D&D (2024) How many combats do you have on average adventuring day.

[I'm A Banana]

I thought I had explained it in depth in the rest of the comment.

Per Turn, a caster is much more effective in a single 10 combat than in seven 3-4 round combats.

Single combats don't last 10 rounds IMXP. I suppose I could FORCE one to last that long, but folks start to loose focus after 3 or 4 rounds, IMXP, so I don't know why I'd inflate it artificially beyond that.

I didn't explicitly say that I was assuming that if you were only doing a single combat encounter in the day and were finding it challenging that it was of greater difficulty, and that's where the extended time came from. But shrinking it just makes my point even more. I made it in plenty of detail in my first post, so if you aren't sure I'll refer you back to that instead of repeating.

I dunno what to tell ya. 10 round combats aren't happening in my 5e games. The hard combats peter out around round 5 (depending on die rolls).

This is why I, and likely many, many gamers, don't recognize your game. Novas are real, and one fight days do really have an impact. You can look at the math I provided, or run a poll here on ENworld.

Math and internet polls aren't going to convince me that the experience I'm having at the table isn't actually the experience I'm having at the table. Theorycraft and Very Online fans don't drive my games, actual play does.

A nova just doesn't shift the needle all that much, IMXP, in actual play.

This really isn't a general experience, that novas mean nothing and full casters are the same power on one-encounter days as seven encounter days. With this as your experience you are so far an outlier I am unsure the use in continuing to talk about anecdotal evidence. Please, look at the math provided.

Math is theorycraft. Simply telling me I'm an outlier isn't convincing. What would it mean to you if you were to accept the data I'm giving you at face value, I wonder? What do you think would create my experience, the experience of my different groups across the last 10 years, as a player and as a DM, in many different campaigns?

I'm working with the idea that 5e's encounter design is what's creating that experience, since I pretty closely follow the rules in Xanathar's for making challenging encounters (meaning, encounters where one PC might drop to 0 hp), and it delivers the expected results over and over again, whether there is one encounter in the day or six encounters in the day., whether the party has wizards and clerics in it or not. But it could be something else.

AH, now I get it. You aren't actually measuring what I was talking about.

PLEASE, reread my post. This is all covered.

And put down anything about "challenge" or "risk of character death" or any of the metrics you were trying to apply. They aren't what I was commenting on. Which I make clear, in the post you are responding to. Please reread it and respond to what I said, not what you think I said.

Define "effectiveness," and tell me why it matters. Describe for me the different play experiences that result from this delta in effectiveness.

I've never seen a wizard or cleric dominate in a single-encounter day in 10 years of playing D&D 5e. Why do you think that might be?

 

[Xetheral]

I don't. I think it's inescapable math.

If you took your average full caster and took away all slots, they would be less effective on average than at-will classes like the rogue. Simply, an At-will > cantrip. (This doesn't include EB boosted with invocations, that's a cantrip plus class features, just as martials have class features that boost their weapon attacks.)

On the other hand, if you gave casters unlimited of their highest level slots, they would do more than at-will characters. A fireball with multiple opponents, etc. Slots of the highest few levels > at-will.

No one debates that. And it has nothing do to with campaign style.

Putting them together, we get, in generic terms for the average character:

Slots of the highest few levels > at-will > cantrip

So in order to balance these, we need some number of spells cast using highest level slots plus some cantrips or low-impact spells (like 1st level offensive spells in T2+). Some above and some below will average out to the same as an at-will.

Let's examine that. If you run a few encounters and run the party's casters all the way out of spells - you are STILL not balancing the classes unless you also are forcing them to have a good number of rounds casting cantrips - it needs that "less than at-will effectiveness" to balance out.

An easy way to work this out is average effectiveness per action, over the course of the adventuring day.

Ah, so if you have fewer encounters, as long as the last as long as more encounters we're good, right?

Well, no. It's moving in the right direction, but durations are a thing. If an encounter is 3-4 rounds and you can a spell lasting 1 minute, you only get 3-4 rounds of effect from it at most. But if the combat lasts 9 rounds, then you are getting 2-3 times the effect from the same slot and the same action. It's more powerful. So you need to offset it with even MORE rounds of lower than at-will efficiency than if you were just doing more encounters.

