D&D 5E Classes, and the structure of DPR

[clearstream]

IMO, it's not the relative reduction players experience at the table it's the absolute reduction in a given encounter/adventuring day that they experience.

For me it's more how it enables a character to be played. I find that typically in RPG, stacking toward extremes has a bigger impact on that than ameliorating middling capabilities.

There's some important context missing. How many times did he actually get attacked in that encounter? My guess is that it was significantly lower than 36+ attacks. Probably only 20 attacks. (and maybe not even that many). In which case he would on average save 1 hit worth of damage (or less). 1 hit prevented from the enemies which you said would have been for about 10 damage. Preventing 10 damage in a single encounter on a 144 hp character isn't very impressive IMO. Still better than GWF but not particularly impressive.

I found in some previous discussions on probabilities that it helped people to frame them in terms of how often they would arise over their game sessions. The most apposite inquiry is - over how many sessions will a character likely be subject to 20 versus 400 attacks in your own campaign?

 

[clearstream]

I understand the math. I disagree with your analysis of what that math means in relation to D&D tactics because you are missing the 'absolute' context for the number of hits and amount of damage you are preventing. Thus, based on that context I expanded in this post (above) - I suggest that applying disadvantage to enemy attacks is most beneficial when you are in the middle AC ranges (50% chance to be hit give or take a bit)

Possibly we agree that it is most importantly about how it enables a character to be played. I argue that - "typically in RPG, stacking toward extremes has a bigger impact on that than ameliorating middling capabilities." What do you find?

 

[FrogReaver]

Possibly we agree that it is most importantly about how it enables a character to be played. I argue that - "typically in RPG, stacking toward extremes has a bigger impact on that than ameliorating middling capabilities." What do you find?

If you are working under the premise of enabling a playstyle then I am working under the premise of efficiency.

I agree with you that having a fairly high ac and adding more or adding disadvantage would crease a bit different playstyle. Whereas adding more ac or disadvantage to a middling ac wouldn’t change your playstyle significantly.

 

[FrogReaver]

GWM: The utility of GWM is highly variable from game to game. If you're fighting beasts all the time, then it is great against those low ACs. If you're fighting high AC enemies all the time, it can be nearly a waste of a feat. However, most people focus on DPR and assume a 'middle of the road' AC distribution. Even when you do so, they fail to account for several handicaps of GWM. First - overkill. If an enemy has 7 hps and you're doing either 2d6+5 or 2d6+15, GWM is not valuable to you - and people do not discount the value of the DPR of GWM attacks for the reality that it inflicts more overkill than lesser damage attacks. Second, reducing your chance to hit increases the variability in combat - which opens the door to more bad luck streaks. I've seen far too many big weapon fighters go down due to a 'run of bad luck' that would not have been so bad had they not been using GWM.

GWM has an often overlooked mechanic as well - when you drop an enemy to 0 hp you get a bonus action attack. So while the -5/+10 isn't good on enemies with low hp, that part of the feat is exceptionally good in that situation.

Monk Damage: Monks are not intended to stay up to speed with other classes in damage dealing. They're just not. They have other special abilities that allow them to be effective, like stun, but they're intended to deal less damage than other classes - when concentrating on one foe. Their ability to split up their damage into three or four pools early on will reduce the damage lost to overkill, and keep them effective combatants from a damage perspective, but they arenot intended to be high damage PCs.

Monks tend to be able to apply debuffs that increase party damage while still doing moderate damage themselves. Those debuffs that increase party damage never seem to get attributed to the monk's DPR. Which is a general tendency you'll see by many - ignore the impact of something that isn't easy to calculate.

 

[clearstream]

GWM has an often overlooked mechanic as well - when you drop an enemy to 0 hp you get a bonus action attack. So while the -5/+10 isn't good on enemies with low hp, that part of the feat is exceptionally good in that situation.

I noticed that, too. It's a significant factor if contemplating an argument that suggests GWM is 'wasting' damage by overkilling creatures.

