You misread what, as what?

[Seerow]

This weekend, my party discovered that Water Naga (you know the 7th level sorcerers with aberration hit dice, large size, good swim speed, and pretty solid stats) are a CR1 enemy. That encounter with 4 of them underwater is supposed to be an easy encounter for your group of level 5's!


So what things has someone in your group horribly misread that made everyone else at the table go "What are you smoking and where do I get some of that?"

[Faily]

In similar vein, some monsters that have also made our groups go "WTF?!" when it comes to monster CRs.


Allip: A CR3 Undead, that is incorporeal, and forces you to make Will-save or Die (if you fail, you're pretty much helpless). Death by Wisdom-DRAIN!

Bone Naga: Again an Undead, CR11 this time. Detect Thoughts, Spell Resistance, some immunities (half damage from piercing, immune to cold, other undead traits), some unpleasant poison. Oh, and casts spells as a 14th level Sorcerer. A 14TH LEVEL SORCERER. On CR11.
Level 9 characters should be able to take on CR11, but that is flat out impossible when it's casting 7th level spells.
Seriously wonder what they were smoking there.

[nobodez]

This weekend, my party discovered that Water Naga (you know the 7th level sorcerers with aberration hit dice, large size, good swim speed, and pretty solid stats) are a CR1 enemy. That encounter with 4 of them underwater is supposed to be an easy encounter for your group of level 5's!


So what things has someone in your group horribly misread that made everyone else at the table go "What are you smoking and where do I get some of that?"
Um, not sure what you're trying to say. Water Nagas are CR 7 creatures, says so on page 193 of my v.3.5 Monster Manual. Not sure where you got CR 1, but it wasn't the v.3.5 books.

Mind, in the same vein as the Allip, Shadows aren't much better, same CR, but it does Strength damage instead. A Shadow would be a "difficult" encounter for a group of 1st level players according to the APL rules, but would pretty much kill any party that didn't have the luck to prepare magic weapon, shield, and mage armor in enough quantities to suffice the entire group.

[Forrestfire]

I misread "enhancement bonus" as "enchantment bonus" for something like thirteen years...

[Kane0]

I once misread a note containing the word 'drying' as 'dying', which led to a whole new campaign arc.

[Brookshw]

When Epic first came out one of players misread gloves of epic dexterity as dentistry. Since then we've laughed about disarming bite attacks.

[Vhaidara]

Phaerimm, from Lost Empires of Faerun. I don't know if I'm allowed to link the pdf, but you can find one if you google it. page 187.

Hatchling Phaerim (they have age progression like dragons) have a +2 LA with 1 racial HD (Abberation).

For that price (ECL +3), you get the following
Tiny Size
Stats: -6STR, +6DEX, +2WIS, +2CHA
2 1d2 claws
2 Natural Armor, immunity to polymorph and petrification
30 ft fly speed
Detect Magic at will
Spell Resistance 11
Favored Class Sorcerer.

Oh, and Spells. As a Sorcerer, caster level = to character level. Explicitly stated to stack with Sorcerer levels. So, you take 10 levels of Sorcerer, you have 11HD, ECL 14, and Caster Level 21. Oh, and it makes all of your Sorcerer spells into SLAs, meaning no material, verbal, or somatic components.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Meh, that is boring, what you do is take 3 levels in cleric, 1 in Ardent and 10 levels in psychic theurge (don't forget to buy the LA at ECL 7 and 10) and at level 14 (remember that all 1HD creatures exchange their RHD for a class HD) you cast as a level 13 Cleric, a level 14 Ardent (thanks to the funky way they access spells) and as a level 14 Sorc, triple 9's has never been easier and only slightly MAD.

[atomicwaffle]

If you aren't ready for it, a Huge Earth Elemental with an avg party lvl of 7 can really ruin your day. Wandering in a desert, that thing was just MEAN to take on, especially when your party is:

a lvl 6 dwarf ranger that deals nonlethal damage to anything not undead
a lvl 7 bard
a lvl 6 fighter
a lvl 8 mystic theurge (not optimized, myself)

That was not a fun time, at all.

[Seerow]

Um, not sure what you're trying to say. Water Nagas are CR 7 creatures, says so on page 193 of my v.3.5 Monster Manual. Not sure where you got CR 1, but it wasn't the v.3.5 books.


Sorry guess it wasn't clear.

This is about things that one person in the group misreads badly enough that everyone else goes "what the heck?"

