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<blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 1653983" data-attributes="member: 114">I'm afraid I probably can't add much constructively to the conversation at this point, but I'd like to say - Yes, I find that 3e has too much in-game maths for my liking. The maths isn't complicated, but there is such a lot of it, especially at high level (and typically I find that when a dispel/greater dispel is cast it knocks down some but not all of the defences, complicating the resulting AC and other bonus effects further).Another issue which may or may not have been covered is that the reliance on derived values also tends to slow things down - when buffs/spells/poisons change the value of a stat and suddenly a dozen other derived/related values (attack/AC/hp/skills) change.I always liked RuneQuest (2nd ed) which was certainly not narrativist but the simple mechanics played well for powerful as well as neophyte characters. Combat took longer than 1e, but nowhere near as long as 3e. As a matter of fact I'm considering doing a RQ conversion for the Eberron setting to see what it might look like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Back to the main point though - I can't think how to effectively simplify 3e as it stands, because the &quot;issue&quot; is built into the fundamental mechanics of the system. Perhaps moving to an entirely simpler combat system like SNAP d20 would do it, but there we have the issue once more... a fundamental change to the way that combat works (which is pretty much central to most games of D&amp;D I imagine!).One option I toyed with, but not very seriously, is to eliminate bonus stacking issues but setting an arbitrary cap. For one setting you could say &quot;all bonuses stack, but to a maximum of +5&quot;, for another setting you could say &quot;all bonuses stack but to a maximum of +(character level)/2&quot;. Eliminate bonus types all together. Would it work? I don't know.BTW nice to read a ten-page thread where everyone has remained civil!Cheers</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Plane Sailing, post: 1653983, member: 114"] I'm afraid I probably can't add much constructively to the conversation at this point, but I'd like to say - Yes, I find that 3e has too much in-game maths for my liking. The maths isn't complicated, but there is such a lot of it, especially at high level (and typically I find that when a dispel/greater dispel is cast it knocks down some but not all of the defences, complicating the resulting AC and other bonus effects further). Another issue which may or may not have been covered is that the reliance on derived values also tends to slow things down - when buffs/spells/poisons change the value of a stat and suddenly a dozen other derived/related values (attack/AC/hp/skills) change. I always liked RuneQuest (2nd ed) which was certainly not narrativist but the simple mechanics played well for powerful as well as neophyte characters. Combat took longer than 1e, but nowhere near as long as 3e. As a matter of fact I'm considering doing a RQ conversion for the Eberron setting to see what it might look like :) Back to the main point though - I can't think how to effectively simplify 3e as it stands, because the "issue" is built into the fundamental mechanics of the system. Perhaps moving to an entirely simpler combat system like SNAP d20 would do it, but there we have the issue once more... a fundamental change to the way that combat works (which is pretty much central to most games of D&D I imagine!). One option I toyed with, but not very seriously, is to eliminate bonus stacking issues but setting an arbitrary cap. For one setting you could say "all bonuses stack, but to a maximum of +5", for another setting you could say "all bonuses stack but to a maximum of +(character level)/2". Eliminate bonus types all together. Would it work? I don't know. BTW nice to read a ten-page thread where everyone has remained civil! Cheers [/QUOTE]

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