Damage NOW is better than damage later in D&D 5e!

[@Kylora2112]

Watching now is better than watching later!

[@pretchett]

Commenting now is better than commenting later!

[@novasolarius8763]

It's better because knowing good strats earlier means that you get to use the strats earlier, which lets you save resources like scrolls that you might've otherwise used.

[@beasleydad]

It's optimal!

[@firebirdstark]

Kiss ass lol

[@kevindaniel1337]

Commenting is optimal

[@matthewmoran1866]

I think this also shows why winning initiative is so big. Using the 4 enemy example, boosting damage or frontloading reduces enemy turns to 9, whereas the party winning initiative means the enemy takes only 6 turns. Obviously this is an oversimplified example, but it still goes to show how powerful it is to win initiative.

[@PackTactics]

Correct!

[@fadeleaf845]

@@PackTactics As a metric to illustrate the effectiveness on going first and focus fire, you'd still only take 15 turns of enemy damage, one less than the spread damage example, if the focus firing go first squad was up against six enemies instead of four. Naturally, action denial abilities like Web and Hypnotic Pattern become more efficient the more enemies there are to control.

[@ravencorvus7903]

Going first and surprise is even better. You get two rounds to focus fire.

[@RichWoods23]

@@fadeleaf845 There's also the importance of manoeuvre to consider. Unless the party is ambushed, they should not just simply close to melee or stand off to fire (depending upon their capabilities and their assessment of the capabilities of the enemy) but should use a combination of flanking and withdrawal to corral the enemy into a group where they are more vulnerable to being closed down by AoE effects. They should also focus their fire on any identifiable leader, since a good DM will consider morale and give the party the opportunity to force a rout. Historically, the battles where the greatest number of casualties occurred were the ones where one side fled the field in disorder. Being outmanoeuvred, having your general killed or your centre broken was usually the trigger for all but the most disciplined units to break in fear for their lives.

[@supersmily5811]

Which is why Enhance Ability is good! Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[@michaelvallespir486]

Honor mode bg3 has really made me consider this. Sneak attacks are really easy to get in that game, but the impact of sneaking up on the opponent is huge

[@ryanstewart2289]

Yup. Denying the enemy turns is one of the strongest things you can do in BG3 and D&D in general.

[@Miranda17137]

This is something that I'd learnt from XCOM2. Controlling your engagements, picking your fights by scouting and clearing off targets quickly & efficiently is very important in that game. If you enjoy DnD/BG3 for the combat you're doing yourself a disservice by not playing XCOM2.

It actually works universally in every almost every game and in real life aswell. Hence the popularity of "stealth archer" build in every action rpg ever 😂 But overall, in every scenario possible, having more information about your enemy is absolutely crucial, and if you can prepare attack against unsuspecting foe, you are huge step closer to victory.

[@tommyeliassen2071]

@@Miranda17137I love XCOM! And yes, it’s basically a puzzle game in that sense. By making careful decisions you can usually kill all enemies without them ever getting to take a turn. Warhammer 40K: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters also works like this, you should check it out if you like XCOM That being said, I’m not always such a fan of nuking a boss in D&D, as I feel it just does a disservice to the narrative most of the time and it feels so much more impactful when a boss goes down last.

[@andrewmarshall8811]

The idea behind this example--total number of incoming enemy attacks--can also be used to illustrate why winning initiative and Surprise are so powerful.

[@terradraca]

Playing Darkest Dungeon and Iratus will teach this well. In Iratus, I managed to tweak a party member in a way that they usually went first and could one shot one of the back rank enemies right away. The difference is massive.

[@danieladamczyk4024]

Yes, that a doomstack.

[@forever-raine]

i am so happy to see scenes are becoming more popular. when 5e first came out, i had little support from creators or players on the usefulness of scenes, but now people get it!

