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

[Vaalingrade]

That's better than +6, but the reason I say +10 is that people like to feel like they are advancing at a decent rate. +1 every other level(approximately) is a good rate of increase. +8 will mean that there will still be times when you don't get an increase for 3 levels, which is a very long time.

Actually feeling like you're progressing is super important.

The fact that bad saves don't progress at all, ability scores are just as important mechanically as proficiency, and the entire system intentionally wants to give an option for PCs never graduating to more interesting monsters would still be a problem though.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It means that people can meaningfully attempt a task and not just be shut down by the GM if it isn’t part of their build. The bard is still going to be better at persuading people than the barbarian, but the barbarian isn’t told to stand in the back and not open their mouth because they have no chance of contributing to social encounters.

I doubt bounded accuracy was intended as a weapon in the eternal battle against the DM.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That's better than +6, but the reason I say +10 is that people like to feel like they are advancing at a decent rate. +1 every other level(approximately) is a good rate of increase. +8 will mean that there will still be times when you don't get an increase for 3 levels, which is a very long time.

Maybe you are right. That is the rate, cross class skills improved in 3e.
And I found that if you took that as standard progression, the whole game suddenly made sense. (At least in 3.0... in 3.5 and pathfinder they decided that class skill progression was the go to increase)

So now progression is start at 2 and increase by 1 every odd level. We end up at +11 then.

Expertise is *1.5?

And half proficiency bonus stays the same?

Or we start at +3, go up to 12 and expertise just gives flat +2 and half proficiency just gives flat -2 to your total bonus?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Some classes are reliant entirely on linear-growth. That is: They don't gain anything new as they level up: Only their numbers go up (a bit).

These classes are unfairly punished by bounded accuracy.

BA essentially asserts that a level 20 character is at most "this" much better than a level 1 character.

Which makes sense as long as all characters rely on the same subsystems, like the skill system. But a lot of characters (read every caster) bypasses the skill system.

This restricts high level martials to be barely more competent than low level martials, while casters become demigods at high levels.

A level 1 character likely has a +6 bonus in a good skill and at level 20 they might have a +11 bonus (5 from ability, 6 from prof). Now consider an obstacle with some given DC.

DC 10: Level 1 character must roll 4 or higher. Level 20 must roll 1 or higher.

DC 15: Level 1 character must roll 9 or higher. Level 20 must roll 4 or higher.

DC 20: Level 1 character must roll 14 or higher. Level 20 must roll 9 or higher.

DC 25: Level 1 character must roll 19 or higher. Level 20 must roll 14 or higher.

At extremely high DCs, where low level characters are very unlikely to succeed, the success rate for high level characters also start to fall off. There's no area where the check is impossible for a low level character and very likely to succeed (or certain) for a high level one.

This is in stark contrast to magic. Assuming that you have access to magic, then as soon as you have access to your key spell you go from 0% success to 100% success.

For example if the above problem was "get through a door" then the wizard can just spell that problem away.

I doubt bounded accuracy was intended as a weapon in the eternal battle against martials.

 

[Maxperson]

So, in some ways you are correct, but your emphasis obscures part of the point.

Strictly speaking, the limit is on the monsters, yes. The characters can rise in bonuses. But they don't have to.

The monsters are bounded, but the point of bounding them is character-side.

Sure. The point of bounding the monsters deals with the characters. It has to or the game likely wouldn't function or would function very poorly. However, the bounds the monsters are tied to don't care whether the PC has -4 or +5 for the appropriate stat, or whether the PC has a magic item to increase things, or whether a feat is in play, etc.

The monster is bounded within the math for its CR, which tends to be fairly easy since they expect the PCs to have 5-8 encounters over the adventuring day, and to take the whole adventuring day to wind down the party resources to the point that the last fight is challenging.

The PCs themselves, though, are not bounded. You can see that because unlike a CR 4 monster spellcaster, a PC can have anywhere from 3 to 20 for his primary stat. A 3rd level wizard with a 3 int is going to be much different in power than a 3rd level wizard with a 20 int. The CR 4 spellcasters can't vary anywhere close to that much.

