Usually I like to use 60% base hit chance, but often when I just want to estimate something quickly I like to simplify the formula by upping it to 65% and ignoring crit chance. I think it slightly underestimates dpr, but as long as you're not applying large bonuses to crits (smite, sneak attack) it's good enough to quickly compare two things
Your videos inspired me to do my own damage calculations. I was interested in seeing how DPR differed against different ACs, so I created an excel spreadsheet to automate most of the math and graph the damage vs AC 10 to 22. It’s super helpful for determining when to turn sharpshooter on/off
I tried to do the same thing, got most of the way there but struggled implementing a few things, but it's been useful to know how to calculate these numbers and adjust the hit chance to see how good archery fighting style was(for example)
If people are interested in how to calculate vex weapons: If your base chance to hit is p, then after a few attacks vex converges to p/(p+(1-p)^2), which is roughly 0.79 for p=0.6 and 0.84 for p=0.65. And crit converges to 0.05 +(0.0475 * p/(p+(1-p)^2)), which is roughly 0.09 Note that vex/nick combo is more complicated since your nick attack resets the vex chain, and is thus more dependent on how many attacks you make per round.
This is easily one of the most useful videos that I have seen on making builds or just optimization in general. I could get used to a series of doing math with Chris, haha. I'm sure it isn't spectacular to watch for everyone but it has definately inspired me to make my own document full of DPR calculation.
My gut feeling is that TS is definitely the way to go for a ranged rogue, but in melee, the ability to use d6 weapons and vex-not to mention any weapons feats you can find room for- means that TS probably doesn’t surpass Nick until Lv 11, and the average across all twenty levels is probably pretty close. So it would depend which tiers of you expect to spend more time in
You will be correct on that with nick you have better chances to prop sneak attack on the turn. However, with true strike even at low levels can change the damage type from piercing to radiant damage. 1d6=1d6 until level 11.
granted going a true strike build means cunning strike on the rogue is worse because you're going to have less ac and monsters are more likely to succeed their saving throws against you.
I respect it, but it will never not bother me that you round so much before getting to the final number. I prefer to only ever round once at the end like they taught us in math class.
It'll all end up in the margins. The result is a graph, not something exact. The general shape is right, the order of size is right. Good enough for a comparison. With all the assumptions made, the margin of error is negligible.
On what scale will hundredths of a point of damage matter? Consider, rounding to the tenths place means we will on average be accurate within .025. Each time we round, it could be up or down, though it's possible the distribution of numbers won't be equal. So, how many different steps will we have to round in order to equate to anything meaningful? If they were all perfectly average, it would take rounding in the same direction 4 times to equate to 1/10th of a single point of damage. Even if we're talking DPR, that still won't budge a single decision we'll make. You could round two nearly-identical abilities in perfectly opposite directions and you'd be off by 0.5 DPR, and wouldn't that be within the margin by which you'd pick the one that has the cooler name or better flavor text? Does it still bother you? :P
With Scimitars and Skulker, it looks like the Dual Wielder would more than hold their own for the first 10 levels. I'm okay with that. Just gonna need some Flame tongue Scimitars to keep up after that.
Theres an argument to be made that post-reliable talent, its better to take the Skulker feat and hide instead of steady aim for the dagger thrower. Because on the 16% of turns where you miss the first attack, you would still have advantage on the second attack! As long as you have a place to hide, you have basically a guaranteed stealth check with the DC being 15 base Granted, it is just just a ~24% accuracy boost 16% of the time, but it is a boost that the true strike rouge didn't get
With the current rules of dnd 5e 2024 once. you leave the place that has no cover you no longer have the invisible condition. Meaning if you have nothing blocking the line of sight you no longer have the invisible condition . If you need to leave cover so you can see the enemy to be able to attack them you no longer have the invisible condition.
It also requires a viable place to hide which is very encounter dependent. You need total or 3/4 cover or heavily obscurred to even try. Then that hiding place needs to be within the 20' range of a thrown dagger which also puts you within range of the opponent walking over to you and getting line of sight.
You'd be able to squeeze a bit more damage out of this build if you use a hand crossbow and a dagger each turn, instead of two daggers. First, you get a 1d6 instead of a 1d4 for one attack, and the second attack may get advantage. Second, you can take Crossbow Expert. With that, you can attack with the dagger first, then thanks to the Nick property specifying if it has to be on the first or second attack, make the additional attack with the hand crossbow, adding your Dex to the damage. You can also take Peircer, on either Rogue, though it is a pain to calculate and is much better handled with a simulator.
Just put of curiosity, does this channel only ever focus on numbers and raw power of classes or is the focus on dpr right now only because of the new rules?
Treantmonk is an optimization focused channel, and D&D5e basically made every class a DPS class so the math calculations are essential for comparing the classes.
I largely do optimization content, but the math forward DPR calculations of this series of videos is not what I normally focus on (though do occassionally if I'm presenting a damage focused build)
You can punch the math yourself, but still convert the data into a spreadsheet for graphing purposes. Way easier and you can then compare the builds against one another easier instead of manually copying and pasting. Additionally, you could set up a DPS calculator in a spreadsheet that just takes in the dice rolled, percentage to hit, percentage to crit, if you have advantage, etc. etc. and make the calculation. You could even get it so that you actually generate all possible outcomes to be certain of the results. Yes, there is an initial investment, but that cost pays for itself back in time savings later.
The hit chance estimation modifies a few things. Quick thoughts are that it affects anything that trades a set amount of hit chance for damage (i.e., the 2014 GWM/SS), anything that provides Advantage (which is more powerful towards 50% than at the extremes), and anything that bypasses AC to do damage (so, generally Saving Throw damage spells). So, what hit chance should be used? Well, in 2024 it probably matters less, although if reliable Advantage is in your build it will be benefitted most by hit chances towards 50% vs a build that does not use it, and if you are comparing against a CME caster then it will make the CME caster look better (well, its a drop in the ocean, but still). So, is it true that damage matters only/most when fighting a single tough higher CR creature? I would argue, actually, no - in fact, the opposite. The reason I would say the opposite is that damage does nothing until the creature is dead, and a single tough higher CR creature therefore suffers *least* from damage because it does not impact the combat encounter as much as killing off creatures in a multiple entity encounter does (this is known as focus fire). So, my argument here is that using a single tough creature as the hit chance most hurts Ranged Fighters (multiple non-Advantaged ranged hits) vs say a Melee Rogue (single likely Advantaged hit) or a caster (bypasses AC). Also, a single tough higher CR creature is less representative of most combats (or should be by DMG guidelines). The vast majority of combats are likely against multiple lower CR creatures, where the hit chance against them will be a lot higher and Advantage with a single hit a lot less useful. It matters less in 5.24e than in 5.14e (this was a big problem I had with Chris' hit chance use when comparing builds against GWM/SS), however, I still say the hit chance being used is likely skewing things. Edit: We'll have to see how the AC changes, if at all, when the MM is released. The average hit chance for an equal CR mob in 5.14e was about 65% with mined data, barring some creature types which skew one way or the other. This is before magic weapons are taken into account, which push that hit chance up substantially. And then, yeah, most of the time you are actually fighting multiple lower CR creatures if your DM isn't an boss-rush type guy, so that pushes the hit chances up even further. A situation where you could only miss on a one to three (85% hit chance) is not actually all that uncommon, and this is where Advantage really suffers if NOT taking away hit chance via something like GWM/SS - and we wont be in 2024, so this really devalues Advantage vs the results gained against a 50% hit chance.
As a viewer, I like your choice of writing out the calculations. But afterwards, I wish that you plugged your *DPR by level* into *Google Sheets* for: 1) *Graphs.* 2) Calculating the *percentage that DPR is over the Warlock Baseline at each level* (e.g. how much _"not a lot above baseline"_ is at level 5). Crucially, the *average percentage over baseline* would be a measure that puts _equal weight_ on _all levels,_ while your current measure of *total DPR over baseline* (divided by 20) is _heavily skewed_ towards DPR at the _highest levels._ By definition, your measure puts _much less weight_ on _low levels,_ contrary to which levels are important to most viewers. IMO, the most relevant measure would be *average percentage over baseline for levels 1-10,* or broken down by each of the *4 tiers of play.*
I really appreciate this video, although I have a question. Around 20 minutes into the video, the sneak attack crit chance is added to the sneak attack normal damage hit chance instead of on its own line. If I'm following you correctly up to that point, that 7% chance should be 2x the sneak attack dice. How does that account for the additional dice rolled on a sneak attack crit? I think I'm either misunderstanding the math to that point or the damage estimates beyond first level are low. Thanks
It's only 1x the sneak attack damage because the critical line is only calculating extra damage from a critical, not the total damage (because the normal damage is already accounted for) hopefully that answers your question.
I hope when you do the ranger, you do at least one version where you force yourself to use Hunter's Mark every time. I'm just curious to see the actual numbers.
I Love Math. I agree with your assumptions. But I still use Spreadsheets. Just as easy to look over your equations, and no calculator errors. You do great work and always back up your statements. No Fluff to get clicks. Stay Frosty my friend. ❄️
I think that the one-number DPR is particularly skewed by the inclusion of the epic boon feats. They give quite a lot at the last two levels, whereas the Warlock baseline gets nothing at those levels.
