D&D General Why DPR Sucks: Discussing Whiteroom Theorycrafting

[Helldritch]

It is very unfortunate that so many variables are comming into consideration that the only consistent analysis we can make is DPR. Utility is based on circumstances just as everything else except DPR.

We can acknowledge that some classes have weaknesses where others are stronger. It is the DM to make sure that everyone at the table has fun. As long as the "fun" factor is there, who cares? I certainly don't.

 

[Asisreo]

Basketball is the sport I follow, though I agree Baseball has gone further down the stats hole than any other sport.

The thing about sports stats, or at least basketball stats, is you can start with a huge amount of historical data, and ask a huge array of experts from players to coaches to general managers to sports casters and journalists and retired players and similar experts in the field, and say "Who do you think was a great player for their era?" and get a fairly universal list of agreement from people on who was great.

And then you can craft a stat which reflects that consensus opinion, and which also functions for current players.

Like for example a basketball stat like Player Efficiency Rating. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. In fact, it lacks for defense, and you need to combine it with a defensive stat tool to get a better picture. But does it function as a decent tool which, when run against historical players and current players, comes out pretty close to consensus of opinions of experts on who is good? Yes, yes it does.

Which means it's a useful measurement tool, even if it isn't perfect.

Much like DPR. It doesn't reflect all aspects of the game, but it doew reflect enough of a very meaningful element of the game that it shouldn't be derided by people as not useful. Yes, of course it does not reflect the contributions of a stun, a bardic inspiration, a charm, and a speed reduction on a foe. But it does reflect a meaningful and measurable aspect of the game and so has it's uses as a tool.

I don't think Treantmonk at all used it as a universal measuring stick in his video, nor did I in the post I made about monks sucking. It was used in one aspect - the offense section. And Stun had it's own section, as did movement, and defense. So I think it's a misrepresentation to imply it was being used as a universal stat improperly. It was correctly applied - to offense, as a measuring stick, without ignoring stunning.

But that isn't white-room analysis. They took data from actual, live, field-testing to measure the data.

White-room analysis for sports would be taking their 40m and their Bench Press, Squats, and Olympic exercise numbers and come up with a number through that, but it definitely does not determine much.

 

[Oofta]

Another thought on this topic. I don't think classes can be, or should be, perfectly balanced in a game with the philosophy of 5E. They made a valiant effort in 4E, but to many people it ended up feeling like every class had to do much the same thing with different fluff*. I get that some people enjoy the comparisons for sake of comparison, just not sure it means anything more than that.

There are simply too many variables and too many different campaign styles. A monk may not be effective at combat, but in the right campaign the out of combat benefits of not needing armor or weapons could more than compensate. It's also going to vary level to level, my own (quite possibly flawed) analysis showed that which fighter was "best" changed based on level and opponents. It also showed that rolling for ability scores accounted for far more variation than sub class.

Basketball and baseball have far more stats than we can easily measure in D&D. Possibly more important is that the rules are much more constrained. We don't have to account for various factors like how important environment is, what types of opponents you're facing, what's the average target AC, how many opponents you normally face.

*Whether that's accurate or not, I don't want to get into it.

 

[jgsugden]

But your monk is using a resource to keep even with the rogue who isn't having to use a resource. Plus, if they're dealing with a 65% hit chance, the rogue's sneak attack chance is 87.5% when using two-weapon fighting.

In a long day, of 6 encounters that each go to 3 rounds, the Monk doesn't have enough ki to get through every round of the day. The monk really should have gotten an extra attack at 11th level.

That monk has enough ki for most rounds, and when he doesn't he only loses a little damage. And, as the damage is in 3 or 4 buckets each round, rather than one big blast and perhaps a tiny whimper along the side, you have less overkill situations where you deal 40 damage to an enemy with 6 hps and 'waste' 34 hps.

The monk is perfectly fine relative to the rogue in damage output. Even if you want to just look at the 3d10+15 (31.5) with no extra resource used versus the rogue (34), the reduction in wasted overkill likely balanced out the effective damage the monk does versus the effective damage the rogue does.

The myth that monks are worse than rogues at dealing damage is just inaccurate.

 

[Stoutstien]

There isn't anything wrong with theory crafting DPR/DPT or anything else for that matter as long people are aware that it's mostly just for fun and doesn't have any strong connection to actual game play.
Trying to optimize for damage is the easiest thing to focus on in 5e and also the poorest focus.

