Stupidest thing Wizards of the Coast released?

[deuxhero]

I vote for how monks get "move fast" and abilities that only work when they are standing still.

Sure there are things that outright don't function or break the game in two, but this was the two main features of one of the most prominent classes in the game.

[Anlashok]

I vote for how monks get "move fast" and abilities that only work when they are standing still.

Sure there are things that outright don't function or break the game in two, but this was the two main features of one of the most prominent classes in the game.

I honestly think someone at Wizards forgot that Pounce wasn't baseline. Because dashing lightning-fast to someone and then going ATATATATATATATA on them is very iconic for the archetype.

[Mrc.]

On the topic of sample characters, I was told once that for the original Tomb of Horrors, the sample characters literally couldn't damage Acererak. Also, the list of things that could injure him was stupid: a Shatter spell could, but you had no way of knowing whether you actually got that spell; some magic weapons could but those depended on your character class (I think a paladin could injure him with a +3 magic weapon, but a fighter needed a +5 magic weapon or something); I believe the cleric could use an ability to stun him for one round. Basically, that whole fight was a bit insane, and even though I've only ever played it through once, I still remember it being ridiculously complicated.

In fact, quite a lot of Basic probably seems stupid now. Each character only getting experience from the things they personally killed. Different classes needing different experience to climb levels. Gold being worth 1xp per gp. I'm sure it seemed great at the time, but looking back at it there's quite a few things that don't really make much sense.

[Socksy]

My reaction to Jormengand being a girl.

Pssst I don't think they are female either

[Larkas]

Mialee the Wizard.

Elf, or anthropomorphic cricket/Roswell alien hybrid?

Not all of Mialee's artwork is terrible.

Spoiler: DMG Mialee

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Spoiler: Gestalt Mialee

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I mean, they're still bad, but at least they aren't as... Uninspired as most. I actually think the gestalt one is pretty cool!

EDIT: Forgot about what must be the best depiction of Mialee in any book:

Spoiler: Prismatic Bow

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There was also another spell illustration where she struck a guy with lightning while chugging down a mug of ale. Can't for the life of me remember the name of the spell, though. That was funny as hell!

EDIT2: A couple more:

Spoiler: Mialee the Mercenary

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Spoiler: Regroup

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And for those who thought she was a good girl...

Spoiler: Mialee calling a Nalfeshnee

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[RenaldoS]

I honestly think someone at Wizards forgot that Pounce wasn't baseline. Because dashing lightning-fast to someone and then going ATATATATATATATA on them is very iconic for the archetype.

That would actually make a lot of sense. In 2e, everyone basically had pounce so it wouldn’t surprise me if the monk was designed based on a weird 2e-3e hybrid before things were nailed down and the idea of stand still to full attack was born.

[Svata]

Yeah, that makes sense. If only there could had been an overhaul of the rules at some point during third edition where they did a major rewrite of several of the rules where they could have fixed that. Some sort of 3.5 edition, if you will.

[squiggit]

On that note... Stand-still full attacks are actually probably really high on my list.

They're a silly strong damage multiplier that turns every combatant at level 6 (or 8 for 3/4ths BAB) into a stationary turret if they want to do any sort of appreciable damage.

And it's just stuck as the default paradigm for martial classes forever. Yeah, ToB fixes it to a large degree... but then **** like Pathfinder clings to that terrible terrible mechanic as some sort of festering, fetid, moldering sacred cow.

Full Attacks are awful. At least with stuff like the Soulborn or Divine Mind or CPsi or whatever it's one isolated thing you can quarantine from the rest of the system, but full attacks are integral to the game. Deep seated and entirely inoperable.

[Nousos]

A good contender for stupidest release would be the art for the Divine Seeker class in the Forgotten Realms Campaign setting. I just cant figure out what is going on with those legs.

[herrhauptmann]

Fighters are weak, and gate overpowered yes.

But both existed in prior editions. Imagine the outcry if they released the phb w/o a fighter or iconic spells. It'd be 14 years later, and everyone would still be whining about not getting a fighter class at start.

