Bounded Accuracy and the Breaking Thereof

[Morcleon]

The two things I dislike about 5e the most are magic items being rare and bounded accuracy. Thanks to the Sane Magic Item Prices thread, the former is dealt with. The latter, however, is still an issue. Does anyone have suggestions for ways to remove or drastically reduce the impact of bounded accuracy in a way that doesn't require a complete remake of the system?

The ideas I've come up with involve increasing the rate of proficiency bonus growth and maybe limited scaling of damage/AC/non-proficient saves based on proficiency (maybe 1/2?).

EDIT: I already know that 3.P is a better system for not having bounded accuracy, but changing editions is not the point of this thread.

[Kane0]

What exactly is the outcome you're looking for? The clearer you can be the easier it is for us to help.

For example if you just want a bigger disparity between skilled and unskilled simply increase the number proficiency bonus starts at, or the rate at which it grows.
If you want to throw out the idea entirely in favor of something else, then that requires a bit more work.

Edit: One idea i've toyed around with is half-proficiency, like proficiency in two saves, half in another two, nothing in the last two (and the same idea for skills, attacks/damage, some abilities, etc). Might be helpful

[CaptainSarathai]

I assume you want to change it so that +X Magic Items are not constantly hitting the target?
Players halve the Proficiency To Hit.

In previous editions, Magic Items were levelled by their +X. Do the same here. The level-appropriate +X for your game is equal to Half Proficiency.

This is good because you only need to hand out magic weapons every 3-4 levels, so you avoid the constant item treadmill of having to get a new sword every adventure.

Just remember that if a character doesnt have a magical attack item, they will have a harder time hitting in cpmbat, and so fights will be more dangerous and will also take longer to resolve. I don't suggest doing anything to fix this, as magic items +X to Damage will deal more damage than usual and offset this. The change is slight enough that you should just balance encounters by feel, as usual.

[Tanarii]

When you say bounded accuracy, what do you mean?

Because what the designers meant, as I understand it, is they wouldn't assume that players needed to gain bonuses to keep the same chance of hitting something, or making a skill check. Not that bonuses couldn't be gained, just that, generally speaking, the target numbers wouldn't go up too significantly as levels were gained and different opponents were faced.

Obviously that's not strictly true, but that's why they added a proficiency bonus, which is in theory supposed to scale about the needed amount.

[Morcleon]

What exactly is the outcome you're looking for? The clearer you can be the easier it is for us to help.

For example if you just want a bigger disparity between skilled and unskilled simply increase the number proficiency bonus starts at, or the rate at which it grows.
If you want to throw out the idea entirely in favor of something else, then that requires a bit more work.

I'm looking for a greater power disparity between low and high levels. The goblin hordes that used to be flee-on-sight a dozen levels ago should be nothing more than a strenuous exercise at high levels. Similar examples could be made in regards to skills and spells, with higher level characters easily doing things that most low levels would barely have a chance of succeeding at.


I assume you want to change it so that +X Magic Items are not constantly hitting the target?
Players halve the Proficiency To Hit.

In previous editions, Magic Items were levelled by their +X. Do the same here. The level-appropriate +X for your game is equal to Half Proficiency.

This is good because you only need to hand out magic weapons every 3-4 levels, so you avoid the constant item treadmill of having to get a new sword every adventure.

Just remember that if a character doesnt have a magical attack item, they will have a harder time hitting in cpmbat, and so fights will be more dangerous and will also take longer to resolve. I don't suggest doing anything to fix this, as magic items +X to Damage will deal more damage than usual and offset this. The change is slight enough that you should just balance encounters by feel, as usual.

Actually, I'm just aiming to have numbers in general scale to a much wider range, rather than specifically about +X items. I might just increase the potential of +X items from +3 to +6 though.


When you say bounded accuracy, what do you mean?

Because what the designers meant, as I understand it, is they wouldn't assume that players needed to gain bonuses to keep the same chance of hitting something, or making a skill check. Not that bonuses couldn't be gained, just that, generally speaking, the target numbers wouldn't go up too significantly as levels were gained and different opponents were faced.

Obviously that's not strictly true, but that's why they added a proficiency bonus, which is in theory supposed to scale about the needed amount.

That is exactly the assumption that I would like to get rid of.

[Sabeta]

5e was quite literally built around Bounded Accuracy, and would require an enormous amount of work to completely break away from it. You'd probably be better off just switching editions and then porting 5e features that you liked backwards.

[Kane0]

Oh, that's not so hard then. Its just a numbers game.

Lets say take prof bonus and instead of increasing it every 4th level we increase it on every even level (+2 at level 1, +3 at level 2, +4 at level 4, +5 at level 6, etc until you hit +12 at level 20). Then add half prof to AC, and saves if it bothers you.
This way creatures around your level are still challenging but lower level threats can barely touch you while you hit them easily.

Then iterate numbers to taste.

[Morcleon]

5e was quite literally built around Bounded Accuracy, and would require an enormous amount of work to completely break away from it. You'd probably be better off just switching editions and then porting 5e features that you liked backwards.

The point of this exercise is to find a way to remove bounded accuracy in a way that doesn't involve having to teach all of my players 3.5e, since that would be incredibly time-consuming to put into effect.

Also, the only 5e feature that I really like over 3.5e is the fact that the vast majority of the relevant information is contained within three books, and so is easier to improv DM. It would take a lot more effort to properly compile all of 3.5e into anything remotely as convenient. :smalltongue:

[Cybren]

I mean, you could just play 3.5 core. But I know that's seen as some kind of supreme heresy.


I don't think 5E is the game for you, to be honest. Your question is akin to asking how to play chess without turns

[Kane0]

Bah, you people.

Bonded accuracy is just a way of thinking, it's not an inherent part of the system any more than tactics were in 4e.

If you increase the base or rate of proficiency increase and add a little to defences to compensate you will get the effect you're looking for. Hell, just outright double the proficiency bonus number. There ain't no wrong way to have fun.

[Sabeta]

Bah, you people.

Bonded accuracy is just a way of thinking, it's not an inherent part of the system any more than tactics were in 4e.

If you increase the base or rate of proficiency increase and add a little to defences to compensate you will get the effect you're looking for. Hell, just outright double the proficiency bonus number. There ain't no wrong way to have fun.

But doubling proficiency and adding a bit to AC doesn't really fix bounded accuracy. It's just inflated numbers for the sake of inflated numbers.

[Tehnar]

But doubling proficiency and adding a bit to AC doesn't really fix bounded accuracy. It's just inflated numbers for the sake of inflated numbers.

Its not. Bigger numbers help differentiate things in the context of the game. In a d20 system having small bonuses to your roll means the random input from the die dominates if you succeed or fail at any task. Increasing your modifier by +1 or +2 might as well be no change at all, especially if your bonus applies only to a small subset of rolls you will make during a single session. For example if you roll a skill check twice per session, increasing your modifier for that skill by +1 means you will notice a difference once every 10 sessions, on average. Which is of course way too long, and means that such a skill did not in fact improve in any meaningful way.

Having bigger bonuses ameliorates that problem, but then of course you don't have bounded accuracy anymore.

[Zalabim]

It needs a little tinkering for specifics, but you'd basically have players add their level to their AC, spell DCs, and d20 rolls. Enemies would add their CR. You'd probably have to throw out the encounter difficulty tables. One or two CR = to level enemies would be the same challenge as before, but 10 CR = level/4 (or whatever that UA suggested) would be no contest anymore, and no one would have much hope of scratching the Tarrasque.


But doubling proficiency and adding a bit to AC doesn't really fix bounded accuracy. It's just inflated numbers for the sake of inflated numbers.
That's the whole difference, really. If your numbers aren't inflated enough, you just can't compete, even when you outnumber the enemy.

[2D8HP]

I'm looking for a greater power disparity between low and high levels. The goblin hordes that used to be flee-on-sight a dozen levels ago should be nothing more than a strenuous exercise at high levels. Similar examples could be made in regards to skills and spells, with higher level characters easily doing things that most low levels would barely have a chance of succeeding at. I like that about 5e myself (except for a certain web-comic I'm not a fan of 3.x). To each their own.


Actually, I'm just aiming to have numbers in general scale to a much wider range, rather than specifically about +X items. I might just increase the potential of +X items from +3 to +6 though.
Oh, that's not so hard then. Its just a numbers game.

Lets say take prof bonus and instead of increasing it every 4th level we increase it on every even level (+2 at level 1, +3 at level 2, +4 at level 4, +5 at level 6, etc until you hit +12 at level 20). Then add half prof to AC, and saves if it bothers you.
This way creatures around your level are still challenging but lower level threats can barely touch you while you hit them easily.

Then iterate numbers to taste.Increase and multiple the numbers and make the roll a D100, you can keep a roll of "one" be and automatic faliure, and have a roll of a hundred be a success/critical (so a fifth of a chance for either) that may make it less "swingy".
Will that work for you?

[Specter]

In my campaign I improve proficiency bonus at level 4, and every multiple of 4. Comes down to +7 at level 20, a small change, but that's because I like bounded prof.

What you need is to just improve at every 3 levels (4, 7, 10, etc.). But be careful, any class ability like Expertise that doubles your proficiency will give a player a huge boost.

[Socratov]

Its not. Bigger numbers help differentiate things in the context of the game. In a d20 system having small bonuses to your roll means the random input from the die dominates if you succeed or fail at any task. Increasing your modifier by +1 or +2 might as well be no change at all, especially if your bonus applies only to a small subset of rolls you will make during a single session. For example if you roll a skill check twice per session, increasing your modifier for that skill by +1 means you will notice a difference once every 10 sessions, on average. Which is of course way too long, and means that such a skill did not in fact improve in any meaningful way.

Having bigger bonuses ameliorates that problem, but then of course you don't have bounded accuracy anymore.
It's still bounded, just bounded by a different floor and ceiling.

[Tehnar]

It's still bounded, just bounded by a different floor and ceiling.

I am using the concept of bounded accuracy as 5e defines it. That low level foes still present a threat to higher level heroes, or that small modifiers can compete with large modifiers. If you increase all numbers by some arbitrary multiplier, such a statement won't be true, as now orcs will be hitting you only on a 20, while you will hit them on a 2+.

[fishyfishyfishy]

Due to the fact that what you're aiming to change is core to the design philosophy of 5e, and that you're lining for a simple fix, I don't think you're going to be truly satisfied with this game at all. It's never going to be quite good enough because it would take a compete re-work of the system to get what you're looking for. It is likely that less effort would go into teaching your players 3.5 than it would be to alter the system to your satisfaction AND not annoy the crap out of your players. It's better to be up front about your intentions with them and make it clear what kind of game you want to play.

The online SRD has enough information that when coupled with a single set of core books a group can play 3.5 rather easily.

[Socratov]

I am using the concept of bounded accuracy as 5e defines it. That low level foes still present a threat to higher level heroes, or that small modifiers can compete with large modifiers. If you increase all numbers by some arbitrary multiplier, such a statement won't be true, as now orcs will be hitting you only on a 20, while you will hit them on a 2+.

That's not a definition of of bounded accuracy, that's an application of it. The definition of bounded accuracy is that you limit what range the numbers can become. In 5e the application of it has resulted in lvl 1 threats still beign a threat at lvl 20, but i fyou tweak the bounds of accuracy you can make sure that lvl 1' s are not longer a threat, but lvl 5's maybe will continue being a threat. This ins contrast to, for example, 3.5 where a character could hypothetically get infinite numbers for damage, abilities, spells, etc.

In 5e that's not true: there is a hard limit to what you can get (except for whish and simulacrum shenanigans, but that is a fault not with the system, but with the specific spells and the DM saying yes to insanity). The fun thing is, once you fiddle with proficiency for bounded accuracy, you can make sure that the difference between lvl 1 and lvl 20 os nothing at all, or a chasm. The progression of proficiency dictates the difference between experience and innate gifts. Though, you would do well to correct AC values of gear, spells and monsters to keep them evenly within bounds (if you wish to keep the samve balance between offense and defence as it is now.

[Tanarii]

I'm looking for a greater power disparity between low and high levels. The goblin hordes that used to be flee-on-sight a dozen levels ago should be nothing more than a strenuous exercise at high levels. Similar examples could be made in regards to skills and spells, with higher level characters easily doing things that most low levels would barely have a chance of succeeding at.

(Snip unrelated stuff)

That is exactly the assumption that I would like to get rid of.
Okay. Not to be insulting, but my first recommendation would be to play pathfinder or 3e or 4e then. Since they explicitly don't have anything resembling bounded accuracy built in. In particular 3.5 is close enough to 5e, especially if you play it single class only with no prestige classes or splats. (I've liked every edition of D&D so far, so this is a sincere recommendation, not an attempt to edition war.)

(EDIT: rereading your points on 3e teachability ... Why don't you stick to the 3.5 core rule books? If all players use is the PHB, it's basically as simple as 5e. A little more complicated in combat, and IMO more battle mat oriented, but otherwise close enough.)

However, if you really want to play 5e but change the underlying assumption, there have been several threads on it in the past with some great discussions. I'd recommend googling up forum discussions on revising the skill system in the last year, they will get you most of them.

My personal favorite recommendation is real simple: double all bonuses & penalties, and change all target numbers to double the value above 10. In other words AC/DC 10 stays the same, AC/DC 15 becomes 20, AC/DC 20 becomes 30, and AC/DC 25 becomes 40.

[DanyBallon]

That's not a definition of of bounded accuracy, that's an application of it. The definition of bounded accuracy is that you limit what range the numbers can become. In 5e the application of it has resulted in lvl 1 threats still beign a threat at lvl 20, but i fyou tweak the bounds of accuracy you can make sure that lvl 1' s are not longer a threat, but lvl 5's maybe will continue being a threat. This ins contrast to, for example, 3.5 where a character could hypothetically get infinite numbers for damage, abilities, spells, etc.

In 5e that's not true: there is a hard limit to what you can get (except for whish and simulacrum shenanigans, but that is a fault not with the system, but with the specific spells and the DM saying yes to insanity). The fun thing is, once you fiddle with proficiency for bounded accuracy, you can make sure that the difference between lvl 1 and lvl 20 os nothing at all, or a chasm. The progression of proficiency dictates the difference between experience and innate gifts. Though, you would do well to correct AC values of gear, spells and monsters to keep them evenly within bounds (if you wish to keep the samve balance between offense and defence as it is now.

I think you have it wrong. Bound Accuracy is a design philosophy that a creature or a skill check be a challenge/threat at any level. Keeping the numbers in check is the application of this design philosophy.

[Captain Panda]

Might not be the answer you want to hear, but it sounds like what you're really looking for is a different edition. Bounded accuracy is a key pillar of what makes fifth edition unique and different, and the design is something that is built into pretty much every aspect of play. If it's something you fundamentally dislike, I'd recommend Pathfinder.

I don't shill Pathfinder as a biased Pathfinder fan, either, I vastly prefer 5th edition. But given the nature of what you dislike, it sounds like that'd be the better option.

[LordVonDerp]

I'm looking for a greater power disparity between low and high levels. The goblin hordes that used to be flee-on-sight a dozen levels ago should be nothing more than a strenuous exercise at high levels. Similar examples could be made in regards to skills and spells, with higher level characters easily doing things that most low levels would barely have a chance of succeeding at.

Cast a spell? Or just close to melee so their numbers can't help them.



Actually, I'm just aiming to have numbers in general scale to a much wider range, rather than specifically about +X items. I might just increase the potential of +X items from +3 to +6 though.
why?



That is exactly the assumption that I would like to get rid of. why? It's one of the best parts about 5e.

[Morcleon]

Oh, that's not so hard then. Its just a numbers game.

Lets say take prof bonus and instead of increasing it every 4th level we increase it on every even level (+2 at level 1, +3 at level 2, +4 at level 4, +5 at level 6, etc until you hit +12 at level 20). Then add half prof to AC, and saves if it bothers you.
This way creatures around your level are still challenging but lower level threats can barely touch you while you hit them easily.

Then iterate numbers to taste.

Yeah, I'll probably do that. Will have to run numbers for tweaking, but the concept is solid. I might also just remove all of the caps on stats/AC/etc.


I like that about 5e myself (except for a certain web-comic I'm not a fan of 3.x). To each their own.
Increase and multiple the numbers and make the roll a D100, you can keep a roll of "one" be and automatic faliure, and have a roll of a hundred be a success/critical (so a fifth of a chance for either) that may make it less "swingy".
Will that work for you?

It's not the swinginess that bothers me, but rather the fact that numbers have no real progression.


I mean, you could just play 3.5 core. But I know that's seen as some kind of supreme heresy.

I don't think 5E is the game for you, to be honest. Your question is akin to asking how to play chess without turns
Due to the fact that what you're aiming to change is core to the design philosophy of 5e, and that you're lining for a simple fix, I don't think you're going to be truly satisfied with this game at all. It's never going to be quite good enough because it would take a compete re-work of the system to get what you're looking for. It is likely that less effort would go into teaching your players 3.5 than it would be to alter the system to your satisfaction AND not annoy the crap out of your players. It's better to be up front about your intentions with them and make it clear what kind of game you want to play.

The online SRD has enough information that when coupled with a single set of core books a group can play 3.5 rather easily.
Okay. Not to be insulting, but my first recommendation would be to play pathfinder or 3e or 4e then. Since they explicitly don't have anything resembling bounded accuracy built in. In particular 3.5 is close enough to 5e, especially if you play it single class only with no prestige classes or splats. (I've liked every edition of D&D so far, so this is a sincere recommendation, not an attempt to edition war.)

(EDIT: rereading your points on 3e teachability ... Why don't you stick to the 3.5 core rule books? If all players use is the PHB, it's basically as simple as 5e. A little more complicated in combat, and IMO more battle mat oriented, but otherwise close enough.)

However, if you really want to play 5e but change the underlying assumption, there have been several threads on it in the past with some great discussions. I'd recommend googling up forum discussions on revising the skill system in the last year, they will get you most of them.

My personal favorite recommendation is real simple: double all bonuses & penalties, and change all target numbers to double the value above 10. In other words AC/DC 10 stays the same, AC/DC 15 becomes 20, AC/DC 20 becomes 30, and AC/DC 25 becomes 40.
Might not be the answer you want to hear, but it sounds like what you're really looking for is a different edition. Bounded accuracy is a key pillar of what makes fifth edition unique and different, and the design is something that is built into pretty much every aspect of play. If it's something you fundamentally dislike, I'd recommend Pathfinder.

I don't shill Pathfinder as a biased Pathfinder fan, either, I vastly prefer 5th edition. But given the nature of what you dislike, it sounds like that'd be the better option.

I already know that 3.P is a better fit for me, considering my stupidly high experience and system mastery of it. That is not the issue here. I'm looking for a way to remove or reduce the impact of bounded accuracy on 5e, since teaching my players how 3.5e works would either result in 1) a core game, which would be an exercise in frustration on my end due to the imbalance and sheer dearth of material that core has, or 2) take much much longer than any bounded accuracy fix, considering the amount of system mastery I have.


Cast a spell? Or just close to melee so their numbers can't help them.

why?

why? It's one of the best parts about 5e.

There are only so many spell slots per day. Also, AC rarely goes above 20, so most creatures have a good chance of hitting, which means that large number of any creature are still dangerous.

In order to reduce the effect of bounded accuracy.

Because I dislike the fact that high level characters are in danger from low level threats.

[Naanomi]

Increasing Proficiency Bonus and Damage by level/CR, AC by 1/2 level/CR, and doubling/tripling HP would probably not tear the system in half completely. Note it would go both ways: high level monsters would obliterate PCs not leveled to match

[DanyBallon]

Because I dislike the fact that high level characters are in danger from low level threats.

Like many have stated earlier, Bounded Accuracy is a design that make low CR creatures remain a threat against high kevel PCs, same goes for skill checks. 5e is build and balanced in regard of Bound Accuracy. Trying to remove it is like removing wings on a plane and asking for it to fly without major conception changes.

[Socratov]

Okay. Not to be insulting, but my first recommendation would be to play pathfinder or 3e or 4e then. Since they explicitly don't have anything resembling bounded accuracy built in. In particular 3.5 is close enough to 5e, especially if you play it single class only with no prestige classes or splats. (I've liked every edition of D&D so far, so this is a sincere recommendation, not an attempt to edition war.)

(EDIT: rereading your points on 3e teachability ... Why don't you stick to the 3.5 core rule books? If all players use is the PHB, it's basically as simple as 5e. A little more complicated in combat, and IMO more battle mat oriented, but otherwise close enough.)

However, if you really want to play 5e but change the underlying assumption, there have been several threads on it in the past with some great discussions. I'd recommend googling up forum discussions on revising the skill system in the last year, they will get you most of them.

My personal favorite recommendation is real simple: double all bonuses & penalties, and change all target numbers to double the value above 10. In other words AC/DC 10 stays the same, AC/DC 15 becomes 20, AC/DC 20 becomes 30, and AC/DC 25 becomes 40.
Ehm, please note that splats actually make the classes better balanced and that core is hopelessly and famously imbalanced.

