D&D 5E Bounded Accuracy: does it deliver as promised?

[TarionzCousin]

NOW?


Allow me to let you in on the worst kept secret of D&D.

IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ALL ABOUT THE HIT POINTS BABY!! WHHHOOOO!!!!!!!!

I believe ExploderWizard has finally exploded.

 

[Morrus]

It's very easy to temporarily get a bonus that will hit anything in the game on a 2+ and not hard to get a 90% hit rate the majority of the time on the majority of the monsters. And that is with only a handful of magic items and no splat books out yet! As more spells, abilities and magic items come out this problem will only get worse.


On the other side of the equation the magic items we've gotten just from HotDQ you can easily have a 27AC CHR class character running around. An AC that can be even higher with some work.


One of the benefits we were supposed to get out of bounded accuracy was low level creatures remaining viable, but as other threads have shown, the monsters are built with an attack bonus that tends to climb as their CR climbs. So the game itself isn't even built around bounded accuracy to begin with.


Anyone that thinks 5E has bounded accuracy is kidding themselves or don't know what it even is.

That is not what bounded accuracy means. Let's not start getting snarky and obnoxious at people without at least learning the meanings of the terms they're using, eh?

That aside - we get it. You don't like 5E. We're kinda bored of hearing it. That's OK. You don't have to like it. We know you don't like it. We're OK with that.

There are forums here for whichever version of D&D you do like - why don't you post in those, rather than the forum for the version you dislike? This isn't a masochism forum. Talk about stuff you like.

 

[Unwise]

What I really like is that my players want to avoid combat whenever they can so they can be fresh for the biggest fights. There is always a price to pay for engaging in combat. If you see a kobold warparty you know that you will defeat them, but it will either cost your fighters some HP, or your mage their Fireball spell. I like the groups having discussions about how to handle even easy fights. In most cases they go out of their way to avoid non important fights or come up with the most resource low way of handling it. I the above example it was just sending the bard down to cast Fear on the leader and do an intimidate to clear them out.

 

[Eejit]

The game is not balanced around magical items. Magical items are outside the purview of the system and are added solely at the discretion of the DM. If a DM breaks the game by giving his players a lot of magical items, that is solely his fault.

Sure, generally, but those in official play modules really shouldn't break the game.

 

[Kaychsea]

Sure, generally, but those in official play modules really shouldn't break the game.

You do know what they are likely to come up against in the big fight at the end of the second part of Tyranny?

 

[Thank Dog]

You do know what they are likely to come up against in the big fight at the end of the second part of Tyranny?

Can I have "Types of Pie" for $500?

 

[LostSoul]

Hirelings?

 

[Uchawi]

I believe bounded accuracy works as the developers intended in regards to making characters and monsters more relevant over more levels. But it will make it harder add stuff to the game, without breaking something, like adding magic items. Or if they keep on adding more hits points to characters or monsters, then healing options in combat needs to keep pace. In addition, you loose some aspects of the game like scaling AC as a valid option, so hopefully the DMG will add ways to increase the bounds so you can have more detailed armor, different rates of hitting to make a martial character more relevant, etc.

 

[SilverfireSage]

I believe bounded accuracy works as the developers intended in regards to making characters and monsters more relevant over more levels. But it will make it harder add stuff to the game, without breaking something, like adding magic items. Or if they keep on adding more hits points to characters or monsters, then healing options in combat needs to keep pace. In addition, you loose some aspects of the game like scaling AC as a valid option, so hopefully the DMG will add ways to increase the bounds so you can have more detailed armor, different rates of hitting to make a martial character more relevant, etc.

They already do scaling, but it's with damage and hit points rather than AC, which I love. Now, everyone hits quite often (or at least more often than in other editions) but the damage you deal defines how effective you are.

 

[Thank Dog]

I'm actually hoping that healing doesn't keep pace too well with levelling. I wouldn't want a healing potion, for instance, to be more than 2d4+2. Having to use higher level slots for the basic cure spells is awesome as the returns are actually very low, making it a trade-off between using a more powerful spell to buff or do damage, or to heal a small amount relative to the level. Even the higher level spells like Heal while giving a hefty boost, aren't the "right, now I'm at full power again!" type of spell.

This makes high level combat dangerous rather than the cake-walk it has been in previous systems. Sure, you can take a hefty amount of damage, you can even mitigate a lot of it, heal a lot of it and dish a lot of it out. But you're also going to be taking a lot of it as well. And with saves not scaling, you have other things to worry about than just mere hit points. The higher the challenge of the encounter, the more inherently dangerous it becomes because you won't always have the perfect counter to every situation.

Balance is great, but it's also boring.