How do I Calculate the DPR for Dead Shot?

[CalebTGordan]

I am working on a project and I need to figure out the dead shot DPR so I can compare it to full attacks.

I can't use the DPR calculator because dead shot works very differently than normal full attacks. It only adds the bonuses once, it only rolls the critical hit once, and only misfires if all of them misfire.

What is the math behind figuring this out?

[Pupsocket]

I suppose no-one has done these calculations before, for two reasons:

1: How does Dead Shot even work? Does a hasted, level 7 Gunslinger with Rapid Shot roll 2 times or 4?
2: Regardless of the answer to #1, it's immediately clear that Dead Shot does vastly less damage than a Full Attack.

I suggest sketching an outcome tree for every combination of hits and misses, and writing down the numbers; once you have that, the spreadsheet work is trivial.

[CalebTGordan]

1) Not currently. They only get to roll the attacks from BAB.

2) Addressing that is part of the project I am working on.

An outcome tree should work well. Thanks!

[XMorsX]

It does not necessarily do less damamge than a full-attack. It works like clustered shot, you essentailly never miss (small deal for a gunslinger though) and if you crit it is a hell of a crit.

I expect it to be lower at total damage, but if it does not fall very behind it could be totally worth it for a "sniper" musket master.

[Pupsocket]

XMorsX wrote:

It does not necessarily do less damamge than a full-attack. It works like clustered shot, you essentailly never miss (small deal for a gunslinger though) and if you crit it is a hell of a crit.

I expect it to be lower at total damage, but if it does not fall very behind it could be totally worth it for a "sniper" musket master.

A Dead Shot for a level 7 gunslinger does up to, let's say 2d12+7. A hasted rapid shot full attack would do up to 4d12+28. Even against unbeatable DR 10, it's still better.

[Imbicatus]

I'm not even sure it's better than Vital Strike. At least Vital Strike is a standard action and is guaranteed to give you extra dice damage.

[Mojorat]

The only Gunslinger that really benefits from deadshot is the mysterious stranger, in fact it appears to be designed with that in mind (the Archetype i mean) It is not worth it really for most other gunslingers.

The thing with deadshot is, you dont need to do any funky reloading stuff once you get lightning reload.

In the case of my skull and shackles gunslinger, i had a 14 dex and mostly otherwise ignored the stat, Also didnt bother with deadly aim because if you using deadshot it adds a penalty to hit and not enough damage when its only being added once. However, mysterious stranger lets you add your charisma to every dice rolled in deadshot.

I will add one caveat though. After the haste ruling which seemed to suggest things that simulate the full attack action can add effects like haste to it my DM let me follow a similar model.

It probably is not Raw but basically brought the characters Damage into the same area as the other martials in our group.

But for Pavarti at lvl 15..Bab 15 dex 16(14 base +2 belt, as i said it was not important) +1 human bane musket.

So normal rules, would be 18 13 8 and any crits would be checked at the +13 bab. charsma was 24 if all hit damage was 3d12+22

With the rules we used for haste and rapid shot 17 17 17 12 +7 6d12+43.

This basically, let me finish the AP without any real issues. Before anyone coments on the low chance to hit with a range incriment of 40 against touch ac i /rarely/ missed.

Im also doing damage math by memory so it may be a bit off. But basically, if you can get lots of attacks in somehow with deadshot the fact that all crit threat's are checked vs the bab-5 which was useful if you rolled a 19 or 20 on your last shot.

I think with the additions our game added, it was an okay ability for the group I played with. However, it does not remotely compar to anyone using a double barreled weapon (or two in the case of pistols)

However, i did find the character could basically use any non double barreled weapon without any real issues because she could Reload them even without rapid reload (using lightning reload)

[Kazaan]

I think the idea is to use it with an expensive bullet. Doing 2d12+7 with a single adamantine bullet is, arguably, more cost effective than doing 1d12+7 x4 with depreciated chance to hit (-2 all around from RS and additional -5 on second iterative). Moreover, as you get more iterative attacks, the margin closes. A lvl 16 gunslinger doing 4d12+9 with a single shot is even better. If you're aiming to use a "special bullet" for a specific purpose, dead shot is your go-to deed; you basically trade action economy for resource economy.

[CalebTGordan]

Guys, the question isn't if it does less or more with DPR. The question is how much exactly so I can compare and figure out where to go with my project. This is for a 3pp book I am freelancing on, and one of the things this project is tackling is making dead shot more effective and attractive.

I already know all the facts you have stated. I just need the exact math behind it all. I'll post it once I have it.

[EvilPaladin]

I believe you would calculate each attack individually for DPR, using only the base weapon damage and no additions, and then add in the number added at the end after adding together each attack's DPR.

[CalebTGordan]

I need to figure in critical hits too.

I am currently taking a statistics class so this is really helping me understand the lessons. Now I just need to figure out the average of the base die damage, and how to include critical hits.

*Edit* I got my math wrong and deleted a chunk about probabilities. Then I fixed them and came back to put them back in.

The following includes the probability of criticals.

Base Die Damage - Percentage
52 - 7.65
26 - 2.39
13 - 31.5
6.5 - 16.80
0 - 16.5

Now, can I figure out DPR from that and how do I do it?

[Kazaan]

Well, lets start with a lvl 7 character with 1d12+7 damage. For the sake of example, we'll say his total attack bonus is +14. Against 24 AC, he has a 50% chance to hit with a +14. So on a single shot, you take the average damage for the weapon {[(1 + 12)/2] +7} * 1.2 = 16.2 damage on average (counting crits) and a 50/50 chance of a hit means 8.1 DPR for a single shot.

Now, for two iterative attacks vs a two-attack-worth Deadshot:

2 iteratives
(16.2 * 50%) + (16.2 * 25%) = 12.15 DPR

Deadshot
math gets wonkey here because you have to take into consideration the -5 for the confirmation roll as well as the 1 point reduction per successful roll.

Succeed on first roll but fail on second: 37.5%, crit confirm @ -5, 1.0875x 1d12+7 damage.
Fail first roll but succeed on second: 12.5%, crit confirm @ -5, 1.0875x 1d12+7 damage.
Succeed on both rolls: 12.5%, crit confirm @ -4, 1.08x 2d12+7 damage.
Fail on both rolls: 37.5% 0 damage.

(14.68 * 0.375) + (14.68 * 0.125) + (21.6 * 0.125) + (0 * 0.375) = 10.04 DPR

Those are your numbers for comparing just two iterative attacks. You can follow the same basic principal for adding in additional iteratives and non-iterative attacks (ie. Haste, Rapid Shot, etc).

[CalebTGordan]

Thank you, this really helps me understand the math.