D&D 5E Not Much Ado About Bless

[Hussar]

Total Damage is a terrible metric to use when talking about AOE vs multi attack damage. AOE will always be higher and it has to be, because if it wasn't then it wouldn't compete at all with single target damage via multi attack.

But, that's not the comparison.

The comparison is total damage of each character over time. If the party deals 1000 hp of damage (for example) what percentage of that 1000 points is attributed to which character? Sometimes, well, probably most of the time, the wizard isn't dropping area spells. But, again, a firebolt isn't too far off the damage of two attacks from a fighter. Less, sure, but, not a lot less.

Like I keep saying, track it. Track the damage totals of the characters. The casters will almost always (unless there is a reason why they aren't) dealing most of the group's damage. Which means buffing hte fighter types with Bless isn't actually changing the balance very much.

 

[ECMO3]

Here's a simple one, based on a point I made in another thread. Why don't more people complain about Bless?

You really should, when you consider it can affect the three heaviest hitters in a party and can last a whole combat. The effect it has on bounded accuracy is absurd once you get to the point a Cleric can consider using it in every combat.

Reasons people might not complain:

Clerics aren't casting Bless (that's my Healing Word spell slot!).
There's too much other stuff going on to really notice Bless.
It requires concentration (either as a reason not to cast, or it can fall off if the Cleric is hit).
It's hard to notice it's effect in small sample sizes (was that fight easier because of Bless? How much easier?

The biggest reason I don't complain about it is that it is an action to cast. Sure it boosts three characters (but how many partys have 3 heavy hitters) but the caster also loses a turn casting it. It is going to take a few turns of +1d4 to make back that lost action so it is not overly awesome unless it is a long battle AND you can hold concentration that whole time AND you don't have a better spell to concentrate on.

I don't play a lot of clerics, but I have had bless on some Rogues and Wizards (usually through Fey Touched) and I have generally found Hex to be a better choice, especially at higher levels.

 

[ECMO3]

Well, I've done this several times, both as a player and as a DM - tracking the damage between characters, and every single time I've done it, the casters are dealing considerably more damage in total. Out of five or six PC's (what our groups usually are) the fighter types or the rogues are always in 3rd place or lower. The sorcerers or the wizards, except in a few cases (like the one sorcerer we had that focused almost exclusively on enchantment spells and almost never cast a direct damage spell) were always on top.

My suggestion is to actually track it in your own groups. It's really eye opening to see just how much the spread is (IMO, about 50-60% of the party's total damage will come from 2 characters with the other three or four splitting the remainder).

In the games I play fighters outdamage wizards in game by a wide margin. There are times when a Wizard hits a bunch of enemies hard, but usually the Wizard shines most when he debilitates enemies with save or suck (or save or suck that also do damage).

In a numbers game in a white room a Wizard using AOE blasting might look great, but the problem is that is so hard to set up. There is also an inverse relationship between the potential damage from an AOE and your opportunity to use it.

Something like fireball can catch a ton of enemies and do mega total damage, but you almost have to win initiative beating both enemies and allies to make this happen and there has to be a lot of enemies .... making it less likely you will win initiative. Otherwise you are usually getting only a few bad guys and sometimes it is so congested you can't use it at all. Lightning bolt is a lot more reliable because it is easier to place without causing friendly fire but you can't get many with it.

 

[Zardnaar]

In the games I play fighters outdamage wizards in game by a wide margin. There are times when a Wizard hits a bunch of enemies hard, but usually the Wizard shines most when he debilitates enemies with save or suck (or save or suck that also do damage).

In a numbers game in a white room a Wizard using AOE blasting might look great, but the problem is that is so hard to set up. There is also an inverse relationship between the potential damage from an AOE and your opportunity to use it.

Something like fireball can catch a ton of enemies and do mega total damage, but you almost have to win initiative beating both enemies and allies to make this happen and there has to be a lot of enemies .... making it less likely you will win initiative. Otherwise you are usually getting only a few bad guys and sometimes it is so congested you can't use it at all. Lightning bolt is a lot more reliable because it is easier to place without causing friendly fire but you can't get many with it.

Kinda it depends. A powergamer fighter will beat a wizard or whatever at damage.

