D&D 4E 4E vs 5E: Monsters and bounded accuracy

[fjw70]

That's a different narrative, though. The narrative is established procedurally, with each action having a defined meaning as it occurs. If we don't know what happens until the end of the character's turn, then the player doesn't know whether the enemy is still up after the first attack, and it creates complications.

You only need to know mechanically with each attack before moving to the next. The in world narrative can come after all attacks are mechanically decided.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

AC could well be 8+prof bonus+x instead of 10+x. This way high level chars would have a slight advantage over low level foes. I would then also add proficiency bonus -2 to damage done to compensate.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

That's if you scale HP and damage, then you would eventually get to the point where you have enough damage to one-shot a lower-level tough enemy.

For whatever reason, they didn't really do that. They went with scaling HP primarily, and then minor scaling of attack bonuses and damage and numbers of attacks. I guess it kind of gets there, if you consider three attacks (with power attack balancing out the higher attack bonus) to count as one-shotting. It's still dead in one turn, at least.

This is true. 5E has chosen to scale damage for most martial characters through attack count multiplication much more than single-attack scaling. It's basically saying that if you want to truly one-shot something, be a rogue or wizard.

If they'd gone with AC scaling, though, then they wouldn't have needed to give the ogre nearly as many HP in the first place. Instead of it having AC 11 and 59hp, they could have given it AC 19 and 29hp, and a high-level PC with +20 to hit would be able to drop it quickly in 1-2 attacks.

Basically, I'm comparing two extreme and simplified systems for clarity: one in which you scale only HP and its counterpart damage, and the other in which you scale only AC and its counterpart attack bonus. Obviously, the real 5E scales all of these stats to greater or lesser extent, but we're looking at the theoretical consequences of these different methods of scaling, so it's helpful to separate them. And you're very unlikely to ever one-shot a 29 HP creature under the AC scaling system. You need considerable damage scaling to get your attack to deal 29 damage.

And speaking more subjectively, I like that bounded accuracy lets 5E make a distinction between big lumbering targets like ogres and hill giants that are easy to hit but just soak up your damage, and harder targets that you may have trouble landing a blow against but that go down easier once cracked. It adds more variety to the combat experience. Mathematically, the difference may be illusory -- Expected Rounds to Kill is the same for something with twice the hit points as it is for something twice as hard to hit -- but the feeling is real.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'll admit that for those who started with 4e it probably doesn't feel like D&D.

It probably doesn't exactly "not feel like D&D," either. If you started with 4e you didn't have a lot of time for your concept of the game to completely calcify.

Except that ranged attacks had more attacks per round. Not necessarily enough to cover an entire minute round, but they did get more.

Nod. RoF: 2 in a one minute round was still a pretty slow archer or knife-thrower, but the point was the ammunition consumption meant that they couldn't be slow because they were conceptually making more attacks.

But I agree, most people that I know who learned the game later on (usually 3e or later) equate the attack roll as the one swing you make in that round.

Even though 3e didn't actually come out and say that, it still had the language about one attack roll representing more than a single swing.

(Oh, and, the idea of AC not including anything for 'parrying' also kinda depended on the concept, FWIW).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Imagine the town guard. If there are creatures that an under level 5 town guard, backed up with 0-1st level militia can't defend against because they can't even hit it, then the town no longer exists. Because the things that have 37 AC can just wander in without any risk whatsoever.

That's no different than if they can hit it, but they can't deal enough damage because it has too many hit points. I'm pretty sure that most D&D settings are designed so that the super powerful monsters don't have any reason to be near the small towns, because that would create an unstable equilibrium and those towns would quickly be wiped out. If an ancient wyrm did attack some random town, though, then that's a situation that should be hopeless, and I would expect the rules to support that.

For those of us who have played the game a long time, the more static AC with a growing pool of hit points feels like D&D. Of course, I'll admit that for those who started with 4e it probably doesn't feel like D&D.

