Damage progression of PCs

[Iron Sky]

My group's 10th level barbarian does 4d6+1d8+13(32 avg damage or so, not counting to-hit %) all day with Howling Strike charge attacks (which he manages to pull off 85% of the time or so thanks to Boots of Adept Charging - it would be more like 95% if he got a Badge of the Berserker).

At the other end of our group's spectrum, the Healing-specialized cleric only does about 1d6+6 with Sacred Flame...

 

[sfedi]

Your baseline is pretty conservative. For example, my fighter's at-will does 1d10+12 at 10th level and, fairly often, 1d10+21 at 11th level. (Marked Scourge, Son of Mercy)

Yes, I know the numbers posted above are conservative.
But that's because I don't know how to estimate or calculate the damage progression of PCs.

For example, from what you are showing, you have two sources of extra damage: a feat that adds a secondary stat to your damage 1/round, and a class that adds your secondary stat to your damage vs marked foes.

Is this something all PCs can have at paragon? All non-strikers?

I don't know the answer of the above.

If it is, then it should be added to the numbers above.
If it's not, then there are huge imbalances on damage progression as you gain levels, and should be addressed.

Also note that I'm assuming a 1d8 as the base damage roll.
In case of a defender, this is assuming you are wielding a longsword and a shield, for example.
So these numbers don't take into account superior weapons, weapon focus, etc.
Yes, they are kind of a baseline.

But I wish we could have an average/reasonable/typical and a maximum progression as well.

My barbarian does about 1d12+2d6+15 at 11th (or 14th...)

Note that the above numers are for non-strikers.

My warlord might only do 2d10+13 or so with an encounter power, but it's giving the rest of the group +6 damage per hit or +5 attack and damage with all at-wills...

Leaders are tricky to account for.

The 14th bard I just made only does 1d6+9 or 1d8+9 with at-wills, though, it's true. And that's as low as it can possibly get since I took nothing at all for damage, and hits your number for at-will.

Great, at least something's right!

Note that even with these low numbers, the expected number of hits to bring down a creature of it's level isn't that big.

We are looking that 20 rounds are the MOST you can take to finish an encounter. That is, assuming you need 10 hits to bring "your creature" down, that you have 50% of hitting, and that you have no strikers on your party and that your party does minimum damage.

Even with the huge progression of hit points the monsters have.

Heck, my assassin's Shadow Storm does 1d10+10 (11 with CA) at level 4, if the target's by himself.

Remember, only non-strikers posted above.

Note that if you remove your extra damage for been a striker, your minimum damage should be in line with the above list (and not counting improvements from feats, etc.)

My group's 10th level barbarian does 4d6+1d8+13(32 avg damage or so, not counting to-hit %) all day with Howling Strike charge attacks (which he manages to pull off 85% of the time or so thanks to Boots of Adept Charging - it would be more like 95% if he got a Badge of the Berserker).

Ditto.

At the other end of our group's spectrum, the Healing-specialized cleric only does about 1d6+6 with Sacred Flame...

 

[renau1g]

Yeah, missed that non-striker thing...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you'd pretty much need to work it out per-role at least. In essence any character that is sticking close to baseline just doesn't care about damage output. Thus they are probably either doing other really useful stuff with their attacks in addition, or not attacking directly a whole lot.

It is interesting that the damage/hit points ratio falls over the levels. We probably kind of knew that already, but this shows it pretty clearly for the base case. Now the question that might be more interesting is what do typical PARTY damage outputs per turn do over the levels?

 

[keterys]

On another board I'm on, people are talking about how in paragon the damage is so fast that monsters don't get to act....

So it's pretty funny to see the comparisons sometime.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

On another board I'm on, people are talking about how in paragon the damage is so fast that monsters don't get to act....

So it's pretty funny to see the comparisons sometime.

Yeah, I think in practice damage output at paragon is MUCH higher than the simple baseline numbers would indicate. Lots of PCs have PPs like Bloodmage and Daggermaster, Pitfighter, etc that can really pump it out.

 

[Mengu]

On another board I'm on, people are talking about how in paragon the damage is so fast that monsters don't get to act....

I've seen the same thing at paragon, but also at heroic too. A standard encounter coming to a conclusion in 2-3 rounds does happen, especially at low heroic, and especially with mostly strikers in the party.

I've even seen a "drive by" encounter that was over in one round (though I think that was an easy encounter).

On the flip side, I've also been in a 20 round encounter.

The shortest encounters typically seem to happen in published or rpga games, and the long ones in home brew games. Of course party composition, optimization, DM style, etc. all play a role in this.

 

[Dausuul]

Encounter powers get quite a lot better than 2[W]. Paragon-tier encounter powers tend to be around 3[W], and epic-tier powers are around 4[W].

Also, I suggest using 5 for the base value of [W], not 4. Experience suggests that damage dice are commonly between 1d8 and 1d10. You'll very seldom see a weapon-user with a smaller die than 1d8, and while casters do use 1d6 a lot, they also tend to get more dice to compensate.

 

[Sanzuo]

My group's 10th level barbarian does 4d6+1d8+13(32 avg damage or so, not counting to-hit %) all day with Howling Strike charge attacks (which he manages to pull off 85% of the time or so thanks to Boots of Adept Charging - it would be more like 95% if he got a Badge of the Berserker).

At the other end of our group's spectrum, the Healing-specialized cleric only does about 1d6+6 with Sacred Flame...

Don't forget brutal 1

 

[sfedi]

I think you'd pretty much need to work it out per-role at least. In essence any character that is sticking close to baseline just doesn't care about damage output. Thus they are probably either doing other really useful stuff with their attacks in addition, or not attacking directly a whole lot.

Totally right.

The thing is:
Baseline/Minimum, I know how to calculate it
Defender, Striker, not much.

It is interesting that the damage/hit points ratio falls over the levels. We probably kind of knew that already, but this shows it pretty clearly for the base case. Now the question that might be more interesting is what do typical PARTY damage outputs per turn do over the levels?

Anyone care to do a progression, or suggest typical numbers?

Yeah, I think in practice damage output at paragon is MUCH higher than the simple baseline numbers would indicate. Lots of PCs have PPs like Bloodmage and Daggermaster, Pitfighter, etc that can really pump it out.

Yeah, I know. But how ubiquous is this?

Encounter powers get quite a lot better than 2[W]. Paragon-tier encounter powers tend to be around 3[W], and epic-tier powers are around 4[W].
I did the numbers with exactly that progression.
I don't understand what's wrong though.

Also, I suggest using 5 for the base value of [W], not 4. Experience suggests that damage dice are commonly between 1d8 and 1d10. You'll very seldom see a weapon-user with a smaller die than 1d8, and while casters do use 1d6 a lot, they also tend to get more dice to compensate.

I know, I just wanted to stick to the more basic damage.

Guys who would use a better weapon, would also get feats and items that would pump their damage further, so I reserve that assumption to a future calculation.