A easy way to see this is the barbarian. Say you've got 3 rages per day. Assuming the encounters total to the same deadliness, is there any case where you are worse off if you can rage for every encounter instead of half of them? That's one of the things that decreasing the number of encounters does - allows duration effects to be even more powerful.

Fewer encounters per day is usually fewer total rounds then if we did all of the encounters per day, and that definitely is mathematically biased in terms of the long-rest-recovery classes like casters as well as a big boost for hybrids like the barbarian and the paladin.

I disagree with your analysis on several levels.

First, I don't think "average effectiveness per action" is the one and only barometer of intraparty balance. I'm sure it's at least a large consideration for some players at some tables playing campaigns run in certain styles, and I suspect it's likely the primary consideration for a lot of people. But focusing only on that parameter ignores other barometers of balance, such as "which characters' actions were outcome-determinitive" or, at a more meta level, "which players' contributions were outcome-determinitive" either or both of which can impact perceptions of balance for some players more than average effectiveness per action.

For instance, in a fight where the outcome is in doubt, (in contrast to the usual expectation that the PCs will handily win), it's entirely possible that, without the contributions of every PC, the fight would be lost. Their "average effectiveness" on a per-action basis might be wildly different (particularly if any of them were disabled or forced on the defensive for some or all of the combat) but each were equally 100% crucial to the party achieving their objectives. Maybe that doesn't matter to some players' sense of balance, but it will to others, and campaign style will have a heavy impact on how often it is that every character's actions are simultaneously outcome-determinitive.

Second, you're leaving out any consideration of contributions to success in combat that happen before initiative is rolled. I discussed in my previous post how collective battle planning impacts balance, but your analysis doesn't take it into account. As an example, if the player of the rogue comes up with a plan which allows the party to steamroll without risk an otherwise-challenging combat, but that plan involves the rogue distracting a critical NPC to prevent them from joining the fight, the rogue's "average effectiveness per action" is zero (or, at least, exceptionally difficult to quantify) despite the rogue arguably being single-handedly responsible for the victory. (Other examples include encounter-defining spells, such as the Ranger's Pass Without Trace turning an otherwise impossible fight into an easy ambush.) And I'd emphasize that campaign style heavily influences the extent to which planning and actions taken before combat are allowed to impact the difficulty of the combat itself.

Third, even when one does use "average effectiveness per action" as the barometer of balance, the rest of your analysis assumes that battle conditions permit unencumbered use of the party's highest-level spells. If a caster regularly has to decide between sub-optimal use of one of their highest level slots versus spending multiple actions to set up an optimal use, that will directly impact your calculations of the average, but you haven't taken that into account. In other words, you don't necessarily have to run a caster out of their best spell slots before their effectiveness per action drops below that of casting one of their best spells, which in turn necessarily lowers their average effectiveness below what your analysis expects.

The simplest example of what I'm talking about about is whether and how often opponents use full cover, which severely impacts the usefulness of multi-target spells to a greater extent than it does attacks (since the attacking characters can switch targets and only lose the effectiveness boost from focusing fire). For instance, Mass Suggestion is famously capable of ending entire combat encounters, but if it takes multiple actions and/or spell slots to get to a position where you can see and target all the enemies, its "average effectiveness per action" drops sharply as the denominator increases (or else the numerator drops sharply if you use it on only the subset of the enemies immediately in range and visible). How often creatures use full cover (or other tactics that go beyond a short-range brawl) is again heavily dependent on campaign style, which thus influences balance even under your preferred barometer of "average effectiveness per action".

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm curious if we're calculating this the same way... Can you give an actual example?

It's been a long time 2015 or so.

The encounter building guidelines multipliers don't work imho.

It was also a 6 person party.

Those players also inadvertently picked the S tier options eg light cleric, lore bard, battle master sharpshooter fighter.

I called out 5 feats, several archetypes and some spells back then and basically got told to shut up because 5E so perfect (they've been nerfed in 2024).

 

[GMMichael]

I like how one of the highest responses is, "oh, you know, I like to get a battle in with each meal."

My answer's 1, because I like fights to go the Ned Stark way, not the (uncanny) X-Men way.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I disagree with your analysis on several levels.

