D&D 5E Evaluating Range versus Damage (SS vs GWM) - putting a price on range

[CapnZapp]

I've had a Crossbow Expert Sharpshooter Battlemaster Ranger Halfling that usually hits four out of five attacks during nova rounds, for 4d6+60 damage at anything between melee range up to 120 ft range.

The game severely, nay critically, undercosts the quality of range.

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[Ancalagon]

Once again on this topic I am in general agreement. 5e, by simplifying things, removed too many of the obstacles that make ranged fire difficult.

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[Yaarel]

With regard to range, these are following significant thresholds.

upto 10 feet: melee
upto 30 feet: close (30 foot move) (thrown weapon) (close quarters combat)

upto 100 feet: short range (large room, small house) (20 squares, most of a battlemat)
upto 300 feet: short range (large house, city block, ancient town wall) (bow shot) (60 squares, more than battlemat)

upto 1000 feet: long range
upto 3000 feet: long range (roughly 1 kilometer, 10 city blocks, small town, medieval town wall) (long range rifle)

beyond

Note. Ranges often require line of sight too.

 

[guachi]

Please note that I do take the bonus attack into account. Against foes that don't die instantly or aren't conveniently clustered, I estimate the expected damage from GWM bonus attacks is (critical%*hit%*damage + critical%*damage (from dice only)). Against AC 15 that's (0.1*0.45*20.5) + (.01*6.5). So the possible bonus attack yields about 1.5 more damage per turn. Do you estimate it to be greater?

Just responding to this point. I'll respond to your other points when I have more time later.

It's important to make assumptions and keep variables as low as possible before adding more. So assuming a Champion Fighter attacking a single target dummy with infinite HP means we don't have to consider Battlemaster maneuvers or bonus action attacks from dropping a foe to zero.

That said, I think your math is wrong here.

The chance of getting a bonus attack solely from critical hits for a level 11 Champion is equal to the chance of getting at least one critical hit. You only have one bonus action so you can't get any more than one bonus attack. The chance of getting at least one critical hit is (1 - chance_of_no_critical_hits) That chance is 1-.9*.9*.9 = .271.

Therefore, the extra damage at level 11 is .271 times whatever the normal expected damage on an attack is.

Average damage on a hit for a character with 18 STR, GWM, GWF w/ a two-handed weapon:
4 (STR)
+10 (GWM)
+8.33 (GWF w/two-hander rerolling 1s and 2s)
=22.33

Extra damage on a critical hit:
+8.33

The hit chance is .45 and the critical chance is .1. That yields a formula for average damage on an attack as:

hit_chance*avg_dmg_on_hit + crit_chance*bonus_dmg_on_crit or
.45*22.33+.1*8.33 = 10.88

So the extra expected damage per turn from your bonus action attacks are:
.271*10.88 = 2.95

 

[FrogReaver]

If we include ranged builds that either haven't yet taken crossbow expertise or won't take it at all then I think such a ranged character should be judged as losing just as many attacks in a typical campaign as a character that's heavily melee focused.

Crossbow expertise solves that problem (though not for free) and so ranged crossbow expertise characters totally ignore that part of the melee ranged balance spectrum and so you get threads like this that say it's a damage problem. Well, not really IMO. It's more of a crossbow expertise problem.

I think another very huge and overlooked issue with ranged characters (and especially crossbow expertise characters) is the tendency for focus fire. a lot more than their melee counterparts.

 

[clearstream]

The chance of getting a bonus attack solely from critical hits for a level 11 Champion is equal to the chance of getting at least one critical hit. You only have one bonus action so you can't get any more than one bonus attack. The chance of getting at least one critical hit is (1 - chance_of_no_critical_hits) That chance is 1-.9*.9*.9 = .271.

Yes, I definitely underestimated the critical chance because I forget to concatenate it. My 0.1 should have been 0.271. I made the same mistake with Archer, so both are going to do more damage.

Therefore, the extra damage at level 11 is .271 times whatever the normal expected damage on an attack is.

We agreed 20 Strength, and I believe Defense style pays off more for GWM Champion than GWF. Because GWF will add 1-2 points of damage a turn, whereas Defense style will take AC to 19.

Average damage on a hit for a character with 20 STR, GWM w/ Greataxe:
+5 (STR 20 as agreed)
+10 (GWM)
+6.5 (GWM fighter takes Defense style)
=21.5

Is that reasonable? If so, then with the critical hit changes my spreadsheet suggests - against AC 17

GWM+Str+Str expects to deal 33.6 damage per turn.
PHB SS+CEx+Dex expects to deal 33.5 damage per turn, at 120' range!

My revision SS+CEx+Dex will see the Archer switch to Longbow, dropping CEx and taking another Dex ASI. They expect to deal 25.5 damage per turn *1.3 (my factor for range) = 33.15 which by God is spitting in the eye of exactly the same.

