The Overkill Damage Fallacy

[Mistwell]

PC 1 does 6 units of damage with each hit, and has only one attack.
PC 2 does 2 units of damage with each hit, and has two attacks.
There are two foes, and each dies after taking 2 units of damage.
In this scenario, PC 2 can kill both foes. PC 1 cannot. Even though PC 1 does more total damage, it's meaningless as 4 units of their damage is wasted on a hit. Meanwhile, no units of damage from PC 2 is wasted on a hit.

So, overkill damage issues require an analysis of the different types of scenarios to see if they are meaningful or not. Picking an example where it doesn't matter isn't any more or less compelling than picking an example like this one where it does matter.

Bottom line, it CAN matter, depending on the scenario, and that has to be factored into broader analysis.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Bottom line, it CAN matter, depending on the scenario, and that has to be factored into broader analysis.

In more plausible situations, different PCs are going to be inflicting damage on a given enemy in different ways. It'll prettymuch be a random event if an enemy is dropped exactly, left up or overkilled.

Higher DPR avoids the first, and more often experiences the last...
...but overkilled is still killed.

 

[Mistwell]

In more plausible situations...

We can't know plausibility without a lot more analysis than your instincts.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don’t know if there is an overkill fallacy, but I do know that a very common argument is the “higher damage is always better” fallacy. It completely ignores the other side of the argument: how much damage mitigation you take. It also assumes you will be at full resources after every battle, which obviously isn’t the case.

For example if everyone has 20 hp and does 5 hp of damage a round, then:

If you always go first and increase damage by 3 pts, then it takes you 3 rounds to kill your opponent, suffering 10 hp yourself

If you always go first but reduce the damage you receive by 3, then it takes you 4 rounds to kill your opponent, but you only take 6 points of damage yourself. So obviously mitigating more damage is often better than dealing out more damage. It’s realy situational, and clearly shows why “moar dmg is always better” to be not true.

 

[Tony Vargas]

We can't know plausibility without a lot more analysis than your instincts.

The plausible scenario is an ordinary game with a number of players, no?

 

[FrogReaver]

PC 1 does 6 units of damage with each hit, and has only one attack.
PC 2 does 2 units of damage with each hit, and has two attacks.
There are two foes, and each dies after taking 2 units of damage.
In this scenario, PC 2 can kill both foes. PC 1 cannot. Even though PC 1 does more total damage, it's meaningless as 4 units of their damage is wasted on a hit. Meanwhile, no units of damage from PC 2 is wasted on a hit.

So, overkill damage issues require an analysis of the different types of scenarios to see if they are meaningful or not. Picking an example where it doesn't matter isn't any more or less compelling than picking an example like this one where it does matter.

Bottom line, it CAN matter, depending on the scenario, and that has to be factored into broader analysis.

Actually, in the broader context of the game, enemies typically take multiple hits to down, especially past first tier. An example like yours only works because the lower damage character is killing full hp enemies in 1 hit and gets 2 attacks. In every other scenario that will not be a case. Thus your example is a very poor representation of the game. The underlying mechanisms it shows what you want it to show just aren't present in the actual game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Actually, in the broader context of the game, enemies typically take multiple hits to down, especially past first tier.

It's an article of faith in 5e BA that weaker enemies remain relevant, even as hp/damage balloons with level, so you can't discount the many-low-hp foe scenario - there may well be quite a few scattered about after the smoke of the fireball has cleared.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don’t know if there is an overkill fallacy, but I do know that a very common argument is the “higher damage is always better” fallacy. It completely ignores the other side of the argument: how much damage mitigation you take. It also assumes you will be at full resources after every battle, which obviously isn’t the case.

For example if everyone has 20 hp and does 5 hp of damage a round, then:

If you always go first and increase damage by 3 pts, then it takes you 3 rounds to kill your opponent, suffering 10 hp yourself

If you always go first but reduce the damage you receive by 3, then it takes you 4 rounds to kill your opponent, but you only take 6 points of damage yourself. So obviously mitigating more damage is often better than dealing out more damage. It’s realy situational, and clearly shows why “moar dmg is always better” to be not true.

In 1v1 scenarios it can be. The moar damage paradigm occurs because there's generally not much stopping enemies from ignoring the high defense guy till last. If enemies are attacking one particular character more often than the others then him investing in defense is very beneficial. It's simply that players have little to no control over what the enemies do and are less apt to build characters whose primary focus can be sidestepped by DM whim.

My personal take is that melee PC's get targeted more and so if I build a melee PC then I focus a little more on defense. If I build a range PC then I focus less on it.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's an article of faith in 5e BA that weaker enemies remain relevant, even as hp/damage balloons with level, so you can't discount the many-low-hp foe scenario - there may well be quite a few scattered about after the smoke of the fireball has cleared.

Sure. But are you really claiming such an encounter is anything other than an exception to the norm?

 

[Mistwell]

The plausible scenario is an ordinary game with a number of players, no?

You have done nothing to demonstrate how often my scenario comes up vs the one in the OP vs the very many in between. You basically asserted mine was not plausible, with the only basis for this assertion being your instincts based on the sample games of "games Tony played".

We could crunch a published adventure with a published set of pregen characters. We could poll a very large number of people to get some answers. We could, maybe, access some sort of data through Roll 20 or Fantasy Grounds. Any of those might tell us what the most common scenarios might be. But we know that "Tony's instincts based on the small sample of games represented by those hes personally played" is not likely to be any more accurate than just about any other guess. So I say again, you're going to need a lot more analysis than that.