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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kerrick" data-source="post: 4567313" data-attributes="member: 4722">I don't feel like typing out a whole involved intro, so I'll cut straight to the point. Here is the list of bonuses I'm planning on using, along with the things they can modify. I've also got some extra notes at the bottom about applying bonuses in different situations.Ability: Everything that it modifies now.Armor, deflection, dodge, natural armor, shield: AC. Duh.Circumstance: Skills, attack rolls, and saves.Competence: Attack rolls, skill checks, caster level checks, or any other checks to which a bonus relating to level or skill ranks would normally apply, but not ability checks, damage rolls, initiative checks, or other rolls that aren't related to a character's level or skill ranks.Craft: This is a new one I made up for my variant mastercrafting system. I wanted mastercraft (masterwork) bonuses to stack with magical enhancement bonuses so armor could be more useful, so I had to make a new bonus type. It only applies to mastercraft items.Enhancement: Attack/damage rolls, skill checks, and ability scores. (Technically, enhancement bonuses to AC just improve the existing armor/shield bonus; otherwise magic armor/shields wouldn't stack.)Inherent: Stats.Insight: Attack rolls, Armor Class, Reflex saves, and skill checks.Luck: Attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, caster level checks, etc., but not Armor Class or damage rolls.Morale: Attack rolls and skill checks, or most other checks to which a bonus relating to level or skill ranks would normally apply.Racial: Skills, etc. No change.Resistance: Saves.Size: AC, attack rolls, Stealth checks, and combat maneuver checks. (I had no problem changing the Hide modifier to Stealth on the general premise that smaller creatures are quieter, and larger ones noisier.)The ones I got rid of: alchemical (part of resistance), haste (no real need for it, for ONE spell), sacred/profane (AC bonuses were changed to deflection, and skill bonuses to competence; these bonuses appear so seldom that there's no real point in keeping them.)That still leaves a lot of bonuses that add to the same things; I'm considering rolling luck into circumstance (what is luck if not good or bad circumstances?) and competence into enhancement (since they do basically the same thing). This will cut the major bonuses (the ones we see often) to: armor, deflection, dodge, enhancement, natural armor, morale, shield, and size; and the minor ones (seldom applied) to: circumstance, craft, inherent, insight, racial, and resistance. By dividing bonuses into major and minor, it would be easier to make/revise spells that grant them - you can make divine spells enhancement and bardic songs morale, for instance, meaning that spells wouldn't stack as easily (thus reducing the ridiculous amount of bonuses granted). This kind of ties into the extra notes, below.Extra notes:I can't claim credit for this one - I saw it on another thread in the General RPG forum and borrowed it for ideas, but I thought it might be useful here.The poster mentioned "internal" and "external" bonuses. Internals were things like ability scores; externals were AC, attacks/damage, skills, and saves. The premise here is that spells that grant internal bonuses last longer, but possibly take longer to cast (akin to rituals in 4E, maybe 1 round to cast) and last for 10 minutes to 1 hour/level. I also posit that internals should be harder to dispel - you'd need a greater dispel or disjunction to take care of them*. These would be armor/deflection/shield (mage armor, shield), enhancement (animal buff or skill spells), and natural armor (barkskin).*I'm also going to change the animal buff spells to "end-of-chain" bonuses - cat's grace, for instance, adds to all Dex-related skills, Ref saves, etc., but not Dex itself. This makes things a lot easier to recalculate. Anything that actually grants bonuses to the stat would be either greater versions (ritual spells, which last for 1 hour/level) or permanent magic items.Externals, OTOH, are generally short-term bonuses that last for, say, 1 round to 1 minute/level. This would cover things like prayer, bless, etc.; a simple dispel can remove them. These would be competence (divine favor/power), dodge (haste), insight (???), and resistance (resistance).</blockquote>

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