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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The-Magic-Sword" data-source="post: 8240739" data-attributes="member: 6801252">I disagree with Thompson's definition of bounded accuracy (and had other sources discussing this in more detail that I've misplaced, oops) in that it conflates two interrelated concepts, both of which 5e explores-- the influence of level in causing bonuses to go up, and the influence of bonuses capable of overwhelming the D20. To his mind they were probably the same thing, but they can be separated, which is what Pathfinder 2e does, so we have to understand it from both dimensions.The first is what he discusses in the article, they don't assume the numbers go up (accuracy wise) from the DM's perspective so a low level player can swing, and potentially hit a high level foe or vice versa. This is also what Pathfinder 2e doesn't have, as you guys mention, a sufficiently higher level foe is effectively invincible.But Bounded Accuracy is also the limitation of bonuses to keep the math within a certain range, when you see people discussing how character optimization in Pathfinder 1st edition often made rolling a d20 formality? That's what I'm discussing as another aspect of Bounded Accuracy, that 5e introduces to prevent that, accuracy bonuses are literally bounded. Pathfinder 2e and 5e both do this in order to prevent the players from optimizing away the d20 in order to keep variance relatively important. Its a big part of why 5e moved to Advantage + Disadvantage, and Pathfinder 2e is so finicky about preventing your from stacking bonuses.In 5e terms that's the same thing, after all if you're already avoiding level scaling, then keeping the rest of the system's bonuses in line is the flipside-- a low level has a chance to win, a high level has a chance to lose, and you can't optimize that away either. But you can also go the Pathfinder 2e route, keep the variance similar but keep the upper and lower boundaries moving to emulate that feeling of level making you directly more powerful.This is also why Pathfinder 2e's definition of Mook and Boss are contingent on their level position relative to the party, a +3 monster is a roughly the same amount of hard to hit regardless of what level it actually is, so you could actually drop level from prof for players (you'd have to eliminate item bonuses from both sides too though, those were hard coded back in after playtest data suggested people liked item upgrades being a requirement) but give monsters level variation in a +4/-4 range, and the balance would be maintained almost perfectly, with feats and stuff resulting in only minor increases and decreases in accuracy.Which is the material variance in the PF2e system, level just serving to let different monsters play different roles to create a sense of power progression (struggling against adult dragons, and then being able to bat them aside with ease later, because they've gone from being +4 monsters to -4 monsters) on a math engine that polices variances to keep the d20 important and to stop character optimization from getting out of control.</blockquote>

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