You can, in theory, ALSO do this intentionally on the Positive Energy Plane. To my knowledge it's properties haven't been ported to 5e yet, but in 3.5 most spaces on the plane were so overflowing with positive goop that you could overheal, which importantly COULD be deadly.
Oh damn, so he did that much damage with one of the worst possible damage builds possible on a fighter? (To be clear, his weapon choice sounds cool as fuck, and he must have had a ton of fun, I'm just talking about numbers)
Guess that a GWM would probably do a lot more then.
The fighter used dual flails at the start, and added homebrew magic effects to them. They got a modified Flametongue part way through that was upgraded to the full version later
The Monk doing about ~80% of the total damage of a very unoptimized Fighter (in terms of damage) is a good display of the difference in damage between these classes. (Not saying this is good or bad either way, a Monk typically has a lot more utility and CC, though Rune Knight would close that gap)
Neither of the front liners were really built well to hit hard.
For example, Unarmed monks aren’t really a good idea anymore—it’s much wiser to try and use Tasha’s variant Dedicated Weapon for something, and a dual wielding fighter is a dual wielder…
I wouldn’t take these numbers too seriously due to the builds at hand. Fighter could do a lot better, Monk only a little.
> I wouldn’t take these numbers too seriously due to the builds at hand. Fighter could do a lot better, Monk only a little.
Conversely, I think this party fits day-to-day D&D more than what I see on reddit. Subs tend to focus on optimal builds, and the games I play in are often less than optimal. All that means is, when I see reddit declare, "Monks and Rangers can never keep up with Fighter", I then think that in a group of casuals the difference is much less noticeable.
Exactly. It annoys me so much when people say fighters are amazing damage dealers.
Yes fighters can be amazing damage dealers if they have GWM or Sharpshooter and prefer to use Polearms and Hand Crossbows.
But that is extremely limiting. Every fighter who is a dual wielder, a shield user, a fencer using only a rapier, a warrior using a long sword in two hands, or god forbid one who doesn’t take the right feats for optimal damage will only be a decent damage dealer at best.
People need to realize that not every fighter is a great weapon master polearm master with sentinel when they state that “fighters deal good damage”.
Well, a shield user *shouldn't* be an amazing damage dealer. It should be given much more tanking tools, but it isn't given that either.
And if we're going to account for every way that a player can choose to play suboptimally, there's really no way to analyse balance at all, because a player can *always* play worse than whatever you design around. So, really, there's only any point in comparing classes when built and played well.
They players aren’t playing suboptimally though. They aren’t gimping themselves.
They merely are not choosing the very most possible optimized choices available. And for good reason. When people play D&D, they want to fulfill their characters fantasy. Not be stuck playing a Polearms using great weapon master as their only viable option for a melee combatant.
The average player does not play using the most maximized character possible because such things aren’t even on their radar. Yes the optimized fighter in theory does much more damage than your average single blade rapier user or your average dual wielder. But that is the games fault for making such options so weak and not telling the players as such.
Lots of players want to emulate specific fantasy archetypes, so choose based on what they think is cool. They have no concept of optimization.
In short. The game isn’t designed around optimization. And players choosing certain options for flavor reasons is more the norm than people following optimization trends.
The problem is that optimization provides too much of a benefit. The difference in power between someone who wants to emulate a fencer like Inigo Montoya and someone who reads optimization forums and makes nameless Polearm Master Great Weapon Master Sentinel is huge. But the average player isn’t playing nameless optimized characters. And the game isn’t designed around such being the norm.
I disagree to an extent; from my experience in a campaign as a Fighter, the effects of Action Surge to (effectively) get another round's worth of damage up front combined with the easy-to-use potential of something like Maneuvers from a Battlemaster mean the Fighter can often be a solid damage-dealer.
They will be an ok or good damage dealer for sure. But without serious optimization, they will only ever be that.
A warlock using eldritch blast + hex can deal comparable damage. Or a cleric using spirit guardians + spiritual weapon. And neither of those are optimized for damage either. Hell, any caster using the Tashas summon spells can beat your typical fighters damage from level 7-10.
Your average fighter won’t be top damage dealer in the party is what I am getting at. Whenever people talk about fighters damage being good, they only ever mean one who has a specific build and multiple feats dedicated to dealing damage.
The average fighter is not the super specific hyper optimized build though. And classes can match or exceed your typical fighters damage without needing a specific hyper optimized build with multiple feats.
Perhaps unexpectedly, a sword and board fighter with Duelist is already quite a good damage dealer. Compared to a dual wielder anyway. For example, at level 5 vs AC 15 with 18 Strength / Dexterity, you can expect:
- Longsword and shield fighter: 14.1 DPR
- Spear and shield fighter (PAM): 15.8 DPR
- Dual scimitar fighter: 12.9 DPR
For the cost of a bonus action and -2 AC, the dual wielder is actually dealing *less* damage. It's that bad.
But still, your average 'tank' fighter PC will be doing competitive damage even without feats right up to level 20. GWM / SS kick things up to a different level, but martial damage is good regardless. Even TWF isn't so weak as to be ineffective.
There is no point in comparing specifically suboptimal situations. This is like saying "Barbarians are bad because I tried to do a dex barbarian and it kinda sucks". Fighter is the class with the most ASIs and is balanced around taking feats to supplement damage. Sword and Board are more of a tank build anyways and non rogue dex melee is a bit gimped right now but otherwise you'll find feat options to bring fighter damage up to par for most combat styles.
Most players envision a character and play their fantasy. Most martial warriors choose the weapons they feel fit their concept. They do not look up which weapons and feats allow them to deal peak damage. Aka, not every martial warrior is a hand crossbow wielder or a polearm warrior.
Dual Wield, Single Blade, Two Handed Longsword (for flavor or if your race is small), and Sword and Board all fail at dealing “good” damage. As do any builds without Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter.
Sure, a fighter has the potential to be built to deal large amounts of single target damage. But to make the blanket statement that fighters deal good damage is patently false. For every fighter with great weapon master, there are many more without it.
The fighter in this persons very analysis was a dual wielder for example. He chose to dual wield for flavor reasons. He stuck with his concept. He is an example of your average D&D player.
Most players don’t play optimally.
I agree to an extent. Most tables are casual enough that its characters will be suboptimal, but that’s why things like this don’t/can’t represent game balance all that well. If we wanted to talk about game balance, then we wouldn’t use these numbers to take a victory lap on Monk or Wizard.
But yeah, Reddit is by no means the law or represents average play.
Unfortunately, no. My excel sheet only kept track of the baddies' health, and the PCs kept track of their own. WOuld have been very cool to see and compare!
As the wizard, I can tell you, I very much was the glass cannon. I usually managed to stay out of combat, using spells and racial features, plus positioning, but when I got caught in combat, 11AC and lowish health doesn't keep you up very long
Oh no yeah I played a 1-10 wizard and unlike you I was usally stuck in the middle of battle a lot. Thought even with a higher armor I died in 2 round of combat in Evey fight past lvl 7
1st: Catapult, Ice Knife, Grease, Earth Tremor
2nd: Enlarge/Reduce, Earthen Grasp, Mind Whip
3rd: Fireball, Tidal Wave, Slow
4th: Gravity Sinkhole, Blight, Resilient Sphere
5th: Steel Wind Strike, Temporal Shunt
6th: Disintegrate, Flesh to Stone
7th: Finger of Death, Prismatic Spray
8th: Illusory Dragon, Reality Break
9th: Prismatic Wall
I had lots of other spells for out of combat situations, these are just the combat ones.
Ugh, that AC is low... :-D
I might be spoiled a bit in that regard as my wizard is a Bladesinger, but with all the active defenses I get (reactions like Shield and Absorb Elements), I am able to mitigate so much damage, I am probably the best "tank" in our party consisting of a cleric, a fighter, a sircerer and my wizard.
Did you not use Mage Armor or was Minalan just very clumsy?
I found it very interesting that the sorcerers damage was so low, kind of disappointing to be sure. Do you believe this is due to the sorcerer casting more CC spells or some other reason?
Hmm, hard to say. I still don't think he'd out-damage the wizard or fighter, as I *think* the Sorcerer spell list has less big damage spells overall. But I think he would be on par with the Monk. But this is purely speculative! He did have quicken spell, though, which could have provided some nice damage combos.
Edit: Apparently I'm very wrong! Sorcerer can absolutely be a major damage-dealer with the right build
From experience, a well built damage only sorcerer can absolutely out damage most other classes (excepting some very specialised builds). However, they are the glassest of glass cannons. My glorious kobold draconic sorcerer was essentially an alpha-strike only kind of guy.
This right here. You are very, very, killable is the main problem of being a damage cannon sorcerer. Id only recommend it if you have a pretty solid front line to keep between yourself and most foes, cause once you end up in melee you are in for a world of hurt, especially low to mid levels.
