Most Useless Ink?

[unseenmage]

So. Comparing what was officially printed to what a character can actually use; what game mechanic has wasted the most ink?

Our IRL group thinks its feats. You have VERY few feats for even a whole party of adventurers and yet they've printed thousands.

Second worst offender has to be items. WBL and carrying capacity compared to the sheer volume of printed items is staggering.

Which game mechanic do you feel has the most printednoptiona compared to how many a character, or even a whole party, could actually make use of?

[Ajustusdaniel]

So. Comparing whatbwas officially printed to what a character can actually use what game mechanic has wasted the most ink?

Our IRL group thinks its feats. You have VERY few feats for even a whole party of adventurers and yet they've printed thousands.

Second worst offender has to be items. WBL and carrying capacity compared to hlthe sheer volume of printed items is staggering.

Which game mechanic do you feel has the most printednoptiona compared to how many a character, or even a whole party, could actually make use of?

I fundamentally disagree with the premise that if a party cannot take all options, then some of those options are necessarily wasted. A different party may take them. If there were exactly enough feats for a player to use, character building would be a lot less interesting.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The rules for multiclassing XP penalties. Almost nobody at all uses them.

[Asmotherion]

The fighter class entry :smallamused:

Jokes aside, I'm kinda sold on the idea that the Paladin as a class is useless, as almost everything they do can be done better by a Cleric, whithout spending countless hours of precious game time to argue wheter killing a thief should make you loose all your class features or not. Especially considering they made 4 different Variant Classes for different alignment, while all that was needed was "You do the same things as a core Paladin, but it's evil/chaotic etc.

Also, a lot of Prestige Classes that ask for crazy entry pre-reqs and end up providing 0 benefit, potentially hurt your abilities, and are overall just an overglorified bragging right of calling yourself a "Dragon Disciple" or a "Risen Martyr".

Same goes for Truenamers and their own PrCs.

Also, Feat Taxes; Usually virtually useless feats you have to take in order to get that one, awesome feat when you hit Endgame Level. If they were not requirements, nobody would take them, and that's one of the things I find most annoying in 3.5

[Thurbane]

In addition to what's been listed: spells.

The spell bloat in 3.X is staggering. Especially when you consider that only about 10-20% of published spells will ever see gameplay. And so many spells are double ups of existing spells, just with slight cosmetic changes.

Don't get me wrong: it's nice to have a lot of spells to chose from, but the bloat is real.

[AvatarVecna]

In addition to what's been listed: spells.

The spell bloat in 3.X is staggering. Especially when you consider that only about 10-20% of published spells will ever see gameplay. And so many spells are double ups of existing spells, just with slight cosmetic changes.

Don't get me wrong: it's nice to have a lot of spells to chose from, but the bloat is real.

I'm going to second this. Even without getting into how so many spells could be rolled into one if the 5e model of "cast this at a higher level to make it a better spell" was in play in 3.5 (see "Plane Shift" and "Greater Plane Shift"), or how many spells exist because the writers don't want to write extra uses into existent spells just because some people came up with (see "Scrying" and "Scry Location"), there's just sooooooo many spells that got reprinted over and over because the designers couldn't properly balance things in the first place.

I will say, though, that feats waste an awful lot of ink. Even if you don't personally share my opinion that the vast majority of feats are trash not worth taking even on the builds they're designed for, there's a lot of feats that should be either upgrades to existing feats, or new skill capabilities. You can have 1000 ranks in climb and jump and tumble, but you can't swing on vines like Tarzan unless you have the Brachiation feat, which allows you to do that specific thing and only that specific thing. If you don't have the feat, you're stuck jumping and climbing normally through the vine-filled foliage. Complete Adventurer and Complete Scoundrel are the most problematic here, but there's still plenty of other feats that shouldn't exist too.

[unseenmage]

I'm going to second this. Even without getting into how so many spells could be rolled into one if the 5e model of "cast this at a higher level to make it a better spell" ...

That's not even an exclusive to 5E, that's just 3.x psionics.

[SangoProduction]

The rules for multiclassing XP penalties. Almost nobody at all uses them.

