Optimization Thought Process around Optimizing a Greatsword Wielder [WIP:PEACH] [Archive]

broodax

2015-09-29, 11:23 AM

So, you want to build a melee powerhouse, but you don't want to use Polearm Master, and you still want to use Strength. Well, then you're in the same boat I'm in. So, please, take a look at my thought process and the options I'm considering and let me know where I'm wrong, let me know what I've missed, or just decide for me what the heck to build and play! Why would I eliminate the best Melee feat out of the gate? Well, you can perhaps guess, but let's just assume it's for flavor and differentiation.

Some assumptions first:

Use all PHB options (multiclassing, feats, etc) but no optional DMG rules
In general, build priority is Damage(DPR>Nova)>Mechanical Combat Options>Survivability>Mechanical Non-combat options
We'll use a 2-handed weapon
No rogue levels: Sneak attack will be totally wasted
Because we're using a 2-handed weapon, we'll almost certainly want Great Weapon Master and 2-handed fighting style if possible
Assume better than average stats, e.g. 17,15,15,12,11,9 - but my thoughts are generally applicable to point-buy and standard arrays as long as you are willing to dump
Warlocks can bond intelligent and sentient weapons, they just can't shunt them

Build Options:

Fighter1/Warlock19 - detailed by this excellent post here: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/49851/optimal-dragonborn-warlock-for-dpr-ac-with-blade-pact-and-fiend-patron
Warlock20 - Needs survivability (AC) from somewhere, and does not have Con save proficiency or a fighting style
Fighter1/Cleric4/Fighter5/Cleric - Can change exact level order after starting Fighter1, can choose to go Fighter6 at some point for an ASI/Feat
Pure Cleric - relying on Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians to keep up DPR
Barbarian... something - numbers below include getting a fighting style
Paladin2/xxCasterxx - relying on channeling for damage, no con save unless the caster is sorcerer

For comparison's sake, here are some DPR numbers. These are loaded with assumptions (do you get advantage, how often can you short rest, do you find magic weapons, when do you use GWM?) but they are at least a baseline. If you're curious - I'm using an edited version of the DPR contest spreadsheet that I've fixed a few things on here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17tSIngWRFpCGeQZw3jU1hArxz_qUr0hVyCtlpfdRh3Y/edit#gid=951498142
In general I assume no advantage unless the build can provide it itself. Rage is always on as is hex. None of these numbers are using GWM - they get similar benefits, but the actual choice will vary depending on if you have your Cleric domain available or darkness up, etc. Comments listed in the table are not included in DPR numbers, as they're additional considerations.

Build
AC
Lvl 6 DPR
Lvl 12 DPR
Lvl 18 DPR
Additional Notes

Fighter/Warlock
17-18
24
29.6
43.9
Eldritch Blast, Warlock19 Casting, Darkness/Devil's Sight, Fire Shield and Hellish Rebuke

Fighter/Cleric
18
18.1
25.25
30.1
Cleric15 casting, Action Surge, Domain, Spiritual Weapon, Spirit Guardians

Barbarian
17
28.1
32.6
36.3
DR, Totems, can easily multiclass for action surge or some spells

Race Considerations:

Variant Human is extremely beneficial any time stats aren't strangely set up and darkvision is provided or not needed
Dragonborne allows excellent stats for Warlocks and Paladins, and some resistance stacking for some builds
Mountain Dwarf grants medium armor proficiency for any build without it, and excellent stats

Now, one of these seems to me to be the clear winner, but I could certainly have missed something or be undervaluing some of the non-quantitative measures.

Questions for the peanut gallery:

Are there any major considerations I've missed?
Are there any build options I've missed?
Which do you think is the "best" option given the priorities stated?

There clearly are other options, and I haven't even completed the DPR calcs for all the options I have (it seems to me they lose so many options or survivability that they can't possible justify it), so, fill me in.

Kryx

2015-09-29, 12:11 PM

Theodoxus

2015-09-29, 12:18 PM

Just curious why not polearm?

That said, I think the HOrc GreatAxe Barbarian is fantastic - the lack of 2d6 on the damage roll means you won't feel obligated to MC into Fighter (though there isn't any harm in doing so) - but the brutal critical, relentless and darkvision all make up for the lack of feat.

I was very much planning on going this route with my current character, but found we don't have a controller. Our bard is more of a healer/debuffer, our wizard is a blaster and our paladin is a tank, so I decided to go PAM w/GWM for stopping power (reaction attack as someone approaches? yes please). I'll probably pick up Sentinel at 12th, just for the movement stopping power as well.

For strength builds, I prefer HOrcs to any other.

Goodberry

2015-09-29, 01:05 PM

Try running the numbers for Sorcerer 6/Fighter 14.

The 6 levels of Sorcerer are enough to keep up Haste pretty much permanently, by sacking all your other spell slots for sorcery points(though you may need 7 levels). At Fighter 11, that's 6 attacks/round.

GWJ_DanyBoy

2015-09-29, 01:19 PM

Goodberry

2015-09-29, 04:02 PM

Haste only grants 1 weapon attack if you use the extra action to attack.

Dang. Don't know how I missed that. Okay, then 9 Sorcerer/11 Fighter should allow you to keep Greater Invisibility up constantly.

Alternatively, look at 3 Fighter/17 Paladin.

broodax

2015-09-29, 04:42 PM

Based on my numbers the Barbarian and Fighter are the best possible Greatsword wielders. Multiclassing may adjust it, but the core that those two classes have is really good.
Here is my DPR of Classes (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d-9xDdath8kX_v7Rpts9JFIJwIG3X0-dDUtfax14NT0/edit#gid=1473051734) if you haven't seen it.

Let's start at your assumptions page. Your AC scaling does not match DMG 274. You should align those.

Barbarian page.

