Why DPR is not a great tool: D&D

[@Djinnistorm]

DPR is part of the specifications of a build. Sort of like knowing that a car can go X speed. Knowing the car can reach a speed of X doesn't tell you everything about the car, but knowing what it can do in an optimal scenario is part of the full picture. Maybe this is just the people I talk to/read stuff from, but Build discussions often do go into things like "this paladin build does X dpr with these assumptions, while having +x to saves and y ac, along with these tools and mobility options." This allows someone to get an idea of what a build can do, what tools it has, compared to another. Which is really what the point of all of these calculations is, because you can't calculate fun. I don't feel that DPR is really a "garbage" metric, it's just...a single metric. It won't fully describe what a build does, but it's relevant as part of a group of other metrics and information. If everyone really only looked at DPR, wizard or cleric probably wouldn't be considered nearly as strong as they are in the community. Especially stuff like Twilight Cleric, which is crazy strong because of an ability that does no damage at all.

[@MrDavidKord]

To be fair, when I'm charmed I'm still doing damage... I'm just doing it to the wrong people 😇

[@youtubeseagull]

LOL

[@adaml8827]

I appreciate this well explained discussion of the limitations of DPR. It's actually a good analogue to many real world issues with using key performance indicators (such as GDP or cost per square foot or whatever), to measure outputs and outcomes, when a simple number often doesn't capture the materially important aspects.

[@Wouldyoukindly4545]

Just means your metrics could be improved 🤣

[@3phemaral]

So...TL;DR: The best character, effective +DPR/action, is always the BFC/Utility God Wizard. There was this great article by this guy named...treemook?...something like that...back for 3e that outlined that concept as a sort of universal theory and attitude towards the game. It’s pretty much central cannon in this microcommunity. Based on that theory, the most important choice for any Tank or Striker is making sure there is an intelligent, thoughtful, focused person playing Wizard in your party, coordinating your character design choices with the Wizards abilities and spell selection, and making sure that the Wizards player likes you, or at the very least sees you as reliable. The choice that will have the most profound effect on your DPR isn’t written anywhere on the sheet.

[@floflo6660]

I hear that treemook is a phony. Don't listen to a word he says. Phony treemok.

[@youtubeseagull]

haha so true. Where is that haste going anyway? Hope it's on me sometimes. Invis, the heals, and the Bless.

[@Styrixa]

Someone should make a video about that. ;)

[@rogerwilco2]

I also remember that treemook guy from 3e. I especially liked his polymorph and master of many forms guides.

[@DaDunge]

Another thing DPR fails to take into account is builds that allow you to increase the DPR of your party. say hold person as a spell, doesn't do any damage but it can translate into an insane burst of damage from your party.

[@devin5201]

Yeah, I've seen it in action and oh boy.

[@kilmerenterprises7148]

I play a controller wizard who has never caused a single point of damage in his career. That's right, 0-DPR and still super effective

[@youtubeseagull]

what if a baby with a butter knife has you in a corner and you have no spells left. Whatcha gonna do, tough guy? ! X-) harrrrrrrr (you're probably a good player but i hope you have steel toe boots at least, you didn't bring soft sole moccasins to work did ya?)

[@crisrody852]

@@youtubeseagull minor illusion? disengage (size difference should allow to jump over the baby)? friends? gust? throw the baby prone?

[@Garresh1]

Trash build git gud. ;) (kidding obviously)

[@theresnoracelikegnome]

Some very good control spells also deal a bit of incidental damage, so I feel like you’re hamstringing yourself a bit by avoiding any damage, but what the heck, if it’s fun, it’s fun.

[@louiesatterwhite3885]

@@theresnoracelikegnome synaptic static for instance. 5th level spell that deals fireball level damage in the same aoe, but inflicts debilitating debuffs on enemies who fail their saves.

[@HiopX]

Ah, I found something in favour of Monks: least likely to waste damage due to overkill

[@mikeroberts817]

I remember being 5ft short of the movement I needed, and achieving zero damage, on so so many occasions with my dwarf characters. It's definitely a major consideration. Lots of rounds with my glass cannon sorcerer have been spent running, hiding and chugging potions too.

[@revgizmo]

We’re just going to need you to set up a reinforcement learning model that puts all of your builds through all reasonably possible 1-20 campaigns and outputs a build score.

[@bradkent8303]

That would be technically Monte Carlo Simulation but I love seeing my two passions crossing paths (analytics & D&D)

[@revgizmo]

@@bradkent8303 we thank you for volunteering for this effort

[@benjaminholcomb9478]

Remember @@bradkent8303 , you've brought this down upon yourself.

[@Wouldyoukindly4545]

The reinforcement learning model would be able to find optimal actions if you could enumerate the action space. You'd need to re-train them between builds.

[@revgizmo]

@@Wouldyoukindly4545 nuh uh. Action space = all mechanical actions a character can take. That space gets bounded by the build in the same way a starting position on a chess board would. I’m not saying it’s easy…

[@chrislyngar9081]

And also, There's a fighter doing 50 DPR, and a wizard charming an entire group of mobs.

[@S1leNtRIP]

When I’ve calculated damage for builds I rarely do DPR. I usually calculate per attack. Max, average, min, and then max and min with a crit, and then max, average and min with any resource expenditures along the way. It makes it easier for me to understand a character’s “Capabilities” instead of some white room training dummy damage. Great video, as usual! I hope this changes some of the conversation around it!

[@MarkAndrewL]

Yeah, I do all those steps too. But I call it "DPR." I guess I don't always think about max or min damage - although the easiest way to figure out average damage in many cases is to figure out min + max damage divided by 2 - because the odds of doing max damage with a 5th level paladin smite on a great sword attack is 1 in 3 million +, so that proooobably ain't gonna happen in my lifetime.

[@Bilbrons-and-Dragons]

On my builds, I do a modular DPR calculation showing what you can expect Round to Round, based on your choices and whether you (in that moment) have normal attacks or advantage. That's the only usably useful metric by which we can get some meaning out of DPR... the difference between EACH INDIVIDUAL CHOICE/OPTION. As you say, trying to project WHICH choices are made (which vary by scenario) is a fool's errand.

[@havasimark]

So much this. Evaluating multiple options for a specific situation, that's where it is the most useful tool. For comparing different builds in general - not so much.

[@kevinpiala6258]

This is the correct sort of approach. Split DPR calcs into the different options with some common toggles.

[@bwhit7919]

I’m currently in a campaign with crazy homebrew items. There swords that deal 5d10 + 5 damage on an attack. There are items that max out Wisdom. As far as I can see, this makes fighter and monk two of the best classes in the game.

[@DnDDeepDive]

My you've been busy! More and more in my builds I find myself saying things like "if you wanted to really push your damage to the limit, you could make choice x. I probably wouldn't do that if I were playing this character in game, but..." for many of the reasons you've outlined :). Great vid.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Yes, it was a hectic week!

[@fadeleaf845]

These factors make me appreciate spellcasters so much and are, in my honest opinion, reason why they're making for engaging gameplay - dealing with unpredictable, inconsistent factors like these is the easiest for classes with the highest amount of options.

[@Bilbrons-and-Dragons]

I'm glad people are finally coming around on this.

[@Meichrob7]

Well this is a crossover in the comments I’d love to see turn into an actual crossover episode.

[@NobodyDungeons]

Yeah D&D 5e definitely encourages big burst damage to kill things quickly rather than doing damage over time. Though I have slowly been adding more and more homebrew to my D&D campaigns to the point where I have multiple notebooks full of various notes and ideas for future homebrew systems even going as far as making systems for spell crafting and so on.

[@andrecosta8680]

@@NobodyDungeons what nature of these homebrews?

[@leodouskyron5671]

@@NobodyDungeons I have seen so far that the biggest thing that will make players not nova is the prospect of multiple combats (warlock excluded). It is always the case in most games that the status effect that is safest to deliver to your opponent is dead and if they can’t get a chance to hit back you are safe. But if you know that the next room is an unknown enemy and you are going to have to go after them after this fight, many if not most players don’t go all out for ‘fear’ of not being able to get the next guy. I say that just to say, (IMHO) usually the tempo set by the DM will determine how confident a player is to go all out.

[@GrimHeaperThe]

Hey bilbron. Subbed to the same people? Lol

[@I4MWH014M]

I'm loving the increase in uploaded videos! Just wanted to let you know

[@oliverneville5012]

4 in the morning for me, yeah this seems like a video I need to see right now

[@dylandugan76]

Does this mean that Monks might occasionally be superstars given the right assumptions about the nature of the adventures they go on? Lol

[@devin5201]

Dude I'm playing in a Mad Mage game and the amount of times I, playing a battle master have tripped an opponent for the monk to instantly drop four attacks at advantage and wreck the enemy's face is astonishing, objective statistical data is useless the moment you roll initiative.

