D&D 5E Truly Understanding the Martials & Casters discussion (+)

[Gammadoodler]

To me it falls under the same consideration process as enemy control effects (more likely to impact the fighter).

I don't know how specifically you all are planning to build out potential encounters, but if you are using actual monster statblocks then those monsters could have an aggregate outgoing average dpr. Assume a party size of 4(or whatever) and divide evenly or apply a weighting?

It'd be a cludge, but might be a decent litmus in a "if x% of damage per round goes to the wizard they go down in y rounds vs the same for the fighter" kind of way.

Edit: though assuming on demand healing and no lost actions to unconsciousness isn't really that unreasonable for a D&D party.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't know how specifically you all are planning to build out potential encounters, but if you are using actual monster statblocks then those monsters could have an aggregate outgoing average dpr. Assume a party size of 4(or whatever) and divide evenly or apply a weighting?

It'd be a cludge, but might be a decent litmus in a "if x% of damage per round goes to the wizard they go down in y rounds vs the same for the fighter" kind of way.

There’s issues with that but instead of going throw them I think there is a better way to get closer to what you want to see.

Given an enemy making an attack at X damage at Y chance to hit, how much magic does the wizard have to use to be as survivable as the Fighter.

 

[Gammadoodler]

There’s issues with that but instead of going throw them I think there is a better way to get closer to what you want to see.

Given an enemy making an attack at X damage at Y chance to hit, how much magic does the wizard have to use to be as survivable as the Fighter.

Makes sense and serves as a decent gut check for the wizard damage output projections.

 

[Undrave]

I suppose the wizard can carry around a bag of knives (10+) and that could get pretty nasty.

That's called a Rogue and don't judge them before meeting them

 

[Mort]

There’s issues with that but instead of going throw them I think there is a better way to get closer to what you want to see.

Given an enemy making an attack at X damage at Y chance to hit, how much magic does the wizard have to use to be as survivable as the Fighter.

At mid-high levels mirror image is a HUGE combat survivability boost for the wizard. Non-concentration, low enough level to not be ridiculously resource draining and virtually guaranteed to soak up 2-3 hits that would otherwise have done damage, by the conclusion of the combat. Heck, by 11th+ level have it as part of a contingency and it's even less of a resource drain (as far as the adventure day and encounters go).

Of course if we're talking survivability, the wizard has one of the few really consistent ways to flee too (with contingency). Contingency a dimension door and unless something truly, truly drastic happens - the wizard will escape. Of course, he'll probably leave the rest of the party in the lurch - but that's a different issue.

 

[FrogReaver]

Makes sense and serves as a decent gut check for the wizard damage output projections.

My initial reaction was that it would be easy for the wizard to match the fighter but initial test scenario is proving more difficult to approach the fighters level of survivability.

 

[TheSword]

Hence me saying that there are vast swaths of time where it's completely pointless/useless. It's REALLY campaign/DM dependent. Because it depends both on setting AND on the monsters/opponents the DM favors.

I meant to quote the person you quoted. I am in total agreement with you.

 

[FrogReaver]

At mid-high levels mirror image is a HUGE combat survivability boost for the wizard. Non-concentration, low enough level to not be ridiculously resource draining and virtually guaranteed to soak up 2-3 hits that would otherwise have done damage, by the conclusion of the combat. Heck, by 11th+ level have it as part of a contingency and it's even less of a resource drain (as far as the adventure day and encounters go).

Of course if we're talking survivability, the wizard has one of the few really consistent ways to flee too (with contingency). Contingency a dimension door and unless something truly, truly drastic happens - the wizard will escape. Of course, he'll probably leave the rest of the party in the lurch - but that's a different issue.

Mirror image suffers a major issue though. It only lasts 1 minute and takes a pretty significant number of attacks to exhaust its duplicates on average.

In our adventure day of 8 3 round encounters I’m not sure that mirror image is a particularly good defensive investment, even when it can be precast.

 

[Gammadoodler]

My initial reaction was that it would be easy for the wizard to match the fighter but initial test scenario is proving more difficult to approach the fighters level of survivability.

Easy peasey, just add a fumbles table for the fighter..and execution attacks..and instantly lethal fall damage.

 

[tetrasodium]

This does bring up the question about how taking damage is being modeled. A spell that allows a ranged attack or grapple seems safer in some situations than having to be in melee range with a foe.

So FrogReaver had a GWM fighter doing over 800 hp of damage during an adventuring day. My question is how much damage is the melee fighter taking? Are they healing some way besides HD?

To be honest those numbers were a waste of time using a level 20 with a nonmagic starting weapon & no feats illustrate why there is skepticism. The buff fighters crowd not being willing to point out things like that kind of faulty whiteroom throughout the thread adds to the skepticism.

On the topic of your questions though that gets into the limits of statistical modeling & ensuring useful data can be drawn from results. Any time you model something statistically there are simplifications put in place for the model, using the average damage for a die rather than choosing between running thousands of tests to get that average with more work vrs running fewer tests with a margin of error too great to draw any meaningful results from might be a simple one. Those simplifications extend to things like "what if they moved like so" "what if they did x" "what if they did y" etc. That doesn't mean that other questions like the damage one can not be estimated, it just means that it is an entirely separate test that gets modeled on its own & the two are considered based on their various merits rather than adding a bunch of noise to the original model.

"how much damage is bob taking" is not a useful metric because there are so many variables (armor worn, positioning, group composition, availability of healing, party role, etc). It's also not a metric relevant to a question like "is the disparity between what bob brings to the table in damage compared to Alice combat after combat worth the disparity in some other noncombat situation like exploration/social pillar stuff time after time." Questions like the risk of taking damage & such might be relevant when considering if bob should be improved in some other area, how much they should be improved, if that improvement needs to come with a cost, & how big or small the cost should be. How much damage does Bob the GWM greatsword fighter take vrs Beth the longbow SS fighter & bill the sword & board heavy armor master fighter might be a useful collection because so many aspects of the test can be assumed the same or similar enough, but in o5e you are either unconscious/dead or "perfectly fine thank you" with nothing between.