What's a good number for Damage per Attack in melee combat?

[Mars Ultor]

We play a generally core 3.5 game, but with some feats from the other books allowed. It's not a low magic game, but items are what you find, you can't really buy things or have stuff made. There's not too much optimization, but it's clear that casters are starting to outpace "mundane" characters. I've got an 8th-level dwarven cleric, who's going to be a frontline fighter. 16 Strength, +2 Warhammer, chain suit +1, and heavy steel shield with light fortification.

For a melee-orientated PC like that, what kind of Damage per Attack should I be looking at? In my "normal" state, it's 9.5 points of damage per hit, with the Divine Power spell, I'd do 12.5 points of damage per hit. I feel like this number should be higher. There's a fighter in the group with a belt of strength (22) who uses his axe with two hands and with his feats and Power Attack, does about twenty points per hit on average, much more if he charges with Shock Trooper. I'm not looking to make the fighter unnecessary, but I'd like to be competitive.

I have three available feats and had initially thought about taking Agile Shield Fighter and its prerequisites, but realized I don't have the proficiency to use a shield as a weapon. I'm not inclined to spend a feat doing so, and I'm not sure it makes sense to take one level of fighter to get the proficieny and an additional feat. I saw a guide which suggested Extend Spell, Persistent Spell, and Divine Metamagic (I'd also need additional Turning) and while that would keep my strength up, it seems four feats is a lot to invest for three more points of damage all the time.

[Faily]

Power Attack is at least a place to start to increase your damage if your tactic is to hit things in melee with strength.

Feats like Law Devotion or similar can be used to either increase hit-bonus or AC. There's also Divine feats that allow you to burn your Turnings for buffs, such as Divine Might (iirc) allowing you to add Cha modifier to damage rolls.

The thing with the Cleric-melee fighter is that it relies on buffs most of the time. Spells like Divine Favor, Divine Power, Righteous Might, as well as the group buffs like Prayer, Recitation, Elation, Bless and the like increase your combat-output one way or another. There are also prestige classes that can help out (first thing that comes to mind would be Battlesmith in Races of Stone), as well as Maneuvers in Tome of Battle, but now we're starting to venture well outside of Core.

Though in general, two-handed + Power Attack is hard to keep up with when you're doing single-hand, at least when options are limited.

[arkangel111]

I'm confused. it sounds like you're complaining you've been out paced by Casters but you're a caster.
regardless the answer you seek is harder to determine than your question indicates however. if a character has 1 attack then he may need 20-40 damage to feel comfortable but with 5-10 attacks 10 damage is fine, unless of course you take on enemies with DR regularly and then you'll want 5-10 more for each.

[Maat Mons]

Are you a Cleric of Laduguer? Otherwise, it confuses me that you have proficiency with a Warhammer.

If you have the War domain, you can take the Holy Warrior feat (Complete Champion, p60) next level for +4 damage all the time. And the damage bonus keep increasing as you take more cleric levels.



You can choose to use your Wahammer in 2 hands if you want. You'd add 1.5x your Strength bonus to damage instead of 1x. You'd have to ditch your shield and the +3 AC you're getting from it. But if you're looking to go more offensive...

Also, if you take Power Attack, choosing to wield your Warhammer in 2 hands will double the benefits of that feat.



Can you get mundane items made? Because it looks like you'd benefit from a suit of Fullplate. Even a completely nonmagical set of Fullplate gives you 2 more AC than your +1 Chainmail. (And you can cast Magic Vestment, so it doesn't matter that much whether your armor has a native enhancement bonus.)

[Mars Ultor]

I'm confused. it sounds like you're complaining you've been out paced by Casters but you're a caster.
regardless the answer you seek is harder to determine than your question indicates however. if a character has 1 attack then he may need 20-40 damage to feel comfortable but with 5-10 attacks 10 damage is fine, unless of course you take on enemies with DR regularly and then you'll want 5-10 more for each.


I'm saying that my intention is to be a melee combatant and most cleric spells are buffs anyway. I'm limited to attacking one or two at a time, I can't yell, "Stand back, I'm going to fireball the room," and deal 8d6 damage to everyone I can see.

