I write this before the vid came out. I thought I was being clever actually but I failed. My white room example with 1% counter is actually very easy to debunk. I forgot slimes and zombies exist so anyone with half a brain can exploit their movement very easily. But anyways, even say a creature with 30 speed and you playing a race with 35 or 40 speed, these are not clear counters you can easily take advantage of, the creature will dash every turn and so will you until you get enough distance, it becomes a kite war. Sometimes you slip up the counter. The flight one is a perfect counter because you don't need to kite, all you do is fly up far enough and usually thats like 20 ft. Then theres the dhampirs, They're also basically like flying races but in a very different way with spider climbing needing no hands. I actually think they're also broken too but not as broken as flight.

Kobold: "When you get a natural one you miss!" Halfling: "Is that what it's like for you? I'm so sorry!"

The White Room is actually where characters go when the cartoonist's budget is low.

Despite having a 6 INT score, I firmly believe Gator has a +19 to hit.

"100% to hit is mathematiclly impossible" Marut: *laught in Mechanus* But seriously, this is probably the best videos about calculating damage in dnd on the entire youtube

I blame the weird rule in the dmg about "you can play anything you want" because is prevents us from directly criticising the system or design choices without someone saying "just do it differently". Because their is a point at which if you ignore the base mechanics of a game, it isn't that game anymore

I only calculate 100% chance to hit when comparing options with the same attack bonus because accuracy affects them the same amount so it's just an extra hoop to jump through.

That's like the dnd version of the physics problem "considering normal conditions of temperature and pressure, no air resistance and a perfectly spherical cow..." (What isn't bad, it's necessary)

IN THE WHITE ROOM WITH BLACK CURTAINS NEAR THE STATIOOOOON

This is probably my favorite of your videos so far; you've summed up a lot of clever points very neatly about how optimization and the math behind 5e can viewed, and in doing so given me a video resource I'm glad to be able to share in the future.

The closest I can think of is poison immunity from Yuan-Ti. No creatures come to mind that deal exclusively poison damage, but it does significantly reduce the damage and CC from more than 1% of attacks.

Druids are broken. They can learn to locate poison at level one. Makes it super hard for a pack of murder hobos to run out of booze 🤔

100% to hit doesn’t exist? What are you talking about, my D20 with only 20 on every face clearly disagrees.

I feel like a Dhampir's spider climb ability can counter at least over 1% of all creatures in all books combined. You have to wait until 3rd level to do it, but it costs nothing but movement speed.

I used to only talk about damage with assumed success on attack rolls, but now I love doing the DPR calculations in Excel based on accuracy and other factors. This is a great video! I loved Gator's response from the other room, which was probably also a white room.

I never got into the "dnd optimixing" scene so didnt even know that some ppl calculate DPR that way. It always seemed intuitive to me to create a table for all ACs and look at that, then guessing what AC you will oppose

This is really good stuff! Another point to make is that it’s easy to build an ‘optimized’ character, whatever that means, and the player make massively sub-optimal decisions. The weakest link in most characters is the player.

I like the content, but I was expecting the talk about "white room theory" where the environment has important features or enemies have special abilities that the math doesn't account for. In any case, that's still a plus for the classes who have far more options to approach combat than ones with a very limited pool of actions.

Love this video and all your others finally had to say it. As a person who doesn't get or like math a lot, it's a big deal for me when someone can explain it in an entertaining and digestible way! So thanks!

Nice vid! How we figure out what's good is a fun conversation and it's always nice to see people trying to standardize approaches.

I'll chime in on flight: there's more to encounter design than just pulling X monsters at random out of the book, and I'd argue that a DM that lets the flying character solve every combat encounter is probably doing it wrong (once in a while to let the player flex is probably a good thing though). Of course there are social and exploration encounters, but also fights indoors, or in inclement weather that may make flying less practical (for instance my DM once threw a flying boss at a largely-flightless low-level party, who we beat largely due to catching him indoors during a thunderstorm), or encounters with timers where kiting to conserve resources isn't ideal (simple example: "you have X rounds to stop the ritual, here's what's between you and them, go"). In fact, having made similar observations as Pack Tactics about flight (albeit without counting every published monster to see how big the problem was), I actually want to incorporate the "flight problem" into worldbuilding--it stands to reason that military minds in a fantasy setting that includes fliers would pretty quickly realize how advantageous they are and either come up with countermeasures or get conquered. All that being said: I'm not sure what other racial ability in the game forces the DM to warp their encounter design around it to the same degree. The closest I can think of is damage/condition immunities, but that's much more tailored to specific challenges. So yeah, flight is overpowered in that sense, but that doesn't necessarily mean you should ban it from your table if you are a DM--what it does mean is you'll have to take it into account, and whether you want to do that or not is up to you.

I always do the "lazy mans" dpr calculation. It's just "yeah, that is the average damage on a hit. Lets say it's about 60% to hit. That seems reasonable. Like 24 dpr then? Sure, sounds good."

The only time you should calculate for 100% chance to hit is for Magic Missile. (and they uh...could have Shield)

"flying in dungeon can be a little tricky" Thx Pack Tactics for the vid love it. Keep up the good work.

But Kobold 100% hit does exist in 5e magic missile is a spell and it always hits.

i love your video. I especially love how it's mostly about what I like to call "bare minimum flexing". ways to make powerful character and powerful moves by investing little resource, but leverage them cleverly using teamwork and tactics and preparation.

Your videos are so helpful, I love this kind of stuff.

Kobold, you’re beautiful. Your work is quality and you improve the community with your words alone. Thanks dude

Personally, I think that maximum, minimum non-zero, and expected damage values should all be calculated for the purposes of analysis 'cause it gives a fuller picture, though the emphasis should definitely be on the expected value.