You assume he's always raged when he can only rage for a certain number of encounters per day.
Reckless swings does not start until level 2.
Your hit chance seems low - Even with the higher AC of 20 vs my and the DMG's 19 you have a total 60% chance to hit. At 20 a barbarian has 6 PB, 7 strength for a total of +13. He takes -5 to hit for a total of 8 vs 20 AC. He needs a 12 to hit, not a 14 like you've marked.
Why is a Barbarian rerolling on 1-2? You also have level 20 Barb so that can't be possible. And if he's rerolling on 1-2 from GWF then your weapon damage math can be simplified by using "=AVERAGE(3.5,3.5,3,4,5,6)"
For GWM you do not include an extra attack on a kill, only a crit. For my sheet I take the average monster's HP, assume it is around 80% full and then each attack would have a "chance to kill" equal to the damage divided by the full HP. Adding Total chance to kill + Crit chance gives GWM bonus attack chance.
You have not included any kind of Opportunity Attack chance.

Overall I'm happy to see another person take on DPR. I'd love to compare notes.

Great feedback. I think I have looked at yours, too. :-) I do not in general agree with your houserules, but your analysis of the numbers seems very good. Can you explain how you're using opportunity attack chances? I can't quite parse why you have a lower number for polearm, or what the 50% provoke scaling number is about.

I haven't coded any number of things that would make it more accurate, like only a percentage of fights having rage, etc. I think the barbarian sheet in particular is a bit of a mess. Like I mentioned, there are any number of opportunities to multiclass and I think I do actually have fighter levels in there, but haven't noted them correctly, of course then I shouldn't have the level 20 barb ability in there, should I... I have some work to do. I think I fixed this particular issue now. I actually don't have a DMG, so I am using the AC scaling that was included in the spreadsheet I started work from. I may update this based on your sheet. As for the hit chance, I don't actually see that issue - I did previously have a 12 to hit (it is now a 14 because I'm not hitting Barb20).

For GWM on a kill, I just elect to not include it anywhere. For a comparison with other classes this would be a big miss, but I'm only looking at characters with the feat, so all will have a benefit and the difference will be minimal. Even including the extra attack based on crits is a bit fishy, since you can't attack if your crit kills the last enemy (or last enemy you can reach).

Re: Fighter/Sorc - I am not sure how this would work out... I may try the numbers but I think in general it's going to lack tons of options compared to the warlock or cleric builds, though the extra attack may push the DPR higher. Also, using greater invisibility, even if one can have it up all the time, consumes at least one round of combat (whereas hex can be carried over and only consumes a bonus action). That would be hard to account for.

Re: Orcs. Very good point - However there is a particular reason to favor greatswords if one is playing through some published adventures.

Kryx

2015-09-29, 05:15 PM

I do not in general agree with your houserules
That's why I have a houserules section and a RAW section. Though I'd be curious to hear what you specifically disagree with.

Can you explain how you're using opportunity attack chances? I can't quite parse why you have a lower number for polearm, or what the 50% provoke scaling number is about.
I have made some wild assumptions about opportunity attacks. I assume 15% of the time (1.5/10 rounds) a melee character will get an opportunity attack against an opponent leaving his reach. I have also assumed that a Polearm Master will get an Opportunity Attack 50% of the time for an enemy entering his reach. Because both of those use a reaction I've multiplied the normal 15% by 50% as half the time the reaction will be used up to polearm provoke. This gives a 7.5% chance to opportunity attack when using polearm provoke.

I actually don't have a DMG, so I am using the AC scaling that was included in the spreadsheet I started work from.
Feel free to take the numbers form my sheet. :)

I did previously have a 12 to hit (it is now a 14 because I'm not hitting Barb20).
Cool. Though if you include the resources I think a 20 Barb may be better than a 1/19 or 4/16, or whatever. Maybe not though.

For GWM on a kill, I just elect to not include it anywhere. For a comparison with other classes this would be a big miss, but I'm only looking at characters with the feat, so all will have a benefit and the difference will be minimal.
GWM's value varies greatly based on base DPR. More DPR = more chance to kill. If you look at my sheet and compare the bladelock to the fighter you'll see a huge difference in GWM chance - especially when the fighter is tripping and action surging.
Ignoring it for all builds isn't a good choice imo.

Same with ignoring action surge or superiority dice. I only recently added some math to actually make those features visible. GWM Fighter at 20 went from 43.8 DPR with a fair amount of unknown extra to 71.9 DPR. I'd highly recommend you quantify those extra features or you're missing out on half of the information.

Just to be clear in case it isn't above: I'm not trying to be disparaging - just sharing my experience with DPR. :)

broodax

2015-09-30, 08:31 AM

I think you're on point. But the total analysis of DPR is beyond the scope of what I'm trying to decide now, as even though it's my top priority, the other factors of the build are also very important. For instance, even if Fighter20 was the highest DPR, there's almost no way I'd choose to play that without some magical options, a good ranged attack, out-of-combat mechanical winners, etc.

Have you done any work trying to optimize multiclass builds and get a true DPR king? It looks like everything you've got is pretty much straight classed.

CNagy

2015-09-30, 09:09 AM

You mentioned Paladin2/CasterX as a possibility; I'm wondering if you've considered more than just a Paladin dip? I haven't really buckled down on the numbers with this, but consider:

Paladin 11/Sorcerer 9 (or 12/8 if you need the extra ASI.)

Since you've said that DPR is of greater importance than burst damage, an extra 1d8 radiant damage to every attack plays to that priority. Eight (or nine) sorcerer levels gives you both the casting flexibility and the overall caster level (14th level caster) to create the slots you need to fuel smiting (5th, 6th, and 7th level slots to turn into the 2nd and 4th level slots [most efficient return on sorcery points]). If you choose to be a Vengeance Paladin, you'll have Hunter's Mark or Haste to add to the damage.

