I've raised this question in a couple of other threads, but rather than derail them I thought I'd pose it on its own.
Isn't DPR optimization self-defeating?
Or, maybe not self-defeating, but...pointless?
When I'm DM'ing, if the party finds an encounter too easy, I'm going to make the next one harder. I might just throw more monsters at them, but more likely I'm going to pick monsters, or set up the encounter, such that it targets their weaknesses. I'm not trying to kill them, but I want the fight to be hard/scary enough that it's actually fun. Nobody wants a yawn fest.
Conversely, if the encounter is too difficult, I'm going to tone it down next time.
And, ironically, DPR optimization often comes at the cost of utility/flexibility, so that you have more non-DPR weaknesses that the DM can exploit.
Now, if we were playing WoW I would totally understand (and god knows I've spent too many hours with rogue spreadsheets and and too much gold reforging/regemming). But those encounters are fixed: the game doesn't adapt to your performance.
I agree that it's intellectually interesting to compute DPR and think about how one choice does more damage than another, and in the case of two pure DPR choices you may as well take the higher damage one, but does it really matter?
Somehow I get the sense that, for a lot of people, it really does matter. That it's not just an intellectual exercise but that you have to maximize DPR to "succeed" at the game. Are y'all playing with DMs that don't tune the encounters for the party, and you're risking TPK if you aren't optimized for max damage?
Bueller? Bueller?
DPR optimization is good if you plan on solving as many problems as possible by applying damage to it.
iserith wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
iserith wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
It should be at least as good as the adventure so the DM doesn't have to adjust. We've never been given target numbers for what modules or the encounter guidelines are designed around so the only DPR target to shoot for is "best".
Also, the higher the character's DPR the faster combat is over and the more likely the players will win and get their ends.
If you don't want players to min/maxing their character's DPR, remove the ends. Grant a level every 2 sessions regardless of the number of fights and don't fill the monster's pockets with treasure for your murder hobos to loot, grant items on a per session basis rather than per fight or per quest. Similarly remove the penalties for losing fights by having "left on the battlefield" or town rez rules.
If you remove the reward for being the ultimate killing machine and penalties for not being one, your players are more likely to do something else with their characters.
~~~~~ As a player? I always try and optimize my character as closely as I can to whatever my vision/concept is. Very rarely does that include looking at the weapons/spells 1st & going "ooh, that does _____" so it really doesn't matter how awesome the pole-arm/feat build is or how much more damage a great sword does etc, if that wasn't all ready fitting my concept.....I mentioned this in the rogue thread as you asked the same question there.
When playing 3.X myself and a few other players built heavily min/maxed characters. One of these characters was a two-handed cleave build. Another was a Red Wizard of Thay that had a really high spell save DC.
Our DM most certainly built encounters with these things in mind. The high spell save DC meant that I could drop save or suck and save or lose spells fairly consistently. This translated into more monsters. The two-handed character could put out huge amounts of damage in a single turn. This translated into BBEG having more hit points, better access to heals, or even healer buddies.
Optimizing can certainly turn into an arms race between the DM and the players. I don't think this is really a bad thing. When it tends to create the biggest issues is when one or two players are optimizing heavily and the rest of the table isn't. The DM will find themself creating situations to challenge a couple of players while the rest of the party plays support. The Red Wizard for instance came about in response to the two-handed cleave build. I believe a druid conjurer also came about as a response from another player. In other words, the players who didn't min/max started to min/max just to keep up.
Personally, I try to gauge the table I'm playing at. If everyone is heavily optimized I'll play heavily optimized builds too so I can participate effectively. If the rest of the table seems to be more focused on role-playing rather than stats I won't worry about it so much.
Elfcrusher wrote:
DPR in 5E is not that important unless the DMs encounters are in 10'10 rooms and the opponents have no tactical options. You want to have 1 or 2 heavy hitters in the party but party synergy is more important than DPR IMHO. You don't want to neglect it either but as long as you have a 16 or so in a preime ability and pick something like the duelist style it is all good.
Lack of DPR can bite you in the ass but moderate damage is fine as long as you compensate for it in some way (healer feats, AoE save or suck spells etc).
