The final word on DPR, feats and class balance

[TwoSix]

Lastly, yes, sorcerers can do some damage with cantrips. Do the math, someone, if so inclined. At level 10, you can throw firebolt and twin or quicken it. A fighter without gwm could do 2d6 +5 times two instead of 4d10, right? This excludes any fighting style bonus, magic weapon bonus any battlemaster bonus and any elevated crit chance. What is more, the fighter likely has more hit points, better AC and better chance to avoid grapple. This also excludes the action surge.

Lastly, the fighter can do it at will all day. I am not saying the gap is huge, but it is not clearly in sorcerer's favor.

Generally, you'll do that calculation assuming a dragon sorcerer, so that twin firebolt is doing 4d10+10. That's an average 32 damage, compared to the GW fighter's 24. You are correct that action surge rounds will be stronger, and GWF style will raise that average by 2.66, and a champion's 19-20 crit range adds another 0.7.

The magic weapon is a little more nebulous...it favors the fighter, since the game tends to give out magic weapons, but I feel like a cantrip using player might get something from a generous DM.

So yes, the sorcerer is only slightly ahead on damage, lacks somewhat in the HP department, and falls behind when the fighter spends some resources, especially action surge and superiority dice. She's also restricted to doing damage to two targets. So, overall I'd say the fighter is just a bit better than the sorcerer. Of course, I am neglecting the minor fact the sorcerer can also turn into a T-Rex, fly, make illusory duplicates of themselves, teleport, and do 150+ damage in a round with a fireball.

And that's not even considering a warlock dip.

 

[Warpiglet]

Generally, you'll do that calculation assuming a dragon sorcerer, so that twin firebolt is doing 4d10+10. That's an average 32 damage, compared to the GW fighter's 24. You are correct that action surge rounds will be stronger, and GWF style will raise that average by 2.66, and a champion's 19-20 crit range adds another 0.7.

The magic weapon is a little more nebulous...it favors the fighter, since the game tends to give out magic weapons, but I feel like a cantrip using player might get something from a generous DM.

So yes, the sorcerer is only slightly ahead on damage, lacks somewhat in the HP department, and falls behind when the fighter spends some resources, especially action surge and superiority dice. She's also restricted to doing damage to two targets. So, overall I'd say the fighter is just a bit better than the sorcerer. Of course, I am neglecting the minor fact the sorcerer can also turn into a T-Rex, fly, make illusory duplicates of themselves, teleport, and do 150+ damage in a round with a fireball.

And that's not even considering a warlock dip.

Let's not move the goalposts

A fighter can also mulriclass and if you use all your spells to upcast at will damage you don't have a lot of spells left.

Let's stick with fighter and sorcerer level 5 or 8 or something...

 

[TwoSix]

Let's not move the goalposts

A fighter can also mulriclass and if you use all your spells to upcast at will damage you don't have a lot of spells left.

Let's stick with fighter and sorcerer level 5 or 8 or something...

Sure. And I'll concede several points. Outside of warlocks (especially) and sorcerers, I don't think at-will damage for casters is that problematic. Clerics get +Wis to damage, but not till level 8 and they don't have a great selection of cantrips, and can't twin or anything. (Maybe death clerics with Toll the Dead? I should look at that.)

As a benchmark, I think casters should be doing about 50-60% of the at-will damage of a martial. Warlocks should be a little better, since they aren't full casters.

 

[Tony Vargas]

if you use all your spells to upcast at will damage you don't have a lot of spells left.
Let's stick with fighter and sorcerer level 5 or 8 or something...

Nod, so we already have a sorcerer that can do crazy damage for the hypothetical low end of a 6-encounter day by blowing everything on the task, while the fighter does much the same on encounter 7 & 8.

Not that 6-8 combat encounters is the norm, exactly, but it's the intention. On a shorter day the sorc has slots to spare for whatever other uses his lowest-of-the-full-casters spells known offers... while the fighter can go swing his sword at a post to keep in shape.

