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

[TwoSix]

The answer there is to take away the have-to-make-a-choice element by simply baking most of the h-prog into the classes. You get to x-number of xp in class A, you gain this ability. Get to y-number, you gain that ability.

Then the only point of choice becomes what class to take, or to multi into. Once you're in a class, it's all hard-wired.

I mean, if the class doesn't progress vertically (as in, not providing bonuses to attacks, HPs, other modifiers), then that's basically making the class into an extra long feat chain. I could get behind that, provided there's quite a few classes and multiclassing is pretty open. My 5e gestalt idea isn't really that different from that sort of model, honestly.

 

[Gammadoodler]

Interesting shortcut, but fails to take into account the disparity in combat ability between 17th-level characters of different classes.

This would be better if used in something like a 3e system where every character has a built-in BAB score; 'minion 17' would mean it's a minion to anyone with a BAB of +17 or higher but BAB of +16 or lower have to kill it the hard way.

Could make it crunchier, yeah, if folks have the appetite for it.

That said, even with the version I mentioned, the PC still has to hit, and lower combat power classes would have a harder time doing that.

 

[Minigiant]

I mean, if the class doesn't progress vertically (as in, not providing bonuses to attacks, HPs, other modifiers), then that's basically making the class into an extra long feat chain. I could get behind that, provided there's quite a few classes and multiclassing is pretty open. My 5e gestalt idea isn't really that different from that sort of model, honestly.

Less feat chains and more feat library like early 5e.

Each feature gained is an unlock of a subsystem or removal of a restriction. None of which stacks. Whiich is cool.

The typical problem with these styles of games is that you run out of mutually exclusive stuff to add. Which is why you only see these in RPGs of licensed IP. They are terrible for revenue streams.

 

[ezo]

Ok, so since I checked this morning... (post 439), there have been over 90 posts (post 533) until now! Geez, what is going on with this thread LOL!

But hey, good news is, we can expect more of the same (of things that don't work).

Preach, man, preach!

Bounded accuracy essentially moves to expected damage (DPR) as all that really matters.

Very true. So much to the point our other DM considered removing attack rolls completely and just rolling damage.

IME, in 'classic' (A)D&D games, progression was the main reward during the sucky low levels. Once PCs reached the levels that didn't suck so much, progression both slowed and became less important. (With "the levels that didn't suck so much" being defined differently by different groups.)

Now it certainly happened that games were started at higher, less-sucky levels with slower progression from the get-go, but those games were seen as "atypical" D&D games, even in the circles where they were common.

Interesting. IME (A)D&D games back in the day were never about leveling up. When I DM's I tracked XP for everyone, and simply told them "you level up" when they we able to train, etc. Even in game where the players tracked their own XP, it wasn't a big deal... probably because you rarely got much. A lot of times all you got we a hit die. Other times you might hit a level up and get a hit die, decreased THAC0, better saves, weapon and non-weapon proficiency, and possibly a class feature! Those were obviously the keystone levels!

Where is the progression?

In everything else PCs get. Pretty much every class gains something every level of the game, even if it is simply a hit die and better spells. You can have a mid-level character with over 20 features! If you really look at things, PCs progress A LOT in many different ways...

Perhaps it still feels like not enough, even when taken as a whole?

This is where you get into class features, if spellcasters bother you that much.

Yeah, this.

Number Go Up is tried and true game design for progression, but what if D&D focused a bit more on horizontal growth instead of vertical growth?

This is something my friend, and many of us in both our groups, have been working on for the last few years. IMO, 5E has more than enough horizontal growth given the number of features PCs get.

I've been kicking around the idea of a 5e hack where leveling stops at 5 (much like the old e6 idea for 3e).

If you want feedback, DM me. @DND_Reborn and the rest of us have explored the L5 to L12 varations of the game for the last couple years now. I know he'd probably DM with you on some of it, even though he's not on the forum anymore. I'd let him know.

