This is a bit heretical because people often want to boost monster health, but if you actually run the numbers, a level 20 PC has maybe three times the offense of a level 5 PC... and depending on how generous you are with your assumptions about consumables (potion of invulnerability is rare?) and healing magics, might well have ten or more times the durability. Monsters don't really have that problem, but still, if you want to give level 20 PCs an equivalent challenge to level 5 PCs, you need around 5x the hp and damage.
That results in two problems. First, it's almost certainly blowing encounter budgets. Secondly, encounters big enough to be a challenge are also big enough to take a really long time to resolve. There's a couple of ways of fixing it, but they all have issues. My obvious ideas for this are
Adjust encounter building guidelines and just cope with the long fights. Runs into the problem that adequate solo monsters for high level don't exist.
Somehow nerf high level PC durability. Say, change how constitution affects hit points.
Boost high level monster offense, either directly (more damage) or indirectly (abilities that counter the extra defensive abilities PCs have).
Boost high level PC offense; boost high level monster offense and defense.
Not particularly loving any of those options, but thoughts?
This is a bit heretical because people often want to boost monster health, but if you actually run the numbers, a level 20 PC has maybe three times the offense of a level 5 PC... and depending on how generous you are with your assumptions about consumables (potion of invulnerability is rare?) and healing magics, might well have ten or more times the durability. Monsters don't really have that problem, but still, if you want to give level 20 PCs an equivalent challenge to level 5 PCs, you need around 5x the hp and damage.
That results in two problems. First, it's almost certainly blowing encounter budgets. Secondly, encounters big enough to be a challenge are also big enough to take a really long time to resolve. There's a couple of ways of fixing it, but they all have issues. My obvious ideas for this are
Adjust encounter building guidelines and just cope with the long fights. Runs into the problem that adequate solo monsters for high level don't exist.
Somehow nerf high level PC durability. Say, change how constitution affects hit points.
Boost high level monster offense, either directly (more damage) or indirectly (abilities that counter the extra defensive abilities PCs have).
Boost high level PC offense; boost high level monster offense and defense.
Not particularly loving any of those options, but thoughts?
I have played in alot of high level campaigns. Damage was not too much of an issue. The challenge for our dm was making combats challenging because our Characters were so powerful. However the game really did get bogged down and that was a problem. We had a 20th level battlemaster that was doing 8 attacks (with action surge) plus shield master shove plus maneuvers each round for the first two rounds of combat took FOREVER. After that I really felt like the most attacks anyone should get is two or three and there should just be extra dice rolled with each attack to increase damage appropriately. It would have been much smoother for combat.
This is a bit heretical because people often want to boost monster health, but if you actually run the numbers, a level 20 PC has maybe three times the offense of a level 5 PC... and depending on how generous you are with your assumptions about consumables (potion of invulnerability is rare?) and healing magics, might well have ten or more times the durability. Monsters don't really have that problem, but still, if you want to give level 20 PCs an equivalent challenge to level 5 PCs, you need around 5x the hp and damage.
That results in two problems. First, it's almost certainly blowing encounter budgets. Secondly, encounters big enough to be a challenge are also big enough to take a really long time to resolve. There's a couple of ways of fixing it, but they all have issues. My obvious ideas for this are
Adjust encounter building guidelines and just cope with the long fights. Runs into the problem that adequate solo monsters for high level don't exist.
Somehow nerf high level PC durability. Say, change how constitution affects hit points.
Boost high level monster offense, either directly (more damage) or indirectly (abilities that counter the extra defensive abilities PCs have).
Boost high level PC offense; boost high level monster offense and defense.
Not particularly loving any of those options, but thoughts?
I have played in alot of high level campaigns. Damage was not too much of an issue. The challenge for our dm was making combats challenging because our Characters were so powerful. However the game really did get bogged down and that was a problem. We had a 20th level battlemaster that was doing 8 attacks (with action surge) plus shield master shove plus maneuvers each round for the first two rounds of combat took FOREVER. After that I really felt like the most attacks anyone should get is two or three and there should just be extra dice rolled with each attack to increase damage appropriately. It would have been much smoother for combat.
It is one of the reasons why during the play tests for 5e I wanted them to stick with their earlier martial designs which were kind of like the rogue with cunning strikes. They all just did one attack, but with extra D6-d12 depending on level of damage, can could spend those dice for maneuvers. Maybe not as fast at level 1-4 but 5 + it was either about the same or faster. I wish they had refined it instead of dumping it almost entirely. The early play test spell slots also were promising, it was I think 1 per spell level 3 and on. So while yeah fireball was powerful you got one of them.