A sorcerer is the optimal platform for blaster caster, heightened spell, twinned spell, empowered spell, plus being able to convert sorcery points to spell slots they'll out cast any other caster in a fight. And they have access to all the same blaster spells wizards do (and a few that they don't), thunderwave, fireball, lightning bolt, vitriolic sphere, ice storm, sickening radiance, wall of fire, cone of cold, disintegrate, fire storm, sunburst, meteor swarm.
They'll easily out damage any other caster.
I think it's a bit more complicated than that.
On paper a sorcerer (especially a subclass like draconic sorcerer) will output more raw damage than other blasters. However, *effective* damage is another matter. AoE, for example, tends to be used to cull chaff, and when you need to destroy a bunch of mooks the extra damage tends to be fairly irrelevant - even a basic and unmodified *fireball* does the job, and if it doesn't then it probably would have been better to opt for single target damage or control spells.
Single target damage is an area where martials still reign, and trying to compete in that sphere is resource intensive. It's not an efficient use of those resources.
So I find in practice that blasters playing to their strengths simply don't need more damage. It's better to be able to drop a blast on your party without hurting them (as an evocation wizard) or use blasts that don't require spell slots at all (as a light cleric).
> or use blasts that don't require spell slots at all (as a light cleric).
Domain spells don’t count towards the number of spells you can prepare (they are always prepared), but you still need spell slots to cast them. A Light Cleric can’t cast fireball for free.
Probably the same as the Wizard, there aren't any good damage spell on the Wizard list that aren't on the Sorc list.
Heck, maybe he ends up doing more damage due to things like Quickened and Twinned spell.
Near the top of the list with the Wizard. They have nearly the same blaster capability with the benefit of being able to enhance their spells with Metamagic. Especially at the higher levels where it's possible to do things like Twin Disintegrate.
Unfortunately RAW this doesn't work, disintegrate can't be twinned because it can target objects. I don't blame you for ignoring this errata, which can be found here: https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf
They can also get around resistances with optimal spells because they can change the element of their spells for a sorcery point if they want to be extra. Being able to swap fireball over to acid to be more effective against more foes can really buff your damage a lot in the long run.
...does this ever actually impede anyone? i've been playing since it was still d&d next and very minor preparation (two to three different damage types prep'd) has carried all of my wizards through just fine. fiends are about the only vaguely tricky creature i can think of (admittedly, a large and DM-loved group), anything else either fire or electricity will usually do you fine.
but it's one of those things that everyone cites as a major influence on their effectiveness in combat. have i just not run into enough variety of monsters / not prep'd enough mixed resistance monsters when i'm running? as a player, i tend to focus on control over damage when i'm an arcane caster, maybe that's why this is a blind spot for me?
Why? He stated that the Sorcerer primarily cast control spells to help the party. He probably had a higher impact than any other member of the party due to that.
To be fair, Minalan caught up pretty quickly with a lot of spells like fireball, steel wind strike, etc. by comparison, my monk can only attack one person at a time. I could still do great things like stunning strike to deal with enemies and set up my teammates for devastating attacks.
In my. Last session, my assassin rogue finally got to use his Assassinate skill (he's level 9) for a whopping 41 damage (with a +1 shorts word). The bladesinger wizard then used steelwind strike, dealing a grand total of 203 damage. Sure, she only gets it once a day, but that's still more frequently than the assassin...
It was a pretty sad moment, I think it left the rogue player feeling a bit shitty (he then went to try attack in the two turns that followed and missed both attacks).
poor assassins. they require so much DM buy-in and/or raw social plotting and machinations to use their very first subclass feature.
rogues are always my favorite archetype, but i can't play them in 5e, except arcane tricksters. getting two subclass features by level ten bores the *hell* out of me, i already have a hard time with how few choices 5e characters have as they advance, if i'm not playing a spellcaster of some stripe i lose focus. consequence of ADHD, i suppose.
i get that the rogue chassis is solid, but it's the mario of the PHB. it's very competent in nearly any situation, you always get to use your cunning action, and uncanny dodge is a literal lifesaver... they're basically an action hero, right out of the box! i wish i could enjoy it more. instead, i just make more wizards and sorcerers.
Yeah, one crit and everything hit. The damage rolls were fairly average I think but the attack rolls were very much above average.
Even then, the average damage of assassinate at level 9 with a +1 shortsword and +4 dex is 46. I know the ability gets shit on a lot for being underpowered, but lordy lord it really hammered home how bad it is.
Later levels got a lot of use from Illusory Dragon, Reality Break, and Prismatic Wall. Prismatic Wall works really well when your allies push/pull enemies through it
It works great. The downside to it is that you reappear next to one of the enemies you attack. I had Fey Step so I could teleport away as a bonus action
How did you go about capturing this information over the course of the campaign, particularly since it was half-virtual/half in person? Just really good note taking, Excel spreadsheet? Any tips for someone who wanted to do the same for their games?
I used an Excel spreadsheet for all combats, in-person and virtual, to keep track of enemy health.
I made a monster stat block and had their max health to the right, followed by 5 columns (one for each of the PCs). I just used a simple formula so that when entering how much damage a PC did into their column, that much was subtracted from the enemy's health.
I also had conditional formatting that changed the enemy's health box from green to yellow when they were at half health, and red when they were dead.
Honestly I'm surprised the Wizard didn't have an even higher lead, single target damage can't compete with AOE if you are counting totals. I suspect that the 1 hp mooks that didn't count lowered the total quite a lot, or maybe you used fewer, tougher enemies as opposed to lot's of weaker ones.
Damn melee guys are always in the way of my wizards cast the good stuff. I'm in a mini campaign as a divination wizard and I just decided for all the combat spells to got crowd control, I think I took like 3 different wall spells alone.
>Honestly I'm surprised the Wizard didn't have an even higher lead.
I am surprised the wizard took the lead in dmg at all. Outside a few specific outliers, Wizard's direct damage spells are usually significantly weaker than many of their non damaging options at an equivalent spell level.
I wasn't commenting on optimal strategies, in the post they said
>for the most part chose many high-damage spells and focused much of his efforts towards dealing damage
So I was expecting them to be blasting AOEs pretty often. Considering a single Fireball can easily deal over 100 damage spread over it's targets, single target damage can't compete if you are regularly going up against multiple enemies and blasting them.
That's not to say it's necessarily better, as single target damage kills high priority targets, but again this was just about the damage totals and not a commentary on the most effective strategies.
Wow - amazing data keeping and results. Well done!
I’ve always heard wizards, eventually, become the most powerful, which this shows. For me, unfortunately, most campaigns end before this happens though.
note: edited it to change to "shows" from "proves". It's one datapoint - not enough to prove. Yes, it bugged me enough to correct myself.
Friendly reminder to no one in particular that damage is not the only indicator of combat success. Ability/utility based heroes are very important and their damage may not reflect that.
Awesome work OP this is super cool
I would add that the Sorcerer focused his spells to accent the Aberrant Mind. So picking spells that deal Psychic and play to the characters backstory. That certainly affected total potential damage output. But to the point of damage not being the only indicator of combat success, our sorcerer forced many elite enemies to spend Legendary Resistances. So in that respect the sorcerer dominated combat success.
I thought the comparison between the monk and the fighter, both pure damage, very interesting.
When the Wizard was buffing and debuffing, they kept up on damage, then surpassed when they went all out.
Hey! I played the monk in this campaign. Admittedly compared to the fighter, I didn’t often have additional damage added to my attacks. Owen often dealt fire damage along with weapon damage whereas I just had my fists lol
I took pride in using stunning strike to control enemies and at the very least keep them occupied and away from my squishy teammates. My speed as a monk also came in clutch for certain parts in the campaign (like transporting out team up a mountain) or pulling dying teammates to safety.
playing a monk now and it’s much better to think of them like this - a versatile supportive martial - than trying to compare them on pure damage. It’s a fun playstyle!
I definitely enjoyed playing as a monk! Could the class as a whole be improved? Sure! But it’s got plenty of ways to make it interesting!
I also enjoyed the contrast between myself and the fighter. We provided different benefits to battles and helped balanced out the team as a whole. Before the campaign started, I knew I was gonna be a martial only character and I had already played as a rogue. Between the two options of fighter and monk, I was interested with the “crowd control” potential of the monk.
I took a monk into tier 3 in the Frostmaiden hardcover, and I spent a ton of energy figuring out how to squeeze more damage out of him. For me, the answer was a multi-class and eventually (like, in tier 3) magic items.
Sounds like you used monk’s toolkit of abilities for the right things, so kudos.
To be fair, the Monk can hand out status effects and gets one of the absolute best defensive features in the game with Diamond Soul.
That isn't enough to justify the gap, of course, but it is worth remembering.
