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<blockquote data-quote="borg286" data-source="post: 7990808" data-attributes="member: 68679"><p>I've added a section in the Level 5 details which show the fighter build and calculations. Thank you. I had some miscalculations before, which resulted in his KPR jumping a bit. This dropped the 83% down to 70% as damaging as the fighter. Still that is pretty respectable.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>See below for response to AOE Damage</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Minor Illusion doesn't require concentration to cast. But the heart of your argument is that Silent Image and family (my build doesn't go past Silent Image) does require concentration. That is valid. You did remind me of some versatility of Hex I forgot to add. Namely spells that require ability checks rather than saves are ones you can boost, but only when an ally casts them so they concentrate on them. I added that list to the Level 2 section.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Fair point. I'll reword it It is good from a damage per spell point perspective.</p><p></p><p></p><p>See below for AOE discussion.</p><p></p><p></p><p>See below for AOE discussion.</p><p></p><p></p><p>You're right, I had misremembered that the disadvantage only applied to weapon attacks. I'll fix this to reference Booming Blade. Sadly it isn't as effective at higher levels, but should still serve the purpose of making a few monsters second guess if they can move. I can't find a place where I assumed I'd be using Eldritch Blast for the Opportunity Attacks. I believe I only referenced Booming Blade, which does work as intended.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Fair point. I am biased towards preserving concentration over draining a player's HP. Both eat into the team's reserves (Caster likely to cast another low level concentration spell, Hit dice likely to be drained, both daily resources). Can you point me to some analysis that would help me better understand what forms of healing are better than others? Perhaps I'm overvaluing concentration.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That may be true. Usually a team is composed of 1-2 frontline characters, and 1-2 squishies. These frontline characters are usually enough to keep foes at bay and focused on them rather than the squishies. There is a level of stickiness inherit in D&D. Creatures in melee tend to stay in melee. Boosting these frontline character's AC will have a minor effect of making them less juicy as a target, but I believe it is only acted on when the defender has a godly AC yet no bite. Most defenders won't have Godly AC, but a respectable 17-19. A +2 leaves it in the respectable range but outside the Godly 24 AC.</p><p></p><p></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 18px">AOE Analysis</span></strong></p><p><strong>How many targets</strong></p><p>Obviously when you see a ball of mooks, the DM is begging you to fireball them. But for analysis we can't assume the optimal density. We need standards, but monster density is not prescribed in the DMG. For the few times I calculated the KPR of an AOE, I used the following table to calculate how many targets were in the area</p><table style='width: 100%'><tr><td>Range</td><td>Cube</td><td>Radius</td><td>Cone</td><td>Line</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>1</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>1.75</td><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>2.25</td><td>1.5</td></tr><tr><td>20</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>3.5</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>25</td><td>3.5</td><td>4.5</td><td>4</td><td>2</td></tr><tr><td>30</td><td>4.5</td><td>5</td><td>4.5</td><td>2.25</td></tr><tr><td>35</td><td>5</td><td>5.5</td><td>4.75</td><td>2.5</td></tr><tr><td>40</td><td>5</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>2.5</td></tr><tr><td>45</td><td>6</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>50</td><td>6</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>55</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>5</td><td>3</td></tr><tr><td>60</td><td>6</td><td>7</td><td>5</td><td>3</td></tr></table><p></p><p>It is highly subjective, but I figured that if there were a ball of mooks greater than the estimated target count above, then those were mooks designed for the blaster to shine. The first few targets are likely more of a thread than the rest of the horde, so I accounted for this with diminishing returns. I made cones worth less as they are harder to position due to frequently limited space to back up far enough. Lines are easy to hate.</p><p></p><p><strong>Bias</strong></p><p>In a perfect world we could simply state the damage per target, then show the area shape and area affected and people would understand the difference. It is like comparing apples(single target) to oranges (radius Aoe) to cucumbers (line attacks) to grapes (friendly AoE) to Tomatoes (chain lightning). But people get turned off when you throw too much complexity at them, so we boil it all down to calories and forget the nutrients.</p><p></p><p>The problem now is how do you pick numbers like in the above chart, and how do you join the damages together. Do you treat each additional target past the first at half value, and half that... thus making AoEs simply do 2x their single target? This leads to my last topic</p><p></p><p><strong>Teams as a bag of HP and actions</strong></p><p>Normally you beat an encounter through killing foes, which means eating through their HP one way or another. Lets simplify the encounter by merging your team into a giant blob with 4 actions per round, your total HP vs. a blob of foes with all their actions and total HP. Single target attacks simply eat through the total HP and ever so often pop off an action from the enemy action economy. Area attacks multiply the single target damage by some situational factor and in some cases subtract a large number of actions the enemy blob can take.</p><p>The point is that their total HP needs to be reduced, so why artificially reduce the damage you did because it is unfair to single target strikers. The only justification is to account for some targets having more powerful actions than others. I don't have the right answer for accounting for this, but I'm happy to explore this space with you.</p><p></p><p>I am committed to redoing all my calculations above with any findings we have. I went with my best judgement and would guess that the rankings and thus choices won't end up changing. But I do want to be accurate with my analysis.