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

[Celtavian]

First off, I stated that I was explicitly discussing GWM using the -5/+10 versus GWM not using it. You appear to have missed that in your response here. So if we are not discussing the same thing, of course there will be miscommunications.

I covered GWM.

I do absolutely think that GWM has the potential to do huge amounts of damage. But I also think that your "hard data" here is skewed and you don't even see it. Your group purposely buffed this PC with Fly and Bless (although other PCs were also buffed with Bless) and (eventually) Foresight and advantage from familiars and such, and you wrote down the damage results.

Did you really miss that bless and fly were on the paladin as well? Standard buffs to get melee martials into combat. Melee martials have a mobility problem. Eliminate the mobility problem and you boost group damage.

But this is anecdotal. You have stated before that your DM allows the PCs to dictate combat and such. With a different DM, this PC might not shine quite as much. For example, a DM who throws large groups of foes at the PCs could easily grapple/prone this PC, giving him disadvantage (or having NPCs put up Darkness or Fog Cloud, or using traps to split up the party, or killing familiars, or a wide variety of other things that can shake up the effectiveness of a party).

So you're going to throw large groups of enemies at the GWM every fight to eliminate his capabilities? This seems to be your answer to everything. As a DM you can justify this tactic on occasion, but not all the time, not even in every major fight.

Another problem with this is that you put all of this effort into making this one PC shine so much that you totally disregard how much other PCs can shine if the spotlight is focused on them and the party tactics revolve around them instead.

All this effort? One 1st and one 3rd level spell. Paladin is a Shield Master that gets a bonus action knockdown every round. You don't seem to understand that it is all very little effort and standard abilities used to support the party in the course of play. Not much effort at all.

As an example, at level 6 when a fire Draconic Sorcerer gets Elemental Affinity, if he has Elemental Adept fire, he does 36.3 average points of damage on average with an Empowered Fireball spell instead of the normal 28 (+3 more for Charisma, +5.3 more for re-rolling 3 bad rolls and all 1s automatically becoming 2s). At level 12 with a 20 Cha, this increases to 39.3 (5 rerolls, +5 for Charisma).

Very few sorcerers take empower. It is a weak metamagic. This is more theorycrafting because you haven't played to very high level and haven't seen how things work.

Many encounters, he should be able to get 3 foes in each of his Fireball spells (sometimes more foes, sometimes less foes, but usually at least 3 because he casts the spell when he has the best chance of hitting more foes). At level 6, that's a range of damage of 163 to 327 points of damage. Typically at these levels, foes have a Dex mod of +1 or less, so average damage here against DC 14 or 261 average points of damage per day, 87 in the round he casts (29 per foe). The 6th level GWM fighter in this party averages 28 or so points of damage per round (2+ attacks, assume 60% chance to hit at -5/+10 due to buffs like Bless or Feinting), so it typically takes the fighter 3 rounds to do the same damage that the Sorcerer does in 1 round.

The Sorcerer then has other options to add even more damage in the other 2 rounds. Granted, at level 6, this is only 3 times per day, but that's 3 encounters a day where the Sorcerer is typically going to do more damage than the Fighter (and the Sorcerer still has 7 more spells he can use). Granted, there will be times when the Fighter rolls huge damage, criticals, etc. But there will also be rounds where the Sorcerer rolls 5 or better on most of his damage dice and/or he gets 5 foes in the blast and/or most or all of his foes fail their save. Sure, the Fighter might nova at 75 points in a single round, but the Sorcerer might nova at 200 points.

At level 17 when the GWM Fighter is near his peak often doing 75 or more points of damage per round (a portion of this because he is buffed), the Sorcerer gets upwards of 12 Fireballs a day (potentially 2 or 3 per encounter) ranging from 19 to 65 damage per spell per foe (limited in number to more powerful spells) or 692 to 1384 points of damage per day with a save DC of 17 (close to 1200 points of damage). The Sorcerer can still average better damage per round as the Fighter for those 12 rounds (more if he can get more than 3 foes in a blast, the times for which he will use higher level slots). The Sorcerer also has a lot of other spells and options.

Granted, this tactic does not work against creatures immune to fire. And if the party plays dumb, the Sorcerer will not be able to get as many foes in without hitting allies. And he will not be able to use it every single encounter. And the Fighter has more opportunities to wipe out creatures at the higher levels and will be doing more damage in rounds when the Sorcerer is not casting Fireball. But this is a lot of levels where the Sorcerer does comparable damage per day than the Fighter. No doubt, the Fighter does more damage at higher levels, especially if the rest of the party buffs him.

But if the party tried to assist the Sorcerer (setting up a front line so that most of the foes are on one side of the fight, pushing foes into Wall of Fire spells, funneling foes into chokepoints, etc.) like you have the party assisting the Fighter, the Sorcerer would shine too. The numbers above do not take into account any other ways to optimize this Sorcerer or to have other PCs buff him.

