The Gaming Den

Well, let's just do a bit of math.

Brutes and Soldiers have the highest base damage rolls, so let's use them. Level range 20-22. All of the players are level 21.

Now let's do player ACs. Players are due for an armor upgrade so we'll give them all +5 armor. Players do not have some feat that gives them +1 to AC. There's no assumption that players use shields, defensive weapons, or gain item or power bonuses to AC. Class bonuses to AC like the Swordmage and Avenger are discounted. Players with light armor start with a +3 bonus to their AC-determining stat and every stat raise increases it. So the expected AC for this level should be...

Universal: 10 (base) + 10 (level) + 5 (enhancement)
Leather: 3 (base) + 6 (stat)
Hide: 4 (base) + 6 (stat)
Chainmail: 10 (base)
Plate: 12 (base)
Averaged armor ACs: 10
Average AC: 35.

Obviously the actual AC of a player will be higher than this--in some cases a lot higher (the swordmage for instance will probably have a +4 AC bonus to what I depicted; a heavy shield + shield specialization paladin 3 more, etc.) but this is useful for setting a floor.

Calculating NADs are trickier. At this point in the game most PCs will have one or two NADs that they have completely sunk. Some PCs will have their NADs comparable to their AC. Some might actually have it even higher! To simplify things, we'll assume that all of the PCs have a NAD of 31.

Calculations: This is an average over six rounds to account for encounter powers and powers that require a condition are multiplied by .8 if the monster can inflict it and .5 if they can't on their own. PCs also never have nor put up a resistance to effects with elemental keywords. To keep peoples' brains from breaking, unless a monster has a specific damage expression for critical hits I just add a .5DPR per damage dice x PCs attacked to account for them rather than giving them their own damage expression. (EDIT: I stopped being such a lazyass and just did calculated critical hit damage) For creatures that have an area attack they'll be able to snag 2.5 PCs all of the time and we'll multiply damage by that much, unless the attack specifically states how many PCs are attacked.

Ongoing damage is actually really tricky to calculate. Ongoing damage of the same type does not stack, unlike regular 'weapon' attacks. However, once it hits it requires a totally seperate save from weapon attacks. So as a 'fudge factor' the non-stackingness of ongoing damage is cancelled out by its round-to-round continuity, which has a 50% chance of getting cancelled against. Terribly sorry.

Furthermore, monsters are never restricted from using their best attacks. PCs never utilize status effects that deprive them of attacks nor do the monsters face any impediments (buddies, terrain, range, using ranged effects in melee) that prevent them from using their best powers whenever they feel like it.

I left out the War Devil because calculating the damage of leaders is really hard.

(56) Hezrou
Has no reason to use anything but Combination Attack repeatedly.
(.45)(20 + 18) + (.05)(29+25) = 19.8 DPR

(63) Ice Devil *
Uses Freezing Breath 2/3 of the time. Uses Icy Longspear the other third. For a third of the combat they are able to use Chilling Command)
(1/3)(.55)(13.5) + (2/3)(2.5)(.55)(14) + (1/3)(.05)(19) + (2/3)(2.5)(.05)(19) + (1/3)(5)(.55) = 18.1 DPR

(98) Efreet Fireblade *
Efreet Fireblade uses Hurl Scimitar 1/2 of the time, Whirling Firesteel Strike 1/3 of the time, and Scimitar a measly 1/6 of the time.
2[(1/2)(.65)(18) + (1/2)(.05)(60)]] + 2.5[(1/3)(.65)(18) + (1/3)(.05)(60) + (1/3)(.7)(10)] + [(1/6)(.65)(18) + (1/6)(.05)(60)]=14.7+22.2+2.45 = 35.2 DPR

(120) Death Giant
Another simple monster. The Death Giant spams Soulfire Burst until they run out of mojo (which will be after 4 rounds unless a creature dies; we're not going to assume that) and then resorts to Greataxe.
(2/3)(2.5)(14)(.55) + (2/3)(2.5)(21)(.05) + (1/3)(16)(.55) + (1/3)(.05)(42) = 18.2 DPR

