The final word on DPR, feats and class balance

[the Jester]

That'd've been a clearer way of putting it. Acknowledge that, yes, Cap'n Zapp found a flaw in the 5e diamond, but opine that it's still pretty shiny, and with the right setting, can be just as beautiful as he'd like it to be...

Except that not everyone agrees that he has found a flaw at all. Not to say that 5e is flawless- no game is- but what he points to as a flaw seems just fine in my considerable 5e experience.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Except that not everyone agrees that he has found a flaw at all.

In that particular exchange I was responding to someone who apparently did, just found it easy enough to deal with.

Not to say that 5e is flawless- no game is- but what he points to as a flaw seems just fine in my considerable 5e experience.

So you've had considerable experience with parties where one all-about-the-DPR champion fighter went the TWF route and feels like a schmuck compared to the GWM or SS or whatever, and you have been just fine with that (suck it up, Cuisinart boy, this ain't 2e anymore!)?
I can't say I don't entirely empathize (TWF had it coming when 3.0 nerfed it, and still does, & will as long as a certain drow is running around with two scimitars, anyway).
Or you've had considerable experience with 5e that did not include any of the elements Zapp was grousing about ever actually coming up in those combinations?
Between the levels I typically run for AL, and the choice not to use feats or MCing when I don't, I have also neatly avoided the issue.

OTOH, it's not like he's making anything up: each of those elements is in the game, and the math adds up. And, I suppose the point is a flaw in the game (what's between the covers), not in our campaigns (nor even in Zapp's necessarily).

 

[5ekyu]

I feel like the real issues thread like these tend to run into is the focus on Damage Per Round to begin with. I feel like it's very similar to the early days of tracking professional basketball statistics.

DPR is basically Points Per Game. It's the most simple, basic level of evaluation for an individual character/player. It does not take into account a massive amount of the game. In basketball, it would ignore how often you miss, rebound, steal, assist, block, and even more advanced concepts like your value over replacement player, reduced offense from the person you're guarding, wins produced while you are on the court, and all sorts of elements.

And for years those more "advanced" statistics were ignored in basketball because they were more difficult to obtain data on, and more difficult to interpret. Everyone knew what Points Per Game meant and how to get that number (you look at the score board) but very few knew how to obtain further information or how to read that data.

It seems to me D&D is sort of still stuck in that early statistical read on the efficiency of a character. If your goal is "experience points" or "treasure" or "survival" then "casting charm person on the chieftain of a tribe which avoids combat and gets the party XP and treasure similar to if they would have gotten if they had killed the entire tribe" should have high value. But if DPR is the only thing you assess, it has zero value unless your charm person spell caused extra damage to be dealt.

Just because it's hard to come up with some more advanced assessments of efficiency doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted. Isn't it time we had some stats that measured "avoided getting hit with X amount of damage avoided" or "prevented harm by avoiding an encounter with X amount of draining of resources" or "reduced the risk of death of a PC"?

i agree that DPR is highly overrated by some... just because a metric is easy to determine once you make all sorts of assumptions does not make it relevant.

As i commented in a few posts on a few threads in my experience DPR is not a good indicator at all of overall success or failure.

Even when one focuses on DAMAGE ONLY a few rounds disabling a key foe or giving a high producer disadvantage can do a lot more for your success failure than dumping your concentration slots onto buffing a GWM guy for a few more points per attack - if for no other reason than thats a curing turn the cleric can turn to offense or more control.

But that doesn't plug into excel spreadsheets in white rooms as easy for some in the the OMMI crowd. (Optimizer-Min-Mix-Idealists)

 

[Tony Vargas]

i agree that DPR is highly overrated by some... just because a metric is easy to determine

I've said this may times, myself. DPR is easy to calculate, it's low-hanging poison fruit on the balance tree. The temptation not only to base balance on DPR, but to do so with undue precision ("oh! there's a one-half hp average DPR difference between these two weapons - no on will ever take the weaker one!"), seems to be overwhelming sometimes, especially on line.

In the mean time, there's a lot more to the game, even to combat, than DPR. OK, yes, DPR (and focus fire) is pretty important in combat, given D&D's use of hps, and the fact that enemies' threat is not degraded by attacks until they hit 0, so it's not like it isn't a meaningful consideration. But other things, like versatility, can be extremely potent, too, and while not that hard to measure in the abstract (20 options is more than 2, options that can be recustomized daily are more versatile than those that are locked in, etc), it's very hard to quantify them in a way that can then be plugged into a convenient formula and compared to DPR. So balance often settles for rough DPR parity, and not a whole lot more. Because it's only 'rough' it can look imbalanced when it's just hard to analyze.

And, I didn't get the impression Zapp was unaware of that, since part of his concern was that fighters leaned so heavily on DPR specifically to balance all the other advantages of other classes, that they 'needed' the feats. If it were all just DPR, that wouldn't be an issue (for him), dropping the feats would do it.

 

[the Jester]

So you've had considerable experience with parties where one all-about-the-DPR champion fighter went the TWF route and feels like a schmuck compared to the GWM or SS or whatever, and you have been just fine with that (suck it up, Cuisinart boy, this ain't 2e anymore!)?

Well- I've seen the TWF guy in the same party as a sharpshooter, yet the TWF guy seemed to be just fine. (Playing a PH ranger, no less!) Somehow, even without the bonus damage, he felt like he contributed just fine.

