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

[Selkirk]

yeah but football isn't a game of 10 on 1. it's a game of 11 on 11. would you ever be able to complete an nfl pass in a game situation? i wouldn't be able to. yet the farmer can hit the ogre...

and again this speaks to the mob rule mentality. the mob is simply more effective in most situations than the heroes...why then the heroes? or what is it about them that makes them heroic? if the mob can accomplish everything the hero can then why have the heroes? what makes them legend...a lust for gold and a certain idiocy/stubborness-a refusal to hire the local militia? no, what makes the hero a legend is the ability to take on opponents that the commoners cannot defeat (not ever).

with bounded accuracy heroes are slightly better than commoners at most things and still remain vulnerable to the weakest enemies at levels when they shouldn't be. but again this is the basic set of rules and very conservative-phb2 will actually be the game. and ultimately it's a matter of taste and style, some people like mud and grime fantasy others like heroic fantasy.

notes-and in fairness spellcasters can do a number of things ordinary commoners cannot do-but still troubling that the baker can identify the bag of holding that leaves our 12th level wizard stumped

 

[Sacrosanct]

yeah but football isn't a game of 10 on 1. it's a game of 11 on 11. would you ever be able to complete an nfl pass in a game situation? i wouldn't be able to. yet the farmer can hit the ogre....

I think either you're missing the point of bounded accuracy, or you're not applying the same standard to your analogies with in game examples. In order for your sports analogies to even be remotely appropriate (they are fundamentally flawed anyway, but putting that aside), they have to be just like the in game example. I.e., a large group of unskilled vs. one very skilled. Of course 10 level 1 opponents wouldn't ever win against 10 level 5 opponents, just like 10 of me wouldn't win at football or basketball against 10 pros. But a dozen level 1 opponents against a single 5th level opponent might have a chance, just like 10 of me against 1 pro might have a chance.

 

[Selkirk]

let's drop the rl analogies. they are rather pointless. my entire point is that adventurers are highly skilled in ways that commoners could never be. they are the elite(with skillsets and abilities that make them untouchable compared to a villager) but with bounded accuracy they are nothing more than stronger commoners.

i don't like mud and grime fantasy (d&d isn't built for that). 5e's design is purposefully very conservative . a limited trial balloon upon which an actual game can be built.

i suppose my biggest gripe with 5e is the lack of separation (it does occur but only at very high levels) between chars and minions. now going back to op ...i support the idea of tomes and increasing stat limits. but a better fix imo is to simply increase the proficiency bonuses.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Aside that I totally disagree that DnD isn't built for grime, another thing you'll need to do to increase selection it's too increase AC's otherwise high levels will always be hit. Higher levels will always hit the goblins but in 5E the gobs have a decent chance hitting back! But once you do that sort of thing you're really messing with the math.

 

[Fanaelialae]

let's drop the rl analogies. they are rather pointless. my entire point is that adventurers are highly skilled in ways that commoners could never be. they are the elite(with skillsets and abilities that make them untouchable compared to a villager) but with bounded accuracy they are nothing more than stronger commoners.

i don't like mud and grime fantasy (d&d isn't built for that). 5e's design is purposefully very conservative . a limited trial balloon upon which an actual game can be built.

i suppose my biggest gripe with 5e is the lack of separation (it does occur but only at very high levels) between chars and minions. now going back to op ...i support the idea of tomes and increasing stat limits. but a better fix imo is to simply increase the proficiency bonuses.

In 5e adventures ARE skilled in ways that commoners never could be. The odds of a single peasant defeating an ogre borders on the impossible. Even if that peasant rolls a natural 20 on every attack he makes and rolls max damage, it would still take him 8 rounds to kill the ogre. The ogre is guaranteed to kill the peasant the first time he hits and has much better odds of actually hitting the peasant. Even a kobold or orc would only have marginally better odds than the peasant. On the other hand, a low level fighter (say 4th level) has good odds of winning in a one on one fight against the ogre. That doesn't even take into account magic users, who can do all sorts of crazy things that no ordinary person could ever hope to.

A four person party of 10th level adventurers is more powerful that a 210 person legion of peasants. That's quite legendary in my book. Show me a four-man delta force team that could take on a gang of 210 untrained people who have guns, in a straight fight, and win.

High level adventurers are superhuman by RL terms. It's just that they're not likely to be able to take on a 1,000 man army in a frontal assault. Using hit and run tactics, probably. But not in a straight fight. They're legendary, but nonetheless mortal, and that's the benefit of bounded accuracy.