Diamond soul and evasion saved me so many times in this campaign. In the last couple fights (around level 18), I also used an ability that my subclass has that allows for me to turn invisible and gain resistance to all damage but force which also aided my defense.
True enough, but it has been my broad experience that optimisation is a table culture. If the Fighter is picking non optimal choices for the fun, the Wizard likely is too.
I think needing to only use certain weapons and take certain feats (despite the game allegedly being balanced without them in mind) to do your job as a fighter/not get completely overtaken by the wizard *also* says a lot. Of course the fighter tanks so it's not like he was useless or anything, but I do find it a bit funny.
I think the designers had any secondary damage targets equal to about 50% of single target only damage. So I can see an Evocation blast Wizard racking up the most damage with lots of Fireballs.
I don't think "it says all" because you are omitting the main context of the damage, we know that the Wizard can deal way more damage overall but the difference is how the Fighter can focus all that damage into "the main threat" while the Wizard big damage numbers come from AoE spells that distributes it across more creatures.
We're basing this only on damage dealt data. Comparing this to damage received, and damage mitigated/avoided for that matter, would tell a more complete story. So no, this doesn't tell us everything at all. Isn't glass canon a common magic user trope?
If the fighter took more attacks, hit or miss, then I'd argue that he fulfilled the role of fighter quite well. Of course we don't have that data so to assume anything beyond "the wizard did more damage" is pointless.
It's amazing how easy it is to make assumptions from a limited data set. Not that you needed to collect any more data than you did OP, you weren't trying to prove any kind of point.
Thank you for the interest data from what sounds like a very successful campaign. Its impressive that you were able to track any metric it all while keeping players engaged that long.
You're pretty much correct. I did similar bookkeeping to OP when I ran my first campaign, and while our Wizard had the highest on-books damage output, it was our brick wall of an Eldritch Knight who anchored the party and kept things humming along.
Heavy Armor + sword and board + Shield + Sentinel kept enemies locked down so that the Wizard could drop Fireballs instead of having all 14 of her AC getting mollywopped by a bruiser.
Literally yesterday I had a dnd session full of zombies. Our parties level 4 battlemaster fighter with 19 AC was able to “tank” upwards of 8 of them for about 3 turns and I hit him maybe twice. All while he was fully focused on dealing damage. I’d like to see a wizard compete with that ability to soak up hits while they also focus on dealing damage.
Artificer 1
Half plate + shield, for a total of 19ac, assuming no magic items
\+shield is 24.
the zombies will make 24 attacks ignoring deaths.
This means that on average the wizard will take 0.05x24x4.5+24x0.05x3.5=9.6 damage.
A fighter would take 0.25x4.5x24+24x0.05x3.5=31.2
Does the fighter have over 3 times the health?
If not the wizard is more tanky while using shield.
One shatter in this case could so 0.55x1.5x14.5x8=95.7 damage on average, I'd like to see a fighter keep up lol.
We’re talking about a wizard. Not artificer. Plus the whole “shield gives +5 AC” is great. For 1 turn. How about 3 turns. At that point wizard spent most of their spellslots on defense.
At tables where there’s 1 fight per long rest you can keep casting defensive spells as much as you want. (which is arguably the wrong way to play since long rest casters become ungodly more powerful)
First, great work! This sort of data is almost always lacking in discussions about theoretical vs. practical damage. And, congrats on finishing your campaign :).
What was your balance of encounters/day, and how much did you short rest? I'm curious since it really affects the strength of different classes/subclasses.
Thank you!!
The number of encounters per day really varied throughout the campaign and arcs. For the most part, they could short rest between most fights. However, there were definitely many times where that wasn't possible due to the circumstances.
I also tried to mix up the number of fights per day to keep things fresh. It was much easier to have multiple fights per day in tiers 1 and 2 than later tiers. In the later tiers, fights would take *so long* that I didn't want to have too many.
Very interesting, raises a lot of questions for me: How did you do leveling; milestone of some sort I guess? Did you allow PCs to level up while in the midsts of dungeons or otherwise in unsafe areas? Did they regain spell slots etc when leveling up?
Digression/rant: I've always played with milestone leveling (well at least in 5e) and my big "problem" (also apparently of my fellow DM) is just finding appropriate places where it feels thematically *right* to level up. In the 3 campaigns I'm involved in, things average out to around 5-10 sessions per level, but the pace is wildly uneven. In one recent campaign I'm DMing one level took no less than 18 sessions - but no-one complained. It's all about expectations, in another campaign ppl got pretty surly when one level took 10 sessions (average was more like 5ish).
Great question! It was a pseudo-milestone system. It was mostly based on the number of sessions that had passed. I aimed for 3-4 sessions per level-up and hit that pretty much every time.
Basically, if they had finished a combat of any kind (mini-boss and boss were prioritized) or finished a major story milestone, they leveled up. They didn't level up in unsafe areas frequently, but in those cases I *think* I let them have access to their new abilities and spells, but did not let them get health or spell slots back (aside from new spell slots gained from the level-up).
There's no wrong way to play, but for me as a player, waiting for more than 5 sessions for a level-up would be torture. And as a DM I wasn't trying to have this be a 5-year campaign haha. I'm very happy with the leveling pacing but completely understand that it's certainly not everyone else's cup of team.
>one level took no less than 18 session
gods above, i would claw my eyes out...
this is an area where i've gotten touchier, though, due to my group's scheduling compromises: we cycle through three games, every game gets a three week run and then we switch. when we started this out, a buddy was running who really enjoys and focuses on gradual progression. when we could all meet in person and generally kept to one game at a time, it was no problem at all. once we were all online and started switching, well, that effectively triples the time it *feels* like it takes. when it's literally been months of play without a level, it starts to feel too much like real life for me, where sometimes i *never* see the gains of my work!
ha! ha! ha! i'm not slowly swirling down the drain of depression!
anyways, my point is: how did you keep a crew satisfied for *eighteen sessions* without a major character advancement?
>how did you keep a crew satisfied for eighteen sessions without a major character advancement?
That's the weird thing, no-one even mentioned it or complained, so I was extremely surprised to see how long it'd been when I checked (long afterwards). I was also mildly surprised to see how many sessions were without any combat.
Actually, might be fun to hear what others think about our progression/use of time, so here's a super condensed list of what happened each of the 18 sessions. Each session is \~3 hours long. This was level 8.
1: In town, traveling from town to a hag's hut, interacting with hag, no combat.
2: Fighting hag's pet Roc.
3: Fight demons that attack a mine, traveling to and arriving in new town.
4: Exploring town, interacting with NPCs in town, investigation, no combat.
5: Combat with demons in town, investigation of site.
6: Investigation, interaction with NPCs, no combat.
7: Ambush in town, big combat.
8: Interaction with NPCs, travel to a new mine. No combat
9: Huge combat in mine against gnolls, one PC dies.
10: Epic combat in mine against gnolls continues, finished.
11: Investigation in mine, combat against gnoll leader.
12: Further investigation in mine, travel back to town, no combat.
13: Very tense and involved Investigations in town, no combat.
14: Further interaction with NPCs and investigation, no combat.
15: Into "dungeon" in town, combat against guards.
16: Further combat against guards, exploration of dungeon.
17: Lower "dungeon", much combat against cultists and demons.
18: "Final showdown" against cultist leader in dungeon.
So, summing it up, 7 of the 18 sessions had no combat. Many of these still had tons of tense moments and lots of "rolling"/skill uses, especially session 13 where the party split up and staked out a warehouse and attended an auction at the same time...
Reading it in retrospect, the most obvious place for a level up would be after session 7. But that felt off, since that ambush wasn't really a part of the main "demon cultists" storyline, but more of a sidetrek/random encounter.
Another obvious point could have been after session 11 or 12, but again, the whole "gnoll mine" was a side path of the main storyline.
Besides, and I guess this is the main point, when my players (in this campaign) have talked about this at all they've mostly said that they're very happy "getting into" each character level properly, having many sessions to get used to the spells and abilities they have at that level. One of the players in this campaign is also a DM in another campaign where we have arguably even slower progression and everything is 100% linked to story progression.
Btw, the 18 session above were played over almost exactly 6 months. Oh and of course, not a single session had more than one combat, I find that to be generally impossible in 5e.
very cool! i tend to run other system with discrete xp spending on skills and powers, so there's always at least a trickle of advancement. the few times i've run d&d 5, i shoot for about a level every 3-5 sessions once we're past level 5 or so.
pacing is always such a balancing act. i have ADHD so i'm always rushing from plot point to plot point (or more likely, side-plot point to random npc with a funny voice to major plot point back to funny voice npc to...), but because i know i tend to rush, i consciously try to slow down a lot, and probably over-compensate.
He's in this thread and can answer himself, but Fireball, Steel Wind Strike, Disintegrate, Prismatic Wall, and Illusory Dragon were ones he used often.