I think you have it wrong. Bound Accuracy is a design philosophy that a creature or a skill check be a challenge/threat at any level. Keeping the numbers in check is the application of this design philosophy.
I disagree: bounded accuracy is a tool. the fact that they bounded accuracy to a specific setting does not mean that bounded accuracy, the tool, can be tweaked to a different setting. As long as you limit the numbers you can get to in a certain way to a finite lowest and highest value, you are using the tool bounded accuracy (as in you bind accuracy between 2 bounds).

[DanyBallon]

I disagree: bounded accuracy is a tool. the fact that they bounded accuracy to a specific setting does not mean that bounded accuracy, the tool, can be tweaked to a different setting. As long as you limit the numbers you can get to in a certain way to a finite lowest and highest value, you are using the tool bounded accuracy (as in you bind accuracy between 2 bounds).

Back in the early days of D&D Next/5e playtest, Bound Accuracy was described as a design goal. How they came up limiting the range of bonuses is the application of that design intent. You may try to expand the range as much as you can, Bound Accuracy will still be the intent to keep low level threat relevent at higher level. Which OP is trying to remove.

[pwykersotz]

In my opinion, the best way to do this is to add scaling multipliers to challenges, notably attack, AC, saves, and saving throws.

When you design a challenge, for every level or CR above the party average that the creature or trap designer is, increase all those values versus the party by 1. For every level or CR lower, decrease them by 1. You could also add damage and HP in this if you like, probably changing one die value of the damage and a simple % value of HP.

Use the party average so you don't need to recalculate bonuses on a per person basis. But doing this will get higher powered enemies scaling very far out of the range of players, and lower powered ones become incredibly trivial. The same for traps. You can alter the multiplier easily as well, so that you can change the scaling if it needs subtle tweaks.

Meanwhile the skill system is flexible enough that you can just assign values how you like, and you can add factors like "Okay, using Acrobatics to weave through the trapped area would be a hard check, DC 20. But it was a high level rogue who trapped it, so I'll add their proficiency bonus (or heck, their character level or CR if you want to go crazy) to the DC, so now it's 26." Or you can just set it how you want it in the first place. I'm just spitballing on this one though.

Do those sound like what you're looking for, or do they miss the mark?

[Captain Panda]

The problem is that the premise of the thread is something like asking to square a circle, or design a wizard without spells. I mean, you could design a wizard without spells, but it goes pretty strongly against everything the core dynamic is about. Fifth edition is built around bounded accuracy, it's a fundamental pillar of design and the only way to properly remove it is to completely rework the system. A swarm of goblins and orcs are supposed to be dangerous, even to higher level characters. That's a feature, not a bug, and trying to remove it will just cause a cascading system failure for the edition.

Were I to try to square this circle, I'd recommend a mathematical formula that increases proficiency the larger the differential between player level and challenge rating, but it'd be a pain in the ass to work in and balance and it probably wouldn't be much fun.

[SharkForce]

i would say what you really need is to rework high levels for certain classes and/or archetypes. a horde of orcs is not much of a threat to a high level wizard (the wizard won't necessarily kill them all in a day, but give that wizard a bit of prep time and i will gladly put down some money on the wizard winning). a high level champion in decent armour can fight them for hours on end, for that matter. a fiend pact warlock with good AC might actually gain more temporary HP by spamming eldritch blast than a horde of orcs could deal to that warlock each round.

5e doesn't scale bonuses. it scales hit points, and it scales abilities... for some classes at least.

if you want high level fighters taking down armies without being a threat, and you also don't want to bork things up horribly, redesign the higher level abilities of classes that don't have a plausible means of defeating hordes of weak creatures. if you redo the bonuses in one place, you're going to need to redo the bonuses in every place, including a lot of places you're not expecting to.

but unless your campaign is literally going to revolve around high level PCs slaughtering hordes of weak creatures, it really seems like something you shouldn't actually care about.

[Socratov]

Okay. Not to be insulting, but my first recommendation would be to play pathfinder or 3e or 4e then. Since they explicitly don't have anything resembling bounded accuracy built in. In particular 3.5 is close enough to 5e, especially if you play it single class only with no prestige classes or splats. (I've liked every edition of D&D so far, so this is a sincere recommendation, not an attempt to edition war.)

(EDIT: rereading your points on 3e teachability ... Why don't you stick to the 3.5 core rule books? If all players use is the PHB, it's basically as simple as 5e. A little more complicated in combat, and IMO more battle mat oriented, but otherwise close enough.)

However, if you really want to play 5e but change the underlying assumption, there have been several threads on it in the past with some great discussions. I'd recommend googling up forum discussions on revising the skill system in the last year, they will get you most of them.

My personal favorite recommendation is real simple: double all bonuses & penalties, and change all target numbers to double the value above 10. In other words AC/DC 10 stays the same, AC/DC 15 becomes 20, AC/DC 20 becomes 30, and AC/DC 25 becomes 40.
Ehm, please note that splats actually make the classes better balanced and that core is hopelessly and famously imbalanced.

I think you have it wrong. Bound Accuracy is a design philosophy that a creature or a skill check be a challenge/threat at any level. Keeping the numbers in check is the application of this design philosophy.
I disagree: bounded accuracy is a tool. the fact that they bounded accuracy to a specific setting does not mean that bounded accuracy, the tool, can be tweaked to a different setting. As long as you limit the numbers you can get to in a certain way to a finite lowest and highest value, you are using the tool bounded accuracy (as in you bind accuracy between 2 bounds). The fact that the devs used bounded accuracy to tweak the game as it is now, does not mean that you can use the same tools and principles to tweak it to another setting...

[Pex]

Another option is to have a feat progression separate from ASI so that high level characters get the goodies of things to do and the high ability scores you're used to. They should come at different levels, Fighters still getting the same number of each as they do now, and decide for yourself if feats that give +1 to an ability score should still do so, just get rid of the +1, or change it to a another minor ability.

[pwykersotz]

As a reminder:


The basic premise behind the bounded accuracy system is simple: we make no assumptions on the DM's side of the game that the player's attack and spell accuracy, or their defenses, increase as a result of gaining levels. Instead, we represent the difference in characters of various levels primarily through their hit points, the amount of damage they deal, and the various new abilities they have gained.

Conventional D&D wisdom tells us that the maxim "the numbers go up" is an inherent part of the class and level progression in D&D. While that might be true, in the next iteration of the game we're experimenting with something we call the bounded accuracy system.

The basic premise behind the bounded accuracy system is simple: we make no assumptions on the DM's side of the game that the player's attack and spell accuracy, or their defenses, increase as a result of gaining levels. Instead, we represent the difference in characters of various levels primarily through their hit points, the amount of damage they deal, and the various new abilities they have gained. Characters can fight tougher monsters not because they can finally hit them, but because their damage is sufficient to take a significant chunk out of the monster's hit points; likewise, the character can now stand up to a few hits from that monster without being killed easily, thanks to the character's increased hit points. Furthermore, gaining levels grants the characters new capabilities, which go much farther toward making your character feel different than simple numerical increases.

Now, note that I said that we make no assumptions on the DM's side of the game about increased accuracy and defenses. This does not mean that the players do not gain bonuses to accuracy and defenses. It does mean, however, that we do not need to make sure that characters advance on a set schedule, and we can let each class advance at its own appropriate pace. Thus, wizards don't have to gain a +10 bonus to weapon attack rolls just for reaching a higher level in order to keep participating; if wizards never gain an accuracy bonus, they can still contribute just fine to the ongoing play experience.

This extends beyond simple attacks and damage. We also make the same assumptions about character ability modifiers and skill bonuses. Thus, our expected DCs do not scale automatically with level, and instead a DC is left to represent the fixed value of the difficulty of some task, not the difficulty of the task relative to level.

We think the bounded accuracy system is good for the game for a number of different reasons, including the following:

Getting better at something means actually getting better at something. Since target numbers (DCs for checks, AC, and so on) and monster accuracy don't scale with level, gaining a +1 bonus means you are actually 5% better at succeeding at that task, not simply hitting some basic competence level. When a fighter gets a +1 increase to his or her attack bonus, it means he or she hits monsters across the board 5% more often. This means that characters, as they gain levels, see a tangible increase in their competence, not just in being able to accomplish more amazing things, but also in how often they succeed at tasks they perform regularly.

Nonspecialized characters can more easily participate in many scenes. While it's true that increases in accuracy are real and tangible, it also means that characters can achieve a basic level of competence just through how players assign their ability bonuses. Although a character who gains a +6 bonus to checks made to hide might do so with incredible ease, the character with only a naked ability bonus still has a chance to participate. We want to use the system to make it so that specialized characters find tasks increasingly trivial, while other characters can still make attempts without feeling they are wasting their time.

The DM's monster roster expands, never contracts. Although low-level characters probably don't stack up well against higher-level monsters, thanks to the high hit points and high damage numbers of those monsters, as the characters gain levels, the lower-level monsters continue to be useful to the DM, just in greater numbers. While we might fight only four goblins at a time at 1st level, we might take on twelve of them at 5th level without breaking a sweat. Since the monsters don't lose the ability to hit the player characters—instead they take out a smaller percentage chunk of the characters' hit points—the DM can continue to increase the number of monsters instead of needing to design or find whole new monsters. Thus, the repertoire of monsters available for DMs to use in an adventure only increases over time, as new monsters become acceptable challenges and old monsters simply need to have their quantity increased.

Bounded accuracy makes it easier to DM and easier to adjudicate improvised scenes. After a short period of DMing, DMs should gain a clear sense of how to assign DCs to various tasks. If the DM knows that for most characters a DC of 15 is a mildly difficult check, then the DM starts to associate DC values with in-world difficulties. Thus, when it comes time to improvise, a link has been created between the difficulty of the challenge in the world (balancing as you run across this rickety bridge is pretty tough due to the breaking planks, especially if you're not a nimble character) and the target number. Since those target numbers don't change, the longer a DM runs his or her game, the easier it is going to be to set quick target numbers, improvise monster attack bonuses and AC, or determine just what kind of bonus a skilled NPC has to a particular check. The DM's understanding of how difficult tasks are ceases to be a moving target under a bounded accuracy system.

It opens up new possibilities of encounter and adventure design. A 1st-level character might not fight the black dragon plaguing the town in a face-to-face fight and expect to survive. But if they rally the town to their side, outfit the guards with bows and arrows, and whittle the dragon down with dozens of attacks instead of only four or five, the possibilities grow. With the bounded accuracy system, lower-level creatures banding together can erode a higher-level creature's hit points, which cuts both ways; now, fights involving hordes of orcs against the higher-level party can be threatening using only the basic orc stat block, and the city militia can still battle against the fire giants rampaging at the gates without having to inflate the statistics of the city guards to make that possible.

It is easier for players and DMs to understand the relative strength and difficulty of things. Under the bounded accuracy system, a DM can describe a hobgoblin wearing chainmail, and, no matter what the level of the characters, a player can reasonably guess that the hobgoblin's AC is around 15; the description of the world matches up to mechanical expectations, and eventually players will see chainmail, or leather armor, or plate mail in game and have an instinctive response to how tough things are. Likewise, a DM knows that he or she can reasonably expect players to understand the difficulty of things based purely on their in-world description, and so the DM can focus more on the details of the world rather than on setting player expectations.

It's good for verisimilitude. The bounded accuracy system lets us perpetually associate difficulty numbers with certain tasks based on what they are in the world, without the need to constantly escalate the story behind those tasks. For example, we can say that breaking down an iron-banded wooden door is a DC 17 check, and that can live in the game no matter what level the players are. There's no need to constantly escalate the in-world descriptions to match a growing DC; an iron-banded door is just as tough to break down at 20th level as it was at 1st, and it might still be a challenge for a party consisting of heroes without great Strength scores. There's no need to make it a solid adamantine door encrusted with ancient runes just to make it a moderate challenge for the high-level characters. Instead, we let that adamantine door encrusted with ancient runes have its own high DC as a reflection of its difficulty in the world. If players have the means of breaking down the super difficult adamantine door, it's because they pursued player options that make that so, and it is not simply a side effect of continuing to adventure.

This feeds in with the earlier point about DMs and players understanding the relative strengths and weaknesses of things, since it not only makes it easier to understand play expectations, but it also ties those expectations very firmly to what those things are in the world. Now, we want to avoid situations where DMs feel bound by the numbers. ("Hey," says the player, "you said it was an iron-bound wooden door and I rolled a 17, what do you mean I didn't break it down?") We hope to do that by making sure we focus more on teaching DMs how to determine DCs and other numbers, and letting them adjust descriptions and difficulties based on their needs.

[Tanarii]

Ehm, please note that splats actually make the classes better balanced and that core is hopelessly and famously imbalanced.Not my experience at all. I played almost exclusively with 3e and 3.5 core, albeit typically not much higher than level 10-12. And there were not particularly significant issues.

Edit: Of course, in a thread about wanting low and high level to be significantly different, it's probably reasonable to assume the OP is going to have play spread across most levels 1-20. :smallwink:

[Socratov]

Not my experience at all. I played almost exclusively with 3e and 3.5 core, albeit typically not much higher than level 10-12. And there were not particularly significant issues.

Ehm, druids are below 10 Op, where they get full casting (like a cleric, but with different spells), shapeshifting, and a companion equivalent to a fighter. Then there are clerics: full caster, in heavy armour, with decent weapon proficiencies. Wizards: full caster, with familliar and bonus feats for metamagic. The most iconicly broken spells are in Core. The worst you can find in splats is incantatrix, planar shephard and Sarrukh. In hte meantime bards get to 3rd tier, sorcerers get something nice, barbarians and fighters get useful stuff. Evne the monk gets something to get up to snuff (tashalatora monk and psionics really works). If you get the right set of books (core+completes+Races+FC) you get a system that has at least some unification beyond teh schizofrenia that core has (there is the casters and there is the rest, best not to mix the two).

unless you play E6, that is reasonably balanced...

[Tanarii]

unless you play E6, that is reasonably balanced...Like I said, I tended to play no more than 10-12. And I never saw any of the huge problems others always go on about. I even had a monk with high rolled stats in one of my campaigns. He was definitely powerful, but it wasn't a huge problem.

[Socratov]

Like I said, I tended to play no more than 10-12. And I never saw any of the huge problems others always go on about. I even had a monk with high rolled stats in one of my campaigns. He was definitely powerful, but it wasn't a huge problem.

a high stats monk isn't powerful, and might even do fine. Between 6th and 12th are more then enough spells and features to break the game to hell and back again. If you have doubts about that, go ask around at the 3.5 corner of this board.

[Knaight]

The problem is that the premise of the thread is something like asking to square a circle, or design a wizard without spells. I mean, you could design a wizard without spells, but it goes pretty strongly against everything the core dynamic is about. Fifth edition is built around bounded accuracy, it's a fundamental pillar of design and the only way to properly remove it is to completely rework the system. A swarm of goblins and orcs are supposed to be dangerous, even to higher level characters. That's a feature, not a bug, and trying to remove it will just cause a cascading system failure for the edition.

Were I to try to square this circle, I'd recommend a mathematical formula that increases proficiency the larger the differential between player level and challenge rating, but it'd be a pain in the ass to work in and balance and it probably wouldn't be much fun.

This isn't 3.5; cascading effects in general tend to be shorter due to the simplification of the mechanics. As for a proficiency difference based on the differential between player level and challenge rating - all that takes is a faster rate of increase for proficiency with defenses scaled up to deal with the new proficiency. Just doubling proficiency and adding proficiency to saves and AC pretty much covers it. If you're feeling fancy you can also drop the 20 ability score cap, although that has a much higher risk of cascading than messing with the proficiency numbers.

[JellyPooga]

Want to get rid of "bounded accuracy"? Easy.

1) Don't change anything about the player characters, NPC's or Monsters.

2) Use the Magic Item rules from 3.5 or Pathfinder. As in literally. Just port them straight on over.

Ta-daa! As if by magic, bounded accuracy is a thing of the past! Feel free to set skill DC's in excess of 30, because a +10 Ring of Jumping is only a minor magic item! Make your players quail in fear when you tell them that the Black Knight has an Armour Class higher than their Hit Points! Watch them laugh as they cut down swathes of goblins and kobolds without fear of reprisal! Glory in the dazzling glare of the Christmas Tree Effect!

This is, by far, the easiest solution to your problem. Magic Items are in the hands of the GM anyway, so there'll be little to no confusion over rules changing or the like. Just be sure to factor the new items into the foes you throw at the players.

[Tanarii]

a high stats monk isn't powerful, and might even do fine. Between 6th and 12th are more then enough spells and features to break the game to hell and back again. If you have doubts about that, go ask around at the 3.5 corner of this board.Wow. During the 3e era, high stats rolled Monks were regularly referred to as one of the more broken things in the game. My how the times they do change!

[Naanomi]

Wow. During the 3e era, high stats rolled Monks were regularly referred to as one of the more broken things in the game. My how the times they do change!
When? Monks were a grab bag of miscellaneous abilities with no synergy, their iconic abilities (movement and lots of attacks) didn't work together, and their 'flurry of misses' was laughable. Lower tier even with 18s down the board. A few specific builds could push them to mid tier but no where near approaching any reasonable caster

[Zorku]

Why not create that disparity in power without touching their character sheets?

Monsters that you think should be utterly inferior to them are auto-hit and they only have 1 hit point.
Alternatively, they use exactly the same stats as before, but now instead of saying that there is a goblin in this square you say that it is a swarm/cluster/squad of five goblins.

You can narrative-ly screw with this by dropping how many weaklings are in a swarm, but now saying that they're wearing marginally better armor than they usually do.


Viola, your party is exactly as powerful as you think they should be again.

[Tanarii]

When? Monks were a grab bag of miscellaneous abilities with no synergy, their iconic abilities (movement and lots of attacks) didn't work together, and their 'flurry of misses' was laughable. Lower tier even with 18s down the board. A few specific builds could push them to mid tier but no where near approaching any reasonable casterHmmm. Maybe I've got my memory of it back to front. And it's because he had high abilities he was competitive. It's been some years lol

[odigity]

This is the silliest thread in as long as I can remember. Why does it have 44 posts?

This thread is like taking your new Porsche back to the dealer and complaining that it corners too well, and asking them to bang up the suspension.

[GlenSmash!]

I for one enjoy bounded accuracy, but different strokes for different folks.

The biggest change brought by bounded accuracy was defense now increases linearly instead of exponentially as you level. Now AC stays relatively the same through the game, but HP increases as you level. If you want to beak this it's pretty simple. Find a way to increase AC as you level up. +x AC items will accomplish this. Proficiency bonus to AC would also do it.

[SharkForce]

This isn't 3.5; cascading effects in general tend to be shorter due to the simplification of the mechanics. As for a proficiency difference based on the differential between player level and challenge rating - all that takes is a faster rate of increase for proficiency with defenses scaled up to deal with the new proficiency. Just doubling proficiency and adding proficiency to saves and AC pretty much covers it. If you're feeling fancy you can also drop the 20 ability score cap, although that has a much higher risk of cascading than messing with the proficiency numbers.

and now saves either never fail (you just gave out free proficiency on all saves to everyone and everything) or always fail (you didn't give out free proficiency in all saves, but the spellcasters got a DC increase and now when they target anything other than your best saves you auto fail) at high levels.

congratulations, your blind assumption that bounded accuracy is somehow not a key part of the system that was built around bounded accuracy have rendered half the classes in the game invalid in one way or another. oh, and also monsters with abilities that have saves got borked too, to be either pointless (their saves aren't going to work anyways, so there goes any power resulting from that) or ludicrously overpowered (go ahead, try and make that DC 24 strength check to get out of a grapple. i'm sure that won't end badly).

if the goal is to make powerful things more able to take down large groups of weak things, just give out a free heroism-type effect at some level. 5 temp HP/round (or some other relatively low value) won't do much to keep a dragon or party of level 15 characters from ruining your day, but will do quite a bit to slow down a bunch of skeleton archers if you have pretty good AC. or even introduce resistance to damage from creatures a certain CR/level threshold apart. or both.

that way, you're working with the assumptions the game already has, and you don't bork the entire universe while doing it.

[Knaight]

and now saves either never fail (you just gave out free proficiency on all saves to everyone and everything) or always fail (you didn't give out free proficiency in all saves, but the spellcasters got a DC increase and now when they target anything other than your best saves you auto fail) at high levels.

congratulations, your blind assumption that bounded accuracy is somehow not a key part of the system that was built around bounded accuracy have rendered half the classes in the game invalid in one way or another. oh, and also monsters with abilities that have saves got borked too, to be either pointless (their saves aren't going to work anyways, so there goes any power resulting from that) or ludicrously overpowered (go ahead, try and make that DC 24 strength check to get out of a grapple. i'm sure that won't end badly).

Doubling proficiencies to the offenses adds +Prof to existing offenses. Adding defense where they weren't to defenses adds +Prof to defenses. At an even level Prof1-Prof2=0 and the effect completely cancels. So no, neither of those things happen. What is seen is that offenses are much more effective against lower level creatures, and the effects of lower level creatures get much easier to shrug off; both of these are intended effects.

