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Post the crazy rules you hated.
I had a DM who made you keep track of the damage taken from each individual hit. When healing wounds you could only use a heal spell that could heal a max damage greater than the individual hit. So if you took a 9 point hit you had to use cure moderate not cure light. Very troublesome.
Post the crazy rules you hated.
I had a DM who made you keep track of the damage taken from each individual hit. When healing wounds you could only use a heal spell that could heal a max damage greater than the individual hit. So if you took a 9 point hit you had to use cure moderate not cure light. Very troublesome.
Yea only if they also did rested healing applies to each wound. I can't really think of any right now but I'm sure one will crop up sooner or later
I once had a DM who awarded XP in decimal points; nothing was more vexing than being .4 xp away from leveling up. For a few game sessions, he tried to extend that to damage as well. Thankfully, the combined scorn from everyone at the table nipped that in the bud.
"You can't die, your name is written in pen [on my sheets]".
Needless to say, that one actually led to some rather humorous testing of the DM's resolve regarding the situation.
Wow. I seriously question the reasoning behind every single one of these posts so far.
And I've already posted this in a couple threads in the Gamer Talk forum, but I had a DM who imposed all sorts of nerfs because he felt it made the game more "realistic". The all-time example, though, was Darkvision. He claimed that Darkvision is useless until you spend at least 30 minutes in complete darkness (spoiled even by a torch). So, in other words, before you could EVER use your Darkvision, you had to sit in complete darkness (completely blind) for thirty minutes. If you see a single light in that 30 minutes, the counter reset. In other words, Darkvision was 100% useless in this campaign.
But the best part was his reasoning. According to him, "The human eye takes 30 minutes to fully adjust to seeing in the dark." That's right. He was using real-world human physiology to guage a magical ability posessed by fictional creatures in a world governed by magic.
well all of these rules date back to second ed DnD but all from the same campaign
a natural 20 followed a second 20 was instant death , this caused us to avoid combat or try to kill thing very quickly also to complain that it was a silly rule, his reply what are the chances , ours 1 in 400
teleport and invisibility didn't effect your cloths or anything you carried there were ways round this but still made for a very clothing optional game
The 20 followed by a 20 = instant death goes back to Empire of the Petal Throne iirc. That's on oldy. I remember using it in OD&D as well (along with the background skills and a few other goodies from EPT). Haven't seen it in a long time though. I need to kick start my OGL EPT game again. Nothing like a few good sacrifices to warm the heart (or other body parts) of a deity...
well all of these rules date back to second ed DnD but all from the same campaign
a natural 20 followed a second 20 was instant death , this caused us to avoid combat or try to kill thing very quickly also to complain that it was a silly rule, his reply what are the chances , ours 1 in 400
IIRC its an optional rule last seen in the 3.5 (or 3.0) DMG. Its a very evil thing to use as a GM, especially if a lot of minions with several attack the party.
"Kae, you're not allowed to play a rogue, since I'm going to do some rogue stuff and I know you overpower all your characters."
Note that this guy had not the slightest idea of game balance or anything like that, he probably based this on the fact that my martial character in another campaign we both played in did more damage than his evoker.
But this is not the crazy thing. At one point he told us: "You're now part of the thieves' guild. You all must take a level of rogue when you level up next."
That was as far as his thoughts went with that. He didn't consider things like this not fitting some characters at all, rules consequences (XP penalties), and all that. He just thought this would make sense.
Luckily, we got him to reconsider. We just had to take some "thief skills."
Note that we didn't even particularly want to be part of that stupid guild. But the campaign was on a rail.
Some more gems from that campaign:
"You feel a wave of energy washing over you. Make a save.... Those who failed the save get +5 to strength for the next (some amount of time). It was a bull's strength spell, but you didn't know that, so you had to resist."
Another time, we got the vision that we were supposed to go to this island. We knew that things would get weird if we didn't go there, because of the railroading, so we tried to fly there. We couldn't find the island. At all. Impossible. We got another dream (nevermind that this was the dream/nightmare spell and we had elves in the party that nevertheless dreamed that dream - even though they didn't even sleep as such) that told us we had to go there by ship.
That's right: You couldn't fly to this island. Of course, procuring a ship proved to be a major pain in the ass.
