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

[fearsomepirate]

As I already posted, my experience in these matters is 4e D&D not 5e D&D. But what you say here is absolutely true for 4e.

The weakest damage dealer in the 4e game that I GMed was the invoker/wizard. He was probably the weakest combat character overall, too - he was also the party "skill monkey"/ritualist.

But at low levels (when he was mostly wizard) his effects like AoE daze (Colour Spray) or AoE hostile teleport (Twist of Space) and at high levels (where he's mostly invoker) his effects like AoE blindness (Glyph of Radiance) and AoE domination (Compel Action) were super strong. Even Thunderwave (AoE push) is pretty good.

At least in 4e, another relevant consideration in combat maths is who takes the damage? In our 4e game the fighter and paladin had enormous depth in both healing surges and the ability to trigger those surges during combat, and it wasn't necessarily their lack of hp/surges that would drive the rest cycle. I know that 5e uses different healing mechanics, but an important part of battlefield control isn't just action denial but also controlling who is exposed when to what sorts of attacks.

There's a lot of 4e DNA in 5e, more than many people realize. However, one of the biggest substantial difference between 4e and 5e is how many rounds a combat lasts, thus effects "swing" a combat a lot more drastically. At high levels, if the entire party gets advantage, they will typically do between 150 and 200 damage in a single round. Add a round of action denial on top of that, and your BBEG often goes down before even gets to wipe his nose.

That's a bit off. You said "There are plenty of things a wizard can do if a monster has good saves" and were asked to be specific. When you had it displayed how bad much of that specific list is you want to change your tune from "plenty of things " to something but not something that your willing to suggest or stand behind as a good option when a monster has good saves. That last condition is critical because there are a ton of monsters with energy resistance/immune along with good or great saves and/or magic resistance to give advantage on the saves.

No, I'm quite willing to stand behind all of those things (except Polymorph, since I had neglected the size of the Marilith) as good options. I'm just not really interested in parsing out point by point why I disagree with you, because you keep stating the same thing in different ways and overlooking the same things.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You should be choosing spells that synergize with your allies' abilities

I mean I think you're both taking equally extreme positions here, and both equally ridiculous. Yes, it's not WoW or something where you make a build independent of other people (though tbh in the olden dayes of MMOs you did NOT do that, rather it was like you propose - you built for the group you usually played with), but equally, the idea that most players are carefully choosing spells and abilities to synergize with the rest of the party is laughable. The vast majority of people who play D&D are picking what seems cool or makes sense, not for some elaborate synergistic combination or whatever.

 

[tetrasodium]

I mean I think you're both taking equally extreme positions here, and both equally ridiculous. Yes, it's not WoW or something where you make a build independent of other people (though tbh in the olden dayes of MMOs you did NOT do that, rather it was like you propose - you built for the group you usually played with), but equally, the idea that most players are carefully choosing spells and abilities to synergize with the rest of the party is laughable. The vast majority of people who play D&D are picking what seems cool or makes sense, not for some elaborate synergistic combination or whatever.

I don't think om being thst extreme in saying that the number of thumbs on The scale and sheer numbers they are applied in is overdone in 5e because on average or even a good day the results are just right around the average of the folks who dont face any of that and concentration makes it harder to step up with two or more gap bridging spells into doing anything really impressive if one has a spell list like that rather than the sort of specific metagamed lists for every possible situation encountered during an an adventuring day that would be needed to justify all of the strings red tape and hurdles fighting lfqw on their own as if they are the sole shield against the return ofangel summoner bmx biker levels of lfqw

That's his this started with the strained something and things] being used to justify the battle against lfqw being taken so far in so many pretty directions so often by wotc.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I mean I think you're both taking equally extreme positions here, and both equally ridiculous. Yes, it's not WoW or something where you make a build independent of other people (though tbh in the olden dayes of MMOs you did NOT do that, rather it was like you propose - you built for the group you usually played with), but equally, the idea that most players are carefully choosing spells and abilities to synergize with the rest of the party is laughable. The vast majority of people who play D&D are picking what seems cool or makes sense, not for some elaborate synergistic combination or whatever.

I don't think it's really an elaborate synergistic combination to notice by 14th level whether certain things work for your allies or not. If knocking somebody prone is a deal-breaker for your party because it relies heavily on ranged attacks, you probably noticed that some time in the last 12 months of play. If you don't have anyone in your party with a strong single attack, you probably noticed some time between 3rd level and 14th that Haste wasn't so hot. Etc.