 

[clearstream]

If we include ranged builds that either haven't yet taken crossbow expertise or won't take it at all then I think such a ranged character should be judged as losing just as many attacks in a typical campaign as a character that's heavily melee focused.

Crossbow expertise solves that problem (though not for free) and so ranged crossbow expertise characters totally ignore that part of the melee ranged balance spectrum and so you get threads like this that say it's a damage problem. Well, not really IMO. It's more of a crossbow expertise problem.

I agree CEx is a problem too, in a different way. But dealing GWM damage at 120' is also not okay. And we need to be cautious of an argument that asserts that range has no value. Range has value. We can debate over how much, but to assert zero seems wrong.

With that in mind, dropping CEx and taking another Dex increase, switching to Longbow still does 31.2 with PHB Sharpshooter alone, under the same conditions that GWM is doing 33.6. I believe 600' range is better than +2.4 damage.

That said, I agree that CEx exacerbates the problem by allowing our Archer to do exactly the same damage using their bow in melee. Hence my revisions make a small tweak to CEx as well as SS.

Those are here http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?585873-Refined-PHB-feat-revisions

I think another very huge and overlooked issue with ranged characters (and especially crossbow expertise characters) is the tendency for focus fire. a lot more than their melee counterparts.

That's such a good point, and one I overlooked but have experienced regularly. Ranged characters gain additional efficacy by focusing fire.

 

[Ancalagon]

I think another very huge and overlooked issue with ranged characters (and especially crossbow expertise characters) is the tendency for focus fire. a lot more than their melee counterparts.

Indeed - this is made worse by features that ignore cover or firing into melee penalties (which *really* should be part of the game!). This allows the ranged-fire attackers to be able to pick and choose the best target to focus fire on

 

[Ristamar]

Indeed - this is made worse by features that ignore cover or firing into melee penalties (which *really* should be part of the game!). This allows the ranged-fire attackers to be able to pick and choose the best target to focus fire on

I don't have a problem with the damage boost of Sharpshooter, but I do find the "ignore cover" benefit to be unfulfilling as a DM. Removing a tactically interesting option doesn't often make for a better game experience.

I know some people have problems with features that grant condition or damage-type immunities, but I find those to be far less pervasive and less reliable.

 

[guachi]

Yes, I definitely underestimated the critical chance because I forget to concatenate it. My 0.1 should have been 0.271. I made the same mistake with Archer, so both are going to do more damage.


We agreed 20 Strength, and I believe Defense style pays off more for GWM Champion than GWF. Because GWF will add 1-2 points of damage a turn, whereas Defense style will take AC to 19.

Average damage on a hit for a character with 20 STR, GWM w/ Greataxe:
+5 (STR 20 as agreed)
+10 (GWM)
+6.5 (GWM fighter takes Defense style)
=21.5

Is that reasonable? If so, then with the critical hit changes my spreadsheet suggests - against AC 17
.

If the Champion is level 10, he can have both GWF and Defense. There's no tradeoff. Though I'd still rather have GWF than Defense if I could only have one. Unless you're a half-orc, why are you taking a great axe instead of a greatsword? The greatsword does more damage. There's no reason to have a great axe.

Also, I'd suggest doing the math on Battlemaster and pretending the only maneuver he has is Precision. You'll probably want to assume the Battlemaster knows the AC of his target so you can come up with a set sequence to use the maneuver. E.g., if you miss by 4 or less, use Precision. Then you'd have to make an assumption on number of rounds of combat between short rests. You'll probably find that the Battlemaster does more damage than a Champion because of how valuable hitting is.

If you miss by 4 or less, you'll use Precision on 20% of your attacks and, therefore, can last 20 swings for your 4 superiority dice. If you limit Precision usage to only your Attack action swings (for easier math and because any hit on your Attack action increases the chance of dropping a foe to 0 and getting a bonus attack. Dropping a foe to 0 with your bonus attack does nothing extra) then you will last 6-7 rounds. If there are two combats between short rests you can have combats last 3-4 rounds. This is probably a reasonable assumption.

You'll hit on 70% of those 20% of attacks and increase your hit percentage 14%. Of course, you can do the same with SS. But if you do this with the Battlemaster I encourage you to come up with some estimation of bonus action attack chances.

A GWM, Precision-using, GWF-having, greatsword-wielding Battlemaster will do 39.0 dpr versus an AC 17 foe. How often will he drop a foe to zero? Will he intentionally choose to target weaker enemies just to trigger a bonus attack? (I would...). For simple math let's assume that he gets a bonus attack on 25% of rounds in addition to his roughly 15% chance for a critical on one of his three attacks. That's a bonus attack 40% of the time and an extra 3.9 pts of damage per round.

So that's 39.0 + 3.9 = 42.9 damage per round.