I know I can do this now, but it seems like Dual Wielder feat and Two Weapon Fighting style (from either Fighter dip 1 or a Fighting Initiate Feat) should put the dual dagger Rogue close to or above True Strike. You’re giving up advantage on the first attack, but generally two attacks is better than advantage and TWF style gets you your ability mod to boost damage a bit. Okay so let’s see what happens at level 5 (fighter 1/rogue 4), 3 attacks at 60% for d4+4 plus sneak attack of (1-0.4^3)~0.93 for 2d6, gives us 3 * 0.6 * 6.5 + 0.93 * 7 + 0.05 * 9.5 = 11.7 + 6.5 + 0.48 = 18.7 which is a little ahead of this rogue even without the third sneak attack die
And i think if you start with fighter and play a human you can take another fighting style feat(thrown weapon fighting). But im not sure if its only origin feats or you can take any feat if you meet the requirements.
@@antoniodominguezgarcia1956 taking a fighting style was a thing from the play test, but now humans specify that it must be an origin feat so you can't anymore.
@@spikehammer3112but you could pick up a Fighting style feat at higher level when Chris isn’t assuming any other damage boosts from feats. Level 10 for example.
@@TreantmonksTemple yep, I did this sitting in my car in the parking lot before work, so I took the @DnDDeepDive approach of assuming best case scenario to keep the math simple. If it didn’t keep up even with 100% sneak attack uptime from allies, it wouldn’t even be worth looking into further
With the Nick mastery, do you not get a bonus action attack in addition to the “extra” attack action attack when you use a second light weapon for the Nick attack?
Imo new baseline is fighter champ, shillelagh basically equalz fighter best weapon dice, and fighter now got consistent advantages, also the crit/advantage combo is unparalleled. Action surge tho is not the best thing to factor in when u spread the curve on 20 levels. ^^
Do you have estimated or generally assumed values for enemies to fail saves by type? Obviously Int vs Con will have different probabilities and you will need to keep up with your spell ability to keep DC consistent as you level but it can be hard to tell. I want to try and do a calc for a Sea Druid using conjure woodland beings and Wrath of the Sea on a turn and I don't think it's right to use 60% chance they fail a wisdom and a con save equally.
A note on the sneak attack crit that is DM specific: I make my players roll all attacks first, and then do damage all at once. So, they get to pick when to apply things like sneak attack. This would REMOVE the chance that the first attack misses and second attack hits because if both hit, but the second attack crits, then players would still get sneak attack critical by my ruling. I should also note idk if the sneak attack rules force the first attack to be sneak attack or not, but that would make sense logically. I may be DMing wrong with this. Update: the rules just say once per turn. You can say that the first hit throws them off guard and the second deals the critical sneak attack damage because you know just how to exploit the opening in their defenses (provided they still meet the RAW criteria for sneak attack).
Hugely good info and utility. Im planning a Soul knife Rogue taking the thrown weapon fighter feat from TCE since Psychic blades have thrown weapon property so it counts. plus Vex mastery you make youre own advantage most of time unless youre bouncing around targets. The bonus attack from Psychic blades does not say "do not add modifier to attack" so you get to add dex to D4 since RAW you only dont add it to attacks that specifically state not to (like TWF and light properties). With the thrown wepaon fighter it essentially turns your d6 and d4 attacks into d10 and d8 die attacks with the +2 to dmg. Following your calc and new advantage from Vex, I got a lvl 5 my DPR would be 26.07, barely under the lvl 9 dagger rogue. This combo is busted early levels. it falls off late but still amazing plus honing strikes to augment miss, teleport, and skill monkey. I carry a scimitar and short sword for the rare enemy immune or resistant to psychic dmg. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Love the videos! Especially love seeing a thrown weapon concept too. The new rules pave some really interesting ways to make a thrown build strong! For example you can use Dual Wielder, Light, and Nick with a Fighter 1 / Artificer 2 / Giant Barbarian 6 core! Full build ahead: Custom Lineage (Fighting Style, Darkvision) Guard (Alert) STR 15+2 / DEX 15 / CON 13 / INT 12+1 / WIS 8 / CHA 8 Artificer 2 Giant Barbarian 14 Battlemaster Fighter 4 Use a Scimitar and a Handaxe, with Elemental Cleaver on the Scimitar and Returning Weapon infusion on the Handaxe. Take Thrown Weapon Fighting Style from Custom Lineage and Two Weapon Fighting Style from Fighter 1 Returning Weapon and Enhanced Defense from Artificer Infusions Wear Half Plate and a Shield for 21 AC eventually 4 ASIs: Dual Wielder (STR) Mage Slayer (STR) Medium Armor Master (Dex) +1 STR & +1 CON Progression along the lines of: Fighter 1 Barb 1-6 Artificer 1-2 Fighter 2-4 Barb x
I think one thing people don't realize is that your base hit chance doesn't ultimately matter, whether you use 50% or 60% or even 100% it doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is you are consistent across builds. there are some edge cases where it does matter such as the math for power attacks (old SS/GWM), but that's a bit more advanced and if you can understand that you probably already know what you're doing
Give Monk Weapon Mastery dagger or Dart for DEX 18 at Level 4. Level 5: Dagger, Dagger, Nick Dagger all with attack action and If Kensie then uses Kensie Shot for bonus attack (I know it is a 2014 subclass). So, three attacks at 1D8+4 (or is it 2 attacks at 1D8+4 and one at 1D8 For attack action and 1D8+4 + 1D4 For Bonus attack.
I do think that there is benefit to spread sheets and pivot graphs/tables if you are comparing multiple builds. You could protentially have a running workbook with a tab for each build you complete with DPS reports at key levels. Regardless, I really appreciate this concept & style of video and hope that you'll continue to do this in the future. Maybe after a significant change to the DnD 2024 material (expansions, new core books, rules clarifications, new build optimization techniques, etc...) a review can be done to keep the math on the builds current vs the base line?
Awesome stuff! Absolutely loved it, and I appreciate your enthusiasm and longhand. I prefer to calculate myself, too, rather than use a spreadsheet. Thanks for the video!
Semi-unrelated but I think the best dagger-thrower is going to be a Halfling with Skulker. Teammates to hide behind and advantage in the hide can really pump up the guaranteed chance of hiding. Then you get advantage for two chances of sneak attack (if the first misses).
Hey treantmonk, great videos and love your work, I pointed out in another video that you got some probabilities wrong.. can't find that anymore, it was about the chance to make a death save or smt.. Also you and others like you pay a lot of attention to averages, not so much on sigma, and especially not so much on best case and worst case scenario. For survival, worst case analysis and ranges are _very_ important. Suddenly some features become way more attractive if you have an unforgiving DM and the situations are very challenging. Keep up the good work
First, a note that I really appreciate you going through how you manage your math work for your videos. Long, long ago I used to do a lot of math calculations by hand. I still do, in fact, for a lot of things. And putting things in longhand let other people review what I did and point out mistakes - and there _were_ mistakes. But I also found that a lot of those mistakes came from doing the same thing over and over, and flubbing some minor detail along the way. When I have to do 20-30 operations for one weapon, and then repeat all those operations for 3 more weapons, it's easy for something to slip up. With spreadsheets, I go through and do everything once, and verify everything I can, then just copy/paste, and I know all the new versions should all work. If there _is_ a mistake in the copied rows, perhaps due to an unlocked cell reference, then it's very obvious when all the numbers are the same, or I get #ERROR results. Either way, the point is that you only have to really be sure about checking your work once, and then you can let the computer replicate that work for you. The other advantage is allowing you to easily change a parameter and have all the changes automatically update. For example, going from a 1d4 dagger to a 1d6 hand axe is just a single toggle, rather than a manual recalculation across 20 levels. The downside is that you have to figure out how to represent some things in code that may be complicated to calculate, even if they may be relatively easy to just write down. And, if you're not used to it, you may feel that you can't trust yourself to catch mistakes in a spreadsheet that you might catch doing things by hand. But that's mostly just a matter of experience.
Hi Chris! Nice to get the insight in your calculations and thoughts here. When I do the math I exactly do what you said in the end of that AC-paragraph: I go with 55%chance to hit. And I think that this is more likelly to be the reality. At least at my tables and the AL experience I got in Germany. Thank you for your great work!
I feel like if they gave Rogue those bumps at 5:11 and 17 and sneak attack works with true strike are any other backwards compatible melee cantrips rogues would be way too powerful. This is also assuming that with an optimized build you can get a reaction sneak attack every turn. This is not hard with the haste trick using your actual action to hold your action to attack off turn, bonus action hide and have to sneak attacks, Aura Battle Master or in order cleric. Balance is really hard in this game, I honestly think they did a good job for once on that front, I am however nervous for the new monster manual the new style of spell casting is strange and less organic.
So, if you took hand crossbow and a dagger, lucky and CBE instead of poisoner, assuming the target stays the same 50% of the times for vex, you would have been tied with true strike rogue. Strategy is you go dagger then hand crossbow if you need your bonus action to get advantage, hand crossbow twice if you don't (assuming nick can move either light attack to the attack action, which seems to be the case). You start with adv, no bonus needed for lucky or vex from previous round.
