Stupidest thing Wizards of the Coast released?

[Jeff the Green]

Going through a number of threads I was struck by the sheer boneheadedness displayed by Wizards of the Coast in some of their products. I'm not talking about rules that don't work or have unintended consequences (there's already a thread for that (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?333789-Dysfunctional-Rules-Thread-V-Dysfunctions-All-the-Way-Down)), or about things that are of questionable use or flavor, but about things to which the only appropriate reaction is "What were they smoking? And where can I get some?"

My money's on Spell-to-Power Erudite. Not only did they create a class that can learn every psion power, but they then give it the ability to learn any arcane spell in lieu of a bonus feat. (A bonus feat, I might add, that is offset by the fact that you get another feat, Psicrystal Affinity, that is de rigueur for psions for free.) Who thought this would not be obscenely overpowered?

Can anything top that?

[Snowbluff]

There are magic cards with Wayne Reynolds' art on them. Easily some of the worst artwork for the game in recent memory.

Don't even get me started on the "Commander" stuff they released. Essentially building cards for a game made by fans trying to find more things to do with their cards. If they have a specific purpose for the game mode, they've defeated the purpose.

[Fax Celestis]

I would like to nominate the entirety of the Dragons of Faerun book.

[bjoern]

Changing the rules of MtG so that Mogg Fanatic can't kill Grizzly Bears anymore. Oh and Planeswalkers.

I haven't played since they made those changes.

[jedipotter]

The tome of battle!

[bjoern]

The tome of battle!

Big surprise
Lol

[Jeff the Green]

The tome of battle!

...did you really need to post that? I'm fairly sure there's not a person on this subforum that doesn't realize that this is your opinion.

[Flickerdart]

...did you really need to post that? I'm fairly sure there's not a person on this subforum that doesn't realize that this is your opinion.
I would have thought jedipotter hated all books with rules in them equally.

[Irk]

There are magic cards with Wayne Reynolds' art on them.
Why is everything so sharp?

[CIDE]

ToB probably isn't even in the top five worst things produced for D&D 3.5 left alone the top worst things for WotC as a whole.

that said is this thread in the right subforum...?

[Jeff the Green]

Let's not make this thread about jedipotter, her houserules, or her idiosyncratic tastes in books.

Edit 'cause nijaed

that said is this thread in the right subforum...?

I'd assumed by putting it in this subforum that'd cut out MtG etc.

[Snowbluff]

Why is everything so sharp?
It gives +1/+0 but you lose 2 integrity counters.

Let's not make this thread about jedipotter, her houserules, or her idiosyncratic tastes in books.

Jedipotter's a SHE?! :smallconfused:

[Irk]

that said is this thread in the right subforum...?
I think that it was meant to be D&D stuff, as implied by the subforum in which it was placed, but there is a good deal to be said about some of the other things they make.

I'm going to add Serpent Kingdoms (by which I mean the Sarrukh. I think Ability Rip is in there [could be wrong], and I'm a fan of that). And that Divine-Psionic thing a lot of people hate the fluff of. The ruling that precision damage does not apply to "volley" attacks.

EDIT:

It gives +1/+0 but you lose 2 integrity counters.
It's like every square millimeter is a focal point.


Jedipotter's a SHE?!
Curious as well.

[Jeff the Green]

Looking at Wayne Reynold's art, I don't see what's so bad. I mean, god, the man needs to learn to draw ankles, and I can see where it might not be to everyone's taste, but truly bad? Unless his MtG stuff is significantly worse than the PF stuff he did.


Jedipotter's a SHE?! :smallconfused:

That's the impression I was under; several people in other threads have referred to jedipotter as such, at least.

[eggynack]

Jedipotter's a SHE?! :smallconfused:
She has indicated as such in the past, yes, saying something along the lines of, "Who said I was a man," when referred to as such. I suppose she could be a hermaphrodite, or genderless, or male and oddly coy about it, but in the meantime I'm just going with female pronouns.

Anyway, I'm going to go with greenbound summoning. I feel like, with a lot of things, you can say that the designers might not have known the borked applications when designing them. Like, maybe they just didn't think of these monsters or these spells in particular, even if they were printed in the same book. With greenbound summoning though, I have no idea how the designers could have missed the crazy.

The template has wall of thorns written on it, right there, plain as day, and there's no limitation whatsoever on when you can take the feat. To all appearances you were intended to have spontaneous access to a 5th level spell out of a 1st level slot. On top of that, the other bonuses on the greenbound summons are crazy as well, with increases in stats wildly out of scale with most upgrades in existence. I've heard that greenbound summoning was intended to be a +2 metamagic, but that doesn't make it better. Might actually make it worse.

[Extra Anchovies]

There are magic cards with Wayne Reynolds' art on them. Easily some of the worst artwork for the game in recent memory.

Well, Reynolds did do some pretty good stuff (in my opinion, at least) for D&D. I definitely agree that his MTG stuff is pretty stupid, though, as is a good chunk of the D&D art he did. Tom Baxa's work for Complete Divine is kind of dumb too; other than the Ur-Priest and Void Disciple artwork (admittedly, two of the best pieces of art in the book), all of his stuff in that supplement is kind of disturbingly bad.


Don't even get me started on the "Commander" stuff they released. Essentially building cards for a game made by fans trying to find more things to do with their cards. If they have a specific purpose for the game mode, they've defeated the purpose.

Well, Commander did exist as an unofficial game mode called "Elder Dragon Highlander" before they released the Commander sets. That still doesn't excuse the fact that Commander is an attempt to monetize something people were already doing on their own at no extra cost, but my vote for silliest MTG variant is on Mastermind. Honestly, who ever played that?

ETA: As far as D&D material goes, I'd say all of the "Dragons of _____" books, however many there may be. Oh, and also, because they can't hear us do to their being in a separate subforum, add to the list Dungeons and Dragons, Fourth Edition :smallbiggrin:

[Nousos]

Spelljammer. No doubt in my mind about that.

I'll agree though that the Sarrukh is pretty close. It's like they put NO thought into what turning snakes into ANYTHING actually means.

[Fax Celestis]

Star was a pretty dumb Multi format.

Also whoever split Invisible Blade and Master Thrower needs to be drug out into the street and thrown a variety of knives.

[Zanos]

There are magic cards with Wayne Reynolds' art on them. Easily some of the worst artwork for the game in recent memory.
Can you link some examples?

I'd say that what BoED and BoVD imply about morality ranks up there in stupidity.

[Jeff the Green]

She has indicated as such in the past, yes, saying something along the lines of, "Who said I was a man," when referred to as such. I suppose she could be a hermaphrodite, or genderless, or male and oddly coy about it, but in the meantime I'm just going with female pronouns.

Anyway, I'm going to go with greenbound summoning. I feel like, with a lot of things, you can say that the designers might not have known the borked applications when designing them. Like, maybe they just didn't think of these monsters or these spells in particular, even if they were printed in the same book. With greenbound summoning though, I have no idea how the designers could have missed the crazy.

The template has wall of thorns written on it, right there, plain as day, and there's no limitation whatsoever on when you can take the feat. To all appearances you were intended to have spontaneous access to a 5th level spell out of a 1st level slot. On top of that, the other bonuses on the greenbound summons are crazy as well, with increases in stats wildly out of scale with most upgrades in existence. I've heard that greenbound summoning was intended to be a +2 metamagic, but that doesn't make it better. Might actually make it worse.

While stupidly powerful, I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. The greenbound creatures you summon still have an Intelligence of 2. They don't know languages so you can't command them verbally or with telepathy. They're also immune to mind-affecting effects so you can't direct them that way. So they're unlikely to use their SLAs tactically, and may not do so at all.

[Scowling Dragon]

SpellJammer was not Wizards of the East Coast.

I would say Tome of Vile Evil and Awesome Goodness.

Poison its bad. But its not poison if its...Good poison or something?

[Extra Anchovies]

I'd say that what BoED and BoVD imply about morality ranks up there in stupidity.

Oh darn, I'd forgotten about those! Change my vote to BoED and BoVD, as well as BoEF (that last one is apparently third party, thank you Fax Celestis :smallredface:). All two of those books are... trash. Just utter trash. They present almost nothing that's even usable, let alone actually worth using.

[eggynack]

While stupidly powerful, I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. The greenbound creatures you summon still have an Intelligence of 2. They don't know languages so you can't command them verbally or with telepathy. They're also immune to mind-affecting effects so you can't direct them that way. So they're unlikely to use their SLAs tactically, and may not do so at all.
The summoned creatures attack to the best of their abilities, and wall of thorns tends to be that, so while you can't expect hyper-effectiveness in their use of the spell, they're likely to use it. In any case, the oddity of the feat is less directly tied to its power level, which is stupid as you noted, and more tied to how obvious that power level is. It's just all there, in black and white. I mean, augment summoning is sitting right there as a point of comparison. Just seems odd. Also on the obviously overpowered druid summoning note, frigging oreads. Who thought that spontaneous access to earthquake out of a 6th level slot was a good idea?

[Zanos]

Oh darn, I'd forgotten about those! Change my vote to BoED and BoVD, as well as BoEF. All three of those books are... trash. Just utter trash. They present almost nothing that's even usable, let alone actually worth using.
BoEF is third party, to be fair. Some of the content in it is amusing, and I don't think much of the book is expected to be taken very seriously. How could the writers expect someone not to chuckle at a Sacred Prostitute prestige class?

[malonkey1]

Spelljammer. No doubt in my mind about that.

I'll agree though that the Sarrukh is pretty close. It's like they put NO thought into what turning snakes into ANYTHING actually means.

Agreed, with the proviso that it was also awesome. And they got to give a big middle finger to a nut-diaper of a boss by making it. Though, technically, SJ was TSR, not WotC, but meh, close enough. (EDIT: Swordsaged!)

That said, the Illithid Heritage, as I have noted before, is pretty mindbendingly dumb, as it sort of ignores ALL OF MINDFLAYER BIOLOGY.

After that? Hm... hard to say. How about 4th edition?

[Fax Celestis]

BoEF is third party, for starters, and it's not as terrible as a lot of people make it out to be.

[Nousos]

To be fair, BoED and BoVD both have disclaimers if I recall about the morality extremes they portray. But yea mostly garbage, but a few "gems" for certain builds.

[heavyfuel]

Can I go with "a really good number of spells" as my answer? From the absolute broken things (like Gate, Wish, Planar Ally, some form of daze immunity+Celerity) to the lesser broken kind (like Shivering Touch, Polymorph, Wraithstrike, Celerity without daze immunity) these spells make wonder just how much in love people in the WotC's office are with spellcasters.



Also whoever split Invisible Blade and Master Thrower needs to be drug out into the street and thrown a variety of knives.

Wait what? They were supposed to be the same class? Cuz both classes are already really good and having a gestalt of both seems pretty OP.

[Jeff the Green]

That said, the Illithid Heritage, as I have noted before, is pretty mindbendingly dumb, as it sort of ignores ALL OF MINDFLAYER BIOLOGY.

Didn't it say somewhere that, since illithids are from the future, creatures with Illithid Heritage are actually the ancestors of illithids?