Best of luck. Any time you touch the overwhelming power and versatility of Wizards, you get vocal, nasty condemnation.

Or you get overwhelming agreement and support. Lots of threads on the forum over the years has been about nerfing casters, Wizards as part of that even more so.

Every homebrew version/ house-rule concerning Wizards and their spells is about decreasing their impact in our games.

In 1e ogres had around 30 hit points if that.

LOL, average of 19 (4d8+1). Those were the days...

 

[Jaeger]

FWIW:

'Bounded Accuracy' just means that D&D's task resolution mechanic obsensively works the same as most skill based RPG systems.

For Example:

CP2020 (1993)
Task Difficulties:
Easy 10+
Average 15+
Difficult 20+
Very Difficult 25+
Nearly Impossible 30+

5e D&D (2014)
Typical DCs:
Very Easy 5+
Easy 10+
Moderate 15+
Hard 20+
Very Hard 25+
Nearly Impossible 30+

But as people have noted; There are implementation quirks...

Notably because D&D is not a skill based RPG: Which have HP largely fix at character creation. And where players are largely free to choose how their stats and skills improve as they gain XP. (With a generally much, much, flatter power curve than 3-4e D&D.)

But 5e like 3-4e D&D is a Level based game; and all your "skills", and Hit Points, go up at a fixed progression from levels 1-20. (All while still trying to have a bigger power curve than what you would see in a skill based game.)

So right off the bat 5e was trying to reconcile some fairly contradictory design paradigms.

In my opinion; Their attempts to reconcile how the contradictory design goals of the game work together were not good, and have resulted in the issues many posters rightly point out.

They just didn't take the time to properly sort it all out before 5e got kicked out the door...

 

[I'm A Banana]

i wonder if you could have a small array of 'bonus types' that you can only have one of each, so you can still strategise about aquiring different bonuses but the total number of potential numbers you're adding is capped so the stacking doesn't get too stupid and you don't have 12 different +1s, 2s and 3s to add.
so for example you'd have:
your inherent flat bonus (PB/expertise+Modifier)
an external flat bonus (pass without trace, aura of protection)
a rolled dice bonus (bardic inspiration, bless)
and adv/dis

This was actually 3e's strategy - bonus types.

In practice, we just got a lot of different bonus types.

 

[Maxperson]

Then where is the growth occurring?

We can't have "ballooning" HP, which is something 5e already has. (Despite the many bitter complaints about 4e having crazy high HP, 5e characters regularly exceed their 4e counterparts, even without accounting for the fact that 4e has 10 additional levels.)

We can't have "ballooning" AC, which means that player character AC never grows more than, roughly, 3-5 points across 20 levels. Light armor characters get that from Dexterity growth. Heavy and medium armor characters get it from buying better armor.

We can't have "ballooning" attack bonuses, so the entirety of a character's growth is going from +5 at first level (+2 prof, +3 stat) to +11 at 17th level (+6 prof, +5 stat). Maybe +14 if the GM is incredibly generous and actually gives out so-called "powerful" magic items. A whopping 9 points, total.

Where is the progression?

None of the parts individually are allowed to express it, and three lackluster and disparate things stacked together don't somehow gel together into a satisfying whole. That's literally what the original comment you replied to was saying. Piecemeal nibbles and bites fall short.

The idea that you can only have 3-5 AC points over 20 levels or +6 for proficiency over 20 levels is wrong. You can have 6-10 AC and +10 proficiency if you like. Bounded accuracy wasn't intended to make goblins a threat to 20th level characters. It was intended to just extend their use for more than 1 or 2 levels.

WotC over bounded the game. They really should have done something like the above and had goblins be a threat for 4ish levels, rather than 8 or 10. You don't need to "balloon" anything at all in order to have advancement.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I do agree with you that I don't think the game would be appreciably more difficult to play were the rules to include a few more variations in bonuses/penalties. Even if the game chose to allow multiple Advantages and Disadvantages to stack, and the game expanded the +2 / +5 bonus from Cover to be used in a few more situations (besides just AC)... you could probably reach a nice spot of variance but ease-of-use that you are advocating for.

