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

[Jeff Albertson]

This is an obvious miscommunication. That was not what I was saying. If you're a friend, you're going to cast the fly without them asking. If he's a friend, he's not going to demand it. If he's sitting there with his greatsword and lonely puppy eyes (just a joke), you want to give him a hand. My main point is I play at a table with my friends, thus I feel a natural inclination to assist them. Nothing is forced other than the parameters of the game system and our choice following them. My response was for those people telling me, "You don't have to do this" and other such excuses. Sure, I don't have to do it. I do it because they're my buddies and we're all trying to win. I'm sure you understand the natural inclination to assist your buddies when playing with a group of long time friends. I've known every guy at the table over twenty years. They do the same for me when they can without me asking.

Your table sounds more like an intimate, long-lasting, polygamous affair.

 

[Psikerlord#]

When you're fighting dragons in their lairs nearly every combat from about level 8 on, fly becomes an absolutely must.

Hasn't been nearly as bad this time around fighting humanoids and mostly ground-based attackers. I'm happy for it considering I'm the guy playing the melee martial this time (open-handed monk).

Which is another reason I cast fly. What happens when I want to play a melee martial like a barbarian or monk? If I've been telling my buddy to find his own way into battle, he's going to tell me the same thing. I play with the same group every campaign. I will feel the repercussions of doing that. If you're changing groups all the time, you may be ok doing that. If you don't, you don't want that precedent set.

Can you imagine that conversation? "Oh you played a barbarian this time, eh. Remember my greatsword fighter? Remember what you told me? Well, I don't have to tell you how this works then do I?"

On the contrary - I do want that precedent. Indeed it is the precedent with everyone I've played with. I dont count on a buff, ever. If I get one - it's pure bonus, and I'm grateful. As for ranged attacks - a bow is good enough ime. No-one should "expect" a fly or other buff from any other party member. Every PC can arm themselves with a ranged attack. If you put all your eggs in one basket, it's on your own head.

In older editions there was an expectation of healing from the cleric. But even that is stretched in 5e with each PC having HD, healer feat, etc.

 

[Celtavian]

On the contrary - I do want that precedent. Indeed it is the precedent with everyone I've played with. I dont count on a buff, ever. If I get one - it's pure bonus, and I'm grateful. As for ranged attacks - a bow is good enough ime. No-one should "expect" a fly or other buff from any other party member. Every PC can arm themselves with a ranged attack. If you put all your eggs in one basket, it's on your own head.

In older editions there was an expectation of healing from the cleric. But even that is stretched in 5e with each PC having HD, healer feat, etc.

I don't treat my friends that way. Fortunately, my friends don't treat me that way either. I'm happy I don't have to deal with that attitude. This has always been a team game to our group. You don't win alone. People that try selfish play usually die a lot.

I know a bow isn't good enough against a dragon if the wielder of the bow isn't built for it. The dragon will do a great deal more damage and you won't hit near as often as you would with your main weapon. I experienced this first hand. It is my best interest to let the paladin and GWM player get into battle. It's not fun, but it's effective.

What is this talk of putting your eggs in one basket? Thrown weapons have disadvantage past 30 feet. A dragon moves 80 feet a move. Their lairs are generally difficult to move around in and they have superior sight to yourself keeping out of darkvision range. If you don't have fly as a melee martial, you're going to be very ineffective. No idea why you think otherwise. If you have fought a high level dragon in its lair run by an intelligent DM taking full advantage of its mobility and lair terrain, you would know how bad this situation is and how ineffective a str-based martial with a bow or thrown weapon is. The bow is bad because he's Str-based which usually reduces his chance to hit by 3 or more if he has a magic weapon and thrown weapons because the dragon easily reaches ranges where thrown weapons have disadvantage. I read this stuff and chuckle. It shows a real lack of experience with the same types of encounters. Or a group composition that took up the slack for a str-based martial pumping out weak damage with a bow or thrown weapons.

Healing does seem different in this game. Given the low number of hit points healed, I tend to use pop up healing. I can't heal a substantial amount with either healing word or cure wounds. It seems better to let a player fall and then pop them up for a round of attacks in 5E until you get the heal spell or mass cure wounds. That's why I've been doing.

