D&D General DPR Calculations Wut?

[EzekielRaiden]

Of course I can figure out average damage per round (1 attack, 1d6+2, average 5.5).

But I see people with equations like : 65% chance to hit.

Where's that coming from? I feel like there are some assumptions I am missing. The % to hit would come from the AC of the target right?

Spell out DPR and explain it for me as a process, like I was in high school. (I do have a degree but somethings not clicking)

65% is what the designers aim for the typical fight being. Naturally, you cannot perfectly predict AC, and thus AC will vary up and down--some things will be fragile, other things hella sturdy.

If you are going to reject the idea that we can estimate typical long-run behavior, then you're fundamentally rejecting the concept of mathematical analysis in the first place. The game cannot be designed, then, because there's no way for us to analyze it; all we can do is present totally individual experiences and hope we can glean something from them...which is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

I'm not saying qualitative data has no place, it absolutely does; nor am I saying that DPR is the only metric, it isn't. Hell, it isn't even the best metric in a lot of ways. But in order to do mathematical analysis of things, that is, in order to know that the designs we make are effective in addition to being evocative and compelling, we have to be able to do some degree of benchmarking.

If you know what your DPR is against an expected "average" AC, then you are at least better-prepared to predict what your damage output will be when reality diverges from those assumptions. That's why we do safety drills, right? We practice when there is no problem, so that we are prepared to deal with the times that there are problems.

 

[Zardnaar]

65% is what the designers aim for the typical fight being. Naturally, you cannot perfectly predict AC, and thus AC will vary up and down--some things will be fragile, other things hella sturdy.

If you are going to reject the idea that we can estimate typical long-run behavior, then you're fundamentally rejecting the concept of mathematical analysis in the first place. The game cannot be designed, then, because there's no way for us to analyze it; all we can do is present totally individual experiences and hope we can glean something from them...which is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

I'm not saying qualitative data has no place, it absolutely does; nor am I saying that DPR is the only metric, it isn't. Hell, it isn't even the best metric in a lot of ways. But in order to do mathematical analysis of things, that is, in order to know that the designs we make are effective in addition to being evocative and compelling, we have to be able to do some degree of benchmarking.

If you know what your DPR is against an expected "average" AC, then you are at least better-prepared to predict what your damage output will be when reality diverges from those assumptions. That's why we do safety drills, right? We practice when there is no problem, so that we are prepared to deal with the times that there are problems.

It doesn't always reflect reality.

Smites come to mind. White room you have XYZ crit chance, smites deal XYZ average damage.

But smites tend to get used more when you smite.

White rooms also really bad at tactics and strategy. The old -5/+10 feats I identified very early. People here said youre an idiot. Not if you build around them.

Same thing with how we were getting massive danage boosts out of paralyzed. Cant do that but when stuff fails wisdom saves 75-95% of the time (common tbh) yes you can guarantee crits.

Hell Ive had people argue you cant auto crit with ranged attacks vs paralyzed foes without disadvantage.