Yurei1453 wrote:Previous editions of D&D allowed the bonuses one applied to a d20 roll to scale well into the hundreds - you gained a point of Proficiency Bonus every level, and other methods could drive the bonus vastly higher. The d20 was almost insignificant next to your skill bonus for a given action.
What this meant is that content had to be tightly calibrated to player level. Only content within an exceptionally narrow band of Numbermancy would provide an appropriate challenge to a party of PCs. Too low and the PCs were gods among ants - too high and the PCs are ants among gods. A third-level goblin, for example, was mathematically incapable of harming a seventh-level PC, while a twelfth-level goblin (if such a thing was made to exist) would one-shot most seventh-level PCs with overwhelming brutality.
In Fifth Edition, a core change to the game was the elimination of this arms race of ever-increasing bonuses. Instead, the system was capped with 30 as the highest possible number (under normal circumstances) that any creature could have for any relevant d20-modifying stat, and the idea was that accuracy was bounded - that is, the d20 was always the biggest possible contributor to a given roll and stat bonuses could not overshadow the weight of the d20. A first-level goblin is capable of scoring a hit on a twentieth-level PC and dealing damage, a fact which would've been absolutely unthinkable in previous editions of D&D. But under Bounded Accuracy, no enemy is too weak or too strong to affect the PCs, or the inverse.
The idea is a strong net positive and it brought a lot of good to the game, but there are unfortunate holes in it. A lot of folks miss being able to no-sell weak enemies that gave them trouble in the early game, and it does mean the game math is far more sensitive to DMs who accidentally **** up and overtune numeric bonuses on their items or boons. It's not as sensitive as some folks think, but there can be issues for those who don't understand bounded accuracy.
So apparently D&D 5E and PF2 have bounded accuracy, but PF1 doesn't. If I understand it correctly.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-be ... ?comment=4
pangurjan wrote:Rodney Thompson wrote this on the Wizards website back in 2012:
"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."
More links in the link if you want to read more. And there's a lot more to read.