On one hand, I say that, but, I've found that the majority of full casters have to be begged to cast something other than their Nth-level damage spell, regardless of how effective it may or may not be.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't think om being thst extreme in saying that the number of thumbs on The scale and sheer numbers they are applied in is overdone in 5e because on average or even a good day the results are just right around the average of the folks who dont face any of that and concentration makes it harder to step up with two or more gap bridging spells into doing anything really impressive if one has a spell list like that rather than the sort of specific metagamed lists for every possible situation encountered during an an adventuring day that would be needed to justify all of the strings red tape and hurdles fighting lfqw on their own as if they are the sole shield against the return ofangel summoner bmx biker levels of lfqw

That's his this started with the strained something and things] being used to justify the battle against lfqw being taken so far in so many pretty directions so often by wotc.

You keep on acting like people are giving Wizards every spell in their books, but the simple fact is that a Wizard gets to know plenty enough spells by level 15+ to have a very versatile arsenal to handle most situations. I don't understand why you ignore that.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't think it's really an elaborate synergistic combination to notice by 14th level whether certain things work for your allies or not. If knocking somebody prone is a deal-breaker for your party because it relies heavily on ranged attacks, you probably noticed that some time in the last 12 months of play. If you don't have anyone in your party with a strong single attack, you probably noticed some time between 3rd level and 14th that Haste wasn't so hot. Etc.

On one hand, I say that, but, I've found that the majority of full casters have to be begged to cast something other than their Nth-level damage spell, regardless of how effective it may or may not be.

It also amazes me we haven't talked about the most broken caster combos. Like the ones where you trap an enemy in a wall of force or forcecage and have 1 other caster use a spell that deals ongoing damage. I'm really glad it takes more than 1 caster to pull crap like that off.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Forcecage isn't concentration, so one caster can do it by themselves if the enemy doesn't have a way to escape.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't think it's really an elaborate synergistic combination to notice by 14th level whether certain things work for your allies or not. If knocking somebody prone is a deal-breaker for your party because it relies heavily on ranged attacks, you probably noticed that some time in the last 12 months of play. If you don't have anyone in your party with a strong single attack, you probably noticed some time between 3rd level and 14th that Haste wasn't so hot. Etc.

On one hand, I say that, but, I've found that the majority of full casters have to be begged to cast something other than their Nth-level damage spell, regardless of how effective it may or may not be.

You expressed a more extreme position previously. Most campaigns don't reach 14th level so that seems like a red herring.

Disagree about people noticing re: haste. Min-maxers and some forms of power-gamer will notice. Many/most D&D players will not. They're not going to math out how it isn't helping, and they're really not going to notice the inverse that you're describing.

(If I use my own main group as an example, out of seven fairly regular players, there are two, including me, who would even potentially notice that re: Haste. The biggest power-gamer actually begs for Haste-type stuff even though it's a marginal gain for him as a Fighter.)

Whereas with Prone'ing people that is likely to get noticed because it will cause mild complaints from other players.

(Again using my own group as an example, everyone would notice, indeed, they already did and people use prone more circumspectly. Most of the time. The two players who don't optimize at all do forget a lot though, bless their hearts.)

 

[FrogReaver]

Forcecage isn't concentration, so one caster can do it by themselves if the enemy doesn't have a way to escape.

Interesting. Takes 4 more levels than wall of force to accomplish but you are correct. I always thought it was concentration (don't play in many high level games)

 

[FrogReaver]

You expressed a more extreme position previously. Most campaigns don't reach 14th level so that seems like a red herring.

Disagree about people noticing re: haste. Min-maxers and some forms of power-gamer will notice. Many/most D&D players will not. They're not going to math out how it isn't helping, and they're really not going to notice the inverse that you're describing.

(If I use my own main group as an example, out of seven fairly regular players, there are two, including me, who would even potentially notice that re: Haste. The biggest power-gamer actually begs for Haste-type stuff even though it's a marginal gain for him as a Fighter.)

Whereas with Prone'ing people that is likely to get noticed because it will cause mild complaints from other players.

(Again using my own group as an example, everyone would notice, indeed, they already did and people use prone more circumspectly. Most of the time. The two players who don't optimize at all do forget a lot though, bless their hearts.)

We had a party where 4 of 5 were primarily melee attack based. We had a battlemaster/monk/grease spell for proning. Chewed through enemies so fast.