D&D 5E The mathematics of D&D–Damage and HP

[fearsomepirate]

I do actually consider the prep/known slot used up with spells like fireball. Its why playing a spellcaster can become widely inefficient especially when you're not well-suited for tactics and strategy.

I've disliked wizards in this edition as well but I recognize they can be useful especially for OoC stuff. Personally, I believe clerics are the best caster because they support much better than any other spellcaster with their mixture of great spells and features that can prevent the game from swinging too hard to recover.

People tend to default to damage because it's the lowest cognitive load (more damage is always better, requires zero neurons to analyze), Most players will typically opt to cast Lightning Bolt at a pair of enemies rather than upcast Hold Person, despite the subsequent flurry of auto-crits from the martials typically doing far more damage than 8d6.

 

[Asisreo]

Also, you don't need to be a statistician to comment in this thread.

If you have any questions or comments, whether professional or not, I'd be happy to hear them.

 

[Ovinomancer]

People tend to default to damage because it's the lowest cognitive load (more damage is always better, requires zero neurons to analyze), Most players will typically opt to cast Lightning Bolt at a pair of enemies rather than upcast Hold Person, despite the subsequent flurry of auto-crits from the martials typically doing far more damage than 8d6.

Likely because the lightning bolt is guaranteed damage, while the hold person is potential damage. Bird in the hand, and all of that. Not saying this is a clear winner -- the crit damage might indeed win if you crunched some stats, but you can't count on that in the moment -- the targets might all save, then you're out the slot and out the damage. I mean, I agree it's probably a better approach, depending on the targets, but it's also pretty easy to see why you might go with the boom.

 

[pemerton]

Likely because the lightning bolt is guaranteed damage, while the hold person is potential damage. Bird in the hand, and all of that.

Right. Maximin isn't necessarily irrational, especially if you're confident that you have enough healing capacity to survive a somewhat calculated battle of attrition.

EDIT: There's also Lewis Pulsipher's observation way back in an early White Dwarf: charming a dragon is elegant, but blowing it up is more exciting. It is a game after all!

 

[tetrasodium]

Right. Maximin isn't necessarily irrational, especially if you're confident that you have enough healing capacity to survive a somewhat calculated battle of attrition.

EDIT: There's also Lewis Pulsipher's observation way back in an early White Dwarf: charming a dragon is elegant, but blowing it up is more exciting. It is a game after all!

Guessing that's supposed to be minmax or minmaxing , but at least in 5e that's an oversimplification to prop up an option that 5e takes steps to make bad. Hold person is a 2nd level concentration spell limited to humanoids with a wisdom save right out the gate plus a wisdom save every round. Hold monster is the same but a 5th level spell & creature rather than person. I broke down some of the problems with the math back in post 42. Tossing concentration & excessive saves on top of all the problems with save for nothing effects vrs a;lmost certain tohit ACs & save for half abilities just serves to make al already iffy spell choice into one that is frequently going to be terrible any time a creature is tough enough to justify the paralyze effect being worthwhile.

 

[pemerton]

Maximin = maximising the worst (minimum) outcome.

And @tetrasodium, I think you're something of a lone voice arguing that wizards in 5e are underpowered.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Likely because the lightning bolt is guaranteed damage, while the hold person is potential damage. Bird in the hand, and all of that. Not saying this is a clear winner -- the crit damage might indeed win if you crunched some stats, but you can't count on that in the moment -- the targets might all save, then you're out the slot and out the damage. I mean, I agree it's probably a better approach, depending on the targets, but it's also pretty easy to see why you might go with the boom.

Even in the case of damage spells that don't do half damage, it's a 1-step process. "Monster no save -> monster go boom." Other spells it's like

"monster banished -> monster not hurt friends -> cleric no heal -> friends focus other monster -> ..."

Cognitive load is higher. You could do 5 pages of theorycraft proving some other spell is optimal, and 90% of players will choose "monster go boom."

 

[tetrasodium]

Maximin = maximising the worst (minimum) outcome.

And @tetrasodium, I think you're something of a lone voice arguing that wizards in 5e are underpowered.

underpowered & subject to ill considered hamfisted tuning in too many areas of the game from a misguided attempt to avoid the LFQW of some older editions have overlap but aren't the same just as the other side of the coin with martials frequently benefitting excessively from that misguided attempt is not the same as overpowered.

 

[MNblockhead]

Do you think some of the theory discussion involves average damage and average HP? Some of the other threads we talk about has people saying that monsters should only deal average damage to speed things up or aid the DM. Not sure how many players use average damage over rolling the damage.

I'm not big on math so I'm not sure how much of this thread will evolve to be over my head, but it sounds worth talking about.

I used to alwasy use average damage and never rolled monster HP. But now that I'm running things in a VTT, the HP for most monsters is rolled when they are dropped on the map and their damage is rolled when they hit. Since the VTT handles the rolls, it doesn't slow things down but can make combat more interesting.

 

[Dausuul]

I'm playing a 3rd-level bard with hold person, in a campaign with a lot of urban intrigue.

My DM does not like that spell.