Great video. Love to see how your calculations work. Curious if rogue 2024 with daggers will be the new baseline as it's pretty consistent every level. Also everyone subscribe so the channel can get to 100k
Love the video. I appreciate your reasons for not using a spreadsheet, but a spreadsheet would make it easier to explore how changes to your assumptions change the results. You could try doing the initial version by hand to work out all of the kinks, then transfer it over to a spreadsheet with proper variables instead of hardcoded values. That'd let you generate all sorts of fun graphs much quicker.
Really appreciate this Chris, I’ve been meaning to start calculating the DPR of my builds to compare against yours but I’m pretty slow at maths! This is a great help
Would love to see if you can make a video on creating homebrew monster stat blocks. Im a new dm ab start a campaign and i got a lot of ideas for Boss fights but idk how to try and balance them properly using the CR system, especially now post 2024 release and with the new monster manual not releasing till next year
These are the times I wish there was a limited option better than like for those videos that are on another level. I love math with games anyway, but this shows why doing a little extra math shows so much more information to use for analysis. This will make all your other videos even better, and they were already some of the best out there! This is also a great reference for other DnD videos for comparison of builds, so that makes this one even more important! This would be worth the sub alone if I wasn’t already. Amazing job Chris!
I often run monsters with a CR twice or higher than the level of the PCs. My players play normal single class characters and it's very rare that a PC die in my game.
I was really hoping this is gonna be the discussion of the new baseline, but I understand that you want to go through all the classes first to get a feel for what is the average. Thanks again for doing the math so we don’t have to. You are the goat.
My main issue with the boon of "irresistible" offense is the same as the old Brutal Critical, at least in part. It's good when it procs, but you can go the rest of the campaign without it procing. Now it might be on every crit, I don't know I haven't read the thing myself and my memory is poor at best, it would be awesome since there's a couple of ways to get unconventional crits.
You have to remember with irresistible offense even if does not proc you are doing your full damage compared to half of it. Since resistance half the damage type of the enemy. Also as level 20 rogue you get stroke of luck to force it to proc.
Thanks for doing a Nick Build for the Rogue. I hadn't considered True Strike until your last video, but it definitely synergizes well with the Rogue. This definitely helps to satiate my curiosity about what the Rogue class can do on its own.
As for a pure rogue dpr with the nick build for rogue I will say we are equal to monk until level 11 and it's all downhill from there since we are 1d6 and level 17 2d6 more damage behind if you are not using true strike.
On a prev video you mentioned trading in the extra attack from nick for some other feature. However, I read nick applies "when" you take the attack from the light property, as in you have to actually take that attack. Consequently, it cannot be traded in for another feature. Am I reading it correctly or have I misunderstood, thanks.
Please let me know if I'm wrong but if we used the hide action and the skulker feat. When we miss we wouldn't lose the hidden trait so if we used the hide action instead of steady aim wouldn't this mean we could use our advantage on the second attack if the first attack missed! meaning we could raise our overall DPR by raising our chance to hit and to crit!
I definitely agree on a lower to hit chance. As a DM, the only time decently low AC comes in is if the party are fighting beasts or monsters, but a lot of enemies the players fight are humanoid, and humanoids can wear good armor and equip shields, easily bumping numbers up. Even in published modules like Icewind Dale, there's a group of Deurgar with like 18/19 AC and players can fight them at like level 5.
The averages across monsters and modules still tend to be the same. Also, I played Rime of the Frostmaiden. Screw those guys, and that place, and Caer-Konig while we're at it, but they are definitely an exception and not the rule. I had just gotten extra attack and had Polearm Master already, so I was making 3 attacks per turn for the first time. I spent two consecutive turns missing every single attack. I wasn't even using Great Weapon Master! Sheesh. I was new though, and my build sucked. We also weren't allowed anything except PHB. In retrospect: ick.
What is also cool is that the new rogue gets 3 extra feats to play with as well to gain a little more utility. I also think high elf is still viable with booming blade or something if your dm lets you use that, this way if you do end up in melee you can gain some extra damage that way
It would give you about 60% of your dexterity modifier each round. You would need to multiclass to get it though so your sneak attack would be scaling one level later.
Hei Chris great video! I was wondering if you have looked into the new Lance weapon? Looks like you could use both the duelling fighting style and great weapon fighting feat while mounted. I just built a Paladin using this with divine favour, haste (vengeance) and the polearm mastery feat at level 13 and the damage looked really good. I’m assuming you’re fighting a medium creature with these numbers, but the Lance have the topple mastery and vengeance has vow of enmity, so not that far fetched to assume you’ll have advantage on a lot of your fights. Either way I’m looking forward to your inevitable paladin video. Thanks for all the content👍
@@TreantmonksTemple I should have clarified. The build was just to utilize the lance and the class I chose was paladin, so I didn’t want to increase Cha. That aside I’m a huge fan of the class and looking forward to seeing what an optimized paladin build from you are going to be, once it comes up on your schedule. Good luck on reaching 100k, going to be any day now!
I'll be doing some of these after work, for sure. I wonder if there's a way to do similar calculations for defense, though. Idk if we could be holistic or not, but maybe something that calculates defense against damage alone? Factoring AC, HP, key saves, and abilities like evasion?
d4 Colby, when he does his tank builds, has a series of level appropriate encounters (albeit he usually only checks at certain level thresholds so it's not like he has 50 of them) and measures monster DPR and rounds-to-die against those things, as well as versus "upcast fireball/Meteor Swarm every round"
@@life-destiny1196That makes sense as a way to test it. The reason I'm so curious now in particular is that I think the best damage-dealing rogue (without relying on a feature from another class, like true strike) would be a melee build. And Chris has been correct in the past about Rogues not belonging in melee, but the feat selections now are better-suited to melee rogues. I'm thinking a rogue with tough as their origin feat, then defensive duelist at 4 would end up pretty survivable in melee. You'd want to use a rapier or two scimitars. You'd have okay AC. Tough would boost you to fighter-ish hit points. If you're going to take a sizable hit, use your reaction to add proficiency to AC. If that wouldn't be enough, instead use your reaction (starting at 5) to uncanny dodge for half damage. Damage-wise, probably the best build would be two weapon fighting with the scimitars. So maybe you'd take dual wielder at 8, mage slayer at 10, and sentinel at 12. Or, you could go more defensive still by focusing on a single weapon and taking lightly armored at 8 for shields, mage slayer at 10, and sentinel at 12. Or, you could take 1-3 levels of fighter for a fighting style and shield proficiency and a couple extra hit points and (at 3) battlemaster maneuvers.
Since this build is simple and requires no real resources, have you considered switching to something like this that seems more representative of the 2024 builds? I don't know if we can say eldritch blast + hex is really a good baseline for comparison anymore since most things outpace it. Is it still okay damage?
@@TreantmonksTemple That makes sense. Give fighter with greatsword, savage attacker and great weapon master at 4 a look. It's relatively easy to explain, not subclass dependent, and I think effective but not crazy in 2024. Whatever you go with will be fine though. Love the content as always!
@@Apfeljunge666 It's how it works. A goblin with 1d8+2 hp has between 3 and 10 hp. Many chose the static option (7 hp) But it's technically by the book to have monsters of various hp's.
@@voodoophil Exactly. Been playing 17 years of various p&p systems and there's always one constant: people like variation without getting dumped on by hand holding or growing walls (Your char grows in lvl and so does the whole world in total. Don't do that, it's not logical.). Let them feel that their chars are getting stronger over time and let the mow down weaklings. But also show them challenges. 5 weak Goblins? Sure, but what about the buffing Goblin Shaman or their mighty Chief who tactically commands a bunch of them?
Hi Chris, first off as someone new to D&D, your videos are very helpful and informative. I've learned a lot, so thank you very much. I've been reading my PHB'24, and found myself stuck on a question I would like your opinion on, if you would please. Some of the species grant you cantrips and low level spells through their lineage. My question is, would you still have access to them even if you were playing a martial class as they're granted by your species and not your class or not?
I would be interested to see a build I have seen on reddit a few times where they take a fighter dip to get TWF and use their bonus action attack to get SA and the held action as a reaction to get SA. I am not sure how reliable the process is, but obviously, being able to reliably proc 2 SA would increase round over round damage substantially.
You can not ready a action and use your bonus action to attack with the duel wielder feat. Since it says when you take the attack action you can make bonus action attack with light as readying an action is an action it’s not possible.
@darklight9450 Yeah, looking at some of those posts, they utilize other means to get a bonus action attack like the quick toss maneuver and haste or sentinel or protector or mounted combatant or quickened spell. Which seems less reliable than I would like, though still might be interesting to explore.
I don't think you will notice the difference until 11th level. ~1 point of DPR difference doesn't really feel different at the table. The 3 points or so at level 11-16 might be noticed. What would be noticed is the AC difference (although an arc trix might have mage armor to cover that difference). But there should be a 1 AC gap from 4-8 & 11-12, and a 2 AC gap from 9-10. AC 15 and 17 play very different at the table. The downgrade in weapons die is really critical here as you need that second dagger to keep the damage close. Nice job showing the data and your process.
@@crunter6523 Archery also doesn't work for thrown melee weapons. There's the thrown weapon fighting style for +2 damage, but you would need to Multiclass.