As for "blind assumptions", while you're free to project those all you want the only assumptions going in are that if you add a number (e.g. +Prof where Prof1=Prof2) to both something and something subtracted from it it cancels out, and that'e less a blind assumption and more the inevitable result of basic mathematical axioms.

[Sabeta]

The worst feeling as a player is when your abilities don't work. Yeah sure, there are some pretty funny instances that occur from some truly disastrous rolls (We had a guy fail a DC 10 Acrobatics check to jump over lava. He fell in, and was taking very rapid damage, then failed the same check to get out...twice. He ded), but I really and honestly prefer the bounded system.

"Alright Jeff. I've empowered your sword with Thor's Lightning. On this turn you deal +4 Thunder Damage"
"Cool. I'll activate my daily skill which lets me do double damage. I roll to attack"
>Roll 14
>You just barely miss, the lightning on the sword arcs over to him though and you get 4 damage out of a possible 30
"I'm sure glad we used an Encounter and a Daily power for 4 damage."

Maybe this was just a 4e thing. Maybe we had a killer DM. But if Bounded Accuracy keeps me from missing more than 50% of my attacks then I'll definitely take that any day. Though I guess this is straying off-topic and isn't really what TC wants. I still stand by the notion that removing bounded accuracy from an edition built around the concept would require entirely too much work, and you're better off just "downgrading" to either 4e or 3.x

[Zorku]

This is the silliest thread in as long as I can remember. Why does it have 44 posts?

This thread is like taking your new Porsche back to the dealer and complaining that it corners too well, and asking them to bang up the suspension.

Do you even lift gates bra?

[Socratov]

Hmmm. Maybe I've got my memory of it back to front. And it's because he had high abilities he was competitive. It's been some years lol
Indeed. Monk had (at least considering the PHB) the greatest coolness-incompetent effect: the abilites and fluff sounde dimpossibly awesome (flurry of blows! all good saves! Ki strikes!) but in reality they were lackluster at best (flurry of misses, Mad like a hatter, little ways to use your WBL on your hands to upgrade them and to enchant them magically). With quite someeffort you can make them able to tag along a martial party though, even if the unarmed swordsage was better at that...

Want to get rid of "bounded accuracy"? Easy.

1) Don't change anything about the player characters, NPC's or Monsters.

2) Use the Magic Item rules from 3.5 or Pathfinder. As in literally. Just port them straight on over.

Ta-daa! As if by magic, bounded accuracy is a thing of the past! Feel free to set skill DC's in excess of 30, because a +10 Ring of Jumping is only a minor magic item! Make your players quail in fear when you tell them that the Black Knight has an Armour Class higher than their Hit Points! Watch them laugh as they cut down swathes of goblins and kobolds without fear of reprisal! Glory in the dazzling glare of the Christmas Tree Effect!

This is, by far, the easiest solution to your problem. Magic Items are in the hands of the GM anyway, so there'll be little to no confusion over rules changing or the like. Just be sure to factor the new items into the foes you throw at the players.
I don't think that's a great idea... Though it would do great for those stacks of gold that players walk around with in 5th...

This isn't 3.5; cascading effects in general tend to be shorter due to the simplification of the mechanics. As for a proficiency difference based on the differential between player level and challenge rating - all that takes is a faster rate of increase for proficiency with defenses scaled up to deal with the new proficiency. Just doubling proficiency and adding proficiency to saves and AC pretty much covers it. If you're feeling fancy you can also drop the 20 ability score cap, although that has a much higher risk of cascading than messing with the proficiency numbers.
It's a lot like increasing the resolution of a picture.

This is the silliest thread in as long as I can remember. Why does it have 44 posts?

This thread is like taking your new Porsche back to the dealer and complaining that it corners too well, and asking them to bang up the suspension.

I find this a bit insulting. Someone likes the game, but wants to see a bit more difference between lvl 1 and lvl 20, preferably done so that a lowly cr 1 goblin can't do much agianst the players once they are lvl 20: that the differnece in level means more in relation to each other. I think that is a fair question to ask.

[DanyBallon]

I find this a bit insulting. Someone likes the game, but wants to see a bit more difference between lvl 1 and lvl 20, preferably done so that a lowly cr 1 goblin can't do much agianst the players once they are lvl 20: that the differnece in level means more in relation to each other. I think that is a fair question to ask.

The difference between a 1st level and 20th level character facing a goblin in that the 20th level character will survive much longer against the goblin, yet the later still have a chance to hit the character, and if ignored for too long may end up doing signifient damage to the character. That's the desing intent behind Bound Accuracy. And 5e is built around that design intent. It's not a cosmetic feature added on the late, its the very foundation of this edition.

[JellyPooga]

I don't think that's a great idea... Though it would do great for those stacks of gold that players walk around with in 5th...

Why not? Shuffling/Doubling/Tweaking Proficiency Bonuses is only really going to make everyones bonuses higher, on both sides of the equation and ultimately achieve little, while creating headwork for the players. Just using a different set of magic items; one that renders magical weapons and armour on a scale of +1 to +10 instead of +1 to +3 and giving out magic items that actually give a bonus instead of Advantage will actually make a huge difference and break bounded accuracy.

Take The Black Knight; the ultimate bad guy;

- Using 5ed items, he's got; +3 Platemail, +3 Sword, +3 Shield. Sweet. He's got AC:26 and that's about as high as AC goes without temporary modifiers like the Shield spell. With Str:20 and +6 proficiency bonus, he's also got +14 to hit; Wowzer! He hits AC:20 as part of a balanced breakfast and only ultimate badasses have AC higher than that! Still, any mook with +7 to hit (easily available using point-buy, from level 1 if you're an archer) can dent his pride without having to roll a crit.

- Using 3.5 items, he's got +5 Plate, +5 Shield, a +5 Defending Sword, a Luck Stone, a +5 Amulet of Natural Armour and a heap of other gear too. His AC is somewhere around the 40 mark. I won't even bother with his offensive potential. Bounded Accuracy busted enough?

The biggest advantage with this is that it requires minimal changes to the system. All you're doing is introducing bigger numbers through equipment, which was always the thing that really broke any notion of bounded accuracy in previous editions. Without items, numbers were still relatively sane as a rule.

[Morcleon]

In my opinion, the best way to do this is to add scaling multipliers to challenges, notably attack, AC, saves, and saving throws.

When you design a challenge, for every level or CR above the party average that the creature or trap designer is, increase all those values versus the party by 1. For every level or CR lower, decrease them by 1. You could also add damage and HP in this if you like, probably changing one die value of the damage and a simple % value of HP.

Use the party average so you don't need to recalculate bonuses on a per person basis. But doing this will get higher powered enemies scaling very far out of the range of players, and lower powered ones become incredibly trivial. The same for traps. You can alter the multiplier easily as well, so that you can change the scaling if it needs subtle tweaks.

Meanwhile the skill system is flexible enough that you can just assign values how you like, and you can add factors like "Okay, using Acrobatics to weave through the trapped area would be a hard check, DC 20. But it was a high level rogue who trapped it, so I'll add their proficiency bonus (or heck, their character level or CR if you want to go crazy) to the DC, so now it's 26." Or you can just set it how you want it in the first place. I'm just spitballing on this one though.

Do those sound like what you're looking for, or do they miss the mark?

That's probably something I'll end up doing in some way, though it'll probably be linear rather than multiplicative.


i would say what you really need is to rework high levels for certain classes and/or archetypes. a horde of orcs is not much of a threat to a high level wizard (the wizard won't necessarily kill them all in a day, but give that wizard a bit of prep time and i will gladly put down some money on the wizard winning). a high level champion in decent armour can fight them for hours on end, for that matter. a fiend pact warlock with good AC might actually gain more temporary HP by spamming eldritch blast than a horde of orcs could deal to that warlock each round.

5e doesn't scale bonuses. it scales hit points, and it scales abilities... for some classes at least.

if you want high level fighters taking down armies without being a threat, and you also don't want to bork things up horribly, redesign the higher level abilities of classes that don't have a plausible means of defeating hordes of weak creatures. if you redo the bonuses in one place, you're going to need to redo the bonuses in every place, including a lot of places you're not expecting to.

but unless your campaign is literally going to revolve around high level PCs slaughtering hordes of weak creatures, it really seems like something you shouldn't actually care about.

Tweaking bonus values will be more straightforward than redesigning literally every ability in the game. :smalltongue:


This isn't 3.5; cascading effects in general tend to be shorter due to the simplification of the mechanics. As for a proficiency difference based on the differential between player level and challenge rating - all that takes is a faster rate of increase for proficiency with defenses scaled up to deal with the new proficiency. Just doubling proficiency and adding proficiency to saves and AC pretty much covers it. If you're feeling fancy you can also drop the 20 ability score cap, although that has a much higher risk of cascading than messing with the proficiency numbers.

Oh, that's a good idea. I'll be dropping the ability score cap for sure.


Why not create that disparity in power without touching their character sheets?

Monsters that you think should be utterly inferior to them are auto-hit and they only have 1 hit point.
Alternatively, they use exactly the same stats as before, but now instead of saying that there is a goblin in this square you say that it is a swarm/cluster/squad of five goblins.

You can narrative-ly screw with this by dropping how many weaklings are in a swarm, but now saying that they're wearing marginally better armor than they usually do.


Viola, your party is exactly as powerful as you think they should be again.

It's an option, but it's far too heavily invested in DM fiat that I'd prefer to not use.


This is the silliest thread in as long as I can remember. Why does it have 44 posts?

This thread is like taking your new Porsche back to the dealer and complaining that it corners too well, and asking them to bang up the suspension.

More like jailbreaking an iPhone because iOS 10 removed features you liked.


The difference between a 1st level and 20th level character facing a goblin in that the 20th level character will survive much longer against the goblin, yet the later still have a chance to hit the character, and if ignored for too long may end up doing signifient damage to the character. That's the desing intent behind Bound Accuracy. And 5e is built around that design intent. It's not a cosmetic feature added on the late, its the very foundation of this edition.

And that design intent is exactly what I wish to remove. A level 20 character should be able to go about their daily business regardless a level 1 goblin. Make breakfast, do the dishes, maybe go out for a nice stroll or shopping trip, all while only being mildly inconvenienced by an increasingly frustrated goblin trying to hit them.


Why not? Shuffling/Doubling/Tweaking Proficiency Bonuses is only really going to make everyones bonuses higher, on both sides of the equation and ultimately achieve little, while creating headwork for the players. Just using a different set of magic items; one that renders magical weapons and armour on a scale of +1 to +10 instead of +1 to +3 and giving out magic items that actually give a bonus instead of Advantage will actually make a huge difference and break bounded accuracy.

Take The Black Knight; the ultimate bad guy;

- Using 5ed items, he's got; +3 Platemail, +3 Sword, +3 Shield. Sweet. He's got AC:26 and that's about as high as AC goes without temporary modifiers like the Shield spell. With Str:20 and +6 proficiency bonus, he's also got +14 to hit; Wowzer! He hits AC:20 as part of a balanced breakfast and only ultimate badasses have AC higher than that! Still, any mook with +7 to hit (easily available using point-buy, from level 1 if you're an archer) can dent his pride without having to roll a crit.

- Using 3.5 items, he's got +5 Plate, +5 Shield, a +5 Defending Sword, a Luck Stone, a +5 Amulet of Natural Armour and a heap of other gear too. His AC is somewhere around the 40 mark. I won't even bother with his offensive potential. Bounded Accuracy busted enough?

The biggest advantage with this is that it requires minimal changes to the system. All you're doing is introducing bigger numbers through equipment, which was always the thing that really broke any notion of bounded accuracy in previous editions. Without items, numbers were still relatively sane as a rule.

I think you underestimate the complexity of 3.5e's magic items. Even at the most basic, I'd need to give my players each a copy of the Magic Item Compendium (and a link to d20srd.org), to even begin to use it due to most magic items being purchasable. Increasing proficiency bonus, removing arbitrary caps, and adding more scaling will ultimately be much simpler to handle.

[DanyBallon]

And that design intent is exactly what I wish to remove. A level 20 character should be able to go about their daily business regardless a level 1 goblin. Make breakfast, do the dishes, maybe go out for a nice stroll or shopping trip, all while only being mildly inconvenienced by an increasingly frustrated goblin trying to hit them.


And this is why we are telling you that 5e ain't the right system to do it. It's like if you've got a car, but don't like using wheels, so you want to replaced them with something else. It could be done, but it will require some heavy tweaking. While on the other hand, you could stark from a tank chassis and resize it to a car size.

[ZX6Rob]

You ever hear of the Oldsmobile Diesel 350?

Well, story goes, back in the '70s, during the oil crisis, the Big Three American auto companies (that'd be Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, for those not familiar), all got caught with their pants 'round their ankles. Gas prices had surged, and the big, floaty, luxurious land-yachts and tire-shredding muscle cars they'd been peddlin' for the last umpteen years all the sudden weren't in demand, as folks weren't keen on payin' out the nose at the gas pump for a thirsty V8 that saw all of eight miles to the gallon.

So, the managers and the bean counters had it out, one sayin' they needed to start buildin' fuel-efficient engines and the other sayin' that's nice and all, but we ain't sellin' any cars, so how's you wanna' pay for it? Eventually, they turned to the engineers and said, "Y'all need to make this work." Thus began what modern auto enthusiasts refer to as the Malaise Era in the U.S, a period of time characterized by overweight, underpowered, choked-off, wheezy engines shackled to cars with increasingly poor build quality.

Among the various ideas people threw at the wall, seein' what sticked and what slid, was the at-the-time-curious notion of a diesel motor. See, back in the '70s, no one was usin' diesels outside of big-rig trucks and construction equipment, and the ones in those were huge, clattery things that belched black smoke and sucked down fuel like a fat kid with a puddin' cup. But over in Europe, small diesels were startin' to be quite the thing. Sure, they were still clattery, that's part of the charm of compression-fired motors, but they were efficient, and diesel was cheap. Well, cheaper, at any rate.

Now, diesels, they're quite a different beast than your average gasoline motor. It's a different set of problems you gotta' solve when you set out to build one from scratch versus when you're puttin' together a gasoline motor. But ol' General Motors, they figured they could just skip some of that, maybe save a little coin. After all, they had this perfectly good Oldsmobile 350-cubic-inch motor, proven design, been around for a while. They figured they could build a new motor with some of the same tooling as the 350 gas engine. Not exactly the same, mind, they used new parts for all the rotating assembly and what-not, but the dimensions and some other parts would be the same. It was not a clean-sheet design.

Why not, indeed?

Well, for starters, 'cause that ain't how it's done. When you build a diesel motor, there's all kinds of different things to take into account. The combustion chambers're under a lot more pressure -- diesels don't get spark plugs to light up the fuel and air in the cylinder, they have to compress the air-fuel mixture until it heats up enough to explode on its own. Diesels use different fuel -- normal gasoline is a chain of eight or nine or so carbon molecules, whereas diesel fuel is composed of chains of about 20 or so, give or take. You've got different needs for different motors, and that's somethin' ol' GM either didn't realize or, more likely, thought just wouldn't be that much've a problem.

Turns out, the Olds Diesel was a dog. Underpowered, loud, unreliable... It moved a few units at first, like as not due to novelty and a populace thirsty for anything that'd give 'em better gas mileage, but the motor was crap from the get-go. Didn't have a water-fuel separator, so more'n a few got munched because of water in the chambers. Had head studs that were too weak and poorly tightened, so it blew head gaskets like no one's business, especially given the high compression. Bottom end tended to wear out quick, due to too-small main bolts, and that caused no small number of crankshaft failures.

Fact is, it was a poor redesign of something that wasn't ever supposed to be a diesel engine, rather than a clean sheet rebuild with the right goals in mind from the start. It don't really matter how many parts they changed around, it wasn't gonna' work.

Do you see where I'm goin' with this?

Bounded accuracy is built into the core of 5th Edition. From the very start of the game, the designers said, "We want low-level threats to still remain viable into the late game. We want DMs to feel like they are always expanding the list of threats and monsters as their players level, never constricting." That's how this system was designed from the start.

Now, you don't wanna' teach your players 3.5, and I sympathize with you there, it's a bit of a learning curve. I cut my teeth on 3rd, but I had a good group of folks who'd all played before to help me out at first.

You want my suggestion? Go find yourself and your group some of the 4e Essentials books. Run that with the Inherent Bonuses optional rule so's you're not reliant on magic items. Essentials is a great system that takes the best of 4th and runs with it, and it's easy for new folk to pick up and play without a lot of delay. You get scaling gameplay that feels real different at different levels, and you end up with numbers high enough to back that feeling up with math. That level-1 goblin mook can swing at your level 30 fighter all day, he ain't gonna' make him sweat.

Yeah, yeah, I know 4e, boo, whatever. 4e is a great system, especially the latter part of it where they finally figured out how the monster math was supposed to work. Essentials gives you most of what you want, with a low opportunity cost to switch over.

I know you don't want to switch from 5th Edition, but right now, you're lookin' at an Olds Diesel situation. Just don't. However much work it'd take you to rebuild this system from the ground up without the assumption of bounded accuracy is about 10 times as much as it'd take to teach someone 3.5, Pathfinder, or 4e for the first time.

[SharkForce]

redesigning a handful of abilities sounds like more work to you than redoing the bonuses for every single monster and NPC ever, all so that you can wind up stuck with using only a tiny fraction of the already small number of monsters available in 5e.

ok, sure, whatever you say. go ahead, have fun changing numbers if that's what sounds faster to you. personally, I think that by the time you've had to fight your 5th flavor of adult dragon in a single adventuring day for the 5th day in a row, you're probably going to start thinking about how nice it would be if you could use anything else at all, not to mention how absolutely horrid designing a campaign for this mess sounds like.

but, to each their own.

champion in heavy armour with heavy armour master does what you want already, pretty much. if you're looking for a lazy solution, you basically just slap that onto everyone and call it a day.

[Socratov]

The difference between a 1st level and 20th level character facing a goblin in that the 20th level character will survive much longer against the goblin, yet the later still have a chance to hit the character, and if ignored for too long may end up doing signifient damage to the character. That's the desing intent behind Bound Accuracy. And 5e is built around that design intent. It's not a cosmetic feature added on the late, its the very foundation of this edition.
Yes I get that. However, here we have someone who likes 5e's content, but want to create a bit more difference between the goblin and the 20th lvl goblin. Which I say could be done through a correction of proficiency, with similar or at least comparable adjustments to the values of armour and other static bonuses out there. That way, you can still keep accuracy bound between values (the way that they are bound between values right now), just different ones to create the feeling of more distance between the goblin and the lvl 20 adventurer.

Why not? Shuffling/Doubling/Tweaking Proficiency Bonuses is only really going to make everyones bonuses higher, on both sides of the equation and ultimately achieve little, while creating headwork for the players. Just using a different set of magic items; one that renders magical weapons and armour on a scale of +1 to +10 instead of +1 to +3 and giving out magic items that actually give a bonus instead of Advantage will actually make a huge difference and break bounded accuracy.

Take The Black Knight; the ultimate bad guy;

- Using 5ed items, he's got; +3 Platemail, +3 Sword, +3 Shield. Sweet. He's got AC:26 and that's about as high as AC goes without temporary modifiers like the Shield spell. With Str:20 and +6 proficiency bonus, he's also got +14 to hit; Wowzer! He hits AC:20 as part of a balanced breakfast and only ultimate badasses have AC higher than that! Still, any mook with +7 to hit (easily available using point-buy, from level 1 if you're an archer) can dent his pride without having to roll a crit.

- Using 3.5 items, he's got +5 Plate, +5 Shield, a +5 Defending Sword, a Luck Stone, a +5 Amulet of Natural Armour and a heap of other gear too. His AC is somewhere around the 40 mark. I won't even bother with his offensive potential. Bounded Accuracy busted enough?

The biggest advantage with this is that it requires minimal changes to the system. All you're doing is introducing bigger numbers through equipment, which was always the thing that really broke any notion of bounded accuracy in previous editions. Without items, numbers were still relatively sane as a rule.
IMO the difference between your way and mine is you add more numbers to add up (by having more magic items whith more modifiers present), my way just increases one of the numbers used in teh game, and corects for those the values of other static numbers to keep the numbers internally consistent.

You ever hear of the Oldsmobile Diesel 350?

Well, story goes, back in the '70s, during the oil crisis, the Big Three American auto companies (that'd be Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler, for those not familiar), all got caught with their pants 'round their ankles. Gas prices had surged, and the big, floaty, luxurious land-yachts and tire-shredding muscle cars they'd been peddlin' for the last umpteen years all the sudden weren't in demand, as folks weren't keen on payin' out the nose at the gas pump for a thirsty V8 that saw all of eight miles to the gallon.

So, the managers and the bean counters had it out, one sayin' they needed to start buildin' fuel-efficient engines and the other sayin' that's nice and all, but we ain't sellin' any cars, so how's you wanna' pay for it? Eventually, they turned to the engineers and said, "Y'all need to make this work." Thus began what modern auto enthusiasts refer to as the Malaise Era in the U.S, a period of time characterized by overweight, underpowered, choked-off, wheezy engines shackled to cars with increasingly poor build quality.