For once, I'm going to back Max 100% on this.

[Thurbane]

For once, I'm going to back Max 100% on this.

I sometimes feel like I'm at the only table that uses this rule. :smalltongue:

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I sometimes feel like I'm at the only table that uses this rule. :smalltongue:It's a bad rule. It actually encourages 1-dip multiclassing all across the board and discourages people from playing the characters they want to play.

It also castrates mundanes while leaving casters alone, which is bad.

[gijoemike]

Having more options is almost always a good thing weather it be spells or feats. Now with that said I think the wasted ink is on trap options. No, not traps the rogue finds. I mean things like the toughness feat.

There was a comment by one of the authors of the PHB and sadly I cannot quote it. But the concept was toughness was only a feat for elven wizards/sorcs because it wasn't a good investment for any other class. WotC flagship was Magic: The Gathering. That game greatly rewards system mastery. It is required to be even remotely component. The same design idea and thoughts were involved early on in D&D 3.0. There are plenty of bad options that taking this weakens your character with very little boon. I despise those options. I want visible benefits to a feat when I take it.

I want other players to realize I took a feat and THEY see the benefits. Improved trip does this. Shock Trooper does this, Natural Spell does this. But weapon focus, toughness, dodge, spell penetration, they offer very little mechanical benefit and aren't visible. There are 1000's of posts on this forum alone that discuss how these are trap options and worthless except they are feat taxes.

Dear Weapon Focus,

How can you exist in the same book with Point Blank Shot? You are a +1 attack bonus for one type of weapon only. You pigeonhole your taker into only using X melee weapon. Point blank shot is the same bonus to all ranged weapons crossing multiple categories and it is also +1 damage. Weapon Focus you are a complete and total failure.

[gijoemike]

It's a bad rule. It actually encourages 1-dip multiclassing all across the board and discourages people from playing the characters they want to play.

It also castrates mundanes while leaving casters alone, which is bad.

Absolutely MaxiDuRaritry, Somehow a cleric 2, sorc 1, warlock 2, fighter 2, ranger 1, druid 1, paladin 2, rogue 1 has no issues existing

while a

swashbuckler 4, fighter 2 is totally unreasonable and should be hit with a MAJOR penalty that they can never catch up to the rest of the party. Seriously How does a Swashbucker 4/Fighter 2 differ from Fgt 4/Swash 2 differ from a Fgt 3/ Swash 3?

[Luccan]

The rules for multiclassing XP penalties. Almost nobody at all uses them.

In the spirit of this, Favored Class XP penalties. Humans didn't need the boost, clearly, and it's questionable if it would have done enough for Half-Elves to be relevant had more tables stuck to it. It is good for one thing multiclass penalties aren't, which is to reinforce themes of a race. Still ultimately a worthless rule that didn't do anyone any good.

[Biggus]

I sometimes feel like I'm at the only table that uses this rule. :smalltongue:

There's someone on here who frequently describes their DM as "RAW or die" so I think there's a probably two of you :smallwink:

[Rebel7284]

For me it has to be all the flavor text. I want mechanics so I can min-max characters for a war game. I don't care which mystra does what thing with the weave.

[AvatarVecna]

For me it has to be all the flavor text. I want mechanics so I can min-max characters for a war game. I don't care which mystra does what thing with the weave.

...I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

[The Viscount]

The exploration section, especially overland travel.

I don't just mean because at high levels you can teleport (though it is true). Unless you're playing a low level module with strictly laid out distances and timelines (I get the impression maybe Red Hand of Doom?) I question where it would matter that you consult a table to see how fast you move when hustling.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

...I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.Flavor text is great for worldbuilding, but I hate options that require being flavored in a specific way, especially if the crunch doesn't require it. For instance, an assassin being evil. Not because the class itself is any more evil than any other class that kills things (which is most of them), but that it requires that you join a guild that requires killing a creature just to enter the class.

I can come up with my own fluff and my own backstory, and I will use the game's mechanics to build to the fluff I want to build toward. I don't need fluff restrictions that prevent me from using a class or feat (or race!) to support my own story when the mechanics are otherwise ideal for it. If I want the mechanics of the assassin for a sniper character that isn't evil but is sniping enemy leaders of an evil empire in the service of a good one, I don't want to be evil so I can properly support good in my vision of the character.