In order to find the average result of a chance-based event, we need to take each individual result, multiply it by its individual weight(how often it is likely to occur compared to all other results), sum all the resulting numbers together, and divide that sum result by the total number of different individual results we summed. A damage roll of 1d4 can have as possible outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4. These are 4 different results. They are all equally plausible, you have just as much chance of rolling 1 as you have of rolling 2, 3, or 4. This means that they all have a weight of 1. Thus, the average result of 1d4 is equal to: (1*1 + 1*2 + 1*3 + 1*4)/4 = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4)/4 = 10/4 = 2.5 An intuitive way to understand this result is that half the time you'll be rolling a 2, and half the time you'll be rolling a 3. So, in 10 rolls, for example, it will average to having rolled a total of 25, in 100 rolls a total of 250, etc (give or take, naturally)
You could calculate the soulknife with 3 attacks (First Psy Blade + nick dagger + BA Psy Blade)... I dont know if 3 attacks is better than 2 with adv...
Im playing with 2014 rules, in Odyssey of the Dragonlords, with an Amazon Ranger, that has a d6 returning chakram, using dual wield and throwing weapon fighting, tha has a very reliable dmg, specially with magical chakram! I wish rogues could take the throwing weapon fighting style to bump that kind of style!
Thank you so much for this! If I were actually making a thrown weapon Rogue, I’d probably use darts for Vex on my first attack, then daggers on the second with Nick. That gives you more advantage chance which is also more Sneak Attack and crit chance. Additionally, I’d try to get either Thrown Weapon Fighting for +2 damage per hit or Two-Weapon Fighting so the second attack gets the DEX damage from Fighting Initiate (assuming your DM allows old Feats, which they should)…both if you want to dip 1 level of Fighter or take the feat multiple times. Adding in Dual Wielder for an additional thrown dagger attack to bring your total to 3 (1 dart, 2 daggers) would bring those numbers up more as well. Feats I would take for a damage focused build thrower build: Origin: Alert 4 - Fighting Initiate (Two-Weapon Fighting) 8 - Dual Wielder 10 - Sharpshooter 12 - Fighting Initiate (Thrown Weapon Fighting) 16 - Poisoner 19 - Boon of Irresistible Offense Dropping Thrown Weapon Fighting for an ASI earlier is viable. I think the biggest issue with this kind of build is magical weapons. There needs to be some sort of gloves or maybe a bandolier so that every thrown weapon gets the effect from the magic weapon. Otherwise, you throw your magic dagger once per combat. A returning weapon would help as well. But that’s an issue about playing the character, not establishing a DPR baseline. Another concern for any ranged build is cover…this all assumes no cover at all for the target, which is fine in a vacuum, but doesn’t make complete sense for actual play since (despite our assumptions that we’ll have Sneak Attack every turn) we need either Advantage for Sneak Attack, or an ally within 5’ which could result in some degree of cover if only because your melee ally is in the way (probably only +2 AC, but that does bring down the to hit chance a bit). Round 1 would likely be clear throwing, but after that, it’s probably a tad worse. Sharpshooter would take care of this which may make it more highly prioritized as a feat choice.
@@TreantmonksTemple the Hand Axe has light, thrown, and vex. Not sure how Darts don't have the Light property, just Finesse. Thanks for showing us the math.
For their saving throws for con, they use 50% chance for every other saving throw .they use a 40% if I remember correctly. The reason con is higher is the monster Manuel most on average have Proficiency or some type of way to help with con saves.
Maybe I got lost at some point, but why is the % to hit when you level up the same? should't be harder to hit each level since enemies have more armor? And easier to hit when you get +1 on dex?
He’s assuming that the enemy AC increases when you get boosts to your attack bonus (i.e. enemy AC goes up by 1 when you’re PB or ability score goes up)
With how 5E is designed with bounded accuracy. Your chance to-hit will hover around the same place, and monster AC tends to increase at the same rate your hit chance increases(aka +1 every PB level and +1 at levels 4 and 8)
I was curious if you needed to reduce the avg damage on 2nd swing crits in case the first hit landed (and ergo used that turns sneak attack dice)? Or if I just missed it
You are right, and yes you missed it. I go through the math, basically your chance to crit with the sneak attack is the chance to crit with the first attack plus your chance to crit with the second attack multiplied by your chance to miss with the first attack.
@@aaronjames1810 Lol, it is pretty irrelevant. If I'm doing DPR for myself I don't even bother with the increased crit chance, but for videos I try to be precise.
So it’s fair to not count stroke of luck since you didn’t on the other, but stroke of luck helps irresistible offense far more than combat prowess. Once per short rest the first time you miss any attack you can make it crit AND do 21 extra damage. I think it’s fair to assume you miss once per short rest so I think it would be fair to divide that 21 damage between all your rounds per short rest, which might add a couple DPR
I mean yes and no. Since we can now for every round assume we hit with combat prowess. with 100% chance since the rogue only does one attack unless you are going a nick build. Meaning at level 19 with a 1d6 weapon we wouldn't be doing 3.5*65%+5+35=42.275 damage instead we would be doing 3.5+5+30+= 43.5. We can't really assume they resist piercing damage. Also using stroke luck this is call nova damage. As you use all your recourses for this one attack. Dpr means how much damage you do every round on average not spending all your recourses.
@@darklight9450 But Treantmonk's damage breakdowns do indeed assume the characters are spending their resources, that's why he has a set number of combats, rounds per combat, and short rests. If it didn't take nova damage into effect then how would he account for high level spells that can only be cast once per day?
@@andrewmcmillan229 I was more pointing that is nova meaning we can do this damage reliably once per short rest. When I said yes and no, I more meant they both have strong use, but it depends on you value more hit chance or ignoring resistance with weapons.
@@andrewmcmillan229 On the assuming of 4 encounters a day with 2 short rest and 4 rounds of combat at level 20 and assuming same build and everything. You can use 3 times you would 18 damage reliability for 3 different encounters. While with boom of combat gives you 3.5*16=56. the 16 encounter last 4 rounds and 4 encounters.
Granted we have no way tell in game for how much the damage resistance is going to come up since that will increases the damage you do with the feat. so, it really depends on how the dm runs the game. Since their advantage to both of them and if you a magic weapon that does not do one the damages listed.
As feat fighting initiative I will say not worth talking in general other than soul-knife rogue. The reason being with duel weapon feat at most for your attack and bonus attack is a 10. Yet rogues typically need a bonus action to get advantage to sneak attack. Since if one teammates kill the enemy next to them the duel wilder feat bonus action to no longer is available well other than a max of 5 damage As the cost benefit of taking feats that help your saving throws is better because if you gain any source disadvantage you no longer can sneak attack.
@@jessewallis6589Also any other feat other gives you an asi improvement to follow witch helps with your savings throws and damage . If you want more damage for the duel wielder rogue I would recommended the charger feat. I am not saying the fighter dip or using another feat is bad option. There are just better feats and I prefer to have them over a fighting style.
Loving these deep dive videos, Chris! You're doing Lathandar's work.
A DND deep dive if u will
Lathander. Gods hate it when you misspell their names.
Surely he’s doing Tymora’s work?
"Learn math with treantmonk" a new series exploring the math of dnd optimization!
Treantmath
Usually I like to use 60% base hit chance, but often when I just want to estimate something quickly I like to simplify the formula by upping it to 65% and ignoring crit chance. I think it slightly underestimates dpr, but as long as you're not applying large bonuses to crits (smite, sneak attack) it's good enough to quickly compare two things
Your videos inspired me to do my own damage calculations. I was interested in seeing how DPR differed against different ACs, so I created an excel spreadsheet to automate most of the math and graph the damage vs AC 10 to 22. It’s super helpful for determining when to turn sharpshooter on/off
I tried to do the same thing, got most of the way there but struggled implementing a few things, but it's been useful to know how to calculate these numbers and adjust the hit chance to see how good archery fighting style was(for example)
If people are interested in how to calculate vex weapons:
If your base chance to hit is p, then after a few attacks vex converges to p/(p+(1-p)^2), which is roughly 0.79 for p=0.6 and 0.84 for p=0.65.
And crit converges to 0.05 +(0.0475 * p/(p+(1-p)^2)), which is roughly 0.09
Note that vex/nick combo is more complicated since your nick attack resets the vex chain, and is thus more dependent on how many attacks you make per round.
Legitimately shocking you don't use a spreadsheet for this but I respect your choice.
This is easily one of the most useful videos that I have seen on making builds or just optimization in general. I could get used to a series of doing math with Chris, haha. I'm sure it isn't spectacular to watch for everyone but it has definately inspired me to make my own document full of DPR calculation.
My gut feeling is that TS is definitely the way to go for a ranged rogue, but in melee, the ability to use d6 weapons and vex-not to mention any weapons feats you can find room for- means that TS probably doesn’t surpass Nick until Lv 11, and the average across all twenty levels is probably pretty close. So it would depend which tiers of you expect to spend more time in
You will be correct on that with nick you have better chances to prop sneak attack on the turn. However, with true strike even at low levels can change the damage type from piercing to radiant damage. 1d6=1d6 until level 11.
granted going a true strike build means cunning strike on the rogue is worse because you're going to have less ac and monsters are more likely to succeed their saving throws against you.
Great video but... as a spreadsheeter this is a painful watch. 🙂
(Using Docs and Paint(!!) instead of a spreadsheet is WILD)
Imagine not writing things out with pen and paper in a spiral-bound notebook.
I respect it, but it will never not bother me that you round so much before getting to the final number. I prefer to only ever round once at the end like they taught us in math class.