BoEF is third party, for starters, and it's not as terrible as a lot of people make it out to be.

No, it's not that bad. I still ban it because I don't want to subject my eyeballs to the godawful softcore porn (which is frequently a poor photoshopping of photos and other art) that serves as "illustrations".

[Fax Celestis]

Yeah, they were totally supposed to be one class. That's why they have janky prerequisites, for one thing.

[Sith_Happens]

...did you really need to post that? I'm fairly sure there's not a person on this subforum that doesn't realize that this is your opinion.

It's actually on-topic though.

Speaking of Tome of Battle, my nominee for "stupidest [D&D 3.X] thing published by WotC" is the ToB errata. Specifically the part where it turns into the Complete Mage errata after the third entry and they never fixed it.

[Fax Celestis]

It's actually on-topic though.

Speaking of Tome of Battle, my nominee for "stupidest [D&D 3.X] thing published by WotC" is the ToB errata. Specifically the part where it turns into the Complete Mage errata after the third entry and they never fixed it.
Oh my gooooood yes that oh god augh

[Jeff the Green]

Yeah, they were totally supposed to be one class. That's why they have janky prerequisites, for one thing.

Also why there are two 5-level PrCs that use daggers in the same splat. :smallsigh:

[AMFV]

Going through a number of threads I was struck by the sheer boneheadedness displayed by Wizards of the Coast in some of their products. I'm not talking about rules that don't work or have unintended consequences (there's already a thread for that (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?333789-Dysfunctional-Rules-Thread-V-Dysfunctions-All-the-Way-Down)), or about things that are of questionable use or flavor, but about things to which the only appropriate reaction is "What were they smoking? And where can I get some?"

My money's on Spell-to-Power Erudite. Not only did they create a class that can learn every psion power, but they then give it the ability to learn any arcane spell in lieu of a bonus feat. (A bonus feat, I might add, that is offset by the fact that you get another feat, Psicrystal Affinity, that is de rigueur for psions for free.) Who thought this would not be obscenely overpowered?

Can anything top that?

Well the thing is that balance wasn't foremost as a concern in 3.5. It wasn't till later that balance was a heavy focus. So inbalance isn't always that big an issue. After all functionally the StP Erudite isn't that much worse than a Wizard 20, they both break the game, once it's broken, breaking it more isn't really that much of an issue.

[SaintRidley]

Complete Psionic. In its entirety.

[Extra Anchovies]

It's actually on-topic though.

Speaking of Tome of Battle, my nominee for "stupidest [D&D 3.X] thing published by WotC" is the ToB errata. Specifically the part where it turns into the Complete Mage errata after the third entry and they never fixed it.

That happened? Is there a link to this somewhere? A quick google turns up nothing readily apparent.

[jedipotter]

If it was dumbest things done....how about Wizards closing the chat rooms!


A couple years ago WotC had chatrooms were you could play games...like D&D for example. Just think, a game company that has chatrooms so you can use their products.....and giving them tons of traffic.

But then 4E comes along and they go and make the ''virtual table top'' thing....that I guess they never did?

And the close the chatrooms....

[Jeff the Green]

If it was dumbest things done....

**Checks thread title.** No, no it wasn't.

That said, I'm not particularly fond of how hard they made it to get ebook versions of their stuff. Did they not grasp the fact that that's an incentive to pirate their material?

[Svata]

Complete Psionic. In its entirety.

Ardent, Anrchic Initiate, and Practiced Manifester are pretty nice. And Ebon Saint is situationally cool on a PsyRogue.

[eggynack]

That happened? Is there a link to this somewhere? A quick google turns up nothing readily apparent.
Here's a link (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040125a) to all of the game's errata. Download the ToB one, and experience the insanity firsthand.

[Extra Anchovies]

**Checks thread title.** No, no it wasn't.

That said, I'm not particularly fond of how hard they made it to get ebook versions of their stuff. Did they not grasp the fact that that's an incentive to pirate their material?

God, this. This, this, all of the this. I've never found a legitimate way to get an ebook version of any 3.5 material.

[heavyfuel]

Yeah, they were totally supposed to be one class. That's why they have janky prerequisites, for one thing.


Also why there are two 5-level PrCs that use daggers in the same splat. :smallsigh:

I'm gonna have to disagree on the stupidity of the separation. Both classes are really good on their own, and putting them both together would really make it too strong. If you want to nominate something about them as stupid, let this thing be the prereqs for Invis Blade, the class that buffs Feint and requires 2 ranged feats.

On a sidenote to what Jeff said, daggers ain't got nothing on the Master Thrower. What you really want is a Boomerang with Boomerang Daze, Boomerang Ricochet and the Exotic Weapon Master PrC. You throw boomerangs that bounce, daze and trip enemies. If that's not the most awesome build in D&D, I don't which is.

[Fax Celestis]

I'm gonna have to disagree on the stupidity of the separation. Both classes are really good on their own, and putting them both together would really make it too strong. If you want to nominate something about them as stupid, let this thing be the prereqs for Invis Blade, the class that buffs Feint and requires 2 ranged feats.

On a sidenote to what Jeff said, daggers ain't got nothing on the Master Thrower. What you really want is a Boomerang with Boomerang Daze, Boomerang Ricochet and the Exotic Weapon Master PrC. You throw boomerangs that bounce, daze and trip enemies. If that's not the most awesome build in D&D, I don't which is.

God forbid noncasters be actually effective!

[Dusk Eclipse]

No the stupidest thing about Invisible Blade is that they errata'ed the feint into only working once per round.

[togapika]

Forsaker from 3.0. Let's make a prestige class about destroying magic items in a game centered around obtaining lots of magic items.

[Jeff the Green]

I'm gonna have to disagree on the stupidity of the separation. Both classes are really good on their own, and putting them both together would really make it too strong. If you want to nominate something about them as stupid, let this thing be the prereqs for Invis Blade, the class that buffs Feint and requires 2 ranged feats.
Invisible Blade isn't that great, but we weren't saying they meant to gestalt them. They were supposed to be a single 10-level PrC.


God, this. This, this, all of the this. I've never found a legitimate way to get an ebook version of any 3.5 material.
At least some of them are available now through DriveThruRPG (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/browse.php?cPath=9731), but apparently they've had them on for a bit and then yanked them and then put them back up and yanked them...

[Sir Chuckles]

Ya know, I had the ToB errata downloaded for awhile, but never bothered to read it.
I just opened it, and...what.

[Sith_Happens]

God, this. This, this, all of the this. I've never found a legitimate way to get an ebook version of any 3.5 material.

I never even knew there were ebooks until now. DriveThruRPG has the official PDFs of every book since 2e, though.

[Werephilosopher]

The... the...

Divine Mind.

:smallsigh:

[heavyfuel]

God forbid noncasters be actually effective!

If you want to bring casters into the discussion, may I suggest my original post on how the stupidest things are, imo, broken spells? But really, saying something isn't strong because a Wizard is stronger is as a good an argument as saying 1 billion dollars isn't a lot of money because Bill Gates has more than that.


Invisible Blade isn't that great, but we weren't saying they meant to gestalt them. They were supposed to be a single 10-level PrC.


That actually makes a lot of sense. Wouldn't be that good of a class if it were the case


No the stupidest thing about Invisible Blade is that they errata'ed the feint into only working once per round.

Uncanny Feint is only once per round?! And here I was thinking this was a freaking awesome PrC for solo rogues. Well, still useful if you can get Surprising Riposte, just good luck getting that many feats

[Fax Celestis]

Oh god what about the blighter? "I have to burn down half the amazon to restore my spells, daily!"

[MilesTiden]

The... the...

Divine Mind.

:smallsigh:

I'll see your Divine Mind and raise a Soulbo... hrmm. Okay, looking through MoI, I don't see anything called the Soulborn. I must have imagined it. But if there were such a class, I'd imagine it'd probably be the worst thing. :smalltongue:

[SinsI]

Fighter in PhB.

[eggynack]

Oh god what about the blighter? "I have to burn down half the amazon to restore my spells, daily!"
I might actually hate the beastmaster more. It's a class whose frigging capstone is basically an unadvanced and unadvancable riding dog. Blighter is also ridiculous though.

[Extra Anchovies]

Oh god what about the blighter? "I have to burn down half the amazon to restore my spells, daily!"

I think that's sort of the point of the blighter, though; they're not meant as a PC prestige class. Doesn't excuse the fast that finding the level of foliage needed to prepare spells is nigh-impossible over the long term.

It's kinda like how the Ur-Priest was meant to be an NPC prestige class, but they gave it good stuff without silly impossible-to-mitigate drawbacks, so it's genuinely good.

ETA:

Ya know, I had the ToB errata downloaded for awhile, but never bothered to read it.
I just opened it, and...what.

Yeah. That's... that's one of the best laughs I've had in a while.

[Flickerdart]

A couple years ago WotC had chatrooms were you could play games...like D&D for example. Just think, a game company that has chatrooms so you can use their products.....and giving them tons of traffic.
WotC doesn't make money from traffic. D&D was always intended to be an in-person game, and going out of your way to give a sub-par user experience to your customers is a terrible idea.

[heavyfuel]

Fighter in PhB.

I see your Fighter and raise you a Monk

[SaintRidley]

Ardent, Anrchic Initiate, and Practiced Manifester are pretty nice. And Ebon Saint is situationally cool on a PsyRogue.

There were isolated instances of cool, but damn was the whole a pile.

[squiggit]

Speaking of Tome of Battle, my nominee for "stupidest [D&D 3.X] thing published by WotC" is the ToB errata. Specifically the part where it turns into the Complete Mage errata after the third entry and they never fixed it.

The fact that WotC has left that bad errata up on their website without bothering to fix it for years and years is absolutely shameful, agreed.


I see your Fighter and raise you a Monk
Eh. Monk advances class features every level and has a bunch of flavorful abilities. They all suck for sure, but that certainly gives it a leg up over the sorcerer and fighter.

[Svata]

I'll see your Divine Mind and raise a Soulbo... hrmm. Okay, looking through MoI, I don't see anything called the Soulborn. I must have imagined it. But if there were such a class, I'd imagine it'd probably be the worst thing. :smalltongue:

LURK. Rogue-based class that makes you expend your psionic focus to use sneak attack. And the progression of said sneak attack is awful. 4d6 at level 17-20. 4d6.

[Turion]

I'm going to add Serpent Kingdoms (by which I mean the Sarrukh. I think Ability Rip is in there [could be wrong], and I'm a fan of that). And that Divine-Psionic thing a lot of people hate the fluff of. The ruling that precision damage does not apply to "volley" attacks.



It's worse than that, actually. Sarrukh, manyfang dagger, ability rip, venomfire, trait removal... seriously, that book is b0rked.

[Sith_Happens]

It's worse than that, actually. Sarrukh, manyfang dagger, ability rip, venomfire, trait removal... seriously, that book is b0rked.

Don't forget the Yuan-Ti save-or-lose-but-if-you-do-save-you-die potion/poison.

[Jeff the Green]

WotC doesn't make money from traffic. D&D was always intended to be an in-person game, and going out of your way to give a sub-par user experience to your customers is a terrible idea.