Likewise, all the [Regional] feats that prevent you from taking them if you're in a homebrewed campaign setting, or if you're in Eberron but want to use a [Regional] feat from Faerun. Why can't I take Mercantile Background if I'm a merchant princeling from Sharn just because it requires that I be from Faerun? Are only Faerunians allowed to be merchant princelings? Why? Can Calim.sh.ites not be merchant princelings, despite Calimshan being known for exactly that kind of character?

What if I want to be of an inherently magical race or human sorcerer or something and want to be an archer? Why do I have to be an elf to take arcane archer levels? Nothing about the mechanics require the mechanics provided by being an elf, so why can't I play an arcane archer if I'm a different race? It's dumb.

[NichG]

The fighter class entry :smallamused:

Jokes aside, I'm kinda sold on the idea that the Paladin as a class is useless, as almost everything they do can be done better by a Cleric, whithout spending countless hours of precious game time to argue wheter killing a thief should make you loose all your class features or not. Especially considering they made 4 different Variant Classes for different alignment, while all that was needed was "You do the same things as a core Paladin, but it's evil/chaotic etc.


I'd go a step further and say that character alignment itself is one of the things that has the highest ink to utility ratio. While the two-letter codes themselves can be relevant for characters, its usually only in fairly rare mechanical interactions or with specific classes like Paladin. Yet not only is there a good quantity of text describing alignments in the core stuff, there are entire sourcebooks dedicated to Good and Evil, with lots of text defining the philosophical basis for deciding when those two-letter codes might be inconsistent with a character's behavior or ideals and should, possibly, be changed (but gradually and with redemption and conversion mechanisms and ...). When at the end of the day, for most characters, all of that wouldn't actually have any mechanical consequences.

[AvatarVecna]

Flavor text is great for worldbuilding, but I hate options that require being flavored in a specific way, especially if the crunch doesn't require it. For instance, an assassin being evil. Not because the class itself is any more evil than any other class that kills things (which is most of them), but that it requires that you join a guild that requires killing a creature just to enter the class.

I can come up with my own fluff and my own backstory, and I will use the game's mechanics to build to the fluff I want to build toward. I don't need fluff restrictions that prevent me from using a class or feat (or race!) to support my own story when the mechanics are otherwise ideal for it. If I want the mechanics of the assassin for a sniper character that isn't evil but is sniping enemy leaders of an evil empire in the service of a good one, I don't want to be evil so I can properly support good in my vision of the character.

Likewise, all the [Regional] feats that prevent you from taking them if you're in a homebrewed campaign setting, or if you're in Eberron but want to use a [Regional] feat from Faerun. Why can't I take Mercantile Background if I'm a merchant princeling from Sharn just because it requires that I be from Faerun? Are only Faerunians allowed to be merchant princelings? Why? Can Calim.sh.ites not be merchant princelings, despite Calimshan being known for exactly that kind of character?

What if I want to be of an inherently magical race or human sorcerer or something and want to be an archer? Why do I have to be an elf to take arcane archer levels? Nothing about the mechanics require the mechanics provided by being an elf, so why can't I play an arcane archer if I'm a different race? It's dumb.

I don't disagree with anything you've written here, about how some options are unnecessarily fluff restricted. But "fluff text tied to mechanics is frequently superfluous and overly limiting" is a far cry from "fluff text sucks and is a waste of time, just let me minmax my build for this wargame". :smalltongue:

[Luccan]

The exploration section, especially overland travel.

I don't just mean because at high levels you can teleport (though it is true). Unless you're playing a low level module with strictly laid out distances and timelines (I get the impression maybe Red Hand of Doom?) I question where it would matter that you consult a table to see how fast you move when hustling.

Presumably for old school play, where how long it takes to get somewhere could matter (supplies, getting a res in low level play)... which by my understanding was kind of out of style even before 3.0

[Maat Mons]

I feel like the Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium were great ideas. Sift through all the crap, put everything anyone might actually care about in one place, and fix some things while you're at it. There should have been a Feat Compendium and Prestige Class Compendium too.

