A Rebuttal to "Bounded Accuracy" in D&D (Rules Lawyer)
Added 2024-02-22 08:21:55 +0000 UTC0:00 Intro
4:17 The case for bounded accuracy
10:48 Unprecedented in D&D
13:30 How it works
15:51 Lack of system
18:46 Unbounded bonuses
27:03 Big gaps
32:27 Hard to challenge the party
33:43 Insignificance of leveling-up
36:10 Doesn't reflect combat skill
38:41 Few magic items
39:52 Weak monsters still become obsolete
41:21 Fights become a slog
44:07 Difficulties adjudicating
47:06 Undermines specialists
49:50 Verisimilitude suffers
51:12 Final Thoughts
Bounded Accuracy article in the Wayback Machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140715051206/http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120604
My old Rot Grub blog:
https://rotgrub.wordpress.com/
"The 5e monster creation guidelines are wrong" (Blog of Holding):
https://www.blogofholding.com/?p=7283
"A (rambling) criticism of bounded accuracy" (Reddit):
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/mu8yd8/a_rambling_criticism_of_bounded_accuracy/
Comments
One thing I find lacking in 5E is saving throws in particular. There are SIX of these. (Though they aren't all super common.) You get proficiency in two of these by default. Sure there are some exceptions, paladins can eventually add their cha mod, monks eventually become proficient in all of them, you can take feats to gain proficiency in others. But by default, by and large, you're proficient in two. Whether either of those two are common saves to make depends on your class. Take a red dragon wyrmling with a DC 13 fire breath vs an adult red dragon at 21. With the Wyrmling, even if you don't have a bonus to your dex save, you have a sizable chance of hitting that saving throw. But by the time you fight an adult dragon, unless you're a high dex class and proficient in the roll, you're not likely to pass that save. Now, a boss monster's abilities should feel threatening. And it's perfectly fine for some classes to be better at some saves than others. But it really kind of sucks, imo, to be looking at a 20+ saving throw DC when you don't happen to be one of the lucky classes that favors making that kind of save. Saving throws start out largely manageable, and over time DCs creep higher and higher until they're practically guaranteed failures for a lot of characters. I feel like 5E making a saving throw for EVERY ability score, paired with not having any scaling for your saving throws unless it's one of the two you're proficient in and one of your main stats, is a big misstep. And a place where they either didn't really try to, or failed to, keep bounded accuracy in mind. I find that the game does well enough when it comes to boosts to your AC, attack rolls, and our own DC value scaling for the most part, but the player saving throws are a mess IMO in 5E. If they wanted to make every ability score potentially useful for saves, my thought would be to make: Fortitude: Use the higher of STR or CON. Reflex: Use the higher of DEX or WIS. (I know that wis is traditionally for will saves but it fits here to be observant and thus able to move quickly, similar to PF2E using perception/wisdom by default for initiative.) And then the higher of cha or int for will saves.
Florena Emberlin
2024-02-24 01:10:29 +0000 UTCI really like this video! It's completely in Ronald's style, very thorough. Excellent job!
Lotrotk
2024-02-23 04:58:36 +0000 UTC