Among the various ideas people threw at the wall, seein' what sticked and what slid, was the at-the-time-curious notion of a diesel motor. See, back in the '70s, no one was usin' diesels outside of big-rig trucks and construction equipment, and the ones in those were huge, clattery things that belched black smoke and sucked down fuel like a fat kid with a puddin' cup. But over in Europe, small diesels were startin' to be quite the thing. Sure, they were still clattery, that's part of the charm of compression-fired motors, but they were efficient, and diesel was cheap. Well, cheaper, at any rate.

Now, diesels, they're quite a different beast than your average gasoline motor. It's a different set of problems you gotta' solve when you set out to build one from scratch versus when you're puttin' together a gasoline motor. But ol' General Motors, they figured they could just skip some of that, maybe save a little coin. After all, they had this perfectly good Oldsmobile 350-cubic-inch motor, proven design, been around for a while. They figured they could build a new motor with some of the same tooling as the 350 gas engine. Not exactly the same, mind, they used new parts for all the rotating assembly and what-not, but the dimensions and some other parts would be the same. It was not a clean-sheet design.

Why not, indeed?

Well, for starters, 'cause that ain't how it's done. When you build a diesel motor, there's all kinds of different things to take into account. The combustion chambers're under a lot more pressure -- diesels don't get spark plugs to light up the fuel and air in the cylinder, they have to compress the air-fuel mixture until it heats up enough to explode on its own. Diesels use different fuel -- normal gasoline is a chain of eight or nine or so carbon molecules, whereas diesel fuel is composed of chains of about 20 or so, give or take. You've got different needs for different motors, and that's somethin' ol' GM either didn't realize or, more likely, thought just wouldn't be that much've a problem.

Turns out, the Olds Diesel was a dog. Underpowered, loud, unreliable... It moved a few units at first, like as not due to novelty and a populace thirsty for anything that'd give 'em better gas mileage, but the motor was crap from the get-go. Didn't have a water-fuel separator, so more'n a few got munched because of water in the chambers. Had head studs that were too weak and poorly tightened, so it blew head gaskets like no one's business, especially given the high compression. Bottom end tended to wear out quick, due to too-small main bolts, and that caused no small number of crankshaft failures.

Fact is, it was a poor redesign of something that wasn't ever supposed to be a diesel engine, rather than a clean sheet rebuild with the right goals in mind from the start. It don't really matter how many parts they changed around, it wasn't gonna' work.

Do you see where I'm goin' with this?

Bounded accuracy is built into the core of 5th Edition. From the very start of the game, the designers said, "We want low-level threats to still remain viable into the late game. We want DMs to feel like they are always expanding the list of threats and monsters as their players level, never constricting." That's how this system was designed from the start.

Now, you don't wanna' teach your players 3.5, and I sympathize with you there, it's a bit of a learning curve. I cut my teeth on 3rd, but I had a good group of folks who'd all played before to help me out at first.

You want my suggestion? Go find yourself and your group some of the 4e Essentials books. Run that with the Inherent Bonuses optional rule so's you're not reliant on magic items. Essentials is a great system that takes the best of 4th and runs with it, and it's easy for new folk to pick up and play without a lot of delay. You get scaling gameplay that feels real different at different levels, and you end up with numbers high enough to back that feeling up with math. That level-1 goblin mook can swing at your level 30 fighter all day, he ain't gonna' make him sweat.

Yeah, yeah, I know 4e, boo, whatever. 4e is a great system, especially the latter part of it where they finally figured out how the monster math was supposed to work. Essentials gives you most of what you want, with a low opportunity cost to switch over.

I know you don't want to switch from 5th Edition, but right now, you're lookin' at an Olds Diesel situation. Just don't. However much work it'd take you to rebuild this system from the ground up without the assumption of bounded accuracy is about 10 times as much as it'd take to teach someone 3.5, Pathfinder, or 4e for the first time.
This is a really cool story, and surely one that should be taugh tin business school (lesson being: don't be stupid, listen to your engineers. You pay them big bucks to make sure it works, not to make sure you seel crap). However, by your logic, anything that changes the system is detrimental to the system. Which is good if you have infallible devs. Sadly, even this edition does not (though they are great), else it'd be perfect and everyhone would have what they'd wanted.

See OP does not want to turn a gasoline engine into a diesel engine, he just wants to supercharge the engine and now wants to know the gear ratio's and specific settings to make it work. Now I see some poeple going for a turbo and to stop worrying, others saying that if you ant to have more power you should have bought a different engine, but I, for one, am in favour of trying on that supercharger and figuring out wheter we can make it work or not.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Guys. Guys. Guys. Relax. Bounded Accuracy, to borrow a meme, ain't ****. Kane0 had the right of it on page 1:

Oh, that's not so hard then. Its just a numbers game.

Lets say take prof bonus and instead of increasing it every 4th level we increase it on every even level (+2 at level 1, +3 at level 2, +4 at level 4, +5 at level 6, etc until you hit +12 at level 20). Then add half prof to AC, and saves if it bothers you.
This way creatures around your level are still challenging but lower level threats can barely touch you while you hit them easily.

Then iterate numbers to taste.
Math is literally the easiest thing to change in 5e, since everything ties back to one unified Proficiency Bonus. And larger bonuses across the board are only a meaningless numbers treadmill if everything you meet falls in exactly the same level range as you, which should never be the case. Here's what faster numbers growth means:

Low-level monsters become speed bumps, and high-level monsters become more dangerous. In vanilla 5e, a band of goblins at 10th level is still a bit of a threat, because they'll still hit fairly reliably, and you'll still miss them maybe once every swing or three. In SharkForce's 5e, they won't be. You can walk into a goblin village and slaughter it without worrying. And that giant that's a threat to you at 10th? At 1st it would have splattered you all over the pavement and there wouldn't have been anything you could do about it. (5e already kind of has that side of things because of the way damage scales, though).
Mundane skill challenges cease to matter, and formerly-impossible ones come into reach. Admittedly, 5e obscures this somewhat by not actually giving good guidelines about what you can do with a skill check, and you can simulate this by changing what DCs you assign, but... you'll roll higher on your skill checks, so you should be able to do cooler things. It's not rocket science.
Your numbers are bigger, so you're more powerful. The psychology is important, let's not forget. We're bad at statistics, but we're good at counting. Looking at a sheet full of +10s and +20s feels like you're powerful, even if you logically know that challenges will be calculated against your current stats in the same way.


So SharkForce, ignore all the naysayers: you can write out Bounded Accuracy in about half a second if you so desire, and the only consequence will be exactly the sort of "low-level challenges go away" situation you're looking for. Your bigger problem is that most non-spellcasters in 5e don't get much in the way of "bigger, badder" abilities as they level up.

[DanyBallon]

This is a really cool story, and surely one that should be taugh tin business school (lesson being: don't be stupid, listen to your engineers. You pay them big bucks to make sure it works, not to make sure you seel crap). However, by your logic, anything that changes the system is detrimental to the system. Which is good if you have infallible devs. Sadly, even this edition does not (though they are great), else it'd be perfect and everyhone would have what they'd wanted.

See OP does not want to turn a gasoline engine into a diesel engine, he just wants to supercharge the engine and now wants to know the gear ratio's and specific settings to make it work. Now I see some poeple going for a turbo and to stop worrying, others saying that if you ant to have more power you should have bought a different engine, but I, for one, am in favour of trying on that supercharger and figuring out wheter we can make it work or not.

ZX6Rob was in fact spot on! OP is not looking to tweaking and fine tuning the system, he wants to ditch aside what is the framework and replaced it with something else similar, but not fit for it. And I'm not quite sure you get how all 5e mechanics are designed (and are balanced) around the idea that a goblin should be able to damage a 20th level character. If the core design is not what you are looking for, save you some time and find another system that you'll need to do some fine tuning and tweaks. 5e isn't that system.

[JellyPooga]

I think you underestimate the complexity of 3.5e's magic items. Even at the most basic, I'd need to give my players each a copy of the Magic Item Compendium (and a link to d20srd.org), to even begin to use it due to most magic items being purchasable. Increasing proficiency bonus, removing arbitrary caps, and adding more scaling will ultimately be much simpler to handle.

Uh, I think we have different definitions of the words "basic" and "simple" :smallconfused:

Giving your players access to the MIC and saying "buy whatever you want" is not the same as just using 3ed magic item rules in 5ed. At it's "most basic", you'd only use the DMG and/or the SRD. Nothing says you have to have a magic-mart; that would be your call. 5ed already assumes there isn't one and I see no reason to change that. Hell, I don't think 3ed assumed there was one; it was players who made that leap from "magic items have a listed price and there's Feats that let me make them" to "magic items are everywhere and I can buy whatever I want, so long as I'm in a town big enough". Yes, there were some guidelines on expected values of items in settlements of X size, but that's all they were; guidelines.

Changing the magic items from "low numbers, limited power" to "high numbers, nigh unlimited power" would achieve, in one easy step, a functionally very similar end to trying to tweak the rules otherwise. Yes, it would probably change some assumptions about the rarity of magic items, but the system itself could tick along quite nicely as it is, just with some extra/higher numbers.

If you don't like the idea, though, that's cool. I just thought it'd be an easy fix for your problem.

[odigity]

I find this a bit insulting.

Then go back to your safe space. I said exactly the same thing as everyone else in this thread, except I was more concise and used the horribly offensive word "silly". Labeling something an insult is not an argument, doesn't make me wrong, and contributes nothing to the discussion.


More like jailbreaking an iPhone because iOS 10 removed features you liked.

Apple devices force upgrades on you without your permission. No one is forcing anyone to play D&D 5e instead of other editions or other games. You can still get books for every other edition, nearly all of which are designed more to the OP's preferences.


You ever hear of the Oldsmobile Diesel 350?

...

Do you see where I'm goin' with this?

Bounded accuracy is built into the core of 5th Edition. From the very start of the game, the designers said, "We want low-level threats to still remain viable into the late game. We want DMs to feel like they are always expanding the list of threats and monsters as their players level, never constricting." That's how this system was designed from the start.

Now, you don't wanna' teach your players 3.5, and I sympathize with you there, it's a bit of a learning curve. I cut my teeth on 3rd, but I had a good group of folks who'd all played before to help me out at first.

You want my suggestion? Go find yourself and your group some of the 4e Essentials books. Run that with the Inherent Bonuses optional rule so's you're not reliant on magic items. Essentials is a great system that takes the best of 4th and runs with it, and it's easy for new folk to pick up and play without a lot of delay. You get scaling gameplay that feels real different at different levels, and you end up with numbers high enough to back that feeling up with math. That level-1 goblin mook can swing at your level 30 fighter all day, he ain't gonna' make him sweat.

Yeah, yeah, I know 4e, boo, whatever. 4e is a great system, especially the latter part of it where they finally figured out how the monster math was supposed to work. Essentials gives you most of what you want, with a low opportunity cost to switch over.

I know you don't want to switch from 5th Edition, but right now, you're lookin' at an Olds Diesel situation. Just don't. However much work it'd take you to rebuild this system from the ground up without the assumption of bounded accuracy is about 10 times as much as it'd take to teach someone 3.5, Pathfinder, or 4e for the first time.

That was a very entertaining (and entertainingly-told) story. Thanks.

Notice how he basically said the same thing as me -- trying to make remove BA from 5e is silly -- he just told it in a far more charming verbose way.

I'll say it again, concisely --because my fortes are truth and efficiency, rather than storytelling: This thread is silly. I don't get why it's up to three pages when better threads die from inattention. Maybe because the idea of removing BA from 5e is so silly that it acts like catnip to highly intelligent internet geeks (I include myself in that), drawing them in swarms to explain in their own words exactly why the OP's quest is misguided and doomed to fail?

[SharkForce]

Guys. Guys. Guys. Relax. Bounded Accuracy, to borrow a meme, ain't ****. Kane0 had the right of it on page 1:

Math is literally the easiest thing to change in 5e, since everything ties back to one unified Proficiency Bonus. And larger bonuses across the board are only a meaningless numbers treadmill if everything you meet falls in exactly the same level range as you, which should never be the case. Here's what faster numbers growth means:

Low-level monsters become speed bumps, and high-level monsters become more dangerous. In vanilla 5e, a band of goblins at 10th level is still a bit of a threat, because they'll still hit fairly reliably, and you'll still miss them maybe once every swing or three. In SharkForce's 5e, they won't be. You can walk into a goblin village and slaughter it without worrying. And that giant that's a threat to you at 10th? At 1st it would have splattered you all over the pavement and there wouldn't have been anything you could do about it. (5e already kind of has that side of things because of the way damage scales, though).
Mundane skill challenges cease to matter, and formerly-impossible ones come into reach. Admittedly, 5e obscures this somewhat by not actually giving good guidelines about what you can do with a skill check, and you can simulate this by changing what DCs you assign, but... you'll roll higher on your skill checks, so you should be able to do cooler things. It's not rocket science.
Your numbers are bigger, so you're more powerful. The psychology is important, let's not forget. We're bad at statistics, but we're good at counting. Looking at a sheet full of +10s and +20s feels like you're powerful, even if you logically know that challenges will be calculated against your current stats in the same way.


So SharkForce, ignore all the naysayers: you can write out Bounded Accuracy in about half a second if you so desire, and the only consequence will be exactly the sort of "low-level challenges go away" situation you're looking for. Your bigger problem is that most non-spellcasters in 5e don't get much in the way of "bigger, badder" abilities as they level up.

I don't want to take bounded accuracy out of the system, you're looking at the wrong name there. I consider it a good thing myself. so far as I am concerned, being able to include a greater range of monsters without having to be a slave to keeping it within a very narrow CR range before things start to either become insignificant or impossible to beat.

I'm suggesting methods by which you can make powerful things dramatically more powerful against weak things without making them change against powerful things by too much, and without removing bounded accuracy. the laziest one, as I said, is to basically copy the formula of a level 20 champion built for defense with the heavy armour master feat; take 3 damage off of every hit, and recover 5 HP per round, and you can deal with some rather extreme numbers of weak creatures. if you want it to work for lower AC, just tweak the numbers; make it 1/2 your level or CR in temp HP per round, and the damage from every hit is reduced by 1/4 your level or CR (or you also have resistance to damage from creatures whose CR or level is a certain amount below yours, if you want something that impacts single large hits the same way as it impacts multiple small hits, although being better against multiple small hits does a better job of protecting against hordes of weak monsters).

this way, you don't find out that at high levels you've changed the math so that a single point of proficiency bonus has pushed the game to a point where a creature literally cannot pass a save. at level 17+ the math is very nearly at that point; you either have a bonus to a save or you need a 19+ to make it. even a -1 modifier still allows a small chance. boost the relative DC by even a single point, and -1 to a saving throw becomes impossible, and there are a fair number of mid-CR creatures that have a -1 to at least one of their saving throws, or no bonus to one of their saves. now, you might be thinking to yourself that there isn't an appreciable difference between needing a 19 and needing a 20, or even between needing a 20 and not being able to roll high enough because you need a 21. that is completely wrong; there is a very dramatic difference, especially when you're comparing it across a large group of monsters making a bunch of saves (especially repeated saves). it may sound small, but the formula for balancing encounters should tell you right away, two of a monster are more than twice as hard as one, and the difference in those saving throws is that needing a 19 means you save twice as often as if you need a 20 (and obviously, being unable to save it all makes for a huge difference in difficulty as well).

if you screw around with bounded accuracy, you get a much narrower CR range of creatures to draw from. changing bounded accuracy does mean a CR 1/4 goblin is no longer a threat, but it can also wind up meaning that a CR 10 demon is no longer a threat. if you start mucking around with hit points and damage, you can make goblins not a threat while leaving the CR 10 demon as still being a threat, though certainly not as much of a threat as it would have been if you don't muck around with hit points and damage.

[Kane0]

You guys can be so negative. I remember when i went from 3.5 to 4e with my character basically unchanged (cause I had a cool DM) and was pleasantly surprised when virtually nobody in the 4e forums told me "Youre doing it wrong, go back to 3.PF"

Its just a game guys, if he wants to homebrew some changes in order to have more fun at his table why not support that?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't want to take bounded accuracy out of the system, you're looking at the wrong name there. I consider it a good thing myself. so far as I am concerned, being able to include a greater range of monsters without having to be a slave to keeping it within a very narrow CR range before things start to either become insignificant or impossible to beat.

I'm suggesting methods by which you can make powerful things dramatically more powerful against weak things without making them change against powerful things by too much, and without removing bounded accuracy. the laziest one, as I said, is to basically copy the formula of a level 20 champion built for defense with the heavy armour master feat; take 3 damage off of every hit, and recover 5 HP per round, and you can deal with some rather extreme numbers of weak creatures. if you want it to work for lower AC, just tweak the numbers; make it 1/2 your level or CR in temp HP per round, and the damage from every hit is reduced by 1/4 your level or CR (or you also have resistance to damage from creatures whose CR or level is a certain amount below yours, if you want something that impacts single large hits the same way as it impacts multiple small hits, although being better against multiple small hits does a better job of protecting against hordes of weak monsters).

this way, you don't find out that at high levels you've changed the math so that a single point of proficiency bonus has pushed the game to a point where a creature literally cannot pass a save. at level 17+ the math is very nearly at that point; you either have a bonus to a save or you need a 19+ to make it. even a -1 modifier still allows a small chance. boost the relative DC by even a single point, and -1 to a saving throw becomes impossible, and there are a fair number of mid-CR creatures that have a -1 to at least one of their saving throws, or no bonus to one of their saves. now, you might be thinking to yourself that there isn't an appreciable difference between needing a 19 and needing a 20, or even between needing a 20 and not being able to roll high enough because you need a 21. that is completely wrong; there is a very dramatic difference, especially when you're comparing it across a large group of monsters making a bunch of saves (especially repeated saves). it may sound small, but the formula for balancing encounters should tell you right away, two of a monster are more than twice as hard as one, and the difference in those saving throws is that needing a 19 means you save twice as often as if you need a 20 (and obviously, being unable to save it all makes for a huge difference in difficulty as well).

if you screw around with bounded accuracy, you get a much narrower CR range of creatures to draw from. changing bounded accuracy does mean a CR 1/4 goblin is no longer a threat, but it can also wind up meaning that a CR 10 demon is no longer a threat. if you start mucking around with hit points and damage, you can make goblins not a threat while leaving the CR 10 demon as still being a threat, though certainly not as much of a threat as it would have been if you don't muck around with hit points and damage.
Whoop, sorry.

But honestly, adding Proficiency (a second time, if necessary) to all skill checks, attack rolls, AC, save DCs, and saving throws does exactly what Morcleon (there's the right name, sorry) wants, I think. For roughly equal-leveled creatures, the balance is maintained intact. For differing levels, it's increased, but a simple doubling doesn't take you too far away. Comparing a 10th level character to a CR >1 like an orc, he's acquired a net two-point advantage to AC and to-hit-- easily made up for by leadership (say, that Orc Warlord on the next page). Which means you simply have to make more interesting encounters.

[odigity]

You guys can be so negative. I remember when i went from 3.5 to 4e with my character basically unchanged (cause I had a cool DM) and was pleasantly surprised when virtually nobody in the 4e forums told me "Youre doing it wrong, go back to 3.PF"

Its just a game guys, if he wants to homebrew some changes in order to have more fun at his table why not support that?

No one is stopping them from doing whatever they wants in their games. I don't even know where the person lives, how could I possibly stop them?

But they came here asking for help for an undeniably ridiculous purpose -- to take BA out of 5e, when BA was the single most core design principle of 5e, and 5e is the most BA-ish of any edition of D&D ever.

As dozens of posters have already explain in detail and with numerous apt analogies, this is a preposterous and futile pursuit. I'm not surprised few people here are interested in spending their time assisting them with it. And all the people you described as "negative" are actually being considerate by stopping by and explaining why they're uninterested in helping, which is far more polite than simply leaving the OP in confused and lonely silence...

[Doug Lampert]

Uh, I think we have different definitions of the words "basic" and "simple" :smallconfused:

Giving your players access to the MIC and saying "buy whatever you want" is not the same as just using 3ed magic item rules in 5ed. At it's "most basic", you'd only use the DMG and/or the SRD. Nothing says you have to have a magic-mart; that would be your call. 5ed already assumes there isn't one and I see no reason to change that. Hell, I don't think 3ed assumed there was one; it was players who made that leap from "magic items have a listed price and there's Feats that let me make them" to "magic items are everywhere and I can buy whatever I want, so long as I'm in a town big enough".

Shall I quote you the 3.5 DMG on prices and availability of goods in the community size rules?

EVERY item of up to the listed cost, and this explicitly is stated to include magic items, is usually available in every community of the listed size or larger. In fact it's available in absurdly large numbers.

This is insane, but it is in the rules. 3.x most definitely does state that magic items can be bought and that they are available.