First, I don't think "average effectiveness per action" is the one and only barometer of intraparty balance. I'm sure it's at least a large consideration for some players at some tables playing campaigns run in certain styles, and I suspect it's likely the primary consideration for a lot of people. But focusing only on that parameter ignores other barometers of balance, such as "which characters' actions were outcome-determinitive" or, at a more meta level, "which players' contributions were outcome-determinitive" either or both of which can impact perceptions of balance for some players more than average effectiveness per action.

There are more in-depth, and possibly accurate analyses, but as Blue said, the average effectiveness per action is an easy comparison method.
When comparing classes in general, you cannot adjust for player contributions, because those are mostly* independent of the class, and would be assumed to average out.

*There is a tendency IMXP for more engaged and innovative players to pick classes with spells, simply because that sort of player values a varied and powerful toolset to play with. That doesn't mean that they don't sometimes play fighters when they feel like it however.

For instance, in a fight where the outcome is in doubt, (in contrast to the usual expectation that the PCs will handily win), it's entirely possible that, without the contributions of every PC, the fight would be lost. Their "average effectiveness" on a per-action basis might be wildly different (particularly if any of them were disabled or forced on the defensive for some or all of the combat) but each were equally 100% crucial to the party achieving their objectives. Maybe that doesn't matter to some players' sense of balance, but it will to others, and campaign style will have a heavy impact on how often it is that every character's actions are simultaneously outcome-determinitive.

The question is not whether the 5-person party will do better on average than the 4-person party. The question is whether the party would do better on average if they swapped the fighter for a paladin, or bladesinger, or war cleric for example. Effectiveness will average out over a range of encounters, but the fewer of those there are per day, the worse the fighter will look in comparison with classes that can exceed their performance by burning resources.

Second, you're leaving out any consideration of contributions to success in combat that happen before initiative is rolled. I discussed in my previous post how collective battle planning impacts balance, but your analysis doesn't take it into account. As an example, if the player of the rogue comes up with a plan which allows the party to steamroll without risk an otherwise-challenging combat, but that plan involves the rogue distracting a critical NPC to prevent them from joining the fight, the rogue's "average effectiveness per action" is zero (or, at least, exceptionally difficult to quantify) despite the rogue arguably being single-handedly responsible for the victory. (Other examples include encounter-defining spells, such as the Ranger's Pass Without Trace turning an otherwise impossible fight into an easy ambush.) And I'd emphasize that campaign style heavily influences the extent to which planning and actions taken before combat are allowed to impact the difficulty of the combat itself.

Players coming up with plans are mostly independent of what class they are playing. But when it comes to encounter-defining shenanigans, or even removing the need for the encounter at all, the advantage is with spells usually.

Third, even when one does use "average effectiveness per action" as the barometer of balance, the rest of your analysis assumes that battle conditions permit unencumbered use of the party's highest-level spells. If a caster regularly has to decide between sub-optimal use of one of their highest level slots versus spending multiple actions to set up an optimal use, that will directly impact your calculations of the average, but you haven't taken that into account. In other words, you don't necessarily have to run a caster out of their best spell slots before their effectiveness per action drops below that of casting one of their best spells, which in turn necessarily lowers their average effectiveness below what your analysis expects.

The simplest example of what I'm talking about about is whether and how often opponents use full cover, which severely impacts the usefulness of multi-target spells to a greater extent than it does attacks (since the attacking characters can switch targets and only lose the effectiveness boost from focusing fire). For instance, Mass Suggestion is famously capable of ending entire combat encounters, but if it takes multiple actions and/or spell slots to get to a position where you can see and target all the enemies, its "average effectiveness per action" drops sharply as the denominator increases (or else the numerator drops sharply if you use it on only the subset of the enemies immediately in range and visible). How often creatures use full cover (or other tactics that go beyond a short-range brawl) is again heavily dependent on campaign style, which thus influences balance even under your preferred barometer of "average effectiveness per action".

Wouldn't their opponents being in full cover also curtail the effectiveness of the resourceless classes' actions as well? Shooting an arrow at your target requires seeing them just as much as a spell does, and you can't airburst a crossbow bolt to explode behind the battlement and catch them anyway like you can a fireball.

Generally the more severely that nova class action effectiveness is curtailed, the more severely that endurance class action effectiveness is reduced as well. Situations can be posited where this is not the case, such as large antimagic fields, or specifically magic resistant opponents. However, needing to use these sort of measures on a basis regular enough to drive the average performance is rather proving Blue's point.

