Mearls idea on modifiers in D&D

[Hussar]

I'm with Merric on this one. I've never seen more than two or three buffs in any given group at any given time. Bard? Who plays a bard? Never actually seen one in the game. Protection from Evil? Once in a while, certainly not too often. Combat Expertise? First time I saw this was when I took as a player last year. In the past three years, that's the only time. Fighting defensively? Seen once in three years.

Who actually does all these things in the same fight?

 

[Belen]

I'm with Merric on this one. I've never seen more than two or three buffs in any given group at any given time. Bard? Who plays a bard? Never actually seen one in the game. Protection from Evil? Once in a while, certainly not too often. Combat Expertise? First time I saw this was when I took as a player last year. In the past three years, that's the only time. Fighting defensively? Seen once in three years.

Who actually does all these things in the same fight?

Dude...have you seen the kids play? Trust me. I run demos or question/answer sessions for them all the time. They use everything!

Hell, my first 3e group had three rules lawyers. They used everything in their arsenal every combat.

Trust me. If you're playing a "normal" raw 3e game, then these things pop up all the time and starting at level 13+ you get into nightmare territory.

 

[BryonD]

Dude...have you seen the kids play? Trust me. I run demos or question/answer sessions for them all the time. They use everything!

Hell, my first 3e group had three rules lawyers. They used everything in their arsenal every combat.

Trust me. If you're playing a "normal" raw 3e game, then these things pop up all the time and starting at level 13+ you get into nightmare territory.

I see a lot of this stuff very frequently.

It just isn't a problem.

 

[Mystery Man]

Dude...have you seen the kids play? Trust me. I run demos or question/answer sessions for them all the time. They use everything!

Hell, my first 3e group had three rules lawyers. They used everything in their arsenal every combat.

Trust me. If you're playing a "normal" raw 3e game, then these things pop up all the time and starting at level 13+ you get into nightmare territory.

I can attest to this. One of my players is a rules maniac and studies the PHB and suppliments looking for cool combos to use. The buffs that he has going on 24+ hours not including the stuff he'll cast before or during combat are just insane. These are 20+ level characters.

 

[Henry]

Sure, most of these things first turn up at low level... but at high levels you tend to get all of them at once, which can lead to PC/DM overload.

I'll say this: With just core only, it's perceivable, but not a big problem. The more supplements you add, the more things get stacked on as people cast short-duration spells in the midst of combat, and have to recalc all their mods on the fly.

Spell compendium is a great resource if a DM cherry picks from it, but it's a terrible book if a DM opens it wide for all high-level spellcasters. I'm doing it currrently, and as much as the players like it, it may be the last time I do it.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I'll say this: With just core only, it's perceivable, but not a big problem. The more supplements you add, the more things get stacked on as people cast short-duration spells in the midst of combat, and have to recalc all their mods on the fly.

Gosh, we're just using core + xph (which only really affects the psionics) and we're finding it annoying enough as-is; good job we're *not* using all those supplements!

As I said, I think it is systemic within d20 as it currently stands, and won't go away unless they decide to re-think some of the core systems. Could happen, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Cheers

 

[Hussar]

I've got four hard core rules lawyers in my group plus a fifth. These guys are constantly looking for advantages. It still never comes up.

Think about it, to have the bonuses that were listed, you'd need a cleric, wizard, bard and barbarian. Even then, you are extremely unlikely to see tumble. Perhaps the bard, but, not often.

My group is a fighter, barbarian, monk/paladin/Righteous Templar, Favoured Soul and rogue/Thrower of some sort PrC. I see maybe three buffs in any given combat including the rage. And, it's not like rage is hard to keep track of, it's the player's character.

While I may not be seeing what the kids are playing, I have had over fifty players at my table in the past three years. Granted, the campaigns have died off at around 15th level, but, I've still never seen what people are talking about. I'm not saying that it never happens, but, I'm wondering if it's as prevalent as people think.

 

[Henry]

My group is a fighter, barbarian, monk/paladin/Righteous Templar, Favoured Soul and rogue/Thrower of some sort PrC. I see maybe three buffs in any given combat including the rage. And, it's not like rage is hard to keep track of, it's the player's character.