When it comes to burst damage, you'll have whatever is in your sorcerer arsenal to add on to a full turn of attacks via Quicken metamagic. Slash-smite, slash-smite, (haste slash-smite?), blast!

Durability is further down the list, but a massive bonus to saving throws, immunity to frighten, and immunity to charm (Devotion) or resistance to magic damage (Ancients) certainly makes you more durable. Since you don't necessarily need to cast spells that often, you could also have the Wild Magic sorcerer origin, and use Bend Luck to be a constant thorn in your opponents' collective sides while minimizing the chaos of wild surges by using most of your spell slots to fuel Smite.

Anyway, just something to think about.

Kryx

2015-09-30, 09:31 AM

Have you done any work trying to optimize multiclass builds and get a true DPR king? It looks like everything you've got is pretty much straight classed.
Ya, our goals are different. My goals are to analyze things on an overall balance level to try to determine the balance level of features. Your goals are to find the highest DPR with certain class & feature combinations.

So the priorities will differ.

broodax

2015-10-01, 10:23 AM

Kryx - seeing more conversation around a very similar topic here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?446945-Fighter-Clearly-Outweighs-Barbarian/page2 but thought I'd keep the questions regarding the DPR in this thread, cause it's mine!

I like that you've tried to quantify some of the abilities that aren't always on, but there are a couple assumptions that, from my experience, seem way off. I'm wondering if you're pulling them from experience, from DM guidance in the DMG, or elsewhere.

Chance of Enemy provoking by entering polearm - I see this happen once or twice per fight, not once every other round
15% chance of enemy provoking by leaving threatened range is probably also high in my experience, but it's low enough I think it's a fair assumption
Number of fights per day - my games average way more than 5 per day, are you still assuming 2 short rests per day with only 5 fights?
Rounds per fight - I think 5 might be a fair average, but an average in this case is probably not representative. I'd say the median rounds of fights in my games is much higher, even though some only last 2-4 rounds.

Kryx

2015-10-01, 10:34 AM

Chance of Enemy provoking by entering polearm - I see this happen once or twice per fight, not once every other round
15% chance of enemy provoking by leaving threatened range is probably also high in my experience, but it's low enough I think it's a fair assumption
Number of fights per day - my games average way more than 5 per day, are you still assuming 2 short rests per day with only 5 fights?
Rounds per fight - I think 5 might be a fair average, but an average in this case is probably not representative. I'd say the median rounds of fights in my games is much higher, even though some only last 2-4 rounds.

I'd love feedback from multiple sources on these assumptions. Everyone plays the game differently, but the goal here is to capture the expected average.

Polearm Provoke entirely depends on the monsters. I previously had it around 30%, but some people though it should be higher. I think 33% (1/3 of the time) is the least I'd expect on average. I'd be curious to hear people's thoughts on this assumption
Opportunity attack again entirely depends on the monsters and GM playstyle. 1.5 times out of 10 rounds is reasonable in my experience. In some games GMs will have Opportunity Attacks every other or every thirds round. 10-15% is the range I'd expect. Though really it makes very little difference in overall DPR. Do you think 10% is a better estimate? I had that before.
The game recommends 6-8 encounters per day. Many people play 2 encounters per day. In my experience 25 rounds would be somewhat high even though I follow Pathfinder's Adventure paths that have many encounters per day. I'd estimate around 5 for myself. How many are you having? If you're having "way more than 5" then you're off the guidelines. I do indeed assume 2 short rests for 5 encounters. I think 6 would be more accurate to the guidelines, but less accurate for a lot of players. I wouldn't mind adjusting to 6 though.
Why is an average not representative? In my experience combats are rarely only 4 rounds - usually only boss fights or fights designed to frustrate PCs.

broodax

2015-10-01, 11:38 AM

I'd love feedback from multiple sources on these assumptions. Everyone plays the game differently, but the goal here is to capture the expected average.

Polearm Provoke entirely depends on the monsters. I previously had it around 30%, but some people though it should be higher. I think 33% (1/3 of the time) is the least I'd expect on average. I'd be curious to hear people's thoughts on this assumption
Opportunity attack again entirely depends on the monsters and GM playstyle. 1.5 times out of 10 rounds is reasonable in my experience. In some games GMs will have Opportunity Attacks every other or every thirds round. 10-15% is the range I'd expect. Though really it makes very little difference in overall DPR. Do you think 10% is a better estimate? I had that before.
The game recommends 6-8 encounters per day. Many people play 2 encounters per day. In my experience 25 rounds would be somewhat high even though I follow Pathfinder's Adventure paths that have many encounters per day. I'd estimate around 5 for myself. How many are you having? If you're having "way more than 5" then you're off the guidelines. I do indeed assume 2 short rests for 5 encounters. I think 6 would be more accurate to the guidelines, but less accurate for a lot of players. I wouldn't mind adjusting to 6 though.
Why is an average not representative? In my experience combats are rarely only 4 rounds - usually only boss fights or fights designed to frustrate PCs.

I'd say 10% is closer, but this one I don't have an issue with, it doesn't affect things a ton
I would say we have 7 or 8 per day. Our style doesn't have us retreating a lot, and we probably short ourselves and don't rest in the field as much as we should, but even 7-8 is 50% more than 5.
I am a bit confused how you think 25 rounds is high, but you rarely have a fight go only 4 rounds. If 5 is your minimum number of rounds for a fight, your average should be higher than that. I had assumed you had a large number of very short fights bringing your average down. What do you expect the actual distribution to be?
I think I actually misspoke about the average not being representative in this case. Here's the crux of what I'm thinking: if you average 5 rounds per fight for 5 *fights* (fixed a typo) a day, that's 25 rounds. If I average 7-8 fights per day and 8 rounds a fight (being in the guidelines still I think?) that's 52.5 rounds per day, and all of those recharging abilities are suddenly only available half the percentage of rounds they were before.