 

[Xetheral]

I'm curious if we're calculating this the same way... Can you give an actual example?

Since I don't use CR, I may have made a mistake, but below is what I get when I try to run my last combat encounter through the chart on Page 274 of the DMG. I want to emphasize that these were significant (albeit low-profile) NPCs in my world whom the PCs decided to engage and eradicate, well aware that they were outmatched.

Spoiler: Deadly x5

It was four 12th level PCs against:

• A modified Cambion with 17 levels of Fey Wanderer Ranger and 3 levels of Glamor Bard (276 EHP and AC 24 for Defensive CR 17/DPR 46 with +14 attack bonus for Offensive CR 11/Final CR 14);
• A modifed Night Hag with 6 levels of Shadow Monk and 8 Levels of Conquest Paladin (183 EHP and AC 20 for Defensive CR 10/DPR 110 with +13 attack bonus for Offensive CR 18/Final CR 14);
• An Aranea (ported 3.5 monster) with 13 levels of Aberrant Mind Sorcerer (123 EHP and AC 17 for Defensive CR 5/63 DPR and save DC 19 for Offensive CR 11/Final CR 8); and
• A modified Adult Green Dragon who could cast spells as a 7th level Sorcerer (333 EHP with AC 19 for Defensive CR 18/125 DPR with +13 attack bonus for Offensive CR 21/Final CR 19).

Plugging that in to an online encounter calculator shows an adjusted difficulty rating of 97,800 XP after a 2x difficulty modifier. For four 12th level PCs, Deadly is anything above 18,000 XP, so this was Deadly x5.

The party originally successfully confronted the Cambion alone, but he eluded them (twice) to meet up with his allies for protection. Ultimately the PCs partially succeeded in their goals by forcing the enemies to flee all the way to hell using Plane Shift, which, due to outside factors, effectively neutralized them as a threat.

Over a dozen or so rounds of combat, one PC almost died, and the PCs were themselves in mid-retreat when a couple of lucky smite crits by the party Paladin took down the Green Dragon. At that point the enemies changed their strategy to trying to Revivify and heal the Dragon so that it would be an eligible target for Plane Shift. If the enemies had instead been willing to accept casualties, they may have still been able to drive the PCs off, possibly with an additional fatality or two on either side.

Practically speaking, neither a TPK nor totally wiping out the enemies were likely to happen. The PCs had sufficient mobility options that it was likely at least one could get away, and the party had nothing that could stop the Night Hag from going ethereal and escaping.

 

[Xetheral]

There are more in-depth, and possibly accurate analyses, but as Blue said, the average effectiveness per action is an easy comparison method.
When comparing classes in general, you cannot adjust for player contributions, because those are mostly* independent of the class, and would be assumed to average out.

*There is a tendency IMXP for more engaged and innovative players to pick classes with spells, simply because that sort of player values a varied and powerful toolset to play with. That doesn't mean that they don't sometimes play fighters when they feel like it however.


The question is not whether the 5-person party will do better on average than the 4-person party. The question is whether the party would do better on average if they swapped the fighter for a paladin, or bladesinger, or war cleric for example. Effectiveness will average out over a range of encounters, but the fewer of those there are per day, the worse the fighter will look in comparison with classes that can exceed their performance by burning resources.

My original claim was that: "I think campaign style is a confounding variable that heavily impacts whether unusually low or unusually high numbers of encounters actually lead to balance issues at a particular table." To wit, I'm explicitly focusing on balance issues at the table, rather than trying to examine the contributions of particular characters in comparison to hypothetical substitutes with different classes. Accordingly, I think consideration of player contributions is extremely pertinent because it impacts the salience of the abstract class balance analysis you're describing to the perception of balance at any given table.

Players coming up with plans are mostly independent of what class they are playing. But when it comes to encounter-defining shenanigans, or even removing the need for the encounter at all, the advantage is with spells usually.

That doesn't mean that the player of the spellcaster is the one who necessarily came up with the plan on how to use the key spell in/for an upcoming encounter. Heck, depending on how the spell in question is used, the loss of the required spell slot might subsequently reduce the ability of the spellcasting character to contribute in the combat itself. (Similarly, in the 3.5 era there were debates over whether taking Teleport increased a caster's supremacy or instead reduced it by making them reserve spell slots to in order to play taxi.)

