What's your least favorite part of D&D?

[Prime32]

All races live longer than humans? what the hell?

In core, orcs and half-orcs actually have shorter lifespans.

[Fox Lee]

Half orcs. What a stupid idea for a race. If you really need a strong race to fill out your list, why not make one up or just go with orc? Instead we get bastards or children of violent rape popping into the game just so they can get a higher Str or to roleplay the "dumb" guy. I have a "final solution" for the half-breeds of the game. It rhymes with Mall-o-cost.

I never really though about that in-depth, but I must have come to the same conclusion because I icked half-orcs and half-elves from my game. Along with the midget races, because while it's possible to play them respectfully, really they're just an excuse for racist(*) comedy and jokes about hairy women.

(*I'm not suggesting this should be taken seriously, like real-life racism, of course. I just find it obnoxious.)

[Orion]

Straight-up orcs would make more sense, but I like the idea of half-elves, especially if (fluff-wise) they can become a whole community to themselves, kinda like the Metis. The rape explanation is less likely with half-elves, and frankly I think it should be routed out regardless. I don't like that it's the go-to explanation.

[Wordman]

[Fox Lee]

Straight-up orcs would make more sense, but I like the idea of half-elves, especially if (fluff-wise) they can become a whole community to themselves, kinda like the Metis. The rape explanation is less likely with half-elves, and frankly I think it should be routed out regardless. I don't like that it's the go-to explanation.

That's the reason I don't like it, as well. My group has grown out of it, mercifully, but I still see it a lot in other players. Personally, I just don't like the idea that either kind of halfbreed is common enough and recognised enough to be a "core race". I like halfbreeds, but I like it when they're odd and unusual, like your ligers and wolf-dogs and "wholphins".

And it seems like they should result in a variety of different traits depending on their parents/genetics, not in a distinct race. I'd also like to know why it's so very common to find humans interbred with orcs or elves, but not with any other humanoid races. The fact that the next most common would be celestials and infernals (aasimar, tieflings) would seem to pose a very odd genetic question.

If they're supposed to be a distinct race (breeding true) that originally descended from halfbreeds, that's fine - that's what helfs and horcs are in Races of Destiny, IIRC - but at least give them their own names, them.

[Orion]

I suspect the idea of "half-elves" comes straight from Elrond, who is sometimes referred to as "half-elven" because his progeny can all choose whether they want to accept the "gift" (ha ha ha) of human mortality. Most of the original D&D was ripped off of Lord of the Rings. I mean "rangers" and "halflings." Seriously?

Half-orcs, as someone said, is a way to play the big, green bruisers without taking the radical step of acknowledging that orcs might have some kind of subjectivity and intelligence, some kind of right to actually live. So you make a half-human version and you get a PC race and you can keep slaughtering orcs. It's a "have it both ways" kind of thing.

[Talen Lee]

Splatbooks.

I hate that the game's design was pushed so little in the core book, and instead certain little wells of brokenness were so-well mined, and the expansions of the game were treated as a variety of patches and corrections. I wish at times I could do what MMO designers get to do and just delete broken things or replace them in a way that guarantees propogation.

[Orion]

I order to have D&D work that way, they'd need to have the manuals exclusively on-line, because ink and paper books can't be "updated" like that. It's just too expensive. That's not to say I think that'd be a bad idea. It's one of the aspects of 4th Ed. that I actually like.

[Sunic_Flames]

4.0 just further encourages the release now patch later mentality that is already the primary reason confidence in such things is decaying sharply.

[Talen Lee]

I order to have D&D work that way, they'd need to have the manuals exclusively on-line, because ink and paper books can't be "updated" like that. It's just too expensive. That's not to say I think that'd be a bad idea. It's one of the aspects of 4th Ed. that I actually like.

Actually, for D&D to work that way, they'd have to make sure it was balanced when it was released, rather than released then rebalanced.

In theory, if every book was individually fair, this wouldn't be a problem.

[InnaBinder]

I order to have D&D work that way, they'd need to have the manuals exclusively on-line, because ink and paper books can't be "updated" like that. It's just too expensive. That's not to say I think that'd be a bad idea. It's one of the aspects of 4th Ed. that I actually like.

Actually, for D&D to work that way, they'd have to make sure it was balanced when it was released, rather than released then rebalanced.

In theory, if every book was individually fair, this wouldn't be a problem.