"magic items are everywhere and I can buy whatever I want, so long as I'm in a town big enough" is exactly and precisely what the rules state, you or your GM may have not read the DMG, or not registered it when you did read it, or simply been sane enough to ignore it (since the item availability rules are insane, totally and completely nuts; look at how many of something cheap are available in a large city), but it is right there in the rulebook in black and white under the rules for communities and community sizes.

So yeah, 3.x assumed a magic-mart, the designers simply didn't know enough math to realize how bad it was and didn't think through all the implications.

[Grod_The_Giant]

No one is stopping them from doing whatever they wants in their games. I don't even know where the person lives, how could I possibly stop them?

But they came here asking for help for an undeniably ridiculous purpose -- to take BA out of 5e, when BA was the single most core design principle of 5e, and 5e is the most BA-ish of any edition of D&D ever.

As dozens of posters have already explain in detail and with numerous apt analogies, this is a preposterous and futile pursuit. I'm not surprised few people here are interested in spending their time assisting them with it. And all the people you described as "negative" are actually being considerate by stopping by and explaining why they're uninterested in helping, which is far more polite than simply leaving the OP in confused and lonely silence...
The way damage scale belies the core assumption that all monsters are viable at all levels-- too low and they can't do enough damage to do anything but chip away at you until you get irritated enough to expend a few resources, and too high and it's one-hit, one-kill. And saying that BA is a core mechanical component of 5e is ludicrous. The game's math is a simple set of formulas for attack bonus/AC/save/save DC/skill DC, all of which are dependent on one of two numbers: Proficiency or Ability Modifiers. It's a simple system; there are very few working parts to play with. You can inflate or deflate numbers, change dice engines, whatever easily, as long as you do it in a uniform way.

Also, a chorus of voices shouting "that's stupid, don't do it you're ruin everything" is rarely helpful. If 5e's math is so precious to you, can you make some of your own suggestions on how to simulate a more epic progression?

[odigity]

The game's math is a simple set of formulas for attack bonus/AC/save/save DC/skill DC, all of which are dependent on one of two numbers: Proficiency or Ability Modifiers. It's a simple system; there are very few working parts to play with. You can inflate or deflate numbers, change dice engines, whatever easily, as long as you do it in a uniform way.

I don't understand how you can be so confidant in your conclusion that it's simple and easy to tweak when the system includes bonuses and penalties measured both in absolute numbers and in multiples.

You are failing to understand the "beware hubris" moral of ZX6Rob's
Oldsmobile Diesel 350 Story (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21317236&postcount=56).

Edit: And that's without getting into all the other parts of the total package that are neither orthogonal nor scalable, like the very dice themselves. The fact that we use a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20 to conduct all our rules is subtly and inseparably intertwined with the current ruleset to produce the current outcome. You cannot simply scale this or any game system as simply as one transposes a piece of music to a different key and expect essentially the same balance but with larger numbers.

[Baptor]

You ever hear of the Oldsmobile Diesel 350?

Regardless of whether you agree (and I do) this is one of the best, most well thought out arguments I've ever seen on this board. Bravo sir.

[Tanarii]

And saying that BA is a core mechanical component of 5e is ludicrous.Especially given it's more a philosophical design concept than a mechanical component. Albeit one that had direct mechanical consequences as a result. But that doesn't mean the mechanics can't be changed. Just that you might need to do some tweaking to get the "not-bounded accuracy" results you want.

[odigity]

...when BA was the single most core design principle of 5e, and 5e is the most BA-ish of any edition of D&D ever.


And saying that BA is a core mechanical component of 5e is ludicrous.


Especially given it's more a philosophical design concept than a mechanical component.

(bolding added)

So tired of poor reading comprehension.

[Zorku]

It's an option, but it's far too heavily invested in DM fiat that I'd prefer to not use.


Actually, I left the exact metric by which you decide to alter counts out of the equation to avoid distracting from the concept. If you want something mathsie, then multiplying every monster by floor(avg_party_proficiency_bonus - CR) (or "1" any time the equation is smaller than 1) should give you decent scaling.

Level 4 party matches 8 (8) goblins, level 10 party matches 72 (24) goblins, and level 20 faces 575 (115) gobs (though even without multiplication I'm pretty sure the encounter math can't account for aoe at this point.)

Level 4 party vs 1 (1) basilisk, 10 vs 4 (4) basilisks, 20 vs 66 (11) basilisks.
Level 10 vs 1 (1) Aboleth, level 20 vs 3 (3) Aboleths.

Does this feel like it scales right?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Where on earth are you getting this idea that 5e is an intricate, complicated system? It's not, it's not in any way, shape or form. Every PC has the exact same numerical progression, from a +5 bonus/DC 13 at first level to a +11 bonus/DC 19 at 20th. There's one unified progression for every combat aspect of a monster, with minor trade-offs within it. RPG systems are already simplified versions of reality; and 5e is even more so than many. It's not hard to learn, and it's not hard to predict changes. And if they don't turn out how you like?... You change things again. I'm utterly baffled that no-one is grasping that. You're not spending millions of dollars and man-hours on this project, you're tinkering in your garage for fun. The worst that happens is you call a session early when it becomes clear things aren't working out how you want.

[SharkForce]

Whoop, sorry.

But honestly, adding Proficiency (a second time, if necessary) to all skill checks, attack rolls, AC, save DCs, and saving throws does exactly what Morcleon (there's the right name, sorry) wants, I think. For roughly equal-leveled creatures, the balance is maintained intact. For differing levels, it's increased, but a simple doubling doesn't take you too far away. Comparing a 10th level character to a CR >1 like an orc, he's acquired a net two-point advantage to AC and to-hit-- easily made up for by leadership (say, that Orc Warlord on the next page). Which means you simply have to make more interesting encounters.

a 10th level character with a 2 net advantage on AC might be hit only on a 20. with a 2 net advantage on save DCs they can pick from a couple of different saves and the orc will only save on a 20, if at all. just a tiny bit further and the orc won't be able to make wisdom or charisma saves period, and has only a tiny chance to make a dex save.

and the problem is that if we start grabbing random CR 8 monsters, we continue to see a pretty similar trend; most monsters have at least one negative or 0 modifier save, meaning that once you hit level 13 if you have a spell that targets the right save, they are practically speaking not a part of a combat. or, if they are, it's probably on the side of whoever can cast a spell. there is a damn good reason the highest DC a PC can achieve in core for their saving throws can be passed with a -1 to the saving throw. just doubling proficiency bonus and adding it arbitrarily to a few things begins to break down as early as level 9, and by the time you hit level 17 has become a total catastrophe. mummy lord? oh hey, guess who has a +0 dex save, guess we can cross them off the list of appropriate challenges at level 17, because they can't save against a DC 21 web. of course, it can spend it's next action trying to escape the web... except that then it just gets webbed again, and it's pretty damn awful outside of melee. purple worms? dex, int, wis, and cha are all options. so it shows up, gets held, and then just dies to autocrits. not a usable monster. iron golems? well, if they didn't have a pile of immunities, they'd be even worse off than the mummy lord. as-is, they're basically in the same boat; no dex save, no actions.

as soon as the party hits level 17, any enemy with a single bad save and a proficiency bonus lower than the characters can basically just not bother showing up. just blindly applying proficiency bonus as double and adding it to a bunch of stuff changes the game in a way such that a number of enemies that SHOULD be appropriate challenges for high level play can quickly become insignificant pests.

mucking around with bounded accuracy does not hit low powered monsters only. it hits them first, and it hits them harder (as in, there will be more options for impossible saves to target), but it hits the high level monsters too, making them just as pathetically weak against high level characters as their low CR counterparts if the PCs have a better proficiency modifier. a pair of CR 15 purple worms are *supposed* to be a bit beyond a deadly encounter for a party of four level 18 adventurers in core. now, anyone who's played much will probably tell you that deadly is a *bit* of a misnomer, to say the least, but they should bloody well represent a challenge. doubled proficiency bonus means that hold monster in a level 6 slot guarantees a full minute of paralysis. in that time, it should be easily within reach for any remotely competent party to trivially kill both worms without further expenditure of resources, even if they're not very good at dealing damage. your options for what to put the party up against at those levels is basically going to be a list of dragons, and the generals of heaven and hell (but not much of anything lower ranked than general of heaven or hell should even bother showing up). plus the occasional other legendary monster, like liches.

so no, it is not just a minor change that has no impact beyond making goblins weaker.

[odigity]

Where on earth are you getting this idea that 5e is an intricate, complicated system?

Every game more complex than Tic Tac Toe is more complicated than you think. To deny that is hubris.

I'm a software engineer with an IQ 3.5 standard deviations above the norm, but I would not dare describe any system requiring more than a paragraph of rules as simple, or be cavalier about my ability to effortless manipulate it like a marionette.

Even the smartest person who ever lived is complexity's bitch. It's a limitation of the human mind.

[georgie_leech]

snip

I think the suggestion is to apply Proficiency as an extra bonus to all saves, actually. That is, take a character with 12's in all stats and proficient in DEX Saves, with a proficiency bonus of 2. They would have +3 to all saves, except for DEX which has +5 instead.

[Tanarii]

(bolding added)

So tired of poor reading comprehension.
Hahaha yeah in my case it was reading the post I quoted, but not the post of yours that was quoted and responded to.

Oops. :smallbiggrin:

[Tanarii]

with an IQ 3.5 standard deviations
I find it hard to believe someone with an IQ of 152.5, in the top .05% of the worlds population, is banging around on a D&D forum in his free time.

Want to try again?

[SharkForce]

I think the suggestion is to apply Proficiency as an extra bonus to all saves, actually. That is, take a character with 12's in all stats and proficient in DEX Saves, with a proficiency bonus of 2. They would have +3 to all saves, except for DEX which has +5 instead.

right. but if we take someone who is one proficiency point higher, their save DC is going to gain 3 while the lower level individual only had save bonuses go up by 2, which is comparable to a net DC increase of 1.

as i've said several times, this means any time you have a monster that in core would be *close* to being unable to save (which happens quite frequently if you pick the right save to target), with this version anyone with a higher proficiency bonus can push them from close to being unable to save, to being actually unable to save.

this is a problem because at higher levels, you're already close to that point. enemies either have a bonus to a save, or they probably need a 19 or 20. and when you're at the edge of the d20, each shift of 1 number towards the ege has a huge impact.

which means that the goal (of making it so goblins and similar are completely ineffective against high level characters) is met... but you've also made it so that any enemy that in core has a bad save (and that isn't common, even at higher CR) can literally become unable to make the saving throw, period. it means that CR 12 monsters, which are not insignificant and in core would provide a decent challenge, are frequently going to be just as ineffective as the goblin in an actual fight. the exceptions to this pattern of becoming extremely vulnerable is only avoided by a few specific types of monsters, typically legendary ones (but not even all of them; beholders have some terrible saves, as i recall, just as one example).

so at high levels you either end up fighting exclusively dragons and the generals of heaven and hell (eg solars, pit fiends, mariliths) or you fight things that cannot make saving throws if you pick the right one to target. period. even magic resistance doesn't do anything, because it doesn't matter if you're throwing 2 d20s, you will not roll a 21, and a 20 won't save you.

for the same reason, extreme caution should be exercised when handing out any item that can increase save DCs for one of the characters in a party, for the record. a save bonus of -1 is not that uncommon, which means DC 19 is as high as you can go before those monsters go off the d20 and are just sitting ducks. a save bonus in regular play of +0 is even more common, and if DCs ever hit 21, those go off the die as well.

and if you increase the player's DC by 6 and the monster's save by 5, it is practically speaking the same as increasing the player's DC by 1 and the monster's DC by 0. and that is what is being proposed any time you fight a monster with a lower tier proficiency bonus.

as i said, it hits lower CR monsters first, and hardest... an orc facing DCs that are the equivalent of 4 points higher from a level 17 character can only make strength saves on a 20, i think, and nothing else. but it also means that a challenge rating 10 aboleth is making saves with a dex save bonus of +3 (normally -1) against DC 25 (normally 19) webs and will never pass the save. a full tribe of CR 8 frost giants, which in core has 2 save bonuses of -1 and 1 of +0, can no longer pass 3 out of 6 types of saves against a level 17+ PC. and cannot pass 2 out of 6 against a level 13+ PC (provided they've got a 20 in their attribute by then, which isn't hard at all).

the orc being completely vulnerable doesn't really bother me all that much. i mean, i don't see the need for it, but sure, whatever. the problem is that it spills over to a number of high CR monsters that in core might have *low* chances of making saves, but can at least make the save, which is a pretty important difference.

[odigity]

I find it hard to believe someone with an IQ of 152.5, in the top .05% of the worlds population, is banging around on a D&D forum in his free time.

Want to try again?

Who do you think *is* on these forums? My IQ is commonplace here, as it has been in most of my social settings. I do not feel special.

[pwykersotz]

Where on earth are you getting this idea that 5e is an intricate, complicated system? It's not, it's not in any way, shape or form. Every PC has the exact same numerical progression, from a +5 bonus/DC 13 at first level to a +11 bonus/DC 19 at 20th. There's one unified progression for every combat aspect of a monster, with minor trade-offs within it. RPG systems are already simplified versions of reality; and 5e is even more so than many. It's not hard to learn, and it's not hard to predict changes. And if they don't turn out how you like?... You change things again. I'm utterly baffled that no-one is grasping that. You're not spending millions of dollars and man-hours on this project, you're tinkering in your garage for fun. The worst that happens is you call a session early when it becomes clear things aren't working out how you want.

Don't worry, plenty of people are grasping this. I personally would never want to remove the bounded accuracy from the game, but I'm trying to be helpful anyway. I'm sure I'm not alone.

But yeah, 3.5 was complicated. In that system, everything had complex interactions with everything else. Int as AC, spells that relied on skill checks, damage reduction based on number of feats...to change one thing was to eliminate a swath of content, because changing that content changed other things as well. But there aren't many complex interactions in 5e. They're independent for the most part. An example of one of the complicated bits is the Observant feat which doesn't play cleanly with tables that don't use many passives or who use a variant skill system in the DMG. But seriously, that's about as tough as it gets. I love the modularity of this edition.

[Kane0]

Double prof bonus, add half prof to AC and nonproficient saves, raise stat cap to 30.

Taking stat array 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 and a level 1 human fighter
His saves would be:
Str (16) +7
Dex (14) +4
Con (15) +6
Int (11) +2
Wis (13) +3
Cha (9) +1

AC of 14 without armor, and with a good set of halfplate could go up to 19, 21 with a shield and 22 with shield and defence fighting style
Attack bonus of +7 with a proficient weapon

A suitably heroic start by appearances, but nothing extravagant under the hood. Your average goblin gets a +6 to hit and AC of 17 as well as a +2 to all his saves (no proficient saves), keeping on par with your better numbers.

That same fighter at level 12 (no feats) would look like:
Str (22) +14
Dex (14) +6
Con (16) +11
Int (12) +5
Wis (14) +6
Cha (10) +4

With an AC of 16 or 21/23/24 and a triple attack at +14 respectively.

That gobbo is not much of a threat anymore at all. Sure he can still get you with a 20 but everything else has basically no chance of bothering you wheres as you have virtually guarunteed chances of landing a blow on him.
However your average adult white dragon still has no problems dealing with you as a reasonable challenge, getting a +16 to hit you and an AC of 23.

Am I missing any glaring flaws?

Edit: Skills!
You have the choice of adding half prof to nonproficient skills or just leaving it be, depending on preference. Those with expertise will be able to handle very high DCs regularly regardless.

[Tehnar]

Every game more complex than Tic Tac Toe is more complicated than you think. To deny that is hubris.

I'm a software engineer with an IQ 3.5 standard deviations above the norm, but I would not dare describe any system requiring more than a paragraph of rules as simple, or be cavalier about my ability to effortless manipulate it like a marionette.

Even the smartest person who ever lived is complexity's bitch. It's a limitation of the human mind.


Don't worry, plenty of people are grasping this. I personally would never want to remove the bounded accuracy from the game, but I'm trying to be helpful anyway. I'm sure I'm not alone.

But yeah, 3.5 was complicated. In that system, everything had complex interactions with everything else. Int as AC, spells that relied on skill checks, damage reduction based on number of feats...to change one thing was to eliminate a swath of content, because changing that content changed other things as well. But there aren't many complex interactions in 5e. They're independent for the most part. An example of one of the complicated bits is the Observant feat which doesn't play cleanly with tables that don't use many passives or who use a variant skill system in the DMG. But seriously, that's about as tough as it gets. I love the modularity of this edition.

Yeah not really. The base resolution system is extremely simple, and the rest is just exception based design. Sure there is less stuff in 5e then 3.x, but its still the same base system and any additional subsystems lean on the base system. As far as models go its very basic. Changing things makes for predictable outcomes.
I don't think that is a bad thing, after all you want it to work at all manner of tables, quickly and easily.

I think some people hold game designers in a bit too much awe. They are guys/gals who frequently have no background in math or engineering, let alone advanced modeling skills. RPG systems are not the Standard Model where if you fiddle with some parameters atoms can't form anymore. Designing a RPG system is not hard, its fairly easy as things go.


To the actual OP. Personally I prefer dice pool systems, and with the advantage/disadvantage mechanic already in place it would not be that difficult to implement a d20 dice pool system. Its a way to solve the bounded accuracy / power difference conundrum that 5e introduced, while still keeping things bound and having a power level difference. The tradeoff is that its more complicated to learn and slower to use at the table.

[Knaight]

And this is why we are telling you that 5e ain't the right system to do it. It's like if you've got a car, but don't like using wheels, so you want to replaced them with something else. It could be done, but it will require some heavy tweaking. While on the other hand, you could stark from a tank chassis and resize it to a car size.


ZX6Rob was in fact spot on! OP is not looking to tweaking and fine tuning the system, he wants to ditch aside what is the framework and replaced it with something else similar, but not fit for it. And I'm not quite sure you get how all 5e mechanics are designed (and are balanced) around the idea that a goblin should be able to damage a 20th level character. If the core design is not what you are looking for, save you some time and find another system that you'll need to do some fine tuning and tweaks. 5e isn't that system.
Bounded accuracy is one of many design principles that inform a particular framework, and as the framework wanted is pretty much the existing framework with bounded accuracy removed, just removing bounded accuracy pretty much gets there. As for it being core to 5e's system identity, not really. It's core to how 5e distinguishes itself from other D&D editions, but even there it's one of several things and the pile of shared mechanical and thematic things that are more core to all editions of D&D is much bigger.

[Socratov]

Then go back to your safe space. I said exactly the same thing as everyone else in this thread, except I was more concise and used the horribly offensive word "silly". Labeling something an insult is not an argument, doesn't make me wrong, and contributes nothing to the discussion.
snip
You dismiss someone's claims as silly, and illustrate the 'silliness' by using a metaphor that is entirely unrelated and unrealistic, presenting it as an equal and valid action. It's not just in the word 'silly', it's on how you mock someone for having a question, several other people for answering and trying to come up with a solution without so much as an argument to your position, but rather an example of the equivalence fallacy.

In general though, for those saying it can't be done, I think that several people have shown that the effect OP is looking for is possible, once you are willing to work the math. By adjusting proficiency (and certain static values like AC), you can create the effect Op is looking for, without tearing apart the complete game. going by fixes and homebrew I have seen on these boards it's a relatively simple fix: it hinges on the tuning of one number in particular (proficiency) and adjusts according to those values the numbers of other constants. Will it change the game in a fundamental way? Yes: low level threats cease to be a problem and high level threats will become (even) greater threats. One might say that rocket tag becomes more of a thing. The difference between being proficient in something or not will matter more (goes double for expertise) and Jack of All trades will become a seriously strong class feature of the Bard. The rest will stay more or less the same: spells wil continue to work as spells (though concentration might require a Resillient(Con) for casters that aren't proficient in it), saves will continue to work as saves (as as mentioned before, Resillient will become more popular), attacks will scale and only AC need to be adjusted (maybe even include half proficiency to armour and armour like effects). The d20 will have less influence (as greater proficiency will mean you can either do it or not, though tweaking of DC's might see to that). Now I might have missed 1 or 2 effects the change of proficiency will have. Bu tI think they won't be as dramtic as the ones I have outlined here.

Rogues will keep rogueing, wizards will keep wizarding and other classes will keep on being their classy selves and the pool of available monsters for the DM to use will be smaller.


Now, as to why people keep saying that, despite some people showing what OP wants could be done, still deny that the desired effect can be achieved. That is something I find curious. Is it something linked to a resistance to change? Please tell me what it is that prompts this verbally violent and stubborn a reaction?

[DanyBallon]

It's not that it can't be done, it's more about that doing it isn't worth the effort, of you throw away the main principle of this edition. There are system out there that would require less tweeaking to get the result the OP wants.

[Cybren]

Who do you think *is* on these forums? My IQ is commonplace here, as it has been in most of my social settings. I do not feel special.