 

[Ahrimon]

Chalk me up as another one who loves bounded accuracy. It fixes so many problems DnD has had for me throughout the years.
No more expecting every place you go to have appropriate creatures for your levels. i.e. the goblin hills can remain the goblin hills and not become the orc hills just because the characters level up. (Admittedly not a problem with some games)
No more high level PCs threatening the royalty because they could simply wipe out the castle without any threat to themselves.
etc.

PCs are now real life heroes, not mythical superheros with 5e and I love it.

Also, why are you saying the PCs would get no experience for fighting a mob of lower level creatures? If the encounter is appropriately dangerous the PCs get XP. Fight 1 goblin at 10th level get nothing. Fight 100 goblins at 10th level and get XP.

 

[Selkirk]

Aside that I totally disagree that DnD isn't built for grime, another thing you'll need to do to increase selection it's too increase AC's otherwise high levels will always be hit. Higher levels will always hit the goblins but in 5E the gobs have a decent chance hitting back! But once you do that sort of thing you're really messing with the math.

yeah the math would need work . keep prof bonuses flat at first level (if you don't then increasing prof bonuses won't matter much). but from there something relatively simple like taking the higher level tier bonus shouldn't affect the basic math and would have the effect of separating the characters from the goblins. of course the highest prof would be increased as well. or you could simply play it flat for tier 1 and 2 and start jumping at tier 3.

it's better than magic item stat increases because magic items are dm fiat and has been pointed out that magic items intended for certain classes will almost certainly not go to them . belt of hill giant strength going to the 11 str rogue vs the 18 str fighter for instance...

In 5e adventures ARE skilled in ways that commoners never could be. The odds of a single peasant defeating an ogre borders on the impossible. Even if that peasant rolls a natural 20 on every attack he makes and rolls max damage, it would still take him 8 rounds to kill the ogre. The ogre is guaranteed to kill the peasant the first time he hits and has much better odds of actually hitting the peasant. Even a kobold or orc would only have marginally better odds than the peasant. On the other hand, a low level fighter (say 4th level) has good odds of winning in a one on one fight against the ogre. That doesn't even take into account magic users, who can do all sorts of crazy things that no ordinary person could ever hope to.

A four person party of 10th level adventurers is more powerful that a 210 person legion of peasants. That's quite legendary in my book. Show me a four-man delta force team that could take on a gang of 210 untrained people who have guns, in a straight fight, and win.

High level adventurers are superhuman by RL terms. It's just that they're not likely to be able to take on a 1,000 man army in a frontal assault. Using hit and run tactics, probably. But not in a straight fight. They're legendary, but nonetheless mortal, and that's the benefit of bounded accuracy.

if this is true then bounded accuracy doesn't really exist. but we know that it unfortunately does. which is why you would see kobolds smacking 8th level chars-and the numbers don't have to be that high. the game is highly dependent on initiative (winning is the difference between walk in the park and lame grinder).

and the argument really isn't that kobolds can tpk a high level party but that they can pose a challenge... what's the point of all this? what the mobs effectively do is function as resource drains and timesinks for higher level parties. and because they are mathematically viable...the logical solution (just don't have minions) isn't viable either for immersion reasons.

so how do you get around the tyranny of the mobs. the characters have to become more powerful relative to the mobs. magic items are one way but for the reasons outlined above a very flawed one. you either have to increase prof bonuses or offer more feats so that you can separate the wheat from the chaff. because ultimately we are after high adventure and stirring tales of defeating high level foes...not lame brawls with orcs that we have beaten 20 times before.

and bounded accuracy makes the first ap laughable. our peasant farmers after struggling with kobolds are now off to fight a dragon . mud and grime meet tolkien...but you still have mud and grime abilities. offering a mud and grime game paired with high fantasy ap's feels like being given a cupcake with no icing.

Also, why are you saying the PCs would get no experience for fighting a mob of lower level creatures? If the encounter is appropriately dangerous the PCs get XP. Fight 1 goblin at 10th level get nothing. Fight 100 goblins at 10th level and get XP.

a goblin is worth a small number of xp for first level parties...100 goblins are worth small numbers of xp for 10th level chars. plus they have no treasure or magic items (the lone goblin has 2 cp...100 goblins have 200 cp). but the real drag is the boredom of fighting the mobs. it's grinding mmo style.

notes-offering more feats is appealing but there is a need for more and better feats. the game has a very limited action economy for most characters.

 

[Hussar]

l/snip

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.