[@Wouldyoukindly4545]

Unlikely. And not at all in sustained fights. Monks are in essence burst damage builds with their limited ki pool, but their burst damage is barely on par with other sustained damage classes. And then they also have to burn resources on having mobility or control options. And then their control options are hard to land.

[@jrg305]

@@Wouldyoukindly4545 monks stunning strike is more likely to land on a caster or rogue type, and I think they are good to be viewed as bruisers. I think they are incredibly fun.

[@lukaspequenomatos1681]

@@Wouldyoukindly4545 except every control matters to actual DPR, every defense matters, mobility matters and everything else discussed on the video that you chose to ignore to refute a correct point made by dylan, based on all that was discussed on the video.

[@Wouldyoukindly4545]

@@lukaspequenomatos1681 What I am saying is that the Monk class is generally not balanced well, and that single class options exist that have better damage, defense, control, and mobility *at the same time* and generally in a more sustainable manner. The bladesinger, hexblade, and divine soul sorcerers stand out in this regard. Heck, battlemaster fighters with polearm mastery get better offense and defense with basic attacks than a monk spending ki points, and more control options to boot. I want the monk to get its due. In order for that to happen ki needs to be much more plentiful, and the stunning strike needs to not expend ki if the target saves. I also think they should be able to make a flurry of blows without ki... maybe kicking in around 11th level, when fighters get a third attack. This would make the monk more willing to risk precious ki points to use stunning strike, making it much more effective in combat for not only mage hunting, but also aiding teammates who can hit the monk's stunned foes. And leave over a healthy amount for defense and mobility. Some of the subclasses, especially Way of the Four Elements, need major overhauls too. Let's have some good ways to build characters from Avatar 🤣 The overall point of needing to take more than just raw damage into account is a good one. And all of the points made are valid. My issue is with this specific class.

[@Adurnis]

“Smart person asking smart questions without answers” is a genre I didn’t know I needed.

[@nicolasvillasecaali7662]

It does sound like science in many cases, even in some cases where vast amounts of knowledge is already on hand.

[@Duranous.]

Holy crap, I just watched a melee spellcaster video that hits a lot of these things. Assumptions about magic weapons, shadow blade, melee cantrips, animate objects (which to be fair they took the non-magical damage into account) and recommended tensor's transformation and forgot about the exhaustion check at spell end. I don't want to say more to make it a call out but I always scratch my head when people talk about such theoretical situations and this video helped articulate a bit about where that feeling comes. I especially feel like this is true when we talk about spellcasters that are burning through a limited number of spell slots. I also find it weird that spellcaster builds _don't_ assume that if they are concentrating on a really big spell that they will become target number one for the enemies. But if you did assume this, how could you possibly factor that in? It's so dependent on your dm and the exact composition of an encounter. I am trying to make a gish spellcaster and I was assuming that my character would be an aggro tank but I find it hard to know if the character will underperform or overperform... Will it be able to take the heat or go down fast? What happens if enemies avoid him? My goal was not to make a super optimized character but what if it is _too_ optimized for the table, I don't know, I just have to play it out on the table I guess.

[@peterrasmussen4428]

This can be part of what session 0 can be used for. Ask the DM about their style, encounters per day, length of encounters, etc. Few encounters obviously help a spellcaster. The other thing is, ask the other players what builds they are considering, if someone wants to play a champion fighter, maybe watch out for your gish to overshine them. If someone is looking at battlemaster fighter with a dip of barbarian for rage, your gish is more likely to be balanced. Obviously it is hard to know from just a brief discussion of the builds, and lots of people have no idea about feats or multiclassing, when they start out a build, so you can't always get to know it that well. The more you arm yourself with knowledge, the better you will be at these guesses of what will work at the table, but at the end of the day, you probably will have to guess. Also, talk to your DM, the earlier the better. "Hey, I want try a new kind of build, and I don't know the power level of this, can we agree that if it turns out too powerful or too weak I can change a few things mid campaign?" And finally you can self-balance the build, if your build is too powerful, give the good loot to others, even if you can use it better, and if it is too weak, ask nicely if you can have that nice +2 rapier. And if your build is too powerful, maybe look for some spells you wouldn't normally pick next time you level up. Anyway, the point is, you can do more than just play it and hope. Work with the other players and the DM both before and during the campaign to do your best to figure out if you need to tone it up or down. Usually when spellcasting is involved you can do a lot to make it more or less powerful with just a little retraining.

[@3phemaral]

If you’re the Wizard, you ought to assume you’ll always be the priority target, just walking down the road. That is why tons of Wizard builds dip fighter/cleric/artificer. The armor is good for the actual AC, but it’s also the key element of camouflage. Usually, unless I have some RP reason not to, I take great pains to look like a Rogue. I used to carry around a rapier and a hand crossbow even though I wasn’t proficient in either and would always refer to myself as an “Investigator”, “Inquisitive”, “Detective”, or something like that. My best deception was as the “Squire” of the groups Paladin. I got to I think 7th or 8th level before a patron that engaged our party in various missions caught on that our party *must have had* the help of a Wizard in order to do something...and then the DM made a roll against my awful deception...and this woman gives me the hard stare. Up until then, she thought I was Nodwick. Anybody walking around in robes with a funny hat on...you’re asking to be assassinated. They would go for the Cleric...but if you play the Cleric strategically, you can pull off the same thing. The rules don’t say your focus must be emblazoned on the *outside* of your shield, or how large it has to be, and a ton of subclasses grant martial weapons. In general, our group travels everywhere looking like a nondescript collection of mercenaries...or a Knight, his squire, and a couple of stout soldiers. Be the random encounter other adventuring parties pass by on the road.

[@Duranous.]

@@3phemaral Speaking specifically about my build, being the heat magnet is part of my built in assumption and it's something I actively want to happen. I guess you could call it a threat-tank, I just don't know how that will pan out. My problem with thinking too much about it theoretically is that I really don't know if it will sink or float. At that point you kind of just have to see how it plays out and adjust your plan else you're going to just have to label it "experiment: failed". Part of what TM said resonates with me and it's that defense = offense, if you are disabled, you are not doing anything.

[@tomgymer7719]

Actually, on that point from my last comment. I'd love to see you talk about party composition sometime. Maybe in it's own videos, or as an addition to build videos, a kind of, "would pair well with", segment.

[@danielbeshers1689]

"I see you have elected to go with a Fighter/Monk build for 8 attacks per round. An excellent choice, sir. Might I suggest a pairing with this Cleric who can cast Holy Weapon?"

[@ankitk236]

damningly comprehensive analysis why analyses are useless and you should just play what you enjoy while having generally good synergies

[@markhumphries6020]

This is true. The game is designed for 4 players on average. As long as you have a good group composition with some variety of roles covered, some creative thinking, and competent characters built to do their roles reasonably well, you should be able to have fun and overcome obstacles. The more players over 4 that you add to the game, the more action economy swings heavily in the players favor.

[@herbreisig553]

This is like saying field goal percentage in basketball is useless and every NBA player is the same because of all of the variables in a game and season. Playing time, injuries, the defense of a given team, the win/loss record of the team and opponents, the proximity and influence to playoffs, etc. So teams should draft whoever they want... Statistics are used for a reason and cannot account for every variable, but their consistency in fact speaks to every variable. That is the purpose of analysis. If the model is poorly constructed, throw it out. But if DPR is based on a consistent statistical model, which it is, then it can be relied upon for analysis. But if you wanna play a monk go for it...

[@richardwhaler8717]

@@herbreisig553 But DPR is incredibly narrow and assumes a completely selfish style of play. Monks are incredibly powerful not because they have high DPR but because they increase the DPR of the entire party. The problem with Monk is that it is actually too powerful, and as such DMs design encounters that counter them. Just look at any player-versus-player battle or party vs pary battle that includes a monk.

[@1217BC]

You know, I've actually had to explain this to a friend who knows I watch these kind of optimization videos but never build my characters purely for DPR. As much fun as the theory crafting is, I find it's more useful to use the basic ideas in building the character organically throughout the campaign.

[@play.through]

The value of a character also comes from various intangible that cannot be accurately modeled. How much value do you place on Haste? How much value do you place on Death Ward or Gift Of Alacrity? These are extremely powerful spells that deal no damage. An argument could be made for haste where you calculate it as "damage" due to the extra attack but that is far too naive.

