D&D 5E Are Wizards really all that?

[Cap'n Kobold]

Are you factoring damage per hit or damage per attack or using those terms loosely? DPA is a bit more complicated to factor, but will give you a more accurate read. Still, I think 11 damage per attack is definitely doable for a damage focused fighter.

Damage per hit. I am assuming a 66% (2/3rds) hit chance for the Fighter.
Paladin I'm assuming 66% hit chance at 5th level (same as fighter), but only 60% chance at 11th level (to represent Fighter having +1 from their extra ASI).

14d8 is 63 damage on average.

63 damage on 6 attacks is 10.5 not 15.

I will admit this is flawed and favors the fighter. This number is per attack, but some attacks miss while the smite dice always hit.

Indeed. At 66% hit chance only 4 of those extra attacks hit. Thus they need to deal 15 damage per hit to keep up with the Paladin.

I think at max it is 35d8, not 57d8: Four 1st = 8d8, three 2nd = 9d8, three 3rd = 12d8, two more 2nd level using channel divinity = 6d8

I didn't count channel Divinity: That generally provides more damage/effectiveness when used in its base form.
29d8s at 100% hit chance from spells converted to smites. 48d8s at 60% hit chance from improved smites round down is 28. 29+28=57d8s.
33 attacks at 66% hit chance means 22 will hit.

Also here it is not guaranteed you will be able to meaningfully use all those smites. Assuming 4-round fights there is only 48 attacks in that time and some of them are on the tail end where high damage won't all land.

The fewer attacks there are, the more the Paladin is favoured. Since we're not counting smites on critical hits, the Paladin can burn all their spell slots in 10 hits at 11th level. Do you think that is going to be an issue?

I think it is 35d8 here too.

157.5/21 = 7.5

Here the fighter is ahead and you will be really pressed to use all those spell slots meaningfully in only 12 rounds of combat.

Take a second look using what I have explained to you above.

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While Krachek's bonus content diversion about Paladins was interesting, unfortunately the calculations above don't translate well to a full caster. There is too much potential variation in the types of opponents that could be faced, numbers caught in AoEs etc even when trying to calculate pure damage - which is often a poor use of a spell.

The Fighter vs Wizard discussion has been going on for time immemorial, but I also think that the wizard stacks up well against the other full casters. With the combination of Arcane Recovery and the best Ritual usage of all the classes, the Wizard seems to get the most spells per day, both in number of casts and in number of spells available.

 

[FrozenNorth]

And note that we are not only using an average of 3 short rests a day, we are also assuming no critical hits. Both assumptions of which are unrealistic and both of which favour the Fighter.
These numbers are taking to account the extra ASI the Fighter gets, by giving them a higher chance to hit at 11th level compared to the Paladin.

Also assuming no divine smites are used on Undead or Fiends.

 

[ECMO3]

The fewer attacks there are, the more the Paladin is favoured. Since we're not counting smites on critical hits, the Paladin can burn all their spell slots in 10 hits at 11th level. Do you think that is going to be an issue?

Thanks for explaing the math on improved Smite.

The statistical issue with smites at high levels is landing all that damage. To illustrate an extreme example of what I am talking about - Put against a random foe at a random time 100 attacks that do 1 hp of damage each are going to deal much more damage than 1 attack that deals 100hps damage. The big attack will not do full damage unless it occurs against an enemy that has over 100 hps while the enemy has over 100hps.

Your 10 smites do 9, 13.5 and 18 damage on top of weapon damage respectively. You are attacking 48 times and presumably hitting about 32 times. Some of those time the enemy is going to have 2 hps left. To put it in extreme terms - If your day consists of 6 fights against 6 adult dragons that day, sure all those dice will land (if you use them early and don't crit fish). At the other extreme if your day consists of clearing 150 Orcs from their stronghold none of the 3rd-level dice will land full damage and most of the 2nd and some of the 1st won't either.

At 6 fights you can use them all, but they won't all necessarily do full damage. I can calculate this explicitly given an enemy and a strategy for use.

At 3 fights a day you actually will run into problems using them all some times.

 

[Maxperson]

Your 10 smites do 9, 13.5 and 18 damage on top of weapon damage respectively. You are attacking 48 times and presumably hitting about 32 times. Some of those time the enemy is going to have 2 hps left. To put it in extreme terms - If your day consists of 6 fights against 6 adult dragons that day, sure all those dice will land (if you use them early and don't crit fish). At the other extreme if your day consists of clearing 150 Orcs from their stronghold none of the 3rd-level dice will land full damage and most of the 2nd and some of the 1st won't either.

It's not quite that simple, though. As a player you will have some ballpark idea of how many hit points something has left, so you're not going to waste your big smites on something that has been beat almost do death. In 5e hit point damage by RAW doesn't show up until the monster drops below 50%, then small cuts and bruises start showing. Even if the players aren't sitting there and adding up the damage, they're going to know that it took around 50-70 damage to get there and will plan their resources accordingly. The paladin not smiting completely blind is going to make the smites generally more useful, though some of the smite damage will end up in overflow. But then so will some of the fighter attacks.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Thanks for explaing the math on improved Smite.