That being said... I also think it would be rather easy for a DM that wanted these additions to the modifier game to just add them to the game themselves right now, even without WotC doing it. The stacking of Adv/Disad wouldn't even need the DM to think up new things... they just count the number of Advantages found as per the standard rules and roll a d20 for each, and subtract a d20 for every Disadvantage that came up too. That way the players would be able to "look" for Advantages continuously as you point out and no longer just sit back (and the DM can throw more Disads out there too.)

Might be great for some DMs, might be easily ignorable for others. Which is the hallmark of a 5E design rule.

Yeah, I'm of the opinion we should have a two- or three-tier model as the baseline, which DMs can choose to ignore/reduce.

Ad/Dis is a tug of war. Whichever has most wins.

Various sources can give a Perk (+2)--this fills the spot for "basic benefits." If you have a significant benefit, or multiple Perks, you have an Edge (+5). A problem? You've got a Hitch (-2), or if it's a serious problem/multiple Hitches, a Fault (-5).

So perhaps there's a big problem (Fault, -5), but then you come up with a clever plan that might just make the difference--or it might not. Now you have a Fault and Advantage, which means failure is a distinct possibility, but the odds of getting lucky are quite high.

That's a much richer environment, without giving such massive spread to the possible benefits. The problem is, flattening a deep thing is, in this case, dramatically easier than adding depth to a flat thing. It's quite easy to say, "Any time something would give you a Perk or Edge, you have Advantage, and Advantage does not stack (and likewise for Hitch/Fault and Disadvantage)." It's pretty much impossible to re-work every single thing that only gives Ad/Dis so that the above system is integrated in a way that's both effective and balanced.

 

[Minigiant]

The idea that you can only have 3-5 AC points over 20 levels or +6 for proficiency over 20 levels is wrong. You can have 6-10 AC and +10 proficiency if you like. Bounded accuracy wasn't intended to make goblins a threat to 20th level characters. It was intended to just extend their use for more than 1 or 2 levels.

WotC over bounded the game. They really should have done something like the above and had goblins be a threat for 4ish levels, rather than 8 or 10. You don't need to "balloon" anything at all in order to have advancement.

Now yer getting it and admitting it.

WOTC over-bounded 5e's accuracy and AC then over compensated elsewhere.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The idea that you can only have 3-5 AC points over 20 levels or +6 for proficiency over 20 levels is wrong. You can have 6-10 AC and +10 proficiency if you like.

And that will be the only thing you get better at, because you blew everything you had on doing so. Everything else is locked quite hard in place--and because 5e is just as much a Red Queen's Race as 3e was, just with lower numbers, you're still falling behind on all the things that don't get better. WotC themselves got caught by this, with what I call the "ghoul surprise." Because saving throws don't get better but save DCs get harder, you become more susceptible to danger at higher levels.

(And this, incidentally, is precisely why you want a half-level bonus, as opposed to no bonus at all. Because the enemies do actually get tougher! And now 5e characters fall behind on every save they aren't proficient with. Which was one of the extremely few criticisms semi-permitted of early 5e.)

Bounded accuracy wasn't intended to make goblins a threat to 20th level characters. It was intended to just extend their use for more than 1 or 2 levels.

That's straight-up contrary to what the designers actually said--the literal words they used.

WotC over bounded the game. They really should have done something like the above and had goblins be a threat for 4ish levels, rather than 8 or 10. You don't need to "balloon" anything at all in order to have advancement.

Except that you do--because that's exactly what "ballooning" is defined to be by most folks who invoke the term. Having things be useful for 8 or 10 levels is a barely tolerable floor, not an excessive ceiling.