[@ZohMyFkinGod]

I don't think the take away is "just do more damage", but try to remove as many enemy actions as possible (or actions on scary monsters/mages first). Banishement or other creative ways to remove enemies can be as good as doing 200 damage in a turn. My party once won against 3 enemies that could transform into giants and once their giant form is dead, they come back in their normal form again. So it's basically 3 hp bars of 100+ hp per enemies. We were supposed to run from that fight, but It was on top of a montain... My rune knight started first, ran to the bbeg and pushed him off the cliff. Then my cleric casted the prison sphere which I forgot the name of on the mage and we pushed the ball off the cliff too. Btw they didn't die from the fall because it only triggers the giant form. To give you an idea of the difficulty, we had a hard time against the remaining enemy. But we managed to win, did non-lethal damage and took him as an hostage :)

[@RenoKyrie]

Virgin Hunters Mark and Hex Vs Chad Fog Cloud and Silence

[@asyouwish6633]

I used fog cloud to mathematically prove I could kill a solar at level 14 on my beast master ranger (they have some magic items and the setting is hb so doesn't necessarily mean a baseline ranger could do so) Such a Chad spell. Said ranger also destroyed a high level druid by casting silence then grappling and shoving him prone in said silence while my beast companion went to town

[@TERMINATOR3900]

@@asyouwish6633 How did you manage to kill a Solar with a 14th level ranger? I would imagine a Solar could kill most characters no problem by just kiting them until the instakill works.

[@burgernthemomrailer]

⁠@@asyouwish6633And then for the rematch the Druid rolled better initiative and summoned 24 velociraptors

[@asyouwish6633]

@@TERMINATOR3900 context is the gods in that game hate me so when I talked with the dm they pretty much said they would not allow it to retreat without getting the kill. So I used the fog cloud to provide heavy obscurement and hid thus forcing it to come find me which it would need to get into melee range to do so effectively. But since they are a larger creature I casted the fog cloud high enough up so that when standing the solar would have their head in the cloud but my head wouldn't be in the cloud this allowing me to attack with adv since I can see him but he can't see me. And if he wanted to see me he'd have to drop prone which would again offer adv to me and disadv to him. So I pretty much made it so firing with the bow would be less optimal for getting damage in. I also have more than 100 HP which does help avoid instant death for a round or so. If it crits I am absolutely fucked of course. But due to all that fun stuff there it allowed for the opportunity to win. I still had a very real threat of dying though. Of course if the gods were less hell bent on my destruction it would ironically resulted in my death as the solar would then be able to retreat and wait out the fog cloud then snipe me a bunch

[@asyouwish6633]

@@burgernthemomrailer Lol nice one. They hadn't seen velociraptors as far as I am aware so most likely wolves instead. But fair enough. There was some rooms at the time I could use as a choke point to deal with the wolves or raptors but the druid could totally do some other fun things by then. To be fair I also got the surprise round on him so I could begin the murder fest. I never said I pick fair fights lol I know when id get beat.

[@TheGreatSquark]

Hmm... In finance there's a concept called the time value of money which deals with something similar. Could we find a way to approximate the time value of damage?

[@Tzizenorec]

Depends on the enemies, though, because of "critical existence failure": only the last hitpoint on a given enemy matters.

[@lorenzobiraghi2545]

So our model should reward us for getting damage beyond a certain threshold, and give nothing otherwise. Anyone thinking Call option? Let's Black&Sholes our fucking damage calcs

[@BestgirlJordanfish]

God I wish they emphasized non-nova options more. Though I don’t want it to be like PF2E, there are some ideas they can definitely steal from: • Immensely powerful two-turn moves in a single casting, requiring teamwork or strategy to pull it off • DoT is powerful, with weakness “pops” and major sustained damage without needing a bunch of dice • Psychic is a caster with a “rage” like feature lasting two turns that requires casting a psychic power in the previous turn. They’re basically extra strong in mid fight when awakened. • More maneuvers focus on debuffs, positioning, and information rather than everything boosting damage calcs. More strats and more incomparable factors Don’t want it that level of depth or complexity, but still some great space for future dnd designers

[@floofzykitty5072]

5e designers avoid anything that would be seen as too complicated like true DoT off concentration or an on-hit effect (like Hex) that applies to more than one person. The closest thing we get are some additional damage effects like from Melf's Acid Arrow or some items where ongoing damage is inflicted only once. If something is off concentration and does damage, it can only do its ongoing effect once. Finding a true DoT in 5e is really hard.

