And how on earth can any developer think this should be a challenge, even a minor one, for a level 20 party?
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Bounded Accuracy L&L
- Thread starter nogray
- Start date
And how on earth can any developer think this should be a challenge, even a minor one, for a level 20 party?
One of the implications I love is that the party no longer needs to be all the same level for everybody to contribute. Long ago, we houseruled that everybody gets the same XP so that everybody levels up at the same time.
In 2e, we made Resurrection easier to get so you wouldn't lose a level.
In 3e, we houseruled that death imposed a negative level until you received Y amount of XP.
In 4e, it was impossible to kill anyone so it didn't matter.
Death penalties (where you lose a level) were seen as way too harsh, so we always avoided it. With bounded accuracy, I think it is much more feasible to have a party of characters with multiple different levels where everybody contributes significantly.
(I recognize that it never was unworkable to have a multi-level party... but our group never liked it.)
In 2e, we made Resurrection easier to get so you wouldn't lose a level.
In 3e, we houseruled that death imposed a negative level until you received Y amount of XP.
In 4e, it was impossible to kill anyone so it didn't matter.
Death penalties (where you lose a level) were seen as way too harsh, so we always avoided it. With bounded accuracy, I think it is much more feasible to have a party of characters with multiple different levels where everybody contributes significantly.
(I recognize that it never was unworkable to have a multi-level party... but our group never liked it.)
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Balesir said:
Sssshhh! Don't let the h4ters know.
But where it could be different (and solve my major issues with SC's) is that they could be hard-coded into the obstacle at a realistic DC with explicit hazards without necessarily being quite as subject to DM fiat.
But essentially, yeah, the skeleton of the Skill Challenge, but made specific.
I'm with you on this.
Grazzt
Demon Lord
Most probably don't. It was a joke. As DM, unless there was something special about said door, a 20th-level fighter could chop through it with an axe in my game. No door stats needed, and no attack roll or damage roll needed. Player says "I chop down the door"....few rounds later, said door is gone. Time to roll for wandering monsters now.
Vyvyan Basterd
Adventurer
First, I think the stat provided for the door above is rediculously low. It's as if they based it on those cheap hollow modern wooden doors used now. The old solid oak back door of my grandfather's house had more than 10 frickin hit points, I don't care what anyone says.
Second, the article mentioned breaking the door, whereas you refer to hacking down the door. Both methods have their own effect in the game world. Busting down the door with a single shove is much more likely to surprise those on the other side than taking your axe to it. IMO, YMMV.
Third, they don't think what you attribute to them:
Only if they don't have great Strength scores. Only speaking directly to breaking the door down in a single hit.
By that logic a house cat is a challenge for a level 20 party if they don't have handle animal to calm her down, only speaking to dealing with a cat through handle animal. That a dev would even mention a wooden door as presenting a challenge to a level 20 party means he either has not thought at all about his example (I hope that's it), honestly didn't think that people would not force open a door if they can simply smash it in one blow, or actually doesn't think smashing doors through doing damage should be possible.
Crazy Jerome
First Post
It's possible that the hit point and damage scaling will be more erratic or tiered than one would guess from the article alone. Just from what we have seen thus far, it is possible, for example, that creatures come in several effective types: PCs, "effectively minions", etc.
Creatures that are effectively minions have hit points and damage that start with rats and kobolds, and then expand very slowly over 20 levels or so. At higher levels, these are underage trolls, proto-gelatinious cubes, etc. They are a threat in numbers, and at higher levels may have some special abilities that make them extremely dangerous to low-level characters, but even enough kobolds can take them out.
Then you've got standard monsters and/or PCs. The scaling of hit points and damage starts with something like PCs, and runs briskly up from there, but not completely out of control. (And remember, the current playtest numbers are deliberately inflated here.) In other words, once testing is done, these numbers will be set at the lowest possible scaling to alow the PCs to perform as expected versus monsters in this same group--but no lower.
Then you've got "elites", "epics", whatever you want to call them. Perhaps some of these will have hit points and damage that go through the stratosphere. But thanks to the preceding, you can also have damage resistance, multiple actions as a threat, and any number of such things. That is, instead of having to standardize on one, any of those work as expected in isolation. Thus, you can mix and match to get the flavor of the creature. Elite Wraiths perhaps don't have extra actions or crazy hit points, but do have some DR or other defenses that make them hard to hurt.
