What does "DPR" mean? Both literally and figuratively, because it seems like a metric.
This has been pretty thoroughly covered: DPR -> [D]amage [P]er [R]ound, similar to DPS in video games.
The basic assumption is that, usually in combat, it is best to remove enemies from the board in as few rounds as possible, so they have fewer actions to cause attrition. The more enemies you take out, the more favorable the "action economy" is for you, and stereotypically, the fastest way to do that is to do damage (especially "focused fire" on targets) as quickly as possible.
So there are entire schools of optimization about maximizing DPR over everything else.
There are some controversies and complications with all this:
Optimizing for only combat might not be optimal for your play strategies.
There are other ways to win the action economy: stunning enemies or otherwise costing them turns when they aren't hitting you (often through areas of effect) can be equally powerful (this has sometimes been called a "controller" strategy).
DPR calculations might require spending various resources (spell slots and whatnot) that could be spent in other ways, depending on what you actually run into.
DPR calculations often assume certain idealized circumstances ("white room calculations" and such), which might not hold up in actual play.
DPR calculations can be very handwavey, because the most accurate math can be too complex or chaotic.
Also, while "do the most damage as you can" may sometimes be an optimal strategy for each member of a party, one PC having a higher DPR does not obviate another PC's turn --- everyone can still contribute to the party-wide DPR, even if they are optimized for other things. Many classes and builds can still be quite "effective" even when not optimal for damage.
Alltogether I think DPR is overrated as a metric, but it has its uses. Personally, I think of it more for localized tactics: "would it be better this fight to spend my first bonus action casting Shillelagh, using Pole Strike, or casting a Smite?"
DPR is a diagnostic tool ( with all the caveats of the previous posts) for comparing character’s “deadliness” it’s fine outside of the actual game but effectively useless once the dice start rolling. That barbarian everyone keeps using ( L1, Str 16, PB2, great axe d12) does an average of 9.5 damage (6.5 for the weapon +3 for the stat bonus) per attack x a hit chance vs AC15 of 50% (.5) for a dpr of 4.75 with an actual range of damage from 4 to 15. That “poor” Ranger archer ( L1, Dex 16, Longbow d8, bonus action hunters mark for an additional d6, does an average of 11 damage with the same hit chance for a dpr of 5.5 and a range of damage of 5 to 17. Compare the ranger mixing it up with two light weapons instead of the bow - ( L1, Dex 16, short sword D6, scimitar d6, hunters mark bonus action D6 on each attack, + advantage on the scimitar from the vex of the shortsword ( roughly +4 to hit) ; short sword has a hit chance of 50%, scimitar has a hit chance of 70% so shortsword does 10 x .5 or 5 dpr and the scimitar does 7 x .7 =4.9 for a total dpr of 9.9. So dpr is an estimate of the AVERAGE damage you should do over many rounds but says nothing about the ACTUAL damage you do in any given round. Given the many different features , like the hunter’s mark that can add in it can be interesting but note that in reality they both do roughly the same damage most of the time so in game given the variability of the dice it’s really a useless statistic.
DPR is a diagnostic tool ( with all the caveats of the previous posts) for comparing character’s “deadliness” it’s fine outside of the actual game but effectively useless once the dice start rolling. That barbarian everyone keeps using ( L1, Str 16, PB2, great axe d12) does an average of 9.5 damage (6.5 for the weapon +3 for the stat bonus) per attack x a hit chance vs AC15 of 50% (.5) for a dpr of 4.75 with an actual range of damage from 4 to 15. That “poor” Ranger archer ( L1, Dex 16, Longbow d8, bonus action hunters mark for an additional d6, does an average of 11 damage with the same hit chance for a dpr of 5.5 and a range of damage of 5 to 17. Compare the ranger mixing it up with two light weapons instead of the bow - ( L1, Dex 16, short sword D6, scimitar d6, hunters mark bonus action D6 on each attack, + advantage on the scimitar from the vex of the shortsword ( roughly +4 to hit) ; short sword has a hit chance of 50%, scimitar has a hit chance of 70% so shortsword does 10 x .5 or 5 dpr and the scimitar does 7 x .7 =4.9 for a total dpr of 9.9. So dpr is an estimate of the AVERAGE damage you should do over many rounds but says nothing about the ACTUAL damage you do in any given round. Given the many different features , like the hunter’s mark that can add in it can be interesting but note that in reality they both do roughly the same damage most of the time so in game given the variability of the dice it’s really a useless statistic.
