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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9420954" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I don't really think anyone has ever thought DPR was the only valid or useful metric.Its benefits are that it is basic and universal. Everyone contributes to combat. Combat is the majority of challenging activities characters engage in across the breadth of D&D stuff (after all, the 5.0 rules for getting XP from non-combat stuff are literally "You can do that if you want! Just pretend it's a combat and decide how much XP the combat would be worth." I will never pass up on an opportunity to dunk on this terribad section of the 5.0 DMG.) At least one class, Fighter, was expressly designed to be "the best" at combat, something the designers explicitly referred to more than once, e.g. if Fighter is a 10/10 in combat and a 2/10 in everything else, Wizard might be 5/10 Combat or whatever.This creates one particularly important useful comparison point: Fighters are, explicitly, supposed to be the best at combat, so if we compare their combat contributions to the combat contributions of other classes, we should see them come out on top.They don't.That's the key point behind using DPR. The things we've been told, the things the designers have emphasized over and over across dozens of media showings and podcasts etc. are simply not reflected in the basal combat prowess of the Fighter class. It is, in fact, quite easy to build a Wizard while ignoring subclass that is superior to a Fighter that has a subclass in terms of how much damage output the Wizard can produce. Due to the general pointlessness of in-combat healing that isn't whack-a-mole (a very sad game design choice 5.0 went for, which 5.5e seems to be shifting away from ever-so-slightly), the only other possible contribution to combat is granting others Advantage and handing out buffs. Most Fighters do not have the ability to hand out buffs meaningfully, and several other classes are strictly better at getting enemies to grant Advantage to allies. (I would know, I have a Wolf Totem Barbarian in my Monday game; she's a beast, no pun intended, and that Wolf Totem advantage on melee attacks has saved our bacon at least once.)DPR is not, at all, the end-all, be-all of discussing gameplay balance or design. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to someone (either themselves or you). Instead, it keeps getting harped upon because even within the bounds of its applicability, it points to a serious game design issue. Fighters are 20 meters behind the starting line before the race even begins, and the only way they catch up is if they're specifically given favorable conditions (few long rests, many short rests, many combat rounds per day, combats which play to their strengths, combats which actively mess with casters and don't actively mess with melee physical attackers, etc.) and/or we assume knowingly inefficient/wasteful play on the part of more powerful classes.If Fighter can't even get a clear win with DPR, trotting out "well conditions could be more favorable to them some of the time!" is conceding the point: Fighter needs favorable conditions. Other classes are balanced by being forced to deal with unfavorable conditions. Such a difference should not be baked into the game's rules. Either Fighters shouldn't need favorable conditions to stand on their own, or other classes should not be balanced with the expectation that the DM is holding them back.</blockquote>

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