(185) Marut Blademaster
The Blademaster uses Double Attack half the time and a single measly Greatsword attack the other half of the time. To simplify the damage expression we'll just do damage for one Greatsword attack and multiply it by 1.5. By the way, all damage gets maximized on a critical hit, so that'll reflect the lightning damage, too.
1.5[(20)(.55) + (27)(.05)] = 18.5 DPR

(193) Giant Mummy
The Giant Mummy spams nothing but Rotting Slam, since it's their only attack. Mummy Rot is pretty painful if left untreated but it affects people after the battle and honestly there's no reason to fear any kind of disease after the first few levels6 So let's discount that. They have a Dust of Blinding Death attack that activates automatically when they're bloodied and when they die. For maximum PC screwage, let's assume that they get off this attack twice and die exactly after they get their sixth attack in; which means that they'll use this attack 1/3rd of the time.
(.40)(19.5) + (.05)(30) + (1/3)(2.5)(.45)(11.5) + (1/3)(2.5)(.05)(15) + (1/3)(2.5)(10) = 22.6 DPR

(223) Rot Harbinger
What a miserable piece of fuck this guy is. They only have one attack that they spam constantly, Rotting Claw. Whatever.
(.45)(17.5)+(.05)(26)+(.5)(10) = 14.2 DPR

Okay! Now with all of that calculated, let's do average monster damage of the level 20-22 brutes and soldiers.

( 19.8 + 18.1 + 35.2 + 18.2 + 18.5 + 22.6 + 14.2 ) / 6 = 20.1 DPR. Without the Efreet Fireblade, who does nearly twice as much damage of monsters of their range, the DPR would be a measly 18.6.

But anyway, let's ladle up the math! First, let's calculate PC hit points. They do not have effects that will increase their healing surge value nor their hit points other than straight-up levels and have a 12 in their constitution score for this level. So let's average out the hit points of all of the published classes.

Total # of published classes: 18
Artificer: 112
Avenger: 134
Barbarian: 135
Bard: 112
Cleric: 112
Druid: 112
Fighter: 135
Invoker: 90
Paladin: 135
Ranger: 112
Rogue: 112
Shaman: 112
Sorcerer: 112
Swordmage: 135
Warlock: 112
Warlord: 112
Warden: 157

Average PC hit points: [2041 (base) + 18(12 constitution)]/18 = 125 average hit points for a healing surge value of 31.
Average healing from a leader with no expansion options: 48 hit points.

All of the assumptions made for the PCs were designed to cut them as little slack as possible while not assuming that they were morons while cutting as much slack for monsters as possible. Even so, this means that at 21st level a leader can undo nearly an entire rounds' worth of buttkicking from Team Monster with a minor action. This is of course not counting PCs throwing out action/attack denial powers or pumping up their own defenses with expansion options (an AC-focused Avenger or Fighter will completely sink a monster's DPR) or increasing their hit points/healing surge value.

I am a bit surprised at how they managed to keep the damage expressions pretty constant, not deviating much from about 18 DPR. Except for the Efreet Fireblade; 4 of those monsters will pretty much school a non-optimized party. This leads me to believe that High Crit weapons are overpowered in the hands of monsters, especially in epic tier with monsters attacking with bigger weapons.

I guess I (or preferrably, someone else) should do an average damage of level 10-12 monsters and compare it to the healing value PCs can expect to get. I have the feeling that the ratio of DPR/healing is a lot lower in heroic tier.

If anyone could think of a way to better calculate ongoing damage I would appreciate it. I think that I undercounted how much additional damage ongoing damage would deal out.

Hmm. In fact, maybe I should do an ongoing damage matrix. But I suck at constructing matrices, so..

Assuming characters always save on a 10+, an ongoing damage effect lasts an average of 1.81818 turns.

-Username17

How do I calculate that in there?

Those 'save ends' effects get much less reliable at higher levels, though. Between Delver's Armor, numerous 'gets another save' effects, and classes like Warden or Dreadnaught/paragon, it's really tough to put much on player characters that'll last over a round, if that long, and that's not considering items that give resistance, often making saving throws irrelevant.

Failing any of that, a DC 15 Heal check also grants another saving throw.

