A Change of Discussion

[Oofta]

You don’t win the game by being the best at combat but you can certainly lose he game by being bad at combat. (As long as death is considered a loss.

A failed deception or persuasion check may force you into a combat you otherwise could have bypassed but not bypassing a combat only means death if you ultimately die while in combat.

I would say you need to be pretty horrible at combat to really make a difference because 5E is pretty forgiving and even then it's still largely dependent on campaign and DM.

in addition, DPR often completely misses the mark when it comes to evaluating effectiveness which seems to be the OP's point. A wizard focusing on illusion/enchantment/control spells is going to look really bad on a spreadsheet. How do you calculate in the ability of a monk to stun opponents? What's the DPR of Banish?

While I tend to end up with fairly optimized PCs by accident, I don't care how "effective" the other players are. Are they having fun? Are they fun to play with? If yes, then we've won the game.

 

[Blue]

You don’t win the game by being the best at combat but you can certainly lose he game by being bad at combat. (As long as death is considered a loss.

A failed deception or persuasion check may force you into a combat you otherwise could have bypassed but not bypassing a combat only means death if you ultimately die while in combat.

It's an interesting point that what you said is very true in D&D but other systems have different takes on it. D&D everyone is expected to contribute in combat - my guess is it's the most wall time per campaign spent on any mechanical subsystem of the game so they want everyone to be able to contribute and have spotlight. Some other systems either deprioritize combat, make it quick to resolve. Some put in other focuses that are just as important while not removing combat, such as a SF game where you need to be able to contribute in personal combat as well as ship-to-ship combat. And in those letting down in either can be deadly.

 

[Warpiglet]

I have a stable of warlock characters (about 4). I also had a cleric but dropped him at level 5. I only have two active warlocks.

In one case, I have a dwarf warlock (mountain) with criminal background. My plan is to multiclass into rogue. This is what got me thinking.

No matter what, he will be fine in combat. OK armor, he will get some sneak attack. But he is a weird one. He is strength based (not hexblade, 'cause fiend = flavor! and hexblade was not invented yet).

I started looking at the character abilities and realized he is not optimized. He is going to use a shortsword when I get pact of the blade but his strength means he can shove and push and grapple. I plan to use hex to make success more likely here. With expertise, he can sneak and open locks. He can use Mask of Many faces to sneak and trick along with friends cantrip. If I go arcane trickster (likely given background and his arcana skill) he might even take a familiar along with mage hand. My point is this:

I was shocked at how much he can do. I like to think he will fight well enough when pressed but he can move the game. He has done fine so far of course but the addition of rogue might add some options. I don't think he will be dead weight even though I am blade pact with smaller weapons and no GWM or SS. Increasingly he will make things happen in game but there is no metric for this. And that is fine, its just deceptive.

 

[Ancalagon]

I agree that a character built only around combat is a "trap option".

Unfortunately, I think a character built to be able to do everything is also a trap option. Because D&D is a cooperative, team-based game. And unfortunately combat is designed around all characters contributing synergistically, many of the other pillars of the game are not, and have little mechanical benefit from more then 1-2 who are good at a particular task.

For example, having a party of five who are all at the "very good" level of tracking is barely better than having one very good and one who can use the aid another (well, the non-combat version of it).

And there's an opportunity cost to being good at something, even if it's just another skill you could have taken.

So being able to do some things some from the set of "just a few good at" and all from the set of "everyone expected to be good at" (what else besides combat?) gives a character that can contribute well to the team without diluting their competence.

Oh I absolutely agree that trying to be good at everything is a fool's game, and it is better to have complimentary skill sets.

I'll mention that there is one area where a party can benefit from multiple characters being good at it: stealth.

Multiple healers can be good too.

 

[Guest 6801328]

If the game were more deadly (after 1st/2nd level) we would see more emphasis on non-combat abilities, because players would be more eager to avoid combat.

Milestone leveling can also help, since it helps mitigate "monsters as bags of XP" syndrome.