Heh. The whole thing is a natural outgrowth of the focus on the math that started with 3E, intensified in 3.5, and got really serious over the course of 4E. They've started to really grapple with the side implications of the math, not merely the main line. Be interesting to see how this shakes out.
Creatures that are effectively minions have hit points and damage that start with rats and kobolds, and then expand very slowly over 20 levels or so. At higher levels, these are underage trolls, proto-gelatinious cubes, etc. They are a threat in numbers, and at higher levels may have some special abilities that make them extremely dangerous to low-level characters, but even enough kobolds can take them out.
Then you've got standard monsters and/or PCs. The scaling of hit points and damage starts with something like PCs, and runs briskly up from there, but not completely out of control. (And remember, the current playtest numbers are deliberately inflated here.) In other words, once testing is done, these numbers will be set at the lowest possible scaling to alow the PCs to perform as expected versus monsters in this same group--but no lower.
Then you've got "elites", "epics", whatever you want to call them. Perhaps some of these will have hit points and damage that go through the stratosphere. But thanks to the preceding, you can also have damage resistance, multiple actions as a threat, and any number of such things. That is, instead of having to standardize on one, any of those work as expected in isolation. Thus, you can mix and match to get the flavor of the creature. Elite Wraiths perhaps don't have extra actions or crazy hit points, but do have some DR or other defenses that make them hard to hurt.
Heh. The whole thing is a natural outgrowth of the focus on the math that started with 3E, intensified in 3.5, and got really serious over the course of 4E. They've started to really grapple with the side implications of the math, not merely the main line. Be interesting to see how this shakes out.
FireLance
Legend
Well, colour me skeptical. The way I see it, the bounded accuracy system simply means one or more of the following:
1. The PCs never improve, apart from getting more hit points and damage bonuses. You're no longer on a treadmill, but it doesn't matter because you aren't even moving in the first place.
2. The PCs improve, the monsters (or some monsters) don't, apart from getting more hit points and damage bonuses. The monsters almost never hit the PCs when they attack, and the PCs almost always hit the monsters when they attack (and some people say Reaper is broken). The more levels you gain, the easier the game gets.
3. The PCs improve, so do the monsters (or some monsters). You're still on a treadmill, but if you squint, you can almost believe that you're not (if only some people put so much effort into suspending their disbelief in other parts of the game). The difference is quantitative, not qualitative.
2 and 3 aren't mutually exclusive, and there is a continuum between 1 and 2. Somewhere between 1 and 2, the PCs are maybe hitting the monsters 85% of the time, and the monsters are maybe missing the PCs 85% of the time.
Oh well, it's not a deal-breaker for me, and I can always house-rule in level-dependent attack and defense bonuses for the PCs and the monsters if I want.
1. The PCs never improve, apart from getting more hit points and damage bonuses. You're no longer on a treadmill, but it doesn't matter because you aren't even moving in the first place.
2. The PCs improve, the monsters (or some monsters) don't, apart from getting more hit points and damage bonuses. The monsters almost never hit the PCs when they attack, and the PCs almost always hit the monsters when they attack (and some people say Reaper is broken). The more levels you gain, the easier the game gets.
3. The PCs improve, so do the monsters (or some monsters). You're still on a treadmill, but if you squint, you can almost believe that you're not (if only some people put so much effort into suspending their disbelief in other parts of the game). The difference is quantitative, not qualitative.
2 and 3 aren't mutually exclusive, and there is a continuum between 1 and 2. Somewhere between 1 and 2, the PCs are maybe hitting the monsters 85% of the time, and the monsters are maybe missing the PCs 85% of the time.
Oh well, it's not a deal-breaker for me, and I can always house-rule in level-dependent attack and defense bonuses for the PCs and the monsters if I want.
Chris_Nightwing
First Post
Be wary - if damage/hit points are the primary indicator of what level monsters you can fight then a lower level character might have to be careful..
Though against a horde of things, they'd stand a chance, and I would love to see different level characters make a comeback. I wouldn't use level loss as a penalty for dying, or getting hit by the right type of undead, however, more that I could reward players with different XP for achieving different things in character, or have characters miss sessions and not have things get too out of balance.
