Worst Observed Rules Interpretations (by DM or Players)

[ChrisFortyTwo]

I figure we can tell some stories about how DMs, Fellow Players, or even ourselves have Interpreted rules completely incorrectly.

For instance, one game I played (3.0), the DM had a dice rolling system that was "based off" the 4d6 drop one. Instead, you roll all 24 dice, dropping the lowest 6. Then you can combine the others in any combination you want. Well, everyone had a couple 18s and I think only one person included a 1 in any of their stats. I wasn't complaining about that one, but it was a pretty poor interpretation of probability, anyway.

In the same game, one of the guys was playing a wizard of some elf sub-race (which had a racial +2 Int, of course). That wasn't a big deal. Then, during the game, he casts fireball (remember, first level characters). I said - "Hey, you can't cast fireball, that's a 3rd level spell." He responded "It's my bonus spell for high intelligence." He thought that you could cast off the bonus spell list before you got that level spells. I wonder what 5th level spell this 1st level wizard had prepared. Heck, with the right combination, a cleric could raise dead at first level.

Anyway, share your stories, and I'll try to think of others.

[Mongoose87]

I seem to recall there being a "debate" on these very boards about whether a Sorcerer is a spontaneous caster.

[Kylarra]

In the same game, one of the guys was playing a wizard of some elf sub-race (which had a racial +2 Int, of course). That wasn't a big deal. Then, during the game, he casts fireball (remember, first level characters). I said - "Hey, you can't cast fireball, that's a 3rd level spell." He responded "It's my bonus spell for high intelligence." He thought that you could cast off the bonus spell list before you got that level spells. I wonder what 5th level spell this 1st level wizard had prepared. Heck, with the right combination, a cleric could raise dead at first level.We convinced a 2ed DM that our cleric should get his bonus spells for his Wis before he could cast them once. :smalltongue:

I think a few days ago there was a thread about an incantrix applying metamagic to blasty spells with spellcraft checks.

[Greenish]

On these very boards: rogues can apply SA damage to only one attack per round.

Anyway, dice pools (in the OP) could've been just a houserule.

[CrypticOcean]

A certain player at my table conjured up the ludicrous idea that Ennervation was an aging effect, and argued with me for the better part of an hour about how the Druid's Timeless Body ability granted you full immunity to Ennervation, Energy Drain, and any of their close cousins.

In the end it was merely because he imagined "that was what the spell did" to its victims.

This same player also attempted to use the Druid's Wild Shape ability to turn into an Ogre Mage, due to the fact that the Druid's Wild Shape text says it operates "Like Polymorph". I suppose he decided not to read the parts that said "expect as noted here", and the fairly obvious part before that which states "Any Small or Medium -Animal-."

Thankfully, while he made many more misinterpretations of the rules, I cannot recall them, and I do not have to endure his overly-aggressive nature any longer.

[Claudius Maximus]

In one group I've seen they were under the impression that the Saint template added its charisma modifier to the save DCs of every one of the entire party's abilities. The Saint of course had 30+ charisma.

[AtwasAwamps]

On these very boards: rogues can apply SA damage to only one attack per round.


That's my group!

When I DM, that rule is not in effect, as are many of their other rules, such as not being able to take a full move action and make a single attack as a standard action, not being able to attack on diagonal or threaten on a diagonal, not being able to...well, there's a lot.

[arguskos]

In one group I've seen they were under the impression that the Saint template added its charisma modifier to the save DCs of every one of the entire party's abilities. The Saint of course had 30+ charisma.
Wait... what? How... I... but... I mean... WHAT?! How you could you even parse that out of anything?! :smalleek::smallannoyed:

[hangedman1984]

I was read an argument on the WotC forums where some said that ranged touch attack spells required 2 standard actions, 1 to cast the spell, 1 to attack with it

[Volthawk]

For instance, one game I played (3.0), the DM had a dice rolling system that was "based off" the 4d6 drop one. Instead, you roll all 24 dice, dropping the lowest 6. Then you can combine the others in any combination you want. Well, everyone had a couple 18s and I think only one person included a 1 in any of their stats. I wasn't complaining about that one, but it was a pretty poor interpretation of probability, anyway.

Actually, that sounds like quite a cool stat generation method to me.

[Claudius Maximus]

Wait... what? How... I... but... I mean... WHAT?! How you could you even parse that out of anything?! :smalleek::smallannoyed:

It does have a DC increasing ability and an aura. I guess they just... combined them? And made it work off charisma? They also thought the same ability also granted his charisma bonus to his allies' saving throws, like some kind of mass Divine Grace. They also didn't really apply the LA for the template.

[Dr.Epic]

I seem to recall there being a "debate" on these very boards about whether a Sorcerer is a spontaneous caster.

:smallconfused: That's the whole thing that makes them different from wizards.

[arguskos]

It does have a DC increasing ability and an aura. I guess they just... combined them? And made it work off charisma? They also thought the same ability also granted his charisma bonus to his allies' saving throws, like some kind of mass Divine Grace. They also didn't really apply the LA for the template.
:sigh:

Thank god I no longer play with groups that fail to read basic stuff like that. That's all I have to say about that.

[Tinydwarfman]

I seem to recall there being a "debate" on these very boards about whether a Sorcerer is a spontaneous caster.

This one. This one trumps every other mis-interpretation I have ever seen.

[Reynard]

I seem to recall there being a "debate" on these very boards about whether a Sorcerer is a spontaneous caster.

I saw that, that was hilarious.

Well, I suppose a re-interpretation of the 3.5 charging rules (for monsters, not us) was the most game-destroying (as in, we stopped playing and argued).

[valadil]

I can't remember if this was MERP or Rolemaster, but one of my GMs told me about an early experience he had in his brother's first attempt at a game. There were tables that showed what bonuses you had at various levels. Pretty much exactly like the class charts in 3.5 The group assumed that at those levels you gained the bonus listed, not realizing that those scores were cumulative. In D&D terms, a 5th level fighter would have had 1+2+3+4+5 = 15 BAB.

The worst that I participated in involved a couple players (myself excluded) cowing a newbie GM into doing what we wanted. The worst bit of it was that we convinced him that hacking into military computers and launching enough nukes to blow up all of earth aside from New Zealand required a single computer skill check.

[The Glyphstone]

I remember an old arena battle where one player, with a melee character he had stacked a bunch of size increases plus Monkey Grip on, managed to convince the DM that he could ignore Displacement/Invisibility effects because his Colossal greataxe had an edge 5ft wide, making it impossible to miss the target in the square.

[JeenLeen]

We didn't realize the limitation based on duration for Divine Metamagic, so for a while we had a lot of extra persistent buffs on our team.

[Greenish]

not being able to take a full move action and make a single attack as a standard actionYou can't do that unless you're restricted to single standard or move action for that round (ie. surprise rounds etc.).

[Edit]: Even then, it has to be charge (movement in straight line, +2 attack, -2 AC).

[pffh]

We didn't quite understand magic weapons or armor and thought for example that a +3 weapon would have +3 to hit, +3 to damage and some of the other effects that are worth up to +3.

[Mongoose87]

We didn't quite understand magic weapons or armor and thought for example that a +3 weapon would have +3 to hit, +3 to damage and some of the other effects that are worth up to +3.

I had this problem, too. Or, something similar. Until I started looking over the SRD, I thought a +1 Flaming Longsword wold have +2 to hit, +2 damage and +1d6 fire damage, and was a +2 weapon.

[Zeful]

I've seen an argument that Heighten Spell doesn't increase the spell slot used because it doesn't have a number with a plus in front of it.

[Eurus]

I remember an old arena battle where one player, with a melee character he had stacked a bunch of size increases plus Monkey Grip on, managed to convince the DM that he could ignore Displacement/Invisibility effects because his Colossal greataxe had an edge 5ft wide, making it impossible to miss the target in the square.

That kind of makes sense, actually. Not from a rules perspective, but a kind of sense anyway... More sense than a titan bloodline pixie wielding a gargantuan weapon but still having a 0 foot reach, at least. :smallbiggrin:

[marjan]

I remember someone on these or WotC boards (can't remember which one), claiming monks can make AoOs into squares they don't threaten.

[Togo]

I had a DM who thought that you couldn't charge except in a straight line towards the target... so if that straight line towards the target didn't lead to the middle of a square, you couldn't charge. In other words, you could only charge in the same way as a queen in chess - when your opponent was in a straight or diagonal line of squares.

The more mundane example was a DM who thought that ray of enfeeblement stacked with itself, meaning that it would immobalise any character after two or three hits...

[Ruinix]

on warhammer fantasy. a character drink the light of law, so he actually can destroy caos minions on sight and heal others :S bleh that was the DM interpretation of the thing :S


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on merp rolemaster. on the char build my dm forgot to tell me "put 1 point in no armor" so when i take out the light vest i was on -25 defense ¬¬


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7th sea. a runemaster casting lighting bolts with 8D8 every round with the skill on 2lev XDDDD due a missinterpretation of the book from our dm. XDDD was hilarius when he nerf the the character. on the first encounter after that we lose our ship, and everything XDDDD

[Nohwl]

i once played with a person who thought attacks of opportunity provoked attacks of opportunity. and he let it infinite loop.

[Riffington]

We didn't quite understand magic weapons or armor and thought for example that a +3 weapon would have +3 to hit, +3 to damage and some of the other effects that are worth up to +3.

Did this make the game better or worse?

[Mongoose87]

i once played with a person who thought attacks of opportunity provoked attacks of opportunity. and he let it infinite loop.

Robilar's Gambit much?

[Morty]

The more mundane example was a DM who thought that ray of enfeeblement stacked with itself, meaning that it would immobalise any character after two or three hits...

That's actually how it works in Temple of Elemental Evil videogame... and it's not the biggest bug in there.
As far as "creative" rules interpretations go, I don't have any really colorful examples, but I remember that when I made my first character, a wizard, I thought Magic Penetration adds 2 to all my spells' DCs. After another encounter in which a group of enemies fell victim to an irresistible Sleep spell, my DM began to suspect something's wrong. Nevermind that I also forgot it has a 1 round casting time. >_>

[pffh]

Did this make the game better or worse?

Worse since it made it trivial to kill monsters since the players had their +x (in effect +x*2) armour and weapons. Think about selling them an item worth +6 when they paid for +3.

[Gecks]

I once had a DM who sort of... missed how prestige classes worked in 3.5, so that he had experience counts basically "start over" for those classes- as in, for example, if a level 10 character was a level 9 fighter / level 1 horizen walker, to become a level 2 horizen walker, he had to pay enough experience to go from level 1 to level 2, not enough to go from level 10 to level 11. Granted, it was a heavy house-ruled setting with some custom level advancement which made such craziness slightly less obvious, but still...

Needless to say, prestige classes were very popular in that campaign- at least until the power-level spiked so high that things broke down entirely. :smallwink:

[Tar Palantir]

You can't do that unless you're restricted to single standard or move action for that round (ie. surprise rounds etc.).

[Edit]: Even then, it has to be charge (movement in straight line, +2 attack, -2 AC).

I think he means that the group wouldn't permit a character who used a move action to move to subsequently make an attack as a standard action, not a partial charge (which is what you seem to be referring to).