Kryx

2015-10-01, 12:11 PM

No follow up on Polearm Provoke?

Lets middle ground OA to 12.5%. It makes very little difference anyways. I'm open to adjusting it based on people's experiences.

I would say we have 7 or 8 per day. Our style doesn't have us retreating a lot, and we probably short ourselves and don't rest in the field as much as we should, but even 7-8 is 50% more than 5.
7-8 is the top end of the spectrum. In most adventures there are wilderness adventures style days where you have 1-3 encounters and days where you have 8 encounters (boss), but the average is likely 5 or 6
The way to make the math better here would be to calculate all of those and then weight them on their prevalence and then average it. That would be too many pages though.

I am a bit confused how you think 25 rounds is high, but you rarely have a fight go only 4 rounds. If 5 is your minimum number of rounds for a fight, your average should be higher than that. I had assumed you had a large number of very short fights bringing your average down. What do you expect the actual distribution to be?
I have misspoken - I meant rarely over 4 rounds. Most are over within 4 rounds in my experience. In some cases there is maybe a guy to finish off, but that wouldn't really "count" imo.
If I had to guesstimate the percentages I'd say 20% 2-3, 45% 4-5, 25% 6-7, 10% 8-9. Average of 5 is fairly accurate imo (That would work out to exactly 5)

I think I actually misspoke about the average not being representative in this case. Here's the crux of what I'm thinking: if you average 5 rounds per fight for 5 *fights* (fixed a typo) a day, that's 25 rounds. If I average 7-8 fights per day and 8 rounds a fight (being in the guidelines still I think?) that's 52.5 rounds per day, and all of those recharging abilities are suddenly only available half the percentage of rounds they were before.
8 rounds per encounter is no where near what is recommended. DMG recommends 6-8 encounters with a mix of difficulty. If you're hitting 8 encounters at 8 round each then you're throwing 8 hard/deadly encounters at your players.

You said you didn't have the DMG - this is covered heavily in it. It's also in the free rules (http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/DMDnDBasicRules_v0.1.pdf):

The Adventuring Day
Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, then the party can get through more; if it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.
Although you can never be certain when players will choose to take a short or long rest, you can build in natural break points to guide the flow of the adventure. Let’s say you’re designing a dungeon and would like a resting point for the players before they move from the first level down to the second. You can stock the first level of the dungeon with encounters of the right challenge so that, around the time they finish exploring that level, the characters’ resources are depleted to the point where they need a long rest. Thus, the adventuring day would naturally end at around the time the party finishes exploring the first level of the dungeon.
In the same way you figure out the difficulty of an encounter, you can use the XP values of monsters and other opponents in an adventure as a guideline for how far the party is likely to progress. For each character in the party, consult the XP per Adventuring Day per Player Character table, and add the XP for that character’s level to get a total for the party’s adventuring day. This total provides a rough estimate of the total XP for encounters the party can handle before needing to take a long rest

That matches up pretty closely to what I have above, besides 6 encounters instead of 5.

Are you playing with more than 4-5 players? That could be a big factor.

Also here's the part on short rests:

In general, over the course of a full adventuring day, the party will likely need to take two short rests, about one third and two-thirds of the way through the day.

broodax

2015-10-01, 12:39 PM

No follow up on Polearm Provoke?

Lets middle ground OA to 12.5%. It makes very little difference anyways. I'm open to adjusting it based on people's experiences.

7-8 is the top end of the spectrum. In most adventures there are wilderness adventures style days where you have 1-3 encounters and days where you have 8 encounters (boss), but the average is likely 5 or 6
The way to make the math better here would be to calculate all of those and then weight them on their prevalence and then average it. That would be too many pages though.

I have misspoken - I meant rarely over 4 rounds. Most are over within 4 rounds in my experience. In some cases there is maybe a guy to finish off, but that wouldn't really "count" imo.
If I had to guesstimate the percentages I'd say 20% 2-3, 45% 4-5, 25% 6-7, 10% 8-9. Average of 5 is fairly accurate imo (That would work out to exactly 5)

8 rounds per encounter is no where near what is recommended. DMG recommends 6-8 encounters with a mix of difficulty. If you're hitting 8 encounters at 8 round each then you're throwing 8 hard/deadly encounters at your players.

You said you didn't have the DMG - this is covered heavily in it. It's also in the free rules (http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/DMDnDBasicRules_v0.1.pdf):

That matches up pretty closely to what I have above, besides 6 encounters instead of 5.

Are you playing with more than 4-5 players? That could be a big factor.

We do play with 6 sometimes. I could be over-estimating the number of rounds per fight because of this (god knows some of the players take 2 rounds worth of time to finish their turn). The free file, at least, doesn't seem to indicate how many rounds a fight should take, only that most should be medium or hard and that they should consume some resources to varying degrees.

I still feel like 5 encounters per day is very low. Now... I'm not saying that isn't your experience, but the DMG guidance (thanks, btw, didn't know that section was in the free file) is 6-8. To base your numbers on something outside the low end means maybe your experience is out of the ordinary. I know that when we play we might have a "wilderness day" scattered here or there, but we generally avoid them specifically because it screws with the encounter math, and those days are so easy I don't care if my character is optimized.

The same goes for longer and shorter fights (this is actually what I was thinking about when I said the average was not representative. It is representative, but I don't know if we should care). If a fight only lasts 2 rounds... do you care if one character has 5% more DPR? The chances of that mattering are slim, and the fight probably isn't very hard in the first place. Now, of course it might be not very hard because you have high DPR, but still, you care far more in the big fights, so those should be weighted more heavily when deciding which character is "better" for any meaningful choices. That's not to say DPR in a vacuum isn't useful too.