Just because D&D was intended as an in-person game does not mean it must be played as such. Sometimes it can't be. I have crippling social anxiety, so playing with people I don't know well is out. And of course because of the same anxiety, I pretty much don't get to know people well outside of coworkers and family. So aside from the once-a-month-at-best games with my brothers and cousins, I cannot play D&D offline. Given the nature of geekdom, I'd be surprised if there weren't a significant number of people like me in WotC's customer base.

Add that to the people (especially kids) that live in small communities where they're unlikely to form a group, who live in places of the world where D&D is not frequently played, or whose schedules are such that a weekly session of 8 hours is impossible, and you've got a lot of people who might want to play but can't except online.

While WotC doesn't profit directly from visits to the boards, they can profit indirectly by creating opportunities for new people to join the hobby. Now, granted, it's not a huge concern when there are forums like this one all around where you can do PbP, but it does strike me as a wasted opportunity on WotC's part.

[Crake]

No the stupidest thing about Invisible Blade is that they errata'ed the feint into only working once per round.

I think the whole point of it was to stop you from continuously feinting until you succeeded, and THEN attack. A better errata would have been one feint per attack you make, which is my personal houserule

[Flickerdart]

Just because D&D was intended as an in-person game does not mean it must be played as such. Sometimes it can't be. I have crippling social anxiety, so playing with people I don't know well is out. And of course because of the same anxiety, I pretty much don't get to know people well outside of coworkers and family. So aside from the once-a-month-at-best games with my brothers and cousins, I cannot play D&D offline. Given the nature of geekdom, I'd be surprised if there weren't a significant number of people like me in WotC's customer base.

Add that to the people (especially kids) that live in small communities where they're unlikely to form a group, who live in places of the world where D&D is not frequently played, or whose schedules are such that a weekly session of 8 hours is impossible, and you've got a lot of people who might want to play but can't except online.

While WotC doesn't profit directly from visits to the boards, they can profit indirectly by creating opportunities for new people to join the hobby. Now, granted, it's not a huge concern when there are forums like this one all around where you can do PbP, but it does strike me as a wasted opportunity on WotC's part.
I never said that it must be played this way. However, because it was built with the assumption that it would be played in-person, there are a variety of issues that crop up when it's played online. Officially condoning a way of playing the game that represents it in less than an ideal light might attract a few outliers, but it makes the game look less good to those who are able and willing to play it in the way the publisher intended. This is the same reason that Apple won't allow iPhones to be sold on lower-quality networks - providing an officially sanctioned, inferior user experience to your customers is bad business.

[heavyfuel]

I think the whole point of it was to stop you from continuously feinting until you succeeded, and THEN attack. A better errata would have been one feint per attack you make, which is my personal houserule

Yeah, that's how we rule it as well despite our lack of knowledge about the errata. It's a pretty good general houserule to ban infinite things (in this case, feints).

[CockroachTeaParty]

It's been said before, but I'll put another vote in for Complete Psionic. What little good that comes out of it is like wringing a wet rag: you have to twist far too hard to get out those few precious drips.

It stings the most for me because the psionics subsystem is my favorite, my first true love of D&D. The XPH was what made me convert to 3.5 from 3.0.

Complete Psionic is just... an insult. Horrible art. Terrible, uninspired fluff. Strange organization and editing. Needless nerfs. Then it gives birth to the abomination that is the Erudite, a class that in all honesty I still don't know how it works by the RAW. I like the idea behind it, but it just fails so hard in execution.

[HunterOfJello]

I'm going to go with Weapons of Legacy and almost every single sample character build that WotC did in every 3.5 book.


Weapons of Legacy is a book full of items that no one ever actually wants to use because they all make your character worse than when they started. The only things good about it is Legacy Champion and houseruled custom legacy items.

Sample character builds are the shining example that whoever it is who does the final edits on 3.5 dnd books simply did not know how to build a basic character.

[Erik Vale]

Do we only have one vote?
In which case, I'll go Weapons of Legacy, for gear that actively makes you worse at what you do in exchange for sounding awesome. Balance was already borked and some things are meant to be NPC only, but this is deliberately aimed at PCs and is meant to sound cool... And it actively makes you worse for wanting said coolness. It's like offering someone an iceblock, without letting them know it's at -50 and so will freeze to their tongue and cause permanent damage the moment they lick it.

[Extra Anchovies]

I'm going to go with Weapons of Legacy and almost every single sample character build that WotC did in every 3.5 book.


Weapons of Legacy is a book full of items that no one ever actually wants to use because they all make your character worse than when they started. The only things good about it is Legacy Champion and houseruled custom legacy items.

Sample character builds are the shining example that whoever it is who does the final edits on 3.5 dnd books simply did not know how to build a basic character.

Yes, yes, and yes. One would think they'd have the common sense to A) make the legacy weapons at least situationally useful and B) acknowledge the existence of character optimization when making sample characters.

Also, the sample member of the Darkrunner prestige class in Lords of Madness. He's a halfling with levels in ranger and the Darkrunner PrC. Guess what the Darkrunner class has as a prerequisite (albeit an effing stupid, horribly limiting one): that's right, Darkvision as a racial trait or class feature. The sample character for the PrC in the book in which the PrC was introduced cannot, by RAW or RAI, qualify for the prestige class that he's somehow taken a level in. The only darkvision his statblock lists is the 10 ft granted by the SECOND level of the PrC. He has one level in the PrC. And he has a class feature it grants after a character has taken two levels in it. I actually hadn't noticed that second part before, though. Wow.

[Anlashok]

Statblocks do show some interesting houserules that WotC seems to rely on though when you notice some patterns.

Like, say, being able to take a PrC the same level you qualify it by selecting your class last: RAW is clear that the first thing you pick when you gain a level is which class you're advancing. There is, however, a ton of statblocks that rely on you qualifying for a PrC you can't actually access until that level, i.e. a PrC that requires three feats that you enter at 6th level when you get the third feat from leveling up.

[Mr Adventurer]

While stupidly powerful, I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. The greenbound creatures you summon still have an Intelligence of 2. They don't know languages so you can't command them verbally or with telepathy. They're also immune to mind-affecting effects so you can't direct them that way. So they're unlikely to use their SLAs tactically, and may not do so at all.

If only druids could somehow speak with animals!

[sleepyphoenixx]

If only druids could somehow speak with animals!

You need Speak with Plants which is a 3rd level spell for druids, so it's a valid point at lower levels. Its duration is also only 1min/level so unless you know you'll need it soon you're going to have to waste an action in combat to cast it if you want to command your summons. Not that that's any worse than standard SNA, so it doesn't mitigate the ridiculous power increase of the feat.

[gooddragon1]

It's been said before, but I'll put another vote in for Complete Psionic.

Third Vote.
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g111/Lycanthromancer/comppsi.jpg
Text I like better for it: One step forward, two steps back.

[Arbane]

To be fair, BoED and BoVD both have disclaimers if I recall about the morality extremes they portray. But yea mostly garbage, but a few "gems" for certain builds.

For example, Mindrape, aka "this forum's solution to ALL problems."

I'm shocked I'm the first one to say "The Truenamer".

[Taveena]

For example, Mindrape, aka "this forum's solution to ALL problems."

I'm shocked I'm the first one to say "The Truenamer".

Can I add on 'Khetarin's facial hair'?

[Diovid]

I might actually hate the beastmaster more. It's a class whose frigging capstone is basically an unadvanced and unadvancable riding dog. Blighter is also ridiculous though.
Somehow I kind of think they meant the other beastmaster companions to be based on your effective druid level instead of on your beastmaster level.


I see your Fighter and raise you a Monk
I'd argue that Fighters and Monks are not a problem (nor are feats like Dodge and so on). The stupidity lies in the fact that they were published in the same book (a core book no less!) as Clerics, Wizards, spells like Wish and feats like Natural Spell.

[Yuki Akuma]

Two thirds of the Tome of Magic.

Pact Magic is nice. The rest isn't.

[bekeleven]

I might actually hate the beastmaster more. It's a class whose frigging capstone is basically an unadvanced and unadvancable riding dog. Blighter is also ridiculous though.

Hate the capstone if you must, but the first level is a decent dip for many builds.

They've already been mentioned, but I second that positoxins / ravages / afflictions are up there.

[Marlowe]

I'm just going to make an honourable-mention nomination for all the sample characters they've made that would need a starting Intelligence in the mid 20s to get all the skill ranks they're listed as having at first level.

Also, any Warlock-based sample character with a Charisma higher than their Dex and Con, but especially the sample Hellfire Warlock. You'd think with someone with the gimmick of dishing out damage at cost of her own CON they'd make that stat a priority, but they've left it on 11 while boosting CHR to 22.

[Socksy]

Hennet's trousers are easily the stupidest thing done by WotC. They're even in the same book as the rules for donning armour! Let's see YOU put on or take off those trousers in one minute, game developers! :smalltongue::smallbiggrin:

[Thurbane]

Mialee the Wizard.

Elf, or anthropomorphic cricket/Roswell alien hybrid?

[Svata]

Thurbane, has a point. There is no good art of her.

[sleepyphoenixx]

For example, Mindrape, aka "this forum's solution to ALL problems."


To be fair, very few problems can't be solved with sufficient application of Mindrape. :smalltongue:


Somehow I kind of think they meant the other beastmaster companions to be based on your effective druid level instead of on your beastmaster level.


Doubtful, since it's explicitly spelled out that other levels that grant animal companion don't count for the beastmasters extra companions.
If they advanced with druid level at least the first one or two extra companions would at least be somewhat useful. As written they're all completely useless by the time you get them.

My vote for stupidest thing goes to anything that grants free metamagic. How you get from "lets give casters options to improve their spells at the cost of making them higher level" to "now lets give that to some casters for free" and don't see a possible balance problem is incomprehensible to me.

[Thurbane]

Thurbane, has a point. There is no good art of her.

The only decent art of her I've seen seems to be 3rd party fan art.

[Scots Dragon]

Mialee the Wizard.

Elf, or anthropomorphic cricket/Roswell alien hybrid?

On that note... the inexplicable transformation of Mordenkainen.

In 1998, he was that wizard on the far right, with a pretty consistent appearance as a dark or brown haired and relatively youthful looking wizard;
http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/images/0/03/Wizards_Three_07.jpg

In the third edition publications, he somehow transformed into Ming the Merciless, actually looking nearly exactly like Max von Sydow in the process.

[SinsI]

I see your Fighter and raise you a Monk
Monk have actual class features, and in a low magic setting can be quite a kick ass class. Fighter in its entirety is completely obsoleted by a 2nd level spell - and the spell is even better than the class since you can select the feats anew each time you use the spell.


I'll see your Divine Mind and raise a Soulbo... hrmm. Okay, looking through MoI, I don't see anything called the Soulborn. I must have imagined it. But if there were such a class, I'd imagine it'd probably be the worst thing. :smalltongue:
Soulborns have a legitimate ecological niche in D&D - they are the only thing that stops the world from falling down to Shadowcalypse.

Undead replication in D&D is also one of the stupidiest things WoTC released.