[@archmagemc3561]

The problem in PF2E is dots don't actually do more damage than just being a fighter swinging until its been on the creature for more than 2 rounds for a dot class like Alchemist, while the enemy can recover from the dot before it actually does enough damage. It has the same nova issues as 5e, its just that PF monsters have more hp.

[@Merilirem]

"They get to DO stuff to you" sounded super funny to me.

[@nolongerdude]

This reminds me of pathfinder 2e one shot I used a blazing bolt (or something) in the first round And had a surprise attack Took out 2 enemies and 3rd was killed easily This prevented enemies from abusing harm spells to heal our enemies (undead) and harm us

[@XenoTheTurtle]

This reminds me a lot of about the Lanchester's square law (usually applied to firearm combat, but still). Since the number of attacks that the combatants (be it the players or enemies) take to go down isn't a linear correlation, both the number of combatants and external advantages take part in which party will win. So focus firing an enemy not only reduces the number of attackers in a turn (therefore reducing the dpr of the opponents), but it also contributes to considerably gain external advantages (like positioning and flanking, for exemple). I'd also like to add that, if a party is outnumbered, even if the relative damage per creature is smaller than the PC's, due to the relative high dpr cost inflicted by having a downed player, it might be useful to, in very specific situations, forego immediate damage in order to decrease the number of engaged enemies. Spells that incapacitate enemies, for one, can cause enemies that rely on pack tactics and overwhelming numbers to just not work properly. The same applies to cover and ranged attackers, narrow corridors/formations for enemies lacking ranged options, cast-blocking tactics such as blindness/deafness against casters, etc.

[@XenoTheTurtle]

Holy moly, this comment was a bit bigger than I thought it would be. Sorry about that! Overall, I just really like the way you presented this whole thing and wanted to add my own commentary on the premise!

[@Aaa-vp6ug]

Mummy Lord with Ring of Spell Storing: Fireball-blocked Wizard: ┻━┻︵╰(‵□′)╯︵┻━┻

[@HybridHerps]

The only thing I dislike about focusing on nova damage is when you have a DM that likes to throw an encounter at you we are not all the enemies appear at once. Especially if you’re a nova build that relies on abilities that only activate at the very start of combat rather than something that you can choose to.

[@bradleyhurley6755]

That was a big problem in one of my games. Due to one player's actions, two separate encounters ran together. Which greatly weakened the Nova character, but who also by that point eliminated his own ability to go Nova. Thus, combat lasted probably an extra hour because I had planned for the Nova damage.

[@danieladamczyk4024]

"strike at zero hour with overwhelming firepower"

[@MrCowanater]

I love this channel so much. I might not always agree with you opinions (I agree this time) but listening to a well thought out differing opinion is SO valuable IMO

[@PackTactics]

Its fun when people have different opinions in the hobby. ❤🐊

[@arnijulian6241]

This is why shutdown & battle field control is optimal unlike DPR. Hypnotic gaze, hideous laughter or force cage or even simple slow or sleet storm removes potential action economy per round. People think the team side with the most DPR wins but it is the side with the most action that has eliminated the most action of the other side. Only other strong ability people underestimate is the paladins aura to add a permanent buff to all saving throws equal to the paladins constitution. Pair a wizard & a paladin which you will be shocked at the odds they can over come if the work optimally.

[@theuncalledfor]

Charisma. Not constitution. But yeah, that's MASSIVE. It's called Aura of Protection by the way.

[@jb123581]

Big fan of the CC spells myself. Hypnotic Pattern or Fear can end encounters all on their own, no damage required.

