"Wait, that didn't work right" - the Dysfunctional Rules Collection

[rockdeworld]

I'm pretty sure we could just have a post that says "Tome of Magic" and call it a day.

I guess that's what yours is then

The Epic Spell Multispell doesn't actually work, since you only get 1 swift action per turn.

[willpell]

I'm pretty sure we could just have a post that says "Tome of Magic" and call it a day.

Now, there's hardly anything wrong with the Binders chapter, other than an unfortunate-but-consistent-with-Wotco's-practices decision to sort the Vestiges alphabetically rather than by level. It's just the rest of the book that's kinda awful.

[noparlpf]

I guess that's what yours is then

The Epic Spell Multispell doesn't actually work, since you only get 1 swift action per turn.

I think that's a case of specific trumps general. It says, "You can cast one additional Quickened spell per turn," or something like that.

[rockdeworld]

A 1st level commoner can develop epic spells.
A 7th level commoner expert (commoners don't get knowledge: Arcana) commoner with the Skill Knowledge feat can cast them.
There's no requirement that you take Epic Spellcasting to do either.

And if we start getting into Air Bud clauses, there's no rule that Humans kobolds (because they need some love) don't have 10 arms (each of which can hold and use a weapon), 3 brains (each of which can concentrate on spells), and no vital organs.

[toapat]

And if we start getting into Air Bud clauses, there's no rule that Humans kobolds (because they need some love) don't have 10 arms (each of which can hold and use a weapon), 3 brains (each of which can concentrate on spells), and no vital organs.

the vital organs thing is actually covered in the explaination for natural fortification. If you dont have natural fortification, you have vital organs

the others are just hilarious rules lawyering

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Now, there's hardly anything wrong with the Binders chapter, other than an unfortunate-but-consistent-with-Wotco's-practices decision to sort the Vestiges alphabetically rather than by level. It's just the rest of the book that's kinda awful.

I don't see why you dislike sorting things alphabetically. Each class has a short list detailing which vestiges, spells, etc. they get access to by level that you can look up when leveling, and then the full descriptions are listed alphabetically for easier reference in play. It's more important to be able to reference things quickly during play than during downtime, and if you need to know what abilities Paimon grants or what the range is on control winds it's easier to search by name than to try to remember what level it is because you have the name in front of you and everyone knows the alphabet already.

[Kazyan]

And if we start getting into Air Bud clauses, there's no rule that Humans kobolds (because they need some love) don't have 10 arms (each of which can hold and use a weapon), 3 brains (each of which can concentrate on spells), and no vital organs.

On the other hand, that violates the 1st commandment of PO. The rules don't have to spell that out for you. There's a picture anyway.

[Dusk Eclipse]

On the other hand, that violates the 1st commandment of PO. The rules don't have to spell that out for you. There's a picture anyway.

Wait... I thought the first rule of PO was:

Thou shall not loose CL

[TuggyNE]

A 1st level commoner can develop epic spells.
A 7th level commoner expert (commoners don't get knowledge: Arcana) can cast them.
There's no requirement that you take Epic Spellcasting to do either.

This is just not true.

And if we start getting into Air Bud clauses, there's no rule that Humans kobolds (because they need some love) don't have 10 arms (each of which can hold and use a weapon), 3 brains (each of which can concentrate on spells), and no vital organs.

I find your assertion that kobolds need PO TO munchkinry love hilarious. But, hey, let's see. "A humanoid usually has two arms, two legs, and one head, or a humanlike torso, arms, and a head." Examining the kobold entry we see no signs of extra weapon use available. Since there is no particular game explanation of what "3 brains" could mean, supposing it were somehow true, we are unable to speculate on the implications. And, of course, neither the kobold entry nor the humanoid type (or reptilian subtype) makes any mention of immunity to critical hits, quite unlike, say, the undead type, so that too is out. None of these are rules dysfunctions at all.

Well, that was fun I guess?

[Dusk Eclipse]

That was awesome.

[Jack_Simth]

I guess that's what yours is then

The Epic Spell Multispell doesn't actually work, since you only get 1 swift action per turn.

There's at least a good reason for that one.

