D&D 5E Guide to cruddy spells (v1.01)

[tetrasodium]

So maybe I'm reading your sheet wrong, but just looking a few numbers.

Dagger with 16 dex (normal for 1-3 level): 2.25 DPR (50% hit)
Toll the Dead: 3.25 DPR (50% hit)
Winner: Toll

Dagger with 18 dex, 2 attacks (aka 5th level): 6.5 DPR (50% hit)
Toll the Dead: 6.5
Winner: Draw

So what am I missing?

Now the fact that its only holding up to a dagger isn't great, but I'm not seeing the dagger beat it.

I'm not sure but maybe 28 of them, unless I miscounted 23 of which work with a shield & extra attack with no extra feats. With fighter having 2 martial weapons or martial weapon & shield plus a longbow light crossbow & 2 handaxes there is really no reason for it to ever use a dagger

Spoiler

I did everything I could to rig the numbers against the sword & board fighter by giving it the dagger, yet it still came out virtuallyequal or better than the highest damage die cantrip making the worst nonmagical melee weapon better than d4 d6 d8 and d10 cantrips. Dagger & shield is so silly that it really doesn't even count as the also included sword & board longsword or some other tropey phrase. Also you are limiting your scope to levels before +2 attrib from an ASI & the second attack kicking in with the starting dagger. Only a few classes even start with a dagger unless they deliberately choose it from an and (type) weapon choice & all of them start with at least one weapon with a higher damage die. The fact that the d12 cantrip happens to use a damage type that all constructs undead & many others are immune to only further shows the problem's seriousness.

The fact that it's not a total blowout pairing toll the dead against that deliberately damage shunning PC shows how silly it is for people to claim that castersare the ones dealing the most damage.

 

[Stalker0]

Dagger & shield is so silly that it really doesn't even count as the also included sword & board longsword or some other tropey phrase.

Oh I agree that no fighter would ever use a dagger, but when you made the statement "toll the dead is actually weaker than a dagger!"....I had to check it

 

[Dausuul]

Yes, attack cantrips deal much less damage than the at-will attacks of martial PCs. That is how it is supposed to be, for two reasons.

First, casters have powerful nova capability, and their at-will options are weaker to compensate.

Second, single-target damage is the specialty of martial PCs. Casters are better at everything else. Buffs? Casters do it better. Debuffs? Casters do that better too. Area damage? Battlefield control? Utility? Casters, casters, and casters.

The fact that it's not a total blowout pairing toll the dead against that deliberately damage shunning PC shows how silly it is for people to claim that castersare the ones dealing the most damage.

No one, ever in the history of ever, has claimed 5E casters deal more at-will damage than martials.

 

[Flamestrike]

I literally cannot take a thread of "cruddy spells" seriously when Bless is on the list.

This.

It's the go to spell for every single Cleric in the world until Spirit guardians starts competing for that concentration slot at 5th.

 

[Flamestrike]

I'm not sure but maybe 28 of them, unless I miscounted 23 of which work with a shield & extra attack with no extra feats. With fighter having 2 martial weapons or martial weapon & shield plus a longbow light crossbow & 2 handaxes there is really no reason for it to ever use a dagger

Spoiler

View attachment 134968

I did everything I could to rig the numbers against the sword & board fighter by giving it the dagger, yet it still came out virtuallyequal or better than the highest damage die cantrip making the worst nonmagical melee weapon better than d4 d6 d8 and d10 cantrips. Dagger & shield is so silly that it really doesn't even count as the also included sword & board longsword or some other tropey phrase. Also you are limiting your scope to levels before +2 attrib from an ASI & the second attack kicking in with the starting dagger. Only a few classes even start with a dagger unless they deliberately choose it from an and (type) weapon choice & all of them start with at least one weapon with a higher damage die. The fact that the d12 cantrip happens to use a damage type that all constructs undead & many others are immune to only further shows the problem's seriousness.

The fact that it's not a total blowout pairing toll the dead against that deliberately damage shunning PC shows how silly it is for people to claim that castersare the ones dealing the most damage.

It's by design that Casters have lower at will damage than Martials.