This is a bit heretical because people often want to boost monster health, but if you actually run the numbers, a level 20 PC has maybe three times the offense of a level 5 PC... and depending on how generous you are with your assumptions about consumables (potion of invulnerability is rare?) and healing magics, might well have ten or more times the durability. Monsters don't really have that problem, but still, if you want to give level 20 PCs an equivalent challenge to level 5 PCs, you need around 5x the hp and damage.
That results in two problems. First, it's almost certainly blowing encounter budgets. Secondly, encounters big enough to be a challenge are also big enough to take a really long time to resolve. There's a couple of ways of fixing it, but they all have issues. My obvious ideas for this are
Adjust encounter building guidelines and just cope with the long fights. Runs into the problem that adequate solo monsters for high level don't exist.
Somehow nerf high level PC durability. Say, change how constitution affects hit points.
Boost high level monster offense, either directly (more damage) or indirectly (abilities that counter the extra defensive abilities PCs have).
Boost high level PC offense; boost high level monster offense and defense.
Not particularly loving any of those options, but thoughts?
Are you assuming no magic items? Because it seems to me that base PC damage should be low to account for those being present in high-level games.
And before you say that magic items shouldn't be assumed in 5e - please read DMG pg. 37, Tiers of Play.
It doesn't matter very much, though it does matter what classes you're talking about (an earlier post mentioned fighters, and fighters are somewhat of an anomaly for higher level damage because they get so many attacks). Let's look at a simple example
Barbarian (PAM), Level 5, raging, strength 18: damage per round 2d10+1d4+18+2M (M is magic) = 42.5+2M
2M is not going to get damage output up to the roughly 150 needed to keep up with monster hit points if all we do is replace CR 5s with CR 20s, let alone the CR 25s or so you actually need to be a challenge.
For the most part, at higher levels I simply just don’t expect many of the fights to be any real challenge to the party. When I want a fight to actually challenge them, I buff the bejeepers out of a few of my monsters, give them a small horde of minions that are also somewhat buffed, and just resign myself to the fact that combat will likely take 2 sessions to run. Heck, I once made a fight that took 2½ sessions to run. Admittedly that was the denouement to a 2½ year campaign and the last half session after the fight was the epilogue.
For the most part, at higher levels I simply just don’t expect many of the fights to be any real challenge to the party. When I want a fight to actually challenge them, I buff the bejeepers out of a few of my monsters, give them a small horde of minions that are also somewhat buffed, and just resign myself to the fact that combat will likely take 2 sessions to run.
Isn't that a sign that damage is too low?
In tier 2, if you pick monsters that can be expected to wipe the PCs in four rounds in a brawl, that's a challenging but winnable fight -- the PCs can take out those same monsters in 2-3 rounds.
In tier 4, it's really hard to come up with monsters that can actually wipe the PCs in four rounds, and if you do... taking them out in 2-3 rounds is not really an option.
For the most part, at higher levels I simply just don’t expect many of the fights to be any real challenge to the party. When I want a fight to actually challenge them, I buff the bejeepers out of a few of my monsters, give them a small horde of minions that are also somewhat buffed, and just resign myself to the fact that combat will likely take 2 sessions to run.
Isn't that a sign that damage is too low?
In tier 2, if you pick monsters that can be expected to wipe the PCs in four rounds in a brawl, that's a challenging but winnable fight -- the PCs can take out those same monsters in 2-3 rounds.
In tier 4, it's really hard to come up with monsters that can actually wipe the PCs in four rounds, and if you do... taking them out in 2-3 rounds is not really an option.
I dunno. Keep in mind that 2-session fight is usually only 3-5 rounds anyway.
It doesn't matter very much, though it does matter what classes you're talking about (an earlier post mentioned fighters, and fighters are somewhat of an anomaly for higher level damage because they get so many attacks). Let's look at a simple example
Barbarian (PAM), Level 5, raging, strength 18: damage per round 2d10+1d4+18+2M (M is magic) = 42.5+2M
2M is not going to get damage output up to the roughly 150 needed to keep up with monster hit points if all we do is replace CR 5s with CR 20s, let alone the CR 25s or so you actually need to be a challenge.
But it does matter, because raw damage is only one component of DPR; the other is hit chance, especially if you're combining PAM with GWM. Even a purely vanilla +3 halberd isn't just adding +3 damage per hit, it's adding up to +13 per hit by offsetting the -5 penalty more often, and that's three hits with PAM/GWM rather than two, more if you're hasted or using your reaction. A non-vanilla weapon like a Dragon's Wrath halberd can deal up to another +3d6 per hit on top of that. And all that's just the weapon; I haven't even gotten into things like Belt of Giant Strength, Manual of Gainful Exercise, Butcher's Bib, Ioun Stone of Mastery etc.
