Stacking Assists

What I will do, however, is make a statement that most/all of us reading this thread already know… due to the nature of the system, bonuses to a skill could be extremely impactful. That is, as average skill bonuses increase during a character’s lifetime, so to do the average targets he needs to achieve. And due to the bell curve ingrained into the mechanics, if that target is near the apex of the curve (which it tends to be) then each bonus pushing you over the edge of the curve has up to an approximately 8% increase in your likelihood of success. Therefore, allowing stacking to go unchecked will lead to an increased number of situations where one optimized group ‘cake-walks’ an encounter and another less optimized group finds it nearly impossible to succeed.

I think what you’ve said here is important, but also as important is the rate at which encounters increase in TN’s. There was some math done on the old forums I think (It was a post I either started to commented on with some numbers) that by Tier 4/Tier 5, the defenses of creatures outpaced normal rank progression of weapon skills, and that weapon attacks of monsters often outpaced the normal progression of defenses.

I feel that, while stacking shouldn’t go unchecked, it should be loosened a little bit to allow those characters who aren’t ‘combat monsters’ to still have a shot at helping out in combat. If someone with only 2 weapon ranks / Tier can never hit a creature and they’re attempts at assisting others won’t work due to stacking rules, they are essentially left out. The way many of the rules are written now, I don’t know if the Stacking Rules were really part of generating those numbers, or if the stacking rules were ‘back fit’ into what’s been written and we’re just discussing nuances with it now that make the rules somewhat awkward.

I think some of the Stacking Rules could be simplified. For instance, item and magic item should just be an “Item Bonus”. If I have a non-magical gauntlet that gives a +1 to hit and a magical sword that gives +2 to hit, really only the +2 to take effect as you’re getting both from equipment you’re wearing/using. The Ally bonus I think needs done away with and replaced by specific ‘stacking’ rules based upon the assist system (No more than 1 person can assist in combat, no more than 3 can assist in a skill check, etc.).

I do think (that while it was also complicated) that some of the D&D systems did a good job at classifying bonuses by the ‘source’ of the bonus (in terms of whether it’s Enhancing something, Natural, an Insight based upon precognition, etc.). But then every bonus needs to include either an explicit type or remained “untyped” and always stack. It’s probably beyond the scope of any errata to change the system now, but I think it can be simplified, keep bonuses from being unbounded, but also encourage and nurture cooperative characters and builds.

John

Personally, I am 100% against “ally” being its own super-category of stacking. This means that an Ally can grant YOU ability from a talent which does NOT stack with a bonus an ally gives you from the Aid Another function. If we treat Ally as its own super-category with a repeat of all the various categories of bonus, I am going into battle with a permanent +6 from multiple Beneditions of the Gods into every fight. Hell, it makes spell-casters even more broken as they would be able to double-dip into the ‘ally’ bonus with their own.

It is much simpler to just have ‘ally’ be a single source similar to a spell. An ally can cast a spell on you, but that still counts as a spell not an ‘ally spell’.

Ally, Talent, Skill, Spell (from any source), Path, Item (Equipment), Magic Item (Rune/Magical properties of item, etc), Racial, Combat Maneuver and Untyped (for all those cases which don’t fit)

I vote no. They both apply a static +1 bonus (although of different damage types), and for consistency I say they are not stackable. Feel free to have both on, but you can (realistically) activate only one at a time.