I will say, if you going for very expansive, always applicable DPR, you should probably use the average given when we're lucky enough to actually get one. Wizards doesn't tell us how long a fight should be (in the free doc...), but they do say an average day has 7 fights. If you're basing the numbers on (almost 50%) less than this, then of course classes with recharging abilities are going to have higher numbers.

Oh, on polearms - I think you're right that it depends entirely on enemy selection and DM whim. I know ours happens way less than 50% (if I had to guess I'd say between 10-25%, like I said, once or twice per encounter - once an enemy gets hit, they and their friends don't want to give you a free attack again).

Kryx

2015-10-01, 12:40 PM

broodax

2015-10-01, 12:45 PM

Added some more math:

6-8 medium and hard encounters would likely be split to have a few easy, a few deadly, and mostly medium or hard encounters.
If I had to guess I'd say
Easy = 1-2 with some 2s (average 2)
Medium = 3-4 (average 3.75 with some 5s)
Hard = 5-7 (average 6)
Deadly = 8+ (average 8.5)

If we took those numbers and did 10% easy, 40% medium, 40% hard, and 10% deadly that'd be 4.95.

I think 5 is exactly where it should be.

Ok, at first I didn't get this, you're saying an easy encounter should be 2 rounds long, a medium 3.75 long, etc. Again, I don't know how long a fight is supposed to be, but this seems pretty reasonable, even if mine seem longer.

But then you are going on averages that you came up with instead of using what's in the book. The book says 6-8 medium and hard. so (3.75+6)/2 * 7 = 34.125 rounds per day. If you have some easy encounters, they are shorter, yes, but then you're supposed to have more than 6-8 encounters, so the average rounds per day should be about the same.

broodax

2015-10-01, 12:48 PM

6-8 medium/hard, so we've added some deadly and some easy. Therefore 5-6 is the better number. Again I think 6 is the max average number of encounters. Likely 5.5 would be good.

I don't understand this. you start with 6-8.

Add some easy, so now you should have more encounters.
Add some deadly, so now you should have fewer encounters.

Still at 6-8. How'd you end up getting fewer overall?

Kryx

2015-10-01, 12:50 PM

Reply speed too quick!

The same goes for longer and shorter fights (this is actually what I was thinking about when I said the average was not representative. It is representative, but I don't know if we should care). If a fight only lasts 2 rounds... do you care if one character has 5% more DPR? The chances of that mattering are slim, and the fight probably isn't very hard in the first place. Now, of course it might be not very hard because you have high DPR, but still, you care far more in the big fights, so those should be weighted more heavily when deciding which character is "better" for any meaningful choices. That's not to say DPR in a vacuum isn't useful too.
My DPR is optimized on the metric that 5e uses: the adventuring day. That includes the whole thing, not just some parts.

That said the number of rounds per encounter only affects the Barbarian directly. Indirectly it affects rounds/day.

they do say an average day has 7 fights.
They don't say an average of 7 encounters. They say the adventuring day is 6-8 medium and hard. As I said above when you take deadly and easy into account it's likely 5-6.

If you're basing the numbers on (almost 50%) less than this, then of course classes with recharging abilities are going to have higher numbers.
It's not 50% less. I would recommend you count the number of encounters per day and the number of rounds per encounter in future sessions. If you're following an adventure or Adventure Day guidelines then you'd be within or slightly above the range I expect. Though as I said earlier most groups on the forums that I've seen discuss number of encounters per day use a lot less than recommended.

I know ours happens way less than 50% (if I had to guess I'd say between 10-25%, like I said, once or twice per encounter - once an enemy gets hit, they and their friends don't want to give you a free attack again).
Well 1 or twice an encounter is either 20% or 40%. ;)

And having a monster tell their friends doesn't always make sense - only sometimes.

Some encounters you fight humnanoids and it's likely around 40% (at least 1 creature will not get within range on the first round). Against things like ghouls you're likely to get 2-3 per encounter at which point you're at 40-60%.

I think 40% is a better number based on that.

broodax

2015-10-01, 12:59 PM

Kryx

2015-10-01, 01:03 PM

Take your metric. Say you had only 6 per day, even (not just 5). For a level 4 party, say.

10% of 6 easy encounters = .6 x 125 = 75
40% of 6 medium encounters = 2.4 x 250 = 600
40% of 6 hard encounters = 2.4 x 375 = 900
10% of 6 deadly encounters = .6 x 500 = 300
1875 total experience -

Which is actually more than wizards recommends!
Super cool - thanks for doing that calculation. I don't use XP so I don't know the XP system as much, but it seems they recommend 1700 for a level 4 party. Cool!

Ok, cool, so you might actually be right, and Wizards just doesn't know what they're talking about. Even if we only had medium and hard encounters, 3 of each is still exactly 1875. So, when Wizards said 6-8 I think they just never bothered to do the math, and they really meant "6 or slightly less".

For now, good on you, I think 6-ish is the right number, and 5 is not nearly as far off as I thought.
I think WotC is notorious for not doing the math super well in all editions. It's decent, but not great. It's really unfortunate.

People also ignore recommendations like crazy. See http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?469262-Short-Rests-How-many-does-your-group-get-take-between-long-rests-on-average for how people ignore short rest recommendations.

I think 5.5 is better than 5 and will adjust to that. Some days will be 1, some 3, some 5, some 8, etc.

Kryx

2015-10-01, 01:27 PM

I did the math - the average is 5.13 encounters per day based on the DMG recommendations with my 10/40/40/10 system. In all likelihood people would use harder encounters which would result in less encounters actually.

See https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d-9xDdath8kX_v7Rpts9JFIJwIG3X0-dDUtfax14NT0/edit#gid=2091322934 for the math.

