Appropriate DPR by level, has someone done it?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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Ssyvan wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
In cases where your +to hit is low then WF will be more effective than PA.
What is low then? In this example the fighter is already hitting 50% of the time which I'd think is a fairly reasonable to-hit?

50% is generally pretty low for a martial character's first attack. The general opinion of the boards seems to be that it should be 95% for most of your career; personally I'd say that if you're below 75% to hit a typical enemy of CR equal to your level, you're not a very competent martial character. Even at first level, a full BAB class would have to be running around with a 0 Str modifier and nothing else increasing accuracy to be all the way down at a 50% chance to hit the standard CR 1 enemy.


ZanThrax wrote:
Ssyvan wrote:
BigDTBone wrote:
In cases where your +to hit is low then WF will be more effective than PA.
What is low then? In this example the fighter is already hitting 50% of the time which I'd think is a fairly reasonable to-hit?
50% is generally pretty low for a martial character's first attack. The general opinion of the boards seems to be that it should be 95% for most of your career; personally I'd say that if you're below 75% to hit a typical enemy of CR equal to your level, you're not a very competent martial character. Even at first level, a full BAB class would have to be running around with a 0 Str modifier and nothing else increasing accuracy to be all the way down at a 50% chance to hit the standard CR 1 enemy.

How does anyone get a +14 to hit at level 1? (And I fully expect someone to meet this challenge)

Edit, even at AC 11, how do you get a +10?


Ssyvan wrote:
How does anyone get a +14 to hit at level 1?

What? Typical CR 1 AC is 12. A +1 total to hit is a 50% chance to hit that.

edit: oh, you were maybe talking about the 95% chance? I assume that the people who would advocate that are talking about mid to high levels. I doubt anyone expects to have a +10 to hit at level one (which would be 95% to hit an AC 12), although some builds can certainly come close. A 20 Strength full BAB character can take Weapon Focus to get a +7 to start with. A Barbarian could be at +9 while raging.


ZanThrax wrote:
Ssyvan wrote:
How does anyone get a +14 to hit at level 1?
What? Typical CR 1 AC is 12. A +1 total to hit is a 50% chance to hit that.

Sorry, I think I see what you're saying now. I've been staring at the Skeleton entry which is CR 1/3 that coupled with a complete lack of sleep is making the words on the screen jump at out me in random orders.

Right, a martial should have a much better than 50% to hit the typical CR 1 creature from that table. I'll kick myself and write that an AC 16 skeleton is an outlier at least 50 times before posting again.

EDIT: I lied. And yes, I agree that 75% is a much more reasonable to-hit chance at level 1 for a full-BAB class. But see my last post on the previous page where I tested around there and Weapon Focus still came out better than Power Attack.

Sovereign Court

ZanThrax wrote:
Ssyvan wrote:
How does anyone get a +14 to hit at level 1?
What? Typical CR 1 AC is 12. A +1 total to hit is a 50% chance to hit that.

I think that sometimes people talk past one another here. To me, all of the "Standard" AC by CR seems very low. But my home games (and most PFS games I've played for that matter) involve a good chunk of NPCs, and NPCs tend to have considerably higher AC than the CR standard, especially at low levels.

This makes bonuses to hit considerably more valuable than the DPR calculators would indicate in any game with more NPCs and fewer standard monsters. And make power attack considerably less valuable. (I rarely even bother - it's useful at low levels but becomes worthless by mid levels for all but two-handers.)


Power Attack is more versatile than Weapon Focus. If you're fighting something that you're hitting easily, then during that fight Weapon Focus is a wasted feat and you'd have been much better off with Power Attack. If you're fighting something that you can barely connect with, you'll simply choose to not Power Attack.

The number of times that the character without Weapon Focus will miss an enemy by exactly one is almost certainly smaller than the number of times that the character without Power Attack will hit a creature easily but not quite knock it down because his damage was too low.

In any case, most martial characters will want both feats; if you have to choose one over the other, then look at your numbers without both. If you have accuracy problems (the lower your % chance to hit is, the larger that a 5% increase is, relatively) then Focus becomes more attractive; if you have damage problems (2 or 3 points of damage is significant percentage increase) then PA looks better.


Charon's Little Helper wrote:
ZanThrax wrote:
Ssyvan wrote:
How does anyone get a +14 to hit at level 1?
What? Typical CR 1 AC is 12. A +1 total to hit is a 50% chance to hit that.

I think that sometimes people talk past one another here. To me, all of the "Standard" AC by CR seems very low. But my home games (and most PFS games I've played for that matter) involve a good chunk of NPCs, and NPCs tend to have considerably higher AC than the CR standard, especially at low levels.