[peacenlove]

Monk / fighters with full plate mails gaining their entire wisdom bonus to AC at 2nd level and flurrying with mercurial greatswords (my first mistake as a dm when i started 3.0 edition) :smallsigh:
Also until 2 years ago i was bored of reading the flight rules and i assumed that all creatures and players had perfect maneuverability :smalltongue: (of course i told them beforehand i was bored to read the rules)

[Optimystik]

I seem to recall there being a "debate" on these very boards about whether a Sorcerer is a spontaneous caster.

Yes, this one took the cake for me, and I've seen some doozies.


i once played with a person who thought attacks of opportunity provoked attacks of opportunity. and he let it infinite loop.

Two Monks of the Enabled Hand + Robilar's Gambit

[Greenish]

I think he means that the group wouldn't permit a character who used a move action to move to subsequently make an attack as a standard action, not a partial charge (which is what you seem to be referring to).Oh. OH!

Well, melee is overpowered anyway.

[Nohwl]

Two Monks of the Enabled Hand + Robilar's Gambit

does that allow them to continue to make attacks of opportunity until one of them dies? i mean, not just one, or your dex bonus from combat reflexes, but as many as it takes to kill the person.

[Nerdanel]

Back when 3.0 was new the standard battle tactics for our party was for the other wizard to cast Mage Armor on the dwarf tank. A few levels later, at the same time when we finally could afford buying Masterwork plate armor for the dwarf so he could take hits better, the DM noticed that Mage Armor does not in fact stack with ordinary armor. This was devastating for the other wizard who had been suffering from a bad spell selection and was now out of good shticks.

Namely, while my unoptimized newbie wizard was effective with Magic Missile and deadly with Sleep, his wizard had had his spell selection rolled randomly by the DM, apparently due to influence from AD&D. Somehow his first level spells ended up being Mage Armor and Protection from Arrows and then Shield. He could protect himself from attacks really well, but that was about it, and we usually fought in tight dungeon quarters with the dwarf tank and other non-wizards at the front.

[Dogmantra]

does that allow them to continue to make attacks of opportunity until one of them dies? i mean, not just one, or your dex bonus from combat reflexes, but as many as it takes to kill the person.

Technically, an AoO happens before the action that triggered it, so they would just keep going on forever.

[Ingus]

I have the best. First time in a group the charachters were made by the players alone. Second level start.
Assumed all the players weren't noobs, the DM didn't checked the sheets.
It turned out later that one player had the Sword of Vecna, the shield of Pelor (if I remember) and Hextor's Bracers.

Everyone's reaction: "Wha... wha... You... Are you kidding?"
Player's answer: "No, why"
D.M.: "you must be kidding. How you supposed to have all this artifacts."
Player: "By the rules. They're all sorted as Price: - So they're free."

[Nohwl]

Technically, an AoO happens before the action that triggered it, so they would just keep going on forever.

and that's why combat with him sucked, because he knew that part.

[2xMachina]

Monk / fighters with full plate mails gaining their entire wisdom bonus to AC at 2nd level and flurrying with mercurial greatswords (my first mistake as a dm when i started 3.0 edition) :smallsigh:
Also until 2 years ago i was bored of reading the flight rules and i assumed that all creatures and players had perfect maneuverability :smalltongue: (of course i told them beforehand i was bored to read the rules)

You've fixed the monk!

[marjan]

and that's why combat with him sucked, because he knew that part.

So, you had two meleers locked in time. :smalltongue:

[The Glyphstone]

I have the best. First time in a group the charachters were made by the players alone. Second level start.
Assumed all the players weren't noobs, the DM didn't checked the sheets.
It turned out later that one player had the Sword of Vecna, the shield of Pelor (if I remember) and Hextor's Bracers.

Everyone's reaction: "Wha... wha... You... Are you kidding?"
Player's answer: "No, why"
D.M.: "you must be kidding. How you supposed to have all this artifacts."
Player: "By the rules. They're all sorted as Price: - So they're free."

I hope he never discovered Apocalypse from the Sky. Minor Artifact as a material component + artifacts having no listed price + spell component pouch = !?!?

[Last Laugh]

I have the best. First time in a group the charachters were made by the players alone. Second level start.
Assumed all the players weren't noobs, the DM didn't checked the sheets.
It turned out later that one player had the Sword of Vecna, the shield of Pelor (if I remember) and Hextor's Bracers.

Everyone's reaction: "Wha... wha... You... Are you kidding?"
Player's answer: "No, why"
D.M.: "you must be kidding. How you supposed to have all this artifacts."
Player: "By the rules. They're all sorted as Price: - So they're free."

I had a similar experience.
I am dming a group right now, weeks before the game I emailed everyone and told them to tell me anything about their characters that I should know. Questionable feats, ACFs, etc.

In the first game I learned that one of the characters was a monk/barbarian with vow of poverty. He offered to be the parties pack mule and I pointed out that he had vow of poverty. His response was that vow of poverty lets you hold anything you want as long as it's non-magical.
He started arguing and I mentioned that he was supposed to not only ask MY permission before taking a vow, but also the PARTIES permission. (he did neither)

Meanwhile the Dwarven tank quietly rerolled into a Paladin of Tyranny without asking anyone.

I kind of want to kill them all just so I'm present when they make characters. Maybe just those two.

[Optimystik]

Technically, an AoO happens before the action that triggered it, so they would just keep going on forever.

To quote Jet Li: "Jet Li fight Jet Li!" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0267804/)

[LibraryOgre]

I can't remember if this was MERP or Rolemaster, but one of my GMs told me about an early experience he had in his brother's first attempt at a game. There were tables that showed what bonuses you had at various levels. Pretty much exactly like the class charts in 3.5 The group assumed that at those levels you gained the bonus listed, not realizing that those scores were cumulative. In D&D terms, a 5th level fighter would have had 1+2+3+4+5 = 15 BAB.

Heh. Had a similar problem when running MERP the first time. I thought you added your attack bonus to your criticals. A lot of people got shot through the ears...

[marjan]

He offered to be the parties pack mule

Actually he can do that. As long as he is not considered owning those items, he'll be fine. After all he is required to donate his share of loot to churches or the poor, which would be hard without him carrying anything valuable. Though his explanation is incorrect.

[TheThan]

That kind of makes sense, actually. Not from a rules perspective, but a kind of sense anyway... More sense than a titan bloodline pixie wielding a gargantuan weapon but still having a 0 foot reach, at least. :smallbiggrin:

ok the imagery of that totally just cracked me up.

[Ravens_cry]

ok the imagery of that totally just cracked me up.
It sounds great until you think about how the bloodline was created.:smallamused:

[Eldonauran]

It sounds great until you think about how the bloodline was created.:smallamused:

A wizard did it.

[hangedman1984]

A wizard did it.

Oh yeah ;)

[Ravens_cry]

A wizard did it.
Did it or did it?:smalleek:

[pffh]

Did it or did it?:smalleek:

giggity giggity

[Sliver]

and that's why combat with him sucked, because he knew that part.

What? He just started saying "And he triggers an AoO, which triggers an AoO, which triggers an AoO..."? Nobody could actually make the AoO as there will always be an AoO before that so... I don't see how it can be resolved, at all.


Worse since it made it trivial to kill monsters since the players had their +x (in effect +x*2) armour and weapons. Think about selling them an item worth +6 when they paid for +3.

How did you read the part about weapons being above +5 value but not above +5 enhancement bonus?

[Ravens_cry]

giggity giggity
More like ouchity, ripity, that-don't-fitity.:smallsigh:
And I thought half-halfling was bad.

[Greenish]

What? He just started saying "And he triggers an AoO, which triggers an AoO, which triggers an AoO..."? Nobody could actually make the AoO as there will always be an AoO before that so... I don't see how it can be resolved, at all.By a robust application of PHB, DMG or perhaps Encyclopedia Britannica.

[Quietus]

Did it or did it?:smalleek:

Both. Obviously!

[Olympus]

I had a DM who thought that you couldn't charge except in a straight line towards the target... so if that straight line towards the target didn't lead to the middle of a square, you couldn't charge. In other words, you could only charge in the same way as a queen in chess - when your opponent was in a straight or diagonal line of squares.

Unless I haven't played in so long I'm starting to forget the rules, your DM is correct. You can only charge in straight lines . . .

[Reynard]

No, you charge in a straight line, regardless of actual squares. Not like the Queen in chess.

[Sliver]

Unless I haven't played in so long I'm starting to forget the rules, your DM is correct. You can only charge in straight lines . . .

But what if my barbarian can't mentally draw lines around to create a grid so he can know where the squares are? He will never be able to charge because he didn't bother learning chess? :smallfrown:

[Blackfang108]

I just read of a DM who interperets the Avenger's Oath of Emnity ability to only function on Melee Basic Attacks. ONLY. (it's on the Wizard's forums.)

[Murphy80]

-Sorcerer is not a spontaneous caster
-If you full attack with a ranged weapon, it does not provoke an Aoo
-Monks are not proficient with unarmed combat
-Fast healing does not work at negative hp's
-An animal with scent negates a sneak attack from a rogue with darkvision in complete darkness (ie: NO light)
-an ability of a PRC negating a prerequisite of the class (Dragon Disciple becoming a dragon at 10th level)


I had a DM who thought that you couldn't charge except in a straight line towards the target...so if that straight line towards the target didn't lead to the middle of a square, you couldn't charge. In other words, you could only charge in the same way as a queen in chess - when your opponent was in a straight or diagonal line of squares.
Bolded for emphasis.



The more mundane example was a DM who thought that ray of enfeeblement stacked with itself, meaning that it would immobalise any character after two or three hits...
In 3.0 RoE was Str damage(but allowed a for save to negate), which did stack. In 3.5 RoE is a penalty (no save), which does not stack.

Back in the day (80's; 1st ed), a friend thought you could cast spells of what your character level was. 4th level wizard casting 4th level spells.

[Sliver]

I remember I was pretty amused when I found out one DM believed (until that point) that quarterstaffs and slings can't be bought unless they are at least masterworked, because they are priceless (kinda like artifacts) otherwise.

[Zeful]

Unless I haven't played in so long I'm starting to forget the rules, your DM is correct. You can only charge in straight lines . . .

Except a straight line in D&D is not one of eight directions. As long as you 1) can demonstrate that you are moving from center-of-square to center-of-square (or for larger creatures vertex to vertex) in a line that does not bend (use a pencil or a piece of string), and, 2) have the movement to move through every square crossed in this fashion, you can charge there.

[Akal Saris]

Heh, I like that one.

I've also been that DM who thought Ray of Enfeeblement stacked with itself. Needless to say, the PCs thought the necromancer was pretty hot stuff at low levels.

In 2E, I also was one of the ones who thought you started over for each level on the experience chart instead of leveling from cumulative experience. Even playing every day, my PCs leveled very, very slowly in high school :P

[Gametime]

What? He just started saying "And he triggers an AoO, which triggers an AoO, which triggers an AoO..."? Nobody could actually make the AoO as there will always be an AoO before that so... I don't see how it can be resolved, at all.



Technically, this could be resolved just fine, so long as the rule about limited numbers of AoOs per round was modified to include AoOs you intend to take. You'd get a result similar to the Magic: The Gathering stack - the person with the most number of AoOs would get one off first, then they'd keep alternating until both parties finished. In the case of no one having Combat Reflexes or something similar, the person to provoke the original AoO would get his AoO off first (A provokes B, B has AoO which provokes A, A has AoO which provokes B but B can't declare another AoO this round, A attacks, B attacks, A takes original action).