So my point stands - if you want your players to hit harder and end fights faster at high levels, give them magic items, that's what they're for. The designers rightly baked in the space for you to do that.
It doesn't matter very much, though it does matter what classes you're talking about (an earlier post mentioned fighters, and fighters are somewhat of an anomaly for higher level damage because they get so many attacks). Let's look at a simple example
Barbarian (PAM), Level 5, raging, strength 18: damage per round 2d10+1d4+18+2M (M is magic) = 42.5+2M
2M is not going to get damage output up to the roughly 150 needed to keep up with monster hit points if all we do is replace CR 5s with CR 20s, let alone the CR 25s or so you actually need to be a challenge.
But it does matter, because raw damage is only one component of DPR; the other is hit chance, especially if you're combining PAM with GWM. Even a purely vanilla +3 halberd isn't just adding +3 damage per hit, it's adding up to +13 per hit by offsetting the -5 penalty more often, and that's three hits with PAM/GWM rather than two, more if you're hasted or using your reaction. A non-vanilla weapon like a Dragon's Wrath halberd can deal up to another +3d6 per hit on top of that. And all that's just the weapon; I haven't even gotten into things like Belt of Giant Strength, Manual of Gainful Exercise, Butcher's Bib, Ioun Stone of Mastery etc.
So my point stands - if you want your players to hit harder and end fights faster at high levels, give them magic items, that's what they're for. The designers rightly baked in the space for you to do that.
That "up to 13 per hit" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Let's make a few assumptions and actually crunch the numbers.
The barbarian is 20th-level and has 24 Strength, for a base to-hit modifier of +13.
With two melee attacks with a 1d10 polearm, that's a base mean of 16.5 (1d10 + 11) per hit and 33 (4d10 + 11) per critical hit.
They're fighting a CR 22 creature, which is suitable CR for a legendary monster against a part of 4, which means their target is AC 19.
Great Weapon Master and Reckless Attacks is always in effect, increasing the assumed damage to 26.5 and 43, and decreasing the to-hit modifier by -5)
A +3 weapon will be used for some of the calculations.
A +13 modifier is nothing to sneeze at, but it decreases to +8 due to Great Weapon Master. That means an 11 or better on the die, so it's a 50/50 shot. But with advantage, thanks to Reckless Attacks, that becomes a 75% chance of landing a hit. Technically, it's a 9.75% chance of a critical hit and 65.25% of landing a base hit. So, 17.29125 + 4.1925 = 21.48375, but I think we can simply round off to 21.5 slashing damage per swing.
Now, a +3 weapon changes several assumptions. First, the attack modifier is now +11. That means an 8 or better hits, which means a 35% failure chance. That gives us a new base hit chance of 78%, and the actual damage results see a small boost as well. We're now looking at 23.01 + 4.485 = 28.495, but let's just round off to 28.5. But this also means a +3 weapon increases the mean damage per hit by 7.
I'd also point out that we're in the UA board, and GWM no longer has the -5/+10 option. In any case, what magic items mostly do is enlarge the gap between fighters and other martials, because if an item gives a damage bonus, well, a level 20 fighter can make 25 attacks in the first three rounds of a combat, other classes are limited to 9.
Fair. I had forgotten that bit, in which case the damage bonus is even smaller because it's their proficiency bonus once per round. The critical hit chance does mean another potential attack, via the bonus action, but that's more math than I feel like doing tonight.
I'd also point out that we're in the UA board, and GWM no longer has the -5/+10 option. In any case, what magic items mostly do is enlarge the gap between fighters and other martials, because if an item gives a damage bonus, well, a level 20 fighter can make 25 attacks in the first three rounds of a combat, other classes are limited to 9.
I would say that at level 20, the Fighter should be the highest-damage martial, especially in a nova/burst scenario. Working as intended.
But the Barbarian is no slouch either, as they had 24 Str at that level when we began this debate, and would now be rocking 26.
But my overall point is that by level 20, you should have all your attunement slots taken up, and at least one legendary item if not an artifact. Nobody is fighting in mundane equipment at max level, and frankly if they are I would expect your combats to be a slog.
I would say that at level 20, the Fighter should be the highest-damage martial, especially in a nova/burst scenario. Working as intended.