This isn't actually true. There's nothing a Delta Force soldier could kill that you couldn't, assuming the same weapons. He might be a lot better at it than you - thus higher level characters are a LOT less likely to die than lower level ones when faced with the same enemy, but, there's nothing stopping that lower level character from killing that thing.

 

[Hussar]

/snip


a goblin is worth a small number of xp for first level parties...100 goblins are worth small numbers of xp for 10th level chars. plus they have no treasure or magic items (the lone goblin has 2 cp...100 goblins have 200 cp). but the real drag is the boredom of fighting the mobs. it's grinding mmo style.

notes-offering more feats is appealing but there is a need for more and better feats. the game has a very limited action economy for most characters.

That sounds like a lot more of an issue with your DM than the system. If your DM is creating boring scenarios, no amount of mechanics is going to help here. This isn't a mechanics problem. Why would a DM throw groups of 100 goblins at a 10th level party multiple times? Once? Sure, might be fun. Once in a while? Ok, gravy. But often enough that it becomes boring? That's a malfunction of the DM, not the system.

 

[Fanaelialae]

if this is true then bounded accuracy doesn't really exist. but we know that it unfortunately does. which is why you would see kobolds smacking 8th level chars-and the numbers don't have to be that high. the game is highly dependent on initiative (winning is the difference between walk in the park and lame grinder).

and the argument really isn't that kobolds can tpk a high level party but that they can pose a challenge... what's the point of all this? what the mobs effectively do is function as resource drains and timesinks for higher level parties. and because they are mathematically viable...the logical solution (just don't have minions) isn't viable either for immersion reasons.

so how do you get around the tyranny of the mobs. the characters have to become more powerful relative to the mobs. magic items are one way but for the reasons outlined above a very flawed one. you either have to increase prof bonuses or offer more feats so that you can separate the wheat from the chaff. because ultimately we are after high adventure and stirring tales of defeating high level foes...not lame brawls with orcs that we have beaten 20 times before.

and bounded accuracy makes the first ap laughable. our peasant farmers after struggling with kobolds are now off to fight a dragon . mud and grime meet tolkien...but you still have mud and grime abilities.


a goblin is worth small number of xp for 1 1st level parties...100 goblins are worth small numbers of xp for 10th level chars. plus they have no treasure or magic items (the lone goblin has 2 cp...100 goblins have 200 cp). but the real drag is the boredom of fighting the mobs. it's grinding mmo style.

notes-offering more feats is appealing but there need to be more and better feats. the game has a very limited action economy for most characters.

Large mobs don't have to be a "lame meatgrinder". There are lots of great stories about a small group of warriors taking on a much larger group.

At level 1, 2 orcs are a challenge. At level 10, perhaps 20 orcs are a challenge. At level 20, perhaps 100 orcs are a challenge. (Those numbers are just spitballed, I haven't done the math.) The players get to really see how their characters have improved. There's nothing wrong with 2 orcs being a challenge at level 1, then 2 planar orcs being a challenge at level 10, and then 2 half-balrog orcs being a challenge at level 20, but it doesn't have quite the same feel to it.

As I said before, I wouldn't want mobs for every fight, but it's a nice option to have. You also have plenty of high CR monsters to choose from for the rest of the fights.

Whether it's one balrog or 200 kobolds, all fights are time sinks and resource drains, so not sure what your point is there. They both grant XP and treasure. And by the time the characters are high enough level to challenge either, the party has so many attacks and area spells that the kobold fight might be briefer than the balrog fight.

Tyranny of mobs? Well, depending on your level, the size of the mob will have to increase by a lot to pose any realistic threat. Are you saying that if a billion people rise up against a four man team, that group of adventurers should be able to laugh it off and ignore it because they're high level and therefore "special"? At a certain point, the sheer power level of the PCs should dissuade most mobs (non-armies) from going after them. RL riots are often dispersed with nothing more than tear gas. 20th level adventurers typically pack the equivalent of tactical nukes. Not a lot of mobs are going to want to tangle with them once they're on the receiving end of such power. However, you're party is not likely to conquer a nation on its own. If the king raises an army of 10,000 to take you on, you might be in trouble if they can pin you down.

Actually, your peasant farmers who struggled with kobolds are not off to slay the dragon because many, if not all of them, are now dead (kobolds are a fair bit tougher than commoners). Just how mindlessly suicidal are these theoretical peasants? "Hey, Bob, we only had 50% casualties repelling those kobolds; what say you we take on the dragon down the way and see if we can't make it 100%?"