I'm not an optimizer and I was able to find a PC who could do comparable damage to a GWM fighter for many levels (maybe not at level 20, but probably just as good per day at levels 6 through at least 15 or so, a big chunk of the levels). I'm sure that someone who really lives and breathes optimization could find other combinations that work even better, even for melee types.

You like to rely on theory-crafting. I like to theory-craft and then see if my idea works. I've seen the GWM in combat and played in a high level party against dragons, outsiders, and the like. GWM does superior damage.

I already explained that the evoker did more AoE damage. He softened up creatures for the martials to clean up. Your sorcerer might be fun for damage, but he might lack in other areas a party needs. Or he might become the focal point for attacks from a powerful monster rather than the AC 21 GWM fighter with 200 hit points. The sorcerer in general won't last as long if they focus on him rather than the paladin and fighter. Not to mention we didn't have a sorcerer in the group. I'm not worried about casters versus martials for damage, I'm concerned about other types of martials being discouraged.

I can't at the moment take much advice from you. You're level 7 in an over-sized party for the game design proscribing grapple and shoving as the end all be all for dealing with martial PCs while not seeming to take into account what the other PCs might do to counter such abilities or the +10 bonus the fighter has in athletics at high level or the two barbarian levels that give him adv on strength checks when raging. Like the bard casting hypnotic pattern to eliminate groups of bad guys while the GWM fighter kills them one at a time so as not to break the effect. Even with your sorcerer doing decent damage, he likely won't kill a bunch of high level fiends with his fireballs.

You'll see what problems you have when you get higher level. They might be different since your party is a non-standard size and class composition.

I recorded hard data. I explained to you the group. I explained the situations where things differed. Your theory-crafting offers no insight other than "If I had a fire sorcererer, he might match the GWM on occasion" or "if a different DM threw things at the party that attempted to grapple someone prone, it might go differently". I wonder if I asked your players if this grapple/shove was a tactic you used on them as often as you tell me to use it. If so, why haven't they found a way to deal with it?

 

[KarinsDad]

Did you really miss that bless and fly were on the paladin as well? Standard buffs to get melee martials into combat. Melee martials have a mobility problem. Eliminate the mobility problem and you boost group damage.

Standard buffs?

I'm sure your arcane caster players enjoyed casting Fly on your PCs a lot (instead of casting Haste, or Fireball, or Stinking Cloud, or a bunch of other cooler spells) and that both your Cleric (or Paladin) and/or arcane caster players loved using their one concentration slot for the melee guys often.

I'm not saying that these are not good tactics, I'm saying that they are repetitive and boring when the GWM option is so good that other players at the table can pretty often coerce the spell caster players into being melee buffers, and only extremely optimized PCs can compete damage-wise. It's also a bit one sided if the Fighter and Paladin are getting most of the buffs, but the Rogue is not. I'm sure you are having a blast, but players in my game enjoy doing a wider variety of tactics and not primarily these super optimized for the party best ones, especially in the tough fights and especially expected buffs. It's like spamming a given attack in a video game.

There has been a lot of discussion about certain "expected combos" in 5E. Bless is almost a given at some tables. Aid is another.

 

[Psikerlord#]

1.) I don't think it's a problem per se. "Never bring a knife to a gunfight" is a proverb for good reason IRL, it's not bad to have a game which reflects that reality.

2.) There were no feats in play in that combat except GWM on the barbarian. Regular old shortbows worked well enough to win anyway, due to Spike Growth/Everard's Black Tentacles. Conversely, if the Umber Hulks had had a ranged attack they would have avoided Spike Growth/Tentacles entirely, been able to choose targets freely (possibly including the wizard), and generally had far more tactical options open. Ranged vs. Melee damage doesn't affect CR at all but in reality it's a huge difference. 1000 XP of drow > 36,000 XP of Umber Hulk. (Well, to be fair, by the time they fought umber hulks they had a bunch more drow skeletons fighting on their side too. 24 skeletons now vs. 11 or so when they fought the drow.)

3.) Even though melee is lame IMO, the barbarian had tons of fun stonewalling the umber hulks and hitting them with his glaive (of lifestealing) for 27+ points of damage per turn. So obviously tastes vary.

If melee is lame, that is a very big problem in a sword and sorcery style game imo....

 

[Celtavian]

Standard buffs?

I'm sure your arcane caster players enjoyed casting Fly on your PCs a lot (instead of casting Haste, or Fireball, or Stinking Cloud, or a bunch of other cooler spells) and that both your Cleric (or Paladin) and/or arcane caster players loved using their one concentration slot for the melee guys often.