[@arnijulian6241]

​@@theuncalledfor Oh yeah, C for C made brain switch con for cha. Aura of protection makes a paladin usually more useful then 90% of party even if they did nothing on their turn. Why I like to encourage new players to play paladin as they get the basics down for casting & martials while not feeling like they aren't contributing since new player rarely optimise well. A paladin has most of it abilities as passive effects & smite is fairly stright forward. You don't overwhelm players with much when concerning paladin. Mind If a player is set on any class let them play it though I give warning for picking full casters. I 1st played & main wizard but I have tendency for not doing anything the conventional or easy way.

[@arnijulian6241]

@@theuncalledfor Oh yeah, C for C made brain switch con for cha. ''Aura of protection'' makes a paladin usually more useful then 90% of party even if they did nothing on their turn.

[@arnijulian6241]

@@jb123581 Yep for either CC spells or better yet counter spell & dispel magic for only we the wizard get to use the magic's. No magic for you mister DM.

[@mizublackriver7021]

I love specially when your videos give useful information that can be used beyond D&D. Thanks for another quality video~!

[@CivilWarMan]

There is a similar idea in investment called the Time Value of Money, where money you receive now is worth more than the same amount of money received later. However, like with that, the idea of the Time Value of Damage should be applied carefully, to avoid neglecting sustained damage. Because if that big initial burst is not enough to drop an enemy immediately, a lack of good sustained damage in subsequent rounds can actually leave you in a worse position than a slightly smaller initial burst but higher sustained damage.

[@fadeleaf845]

Which is also a factor in how much you invest in your nova. If you Action Surge to nova, it's not too bad because the only thing you lose access to is Action Surge itself. Throwing a Fireball also cuts into your ability to use Hypnotic Pattern or Counterspell.

[@HulkTheSurgeon]

TIL It's called Action Economy for a reason. It's just investment allocation with extra steps.

To be honest, I would stop comparing dpr of build or nova damage of builds. What you really care about is how much damage you can do in first round and 3 rounds after that. Unless it's some really big encounter, most fights imo usually end in first 3 rounds(enemy may be alive, but it's usually decided by then) so the actual first round of nova is important and them the damage you can do on subsequent rounds. It also takes into account that some builds can do huge nova damage, but only with prep, meaning the damage sometimes come online only in round 2 or even 3,making it much less valuable and easily countered

[@casbot71]

This is why a *Harengon Wizard* with the alertness feat is so powerful. Perhaps add in a Wizard subclass that also gets a initiative bonus like Chronurgy or War, unless you're going for a particular optimisation such as Enchantment or Evocation. But you can sometimes shut down the enemy before they can do any damage. The _Nuclear Wizard_ is effective for a reason.

[@SpiritWolf1966]

I enjoy all of Pack Tactics videos

[@witchlock2897]

Always good to see videos from you, my comrad bagu says good things! I hope to see you play proper some day

[@SimonClarkstone]

I've seen in action a bugbear Assassin Rogue Gloomstalker Ranger Paladin Hexlock with PwT and a stack of initiative-boosting abilities. The whole party had Stealth proficiency so our modus operandi was to sneak around at night and surprise the enemy with the bugbear always going first and nova-ing the most obvious target. The DM had to adjust combat encounter difficulty to compensate.

[@OutlawJJ80]

NGL I'm going to have to watch this vid a few time to fully grasp the concept. TYVM 4 the Vid! :)

[@Merilirem]

It basically comes down to the damage being able to remove enemies from play faster than DRP would remove them. DPR is only better than burst when you are facing something that doesn't die easy enough for Burst to work.

[@slydoorkeeper4783]

Or if you play tables where combat has "phases" (hate using it like that, but not sure how else to describe it). For example, you're raiding a large bandit camp. You will probably have to get through the front guards, then several more enemies, work your way through the camp solving other issues and fighting more enemies before you get to the boss (if they're there). In that case, even if you have burst, you probably don't want to burst and use all your resources so general DPR is better. Its about knowing when and how to use your stuff. Its just stupid to cast hex/hunter's mark on a basic goblin because you're in combat.

