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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5700272" data-attributes="member: 54877">A certain amount of the problem with magic item bonuses (and ability score bonuses and feat bonuses too, for that matter) is that the modifiers have traditionally been rather low and their granularity rather coarse.  This combination make small changes relatively important.  Of course, for a simple system that has to fit disparate things into a meaningful total modifier and a d20 roll, there are few simple alternatives.  Suppose you made ability modifiers simply ability score divided by 2?  So a 10 Dex gives you a +5.  Then maybe you let superior equipment (masterwork, whatever) give the +1 to +4 weapon and armor bonuses.  Until you get to +5, it isn't even magic.  You might find a +5 sword around 7th, 8th level, and they go up to about +10.  Feats, spells, whatever, hand out slightly bigger chunks compared to 3E/4E. Then you have to change the math to make this work.  The point is not to simply make everything bigger numbers. The point is rather to shift the ranges of the meaningful numbers such that each +1 has relatively less effect.  If each +1 is individually less important, then going from a +5 to +6 sword (old +1 to +2) doesn't mean as much either.  Neither does going from an 18 (+9) to 20 (+10) main ability score. The problem, of course, is all the obvious ways to make this work well with a d20, and not quickly dwarf the die roll with modifiers, are fiddly. You can, for a crude example, total up all the raw modifiers, and then look up the total on a chart to get a final smaller number.  This effectively turns each +1 into a + 0.4 or such.  Or maybe it doesn't even scale linearly, encouraging players to stay within the expected range for their level.  But then going from my starting +5 magic flaming sword to my new +6 magic flaming sword is even less meaningful.  It all stacks up in the end, but every little jump is too much like accounting. I'm not at all sure that there is any elegant away around this problem, from a purely math perspective.  So I think we get stuck with +X swords that top out somewhere between +3 and +6, or we nullify that particular aspect of the problem by banishing the +X altogether.  That doesn't change the fundamental problem for ability scores and other sources, though.  It just gives a bit more wiggle room.   This is one of the very few areas where percentile systems have an inherent advantage over smaller ranges.  You can stick to +5% and +10% changes when it works well enough, but if you really want an effect that gives +2% or +3% per increment, because that is what works, you can.</blockquote>

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