FFSAA wrote:
Interesting responses. I don't think of it as an arms race as much as just a self-correcting feedback loop. (It reminds me of the research that shows when people get energy efficient lights/appliances/cars they end up using them more, for zero net savings)
And just to clarify, I wasn't looking for "solutions" as much as just wondering if other people really are playing that much differently than we do.
My players know I'm going to challenge them regardless of their builds, so they feel free to pick whatever sounds the most fun.
And I've also found that they most enjoy utterly dominating the enemy when it happens only sometimes.
Zardnaar wrote:
eleran wrote:
I don't find DPR something I consider much when I make a character. I'm a concept-first type of player, and once that is finished I'll eyeball it and look for any gross inconsistencies or categorical weaknesses. Where I find any I'll notify the group and DM so I can make sure it won't be a problem. Like...if I can't really do any damage until a certain level, then a DM planning a dungeon crawl would advise me that maybe I should rethink an idea. But that doesn't happen a lot.
Our more generic approach is to never willingly engage a monster until we've already beat it by circumstance and, if we can't, then to string the monster along to prevent damage until we can do that ("kiting", for instance, to borrow an MMO term). That makes DPR a tiny, tiny consideration usually. I do enjoy reading other people's DPR build ideas though because while my style works well in my home games, you never know when you'll end up a guest in another game where they make our kind of approach less effective and a DPR build becomes more needed.
(Responding to FFSAA) Oh I disagree. There are lots of non-combat abilities, feats, rules, spells, and skills. 5e has a rich storytelling toolset.
And even within combat there are all kinds of options for encounters that are best solved in ways other than simple slugfests.
And despite all that, my original point remains: if you increase your damage output by 30%, eventually your DM will start throwing monsters at you with 30% more health.
But maybe this is like the number squishing debate on the wow forums: it came as a surprise to me when I finally realized some of its critics did indeed understand the logic and math, but all things being equal the thought it was more fun to hit for 9,000 than 900.
I don't really have a counter argument for that.
Most of life's problems can be solved by a suitable application of brute force,
and duct tape!
Elfcrusher wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
DPR means nothing when an encounter is resolved by conversation, negotiation or clever thinking.
DPR means nothing when one sneaks past an encounter.
DPR is pattently meaningless in all non combat parts of the game.
DPR is not a metric of choice in combat for most classes.
DPR is is not a measure of good play.
DPR is not necessarily a measure of a good build. In fact, if DPR is the sole measure used, the build probably stinks.
I have built many very successful and long lived characters without even knowing what DPR is, let alone calculating for it.
In a fair, well run game, DPR is simply not important as a good DM will adjust to as many metric levels as possible, negating the DPR advantage (if any).
The main purpose of DPR is often nothing more than bragging rights.
I agree with OP. DPR boosting is another treadmill that most DMs will react to when planning or running a session.
If PCs are carving up encounters, many DMs will add to the difficulty at least once in a while.
Overall, DMs should really design adventures that are more rich and rely on more than just combat so that DPR boosting isn't always encouraged.
I like to have sessions that are pretty much equally distributed between exploration, combat and interaction, and when I play, I like it when I can use non-combat skills to deal with a situation.
Also, depending on level, the monster fought, and the way the dice roll, extra damage can be wasted so having the extra dpr can be situationally meaningless. On the other hand, sometimes the extra damage is the difference between life and death.
Rhenny wrote:
Combat is a solution, not a problem. The problem is a group of monsters trying to kill the PCs. How the PCs choose to solve that might include combat or it might not. I think all too often DMs look at situations as "combat" or "non-combat." That just means you're choosing solutions for your players.
I really dislike arms racing tabletop gaming. Specifically games where one players creates awesome combo #37 and DM then responds with NPCs that counter combo #37. I don't want to do that as a DM, I'd feel like I was cheating, and I really dislike rpgs that are broken unless you do it. Queue a certain edition of D&D that if your big boss doesn't have anti-scry / anti-teleport counters the entire module is pointless.
