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From: Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: Capping Buffs / Penalties
Date: Wed, 8 May 2024 11:25:25 +0200
Organization: Campaign Wiki
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On 5/8/2024 12:48 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> 
> It's something of a meme, that certain character classes (*cough* bard
> *cough*)are incredibly over-powered because - with sufficient buffs -
> their skill set can be combined in ways that give them incredibly high
> bonuses (buffs) to their die-rolls. For some, this is one of the
> things that makes D&D a lot of fun, but these are the sort of things
> that make me look at 'new D&D' as being almost comic-book superhero in
> style; a far cry from the murder-worlds of classic D&D that were my
> first (and favorite) experience with the game.
> 
> Of course, not all players will abuse the system in this way, and not
> all DMs will be so lenient as to allow a simple dice roll to allow
> patently impossibly results (there's a difference between letting the
> players try anything, and letting them do anything just because
> they've gotten a sufficiently high result on a die-roll.* But maybe
> one way to avoid the problem is just to cap the bonuses (buffs) you
> can attach to anyone roll?
> 
> In our campaigns, we already were sort of doing that, although it
> still allowed some occasional disturbingly high bonuses. We divided
> buffs into three categories: natural, magic and situational, and
> decided that you couldn't apply more than +5 from each category to any
> single roll. Natural would be anything integral to the character
> (usually skill or stat buffs, or equipment); magic is anything from
> spells or items, and situational would be any advantage you might get
> from the situation you were in (for instance, leaping over a wide
> chasm when there's an updraft might give you a bonus).
> 
> Our campaigns were fairly low-powered so we rarely topped out on all
> three caps (+5 to +7 tended to be the max. I don't think we ever got
> more than +10).
> 
> For fairness, it worked in the other direction too, though. Penalties
> were limited to -15; -5 in each of the three categories. However, DM
> Fiat allowed the Dungeon Master to just flatly forbid the success of
> certain actions regardless of dice rolls.**
> 
> What do you think? Are you fine with RAW and uncapped buffs/penalties?
> Or do you limit your players to (or are you, as a player fine with)
> maximum buffs in your game?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> * I don't care that you just rolled two natural twenties and have a
> +14 bonus, you can't fly by flapping your arms really fast, Dave!
> ** I don't have to roll any dice for it, Dave. You can't catch a
> castle!

I am using older rules, so for what it's worth I am perfectly fine with 
them combining whatever they find to get something out of it.

The main issue is of course that mainline DnD just has become a 
different game than earlier editions, and in a way that's a good thing: 
after all the older editions exist and thanks to reprints/pdf 
sales/retroclones won't be going away.
It just seems that more people like those newer versions at least in the 
beginning, than people like the older styles. And that's not bad either. 
I noticed a lot of them wandering into older styles after a while, if 
they don't get trapped in the newest-is-best thinking that sometimes is 
so prevalent.