Questions about stacking rules

[Madscientist]

I did lots of reading, but I did not find the stacking rules for pathfinder.
I know a bit about DnD3.5, but I am not sure what have changed.

attributes:
Lets say you are a barbarien and you have rage (+4 str), ring of str+2, helmet of str+4, a cleric casts bulls strengh (+4) and a mage cast a spell that increases your size (+2, I am not sure)
What will be the final result? I guess it is only +4, but I am not sure.
Are there other possible bonnuses that could be added?

AB, saving throws, skills
You have a ring of protection+2 (+2 saves), a cleric casts bless, aid and prayer on you and a friendly bard uses inspire courage.
What stacks with what?

AC:
Now its getting really complicated because there are 4 types of armor and different types of attacks (e.g. touch attacks) or conditions (e.g. flat footed) ignore some types of armor.

feats that influence your attacks:
I have a lv20 fighter with tons of str and tons of feats who specializes as much as possible on using a greatsword and hitting several enemies at once.
- cleave and greater cleave: I have 4 attacks per round. Can I cleave with every attack?
- cleave and finishing cleave: I hit an enemy, I use cleave on a nearby enemy and this enemy dies because of the cleave attack. Does this kill cause another attack with ( greater ) cleave? If yes, could those cleaves cause another greater finishing cleave, leading to a chain of kills?
- I use vital strike or its upgrades. Do I have 4 attacks per round and the first is stronger or do I have only one strong attack this round? Can vital strike cause cleave and do those cleaves have also increased damage?
- Does power attack stack with all special attacks or are there exceptions?
- Whirlwind attack seems to be useless if you have greater cleave and several attacks per round.
- There are feats that add a status effect on a critical hit (e.g. critical blinding and critical stunning). Does it work for every attack you make, including vital strike, cleave attacks and so on? Does it stack if the weapon itself has an on crit or on hit effect? Does it stack if I use a special attack that tries to cause a status effect? Does it work if the attack does not deal damage ( because its a special attack that does not deal damage or because all damage is eaten by DR )?

How in the world are players supposed to keep track of this in a PnP game?
There can be lots of effects from buffs, debuffs, conditions and equipment be active at a time and each effect can have a different duration.
In a computer game you tell your char to attack an enemy and the computer does the rest. In PnP all you have is a sheet of paper and maybe a calculator. Even one round of combat against several enemies must last forever.

Feel free to give some answers or to ask even more questions.

[atletikus]

Different types of bonuses stack. Untyped bonuses stack. But two bonuses of the same specific type (or from the same source) don't stack.

To use your barbarian example:

• Rage = morale bonus
• Bull's Strength, magic item = enchantment bonus (not stacking, largest bonus apply)
• Enlarge Person = size bonus

When using rage your Barbarian would get +4 from rage (+8 at level 20), +4 from magic helmet and a +2 bonus from Enlarge Person for a total of +10.

[thainen]

The general rule is that bonuses of the same type do not stack. If an item gives you a bonus, it states the bonus type in description. So if you have a belt that gives enhancement bonus +4 to Strength, then a ring that gives enhancement bonus +2 to Strength wouldn't do you any good, but if it gives a luck bonus +2 to Strength, then together they give you +6.

[Legion of the Damned]

Basically, bonus of the same type are not cumulative (types are, for example: Enhancement, Moral, Size, Luck, Insight, etc.). Only the highest is accounted for.
The exceptions are the bonus that have no type as well as Dodge and Circumstances type bonus. These bonus stack with each other.
So, in your examples:

Attribute:
Barbarian Rage (+4): this is a Morale bonus
Ring of str+2: enhancement bonus
Helmet of str+4: enhancement bonus
Cleric casts bulls strengh (+4): enhancement bonus
Enlarge spell (+2): Size bonus
So, your final Strength bonus is +10 (+4 Morale, +4 Enhancement, +2 Size)

Ring of protection+2 (+2 saves): Resistance
Cleric casts bless (+1): Moral
Cleric cast aid (+1): Moral
Cleric cast prayer (+1): Luck
Friendly bard uses inspire courage (let's say the bonus is +2): Moral
So, your final save receive a bonus of +5 (+2 Resistance, +2 Moral, +1 Luck)