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IIRC its an optional rule last seen in the 3.5 (or 3.0) DMG. Its a very evil thing to use as a GM, especially if a lot of minions with several attack the party.well all of these rules date back to second ed DnD but all from the same campaign
a natural 20 followed a second 20 was instant death , this caused us to avoid combat or try to kill thing very quickly also to complain that it was a silly rule, his reply what are the chances , ours 1 in 400
Someone once told me at a convention that they used this rule to kill the Tarrasque. After that conversation I upgraded this optional rule from "bad" to "utter rubbish."
Needless to say I have never used it.
Haggling. One DM made an intricate system of haggling based on your diplomacy opposed by the merchant's diplomacy, based on your (player) arguments, scarcity of the item, etc etc. We wasted a complete session once on shopping the essentials to go from one town to another.
Combat fatigue system. Based on your actions in combat and whatnot, you got fatigued after you burnt through your pool of "fatigue points". Yay realism. Also, this was based on my out-of-shape (by my cane-wielding standards even) geek friends real-life tolerance for work and exertion, so every character was laughable in terms of endurance. System was so skewed that the difference between Con10 and Con18 meant you lasted for roughly two more rounds. Wis and force of will was not accounted for, and it became another source of tedium, bogging down combat even more. Not to mention the lunacy of keeping track of fatigue pools for NPCs.
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When running Hook Mountain Massacre, for some weird reason, I've decided to calculate the Magnimar --> Turtleback trip down to hours (that was half bad) and proceeded to roll for random encounters for every hour (now that was stupid).
Net result, over the course of 3 ingame weeks and 3 IRL sessions:
- 12 dead goblins
- 1 dead erinyes
- 1 still undead smokehaunt
- 3 wasted sessions
- 1 intricate "Random campsite guard generator a.k.a. who is on guard duty at 3:30?"
- 4 moderately po'd players
- 1 DM who had to rethink his approach to random enocunters
Most of the examples given actually aren't bad in moderation or in a campaign where they are the expectation from the very start. The biggest problem is that in most of the examples, it really didn't fit what the person was expecting from the game or the details needed some tweaking, not that the rules themselves were inherently bad in their entirety.
I was playing in an AD&D 5th lvl campaign where the DM had a dwarf fighter character who was grossly overpowered, compared to rest of us. I had a fighter/assassin PC, and during some roleplay, another player's cavalier was arrogant, demanding and threatening toward me and another PC(thief).
Through some social engineering, I got a barroom brawl going between the Cavalier and the DM's character (ah, the egos!) and the dwarf (of course) beat him badly.
Here's where we get to the "funny" rules.
The cavalier was recovering in the basement. The thief and I decided to sneak down in the night to extract some payback. We made our move silent roles, but another PC (cleric) "had a feeling" and awoke in time to wander down and interrupt us. Combat ensued. The DM's dwarf shows up (at the top of the basement stairs) and decides to throw a javelin of lightning at us. Being Rogue-types, we made our save to avoid, and since the distance was about 30 feet, I asked him about the back blast (IIRC, less than 60' required it). He wasn't aware of it at first, so after a long argument in which he tried to have a do over), he finally agreed to do it. We saved again, and the dwarf & cleric failed, frying them completely. The DM then announced that the dwarf wasn't really affected, because "he was so short the bolt of lightning would have gone over him".
The thief PC and I ran from the inn, and blue bolts from the heavens killed us. Neither of us returned to that game.
1) Halflings that carry Great Swords can't use stealth because the swords are too big to hide. (Well, they apply a -10 penalty to stealth). Humans/Elves/etc don't get this penalty.
2) Wizards don't get the 2 spells per level because that's cheesy, go buy one in town. If you ever get to town, since you are shipwrecked in a jungle and all the natives are illiterate. Mentioned after player created wizard and earned first level, not before hand.
3) Custom Crit Chart that took up 5 pages, used d100 and d1000 rolls based on type of weapon used, and always seemed to cripple or maim PCs but NPCs always seemed to get off with +25% damage instead of double damage.
Mentioned after player created wizard and earned first level, not before hand.
Any example that includes the quoted statement, or something similar, though the problem is less the rule itself, and more the timing of its declaration.
