Crunch on average damage output over 20 levels?

[harpy]

Trailblazer's analysis of the "spine" of the system is really handy in trying to understand the system as a whole.

One area that wasn't covered was getting an idea on average damage output, both from the PC side and Monster side through all 20 levels.

Is there any kind of resource that has worked that out?

It would be interesting to see how the system's hit point economy alters, particularly around the 9th level when hitting becomes almost a given.

 

[Henry]

One area that wasn't covered was getting an idea on average damage output, both from the PC side and Monster side through all 20 levels.

Is there any kind of resource that has worked that out?

To me, the problem with such an analysis is the HUGE disparity in 3E between different classes and builds and their damage outputs.

For example, a 9th level bard, reasonably built but not optimized, might have about 40 hit points, a +9 to hit and do about 1d6+10 damage, but his buddy the 9th level barbarian/fighter who has judiciously picked all the best feats from all splatbooks might have a +20 to hit, and do about 2d8+27 damage, and that's before shaving a few points off to boost it with a power attack. But then, the combat-monkey might have a +7 to his tumble/climb/diplomacy/what have you, but the bard might have a +30 in all three skills and know how to speak 14 different languages as compensation.


I've thought about establishing a "top limit" on various scores for 3E games before, similar to what Mutants and Masterminds 2nd Edition did; for instance, at 10th level, no character can benefit from more than a +15 to hit, before counting any condition or circumstantial modifiers, and can have not more than +10 to damage bonuses, or something similar. That way, optimizing PCs can only give you so much of a bonus. However, I haven't done enough analyzing to see if it could be done in a way that would be fair to all characters.

 

[Thanael]

You could take a look at the sample NPC tables in the DMG whic show a basic fighter stats from level 1 to 20. But those are of course far from optimized.

On the dicefreaks boards there used to be similar iconic builds (though only for every 5 levels), which were a bit more optimized. But alas they have not been reposted yet.