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Message: <blockquote data-quote="comrade raoul" data-source="post: 3060166" data-attributes="member: 554">This qualification does a lot of work, doesn't it? High-level D&D characters--especially non-spellcasters--need magic items to inflict and avoid damage. But let's run some numbers real quick.Anyway, let's say Jane Melee is a raging fighter 12/barbarian 3 fighting an evil opponent. She's got a Strength of 22 (or 26 when raging) and a pair of +4 holy shortswords, and the weapon-specific feats up to Greater Specialization, plus Improved Critical (shortsword), Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, and Two-Weapon Rend. So she's reasonably optimized for damage, but far from really fine-tuned. She's really at her best when she can make a full attack, though.So she attacks at +27/+27/+22/+22/+17, and deals 3d6+16 points of damage with her primary hand and 3d6+12 on her off-hand. She's attacking AC 30, so she can expect to get 1.95 hits with her primary hand and 1.55 hits with her off-hand. That's 51.675 points of average damage with her off-hand and 34.875 points with her off-hand, for a total expected damage of 86.55. If she hits at least once with each hand, which she very likely will, she can also rend for an extra 15.5 points (1d6+12); she can also expect to deal a total of 12.41 points of damage from critical hits. So that's a total of more than 110 points of damage on a full attack!Now let's take her friend, Johnny Mage, a wizard 15 who casts a quickened, empowered scorching ray followed by an empowered cone of cold. His three empowered rays do 1.5*(4d6) points of damage apiece (average 21), but need ranged touch attacks to hit; his cone of cold deals 1.5*(15d6) points of damage (average 78.75), but offers a reflex save. If all three attacks hit and his target fails its saving throw, Johnny deals 141.75. This is nontrivially more damage than Jane, but Johnny can probably only do this once a day, and his expected damage goes way down if his target makes its saving throw against the cone, or one or more of the rays miss, or the target has energy or spell resistance--all serious possibilities at Johnny's level.In any case, Jane certainly shouldn't feel useless, or significantly underpowered. Are these characters really atypical?</blockquote>

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