Inherent bonuses

[jmucchiello]

I'm not playing 4e but I like to keep up with it. I've been seeing comments about using inherent bonuses instead of high magic item turn over. I was just wondering if wouldn't be easier to implement Inherent bonuses as Inherent penalties on the monsters. Seems to me you could just slap a -1 on all the level 6-10 monsters, -2 on 11-15, -3 on 16-20, etc, adjust page 42 similarly and the players would never notice the missing bonuses. Am I missing something there?

I suppose the only real issue is the DM having to do it every encounter versus the player doing once every 5 levels. I don't know. I just don't like an artificial "Okay, everyone get another +1" announcement.

 

[Cute-Hydra]

Yeah, I definately agree with you, I find that the generic everyone gets a +1 lacks elegance and takes away from streamlined encounter.

The only thing would be that if it is an inherent modifier which is the reward for players completing a quest it can be more satisfying for a player to be given a bonus that they can get into. Eg: They blessed their weapons with the holy water etc. However, this should be done sparingly.

 

[cdrcjsn]

PCs like the feel of improving their characters, whether that is getting new gear every few levels or getting an inherent bonus.

Frankly, deviating from the core rules is too much work for my taste, especially to satisfy some subjective internal sense of what is the proper magic item acquisition rate.

The only time I might consider switching to inherent bonuses is if the setting called for it (i.e. low magic world).

 

[Kingreaper]

I suppose the only real issue is the DM having to do it every encounter versus the player doing once every 5 levels.

Not just every encounter. Every encounter, for every monster, vs. once every X encounters, for each PC.

That's a MASSIVE increase in workload.

 

[Verdande]

Not just every encounter. Every encounter, for every monster, vs. once every X encounters, for each PC.

That's a MASSIVE increase in workload.

I'm not sure that most people consider a "massive" increase, especially in all caps, to be a one-digit arithmetical modifier to monsters. Mathematically, sure, but realistically? Nah.


Anyways, that'd probably work. I think that the generic "+" and "-" items are boring anyways, so if you keep the cool qualities of the items and just make the monsters weaker, it'd not only be a total wash, but help promote cool items rather than the mechanically superior ones.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Adjusting the monsters is going to be a pretty trivial thing: most of the time you'll be able to do it in your head, because it's going to be the same number you're subtracting for every creature.

In fact, if you ONLY make it a static adjustment to every creature (ie - players are level X, so I subtract Y from every defense and attack) then it will play closer to the current game: if you base it off of monster levels, then you're actually flattening the curve a bit.