Since discussions of it are cropping up out of Tabletop Games, here's an all-purpose thread for players and GM's.
Indiana Solo
Silly Tarreasque, Trix are for kids! 
Jupiterian Local
Huh, I thought that critical hits and critical misses only applied to attack rolls, but I just looked it up and you're right, it applies to saving throws as well. I guess my group has been houseruling that for so long that we forgot it was a houserule. (But then, I'm the kinda guy who dislikes that level of randomness in the first place. Hell, given my druthers, I'd replace every d20 with 3d6.)
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Sharknado Warning
I was reading an old thread on something awful, and it made an interesting point:
In 3.5, the skies are black. Because no human can see the sun or the moon.
But wait, the moon is pretty big. Things take a penalty to their checks to hide based on how big they are. The Tarrasque, as a 50 foot tall killing machine, takes a -16 penalty to its checks to hide (and thus is incredibly difficult for your average commoner to spot if it's standing on the other end of a football field). The epic rules have options for creatures larger than colossal, which basically dictate that every time its size doubles, it moves up another category. 64 feet (2^6) is the bottom for Colossal, providing a (-8) 2^3 size penalty. The moon is 2159 miles wide, roughly 11.4 million feet. 8.3 million feet is around 2^23, which means the moon is somewhere around Colossal+17, and takes a 2^20 size penalty, multiplied by 4 to offset your spot check (2^22, or roughly 4 million).
You take a -120 million penalty to spot the moon, offset by a 4 million bonus because the moon is big. Unless I screwed up by a factor of 64, you probably can't see the moon.
The sun is roughly 400 times larger, but also roughly 400 times farther away, so no luck there. Other stars may range from the sun's size to 1500 times larger, but they're also 250,000 times farther away at minimum.
The skies above Greyhawk are black and empty. None have ever seen the stars.
I thought it was funny, also the idea that the Tarrasque can't been seen by Peasants from 400ft away.
Also this:
If you tell a commoner that you're an elf, the commoner has no real way to verify or discredit your claim. Hell, if you tell the commoner that the commoner is an elf, the commoner has no real way to verify or discredit your claim. Life as a commoner is a haze of uncertainty and second-hand knowledge.
Now you know why there are so many half-breeds.
Speak of offspring, it's maybe a DC 15 check to tell that a baby dragon breathes fire or whatever and is immune to the same element- a check that can be made by a 1st level character with reasonable intelligence and some training in the skill. But it's a DC 30 check to figure out that the dragon's parents also breathe fire and are immune to the same element- you're going to need a sage to figure this one out.
edited 25th Mar '15 7:28:14 PM by CobraPrime
Citizen
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Wow. Where is all that from? What edition?
Lost in Space
Jupiterian Local
Applying rules strictly as written in order to come up with absurd results is a time-honored tradition in tabletop RPGs. Doing it to "prove" that a certain edition or system is ridiculous is only slightly less so. Virtually all of those problems go away by applying a tiny shred of common sense — which is exactly why you have a DM, to make those judgment calls.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Indiana Solo
Rule #1 of D&D- (and this is in the source books), The DM is always right. They're the final line of defense between over sights and shit that doesn't make sense. And D&D's the kind of game that if people really want to fight over the rules, rather than use the rules to have a good time, they're doing it wrong.
I'm baaaaaaack
I get the feeling that those above posts are more meant to be "Look how silly this is is you take the rules too litterally".
That being said, I've come across heaps of forum posts that unironically took game rules to equal "Dn D's laws of physics". It never ends well
edited 25th Mar '15 8:20:27 PM by Gaunt88
Lost in Space
There are lots of examples of that. The commoner railgun is one, which abuses the free action rules to move an object faster than the speed of light. Pun-Pun is another, which abuses templates to make a brokenly overpowered kobold.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Now, I wonder... can one summon a Dacia Sandero?
Indiana Solo
Only if you take Jamez Mei, High god of slowness as your deity.
edited 25th Mar '15 8:41:32 PM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaack
No, he's the high god of "Doing Things Right".