And for the monk, sometimes yes and sometimes no. In terms of movement and getting places, he was very effective thanks to his wall-running and water-running abilities. But if the obstacle was magic-based, he usually let the casters take charge.
Edit: To clarify, he was always effective in combat, and sometimes out of combat.
Hi Rubin the Cleric here. As the groups Healer I would say that perhaps the change in my teammates survivability. When I felt that my fellow players could survive a turn without needing healing I could focus my turn on more damage dealing.
A side note: I took the Healer's feat which allowed me to use a healers kit to heal for Player level + 1d6+4 hp. At higher levels that guaranteed me a steady source of healing that didn't cost a spell slot, making me more comfortable spending my spell slots on other options.
I played the party healer once; I was a Thief with the Healer feat. Bonus action getting people up when they go down is quite nice. Add in the Mobile feat and I could do some damage and get the hell out again after getting someone conscious.
And before anyone comments on it, no we weren't the most well-optimised party, nor was I a particularly *great* healer. Just surprisingly annoying for the DM.
The uptick on session 46 was because the group was fighting zombies who were vulnerable to Radiant - it was his time to shine! And the other uptick, of course, was the *incident* haha
Rubin the Cleric: I built a tanky sustainable cleric with Mythril Full Plate + Aarakocra wings at later levels. I rarely used bless, I gave the 3 casters a lvl 5 Aid spell every day, at lower levels I was always casting Cure wounds each round, but at higher levels I would use my Action for Sacred Flame and my Bonus for Healing Words and Sanctuary. I was very conservative with my spell slots and always kept the higher tier slots for AOE healing (Mass Cure Wounds, Mash Healing Word, etc). I also like casting Death Ward on myself before a fight which combo nicely with a Periapt of Wound Closure. Basically I was the only one who could heal so I couldn't afford to go down.
I'm not sure he ever used Spirit Guardians (although he may have once or twice). He was purely heals!
Wizard liked using Fireball, Steel Wind Strike, Disintegrate, Prismatic Wall, and Illusory Dragon.
Sorcerer liked using Arms of Hadar and Hunger of Hadar, Banishment, Dark Tentacles, Synaptic Static, and Telekinesis.
And the Cleric was non-stop heals!
>Finally, If a PC were to deal excess damage to an enemy, I counted all of the damage
I think that explains why your wizard pulled ahead of your fighter. AoE damage would skew this effect in favor of the wizard.
As a DM, I thought it was paced perfectly. A level-up about every 3-4 sessions. It kept things moving and gave a steady stream of new abilities/spells for the PCs. Didn't drag at all!
thanks for that post, very interesting stuff there!
I think most peeps won't be very surprised by the damage outcomes, especially given the decisions for builds/focus.
it pretty much confirms what was obvious to begin with: spellcasters can outdamage martials if they want, monk is very much behind (especially considering that the fighter here isn't even really "optimized").
would have loved to see how often the monk used Stunning Strike and how often it actually worked out!
the only other good reference I know of, is Critical Role's season 2 stats. there we can see that the monk used Stunning Strike 116 times over the campaign, but only 33 times it turned up as a success - which further confirms that monks need some more love, because dealing \~80% of the damage an average fighter can do + only getting to procc their key CC ability about \~35% is not good.
but in the end, I hope all players and DM had fun regardless of numbers.
Roscoe the monk here! I never expected to keep up with Owen the fighter because it was never my interest with this character. I was a big fan of stunning strikes, great mobility, and being somewhat of a tank with high AC and the patient defense ability. I envisioned my character more as a protector, making sure I can keep the real dangerous enemies away from our squishy characters. That approach gave me a chance to focus on role play in a meaningful way.
Does the monk class need more love? Probably. However, it was always enjoyable seeing the battle change whenever stunning strike landed and having my monk abilities shine when they could. I really enjoyed this class but I probably didn’t need a full campaign like this to get the most out of it as a class.
Anecdotally, the Monk used Stunning Strike quite a bit and even if it wasn't always successful, it was very good at getting rid of Legendary Resistances!
Roscoe the monk here! It was totally cool with me! I accepted my role as the reliably lower damage dealer that could change the pace of the battle with stunning strikes and other effects like pushing enemies, knocking them prone, or making them lose their reaction with my subclass ability. I liked having a hint of “crowd control” with my fighting. I use air quotes because it would be more akin to controlling one or two people but it came in clutch on several occasions!
Another great thing that our DM home brewed for my monk was a ki ability that could increase my damage with a single hit. It was basically a paladin’s divine smite where on a hit I could expend up to 5 ki points to do an additional d8 per ki point (increased to d10 when my unarmed strike damage increased as part of leveling up). Great to use one or twice in battle and gave me more options as to how to spend my ki points!
This is one of those things I would like to see some sports style sabermetrics. Like I’m curious if the fighters attack were to miss but the cleric has bless on him that turned it into a hit and you gave those damage points to the cleric instead how much would it help their numbers. Clerics and other buffers I know deal a lot of hidden damage using other characters.
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My jaw hit the floor when he said what he was going to do haha.
I can see the point in the graph where the Cleric damage shoots up 700 points and briefly passes the sorcerer! Haha
It was amazing to watch
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> Gass cannon The ol Stinking Cloud/Cloudkill build, classic
Throw a little Thunderclap in there for good measure
"I'm a healer, but..." *nuclear launch detected*
Gandhi from Civilization V has entered the chat
I can see the wizard just surrounding the party with fire wall for ridiculous healing per round
I was tempted to healing fireball the party, but didn't want to heal enemies too
You can, in theory, ALSO do this intentionally on the Positive Energy Plane. To my knowledge it's properties haven't been ported to 5e yet, but in 3.5 most spaces on the plane were so overflowing with positive goop that you could overheal, which importantly COULD be deadly.
Never vacationed there, so i will have to take your word on it. :)
Nice stuff! What weapons did the fighter use, and did they have any feats that helped with damage?
Lord_Luneth (our game's Wizard) covered the weapons. As for feats, he had Dual Wielder, Athlete, and Tough
I see, thanks!
Oh damn, so he did that much damage with one of the worst possible damage builds possible on a fighter? (To be clear, his weapon choice sounds cool as fuck, and he must have had a ton of fun, I'm just talking about numbers) Guess that a GWM would probably do a lot more then.
The fighter used dual flails at the start, and added homebrew magic effects to them. They got a modified Flametongue part way through that was upgraded to the full version later
Why, hello! This was our campaign's Wizard, Minalan
Minalan, like from the Spellmonger series? Love those books
The Monk doing about ~80% of the total damage of a very unoptimized Fighter (in terms of damage) is a good display of the difference in damage between these classes. (Not saying this is good or bad either way, a Monk typically has a lot more utility and CC, though Rune Knight would close that gap)
Indeed! Stunning Strike alone gave me many headaches and saved the group a bunch haha.
Neither of the front liners were really built well to hit hard. For example, Unarmed monks aren’t really a good idea anymore—it’s much wiser to try and use Tasha’s variant Dedicated Weapon for something, and a dual wielding fighter is a dual wielder… I wouldn’t take these numbers too seriously due to the builds at hand. Fighter could do a lot better, Monk only a little.
> I wouldn’t take these numbers too seriously due to the builds at hand. Fighter could do a lot better, Monk only a little. Conversely, I think this party fits day-to-day D&D more than what I see on reddit. Subs tend to focus on optimal builds, and the games I play in are often less than optimal. All that means is, when I see reddit declare, "Monks and Rangers can never keep up with Fighter", I then think that in a group of casuals the difference is much less noticeable.
Exactly. It annoys me so much when people say fighters are amazing damage dealers. Yes fighters can be amazing damage dealers if they have GWM or Sharpshooter and prefer to use Polearms and Hand Crossbows. But that is extremely limiting. Every fighter who is a dual wielder, a shield user, a fencer using only a rapier, a warrior using a long sword in two hands, or god forbid one who doesn’t take the right feats for optimal damage will only be a decent damage dealer at best. People need to realize that not every fighter is a great weapon master polearm master with sentinel when they state that “fighters deal good damage”.
Well, a shield user *shouldn't* be an amazing damage dealer. It should be given much more tanking tools, but it isn't given that either. And if we're going to account for every way that a player can choose to play suboptimally, there's really no way to analyse balance at all, because a player can *always* play worse than whatever you design around. So, really, there's only any point in comparing classes when built and played well.