I also reset my rounds/encounter calc:
Easy =AVERAGE(1,2,3) which is 2
Medium =AVERAGE(3,4,5) which is 4
Hard =AVERAGE(5,6,7) which is 6
Deadly =AVERAGE(7,8,9) which is 8

with 10/40/40/10 that's an average of exactly 5.

Sigreid

2015-10-01, 01:39 PM

Quick tangent. Does this all mean that a wolf totem barbarian and a champion fighter, both using pole arms or gwf, would be the ultimate all day murder hobo dpr team?

Kryx

2015-10-01, 01:50 PM

Quick tangent. Does this all mean that a wolf totem barbarian and a champion fighter, both using pole arms or gwf, would be the ultimate all day murder hobo dpr team?
Crits are nice, but in practice EK or BM would be much more useful.

I wouldn't be surprised to see BM win on DPR with his superiority dice or the EK win with some AoE spells like fireball.

KorvinStarmast

2015-10-01, 01:51 PM

Quick tangent. Does this all mean that a wolf totem barbarian and a champion fighter, both using pole arms or gwf, would be the ultimate all day murder hobo dpr team? If you add in a cleric on the second rank to cast Bless, I'd offer that most fights won't last long enough for Bless to run out. :smallbiggrin:

broodax

2015-10-01, 02:08 PM

It does mean that, yes. I have been trying to think of some basic guiding principles for developing the best damaging builds, as I'm sure folks wonder the same thing for ranged, for casters, etc.

Melee actually has it kind of easy because some things are so good that you just know they'll win.

Start of a general list for physical attackers:

Extra Attack - some things might be better but you need this eventually no matter what. Even my rogue builds with 7d6 SA benefit.
Advantage. Get it. Barbarian, darkness, trip, etc., you need advantage.
Nothing is ever going to beat pole-arm master. It's an extra attack AND reaction attacks. Only skip if you have some other reason.
GWM and Sharpshooter are not monumental gains, but they are absolutely gains, especially when you have Advantage, and only better with Bless, etc.
There's a ceiling of DPR somewhere and to begin optimizing past it we need to start looking at party synergy
Something about using your bonus action and reaction attacks

Kryx

2015-10-01, 02:13 PM

GWM and Sharpshooter are not monumental gains, but they are absolutely gains, especially when you have Advantage, and only better with Bless, etc.
This is not correct. According to my math either side of each of those feats is worth the full value of any other feat (or +2 stat).

-5/+10 is huge - especially if you can get advantage. Even if you can't it's still a DPR increase (see Fighter RAW on my sheet and remove -5/+10)
Ignoring cover is huge.
Extra attack if you crit or kill is huge.

broodax

2015-10-01, 02:18 PM

We have different definitions of monumental. :-) Yes, they are very good, and you need to take them.

Kryx

2015-10-01, 03:01 PM

We have different definitions of monumental. :-) Yes, they are very good, and you need to take them.
Well my definition of monumental would fit if a feat (GWM or Sharpshooter) is worth the value of 2 feats.

Did you see the math I did above on encounters?

broodax

2015-10-01, 03:16 PM

I did, and it looks solid. I am actually working on using your sheet to add a greatswordlock, and then adjusting to my stat array, etc. I'll try to add some of those other multiclass builds then to see how they stack up for my specific purposes (I need to parse the paladin sheet, not to mention learn exactly how smiting and channeling work).

Things I'm wondering: Fire Shield vs. Armor of Agathys - it seems Armor wins because of the defensive bonus if not DPR. Hellish Rebuke should actually come in to play after level 11 Warlock, as you'll have enough slots to cast it once per short rest then as well, and it adds another couple DPR. For both of these I am really wondering about the chances... I imagine they're just going to be plucked from air.

Can you explain your HP multiplier and Chance to kill multiplier? The one thing I know I want is a "chance it's not the last enemy" multiplier... which of course means deciding how many enemies are in a fight on average.

Kryx

2015-10-01, 03:34 PM

Fire Shield is likely better as it doesn't dissipate after a few attacks, though they would stack.
The chances are kind of plucked from the air. We'd have to decide on a base chance to be hit.
For Armor of Ag I should recalculate that based that base chance to be hit and then total hp left divided by average damage based on CR from DMG 274.

Some of my builds definitely could use some improvement 12+. Many run out of ASI options that contribute to DPR (though that isn't bad as you then invest in Con or something else.)

HP Multiplier:
So the average HP is based on the DMG's number multiplied by the multiplier. The multiplier is there to assume a target would be at 80% HP on average when you start your attacks. Sometimes they'll be full, sometimes half, sometimes 10%, etc.

Chance to kill is the total damage from normal attacks in a round out of total HP. So Fighter RAW at level 6 has a 18% chance to kill. He has 9.4*2 = 18.8 DPR from his normal attacks. A CR 6 creature would have 122 HP after the multiplier. 18.8/122 would be 15.4%... but I seem to also have a 85% chance to kill multiplier... So I need to fix that and just have the one multiplier.
Fixing that makes it 15% which is correct.

So his base DPR is 15% of the monster's HP which equates to his likelihood of killing... That's the idea, but now that I write it out it sounds a bit weird. Though I am very hungry...

Ok, enough rambling!

broodax

2015-10-01, 03:47 PM

Ok, I thought that is what was going on. If I were you I'd just re-purpose the "extra" chance to kill multiplier to be the "what are the chances that the guy you just killed isn't the last enemy", and probably set it to like... 66-75% (most fights have 3-4 opponents? I dunno). My brain isn't working enough to figure how to also add that to the GWM crit chance cells... I suppose you need to multiple by the chance that they are Not both the last enemy AND killed by the attack that crit them. Lot of trouble for a tiny bit of fidelity.

