D&D 5E DMG - breaking bounded accuracy already?

[Selkirk]

As others have said in their reply to your earlier, post, I'll have to repeat them and say that my experience is way different from yours. What makes a monster exciting, or worth fighting has little to do with the stat block of the monster itself. It has much more to do with the environment they are in,

how the DM utilizes it, and what they mean to the greater adventure itself. I can assure you, an encounter against a bunch of kobolds at 8th level was still fun when you find yourself in an underground tight series of caverns and ledges, and the little bastards were ambushing you left and right. Why need to create a higher level monster when an existing one already fit perfectly?

For the second part, I've never seen players run away from monsters because they were bored. They ran away if they felt it was too risky, or needed to get somewhere fast and couldn't take the time to fight, but never because they were bored.



Hyperbole won't win you many arguments. Basic farmers are pretty darn weak, and wouldn't stand a chance against a 10th level barbarian. But even putting that aside, I guess the quickest answer that comes to mind is that the farmers don't want 2/3rd of them to die in the process when they can have someone else doing the fighting for them. Adventures, on the other hand, make their living that way. That's what drives them and gives them motivation. A PC who just hires out militia to do all the battles for them would be a pretty boring PC to play, IMO.

ok we have to disagree on this point..if im 8th level and still fighting kobolds then something has gone terribly wrong. what's wrong with the fight? no xp, no treasure, no thrill and no satisfaction. low level mobs are just that low level mobs. there has to come a point, sooner rather than later, where the party gets separation from minions. if not then the party would do nearly as well playing kobolds rather than pc's.

and to not running..try the other side of the screen . our gm thought it was the most wonderful idea to have goblins/orcs ambush us at higher levels. our party would groan each time then we just started running from them because the fights were so boring/drawn out.

and if the heroes are just swords for hire where is the heroism. what makes the party special and capable of legendary deeds? their willingness to risk their life for money? i like the idea of heroic characters being able to do heroic things. characters are in adventures for money of course but mainly it's because they are the only ones capable of winning the day. the adventurers are hired by the farmers precisely because the farmers can't kill the ogre. if the only reason adventurers adventure is because the farmers are too scared (but the farmers could still do it) it turns the pc's into hirelings. and of course begs the question-why wouldn't the pc's hire mercenaries to do their own jobs(skimming some gold off the top of course ).

 

[Sacrosanct]

I guess we do have a fundamental difference of opinion then, as I do not look at monsters as nothing more than sacks of xp and treasure drops, as it they were pulled from a video game. I view them as part of a living world to be interacted with as part of immersion and setting the theme of the adventure

 

[Grazzt]

and if the heroes are just swords for hire where is the heroism. what makes the party special and capable of legendary deeds? their willingness to risk their life for money?

Conan would like a word.

 

[Fanaelialae]

bounded accuracy presents numerous problems. characters are more likely to run from fights (any fights) rather than tangle with low level mobs-what's the benefit of the fight? long drawn out hack and slash for no xp and no satisfaction (yes! we just beat another mob of goblins ).

the idea that bounded accuracy gives low level creatures more staying power actually ensures that the party will see more of the same low level creatures (how often does one need to face kobolds?...). lazy dm's of course delight in re using the same mobs over and over but players actually like challenge.. running from orcs because the party is too bored to fight them is the sort of humiliating(if logical) encounter bounded accuracy brings in spades.

but the biggest reason bounded accuracy fails is that it totally breaks immersion. if everything you can encounter can kill you why is the party being hired to go kill dangerous things? or in short if the ogre can be killed by 10 farmers why are the farmers hiring the party? or couldn't the party take the gold and pay some of the farmers to kill the ogre? bounded accuracy turns the idea of heroism on it's head and leads to farcical outcomes like the 10th level barbarian (who went toe to toe with a mighty giant) being killed by a group of pig farmers..

and to the point about 5e not being for me...at this point it definitely isn't. but we know the rules were written this conservatively and simply to guarantee another phb...and another dmg. the modularity they were speaking of with 5e is present only because the game at present is so limited.

I like the idea that a legion of weak creatures can present a challenge to even powerful characters. One of the greatest battles I've played (back in 3rd edition) occurred when our party learned of an army of ogres that had been assembled to conquer the valley we were in. We convinced the people to raise their own army and meet the ogres head on. While our party was scouting ahead, we were surrounded by the ogres (who had hidden in snow trenches) and had to fight our way back to our army. Despite being mid to high level, we barely made it, and it was epic!

According to the XP guidelines, it would take 70 farmers (commoners) to present a deadly challenge to a 10th level Barbarian. And a deadly challenge simply means a PC MIGHT die. (I've thrown several deadly encounters at my players to date, and while some of those fights were close, I've yet to kill any characters.) Assuming you can justify why 70 crazy farmers would band together to try and take down a single barbarian, that sounds like a great fight to me. Like the 300, at 1/300th scale.

As has been said, the reason farmers don't try to take out big threats, if they can help it, is because they don't want to die.