How is it possible to do 20-40 points of damage an attack? The Shock Trooper fighter will do that on his first charge attack, and then his numbers drop to about half of that.

[Mars Ultor]

Are you a Cleric of Laduguer? Otherwise, it confuses me that you have proficiency with a Warhammer.

If you have the War domain, you can take the Holy Warrior feat (Complete Champion, p60) next level for +4 damage all the time. And the damage bonus keep increasing as you take more cleric levels.


You can choose to use your Wahammer in 2 hands if you want. You'd add 1.5x your Strength bonus to damage instead of 1x. You'd have to ditch your shield and the +3 AC you're getting from it. But if you're looking to go more offensive...

Also, if you take Power Attack, choosing to wield your Warhammer in 2 hands will double the benefits of that feat.



Can you get mundane items made? Because it looks like you'd benefit from a suit of Fullplate. Even a completely nonmagical set of Fullplate gives you 2 more AC than your +1 Chainmail. (And you can cast Magic Vestment, so it doesn't matter that much whether your armor has a native enhancement bonus.)


I have the Metal Domain which grants proficiency and and weapon focus with a hammer weapon. It's a mostly Forgotten Realms based campaign with some home brew, the DM added Metal to Moradin's list of domains. For campaign reasons I'd prefer to stick with Moradin, I can't get access to the War domain.

Unless, there's some 3.5 rules voodoo that will let me get access to the War domain even though Moradin doesn't have that listed as one of his.

I've considering going two-handed, which is really the best way to go, but I'm concerned that my AC is only going to be 16, I have no Dex bonus. Because of the campaign's terrain and environment, the DM enforces Constitution checks against wearing heavy armor. It's simply too hot to wear plate under most circumstances.

[Piggy Knowles]

An average CR 8 enemy has roughly 96 HP. The rough benchmark I generally keep in my head is that someone for whom damaging things is their main role should be able to take out a level appropriate foe in two turns on their own, while someone for whom it’s a secondary schtick should be able to do it in four. So that means your charger should hopefully be able to pull off average damage on the high 40s or low 50s, and you should be in the mid to high 20s.

Wield that warhammer in two hands and use Divine Power (preferably persisted) and you’re almost there: two attacks at 1d8+11 damage isn’t terrible if you’re also contributing in other ways, and with +17/+12 attack rolls against the average AC of 20 that’s not terrible (averages to about 22.5 damage per round, so a bit low, but not embarrassingly so).

[Maat Mons]

I have the Metal Domain which grants proficiency and and weapon focus with a hammer weapon.

Ah yes, I forgot about that one. Well, if your DM uses the Spell Compendium version of the domain, then yes, Warhammer is the best choice.




For campaign reasons I'd prefer to stick with Moradin, I can't get access to the War domain. Unless, there's some 3.5 rules voodoo that will let me get access to the War domain even though Moradin doesn't have that listed as one of his.

Actually, there is. The Heretic of the Faith feat lets you partially ignore the normal restrictions for being a Cleric of a deity. But it has some potentially serious roleplaying complications.




Because of the campaign's terrain and environment, the DM enforces Constitution checks against wearing heavy armor. It's simply too hot to wear plate under most circumstances.

That's weird, the rules for environment-induced Constitution checks and armor don't distinguish between medium and heavy armor. Is your DM house-ruling this?

In any case, Endure Elements should let you wear heavy armor without any issues.

Though, personally, if I were going to play a Dwarf in a Sandstorm-ish campaign, I'd have considered taking the Forgeheart regional feat. (Well, really I'd have played a Fireblood Dwarf and maybe added the Improved Energy Resistance feat. But you didn't say your campaign allowed non-core subraces.)

[SaintNick]

I find this site (https://rpgwillikers.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/bench-pressing-character-creation-by-the-numbers/) rather useful for benchmarking characters. Based on the spreadsheet, I'd say you should be able to contribute around 25 damage per round with a lower bound of 16.5.