This post is a perfect example of what people are saying about the difficulty of determining an accurate DPR. There's quite a few assumption that go into DPR calculations and these are just a few from this post. Both characters have a 16 in their primary ability score; their enemy has a 15 AC; the barbarian isn't raging; the barbarian isn't using the cleave mastery of the great axe; the ranger is using a limited resource in hunters mark; Hunter's mark is being used on both attacks when they may have to switch targets; the ranger is using the shortsword and scimitar masteries. Since no one uses the same assumptions and a lot of people don't say all the assumptions they use many of the DPR calculations that you see thrown around are difficult to compare to one another. People will also use improbably favorable assumptions like using the Zombie's AC to get inflated DPR calculations as click bait. That's probably why people are dubious about DPR calculations but if you use the same assumptions you can compare how effective damage builds are.
Well sort of. Your right I didn’t include the barbarian’s rage - a limited resources as well. Including it does raise the barbarian’s dpr - to 5.5 and the range to 6 to 17. I don’t include cleave because there may not be a second creature. But you4 right we should always be clear about ALL our assumptions ( sorry, I wasn’t). So it (dpr) can be used to compare builds - but the differences are really fairly small in most cases as illustrated. Further, as I pointed out, once the dice start rolling it pretty much all goes out the window because of the variability of the dice rolls and the limited number of rounds of most combats. At best dpr shows you what you can expect to do, on average, over a campaign - not what you will do in any given fight.
DPR needs to be taken with huge grains of salt because the assumptions that go into the statistics can vary due to complexities of the game, and the actual sample size in a given game day doesn't really cover the law of large numbers anyway.
If my character makes 2 attacks in a round averaging 4 rounds for 6 combat encounters that's few enough attacks on the swing of a d20 attack rolls and the swing of the damage dice to prevent that average from playing out in actual game play, especially when the different in calculated DPR isn't very much in a lot of cases.
DPR can be a fun exercise in math, and larger differences can matter, but the randomness of the number of dice involved with the low sample rate becomes inaccurate.
The statistics aren't inaccurate, it's just that small sample sizes are prone to deviations from the norm. The kind of dice you're rolling also affect it: 2d6 will give far more "average" results of 7 (the single most common number that two six-sided dice can roll) than 1d12 will because of the way probability goes. Though personally, I find rolling the d12 to be more fun.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
It's not based on "dirty data" (whatever that is), it's based on averages.
No it isn't.
Almost every post I see is maximum potential damage for one specific round in which Action Surge is available.
I 100% agree - it ought to be average damage against an agreed upon difficulty of landing the damage, over maybe a timeframe of 3 rounds (because a lot of combats are over by then). But I have seriously never seen anyone post on that. It's always SENSATION, NEVER SEEN BEFORE, INSANE MAX BURST DAMAGE, READ ABOUT IT NOW!!
And because a lot of people think like that - games become like that. Players insist on resting to get their burst mechanic online again. Eh.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
DPR isn't a useless stat, but it requires you to state your assumptions up front, and the less similarity between the assumptions and the actual combat conditions, the less accurate it is. All spellcasters and many martials will have dpr that varies significantly depending on the number of rounds you average over.
All that being said, dpr can still be a useful figure, particularly when comparing otherwise similar options. For example, two weapon fighting and great weapon fighting have generally similar use cases, so if one performs better in a one situation, it will likely perform better in all situations.
The statistics aren't inaccurate, it's just that small sample sizes are prone to deviations from the norm. The kind of dice you're rolling also affect it: 2d6 will give far more "average" results of 7 (the single most common number that two six-sided dice can roll) than 1d12 will because of the way probability goes. Though personally, I find rolling the d12 to be more fun.
That's exactly it, though. The small sample sizes are prone to that deviation so an average from which we constantly deviate become unreliable.
The statistics aren't inaccurate, it's just that small sample sizes are prone to deviations from the norm. The kind of dice you're rolling also affect it: 2d6 will give far more "average" results of 7 (the single most common number that two six-sided dice can roll) than 1d12 will because of the way probability goes. Though personally, I find rolling the d12 to be more fun.
