Looking for DPR averages for level 20

[charcoalninja]

Hey all, I've been trying the search function with little luck, does anyone know of any threads here or sources on the Paizo forums that have a rough breakdown of some optimized DPR for classes at level 20? I'm working on some houserules and want to see what I can do to mitigate rocket tag.

[OldTrees1]

How optimized? This is rather important since DPR ranges from 0 to infinity to N/A.


For instance a Combat Reflexes War Hulk gets lets call it 2*(2+Dex) attacks with lets call it 1.5*Str damage per round.
With 20 Dex(14+6) and 44 Str(16+4+5+5+6+8) that would be 2*(2+5)*1.5*17=357 DPR in addition to the various prone/knockback/dazed/standstill conditions inflicted.

[Uncle Pine]

Optimized DPR at 20th level is 0. At 20th level dealing damage is rather suboptimal and it's instead faster and more efficient to outright shut down or remove the target (from reality, if necessary).
As such, we need more data to give a reasonable answer: an example of the kind of build your houserules are aimed at would be a good start.

[Zanos]

Well, the "standard", if there is such a thing, for spells is 20d6. You can probably get off a 20d6 high level spell and then something quickened for another 10 or 15d6, so around 105-130 baseline for a non-invested blaster wizard, assuming all saves failed, you got through SR, one target, etc.

CR ~20 mobs tend to have around 300 HP, so that sounds about what WoTC expected. Although I think in their playtest their high leveled wizard did the most damage to the Balor(or Pitfiend?) by using quickened true strikes and a bow.

[charcoalninja]

At this stage in the houserules I'm concerned about optimized damage dealing and the issue that at high level if successful, a single full attack will often utterly destroy anyone it hits. My intent is to have some mechanics in place so that combat against an even challenge, like say a mirror matched party will take a few rounds for each combatant to go down 1 on 1. So say I had a level 20 fighter wailing on a level 20 barbarian, I'd ideally like for the characters to be able to survive more than a round. I'm a huge fan of tactical combat and there being dynamic battles with some back and forth, and I currently feel that the current hp to damage tuning of the game doesn't support that in favour of wrapping up the fighting quickly rather than interestingly (at high level).

This research is to see what to expect from reasonably optimized (not TO) Pathfinder 20th level characters so I have some sense of how overwhelming the offense of level 20 characters is at this point in time. On the Paizo boards I've seen some DPR olympic threads that have exactly what I want, but they limit their builds to 10th level or sometimes 12th as that's the max for PFS, which is why I thought to pick the brain of the playground since the Optimization here is humbling to say the least.

I'd like to see what the peak expression of damage dealing potential is, so I know what would be a good range to work with. I've seen a build for example that can generate something around 3k damage a round (Natural attack warpriest) but before I try to deal with high level math at THAT level, I'd like to get an idea of if that's just an obnoxious outlier or if most of the damage dealing classes can sport numbers in the thousands.

I'd also prefer non mythic builds as I know Mythic gets nutty.

I did try to tag this thread, but it doesn't look like I did it properly, so I would be looking for Pathfinder threads / info only, not 3.5 material.

[AvatarVecna]

Spellcasters capable of dealing more than 40d6 per round at lvl 20 on a fairly regular basis should be watched carefully. Non-casters are a little harder to pin down, but the tactics they use to consistently get lots of damage have counters that can be employed (difficult terrain for uberchargers, fortification for precision-damage dealers, safe mobility for melee types, auto-deflection for ranged types, etc), so as long as you don't totally nerf then, you'll be okay letting them get their uberdamage sometimes instead of all the time.

[ComaVision]

I'd say 1d6 per level is around the assumed damage per round.

[stanprollyright]

If you're worried about full attacks taking people out in one round, improve average AC. 5 points by level 20 would do it.

[charcoalninja]

Thanks all for the replies, I'll definitely refocus on what defenses are available baseline for level 20 aside from hp. My idea was to include a reaction type ability that would allow an increase in AC, like Crane Wing, but resource based.

I had forgotten about fortification being around. Negating crits is a huge boon to mitigating incoming damage. Lots to think about.