It's clumsy, counter-intuitive, and generally idiotic, but you could make it work. The real headache comes when someone provokes an attack of opportunity in the middle of a group of people all fighting each other and all possessing the Combat Reflexes feat.

[Greenish]

-Monks are not proficient with unarmed combatHave you seen someone actually rule it that way in an actual game? I always thought that it was just an amusing piece of RAW.

[Eldan]

"Nonono. You are misinterpreting Favoured Enemy: Goblinoid. You don't just add that against every goblin you meet. That would be silly. You must have met that goblin personally in the past, and he must have done something to antagonize you...
I mean, otherwise, he wouldn't be your enemy. It would just be racism."

[riccaru]

Some how me my cousin and my friend (the DM) were playing with just the booster set for 3.5e (a small set of DMing rules, and an adventure) it let you level up to 2, but no further. Evidently we never realized we couldn't level up more, so we went by the same amount of xp for every level, which was 1000. Needless to say within a few short hours we were hugely powerful, and even more amazing, somehow my cousin out leveled us by a dozen levels, even though we were in the same adventure.

[pffh]

"Nonono. You are misinterpreting Favoured Enemy: Goblinoid. You don't just add that against every goblin you meet. That would be silly. You must have met that goblin personally in the past, and he must have done something to antagonize you...
I mean, otherwise, he wouldn't be your enemy. It would just be racism."

I would have just added in my backstory how my character had met and been antagonized by every goblin in the world. :smallcool:

[KillianHawkeye]

"Nonono. You are misinterpreting Favoured Enemy: Goblinoid. You don't just add that against every goblin you meet. That would be silly. You must have met that goblin personally in the past, and he must have done something to antagonize you...
I mean, otherwise, he wouldn't be your enemy. It would just be racism."

LOL :smallsigh:

[Greenish]

I would have just added in my backstory how my character had met and been antagonized by every goblin in the world. :smallcool:I would have added in the back story that my character "is not racist, but…"

"I have a friend who's a kobold!"

[Sliver]

"Nonono. You are misinterpreting Favoured Enemy: Goblinoid. You don't just add that against every goblin you meet. That would be silly. You must have met that goblin personally in the past, and he must have done something to antagonize you...
I mean, otherwise, he wouldn't be your enemy. It would just be racism."

That's awesome!

[Kurald Galain]

I can think of several examples of argument started from the belief that the most commonsensical interpretation of Option X is overpowered, and then concluding that therefore this interpretation must be wrong. The argument then works backwards from that in a kind of Reductio Ad Absurdum maneuver, cherry picking rules out of context and twisting them to find support against the commonsensical wording, eventually coming up with an interpretation that nerfs Option X, and then declaring the result RAW regardless of its side effects.

For instance, a common belief is that 4E's Storm Pillar (before its errata, at least) was overpowered: it conjures a pillar that damages enemies moving nearby it, and this damage can become excessive when the spell is combined with forced movement effects. Rather than using Occam's Razor and deciding that Storm Pillar contained a typo, this has led some people to conclude that "forced movement" is not a kind of "movement", which indeed succesfully nerfs Storm Pillar, but destroys several valid game strategies in the process.

Similarly, I've heard people argue that "rolling for damage" doesn't constitute a "damage roll", or that some kind of difference must exist between "using" and "activating" a power, or that if one spell explicitly points out that it cannot do X, it follows that every single other spell implicitly can do that. Yeah...

[Oslecamo]

One of my first DMs decided that casters could use as many quickened magic as they could afford per turn. resulting in casters becoming machine-guns wich would unleash hell and then teleport away.

Also you could attack with two weapons at the end of a charge.

However rogues could only sneak attack with roguish weapons(read:weakest). And they couldn't get sneak attack from off-hand weapons. And you couldn't flank a creature if it was bigger than you. Because that would be clearly overpowered to the sorceror gunning you down with 20 magic missiles in one turn.:smallfurious:

[Ravens_cry]

"Nonono. You are misinterpreting Favoured Enemy: Goblinoid. You don't just add that against every goblin you meet. That would be silly. You must have met that goblin personally in the past, and he must have done something to antagonize you...
I mean, otherwise, he wouldn't be your enemy. It would just be racism."
And the student is enlightened.:smallamused:

[gbprime]

I had a player try to sell me on the idea that the Arcane Preparation feat would allow his Sorcerer to use a spell book and cast wizard stuff too.

And I played in a game where Warmage edge applied to every single die of damage done by magic. I think that one was just willful ignorance or a con job on the DM.

[TheThan]

I had a friend that had a dm that thought that with combat reflexes you could use all your allowed AOOs against a single target. So a high dex creature (think a nimblewright was the creature in question), would splatter a party member with like 14 AOOs all against one target in a single attempt. Basically the one AOO per target clause had been thrown out the window. Needless to say, I sorted it out when I heard about it.




I had a player try to sell me on the idea that the Arcane Preparation feat would allow his Sorcerer to use a spell book and cast wizard stuff too.


Well it does force the sorcerer to prepare his spells like a wizard, but he still learns them the normal sorcerer way, and is stuck with his limited spell selection. Anyway the entire point of the feat is to give sorcerers the ability to use meta-magic feats anyway.

[Ingus]

I hope he never discovered Apocalypse from the Sky. Minor Artifact as a material component + artifacts having no listed price + spell component pouch = !?!?

The fun think is how we discovered it. Imagine: Elf thief, level 2, against Hobgoblin AC 22. He rolled a 5 on d20.
"Hit"
"What?"
"Hit"
"How in the earth can you hit a AC 22 whit a 5?"
"Well, I have my Sword of Kas, granting me +6 plus +10 bonus to strength, plus another bonus to strength from bracers of Hextor" (which don't stack, but it is the least problem) "to a total of +18. Which, added to 5 is 23."

And he also had Sphere of Annihilation, but he wouldn't use it to such a poor enemy.

:smalltongue:

[gbprime]

Well it does force the sorcerer to prepare his spells like a wizard, but he still learns them the normal sorcerer way, and is stuck with his limited spell selection. Anyway the entire point of the feat is to give sorcerers the ability to use meta-magic feats anyway.

And has since been rendered completely moot by an alternate class feature. (shrug)

[Kami2awa]

That's awesome!

That is rather nice - maybe it should be "Favoured Opponent" not "Favoured Enemy"?

[Private-Prinny]

My current DM thinks that moving into a threatened square provokes an AoO. I'm tempted to pull out Jack B. Quick.

[Nero24200]

When I first played, I added BAB to weapon damage rolls...

Wasn't much of an issue though, since our party consisted of a Barbarian, Paladin and an NPC ranger.

[Knaight]

Sounds good. You should always pull out Jack B. Quick.

[Greenish]

When I first played, I added BAB to weapon damage rolls...That makes two of us.

[Zeful]

When I first played, I thought any roll of the die which was higher than the crit value, was an automatic critical. I also had a character with a +23 to hit at first level (result of some really stupid rules on my part).

[Kobold-Bard]

I've had a DM who ruled that the archery Ranger couldn't use all of her ~74 attacks that she was entitled to on a full attack because an archer firing that many arrows in a single round's worth of time was just silly and implausible.

Not only did this effectively made about 3 of her feats worthless, but he then proceeded to summon a demon that then summoned more demons who then summoned more Demons. When we asked about this he gave us rule of cool as the reason and then let his illegitimate demon hoard tear us all a new a-hole each.

---------------
My first character was a Cleric called Bob. I had apparently very low understanding of the magic rules because I just didn't get why my spells got Saving throws to resist, and felt like Spell Resistance was something the DM had made up because I'd slighted him in some way; after all attacks didn't have an extra factor to contend with.

I was a dumbass in the beginning.

[AslanCross]

Worst thing I did: When someone attacks a creature who is currently being grappled by another creature, you have a chance to hit the other grappler instead. In my first campaign, the rogue almost killed the party cleric who was being grappled by a bugbear in this way.

(And while I was adjudicating it, I could've sworn that it was in the rules somewhere.)

[thegurullamen]

First game I played, the DM helped me misunderstand both LA and the BoVD's drug components, meaning my supposed ECL 10 character was actually an ECL 12 Fey'ri sorc 10 who could cast Stop Heart with none of the drawbacks. After the DM retconned me down to an appropriate level, he told us that a few corpses the party'd left in their wake suddenly stood up, confused and suffering from a mild case of heartburn.

[Eorran]

When my group started playing 2e, we misread the 10% XP bonus for having high Prime Attribute stats. Instead of adding to the XP earned that encounter, we added to our total XP pool.

So we'd level up automatically after 10 encounters, regardless of what we encountered.

Also, in one of the 2nd ed monster manuals Abishai (a demon) had a typo- an extra "0" in their XP value. So a monster that should have been worth about 3200 XP was listed as 32,000 XP.

Despite the many rules we ignored, we didn't arbitrarily level characters (after generation), so sometimes we'd level up by finding a dungeon full of rooms with 1 abishai each.

[Math_Mage]

Worst thing I did: When someone attacks a creature who is currently being grappled by another creature, you have a chance to hit the other grappler instead. In my first campaign, the rogue almost killed the party cleric who was being grappled by a bugbear in this way.

(And while I was adjudicating it, I could've sword that it was in the rules somewhere.)

To be fair, you're only missing the phrased "with a ranged attack."

[Mauther]

I had a DM who did not understand and refused to acknowledge the the Organization field nd the Challenge Rating field under the monster description were completly independent. So Fire Giants are CR 10, come in groups of 2-5, so 5 Fire Giants are an EL 10 encounter.

[SamTheSane]

IRL: Had one DM who, after playing too many video games, decided the only way we got xp from something was to kill. Take it prisoner... no xp, it feels the battle while near dead.... no xp. This was made worse by the fact he liked sending hordes after us, which started to scatter as soon as we started to get the upper hand.

Web: Definitely the sorc/spontaneous caster debate

[JaronK]

-Monks are not proficient with unarmed combat

Actually, that one's true as long as the Monk is Humanoid. It's stupid and not RAI, but it's clearly RAW. If you check Humanoids, you'll find that they're proficient with all simple weapons unless they have class levels, in which case they have proficiency based on their class (other racial types usually just grant proficiency in simple weapons or natural weapons regardless of class). Now look at Monk. Unarmed Strikes are a simple weapon, but they don't have it listed. Now look at their Unarmed Strike abilities. Notice how it never gives them proficiencies.

Yes, it's stupid, and yes, it's not intended, but it's true: by RAW, Monks don't have proficiency in Unarmed Strikes. They're one of very few classes that has that problem (Wizards and Rogues... not sure who else lacks it).

Anyway, one of my favorite misinterpretations was the one going around for a while that bonus feats granted by class levels didn't require prerequisites. It was used to claim Rogues could have Epic feats at level 10. Except at the beginning of the Feats section in the PHB, it clearly says class based bonus feats do require prerequisites. It's racial bonus feats that don't (except the human one, but that's an explicit exemption). I suppose this has a lot to do with a bunch of classes that give a specific bonus feat without ensuring the prerequisites (such as War Domain Clerics). Ah, sloppy writing.

JaronK

[LibraryOgre]

Anyway, one of my favorite misinterpretations was the one going around for a while that bonus feats granted by class levels didn't require prerequisites. It was used to claim Rogues could have Epic feats at level 10. Except at the beginning of the Feats section in the PHB, it clearly says class based bonus feats do require prerequisites. It's racial bonus feats that don't (except the human one, but that's an explicit exemption). I suppose this has a lot to do with a bunch of classes that give a specific bonus feat without ensuring the prerequisites (such as War Domain Clerics). Ah, sloppy writing.