This makes bonuses to hit considerably more valuable than the DPR calculators would indicate in any game with more NPCs and fewer standard monsters. And make power attack considerably less valuable. (I rarely even bother - it's useful at low levels but becomes worthless by mid levels for all but two-handers.)

This is a misunderstanding of DPR in any case. The point if DPR is to compare one hypothetical build to another hypothetical build. It is not intended to accurately predict in game performance, let alone performance in a particular encounter type.

Also, nothing prevents you from adding to the AC you run your DPR calculations against.


Charon's Little Helper wrote:
ZanThrax wrote:
Ssyvan wrote:
How does anyone get a +14 to hit at level 1?
What? Typical CR 1 AC is 12. A +1 total to hit is a 50% chance to hit that.

I think that sometimes people talk past one another here. To me, all of the "Standard" AC by CR seems very low. But my home games (and most PFS games I've played for that matter) involve a good chunk of NPCs, and NPCs tend to have considerably higher AC than the CR standard, especially at low levels.

This makes bonuses to hit considerably more valuable than the DPR calculators would indicate in any game with more NPCs and fewer standard monsters. And make power attack considerably less valuable. (I rarely even bother - it's useful at low levels but becomes worthless by mid levels for all but two-handers.)

This is certainly true at lower levels, but keeping up with bab is tough unless you have no problem with NPC enemies having way above average wealth.

Sovereign Court

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Trogdar wrote:
This is certainly true at lower levels, but keeping up with bab is tough unless you have no problem with NPC enemies having way above average wealth.

At higher levels yes. However, I tend not to play much beyond 10ish anyway as I think that the whole system starts to break down.

ZanThrax wrote:
Power Attack is more versatile than Weapon Focus. If you're fighting something that you're hitting easily, then during that fight Weapon Focus is a wasted feat and you'd have been much better off with Power Attack. If you're fighting something that you can barely connect with, you'll simply choose to not Power Attack.

And in the fights you choose not to Power Attack, it is a wasted feat. *shrug*

Besides - I think it's considerably more common to be in a fight where Power Attack is disadvantageous than it is to be in a fight where all of your secondary attacks hit on a 2+.


Charon's Little Helper wrote:
And in the fights you choose not to Power Attack, it is a wasted feat. *shrug*

Thank you, stole the thought out of my head, just couldn't put words to it.

Sovereign Court

BigDTBone wrote:

This is a misunderstanding of DPR in any case. The point if DPR is to compare one hypothetical build to another hypothetical build. It is not intended to accurately predict in game performance, let alone performance in a particular encounter type.

Also, nothing prevents you from adding to the AC you run your DPR calculations against.

I'm not saying that DPR tables are worthless - far from it - I was just commenting on the issues which Ssyvan was complaining about.

And when comparing potential builds, I do run my own DPR comparisons, and with boosted AC vs the standard tables. (Though I probably don't always hit your marks. My group is somewhat causual - so I tend to powergame oddball concepts to avoid being 'that guy' while still getting to scratch my powergaming itch.)


Celanian wrote:
Undone wrote:

I disagree here though. DPR values are break points because pathfinder is a binary game when fighting. You're either up or down. The number of rounds needed to go down is a break point. Increasing your damage 1 point when you do 100 DPR to DPR 104 has very little/no real practical value.

Not true. Damage values are very rarely fixed, so break points are fluid. A barbarian at 1st level who does 2d6+9 damage has an expected 1 round kill of a 15 HP foe if you go by simply expected damage, but in reality there is a decent chance of not killing in 1 hit. Adding or dropping any damage at all would significantly change your probability of a kill.

Thanks, this is exactly what I was trying to say.

I still think DPR is an effective way of measuring builds against each other or looking at your own character's damage potential. The values given are still 'optimal' values where further investment is less valuable. Once you are 1 rounding a CR equivalent enemy on average you're pretty much set, especially if buffs or consumables can push you above this value in tougher fights (CR+2 etc).

RE power attack: Yes, you should typically turn this off when fighting enemies with CR-1 or CR-2 who you will likely OHKO anyway. However, against these enemies you rarely are in any danger to begin with so it's not a big deal.


Ssyvan wrote:
How does anyone get a +14 to hit at level 1? (And I fully expect someone to meet this challenge)

Sure! Use Death from Above. A 20 STR Shoanti Barbarian can use traits to gain a horse from the get-go as well as a masterwork weapon.

5 (STR) + 2 (Rage) + 5 (Death from Above) + 1 (Weapon Focus) + 1 (Masterwork) = +14 to hit for our intrepid holy rager, PFS-legal and ready to go in the first game.

