D&D 5E Crafting Items - Expert Craftsman vs Adventurers

Skill system and other mech are there to help role play our characters.
They are not meant to emulate perfectly an entire world or society.

There is plenty of bugs in the mech of DnD.
If realistic probability of success would be used, we would find the game very boring.
Trained in a skill would equals like a +18, and skill contest vs an untrained character should give a very very small chance of failure. Less than1%. It will be very realistic but boring and unplayable.

Beleriphon said:

In the Ye Olde Archeree Conteste from Robin Hood the idea was that the archers shot at progressively more distant targets. So by the end only Robin could split an arrow thus achieving a more perfect bulleye than his competitor. In the same scenario for the contest between Bob and Tim, at a certain point Bob is better, he's not rolling his to-hit with disadvantage if he has Sharp Shooter.

That said, years of experience can only take you so far for anything related to combat. Despite what a kung-fu movie would have us believe at a certain point those years of experience make you slower and weaker. Always bet on the bigger combatant when skill is equal.

There's a good reason a flyweight boxer doesn't fight a heavyweight boxer.

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All true, the chance of Tim winning a contest of multiple shots diminishes drastically with more and more attempts, and as I said before things like SS can make a difference. But I am talking about the odds of both hitting on a single shot. Bob is only 10% more likely to hit than Tim, again despite all the XP and such.

S'mon said:

I've run some perfectly decent fights like that in 5e; they don't even take particularly long. Especially good with solo high level PC vs horde of mooks using tactics, bows etc.

You seem a bit stuck in a 3e mindset. In 3e I didn't run the '30 goblins' fights; I'd narrate them "three days later, after a few battles with goblins, you reach..." - but 5e keeps them threatening. The XP is ok, too.

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Last night we had an encounter with 13 orcs and 5 orogs. Our party has one 6th, 4 5th's, and 3 "veteran" NPCs. A fireball wiped out 10 orcs, slow affects most orogs, and the battle was a route even though we were outnumbered over 2-1. This should be a deadly encounter, but with the surprise element it was reduced to easy...

I simply haven't seen bounded accuracy really fix anything. Again, never had an issue with how things worked before, and now it just makes it so levels don't represent increases as much. Instead, "other features" had to be added to make up for it.

But, hey, I know most of you love 5E. Last night we were discussing things and I said, "I love... you know, I hate this. I can say I love earlier versions of DND, but I can only say I like 5E." After the slow spell, I wanted to cast web, but couldn't because of the concentration mechanic. Then I thought of maybe using bless on the NPCs, but again, can't because of concentrating on slow. The concentration mechanic nerfs casters SO badly. Basically, you cast one concentration spell and then are reduced to a lot of more combat-type spells--which for me, is basically just magic missile. But I'll start another thread for that...

dnd4vr said:

Last night we had an encounter with 13 orcs and 5 orogs. Our party has one 6th, 4 5th's, and 3 "veteran" NPCs. A fireball wiped out 10 orcs, slow affects most orogs, and the battle was a route even though we were outnumbered over 2-1. This should be a deadly encounter, but with the surprise element it was reduced to easy...

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And if the enemy had got the jump on you it would be nastier - but you had them massively outclassed and only 18 vs 8. The GM should try 18 Veterans vs your PC group if they want to be nasty! But 13 orcs & 5 orogs vs 4 5th level, or 8th level, PCs can be a serious challenge, depending on AoE opportunities. I find the all-Barbarian parties I used to see have a much tougher time than a classic-4 group.

Overall I enjoy the swinginess of 5e combat; it encourages players to take fights seriously.

Tony Vargas said:

But /part/ of the idea of BA was to keep contemptable /lower-level/ foes relevant longer, and the main idea of minions was to have contemptable /lesser/ foes workable at any level.

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At my table, we tend to run a lot of human-centric, political campaigns where the major enemies are not monsters. At low-levels the party might take on a small group of smugglers, while at higher levels they can take on small armies. As Tony mentioned previously, Bounded Accuracy allows the stat block for a typical soldier to be useful throughout the campaign. For us this leads to a greater sense of verisimilitude.

Building on Tony's argument, another part of Bounded Accuracy was to ensure that all players could act and have their characters remain relevant in most scenes. When attempting to garner aid from the local baron, many players will just give up and not participate, when their character has a a +5 bonus on Persuasion and the bard has +18. When different characters in a party have bonuses that vary as much as they did in some previous editions, its nigh impossible for the DM to set task DCs that will challenge the most skilled character without making it impossible for the less skilled.

I do not have any problems with NPCs having powers that the PCs cannot have. If I was going to stat out the master smith in the town he may have masterwork tools for +2 to checks and Cool Smith Power that gives +4 to checks. His attack and AC may be poor though, but at least his hammer should do 1d8.

I mean, there are limits to how well a creature can fire an arrow.

If two creatures are both proficient with the same weapon (training), and both have somewhat comparable physical capabilities, (ability scores) then yeah, a guy who is trained with a bow and been shooting it for one year, probably isn't going to look like a scrub compared to a guy who is trained and been firing a bow for 8 years longer.

A good shot is going to be a good shot whether that person is lvl 1 or lvl 19. The difference in level or experience, IS that the 19 can do that same shot over and over and over and over again, while the 1 will not be anywhere near as consistent.

Istbor said:

A good shot is going to be a good shot whether that person is lvl 1 or lvl 19. The difference in level or experience, IS that the 19 can do that same shot over and over and over and over again, while the 1 will not be anywhere near as consistent.