AC: same rules apply when it comes to bonus. The fact that are armor is light, medium or heavy doesn't change anything: their bonus is always an "Armor" type bonus, so they don't stack with each other. It's useless to wear 2 armors together.
But shields provide a "Shield" type bonus, which stack with armors.
Touch attacks ignores Armor, Shield and Natural Armor AC bonus.
Conditions such as flat footed ignore Dexterity and Dodge bonus

I don't have time to answer the questions related to feats right now.
Here are 2 invaluable links to help you:
Pathfinder SRD: a compendium of all rules:
https://www.sites.google.com/site/pathfinderogc/

Page with all the bonus types listes:
https://www.sites.google.com/site/pathfinderogc/basics-ability-scores/glossary#TOC-Bonus

[Madscientist]

Thanks
I had my info from this page, but I missed the stacking rules.
Those things can be found when clicking "commen terms".

One more thing:
The text says that penalties stack. What happens if you have several bonusses and penalties from the same category? So if all of these things belong to the same category:
#1: +4 plus -2 = 2? ( the highest bonus and the highest penalty apply?)
#2: +4 plus +2 plus -2 plus -2 = 0? ( the highest bonus and all penalties are used?)

Edit:
I have read the texts about the feats for my fighter example, but I am still not sure what works together.

[Madscientist]

Is there a maximum value for stats and skills in the game?

I think NWN2 had a max value of 50 for stats and a max bonus of 20 for skills, saves and AB.
I am not sure if those values were from the PnP rules or restrictions of the game engine.

[Wakuseino]

Hm. Well, 20 is your maximum RANK in skills, but that shouldn't be your maximum bonus for them, what with ability bonuses, the class skill bonus, and various other spell based bonuses.

Now, the theoretical maximum permanent ability stat achievable by relatively normal play would probably be around 31: This assumes that you brought one ability up to 18 during character creation, had a racial bonus of +2 on top of that, put all the ability points you gain from levels into that one stat (so +5), and then grabbed some equipment to give you a +6 Enhancement bonus to the stat. At that point, you would be getting an ability bonus of... +10, I believe? Actually having an ability score that high is patently absurd canonically, of course: It's the kind of thing one expects from monsters that have lived hundreds of years that require a full party to fight.

[Legion of the Damned]

- cleave and greater cleave: I have 4 attacks per round. Can I cleave with every attack?
>> No. To use Cleave or Great Cleave, you must make an Attack Action. This is a Standard Attack action type, which results in a single attack during the turn.
To make more than one attack with a character (such as your example Fighter 4 attacks per round), you need to use the Full-attack action, which is a Full-Round action type. Therefore, it cannot trigger a Cleave or Great Cleave feat.
Note that Finishing Cleave doesn't have such restriction and can be used during a Full-attack action.

- cleave and finishing cleave: I hit an enemy, I use cleave on a nearby enemy and this enemy dies because of the cleave attack. Does this kill cause another attack with ( greater ) cleave? If yes, could those cleaves cause another greater finishing cleave, leading to a chain of kills?
>> I'd say that the kill could trigger 2 attacks: 1 for the finishing cleave and 1 for the greater cleave.
But that couldn't result in more finishing cleaves. The feat specifically mention that only 1 additional attack per round can be triggered by Finishing Cleave.

- I use vital strike or its upgrades. Do I have 4 attacks per round and the first is stronger or do I have only one strong attack this round? Can vital strike cause cleave and do those cleaves have also increased damage?
>> Vital Strike is triggered during an Attack Action, which is a Standard Action type. Therefore, you can only make one single attack. You have only one strong attack this round (this is still useful if you have to move during the round, and therefore cannot make a Full-attack action). Vital Strike can trigger cleave. Basically, Vital Strike and Cleave are feat that improve the "Attack action" (and not the "Full-Attack action"). Cleave triggered by Vital Strike are not increased in damage.

- Does power attack stack with all special attacks or are there exceptions?
>> What do you can special attacks? You mean attacks like Vital Strike or Cleave? Yes, they stack. Power Attack improves all attacks types.

- Whirlwind attack seems to be useless if you have greater cleave and several attacks per round.
>> Whirlwind Attack doesn't require that you hit with all your previous attacks, unlike Great Cleave. Yet, the big problem of Whirlwind Attack is that it requires a very specific build to take it (not all Fighters have INT 13, DEX 13 and all those required feats, while it's pretty easy for a Fighter to qualify for Great Cleave.


