Hilarious things you've found in RAW?

[Promethean]

Basically title.

For me some of the funniest things I found was the "Greater Mummy"(Not mummy lord), which was essentially a beefed up version of the Mummy template, but got a free +0 LA because of the wording of the stat block(it had "Advancement: By character class" rather than advancement:--).

Another is finding out that metabreath feats self-stack, so a brass dragon can roleplay as the evil queen from sleeping beauty and curse a kingdom with eternal sleep.

[KillianHawkeye]

That's not what "Advancement: By character class" means.

[Promethean]

That's not what "Advancement: By character class" means.

As per savage species, anything with "advance by character class" is effectively an LA +0 as a template.

Edit: Went back and read some stuff. The rule isn't that "advancement: by character class" is what makes it LA: +0, it's the fact that missing an LA: x entry sets it to "As base creature" because of how the SRD is worded. Granted I was able to find errata deities and demigods that set it to +4.

[ShurikVch]

If you want +0 mummy, check the Mumia template in Ghostwalk: it have no listed LA, and 3.5 update booklet - while updating the template in question - doesn't added any LA too
Mumia have no Despair, Mummy Rot, DR, or ability scores bonus; but have Con-damaging touch, fast healing 2, turn resistance 2, and no vulnerability to fire

[Promethean]

If you want +0 mummy, check the Mumia template in Ghostwalk: it have no listed LA, and 3.5 update booklet - while updating the template in question - doesn't added any LA too
Mumia have no Despair, Mummy Rot, DR, or ability scores bonus; but have Con-damaging touch, fast healing 2, turn resistance 2, and no vulnerability to fire

It's not that I want a +0 template. My original thought was that it was a template that they forgot to add LA to. Which I thought was hilarious.

Going back to check, I'd misremembered deities and demigods as a 3.5 supplement. None, of the 3.0 stuff had LA until savage species invented the idea.

It's kind of embarrassing really.

[AvatarVecna]

Does it have to be weird little quirks in RAW that are the result of WotC not thinking through the possibility of multiple mechanics interacting, or can it just be a single rule in plaintext whose existence is hilarious?

If the latter is viable:

If one abjuration spell is active within 10 feet of another for 24 hours or more, the magical fields interfere with each other and create barely visible energy fluctuations. The DC to find such spells with the Search skill drops by 4.

[Promethean]

Does it have to be weird little quirks in RAW that are the result of WotC not thinking through the possibility of multiple mechanics interacting, or can it just be a single rule in plaintext whose existence is hilarious?

Both are Welcome!

[The Viscount]

The Dysfunctional Rules threads are pretty good for stuff like this.

Some other fun ones. Due to how spot works, everyone has terrible vision and you can't recognize your own family from down the street.

From an old old post, D&D Commoners aren't poor.

That classic of classics, because creatures are identified by Knowledge checks, average people in the D&D world don't necessarily know what the normal fauna like wolves or bears are. They also aren't necessarily able to distinguish a human from non-human.

[Doctor Despair]

That classic of classics, because creatures are identified by Knowledge checks, average people in the D&D world don't necessarily know what the normal fauna like wolves or bears are. They also aren't necessarily able to distinguish a human from non-human.

Even a single rank in Knowledge Nature would solve that though, assuming the person takes 10

[PhoenixPhyre]

Even a single rank in Knowledge Nature would solve that though, assuming the person takes 10

But commoners don't have any of the Knowledge (X) skills as class skills. So that's a hefty investment with their 2+INT skill points, making it so a commoner who does know how to distinguish a wolf from his sheep is also worse at just about everything else they do. And if you're trying to distinguish that wolf from the sheep in the moment...can you really take 10 (since you're under stress)?

[Tzardok]

You do know that people can roll untrained knowledge checks as long as the DC is 10 or lower (so called general knowledge)? I would assume that the common races and animals are covered by that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

You do know that people can roll untrained knowledge checks as long as the DC is 10 or lower (so called general knowledge)? I would assume that the common races and animals are covered by that.

Standard DC is 10+CR. Since a wolf is not CR 0, you can't roll an untrained knowledge check.

Yes, that's bear lore.

Edit: and even more absurdly, since CR scales with level, a commoner can't generally tell you who the mayor of their village is. The mayor is not CR 0, and without ranks in Knowledge (Local)...

A citizen could watch the king's champion demolish someone in the arena, cheer him on...and then be completely unable to tell you anything about them. Because he's high CR, and they don't have enough ranks in Knowledge (Local) or Knowledge (Nobility) to have a chance.

[Wildstag]

That classic of classics, because creatures are identified by Knowledge checks, average people in the D&D world don't necessarily know what the normal fauna like wolves or bears are. They also aren't necessarily able to distinguish a human from non-human.

