Worse Rules that game designers have made?

[DragonLancer]

With regards to Turn Undead, has anyone come up with a better set of rules for it?

 

[Raven Crowking]

The idea that monsters all occupy square areas, no matter how long and thin they are.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'd like to see a lot of energy immunities eliminated. I picked up Frostburn, and it annoys me that almost everything is Cold subtype, and has a cold power/weapon. Nothing up there can touch each other.... I suppose it must be very peaceful.

Only certain, rare things should be immune to energy types - elementals, for instance. Fire Giants can get Resistance 20 or some other high number, but I think they should be vulnerable to being dunked in a lava floe. I ran into this last session - I'm running a modified "Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl" for one group, and there's a cave with some kind of mold that the giants have marked "danger" - the mold does cold damage. Argh!

I also vote for Grapple and Turn Undead to get yanked off the island...

 

[Nikosandros]

Well, I guess most of the things have already been covered...

Turn Undead: Non standard system. Being based on HD it becomes useless at high levels.

Grapple: I agree that it should be very hard to grapple a big creature, but it shouldn't be impossible to escape from such a grapple. Also, there should be a different mechanic for "climbing" on big monsters and similar stunts.

Swallow Whole: As many others said, a quite illogical rule.

XP based on CR: Shouldn't it be based on EL? Right now fighting 16 CR X creatures in 16 separate encounters gives the same XP as fighting them at the same time.

Undead BAB: Why do they get the worst progression? This also creates the problem of zombies with ludicrous amount of HD.

EL: Usually it's a bad deal, once you get to high level.

Multiclassing: Some combinations work very well, while others (especially with casters) are poor.

Metamagic: Brilliant idea, inadequate execution.

 

[WayneLigon]

3) Monsters are overcome by combat (physical and/or magical) and not stealth or diplomacy.

You get XP for encounters that are defeated; defeated is explicitly stated to include circumventing the encounter by clever means.

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Just off the top of my head, I'd say that grappling needs a makeover.
And I agree about Turn Undead. We have to look it up every single time as well.

 

[Shades of Green]

You get XP for encounters that are defeated; defeated is explicitly stated to include circumventing the encounter by clever means.

Yes, but the CR is calculated based on combat difficulty, not sneaking/diplomacy difficulty. A creature which is hard to kill is not nescerily hard to sneak around.

 

[lukelightning]

2) Turn Undead - For one, it uses a nonstandard rule system and two, it seems nigh useless at certain levels. Sure, it's good for smoking mooks, but it's rarely useful against anything else, especially with the high volume of undead sporting turn resistance.

Not to mention that it is harder to turn a zombie ogre than it is to turn a wraith.

 

[Stalker0]

As far as the grapple bonus thing, keep in mind most big creatures should be taking -20's on their grapple checks. It allows them to move freely, but it also gives you a fighting chance of escape.

 

[BryonD]

The idea that monsters all occupy square areas, no matter how long and thin they are.

Which is simply a requirement of the bad rule that a monster has no "front" no matter how long and thin they are. I'd prefer non-square monsters, but only if they have facing. Which I'd also really prefer.

 

[Psion]

Iterative attacks.

I think systems with one action = one attack tend to run much more smoothly, and there are interesting and simple options to cater for multi-limbed opponents, dual weapons, ganging up etc.

Good one. How did I miss this one?

I guess it's not a "worst ever" rule, but it is one I have identified as a trouble point for making high level combats drag. It'd probably be too much work to excise (unlike piddly crap like monk and paladin multiclassing), but I think a better method of multiple attacks could be had.