Classes and damage

[doctorbadwolf]

I tend to consider the vanilla fearless champion fighter as terrible at damage.

It’s well within damage balance assumptions, though. I prefer TWF on a champion for maximum crit frequency, but that is just for fun. They’ll have max Str and/or Dex faster than anyone else, and have the Con to stand up in the frontline without much worry, so in actual play they won’t miss out on damage as much as less tough characters.

Champion Archers are also underrated, IMO.

Also, gotta remember that no one else has feats, either, in a no feat game.

 

[FrogReaver]

It’s well within damage balance assumptions, though. I prefer TWF on a champion for maximum crit frequency, but that is just for fun. They’ll have max Str and/or Dex faster than anyone else, and have the Con to stand up in the frontline without much worry, so in actual play they won’t miss out on damage as much as less tough characters.

Champion Archers are also underrated, IMO.

Also, gotta remember that no one else has feats, either, in a no feat game.

Whoa, I said a featless fighter not a featless game.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Whoa, I said a featless fighter not a featless game.

Are you assuming a feat-enabled game, by default? Because that could explain some of the confusion.

As a baseline for discussing and comparing whether anything is over-powered or under-powered, I stick with the default rules in the book, which means no feats and no multi-classing and rolled stats.

 

[FrogReaver]

Are you assuming a feat-enabled game, by default? Because that could explain some of the confusion.

As a baseline for discussing and comparing whether anything is over-powered or under-powered, I stick with the default rules in the book, which means no feats and no multi-classing and rolled stats.

Why yes, I assume a default of a game with feats.

 

[Mistwell]

If a spellcaster casts a spell which freezes an opponent for so many rounds such that a simple cantrip can slay the target before the freezing effect wears of, then that spellcaster has done something as powerful as killing the foe. And yet, they did zero damage themselves.

Damage is often overrated. It's the Points Per Game stat of D&D - simplistic, often quoted, but often not the most important stat.

 

[FrogReaver]

If a spellcaster casts a spell which freezes an opponent for so many rounds such that a simple cantrip can slay the target before the freezing effect wears of, then that spellcaster has done something as powerful as killing the foe. And yet, they did zero damage themselves.

Damage is often overrated.

Damage is also often underrated. Dead is dead. For a vast majority of enemies that’s the most important status one can inflict.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Whoa, I said a featless fighter not a featless game.

Why would a fighter go fearless in a game that allows feats, where everyone else is taking feats?

 

[Mistwell]

Damage is also often underrated. Dead is dead. For a vast majority of enemies that’s the most important status one can inflict.

Funny, that's the same answer the Points Per Game people made in response to those analysts saying PPG was overrated. They responded, for decades, that points is what wins the game and if you score more points than the opponent you win so it was the most important thing. They were wrong, but it took so very long for analytics to persuade people they were wrong. But finally, after decades, it's finally the consensus that the game is much more complex than the simplicity of that belief, with dozens of other factors, and it's measuring a combination of all the factors involved that leads to the "most important" stat.

And the same is for D&D. Damage is simplistic, it is subject to slogans like "dead is dead", and so it's the favored discussion point. Eventually, slowly, all the other factors will get factored in and we will get to advanced stats for D&D too. There are just too many actual statisticians and mathematicians who also like D&D that advanced stats (like Player Efficiency Ratings and Wins Above Replacement Player and stats like those) are inevitable. Though it will be more difficult as we don't have records of thousands and thousands of games to measure, nor consensus known best players through history as controls.

 

[FrogReaver]

Why would a fighter go fearless in a game that allows feats, where everyone else is taking feats?

Because that was the build being proposed as a baseline

 

[FrogReaver]

Funny, that's the same answer the Points Per Game people made in response to those analysts saying PPG was overrated. They responded, for decades, that points is what wins the game and if you score more points than the opponent you win so it was the most important thing. They were wrong, but it took so very long for analytics to persuade people they were wrong. But finally, after decades, it's finally the consensus that the game is much more complex than the simplicity of that belief, with dozens of other factors, and it's measuring a combination of all the factors involved that leads to the "most important" stat.

And the same is for D&D. Damage is simplistic, it is subject to slogans like "dead is dead", and so it's the favored discussion point. Eventually, slowly, all the other factors will get factored in and we will get to advanced stats for D&D too. There are just too many actual statisticians and mathematicians who also like D&D that advanced stats (like Player Efficiency Ratings and Wins Above Replacement Player and stats like those) are inevitable. Though it will be more difficult as we don't have records of thousands and thousands of games to measure, nor consensus known best players through history as controls.

Saying damage is important and pointing out dead is a valuable condition isn't minimizing the complexity of the game. It's embracing the idea that the game is complex and pivoting that against the simple idea that damage is overrated.

Damage if often underrated. Damage is often overrated. Both of these are true statements. The importance of damage doesn't need minimized for other things to become important to the conversation.