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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5699037" data-attributes="member: 54877">How much variance can you have in the math, and still leave it so that most people will find the game balanced enough? I don't know the answer. Say for sake of argument it is +0 to +6. So if your character is completely optimized, you'll have +6 higher than a character that is ruthlessly and perversely avoiding any optimization whatsoever.  So in that range, I see potential room for routinely getting items that grant from +1 to +3, but not all the way up to +6. If items can cover that whole range, then they either have to be assumed, or you just effectively increased the range. But shades of Mustrum Ridcully's idea, I'd like to see ways that characters can get enhancement bonuses through other means than items. (If they need to change the name to something else to fit the wider scope, fine.) Maybe certain feats give enhancement bonuses. Maybe classes get certain enhancement bonuses with expected abilities (shades of inherent bonuses). But they don't stack, because over the course of the level progression, you aren't expected to get more than +3, total, from any source. I realize that puts us right back to the objection of inherent bonuses, that they take some of the oomph out of the magic. And so that is definitely a reason to concentrate the oomph in something besides the magic--be it flaming swords or more esoteric capabilities. But it seems to me that a modest range of plusses in equipment could be allowed to accommodate tradition, without busting the math entirely. Then a +1 sword found early is something that lets you have a +1 a few levels earlier than you probably would have picked it up anyway, similar to a 1st ed. 4th level wizard finding a wand of 5d6 fireballs with 3 charges left.  It may be temporarily imbalancing compared to a strict look at expected capabilities, but it all washes out in a few levels anyway.</blockquote>

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