I'm not saying that these are not good tactics, I'm saying that they are repetitive and boring when the GWM option is so good that other players at the table can pretty often coerce the spell caster players into being melee buffers, and only extremely optimized PCs can compete damage-wise. It's also a bit one sided if the Fighter and Paladin are getting most of the buffs, but the Rogue is not. I'm sure you are having a blast, but players in my game enjoy doing a wider variety of tactics and not primarily these super optimized for the party best ones, especially in the tough fights and especially expected buffs. It's like spamming a given attack in a video game.

There has been a lot of discussion about certain "expected combos" in 5E. Bless is almost a given at some tables. Aid is another.

The game is repetitive. The concentration mechanic in 5E makes it this way for casters. What are we supposed to do? Let the melee martial stand there doing nothing against a flying enemy while a caster tries to take it out burning all his spell slots? Make every player that wants to play a martial character play a ranged striker? As the caster player in that group, I would have liked to try other spells in combat. I was stuck casting fly on the martial due to the concentration mechanic or he was nearly useless. My options were play selfishly or help the melee martial get into combat so he could do his best damage. At least at later levels my DM gave the bard a magic item that allowed him to concentrate on a second spell allowing him to cast fly and bless, so I could cast some other spells. One thing about Lore Bards is they don't do much damage. Awesome at making a party work better, but not much in the damage casting department. So he was fine buffing the party and hiding from combat, while my evoker did some damage. I was happy with it as well since concentration mechanic was turning me into a one trick pony. I was happy to be able to use animate objects one combat. I tore it up with that spell and my fire bolt.

We have already discussed some of the issues with the concentration mechanic extensively. We both know it needs some work. We disagree how to go about that. I think you eliminated the concentration limit. I feel completely eliminating the concentration limit would wreck game balance in favor of casters. If I remove the concentration mechanic from fly, I get the invisibly, flying wizard headache again. That headache might be worse in 5E given the limited capabilities of enemies in the majority of fights creating the "Caster does things alone" problem from the previous edition.

You and I have already gone back and forth on this. You should at least understand why we cast fly on a martial character built for using GWM. The guy wanted to play a raging fighter with a greatsword. What am I supposed to do as a DM? Tell him not to play his concept because he'll be stuck on the ground all the time requiring a fly spell? We try to work as a group as much as possible. It just isn't smart to leave your martials on the ground while you cast other stuff. Even the paladin was useless without a fly spell. We needed to get them into action. Bless is too good not to cast on as many people as possible. You know this.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

2.) There were no feats in play in that combat except GWM on the barbarian. Regular old shortbows worked well enough to win anyway, due to Spike Growth/Everard's Black Tentacles. Conversely, if the Umber Hulks had had a ranged attack they would have avoided Spike Growth/Tentacles entirely

Parenthetical note: it turns out that I made a large mistake on Black Tentacles. It's only a 20' cube, so I shouldn't have taken my player's word for it being as big as Spike Growth--he was wrong. This actually had pretty huge implications for the combat and would have resulted in the enemy neogi wizard captain not dying. I think I'm going to have to charge my players a karma point for that victory. "Your Black Tentacles were inexplicably huge, almost as if some cosmic entity had been deliberately boosting your power during the conflict..."

It doesn't change the fact that the mistake wouldn't have mattered if Umber Hulks had had a ranged attack, but it does render any conclusions about the efficacy of Black Tentacles suspect in the general case.

 

[KarinsDad]

The game is repetitive. The concentration mechanic in 5E makes it this way for casters. What are we supposed to do? Let the melee martial stand there doing nothing against a flying enemy while a caster tries to take it out burning all his spell slots? Make every player that wants to play a martial character play a ranged striker? As the caster player in that group, I would have liked to try other spells in combat. I was stuck casting fly on the martial due to the concentration mechanic or he was nearly useless. My options were play selfishly or help the melee martial get into combat so he could do his best damage. At least at later levels my DM gave the bard a magic item that allowed him to concentrate on a second spell allowing him to cast fly and bless, so I could cast some other spells. One thing about Lore Bards is they don't do much damage. Awesome at making a party work better, but not much in the damage casting department. So he was fine buffing the party and hiding from combat, while my evoker did some damage. I was happy with it as well since concentration mechanic was turning me into a one trick pony. I was happy to be able to use animate objects one combat. I tore it up with that spell and my fire bolt.

We have already discussed some of the issues with the concentration mechanic extensively. We both know it needs some work. We disagree how to go about that. I think you eliminated the concentration limit. I feel completely eliminating the concentration limit would wreck game balance in favor of casters. If I remove the concentration mechanic from fly, I get the invisibly, flying wizard headache again. That headache might be worse in 5E given the limited capabilities of enemies in the majority of fights creating the "Caster does things alone" problem from the previous edition.