"You feel a wave of energy washing over you. Make a save.... Those who failed the save get +5 to strength for the next (some amount of time). It was a bull's strength spell, but you didn't know that, so you had to resist."
Another time, we got the vision that we were supposed to go to this island. We knew that things would get weird if we didn't go there, because of the railroading, so we tried to fly there. We couldn't find the island. At all. Impossible. We got another dream (nevermind that this was the dream/nightmare spell and we had elves in the party that nevertheless dreamed that dream - even though they didn't even sleep as such) that told us we had to go there by ship.
That's right: You couldn't fly to this island. Of course, procuring a ship proved to be a major pain in the ass.
As to the first one, that's an interesting one that has actually happened to me in play before. The DM did say though, "If you choose to resist roll a save." So we had the choice. That's kind of an interesting thing, that does crop up every once in a while with magical chambers, or magical artifacts. Unless you can make a swift Knowledge Arcana, or Spellcraft check, it's more a less a crap-shoot.
As to the elves and sleeping, I've gone around and around with my players on this one, and I know this isn't really the thread to answer it, but I thought I'd bring it up anyway, because I'm kind of chaotic that way. Has there ever been a developer answer to whether or not elves need 8 hours of rest?
Even the the d20pfsrd says the rules are vague.
The Pathfinder Core Rulebook is somewhat vague on the requirements of resting and sleeping so the following is an extrapolation of existing rules combined with rules taken from d20srd.org combined with a bit of our own personal ideas. Use at your discretion.
The Pathfinder Core Rules clearly indicate that the only types of creatures that do not sleep are constructs, oozes, plants and undead. All other creature types must rest on a somewhat regular cycle. The exact required duration of that rest is unclear as well as the consequences of having less than the required amount of rest.
We think it is reasonable that most creatures must rest for approximately 1/3 of every day, which in most worlds translates to roughly 8 hours per day.
For most creatures resting means sleeping. In some worlds some races can gain the benefits of rest simply by sitting quietly maintaining an awareness of their surroundings, while in other worlds those races must sleep, which leaves them vulnerable to attack.
One of the players in one of my groups said the book Elves of Golarion talks about Elves meditating, but that book has yet to be updated to the new Pathfinder rules. Just wondering if there's a consensus out there about that particular issue.
hmmm I seem to recall to whole Elves meditate instead of sleep started with the 2nd edition brown cover Complete book of Elves. It's lingered since then. But I could be mistaken.
On topic, like most DMs I have my house rules. Most are pretty benign like using a d10 for initiative instead of a d20. My groups don't bother with confirming crits. etc.
But the one that I like to use that can cause some grousing is shooting into combat. If you miss your target, because of the -4 penalty your friend imposed for being in melee with your target. You shot your friend.
(friend is just for the example. it could be any two creatures fighting. You aim for one and miss because of the -4, you hit the other guy.)
On topic, like most DMs I have my house rules. Most are pretty benign like using a d10 for initiative instead of a d20. My groups don't bother with confirming crits. etc.
But the one that I like to use that can cause some grousing is shooting into combat. If you miss your target, because of the -4 penalty your friend imposed for being in melee with your target. You shot your friend.
(friend is just for the example. it could be any two creatures fighting. You aim for one and miss because of the -4, you hit the other guy.)
Do you mean that if your d20 roll is 4, 3, 2, or 1 off of the target AC that you hit your friend, and if it's anything 5 or more off you just went wide all together? Or that if you miss, regardless of how badly, that you shot your friend. Cause I don't think I could get on board with that.
As to the elves and sleeping, I've gone around and around with my players on this one, and I know this isn't really the thread to answer it, but I thought I'd bring it up anyway, because I'm kind of chaotic that way. Has there ever been a developer answer to whether or not elves need 8 hours of rest?
Per James Jacob in this thread and even more clearly stated again here in pathfinder elves need 8 hours sleep.
hmmm I seem to recall to whole Elves meditate instead of sleep started with the 2nd edition brown cover Complete book of Elves. It's lingered since then. But I could be mistaken.