High level casting though in PF you're looking at 30d6+60 for an empowered delayed blast fireball for example (Spell Perfection would allow you to empower without spending a higher slot) with another DBF for a total AOE of 50d6+100 fire damage in a round on a crossblooded sorc if I'm remembering Spell Perfection correctly. (Choose one spell and you can apply one metamagic feat on it for free, double all static bonuses on the spell like CL increases or DC boosts from Spell Focus).

Which is an average of what, 275 damage?

[AvatarVecna]

Thanks all for the replies, I'll definitely refocus on what defenses are available baseline for level 20 aside from hp. My idea was to include a reaction type ability that would allow an increase in AC, like Crane Wing, but resource based.

I had forgotten about fortification being around. Negating crits is a huge boon to mitigating incoming damage. Lots to think about.

High level casting though in PF you're looking at 30d6+60 for an empowered delayed blast fireball for example (Spell Perfection would allow you to empower without spending a higher slot) with another DBF for a total AOE of 50d6+100 fire damage in a round on a crossblooded sorc if I'm remembering Spell Perfection correctly. (Choose one spell and you can apply one metamagic feat on it for free, double all static bonuses on the spell like CL increases or DC boosts from Spell Focus).

Which is an average of what, 275 damage?

Yeah, that's the average, but that's also AoE effects; they can deal a good bit of damage to a single target, but they're also less focused. If you get Spell Perfection with Disintegrate, you can Maximize it for free and toss Empower on there as well; that gets you 240+20d6, which averages out to 310 to a single target; not too much better, but still pretty cool. And that's in PF; in 3.5, you can use metamagic cheese to get Empower, Maximize, Twin, Repeat, Split Ray, and Chain on your super-Disintegrate spell, and if you've gone that far it's probably a 6th level spell from having several +0 metamagic feats applied for the reduction. For the cost of a single 6th level slot, 84 people within range take that 240+20d6 damage; that's incredibly potent.

[charcoalninja]

Just checked PF disintegrate is 2d6/caster level, so max 40d6, so empowered it's 60d6. So empowered and a quickened is 100d6 single target, average 350, max of 600 if you can somehow double maximize them.

Fortunately you can't take Spell perfection more than once!

[Sayt]

The Monster Stats by CR table in Appendix 1 of the Bestiary (i'm assuming Pathfinder, as you mentioned Paizo), call for 120dpr, assuming all attacks hit at CR20.

It is, of course, not hugely difficult to build characters which do vastly more than this.

But IIRC, the big damage dealers through Paizo's history have been:
TWF-Gunslingers, which basically got two TWF full attacks per round. This is dead though double barrel pistol nerfs.
Beastmorph Vivisectionist Alchemist: Mutagen+Polymorph+9d6 Sneak Attack+Pounce. Sneak attacks through either Shatter Defenses or Greater invisibility.
Crossblooded Sorcerer with Orc and Primal Fire: Blasty Blasty, 2* level to fire damage. Nerfed, as Crossblooded and Wildblood were declared incompatible archetypes, but the FAQ did caveat "GMs can do as they please"

Otherwise... Bow Paladin's at high level can combine huge Rate of Fire with Smite Damage against selected targets. But then, Paladin's don't get bonus feats and archery is a large investment.

[AvatarVecna]

Back before the errata came out for the double-barreled pistols, I had a gunslinger/alchemist/fighter who could, if he was teleported/gated to be within one range increment of a creature, virtually guarantee that it would be dead in the surprise round, with the three sole exceptions being Orcus, the Oinodaemon, and Lucifer (the three top evil outsiders in the PF Bestiary). Anyone other than those three, and he helped you discover your inner swiss cheese.

[Sayt]

Back before the errata came out for the double-barreled pistols, I had a gunslinger/alchemist/fighter who could, if he was teleported/gated to be within one range increment of a creature, virtually guarantee that it would be dead in the surprise round, with the three sole exceptions being Orcus, the Oinodaemon, and Lucifer (the three top evil outsiders in the PF Bestiary). Anyone other than those three, and he helped you discover your inner swiss cheese.

Could'e reliably survive Cthulhu's DC40 Will or Die Aura? :smallbiggrin:

Those three are all 3pp, but they do have suitably huge HP pools?

But yes, Funslingers had huuuuuuuuuuuuuueg damages.