That's exactly it, though. The small sample sizes are prone to that deviation so an average from which we constantly deviate become unreliable.
It's not unreliable, it just means that you're looking at estimated results, not guaranteed results.
It's not based on "dirty data" (whatever that is), it's based on averages.
No it isn't.
Almost every post I see is maximum potential damage for one specific round in which Action Surge is available.
I 100% agree - it ought to be average damage against an agreed upon difficulty of landing the damage, over maybe a timeframe of 3 rounds (because a lot of combats are over by then). But I have seriously never seen anyone post on that. It's always SENSATION, NEVER SEEN BEFORE, INSANE MAX BURST DAMAGE, READ ABOUT IT NOW!!
And because a lot of people think like that - games become like that. Players insist on resting to get their burst mechanic online again. Eh.
I think that says more about the makeup of the people you game with than anything else.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
I think that says more about the makeup of the people you game with than anything else.
Oh you know them? I didn't realise!
I'm mostly talking about posters here - on this forum. And don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing any fingers, optimizers are free to optimize to their hearts content. But I have not seen even a single post about high sustainable damage in real play in >20th level, ever. Mind, I haven't seen all posts, I really don't care about DPR calculations (for that exact reason).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I think that says more about the makeup of the people you game with than anything else.
Oh you know them? I didn't realise!
I'm mostly talking about posters here - on this forum. And don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing any fingers, optimizers are free to optimize to their hearts content. But I have not seen even a single post about high sustainable damage in real play in >20th level, ever. Mind, I haven't seen all posts, I really don't care about DPR calculations (for that exact reason).
I haven't seen a single post about damage after level 20! Jokes aside, assuming you meant <20th level here's one for you. A level 1 fighter can do an average of 7.55 damage per round using a greatsword without damage boosting feats. This assumes a hit rate of 65% and no opportunity attacks are taken.
I wouldn’t expect to see a >L20 comparison either. What I would really like to see is straight L1 ( or maybe L5) using no limited resources - so hunters mark, rage etc are off the table ( especially action surge - thats strictly burst damage not DPR). Any abilities that are constant use are fair game - so light TWF counts. Things like cleave I would leave out as you don’t always have a possible second target to attack. If done at L5 then subclass abilities that meet these requirements would figure in as well.( so a hunter’s colossus slayer would count but horde breaker would not, archery fighting style and reckless attack would count along with extra attack) done this way you get a fairly honest comparison of the average damage the PC could do round in and out all day. Everything else is really “burst” damage using expendable resources or special situations. The thing is, done this way given the efforts to balance the classes your not likely to see significant differences between classes so it’s almost not worth the bother.
The thing about sustained damage is... it's almost entirely irrelevant. If you have ten rounds of combat in a day, it's an exceptional day (true even if using the 2014 6-8 encounter day -- those encounters often only last 1-2 rounds).
I wouldn’t expect to see a >L20 comparison either. What I would really like to see is straight L1 ( or maybe L5) using no limited resources - so hunters mark, rage etc are off the table ( especially action surge - thats strictly burst damage not DPR). Any abilities that are constant use are fair game - so light TWF counts. Things like cleave I would leave out as you don’t always have a possible second target to attack. If done at L5 then subclass abilities that meet these requirements would figure in as well.( so a hunter’s colossus slayer would count but horde breaker would not, archery fighting style and reckless attack would count along with extra attack) done this way you get a fairly honest comparison of the average damage the PC could do round in and out all day. Everything else is really “burst” damage using expendable resources or special situations. The thing is, done this way given the efforts to balance the classes your not likely to see significant differences between classes so it’s almost not worth the bother.
That's a very biased way to compare dpr. Sure hunter's mark is a limited resource, but a level 20 ranger could theoretically cast it 21 times. When comparing a fighter and a wizard, would you not count a wizard's spells? A better way to do this is to make reasonable assumptions that are clearly stated. Even better, a person could show the dps in various scenarios.