It'll all end up in the margins. The result is a graph, not something exact. The general shape is right, the order of size is right. Good enough for a comparison. With all the assumptions made, the margin of error is negligible.
On what scale will hundredths of a point of damage matter? Consider, rounding to the tenths place means we will on average be accurate within .025. Each time we round, it could be up or down, though it's possible the distribution of numbers won't be equal. So, how many different steps will we have to round in order to equate to anything meaningful? If they were all perfectly average, it would take rounding in the same direction 4 times to equate to 1/10th of a single point of damage. Even if we're talking DPR, that still won't budge a single decision we'll make. You could round two nearly-identical abilities in perfectly opposite directions and you'd be off by 0.5 DPR, and wouldn't that be within the margin by which you'd pick the one that has the cooler name or better flavor text?
Does it still bother you? :P
With Scimitars and Skulker, it looks like the Dual Wielder would more than hold their own for the first 10 levels. I'm okay with that.
Just gonna need some Flame tongue Scimitars to keep up after that.
Theres an argument to be made that post-reliable talent, its better to take the Skulker feat and hide instead of steady aim for the dagger thrower. Because on the 16% of turns where you miss the first attack, you would still have advantage on the second attack! As long as you have a place to hide, you have basically a guaranteed stealth check with the DC being 15 base
Granted, it is just just a ~24% accuracy boost 16% of the time, but it is a boost that the true strike rouge didn't get
With the current rules of dnd 5e 2024 once. you leave the place that has no cover you no longer have the invisible condition. Meaning if you have nothing blocking the line of sight you no longer have the invisible condition . If you need to leave cover so you can see the enemy to be able to attack them you no longer have the invisible condition.
It also requires a viable place to hide which is very encounter dependent. You need total or 3/4 cover or heavily obscurred to even try. Then that hiding place needs to be within the 20' range of a thrown dagger which also puts you within range of the opponent walking over to you and getting line of sight.
thief better hitman than assassin :>
You'd be able to squeeze a bit more damage out of this build if you use a hand crossbow and a dagger each turn, instead of two daggers. First, you get a 1d6 instead of a 1d4 for one attack, and the second attack may get advantage. Second, you can take Crossbow Expert. With that, you can attack with the dagger first, then thanks to the Nick property specifying if it has to be on the first or second attack, make the additional attack with the hand crossbow, adding your Dex to the damage. You can also take Peircer, on either Rogue, though it is a pain to calculate and is much better handled with a simulator.
Woah wait i was going to ask so many questions abour doing my own charts in discord this weekend, chris playing 3D chess on us
Just put of curiosity, does this channel only ever focus on numbers and raw power of classes or is the focus on dpr right now only because of the new rules?
The latter. Treantmonk loves emphasizing control options, normally. But the 2024 phb shook up damage assumptions a lot.
Treantmonk is an optimization focused channel, and D&D5e basically made every class a DPS class so the math calculations are essential for comparing the classes.
Also we are among the martial classes right now, aka our options for control are shit
I largely do optimization content, but the math forward DPR calculations of this series of videos is not what I normally focus on (though do occassionally if I'm presenting a damage focused build)
You can punch the math yourself, but still convert the data into a spreadsheet for graphing purposes. Way easier and you can then compare the builds against one another easier instead of manually copying and pasting. Additionally, you could set up a DPS calculator in a spreadsheet that just takes in the dice rolled, percentage to hit, percentage to crit, if you have advantage, etc. etc. and make the calculation. You could even get it so that you actually generate all possible outcomes to be certain of the results. Yes, there is an initial investment, but that cost pays for itself back in time savings later.
The hit chance estimation modifies a few things. Quick thoughts are that it affects anything that trades a set amount of hit chance for damage (i.e., the 2014 GWM/SS), anything that provides Advantage (which is more powerful towards 50% than at the extremes), and anything that bypasses AC to do damage (so, generally Saving Throw damage spells).
So, what hit chance should be used? Well, in 2024 it probably matters less, although if reliable Advantage is in your build it will be benefitted most by hit chances towards 50% vs a build that does not use it, and if you are comparing against a CME caster then it will make the CME caster look better (well, its a drop in the ocean, but still). So, is it true that damage matters only/most when fighting a single tough higher CR creature? I would argue, actually, no - in fact, the opposite.
The reason I would say the opposite is that damage does nothing until the creature is dead, and a single tough higher CR creature therefore suffers *least* from damage because it does not impact the combat encounter as much as killing off creatures in a multiple entity encounter does (this is known as focus fire). So, my argument here is that using a single tough creature as the hit chance most hurts Ranged Fighters (multiple non-Advantaged ranged hits) vs say a Melee Rogue (single likely Advantaged hit) or a caster (bypasses AC).
Also, a single tough higher CR creature is less representative of most combats (or should be by DMG guidelines). The vast majority of combats are likely against multiple lower CR creatures, where the hit chance against them will be a lot higher and Advantage with a single hit a lot less useful. It matters less in 5.24e than in 5.14e (this was a big problem I had with Chris' hit chance use when comparing builds against GWM/SS), however, I still say the hit chance being used is likely skewing things.
Edit: We'll have to see how the AC changes, if at all, when the MM is released. The average hit chance for an equal CR mob in 5.14e was about 65% with mined data, barring some creature types which skew one way or the other. This is before magic weapons are taken into account, which push that hit chance up substantially. And then, yeah, most of the time you are actually fighting multiple lower CR creatures if your DM isn't an boss-rush type guy, so that pushes the hit chances up even further. A situation where you could only miss on a one to three (85% hit chance) is not actually all that uncommon, and this is where Advantage really suffers if NOT taking away hit chance via something like GWM/SS - and we wont be in 2024, so this really devalues Advantage vs the results gained against a 50% hit chance.
As a viewer, I like your choice of writing out the calculations. But afterwards, I wish that you plugged your *DPR by level* into *Google Sheets* for:
1) *Graphs.*
2) Calculating the *percentage that DPR is over the Warlock Baseline at each level* (e.g. how much _"not a lot above baseline"_ is at level 5).
Crucially, the *average percentage over baseline* would be a measure that puts _equal weight_ on _all levels,_ while your current measure of *total DPR over baseline* (divided by 20) is _heavily skewed_ towards DPR at the _highest levels._ By definition, your measure puts _much less weight_ on _low levels,_ contrary to which levels are important to most viewers. IMO, the most relevant measure would be *average percentage over baseline for levels 1-10,* or broken down by each of the *4 tiers of play.*
I really appreciate this video, although I have a question. Around 20 minutes into the video, the sneak attack crit chance is added to the sneak attack normal damage hit chance instead of on its own line. If I'm following you correctly up to that point, that 7% chance should be 2x the sneak attack dice. How does that account for the additional dice rolled on a sneak attack crit? I think I'm either misunderstanding the math to that point or the damage estimates beyond first level are low. Thanks
It's only 1x the sneak attack damage because the critical line is only calculating extra damage from a critical, not the total damage (because the normal damage is already accounted for) hopefully that answers your question.
I hope when you do the ranger, you do at least one version where you force yourself to use Hunter's Mark every time. I'm just curious to see the actual numbers.
I will graph the Ranger who uses HM all the time.
I Love Math. I agree with your assumptions. But I still use Spreadsheets. Just as easy to look over your equations, and no calculator errors. You do great work and always back up your statements. No Fluff to get clicks. Stay Frosty my friend. ❄️
I think that the one-number DPR is particularly skewed by the inclusion of the epic boon feats. They give quite a lot at the last two levels, whereas the Warlock baseline gets nothing at those levels.
dear god, just watched Nimble5e do this mathematics with monster damage a few days ago. Recommend 2x speed on both!
It's exciting seeing that subscriber number creep up and up. Here's hoping for 100k soon!
In my experience no one ever wants to check the math..I would give anything for someone to check my math. Thank you for checking my math 😂
Watching for when u catch your own mistake was one of the best piece of entertainment i've had in quite a while... :D
I am a math teacher and I really enjoy your channel. I’m very happy to see people interested in how you reached the final result.
I know I can do this now, but it seems like Dual Wielder feat and Two Weapon Fighting style (from either Fighter dip 1 or a Fighting Initiate Feat) should put the dual dagger Rogue close to or above True Strike.
You’re giving up advantage on the first attack, but generally two attacks is better than advantage and TWF style gets you your ability mod to boost damage a bit.
Okay so let’s see what happens at level 5 (fighter 1/rogue 4), 3 attacks at 60% for d4+4 plus sneak attack of (1-0.4^3)~0.93 for 2d6, gives us 3 * 0.6 * 6.5 + 0.93 * 7 + 0.05 * 9.5 = 11.7 + 6.5 + 0.48 = 18.7 which is a little ahead of this rogue even without the third sneak attack die
And i think if you start with fighter and play a human you can take another fighting style feat(thrown weapon fighting). But im not sure if its only origin feats or you can take any feat if you meet the requirements.
@@antoniodominguezgarcia1956 taking a fighting style was a thing from the play test, but now humans specify that it must be an origin feat so you can't anymore.
@@spikehammer3112but you could pick up a Fighting style feat at higher level when Chris isn’t assuming any other damage boosts from feats.
Level 10 for example.
You may not always qualify for sneak attack if you don't have advantage though.
