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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8052913" data-attributes="member: 7023840">Anyway, since the point appears lost, this was the general structure of the OP:A. DPR is a single stat used to model average offense over time, assuming one-on-one encounters. In that sense, the closest analogue I could think of is batting average in baseball; anyone who has followed sports analytics from Bill James on knows the shortcomings of batting average (which I go into in more detail in the OP). Nevertheless, batting average can provide a limited amount of useful information ... it's just not an ideal statistic.B. More importantly, D&D is a team sport, and there are synergies and additional statistical issues when it comes to modeling events that aren't simply one-one-one encounters, but allow for team play. Basketball, soccer (futbol) and football (American football) are three examples of sports that have adopted analytics, but also show the limits of simple statistics.C. There is a further, complicating issue in D&D in that much more than sports, D&D varies greatly from game to game, and campaign to campaign (or DM to DM). There is a difference in playstyles, pillars, and even rules. This can cause additional difficulties.None of this is to say that math, or statistics, or analytics are bad ... in general, in sports, or in D&D. But what is incredibly frustrating when it comes to D&D is the overreliance on DPR. In the conclusion, I briefly alluded to two ways that we can start doing "good math" if we really wanted to examine issues:A. Use a large corpus of real numbers from actual play. There are a lot of games going on, and while this would be a lot of work to get hold of, this would allow for actual statistics instead of what we have.B. Monte Carlo simulations and regression analysis with different party combination and different combats.Both of these techniques would require a lot more work than basic "DPR" but they would have the advantage of providing useful information. DPR is primarily useful when picking between two options within certain constraints; it is a (slightly) more advanced version of, "Should I use a rapier, or a polearm." Once you try to expand it's explanatory power with pseudo-math and assumptions (the warlock+AB+EB is a baseline and ...) you run into real problems.IMO.</blockquote>

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