I would flip that - it’s really the only way to make an unbiased comparison. Anything using limited resources is really burst damage, even if the burst is several rounds long. At L20 there are so many options, specially with spells, that once you allow limited resources it all goes to hell in a hand basket. Who is to say your wizards doesn’t have five scrolls of meteor swarm to use versus an army? Nothing is going to compare to that dpr over a 6 round battle. Adding spellcasters, especially offensive ones, yes leveled spells are out and you’re comparing just cantrips. Done that way you start to see that the base damages, even for spellcasters, is pretty much the same across all classes - which is what you should see for a balanced game. I think of the damage from limited resources that last over multiple rounds as bonus damage more than burst damage, which is used up in a single round like fireball..
I would flip that - it’s really the only way to make an unbiased comparison. Anything using limited resources is really burst damage, even if the burst is several rounds long.
All combat is burst, because hit points are a limited resource. What you want is 'average across an adventuring day', however you choose to define an adventuring day.
I would flip that - it’s really the only way to make an unbiased comparison. Anything using limited resources is really burst damage, even if the burst is several rounds long. At L20 there are so many options, specially with spells, that once you allow limited resources it all goes to hell in a hand basket. Who is to say your wizards doesn’t have five scrolls of meteor swarm to use versus an army? Nothing is going to compare to that dpr over a 6 round battle. Adding spellcasters, especially offensive ones, yes leveled spells are out and you’re comparing just cantrips. Done that way you start to see that the base damages, even for spellcasters, is pretty much the same across all classes - which is what you should see for a balanced game. I think of the damage from limited resources that last over multiple rounds as bonus damage more than burst damage, which is used up in a single round like fireball..
You've contradicted yourself. You said in one post: "Anything using limited resources is really burst damage, even if the burst is several rounds long." and "I think of the damage from limited resources that last over multiple rounds as bonus damage more than burst damage..."
Also, if "...the base damages, even for spellcasters, is pretty much the same across all classes...", then that is an indicator that the game is not balanced, as spellcasters are built for better burst damage than martials, and martials better base damage.
I wouldn’t expect to see a >L20 comparison either. What I would really like to see is straight L1 ( or maybe L5) using no limited resources - so hunters mark, rage etc are off the table ( especially action surge - thats strictly burst damage not DPR). Any abilities that are constant use are fair game - so light TWF counts. Things like cleave I would leave out as you don’t always have a possible second target to attack. If done at L5 then subclass abilities that meet these requirements would figure in as well.( so a hunter’s colossus slayer would count but horde breaker would not, archery fighting style and reckless attack would count along with extra attack) done this way you get a fairly honest comparison of the average damage the PC could do round in and out all day. Everything else is really “burst” damage using expendable resources or special situations. The thing is, done this way given the efforts to balance the classes your not likely to see significant differences between classes so it’s almost not worth the bother.
But at that point, you’re getting into the white room scenario that doesn’t reflect actual play. It is a rare combat where the barbarian doesn’t rage or the ranger doesn’t hunter’s mark — both classes are built around those abilities. Are we also going to say the rogue won’t ever sneak attack, and the paladin won’t ever smite? The wizard will only ever cast firebolt? You end up calculating a number which will almost never happen in game. At that point, the number seems pretty useless.
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This has been pretty thoroughly covered: DPR -> [D]amage [P]er [R]ound, similar to DPS in video games.
The basic assumption is that, usually in combat, it is best to remove enemies from the board in as few rounds as possible, so they have fewer actions to cause attrition. The more enemies you take out, the more favorable the "action economy" is for you, and stereotypically, the fastest way to do that is to do damage (especially "focused fire" on targets) as quickly as possible.
So there are entire schools of optimization about maximizing DPR over everything else.
There are some controversies and complications with all this:
Also, while "do the most damage as you can" may sometimes be an optimal strategy for each member of a party, one PC having a higher DPR does not obviate another PC's turn --- everyone can still contribute to the party-wide DPR, even if they are optimized for other things. Many classes and builds can still be quite "effective" even when not optimal for damage.
Alltogether I think DPR is overrated as a metric, but it has its uses. Personally, I think of it more for localized tactics: "would it be better this fight to spend my first bonus action casting Shillelagh, using Pole Strike, or casting a Smite?"