That actually makes sense though. There's a lot of people out there that just assume spread misinformation about predators in general, such as that wolves will kill sheep and just leave their body to rot instead of eating it. Because of such rumors, a lot of people untrained in Knowledge: Nature could be expected to only have misinformation, such as that the wolves are four feet tall at the shoulder and prey upon men and women gleefully, or that a bear can't run well downhill.

Or, to use a fun example from Community, "the city defines a 'dog' as any living entity with four legs and a tail. So raccoons, bears, mountain lions, mice, these are all just different sizes of dog"; people will justify just about anything as a "mountain lion", even large house cats or bobcats. The city of Boulder famously had issues with that back in the 90s (described in the book "The Beast In The Garden").

Or alternatively, the settlers of Utah classified any wild canine as wolves, with smaller "wolves" being 'plains wolves' and larger specimens being 'timber' or 'mountain wolves'. What this ended up doing was equating coyotes with wolves.

It takes people actually trained in such knowledge to sift through rumors to glean truth. That's what ranks in Knowledge represent.

On a separate note though, I'd like to pull from my recent entry to the Iron Chef competition and say that the Mountain Rage alternate class feature for Goliath Barbarians is bizarrely worded. See below.

When he rages, his size category increases to Large. (Although his size category increases by one step, the goliath barbarian's height only increases by a foot or so and his mass only increases by about 30-40%, so his equipment still fits normally.) This change increases the barbarian's space and reach to 10 feet and applies a -1 penalty on attack rolls and to AC. However, he does not gain additional benefits on weapon size and grapple checks, since he already has them from his powerful build ability.

The way I read it, it has two lines in favor of just making the character Large, and one in favor of "increase by one step". So a non-medium character that takes Stoneblessed (Goliath) into Goliath Barbarian could potentially shrink (if bigger than large) or grow to "Large" while still only gaining 30-40% mass and one foot in height. It's a pretty funny read.

And for an honorary mention, Vigilante was never fixed in the errata, so I like to believe that the Vigilante's misprint is a hard and fast rule. I love the idea of a Ring of Wizardry 3 giving Vigilante 66 3rd level spells per day.

[loky1109]

Mountain rage? Some intellectual swarm (for example hellwasp) with stounblessed-3 and Goliath barbarian-1.
10*10 ft square with 5000 large creatures inside.
And they all can inhabit body of single small creature. )))

[Tzardok]

Standard DC is 10+CR. Since a wolf is not CR 0, you can't roll an untrained knowledge check.

Yes, that's bear lore.

Edit: and even more absurdly, since CR scales with level, a commoner can't generally tell you who the mayor of their village is. The mayor is not CR 0, and without ranks in Knowledge (Local)...

A citizen could watch the king's champion demolish someone in the arena, cheer him on...and then be completely unable to tell you anything about them. Because he's high CR, and they don't have enough ranks in Knowledge (Local) or Knowledge (Nobility) to have a chance.

That's not standard. Nowhere in the Player's Handbook is that mentioned (in fact, it doesn't mention at all how much info you get for whatever DC). Just because later books (I think it started with MM4) decided to make their predefined skill checks depended on hit dice doesn't mean that you need to do the same. And as wolves, your king and so on are common knowledge, they get common knowledge DCs. Apply a bit of common sense, please.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's not standard. Nowhere in the Player's Handbook is that mentioned (in fact, it doesn't mention at all how much info you get for whatever DC). Just because later books (I think it started with MM4) decided to make their predefined skill checks depended on hit dice doesn't mean that you need to do the same. And as wolves, your king and so on are common knowledge, they get common knowledge DCs. Apply a bit of common sense, please.

From the SRD:

"In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster."

So it's worse than I remembered. 10 + HD, not 10 + CR.

So a commoner by RAW can't know useful information about their mother in law[1].

And note, RAW and common sense aren't to be spoken of in the same sentence. Which is one reason that I think an emphasis on RAW is utterly silly and pointless. But good for making jokes.

Spoiler: Ruining the joke

Show

[1] the joke here being that the mother in law is a monster

[ShurikVch]

From the SRD:

"In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster."

So it's worse than I remembered. 10 + HD, not 10 + CR.

You wasn't incorrect: rules were changed closer to the end of 3.5 era, and - say - Monster Manual V already listed it as "10 + CR"

[Powerdork]

From the SRD:

"In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster."

The page reference in Player's Handbook for this line, by the way, is 78, in the Check line for the Knowledge skill.

