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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5705112" data-attributes="member: 996">OK, here's another one - and 3.5/Pathfinder could take a listen to this one, too, for Pathfinder 2 ...Named and unnamed bonuses and stacking.Stacking bonuses is a favorite pastime of low-grade powergamers everywhere.  It requires stolid determination and a complete library rather than creativity or brilliance.  So, it happens a lot.  It really becomes almost automatic to the longtime gamer.3.x and 4e reduced bonus stacking with the named bonus.  Named bonuses don't stack.  Yay.  3.x screwed up by have /way/ too many names.  Stacking could still be extreme.  4e reduced the number, but it retained a loophole: the unnamed bonus.  Unnamed bonuses stack with eachother, with named bonuses - heck, with a little willful mis-interpretation, even with themselves.The problem is that designers have a tremendous temptation to add unnamed bonuses as the game matures.  You want to come up with a new/worthwhile feat/power/item?  But, there's already lots of bonuses being given out by other feat/powers/items like it?  Make it an unnamed bonus!  That gaurantees that it's useful!  Hooray!That has to stop.  The game is played by both obsessive power gamers with too much time and too many books on their hands, and by casual players who /maybe/ have their own copy of the PH.  The game needs to retain a vestige of balance between characters created by these two extremes. Reining in stacking would help.How?  Well, first of all, named bonuses need to be tightly coupled to the source they name.  Nothing that isn't a power should give a power bonus.  Non-items should never give item bonuses.  Non-feats should never give feat bonuses.  Second unnamed bonuses shouldn't stack - with anything - oh, they're still a /bonus/ they still add to your basic roll which includes half your level and a stat mod, but they don't stack with any named bonuses.  Rather, the role of named bonuses thus becomes the allowing of /some/ stacking, for those bonus-hounds who like digging for them.  Conversely the purpose of the unnamed bonus becomes giving the casual player a one-stop shop to make his character good at something.  Unnamed bonuses should thus be relatively high, but not /quite/ so high as a cunning and complete collection of named bonuses could be.tl;dr:  Named bonuses need to be tightened up.  Unnamed bonuses shouldn't stack with named bonuses.</blockquote>

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