D&D 5E Bounded Accuracy scenario in actual play (low CR mobs vs higher level PCs)

[Sacrosanct]

One of the things I liked on paper about bounded accuracy was that monsters had a lot longer staying power. A low HD/CR creature would stay effective a lot longer in game play than in previous editions and still be a threat. I finally got a chance to test that out in actual play.

Background: I've been running our group through my superdungeon on one-offs where our main campaign can't continue for one reason or another. They've progressed pretty far, and are level 6 and 7 PCs. In the superdungeon, I have a lair of kobolds in one section. They ran into this lair the other day. I designed them into the adventure because I wanted to see how mobs of low CR creatures really do against higher level PCs

Kobold modifications: In this lair, there were several types of kobolds. Regular ones, dragonshields (kobolds with the shield mastery feat), arcanists (kobolds with magic initiate feat), slingers (sharpshooter feat), and of course the chieftain. For the non standard kobolds, I just raised their CR by one category

Party: level 6 ranger, level 7 assassin rogue, level 7 wild sorcerer, level 7 land druid, level 6 totem barbarian

Actual Play results: The party first encountered a cave with female and younglings and agreed to sneak past them ("they are just kobolds, and we don't need to kill them"). They failed their party stealth, and the kobolds fled into the tunnels in fear. Alerted by these cried, a nearby attachment of 6 dragonshields and 6 slingers went to investigate. The party was ready for them, and to be honest, a well placed 3rd level sleep spell took out all of the slingers, and the sharpshooting ranger took out two dragon shields. Thinking the slingers dead and not asleep, the remaining dragonshields fled.

With a purpose. Being sneaking creatures, they fled only far enough to make sure the party was following. If the party wasn't, they shot a sling or something at them. The party gave chase, as expected. What the party didn't know, and didn't see because they were chasing and not searching, were the two iron grates in the ceiling. When the party got to a certain point in the tunnels, the kobolds sprang their trap and the grates came crashing down, one behind the party preventing escape, and one in front of the party. A row of dragonshields formed a shield wall against the grate, a row of slingers were behind them, and a few arcanists were behind them casting ray of frosts. Also, from the ceiling above the party dropped several baskets of poisonous snakes. They thought about trying to raise the front grate, but that would leave them exposed to the dragonshields right there, and they wouldn't be able to move forward anyway because of the shield wall.

End result: The snakes died easily (only 2 hp) and weren't really a threat. The party did defeat the 20 or so kobolds, but used up pretty every resource (3rd level slots for sleep and conjure animals were the most effective) and the rogue just about died.

Yeah, bounded accuracy does what it claims to do

 

[cmad1977]

Nice! I haven't had seen this sort oft thing firsthand but conceptually I like that my 15th level fighter can't just wade through an army of orcs.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I've found it to be a bit swingy, depending on the choices. Frex, my party, at 5th level, fought equally tough (on paper) groups of hobgoblins and gnolls. The hobgoblins have high AC (18), but 11 hitpoints, which was well within the single round damage range for almost all the party. The gnolls were lower AC (12-15), but had 28 hitpoints each, meaning that only on exceptional rolls or crits could one party member down one in one go. There were more hobgoblins that gnolls in the encounters, but the hobgoblin fights were easy for the party -- they expended few resources and quickly won. The gnolls fights, though, were much more challenging, mostly due to the fact that the gnolls could hang in there longer to land some hits. The party won through all of the encounters, but only the gnolls ever pushed them.

So, yeah, bounded accuracy works, but you need to also consider the ease of dispatch on a successful hit -- if the party can one shot them in a round, you should take that into consideration on the numbers.

 

[pdegan2814]

A) Very cool demonstration of what a horde of low-CR creatures can do against players who would previously have demolished them.

B) I really dig the way you created Kobold variants for your scenario. Considering their base CR, giving them the benefits of a single feat is a great way to add some variety and buff them a bit while still having them feel like the Kobolds we know and love. I could easily see a few other feats working as variants too. Mobile comes to mind, as a particularly fast Kobold who can dart around the battlefied without drawing reaction hits. Not sure if that alone would be worth a full number increase in CR though. The other one that might be fun is Grappler, the Kobold in the bunch that specializes in taking the enemy down while his buddies wail on him. Given that Kobolds attack in numbers, finding yourself restrained and taking hits from a bunch of enemies who all now have advantage on their attack rolls, even for just one round, could be nasty.