DPR is a diagnostic tool ( with all the caveats of the previous posts) for comparing character’s “deadliness” it’s fine outside of the actual game but effectively useless once the dice start rolling. That barbarian everyone keeps using ( L1, Str 16, PB2, great axe d12) does an average of 9.5 damage (6.5 for the weapon +3 for the stat bonus) per attack x a hit chance vs AC15 of 50% (.5) for a dpr of 4.75 with an actual range of damage from 4 to 15. That “poor” Ranger archer ( L1, Dex 16, Longbow d8, bonus action hunters mark for an additional d6, does an average of 11 damage with the same hit chance for a dpr of 5.5 and a range of damage of 5 to 17. Compare the ranger mixing it up with two light weapons instead of the bow - ( L1, Dex 16, short sword D6, scimitar d6, hunters mark bonus action D6 on each attack, + advantage on the scimitar from the vex of the shortsword ( roughly +4 to hit) ; short sword has a hit chance of 50%, scimitar has a hit chance of 70% so shortsword does 10 x .5 or 5 dpr and the scimitar does 7 x .7 =4.9 for a total dpr of 9.9.
So dpr is an estimate of the AVERAGE damage you should do over many rounds but says nothing about the ACTUAL damage you do in any given round. Given the many different features , like the hunter’s mark that can add in it can be interesting but note that in reality they both do roughly the same damage most of the time so in game given the variability of the dice it’s really a useless statistic.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
This post is a perfect example of what people are saying about the difficulty of determining an accurate DPR. There's quite a few assumption that go into DPR calculations and these are just a few from this post. Both characters have a 16 in their primary ability score; their enemy has a 15 AC; the barbarian isn't raging; the barbarian isn't using the cleave mastery of the great axe; the ranger is using a limited resource in hunters mark; Hunter's mark is being used on both attacks when they may have to switch targets; the ranger is using the shortsword and scimitar masteries. Since no one uses the same assumptions and a lot of people don't say all the assumptions they use many of the DPR calculations that you see thrown around are difficult to compare to one another. People will also use improbably favorable assumptions like using the Zombie's AC to get inflated DPR calculations as click bait. That's probably why people are dubious about DPR calculations but if you use the same assumptions you can compare how effective damage builds are.
Well sort of. Your right I didn’t include the barbarian’s rage - a limited resources as well. Including it does raise the barbarian’s dpr - to 5.5 and the range to 6 to 17. I don’t include cleave because there may not be a second creature. But you4 right we should always be clear about ALL our assumptions ( sorry, I wasn’t). So it (dpr) can be used to compare builds - but the differences are really fairly small in most cases as illustrated. Further, as I pointed out, once the dice start rolling it pretty much all goes out the window because of the variability of the dice rolls and the limited number of rounds of most combats. At best dpr shows you what you can expect to do, on average, over a campaign - not what you will do in any given fight.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
DPR needs to be taken with huge grains of salt because the assumptions that go into the statistics can vary due to complexities of the game, and the actual sample size in a given game day doesn't really cover the law of large numbers anyway.
If my character makes 2 attacks in a round averaging 4 rounds for 6 combat encounters that's few enough attacks on the swing of a d20 attack rolls and the swing of the damage dice to prevent that average from playing out in actual game play, especially when the different in calculated DPR isn't very much in a lot of cases.
DPR can be a fun exercise in math, and larger differences can matter, but the randomness of the number of dice involved with the low sample rate becomes inaccurate.
The statistics aren't inaccurate, it's just that small sample sizes are prone to deviations from the norm. The kind of dice you're rolling also affect it: 2d6 will give far more "average" results of 7 (the single most common number that two six-sided dice can roll) than 1d12 will because of the way probability goes. Though personally, I find rolling the d12 to be more fun.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
No it isn't.
Almost every post I see is maximum potential damage for one specific round in which Action Surge is available.
I 100% agree - it ought to be average damage against an agreed upon difficulty of landing the damage, over maybe a timeframe of 3 rounds (because a lot of combats are over by then). But I have seriously never seen anyone post on that. It's always SENSATION, NEVER SEEN BEFORE, INSANE MAX BURST DAMAGE, READ ABOUT IT NOW!!
And because a lot of people think like that - games become like that. Players insist on resting to get their burst mechanic online again. Eh.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
DPR isn't a useless stat, but it requires you to state your assumptions up front, and the less similarity between the assumptions and the actual combat conditions, the less accurate it is. All spellcasters and many martials will have dpr that varies significantly depending on the number of rounds you average over.