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="borg286, post: 7990808, member: 68679"] I've added a section in the Level 5 details which show the fighter build and calculations. Thank you. I had some miscalculations before, which resulted in his KPR jumping a bit. This dropped the 83% down to 70% as damaging as the fighter. Still that is pretty respectable. See below for response to AOE Damage Minor Illusion doesn't require concentration to cast. But the heart of your argument is that Silent Image and family (my build doesn't go past Silent Image) does require concentration. That is valid. You did remind me of some versatility of Hex I forgot to add. Namely spells that require ability checks rather than saves are ones you can boost, but only when an ally casts them so they concentrate on them. I added that list to the Level 2 section. Fair point. I'll reword it It is good from a damage per spell point perspective. [COLOR=rgb(0, 0, 0)][/COLOR] See below for AOE discussion. See below for AOE discussion. You're right, I had misremembered that the disadvantage only applied to weapon attacks. I'll fix this to reference Booming Blade. Sadly it isn't as effective at higher levels, but should still serve the purpose of making a few monsters second guess if they can move. I can't find a place where I assumed I'd be using Eldritch Blast for the Opportunity Attacks. I believe I only referenced Booming Blade, which does work as intended. Fair point. I am biased towards preserving concentration over draining a player's HP. Both eat into the team's reserves (Caster likely to cast another low level concentration spell, Hit dice likely to be drained, both daily resources). Can you point me to some analysis that would help me better understand what forms of healing are better than others? Perhaps I'm overvaluing concentration. That may be true. Usually a team is composed of 1-2 frontline characters, and 1-2 squishies. These frontline characters are usually enough to keep foes at bay and focused on them rather than the squishies. There is a level of stickiness inherit in D&D. Creatures in melee tend to stay in melee. Boosting these frontline character's AC will have a minor effect of making them less juicy as a target, but I believe it is only acted on when the defender has a godly AC yet no bite. Most defenders won't have Godly AC, but a respectable 17-19. A +2 leaves it in the respectable range but outside the Godly 24 AC. [B][SIZE=5]AOE Analysis[/SIZE] How many targets[/B] Obviously when you see a ball of mooks, the DM is begging you to fireball them. But for analysis we can't assume the optimal density. We need standards, but monster density is not prescribed in the DMG. For the few times I calculated the KPR of an AOE, I used the following table to calculate how many targets were in the area [TABLE] [TR] [TD]Range[/TD] [TD]Cube[/TD] [TD]Radius[/TD] [TD]Cone[/TD] [TD]Line[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]5[/TD] [TD]1[/TD] [TD]2[/TD] [TD]1[/TD] [TD]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]10[/TD] [TD]1.75[/TD] [TD]2[/TD] [TD]2[/TD] [TD]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]15[/TD] [TD]2[/TD] [TD]3[/TD] [TD]2.25[/TD] [TD]1.5[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]20[/TD] [TD]3[/TD] [TD]4[/TD] [TD]3.5[/TD] [TD]2[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]25[/TD] [TD]3.5[/TD] [TD]4.5[/TD] [TD]4[/TD] [TD]2[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]30[/TD] [TD]4.5[/TD] [TD]5[/TD] [TD]4.5[/TD] [TD]2.25[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]35[/TD] [TD]5[/TD] [TD]5.5[/TD] [TD]4.75[/TD] [TD]2.5[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]40[/TD] [TD]5[/TD] [TD]6[/TD] [TD]5[/TD] [TD]2.5[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]45[/TD] [TD]6[/TD] [TD]6[/TD] [TD]5[/TD] [TD]3[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]50[/TD] [TD]6[/TD] [TD]6[/TD] [TD]5[/TD] [TD]3[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]55[/TD] [TD]6[/TD] [TD]7[/TD] [TD]5[/TD] [TD]3[/TD] [/TR] [TR] [TD]60[/TD] [TD]6[/TD] [TD]7[/TD] [TD]5[/TD] [TD]3[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] It is highly subjective, but I figured that if there were a ball of mooks greater than the estimated target count above, then those were mooks designed for the blaster to shine. The first few targets are likely more of a thread than the rest of the horde, so I accounted for this with diminishing returns. I made cones worth less as they are harder to position due to frequently limited space to back up far enough. Lines are easy to hate. [B]Bias[/B] In a perfect world we could simply state the damage per target, then show the area shape and area affected and people would understand the difference. It is like comparing apples(single target) to oranges (radius Aoe) to cucumbers (line attacks) to grapes (friendly AoE) to Tomatoes (chain lightning). But people get turned off when you throw too much complexity at them, so we boil it all down to calories and forget the nutrients. The problem now is how do you pick numbers like in the above chart, and how do you join the damages together. Do you treat each additional target past the first at half value, and half that... thus making AoEs simply do 2x their single target? This leads to my last topic [B]Teams as a bag of HP and actions[/B] Normally you beat an encounter through killing foes, which means eating through their HP one way or another. Lets simplify the encounter by merging your team into a giant blob with 4 actions per round, your total HP vs. a blob of foes with all their actions and total HP. Single target attacks simply eat through the total HP and ever so often pop off an action from the enemy action economy. Area attacks multiply the single target damage by some situational factor and in some cases subtract a large number of actions the enemy blob can take. The point is that their total HP needs to be reduced, so why artificially reduce the damage you did because it is unfair to single target strikers. The only justification is to account for some targets having more powerful actions than others. I don't have the right answer for accounting for this, but I'm happy to explore this space with you. I am committed to redoing all my calculations above with any findings we have. I went with my best judgement and would guess that the rankings and thus choices won't end up changing. But I do want to be accurate with my analysis. [/QUOTE]
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