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This isn't a big issue, but having modifiers split between attack and defense seems to slow down the time in determining what stacks and what doesn't. Changing flanking to a +2 to hit is the simplest example. I'd also like to see attackers gain positive modifiers against targets suffering from conditions rather than modifying the defense of the sufferer. It shouldn't change anything other than doubling the amount of stacking modifiers on one side of the combat equation in favor of removing the others from the other side.
This does also open up the option for exploit feats that improve a character's to hit versus targets suffering from certain conditions/traits without competing with current conditional/circumstance modifiers.
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The math will tend to be simpler if you have all your modifiers in one place. I prefer to move them to the aggressor since they will be the one benefiting from remembering all that apply.
There's also the benefit of optimizing lookup time. The defense typically needs to look up their information as the event occurs. The attacker on the other hand has time before the event to look at the applicable modifiers and apply them. Ideally it would be hooked into the trait system so that some of these modifiers would be applied automatically for some abilities and avoid the lookup time completely.
Like I said, I don't think it's that big a deal, but I think it would speed things up slightly.
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When I run games, every round (every. single. round.) the players do this, "Does a 17 hit?"
And another player spouts off, "Is that including your +2 for flanking?"
"No... does a 19 hit?"
"Did you include your +1 for bardic performance?"
It slows combat to a crawl.
I'd rather just have the GM track it.
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When I run games, every round (every. single. round.) the players do this, "Does a 17 hit?"
And another player spouts off, "Is that including your +2 for flanking?"
"No... does a 19 hit?"
"Did you include your +1 for bardic performance?"
It slows combat to a crawl.
I'd rather just have the GM track it.
How is
"Does a 17 hit?"
"No!"
"Even though the monster is flanked?"
"Ah, you're right, let's see...still, no."
"Did you account for the bardic performance?"
in any way faster?
Well, I guess what I mean is that if I'm subtracting 2 for flanking instead of players adding 2, then it will take away them asking each active attacker if they remembered to add it.
Really, what I do sometimes is I tell the players.. this is a long fight against lots of monsters. Know your bonus. Call out your number. That's what we're going with.
My group doesn't have it quite that bad, but it helps if only one target is remembering numbers. Particularly for eyeballing results. If you're within 4 of hitting the target AC, you know you'd need something major to hit them, but if the AC is a moving target as well, you don't really know until you've applied all the values. Essentially, if you know your range of possible hit values is between 8 and 14, you don't also need to track the AC value range as well.
It would be something like:
"I got a 17 with a +2 assist bonus if he's flanked and a +2 exploit bonus if he's afraid, fatigued, draconic, evil, or poisoned."
Then the DM compares the AC, comparing the traits only if the +2 or +4 would matter.
It seems cleaner to me. Moving everything to the defender works as well, but I'd feel like I was robbing the players of successes by digging up more modifiers.
This goes back to 5e's success with advantage/disadvantage. Having to keep track of whether the defender is on slippery sand on an incline and also they're prone and flanked and it's high noon so also the sun is in their eyes and also my character gets a +1 from inspire courage and...
Yeah. I want things like flanking to be relevant, but I don't like having to track bonuses and penalties separately. There aren't 3 bonus types, there's 6 or 7 once you remember bonuses and penalties stack, and that's still a lot to track.
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I felt like 5th eds advantage/disadvantage system went a bit too far as there wasn't much compounding of positive or negative factors. You'd get in situations like mutual blindness where the combat progressed as if the two combatants were unimpaired which seems wrong. Getting the fluidity of that system with the granularity of a more accurate system is always going to be a balancing act. With that in mind, I felt it would be a good idea to do what would be done with any other math equation you wanted to work with and start by moving the modifiers to one side.
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I was thinking about this myself, and ran a few examples. I found the current system actually played out a bit better.
I found that adding 3-4 numbers together twice and comparing them, was easier than adding and subtracting 7-8 numbers and comparing them to one number.
Additionally, some things really seemed like that only should be added to one side (defence of offence) rather than subtracted from the other side.
We should definitely be thinking about these types of things, and it is a good suggestion, but certainly from my experience with the current complexity, modifying defence and offence I found easier.