D&D 5E Not liking Bounded Accuracy

[Maxperson]

I'm trying to keep the focus on proficiency and not bring in other class features.

He keeps moving the goalposts, though. He is now made this into trained vs. untrained and progressed it beyond simple proficiency. Both basketball and hockey have multiple skills and abilities that go into making someone well trained.

 

[Devilbass]

I'm trying to keep the focus on proficiency and not bring in other class features.

A discussion about trained vs untrained in 5e inherently has to do with much more than proficiency bonus though. You can't make fair comparisons between a high stat, non-proficient individual, and low-stat, proficient individual in this game without considering their racial or class-based abilities. Many classes have abilities which modify their capabilities with regard not just to combat, but to ability checks as well, not even counting spells. Such abilities are relevant to the discussion, as they modify what a trained person can accomplish beyond what their proficiency bonus alone determines.

Another issue with this discussion though, is that proficiency is a game term; being proficient in something does not mean your character must have been trained in it. Perfect example is an elf's Keen Senses. This ability is meant to represent the natural, inborn perceptive ability of the elf due to superior hearing and eyesight. This is not proficiency due to training, it is proficiency due to natural talent that comes with being an elf. How about a half-orc's proficiency with Intimidate? Does every half-orc practice being intimidating? Probably not - especially those trying to make their way in civilized lands. This proficiency represents not training, but natural talent. Half-orcs are scary because they are physically intimidating, because there is alot of preconceived baggage about their lineage. Really, half-orcs show how proficiency doesn't even need to be about training or talent - it can be circumstantial or cultural.

I guess my point is that because of the way D&D is laid out, you can give your character proficiency in a skill and say that he or she never trained in it once. It represents natural talent, because that's what you want your character to be naturally good at. Proficiency doesn't mean "trained" in D&D 5e, it means "good at a thing". Ticking a box on your character sheet that says your character is proficient doesn't dictate how you describe your character, not even according to the game itself.

 

[Hussar]

Well that example is colossally wrong. I bet you that the first time Wayne played hocky, he'd have had trouble scoring on a high school goalie, let alone you if you were trained for a lifetime. The same goes for Jordan. You are giving examples of training + natural talent and calling it natural talent. No amount of natural talent is going to make you better than someone who is trained. You need training as well.



Sure, if it's you and one other person in the party. In the typical party of 4-5, you will lose most of the time.

Explain Gretzky or Jordan's rookie years. If natural talent meant nothing and training always beats natural talent, then how were these guys crushing people with far, far more training than they had?

 

[Maxperson]

Explain Gretzky or Jordan's rookie years. If natural talent meant nothing and training always beats natural talent, then how were these guys crushing people with far, far more training than they had?

There's nothing to explain. They were trained long before they ever had rookie years. They got training in high school or even before. I guarantee you that the first time they tried their sport, though, they were worse than a trained person.

 

[Hussar]

There's nothing to explain. They were trained long before they ever had rookie years. They got training in high school or even before. I guarantee you that the first time they tried their sport, though, they were worse than a trained person.

Now who's shifting the goalposts?

Are you seriously claiming that the first time your character tries an untrained skill is the very first time that character has EVER attempted to do something like that? The very first tree you roll an Athletics check on is the very first time your character has ever tried to climb a tree? Or jump across a space? Or attempted to jimmy a lock? Or tried to remember what kills trolls? Really?

Gretzky was 17 in his rookie year. He was playing people who had ten, fifteen years more experience playing than he did and was still completely owning them. If training>natural talent, shouldn't those far more experienced players be so much better than someone with a minimum of training (ie. 1st level) and natural talent?

The overwhelming majority of skill checks are certainly not the very first time that character has used that skill. Might be the first time at the table, but, first time in that character's life? Very unlikely.

Besides, wouldn't we use the Tool proficiencies for sports players? As you said, there are a number of skills at play here, so, wouldn't it make more sense to just be proficient in Hockey? Same as I can be proficient in a musical instrument? I don't even NEED to spend character resources on that - I can buy that through time.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Now who's shifting the goalposts?

Are you seriously claiming that the first time your character tries an untrained skill is the very first time that character has EVER attempted to do something like that? The very first tree you roll an Athletics check on is the very first time your character has ever tried to climb a tree? Or jump across a space? Or attempted to jimmy a lock? Or tried to remember what kills trolls? Really?

Gretzky was 17 in his rookie year. He was playing people who had ten, fifteen years more experience playing than he did and was still completely owning them. If training>natural talent, shouldn't those far more experienced players be so much better than someone with a minimum of training (ie. 1st level) and natural talent?

The overwhelming majority of skill checks are certainly not the very first time that character has used that skill. Might be the first time at the table, but, first time in that character's life? Very unlikely.

Besides, wouldn't we use the Tool proficiencies for sports players? As you said, there are a number of skills at play here, so, wouldn't it make more sense to just be proficient in Hockey? Same as I can be proficient in a musical instrument? I don't even NEED to spend character resources on that - I can buy that through time.

I have no meaningful horse in any of the multiple races currently being run in this conversation. However, comparing people who have "ten, fifteen years" professional-level experience to people who have "zero" is something of a mistaken analysis here. Like trying to claim that George Dantzig exhibited pure "talent" in providing proofs for two major open problems in statistcs (the Neyman-Pearson lemma and the non-existence of a certain kind of test of Student's hypothesis) while still a "student." It is, of course, partially due to his natural skills that he could find a solution (or, rather, proof) for things that had not yet been solved/proved. But as a man who already possessed a Master's degree and was beginning his Ph.D. studies, it's disingenuous to try to claim that training was obviously secondary to talent, simply because he didn't have professional experience as a mathematician.