Yeah, fighter is weak. He gets the 3.0/3.5 versiin of his 2ed abilities, but now it's not enough because of what they did for casters.

Stupidest ever? Spell plague, tgen retconning it for 5e.

[bjoern]

Stupidest ever? Spell plague, tgen retconning it for 5e.

Yeah. That ones a doosy.

D&D isn't a TCG, we don't need a new edition every 3 months.....

[Larkas]

D&D isn't a TCG, we don't need a new edition every 3 months.....

Ehhh... 4E lasted as much as 3E, which is to say: 7 years.

[Forrestfire]

Hennet's trousers are easily the stupidest thing done by WotC. They're even in the same book as the rules for donning armour! Let's see YOU put on or take off those trousers in one minute, game developers!

Hilariously, they actually justified it at some point in the DMG, if I'm remembering correctly. Something like "Hennet's player decides that his character likes collecting belts" when talking about roleplaying various quirks.

[Urpriest]

jedipotter being always wrong aside, Tome of Battle is legitimately pretty high on the stupid list. For a book intended to fix martial characters choosing to use terrible art, a silly world-spanning organization as the primary fluff, and flowery naming conventions was a choice that seems guaranteed to drive people away, almost as if they intended the book to fail.

Add ToB's poor editing and the (already mentioned) problem with the errata (seriously, it's not so bad to accidentally release an errata document that's missing vital content...but then the first player to download it points that out, and you fix it by releasing the document you originally intended to publish. Doing anything else isn't just incompetence, it's intentional malice.) and you get a book that really is pretty emphatically stupid, even if the rules fit beautifully into the T3 sweet spot.

[Elderand]

On that note... Stand-still full attacks are actually probably really high on my list.

They're a silly strong damage multiplier that turns every combatant at level 6 (or 8 for 3/4ths BAB) into a stationary turret if they want to do any sort of appreciable damage.

And it's just stuck as the default paradigm for martial classes forever. Yeah, ToB fixes it to a large degree... but then **** like Pathfinder clings to that terrible terrible mechanic as some sort of festering, fetid, moldering sacred cow.

Full Attacks are awful. At least with stuff like the Soulborn or Divine Mind or CPsi or whatever it's one isolated thing you can quarantine from the rest of the system, but full attacks are integral to the game. Deep seated and entirely inoperable.

Not forever no, 5th edition doesn't have it. So at some point, they did learn from their mistakes.

[heavyfuel]

On that note... Stand-still full attacks are actually probably really high on my list.

Full Attacks are awful. At least with stuff like the Soulborn or Divine Mind or CPsi or whatever it's one isolated thing you can quarantine from the rest of the system, but full attacks are integral to the game. Deep seated and entirely inoperable.

I'm yet to play like this, but I've heard of a houserule that basically gave everyone unlimited Travel Devotion for free. It kind of nerfs casters that already use all of their Swift Actions and gave access to move+full attack for mundanes. So it's not entirely inoperable, at least if you're willing to houserule it.

Stupidest ever? Spell plague, tgen retconning it for 5e.

What's that? I've never heard of spell plague...

[Xerlith]

What's that? I've never heard of spell plague...

You're a lucky man.

Well, basically it's a "soft reset" of sorts for a crippled (Forgotten Realms) setting. Which somehow succeeded in NOT making it better. And was just a big fat hamfisted attempt at bringing some grimdark to the setting. It didn't work.

[heavyfuel]

You're a lucky man.

Well, basically it's a "soft reset" of sorts for a crippled (Forgotten Realms) setting. Which somehow succeeded in NOT making it better. And was just a big fat hamfisted attempt at bringing some grimdark to the setting. It didn't work.

Well that explains why I've never heard of it. My setting knowledge is sub-par to say the least... I've learned about the Mournlands maybe like a month ago and I've been playing 3.e for about 10 years hahaha

[ArqArturo]

Shining Blade of Heironeous!.

[A Tad Insane]

I vote the truenaming third of tome of magic. Pact magic is amazing, and shadow magic, while falling short, can be used/fixed, but truenaming...

