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

[Acr0ssTh3P0nd]

Hiya.



I think he said Fighter 1 / Sorcerer X. So even if we take Fighter 1 / Sorcerer 19, we aren't really worried.

With regards to the whole "AC28" thing...that would only be good for 4 rounds a day. After that, it drops to 23 for another 6 rounds (Haste duration maximum is 10 rounds). After that, you're back down to a respectable 21....but hardly anything even approaching "nigh-unhittable". And if you can cast haste, 3rd level, you are likely to be fighting things with an ok to hit bonus (I'm guessing +4 to +6). I guess the bottom line is...5e's BA is working just fine.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Ah, mah bad. That's what I get for speed-reading!

 

[Rhenny]

I'm a big fan of BA. It has made our games seem much more tense and dramatic. Knowing that even a lower level PC can hurt a higher CR creature, and visa-versa changes player psychology. When I play I truly worry about nearly any encounter now. Same for when I DM. My players think much more like characters in fantasy movies rather than super heroes.

It also makes it possible to have games that focus on stealth and diplomacy or negotiation more if I want to encourage that. Since players fear combat, they are more likely to develop non- combat solutions.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I'm a big fan of BA. It has made our games seem much more tense and dramatic. Knowing that even a lower level PC can hurt a higher CR creature, and visa-versa changes player psychology. When I play I truly worry about nearly any encounter now. Same for when I DM. My players think much more like characters in fantasy movies rather than super heroes.

It also makes it possible to have games that focus on stealth and diplomacy or negotiation more if I want to encourage that. Since players fear combat, they are more likely to develop non- combat solutions.

This all sounds great. Encouraging alternatives to "I attack it" is a great thing in my humble opinion.

 

[Uchawi]

I'm actually hoping that healing doesn't keep pace too well with levelling. I wouldn't want a healing potion, for instance, to be more than 2d4+2. Having to use higher level slots for the basic cure spells is awesome as the returns are actually very low, making it a trade-off between using a more powerful spell to buff or do damage, or to heal a small amount relative to the level. Even the higher level spells like Heal while giving a hefty boost, aren't the "right, now I'm at full power again!" type of spell.

This makes high level combat dangerous rather than the cake-walk it has been in previous systems. Sure, you can take a hefty amount of damage, you can even mitigate a lot of it, heal a lot of it and dish a lot of it out. But you're also going to be taking a lot of it as well. And with saves not scaling, you have other things to worry about than just mere hit points. The higher the challenge of the encounter, the more inherently dangerous it becomes because you won't always have the perfect counter to every situation.

Balance is great, but it's also boring.

To me healing needs to be available to more classes in combat. As a DM you can always throw more monsters at a party, or make combat more deadly, but as it stands there are only certain classes that allow the party to recover when things get tough. So it is not really about balance, but options, or making more classes relevant whether it is to hit, damage, skill, healing, magic item use, armor use etc. In reference to healing and what classes can do it, the decisions were equally biased towards tradition, and BA only compounds the problem when hit points become more important and AC is less important.

 

[ExploderWizard]

To me healing needs to be available to more classes in combat. As a DM you can always throw more monsters at a party, or make combat more deadly, but as it stands there are only certain classes that allow the party to recover when things get tough. So it is not really about balance, but options, or making more classes relevant whether it is to hit, damage, skill, healing, magic item use, armor use etc. In reference to healing and what classes can do it, the decisions were equally biased towards tradition, and BA only compounds the problem when hit points become more important and AC is less important.

I don't think that all classes need to be equal in the offensive, defensive, and restorative areas. Making everyone equal in function is essentially making everyone the same class with any differences being flavor only.

Besides that, I am perfectly fine with the whole party going belly up when things get tough if what got them there is a fight everything mentality. Let them suck on bitter defeat and perhaps the next group of PCs might operate with a bit of common sense.

 

[GMMichael]

I don't think that all classes need to be equal in the offensive, defensive, and restorative areas. Making everyone equal in function is essentially making everyone the same class with any differences being flavor only.

And that's only the Combat pillar.

Besides that, I am perfectly fine with the whole party going belly up when things get tough if what got them there is a fight everything mentality. Let them suck on bitter defeat and perhaps the next group of PCs might operate with a bit of common sense.

Tough call here. If you're unlucky, you've wrangled a group of PCs who have a "let's fight everything, and if we die, it's the GM's fault" mentality. Besides agreeing with you, I'll also recommend including an NPC Voice of Reason.

Does Bounded Accuracy deliver? I'll find out, in practice, soon. In theory, it should just be abbreviated to Bounded AC, because that's what it really is: reasonable ACs and saving throw numbers (defenses. All other DCs operate on the exact same system that was present in 3e.) And yes, it delivers well. Adv/Disadv is the key to this; there are no more piles of bonuses. There's just one bonus which negates and reasserts itself.

Boo on you, cover bonus.

 

[Desdichado]

Indeed. He hasn't played the game yet, and it's looking like he hasn't even read it. At this point, he's starting to sound like Donald Trump on climate change.

So... it drive-by political sniping now acceptable here on ENWorld?

If this were any other place, I'd challenge you to see how much about climate change you really know. But it's not, so I won't. I'll just ask you to cut it out.

 

[Morrus]

So... it drive-by political sniping now acceptable here on ENWorld?
.

No, it's not. As you know. Thanks for alerting us with the post report, but the sarcasm wasn't needed.

Everyone else - please remember the rules. No politics, no religion. Thanks!

 

[frankthedm]

You couldn't stack the Shield spell with Defensive Duelist. Both require a reaction to use. You also couldn't use it with a Staff of Defence while wielding a shield, because it requires using a finesse weapon which the staff is not.

Most attempts at so called optimizations are attempting to combine various things that don't actually work by the rules.

 

[Neonchameleon]

One thing I'd note about bounded accuracy is that HoDQ doesn't actually carry it through. Notably with the dragon attack. Unless it's utterly immune to non-magical weapons (in which case the PCs are near-irrelevant, which they aren't) by-the-book Bounded Accuracy would lead to a big flappy winged pincushion knocked out of the sky by guards with bows.

Does handling the dragon by fiat-ing away Bounded Accuracy make for a more interesting adventure? Yes. Does bounded accuracy deliver as promised? IMO yes - which is why to make for a more interesting adventure HotDQ had to get rid of it.