[Wildstag]

That's not standard. Nowhere in the Player's Handbook is that mentioned (in fact, it doesn't mention at all how much info you get for whatever DC). Just because later books (I think it started with MM4) decided to make their predefined skill checks depended on hit dice doesn't mean that you need to do the same. And as wolves, your king and so on are common knowledge, they get common knowledge DCs. Apply a bit of common sense, please.

It's actually mentioned in the PHB. In 3.5, on page 78, under the subheader "Check:" It also covers how much info you get for whatever DC. It's one piece of useful information plus one piece per five points you beat the DC by. It doesn't describe "useful information", but hopefully your GM can use common sense.

In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster's HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster. For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information.

The name of the King would be common knowledge. The existence of wolves, and that they eat meat, and that they look like large dogs is common knowledge. What they eat (specifically, some populations prey primarily upon elk, others on bison, and others still on caribou), how often, and how they hunt would not be common knowledge. What the king's childhood was like and the king's appearance would not likely be common knowledge.

P.S. And ninja'd on the citation. dang.

[LibraryOgre]

I like that you can drown someone to heal them.

Drowning sets someone's HP to 0. So, if they are below 0, you can drown them a bit, and they'll heal.

[AvatarVecna]

From the SRD:

"In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster."

So it's worse than I remembered. 10 + HD, not 10 + CR.

So a commoner by RAW can't know useful information about their mother in law[1].

And note, RAW and common sense aren't to be spoken of in the same sentence. Which is one reason that I think an emphasis on RAW is utterly silly and pointless. But good for making jokes.

Spoiler: Ruining the joke

Show

[1] the joke here being that the mother in law is a monster

Cracked open the player's handbook:

In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.

Every creature in the game has HD, even if it's just a fraction. 1/4 HD is still more than 0 HD, which means the DC is higher than 10 (by a fraction). Very technically speaking, while the skill description says this is the DC to "identify monsters", what it says is that hitting the DC gets you a bit of useful info about the monster. Speaking of things the average commoner can't do, though:

Profession skill is about making money working as X. This is separate from the craft skill, where you take raw materials and work on them to make them into something more valuable. This means that while Profession (chef) is definitely a thing, Craft (Cooking) is how you make non-raw food by RAW. And craft is a trained only skill. Craft doesn't even have the "DC 10 can be attempted untrained" rule the way Knowledge has, so you're just SOL if you're not ranked. Let's see how fast different first-level people can make certain meals:

Spoiler: Craft (Cooking)

Show

Int scales from 3-18 (not including leveling or age). That means modifiers range from -4 to +4.

Ranks scale from 1-4. If you have fewer than 1 rank, you can't even try to cook.

Skill Focus gives +3 if you have it.

Masterwork tools give +2 if you have them.

Apprentice feat gives +2 if you have it (and also makes things cheaper).

Guild membership is +2 if you have it (as well as cheaper materials).

Specialized trait gives +1 if you have it.

All told, bonuses range from -3 to +18. I'm sure I missed something, but that's a nice bonus range. Let's see how they make various "day worth of meals for one person" you might find at a tavern. I'm assuming the DC is just high enough that they hit it when taking 10. Here's how long it takes various bonuses to make meals of various quality.

(time stamps is [hours]:[minutes]:[seconds])

Bonus	Poor	Common	Good
-3	1:25:42	3:25:42	5:42:51
-2	0:52:30	2:37:30	4:22:30
-1	0:41:28	2:04:26	3:27:24
+0	0:33:36	1:40:48	2:48:00
+1	0:27:46	1:23:18	2:18:50
+2	0:23:20	1:10:00	1:56:40
+3	0:19:52	0:59:38	1:39:24
+4	0:17:08	0:51:25	1:25:42
+5	0:14:56	0:44:48	1:14:40
+6	0:13:07	0:39:22	1:05:37
+7	0:11:37	0:34:52	0:58:07
+8	0:10:22	0:31:06	0:51:51
+9	0:09:18	0:27:55	0:46:32
+10	0:08:24	0:25:12	0:42:00
+11	0:07:37	0:22:51	0:38:05
+12	0:06:56	0:20:49	0:34:42
+13	0:06:21	0:19:03	0:31:45
+14	0:05:50	0:17:30	0:29:10
+15	0:05:22	0:16:07	0:25:52
+16	0:04:58	0:14:54	0:24:51
+17	0:04:36	0:13:49	0:23:02
+18	0:04:17	0:12:51	0:21:25

Housewife cooking for self, husband, and three kids needs meals for five. 4 ranks, skill focus, average Int, specialization trait, masterwork tools handed down through the family...+10 total. That makes 400 sp/week and she needs to make 25 sp worth of food (well, if they're equivalent of good tavern meals). That takes 1/16th of a week's work, or exactly 3.5 hours. Three and a half hours for a homemaker to cook a great meal for her whole family? That sounds right on target. This speed actually fits crafting times better than it does for crafting most items. Cooking might be what they based the craft rules on. "If crafting is faster than that, people can make feasts in minutes! Can't have that!"