A champion fighter with an ascendant dragon's wrath greatsword has attack +15/5d6+9 (30; this assumes GWF applies to bonus dice). Over 3 rounds of combat against an AC 20 target that's 20 attacks, which (because of advantage from heroic warrior and studied attack) probably gives you 14 hits and 4 crits for a total of 110d6+162 (620).
A raging barbarian with an ascendant dragon's wrath halberd, reckless attacking with brutal strike, has attack +18/3d10+3d6+16 (43), and offhand +15/1d4+2d10+13 (26). Over 3 turns he makes 6 main attacks (5.4 expected hits, 0.6 crits) and 2 secondary attacks (1.6 and 0.2) with expected damage 18d10+18d6+86 (248) + 1.8d4+3.6d10+19 (43) = 291. Zealot adds another 40 damage, for a total of 331.
The fighter doing more damage is reasonable, but that seems a bit larger difference than there should be.
I would say that at level 20, the Fighter should be the highest-damage martial, especially in a nova/burst scenario. Working as intended.
A champion fighter with an ascendant dragon's wrath greatsword has attack +15/5d6+9 (30; this assumes GWF applies to bonus dice). Over 3 rounds of combat against an AC 20 target that's 20 attacks, which (because of advantage from heroic warrior and studied attack) probably gives you 14 hits and 4 crits for a total of 110d6+162 (620).
A raging barbarian with an ascendant dragon's wrath halberd, reckless attacking with brutal strike, has attack +18/3d10+3d6+16 (43), and offhand +15/1d4+2d10+13 (26). Over 3 turns he makes 6 main attacks (5.4 expected hits, 0.6 crits) and 2 secondary attacks (1.6 and 0.2) with expected damage 18d10+18d6+86 (248) + 1.8d4+3.6d10+19 (43) = 291. Zealot adds another 40 damage, for a total of 331.
The fighter doing more damage is reasonable, but that seems a bit larger difference than there should be.
Yes, Action Surge is pretty sweet. And if you're allowed to short rest after every fight at high levels, and said fights take place in a white room where the Fighter will never need the extra action(s) for anything except to double their attacks in the first two rounds, they will probably blow every other martial out of the water. But at that point, your issue is lack of resource challenge moreso than it is martial class balance.
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This is a bit heretical because people often want to boost monster health, but if you actually run the numbers, a level 20 PC has maybe three times the offense of a level 5 PC... and depending on how generous you are with your assumptions about consumables (potion of invulnerability is rare?) and healing magics, might well have ten or more times the durability. Monsters don't really have that problem, but still, if you want to give level 20 PCs an equivalent challenge to level 5 PCs, you need around 5x the hp and damage.
That results in two problems. First, it's almost certainly blowing encounter budgets. Secondly, encounters big enough to be a challenge are also big enough to take a really long time to resolve. There's a couple of ways of fixing it, but they all have issues. My obvious ideas for this are
Not particularly loving any of those options, but thoughts?
I have played in alot of high level campaigns. Damage was not too much of an issue. The challenge for our dm was making combats challenging because our Characters were so powerful. However the game really did get bogged down and that was a problem. We had a 20th level battlemaster that was doing 8 attacks (with action surge) plus shield master shove plus maneuvers each round for the first two rounds of combat took FOREVER. After that I really felt like the most attacks anyone should get is two or three and there should just be extra dice rolled with each attack to increase damage appropriately. It would have been much smoother for combat.
It is one of the reasons why during the play tests for 5e I wanted them to stick with their earlier martial designs which were kind of like the rogue with cunning strikes. They all just did one attack, but with extra D6-d12 depending on level of damage, can could spend those dice for maneuvers. Maybe not as fast at level 1-4 but 5 + it was either about the same or faster. I wish they had refined it instead of dumping it almost entirely. The early play test spell slots also were promising, it was I think 1 per spell level 3 and on. So while yeah fireball was powerful you got one of them.
Are you assuming no magic items? Because it seems to me that base PC damage should be low to account for those being present in high-level games.
And before you say that magic items shouldn't be assumed in 5e - please read DMG pg. 37, Tiers of Play.
It doesn't matter very much, though it does matter what classes you're talking about (an earlier post mentioned fighters, and fighters are somewhat of an anomaly for higher level damage because they get so many attacks). Let's look at a simple example
2M is not going to get damage output up to the roughly 150 needed to keep up with monster hit points if all we do is replace CR 5s with CR 20s, let alone the CR 25s or so you actually need to be a challenge.
