D&D 5E Define "good" damage...

[LapBandit]

A lot of interesting responses. I think ranged cantrips other than Eldritch Blast should scale once at 11th. I think Eldritch Blast should only scale with Warlock level. Otherwise I feel good about the available at will damage in the game.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

First off, of all the sites I have visited in the past, I have found this one to have the most insightful commentary. I do not always agree, but people use...reasons. Refreshing.

Anyway, here is my question.

What is "good" at-will damage?

In this we have melee and missile attacks of course but also cantrips and the like.

If possible, provide some sort of cut point (your opinion cannnot be wrong in this) for exceptional at-will damage and poor at-will damage.

If you are really ambitious and want to divide this into martial damage and spell damage as well, I would be thrilled to know your thoughts.

One last moderator is level and tier...good damage at 1st level will of course not be good damage at 15th! In this discussion I think we should dispense with one time effects such as action surges or hasted actions etc. and focus on the at-will component.

I'd say: I'll describe a PC as having "good" damage when they're doing damage competitive with a non-specialized fighter, and when it starts to become cost-effective to improve defense instead: a fighter doing d8+3 or d8+4 per tier has good damage, and so does a warlock without Hex. Someone with excellent damage might do 50% to 100% more than good damage, typically at a cost: e.g. a sorlock quickening Hexed Eldritch Blast is burning his concentration on Hex and sorcery points on every Quickened spell; or a Necromancer might do 10x as much damage as that but with a logistical headache. "Good" is a kind of baseline for me to mentally shoot for when sketching a character build--ideally I'd like all of the PCs in a notional party to have good damage.

Non-melee, non-invocation-boosted cantrips yield what I like to think of as mediocre damage: it gets the job done, slowly. You can kill a were-rat at first level by kiting it using Expeditious Retreat and Chill Touch, but it takes twice as long as if you were a 2nd level Warlock using Agonizing Repelling Blast, which makes you more vulnerable to surprises in the interim if the were-rat turns out not to be the only threat in the area. I like well-rounded notional PCs, so having a PC who can do only mediocre damage leaves me feeling unsatisfied, and I try to avoid it when constructing notional parties.

So:

Vicious Mockery: unusually poor at-will damage, d4 per tier, save-based damage against a generally strong save.

Ray of Frost/Chill Touch: decent/mediocre damage, d8 per tier, attack-based damage with no ability mod. Would probably work fine in play but leaves my constraint-solving instincts unsatisfied--there is often a way to get something better.

Fire Bolt: decent/mediocre damage, d10 per tier on an attack roll.

Monk with a longbow: decent/mediocre damage, d8 plus ability mod, twice per round. Perfectly viable in practice but leaves you functioning primarily as a scout and counterbattery fire instead of a primary ranged combatant; leaves my constraint-solving instincts somewhat regretful that it wasn't possible to do better somehow.

Booming Blade: Good damage, 2d8 per tier, sort of, plus one ability mod, on an attack roll. Enough to satisfy my instincts, at least on a melee off-tank (e.g. Life Cleric 1/Enchanter X).

Thunderclap/Sword Burst: Situationally good damage, d6 per tier per enemy, saved-based damage. Nice to have but wouldn't rely on it as a primary at-will attack; in practice it's easy for this not to be as good as you think it will be even against hordes of orcs.

Agonizing Eldritch Blast: good to excellent damage, d10 per tier with ability mod on an attack roll, plus potential riders that can add 4d4 to 20d6 damage per hit, depending on situation.

Sharpshooter fighter or ranger: generally excellent damage, tends to be 30-50% more damage than a regular fighter, using arrows that cost only 1 gp for twenty.

Necromantic army: fantastic damage on the order of hundreds of points per round even after accounting for hit chances, plus potential for numerous conditions ranging from grappled to hobbled (with caltrops).

When I'm doodling on a napkin with a set of d6s, rolling up PCs for fun to see what they look like, if I can get 3-4 members of a notional 4-man party up to "good" at-will damage, I am happy. Ditto when running solo or computerized 5E games. In my rare times as a tabletop 5E player I'm also pretty happy if I can hit about 10 points of damage per tier without sacrificing utility (as a monk or full spellcaster); or if I do sacrifice utility and play a fighter, I'd want excellent damage (about 15 points of damage per tier) in order to not regret giving up the utility.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Poor at-will damage: Cleric or Druid fighting in melee.

Average at-will damage: Sorcerer and Wizard cantrips, archer warriors with no feats, sword and board warriors without the duelist combat style and no feats, ranged rogues, monks, bladelocks pre UA.

Good at-will damage: Great weapon fighters, barbarians, and paladins without feats. Post UA bladelocks. Rogues with the Scag cantrips, rangers, blast warlocks with Hex.

Exceptional at-will damage: Sorlocks with hex + quickened eldritch blast. Warriors with great weapon master. Warriors with polearm master. Bow archers with sharpshooter.

Way beyond what should be possible at-will damage: Great weapon master warriors in a party that easily has access to advantage (faerie fire, stunned, hold person, etc). Crossbow expert sharpshooter archers. Great weapon master + polearm master warriors. PCs shapeshifter into CR 17 red dragons.

I would not put Sharpshooter + Crossbow Expert in a different tier than Sharpshooter. Increasing the die from d8 to d10 is not a significant damage increase. The feats only really worth it because of the elimination of disadvantage at melee range, and even then you don't consider taking it until you have 20 Dex and Sharpshooter.