Reminds me of the guy who insisted that you couldn't put the Frost and Flaming enchantments on the same weapon... or, if you could, they couldn't be on at the same time.

[Greenish]

AThey're one of very few classes that has that problem (Wizards and Rogues... not sure who else lacks it).Rogues have all simple weapons. Druids, wizards and monks don't.

[Amphetryon]

I had a DM that insisted you needed 3 or more people to flank, because he'd "been to a LARP and it was no harder defending against 2 attackers than it was against 1."

:smallannoyed:

[PId6]

Also you could attack with two weapons at the end of a charge.
Definitely how it should be though.


And I played in a game where Warmage edge applied to every single die of damage done by magic. I think that one was just willful ignorance or a con job on the DM.
Actually, this would go a long way into making the warmage at least proficient in blasting.

My favorite misinterpretation is a guy who used Radiant Servant of Pelor's Radiance ability to justify doubling the damage on all his [Light] spells, as opposed to doubling their illumination radii as it was supposed to do. Who knew Searing Light was such a good blasting spell!

[Saintjebus]

I knew a guy who just has trouble with 4th Ed. He once tried to use a daily power twice by using a daily power(1st level, so no paragon level shenanigans.) Later(in the same encounter!), he tried to use the same power again. No explanation that time.

[Toxic Avenger]

When I first played, I added BAB to weapon damage rolls...I don't know about the rest of you, but I think that's a good idea...

[Foryn Gilnith]

My current DM thinks that moving into a threatened square provokes an AoO.

My current DM has houseruled that. I'm not sure what to think.

[Private-Prinny]

My current DM has houseruled that. I'm not sure what to think.

Mine thinks it's part of the rules. You have it better. You could just pull out Jack B. Quick.

[Nohwl]

What? He just started saying "And he triggers an AoO, which triggers an AoO, which triggers an AoO..."? Nobody could actually make the AoO as there will always be an AoO before that so... I don't see how it can be resolved, at all.

it was something like that. he was the dm. my solution to it was to co dm with him. he made the campaign and ran monsters, and i handled the rules.

[Zeta Kai]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I think that's a good idea...

Encounters end too quickly as it is. That horrible houserule would make hash of half the combat rules in the game. No, no, no.

My personal worst rule interpretation was ignoring racial hit dice when factoring a character's ECL. For some reason, I always thought that LA = ECL, instead of the correct & proper LA + RHD = ECL. I was very recently corrected on this very forum. I can't believe that I missed that rule; it's so obvious. :smallredface:

[Kobold-Bard]

Encounters end too quickly as it is. That horrible houserule would make hash of half the combat rules in the game. No, no, no.

My personal worst rule interpretation was ignoring racial hit dice when factoring a character's ECL. For some reason, I always thought that LA = ECL, instead of the correct & proper LA + RHD = ECL. I was very recently corrected on this very forum. I can't believe that I missed that rule; it's so obvious. :smallredface:

First time I tried to play a Yuan-ti I thought the RHD were a feature of the race and were included in the LA. Needless to say hilarity ensued at my expense when someone showed me the Black Ethergaunt as an example of how silly this idea was.

[Emmerask]

I've had a DM who ruled that the archery Ranger couldn't use all of her ~74 attacks that she was entitled to on a full attack because an archer firing that many arrows in a single round's worth of time was just silly and implausible.

I wouldn´t allow that too except if the player in question can dodge all the 74 books I throw at him :smallbiggrin:

[cenghiz]

1. Sneak attack can't be used all the time. You need to concentrate - three rounds - then attack for it. No, to concentrate, you must stand still.

It may be because he was a very new DM and I was in a party of totally ineffective warrior and totally ineffective cleric. I was the rogue who simply took improved initiative and point blank shot using crossbows so my damage output seemed to be too high. Thankfully I showed him the assassin class and asked him if I was using a death attack now.

2. Same campaign. DM 'forced' me to to add my sneak attack damage to anyone who could not retailate and in point-blank shot range, possibly to show me that the first mistake was just a misunderstanding and he wasn't 'out to get me'. The powerplayer in me accepted the ruling after asking the DM only once. We reverted to normal after I wiped out an encounter hiding behind the cleric, even making him load my crossbows as I dropped them.

3. If you're a gangrel, you're an idiot savant. You should simply listen to others ordering you around or you're docked experience.

4. Beer can burn, even explode. We were in university then, so it was fairly easy to demonstrate that it can't.

5. Wizards require deep understanding for every single spell of theirs and spells are pages long, so they need to actually keep their books open in front of them to cast.

6. Sneaking is not honorable for a ninja and for punishment his vassal wants the ninja to cut off a finger.

7. About a few months ago, I was co-DMing for a friend. I can barely remember the rules of D&D but my job was rather drawing maps, setting up plots and mazes etc. A friend of my DM friend tried for half an hour to persuade us that he can hold two knives IRL, so his character can hold two daggers in a single hand, causing a damage of 2d6. Thankfully there was a physics major amongst us who decided to counter his idea, lecturing us about force, pressure, kinetic energy yada yada for another half hour. For the first time in my life I felt like nailing someone's hand on the table with a knife... or two?

[Kobold-Bard]

I wouldn´t allow that too except if the player in question can dodge all the 74 books I throw at him :smallbiggrin:

This is a game where the other player could pull off the DC80 Escape Artist and hide when you were looking straight at him.

That was what annoyed us, that he allowed some unrealistic abilities, but not others.

[Private-Prinny]

4. Beer can burn, even explode. We were in university then, so it was fairly easy to demonstrate that it can't.

Clearly you've never had Dwarven ale.

[Emmerask]

This is a game where the other player could pull off the DC80 Escape Artist and hide when you were looking straight at him.

That was what annoyed us, that he allowed some unrealistic abilities, but not others.

For me it wouldn´t be the unrealistic part, it´s d&d after all it´s more the 74 attacks take waaaaaaaaay to long to resolve part :smallbiggrin:

[Kobold-Bard]

For me it wouldn´t be the unrealistic part, it´s d&d after all it´s more the 74 attacks take waaaaaaaaay to long to resolve part :smallbiggrin:

Also no because he was quite happy to sit there and roll a million and one dice for his illegal demon swarm. He just got annoyed when people screwed up his plans (like when we went to help some NPCs instead of following his plot hook so he burned our home down to get our attention).

[Tengu_temp]

"All Adamantine weapons and armor are made by Underdark races, and crumble to dust when exposed to sunlight."

To make it worse, it was the official ruling on a NWN2 server with heavy accent on a pvp conflict between the surface and Underdark. Yeah, the people who ran it were kinda stupid.

[Greenish]

6. Sneaking is not honorable for a ninja and for punishment his vassal wants the ninja to cut off a finger.Doesn't "vassal" mean subordinate?

But yeah, of course ninjas have to fight honourably when they flip out and cut tanks in half with their katanas.

"All Adamantine weapons and armor are made by Underdark races, and crumble to dust when exposed to sunlight."I've been given to understand that that is how adamantite reacts. I recall seeing references to it in some FR novel, too.

[Lilithgow]

12 Strength. That means +12 to hit.

[Talon Sky]

I houserule that taking Two Weapon Fighting gives you two attacks, one with each weapon at the respective negatives. Then the player gets a second natural attack, and they think they now have four attacks, one for each tier.

I calmly tried to explain that she finally was just getting a bonus to the second attack, and she still only had two. Good idea for a houserule, but houserules are made to be broken I suppose....

[Prime32]

My personal worst rule interpretation was ignoring racial hit dice when factoring a character's ECL. For some reason, I always thought that LA = ECL, instead of the correct & proper LA + RHD = ECL. I was very recently corrected on this very forum. I can't believe that I missed that rule; it's so obvious. :smallredface:To be fair, I think some of the designers missed that rule too.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Acquired templates don't increase LA, because you gained it while adventuring... It was dumb enough to make me leave the game.

[Aethir]

That you don't get the natural attacks of a creature you use Polymorph to become, if they would be in excess of the amount of attacks you could normally make in a turn. Wizard with +7 BAB? Two attacks per turn as anything you become.

It makes Hydra form very sad indeed.

[Draz74]

"Nonono. You are misinterpreting Favoured Enemy: Goblinoid. You don't just add that against every goblin you meet. That would be silly. You must have met that goblin personally in the past, and he must have done something to antagonize you...
I mean, otherwise, he wouldn't be your enemy. It would just be racism."

"I did meet this goblin in the past, and he did do something to antagonize me. I met him two seconds ago (which is in the past), and he looked ugly."

[Talon Sky]

"I did meet this goblin in the past, and he did do something to antagonize me. I met him two seconds ago (which is in the past), and he looked ugly."

Quoted for Win

[JaronK]

That you don't get the natural attacks of a creature you use Polymorph to become, if they would be in excess of the amount of attacks you could normally make in a turn. Wizard with +7 BAB? Two attacks per turn as anything you become.

It makes Hydra form very sad indeed.

Sounds like a good house rule to me!

JaronK

[Gametime]

That you don't get the natural attacks of a creature you use Polymorph to become, if they would be in excess of the amount of attacks you could normally make in a turn. Wizard with +7 BAB? Two attacks per turn as anything you become.

It makes Hydra form very sad indeed.

That's not a terrible houserule, all things considered. It doesn't fix the worst abuses of polymorph, but it does make obsoleting the fighter take slightly more work for the wizard.



5. Wizards require deep understanding for every single spell of theirs and spells are pages long, so they need to actually keep their books open in front of them to cast.



This is also a fairly reasonable houserule, in the right circumstances. I doubt it was undertaken with proper forethought, though. (It would also mostly just make the other full casters much better than wizards, but eh. A nerf to wizards is easy to justify.)

[Kris Strife]

"Nonono. You are misinterpreting Favoured Enemy: Goblinoid. You don't just add that against every goblin you meet. That would be silly. You must have met that goblin personally in the past, and he must have done something to antagonize you...
I mean, otherwise, he wouldn't be your enemy. It would just be racism."

Its Speciesism, Goblins aren't a race of human.

[Malificus]

"Nonono. You are misinterpreting Favoured Enemy: Goblinoid. You don't just add that against every goblin you meet. That would be silly. You must have met that goblin personally in the past, and he must have done something to antagonize you...
I mean, otherwise, he wouldn't be your enemy. It would just be racism."

That's silly. You can't be racist against Goblinoids. You can only be racist against humans. This is just really focused animal abuse.

[Aethir]

The problem isn't the power of it as a house rule, that's fine. The problem is that he believes it's RAW and has stated as such. He's gone so far as to ask for an errata to state his way is wrong, while refusing to take any examples to the contrary published elsewhere as correct because of the traditionally lax editing of the example builds.

[Townopolis]

in 3.5 a player was reading the PHB and realized that the rules for animal companions stated that "if a class other than druid grants an animal companion, levels in that class stack with druid for determining the yada yada" or somesuch. Her interpretation was that a druid 1/ranger 19 ended up with the animal companion of a druid 20, because the rules stated that the ranger levels stacked with the druid level that way.

I realize now that druid 1/ranger 19 with full companion progression is far less powerful than a straight druid, but the GM and I argued with her until it ended the session with her stomping out.