Bless works into that and in the right party is better than spiritual guardians.

That spell makes rogues kinda suck at damage though and it's more reliable. Throw in guidance and the clerics star array and the Rogues also beaten at a lot of skills up through level 10 or so.

And most people don't do the 6-8 encounters either so yeah spellcasters.

 

[James Gasik]

Eh, it depends. Look at level 5. The Fighter gets their extra attack. Without taking GWM into account (which is when you'd want Bless or advantage-granting), you have 2 attacks at 2d6+4 and +7 to hit. You can action surge to get another 2d6+4. Now that's 11 damage per hit.

A Wizard's Fireball (which is a generously large area of effect) can probably catch 3 enemies in the blast. Your 8d6 is going to do 28 damage on average (save for 14).

There's a lot of intangibles here, but if the FIghter's 33 damage can kill one thing, the Fireball's damage should get pretty close to killing one thing, and maybe multiple things. And at the very least, the Fireball lets the Fighter kills more than one thing on their turn by attacking multiple toasted foes- in this scenario, the Wizard really did 84 damage on their turn.

But! The Wizard can only do that a few times per day, and the Fighter will have many rounds of potential 22 damage (or more) with the occasional 33 damage round. And that's not even taking into account if the Fighter is a Battlemaster, giving them some extra dice to toss around.

As for optimization, well, it doesn't matter what your optimization level is with the Wizard, Fireball is Fireball. Where the weapon choice, exact Strength, and presence/absence of Feats can vary wildly.

So what happens is, Fireball does an insane amount of damage, that really should be tracked by all the damage it deals to all targets, since it makes them that much easier to kill. But Fireball is a limited resource that has to be set up carefully (unless you're an Evocation Wizard).

So over the course of the day, the Fighter will likely deal more damage (one would hope) and some combats, the Wizard will trivialize an encounter.

Where things get really wacky is when you start looking at area damage effects that can last multiple turns, like, say, the Cleric's Spirit Guardians.

 

[Zardnaar]

Eh, it depends. Look at level 5. The Fighter gets their extra attack. Without taking GWM into account (which is when you'd want Bless or advantage-granting), you have 2 attacks at 2d6+4 and +7 to hit. You can action surge to get another 2d6+4. Now that's 11 damage per hit.

A Wizard's Fireball (which is a generously large area of effect) can probably catch 3 enemies in the blast. Your 8d6 is going to do 28 damage on average (save for 14).

There's a lot of intangibles here, but if the FIghter's 33 damage can kill one thing, the Fireball's damage should get pretty close to killing one thing, and maybe multiple things. And at the very least, the Fireball lets the Fighter kills more than one thing on their turn by attacking multiple toasted foes- in this scenario, the Wizard really did 84 damage on their turn.

But! The Wizard can only do that a few times per day, and the Fighter will have many rounds of potential 22 damage (or more) with the occasional 33 damage round. And that's not even taking into account if the Fighter is a Battlemaster, giving them some extra dice to toss around.

As for optimization, well, it doesn't matter what your optimization level is with the Wizard, Fireball is Fireball. Where the weapon choice, exact Strength, and presence/absence of Feats can vary wildly.

So what happens is, Fireball does an insane amount of damage, that really should be tracked by all the damage it deals to all targets, since it makes them that much easier to kill. But Fireball is a limited resource that has to be set up carefully (unless you're an Evocation Wizard).

So over the course of the day, the Fighter will likely deal more damage (one would hope) and some combats, the Wizard will trivialize an encounter.

Where things get really wacky is when you start looking at area damage effects that can last multiple turns, like, say, the Cleric's Spirit Guardians.

I did say powergamed fighter that gets blessed using the +5/-10 feats.

I've seen the sharpshooter/xbe fighter in action whose default mode was -5 regardless of the targets AC.

 

[James Gasik]

Oh well yeah, but the archer is also getting an extra +2 to hit, which helps. Still, going from +9 to hit to +6.5 (with bless) still might have you lose hits, depending on what you're attacking.

I mean, you could use the Battlemaster's Precision Attack to save those hits, but then you're not getting the damage from the Superiority Dice.

