What if we removed the half-level bonus to everything?

[Nail]

I think you misunderstood me. I was just positing what would happen if you removed an, in my mind, extraneous bonus from everything. In other words, I was wondering how essential this half-level bonus actually was.

...and the answer is: without +1/2 level, the math is the same but the psychology is off. You "get less" for advancing a level, which makes other bonuses appear more important. <shrug>

IMO, of course.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Oooh, boy. Looks like my posting style needs some refinement and polishing.

I just wanted to say, I was mostly joking. Also, it was a little bit of my bias against the Rules forum showing few. People that post here are very quick to "win" threads. Sorry if it came off rude.

 

[DracoSuave]

The 1/2 level bonus is so that level matters more than just hps and feats and a power here and there. The 1/2 level bonus is the 30th level character's way of saying 'Yeah, I -AM- a demigod, thanks for asking.' It's the way you can mark yourself as above the riffraff, because they can't even -touch- you.

Epic characters can do crazy things like running across ropes (that are on fire) hanging over a chasm filled with fire, lightning, and something else that can only be described as 'elemental hatred.' Under a non-raising system, that character would find himself stumped by trying to cross a board across a rooftop.

Characters get their bonuses to untrained stuff because they actually -pick up- and -learn- a thing here and there about the environments they adventure in. What makes less sense--that a -professional badass- would be to retarded to learn that red dragons breath fire no matter how many he fought... or that they do, in fact, breath fire, and that he might have heard a few other things on the side from listening to the know-it-all wizard?

I, for one, put my money in the hat that says player characters aren't utter retards and actually learn stuff.

 

[Szatany]

Also, in regards to the magic item issue, I don't think you're understanding the point.

A level 30 character might have something like a +32. That's +15 for level, +8 for his main stat (started at 18 and pumped it every level), +6 weapon and a +3 for weapon proficiency. Another character in the party might only be using a +2 proficiency weapon, and he only started with a 16 in his main stat, so he would have a +30. That's a difference of only 6.25%, which is fairly minor.

Remove the level mechanic and you will instead have a character with a +17 and another with +15. That's a difference of 11.76%, which is a little bigger. This is what the others were talking about...without the 1/2 level mods you lose the padding. Suddenly, a character's weapon becomes a LOT more important. My Axe and Shield Fighter is suddenly missing 5% more than a Fullblade Fighter, or perhaps even as much as 10 or 15% more if he had a slightly lower ability score, or had an effect like a mark that was giving him a negative to hit.

How could I not understand the point if I wrote the same thing you above on the previous page?

By removing the padding you effectively double the effects of everything else in the game. To correct for that would be a massive headache. You can't just cut the bonuses in half, because then the low level encounters will be super hard because enemies will have 17AC but you'll only have a +3 to hit because all the modifiers only count for 1/2 their value.

No you don't. You hang on the idea that percentile numbers mean anything but they don't. Game doesn't use % resolution system, it uses d20 with modifiers. And modifiers remain constant - in your example 2 point difference remains a 2 point difference.
Cut bonuses in half? I have no idea what are talking about. Please quote me where I suggested this.

 

[Szatany]

While this may be true from a purely aesthetic stand point, I don't think it's true from a mathematical one. That is, it might look like it makes magic items more important, but it doesn't.

Precisely, because the proportions of boni are all different.

 

[Szatany]

This doesn't remove skill advancement, skill advancement was never there in the first place. It was all an illusion. If you want to advance in a skill, train in it. If you want to advance farther, focus in it. At that point, you've got a +8 bonus, which is pretty damn good when you're talking about static DCs which will usually be in the 10-20 range.

Unfortunatelly this isn't entirely true. Look at skill checks in rituals.

 

[DracoSuave]

Doctor Proctor: Removing half-level from attacks and AC and scaling monsters down shouldn't change one simple fact:

If you need to roll a 12 to hit, it doesn't matter if you're attacking with +25 against AC 37 or attacking with +4 against AC 16; a +2 to hit means you now need to roll a 10. You could be rolling +10000 to hit AC 10012. It doesn't matter. Your probability of success just went from 45% to 55%. That's a 10% difference.

+2 to hit is always a 2 in 20 (1 in 10, or 10% probability) difference in probabilities.

No amount of math you can pull out changes that simple fact.

 

[Tuft]

One of the fun things (for me, and most people I play with) is having a sense that a PC is improving. By taking away the +1/2 bonus, you take away some of that. Is there some big pay-off that counter-acts that loss?

[...]

In a sense, the psychology of the numbers getting better means as much as the numbers themselves.

It's just pure inflation. If your salary has gone up with 10%, while the prices also have risen 10%, have you gotten any richer?

Or to put it like this: You earn four times as much as you used to... but now the only shop open to you is the epic upper-management store where the 25c candy cost $1. Does the fact that the $1 candy has the word "Epic Hyper-candy" printed on the outside make you feel richer?

 

[DracoSuave]

That's not the situation tho. You're not buying the same candy bar with that extra money. You're moving on to richer, more exotic candy bars. Soon, you have so much money you can afford all the candy bars you want, but you don't care now. You've gone on to belgian chocolates, and perhaps truffles!

Of course, you could say 'Well, it's all just food anyways, so thin gruel should be what you go on for your entire life' but the -experience- of it, the -feel- of getting better and better chocolates, the exhileration of looking at your past gourmand memories, and comparing them to the fabulous meal ahead of you...

Your logic taken to its extreme means you never even need to level up. Do away with that! Characters don't need to do bigger and better things! They don't need to evolve or change!

Does that actually sound like fun?

 

[Tuft]

That's not the situation tho. You're not buying the same candy bar with that extra money. You're moving on to richer, more exotic candy bars. Soon, you have so much money you can afford all the candy bars you want, but you don't care now. You've gone on to belgian chocolates, and perhaps truffles!

But you are not getting any better chocolates, just re-labelled ones.

Getting a richer experience is getting a larger toolkit, getting a *new* ability, not getting an inflated number on an old one.

Remember, 4E is gamist, not simulationist. That means that all descriptions are optional, and does not have anything to do with the numbers.

You can describe the fact that the Warlord just healed Fighter Bob as a simple enouraging word, or that a heavely choir sang hosianna while scores of angels
descendend - he still gets the level-appropriate number of hitpoints in either case. The same applies to challenges...