Stacking – Special Cases

Some bonuses have special cases that defy the normal conventions.

How Things Stack (part 2)

How it normally works

For any given aspect of a character or action, only one bonus of any given type can be applied. For example, only one Morale bonus effect can give you an attack bonus at any given moment. If two Morale bonuses to attack are on you at the same time, only the better of the two apply.

Enhancement Bonuses

The quirk

The maximum allowable Enhancement bonus is +5. You cannot bring your Strength from 14 to 20 via enhancement bonuses, nor can you have a +6 Bastard Sword.

Why is this fair?

Heroes and villains should reply upon skill and talent in addition to nifty magic items. This cap also encourages the creation of magic items that have other special effects, such as “flaming,” “holy,” or “keen” which add to the value of the item and give it more flair.

Dodge Bonuses

The quirk

You can stack dodge bonuses, though not multiple times from the same source.

Why is this fair?

Dodge bonuses are only to come from feats and special abilities (such as those bestowed by advancement in a character class). Magic items and spells can’t give you this, only skill and specialty can.

As Dodge bonuses only apply to AC and come from a limited number of sources, the possibility of this being abused is greatly reduced.

Armor, Natural Armor, and Shields

The Quirk

Armor, Natural Armor, and Shields all have basically the same effect: they increase AC. They stack with each other, as they are different bonus types. The quirkiness applies when combined with Enhancement bonuses.

A medium-sized creature with a Natural Armor Bonus of 5, Full Plate armor, and a Large Metal Shield has a total AC of 25 (10 base + 5 natural + 8 armor + 2 shield).

With +5 enhancement on the Armor and +5 enhancement on the Shield it becomes 35 (10 base + 5 natural + 8 armor + 5 enhancement + 2 shield + 5 enhancement). The end result is that you can have multiple enhancement bonuses applying in the end to the same practical value (AC).

Why is this fair?

You gotta work HARD to get a hold of quality magically enchanted armor and shields. Furthermore, due to damage output averages, a Shield & Sword fighter would otherwise be at a severe disadvantage against a Two-Handed Sword fighter.

Additionally, both Armor and Shields have inherent penalties to movement rate, maximum Dexterity Bonus, Arcane Spell failure, and so forth. As a matter of balance the way these things stack makes a heavy-armor fighter capable of surviving against appropriately powerful opponents.

Also bear in mind that this game system is slightly skewed in favor of the Knight In Shining Armor character boldly charging into Dungeons to slay Dragons with his spear and magic helmet.

3 thoughts on “Stacking – Special Cases”

  2. Burrowowl

    I got that +5 directly from the 1st printing version of the DMG. The Errata file available at tsr.com has no note of this being changed. I think that a +6 is reasonable, but the number came straight from the horse’s mouth.

    The +5 limitation was probably intended specifically for magical weapons and armor, which traditionally haven’t had greater than +5 bonuses. Exceptions generally apply to any rule, so the +12 Hackmaster sword can certainly exist if the DM says so ^_^

    A +6 enhancement bonus to a core Attribute (such as Strength or Charisma) would make sense, as the Attribute Modifiers increment once per every two points of the Attribute, for a clean extra 3 on that Attribute’s modifier.

Comments are closed.