I haven't actually had the sorlock thing in my game, but I run games with mixed level parties, and even the low level guys who are with the sharpshooting/GWFing pcs manage to feel like they are contributing to the group. The bottom line is that pcs in my campaign seem to measure themselves against their adventures, rather than against their adventuring buddies.

OTOH, it's not like he's making anything up: each of those elements is in the game, and the math adds up. And, I suppose the point is a flaw in the game (what's between the covers), not in our campaigns (nor even in Zapp's necessarily).

Sure, but the assumptions people are making when adding the math is aren't universally true- specifically, I don't believe that DPR is the be-all and end-all of the game. I suppose if the DM only awards xp for monsters slain or defeated in combat, rather than for challenges overcome, it shifts the emphasis further toward "DPR is king", but that's not every game.

Given that the things he is pointing at- multiclassing and feats- are explicitly optional rules to begin with, I really do think this is something of a mountain-from-molehill discussion. Don't like that -5/+10? Just don't use feats, or at least those particular ones. Don't like the sorlock's damage output? Don't allow multiclassing. It really seems like a simple solution to me, just like "don't use the flanking optional rule" is a great solution to "the optional flanking rule makes it too easy to gain advantage."

 

[Saeviomagy]

Well- I've seen the TWF guy in the same party as a sharpshooter, yet the TWF guy seemed to be just fine. (Playing a PH ranger, no less!) Somehow, even without the bonus damage, he felt like he contributed just fine.

Sketchy info here, so hard to work out what you actually saw. For starters, it looks like you've got a fighter vs a ranger? That basically means you have a fairly ideal comparison - the ranger has more versatility than a fighter, the fighter is doing more damage. Now, if that was the ONLY way that these two characters could have been built, fine.

Sure, but the assumptions people are making when adding the math is aren't universally true- specifically, I don't believe that DPR is the be-all and end-all of the game. I suppose if the DM only awards xp for monsters slain or defeated in combat, rather than for challenges overcome, it shifts the emphasis further toward "DPR is king", but that's not every game.

One of the examples in the op is a sorceror vs a fighter. The sorceror has the option to spend all of his sorcery resources on more damage, but he's by no means required to do so. The fighter has no option to deal less damage over the day in order to solve problems (well, he does - potentially that action from action surge might do something - but it's not likely to be the same impact as a spell). Similarly for a warlock vs a fighter.

Now your next argument is probably going to be something along the lines of "what a character does isn't dependent on it's built in capabilities". Which is basically the argument that the rules don't matter at all.

 

[pemerton]

Yep. Basically any game with a choice that means something to the game will be imbalanced.

Why?Eg how is backgammon imbalanced?

And just sticking to RPGs, how is HeroQuest revised imbalanced?

 

[pemerton]

A lot of commentary on this thread seems a bit tangential to [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]'s point. The OP does not say that every choice should be balanced with every other - eg that a wizards PC should benefit just as much by pushing STR to 13 as pushing INT to 20.

Nor does the OP say that every choice should be identical. D&D has a complex mix of systems - to hit, dmage, defence, action economy, etc - and that's only combat - and CapnZapp clearly recognises that there can be tradeoffs between them.

The OP is complaining that the game has some dominant strategies that crowed out other archetypes (eg thorowing knives). That may or myay not be true, but that complaint is not what posters seem to be addressing.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'm not hung up on balance much but I have to agree with CZ on a few issues there. I just quit playing 5e and started running a rule-set that worked better for me though. Of course its replete with its own issues.

 

[Oofta]

I pretty much ignore CapnZapp's threads because they're pretty much the same: 5E is broken for one reason or another. But I thought I throw in my 2 coppers for his two primary beefs.

Problem #1 means that in any game with feats, multiclassing and magic items monsters (especially at high levels) stop working as listed, requiring DMs to tweak them or outright replace them. I'm sick and tired of not being able to just pull out a stock monster and use it as-is with zero prep, just because my players aren't newbie carebears that are content with not using the options in the PHB!

What else could be expected? The DM needs to adjust difficulty level for their group. In what edition was this not the case? I use stock monsters all the time. For one group I'll throw a few more at them or use slightly better tactics. It's simple.

Problem #2 means that loads of cool archetypes gets thrown by the wayside simply because it is no fun to be half as effective as the other guy, and some notion of "realism" told the designers only some archetypes get to be effective. Guy with greatsword, okay. Gal with throwing knives, fuggedaboudit.

I also agree that there are a handful of perceived optimal builds. Want to reward that dagger thrower? Set up scenarios where openly carrying large weapons is forbidden or difficult. Or let thrown weapons count as ranged weapons for purposes sharp shooter. Or just don't worry about it. A longbow should probably be more dangerous than daggers.

On the other hand I disagree that, for example, GWM is always better than two-weapon fighting. It varies by level and average target ACs, and support received by other characters. In many cases GWM will be better then TWF by a point or two if it really matters. But people that crunch numbers IMHO also tend to over-emphasize the difference. In my personal experience (which may not match anyone else's) the difference between the different fighting styles is so small most people won't notice.

I have more of a problem with sharp shooter. It feels like a feat tax for ranged weapon attackers.

But the fact that 5E has a few warts doesn't really bother me; I don't see the issues in real play. It would be interesting to see analysis from DnDBeyond, but other than that I don't know if there's any way of knowing how skewed the builds are. I and my friends will continue building characters that sound fun even if they do fall a few points behind the curve.