[unseenmage]

I feel like the Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium were great ideas. Sift through all the crap, put everything anyone might actually care about in one place, and fix some things while you're at it. There should have been a Feat Compendium and Prestige Class Compendium too.
Our GM expressed a similar sentiment, to which I replied that that's what player made online guides are for.

GitP *insert class here* guides are akin to Bethesda fans modding patches and content.

The devs didnt do it so we did it ourselves.

[Telok]

I feel like the Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium were great ideas. Sift through all the crap, put everything anyone might actually care about in one place, and fix some things while you're at it. There should have been a Feat Compendium and Prestige Class Compendium too.

So, hilarity in the MIC. I recall, can't check now, that there was an armor (I think the themed owl one?) that had some interaction with druid wildshape. It was a chain shirt or something, standard steel construction.

[Rebel7284]

...I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

I am exaggerating slightly for emphasis since I appreciate some of the flavor and world building things, but ultimately, I want someone ELSE to give me a nice sandbox to play around with interesting mechanics as character building and mechanics is what is actually most exciting for me.

[ngilop]

Having more options is almost always a good thing weather it be spells or feats. Now with that said I think the wasted ink is on trap options. No, not traps the rogue finds. I mean things like the toughness feat.

There was a comment by one of the authors of the PHB and sadly I cannot quote it. But the concept was toughness was only a feat for elven wizards/sorcs because it wasn't a good investment for any other class. WotC flagship was Magic: The Gathering. That game greatly rewards system mastery. It is required to be even remotely component. The same design idea and thoughts were involved early on in D&D 3.0. There are plenty of bad options that taking this weakens your character with very little boon. I despise those options. I want visible benefits to a feat when I take it.

I want other players to realize I took a feat and THEY see the benefits. Improved trip does this. Shock Trooper does this, Natural Spell does this. But weapon focus, toughness, dodge, spell penetration, they offer very little mechanical benefit and aren't visible. There are 1000's of posts on this forum alone that discuss how these are trap options and worthless except they are feat taxes.

Dear Weapon Focus,

How can you exist in the same book with Point Blank Shot? You are a +1 attack bonus for one type of weapon only. You pigeonhole your taker into only using X melee weapon. Point blank shot is the same bonus to all ranged weapons crossing multiple categories and it is also +1 damage. Weapon Focus you are a complete and total failure.


The quote you are referring to is from Monte cook's ivory tower blog site (which that particular post is gone), and was 100% a cop-out after the fact statement. he (and some others) were just too hubristic to admit they didn't really get balance close between the differing options available and instead stated that to make a long story short, "smart people play casters and intentionally break the game, dumb people play fighters and hit things hard with a big weapon."

[gijoemike]

The quote you are referring to is from Monte cook's ivory tower blog site (which that particular post is gone), and was 100% a cop-out after the fact statement. he (and some others) were just too hubristic to admit they didn't really get balance close between the differing options available and instead stated that to make a long story short, "smart people play casters and intentionally break the game, dumb people play fighters and hit things hard with a big weapon."

Oh great! That is very good to know. I am aware they play tested the druids wild shape ability as a scouting technique instead of "I maul you as a bear and kick in the next door". That is why WildShape in 3.0 was so wildly not balanced to ANYTHING else.

And the Wizard was old school AD&D and was using a crossbow/wand unless stuff really hit the fan. They honestly expected 5 to 6 encounters a day and those aren't skill check only encounters. They meant encounters that used party resources. Once real players got into the game it was a quickly realized that was an absurd assumption.

[noob]

I sometimes feel like I'm at the only table that uses this rule. :smalltongue:

My table does use this rule hence why we only do builds that avoids it.

[tyckspoon]

Oh great! That is very good to know. I am aware they play tested the druids wild shape ability as a scouting technique instead of "I maul you as a bear and kick in the next door". That is why WildShape in 3.0 was so wildly not balanced to ANYTHING else.