Multiply damage/round by 1.81 and that's your damage, ignoring non-stacking. If a monster is planting ongoing damage every turn, you can almost assume that the ongoing damage ticks every turn.

Doom314: I'm calculating things to put as much favor in the monster's column as possible without being dumb.

IGTN: The problem is that I don't know how to combine the 1.81 with the to-hit roll without making the numbers stack from round to round over a 6-round period.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Doom314: I'm calculating things to put as much favor in the monster's column as possible without being dumb.

IGTN: The problem is that I don't know how to combine the 1.81 with the to-hit roll without making the numbers stack from round to round over a 6-round period.

What's the problem? You hit with an attack that does ongoing 10 damage and it will last for 1.81 rounds, doing about 18 points of bonus damage. Although honestly, if you hit again with the same attack it essentially reverts it to lasting only 1 round, and there are a lot of bonus ways to get more or better saves that players will have by 21st level. Seriously, just counting ongoing damage as landing only once is not a bad assumption.

-Username17

Wait, if the average damage is 20.1 per monster per round, how is one healing effect clearing away almost all the damage? You've already got the hit probability factored into the damage. So the average damage from the Team Monster should be # of PCs (and thus, # of monsters) x 20.1.

Which means dog pile on the invoker or wizard (who you left off, but whatever) in a 5 man party suggests the controller is in serious danger of a one round take out, and most everyone else is hurting to the point that they can be gang banged down in round 2, if the monsters focus fire.


By the way, on the other side of this, 4e classes have really shitty defenses. Most of the defenders can put AC in a good spot, but most of the rest of the class hang around 17 AC at level one, which means most level one monsters hit them 50% of the time (having a +6 to hit). The other defenses are almost always worse. (Except for the rogue's reflex, and he takes it up the ass for fort and will).

But fucking with the numbers for point buy, trying to maximize all defenses just doesn't work. You really want a 15 in all 3 non AC defenses, so that you at least reach the 50% mark (non-AC attacks should be +4 at level one). But its a zero sum game, particularly for dex or int based light armor classes. Best you can really do is a 16+ for your attack stat defense, and maybe 14s for the other two.

As a weird quirk, most of the striker classes are stuck with horrendously shitty defenses. The avenger can do OK, since he can burn a feat on leather armor (particularly if human), but things like the sorcerer and barbarian get the shit kicked out of them more or less any time a monster feels like attacking them. Warlocks are weird, since the conceal effect gives them passable defense against melee and ranged attacks, but sorcerer level suck against close and area attacks. The rogue has a passable AC and a good reflex, but gets raped by anything else. The ranger makes me sad. A sword ranger is just going to get messed up by anyone, and a bow ranger is in the same boat as the rogue.

The primal classes are also pretty screwed in general. The warden, if built _exactly_ right, can have some decent numbers that approach the fighter's. If built wrong, anything coming at his reflex or will is a problem all the time. The druid and the shaman are just kind of sad. Light armor classes with primary wisdom just don't have functional ACs, which still make up most of the attacks coming at them.

Charisma paladins generally win the defense game. Even optimized for attack and treating con and int/dex as secondary stats and the paladin has some of the best defenses of any class, even if the others start trying to optimize defense, they're barely matching what a paladin can do innately with sword and board.

Voss wrote: Wait, if the average damage is 20.1 per monster per round, how is one healing effect clearing away almost all the damage? You've already got the hit probability factored into the damage. So the average damage from the Team Monster should be # of PCs (and thus, # of monsters) x 20.1.

Because the calculations I did assumed the minimum defense for the PCs without them being retarded (a swordmage for example will have an AC at least 4 points higher than what I gave), that the PCs never had any kind of resistances up, that the monsters got to attack every round at full effectiveness, that the PCs never had saving throw effects thrown up, and that the PCs didn't use any damage or attack mitigating powers against the monsters. I also chose Brutes and Soldiers since they had the highest damage dice.

Actual monster damage is going to be significantly lower than this.

