D&D General Explain Bounded Accuracy to Me (As if I Was Five)

[Maxperson]

No, but they do dictate how many times you have to be accurate in any given combat.

That's actually a fairly broad range in 5e. I can reliably hit things with a 12 strength as a strength fighter. Bounded accuracy after all.

Hit points and damage could be lowered in tandem, to keep the same feel yet also reduce the sheer size of the numbers.

Yes. I suggested that several pages ago and got told that something had to be ballooned due to bounded accuracy.

Or you could go to a less-accurate setup with far fewer hit points: you only need to hit once or twice to get through them but that process of hitting once or twice might take a while, thus further randomizing the impact of any given combat in that you might get lucky and knock off a foe in one round but might get unlucky and have it take 6 or 8 rounds during which time the foes get to fight back.

That's much less fun. I've yet to see a fight where the sides are flailing at each other hoping to be the ones to get lucky. It's happened a few times over the years when casters have gone down and there are heavily armored fighting types on both sides. The combat drags on and nobody is happy.

 

[Minigiant]

It may correlate, but correlation does not equal causation. They may even have considered the increase in relation to the contraction of bonuses, but they didn't have to inflate hit points the way that they did. Ultimately, it was a balance decision that is not truly connected to the contraction of bonuses. You can inflate or contract either one independently.

WOTC decided to link the two.

In the Bounded Accuracy article they said

The DM's monster roster expands, never contracts. Although low-level characters probably don't stack up well against higher-level monsters, thanks to the high hit points and high damage numbers of those monsters, as the characters gain levels, the lower-level monsters continue to be useful to the DM, just in greater numbers

WOTC correlates high damage and HPs to the progression of level. And with bounded accuracy, they had less tools to play with.

I mean they could have bounded damage and bounded HP.. But like I said it would make leveling up boring.

Spoiler

And it would run counter to other design goals like fighters and spellcasting

Unless you give every single class a list of powers or cards like 4e, 13th Age, and now Daggerheart does.

And we all know how the community loved that back in the day.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Hit points and damage could be lowered in tandem, to keep the same feel yet also reduce the sheer size of the numbers.

Or you could go to a less-accurate setup with far fewer hit points: you only need to hit once or twice to get through them but that process of hitting once or twice might take a while, thus further randomizing the impact of any given combat in that you might get lucky and knock off a foe in one round but might get unlucky and have it take 6 or 8 rounds during which time the foes get to fight back.

Yes this means more whiffing. No I don't have any sympathy for those who will howl about such.

There are other methods that may be implemented

• DoaM (which is a form of Degree of Success)
• Fail Forward
• Escalation Die

So a whiff might be bad enough to miss a clean shot

• But may be good enough to wind the opponent (STR mod damage)
• But may be good enough to give an ally positioning (shift 5 feet) or a bonus on their next attack or some other benefit
• But desperation and exhaustion begin to kick in as the combat progresses (every whiff increases the escalation die)

OR​

Combination (random or perhaps allow player to choose)
(a) Outright Miss (b) DoaM (c) Fail Foward (d) Escalation Die (e) Success at a Cost - see below
- You hit, but you over-extend yourself, thus giving your opponent the ability to riposte (free attack by opponent)

 

[Lanefan]

Popularity isn't a design goal any more than sales are a design goal.

You cannot point to a part of the design and say, "This is what causes popularity."

Popularity (as measured by sales) most certainly can be a design goal.

Designer 1: "Meh, this rule is gonna cause some lopsided build disparities and play hell with in-party balance."
Designer 2: Agreed, but decades of informal feedback plus our recent surveys resoundingly say players love it. If it ain't there, we'll lose sales."
Designer 1: "Sigh. OK, in it goes."

 

[Vaalingrade]

Designer 1: "Meh, this rule is gonna cause some lopsided build disparities and play hell with in-party balance."
Designer 2: Agreed, but decades of informal feedback plus our recent surveys resoundingly say players love it. If it ain't there, we'll lose sales."
Designer 1: "Sigh. OK, in it goes."

~Takes envelope from forehead, opens it and reads~

"Explain why the wizard class continues to be like that."

 

[Maxperson]

WOTC decided to link the two.

You can't prove that. There's no indication anywhere that they couldn't cut hit points and damage in half with 5.5e and leave bounded accuracy alone. Can you prove that to do that they MUST alter bounded accuracy? Because if it's not mandatory that one increase when the other decreases, they are not linked.

WOTC correlates high damage and HPs to the progression of level. And with bounded accuracy, they had less tools to play with.

It only means that they decided on resource attrition as the balance model. To maintain that balance, they needed to increase hit points and damage. It also shows that they considered bounded accuracy as I said, but since they do not HAVE to alter one to alter the other, they are not actually linked.

Spoiler

And it would run counter to other design goals like fighters and spellcasting

Unless you give every single class a list of powers or cards like 4e, 13th Age, and now Daggerheart does.

How do you figure? The game would be identical except for the number of creatures needed for a fight.

 

[Lanefan]

Experientially, it suggests that, despite all his time adventuring, Peter Paladin has somehow learned nothing about stealth, like he has made a conscious effort to glean no insights from his life experience outside of a very narrow scope.

What ol' Petey hasn't yet learned (typical Paladin) is that in order to be stealthy he needs to take his damn armour off.

Unless the armour is enchanted to help with such (and it's a cool effect to put on heavy armour), sneaking up on someone while wearing plate is about the same as sneaking up on someone while driving a Sherman tank: good luck with that.

 

[tetrasodium]

Are you a legendary warrior in a fantasy story though?

I'm not saying you aren't. I don't know you after all.

That bold bit seems like it would depend on the GM's judgement or campaign style the table was aiming for

 

[Minigiant]

Yes. I suggested that several pages ago and got told that something had to be ballooned due to bounded accuracy.

No, I said it ballooned because they turned down all the other knobs

1. They bounded "to hit"
2. They bounded AC
3. They made magic items optional
4. They made feats optional
5. They made multiclassing optional
6. They decide to limit additionof new classes
7. They made gold needed optional past level 1
8. They removed powers lists for martials
9. They nerfed Healing Surges to Hit Die
10. They took away cool active monster abilities
11. They mandated that 3 of the core classes be simple and not touch advanced mechanics

So with all those cranked down to 1, 2, or OFF; what were the only knobs that were left to play with?
And guess what we got a lot of

1. HP
2. Damage
3. Races
4. Subclasses

 

[Minigiant]

You can't prove that. There's no indication anywhere that they couldn't cut hit points and damage in half with 5.5e and leave bounded accuracy alone. Can you prove that to do that they MUST alter bounded accuracy? Because if it's not mandatory that one increase when the other decreases, they are not linked.

They could have.

But l like I said pages way back WOTC turned all the other mechanics down or off.

It's not just Bounded Accuracy, it was Magic Item Independence, Gold Independence, Optional Feats, Grounded Martials, etc etc

Which means the ogre is just a big blob of HP with no magic items, tricks or no hoard that goes "Me Smash" every turn.