For the most part, at higher levels I simply just don’t expect many of the fights to be any real challenge to the party. When I want a fight to actually challenge them, I buff the bejeepers out of a few of my monsters, give them a small horde of minions that are also somewhat buffed, and just resign myself to the fact that combat will likely take 2 sessions to run. Heck, I once made a fight that took 2½ sessions to run. Admittedly that was the denouement to a 2½ year campaign and the last half session after the fight was the epilogue.
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Isn't that a sign that damage is too low?
In tier 2, if you pick monsters that can be expected to wipe the PCs in four rounds in a brawl, that's a challenging but winnable fight -- the PCs can take out those same monsters in 2-3 rounds.
In tier 4, it's really hard to come up with monsters that can actually wipe the PCs in four rounds, and if you do... taking them out in 2-3 rounds is not really an option.
I dunno. Keep in mind that 2-session fight is usually only 3-5 rounds anyway.
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But it does matter, because raw damage is only one component of DPR; the other is hit chance, especially if you're combining PAM with GWM. Even a purely vanilla +3 halberd isn't just adding +3 damage per hit, it's adding up to +13 per hit by offsetting the -5 penalty more often, and that's three hits with PAM/GWM rather than two, more if you're hasted or using your reaction. A non-vanilla weapon like a Dragon's Wrath halberd can deal up to another +3d6 per hit on top of that. And all that's just the weapon; I haven't even gotten into things like Belt of Giant Strength, Manual of Gainful Exercise, Butcher's Bib, Ioun Stone of Mastery etc.
So my point stands - if you want your players to hit harder and end fights faster at high levels, give them magic items, that's what they're for. The designers rightly baked in the space for you to do that.
That "up to 13 per hit" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Let's make a few assumptions and actually crunch the numbers.
A +13 modifier is nothing to sneeze at, but it decreases to +8 due to Great Weapon Master. That means an 11 or better on the die, so it's a 50/50 shot. But with advantage, thanks to Reckless Attacks, that becomes a 75% chance of landing a hit. Technically, it's a 9.75% chance of a critical hit and 65.25% of landing a base hit. So, 17.29125 + 4.1925 = 21.48375, but I think we can simply round off to 21.5 slashing damage per swing.
Now, a +3 weapon changes several assumptions. First, the attack modifier is now +11. That means an 8 or better hits, which means a 35% failure chance. That gives us a new base hit chance of 78%, and the actual damage results see a small boost as well. We're now looking at 23.01 + 4.485 = 28.495, but let's just round off to 28.5. But this also means a +3 weapon increases the mean damage per hit by 7.
I'd also point out that we're in the UA board, and GWM no longer has the -5/+10 option. In any case, what magic items mostly do is enlarge the gap between fighters and other martials, because if an item gives a damage bonus, well, a level 20 fighter can make 25 attacks in the first three rounds of a combat, other classes are limited to 9.
Fair. I had forgotten that bit, in which case the damage bonus is even smaller because it's their proficiency bonus once per round. The critical hit chance does mean another potential attack, via the bonus action, but that's more math than I feel like doing tonight.
I would say that at level 20, the Fighter should be the highest-damage martial, especially in a nova/burst scenario. Working as intended.
But the Barbarian is no slouch either, as they had 24 Str at that level when we began this debate, and would now be rocking 26.
But my overall point is that by level 20, you should have all your attunement slots taken up, and at least one legendary item if not an artifact. Nobody is fighting in mundane equipment at max level, and frankly if they are I would expect your combats to be a slog.
A champion fighter with an ascendant dragon's wrath greatsword has attack +15/5d6+9 (30; this assumes GWF applies to bonus dice). Over 3 rounds of combat against an AC 20 target that's 20 attacks, which (because of advantage from heroic warrior and studied attack) probably gives you 14 hits and 4 crits for a total of 110d6+162 (620).
A raging barbarian with an ascendant dragon's wrath halberd, reckless attacking with brutal strike, has attack +18/3d10+3d6+16 (43), and offhand +15/1d4+2d10+13 (26). Over 3 turns he makes 6 main attacks (5.4 expected hits, 0.6 crits) and 2 secondary attacks (1.6 and 0.2) with expected damage 18d10+18d6+86 (248) + 1.8d4+3.6d10+19 (43) = 291. Zealot adds another 40 damage, for a total of 331.
The fighter doing more damage is reasonable, but that seems a bit larger difference than there should be.
Yes, Action Surge is pretty sweet. And if you're allowed to short rest after every fight at high levels, and said fights take place in a white room where the Fighter will never need the extra action(s) for anything except to double their attacks in the first two rounds, they will probably blow every other martial out of the water. But at that point, your issue is lack of resource challenge moreso than it is martial class balance.