[Tuvarkz]

The Monster Stats by CR table in Appendix 1 of the Bestiary (i'm assuming Pathfinder, as you mentioned Paizo), call for 120dpr, assuming all attacks hit at CR20.

It is, of course, not hugely difficult to build characters which do vastly more than this.

But IIRC, the big damage dealers through Paizo's history have been:
TWF-Gunslingers, which basically got two TWF full attacks per round. This is dead though double barrel pistol nerfs.
Beastmorph Vivisectionist Alchemist: Mutagen+Polymorph+9d6 Sneak Attack+Pounce. Sneak attacks through either Shatter Defenses or Greater invisibility.
Crossblooded Sorcerer with Orc and Primal Fire: Blasty Blasty, 2* level to fire damage. Nerfed, as Crossblooded and Wildblood were declared incompatible archetypes, but the FAQ did caveat "GMs can do as they please"

Otherwise... Bow Paladin's at high level can combine huge Rate of Fire with Smite Damage against selected targets. But then, Paladin's don't get bonus feats and archery is a large investment.

Crossblooded Sorcerer still works with Orc+Draconic, however.

[Sayt]

Crossblooded Sorcerer still works with Orc+Draconic, however.

That it does, I stand corrected.

[AvatarVecna]

1) Could'e reliably survive Cthulhu's DC40 Will or Die Aura? :smallbiggrin:

2) Those three are all 3pp, but they do have suitably huge HP pools?

3) But yes, Funslingers had huuuuuuuuuuuuuueg damages.

1) Immunity to Mind-Affecting helps a lot, although a +34 Will save helps just about as much (I had a paladin dip for good Will and Cha to saves, and I was mostly Dex SAD with everything else in Wis/Cha, specifically for reasons like this).

2) It's the combination of their higher DR, their higher Fast Healing, their higher Touch AC (especially Lucifer), and their much much much higher HP. It would technically take 2 or 4 rounds to kill Orcus or the Oinodaemon by DPR, respectively, but I figure my ECL 20 character isn't going to get anything more than the surprise round, if that. Lucifer's the only one he didn't have a chance in hell (heh) of beating in a reasonable time frame: it's possible that Orcus will be flabbergasted by my audacity long enough for me to get off multiple rounds of full damage, and it's possible I'll get enough crits in my first volley to beat the odds and one-round-kill him...but Lucifer, with the accuracy and DPR I had, would've taken somewhere in the neighborhood of a few dozen rounds to kill, and that's assuming he just lets me keep shooting.

My odds get slightly better against all 3 of them if I take that 3 level PrC that gives you a 1/day smite as a paladin of your ECL, but Lucifer still stubbornly persists in his near-unbeatability. It's almost like a single ECL 20 character with no spellcasting of his own isn't supposed to be able to kill a CR 40 monster in a single round!

3) Oh yes absolutely; even post-errata, they still rock at DPR, even though they're a bit worse now for not having double-barreled cheese. And that's kind of a good thing, since

[Curmudgeon]

From a Rogue chassis you've got a couple of damage approaches. One is adding a few odds and ends (maybe some single-level PrC dips for +1d6 sneak attack each) but going mostly Rogue, getting maybe 12d6+20 sneak attack (the +20 bonus being from Craven), and averaging about 2 hits per round. With weapon damage that's around 26d6+54. There would also be about 4 points of STR damage from Crippling Strike.

The other option would be the Swift Ambusher approach with Rogue 17/Scout 3, for 10d6+20 sneak attack +5d6 skirmish + 1d6+7 weapon damage. The maximum damage ends up being a bit higher: around 32d6+54. Swift Ambusher damage would average lower than that maximum because sometimes sneak attack would apply but not skirmish, or vice versa; and Crippling Strike only adds STR damage to sneak attack, not skirmish.

In actuality the hits per round would likely be higher, but by level 20 many enemies would be immune to critical hits and the sneak attack dice (but not Craven bonus) would be reduced by ½ via Lightbringer Penetrating Strike ACF. So damage equivalent to 2 full-up hits is a reasonably conservative estimate.

With some extra effort (mostly twisting the DM's arm if they're reluctant to allow lots of sourcebook dipping) you can build for more sneak attack damage than the above. However, I prefer to add status effects like Staggering Strike, and an emphasis on defenses, rather than focus more on damage.

