Top Ten Worst-Written Spells, Class Features, Racial Abilities, Feats, Items, etc

[TuggyNE]

So, I had the idea to have a sort of vote for the absolute worst of the worst in 3.x: stuff that makes you really blanch on sight. I'm keeping track of the top ten by vote in a short table, and all the other suggestions in a much longer one.


Everyone gets up to ten votes, and you can put up to three of them on the same suggestion (yours, or someone else's), or put up to one negative vote per suggestion you disagree with, which counts as one of your ten total; you can redistribute votes at will. Also, try to keep suggestions as tight and self-contained as possible: rather than saying "Sarrukh", try "Manipulate Form"; rather than "Wizard", try "Shapechange". Finally, please try to make all votes clear, to reduce the possibility of misinterpretation.

The Top Ten

# Name Type Votes
1 Truenamer Base Class 31
2 PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange Spell 26
3 Iron Heart Surge Maneuver 25
4 dust of sneezing and choking Item 21
5 epic spellcasting Rule 16
6 alignments Rule 15
7 Cancer Mage Prestige Class 13
8 drowning Rule 13
9 Sarrukh's Manipulate Form Ability 13
10 candle of invocation Item 12



13 dishonorable mentions (at least 5 votes):
# Name Type Votes
11 Diplomacy Skill 12
12 Paladin code Class Feature 10
13 Monk Base Class 9
14 Manyfang Dagger Item 9
15 Shivering Touch Spell 7
16 Void Disciple Prestige Class 7
17 Tainted Scholar Prestige Class 6
18 Monstrous Crab Monster 5
19 Hulking Hurler mountain-tossing Class Feature 5
20 Precocious Apprentice Feat 5
21 Leadership Feat 5
22 flat-footed Combat 5
23 Adamantine Horror Monster 5


96 additional suggestions:
# Name Type Votes
24 CW Samurai Base Class 4
25 Invisible Blade prereqs Class Feature 4
26 Thought Bottle Item 4
27 Balor sword Ability 4
28 Trap Sense Class Feature 4
29 bloodlines Variant Rule 4
30 Challenge Rating Combat 4
31 PrC prereq Rule 4
32 Opalescent Glare Spell 4
33 Abrupt Jaunt Alternate Class Feature 4
34 Vow of Poverty Feat 4
35 Ex/Su/SLA/Na Rule 4
36 Feinting Combat 3
37 Dread Necromancer's fear aura Class Feature 3
38 Persistent Spell Feat 3
39 Genies Monster 3
40 Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil Prestige Class 3
41 Gate Spell 3
42 Mercurial Strike Feat 3
43 Mountebank Prestige Class 3
44 Lucid Dreaming Skill 3
45 Dragonwrought Feat 3
46 Dragonblood subtype Rule 3
47 Incorporeal subtype Rule 3
48 Forsaker Prestige Class 3
49 Prone Shooter Feat 2
50 Ride-By Attack Feat 2
51 dead Combat 2
52 grapple Combat 2
53 Level Adjustment Rule 2
54 soulmelds Rule 2
55 Practiced Manifester Feat 2
56 LA/RHD Rule 2
57 multiclass XP penalties Rule 2
58 Ur-Priest Prestige Class 2
59 Jump Skill 2
60 Planar Bubble Class Feature 2
61 Sublime Chord Prestige Class 2
62 Fiery Fist Feat 2
63 Favored Soul Base Class 2
64 Synthesist Summoner Base Class 2
65 traps Rule 2
66 spell component pouch Item 2
67 Contact Other Plane Spell 2
68 Elemental Weird Monster 2
69 Pazuzu Monster 2
70 Monkey Lunge Feat 1
71 Naztharune Rakshasa sneak attack Ability 1
72 Antagonize Feat 1
73 Fighter Base Class 1
74 Divine Metamagic Feat 1
75 Vorpal Item 1
76 Legion of Sentinels Spell 1
77 Incantatrix Prestige Class 1
78 magic device traps Rule 1
79 SLAs ignoring components Combat 1
80 Planar Ally/Planar Binding Spell 1
81 Heroes of Horror Book 1
82 Healer Base Class 1
83 Dvati Race 1
84 Jack of All Trades Feat 1
85 Forced Dream Power 1
86 Haunt Shift Spell 1
87 Freedom of Movement Spell 1
88 swift/immediate action movement Class Feature/Item 1
89 Clever Wrestling Feat 1
90 Versatile Spellcaster Feat 1
91 Choker extra standard action Ability 1
92 Festering Hate Disease 1
93 Arrow Demon Monster 1
94 Damage Reduction stacking Rule 1
95 Wish Spell 1
96 Feral Template 1
97 Diehard Feat 1
98 free actions Combat 1
99 Beholder Mage Prestige Class 1
100 Planar Shepherd Prestige Class 1
101 Apocalypse from the Sky Spell 1
102 Dirge Singer Prestige Class 1
103 Tracking Rule 1
104 White Raven Tactics on initiator Maneuver 1
105 Complete Psionic Book 1
106 Mindsight Feat 1
107 Monk proficiencies Class Feature 1
108 Shaedling's Shadow Gossamer Ability 1
109 Ebon Eyes Spell 1
110 Guidance of the Avatar Spell 1
111 Greater Mirror Image Spell 1
112 nightsticks Item 1
113 Exemplar Prestige Class 1
114 Ice Assassin Spell 1
115 Illumian power words Ability 1
116 Erudite Base Class 1
117 CPsi Mind Blade Feat 1
118 Reincarnate Spell 1
119 Flaws Variant Rule 1
120 Locate City Spell 1


6 proudly negated suggestions:
# Name Type Votes
121 chicken-infested Flaw 0
122 Malconvoker Prestige Class 0
123 Factotum Base Class 0
124 ML limit on augmentation Rule 0
125 Love's Pain Spell 0
126 Wizard Base Class -1


Votelog:
Poster Votes Total
Acanous candle of invocation (1) 1
allenw Monkey Lunge (1), Prone Shooter (1) 2
Amoren Naztharune Rakshasa sneak attack (1), CW Samurai (1), Truenamer (1), Invisible Blade prereqs (1), Monstrous Crab (1) 5
Amphetryon Shivering Touch (1) 1
Answerer Sarrukh's Manipulate Form (1), Truenamer (1) 2
Antonok Paladin code (3), dust of sneezing and choking (3), alignments (1), Feinting (3) 10
Aricandor Sarrukh's Manipulate Form (1), Truenamer (1), candle of invocation (1), dust of sneezing and choking (1), Iron Heart Surge (1), Cancer Mage (1), Tainted Scholar (1), drowning (1), epic spellcasting (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1) 10
Arutema Antagonize (1) 1
Ashtagon Fighter (1), Wizard (1), Divine Metamagic (1) 3
avr Ride-By Attack (1), Iron Heart Surge (3), alignments (3), epic spellcasting (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (2) 10
Azernak0 Truenamer (1) 1
Batou1976 Truenamer (1), candle of invocation (1), Vorpal (1), alignments (-1), drowning (1) 5
BCBrammer Void Disciple (1) 1
ben-zayb Hulking Hurler mountain-tossing (3), Precocious Apprentice (2), Thought Bottle (2), Cancer Mage (3) 10
bobthe6th Balor sword (3), Dread Necromancer's fear aura (3) 6
BRC Legion of Sentinels (1) 1
Cruiser1 Persistent Spell (3), Iron Heart Surge (1), Genies (3), Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil (3) 10
Curmudgeon Monk (2), Leadership (1), Manyfang Dagger (3), Incantatrix (1), epic spellcasting (1), Diplomacy (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1) 10
Devmaar Trap Sense (2), dust of sneezing and choking (2), Iron Heart Surge (2), dead (1), drowning (2), Shivering Touch (1) 10
Doorhandle chicken-infested (1), Iron Heart Surge (1), Monstrous Crab (1), Cancer Mage (1) 4
Doug Lampert candle of invocation (-1), dust of sneezing and choking (1), drowning (1), grapple (1), magic device traps (1), SLAs ignoring components (1), Diplomacy (1), Gate (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1), Planar Ally/Planar Binding (1) 10
Doxkid Heroes of Horror (1) 1
Dragonborn Healer (1), alignments (3), epic spellcasting (2), flat-footed (1), Level Adjustment (1), soulmelds (1), Shivering Touch (1) 10
Draz74 Sarrukh's Manipulate Form (1), Monk (1), Adamantine Horror (1), epic spellcasting (1), Diplomacy (2), Gate (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1), bloodlines (1), Dvati (1) 10
dspeyer Practiced Manifester (1), Iron Heart Surge (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1) 3
EatAtEmrakuls Truenamer (3), Iron Heart Surge (3), Cancer Mage (3), drowning (1) 10
eggs Jack of All Trades (1), Practiced Manifester (1), Forced Dream (1), Malconvoker (-1), Challenge Rating (3), Haunt Shift (1), bloodlines (2) 10
Ernir Factotum (1), Truenamer (1), Iron Heart Surge (1), drowning (1), Freedom of Movement (1) 5
Eugenides Diplomacy (3), Monk (3), Iron Heart Surge (2), Manyfang Dagger (1), dust of sneezing and choking (1) 10
Featherman swift/immediate action movement (1), LA/RHD (1), multiclass XP penalties (2), PrC prereq (3), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (3) 10
Gavinfoxx Clever Wrestling (1) 1
GnomeGninjas Mercurial Strike (3) 3
Grim Reader Versatile Spellcaster (1), Ur-Priest (1) 2
Grytorm Tainted Scholar (1) 1
HeadlessMermaid Invisible Blade prereqs (1), Trap Sense (-1), Iron Heart Surge (2), alignments (3), flat-footed (1), Diplomacy (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1) 10
Jade Dragon Mountebank (3), candle of invocation (3), Diplomacy (2), Jump (1), alignments (1) 10
JaronK Opalescent Glare (1) 1
jaybird Iron Heart Surge (1) 1
karpik777 Iron Heart Surge (2), Adamantine Horror (1), Tainted Scholar (1) 4
Kazyan Sarrukh's Manipulate Form (3), Truenamer (3), Tainted Scholar (1), epic spellcasting (3) 10
Khosan drowning (1) 1
killianh Planar Bubble (1) 1
Kira_the_5th Choker extra standard action (1), Abrupt Jaunt (1), Festering Hate (1), Antagonize (-1), Cancer Mage (1), Malconvoker (1), Sublime Chord (2) 8
Knaight Balor sword (1), Truenamer (3), Paladin code (2), Void Disciple (2), Lucid Dreaming (2) 10
Ksheep Truenamer (1), Paladin code (1), Ride-By Attack (1), Vow of Poverty (1), Adamantine Horror (1), Arrow Demon (1), Monstrous Crab (1), Cancer Mage (1), alignments (1), drowning (1) 10
Kurald Galain Monk (3), Precocious Apprentice (3), drowning (-1), Shivering Touch (3), ML limit on augmentation (0) 10
Kuulvheysoon Truenamer (1), Dragonwrought (1) 2
LordDrakulzen Paladin code (1), Vow of Poverty (2), dust of sneezing and choking (2), Manyfang Dagger (2), Damage Reduction stacking (1), Wish (1), Feral (1) 10
lunar2 Wizard (-1), Diehard (1), Fiery Fist (2), alignments (3), Dragonblood subtype (3) 10
Madara Truenamer (1), Trap Sense (2), dust of sneezing and choking (2), Iron Heart Surge (1), Monstrous Crab (2), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1), Shivering Touch (1) 10
Malimar Truenamer (1), Dragonwrought (1), Leadership (1), Iron Heart Surge (1), drowning (1), epic spellcasting (1), free actions (1), grapple (1), PrC prereq (1), Diplomacy (1) 10
Mithril Leaf candle of invocation (1), Ex/Su/SLA/Na (1) 2
molten_dragon Sarrukh's Manipulate Form (1), Truenamer (1), Persistent Spell (1), Thought Bottle (1), Iron Heart Surge (1), Beholder Mage (1), Planar Shepherd (1), Tainted Scholar (1), Ur-Priest (1), LA/RHD (1) 10
mootoall Sarrukh's Manipulate Form (3), Void Disciple (1), Apocalypse from the Sky (1) 5
Morph Bark Truenamer (1), Hulking Hurler mountain-tossing (-1), Iron Heart Surge (-1), epic spellcasting (3), Ex/Su/SLA/Na (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (3) 10
NeedsAnswersNao bloodlines (-1), Tainted Scholar (1), dust of sneezing and choking (1), Truenamer (1) 4
NikitaDarkstar Favored Soul (1), Dirge Singer (1), Challenge Rating (1), Level Adjustment (1) 4
Novawurmson Synthesist Summoner (1), Antagonize (1), traps (1) 3
Palanan Tracking (1) 1
Phaederkiel Manyfang Dagger (3), Incorporeal subtype (3), Factotum (-1), White Raven Tactics on initiator (1), Abrupt Jaunt (2) 10
Psyren spell component pouch (1) 1
QuickLyRaiNbow Truenamer (1), Ex/Su/SLA/Na (2), Diplomacy (1), Lucid Dreaming (1), Contact Other Plane (2), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (3) 10
randomguy dust of sneezing and choking (1), Iron Heart Surge (1), Adamantine Horror (1), Elemental Weird (1) 4
Rubik Complete Psionic (1) 1
Salbazier alignments (1), epic spellcasting (1), Paladin code (1) 3
ShriekingDrake Mindsight (1) 1
Sith_Happens Opalescent Glare (2) 2
sonofzeal Truenamer (1), Monk proficiencies (1), candle of invocation (2), Pazuzu (2), Void Disciple (3), alignments (-1) 10
sreservoir Shaedling's Shadow Gossamer (1) 1
Stallion Truenamer (1) 1
suddo bloodlines (1) 1
Telok Ebon Eyes (1) 1
Telonius Truenamer (1), Paladin code (2), candle of invocation (2), dust of sneezing and choking (1), Iron Heart Surge (1), alignments (2), Guidance of the Avatar (1) 10
The Dark Fiddler Truenamer (2), Invisible Blade prereqs (2), Trap Sense (1), chicken-infested (-1), Cancer Mage (2), drowning (2) 10
TheGeckoKing Sarrukh's Manipulate Form (3), Truenamer (3), Heroes of Horror (1), candle of invocation (1), drowning (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1) 10
TheOOB Gate (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1) 2
tiercel Abrupt Jaunt (1), Greater Mirror Image (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (3) 5
togapika Wizard (-1), Hulking Hurler mountain-tossing (3), dust of sneezing and choking (3), Forsaker (3) 10
Togo flat-footed (3) 3
Tr0ll Truenamer (-1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1), dust of sneezing and choking (1), Thought Bottle (1), traps (1), Leadership (3), Persistent Spell (-1) 9
tuggyne Planar Bubble (1), candle of invocation (1), dust of sneezing and choking (1), nightsticks (1), spell component pouch (1), Iron Heart Surge (1), Adamantine Horror (1), Elemental Weird (1), drowning (1), epic spellcasting (1), Love's Pain (0) 10
Vaz Opalescent Glare (1), dead (1), Exemplar (1), Jump (1), CW Samurai (3) 7
Vinyadan Ice Assassin (1) 1
willpell Illumian power words (1), Erudite (1), Favored Soul (1), Heroes of Horror (-1), CPsi Mind Blade (1), Dragon Disciple (1), alignments (-1), soulmelds (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1), bloodlines (1) 10
Wonton Prone Shooter (1) 1
Zaq Truenamer (1) 1
Zerter Synthesist Summoner (1), Dragonwrought (1), Vow of Poverty (1), dust of sneezing and choking (1), Cancer Mage (1), epic spellcasting (1), PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange (1), Reincarnate (1), Flaws (1) 9
Zonasiy Locate City (1) 1


Statistics:
Type Suggestions Votes
Rule 15 58
Spell 18 54
Item 7 50
Base Class 10 50
Prestige Class 14 44
Feat 19 40
Combat 8 31
Class Feature 7 29
Maneuver 2 26
Ability 6 21
Monster 6 18
Skill 3 17
Variant Rule 2 5
Book 2 2
Template 1 1
Disease 1 1
Power 1 1
Class Feature/Item 1 1
Race 1 1
Flaw 1 0


1
Dust of Sneezing and Choking: A serious status condition inflicted for an absurd duration, no save, no SR, by a cheap cursed item.

Chicken-Infested: Probably one of the wondrous deeds of writing that earned Dragon Magazine its remarkably dubious reputation for balance. This is a flaw that acts more like a cheesily-written spell, and has about the same level of common sense. (I.e., none.)

I'm putting one vote for each of these, er, fine vintages.

[TheOOB]

Wouldn't the whole list just be filled with polymorph and other effects that are based off of poly morph(okay and a slot for gate).

[Doorhandle]

Nope. Needs room for iron heart surge.

[TuggyNE]

Wouldn't the whole list just be filled with polymorph and other effects that are based off of poly morph(okay and a slot for gate).

Well, I guess we'll see, won't we? Honestly, there's some pretty crazy broken stuff out there.


Nope. Needs room for iron heart surge.

That it does! Added, and one vote counted for you and me.

[Khosan]

Drowning rules? I feel like drowning rules qualify.

[Arutema]

If we're allowing Pathfinder material here, how about Antagonize (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/antagonize)? Mind-control your enemies with a laughably easy skill check as a standard action at-will.

[Stallion]

Needs moar truenamer.

[avr]

Any of the feats which don't do anything by RAW; Ride-by attack is the only one I remember.

Iron Heart Surge deserves first place & the polymorph line second, but those feats should come in down the list.

I suggest the polymorph line should take up only one place BTW.

[Amoren]

I second all of truenamer. Then add a vote for the feat entry requirements for Invisible Blade (really?), and then finally add a vote for all of CW Samurai.

[Mithril Leaf]

I'm really wanting to say Candle Of Invocation as the default response, but I think the Ex vs Su vs SLA rules have to take the cake just for how common they are. It says everything is one of those let fails to specify many abilities. Leads to many of the problems with Polymorph in general.

[Ashtagon]

Divine metamagic in general.

Either fighter or wizard, depending on where on the tier ranking you like to play.

[willpell]

Any of the feats which don't do anything by RAW; Ride-by attack is the only one I remember.

It's not a feat, but you could include Trap Sense, the thing that gives you a dodge bonus to AC versus traps, which are usually hitting you while you're flat-footed and thus don't get a dodge bonus.

[killianh]

No one has said the planar bubble from planar shepherd yet? its bad writing is what allowed that whole 10:1 time flow thing to happen

[willpell]

Anything that allows you to become a Genie and grant yourself Wishes probably qualifies too.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't see what's so bad about Chicken Infested. It's meant to be silly, and it is.

What's the name again of that third-level spell that drops an enemy's dexterity by 3d6? Surely, one-shotting dragons at level 5 is well written :smallamused:

[Doorhandle]

You would be horrified by what can be done by having an nigh-infinite supply of warm, breathing chickens to feed into your spells, particularly as you can take out what amounts to an infinite supply instantly, (free action to draw an item, free actions can be done by RAW an infinite number of times in one turn...)

[dascarletm]

I don't see what's so bad about Chicken Infested. It's meant to be silly, and it is.

What's the name again of that third-level spell that drops an enemy's dexterity by 3d6? Surely, one-shotting dragons at level 5 is well written :smallamused:

pssst don't tell my DM.

I just got this spell at lvl 5 and I'm in search of large beasties.:smallbiggrin:

He says: You know they are CR:X Right?

:smalltongue:

[ben-zayb]

Well, there's Precocious Apprentice, which up until now was a topic of debate for early PrC entry. Some say it contradicts itself and is really poorly worded.

Also, what about the Dead condition as being poorly defined too?

Another one: damage based on weight(wth) and carrying capacity exppnentially strength-dependent, which leads to hulking hurlers literally throwing the whole ground/mountain/planet.

Lastly, just ranting on Setting Sun's Hydra Slaying Strike, although it's more of false advertising than borkenness.

[TuggyNE]

18 suggestions! It's a deluge! :smalleek:


Drowning rules? I feel like drowning rules qualify.

Right you are, and in they go!


If we're allowing Pathfinder material here, how about Antagonize (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/antagonize)? Mind-control your enemies with a laughably easy skill check as a standard action at-will.

Ehh, why not. It's in.


Needs moar truenamer.

Fair enough, although I'd prefer a tighter entry (IMO, not all of truenamer is ill-written, just one of the lexicons, one or both of the Laws, the check scaling.... :smallsigh:)


Any of the feats which don't do anything by RAW; Ride-by attack is the only one I remember.

Iron Heart Surge deserves first place & the polymorph line second, but those feats should come in down the list.

I suggest the polymorph line should take up only one place BTW.

All of these are in. Note: I interpreted your priorities as indicating max votes (3) for IHS and increased votes (2) for the polymorph line. If that's incorrect, please let me know; I don't want to resort to judgment calls much.


I second all of truenamer. Then add a vote for the feat entry requirements for Invisible Blade (really?), and then finally add a vote for all of CW Samurai.

Another "entire class" entry, I see. Any possibility of cutting that down? :smallwink:


I'm really wanting to say Candle Of Invocation as the default response, but I think the Ex vs Su vs SLA rules have to take the cake just for how common they are. It says everything is one of those let fails to specify many abilities. Leads to many of the problems with Polymorph in general.

Both are added.


Divine metamagic in general.

Either fighter or wizard, depending on where on the tier ranking you like to play.

From my perspective, neither Fighter nor Wizard are exactly badly written in isolation; their imbalance comes from the nature of feats vs. spells. But, you know, it's a matter of perspective I guess.


It's not a feat, but you could include Trap Sense, the thing that gives you a dodge bonus to AC versus traps, which are usually hitting you while you're flat-footed and thus don't get a dodge bonus.

Ah, I remember that.


No one has said the planar bubble from planar shepherd yet? its bad writing is what allowed that whole 10:1 time flow thing to happen

Hey, the thread's only been going for a few hours! :smalltongue:


Anything that allows you to become a Genie and grant yourself Wishes probably qualifies too.

Yes, but more specifically? :smallwink:


What's the name again of that third-level spell that drops an enemy's dexterity by 3d6? Surely, one-shotting dragons at level 5 is well written :smallamused:

Shivering touch. In it goes!


You would be horrified by what can be done by having an nigh-infinite supply of warm, breathing chickens to feed into your spells, particularly as you can take out what amounts to an infinite supply instantly, (free action to draw an item, free actions can be done by RAW an infinite number of times in one turn...)

Is this an official vote for the wretchedness of Chicken-Infested?


Well, there's Precocious Apprentice, which up until now was a topic of debate for early PrC entry. Some say it contradicts itself and is really poorly worded.

Also, what about the Dead condition as being poorly defined too?

Another one: damage based on weight(wth) and carrying capacity exppnentially strength-dependent, which leads to hulking hurlers literally throwing the whole ground/mountain/planet.

Lastly, just ranting on Setting Sun's Hydra Slaying Strike, although it's more of false advertising than borkenness.

I don't know about the last personally, but the others are familiar to me.


I'm amused to see a ton of suggestions but not much agreement yet; no one has even come close to using up their 10 votes, and only one person has felt strongly enough to put 3 on one. :smallamused: Anyway, I've updated the list, so on we go!

[Kurald Galain]

Oh yeah, there's the cancer mage, I think it's called? Normally corruption is a detrimental mechanic, but this guy doesn't really suffer from the side effects, and gets a ludicrous boost to its spell DC.

There's also beholder mage, which can actually be entered (somehow) via polymorph spells.

[Amoren]

I'd add another vote for a monster, if that's allowed.

THE MONSTROUS CRAB!

[Aharon]

I'd add another vote for a monster, if that's allowed.

