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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Can A Spell Caster Out Damage a Martial Consistently?
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9663337" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>To slightly extend this: spells often do half damage, or have some minimum effect, even if the target makes their save.</p><p></p><p>Outside of Graze, which is fixed <attack ability modifier> damage, non-caster characters rarely if ever achieve the same thing. If their efforts fail, they simply <em>fail</em>, no effect. It doesn't take much for even a high-level Fighter (3-4 attacks per round) to go a whole round without achieving anything.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Well-said. Just <em>one</em> party member being on, say, 1/3 HP, with no hit dice left, dipping into the communal coffers just to stay alive? That's already a powerful argument for "hey guys, we should long rest."</p><p></p><p></p><p>And this, too, is part of the problem with these types of threads: people pretend that extraordinarily unlikely circumstances, or massive outright defiance of the explicit text, or the nebulous never-defined "situation" or "context" etc., somehow make probability and numbers totally 100% irrelevant and easily dismissed. Usually with BS non-arguments like "white room" etc.</p><p></p><p><em>Quite obviously</em> FrogReaver is talking about consistency. Do you think spellcasters can <em>consistently</em>, reliably, testably, outdamage sword and board characters?</p><p></p><p>One-in-a-million chances happen about once in a million attempts. You don't hinge plans on one-in-a-million chances unless you have no other choice. You hinge plans around what is most likely, most expected, most probable. The nature of probability is that in most cases, near-the-center results happen, <em>especially</em> when you average across many attempts. That is quite literally what "regression to the mean" <em>means</em>; over many trials, the <em>observed</em> average result will hug quite close to the <em>theoretical</em> average most of the time.</p><p></p><p>Hence why my math above went out of its way to presume few, short (but perhaps not quite short <em>enough</em>), weak combats, and <em>still</em> found the claim of 32 potions for the whole group to fall not just short, but <em>significantly</em> short. Even if I over-estimated numbers by <em>double</em>, you'd be burning through that entire stack in 3, perhaps 4 adventuring days--and that means needing another 1600 GP <em>every single time you go to town</em>. Assuming the town even <em>has</em> 32 healing potions, which again is far from guaranteed.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9663337, member: 6790260"] To slightly extend this: spells often do half damage, or have some minimum effect, even if the target makes their save. Outside of Graze, which is fixed <attack ability modifier> damage, non-caster characters rarely if ever achieve the same thing. If their efforts fail, they simply [I]fail[/I], no effect. It doesn't take much for even a high-level Fighter (3-4 attacks per round) to go a whole round without achieving anything. Well-said. Just [I]one[/I] party member being on, say, 1/3 HP, with no hit dice left, dipping into the communal coffers just to stay alive? That's already a powerful argument for "hey guys, we should long rest." And this, too, is part of the problem with these types of threads: people pretend that extraordinarily unlikely circumstances, or massive outright defiance of the explicit text, or the nebulous never-defined "situation" or "context" etc., somehow make probability and numbers totally 100% irrelevant and easily dismissed. Usually with BS non-arguments like "white room" etc. [I]Quite obviously[/I] FrogReaver is talking about consistency. Do you think spellcasters can [I]consistently[/I], reliably, testably, outdamage sword and board characters? One-in-a-million chances happen about once in a million attempts. You don't hinge plans on one-in-a-million chances unless you have no other choice. You hinge plans around what is most likely, most expected, most probable. The nature of probability is that in most cases, near-the-center results happen, [I]especially[/I] when you average across many attempts. That is quite literally what "regression to the mean" [I]means[/I]; over many trials, the [I]observed[/I] average result will hug quite close to the [I]theoretical[/I] average most of the time. Hence why my math above went out of its way to presume few, short (but perhaps not quite short [I]enough[/I]), weak combats, and [I]still[/I] found the claim of 32 potions for the whole group to fall not just short, but [I]significantly[/I] short. Even if I over-estimated numbers by [I]double[/I], you'd be burning through that entire stack in 3, perhaps 4 adventuring days--and that means needing another 1600 GP [I]every single time you go to town[/I]. Assuming the town even [I]has[/I] 32 healing potions, which again is far from guaranteed. [/QUOTE]
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Can A Spell Caster Out Damage a Martial Consistently?
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