The statistical issue with smites at high levels is landing all that damage. To illustrate an extreme example of what I am talking about - Put against a random foe at a random time 100 attacks that do 1 hp of damage each are going to deal much more damage than 1 attack that deals 100hps damage. The big attack will not do full damage unless it occurs against an enemy that has over 100 hps while the enemy has over 100hps.

Your 10 smites do 9, 13.5 and 18 damage on top of weapon damage respectively. You are attacking 48 times and presumably hitting about 32 times. Some of those time the enemy is going to have 2 hps left. To put it in extreme terms - If your day consists of 6 fights against 6 adult dragons that day, sure all those dice will land (if you use them early and don't crit fish). At the other extreme if your day consists of clearing 150 Orcs from their stronghold none of the 3rd-level dice will land full damage and most of the 2nd and some of the 1st won't either.

At 6 fights you can use them all, but they won't all necessarily do full damage. I can calculate this explicitly given an enemy and a strategy for use.

At 3 fights a day you actually will run into problems using them all some times.

On the other hand, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve killed a monster with attacks left over, but don’t have enough movement to reach another. Smites can be saved for the next fight; weapon attacks cannot.

EDIT: It’s almost like WotC thought through some of this. Wait, no, that’s crazy talk. Sorry. Not sure what came over me.

 

[ECMO3]

It's not quite that simple, though. As a player you will have some ballpark idea of how many hit points something has left, so you're not going to waste your big smites on something that has been beat almost do death. In 5e hit point damage by RAW doesn't show up until the monster drops below 50%, then small cuts and bruises start showing. Even if the players aren't sitting there and adding up the damage, they're going to know that it took around 50-70 damage to get there and will plan their resources accordingly. The paladin not smiting completely blind is going to make the smites generally more useful, though some of the smite damage will end up in overflow. But then so will some of the fighter attacks.

But if you don't "waste" them then you don't use them at all.

In three four-round fights you are only attacking 24 times total, you are only hitting 16 times total, including when the enemies are nearly dead and you have to use a smite on 10 of those 16 hits or you don't use them all at all. So many of those will be used when the enemy is low on hit points or they won't be used at all.

IF you are actually assuming 6 fights a day then AC and hit points of the foe matters. I can calculate this explicitly if you tell me AC, foe hit points and when you are and are not going to use it.

 

[ECMO3]

On the other hand, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve killed a monster with attacks left over, but don’t have enough movement to reach another. Smites can be saved for the next fight; weapon attacks cannot.

Smites can only be used on the next fight if the current fight is not the last fight.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Smites can only be used on the next fight if the current fight is not the last fight.

Yup. There are endless "what ifs" that shift the balance back and forth. It seems both sides cherrypick the what ifs that support their case.

I'm not taking either side, except to note that I find Solasta much easier with a paladin than with a fighter. FWIW.

 

[Maxperson]

But if you don't "waste" them then you don't use them at all.

In three four-round fights you are only attacking 24 times total, you are only hitting 16 times total, including when the enemies are nearly dead and you have to use a smite on 10 of those 16 hits or you don't use them all at all. So many of those will be used when the enemy is low on hit points or they won't be used at all.

Depends on how many creatures there are in the fight. I get X hits, but I can switch away from an almost dead creature and swing at a fresher one. Some bit is going to be overflow damage, but it's not as bad as you are making out. Players will have enough information to make educated guesses about when to smite and which creatures to smite.

And you're limiting it to 3 fights, when 6-8 is the expected number for the game. Add even one more fight into the mix and you have an even smaller chance for that overflow to make a difference.

IF you are actually assuming 6 fights a day then AC and hit points of the foe matters. I can calculate this explicitly if you tell me AC, foe hit points and when you are and are not going to use it.

I don't need the exact specifics to know that you are overestimating the amount of waste a paladin has. I agree that there will be some waste, but it's not going to be as great as you make out because players will be decently informed as to the state of the enemy when deciding to smite or not.

 

[ECMO3]

Depends on how many creatures there are in the fight. I get X hits, but I can switch away from an almost dead creature and swing at a fresher one. Some bit is going to be overflow damage, but it's not as bad as you are making out. Players will have enough information to make educated guesses about when to smite and which creatures to smite.

If you change to a different foe to get more damage you are giving up action economy. That is generally not a wise choice.

I don't need the exact specifics to know that you are overestimating the amount of waste a paladin has. I agree that there will be some waste, but it's not going to be as great as you make out because players will be decently informed as to the state of the enemy when deciding to smite or not.

That depends entirely on what you are fighting. If you are fighting kobolds almost every single smite die you use is going to be mostly wasted.

Like I said I can calculate it explicitly given a strategy and foe.