D&D 5E Critiquing the System

[Coroc]

My only true beef with the system is the that the monsters are far too weak once the party hits 5th. I routinely throw CR 12-14 monsters at my 8th level party and they do just fine.

My secondary beef is the assumption of 6-8 encounter days...with no adjustment for less than that. Sorry but I can't imagine making that my default every game session....once in a while sure...but every single time?

CR is not very reliable in determining the Strength of a particular (group of) monster(s) vs. a party of every possible constellation.

The 6-8 encounter is for hack'n'slay style or normal style + noncombat encounter. Means: The party meets a NPC and with application of social skills they manage to coerce info (= one encounter) or: The party has to scale an obstacle and invests some of their resources, e.g. cast spiderclimb, attach rope, makes some athletics checks with the chance of falling damage (=another encounter)

Having all 6-8 encounters being pure combat encounters would overstress my time budget for that pillar. So I never do this, instead I scale up combat encounters and use less of them.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

1) Simply adjust for it, one way or the other. Gritty Healing, Stronger mobs, or if you do not want to change anything let them start at 1 and roll their 1st level HP and thereafter no rerolls.

Or turn off Hit Dice, which is another suggestion that isn't in the book. There are a lot of ways to fix this. It's weird that they didn't use any of them, and instead published a game where combat is both time-consuming and trivial.

2) BA has its issues but not those you mention. The "wizard does act of physical strength while barbarian fails" is simply fixed with introduction of attribute threshold for certain tasks. Do you allow the barbarian with -1 in arcana to suddenly translate those old draconic runes just because he rolled a nat. 20 on it?

Your "solution" is to ignore the procedure for adjudicating uncertainty, and make up a new one. That's a pretty strong indication that Bounded Accuracy doesn't work for its primary intended purpose. I mean, I can make up rules that work better than the ones in the book, too. That doesn't excuse the existing rules for being so bad.

 

[Coroc]

...
Your "solution" is to ignore the procedure for adjudicating uncertainty, and make up a new one. That's a pretty strong indication that Bounded Accuracy doesn't work for its primary intended purpose. I mean, I can make up rules that work better than the ones in the book, too. That doesn't excuse the existing rules for being so bad.

Got a lengthy discussion on that with one of my players who wanted to have 2d10 instead of 1d20 at least on skill and attribute checks to prevent the wizard/warrior dilemma. But this would only reduce the probability of extreme cases and not totally exclude them.
A threshold solution or prohibiting unskilled checks on some things is the better way. But one should be fair in that, as I wrote, the wizard cannot even try the strength check no matter what the same time the fighter should not bother about arcana check (if he is not skilled or proficient in it).

The primary purpose of bound accuracy is not to give an unskilled PC the (better) chance to pass some (imho totally inapplicable) check, but to make low level mobs still a danger to high level PCs and vice versa, which is very realistic. You rarely go out unscarred when doing melee combat, you always get hit also.

The other purpose was to keep scale more in line with the d20, take 3e with its epic skill or attack boons of +15 or +20 or even older editions with their hit only on a crit at low levels and always hit except on a 1 at high level. +20 fixed boon then rolling to hit is reduced to determinate whether it is a crit or the 5% chance to miss bec. of nat.1

Also this makes it possible to play a balanced game w/o magic item assumption.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

But triage and resource management is a damage race, just in the opposite direction.

There can be a race aspect, if you're trying to off-set incoming damage during combat, but combat is only a small aspect of the game. Most of the interesting decisions with healing come after the fight.

 

[Argyle King]

Both parts of that were intentional design decisions, so saying you dislike it without replacing the heavy lifting it is doing is kinda pointless.

They strongly wanted bounded accuracy, which means that they weren't scaling AC and saves way up. HPs were left as the primary knob for scaling foe longevity. This is well documented. (Also add in streamlining, so things like DR that would stop a certain amount of damage was replaced by Resistance which halves damage.)

Low end was more of the complaints how 4e everyone started very powerful and was a regression back to how earlier editions did it in order to woo players back.

So ... how would you solve these problems with their same constraints?

I can't speak for the poster you quoted.

For me, I feel as though the method of "solving" the 4E problem did not work because the "problem" was not accurately understood. In 4E, the PCs were so powerful because monsters were typically just bags of HP. 5E didn't get away from that model; instead, it embraced the idea of HP being the primary scaling factor for monsters.

After a certain level, combat in 5E drags for many of the same reasons it did in 4E.

Additionally, I'm not convinced that the advertised "bounded accuracy" works. I'd go so far as to say that I feel 4E did a better job of making creatures remain viable threats over a range of levels.