[@thedeaderer8791]

Ive been waiting forever for this video absolutely worth the wait❤

[@Grygus_Triss]

A fellow party member in a game I played was a level 14 8/3/3 Gloomstalker Ranger/Echo Knight Fighter/Assassin Rogue. Could do 8 attacks in the first round of combat. Bonus action Hunter's mark, and Critted if enemy was surprised. She was a Round 1 Nuke. Could take out the major threats quickly. Less so in subsequent rounds, but still reliable and very tanky

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

Gator eating dice is now fully semented as reality in my brain. The audio did it for me, well done, I will now gator-proof my house

[@dr0g_Oakblood]

DND = “Rocket Tag” go brrrrrrrrr

[@worldofneospyder4676]

I learn something new in almost all your videos.

[@pyr666]

worth noting that burst damage does have an issue with overkill. if focus firing means the rogue sneak attacks someone on low health, dropping them from 10% to -25%, that can make a significant difference in the long run.

[@TheBlacknight122]

Kobold is one of the few KZbinrs where your ad read feels just as informative as the video it is within.

[@infinitesheldon5710]

This is why, as a DM, it's helpful to know what the party's nova damage is, and make sure your boss monsters have more hit points than the party could typically do on an average turn 1 with concentrated fire. Then make sure the minions could absolutely die to concentrated fire. Helps encourage the boss sticking around for a couple turns, and hopefully the party will choose to focus down the minions instead of the bosses. If they make the mistake of going after the bosses immediately, the fight gets much harder because that means there's more action economy against the party. This is just a good trick to making boss+minion encounters more difficult/dramatic.

[@Cephalon_Dante9826]

Gator, you eating my dice would be doing me a favor at this point.

[@MyopicMickey]

A great way to have your gm set traps and ambushes or otherwise jack up the challenge rating for your encounters.

[@Grygus_Triss]

This is why I't best to suprise your enemies with a first turn fireball. Rather than the Monk, Fighter and Barbarian rushing in first and having to avoid AoE (or be an Evocation Wizard or something)

[@Hyperpandas]

This is basically the Time Value of Damage, and I bet you could borrow from finance to get some equations. Net Present Value could probably tell you if a longer term action was better or worse than a more immediate action, and Internal Rate of Return could probably help compare the relative value of various longer term actions.

[@goolgepl2112]

Now I know how martial-onlys feel when spellcasters are talking

[@RichWoods23]

@@goolgepl2112 Just thump them and take their lunch money.

[@jpjfrey5673]

Thats why I Action Surge on my first turn. Alpha strike, *NOW*

[@cliptracer8980]

I made a hasty unknown variables choice, tossing the explosive flash bang mushroom at the shadow things. All dead.

[@fluffyderp7778]

Damage now :) , nice outfit Kobold ^^

[@julialewis8794]

It might be worth my dice to get to see Gator up close...

[@bora7494]

I would suggest that control over nova damage is something to consider as well. I see many focus on damage only where a good control at the start would have had a bigger impact.

[@rorybeckstrom9602]

NO gator not my dice. *panics in dice goblin*

[@michaelmuirhead910]

This is why I always try and fit the Alert feat into any build.

[@RichWoods23]

Handy, but boring. Better to be creative and enjoy roleplaying someone different.

[@michaelmuirhead910]

@@RichWoods23 getting bored with going last 9/10 times I roll inititative.

[@Henbot]

It’s funny. I am experimenting with rogue mage killers in bg3 that with mobile and tried it with monks too. They like rush casters and shred them with advantages especially with gear and clothing making them have + for spell saves

[@sheakennedy-ordway1156]

Go read Sun Tzu. He's been advocating for this kind of thing for centuries, even expanding on the concepts for Rogues.

[@foolwise4703]

This can be quantified: In a simple encounter of N_e equal enemies with each HP_e hit points, the total number of rounds R if the partty does DPR_p damage is about R=/ (the spiky brackets denote the average). Each enemy does their damage each round. Ergo, an opponent living to the last rounds does DPR_e * R damage. If he gets killed in round k, he only does k*DPR_e damage. Ergo, killing one opponent one round earlier is equal (or better) to healing your party by DPR_e. Comparing the worth (in terms of party HP) of damage done earlier vs damage done later, it would be worth (DPR_e/HP_e) in terms of party HP for each turn damage is delivered earlier. This is assuming perfect focus firing and a large number of opponents where every bit of damage kills/prevents a bit more enemy damage output. Nevertheless, it gives us an important quantity to optimize. It also tells us an obvious truth: Prevent dungeon fires and kill the wizard first! (I mean "prioritize targets by their ratio of survivability and expected damage dealt").