Scarab Sages

Marroar Gellantara wrote:
For the high end of reasonable I estimate a single weapon hyper focused Fighter with buff spells and ideal gear for DPR. Anything higher than that, I consider cheese and avoid.
Fighters are far from the high end of reasonable DPR. They do not appear within the top 20 builds for a reason. Fighters rely on feats. Feats mostly suck. You need class features to do good damage. Animal companion classes, archery classes, lancing classes, undead raisers, exct.

A high level, hyper-focused fighter can one-round CR+2 encounters without blinking. If you can deal more damage than that, you're wasting feats and magic that could better be used for other purposes.


Hm that's kinda a good point too. Its nice to do OMFG levels of damage, but really, if you're doing overkill dmg its not really that helpful


Quote:
A high level, hyper-focused fighter can one-round CR+2 encounters without blinking. If you can deal more damage than that, you're wasting feats and magic that could better be used for other purposes.

So we're clear an animal companion a small hoard of raised undead, and summoner pets can nearly do that without damage from the creator/controller.


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Exguardi wrote:
Ssyvan wrote:
How does anyone get a +14 to hit at level 1? (And I fully expect someone to meet this challenge)

Sure! Use Death from Above. A 20 STR Shoanti Barbarian can use traits to gain a horse from the get-go as well as a masterwork weapon.

5 (STR) + 2 (Rage) + 5 (Death from Above) + 1 (Weapon Focus) + 1 (Masterwork) = +14 to hit for our intrepid holy rager, PFS-legal and ready to go in the first game.

You forgot +1 from BAB.

If that matters.


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Good point! +15 then.


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Hahahahahahahaha


My suggestion for DPR is has it always has been for Hammer characters.

Around 33% of an equivalent CR encounters HP without expending resources.

Around 50% while expending resources.

That's a very reasonable benchmark to hit for an encounter equivalent to character level. Many characters will exceed this expectation in the early levels.


TarkXT wrote:

My suggestion for DPR is has it always has been for Hammer characters.

Around 33% of an equivalent CR encounters HP without expending resources.

Around 50% while expending resources.

That's a very reasonable benchmark to hit for an encounter equivalent to character level. Many characters will exceed this expectation in the early levels.

I feel like there should be different benchmarks for under level 10-8 and over 10-8. At level 11 if you can't 1 round the target it's much more dangerous than not one rounding at level 3.


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Undone wrote:
TarkXT wrote:

My suggestion for DPR is has it always has been for Hammer characters.

Around 33% of an equivalent CR encounters HP without expending resources.

Around 50% while expending resources.

That's a very reasonable benchmark to hit for an encounter equivalent to character level. Many characters will exceed this expectation in the early levels.

I feel like there should be different benchmarks for under level 10-8 and over 10-8. At level 11 if you can't 1 round the target it's much more dangerous than not one rounding at level 3.

I think the daner is roughly equivalent. Just ask any 4th level character full attacked by a bear.

I should point out though the base standard I give assumes 0 expenditure of resources. 33% without using rage rounds, smite, not assuming favored enemy or buffs.

The 50% number assumes personal resources as all of the above suggested.

Now I also came to these numbers under a group dynamic. 50% is just fine if your groups support can help you hit that other 25% or the groups other hammer can finish the job. And if neither of you can the groups Anvil has likely ensured the danger involved is minimal.

Balanced groups do a great deal to make heavy optimization less necessary.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Undone wrote:
TarkXT wrote:

My suggestion for DPR is has it always has been for Hammer characters.

Around 33% of an equivalent CR encounters HP without expending resources.

Around 50% while expending resources.

That's a very reasonable benchmark to hit for an encounter equivalent to character level. Many characters will exceed this expectation in the early levels.

I feel like there should be different benchmarks for under level 10-8 and over 10-8. At level 11 if you can't 1 round the target it's much more dangerous than not one rounding at level 3.

if you have 2 people who are DPR martials....


Bandw2 wrote:
Undone wrote:
TarkXT wrote:

My suggestion for DPR is has it always has been for Hammer characters.

Around 33% of an equivalent CR encounters HP without expending resources.

Around 50% while expending resources.

That's a very reasonable benchmark to hit for an encounter equivalent to character level. Many characters will exceed this expectation in the early levels.

I feel like there should be different benchmarks for under level 10-8 and over 10-8. At level 11 if you can't 1 round the target it's much more dangerous than not one rounding at level 3.
if you have 2 people who are DPR martials....

50% isn't enough to 1 round a monster 1 CR beneath you which means 2 or 3 monsters below level will live multiple rounds and likely get off all the spells they care about. Additionally if there are 6 zombies (CR1-2 EA) and there is one level 9 necromancer it poses a bigger threat to the two martials group than if they can solo more.