THE MONSTROUS CRAB! https://www.furaffinity.net/full/8347770/

Are you sure this is the correct link? :smallconfused: Furaffinity doesn't have anything to do with DnD, AFAIK, and sometimes is NSFW.

[Divayth Fyr]

No one mentioned Adamantine Horror (this was the one with the absurd at-wills, right?) yet? Also, Tainted Scholar - perhaps not in itself, but combine it with being undead...

Though IHS still takes the cake.

[Acanous]

I saw this thread, and the first thing that popped to my mind was Candle of Invocation.

Unlike other poorly written things that exist in 3.5, Candle of invocation is worded precisely. It explicitly details what it does, although it hides the truly broken part after an end-of-page break.
Things like Iron Heart Surge or Drowning, there's obviously a hole. Something the DM needs to Rule Zero in. They are BADLY written. One line of text would fix either one.

Candle of Invocation? Oh no. The writers knew EXACTLY what they were doing. The CoI is a piece of Dev Malice against all DMs, a piece of aged cheddar that doesn't hide what it does, it just puts it after a wall of text to make lazy or inexperienced DMs think it's OK.

Munchkins cackle out loud at gaming tables when the oft-asked question of "Can I buy this?" is answered by a "Yes" from the DM after cursory examination.

The Dust of Sneezing and Choking compares, but is not nearly as game-breaking. Sure, your lv 5 party can take out a Great Wyrm Black Dragon with it, but you have to actually find the dragon. CoI? You gate in something with Wish SLI, then wish for some dust of sneezing, then wish to be transported to the nearest safe location within throwing distance of a Great Wyrm black dragon.

It's not just cheese, it's the entire omelette, besides.

[TuggyNE]

One more vote on an existing suggestion and we could ensure that all the top ten have at least two votes!


Oh yeah, there's the cancer mage, I think it's called? Normally corruption is a detrimental mechanic, but this guy doesn't really suffer from the side effects, and gets a ludicrous boost to its spell DC.

There's also beholder mage, which can actually be entered (somehow) via polymorph spells.

Two more to add!

I might actually put the ridiculous duration clauses in PaO in separately.


I'd add another vote for a monster, if that's allowed.

THE MONSTROUS CRAB! https://www.furaffinity.net/full/8347770/

Sure, why not? ... although that's not the official link (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20040221a) by any means.

Anything in 3.x that's just stupidly broken is fair game. Make sure to vote for some others, though!


No one mentioned Adamantine Horror (this was the one with the absurd at-wills, right?) yet? Also, Tainted Scholar - perhaps not in itself, but combine it with being undead...

Though IHS still takes the cake.

Yeah, adamantine horror is the one with multiple at-will 9ths. At CR 9.

Is that two votes for IHS, or three, or just one? (I'm assuming two for now.)


I saw this thread, and the first thing that popped to my mind was Candle of Invocation.

Unlike other poorly written things that exist in 3.5, Candle of invocation is worded precisely. It explicitly details what it does, although it hides the truly broken part after an end-of-page break.
Things like Iron Heart Surge or Drowning, there's obviously a hole. Something the DM needs to Rule Zero in. They are BADLY written. One line of text would fix either one.

Candle of Invocation? Oh no. The writers knew EXACTLY what they were doing. The CoI is a piece of Dev Malice against all DMs, a piece of aged cheddar that doesn't hide what it does, it just puts it after a wall of text to make lazy or inexperienced DMs think it's OK.

Munchkins cackle out loud at gaming tables when the oft-asked question of "Can I buy this?" is answered by a "Yes" from the DM after cursory examination.

The Dust of Sneezing and Choking compares, but is not nearly as game-breaking. Sure, your lv 5 party can take out a Great Wyrm Black Dragon with it, but you have to actually find the dragon. CoI? You gate in something with Wish SLI, then wish for some dust of sneezing, then wish to be transported to the nearest safe location within throwing distance of a Great Wyrm black dragon.

It's not just cheese, it's the entire omelette, besides.

An eloquent and well-reasoned condemnation.

However, it unfortunately lacks a specific vote, so I'll assume one for CoI for now.

[Amoren]

Are you sure this is the correct link? :smallconfused: Furaffinity doesn't have anything to do with DnD, AFAIK, and sometimes is NSFW.

That's the second time this computer has bit me in the ass with copy/pasting. ~_~

[Kurald Galain]

Scratch Cancer Mage, I actually meant Tainted Scholar. Also, scratch Beholder Mage; the problem with that lies in the polymorph line.

Here are two new ones. Persist Spell, and Nightsticks. I don't think DMM is the problem per se; numerous feats and features simply assume that Turn Undead is a strictly limited resource. And it normally is, except if you buy cheap, cheap nightsticks to blast your limit through the roof. Persist Spell makes spells last way longer than they should, and goes a long way towards wrecking the spell resource system.

And, if you're going to put entire classes on the list, you should at least put the Druid and Monk there. The Druid is a full caster, and has innate polymorph ability, and comes with a free beatstick that tends to be better than the party fighter, so it is three classes wrapped in one. Broken straight from level one, which wizards markedly are not.
And the Monk. Need I really say more? We've had so many threads about the class that at some point we were suggesting a subforum to drop the monk threads in. We've had whole guides dedicated to explaining exactly how sucky the monk is. It deserves to be near the top, because it's a class that wildly fails to live up to its promise, and a common trap for newbies.

Okay, my vote for the Polymorph Line (and just put PAO under there, it's the same thing); Candle of Inv; Tainted Scholar; Shivering Touch; the Su/Ex/SLA rule; Prec Apprentice; Persist Spell; Nightstick; the monk; and the monk again.

[Doorhandle]

Yeah, that earlier post was a vote for chicken infested.
Also, th' accursed crab. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56749)


Scratch Cancer Mage, I actually meant Tainted Scholar.


Nope, cancer-mage +festering anger is still broken. 2+ strength per day = approx. 718 strength after one year.

Also, could you use a candle of invocation to summon a lawful-good Balor? seems legit.

I don't think Shivering Touch is broken: Just that it needs to be much higher in level. There are other-ways to oneshot a dragon, (save-or-dies) and it needs to be in line with those.

[Mithril Leaf]

Yeah, that earlier post was a vote for chicken infested.
Also, th' accursed crab. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56749)



Nope, cancer-mage +festering anger is still broken. 2+ strength per day = approx. 718 strength after one year.

Also, could you use a candle of invocation to summon a lawful-good Balor? seems legit.

I don't think Shivering Touch is broken: Just that it needs to be much higher in level. There are other-ways to oneshot a dragon, (save-or-dies) and it needs to be in line with those.

Bonus points for cancer mage if you use the human varient with the sigil that gives you strength to determine bonus spells, whose name eludes me at the moment.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't think Shivering Touch is broken: Just that it needs to be much higher in level.

That makes it badly written by default, yes?

[The Dark Fiddler]

Truenaming (2), Drowning (2), Trap Sense (1), Cancer Mage (2), Invisible Blade Prerequisites (2). Can I give a negative vote to chicken infested? I don't think something made as an April Fool's joke deserves to be judged alongside materials published to actually be used.

[Kurald Galain]

Hm, perhaps this would work better if everybody could vote yes/no/neutral on each entry (instead of spreading 10 positive votes and 0 negatives around somehow). That would give a more balanced picture of what people actually consider broken. $.02

[Yora]

Are we talking about bad design, or about poor wording in explaining how things work?

Because many of the most infamously broken things don't seem too bad to me, when you read the description slightly differently.

[Amoren]

Hmmm, on the subject of poorly written... Unlike the crab which was poorly designed/thought out, or the invisible blade, which was poorly split from the Master Thrower, I'd call out the errata for the naztharune rakshasa. While better than the base (which meant that naztharune would only have 1d6 sneak attack until they took levels of rogue) it was instead changed to them getting the sneak attack of a rogue of their total hit dice.

So, class levels taken afterwards will continue to grant sneak attack. Go rogue/assassin and gain double the sneak attack progression! Or, better yet, Daring Outlaw Swashbuckler for, yet again, double sneak attack progression.

Still one of my favorite monsters though, that and the marrulurk. Definately want to play a rogue using one of those some day.

[Morph Bark]

Truenamer, no doubt.

Myself I actually don't think Iron Heart Surge is that badly written, but oh well.

[Grim Reader]

One for bad design and one for bad wording:

Bad design: Ur-Priest.

That one really do make me wonder if the designers ever played D&D. Easy entry, and 9th level spells in 9 levels. With its own spell-progression table. I mean, what? And its not just that, but it was reprinted in Complete Divine! "We've had a long time to see just how broken this thing is, so lets reprint it"

Its not just bad design, its, well it is not having played the game at all.

Bad wording: Versatile Spellcaster.

[mootoall]

I think Apocalypse from the Sky needs at least an honorable mention, for allowing for infinite, free major artifacts in one's spell component pouch.

[sonofzeal]

Truenamer. Not for the DCs, but for the Law of Sequences, the 5 round duration, the laughably short range, and the single-target restriction.

Candle of Invocation. Nuff Said.

Pazuzu Pazuzu Pazuzu.

[Palanan]

The tracking rules. They manage to bear no relation to actual tracking, as well as lending themselves so, so willingly to plot abuse or outright irrelevance.

[Telonius]

Here are my votes (along with a couple new suggestions).

2 votes - Description of Alignments (Rule). The paragraphs that launched ten thousand threads.

2 votes - Paladin's Code (Class feature/Rule?). Maybe a subset of Alignment description, but I suspect this particular rule has caused more in-group conflict than any single rule in the book. Anything that forces other people in the group to play their characters in a certain way is just asking for OOC difficulties. Some of the Vows in BoED are guilty of this too, but at least they come with a big warning label. (If you're using BoED at all, you know what you're getting into).

2 votes - Candle of Invocation. Acanous said pretty much all that's to be said about it.

1 vote - Dust of Sneezing and Choking (Item). Hey, an "I win" button for 2400gp!

1 vote - Truenamer mechanics (Class). Just all-around bad.

1 vote - Iron Heart Surge (Maneuver). They really need to be a bit more specific.

1 vote - Guidance of the Avatar (Spell). Just poorly thought-out. If it exists at all, it should be a much higher level.

[Amphetryon]

Another vote for Shivering Touch.

[allenw]

What, no Prone Shooter (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/prone-shooter-combat) or Monkey Lunge (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/monkey-lunge-combat)? They have my vote.

(For the non-Pathfinder people: Prone Shooter allows you to ignore the (non-existent) penalties for shooting a crossbow or firearm while prone. Monkey Lunge lets you neutralize the -2 AC from the Lunge feat (which gives you reach) until the end of your turn as a standard action; which leaves you no way to actually attack that turn, since you just used your standard action. And Lunge only lasts until the end of your turn, so it's not like you could at least still make AoOs with reach with no AC penalty.)

[Devmaar]

Right,
Iron Heart Surge (2 votes)
Trap Sense (2 votes)
Drowning (2 votes)
Dust of Sneezing & Choking (2 votes)
Death (1 vote)
Shivering Touch (1 vote)

[Randomguy]

Are we allowed to include monsters in this? Because the CR of clockwork horrors and Elemental Weirds should definitely be up here.

I'm putting a vote on that Blizzard spell from frostburn that has an area that's greater than it's range.

And 1 vote for Iron Heart Surge, and 1 for Dust of Sneezing and choking.

[dspeyer]

While the entire polymorph line has both confusion and overpower issues, Polymorph Any Object really stands above the rest. I honestly don't know which uses of it are appropriate and which are abuse.

I'll also mention Practiced Manifester, which does not affect your "powers per day" (is there any class with a powers per day limit?) but doesn't say if it affects your points from a high ability score.

And yet another vote for Iron Heart Surge.

[jaybird]

I don't suppose Spell to Power counts?

Also, another vote for Iron Heart Surge.

[molten_dragon]

I don't really get what you want us to vote on here. Is it supposed to be stuff that's the most badly designed? Or stuff that's horribly overpowered? Or stuff that simply isn't explained well?

[eggs]

Forced Dream - Ambiguously written, horribly conceived, poorly executed. How could this possibly be a good idea?
Haunt Shift - Nightmarishly complex, poorly written, breakable like crazy.
Practiced Manifester - Ugly copy/paste job that doesn't make sense in its system, leaves ambiguity in execution.
Jack of All Trades - The writer doesn't know how skill ranks work.

[sreservoir]

shaedling. shadow gossamer. note the restrictions.

[Azernak0]

"Yo, IHS. I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish but Truenamer had one of the worst things of all time. One of the worst things of all time!"

Yeah, Truenamer.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I'd have to go with Ex/Su/SLA abilities, Natural abilities and the interaction between the RC and the MM.

Also the DWK, which isn't on your lists. Those are the two most contentious things I can think of, so they're the worst as far as being badly written and opaque.

Otherwise, as far as power, I'd go with Candle of Invocation and the Delay Death->Drowning trick.

[Wonton]

I know this is a 3.x thread, so I don't expect this to count as an official vote, but I'm personally a fan of Prone Shooter (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/prone-shooter-combat) from Pathfinder.

It allows you to ignore the penalties for firing a crossbow or firearm while prone... ignoring the fact that there are no penalties for firing a crossbow or firearm while prone. :smallannoyed:

[Rubik]

I'll also mention Practiced Manifester, which does not affect your "powers per day" (is there any class with a powers per day limit?) but doesn't say if it affects your points from a high ability score.Erudites get unique powers per day. But they're still powers per day.

Also, the vast majority of Complete Psionic. There're like 10 usable things in the whole book. The rest are broken, worthless, or duplications of things that should've been condensed (such as a feat that says "Choose a weapon; you can now turn your mind blade into it;" could've saved a good six pages that way).

And then there are the senseless nerfs. Damn you CPsi!

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Oh, the Lucid Dreaming skill. Oh my god it's so ridiculously ridiculous.

[Malimar]

The first ten that come to mind:


Leadership (feat)
Iron Heart Surge (maneuver)
Drowning (rule)
Truenamer (class)
Whether or not you lose the features of a prestige class if lose its prereqs (rule)
Dragonwrought (feat)
Diplomacy (skill)
Grapple (rule)
Epic spellcasting (rule)
Free actions (rule)

[Gavinfoxx]

Clever Wrestling!

[Curmudgeon]

Another vote for Leadership. Actually anything which works differently for PCs and NPCs fits into that category, including Diplomacy.

Metamagic shenanigans are inherently destabilizing/overpowering (i.e., they'll wreck your game), so I think Incantatrix (free metamagic!) should be on the list.

[BCBrammer]

Void Disciple is a very poorly-written prestige class from Complete Divine. The worst part about the Void Disciple is his trademark ability, Voidsense. There are no specific rules on its use, for example, no duration is listed. This class can really wreck a campaign due to the ambiguity of its abilities, which are basically tools for scrying with no risk and no chance of resistance or failure.

This is just plain poorly written, not really mechanically broken, but I think this qualifies more than any of the top ten currently listed, as they are merely extremely powerful, but not necessarily wholly worst-written.

[Tvtyrant]

Clever Wrestling!

It looks pretty cut and dry to me. What makes a bonus based on the enemies size weird?

[Gavinfoxx]

It looks pretty cut and dry to me. What makes a bonus based on the enemies size weird?

Cause if you get bigger than medium, it turns off, and invalidates Reaping Mauler if you took that class, turning off the entire class. And you want to get bigger than medium to grapple...

Basically, it should say: "Clever wrestling. Requires: Improved Grapple or Improved Grab. When grappling larger creatures, you get a bonus to your grapple check or escape artist check for escaping a grapple or pin. The bonus is +2 for each size category the creature is bigger than you."

[TuggyNE]

*begins drown-healing in the flood of replies*

By the way, all, given that we now have 56 suggestions, it's probably time to start pawing through the full list to see which ones you want to vote on; let's get those ten votes apiece spread out!


Hm, perhaps this would work better if everybody could vote yes/no/neutral on each entry (instead of spreading 10 positive votes and 0 negatives around somehow). That would give a more balanced picture of what people actually consider broken. $.02

How's this: You can put up to one negative vote on any entry, starting with this post.


Are we talking about bad design, or about poor wording in explaining how things work?

I don't really get what you want us to vote on here. Is it supposed to be stuff that's the most badly designed? Or stuff that's horribly overpowered? Or stuff that simply isn't explained well?

Some of each, really. For example, candle of invocation is just bad design; it says what it means, and means what it says, and the result is stupidly broken. DWK is basically just poor wording: it took years for the web community to figure out exactly what was said.
Now, teleport, despite being something of a story-breaker power, isn't really broken in the same sense; it doesn't mess up the mathematical core of the game, it just adds some unusually effective options. It's not even open-ended in the same way polymorph is.



And, if you're going to put entire classes on the list, you should at least put the Druid and Monk there. The Druid is a full caster, and has innate polymorph ability, and comes with a free beatstick that tends to be better than the party fighter, so it is three classes wrapped in one. Broken straight from level one, which wizards markedly are not.
And the Monk. Need I really say more? We've had so many threads about the class that at some point we were suggesting a subforum to drop the monk threads in. We've had whole guides dedicated to explaining exactly how sucky the monk is. It deserves to be near the top, because it's a class that wildly fails to live up to its promise, and a common trap for newbies.

I'm only putting whole base classes in under protest, because that's usually too simplistic IMO ("lololol the whole PHB!"). However, arguably the entire monk class is just wrong, even in isolation, so that can go in. Tidy vote accounting much appreciated, BTW. Are you using your last vote for Polymorph?


Yeah, that earlier post was a vote for chicken infested.
Also, th' accursed crab. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56749)
Nope, cancer-mage +festering anger is still broken. 2+ strength per day = approx. 718 strength after one year.

OK, assuming the other two are also votes.


Bonus points for cancer mage if you use the human varient with the sigil that gives you strength to determine bonus spells, whose name eludes me at the moment.

I forget which illumian sigil it is too. Is this a vote for cancer mage? :smalltongue:


Can I give a negative vote to chicken infested? I don't think something made as an April Fool's joke deserves to be judged alongside materials published to actually be used.

Well, for better or for worse, people seem to actually use it. Downvote noted, though.


Hmmm, on the subject of poorly written... Unlike the crab which was poorly designed/thought out, or the invisible blade, which was poorly split from the Master Thrower, I'd call out the errata for the naztharune rakshasa. While better than the base (which meant that naztharune would only have 1d6 sneak attack until they took levels of rogue) it was instead changed to them getting the sneak attack of a rogue of their total hit dice.

That's a pretty clear-cut example, and in errata no less!


2 votes - Description of Alignments (Rule). The paragraphs that launched ten thousand threads.

I feel like some joke about millihelens and ugly rules is waiting to be made here.


(For the non-Pathfinder people: Prone Shooter allows you to ignore the (non-existent) penalties for shooting a crossbow or firearm while prone. Monkey Lunge lets you neutralize the -2 AC from the Lunge feat (which gives you reach) until the end of your turn as a standard action; which leaves you no way to actually attack that turn, since you just used your standard action. And Lunge only lasts until the end of your turn, so it's not like you could at least still make AoOs with reach with no AC penalty.)

Heh, I'd forgotten about those almost entirely. Good ol' Paizo. :smallyuk:


Are we allowed to include monsters in this? Because the CR of clockwork horrors and Elemental Weirds should definitely be up here.

I'm putting a vote on that Blizzard spell from frostburn that has an area that's greater than it's range.

Monsters are fine. I don't remember the name of the Frostburn spell any more specifically, unfortunately, although I know which one you mean; I'll mark down the vote once I get the name.


I'll also mention Practiced Manifester, which does not affect your "powers per day" (is there any class with a powers per day limit?) but doesn't say if it affects your points from a high ability score.

Hah, wow. That's actually a new one on me.


shaedling. shadow gossamer. note the restrictions.

Mind expanding on this a little more? I vaguely recall something about this, but I don't have MM5 myself.


"Yo, IHS. I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish but Truenamer had one of the worst things of all time. One of the worst things of all time!"

Truenamer vote noted.
Are you also voting for IHS? :smallwink:


I know this is a 3.x thread, so I don't expect this to count as an official vote, but I'm personally a fan of Prone Shooter (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/prone-shooter-combat) from Pathfinder.

Actually I'm including 3.0, 3.5, and PF in here, just because I feel like it. So yeah, it's in!


Also, the vast majority of Complete Psionic. There're like 10 usable things in the whole book. The rest are broken, worthless, or duplications of things that should've been condensed (such as a feat that says "Choose a weapon; you can now turn your mind blade into it;" could've saved a good six pages that way).

I've not yet been able to figure out what they were thinking when they made Synchronicity; it seems to be designed for the express purpose of breaking the action economy, and it's useless without shenanigans.


Another vote for Leadership. Actually anything which works differently for PCs and NPCs fits into that category, including Diplomacy.

Metamagic shenanigans are inherently destabilizing/overpowering (i.e., they'll wreck your game), so I think Incantatrix (free metamagic!) should be on the list.

I can't do wildcards really, but everything else is duly noted.


Void Disciple is a very poorly-written prestige class from Complete Divine. The worst part about the Void Disciple is his trademark ability, Voidsense. There are no specific rules on its use, for example, no duration is listed. This class can really wreck a campaign due to the ambiguity of its abilities, which are basically tools for scrying with no risk and no chance of resistance or failure.

I'm going to put you down for Void Disciple (1) then.

[sreservoir]

the size is somewhat limited, and you can't let go of the item. beyond that, the ability does not restrict what sort of item you can make.

magic items are items. (there's seriously been an attempt to read conjuring magic items as unworking by claiming magic items aren't items, really!) scroll of miracle? sure. dorje of reality revision? looks fine. ring of infinite mentally-activated-as-free-action wishes with infinite xp allotted? but of course!

lots of things are items. some of them are even occasionally useful.

[TuggyNE]

Wow, the thread really got stalled by that page glitch.

Anyway, I forgot to mention that I changed some of my votes around. Current list: dust of sneezing and choking, chicken-infested, IHS (because it's so absurdly open-ended), drowning (because either healing or infini-drowning is terrible), candle of invocation (yeah....), adamantine horror (level 9 SLA at-will at CR 9 = terrible), elemental weird (either free-action divinations or their other stupid abilities would be enough alone), nightstick (couldn't you have made it un-stacking?), planar bubble (so brokenly unlimited), epic spellcasting (either useless or unstoppable).

So far, only four of you have used up your votes. :smallamused:

[Zaq]

Yeah, I have to agree with Truenamer. My "Naughty Words" section of my guide wouldn't exist otherwise. To this day, I still find at least one new and stupid thing whenever I do a full read-through of the Truenamer chapter. You can imagine how many times I've read it. There's still more.

I don't know if I'm actually voting for it, but I'd like to list a lot of the Factotum's abilities for consideration. The Factotum is very well-designed, but very poorly written.

Most of the other obvious stuff is already being covered. I'll speak up if I think of anything else.

[Kurald Galain]

arguably the entire monk class is just wrong, even in isolation, so that can go in.
Ah, if I have any votes left just put them on monk for now.

Come on people, vote monk! If you've been on this forum for more than a month you must have seen one of the ubiquitous monk debates, such as here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248198) or here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=247920). What other rules flaw has spawned forum memes like 'monkday'?

:smallamused:


(edit) also, if this thread gets any longer maybe you should list the top-15 or top-20 options?

(edit edit) I'm going to downvote drowning, because it isn't abusable in actual gameplay and because most DMs will intuitively get it right; the abuse comes from an overal nitpicky reading of the rules, and it is clear from writing and context what is actually meant. It doesn't belong in a list of truly crappy designs.