I want to emphasize that I'm not trying to downplay the importance of class balance or deny martial/spellcaster imbalance. I'm only trying to defend my claim that campaign style impacts how the number of encounters per day can impact balance issues at the table. Here, I'm arguing that campaigns where much of the action takes place at the planning/strategic level are going to experience a different relationship of encounters-per-day to perceptions of intraparty balance than campaigns with a more responsive or tactical focus.

Wouldn't their opponents being in full cover also curtail the effectiveness of the resourceless classes' actions as well? Shooting an arrow at your target requires seeing them just as much as a spell does, and you can't airburst a crossbow bolt to explode behind the battlement and catch them anyway like you can a fireball.

Generally the more severely that nova class action effectiveness is curtailed, the more severely that endurance class action effectiveness is reduced as well. Situations can be posited where this is not the case, such as large antimagic fields, or specifically magic resistant opponents. However, needing to use these sort of measures on a basis regular enough to drive the average performance is rather proving Blue's point.

I'm specifically thinking of situations like an encounter in a dense forest where it's easy to get LOS to one or two enemies at any given moment, but extremely hard to get LOS to all enemies simultaneously, particularly when each side is trying to use the plentiful cover to its own advantage. The attacking characters thus reliably have something to shoot at, but the spellcasters may need to take extra actions to set up optimal use of their best spells, or else rely on lesser abilities much sooner than Blue's analysis expected. Either way, average effectiveness per turn drops rapidly long before resource exhaustion.

How often one has encounters in a dense forest (or other such constraints on optimally deploying spells, such as long-range or spread-out encounters) is, of course, going to vary with campaign style.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

There are more in-depth, and possibly accurate analyses, but as Blue said, the average effectiveness per action is an easy comparison method.
When comparing classes in general, you cannot adjust for player contributions, because those are mostly* independent of the class, and would be assumed to average out.

*There is a tendency IMXP for more engaged and innovative players to pick classes with spells, simply because that sort of player values a varied and powerful toolset to play with. That doesn't mean that they don't sometimes play fighters when they feel like it however.

I think this falls into white board analysis. Theory isn't always a good predictor of reality, especially with human behavior which is notoriously unpredictable. I think the DM's thumb being on the scale also throws this type of analysis off. As a change in math may be imperceptible due to the variable nature of DM choices.

This points to a couple of issues I see with the argument of balance as a whole and, in a way, the applicability of such analysis. It's unclear the player base cares about this, at least en masse. And from 4e's response we know that even "near perfect" balance, from a mathematical perspective, would be catastrophic to the game's broad appeal. Even 4e's balance, which was not perfect, caused complaints of classes feeling "samey." This means any push towards balance is walking a fine line.

So our question ends up, what level of balance matters to players. And does that level of balance overcome the weight of the DM's thumb in such a way that a change would make a meaningful difference in player perception. And that is assuming players perceive any meaningful imbalance.

We see in this very thread, that people dispute issues having to do with this analysis because they don't share the resulting experience. Which lends credence to the idea that effect of the mathematical imbalances vary from table to table. This reinforces the idea that DM's have a broad effect on player perceptions of balance. And it leads me to question whether the imbalance theorized with "average effectiveness per action" rises above the level of "noise" when put into a real game.

I, for one, have not seen any relation between engagement and class chosen. And DnDBeyond surveys show that, at minimum, any imbalance is not causing playability issues on a wide scale. So I am skeptical that this math is anything more than theorycrafting.


EDIT: Fixed some grammar issues.

 

[ezo]

Plugging that in to an online encounter calculator shows an adjusted difficulty rating of 97,800 XP after a 2x difficulty modifier. For four 12th level PCs, Deadly is anything above 18,000 XP, so this was Deadly x5.

Yep, that looks right by my calculations.

The party originally successfully confronted the Cambion alone, but he eluded them (twice) to meet up with his allies for protection. Ultimately the PCs partially succeeded in their goals by forcing the enemies to flee all the way to hell using Plane Shift, which, due to outside factors, effectively neutralized them as a threat.

Not surprising. At CR 14 the lone Cambion would only be a moderate encounter. While at CR 8, the Arenea (?) wouldn't even register as easy. Really, the two CR 14 creatures and CR 8 should have been the fodder for the CR 19 (deadly on its own) to wipe out the PCs.

