D&D 5E 5th Edition has broken Bounded Accuracy

Celtavian

Dragon Lord
Yep, Hussar. That's why making a str-based melee party is a bad idea in 5E. Too much can go wrong even with fly. You can find better things to do with concentration slots if you make a ranged party.

Ruins a lot of classic fantasy archetypes that players like to play. Only way around the melee martial mobility problem is less lethal DMing, providing a lot of magic to assist the party, and perhaps other means outside the core rules and assumptions. If a player has built a character to be a melee martial because he enjoys it, he needs to rethink that concept because it is not the same as previous editions. That was the point I was trying to convey.

I don't know that I like that melee martials have suddenly turned into this liability in 5E. Some guys like playing up close and personal fighters swinging an axe in a monster's face including dragons. Now that same player should carry a ranged weapon because meleeing isn't a good idea in a lot of fights such as against fliers or ranged attackers behind cover. Magic is so much weaker, it's harder to get them into a fight.

I could even discuss how hard it is to get melee martials to a ledge where someone is attacking from. Or through cover into a building where ranged is attacking. Teleport is level 7 now, instead of 5. So you can't port melee martial into a sealed castle if you get spotted and hammered. You can't turn a bunch of them invisible. They still have the same problems with Stealth with disadvantage on the roll and probably not taking the skill as well, though I guess every melee martial can take stealth now. A lot of the weaknesses of melee martial were overcome with magic. Now that is a lot harder to accomplish to the point where it's mostly not worth the hassle. So all these guys that used to like to play a big, badass, super-strong martial swinging on someone are going to have to change in 5E. I don't know how much I like that. If you make a Launcelot or Aragorn with the sword and armor, better stick to low level humanoid enemies or you will run into serious problems. I guess it's fortunate that Tolkien didn't give the Ringwraiths bows to fire on hapless travelers from above. Makes for a boring story even though an excellent combat tactic. I imagine a lot of DMs will tailor encounters to allow melee martials to do what they do.

That won't work as well for our group, at least not for me. I hate playing monsters like long-lived dragons or powerful outsiders in a manner that isn't highly efficient. I feel like if I play them stupid, then they wouldn't have lived long enough to be as powerful as they are.
 

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We haven't been discussing that as a rule. We've had general discussions about melee's mobility problems, highlighting Dragon fights as an example, but also disputing claims that casters shouldn't really need to buff their melee guys because there are other "easy" ways to defeat Dragons.

So no, I'm not talking about that scenario at all. I'm talking about putting some peoples theories to the test re Bigby's Hand, javelins, lack of fly/haste, and Telekensis by pitching a level 12 party against an adult red.

Ah, okay. I already detailed earlier in this thread (#284) how a level 11 party can absolutely shred an adult red dragon if it doesn't have spellcasting, without even doing anything tricky or unusual. So I have no doubt that a level 12 party could do even better, much less a high-level party. Not much to say about that scenario, it's boringly easy.
 

DaveDash

Explorer
Ah, okay. I already detailed earlier in this thread (#284) how a level 11 party can absolutely shred an adult red dragon if it doesn't have spellcasting, without even doing anything tricky or unusual. So I have no doubt that a level 12 party could do even better, much less a high-level party. Not much to say about that scenario, it's boringly easy.

None of your tactics work on any Dragons I have ran because they tend to live on cliff faces, and usually have the advantage of fighting in the dark. Skeletons have dark vision 60 feet.

Faced with 20-30 archers out in the open a Dragon would just bombard them with boulders from out of range anyway.

Dragons don't choose their lairs in spots where people can just march in there, especially the older wiser ones. My ideal lair for a Dragon is at the bottom of a massive vertical cave that is in a dead magic zone.
 
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None of your tactics work on any Dragons I have ran because they tend to live on cliff faces, and fight at night.

Faced with 20-30 archers out in the open a Dragon would just bombard them from far far away with heavy rocks anyway.

Yeah, you obviously didn't actually read #284, or didn't understand it. Good luck with that tactic--the PCs in that party outrange the dragon unless you do something stupid like claiming that dropped rocks have arbitrarily high range. Even the skeletons are doing 19.13 DPR to the dragon at long range/in the dark, much less the actual PCs. (In the dark is actually better for the PCs--cast Light on a pebble, give it to an air elemental, have it shadow the dragon--voila! advantage for all the archers because they can see the dragon and not vice versa.) If you waste your time dropping rocks you'll be half-dead or worse after forty-two seconds from the skeletons alone, and then you'll have to run away back to your lair. In return you'll have killed a couple of skeletons, and maybe made the party's Inspired Leader spend a few more minutes giving a pep talk.

Details upon request.
 
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DaveDash

Explorer
Yeah, you obviously didn't actually read #284, or didn't understand it. Good luck with that tactic--the PCs in that party outrange the dragon unless you do something stupid like claiming that dropped rocks have arbitrarily high range. Even the skeletons are doing 19.13 DPR to the dragon at long range, much less the actual PCs. If you want your time dropping rocks you'll be half-dead or worse after forty-two seconds, and then you'll have to run away back to your lair. In return you'll have killed a couple of skeletons.

Your tactics are quite white room and don't really take into consideration older Dragons wouldn't just suicide into a bunch of archers. Their lairs are in places that are difficult to reach, terrain is greatly in their favour, and they can do things like swim, burrow, and otherwise foul your plans.

