Forgotten/Ignored rules (3.5, mostly)

[Frog Dragon]

What rules do you think are often ignored or just plain forgotten in D&D? I myself have noted that very few people seem to remember or care about the starting ages. XP-penalties seem to be ignored most of the time, though rarely forgotten.

From my gaming table, I have a houserule that arose from this. Every time someone rolled a critical crit, we were like "oh look a crit! Double damage!" Then, after the combat. "We forgot to roll confirmation." This happened every single time. So eventually, I just said we're not rolling them anymore, because we wouldn't remember anyway.

Anyone else have accounts, stories, comments or rotten tomatoes?

[Ryu_Bonkosi]

For my group they seem to forget that they have buffs/magic items on which really tends to screw them over. But the rolling for confirmation is one that seems to be just tossed to the side as well.

[AslanCross]

At our table, we often forget concealment due to illumination.

[Runestar]

The DC15 save when you deal 50 or more damage (which comes up quite often when you have martial adepts and blasters).

You can charge as a standard action (new DM didn't realise he could do this with zombies).

Not really an ignored rule, but said new DM also got overwhelmed from having to keep track of outsider resistances/immunities. I am pretty sure he forgot to apply resistances/dr a couple of times.

[grimbold]

encumbrance slowing move speed is pretty much gone
so i confirmation
torture rules are left to roleplaying
actually a lot of things are left to roleplayin in my group including diplomacy and sometimes bluff

[Chilingsworth]

My group used to forget that dismissing a spell takes a standard action. We dont anymore because one of us reminded the DM when it was inconvienent for one of his baddies.

[Gwillednt]

The DC15 save when you deal 50 or more damage (which comes up quite often when you have martial adepts and blasters).

You can charge as a standard action (new DM didn't realise he could do this with zombies).

Not really an ignored rule, but said new DM also got overwhelmed from having to keep track of outsider resistances/immunities. I am pretty sure he forgot to apply resistances/dr a couple of times.

The charge rule is convoluted as hell. You can do it when limited to a standard action. So zombies can do it, and during a surprise round. Can you do it as a readied action, though? There's the rub. You can ready only a standard action. So maybe. BUT when you readied it, you weren't limited to one.

This caused much annoyance at our table one time. I think I just let them do it and said we'll figure it out later. Two years later and we still don't really know.

[Greenish]

Can you do it as a readied action, though? There's the rub. You can ready only a standard action. So maybe. BUT when you readied it, you weren't limited to one.

There's a feat in PHBII, Cometary Collision, that allows you to ready an action to charge someone who's charging you or your friends.

So it seems the person writing the feat thought you normally couldn't ready a charge.

[Saph]

• Monks not being proficient with unarmed strikes.
• Multiclassing XP penalties.
• Epic spellcasting.
• Diplomacy and Bluff results are heavily modified by common sense.
• The grappling system is DM-adjudicated most of the time. (You want to do something, roll an opposed grapple check, and no we don't want to go through the grappling rules line by line to see if it's right or not.)

[Killer Angel]

We always apply the confirmation for crit, but practically never the check penalties for distance for listen/spot.

[Runestar]

I think my group has never really enforced the range increment penalties either. We just assume archers can hit the enemies on the map, however far away.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

The charge rule is convoluted as hell. You can do it when limited to a standard action. So zombies can do it, and during a surprise round. Can you do it as a readied action, though? There's the rub. You can ready only a standard action. So maybe. BUT when you readied it, you weren't limited to one.

“The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun.”
(( emphasis mine ))

When you take your readied action, it is no longer the same turn as when you first readied it. On your readied action, you are limited to a standard or move action, so therefore you can make a standard-action charge.

Never saw anyone play it any different, and I’m pretty sure readying a charge has been mentioned as a tactic certain monsters and NPCs use in official sources.

There's a feat in PHBII, Cometary Collision, that allows you to ready an action to charge someone who's charging you or your friends.

So it seems the person writing the feat thought you normally couldn't ready a charge.

The benefit of that feat is not to ready your charge, but to gain a greater bonus on your charge and to deny your opponent the attack bonus from charging.

[Gwillednt]

“The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun.”
(( emphasis mine ))

When you take your readied action, it is no longer the same turn as when you first readied it. On your readied action, you are limited to a standard or move action, so therefore you can make a standard-action charge.

Never saw anyone play it any different, and I’m pretty sure readying a charge has been mentioned as a tactic certain monsters and NPCs use in official sources.

Then what's the point of aforementioned feat someone else just said?

[Frog Dragon]

Then what's the point of aforementioned feat someone else just said?

There would be no point, but Cometary Collision is awful anyway, and WotC has a history of developers failing at their own rules. Nothing new here.
Edit: Swordsage'd.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Then what's the point of aforementioned feat someone else just said?

Ninja Edit: See above. The feat’s “benefit” was not quoted in full. The first line says, “You can ready a standard action to use this feat when an opponent charges you or any other target.” It then goes on to say what happens when you use the feat. And the benefit is more than just being able to take a standard action charge. Specifically, you get a damage bonus, while your charging opponent loses his attack bonus (but retains is AC penalty).

And note that it says you ready to use the feat, not ready to charge. It just so happens that part of using the feat requires making a standard-action charge.

In any case, the Player’s Handbook is the primary source for the rules on charging and readying an action, not a poorly-written weak feat from Player’s Handbook II.