I am homebrewing some stuff right now for my campaign, and wanted to check if removing concentration in Favored Foe for our ranger will break the game in half or something... These calculations helps me a lot! You couldn't pick a better moment to upload this, Thanks man!!

I have successfully thought of a racial trait that invalidates "some percentage of the monster manual." Speed is a racial trait, and if your speed is more than double your enemy's, you can never lose to them assuming you have equal or better range. Flight is still OP and I am definitely just splitting hairs for the sake of a challenge posed.

Such a good video, thank you for sharing!

Holy moly I remember when you had like 4k subscribers and now you have 40k in so little time. Keep Up the good work!

I learned a lot from this, thank you!

What I found difficult about flight is that shitters on the ground die. It's also SUPER easy to fix. Just hide in rope trick while the flier makes DM add 120 ft range attacks only to realise that your effective range is 180

Eldritch knight can reach AC of 24. - Full plate = 18 (Expensive) - Shield = 2 - Defence fighting style = 1 (Other fighting styles probably more viable, but eh for fun) - Shield of faith from magic initiate = 2 (Concentration though) - Shield spell = 5 (1 until start of your next turn) Total 28 AC. Granted the last 7 points of AC are temporary and its probably not very well optimized character, but its reachable.

There is another thing to consider: how the tables play X how the system is designed. There is a lot of conversation about how the game is designed and how most tables play the game, especially from people who point out the problems with 5e. The system demands 8 encounters per day, with 2 to 3 short rests and 1 long rest at the end. With this metric, certain classes like Monks, Fighters and Warlocks shoot up in their usability since you will get your resources more as the days go by. A Sorcerer or Wizard won't have a 24 AC everytime, just a few spikes that allow them to reach this AC metric, while the 18 and up AC user will have it constantly, only requiring either a Fighting Style, a shield or a heavy armor. Sure, casters *can* reach similar values with multiclass, but it will be lower than the others unless you have *very* specific settings. This does bleed into conversations like "Martials in 5e suck" or "You only need casters and half casters in a party" because they gain a lot more power in the way 5e DMs usually DM the game: 2 to 3 encounters per day, no short rests and a long rest after that. Even some modules are getting closer to this metric, with campaigns like Dragon Heist, Descent into Avernus and Wild Beyond the Witchlight having plenty of places for the group to Long Rest up. There isn't a clear answer for no question in 5e. Even the examples you chose aren't straight answers. A Barbarian dealing more damage, but taking the damage, may be good to maintain the health of your party (unless you are doing the Ancestral Guardians ordeal). Someone with consistent 17 AC may be better than someone who can spike 24 AC, but has a starting point of 14. Even flying, the thing considered OP, depends of a lot of conditions to be considered a Hard Counter against creatures. And that is where I think "White Room" comes from: trying to seek a straight answer on a game with so many variables and options, instead of seeking something that works decently well on most situations, that has counters, but can contribute on most situations. Being aware that TTRPGs in general are something complex, with many variables on different situations, will bring the conversation to a higher point.

Thank you so much for going over SS and GWM. People act like it's the end all be all of damage.

I do think the 100% hit chance calculation has a place, and that's when you are comparing two options that have exactly the same hit chance. For example should you get the greataxe that does 1d12 damage or the greatsword that does 2d6 damage? It doesn't matter what you are fighting or what your attack bonus is because all of that is going to be canceled out anyways in your comparison, the only factor changing is the damage die so that's the only factor you need to consider. The only time this symmetry is broken in this example is if you have barbarian Brutal Criticals or Half-Orc Savage Attack, since these only use one damage die which benefits the greataxe over the greatsword. Only if you have those features do you need to start taking into account stuff like your chance to crit, otherwise it's just a waste of time even if it's technically more correct.

I...can't really agree with flying argument. Yes, you can counter most of the encounters with flying, that's totally true. But it's almost impossible to find all-flying party. That means, the enemy that can't attack you, attacks whoever left on the ground. So, his attack still hits, and he still deals damage. It's worse than high AC or damage resistance, because you can negate that damage, even against ranged attacks. Also, I would really love to see your thought on the Net. Yes, you forgo your action, but you give your whole team advantage, disadvantage to your target, 0 speed, and disadvantage to dex saves. And unless it's dealing slashing damage, it has to use whole action to escape! And you don't waste your whole action, necessarily. Dragonborn can use a breath weapon if he has multiattack, ascendant dragon monk can too, beast master can command his beast to attack, etc. There are possibility for interesting, and actually working build.

Love your breakdown of why most DPR calculations are nonsense. This is a great video for dnd meta commentary. I still contend that flight, while definitely OP, is not nearly as bad as most people think it is in actual games. I'm running a game with an Aarakocra and an Aasimar (Protector) and all I've had to do is ensure most enemies have a ranged attack. If the party runs from a fight, then the enemy gets away with murdering that innocent person or running off with the macguffin! In our campaign, the players are incentivized to engage with fights. They're pursuing a story or moral obligation, not just surviving in the wilderness. Even if they were surviving, players aren't selfish enough to leave the rest of their non-flying party behind to die. If they are, that's a player problem, not a balance problem. Plus, we're playing in a city, so the usefulness of flight is negated in the sewers and some buildings (would be better in the wilderness for sure). It's amazing for scouting, but the Aarakocra takes all perception checks at disadvantage in dim light, which has been most of our sessions. Our Thief Rogue's Second Story Work feature is almost as useful when buildings are everywhere. TL;DR: Yes, flying is op. But there's no need to ban it in the vast majority of non-survival campaigns, imo. