I've been playing 3.x edition Dungeons and Dragons for a long time now - pretty much ever since third edition came out, in one form or another. After you play for so long, you begin to just remember the vast vast majority of the rules, and I've very recently discovered (if you couldn't infer from the title of the post) that this is precisely where mistakes get committed to memory and risk never being corrected.
I've played with a variety of groups and they all have their strange little quirks, house rules, and mistakes. Since I have something of an expanded knowledge of the rules compared to many casual players, I often find myself in the position of correcting a group when I come into a new one. But - lo and behold! - it was I very recently that discovered the devastating mistake I had been making since the very beginning of my D&D 3.x career.
Turns out, drinking a potion isn't a move action. Huh.
The implications on how that has affected our everyday combats is staggering; as it turns out that healing is really much more time consuming. You can't just, say, drink a potion in your hand and then cast Cure Light Wounds. The Handy Haversack is not as awesome as it seemed (although it is still a decent item).
I know some of you are probably laughing at me right now but you should take a good look at your own group. You're probably making some laughable mistakes, and really, the root of that problem is the fact that each D&D group is like it's own little microcosm where eccentricities grow and develop. Here are some amusing mistakes I've encountered in other groups in my time:
- One of my first groups assured me wholeheartedly that ranged weapons acted as if they had point blank shot if fired from within 10 feet of an opponent, even if the character firing it doesn't have the feat.
- For a long time, due to information erroneously gifting the Masterwork Bandoleer (Faerun Campaign Setting) the ability to draw things contained within it as a free action, my friends and I thought potions were the best things ever.
- An old friend of mine, when I had first gotten into the myriad of ways one could play D&D online, was happily teaching his noobs that "monks were awesome" because they could "flurry of blows as a standard action".
- I heard an interesting story about how a player convinced his DMs that since - according to the fluff about sorcerers - he had dragon's blood him him, he qualified for all the feats that requiring some sort of draconic heritage. Win.
- A friend of mine, Marz, made a Kenku Ranger with the variant Distracting Attack. If a Distracting attack hits, the enemy is considered flanked for the purposes of an ally's attack. He worked days on it, and then the DM promptly informed him he didn't count as his own ally right before the character got to see any action.
- Someone I played with briefly created a "totally ridiculously cool character" using the "Gestalt Rules". Except he thought it was just some well hidden rules that anyone could use!
What are the best mistakes you've ever made?
This entry was posted
on June 6, 2010
at Sunday, June 06, 2010
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DnD 3.5,
Houserule
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