Voss wrote: As a weird quirk, most of the striker classes are stuck with horrendously shitty defenses. The avenger can do OK, since he can burn a feat on leather armor (particularly if human), but things like the sorcerer and barbarian get the shit kicked out of them more or less any time a monster feels like attacking them. Warlocks are weird, since the conceal effect gives them passable defense against melee and ranged attacks, but sorcerer level suck against close and area attacks. The rogue has a passable AC and a good reflex, but gets raped by anything else. The ranger makes me sad. A sword ranger is just going to get messed up by anyone, and a bow ranger is in the same boat as the rogue.

???

Avengers have the best AC of anyone. Not of strikers, of anyone. They plop down the feats for Leather Armor Proficiency (only a moron frontliner would forgo it) and Improved Armor of Faith. They of course can grab Hide Armor proficiency if they really want it--and they really should if they're going to use Axes and shit. If they really want to they can also plop down a feat for a Spiked Shield and then take Shield Specialization in Paragon.

Barbarians do not prance around in light armor, no matter how much the game wants them to. Every barbarian picks up Chainmail and Scalemail. Then later picks up Plate Armor. The Thaneborn barbarian build does not exist because Storm of Blades is where the build earns its money.

Sorcerers have good AC. Their secondary stat gets used for their AC and they pick up leather armor proficiency anyway. If they're a Cosmic or Dragon Magic sorcerer they can get Hide Armor if they feel like it.

Rangers also have good AC. The rangers that have 'bad' ACs are the Pit Fighter Rangers (who already get a +1 to AC from the PP) but Chainmail proficiency is the first feat they get. Most of them also snag Scalemail proficiency because if you can afford the former feat you can prefer the latter. Many rangers also get Two-Weapon Defense (but with the Prime Punisher chain of feats this doesn't happen as often) because Two-Weapon Opening (which requires Two-Weapon Fighting) is mandatory in Epic.

Warlocks are in much the same boat. They do have the weakest defenses of all the strikers, but keep in mind that in 4E the variation between 'weak AC' and 'strong AC' is seriously about 4 points for most people.

Voss wrote: Charisma paladins generally win the defense game. Even optimized for attack and treating con and int/dex as secondary stats and the paladin has some of the best defenses of any class, even if the others start trying to optimize defense, they're barely matching what a paladin can do innately with sword and board.

No, they're not. Charisma paladins aren't any better off than Fighters in the defense department. Charisma paladins might have a higher AC than Battlerager or Polearm fighters but those two classes have better defenses (given that Polearm Momentum + Polearm Gamble and/or Battlerager Vigor is better at mitigating damage).

http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=112111#112111

Just so you can see how strong a healing-focused character can get.

The trio of Divine Power / Eberron Player's Guide / Adventurer's Vault 1 made such a character possible. I expect the Cleric to become the new... um... Cleric from now on in 4th Edition.

Lago, to build those guys the way you are talking, those characters have to through a hell of lot of points into tertiary stats, which will have to come at the expense of the attack stat. Thats honestly bad. Plus your numbers are just wrong- even if a barbarian throws down the feats for chain and then scale, he's still just getting a bare average AC of 16 then 17, and since he has so many points in Str & Con, he has no reflex or will defense to speak of- those will literally be 11 or 12.


And seriously, that avenger, once he's spent those 2 feats... has an 18 AC, if and only if he's starting with 16 dex/int. Thats barely above average. If it completely maxes his AC its 20. He ties with the paladin, which is good, but his attack stat is then a 16, which is bad.

Sorcerers who throw on leather and have a 16 in their secondary stat have... a 15 AC. Which is to say, most 1st level monsters hit them on a 9+, or 60% of the time. Thats fucking shitty, especially when they're opting for leather rather implement expertise.

Actual monster damage is going to be significantly lower than this.

Then your model is honestly useless.

Lago, to build those guys the way you are talking, those characters have to through a hell of lot of points into tertiary stats, which will have to come at the expense of the attack stat. Thats honestly bad. Plus your numbers are just wrong- even if a barbarian throws down the feats for chain and then scale, he's still just getting a bare average AC of 16 then 17, and since he has so many points in Str & Con, he has no reflex or will defense to speak of- those will literally be 11 or 12.