[Craft (Cheese)]

My vote for stupidest thing goes to anything that grants free metamagic. How you get from "lets give casters options to improve their spells at the cost of making them higher level" to "now lets give that to some casters for free" and don't see a possible balance problem is incomprehensible to me.

In theory, metamagic reduction is okay if you put enough restrictions or costs on its use.

In practice, pretty much any metamagic reducer that doesn't restrict itself to specific feats or specific spells (as in "it only works with spells/feats X, Y, and Z" not as in "it works for any one spell/feat you choose" *coughArcaneThesisPracticalMetamagiccough*), it'll just be too open-ended for abuse to be avoided.

[Snowbluff]

Well, Reynolds did do some pretty good stuff (in my opinion, at least) for D&D. I definitely agree that his MTG stuff is pretty stupid, though, as is a good chunk of the D&D art he did. Tom Baxa's work for Complete Divine is kind of dumb too; other than the Ur-Priest and Void Disciple artwork (admittedly, two of the best pieces of art in the book), all of his stuff in that supplement is kind of disturbingly bad.
Yeah, DnD's art is very hit or miss. MtG, on the other hand, has standards. It's consistently high quality, aside from some hiccups.

I think DnD's art has gotten better. I loved 4e's art, and the 5e PHB has a nice water color thing going on.



Well, Commander did exist as an unofficial game mode called "Elder Dragon Highlander" before they released the Commander sets. That still doesn't excuse the fact that Commander is an attempt to monetize something people were already doing on their own at no extra cost, but my vote for silliest MTG variant is on Mastermind. Honestly, who ever played that? The problem with the commanders they release is that they are really strong and have a shard color combination. One of the more recent problems I've been having are Roon decks. Green Blue is hard enough to work against, with some of the most ridiculous comboing and self sufficient cards (Prophet of Kruphrix, anyone), but now with an easy pick on battlefield generator... GG.

Dungeons and Dragons, Fourth Edition :smallbiggrin:

Not as bad as people say. I played a couple of games, and it's abstracted, but the character building is solid and the game is decently balanced. Still, it's not my favorite.

[1pwny]

Jedipotter's a SHE?! :smallconfused:

My reaction to Jormengand being a girl. :smallwink:

As for WotC stupidity... how about the 0-turn win combo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMUTQO-mnIg) from MTG? You win before either player begins to take their first turn.

Also, Dark Depths (http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/coldsnap/12818-dark-depths)/Vampire Hexmage (http://www.mtgsalvation.com/cards/conspiracy/22947-vampire-hexmage)?

[deuxhero]

I vote for how monks get "move fast" and abilities that only work when they are standing still.

Sure there are things that outright don't function or break the game in two, but this was the two main features of one of the most prominent classes in the game.

[Anlashok]

I vote for how monks get "move fast" and abilities that only work when they are standing still.

Sure there are things that outright don't function or break the game in two, but this was the two main features of one of the most prominent classes in the game.

I honestly think someone at Wizards forgot that Pounce wasn't baseline. Because dashing lightning-fast to someone and then going ATATATATATATATA on them is very iconic for the archetype.

[Mrc.]

On the topic of sample characters, I was told once that for the original Tomb of Horrors, the sample characters literally couldn't damage Acererak. Also, the list of things that could injure him was stupid: a Shatter spell could, but you had no way of knowing whether you actually got that spell; some magic weapons could but those depended on your character class (I think a paladin could injure him with a +3 magic weapon, but a fighter needed a +5 magic weapon or something); I believe the cleric could use an ability to stun him for one round. Basically, that whole fight was a bit insane, and even though I've only ever played it through once, I still remember it being ridiculously complicated.

In fact, quite a lot of Basic probably seems stupid now. Each character only getting experience from the things they personally killed. Different classes needing different experience to climb levels. Gold being worth 1xp per gp. I'm sure it seemed great at the time, but looking back at it there's quite a few things that don't really make much sense.

[Socksy]

My reaction to Jormengand being a girl. :smallwink:
Pssst I don't think they are female either

[Larkas]

Mialee the Wizard.

Elf, or anthropomorphic cricket/Roswell alien hybrid?

Not all of Mialee's artwork is terrible.

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/dmg35_gallery/DMG35_PG39_WEB.jpg
http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/UnA_Gallery/79157.jpg
I mean, they're still bad, but at least they aren't as... Uninspired as most. I actually think the gestalt one is pretty cool!

EDIT: Forgot about what must be the best depiction of Mialee in any book:

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/compmage_gallery/100504.jpg
There was also another spell illustration where she struck a guy with lightning while chugging down a mug of ale. Can't for the life of me remember the name of the spell, though. That was funny as hell!

EDIT2: A couple more:

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/ph2_gallery/97152.jpg
http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/ph2_gallery/97141.jpg
And for those who thought she was a good girl...

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/fc1_gallery/98470.jpg

[RenaldoS]

I honestly think someone at Wizards forgot that Pounce wasn't baseline. Because dashing lightning-fast to someone and then going ATATATATATATATA on them is very iconic for the archetype.
That would actually make a lot of sense. In 2e, everyone basically had pounce so it wouldn’t surprise me if the monk was designed based on a weird 2e-3e hybrid before things were nailed down and the idea of stand still to full attack was born.

[Svata]

Yeah, that makes sense. If only there could had been an overhaul of the rules at some point during third edition where they did a major rewrite of several of the rules where they could have fixed that. Some sort of 3.5 edition, if you will.

[squiggit]

On that note... Stand-still full attacks are actually probably really high on my list.

They're a silly strong damage multiplier that turns every combatant at level 6 (or 8 for 3/4ths BAB) into a stationary turret if they want to do any sort of appreciable damage.

And it's just stuck as the default paradigm for martial classes forever. Yeah, ToB fixes it to a large degree... but then **** like Pathfinder clings to that terrible terrible mechanic as some sort of festering, fetid, moldering sacred cow.

Full Attacks are awful. At least with stuff like the Soulborn or Divine Mind or CPsi or whatever it's one isolated thing you can quarantine from the rest of the system, but full attacks are integral to the game. Deep seated and entirely inoperable.

[Nousos]

A good contender for stupidest release would be the art for the Divine Seeker class in the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting. I just cant figure out what is going on with those legs.

[herrhauptmann]

Fighters are weak, and gate overpowered yes.

But both existed in prior editions. Imagine the outcry if they released the phb w/o a fighter or iconic spells. It'd be 14 years later, and everyone would still be whining about not getting a fighter class at start.

Yeah, fighter is weak. He gets the 3.0/3.5 versiin of his 2ed abilities, but now it's not enough because of what they did for casters.

Stupidest ever? Spell plague, tgen retconning it for 5e.

[bjoern]

Stupidest ever? Spell plague, tgen retconning it for 5e.

Yeah. That ones a doosy.

D&D isn't a TCG, we don't need a new edition every 3 months.....

[Larkas]

D&D isn't a TCG, we don't need a new edition every 3 months.....

Ehhh... 4E lasted as much as 3E, which is to say: 7 years.

[Forrestfire]

Hennet's trousers are easily the stupidest thing done by WotC. They're even in the same book as the rules for donning armour! Let's see YOU put on or take off those trousers in one minute, game developers! :smalltongue::smallbiggrin:

Hilariously, they actually justified it at some point in the DMG, if I'm remembering correctly. Something like "Hennet's player decides that his character likes collecting belts" when talking about roleplaying various quirks.

[Urpriest]

jedipotter being always wrong aside, Tome of Battle is legitimately pretty high on the stupid list. For a book intended to fix martial characters choosing to use terrible art, a silly world-spanning organization as the primary fluff, and flowery naming conventions was a choice that seems guaranteed to drive people away, almost as if they intended the book to fail.

Add ToB's poor editing and the (already mentioned) problem with the errata (seriously, it's not so bad to accidentally release an errata document that's missing vital content...but then the first player to download it points that out, and you fix it by releasing the document you originally intended to publish. Doing anything else isn't just incompetence, it's intentional malice.) and you get a book that really is pretty emphatically stupid, even if the rules fit beautifully into the T3 sweet spot.

[Elderand]

On that note... Stand-still full attacks are actually probably really high on my list.

They're a silly strong damage multiplier that turns every combatant at level 6 (or 8 for 3/4ths BAB) into a stationary turret if they want to do any sort of appreciable damage.

And it's just stuck as the default paradigm for martial classes forever. Yeah, ToB fixes it to a large degree... but then **** like Pathfinder clings to that terrible terrible mechanic as some sort of festering, fetid, moldering sacred cow.

Full Attacks are awful. At least with stuff like the Soulborn or Divine Mind or CPsi or whatever it's one isolated thing you can quarantine from the rest of the system, but full attacks are integral to the game. Deep seated and entirely inoperable.

Not forever no, 5th edition doesn't have it. So at some point, they did learn from their mistakes.

[heavyfuel]

On that note... Stand-still full attacks are actually probably really high on my list.

Full Attacks are awful. At least with stuff like the Soulborn or Divine Mind or CPsi or whatever it's one isolated thing you can quarantine from the rest of the system, but full attacks are integral to the game. Deep seated and entirely inoperable.

I'm yet to play like this, but I've heard of a houserule that basically gave everyone unlimited Travel Devotion for free. It kind of nerfs casters that already use all of their Swift Actions and gave access to move+full attack for mundanes. So it's not entirely inoperable, at least if you're willing to houserule it.



Stupidest ever? Spell plague, tgen retconning it for 5e.

What's that? I've never heard of spell plague...

[Xerlith]

What's that? I've never heard of spell plague...

You're a lucky man.

Well, basically it's a "soft reset" of sorts for a crippled (Forgotten Realms) setting. Which somehow succeeded in NOT making it better. And was just a big fat hamfisted attempt at bringing some grimdark to the setting. It didn't work.

[heavyfuel]

You're a lucky man.

Well, basically it's a "soft reset" of sorts for a crippled (Forgotten Realms) setting. Which somehow succeeded in NOT making it better. And was just a big fat hamfisted attempt at bringing some grimdark to the setting. It didn't work.

Well that explains why I've never heard of it. My setting knowledge is sub-par to say the least... I've learned about the Mournlands maybe like a month ago and I've been playing 3.e for about 10 years hahaha

[ArqArturo]

Shining Blade of Heironeous!.

[A Tad Insane]

I vote the truenaming third of tome of magic. Pact magic is amazing, and shadow magic, while falling short, can be used/fixed, but truenaming...

[Zaq]

I can't think of anything to top the ToB errata. I really, really can't. The Truenamer is less dumb than that. The Monk is less dumb than that (proficient or nonproficient with unarmed strikes). The Divine Mind is less dumb than that. How the hell do you NOT NOTICE that?! And then just say "eh, good enough"?!

I say second place might just have to go to the fluff sections of Drow of the Underdark (I admit, there's a lot of good crunch, but we're not talking about the crunch). It describes the most hilariously nonsustainable society ever, and then on the last page of the chapter, says something like "by this point you may be wondering how a society as murderous, unforgiving, and treacherous as drow society can exist at all. The short answer is, it can't. Drow society is completely unstable. The drow only continue to exist because Lolth wills it to be so." They have to spend half a page on what is basically a literal deus ex machina. They seriously have to pull in a god to fix all the problems, because it's too screwed up to actually work on its own. And then they said "yes, this is good; send it to the printers."

