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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 9420928" data-attributes="member: 6677017">I find DPR is useful because it is simple to derived and compare. Most of the other important factors are not, so you have to go on your gut. Therefore I tend to determine DPR and use my gut to figure out how it works for the rest.Real example. I've used projected DPR of the PCs in our main campaign up to level 20 to see how the balance should play out for the custom warrior-mage class I made, as well as to see how inter-party balance matches up with what we would tend to expect.Since the warlock uses hex, and there is a battle master, I had to calculate not just at-will DPR, but almost at-will DPR including those factors.The results indicated that the fighter and the swashbuckler rogue are pretty close for average DPR. The rogue wields an artifact rapier, and I did not adjust the fighter's stats for potential future better weapons, because that is unpredictable.Since the rogue has an artifact (it was their PC's special thing, and each PC gets one) their DPR being really high is fine. The Battle Master gets all the rider effects from superior dice, so the balance between the party's big DPR hitters feels right.Next up for DPR is the blade pact warlock. He's behind, but not by much. Since he has all that spellcasting, but used his class and feat resources to increase his melee presence, that also feels like the right spot for him in the party.Next in line for DPR is the warrior-mage (imagine a Bladesinger with slightly less wizard sauce and slightly more fighter sauce for a rough idea). Depending on the party level, he is anywhere from fairly close to quite a bit behind the blade lock in DPR. However since he relies on green-flame blade (and War Magic, like Eldritch Knight, but with only 2 attacks even at high level), another important metric of comparison for him is multi-target DPR. In other words, if we assume a character can consistently attack 2 adjacent targets, how does his DPR rank? Well, it turns out, depending on the party level, it ranks anywhere from the 1st to maybe 3rd, but erring high. Since 2 adjacent foes happens frequently but not constantly, and his wizard spellasting is more flexible than the warlock's (especially outside combat), that also feels like about the right spot for him to be at in the party (and implies that I didn't botch the class design).Finally comes the Lore bard, and his DPR (even with eldritch blast from Spell Sniper) is consistently far below everyone else. This also makes sense, because a bard would have to pick a different subclass and really build for it to be decent in that tier, and he went for skills and utility. And he's really good for skills and utility, in addition to being the party's healer and having all the party support elements bards are known for, and the ability to eventually snag any 8 spells in the game (and they will include fireball and wish). So while it wouldn't break party balance if his DPR was a little better, it should still be in last place, so the balance is right there too.So there us a real life example of how I feel knowing DPR is useful, and how to interpret it along with other less easily quantifiable character balance considerations.</blockquote>

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