[@thedigodragon]

This is the kind of action economy I talk about. Focusing fire is optimal teamwork! :D

[@LucanVaris]

It's _my_ damage! And I need it _now!_

[@mikecarson7769]

Subscribing now is better than subscribing later

[@renatocorvaro6924]

Big deeps!

[@rodolforupp292]

Keep your gators week fed, peeps!

[@ssemo]

Oh no! Gator! Don’t eat dice

[@otakusatanist]

i loooove gator

[@PackTactics]

❤🐊

[@margaretmyklebust2577]

We all do! 🐊

[@thepagesaretorn]

My math brain can't handle the fact that you put exclamation points after numbers in equations and not consider it a factorial haha. Good video, in any case

[@PackTactics]

That didn't even cross my mind. Sorry. I wasn't taught this was a thing at school. I know electrician math.

[@darkclawgreatonenas]

Joke's on Gator, I use an app for my dice rolls...

[@KuaEtus]

Early 🐊 catches the 🦌

[@frostrod]

This actually understates the “damage now” impact by implicitly assuming all party members lose initiative against all enemies.

[@theharaldrsaga]

But Kobold, what do i do if my allies only attack thr guys i put to sleep with hypnotic pattern?

[@Lord_zeel]

And focusing on one enemy at a time is also (usually) the best way to go. This doesn't always happen in D&D because getting the entire group to stick to a strategy is tough, but it's very easily demonstrated in Baldur's Gate, where you can OFTEN kill a boss in round 1 leaving the rest of the combat just cleaning up their minions. Usually this results in removing a major source of annoying spells and effects from play.

[@powerhousejp]

The goal of nearly any combat encounter is not to deal damage to your enemies, but to reduce the damage coming at you to zero...which is to say, ending the encounter. The point where I started thinking in terms of "damage prevented" instead of "damage dealt" is probably the point where I think I'd fully matured as a role-player. I'm in a campaign now where we've solved more combats through intimidation or persuasion than through dealing damage, even if none of us are particularly built for doing so. We've so far skipped half of a module of combat via thorough investigation and deductive reasoning. My 0 DPR has been putting in a lot of work. :)

[@fadeleaf845]

Even Sun Tzu already noted that the best way to win a fight is to never having to fight at all. And it's not just about the combat encounter itself - just look at the potential of spells like Create Water and Fabricate when you don't have to carefully ration your spells lest you get ambushed by enemies.

[@tylersustare]

Gator now is better than gator later

[@DogBehaviorGuy]

I was about to leave without a like (forgetfulness, not a lack of enjoyment). but gator threatened to eat my dice and I can't have that. threat = effective.

[@The482075]

A Wizard gets highest initiative then casts Hypnotic Pattern. Enemies end up having 0 turns. Party wins without taking damage.

[@endymon5240]

Plot summary: Pack Tactics Vs common metrics of build strength. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he targeted hit point total next

[@0_Body]

My dice: You are procrastinating

[@kacperharasimowicz1276]

You did the math wrong at 5:00, 4+3+2 is much smaller than 9!

[@xiongray]

Delayed Blast Fireball vs Fireball.

[@bradleyhurley6755]

My issue with the Nova is that it is only good until you have a DM who balances the encounters against the party. So basically by adding more monsters or giving them more health to survive the nova round to keep the combat at a deadly difficulty. And I'm not sure it makes the game fun for anyone. For example, I had a player who did Nova damage, but then killed the threat before anyone else acted. Thus combat turned into a one person affair (against any single target enemy). So Nova damage probably good with a prewritten module where the DM is rebalancing encounters. Less good otherwise.