Is it true that Gretzky exhibited great talent. But even at 17, he had been working for years--just to be noticed in order to be selected for professional play. According to his Wikipedia article, he learned to skate just before he turned three years old ("aged two years, ten months") by skating in a rink his father made in their backyard, where he taught Wayne and his friends how to play hockey. According to an ESPN retrospective on his career he was playing local hockey games by age 6, and was making headlines at age 9. Does that indicate talent? Absolutely. But, together with the other information we have? It indicates that that talent rested on a basis of focused training. Sure, he was besting people who had 10-15 years professional experience ahead of him. He'd been besting people older, stronger, and more-experienced for eleven years already, and had been preparing for such activities for another three years before that.

Part of the problem here is that you are focusing on the best, of the best, of the best. And in that arena--where runners and swimmers vie for tenths, sometimes hundredths of seconds, where weightlifters push the boundaries of human musculoskeletal strength, where cyclists train in high-altitude environments because a slight difference in blood cell size matters--then of course you're going to be able to come up with, not merely some, but many example people whose success is defined by raw talent, for which training is a necessary but secondary addendum. And it's not just physical pursuits; Ramanujan and Mozart provide us with meaningful mental examples as well.

But Ramanujan in particular highlights the reason why talent, no matter how great, can still only carry you so far. He was an utterly brilliant mathematician...who was almost purely self-taught, limited to something like one or two entry-level calculus texts as the sum total of his "higher-level math" education prior to being discovered by the mathematical community (partnering with G. H. Hardy). He still achieved surprising, elegant, fascinating results, but most mathematicians today agree that if he had had access to a comprehensive mathematics education he would have gone even further and done even more. Does that mean "talent" isn't a thing? Hardly. But it does mean that training definitely has a major impact on the reach and breadth that talent can achieve.

It's also something of an academic conversation, don't you think? I mean, the best you can get with point buy is a 17, and that only if you play a non-human and hyperfocus on your racial +2. Most PCs are only going to have a +3 in their highest modifier. Does that actually correlate with being "a Gretzky" or "a Ramanujan"? Or, hell, even "an Einstein"?

 

[EroGaki]

I like Bounded Accuracy, for the most part.

Except for two things: Saving throws and skill checks

I *really* dislike that if you aren't proficient in a save or skill, you have no ways of improving your chances at doing something. Especially if your DM doesn't allow feats in the game. The idea that my character has no ability to learn a new skill, and must instead rely on infrequent stat boosts is frustrating to me.

Saving throws are even worse; as you get higher level, some of the saves become nightmarish, and it sucks that 4 out of 6 saving throws will basically be failed because you have no proficiency in them, and almost no real way of narrowing the margin of error.

 

[Merchant of Shadows]

I like Bounded Accuracy, for the most part.

Except for two things: Saving throws and skill checks

I *really* dislike that if you aren't proficient in a save or skill, you have no ways of improving your chances at doing something. Especially if your DM doesn't allow feats in the game. The idea that my character has no ability to learn a new skill, and must instead rely on infrequent stat boosts is frustrating to me.

Saving throws are even worse; as you get higher level, some of the saves become nightmarish, and it sucks that 4 out of 6 saving throws will basically be failed because you have no proficiency in them, and almost no real way of narrowing the margin of error.

Except this is not true. Bonded accuracy is the precise reason why 4 out of 6 saving throws are failed more often against specialised opponents rather than "basically failed". It's at ability of 8 and a proficiency of 0 vs. an ability of 20 and a proficiency of 6 that the d20 stops providing variable outcome (ignoring the 20 autosave) and here we are talking about overweight common villager being doomed against the Khelben ing Blackstaff's fireball.
Regarding the skills... this is even less true. You can train in tools that can substitute for skills in specific circumstances and you can undertake actions to provide yourself with advantage on the skill check in question... not to mention that by now it's pretty clear that playing without feats ended up being the optional rule regardless of that the PHB claims.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...not to mention that by now it's pretty clear that playing without feats ended up being the optional rule regardless of that the PHB claims.

How many people choose to use one option over another has no effect upon which is actually the default and which is the "or this if you'd rather."

Especially not when a price is attached to the thing which is the "or this if you'd rather," like with power windows in an automobile or the Player's Handbook in D&D 5th edition (a game which the default version of is entirely free and currently only available in electronic format).

 

[EzekielRaiden]

How many people choose to use one option over another has no effect upon which is actually the default and which is the "or this if you'd rather."

Especially not when a price is attached to the thing which is the "or this if you'd rather," like with power windows in an automobile or the Player's Handbook in D&D 5th edition (a game which the default version of is entirely free and currently only available in electronic format).

*ahem* The "default version" is the whole game. Basic is a small sampler/teaser to get people interested. I'm not sure where you got the idea that 5e is Basic, and everything else is actually a modification or extension thereof, but the marketing, descriptions, and policies coming out of Wizards definitely doesn't support your position. Not to mention the whole "we know WotC made the whole game because of the playtest, and then pared it back to just a small selection for Basic" thing.