[@mirkalimaricadie160]

"I watch these kind of optimization videos but never build my characters purely for DPR" Yeah, usually I never do full kit and caboodle for these builds. I look at these optimization guides for 1.) usage of class features and an analysis on how they really work 2.) Avoiding problematic/stinker class features and feats. (That's more for someone who's new to an edition though). Sometimes I start a character based off of wanting to play certain mechanics, other times I start a character with a story concept. Then I build out my mechanics and story from there. Plan was to do a sorcadin as I hadn't played one yet. What was I doing with that? Well, we were playing Dragon Heist. This seems neat but what sort of story concept do I want to do, which deity do I want them to serve. Then my GM mentioned Siamorphe and I was like "Yes. YESSSS. I love it, haven't looked at Siamorphe in forever. Perfect city for that." and so I settled on a half-elf raised in an orphanage to, looked up to people like Dagult Neverember and started to form this belief about noble rule needing to be enforced to bring about better order in the city; particularly the poorer parts rife with gang activity (a poor "half-breed" bootlicker true believer promoting the noble rule of his betters). And so I had my concept. Most people would suggest Oath of Vengeance Paladin as the mechanical superior subclass, however that wouldn't fit with concept so the obvious choice was Crown Paladin. Group decided to roll stats; Had a terrible stat of 7 (my other rolls were middling but I had one 17). I thought I could have a story and a mechanical solution to this: I'd give him 7 strength being a malnourished orphan child, then toss in a level of Hexblade Warlock and now he could awkwardly hit things with Charisma. Where did the Hexblade Warlock come from? Dunno! Level 2 though he started hearing some voices and doing some strange stuff and realizing he had these other powers; I left it to the GM to decide (I think he's gone with the idea that there's a powerful lost Siamorphe artifact calling him in Undermountain; as a player I'm skeptical that's actually a holy artifact but it will be fun to find out!). He'll need a belt if he wants to wear that heavy armor though. So then the Sorc levels; I mean sure Divine Sorcerer is great and I could Spirit Guardians every day which is the high DPR option with bonus control. Then Tasha's came out and I'm looking at Aberrant Mind. I'm thinking about my character and the events that happened in dragon heist: in our game we secured the gold, however a prospective noble house that were antagonists actually approached the party about needing the gold to save their kids from a devilish contract. My character, being a servant of Siamorphe, felt duty bound to help, as they were an old noble house and long time supporters of the church. He arranged for the church to loan the money needed, raising just enough, while also creating a new contract where the Church would more or less become guardians of their estate until their kids, who would be raised under tutelage of the church, would come of age to take control of it again; said parents would be on permanent house arrest and make appearances as necessary. However, our party hadn't fully verified the information that the nobles gave, and sure enough people were many sacrificed as part of the ritual (the party didn't find out until it already happened), and things worked out technically but the losses were unacceptable, and the villains couldn't be killed since the noble house had to be preserved (the church also got names of all collaborators out of the deal). This makes me think: This was my character's 9/11; This sort of devilish group can't come to control the nobility. Never Again. So now I'm going with Aberrant mind, as my naive character is of the belief that he more or less needs to be an Inquisitor, and the psionic spellcasting lets him do detect thoughts and all sorts of other stuff in social settings later on, which would fit trying to root out devilish influences, combined with his free availability of Zone of Truth from his Crown Paladin class. On top of it, mechanically... instead of just having a huge damage/slow aura every turn of combat like with Divine Sorcerer running Spirit Guardians, he'd instead be... kind of like a jedi? I can make up on the damage front with crit fishing via Elven Accuracy and Hexblade Curse. He'd have hard melee skills with super subtle mind powers; smite gives you a lightsaber essentially. The whole thing seemed pretty appealing and is fitting the evolving concept of my character. We'll be running Dungeon of the Mad Mage to 20 (Just started Mad Mage) and I hope my GM will be able to make some allowances for surface politics inbetween dives, but I'm going to be happy either way. Long story short: As you said: Use optimization guides as a basis and inspiration for your own concepts, and play whatever is fun.

[@collinkelch7764]

The other idea I will throw out there is that your DM is a learning thinking machine, he is going to adapt to your strength/strategies in order to continue to challenge the party. DPR is an illusion because of all the things you laid out, but also because the DM is in control.

[@xthebumpx]

That's true for all optimization to an extent. The most important thing is to have party members on relatively equal footing. No matter how optimized or unoptomized the characters are the DM will (hopefully) adjust to a difficulty level that's enjoyable for everyone. If the DM doesn't, then you've just optimized or unoptomized yourself out of an enjoyable experience.

[@seacliff217]

Somewhat recently, I played a level 1-13 campaign as a Martial Arcana Cleric. The idea was to use Shillelagh and Green Flame Blade, the later of which would get a good boost at Level 8 since Potent Cantrip would work on both rolls of the spell. On paper, this seemed like a good martial build, and for the first half of the campaign, I was able to keep up with other martial characters (Admittedly, no one else there was into optimization). By the time I got to the 8th level and expected a good boost in martial capabilities, everything else started to fall apart. -The d8 Hit Die was still a d8 Hit Die. Since I was a human who took magic initiate at level 1, no resources were spent on survivability and I was knocked to 0 hp more than once. -Since my resources was spent on improving damage, I didn't have enough ASI to take War Caster or Resilient Con, so maintaining concentration on the front lines was an issue. -Because Shillelagh took a bonus action to cast, that's no other spells I could cast that turn except for another cantrip. No spiritual weapons. No spirit guardians. By the end of the campaign, I found myself sticking to the back line casting Toll of the Dead and Spiritual Weapon and using my concentration on Summon Celestial. That was something I could have already done as any other Cleric. All my strengths, such as a good AC (got a magic shield and Protection Ring) and good Wisdom Saving Throw were general Cleric things. And even the high AC went a route I didn't expect. I knew a good AC doesn't make you the party tank. What I didn't expect was that having the highest AC in the party without any way to draw attacks towards you makes you the exact opposite of the tank. Enemies acting tactically aren't going to want to attack you if they know you are harder to hit than everyone else, they'll want to attack the rest of your party instead. So that high AC was a hinderance to everyone but myself. Made the length comment because I absolutely agree with the topic of this video. The only guaranteed way to know how much damage a build will do in a given campaign with a given DM is to end up playing it in that campaign with that DM, which by that point it's only useful in hindsight.

[@Reoh0z]

I've always looked at DPR as a rough guide that as you said doesn't take into account all the variables. Nor does it factor in utility of a class. When it comes to char building I try to optimise lots of things but the characters I actually dust off and play in games are never fully optimised to maximise their DPR. They're built to patch the gaps I see in a group to make the gameplay easier for everyone.

[@goranfrka]

DPR is something exciting for new players i think .. after playing several years i prefer unique flavored character .. my favorite actually is baba Joba , old grumpy fey warlock witch , pact of tome with baba Yaga as patron. Really enjoying playing her , all spells and invocations chosen for her are flavor rather then efficiency

[@weirdwizard27]

My current group of co-adventurers, gods bless their hearts, aren't very mechanically proficient and are definitely not possessed of an optimization mindset, so I'm able to pick flavorful, suboptimal options on my Wizard. I enjoy watching your videos on optimization, tactics, option analysis and such, but for me things like DPR were already a purely academic matter, something fun to think about. Unless you're playing with a high skill, high optimization group (I imagine your patreon one shots with fans of this channel are probably that!) you can afford to focus less on optimization. That ain't me bagging on what you do, though. I've been hooked on this channel since I found it a few weeks ago, because I'm the kind of guy who enjoys a lot of this crunchy mathematical and mechanical stuff. I'm just grateful that I don't need to worry toooo awful much about DPR at this point in my D&D'ing, as long as I don't bring a character who's an outright burden to the party.

[@AuthorReborn]

I hope this video gets spread around the community so everyone can absorb it and be able to analyze builds more critically

[@chrishousenick6105]

I think DPR is good to illustrate some common ideas (such as how the power of a character quickly escalates at different levels), but I think this video is spot on when it comes to using DPR as a character build indicator. Let us also remember, D&D is a game involving dice and probability. How many of the greatest characters ever created by DPR have been undone and buried in shallow graves by an atrocious night of die rolling. Even the best build can't save a character from a night where the Nat 1's rule their dice tray.

[@gregoryfloriolli9031]

I’ve had the habit of taking a new build for a test drive. I’ll level my character up to 6 and run a battle against a Hill Giant, which is a deadly encounter. This is an imperfect way to evaluate a class with its own set of flaws. However, I do think this gives you a better feel for how all of a classes abilities come together and any glaringly obvious strengths and weaknesses will come out.