All in all, precision damage would average somewhat more damage than spellcasting damage, but the precision damage dealers would have fewer options for delivering status effects or anything other than straight damage. Magic users, at least most of the time, should have better things to do with their spells than dealing damage.

[Sayt]

1) Immunity to Mind-Affecting helps a lot, although a +34 Will save helps just about as much (I had a paladin dip for good Will and Cha to saves, and I was mostly Dex SAD with everything else in Wis/Cha, specifically for reasons like this).

2) It's the combination of their higher DR, their higher Fast Healing, their higher Touch AC (especially Lucifer), and their much much much higher HP. It would technically take 2 or 4 rounds to kill Orcus or the Oinodaemon by DPR, respectively, but I figure my ECL 20 character isn't going to get anything more than the surprise round, if that. Lucifer's the only one he didn't have a chance in hell (heh) of beating in a reasonable time frame: it's possible that Orcus will be flabbergasted by my audacity long enough for me to get off multiple rounds of full damage, and it's possible I'll get enough crits in my first volley to beat the odds and one-round-kill him...but Lucifer, with the accuracy and DPR I had, would've taken somewhere in the neighborhood of a few dozen rounds to kill, and that's assuming he just lets me keep shooting.

3) Oh yes absolutely; even post-errata, they still rock at DPR, even though they're a bit worse now for not having double-barreled cheese. And that's kind of a good thing, since

Ohh, yeah, Paladin's are good like that.

How did/does the build do against the 'official' high level stuff, like the Demon Lords and Outer Gods and Great Old Ones?


My odds get slightly better against all 3 of them if I take that 3 level PrC that gives you a 1/day smite as a paladin of your ECL, but Lucifer still stubbornly persists in his near-unbeatability. It's almost like a single ECL 20 character with no spellcasting of his own isn't supposed to be able to kill a CR 40 monster in a single round! Funny that :smallamused:

And the PRC is...Chevalier, IIRC? It's pretty cool, always meant to take it some time.



3) Oh yes absolutely; even post-errata, they still rock at DPR, even though they're a bit worse now for not having double-barrelled cheese. And that's kind of a good thing, since Yeah, the Gunslinger now, when it manages to make full attacks/reload successfully, is in a pretty good place, though perhaps it's too prohibitive to reload.

When they were making the equivalent of four full attacks per round with 2xDex to damage, that was significant amounts of Dumb, IMO.

[AvatarVecna]

Ohh, yeah, Paladin's are good like that.

How did/does the build do against the 'official' high level stuff, like the Demon Lords and Outer Gods and Great Old Ones?

The three mentioned were the only ones whose FF Touch AC/HP/DR/FH could survive the first round of the ambush; the rest on down only stand a chance if I get unlucky, or if they've got a way of killing me that can be done outside of their turn (such as a kill aura or similar); unfortunately, he's got Mind-Affecting Immunity and great saves across the board, so it's a bit difficult to really stick it to him, even with a SoD aura. Ultimately, the dice decide who wins...although the odds generally favored my gunslinger.

Keep in mind that the hypothetical fight I put him in was "he surprises creature X by being suddenly and unexpectedly within 80 ft via teleportation/planar travel"; I imagine that playing in a real game with this character would result in far less "teleport to boss chamber, waste boss, teleport out" fights, if only because the DM would start (rightfully) punishing or mitigating such a tactic after the first few successes.


Funny that :smallamused:

And the PRC is...Chevalier, IIRC? It's pretty cool, always meant to take it some time.

Yeah, that's the one. It's only 1/day, but a duration-use ability giving Cha to hit and Character Level to damage (double against undead/fiends) is nothing to sneeze at. The other benefits are decent as well, but I imagine that a full-on paladin who can smite multiple times (or alter his smite in various ways) would stand a better chance against super-fiends.


Yeah, the Gunslinger now, when it manages to make full attacks/reload successfully, is in a pretty good place, though perhaps it's too prohibitive to reload.

When they were making the equivalent of four full attacks per round with 2xDex to damage, that was significant amounts of Dumb, IMO.

Triple Dex, depending on who you're asking...although that always seemed stupid to me, so I didn't use that interpretation.