First session trying out a new group. A Roc attacks the party, I am playing a 1st addition 9th level dwarven fighter, with about 90 HPs (That was a lot in 1st addition at that level). My dwarf throws a dwarven thrower at the Roc for some good damage. The Roc picks up my dwarf and drops him from about 100'. I figure, I am OK, 10d6, I can survive that. At that point he informs me he uses his own falling system 1d6 for the first 10', 2d6 for the 2nd 10'. 3d6 for the third, well you get the picture. 55 D6 later I am dead. Then to make matters worse, when my friend wants to put my ring of regeneration that I had lent him back on me to regenerate me back to life (the ring did that in 1st addition), he informs me that the fall so obliterated my body that there were no fingers to put the ring on. Needless to say, I never played another game with him.
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Mentioned after player created wizard and earned first level, not before hand.Any example that includes the quoted statement, or something similar, though the problem is less the rule itself, and more the timing of its declaration.
While I agree that declaration is a problem, the rule itself is quite foolish, too. These things are not mutually exclusive.
Sometimes I wonder why GMs do some of these things. The ones grounded in "realism" tend to be the worst. I've been rather fortunate in GMs in my time, and I'm even gladder of the fact now. Many of these boggle the mind.
Per James Jacob in this thread and even more clearly stated again here in pathfinder elves need 8 hours sleep.
As to the elves and sleeping, I've gone around and around with my players on this one, and I know this isn't really the thread to answer it, but I thought I'd bring it up anyway, because I'm kind of chaotic that way. Has there ever been a developer answer to whether or not elves need 8 hours of rest?
Thanks for pointing those out Sky, I greatly appreciate it.
Mentioned after player created wizard and earned first level, not before hand.Any example that includes the quoted statement, or something similar, though the problem is less the rule itself, and more the timing of its declaration.
Honestly, no, there are some rulings that are just bad. Wizards get no spells at level up? Are you kidding? That is attrocious mechanically and makes no sense flavor wise. If the rule would mean no one would go near it (IE not play a wizard) then it is almost certainly a bad rule.
The not mentioning it ahead of time just makes it worse.
Do you mean that if your d20 roll is 4, 3, 2, or 1 off of the target AC that you hit your friend, and if it's anything 5 or more off you just went wide all together? Or that if you miss, regardless of how badly, that you shot your friend. Cause I don't think I could get on board with that.On topic, like most DMs I have my house rules. Most are pretty benign like using a d10 for initiative instead of a d20. My groups don't bother with confirming crits. etc.
But the one that I like to use that can cause some grousing is shooting into combat. If you miss your target, because of the -4 penalty your friend imposed for being in melee with your target. You shot your friend.
(friend is just for the example. it could be any two creatures fighting. You aim for one and miss because of the -4, you hit the other guy.)
Your first interpretation. Missing by 1-4 you hit the creature getting in your way. 5+ your attack went wide or bounced off armor, etc.
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I ran a 2nd edition game where I tried to replace Vancian Casting with... something different.
For Arcane casters, I had a spell point system. This never got a thorough testing, as the wizard dropped out soon into the game. However, for the divine casters...
I decided that the power of a divine caster's spells would have something to do with devotion, which for me somehow translated into time spent at prayer. However, I didn't want to penalize the players. So I ruled that divine casting worked very similarly to normal - X number of N level spells at each level... except that if you were really desperate, you could cast additional divine spells, or even spells normally beyond your ability to cast, if you increased the casting time (spent more time praying). Basically, a 1st level cleric could cast raise dead if he extended the casting time to six months or something like that. I forget what the algorithm was.
Needless to say, it completely broke the game. The cleric became the party's solution to every problem: "He'll just pray for 10 days while we guard him!" I gamely stuck it out, figuring that I had made my bed and now needed to lie in it. That game exploded eventually for other reasons. :P
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Your first interpretation. Missing by 1-4 you hit the creature getting in your way. 5+ your attack went wide or bounced off armor, etc.
The way I play it, you have to miss the target by 4 or less AND still manage to hit your buddy's AC. I can't remember at this point if that's a house rule or the actual rule! :P
Your first interpretation. Missing by 1-4 you hit the creature getting in your way. 5+ your attack went wide or bounced off armor, etc.The way I play it, you have to miss the target by 4 or less AND still manage to hit your buddy's AC. I can't remember at this point if that's a house rule or the actual rule! :P
So if one combatant's AC is at or below what you've rolled, and your roll was 1-4 numbers below the target AC you actually hit the other combatant? That's a rule I could get on board with. In fact I might be instituting that at the next session, if my players agree of course. :)
What has annoyed me in past about friendly fire is not having to roll to hit the mis-targeted character.
