Advanced - Effects

What is an Effect ?

Simply put, an Effect is something that will change any value related to your character. For instance, when you wear a Belt of Giant Strength, your character will gain more strength: the "effect" in this case, is an increase in Strength for your character. If you have the Agile feat, then your character will receive +2 bonus on all Balance checks and Escape Artist checks. So both "Balance" and "Escape Artist" have effects that increases those skills for your character.

But the complexity of D&D3.5 does not come from adding simple number to your character - but rather the interaction of all these numbers when they are coming from different sources. In some case, these numbers CANNOT be added together, while in other case, you CAN add these bonuses together: This is called the Stacking Rules, and being able to master the stacking rules automatically, is what makes TOS+ stand out from almost everything else!

Stacking Rules ?

In D&D, your character gains bonuses from various sources. Magical Rings, Shields, or even Class Features can give your character a bonus on something. In D&D, the makers decided to create many different 'types' of bonuses, and they also provided details so we can know if a specific type can be stacked (meaning added) to something else which provides a similar bonus (meaning of the same type). The best way to understand this is with this example: Let say Brak the barbarian (Famous Last words: "Brak? What a stupid name for a Barbarian!") owns a nice pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power. If you read the description of those, Brak gets "a +2 enhancement bonus to his Strength score". So these Gauntlets give a +2 to Brak's Strength score in the form of an enhancement bonus. After some adventuring, Brak get hold of a Belt of Giant Strength +4 and happily wears that to get more bang for the buck! The description of the belt says "The belt adds to the wearer’s Strength score in the form of an enhancement bonus of +4". One might be tempted to claim that Brak now has a +6 bonus to Strength score: +2 from his Gauntlets, and +4 from the new Belt. Alas, the stacking rules specify that enhancement bonuses do not stack. So Brak is actually getting a +4 bonus to his Strength score, instead of a +6 (the effect of the Gauntlets should be ignored)

The core mechanics of the game explain how stacking works:

Definition of Stacking

In most cases, modifiers to a given check or roll stack (combine for a cumulative effect) if they come from different sources and have different types (or no type at all), but do not stack if they have the same type or come from the same source (such as the same spell cast twice in succession). If the modifiers to a particular roll do not stack, only the best bonus or worst penalty applies. Dodge bonuses, racial bonuses, and circumstance bonuses however, do stack with one another unless otherwise specified.

So the Stacking Rule is actually quite simple: No bonuses stack, except for Dodge, Racial and Circumstance bonuses. Whenever your character gains bonuses that should NOT stack, TOS+ will handle them accordingly!

The Types

Ok so we have seen that the stacking rules prevent bonuses of the same type (with a couple of exceptions) from being added. Now let us look at all the Types that TOS+ can handle - you will see that a few more types were added to allow some very powerful stuff!! But you don't need to read on those until you are familiar with the basic types.

The Basic Types

There are basically three types used within TOS+. The stackable Types, the non-stackable types and the special types. Let's look at the first two types that TOS+ can handle.

Table: The stackable and non-stackable Types

Available Types	Does it Stack?		Available Types	Does it Stack?
Alchemical	No		Luck	No
Armor	No		Morale	No
Circumstance	Yes		Profane	No
Competence	No		Racial	Yes
Deflection	No		Resistance	No
Dexterity	No		Sacred	No
Dodge	Yes		Shield	No
Enhancement	No		Size	No
Inherent	No		Unnamed	Yes
Insight	No

So as you can see, most types do not stack, with the four exceptions listed above.

The "Natural Armor" type is not defined as it is specific to Armor. If you need to affect the natural armor, use the "Natural Armor" effect to do so! Note that Natural Armor stacks with any other armor bonus the character has.

What should I do when I have an Effect with a type that does not normally stack, but the description of that ability specifically says that it stacks? Simple! If it should always stack, even with the same typed bonus, use 'Unnamed' instead!

The Special Types

With the help of a few special types, TOS+ can be expanded to handle more complex Effects!

Table: The special Types

Special Types	Description
Haste	Although the bonuses granted by the Haste spell are Unnamed (as in they stack), multiple Haste effects do not stack! So if you wish to create an Effect similar to Haste, but that does not stack with other Haste effects, you can use this special type.
Max Value	Certain effects provide benefits that aren’t really bonuses or penalties to an existing ability, but that give a value where an ordinary character wouldn’t have one. For instance, Spell Resistance. SR is not a bonus per se, but an ability gained by a character. SR does not [usually] stack (but you could define an Effect that would stack it!): If you have multiple sources of Spell Resistance, you use the higher number. This is where Max Value comes into play. Since all SR are defined as Max Values, you are sure that only the highest source will be used.
Min Value	Similar to the Max Value above, but for the minimum value.
Proficiency	This type is currently used only for Thrown attacks: All weapons 'thrown' have a -4 Proficiency Penalty. If that weapon can be thrown (like a dagger), it gets a +4 Proficiency bonus to offset that -4 penalty. This is done internally in the Sheet when a weapon is defined as "Thrown" or not.
Caster	This special type was created to handle Gestalt characters. It basically tells the sheet that the class can 'cast spells' like an existing class.
Class Skill	This is a special type that was created to allow the addition of Class Skills to a Class. Because it is a bit special, it has its own help page which is available here.

How to Use Effects

Before we examine HOW to use effects in TOS+, let us make sure we are all on the same page, and use the same language:

Effect: An Effect is a condition that affects your Character. For instance a "+1 Racial Bonus to Saving Throws" is an effect.

An Effect is composed of 3 parts: The Effect Name (what is affected), the Effect Type (which type should be applied for stacking) and finally an Effect Modifier (what value to apply). For the racial bonus above, the three parts would be:

Table: The three parts of an Effect

Effect Name	Effect Type	Effect Modifier
Saving Throw	Racial Bonus	+1

Effect Name

Almost anything that is a value can be made into a target. The worksheet called IntegrationData [we will get into that on the next page] contains multiple lists of targets. Some targets are more obvious than others. For instance, the 'CON' target means the Character's Constitution score. Other are class features that have been turned into target to allow future custom classes to 'add' to them! For example, the 'Lay on Hands (Su)' target (or ability) is available to allow you to increase the level of a Paladin (like from a prestige class, which adds its level to that of the Paladin! Other targets affect many characteristics at once. For instance, the 'ALL Saves' target will affect all three save values.

Effect Type

We have already discussed, the available Types that Parse Effect can handle, and the stacking rules applied to them.

Effect Modifier

The effect modifier is simply the value (number) to apply to the effect target. Only the type Class Skill does not use a number for the modifier - it uses a string, composed of skill names, each separated by a comma.

Where to Use Effects

The great thing about effects of that they can be added to any items or abilities the character has! This means that you could create a Hat with the same effects as a Feat, or a weapon that grants you skill bonuses. For the Sheet, if an effect is available, the 'source' of that effect is irrelevant!

Effects can be added to any of the following items:

• Ammunition
• Animals
• Armor
• Classes
• Conditions
• Domains
• Gear
• Potions
• Powers
• Psicrystals
• Race
• Rings
• Shields
• Skills (upcoming)
• Spells
• Weapons
• Wondrous Items

Since the process of adding effects is the same for all of the above items, let us work out a few examples to see HOW we can create these Effects.