[oxybe]

Thanks all for the replies, I'll definitely refocus on what defenses are available baseline for level 20 aside from hp. My idea was to include a reaction type ability that would allow an increase in AC, like Crane Wing, but resource based.

I had forgotten about fortification being around. Negating crits is a huge boon to mitigating incoming damage. Lots to think about.

High level casting though in PF you're looking at 30d6+60 for an empowered delayed blast fireball for example (Spell Perfection would allow you to empower without spending a higher slot) with another DBF for a total AOE of 50d6+100 fire damage in a round on a crossblooded sorc if I'm remembering Spell Perfection correctly. (Choose one spell and you can apply one metamagic feat on it for free, double all static bonuses on the spell like CL increases or DC boosts from Spell Focus).

Which is an average of what, 275 damage?

crossblooded(half orc + dragon) sorc4/ninja3/arcane trickster 10 (2 SA from ninja, 5 from AT, 1 from accomplished sneak attacker feat) using fiery shuriken (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateCombat/spells/fieryShuriken.html)and the mage tattoo(+1 CL on conj spells) can net themselves a nice 1d8+8d6+27 (2 damage/dice for orc, 1 damage/dice for dragon) damage. 8 times. as a ranged touch attack. which can be sneak attacked with.

so 8d8+64d6+216 = 36+224+216 = 476 avg on a no save, ranged touch attack 2nd level spell if i understand my maths and rules right.

[charcoalninja]

Errata says only one sneak attack per spell sadly...

[oxybe]

oh? that's poopy. i never checked the pathfinder errata before.

[Endarire]

Pick a number. Really. The variance of damage in 3.5 @ECL20 is so high that it could be anything. Hood (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2462.0) specializes in one-rounding or one-shotting anything officially printed ASAP. At ECL20, such a build could theoretically destroy every officially-published D&D 3.5 creature in one round, if each such creature were in melee range and that Hood took Great Cleave and never missed.

So, what number do you want it to be?

[AvatarVecna]

Pick a number. Really. The variance of damage in 3.5 @ECL20 is so high that it could be anything. Hood (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2462.0) specializes in one-rounding or one-shotting anything officially printed ASAP. At ECL20, such a build could theoretically destroy every officially-published D&D 3.5 creature in one round, if each such creature were in melee range and that Hood took Great Cleave and never missed.

So, what number do you want it to be?

On the same subject, a Dragonwrought Kobold Fighter 4/Warblade 3/Bloodstorm Blade 4/Master Thrower 5/Fighter +4 with the Distant Shot epic feat (from dragon cheese), Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Lightning Maces, Roundabout Kick, Palm Throw, Slashing Flurry, boots of speed, the Blood In The Water stance, and 4 +1 Aptitude Keen Kukris has a fairly solid chance of getting to make NI attacks against anything (and everything) he can see.

Or you could go full Wu Jen 17/Hulking Hurler 3 with Cancer Mage cheese, use Giant Size to become Colossal, and start throwing the planet out of orbit 125 ft/round at a time.

[Snowbluff]

Pick a number. Really. The variance of damage in 3.5 @ECL20 is so high that it could be anything. Hood (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2462.0) specializes in one-rounding or one-shotting anything officially printed ASAP. At ECL20, such a build could theoretically destroy every officially-published D&D 3.5 creature in one round, if each such creature were in melee range and that Hood took Great Cleave and never missed.

So, what number do you want it to be?

Well, first of all, link in the link is broken. D:

Second, he needs an average. I can talk all day about my arrowsplitting imbue arrow hobby, but I don't think it would help.

Third, I think the optimized number would be 200 per round, which sounds high now that I say it out loud. 100/round sounds better for an average.

[Seward]

A well designed archer can pretty much kill outright every CR20 monster in a single full attack, barring some kind of defense like wind wall (there's some equipment that can beat that with the right splatbooks - a force arrow enchantment). Most melee can too, if they're dropped next to the monster by a friendly wizard, monk or something.

That benchmark is doing about 300 damage per round against AC in the mid 30s. 100 per round is WAY too low, archers are doing that around level 10, with melees ranging from 50-150 depending on how tough the enemy is to hit. Hell, my pathfinder wizard (who granted specializes in this kind of thing) is dishing out about 100 per damage just with scorching rays at level 9. Granted she can't do that very many rounds, but the kind of target she encounters tough enough to need that kind of damage where she's free to take the shot tends to only be encountered a few rounds a day.

