Feat bonuses stack?

[Kordeth]

Given that stacking attack bonuses has much greater impact than stacking damage bonuses, it's surprising that Blade Opportunist, Combat Reflexes, and Nimble Blade, are all untyped, and so do stack. Indeed, almost every attack bonus in the PHB feats is untyped, whereas all the damage bonuses are feat bonuses. It should be more like the opposite.

Smeelbo

Yes, but most of the attack bonus feats are conditional (when you make OAs, when you have combat advantage, etc.), whereas most of the damage bonuses are universal. That's the key difference.

 

[Black Knight Irios]

First of all thank you all for your input regarding the issue boni vs. bonuses. I will use bonuses in my future posts.


Sorry for going even further off-topic.

Because balance in 4E depends on pretending that scales act mostly linear withing the scope of the game, it is necessary to minimize the stacking of bonuses. I think in some cases, they may have gone too far. I think a few of the feat bonuses might be better re-typed, or untyped, with perhaps a little rewriting. For example, the racial weapon training feats should probably be +1 racial bonus to damage instead of +2 feat bonus, so they stack with Weapon Focus and scale with tier.

Given that stacking attack bonuses has much greater impact than stacking damage bonuses, it's surprising that Blade Opportunist, Combat Reflexes, and Nimble Blade, are all untyped, and so do stack. Indeed, almost every attack bonus in the PHB feats is untyped, whereas all the damage bonuses are feat bonuses. It should be more like the opposite.

Smeelbo

Your observation is quite right but you forgot to consider this:
The attack bonuses are situational, you don't get them on every attack.
Damage bonuses OTOH, can be applied to nearly every attack you make (at least if you choose the right attacks).

 

[BobTheNob]

This information will be really helpful the next time I'm gaming with a bunch of Roman legionnaires. In the meantime, I expect that the modern English "bonuses", the form that WotC uses in all rule books, will suffice.

Now, has anyone seen my VI-sided dice?

Hehehe. Awesome response