[NikitaDarkstar]

I feel the need to mention these:

Dirge Singer (PrC): Specifically designed for bards, but doesn't stack with bard levels or allow bards their already slow spell progression? Thank you. -.-

Favored Soul (Class): Not really a bad class honestly, but badly written. A divine caster that doesn't get turn undead, domains or even Knowledge (Religion)? Those things are somewhat required for, well, divine stuff.
Bonus points for being the only caster class in all of 3.5 that has split casting stats. (CHA for bonus spells, WIS for DC's.)

Level Adjustment and Challenge Rating (Rule): Look we all understand the point for them, but did you have to make them so convoluted? Especially making LA's apply differently for PC's and monsters? Really?

[gorfnab]

Bonus points for being the only caster class in all of 3.5 that has split casting stats. (CHA for bonus spells, WIS for DC's.)

Archivist (HoH) and Healer (MH) would like to have a word with you...

[TuggyNE]

Yeah, I have to agree with Truenamer. My "Naughty Words" section of my guide wouldn't exist otherwise. To this day, I still find at least one new and stupid thing whenever I do a full read-through of the Truenamer chapter. You can imagine how many times I've read it. There's still more.

I don't know if I'm actually voting for it, but I'd like to list a lot of the Factotum's abilities for consideration. The Factotum is very well-designed, but very poorly written.

I would be more than surprised if you didn't vote for Truenamer, after all you've been through. :smalltongue:


(edit) also, if this thread gets any longer maybe you should list the top-15 or top-20 options?

Hmm, that's a possibility, but right now more than half of the suggestions have only one vote (one even has zero).
Also a Top Ten has more punch. :smallamused:
Don't worry, though, the list of suggestions is sorted by votes, and is sorta-kinda sort-stable on time.


(edit edit) I'm going to downvote drowning, because it isn't abusable in actual gameplay and because most DMs will intuitively get it right; the abuse comes from an overal nitpicky reading of the rules, and it is clear from writing and context what is actually meant. It doesn't belong in a list of truly crappy designs.

Hmm, arguably dead would hit the same line of reasoning, except more so.
As a side note, this uses up your last vote for now, so Monk is still at 2.


Level Adjustment and Challenge Rating (Rule): Look we all understand the point for them, but did you have to make them so convoluted? Especially making LA's apply differently for PC's and monsters? Really?

I'm gonna split these apart and mark you down for one vote each, if that's fine with you.

[HunterOfJello]

Fourth Edition

[Kurald Galain]

Hmm, arguably dead would hit the same line of reasoning, except more so.
As a side note, this uses up your last vote for now, so Monk is still at 2.
I count only nine upvotes.

[TuggyNE]

I count only nine upvotes.

Ah, let me clarify: a negative vote counts against your total. I'll update the OP to make it a little easier to understand.

[togapika]

Gimme 3 on the dust, 3 on Hulking Hurler, 3 on the Forsaker Prestige Class, and downvote "Wizard" once

[Allanimal]

Archivist (HoH) and Healer (MH) would like to have a word with you...

And Spirit Shaman

[EatAtEmrakuls]

3 for Iron Heart Surge
3 for Cancer Mage
3 for Truenamer
1 for Drowning

[Kurald Galain]

Okay, my vote for the Polymorph Line (and just put PAO under there, it's the same thing); Candle of Inv; Tainted Scholar; Shivering Touch; the Su/Ex/SLA rule; Prec Apprentice; Persist Spell; Nightstick; the monk; and the monk again.

Okay, let me amend that. Under the current voting system, it only really matters if you put three votes on one entry. So three votes each for shivering touch, monk, and precocious apprentice, and I'll continue to downvote drowning.

[Cruiser1]

3 votes for: Genie monsters. Efretti and Noble Djinn able to cast wish multiple times a day XP free is one of the main things that makes Candle of Invocation and Planar Binding broken. Fix this and you fix or at least reduce many other problems.

3 votes for: Persistent Spell feat. Overpowered plus ambiguously written. The whole "fixed or personal range" limitation (whatever "fixed" means) and cheezy ways to overcome that (and whether they work) lead to countless debates. Fix this and you rein in many broken builds.

3 votes for: Initiate of the Seven Fold Veil PrC. Overpowered plus ambiguously written. Do wardings effect you? Do they block antimagic fields?

1 final vote for the current leader: Iron Heart Surge maneuver. I Iron Heart Surge the sun, enough said. :smallwink:

[molten_dragon]

Some of each, really. For example, candle of invocation is just bad design; it says what it means, and means what it says, and the result is stupidly broken. DWK is basically just poor wording: it took years for the web community to figure out exactly what was said.
Now, teleport, despite being something of a story-breaker power, isn't really broken in the same sense; it doesn't mess up the mathematical core of the game, it just adds some unusually effective options. It's not even open-ended in the same way polymorph is.

Okay, in that case put me down for:

Iron Heart Surge (1)
Truenamer (1)
Tainted Scholar/Tainted Sorcerer (1)
Beholder Mage (1)
Ur-Priest (1)
Planar Shepherd (1)
Manipulate Form (1)
Thought Bottle (1)
Persist Spell (1)
Monster races - The whole LA and RHD thing just doesn't work most of the time (1)

[TuggyNE]

We're up to 68 total, and all the Top Ten have at least four votes. :smallcool:

Any suggestions on better organizing the addendum of suggestions? It's getting pretty unwieldy now.


Okay, let me amend that. Under the current voting system, it only really matters if you put three votes on one entry. So three votes each for shivering touch, monk, and precocious apprentice, and I'll continue to downvote drowning.

I'm not entirely sure I'd agree with that assessment. Can you explain?


3 votes for: Persistent Spell feat. Overpowered plus ambiguously written. The whole "fixed or personal range" limitation (whatever "fixed" means) and cheezy ways to overcome that (and whether they work) lead to countless debates. Fix this and you rein in many broken builds.

I have actually been seriously considering homebrewing a "Persevering Spell" metamagic to replace it, with different mechanics (no auto-24h-duration, for one thing).


Planar Shepherd (1)
For now I'm considering this separate from the existing Planar Bubble entry, despite wishing to fold them together.

Monster races - The whole LA and RHD thing just doesn't work most of the time (1)

By this do you mean the current "LA rules" entry, or something a little different? For now I'm assuming the former, but correct me if I am incorrect.

[willpell]

I'll also mention Practiced Manifester, which does not affect your "powers per day" (is there any class with a powers per day limit?)

Yes, the Erudite. Which is in the same book as Practiced Manifester. And, come to think of it, gets two votes from me for being extremely sloppily written (although unlike many people I actually think it's a good class, just not a good writeup; with a little tinkering it makes a nice alternative to the psion).


Erudites get unique powers per day. But they're still powers per day.

Ah, ninjaed. But I'm still voting for Erudite (twice, as stated before).


And yet another vote for Iron Heart Surge.

Okay, I'm speaking in ignorance here so I might be out of line, but I think this might be less broken than people seem to think it is (though it could still qualify for bad wording, so this isn't a neg-vote or anything yet). Curmudgeon pointed out on the Simple Rules Q thread that you can't initiate a stance while unable to move or unable to take actions, so while IHS is still quite broad, it doesn't cure the truly nasty conditions like Stunned or Petrified, because you can't use it while affected by such things. Again, please ignore me if everyone already knows this, I'm kinda late to the party with all of 3E and still haven't even read Tome of Battle.


Jack of All Trades - The writer doesn't know how skill ranks work.

I had interpreted JoAT as proof that having a half-skill rank gave you the ability to use the skill, since you were trained in it. I know there's at least one rule that says otherwise, but JoAT might have been intended to override that rule, and they just weren't explicit as they should have been (though again that does qualify as bad writing).


Also, the vast majority of Complete Psionic. There're like 10 usable things in the whole book. The rest are broken, worthless, or duplications of things that should've been condensed (such as a feat that says "Choose a weapon; you can now turn your mind blade into it;" could've saved a good six pages that way).
And then there are the senseless nerfs. Damn you CPsi!

Agreed on both counts. I'll toss one vote toward the Exotic Weapon Mind Blade feats as well. The nerfing of Astral Construct is infuriating, but doesn't count as bad writing so much as a decision I strenuously disagree with. And likewise, the Divine Mind is a horribly weak class, very badly designed, but not especially badly-written.


Another vote for Leadership. Actually anything which works differently for PCs and NPCs fits into that category, including Diplomacy.

I can't say as I agree here, personally. Granting the players "chosen one" status and saying the rules of the universe are different from them is a perfectly legitimate stylistic choice which the DM has every right to make, and having the rules default to it isn't unreasonable if the designers were of the opinion that this was a good way to run games. Even if they were mistaken in that belief, it was a legitimate perspective for them to work from when trying to manufacture a product whose intended purpose was for people to have fun; some people might not have fun knowing that they're super-special Mary Sues in a universe of nameless mooks, but others very well might, so the company was within its rights to make that call, IMO.


Metamagic shenanigans are inherently destabilizing/overpowering (i.e., they'll wreck your game), so I think Incantatrix (free metamagic!) should be on the list.

No argument here; if free metamagic was an easy across-the-board thing it might be cool, but having some able to get it and others not is pretty awful.


I forget which illumian sigil it is too.

Bonus spells from Strength is Aeshkrau (and Dexterity is Uurkrau).


Favored Soul (Class): Not really a bad class honestly, but badly written. A divine caster that doesn't get turn undead, domains or even Knowledge (Religion)? Those things are somewhat required for, well, divine stuff.

I think the lack of Knowledge: Religion was intended to be a nod to their not having formal clerical training, but why they get Arcana instead is baffling. Personally I'm glad they don't have domains or turn undead, but it would be nice if they got more from their deity than just a favored weapon. I also don't like that they invariably get either angel wings or demon wings - what if I want to play a FS of, say, Obad-Hai or Primus? Or the Great Mother, who is Evil but has nothing whatsoever to do with demons apart from living in the Abyss.

I'll throw in one vote for FS just because I'm pretty sure it doesn't have its starting gold listed (at least not where I could find it while making three of them on separate occasions), so for a class that's intended to be a slightly more militant Cleric, it's rather a problem not being able to tell whether I can afford a suit of decent armor at level 1.

Oh, and that brings me to a new one which gets two votes: the entire Equpment chapter of PHB, where they randomly attached nonsensical costs to items. Tower shield? 30 GP. Masterwork dagger? 302 gp. Masterwork Greatsword? 350 gp. Suit of Full Plate? 1500 gp. Masterwork Full Plate? 1650 gp. Spiked masterwork Full Plate with a masterwork shield with masterwork spikes? You get the idea. To say nothing of how silly the entire thing becomes when your GM starts you at level 2 and uses the WBL table to entirely invalidate the concept of various classes having different amounts of gold at CC. So yeah, two votes for the entire mess of equipment costs, starting gold and WBL.


Bonus points for being the only caster class in all of 3.5 that has split casting stats. (CHA for bonus spells, WIS for DC's.)

This is false. The Archivist from Heroes of Horror gets bonus spells from Wisdom but is otherwise powered by Intelligence.

(And ninja'ed again.)


Level Adjustment and Challenge Rating (Rule): Look we all understand the point for them, but did you have to make them so convoluted? Especially making LA's apply differently for PC's and monsters? Really?

This was intentional and more or less reasonable; there's a sidebar in one of the books which explains their logic. CR and ECL measure different things; a monster doesn't care whether its powers are usable once per hour or once per day, because you'll usually kill it or be killed by it within an hour of meeting it. But for a player the difference is huge, since the once per hour power can be used in like eight fights before an adventuring day might end. There are doubtless other ramifications of the difference. CR is for monsters that are there to be killed; LA is for creatures that can be played. I would like it if they had provided LA for all monsters (just earlier today I was thinking about a clairsentient Udoroot who telecommutes to the dungeon), and they could have put more thought into how much LA a given monster race or template is worth (+2 for Celestial, are you kidding me?), but the concept overall isn't a bad one.


Okay, let me amend that. Under the current voting system, it only really matters if you put three votes on one entry.

I'm not really counting votes; I think it's more like a measure of certainty. I'm putting one vote toward things that I find dubious, two to thinks that are definitely screwy, and would put three toward something that was utterly and completely absurd. I have yet to see anything that I'm certain would be worth three.

[Novawurmson]

Most borked for PF is probably the Synthesist Summoner, with Antagonize coming closely behind. What, you can find anything to do with pounce, three natural attacks and the ability to pretty much completely dump three stats? Mix the two for even moar rage!

[Zerter]

1 for Synthesist (no need for physical stats? Really?)
1 for Dust of sneezing and choking (costing gold really, if it was unnattainable it would be fine)
1 for Reincarnation (resetting age categories? Really?)
1 for Cancer mage (name alone qualifies)
1 for flaws (specifically being able go get feats for them)
1 for 3.5 shapechanging/polymorph/whateveryouknowwhatimean
1 for vow of poverty (a nice idea in theory, only used for min/maxed resulting in poor role-playing in practice with dumb rules regarding not being able to use items)
1 for epic spellcasting (I'd vote for the epic rules in general, but spellcasting does stand out since we have to be specific)
1 for Kobolds as true dragons (I actually like Kobolds, but every time I use them I get confronted with the stigma of them being used to abuse stuff)

[Ksheep]

1 for Truenamer (DCs work how, exactly?)
1 for Drowning (Although I see how it was SUPPOSED to work, they just wrote it horribly)
1 for Adamantine Clockwork Horror (Disintegrate, Implosion, and Disjunction at will? Been nice knowing you)
1 for Monk (Sounds great in concept, except not)
1 for Monstrous Crab (Nearly killed half my group with this one)
1 for Cancer Mage (So many ways to abuse this, and yet so useless…)
1 for Ride-By Attack (Yeah…)
1 for Alignment (Again, yeah…)
1 for Paladin Code (Timmy asked you to tell his mother that he was staying at your house when he's actually somewhere else? I can't, that would be lying… but I can't NOT, cause that would be willingly betraying a friend. Looks like I'm losing my paladin-hood)
1 for Vow of Poverty (WOO! Marginal benefits for the price of crippling deficiencies!)

[Vinyadan]

Because of what I heard about it, I propose the Ice Assassin. Yay!:smallcool:

[sonofzeal]

Actually, I want to add two votes to Void Disciple.

1) Void Suppression. No-save-just-lose for 90% of the monsters out there, and 95% of PCs. Just switch their Int and Str, or Con and Cha, and laaaaaaugh.

2) Moment of Clarity. Grant an ally any feat for a few rounds. Worth noting is that you specifically can't grant Ancestor feats, but Epic feats are, apparently, good to go. If you can't find a way to horribly break this, you aren't trying hard enough.

3) Sense Void. Okay, so you can sense stuff anywhere except across planar boundaries, at the cost of a piddly Spellcraft check. This raises a whole series of questions: can others sense you when you're like that? Since you're leaving your body, can you use purely mental actions in that state? Can you move around? How long does it last? Does it count as a divination effect? What can block it? RAW's lack of statement implies very dire answers...

- There's no listed method of detecting if someone else is using this.
- There's nothing preventing the use of mental actions in this state, and there's not even a mention of it requiring concentration.
- There's no method of moving (but see the previous)
- There's no limit on duration given.
- It's never referred to as a divination, nor as scrying, despite the obvious similarities.
- Given that, there's no RAW method I've heard of to block it, short of planar boundaries. Illusions work, though.

In other words, it's potentially "Scry and Die" on steroids. Can't be blocked, can't be detected, doesn't require familiarity, never runs out, and by RAW your mind is actually there, meaning you can start chucking out whatever mental action whatnots you happen to have available with zero fear of reprisal.

Basically, Sense Void is god mode. A Planar Sheppard//Beholder Mage would have reason to fear a Void Disciple.

Gah.

[Lapak]

Okay, I'm speaking in ignorance here so I might be out of line, but I think this might be less broken than people seem to think it is (though it could still qualify for bad wording, so this isn't a neg-vote or anything yet). Curmudgeon pointed out on the Simple Rules Q thread that you can't initiate a stance while unable to move or unable to take actions, so while IHS is still quite broad, it doesn't cure the truly nasty conditions like Stunned or Petrified, because you can't use it while affected by such things. Again, please ignore me if everyone already knows this, I'm kinda late to the party with all of 3E and still haven't even read Tome of Battle.You've actually touched on part of why it's badly written, in a roundabout way. It seems designed to be the kind of 'warrior powers through magical bindings through sheer determination' thing we're all familiar from fiction, but the way it's written means that:
- you CAN'T use it to break free from Domination/Paralyzation/other classic things you'd expect to break with it, because you are prevented from initiating it, but
- you CAN use it on a huge array of things that don't fit into that theme at all, both because it's written as ending the effect rather than making you personally immune and because it's so vague about what conditions it can erase (I concentrate all my determination and - cause the Anti-Magic Field to collapse?)

So yeah, the reason people object isn't that it's overpowered on the things you'd expect it to be used on; they think it's badly written because it's useless for those things and overpowered against completely unexpected, unrelated things.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Ah, if I have any votes left just put them on monk for now.

Come on people, vote monk! If you've been on this forum for more than a month you must have seen one of the ubiquitous monk debates, such as here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=248198) or here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=247920). What other rules flaw has spawned forum memes like 'monkday'?

:smallamused:.

ToBday :smallcool:

[Morph Bark]

So we can't put two or three downvotes on one of the choices? :smallconfused:

[Curmudgeon]

Looks like I've got 7 additional votes to cast, so here they are:

Manyfang Dagger (Serpent Kingdoms, page 152): 3 votes
Alter Self spell line: 1
Monk class: 2
Epic Spellcasting: 1

[Doug Lampert]

One vote per thing for me, there's so much bad even in core that concentrating on one thing means missing other deserving targets.

I'm giving strong preference to core and SRD material as more likely to come up in actual games with people not deliberately looking for cheeze. [Edited to add, and I use up all my votes without leaving core or duplicating a vote. So stuff like IHS is off the hook.]

I'm voting NEGATIVE on Candle of Invocation, because the item is clear, and not a problem. The problem is the spell Gate. This is blatant. The candle's abusive uses all center on giving you access to the spell, candles don't do squat some other item that grants access to the spell wouldn't except make it cheaper and come on line sooner.
[Edited to add: If candle of invocation didn't exist we'd have builds using scrolls of gate and some way to activate them. Removing the item without fixing the spell simply doesn't help, and the problem with the item is ENTIRELY in that it casts the spell. The item is seen as problematical because it's the easiest way to access Gate and thus is used in all the TO designs, but it's the spell that causes the problems. Heck, once I get a spell-like wish from Panzuzu or whatever I can simply wish for a resetting trap of Gate and avoid all the wishing for candles.]

-1 Candle of Invocation

Dust of Sneezing & Choking
Drowning
Diplomacy
PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange
Monk
Gate
Grapple
Planar Ally/Binding Line of spells
Spell-like abilities ignoring all components

[Edited to add, again, things like Genies are a problem because they're EASY ways to get access to spell-like wish, but the problem is spell-like wish and many monsters have that.]

[Doug Lampert]

-1 Candle of Invocation

Dust of Sneezing & Choking
Drowning
Diplomacy
PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange
Monk
Gate
Grapple
Planar Ally/Binding Line of spells
Spell-like abilities ignoring all components

Drop Monk from my list and add Magic Device Traps.
Monk is mearly moderately inneffective and poorly synergized. Magic Device Traps completely negate the idea that the guidelines on item creation are guidelines for the DM to ESTIMATE prices rather than rules for the PCs to abuse.

When: "Of course I can build a trap of Cure Minor Wounds activated by someone reaching into it on my spell-pouch. I don't want some undead messing with it." is one of the LESS abusive uses of a rule you know it's got problems.

[Curmudgeon]

Magic Device Traps completely negate the idea that the guidelines on item creation are guidelines for the DM to ESTIMATE prices rather than rules for the PCs to abuse.
The DM is specifically allowed to disagree with magic device trap elements. From DMG page 74:
When you and the player have agreed on what spells and other elements the trap contains, you can determine the cost of the raw materials for the trap and the CR of the trap. If you don't like what the PC is trying to do with a magic device trap, simply don't agree to the spells or other elements.

[Curmudgeon]

Magic Device Traps completely negate the idea that the guidelines on item creation are guidelines for the DM to ESTIMATE prices rather than rules for the PCs to abuse.
The DM is specifically allowed to disagree with magic device trap elements, and empowered to set the cost. From DMG page 74:
When you and the player have agreed on what spells and other elements the trap contains, you can determine the cost of the raw materials for the trap and the CR of the trap. If you don't like what the PC is trying to do with a magic device trap, simply don't agree to the spells or other elements. And the DM determines the cost and CR.

[BRC]

This is more of a personal pet peeve than anything truly broken, but Legion of Sentinels in PHB2. I had a player who was very fond of this spell, which is very difficult to use because nowhere does the spell description actually give stats for the sentinels. The Short description in the Spell List gives their damage, but IIRC the long description, usually very thorough, dosn't tell the DM what exactly to do.

[Doug Lampert]

The DM is specifically allowed to disagree with magic device trap elements, and empowered to set the cost. From DMG page 74: If you don't like what the PC is trying to do with a magic device trap, simply don't agree to the spells or other elements. And the DM determines the cost and CR.

That language is not in the SRD. Nor do I believe it is in my first printing 3.5 DMG (not with my books).

[Madara]

That Crab x2
Iron Heart Surge
Truenamer
Dust of Sneezing & Choking x2
Shivering Touch
PaO duration/Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange
Trap Sense x2


You'll notice that I added the crab :smallwink:

[Novawurmson]

Actually, Traps in general deserve a vote for poorly written mechanics.

[Kira_the_5th]

Well, first thing, I'm going to put a negative vote towards theAntagonize feat. It's not at-will, it provides a useful effect, and it doesn't work against anything immune to mind effects. It might be a bit MMORPGish, but it's not all that broken.

For for broken things, I'll put in another vote for Cancer Mage, double that if the Festering Hate disease is included in that. As amusing as the concept of the Muscle Wizard is, +2 Str each day is ridiculous.

I'll also toss one toward the Choker and its extra standard action every turn.

Lastly, I'll toss two toward the Sublime Chord, and its full sorcerer+full bard shenanigans, and I'll save the last four for later.

[molten_dragon]

For now I'm considering this separate from the existing Planar Bubble entry, despite wishing to fold them together.

That's fine. I mean the class as a whole, not just the planar bubble feature. There's plenty of other badly designed, broken stuff about it.


By this do you mean the current "LA rules" entry, or something a little different? For now I'm assuming the former, but correct me if I am incorrect.

I mean the fact that monsters have both level adjustment and racial hit dice, and that the majority of the time, monsters with both RHD and LA are vastly underpowered compared to classes of the same level, while a select few are vastly overpowered compared to classes of the same level.

[TuggyNE]

Some awesome discussion going on here.


Okay, I'm speaking in ignorance here so I might be out of line, but I think this might be less broken than people seem to think it is (though it could still qualify for bad wording, so this isn't a neg-vote or anything yet). Curmudgeon pointed out on the Simple Rules Q thread that you can't initiate a stance while unable to move or unable to take actions, so while IHS is still quite broad, it doesn't cure the truly nasty conditions like Stunned or Petrified, because you can't use it while affected by such things. Again, please ignore me if everyone already knows this, I'm kinda late to the party with all of 3E and still haven't even read Tome of Battle.

Already warbladed on this one, but my problem with it is, in fact, that it can't cure the truly nasty conditions, while it can cure stupidly broad and scarcely negative conditions like "I'm a drow and the sun is shining on me". What's a DM supposed to do with that? (At least it's practical to use it to break charm (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=407), as AGC shows us; it also shows us another aspect of its wording stupidity, for free!)