Casters can hit the 'Nuclear' button and turn an entire encounter with a well placed AoE or Save or Suck or Wall spell.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I'm not sure but maybe 28 of them, unless I miscounted 23 of which work with a shield & extra attack with no extra feats. With fighter having 2 martial weapons or martial weapon & shield plus a longbow light crossbow & 2 handaxes there is really no reason for it to ever use a dagger

I did everything I could to rig the numbers against the sword & board fighter by giving it the dagger, yet it still came out virtuallyequal or better than the highest damage die cantrip making the worst nonmagical melee weapon better than d4 d6 d8 and d10 cantrips. Dagger & shield is so silly that it really doesn't even count as the also included sword & board longsword or some other tropey phrase. Also you are limiting your scope to levels before +2 attrib from an ASI & the second attack kicking in with the starting dagger. Only a few classes even start with a dagger unless they deliberately choose it from an and (type) weapon choice & all of them start with at least one weapon with a higher damage die. The fact that the d12 cantrip happens to use a damage type that all constructs undead & many others are immune to only further shows the problem's seriousness.

The fact that it's not a total blowout pairing toll the dead against that deliberately damage shunning PC shows how silly it is for people to claim that castersare the ones dealing the most damage.

You do understand that the difference in at-will damage is deliberate don't you?

The fighter dealing 15-25 damage in a round compared to less than 10 damage for a caster's cantrip is to compensate for the caster dealing 80+ damage in the first round when they caught 4 of their opponents in a fireball. And note that dealing immediate damage with that spell slot is often the least effective use for it.

 

[tetrasodium]

You do understand that the difference in at-will damage is deliberate don't you?

The fighter dealing 15-25 damage in a round compared to less than 10 damage for a caster's cantrip is to compensate for the caster dealing 80+ damage in the first round when they caught 4 of their opponents in a fireball. And note that dealing immediate damage with that spell slot is often the least effective use for it.

A spell being cruddy doesn't mean that it's "the worst spell" and I explained that in the opening post while talking about how there were a few spells so incredibly bad that they shielded spells that were simply unjustifiably bad in some way. That' also part of why I chose a less precise term like "cruddy" over a somewhat more loaded one like bad awful lemon or similar.

Fireball is a great spell, so good in fact that many other spells become unused by design & I don't believe that I said otherwise. The at will damage difference is not the problem, it's the scale that spells other than fireball need to measure up to. Using math to show the deliberate gap between at will damage that exists even before you consider things like AC/HD differences, energy resists vrs resist nonmagical bps, legendary resists, magic resistance for advantage on saves, & so on. All of those things serve to widen the gap while illustrating why those spells other than "Dungeons & Dragons’ most iconic and satisfying spells" can't simply be tossed aside and excused just by saying "fireball is great so these spells here can be almost good but hamstrung, those spells there can be laughably bad, & all these ones depend entirely on the gm." If fireball is so good that wotc felt large chunks of the spell lists involving other damage & nondamage spells need to compensate for it being intentionally overtuned, that means that all of those other spells compensating for fireball are intentionally undertuned...

 

[fearsomepirate]

Fireball is a great spell, so good in fact that many other spells become unused by design & I don't believe that I said otherwise.

They only become unused if you have 5-minute work days, and if you do, the DM just isn't very bright.

 

[tetrasodium]

They only become unused if you have 5-minute work days, and if you do, the DM just isn't very bright.

Actually the weight that leveled spells like buffs debuffs battlefield control &utility spells need to pull goes up the longer your adventuring day is and/or the more the gm does things like use fewer more powerful monsters over a larger number of trash monsters because the impact of the intentional damage disparity grows larger and larger.

 

[NotAYakk]

For reasonable ACs, Melf's Acid Arrow deals more damage on average than Scorching Ray; of a less frequently resisted energy type. It is a better spell. Of course, Magic Missile is better than either.

Acid Arrow, 2nd level slot, deals 10+5 delayed damage on a hit and 5 damage on a miss. On a crit it deals +10 damage.
Scorching Ray, 2nd level slot, deals 21 damage on a hit. On a crit it deals +21 damage.

If you have a P chance of hitting, and you don't care about the delay of damage (!), AA deals 15P + 10/20 + (1-P)*5 = 5.5 + 10P damage.
Scorching Ray deals 21P + 21/20 = 1.05 + 21P damage.