On days with more non-combat encounters, the fighters sword stays in it's sheath, and the Sorcerer, while surely overshadowed by the wizard in that department, can use his slots for something else - that's the whole 'there's more than DPR' thing: yes, there is, and it takes versatility.

 

[Warpiglet]

All good thoughts.

The fact that there is a debate at all is a good sign.

Let's get really concrete. Let us say level 11 fighter and sorcerer is the comparison. No feats--I assume.

20 in main attributes...comparing at will damage vs at will plus resources for sorcerer.

Fighter does 2d6+5 times three. Sorcerer (dragon? Fire?) does 3d10+5. If we start burning spell points, we might double some rounds for sorcerer for equivalent of 1st level slots.

For fighter, let us assume at least +1 weapon and action surge would add three attacks for each use!

Outside of EB and sorlocks, should we at least acknowledge resistance or vulnerability to fire?

A final question: how close is the combat? If melee range, the sorcerer is at disadvantage! Additionally, the sorcerer should have fewer hit points and a lower AC. While hitting less there is some waste of resources.

If the sorcerer says: "I would not be that close!" My question is "who is your shield?" If it is fighter, we see some differentiation of roles, which is classic.

In my final analysis, I think they each have strengths and are not equivalent but have a good impact on encounters. The sorcerer DOES NOT fare as well in close combat sans feats. I don't think it is even too close to call which is one of the OP's original arguments.

Now if we get fancy, multiclass, use feats etc, yeah. The fighter has to pull out he big guns to try and math up in a predictable fashion (i.e. GWM). But then again, a DM could say no sorlock quickened agonizing blast EB 'cause reasons.

Which archetype is murdered with this single limitation? None save optimization lord of movie and film or rather open play game tables in your local FLGS.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Considered and discarded, is the impression I get. Sure, he could just not use feats, but his players want the options, he wants the options out there, /and/ he feels that the feats are needed to balance the fighter with other classes - so the feats stay, and the problem of them imbalancing certain weapon-using builds remains to be solved in some other way...

Sure. I said that it would likely take several corrections for him to get what he wants, which he said himself in the OP. Having base damage determined by class rather than by weapon or cantrip could possibly work, or be one piece of the puzzle. Simply scaling the problem cantrips a bit would seem to be another.

But I’ll also stand by my initial assessment that he and his players stop seeing these overpowered feats and cantrips as being options. Instead think of them as cheats. Or as putting the game on eady mode.

Again, I don’t think this alone will solve the problem...but I think a shift in expectation would likely help them.

What would you suggest they do?

IDK, the design stays flawed even if some 3rd party comes up with a 'fix.' Pointless, in the environment of 5e, probably, but not paradoxical.

It is a bit. He’s very critical of the design choices, but dismisses input from anyone else. It’s odd.

This I do find a little paradoxical. If you never encounter a problem because you never had occasion to encounter it, piping up doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't chime into discussion of violent crime in Chicago with the fact I've never been attacked in Chicago (leaving out the fact that I've never been anywhere near it), but I suppose some of the folks who jump on Zapp's thread /would/...

Oh you play 5E? For some reason I didn’t think you did.

Never had occasion? I didn’t say a game without combat. I said a game with less combat.

Would the combat oriented feats be more important in a game with more combat or a game with less? Seems simple.

That's a bad sentence, even by my standards. Sorry. ;(

However people put it when they take a shot at Zapp's observations about the game, they seem to be pushing back against the very idea of it being changed. Which is both unnecessary (the current design/marketing philosophy has little room for errata or incremental improvement of any kind), and, IDK, kinda petty.

Ah, so I can’t “take a shot” at his charged posts, but you can casually take a shot at those who disagree?

Mostly, when it comes to this topic, I think he has some points, but I think the way he makes those points can be needlessly inflammatory and that the assumptions he makes about what his points mean are not nearly as universal as he seems to think.