Though, oddly, when those things do seem to "work," the system swings wildly in the other direction and sometimes turns into the save-or-suck rocket tag of 3E. Swinginess can be exciting, but I'm not sure that embodying the two extremes of problems with combat in the previous two editions (typically without a middle ground) is a net positive.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

A threshold solution or prohibiting unskilled checks on some things is the better way. But one should be fair in that, as I wrote, the wizard cannot even try the strength check no matter what the same time the fighter should not bother about arcana check (if he is not skilled or proficient in it).

I'd be interested in your actual rules for playing the game, and deciding who gets to make a check, because I think we can both agree that a d20 system under Bounded Accuracy gives bizarre results.

The primary purpose of bound accuracy is not to give an unskilled PC the (better) chance to pass some (imho totally inapplicable) check, but to make low level mobs still a danger to high level PCs and vice versa, which is very realistic.

While that may be true, I can't judge a system solely on how it works in a sub-set of situations. They could have made rules where Bounded Accuracy was only a combat thing, and skill checks used some other mechanic, but they did not.

You rarely go out unscarred when doing melee combat, you always get hit also.

While that's a noble goal, they really needed to pass that message on to whoever was in charge of the healing rules, because as it stands... nobody is getting hit hard enough to leave a scar.

 

[Jd Smith1]

While I disapprove of the "heal bot" pejorative, I do greatly enjoy playing a dedicated healer in any game that allows for it. Triage and resource management are more fun for me than trying to win the damage race.

Triage and resource management are a major boon to a campaign.

And precious is the player who enjoys playing a well-run healer. They must be cherished and humored.

 

[Coroc]

I'd be interested in your actual rules for playing the game, and deciding who gets to make a check, because I think we can both agree that a d20 system under Bounded Accuracy gives bizarre results.

While that may be true, I can't judge a system solely on how it works in a sub-set of situations. They could have made rules where Bounded Accuracy was only a combat thing, and skill checks used some other mechanic, but they did not.

While that's a noble goal, they really needed to pass that message on to whoever was in charge of the healing rules, because as it stands... nobody is getting hit hard enough to leave a scar.

Well as I wrote, I apply fitting thresholds if something has a DC of 5 or 10 like a stuck door then everyone might try, it is more matter of technique then if the wizard succeeds where the warrior fails he tackled it in the right angle. If it is something like DC15 STR lift a 200 pounds gate then I say the warrior might try and if he fails the wizard may help him giving him advantage. But the wizard alone autofails.
Same thing if said warrior is illiterate then he cannot even decipher the sign pointing him to the next outhouse, even less so ancient arcane writings.

My game is rulings, to increase the make believe factor a bit, I take what I like (probably 90%) I try never to mess around with the core mechanics thereby if I alter things, only with the fluff. I restrict a lot, depending on which campaign world I DM.

And to your last paragraph, 5E is a framework for RP it is no good simulation for IRL conditions of a fight with medieval equipment. Yes it is magic doing the healing, but you would need a complete emergency room with fitting blood conserves to cure many of the grisly injuries caused by real historic combat if you wanted to handle this more mundane. Some herbs and healer skill just would not do the job.
Even with only a strained muscle you might need several weeks to fully cure this, so it is always unrealistic be it the stand up from deathsaves bec. someone tossed you some magical healing or the 1day or 1 weekend or whatever long rest.
It is not even a good approximation of what the same real live situation would be. And tbh. for most people it would be no fun if they made it more realistic.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Your "solution" is to ignore the procedure for adjudicating uncertainty, and make up a new one. That's a pretty strong indication that Bounded Accuracy doesn't work for its primary intended purpose. I mean, I can make up rules that work better than the ones in the book, too. That doesn't excuse the existing rules for being so bad.

Deciding that certain characters can't make certain checks is RAW. The DM is always allowed to determine whether an action automatically succeeds, auto fails, or requires a check. They also have all the leeway in deciding why to do so.

I do the same thing in my games. Some Arcana checks can't be attempted without training. (This pertains to obscure or specialized lore that the typical adventurer would have no chance of knowing.) Similarly, I have no problem telling the 8 Str wizard that he can't move something because it's too heavy, while letting the 20 Str fighter roll or even auto succeed. Steve Urkel vs Dwayne Johnson is no contest at all.

 

[Coroc]

Deciding that certain characters can't make certain checks is RAW. The DM is always allowed to determine whether an action automatically succeeds, auto fails, or requires a check. They also have all the leeway in deciding why to do so.

See, I was not even aware that this is literally RAW while doing it like that, still feels good to have the RAW on my side