D&D 5E The impact of overkill damage

[Todd Roybark]

First of all, what you are describing has an astronomically low chance of occuring and any healing spell completely resolves the issue.

So your presumption is that battles where both sides are at low Hit Points, is so rare as to not even need to be considered.

So your presumption is cases were a creature at 1 HP can still kill a PC if able to act, is negligible, and not to be considered.

There is no proof that bolsters this unsupported feeling of yours, no common record of D&D stats from thousands of games. The events that lead to the destruction of two US Space Shuttles were deemed low probability as well..then people died, and presumptions were reconsidered and the program was canceled.

So essentially you are just running numbers to confirm your bias, and not bothering to even consider possibilities in your model, that your arbitrarily deem are unworthy.

Good to know.

No need to respond my friend, your viewpoint is shuttered...that is crystal clear.

 

[FrogReaver]

So your presumption is that battles where both sides are at low Hit Points, is so rare as to not even need to be considered.

It's astronomically low but it could happen. My presupposition is that when rare events occur they can be safely disregarded as their effects on the long term average are extremely limited.

So your presumption is cases were a creature at 1 HP can still kill a PC if able to act, is negligible, and not to be considered.

It's astronomically low but it could happen. My presupposition is that when rare events occur they can be safely disregarded as their effects on the long term average are extremely limited.

There is no proof that bolsters this unsupported feeling of yours, no common record of D&D stats from thousands of games. The events that lead to the destruction of two US Space Shuttles were deemed low probability as well..then people died, and presumptions were reconsidered and the program was canceled.

So essentially you are just running numbers to confirm your bias, and not bothering to even consider possibilities in your model, that your arbitrarily deem are unworthy.

Getting proper assumptions is important. Yours are no more than "it could happen" counterexamples which are basically worthless in these types of comparisons. You've got to talk about the liklihood of an event. There will of course be some disagreement there, but everyone will agree that your stated example while possible is soo unlikely that ignoring it will yield nearly indistinguishable results from including it.

Good to know.

No need to respond my friend, your viewpoint is shuttered...that is crystal clear.

Nice try, but it seems you more describe your own views.

 

[Todd Roybark]

So what I am reading is you saying "Close battles in 5e are so rare, that as a category, close battles can be discounted altogether in modeling".

If that is not what you intended to say, then I am misunderstanding you.
What is your support for your assertions?

My D&D intake has dramatically increased since March, at this point I am playing around 12-20 hours a week. My experience is that scenarios as I have described are not as rare as you are asserting.

If I am incorrect, then show me why, don't just hand wave away inconvenient scenarios.
The gods know, there is enough of that already in the real world regarding SARS -COV- 2

 

[renevq]

Part of the issue, I feel, is that monsters are always at 100% effectiveness until they reach 0hp, which is when overkill comes into effect. Sure, it’s surplus damage, but it also means that the creature won’t be dealinf any more damage to you or your party, which is a big deal. You also have to assume kind of “best practices” where PCs are going to be able to identify and go after high threat targets first most of the time.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Part of the issue, I feel, is that monsters are always at 100% effectiveness until they reach 0hp, which is when overkill comes into effect. Sure, it’s surplus damage, but it also means that the creature won’t be dealinf any more damage to you or your party, which is a big deal. You also have to assume kind of “best practices” where PCs are going to be able to identify and go after high threat targets first most of the time.

No doubt, killing monsters is the deal. Overkill really only matters if you're going to use DPR as a metric, because it adjusts DPR downward, universally. DPR isn't interested much in smart tactics, at least, not in any presentation I've seen, only maximizing damage through build choices. What considering overkill does is says that a PC with a lower DPR might be equally as effective, especially over the last few points. Heck, I showed above that there's a range where GWM doesn't actually outperform no GWM with the same build choice. DPR calculations show that the GWM build significantly outpaces the non-GWM build, but it turns out that's not always, or even mostly, true. It mildly outpaces.

If you're not interested in DPR as a metric, though, then overkill doesn't matter either.

