D&D 5E Which characters are the DPR (damage per round) leaders at your table(s)?

[JiffyPopTart]

I will say this. When I actually kept track of PC damage, the Paladin seemed to be doing more because they could do so much focused on one hit.

BUT, when actually looked at over average, the fighter (and often rogue) more than kept up.

In fact, an optimized fighter can trounce a paladin on DPR over any decent length of time (assuming, again, the paladin isn't allowed to nova all the time).

The only 5e single class fighter at our table was focused on defense and shields instead of damage.

But I'm discussing classes in a general sense, not classes that are optimized tondonabcertain thing. A paladin doesn't have to optimize, multi class, use feats, or have any particular stats or items to double dip on smite dice, it's just how they are designed. The real defense against that being overpowered is to stick as close to the 6-8 encounters a day schedule as possible....but narratively it's not always a thing that can be done.

 

[Bill Zebub]

At your tables (DMing, playing - whatever), what have you noticed? Which classes tend to lead in overall damage output?

My characters.

 

[Bill Zebub]

the "optimised" gloomstalker assassin is noted for the first round spikes but completely fades away after that. And that is absolutely fine as far as we are concerned, especially since most of our players don't care, they are just there to have fun roleplaying their characters having adventures anyway.

I find that absolutely hilarious, given what you've posted in other threads regarding optimization, etc.

 

[jdrakeh]

The Shifter Barbarian definitely leads in damage per round. The Sea Elf Paladin isn't far behind. Then you have my Rogue/Fighter (Rune Knight) grappler (thanks, ENWorld for helping me build this guy).

 

[pukunui]

In my Mad Mage campaign, it would have to be the frenzy barbarian with the +2 battleaxe, the evoker wizard with the +1 wand of the war mage and +1 arcane grimoire, and the swashbuckler rogue / hexblade warlock with shadow blade.

The samurai fighter and the watcher paladin / forge cleric are both very tanky but don’t dish out much in the way of damage compared to the other three.

 

[Seramus]

The one time we tracked damage, the winner was a Warlock 11/Cleric 3 that used their Warlock slots on Bless + EB spam, adding in Spiritual Weapon during major fights.

Of course, any miss that turned into a hit because of Bless counted as his damage, too.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm the only person who played a full warlock, and didn't use EB at all.

Edit: But you might be mistaking what I was saying . I think the ranged rogue is very steady (in that they rarely deviate up or down from the same general damage range) moreso than most other classes because 99% of the time they use the same single attack each round. They don't compete for DPS king.

Yeah fair, I guess I am.

Not using EB as a Warlock definitely going hard in the category of "deliberately weakening your own character", you're typically losing, like 30-60% of your round-to-round DPS that way (depending on what setup you actually go with, and assuming single-class), maybe even more, which is a pretty huge sacrifice in the name of role-playing. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a good illustration of how what players do with a class can be vastly at odds with even the basic "typical" approach to the class. Other classics include the Cleric who can't support/healing spells at all, ever, Wizards who say "screw utility" - or even better the classic caster power-move of "I don't cast levelled spells unless I absolutely have because if I cast levelled spells I might run out", which routinely leads to the PC in question finishing even lengthy adventuring days with literally 90% of their levelled spells still memorized. Those guys have been around since the '80s - indeed I ran an adventure in the early '90s once where a 10th-level (!!!) Wizard refused to cast even a single spell through a lengthy dungeon "in case he ran out" - good thing there was like a 7-person party!

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I mean, that may be true in your game, but either you had no Warlock or a Warlock who was either incompetent or not building for DPS, if so, because DPS difference between a very mildly optimised Warlock (like basic, obvious choices) and even a well-optimised ranged Rogue is significantly in the favour of the Warlock. GWM Paladins are flashy but have limited staying power and are very RNG-reliant if crit-fishing.

Really? I thought a very mildly optimised rogue can stay within a few DPR of a warlock who isn't trying too hard.

 

[Seramus]

Not using EB as a Warlock definitely going hard in the category of "deliberately weakening your own character"

It is a pretty big blow. But playing the EB spammer twice can get really old. I really wish the Warlock got invocations that modify other cantrips.

 

[SteveC]

This is going to depend on how the GM runs the adventuring day with regards to rests. I recently played a low level game where the GM gave us a rest after every encounter. I was playing a Bard/Warlock so I didn't object at all, but also talked with them about the effects it would have on the game. Our group was low level (most of the adventure had us at level 3) but we were much more effective and not challenged too much by it.

When I ran Curse of Strahd, I played up the hour long period necessary and the group took fewer rests than I actually expected. They were absolutely exhausted and broken after each adventuring day, which was sort of what I was looking for, so I didn't step in and say anything.

In the first campaign, my bard/warlock and the paladin/sorcerer were the damage leaders, followed by the rogue with sharpshooter. The other two characters, a ranger and a fighter weren't too effective but I'm not sure that was because of how the players portrayed them or not.

In the Strahd campaign, the paladin was the damage MVP, but then they were sort of the focus of all the enemy activity as well. There was a wizard in that game, an illusionist, who was the overall MVP for the game with their excellent play, but the infrequent fireballs didn't lift their DPR that much.

In both campaigns the fact is that none of the players were upset at damage levels, but I can tell you that the paladin smites stole the show in terms of WOW factor.