Breaking Bounded Accuracy: Proposed Fix

[dave2008]

I haven't been into 5E long at all, but from what you're saying I would just reduce Bless to a +1 bonus instead of a roll anyway, maybe a static +2? It would speed up the game and it is a 1st-level spell so should not be very powerful IMO. You do need concentration, which limits it sometimes depending on the encounter, and boosting attack rolls is fine since hitting more often seems to be the intent of 5E.

Yes, going old school would be fine for Bless, but Bless is not the only issue.

What I find interesting is how quickly 5E is to add damage instead of attack. For example, if a character deals 8 damage on average, gaining a +2 to attack raises his expected damage by 0.8. But, the game seems to be happier granting a +2 damage bonus instead, raising his expected damage to 10. Which is a more powerful boost?

More damage doesn't bother me. My original fix was to give +weapons more damage instead of + to hit. I am just looking for a simple, elegant solution that works for a myriad of magical buffs.

 

[S'mon]

I will have to look into barbarians, no one in my groups plays one so I am not familiar with the ins and outs of the class. From a glance I am not found of the resistance to damage mechanic.

So unarmoured barbarians add their CON bonus to their AC, as well as their DEX bonus. At low level this gives a moderate AC comparable to medium armour, but at very high level you may see some odd effects. Bracers of Defense (uncommon item) plus CON 20 plus DEX 16 plus shield gives AC 22 a lot cheaper than full plate & +2 shield (rare item). I don't think this is game breaking, but with the half damage while raging the barbarian will be even better than the Fighter.

 

[Pauln6]

My general rule is like doesn't stack with like, so class features don't stack, magic items don't stack, spells of the same type don't stack. I would probably allow the forgemaster bonus to stack with magic items but not say a fighting style.

 

[dave2008]

So unarmoured barbarians add their CON bonus to their AC, as well as their DEX bonus. At low level this gives a moderate AC comparable to medium armour, but at very high level you may see some odd effects. Bracers of Defense (uncommon item) plus CON 20 plus DEX 16 plus shield gives AC 22 a lot cheaper than full plate & +2 shield (rare item). I don't think this is game breaking, but with the half damage while raging the barbarian will be even better than the Fighter.

Yep, that seems a bit out of wack. Don't they have the biggest HD as well?

 

[clearstream]

From time to time I have pondered about what to do about the compounding effects of magic equipment and buffing spells. Basically I feel that these two together break bounded accuracy (typically in favor of the PCs). My current solution is to not give out + magic items. However, I was thinking about another option.

Here is my proposed solution: magic doesn't stack. Whatever magic gives you a bonus to a roll (not disadvantage or advantage) cannot stake with another type of magic that gives you a bonus to the same roll.

Example: Fighter Bob has a +3 longsword and Cleric Jane cast bless on him (rolling 2). Bob only gets his +3 bonus from the sword on his attack roll, but he still gets the +2 bonus to his saving throws from bless.

I can bet this breaks something else, but I am not sure what. Any thoughts?

EDIT: Break is to strong of a word, I think stacking magic bends BA further than I like.

EDIT 2: To clarify the bold part above, I am not looking for alternate solutions. I am asking if the proposed solution has ramifications I am not thinking about.

I've dialled my 3ed thinking on magic items way back, and am pretty happy now with 5ed. I like that even a +1 sword is a storied item, and a +2 sword should be legendary. Due to that, I've followed the path of adding more non-combat benefits on items, or combat benefits that don't translate directly into killiness.

Tier 2 characters should probably have about one combat relevant item apiece. Tier 3, two. Is my current feeling.

 

[TwoSix]

What I find interesting is how quickly 5E is to add damage instead of attack. For example, if a character deals 8 damage on average, gaining a +2 to attack raises his expected damage by 0.8. But, the game seems to be happier granting a +2 damage bonus instead, raising his expected damage to 10. Which is a more powerful boost?

Usually the attack bonus, but it depends. If the average damage roll of the attack is less than 10, you'd usually want to boost the damage, assuming a normal hit chance around 50-60%. Otherwise, attack is better.

 

[Dausuul]

Hmm. I don't think it will break anything, no. It will push the PCs away from using bless once they have some magic gear, which is probably a good thing.

My main concerns would be:

a) One more layer of calculation at the table. As things stand, when you get an item with pluses, you can factor the plus into your attack bonus and damage roll (for a weapon) or your AC (for armor) and then forget about it. You never have to consider it again unless you swap out gear. Now you have to keep that value separate in case you get buffed. It's not a ton of work, but these little things add up.

b) Not solving the biggest problem. There are a lot more things that buff attacks than AC, so the impact of this rule is primarily on magic weapons. In my experience, however, magic armor is by far the worse offender. Stacking up pluses to hit has diminishing returns; if you're already hitting 90% of the time, increasing that to 95% doesn't have that much effect. But stacking pluses to AC has increasing returns! In the most extreme case, reducing your enemy's chance to hit you from 10% to 5% is like doubling your hit points.

(This isn't a theoretical concern, either. I have seen a defensively oriented party become nearly unhittable for the typical monster, with just a couple of magic pluses on their armor. My solution was lots of minions with crappy attacks so the players felt like they were getting value from their insane AC; plus boss monsters with boosted attack rolls and/or spells to keep things challenging. But it would have been nice not having to plan every encounter around "can my monsters hit the PCs?")

So: I don't expect this will cause balance problems at your table, but I also think it won't do as much as you might hope.

 

[FarBeyondC]

Here is my proposed solution: magic doesn't stack. Whatever magic gives you a bonus to a roll (not disadvantage or advantage) cannot stake with another type of magic that gives you a bonus to the same roll.

Does this non-stacking also apply to penalties?

 

[5ekyu]

Maybe I am missing something, but it seems to me that bardic inspiration is the buff that is most likely to be the biggest one and therefore be the one that is still useful under the OP's proposal. It starts out at d6 (ave=3.5; 4+ 50% of the time) and goes up from there. Pass Without Trace will be better than most BI rolls, but that only applies to Dex(Stealth) checks. BI will tend to dominate Bless and most magic weapon and armor bonuses. Are there other (common) things that I am forgetting?

If my target has a +2 item and my bardic inspiration does not take that into account then my bardic is really only d6-2 or d8-2 or whatever.

Basically as the party gets more and more items (seems obvious if the gm starts with refusal to cut items) my bardic boosts will run into more and more cases of minimal to no gains.

Maybe bards need to get cut. Maybe it was intentional.*

*Edit nope see reply proposed has not seen bards so did not consider them.

NOTEto anyone - it's a bad idea to put in place a house rule with major scope and impact if you do not have enough experience to know how all 12 classes will be hit by it.

 

[dave2008]

a) One more layer of calculation at the table. As things stand, when you get an item with pluses, you can factor the plus into your attack bonus and damage roll (for a weapon) or your AC (for armor) and then forget about it. You never have to consider it again unless you swap out gear. Now you have to keep that value separate in case you get buffed. It's not a ton of work, but these little things add up.

That is a good point, thank you for bringing it up.

b) Not solving the biggest problem. There are a lot more things that buff attacks than AC, so the impact of this rule is primarily on magic weapons. In my experience, however, magic armor is by far the worse offender. Stacking up pluses to hit has diminishing returns; if you're already hitting 90% of the time, increasing that to 95% doesn't have that much effect. But stacking pluses to AC has increasing returns! In the most extreme case, reducing your enemy's chance to hit you from 10% to 5% is like doubling your hit points.

This rule would affect stacking AC too - magic doesn't stack. So you can have only one magic buff to AC. You would still have the issue of adding one magic item bonus to AC, but not multiple.