I prefer a "players dictate the challenge" type games. If the party is all healers then they probably shouldn't attack the an enemy camp of ogres, but a dungen delve into the necromancer's lair would suit them pretty well. If the party is heavy DPR and likes combat, then I'd just let them go up against higher CR encounters with bigger stakes involved. My dream campaign would be a hex map put in front of the players with lines drawn out to give them ideas about how tough the dungeons/encounters are in any given area. Then also mark out areas with more social level adventures and just let the party pick and choose what they want to do.
iserith wrote:
Yes, self defeating.
Usually clever and inspirational play makes encounters way easier than trying to kill everything faster.
Only thing to keep in mind though: Monster HP that are too high makes fights boring. So high damage makes fights usually more exciting. I am already finding, that like in 4e, monster HP seems to have been increased too much from the latest playtest. But I need more time to test it. ;) Maybe I am still underestimating what a PC party can dish out.
My 4e StarLock was a "status-effect Striker". This meant I had lousy DPR but the other guy was buried under a pile of special conditions that made it hard for him to hurt my friends.
Playing normal LFR modules, this was fun and cool. Once I "hid" behind a bow ranger and we used Dire Radiance & Twin Shot to make an ogre melt before it could charge down on us.
Playing BIs, though, lousy DPR really bit. High-powered enemies tend to save out of stuff quickly, and carry a HUGE bag of hit points. If the rest of the party was also un-optimised, each encounter was a long grind. I had more than my share of near-death experiences.
Conclusion: it depends what kind of campaign you want to play. If the monsters are all going to be tough and deadly, optimize for DPR. If the monsters are going to be average (or your DM builds encounters by rulebook algorithm because he still needs practice) then you can check that you are DPR-about-average and emphasize something else. "Face" skills, or Stealth, or speed - whatever you can do that is cool and powerful.
Just as a for instance, my "Radar O'Reilley" monk build optimizes for Perception - hence the name - but in his progression I've built in some DPR boosts in case a Nova is what the situation calls for.
Dracones wrote:
iserith wrote:
Rhenny wrote:
iserith wrote:
Kishri wrote:
Optimizing for damage is like replacing every tool in your toolbox with a hammer.
You can still play, but every problem will look like a nail.
Elfcrusher wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
Elfcrusher wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
I think the term "DM/player arms race" might be better than just focusing on DPR. In my last "battle" of that arms race (it was amicable) I discovered that one of the greater issues was debuffing the opposition more than damaging them. When one can drop most of the saves of a monster by 7 points and the to-hit by 2-3, even a much more powerful monster can be taken down easily. "It" isn't just about DPR.
I'm not sure what the solution is, however. The problem lies more in conflict than in combat IMO. I remember seeing the same during White Wolf games with social stats. It becomes "numbers porn", even when the focus isn't killing your opponent. It is something deeper, something inherent to the group of individuals vs. the world or individuals vs. individuals paradigms of most TTRPGs. You have a goal, you have an obstacle. All the fluff in the world doesn't change that, and that simple dichotomy leads to a simple numbers game. I had more success as a White Wolf Storyteller when I pitted individuals as individuals against the world, and let the individuals' machinations and attempts clash. At that point, there was no goal or obstacle. There were simply actions and reactions. I'm just not sure how to change the D&D paradigm in a similar way. I'm not even sure it can be changed in a similar way.
Psikerlord wrote:
Damage is a basic function of combat and a large part of the game. It also defines differences in some classes to an extent and it makes sense to include damage as a consideration while developing a character concept. High damage can be an important contribution to the group. I see that as different from actual optimization. Eeking out +3.456 DPR as optimized is pointless because damage isn't the only answer, the DM may compensate, and the benefits of higher DPR are mitigated by deviation from that average (there is plenty of deviation in the mechanics) and from overkill damage -- IE someone who does 12 damage to a 10 hp target does the same damage as another character who did 15 damage to a 10 hp target. There is a difference between designing with damage in mind and optimizing damage.
DPR in 5E is as important as any other addition, if not more important. You have to compare what is available for the party to win an encounter (each edition) and with save or die removed, with long standing crowd control spells reduced, interrupts removed or dimished, in combat healing reduced, and bounded accuracy, it is beneficial to take out the enemy as quick as possible.