 

[Warpiglet]

I would say you need to be pretty horrible at combat to really make a difference because 5E is pretty forgiving and even then it's still largely dependent on campaign and DM.

in addition, DPR often completely misses the mark when it comes to evaluating effectiveness which seems to be the OP's point. A wizard focusing on illusion/enchantment/control spells is going to look really bad on a spreadsheet. How do you calculate in the ability of a monk to stun opponents? What's the DPR of Banish?

While I tend to end up with fairly optimized PCs by accident, I don't care how "effective" the other players are. Are they having fun? Are they fun to play with? If yes, then we've won the game.

I think crown of madness can be a good example of this. It does not damage unless the creature effected hits his friend. We ran into two ogres along with some troops. Having one ogre slug the other created chaos while the character (warlock) actually did not damage directly. The ogre being stupid decided he was being challenged by his ally...

 

[Umbran]

How we calculate such a point system? Not sure. But there should be one.

Part of the problem is that we have no structure around which to frame these events, nor a handle on their value. At least, not in 5e.

In 4e, we could frame a Skill Challenge (I know, many people hated these, but bear with me for a moment) that was of a given XP value, much like we could give the XP value of a combat. DPR matters to combat much like ability to pass skill tests in a Skill Challenge.

In 5e, we could broaden this a bit - frame all that stuff that isnt' combat itsefl in terms of a challenge worth XP, and then you get a value of these non-combat abilities in terms of the XP they help you get without dying.

 

[Mistwell]

Part of the problem is that we have no structure around which to frame these events, nor a handle on their value. At least, not in 5e.

In 4e, we could frame a Skill Challenge (I know, many people hated these, but bear with me for a moment) that was of a given XP value, much like we could give the XP value of a combat. DPR matters to combat much like ability to pass skill tests in a Skill Challenge.

I personally really enjoyed skill challenges in 4e. I have not used them in 5e yet, but I've seen Morrus write about how he uses them and I will probably try something similar in the future.

In 5e, we could broaden this a bit - frame all that stuff that isnt' combat itsefl in terms of a challenge worth XP, and then you get a value of these non-combat abilities in terms of the XP they help you get without dying.

Yeah I was thinking XP was probably one of the better ways to approach this. It's apples to apples with combat at least.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>

What other ways could we, if so inclined, discuss character ability to move or shape a game other than DPR/DPS or whatever? No we don't have to...but for fun, how would we quantify it? What areas would be included? I am struggling to think of something as succinct as DPR/DPS perhaps because of the variability in actual play. But it seems that accessing, acquiring and avoiding targets and danger should be as important as DPR or whatever. I wonder if the difficulty in quantifying these constructs is part of the reason DPR gets so much press.

I see this show up more clearly in games other than D&D. For example, one PC in a CHAMPIONS game changed the whole course of the adventure with his Professional Skill:Gourmand by detecting a poison in the salad dressing of a State dinner.

For D&D, I tend to break down most non-combat capabilities into "determine where the adventure is" (detective skills, divinations, contacts), "Get to the adventure" (transport abilities, mounts, contacts), "survive the adventure locale" (environmental immunities , stealth, environmental alteration abilities), and "detect secret things" (detection abilities, divinations).

For D&D, most of these categories are dominated by spells. Magic items and class abilities are mostly secondary. Contacts, friendly factions, and such are not touched on much in the rules.

 

[5ekyu]

How about Victory Ratio, or the frequency with which a character's "build" wins the (exact) desired outcome in a situation?

You can use this for exploration: I found/didn't find the location/treasure/etc.

Social encounters: I changed his mind/got my way/etc.

Going out on a limb here, but I'm going to say that ease-of-observation isn't the only thing at play behind DPR metrics-popularity. You can also calculate DPR without actually playing a game, which is not something VR lends itself to. So, just rebrand DPR as an armchair-gamer's statistic, and maybe the rats will jump ship.

I tend to agree... with for you csn assumption out almost all the actual play scenario bits into a white room and crank up excel. Hard to imagine getting that as "cut and dry" (not accurate or representative) with explore, social, sneak etc.