I had interpreted JoAT as proof that having a half-skill rank gave you the ability to use the skill, since you were trained in it. I know there's at least one rule that says otherwise, but JoAT might have been intended to override that rule, and they just weren't explicit as they should have been (though again that does qualify as bad writing).
[...]
No argument here; if free metamagic was an easy across-the-board thing it might be cool, but having some able to get it and others not is pretty awful.

Are these votes? If not, you still have two votes left.


I'm not really counting votes; I think it's more like a measure of certainty. I'm putting one vote toward things that I find dubious, two to thinks that are definitely screwy, and would put three toward something that was utterly and completely absurd. I have yet to see anything that I'm certain would be worth three.

That's more like what I intended, yes.


Actually, I want to add two votes to Void Disciple.

1) Void Suppression. No-save-just-lose for 90% of the monsters out there, and 95% of PCs. Just switch their Int and Str, or Con and Cha, and laaaaaaugh.

2) Moment of Clarity. Grant an ally any feat for a few rounds. Worth noting is that you specifically can't grant Ancestor feats, but Epic feats are, apparently, good to go. If you can't find a way to horribly break this, you aren't trying hard enough.

3) Sense Void. Okay, so you can sense stuff anywhere except across planar boundaries, at the cost of a piddly Spellcraft check. This raises a whole series of questions: can others sense you when you're like that? Since you're leaving your body, can you use purely mental actions in that state? Can you move around? How long does it last? Does it count as a divination effect? What can block it? RAW's lack of statement implies very dire answers...

- There's no listed method of detecting if someone else is using this.
- There's nothing preventing the use of mental actions in this state, and there's not even a mention of it requiring concentration.
- There's no method of moving (but see the previous)
- There's no limit on duration given.
- It's never referred to as a divination, nor as scrying, despite the obvious similarities.
- Given that, there's no RAW method I've heard of to block it, short of planar boundaries. Illusions work, though.

In other words, it's potentially "Scry and Die" on steroids. Can't be blocked, can't be detected, doesn't require familiarity, never runs out, and by RAW your mind is actually there, meaning you can start chucking out whatever mental action whatnots you happen to have available with zero fear of reprisal.

Basically, Sense Void is god mode. A Planar Sheppard//Beholder Mage would have reason to fear a Void Disciple.

Gah.


Now that is an impressive list. That's right up there with love's pain, in fact. (Which I am going to add, despite having no votes left to put on it.)


So we can't put two or three downvotes on one of the choices? :smallconfused:

Not at present, no; if you really want to do this, make your case for it, and I'll consider.

I don't think it would be too helpful, because the main purpose of downvotes IMO is to even out a few careless entries that don't fit all that well, not to deal with suggestions that many people agree with and some disagree with very strongly. Does that make sense?


Manyfang Dagger (Serpent Kingdoms, page 152): 3 votes

Hmm, I don't have Serpent Kingdoms, so you'll have to explain this one to me.


Drop Monk from my list and add Magic Device Traps.
Monk is mearly moderately inneffective and poorly synergized. Magic Device Traps completely negate the idea that the guidelines on item creation are guidelines for the DM to ESTIMATE prices rather than rules for the PCs to abuse.

When: "Of course I can build a trap of Cure Minor Wounds activated by someone reaching into it on my spell-pouch. I don't want some undead messing with it." is one of the LESS abusive uses of a rule you know it's got problems.

As I see it, this mostly exposes the problem that trap costs don't make a whole lot of sense; they're engineered for a specific use (hurt PCs dungeon-crawling) and don't work well in other niches (hurt NPCs, help NPCs, help PCs, etc). In particular, they're easier and cheaper than wondrous items to break (action/gold/wish) economy with.


I mean the fact that monsters have both level adjustment and racial hit dice, and that the majority of the time, monsters with both RHD and LA are vastly underpowered compared to classes of the same level, while a select few are vastly overpowered compared to classes of the same level.

The distinction between this and LA rules seems small, but I'll separate out your vote anyway.

[Metahuman1]

Isn't there a race that get's both full Sorcerer and Cleric casting and a bergillion other ability's, so much that it's over powered even for it's insane LA? Can't remember what it's called.

[deuxhero]

I know there was a Black something or other that had Wizard casting on par with the total ECL it gave.

[mootoall]

I know there was a Black something or other that had Wizard casting on par with the total ECL it gave.

Ethergaunt. And I'd like to throw another vote on Void Disciple, and around three on the Sarrukh.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I know there was a Black something or other that had Wizard casting on par with the total ECL it gave.

Black Ethergaunts?

[The Glyphstone]

Isn't there a race that get's both full Sorcerer and Cleric casting and a bergillion other ability's, so much that it's over powered even for it's insane LA? Can't remember what it's called.

There's Phaerimm Hatchlings, 1HD and +2LA who get Sorcerer Casting equal to their total Character level as SLA's.

[willpell]

Are these votes? If not, you still have two votes left.

They were not votes. I'll think about the last two.

[Amphetryon]

There's Phaerimm Hatchlings, 1HD and +2LA who get Sorcerer Casting equal to their total Character level as SLA's.

Black Ethergaunts also come to mind.

EDIT: Swordsages everywhere.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

My ten votes will be allocated as follows:

Polymorph and associated spells - 3
Natural Abilities - 2
Contact Other Plane - 2
Truenamer - 1
Diplomacy - 1
Lucid Dreaming skill - 1

[Answerer]

...Iron Heart Surge is beating Truenamer? No. Not even kind of sort of, just no.

IHS is somewhat problematic and ill-defined. Truenamer is flat-out missing critical pieces of information and was clearly never tested at all.

Also, anyone who does not list Manipulate Form as #1, it seems to me, is simply wrong.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Archivist (HoH) and Healer (MH) would like to have a word with you...

Snap... Still sucks though. >.>

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

For me, most of my things are Core. Truenamer isn't, but it's an entire class that doesn't function. It's the drowning rules of classes. The other is Lucid Dreaming, which can basically allow for risk-free assassination, or, more potently, use Diplomacy without actually ever meeting the target. By sleeping, you can make everyone who's subject to mind-affecting effects while asleep (so maybe when buffs are down!) a Fanatic follower.

[Kuulvheysoon]

...Iron Heart Surge is beating Truenamer? No. Not even kind of sort of, just no.

IHS is somewhat problematic and ill-defined. Truenamer is flat-out missing critical pieces of information and was clearly never tested at all.


This. Consider my vote cast for Truenamer.

[NikitaDarkstar]

This was intentional and more or less reasonable; there's a sidebar in one of the books which explains their logic. CR and ECL measure different things; a monster doesn't care whether its powers are usable once per hour or once per day, because you'll usually kill it or be killed by it within an hour of meeting it. But for a player the difference is huge, since the once per hour power can be used in like eight fights before an adventuring day might end. There are doubtless other ramifications of the difference. CR is for monsters that are there to be killed; LA is for creatures that can be played. I would like it if they had provided LA for all monsters (just earlier today I was thinking about a clairsentient Udoroot who telecommutes to the dungeon), and they could have put more thought into how much LA a given monster race or template is worth (+2 for Celestial, are you kidding me?), but the concept overall isn't a bad one.


I think you misunderstand my issue here. A LA template is LOWER for a CR monster than it is for a player. If memory serves (It might not, I've been playing Pathfinder and GURPS for a while now) a Half-Dragon template adds +2 CR to a monster.. but +3 LA to a player. Why? it's more powerful on a monster, which as you say is there to kill or be killed.

Yes LA, ECL and CR measures completely different things, but once you want to apply a template to something it turns into a huge friggin mess.

And I take back the thing about Favored Souls being the only ones with a split stat, it was meant to be an exaggeration to get my frustration across, but apparently that doesn't work to well when typing in the middle of the night. :p

[Curmudgeon]

That language is not in the SRD. Nor do I believe it is in my first printing 3.5 DMG (not with my books).
It is in mine (First Printing: July 2003).


Hmm, I don't have Serpent Kingdoms, so you'll have to explain this one to me.
A two sentence SK quote is all I need:

Manyfang Dagger: This +1 dagger looks like a normal masterwork dagger, but when it hits, three phantom blades briefly whirl into existence around the main blade, stabbing and slicing the same target, then winking into nothingness again. A manyfang dagger thus deals quadruple damage on each successful hit, or quintuple damage on a critical hit.
Multiplying Damage

Sometimes you multiply damage by some factor, such as on a critical hit. Roll the damage (with all modifiers) multiple times and total the results. Note: When you multiply damage more than once, each multiplier works off the original, unmultiplied damage.

Exception: Extra damage dice over and above a weapon’s normal damage are never multiplied. If you've got non-dice bonus damage, a Manyfang Dagger will multiply it on every single hit. At level 13 a Rogue hitting with a +1 dagger could deal 1d4 +1 (from weapon enhancement) +6 (from Strength bonus) +7d6+13 (from sneak attack with Craven) +5 (from Knowledge Devotion); that's 1d4 + 7d6 +25 (average 52) with no critical. With a Manyfang dagger the +7d6 wouldn't be multiplied, but the +25 static bonus would instead become +100 on every successful sneak attack; that's 4d4 +7d6 + 100 (average 141.5).

Further shenanigans are possible with a Small character using a Manyfang Dagger sized for a Medium character.
The measure of how much effort it takes to use a weapon (whether the weapon is designated as a light, one-handed, or two-handed weapon for a particular wielder) is altered by one step for each size category of difference between the wielder’s size and the size of the creature for which the weapon was designed. Once a Manyfang Dagger becomes a 1-handed weapon you can benefit from Power Attack; you can also wield it in two hands. All of that bonus would be quadrupled on every hit as well, even when you don't qualify for sneak attack. Power Attack for 9 with an oversize dagger and you add another +9 if you hit, or +18 if wielded 2-handed. Power Attack for 9 with an oversize Manyfang Dagger and you add another +36 if you hit, or +45 if wielded 2-handed.

You can see that the Manyfang Dagger's contribution to damage dwarfs that from class features. That item is better than 20 levels of sneak attack from a Rogue, and 20 levels of rage from a Barbarian. As soon as you qualify for Craven (a 1-level Rogue dip) you've got most of the multipliable static bonus. At that point you might as well be a full spellcaster to add other non-dice damage bonuses to get multiplied by the Manyfang Dagger.

Any single item which obsoletes whole classes deserves to be on the list.

[Amphetryon]

It is in mine (First Printing: July 3003):smalleek: Curmudgeon's from the FUTURE!

[Curmudgeon]

:smalleek: Curmudgeon's from the FUTURE!
Sshhhh! That's supposed to be a secret!

Actually, it's more that my fingers have all the deftness of someone from the distant past. Hooray for Neanderthal typing!

[Ernir]

For now... one for each, in no particular order: Iron Heart Surge Factotum* Freedom of Movement Truenamer* Drowning

*I saw the "no whole classes please" thing, also that they have already made it to the list anyway. :smalltongue:


Also, anyone who does not list Manipulate Form as #1, it seems to me, is simply wrong.
I dunno. Manipulate Form is completely bonkers in very clear ways, if you ask me.

[Metahuman1]

I know the one I was pointing out was form one of the later/less commonly used books. I think it was one of the later Monster Manuals/setting specific supplements. I've never actually looked at it though, just seen it sited on forums.

[Answerer]

I dunno. Manipulate Form is completely bonkers in very clear ways, if you ask me.
I dunno, "worst-written" to me can refer to the hideously open-ended wording that they used.

[ben-zayb]

To clarify my votes from earlier:
3 each for being clear-cut badly defined effects
Cancer Mage
HH World Throwing

2 for being badly or vaguely written
Precocious Apprentice
Thought Bottle

Removed, since I'm just being nitpicky with these:
Dead condition
Hydra slaying Strike

[HunterOfJello]

This is more of a personal pet peeve than anything truly broken, but Legion of Sentinels in PHB2. I had a player who was very fond of this spell, which is very difficult to use because nowhere does the spell description actually give stats for the sentinels. The Short description in the Spell List gives their damage, but IIRC the long description, usually very thorough, dosn't tell the DM what exactly to do.

I believe that this is cleared up in the PHB2 errata.




Page 116 – Legion of Sentinels
[Omission]
Should include the following text at the end of its
description: “The swordsmen’s attacks are at a
bonus equal to your caster level, they threaten
critical hits on a 19 or 20, and they deal 1d8 points
of slashing damage with a +1 bonus per three caster
levels (max +5). They only make attacks of
opportunity, and their weapon damage is slashing
and is affected by damage reduction.”

They do a small amount of damage, but they only make AoO and no regular attacks.

[Zonasiy]

I'm gonna nominate the spell Locate City. Specifically the range part of it being a bit odd.

[willpell]

I agree with Truenamer stupidity but it's getting more than enough votes, so here are my final two being cast for things that I love, but which could definitely use a rewrite.

Illumian Power Words: There are some goofy things all over the Illumians - a good-leaning clan named Bloodwing, the rather pointless save bonus vs. shadow spells, the very strange glyph ability, and the Final Utterance which does nothing game-relevant. But the Power Words take the cake - they're very clear about what they do, but this makes them hacky and awkward-looking, and they lock you into the core classes to an absurd extent. Vaul words take the cake for the "expend a spell slot (but not one holding a prepared spell)" wording; they couldn't just say "expend a spontaneous casting spell-per-day"? It took me about four wordings to figure out what they meant by that. The Hoon words are pretty cringeworthy too.

Soulmelds: I love Magic of Incarnum, but it's really poorly worded in a lot of places, and the entire Soulmelds chapter takes the cake. First they introduce THREE classes that are all front-loaded with all the widgets they will ever have, just like Clerics and Binders...then they smash all three lists of widgets together into one alphabetical archive, which you have to page through and read the Class: line to figure out which ones are available to your class. Every soulmeld has a ton of moving parts - its normal effect, its essentia effect, and from one to four binds - for you to keep track of, which means the tables which are supposed to summarize them don't tell you even a fraction of what you need to know, and their only way to point out the melds that go on more than one chakra was to copy them in both locations with no cross-reference. The entire thing is basically illegible, and I couldn't work with the classes until I hand-wrote a new reference which sorts them sensibly.


I think you misunderstand my issue here. A LA template is LOWER for a CR monster than it is for a player. If memory serves (It might not, I've been playing Pathfinder and GURPS for a while now) a Half-Dragon template adds +2 CR to a monster.. but +3 LA to a player. Why? it's more powerful on a monster, which as you say is there to kill or be killed. Yes LA, ECL and CR measures completely different things, but once you want to apply a template to something it turns into a huge friggin mess.

I'm inclined to think that templates were originally not meant to apply to player characters and that they were never really balanced properly. Half-Dragon doesn't strike me as unreasonable because a level 4 character with a 6d6 breath cone might as well be carrying a suitcase nuke. At higher levels it's far less impressive; LA buyoff is probably good to apply here.

[TuggyNE]

It seems the various colors of Ethergaunt are kinda messed up. (I've seen some lesser cheese involving whites, for example.)

Also, just ran through the list again, and caught a few errors of counting. :smallredface: Nothing too major, but still annoying. So any cross-checks you care to perform are welcomed.

Hulking Hurler has broken the top ten, and Cancer Mage and Drowning traded places. Truenamer looks to be catching up to IHS, but I think someone must have attempted to remove the condition "Loses to Truenamer in Top Ten Worst". :smallamused:


And I'd like to throw another vote on Void Disciple, and around three on the Sarrukh.

I'm going to put that down as Manipulate Form (3), if you don't mind, since IIRC the Sarrukh would be unimpressive without that ability.


My ten votes will be allocated as follows:

Polymorph and associated spells - 3
Natural Abilities - 2
Contact Other Plane - 2
Truenamer - 1
Diplomacy - 1
Lucid Dreaming skill - 1

Mind expounding a bit on "Natural Abilities"? What precisely are you calling out?


...Iron Heart Surge is beating Truenamer? No. Not even kind of sort of, just no.

IHS is somewhat problematic and ill-defined. Truenamer is flat-out missing critical pieces of information and was clearly never tested at all.

Also, anyone who does not list Manipulate Form as #1, it seems to me, is simply wrong.

I suspect the reason IHS gets so many votes is that it is so viscerally wrong, and the most extravagant abuses, which the majority of DMs would crack down on, are very impressive just the same.

Also, add your votes in! :smallwink:


The other is Lucid Dreaming, which can basically allow for risk-free assassination, or, more potently, use Diplomacy without actually ever meeting the target. By sleeping, you can make everyone who's subject to mind-affecting effects while asleep (so maybe when buffs are down!) a Fanatic follower.

Lucid Dreaming is like Forgery: a skill opposed only by itself. Pretty stupid.


This. Consider my vote cast for Truenamer.

Just one vote? :smalltongue: Why not use up a few more?


[shenanigans with manyfang]

That is... atrociously atrocious. Wow.


I saw the "no whole classes please" thing, also that they have already made it to the list anyway. :smalltongue:

Yeah... some classes are just that bad, but I don't want the first response to be throwing out a large chunk of published mechanics. Specificity please!

Edited to add:
I'm gonna nominate the spell Locate City. Specifically the range part of it being a bit odd.

It needs a bit more attention to ensure that it can, in fact, locate a city on anything other than a perfectly flat plane. Most of the blame for the bomb trick, though, falls on Frostburn's metamagic, without which the trick can't be pulled off (not even the Fell Draining variant).

[tiercel]

Polymorph (and its line but the spell in particular) seems the most blindingly obviously hideous single example, not only because of the mass confusion (and errata and FAQs and version changes and subschool and variants and 10^100+1 threads about it due to its badly-worded and wildly open-ended nature)...

If nothing else, it's one of the most unavoidable tar pits in D&D, unless the party of PCs plus every NPC or monster they ever face manages to avoid having sorcerer or wizard spellcasting (and even then, it spawns not only problems for all of its related spell line, but also potential problems or misunderstandings for abilities based upon it or similar to it, e.g. Alternate Form, Change Shape, or a druid's Wildshape). Simply banning everything polymorph-ish outright is unpalatable given that shapechanging is an iconic form of magic.

This isn't to say that other entries on the list thus far aren't wretched in their own ways, but they are generally easier to houserule or to simply ignore or outright ban. That doesn't make them any better, it just means they are less of a problem for most games.

Many campaigns might go their entire length while hardly opening Tome of Magic, much less feeling a need to try to work in Truenamers. Iron! Heart! Surge! is wildly open ended but (A) more campaigns use arcane magic than Tome of Battle and (B) saying "there's a list of conditions in D&D, when you IHS it ends one of those conditions (except Dead, duh) OR cancels the effect of one spell, (Sp), or (Su) ability [including psionic, incarnum, shadowcasting, binding, truenaming, poopmaging, etc versions] ON YOU" would go a long way to making IHS workable in a real game.

There are any number of criteria for what make awful things awful in D&D. To my mind "awful AND nigh-unavoidable" trumps "awful" alone, and by this reasoning polymorph et al. is pretty much as bad as it gets.

[Kira_the_5th]

I take it the entire Tome of Battle is off the table for being added? The recent post on soulmelds reminded me just how much I hate that book. Not any of the material in it, per se, but the physical book itself. I can't stand the way its arranged, which makes White Wolf books look user-friendly by comparison. Things like how the martial adept classes, when new maneuvers are learned, and what the schools' favored weapons are, and what the maneuvers do all go into different chapters. I have a feeling that an entire book is a bit too vague, though.

[bobthe6th]

I take it the entire Tome of Battle is off the table for being added? The recent post on soulmelds reminded me just how much I hate that book. Not any of the material in it, per se, but the physical book itself. I can't stand the way its arranged, which makes White Wolf books look user-friendly by comparison. Things like how the martial adept classes, when new maneuvers are learned, and what the schools' favored weapons are, and what the maneuvers do all go into different chapters. I have a feeling that an entire book is a bit too vague, though.

and then try using a PDF... I have had to memorize page numbers to use it properly. the content itself I like, the book is just poorly organized. so I guess I'll start it with 3 votes.

and, why has no one started it... the vorpal sword Su of balors gets 3 as well.
not only does it make no sense(this should be under treasure), it is still part of the ****ing srd. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#balor)
when the balor enters and antimagic field? its sword disappears... this is one of the most used monsters of high level play... and it has a massive typo in the midle of it? it passed all editors, and all revisions without note. WHY!!!

[Ksheep]

I think I'm going to drop my vote for Monk and add a vote to something new to the list: Arrow Demon

Something is really wrong with this, especially for a CR 7. First off, it's mainly ranged, but it's CON is through the roof, giving it gobs more health than it should have (135 avg, compared to 33 for a Succubus of the same CR, or 135 for a Retriever of CR 11). It also has the ability to Dimension Door at will, which makes it almost impossible to melee, insane skills, and rather high saves for something of CR 7.

I think there were a couple other things about it that were broken, but it's late and I can't think straight…

[sonofzeal]

I take it the entire Tome of Battle is off the table for being added? The recent post on soulmelds reminded me just how much I hate that book. Not any of the material in it, per se, but the physical book itself. I can't stand the way its arranged, which makes White Wolf books look user-friendly by comparison. Things like how the martial adept classes, when new maneuvers are learned, and what the schools' favored weapons are, and what the maneuvers do all go into different chapters. I have a feeling that an entire book is a bit too vague, though.
Naw, I never found it that hard. Specifically, the "Maneuvers and Stances" chapter has a handy index sorted by level and then by school, followed by long descriptions by school. This was just about the perfect way to organize it, and is leagues better than MoI's alphabetical muckery.

Favoured weapons per se don't even come up that much. And they're right in the same chapter (the aforementioned "maneuvers and stances") that tells you what all the maneuvers do. You really only need that chapter and the section on whatever class you're using.

The only complaint I have is that the table listing the max maneuver level is kind of buried... but it's identical to when Clerics/Druids/Wizard gain new spell levels, so it's pretty easy to remember or remind yourself about if you've got a PHB/SRD handy.

[TuggyNE]

There are any number of criteria for what make awful things awful in D&D. To my mind "awful AND nigh-unavoidable" trumps "awful" alone, and by this reasoning polymorph et al. is pretty much as bad as it gets.

Hmm. A plausible reasoning. I take it you're voting polymorph (3), then?


I take it the entire Tome of Battle is off the table for being added? The recent post on soulmelds reminded me just how much I hate that book. Not any of the material in it, per se, but the physical book itself. I can't stand the way its arranged, which makes White Wolf books look user-friendly by comparison. Things like how the martial adept classes, when new maneuvers are learned, and what the schools' favored weapons are, and what the maneuvers do all go into different chapters. I have a feeling that an entire book is a bit too vague, though.

Yeah, adding ToB as a whole isn't likely to work too well... especially if your only objection is layout. Compare CPsi, which is the current broadest entry, where the objections are manifold and far more serious: nerfs to powers, introduction of the absurd synchronicity, uselessly redundant feat listings, bizarre and messy classes, etc. Even with all that, it's a bit dubious for inclusion.


and then try using a PDF... I have had to memorize page numbers to use it properly. the content itself I like, the book is just poorly organized. so I guess I'll start it with 3 votes.

Please, please be more specific. Shall I put you down for "ToB organization (rules; 3)"? (Even that seems a little unusual, but to each his own.)


and, why has no one started it... the vorpal sword Su of balors gets 3 as well.
not only does it make no sense(this should be under treasure), it is still part of the ****ing srd. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/demon.htm#balor)
when the balor enters and antimagic field? its sword disappears... this is one of the most used monsters of high level play... and it has a massive typo in the midle of it? it passed all editors, and all revisions without note. WHY!!!