[Pluto]

"Nonono. You are misinterpreting Favoured Enemy: Goblinoid. You don't just add that against every goblin you meet. That would be silly. You must have met that goblin personally in the past, and he must have done something to antagonize you...
I mean, otherwise, he wouldn't be your enemy. It would just be racism."

Now I want to make a Ranger like this and, every time I see a Goblin in a campaign, make up a longwinded story about how that individual goblin has wronged me in the past.

I'm excited.:smallbiggrin:

[Superglucose]

You're not flat footed if there is no surprise round.

To be fair that was just the GM changing the rules against us and then nback in his favor when it was time for us to be flat footed.

[ghashxx]

That you don't get the natural attacks of a creature you use Polymorph to become, if they would be in excess of the amount of attacks you could normally make in a turn. Wizard with +7 BAB? Two attacks per turn as anything you become.

It makes Hydra form very sad indeed.

Be a druid, do the Hydra thing at epic level, cast the spell (don't remember the name) that makes eye contact with you require a fort save, or turned to stone. So much fun there.

[Tavar]

You can take two standard actions in a turn.

Yeah, that was really nice for the casters.

[AngelisBlack]

A former DM of mine ruled that successful trip attacks with a spiked chain did damage. I attempted to use logic to inform him that it would mean that I could steal one and never have to aim for armored AC again to deal damage. Not the worst ruling in the world, but still.

[Ravens_cry]

You're not flat footed if there is no surprise round.

To be fair that was just the GM changing the rules against us and then nback in his favor when it was time for us to be flat footed.
Yeah, this has come up a few times. We have to remind the DM, even when it works out in their favour.

[Aharon]

While it's pretty obvious it isn't intended to be the case, could anyone point out the actual rule that says you don't get your bonus spells for high casting stat at high level?

Or is that similar to the "monk lacks unarmed proficiency" in that the intention is pretty clear, but there isn't an actual rule that says so?

[Kylarra]

While it's pretty obvious it isn't intended to be the case, could anyone point out the actual rule that says you don't get your bonus spells for high casting stat at high level?

Or is that similar to the "monk lacks unarmed proficiency" in that the intention is pretty clear, but there isn't an actual rule that says so?
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/theBasics.htm#abilitiesAndSpellcasters



Abilities And Spellcasters

The ability that governs bonus spells depends on what type of spellcaster your character is: Intelligence for wizards; Wisdom for clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers; or Charisma for sorcerers and bards. In addition to having a high ability score, a spellcaster must be of high enough class level to be able to cast spells of a given spell level.

[Ravens_cry]

While it's pretty obvious it isn't intended to be the case, could anyone point out the actual rule that says you don't get your bonus spells for high casting stat at high level?

Or is that similar to the "monk lacks unarmed proficiency" in that the intention is pretty clear, but there isn't an actual rule that says so?
Your casting stat level determines what spell level you get bonus spells for, but not what casting level you get bonus spells at. You still get a level 1 bonus spell for having a 19 casting stat at first or twentieth level.

[Math_Mage]

A former DM of mine ruled that successful trip attacks with a spiked chain did damage. I attempted to use logic to inform him that it would mean that I could steal one and never have to aim for armored AC again to deal damage. Not the worst ruling in the world, but still.

To be fair, this is basically what happens when you get Improved Trip and all the other goodies that come with a tripper build.

[2xMachina]

"Nonono. You are misinterpreting Favoured Enemy: Goblinoid. You don't just add that against every goblin you meet. That would be silly. You must have met that goblin personally in the past, and he must have done something to antagonize you...
I mean, otherwise, he wouldn't be your enemy. It would just be racism."

Proof that all rangers are racist.

[Tengu_temp]

I've been given to understand that that is how adamantite reacts. I recall seeing references to it in some FR novel, too.

Yup. When I mentioned this to the guys running the server, they said that Adamantine and Adamantite is the same thing, and when I said they're wrong, their response was that if I disagree with their ruling, I'm free to leave. And so I did.


You're not flat footed if there is no surprise round.

I constantly forget that you are flat-footed before you act for the first time in combat. It helps my players more than it inhibits them, though, so I don't think if anyone's complaining.

[rakkoon]

That's silly. You can't be racist against Goblinoids. You can only be racist against humans. This is just really focused animal abuse.

I think I'll join a LARP one more time just to say that last line...

[cenghiz]

Clearly you've never had Dwarven ale.

Dwarven ale is poison. Period. It's not beer.

[2xMachina]

Dwarven ale is poison. Period. It's not beer.

And an explosive, flammable material to boot.

[Yuki Akuma]

Dwarven ale is poison. Period. It's not beer.

Beer is poison. What's your point?

[Kobold-Bard]

Beer is poison. What's your point?

Normal beer gives you a chance to survive.

Dwarven beer melts you whilst you're drinking it (unless you're a Dwarf obviously).

Dwarven beer is like the Black Lotus Extract to normal beers Drow unconsciousness poison. They're both poison, but one is far, far, far, far more potent than the other.

[Kaiyanwang]

When I started DMing, I totally messed up movement and attacks, leading to situations where everybody had, de facto, pounce.

BTW, sometimes I think that was better that way.

Moreover, I did a similar mistake as the one above about polymorph and BAB to attacks.

[Ernir]

My worst mistake: I thought Metamagic feats

A) Applied to only one spell each time you took them.
B) Did not have a spell slot level increase associated with them.

We played like that for... I think the first 7 levels of my first campaign. The low level Wizard had Quickened Enlarge Person as a first level spell, which he of course used at the start of every encounter.

It actually didn't upset things at all, though. Fun times...

You're not flat footed if there is no surprise round.

I have a DM who does that. He thinks it's a silly rule.

Not that it changes much of anything in the chaos that is that group's combats. :smalleek:

[Malificus]

I had one gm who made it so a monk 11 (or a tattooed monk with the right tattoo) who takes levels in drunken master wouldn't have most of the benefits of the class due to his inability to get drunk, since alcohol is a poison.

[ghost_warlock]

Not sure if this technically applies to the specific thread topic, but is basically related.

In a recent 3.5 game my brother was playing a dread necromancer and he attempted to use ray of enfeeblement on an owlbear zombie. The DM (who generally has a shaky understanding of the rules) told him that, since it was a negative energy effect, it'd give the owlbear zombie a bonus to strength.

My brother was practically drooling, thinking about the implications of this ruling for his undead minions...

[Coplantor]

Back in 2nd ed, when I was 12 and my first tie playing DnD, we interpreted spells per day as spells known (the books were in english, I wasn't good at it and the texts were long), and we casted spells the whole day without running out of them.

But since there was no CR stuff, encounters were relatively balaned since we fought hordes of monsters.

Those days were awesome.

[Kobold-Bard]

Not sure if this technically applies to the specific thread topic, but is basically related.

In a recent 3.5 game my brother was playing a dread necromancer and he attempted to use ray of enfeeblement on an owlbear zombie. The DM (who generally has a shaky understanding of the rules) told him that, since it was a negative energy effect, it'd give the owlbear zombie a bonus to strength.

My brother was practically drooling, thinking about the implications of this ruling for his undead minions...

I this isn't a rule then my old DM (Mr. no 74 attacks) is guilty of another offence. His BBEG was a manifestation of pure negative energy (some sort of Negative Elemental). He didn't mention this until I tried to use Energy Drain on him, which according to him gave the BBEG 6 bonus levels, meaning it gained so much HP that I'd basically just erased the last 4 rounds worth of damage.

The party were annoyed until another player then cast Mass Protection from Energy (Negative) which he justified made us invulnerable to it's attacks. DM nearly exploded.

[Reynard]

I this isn't a rule then my old DM (Mr. no 74 attacks) is guilty of another offence. His BBEG was a manifestation of pure negative energy (some sort of Negative Elemental). He didn't mention this until I tried to use Energy Drain on him, which according to him gave the BBEG 6 bonus levels, meaning it gained so much HP that I'd basically just erased the last 4 rounds worth of damage.

The party were annoyed until another player then cast Mass Protection from Energy (Negative) which he justified made us invulnerable to it's attacks. DM nearly exploded.

Does your current HP increase at level up if you do so while damaged? I'm not sure, but I don't think it does.

If you've got 25/max hp (or whatever) and you level up mid-battle, don't you still only have 25/max hp?

[Kobold-Bard]

Does your current HP increase at level up if you do so while damaged? I'm not sure, but I don't think it does.

If you've got 25/max hp (or whatever) and you level up mid-battle, don't you still only have 25/max hp?

Not according to him. You level up and gain the full benefits immediately (which he did for all of us too so this wasn't to bad). This included gaining all your new HP, so the BBEG went from (not actual numbers) 50/100HP to 150/200HP.

[Douglas]

I this isn't a rule then my old DM (Mr. no 74 attacks) is guilty of another offence. His BBEG was a manifestation of pure negative energy (some sort of Negative Elemental). He didn't mention this until I tried to use Energy Drain on him, which according to him gave the BBEG 6 bonus levels, meaning it gained so much HP that I'd basically just erased the last 4 rounds worth of damage.

The party were annoyed until another player then cast Mass Protection from Energy (Negative) which he justified made us invulnerable to it's attacks. DM nearly exploded.
Undead do generally get some sort of reversed effect from negative energy spells, but for things other than damage it is not generally an exact opposite of the normal effect. Specifically for level drain, the normal substitution is gaining 5 temporary hit points for each negative level.

In this particular case, the Rules As Written are:
An undead creature struck by the ray gains 2d4×5 temporary hit points for 1 hour. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/energyDrain.htm)

So, 30 temp hp for the BBEG. That's it. No extra levels, complete with full hit dice and class abilities, or anything even close to that ridiculously brokenly powerful. Just 30 extra hit points.

[hotel_papa]

I had a DM argue that scent made a creature immune to sneak attack.

The same DM also insisted that since there was a minimum caster level for item creation feats, that was also the minimum caster level for said items. IE, all potions are at 3rd CL, regardless of price, and all wands are CL 5. This, of course made these magic items a fraction of their intended price. After showing him the formula(s) in the back of the DMG, he refused to change or even admit it was a house rule.

Another DM said I couldn't add my Dwarven bonus against poison to a modified CON check that was the main mechanic in a drinking contest. Because the book didn't say so. Not a RAW/RAI issue, really, but still bugged me.

My worst rule interpretation ever was completely misunderstanding the XP system for Star Wars: Saga Edition. In that game, you're supposed to award the amount of experience each enemy/trap is worth individually, totaling them up and dividing the total amongst the party. I was using the 3.5 method (2 of the same is one CR higher than one) and under-awarded XP for 7 level's worth of game-play. Luckily my players were cool about it. I still felt bad. The game had to end prematurely (I was moving to TX) and they never got to be as epic as they deserved. They did blow up a Star Destroyer from the inside, though, setting off a propaganda machine that kick-started the rebellion. Not bad for a Bothan, a Wookiee, a Togruta and an Astromech Droid.

[Douglas]

My worst rule interpretation ever was completely misunderstanding the XP system for Star Wars: Saga Edition. In that game, you're supposed to award the amount of experience each enemy/trap is worth individually, totaling them up and dividing the total amongst the party. I was using the 3.5 method (2 of the same is one CR higher than one) and under-awarded XP for 7 level's worth of game-play. Luckily my players were cool about it. I still felt bad. The game had to end prematurely (I was moving to TX) and they never got to be as epic as they deserved. They did blow up a Star Destroyer from the inside, though, setting off a propaganda machine that kick-started the rebellion. Not bad for a Bothan, a Wookiee, a Togruta and an Astromech Droid.
Actually, what you described as the "Saga Edition XP method" is how it works in 3.5e too. Also, 2 of the same is one CR two EL* higher than one. IIRC, correcting the +1 to +2 makes the XP reward chart come out the same regardless of whether you award XP for each individual monster or for the group, though, so that's your real mistake here.

