Curious but lazy

[SolitonMan]

I've been reading some of the threads that talk about grind in 4e. I'm a player who is currently sticking with 3.5/Pathfinder, and have recently just finished running a game over the summer using the Beta/PFRPG rules.

I dabbled with 4e when it first came out - I can't say I gave it too much of a try. The one thing I noticed in my sessions (a couple playing a 1st level warlord in KotS, and several PbP playing a 4th level warlock) was that I really didn't do a lot of damage from a single attack. In my recently finished game I had NPCs with 90-100 HP getting taken out by 10th level players in three or four hits, because the fighter and barbarian would power attack and do 20-30+ points per hit.

What I'm curious about is the experience of you good folks who have been actually playing 4e, instead of dabbling like me, and what kind of average/max damage your higher level (15+) characters can do with a single attack. I'm lazy because I could figure this out myself if I wanted to take the time to calculate with my 4e core books, but again - I'm lazy.

So if you feel like responding, please let me know what class(es) you're playing, what level you are, and the average and/or max damage you've done/do with your attack(s). Feel free to refer to the power(s) by name if you wish, although due to my laziness they won't really mean anything until I pull out my core books again. Thanks!

 

[hailstop]

FYI, I DM a 4e game and have been since it came out.

As for damage output, the thing you have to realize is that the roles, while some don't like them, do actually mean something in generalizing what they do.

Your Warlord is a member of the Leader role. Often the classes have a secondary role based on their build. The PHB2 describes what that secondary role is, but the earlier products it's not as obivous. For instance, a Fighter is primarily a defender (which gets in the way of monsters getting to the squish guys in the back), but secondarily can be a striker due to his high hit bonus and damage (like the Fighter in my campaign).

Wizards are now controllers who can deal damage to multiple targets (ie 3 or more). Unlike earlier editions, the Wizards don't do the massive damage they used to. However, if they can hit many creatures, they can end up doing more damage than anyone else...just not to any individual creature.

Leaders like Warlords and Clerics give the boosts to AC, attack bonuses and such, as well as do the healing. However, they do the least amount of damage on any given attack (although the Shaman has a striker secondary role).

For doing massive amounts of damage to one monster, the strikers are king. Often they get additional dice damage to a single monster, above and beyond any of their powers. Strikers can easily do more damage using their at-wills than say, Leaders doing their dailies. But that's okay...since doing damage is what strikers are supposed to do.

As far as grind goes, there are a couple of reasons for it. One is that combats tend to be less swingy than they were before...and it's a rare combat against that doesn't go 5-8 rounds. The second is that it's taken about a year to really appreciate the real-world experience with Solos and Elites. Under the earlier rules they both got bonuses to their defenses...and high level Solos got 5x as many hp. However, combats often got to the point that all the PC's encounter and daily powers were used up and they were relying on their at-wills which don't do much damage. Meanwhile, the Elites (especially ones made with templates) and Solos often don't have enough standard actions to properly be an offensive threat to the party.

Adding Solo Soldiers made it worse (since they have better defenses and as such lots of effects that only come into effect on a hit wouldn't be realized). Make those solos higher level than the party and it gets even worse. Some of these problems have been fixed with the MM2 and DMG2.

Some solutions are to cut monster hp by 25% and add 1/2 level of the monster to damage by the monsters. This makes the combat a bit more swingy.

For more challenging encounters, don't have 5 creatures of higher levels...have creatures of the same level as the party...but add more creatures. It's the number of standard actions that ultimately determines the challenge to the PCs at least as far as death goes. Lots of higher level foes just makes it more difficult for hte PC's to hit them..the offensive challenge is only increased really by the monsters hitting the PC's more often. But 8 monsters instead of 5, even if they're of equal level can get nasty.



As for damage dealt...I think my Ranger player frequently gets an attack that does 3d8 damage (and he gets two attacks that can do that damage)...plus 2d8 additional damage once.

I've seen critical hits do 60 hp.

However, monsters have quite a bit more hp themselves, something on the order of 100-130 depending on the monster role...and quadruple that for solos.

 

[Storminator]

I've been reading some of the threads that talk about grind in 4e. I'm a player who is currently sticking with 3.5/Pathfinder, and have recently just finished running a game over the summer using the Beta/PFRPG rules.

I dabbled with 4e when it first came out - I can't say I gave it too much of a try. The one thing I noticed in my sessions (a couple playing a 1st level warlord in KotS, and several PbP playing a 4th level warlock) was that I really didn't do a lot of damage from a single attack. In my recently finished game I had NPCs with 90-100 HP getting taken out by 10th level players in three or four hits, because the fighter and barbarian would power attack and do 20-30+ points per hit.