 

[Mistwell]

Treantmonk, to his disservice, has not embraced a spirit of inquiry, and acknowledged the valid concerns regarding how he has judge the relative weight of what he has taken to be evidence.
No, rather, TM has done the opposite. Treantmonk stated on The Giant's in the Playground, the video is "just his opinion" and other people can have differing opinions.

No one enjoys having flaws in their conceptual paradigms pointed out, but if one is interested in the truth, or as clear a view of something as possible, taking the lumps and leaning into trying to understand the critics is necessary.

Retreating into the line of "it is just my opinion", means he has stopped listening to others, and is not interested in "the truth" merely just his view of it.

TM said as much on GITP when he stated that his opinion won't sway others, nor will others opinion sway him.

You can't be intellectually dishonest if you aren't trying to apply intellect..

Wait, let's be clear about what the two of you just did. You 1) went to a thread which is different from the one where Treantmonk is at, and bashed him. 2) part of the bash is to name things he said ON A DIFFERENT MESSAGE BOARD (without even a link to it) in cross-board drama fashion which I believe is against the rules here. 3) Gammadoodler then make a snarky personal attack against Treantmonk, again doing it in the thread he specifically isn't in rather than the one he was responding it.

Todd, if you have issues with something Treantmonk said on some other message board, TELL HIM THERE. And Gammadoodler, if you have personal issues with Treantmonk such that you're calling him dumb apparently (I have no idea what - it was just a direct context-less insult), maybe don't be a coward and do that directly to his face?

What the heck has gotten into you two? Are you just trolling from some other message board because of some personal beef over something which happened there?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Wait, let's be clear about what the two of you just did.

If you're going to make a post linking to someone's video on youtube (another platform) and title it THIS CLASS SUCKS, and then claim what that person has stated about his usage of a statistic, then you shouldn't really complain if someone quotes him about it.

Or, you know, just ask him yourself with the "at" symbol here, since he is on the board.

 

[Asisreo]

I think the worst part about these discussions are that the data can not only be misleading, but they can birth unwarranted "fixes" by armchair game designers.

The quickest and easiest examples would be to nerf rogues because sneak attack is just so powerful. It's fairly well-balanced and actually attempts to simulate what a rogue should actually do, but they see the in-game damage and panic.

There's also those who want unnecessary buffs to characters. Something about adjusting the capstone because balance should have died after level 19. Really, the capstones are fine. Some are more exciting than others, but they weren't all meant to fundamentally destroy the game.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I find discussion of damage output productive right up until someone is actually using the acronym "DPR" (or even sillier, DPS). Then you know that you've truly entered the fantastical realm of strategyless battles against featureless enemies in terrainless voids known as Theorycraftia.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Anyway, since the point appears lost, this was the general structure of the OP:

A. DPR is a single stat used to model average offense over time, assuming one-on-one encounters. In that sense, the closest analogue I could think of is batting average in baseball; anyone who has followed sports analytics from Bill James on knows the shortcomings of batting average (which I go into in more detail in the OP). Nevertheless, batting average can provide a limited amount of useful information ... it's just not an ideal statistic.

B. More importantly, D&D is a team sport, and there are synergies and additional statistical issues when it comes to modeling events that aren't simply one-one-one encounters, but allow for team play. Basketball, soccer (futbol) and football (American football) are three examples of sports that have adopted analytics, but also show the limits of simple statistics.

C. There is a further, complicating issue in D&D in that much more than sports, D&D varies greatly from game to game, and campaign to campaign (or DM to DM). There is a difference in playstyles, pillars, and even rules. This can cause additional difficulties.

None of this is to say that math, or statistics, or analytics are bad ... in general, in sports, or in D&D. But what is incredibly frustrating when it comes to D&D is the overreliance on DPR. In the conclusion, I briefly alluded to two ways that we can start doing "good math" if we really wanted to examine issues:
A. Use a large corpus of real numbers from actual play. There are a lot of games going on, and while this would be a lot of work to get hold of, this would allow for actual statistics instead of what we have.

B. Monte Carlo simulations and regression analysis with different party combination and different combats.

Both of these techniques would require a lot more work than basic "DPR" but they would have the advantage of providing useful information. DPR is primarily useful when picking between two options within certain constraints; it is a (slightly) more advanced version of, "Should I use a rapier, or a polearm." Once you try to expand it's explanatory power with pseudo-math and assumptions (the warlock+AB+EB is a baseline and ...) you run into real problems.

IMO.