[gbprime]

We always throw out the little things that slow combat down, like +1 to hit for being on higher ground. Etc, etc.

Besides, we have our OWN ways of slowing combat down. I speak of course of

Attack Math

[Curmudgeon]

Encounter starts. In 3.0 encounters automatically started when the distance between opponents dropped to half its initial value. In 3.5 encounters don't start until somebody on one side succeeds on a Spot or Listen check ─ except for forest fires and avalanches, which still use the 3.0 rules.

[FMArthur]

Multilayer lighting and concealment is just too much work for me. You either see it or you don't. I have never seen anyone actually take the time for it - it's absolutely ridiculous when many light sources are moving around.

[Tyndmyr]

The DC15 save when you deal 50 or more damage (which comes up quite often when you have martial adepts and blasters).

Oh yeah. I've never forgotten that rule, actually. However, I never intentionally play with it. It makes high level play kind of stupid, and even more rocket-tag like.

[Shenanigans]

At our table, the following rules are oft-ignored:

- manually lowering spell resistance, or alternatively having the caster beat your spell resistance, to receive helpful spells from allies
- encumbrance, unless you're doing something obviously pretty ridiculous
- the mass damage save as mentioned above (not so much ignored...we use an alternative system)
- illumination ranges in general
- food

[Swooper]

RAW is pretty much impossible to play straight out of the box, so I'm pretty sure every group makes small adjustments to the rules if only for sanity's sake... In my group:

• Multiclassing XP penalty gets ignored.
• Range penalties for Spot/Listen
• Obscure combat modifiers like +1 to hit for higher ground
• Silly stuff that's not supposed to be there like drown-healing etc.
• Town size/item availability by value (DM's call whether an item is available instead)
• NPC attitudes (neutral/unfriendly/friendly/helpful/hostile/...) - that's just roleplayed. Followup...
• Diplomacy gets changed to a RP-aiding skill: "My character said what I just said, but much more eloquently and convincingly because I rolled a 29 on diplomacy"

...And probably a ton of other stuff that I'm forgetting.

[mucco]

Encumbrance! Go try building a 8 Str character at first level and see if you can stay in light load, with all the adventuring equip. It's impossible.

[Sarakos]

Actually, where is that higher ground rule found? I know I read it somewhere but I can't remember where. I've got a 3.5 paladin in a campaign who spends most of his time on his horse and I was wondering if that qualifiedas higher ground?

Edit: to stay on topic, my group ignores
-encumbrance, unless it's something ridiculous
-cover
-concealment
-lighting, if it's moderately light out you can see it normally. If it's dark you use darkvision and see fine (range isn't calculated) if you have a torch and lowlight vision while it's dark out you can see it (again range is forgotten)

[Shenanigans]

[*]NPC attitudes (neutral/unfriendly/friendly/helpful/hostile/...) - that's just roleplayed. Followup...[*]Diplomacy gets changed to a RP-aiding skill: "My character said what I just said, but much more eloquently and convincingly because I rolled a 29 on diplomacy"[/LIST]
...And probably a ton of other stuff that I'm forgetting.

My group kind of plays this way too, although we're all pretty happy with it. We try to roleplay things out when possible, but our fallback axiom is "My character can do this better than I can...that's why I'm roleplaying." Otherwise, we'd have an adventuring party full of attorneys, doctors, and IT professionals.

Hmmm, maybe I should give Papers & Paychecks another chance. ;)

[IcarusWings]

Loads of people seem to forget that a natural 20 on a skill check is not an automatic success, same for natural 1s.

[The_Scourge]

A flat percentage of magic wepons glow as if they had a light spell cast on them, determined at xreation.
Kinda irritating if the Assassin's +5 kukri of stabbing you in the spine til you bexome a sad person with no spine, announces his presence as soon as it's drawn.

[Curmudgeon]

Loads of people seem to forget that a natural 20 on a skill check is not an automatic success, same for natural 1s.

It's not just skill checks. Disarm checks are opposed attack rolls, and yet there's no automatic success or failure ─ because there's no hitting or missing.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

It's not just skill checks.

Indeed. Attack Rolls and Saves are the only checks with automatic successes and failures.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

It's not just skill checks.

Indeed. Attack Rolls and Saves are the only checks with automatic successes and failures.

A flat percentage of magic wepons glow as if they had a light spell cast on them, determined at xreation.
Kinda irritating if the Assassin's +5 kukri of stabbing you in the spine til you bexome a sad person with no spine, announces his presence as soon as it's drawn.

Why would an assassin use one of the weapons that glows? A full 70% of them don’t. It’s not like the non-glowy ones would be hard to find. And even if they were, the surprise and death attack is probably better than most bonuses you’d get, so might as well use a non-magical weapon.

[Ernir]

The charge rule is convoluted as hell. You can do it when limited to a standard action. So zombies can do it, and during a surprise round. Can you do it as a readied action, though? There's the rub. You can ready only a standard action. So maybe. BUT when you readied it, you weren't limited to one.

No, you can't. You can not ready full-round actions, and charging is a full-round action. You can take a "partial charge" when you are normally restricted to taking only a standard action or a move action, but this does not change the action required to perform a charge. (In other words, charging is a full-round action, and a partial charge does not make an exception.)

Boots of the Battle Charger (MIC), however, explicitly allow you to charge as a standard action. Get those if you want to play D&D rugby.