It isn't treasure. It is specifically destroyed on the balor's death, and presumably you're not intended to disarm and steal it before then either. As far as the Su tag... maybe they just didn't feel like making it Ex for some reason. Balors aren't going to be happy inside an AMF anyway, and loss of what would be a masterwork longsword isn't really a big deal. Or do you think their magic weapon should retain its properties inside an AMF? That really would be messy.

Anyway, what's the typo you're referring to? (I'll hold off on applying those six votes until clarified, if you don't mind.)


I think I'm going to drop my vote for Monk and add a vote to something new to the list: Arrow Demon

Something is really wrong with this, especially for a CR 7. First off, it's mainly ranged, but it's CON is through the roof, giving it gobs more health than it should have (135 avg, compared to 33 for a Succubus of the same CR, or 135 for a Retriever of CR 11). It also has the ability to Dimension Door at will, which makes it almost impossible to melee, insane skills, and rather high saves for something of CR 7.

I think there were a couple other things about it that were broken, but it's late and I can't think straight…

Note that, unless it specifically makes an exception, DimDooring stops all further actions for the round; that's one small comfort. I do know it's sometimes recommended as a polymorph target for archers, given its impressive ranged capabilities.

[bobthe6th]

Please, please be more specific. Shall I put you down for "ToB organization (rules; 3)"? (Even that seems a little unusual, but to each his own.)

it is more of a unhapiness with the layout... but forget it, not important. axe the votes.




It isn't treasure. It is specifically destroyed on the balor's death, and presumably you're not intended to disarm and steal it before then either. As far as the Su tag... maybe they just didn't feel like making it Ex for some reason. Balors aren't going to be happy inside an AMF anyway, and loss of what would be a masterwork longsword isn't really a big deal. Or do you think their magic weapon should retain its properties inside an AMF? That really would be messy.


an...item...is...not...an...special...attack. It...is...an...item.
listing it as a special attack is like listing a fighters greatsword as a feat. it isn't, and it is very bad writing. the typo is how it is listed.
heck, the whip isn't listed as a special attack, only the special part of it.

thyer both even listed in the treasure...

AMFs have their affects, and dissipating weapons isn't one of them.

[TuggyNE]

an...item...is...not...an...special...attack. It...is...an...item.
listing it as a special attack is like listing a fighters greatsword as a feat. it isn't, and it is very bad writing. the typo is how it is listed.
heck, the whip isn't listed as a special attack, only the special part of it.

thyer both even listed in the treasure...


Death Throes (Ex)
When killed, a balor explodes in a blinding flash of light that deals 100 points of damage to anything within 100 feet (Reflex DC 30 half). This explosion automatically destroys any weapons the balor is holding. The save DC is Constitution-based.

That's what I was referring to by destroying its weapons on death. Listing its unusually powerful and very specific weapon as Su may be a little strange, but it's not the same as listing any old random greatsword, by any means. I'm having trouble figuring out why you're reacting so strongly to something that seems extremely minor, and quite possibly not even incorrect anyway.

The whip's entangling ability is essentially mundane, albeit unusual, which is presumably why it's listed as Ex.


AMFs have their affects, and dissipating weapons isn't one of them.

I beg to differ.
Furthermore, while a magic sword does not function magically within the area, it is still a sword (and a masterwork sword at that).

[Knaight]

That's what I was referring to by destroying its weapons on death. Listing its unusually powerful and very specific weapon as Su may be a little strange, but it's not the same as listing any old random greatsword, by any means. I'm having trouble figuring out why you're reacting so strongly to something that seems extremely minor, and quite possibly not even incorrect anyway.


That isn't a feature of the sword, but the Balor. If it is disarmed, it no longer applies to the sword. If it picks up some random stick, it now applies to that stick. Said stick, however, has no business being listed in special attacks with an (Su) after it, despite being categorically equivalent to the sword. The Balor's sword should be on the list. So:
Balor's Sword: 1 point
Truenamer: 3 points
Void Disciple: 2 points
Lucid Dreaming: 2 points
Paladin Code: 2 points

[TuggyNE]

That isn't a feature of the sword, but the Balor. If it is disarmed, it no longer applies to the sword. If it picks up some random stick, it now applies to that stick. Said stick, however, has no business being listed in special attacks with an (Su) after it, despite being categorically equivalent to the sword. The Balor's sword should be on the list. So:
Balor's Sword: 1 point
Truenamer: 3 points
Void Disciple: 2 points
Lucid Dreaming: 2 points
Paladin Code: 2 points

Well, OK. I can see an argument for the wackiness going on, even if I don't think it's really worthwhile. All votes applied, including 3 from bobthe6th.

In other news, the Monk has been dethroned from #10 by Void Disciple, and Truenamer has at last gated in a Solar to wish its way to the top.

[ben-zayb]

Are we taking Erratas into consideration here? Because Iron Heart Surge, while still being a major pain, at the very least had a more definitive description (that's gotta be redundant) here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=13292.0) along with a lot of other stuff.

[TuggyNE]

Are we taking Erratas into consideration here? Because Iron Heart Surge, while still being a major pain, at the very least had a more definitive description (that's gotta be redundant) here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=13292.0) along with a lot of other stuff.

Unofficial erratas? No. As good as that one is, the majority of players have probably never seen it.

[Morph Bark]

Not at present, no; if you really want to do this, make your case for it, and I'll consider.

I don't think it would be too helpful, because the main purpose of downvotes IMO is to even out a few careless entries that don't fit all that well, not to deal with suggestions that many people agree with and some disagree with very strongly. Does that make sense?

It makes sense, but consider that with several of the ones that are high up on the list in amount of votes are so high up not because many people voted for them (in most cases), but that several people simply allocated 3 votes to these options. Limiting votes to up to 2 per option OR allowing more downvotes per option per voter would be fairer and more balancing, allowing the filtration of not-so-bad options, while keeping in the ones that actually are really bad.

[Answerer]

I take it the entire Tome of Battle is off the table for being added? The recent post on soulmelds reminded me just how much I hate that book. Not any of the material in it, per se, but the physical book itself. I can't stand the way its arranged, which makes White Wolf books look user-friendly by comparison. Things like how the martial adept classes, when new maneuvers are learned, and what the schools' favored weapons are, and what the maneuvers do all go into different chapters. I have a feeling that an entire book is a bit too vague, though.
Don't know at all what you mean about them being vague, but the other complaints confuse me greatly. That's the same layout that, for example, the Player's Handbook uses to explain magic – some of the rules are in the classes, some of the rules are in the Magic section, and the spell descriptions are in yet another chapter. Wizards was pretty consistent about using that format for any large-ish subsystem.

[Tavar]

Read the first post, and noticed that Chicken Infested is listed. Isn't Chicken Infested an April Fools Joke, so the lame fluff and crunch is somewhat expected?

[Suddo]

Bloodlines are pretty terrible and I didn't see them on the list. There's that handbook, I think by BreakMyCampaign, explaining how you can gain level but not and abuse them and argue that they are more like a buyoff then an actual level (as in you pay the amount of XP for the level but it has no LA so you can take the level as normal).

Edit: I also have to agree that Tome of Battle is layed out rather well, especially when you compare it to spells its on the same level the only bad thing is the Level 2 maneuver at level 3 stuff and multiclassing but to be fair the multiclassing thing was a nice thing for them to do.

[willpell]

Come to think of it bloodlines are really incredibly terrible. Neat idea, absolutely atrocious execution. I think I need to transfer two of my votes to them, from whatever else I have more than one vote on. In fact, make it three votes for now - I'll withdraw my vote for Complete Psionic in general, since Erudite and EW Mind Blade are the only things in that which seriously burn my toast (yeah the Divine Mind is crap, but it's at least somewhat interesting crap, and I found the Synads and Telaire interesting, while most of the rest I haven't read). So that plus one Erudite vote and one WBL vote go into Bloodlines for now, until the next time I remember something even more painful.

PS - you might consider alphabetizing the votelog, if it doesn't qualify as too much busywork. Could save yourself some searching down the line, your call.

[Telonius]

In my opinion, ToB's worst layout offense is Table 3-1 appearing on page 39. It's miles away from where it would be most useful - namely, right before the Base Classes. It wouldn't be quite as bad, if there weren't a big chunky "Skills and Feats" section between the classes and the maneuvers. At least then you'd be able to easily thumb between the two.

I don't have as much of a problem with how the maneuvers are grouped by discipline. It makes sense, it's logical. The annoying thing is the alphabetization. My brain only alphabetizes automatically for one letter. After that, I have to stop and think. Three disciplines that begin with D, and three with S, meant that I had to stop and think where Diamond Mind was going to be in relation to Desert Wind, and I couldn't flip to it quickly. Stupid, I know, but it still distracted from the book, and slowed things down during gameplay. I ended up putting sticky tabs on the book to show where each section started and ended.

[Rubik]

Soulmelds: I love Magic of Incarnum, but it's really poorly worded in a lot of places, and the entire Soulmelds chapter takes the cake. First they introduce THREE classes that are all front-loaded with all the widgets they will ever have, just like Clerics and Binders...then they smash all three lists of widgets together into one alphabetical archive, which you have to page through and read the Class: line to figure out which ones are available to your class. Every soulmeld has a ton of moving parts - its normal effect, its essentia effect, and from one to four binds - for you to keep track of, which means the tables which are supposed to summarize them don't tell you even a fraction of what you need to know, and their only way to point out the melds that go on more than one chakra was to copy them in both locations with no cross-reference. The entire thing is basically illegible, and I couldn't work with the classes until I hand-wrote a new reference which sorts them sensibly.There's a spreadsheet out there somewhere.

Anyone got a link?

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Mind expounding a bit on "Natural Abilities"? What precisely are you calling out?


I'm calling out the entire subset. 'Natural abilities' as written make no sense and are self-contradictory within the primary source, the PHB. They also get absolutely no mention in anything between the publication of the PHB3.5 in 2003 and the Rules Compendium in 2007. The only clarifying statement on their interactions with the spells and abilities based on Alter Self came in a web article (this is a natural abilities issue, not a Polymorph one. If spells were labeled as Sp the way they were in 3.0, there wouldn't be a problem.).

You could combine this with Ex/Su/SLA. Natural abilities are the forgotten child, the fourth member of the triumvirate.

[Ernir]

I dunno, "worst-written" to me can refer to the hideously open-ended wording that they used.

Fair enough.

[LordDrakulzen]

First vote- Feral template, in successive paragraphs it mentions Hit dice as either monster HD or just HD, but it's abilities go off of HD, but which ones?

(If books in general were allowed I would vote all possible for Savage Species, as it lies in it's own edition i lovingly call 3.25 where some things are old, some things are correct with what was coming out soon, and others only exist in Savage Species. Namely the winged template basing the flight maneuverability on Dex, and only that template having that)

I'll send 2 votes to the Manyfang Dagger from Curmudgeon.

2 votes for Dust of Sneezing and Choking.

2 Votes for VoP from BoED- allows you to carry plain clothes, spell component pouch, non magical bag, and simple weapon... the heavy crossbow is a simple weapon that costs 50 gp, but I'm not allowed to have a holy symbol of the deity that I've dedicated my life to?

1 for Wish- the spell- I can create any non-magical item worth up to 25,000 gp. Followed by I can create a magical item, or increase the properties of an existing item (no price limit given)

1 for Paladin code.

And my last vote is for... Damage Reduction and it's unstackability.
If my class grants DR x/b, my feats can grant DR x/c, my armor can grant DR x/a. Why can't they all be there whether it says they stack or not? Case in point- Roll with it, Adamantine Fullplate, heavy armor optimization(or specialization, forget which), and Survivor all give DR x/-, yet none of them work together, though they all represent either internal toughness, or years of training to avoid damage.

[Curmudgeon]

First vote- Feral template, in successive paragraphs it mentions Hit dice as either monster HD or just HD, but it's abilities go off of HD, but which ones?
There are two answers here, not one. Special Attacks are granted based on monster HD only. Special Qualities are granted based on total HD. That's why there are two separate tables rather than one larger one.

[LordDrakulzen]

I just voted for what I considered a poorly worded section.

If I have to go to more than one source to get the definite answer, then it is poorly worded.

I still say that the entirety of Savage Species could easily go into this. I've lost count the number of times my friend has used a warforged/incarnate construct to get access to more templates to even his ECL.

[Answerer]

Savage Species does indeed have a lot of problems.

Bloodlines were definitely another good call.

[Doxkid]

The entire Heroes of Horror book. Mostly because it was poorly written, poorly proofread and once it was out, it was left to rot without errata.

[Answerer]

Heroes of Horror has serious problems – mostly to do with its Taint system – but the whole book is too much. Dread Necromancer is a fine class, and there are some decent PrCs in there. And really, though phenomenally powerful, the Archivist isn't strictly better than already-existing classes (like Wizard).

Now, if you are talking about the Tainted Scholar, then I agree wholeheartedly.


The only "whole book" that I'd consider is Complete Psionics, and even then I have little problem with the Ardent, Soulbow, or Practiced Manifester. I'm not aware of any problems with the Lurk other than its very low power, for that matter. The 50+ "{Weapon Name} Mind Blade" feats are awful, though, and the Divine Mind is a travesty.

[TuggyNE]

So, upon discovering a few more errors, I constructed a spreadsheet and went through the whole thread again. Everything should be sorted out now.... :smallsigh:


It makes sense, but consider that with several of the ones that are high up on the list in amount of votes are so high up not because many people voted for them (in most cases), but that several people simply allocated 3 votes to these options. Limiting votes to up to 2 per option OR allowing more downvotes per option per voter would be fairer and more balancing, allowing the filtration of not-so-bad options, while keeping in the ones that actually are really bad.

Hmm. Double-checking the votelog, only one of the top ten has any negative votes at all (drowning). There are five negative votes in total. So I don't think negative votes need a wider range, really.

I'm somewhat loath to limit positive votes at this point without a strong consensus, given the amount of adjusting that would be necessary.


Read the first post, and noticed that Chicken Infested is listed. Isn't Chicken Infested an April Fools Joke, so the lame fluff and crunch is somewhat expected?

Lame is one thing, but stupidly broken is quite another. It's a flaw that actually acts more like an Su feat or something, and it combines atrociously with spell component pouches (which are kinda stupid on their own, but not actively dangerous). Basically, I don't demand that a joke entry be sensible, fluff-wise, just that it not have such far-reaching consequences.


Bloodlines are pretty terrible and I didn't see them on the list. There's that handbook, I think by BreakMyCampaign, explaining how you can gain level but not and abuse them and argue that they are more like a buyoff then an actual level (as in you pay the amount of XP for the level but it has no LA so you can take the level as normal).

I'd say the design was pretty decent, but the writing was very unclear, which is enough right there to deserve an entry.


Come to think of it bloodlines are really incredibly terrible. Neat idea, absolutely atrocious execution. I think I need to transfer two of my votes to them, from whatever else I have more than one vote on. In fact, make it three votes for now - I'll withdraw my vote for Complete Psionic in general, since Erudite and EW Mind Blade are the only things in that which seriously burn my toast (yeah the Divine Mind is crap, but it's at least somewhat interesting crap, and I found the Synads and Telaire interesting, while most of the rest I haven't read). So that plus one Erudite vote and one WBL vote go into Bloodlines for now, until the next time I remember something even more painful.


PS - you might consider alphabetizing the votelog, if it doesn't qualify as too much busywork. Could save yourself some searching down the line, your call.

Hmm, I might do that, yeah. It'll probably help for anyone who wants to double-check, too.


You could combine this with Ex/Su/SLA. Natural abilities are the forgotten child, the fourth member of the triumvirate.

Ah, good idea.


First vote- Feral template, in successive paragraphs it mentions Hit dice as either monster HD or just HD, but it's abilities go off of HD, but which ones?

(If books in general were allowed I would vote all possible for Savage Species, as it lies in it's own edition i lovingly call 3.25 where some things are old, some things are correct with what was coming out soon, and others only exist in Savage Species. Namely the winged template basing the flight maneuverability on Dex, and only that template having that)

I'll send 2 votes to the Manyfang Dagger from Curmudgeon.

2 votes for Dust of Sneezing and Choking.

2 Votes for VoP from BoED- allows you to carry plain clothes, spell component pouch, non magical bag, and simple weapon... the heavy crossbow is a simple weapon that costs 50 gp, but I'm not allowed to have a holy symbol of the deity that I've dedicated my life to?

The worst part is that according to some quote I remember seeing, the restriction on holy symbols was actually intended.


1 for Wish- the spell- I can create any non-magical item worth up to 25,000 gp. Followed by I can create a magical item, or increase the properties of an existing item (no price limit given)

1 for Paladin code.

And my last vote is for... Damage Reduction and it's unstackability.
If my class grants DR x/b, my feats can grant DR x/c, my armor can grant DR x/a. Why can't they all be there whether it says they stack or not? Case in point- Roll with it, Adamantine Fullplate, heavy armor optimization(or specialization, forget which), and Survivor all give DR x/-, yet none of them work together, though they all represent either internal toughness, or years of training to avoid damage.

DR is ... inconsistent with the general stacking paradigm, and annoying, but at least it's fairly clear how it works, and doesn't usually cause serious problems.


Savage Species does indeed have a lot of problems.

Bloodlines were definitely another good call.

These both votes?


The entire Heroes of Horror book. Mostly because it was poorly written, poorly proofread and once it was out, it was left to rot without errata.

Hmm. Care to be more specific? (I have, for now, included the vote, but I'd prefer to change it.)

[willpell]

The worst part is that according to some quote I remember seeing, the restriction on holy symbols was actually intended.

Non-cloistered Clerics probably don't want VoP anyway since it means giving up armor, which is the cleric's main advantage over the wizard (apart from not needing to actually learn spells and not having a spellbook that can be stolen). But I find it hard to believe they actually wanted to make it completely impossible for a VoP cleric to cast the vast majority of cleric spells; at that point they might as well just have said "Clerics cannot take this feat".

[TuggyNE]

Non-cloistered Clerics probably don't want VoP anyway since it means giving up armor, which is the cleric's main advantage over the wizard (apart from not needing to actually learn spells and not having a spellbook that can be stolen). But I find it hard to believe they actually wanted to make it completely impossible for a VoP cleric to cast the vast majority of cleric spells; at that point they might as well just have said "Clerics cannot take this feat".

Your point on armor is well-taken, for both clerics and paladins. Also, there's an orison somewhere that summons a holy symbol for rounds/level; arguably that works, but is pretty subpar. (DMM: Persisting that would be amusing, though.)


The weird thing is, of course, that clerics/paladins/etc are the characters that I at least would expect to want the feat the most for fluff reasons (and fluff is the only possible reason to take VoP anyway). So why did they design it to shut them out?:smallannoyed:

Edit: The WotC article (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sg/20060616a) I was vaguely referring to, which indicates that the difficulty clerics have is not particularly unexpected.

[willpell]

So why was Lucid Dreaming suggested? I just looked at it again and it seems fine to me. They say right out that the more abusive applications are impossible.

[Curmudgeon]

I'd call out the errata for the naztharune rakshasa. While better than the base (which meant that naztharune would only have 1d6 sneak attack until they took levels of rogue) it was instead changed to them getting the sneak attack of a rogue of their total hit dice.

So, class levels taken afterwards will continue to grant sneak attack. Go rogue/assassin and gain double the sneak attack progression!
I'm not disputing this inclusion on the "Worst-Written" list. However, because it is written poorly that's not the only way to read the erratum.
The naztharune rakshasa’s sneak attack ability is equivalent to that of a rogue of a level equal to the creature’s Hit Dice. Taking it as written, you get exactly that amount of sneak attack: additions from other sources would be overridden because it's a racial feature that's computed based on total HD after you've included everything.

[Morph Bark]

Whelp, I'll just work with what I got.

Downvote Iron Heart Surge.
Downvote Hulking Hurler.
3 votes for Polymorph.
3 votes for Epic Spellcasting.
1 vote for Ex/Su/SLA/Na.

[willpell]

This is too small a deal to be worth one of my votes, but I'll mention it in case someone else wants to chime in on it: a flying creature with the Hover feat and Large size creates a dust cloud while hovering near the ground. Within the cloud, a creature that wants to cast a spell needs to make a Concentration check - the DC of which is based on his own HD. The only other thing I can think of which punishes you for having higher HD is Truenaming, so I thought this was worth tossing out a mention.

[TheGeckoKing]

3 votes to the Truenamer, because a class written that poorly should of been burned at the stake, and had its ashes tossed into the sea.
3 votes to the Sarrukh's Manipulate Form ability. What I find insulting more than "DM Fiat - The Special Ability" is the fact that they gave the accursed thing an LA score - that means what when the designers were so high on god knows what, they also wanted people to actively USE this garbage. At a level when everything is already falling to ruin because of Epic Spellcasting. The hell?
2 votes to the Polymorph line. That wreck was broken from start to finish.
1 vote to Heroes of Horror. Archivist AND Tainted Scholars AND, hell, the entire Taint system. All horrid.
1 vote to drowing, 'cause that was written poorly as all get-out.
And lastly, 1 vote to the Candle of Invocation. If you give away a 9th level spell out before 17th level, then you deserve all the grief you get.

[willpell]

Oh, and speaking of Vow of Poverty, I just noticed the Apostle of Peace in his gold-plated robes.....

[Curmudgeon]

But I find it hard to believe they actually wanted to make it completely impossible for a VoP cleric to cast the vast majority of cleric spells; at that point they might as well just have said "Clerics cannot take this feat".
A Spell Search (http://www.imarvintpa.com/dndlive/FindSpell.asp) comes up with 927 Cleric spells, of which 586 do not require a divine focus. So most Cleric spells work just fine. Excluding a holy symbol is right in line with excluding a spellbook: it's a significant limitation, but not the same as excluding a class.

[deuxhero]

3 votes to the Truenamer, because a class written that poorly should of been burned at the stake, and had its ashes tossed into the sea.

No, it should have Flesh to Stone cast on it, have Transmute Rock to Mud cast on that and have purify food and water cast on the mud.


1 vote to Heroes of Horror. Archivist AND Tainted Scholars AND, hell, the entire Taint system. All horrid.

Dread Necromancer is awesome though.

[willpell]

@ Gecko: Speak for yourself, I love the Archivist.

@ Tuggyne: Switch one of my 3 votes into a neg-vote for either Archivist or Heroes of Horror in general.


A Spell Search (http://www.imarvintpa.com/dndlive/FindSpell.asp) comes up with 927 Cleric spells, of which 586 do not require a divine focus. So most Cleric spells work just fine. Excluding a holy symbol is right in line with excluding a spellbook: it's a significant limitation, but not the same as excluding a class.

Excluding a spellbook does exclude the Wizard class, but your point is taken. While most of the best cleric spells require a holy symbol, you're not exactly playing optomized with VOP anyway, and you can at least function (probably about as well as a Monk, but still).

[Tavar]

Lame is one thing, but stupidly broken is quite another. It's a flaw that actually acts more like an Su feat or something, and it combines atrociously with spell component pouches (which are kinda stupid on their own, but not actively dangerous). Basically, I don't demand that a joke entry be sensible, fluff-wise, just that it not have such far-reaching consequences.


So your complaint against the April Fools joke is that if you actually use it instead of treating it like an April Fools joke then it stops working right? That's kind of like complaining that if you give Wizards unlimited spells per day that it breaks the game.

[Curmudgeon]

Excluding a spellbook does exclude the Wizard class, but your point is taken.
It doesn't, actually. A Wizard with Eidetic Spellcaster ACF (Dragon # 357, page 89) has spells stored in their memory instead of a spellbook. Upon taking Vow of Poverty all those spells remain. The Wizard could not buy the special incenses needed to add extra spells after taking VoP, but would receive the standard 2 "free" spells known per level thereafter. So again a big hindrance, but not an automatic exclusion.

