, the Rogue ability Crippling Strike is pretty cool...but it would work equally well for a Monk, or perhaps a Ranger (for his Favored Enemy only). Perhaps, for those other classes, it would also be a 10th level ability. Perhaps it would be available to other classes at a higher level.

Dipping into spellcasting classes is fairly common. What if the non-spellcasting classes had an ability similar to Extra Spell that would allow them to choose a single spell that they could cast at some minimal level? Your PC doesn't sacrifice his BAB or whatever, but gains a little surprise, like a rogue who can toss a Grease behind him while escaping, or a Fighter who knows Dispel Magic.

Sounds like the Player's Option rules? Yep. Except this time around, the designers would (hopefully) pay a little more attention to balance.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I'd like to see objective XP values for monsters return, calculated like the original AD&D game (perhaps without factoring number of hit points). Keep the CR listing in the statblock as an additional tool for determining difficulty and EL, etc.

Well, it's not precisely the same thing (i.e., "calculated like the original AD&D game"), but a rules variant covering "objective XP values for monsters" can be found from pages 213 t0 215, in Unearthed Arcana, by Wizards of the Coast. The XP chart therein is scaled differently, and set amounts for defeating foes of each particular CR value are given.

Hope that is some help.

 

[VirgilCaine]

I don't like how multiclassing rules currently work. Esp. since 3.x encourages weird builds where characters dip into five different classes for one or two levels. I think a base class should encourage players to stick w/it by giving better stuff at higher levels, rather than xp penalties for multiclassing.

It's by no means the "worst rule," but I'd like to see it cleaned and streamlined. I like d20 modern's set up better than D&Ds.

Better abilities at high levels? Like the improvements to barbarian rage, rogues getting unique special abilities at 10th and higher level, monks getting all their stuff, rangers now getting HiPS and more combat style benefits, bards getting more powerful spells and bardic music abilities, paladins increasing turning and spellcasting, druids get 1000 faces and better wildshaping, in addition to spellcasters getting better and more spells...only class left out is the fighter.

You have to put at least ten levels into these classes to get this stuff and a lot of them are unique, you'd need a custom spell or item to replicate it.

 

[eyebeams]

I think the current classes are bloated from design assumptions that by level abilities fit into "slots" following the model of the monk, rogue or barbarian. I would *greatly* simplify class abilities down to a few signature types. Plus, the amount of special rules (Weapon Finesse, Dodge tree feats, etc.) required to make an agile, lightly armoured warrior are excessive.

Turning undead should be a set of spells instead of a per day power. Just let clerics cast turn/rebuke spells on the fly like healing spells, and add some new turn/rebuke effects as new spells to spice up the ability. In fact, this suits most granted powers.

Multiclassed spellcasters suck unless you take a PrC designed to mitigate their suckiness like Eldricth Knight.