@@TreantmonksTemple yep, I did this sitting in my car in the parking lot before work, so I took the @DnDDeepDive approach of assuming best case scenario to keep the math simple. If it didn’t keep up even with 100% sneak attack uptime from allies, it wouldn’t even be worth looking into further
With the Nick mastery, do you not get a bonus action attack in addition to the “extra” attack action attack when you use a second light weapon for the Nick attack?
Not unless you have the dual wielder feat.
how about thrown weapons fighting style, for a feat? If we are throwing daggers? Love all your stuff.
Rogues do not qualify for that feat, but you could dip fighter and get it.
The black background is appreciated
Making calculations fun with D&D...
Imo new baseline is fighter champ, shillelagh basically equalz fighter best weapon dice, and fighter now got consistent advantages, also the crit/advantage combo is unparalleled.
Action surge tho is not the best thing to factor in when u spread the curve on 20 levels. ^^
Do you have estimated or generally assumed values for enemies to fail saves by type? Obviously Int vs Con will have different probabilities and you will need to keep up with your spell ability to keep DC consistent as you level but it can be hard to tell. I want to try and do a calc for a Sea Druid using conjure woodland beings and Wrath of the Sea on a turn and I don't think it's right to use 60% chance they fail a wisdom and a con save equally.
A note on the sneak attack crit that is DM specific: I make my players roll all attacks first, and then do damage all at once. So, they get to pick when to apply things like sneak attack. This would REMOVE the chance that the first attack misses and second attack hits because if both hit, but the second attack crits, then players would still get sneak attack critical by my ruling. I should also note idk if the sneak attack rules force the first attack to be sneak attack or not, but that would make sense logically. I may be DMing wrong with this.
Update: the rules just say once per turn. You can say that the first hit throws them off guard and the second deals the critical sneak attack damage because you know just how to exploit the opening in their defenses (provided they still meet the RAW criteria for sneak attack).
Hugely good info and utility. Im planning a Soul knife Rogue taking the thrown weapon fighter feat from TCE since Psychic blades have thrown weapon property so it counts. plus Vex mastery you make youre own advantage most of time unless youre bouncing around targets. The bonus attack from Psychic blades does not say "do not add modifier to attack" so you get to add dex to D4 since RAW you only dont add it to attacks that specifically state not to (like TWF and light properties). With the thrown wepaon fighter it essentially turns your d6 and d4 attacks into d10 and d8 die attacks with the +2 to dmg. Following your calc and new advantage from Vex, I got a lvl 5 my DPR would be 26.07, barely under the lvl 9 dagger rogue. This combo is busted early levels. it falls off late but still amazing plus honing strikes to augment miss, teleport, and skill monkey. I carry a scimitar and short sword for the rare enemy immune or resistant to psychic dmg. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Thank you for goingthis deep on numbers with us , Chris. Very much interesting and appreciated!
Love the videos! Especially love seeing a thrown weapon concept too. The new rules pave some really interesting ways to make a thrown build strong!
For example you can use Dual Wielder, Light, and Nick with a Fighter 1 / Artificer 2 / Giant Barbarian 6 core!
Full build ahead:
Custom Lineage (Fighting Style, Darkvision)
Guard (Alert)
STR 15+2 / DEX 15 / CON 13 / INT 12+1 / WIS 8 / CHA 8
Artificer 2
Giant Barbarian 14
Battlemaster Fighter 4
Use a Scimitar and a Handaxe, with Elemental Cleaver on the Scimitar and Returning Weapon infusion on the Handaxe.
Take Thrown Weapon Fighting Style from Custom Lineage and Two Weapon Fighting Style from Fighter 1
Returning Weapon and Enhanced Defense from Artificer Infusions
Wear Half Plate and a Shield for 21 AC eventually
4 ASIs:
Dual Wielder (STR)
Mage Slayer (STR)
Medium Armor Master (Dex)
+1 STR & +1 CON
Progression along the lines of:
Fighter 1
Barb 1-6
Artificer 1-2
Fighter 2-4
Barb x
I think one thing people don't realize is that your base hit chance doesn't ultimately matter, whether you use 50% or 60% or even 100% it doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is you are consistent across builds.
there are some edge cases where it does matter such as the math for power attacks (old SS/GWM), but that's a bit more advanced and if you can understand that you probably already know what you're doing
Give Monk Weapon Mastery dagger or Dart for DEX 18 at Level 4. Level 5: Dagger, Dagger, Nick Dagger all with attack action and If Kensie then uses Kensie Shot for bonus attack (I know it is a 2014 subclass). So, three attacks at 1D8+4 (or is it 2 attacks at 1D8+4 and one at 1D8 For attack action and 1D8+4 + 1D4 For Bonus attack.
I do think that there is benefit to spread sheets and pivot graphs/tables if you are comparing multiple builds. You could protentially have a running workbook with a tab for each build you complete with DPS reports at key levels.
Regardless, I really appreciate this concept & style of video and hope that you'll continue to do this in the future.
Maybe after a significant change to the DnD 2024 material (expansions, new core books, rules clarifications, new build optimization techniques, etc...) a review can be done to keep the math on the builds current vs the base line?
Awesome stuff! Absolutely loved it, and I appreciate your enthusiasm and longhand. I prefer to calculate myself, too, rather than use a spreadsheet. Thanks for the video!
Semi-unrelated but I think the best dagger-thrower is going to be a Halfling with Skulker. Teammates to hide behind and advantage in the hide can really pump up the guaranteed chance of hiding. Then you get advantage for two chances of sneak attack (if the first misses).
Showing math longhand is better for explaining in a video. I'd use a spreadsheet myself, but not if I were trying to explain it to someone.
Hey treantmonk, great videos and love your work, I pointed out in another video that you got some probabilities wrong.. can't find that anymore, it was about the chance to make a death save or smt.. Also you and others like you pay a lot of attention to averages, not so much on sigma, and especially not so much on best case and worst case scenario. For survival, worst case analysis and ranges are _very_ important. Suddenly some features become way more attractive if you have an unforgiving DM and the situations are very challenging. Keep up the good work
First, a note that I really appreciate you going through how you manage your math work for your videos.
Long, long ago I used to do a lot of math calculations by hand. I still do, in fact, for a lot of things. And putting things in longhand let other people review what I did and point out mistakes - and there _were_ mistakes. But I also found that a lot of those mistakes came from doing the same thing over and over, and flubbing some minor detail along the way. When I have to do 20-30 operations for one weapon, and then repeat all those operations for 3 more weapons, it's easy for something to slip up.
With spreadsheets, I go through and do everything once, and verify everything I can, then just copy/paste, and I know all the new versions should all work. If there _is_ a mistake in the copied rows, perhaps due to an unlocked cell reference, then it's very obvious when all the numbers are the same, or I get #ERROR results.
Either way, the point is that you only have to really be sure about checking your work once, and then you can let the computer replicate that work for you.
The other advantage is allowing you to easily change a parameter and have all the changes automatically update. For example, going from a 1d4 dagger to a 1d6 hand axe is just a single toggle, rather than a manual recalculation across 20 levels.
The downside is that you have to figure out how to represent some things in code that may be complicated to calculate, even if they may be relatively easy to just write down. And, if you're not used to it, you may feel that you can't trust yourself to catch mistakes in a spreadsheet that you might catch doing things by hand. But that's mostly just a matter of experience.
Hi Chris! Nice to get the insight in your calculations and thoughts here. When I do the math I exactly do what you said in the end of that AC-paragraph: I go with 55%chance to hit. And I think that this is more likelly to be the reality. At least at my tables and the AL experience I got in Germany. Thank you for your great work!
I feel like if they gave Rogue those bumps at 5:11 and 17 and sneak attack works with true strike are any other backwards compatible melee cantrips rogues would be way too powerful. This is also assuming that with an optimized build you can get a reaction sneak attack every turn. This is not hard with the haste trick using your actual action to hold your action to attack off turn, bonus action hide and have to sneak attacks, Aura Battle Master or in order cleric. Balance is really hard in this game, I honestly think they did a good job for once on that front, I am however nervous for the new monster manual the new style of spell casting is strange and less organic.
So, if you took hand crossbow and a dagger, lucky and CBE instead of poisoner, assuming the target stays the same 50% of the times for vex, you would have been tied with true strike rogue.
Strategy is you go dagger then hand crossbow if you need your bonus action to get advantage, hand crossbow twice if you don't (assuming nick can move either light attack to the attack action, which seems to be the case). You start with adv, no bonus needed for lucky or vex from previous round.
Great video. Love to see how your calculations work. Curious if rogue 2024 with daggers will be the new baseline as it's pretty consistent every level. Also everyone subscribe so the channel can get to 100k
Love the video. I appreciate your reasons for not using a spreadsheet, but a spreadsheet would make it easier to explore how changes to your assumptions change the results. You could try doing the initial version by hand to work out all of the kinks, then transfer it over to a spreadsheet with proper variables instead of hardcoded values. That'd let you generate all sorts of fun graphs much quicker.