Can't come close to the ToB errata, but it deserves mention.

[MilesTiden]

See, the funny thing is, I actually really like Truenamers. I should note, however, that I play gestalt almost exclusively, so I might be a little biased. >_>

(Hence why I'm also fine with fighter and monk. They make fantastic carriers in a lot of cases.)

[Extra Anchovies]

jedipotter being always wrong aside, Tome of Battle is legitimately pretty high on the stupid list. For a book intended to fix martial characters choosing to use terrible art, a silly world-spanning organization as the primary fluff, and flowery naming conventions was a choice that seems guaranteed to drive people away, almost as if they intended the book to fail.

Add ToB's poor editing and the (already mentioned) problem with the errata (seriously, it's not so bad to accidentally release an errata document that's missing vital content...but then the first player to download it points that out, and you fix it by releasing the document you originally intended to publish. Doing anything else isn't just incompetence, it's intentional malice.) and you get a book that really is pretty emphatically stupid, even if the rules fit beautifully into the T3 sweet spot.

Oh, yes. Tome of Battle is a fun system, and it does its job well, but it has the worst fluff of any 3e supplement I've read. Especially the naming conventions. I really like the maneuvers/stances system, but the names... GAH

[Jeff the Green]

Oh, yes. Tome of Battle is a fun system, and it does its job well, but it has the worst fluff of any 3e supplement I've read. Especially the naming conventions. I really like the maneuvers/stances system, but the names... GAH

I'm actually okay with the names. The manga-/anime-esque naming conventions of Swordsage maneuvers are entirely appropriate, and the mundane ones that Warblade gets are actually fairly similar to the maneuvers from old fencing manuals.

I also like Iron Heart being invented by the hobgoblins; it gave me an idea of how to make them actually worth their LA.

The rest of the fluff is stupid, though. Especially the Warblade's.

[Anlashok]

My favorite stupid ToB fluff is the stuff about the ancient secret space pirate art of throwing broadswords at people.

Not sure if I love it or hate it.

[Jeff the Green]

My favorite stupid ToB fluff is the stuff about the ancient secret space pirate art of throwing broadswords at people.

Not sure if I love it or hate it.

Wait, what? Admittedly I abandoned reading the Fluff after Warblade, but I've never even heard of that.

[Pex]

4E

*ducks*

:smallbiggrin:

[Bluydee]

4E

*ducks*

:smallbiggrin:

The best part of this is how well the signature fits with the post.

My vote for worst thing is the whisper demon art, and every other thing drawn by that guy who insists that everything is looking unnaturally at you with the weirdest head turning possible

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm4_gallery/98680.jpg

just, why?

[heavyfuel]

Wait, what? Admittedly I abandoned reading the Fluff after Warblade, but I've never even heard of that.

Pretty sure it's the Bloodstorm Blade's fluff. Its knowledge is guarded by a githyanki mercenary guild of Warblades or some like that

[Extra Anchovies]

The best part of this is how well the signature fits with the post.

My vote for worst thing is the whisper demon art, and every other thing drawn by that guy who insists that everything is looking unnaturally at you with the weirdest head turning possible

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm4_gallery/98680.jpg

just, why?

WHYYY

It honestly looks like someone did an actually good drawing with it facing off to the left, but them some other terrible artist came along and drew a mis-proportioned, oversized head that he thought "was an improvement". Ouch.

[SaintRidley]

Hilariously, they actually justified it at some point in the DMG, if I'm remembering correctly. Something like "Hennet's player decides that his character likes collecting belts" when talking about roleplaying various quirks.

Suddenly I'm okay with Hennet's pants now, because that's hilarious.

[Nousos]

The best part of this is how well the signature fits with the post.

My vote for worst thing is the whisper demon art, and every other thing drawn by that guy who insists that everything is looking unnaturally at you with the weirdest head turning possible

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/mm4_gallery/98680.jpg

just, why?

Hahaha, it's like someone didnt like the head it used to have, so they pasted on a misproportioned portrait and called it a day.

[NoldorForce]

WHYYY

It honestly looks like someone did an actually good drawing with it facing off to the left, but them some other terrible artist came along and drew a mis-proportioned, oversized head that he thought "was an improvement". Ouch.Nah, that's just Wayne England being bad at drawing heads. Kinda like Wayne Reynolds being crap at drawing feet. (At least he's not Rob Liefeld.)

[Jormengand]

After reading this thread, all I'm wondering is what Hennet's pants have to do with anything, and why everyone on this forum seems to think I'm a different gender.

[Extra Anchovies]

After reading this thread, all I'm wondering is what Hennet's pants have to do with anything, and why everyone on this forum seems to think I'm a different gender.

Well, here's Hennet's pants:
http://steven-montano.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/sorcerer.jpg
It definitely looks like he's wearing one pant leg, the cape, the white thingy hanging off his waist, and about three dozen belts. Isn't it great?

[hamishspence]

Kinda like Wayne Reynolds being crap at drawing feet. (At least he's not Rob Liefeld.)

I thought he also had a tendency to draw weirdly overmuscled arms.

[Nettlekid]

Don't forget the Yuan-Ti save-or-lose-but-if-you-do-save-you-die potion/poison.

Sorry, what's that? I took a quick look through but didn't manage to find anything like that.

[Zanos]

Well, here's Hennet's pants:
http://steven-montano.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/sorcerer.jpg
It definitely looks like he's wearing one pant leg, the cape, the white thingy hanging off his waist, and about three dozen belts. Isn't it great?
His one pant leg is just covering the belts under it. His boot is also made of belts.

[Sgt. Cookie]

There was also another spell illustration where she struck a guy with lightning while chugging down a mug of ale. Can't for the life of me remember the name of the spell, though. That was funny as hell!


That's the art for the Deceptive Spell Metamagic feat. It's from Cityscape.



That aside, I kinda want to play as Hennet. Just to use that picture as justification for the number of magical belts I'm wearing.

[hamishspence]

Sorry, what's that? I took a quick look through but didn't manage to find anything like that.
That would be the potion that creates Tainted Ones or Broodguards. (Yuan-ti section of the first part of the book).

[heavyfuel]

Well, here's Hennet's pants:
http://steven-montano.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/sorcerer.jpg
It definitely looks like he's wearing one pant leg, the cape, the white thingy hanging off his waist, and about three dozen belts. Isn't it great?


After reading this thread, all I'm wondering is what Hennet's pants have to do with anything, and why everyone on this forum seems to think I'm a different gender.

Well, you can see the problem now? He's supposed to don that in one minute. Not possible unless he took the Wear Exotic Pants feat

As for why is everyone thinking you're of a different gender, your guess is as good as mine, but if it bothers you, maybe update the gender tag will help you

[Scots Dragon]

What's that? I've never heard of spell plague...

You know not what you have unleashed, but here goes;

The Spellplague was an event designed to update the Forgotten Realms from the game's third edition to the new upcoming fourth edition. And if that's all it wound up being, then we wouldn't have much of a problem worth discussing, but that really wasn't where it began or ended.

While it's kind of easy to point at the Forgotten Realms as being the single most popular and enduring campaign setting for any edition of Dungeons & Dragons, the setting itself has had a lot of detractors over the years, with reasons that largely seem to consist of 'I just don't like it'. And that's when the reasons actually tend to make sense, unfortunately. It would not be unfair to say that there are some criticisms that basically boil down to people hating the setting for introducing a bunch of broken-as-hell classes and concepts, not really paying attention to the world so much as the classes it provides without figuring out a way to make things work. This despite the fact that they're really just poorly-realised attempts to update the setting to third edition standards despite the fact that it started in AD&D 1st edition and is still largely optimised for that. I've also seen entirely nonsensical reasons like the fact that the statistics for characters like Drizzt Do'Urden and Elminster are poorly built.

So when updating the setting they listened to many of these detractors and didn't listen to many of the people who were actual fans of the setting.

The result was that the insanely large number of redundant deities, many of whom were fan-favourites, were completely removed or retroactively stated to be aspects of other deities. The elven pantheon suffered a lot from this, with pretty much everyone who wasn't Corellon Larethian or Lolth being just plain forgotten about, outright killed or transformed into an aspect of a human deity. A very sore move was the slaying of the entire drow pantheon, such as Eilistraee, and the retcon that all of the good drow were subsequently transformed into surface elves as a result of her death because their black skin was a demonic curse or some such. Mystra was also killed off, as were her supporting deities of magic, and the whole thing where magic was reliant on the Weave was just plain ignored in terms of how it actually ought to work.

And that was what the Spellplague was, by the way. It was magical 'disease' caused by the untimely death of Mystra, and the subsequent effects on magic and the setting at large were a little too far-reaching for most people.

On the more human side of things, there was a one-century time jump meaning that every single non-immortal human character in the tie-in novels would have to be discontinued. This caused friction with a lot of the fans for fairly obvious reasons. Making things worse was the fact that a lot of fan-favourite regions like Dambrath, Halruaa, the Chultan Peninsula, Mulhorand, Unther, Aglarond, and the Sword Coast North were radically altered or outright annihilated by the events. Certain new changes were then shoehorned in to introduce some kind of easily-accessible origin for the new dragonborn, genasi and tiefling core races. It's also notable that every region that had non-white people as a majority was harmed much more by the Spellplague than the whiter regions; Calimshan and Chult and Turmish were all hit a lot harder than the Western Heartlands, Cormyr or the Dalelands.

They didn't stop there. Pretty much every remaining popular character who wasn't Drizzt Do'Urden was killed off, sent insane, or radically altered in such a way as to completely change their roles in the setting. Pretty much every single one of the Seven Sisters were killed off, for instance, and Elminster was unable to use magic without going insane.

All to 'fix' a setting so that it was tailored to the interests of people who didn't like it, while needlessly pissing off everyone who did in the process.

[Jormengand]

As for why is everyone thinking you're of a different gender, your guess is as good as mine, but if it bothers you, maybe update the gender tag will help you

It might also be because I'm genderfluid, so they're all entirely justified in thinking I'm different genders because I am. :smalltongue:

It's just weird how surprised everyone gets by it.

[Sgt. Cookie]

and the retcon that all of the good drow were subsequently transformed into surface elves as a result of her death because their black skin was a demonic curse or some such.

Then how the f*** did they explain Sazarki (Albino) Drow? (Or however it's spelt).

[Scots Dragon]

Then how the f*** did they explain Sazarki (Albino) Drow? (Or however it's spelt).

Buggered if I know.

It's especially hilarious since the albino drow were first introduced in a Forgotten Realms adventure, but who cares about stuff like continuity, am I right? :smallannoyed:

[Urpriest]

It might also be because I'm genderfluid, so they're all entirely justified in thinking I'm different genders because I am. :smalltongue:

It's just weird how surprised everyone gets by it.

If I may ask, what are your preferred pronouns?