 

[Alzrius]

Maybe you are right. That is the rate, cross class skills improved in 3e.
And I found that if you took that as standard progression, the whole game suddenly made sense. (At least in 3.0... in 3.5 and pathfinder they decided that class skill progression was the go to increase)

I don't recall class skill progression increasing in 3.5 compared to 3.0. They did away with excluded skills, and consolidated the overall list of skills a bit, but I'm pretty sure that was all.

 

[Charlaquin]

It is not a bound accuracy at all!
First your bonus effectively increase. from +5 at first level to +11 and even +15 and more at level 20 with some magic help.

The thing is, bounded accuracy never meant that attack bonuses never advance. Even in the very first playtest packets, attack bonuses increased with level. What it means is that those advances aren’t needed to keep up with escalating monster ACs. A first level character can hit a tarrasque, and if they have a decent modifier in the relevant ability, they don’t even necessarily need a natural 20 to do it. Likewise, even a CR0 monster can hit a max-level PC. At least in principle - there are builds that can break that, particularly if they have magic armor.

For making hit during game play, 5ed allow way more hit as you level than other edition.
the most bound accuracy edition was 4ed where you never make a hit if you roll below 9.

What? 4e added half your level to all your defenses and all your d20 rolls. That’s literally the opposite of bounded accuracy, and in fact was almost certainly the exact mechanic bounded accuracy was created in reaction to. And I have no idea what you mean about “you’d never make a hit if you roll below a 9.”

 

[Argyle King]

Can you support this with numbers? I think 5e is actually a bit too bounded in some places. I would no worry if proficiency bonus would increase slightly faster.

I'm away from books at the moment. I can be more specific later on.

As I understood it, "bounded accuracy" was (as mentioned in the OP) intended to flatten out the math, have a smaller window of numbers at each tier of play, and etc.

However, there's a rather large difference in proficiency when comparing a character without proficiency in a skill against a character with expertise in a skill. Certainly, someone with expertise should be better, but there are some areas of the game (i.e. Stealth, Athletics to shove, and etc) where that difference is especially highlighted and does not seem to fit the parameters of stated design goals.

Side Note: I've found that using proficiency dice instead of flat bonuses helps.

Similarly, it's somewhat easy to create a character who -even at level 1- is extremely hard for creatures to hit. Over time, new options make doing that even easier as more species have inherent AC bonus and floating ability scores.
High Dex + Shield + Species AC Bonus
That appears to go against the goal of keeping creatures relevant across a wider range of levels.

I'm not sure what exactly WoTC means by "bounded accuracy" but I think 4th Edition (for all the complaints I had about it) made a better attempt at it.

 

[Charlaquin]

In my opinion, part of the OP's confusion may come from a difference between what was stated as a design goal versus how the game works in play.

I said quite a while back that I understand "bounded accuracy" to mean something different than what that phrase appears to mean in 5e.

Which isn't to say that 5e is bad or wrong. It's more that I think there's a disconnect between what is said about how the game should work and how the game actually does work.

Yes and no. That original article explaining the concept makes the pretty bold claim that the system math won’t assume to-hit bonuses increase, and that has never really been true, even in the first packet. However, I suspect that claim was poorly worded, as the full article makes it clear that the real goal was to prevent a situation where certain monsters are completely untouchable until you reach a high enough level, and leveling up automatically makes you untouchable to monsters far enough below your level. And 5e does absolutely meet that design goal.

 

[Charlaquin]

Everyone explains bounded accuracy as shrinking the range of bonuses, but that’s just not how WotC explained it. Shrinking the range of bonuses was the means by which the design goals of bounded accuracy were achieved. The goals themselves were very specifically:

1. To allow low-CR monsters to remain a threat to high-level PCs in large enough numbers.
2. To allow low-level PCs to be capable of hitting high-CR monsters, while still keeping those monsters a meaningful challenge at their intended level range.
3. To make it so accuracy bonuses (such as those from magic items) meaningfully increased your chances to hit, rather than being a requirement to keep your expected damage output in pace with the expected level curve.

And I would say 5e met all of those goals.