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True, you see that in the Olympics, for instance.
Though d20 checks under BA don't really provide that distinction, either.

dnd4vr said:

Last night we had an encounter with 13 orcs and 5 orogs. Our party has one 6th, 4 5th's, and 3 "veteran" NPCs. A fireball wiped out 10 orcs, slow affects most orogs, and the battle was a route even though we were outnumbered over 2-1. This should be a deadly encounter, but with the surprise element it was reduced to easy...
…
After the slow spell, I wanted to cast web, but couldn't because of the concentration mechanic. Then I thought of maybe using bless on the NPCs, but again, can't because of concentrating on slow. The concentration mechanic nerfs casters SO badly. Basically, you cast one concentration spell and then are reduced to a lot of more combat-type spells--which for me, is basically just magic missile. But I'll start another thread for that...

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Magic Missile, sure, or, if you've already essentially pwned the combat, you might as well just plink away with cantrips while the rest of the party mops up and keeps your all-important concentration from being broken by stray damage.

The funny thing is, in the scenario you describe, and your reaction to it, the Concentration mechanic mainly just kept you from wasting spell slots by piling on when you'd already turned the encounter into an easy win.

Bradley Hindman said:

At my table, we tend to run a lot of human-centric, political campaigns where the major enemies are not monsters. At low-levels the party might take on a small group of smugglers, while at higher levels they can take on small armies. As Tony mentioned previously, Bounded Accuracy allows the stat block for a typical soldier to be useful throughout the campaign. For us this leads to a greater sense of verisimilitude.

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Maybe it gives the DM that sense - because should anyone else /really/ be seeing those stat blocks?

Building on Tony's argument, another part of Bounded Accuracy was to ensure that all players could act and have their characters remain relevant in most scenes. When attempting to garner aid from the local baron, many players will just give up and not participate, when their character has a a +5 bonus on Persuasion and the bard has +18. When different characters in a party have bonuses that vary as much as they did in some previous editions, its nigh impossible for the DM to set task DCs that will challenge the most skilled character without making it impossible for the less skilled.

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Yes, exactly that. A consequence of trying to mute bonuses down to that point among PCs was that it had to do the same with DCs, and, by extension, the (highly) theoretical universe of checks being made out there. For those who do covet the v-tude of 'knowing' what's going on mechanically in the backdrop of the campaign world, that's perplexing.

The best answer has already been given, that the experts out there simply aren't making checks because, for them in their day to day routine, the same tasks that'd be a high DC check for an adventurer in a critical situation, are essentially automatic. It's maybe not /that/ satisfying, it doesn't have the high vtude gloss of a scientific formula, but it should be plausible enough - and it's better for 5e gameplay than giving up BA.

S'mon said:

And if the enemy had got the jump on you it would be nastier - but you had them massively outclassed and only 18 vs 8. The GM should try 18 Veterans vs your PC group if they want to be nasty! But 13 orcs & 5 orogs vs 4 5th level, or 8th level, PCs can be a serious challenge, depending on AoE opportunities. I find the all-Barbarian parties I used to see have a much tougher time than a classic-4 group.

Overall I enjoy the swinginess of 5e combat; it encourages players to take fights seriously.

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Not really. The only situation it would have been remotely challenging really is if the jumped us at night when some of the battlers were unarmored. Even then, the number of HP the characters had would make up for it. And the DM didn't want to be nasty, he wanted to use lower CR creatures in number to try this "bounded accuracy lets mooks be effective, yada yada yada."

Istbor said:

I mean, there are limits to how well a creature can fire an arrow.

If two creatures are both proficient with the same weapon (training), and both have somewhat comparable physical capabilities, (ability scores) then yeah, a guy who is trained with a bow and been shooting it for one year, probably isn't going to look like a scrub compared to a guy who is trained and been firing a bow for 8 years longer.

A good shot is going to be a good shot whether that person is lvl 1 or lvl 19. The difference in level or experience, IS that the 19 can do that same shot over and over and over and over again, while the 1 will not be anywhere near as consistent.

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Well, I don't expect the difference to be as much as it was in 3.5E and 4E, but more than they made it. Instead of a +1 improvement for prof bonus, a +3 or +4 would more represent the increased ability 7 levels of XP should warrant IMO.

Tony Vargas said:

Magic Missile, sure, or, if you've already essentially pwned the combat, you might as well just plink away with cantrips while the rest of the party mops up and keeps your all-important concentration from being broken by stray damage.

The funny thing is, in the scenario you describe, and your reaction to it, the Concentration mechanic mainly just kept you from wasting spell slots by piling on when you'd already turned the encounter into an easy win.

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Personally, I despise cantrips. But anyway, there wasn't the concentration nerf in 2E so I don't know why they did it now. And while the battle was well-in-hand I would still like to contribute more meaningfully then plinking away with cantrips or magic missile simply because of a game mechanic. Honestly, I could have had my character just sit down on a log and snack on popcorn for all the good she did while concentrating on slow.

dnd4vr said:

And the DM didn't want to be nasty, he wanted to use lower CR creatures in number to try this "bounded accuracy lets mooks be effective, yada yada yada."

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Well that was nice of him. I'm more the opposite, I like it when my players sweat blood. Though a TPK is always sad even if well-deserved.

S'mon said:

Well that was nice of him. I'm more the opposite, I like it when my players sweat blood. Though a TPK is always sad even if well-deserved.

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Well, the loan frost giant that DID attack us by hurling rocks in the middle of the night proved more of a challenge. We beat him eventually, but he put up a decent fight. If there had been two of them, it would have been MUCH worse!