[Featherman]

It might be too generalized but collectively the most broken rules are the Rules for Monsters such as Challenge Rating, Level Adjustment, Treasure, Special Qualities & Attacks and also Alignment, Environment and Organization. All of those Even though they are probably intended to be just guidelines for the DM players have to deal with them if they want to use the polymorph spells or play monster characters. Many sources also add to and revise the Rules for Monsters but there doesn't seem to be any grand design to this and these changes and contradictions end up making things even more complicated. And last but not least the actual content of Special Attacks and Qualities often seems badly written or designed (like the "Regeneration" ability of Tarrasque).

I think it is brokenness of the monster rules which breaks many individual monsters such as the Adamantite Horror and that crab (CR, in these cases), the polymorph spells and several other things like Ability Focus. So if you think it is appropriate then add 3 to Rules for Monsters and 1 to polymorph since it has it's own problems even if the most glaring ones are attributed to Rules for Monsters. If Rules for Monsters is too broad then 3 to polymorph since that it is the most common and troublesome way of having to deal these things and 1 to LA & RHD.

I don't know if this is errataed somewhere but prestige class requirements seem very broken and often it seems to be nigh-impossible to avoid losing your classes. Ur-Priests, for example, have a Special requirement that they must not be able to cast divine spells but the first level of Ur-Priest gives them divine casting? So the only way you could keep your class features would be low wisdom but that in turn makes the class itself somewhat pointless? So 3 for Prestige Class Disqualification.

Experience point penalties are just lame and unbalanced in effectiveness. Thankfully experience point costs of creating magic items are often pretty minor but the experience point penalty from multiclassing is incredibly annoying. 2 for Multiclassing Experience Penalty.

I don't like the "cheap" movement from things like Travel Devotion & MIC swift movement items and 5ft. steps & immediate action movement is even worse. So 1 for Instant Movement or something like that. Similar to Multiclassing Exp. Penalty and PRC disqualification system imho the game would just be better if Instant Movement was not that common.

I mostly voted on rules instead of single items such as IHS as I think it is much easier to avoid those than, for example, prestige classes or unfavored multiclassing at all. There are many variant rules with significant problems but they are variant which reduces the amount of problems they cause.

[HeadlessMermaid]

I give three votes to the Alignment Rules.

No rule should cause infinite controversy. (Yes, infinite. :smalltongue:) And if there was such a rule, at least it shouldn't be one of the most fundamental rules in the game, one which interacts with so many other rules, and defines roleplaying itself. The ripple effect is staggering.

The alignment rules are so vague, that they are open to all sorts of interpretations. But not vague enough (or deliberately), to at least let every group and DM handle it as they see fit, possibly depending on the campaign. They are meant to be followed in all games in the exact same way.

Some are completely counter-intuitive (for example, murder is not an evil act unconditionally, but theft and using poison are). Some are unnecessarily restrictive (you can't build a Barbarian who puts honor first and is duty-bound to his tribe and his shaman, because Barbarians MUST be Chaotic). And the distinction between Good, Evil, Law and Chaos in the various "aligned" elements in the game is arbitrary. (The admittedly gross Avascular Mass is an Evil spell, but equally horrible spells that burn people alive are not. Deathwatch is an Evil spell for no apparent reason. Using Planar Binding to bind an angel is Good. And so on.)

But the main flaw is the concept itself. The most subjective and controversial topic in the game is presented as an objective and universal cosmic force, which governs reality regardless of culture, setting, cosmology or story genre. Ouch.

One negative vote to the Trap Sense special ability.
One vote to the Flat-footed rule.

The argument for Trap Sense is that, without Uncanny Dodge (which comes later), it doesn't even work. I disagree. Trap Sense gives you a bonus to reflex saves, which doesn't go away when you are flat-footed. So even without Uncanny Dodge, it works just fine for traps such as pits, and things that explode. And there are a whole lot of these.

So Trap Sense is not completely worthless before 4th level (as in, "it doesn't work at all"). It may be underpowered and overspecific (even with Uncanny Dodge, many traps have Will or Fort DCs and aren't affected by it, while the bonus itself is no big whoop anyway), but that's another matter - a matter of general game balance. And when it comes to that, a mostly flavorful class ability is the least of our problems.

Finally, I believe Trap Sense isn't to blame for the vanishing AC bonus either. I blame the counter-intuitive definition of flat-footedness. IMO, it's entirely possible to have not acted yet in the initiative order, but be perfectly capable of reacting "normally", ready to strike or evade at a moment's notice. For example, when you are in the process of disarming a trap, you are on your toes and ready to duck - because you know the bloody thing may detonate instead. It makes no sense to be flat-footed at that point. Especially since, by RAW, if you disarm a trap under the much worse circumstances of being in the middle of combat, you aren't flat-footed any more! Crazy.

Here's a relevant FAQ:


If a trap needs an attack roll to hit, is the attack against your normal AC or flat-footed AC?

Technically speaking, any attack made against you before you’ve taken your first action in combat, or any attack made by an attacker you can’t see, uses your flat-footed AC. Most trap attacks fall into one or both of those categories, and thus by a strict reading of the rules should treat their target as flat-footed.
Of course, any trap that doesn’t fall into either of those categories would use your normal AC. A wall scythe trap that activates every round of combat wouldn’t treat its targets as flat-footed once they’d taken an action.

Note the words "technically" and "strict reading". My take on this? The Sage (or whoever gave the answer) acknowledges that the rule makes no sense whatsoever. A boulder you weren't aware of falling suddenly on your head? Sure, you're flat-footed. But a 6-foot-scythe swinging like a pendulum in plain sight? Why on earth can't you apply your Dex bonus to AC against its first attack?

And it's not just traps. The same rule applies to all non-combat situations. Take avalanches. If you are Hasted, you improbably lose your bonus to Ref saves against an avalanche. You can see a huge ball of snow rolling towards you, but you can't react normally because "technically" you are flat-footed. Unless of course you are already in the middle of combat. Then yes, you can defend yourself properly against the avalanche. As I said, crazy.

So Trap Sense is innocent. Traps in general are innocent. But Flat-footed is guilty, and not only for that. While the definition is absolute (you either are flat-footed or aren't, you can't be flat-footed against one foe but not against the other), it is often confused with the "lose Dex to AC" condition, applying against specific threats. And the misunderstanding isn't the players' fault. There are many abilities in the game that cause a foe to become "flat-footed against this attack" or something similar. (So you can't make AoOs against this attack? What does that even mean?) Apparently, game designers themselves confuse flat-footedness with losing Dex to AC. This can't be a well-thought rule.

Therefore, I give one vote to the Flat-footed rule - for being unintuitive and confusing, and causing silly paradoxes left and right.

Two votes to Iron Heart Surge.
One vote to the polymorph line.
One vote to Invisible Blade prereqs.
One vote to the Diplomacy skill.

[TuggyNE]

The polymorph line has displaced Iron Heart Surge for #2, probably by shapechanging into a choker for extra votes standard actions. Trap Sense, Void Disciple, and Hulking Hurler have lost their status, being supplanted by Manipulate Form ("now I have the 7th-Place Ex ability") epic spellcasting ("I research a spell to move up a spot, Spellcraft DC 0"), and candle of invocation ("O efreeti, give me what I desire: a position among the top ten").


This is too small a deal to be worth one of my votes, but I'll mention it in case someone else wants to chime in on it: a flying creature with the Hover feat and Large size creates a dust cloud while hovering near the ground. Within the cloud, a creature that wants to cast a spell needs to make a Concentration check - the DC of which is based on his own HD.

Spell, spell-like ability, power, psi-like ability, and certain skills would all require the check, I believe. So yeah.


@ Tuggyne: Switch one of my 3 votes into a neg-vote for either Archivist or Heroes of Horror in general.

Let me see if I've got your current lineup correct:
CPsi Mind Blade (1), Erudite (1), Favored Soul (1), Illumian power words (1), polymorph (1), soulmelds (1), Trap Sense (1), bloodlines (2), Heroes of Horror (-1).


So your complaint against the April Fools joke is that if you actually use it instead of treating it like an April Fools joke then it stops working right? That's kind of like complaining that if you give Wizards unlimited spells per day that it breaks the game.

My philosophy is that even jokes should have a grain of truth in them, and even silliness should make sense in a way.

Or, to put it differently,
Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.

When I make a joke monster, I do my best to ensure it can be treated seriously if desired. And yes, if there was an April Fool's article in which wizards were given unlimited spells/day, I would be upset at that too!


If Rules for Monsters is too broad then 3 to polymorph since that it is the most common and troublesome way of having to deal these things and 1 to LA & RHD.

Yeah, that's what I'll record.


I don't like the "cheap" movement from things like Travel Devotion & MIC swift movement items and 5ft. steps & immediate action movement is even worse. So 1 for Instant Movement or something like that. Similar to Multiclassing Exp. Penalty and PRC disqualification system imho the game would just be better if Instant Movement was not that common.

You ... don't like five-foot steps? :smallconfused:


I give three votes to the Alignment Rules.
One negative vote to the Trap Sense special ability.
One vote to the Flat-footed rule.
Two votes to Iron Heart Surge.
One vote to the polymorph line.
One vote to Invisible Blade prereqs.
One vote to the Diplomacy skill.

An interesting perspective on flat-footed, to be sure. Rather well-reasoned too.

[Togo]

3 votes for the flatfooted rule.

It being the only one so far that I thoroughly agree with.

Maybe I have the wrong mentality for this discussion, but... a rule with two possible interpretations, one of which leads to an obviously undesirable outcome - doesn't bother me at all. Similarly, something that can be interpreted different ways in different settings, I tend to see as a good thing.

Then again, I tend to DM rather than play, so I'm used to just making a judgement that seems to good to me and getting on with it. Getting saddled with a DM who didn't agree with me might make all the potential ambiguity more of an issue.

[willpell]

Looks right.

[Kazyan]

3 votes to Truenamer. Tyndmyr has shown that you can make it function, but there's no question on how poorly-written it is. Just the introduction is infuriating, because the consonants they use for Truenames are English with apostrophe seasoning, even though you're supposed to need at least a page as a guide on how to pronounce them. This is before you get into mechanics.

3 votes to Manipulate Form. Pun-pun is a household name in the min-maxing circles.

3 votes to Epic Spellcasting. It outright tells you to make stuff up, while being nonfunctional when you follow its rules.

And because I want to be a special snowflake: 1 vote to Geomancer's Spell Versatility. It lets you switch the "parameters" of a spell, and then fails to explain what a parameter is.

[willpell]

Geomancer?

[Kazyan]

The theurge-trap prestige class from Complete Divine.

[willpell]

Man, every time I come up with a neat idea for a new standard class, it turns out to already be the name of a PRC. First the Exemplar and now this.

[eggs]

Its trick is that it's a merely useful Cleric gish prestige class masquerading as a ****ty theurge prestige class.

[TuggyNE]

I rejiggered the categories a bit; in particular, Base Classes are now distinguished from Prestige, and monstrous and racial Abilities are merged into one. Any suggestions on breaking up the Rules entry would be appreciated. None of the Top Ten have changed places, although there are several 6-vote entries surging up, and more than half a dozen with 5.


Maybe I have the wrong mentality for this discussion, but... a rule with two possible interpretations, one of which leads to an obviously undesirable outcome - doesn't bother me at all. Similarly, something that can be interpreted different ways in different settings, I tend to see as a good thing.

Then again, I tend to DM rather than play, so I'm used to just making a judgement that seems to good to me and getting on with it. Getting saddled with a DM who didn't agree with me might make all the potential ambiguity more of an issue.

Yeah, I have a distrust for ambiguity, possibly fostered by my background in computer programming.


And because I want to be a special snowflake: 1 vote to Geomancer's Spell Versatility. It lets you switch the "parameters" of a spell, and then fails to explain what a parameter is.

You mean it fails to define the exact game meaning of "parameter" in this context? Because the general meaning seems fairly clear to me; "parameter" refers more or less to the tabular entries in the spell description. (I haven't read the ability in question, but that's the usage I would expect.)


(11 votes)

You have an extra vote in here; for now I'll trim Polymorph down to 1, but any corrections you want to make?

[avr]

I'm fine with the votes allocated to me on the first page, but since that leaves me with 4 more and people have put up a bunch of good ideas:

+3 to Alignment: Good and evil are bad enough, but it gets worse when defining law and chaos.
+1 to Epic spellcasting: Even freeform needs better rules.

[tiercel]

Hmm. A plausible reasoning. I take it you're voting polymorph (3), then?

Yes, thanks; at the time I wrote the post I was working through the reasoning and didn't double-check the max votes for a topic, but I think polymorph etc is definitely worthy of 3 votes, given my reasoning of "not only awful but unavoidably awful" for it.

-----

Another, lesser contender that is worth mentioning: mirror image is bad enough (frighteningly powerful for its level, not to mention the confusion it has spawned -- quick, do a Google search on 'mirror image' 'magic missile', among others), but greater mirror image (PHB II) is ... bad.

First of all, if you have any problem with how mirror image works / protects you via-effective-hefty-miss-chance from ANYTHING that targets you until images are gone / how images can or can't be targeted, you have the same problem with greater mirror image.

Secondly, a Quickened mirror image would be a 6th level spell*, whereas greater mirror image is a 4th level spell and is strictly superior. Not only does the greater version always fill up to the maximum 8 images, and regenerate "popped" images as long as there is at least one, but spawning the spell as an immediate action against any significant targeted attack rather than merely a swift action is so much better it's not even funny.

*Assuming anyone used Quicken Spell by itself rather than a metamagic rod or Divine Metamagic and armor made entirely out of nightsticks.

So... yeah. Greater mirror image pretty arguably earns a vote.

-----

Of course, this gets into kind of a broader pet peeve of mine -- swift and immediate actions generally. On the face of them, they stink of a backdoor revival of 3.0 haste, not to mention introducing them into a campaign creates an entire game mechanic which is generally most accessible to the game's already-strongest characters (full casters) and least accessible to the mechanically weakest characters (non-casters w/o ToB).

For immediate actions specifically there is a style issue for me -- automatically giving casters the potential power of a Magic: The Gathering "blue deck"'s Interrupt actions. I'm fine with feather fall as a grandfathered special case (it worked just fine before we defined "immediate action" to be a general type), but otherwise I'd feel tempted to ban-by-default other immediate actions. (It would be rough on ToB characters, and I'm not sure what I'd do there.)

As for swift actions, I'd be tempted to actually limit swift-action casting only to spells cast via full-BAB-with-specific-spell-list classes (e.g. ranger, paladin, hexblade, duskblade, etc), so as to let some of the "lesser" classes have a small amount of "gish" capability without handing out a second spell per round to full casters (or even full-on gish).

I just don't like the mindset of "hey! we've created a new type of action that you can take every round, only, you have to be a spellcaster to do it, otherwise you just have to sit there and waste your "immediate action" while your spellcasting buddies get even cooler than you than they already were."

Not sure if this should really be a formal vote (A) because at least part of my objection is personal/stylistic and (B) I'm not sure about voting against an entire game mechanic, but I thought it was a point worth making.

-----

More on topic in terms of a specific immediate action that I find mind-boggling is the Abrupt Jaunt ACF (PHB II) for conjurer wizard-specialists.

I mean... the default position of a familiar is sitting in a wizard's pocket granting, oh, 3 hit points or +2 Fort saves (for standard familiars, assuming you don't have access to hummingbird). Whatever.

Instead, you could have Int-bonus-times-per-day, total immunity from attack rolls (that you see coming, at least). Also? Potential immunity from targeted spells requiring line-of-sight (if you're within 10' of something that blocks line of sight) and potential immunity from area effects (that don't extend at least 10' in every direction around you).

Also? No mention is needed of needing line-of-sight, so you can happily Abrupt Jaunt right through doors, walls, whatever. (Or out of a grapple, even Swallow Whole, assuming it managed to happen by surprise when you couldn't Abrupt Jaunt away in the first place.)

Also? It's a conjurer ability, never mind they are already one of the better possible specializations for wizard -- why not give them an ACF which is arguably better than all the other Immediate Magic specialist wizard ACFs added together?

Also? A 1st level ability which arguably approaches the utility of greater mirror image, usable 3+ times per day.

Also? It's a (Sp) ability that is (Ex).

WHAT.

(Sure, just teleport right out of that antimagic sphere so you can hurl your "Conjured" nonmagical-magical energy orbs back into it, why not.)

Abrupt Jaunt definitely gets one vote. (It only doesn't get more votes because it's pretty specific and can be readily solved with one judicious stroke of a DM banhammer without really adversely affecting the rest of the game.)

...this should place my total votes so far at 5 (polymorph 3, gr. mirror image 1, Abrupt Jaunt 1).

[bobthe6th]

Dread Necromancer is awesome though... poorly written in places. requiring a feat to not nuke itself, and able to fear things forever. heck, the final ability apparently doesn't even work due to a CS ruling. as a class it is good, but as a piece of writing... good god man it is sad. gonna toss 3 votes onto DN just to make the point clear. any class that feat taxes you to use it is badly written, and if you don't put durations on things... well there is a hell for people that fail to label their graph axises that I think would fit.

[Answerer]

.. poorly written in places. requiring a feat to not nuke itself, and able to fear things forever. heck, the final ability apparently doesn't even work due to a CS ruling. as a class it is good, but as a piece of writing... good god man it is sad. gonna toss 3 votes onto DN just to make the point clear. any class that feat taxes you to use it is badly written, and if you don't put durations on things... well there is a hell for people that fail to label their graph axises that I think would fit.
I don't think Tomb-Tainted Soul was intended as a feat tax: I'm pretty sure Dread Necromancers were probably supposed to use Charnel Touch only on their minions and living enemies, not on themselves.

Also, 2000 XP might be cheaper than a feat to you, and Necropolitan has an awful lot more to offer than does TTS. Plus Necropolitan's even in the same book...

[Kurald Galain]

Well, I'm out of votes now, but I just wanted to mention the whole Conjured Fire line of spells. They're blasts of fire, but they don't count as invocation because they're conjuration for no reason! They conjure a physical object, just like conjured sonic spells! Um, what?

[TuggyNE]

A new entry in the Top Ten: alignment rules have barreled their way in! (Whether this was a chaotic or a lawful act I don't want to try to figure out.)


I just don't like the mindset of "hey! we've created a new type of action that you can take every round, only, you have to be a spellcaster to do it, otherwise you just have to sit there and waste your "immediate action" while your spellcasting buddies get even cooler than you than they already were."
[...]
More on topic in terms of a specific immediate action that I find mind-boggling is the Abrupt Jaunt ACF (PHB II) for conjurer wizard-specialists.

Yeah, swift/immediate actions are pretty asymmetrical, due to being developed partway through 3.x, and Abrupt Jaunt is kinda grody.


.. poorly written in places. requiring a feat to not nuke itself, and able to fear things forever. heck, the final ability apparently doesn't even work due to a CS ruling. as a class it is good, but as a piece of writing... good god man it is sad. gonna toss 3 votes onto DN just to make the point clear. any class that feat taxes you to use it is badly written, and if you don't put durations on things... well there is a hell for people that fail to label their graph axises that I think would fit.

Can I narrow that down to the DN's fear aura duration (or lack thereof)? As I've mentioned, I prefer to keep things tight.


Well, I'm out of votes now, but I just wanted to mention the whole Conjured Fire line of spells. They're blasts of fire, but they don't count as invocation because they're conjuration for no reason! They conjure a physical object, just like conjured sonic spells! Um, what?

Also, orbs. There's nothing quite as awesome as a non-magical ball of pure magic force. Maximized.

[bobthe6th]

I don't think Tomb-Tainted Soul was intended as a feat tax: I'm pretty sure Dread Necromancers were probably supposed to use Charnel Touch only on their minions and living enemies, not on themselves.

Also, 2000 XP might be cheaper than a feat to you, and Necropolitan has an awful lot more to offer than does TTS. Plus Necropolitan's even in the same book...

but still... you can so easily get the effect it should have been written in some how. one of your cool little abilities(the burst thingamy) is suicidal without the feat or template. it just has some really bad writing imbedded in it.

but yeah the fear aura is the main problem

[Kira_the_5th]

Abrupt Jaunt definitely gets one vote. (It only doesn't get more votes because it's pretty specific and can be readily solved with one judicious stroke of a DM banhammer without really adversely affecting the rest of the game.)



I'm going to use one of my still floating votes to add another to Abrupt Jaunt. Not only is it as cheap as mentioned above, my party always would argue about when exactly it would go off when triggered by an attack.

Also, as much as I love the class to pieces, I think I'm going to have to pop one for Malconvoker too. Let's take (most likely) a conjurer, one of the more powerful wizard specializations, and give them access to 10th level equivalent spells at level 10, too. The only two reliefs are that a) they lose a caster level, and b) they won't likely take Abrupt Jaunt, due to having Rapid Summoning as an alternative, though that's not guaranteed.

[Grytorm]

Hm, I am going to put an upvote on Tainted Scholar. Just because that it is easy to understand how broken it is and should have been caught.

[eggs]

Also, as much as I love the class to pieces, I think I'm going to have to pop one for Malconvoker too. Let's take (most likely) a conjurer, one of the more powerful wizard specializations, and give them access to 10th level equivalent spells at level 10, too.
The whole "5 FREE LEVELS OF METAMAGIC!" thing is a joke. Given Summon mechanics, it's closer to +1 (SM6 for 1d3 SM5 Summons v. Malconvoker's SM5 for 2).

EDIT: Well, +2 if you care about Extend on round/level spells past level 5 or so. But that's not something that usually matters at all.

Malconvoker is hardly a no-brainer even for summoning specialists; it's pretty far from broken (as far as a caster class goes anyway).

[Kazyan]

Good point, tuggyne...I'll stop being anticonformist for its own sake now; please switch the Spell Versatility vote to Tainted Scholar, because hahaha do I have to explain.

[TuggyNE]

I'm considering removing any 0-vote suggestions, and even more likely any negative-vote suggestions (any suggestions removed this way would free up the votes, I think; voting -1 to e.g. Wizard would therefore remove it from the list and free up a vote for each of three posters). Also, anyone have thoughts on increasing the total number of votes available? I honestly didn't expect to have over a hundred suggestions, and the "long tail" effect is impressive.

Anyone have a better categorization for Featherman's "swift/immediate action movement" than Class Feature/Item?

[Edit2: New weird statistics right here!]
Nearly half the suggestions (52) have only one vote. There are 9 negative votes so far; 25 voters have used all their votes, 22 have only used one, and the remaining 22 have mostly used between 2 and 5 votes each.


I'm going to use one of my still floating votes to add another to Abrupt Jaunt. Not only is it as cheap as mentioned above, my party always would argue about when exactly it would go off when triggered by an attack.

Well, I think immediate action chronology is fairly straightforward, albeit unintuitive: it takes effect just before the triggering action resolves.


Hm, I am going to put an upvote on Tainted Scholar. Just because that it is easy to understand how broken it is and should have been caught.

Yeah, a lot of these can be characterized the same way, though some more so than others.


Malconvoker is hardly a no-brainer even for summoning specialists; it's pretty far from broken (as far as a caster class goes anyway).

Is that a negative vote for Malconvoker? (You've only used 4 votes so far, so you've got plenty to spend.)

[eggs]

Is that a negative vote for Malconvoker? (You've only used 4 votes so far, so you've got plenty to spend.)
Oh, good point. I'll use those.

Then I'll put a negative vote on the Malconvoker, 3 votes on Challenge Ratings and 2 votes on bloodlines.

