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View Full Version : Benchmarks for D&D character abilities?



Chambers
2010-09-12, 09:14 PM
So. Let's say you're joining a PbP game here and you've got your character done. Then you look at the other characters and see some glaring discrepancies between yours and theirs, such as Armor Class, Hit Points, and Saving Throws. Are yours below, or above, the average? What is the average?

Are there commonly accepted ideas for what these three things should be at any given level? Like...by level 10 you should have a 29 Armor Class and +9 saving throws. Or whatever.

What does your group consider average at each level? It'd be a different scale depending on how optimized each game is, but it seems like there should be some bare minimums. Like...have an armor class above 20 by level 5. Above 30 by level 10. And so on.

Thoughts?

Flickerdart
2010-09-12, 09:18 PM
Not really. Ideally, you'll want a to-hit that's no less than 10 smaller than the average AC for your CR, and AC that's at least 10 higher than the average to-hit for your CR. Same thing with saves and DCs. But the CR system doesn't really mean anything, so it's a guessing game.

However, there are going to be discrepancies. Wizard doesn't care about to-hit. Paladin will have spectacular saves. Bard might not have either but can throw around dice of fire damage like nobody's business. Static numbers aren't the best representation of power.

Binks
2010-09-12, 10:59 PM
I generally go with a simple system for finding my character's glaring weaknesses. Basically all bonuses should be around your level or so. So your total weapon attack should be at least equal to your level (significantly higher if you're a martial class), your AC bonus should be around your level at least (the part added to the +10 that is), your saves should be around your level on average (some will obviously be lower, but the high ones should make up for it).

That's what I've been using for a while, and it seems to work pretty well. There's probably a much better way to do it by checking creatures around the right CR to see their AC/atk and using that, but using your level is a good way to ballpark it, and it points out any glaring discrepancies nicely (if you're a melee attacker and your total attack bonus is lower than your level you'd better have a trick up your sleeve or your going to be worthless) without needing much work to check.

Kurald Galain
2010-09-13, 05:17 AM
Are there commonly accepted ideas for what these three things should be at any given level? Like...by level 10 you should have a 29 Armor Class and +9 saving throws. Or whatever.

Not really, but there are commonly accepted ideas about what your class should be. That is, if the party consists of Tier-1 or Tier-2 classes (e.g. Druid, Sorcerer) then playing a Tier-5 class (e.g. Monk) may be problematic.

Depending on the playstyle and optimization level of the campaign, of course.