No, they don't throw away their points on tertiary stats. The Rageblood Barbarian (the only one worth playing) they already automatically qualify for the plate armor line of feats! Yes, having STR/CON hurts their NADs; but it was already going to happen if you wanted to grab a Rageblood barbarian. Going after heavy armor does not hurt these characters nor is it a sacrifice; they already paid the price.

TWF/TWD have prerequisites rangers already meet. The Sorcerer in particular does not have a use for tertiary stats. All of the damage-boosting feats that they want use STR, CHA or DEX and they can coast to what they need in epic; they can easily afford the 13 CON they need for hide armor, even if they're a DEX-Sorcerer: these fellows have to wait until paragon however. Stormwarden (who just overtook Pit Fighter Rangers in spike damage. which pretty much makes that build obsolete) and Bow Rangers want to keep their DEX as high as possible. Avenger AC-boosting feats don't even have stats associated with them. Seriously, an AC of 21 at level 2 is considered average for them. This is about what a paladin can expect to get. But they haven't even gotten their hide armor feat if they want it (which they will in paragon or epic) and their armor of faith feat improves by +1 to AC per tier. And if they really want to be AC whores they could always just snag a Spiked Shield, ladel it up with Shield Specialization and that stupid enchantment in AV2 that gives light blades an additional +1 to AC and reflex.

The only strikers that really hurt for AC are Heroic-tier Pit Fighter Rangers (their PP and feat array solve this problem in paragon tier), Thaneborn barbarians (who suck monkey fuck and no one wants to play them) and CHA-warlocks (the only variant of warlock worth playing, but warlocks suck anyway).

Seriously, your statement of strikers having a poor AC is just flat-out ignorant. The melee strikers have an AC comparable to paladins.

Voss wrote: Sorcerers who throw on leather and have a 16 in their secondary stat have... a 15 AC. Which is to say, most 1st level monsters hit them on a 9+, or 60% of the time. Thats fucking shitty, especially when they're opting for leather rather implement expertise.

If you grab the Expertise feats at low level unless you're a Brutal Scoundrel Rogue then you're a dumbass. Such feats add x1.05 to your damage roll. You need to reach a damage roll of 20 before it overtakes Weapon Focus. Which happens for most strikers around levels 4 to 6. And while YMMV on which is more important, calling someone a dumbass because they picked Armor proficiency before Weapon Focus shows that you're shooting off at the hip.

Voss wrote: Then your model is honestly useless.

My model performs a BASELINE, Voss. We can see that even with 5 high-damage monsters wailing on a defender at full strength it takes about 3 rounds to take one down if the party does nothing but throw them a heal. So anyone can see that when we throw a much of other mitigating factors into the mix that the actual encounter length is going to be much extended. This conforms with peoples' expectations of padded sumo.

Then your model is honestly useless.

Conservative models are generally superior to actual models, given that there are such a wide range of variables to consider. Lago has created a model that gives monsters the advantage and it still proves that their damage is too low. The monsters in actual play will have lower damage, which further cements Lago's point.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
No, they don't throw away their points on tertiary stats. The Rageblood Barbarian (the only one worth playing) they already automatically qualify for the plate armor line of feats! Yes, having STR/CON hurts their NADs; but it was already going to happen if you wanted to grab a Rageblood barbarian.

This is actually the point. More than half the classes are gimped on their defenses out of the gate, and have to spend resources to compete with classes that just don't have that problem. The solution isn't to fuck around with tertiary stats and several feats to have good defenses, its to take a class that just has that inherently.

Going after heavy armor does not hurt these characters nor is it a sacrifice; they already paid the price.

And they keep paying. Your barbarian has to throw down 3 feats to match the AC of other classes, at an opportunity cost of the few good feats in the game, and they'll always have inferior reflex and will defenses. It also doesn't bring anything to the table that the other classes can't do, thanks to the design of powers. This is true for quite a few classes

Seriously, your statement of strikers having a poor AC is just flat-out ignorant. The melee strikers have an AC comparable to paladins.

I said defenses, not just AC.

Voss wrote: Sorcerers who throw on leather and have a 16 in their secondary stat have... a 15 AC. Which is to say, most 1st level monsters hit them on a 9+, or 60% of the time. Thats fucking shitty, especially when they're opting for leather rather implement expertise.