[@Tusitala1967]

I do this sort of thing too.

[@NageIfar]

I just did this with my new whacky Undead Warlock melee tank on lvl 5. Defeated a Manticore, Medusa (without averting my eyes, Warcaster + Fighter start for all the con saves) and finally a Wyvern (though that took 4 tries). Might try a Hill Giant next!

[@frankyquilavafireblast895]

I think my brain just exploded So many variables that are not usually accounted for all of a sudden start popping up when it comes to this stuff

[@eliaspatrikis1926]

I think the point of damage when you need it is super important. Being able to pump out solid DPR across an adventuring day is fine, but it seems more important to be able to spike your damage when you need it. This is why something like Divine Smite is very good, you can go through your adventuring day, getting by with probably normal attacks without smiting just fine. When you get to the boss however who is probably a lot nastier then the enemies who came before (which your DM probably expected you to beat anyway), you can blow that boss away by smiting on every hit.

[@WandersNowherre]

This is a really good examination. I've found for example that wherever I look online, the Beast Barbarian from Tasha's is unfavorably compared to the damage output of a classic GWM barbarian. Yet in my own experience with groups I've played in, big slow hitters like Paladins and GWM Barbarians often miss and spend an entire turn doing 0 damage. When they hit, they hit BIG, and the Paladin dropping Smite is an awe-inspiring bunch of numbers....but it's when he hits, and often the player is sitting there with a sad face because he missed. Meanwhile, my dual-wielding beast barb almost never misses, doing Claw-Claw-Offhand-Shortsword (now Claw-Claw-Claw offhand sword with Extra attack) each turn and stacking d6s+Rage damage. If she misses an attack, she is doing slightly less damage that turn, instead of no damage. All of her hits stack her Rage damage on top of. She chews down most opponents in two turns, tops. Even though on paper, she's not doing as much damage as our GWM barb and our smiting Paladin, in practice, she's a wrecking ball against both minions and bosses. So I'm satisfied with her build, and glad I didn't get discouraged by the optimisation discussions.

[@genrepunk]

Well said. This is even more of a reason to take DPR with a grain of salt, beyond the fact that dealing damage isn't everything. For theorycrafting it can be a neat exercise to max hypothetical damage, but when it comes to optimizing for play the question should always be, "What will I have the most fun with?"

[@Howlett200699]

Also I've seen people come with God tier builds to a D&D game and proceed to have God tier bad dice rolls so the DPR is 0. And likewise I've seen mediocre builds carry and save the party with a few well timed and also max damage crits. I totally agree with you assessment on DPR thank you for this Treantmonk.

[@slydoorkeeper4783]

Yeah, I play pathfinder and I see people praise the barbarian's hit die as God tier, especially compared to the wizard. But if it wasn't for the constitution bonus, a wizard could in theory have more hp if you don't have certain rules in place. Die rolls can very often. Its why I've been considering higher hit chance compared to damage. Because damage is meaningless if you can't hit.

[@youtubeseagull]

yea but i don't agree with this assessment because over many game people will see their average results pan out and get more productivity out of builds that at least tried. It's not like bizzarro world happens all the time. You still have to try to get some damage and have some average guesses on what you'll do during a campaign and dozens of games.

[@ariashkenazi9211]

I still like DPR as common measuring stick for builds. It's definitely not perfect as you've highlighted here, but it's the best one we have in a lot of situations. As build creators I think the best we can do is highlight any major assumptions we're making when we present a build's DPR.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I agree. I will continue to do DPR calculations, I just wanted it to be clear what it does, and does not tell us.

[@ariashkenazi9211]

@@TreantmonksTemple Definitely a good video to make, I think it's easy to forget what these numbers can look like to folks who don't spend hours messing with them. Explaining their limitations is the responsible thing to do.

[@lesfeckingo]

Will never forget my level Artificer 1/ Hexblade 1/ Evoker Wizard X who did insane magic missile damage upwards of 180 per round, now save with just his action. Burned through spell slots like no one’s business but if I dragged my hex onto a target, it’s was dead next round just about always. Due to hex, hexblade curse, +1 force damage focus stick (can’t recall name but it’s a common magic item) and empowered casting. To make matters worse he had multiple wands of magic missile as well. But for fun I flavored him as never learning spells past 3rd level. The wizard’s apprentice who didn’t finish his internship. “I cast charm monster!” *magic middle for 84 damage* Rogue: “Um, he’s not charmed.” “Sure he is.” *looks at monster and level’s finger gun at him* “Aren’t ya?” Monster: “yes. Yes. Charmed. Whatever you want, just please don’t kill me!” “See? I’m a crafty wizard!”

[@josephcrawford4278]

Long time listener, first time caller. I love this video, as it encapsulated a lot of my thoughts. DnD at its heart its a team game, which means the same character's effectiveness can be radically different depending on party composition, which makes optimizing in a vacuum tough. As you mention time and again, a consult with the DM prior to character creation is essential, to get an idea of the structure of the game (number of encounters, likely enemy types). There may be a niche for discussing optimization specially in certain published settings/adventures. The Optimized Rime Maiden party, for example. Great video!

[@admcleo]

This is how I've always looked at DPR, to the point that I rarely calculate it. It's also the main philosophy where the real Min/Max term came from. The player that would much rather take a +2 to a dump stat to bring it up to not be a negative rather than add +2 to a stat that is already their highest. This was, for a time, more or less the way you had to deal with killer DM's that loved to stack the deck against the party. The kind of DM where every combat involved fighting in darkness, on a slippery floor, or with gas in the air making you hallucinate. You start thinking less about 'how can I do the most damage this round' and more about 'how can I make sure I can at least do SOME damage every round" which results in some much different decisions.

[@Coid]

What I find DPR most useful for is comparing the different options for a single character. I don't really remember ever thinking to use it to compare different builds, other than maybe "what will my character look like if I go with Feat A and my current schtick vs Feat B + respeccing?" Partially because I've had a lot of DMs who played around with homebrew weapons like a 3d4 Great Trident that's Heavy and Two-Handed or boomerangs where you can throw one in your offhand as a bonus action to simulate TWFing or weapons made of mithril that allow one to TWF with them even if the weapon isn't Light. Those sorts of cases really underscore the "will you be getting magic weapons and if so, will they be like that or will they be more like standard longswords and longbows and dagger?" point that you brought up, because they were novel and attractive to start with but then magic item support lead us back away from them again.

[@bryankia]

Yes I am convinced. As far as I am concerned you are the gold standard for deep evaluation of builds. What I have done for my DPR calculations is I make the same 60% his assumption you do (assuming your attributes are on track). I then play out the combat for 10 turns to take into account set up of spells. I then make several assumptions Magic weapons: +1 at 5th, +2 at 11th, and +3 at 17th. I take into account a lot of other items based on level but at the end of the day you are so very right that this is all just a math exercise. As a guy that likes math it is a fun exercise. On a side note when taking into effect good saving throws and flexible damage output alone is shows why the Paladin is such a strong class. Be Well my neighbor to the North

[@JonathanAwesomeify]

Just yesterday I was doing a broad comparison of a level 5 sorcadin vs a paladin vs a PAM paladin, plus the new Beastmaster ranger, a Horizon Walker and a Soulknife rogue. Instead of DPR, I looked at optimal damage per day. I assumed 4 combat encounters each lasting three rounds, and a baseline 65% chance to hit. I assumed the characters were able to take all their actions and bonus actions and weren't knocked out, or suffered disadvantage or anything, and I assumed the rogue got sneak attack every time. (Which in our party anyway, should be pretty easy.) Then I plugged in average damage for the features. In essence, I was comparing the characters' ceilings - on a good day, how much total damage could these characters expect to do? It was actually pretty revealing. First place went to the Soulknife, followed closely by the Beastmaster. The two paladins and the Horizon Walker came out roughly even, with the Sorcadin pretty far behind. I think this exercise was MUCH more useful than looking at a single DPR.

[@binolombardi]

I’ve actually never had an enemy my trigger Booming Blades secondary damage.

[@M0ebius]

Some builds/party compositions force the BB dmg easier than others. Realistically it is best against melee-only targets while you have some way of safely moving away from the target, or if the party has some ways for pushing the target away. My all-Hexblade party basically have one or two frontline PCs cast Booming Blade, while everyone else use either Repelling Blast or cast Command/Dissonant Whispers. This puts the target in an awkward situation where it either eats the dmg or is just out of the fight for a round.

