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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 4:11AM
#31
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Date Joined:
Feb 12, 2004
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Like: bounded accuracy making monsters relevant over wider ranges
Dislike: Bounded skills. Even with bounded accuracy, scaling HP and Damage still provide for a sense of progression and the capacity to move from low level challenges to suitably amazing and epic challenges as a hero levels. But skills don't have a 'damage roll'. If your skill modifier doesn't scale, than you don't get better at skills at all. Just like I want characters to progress over levels to be able to challenge foes in combat that would have been nigh impossible at level one, so to do I want them to be able to get better at skills until they're able to perform "nigh impossible" feats of stealth, or athletics, or smithery, or knowledge, or wordplay, and skills that don't scale don't provide for that progression.
It's supposed to let me place set DCs on certain challenges rather then having to go with level dependant fuzzy numbers for "easy, moderate, hard", but the effect is just the opposite. In 4e, I could set a DC for, say, Breaking down a wooden door, - something that in my mind might be tough at level one, but should be pretty easy at level ten and trivial at level 20, but that only works because the players skills scale such that what was tough at level one is trivial by level 20. If skills don't scale, than I'll have to drop set DCs and go to a "do I think this should be hard for a character of their level" fuzzy DC system if I want players to have that sense of heroic progression outside of combat.
Hordes of goblins may still be a threat to high level characters in next, but a single goblin is not, and that's perfect. But if a single wooden door is as difficult for a party to get through via skills at 20th level as it is at 1st level, that's just not acceptable. And it's even worse, not better, if the non-combat threats magic can bypass grow ever greater in scope while skills stay the same if only some classes have magic for non-combat situations while other classes are stuck with non-scaling skills when they aren't bashing heads in.
Worry: I share worries that the bounded accuracy assumption will let designers get lazy on providing guidance to DMs on proper skill DCs and rough estimates of the difficulty of various challenges. Though there were some hickups, I loved that in 4e I could grab X monsters of Y levels and know what kind of challenge I was setting for the party - something they'd walk through, something that would be challenging, or something that they'd need to flee from until the got help, found some other way to deal with it, or got stronger. If next lacks such plug and play utility in its final incarnation, than it will make my job as the DM much harder, not easier. Harder enough that I might not be able to run it
Necromancy: Friendship is MagicSpoiler:
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 4:20AM
#32
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I really like this bound accuracy idea. It's not new though, the designers have been talking about it for months now.
I wonder how encounter design will work with this system.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 4:27AM
#33
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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Legends and Lore:
Bounded Accuracy
by Rodney Thompson
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.
Talk about this column here.
I think that's a very good idea!
I was beginning to believe that they just wanted a reprint of D&D basic... but this idea is complitely new!
May I hope for progress?!
No more vancian.
No "edition war" for me, thank'you.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 4:31AM
#34
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The idea of bounded accuracy has been around for a while. The AC system of TSR D&D, for instance.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 4:31AM
#35
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Date Joined:
Mar 14, 2009
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Is "fight Orcs during your whole career" what the majority of D&D players want ? If so, if most players really want to have a low power progression, that's good. If this is not the attitude of the majority of players, though... Wait and see.
Remember Tunnel Seventeen !
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 4:35AM
#36
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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Like: bounded accuracy making monsters relevant over wider ranges
I agree
Dislike: Bounded skills. Even with bounded accuracy, scaling HP and Damage still provide for a sense of progression and the capacity to move from low level challenges to suitably amazing and epic challenges as a hero levels. But skills don't have a 'damage roll'. If your skill modifier doesn't scale, than you don't get better at skills at all. Just like I want characters to progress over levels to be able to challenge foes in combat that would have been nigh impossible at level one, so to do I want them to be able to get better at skills until they're able to perform "nigh impossible" feats of stealth, or athletics, or smithery, or knowledge, or wordplay, and skills that don't scale don't provide for that progression.
I complitely agree, but then I don't think that they want to leave out any possibilito to increase a skill (that would be foulish), I think they just don't want an automatical increase of skills with levels, maybe they will give feats or skillpoints...
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('post_content').onLoad.dispatch();" class="mceContentBody " contenteditable="true" />
No more vancian.
