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

[aco175]

Not sure if a side effect or design effect, but BA takes the magic things like weapons and armor away from the DM and switches it to things like feats that the player controls when to take. Characters do not need +1 weapons anymore, or you do not need to get one by level X to compete with the others. An item does not define a PC anymore. I recall when my 2e paladin finally was able to find a holy avenger sword but I do not recall when the 5e paladin got polearm mastery or great weapon fighting. I do remember that I got to choose and not the DM deciding to hand me one. I guess it is neither good or bad design.

 

[MwaO]

Bounded Accuracy as described in the Next playtest doesn't really exist in 5e — it requires that there's no expectation for bonuses based on level or magic items. It requires very large damage bonuses per level to happen and the player base freaked out when they started showing big numbers for classes. So they mostly threw it out and used 4e's math and divided all values by 2.

You should, if you're playing the game from level 1-20, expect to find the equivalent of a +3 weapon by 20th level if you play the typical campaign(I ran the math, I've been called out as being correct on the official WotC podcast #328 at approximately the 10 minute point, they then put the actual numbers in Xanathar). You should find approximately 5 good magic items that change your power level. You just aren't certain you'll get exactly a +3 weapon. You might get a +2. You might get a belt of giant strength. Or poorly for the game, you might get a +1 weapon only or a +3 weapon and a belt of giant strength.

So at that point, a level 20 PC likely has an additional +4 from proficiency(+2 to +6), +2 from stat(16 or 17 to 20), and +3 from magic = +9. An equivalent 4e level 20 PC would have an additional +10 from level, +2.5 from stat(likely +2), +4 from magic, and +2 from expertise for a total of +18. Or important skills — +4 from proficiency, +2 from stat = +6. In 4e, +10 from level, +2 from stat = +12. Even proficiency's starting point, +2, is half of Skill Training's +5 from 4e.

 

[GMMichael]

. . . the game tries to make it that everyone has a chance of success or failure at most things. Bonuses generally range from +0 to +11, while the target number (DC/AC) is rarely above 20. This means that even with a +11, you have a chance of failure against the hardest difficulty, while a completely untrained person has a small chance of success. . .

It means that people can meaningfully attempt a task and not just be shut down by the GM if it isn’t part of their build. The bard is still going to be better at persuading people than the barbarian, but the barbarian isn’t told to stand in the back and not open their mouth because they have no chance of contributing to social encounters.

These aren't Bounded (or Unbounded) Accuracy issues; they're DM issues.

@Shiroiken , "most things" is a dangerous term (so are "failure" and "success"). It's still up to the DM to decide whether a PC's attempt can achieve success or failure. Bounded Accuracy doesn't subvert that.

@FrozenNorth , a DM who tells a player this should go back to DMU. But there's no part of the 5RD that says that a PC gets to roll no-matter-what.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Some classes are reliant entirely on linear-growth. That is: They don't gain anything new as they level up: Only their numbers go up (a bit).

These classes are unfairly punished by bounded accuracy.

BA essentially asserts that a level 20 character is at most "this" much better than a level 1 character.

Which makes sense as long as all characters rely on the same subsystems, like the skill system. But a lot of characters (read every caster) bypasses the skill system.

This restricts high level martials to be barely more competent than low level martials, while casters become demigods at high levels.

This is in stark contrast to magic. Assuming that you have access to magic, then as soon as you have access to your key spell you go from 0% success to 100% success.

For example if the above problem was "get through a door" then the wizard can just spell that problem away.

But removing Bounded Accuracy doesn't fix the problem you suggest here. It's Magic that is the issue, because it bypasses anything to do with Bounded Accuracy (IE dice rolls). Whether there is Bounded Accuracy or not cannot change the results of the Magic-User's "100% success" as you put it because the Magic-User isn't rolling any dice. The spells just "let things work". Thus only by removing the Magic that allows for that "100% success" can you take that part of the equation out of the game.

 

[Maxperson]

If bounded accuracy is to be kept really, then abilities should be capped to 18(+4) and removal of
+X magic item bonuses to AC, DC, attack and saves.

