Non resource using damage comparisons please.

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Today I'm thinking about damage caused by characters using nothing more precious or limited than an arrow.

This is my Wood Elf Lore Bard shooting her Oath Bow at an enemy and not using its once a day ability, just the D8 plus Dex damage.

Or my same Bard taking Eldritch Blast via Magical Secrets or Magic Initiate and having it hit pretty much as often with 2 D10 damage at level 5, 3 D10 by level 11

What are some examples of damage other classes can do all day long at starting, level five and level 10 or 11 or so?

[Greywander]

I'm by no means an expert, but here's a few of my observations.

Generally speaking, more attacks > more damage per attack. As such, Fighter is likely to come out on top of everything else (Champion fighter even more so if you want resourceless fighting). With four attacks (at 20th level, three at 11th) the fighter's base damage will be 4d8 + 20 = 38 average, if using sword and board, or 8d6 + 20 = 48 average if using a greatsword. Fighting styles can help push it even further; one in particular I'll bring up is Dueling + PAM. Polearm Mastery let's you make an extra attack as a bonus action, although the damage die is only d4, and you can still sword and board with a quaterstaff for 4d6 + 1d4 + 35 = 51.5 average damage. If you'd rather use halberd, you'll want Great Weapon fighting instead of Dueling.

A counterpoint to the above is the rogue. By 20th level, Sneak Attack deals 10d6 damage, plus your weapon damage. Assuming a rapier or light crossbow, that's 1d8 + 10d6 + 5 = 44.5 average damage, all with a single attack. Since rogues only get one attack, you can further enhance this (if melee) using either Green Flame Blade or Booming Blade (via Arcane Trickster, multiclassing, or Magic Initiate), adding an extra 3d8 damage at 17th level. So the new total would be 4d8 + 10d6 + 5 = 58 average damage. It does require you to consistently get sneak attacks, though.

Then there's the padlock. Go 11 levels of paladin for Improved Divine Smite, at least 2 levels of warlock for Agonizing blast. Eldritch Blast will deal 4d10 + 20 = 42 average up to 600 feet away (Eldritch Spear invocation and Spell Sniper), while in melee, using the quarterstaff + Dueling + PAM above, you'll deal 2d6 + 1d4 + 3d8 + 21 = 44 average damage, 3d8 of which is radiant damage (for when you face nasty undead like vampires). If you go bladelock, you can pick up Lifedrinker as an alternative to Improved Divine Smite, making your melee damage 2d6 + 1d4 + 36 = 45.5 average damage.

This is, of course, non-exhaustive, and I haven't even looked at Great Weapon Master, or considered magical weapons. Hopefully that will at least give you a baseline to compare things to.

[Aaron Underhand]

Level 5 best at will damage

Assume vhuman for feat at level 1, ASI at 4th for +2 to attack stat. Assume+7 hits 65% and ignore criticals.


Sharpshooter ranger +4 attack d8+14 twice
DPR 18.5

GWM Barbarian (reckless) +2 attack with advantage, 2d6+14 twice, rerolling ones and twos on the dice
DPR 28.3


Dual wield TWF fighter +7 attack d8+4 three times, uses bonus action
DPR 16.6


Warlock Eldritch Agonising Blast +7 attack d10+4 twice
Doesn't need a feat, giving other options...
DPR 12.35

Ranger gets horde breaker or collosus Slayer plus Hunter's mark,
GWM crits are significant.

Fighter champion gets extra crits as well

Warlock gets hex

[CTurbo]

Rogues are best at non resource consuming at will damage. A smart player will use Sneak Attack damage every single round. Level 5 Rogue should be dealing 1d8+3d6+4 damage every round. =20

A 5th level Monk using a staff can do 1d8+4, 1d8+4, and 1d6+4 every round. =24.5

5th level Hunter Ranger with Colossus Slayer and Dueling can do 3d8+12 every round without favored enemy and hunters mark. =25.5

5th level Hunter Ranger with Colossus Slayer and TWF can do 1d8+3d6+12 every round without favored enemy and hunters mark. =27

5th level Hunter Ranger with Archery, Sharpshooter, and Colossus Slayer can do 3d8+28 every round without favored enemy and hunters mark. =41.5

[Aaron Underhand]

Rogues are best at non resource consuming at will damage. A smart player will use Sneak Attack damage every single round. Level 5 Rogue should be dealing 1d8+3d6+4 damage every round. =20

A 5th level Monk using a staff can do 1d8+4, 1d8+4, and 1d6+4 every round. =24.5

5th level Hunter Ranger with Colossus Slayer and Dueling can do 3d8+12 every round without favored enemy and hunters mark. =25.5