Undone wrote:
Bandw2 wrote:
Undone wrote:
TarkXT wrote:

My suggestion for DPR is has it always has been for Hammer characters.

Around 33% of an equivalent CR encounters HP without expending resources.

Around 50% while expending resources.

That's a very reasonable benchmark to hit for an encounter equivalent to character level. Many characters will exceed this expectation in the early levels.

I feel like there should be different benchmarks for under level 10-8 and over 10-8. At level 11 if you can't 1 round the target it's much more dangerous than not one rounding at level 3.
if you have 2 people who are DPR martials....
50% isn't enough to 1 round a monster 1 CR beneath you which means 2 or 3 monsters below level will live multiple rounds and likely get off all the spells they care about. Additionally if there are 6 zombies (CR1-2 EA) and there is one level 9 necromancer it poses a bigger threat to the two martials group than if they can solo more.

You're assuming a vacuum.


TarkXT wrote:
Undone wrote:
Bandw2 wrote:
Undone wrote:
TarkXT wrote:

My suggestion for DPR is has it always has been for Hammer characters.

Around 33% of an equivalent CR encounters HP without expending resources.

Around 50% while expending resources.

That's a very reasonable benchmark to hit for an encounter equivalent to character level. Many characters will exceed this expectation in the early levels.

I feel like there should be different benchmarks for under level 10-8 and over 10-8. At level 11 if you can't 1 round the target it's much more dangerous than not one rounding at level 3.
if you have 2 people who are DPR martials....
50% isn't enough to 1 round a monster 1 CR beneath you which means 2 or 3 monsters below level will live multiple rounds and likely get off all the spells they care about. Additionally if there are 6 zombies (CR1-2 EA) and there is one level 9 necromancer it poses a bigger threat to the two martials group than if they can solo more.
You're assuming a vacuum.

As is appropriate. It is a discussion about DPR. DPR exists in a vacuum.


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Much like physicists DPR calculators prefer friction-less vacuums.


The above scenario is out is not in a vacuum. If now involves multiple creatures and spells.


wraithstrike wrote:
The above scenario is out is not in a vacuum. If now involves multiple creatures and spells.

But leaves out the environment and other party members.

Both things factor hugely when talking about damage in encounters and were thought about when coming to those numbers.


TarkXT wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
The above scenario is out is not in a vacuum. If now involves multiple creatures and spells.

But leaves out the environment and other party members.

Both things factor hugely when talking about damage in encounters and were thought about when coming to those numbers.

That is actually part of the problem. DPR is basically measured against one opponent. When you bring in more opponents it make sense to assume the PC's party members will also be a factor unless you are just assuming they will also focus on the DPR guy if you are trying to figure out how DPR affects several opponents. If so then you have to look at how far the opponents are apart unless it is an archer.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:
It's actually really hard to wind up with arbitrarily high damage and terrible to-hit.

This is true of the extreme cases, but speaking of more typical ones, DPR calculations do tend to slightly overvalue the benefit of trading to-hit for damage, simply because they only take the average, without considering that the consistency of achieving that average is valuable in itself.

Particularly noticeable at lower levels; at higher levels the existence of more rolls tends to drag the result closer to the average. Too bad DPR becomes less useful at high levels for other reasons.

Then again, Power Attack can sometimes become pretty unattractive at high levels anyway.


Coriat wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
It's actually really hard to wind up with arbitrarily high damage and terrible to-hit.

This is true of the extreme cases, but speaking of more typical ones, DPR calculations do tend to slightly overvalue the benefit of trading to-hit for damage, simply because they only take the average, without considering that the consistency of achieving that average is valuable in itself.

Particularly noticeable at lower levels; at higher levels the existence of more rolls tends to drag the result closer to the average. Too bad DPR becomes less useful at high levels for other reasons.

Then again, Power Attack can sometimes become pretty unattractive at high levels anyway.

I think that is true to some extent, partly because hp at low levels tends to be so low that you often don't need to do any extra damage. When you're up against goblins with 6hp each, most dedicated martials are going to be overkilling them in a single hit before power attack ever factors into it.

Dark Archive

Ssyvan wrote:
Hahahahahahahaha

Here's another way to never miss at level one.

Enemys usually wear something like +3 AC armor bonus armors at level one, which mean if you are only going against touched, you only need a +12 to hit to ensure your 95% chance to hit
Here's a build that focuses that and can also do a good amount of damage:

Wayang Alchemist, With mutagion and Reduce Person
Throw bomb: +8 (dex) +1(Point-Blank) +1(throw Anything) +2(Size):
+12 to hit touch at level one. boom
and we will have +4 int, so the bomb does 1d6+1+4 damage. enough to kill anything at level one

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