[sleepyphoenixx]

They may as well have created an entirely new setting when they invented the Spellplague. As far as i'm concerned (and probably most other people who actually liked FR) the events of 4e onwards happened in a parallel universe or something like that.

[Jormengand]

If I may ask, what are your preferred pronouns?

*Prefers they, unless she refers to herself as something else in which case you should call her that for a while.*

[Sgt. Cookie]

While we're on the subject, Albino Drow.

In concept, they're perfectly fine. Drow that can pass for surface Elves. Great! I get my Drow fix but won't be instantly lynched for trying to do anything.

The stupid part is, Albino Drow are 100% mechanically identical to normal Drow. Would it have killed WoTC to give them a bonus to Disguise to pass as a surface Elf. Seriously, just a little note that says "Sazarki Drow get a +2 bonus to Disguise to pass as a Surface Elf" would give SOME mechanical nod to the fact that Sazarki Drow are different.

[Jeff the Green]

I'd say Hennet's pants fall under Rule of Cool.

Except, y'know, they're not cool.

[SVamp]

They may as well have created an entirely new setting when they invented the Spellplague. As far as i'm concerned (and probably most other people who actually liked FR) the events of 4e onwards happened in a parallel universe or something like that.

I keep hoping that the entire 4e happened in an alternate universe, and this is just a dream, but alas... :smalltongue:

[Epinephrine_Syn]

I've got a few to state, so I'll just list each in spoilers below. Take your pick.

That they made Mindrape a Good aligned spell in the BoED (and called it 'Sanctify the Wicked')

CR: 9
http://img.neoseeker.com/mgv/467547/547/36/clockwork_horror_display.jpg


Dragon Magazines, just the whole thing, I can't pick a single portion.

[Psyren]

Divine Mind is the only thing I think had no right to exist at all. Both concept (a psionic class that can fall) and execution (a 3/4 BAB psionic paladin with weak powers and saves) were horrible.

Everything else - even Incantatrix, gods help me - had at least a cool concept behind it if nothing else.

[Zanos]

Dragon Magazines, just the whole thing, I can't pick a single portion.
In my experience Dragon Magazine has about the same ratio of quality material as most splatbooks.

[Extra Anchovies]

CR: 9
http://img.neoseeker.com/mgv/467547/547/36/clockwork_horror_display.jpg

Oh god, yes, the Adamantine Horror. CR 9 construct, 16 HD. Spell-like abilities: at will — disintegrate, implosion, Mordenkainen's Disjunction. Caster level 14th, save DC 15+spell level (DC 21, 24, and 24, respectively).

Yes. The f**ker has at-will Disjunction. And at-will 28d6 disintegrate. And at-will save-or-die with a range of 60 feet and no attack roll. Two of those are ninth-level spells. This is a ninth-level monster. I feel like they may have forgotten a "1" in front of that 9.

[heavyfuel]

*snip*

That's a really good explanation. Makes sense that people were angry with WotC after something like that was done to a setting they really liked. Thanks mate!



CR: 9
http://img.neoseeker.com/mgv/467547/547/36/clockwork_horror_display.jpg


If we want to talk CR, should I mention That Damned Crab now, or do we save the discussion for later?

[heavyfuel]

In my experience Dragon Magazine has about the same ratio of quality material as most splatbooks.

Have to agree. There's a lot of really nice things in DM. Mystic Ranger seems like a favorite, but thinks like Knowstones, Fighter Variants from 310, a bunch of PrCs, among other things make Dragon Magazines a decent source. I just advocate more DM purview when dealing with it, but it's otherwise fine.

[Psyren]

What I dislike about WotC isn't the material they released, it's the lack of regard for it once published. If we were lucky, we got a single errata document and maybe an update if it was 3.0. If we were unlucky, we got nothing at all, and if we were really unlucky, we got what they did to ToB which somehow feels even worse.

This goes for Dragon material too.

[heavyfuel]

What I dislike about WotC isn't the material they released, it's the lack of regard for it once published. If we were lucky, we got a single errata document and maybe an update if it was 3.0. If we were unlucky, we got nothing at all, and if we were really unlucky, we got what they did to ToB which somehow feels even worse.

This goes for Dragon material too.

I have very limited experience with Pathfinder, but from what I've seen it's pretty much the opposite deal for Paizo. Really makes you wonder the current state of the game and especially of the Dysfunctional Rules thread if WotC would release an official document to fix stupid rules.

[Arbane]

Soulborns have a legitimate ecological niche in D&D - they are the only thing that stops the world from falling down to Shadowcalypse.

Undead replication in D&D is also one of the stupidiest things WoTC released.

Yeah, any monster feature that requires elaborate rationalization why the game-world hasn't ALREADY been destroyed is probably a bad feature.

[Psyren]

I have very limited experience with Pathfinder, but from what I've seen it's pretty much the opposite deal for Paizo. Really makes you wonder the current state of the game and especially of the Dysfunctional Rules thread if WotC would release an official document to fix stupid rules.

It is, and it is one of the main reasons I switched. Many have issues with the way they fix problems, and I agree it's not perfect, but at least they try.

EDIT: Undead replication I have zero problems with. D&D settings are among the best-equipped to deal with that sort of problem. You would pretty much never have a Walking Dead or other undead apocalypse scenario in, say, Faerun or Eberron or Golarion.

[Flickerdart]

You would pretty much never have a Walking Dead or other undead apocalypse scenario in, say, Faerun or Eberron or Golarion.
Or anywhere else, for that matter - there's a reason we never see these things start except as nobodies with zero perspective, and it's because everyone in the world has to be an idiot in order for zombies to make any headway.

[Larkas]

That's the art for the Deceptive Spell Metamagic feat. It's from Cityscape.

Ah, indeed! Thanks!

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/Cityscape_Gallery/101097.jpg

[Thetad]

This might not be the stupidest, but there was that one time Wizards bought out Heroscape and shoehorned their minis into it. Not many people played Heroscape before that, but I don't think anybody did after.

While I'm on the subject, the exclusive sale of random packs of minis should be on this list as well.

[Eldest]

She has indicated as such in the past, yes, saying something along the lines of, "Who said I was a man," when referred to as such. I suppose she could be a hermaphrodite, or genderless, or male and oddly coy about it, but in the meantime I'm just going with female pronouns.

Nitpick, humans cannot be hermaphrodites, the word for the idea you're looking for is intersex.

I am seconding the BoED/BoVD morality ideas. They're laughable.

[heavyfuel]

Or anywhere else, for that matter - there's a reason we never see these things start except as nobodies with zero perspective, and it's because everyone in the world has to be an idiot in order for zombies to make any headway.

I remember this article I read once, on Cracked I think, that had a line that was basically "when was the last time a dog got rabies, and suddenly all dogs had it?". Unless we're talking incorporeal undead, there's just no way something like happens even in the real world

[aleucard]

For me, it's an even split between 2 things. First would probably be the way they done 4e. The fluff may or may not be completely @#$^ed in the head, I mostly play homebrew settings or otherwise 'Unnamedlandia' style places that just feature certain things from various settings and fluff is mutable as we all know. What I can NOT forget, however, is 1) how samey all the classes feel (would've been better off to just write a few classes and allow the current selection of abilities/mods/etc. to them), and 2) how almost every single bit of crunch feels like they were trying to make a turn-based MMO, and balanced for such a thing. Almost all feel of uniqueness and personal creativity is gone. I play pen-n-paper games like this because we are NOT limited to just what the designers intended, and this edition felt like it was trying to give that thought concrete shoes.

Second would probably be the design philosophy that has sprouted the Linear Fighter Quadratic Wizard problem. Just because a class isn't doing its thing by spouting gibberish, waving their hands like a loon, and/or 'consuming' various odd substances doesn't mean that they deserve to be rendered completely redundant in experienced or even some inexperienced but lucky-mid-CC play. Entire archetypes can be rendered completely redundant for less than 10k gp in scrolls and spellbook-transcribing costs; some Casters don't even need that much. Multiple methods of fixing this exist, with my favorite being the creation of martial classes with the thought 'Everyone uses magic, some just don't do so knowingly or actively', but why in the Hell did they think that balancing the classes like this was a good idea?

[Arbane]

This might not be the stupidest, but there was that one time Wizards bought out Heroscape and shoehorned their minis into it. Not many people played Heroscape before that, but I don't think anybody did after.

Hey, Heroscape's a fun game.

[Sir Chuckles]

Hey, Heroscape's a fun game.

I actually have have my almost entirely complete first edition set, with shiny water tiles and everything.

[Thetad]

Hey, Heroscape's a fun game.

I know it was, I played it all the time. Loved it. I just wasn't a fan of how it sold out.

Oh, and before I forget, did Wizards have a say in the movies? Because if so, that's by far the worst thing they did.

[atemu1234]

Didn't it say somewhere that, since illithids are from the future, creatures with Illithid Heritage are actually the ancestors of illithids?

Elsewhere it was supposedly experimentation done by Illithids in the past. It's weird, really.

[Zaq]

For me, it's an even split between 2 things. First would probably be the way they done 4e. The fluff may or may not be completely @#$^ed in the head, I mostly play homebrew settings or otherwise 'Unnamedlandia' style places that just feature certain things from various settings and fluff is mutable as we all know. What I can NOT forget, however, is 1) how samey all the classes feel (would've been better off to just write a few classes and allow the current selection of abilities/mods/etc. to them), and 2) how almost every single bit of crunch feels like they were trying to make a turn-based MMO, and balanced for such a thing. Almost all feel of uniqueness and personal creativity is gone. I play pen-n-paper games like this because we are NOT limited to just what the designers intended, and this edition felt like it was trying to give that thought concrete shoes.

I find that the feeling of "samey-ness" goes away after you actually play the game for a while. When I started 4e, I had much the same feeling, but after actually playing it for a while, I found that the classes really do feel distinct from one another. The nuance is very different from 3.5, but it's most definitely there. (This is especially true among leaders and among defenders, though it's not limited to them. They all do their jobs in different ways.)

[Snowbluff]

In my experience Dragon Magazine has about the same ratio of quality material as most splatbooks.

3 things:
1) No, it's worse.

2) If you allow DMag, you allow a larger amount of crap than any other supplement. It's too large to work with on a case by case basis.

3) It's harder to access.

For these reasons, my tables generally only allow the compendium.

[atemu1234]

3 things:
1) No, it's worse.

2) If you allow DMag, you allow a larger amount of crap than any other supplement. It's too large to work with on a case by case basis.

3) It's harder to access.

For these reasons, my tables generally only allow the compendium.

I fully understand and accept this. My group's rules are as follows:


All 3.5 content is allowed, unless I specifically ban content from it due to unbalanced content.
Dragon Magazine, though technically 3.5, is allowed on a case by case basis only, as are things from third party books/articles, homebrew and other. Assume they are banned but show them to me and ask.
If I ban something or retroactively ban something, I will give a reason why, and will never ban an entire book, just content I deem unbalanced (for example, I will ban an unbalanced spell but not an entire book).


These rules have served me well and given me a lot of extra required reading, but I can't say I regret it.