[@YellowCable]

This is the video that should have the Action Economy title

[@Jim_Owen]

Make a bugbear Rogue with the alert feat and always try to one hit KO the first enemy before it ever took a turn.

[@seanjardine3128]

This is the strategy of the game I struggle with the most. Do I sharpshooter power shot and hope for the best? Or do I bless via fey touched and buff the party? I struggle kobold. I struggle

[@soMeRandoM670]

What is front loading, is it classes like wizards nova

[@margaretmyklebust2577]

Come on over Gator! 🐊

[@DGenHero]

REAL WIZARDS FM (Full-on Massacre)

[@FishFan6038]

What about something like Alchemist's Fire (flask) where it deals damage until the target uses an action to try a DC 10 dexterity check to stop the fire. I don't think you can be proficient in the check as it's not a skill check or saving throw

[@thatguythere6161]

Incredibly inefficient for multiple reasons. 1 is that you’re spending a good amount of gold for every attack 2 is that it does incredibly poor damage even at low levels, especially because it’s an improvised weapon. It’s not even worth the action cost to remove. 3: acid is cheaper and does more damage up front. Alchemist fire takes 3 turns to do the damage it does in one. And either way, shooting a crossbow is usually more damage. I think a better example of what you’re asking about is divine smite vs divine favor. After four attacks (that hit, so lets say after 3 turns) they do around the same damage. Even in a long combat, it’s still usually better to take out enemies early with smite, even if in the long term it does less damage, because over the long term, you will also take less damage.

[@mrmastaofdesasta6994]

At least in the scenario where we can quickly reduce the enemies' combat strength like this

[@kori228]

this is action economy

[@henryohenry1504]

So which is better: Working on the bigger enemy for a few turns or the little enemies first saving the biggest for last?

[@lukeory7130]

I'm surprised no one made the math joke and was curious about how "9!" wasn't 362880 lol

[@danjbundrick]

Who's the Mrs Kobold mini?

[@PureGoldNeverCorrodes]

Also, if you brutally OHKO a big enemy right out of the gate, you’d have an advantage on intimidating the others because they don’t know if you can’t do it twice.

[@alfonsovallejo2665]

Any party needs at least 1 consistent damage dealer to quickly get rid of encounters without wasting the all of the rest members resources.

[@lydiasteinebendiksen4269]

This is how rogues are meant to compare to fighters. It's not about getting sneak attack every turn, it's about going first and deleting an enemy with minimal resources spent. A single free takeout at the start, and then somethig to do I guess for the rest with getting advantage. This assumes assasin which is the quintessential damage rogue, where the thief, my favorite, is more true to the disruptor concept of denying turns and their effectiveness without doing damage, which is less optimal, but if every enemy turn is only 75%, it takes them 4 rounds to do 3 rounds worth of stuff, meaning you make up for bad luck when you roll horribly on round one.

[@TakaD20]

Effective, but are those efficient high DPR fights fun to roleplay? It's not much drama in them isn't is?!

[@PackTactics]

Yes it's fun to roleplay, you're an experienced adventurer. The game and the story beats progress faster. You get more out of the session and the party can handle more encounters than normal. That's more gameplay.

[@edhannigan5787]

my dice! are mine!

[@Shroosk]

Rules 1 : On a Storytelling pov, keep your big damage for the end Rules 2: Don’t use your full power on each fight, you will have no way to upscale in case of a more powerful monster Rules 3 : Don’t (think you are) compete(ing) with the DM.

[@Brandonjaf]

Sure, maybe, however consider: a fireball which would deal 50% of the enemies HP each, versus an upcast hold person at 3rd level, removing 50% of the enemies for a few turns. Same resource spent, a single 3rd level slot, but dramatically different outcomes. Now this doesnt take into account your allies follow up, but that thought path quickly spirals out of control.

[@SamuelDancingGallew]

I think the biggest reason that damage now is better, is because there's no real advantage for damage later, like Damage over Time effects being readily available. And since only the last Hit Point really matters, there's no reason to go on the defensive, unless you're pulling a microwave strategy.