What I'm curious about is the experience of you good folks who have been actually playing 4e, instead of dabbling like me, and what kind of average/max damage your higher level (15+) characters can do with a single attack. I'm lazy because I could figure this out myself if I wanted to take the time to calculate with my 4e core books, but again - I'm lazy.

So if you feel like responding, please let me know what class(es) you're playing, what level you are, and the average and/or max damage you've done/do with your attack(s). Feel free to refer to the power(s) by name if you wish, although due to my laziness they won't really mean anything until I pull out my core books again. Thanks!

We're 5th level.

Our sorcerer (which is pretty much the ultimate class in damage), did 51 a 3x3 square once, but that was with a daily power, and encounter power (action point) and his dragon breath. With 3 attack rolls required he only did all 51 to 2 enemies, but it ended up being about 200 damage all told.

Our rogue typically does 20 damage with an at-will power, and has spiked up as high at 40-something plus ongoing damage.

My cleric (one of the lower damage classes) has done 37 with a critical hit, because I have a magic great axe that does a lot of extra damage on a crit. I'm more likely to get about 14 damage on a hit.

Lower level than you were asking about, but there's a data point.

PS

 

[Cadfan]

I can tell you for 14th level characters. Level 15 is a bit around the corner for us. And I'm going to forget some names, since I don't have everything right in front of me. Also note that we're not a completely optimized party- we have some tricks, but we mostly play things safe and most of our optimization occurred organically, in game. And I guess I should mention that some of this is misleading because it doesn't consider accuracy- the fighter, for example, has additional bonuses to accuracy that the paladin does not. And the ranger has weird math due to two weapon fighting that basically means that if we adjusted for accuracy, she'd be comparatively better off versus the other characters.

Human two weapon talent fighter kensai, wielding a mordenkrad, using hammer rhythm and crushing surge: 2d6+13, brutal 1, with 4 damage on a miss. To simplify that, 21 average damage on a hit, 4 on a miss, with slightly above average accuracy due to being a kensai. In game, he tends to be a machine- nothing can really stop him, and while his damage isn't enormous, its pretty solid and never, ever stops.

Tiefling charisma paladin, with the paragon path that emphasizes tiefling traits, wielding a longsword and using an at will attack that does radiant damage: 1d8+9. She also inflicts vulnerable 5 radiant on a hit, which helps her and the cleric increase damage. And she gets an additional +9 damage versus bloodied targets. She averages 13.5 on a regular hit, 18.5 on a hit after inflicting vulnerable 5 radiant, 22.5 versus a bloodied target, or 27.5 versus a bloodied, radiant vulnerable target. In game, she often does our cleanup on bloodied enemies. She's even more unkillable than our fighter, but she's very vulnerable to being grabbed.

Two weapon fighting elven ranger, with the paragon path that focuses on thrown weapons. She uses two bastard swords. Twin Strike gives her 1d10+6 and 1d10+5, with an additional 2d8 from hunter's quarry. If she hits with everything, which I guess we'll assume since it makes life easier, she deals an average of 31 damage. Fights where this character gets critical hits tend to go very, very fast.

Elven cleric, radiant servant paragon path, using Sacred Flame. 1d6+11 damage. 14.5 average. Benefits occasionally from vulnerable 5 radiant from the paladin. Mostly deals very little damage with at wills and dailies, but has some encounter powers that are decent damage wise. She usually plays things safe and sets up the group in such a way that losing would be very, very difficult. She doesn't spead up encounters much though, mostly she just makes us unkillable. Lots of healing related feats.

Tiefling wizard, some trap focused paragon path. This one's hard to calibrate because he hits multiple targets, and his damage climbs or falls depending on what he can attack. If he uses Scorching Burst, he does 1d6+10 per target, averaging 13. But he gets +3 damage if he hits at least 2 enemies. And he can subtract two damage to increase the size of the explosion, which is worth it to get an extra enemy. And on top of that he has the war wizardry feat, which makes him deal less damage to allies he accidentally shoots. And then on top of that, our paladin is flame retardant and our fighter wears armor that protects him from flame. So he can fire pretty freely into melee with his favorite explosions- he'll hit the fighter and paladin, who won't take damage, and he'll miss the ranger. Additionally, he has some mean tricks he can pull with cold related spells. He picked up the feats that let him inflict cold vulnerability on a hit with a cold spell, and the feat to gain combat advantage against cold vulnerable foes. He has to be more careful with those, but he hits for higher damage. In game, he does an incredible job at speeding up battles with multiple enemies. His damage output is probably the highest, once you take into account hitting multiple targets.

