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

[fearsomepirate]

Your point 2 is the thing that your badly ignoring. If a caster is always behind on damage behind on hp & always behind on ac they need to either reliably be completely indispensable when they step out or they need to have the significant improvement of the situation they bring to the table to last for long enough to have more impact than a couple crits would have.

A high-level caster has enough spell slots to significantly improve the party's effectiveness for the entire adventuring day. You're acting like once Haste ends, that's it, nobody in the party can ever be hasted again. Just...cast it again. Easy.

Look at it from the WoW raid analogy point of view. More than one of your examples of a great buff actually hinder the party & would get the caster added to a do not invite list if done regularly. Out of the few that could improve things the effect is so small that almost any other class is likely to be more valuable to the raid given how far they lag the rest of the time. Hanging your hopes on a highly specific party composition to rescue a boat anchor of a strategy for many other party makeups only works if there are a bunch of other spells that do something amazing for other highly specific party compositions & that frankly is not even slightly the case.

D&D is nothing like WoW in this regard. You don't build your character and then go hang out in a lobby, waiting to get chosen for a raid by persons of unknown composition, hoping to find a party that matches up with you. You build your character along with the rest of your party over months or even years of play. You should be choosing spells that synergize with your allies' abilities, not basing them off some build you found online.

 

[FrogReaver]

That requires spells to be prepared & be relevant to the situation. Without even one example of "things" there's not much to go on, but xge devotes quite a few pages to ways noncasters can use the free tools most everyone can get proficiency in to do specific "things" that would otherwise take a spell a caster probably won't have prepared

You can't be serious?

 

[FrogReaver]

So thinking some about mathematics of D&D Damage. I propose that damage only matters because it's how an enemy is defeated. So I propose that instead of Damage Variance, we instead calculate average rounds to kill and the variance of the rounds to kill.

 

[FrogReaver]

Also of note is that modifying chance to hit can drastically change the variance. Higher chances to hit will tend to have significantly lower variance.

 

[Asisreo]

So thinking some about mathematics of D&D Damage. I propose that damage only matters because it's how an enemy is defeated. So I propose that instead of Damage Variance, we instead calculate average rounds to kill and the variance of the rounds to kill.

The problem with that analysis is that it naturally relies on having a target to compare to.

Its not necessarily as simple as "low variance = good" but it will trend that way.

But like you said, to-hit and hp will determine those stuff and they can drastically change the context. For example, a high HP-low AC creature rewards characters with riskier moves since they are safer and more likely to actually land but low HP-high AC creatures reward consistency because constantly missing does nothing but extends their lifespan.

 

[tetrasodium]

@FrogReaver Yes I'm serious that your argument of "things" is underdeveloped and lacking in any detail whatsoever. It's on you to make your own case rather than vaguely hinting in it's general direction in a completely nonspecific undefined manner & expecting it to be accepted. Modifying chance to hit does significantly impact the math yes & that's why I made the numbers by percentage chances to hit to avoid obfuscation behind needless layers of numbers. Don't forget that 5e is pegged to make targeting AC a rather trivial hurdle with the bar for magic & saves much higher in various ways on top of how meaningless resist nonmagical b/p/s is compared to the overused energy resists.

A high-level caster has enough spell slots to significantly improve the party's effectiveness for the entire adventuring day. You're acting like once Haste ends, that's it, nobody in the party can ever be hasted again. Just...cast it again. Easy.



D&D is nothing like WoW in this regard. You don't build your character and then go hang out in a lobby, waiting to get chosen for a raid by persons of unknown composition, hoping to find a party that matches up with you. You build your character along with the rest of your party over months or even years of play. You should be choosing spells that synergize with your allies' abilities, not basing them off some build you found online.

