D&D General Explain Bounded Accuracy to Me (As if I Was Five)

[Thomas Shey]

In my experience, parties take a portfolio approach to skill coverage, since they typically will only need one person to be good enough at a skill in a given moment.

Usually. Stealth is a blatant exception, and you can hit some others once you get out of a hardcore adventuring paradigm (which, to be clear, usually means well outside the D&D-sphere).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Is it though?

There's nothing elsewhere in the class or either of the two PHB subclasses that refers to Jack of all Trades. The ability itself has no narrative justification or flavor description at all.. and at various subsequent levels, they get additional skill proficiencies and/or expertise which supersede Jack of all Trades. And on top of all that, it's not like there's a bunch of support from the class writeup. It's so focused on magic and music, there's barely a mention of skills at all.

Near as I can tell it's a thing that they get, sure. But there's no real reason, outside of inertia, that they should have it or that it should be limited to just them.

Well, they've leaned into JoT things for a long time; that's what happens when you got your start as a Fighter/Mage/Thief.

 

[ezo]

Well, they've leaned into JoT things for a long time; that's what happens when you got your start as a Fighter/Mage/Thief.

Actually, that's what happens when you get your start as a Fighter -> Thief -> "Bard" (Druidish).

 

[Gammadoodler]

Usually. Stealth is a blatant exception, and you can hit some others once you get out of a hardcore adventuring paradigm (which, to be clear, usually means well outside the D&D-sphere).

Certainly, was intending to only speak generally.

It does mean, though, that for 'usual D&D', there are pretty immediate diminishing returns for skill overlap on most all skills within the party, even for the skills that aren't almost completely worthless within the normal play environment. And since there are such tight limitations on player options, players have significant disincentive to pick up skills using those player options.

 

[ezo]

While many skills only require a single PC to be "good at it", there are many which I often see a lot of overlap, some not as much, and some hardly ever. Of course, this is just my own experience:

Most overlap:

• Perception
• Stealth
• Athletics
• Arcana
• Survival

Some overlap:

• Investigation
• Persuasion
• Acrobatics
• Medicine
• Insight

Rare overlap:

• Deception
• Intimidation
• Performance
• Sleight of Hand
• Animal Handling
• Nature
• Religion
• History

 

[Gammadoodler]

While many skills only require a single PC to be "good at it", there are many which I often see a lot of overlap, some not as much, and some hardly ever. Of course, this is just my own experience:

Most overlap:

• Perception
• Stealth
• Athletics
• Arcana
• Survival

Some overlap:

• Investigation
• Persuasion
• Acrobatics
• Medicine
• Insight

Rare overlap:

• Deception
• Intimidation
• Performance
• Sleight of Hand
• Animal Handling
• Nature
• Religion
• History

That seems a fair enough approximation. And for how many of these skills is there a significant benefit to the party for having that overlap?

Probably..

• Stealth
• Perception (maybe)
• Insight (maybe)

• Survival (maybe..and only if you're just doing all the wilderness and all the tracking..and you don't have a Ranger)
• Athletics (maybe, but really that's mostly related to combat maneuvers..only applies if the PC is excellent at it..and it's mostly taken by STR builds, and there is no other skill that uses the primary attribute for STR builds, so if you have more than one strong dude in the party, you're gonna get overlap)
• Acrobatics (maybe.. only and explicitly for escaping grapples)

 

[Thomas Shey]

Actually, that's what happens when you get your start as a Fighter -> Thief -> "Bard" (Druidish).

The AD&D bard was not actually the first version. There was a commonly used one that appeared in the Strategic Review that was just as I described, with a layer of musical magic and some lore bolted on top.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Certainly, was intending to only speak generally.

It does mean, though, that for 'usual D&D', there are pretty immediate diminishing returns for skill overlap on most all skills within the party, even for the skills that aren't almost completely worthless within the normal play environment. And since there are such tight limitations on player options, players have significant disincentive to pick up skills using those player options.

Its not even limited to D&D, honestly; in most games the benefits to having duplication outside of combat and maybe medicine are pretty limited.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That seems a fair enough approximation. And for how many of these skills is there a significant benefit to the party for having that overlap?

Probably..

• Stealth
• Perception (maybe)
• Insight (maybe)

All you need for Perception to be desirable for almost everyone is for there to be any separation of characters, even by a small distance, in potentially hostile situations.

• Survival (maybe..and only if you're just doing all the wilderness and all the tracking..and you don't have a Ranger)
• Athletics (maybe, but really that's mostly related to combat maneuvers..only applies if the PC is excellent at it..and it's mostly taken by STR builds, and there is no other skill that uses the primary attribute for STR builds, so if you have more than one strong dude in the party, you're gonna get overlap)

You don't want to be forced to get by otherwise when a jumping or climbing roll is forced on you.

 

[tetrasodium]

While many skills only require a single PC to be "good at it", there are many which I often see a lot of overlap, some not as much, and some hardly ever. Of course, this is just my own experience:

Most overlap:

• Perception
• Stealth
• Athletics
• Arcana
• Survival

Some overlap:

• Investigation
• Persuasion
• Acrobatics
• Medicine
• Insight

Rare overlap:

• Deception
• Intimidation
• Performance
• Sleight of Hand
• Animal Handling
• Nature
• Religion
• History

Interesting coincidence I noticed in your list if you go from most>some>rare overlap it looks like those groupings are also groupings of skills that were merged from many some and few individual skills

Everything in most was two or more skills with arcana being many more. Premerge those skills were often using different attributes or were divided to make doing both well into a nontrivial cost

Some overlap skills were largely divided by what a given class could invest in and functioned nicely to give an experienced to thrust the spotlight at their allies rather than everyone at the table having high odds of saying "oh I'm proficient too"

Rare overlap I think is mostly skills that were always unique with the big change being mature religion & history being promoted to a distinct skill rather than being folded under knowledge as a sub skill like knowledge: religion was.