Really appreciate this Chris, I’ve been meaning to start calculating the DPR of my builds to compare against yours but I’m pretty slow at maths! This is a great help
Would love to see if you can make a video on creating homebrew monster stat blocks. Im a new dm ab start a campaign and i got a lot of ideas for Boss fights but idk how to try and balance them properly using the CR system, especially now post 2024 release and with the new monster manual not releasing till next year
These are the times I wish there was a limited option better than like for those videos that are on another level. I love math with games anyway, but this shows why doing a little extra math shows so much more information to use for analysis. This will make all your other videos even better, and they were already some of the best out there! This is also a great reference for other DnD videos for comparison of builds, so that makes this one even more important!
This would be worth the sub alone if I wasn’t already.
Amazing job Chris!
I often run monsters with a CR twice or higher than the level of the PCs. My players play normal single class characters and it's very rare that a PC die in my game.
This is the 2024 video I'm most excited for as I hoped it was coming. Thank you
I was really hoping this is gonna be the discussion of the new baseline, but I understand that you want to go through all the classes first to get a feel for what is the average.
Thanks again for doing the math so we don’t have to. You are the goat.
Love the math lesson and seeing behind the magic! The best thing is it is a formula to compare class builds. Awesome
Ok, i love how based the videos are made, like now i can fully understand the math behind lol
which is super nice, since i watch everyone of them
Thank you so much for this video! I have always wondered how to figure dpr.
I was doing some test with actually dice. The numbers are actually close. To these calculations.
I gotta say I love the math but learning to spreadsheet will **change your life**
The curtain opens! Thank you for the thorough explanation :)
YAY
Never thought I’d see the day I’d be excited for more math but here we are
When Chris said his video glitched, I felt that.
My main issue with the boon of "irresistible" offense is the same as the old Brutal Critical, at least in part. It's good when it procs, but you can go the rest of the campaign without it procing. Now it might be on every crit, I don't know I haven't read the thing myself and my memory is poor at best, it would be awesome since there's a couple of ways to get unconventional crits.
You have to remember with irresistible offense even if does not proc you are doing your full damage compared to half of it. Since resistance half the damage type of the enemy. Also as level 20 rogue you get stroke of luck to force it to proc.
A suggestion is to get the 12 baselines done and to set the 8th best line as the new baseline.
Thanks for doing a Nick Build for the Rogue. I hadn't considered True Strike until your last video, but it definitely synergizes well with the Rogue. This definitely helps to satiate my curiosity about what the Rogue class can do on its own.
As for a pure rogue dpr with the nick build for rogue I will say we are equal to monk until level 11 and it's all downhill from there since we are 1d6 and level 17 2d6 more damage behind if you are not using true strike.
On a prev video you mentioned trading in the extra attack from nick for some other feature. However, I read nick applies "when" you take the attack from the light property, as in you have to actually take that attack. Consequently, it cannot be traded in for another feature. Am I reading it correctly or have I misunderstood, thanks.
Recently I'm leaning towards your reading of the rule.
Please let me know if I'm wrong but if we used the hide action and the skulker feat. When we miss we wouldn't lose the hidden trait so if we used the hide action instead of steady aim wouldn't this mean we could use our advantage on the second attack if the first attack missed! meaning we could raise our overall DPR by raising our chance to hit and to crit!
This is correct
thanks for sharing your maths. thats deep
I definitely agree on a lower to hit chance.
As a DM, the only time decently low AC comes in is if the party are fighting beasts or monsters, but a lot of enemies the players fight are humanoid, and humanoids can wear good armor and equip shields, easily bumping numbers up.
Even in published modules like Icewind Dale, there's a group of Deurgar with like 18/19 AC and players can fight them at like level 5.
The averages across monsters and modules still tend to be the same. Also, I played Rime of the Frostmaiden. Screw those guys, and that place, and Caer-Konig while we're at it, but they are definitely an exception and not the rule.
I had just gotten extra attack and had Polearm Master already, so I was making 3 attacks per turn for the first time. I spent two consecutive turns missing every single attack. I wasn't even using Great Weapon Master! Sheesh. I was new though, and my build sucked. We also weren't allowed anything except PHB. In retrospect: ick.
What is also cool is that the new rogue gets 3 extra feats to play with as well to gain a little more utility.
I also think high elf is still viable with booming blade or something if your dm lets you use that, this way if you do end up in melee you can gain some extra damage that way
Just one extra feat I think (level 10)
I am using public transport on my way home listening to this.
And someone has forgotten a set of dnd dice on one of the seats...😮
Now calculate the odds, because that seems unlikely but I haven't punched the math on it ;)
Would grabbing 2 weapon fighting increase the damage to a significant extent?
It would give you about 60% of your dexterity modifier each round. You would need to multiclass to get it though so your sneak attack would be scaling one level later.
Thank you for your maths video
doesn't the irresisstable offense also add the 21 damage to the sneak attack if it crits?
The sneak attack isn't a separate attack.
Hei Chris great video! I was wondering if you have looked into the new Lance weapon? Looks like you could use both the duelling fighting style and great weapon fighting feat while mounted. I just built a Paladin using this with divine favour, haste (vengeance) and the polearm mastery feat at level 13 and the damage looked really good. I’m assuming you’re fighting a medium creature with these numbers, but the Lance have the topple mastery and vengeance has vow of enmity, so not that far fetched to assume you’ll have advantage on a lot of your fights. Either way I’m looking forward to your inevitable paladin video. Thanks for all the content👍
I've looked into it. The tough thing with Paladin is you generally want to get Cha to 20, and with no extra feats you don't have a lot of wiggle room.
@@TreantmonksTemple I should have clarified. The build was just to utilize the lance and the class I chose was paladin, so I didn’t want to increase Cha. That aside I’m a huge fan of the class and looking forward to seeing what an optimized paladin build from you are going to be, once it comes up on your schedule. Good luck on reaching 100k, going to be any day now!
I'll be doing some of these after work, for sure. I wonder if there's a way to do similar calculations for defense, though. Idk if we could be holistic or not, but maybe something that calculates defense against damage alone? Factoring AC, HP, key saves, and abilities like evasion?
d4 Colby, when he does his tank builds, has a series of level appropriate encounters (albeit he usually only checks at certain level thresholds so it's not like he has 50 of them) and measures monster DPR and rounds-to-die against those things, as well as versus "upcast fireball/Meteor Swarm every round"
@@life-destiny1196That makes sense as a way to test it. The reason I'm so curious now in particular is that I think the best damage-dealing rogue (without relying on a feature from another class, like true strike) would be a melee build. And Chris has been correct in the past about Rogues not belonging in melee, but the feat selections now are better-suited to melee rogues.
I'm thinking a rogue with tough as their origin feat, then defensive duelist at 4 would end up pretty survivable in melee. You'd want to use a rapier or two scimitars. You'd have okay AC. Tough would boost you to fighter-ish hit points. If you're going to take a sizable hit, use your reaction to add proficiency to AC. If that wouldn't be enough, instead use your reaction (starting at 5) to uncanny dodge for half damage.
Damage-wise, probably the best build would be two weapon fighting with the scimitars. So maybe you'd take dual wielder at 8, mage slayer at 10, and sentinel at 12.
Or, you could go more defensive still by focusing on a single weapon and taking lightly armored at 8 for shields, mage slayer at 10, and sentinel at 12.
Or, you could take 1-3 levels of fighter for a fighting style and shield proficiency and a couple extra hit points and (at 3) battlemaster maneuvers.
Since this build is simple and requires no real resources, have you considered switching to something like this that seems more representative of the 2024 builds? I don't know if we can say eldritch blast + hex is really a good baseline for comparison anymore since most things outpace it. Is it still okay damage?
Maybe, though I would probably look for something more representative of more builds (which usually spike at the various tiers of play)
@@TreantmonksTemple That makes sense. Give fighter with greatsword, savage attacker and great weapon master at 4 a look. It's relatively easy to explain, not subclass dependent, and I think effective but not crazy in 2024. Whatever you go with will be fine though. Love the content as always!
As a DM calculating damage is easy: the monster has the most dramatic amount of HP that it needs. :D
as Player, I would hate to play with a DM like that. I means my choices dont matter. It means the dice dont matter either
@@Apfeljunge666
It's how it works.
A goblin with 1d8+2 hp has between 3 and 10 hp.
Many chose the static option (7 hp)
But it's technically by the book to have monsters of various hp's.
@@voodoophil Exactly. Been playing 17 years of various p&p systems and there's always one constant: people like variation without getting dumped on by hand holding or growing walls (Your char grows in lvl and so does the whole world in total. Don't do that, it's not logical.). Let them feel that their chars are getting stronger over time and let the mow down weaklings. But also show them challenges.
5 weak Goblins? Sure, but what about the buffing Goblin Shaman or their mighty Chief who tactically commands a bunch of them?
Hi Chris, first off as someone new to D&D, your videos are very helpful and informative. I've learned a lot, so thank you very much. I've been reading my PHB'24, and found myself stuck on a question I would like your opinion on, if you would please. Some of the species grant you cantrips and low level spells through their lineage. My question is, would you still have access to them even if you were playing a martial class as they're granted by your species and not your class or not?
Yes you would. You may not have any additional spell slots to cast them more than once however.
@@TreantmonksTemple Thank you, that's a big help!
I would be interested to see a build I have seen on reddit a few times where they take a fighter dip to get TWF and use their bonus action attack to get SA and the held action as a reaction to get SA. I am not sure how reliable the process is, but obviously, being able to reliably proc 2 SA would increase round over round damage substantially.