Also, your GWM chance needs to be fixed. You are adding together the chance to crit and the chance to kill. You might actually do both on the same attack, and you only get one extra attack, so you need to do 1-(1-"chance to kill)*(1-"chance to crit")) instead. Makes only the tiniest difference, again.

Kryx

2015-10-01, 04:17 PM

Ok, I thought that is what was going on. If I were you I'd just re-purpose the "extra" chance to kill multiplier to be the "what are the chances that the guy you just killed isn't the last enemy", and probably set it to like... 66-75% (most fights have 3-4 opponents? I dunno). My brain isn't working enough to figure how to also add that to the GWM crit chance cells... I suppose you need to multiple by the chance that they are Not both the last enemy AND killed by the attack that crit them. Lot of trouble for a tiny bit of fidelity.
My brain is done as well.

I think worrying about last opponent is too much for such a small edge case.

Also, your GWM chance needs to be fixed. You are adding together the chance to crit and the chance to kill. You might actually do both on the same attack, and you only get one extra attack, so you need to do 1-(1-"chance to kill)*(1-"chance to crit")) instead. Makes only the tiniest difference, again.
Thanks! I'll fix this.

Sigreid

2015-10-01, 05:03 PM

Crits are nice, but in practice EK or BM would be much more useful.

I wouldn't be surprised to see BM win on DPR with his superiority dice or the EK win with some AoE spells like fireball.

Thanks. I was thinking that the advantage would potentially seriously increase the value of the crit range increase, but I'm not a statistics guy and have no idea by how much.

djreynolds

2015-10-02, 03:03 AM

Battle Master wreaks havoc. Maneuvers are little mini feats. Don't be afraid to grab 2 level of rogue early on. Expertise in athletics to ensure push and trip work. Cunning action. You'll have 6 feats. Max out strength, with SPBI starting with half-orc 17 you'll need one and grab heavy armor master, or go two and then a 3rd on wisdom resilient. Leaves three or 4 feats. GWM, sentinel, mobile, and last throw is con.

Some say a human variant can grab martial adept at level one and it stacks with battle-master giving you 5 superiority dice. I like mobile over the evade maneuver. Push, trip, menacing, disarm, riposte, precision, cleave all good.

Kryx

2015-10-02, 03:07 AM

Battle Master wreaks havoc.
Ya, my opinion of it before doing its DPR severely underestimated its power level. It's really really good.

Sigreid

2015-10-02, 04:46 PM

Ok, I'm going to throw out another tangent aimed at Kryx. In your DPR work have you ever taken wasted damage into account? What I mean is, if you take a barbarian and a fighter both level 20 with maxed attack stats, the same weapon and the same feats; the barb will on average do a bit more damage with his 2-4 attacks than the fighter would do with his 4-10 attacks (the ranges take into account bonus attack and reaction attack potential). But, if you put them each in the middle of a horde of say goblins where the goblin will almost certainly die with each hit, does that change the dynamic between the fighter/barb dpr race?

I hope the question was clear.

Kryx

2015-10-02, 05:14 PM

Ok, I'm going to throw out another tangent aimed at Kryx. In your DPR work have you ever taken wasted damage into account?
I had this question earlier this week. It's a great question and a decent idea, but it would be impossible to model.

To get an accurate idea of this you'd have to create a set of typical encounters (one with many small HP creatures, one with fewer medium hp creatures, and one with a big HP guy) and then compare hp of those creatures vs DPR. We could try to estimate that, but it entirely depends on playstyle and wouldn't be easy. At all. Not really something that can be modeled effectively unless someone had a different way.

Sigreid

2015-10-02, 05:35 PM

I had this question earlier this week. It's a great question and a decent idea, but it would be impossible to model.

To get an accurate idea of this you'd have to create a set of typical encounters (one with many small HP creatures, one with fewer medium hp creatures, and one with a big HP guy) and then compare hp of those creatures vs DPR. We could try to estimate that, but it entirely depends on playstyle and wouldn't be easy. At all. Not really something that can be modeled effectively unless someone had a different way.

Thank you for responding. I could see that would be difficult. I'm inclined to believe that the enhanced ability to switch targets mid turn might further balance the DPR between barbarian and fighter, though it sounds like trying to prove it would be the road to madness.

Kryx

2015-10-02, 06:35 PM

balance the DPR between barbarian and fighter.
According to my numbers there is no meaningful DPR difference between the two.

Sigreid

2015-10-02, 06:51 PM

According to my numbers there is no meaningful DPR difference between the two.

I think I got that. If I understand the barb leads by a few measly points. Which would likely be the piddly difference from reduced over kill in those corner cases where it matters. Anyway, thanks for your expertise.

Kryx

2015-10-02, 06:55 PM

Well and the barbarian has frenzy, but that's <5% difference for polearm and polearm+GWM.

Since people have been asking me questions here lately: just FYI I'll be on vacation for a week starting tomorrow.

Bladeyeoman

2015-10-02, 07:22 PM

Hey guys. Love the math discussion here.

It wouldn't be terribly hard for me to put together a simulation model for DPR, as a compliment to the spreadsheet work. This would make it easier to handle things like accounting for overkilling. Also, given the variation in number and duration of encounters, it would be possible to run calculations for randomly generated "days", which could do a good job of balancing out bursty vs sustaining skills. Not that these necessarily make a huge difference, but it could be pretty fun to do.

(this would probably require some collaboration with Kyrx or others, as I'm not yet an expert in the mechanics)

Sigreid

2015-10-02, 07:34 PM

JoeJ

2015-10-02, 07:53 PM

I had this question earlier this week. It's a great question and a decent idea, but it would be impossible to model.

