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

[Eric V]

We see Aragorn fight off the Ringwraiths, and Gandalf is a literal demigod. What sort of terrible hack GM would use lowly goblins to threaten such high level characters?

Maybe they are 4e minions, or 4e swarms?

I would hate to be a player in a game where my DM makes this encounter in 5e; that's a LOT of dice rolling where the goblins need 17+ to hit only to do piddly damage. I suppose mathematically it's technically a threat, but I will be dead of boredom first, no?

 

[BookTenTiger]

Maybe they are 4e minions, or 4e swarms?

I would hate to be a player in a game where my DM makes this encounter in 5e; that's a LOT of dice rolling where the goblins need 17+ to hit only to do piddly damage. I suppose mathematically it's technically a threat, but I will be dead of boredom first, no?

That's what the mob rules are for!

 

[Eric V]

That's what the mob rules are for!

So...a damage aura?

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Really? I'm not sure about 4e, but... did you play any editions prior to 5e? I'll stick with the skeleton I mentioned: Take 3.5 where the basic human warrior skeleton from the MM & SRD is proficient in all weapons. The rules were pretty clear about how easy it was to just give a monster different weapons they were proficient in back then & I won't go into detail on that because several published modules have basic human warrior skeletons wielding longbows, such as Siege of the Spider Eaters from Dungeon #137. Libris mortis162 had a few skeleton variants including a soldier skeleton with various bonuses to hit & such. Continuing with the skeleton though... BoVD had a bone creature template that could be applied to other monsters, Spell compendium had awaken undead, Eberron Campaign Setting had Karrnathi skeletons that even had a text blurb about making them into an archer with composite longbows, There was even dragon 317 with a CR13 eldritch archer.... The Monster manual pg225 even said "Skeleton" is an acquired template that can be added to any corporeal creature (other than undead) that has a skeletal system (referred to hereafter as the base creature). All of this without trivially adding class levels & such to improve them.

Shield was precast not reaction & as a result a robe wearing wizard was probably going to have 14-16 ac with mage armor (if that) but would be likely to quickly realize that such a low AC lasting 1hr/CL wasn't useful enough to waste even a first level slot on causing it to drop back down towards an equally useless 10-12 or less. Tack on the presence of things like d4 hit dice & it didn't take much of a plink to be scary enough for the guy normally throwing out web to insist on waiting for all those held action bow wielders to be ganked before rushing out or later decide it's best to give up something like their move action light crossbow reload in order to put someone or something between the squishy and the bow wielding monster.

So nothing you are saying really had anything to do with what was being said.

Also Wizards tended to be pretty good at getting to a decently high AC using various magic and magic items.

Also modifying other creatures into skeletons or making other variations in order to make them threats is the opposite of the 5e system, where you can use the very basic skeleton for a long time just in bigger numbers cause they can still hit the players. ( not that I have issues with the few more elite skeletons that have popped up)

 

[ezo]

How many people play in games where no PC gets magic items, just out of curiosity?

Are you including potions of healing from the equipment list? Or eveything else?

 

[Eric V]

Are you including potions of healing from the equipment list? Or eveything else?

Everything else.

 

[tetrasodium]

So nothing you are saying really had anything to do with what was being said.

Also Wizards tended to be pretty good at getting to a decently high AC using various magic and magic items.

Also modifying other creatures into skeletons or making other variations in order to make them threats is the opposite of the 5e system, where you can use the very basic skeleton for a long time just in bigger numbers cause they can still hit the players. ( not that I have issues with the few more elite skeletons that have popped up)

Look at the post quoted in 163. Take note of the question 'when was this "once"' and the use of once in the post 163 was quoting. Here I'll give you a hand

136 covered that

5e doesn't have "squishies" & the reasons are because of things done in service of bounded accuracy. Sure a wizard is squishier than a fighter or barbarian, but "squishier" is not the same as feeling squishy. It's almost impossible for anything short of Cthulu in Power armor / rocks fall / lightning strikes tier monsters who will also frighten the fighter & barbarian to make that wizard feel the kind of terror that they once did getting plinked at by a skeleton or two & chased down by a kobold/zombie/etc.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Maybe they are 4e minions, or 4e swarms?

I would hate to be a player in a game where my DM makes this encounter in 5e; that's a LOT of dice rolling where the goblins need 17+ to hit only to do piddly damage. I suppose mathematically it's technically a threat, but I will be dead of boredom first, no?

Any DM worth their salt would just pull out their jar's worth of D20s, dump them all on the table, and just count the number of 17 pluses. Or use a dice rolling program, but what would be the fun of that???

 

[DrJawaPhD]

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?

Fair enough! I just found it rather amusing that there was one really good answer in the thread and it came from the person originally asking the question. You don't see that very often so it threw me off guard

 

[Lanefan]

Any DM worth their salt would just pull out their jar's worth of D20s, dump them all on the table, and just count the number of 17 pluses. Or use a dice rolling program, but what would be the fun of that???

And the jar would be all you'd need, if that even, because only so many Goblins can reach the PCs in order to attack them.