This is almost assuredly false. I very much doubt that D&D selects for IQ that strongly

I think some people hold game designers in a bit too much awe. They are guys/gals who frequently have no background in math or engineering, let alone advanced modeling skills. RPG systems are not the Standard Model where if you fiddle with some parameters atoms can't form anymore. Designing a RPG system is not hard, its fairly easy as things go.

This is also false, and just generally weird. game designers don't have a math or engineering background because they're not doing math or engineering, they're doing game design. But plenty of things that aren't STEM fields are complicated. Game designers aren't divine agents of creation, no, but they're professionals with experience and resources beyond most armchair quarterbacks you'll find on here, or enworld, or reddit

[Tanarii]

This is almost assuredly false. I very much doubt that D&D selects for IQ that strongly
Yeah, if you're caught out in obvious internet braggadocio, don't try to double down on it. :smallamused:

[odigity]

Yeah, if you're caught out in obvious internet braggadocio, don't try to double down on it. :smallamused:

The irony is you're now completely fixated on accusing me of bragging and denying my claim while completely missing the point of my message, which was to advocate humility.

PS - I don't care what you think of me. I'm trying to discuss game design.

[georgie_leech]

The irony is you're now completely fixated on accusing me of bragging and denying my claim while completely missing the point of my message, which was to advocate humility.

PS - I don't care what you think of me. I'm trying to discuss game design.

You may want to jigger with your message a bit. I read the last few posts as 'I'm smart, we're smart, we're as good at designing games as professional game designers because designing games is simple.' :smalltongue:

But you're correct in that many are treating this as a bigger deal than it is. I continue to think it's an important part of 5e that shouldn't be removed, but it's not like OP doing so will ruin my game somehow. Go nuts OP. Try and see, I could easily be wrong about it. My favourite suggestions are 'add proficiency to attack bonus, Save DC's, AC, and Saving Throws,' and 'bring back the Christmas Tree Effect of magic item bonuses.'

[SharkForce]

Double prof bonus, add half prof to AC and nonproficient saves, raise stat cap to 30.

this will lead to catastrophic failure of the system unless you redesign all monsters entirely in fairly short order.

if by any means a caster gets up to 30 in their spellcasting attribute and also gets effectively a +3 DC against non-proficient saves of equal level monsters at high levels, you're looking at a scenario where DCs relatively speaking went up by 8 against monsters of equal CR. which means any save that is not at least a +7 in the regular monster manual as it stands today has no chance of success.

of course, actually getting a 30 isn't going to happen without some fairly extreme shenanigans, so we're more likely looking at, say, 26, meaning that a "mere" +5 bonus now is required to have any chance of success in your new system. creatures will either have legendary saves and be able to withstand the impacts of these spells 3 times, or they just don't get a save (note: very few monsters don't have at least one save that is +4 or lower). at this point, even dragons and the generals of heaven and hell are going to be sitting ducks.

simply put, the way the system is you cannot push saves much higher relative to save bonuses than they are right now without screwing things up pretty badly. the system is, with just core rules, already at the point where high level saving throws can barely be made if you can target the right one, even for most of the powerful monsters in the game.

screwing with DCs can cause serious problems.

[Tanarii]

I continue to think it's an important part of 5e that shouldn't be removed, but it's not like OP doing so will ruin my game somehow.I'm with you. I like the 5e system a lot. The first time Grod_The_Giant started threads trying to jigger the numbers to his liking, I got all twisted defending the idea that it shouldn't be done. But after I put that aside, I found he had some interesting concepts and tried to work to support that. Even if it wasn't to my personal tastes.

Grod_The_Giant, I know you probably have links to some of those old threads in your sig, but for people like me that have sigs hidden, can you repost some of the more helpful and less "me attacking you" ones? I feel like they'd be relevant to what the OP is trying to do.

[pwykersotz]

Yeah not really. The base resolution system is extremely simple, and the rest is just exception based design. Sure there is less stuff in 5e then 3.x, but its still the same base system and any additional subsystems lean on the base system. As far as models go its very basic. Changing things makes for predictable outcomes.
I don't think that is a bad thing, after all you want it to work at all manner of tables, quickly and easily.

I think some people hold game designers in a bit too much awe. They are guys/gals who frequently have no background in math or engineering, let alone advanced modeling skills. RPG systems are not the Standard Model where if you fiddle with some parameters atoms can't form anymore. Designing a RPG system is not hard, its fairly easy as things go.

Awe? No. I think the 3.5 designers did a great job, but the difficulties in retooling 3.5 was due to the natural growth over time. If you were to just retool core, it would be much easier. Not quite as easy as 5e, but close.

[2D8HP]

Where on earth are you getting this idea that 5e is an intricate, complicated system?Um... the 320 pages of the PHB?
5e is lots of fun, and while I know that it may be mostly due to my age addled mind, but I just find it harder to remember most of the relevant rules of 5e than of 1970's rules DnD, or some other RPG's (I'd be scared to tackle GURPS or Pathfinder myself). Any homebrew that makes 5e evem more complex, sounds like a bad idea to me!

Every game more complex than Tic Tac Toe is more complicated than you think. To deny that is hubris.

I'm a software engineer with an IQ 3.5 standard deviations above the norm, but I would not dare describe any system requiring more than a paragraph of rules as simple, or be cavalier about my ability to effortless manipulate it like a marionette.

Even the smartest person who ever lived is complexity's bitch. It's a limitation of the human mind.My mind is particularly limited!
I find it hard to believe someone with an IQ of 152.5, in the top .05% of the worlds population, is banging around on a D&D forum in his free time.

Want to try again?
Who do you think *is* on these forums? My IQ is commonplace here, as it has been in most of my social settings. I do not feel special.I'm pretty sure that my presence on this Forum brings the playgrounds average down a lot!

[georgie_leech]

I'm pretty sure that my presence on this Forum brings the playgrounds average down a lot!

By 2d8, perhaps? :smallbiggrin:

[Knaight]

this will lead to catastrophic failure of the system unless you redesign all monsters entirely in fairly short order.

The monsters also have proficiency built in, so you just do the same thing to them. For all that the core nature of bounded accuracy has been repeatedly emphasized in this thread a second core design principle has been ignored: 5e is intentionally highly modular*, built so that you can make tweaks in one area without them cascading heavily. There's relatively few things built deeply enough into the system that it takes dramatic overhauls to change them, and these things are generally not the numbers assigned to mechanics but the mechanics themselves. Changing the proficiency bonus without toppling the game is easy, with there being one main edge case worth a bit more attention (Expertise). Removing the proficiency mechanic entirely and going back to something like the disjointed 3.x system? That would take a fair bit more work, although still not that much.

*By D&D standards at least.

[georgie_leech]

The monsters also have proficiency built in, so you just do the same thing to them. For all that the core nature of bounded accuracy has been repeatedly emphasized in this thread a second core design principle has been ignored: 5e is intentionally highly modular*, built so that you can make tweaks in one area without them cascading heavily. There's relatively few things built deeply enough into the system that it takes dramatic overhauls to change them, and these things are generally not the numbers assigned to mechanics but the mechanics themselves. Changing the proficiency bonus without toppling the game is easy, with there being one main edge case worth a bit more attention (Expertise). Removing the proficiency mechanic entirely and going back to something like the disjointed 3.x system? That would take a fair bit more work, although still not that much.

*By D&D standards at least.

The problem is the specifically half proficiency to not-proficient saves. That's a change that means pretty much every caster will always have at least one spell prepared that can target a "bad" save for every possible target. Change it to full proficiency to AC and saves, and it works out to a net 0 change from the current system between opponents with equal proficiency modifiers.

[SharkForce]

The monsters also have proficiency built in, so you just do the same thing to them. For all that the core nature of bounded accuracy has been repeatedly emphasized in this thread a second core design principle has been ignored: 5e is intentionally highly modular*, built so that you can make tweaks in one area without them cascading heavily. There's relatively few things built deeply enough into the system that it takes dramatic overhauls to change them, and these things are generally not the numbers assigned to mechanics but the mechanics themselves. Changing the proficiency bonus without toppling the game is easy, with there being one main edge case worth a bit more attention (Expertise). Removing the proficiency mechanic entirely and going back to something like the disjointed 3.x system? That would take a fair bit more work, although still not that much.

*By D&D standards at least.

so what you're saying is you did not read what i was replying to at all.

he EXPLICITLY STATED that non-proficient saves would only get 1/2 proficiency. that inherently means you are NOT doing the same thing for the monsters. or, rather, if you *are* doing the same thing for monsters, it still borks the hell out of everything because now you have PCs that also don't have a hope in hell of making saves, although it's still much worse for the monsters because they never had attribute caps in the first place, their attributes are already what they should be so they're only getting half the increase.

furthermore, if you had read my previous posts and understood them, you would realize that even full proficiency to non-proficient saves still breaks the game, just not *quite* as badly (because at least it only breaks it when you're facing high CR opponents with a different proficiency modifier than you - i think it would be kinda stupid to set up the game such that your options for opponents that offer anything like a challenge at high levels are limited to something like 35 different monsters, with most of those being variations on what kind of dragon you're fighting. but you could at least in theory play the game, though it seems pretty crappy to reduce dragons to little more than random encounters. the specific proposal i was responding to when i wrote my last post? not even dragons would be a decent challenge).

[Knaight]

so what you're saying is you did not read what i was replying to at all.

he EXPLICITLY STATED that non-proficient saves would only get 1/2 proficiency. that inherently means you are NOT doing the same thing for the monsters. or, rather, if you *are* doing the same thing for monsters, it still borks the hell out of everything because now you have PCs that also don't have a hope in hell of making saves, although it's still much worse for the monsters because they never had attribute caps in the first place, their attributes are already what they should be so they're only getting half the increase.
Read the order. First, you double proficiency. Then you take proficiency (which is now doubled) and add half of that (the original proficiency value) to saves. The increased stat cap is the only thing there that has any potential for breaking things (as it's the only thing that doesn't effectively cancel at the area of concern), and even then there's the matter of the cost of giving up feats.


furthermore, if you had read my previous posts and understood them, you would realize that even full proficiency to non-proficient saves still breaks the game, just not *quite* as badly (because at least it only breaks it when you're facing high CR opponents with a different proficiency modifier than you - i think it would be kinda stupid to set up the game such that your options for opponents that offer anything like a challenge at high levels are limited to something like 35 different monsters, with most of those being variations on what kind of dragon you're fighting. but you could at least in theory play the game, though it seems pretty crappy to reduce dragons to little more than random encounters. the specific proposal i was responding to when i wrote my last post? not even dragons would be a decent challenge).
Yeah, that 5% difference in save rates for the very toughest monsters breaks the game, particularly when the way it "breaks" it is that it makes more powerful things have an advantage against less powerful things. Personally I'd consider "breaking" a really weird term to use for successfully accomplishing design goals, but whatever. There's also the small matter of how 5e isn't that finely balanced in the first place and as such is far less delicate than the pervasive attitude in this thread makes it seem.

[SharkForce]

Read the order. First, you double proficiency. Then you take proficiency (which is now doubled) and add half of that (the original proficiency value) to saves. The increased stat cap is the only thing there that has any potential for breaking things (as it's the only thing that doesn't effectively cancel at the area of concern), and even then there's the matter of the cost of giving up feats.


Yeah, that 5% difference in save rates for the very toughest monsters breaks the game, particularly when the way it "breaks" it is that it makes more powerful things have an advantage against less powerful things. Personally I'd consider "breaking" a really weird term to use for successfully accomplishing design goals, but whatever. There's also the small matter of how 5e isn't that finely balanced in the first place and as such is far less delicate than the pervasive attitude in this thread makes it seem.

1) he said to double it for one purpose, and half it for another. not to double, then add half of the doubled proficiency.

2) yes, 5% is a big deal at the far ends of the spectrum. the difference between save on 19 and save on 20 is monumentally huge, and the difference between save on 20 vs no save possible is even bigger. especially for monsters that, for example, have magic resistance, or which you would expect to face multiples of. i know it sounds small. until i actually played it out, i thought it would be a small difference too. while playing an online game that used (roughly) D&D rules, the difference between my spellcaster that could use crowd control with a DC just 2 points lower and another spellcaster was gigantic. when i used my crowd control, with 2 or 3 enemies in it, those 2 or 3 enemies were routinely getting out of my crowd control and causing problems for everyone, while the other caster just used a crowd control spell (that had shorter intervals between tests) and had pretty much everything locked down permanently and it was as if those monsters weren't even there. it was night and day.

it sounds like a very minor inconsequential difference. i know. i get that. at one time, i also thought it was nothing. but it isn't nothing. it's a huge difference that can change the way a battle goes. that slight increase in chance of a crowd control effect working is the difference between total chaos in a fight, and smooth sailing.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm with you. I like the 5e system a lot. The first time Grod_The_Giant started threads trying to jigger the numbers to his liking, I got all twisted defending the idea that it shouldn't be done. But after I put that aside, I found he had some interesting concepts and tried to work to support that. Even if it wasn't to my personal tastes.

Grod_The_Giant, I know you probably have links to some of those old threads in your sig, but for people like me that have sigs hidden, can you repost some of the more helpful and less "me attacking you" ones? I feel like they'd be relevant to what the OP is trying to do.
Umm, let's see...

The ol' 5e problem: how to deal with small bonuses (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?480171-The-ol-5e-problem-how-to-deal-with-Small-bonuses)
Replacing Expertise (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?483815-Replacing-Expertise)
Grod's 5e Revisions-- Structural (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?485818-Grod-s-5e-Revisions-Structual)
5e Without Ability Scores (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503455-5e-Without-Ability-Scores-skills-Skills-Skills) (I posted this in homebrew instead and no-one commented, though)

I dunno how much useful stuff you'll get from them; the first one in particular was a lot of "I don't like this thing, how should I change it?" "YOU ARE WRONG AND ALSO YOUR FACE IS WRONG." (For what it's worth, my current campaign has been using Expertise for all skills, with Rogues getting chunks of the Thief subclass to compensate and Bards getting some homebrewed social stuff. It's been working well)


Um... the 320 pages of the PHB?
5e is lots of fun, and while I know that it may be mostly due to my age addled mind, but I just find it harder to remember most of the relevant rules of 5e than of 1970's rules DnD, or some other RPG's (I'd be scared to tackle GURPS or Pathfinder myself). Any homebrew that makes 5e evem more complex, sounds like a bad idea to me!
My mind is particularly limited!I'm pretty sure that my presence on this Forum brings the playgrounds average down a lot!
Don't be so down on yourself, man. And the bulk of the PHB is just options; as Tehnar noted, it's all exception-based design.


Read the order. First, you double proficiency. Then you take proficiency (which is now doubled) and add half of that (the original proficiency value) to saves. The increased stat cap is the only thing there that has any potential for breaking things (as it's the only thing that doesn't effectively cancel at the area of concern), and even then there's the matter of the cost of giving up feats.


Yeah, that 5% difference in save rates for the very toughest monsters breaks the game, particularly when the way it "breaks" it is that it makes more powerful things have an advantage against less powerful things. Personally I'd consider "breaking" a really weird term to use for successfully accomplishing design goals, but whatever. There's also the small matter of how 5e isn't that finely balanced in the first place and as such is far less delicate than the pervasive attitude in this thread makes it seem.
THANK YOU.

Look at it another way: to somewhat un-bound accuracy, add (some level-based value) to skills, attack, AC, all saving throws, and save DCs. Entities of a corresponding level are unchanged, but the greater the difference, the greater the effect.

I admit that 5e's lack of good high-level monsters is an issue, though. You'd pretty much have to scrape up new monsters somewhere, but, to be fair, I feel like you'd have similar problems with the vanilla system as well. To a lesser degree, perhaps, but the game really doesn't like supporting high levels too well... hopefully Volo's Guide will have some stuff when it finally comes out.

[Knaight]

2) yes, 5% is a big deal at the far ends of the spectrum. the difference between save on 19 and save on 20 is monumentally huge, and the difference between save on 20 vs no save possible is even bigger. especially for monsters that, for example, have magic resistance, or which you would expect to face multiples of. i know it sounds small. until i actually played it out, i thought it would be a small difference too. while playing an online game that used (roughly) D&D rules, the difference between my spellcaster that could use crowd control with a DC just 2 points lower and another spellcaster was gigantic. when i used my crowd control, with 2 or 3 enemies in it, those 2 or 3 enemies were routinely getting out of my crowd control and causing problems for everyone, while the other caster just used a crowd control spell (that had shorter intervals between tests) and had pretty much everything locked down permanently and it was as if those monsters weren't even there. it was night and day.


The difference between a save on 19 and a save on 20 can be made to seem like a huge percentage if you're looking at the relative change in success frequencies. 95% of the time it's inconsequential. As for games using approximate rules for what isn't even specified to be D&D 5e, two can play that game. I've seen plenty of cases where some small variation in capacity (generally of NPCs) usually had a small effect.

[Zorku]

I'd just like to forewarn everyone that this wall of text has very little to do with the primary topic of this thread. The big block of thoughts after the second quote seems useful enough to me, to at least the one person I'm quoting, to still post it, but anyone else with even very meager needs to spend their time wisely, you might want to skip that.


Who do you think *is* on these forums? My IQ is commonplace here, as it has been in most of my social settings. I do not feel special.

Just to add to this without the hostile tone everyone else seems to be using: IQ doesn't really have that much to do with being productive, and maybe not even that much to do with being all that smart. The IQ test mostly just measures your ability to remember and recall slightly academic trivia, and sloppily chosen trivia at that. Being a genius according to IQ tests is almost more a guarantee of being mundane than the other way around. A lot of very smart-creative-productive and shining examples of what we think being a genius ought to entail, DO score well on these tests, but the swathes of people that score well without being like that show that the tests really just measure some ancillary traits, or possibly that the tests miss some key traits.

That and an IQ of 150 today doesn't mean what an IQ of 150 did back when the tests were created, or even just half as long ago. There's a weird upward trend in IQ scores that totally screws with what you think these numbers should mean.


The irony is you're now completely fixated on accusing me of bragging and denying my claim while completely missing the point of my message, which was to advocate humility.

While that is the case, you seem to be overlooking some of the baggage that comes with how you presented this. You brought up how high your IQ is, as your qualification to make a particular judgement call. While that doesn't automatically mean you were boasting, you should be more than capable of seeing why others might hear "I'm incredibly smart and I claim that this game is very complex. Only stupid people would think this system was simple, so you'd better be smarter than me if you want to contest my claim."

I'd hope that most people wouldn't have such an extreme reaction to it, but if you try and break the argument down into claims and warrants there's no argument there except what your IQ is. I'm glad that this didn't turn into an intellectual **** measuring contest (although that's probably because anybody here with a higher IQ hasn't bothered to have it tested,) but without that outcome people are left only with the option of rejecting your high IQ score (plus the usual rabbit holes we always end up going down in these arguments.)

For what it's worth I'd say that the combat system and attribute/ability math is both very simple and very complex, using obviously different metrics to get to each of those conditions. It's simple in that it's predicated on relatively few assumptions that are able to forecast the vast majority of conditions despite a variety of options that are almost as diverse as the ability of our language to describe them. It's very complex in that it brings a lot of cruft along from legacy editions along with it, has enough moving parts with frequent reference, relevance, and several stages of downstream effects so as to greatly multiply any haphazard changes to the underlying math.

Hopefully (and somewhat more apparently than the other times I've lead with optimistic dreams in this post,) everyone commenting on changing the encounter math is actually pretty good at spotting a lot of the patterns that this system was designed to encompass, but anybody that's enough of a math nerd will know that you never spot all of the important patterns, and if you get as invested in this game as I like to, finding that those unforeseen consequences have caused a big problem for the system can be a bitter pill to swallow.

[Sabeta]

I still fail to see how doubling proficiency manages to remove the bounds of accuracy. Even if we double proficiencies or whatever a level 30 fighter still probably losses to 100 humans because crits exist. If you remove crits then you're still probably getting hit because 20 AC. The only thing upping the scale accomplishes is making deadly monsters deadlier to low level PCs.

[odigity]

Oh my frikkin god, I feel like I'm in a looney bin.

Everyone is now obsessed with an off-hand comment and completely ignoring the actual content of the message.

Since I'm now basically being mobbed by people with hostile intent, poor reading comprehension, and attention span of a guppy, I see no reason continue participating in this thread.

(This seems to be happening more often, recently. Witness what happened to poor CaptainSarathai just for seeking help to Balance the BladeLock (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503557-Fixing-BladeLocks-via-Balancing)...)

[Morcleon]

so what you're saying is you did not read what i was replying to at all.

he EXPLICITLY STATED that non-proficient saves would only get 1/2 proficiency. that inherently means you are NOT doing the same thing for the monsters. or, rather, if you *are* doing the same thing for monsters, it still borks the hell out of everything because now you have PCs that also don't have a hope in hell of making saves, although it's still much worse for the monsters because they never had attribute caps in the first place, their attributes are already what they should be so they're only getting half the increase.

furthermore, if you had read my previous posts and understood them, you would realize that even full proficiency to non-proficient saves still breaks the game, just not *quite* as badly (because at least it only breaks it when you're facing high CR opponents with a different proficiency modifier than you - i think it would be kinda stupid to set up the game such that your options for opponents that offer anything like a challenge at high levels are limited to something like 35 different monsters, with most of those being variations on what kind of dragon you're fighting. but you could at least in theory play the game, though it seems pretty crappy to reduce dragons to little more than random encounters. the specific proposal i was responding to when i wrote my last post? not even dragons would be a decent challenge).