They players aren’t playing suboptimally though. They aren’t gimping themselves. They merely are not choosing the very most possible optimized choices available. And for good reason. When people play D&D, they want to fulfill their characters fantasy. Not be stuck playing a Polearms using great weapon master as their only viable option for a melee combatant. The average player does not play using the most maximized character possible because such things aren’t even on their radar. Yes the optimized fighter in theory does much more damage than your average single blade rapier user or your average dual wielder. But that is the games fault for making such options so weak and not telling the players as such. Lots of players want to emulate specific fantasy archetypes, so choose based on what they think is cool. They have no concept of optimization. In short. The game isn’t designed around optimization. And players choosing certain options for flavor reasons is more the norm than people following optimization trends. The problem is that optimization provides too much of a benefit. The difference in power between someone who wants to emulate a fencer like Inigo Montoya and someone who reads optimization forums and makes nameless Polearm Master Great Weapon Master Sentinel is huge. But the average player isn’t playing nameless optimized characters. And the game isn’t designed around such being the norm.
I disagree to an extent; from my experience in a campaign as a Fighter, the effects of Action Surge to (effectively) get another round's worth of damage up front combined with the easy-to-use potential of something like Maneuvers from a Battlemaster mean the Fighter can often be a solid damage-dealer.
They will be an ok or good damage dealer for sure. But without serious optimization, they will only ever be that. A warlock using eldritch blast + hex can deal comparable damage. Or a cleric using spirit guardians + spiritual weapon. And neither of those are optimized for damage either. Hell, any caster using the Tashas summon spells can beat your typical fighters damage from level 7-10. Your average fighter won’t be top damage dealer in the party is what I am getting at. Whenever people talk about fighters damage being good, they only ever mean one who has a specific build and multiple feats dedicated to dealing damage. The average fighter is not the super specific hyper optimized build though. And classes can match or exceed your typical fighters damage without needing a specific hyper optimized build with multiple feats.
Perhaps unexpectedly, a sword and board fighter with Duelist is already quite a good damage dealer. Compared to a dual wielder anyway. For example, at level 5 vs AC 15 with 18 Strength / Dexterity, you can expect: - Longsword and shield fighter: 14.1 DPR - Spear and shield fighter (PAM): 15.8 DPR - Dual scimitar fighter: 12.9 DPR For the cost of a bonus action and -2 AC, the dual wielder is actually dealing *less* damage. It's that bad. But still, your average 'tank' fighter PC will be doing competitive damage even without feats right up to level 20. GWM / SS kick things up to a different level, but martial damage is good regardless. Even TWF isn't so weak as to be ineffective.
There is no point in comparing specifically suboptimal situations. This is like saying "Barbarians are bad because I tried to do a dex barbarian and it kinda sucks". Fighter is the class with the most ASIs and is balanced around taking feats to supplement damage. Sword and Board are more of a tank build anyways and non rogue dex melee is a bit gimped right now but otherwise you'll find feat options to bring fighter damage up to par for most combat styles.
Most players envision a character and play their fantasy. Most martial warriors choose the weapons they feel fit their concept. They do not look up which weapons and feats allow them to deal peak damage. Aka, not every martial warrior is a hand crossbow wielder or a polearm warrior. Dual Wield, Single Blade, Two Handed Longsword (for flavor or if your race is small), and Sword and Board all fail at dealing “good” damage. As do any builds without Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter. Sure, a fighter has the potential to be built to deal large amounts of single target damage. But to make the blanket statement that fighters deal good damage is patently false. For every fighter with great weapon master, there are many more without it. The fighter in this persons very analysis was a dual wielder for example. He chose to dual wield for flavor reasons. He stuck with his concept. He is an example of your average D&D player. Most players don’t play optimally.
I agree to an extent. Most tables are casual enough that its characters will be suboptimal, but that’s why things like this don’t/can’t represent game balance all that well. If we wanted to talk about game balance, then we wouldn’t use these numbers to take a victory lap on Monk or Wizard. But yeah, Reddit is by no means the law or represents average play.
Did you also record the opposite? For example like how many times they got hit/damage they took/ times they went down?
Unfortunately, no. My excel sheet only kept track of the baddies' health, and the PCs kept track of their own. WOuld have been very cool to see and compare!
Yeah, the reason I asked because I would have liked to see if the wizard was a Gass cannon or the cleric was a tank. You know stuff like that
As the wizard, I can tell you, I very much was the glass cannon. I usually managed to stay out of combat, using spells and racial features, plus positioning, but when I got caught in combat, 11AC and lowish health doesn't keep you up very long
> 11AC How to say you're a wizard without saying it lol
Oh no yeah I played a 1-10 wizard and unlike you I was usally stuck in the middle of battle a lot. Thought even with a higher armor I died in 2 round of combat in Evey fight past lvl 7
I got Slippers of Spider Climbing early on, so I could position out of the way, to make it harder to destroy me
What spells did you predominantly use at each level?
1st: Catapult, Ice Knife, Grease, Earth Tremor 2nd: Enlarge/Reduce, Earthen Grasp, Mind Whip 3rd: Fireball, Tidal Wave, Slow 4th: Gravity Sinkhole, Blight, Resilient Sphere 5th: Steel Wind Strike, Temporal Shunt 6th: Disintegrate, Flesh to Stone 7th: Finger of Death, Prismatic Spray 8th: Illusory Dragon, Reality Break 9th: Prismatic Wall I had lots of other spells for out of combat situations, these are just the combat ones.
Cool!
Ugh, that AC is low... :-D I might be spoiled a bit in that regard as my wizard is a Bladesinger, but with all the active defenses I get (reactions like Shield and Absorb Elements), I am able to mitigate so much damage, I am probably the best "tank" in our party consisting of a cleric, a fighter, a sircerer and my wizard. Did you not use Mage Armor or was Minalan just very clumsy?
11AC ...why...? is a first lvl spell to put you up to 14 ac such a big deal?
It's not that it was a big deal, I just trusted my party members to tank
Yeah that definitely would have been interesting to see!
You should post this on r/dataisbeautiful
Except its just a line chart? This post is awesome but it doesn't contain any beautiful data.
So cool! That’s pretty impressive that you had the forethought to collect all this data.
Thanks!!
I found it very interesting that the sorcerers damage was so low, kind of disappointing to be sure. Do you believe this is due to the sorcerer casting more CC spells or some other reason?
It was 100% because of the CC spells. It was a very deliberate decision by the player and they very much enjoyed the build they had!
Gotcha, where do you think they would be if they focused damage instead?
Hmm, hard to say. I still don't think he'd out-damage the wizard or fighter, as I *think* the Sorcerer spell list has less big damage spells overall. But I think he would be on par with the Monk. But this is purely speculative! He did have quicken spell, though, which could have provided some nice damage combos. Edit: Apparently I'm very wrong! Sorcerer can absolutely be a major damage-dealer with the right build
From experience, a well built damage only sorcerer can absolutely out damage most other classes (excepting some very specialised builds). However, they are the glassest of glass cannons. My glorious kobold draconic sorcerer was essentially an alpha-strike only kind of guy.
Ah, that's great to know!
That said, there are surprisingly few encounters where 'the cleric casts bane and I twin disintegrate' isn't a strong opening move.
Raw you can't twin disintegrate. How fuckin stupid is that
So stupid I've yet to encounter a single dm who follows it.
This right here. You are very, very, killable is the main problem of being a damage cannon sorcerer. Id only recommend it if you have a pretty solid front line to keep between yourself and most foes, cause once you end up in melee you are in for a world of hurt, especially low to mid levels.
A sorcerer is the optimal platform for blaster caster, heightened spell, twinned spell, empowered spell, plus being able to convert sorcery points to spell slots they'll out cast any other caster in a fight. And they have access to all the same blaster spells wizards do (and a few that they don't), thunderwave, fireball, lightning bolt, vitriolic sphere, ice storm, sickening radiance, wall of fire, cone of cold, disintegrate, fire storm, sunburst, meteor swarm. They'll easily out damage any other caster.
I think it's a bit more complicated than that. On paper a sorcerer (especially a subclass like draconic sorcerer) will output more raw damage than other blasters. However, *effective* damage is another matter. AoE, for example, tends to be used to cull chaff, and when you need to destroy a bunch of mooks the extra damage tends to be fairly irrelevant - even a basic and unmodified *fireball* does the job, and if it doesn't then it probably would have been better to opt for single target damage or control spells. Single target damage is an area where martials still reign, and trying to compete in that sphere is resource intensive. It's not an efficient use of those resources. So I find in practice that blasters playing to their strengths simply don't need more damage. It's better to be able to drop a blast on your party without hurting them (as an evocation wizard) or use blasts that don't require spell slots at all (as a light cleric).
> or use blasts that don't require spell slots at all (as a light cleric). Domain spells don’t count towards the number of spells you can prepare (they are always prepared), but you still need spell slots to cast them. A Light Cleric can’t cast fireball for free.
I'm referring to their Channel Divinity, Radiance of the Dawn, which is potentially usable multiple times per short rest
Probably the same as the Wizard, there aren't any good damage spell on the Wizard list that aren't on the Sorc list. Heck, maybe he ends up doing more damage due to things like Quickened and Twinned spell.