[Anthrowhale]

You might consider the Darkfire route. Darkfire gives you melee/ranged touch attacks dealing 4d6(~14) damage on hit with 2 attacks/round. The fact that it's a touch attack means you hit almost always, even with your low dexterity. Tacking on additional metamagic, this can keep up in the damage department through level 20. Only one hand is required so you can have a shield. Using Magic Vestment on shield & armor should push your AC up to 24=10(base)+8(full plate)+2(enhancement)+2(Shield)+2(enhancement) which is reasonable for someone with ranged attacks.

For a persistent spell approach, you do want to have more than 1/day up to be really effective. Common tricks:
1) Using a metamagic rod of extend spell (or sudden extend? or the party's incantatrix?) to keep a spell up for 48 hours, alternating the choice of spell each day to double effective capacity.
2) Use the ACF for Rebuke Dragons or Destroy Undead and take a level of Sacred Exorcist to pick up an extra DMM-fuel turning pool.

Using one trick gives you Divine Power + Divine Favor + Greater Magic Weapon as a starting point. Using both tricks of course you can do more.

[Eldariel]

Couldn't you sidestep the heavy armor-issue fairly effortlessly by using "Endure Elements"? It says "A creature protected by endure elements suffers no harm from being in a hot or cold environment. It can exist comfortably in conditions between -50 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit without having to make Fortitude saves). The creature’s equipment is likewise protected." Which suggests to me that unless you're regularly adventuring in over 140 degrees Fahrenheit (over 60 degrees Celsius), in which case you'd have much bigger problems than heavy armor getting hot, it should suffice. And if it doesn't, Extended Resist Energy: Fire would give you fire resistance 20 for 2 hours 40 minutes on this level so three castings would have you covered for an 8 hour adventuring day (you could get a Lesser Rod of Extend; they're pretty cheap and you can always craft one if you can't find it; or you could burn some 2nd and 3rd level slots). Fire resist 20 should more than suffice for avoiding heat-based issues since it takes almost a third of the damage off swimming in lava (20d6 averages 70).

Either way, if you can't, don't bother with a shield. You can't win the AC game so you should probably not bother even playing. Just focus on two-handing and ending threats ASAP. The other spell of interest in addition to Divine Power that's about to come online is Divine Favor. You can get Quicken Spell on level 9; Quickened Divine Favor is a nice 5th level buff. It gives you +3/+3 as a swift action for Long Enough™ and that combined with two-handing, Divine Power and Power Attack two-handing Warhammer would more than suffice. Greater Magic Weapon and Magic Vestment seem superfluous for now, but if you get your Fullplate (see above for handling heat), Magic Vestment on your basic Fullplate would give you +10 AC already (putting you at the not-entirely-atrocious 20 and 22 after factoring in the probably active Magic Circle against Evil).

Honestly, if you have access to it, Divine Metamagic is the way to go. Yes, it's a lot of feats but it makes your buffs last all day. That frees up your in-combat actions for further buffs, offensive spells (Spiritual Weapon is nice if you're buffing yourself as it uses ) or similar. You can always Extend the Persistent buff (feat, rod, whatever) and make them last 48 hours thus keeping two buffs up all day. Note, Divine Power is +5 to hit, which is much more substantial than the +3 damage. No amount of damage does you any good if you keep on missing. It also gives you a lot of temporary HP, and its benefits scale and it saves you strength-buffing equipment entirely.

Wrath-domain (on Moradin's list) would give you Rhino's Rush, which would make you very competitive with the Fighter on charges. You could prepare it in 1st, 2nd and 3rd level domain slots for 3 uses per day. It doubles your charge damage. If you had Power Attack and two-handed your Warhammer (say, 22 Str with Divine Power active), you could easily be looking at ~-3 PA for +9 damage.

If you have access to the occasional non-core spell, Spikes/Bramble (Complete Divine, Spell Compendium) are superb damage buffs for a Cleric. Just two-hand a Club and go to town.

Also, if core only, don't ignore Summons. They are some of your best spells for accessing utility and even combat prowess. Lowly Lantern Archon does basically unstoppable damage for example, while casting utility. They double all your actions after the first round of combat. Thaumaturgist is a core PRC open for Clerics and 100% worth it; you get the BAB back from Divine Power anyways and Contingent Summons means you can start fights with a top tier Summon every time.