[@eddiemet12]

multiclass as rogue and then disengage away

[@prophetisaiah08]

All these reasons are why I find that the Tasha's Beast Master ranger with Druidic Warrior (Guidance and Shillelagh) and the Sentinel feat is one of the most powerful builds in the game. A lot of the circumstances that you can't assume in DPR calculations can be set up by a good, tactical player. It puts a lot of the control over these factors (non-magic BPS resistance, advantage/disadvantage, defensive ability, reliable use of bonus actions and reactions, not wasting damage on overkill, etc.) into the hands of the player as well as the DM. With the right spell selection, the new Beast Master ranger is probably the best class/subclass to play for solo (1 player + 1 DM) game.

[@JaredHight-g4e]

We used to have this thing where we would track best damage in our group, and soon we had some outliers. Our 5th place was 250 damage, and the first place was over 1000. But the 250 was single target and oneshoted a boss, and the 1000 was a wizard getting lucky and having almost 30 enemies in his fireball (or some other aoe I want there that day and they were vulnerable to it). One of those damage instances was a derailment of a whole day of dnd, the other was kinda useful and very impressive but didn’t even down an enemy. It’s true that we were counting damage a little funny, but aoe is sometimes insane sometimes useless depending on situations.

[@jacksonletts3724]

Very insightful video! I’ve definitely run into these issues when actually playing my theory crafted builds.

[@Flotsome]

I use DPR calculations a lot when it comes to Homebrew Content because it allows us to see any red flags and exclude content that exceed certain margins (which is the most common problem we come across). It is definantly not definitive like you said but when creating and examing homebrew content, being able to identify DPR issues right of the bat saves a lot of time when trying to fine tune.

[@sjafi]

This is why playing a character you really enjoy is by far the most important thing. Dig deep into the RP of this RPG, and if your DM takes care of you, you'll generally always feel relevant. For me, I enjoy the game much more when we as players have death as a REAL thing. I don't enjoy campaigns where I know my party members or my character will survive without any issue through every session. The thrill of the game when your character could die, and how your party members react is where its at for me.

[@ChristnThms]

I really appreciate this video. I find that the only time DPR is a major part of an encounter is when the DM spoon feeds the "big hitter" a big monster to hit a bunch. It is usually very transparently done. While it is certainly not quantifiable, I hope that in future discussions of damage, there is a greater emphasis of the tactics by which it can be done effectively... range>melee, and the delaying tactics to facilitate range; cover and concealment to increase survival; breaking LoS to prevent being targeted by spells. I have taken the approach that the amount of damage done will always be sufficient, as long as I (we) can maintain tactical control of the situation. Even a trickle of cantrips will eventually win, as long as there is focused fire and situational awareness being used by all parties. A melee Rogue is far more effective laying down caltrops and oil patches, to enable the SS archers to do their thing, than he is rushing into melee range for his one (maybe) hit.

[@tirionpendragon]

This is what i always thought about dpr and it's the reason why Monks are higly underrated in the dnd community too, in my opinion. Every single time i have seen a monk in my table, it was really dope; really versatile, really skillful, really good damage, really good defenses and really helpful to the party both in combat and outside of combat. The monks i have seen were always in the action, did the party need to explore? The monk was ready to go; did the party need to go stealth? The monk was ready to go; did the party need a face? The monk with "Skill Expert" on Persuasion was sitting there, with his 12 charisma but a +7 on persuasion and yeah, it was really effective even there.

[@vigilantgamesllc]

This is a fantastic reference video which will remain relevant. I personally don't use DPR for making characters at all, since I don't optimize. In fact, I've made character decisions in the past which would make an optimizer cringe, but I did it because it made sense with the story. I don't even allow multiclassing at my tables unless it makes complete story sense. I do, however, find calculating some forms of baseline DPR useful when creating or adjusting monsters. My philosophy regarding monsters is that I have to assume the characters are up, unhindered, and the majority of the party is focusing on damage each round. This is the best form of "balance" I can think of and it has worked out well. By assuming average damage under average circumstances I get a feeling of how challenging a monster will be. All the variables can come in, just like life. You never really know which way the pendulum is going to swing and I love that. The combats where my players do tactically well and the dice are in their favor, they can feel in control. Then, the combats where the monsters out maneuver the players or the dice fall in enemy favor, they can feel really challenged. It's all a win to me.

[@Snoil]

I've never been much of an optimancer going all the way back to AD&D in the 80's for basically all the reasons you laid out yet also... circumstantial optimization, it turns out, was in fact something I did a lot of subconsciously. i.e.- I played a LOT of clerics over the years and would usually gear towards being THE party solution to undead problems as a for instance. To avoid wall of texting, party composition is also very important in determining situational effectiveness. I usually DM and will recommend this video to 'DPR optimizers' because it might help them have more fun by doing less math while finding a fun niche.

[@josephserio7093]

Holy cow! -De-emphasis on DPR -Emphasis on defenses -Recognizes the need for good saving throws -Factors in improved mobility -Prefers more attacks with lower damage over 1 big overkill hit -Builds should also include utility Did Treantmonk just make a case for monks? Is this the first step in the monk redemption arc?

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I have issues with Monk defenses too...

[@glukolover]

This reminds me of my old Stormkings Thunder campaign, where our blaster fire sorcerer was hot stuff when we were up against frost giants..... and one of the first to die when we fought the fire giants.

[@youtubeseagull]

hey man, there's a feat that overcomes resistance (but not so much immunity right away), so that player just needed a little help finding the feat Elemental Adept. Min maxing isn't much without minimizing worst case scenarios, as pointed out at end of vid

[@glukolover]

@@youtubeseagull I'm well aware of the feat. But your not always in a position where you can afford to take a feat. Had we been in a position where we had continued to fight Frost Giants, then he would have simply wasted a feat. It doesn't change the fact that the sorcerer has a serious lack of spells known.

[@stranger6822]

This goes a good ways towards explaining why paladins and ranged fighters are so good at dealing damage. Their damage is very consistent, they can turn it up when they want to, and both are difficult to completely shut down but for different reasons.

[@dragondrummer3257]

This problem is one reason I like two things: - the flaws of a build being pointed out by its creator And - builds that don't rely on damage (although they present other challenges while optimizing that I personally find more interesting)

[@VileScarMind]

I use a DPR calc - your baseline and a couple of my own - to help me when I know my character is going to go down a charaxter driven and non-optimal route. A certain degree of optimisation and awareness means I can make "poor" choices and still pull my weight. I also use it for working out whether theoretical builds are viable - I've had a monk build and knife fighter builds over baseline - especially when they'll require a lot of time in game to fully show their worth. The other thing I do is use it show where in levels my character might be comparatively very powerful or weak and help with play style and theming in game. At a "weak" point the character might be fumbling with nee spells or skills.

[@AVJHalonen]

At the end of the day the combat aspect of the game is just resource management and chance on the die rolls imo. I remember one time getting lucky during combat when I was able to cast Disguise Self out of line of sight from the enemy and disguising as the the leader of... can't remember if they were gnolls or what and then using an action to shout at them "what are you doing you fools? they're out in the woods running away, chase them!" I rolled really high and there was some DM mercy (or maybe they actually rolled low on their insight/investigation) for trying something that's not "whack, blam! boom!" but ultimately I spent 2 actions and a 1st level spell slot to take out 4-5 enemies from the fight. I'd love to have more 0 DPR moments like that, definitely more satisfying that one-shotting something.

[@napoleontheclown]

I've found tactical options more relevant to how effective a character is than DPR. Reduce enemy mobility, put the scariest enemy on the battlefield into lockdown while the party focus-fires on the cannon fodder, position myself/party to where they gain an advantage... Nova potential is great. Being able to consistently ruin your DM's tactical plans is better.

[@DarthBoberEXMinMaxMunchking]

One thing that happens to me all the time is that I generally don't get a lot or any magic items for my characters. I've had more luck in online Westmarches servers, but my real life DMs are very stingy with magic items, even when we play in supposedly high-magic settings. I know this is entirely subjective and there are tables out there which give out more items than players have attunement slots, but I just learned to rely on my own trait+feature+feat+spell synergies rather than hoping the DMs give me what I want/need.

[@riccardoconti6682]

Personally I like more to look at how durable is the build, like Hp, AC and Saves, because in the past I've seen many of my characters rendered uselesss by a failed save or by being at 0. The one thing I don't want is ti skip a turn, for wathever reason

[@SilverKarlov]

I love love LOVE your take on this. I’ve been saying this for ages. I tend to avoid calculating average damage super in depth at this point, as it just doesn’t factor in enough to show that your character is an effective character. I tend to eyeball damage a lot more now, as I know what options make for more damage, and what ones tend to end up with less damage. Perfect example is the way of mercy monk. Using flurry of blows with a +3 dex and a +2 wisdom would mathematically deal more damage than hand of harm, but hand of harm will definitely outperform flurry in practice, since it’s damage you get to add to an attack that already hit.