 

[DaveDash]

I don't treat my friends that way. Fortunately, my friends don't treat me that way either. I'm happy I don't have to deal with that attitude. This has always been a team game to our group. You don't win alone. People that try selfish play usually die a lot.

I know a bow isn't good enough against a dragon if the wielder of the bow isn't built for it. The dragon will do a great deal more damage and you won't hit near as often as you would with your main weapon. I experienced this first hand. It is my best interest to let the paladin and GWM player get into battle. It's not fun, but it's effective.

What is this talk of putting your eggs in one basket? Thrown weapons have disadvantage past 30 feet. A dragon moves 80 feet a move. Their lairs are generally difficult to move around in and they have superior sight to yourself keeping out of darkvision range. If you don't have fly as a melee martial, you're going to be very ineffective. No idea why you think otherwise. If you have fought a high level dragon in its lair run by an intelligent DM taking full advantage of its mobility and lair terrain, you would know how bad this situation is and how ineffective a str-based martial with a bow or thrown weapon is. The bow is bad because he's Str-based which usually reduces his chance to hit by 3 or more if he has a magic weapon and thrown weapons because the dragon easily reaches ranges where thrown weapons have disadvantage. I read this stuff and chuckle. It shows a real lack of experience with the same types of encounters. Or a group composition that took up the slack for a str-based martial pumping out weak damage with a bow or thrown weapons.

Healing does seem different in this game. Given the low number of hit points healed, I tend to use pop up healing. I can't heal a substantial amount with either healing word or cure wounds. It seems better to let a player fall and then pop them up for a round of attacks in 5E until you get the heal spell or mass cure wounds. That's why I've been doing.

We play much more like you. When I play my War Cleric, I get in there and dodge. Its so efficient, and I dont care that I'm not taking swings or rolling much in combat.

The group I DM for revolve around the Paladin. They're happy to buff him using up their valuable concentration slot when its most effective to do so. The Bard player has cast fly on the Paladin THEN hid inside a portable hole to not risk losing concentration.

That's teamwork.

 

[Hussar]

All this talk about flying opponents. It's ludicrously easy to bring down fliers. You only need to reduce their speed to 0. Good grief, tripping them will do it. Granted a bit trickier with very large creatures, but, sheesh, there's a million and one ways to stop a flier. If the mountain won't come...

Of course, my first act as a DM would be to target the crap out of casters just to break concentration. Kill two birds with one stone. Javelins have a range of 120 feet and it's not that hard to negate disadvantage by gaining advantage on the attack - if the baddies are out of javelin range, they likely can't hurt you anyway. Who needs a bow?

And why wouldn't a land bound fighter, facing numerous flying opponents (it is a dragon filled series of modules) not look for a flying mount?

It seems to me that presuming that the party casters will automatically cast the buffs I want seems a bit presumptuous.

 

[Celtavian]

We play much more like you. When I play my War Cleric, I get in there and dodge. Its so efficient, and I dont care that I'm not taking swings or rolling much in combat.

The group I DM for revolve around the Paladin. They're happy to buff him using up their valuable concentration slot when its most effective to do so. The Bard player has cast fly on the Paladin THEN hid inside a portable hole to not risk losing concentration.

That's teamwork.

Even though we disagree on some stuff, it does sound like we play in a very similar fashion. I know you also focus on teamwork and group optimization. That's the way we play. Sounds like you like to throw really tough encounters at your group that require a very competent team. We do the same. Makes the game more fun for us.

 

[cmad1977]

Two-weapon fighting, sure, but single-weapon with no shield? I'm not sure if that would fall under a classic choice. I can't think of a single armored hero from the last thirty years who routinely goes into combat against armed opponents while leaving one hand empty, unless they're using that other hand to cast spells.

Aragorn

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think if you're friends with someone, you will help them have fun in a game you're playing primarily for fun. I think if you do look across at your buddy and tell him you won't buff him with a fly spell when you know he can't get into battle any other way, you and he aren't very good friends.

This sounds weird to me because it postulates that "friendship" depends on basically doing what someone else wants you to do because they're refusing to be flexible.

If someone's concept of a fun night is so fragile and special that other people need to do what that person wants to keep them happy, that's basically Geek Social Fallacy 2 and 3 in action.