[Zaq]

I can't think of anything to top the ToB errata. I really, really can't. The Truenamer is less dumb than that. The Monk is less dumb than that (proficient or nonproficient with unarmed strikes). The Divine Mind is less dumb than that. How the hell do you NOT NOTICE that?! And then just say "eh, good enough"?!

I say second place might just have to go to the fluff sections of Drow of the Underdark (I admit, there's a lot of good crunch, but we're not talking about the crunch). It describes the most hilariously nonsustainable society ever, and then on the last page of the chapter, says something like "by this point you may be wondering how a society as murderous, unforgiving, and treacherous as drow society can exist at all. The short answer is, it can't. Drow society is completely unstable. The drow only continue to exist because Lolth wills it to be so." They have to spend half a page on what is basically a literal deus ex machina. They seriously have to pull in a god to fix all the problems, because it's too screwed up to actually work on its own. And then they said "yes, this is good; send it to the printers."

Can't come close to the ToB errata, but it deserves mention.

[MilesTiden]

See, the funny thing is, I actually really like Truenamers. I should note, however, that I play gestalt almost exclusively, so I might be a little biased. >_>

(Hence why I'm also fine with fighter and monk. They make fantastic carriers in a lot of cases.)

[Extra Anchovies]

jedipotter being always wrong aside, Tome of Battle is legitimately pretty high on the stupid list. For a book intended to fix martial characters choosing to use terrible art, a silly world-spanning organization as the primary fluff, and flowery naming conventions was a choice that seems guaranteed to drive people away, almost as if they intended the book to fail.

Add ToB's poor editing and the (already mentioned) problem with the errata (seriously, it's not so bad to accidentally release an errata document that's missing vital content...but then the first player to download it points that out, and you fix it by releasing the document you originally intended to publish. Doing anything else isn't just incompetence, it's intentional malice.) and you get a book that really is pretty emphatically stupid, even if the rules fit beautifully into the T3 sweet spot.

Oh, yes. Tome of Battle is a fun system, and it does its job well, but it has the worst fluff of any 3e supplement I've read. Especially the naming conventions. I really like the maneuvers/stances system, but the names... GAH

[Jeff the Green]

Oh, yes. Tome of Battle is a fun system, and it does its job well, but it has the worst fluff of any 3e supplement I've read. Especially the naming conventions. I really like the maneuvers/stances system, but the names... GAH

I'm actually okay with the names. The manga-/anime-esque naming conventions of Swordsage maneuvers are entirely appropriate, and the mundane ones that Warblade gets are actually fairly similar to the maneuvers from old fencing manuals.

I also like Iron Heart being invented by the hobgoblins; it gave me an idea of how to make them actually worth their LA.

The rest of the fluff is stupid, though. Especially the Warblade's.

[Anlashok]

My favorite stupid ToB fluff is the stuff about the ancient secret space pirate art of throwing broadswords at people.

Not sure if I love it or hate it.

[Jeff the Green]

My favorite stupid ToB fluff is the stuff about the ancient secret space pirate art of throwing broadswords at people.

Not sure if I love it or hate it.

Wait, what? Admittedly I abandoned reading the Fluff after Warblade, but I've never even heard of that.

[Pex]

4E

*ducks*

[Bluydee]

4E

*ducks*

The best part of this is how well the signature fits with the post.

My vote for worst thing is the whisper demon art, and every other thing drawn by that guy who insists that everything is looking unnaturally at you with the weirdest head turning possible



just, why?

[heavyfuel]

Wait, what? Admittedly I abandoned reading the Fluff after Warblade, but I've never even heard of that.

Pretty sure it's the Bloodstorm Blade's fluff. Its knowledge is guarded by a githyanki mercenary guild of Warblades or some like that

[Extra Anchovies]

The best part of this is how well the signature fits with the post.

My vote for worst thing is the whisper demon art, and every other thing drawn by that guy who insists that everything is looking unnaturally at you with the weirdest head turning possible

Spoiler: Not a pretty picture

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just, why?

WHYYY

It honestly looks like someone did an actually good drawing with it facing off to the left, but them some other terrible artist came along and drew a mis-proportioned, oversized head that he thought "was an improvement". Ouch.