I wouldn't want to make every fight a melee against massive numbers, just as I wouldn't want every fight I throw against my players to be against a dragon. Variety is the spice of life. But it can be a nice change of pace and give the wizard a chance to have some fun with fireballs, when used in moderation.

 

[mach1.9pants]

but the biggest reason bounded accuracy fails is that it totally breaks immersion. if everything you can encounter can kill you why is the party being hired to go kill dangerous things? or in short if the ogre can be killed by 10 farmers why are the farmers hiring the party? or couldn't the party take the gold and pay some of the farmers to kill the ogre? bounded accuracy turns the idea of heroism on it's head and leads to farcical outcomes like the 10th level barbarian (who went toe to toe with a mighty giant) being killed by a group of pig farmers..

Well bounded accuracy increases immersion for me. A human cannot just wade through an army of hundreds with a sword. Whereas often, in other editions, that was possible for your max level PC. It seems right to me that a swarm of commoners could overwhelm an ogre, but at a horrible price in their lives, which is exactly why you hire a band of adventurers to rid you of the ogre for you. The ogre would probably kill 2/3 of those pig farmers before succumbing, and the is the real chance of a TPFK (Total Pig Farmer Kill). So if the ogre is attacking your village and you can't escape/have to fight, then yes the villagers can stand up to that ogre, but not without a lot of sacrifice. An adult dragon? Well your village, or even town, is probably toast, but you might get a chunk of it. Without bounded accuracy (as in previous editions) I always had to ignore the feeling I had that, by the book, no civilisation should survive with it's weak 1/2HD commoners.

EDIT: as pointed out above a 10th level barb could reasonably take on 70 peasants. Call those peasant robbers and defeating a force of 70 cut throats sounds pretty heroic/super hero-ish to me me, well beyond the bounds of real life.

 

[the Jester]

i think bounded accuracy should be broken. the idea that kobolds are a threat to a 20th level char appeals to no one

You think wrong. I will happily join the chorus of "appeals to me" that proves it.

and if the heroes are just swords for hire where is the heroism. what makes the party special and capable of legendary deeds?

Not all groups go in for "the pcs are special".

As for your "lazy DMs" comment, that's just being insulting. No need for that. There's nothing wrong with the way you want to play, but that doesn't mean that there's something wrong with the way people who play differently than you play, either. It's just a matter of playstyle preference. There's no badwrongfun going on here.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Specifically the idea that an army of Kobolds is always a threat to the party, I like. 1d6 ain't a problem after a few levels! Roll well on 1E's NO APPEARING (100 ~ 400 IIRC) and then then party may have to do some work. And an occasional encounter like that is good variation in my opinion.

 

[Selkirk]

let's use kobolds for the barbarians example (or some other low level cr creature that bounded accuracy tells us should be able to threaten a 10th level barbarian...unless of course low level creatures couldn't threaten him-where for art thou bounded accuracy? ). the farmers simply an example of the absurdities bounded accuracy creates.

of course adventurer's risk their lives for money...but this can't be the only reason. the farmers not wanting to risk their own lives is one reason but can't be the only one. the real reason the pc's are hired is because they are the only ones capable of killing an ogre. the farmers simply cannot kill it regardless of their courage. adventurers aren't just greedier than commoners they are more skilled (in ways the villagers cannot be).

we even see this sort of thing in real life . a delta force soldier can fight and kill things i simply cannot. years of specialized training have given them skills and abilities i can't have just by picking up a a gun-i simply cannot do the things they are capable of. no matter how much i want to play nba basketball i would never beat an nba player in a game of one on one (never...not once). but with bounded accuracy we see kobolds capable of challenging highly skilled soldiers or bakers able to identify magic items that leave a sage stumped.

there simply isn't enough separation between adventurers and the people hiring them to do these jobs. so we are left with the rather pisspoor rationale that the adventurers are the only ones crazy enough to do these jobs...not the actual reasonable rationale-the adventurers are the only ones capable of doing these jobs. heroism in 5e is hiring a mob of pikemen or better yet 10 archers.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I think that then, 5E is not for you. Delta force soldiers cannot kill any 'thing' that 'you' (assuming average civilian) cannot. They can just do it with a heck of a lot less casualties it would take a bunch of armed civilians, just as in 5E. If your preference is that an ogre can march through a civilised nation, killing everything it meets (unless it meets a levelled character) then 5E is for sure not going to work for that world view, rules wise. It is not designed that way, and many of us like it. It can be changed, like any RPG, in which you can give, say, 1E fighter like multiple attacks against 1HD or much lower HD creatures. So that 7HD ogre gets 7 attacks per round against <1HD types, then that ogre IS virtually undefeatable by a peasant group, unless you are talking an army rather than village.

 

[Sacrosanct]

yeah, I think your analogies are pretty far off. I'm pretty sure a dozen guys as skilled as me going against one Tom Brady in a game of football would have a good chance of winning. How is he going to stop all of us?

and speaking as a military veteran, anyone with a gun can kill another. If you want your real life example of untrained mobs killing the best of the best, I suggest you read up on a particular situation that hits home for me: the battle of Mogadishu