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

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

Why, how, what? I have totally used sub CR1 foes against mid level characters a lot, and it works perfectly fine. I am really not sure what you think the issue even is.

 

[DEFCON 1]

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.

One person's "high-level slog" is another person's "high-level awesome, crazy combat". So it's not surprising WotC did not remove the possibility of the latter. Especially when the former could just keep their games in Tier 1 or 2 if the "high-level slog" was really an issue for them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

BTW, one thing I think 4e monster design did a bit better has nothing to do with any actual numbers, but the monster special abilities. I think the special ability design in 4e was better than in 5e. They tend to have more abilities that do something interesting instead of just dealing damage.

 

[TwoSix]

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.

I've run several campaigns that have gone up into the mid-teen levels; I've never had combat become a slog.

I don't use official monsters very much, but as a basic rule of thumb, a mob of lower level monsters should collectively be able to do enough damage to drop a character with d6 HD of the party level from full HP to 0 in one turn, assuming an AC of 12 + party's proficiency bonus.

If the party doesn't spend a few actions clearing them out or keeping them CCed, then they're going to give the party a bad time. Especially since you spend a lot of combat at high levels at very low HP totals (thanks to death saves and healing word), it only takes a couple of mook hits at the wrong time to make you miss a turn.

 

[Minigiant]

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.

59 HP is still a lot for a single attack or AOE spell

 

[billd91]

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.

One problem I see with relying on things like the minion rules to handle this, is it's kind of brittle as far as the conditions where it really works. If the whole party is high level, then minions kind of work. But if there's anything else in the mix, like a high level party protecting the king and a few remaining retainers who might still be in the fight but aren't such a high level that they should be one-hitting ogres, then I've got a lot of complexity to manage. Do I just narrate the retainers fighting without letting them actually cooperate tactically with the PCs? Do I have some ogres be normal and others minions so that my high-level PCs get the minions but the royal retainers fight the regular ogres?

Or would this have been better just sticking to PC-side characteristics and abilities. 5e largely does that because the ogres now remain static but PC damage potential rises. But, if you really want the one-hit of significantly lower targets, give the high level PCs the ability to do so based on the target's CR. We do that for turning undead. There's no reason that martial-oriented characters (fighters, monks, paladins, rangers, rogues) couldn't tap into that a certain degree as well, but have it be triggered by an attack they make. You could even use the same undead turning table or maybe tweak it up just a bit to add variation. No saving throw on the monster's part would be necessary since you've already made a successful to-hit roll to invoke the power.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

59 HP is still a lot for a single attack or AOE spell

Yes. It is an ogre.

 

[DEFCON 1]

One problem I see with relying on things like the minion rules to handle this, is it's kind of brittle as far as the conditions where it really works. If the whole party is high level, then minions kind of work. But if there's anything else in the mix, like a high level party protecting the king and a few remaining retainers who might still be in the fight but aren't such a high level that they should be one-hitting ogres, then I've got a lot of complexity to manage. Do I just narrate the retainers fighting without letting them actually cooperate tactically with the PCs? Do I have some ogres be normal and others minions so that my high-level PCs get the minions but the royal retainers fight the regular ogres?

Or would this have been better just sticking to PC-side characteristics and abilities. 5e largely does that because the ogres now remain static but PC damage potential rises. But, if you really want the one-hit of significantly lower targets, give the high level PCs the ability to do so based on the target's CR. We do that for turning undead. There's no reason that martial-oriented characters (fighters, monks, paladins, rangers, rogues) couldn't tap into that a certain degree as well, but have it be triggered by an attack they make. You could even use the same undead turning table or maybe tweak it up just a bit to add variation. No saving throw on the monster's part would be necessary since you've already made a successful to-hit roll to invoke the power.

It doesn't matter what mechanics the game has to accomplish said in-fiction results. If a random DM finds minion rules not to their liking, then there's any number of other options to be had (as you state). But that's all on an individual DM basis. No reason to remove minion rules altogether just because there might be DMs out there who can't handle the "complexity" of their use. Those DMs can just make the decision not to use them.

But if someone wants to add in additional rules to give more options for in-combat states within the narrative? I don't have an issue with that.

 

[Minigiant]

Why, how, what? I have totally used sub CR1 foes against mid level characters a lot, and it works perfectly fine. I am really not sure what you think the issue even is.

The HP.

It takes a great deal of resources, time, or power gaming to kill masses of CR 1+ monsters. Causing slogs.

 

[AnotherGuy]

One person's "high-level slog" is another person's "high-level awesome, crazy combat". So it's not surprising WotC did not remove the possibility of the latter. Especially when the former could just keep their games in Tier 1 or 2 if the "high-level slog" was really an issue for them.

Fair, but your last sentence condemns those who wish to play high level but are unhappy with the system as is.
I've made it work with house-rules but I've also messed up sometimes. Our table is currently playing high-level.