D&D 5E Bounded Accuracy: does it deliver as promised?

[Desdichado]

I haven't played 5e. I may not for some time. We're still hip-deep in a Star Wars campaign with my group, and next on the docket is the Horror on the Orient Express campaign for Call of Cthulhu. It'll be better part of a year--at best--before we're back to D&D again, and frankly, with a group that's pretty sunk-cost into 3.5e, I don't know that 5e will be on anyone's mind anyway. But I, at least, am curious about 5e, even if only academically, and one of the concepts that most intrigued me was the concept of bounded accuracy, since it addresses what I see as one of the most niggling problems with D&D.

My question for those who have played the game for a bit now; does it deliver on its promise? How well does it work?

 

[Mistwell]

We've been playing weekly since July 2013 of the playtest, to now with the transition to Basic and then the PHB when those came out. And so far for us, yes it's definitely holding. One of my players is a bit grumbly that he has few routes to continue to increase his AC, as he is still hittable (though not that often), and that is working as it should be. Skill checks are going to be consistently the same from level 1 to 20 - a hard check will be the same DC at level 1 as it is at level 20, and that is working well. Some monsters have scary attack bonuses, but those are the truly terrifying things like ancient red dragons, so that seems to make sense too (and we're still talking about much lower numbers than 3e - like a maximum of +18 I think?) So yes, so far it seems to be holding up overall.

 

[Boarstorm]

It's interesting so far.

The only problem I'm seeing is that after awhile, my players are only missing on very low rolls. Actually, I'm not sure that's a problem. Let's call it an observation, instead. It seems to work because players inherently enjoy "hitting" -- and this lets them do that, and often. Moving the goalpost from AC to Hit Points took some getting used to, but I'm liking it a lot.

On the DM side of things, I'm absolutely LOVING it. "A swarm of kobolds, but we're 9th level? ... maaaaybe we should sneak around." When's the last time that happened in PF or 3.X? It makes the world feel a bit more real to me. YMMV, of course, but it's definitely a mark in the positive column for me.

 

[Eejit]

It's interesting so far.

The only problem I'm seeing is that after awhile, my players are only missing on very low rolls.

Certain monsters at any particular CR tend to be lower AC while making up for it in damage or HP or whatever. It seems this is often the case with beasts - which are overly represented in the Basic DM guide, and monstrosities. The slightly tougher and better-armored humanoids (like Hobgoblins) are harder to hit. I expect we'll see more higher ACs in the DMG.

 

[Chocolategravy]

It's very easy to temporarily get a bonus that will hit anything in the game on a 2+ and not hard to get a 90% hit rate the majority of the time on the majority of the monsters. And that is with only a handful of magic items and no splat books out yet! As more spells, abilities and magic items come out this problem will only get worse.


On the other side of the equation the magic items we've gotten just from HotDQ you can easily have a 27AC CHR class character running around. An AC that can be even higher with some work.


One of the benefits we were supposed to get out of bounded accuracy was low level creatures remaining viable, but as other threads have shown, the monsters are built with an attack bonus that tends to climb as their CR climbs. So the game itself isn't even built around bounded accuracy to begin with.


Anyone that thinks 5E has bounded accuracy is kidding themselves or don't know what it even is.

 

[Boarstorm]

It's bounded accuracy (as in, accuracy falls within certain bounds), not FLAT accuracy.

It certainly does exist, and I think the hypothetical AC27 character is... unlikely, at best.

 

[Astrosicebear]

It's very easy to temporarily get a bonus that will hit anything in the game on a 2+ and not hard to get a 90% hit rate the majority of the time on the majority of the monsters. And that is with only a handful of magic items and no splat books out yet! As more spells, abilities and magic items come out this problem will only get worse.


On the other side of the equation the magic items we've gotten just from HotDQ you can easily have a 27AC CHR class character running around. An AC that can be even higher with some work.


One of the benefits we were supposed to get out of bounded accuracy was low level creatures remaining viable, but as other threads have shown, the monsters are built with an attack bonus that tends to climb as their CR climbs. So the game itself isn't even built around bounded accuracy to begin with.


Anyone that thinks 5E has bounded accuracy is kidding themselves or don't know what it even is.

Specifics please, else this is trollmongering.

 

[Astrosicebear]

Ive played entirely though Lost Mines and ive made 3 "players for life" out of it. They love it, I love it. And ive even converted some older players from PFRPG to 5e based on 1 session.

Its quick. Its fun. Its simple but deep.

The bounded accuracy works. Yes it creates a slobbernocker style game, where the PCs hit often and the monsters hit often, and whoever has the most HP stays up. It is deadly but it is fun.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Add my vote to those who say it works, and IMO, pretty darn well. As a DM, I'm loving how monsters stay mechanically viable for much longer. I feel like I'm getting my money's worth per monster a lot more than any other edition. Not just having low level monsters last longer, but being able to introduce higher level monsters sooner, as a party with enough help can have a chance to beat them.


As a player, I enjoy that your lower level hirelings (or even a lower level PC who just joins) a group of higher level PCs can still contribute mechanically (they can always contribute in other ways). There's not a single monster that I'm aware of that can't be hit by a 1st level PC without needing a natural 20. You didn't see that in previous versions where high level opponents had ACs of -8 or 40.

Additionally, with bounded accuracy, there are less numbers to add or subtract, and that speeds up play in my experience.

 

[ExploderWizard]

It's very easy to temporarily get a bonus that will hit anything in the game on a 2+ and not hard to get a 90% hit rate the majority of the time on the majority of the monsters. And that is with only a handful of magic items and no splat books out yet! As more spells, abilities and magic items come out this problem will only get worse.


On the other side of the equation the magic items we've gotten just from HotDQ you can easily have a 27AC CHR class character running around. An AC that can be even higher with some work.

I think that if the mythical 27 AC had anything beyond a misunderstanding of the rules to back it up, we would have heard a lot more about it. More often than not with these claims it turns out people are equating " You get an AC of X" with " This gives a bonus to AC of X". A shield actually gives a bonus to AC of +2. Leather armor does not provide a bonus to AC of +1, it gives you an 11 base AC while wearing it, thus it would not stack with something else that gave you a different base AC such as mage armor.

As far as actual play goes, I just had 3 characters reach level 2 in our campaign so I don't have much experience with the effects of bounded accuracy at higher levels yet.