If I were to speculate, I'd say that you might not see it much in that group because of the makeup. Paladins and Favored Souls don't have much in the way of TONS of buffing spells, and what the 'Soul has is set in stone, barring lots of scrolls or wands.

By Contrast, my current Eberron group has both a Cleric and an Artificer included. Both see TONS of spell use of all sorts of spells. I intentionally opened the gates wide on our high level campaign, to gain the experience from it, and what I found is that lots of spell choice leads to tons of temporary modifiers. I wouldn't mind it if we tracked ONE spell effect on a battlefield, but we've been in battles complicated enough to track 5 or 6 at one time! (lessee...Vortex of Teeth, Mass Bear's Endurance, Entangle, fog cloud, Wall of force, AND Wall of limbs, from memory!) Of those, three either gave temp bonuses, or penalties of concealment, movement, or vision, and one was dependent on where you were standing in it as to whether you took damage or not (vortex has an "eye" in the middle!)

 

[JohnSnow]

I'll say this: With just core only, it's perceivable, but not a big problem. The more supplements you add, the more things get stacked on as people cast short-duration spells in the midst of combat, and have to recalc all their mods on the fly.

Spell compendium is a great resource if a DM cherry picks from it, but it's a terrible book if a DM opens it wide for all high-level spellcasters. I'm doing it currrently, and as much as the players like it, it may be the last time I do it.

You mean...you mean...

The complexity problem with D&D is with its MAGIC SYSTEM!!?!

No...really!?

Say it ain't SO!! :\

So...rework it. Make the magic more playable. I actually think it's cool that characters have a few buff spells they can use, or items that buff SOME of their abilities.

But what if they were limited to having X number of buffs at a time? Say...3? This goes back to Rodrigo's earlier comment...

I do think, however, that the abundance of modifiers has gotten out of hand. I've said before (and I'll repeat myself till someone acknowledges the brilliance of my observation ) that one of the best things they did design-wise in 3.x was the concept of named bonuses. Unfortunately, one of the dumbest things they've done is let the number of different named bonuses grow out of hand.

From the chorus of QFTs, I think we all agree that named bonuses is an excellent idea in principle. So, how about we have a discussion about how many we need and which ones?

Matter of fact, I think this might be worth a new thread...

 

[jmucchiello]

You're kidding, right?

No, we are talking at high levels of play. Most of the listed spells are duplicates of magic items and real high level characters have the items and don't need the spells. Otherwise the modifier only affects one character and if that player cannot handle his own spell effects, get him some index cards:

bless: I don't think our 23rd level cleric has ever had the time to cast bless after all the other spells he's had to cast. So instead of my list being prayer and haste, throw in bless. Not that long a list.
divine favour: only affects the caster.
bardic music: Never seen a 3.x bard in play. Still, it is no different than prayer or haste (but probably doesn't stack with bless )
GMW: Doesn't stack with magic weapon
magic circle against evil: Deflection bonus doesn't stack with Ring of Protection, resistance bonus to saves does not stack with cloak of resistance. This spell is only used for its protection (100%) against enchantments.
rage: only affect the barbarian, see above for how our barb handles it
cleric armour enhancing wotsit whose name I forget: again, won't stack with actual magic armor.
funky prestige class abilities: uh huh. No matter how bizarre these may be, they happen every combat probably and you should be use to them if the character has been with the party for the last 10+ levels.
not to mention concealment/displacement/blur/blink/invisibility: Most opponents at high level play can see through invisibility or even have true seeing, there are epic feats to negate miss chances and none of these things stack. Only the best one matters.
assorted dodge bonuses: dodge bonuses always stack. Pile them on without fear
fighting defensively with or without tumble, combat expertise, power attack: All of these are done by the player for his character. Throw in charge while you are at it. It only affects that character, his player should deal with it.

Sure, most of these things first turn up at low level... but at high levels you tend to get all of them at once, which can lead to PC/DM overload.

Hasn't been a problem in our 28th level campaign.