The final word on DPR, feats and class balance

[Sacrosanct]

3 things, possibly fairly minor. A warlock gets d8, so HP is dependent on how you split your levels. Also, a fighter will have more than just the extra ASI at level 12, as he or she is single class. Multiclass gets ASI much slower. So it would be 4 ASI to 2 ASI at that point. And thirdly, does no one actually play the game up to level 10ish anymore? Does everyone start in tier 3 now? Let's say a level 15 sorlock is putting out more damage than a fighter for sake of argument. What about all of those gaming sessions at lower levels when the fighter is clearly so much better. That's one thing I've seen with multiclass in 5e. You are almost always behind other characters until you get several levels under your belt, and that is a good chunk of gaming time. Especially since most people only play PCs up to level 10-12 according to the last surveys, and all of the APs end around then as well.

 

[Tanin Wulf]

Right. So, chess and go are boring games. Gotcha. We should let the millions of people who play them know that they're actually bored, no?

(Sorry for the snark, but the statement was a little out there.)

(Very, VERY late to the party, so sorry if someone caught this already.)

Neither Chess nor Go are perfectly balanced games. First turn still has a hell of an advantage.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I can't follow your shifting arugments. Just above, you said that comparing the fighter to the sorc in a pure DPR-off had the sorc showing the fighter up, which takes almost all of the sorc's resources to do.

That's someone else's numbers, I'm leary (I expect they're actually closer to parity on a reasonable analysis) but I'll accept them for the sake of argument.

Now, though, you're saying that the closer you get to a DPR-off, the better the fighter looks?!

Yep. The fighter is a very DPR-focused design, it's best features work best when devoted to delivering DPR, it'll put in it's best showing in such comparisons. When that's not good enough, it's a very bad sign for the fighter.

You also say that when a sorcerer is using slots for other-than-DPR, this also shows up the fighter, but just above you poo-pooed fighter non-DPR contributions because they really didn't have any. If that's the case, the Sorcerer using his slots in fields the fighter is already weak in (ad argumentum) doesn't really continue to show up the fighter, does it.

'Show up' by such a large margin the fighter's not even really in the running, sure. If you want to compare classes over many dimensions of contribution rather than focusing on DPR-as-King, the fighter will loose a lot of such comparisons by very large margins, indeed (as will the Sorcerer to the Wizard or Bard, likely) - you're prettymuch back to shaking down the Class Tiers, with that kind of analysis.

You seem more interested in preserving the conclusion that discussing the premises.

There's a conclusion?

Zapp's conclusion is that the fighter 'needs' GWM/SS.

If DPR really were 'king' that'd be less likely the case, as mere parity in DPR would be all anyone needed - since versatility would be valued at nil, the only thing having other things to channel your resources to than DPR would be 'traps.' The fighter would be downright dominant, and cutting GWM/SS would be a safe call.

My argument is that in a holistic review, fighter does very well on DPR because it has the class features to stick in and deliver it consistently, while a few other class builds can, on paper, outgun the fighter, they do so by ignoring their own niche and abilities and so degrade the party ability to succeed in a rounded adventure setting. A slavish focus on DPR would leave you twiddling your thumbs in much of my games and even, at times, find yourself frustrated in combat because the objective wouldn't be to reduce hitpoints as fast as possible.

Nod. It's a straightforward balancing act. The fighter has little to do outside of tanking away in combat and grinding out the DPR. As long as he's better than that by some margin, it makes up for all the times he's 'twiddling his thumbs.' The margin depends on the emphasis on combat over social/exploration, and, in combat, on DPR over other factors. The more important DPR, the narrower the margin the fighter needs to balance - but, unless DPR really is King, he needs /some/ margin of advantage in that area. The more 'holistic' and varied the campaign, the larger the advantage the fighter needs in combat to really shine bright enough when he has the opportunity to do so. If you have weeks of painstaking exploration and cunning politicking, then, finally a battle one day, and grinding out DPR is the only thing that matters, that day, then more versatile classes can go all-in on that - the fighter /still/ has to beat them in that case, and not by a small margin, to seize his rare chance to shine.

It's a delicate balancing act, really, and, while for the sake of argument, I'm willing to accept the theory and discuss it's implications (like "Fighters 'need' GWM/SS to get enough DPR to balance"), my personal opinion is that it never really works. The DPR character is either irrelevant and overshadowed, or downright OP and game-wrecking. There's a shifting DPR threshold and he's either on one side of it or another, it never actually balances. It's just too specific, yet too critical, a contribution to use as a prime, let alone sole, balancing factor for a character, let alone a whole set of sub-classes.

1- He can also have far more durability with improved AC, HPs, autoheals using a BA and better saving throws.