Monsters will be tweaked to match the PCs as well. In addition, I can always homebrew monsters or convert them over from 3.5e or just use characters built from PC rules to be used as enemies.


1) he said to double it for one purpose, and half it for another. not to double, then add half of the doubled proficiency.

Proficiency isn't being doubled only for one purpose. The entire bonus is increased (though I'm going to have it increase twice as fast rather than being flat out doubled). Half of this increased proficiency will add to things.


I still fail to see how doubling proficiency manages to remove the bounds of accuracy. Even if we double proficiencies or whatever a level 30 fighter still probably losses to 100 humans because crits exist. If you remove crits then you're still probably getting hit because 20 AC. The only thing upping the scale accomplishes is making deadly monsters deadlier to low level PCs.

Half proficiency will be added to AC and non-proficient saves which, in addition to the increased magic item availability, will break 5e's current bounded accuracy.


Oh my frikkin god, I feel like I'm in a looney bin.

Everyone is now obsessed with an off-hand comment and completely ignoring the actual content of the message.

Since I'm now basically being mobbed by people with hostile intent, poor reading comprehension, and attention span of a guppy, I see no reason continue participating in this thread.

(This seems to be happening more often, recently. Witness what happened to poor CaptainSarathai just for seeking help to Balance the BladeLock (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503557-Fixing-BladeLocks-via-Balancing)...)

It's because you aren't actually helping with the topic at hand beyond claiming that it's impossible to do, and doing so in a rather rude manner. I am not interested in discussing whether removing bounded accuracy is possible or not, but rather how to go about doing so. Since I have already received a way to do so (double proficiency scaling, add it onto certain other things), it is clearly possible. The point now is to to tweak it for balance and to make sure that it fits what I want from the change.

[Cybren]

I remain skeptical that the undertaking of making this work in a satisfying and comprehensive way (rather than slapdash and haphazardly) would be a significant greater expenditure of time than just teaching your players 3.P.

Honestly, if I were doing this, i'd keep everything the same except remove the ability score cap, give out higher + magic items, and give out Feat-Like-Boons that give things like expertise in attacks with certain weapons. Then I'd not at all touch the monster manual, and play a really 'unfair' combat as war game

[Morcleon]

I remain skeptical that the undertaking of making this work in a satisfying and comprehensive way (rather than slapdash and haphazardly) would be a significant greater expenditure of time than just teaching your players 3.P.

Honestly, if I were doing this, i'd keep everything the same except remove the ability score cap, give out higher + magic items, and give out Feat-Like-Boons that give things like expertise in attacks with certain weapons. Then I'd not at all touch the monster manual, and play a really 'unfair' combat as war game

We'll never know if we don't try. :smallbiggrin: And note that it's not just teaching my players 3.P. Doing that for core would be pretty trivial; the issue comes in teaching them 3.P to a sufficient optimization level that doesn't make me cringe every time they try to do something. :smalltongue:

Currently, the changes I have are:
Proficiency bonus increases every even level rather than every 4th (converting for monsters would be 2X-2, where X is their original bonus)
Add 1/2 proficiency bonus to AC and non-proficient saves
Magic items with +X now go up to +6 from +3
Most magic items are purchasable
Ability scores are uncapped
Characters gain both a feat and an ASI at levels that normally only give one or the other

I may need to tweak things as they come up, but that should happen slowly enough that it's not an issue, since my players are only level 2 right now.

[SharkForce]

The difference between a save on 19 and a save on 20 can be made to seem like a huge percentage if you're looking at the relative change in success frequencies. 95% of the time it's inconsequential. As for games using approximate rules for what isn't even specified to be D&D 5e, two can play that game. I've seen plenty of cases where some small variation in capacity (generally of NPCs) usually had a small effect.

that's nice. was it the difference between needing a 19 and needing a 20, or going from needing a 20 to impossible to save, and examining a large number of rolls rather than one specific anecdote every now and then?

because if it wasn't one of those things it isn't relevant (mine were, and i fail to see why it matters what edition of D&D it was... it's not like there's an edition of D&D that used something *other* than rolling a d20 for saving throws that it could have been using the rules for).

that said, i'm out. do what you want. I've said my piece, and people either don't understand or don't care, so i'll let you do whatever you want and if you have fun playing with something i would consider horrendously broken (and which i think would require an absolutely obscene amount of time and effort to implement for every single monster and character in the game, and which would require not just new monsters but an entirely new design philosophy when it comes to building monsters, and possibly the same for PCs), that's your privilege.

hopefully for your sake it goes better than i'm expecting.

[Naanomi]

I still feel like you are going to have to increase functional HP and Damage if you really want high level things completely outstripping low level things

Maybe a flat +proficiency bonus to all damage rolls but also flatly subtracted from all damage rolls against you... a net neutral for same CR foes but amplifies distinction between levels greatly

[Kane0]

-Snip-


I didn't think my post was difficult to interpret, but yes you have it right. Please let me know how it goes!

Grod is also an excellent numbers guy going by his history, i'm guessing he wouldnt mind if you PM him, and i'd be happy to help too.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I still feel like you are going to have to increase functional HP and Damage if you really want high level things completely outstripping low level things

Maybe a flat +proficiency bonus to all damage rolls but also flatly subtracted from all damage rolls against you... a net neutral for same CR foes but amplifies distinction between levels greatly
Possibly. My impression thus far has been that damage starts getting pretty brutal pretty fast, but it's not a bad way to make low-level threats really and truly go away.


Grod is also an excellent numbers guy going by his history, i'm guessing he wouldnt mind if you PM him, and i'd be happy to help too.
:smallredface:

[Asmotherion]

I'm looking for a greater power disparity between low and high levels. The goblin hordes that used to be flee-on-sight a dozen levels ago should be nothing more than a strenuous exercise at high levels. Similar examples could be made in regards to skills and spells, with higher level characters easily doing things that most low levels would barely have a chance of succeeding at.



Actually, I'm just aiming to have numbers in general scale to a much wider range, rather than specifically about +X items. I might just increase the potential of +X items from +3 to +6 though.



That is exactly the assumption that I would like to get rid of.

Just an oppinion, but isn't this the very point of 5e? Not having to chase power ups at all costs, and instead focusing on "how you play what you already have"?

Personally I am perfectly satisfied with the system and the fact that things are meant to cap at some point. Besides, what you're describing is already happening. A 12 memeber-hord of goblins needs only a single fireball to be dealt with, or any AOE spell that includes them all. As a matter of fact, with just 7 HP, even if they save a fireball they are killed. Similarly, with a static 15 AC, A first level character will have to roll an 8 or better (provided his primary attacking score is a 20, which is or is not realistic, depending on your DM), wile a 20th level character must roll merelly a 4 or bettel. The first case is about 60% to hit, wile the second is more than 75%

Now, if you REALY need this gap, you could create a reverse Power-attack like feat where you would decrease the damage you deal by an amound (up to your attacking ability modifier) to give an equal bonus to your attack roll... Give the feat a level prerequisit, or a proficiency bonus prerequisit, to have it reflect the "gap" you speak of. Maybe even break it down to two feats, the first trading of only half your modifier (rounded down) and the second trading your full modifier, and having the first one as a pre-requisit. If you are the DM you are free to do this stuff as you see fit. Be wary that my example has never been play-tested, as I merely thought about it wile writing down this reply.

[Cybren]

I think messing with damage output and HP values might needlessly hurt lower HP classes and half/three quarters casters. Unless you change the damage of every spell to scale (and at different rates!), classes like the Eldritch knight might find their offensive spells worse off, since they're casting weaker spell levels relative to enemies.

[Knaight]

I still fail to see how doubling proficiency manages to remove the bounds of accuracy. Even if we double proficiencies or whatever a level 30 fighter still probably losses to 100 humans because crits exist. If you remove crits then you're still probably getting hit because 20 AC. The only thing upping the scale accomplishes is making deadly monsters deadlier to low level PCs.

Doubling proficiency in the context of combat is mostly there to allow for AC & Saves to be increased without making it harder for people at (or near) the same level to hit each other - that 20 AC is going to be more like 28 for a level 30 fighter. Their saves are also up by 8, so that's also a solid wall of defenses. Outside of combat doubling proficiency makes being good in a skill count for a lot more, whereas at present it is a marginal bonus.

[2D8HP]

I want to go on record as being against making 5e more like 3.5 :smallyuk:
While I'm still enjoying the novelty of most PC's surviving to reach 2nd level, I think the msin problem of 5e may be from hit point inflation.
As usual I feel that the solution is not to make 5e more like other 21st Century versions of D&D, but to instead make it more like 20th century D&D, especially low level old D&D.
One or two hits was usually enough to kill a Goblin or a 1970's 1st level PC, and nothing makes combat more exciting than the possibility of quick PC death.
They'll be too much resistance from players to make their hit points less but the DM could tweak the PC's foes, so that they have less hit points but do more damage, and I f course the players probably wouldn't object to their PC's doing more damage.
You could also implement the old "morale" rules, so the goal becomes scaring off the enemy, not just killing them. That should speed things up and make it more exciting.
As to the idea of making 1st level and 20th level more different?
Levelling up is fun, but I'd rather that the power progression be less steep.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I want to go on record as being against making 5e more like 3.5 :smallyuk:
While I'm still enjoying the novelty of most PC's surviving to reach 2nd level, I think the msin problem of 5e may be from hit point inflation.
As usual I feel that the solution is not to make 5e more like other 21st Century versions of D&D, but to instead make it more like 20th century D&D, especially low level old D&D.
One or two hits was usually enough to kill a Goblin or a 1970's 1st level PC, and nothing makes combat more exciting than the possibility of quick PC death.
They'll be too much resistance from players to make their hit points less but the DM could tweak the PC's foes, so that they have less hit points but do more damage, and I f course the players probably wouldn't object to their PC's doing more damage.
You could also implement the old "morale" rules, so the goal becomes scaring off the enemy, not just killing them. That should speed things up and make it more exciting.
As to the idea of making 1st level and 20th level more different?
Levelling up is fun, but I'd rather that the power progression be less steep.
I think sticking to fewer-but-more-challenging encounters can do a lot for this, although I do worry about hit point inflation on the monsters' part sometimes. I remember fighting a couple Reverents in CoS for what must have been an hour and a half of pure slow slog; then again, I also feel like it's generally pretty easy to hit zero as a PC... I haven't really spent any time looking at hit point/DPR math, though, so I can't speak too authoritatively.

[Baptor]

I want to go on record as being against making 5e more like 3.5 :smallyuk:
While I'm still enjoying the novelty of most PC's surviving to reach 2nd level, I think the msin problem of 5e may be from hit point inflation.
As usual I feel that the solution is not to make 5e more like other 21st Century versions of D&D, but to instead make it more like 20th century D&D, especially low level old D&D.
One or two hits was usually enough to kill a Goblin or a 1970's 1st level PC, and nothing makes combat more exciting than the possibility of quick PC death.
They'll be too much resistance from players to make their hit points less but the DM could tweak the PC's foes, so that they have less hit points but do more damage, and I f course the players probably wouldn't object to their PC's doing more damage.
You could also implement the old "morale" rules, so the goal becomes scaring off the enemy, not just killing them. That should speed things up and make it more exciting.
As to the idea of making 1st level and 20th level more different?
Levelling up is fun, but I'd rather that the power progression be less steep.


There's something to this. I used to think hit point progression more or less stopping around level 10 in AD&D was silly back in the day, but now that I've seen editions that allow scaling to 20 I am starting to think AD&D had the better idea.

[Zorku]

Currently, the changes I have are:
Proficiency bonus increases every even level rather than every 4th (converting for monsters would be 2X-2, where X is their original bonus)
Add 1/2 proficiency bonus to AC and non-proficient saves
Magic items with +X now go up to +6 from +3
Most magic items are purchasable
Ability scores are uncapped
Characters gain both a feat and an ASI at levels that normally only give one or the other


Provided that these changes work fairly well for evenly matched CR opponents my remaining complaints are that you've got to throw the balanced encounter equation out, and that equal CR creatures typically make for boring combats, as they lack the action economy to keep up with a party of adventurers. How do you plan to suitably balance an encounter of 4 or 8 creatures against a party of 4?

The old equation for this was less than ideal, particularly for any time save or suck spells came into play, but with this modification I'm far less certain about what encounters are going to be appropriate. I suppose I can still try to use the old equation and universally drop the difficulty rating by one category any time I'm dealing with multiple opponents, but what's the new (not-all-that-)deadly and does this actually align with anything like the old system's difficulty ratings?

[Malifice]

The simple solution is to use 2d10 instead of a d20.

Bonuses matter more with a bell curve.

A +1 sword is a big deal.

advantage and disadvantage are just roll an extra die take highest or lowest.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Provided that these changes work fairly well for evenly matched CR opponents my remaining complaints are that you've got to throw the balanced encounter equation out, and that equal CR creatures typically make for boring combats, as they lack the action economy to keep up with a party of adventurers. How do you plan to suitably balance an encounter of 4 or 8 creatures against a party of 4?
As long as you're within a level or four of the party, I wouldn't expect to see much of a difference-- a small difference in accuracy should have less of an effect on a well-built encounter than terrain and tactics, I should think. Beyond that, though, you make a good point... maybe something like


The simple solution is to use 2d10 instead of a d20.

Bonuses matter more with a bell curve.

A +1 sword is a big deal.

advantage and disadvantage are just roll an extra die take highest or lowest.
I've used 2d10 pretty extensively in Mutants and Masterminds, another d20 game. It's a nice compromise between randomness and predictability-- not strongly curved, but mildly trendy, if that makes sense. One could also try 3d6, if you wanted to really make 5e obey its own hype about making small bonuses matter, though you'd have to adjust static DCs in some way that I'm not good enough at probability to figure out. (I think +2 AC/DC should keep with 5e's expected odds?)

[Zorku]

As long as you're within a level or four of the party, I wouldn't expect to see much of a difference-- a small difference in accuracy should have less of an effect on a well-built encounter than terrain and tactics, I should think. Beyond that, though, you make a good point... maybe something like

Staying within 4 levels of the party generally only allows you to have 3 creatures opposing them, for a 'deadly' encounter. You can push this further at low levels, but those levels are irrelevant for the intended change of this thread.

[Knaight]

Staying within 4 levels of the party generally only allows you to have 3 creatures opposing them, for a 'deadly' encounter. You can push this further at low levels, but those levels are irrelevant for the intended change of this thread.

Yes, and below that CR breaks down precisely because it is supposed to, because those weaker enemies are explicitly not supposed to present the threat they otherwise would. Again, that's not a problem, that's this change working as intended.

[Malifice]

I've used 2d10 pretty extensively in Mutants and Masterminds, another d20 game. It's a nice compromise between randomness and predictability-- not strongly curved, but mildly trendy, if that makes sense. One could also try 3d6, if you wanted to really make 5e obey its own hype about making small bonuses matter, though you'd have to adjust static DCs in some way that I'm not good enough at probability to figure out. (I think +2 AC/DC should keep with 5e's expected odds?)

A DC of 15 works still. The average roll is more likely to be 11 on 2d10 (with higher numbers correspondingly rarer. You retain the same odds of rolling a 6 or 15 on 2d10 as you do on 1d20.

With +0 by the way of bonuses, your odds of rolling a 15 on 2d10 are 15% (instead of 30% on a D20). Unskilled people have a harder time of hitting the 'standard' DC.

With +5 for bonuses you have a 55% chance of success (the same as a D20).

A Rogue with expertise and +7 bonus at 1st level has a 72% chance of success vs DC 15 (instead of 65% normally). His expertise bonus matters more.

If you really wanted to do away with bounded accuracy but keep the d20, (while keeping it simple and not messing with the math) then just let everyone and everything add its proficiency bonus to AC, Skills, Saves, Attacks, Save DCs in addition to whatever they normally get. So proficient attacks are [proficiency bonus x 2] plus [ability mod] Rogues with expertise add their proficiency bonus a total of three times to skills they are expert in.

A Str 20/ other stats 14 Fighter in full plate and shield (no other tricks) thus has:


AC: 26
4 attacks at: [proficiency+proficiency + Str] +17
Proficient saves: [ability mod] + 12
Non proficient saves: [ability mod] + 6
Proficient skills: [ability mod] +12
Non proficient skills: [ability mod] + 6
Save DC's vs special abilities: 8 (base) + 12 (proficiency x 2) + [ability mod]


You do the same to monsters as well. Goblins get an extra +2 to AC, hit, saves and skills. Your high level fighter can basically ignore them while they still remain an identical threat at low level.

[Zorku]

Yes, and below that CR breaks down precisely because it is supposed to, because those weaker enemies are explicitly not supposed to present the threat they otherwise would. Again, that's not a problem, that's this change working as intended.

I'm not convinced that the goal here was to invalidate all combat encounters that involve more than 3 opponents (per 4 players.) Fighting the big solo monster is fun and all but if you're trying to recapture 3.5 you probably don't intend to make the "fight against another party of adventurers" concept into a joke. Strictly speaking, if you roll them up like actual characters they'll hold their own, but they'll also be way past the deadly challenge rating that way.

If you can't ever do a meaningful encounter against 6 creatures then it basically just turns into big game hunters all day every day.

Back in 3.5 you outpaced goblins and kobolds pretty quick but after a few modules you were pulling a crazy blitz on rooms with a bigass monster, his pet wizard, a handful of guards, and two or three named NPCs. Sure, some of the time is was basically just a fight against a vampire lord and the two of his thralls or whatever other undead things he had with him, but fights where you were outnumbered were a big enough deal that if you didn't prepare you'd be using your emergency escape contingencies to try and get out of there so you could go in with a real plan.

But like this? Hack and slash. If there's a lot of them it doesn't matter, and if there's not a lot of them then you've got way better action economy than they do.

This is looking dangerously close to the worst of both worlds.

[Citan]

Hi all!

I'll be honest, I tried to catch up the thread before adding my 2 cents, but I dropped near the end of 2nd page, because I'm not interested enough: I love bounded accuracy for many reasons (all of which I'm sure have already been told).

However, I understand the willing of breaking bounded accuracy (one-shots, just breaking the systems limit by sheer curiosity etc).

Imo, the only things you have to do to break the games are...
1. Remove the stat cap.
2. Remove all the concentration mechanic.
3. Blow everything right away by also putting aside the "cannot stack two effects from same origin" (at least whenever it makes sense, such as adding numeral bonuses).

Done (or, cherry on the cake if you don't want to "wait", either gives extra ASI or allow a 35 points buy without the "max 15" cap).
Requires no work at all and achieves goal in a breeze.

Just removing concentration is already borderline broken, at least if you want to go all-out for one big fight.
Allowing same effects to stack is the surest way to make all numbers break roof fast: welcome back, World Order of Paladins! \o/

Multiple 6+ Paladins / X multiclass will utterly break the game (did already before in fact, just because of Aura of Protection).

But any party where each people has Bless known and enough slots to last a day will pulverize balance to be honest.

You could also end to hilarious situations, like a "All for one" party where 7 guys just blow everything to buff the last, then enjoy the show of seeing one guy swipe through the whole army with totally stupid abilities.

7 man party, all level 11.
Fighter is the one buffed, Eldricht Knight Sharpshooter.
2*Clerics.
2*Wizards
2* Lore Bards
One Cleric casts 4*Shield of Faith, 3*Divine Favor, 2*Protection from Energy and Water Walk, X*upcast Aid.
The other casts 4*Bless, 2*Divine Favor and one Protection from Poison, 2*Protection from Energy and one upcast Aid, Death Ward and 2*upcast Aid.
upcast Aid with remaining slots.

Wizards cast 1*Expeditious Retreat, 1*Mage Armor, 2*Jump, 1*Protection from Evil and Good, 3*Longstrider with lvl 1 slots.
Enlarge / Reduce with 2nd level spells.
1*Fly and Haste with 3rd level slots.
1* Greater Invisibility with 4th slots.
upcast 1*Magic Weapon (lvl 6) and Haste with remaining slots.

Bards (Magic Secrets :)) cast 1*Heroism, 3*Bless and 4*Divine Favor.
Then 6* Enhance Ability to cover all stats with 2nd level slots.
Then Haste with 3rd level slots.
Then 1*Freedom of Movement and Haste with 4th level.
Then Haste again with remaining slots.

Now for the count of numeral stacks... XD
Bless: 7 (+7d4 to hit and saves)
Shield of Faith: 4 (+8 AC)
Divine Favor: 9 (+9d4 damage)
Aid: 10 (with half upcast as lvl 4+), >100 extra HP
Haste:+10: +20 AC, + 10 attacks, should we really count double movement stacking? XD
upcast Magic Weapon: +3 to hit,

Plus...
Resistance against most damage (Protection X)? Check
Stupid mobility (Longstrider + Haste + Fly + Freedom of Movement)? Check.
Advantage on every check? (Enhance Ability)?
Protection against Death? check.
THP every turn (not that we really care about it XD)? Check.

