FrogReaver
The most respectful and polite poster ever
=EHP * DPRMaybe the metric should multiply survivability with damage. That way, if you have one of those factors too low, the metric goes down.
That gives you a number you can compare characters with, but it's not a very real world meaningful number.
Like if EHP is 100 and DPR is 30 that's 3000.
If EHP is 300 and DPR is 10 then that's also 3000.
But it's fairly clear that the first PC with higher DPR is probably better.
You don't need to though.You will never be able to recreate that in a white room.
You need some damage metrics.
Single Target, Burst, AOE, etc.
You need some survivability metrics.
AC, HP, Damage Reduction, Healing. Possibly can convert this to EHP.
Mobility Metrics are a solid addition as well.
Speed, Movement Types, resource abilities that can be used for extra movement.
You don't have to combine this into one number. Simply a separate rating for each of these 10 to 20 things. Then we can spend pages and pages trying to estimate relative value of each of those stats to each other.
Wrong picture? Howso? Do you believe people are actually building characters that ignore defensive abilities/healing/control/etc in actual play?Yes. But listing one without the other gives a wrong picture more often than not.
Or are you suggesting that claiming a character is best at damage due to having the best damage numbers is actually a claim that such a character is the best? Instead of just the best at doing damage when it can hit things in it's preferred style?
Sure. The thing is, the usefulness of high mobility depends a great deal on how the DM sets up encounters. So it's really hard to value in general. There's also not much in the way of big bonuses for it. It's mostly locked by class.I'd also add mobilitiy as another metric. Bringing your damage where it counts most or retreating if things go sideways is never rated correctly when speaking about damage*, except for ranged builds that kite enemies... which are usually useless in play.
*though treantmonk does value it high.
But yes, we should metric it. But it's something a player really has to evaluate for their campaign when comparing to the others.