Anyway, I digress. Your post just got my gears spinning, thanks for sharing!

 

[Istbor]

Nice read. I have been doing similar things with Goblins.

It is amazing what a few variations and some refined tactics can do to make weaker foes into challenging encounters.

 

[Arvin Natsuko]

Nice! My DM did the same thing with a bunch of well prepaired and a little modified bandits and the result was the same. Our group is level 5 and the encounter was challenging.

I'm wandering if the same will happen in higher levels. I think the more powerfull spells will turn a lot of weak foes into nothing, but i still dont have a real experience with that.

 

[pukunui]

The other one that might be fun is Grappler, the Kobold in the bunch that specializes in taking the enemy down while his buddies wail on him. Given that Kobolds attack in numbers, finding yourself restrained and taking hits from a bunch of enemies who all now have advantage on their attack rolls, even for just one round, could be nasty.

Having one kobold grapple and knock prone a PC wouldn't really do much, since kobolds already get advantage on their attack rolls through Pack Tactics. I could see this being a fun trick to use with goblins, though.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In my homebrew setting, magic is rare, so nobody knows about the typical anti-Fireball tactics. Shortly after the party hit level 5, they entered a region that was patrolled by groups of orcs, who moved around in six-by-six formations led by the mechanical equivalent of a chieftain.

The thing about typical orcs is that their average HP is very close to half of the average damage dealt by a Fireball III spell. During the first four such encounters, the warlock rolled above-average for damage, killing all of the orcs aside from the leader (who was quickly dropped by the combined efforts of the rest of the party). During the fifth such encounter, the warlock rolled low, and almost half of the orcs survived... who were then able to retaliate with javelins, granted Advantage from their leader's daily ability, dropping half of the party in a single round and forcing the barbarian to rage while mopping them up. And to make matters worse, their leader escaped, so now they know better and their patrols have changed formation to a less-dense formation.

 

[the Jester]

Yeah, I run an "Everyone Starts at 1st Level" campaign with a lot of random drop-in players in one of the groups. We have 1st level pcs adventuring with 10th level pcs at times. I've found that not only can low-level monsters remain significant challenges against higher level pcs, but that those 1st level pcs are useful and not automatically dead meat. There are circumstances under which they would be- fireball comes to mind- but many others under which they're fine.

 

[Rhenny]

Nice post, Sacrosanct. I love reading real game experiences.

The kobold is a great creature to test out BA (and you did it well by including their sneaky, trappy nature in your encounter).

I remember a few encounters from the past year or so that also worked because of BA. (And I bet I've had more...just can't remember them off the top of my head)

One encounter was when a group of PCs was about 8th level (and the fighter had an AC of something like 22 or 23). They thought they were nearly invincible. Then, 4 of them went out of a stronghold and some bugbears along with bugbear witchdoctors ambushed them from rope trick's that the witchdoctors had made when they saw the PCs getting ready to leave the stronghold. With 2 spellcasters and about 10 bugbear warriors, the fighter was nearly down to 0 hp in just 3 rounds. The others ran back to the stronghold and left the fighter behind. He finally was able to run, but when he was knocked down by an attack of opportunity (actually a very lucky blow), the others had to rescue him.

Another time, a 5 pc party of 6th level PCs stormed into the great hall of another castle to encounter about 20 orcs. With fireball, many of the orcs died, but during the fight, the remaining orcs ran to the north and to the south east down different corridors. 3 of the PCs went to chase the ones to the south east while the others stayed behind to keep watch. The 3 in the south east turned a corner to find a pit trap that they nearly fell into, and 4 archers on the other side with an orc wizard and an Ettin coming to join the fray. (yeah...the Ettin was higher CR, but it was the orcs who softened up some of the PCs). At the same time, 4 Orcs came back from the north and were able to attack the 2 PCs who had stayed behind. Now the party was fighting on 2 fronts, and they took a lot of damage before eventually defeating the Ettin, and convincing the other orcs who came to stand down and bow before them since they had just killed their leader (the Ettin was a tyrannical leader who used fear and intimidation to control the orcs...without him, the others lost their will to fight).