* Technically CR can only correctly be applied to a single monster. If you're talking about multiple monsters, it's Encounter Level. For a single monster, CR and EL are equal. Not that the distinction between the two terms really matters much outside of pedantry.

[BobVosh]

When my group first set its teeth into 3.0 we had some..shady rules interpretations.

Someone had that supreme cleave that lets you move up to your movement and make another attack. We thought that meant for each attack he could move his full movement provided he dropped the foe. We did the add the chart for everything. "bad" saves were easily low 30s. We thought the Hail of Arrows feature meant the AA could shoot one arrow for each AA level at every foe in range. This meant combat would start, all mooks died, all threats were heavily damaged. The paladin/whatever would supreme cleave the rest of the room(pretty much no matter the size, so long as each enemy is within 50ft of each other). If you had an item creation feat you could make any item at half cost, no time, and no XP. Touch AC is dex, and dex alone. Not the modifier + 10, just the dex score. Monks were too awesome, too many abilities. Ban. Spell focus isn't strong enough so everytime you get a stat bump all your spells get +1 DC. This wasn't by a new DM, just a rather silly one.\ Rust monsters add their con to the DC of their rust ability. I think this had something to do with it saying the ability is based off con for determining DC.

[Last Laugh]

Rust monsters add their con to the DC of their rust ability. I think this had something to do with it saying the ability is based off con for determining DC.

To be fair this is sort of understandable.

The save for a monster's special abilities is generally based on Constitution. (I believe the formula is 10 + 1/2 RHD + con mod, The rust monster's rust ability matches this with 10+1(con)+2(RHD)+4(Racial bonus))

BUT it is always factored into the monster statistics block. To make the game easy to play and easy to improve monsters.

[Chen]

So, 30 temp hp for the BBEG. That's it. No extra levels, complete with full hit dice and class abilities, or anything even close to that ridiculously brokenly powerful. Just 30 extra hit points.

Thats for undead. This thing was something of a negative energy elemental he said. Now 6 full levels would be ridiculously broken and stupid to do, but some sort of extra gain other than just hit points is reasonable DMing in this case. Arcana (or Planes or something) checks should have been allowed to realize it was pure negative energy though.

[Tavar]

To be fair, this is basically what happens when you get Improved Trip and all the other goodies that come with a tripper build.

Not quite. You still have to make an attack role, against their AC-4. Against many foes, their touch AC will be lower. Heck, this means that you don't even need the proficiency for the spiked chain. The -4 penalty to attack roles would be canceled out by attacking touch ac or the prone penalty.

[Yora]

I had one gm who made it so a monk 11 (or a tattooed monk with the right tattoo) who takes levels in drunken master wouldn't have most of the benefits of the class due to his inability to get drunk, since alcohol is a poison.

I would say this is actually the right way to read the two classes. :smallbiggrin:

[Malificus]

I would say this is actually the right way to read the two classes. :smallbiggrin:
Then the bad reading would go to the guy who tried it.

[marjan]

Undead do generally get some sort of reversed effect from negative energy spells, but for things other than damage it is not generally an exact opposite of the normal effect.

Note that RoE works normally on undead. They are not immune to necromancy spells - there are just some specific spells that work differently on undead then they do on living things.

[Critical]

I would say this is actually the right way to read the two classes. :smallbiggrin:

Well, it doesn't say that you have to get drunk or something, it just says you have to drink it. Warforged Drunken Master ftw?

[Malificus]

Well, it doesn't say that you have to get drunk or something, it just says you have to drink it. Warforged Drunken Master ftw?

Actually, to qualify you specifically have to not get poisoned after a night of drinking.

If alcohol is a poison, then getting drunk is getting poisoned. You have party for a night, while avoiding that.

[Amphetryon]

Actually, to qualify you specifically have to not get poisoned after a night of drinking.

If alcohol is a poison, then getting drunk is getting poisoned. You have party for a night, while avoiding that.

I'd say the Warforged should be able to drink it and party all night without being poisoned or terminally embarrassed, then. :smallbiggrin:

[Critical]

Actually, to qualify you specifically have to not get poisoned after a night of drinking.

If alcohol is a poison, then getting drunk is getting poisoned. You have party for a night, while avoiding that.

Well, you can drink anything and everything as a Warforged, and you're not poisoned... What's the problem? :smallbiggrin:

[Panigg]

Well, you can drink anything and everything as a Warforged, and you're not poisoned... What's the problem? :smallbiggrin:

You cannot drink?

[senrath]

You cannot drink?

Um, Warforged can drink things. They just don't need to.

[NEO|Phyte]

You cannot drink?

Sure you can. Warforged have always been able to use potions.

[NeoVid]

We had one player who tried to convince the GM that a +2 level adjusted creature meant that it was level 2. Fortunately, I got his Minotaur disallowed.

[gbprime]

2nd ED AD+D was great for this stuff, thanks to the pre-information age and lack of FAQ's.

Long ago, our DM decided that whoever dealt the killing blow was the one who got all the XP. That led to massive amounts of kill-stealing by the wizard in the party. He was a new player who started at 1st level when the rest of us were 7th. He had ONE SPELL PER DAY. Here we are, fighting a dragon, and we know it has exactly 55 HP. He keeps track of all the damage being done, then hits it with a magic missile. Boom, he's 4th level. Repeat.


And anyone remember the 2nd ED listings for monster rewards? They listed the amount of XP as [number + X/hit points]. So when a monster was listed as [100+2/hp], you get 120 XP for killing it if it had 10 HP. Well that's not how the DM read it. He thought you got 100 XP and 2 HP for killing it.

So off we go to dinosaur land, hunting brontosauruses from the air which give us 5000xp and 80 hp each time we make a kill. I think we personally caused the great extinction. :smalltongue:

[KillianHawkeye]

Does your current HP increase at level up if you do so while damaged? I'm not sure, but I don't think it does.

If you've got 25/max hp (or whatever) and you level up mid-battle, don't you still only have 25/max hp?

So you're suggesting that you effectively take damage whenever you gain a level? :smallconfused:

[Mystic Muse]

So you're suggesting that you effectively take damage whenever you gain a level? :smallconfused:

No. he's saying your Max HP goes up but your current HP remains the same.

[senrath]

Which means that you effectively take damage, because you then need to heal even more in order to get up to full health.

[mikethepoor]

I got two, both pretty minor in the grand scheme, but here goes.

The worst thing I ever did myself was argue that a chainwielder could trip a prone enemy as it was getting up. This ended up eventually contributing to breaking the game because enemies couldn't stand up once I'd gotten them down, and even when they got up they couldn't hurt me because the DM had also allowed me to have the mineral warrior template.

The worst I've seen someone else do was forget that he couldn't spend more power points than his manifester level on a single power, so he kept trying to Enlarge as a swift action (monk6/psifist1).

[Greenish]

The worst thing I ever did myself was argue that a chainwielder could trip a prone enemy as it was getting up. This ended up eventually contributing to breaking the game because enemies couldn't stand up once I'd gotten them down, and even when they got up they couldn't hurt me because the DM had also allowed me to have the mineral warrior template.That's an easy mistake to make, though it could've been solved with having enemies with Adamantine-tipped longspears (or any other reach weapon). Natural reach with Strength Devotion would've helped, and of course big, strong enemies are harder to trip.

[The Dark Fiddler]

We didn't quite understand magic weapons or armor and thought for example that a +3 weapon would have +3 to hit, +3 to damage and some of the other effects that are worth up to +3.

Yeah, I made this mistake too.

Another crappy ruling by a DM of mine was giving a character perfectly average high-heeled shoes prevented being flat-footed. :smallsigh:

[AtwasAwamps]

I have a great one!

3.5: Divine Metamagic does not require you to take the requisite metamagic feat.

The best part? None of them think this is broken. Only one of them has taken a Divine Metamagic feat at all. They took reach.

[Math_Mage]

Yeah, I made this mistake too.

Another crappy ruling by a DM of mine was giving a character perfectly average high-heeled shoes prevented being flat-footed. :smallsigh:

Thread winner, right there.

[mikethepoor]

That's an easy mistake to make, though it could've been solved with having enemies with Adamantine-tipped longspears (or any other reach weapon). Natural reach with Strength Devotion would've helped, and of course big, strong enemies are harder to trip.

Yeah, well my DM was also stupid enough to use core monsters against non-core PCs, then complain when I thrashed them.

[Kobold-Bard]

Yeah, I made this mistake too.

Another crappy ruling by a DM of mine was giving a character perfectly average high-heeled shoes prevented being flat-footed. :smallsigh:

Oh wow. There's nothing I can say about this except; wow.

[TheThan]

Another crappy ruling by a DM of mine was giving a character perfectly average high-heeled shoes prevented being flat-footed. :smallsigh:

This I find quite funny, and makes sense if you take flat footed literally, not figuratively, as its meant to be. Naturally it is a foolish assumption, and shows the DM didn’t actually read the definition of flat footed.

[goken04]

Warforged Drunken Master ftw?

Hahaha!

http://dublinopinion.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/bender-on-the-batter.JPG

[Boci]

If alcohol is a poison,

It is not in D&D, so you can be a tatoo-ed monk / drunken master by RAW. Houseruling alcohol to be a posion is perfectly reasonable, as long as its not made with the sole intention of disalowing the former build.

IRL I believe it is a drug in small concentrations, and a poison in larger ones, but I may be wrong.

[WarKitty]

Which means that you effectively take damage, because you then need to heal even more in order to get up to full health.

Our solution to this was "you can't level up until you reasonably have time to rest." Might not work for longer dungeon-crawls though, our games tend to have a lot of running around the world and stopping in cities overnight.

[Il_Vec]

Our solution to this was "you can't level up until you reasonably have time to rest." Might not work for longer dungeon-crawls though, our games tend to have a lot of running around the world and stopping in cities overnight.

In our group, leveling up takes stoping and resting/studying/training for Reached Level days, at least. It does mean that if we are level 19, and the world will end in one month if we don't get to level 20, we need to come up with a plan that takes only 10 days...

[PersonMan]

In my groups leveling up depends. A good chunk of the time I use a no-XP leveling system, so I'd just say "You all level up" now and then at the end of sessions. If I'm using XP, you wait until the end of the session to level up, unless you're in the middle of a dungeon. This is mainly so that we spend time playing rather than leveling characters up, though. If I need more time because what I have prepared isn't enough, I let them "Go in a corner and do their level-up", usually after barricading themselves into the room.

[Flickerdart]

In our group, leveling up takes stoping and resting/studying/training for Reached Level days, at least. It does mean that if we are level 19, and the world will end in one month if we don't get to level 20, we need to come up with a plan that takes only 10 days...
You're level 20. What plan can possibly take as long as 10 days?

[PersonMan]

You're level 20. What plan can possibly take as long as 10 days?

Build a new capitol city to improve the morale of the nation so they resist the oncoming undead horde?

Complete a magical ritual lasting 10 days and one second?