You and I have already gone back and forth on this. You should at least understand why we cast fly on a martial character built for using GWM. The guy wanted to play a raging fighter with a greatsword. What am I supposed to do as a DM? Tell him not to play his concept because he'll be stuck on the ground all the time requiring a fly spell? We try to work as a group as much as possible. It just isn't smart to leave your martials on the ground while you cast other stuff. Even the paladin was useless without a fly spell. We needed to get them into action. Bless is too good not to cast on as many people as possible. You know this.

Yes I do.

It all comes back to the much earlier discussion on "Wizards suck at low level". But it goes beyond that into higher levels. The entire concentration mechanic pushes arcane casters into roles that players might not enjoy playing as much.

As per your example, casting Foresight on the fighter instead of casting Time Stop or Wish or Meteor Swarm.

Seriously. What a rip! I have one of the most powerful casters in the game and I'm stuck buffing the Fighter with my highest level slot. WT?

Btw, I get the whole "help out the party" deal. I just don't like how shoehorned wizards (and other casters) are into that role (or at least expectations at some tables encourage this). When playing an arcane caster, I do not often want to be a blaster and I do not often want to be a buffer. Once in a while, sure. No big deal. But mostly, I want to do battlefield control (and I want decent defensive/mobility spells if a bunch of monsters get in my face). 5E nerfed battlefield control pretty darn heavily with one spell at a time and saves/checks every round.


One aspect of the game which might alleviate buffing a bit is if casters were able to create scrolls and non-casters were able to cast from them (abet with potential side effects). The fighter could then scroll cast Fly on himself.


Btw, the "allow multiple concentration spells" has not heavily influenced my game yet. Granted, we are only at level 6, but the most concentration spells anyone has ever cast by a single PC is 2 at a time and this was hardly game breaking (Shield of Faith with Spirit Guardians by the Cleric). I suspect that after nearly 40 years of not having a concentration mechanic at all, D&D survives quite well with one that merely loses spells and does not have super nerf limits on it. IMO. If it gets to be a problem at higher level (which I suspect it won't), I'll probably limit it to 2. So far, though, it has not been an issue. But I've talked with my players and they really enjoy the ability to cast whatever they want, when they want and not have this artificial albatross handcuffing them.

 

[DaveDash]

Battlefield control is now in the hands of Druids.

 

[KarinsDad]

Battlefield control is now in the hands of Druids.

Mostly at low to mid levels via Conjures. Is there cool things that they can do that Wizards cannot at higher levels (other than Earthquake or Tsunami which Wizards can technically cast with Wish)?

 

[Lord Vangarel]

I've read through all the replies on this thread and am seriously considering banning feats and ASI's in my next campaign. Feats seem to upset the balance with regards to the amount of damage that can be dished out and ASI's turn everyone into superheroes and without Feats ASI's would be all that's available.

Limiting the stat bonuses is also another idea. Having characters with a majority of +3 or +4 in all their important stats makes me feel like they're just superheroes again when the style of game I generally prefer is normal folks doing heroic things.

I'm also thinking that magic weapons shouldn't give an attack bonus in the future as this skews the Bounded Accuracy but this could be somewhat mitigated by lower stat bonuses and no feats!

 

[DaveDash]

I've read through all the replies on this thread and am seriously considering banning feats and ASI's in my next campaign. Feats seem to upset the balance with regards to the amount of damage that can be dished out and ASI's turn everyone into superheroes and without Feats ASI's would be all that's available.

Limiting the stat bonuses is also another idea. Having characters with a majority of +3 or +4 in all their important stats makes me feel like they're just superheroes again when the style of game I generally prefer is normal folks doing heroic things.

I'm also thinking that magic weapons shouldn't give an attack bonus in the future as this skews the Bounded Accuracy but this could be somewhat mitigated by lower stat bonuses and no feats!

I think if you just banned GMW, SS, and Crossbow Expert you'll be fine.

High Level 5e doesn't feel like high level 3e, where characters are all buffed up to the wazoo and adding +100 to their modifiers. There's already checks and balances in the game built in to prevent that. You feel like more powerful versions of your earlier character, but not insane, and in some instances due to the way proficiency bonuses work, you still feel useless at some things (ie, no automatically scaling saving throws, etc).

ASI's get a sense of progression and feats allow for some nice customization options. Apart from the aforementioned feats, many are a bit of a hard decision to take.

Ultimately you can do what you feel comfortable doing, and banning ASIs and feats will definitely give the game more of an AD&D feel. You might want to tweak the hit points of things down across the board as well in that case, because otherwise high level combat might turn into a grind if you don't have the same +hit chance as now. The game kind of assumes you're hitting ~65% of the time and boosts hit points to factor that in.
I'd recommend to start with smaller changes first before messing with some of the core mechanics like ASI's. Honestly you don't feel like a super hero when your 20th level character due to low AC and low off-saves still gets beat up by CR1/4 creatures - yeah I've seen it happen - I've messed up a 17th level Fighter with 20 skeleton archers before.