 

[SolitonMan]

Cool info, thanks for the replies! This is exactly the type of information I was searching for, and helps me see what I was missing in my dabbling. Clearly the detailed interaction of powers, feats and (to some extent) items helps make what seemed to me like pretty meager damage potential into what I would consider solid, dependable strikes.

From this conversation and others I've read on the topic I get the impression that 4e tends to zero in on necessity. As a player I like to have as much power as I can so that I can versatilely address any situation I encounter. But in practice I rarely use most of the power I have. For example, in our current 3.5 Shackled City campaign I'm running a 15th level warlock. I have a greater chasuble of fell power to give +2d6 to my eldritch blasts (so 9d6 per blast), the eldritch cone invocation for doing area damage, fell flight and flee the scene for mobility, walk unseen for avoidance, and wall of perilous flame just for the fun of it. And while it's great to have all of these at-will powers, in practice my use of them is pretty limited on a daily basis. Other than fell flight, if I could only use some of these once per encounter or day it wouldn't really reduce my practical effectiveness nearly as much as I would at first have thought.

Of course, I still love the IDEA of surrounding enemy forces on all sides with walls of fire.

Anyway, thanks again, and if there are more replies I'd love to read them!

 

[Anand]

Our rogue (Brutal Scoundrel Rogue 10) does lots of damage. With combat advantage, he's dealing like ~1d6+25+2d8, and rolling +18 to hit. That's a lot, imho. And he'll crit a lot in Paragon, since he'll pick the obligatory Daggermaster (crits in 18-20).

Munchkins...

 

[hailstop]

Another thing to remember is that there is a difference in encounter philosophy between 3e and 4e. In 3e and earlier editions, the point was to drain the PC's of resources over a series of encounters and eventually they'd run out (usually healing).

In 4e, each encounter potentially could drain the party of resources, but those resources largely regenerate themselves (aka Encounter powers). Dailies do drain, but they're not crucial. Healing surges drain too, but because of the restriction of healing during each encounter (ie one Second Wind, two Healing Words), a party can run out of healing during the encounter, but once the encounter is over, gain a lot of that back.

 

[Jack99]

The fighter of our group averages for 30+ on his at-wills. Same with the rogue and the warlock. The cleric and wizard average around 20.

Critwise, the rogue and the fighter both hurt a lot, having both had several 90-120 damage crits. The fighter for example has at least twice (if not thrice) done 250+ damage to a solo creature in a round. Poor, poor Tiamat.

The characters are level 18. A level 18 monster has around 170ish hit points.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Played an 11th level Warlock last night. I like to deal a lot of damage, and really try to get all the stuff to make it happen. I have a Staff of Ruin which I can use thanks to a feat, and off-hand Vicious Rod thanks to the two-implement feat, I have automatic combat advantage against cursed enemies with my armor, and my Eldritch Blast is, with combat advantage, +17 vs. Reflex, 1d10+2d8+17. I have reapers touch(ignoring the new restriction, thanks DM) and a Horned Helm, so this increases to +18 vs. Reflex, 1d10+2d8+1d6+17 when I charge, which I tend to do from time to time. Pretty darn shiny for a Warlock. Our Fighter is a max Wisdom son of Mercy with a Bloodclaw Fullblade, and 30 damage is on the low side for him.

 

[Stuntman]

Clearly the detailed interaction of powers, feats and (to some extent) items helps make what seemed to me like pretty meager damage potential into what I would consider solid, dependable strikes.

Note that not all characters are designed to deal massive amounts of damage. In the campaign that I play in, we are at level 1. The sorcerer's average damage is about the same as my maximum damage. The reason is that the sorcerer is a striker and is supposed to deal a lot of damage to a target. My fighter is a defender and designed to keep enemies from going after my allies. I have abilities that discourage and hinder enemies from going after my allies (instead of me). A sorcerer is not going to be very successful at preventing an enemy from going after anyone else.

From this conversation and others I've read on the topic I get the impression that 4e tends to zero in on necessity. As a player I like to have as much power as I can so that I can versatilely address any situation I encounter.

In 4E, it is unlikely that any one character can be built to be able to handle multiple situations. A warlock in 4E can deal damage well, but is unlikely to be effective at preventing enemies from focussing its attacks on an ally.