[Math_Mage]

It is not in D&D, so you can be a tatoo-ed monk / drunken master by RAW. Houseruling alcohol to be a posion is perfectly reasonable, as long as its not made with the sole intention of disalowing the former build.

IRL I believe it is a drug in small concentrations, and a poison in larger ones, but I may be wrong.

Well, everything is a poison in large enough quantities.

[Flickerdart]

Build a new capitol city to improve the morale of the nation so they resist the oncoming undead horde?

Complete a magical ritual lasting 10 days and one second?
Building a city should take only one genie. A magical ritual that can't be mitigated with solars can be done on a fast-time Genesis plane.

[JaronK]

I have a great one!

3.5: Divine Metamagic does not require you to take the requisite metamagic feat.

The best part? None of them think this is broken. Only one of them has taken a Divine Metamagic feat at all. They took reach.

Note that by the books, this is in fact correct. An Errata later changed this.

JaronK

[Prodan]

Well, everything is a poison in large enough quantities.

Ethanol is a psychoactive drug that is processed into acetoacetate in the body, which is highly poisonous.

[Boci]

Well, everything is a poison in large enough quantities.

I said concentration, not quantity, but I may be wrong on how something is determined to be a poison.

[PersonMan]

Building a city should take only one genie. A magical ritual that can't be mitigated with solars can be done on a fast-time Genesis plane.

No. It must be done on PLOT DEVICE, and PLOT DEVICE cannot be moved from PLOT HOOK LOCATION, or STICK will happen. However, if you complete the ritual successfully, CARROT!

Also, Maybe you need to "kill" a lick twice(rather than just destroy it), and it rolled a 10 on its return-date?

Or, [contrived plot device that lasts ten days]!

[Siosilvar]

Also, Maybe you need to "kill" a lick twice(rather than just destroy it), and it rolled a 10 on its return-date?

Completely off-topic from this thread, but...
[hr]The Prime is collapsing on itself! You need to rip a hole through the fabric of space so that it can remain stable... problem is, the only thing that could possibly destabilize the collapse is the banishment of a (insert Balor's big daddy)... twice, in opposite directions (the Outer planes revolve around the Prime, taking 20 days for complete rotation).[hr]
Interesting plot hook?

[Gametime]

Which means that you effectively take damage, because you then need to heal even more in order to get up to full health.

...No, it doesn't. Unless you are suggesting that two characters with 10 hit points each do not have the same amount of hit points, then their maximum hit points has no bearing on their current hit points.

Since damage is the loss of current hit points, you don't take damage under this proposed paradigm.

Most people don't level up in combat, though, to avoid weird situations like this.

[WildPyre]

...No, it doesn't. Unless you are suggesting that two characters with 10 hit points each do not have the same amount of hit points, then their maximum hit points has no bearing on their current hit points.

Since damage is the loss of current hit points, you don't take damage under this proposed paradigm.

Most people don't level up in combat, though, to avoid weird situations like this.

The other way to look at it is this... one person has 10 out of 10 hp and another has 10 out of 15 hp... the second one is down by 5 hp or at 2/3 his life.

[Pluto]

...No, it doesn't. Unless you are suggesting that two characters with 10 hit points each do not have the same amount of hit points, then their maximum hit points has no bearing on their current hit points.
It's kinda weird to think that an uninjured person could be more injured than a person who's been hurt somehow.

[Amphetryon]

It is not in D&D, so you can be a tatoo-ed monk / drunken master by RAW. Houseruling alcohol to be a posion is perfectly reasonable, as long as its not made with the sole intention of disalowing the former build.

IRL I believe it is a drug in small concentrations, and a poison in larger ones, but I may be wrong.

Doesn't BoED qualify alcohol as a weak poison?

[Gametime]

It is not in D&D, so you can be a tatoo-ed monk / drunken master by RAW. Houseruling alcohol to be a posion is perfectly reasonable, as long as its not made with the sole intention of disalowing the former build.

IRL I believe it is a drug in small concentrations, and a poison in larger ones, but I may be wrong.

It is a poison according to the Arms & Equipment Guide. The facts that this book is 3.0, and that the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide contains poisons without classifying alcohol as one, and the 3.5 Drunken Master (the only mechanical mention of alcohol in 3.5, to my knowledge) doesn't mention it being a poison might cast doubts on that ruling.


It's kinda weird to think that an uninjured person could be more injured than a person who's been hurt somehow.

Quite. Hit points are weird like that.

[Boci]

Doesn't BoED qualify alcohol as a weak poison?

Nope. One of the vows (abstinence) is broken when you drink alcohol, and 2 spells have an abstinence component require that no alcohol have been consumed by the caster for an X number of days before the spell is cast


It is a poison according to the Arms & Equipment Guide. The facts that this book is 3.0, and that the 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide contains poisons without classifying alcohol as one, and the 3.5 Drunken Master (the only mechanical mention of alcohol in 3.5, to my knowledge) doesn't mention it being a poison might cast doubts on that ruling.

Well yeah, thats annoying. I wouldn't even consider ruling alcohol a poison, but yes there is an argument since all 3.0 material is official unless specifically updated.

[Kylarra]

...No, it doesn't. Unless you are suggesting that two characters with 10 hit points each do not have the same amount of hit points, then their maximum hit points has no bearing on their current hit points.

Since damage is the loss of current hit points, you don't take damage under this proposed paradigm.

Most people don't level up in combat, though, to avoid weird situations like this.Current HP is simply a function of Max HP minus damage taken. It's not a hard value in itself, else your [current] HP total wouldn't increase when you get con increases.

[Zeful]

...No, it doesn't. Unless you are suggesting that two characters with 10 hit points each do not have the same amount of hit points, then their maximum hit points has no bearing on their current hit points.

So some one with 10 total Hp is just as hurt as someone with 10 hp out of 30 or 300 or 3000?

Your max HP is just as important as current hp.

[Mystic Muse]

So some one with 10 total Hp is just as hurt as someone with 10 hp out of 30 or 300 or 3000?

Actually, yes.

[Kylarra]

So some one with 10 total Hp is just as hurt as someone with 10 hp out of 30 or 300 or 3000?

Your max HP is just as important as current hp.Well in D&D, so long as you're above 0, you're doing fine. :smalltongue:

[Seffbasilisk]

Most of the things that come to mind, can either be loosely shuffled under Houserules or DM's-Girlfriend.

Two that come to mind: LA only for ECL, racial HD are replaced by class levels.

And the stat itself is the modifier.


I remember an old arena battle where one player, with a melee character he had stacked a bunch of size increases plus Monkey Grip on, managed to convince the DM that he could ignore Displacement/Invisibility effects because his Colossal greataxe had an edge 5ft wide, making it impossible to miss the target in the square.

Hey, never said YOU couldn't talk to the DM as well. :smalltongue:

And the 'ignore miss chance' was entirely his idea. The 35' reach might have started with me asking if weapon size changed reach seeing as it was longer than I was tall...

[OracleofWuffing]

Okay, this one I admit to.

Call Lightning (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/callLightning.htm) makes a five-foot wide, thirty-foot long vertical bolt of lightning, correct?



..........
\...A..../
X\....../X
XX\.1../XX
XXX|.2|XXX
XXX|..|XXX
XX/.3..\XX
X/..B.4.\X
/........\
..........

"...And a bolt of lightning arcs from Point A to Point B, striking players 1 and 3!"

:smallfrown: It looked like a vertical line at the time...

[Wonton]

Yeah, I made this mistake too.

Another crappy ruling by a DM of mine was giving a character perfectly average high-heeled shoes prevented being flat-footed. :smallsigh:

That is gold. You, sir, just made my life.

As for me...

1) Ray of Enfeeblement stacks. I took 31 Str off the BBEG, not that it mattered, because he was a sorcerer, and had 45 Str to start, due to being half-red-dragon or something.

2) +1 from Masterwork stacks with magical +1. (Though it really should... :smallannoyed:)

3) If you're not proficient with a weapon, you can't use it.

Probably more, can't think of any good ones right now.

[absolmorph]

Yeah, I made this mistake too.

Another crappy ruling by a DM of mine was giving a character perfectly average high-heeled shoes prevented being flat-footed. :smallsigh:
I think this comes first in humor, simply because I love using literal interpretations when it's meant to be figurative.

The worst interpretation I've seen in a game I played in was when a player made a half-dragon... dog.
I don't think they remembered the ability adjustments, or the LA.

[WildPyre]

The worst interpretation I've seen in a game I played in was when a player made a half-dragon... dog.
I don't think they remembered the ability adjustments, or the LA.

Actually it's very possible to add the Half Dragon template to a dog... and with the stat adjustment, could probably be played. It would be very sub optimal because of the LA and it's lack of hands though.

[absolmorph]

Actually it's very possible to add the Half Dragon template to a dog... and with the stat adjustment, could probably be played. It would be very sub optimal because of the LA and it's lack of hands though.
As I said, I think both were forgotten.
It was a dog that could shoot lightning out of its mouth once per day.

[Zaq]

The first time I played a d20 game, I too added my BAB to my damage.

Of course, the VERY first time I played a d20 game (this must have been 3.0), it was a one-shot, and no one really explained the rules to me. I was told that my bard had twentysomething or thirtysomething skill points to spend, and I saw that my Fascinate ability got more powerful as I get better at performing. So I put about half of my points into Perform. No one had mentioned the level + 3 rule, so I figured, why not? That was a fun conversation when I finally got to roll a Perform check and got around a 35 or 40. "How the hell did you do that?!" "Well, I just added my ranks, and my charisma, and I rolled pretty well, so 40. The entire town is enraptured with me, right?" That same bard also had a tower shield, but I don't remember why.

Oh, and the first time I DMed, I thought that you could make a bluff check to make someone flat-footed at ANY range, not just melee. Including if the target couldn't actually see you. (NOW I know that being unseen usually makes the target flat-footed anyway, but I didn't know it THEN, and there were other factors as well.) So I had a spellthief up out of reach making bluff checks and getting sneak attacks with darts as the party tried to get to him. Stupid, huh?

That, and the time I shattered our poor monk's magical sai with Shatter. (The group was unoptimized enough to think that a monk with a sai was a viable choice... what can I say? We were all new once.) I swear that I read and reread the spell for ten minutes trying to figure out whether or not I could, blatantly ignoring the whole "nonmagical" thing. I was a really, REALLY bad GM the first time around. (You don't WANT to know how bad I railroaded my poor players... I was the kind of GM you hear horror stories about. Thankfully, I got better. Maybe not good, but at least not THAT bad.)

I also invented the "partial defense" action... spend a move action, get +1 AC. I figured that if "total defense" existed, it must have a counterpart in the form of "partial defense," right? This wasn't a conscious houserule; I just thought that it was in the rules because it made sense.

(This was also the era when I believed that the best class for getting away with a low CON was the FIGHTER, because they had good HD and good Fort saves to make up for it. This wasn't a rule interpretation per se, just... I was dumb.)

[hangedman1984]

Yeah, I made this mistake too.

Another crappy ruling by a DM of mine was giving a character perfectly average high-heeled shoes prevented being flat-footed. :smallsigh:


I've jokingly tried to argue that very thing many times

[Learnedguy]

(Might be a repost, but I don't have time checking eight pages of replies)

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/1709686/

tg archives. Made a quick check to see if there was any NWS pictures, but thread appeared to be saCLANG

WHAT THE **** WAS THAT?