Sorry I didn't try and make a precise count of everything. I think the point is made without going into detail... ;)

And it could be even so much worse if you optimize the recipient of all these buffs (Barbarian / Monk or Barbarian / Warlock would work better than a Fighter I think for this).

[Knaight]

I'm not convinced that the goal here was to invalidate all combat encounters that involve more than 3 opponents (per 4 players.) Fighting the big solo monster is fun and all but if you're trying to recapture 3.5 you probably don't intend to make the "fight against another party of adventurers" concept into a joke. Strictly speaking, if you roll them up like actual characters they'll hold their own, but they'll also be way past the deadly challenge rating that way.

If you can't ever do a meaningful encounter against 6 creatures then it basically just turns into big game hunters all day every day.

You'll still have those meaningful encounters at the 6 creature level - you effectively have a bonus +1 to hit, AC, and saves against the likely opponents, and that's not that huge. It does however give an incremental advantage, and said incremental advantage continues to grow, so that by the time it would normally take a couple dozen enemies to be effective at the party they are now nigh useless. Again, that's intended.

[Zorku]

Hi all!

3. Blow everything right away by also putting aside the "cannot stack two effects from same origin" (at least whenever it makes sense, such as adding numeral bonuses).
Just for clarification, you mean "same source" as in 'spell names,' right? Like you couldn't just have one wizard place 3+ enlarge/reduce on the same target, yeah?


You'll still have those meaningful encounters at the 6 creature level - you effectively have a bonus +1 to hit, AC, and saves against the likely opponents, and that's not that huge. It does however give an incremental advantage, and said incremental advantage continues to grow, so that by the time it would normally take a couple dozen enemies to be effective at the party they are now nigh useless. Again, that's intended.

Except that makes no sense. A level 2 party should 'flee on sight' from 10-20 goblins, but with the basic system that's a -low risk but slightly tiring- (hard) fight at level 6, a joke fight (easy) at level 9, and not even on the chart at level 13. We're supposed to be narrowing that, cutting it in half based on the kinds of numbers people are suggesting.

So your TPK combat currently becomes doable after 5 levels, and silly after 10. With this change it's supposed to become doable in 2-3 levels and then as threatening as a common anthill by 5-6 levels.

With that established (or contested if I'm an idiot that can't keep track of the basic idea here,) we can move on to what I'm actually talking about: the encounter difficulty equation. How do you scale that now? The current categories are list anything that's meant to be easy-ish with this new system is overly lethal by the old equation. How do you change that to be useful? What is a deadly encounter now? What's a medium encounter?

For reference, I'm talking about the xp thresholds on page 82 of the DMG, or the much simpler rule that CR values should add up to the average level of a 4 player party for a safe enough encounter.

[Citan]

Just for clarification, you mean "same source" as in 'spell names,' right? Like you couldn't just have one wizard place 3+ enlarge/reduce on the same target, yeah?

Well, I was going as far as allowing one caster to stack several cast of the same spell...
But that was because I completely misunderstood the objective of OP. Thought that "breaking thereof" was meaning "how to completely throw balance off".
Seems OP was in fact trying to just push the progression further without totally breaking the balance.

So imo just one (not both) of the either following...
- remove concentration
- allow effects to stack as long as they don't come from the same character...
Should be far enough to make an interesting game which pushes further than usual but stay within boundaries (because in most parties you will have at most 3 stacks of a given effect).

[Grod_The_Giant]

A DC of 15 works still. The average roll is more likely to be 11 on 2d10 (with higher numbers correspondingly rarer. You retain the same odds of rolling a 6 or 15 on 2d10 as you do on 1d20.
I meant adjusting the DC for 3d6 instead of 1d20; 2d10 is close enough that you don't need to worry.


If you really wanted to do away with bounded accuracy but keep the d20, (while keeping it simple and not messing with the math) then just let everyone and everything add its proficiency bonus to AC, Skills, Saves, Attacks, Save DCs in addition to whatever they normally get. So proficient attacks are [proficiency bonus x 2] plus [ability mod] Rogues with expertise add their proficiency bonus a total of three times to skills they are expert in.
This is the basic solution that's been proposed several times in the thread thus far, aye. Great minds think alike.


Hi all!

I'll be honest, I tried to catch up the thread before adding my 2 cents, but I dropped near the end of 2nd page, because I'm not interested enough: I love bounded accuracy for many reasons (all of which I'm sure have already been told).

However, I understand the willing of breaking bounded accuracy (one-shots, just breaking the systems limit by sheer curiosity etc).

Imo, the only things you have to do to break the games are...
1. Remove the stat cap.
2. Remove all the concentration mechanic.
3. Blow everything right away by also putting aside the "cannot stack two effects from same origin" (at least whenever it makes sense, such as adding numeral bonuses).
That will, arguably, break the game (#3 at least; I'm less sure about how much damage 1&2 will really do, besides a bit of the ol' caster-supremacy rearing its head again), but I don't think in the sense that the OP wanted. "Bounded Accuracy" is usually understood to mean the way that bonuses never really outstrip each other, rather than that there's an absolute cap to how high your modifier can get.


Zorku, I understand the root of your concern, I think-- it would take some fiddling to get the encounter tables to work again. (That a group of goblins quickly goes from a potential TPK to a curbstomp is the houserule working as intended). I think... hmm. If every ~2 level difference means a 5% difference in numbers, perhaps translate that to a 5% change to each monster's experience value? It's a small change, but a +1 or +2 is a pretty small change as well.

[Zorku]

So imo just one (not both) of the either following...
- remove concentration
- allow effects to stack as long as they don't come from the same character...
Should be far enough to make an interesting game which pushes further than usual but stay within boundaries (because in most parties you will have at most 3 stacks of a given effect).Still not quite hitting the intent. If just the fighter gets separated from the party they should still make a joke out of an encounter that would be a serious issue in the default bounded accuracy system.



Zorku, I understand the root of your concern, I think-- it would take some fiddling to get the encounter tables to work again. (That a group of goblins quickly goes from a potential TPK to a curbstomp is the houserule working as intended). I think... hmm. If every ~2 level difference means a 5% difference in numbers, perhaps translate that to a 5% change to each monster's experience value? It's a small change, but a +1 or +2 is a pretty small change as well.

With as many times as I have seen people tell me that "a bunch of goblins are supposed to be irrelevant, that's the goal" I don't seem to be expressing my intent very well. Hopefully this time works a little better:

I can't throw 8 goblins at the party anymore. I have a lot of encounter design ideas that need about 8 enemy combatants though. They won't feel the same with only 3 opponents. What CR creatures do I use now? Is this kind of combat impossible to set up now?

To be fair you kind of addressed that, but I don't find that "somebody else will have to figure it out" answer to be complete nor satisfying. Right now the equation is very simple (for anyone that ever had to use a scientific calculator at least,) and if these simple changes actually work as intended, I would expect it to be easy to modify the encounter difficulty tables. What you proposed might do it (although I wouldn't dream of trying to write up an encounter on the back of a napkin anymore.)

I find it alarming that people are expressing this much confidence in step 1, while only you have had any suggestion for step 2, and that nobody is checking any of this before they become so confident about step 1.

[Knaight]

To be fair you kind of addressed that, but I don't find that "somebody else will have to figure it out" answer to be complete nor satisfying. Right now the equation is very simple (for anyone that ever had to use a scientific calculator at least,) and if these simple changes actually work as intended, I would expect it to be easy to modify the encounter difficulty tables. What you proposed might do it (although I wouldn't dream of trying to write up an encounter on the back of a napkin anymore.)
It's also pretty easy to reliably eyeball encounters and circumvent the tables entirely, and when working intuitively switching the system like this imposes a brief adaptation period at most.

[Zalabim]

Well, if you want to use my suggestion without throwing out the encounter/adventure XP tables, it's silly, but you can have the players add their level to their AC/DC/D20s and then add your players' level to the monsters AC/DC/D20s instead of the monsters CR, if you want them to be equals, or less/none if you don't. Definitely use different descriptions for the goblins that are level 1 appropriate and the goblins that are level 10 appropriate though.

[Zorku]

It's also pretty easy to reliably eyeball encounters and circumvent the tables entirely, and when working intuitively switching the system like this imposes a brief adaptation period at most.

Sure, but I need a couple of examples at different level ranges to demonstrate that we haven't screwed up the system badly. If Morcleon and their players want to just give this a go and keep records of the adventure I guess I can wait for that, but with this many amateur game developers in the room I'm blown away that nobody has actually crunched any numbers yet.

[Cybren]

Sure, but I need a couple of examples at different level ranges to demonstrate that we haven't screwed up the system badly. If Morcleon and their players want to just give this a go and keep records of the adventure I guess I can wait for that, but with this many amateur game developers in the room I'm blown away that nobody has actually crunched any numbers yet.

I think there's a point where the more numbers you crunch the less useful information you get. I think "eyeball it" becomes increasingly more valid of a strategy when you've made that many fundamental changes to the game

[Knaight]

I think there's a point where the more numbers you crunch the less useful information you get. I think "eyeball it" becomes increasingly more valid of a strategy when you've made that many fundamental changes to the game

Exactly - there's a point where you either develop a lot of tedious number crunching for a system that has never been better than a vague approximation, or you just intuitively approximate and probably do better.

[Zorku]

This would be fine critique if anyone was providing any approximation at all.

Look, I'll make this easy. Demonstrate the following to be wrong at some middle level and at some high level (ex: lvls 7 and 15) : For a party of 4, challenging combat can involve no more than 3 hostile creatures.

[Cybren]

This would be fine critique if anyone was providing any approximation at all.

Look, I'll make this easy. Demonstrate the following to be wrong at some middle level and at some high level (ex: lvls 7 and 15) : For a party of 4, challenging combat can involve no more than 3 hostile creatures.

This is such a meaningless exercise that I don't understand your point.

[Knaight]

This would be fine critique if anyone was providing any approximation at all.

Look, I'll make this easy. Demonstrate the following to be wrong at some middle level and at some high level (ex: lvls 7 and 15) : For a party of 4, challenging combat can involve no more than 3 hostile creatures.

Our point is that "demonstration" via a bunch of math isn't necessarily viable. We can test it and report results, but we both know that they'll be immediately dismissed unless you're there doing the testing.

[SillyPopeNachos]

5e was quite literally built around Bounded Accuracy, and would require an enormous amount of work to completely break away from it. You'd probably be better off just switching editions and then porting 5e features that you liked backwards.

This was the whole point of the system. Why? Because grinding levels to accomplish a task is artificial padding, but WOTC still wanted to reward players for survival, so the biggest change between levels is HP.

[Zorku]

This is such a meaningless exercise that I don't understand your point.
When you said "I think there's a point where the more numbers you crunch the less useful information you get" did you mean that that point is zero number crunching?


Our point is that "demonstration" via a bunch of math isn't necessarily viable. We can test it and report results, but we both know that they'll be immediately dismissed unless you're there doing the testing.

I can sympathize with the tendency to become cynical about these things (and that's part of why I'm asking for somebody else to attempt this instead of just making a wall of text out of the effort myself,) but I want to be reasonable here. If flat averages look good on paper then I'll be satisfied enough with that.

Actually, here's my response in advance:
Cool. Glad to see that it worked out on paper. Hopefully it works out at the table, but this is good enough that I can at least endorse giving it a shot.



Now somebody please earn that response.

[SillyPopeNachos]

In all seriousness, if you really want to remove bounded accuracy from 5e, introduce damage reduction. The following link has a good chart that informs what this does, and please, when you do, lower hp, otherwise the party won't kill it before it kills them http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Damage_Reduction_%285eOther%29

[LordVonDerp]

This is the silliest thread in as long as I can remember. Why does it have 44 posts?

This thread is like taking your new Porsche back to the dealer and complaining that it corners too well, and asking them to bang up the suspension.
...? If your Porsche corners well then you've got a bigger problem than suspension.

[Baptor]

This whole thread reminds me of my magic item threads from months/years earlier. I kept trying to create a functional system for magic item prices/crafting/etc for 5e that was functionally similar to 3e based on rarity. By this point, you should already be laughing.

It can't be done. 5e was designed to run without magic item math in mind. That doesn't mean you can't use them, but the math doesn't include them (in fact, it doesn't really assume there are any bonuses at all). I was so frustrated after like...5 threads that no one could supply me with satisfying answers, but the problem wasn't the playground, it was my question.

The question was based on an incorrect assumption. In short, there really are "stupid" questions, and mine was one of them. It took some time for me to figure it out.

See, in order to create a 3.5e magic item crafting/pricing/economy system like I wanted, I was going to have to put magic item math BACK into the core assumption, which fundamentally ruined part of the way 5e works. It would look kind of like 5e, but would really be 3.5e.

This question, how to break 5e's bounded accuracy and still be playing 5e, is based on a similar incorrect assumption. In order to correctly change BA, you'd have to change the game sufficiently until it's NOT 5e anymore.

It's going to take the OP awhile to figure this out, and I hope he doesn't get as frustrated as I did before doing so.

Let me say this once, as a friend, you have three choices: Play 5e. Play a different edition. Take tons of time to change 5e into something else just to get what you want, and it won't be pretty. These are the only options.

Have fun, that's the most important thing.

[Kane0]

I dunno man. I'm currently level 5 into a gestalt game featuring pathfinder magic gear (plus simple attunement rule change: must attune to items with a total + equivalent greater than half prof bonus) and things seem to be going along swimmingly.

For example pretty much all four of us have +1 or +2 weapons and armor (plus a bag of holding, a pearl of power and boots of the winterlands) and took on four bulettes at 4th level. Only one of us died (critical hit to the rogue, took over double his HP in damage and killed him outright) and it still very much feels like 5e, just scaled up.

[Knaight]

Let me say this once, as a friend, you have three choices: Play 5e. Play a different edition. Take tons of time to change 5e into something else just to get what you want, and it won't be pretty. These are the only options.

Putting aside the whole "different system" option that's being completely neglected here, bounded accuracy is one of many things that make up the identity of 5e. Taking it out doesn't make it that dramatically different, and it definitely doesn't make it 3.5 all over again - remember routine attribute changes that had to be tracked? That's still gone, attributes are pretty close to constant now. Remember the ridiculous number of types of bonuses in effect that needed to be tacked? That's gone. Remember the deliberate design decision for characters to need magic items just to keep up with the opposition? Gone. The sheer number of lower level spells high level spellcasters got? Gone. Fiddly details like range increments? Gone, and replaced with the entirely new Advantage/Disadvantage system.

When looking specifically at the narrow range of games encompassed by D&D, Pathfinder, and maybe a few slightly further afield entries (e.g. 13th age) 5e has a bunch of distinctive characteristics, and the idea that you should switch editions if you like all but one of them instead of making a minor change is ludicrous.

[LordVonDerp]

I find it hard to believe someone with an IQ of 152.5, in the top .05% of the worlds population, is banging around on a D&D forum in his free time.

Want to try again?

Why would that be hard to believe?

[Zorku]

snip
5e has a bunch of distinctive characteristics, and the idea that you should switch editions if you like all but one of them instead of making a minor change is ludicrous.
In this case, the opposing argument is something to the tune of "bounded accuracy is THE CORE characteristic behind all of the encounter math."

I'd lump the advantage mechanic into bounded accuracy though.

[Grod_The_Giant]

In this case, the opposing argument is something to the tune of "bounded accuracy is THE CORE characteristic behind all of the encounter math."

I'd lump the advantage mechanic into bounded accuracy though.
When you put it like that... actually, I think that damage is the core characteristic behind encounter math. That's the main thing that scales with level, after all. The biggest reason you can't fight a frost giant at level 3 isn't that you can't hit it, it's that it can splatter you with one hit while you can't do more than whittle it down. A little more or less to-hit doesn't change your challenge rating directly, it does so indirectly, by changing your DPR. Health works the same way. And that change, it seems to me, should be calculable.

Find your monster's DPR and health on the "design a monster" table in the DMG, using those rules
Change them by, oh, 2.5% per level difference with the PCs. (So if the monster is two levels higher, increase both by 5%)
See if the new values fall into a different row than before. If so, calculate the new CR accordingly.


I'm sure that someone cleverer (or at least "less at work") than me could come up with a streamlined way to do that, using a spreadsheet or something.

[Knaight]

When you put it like that... actually, I think that damage is the core characteristic behind encounter math. That's the main thing that scales with level, after all. The biggest reason you can't fight a frost giant at level 3 isn't that you can't hit it, it's that it can splatter you with one hit while you can't do more than whittle it down. A little more or less to-hit doesn't change your challenge rating directly, it does so indirectly, by changing your DPR. Health works the same way. And that change, it seems to me, should be calculable.

Damage and hit points, but yes. The unified proficiency bonus existing is a big thing in the system (I for one don't miss having the 0-6 saves, the 2-12 saves, the 0-10 cross class skill ranks, the 0-23 class skill ranks, and the various other scales that have been collapsed into the singular proficiency value), but the actual values assigned aren't that central to anything, and can be pushed around fairly easily with minimal changes needed elsewhere.

[Arelai]

Easiest method:
Have the players proficiency bonus be equal character level, and have monsters add their CR to their AC and saving throws.

So, an adult dragon with CR 20 would still be the same challenge for the players, but monsters with CR 5 would be 15 points behind the players and get stomped. This method increases the power gap, but doesn't involve complicated processes.

[Zorku]

When you put it like that... actually, I think that damage is the core characteristic behind encounter math. That's the main thing that scales with level, after all. The biggest reason you can't fight a frost giant at level 3 isn't that you can't hit it, it's that it can splatter you with one hit while you can't do more than whittle it down. A little more or less to-hit doesn't change your challenge rating directly, it does so indirectly, by changing your DPR. Health works the same way. And that change, it seems to me, should be calculable.

Find your monster's DPR and health on the "design a monster" table in the DMG, using those rules
Change them by, oh, 2.5% per level difference with the PCs. (So if the monster is two levels higher, increase both by 5%)
See if the new values fall into a different row than before. If so, calculate the new CR accordingly.


I'm sure that someone cleverer (or at least "less at work") than me could come up with a streamlined way to do that, using a spreadsheet or something.

Well, I guess that's why you don't get to formulate the opposing position to your own argument.
Less playful though, sure, hitpoints is the key concept, but it isn't the one that sets this system apart from the other editions, and it probably would have been too radical to do something like... "You start with ~20 hp and it never grows, but as you level up you get damage reduction vs lower level threats. Monsters are in the same boat, rarely exceeding 40hp."
Where 3.5 really established the difficulty treadmill, 5e has declared that it wants no part in that treadmill, and Bard gets to land the killing blow on Smaug and the gates aren't eventually going to be made out of neutronium just to keep the challenges conceivable but beyond low level characters.

When I first looked over the custom monster creation rules it seemed really strange to me that I don't start by looking at the AC and other probability sorts of stats for if an attack will hit or not. That stuff is already so baked into the system that you ignore it. Instead you just base it off of damage per round, and then the accuracy measures are already in this little chart for you, because with bounded accuracy it never actually changes much. There's all of this very basic arithmetic for what it means to be a level higher or lower, but the big issue is that monsters don't actually have one level, they have two. The CR is based on their offense level and their defense level. This works fine for the power gain built into the system, but sometimes something nasty is supposed to be as fragile as a goblin, while something that's not that threatening is supposed to be as durable as an ogre. We're throwing all of that out here, and you can probably eventually still make that work, but the MM is already really sparse at high CRs, because 5e abandoned the videogame style bosses of 4e, and a single boss monster makes for a really boring encounter. As the game stands you don't so radically outgrow drow assassins because there's no treadmill of +1 or +2 drow assassins to take their place. Today it's the assassins, but next week the assassins are working with a beholder, and the week after that those assassins are the body guards (and one better body guard, probably with a name,) for your big bad proper.

I really don't understand how to design an encounter in 5e if the bandits from last week are dust in the wind now. There's probably a way to break and remake the system, including things like just ignoring the CR calculation and arbitrarily assigning the CR you want to your +3 goblin that you reskinned as a mutated caveman, but that seems like throwing the system out in name only, while plagiarizing the same system.


If that sounds like a good system that does what you want... we're on really different wavelengths when it comes to game design.

e: Yeah, I've actually made it most of the way through making just such a spreadsheet for my own custom monsters, but translating all the official monsters seems much more tedious. There's a lot of working backwards to figure out what went into the original equation, with various modifiers and table look ups for special abilities, so it's going to at least be kind of awkward as a spreadsheet but if you can make it run well in reverse then that's... still more data entry than I would consider worth the payoff. Try just entering unaltered stat blocks for the MM and you're going to waste... I'd guess about four adventure planning sessions worth of time. I've wasted a lot more time than that on things my players are never going to see, but not all at once while I was actually trying to get my act together enough to run the game the next time we could get together, and not on a homebrew system that I don't have any idea how to design fun encounters around.