Like I said, there's a lot of intangibles and it comes down to your party makeup. If you have a really heavy hitter with GWM or Sharpshooter (and/or a Rogue), Bless is a good call on your first turn.

But if you're a wacky Fireball Cleric or you think you can get into a mass of enemies quick, you'll do a lot more work with higher level spell slots if you have them up.

Where I personally, see Bless shine, is when it saves you from that Command or Hold Person fired off by an enemy that would turn a given character's damage output to zilch, on top of it's accuracy boost. But most of the time you don't know those things will happen until they do.

Which is why the Bard's floating dice tend to be better.

I still think Bless is a great use of a first level spell slot, and I'll continue to use it, but I do admit my view that you could have it going every combat, while technically possible, is not very practical unless you have some shenanigans (like, say, a Ring of Spell Storing so somebody's Familiar can cast and maintain concentration on it).

 

[Zardnaar]

Oh well yeah, but the archer is also getting an extra +2 to hit, which helps. Still, going from +9 to hit to +6.5 (with bless) still might have you lose hits, depending on what you're attacking.

I mean, you could use the Battlemaster's Precision Attack to save those hits, but then you're not getting the damage from the Superiority Dice.

Like I said, there's a lot of intangibles and it comes down to your party makeup. If you have a really heavy hitter with GWM or Sharpshooter (and/or a Rogue), Bless is a good call on your first turn.

But if you're a wacky Fireball Cleric or you think you can get into a mass of enemies quick, you'll do a lot more work with higher level spell slots if you have them up.

Where I personally, see Bless shine, is when it saves you from that Command or Hold Person fired off by an enemy that would turn a given character's damage output to zilch, on top of it's accuracy boost. But most of the time you don't know those things will happen until they do.

Which is why the Bard's floating dice tend to be better.

I still think Bless is a great use of a first level spell slot, and I'll continue to use it, but I do admit my view that you could have it going every combat, while technically possible, is not very practical unless you have some shenanigans (like, say, a Ring of Spell Storing so somebody's Familiar can cast and maintain concentration on it).

By level 3 or 4 you can more or less have it every combat assuming the cleric is willing to upcast it with 2nd level slots.

Spirit guardians can beat it depending on situation.

Our archer as long as he hit 50% of the time he came out ahead using sharpshooter.

Best I saw was 7 hits at +16 or 17 damage per shot. If you have 2+ characters with the -5/+10 feats it pretty much beats spirit guardians as well. Lazylord who cares just bless peeps.

Same party had a bard. Think my best effort was 9 encounters in a day starting at hard working my way up to a deadlyX5 bossfight.

 

[Mort]

But, that's not the comparison.

The comparison is total damage of each character over time. If the party deals 1000 hp of damage (for example) what percentage of that 1000 points is attributed to which character? Sometimes, well, probably most of the time, the wizard isn't dropping area spells. But, again, a firebolt isn't too far off the damage of two attacks from a fighter. Less, sure, but, not a lot less.

Like I keep saying, track it. Track the damage totals of the characters. The casters will almost always (unless there is a reason why they aren't) dealing most of the group's damage. Which means buffing hte fighter types with Bless isn't actually changing the balance very much.

As @FrogReaver said "total damage" is, at best, a bit misleading, that said:

Critical Role's damage is extremely well documented. Taking a look at your metric (total damage dealt) with 23 sessions tracked - the barbarian (Ashton) is at the head of the pack with 592 total damage, the BM fighter (Orym) is second with 481, and the sorcerer (Imogen) is third with 454. No idea if the cleric casts bless at all regularly. But your assertion does not hold up for their group.

Source

 

[James Gasik]

As @FrogReaver said "total damage" is, at best, a bit misleading, that said:

Critical Role's damage is extremely well documented. Taking a look at your metric (total damage dealt) with 23 sessions tracked - the barbarian (Ashton) is at the head of the pack with 592 total damage, the BM fighter (Orym) is second with 481, and the sorcerer (Imogen) is third with 454. No idea if the cleric casts bless at all regularly. But your assertion does not hold up for their group.

Source

I haven't watched CR myself, but yeah, it certainly seems the other party members generally are interested in doing things other than dealing damage in combat.