D&D (2024) 2024 needs to end 2014's passive aggressive efforts to remove magic items & other elements from d&d

[CreamCloud0]

And it robs that option for those who don't.

For for those who want to feel they're advancing in power.

Or want to see good tactics rewarded mechanically.

And honestly, the 'badass fantasy heroes murdered by normal animals' thing is just a side effect of the intent to obfuscate the math D&D has required and actually still requires.

i don't think bounded accuracy was an inherently flawed idea, and i get it was meant to be a simplification off the back of 4e's many stacking modifiers but the refusal of 5e to use basically any additional individual modifiers besides stat modifiers and proficiency bonus or to make expertise more commonplace(lessening the swingy impact of the base d20 in favour of a overwhelming modifier) really shot itself in the foot and made things more difficult for itself

 

[corwyn77]

i don't think bounded accuracy was an inherently flawed idea, and i get it was meant to be a simplification off the back of 4e's many stacking modifiers but the refusal of 5e to use basically any additional individual modifiers besides stat modifiers and proficiency bonus or to make expertise more commonplace(lessening the swingy impact of the base d20 in favour of a overwhelming modifier) really shot itself in the foot and made things more difficult for itself

I like BA; it's (Dis)advantage I can't stand.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I like BA; it's (Dis)advantage I can't stand.

oh i don't dislike BA, or Dis/Adv, it's just that i think as a standalone system BA lacks the required finesse to properly serve it's purpose, and i think re-instating a simple modifiers system to supliment it could really help smooth the rough edges of the system

 

[Vaalingrade]

I like BA; it's (Dis)advantage I can't stand.

The Only Mechanic In the Game is basically the backbone of BA.

It was a good idea as an advanced bonus as presented in Pathfinder, but it is very much something that should be a sometimes food rather than a replacement for more nutritious mechanics.

 

[Minigiant]

Dis/Adv was billed as a replacement for all those little modifiers of 3e like circumstance, defection, insight, and luck...

I don't think it was intended to replace nearly everything and remove additional bonuses.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I get the horse is... well still in the barn and will never leave it and was never going to leave, but... why do people keep saying this in the forum for discussing how the next iteration of the game should be?

From my perspective it's usually because the people talking use language such that it appears (to me at least) as though they think they can actually prompt change in WotC's methodology going forward... rather than just speaking from the perspective of ideas making for good house rules for their own game.

If someone says "The game needs to be X" but doesn't follow up with "And here is what I'm going to do for myself to make it X in my game"... I find the only natural response at the end of the conversation is "Okay, well, the game isn't X, but I understand what you want." It's when people say "Here are a bunch of things I believe about the game and thus I am going to incorporate those ideas into my own personal game" that my response changes to "Okay, cool. Let us know how it works out!"

 

[Yaarel]

From my perspective it's usually because the people talking use language such that it appears (to me at least) as though they think they can actually prompt change in WotC's methodology going forward... rather than just speaking from the perspective of ideas making for good house rules for their own game.

If someone says "The game needs to be X" but doesn't follow up with "And here is what I'm going to do for myself to make it X in my game"... I find the only natural response at the end of the conversation is "Okay, well, the game isn't X, but I understand what you want." It's when people say "Here are a bunch of things I believe about the game and thus I am going to incorporate those ideas into my own personal game" that my response changes to "Okay, cool. Let us know how it works out!"

A forum for playtesting and critiquing a future game product, requires players to voice what they feel "the game needs to be".

 

[DEFCON 1]

A forum for playtesting and critiquing a future game product, requires players to voice what they feel "the game needs to be".

Sure. But the same way (general) you are allowed to comment on things you want changed, others are allowed to respond stating that the stuff (general) you are asking for probably aren't going to be.

So when someone asks "Why do posters always say X?"... that's the answer.

 

[CapnZapp]

Low-level monsters will always be meat for the thresher... Bounded Accuracy just says that if you put enough of those low-level monsters together, they can eventually as a group still be able to take down a higher-level foe. The numbers do not make that possibility impossible.

Granted, in actual game practice it's a situation that will almost never come up... because any DM that wants a thousand Commoners to help defend their town by trying to take down a dragon will more often than not just turn that scene into a "narrative story action" rather than actually bother rolling that combat out (with Commoners needing Nat 20s to hit and then plink-plink their damage time and again)... but the DM could do it if they really wanted to.

Me personally? I think at the end of the day the concerns about BA are a whole lot of nothing because 99% of the time the DM is going to throw level appropriate enemies against the party anyway. So whether the PCs have attack bonuses of around +9 or all the way up to +35... their attack bonus is going to get perfectly acceptable for the enemies they will face. So at the end of the day what difference does it make where the numbers fall?

D&D isn't a general combat simulator. It does not handle the situation 1000 villagers vs 1 dragon well.

Five heroes vs a bunch of monsters, and then repeat for up to a dozen discrete combats that day. That's all D&D does reasonably well. Nothing more than that.

 

[DEFCON 1]

D&D isn't a general combat simulator. It does not handle the situation 1000 villagers vs 1 dragon well.

Five heroes vs a bunch of monsters, and then repeat for up to a dozen discrete combats that day. That's all D&D does reasonably well. Nothing more than that.

Absolutely. I agree with you that it wouldn't work well. But the point of Bounded Accuracy was that a particular DM could do it if they really wanted to and the numbers would allow for the attempt. But you are right that I don't think anyone actually would do that and that as I mentioned, most DMs would turn that 1000 villages vs 1 dragon into a narrative scenario where they narrate the villagers fighting in the background doing stuff while the "party vs dragon" fight is the one that actually gets played out at the table.