To get an accurate idea of this you'd have to create a set of typical encounters (one with many small HP creatures, one with fewer medium hp creatures, and one with a big HP guy) and then compare hp of those creatures vs DPR. We could try to estimate that, but it entirely depends on playstyle and wouldn't be easy. At all. Not really something that can be modeled effectively unless someone had a different way.

I'm the one who asked that question earlier. And I wonder now if this is something that might better be done using a Monte Carlo method. Basically, create an routine that pits a specified character against a random CR appropriate monster or set of monsters, then run it a few hundred times and look at the results. If I wasn't in the middle of the semester at grad school right now I could probably figure out how to do something like that using R.

Bladeyeoman

2015-10-02, 08:03 PM

I'm the one who asked that question earlier. And I wonder now if this is something that might better be done using a Monte Carlo method. Basically, create an routine that pits a specified character against a random CR appropriate monster or set of monsters, then run it a few hundred times and look at the results. If I wasn't in the middle of the semester at grad school right now I could probably figure out how to do something like that using R.

Hahaha, my thoughts exactly - see my proposal a few comments above.

I was thinking we could grab a few CR appropriate encounters for each level, and then randomly assign a day's worth of encounters from that. Might be a little complicated since a single character doesn't have to kill everything in the encounter. Perhaps randomly assign 1/4-1/6 of the hp to the various monsters?

djreynolds

2015-10-03, 03:41 AM

Mr Kryx is the bomb on this DPR stuff. The math is just fun and I love the number crunching. He's done the optimization for us, that DPR guide is really cool, but "you" still need the concept of what you want? You need both concept and optimization, or you won't be happy playing.

But what is the barbarian's real feature? What is the paladin's? What is the fighter's? And really what is the champion's role and battle master's, they differ? Though people may not like to get into these terms striker, tank, controller, they are good way of making party lay out. As melee combatant you can't just be one and tank/strikers are going blow for blow, they will need support. And what else do you do before and after the fight.

A paladin, with the right party lay out, is the guy IMO going straight to the BEBG. He is best at the tank/striker combined role. He has high saves, great armor forgoing the need for a high dex score and can really hurt someone, can smite after he hits and can have haste, but he can lose resources quickly smiting.

The champion, is an American football linebacker. He can strike, tank, melee, range, fill in the line, control. But he's not the "clear" best at one them, critical hits are never assured. But because he has the 7 feats and two fighting styles he is IMO, your best number 2 man because of his versatility. The champion can be that striker to the tank or the tank to the striker at any time and can still go do something else when needed.

The battle master controls his opponent with his resources. Those superiority dice have vast uses. But he is best at debilitating adversaries with disarm and trips "and then killing", sure he can tank but I don't want him wasted doing that and using parry, his dexterity might not even make it worth it. He is a striker and controller, yes he can go blow for blow, but why? Battle masters are just that battle masters but they are best served with an accompanying tank and a nasty rogue. But he may have to tank.

The barbarian is the best at drawing attacks to him. Yes he can kill and kill, but he's loading the bases for the others to come and kill. He is "the" ultimate tank. Everyone wants to hurt him. His damage reduction is tremendous. Sure he can strike and can kill with the best, but in a sense he controls the battlefield with his tanking. Everyone wants a piece of him and he's giving his buddies advantage with the wolf totem if he has it. Imagine battle master with advantage to push and trip, or paladin smiting and now giving his haste to the barbarian.

So the thought process is who's in the party. IMO, paladin and barbarian combo could be as effective as or even better than battle master and a nasty melee rogue.

This is just a broad brush stroke but helps whittle down what you want concept wise, want the party needs and then how to optimize that the best.

Do you want to fight as a barbarian with a great sword. Sounds cool. Is he the best with that great sword or better off served with a great axe or a pole arm? GWM is awesome but can a barbarian with Adventurer League SPBI possibly afford GWM and Pole arm master and max out strength, con, and dex. Do you want to play a half-orc barbarian? Do you want to play a strength based drow barbarian, go ahead and then optimize that concept, but you might not be the best in town and that's okay.

A great sword is best served with GWS, because its 2d6 and you reroll 1's and 2. Then GWM and a way to mitigate damage done to you without a shield. A barbarian might be best served with half orc, great axe and GWM because he has the damage reduction resources built in and savage critical. But a polearm is also 1d10, and polearm master coupled with sentinel with the barbarian is just nasty.

But great discussion I think. Very fun.

broodax

2015-10-03, 08:58 AM

You're right @djreynolds, that there's more to it than just DPR. This discussion actually started with one assumption that nerfs DPR out of the gate (no polearm master). I am going to try to respond more clearly, update the OP, and get into that some more.

Edit: Turns out they changed the wording between the free rules and the DMG, and the DMG is based on adjusted XP, so nevermind.
But, I have to drop one bombshell on the DPR discussion. I just had an epiphany. The calculation that I did to help arrive at support for @Kryx encounters/day number is actually wrong. We were looking at how many hard, medium, etc. encounters one might have and using the XP values for those to compare to the daily XP values to see how many encounters were needed in a day. However...

That is not how much those encounters are actually worth!

The value in the difficulty table in the DMG is for determining difficulty, not for awarding xp, and those values are inflated any time there are more than one enemy in the encounter. So characters need more encounters to actually reach the XP/day in the guidelines. How much more depends entirely on encounter makeup. In the end, it probably does end up being 6-8/day.

However, having gone full circle on this, I think the poll found by Kryx in that other thread, and the general feeling around these parts is that very few people actually have 6-8 encounters per day. The guidelines might be internally consistent (sorry for insulting your math, Wizards...), but they don't actually reflect how people play a lot of the time. And, even if we did, my own argument, that many encounters don't consume resources, and that we care more about on-demand abilities when hard fights do happen, makes a big difference. So, if someone is trying to arrive at one comprehensive DPR number, 5/day is probably closer to a meaningful value.