Contrary to what an early poster said, the best "condition" is dead. Direct damage has to be done by somebody, and monster saves actually scale faster (if advanced by hit dice and not class levels) than save DC's, so by level 20 most save/suck spells are futile unless they don't allow saves.

The reason spellcasters are tier 1 and fighters are tier 4 has nothing to do with raw killing power, it has to do with spells like Miracle and Wish or Create Demiplane or Gate that can just reshape a campaign. If you just want things dead, a level 4 dimension door to get all the party melees next to an enemy with delayed actions is as close to a sure thing as the game has.

[Uncle Pine]

Contrary to what an early poster said, the best "condition" is dead. Direct damage has to be done by somebody, and monster saves actually scale faster (if advanced by hit dice and not class levels) than save DC's, so by level 20 most save/suck spells are futile unless they don't allow saves.

What I meant to point out in my previous post is that if you're working on one or more houserules to effectively mitigate rocket tagging, you can't balance it on DPR alone as many effective playstyles (crowd controlling, save-and-suck effects and minionmancy, for example) don't rely on dealing damage at all.
Whether you're encasing all the opponents inside walls of stones (or worse) to be picked up by the rest of the group one at a time, dazing, paralyzing, nauseating and/or dominating your enemies, creating a small flock of shadows to take out the tarrasque (or a similarly high-CR creature unable to deal with incorporeal creatures), dominating a band of ogres to pillage the nearby village, wish-looping your personal army of solars or simply teleporting to an obscure slow-flowing plane of existence to outlive all your enemies, you're still winning encounters. And your DPR (or your Damage Per Adventuring Career, even) is still 0.
I apologize for basing my examples on 3.5e spells and situations instead of PF (because I wasn't sure about what system the OP was using at the time of my first post), but PF didn't really change how combat works so the core argument should still stand.

[Snowbluff]

That benchmark is doing about 300 damage per round against AC in the mid 30s. 100 per round is WAY too low, archers are doing that around level 10, with melees ranging from 50-150 depending on how tough the enemy is to hit. Hell, my pathfinder wizard (who granted specializes in this kind of thing) is dishing out about 100 per damage just with scorching rays at level 9. Granted she can't do that very many rounds, but the kind of target she encounters tough enough to need that kind of damage where she's free to take the shot tends to only be encountered a few rounds a day.



Wait, in PF? Nah, 300 is too low in PF. At 20, 240 damage per shot before damage dice feats, and enchancements after 3 buffs. Level 10 is 120.

Also, how that hell were you doing 100 consistently at level 9 with scorching ray? I so want to do that. :smallconfused:

[Gün]

Wait, in PF? Nah, 300 is too low in PF. At 20, 240 damage per shot before damage dice feats, and enchancements after 3 buffs. Level 10 is 120.

Also, how that hell were you doing 100 consistently at level 9 with scorching ray? I so want to do that. :smallconfused:

I suck at archers. Can you tell me how to do that?

[Snowbluff]

I suck at archers. Can you tell me how to do that?

Saddle Surge, (Greater) Named Bullet (s, potentially exploiting Abundant Ammunition), Litany of Righteousness.

It's not archers that are the hard part of this build. As for actual archers, it's a simple matter of getting more attacks and damage bonuses. Mounted Archery is really strong in 3.5e and PF if you can figure out the bonus damage.

[charcoalninja]

Crossblooded sorc with Empowered scorching ray deals 18d6+36 damage which averages to around 96 damage or so.

Quicken rod and you're dealing almost 200 damage a round as early as level 5, course I don't know the Wealth by level offhand to see if a Lesser Quicken Rod is "standard" fare.

(Spell spec and magical lineage to make Empowered Scorching Ray only need a 3rd level slot and cast at level 7 for the 3 rays.)

Thanks again all for your input here. Based on what I'm seeing I think I'll expect 300-400 Dpr and see where that takes me.

To the comment about all the other crazy at high level, I hope to account for that as well, this thread was aimed at finding the baseline expectation for the damage dealing problem. I'll be inspecting the other issues in seperate changes as they seem relevant.