Monks tend to be able to apply debuffs that increase party damage while still doing moderate damage themselves. Those debuffs that increase party damage never seem to get attributed to the monk's DPR. Which is a general tendency you'll see by many - ignore the impact of something that isn't easy to calculate.

I also notice this. There is a general tendency to ignore complexities, and this is another good example. One thing I do in my theorycrafting is use a VTT to playtest cases, to see what I am overlooking. I also run a regular campaign for six players, but the focused playtests let me set up very specific cases, which my campaign might only rarely see.

 

[FrogReaver]

I recently heard about this and it might be useful for playtest encounters.

www.dndcombat.com

Supposed to let you simulate encounters (very much still a work in progress but looks promising)

 

[clearstream]

I recently heard about this and it might be useful for playtest encounters.

www.dndcombat.com

Supposed to let you simulate encounters (very much still a work in progress but looks promising)

That looks very promising indeed. Thank you for the link!

 

[clearstream]

How can I get you to do a full analysis on all this? This is amazing!

Are you familiar with the MtG mechanical colour pie - explained here by Rosewater. From breaking down the distribution of features over classes, it feels like something similar is going on.

Each class has a role, which appears to be articulated in terms of where it gains what (e.g. in some cases the norm for a subclass is to gain a defensive feature at level x, and additional damage at level y). As noted, each class opts into one or other basic approach to combat, on a skeleton of HD, ASIs, subclassing levels, DPR steps, and spellcasting.

I'm working on a sheet to lay this out visually so that it is easy to see.

 

[Shardstone]

Are you familiar with the MtG mechanical colour pie - explained here by Rosewater. From breaking down the distribution of features over classes, it feels like something similar is going on.

Each class has a role, which appears to be articulated in terms of where it gains what (e.g. in some cases the norm for a subclass is to gain a defensive feature at level x, and additional damage at level y). As noted, each class opts into one or other basic approach to combat, on a skeleton of HD, ASIs, subclassing levels, DPR steps, and spellcasting.

I'm working on a sheet to lay this out visually so that it is easy to see.

Amazing man, can't wait to see it!

 

[clearstream]

Over four posts I'll present my class deconstruction, with a few notes as to what I think is going on (by design intent or otherwise). I focus on mechanics and - predominantly - combat. I've divided the deconstruction into -

1. Sustain (aka defenses) - class features that keep a character in the combat
2. Offence - broadly speaking, D&D combat is concluded by decrementing foe hit points
3. Exploration - this covers making progress in the wider game world, including both explore and social pillars
4. Sub-classes - this looks at how sub-classes map to classes

The yardstick I use to evaluate features is an ASI. Half an ASI is 1pt, a whole ASI is 2pts, and a double ASI is 4pts. This is approximate, somewhat opinionated, and in places I suspect the design intent was a feature at more or less value than what is actually on offer. Speaking of design intent - a fundamental assumption is that classes represent intentional design - not chance or accident, but it is not supposed that the designers aimed (or even could have hoped) for perfect balance. Hypothetically, the classes will be roughly balanced in value, i.e. worth a similar number of ASIs, by intent.

Starting here then, with sustain -

Patterns of note

• Taking a d6 hit die to be free, d8, d10 and d12 are costed against the Tough feat, taking into account that they provide healing - via spending HD in rests - as well as hit point maximum
• Bard, cleric, druid and warlock are all what I think of as d8-caster classes, and they are united in other important ways also; they invest 16-19pts in sustain
• Sorcerer and wizard make the minimum possible investment into sustain, preserving their points (ASIs) for other things; they invest 4-5pts in sustain
• The other classes all make moderate investments in sustain - 22-33pts - with monks and rogues at the lower end (I might be undervaluing uncanny dodge and evasion)
• Barbarian stands out with 54pts invested in sustain; notice that red 'relentless' - more on that later.

So this is post one. Three to go.

[Footnote: I stop at 11th because I did this work for my upcoming 5E E6 campaign, which caps at level 6+5. If this work proves fruitful I might complete tier 3 later.]