[@fasterpet]

Understanding the campaign / setting for your adventures is probably required to determine what damage types will be resisted / immune and what status effects will be most prevalent. A firecaster in Avernus won't do nearly as much damage. Athletics in Icewind dale will help you traverse much more terrain than in Dungeon of Mad Mage. I typically look at the setting to determine what kind of character would go there (how they would specialize) as I pick spells / features that I would want to play. Even a sub-optimal build can become really fun to play in the right setting.

[@twilightgardenspresentatio6384]

Every question here is beautiful in succession. This is the game to me. Answer the questions and live another moment inside a brand new story

[@oliverneville5012]

Less about dpr in general, but I often try and imagine what a worst possible encounter would be for a build I'm trying to evaluate. It's great for finding glaring weaknesses, knowing what to look out for or prepare for in session, and just getting a more realistic look at the build. If I still think a build could be decently impactful in that encounter I consider that a very successful build

[@TheTdroid]

These are fair points me and my friends have considered as well, but we more or less decided that DPS calculations can be a nice starting point for figuring out certain things. We tend to assume reasonably favorable conditions, then add qualifiers to the result. Here are some qualifiers from Paladin v Ranger: - The Paladin (likely) expends more resources for damage prior to Improved Divine Smite, but does not expend any resources when not dealing damage. - The Ranger can (likely) get more value out of any given spellslot, assuming they can keep concentration, but this usually comes with a feat tax (Warcaster or Resilience: Constitution) - The Paladin is capable of improving party DPR and saves through spells like Bless if necessary. - The Ranger has more control spells. - Burst is more valuable point for point for damage potential since a dead enemy takes no actions. - Control is more valuable than raw damage for sustained DPR because a CCd creature might be unable to take an action or be severely limited in the actions they can take. - Free damage is more valuable than short rest damage which is more valuable than long rest damage. - Magic items beyond +1/+2/+3 are gravy. Even when trying to account for some of these caveats to put the numbers into perspective, we more commonly use DPR calculations internally within a build to optimize certain strategies. For example, should my two-weapon fighting Gloom Stalker use Hunter's Mark instead of an off-hand attack? Or is the damage I can deal on X round enough to put the enemy in the ground or should I prioritize control? Do I need to spend resources at all this round? Etc.

[@mattgopack7395]

Good video! I agree, the DPR discussion has always left me a bit surprised at how pervasive it is - and all the assumptions that went into it. You were always up front with your assumptions, but the fact that it's presented as a single number (and not something that fluctuates) is tough to really see how it would actually translate into other games/to compare builds. It became very obvious to me when I saw another video looking at ranger DPR, and it just assumed that gloom stalker would *always* get advantage from being invisible. Which, in my games, is not at all a reasonable assumption, and massively changes the DPR calculation. I think the 'ideal' version of a DPR setup would be some sort of site where players could move sliders for the various factors mentioned, and it would spit out a modified DPR that's tailored for that situation (eg - adjusting the # of SRs per LR, fights per rest, chance of advantage, BB/GFB %, etc). But that's a lot more work, and obviously doesn't fit well for fitting into a video. Perhaps a shorthand for that would be to do a survey to adjust your DPR assumptions? That could adjust the parameters to be a little more reflective of the average campaign, even if it won't cover *everything*.

[@CufflinksAndChuckles]

As a DM, my goal is to cause enough chaos and win conditions that my players are rarely able to achieve their build strategies. A team optimized for combat in my game would find themselves useless except in rare cases. I only give them encounters that are straightforward when it's time that they feel like the heroes that they are. The rest of the time I lean on encounters that remind them that there are enemies who are smarter and scrappier than them who are unwilling to fight on even ground. In the last set-piece encounter we had, I had the city they were in sieged by an opposing monster. They noticed that a MacGuffin they pursued a while ago was being stolen away from the city while the siege was taking place. So, they had two options: Help defend the siege or pursue the thieves. During the fight against the thieves, they realized that the thieves had magical items that cast Firebolt every round while they ran. My players realized that it was more efficient to do the Dodge Action instead of the Attack Action every round, most of their damage coming from Bonus Actions and attacks of opportunity. And instead of damage spells, my party's Bard used control spells to hinder the thieves' pursuit.

[@bobsmitch6353]

So they have no agency and their choices don't matter. I hope you're honest with your party about this.

[@joehill6916]

The dpr myth is pervasive and actually prevents people making more fun (and probably more optimised!) choices. Good to see a bit of push back against it. Great points on defensive aspects not being added to calculations too. I’d add that versatility is often underrated as well (one reason why rangers and artificers are actually better in real play than many in the community perceive).

[@mr.chimichanga6947]

I really only take dpr into account to gauge the potential I can expect from a build. I look at the least damage I can expect while still hitting, the average, and the max. But then I also take into account any special abilities or feats I have so I have a general idea of what to expect in a variety of situations

[@feignsanity]

I actually used DPR for my monster designs. First I calculate the minimum, maximum, average per turn damage output of all the player characters. Then consider the accuracy of that damage output. Then I create monsters with varying AC, saves, and HP values based on how long I intend for them to survive against their damage options. For tougher minions, I'll put their HP values ABOVE the PCs average damage output but WITHIN their maximum damage output. That way they survive longer than a turn normally, but if they high roll damage or deal critical damage, they'll die in one hit as a reward for their luck. For fragile minions I'll put their HP values BELOW the PCs average damage output but ABOVE their minimum damage output. That way they'll normally die in one turn, but if they low roll damage the minion can manage to tank it. You can also create varieties of survivability. Such as very high hp, but low AC Very low HP, but very high AC. Enemies without remarkable HP or AC, but high saves, condition immunities, or damage resistances. You can also handcraft the damage output, ranges, movement, reach, and unique abilities and spells of enemies towards your intended level of threat to the PCs. Create enemies vulnerable to the the PCs most limited resources. Create enemies that are a challenge to some and easy pickings for others. Personally, I think calculating DPR is a great tool for enemy design and creating appropriate combats for the player characters involved. I had a group of level 2 PCs battle through a dungeon of 70+ enemies and there was only 2 knockouts on their side by the end of it. They could only make it through that ordeal because I carefully calculated damage ranges.

[@nathanbeit-aharon7335]

Thank you so much for this video. Very important commentary. And perfectly timed for me. Much as I agree entirely with what you're saying, the mathy stathead part of me wants to create some sort of defensive DPR, even if it's ballpark. Statheads focus on offense because it's easier to control, but defense is at least as important. Say monsters on average have to-hit bonuses of about +3 + character level/2, a character's vulnerability rating could be calculated as 2+ each roll besides 20 that would typically hit them. So if your AC is 19 at 2nd level, and your foes have +4 to hit, you'd be hit by 15-20 for a vulnerability rating of 7, while an unarmored warlock with dex 12 who is hit on anything 7+ has a vulnerability rating of 15, twice as vulnerable. A warlock could look at the mage armor option, say "that'll prevent 20% of the combat damage I'd take", and decide to double down on offense and utility instead since he isn't taking combat damage so often, while a paladin considering the defense fighting style would say "I take a lot of combat damage for the whole party, so preventing 1/7 of that is worth giving up on +2 damage." Saving throws would have to be handled separately, but also might be worth a look.

[@nathanbeit-aharon7335]

And going in a different direction, since what you're saying is that different things are useful in different circumstances, maybe you could talk a bit about those circumstances? Take Paladins, and say something like this (bear in mind this is my guess and I have no idea if this is good advice): "If you're fighting mooks, charge into the fray and use shield of faith. If you're fighting one big thing with a Barbarian ally on your side, consider compelled duel so the Barbarian can use reckless attack safely. If you've got no cleric or Bard and have front line allies, you need to lean into the healing role during dangerous encounters and keep yourself alive. If you multiclass, consider Aid for your highest spell slot. If you're fighting flying foes or foes on ledges you can't reach, use bless or your oath spells."

[@serpentsembrace782]

All excellent points! A good followup video on this could be to discuss optimizing for specialization or versatility. That said, it's still fun to theory craft builds that have the opportunity to deal ludicrous amounts of damage even if you might not minmax a character so much when actually playing one, or if the opportunity to deal that much damage would be very rare.