Solving for when they cross, 1.05 + 21 P = 5.5 + 10P -> 11 P = 4.45, P = 0.405. In order for AA to deal the same damage as SR, the AC must be high enough that you need a 13+ to hit. At level 3 with 16 attack stat and +2 proficiency that means the cross over point is 18 AC; on foes with more than 18 AC, AA does 0.55 damage more than SR for every point of additional AC, and 0.55 less damage for every point lower than 18 AC.

At higher levels, AA gains 5 damage on a hit and 1.25 damage on a miss per slot level, while SR gains 7 damage on a hit. Using P chance to hit, 5P+(1.25)1-P + 2.5/20 is 3.75 P + 1.375 damage per slot level. SR is 7P + 0.35 meanwhile per slot level.

At "level infinity" this crosses at 3.75 + 1.375 = 7P + 0.35 -> 5.625 P = 1.025, or P = 0.182, a 17+ to hit. So at higher slot levels, AA requires harder and harder to hit targets to match SR.

AA has the advantage that "per roll" damage applies on a miss. So arcane firearm, for example, adds 1d8/2 to the miss damage. I don't think this is large.

It is unclear who has the variance advantage; AA is one attack roll, but damage on a miss, while SR is multiple attack rolls. I'd have to run numbers.

The above ignores the delayed damage. Damage delayed means that the foe could get a last set of actions before it kills them, or burn resources that would have otherwise not been spent if it had been done earlier. It is perfectly reasonable to discount damage delayed by a significant amount, like 30%; that corresponds roughly to the 3-turn damage measurement of 5e encounter balancing (1 + .7 + .7^2 + .7^3 + ... is 3.333, so a dealing X damage per round forever is "worth" as much as dealing X/3.333 damage all at once).

Doing that and AA drops to 13P+5(1-P) damage, or 8P + 5.5, and the crossover point becomes P=0.35, or a 14+ to hit, or 19 AC instead.

At level 5 using a 3rd level slot, 18 casting stat, 3 proficiency, SR deals 28P+1.4, AA (with delayed discount) deals 14.75P+6.25(1-P)+0.625, or 8.5 P + 6.875. These cross at 19.5P=5.475 or P=0.280; for AA to outdamage, 16+ to hit, or a foe with 23 AC.

AA is only better against rather high AC foes after you account for the "damage later on sucks" factor, and it gets worse the higher level slot you use and the more accurate the spellcaster is.

Finally, AA suffers from blowthrough problems; a SR (under many DMs) doesn't require pre targetting every ray. So if the first 3 rays kill a foe, the 4th ray can go after another. AA is more likely to waste damage.

Its only real advantage is it isn't fire damage, and if you know a foe has 5 HP left it is a guaranteed kill.

Compared to MM with a 3rd level slot, 5 darts at 3.5 damage is 17.5 flat damage. Comparing to SR we get 17.5 = 28P+1.4, or 28P=16.1, or P=0.575 is the crossover point. So if you have a 55% chance or less to hit, MM wins; or a 12+ to needed to hit, or an AC of 19 or higher.

Force is less resisted than even Acid, and I'm really not sure there is a range where AA beats SR even without future discounting that MM doesn't beat both.

TL;DR; on higher AC targets, MM wins. Otherwise, SR wins, especially if you account for "delayed damage isn't as good as damage right now".

At higher levels, MM adds 3.5 damage per slot; SR adds 7*P+0.35. Basically, if you need a 12 or higher to hit, MM does more damage than SR does, regardless of slot.

At level 17 with 20 int and an item that adds +2 to hit to your spell attack rolls, a 12+ corresponds to 12+6+5+2=25 or higher AC. At level 3 with 16 int it corresponds to a 17 or higher AC. MM definitely wins the variance battle, so is more reliable as well; maybe not if you do the "MM only rolls for damage once" ruling however.

For every point lower than that threshold, SR does 1 more DPR (+ about 1/3 per additional slot level). So on a foe with merely 20 AC, SR with a 4th level slot does 8.5 additional damage over MM on average (aka 40% more, which is reasonably large). Now, if you go for the "MM rolls once" and you stack a damage boost on it it just blows SR out of the water.

(PS: I didn't have the crit boost the delayed damage on AA; ruling it does is reasonable (as is ruling it doesn't), but the effect is tiny; 0.25 flat damage + 0.125 damage per higher level slot. The effect of this on the above math would be lost in the rounding error.

I also possibly have arithmetic errors above; I tried to show my work to ensure that any errors are more obvious.)