The perfect amount of damage to deal at each level

[Jowgen]

Killing things via HP damage isn't always the best approach, but it's a venue that's rarely ignored by a party as a whole. Someone always wants to swing the sword, and they will often focus on optimizing their damage output.

However, it is very easy to take this too far. It is nothing but headache's for the DM when you start one-shoting anything he throws at you. On the other hand, letting combat drag on is essentially suicide at higher levels.

So what I'm interested in is what people consider to be the healthy golden-middle amount of damage a PC focused on HP damage dealing should be able to deal at the different levels throughout his career (ignoring multiple vs single opponents).

So yeah, what estimates/guidelines do people suggest for the considerate melee-brute?

[Troacctid]

My gold standard is around 1d6 damage per level consistently, and more than that if you nova. Anything less is below par.

IIRC, enemies tend to have around 12 hit points per CR, on average, so against an equal-CR opponent, if you're dealing 1d6 damage per level, you should be hitting them for roughly a quarter of their HP with each attack, give or take. If your allies are also contributing damage, this should do a reasonable job of ending the fight in a timely manner without one- or two-shotting everything.

[OldTrees1]

It all depends on your table.

I use a 14 pre racials Str Goliath Barbarian 1-2 / Fighter(or Martial Rogue) X with Combat Reflexes as my metric for a medium-high damage rate. I use a Str 16 Warblade with White Raven charging maneuvers (and 1 damage*2 multiplier) as my high end.

That works at my table. And since the metrics have access to more than mere damage I don't have to adjust CRs.

[oxybe]

In 3.5 the golden rule kinda changes depending on the level of play, higher level monsters don't just have more hit dice but also higher con scores.

in practical sense you want to one-shot everything as "dead" is the best status you can inflict on an enemy, but beyond that on a practical sense?

in the 1-5 level you generally want about 4-5 damage x Level. as that's about where you're 2-shotting the lower level ones and 3-4 shotting the stronger ones

beyond that at around 6-11 you want 6-7 per level. 70 damage per round at level 11 should net you in the solid 2-shot territory in the weaker ones while, again, 3-4 shotting the stronger ones.

Finally from 12-20 you want to start doing about 8-11 damage per level, per round. as monsters can have hundreds upon hundreds of HP if you want to 2-hit kill even the average monster and not drag the fight VS stronger ones for more then 5 rounds

[GilesTheCleric]

If you want to look at the average and max creature hps, then divide by (four), that's probably an alright method of looking at it without a table or party to judge your required output against.

CR 1
avg hp: 13
max hp: 31
max hp in average d6s: 8d6, 1/4 d6s: 2d6

CR 3
avg hp: 28
max hp: 55
max hp in average d6s: 15d6, 1/4 d6s: 4d6

CR 6
avg hp: 70
max hp: 133
max hp in average d6s: 38d6, 1/4 d6s: 9d6

CR 10
avg hp: 137
max hp: 305
max hp in average d6s: 87d6, 1/4 d6s: 21d6

CR 15
avg hp: 225
max hp: 312
max hp in average d6s: 89d6, 1/4 d6s: 22d6

CR 20
avg hp: 410
max hp: 858
max hp in average d6s: 245d6, 1/4 d6s: 40d6

Highest max SRD HP:
CR 25: 1105 (315d6)
CR 30: 1785 (510d6)
CR 41: 1856 (530d6)
CR 42: 1984 (566d6)
CR 50: 2880 (822d6)
CR 66 (highest CR): 2613 (746d6)
Looking at these numbers, it becomes clear that SoDs become far more efficient than hp damage as levels increase.

[ILM]

Let's take all the monsters in the SRD. If I assume equal CR to character level, and if I assume that the "ideal" amount of damage is that which allows a full BAB character to kill a monster in one full attack assuming all attacks hit, then interestingly the ideal damage is around 10 per level below level 5, and then as soon as you get your second attack it drops to around 7 damage per attack per level where it stays relatively stable over the rest of levels (I limited my crunching to CR under 40). The curve sort of starts at 7, droops down to around 5 between levels 16 and 20, and then climbs back up to 8 by level 40 (mostly due to my capping attacks per round at 4, like you'd get from BAB 16+).