[@theblindbuildergrandminuti5648]

Good topic, I’ve made characters that had more impact with less direct damage and more control effects, or just being able to survive in some cases.

[@josephbendoski4305]

This is very detailed, and I'm impressed how much thought went into it.

[@lucasmarquesdecamargos4298]

That's a really great video. It shows that those calculations can help one build an effective character, but it is not a tool for equal comparison. Essentially, everything you said can be understood as: RPGs are not combats in 30x30ft blank featurless rooms with no surprise, perfect light condition... you even point to stuff that don't even have to do with terrain, such as spillover damage (or the lack thereof), defense capabilities, replenish-able features, and so on. Very great video indeed

[@TheAdditionalPylons]

Story Time. I'm in a campaign with a rogue, paladin, cleric and Fighter. The fighter is a DPR battlemaster: Attack for as much damage with a longbow as possible. Maneuvering strike for the extra weapon die with a ranged weapon (don't know if thats RAI or not still), sharpshooter, archery fighting style, action surge, 1 billion range, 20 DEX, ect ect ect. .. So far (we are level 8, started at level 1) the fighter, despite having the best DPR on paper, has clocked in at 3rd best in a party of four. 3RD OUT OF 4 PLAYERS! Here are the numerous reason why. 1: He never attacks with advantage. Our rogue and paladin are always flanking, therefore are always attacking with advantage. They almost always hit with their attacks. 2: Critical strikes. Because the rogue and paladin are attacking with advantage, they are critically striking more often, and its very noticeable. When a rogue or a paladin crit, it does ludicrous amounts of damage, and is happening in almost every encounter. The fighter has crit 3 or 4 times in THE ENTIRE CAMPAIGN TO DATE, and the crits they do get are weak sauce compared to a critical smite or sneak attack. 3: Saving throws. Failing a saving throw is a big deal. Since the fighter is always about 60 feet from the rest of the party, they NEVER benefit from the paladin's ability to passively improve saving throws. Additionally, our fighter has the weakest mental attributes of anyone in the group. This fighter is always failing saving throws that paralyze, fear, charm, and stun them, and therefore doing nothing. 4: Isolation. Similarly to last point, this fighter is consistently assuming that there is no danger away from the frontline, and as such, is getting ambushed and harassed by creatures that approach from the 'rear'. when this happens the fighter usually goes down, get stuck in melee (with a longbow) or accidentally draws the attention of more hostile creatures.

[@Solarraven7777]

Given this video, I look forward to the next monk related video.

[@andraszakupszki6200]

I always imagine an adventurer as being able to resolve a bunch of different situations by smartly using their abilities/tools. This kind of specialization leaves massive holes in that toolkit so it's good for building bbegs with story discoverable weaknesses...

[@tristanpanke2468]

"Magic items [in 5e] are pure candy." --Perkins

[@LurchLand]

I'm looking at DPR as kind of a vague guideline. For example, for my currently character I am planning to grab the Agonizing Blast by character level 11 (sorcerer 8) and figure the DPR in fair circumstances would be around 30 DPR without using any other resources, except I've not calculated the chance to hit with all 3 blasts. But I'm thinking if I compare my blasts with a Charisma 20 to a fighter that has 20 Strength, our chance to hit should be pretty similar. It seems my DPR is about 2/3 to 1/2 of that fighter of the same level; which isn't bad for cantrips and not using resources. Then I use quicken spell to cause some other leveled spell effect, then tack on the 30 DPR; I should be having some significant impact. And even if I'm all out of spell slots from a long adventuring day, I can still do modest damage instead of a very weak 10 DPR at level 11. I've never played a game at that high of a level, but my current game is targeted at going all the way to 20. I'm trying to make smart choices for my sorlock in battle while still keeping my fun stuff like my pseudodragon familiar.

[@PerditiousSooth]

This is one of my favorite videos of yours and it really underlines the main irritation I have with the culture of online optimization. There's this fixation with optimization in a vacuum: people want to break the game down into absolutes, or obtain "the best" build for every given situation, or push builds at 20th level. Theorycrafting is fun in and of itself, so I won't knock it, but it's easy to lose sight of things when thinking of optimization in that way. D&D is a game about subjective experiences: it *has* to be, in order for it to be what it is. The community can't even collectively agree whether X amount of spell slots or Ki Points means you'll get your resources all the time, 50% of the time, or 25% of the time, because neither published adventures nor DM stylistic preferences are consistent with how rests and resources are distributed. For these reasons I prefer to think of optimization in terms of general strategies and principles that can be applied to aid in specific goals, because optimization without context is just theory. I do use a personal DPR metric when crafting my builds but I always write out at least 3 possibilities, ie "Here's my turn 1 DPR, here's my DPR when everything lines up perfectly and I've had a round to set-up, here's my DPR when I'm conserving resources against trash fights or I'm 6 fights in and have no resources left." I also have the benefit of knowing my DMs and knowing what games I'll be getting in so I build around that (not everyone does) -- for example, if I have a DM who I know loves to use complicated big battle maps with lots of obstacles to navigate, or if I'm playing Adventurer's League and I know what sorts of encounter pacing there will be.

[@jefftheless]

Fantastic stuff. Having a critical understanding of your analysis tools is necessary

[@oliverneville5012]

Sometimes (honestly just for fun I don't think it's even a little bit accurate) I like to add percentages to things like fire immunity and then do a version where I'm versing fire immunity and see how it effects the dpr and maybe add it in if I'm comparing 2 builds, you can get some ridiculous amount of work when you starting thinking of multiple senarios you wanna account for. Theres a spreadsheet someone made with all the monster stats neatly arranged that I use a bit for finding stuff like fire immunity percentage at a certain CR but it's really just a fun exercise because it's not like I have just as much chance of fighting an angel as I do a goblin, and also a million other reasons this can never be accurate

[@johngleeman8347]

On the Gaming Den they prefer to look at a build conquering certain fixed trials at different levels as a means of evaluating its effectiveness. How effective is it at climbing down a cliff face, fighting gimmick monsters, raw power monsters, espionage, navigating a trapped maze, etc. If you clearly define all of the challenges and what success, failure, and degrees of success and failure are, you have a metric for lauding or shaming a build beyond just how much damage it outputs on the round to round.

[@5h4d0wBG]

I disagree with the criticism that DPR doesn't account for defenses from damage and conditions. It was never meant to do that. DPR is a measurement of damage, not the singular and ultimate metric of a build's power. Defenses are defenses, utility is utility, mobility is mobility. If anyone was comparing only DPR between two builds and deciding one is better based on the bigger number, that's user error, not a fault of the tool.

[@ryanadshead4809]

i had a cleric whose damage by his own was fairly low per round, aside from certain spells. But the buffs I put on my party, namely Holy Weapon on the party archer or even just bless would launch their DPR up dramatically but technically would not be considered my damage. DPR is a min/maxer breakdown that only looks from the single angle of physical combat. There is nothing wrong with that if thats the style you play you and your party enjoy but there as many more ways you could play characters then just combat number focusing. Most important part is it a fun character for you.

[@krachtkrompie]

That was a fantastic video. Thank you for explaining it clearly. Sounds to me like DPR is relatively unimportant. I'd agree flexibility, defense, and choice of "when to turn it on" are all very important too!

[@PedroHISilva]

I track total damage per PC over entire campaigns. People would be surprised if they could see the numbers. There are so many factors to account, it's crazy. But I can see patterns after multiple rounds. I'm not trying to reach global conclusions, but helps to understand the dynamics of a certain party. What I can say is that indeed, good defense, movement, positioning, party synergies, map size, map complexity, and many other things influence a lot total damage. Standard deviation of DPR is reasonably large, showing that getting a consistent value is tricky. One interesting example: my paladin was once the only melee and tank of the party. Then another player joined us and made another tank. Same PC, but released me from always holding the line. As a result DPR increased. So, same build, but party role made a large difference. One day I intend to publish the findings. (Spoiler, two dpr builds in the same campaign, ranger puts more than twice the total damage of the paladin, but don't tell the others, because rangers suck, paladins are gods)

[@GroovyLemming]

One thing that can help figuring out your build is knowing the sort of campaign you are in. For instance, in my game the main bad guys of the campaign are undead. It's built into the setting and something the PCs are very familiar with at this point. This means that the effectiveness of (typical) Paladins and Clerics is higher than normal, while the effectiveness of builds which focus on a condition liked Charmed or Frightened, like many Bards, is lower. Ironically, it took a while before someone made a Paladin in this game and now that they are in my game, other players are going "Holy sh*t!" at seeing their damage and I am like, "Uh huh."

