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

[Mort]

In another thread @Hussar observed that in his experience in 5e, casters' (specifically casters that can put out big AoE such as wizards and sorcerers) overall damage output is higher than martials' overall damage output and that that's just a given.

That has not been my experience. I've found martials, especially well optimized martials, can and do out damage casters, even with AoE counted in.

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

This is NOT a question on "effectiveness" or about how classes can contribute in different ways. This is a narrow question on which classes, at the tables you play at, lead in damage output.

Please provide some context for the group. A group that has a bard as the primary caster is going to be very different than a group that has an evoker or blaster sorcerer. And a group that has a sword and board fighter focused on defense is going to be very different from a group that has a crossbow expert/sharpshooter combo!

Thoughts?

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I have never encountered dedicated spellcasters being consistently the damage MVPs in 5e parties. Occasional clutch AoEs can make their one round damage insane, when someone feels inclined to add it all up (which people I play with usually only do if they rarely get off an AoE so effectively), but between all the combats where there is no way to get more than one or two enemies in an AoE, all the combats where allies are misplaced for an AoE, all the combats where geography doesn't play ball, and all the combats where enemies have resistances to whatever elemental damage is being dropped I just haven't encountered AoE damage being some sort of king overall.

If someone believes AoE damage is king at their table then perhaps they have a DM who is setting up combats (conciously or otherwise) for AoE success and/or martial failure. Alternatively they may simply have players for the spellcasters who optimize more, play more efficiently, or brag about their numbers more than the players for their martials. Or the rare, very successful AoEs may simply be getting all the attention.

Characters that have stood out in my mind for insane damage have mostly been characters exploiting Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter, smiting Paladins, Reckless Attacking Barbarians, Rogues who managed to snag Booming Blade, and any combination of the above you can devise.

 

[Eltab]

A PHB-only Barbarian and a Paladin of unknown Oath - both characters of the same player but in different campaigns - are my group's DPR King candidates. Our magic-user devotee prefers to bog down enemies with status conditions but will Inflict Wounds in a pinch.

 

[Hussar]

Again, as I said before in the other thread, my suggestion is to actually track the damage and not go with your gut. It’s often surprising.

 

[Mort]

Again, as I said before in the other thread, my suggestion is to actually track the damage and not go with your gut. It’s often surprising.

Sure, which is why I'm asking for people's experience in their own campaigns and to make sure to provide context. actual # tracking would certainly be a plus. And is not too hard with online play for ex.

 

[Stormonu]

Until the fighter in our group got boosted with a Flamestongue sword, me as the dragonborn Paladin (riding the back of a dienychius named Diana), were the damage dealers - averaging about 30 damage a round (I had misread the smite rules, think you could only smite once a round like the rogue's sneak attack, now it's habit). Recently, the warforged Cleric of Tempest has been giving me a run for my money. The other fighter in our group, an aarokna champion, is hard to hit but rarely deals large amounts of damage.

We don't have a wizard in the group, and the druid in the party isn't a combat machine. The rogue's a DMNPC.
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In the 2nd game I'm in, the minotaur barbarian is a freakin' beast, laying low enemies with a single swipe - easily dealing 50+ damage a round. My cleric tends to spread it out, but I think if it were counted up, we'd be doing close to similar damage, mine just isn't focused. The ranger/monk in the group is trying, but I don't think the damage he's doing is outstanding. The group's Sorcerer is a DMNPC.
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In the last game I DMed, the triton fighter battlemaster was easily the damage king, with the warlock a close second - if he could hit with all his eldritch blasts. The group's aasimar cleric of life could definately nova for a lot, but rarely did so as she focused on healing or buffing. The group's kenku arcane trickster/monk was too busy doing crazy shenanigans to be the DPS - but he negated a lot of fights before they started.

 

[BookTenTiger]

In the group I run, the barbarian is the one hitting the highest DPR.

The group is made up of:
Goliath Barbarian
Kenku Rogue
Aasimar Cleric
Gnome Artificer
Tiefling Warlock

The barbarian has a Flying Sword, and uses it in combination with Extra Attack to put out some serious hurt.

I was also playing with another group for a while, made up of:
Goliath Barbarian
Half-Elf Druid
Half-Elf Sorcerer
Dwarf Fighter
Dwarf Cleric
Dwarf Wizard

In this group, the Druid had the highest DPR. The DM house-ruled an ability for the Moon Druid to Wildshape into swarms, and those did some serious damage!


I actually find play style has a lot more to do with DPR than anything.

In the first group, the Barbarian's player loves to be effective in combat. They took the Sentinel Feat to lock down enemies. They use their Flying Sword to flank. They have a lot of fun when they do a lot of damage.

The rogue in that first group could be doing serious DPR with Sneak Attack and their Sun Blade, but they are the type of player who likes to find ways to interact with the environment, running around and blocking doors, manipulating traps, etc.

In the second group, the Barbarian could be really effective in combat, but the player prefers to do crazy, cinematic things, like knocking over columns, grappling big creatures, etc.

I played the Wizard in the second group, and because the rest of the group was so capable in combat I took almost no damaging spells!

 

[Clint_L]

In my experience strong melee classes (paladin, barbarian, fighter) deliver way more damage over time than any caster, but then I run mostly low level campaigns (levels 1-10). There are situations where casters can do great with AoE, but outside of that the reliable, strong damage offered by those first three classes is tops.

 

[humble minion]

Our current 10th-level party has a GWM paladin, an arcane trickster, archer ranger, and Light domain cleric. The GM runs a stat tracker through Fantasy Grounds, so we have very good records on who did what damage.

Almost always, the cleric is the one doing the most damage. Just all the big area affects - fireballs and Radiance of the Dawn - he's able to throw around, in combination with us often fighting large groups means the numbers adds up fast, though i suspect if you did a deeper analysis you'd find he deals more damage to weaker targets and is less effective against the really big nasties. The ranger probably should be coming second, but the player forgets the -5/+10 function of Sharpshooter all the time. Playing the paladin, it's feast or famine. I don't really have a great long-ranged option, so I can sometimes find myself twiddling my thumbs while everyone else stacks the damage on from distance until we get to melee range. Once I'm there though, if i can find a way to attack with advantage more often than not, then I'm usually good for a crit or two most combats. Once you start smiting on criticals and using GWM, you can outpace almost everyone while your spell slots last, especially if you had time to prepare with Sacred Blade and Bless before the fighting started.

 

[Greg Benage]

I've found so much variability in this: differences in the number of encounters for a typical adventuring day vastly outweigh differences in character class.