Over a dozen or so rounds of combat, one PC almost died, and the PCs were themselves in mid-retreat when a couple of lucky smite crits by the party Paladin took down the Green Dragon. At that point the enemies changed their strategy to trying to Revivify and heal the Dragon so that it would be an eligible target for Plane Shift. If the enemies had instead been willing to accept casualties, they may have still been able to drive the PCs off, possibly with an additional fatality or two on either side.

Practically speaking, neither a TPK nor totally wiping out the enemies were likely to happen. The PCs had sufficient mobility options that it was likely at least one could get away, and the party had nothing that could stop the Night Hag from going ethereal and escaping.

Frankly speaking, I don't know what the PCs were like, but at 12th level they should have been obliterated by this encounter, especially facing all of them at once.

I know people all run their games differently, but I cannot imagine in any way, shape, or form the PCs "winning" such an encounter at all, or even surviving it. Sorry if that sounds harsh... but to each, their own, I suppose.

 

[Xetheral]

Yep, that looks right by my calculations.


Not surprising. At CR 14 the lone Cambion would only be a moderate encounter. While at CR 8, the Arenea (?) wouldn't even register as easy. Really, the two CR 14 creatures and CR 8 should have been the fodder for the CR 19 (deadly on its own) to wipe out the PCs.


Frankly speaking, I don't know what the PCs were like, but at 12th level they should have been obliterated by this encounter, especially facing all of them at once.

I know people all run their games differently, but I cannot imagine in any way, shape, or form the PCs "winning" such an encounter at all, or even surviving it. Sorry if that sounds harsh... but to each, their own, I suppose.

I was a little surprised too. I thought the most likely outcome would either be a PC dies and the others escape, or the PCs would succeed in finishing off the cambion and escape only to then find themselves becoming the hunted.

If it had been a short-range slugfest, I agree the party would have been obliterated. But the party made masterful use of strategic surprise (they were just shy of getting tactical surprise too--a PC happened to just barely come within the dragon's blindsight range) so the enemies were unprepared and unbuffed, unlike the party who had carefully planned and stacked their buffs. The party also made excellent use of the terrain (dense, forested swamp) to control the range, which was a huge advantage considering that the DPR on which the CR calculations were made was mostly from melee-range abilities.

Accordingly, the relative CRs on paper didn't reflect actual dangerousness in the battle. Needing to protect the cambion, the dragon couldn't strafe, and her size was a disadvantage in the close confines of the forest. Other than her breath weapon (which never recharged before she went down) she mostly contributed by drawing fire, which meant that when she finally got into melee a couple lucky crit smites was enough to almost finish her off. The night hag ended up being the biggest threat by far, since the plentiful dim lighting meant Shadow Step provided extreme mobility to get into melee, and her considerable offensive damage and debuff potential was significantly increased by buffs from the cambion (who was itself trying to stay in total cover, as it didn't have enough HP left to survive more than a couple hits). The aranea's 120 foot range with Psychic Lance meant it contributed most of the enemy's ranged firepower, despite its much lower CR, but it too was hampered by the fact that it never got in range to use its disabling spells (although this also kept it alive, as it would have become a priority target if it had actually gotten off a Twinned Mental Prison or Hold Person).

Ultimately, the party eeked out a partial victory against overwhelming odds by sizing the strategic initiative, pinning the enemy to a fixed point (the injured cambion*, who was now out of the spell slots which had let him escape the party previously, other than its innate Plane Shift), ruthlessly exploiting its range and terrain advantages, and a LOT of luck. Frankly, I love that D&D can support this sort of battle, and this encounter is definitely one of the most memorable I've run.

*A further playstyle note: the enemies' decision to try to protect the (non-ressurectable) cambion rather than immediately launching an all-out offensive undoubtedly shaped the outcome of the battle. If I'd played them as suicidal berserkers willing to fight to the death, I'd probably have killed at least half the party before the others got away. But that wouldn't have been in-character for these enemies, and the PCs knew that (although they happened to be wrong about why the others were so devoted to the cambion). Honoring what the PCs have learned by roleplaying the monsters accordingly is an essential part of my DMing style, but it undoubtedly substantially reduced the actual dangerousness of this encounter below the Deadly x5 face value.