Now, the above takes into account average monster DR for each CR but assumes you always hit. Interestingly, if you factor in AC and make a few reasonable assumptions on the progression of a front-liner's attack bonus, you don't really change the overall picture (maybe add 1 more damage per attack per level across the board) – which just goes to show how AC quickly becomes irrelevant.

[jiriku]

For the first 2/3 of the game or so, I generally aim for (and encourage my players to aim for) 5*level per round to a single target, or half that if using a multitarget or AoE attack. This is assuming all attacks hit and all saves are failed, but that only average damage is rolled.

Inverting your question, when the PC's one-round average damage starts to exceed the average maximum hit points of the party members, I consider that a problem and warn the players that their characters are getting dangerously unbalanced. DPR = hit points is the tipping point where failing a single save vs. something that takes your actions away and makes you attack fellow party members (dominate, confusion, magic jar, death urge) will result in a character death.

[Pluto!]

When I cared more about optimization, I would try to make expected damage output per round against average AC equal at least 1/2 average monster HP for each level between ECL 6-15, using the old Optimization by the Numbers thread (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=sfln0v6sf6bkp6m63lmi8ltmb1&topic=3472) thread for reference.

But I don't really have fun anymore ****ing around with spreadsheets for character creation. I think that's beyond overboard by any reasonable person's standards.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Dropping the average enemy of your CR with a full attack is about my ideal damage. Any less than that just makes combat a grueling slog, any more and the DM starts to get mean about optimizing his monsters to compensate.
Don't make the DM angry. You wouldn't like him when he's angry.

[Sagetim]

On the player side of things, I don't see damage dealing as the end all, be all of things. Have as much of it as possible in as many flavors as you can comfortably get so as to be able to hurt things that are resistant or immune to the main attack form. If that means learning a variety of attack spells (or energy substitution (sonic)) then that's what you do for variety in damage types. If it means getting your hands on backup weapons made of various materials, then that's what you do. Whatever the end result, doing damage isn't going to solve every problem, but for the problems it does solve, having as much as possible is a good thing.

Bear in mind, that when I make a character, I want that character to have a theme, a backstory, a character concept if you will. So wiggling in a single level of crusader to make an idiot crusader build is not something I'm going to do, even if it's a very effective or consistent way of inflating damage output or defenses or what have you. Class levels have to fit the theme of the character, and I don't play psychotic murder hobos. So when I say 'maximize damage output' it may seem rather tame when we get down to the numbers compared to what other people think of when they think 'maximize damage output'.

From the GM side of things, I don't worry too much about player damage output. Unless they have a really really LOW damage output. If the party fighter hits for a million damage in one attack, that's not a problem for me. They still have a limit on their attacks per round, and they aren't going to wipe out entire armies with single swings. Sure, they might one shot the boss, but they have to get to it first. Spellcasters can be a mixed bag in this department, because they have the mass attack capabilities, but also get shut down in more ways than just AC.

At the end of the session, if my players feel like their characters are competent and powerful and were able to accomplish reasonable goals for their capabilites that they set out to do (whether or not they actually accomplished said goals) then I feel I've done my job as a GM. It's not my job to kill them, it's my job to present them with a world in which to act and play a character. If they have rolled up a character and build that can one shot most anything on the planet, that's nice, but what do they Do with it? It's kind of hard to jump the rails when there are none to begin with.

So, when it comes to 'how much damage is the right amount' it looks like the consensus is 'about 25% of an equal cr target's hp per hit'. So for a fighter that would be dropping an equal cr target in (potentially) one full attack after level 11 (with haste) or 16 (without haste).

[zergling.exe]

energy substitution (sonic)


By RAW, sonic is not a valid choice for energy substitution.

For the ideal damage, I would say whatever makes a player have fun. If that 2d6 skirmish on a single attack is what they want to do then they will be having fun and not complaining. And that's what is important.

[ericgrau]

I once did some optimized core melee and it took it 2 and a half rounds to kill a challenging monster at low levels, and 2 and a half rounds to kill a challenging foe at high levels. I think the difference was under 0.05 rounds. So that could be a good starting point.