None of that matters to bounded accuracy.

adding more damage, health and damage reduction instead.

Gah! The game being balanced around hit point and resource attrition is the worst part of 5e. Fights are already often incredibly boring because of it. Making it worse is not the solution.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually if you look at 3e with bounded accuracy in mind, everything makes sense.

If you don't increase AC all the time for enemies, fighters suddenly become good hitters. Their first attacks will hit nearly all the time, their 3rd and 4th attacks will still hit with reasonable chance.
I guess if you remove those nasty on hit effects, you could salvage the game.

 

[Maxperson]

IME with creating encounters in 5E I never had much success using the rules as written to create challenging or balanced encounters. The way the section on encounter creation based on "x" number of encounters of varying difficulty per adventuring day always seemed that its written is in a way that tells you what to do, but not why. To me I believe that a paragraph explaining the design intent regarding creatures of low level still being a threat to higher level characters, the expected effectiveness of attacks and its effect on resource management could've gone a long way. I know myself as my players reached higher levels I fell back on older editions encounter design and just increased the encounter challenge rating.

You're talking about two different things there.

The adventuring day is the game being balanced around hit point/resource attrition. It makes it incredibly hard to challenge a group of PCs with a single encounter, especially if that encounter is a single creature. The creature's damage output, saves and DCs will be so high that you will TPK the group. I found that moving the adventuring day to the adventuring week and having long rests happen once every 7 days worked better. Then you can spread out the 5-8 encounters over a week of time.

The game design allowing low level monsters to be a threat for a longer period of time is part of bounded accuracy.

 

[MGibster]

Ok I'm a little confused here - you asked an important and reasonable question, then in a 5 page thread of people trying to explain answers to your question, you responded with the most clearly articulated explanation to answer your own question.

I don't know what you're confused by. Do you think it's possible after reading a few pages of explanations I was better abled to understand what bounded accuracy was? That the replies I had received at that point was the reason I was able to clearly articulate an explanation?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Gah! The game being balanced around hit point and resource attrition is the worst part of 5e. Fights are already often incredibly boring because of it. Making it worse is not the solution.

This is a different discussion thought, isn't it? If the PCs and monsters don't have interesting maneuvers to do during combat, fights could be incredibly boring regardless of how many hit points everyone has.

Creatures that hit more often but have to go through more hit points (the BA model) can equal itself out to creatures that hit less often but have less hit points to go through (the non-BA model). But the total number of rounds of combat will end up being relatively the same.

But in either case... if those rounds of combat are nothing more than standing in front of an enemy merely swinging swords to knock down HP... the boredom will set in regardless. It's only if the game gives us more things to do and try that could spice things up, but that can happen (and hopefully would) whether the BA model is used or not. Keeping or removing BA won't solve the "boring combat" problem, only adding new combat options can do that.

 

[NotAYakk]

Some classes are reliant entirely on linear-growth. That is: They don't gain anything new as they level up: Only their numbers go up (a bit).

These classes are unfairly punished by bounded accuracy.

I mean, name the class?

Fighters aren't it. They gain accuracy (bounded to linear), attribute points and number of attacks. They are explicitly quadratic, not linear.

Paladins aren't it. They gain accuracy (bounded to linear), and smite damage that scales with level (plus increasingly good spells). Again, explicitly quadratic, not linear.

Rogues aren't it. They gain accuracy (bounded to linear), and sneak attack damage, plus increasing numbers of utility fiat abilities.

I guess Barbarians? Past level 5, they gain accuracy. Their extra rage damage and critical damage boosts are trivial in impact.

OTOH, maybe you are talking about out of combat. It is true: Fighters don't get out-of-combat features other than feats and subclasses worth mentioning.

Rogues get decent out of combat features - reliable talent is very solid, and together with expertise breaks bounded accuracy in things they are good at. Stroke of Luck is another case where bounded accuracy goes out the window.

These could definitely be upgraded from their current state.