Hmmm... okay, 1d20+16 attack... oh, natural 1? Okay, you hit the AC 37 fighter instead. No need to roll vs. his AC.
As long as you do have to hit your buddy's AC I'm reasonably OK with it.
Rules like that had some bizarre consequences in the early days of Warmachine. It was often better to shoot at your own men and miss than to aim at the enemy, as a stray shot was guaranteed to hit a random other target in melee.
Rules like that had some bizarre consequences in the early days of Warmachine. It was often better to shoot at your own men and miss than to aim at the enemy, as a stray shot was guaranteed to hit a random other target in melee.
That's the definition of bassackwards. I shoot at my buddy, come on natural 1...
As a young DM back in the day, I was running my friends through one of the old introductory modules (precursor to Temple of Elemental Evil...Village of Hommlet?). A couple of rulings from that game (which was over 20 years ago mind you) are still brought up in conversations to this day!
1) Characters decided to burn out a nest of spiders in a tower rather than fight them, so I said the coins that were hidden in the tower melted away to nothing.
2) One of the larger encounters of the keep was behind a secure, locked door with a peephole. One of the PC fighters readied a crossbow to shoot through the peephole when another PC knocked on the door. I told him that it would take a natural 20 to hit the peephole. The 2nd PC knocked, the peephole opened, the 1st PC shot...and rolled a 20! Since I didn't want a major villain taken out in this fashion I ruled that the bolt got stuck in the peephole. Technically he hit it, but it didn't do any harm. I've never been able to live that ruling down (rightfully so, too). =)
Mentioned after player created wizard and earned first level, not before hand.Any example that includes the quoted statement, or something similar, though the problem is less the rule itself, and more the timing of its declaration.Honestly, no, there are some rulings that are just bad. Wizards get no spells at level up? Are you kidding? That is attrocious mechanically and makes no sense flavor wise. If the rule would mean no one would go near it (IE not play a wizard) then it is almost certainly a bad rule.
The not mentioning it ahead of time just makes it worse.
While I personally agree that the rule is silly and would never make a wizard if known ahead of time, the biggest problem is still the timing. If it is known ahead of time, and it is something major like this, the player(s) can discuss it with the DM while still in the character creation/campaign development phase. If the DM refuses to change it, than the problem may be less the specific rule, and more the DM in general, and the player(s) are able to adjust accordingly before hidden bad feelings are allowed to develop.
Your first interpretation. Missing by 1-4 you hit the creature getting in your way. 5+ your attack went wide or bounced off armor, etc.The way I play it, you have to miss the target by 4 or less AND still manage to hit your buddy's AC. I can't remember at this point if that's a house rule or the actual rule! :P
I can't recall either where the rule came from. I do think it was from back in 3.0 or 2nd edition. Personally I don't add the qualifier that you had to hit the other targets AC to inflict damage. For me, really it's just my personal taste, it bogs things down to much.
Once you start with that then I start over thinking the situation.Okay so I missed by 2 which would hit the other guy.. so is he flat footed against the attack? He's my buddy, he isn't expecting a arrow in the back so he should be right.. etc.. etc..
I prefer to keep it simple. Miss because of the -4 penalty you hit whatever was imposing that penalty. It's essentially a cover bonus for your target.
That's the definition of bassackwards. I shoot at my buddy, come on natural 1...
It got changed pretty quick, along with the other rule that allowed an entire army to hide behind a single guy. And I'm not talking about single-file.
While I personally agree that the rule is silly and would never make a wizard if known ahead of time, the biggest problem is still the timing. If it is known ahead of time, and it is something major like this, the player(s) can discuss it with the DM while still in the character creation/campaign development phase. If the DM refuses to change it, than the problem may be less the specific rule, and more the DM in general, and the player(s) are able to adjust accordingly before hidden bad feelings are allowed to develop.Mentioned after player created wizard and earned first level, not before hand.Any example that includes the quoted statement, or something similar, though the problem is less the rule itself, and more the timing of its declaration.Honestly, no, there are some rulings that are just bad. Wizards get no spells at level up? Are you kidding? That is attrocious mechanically and makes no sense flavor wise. If the rule would mean no one would go near it (IE not play a wizard) then it is almost certainly a bad rule.