[Mars Ultor]

. . . Lots of great advice . . .


All of this is fantastic, I appreciate it. I had considered the Wrath domain but it doesn't fit the character, but Endure Elements and plate had not occurred to me at all, that's a great idea.

I'm still on the fence regarding meta magic, it seems like a lot of feats, but it's still worth considering.

[Mars Ultor]

Ah yes, I forgot about that one. Well, if your DM uses the Spell Compendium version of the domain, then yes, Warhammer is the best choice.

Actually, there is. The Heretic of the Faith feat lets you partially ignore the normal restrictions for being a Cleric of a deity. But it has some potentially serious roleplaying complications.

That's weird, the rules for environment-induced Constitution checks and armor don't distinguish between medium and heavy armor. Is your DM house-ruling this?

In any case, Endure Elements should let you wear heavy armor without any issues.

Though, personally, if I were going to play a Dwarf in a Sandstorm-ish campaign, I'd have considered taking the Forgeheart regional feat. (Well, really I'd have played a Fireblood Dwarf and maybe added the Improved Energy Resistance feat. But you didn't say your campaign allowed non-core subraces.)


It's not a Sandstorm-ish campaign, but there are some environmental circumstances. Endure Elements is a great suggestion.

The DM does house-rule some stuff, he spend some time in various Middle Eastern countries and those experiences influence the game.

Heretic of the Faith isn't appropriate for the character, but it's an interesting idea. There's a running joke in the group, "There's a feat for that." I guess there really is a feat for that.

[Mars Ultor]

I find this site (https://rpgwillikers.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/bench-pressing-character-creation-by-the-numbers/) rather useful for benchmarking characters. Based on the spreadsheet, I'd say you should be able to contribute around 25 damage per round with a lower bound of 16.5.

I skimmed it, but I'm going to read it in its entirety. Benchmarking is what I was looking for, thanks for the link.

[Mars Ultor]

You might consider the Darkfire route. Darkfire gives you melee/ranged touch attacks dealing 4d6(~14) damage on hit with 2 attacks/round. The fact that it's a touch attack means you hit almost always, even with your low dexterity. Tacking on additional metamagic, this can keep up in the damage department through level 20. Only one hand is required so you can have a shield. Using Magic Vestment on shield & armor should push your AC up to 24=10(base)+8(full plate)+2(enhancement)+2(Shield)+2(enhancement) which is reasonable for someone with ranged attacks.

For a persistent spell approach, you do want to have more than 1/day up to be really effective. Common tricks:
1) Using a metamagic rod of extend spell (or sudden extend? or the party's incantatrix?) to keep a spell up for 48 hours, alternating the choice of spell each day to double effective capacity.
2) Use the ACF for Rebuke Dragons or Destroy Undead and take a level of Sacred Exorcist to pick up an extra DMM-fuel turning pool.

Using one trick gives you Divine Power + Divine Favor + Greater Magic Weapon as a starting point. Using both tricks of course you can do more.

I'm not sure if the DM will allow Darkfire. There's a notion that the PHB is fine, but the other books are crazily overpowered.

A metamagic rod and/or ACF aren't happening, but I appreciate the suggestions.

[Eldariel]

The alternative path I see would be to just take Power Attack and then focus your remaining feats on Craft-feats: Craft Wondrous Items and Craft Magic Arms & Armor (perhaps Craft Rod down the line). Very in-line with the ethos of Moradin and very dwarfy, it would allow you to acquire more or less just the items you want, including Animated Shield, Spellstoring Weapon (for example), Boots of Speed (unless you're casting Righteous Wrath of the Faithful or getting Hasted regularly), Wis/Con/Dex boosters, etc. Make no mistake, regardless of how you proceed, the only real way to do decent damage in Coreish games is buffing your Hit and using Power Attack (or charging with like Spirited Charge). If you want to use a shield and lack access to an Animated one at any point, Improved Buckler Defense is the way to go.

Though you do still want at least basic metamagic feats eventually (Quicken Spell by level 12, definitely). This is where Human Clerics have such a huge advantage: the extra feat amounts to quite a bit for a Cleric.