The last Dragon fight I ran was on a 1,000ft vertical cliff face, near the plane of shadow, against a shadow Dragon that can hide as a bonus action and is resistant to almost all damage while in darkness (RAW).

Good luck with your 26 skeletons.

Besides, rocks do have an arbitrary long range when dropped from height. You think dragons havent faced hundreds of archers before?
 
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It's not worth arguing with you about rocks.

Shadow dragons are indeed awesome, especially the way they can create arbitrarily huge armies of shadows under its control just by raiding a village or twelve. Stealth expertise and bonus action Hide and Stealth expertise and damage resistance and (if a variant dragon) higher-level spells are just gravy on top.
 
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Hussar

Legend
/snip

I guess it's fortunate that Tolkien didn't give the Ringwraiths bows to fire on hapless travelers from above. Makes for a boring story even though an excellent combat tactic. I imagine a lot of DMs will tailor encounters to allow melee martials to do what they do.

That won't work as well for our group, at least not for me. I hate playing monsters like long-lived dragons or powerful outsiders in a manner that isn't highly efficient. I feel like if I play them stupid, then they wouldn't have lived long enough to be as powerful as they are.

And that, right there, is the basic difference. I don't play D&D to have "boring stories". So, it's not going to be an option.

Thing is, if you were truly playing your long lived dragons highly efficiently, then your PC's should never, ever win. There's just too many things the dragon can do. Again, fighting at night means your archers can't hit anything. They are firing blind. I disagree with [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION]'s point about skeletons, since once the dragon gets out of 60 foot range, they don't just have disadvantage, they can only attack by picking squares. Good luck with that. Summoned elemental dies pretty quickly, so, following it around with a light source doesn't work either. Ancient dragons with line breaths have 120 foot range with 120 foot dark vision. Nothing will ever get close enough to illuminate it.

Again, killing PC's is ludicrously easy. The idea that I have to go up CR+5 or 6 encounters to do it is a joke. I can kill PC's quite easily with regular encounters, thank you very much. Been doing it for years. If the DM is actually out to play competitively with the players, the DM will always win.
 

Leatherhead

Possibly a Idiot.
If you make a Launcelot or Aragorn with the sword and armor, better stick to low level humanoid enemies or you will run into serious problems. I guess it's fortunate that Tolkien didn't give the Ringwraiths bows to fire on hapless travelers from above. Makes for a boring story even though an excellent combat tactic. I imagine a lot of DMs will tailor encounters to allow melee martials to do what they do.

Any character that can be totally outfoxed by this guy:

Briliant.jpg

Probably shouldn't be an adventurer in the first place.
 

Celtavian

Dragon Lord
And that, right there, is the basic difference. I don't play D&D to have "boring stories". So, it's not going to be an option.

Thing is, if you were truly playing your long lived dragons highly efficiently, then your PC's should never, ever win. There's just too many things the dragon can do. Again, fighting at night means your archers can't hit anything. They are firing blind. I disagree with [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION]'s point about skeletons, since once the dragon gets out of 60 foot range, they don't just have disadvantage, they can only attack by picking squares. Good luck with that. Summoned elemental dies pretty quickly, so, following it around with a light source doesn't work either. Ancient dragons with line breaths have 120 foot range with 120 foot dark vision. Nothing will ever get close enough to illuminate it.

Again, killing PC's is ludicrously easy. The idea that I have to go up CR+5 or 6 encounters to do it is a joke. I can kill PC's quite easily with regular encounters, thank you very much. Been doing it for years. If the DM is actually out to play competitively with the players, the DM will always win.

Our campaign probably should have ended that day. The DM was definitely kind. We thought we were dead.
 

Celtavian

Dragon Lord
Yeah, you obviously didn't actually read #284, or didn't understand it. Good luck with that tactic--the PCs in that party outrange the dragon unless you do something stupid like claiming that dropped rocks have arbitrarily high range. Even the skeletons are doing 19.13 DPR to the dragon at long range/in the dark, much less the actual PCs. (In the dark is actually better for the PCs--cast Light on a pebble, give it to an air elemental, have it shadow the dragon--voila! advantage for all the archers because they can see the dragon and not vice versa.) If you waste your time dropping rocks you'll be half-dead or worse after forty-two seconds from the skeletons alone, and then you'll have to run away back to your lair. In return you'll have killed a couple of skeletons, and maybe made the party's Inspired Leader spend a few more minutes giving a pep talk.

Details upon request.

How do you get the skeletons to the dragon's lair? Wouldn't the dragon kill most of them with one lair action? Skeletons have no bonus on saves. They have to stay within command range of the caster. Difficult to spread out in difficult terrain. Most adult and larger dragons have a lair action AoE attack. How do the skeletons navigate the lair unseen and unheard? Then survive the lair actions of the dragon? It has way higher passive perception than even possible for a skeleton's stealth. It would pick them all up moving way in advance. Annihilate them with a lair action or two while not even bothering to close within sight range in the darkness. Could probably do this by the time your air elemental found the dragon. If the air elemental is shadowing the dragon, couldn't the dragon fly off, kill the air elemental, and defeat that tactic? How long would it take an adult dragon to kill an air elemental using all its attacks, breath weapon, lair actions, and legendary action? A round or two?
 
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