I find that interesting, since (for example) AD&D had a much wider range of AC and a much smaller pool of hit points - all of the standard weapons/armors/shields/rings/cloaks/etc went up to +5, but you stopped gaining hit dice (and their associated Con bonus) around level 10.

If I recall correctly, a great red wyrm had something like 135 hit points, which is much more in line with my previously-hypothesized level 20 big bad with 95 hit points.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You only need to know mechanically with each attack before moving to the next. The in world narrative can come after all attacks are mechanically decided.

Except that there's a one-to-one correspondence between in-game actions and the mechanics which reflect those actions. The mechanic which reflects a single attack is that you make a single attack roll and determine damage; multiple attacks are represented with multiple attack rolls. If you start mixxing and matching the actions and their mechanics, then the process loses its legitimacy, and you're reduced to a board game with a thin veneer of story-telling (or vice versa) rather than the robust procedural narrative that we normally have.

 

[fjw70]

Except that there's a one-to-one correspondence between in-game actions and the mechanics which reflect those actions. The mechanic which reflects a single attack is that you make a single attack roll and determine damage; multiple attacks are represented with multiple attack rolls. If you start mixxing and matching the actions and their mechanics, then the process loses its legitimacy, and you're reduced to a board game with a thin veneer of story-telling (or vice versa) rather than the robust procedural narrative that we normally have.

Lets agree to disagree.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Except that there's a one-to-one correspondence between in-game actions and the mechanics which reflect those actions.

Depends on the action. Casting a spell, maybe. Declaring an action, OTOH, might result in narrated success, narrated failure, or a check - vs a DC that might also vary quite a bit. That's at least three possible mechanics to one action. 5e's very fuzzy and DM-dependent, that way.

I find that interesting, since (for example) AD&D had a much wider range of AC and a much smaller pool of hit points - all of the standard weapons/armors/shields/rings/cloaks/etc went up to +5, but you stopped gaining hit dice (and their associated Con bonus) around level 10.

1e AC was 'bounded,' going from 10 to -10 (so 21 possible ACs). FWIW.

If I recall correctly, a great red wyrm had something like 135 hit points.

Maybe in 2e. In 1e a huge ancient red dragon had only 88, a huge ancient gold, 96...

which is much more in line with my previously-hypothesized level 20 big bad with 95 hit points.

Yep.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That's if you scale HP and damage, then you would eventually get to the point where you have enough damage to one-shot a lower-level tough enemy.

For whatever reason, they didn't really do that. They went with scaling HP primarily, and then minor scaling of attack bonuses and damage and numbers of attacks. I guess it kind of gets there, if you consider three attacks (with power attack balancing out the higher attack bonus) to count as one-shotting. It's still dead in one turn, at least.

There's a difference in table feel between rolling three attacks and averaging 20 damage and rolling one attack that averages 20 damage, but there's not much of a different outcome from a "balance" perspective.

Which is to say, I haven't crunched the numbers, but it's probably possible to replace Extra Attack with a 4e-style "3[W] and a rider" in 5e without throwing off the balance. I'd expect it to be higher level than a comparable 4e effect, and not do quite as much damage, but totally in the realm of possibility.

I guess that's just a matter of preference, though. In terms of game balance and flow, it doesn't really matter whether you hit it six times for damage, or only three times for damage because the other three attacks failed to hurt it. It's just a weird mental image that you need to actually hit with so many attacks before something will fall down.

Thankfully, because AC doesn't really scale, once you are good at hitting something you remain good at hitting things.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

1e AC was 'bounded,' going from 10 to -10 (so 21 possible ACs). FWIW.

So an unarmored dude with Dex 3 (generating an AC modifier of +4) would be no worse off than an unarmored dude with Dex 14 (no AC modifier from Dex), since it's impossible to have an AC worse than 10? And would also be relatively immune to spells or conditions which imposed an AC penalty?

I didn't start playing until 2E, and even then we never tested the limits, so I'm not sure how AD&D treats edge cases.