In the case of what I posted in the OP, it was the DM who swore up and down that these Water Nagas were only CR1, not CR7.

[lunar2]

i once misread the rules on holding the charge of a touch spell to say that you could continuously make touches with the same spell over and over. cure minor wounds was the default out of combat healing spell, since one orison could heal the entire party.

[Seerow]

i once misread the rules on holding the charge of a touch spell to say that you could continuously make touches with the same spell over and over. cure minor wounds was the default out of combat healing spell, since one orison could heal the entire party.

I've seen that misreading, but never taken to that extreme. Usually it's people thinking they can full attack with shocking grasp or vampiric touch or the like.

[Nettlekid]

It took me ages before I realized that "Mordenkainen's Lucubration" was not "Mordenkainen's Lubrication." I thought it like...made his mind slippy so he could...remember. Things.

[Kane0]

It took me ages before I realized that "Mordenkainen's Lucubration" was not "Mordenkainen's Lubrication." I thought it like...made his mind slippy so he could...remember. Things.

And you now get a cookie for making me chuckle out loud at work.

[ben-zayb]

It took me ages before I realized that "Mordenkainen's Lucubration" was not "Mordenkainen's Lubrication." I thought it like...made his mind slippy so he could...remember. Things.

This. Very much.

[Evandar]

It took me ages before I realized that "Mordenkainen's Lucubration" was not "Mordenkainen's Lubrication." I thought it like...made his mind slippy so he could...remember. Things.

I came here just to post that.

And the context was Tippy talking about his 'Jockstrap of Mage's Lucubration Lubrication'.

[Kraken]

For the "better lucky than good feat," it's very easy to miss the line saying that it can only be used once a day. No love for vorpal weapon enthusiasts. :smallfrown:

[hymer]

I don't recall the exact details any more, but there were two important guys in the campaign, one nice and one bad. And one of them was coming to town, and the DM was telling us how he was going to get shot, so the next part of the campaign could start. So I said I'd do it, being of the distinct impression this was the bad one. And I laid out a quick plan, and the DM was surprised, but liked it. And so, I shot the good guy, lord knows why.

There was also the guy who didn't roll damage with his mace against undead, he just applied full damage. This was 2nd edition, so it was no small deal. Why? Well, piercing and slashing weapons did half damage to skeletons, right? So bludgeoning must do full, right? And full means not rolling and taking as if you'd rolled max, right?

And then there was the guy who wanted to apply a template so he'd go up in size, since he noticed you get +8 bonus to strength when going up in size. It did note that this was for those who gained in size due to advancement in HD, but, well... +8 strength is too good to miss.

Then there are the people who read an ability, which first spells out how it normally works, and then goes on to list limitations. Why keep reading? Who wants to know that you must speak the same language, or that you still can't harm cold subtype creatures with cold energy, or that sneak attacks don't work on oozes... But I guess some of these are somewhat dubious as examples of mistakes...

[TiaC]

My first group pronounced Tarrasque as tar-ass-que, so when I heard people talking about the "Torask" I was confused.

There was also the group that took the x4 skill points at first level and somehow made that into characters only getting skill points every fourth level.

Finally, there was a DM who didn't know the difference between Wind Walk and Air Walk and thought the demon with constant Air Walk could only use it's weapons in an antimagic field.

[DeusMortuusEst]

It took me ages before I realized that "Mordenkainen's Lucubration" was not "Mordenkainen's Lubrication." I thought it like...made his mind slippy so he could...remember. Things.

Even though I know better I still say lubrication. It a lot more fun that way!

[Jlerpy]

I don't recall the exact details any more, but there were two important guys in the campaign, one nice and one bad. And one of them was coming to town, and the DM was telling us how he was going to get shot, so the next part of the campaign could start. So I said I'd do it, being of the distinct impression this was the bad one. And I laid out a quick plan, and the DM was surprised, but liked it. And so, I shot the good guy, lord knows why.

That's actually pretty awesome.


There was also the guy who didn't roll damage with his mace against undead, he just applied full damage. This was 2nd edition, so it was no small deal. Why? Well, piercing and slashing weapons did half damage to skeletons, right? So bludgeoning must do full, right? And full means not rolling and taking as if you'd rolled max, right?


His logic makes no sense, but that's certainly a good way to have vulnerability to bludgeoning.

