D&D 5E Issues about Reduce/Enlarge

[Paul Farquhar]

If you are asking Rules as Written, in D&D 5e spells stack unless they have the exact same name. It's int he PHB under Combining Magical Effects, pg 205.

So an Enlarged creature attacking a foe they have a Hunter's Mark on would gain +1d4+1d6 to damage to each attack above what they would normally do.

And it's worth noting that an enlarged rune knight can gain +1d4 from Enlarge and +1d6 from Giant's Might, even though both set the character's size to large.

 

[jgsugden]

Nobody I'm seeing has mentioned the bug in the barrel - concentration. Both are concentration spells, so you need someone else (or a potion) to provide the enlarge.

 

[Redwizard007]

Nobody I'm seeing has mentioned the bug in the barrel - concentration. Both are concentration spells, so you need someone else (or a potion) to provide the enlarge.

They also aren't on the same spell lists. I think most of us assumed 2 casters or a magic item.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The duergar ranger corps.

 

[GMMichael]

I like your point of view, but what you what to say with design philosophy? Is just "feelings" about the rules or something more consolidated?

PHB says that all Spells stack unless the exact same name, and in the DMG (in errata so not in earliest printings) they expand this out to everything else.

The design philosophy was "rulings, not rules." So WotC tried to trim the fat. One example of this is the Advantage rule - if any number of things gives you a better shot on your roll, you get to roll twice, and if any number of things makes things worse, you don't. There's no adding of dice upon dice, or bonuses on bonuses.

Mage armor (spell): the spells ends if the target dons armor. You're not allowed to have double AC improvement.

Other examples: Concentration. Attunement. WotC decided to limit how much is going on with magic and magic items.

So Blue's right, PHB says that spells stack (RAW). But the philosophy was to worry less about stacking, and more about playing.

 

[NotAYakk]

I think you are misreading 5e.

There are less random bonuses in 5e, but those that exist all stack (except with themselves).

Because stacking rules suck; they get complicated and annoying.

Mage Armor ending when you put on armor ... is fluff. Almost all AC calculations in 5e substitute for each other rather than stack; they aren't bonuses, they are new ways to calculate your AC.

Stacking bonuses on d20 rolls is a big problem; the tendency to do that breaks bounded accuracy. So there are few ways to get a bonus to d20 rolls (or DCs) in 5e; despite that, all such bonuses stack (except with themselves), because ... stacking rules suck.

Attunement was a mechanism to get rid of the christmas tree problem of 3e and 4e.

Concentration was aimed at permitting strong, impactful spells with a duration, without having to balance having 10 of them up at once. 3e showed how this was a problem, and the concentration solution is a bit more elegant than the 4e "sustain" one.

Worrying less about stacking is solved by (a) saying "yes it stacks" and (b) limited effects that can stack instead of how they stack.

 

[jgsugden]

They also aren't on the same spell lists. I think most of us assumed 2 casters or a magic item.

Fair enough, although there are plenty of ways to get both on the same PC. I played a Ranger/Sorcerer that had both Hunter's Mark and Enlarge.