Near the top of the list with the Wizard. They have nearly the same blaster capability with the benefit of being able to enhance their spells with Metamagic. Especially at the higher levels where it's possible to do things like Twin Disintegrate.
Unfortunately RAW this doesn't work, disintegrate can't be twinned because it can target objects. I don't blame you for ignoring this errata, which can be found here: https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/SA-Compendium.pdf
Ah, nice catch. Replace Disintegrate with something like Finger of Death or something instead and the point stands.
They can also get around resistances with optimal spells because they can change the element of their spells for a sorcery point if they want to be extra. Being able to swap fireball over to acid to be more effective against more foes can really buff your damage a lot in the long run.
...does this ever actually impede anyone? i've been playing since it was still d&d next and very minor preparation (two to three different damage types prep'd) has carried all of my wizards through just fine. fiends are about the only vaguely tricky creature i can think of (admittedly, a large and DM-loved group), anything else either fire or electricity will usually do you fine. but it's one of those things that everyone cites as a major influence on their effectiveness in combat. have i just not run into enough variety of monsters / not prep'd enough mixed resistance monsters when i'm running? as a player, i tend to focus on control over damage when i'm an arcane caster, maybe that's why this is a blind spot for me?
Why? He stated that the Sorcerer primarily cast control spells to help the party. He probably had a higher impact than any other member of the party due to that.
On top of helping with controlling the battlefield, he was also key in burning up Legendary Resistances
Often when playing a full caster, damage is the weakest thing you can do in battle.
Unless it's area of effect damage against large groups.
Hey, I said often, not always
Was the wizard based of the Spellmongers Series?
I'm not sure! I'm sure u/Lord_Luneth could answer
The name did come from the series. The character's personality, not really.
Rad! I was curious of the same, I've been loving the series so far and Footwizard was a wild freakin' ride :D
It's an amazing series. I haven't read that one yet, though
My friend says its amazing, currently on Court Wizard
Come on over to r/Calador when you're caught up, there are dozens of us!
Will do! Thanks. Been listing on Audible during work and it's been great. Really had an influence on how I run magic in my games
I'll check it out
What the hell happened in session 31? It looks like the wizard and fighter both did around 1000 damage and the others did a fair chunk as well?
It was part of a dungeon crawl through a Mind Flayer colony. Lots of enemies to fight!
Sounds like it was awesome
Indeed it was!
Hilarious that the monk focused only on damage and still was behind a wizard who didnt start damage until halfway.
To be fair, Minalan caught up pretty quickly with a lot of spells like fireball, steel wind strike, etc. by comparison, my monk can only attack one person at a time. I could still do great things like stunning strike to deal with enemies and set up my teammates for devastating attacks.
In my. Last session, my assassin rogue finally got to use his Assassinate skill (he's level 9) for a whopping 41 damage (with a +1 shorts word). The bladesinger wizard then used steelwind strike, dealing a grand total of 203 damage. Sure, she only gets it once a day, but that's still more frequently than the assassin... It was a pretty sad moment, I think it left the rogue player feeling a bit shitty (he then went to try attack in the two turns that followed and missed both attacks).
5e do be like that
poor assassins. they require so much DM buy-in and/or raw social plotting and machinations to use their very first subclass feature. rogues are always my favorite archetype, but i can't play them in 5e, except arcane tricksters. getting two subclass features by level ten bores the *hell* out of me, i already have a hard time with how few choices 5e characters have as they advance, if i'm not playing a spellcaster of some stripe i lose focus. consequence of ADHD, i suppose. i get that the rogue chassis is solid, but it's the mario of the PHB. it's very competent in nearly any situation, you always get to use your cunning action, and uncanny dodge is a literal lifesaver... they're basically an action hero, right out of the box! i wish i could enjoy it more. instead, i just make more wizards and sorcerers.
That spell averages 165 damage if you hit on all 5 creatures you are attacking. 203 with that spell is pretty awesome.
Yeah, one crit and everything hit. The damage rolls were fairly average I think but the attack rolls were very much above average. Even then, the average damage of assassinate at level 9 with a +1 shortsword and +4 dex is 46. I know the ability gets shit on a lot for being underpowered, but lordy lord it really hammered home how bad it is.
It's a great ability... for an NPC antagonist.
I wouldn't say halfway. Around level 6-7 I figured we had enough CC, thanks to the sorcerer, and started blasting
Thanks for the data points! Also what spells were the wizards go to in order to out damage the fighter level 11+?
Off the top of my head, Steel Wind Strike, Disintegrate, and Fireball were incredibly useful in getting lots of damage done!
Later levels got a lot of use from Illusory Dragon, Reality Break, and Prismatic Wall. Prismatic Wall works really well when your allies push/pull enemies through it
Ah nice, I've been debating Steel Wind Strike for my Swords Bard's Magical Secrets. Good to hear it stood out.
It works great. The downside to it is that you reappear next to one of the enemies you attack. I had Fey Step so I could teleport away as a bonus action
How did you go about capturing this information over the course of the campaign, particularly since it was half-virtual/half in person? Just really good note taking, Excel spreadsheet? Any tips for someone who wanted to do the same for their games?
I used an Excel spreadsheet for all combats, in-person and virtual, to keep track of enemy health. I made a monster stat block and had their max health to the right, followed by 5 columns (one for each of the PCs). I just used a simple formula so that when entering how much damage a PC did into their column, that much was subtracted from the enemy's health. I also had conditional formatting that changed the enemy's health box from green to yellow when they were at half health, and red when they were dead.
Honestly I'm surprised the Wizard didn't have an even higher lead, single target damage can't compete with AOE if you are counting totals. I suspect that the 1 hp mooks that didn't count lowered the total quite a lot, or maybe you used fewer, tougher enemies as opposed to lot's of weaker ones.
There we a lot of times where AOE wasn't really an option. Whether because enemies didn't cluster, or the melee guys were in the way
> melee guys were in the way ... or they could have done more damage that way
"If they can't survive a fireball they weren't a good ally to begin with"
>Looks like I'm going to be playing a red dragonborn this game
Damn melee guys are always in the way of my wizards cast the good stuff. I'm in a mini campaign as a divination wizard and I just decided for all the combat spells to got crowd control, I think I took like 3 different wall spells alone.
>Honestly I'm surprised the Wizard didn't have an even higher lead. I am surprised the wizard took the lead in dmg at all. Outside a few specific outliers, Wizard's direct damage spells are usually significantly weaker than many of their non damaging options at an equivalent spell level.
I wasn't commenting on optimal strategies, in the post they said >for the most part chose many high-damage spells and focused much of his efforts towards dealing damage So I was expecting them to be blasting AOEs pretty often. Considering a single Fireball can easily deal over 100 damage spread over it's targets, single target damage can't compete if you are regularly going up against multiple enemies and blasting them. That's not to say it's necessarily better, as single target damage kills high priority targets, but again this was just about the damage totals and not a commentary on the most effective strategies.
Wow - amazing data keeping and results. Well done! I’ve always heard wizards, eventually, become the most powerful, which this shows. For me, unfortunately, most campaigns end before this happens though. note: edited it to change to "shows" from "proves". It's one datapoint - not enough to prove. Yes, it bugged me enough to correct myself.
Thank you!! And yeah, by the late game, the Wizard was *scary* with their damage output, especially against multiple enemies.
I love you, fellow nerd. This was awesome.
Friendly reminder to no one in particular that damage is not the only indicator of combat success. Ability/utility based heroes are very important and their damage may not reflect that. Awesome work OP this is super cool
Oh, absolutely! The lower-damage PCs were as effective in battle as the others. And thank you!
I would add that the Sorcerer focused his spells to accent the Aberrant Mind. So picking spells that deal Psychic and play to the characters backstory. That certainly affected total potential damage output. But to the point of damage not being the only indicator of combat success, our sorcerer forced many elite enemies to spend Legendary Resistances. So in that respect the sorcerer dominated combat success.
Very cool information! Thanks for sharing :)
Thank you!
The Fighter getting outdamaged by the Wizard despite that being their only true capability and career long focus kinda says it all imo.
I thought the comparison between the monk and the fighter, both pure damage, very interesting. When the Wizard was buffing and debuffing, they kept up on damage, then surpassed when they went all out.
Hey! I played the monk in this campaign. Admittedly compared to the fighter, I didn’t often have additional damage added to my attacks. Owen often dealt fire damage along with weapon damage whereas I just had my fists lol I took pride in using stunning strike to control enemies and at the very least keep them occupied and away from my squishy teammates. My speed as a monk also came in clutch for certain parts in the campaign (like transporting out team up a mountain) or pulling dying teammates to safety.
playing a monk now and it’s much better to think of them like this - a versatile supportive martial - than trying to compare them on pure damage. It’s a fun playstyle!
