Problematic Mechanics

[AKA_Bait]

What mechanics give you a headache? Make you want to find the 3.5 game designers and pummel them until they admit to their innate inferiority mistakes?

Grapple is the most commonly complained about one but there are others out there which are pretty annoying. Personally, caster level checks, as with dispel magic, have always given my parties conpitions.

What other mechanics do yall take umbridge with?

[Darrin]

What other mechanics do yall take umbridge with?

* Spell Saves vs. Spell Resistance. I don't see why you need two completely different mechanics to resist spell effects. If you want to give a creature resistance to magic, give it higher saves or a save bonus vs. spells.

Of course, it's more complicated than that when you want to get into area effects and spells without saves. Still, the existence of two separate mechanics for what should be one ability just bugs me.

* Concealment vs. AC. Again, why two separate mechanics for what should be the same effect? If someone is harder to hit, then give them an AC bonus and be done with it. Fewer rolls means a faster game.

And yeah, it's not that simple, when you want to apply a "50% of your attacks miss" effect to a fighter that can hit you on anything higher than a 4 while his buddy the mage has to roll a 16 on his crossbow.

[Chronos]

Turn Undead. They could have just said "OK, spell-like ability, all undead withing such-and-such radius must make a Will save vs. DC 10 + 1/2 cleric level + Cha modifier". Instead, you have to roll against one table to determine which undead you're able to turn in the first place, then against another table to find your turning "damage", which is actually hit dice, not resembling anything else in the game called "damage", to determine how many you affect (which might be zero after all), and then you have to determine if they're just turned, or destroyed.

[Roderick_BR]

Save-or-suck and save-or-die abilities, or anything that can finish a campaign with one single failed roll, in one round.

[slexlollar89]

The various conditions such as sickened or stunned. They even introduce a new one in races of the wild!

[SoD]

Turn undead. There's a cleric in my party, and I'm dreading going against undead just for that reason. I agree about the will save, and if they fail by a certain amount then...poof! Destroyed instead of turned.

[Rad]

There are no mechanics covering headaches

I still need to look up the various conditions when I encounter one and, more seriously, the number of spells out there is ridiculously high. No one with a job can do more than skimming and read just a handful of them, meaning that casters are too hard to play (unless you go online and look which ones you really have to read - again, you have someone else making the selection and use their work).

I agree that turning and SR/Saves are redundant mechanics but they're not that hard because they are -well- two. I can read two needless mechanics, I cannot read 300 needless spells.