i wonder if you could have a small array of 'bonus types' that you can only have one of each, so you can still strategise about aquiring different bonuses but the total number of potential numbers you're adding is capped so the stacking doesn't get too stupid and you don't have 12 different +1s, 2s and 3s to add.
so for example you'd have:
your inherent flat bonus (PB/expertise+Modifier)
an external flat bonus (pass without trace, aura of protection)
a rolled dice bonus (bardic inspiration, bless)
and adv/dis
Yeah, others already covered--this is what 4e actually did. It's just the list is
- Feat
- Power
- Item
- Racial
- Enhancement (e.g. the +4 from "+4 Vorpal Sword" or the +2 from "+2 Platemail of Vigor")
- Proficiency (+2 for most weapons, +3 for a few high-accuracy weapons.)
- And the dreaded "Untyped" bonus...which there were MANY MANY untyped bonuses.
(Technically, "Armor" and "Shield" are also bonus types, but they're never used for anything but AC or defenses, so you mostly just budget them in and then reduce those defenses if you drop/throw your shield or the like.)
Given Armor, Shield, Proficiency, Racial, and Enhancement bonuses are pretty static most of the time (except when equipping new gear or, like, throwing your shield at someone or the like), that really only leaves Feat, Power, Item, and Untyped. The problem is, while there was decent depth to the first three of those...Untyped was allowed to run amok, even as a 4e fan I won't deny that.
So, from a certain perspective, what you describe had already been done. It's just that it has a big huge loophole, rather in the mirror image of what Ad/Dis is now: profligate use of a particular mechanic (untyped, Ad/Dis) to the detriment of the game's design. I wouldn't at all fault someone enamored with Ad/Dis for saying "hell no! We tried that and it didn't fix the problem at all!" But I would hope that said person would recognize that Ad/Dis itself has a very similar problem, just on the polar opposite end of the spectrum.
Where, exactly, the happy medium lies...I don't know. But we have to have something better than, and between, "a bazillion bonuses festooning out of every orifice" and "the game actively resists the inclusion of depth beyond 'get one single perk and stop caring'."
Maybe, just maybe, progression isn't everything?
I mean, it surely isn't, but there's a pretty big gap between "isn't everything" and "isn't anything", and progression is
real damn important for the D&D experience. And I can say "the" D&D experience, rather than simply "an" or even "some," because we can trace it right back to Gygax and (I presume) Arneson. At least for the games where Gygax actually allowed players to play powerful beings (e.g., he allowed one player to play a balrog), he made one stipulation: you must start out weak and grow into your full power. So that balrog had been stripped of his powers, and he was on a quest to regain them. IIRC, there was also a youngling gold dragon somewhere along the way, who wasn't a total pushover, but had a long, long way to go before they were doling out the harshness like an ancient worm.
Progression has always been a key part of the D&D experience. That doesn't mean it is necessarily equally valued or desired by all who play or have played. Nothing guarantees that folks playing a game actually
do value the things the game tells them are worthy of being valued. But it is simply the truth that the kind of game D&D is, a fundamental bedrock part of the experience it offers, is the feeling of progression from being relatively "green" to being relatively "expert", of growing from humble beginnings to lives of power and influence. That's also why you had things like Fighters becoming landed gentry, Clerics overseeing a temple, Wizards putting down towers and getting students, etc. Demonstrations of gained mastery and authority.
In the absence of progression, there's a very real risk of someone asking, "So...why are we
doing this?"--as in, why are we playing D&D?--and nobody having an answer beyond "it's a thing someone said we could do."
The answer there is to take away the have-to-make-a-choice element by simply baking most of the h-prog into the classes. You get to x-number of xp in class A, you gain this ability. Get to y-number, you gain that ability.
Then the only point of choice becomes what class to take, or to multi into. Once you're in a class, it's all hard-wired.
What you describe sounds like vertical progression to me. You must be at least X levels tall to ride Y action. It doesn't sound horizontal in the slightest.
Perhaps it still feels like not enough, even when taken as a whole?
The problem is, progress-feels do not stack linearly. Even if you could somehow prove mathematically that two moderate-impact things provide exactly half as much progression as one single high-impact thing, people will
feel more progression from the latter, even though they "should" feel the same. Sort of like how two lights, each at exactly half the luminosity of one single big light, will appear dimmer than the single light unless you're very far away relative to the spacing between them. The more you divide, the smaller the impact will
feel.
And feel--presentation, execution, demonstration--has proven to be a very important thing.
