I had some time on my hands and decided to start expermimentint with the notion of bounded accuracy. Here's the "traditional" article that people reference: Bounded accuracy
However, a problem I have seen are a lack of numbers. And that irritates me. I've heard d&d next uses it, but I dont have access to that so I decided to experiment. How to make this work?
Well, my main intent is to deal with it in combat. I like scaling skills, so I wont deal with them yet. I am also limiting tihs to core classes & no monsters for simplicity.
1) Remove BAB, replace with BDB: this will probably be the hardest to scale, but it just exchanges more hits with stronger hits.
2) Rejigger saves/DCs: this is what I am unsure how to do properly.
3) Remove all +X AC, save, & stat items & effects: this reduces part of the scaling issue.
4) Reduce armor class & making harder to get OR armor as DR: this will require limiting the AC bonus of armors, or greatly increasing the difficulty of access. Armor as DR will eliminate the effects of AC changes, but would need to scale decently to match the scaling damage boni.
5) Reduce magic weapon bonuses to +3 max: in this case, you get through DR/magic at +1, DR/silver, cold iron at +2, DR/aligned & adamantine at +3. It gives a minor boost to attack, still feels kinda cool to have better weapons. Now that I think about it, with scaling damage, eliminating DR might not even be necessary.
6) Reduce WBL greatly: since you no longer "require" +X magic items, wealth is for other items. So WBL needs to be reworked.
7) Massive reworking of buff spells: Seriously. HUGE reworking. That would take time, but it would suffice to keeping low-boost spells to attack (like prayer) and switching others to boosting damage alone. I would also make it so natural armor & armor doesnt stack, to reduce the issues of barkskin.
So, these are the notes I've come up with so far. Havent even gotten into dealing with monsters, CR and other more elaborate challenges.
Has anybody worked on something similar? Anybody willing to crunch some numbers?
bump
Interesting. But I do have to admit I'm not fond of the "increasing dice" methodology. I prefer static bonuses myself, I just want to make the system less swingy.
I've been playing a bit of warhammer fantasy RPG 2ed lately, and it uses bounded accuracy. It works decently, but it relies too much on the dice.
I'm very interested in this sort of thing. It involves a major overhaul of the whole game, but I think it's a worthwhile, and maybe even necessary step towards future editions.
I like the effect it has on the player's ability to relate to what's happening, and how good a character or how dangerous a monster really is. However, I feel like this particular example (in the article) shifts too much of the burden onto hit points, which are also unrealistic and difficult for players to reconcile.
I mean, when a character is struck by a longsword for 8 damage, what does that look like if the character has, say, 70 HP, compared to if he has 10 HP? We have the same problem here, where players can't relate to what 8 damage means without comparing it to their character's current power level. It's equally difficult to imagine or narrate, and some immersion is lost in the process.
This is around where I usually get stuck when I think of making ground-floor renovations to a system like this.
Then how does stuff like poison and bleed work?
The way I view it is that wounds are described as a percentage of your total HP. 4 damage is like a trivial cut on a 100 HP character but is a sword through the gut on a 5 HP character.