[willpell]

I'll withdraw my original Trap Sense vote, as it's a pretty minor issue and the person who negvoted it has a point. Instead I'll vote for Dragon Disciple (the original version, since I haven't yet read the Dragon magic rewrite, though I'd imagine it made no substantial changes since Wotco's policy seems to always be to grandfather things in). Aside from the easily-addressed "disqualify yourself from the class at level 10" issue, there's all sorts of weird wordings like "as if from having a high ability score" and "these ability increases stack". Plus, unless I miss my guess, once you reach the PrC's capstone and gain that half-dragon template, you've just volunteered for a +3 Level Adjustment which means you won't be leveling up again until ECL 18 at the soonest. Great concept, horrible early execution.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I'll withdraw my original Trap Sense vote, as it's a pretty minor issue and the person who negvoted it has a point. Instead I'll vote for Dragon Disciple (the original version, since I haven't yet read the Dragon magic rewrite, though I'd imagine it made no substantial changes since Wotco's policy seems to always be to grandfather things in). Aside from the easily-addressed "disqualify yourself from the class at level 10" issue, there's all sorts of weird wordings like "as if from having a high ability score" and "these ability increases stack". Plus, unless I miss my guess, once you reach the PrC's capstone and gain that half-dragon template, you've just volunteered for a +3 Level Adjustment which means you won't be leveling up again until ECL 18 at the soonest. Great concept, horrible early execution.

Ido believe that you've missed your guess. It's stated somewhere (Sage, perhaps?) that you absorb the LA through the class levels, similar to how Dragon Devotee (RotD) is worded.

[willpell]

Well it doesn't say so, and likewise it doesn't say that the ability score increases you gain at various levels of the PRC are meant to be the bonuses you get from the half-dragon template, as opposed to stacking with those bonuses once you acquire the template at 10. So bad writing all around.

[Dragonborn]

3 votes for alignment, so much stupid :smallmad:
2 votes for epic spellcasting
1 votes for soulmelds, I like the system but it's poorly organized and hard to find what you're looking for
1 vote for flat-footed rules
1 vote for level adjustment
1 vote for shivering touch
1 for the Healer class, overspecialized and doesn't really do much a cleric can't, could have at least been built similar to the warmage

[lunar2]

3 votes for fiery fist (Feat, PHB 2). this feat allows you to spend 1 stunning fist use to wreath your hands and feet with fire, essentially turning your unarmed strike into a flaming weapon. there are 3 issues with this feat.

1. you just conjured fire as an EX ability? the feat doesn't say it's supernatural, so it defaults to EX as a feat.

2. it lasts forever? no duration is listed, so you now have permanently burning hands and feet.

3. you burn yourself and your equipment? no immunity to the fire produced by this effect is listed, so unless you are otherwise immune/resistant to fire, using this feat is a quick way to kill yourself.

-1 wizard. it wasn't poorly designed or written, it's just powerful.

3 votes for dragonblood subtype. any dragon type creature automatically qualifies for anything with dragonblood subtype as a prerequisite.

3 votes for LA.

[Aricandor]

I... Can't really disagree with the general consensus here. One vote for each of the top ten, except I'll put a vote for Tainted Scholar instead of alignments.

[Kuulvheysoon]

3 votes for fiery fist (Feat, PHB 2). this feat allows you to spend 1 stunning fist use to wreath your hands and feet with fire, essentially turning your unarmed strike into a flaming weapon. there are 3 issues with this feat.

1. you just conjured fire as an EX ability? the feat doesn't say it's supernatural, so it defaults to EX as a feat.

2. it lasts forever? no duration is listed, so you now have permanently burning hands and feet.

3. you burn yourself and your equipment? no immunity to the fire produced by this effect is listed, so unless you are otherwise immune/resistant to fire, using this feat is a quick way to kill yourself.

-1 wizard. it wasn't poorly designed or written, it's just powerful.

3 votes for dragonblood subtype. any dragon type creature automatically qualifies for anything with dragonblood subtype as a prerequisite.

3 votes for LA.

I don't get it; how, exactly, is this badly written?

[St Fan]

3 votes for fiery fist (Feat, PHB 2). this feat allows you to spend 1 stunning fist use to wreath your hands and feet with fire, essentially turning your unarmed strike into a flaming weapon. there are 3 issues with this feat.

1. you just conjured fire as an EX ability? the feat doesn't say it's supernatural, so it defaults to EX as a feat.

2. it lasts forever? no duration is listed, so you now have permanently burning hands and feet.

3. you burn yourself and your equipment? no immunity to the fire produced by this effect is listed, so unless you are otherwise immune/resistant to fire, using this feat is a quick way to kill yourself.


I have to take issue with this one:

It has a specified duration: it clearly says "For the rest of your turn". So it cover your attacks for the round, as well as attacks of opportunity.

It is specified as a ki ability. They fall usually into supernatural abilities.

And I don't see why you would believe you're vulnerable to flames created by your own ki. That's silly.

[TuggyNE]

Hmm, no responses yet to my idea of trimming unpopular suggestions. Of course, we only have one net negative entry so far anyway.

Cancer Mage's burgeoning Str score bumps it up two places, and alignment continues its rampage, charging from #9 to #5. Epic spellcasting apparently used its mysterious powers as well to move up a single place. Drowning is slowly sinking....

Statistics for those as are inclined to them: Yes, I'm aware that that's a grammatical error.Nearly half the suggestions (49) have only one vote. There are 11 negative votes so far; 29 voters have used all their votes, 20 have only used one, and 18 of the remaining 20 have used between 2 and 5 votes each. http://sparklines.bitworking.info/spark.cgi?type=discrete&d=20,5,4,4,5,1,0,1,0,29&height=20&limits=0,30&upper=10&above-color=red&below-color=gray&width=2


3 votes for dragonblood subtype. any dragon type creature automatically qualifies for anything with dragonblood subtype as a prerequisite.

Do you mean they need not meet any other prerequisites? If so, yeah that's pretty broken. (Especially with wyverns or pseudodragons or dragonnes or DWK....) Otherwise, it's not too horrible, in my opinion.


I... Can't really disagree with the general consensus here. One vote for each of the top ten, except I'll put a vote for Tainted Scholar instead of alignments.

I had been wondering when someone would vote this way! :smallwink:


I have to take issue with this one:

It has a specified duration: it clearly says "For the rest of your turn". So it cover your attacks for the round, as well as attacks of opportunity.

It is specified as a ki ability. They fall usually into supernatural abilities.

And I don't see why you would believe you're vulnerable to flames created by your own ki. That's silly.

Is that a negative vote, or just neutral?

[Antonok]

I'm going to have to suggest the Feinting rules for this. Opponents getting to add their base attack in addition to their sense motive is a poor design and makes this a less then optimal route for combat.

So my votes will go like this:

+3 for Feinting

+3 for Paladins code

+3 for Dust of Choking and Sneezing

and +1 to Alignments.

[willpell]

I've decided I need a negative vote on Alignment; it isn't really even a rule, the fact that it's vaguely defined is a function of human psychology more than a failing on the writers' part. Anyway, I love the concept so I figure I should defend it (I would even do two negvotes on it if that were an option, I like it that much; I wouldn't go as far as three since it does admittedly have some issues, just not enough that I think it belongs in the top ten). I'll go check my votelog in a minute and figure out which vote to drop.

EDIT - One very long "minute" later, let's drop my duplicate vote on Bloodlines; they are fairly horrible for play purposes, but the writing isn't especially awkward by the standards we're setting here, and upon re-reading them I do vaguely like the general concept (just not the execution), so one vote against them should be sufficient So that becomes my negvote against alignment. I'm beginning to think we (or at least I) should sequence votes in priority order or something....


And I don't see why you would believe you're vulnerable to flames created by your own ki. That's silly.

For the same reason that some people think that monks aren't proficient with their own unarmed strikes. Some people read the rules with extreme literalness.

[sonofzeal]

Changing my votes....

{table]sonofzeal (old) | candle of invocation (1), Pazuzu (1), Truenamer (1), Void Disciple (2)
sonofzeal (new) | candle of invocation (2), Pazuzu (2), Truenamer (1), Void Disciple (3), alignment (-1), Monk Proficiencies (1)
[/table]

[willpell]

high-fives the creator of the expanded alignment system

[sonofzeal]

high-fives the creator of the expanded alignment system
:smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin:

I've been meaning to re-write that actually. My wording wasn't as clear as I'd like at certain points on Good/Evil, and Law/Chaos could use some tweaking as well. I don't know when I'll get around to it though.

[St Fan]

For the same reason that some people think that monks aren't proficient with their own unarmed strikes. Some people read the rules with extreme literalness.

Okay... but in this case, can we really talk about badly-written rules when it's the players who fail reading comprehension?

[willpell]

People have been discussing that Chicken-Infested flaw; is there an online source for it that I can read? If not it's cool, I just thought I'd ask.


Okay... but in this case, can we really talk about badly-written rules when it's the players who fail reading comprehension?

Yes. It's not "the" players, it's "some" players, and as the company making the game, Wizards should have been responsible for making sure that even the slow children in their audience could probably figure out how to play, instead of having such sloppy writing that even the best and brightest would have trouble figuring some things out.

[Ksheep]

I've decided I need a negative vote on Alignment; it isn't really even a rule, the fact that it's vaguely defined is a function of human psychology more than a failing on the writers' part. Anyway, I love the concept so I figure I should defend it (I would even do two negvotes on it if that were an option, I like it that much; I wouldn't go as far as three since it does admittedly have some issues, just not enough that I think it belongs in the top ten). I'll go check my votelog in a minute and figure out which vote to drop.


In theory, yes, Alignment is just flavor, a guideline of how to play your character. However, this breaks down when it introduces rules that play off of this (i.e. class restrictions, spell effects, etc). If you're going to have alignment as a descriptor, that's fine, and you can go ahead and let the players decide where to draw the lines. However, if you go and make it so that there are other rules that follow these very strictly (Must be lawful good for Paladin, cannot be lawful for Barbarian, must be partly neutral for Druid…) and place penalties on (some of) these if you don't follow the rather vague set of "rules" exactly, then something is wrong… And then you have the Smite series, the Detect alignment series, and the Protection from alignment spells/abilities, which can be difficult to tell whether or not they work if Alignments are vague generalities (luckily, these typically one care about one element of the alignment, not both combined)

[sonofzeal]

In theory, yes, Alignment is just flavor, a guideline of how to play your character. However, this breaks down when it introduces rules that play off of this (i.e. class restrictions, spell effects, etc). If you're going to have alignment as a descriptor, that's fine, and you can go ahead and let the players decide where to draw the lines. However, if you go and make it so that there are other rules that follow these very strictly (Must be lawful good for Paladin, cannot be lawful for Barbarian, must be partly neutral for Druid…) and place penalties on (some of) these if you don't follow the rather vague set of "rules" exactly, then something is wrong… And then you have the Smite series, the Detect alignment series, and the Protection from alignment spells/abilities, which can be difficult to tell whether or not they work if Alignments are vague generalities (luckily, these typically one care about one element of the alignment, not both combined)
Honestly, I think most of the conflict comes from our culture generally using Consequentialist ethics (generally Utilitarianism), and D&D generally assuming a Deontological framework that makes sense within the genre but clashes with people's intuition. And, honestly, I rarely see it come up as a problem in most games. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen alignment itself be a problem. Paladin vows, sure.

Or... well, there was one, that stemmed partly from the DM and the PC understanding the situation differently. The PC thought the villains were effectively holding hostages, and were thus cooperating with non-evil-but-morally-dubious actions for the sake of the hostages, while the DM hadn't actually intended the "hostages" as such, per se. One out-of-character conversation sorted that out, and they decided to with the player's interpretation.

This example even overlaps with the above, because the DM's whole issue was that the PC's actions were, while not evil in and of themselves, having fairly evident evil consequences. She was coming from a Consequentialist framework where that would have made the actions themselves bad. But a look through the various relevant rules established that it's not the consequences that matter, it's the actions themselves - and as long as the actions weren't evil, and the PC remained committed to the greater good even if she couldn't pursue it very well under the circumstances, then she wasn't losing Exalted status.

It's not the alignment rules themselves that are a problem, it's people's muddied thinking about ethics in general. The rules could certainly be better-worded and more nuanced, and there's a few really odd parts like poisons vs ravages, but it's not the horrible mess some people claim.

Paladin vows though? Yeah, kinda messed up. Possibly worth a vote.

[Kurald Galain]

Well, I would expect people to read the top of the list and base their votes on that; so it should be no surprise that anything near the top gets cumulatively more votes.

I think the best way to get a meaningful statistic out of this is to let people cast one vote on each entry in the list, and let them vote "broken", "not broken" or "never heard of this / don't care". $.02

[Batou1976]

I'd was originally going to cast two votes the way of the Vorpal weapon enhancement, until I reread its description. It's stupid-powerful, IMO, but not badly written... but I hate hate HATE save-or-die effects, and this "confirm the crit and he's dead trololol" (with no way to defend against or negate it) ability moreso.
So... actually make that one vote for Vorpal. >:D

Also, 1 downvote for Alignment. I don't think concepts like chaos, evil, good, and law are quite as ambiguous and subjective as people often try to make them. In my 22 years of gaming, most (at least 90%) of the arguments over alignment I've been witness to have typically been the result of idiotic nitpicking and hair-splitting, rather than trouble with the Alignment system itself.
That, and the fact people keep forgetting or willfully ignoring that alignment isn't a DMhammer to force a PC's actions... even though the books themselves (2E and 3.5 PHB, and PF core book) say exactly that quite explicitly. I've lost count of how many topics I've seen in various forums over the years that amounted to "DM says I can't do X because I'm alignment Y; HELP?" >:-\

As an aside, how is it murder isn't necessarily always an evil act?


Give another vote each to Candle of Invocation, drown-healing :-P, ...and the Truenamer. I like the Truenamer, I really do... but I don't think it was playtested enough. If it had been, maybe using and adjudicating the Utterances wouldn't have turned out quite so clunky.
And, since I'm new here... what exactly is everyone's problem with Truenamers, anyhow?

[willpell]

That, and the fact people keep forgetting or willfully ignoring that alignment isn't a DMhammer to force a PC's actions... even though the books themselves (2E and 3.5 PHB, and PF core book) say exactly that quite explicitly. I've lost count of how many topics I've seen in various forums over the years that amounted to "DM says I can't do X because I'm alignment Y; HELP?" >:-\

I've often thought that alignment should perhaps work by a points-based system - every act has a morality value, adjusted based on circumstances, and a certain number of evil acts eventually make you Evil if not balanced by good acts, with perhaps automatic accumulation of points of whichever side is dominant, so that the slope grows slipperier once you pass a tipping point and start to find the once-taboo idea growing more seductive. It'd be very difficult to adjudicate well, and very easy to do so poorly, and double that on the L/C axis. But for a video game or something it'd be perfect, and for a game where the DM doesn't mind being a little OCD, it might work.


As an aside, how is it murder isn't necessarily always an evil act?

"Murder" always should be, but "killing" needn't be, not when morality is objective and the future can be prophecied. "Pre-emptive execution", of someone who "will" (or perhaps even "very probably might") do major Evil deeds in the future, can be an act in the service of Good, as long as the arbiters involved are unquestionably trustworthy. In my game, I tend to go with the assumption that they actually are, but people don't always believe those who say so, especially in areas where Evil is dominant - the Church of Hextor is so good at spin-doctoring their own image that when a paladin stomps into town and Detects Evil on the cleric and says he's gotten a positive reading, the cleric can fairly easily convince the people that the paladin is lying - most of them don't believe that paladins never lie, and even if they did, it's not hard to convince them he's just a knight claiming to be a paladin and that his Detect Evil was just an act or a magical forgery.


And, since I'm new here... what exactly is everyone's problem with Truenamers, anyhow?

Mostly that they're really, really weak...and more to the point, completely nonfunctional unless optomized like crazy, to an extent that would make any other class extremely powerful. The Truespeak check DC goes up by 2 for every HD of the target, even when the target is the Truenamer himself, so if all he does is put max ranks into the skill, he gets less able to buff himself with every level he gains. His enemies will probably be getting tougher at about the same rate, so he'll be hard pressed to affect them, and most of the effects are pretty weak (though a couple are surprisingly strong). As high as the Truespeak DCs are, you pretty much have to play someone with maxed-out Intelligence, maximum ranks in Truespeak, a Skill Focus for it, and as many boosts as your DM will let you pile on, and you will still fail your utterances fairly often (them being at-will is the only thing that makes it even remotely worth trying, but many combats will be over long before you'll be glad of the unlimited uses because your first several tries unluckily failed in spite of you trying really hard). Worst of all, the two Laws really tie your hands in what you can hope to accomplish.

For a more detailed assessment, check out this long-beloved guide: Zaq's Truenamer guide/warning (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214115).

[Ksheep]

I've often thought that alignment should perhaps work by a points-based system - every act has a morality value, adjusted based on circumstances, and a certain number of evil acts eventually make you Evil if not balanced by good acts, with perhaps automatic accumulation of points of whichever side is dominant, so that the slope grows slipperier once you pass a tipping point and start to find the once-taboo idea growing more seductive. It'd be very difficult to adjudicate well, and very easy to do so poorly, and double that on the L/C axis. But for a video game or something it'd be perfect, and for a game where the DM doesn't mind being a little OCD, it might work.

We had something like this in a game I was in. More of a "three strikes" rule, with really obviously one-sided things causing insta-shift (although it was usually only one step in whichever direction). However, this could lead to some annoyances for the players.

"Your Lawful ranger just shot the BBEG in the middle of his speech? That's a shift toward chaotic. You decided to escape the jail during the jailbreak? Another shift toward chaotic. Wait, you're complaining that it was a DMPC that started the jailbreak, and that the rest of the party left? Oh well, ruling still stands." [/dramatization] (Wasn't actually QUITE that bad, but had some ruling that were close).

[TuggyNE]

Alignments have been knocked back down a peg or two, but otherwise the Top Ten are unchanged.

Anyone have suggestions on chopping the monolithic Rules category down?

Statistics:Nearly half the suggestions (48) have only one vote (not including two that were downvoted to 1). There are 14 negative votes so far; 31 voters have used all their votes, 22 have only used one, and 18 of the remaining 21 have used between 2 and 5 votes each. http://sparklines.bitworking.info/spark.cgi?type=discrete&d=22,5,4,4,5,1,0,1,1,31&height=20&limits=0,30&upper=5&above-color=red&below-color=gray&width=2


I'm going to have to suggest the Feinting rules for this. Opponents getting to add their base attack in addition to their sense motive is a poor design and makes this a less then optimal route for combat.

On the other hand, a well-trained combatant will recognize feints in many cases, even if their ability to sense social trends is underdeveloped. BAB is the most straightforward way to represent that. (Perhaps it should be added to both sides?)

Of course, in my opinion, feinting shouldn't be so horribly inefficient, either; move action base and swift with Improved would seem more sensible.


EDIT - One very long "minute" later, let's drop my duplicate vote on Bloodlines; they are fairly horrible for play purposes, but the writing isn't especially awkward by the standards we're setting here, and upon re-reading them I do vaguely like the general concept (just not the execution), so one vote against them should be sufficient So that becomes my negvote against alignment. I'm beginning to think we (or at least I) should sequence votes in priority order or something....

Yeah, the standards here are actually pretty high (low?). Also, while you can certainly organize by priority for your own use, please don't expect me to run through that to figure out what to drop.


Well, I would expect people to read the top of the list and base their votes on that; so it should be no surprise that anything near the top gets cumulatively more votes.

I think the best way to get a meaningful statistic out of this is to let people cast one vote on each entry in the list, and let them vote "broken", "not broken" or "never heard of this / don't care". $.02

That may be so; however, it's quite a bit too late to rearrange the voting schema at this point. (That probably also applies to my abortive idea of increasing the vote maximum.)

[Batou1976]

I've often thought that alignment should perhaps work by a points-based system - every act has a morality value, adjusted based on circumstances, and a certain number of evil acts eventually make you Evil if not balanced by good acts, with perhaps automatic accumulation of points of whichever side is dominant, so that the slope grows slipperier once you pass a tipping point and start to find the once-taboo idea growing more seductive. It'd be very difficult to adjudicate well, and very easy to do so poorly, and double that on the L/C axis. But for a video game or something it'd be perfect, and for a game where the DM doesn't mind being a little OCD, it might work.

I have a 3rd party book (GASP!!HORROR!!) by RPGObjects about using D&D to play in Arthurian England; it's called Legends of Excalibur. Instead of alignment, LoE has a mechanic called Nobility- it's rated on a scale of 0-100, with 0 basically meaning you're Adolf Hitler and 100 meaning you're Galahad-pure-and-good. Acts that protect the innocent and helpless or defend society and its mores increase Nobility, while acts against the powers that be or of despicable barbarism decrease your Nobility.

Your nobility has additional in game effects, such as a weapon property that gives bonus damage against those whose Nobility is less than yours. It may also affect how NPCs interact with you; wanna hobnob with and make contacts among the nobility? Better get yours up to be commensurate with theirs, as a "robber baron" with low low Nobility is gonna get the cold shoulder, no matter how wealthy and finely dressed he is.

I myself like the mechanic. It gives your actions more of an in-game effect beyond "I'm Lawful Evil so Holy weapons do extra damage to me and I make Paladins uncomfortable".



Mostly that they're really, really weak...and more to the point, <SNIP>
For a more detailed assessment, check out this long-beloved guide: Zaq's Truenamer guide/warning (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214115).

Yeah, I started reading that this morning. Pretty much has all the same problems I saw and encountered in play with the TNamer. :( A shame, really. I like the idea... really, I do. :'(

[Kuulvheysoon]

Yeah, I started reading that this morning. Pretty much has all the same problems I saw and encountered in play with the TNamer. :( A shame, really. I like the idea... really, I do. :'(

Most people do - why do you think that it's ranked so highly?

[Togo]

I'm rare in that I quite like the alignment system - but I regard it as highly setting specific. There are some game worlds where knowing which cosmic forces you actions draw the attention of is quite important, but for those game worlds that don't, it's probably an unecessary burden.

[willpell]

To me the biggest unsatisfying question of the alignment system is probably this: why is a flesh-eating tiger Neutral while a flesh-eating zombie is Evil? Both are mindless predators just trying to survive; how does being undead make you less entitled to sate your carnivorous hunger with the tacit approval of the gods who protect the natural order?

[Kuulvheysoon]

To me the biggest unsatisfying question of the alignment system is probably this: why is a flesh-eating tiger Neutral while a flesh-eating zombie is Evil? Both are mindless predators just trying to survive; how does being undead make you less entitled to sate your carnivorous hunger with the tacit approval of the gods who protect the natural order?

Tigers have an Intelligence score of 2.:smallbiggrin:

Key phrase here is 'gods who protect the natural order'. A tiger eats what it needs to survive (some exceptions apply, naturally), but a zombie just eats. Unendingly. At least the tiger will eventually die and feed the grass, taking his place in the Circle of Life. The zombie? Not so much.

[Answerer]

Also, I've never heard of a zombie starving, for whatever that's worth. Zombies don't need to eat to survive, they just eat because they're compelled to do so.

Of course, judging the morality of a mindless creature literally compelled to act in a certain fashion, with no ability to even consider its actions much less resist said compulsion, is more than a bit absurd.

[Hecuba]

Also, I've never heard of a zombie starving, for whatever that's worth. Zombies don't need to eat to survive, they just eat because they're compelled to do so.

Of course, judging the morality of a mindless creature literally compelled to act in a certain fashion, with no ability to even consider its actions much less resist said compulsion, is more than a bit absurd.

You hit on it here. They key is that, in both cases, their alignment is not a function of their actions. Both beings lack agency, and thus their alignment is not a fuction of their actions: in terms of morality, they are essentially objects.