[Ravens_cry]

(Might be a repost, but I don't have time checking eight pages of replies)

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/1709686/

tg archives. Made a quick check to see if there was any NWS pictures, but thread appeared to be saCLANG

WHAT THE **** WAS THAT?
I have never used an immovable rod because the DM, and other players, have argued the exact same thing. I like abusing the laws of physics in game too but. . .
*head desk*

[Math_Mage]

I have never used an immovable rod because the DM, and other players, have argued the exact same thing. I like abusing the laws of physics in game too but. . .
*head desk*

Especially since it's wrong physics. How does one go about determining a universal stillpoint?

[TheThan]

Especially since it's wrong physics. How does one go about determining a universal stillpoint?

it's maaggic!

[Malificus]

it's maaggic!

Then what's saying the sun doesn't go around the non-moving planet as [Sun God] makes its rounds?

[gbprime]

Then what's saying the sun doesn't go around the non-moving planet as [Sun God] makes its rounds?

Please, it's a chariot. Were you not paying attention in seminary? :smalltongue:

[Malificus]

Please, it's a chariot. Were you not paying attention in seminary? :smalltongue:

The mode of transportation is secondary to the stillness of the planet for the intent of my statement.

[Melayl]

On these very boards: rogues can apply SA damage to only one attack per round.

That must have been me. I still feel that way. Actually, I feel that the opposite is one of the worst rules interps I've seen. That, and that rogues can sneak attack with vials of acid...

[Eldariel]

That must have been me. I still feel that way. Actually, I feel that the opposite is one of the worst rules interps I've seen.

Considering that the idea of Sneak Attack is hitting opponent where it really hurts when said opponent isn't able to defend himself, it's pretty obvious; if opponent suddenly doesn't become able to defend himself mid-attack (such as you being under Invisibility, SAing the first attack of a full attack and becoming visible; or you having Feinted and then full attacking, landing first hit on surprise but then facing a wall of blades), there's no reason you couldn't keep stabbing him in the kidney until he finally does become capable of defense.

[Draz74]

Especially since it's wrong physics. How does one go about determining a universal stillpoint?

Where the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation blueshift and redshift cancel each other out exactly, on average?

... Not sure whether that really makes sense. But it definitely makes more sense than establishing the center of the earth (but not its surface) as a universal reference frame, which is what it sounds like that DM did.

[lesser_minion]

There are no privileged frames of reference. That is all.

I remember completely misreading the rules for how to work out the level of a creature before. I've also tried to get a spiritual hammer (1e) to last for over an hour by missing the note saying "1 round per level".

Although, how loud exactly does a necromancer's ritual have to be to be able to hear it from four hours' walk away?

[Doug Lampert]

Its Speciesism, Goblins aren't a race of human.

Of course they are. They and humans both have viable offspring with Dragons, so they're members of the same species.

Actually, EVERYTHING in D&D land (including inanimate objects) is the same species, because it sure looks like EVERYTHING can breed with everything else.

[Brendan]

I once tried to use diplomacy on a mindless BBEG during a one-shot. It was my first time playing, and I died terribly.

[Tavar]

Of course they are. They and humans both have viable offspring with Dragons, so they're members of the same species.

Actually, EVERYTHING in D&D land (including inanimate objects) is the same species, because it sure looks like EVERYTHING can breed with everything else.

Not quite true. I mean, Humans can't breed with Kobolds. But both can breed with dragons. It's more that some creatures have very, very effective sex cells, that can morph themselves across normal boundaries, and produce viable offspring.

Or, as we like to call it, Magic.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

Not quite true. I mean, Humans can't breed with Kobolds. But both can breed with dragons. It's more that some creatures have very, very effective sex cells, that can morph themselves across normal boundaries, and produce viable offspring.

Or, as we like to call it, Magic.

That, or, everything is a species of dragon.

[Ormur]

Biology or physics don't really work in D&D. It may be hard to throw out the intuitive things that clash with D&D magic and nonsense but that's just the way it's got to be. I don't think even Newtonian physics works, it's got to be closer an Aristotelian world view.

I don't exactly remember what it was but our DM screwed up our first battle (ours as players and his as a DM) so both of us got killed. I was a wizard and my friend a cleric and we were fighting skeletons and zombies. It might have been that the zombies could move like normal. Nothing major but against first-time first level players it was kind of an anticlimax.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

Nah, Aristotle would have thrown a fit at most of the 'physics' and 'biology' and 'science' in D&D.

[Ravens_cry]

On the other hand, keeping down the cat girl population is everyone's responsibility. :smalltongue:

[Ernir]

I don't exactly remember what it was but our DM screwed up our first battle (ours as players and his as a DM) so both of us got killed. I was a wizard and my friend a cleric and we were fighting skeletons and zombies. It might have been that the zombies could move like normal. Nothing major but against first-time first level players it was kind of an anticlimax.

I think that first battle was... surprisingly mechanically sound, actually.

The ****up was mostly that I didn't have the slightest idea how CR worked.
"Huh. A skeleton is CR 1/3? Well, it makes sense, it's much worse than a PC. So 3 skeletons are a fair fight for one PC. But there's not one, but two PCs. So I double the numbers. Ooo, and let's add some zombies, so it's a bit tough."

Yeeeeeah. TPK. :smallsigh:

[Ormur]

Explains why I couldn't remember what was wrong. :smallbiggrin:

Not that CR proved very indicative of how we'd fare against other threats. I've handwaved all my encounter CR's. That's also why I started my campaign at level 4. So I wouldn't kill you all by throwing an over CR'd encounter at you if I got frustrated.

[krossbow]

As I said, I think both were forgotten.
It was a dog that could shoot lightning out of its mouth once per day.


Sounds like a bad%&^ shocking skag from borderlands.

[lesser_minion]

On the other hand, keeping down the cat girl population is everyone's responsibility. :smalltongue:

Not especially. An all-female species that probably doesn't have any capacity for cross-breeding with ordinary humans isn't something to worry about.

And anyway, what exactly is the problem with catgirls? As with Mary Sue elves, just being a catgirl doesn't automatically metamorphose a character into some kind of incarnation of bad writing.

[krossbow]

depends; some catgirl species, such as the mithra or viera (more bunny girl than catgirl) from final fantasy have a bad tendency to yell at their men to stay in the kitchen.

[lesser_minion]

depends; some catgirl species, such as the mithra or viera (more bunny girl than catgirl) from final fantasy have a bad tendency to yell at their men to stay in the kitchen.

I think that probably is still more a case of "wasn't well written to start with" than "metamorphosed into a bad character because someone added cat ears" though.

[absolmorph]

Sounds like a bad%&^ shocking skag from borderlands.
The character also can't communicate with the party.
Despite being it being a creature that should be fairly intelligent.

[Ravens_cry]

Not especially. An all-female species that probably doesn't have any capacity for cross-breeding with ordinary humans isn't something to worry about.

And anyway, what exactly is the problem with catgirls? As with Mary Sue elves, just being a catgirl doesn't automatically metamorphose a character into some kind of incarnation of bad writing.
It's not the breeding. It's the fact every time a fan girl (or boy) squees, a new one pops into existence. So even if they don't breed, they would soon take over the entirety of space and time. Discussing physics in the context of roleplaying is the only way to keep their numbers down.

[WeeFreeMen]

The game I DM'd: I unfortunately thought that Masterwork + Wep Enchant = Additional to Hit AND Damage.

The game I just finished: AC = 10+Ranks in Tumble....because..you know..Do a Barrel Role.

The ONLY game I left: My monk was unproficent with his fists. I rereolled, My Sorcerer DIDNT get bonus spells from stats, because "It doesnt make sense that the more good looking you are the more spells you get" and my final character, I made was a Fighter. I thought, How could he possibly dictate a fighter?..I was wrong. HE selected my bonus feats FOR me, because.."Its a unspecified bonus, fate has to decide" ..*facepalm*

Thats it for my stories.

[Kobold-Bard]

...

The ONLY game I left: My monk was unproficent with his fists. I rereolled, My Sorcerer DIDNT get bonus spells from stats, because "It doesnt make sense that the more good looking you are the more spells you get" and my final character, I made was a Fighter. I thought, How could he possibly dictate a fighter?..I was wrong. HE selected my bonus feats FOR me, because.."Its a unspecified bonus, fate has to decide" ..*facepalm*

Thats it for my stories.

Please tell me you hit that DM with a Players Handbook. The Monk thing is RAW so understandable, if very stupid. Sorcerer bonus spells are an actual rule that he just chose to ignore, and the fighter feats is just insane. What kind of Fighter just wakes up in the morning and lets fate tell him what he's going to learn? :smallannoyed:

You were right to leave.

[Tengu_temp]

The Monk thing is RAW so understandable, if very stupid.

I'd say that when RAW obviously contradicts RAI and the DM goes with RAW anyway, he's not being just very stupid. He's being a RAWtard.

[Morty]

I remembered another thing, although it's more silly than wrong: when playing 4th edition for the first time, I assumed that "Burst 1 in 10" in the description of Schorching Blast means a straight line 10 squares long. It was when I decided to use Sleep (Burst 2 in 20, IIRC) for the first time that I figured something must be wrong with my interpretation.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Not quite true. I mean, Humans can't breed with Kobolds.

Not that we've seen in official rulebooks, maybe, but it's never been proven they can't, has it? :smallamused:


Not especially. An all-female species that probably doesn't have any capacity for cross-breeding with ordinary humans isn't something to worry about.

I'm pretty sure there's a species of lizards composed entirely of females, and they seem to get along pretty well. Actually, here it (or one of them) is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Mexico_whiptail).

And again, how do you know they can't cross-breed? :smalltongue:

[Foryn Gilnith]

I'd say that when RAW obviously contradicts RAI and the DM goes with RAW anyway, he's not being just very stupid. He's being a RAWtard.

It's my game; I shouldn't be obligated to obey the designers' holy intentions at penalty of Their Royal Displeasure. This specific incidence is RAWtarded, yes, but making it into a generalization is rather offensive.

[Tengu_temp]

It's my game; I shouldn't be obligated to obey the designers' holy intentions at penalty of Their Royal Displeasure. This specific incidence is RAWtarded, yes, but making it into a generalization is rather offensive.

You might be right. There might be examples where RAW contradicts RAI, and yet RAW is more sensible, yes. Except that I haven't encountered any personally. Got any examples? I'm curious.

[Emmerask]

The first time I played a d20 game, I too added my BAB to my damage.


Actually this sounds like a good fix for twfers :smallsmile:

[Tinydwarfman]

I think that first battle was... surprisingly mechanically sound, actually.

The ****up was mostly that I didn't have the slightest idea how CR worked.
"Huh. A skeleton is CR 1/3? Well, it makes sense, it's much worse than a PC. So 3 skeletons are a fair fight for one PC. But there's not one, but two PCs. So I double the numbers. Ooo, and let's add some zombies, so it's a bit tough."

Yeeeeeah. TPK. :smallsigh:

Huh. Maybe it's just the difference between out groups, but that sounds like a hard, but winnable fight to me. Of course it completely depends on the circumstances of the fight, and at level one, two bad rolls in a row mean death.

[Kobold-Bard]

Huh. Maybe it's just the difference between out groups, but that sounds like a hard, but winnable fight to me. Of course it completely depends on the circumstances of the fight, and at level one, two bad rolls in a row mean death.

2 (assumed Level 1 admittedly) PC's vs. 6 skeletons and some zombies is a winnable fight? Really?