I would have to go delving for the source material, if it's still available, but supposedly their playtest druid used Wild Shape to scout, treated their animal companion(s) as roleplay props (they had a dog or something that they wouldn't allow to participate in combat) and went into combat with a scimitar, cruddy armor, and Produce Flame, so they fought like a third-rate Fighter. Which yes probably contributed a lot to why Wild Shape/shapechanging effects are such a rules headache (they avoided a lot of the situations where it's complicated in exchange 'ok so I'm a bird, I fly out and look around and then come back') as well as why they didn't know how strong it was when people actually tried to use Druid class features for fighting instead of as RP ribbons.

[Falontani]

I would have to go delving for the source material, if it's still available, but supposedly their playtest druid used Wild Shape to scout, treated their animal companion(s) as roleplay props (they had a dog or something that they wouldn't allow to participate in combat) and went into combat with a scimitar, cruddy armor, and Produce Flame, so they fought like a third-rate Fighter. Which yes probably contributed a lot to why Wild Shape/shapechanging effects are such a rules headache (they avoided a lot of the situations where it's complicated in exchange 'ok so I'm a bird, I fly out and look around and then come back') as well as why they didn't know how strong it was when people actually tried to use Druid class features for fighting instead of as RP ribbons.

didn't that druid specifically twf with scimitars as well? Like seriously, how do you mess up the most powerful class that badly.

[SangoProduction]

didn't that druid specifically twf with scimitars as well? Like seriously, how do you mess up the most powerful class that badly.

Probably multiple ways:
1) Seeing most of the abilities as essentially RP fluff.
2) Not being knowledgeable / motivated to be mechanically powerful.
3) Not even knowing that there are mathematically less good ways to play the game than others. I highly doubt the first thing you did when you popped open a rule book was to plug in combinations of stuff into a spreadsheet.

[ezekielraiden]

Probably multiple ways:
1) Seeing most of the abilities as essentially RP fluff.
2) Not being knowledgeable / motivated to be mechanically powerful.
3) Not even knowing that there are mathematically less good ways to play the game than others. I highly doubt the first thing you did when you popped open a rule book was to plug in combinations of stuff into a spreadsheet.

Really, we can sum up all three in a single point: Not knowing how to playtest a game.

Playtesting is not for having fun and enjoying a good gaming experience. Playtesting is for sniffing out all the places the game breaks down, doing what you can to identify them, and reporting that to the designers so they can address them. It requires an active interest in doing your damnedest to find the best (and worst) ways to play, regardless of fluff or flavor.

In short, playtesting looks an awful lot like optimization, except it also allows for intentionally trying to mess up to see just how bad you can get as well as seeing just how good you can get. Going into the playtesting process and expecting a normal TTRPG process, where you have a DM that will compensate for things and players that can be reasoned with or talked down, where the point is to have the most fun regardless of what specific stuff is played, is doomed to failure.

It's one of the reasons why I've soured so much on public playtest stuff. I find 90% of the time it's just a publicity stunt, yet designers repeatedly present it as far more.

[SangoProduction]

Really, we can sum up all three in a single point: Not knowing how to playtest a game.

Playtesting is not for having fun and enjoying a good gaming experience. Playtesting is for sniffing out all the places the game breaks down, doing what you can to identify them, and reporting that to the designers so they can address them. It requires an active interest in doing your damnedest to find the best (and worst) ways to play, regardless of fluff or flavor.

In short, playtesting looks an awful lot like optimization, except it also allows for intentionally trying to mess up to see just how bad you can get as well as seeing just how good you can get. Going into the playtesting process and expecting a normal TTRPG process, where you have a DM that will compensate for things and players that can be reasoned with or talked down, where the point is to have the most fun regardless of what specific stuff is played, is doomed to failure.

It's one of the reasons why I've soured so much on public playtest stuff. I find 90% of the time it's just a publicity stunt, yet designers repeatedly present it as far more.

Do realize that D&D 3e wasn't released to the public until the year 2000. Back then, "game design" wasn't a proper profession. Hell, the number one stressful issue of the day was the fact that digital memory space was so strict that the 2 extra digits for storing the date was skipped to save on it. (Now we've got literal terrabytes of space on USB drives.)
"Playtesting," was not what it is today.