[@youtubeseagull]

beautiful, and i believe that's why a decent guess at effective damage is ok to have LESS variables counted, rather than MORE. LIke you know you can throw something about as far as how much math you put into it. Seems like most of the predictions rely on familiarity with the DM and the campaign. I like simple math and low expectations and then exceed the low estimate in game by min maxing after i'm already in there. I always pick a new subclass than before so that i'm looking for things and learning instead of knowing what to pick, so far. As for my own calculations, i don't go far: I usually expect to hit a few people with an area of effect, hit half the time, roll an even number below half damage, and i always pick what i pick because of what's happening, not what i thought i'd pick at the beginning of the game. Feats are best picked on the level you get them, not before. my little blurb about avoiding damage. I think it's TERRIBLE how often people want to play non damaging/ controlling wizards and such. More often than not it's an inexperienced player trying to do something that takes a lot of experience, and not being able to finish off an ogre that has 15 hit points left, dropping fog cloud on the entire party, and getting into a situation where they can't do anything, none of the spells prepared apply, and no back up damage for when the player is stuck and in doubt about what to do. Pathetic. It's good to do some damage, and have some controlling spells too, in every campaign. Still i'll thumbs up the guy who says he did the controlling wizard and managing to be effective. Ok that takes some doin. Good job. But people should be turned away from that job if they think it's cool or something. It's not THAT cool. It's just whatever. I like being a druid, a jack of all trades, and that includes some serious damage on occasion. I wouldn't leave all DPR calculations on the cutting room floor like they don't matter as far as getting a ball park figure is concerned. I need to know what abilities will do SOME damage. I don't need to exactly know anything, in politics or religion either. Only with jealousy and love i think do young persons think they want to know everything haha. If i can expect over 20 damage at level 6 (random example), i'm going to contribute to killing something, and i needed that exhausting chart somebody built in order to expand my experience and expectations to know that 20 damage at level 6 is ok. It's the low estimate for a round i'm hitting something half the time maybe, in the situation that i have to contribute to. It had to be seen what i could expect to expect. And that's where analyzing and over analyzing share a border for me and i stop. Plus i don't know some of the complicated math anyway (AH HA, dumby! That's why!). But there's nothing wrong with over analyzing the data, here's why. Over analyzing is never a bad thing unless a couple of factors, and this is for everybody about anything: Treant you might like this or think it's shit : 1. you don't have the time. 2. You're lacking imagination and wasting your time. 3. you believe too passionately that you're arriving at the truth instead of dispassionately able to accept a bunch of truths. Basically you have to be a good thinker. And when people get tired they say you're over analyzing but you're not. You're not analyzing half as much as some one much smarter would in half the time you had. It doesn't hurt to over analyze, you're just admitting you are unable to keep up with all the data and have gotten a little lost in the options. So really there is no such thing as over analyzing, it's just a phrase that means "you sound overwhelmed or overwhelming (annoying), or distracting from the point of conversation". Over analyzing doesn't obfuscate the truth unless the observer made mistakes in judging the information. User error. And of course Treant is pointing out why the trust in the DPR is the problem, not so much the endless charts of possibilities. Once again Treant is on the side of the jedi force and spiritual lightness of being. awe i type too much. P.S. Shepherd is best healer in the game b/c area of effect healing

[@NZDND]

No, I'm better than that and you know it because I get DM fiat whenever and whyever.

[@Clanjade22]

And this is how I end up with highly defensive chars all the time, also why healing word is so highly valued, I get to count that rouges damage as mine, good use of a 1st level spell..

[@Maxbeedo2]

There are "some" uses for doing the math. For individual decisions like whether or not to use Sharpshooter/Great Weapon Master, taking into account my current bonuses, the enemy's AC, the enemy's (apparent) health, and having advantage or disadvantage, it can be quite useful. I wouldn't use DPR totals at X level to determine what character to play though, since D&D is often more than just combat, and even in combat you have to consider "How long can I survive to do this higher DPR?"

[@AdamZollo]

I actually do account for the likelihood of finding magic weapons when I calculate DPR. For weapon agnostic builds, I assume that you find a +1 weapon in tier 2 play, +2 in tier 3, and +3 in tier 4. For builds that require a specific weapon that's not common (e.g., whip, handbow, or polearm), I still assume a +1 at tier 2 because those are common enough to commission or shop for. I delay when +2 weapons become available and ignore +3. I've been told this isn't "the right way to compare builds" a few times, but for personal use it's a much better guide. Our DM drops lots of cool weapons but he does so through roll tables. And when it comes to epic +3 weapons, those are crafted by Legendary Fire Giants or the gods. Gods and fire giants are not into making puny hand xbows. And I know this isn't just our table. Lots of DMs only use items in the modules. Or watch Critical Role. Matt does homebrew weapons for his players but Percy, a gunslinger, has pretty much the worst weapon stat wise at every point in the game. They just aren't very common in the world. I think my method is being generous to whips, polearms, and hand xbows because it's not just about +1/2/3 modifies. I see lots of magic weapons have secondary properties that are sometimes very powerful, so a generalist can not only get access to +1/2/3 weapons sooner but they can often pick between a few and use the one with the best secondary effect.

[@tpkforecast8942]

DPR is most useful as a comparison tool. It doesn't let you compare apples to oranges, but lets you compare apples to apples. It doesn't factor in speed, lightning, etc, but that's fine as long as that's controlled for. For example, DPR is a tool that can tell you if Greatsword is better than a Greataxe, because that change doesn't change other factors. It can tell you about the difference between Eldritch Blast and Firebolt, as again, those are apples to apples comparisons where the other factors aren't changing. This can be used on a larger scale to determine balance. I don't use DPR at all in building a character (as I'm just not that much of an optimizer), but I do some quick math all the time to see if I'm going to allow a new spell or subclass in my game as a DM, as it tells me what is power creep; if an option is otherwise equivalent and does 1.3x as much damage as existing options (just as an example), I'm not going to allow it.

[@DarthBoberEXMinMaxMunchking]

It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't kind of situation with DPR calculations. They invariably rely on statistics, but statistics matter little when you don't get more than 5 actions, or 10-15 attacks, in most combat encounters. To be statistically significant, you need a sample size of at least a few hundred - let's say 300. Well, if you manage to cast 4 Fireballs in one combat encounter, you're rolling only 32d6 - almost 10x less than that statistically significant 300d6. Most Fireballs end up somewhere in the 23-33 damage range, but I've seen wild outliers like 11, 46, 45, 13. I've seen a 9 damage Fireball actually. The player ragequit immediately. It was kinda hilarious. Same goes for attack rolls, you can calculate hit chances all day, but every now and then you will have a flop encounter where even with advantage you end up barely rolling anything above 10. I've had it happen to me so many times so far. however, if you just say "fk it" and ignore numbers and DPR calculations completely and just go for something that feels/seems right, you're probably not gonna have an optimal character, assuming you're going for it in the first place (I don't mind unoptimized characters, I played many of them myself). So, you have to base your approach on something, and DPR is one of the indicators - unreliable, yes, but the closest estimate of damage potential we have.

[@andrewhazlewood4569]

Some of the biggest factors for high dpr builds is AC of the enemy, range to the enemy when combat starts and visibility of the enemy. Great weapon master isn’t increasing damage if the enemy is flying, at long range, invisible. And most calculations are based on assumptions that every attack hits which is unlikely to start with and more unlikely for sharpshooter or GWM. And then there is resistance to different damage types. I have been disappointed in spirit guardians because it has been so ineffective in all combats I have had. Usually the DM has moved on to single interesting enemies with maybe a couple of henchmen, positioning hasn’t allowed multiple enemies to be hit and combat has lasted for three rounds or less except when it doesn’t there is a single high hp enemy remaining. I haven’t used spirit guardians much because of that and when I have it has done very little. You can not predict what encounters the DM will throw at you.

[@tomgymer7719]

There are even more factors to consider. Like in your 50 versus 5 instances of 10 damage example. What if the attacks break concentration? Is one 25 con save harder than 5 separate 10 saves? And what if they were a high level warlock with Armour of Agathys. One person takes 25 damage, the other takes 75. There's so many questions and you can never answer them all. For me, I always think, what can my character do in various situations. But not specific ones. Like, if we're running away, if we're trying to take someone alive, if everyone else is down, if I'm separated from the party, etc. Then I think I have a better idea of whether a character will be useful in combat. Another thing you didn't mention, but will effect DPR, is party composition. A battlemaster fighter with commander's strike will deal more damage in a party with a rogue than with another fighter, but that will not be factored in to any DPR calculations for the fighter or for the rogue.