All that being said, dpr can still be a useful figure, particularly when comparing otherwise similar options. For example, two weapon fighting and great weapon fighting have generally similar use cases, so if one performs better in a one situation, it will likely perform better in all situations.
That's exactly it, though. The small sample sizes are prone to that deviation so an average from which we constantly deviate become unreliable.
It's not unreliable, it just means that you're looking at estimated results, not guaranteed results.
I think that says more about the makeup of the people you game with than anything else.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Oh you know them? I didn't realise!
I'm mostly talking about posters here - on this forum. And don't get me wrong, I'm not pointing any fingers, optimizers are free to optimize to their hearts content. But I have not seen even a single post about high sustainable damage in real play in >20th level, ever. Mind, I haven't seen all posts, I really don't care about DPR calculations (for that exact reason).
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I haven't seen a single post about damage after level 20! Jokes aside, assuming you meant <20th level here's one for you. A level 1 fighter can do an average of 7.55 damage per round using a greatsword without damage boosting feats. This assumes a hit rate of 65% and no opportunity attacks are taken.
So? A higher average rate is still a higher average rate, it's just that the lower the number of rolls, the swingier the results will be.
I wouldn’t expect to see a >L20 comparison either. What I would really like to see is straight L1 ( or maybe L5) using no limited resources - so hunters mark, rage etc are off the table ( especially action surge - thats strictly burst damage not DPR). Any abilities that are constant use are fair game - so light TWF counts. Things like cleave I would leave out as you don’t always have a possible second target to attack. If done at L5 then subclass abilities that meet these requirements would figure in as well.( so a hunter’s colossus slayer would count but horde breaker would not, archery fighting style and reckless attack would count along with extra attack)
done this way you get a fairly honest comparison of the average damage the PC could do round in and out all day. Everything else is really “burst” damage using expendable resources or special situations.
The thing is, done this way given the efforts to balance the classes your not likely to see significant differences between classes so it’s almost not worth the bother.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
The thing about sustained damage is... it's almost entirely irrelevant. If you have ten rounds of combat in a day, it's an exceptional day (true even if using the 2014 6-8 encounter day -- those encounters often only last 1-2 rounds).
That's a very biased way to compare dpr. Sure hunter's mark is a limited resource, but a level 20 ranger could theoretically cast it 21 times. When comparing a fighter and a wizard, would you not count a wizard's spells? A better way to do this is to make reasonable assumptions that are clearly stated. Even better, a person could show the dps in various scenarios.
I would flip that - it’s really the only way to make an unbiased comparison. Anything using limited resources is really burst damage, even if the burst is several rounds long. At L20 there are so many options, specially with spells, that once you allow limited resources it all goes to hell in a hand basket. Who is to say your wizards doesn’t have five scrolls of meteor swarm to use versus an army? Nothing is going to compare to that dpr over a 6 round battle. Adding spellcasters, especially offensive ones, yes leveled spells are out and you’re comparing just cantrips. Done that way you start to see that the base damages, even for spellcasters, is pretty much the same across all classes - which is what you should see for a balanced game. I think of the damage from limited resources that last over multiple rounds as bonus damage more than burst damage, which is used up in a single round like fireball..
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
All combat is burst, because hit points are a limited resource. What you want is 'average across an adventuring day', however you choose to define an adventuring day.
You've contradicted yourself. You said in one post: "Anything using limited resources is really burst damage, even if the burst is several rounds long." and "I think of the damage from limited resources that last over multiple rounds as bonus damage more than burst damage..."
Also, if "...the base damages, even for spellcasters, is pretty much the same across all classes...", then that is an indicator that the game is not balanced, as spellcasters are built for better burst damage than martials, and martials better base damage.
But at that point, you’re getting into the white room scenario that doesn’t reflect actual play. It is a rare combat where the barbarian doesn’t rage or the ranger doesn’t hunter’s mark — both classes are built around those abilities. Are we also going to say the rogue won’t ever sneak attack, and the paladin won’t ever smite? The wizard will only ever cast firebolt? You end up calculating a number which will almost never happen in game. At that point, the number seems pretty useless.