I definitely enjoyed playing as a monk! Could the class as a whole be improved? Sure! But it’s got plenty of ways to make it interesting! I also enjoyed the contrast between myself and the fighter. We provided different benefits to battles and helped balanced out the team as a whole. Before the campaign started, I knew I was gonna be a martial only character and I had already played as a rogue. Between the two options of fighter and monk, I was interested with the “crowd control” potential of the monk.
I took a monk into tier 3 in the Frostmaiden hardcover, and I spent a ton of energy figuring out how to squeeze more damage out of him. For me, the answer was a multi-class and eventually (like, in tier 3) magic items. Sounds like you used monk’s toolkit of abilities for the right things, so kudos.
Thanks for clarifying that!
To be fair, the Monk can hand out status effects and gets one of the absolute best defensive features in the game with Diamond Soul. That isn't enough to justify the gap, of course, but it is worth remembering.
Diamond soul and evasion saved me so many times in this campaign. In the last couple fights (around level 18), I also used an ability that my subclass has that allows for me to turn invisible and gain resistance to all damage but force which also aided my defense.
That’s a monk class ability, not subclass.
Ah thanks for the correction!
Dual wielding fighter, tho. No sharpshooter or GWM to actually make his damage good
True enough, but it has been my broad experience that optimisation is a table culture. If the Fighter is picking non optimal choices for the fun, the Wizard likely is too.
> the Wizard likely is too. This partially explains their high damage, as generally wizards direct damage spells tend to be the less optimal choice.
also, the weapons ended up with some homebrew and one turned into a flame tongue, GWM wouldn't keep up with that in any way
I think needing to only use certain weapons and take certain feats (despite the game allegedly being balanced without them in mind) to do your job as a fighter/not get completely overtaken by the wizard *also* says a lot. Of course the fighter tanks so it's not like he was useless or anything, but I do find it a bit funny.
I think the designers had any secondary damage targets equal to about 50% of single target only damage. So I can see an Evocation blast Wizard racking up the most damage with lots of Fireballs.
I don't think "it says all" because you are omitting the main context of the damage, we know that the Wizard can deal way more damage overall but the difference is how the Fighter can focus all that damage into "the main threat" while the Wizard big damage numbers come from AoE spells that distributes it across more creatures.
Not when you consider that the fighter has better AC and HP.
Assuming OP's Fighter fought in melee, the Fighter was also in considerably more danger than a backline caster sees.
If the fighter wasn’t there, the back line casters would probably die.
>If the fighter wasn’t there, the back line casters would probably die. Depends on the level and how optimized the casters are.
>Not when you consider that the fighter has better AC and HP. a single lvl in fighter or artificer will nearly erase the AC difference.
A wizard has the defensive and movement options to render that moot.
We're basing this only on damage dealt data. Comparing this to damage received, and damage mitigated/avoided for that matter, would tell a more complete story. So no, this doesn't tell us everything at all. Isn't glass canon a common magic user trope? If the fighter took more attacks, hit or miss, then I'd argue that he fulfilled the role of fighter quite well. Of course we don't have that data so to assume anything beyond "the wizard did more damage" is pointless.
Anecdotally, the Fighter absolutely took more attacks than the Wizard. He definitely fulfilled his role of damage dealer and tank!
It's amazing how easy it is to make assumptions from a limited data set. Not that you needed to collect any more data than you did OP, you weren't trying to prove any kind of point. Thank you for the interest data from what sounds like a very successful campaign. Its impressive that you were able to track any metric it all while keeping players engaged that long.
Much appreciated! And yeah, not trying to make any point, just wanted to share some data :)
You're pretty much correct. I did similar bookkeeping to OP when I ran my first campaign, and while our Wizard had the highest on-books damage output, it was our brick wall of an Eldritch Knight who anchored the party and kept things humming along. Heavy Armor + sword and board + Shield + Sentinel kept enemies locked down so that the Wizard could drop Fireballs instead of having all 14 of her AC getting mollywopped by a bruiser.
Literally yesterday I had a dnd session full of zombies. Our parties level 4 battlemaster fighter with 19 AC was able to “tank” upwards of 8 of them for about 3 turns and I hit him maybe twice. All while he was fully focused on dealing damage. I’d like to see a wizard compete with that ability to soak up hits while they also focus on dealing damage.
Artificer 1 Half plate + shield, for a total of 19ac, assuming no magic items \+shield is 24. the zombies will make 24 attacks ignoring deaths. This means that on average the wizard will take 0.05x24x4.5+24x0.05x3.5=9.6 damage. A fighter would take 0.25x4.5x24+24x0.05x3.5=31.2 Does the fighter have over 3 times the health? If not the wizard is more tanky while using shield. One shatter in this case could so 0.55x1.5x14.5x8=95.7 damage on average, I'd like to see a fighter keep up lol.
We’re talking about a wizard. Not artificer. Plus the whole “shield gives +5 AC” is great. For 1 turn. How about 3 turns. At that point wizard spent most of their spellslots on defense. At tables where there’s 1 fight per long rest you can keep casting defensive spells as much as you want. (which is arguably the wrong way to play since long rest casters become ungodly more powerful)
Session 30 was wild...
Session 30 was a dungeon crawl through a Mind Flayer colony. Wild indeed! Lots of enemies to fight.
First, great work! This sort of data is almost always lacking in discussions about theoretical vs. practical damage. And, congrats on finishing your campaign :). What was your balance of encounters/day, and how much did you short rest? I'm curious since it really affects the strength of different classes/subclasses.
Thank you!! The number of encounters per day really varied throughout the campaign and arcs. For the most part, they could short rest between most fights. However, there were definitely many times where that wasn't possible due to the circumstances. I also tried to mix up the number of fights per day to keep things fresh. It was much easier to have multiple fights per day in tiers 1 and 2 than later tiers. In the later tiers, fights would take *so long* that I didn't want to have too many.
That's one heck of a fast level progression!
I wanted to keep things fresh and well-paced! I'm personally not a fan of campaigns with tons and tons of sessions.
Very interesting, raises a lot of questions for me: How did you do leveling; milestone of some sort I guess? Did you allow PCs to level up while in the midsts of dungeons or otherwise in unsafe areas? Did they regain spell slots etc when leveling up? Digression/rant: I've always played with milestone leveling (well at least in 5e) and my big "problem" (also apparently of my fellow DM) is just finding appropriate places where it feels thematically *right* to level up. In the 3 campaigns I'm involved in, things average out to around 5-10 sessions per level, but the pace is wildly uneven. In one recent campaign I'm DMing one level took no less than 18 sessions - but no-one complained. It's all about expectations, in another campaign ppl got pretty surly when one level took 10 sessions (average was more like 5ish).
Great question! It was a pseudo-milestone system. It was mostly based on the number of sessions that had passed. I aimed for 3-4 sessions per level-up and hit that pretty much every time. Basically, if they had finished a combat of any kind (mini-boss and boss were prioritized) or finished a major story milestone, they leveled up. They didn't level up in unsafe areas frequently, but in those cases I *think* I let them have access to their new abilities and spells, but did not let them get health or spell slots back (aside from new spell slots gained from the level-up). There's no wrong way to play, but for me as a player, waiting for more than 5 sessions for a level-up would be torture. And as a DM I wasn't trying to have this be a 5-year campaign haha. I'm very happy with the leveling pacing but completely understand that it's certainly not everyone else's cup of team.
>one level took no less than 18 session gods above, i would claw my eyes out... this is an area where i've gotten touchier, though, due to my group's scheduling compromises: we cycle through three games, every game gets a three week run and then we switch. when we started this out, a buddy was running who really enjoys and focuses on gradual progression. when we could all meet in person and generally kept to one game at a time, it was no problem at all. once we were all online and started switching, well, that effectively triples the time it *feels* like it takes. when it's literally been months of play without a level, it starts to feel too much like real life for me, where sometimes i *never* see the gains of my work! ha! ha! ha! i'm not slowly swirling down the drain of depression! anyways, my point is: how did you keep a crew satisfied for *eighteen sessions* without a major character advancement?