[aleucard]

I find that the feeling of "samey-ness" goes away after you actually play the game for a while. When I started 4e, I had much the same feeling, but after actually playing it for a while, I found that the classes really do feel distinct from one another. The nuance is very different from 3.5, but it's most definitely there. (This is especially true among leaders and among defenders, though it's not limited to them. They all do their jobs in different ways.)

I was mainly thinking about how, within the general archetypes, it's very easy to file off the serial numbers for any class and make all but the people who've memorized all the abilities and exactly what they do have one HELL of a time figuring out which is which, or if one ability is actually another class' with different fluff if you slip that sort of thing in. It'd be better if they just made the archetypes generic classes with all these abilities as different things they can learn, thus letting players mix-n-match if they want, thus making it so that a class can't be defined exclusively by the class name.

Is it possible that this specific problem has been fixed with added splatbooks? Yes, but that has a similar problem to people trying to proclaim the Warblade as the official Fighter Fix.

[Snowbluff]

You have no idea how deep the hybrid-multiclass hole goes, do you?:smalltongue:

It's pretty easy to break the mold if you're interested in doing so. 4e has some great support, too. I have a build
I build that's a semi-rebreather striker-tank hybrid (sorc paladin) that ended up a controller thanks to the dragonborn feat support and a path that added the cold type and a slow to my breath.

[Fax Celestis]

I was mainly thinking about how, within the general archetypes, it's very easy to file off the serial numbers for any class and make all but the people who've memorized all the abilities and exactly what they do have one HELL of a time figuring out which is which, or if one ability is actually another class' with different fluff if you slip that sort of thing in. It'd be better if they just made the archetypes generic classes with all these abilities as different things they can learn, thus letting players mix-n-match if they want, thus making it so that a class can't be defined exclusively by the class name.

Is it possible that this specific problem has been fixed with added splatbooks? Yes, but that has a similar problem to people trying to proclaim the Warblade as the official Fighter Fix.

Agreed. I always felt the generic classes concept in Unearthed Arcana was better suited for 4e than any incarnation of 3e.

[Urpriest]

I was mainly thinking about how, within the general archetypes, it's very easy to file off the serial numbers for any class and make all but the people who've memorized all the abilities and exactly what they do have one HELL of a time figuring out which is which, or if one ability is actually another class' with different fluff if you slip that sort of thing in. It'd be better if they just made the archetypes generic classes with all these abilities as different things they can learn, thus letting players mix-n-match if they want, thus making it so that a class can't be defined exclusively by the class name.

Is it possible that this specific problem has been fixed with added splatbooks? Yes, but that has a similar problem to people trying to proclaim the Warblade as the official Fighter Fix.

That's really just an effect of approaching it from a 3.5 perspective. You expect the power list to be the most unique part of a class, but in general it's the class features and class-specific feats that give classes their unique flavor.

[gooddragon1]

I remember this article I read once, on Cracked I think, that had a line that was basically "when was the last time a dog got rabies, and suddenly all dogs had it?". Unless we're talking incorporeal undead, there's just no way something like happens even in the real world

Hey, remember that time when that dog got rabies, and then a day later, every single other dog on the continent had it, except for a small band of survivors huddled in a basement? No? That never happened? (http://www.cracked.com/article_18683_7-scientific-reasons-zombie-outbreak-would-fail-quickly_p4.html)

It was just that important.

[Arbane]

Hey, remember that time when that dog got rabies, and then a day later, every single other dog on the continent had it, except for a small band of survivors huddled in a basement? No? That never happened? (http://www.cracked.com/article_18683_7-scientific-reasons-zombie-outbreak-would-fail-quickly_p4.html)

It was just that important.


It doesn't help that both shadows and wights are intelligent and are described as pathologically hating the living.

[Jeff the Green]

It doesn't help that both shadows and wights are intelligent and are described as pathologically hating the living.

Also that shadows don't eventually die of the disease they spread and you can't hide from a shadow or get an object between you and it. Plus we have a vaccine for rabies. Last I checked, we don't have a vaccine against supernatural predators who walk through walls.

[MirddinEmris]

Also that shadows don't eventually die of the disease they spread and you can't hide from a shadow or get an object between you and it. Plus we have a vaccine for rabies. Last I checked, we don't have a vaccine against supernatural predators who walk through walls.

Actually, you can do that


An incorporeal creature can enter or pass through solid objects, but must remain adjacent to the object’s exterior, and so cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own. It can sense the presence of creatures or objects within a square adjacent to its current location, but enemies have total concealment (50% miss chance) from an incorporeal creature that is inside an object. In order to see farther from the object it is in and attack normally, the incorporeal creature must emerge. An incorporeal creature inside an object has total cover, but when it attacks a creature outside the object it only has cover, so a creature outside with a readied action could strike at it as it attacks. An incorporeal creature cannot pass through a force effect.

Also, many other undead who can initiate apocalypse don't react well to sunlight. And while shadows are intelligent, they are probably not very smart (Int 6 for usual and great shadows both), so no really complicated plans on their part. And they can be destroyed very easily en-masse if you know how and hae means to do it, which probably explains why the world is not dominated by them (though there can be occasional outbreak here and there)

[Jeff the Green]

Actually, you can do that

Okay, let me amend that: you can't put an object less than 15' wide between you and a shadow. That's not a trivial limitation. Also, I've literally never heard of a place with doors that thick. Sure, you might be able to limit where they can come at you (say, an oubliette), but you can't keep them out.

And while, yes, they're not very smart, they're as smart or smarter than 10% of humans and 25% of half-orcs. This isn't low enough to be considered intellectually disabled and it's certainly enough to come up with basic tactics.

(Also, I was talking mostly about why that Cracked article is entirely irrelevant to the discussion of non-mindless incorporeal undead with spawn.)

[MirddinEmris]

Okay, let me amend that: you can't put an object less than 15' wide between you and a shadow. That's not a trivial limitation. Also, I've literally never heard of a place with doors that thick. Sure, you might be able to limit where they can come at you (say, an oubliette), but you can't keep them out.

And while, yes, they're not very smart, they're as smart or smarter than 10% of humans and 25% of half-orcs. This isn't low enough to be considered intellectually disabled and it's certainly enough to come up with basic tactics.

(Also, I was talking mostly about why that Cracked article is entirely irrelevant to the discussion of non-mindless incorporeal undead with spawn.)

10 ft in enough, since they are of medium size (actually, 6ft is enough).

Actually i can argue about 6 Int being borderline on intellectually disabled, but that doesn't really matter, since "basic tactics" is certainly not good enough for apocalypse. Ok, you can destroy one hamlet or even a (very) small city without a lot of casters who can send messages to other city or even just deal with it themself, but after that things like logistics for transportation of your small army of shadows and such pop up. It's going to be noticed and dealt with

[Phelix-Mu]

What I dislike about WotC isn't the material they released, it's the lack of regard for it once published. If we were lucky, we got a single errata document and maybe an update if it was 3.0. If we were unlucky, we got nothing at all, and if we were really unlucky, we got what they did to ToB which somehow feels even worse.

This goes for Dragon material too.

This. This bothers me to no end.

I care about this game deeply, much more than I should. It sucks up my time and money, which I don't mind, because I reap joy in decent amounts (and a certain manic rage of nerd-dom).

But, if I were actually making money off the game, like a certain company did for some years, I would sure as hell try to care a fraction as much as the consumers (or at least convey that impression). Their disregard for the quality of their product once it hit the presses was sad/rage-inducing, especially as it was worse than that before it hit the presses, which was not of the highest possible standard in the first place.

[Jeff the Green]

10 ft in enough, since they are of medium size (actually, 6ft is enough).

No it's not. As soon as they move from the square of one side to the square of the other they're adjacent to a new side.


Actually i can argue about 6 Int being borderline on intellectually disabled, but that doesn't really matter, since "basic tactics" is certainly not good enough for apocalypse. Ok, you can destroy one hamlet or even a (very) small city without a lot of casters who can send messages to other city or even just deal with it themself, but after that things like logistics for transportation of your small army of shadows and such pop up. It's going to be noticed and dealt with

Again, I was not talking about most D&D settings. I was saying that an article based on the real world is irrelevant to the discussion and if you want to use it as evidence then there's just as much evidence that we'd be boned by shadows and wraiths as that we would be fine against zombies.

[MirddinEmris]

No it's not. As soon as they move from the square of one side to the square of the other they're adjacent to a new side.


...cannot pass entirely through an object whose space is larger than its own

The RAW is quite clear on that, i think. I know what you mean though, about "adjacency" phrase, but i think that it just wasn't right choice of words and they mean that it must remain near surface all the time.

[DMVerdandi]

Anti-magic field.

Nope. Talk about the worst fun killer in the world. Abjuration spells are fine, and even things like greater dispel are good, but anti-magic field is just flat out disruptive, grossly overpowered and I don't want it. There are better of going about it.

Mind-blank as well. Get SR somehow, otherwise this full on immunity without any way to overcome it just stinks to high hell. Especially Items of those two.

[Jeff the Green]

Possibly, but it is inherently contradictory. And in any case a 10' square object can be traversed without ever trying to pass directly through unless you're going to argue that it's easier to walk along a wall 5' inside than it is to pass through a 10' bolder 5' inside one side.

Quite frankly, whoever wrote this rule didn't bother looking at a grid.

[eggynack]

Anti-magic field.

Nope. Talk about the worst fun killer in the world. Abjuration spells are fine, and even things like greater dispel are good, but anti-magic field is just flat out disruptive, grossly overpowered and I don't want it. There are better of going about it.
I disagree on the idea that AMF is overpowered. It's a spell that's way too short in range, a bit too short in duration, and all in all, far more likely to shut off your own stuff than it is to shut off the stuff of your opponents. However, I agree that it's silly as all hell. It's just one of those spells where I have no idea what it does. It feels like they just wanted your basic field that's antimagic, and then they put a ridiculous amount of rules down, and now it makes no sense. Like, can you cast a spell while in an antimagic field? It seems obvious that you wouldn't be able to, but it's oddly unclear. It's kinda like the opposite of IHS in a sense. Where IHS failed to define its terms sufficiently, AMF just threw out too much stuff.

[Thurbane]

On that note... the inexplicable transformation of Mordenkainen.

In 1998, he was that wizard on the far right, with a pretty consistent appearance as a dark or brown haired and relatively youthful looking wizard;
http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/images/0/03/Wizards_Three_07.jpg

In the third edition publications, he somehow transformed into Ming the Merciless, actually looking nearly exactly like Max von Sydow in the process.

I have no idea what you mean :smalltongue:

http://i62.tinypic.com/23wv0nm.jpg


Not all of Mialee's artwork is terrible.

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/dmg35_gallery/DMG35_PG39_WEB.jpg
http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/UnA_Gallery/79157.jpg
I mean, they're still bad, but at least they aren't as... Uninspired as most. I actually think the gestalt one is pretty cool!

EDIT: Forgot about what must be the best depiction of Mialee in any book:

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/compmage_gallery/100504.jpg
There was also another spell illustration where she struck a guy with lightning while chugging down a mug of ale. Can't for the life of me remember the name of the spell, though. That was funny as hell!