- There are feats that add a status effect on a critical hit (e.g. critical blinding and critical stunning). Does it work for every attack you make, including vital strike, cleave attacks and so on?
>> yes, it works on all attack types, assuming you confirm a critical hit.
Does it stack if the weapon itself has an on crit or on hit effect?
>> yes
Does it stack if I use a special attack that tries to cause a status effect? Does it work if the attack does not deal damage ( because its a special attack that does not deal damage or because all damage is eaten by DR )?
>> I'd say yes

How in the world are players supposed to keep track of this in a PnP game?
There can be lots of effects from buffs, debuffs, conditions and equipment be active at a time and each effect can have a different duration.
>> even for veteran players, it can be a pain in the ***, although experience, attention and knowledge of the rules help a lot.
It's not rare to forget one or two modifiers here and there.
But in the end, it doesn't really matter. For PnP games, what matter is that all players have fun.

In a computer game you tell your char to attack an enemy and the computer does the rest. In PnP all you have is a sheet of paper and maybe a calculator. Even one round of combat against several enemies must last forever.
>> yes. With my gaming group, big combats might take us several hours of game time. I guess that's why we also enjoy to play on computer as well.
(also, Pathfinder is a rather rule heavy game. There are game systems much more simples, in which combats are faster. But Pathfinder is a beautiful game mechanic, albeit not very realistic)

[Madscientist]

Thank you very much for your answers

While this Computer game seems to be closer to the PnP rules than NWN2, I guess a lot of things have to be simplyfied.
If you take it serious with full attack, standart attack+move, 5 foot step, swift actions and so on, you have to make it turn based. If you have to select this for every of your 6 chars ( + animal companions, summons and so on ) you will use 90% of the time as pause in a RTWP game.

[atletikus]

Originally posted by Madscientist:

Thank you very much for your answers

While this Computer game seems to be closer to the PnP rules than NWN2, I guess a lot of things have to be simplyfied.
If you take it serious with full attack, standart attack+move, 5 foot step, swift actions and so on, you have to make it turn based. If you have to select this for every of your 6 chars ( + animal companions, summons and so on ) you will use 90% of the time as pause in a RTWP game.

Not necessarily. I assume we can stack actions and have toggles for feats etc. That said, I too wonder how the overly complex pen & paper system translates to the computer. I noticed the YouTube beta "testers" have uniformly played the game in a very uninspired manner. As they were playing Diablo; click-fest on auto-pilot. After having been spoiled by very tactical, yet fluid combat with Divinity 2, that won't cut it anymore.

[Madscientist]

I guess you mean Divinety Original Sin 2 ( turn based with party ) and not Divinety 2 ( single char action RPG )

BTW the mind reading mechanic of Divinety 2 was one of the most funny things in gaming, maybe together with playing a malkavian in bloodlines or a dumb char in arcanum.

[atletikus]

Originally posted by Madscientist:

I guess you mean Divinety Original Sin 2 ( turn based with party ) and not Divinety 2 ( single char action RPG )

BTW the mind reading mechanic of Divinety 2 was one of the most funny things in gaming, maybe together with playing a malkavian in bloodlines or a dumb char in arcanum.

Yeah. Was trying to save my fingertips from typing Divinity Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition ;)

[Madscientist]

One more question:
What is multiplied on a critical hit?

I have read that:
"A critical hit means that you roll your damage more than once, with all your usual bonuses, and add the rolls together. Unless otherwise specified, the threat range for a critical hit on an attack roll is 20, and the multiplier is ×2.

Exception: Precision damage (such as from a rogue’s sneak attack class feature) and additional damage dice from special weapon qualities (such as flaming) are not multiplied when you score a critical hit."

Does it mean every fixed damage gets multiplied?
such as:
- strengh modifier
- base weapon enchantment ( like using a sword+2 )
- spells or abilities that add a fixed bonus ( e.g. inspire courage, divine favour, smite evil, favoured enemy, weapon specialisation, . . . )

[Wakuseino]

Yes, yes it does. Crits are pretty absurb when they hit, as a result.

[Madscientist]

One Hand weapons use 1x strengh bonus for damage when used in one hand and 1.5x str bonus when used in both hands.
- A magus must have one hand free to cast a spell and attack in the same round. Does it mean he uses his weapon as 2h weapon when not casting a spell in the same round and as 1h weapon + light off hand weapon when casting a spell in the same round?
I assume the Kensai is the same as the normal magus in this regard, so he cannot use a 2h weapon as weapon of choice.