[Bronk]

I remember a while back, a blog I was following had a cool story about misreadings during one of their first games. Their characters had just started out when they encountered a group of orcs, which they defeated. A bit later on they came across something weird... two headed orcs, which they easily defeated. Then they encountered 3, 4 and 5 headed orcs! Noticing how easy it was to defeat these guys and how much XP they were getting, the players looked into it, and it turned out their DM was seeing 2, 3, 4 and 5HD orcs as five headed orcs instead of five hit dice orcs!

[Lord Haart]

It took me ages before I realized that "Mordenkainen's Lucubration" was not "Mordenkainen's Lubrication."

Wait, it isn't?

[Dalebert]

It took me ages before I realized that "Mordenkainen's Lucubration" was not "Mordenkainen's Lubrication." I thought it like...made his mind slippy so he could...remember. Things.

Mordenkainen's Lubrication is a cantrip that's handy for... various things. It's like the zero-level version of a grease spell.

[JeenLeen]

I forget the name of the PrC, but my group misread one of the gish ones as saying that you got a BAB equal to your caster level. Or maybe we misread it as you could cast spells at a caster level equal to your BAB. Either way, it sounded like a good dip.

It actually read that you get a caster level equal to your BAB, if it's higher than your actual caster level.


It took me ages before I realized that "Mordenkainen's Lucubration" was not "Mordenkainen's Lubrication." I thought it like...made his mind slippy so he could...remember. Things.

I, like many others, just learned that this was something I've been misreading.

[Arael666]

If it counts, I used to think that the greater turning granted by the sun domain was a "bonus" turning. Thus a cleric with 14 CHA would have 5 normal turnings and 1 greater, for a total of 6 tunings.

Somehow I always ignored this line:

Once per day, you can perform a greater turning against undead in place of a regular turning.

[ellindsey]

I kept misreading "Dire Corby" as "Dire Corgi". Then I discovered someone had written up stats for a Dire Corgi.

[Melayl]

My first group pronounced Tarrasque as tar-ass-que, so when I heard people talking about the "Torask" I was confused.

I was always under the assumption that it was tar-ass-que. I don't know why it would be pronounced any other way...

[Evandar]

I kept misreading "Dire Corby" as "Dire Corgi". Then I discovered someone had written up stats for a Dire Corgi.

Our party's druid is rocking a corgi at the moment because of this.

[Necroticplague]

I was always under the assumption that it was tar-ass-que. I don't know why it would be pronounced any other way...

The que is like the way some spell checque, where it is silent. I blame the fact that the monster is a French legend, with French tendency to leave off the last part of a word.

[Nightraiderx]

I misread flaming sphere and thought it went through multiple opponents up to it's distance, As a warmage, I also had gotten a +2 int item so my damage was higher than usual. Party was around lvl 6th and party was in a cavern with a bunch of goblins. It was great fun whirling the flaming sphere around causing chaos until I found out it STOPS at the first target. It made an already mediocre spell into something unusable. =(

[Deox]

The small text underneath the Rod of Ropes picture from Complete Scoundrel.

Replace the 'o' in 'ropes' with an 'a'.

[Necroticplague]

I'll add myself to the 99% of people who thought it was mage's lubrication. Even makes sense, given what it does. Helps lubricate the memory, so to speak. Or to use odd colloquialisms, it helps get something off the tip of your tongue or out of your head.

[Kesnit]

Our party's druid is rocking a corgi at the moment because of this.

Before I saw this comment, I already started wondering if my DM would let me replace my companion with a Dire Corgi...

[Hikarizu]

A friend thought that you get x4 times skill points each time you take 1st level of a base class. He liked multiclass fighter/rogue/something and it became noticeable. He reduced his skills after we proved that he has understood it wrong.

[huttj509]

So, in Expidition to castle ravenloft, our wizard cast Summon Monster III to get a bunch of small scorpions to help with the zombies.

These things were awesome! Good damage, 30 hp, they did great.

Turns out he was accidentally reading the entry for "Monstrous Scorpion, Large" when I had repeatedly said "Monstrous Scorpion, Small" when cross referencing the summon monster tables.

[Eldan]

Well, when I first leafed through the 3.0 PHB, when I had just started out, I misread "Metamagic feat" as "Metagamic feat". My English was also just barely good enough to read simple sentences, so I took that to mean that there was an entire set of feat that allowed Metagaming. One of the reasons why I thought that D&D was a game full of metagaming Munchkins.

[galan]

I misread "enhancement bonus" as "enchantment bonus" for something like thirteen years...

holy **** i read it wrong all this time.. in my defense, it was translated to hebrew as the exact same word (which is.. technically corract, but still confusing as hell).

my mind just exploded.