No "edition war" for me, thank'you.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 4:39AM
#37
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Is "fight Orcs during your whole career" what the majority of D&D players want ? If so, if most players really want to have a low power progression, that's good. If this is not the attitude of the majority of players, though... Wait and see.
It's not a requirement that you fight Orcs your whole career. It's now merely an option. As always, each table decides what they want. This is merely a way to provide more options to everyone.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 4:44AM
#38
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Date Joined:
Aug 25, 2007
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]
Dislike: Bounded skills. Even with bounded accuracy, scaling HP and Damage still provide for a sense of progression and the capacity to move from low level challenges to suitably amazing and epic challenges as a hero levels. But skills don't have a 'damage roll'. If your skill modifier doesn't scale, than you don't get better at skills at all. Just like I want characters to progress over levels to be able to challenge foes in combat that would have been nigh impossible at level one, so to do I want them to be able to get better at skills until they're able to perform "nigh impossible" feats of stealth, or athletics, or smithery, or knowledge, or wordplay, and skills that don't scale don't provide for that progression.
I think in one of the earlyer atricles about skill they talked about 3 tiered skill training.
( and i thougnt this was also the favorite from the poll they did)
i thougn they where thinking about +3/+5/+8 would this in your opinion be enough to cover the range of skills you would like.
i think the playtest already lists a character that can do DC 27 tasks on a regular basis godlike.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 4:46AM
#39
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Date Joined:
Dec 29, 2007
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Legends and Lore:
Bounded Accuracy
by Rodney Thompson
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.
Talk about this column here.
Something which bothered me about 3.x was that at first level your character was good with some skills, and had an outside chance of passing something he wasn't good at. At 20th level however, the same character was good with the same skills he started with (and maintained through their career) but had no chance of passing a check with a skill he hadn't been raising. It always felt to me that in 3.x your characters didn't get better at some skills so much as relatively worse in all the others as they levelled up. 4th edition was a big step forward in that respect, but even then the stat bumps started widening the gap as the levels increased as well, albiet at a slower rate. It looks to me that this system may go a fair way to fixing that issue for me.
I like the idea of a system that gives the masses a chance to bring down a big monster, and I like that it gives the PC's something to worry about when a horde of pitch-fork weilding peasents decides they can't ignore the party necromancer and his pet flesh golem walking through the centre of town any more on a sunny summers afternoon.
As far as creating a mythical melee monstrosity that tears apart armies with his bare hands goes, I think we'll have to sit back and wait to see what they do with high level class abilities or the equivilent of PrC or Paragon Paths before we cry in despair.
I for one am happy to give this approach a try. I'd like to see if it plays as well as it sounds. I also think it's very harsh making a call as to whether it's appropriate without understanding the greater context of how the game system will be put together. I might be bitterly dissapointed, but I do like that we're seeing some innovative thinking from the design team.
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13 months ago ::
Jun 04, 2012 - 4:52AM
#40
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Date Joined:
Feb 12, 2004
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I complitely agree, but then I don't think that they want to leave out any possibilito to increase a skill (that would be foulish), I think they just don't want an automatical increase of skills with levels, maybe they will give feats or skillpoints...
I also don't want this advancement to come at the expense of combat ability - as I fear it would if it depended on feats, nor do I want it to depend entirely on class features - or I fear that a lot of the modularity of the background system would be lost (sure, your mage can take the 'talky' background to have decent social skills at first level, but since you don't have the rogues class features you'll never get any better with them so you'll never get to do anything 'epic' with them like stare down a dragon or rouse an army to war, the best you'll be able to do will still be chatting up the local inkeeper.
I mean, sure, presumably the wizard will have phenomenal cosmic powers such that he doesn't care about skills, but what about the fighter? "you're the fightin guy, your class features are all for combat, use skills for your non-combat actions... but oh wait, without skill enhancing class features your skills don't scale at all!"
So yeah, I really, really do want some sort of built in scaling for skills. Bounded skills just doesn't work for me. I'd end up having to fudge all the skill DCs for specific tasks, lowering them as players advance in level, which is exactly the opposite of what the article says they're trying to achieve here.
Necromancy: Friendship is MagicSpoiler:
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