[@seanjardine3128]

My only counter point for this is a paladin that debates between casting bless to buff the party or try to nova an enemy and hope you hit. If you miss then bless was a missed opportunity

[@SamuelDancingGallew]

@@seanjardine3128 This is a good point to bring up, since I focused more on the idea that you don't really miss.

[@seanjardine3128]

@@SamuelDancingGallew I debated taking fey touched on my sharpshooting ranger for bless. But I always go for the big kill at the start of battle…….then I’ll miss both attacks and rethink all my life choices

[@SamuelDancingGallew]

@@seanjardine3128 Yup. That happens way too often.

[@antanaskiselis7919]

Personally, for me, it's a bit weird this needs an explanation. Removing actions from enemy is the best defense. And dead is strongest CC there is if it's available. If game is not specifically designed to be more back loaded, that is huge impactful actions requiring prior set up, damage now will always be better than damage later. As for example of a turn based game with back loaded / set up I haven't seen one working out of the box. I think only Epic Encounters 2 mod for Divinity 2 does that and it's fairly complicated system even if well crafted one to be accessible for multi person parties who not always sync their actions. That is, players need to find way to strip off defenses (I don't mean divinity 2 vanilla armor mechanic, it's pretty terrible) first with often different abilities to make their strongest nukes be able to do damage. Which adds layers of tactical depth and defense being worth while the investment as party needs to survive for the first few rounds as the offense is being mounted. Anything else, hit first, hit hard. Clean up the rest. Personally I perhaps wish there was more depth to it, but it works and honestly rewards emergent play over deliberate team collaborative effort.

[@aurtosebaelheim5942]

I think it's important to mention that start-of-fight nova damage can often feel bad and as a DM I think you have some degree of responsibility to account for it. You're taking the most interesting combatants out of the fight often before they get a turn, initiative becomes the most important stat as fights get increasingly rocket-tag-y and you're asking players to make the most important decision in a fight when they have the least information about it. Damage now is better than damage later, so it should be harder to deal damage now than later. How you want to do this is up to you. I like larger, more complicated battlemaps and composite encounters (multiple encounters in one initiative with the second one joining on a timer or when the first one has been neutralised), it gives all the combatants time to posture before combat really starts and incentivises saving big AoEs for when enemy density increases (or single-target damage for when the more important enemy shows up in the second wave). Take the following example: 2 waves of Caster+5 mooks, wave 2 arrives after 3 turns, party cannot clear wave 1 before wave 2 arrives. If the party bursts down Caster 1 then they'll have a harder fight with Caster 2 (as it will be Caster+~7 mooks), if they instead save their nova and brawl it out with Caster 1, it will be a harder initial fight but they'll probably kill them before Caster 2 shows up and they can then nova Caster 2 and only have to deal with mooks (let's say ~8 mooks because they saved their powerful attacks). Notably there's merit to both approaches - Nova Now means you go into the harder phase of the fight in better shape, but Nova Later eliminates the main threat of the harder phase before it can do anything - there isn't a clear correct choice and that makes combat more interesting.

[@aureliomateusmedeirosantas569]

Kobold, what do you think about Mirage Arcane?

[@FallenFromGlory]

Disgusting spell

[@thislink1519]

When Nova builds are actually good

[@MilieuGames]

True Strike has been real quiet since this came out Actually, since 5e came out

[@mashadarii]

You didn't even mention the other aspect: kill the lower hp mobs first. A good heuristic that is mostly right. Not always, you know, the kill casters first heuristic, for example, overrides it, but still.

[@MultiCommissar]

Death is the strongest CC.

[@jimmyjazz7992]

This is why I never use tail whip or growl in Pokémon

[@sannylad9204]

dead is the best debuff

[@FallenFromGlory]

Arguably not

[@davidpaikins3172]

There's a part that I think you're missing and that is the DM needs to also have fun. Often when I wipe the enemies off to quickly the DM has less fun

[@ravencorvus7903]

Doing a lot of damage early on could make your dm overtune the fight though :p