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

[TuggyNE]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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