But in D&D, objects can be Evil. Evil in this case becomes a question of history or design, rather than actions: an artifact is designed to be powered by the torment of the innocent, it can be Evil even before it is ever used. If a place has horrors beyond horrors committed at it, it can be Evil even if it never does more than make people in the area uncomfortable.

These patterns reflect, essentially, Contagion Thinking. While this is something we tend to avoid in modern philosophical discussions of morality, is something that is deeply ingrained in our thinking process as humans. It's the same congnative element that makes us uncomfortable with reclaiming wastewater, even when it can be made far cleaner than the water we take from the ground.

It's also heavily shaped our thinking about morality throughout history, even if they ways in which it did so aren't actually valid.

[willpell]

It's the same congnative element that makes us uncomfortable with reclaiming wastewater, even when it can be made far cleaner than the water we take from the ground.

Or that causes us to inherently flinch away from people who are different from us in any measurable way, especially one that hints at a possibility of disease, regardless of whether the disease is actually contagious or not - we instinctively assume it was, because we developed that instinct long before we knew anything about how contagion actually worked.

[Ksheep]

I just want to say "sorry" for my part in making this thread devolve into an alignment debate. I know I didn't start it, but I did feed the flames. That being said… actually, I guess we are still kinda on topic, just focusing on one or two candidates and debating thoroughly. Carry on…

[HeadlessMermaid]

Honestly, I think most of the conflict comes from our culture generally using Consequentialist ethics (generally Utilitarianism), and D&D generally assuming a Deontological framework that makes sense within the genre but clashes with people's intuition.
No, not the genre. The setting. Alignment is setting-dependent, because it is a cultural construct disguised as a cosmic force. And in the traditional setting with the traditional assumptions, it is consistent and it mostly works.

Well, it works if you ignore half of the rules, those in BoED an BoVD, otherwise Robin Hood and his Merry Men would be consistently committing Evil acts "objectively". Oh, and you must resign from using character concepts inexplicably disallowed by class restrictions. Other than that, sure, it works. But try to use alignment as written in a different setting or with different assumptions, and it starts falling apart.


Mind you, I'm not using modern morality here ("keeping my oath at this point would be bad for everyone, so I won't, and I don't expect any consequences or anyone to be offended".) I understand perfectly how the setting's culture may be different than my own. But D&D is not any more based on a single (imaginary) culture.

In the traditional setting, you had that pseudo-medieval, weirdly polytheistic, NW European heroic high fantasy, where you obviously played someone from the dominant culture, and you fought skeletons and goblins without thinking about it. That's not a genre, though. That's a merely a subgenre, a setting, and a whole lot of assumptions.

But now, even in the core rules, we have Rennaissance elements, we have Oriental influences, we have Barbarians (who should only be Chaotic to the eyes of the neighboring Empire), we have half-orcs as a Core race, we have blowguns for our Polynesian or Mesoamerican natives (who incidentally are screwed, because poison use is "objectively" and "unconditionally" evil). And the non-core rules shatter the usual cultural conventions, too. Goblins are entirely playable. We have rules supporting a Stone Age environment. And so on.

Yet, we are still firmly in the Heroic Fantasy genre. But the traditional setting isn't a given any more. If you try to focus on a different culture, you'll be disappointed to learn that alignment doesn't fit any more. If you try to build your own cosmology, one without aligned planes and embodiments of Good and Evil for example, you'll find that objective alignment doesn't even make sense in the world, it shouldn't exist as a cosmic force at all.

Fringe cases? Maybe. But seemingly supported by the printed material. And impossible to pull off properly and consistently, unless you throw alignment out of the window. Because alignment interacts with half the rules in the game, and [I]that's what makes it so problematic. If it was just a fluff thing, you wouldn't see another alignment thread pop up every few days. And I wouldn't be ranting about it, either. :)

[lunar2]

I don't get it; how, exactly, is this badly written?

it doesn't say you count as dragon blood for prerequisites. it says you automatically qualify for anything that has dragon blood as a prerequisite. so, the prerequisites for everything become "random stuff + dragonblood subtype; or dragon type (no random stuff)". while i'm sure they meant that it counts as dragonblood, that's not how it is written. therefore, badly written.


Dragons automatically qualify for any classes, prestige classes, racial substitution levels, feats, powers, or spells that require
the dragonblood subtype. Races presented in this book that
have the dragonblood subtype include dragonborn, spellscale,
kobold, and draconic creatures. Should a creature acquire the
dragon type, it loses the dragonblood subtype



I have to take issue with this one:

It has a specified duration: it clearly says "For the rest of your turn". So it cover your attacks for the round, as well as attacks of opportunity.

It is specified as a ki ability. They fall usually into supernatural abilities.

And I don't see why you would believe you're vulnerable to flames created by your own ki. That's silly.


FIERY FIST
By channeling your ki energy, you sheathe your limbs in
magical fi re. Your unarmed strikes deal extra fi re damage.
Prerequisites: Dex 13, Wis 13, Improved Unarmed Strike,
Stunning Fist, base attack bonus +8.
Benefi t: As a swift action, you can expend one of your uses
of the Stunning Fist feat to surround your fi sts and feet in
fl ame. For the rest of your turn, you gain an extra 1d6 points
of fi re damage on your unarmed strikes.
When you select this feat, you gain an additional daily use
of Stunning Fist.
Special: A fighter can select Fiery Fist as one of his fi ghter
bonus feats. A monk with the Stunning Fist feat can select
Fiery Fist as her bonus feat at 2nd level, even if she does not
meet the other prerequisites.

alright. i missed the duration part. however, nothing anywhere in the MM (primary source for Ex/Su/Sp abilites), the phb, or the phb2 says that the use of ki is a supernatural ability. and while i wouldn't actually say that you are damaged by your own fire, the rules don't specify it. that's why it's "badly written". oh, and it doesn't cover AoOs unless you get those AoOs during your turn. it's not a 1 round duration, it's a your turn duration.

i'll remove 1 vote from fiery fist, and add it to die hard.

[Kuulvheysoon]

it doesn't say you count as dragon blood for prerequisites. it says you automatically qualify for anything that has dragon blood as a prerequisite. so, the prerequisites for everything become "random stuff + dragonblood subtype; or dragon type (no random stuff)". while i'm sure they meant that it counts as dragonblood, that's not how it is written. therefore, badly written.



Dragons automatically qualify for any classes, prestige classes, racial substitution levels, feats, powers, or spells that require the dragonblood subtype. Races presented in this book that have the dragonblood subtype include dragonborn, spellscale, kobold, and draconic creatures. Should a creature acquire the dragon type, it loses the dragonblood subtype.

I'm... confused. It clearly states that Dragons automatically qualify for anything that requires the [dragonblood] subtype as a prerequisite. And you're saying that since it doesn't state that they count as [dragonblood] for prerequisites, it's badly written?

Honestly, to me, the two terms are synonymous. I can see why you say that they could have just outright stated that all Dragons automatically obtain the [dragonblood] subtype. They probably didn't want to have to clutter the creature type with something they considered redundant (to be a Dragon [dragonblood] creature looks pretty silly, doesn't it?)

That, or this way it was easier to integrate into games that didn't use RotD until recently. Or so they could continue printing just Dragons and wouldn't force people to learn a new subtype if they didn't have to.

Can I use a pair of negative votes on this one?

[sonofzeal]

I'm... confused. It clearly states that Dragons automatically qualify for anything that requires the [dragonblood] subtype as a prerequisite. And you're saying that since it doesn't state that they count as [dragonblood] for prerequisites, it's badly written?

Honestly, to me, the two terms are synonymous. I can see why you say that they could have just outright stated that all Dragons automatically obtain the [dragonblood] subtype. They probably didn't want to have to clutter the creature type with something they considered redundant (to be a Dragon [dragonblood] creature looks pretty silly, doesn't it?)

That, or this way it was easier to integrate into games that didn't use RotD until recently. Or so they could continue printing just Dragons and wouldn't force people to learn a new subtype if they didn't have to.

Can I use a pair of negative votes on this one?
Actually, logically speaking Lunar2 has the right of it. Let's say some PrC requires 9th level spells and the dragonblood subtype.

"Dragons automatically qualify for any classes, prestige classes, racial substitution levels, feats, powers, or spells that require the dragonblood subtype"

Is it a PrC? Yes. Does it require the dragonblood subtype? Yes. Thus, any dragon automatically qualifies for that PrC. Even if they don't have 9th level spells they automatically qualify for it, because that's what it says.

It's obviously unintended, but taken literally that's what it means.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Actually, logically speaking Lunar2 has the right of it. Let's say some PrC requires 9th level spells and the dragonblood subtype.

"Dragons automatically qualify for any classes, prestige classes, racial substitution levels, feats, powers, or spells that require the dragonblood subtype"

Is it a PrC? Yes. Does it require the dragonblood subtype? Yes. Thus, any dragon automatically qualifies for that PrC. Even if they don't have 9th level spells they automatically qualify for it, because that's what it says.

It's obviously unintended, but taken literally that's what it means.

I have to admit, I've never seen it that way.

Huh.

Everyone I've ever played with/talked to has just used that as dragon counts as [dragonblood].

Interesting....

[sonofzeal]

I have to admit, I've never seen it that way.

Huh.

Everyone I've ever played with/talked to has just used that as dragon counts as [dragonblood].

Interesting....
Well yeah, that's obviously the intent and I'd run it your way too. It's just poorly worded, which was exactly the point.

[TuggyNE]

Random selection of single-vote entries:
{table=head]Name | Type
SLAs ignoring components | Rule
free actions | Rule
Monkey Lunge | Feat
Wish | Spell
Incantatrix | Prestige Class
Divine Metamagic | Feat
dead | Rule
Greater Mirror Image | Spell
Factotum | Base Class
Planar Ally/Planar Binding | Spell[/table]

Statistics:Nearly half the suggestions (51) have only one vote. There are 14 negative votes so far; 31 voters have used all their votes, 22 have only used one, and 18 of the remaining 21 have used between 2 and 5 votes each. http://sparklines.bitworking.info/spark.cgi?type=discrete&d=22,5,4,4,5,1,0,1,1,31&height=20&limits=0,35&upper=5&above-color=red&below-color=gray&width=2


it doesn't say you count as dragon blood for prerequisites. it says you automatically qualify for anything that has dragon blood as a prerequisite. so, the prerequisites for everything become "random stuff + dragonblood subtype; or dragon type (no random stuff)". while i'm sure they meant that it counts as dragonblood, that's not how it is written. therefore, badly written.

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. It's a lot like dragons auto-qualifying for epic feats, without needing to be epic. (IIRC, it's not even limited to True Dragons, so all the usual suspects — DWK, wyverns, half-dragons, etc etc — can abuse that.) Of course, it's worse in this case because they apparently don't even need to meet any other prereqs!


i'll remove 1 vote from fiery fist, and add it to die hard.

Specifically? Are you referring to the fact that it doesn't, by RAW, change when you fall unconscious? Because yeah, that's kind of stupid.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of. It's a lot like dragons auto-qualifying for epic feats, without needing to be epic. (IIRC, it's not even limited to True Dragons, so all the usual suspects — DWK, wyverns, half-dragons, etc etc — can abuse that.) Of course, it's worse in this case because they apparently don't even need to meet any other prereqs!

Dragons only qualify to take Epic feats if they're Old (Age Category) or older. Considering that only True Dragons have age categories, and that the general consensus is that DWK are not True Dragons, it's not as badly written as it appears.


Epic Feats

These feats are available to characters of 21st level or higher. Dragons of at least old age can also choose these feats even if they have no class levels. A selection of epic feats appropriate for dragons is presented here. See te Epic Level Handbook for more epic feats.

[Answerer]

Considering that only True Dragons have age categories
This is not true. Draconomicon said it was, but Races of the Dragon included a new Dragon (dragonwrought kobold) that did have age categories (including Old), but was not a True Dragon. This is OK because the reason dragonwrought kobolds are not True Dragons is because of a table in Races of the Dragon that explicitly states that it supersedes Draconomicon.

But yes, based on the quote you provided, Old or older dragonwrought kobolds do qualify for Epic feats. They don't qualify, IIRC, for Sovereign Archetypes.

[Kuulvheysoon]

This is not true. Draconomicon said it was, but Races of the Dragon included a new Dragon (dragonwrought kobold) that did have age categories (including Old), but was not a True Dragon. This is OK because the reason dragonwrought kobolds are not True Dragons is because of a table in Races of the Dragon that explicitly states that it supersedes Draconomicon.

But yes, based on the quote you provided, Old or older dragonwrought kobolds do qualify for Epic feats. They don't qualify, IIRC, for Sovereign Archetypes.

Dammit!

And here I was thinking that all the hubbub about DWK had been resolved...

Actually, on that note, a vote for Dragonwrought Kobolds?

[Draz74]

1 vote for the Polymorph spells.
1 vote for Epic Spellcasting.
1 vote for Monk. (I would be willing to shift this to a specific vote for Monk Proficiencies if a few other people do likewise, making it a significant entity on the list.)
1 vote for Gate.
1 vote for Adamantine Horror.
1 vote for Manipulate Form.
1 vote for Diplomacy.
1 vote for Bloodlines.

I'll keep my last two in reserve for now.

[Curmudgeon]

1 vote for Monk. (I would be willing to shift this to a specific vote for Monk Proficiencies if a few other people do likewise, making it a significant entity on the list.)

While I'm in favor of narrowing down the entries to key elements, the lack of unarmed strike proficiency is just one of the problems with the way the Monk class is written.

Unarmed Strike says "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed." What that apparently means is that the Monk can make off-hand attacks, but doesn't have the usual ½ STR bonus damage limit. But that's not how it's written.
The Bonus Feats class feature is clear right up to where it says "A monk need not have any of the prerequisites normally required for these feats to select them." When applying fighting styles or ACFs which change the bonus feats, does "these" refer to Monk bonus feats in general, or just the 6 feats mentioned in the base class?
Many Monk abilities (AC Bonus, Flurry of Blows, Fast Movement) only work if the Monk is unarmored. But Evasion works if the Monk is unarmored or wearing light armor. Huh?
Similarly, the Monk's Fast Movement is nifty, but is completely useless in relation to their Flurry of Blows.
Ki Strike says "At 4th level, a monk’s unarmed attacks are empowered with ki." They don't say what ki is, or define it in the Glossary.
Diamond Body says "a monk gains immunity to poisons of all kinds." but that's a Supernatural ability.
Using a supernatural ability is a standard action unless noted otherwise. They don't "note otherwise" in the Monk class, so how does that work?
The Monk can use a Quivering Palm attack "once a week". Is that an interval or a calendar week?
Tongue of the Sun and Moon lets the Monk "speak with any living creature". Can the creature respond? What about if the creature doesn't normally speak? Can the Monk understand if it does?
No, I really think the entire Monk class qualifies for the "worst-written" list.

[Draz74]

While I'm in favor of narrowing down the entries to key elements, the lack of unarmed strike proficiency is just one of the problems with the way the Monk class is written.
Yeah, a lot of it is bad. But the rest just doesn't make me facepalm quite as hard as the unarmed strike oversight does. :smallsmile:


Many Monk abilities (AC Bonus, Flurry of Blows, Fast Movement) only work if the Monk is unarmored. But Evasion works if the Monk is unarmored or wearing light armor. Huh?

That one I actually approve of. Abilities with the same name should have the same properties no matter what class they come from. (I'm glaring at you, HiPS ... not to mention Uncanny Dodge and 'AC Bonus'!) So copying the Rogue's ability to use Evasion in light armor is good.

[lunar2]

While I'm in favor of narrowing down the entries to key elements, the lack of unarmed strike proficiency is just one of the problems with the way the Monk class is written.

Unarmed Strike says "There is no such thing as an off-hand attack for a monk striking unarmed." What that apparently means is that the Monk can make off-hand attacks, but doesn't have the usual ½ STR bonus damage limit. But that's not how it's written.
The Bonus Feats class feature is clear right up to where it says "A monk need not have any of the prerequisites normally required for these feats to select them." When applying fighting styles or ACFs which change the bonus feats, does "these" refer to Monk bonus feats in general, or just the 6 feats mentioned in the base class?
Many Monk abilities (AC Bonus, Flurry of Blows, Fast Movement) only work if the Monk is unarmored. But Evasion works if the Monk is unarmored or wearing light armor. Huh?
Similarly, the Monk's Fast Movement is nifty, but is completely useless in relation to their Flurry of Blows.
Ki Strike says "At 4th level, a monk’s unarmed attacks are empowered with ki." They don't say what ki is, or define it in the Glossary.
Diamond Body says "a monk gains immunity to poisons of all kinds." but that's a Supernatural ability. They don't "note otherwise" in the Monk class, so how does that work?
The Monk can use a Quivering Palm attack "once a week". Is that an interval or a calendar week?
Tongue of the Sun and Moon lets the Monk "speak with any living creature". Can the creature respond? What about if the creature doesn't normally speak? Can the Monk understand if it does?
No, I really think the entire Monk class qualifies for the "worst-written" list.

1. bonus feats: this isn't because the class was badly written. it's because the monk was published before the introduction of ACFs. in other words, it is the ACFs that are badly written in this instance, not the monk class itself.

2. fast movement: a Druid's spellcasting is completely useless in relation to their wildshape as is. a rogue's trap sense is completely useless in relation to their trap finding (if you find the trap, you don't need trap sense). having unrelated class features doesn't mean that the class is badly written. unfocused, yes. badly written, no.

3. ki strike: the description following the part you described explains exactly what ki does for a monk.

[Curmudgeon]

That one I actually approve of. Abilities with the same name should have the same properties no matter what class they come from. ... So copying the Rogue's ability to use Evasion in light armor is good.
So the problem is instead with the Ring of Evasion, which has no armor limits?

[Kurald Galain]

Yeah, a lot of it is bad. But the rest just doesn't make me facepalm quite as hard as the unarmed strike oversight does. :smallsmile:

The problem with the monk is that it looks like a really cool, versatile, and effective class on paper, whereas in reality it's nothing of the sort. Bad options that look bad aren't such a big problem because nobody will use them. Bad options that look good, on the other hand, are a common It's A Trap for newbies.

[HeadlessMermaid]

The Monk can use a Quivering Palm attack "once a week". Is that an interval or a calendar week?
Shouldn't the same objection apply to every ability that can be used once per day?

[Draz74]

So the problem is instead with the Ring of Evasion, which has no armor limits?

Yep. If it just said what it did, instead of referencing the Evasion ability, it would be more consistent: easier to remember the differences, and less debates/arguments caused.

[Curmudgeon]

Shouldn't the same objection apply to every ability that can be used once per day?
Quite possibly. However, the preponderance of citations indicates that items which replenish daily uses do so at sunrise, so that makes a consistent pattern to apply.

[Ksheep]

Quite possibly. However, the preponderance of citations indicates that items which replenish daily uses do so at sunrise, so that makes a consistent pattern to apply.

Then there are the abilities which imply that you need to rest 8 hours, or after an hour of prayer/meditation, or…

[HeadlessMermaid]

Quite possibly. However, the preponderance of citations indicates that items which replenish daily uses do so at sunrise, so that makes a consistent pattern to apply.
Consistent pattern? Isn't that RAI rather than RAW?

IMO, Quivering Palm is meant to be used once per calendar week, judging from a familiar pattern: Smite X/day, Rage Χ/day, Abundant Step 1/day, domain powers 1/day, SLAs 1/day and so on. I've never heard anyone arguing that this day is "interval", though a lot of people have wondered if the day begins at sunrise or midnight or what. If that's a hole in the rules, the poor Monk is not at fault here, it's the general terminology that's confusing. (Not that it tragically affects the game, just saying.)

EDIT: So no, I don't think that's a horrendously written rule, neither for the monk, nor for all the rest. It could use some clarifying, especially regarding when the day starts for this purpose, but it doesn't otherwise confuse people.

[Curmudgeon]

Consistent pattern? Isn't that RAI rather than RAW?
No, that's an off-topic aside not relevant to the Monk issue.

IMO, Quivering Palm is meant to be used once per calendar week, judging from a familiar pattern
So then Quivering Palm is going to be even less useful in Faerûn (10-day weeks) than in Eberron (7-day weeks). :smallsigh:

[Kuulvheysoon]

No, that's an off-topic aside not relevant to the Monk issue.

So then Quivering Palm is going to be even less useful in Faerûn (10-day weeks) than in Eberron (7-day weeks). :smallsigh:

Yup. The Realms love shafting the weaker classes, while making the strong stronger (serious, Initiate of Mystra?).

I am, of course, referring to Paladins and their x/week Remove Disease.

[HeadlessMermaid]

So then Quivering Palm is going to be even less useful in Faerûn (10-day weeks) than in Eberron (7-day weeks).
Hm, apparently I misunderstood what you meant by interval/calendar week, so you may disregard my previous comments.

[willpell]

While I'm in favor of narrowing down the entries to key elements, the lack of unarmed strike proficiency is just one of the problems with the way the Monk class is written.
[LIST]
Many Monk abilities (AC Bonus, Flurry of Blows, Fast Movement) only work if the Monk is unarmored. But Evasion works if the Monk is unarmored or wearing light armor. Huh?


That's just copypasta; Evasion was presumably written for the Rogue, which is a much broader class than the Monk and probably appeared in the draft far earlier, and then copied to the Monk when it was added. Since it's easy to stop paying attention to a standardized ability, it's not surprising this was never fixed.

[willpell]

introduction of the absurd synchronicity

Finally got around to reading this, and I don't think it seems useless at all. Granted it's not very strong until you augment it, and I'm not sure it's worth the 3 power points this costs, but the ability to wait for the right moment to do whatever you want seems like it could be strong. Off the top of my head, you could wait to manifest an Energy Burst (or any other power which affects an area) whenever someone walks within range of you, or let your buddy disarm someone and then put an Energy Wall between them and the fallen weapon so they can't retrieve it. If it's somehow impossible to manifest a power with the gained action because you already manifested that round (I don't know if there's such a rule), you could use a dorje or powerstone. I'm sure there are other applications; it's basically just the ultimate "keep the freedom to react as you choose" power. Potentially annoying to a GM, but not useless.

I thought I remembered someone referring to Synchronicity as utterly broken in one of my threads; it was some power with a one-word name starting in S, and this seemed like a good candidate.

[eggs]

Finally got around to reading this, and I don't think it seems useless at all.
That's the opposite of the problem. Look at the Quicken/Twin/Linked metapsionic feats, or the share powers psicrystal trait. The power is extra actions for 1 pp; it's a neat power when used unmodified, but with even an inkling of optimization, gameplay breaks down.

[willpell]

That's the opposite of the problem. Look at the Quicken/Twin/Linked metapsionic feats, or the share powers psicrystal trait. The power is extra actions for 1 pp; it's a neat power when used unmodified, but with even an inkling of optimization, gameplay breaks down.

Quicken power costs +6 pp and your psionic focus; 7 pp and an earlier full-round action (move action with Psionic meditation) seems like a fair price for an extra standard action. Ditto for Twin, but I'm not sure Twin works at all; the twinned power takes effect twice simultaneously, which might mean that you twice simultaneously gain the ability to take a standard action later, but I could also see an argument that it means you take your standard action twice simultaneously, which is far less useful. Share Powers would let your psicrystal do stuff, which doesn't strike me as game-breaking. I can't find a Linked Power metapsi in the EPH or CPsi, though I've heard of it before.

[Psyren]

The spell component pouch containing everything without a listed price, including Vecna's eyelashes, is a problem too.

[willpell]

Are you sure you want Vecna's eyelashes in your pouch? It seems like it might be hazardous.