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<blockquote data-quote="Esker" data-source="post: 8053056" data-attributes="member: 6966824"><p>If we can agree to use level 8 as a baseline, and also to use 8 rounds per short rest as a reference point (obviously this number will vary from table to table, but I think it's more useful to assume a DM that roughly follows encounter guidelines), then here are some comparisons between a Kensei monk and a Battlemaster fighter. We'll assume neither is variant human, though that assumption favors the monk a bit, because the Battlemaster arguably gains more from a feat. We'll also assume that both start with two 16s and one 14, and that both bump their attack stat at 4th and 8th so that it is 20 at the point where we are doing the comparison. For the monk, they have 20 DEX, 16 WIS, and 14 CON at the point of this comparison. The Battlemaster has 20 (STR/DEX), 16 CON, and 14 (DEX/STR).</p><p></p><p>Survivability</p><p>----------------</p><p>Kensei AC: 20 (assuming agile parry is always used), or ~25 (dodging)</p><p>Battlemaster (One-Handed Setup) AC: 20 (plate and shield --- could be 21, but I'll giving them dueling style instead)</p><p>Battlemaster (Two-Handed Setup) AC: 19 (plate and no shield, defense style)</p><p>Battlemaster (Archery Setup) AC: 17 (half plate or studded leather, no shield)</p><p></p><p>Kensei HP: 59</p><p>Battlemaster (All) HP: 76</p><p></p><p>Can we combine AC and HP into a single measure of "survivability"? Not in a way that applies across all encounter types, but maybe we can use some reasonable reference enemies. If we assume that, on average, incoming attacks are coming from enemies with CR slightly below the PCs' level, the DMG guidelines say that these monsters should have attack bonuses around +6. I'm by no means married to this assumption, and I didn't cherry-pick it, so if you have another number you think is a better representation, by all means, revise my calculations accordingly.</p><p></p><p>But with +6, we're looking at a 50% hit rate at AC 17, 40% at AC 19, 35% at AC 20. If you figure about half of incoming attacks' damage is from dice, crits add about another 2.5% of a hit's worth of damage per attack across the board, for 52.5%, 42.5%, and 37.5%.</p><p></p><p>I'm not sure how to factor in the "relative risk" of being in melee vs at range, here, since it really depends on the party. If the whole party is ranged, then being at range might mean that some monster attacks can't be made at all, but if you're a ranged character in a party with other melee characters, then you avoiding an attack usually means someone else takes it instead. I think all ranged parties are probably pretty rare in practice, so I'm inclined to benchmark based on a party that has two melee and two ranged PCs, and that "redirecting" an attack to a tougher ally is effectively like a bump in AC to 20 or so for that attack. Completely arbitrarily (again, feel free to revise if you think something else is more reasonable), we might say that either being at range or disengaging redirects about half of attacks that might have hit you.</p><p></p><p>If we replace the PC's AC with 20 for half of attacks, a ranged character with AC 17 essentially bumps their hit rate down to about 45%. A ranged character with AC 19 bumps their hit rate down to about 40%.</p><p></p><p>What about dodging? Some of the time (again, for simplicity, let's say about half, but as always, feel free to revise with your own estimate), dodging just means your ally takes the attack instead of you. So if your fellow melee ally is AC 20, then when that happens it may not be worth much to the party as a whole that you were able to dodge. But the other half of the time, the chance to hit you goes from 40% to 16%, and the chance to crit for practical purposes essentially disappears. So, on average half of attacks when you dodge have about a 42.5% conversion rate, and the other half have about a 16% conversion rate, for about 29% overall when dodging.</p><p></p><p>So, at AC 17, if in melee, you can take 1 / 0.525 = 1.90 attacks per hit. At range, that becomes 1 / 0.45 = 2.22. At AC 19 that's 2.35 for melee, and 2.50 for range. At AC 20, 2.67 for either melee or range, to 3.45 if dodging. If we convert everything into effective HP then, using the AC 17 archer as the baseline, then, we get melee AC 19 being worth about 6% more HP, melee AC 20 being worth about 20% extra HP when not dodging, and 55% more when dodging.</p><p></p><p>So using the archer with 76 HP as the reference, the kensei functionally has about 71 HP when not dodging, and 91 when dodging, the two-handed Battlemaster has about 81 "effective HP", and the one-handed Battlemaster has about 91. Deflect Missiles will boost the Kensei some, as will assuming that dodging redirects fewer attacks than being at range does (probably true, tbh), and we haven't dealt with damage that doesn't target AC, which should also boost Kensei to the extent that save-based damage targets DEX more than CON.</p><p></p><p>Gotta take an intermission there for now, but will come back to look at offense in another post.</p><p></p><p>As always, take this with a grain of salt, since I'm making some simplifications for the purposes of quantification --- I'm not claiming this is any kind of "be all end all" analysis by any means, but I do think the general outline of the approach sheds useful insight.