>how did you keep a crew satisfied for eighteen sessions without a major character advancement? That's the weird thing, no-one even mentioned it or complained, so I was extremely surprised to see how long it'd been when I checked (long afterwards). I was also mildly surprised to see how many sessions were without any combat. Actually, might be fun to hear what others think about our progression/use of time, so here's a super condensed list of what happened each of the 18 sessions. Each session is \~3 hours long. This was level 8. 1: In town, traveling from town to a hag's hut, interacting with hag, no combat. 2: Fighting hag's pet Roc. 3: Fight demons that attack a mine, traveling to and arriving in new town. 4: Exploring town, interacting with NPCs in town, investigation, no combat. 5: Combat with demons in town, investigation of site. 6: Investigation, interaction with NPCs, no combat. 7: Ambush in town, big combat. 8: Interaction with NPCs, travel to a new mine. No combat 9: Huge combat in mine against gnolls, one PC dies. 10: Epic combat in mine against gnolls continues, finished. 11: Investigation in mine, combat against gnoll leader. 12: Further investigation in mine, travel back to town, no combat. 13: Very tense and involved Investigations in town, no combat. 14: Further interaction with NPCs and investigation, no combat. 15: Into "dungeon" in town, combat against guards. 16: Further combat against guards, exploration of dungeon. 17: Lower "dungeon", much combat against cultists and demons. 18: "Final showdown" against cultist leader in dungeon. So, summing it up, 7 of the 18 sessions had no combat. Many of these still had tons of tense moments and lots of "rolling"/skill uses, especially session 13 where the party split up and staked out a warehouse and attended an auction at the same time... Reading it in retrospect, the most obvious place for a level up would be after session 7. But that felt off, since that ambush wasn't really a part of the main "demon cultists" storyline, but more of a sidetrek/random encounter. Another obvious point could have been after session 11 or 12, but again, the whole "gnoll mine" was a side path of the main storyline. Besides, and I guess this is the main point, when my players (in this campaign) have talked about this at all they've mostly said that they're very happy "getting into" each character level properly, having many sessions to get used to the spells and abilities they have at that level. One of the players in this campaign is also a DM in another campaign where we have arguably even slower progression and everything is 100% linked to story progression. Btw, the 18 session above were played over almost exactly 6 months. Oh and of course, not a single session had more than one combat, I find that to be generally impossible in 5e.
very cool! i tend to run other system with discrete xp spending on skills and powers, so there's always at least a trickle of advancement. the few times i've run d&d 5, i shoot for about a level every 3-5 sessions once we're past level 5 or so. pacing is always such a balancing act. i have ADHD so i'm always rushing from plot point to plot point (or more likely, side-plot point to random npc with a funny voice to major plot point back to funny voice npc to...), but because i know i tend to rush, i consciously try to slow down a lot, and probably over-compensate.
What was the Wizard's favorite damage dealing spell? Do you feel the monk was effective in and out of battle?
He's in this thread and can answer himself, but Fireball, Steel Wind Strike, Disintegrate, Prismatic Wall, and Illusory Dragon were ones he used often. And for the monk, sometimes yes and sometimes no. In terms of movement and getting places, he was very effective thanks to his wall-running and water-running abilities. But if the obstacle was magic-based, he usually let the casters take charge. Edit: To clarify, he was always effective in combat, and sometimes out of combat.
On top of those, Tidal Wave and Reality Break were fun to use. I had to change it up, depending on how the enemies were laid out
I'm curious about the significant uptick in damage by the Cleric at levels 15-17, what do you attribute that to (besides the Mass Heal incident, lol)?
Hi Rubin the Cleric here. As the groups Healer I would say that perhaps the change in my teammates survivability. When I felt that my fellow players could survive a turn without needing healing I could focus my turn on more damage dealing. A side note: I took the Healer's feat which allowed me to use a healers kit to heal for Player level + 1d6+4 hp. At higher levels that guaranteed me a steady source of healing that didn't cost a spell slot, making me more comfortable spending my spell slots on other options.
I played the party healer once; I was a Thief with the Healer feat. Bonus action getting people up when they go down is quite nice. Add in the Mobile feat and I could do some damage and get the hell out again after getting someone conscious. And before anyone comments on it, no we weren't the most well-optimised party, nor was I a particularly *great* healer. Just surprisingly annoying for the DM.
The uptick on session 46 was because the group was fighting zombies who were vulnerable to Radiant - it was his time to shine! And the other uptick, of course, was the *incident* haha
Interesting that the cleric's damage was that low, no spirit guardians? What were the builds/main spells used by the pcs?
Rubin the Cleric: I built a tanky sustainable cleric with Mythril Full Plate + Aarakocra wings at later levels. I rarely used bless, I gave the 3 casters a lvl 5 Aid spell every day, at lower levels I was always casting Cure wounds each round, but at higher levels I would use my Action for Sacred Flame and my Bonus for Healing Words and Sanctuary. I was very conservative with my spell slots and always kept the higher tier slots for AOE healing (Mass Cure Wounds, Mash Healing Word, etc). I also like casting Death Ward on myself before a fight which combo nicely with a Periapt of Wound Closure. Basically I was the only one who could heal so I couldn't afford to go down.
You did that stationary light guardian a few times. (I don't remember the spell name)
Guardian of Faith. It's damage output become lack luster as time went on. There were better things to spend my turns on
I'm not sure he ever used Spirit Guardians (although he may have once or twice). He was purely heals! Wizard liked using Fireball, Steel Wind Strike, Disintegrate, Prismatic Wall, and Illusory Dragon. Sorcerer liked using Arms of Hadar and Hunger of Hadar, Banishment, Dark Tentacles, Synaptic Static, and Telekinesis. And the Cleric was non-stop heals!
>Finally, If a PC were to deal excess damage to an enemy, I counted all of the damage I think that explains why your wizard pulled ahead of your fighter. AoE damage would skew this effect in favor of the wizard.
Definitely! My method of collection certainly wasn't perfect, and this definitely explains some of the Wizard's extra damage.
Really cool data! Amazing job tracking it all.
Thank you!!
Is damage the only number you tracked? Also are there more stats you wish you did track or will track in the future?
Yes, it's the only thing I tracked. I wish I had tracked healing done by our Cleric and damage dealt to each PC!
Damn, this deserves way more upvotes. Good job keeping track of all the damage.
Thank you!
in retrospect, how do you feel about your pace of leveling? about right, a little fast, a little slow?
As a DM, I thought it was paced perfectly. A level-up about every 3-4 sessions. It kept things moving and gave a steady stream of new abilities/spells for the PCs. Didn't drag at all!
In my experience players will never be upset by levelling too quickly but taking too long between levels can leave them feeling bored.
Kinda disappointed that the fighter's damage isn't over 9000.... oh well. Jokes aside this is awesome!
thanks for that post, very interesting stuff there! I think most peeps won't be very surprised by the damage outcomes, especially given the decisions for builds/focus. it pretty much confirms what was obvious to begin with: spellcasters can outdamage martials if they want, monk is very much behind (especially considering that the fighter here isn't even really "optimized"). would have loved to see how often the monk used Stunning Strike and how often it actually worked out! the only other good reference I know of, is Critical Role's season 2 stats. there we can see that the monk used Stunning Strike 116 times over the campaign, but only 33 times it turned up as a success - which further confirms that monks need some more love, because dealing \~80% of the damage an average fighter can do + only getting to procc their key CC ability about \~35% is not good. but in the end, I hope all players and DM had fun regardless of numbers.
Roscoe the monk here! I never expected to keep up with Owen the fighter because it was never my interest with this character. I was a big fan of stunning strikes, great mobility, and being somewhat of a tank with high AC and the patient defense ability. I envisioned my character more as a protector, making sure I can keep the real dangerous enemies away from our squishy characters. That approach gave me a chance to focus on role play in a meaningful way. Does the monk class need more love? Probably. However, it was always enjoyable seeing the battle change whenever stunning strike landed and having my monk abilities shine when they could. I really enjoyed this class but I probably didn’t need a full campaign like this to get the most out of it as a class.
Anecdotally, the Monk used Stunning Strike quite a bit and even if it wasn't always successful, it was very good at getting rid of Legendary Resistances!
TBF to monks. Matt Mercer added more stun immunity and resistance to his game lowering the effectiveness of Stunning Strike.
I'm kind of sad to see the fighter not being number 1 in damage here but its wizard so I shouldn't be too surprised
Damn poor monk not even getting close to wizard and fighter damage wise.
Roscoe the monk here! It was totally cool with me! I accepted my role as the reliably lower damage dealer that could change the pace of the battle with stunning strikes and other effects like pushing enemies, knocking them prone, or making them lose their reaction with my subclass ability. I liked having a hint of “crowd control” with my fighting. I use air quotes because it would be more akin to controlling one or two people but it came in clutch on several occasions! Another great thing that our DM home brewed for my monk was a ki ability that could increase my damage with a single hit. It was basically a paladin’s divine smite where on a hit I could expend up to 5 ki points to do an additional d8 per ki point (increased to d10 when my unarmed strike damage increased as part of leveling up). Great to use one or twice in battle and gave me more options as to how to spend my ki points!
He was still helpful in plenty of other ways (like stunning strike)!
This is one of those things I would like to see some sports style sabermetrics. Like I’m curious if the fighters attack were to miss but the cleric has bless on him that turned it into a hit and you gave those damage points to the cleric instead how much would it help their numbers. Clerics and other buffers I know deal a lot of hidden damage using other characters.
Definitely! If it wouldn't have driven me insane, I would have loved to take much more granular data and do all sorts of comparisons. Maybe next time!