EDIT2: A couple more:

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/ph2_gallery/97152.jpg
http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/ph2_gallery/97141.jpg
And for those who thought she was a good girl...

http://archive.wizards.com/dnd/images/fc1_gallery/98470.jpg

Mialee the Mercenary looks OK, the rest are still kinda cruddy IMHO, but each to their own.

[Erik Vale]

Oh, adding another vote, statting the gods. [Dieties and Demigods]

[HammeredWharf]

The Barber prestige class. Because Profession (Barber) just isn't enough and there should be a PRC for everything.

[Thurbane]

The Barber prestige class. Because Profession (Barber) just isn't enough and there should be a PRC for everything.

Seriously? What book is this in?

[HammeredWharf]

Seriously? What book is this in?

Fortunately, it's from Dragon, issue 321. It's not the worst skillmonkey class I've seen, but the concept is so ridiculous I can't get over it.

[heavyfuel]

Anti-magic field.

Nope. Talk about the worst fun killer in the world. Abjuration spells are fine, and even things like greater dispel are good, but anti-magic field is just flat out disruptive, grossly overpowered and I don't want it. There are better of going about it.

Mind-blank as well. Get SR somehow, otherwise this full on immunity without any way to overcome it just stinks to high hell. Especially Items of those two.

Nah... AMF is fine until you have the Twice Betrayer and his Twinned Widen Selective AMF. My only beef with AMF is how some spells ignore it completely, namely, Instantaneous Conjurations and Wall of Force

Also, does an item of AMF work inside an AMF?

[Craft (Cheese)]

Nah... AMF is fine until you have the Twice Betrayer and his Twinned Widen Selective AMF. My only beef with AMF is how some spells ignore it completely, namely, Instantaneous Conjurations and Wall of Force

He's referring, I believe, to the "hahaha everything your character can do is worthless now" aspect of the spell. I can agree with the sentiment to an extent, but without such wide-reaching blanket immunities, anything other than the lowest of optimization levels would be really boring to play. A well-designed game, I think, could do without them though.

[hamishspence]

Fortunately, it's from Dragon, issue 321. It's not the worst skillmonkey class I've seen, but the concept is so ridiculous I can't get over it.

I think the idea was that it was a spy/assassin guild with all the members having the same "day job" or cover identity - barber.

[HammeredWharf]

I think the idea was that it was a spy/assassin guild with all the members having the same "day job" or cover identity - barber.

No, it's not a guild. I just reread the fluff and it's basically "barbers are really cool in Al-Quadim". Making it a guild or simply allowing you to use your Profession skill to create a cover identity would make more sense.

[heavyfuel]

He's referring, I believe, to the "hahaha everything your character can do is worthless now" aspect of the spell. I can agree with the sentiment to an extent, but without such wide-reaching blanket immunities, anything other than the lowest of optimization levels would be really boring to play. A well-designed game, I think, could do without them though.

Well, to be fair, most characters that would be void of utility in an AMF shouldn't be caught in one. And to say they're worthless is a stretch, as I've mentioned spells that ignore AMF completely or that disregard it (eg. Hasting your group's archer)

[Xuldarinar]

Stupidest thing WotC released? In my opinion, 4th edition. Not on just the format and content of the iteration of D&D, but everything that revolved around it.

[Urpriest]

Fortunately, it's from Dragon, issue 321. It's not the worst skillmonkey class I've seen, but the concept is so ridiculous I can't get over it.

The thing is, historically barbers were the guys who could do anything, including surgery. If you've ever seen Barber of Seville, the guy sings a song "largo al factotum", which translates to "make way for the guy who does everything."

Basically, barbers were the original factotums. And now you know why they like using quickrazors so much!

[Dusk Eclipse]

I prefer "The Medic" by Noah Gordon to show why barbers are the quintessential factotums, but I agree with you.

[ArqArturo]

The thing is, historically barbers were the guys who could do anything, including surgery. If you've ever seen Barber of Seville, the guy sings a song "largo al factotum", which translates to "make way for the guy who does everything."

Basically, barbers were the original factotums. And now you know why they like using quickrazors so much!

Heck, it says Factotum :p. Also, I love the Barber, one of the few operas I can listen while working.

So, Bard/Barber would be that, and Barbarian/Barber would scare the nine hells out of the clientele.

[Fax Celestis]

Heck, it says Factotum :p. Also, I love the Barber, one of the few operas I can listen while working.

So, Bard/Barber would be that, and Barbarian/Barber would scare the nine hells out of the clientele.

And a bard/barb/barber is named Sweeney Todd.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Only if he has Inspire Awe instead of Courage.

[Forrestfire]

And probably Doomspeak, as well.

[atemu1234]

And a bard/barb/barber is named Sweeney Todd.

I now want to stat Sweeney.

[Fax Celestis]

I now want to stat Sweeney.

Well it almost has to have Avenging Executioner levels, as well as the Eviscerator and Gruesome Finish feat chains.

[grarrrg]

As for WotC stupidity... how about the 0-turn win combo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMUTQO-mnIg) from MTG? You win before either player begins to take their first turn.

In their defense, this does involve cards from multiple sets spread out over what, 15 years or so?
When there are tens of thousands of moving parts stuff like this is bound to happen.

Also in their defense, they are pretty quick to ban/restrict things when they become a problem.

The "Arcbound Ravager" mishap though is a different story...

[Aliek]

And a bard/barb/barber is named Sweeney Todd.

How about a Bard/Barbarian/Barber named Barbara who owns a bar well known for its beer?

[heavyfuel]

Can we get more than one vote? If so, I'd like to add "Arcane Swordsage" to the list. If the other thread has shown us anything is that all things wrong with ToB aside, the ASS is a terrible terrible suggestion

[animewatcha]

How about a Bard/Barbarian/Barber named Barbara who owns a bar well known for its beer?

Why not twins instead? One named barber and the other named barbar. Together they are the brothers barberian.

[nyjastul69]

For me it's not what they released, but what stopped releasing, Dragon and Dungeon magazines. I was crushed when they turned them into e-zines. I'm still bitter about that.

[Extra Anchovies]

Why not twins instead? One named barber and the other named barbar. Together they are the brothers barberian.

Or make the character a Loxo, and name him Babar! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babar_the_Elephant)

[Jeff the Green]

Why not twins instead? One named barber and the other named barbar. Together they are the brothers barberian.

And they only speak barbarian tongues, which naturally consists of saying "bar bar bar" over and over again.

[ArqArturo]

And they only speak barbarian tongues, which naturally consists of saying "bar bar bar" over and over again.

May I sig this?.

[Jeff the Green]

May I sig this?.

Sure.

Actually, that's where we get the word barbarian from. The Greeks apparently couldn't be bothered to learn the languages of uncivilized people (i.e. people who aren't Greek) and thought they just said "bar bar bar" over and over.

[Elderand]

Sure.

Actually, that's where we get the word barbarian from. The Greeks apparently couldn't be bothered to learn the languages of uncivilized people (i.e. people who aren't Greek) and thought they just said "bar bar bar" over and over.

Which, funnily enough, means almost everyone is a barbarian today. very few people speak ancient greek fluently.

[nedz]

And they only speak barbarian tongues, which naturally consists of saying "bar bar bar" over and over again.

And they live on the beach too.

[atemu1234]

IMHO, I dislike 4e.

[Urpriest]

IMHO, I dislike 4e.

Really? Because in my opinion, you love it. :smalltongue:

[ArqArturo]

Sure.

Actually, that's where we get the word barbarian from. The Greeks apparently couldn't be bothered to learn the languages of uncivilized people (i.e. people who aren't Greek) and thought they just said "bar bar bar" over and over.

And how did their diplomatic (if anything, considering Ancient History) relations with Egypt went down? Considering the Ptolemaic Dynasty.

[nedz]

And how did their diplomatic (if anything, considering Ancient History) relations with Egypt went down? Considering the Ptolemaic Dynasty.

All the Egyptians who mattered spoke Greek too. :smallwink:

[Jeff the Green]

All the Egyptians who mattered spoke Greek too. :smallwink:

In fact, the Ptolemies were Greek. (Well, Macedonian, but that was the only game in town.)

[atemu1234]

Really? Because in my opinion, you love it. :smalltongue:

In my opinion of your opinion you don't think I love it :smallbiggrin:.

[Marlowe]

And how did their diplomatic (if anything, considering Ancient History) relations with Egypt went down? Considering the Ptolemaic Dynasty.

I've heard it said that Egyptians were the only non-greeks the Greeks did NOT call barbarians. Although diplomatically it makes little difference given that for the entire Greek classical period Egypt was either a satrapy of the Persian Empire (pre-Alexander) or a Hellenistic state.

And my opinion is that everyone dislikes my opinion. I'm not sure I'm so hot on it myself.

[rollforeigninit]

I gotta concur with 4th as the stupidest thing they did. Mostly because it was a blatant power grab to get away from the OGL. Off topic BUT tangentially related: the OGL was the smartest thing they ever wrote.
The stupidest thing therefore being that they decided to kill off something because it actually had potential because they opened it up and let others grow the game. That is why 3rd edition never has died and that's why 4th didn't have the same following. It wasn't about balance or reinventing the game. It was about money and control.

[animewatcha]

And they only speak barbarian tongues, which naturally consists of saying "bar bar bar" over and over again.

With a couple of changes.. Their theme song??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdsxcA1-KnE&feature=player_detailpage#t=382

[Extra Anchovies]

I gotta concur with 4th as the stupidest thing they did. Mostly because it was a blatant power grab to get away from the OGL. Off topic BUT tangentially related: the OGL was the smartest thing they ever wrote.
The stupidest thing therefore being that they decided to kill off something because it actually had potential because they opened it up and let others grow the game. That is why 3rd edition never has died and that's why 4th didn't have the same following. It wasn't about balance or reinventing the game. It was about money and control.

ETA: NOPE. I'm just bad at knowing things and/or checking facts :smallredface:
Well, when Paizo (basically, at least at first) carbon-copies 3.5 and starts selling it, Wizards is gonna stop giving them free stuff to sell. I do appreciate the OGL; Mongoose did some great stuff using it (namely, the Conan the Barbarian RPG), and it let third-party books give actual statistics for the monsters they include, but I'm mad at Pathfinder for proving to Wizards that if you give something away for free, eventually someone will start taking it from you and selling it.

Granted, Pathfinder has now branched off enough that it's a different system. But the 1st edition Pathfinder core book is basically the entire d20 srd printed out and accompanied by silly artwork.

[bekeleven]

Pathfinder was announced seven months after 4th ed D&D was announced and released 20 months after 4th ed was released.

[Extra Anchovies]

Pathfinder was announced seven months after 4th ed D&D was announced and released 20 months after 4th ed was released.

It was? I swear I remember seeing it around before then... or maybe I was just really slow to notice when 4e came out. I believe this is what we refer to as having egg on one's face :smallredface:

ETA: thanks for catching me on this one. I need to be a bit less hasty I suppose.

[bekeleven]

According to wikipedia, 4th ed was announced August '07 and released December of that year. Paizo, reeling from losing their Dragon Mag license, announced pathfinder in March '08, playtested it for a while, and released it officially in August '09.