5th level Hunter Ranger with Colossus Slayer and TWF can do 1d8+3d6+12 every round without favored enemy and hunters mark. =27

5th level Hunter Ranger with Archery, Sharpshooter, and Colossus Slayer can do 3d8+28 every round without favored enemy and hunters mark. =41.5

Actually the rogue is underwhelming at 5th, which is sweet spot for any class getting a second attack. PAM ftr for example has 2d10+1d4 +12 for 25.5 ignoring hit probability, and a dual wielder fighter has 3d8+12 for the same 25.5

Collosus Slayer requires finding a damaged but not dead target

GWM and Sharpshooter can't really be compared without considering hit probability.

[CTurbo]

Actually the rogue is underwhelming at 5th, which is sweet spot for any class getting a second attack. PAM ftr for example has 2d10+1d4 +12 for 25.5 ignoring hit probability, and a dual wielder fighter has 3d8+12 for the same 25.5

Collosus Slayer requires finding a damaged but not dead target

GWM and Sharpshooter can't really be compared without considering hit probability.



Well the thing about Rogue is they do all of that damage in one attack whereas the Fighter has to land 3 hits in a row. Also with dual wielding, the Rogue has 2 chances to land that one attack whereas the Fighter only has 1 shot to land all three attacks. This is a huge benefit for the Rogue who can find ways to get advantage. Even if the Rogue hits on it's main hand attack, it still has the option of attack with it's off hand anyway for an additional 3.5 damage.

Yes Colossus Slayer only works when an enemy has been damaged. The above calculations assumed using Colossus Slayer on the second attack right after hitting with the first attack.

You're right about GWM(which I didn't even mention for this reason) and Sharpshooter, but on a Fighter or Ranger, Archery Style nearly cuts that -5 to hit in half for SS making it much much less of an issue from what I have experienced.

[MaxWilson]

What are some examples of damage other classes can do all day long at starting, level five and level 10 or 11 or so?

EK 7/Warlock 2/SCAG Swashbuckler X is kind of famous: you cast Eldritch Blast and then (because of War Magic at EK 7) get a free attack with your arrow, to which you get to add sneak attack damage.

But I honestly think the plain old Arcane Archer is just as good. By level 7, Curving Shot comes online, so you effectively have 3 attacks per round in most combats, doing excellent expected damage due to Sharpshooter and SADness which lets you boost Dex quickly. By level 11 you're getting four attacks per round (except against solo monsters), at +6 to-hit for 1d8+15 damage (19.5) per hit.

A variation is the Crossbow Expert Sharpshooter Eldritch Knight, but I dislike it because (1) you give up a lot of range, and (2) I have residual bad feelings about the Crossbow Expert cheese from before they changed the wording. Nowadays the previously-cheesey ruling is now canonical and in the PHB, but I hold an irrational grudge against it. :-) Anyway, cranking the numbers on that: at level 5 (human) you've got Dex 16 and both crucial feats, for 3x +1 to-hit and 1d6+13 damage per hit. (Against, say, a Hill Giant (AC 13) you'd do 22.8 points of damage per round on average; a Swashbuckler 5 would have one attack instead at +7 (Dex 18) for d8+3d6 (sneak attack)+4, for an average of 15.95 points of damage when he doesn't have advantage, or 19.70 when he does. The Fighter is coming out ahead, although against harder targets that will be less true.)

By the time you hit level 11, you've got second level spells including Magic Weapon, which lasts for an hour so I'm going to count it in my sustained damage calculations here. You've had time to raise Dex to 20, so you're hitting 4x at +7 to-hit and 1d6+16 damage per hit, marginally better than the Arcane Archer (especially against solo monsters). If you were still fighting AC 13 hill giants you'd be doing 76.25 points of damage on average.

A variation is to use Polearm Master + GWM and some kind of crazy-high Athletics skill to knock enemies prone for advantage using one attack and then attack them at advantage. The payoff for this varies depending on the enemy even more than the aforementioned Sharpshooter + Crossbow Expert does, and I'm not going to calculate it right now, but it's definitely a strong strategy, and it even carries defensive benefits since knocking enemies prone requires them to spend movement to stand up, making it harder for them to bypass you and attack squishies. (You can even step away from them after making your attack sequence, giving the enemy one opportunity attack at disadvantage, and (usually) preventing it from getting in a full attack sequence on you the following turn. Just don't do this if there are other squishy targets in range that it can attack instead of you, once you're out of range.)