Course I could always take Jezzah, the high god of POWWWWEEEEERRRR!
edited 25th Mar '15 8:43:36 PM by MarkVonLewis
Indiana Solo
Guess Hammond's left with becoming god of the Hobbits halflings
Also, been reading the Things Mr. Welch is No Longer Allowed to Do, and if I was a DM, if he worked all the lyrics of "22 Acacia Avenue" into dialogue, he'd not only get bonus XP he'd get a shit ton of bonus levels. Up the Irons!
Indiana Solo
That list is one of my single favorite things on the internet. And largely sparked my interest in D&D, alongside webcomics.
So we're fighting the Pied Piper, apparently. This is gonna suck.
Got a degree in Emotional trauma via fictional characters aka creative writing. hosting S'mores party in Hell for fellow (evil) writers
Rollin' rollin' rollin'
Hope no one in your party has any rats as familiars/companions.
Or any children, for that matter.
"We're home, Chewie."We don't, but he already has an army/horde/swarm of rats (and dire rats) and we're squishy level 2s....
though he hit the Paladin's berserk button by threatening the lives of a local family of halflings, so.....
Got a degree in Emotional trauma via fictional characters aka creative writing. hosting S'mores party in Hell for fellow (evil) writers
I think there's a rule somewhere that you don't need a Spot check to see a light source if you're within its radius, or something like that. So you actually can see the sun and moon just fine.
Rhymes with "Protracted."
Sharknado Warning
No shit. The point is making fun of the implications of certain rules. Not literally applying them! :-P
It's that a hide check automatically fails if the thing trying to hide has a light source. But the sun's not rolling hide is it? This is a general "Spot what's in your general surroundings" spot check. (And that's 4e. I don't think 3.5 has a light source rule AFAIK. Not in the SRD anyway - it's why the light cantrip in awesome in 4e).
edited 26th Mar '15 12:32:02 PM by CobraPrime
Lost in Space
The Spot check is intended for "noticing a particular thing in a casual glance at a scene". An intelligent DM will apply modifiers when the situation is particularly blatant: if you are on a flat black plain, the only other object is a person 100 feet away wearing bright red, and you are not preoccupied or impaired, most of the time you won't even bother rolling. On the other hand, noticing a specific individual at 100 feet in a thick forest or a crowded city street is likely to be a lot more difficult.
In general, you should only roll Spot checks when noticing something is important. A DM who forces characters to roll to notice their surroundings at all is either compulsively pedantic or trolling. If it helps, consider that the Spot skill is not for noticing things in general, but rather for noticing specific, important details.
"Roll to spot the Sun." *clatter* "I fail." "You have no idea the Sun is up today, and the persistent, albeit customary brightness of your surroundings is a nagging mystery in your mind."
I should point out, however, that all of us in our day to day lives fail to notice a frankly astonishing number of things, as anyone who's walked into a lamp post while checking their phone can attest to.
edited 26th Mar '15 12:37:42 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Sharknado Warning
Again. It's for the funs, no one's advocating the literal application of "Roll to spot the sun". Geez. You people have no sense of humor. :-P
"A mystery in your human, or elven mind. Since you don't have enough knowledge (Nature) to know what race you are."
(Fun fact, the DC for identifying a create is HD based. and you can try a specific knowledge roll once per level. But for a PC, that DC goes up by 1 each time he levels up. So it's entirely possible to make a PC who for 20 levels has been adventuring, trying to figure out what race he is, only to be constantly twarted as he grows in power and becomes harder to identify!)
edited 26th Mar '15 12:40:31 PM by CobraPrime
I would actually like to see a story where you applied all the rules literally and worked out what kind of setting would result from all that, just out of curiosity for how someone would do that. It'd be weird, trippy, and more than a little funny I bet.
Untrustworthy
"Turns out I'm actually a Dwarf. In retrospect, that explains a lot about a lot of different things."
"Canada Day is over, and now begins the endless dark of the Canada Night."
But can the Tarrasque see why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?