I'd also put any Warlock with Hex and Agonizing Blast into Exceptional, not just sorlocks, because that damage quickly matches or surpasses Sharpshooter characters.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Generally speaking, 1d8+3 is probably the base line for levels 1-4. It's a one handed weapon attack with a 16 ability modifier, so anything above that is going to be "good" while anything less than that is going to be below average. At level 5, this will increase to 2d8+4 (assuming +1 to ability modifier or +1 weapon), and by level 12 it should be no less than 2d8+5. Of course, at will damage varies greatly, since many classes rely on limited benefit damage (rage, smite, ki, spells, etc.), while some (fighter and rogue) have no limitations on at will damage.

If you just want to look at cantrips, my group agrees that xd10 is the baseline. While most cantrips are 1d8, they come with a minor benefit (Chill Touch, Ray of Frost, etc.). Cantrips that deal less than that usually have a good bonus effect (i.e. vicious mockery) or hit multiple targets (i.e. Thunderclap and Sword Burst). Poison Spray, which deals xd12, has a VERY short range, making it less useful.

This is pretty much what I would say 1d8+3-5 or 1d10 without mod for cantrips is the middle ground of good damage. It is longsword fighter and firebolt, both of which are fairly standard.

Where things can get tricky is the group. (All following numbers are based off memory and subject to being slightly wrong)

My game which just went on hiatus has a ranger who feels like she does pathetic damage with 1d8+1d6+4 and her wolf companion attacking for 2d4+9

I also have a barbarian who feels like his damage is pathetic with 2d12+4+1d6+7 rerolling 1's and critting on 19's (often)

And that's because they compare themselves to the Swashbuckler and the Assassin who've got 2d8+5+5d6 and 1d12+5+6d6 reliably.


So, good for the base assumptions of the game seems weak when you start seeing people reliably hitting the high end of the spectrum, and are aware of ways that even those numbers can get overshadowed. This leads us to "good" damage being "high" damage and the average looking bad in comparison.

 

[Ashkelon]

I would not put Sharpshooter + Crossbow Expert in a different tier than Sharpshooter. Increasing the die from d8 to d10 is not a significant damage increase. The feats only really worth it because of the elimination of disadvantage at melee range, and even then you don't consider taking it until you have 20 Dex and Sharpshooter.

I'd also put any Warlock with Hex and Agonizing Blast into Exceptional, not just sorlocks, because that damage quickly matches or surpasses Sharpshooter characters.

Crossbow expert isn't there to use ad10 crossbow instead of a longbow. Crossbow expert is there to use a hand crossbow and make a bonus action attack every round, increasing your number of attacks by 50% from levels 5-10, or 33% from levels 11-19. That, when combined with the +10 damage from sharpshooter represents a massive increase to damage per round.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Crossbow expert isn't there to use ad10 crossbow instead of a longbow. Crossbow expert is there to use a hand crossbow and make a bonus action attack every round, increasing your number of attacks by 50% from levels 5-10, or 33% from levels 11-19. That, when combined with the +10 damage from sharpshooter represents a massive increase to damage per round.

Oh, yes, I forgot about that stupid ruling because the other one in the same article that says you can't dual wield hand crossbows with the feat overshadows it with it's own stupidity.

 

[guachi]

Nothing is preventing you from dual wielding hand crossbows.

You can't reload them without a free hand to draw ammo, of course (or some other way to draw and load). But I can't imagine anyone seriously thought you could load ammunition in a bow or crossbow without some way to, you know, actually get the ammunition.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Nothing is preventing you from dual wielding hand crossbows.

No, you can't dual wield hand crossbows. The two-weapon fighting rules say (emphasis mine):

When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand.

That's right. The Light property of hand crossbows does absolutely nothing.

That's why everybody who read Crossbow Expert said, "Oh, cool, this allows me to dual wield a hand crossbow!" Except, no, it doesn't according to Crawford. Not at all. It allows you to fire it an extra time. That's all. They just worded it so badly that you can't tell.

And the same set of rulings basically tells you that it's impossible to reload a hand crossbow with a weapon in your other hand. So the third ability of Crossbow Expert means that you can fire a hand crossbow as a bonus action, but you can't reload as a free action if you're dual wielding.

 

[cmad1977]

Good damage is the type done to enemies.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[guachi]

No, you can't dual wield hand crossbows. The two-weapon fighting rules say (emphasis mine):

That's right. The Light property of hand crossbows does absolutely nothing.

That's why everybody who read Crossbow Expert said, "Oh, cool, this allows me to dual wield a hand crossbow!" Except, no, it doesn't according to Crawford. Not at all. It allows you to fire it an extra time. That's all. They just worded it so badly that you can't tell.

You can certainly dual wield crossbows with the Crossbow Expert feat. As long as the crossbow is loaded you can fire as a bonus action. If you have both crossbows already loaded you can fire one with each hand. Knock yourself out. You can't reload without a free hand (usually) to draw the ammunition but you can, in fact, dual wield loaded crossbows with the Crossbow Expert feat.

Come to think of it, you can even dual wield without the feat, too. You can't fire both crossbows in the same turn, but you can do it.

I guess it never occurred to me (or to Crawford, apparently) that people would think you somehow didn't need some way to draw ammunition.