 

[FrogReaver]

No doubt, killing monsters is the deal. Overkill really only matters if you're going to use DPR as a metric, because it adjusts DPR downward, universally. DPR isn't interested much in smart tactics, at least, not in any presentation I've seen, only maximizing damage through build choices. What considering overkill does is says that a PC with a lower DPR might be equally as effective, especially over the last few points. Heck, I showed above that there's a range where GWM doesn't actually outperform no GWM with the same build choice. DPR calculations show that the GWM build significantly outpaces the non-GWM build, but it turns out that's not always, or even mostly, true. It mildly outpaces.

If you're not interested in DPR as a metric, though, then overkill doesn't matter either.

Interesting thing about GWM builds - anytime they get overkill they also get an extra attack. This is very important as the extra attack on kill is rarely factored into said DPR calculations.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes, I used your assumption set, which I think is incorrect, which has the effect of reducing the impact of overkill. Besides, the point I was making was how to evaluate overkill damage, not that it would reveal a huge discrepancy. The larger the damage delta is, the more effect it has, though.

It's useful for other examples as well. If we continue to use your assumption on killing blows of 1/4 of attacks are killing blows and combat lasts three rounds, let's look at two fighters, one who takes a +STR ASI and the other who takes GWM. We'll set the AC for the target at 13 so as to be well within the GWM range.

Fighter 1, STR 20, level 5, 2 attacks, dmg(F1) = 2d6+5 = 12, %hit = 80%

Fighter 2, STR 18, level 5, 2 attacks, dmg(F2) = 2d6+14 = 21, $hit = 50%

The calculated X' for Fighter 1 is 8.93, so per round damage is 17.86. For Fighter 2, X' is 9.75, for a DPR of 19.5 The DPR difference here, due to overkill using your assumption of frequency, is less than 2. Since, as you say here, a difference of 1 doesn't really matter, does less than 2 matter? In other words, using GWM within the determined bandwidths is brought to close to no difference. If we really want to be precise, we'd add one more attack of damage to Fighter 2 to represent the first bullet of GWM, but that occurs once in 6 attacks, so it's 1/6th of the damage -- that's still +3.5 DPR, though, which really just proves that it's the extra granted attack that makes the difference and not the +10.

Interestingly, the DPR delta actually get better for the GWM fighter at higher ACs because they lose less due to overkill. They also hit less often. At a hit% of .6/.3, X' delta drops to 0.817.

As an update, the OAD calculate should take the rounded down value for X. This is because X can have fractional values but target hp cannot. The difference this makes is very small, but improvements are improvements.

Curious why you used 1/6 for GWM first bullet? For overkill you assumed 1/4 of attacks are killing blows. Shouldn't the first bullet of GWM match the number of killing blows?

 

[Coroc]

A 10th Level party encountering a Hobgoblin/goblin tribe with 60 members is not an unusual setup for 1e and 2e, and 5e.

One aspect to be considered is that by RAW a PC can not breakup their movement between multiple attack rolls created by spell attacks. An 11th level Archer Fighter can shoot and move, between attack rolls, a Wizard with Scorching Ray cannot.

There are other aspects which do not appear in the otherwise pretty good mathematical model of @jgsugden

Things like endurance and survivability of the different classes come into my mind. In the end it is the whole character, and the combination of his skills with those of the rest of the party that count. All those theoretical models often leave out essential things, like essentially, if you are dead you do not dish out any dpr at all.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Interesting thing about GWM builds - anytime they get overkill they also get an extra attack. This is very important as the extra attack on kill is rarely factored into said DPR calculations.

You mean how I factored it in in my post discussing overkill and GWM above?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Curious why you used 1/6 for GWM first bullet? For overkill you assumed 1/4 of attacks are killing blows. Shouldn't the first bullet of GWM match the number of killing blows?

1/4 of attacks are killing blows, according to your assumption. At 2 attacks a round, you make 6 attacks in 3 rounds. That's 1.5 killing blows, which I rounded to 1. I can use 2 and look at the numbers for an f of 3, but it actually makes GWM a tad worse. I explained this in detail above in the monk/rogue comparison.