If you grab the Expertise feats at low level unless you're a Brutal Scoundrel Rogue then you're a dumbass. Such feats add x1.05 to your damage roll. You need to reach a damage roll of 20 before it overtakes Weapon Focus. Which happens for most strikers around levels 4 to 6. And while YMMV on which is more important, calling someone a dumbass because they picked Armor proficiency before Weapon Focus shows that you're shooting off at the hip.

I said its shitty, you're the one throwing dumbass about. Expertise matters to me because I've noticed one major thing over twenty years of playing RPGs: my characters miss a lot. And the vast majority of the actions you take in 4e require a hit roll to accomplish anything meaningful. Spending resources and still ending up with a 60% chance that people will hit you is fucking sad.

The avenger, I will admit, is one of the few classes that can functionally screw around with the defense game and come out with a fairly positive result. Most classes end up sacrificing too much for too little gain, usually ending up sacrificing attack bonus, damage bonus and at least one defense (two if they're an int/dex light armor class) for minor bonuses to the other defenses. It just doesn't pay off.


I suspect part of the disconnect we are having is you are focused on DPR, which is fine for mathematical models. But on a round per round basis, in game, I'd much rather have a higher chance to hit and pull off the stunlock on the monster who might drop a party member, rather than care about average damage. And some of the character builds you are suggesting will have a 10-15% difference in their chance to hit, compared to a character that maxes it out, and for a once per encounter [or daily] stun (or similar) effect, thats a pretty big deal.

Voss wrote: Then your model is honestly useless.

My model performs a BASELINE, Voss. We can see that even with 5 high-damage monsters wailing on a defender at full strength it takes about 3 rounds to take one down if the party does nothing but throw them a heal. So anyone can see that when we throw a much of other mitigating factors into the mix that the actual encounter length is going to be much extended. This conforms with peoples' expectations of padded sumo.

Actually, the second thing that jumped out at me is a monster group has a very reasonable chance of dog-piling a controller and dropping him in a single round. That isn't my expectation of padded sumo at all.

The first thing that jumped out at me is why does anyone give a flying fuck about the half-assed epic levels anyway? How does the game perform at the relatively functional levels, say about 5-15?

Voss wrote:This is actually the point. More than half the classes are gimped on their defenses out of the gate, and have to spend resources to compete with classes that just don't have that problem. The solution isn't to fuck around with tertiary stats and several feats to have good defenses, its to take a class that just has that inherently.

???

The tertiary stats needed for the defensive line of feats are STR, DEX, and CON. The tertiary stats needed for Mastery (which determines initial stat array) are STR/DEX/CON. Where's the stat sacrifice? The only class that's really screwed in this regard is the CHA-warlock. Avengers can't afford offensive-line feats but they CAN afford the defensive line feats. The other strikers can qualify for the defensive line of feats AND the offensive line they really want at the same goddamn time.

The avenger, I will admit, is one of the few classes that can functionally screw around with the defense game and come out with a fairly positive result. Most classes end up sacrificing too much for too little gain, usually ending up sacrificing attack bonus, damage bonus and at least one defense (two if they're an int/dex light armor class) for minor bonuses to the other defenses. It just doesn't pay off.

Way to exaggerate thar, Voss.

Except for the barbarian, I'm talking about investments of one or two feats for all of the classes. The rogue needs one feat, that of hide armor. The ranger needs one feat (TWD is part of a chain, but every ranger grabs TWF anyway because they need Two-Weapon Opening); if they really want AC instead of plopping down a feat for Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword they can do Weapon Proficiency: Double Sword. The avenger needs two feats. They can spend more feats if they want to, but two feats puts them on the level of paladins. The sorcerer needs an investment of one feat. The warlock needs an investment of one feat.

I suspect part of the disconnect we are having is you are focused on DPR, which is fine for mathematical models. But on a round per round basis, in game, I'd much rather have a higher chance to hit and pull off the stunlock on the monster who might drop a party member, rather than care about average damage. And some of the character builds you are suggesting will have a 10-15% difference in their chance to hit, compared to a character that maxes it out, and for a once per encounter [or daily] stun (or similar) effect, thats a pretty big deal.