[Aharon]

Presumably for old school play, where how long it takes to get somewhere could matter (supplies, getting a res in low level play)... which by my understanding was kind of out of style even before 3.0

As a DM, I see the appeal of these rules - they have the potential to add a bit of realism and immersiveness. If there were a way to use them without the game devolving into Supplies&Logistics too much, that would be great.

On topic:
I think for similar reasons, I didn't use many of the more fiddly rules - I usually handwave vision and light rules, as well as tactical aerial movement (figuring out forward speads, turn degrees, etc.), because they just take too long to adjudicate.

[AnonymousPepper]

Presumably for old school play, where how long it takes to get somewhere could matter (supplies, getting a res in low level play)... which by my understanding was kind of out of style even before 3.0

You use the overland travel rules for hexploration campaigns quite heavily. Kingmaker is the archetypical example that everyone knows nowadays thanks to the PC game, but it's hardly the first or only.

[unseenmage]

In addition to what's been listed: spells.

The spell bloat in 3.X is staggering. Especially when you consider that only about 10-20% of published spells will ever see gameplay. And so many spells are double ups of existing spells, just with slight cosmetic changes.

Don't get me wrong: it's nice to have a lot of spells to chose from, but the bloat is real.
My IRL group's reasoning for spells not being a bigger offender is that a cleric can swap out their whole spell selection every day. And a wizard could literally learn nearly every spell WBL permitting.

Additionally spells can be meaningfully encountered on both sides of the GM screen in a multitude of ways.

Feats on the other hand have very very few ways to.even be present at the fights. Especially with feat taxes and feat chains.

The Feats In Magic Items sidebar in Arms and Equipment could have helped this but they're fairly overpriced and it moves the burden of allowing feats to be present for your character from feat slots to your WBL which has it's own troubles with expected equipment bonuses and immunities by level.

Magic items made our cut because of how formulaic they are. For my money magic items have far more useless members printed than spells even when considering loot tables.

Our group pointed out that magic items being formulaic also makes them super easy to use to fill space in a book.

Also, as mentioned earlier, there's a certain amount of a character's WBL that is expected to be spent on remaining relevant in combat so the amount of wealth left over for shenaniganery style items isnt always a lot.

[Calthropstu]

Monsters. I have played at literally hundreds of tables, but only seen 5% of monsters. It's why I incorporated so many different kinds in my campaign world.

[gijoemike]

Monsters. I have played at literally hundreds of tables, but only seen 5% of monsters. It's why I incorporated so many different kinds in my campaign world.

This is a really good point. I have thrown weird 1 off monsters at a party before and it shut them down. People are so used to seeing the standard monsters that make up only 25% of the game, that the other 75% can really be head scratchers. Major swaths of the MM2+ books are practically unused.

[AnonymousPepper]

The Feats In Magic Items sidebar in Arms and Equipment could have helped this but they're fairly overpriced and it moves the burden of allowing feats to be present for your character from feat slots to your WBL which has it's own troubles with expected equipment bonuses and immunities by level.

This sidebar was one of the biggest mistakes in 3e, wym? Anyone with even a basic investment into item crafting could snap the game in half with this more so than perhaps any other rule set. Like. Even with my most wacky artificers, I avoided these things. They're cheese, pure and simple. Without any feat investment besides craft wondrous, you can get them down to <30% market price...

[SangoProduction]

Monsters. I have played at literally hundreds of tables, but only seen 5% of monsters. It's why I incorporated so many different kinds in my campaign world.

The Pareto Principle, named after esteemed economist Vilfredo Pareto, specifies that 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes, asserting an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs.

Actually learned of it in my comp sci classes, where 80% of your errors come from 20% of your code. And 20% of your code runs 80% of the time. Although it applies to basically everything from linguistics to people to ... monsters.

It's an almost inevitable observation. But without a vast swathe of unused monsters, you'd get an excessively small number of used ones.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The Pareto Principle, named after esteemed economist Vilfredo Pareto, specifies that 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes, asserting an unequal relationship between inputs and outputs.