I'm not acting like once haste ends it's over, I'm being realistic in that all of the hurdles do not justify the excessive red tape concentration & almost good spells with too many strings keeping them from being great. It's not like energy vulnerability & resist magic/nonmagic b/p/s are common. Just look at the last few posts. When left with no hope of defending the damage & ac vrs save disparity you suggested a caster also prepare ten different mostly concentration almost good buffs laden with strings & red tape with more than one literally being a hinderance to a party for when damage & debuff spells are a poor option due to braindead design still fighting the worst extremes of 3.5 style LFQW as if the numbers supported that sort ofheavy duty LFQW still being a thing. @FrogReaver followed that up by suggest that casters also prepare spells that allow them to do "things" outside of combat. It's like the two of you think caster prepared spell lists are some kind of always ready for anything omniescent player quantum state able to fit unlimited spells.


edit: Yes WoW is very different from d&d, those differences are what makes the cold logic of pure math & "what do you bring to the table" used in things like WoW raid slot selection perfect for highlighting the problems in this aspect of 5e design where "well we are friends & playing together" gets to paper over the same sort of WoW style analysis obvious even to casual eyeball level detail. That papering only excuses bad design so far.

 

[FrogReaver]

The problem with that analysis is that it naturally relies on having a target to compare to.

Its not necessarily as simple as "low variance = good" but it will trend that way.

The same can be said about DPR. It's not as simple as high dpr = good but it will trend that way. In fact, I would predict that higher DPR has a much greater impact on avoiding a TPK than lower variance does.

But like you said, to-hit and hp will determine those stuff and they can drastically change the context. For example, a high HP-low AC creature rewards characters with riskier moves since they are safer and more likely to actually land but low HP-high AC creatures reward consistency because constantly missing does nothing but extends their lifespan.

Doesn't missing alot also decrease variance? Say if you are only hitting 5% of the time won't your variance be fairly low?

 

[FrogReaver]

@FrogReaver Yes I'm serious that your argument of "things" is underdeveloped and lacking in any detail whatsoever. It's on you to make your own case rather than vaguely hinting in it's general direction in a completely nonspecific undefined manner & expecting it to be accepted.

You said that martials can do things with skills when I suggested that the high level casters are mass suggesting, teleporting, plane shifting, reviving the dead, miraculously curing curses and diseases, transforming into dragons, conjuring elementals/celestials/etc...

 

[FrogReaver]

I'm not acting like once haste ends it's over, I'm being realistic in that all of the hurdles do not justify the excessive red tape concentration & almost good spells with too many strings keeping them from being great. It's not like energy vulnerability & resist magic/nonmagic b/p/s are common. Just look at the last few posts. When left with no hope of defending the damage & ac vrs save disparity you suggested a caster also prepare ten different mostly concentration almost good buffs laden with strings & red tape with more than one literally being a hinderance to a party for when damage & debuff spells are a poor option due to braindead design still fighting the worst extremes of 3.5 style LFQW as if the numbers supported that sort ofheavy duty LFQW still being a thing. @FrogReaver followed that up by suggest that casters also prepare spells that allow them to do "things" outside of combat. It's like the two of you think caster prepared spell lists are some kind of always ready for anything omniescent player quantum state able to fit unlimited spells.

How many spells does a level 15 wizard/cleric/druid prepare? 20! That's almost 3 spells prepared per spell level.

So let's look at a hypothetical level 15 wizards prepared spells:

Shield
Absorb Elements
Mage Armor

Invisibility
Suggestion
Hold Person

Hypnotic Pattern
Counterspell
Fly
Tongues

Banishment
Dimension Door
Polymorph

Wall of Force
Conjure Elemental

Mass Suggestion
Contingency

Forcecage
Teleport
Planeshift

Layer some rituals on top of that and that's the basic wizard spell list. He's prepared for most things and has a few general purpose spells...

 

[Asisreo]

In fact, I would predict that higher DPR has a much greater impact on avoiding a TPK than lower variance does.

Its all relative and depends on context. The problem, though, is that DPR is isolated from other analysis types and its often used as the sole determinant for whether an option is good or not.

I've brought up Greatswords vs Greataxes and came to a conclusion that while Greatswords is a safer option, Greataxes are good for quickly finishing off enemies in more desperate situations.