The not mentioning it ahead of time just makes it worse.
Agreed. pulling out character/class limiting rules after character creation is generally a sign of a bad DM. It's right up there with the blue bolts from the heavens nonsense.
Where did the whole blue bolts thing come from anyway?? I once saw a DM use that in a game my friends and I walked past in college. I think I even ridiculed the DM over it and I didn't know the guy.But it seems like it's been around for ages and pretty wide spread.
Your first interpretation. Missing by 1-4 you hit the creature getting in your way. 5+ your attack went wide or bounced off armor, etc.The way I play it, you have to miss the target by 4 or less AND still manage to hit your buddy's AC. I can't remember at this point if that's a house rule or the actual rule! :PI can't recall either where the rule came from. I do think it was from back in 3.0 or 2nd edition. Personally I don't add the qualifier that you had to hit the other targets AC to inflict damage. For me, really it's just my personal taste, it bogs things down to much.
Once you start with that then I start over thinking the situation.
Okay so I missed by 2 which would hit the other guy.. so is he flat footed against the attack? He's my buddy, he isn't expecting a arrow in the back so he should be right.. etc.. etc..
I prefer to keep it simple. Miss because of the -4 penalty you hit whatever was imposing that penalty. It's essentially a cover bonus for your target.
I do this in my own games.
I had one player who consistently shot his own teammates. In fact, the very first fight he was in he shot the wizard in the gluteus maximus (look it up), in the first phase of the fight. Then, 3 turns later, he shot the same wizard in the back of the head with an energy ray.
The next game, he shot the paladin with an arrow, and then hit the NPC they were supposed to be rescuing the combat after that.
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I had one player who consistently shot his own teammates. In fact, the very first fight he was in he shot the wizard in the gluteus maximus (look it up), in the first phase of the fight. Then, 3 turns later, he shot the same wizard in the back of the head with an energy ray.
The next game, he shot the paladin with an arrow, and then hit the NPC they were supposed to be rescuing the combat after that.
It's a wonder that the party let him near any ranged weapons!
Agreed. pulling out character/class limiting rules after character creation is generally a sign of a bad DM. It's right up there with the blue bolts from the heavens nonsense.
Where did the whole blue bolts thing come from anyway?? I once saw a DM use that in a game my friends and I walked past in college. I think I even ridiculed the DM over it and I didn't know the guy.
But it seems like it's been around for ages and pretty wide spread.
I never heard the bolts being blue, but lightning striking down an enemy of 'god' is a common trope. So I guess it makes sense that dm's employ it to 'punish' players. My favorite is still 'rocks fall, you all die, time for a new campaign'.
Talking is a full-round action
Talking is a full-round action
Buck-buck-brawwwk! No GM actually had that rule, you're making that up.
Nope, he's still made fun of it to this day. Good guy, stupid rule.
It was his attempt to stop us from sharing information with each other. It was a complete failure.
Nope, he's still made fun of it to this day. Good guy, stupid rule.
It was his attempt to stop us from sharing information with each other. It was a complete failure.
Hahaha how would the players not use that against the DM almost immediately? "Hey Bard keep the BBEG talking he'll burn all his actions while we cut him down." "Dude! that goblin just said ow when I cut him, that's his action right?"
haha I don't think he thought it through, it was one of those frustration rules that quickly got out of hand. But it's still fun to tease him about it years later. Now whenever he wants one of his NPCs to say something, we always say he can't because it's a full-round action lol poor guy
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So if one combatant's AC is at or below what you've rolled, and your roll was 1-4 numbers below the target AC you actually hit the other combatant? That's a rule I could get on board with. In fact I might be instituting that at the next session, if my players agree of course. :)
In 3.5 we made the -4 optional. If you didn't take it and missed the bad guy but the number rolled would hit an ally, you hit your ally. If you took the penalty, you wouldn't hit your ally.
One possibility in PF is to institute a "hitting cover" rule, since you suffer a soft cover bonus in addition to the -4 for lacking precise shot in some circumstances. That seems more palatable to me than just hitting anytime you miss by less than 4. And you should have to hit an ally's AC regardless.