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Esker, post: 8053056, member: 6966824"] If we can agree to use level 8 as a baseline, and also to use 8 rounds per short rest as a reference point (obviously this number will vary from table to table, but I think it's more useful to assume a DM that roughly follows encounter guidelines), then here are some comparisons between a Kensei monk and a Battlemaster fighter. We'll assume neither is variant human, though that assumption favors the monk a bit, because the Battlemaster arguably gains more from a feat. We'll also assume that both start with two 16s and one 14, and that both bump their attack stat at 4th and 8th so that it is 20 at the point where we are doing the comparison. For the monk, they have 20 DEX, 16 WIS, and 14 CON at the point of this comparison. The Battlemaster has 20 (STR/DEX), 16 CON, and 14 (DEX/STR). Survivability ---------------- Kensei AC: 20 (assuming agile parry is always used), or ~25 (dodging) Battlemaster (One-Handed Setup) AC: 20 (plate and shield --- could be 21, but I'll giving them dueling style instead) Battlemaster (Two-Handed Setup) AC: 19 (plate and no shield, defense style) Battlemaster (Archery Setup) AC: 17 (half plate or studded leather, no shield) Kensei HP: 59 Battlemaster (All) HP: 76 Can we combine AC and HP into a single measure of "survivability"? Not in a way that applies across all encounter types, but maybe we can use some reasonable reference enemies. If we assume that, on average, incoming attacks are coming from enemies with CR slightly below the PCs' level, the DMG guidelines say that these monsters should have attack bonuses around +6. I'm by no means married to this assumption, and I didn't cherry-pick it, so if you have another number you think is a better representation, by all means, revise my calculations accordingly. But with +6, we're looking at a 50% hit rate at AC 17, 40% at AC 19, 35% at AC 20. If you figure about half of incoming attacks' damage is from dice, crits add about another 2.5% of a hit's worth of damage per attack across the board, for 52.5%, 42.5%, and 37.5%. I'm not sure how to factor in the "relative risk" of being in melee vs at range, here, since it really depends on the party. If the whole party is ranged, then being at range might mean that some monster attacks can't be made at all, but if you're a ranged character in a party with other melee characters, then you avoiding an attack usually means someone else takes it instead. I think all ranged parties are probably pretty rare in practice, so I'm inclined to benchmark based on a party that has two melee and two ranged PCs, and that "redirecting" an attack to a tougher ally is effectively like a bump in AC to 20 or so for that attack. Completely arbitrarily (again, feel free to revise if you think something else is more reasonable), we might say that either being at range or disengaging redirects about half of attacks that might have hit you. If we replace the PC's AC with 20 for half of attacks, a ranged character with AC 17 essentially bumps their hit rate down to about 45%. A ranged character with AC 19 bumps their hit rate down to about 40%. What about dodging? Some of the time (again, for simplicity, let's say about half, but as always, feel free to revise with your own estimate), dodging just means your ally takes the attack instead of you. So if your fellow melee ally is AC 20, then when that happens it may not be worth much to the party as a whole that you were able to dodge. But the other half of the time, the chance to hit you goes from 40% to 16%, and the chance to crit for practical purposes essentially disappears. So, on average half of attacks when you dodge have about a 42.5% conversion rate, and the other half have about a 16% conversion rate, for about 29% overall when dodging. So, at AC 17, if in melee, you can take 1 / 0.525 = 1.90 attacks per hit. At range, that becomes 1 / 0.45 = 2.22. At AC 19 that's 2.35 for melee, and 2.50 for range. At AC 20, 2.67 for either melee or range, to 3.45 if dodging. If we convert everything into effective HP then, using the AC 17 archer as the baseline, then, we get melee AC 19 being worth about 6% more HP, melee AC 20 being worth about 20% extra HP when not dodging, and 55% more when dodging. So using the archer with 76 HP as the reference, the kensei functionally has about 71 HP when not dodging, and 91 when dodging, the two-handed Battlemaster has about 81 "effective HP", and the one-handed Battlemaster has about 91. Deflect Missiles will boost the Kensei some, as will assuming that dodging redirects fewer attacks than being at range does (probably true, tbh), and we haven't dealt with damage that doesn't target AC, which should also boost Kensei to the extent that save-based damage targets DEX more than CON. Gotta take an intermission there for now, but will come back to look at offense in another post. As always, take this with a grain of salt, since I'm making some simplifications for the purposes of quantification --- I'm not claiming this is any kind of "be all end all" analysis by any means, but I do think the general outline of the approach sheds useful insight. [/QUOTE]
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