While there are exceptions, generally things are unbalanced not by themselves but when combined with other aspects from different sources, which may or may not have been in development or published at the time an individual book is released.  Book A has no material that is inherently unbalanced when combined with the PH, DMG, and MM, but one otherwise correctly balanced Feat is overpowered when combined with the Racial ability from Book B, then borderline broken when the (otherwise balanced) Feat from Book C is involved, and can get game-breakingly broken when further combined with the Exotic Weapon and enhancement found in Book D.  If the designers don't look at the interaction of all possible sources in every possible iteration in order to find potentially broken things, it's lamentable, but understandable given that their individual level of familiarity with every source varies, and given that they generally have deadlines to make for release dates.  How many times do you figure they could announce a delay in release of an anticipated supplement before people lost interest or faith in their product?

[veekie]

Part of the problem was that the Core books were designed and playtested under certain flawed assumptions though, and thus were broken from the get go, especially certain spells(polymorph series, I'm looking at you). That, I believe, is the reason they needed updates so badly. If the core system is flawed, expansions can be no less so, unless it's patched and patched early(once you've got more than a handful of splats released, errata could wreck references) with errata.

[Talen Lee]

That kind of confluence, while quite possible and indeed likely in a world of unparallel testing, does not excuse the fact that there has never been a D&D sourcebook released without grotesque imbalance within itself as far as I can remember.

[Sunic_Flames]

The later ones did have far better accuracy though. Which is why half the wtf broken is in the 3 core books. Despite the fact there's about 3 dozen books in the other pile.

[Talen Lee]

I know. But most of the splats are operating from that same broken perspective. Retardedly, no melee class was really allowed to be better than the Fighter, and that held that entire subgenre of books back (for the most part). The Wizard was retarded, so most of the books that dealt heavily with the Wizard were allowed to hang around in that retarded band of power.

It'd just be nice to be able to hand a player three books and say 'Here, make what you want' and have them be happy with it and not out of ignorance. I have players who'd be happy, but they're the ones who play Fighter to 15.

Now I've done a lot of work on the matter to try and make one of my books that trio, but it's still an awful lot of patching and fixing to choke down.

[Sunic_Flames]

It does explain Divine and Champion pretty well. Though I'd have guessed the issue with the Warrior types is they came first when WotC was still clueless. ToB is a working fix. You are right though. You can also observe this in 3.0 with such examples as the Devoted Defender aka get three minor class abilities that require you to stay right next to one person who in turn is out of the fight in the first 2-3 levels, then the rest is just random minor number gains. Even Fighter would be better than that as you can at least aim the minor number gains a bit better. Oh and you need Alertness and other junk. So basically it's a cohort dip, and useless for anyone else.

[Talen Lee]

I don't know if anyone remembers it, but Song and Silence was also horrible for this. Only a handful of feats and PrCs, none of which did anything. The Trapsmith was basically the Rogue, But Worse.

The ToB is a good, solid, interesting core addition that adds to the fighter, but also diminishes it. Hence why my fix is a little more direct (and a little less easily summarised). But all the water flows from a rank spring, and that's why 3.5 has that problem.

4th doesn't seem to have fixed it philosophically, but I don't know the game well enough to know if it's been fixed functionally. Ie, if the core 4E rules have any grotesquely overpowered parts. I just let my MMO sense guide me and played what looked fun.

[Fox Lee]

I don't know if anyone remembers it, but Song and Silence was also horrible for this. Only a handful of feats and PrCs, none of which did anything. The Trapsmith was basically the Rogue, But Worse.

Wasn't there also one utterly insane bard PrC - Virtuoso, I think? - which was one of those "why would a bard be anything but?" classes?

[Talen Lee]

I don't know if anyone remembers it, but Song and Silence was also horrible for this. Only a handful of feats and PrCs, none of which did anything. The Trapsmith was basically the Rogue, But Worse.

Wasn't there also one utterly insane bard PrC - Virtuoso, I think? - which was one of those "why would a bard be anything but?" classes?

No, the Virtuoso was a prestige class any sorceror could get into at level 7, and had no reason to not take. The Bard would actually sacrifice things to get into it... but a sorceror, not.

[Fox Lee]

I don't know if anyone remembers it, but Song and Silence was also horrible for this. Only a handful of feats and PrCs, none of which did anything. The Trapsmith was basically the Rogue, But Worse.

Wasn't there also one utterly insane bard PrC - Virtuoso, I think? - which was one of those "why would a bard be anything but?" classes?

No, the Virtuoso was a prestige class any sorceror could get into at level 7, and had no reason to not take. The Bard would actually sacrifice things to get into it... but a sorceror, not.

Ahh, that's the one! Well, close Just replace "bard" with "sorc". But only in the second sentence. I hate when a PrC (or other extended resource) is accidentally so far better for some other class than for the poor sap it was intended for...