Look, if my buddy is having girl troubles because he will only date redheads above 5'8" who weigh no more than 130 lbs, and my sister happens to be that, I'm not being a lousy friend by not setting him up with my sister. It's not my responsibility to solve his problems. If he presumes it is, and keeps asking me to set him up with my sister, he's a massive jerk. In fact, by saying, "No way in hell am I hooking you up with my sister, just stop being such a frickin' princess about your ladies, bro," I'm being a better friend because I'm encouraging him to not be a special snowflake and to get out of his obsessive little corner and join the rest of humanity.

I'd never expect some other character to use resources they didn't want to use to help me out. IF they do, that's nice. If they LIKE doing it, that's awesome. If they DON'T do it, I'm not going to pitch a fit. If the happiness of a player in my game depended on 100% of the time being at 100% effectiveness, I don't think that'd be a very good match - sometimes, a melee machine needs to use a bow. Sometimes, the pyromancer meets fire elements. There's a variety of challenges in the world and a myopic approach to problem-solving is not going to lead to a delightful experience. If you can't adapt, or if adaptation somehow ruins the game for you, you might be better off with a more solicitous table, because I'm not going to play a particular character a particular way just because you don't ever want to have to use a bow.

Screw that. That's not fun for me.

 

[Sacrosanct]

sometimes, a melee machine needs to use a bow. Sometimes, the pyromancer meets fire elements.

And sometimes, my necromancer mage runs into a helmed horror that was immune to all my spells I had


Yes, I was pretty much "help action" for most of that fight lol. But life goes on.

 

[Celtavian]

This sounds weird to me because it postulates that "friendship" depends on basically doing what someone else wants you to do because they're refusing to be flexible.

If someone's concept of a fun night is so fragile and special that other people need to do what that person wants to keep them happy, that's basically Geek Social Fallacy 2 and 3 in action.

Look, if my buddy is having girl troubles because he will only date redheads above 5'8" who weigh no more than 130 lbs, and my sister happens to be that, I'm not being a lousy friend by not setting him up with my sister. It's not my responsibility to solve his problems. If he presumes it is, and keeps asking me to set him up with my sister, he's a massive jerk. In fact, by saying, "No way in hell am I hooking you up with my sister, just stop being such a frickin' princess about your ladies, bro," I'm being a better friend because I'm encouraging him to not be a special snowflake and to get out of his obsessive little corner and join the rest of humanity.

I'd never expect some other character to use resources they didn't want to use to help me out. IF they do, that's nice. If they LIKE doing it, that's awesome. If they DON'T do it, I'm not going to pitch a fit. If the happiness of a player in my game depended on 100% of the time being at 100% effectiveness, I don't think that'd be a very good match - sometimes, a melee machine needs to use a bow. Sometimes, the pyromancer meets fire elements. There's a variety of challenges in the world and a myopic approach to problem-solving is not going to lead to a delightful experience. If you can't adapt, or if adaptation somehow ruins the game for you, you might be better off with a more solicitous table, because I'm not going to play a particular character a particular way just because you don't ever want to have to use a bow.

Screw that. That's not fun for me.

First, we're not geeks. Never really were.

Please stop already. Why do you all keep missing that no one demanded anything. He made a character that needs fly to get into combat. I'm his buddy. I cast it, so he can get into battle.

I find it strange this is even being debated. I have played for years. I have always played this way. Every edition from the beginning. You play as a group with your buddies. No one demands buffs. You cast them because they help everyone bring force to bear. It was never an issue until 5E with the concentration mechanic.

Why is this concept so hard for so many of you to understand? Is the miscommunication this poor? Or do you guys really ignore the melee martial on the ground and let him fend for himself why you launch all your spells in whatever manner pleases you? I don't play that way. Never have played that way.

In 3E if an opponent cast fickle winds and my buddy is an archer, I dispel it. He doesn't demand it. It allows him to have fun playing his concept and he doesn't have the means to do it himself. If one my friends falls in battle or is seriously hurt, I heal him. Do you seriously not do this? That is what boggles my mind if these people around the table are your friends.

You want to talk about mind-boggling is this whole conversation that makes it seem like some selfish buddy is demanding the buffs or healing. It should be self-evident when playing with a friend that you will do what needs to be done so you can all have fun WITHOUT BEING ASKED. Do you really not do this when playing with your friends?