You can not ready a action and use your bonus action to attack with the duel wielder feat. Since it says when you take the attack action you can make bonus action attack with light as readying an action is an action it’s not possible.
@darklight9450 Yeah, looking at some of those posts, they utilize other means to get a bonus action attack like the quick toss maneuver and haste or sentinel or protector or mounted combatant or quickened spell. Which seems less reliable than I would like, though still might be interesting to explore.
I don't think you will notice the difference until 11th level. ~1 point of DPR difference doesn't really feel different at the table. The 3 points or so at level 11-16 might be noticed.
What would be noticed is the AC difference (although an arc trix might have mage armor to cover that difference). But there should be a 1 AC gap from 4-8 & 11-12, and a 2 AC gap from 9-10. AC 15 and 17 play very different at the table.
The downgrade in weapons die is really critical here as you need that second dagger to keep the damage close. Nice job showing the data and your process.
Mmmh, doesn't accessing fighting styles trough feats offer some decent damage increases for the build? Like archery?
Fuck me, apparently they now require to be in a class that gives you weapon masteries
@@crunter6523 Archery also doesn't work for thrown melee weapons. There's the thrown weapon fighting style for +2 damage, but you would need to Multiclass.
Really dumb question but why is the average roll for a 1d4 counted as 2,5?
not good with decimals lol
In order to find the average result of a chance-based event, we need to take each individual result, multiply it by its individual weight(how often it is likely to occur compared to all other results), sum all the resulting numbers together, and divide that sum result by the total number of different individual results we summed.
A damage roll of 1d4 can have as possible outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4. These are 4 different results.
They are all equally plausible, you have just as much chance of rolling 1 as you have of rolling 2, 3, or 4. This means that they all have a weight of 1.
Thus, the average result of 1d4 is equal to:
(1*1 + 1*2 + 1*3 + 1*4)/4 = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4)/4 = 10/4 = 2.5
An intuitive way to understand this result is that half the time you'll be rolling a 2, and half the time you'll be rolling a 3. So, in 10 rolls, for example, it will average to having rolled a total of 25, in 100 rolls a total of 250, etc (give or take, naturally)
The quick way to know the average roll for any die type is take the number of sides, cut in half and add 0.5.
You could calculate the soulknife with 3 attacks (First Psy Blade + nick dagger + BA Psy Blade)... I dont know if 3 attacks is better than 2 with adv...
Im playing with 2014 rules, in Odyssey of the Dragonlords, with an Amazon Ranger, that has a d6 returning chakram, using dual wield and throwing weapon fighting, tha has a very reliable dmg, specially with magical chakram! I wish rogues could take the throwing weapon fighting style to bump that kind of style!
Psy Blade isn’t light.
This could be new baseline
Thank you so much for this!
If I were actually making a thrown weapon Rogue, I’d probably use darts for Vex on my first attack, then daggers on the second with Nick. That gives you more advantage chance which is also more Sneak Attack and crit chance. Additionally, I’d try to get either Thrown Weapon Fighting for +2 damage per hit or Two-Weapon Fighting so the second attack gets the DEX damage from Fighting Initiate (assuming your DM allows old Feats, which they should)…both if you want to dip 1 level of Fighter or take the feat multiple times. Adding in Dual Wielder for an additional thrown dagger attack to bring your total to 3 (1 dart, 2 daggers) would bring those numbers up more as well.
Feats I would take for a damage focused build thrower build:
Origin: Alert
4 - Fighting Initiate (Two-Weapon Fighting)
8 - Dual Wielder
10 - Sharpshooter
12 - Fighting Initiate (Thrown Weapon Fighting)
16 - Poisoner
19 - Boon of Irresistible Offense
Dropping Thrown Weapon Fighting for an ASI earlier is viable. I think the biggest issue with this kind of build is magical weapons. There needs to be some sort of gloves or maybe a bandolier so that every thrown weapon gets the effect from the magic weapon. Otherwise, you throw your magic dagger once per combat. A returning weapon would help as well. But that’s an issue about playing the character, not establishing a DPR baseline.
Another concern for any ranged build is cover…this all assumes no cover at all for the target, which is fine in a vacuum, but doesn’t make complete sense for actual play since (despite our assumptions that we’ll have Sneak Attack every turn) we need either Advantage for Sneak Attack, or an ally within 5’ which could result in some degree of cover if only because your melee ally is in the way (probably only +2 AC, but that does bring down the to hit chance a bit). Round 1 would likely be clear throwing, but after that, it’s probably a tad worse. Sharpshooter would take care of this which may make it more highly prioritized as a feat choice.
I don't think darts have the light property for some reason
@@TreantmonksTemple well damn! That doesn't make sense at all lol, but oh well.
@@TreantmonksTemple the Hand Axe has light, thrown, and vex. Not sure how Darts don't have the Light property, just Finesse. Thanks for showing us the math.
You take 60% to hit, do you have a default for creatures making a successful save?
No. I generally assume 50% for Con saves and 40% chance to save for non con saves against a maxed out DC
For their saving throws for con, they use 50% chance for every other saving throw .they use a 40% if I remember correctly. The reason con is higher is the monster Manuel most on average have Proficiency or some type of way to help with con saves.
Maybe I got lost at some point, but why is the % to hit when you level up the same? should't be harder to hit each level since enemies have more armor? And easier to hit when you get +1 on dex?
He’s assuming that the enemy AC increases when you get boosts to your attack bonus (i.e. enemy AC goes up by 1 when you’re PB or ability score goes up)
With how 5E is designed with bounded accuracy. Your chance to-hit will hover around the same place, and monster AC tends to increase at the same rate your hit chance increases(aka +1 every PB level and +1 at levels 4 and 8)
A little after the 10 minute mark (as soon as I go off camera) I go over the AC's I'm assuming by level
I was curious if you needed to reduce the avg damage on 2nd swing crits in case the first hit landed (and ergo used that turns sneak attack dice)? Or if I just missed it
You are right, and yes you missed it. I go through the math, basically your chance to crit with the sneak attack is the chance to crit with the first attack plus your chance to crit with the second attack multiplied by your chance to miss with the first attack.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh, thank you for clarifying. It seems a lil irrelevant but it was nagging me. Keep up the great work
@@aaronjames1810 Lol, it is pretty irrelevant. If I'm doing DPR for myself I don't even bother with the increased crit chance, but for videos I try to be precise.
Awesome.
4:00 are the fighting style feats still an option on the new book or no?
They are in the new book, but now they have a prerequisite of having the fighting style feature for your class.
@@TreantmonksTemple ahh gotcha, I am curious if taking a dip in fighter/ranger to get throwing weapon fighting style would be worth it
So it’s fair to not count stroke of luck since you didn’t on the other, but stroke of luck helps irresistible offense far more than combat prowess. Once per short rest the first time you miss any attack you can make it crit AND do 21 extra damage. I think it’s fair to assume you miss once per short rest so I think it would be fair to divide that 21 damage between all your rounds per short rest, which might add a couple DPR
I mean yes and no. Since we can now for every round assume we hit with combat prowess. with 100% chance since the rogue only does one attack unless you are going a nick build. Meaning at level 19 with a 1d6 weapon we wouldn't be doing 3.5*65%+5+35=42.275 damage instead we would be doing 3.5+5+30+= 43.5. We can't really assume they resist piercing damage. Also using stroke luck this is call nova damage. As you use all your recourses for this one attack. Dpr means how much damage you do every round on average not spending all your recourses.
@@darklight9450 But Treantmonk's damage breakdowns do indeed assume the characters are spending their resources, that's why he has a set number of combats, rounds per combat, and short rests. If it didn't take nova damage into effect then how would he account for high level spells that can only be cast once per day?
@@andrewmcmillan229 I was more pointing that is nova meaning we can do this damage reliably once per short rest. When I said yes and no, I more meant they both have strong use, but it depends on you value more hit chance or ignoring resistance with weapons.
@@andrewmcmillan229 On the assuming of 4 encounters a day with 2 short rest and 4 rounds of combat at level 20 and assuming same build and everything. You can use 3 times you would 18 damage reliability for 3 different encounters. While with boom of combat gives you 3.5*16=56. the 16 encounter last 4 rounds and 4 encounters.
Granted we have no way tell in game for how much the damage resistance is going to come up since that will increases the damage you do with the feat. so, it really depends on how the dm runs the game. Since their advantage to both of them and if you a magic weapon that does not do one the damages listed.
Would the Fighter Initiate feat to get two-weapon fighting for the dex to damage on the second attack, be worth taking?
Or a fighter dip?
As feat fighting initiative I will say not worth talking in general other than soul-knife rogue. The reason being with duel weapon feat at most for your attack and bonus attack is a 10. Yet rogues typically need a bonus action to get advantage to sneak attack. Since if one teammates kill the enemy next to them the duel wilder feat bonus action to no longer is available well other than a max of 5 damage As the cost benefit of taking feats that help your saving throws is better because if you gain any source disadvantage you no longer can sneak attack.
@@jessewallis6589Also any other feat other gives you an asi improvement to follow witch helps with your savings throws and damage . If you want more damage for the duel wielder rogue I would recommended the charger feat. I am not saying the fighter dip or using another feat is bad option. There are just better feats and I prefer to have them over a fighting style.
Maybe eventually, but definitely not until you've gotten to Dex 20
Banger
Another Goated video
Appreciate it
🎉