(sorry if it counts as spam, but my entire worldview was just shattered into pieces)

[papr_weezl8472]

For some reason I was convinced will-o'-wisps were incorporeal. This made for some interesting encounters, given their magic immunity.

[Khosan]

I'm not sure if this is a misreading, but my old group was unaware of limit on how many ranks you could have in a skill.

Had one guy who put literally every skill point into Perception. Had something silly like a +23 to the check at 1st level.

[hymer]

For some reason I was convinced will-o'-wisps were incorporeal. This made for some interesting encounters, given their magic immunity.

That reminds me, I used to think that spiked chain was a double weapon.

[ShurikVch]

Multiple times read in monster stat blocks Multiattack as Multitask

In description of Disjunction spell, line about AMF, missed "per caster level"

[Heliomance]

Phaerimm, from Lost Empires of Faerun. I don't know if I'm allowed to link the pdf, but you can find one if you google it. page 187.

Hatchling Phaerim (they have age progression like dragons) have a +2 LA with 1 racial HD (Abberation).

For that price (ECL +3), you get the following
Tiny Size
Stats: -6STR, +6DEX, +2WIS, +2CHA
2 1d2 claws
2 Natural Armor, immunity to polymorph and petrification
30 ft fly speed
Detect Magic at will
Spell Resistance 11
Favored Class Sorcerer.

Oh, and Spells. As a Sorcerer, caster level = to character level. Explicitly stated to stack with Sorcerer levels. So, you take 10 levels of Sorcerer, you have 11HD, ECL 14, and Caster Level 21. Oh, and it makes all of your Sorcerer spells into SLAs, meaning no material, verbal, or somatic components.

Actually, it's only ECL+2. Monsters with a single racial hit die convert that to a class level if they take class levels.

[Vhaidara]

Actually, it's only ECL+2. Monsters with a single racial hit die convert that to a class level if they take class levels.

I thought that was humanoid only.


That reminds me, I used to think that spiked chain was a double weapon.

To be fair, every other 2-handed exotic weapon in the PHB is a double

[Heliomance]

I thought that was humanoid only.

Debatable by strictest RAW, but if that was the case then Warforged wouldn't work.

[Icewraith]

If it counts, I used to think that the greater turning granted by the sun domain was a "bonus" turning. Thus a cleric with 14 CHA would have 5 normal turnings and 1 greater, for a total of 6 tunings.

Somehow I always ignored this line:

:eek::confused::annoyed::mad::frown:
Good thing I never let that player use his Greater Turnings for DMM anyways...

We misread the "dazzle" effect from the... Diamond... Spray? spell out of BoED as "daze". Then killed an Umber Hulk with 6th level characters. The thing then turned into a Truly Horrid Umber Hulk (the first fight had been such a pushover and the DM was not up to speed on CR) and we STILL killed it with hax rolls. We figured it out after the session, of course...

[Arkturas]

Portend Weather.

Someone I know read it and thought it allowed you do determine the weather as in choose it, not determine as in predict.

[Beardbarian]

PF game. The DM misread the *dazzled* effect of an alchemy bomb with a *dazed* effect.
Now, the dazzled effect of the bomb doesn't grant the save. Dazed monsters everywhere.

Also
Italian edition of Complete Divine. I was reading the Prerequisites of a Prc and i read "Almost" Lawful instead of "Any"

[Telok]

"Boob of Law."

The DM gave us a list of loot after we Identified it all. His handwriting was pretty bad, it was supposed to be "Boots of Lev."

[BWR]

A friend of mine misread Lightning Bolt and thought it started at maximum range and moved towards his finger.

[TuggyNE]

I thought that was humanoid only.

Nope!
Level Adjustment and Effective Character Level
To determine the effective character level (ECL) of a monster character, add its level adjustment to its racial Hit Dice and character class levels.

Use ECL instead of character level to determine how many experience points a monster character needs to reach its next level. Also use ECL to determine starting wealth for a monster character.

Monster characters treat skills mentioned in their monster entry as class skills.

If a monster has 1 Hit Die or less, or if it is a template creature, it must start the game with one or more class levels, like a regular character. If a monster has 2 or more Hit Dice, it can start with no class levels (though it can gain them later).

Even if the creature is of a kind that normally advances by Hit Dice rather than class levels a PC can gain class levels rather than Hit Dice.

Any playable monster with 1 or fewer HD, humanoid or otherwise, must trade that HD in for a class level.