'Meh' on all counts. The hp advantage is 1/level. AC can be cheesed up in a variety of ways. IDK what BA has to do with healing, but Second Wind trails off in importance rapidly. And 'better' saving throws? The fighter is STR/CON, the sorcerer CON/CHA. In both cases, CON is the more important save, and CON a second-priority stat, while the less-important save maps to the primary stat (setting aside the otherwise very effective DEX-fighter builds, like the Archery SS). STR saves come up more often, but they're usually for comparatively minor effects, while CHA saves keep you from, for the major instance, being dominated (which, with a DPR build, is nice for your party).

2- It's not only about casting high level spells, you also have to defend yourself, when I played a sorcerer I burned a lot of slots on shield, blur, mirror image, etc. You also want your area spell, perhaps a teleportation spell, buffs...

Yes, even the Sorcerer has considerable versatility. He /can/ put a lot towards DPR, or he can put it towards defense or whatever else he knows a spell for... he can't compete with the Wizard, but he's got it all over the fighter, that way.

Yes, but don't compare a sorcerer that can not be attacked fully buffed expending all their sorcery hit points, metamagic extra damage from class, etc to a fighter only using his normal attacks.

No problem, compare that sorcerer to a SS fighter who can't be attack and is fully buffed and expending all his limited resources on DPR. Fair's fair.

If you allow multiclassing you can also be a fightlock, warter or whatever is called.

"Waste of time" I suspect. But, sure, maybe a Champion/Berserker or something? I mean, you are delaying or even losing extra attack by MCing out of fighter, and in a weapon-based DPR build that's not such a great idea, but MCing should certainly be open to both.

 

[5ekyu]

(Very, VERY late to the party, so sorry if someone caught this already.)

Neither Chess nor Go are perfectly balanced games. First turn still has a hell of an advantage.

Go play provides komi of values iirc 5.5-8 depending on setup and rules to address that move benefit... It also has well developed handicap structure to offset confirmed play experience diffs.

Note At pro-dan levels, different rules.

 

[Dausuul]

And thirdly, does no one actually play the game up to level 10ish anymore? Does everyone start in tier 3 now? Let's say a level 15 sorlock is putting out more damage than a fighter for sake of argument. What about all of those gaming sessions at lower levels when the fighter is clearly so much better.

That's the thing about the sorlock: It is built around a spell (eldritch blast) that scales with character level, and the crucial abilities (Agonizing Blast, Quicken Spell) only require 2 levels of warlock and 3 of sorcerer. When you hit 5th level, the combo comes online and you're good to go. Your ASIs are delayed by two levels, but that's all.

From 5th level onward, you have decent base damage output, similar to an archer: Two attacks per round for 1d10+stat. In addition, you can double your damage output for a round up to 7 times per day, and 1 additional time every short rest. And if you're willing to sacrifice some of those double damage rounds, you can even cast regular spells.

Then you start looking for synergies on top of that, favoring things that trigger on a per-hit or per-attack basis (so you get them twice on a regular eldritch blast and four times when you Quicken). If you choose hexblade for your patron, you get Hexblade's Curse once per short rest for free. You can also learn the hex spell, which gives you +1d6 damage per hit (at the cost of half a Quicken). You have a second invocation, which you can use for Repelling Blast and get some really nice battlefield control.

All of this is at 5th level, and is pretty respectable next to a conventional archer. As you level up, both your sorcery points and your pool of spell slots grow rapidly, which can fuel a whole lot of Quickened rounds and have room left over to cast some actual spells. (And if you really need to go all-out, you can Quicken a leveled spell and toss an eldritch blast the same round.)

 

[5ekyu]

Btw side issue, i keep seeing references to teinned eldritch blast which (may be wrong) is not legal after it gets the ability to use two beams at 5th, right?

Maybe this is jargon for quicken EB plus a regular EB?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Dragon Sorcerers get +1 HP and get a d8 hit dice. Funtionally the same as a fighter, 5.5 average per level 9 vs 10 at level 1 so only slightly less. THe Sorlcock has less but doesn't generally go near the fornt line unless its a fiendpact one probably MCed ( eg Fighter 1/Warlock XYZ)

Sorcerers get d6 hit dice, not d8.

The front line gish sorcerer I saw was a Mountain Dwarf in medium armor. AC 15 or 16 IIRC. Otherwise you use spells to up AC (haste, shield etc) or to impose disadvantage (greater invisibility). Had somethign like 18 or 20 strength, 16 charisma

That build isn't spamming EB for the win, though. Also, rolled stats are their own problem.

If you want to spam, cantrips all day by level 10 or so you can sacrifice spell slots to get sorcery points functionally quicken Eldritch Blast or Green Flame blade most of the time, by level 15 or so IIRC its functionally at will. You don't spam firebolt lol.

Oh, you're quickening at twice the cost? It's a bit better for EB with agonizing that fighter can do without feats, but not much.

The Sorlcok once they get 3 bolts from Eldritch blast can quicken it a lot more than a fighter can action surge, gives them 6 bolts, charsima to damage and bonus action hex casting as well which is good for boss fights (hex+ EB followed up with 2 EBs the following round). [/quote]
Why on Earth are they casting Hex?

