Hey all!
Interesting stuff Jhaelen, though (as regards the damage of Level 31+) I wonder if the best idea is to (try and) keep the dice average and the bonus roughly equal?
Howdy Upper_Krust!
Well, when I started looking into this
(here), I had a similar idea: I tried to keep the minimum damage close to half the average damage. I also tried to make sure that the minimum damage steadily increased from level to level. However, it's at odds with my preference for limiting the number of dice rolled (see below).
Looking over the MM3 monsters, I notice that the really high damage expressions are rarely used as is. Instead part of the damage is substituted with ongoing damage or status effects.
Also, when the July Update was released, I didn't have the impression that the official damage expressions were picked to ensure anything of the kind. The preference seemed to be to have a 'clean' progression of dice expressions. I rather liked that damage expressions change every five levels (at least starting in the paragon tier), so I kept that part.
As previously mentioned I'm not a big fan of using 'buckets of dice'. That's the main reason I limited myself to dice expressions with up to four dice. It's one thing I was a bit disappointed about in 4e: I remember that the designers promised I wouldn't have to roll lots of dice. Yet, powers use up to 9 dice, and there are still weapons using two dice as base damage and don't get me started on the 'brutal' keyword... It may not be quite as bad as empowered disintegration spells in 3e, but it's worse than I prefer.
Anyway, I don't think there's a right or wrong about using different dice expressions. It's really a matter of personal preferences and the goals you have in mind. See KarinsDad's comments or Asmor's table.
If I had tried to create a table for levels 1 to 75 (or is that a typo?), I'd probably have wanted to use more dice expressions. I would still have tried to keep the number of dice as low as possible.
One further reason is what happens when you list dice expressions ordered by average damage: The higher up you go the more odd changes from one type of die to another you get (e.g. like 4d8 ends up between 3d10 and 3d12). And if you set yourself an upper limit of the number of dice you want to roll, you'll eventually end up with only large dice and huge gaps between the average damage values.
Still, I like seeing different damage expression tables, so bring them on
One other question of note is whether the damage tables should peak at 175% rather than 150%. Specifically for Brute limited powers.
Yup, that's what Jack99 inquired about further up in this thread. I certainly cannot say if that was the intention or not. Without having playtested anything, I feel that 150% is sufficient and 'recharge 5,6' not that different from 'recharge if bloodied' to warrant another column.
I may well change my mind on this, though
Especially, since my analysis prior to the July Update (based on the hp/level progression for pcs) indicated that average damage should be even higher all around.