Actually learned of it in my comp sci classes, where 80% of your errors come from 20% of your code. And 20% of your code runs 80% of the time. Although it applies to basically everything from linguistics to people to ... monsters.

It's an almost inevitable observation. But without a vast swathe of unused monsters, you'd get an excessively small number of used ones.I wonder how this is related to Sturgeon's Law -- "90% of everything is garbage."

[liquidformat]

I am going with setting a weapon against a charge, it is a great rule in theory but I have never seen nor heard of anyone using it.

[icefractal]

Feat or Spell bloat is a tricky one, because while it's true that probably 90% go unused, I don't think the good 10% would exist without the rest. Based on PF2 and 4E/5E, a lot of the stuff I enjoy in 3.x was put in there by mistake, and if WotC or Paizo had been able to precision-tune every feat and spell it would likely have been (for me) not as good a game.

So I'm probably going with multiclass XP penalties, for not only being seldom used but having mostly negative consequences when it does get used.

Incidentally, I think Living Greyhawk used those rules. I played a Monk 2 / Barbarian 1 / Fighter 2 / Ranger 1 - no XP penalty there! But at least I wasn't trying to play some cheesy nonsense like a Barbarian 4 / Ranger 2. :smalltongue:

[unseenmage]

This sidebar was one of the biggest mistakes in 3e, wym? Anyone with even a basic investment into item crafting could snap the game in half with this more so than perhaps any other rule set. Like. Even with my most wacky artificers, I avoided these things. They're cheese, pure and simple. Without any feat investment besides craft wondrous, you can get them down to <30% market price...

That is more a problem with 3.x feats than with the guidelines presented by the sidebar. Put the same mechanism into PF where feats dont grant magical superpowers and you just wind up with metamagic rods by any other name.

[Calthropstu]

I am going with setting a weapon against a charge, it is a great rule in theory but I have never seen nor heard of anyone using it.

I have a friend who literally TRIES to use it. Many times he has done it, set his weapon for a charge. EVERY SINGLE TIME the GM has made the enemy NOT charge. It has been multiple GMs who have done this, on a regular basis. Pisses him off to no end. To be fair, it DOES at least remove the +2 they get from charging.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

I have a friend who literally TRIES to use it. Many times he has done it, set his weapon for a charge. EVERY SINGLE TIME the GM has made the enemy NOT charge. It has been multiple GMs who have done this, on a regular basis. Pisses him off to no end. To be fair, it DOES at least remove the +2 they get from charging.It does make sense. Would you run right into getting stabbed if you see someone readying themselves to do so?

[Maat Mons]

Readying actions is pretty useless in general.

Especially if your DMs make sure enemies never take the action the actions you're readied against. Then it's just a convoluted way of skipping your turn.

But even if the DM doesn't change enemy behavior based on your readied actions, you're still betting your entire turn on the idea that you know what your enemy is going to do.

[unseenmage]

Readying actions is pretty useless in general.

Especially if your DMs make sure enemies never take the action the actions you're readied against. Then it's just a convoluted way of skipping your turn.

But even if the DM doesn't change enemy behavior based on your readied actions, you're still betting your entire turn on the idea that you know what your enemy is going to do.
A GM once allowed me to use Spellfire in an Eberron module. When that GM quit and one of the players took over we found that exactly none of the enemies would have ever cast spells at me.

Spellfire requires a readied action to use. :(

[noob]

A GM once allowed me to use Spellfire in an Eberron module. When that GM quit and one of the players took over we found that exactly none of the enemies would have ever cast spells at me.

Spellfire requires a readied action to use. :(

You get magic immunity but only from opponents(and not from allies) for free basically?
If yes it means you spent a feat in a not too bad way (technically you could have picked more cheese for prcs and general opness instead but it is bad for many tables because most players does not wants 100% cheese characters)

[Kelb_Panthera]

Readying actions is pretty useless in general.

Especially if your DMs make sure enemies never take the action the actions you're readied against. Then it's just a convoluted way of skipping your turn.

But even if the DM doesn't change enemy behavior based on your readied actions, you're still betting your entire turn on the idea that you know what your enemy is going to do.

