The death of bonus stacking?

[Henry]

If bonus type stacking went away, I would not lose a wink of sleep over it. I usually have anywhere from three to six sources of bonuses to keep track of for EVERY STAT when I play a PC, and trying to figure out whether the cleric's bless applies to this particular check or not, or whether the Rao's Recitation spell and the Serten's Supreme Sanctum spell use the same type of bonus without spending time looking them up is a pain I can do without.

 

[Mouseferatu]

If bonus type stacking went away, I would not lose a wink of sleep over it.

Oh, God, yes. While AC might have to be a special case--some characters really do need multiple means of improving their AC--I'd be delighted if bonus stacking went away completely in nearly all other cases. Just say that the best bonus trumps, and call it a day.

 

[Glyfair]

Oh, God, yes. While AC might have to be a special case--some characters really do need multiple means of improving their AC--I'd be delighted if bonus stacking went away completely in nearly all other cases. Just say that the best bonus trumps, and call it a day.

Then you end up with a point where +1 magic weapons are almost pointless in the hands of anyone with "weapon focus" (or anything like it). It seems like a simple answer, but I'm think there would be a lot of messes to clean up to get it to work.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Then you end up with a point where +1 magic weapons are almost pointless in the hands of anyone with "weapon focus" (or anything like it). It seems like a simple answer, but I'm think there would be a lot of messes to clean up to get it to work.

Gak. Forgot about those feats. (Can we tell that Ari is tired? ) All right, AC and attack rolls could be exceptions.

It's things like stat bonuses where I'd mostly like to see bonus stacking go the hell away.

 

[comrade raoul]

I think the ideal solution is to go with two types of bonuses!

Everything is either an enhancement bonus (which doesn't stack with other enhancement bonuses) or an unnamed[/b[ bonus (which stacks with everything else, including other unnamed bonuses).

On this view, unnamed bonuses come from abilities that are lasting, important features of the character, like ability scores, feats, and class abilities. (High Strength, the Weapon Specialization feat, and the favored enemy ability would all provide unnamed bonuses to damage rolls.) On the other hand, enhancement bonuses would come from external (or at any rate generally temporary) sources of a character's power--like most buffs and magic items.

The idea would that bonus calculation would be a lot simpler (if it's not basically permanent, just take the highest bonus that applied) and would help reduce the role of both buff spells and magic items, since their benefits would strongly overlap.

 

[Celebrim]

There are two basic problems:

1) Too many different types of bonuses. So, you can have to a single stat an enhancement, luck, morale, sacred, circumstance, insight and unnamed bonuses (just for starters), to say nothing of AC with its dodge, deflection, shield, armor, and natural armor bonuses.

2) Too many dynamic bonuses which change between combats. It wouldn't be too bad if you had to compute things once, but having to compute and recompute is tough.

Honestly, I don't think the problem is going to completely go away, because I don't think that there is a simple answer. I think its part of the nature of the game player's want to play when they play D&D. Lots of different bonuses show up, because there are lots of potential modifiers. Treating them all as unnamed bonuses in some ways makes the problem worse. There was a reason this mechanic was invented in the first place. Likewise, so long as you can help out a friend, there are going to be dynamic bonuses.

There might be some minor improvement here initially, but in the long run I fully expect 4e to be bogged down in the same problem within a few years of its release.

 

[pawsplay]

Considering all the new class abilities we'll be seeing, I predict a Golden Age of stacking.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think the ideal solution is to go with two types of bonuses!

Everything is either an enhancement bonus (which doesn't stack with other enhancement bonuses) or an unnamed bonus (which stacks with everything else, including other unnamed bonuses).

On this view, unnamed bonuses come from abilities that are lasting, important features of the character, like ability scores, feats, and class abilities. (High Strength, the Weapon Specialization feat, and the favored enemy ability would all provide unnamed bonuses to damage rolls.) On the other hand, enhancement bonuses would come from external (or at any rate generally temporary) sources of a character's power--like most buffs and magic items.

The idea would that bonus calculation would be a lot simpler (if it's not basically permanent, just take the highest bonus that applied) and would help reduce the role of both buff spells and magic items, since their benefits would strongly overlap.

I'd be happy to see the death of stacking, but I think the good comerade has the best solution that I've seen to the issue.

You could even clarify the naming by calling them inherent bonuses and external bonuses. The inherent bonus come from your abilities, your feats, your class abilities and so forth. the external bonuses come from *everything* else, and you just take the highest.

In order to make this work you would need to eliminate the ability buffing spells, and replace them with spells that had a primary effect directly (e.g. "Bulls Strength gives +2 to hit and damage", rather than "Bulls Strength gives +4 to Strength (and calculate all the things that changes).

Eliminate everything that changes ability scores on a temporary basis and forces recalculation, and just apply penalties to appropriate activities or bonuses to appropriate activities.

Cheers

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I think the ideal solution is to go with two types of bonuses!

Everything is either an enhancement bonus (which doesn't stack with other enhancement bonuses) or an unnamed[/b[ bonus (which stacks with everything else, including other unnamed bonuses).

Yeah, this is what I could see happening. Basically, you have innate bonuses (feats, class bonuses, stat bonuses) which are things that once you take it when going up levels they stay on your character forever and temporary bonuses. Temporary bonuses would be anything gained from spells, magic items, class abilities which are temporary, etc.

This allows the game designers to carefully control the bonuses a character gets using the rules(which will, of course, be broken near immediately by people adding things to the rules that weren't there to begin with). If they make weapon focus the ONLY bonus to hit from a feat in the game, they know that your innate bonus will never be higher than 1. If you say that all external factors don't stack and don't put anything in the game that gives a bonus higher than 5 to hit or ac, then you know there is a balance. You also know that bonuses don't swing too much up or down from one character to the next, while also simplifying stacking for the players ("You are giving me +1 to hit, I already have +2, it doesn't do anything.").

The only issue with this is that low level spells become useless since they aren't big enough anymore. This is solved by simply allowing people to swap out low level spells for high level ones. This is the impression I've gotten of what they are doing already. Rather than saying "You can cast 3 spells of every level you know", they are saying "You know 10 spells, choose them from everything you know". It simplifies choosing powers ("Minor Accuracy isn't a useful spell anymore since I got Major Accuracy. I'll just prepare that.") and simplifies choices in combat, since you'll have less of them.

 

[Veril]

How about this idea:

One bonus from each power source