... they're STRIKERS. All they bring to the table is damage. High-level rogues and rangers do get status effect powers, but on the whole the classes were designed in mind to do nothing but dish out damage. This makes the avenger and barbarian class really shitty, the rogue class shitty unless you forgo dealing damage and focus on status effects, and everyone inferior to the ranger.

Yes, you should eventually get the Expertise chain. But at low levels you have so few effects that you can calculate DPR and hammer out your tactics ahead of time. And all these classes get to look at is DPR. The switchover point where Expertise is better than Focus comes at around level 4-6; most classes will have plopped down the one or two feats they need for defense by then.

I said defenses, not just AC.

Which is a function of class, not role. There's only one striker variant that has overlapping defense stats; that's the Rageblood barbarian. Similarly, laser clerics have overlapping stats. Laser paladins also do. WIS-bards overlap. Hammer fighters also overlap. CON-wardens also overlap. So when you actually do ratios, the striker role is in fact least likely to have overlapping NADs.

Beyond that, defenders do not get any boosts to their NADs that other roles don't. The paladin ends up slightly ahead. And just them. The function of increasing NADs is dependent on feats and equipment. Which isn't exclusive to defenders with some rare exceptions.

Voss wrote: Actually, the second thing that jumped out at me is a monster group has a very reasonable chance of dog-piling a controller and dropping him in a single round. That isn't my expectation of padded sumo at all.

In through one ear and out the other, huh?

Okay, if the controller does not have a power that will extricate himself, did not invest anything in defensive feats or items, if the other party members can't perform backup, if the controller can't plop down something like Grasp of the Grave or Wall of Ice or some shit, if the controller doesn't have any elemental resistances, and the monsters are comprised of nothing but brutes and soldiers who all manage to get past the front line and actually have enough space to gangbang the controller, then yes, they can drop. Which pretty much means that the monsters have to ambush the controller (but not a surprise round) and everyone of them has to win initiative and they all need to be close enough to use their best powers in the first round.

Furthermore, if you read my goddamn preface you would've learned that a lot of my DPR calculations were based on monsters hitting multiple characters with a single power. The DPR will go down if we're just looking at the damage on a single power.

Are you intentionally deciding to just ignore all of the mitigating factors just so you could come to whatever contrived conclusion you'd like? Sure seems like it.

The first thing that jumped out at me is why does anyone give a flying fuck about the half-assed epic levels anyway? How does the game perform at the relatively functional levels, say about 5-15?

Because the epic levels in 4E is about the level 14-20 range for 3E. You know, the range that was so broken that it was worth having a new edition for.

Which is a function of class, not role. There's only one striker variant that has overlapping defense stats; that's the Rageblood barbarian. Similarly, laser clerics have overlapping stats. Laser paladins also do. WIS-bards overlap. Hammer fighters also overlap. CON-wardens also overlap. So when you actually do ratios, the striker role is in fact least likely to have overlapping NADs.

Specific (and fairly poor) builds for other classes have problems with stats overlapping. But you can easily build effective characters with decent defenses of those classes by not using those specific builds. Paladins don't need wisdom, ever. Clerics can avoid charisma fairly easily. Hammer fighters and Con wardens look (defensively speaking), from the numbers, to be a bad idea.


Epic level levels in 4e are obviously half-assed, however, and clearly got less than half the design time than the other levels. I don't really see the point of wasting ink on proving that.


Also... what preface? You completely lack one. All you've got is this, near the end:

All of the assumptions made for the PCs were designed to cut them as little slack as possible while not assuming that they were morons while cutting as much slack for monsters as possible.

With the map size and generally inability of anyone to stop people from moving on their turn, saying that magically somehow the monsters can't attack the controllers doesn't seem like cutting the monsters some slack, let alone as much as possible.

nor do the monsters face any impediments (buddies, terrain, range, using ranged effects in melee) that prevent them from using their best powers whenever they feel like it.

In fact, you specifically state that the in the model, monsters specifically suffer no impediments of any kind.

You're starting to conflate all the mitigating factors that you weren't including in your purely numerical model as well as the restrictions you placed on the model in order to win an argument.

Well done.