Bounded Accuracy L&L

[Dire Bare]

Great post. It really confirms everything we need to know about their design philosophy for accuracy bonuses, the flat math, etc.

It does leave me with one question I've been wondering though, and I ask this in all honesty: If we assume that 5 goblins are a challenge to a party of 1st-level characters, how many of you DMs are going to have the patience to manage, let's say, 25 goblins fighting a party of 10th-level adventurers?

Not every play session, but having the party face a true horde of enemies is incredibly cinematic! The heroes are tough enough to face the threat of a large number of enemies, but there is still danger that a "skilled" or "lucky" orc/goblin/henchman might land a telling blow.

I love it!

And to keep things simple, you might have 30 orcs slavering to carve up your heroes, but only a small handful of statblocks (or even just one) to keep track of. Each villainous mook doesn't need a full statblock, only a track of their hp loss. Which isn't new, of course.

 

[Dire Bare]

So I guess this means that they have to key almost every non-HP ability to HP to prevent Charm from taking over the game?

No, it means we don't know how Charm effects work yet. I'm not worried.

 

[pemerton]

I also agree it's a good article.

Not having to re-scale a recurring monster or monster type from Solo to Elite to Standard to Minion to keep to-hit rolls relevant really appeals to me.

Although elite and standards aren't just about defences and attacks. They're also about action economy. And nothing in the playtest suggests that action economy is less important in Next than in 4e.

If we assume that 5 goblins are a challenge to a party of 1st-level characters, how many of you DMs are going to have the patience to manage, let's say, 25 goblins fighting a party of 10th-level adventurers?

Good question. In my 4e game I've taken to using swarms to handle this issue - the mid-paragon PCs in my game have confronted 13th level Huge hobgoblin phalanxes, and 17th level Gargantuan hobgoblin phalanxes.

Is there any indication as to whether D&Dnext will handle scaling up by way of swarms?

So I guess this means that they have to key almost every non-HP ability to HP to prevent Charm from taking over the game?

Despite the early talk about 3 pillars, so far I'm really only seeing one pillar in this playtest. And balancing the maths all around hit points reinforces that impression.

Will there be secret doors that you can't detect, or magical gates that you can't pass through, unless you have a certain minimum number of hp?

 

[pemerton]

Well, it looks like they're using HP to determine depth, in a way.

<snip>

how do you determine depth with non-combat DCs?

You ninja-ed me! (But XP still remains disabled.)

 

[Dire Bare]

When I first read the article, I too had first thoughts like, "Yeah, stupid attack bonus scaling is gone!" followed by "Boo, hp inflation is still in."

However, after having read the article a few times, plus some of the commentary here, I'm pretty excited! It makes cinematic sense to me that as my low level character I can run up to that monstrous dragon and give it a good smack and expect to land a blow with my sword . . . only to have the dragon chuckle evilly and then roast me alive! But as a high level character (a hero with destiny and power), I'm only slightly more likely to smack that dragon with my sword, but when I do . . . . it howls in surprise and pain! Or, that I rally the villagers and the local garrison to face the beast, and although we suffer heavy losses, we bring it down or drive it away through force of numbers!

This totally opens up options for the players, as "traditional" D&D means that as a low-level dude, you can't even touch that dragon, even if you are accompanied by an army of low-level dudes. It also should mean the end of 15th-level folks staffing the town guard, the inn, etc, etc.

Through in a critical hit module, and that low-level town guardsman with the crossbow leveled at my heart is a viable threat at any level!

There is potential, of course, for hp bloat to be an issue . . . but I won't be worried until we see higher level play in action.

 

[Incenjucar]

Will there be secret doors that you can't detect, or magical gates that you can't pass through, unless you have a certain minimum number of hp?

I can't imagine they'd use HP for that. Level, maybe. In general 5E rules seem to suggest a universe that is very shallow in some respects. The easiest things and the hardest things don't have much of a gap between them. An epic lock might come with epic consequences for failure, and might take ten times as much time to pick, but enough level 1 kobold lockpicks could do it in time.

 

[Dire Bare]

Despite the early talk about 3 pillars, so far I'm really only seeing one pillar in this playtest. And balancing the maths all around hit points reinforces that impression.

Well, not only is this the first playtest of a rather lengthy playtesting schedule, but it is also quite deliberately limited in scope. I agree that we haven't seen full implementation of the "3 pillars" yet, as well as many other aspects of the new game that have been revealed, including much of what is in this article. But, I am not worried, or at least, not yet.

Will there be secret doors that you can't detect, or magical gates that you can't pass through, unless you have a certain minimum number of hp?

Without having any more knowledge than you do, I think I can confidently say, "No." Let's not invent things to worry about until we actually get to playtest the rules that govern non-combat actions.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think this may prove to be the single biggest conceptual Improvement in D&D since its inception. It is odd that something that seems so obvious now has never really been discussed before, but it neatly handles a whole range of issues.

I'm delighted!

 

[Jack99]

I think this may prove to be the single biggest conceptual Improvement in D&D since its inception. It is odd that something that seems so obvious now has never really been discussed before, but it neatly handles a whole range of issues.

I'm delighted!

Yep

 

[variant]

This is definitely at the top of one of the most exciting things about 5e.