The Epic Level Handbook was a 3.0 book, and Swift actions weren't introduced until a little after 3.5 came out. At the time The Epic Level Handbook was printed, a spell enhanced by the Quickened spell feat was a free action to cast, but you were restricted to one such per round. In that context, the Multispell feat was just fine.

[rockdeworld]

This is just not true.

I find your assertion that kobolds need PO TO munchkinry love hilarious. But, hey, let's see. "A humanoid usually has two arms, two legs, and one head, or a humanlike torso, arms, and a head."

Yes, the keyword is "usually." As for Epic Spells, it doesn't say that people without Epic Spellcasting cannot do the same, only that people with it can.

On a side note: what is PO?

More examples:
Most dungeon-dwellers can't afford the traps in their dungeon.

Create Food and Water traps (or any spell, eg. Heal), if they haven't been mentioned yet.

Silent Image can duplicate Blur, Displacement, Blindness, Darkness, Invisibility (and its line), Mirage Arcana, Veil, and Screen.

[Amidus Drexel]

On a side note: what is PO?

Practical Optimization, unless I've missed something that it relates to specifically on this thread.

[Jack_Simth]

Silent Image can duplicate Blur, Displacement, Blindness, Darkness, Invisibility (and its line), Mirage Arcana, Veil, and Screen.

Actually, it can't. That's handled in the Magic Overview as part of the Illusion School, specifically the Figment and Glamer subschools:

A figment spell creates a false sensation. Those who perceive the figment perceive the same thing, not their own slightly different versions of the figment. (It is not a personalized mental impression.) Figments cannot make something seem to be something else. A figment that includes audible effects cannot duplicate intelligible speech unless the spell description specifically says it can. If intelligible speech is possible, it must be in a language you can speak. If you try to duplicate a language you cannot speak, the image produces gibberish. Likewise, you cannot make a visual copy of something unless you know what it looks like.

Because figments and glamers (see below) are unreal, they cannot produce real effects the way that other types of illusions can. They cannot cause damage to objects or creatures, support weight, provide nutrition, or provide protection from the elements. Consequently, these spells are useful for confounding or delaying foes, but useless for attacking them directly.

A figment’s AC is equal to 10 + its size modifier.

(Emphasis added)
and

A glamer spell changes a subject’s sensory qualities, making it look, feel, taste, smell, or sound like something else, or even seem to disappear.

Silent Image, being a Figment, can't do the kinds of things Blur, Displacement, Invisibility, Mirage Arcana, Veil, and Screen can do. Blindness and Darkness are arguable, but the duration: Concentration part of Silent Image really puts a damper on what you can use it for in practice.

[rockdeworld]

I'm reading through the old posts on this thread, and got to drowning.

Note that "Near Drowning" is a term no longer recognized by the US medical community. If someone is resuscitated from such an experience, it's referred to as drowning. So drowned characters can be revived.

[toapat]

I'm reading through the old posts on this thread, and got to drowning.

Note that "Near Drowning" is a term no longer recognized by the US medical community. If someone is resuscitated from such an experience, it's referred to as drowning. So drowned characters can be revived.

except, there are no rules to allow that. the point was that Drowning is an Infinite loop that puts you into perma-statis

[Boci]

I'm reading through the old posts on this thread, and got to drowning.

Note that "Near Drowning" is a term no longer recognized by the US medical community. If someone is resuscitated from such an experience, it's referred to as drowning. So drowned characters can be revived.

I must be missing something here, because to me it seems that the fact that kobolds aren't explicitly stated as having vital organs is a dysfunctional rule, but the drowning one isn't based on the opinions of the US medical community?

[noparlpf]

The US medical community does not acknowledge the existence of kobolds. Therefore, kobolds are a dysfunctional rule.

[Boci]

The US medical community does not acknowledge the existence of kobolds. Therefore, kobolds are a dysfunctional rule have infiltrated the US medical community!

FTFY. White

[willpell]

I don't see why you dislike sorting things alphabetically. Each class has a short list detailing which vestiges, spells, etc. they get access to by level that you can look up when leveling, and then the full descriptions are listed alphabetically for easier reference in play. It's more important to be able to reference things quickly during play than during downtime, and if you need to know what abilities Paimon grants or what the range is on control winds it's easier to search by name than to try to remember what level it is because you have the name in front of you and everyone knows the alphabet already.