One thing we do at my table is to scratch down the readied action on a scrap of paper instead saying it out loud to the GM and only actually say "I ready an action." If one of the NPCs triggers the action, you pass the note to the GM with a big cheshire grin. Harder to do on roll 20 though.

[Telok]

I believe that the "ready vs charge" was an attempt to replicate in th 3e action economy the "set to receive charge" from AD&D. Which is a great tactic when you can cram 8 followers into a 10' hall with 15' & 20' pikes and get 8 free double damage attacks on every charger. Recalling as well that PCs & henchies getting over +6 to damage rolls was rare untill higher levels.

[PraxisVetli]

One thing we do at my table is to scratch down the readied action on a scrap of paper instead saying it out loud to the GM and only actually say "I ready an action." If one of the NPCs triggers the action, you pass the note to the GM with a big cheshire grin. Harder to do on roll 20 though.

This is BRILLIANT and I'm stealing it!

[Malphegor]

spells for sure. A lot of arcane and divine spells should have been condensed ala Psionics where you spend more power somehow to cast higher ranked versions.

Multiple versions of summon monster is just ridiculous

[AnimeTheCat]

One thing we do at my table is to scratch down the readied action on a scrap of paper instead saying it out loud to the GM and only actually say "I ready an action." If one of the NPCs triggers the action, you pass the note to the GM with a big cheshire grin. Harder to do on roll 20 though.

I've rolled the ready action option in somewhat with the delay action option. If you delay your action, you are ticking down in the initiative count and you will always reside there. If you ready an action, you forego your movement in order to prepare yourself to react to your surroundings. Then, at any point before your next turn, you may take your standard action however you see fit, basically like an immediate standard action. If you act first in the initiative, it gives you lots of flexibility to react on the battlefield. This reflects that better than trying to predict what the enemy is going to do and makes things like brace against charges and counterspelling much more viable from the start.

[Phhase]

Unpopular opinion: I like that there's so many spells, even (or especially!) if some are redundant in some way. It makes things feel..more realistic? If I'm allowed to use that word in this context. It seems like a system designed by humans/sentients through trial and error would naturally have such foibles and quirks. People would come to the same conclusions from different angles, make things the same but just slightly different according to needs, etc. Even if some of the spells are truly, truly vestigial with no conceivable purpose whatsoever, I think that just makes one consider what actually makes the other choices so much more valuable. Now, despite that, I DO laud 5e's attempts to consolidate some of the more egregious redundancies through upcasting (Like Summon Monster), but I do think it went too far in some cases. But on the whole, I like seeing all of the odd variations that occur when things are just all over the place. You won't find things like Avascular Mass or Blood Star in 5e, I tell you hwat.

[Bohandas]

I fundamentally disagree with the premise that if a party cannot take all options, then some of those options are necessarily wasted. A different party may take them. If there were exactly enough feats for a player to use, character building would be a lot less interesting.

I second this

[liquidformat]

It does make sense. Would you run right into getting stabbed if you see someone readying themselves to do so?

Yeah the big issue is it is a tactic designed specifically for military use, literally the only time you would see it based on the way the game mechanics is when armies fight because the charging force doesn't have the option to not charge even though the apposing force has set their weapons for a charge.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

The MIC's steadfast boots automatically ready your weapon against charges, so you don't waste time or energy on doing so. If everyone knows that you're automagically readied against any charge they make, and you deal significant damage on your hits, it's highly unlikely that they'll charge you while wearing them. This means (essentially) immunity to charge attacks.

[denthor]

This sidebar was one of the biggest mistakes in 3e, wym? Anyone with even a basic investment into item crafting could snap the game in half with this more so than perhaps any other rule set. Like. Even with my most wacky artificers, I avoided these things. They're cheese, pure and simple. Without any feat investment besides craft wondrous, you can get them down to <30% market price...


So slight disagreement. You get the feat at 3rd level. There is very little you can make as far as magic items. At 7th you pick up a nice variety, however the party or your character must be idle in one location with a lab, forge and materials must be bought maintained then a skill check completed.

You can not make rings without 12th level and another feat.

I took the craft magic item feat at 3rd as a cleric most useless feat. Craft potions is slightly better.