For awesome min-maxers, your Sorlock players make rookie mistakes.

So, this is a W2/S9 at 11th? 2 sorcery points per round, say 4 rounds a fight, 6 fights a day, that's 48 sorcery points. You start with 9, you you need 39 more. You'll burn, what, all of your 1, 2, 3, and 5th slots for that? Leaving 3 4th level spells, sure, but you're completely spending your entire class budget for damage and you'll outpace the fighter sure enough, but I'm okay with that. You have a one note boring character and exploited the glaring problem with agonizing blast.

If you don't like this, don't like metamagic work with cantrips.


And at higher levels you have 8 rays essentially at will + spell slots left over, each bolt is dealing at least 1d10+5 often 1d10+5+1d6 (hex).

The hit point difference isn't that much either and can be negated via things like shield spells so you take less damage. Even the gish sorcerer is not better than say a fighter most of the time (nova it can be) but its close enough and you have other options that a fighter doesn't have. For example you don't have to sacrifice your spell slots to abuse GFB but you can haste yourself for example and quicken GFB which is decent damage even at level 6. In melee as a sorcerer. By level 8 you can do this most fights upcasting haste if you have to into level 4 slots or you can sacrifice spell slots to spam GFB. If you come across a ranged enough well you still have the option of fireball, lightning bolt, firebolt etc etc etc.

The fighter can have shield as well with EK. And they'll use it less. You'll shield buff for AC18, he'll do it for AC 23. And you keep saying you have options, but your build relies on beating the fighter by not using those options. Every combat you have limits your options further because you're burning spells, and you have to preemptively burn those spells because you can't take time to do it in a fight (losing a round to convert doesn't keep up with the fighter, after all). If you're going to stick to the point that this build beats out the fighter so badly, then you don't have much left for 'options'. And, again, we're totally ignoring the fighter subclass in this comparison which may provide the fighter with lots of options that don't cost the fighter anything to have. You can't have your cake and eat it by beating out the fighter in DPR and still claiming all of those resources as available options.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's the thing about the sorlock: It is built around a spell (eldritch blast) that scales with character level, and the crucial abilities (Agonizing Blast, Quicken Spell) only require 2 levels of warlock and 3 of sorcerer. When you hit 5th level, the combo comes online and you're good to go. Your ASIs are delayed by two levels, but that's all.

From 5th level onward, you have decent base damage output, similar to an archer: Two attacks per round for 1d10+stat. In addition, you can double your damage output for a round up to 7 times per day, and 1 additional time every short rest. And if you're willing to sacrifice some of those double damage rounds, you can even cast regular spells.

Then you start looking for synergies on top of that, favoring things that trigger on a per-hit or per-attack basis (so you get them twice on a regular eldritch blast and four times when you Quicken). If you choose hexblade for your patron, you get Hexblade's Curse once per short rest for free. You can also learn the hex spell, which gives you +1d6 damage per hit (at the cost of half a Quicken). You have a second invocation, which you can use for Repelling Blast and get some really nice battlefield control.

All of this is at 5th level, and is pretty respectable next to a conventional archer. As you level up, both your sorcery points and your pool of spell slots grow rapidly, which can fuel a whole lot of Quickened rounds and have room left over to cast some actual spells. (And if you really need to go all-out, you can Quicken a leveled spell and toss an eldritch blast the same round.)

At 5th this build is still behind the archer. The archer has a better stat and style for 15% increased hit chances and good base damage. The archer is doing 16.1 damage a round against AC 15, you build is alternating 10.75 and 21.5 every other round (you quicken EB, next round you burn a spell to get the points back so you can quicken again -- you only have 3 sorcery points). Your 2 round average is 15.425.

And, again, this is ignoring fighter subclass, which can make a significant difference in fighter output. Or a ranger, who, depending on subclass, will get nice damage bonuses and can tie anything you do with Hex with Mark.

This combo only really gets rolling after it can spam quickened EB 3 times in a row, so sorcerer level 6+ or character level 8+. Even then, stat is +4, fighter is sitting at +5 with an extra ASI for goodness and you're still trashing your slots to power the combo.

As an aside, I've long ruled that Warlock spells don't mix with other class spells, so no burning Warlock slots for sorcery points or adding metamagic to warlock slots. I may rule that your can only use Metamagic on Sorcerer list spells, as that seems like it would reduce the cheese of dipping Warlock for EB and Agonizing blast to a dumb move.

Honestly, the problem here is the poorly done wording of Agonizing Blast and Sage Advice choosing to rule each beam as a separate instance of EB.

 

[Ovinomancer]

That's someone else's numbers, I'm leary (I expect they're actually closer to parity on a reasonable analysis) but I'll accept them for the sake of argument.

You burned your first quote just to say that you agree you made that argument? Seems a poor use, Tony.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Seems a poor use, Tony.

Agreed.

*plonk*