For Binders in particular (and also Clerics, but that ship sailed since it's a core class that gets more spells in every damn supplement; Binders at least are entirely in one book except for a bit of web crap), the fact that every member of the class gets all the widgets up to a certain level means that it would be much more convenient to just be able to start at the beginning of the Vestiges section and stop when you see "Level X Vestiges" if your maximum level is X-1. As it is you have to do a lot of page flipping to even read all five level 1 vestiges, and still more if you take Improved Binding and get four more. You don't even pass the halfway mark until you can bind 4ths, so you're skipping through many pages of not-yet-relevant material; it's an awkwardness that could easily have been avoided. I tend to doubt that there would be very many occasions when you'd need to know what a given Vestige does but NOT know what its level was, given that the level determines whether or not you ever have it (there are no scrolls or wands to give you access to widgets above your usual widget-level limit).

Most dungeon-dwellers can't afford the traps in their dungeon.

Create Food and Water traps (or any spell, eg. Heal), if they haven't been mentioned yet.

On a fairly recent thread the community pretty much came to the conclusion that traps are one of those things you should just accept as a genre convention and not try to "solve". If you price auto-reset traps on the assumption that they will be use-activated magic items and thus can't cost half as much as actual magic items, you make them impossibly overpriced and thus take away one of the most important parts of the D&D experience. So it's better just to shrug and move on, accepting that traps simply only work for variously-harmful spells and can't be carried around to use as cheap weapons, without asking for a reason or trying to exploit anything.

[TuggyNE]

Yes, the keyword is "usually." As for Epic Spells, it doesn't say that people without Epic Spellcasting cannot do the same, only that people with it can.

Yeah, this is the rather unhelpful attitude of "it doesn't explicitly quite say I can't [despite the wealth of examples that point to the overwhelming probability that you cannot] so of course I can!" I say this is unhelpful because it exposes no particular problems in the rules except a failure to enumerate the infinity of possible stupid things you could try to claim the ability to do.

3.5 rules work on the principle of allowing you to do specific things (in general or in particular), and not allowing you to do anything you don't have some sort of specific permission for.

Had I realized up front that all your examples were related specifically to that principle I would have just ignored them. Ah well, hindsight.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

the fact that every member of the class gets all the widgets up to a certain level means that it would be much more convenient to just be able to start at the beginning of the Vestiges section and stop when you see "Level X Vestiges" if your maximum level is X-1.
[...]
I tend to doubt that there would be very many occasions when you'd need to know what a given Vestige does but NOT know what its level was, given that the level determines whether or not you ever have it (there are no scrolls or wands to give you access to widgets above your usual widget-level limit).

Again, that's fine when building your character, but quick reference in play is more important. If they're organized by level and you're looking for Shax, if you turn to, say, Marchosias you might need to flip a few pages to figure out where you are, but if they're organized alphabetically and you flip to Marchosias you know Shax comes afterwards.

The most common reference cases are things like "I'm a mid-level binder who can bind 5th level vestiges. Chupoclops sounds cool; can I bind him yet?" or "I know I want my character to have access to Paimon for Dance of Death; how many levels of binder do I need for that?" or "I have access to Tenebrous and have bound him, but forget if he has a requirement." In those cases you want to be able to go right to the name to look up the vestige's level or other information, not flip through by level until you find it--in fact, when writing the first example, I remembered Chupoclops's name and theme but not his level, and it was easier for me to open up ToM and find the C's than to find the vestige list, scan up through the levels, and find him that way.

Also, expansion potential: WotC didn't know when publishing the binder whether they'd provide other binder material in other sourcebook like Complete Psionic did for the XPH. If they'd printed a new class that was able to access vestiges at different levels (as happened with Vancian casters and psionicists), that would destroy the usefulness of a by-level organization scheme, the same way sorting PHB spells by level makes no sense because the same spell can be on different spell lists at different levels.

Most dungeon-dwellers can't afford the traps in their dungeon.

Well, obviously, most dungeons must epic-level awakened objects and the traps count against their WBL and not that of the inhabitants.