It's not "beholden to DPR," it's "High enough DPR can make up for lack of versatility." Zapp's thesis, and it's fairly conventional, is that the fighter lacks versatility, but it's combat (mainly DPR) potential makes up for that. Pushing back that he shouldn't focus on DPR is at best non-responsive.

I disagree. Everything he posts indicates that DPR is by far the major focus of his game. Which is fine, if that’s what he and his players want. However, I think they may be playing the wrong game...or the wrong edition...if that’s what they prefer.

I'd think so, but the point isn't do you 'need' it, the point is it /does/ support an archetype, and it's something a player would intuitively take even if he wasn't powergaming and the campaign didn't 'over value' DPR. In fact, in that case, it might even turn out to be more disruptive to the campaign, since it probably means it's not running at a high level of optimization...

Obviously, they each do something other than -5/+10, and they have appeal to concept-driven folks, too. Should my Robin Hood type be a "Sharpshooter?" I don't even have to look it up, he's supposed to be splitting arrows, /of course/! You can't dismiss game elements as having no other purpose than to appeal to pathological play styles just because they do appeal to pathological playstyles. (Heck, you could dismiss the whole game that way!)
It's not some sort of B&W morality.

I’ll grant that Sharpshooter has something for it beyond the increased damage. But still....being good with a weapon is kind of baked into the idea of a Fighter, no? Weapon Style choice, or in the past Weapon Specialization, grant benefits to a specific weapon for the character, and each Fighter (or other martial class for 5E) can choose what option he’d like. Having Feats that cause the character to be even more gooder with the weapon seems off, to me. I think those Feats are flawed. I don’t think they really add anything to a character concept that character class doesn’t already cover.

They exist as holdovers from previous editions. More damage and more attacks. If the flaws were strong enough that I felt they were a problem for my game, I’d likely discuss it with my players and houserule some kind of solution. I wouldn’t assume that everyone else had the same problems with these feats, and that the only solution would be to have a 5.5 or “Advanced Options” book. I’d realize that my issue with those feats...or cantrips or class features or spells or whatever....were my issues, and that if I was not willing to fix the problem, then it would remain a problem.

 

[hawkeyefan]

What is THE game? What is a player going to talk about and drawn upon, except his/her experiences?

The game as written. Of course we all discuss from our experiences. Zapp assumes his experiences are universal, and that because something is a problem for him and his group, it must be reaolved at the source. Errata, a new edition, an updated PHB of some kind...these are the solutions he demands.

I prefer he fix the issue with his game rather than have WotC issue new rules. I like the rules as they are, flawed as they may be.

What is wrong with building a PC aimed at dealing damage? Or, to move from question to assertion: telling a player who says that (i) I'm interested in the damage-dealing aspect of the game, and (ii) the system produces some wonky results when I focus on that, that (i) was a mistake, seems unhelpful to me. The 5e system is one in which one of the widest range of choices allowed concerns damage (damage dice, damage adds, to hit adds, etc). It doesn't seem that strange for a player, in building a PC, to focus on those elements of the system.

I don’t think playing the game with a mind toward combat efficacy is bad in and of itself....I try to make characters who are effective when I play. However, when a game is concerned solely with combat efficacy to the exclusion of all else, then issues are bound to come up.

Maybe it's just true that 5e - as published, at least - can't support a wide range of damage-dealing archeytpes once players apply a reasonable degree of mechanical expertise to that aspect of the game.

Well this is where it gets murky because there is no easy metric beyond DPR. See the previous comments on the knife thrower. Several of the advantages of wielding daggers are situational and subject to the DM giving them any attention. Personally, I think such a character concept can be realized, just not as a pure Fighter....but even if it can’t, if a player wants to play that concept, why not work with the DM to make a viable version? Design a Feat for it...there are a few ways to do it.

The game may not support that build as written, but the game does support customization.

