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Message: <blockquote data-quote="comrade raoul" data-source="post: 3781498" data-attributes="member: 554">I like this general approach, and think reducing the number of bonus types is the answer to lots of things. For example, it simultaneously streamlines play and potentially reduces a character's reliance on magical items. (A character might get the same AC bonus from a ring of protection and an encounter-long buff spell, for example, such that the ring would be more of a convenience than anything else.) In particular, I think you could do a perfect job with just three bonus types.-- "Unnamed" bonuses might come from defining features of a character, like feats or class abilities. Under this approach, all and only unnamed bonuses would stack with each other. These would be rare and generally always apply (you wouldn't have to keep track of them apart from setting them down on a character sheet).-- "Enhancement" bonuses might come from stable but external sources, like magical items or buffs that last for a full encounter or more. These are the kind of extra bonuses that characters rely on pretty habitually when adventuring; you might call them the "normal" extra bonuses. Preventing enhancement bonuses from stacking with one another means that characters should almost never have to stack lots of buffs before an encounter--someone with a ring of protection, for example, would under this view basically be set as far as defensive buffs are considered.-- "Circumstance" bonuses come from special, situational sources, or occasionally from character abilities designed to supplement a character's "standard" magical enhancement, like a bard's song, tactical bonuses coming from things like helpful terrain, or even certain very short-term buff spells. These are what you might call "special" bonuses that would typically get applied on the fly, as needed, in the middle of an encounter. Preventing circumstance bonuses from stacking still reduces excessive buffing, and makes applying highly conditional bonuses a lot simpler. (On this view, there'd generally only be one bonus at work that you didn't expect to be working all the way through the encounter.) However, the presence of circumstance bonuses would still provide a place for extra, contingent boosts.</blockquote>

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