D&D General Explain Bounded Accuracy to Me (As if I Was Five)

[pemerton]

Which means it was always silly to pretend that they were the same thing, escalating stats or not. You can still have "solo monsters" with wide array of moves that come along with it, we just drop the pretence that they are supposed to be the same thing than a creature with completely different stats (or just pretend that anyway, if we don't care about such rule consistency.) It is like how there are legendary monsters in 5e.

I don't understand this. It's another comment that I can't relate to my own experience with 4e D&D.

 

[Minigiant]

Why? You can do it in 5e just fine. Granted, there is usually various more elite and boss type versions of many (especially humanoid) monsters, which you can add to the mix at later levels to spice things up. But that seems pretty natural. At higher levels you need high number of orcs to challenge the characters, so it makes sense that such a group would have all sort of champions and leaders. But the basic orc still remains a viable component for encounters.

The point is that the orcs don't challenge mid level PCs. They are inconveniences.

Same with Ogre's. Those are slogs.

Bounded accuracy is a cool concept but it fails at being fun. It's a desire that doesn't hold up to reality as it comes with issues you don't expect.

Like dating a beautiful celebrity.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I didn't know about these rules. Upthread @Crimson Longinus was saying that 5e uses the same stat block and resolution process for a given creature in all cases, but from what you're saying here that's not the case!

Did I say that? It generally does that, but I already said that there are swarm rules that are an obvious exception. But these mob rules from DMG are a different thing. They don't really change stats, it is just a math hack to avoid ton of rolls, so we default to average probabilities instead.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Like dating a beautiful celebrity.

I'd sign up for the playtest

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The point is that the orcs don't challenge mid level PCs. They are inconveniences.

Same with Ogre's. Those are slogs.

Bounded accuracy is a cool concept but it fails at being fun. It's a desire that doesn't hold up to reality as it comes with issues you don't expect.

I mean the idea never was that at higher levels you fight only endless hordes of low CR foes. Yes, that indeed would be dull, but that obviously is not the intent. The intent is that at later levels you can still use these low CR monsters as components of battles, and their stats will work. So a high level boss can have orc and ogre henchmen and it works fine.

Like dating a beautiful celebrity.

Sounds like sour grapes...

 

[DEFCON 1]

And yet how do you explain that in the fiction?

Sure, one ogre might have become ill and weak over the intervening time, and seen its vitality (as measured by hit points) drop from 88 to 1 as it hovers on the point of natural death; but all ogres the PCs meet, everywhere? That's a bit much.

That those original 88 hit points might have been too much to handle at low level and yet have become a relative triviality at very high level is IMO more than enough to reflect the characters' growth. Shrinking the monsters as well is overkill.

Is it "overkill"? Or is it merely just using mechanics to reflect a narrative idea, and not using mechanics to play out the board game?

An 88 hit point ogre could be deadly for 3rd level PCs, and an 88 hit point ogre could be a cakewalk for 17th level PCs. That is true. But even that 88 hit point ogre might require three or four 17th level PCs to hit it in order to kill it (PLEASE NOTE: I have not actually checked the numbers for my example so let's not get pedantic about what "17th level" characters can and cannot do-- insert whatever character level applies). Which is fine, it and of itself... but is there any reason "in-fiction" why a PC one-shotting said ogre would be a bad thing? If it's statistically and mechanically impossible for that one Fighter PC in the group to actually do enough damage to insta-kill an ogre and so that thing never happens "in-fiction"... again, that's fine, but why is that the only acceptable "in-fiction" result? The Fighter has to hit every ogre multiples times to kill it?

Using the minions rules is just one of the ways that allow for the "in-fiction" result of a Fighter taking an ogre's head off with one swing. Is that a problem "in-fiction"? Is there a reason why that shouldn't be allowed in the story of the campaign for the Fighter to have that heroic moment? I personally don't see any reason why it can't be allowed for the narrative of the story we are playing that the Fighter one-shots an ogre, but maybe others do?

I will say though, that I suspect those that do have an issue with it, have the issue because they are looking at the combat from the "behind the curtain" board game perspective, and not from "within the fiction". "Behind the curtain" the player knows the mechanical board game rule of "Ogres are supposed to all have 88 hit points". And if you change that... you are change the rules of the board game. The fiction doesn't matter at that point... only the board game rules matter. And (general) you can't play the combat board game mini-game "tactically" and "effectively" if the rules of the pieces can change. If your Fighter can only do a maximum of 75 HP of damage with a swing, one can't have a "ogre" piece fall down dead on that one swing, because that breaks the "rules" of the board game (using the so-called "fiction" as the explanation as to why this "rule" of the board game is in place and cannot change.) The "fiction" is our "reason" why every ogre has to have 88 hit points in the board game (all our ogres are "healthy" and none are "invalid" or "children") and it's important to maintain that "fiction"... and yet it then precludes the possibility in the "fiction" of ever one-shotting an ogre-- for no discernable reason other than the "game rules".

This is how many folks wish to play the game, and that's cool. I don't have an issue with that. You do you. But I just do not happen to fall into that category of person. I find the narrative results of the entire fight to be more interesting than the board game that has to play out to achieve said narrative. The board game can be fun... but I don't play D&D for the board game, I play for the story that comes out of it. And if that means mechanics change to create new ways of generating narrative... no problem with me whatsoever! After all... isn't that what Swarm rules are? Changing the mechanics of standard board game pieces to achieve a different narrative result? Or Mass Combat rules? Pulling so far out of the board game that we institute a whole new set of board game rules that we plop in and play out to emulate a different story in our game? If most of us have no issues using new and different mechanics to emulate those narratives... using minion rules to emulate a new narrative shouldn't be much of an issue either in my opinion.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Not that this is important, but as there has been a lot of talk about 88 HP ogres, I'd like to remind people and the basic ogre and several ogre variants have just 59 HP in 5e.

 

[AnotherGuy]

The concept of 4e minions can be done within 5e's parameters and can work decently well.
Tack on Legendary Actions, minimise the hit points of the monsters (5d10+10 = 15hp), add a feat, class/monster feature or two, use the Mob rules for auto hits...etc

Your setting/thematic preferences also take centre stage i.e. maybe you may like a minion orc but not so much a minion giant. That is fair.

Arguing over the minion engine is futile.
4e and 5e have slog issues and from what I can see WotC is not going to be addressing THOSE issues with their latest release. BA did little to fix it. Anyone who has played mid-to-high-level (in either of those editions) can attest to that.

 

[Minigiant]

I mean the idea never was that at higher levels you fight only endless hordes of low CR foes. Yes, that indeed would be dull, but that obviously is not the intent. The intent is that at later levels you can still use these low CR monsters as components of battles, and their stats will work. So a high level boss can have orc and ogre henchmen and it works fine.


Sounds like sour grapes...

It's not higher levels.

It breaks down at mid levels.

Bounded Accuracy requires nonexistant minion or mass combat rules to do what it says because progress is shifted to HP and Damage.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Not that this is important, but as there has been a lot of talk about 88 HP ogres, I'd like to remind people and the basic ogre and several ogre variants have just 59 HP in 5e.

I think the original reference of 88 HP ogres was from AD&D. I could be wrong. But in either case... we're using it merely as examples to explain our positions, not to get into the weeds about the actual numeric calculations.