[Telonius]

Not exactly RAW, but the Dead Levels article had this gem:

The monk is the only other core class, aside from the barbarian, that has no dead levels. Players always have something to look forward to with the monk, which boasts the most colorful and unique special abilities of all the character classes.

In the DMG, the "No sense of Humor" personality trait (p. 128) always gets a chuckle from me.

[The Viscount]

I've always liked that demons such as the babau can make darkness that they can't see through.

[Doctor Despair]

I've always liked that demons such as the babau can make darkness that they can't see through.

They just have an inherent sense of fairness. They may be chaotic, but that doesn't mean they have to be rude.

[Wildstag]

It's kinda funny to me, but Nonverbal Spell was a feat created for the "I swear I won't ever talk" Buomman race.

Anyone can take it though, so the feat exists for those that just want to scream spells into existence. You can just scream Power Word Kill and someone dies. Combine that with Eschew Materials, and you can basically have a caster that gesticulates wildly and roars their spells.

Per Races of the Dragon, kobolds can metabolize dirt and shells. It says nothing about the long-term health effects of such a diet, so technically a dirt-farming kobold could be useful.

[Azuresun]

From the SRD:

"In many cases, you can use this skill to identify monsters and their special powers or vulnerabilities. In general, the DC of such a check equals 10 + the monster’s HD. A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster."

So it's worse than I remembered. 10 + HD, not 10 + CR.

So a commoner by RAW can't know useful information about their mother in law[1].

It also means a newly hatched wyrmling will be far more recognisable that Karnauth The Legendary, ancient red dragon scourge upon these lands since time immemorial.

I quite liked the one where you are categorically forbidden to use item creation feats while raging.

[sreservoir]

I like that you can drown someone to heal them.

Drowning sets someone's HP to 0. So, if they are below 0, you can drown them a bit, and they'll heal.

Doesn't make much of a difference, of course, since there's also no RAW way to prevent the subsequent death.

[Crake]

Keep in mind the rule for knowledge checks does say in general. There is plenty of room for adjustment there based on circumstance, and it's certainly acceptable for a DM to say the DC for merely recognizing a creature is lower than that DC, while meeting the DC still allows the "useful piece of information" part.

[ShurikVch]

I like that you can drown someone to heal them.

Drowning sets someone's HP to 0. So, if they are below 0, you can drown them a bit, and they'll heal.

Doesn't make much of a difference, of course, since there's also no RAW way to prevent the subsequent death.

Apparently, dry drowning really exists (at least, in-game)


About the Knowledge rules:

Monster Manual V offers a table of lore with each monster's entry. That lore can be gleaned by a character who makes an appropriate Knowledge check. The baseline DC to identify a monster and remember one bit of information about its special abilities or vulnerabilities is equal to 10 + the monster's CR. (This is a change from the description of the Knowledge skill, PH 78.) As can be seen on individual tables in the monster entries, every 5 points by which the check result exceeds the DC yields another piece of information. Information specific to the creature, such as its type of damage reduction, spell-like abilities, or immunities, comes with higher check results.
The preceding rule addresses specific creatures well, but more can to be said about creatures of general types. Consider the adaru demon (page 20) as an example. It's a CR 10 creature. Identifying it specifically requires a successful DC 20 Knowledge (the planes) check. However, since lowly CR 2 demons such as the dretch are out there, sharing outsider and tanar'ri traits with the adaru, it's reasonable to assume that identifying those outsider and tanar'ri traits is a relatively easy task.
Except when otherwise noted, an appropriate and successful DC 15 Knowledge check reveals all of a creature's type and subtype traits as defined in the glossary. This often includes information about energy resistance or various immunities. For instance, a DC 15 Knowledge (arcana) check reveals that dragons are hard to kill (12-sided HD) and resilient (all good saves). They have darkvision out to 60 feet and low-light vision, and they are immune to sleep effects and paralysis effects. They eat, sleep, and breathe.

[AvatarVecna]

DM is always within their rights to set the DC wherever they please. The fact that the wiggle room explicitly exists doesn't change the fact that the wiggle room isn't explicitly defined, so the basic DCs are what we have to work with. The thread isn't "RAW problems even the DM can't solve" because if it was, the thread would have no examples at all.

Apparently, dry drowning really exists (at least, in-game)


About the Knowledge rules:

That is definitely a useful caveat about additional basic info somebody can get with a knowledge check. It's still DC 15 tho, which puts it out of the range of an untrained person.