I take it as more-or-less self-evident that posting on these boards will have no effect on WotC's plans. But generating some sort of community discussion which focuses on actual analysis rather than irrelevant side-points hopefully isn't a complete fool's errand!

The OP boils down to three claims: a feats-included game, played with some mechanical deftness, will overshadow the MM monsters, putting more work on the GM; that same game will also see greatweapon and hand-crossbows as dominant damage-oriented strategies, crowding out other in-principal sensible archetypes; and dropping feats shifts the overshaowing problem elsewhere, to a couple of categories of cantrip-user.

I just don't see how anyone thinks it's a response to those points to talk about winning encounters by casting Charm Person, and telling players that damage-oriented builds are bad play.

Context. The Charm Person example was given in response to points made about the importance of DPR, not directly to the OP as you are imlying. And I didn’t say that damage oriented builds are bad play. I said play that is solely focused on damage output will have some issues that need to be addressed....which I think is exactly the point made in the OP, actually.

 

[Tony Vargas]

What would you suggest they do?

I don't think they need any advice, they're an experienced group putting in the work to get what they want out if it. They just seem to be dissatisfied with how much that is, compared to what they got out of 3.x/PF.

Oh you play 5E? For some reason I didn’t think you did.

Run, almost never a player.

Never had occasion? I didn’t say a game without combat. I said a game with less combat.

'Occasion' as in running up against the same issues.

Ah, so I can’t “take a shot” at his charged posts, but you can casually take a shot at those who disagree?

Hey, as long as you admit It... ; )

Mostly, when it comes to this topic, I think he has some points, but I think the way he makes those points can be needlessly inflammatory and that the assumptions he makes about what his points mean are not nearly as universal as he seems to think.

The game is what it is. Differing opinions don't change that...
...DMs do.

I disagree. Everything he posts indicates that DPR is by far the major focus of his game. Which is fine, if that’s what he and his players want

Then they'd have no problem.

.

However, I think they may be playing the wrong game...or the wrong edition...if that’s what they prefer.

Too easy a dismissal for what 5e's meant to be, IMHO.

I’ll grant that Sharpshooter has something for it beyond the increased damage. But still....being good with a weapon is kind of baked into the idea of a Fighter, no?

Yep, but turn on feats, now there's more.

Having Feats that cause the character to be even more gooder with the weapon seems off, to me. I think those Feats are flawed. I don’t think they really add anything to a character concept that character class doesn’t already cover. They exist as holdovers from previous editions. More damage and more attacks

Evoking the classic game is a major point of 5e, after all.

It's not like, ultimately, it's a "5e Problem," it's a D&D problem.

 

[pemerton]

The Charm Person example was given in response to points made about the importance of DPR, not directly to the OP as you are imlying.

Here is one of the Charm Person posts (post 80-something upthread):

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"?

This seems to be a response to the OP ("threads like these"). But the OP isn't a complaint that Charm Person is useless. (Maybe the OP believes this - I don't know. But it is not asserted in this thread.)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I recently created a knife throwing halfling fighter which originated in 3.5.
He was seriously unoptimized but more than effective. Good AC and rogue skills allowed him to play much more than his role. He started fighter and eventually multiclassed to rogue and master thrower.
In 5e it is quite easy to have an effective guy. The trick is battlemaster with duelling style and rogue thief to use fast hands to be able to throw 2 daggers with your attack action. Dual wielder and using 2 daggers also works.
Battlemaster will give everything you need to be a pain in the ass for your enemy along with cunning action.

Edit: you won't be damage king. But you will be able to easily play your character efficiently.
You have single attribute dependancy and good inititative. You will bring out of combat abilities that are useful. You are durable.

If you want to really deal damage, swap daggers with darts. Take archery fighting style. Take sharpshooter. Be a ranger hunter multiclass for hunter's mark and colossus slayer. (Note that you have con saving throw proficiencies).