[TypoNinja]

For Binders in particular (and also Clerics, but that ship sailed since it's a core class that gets more spells in every damn supplement; Binders at least are entirely in one book except for a bit of web crap), the fact that every member of the class gets all the widgets up to a certain level means that it would be much more convenient to just be able to start at the beginning of the Vestiges section and stop when you see "Level X Vestiges" if your maximum level is X-1. As it is you have to do a lot of page flipping to even read all five level 1 vestiges, and still more if you take Improved Binding and get four more. You don't even pass the halfway mark until you can bind 4ths, so you're skipping through many pages of not-yet-relevant material; it's an awkwardness that could easily have been avoided. I tend to doubt that there would be very many occasions when you'd need to know what a given Vestige does but NOT know what its level was, given that the level determines whether or not you ever have it (there are no scrolls or wands to give you access to widgets above your usual widget-level limit).



On a fairly recent thread the community pretty much came to the conclusion that traps are one of those things you should just accept as a genre convention and not try to "solve". If you price auto-reset traps on the assumption that they will be use-activated magic items and thus can't cost half as much as actual magic items, you make them impossibly overpriced and thus take away one of the most important parts of the D&D experience. So it's better just to shrug and move on, accepting that traps simply only work for variously-harmful spells and can't be carried around to use as cheap weapons, without asking for a reason or trying to exploit anything.

This is actually sort of addressed, the carrying part anyway.

The SHBG section on wondrous architecture notes that you get steep discounts for the cost to enchant based on how hard it is to move something. Large but techincally moveable objects that have been echanted are 1000gp x spell level x caster level, while immovable objects are only 500gp x spell level x caster level. Compare that to the 2000gp x spell level x caster level of a wondrous item. So if you can take it with you, its not a 'trap' its a wondrous item.

Self-resetting traps that cast a spell are also 500gp x caster level x spell level. The obvious implication is that traps should never be mobile.

[willpell]

Even stationary traps still have issues though, which is why there need to be specifications like "offensive only", again for no real reason other than so that the game stays Dungeons and Dragons instead of turning into Tippyverse or something equally bizarre. (Not that there's anything terribly wrong about those things, other than that it's kind of arbitrary.)

[TuggyNE]

Even stationary traps still have issues though, which is why there need to be specifications like "offensive only", again for no real reason other than so that the game stays Dungeons and Dragons instead of turning into Tippyverse or something equally bizarre. (Not that there's anything terribly wrong about those things, other than that it's kind of arbitrary.)

In my opinion, the fundamental problem with traps and magic items (and to a lesser extent spells and other effects) is that no effort is made to ensure conservation of magical energy or anything similar; once a trap is working, it can run indefinitely for free.

A better system would require that all items be powered in some fashion; for example, a certain amount of ambient energy might be trivial to access, and larger amounts might not be too hard, but it becomes increasingly more difficult to gather or produce energy in successively larger quantities, and it's dependent on the area (so no double-dipping).

[willpell]

I would find that to be excessively "techy". The idea of a perpetual motion machine that can only be used in one specific way, without any larger implications you can dissect, feels very fantasy-appropriate to me. Jack never tried to harvest the beans from the giant stalk and grow an entire plantation of giant bean vines that he could harvest for green "wood" and make a killing in the lumber business, because that's not the point of the story. To me Sci-Fi has always been about what you can do and how; fantasy is about why you do it, and what it says about you.

(This kind of ties in to what I said earlier about Tippyverse being arbitrary if it's not D&D anymore. To elaborate: The Tippyverse is almost entirely founded around the Teleport Circle spell, and that spell only existed in D&D in the first place for the sake of fulfilling the genre, because magic circles of runes that transport you across the world instantly are a medieval-fantasy thing, used to suggest that genre even if the story itself isn't within it, as with the Siege Perilous in Chris Stasheff's "The Warlock In Spite of Himself". If you take something that was created to make D&D feel more like D&D, and use it in a way that makes it become less D&Dish...well that just seems kinda tacky to me. Not a criticism of Tippyverse itself, but just a discouragement from doing that kind of thing too often.)

[Doorhandle]

Even stationary traps still have issues though, which is why there need to be specifications like "offensive only", again for no real reason other than so that the game stays Dungeons and Dragons instead of turning into Tippyverse or something equally bizarre. (Not that there's anything terribly wrong about those things, other than that it's kind of arbitrary.)

It is arbitrary, but it has given me an interesting ideas for how magic traps are made...

I hypothesise this. like many golems, magic traps are made by trapping the essence at a raging elemental, which is rapidly driven mad not only by the fact it's under bondage to another, but by it's constraints and it's inability to meaningfully interact with the world around it. it is only after this madness has set in that it's essence can be bound to the trap in order to power it's workings.

The spell inside the trap is powered by the sheer fury and sorrow of the trapped elemental, and is given direction by it's hatred for the wizard binding it so. for the trigger of any magic trap provides an image of the said wizard that only the elemental can see, and in it's maddened fury it mistakes it for the true wizard, and is immediately driven it to attack the false image with the only power at it's muster: that of the trap. Thus are such traps triggered.

Therefore, because they are powered only by mindless hate, magic traps can only be power offencive spells, as they are the only spell that can harness such channeled spite.


...Also probably means that the creation of such traps are evil, though, and it says nothing of the sort in it's description...

[mattie_p]

So what happens when you have a necropolitan or lich who sets up an inflict serious wounds or harm trap? Does that fly?

One thing to note is that the DMG and SRD require traps to have a CR. If the DM rules that the trap is beneficial to the party, then no CR, and it is no longer a trap. Corner cases like that above aside, the DM really has to get involved in it. But as with custom magic items, custom traps require DM adjudication.

I don't know if that is any more dysfunctional than the oft requested "continuous item of true strike for 2000gp"

[Lapak]

In my opinion, the fundamental problem with traps and magic items (and to a lesser extent spells and other effects) is that no effort is made to ensure conservation of magical energy or anything similar; once a trap is working, it can run indefinitely for free.

A better system would require that all items be powered in some fashion; for example, a certain amount of ambient energy might be trivial to access, and larger amounts might not be too hard, but it becomes increasingly more difficult to gather or produce energy in successively larger quantities, and it's dependent on the area (so no double-dipping).

It's houseruled/handwavy, but I've resolved this in my setting by equating experience to life-energy. (You get it when you kill things or grow in a significant way, losing it diminishes you, gaining it makes you more difficult to kill.) Every living thing requires a minimum amount of it to exist.

There's only so much of it in the world, so permanently tying some of it up in a magical item has an effect. When you're talking just a few magical items, or charged items that gradually burn out (and thus return the energy to the pool) it's not really noticeable. Mass production of magical items - building a magi-tech society - causes birth rates to drop and the surrounding region to gradually turn into wasteland as life cannot sustain itself. Universally applicable things like Create Food traps and Cure Light Wounds traps pretty much inevitably lead to mass production, as they really are tremendously useful. There have been a few cycles of this in the past, with plenty of rumors and theories and legends but no complete understanding of how it happened except that magical decadence led to their downfall.

The result?
- There are treasure-rich ruined civilizations to play with in inhospitable territory.
- There are entire societies that spurn and fear magic without fully knowing the source of it - descendants of the remnants or neighbors of a collapsed civilization.
- There is a significant taboo among magic-users surrounding the creation of permanent magical items. Some kinds seem to be 'safe', and thus the creation of them is more widely taught and accepted (read: stock magic items, most of which are less universally appealing and more useful to niche occupations like 'adventurer.') Others are known to be 'dangerous' out of all proportion to their actual effect, and their creation is frowned upon or actively suppressed. (Pretty much anything that has a use in daily life, like Continual Flame streetlights or CLW traps or Teleport-Circle-based trade routes.)
- As a side note, it gives an explanation for the low-birth-rate long-life-span races; if you assume that their powers and life span come from requiring more baseline life-energy and/or that the average member of the race will accumulate more experience before returning it to the pool, their population is going to be lower.

[TuggyNE]

It's houseruled/handwavy, but I've resolved this in my setting by equating experience to life-energy. (You get it when you kill things or grow in a significant way, losing it diminishes you, gaining it makes you more difficult to kill.) Every living thing requires a minimum amount of it to exist.

[... and so on...]

Iiinteresting. That sets up a very useful dynamic, I think. You might have to tweak it to account for undead creatures being able to have XP, but other than that it seems very workable.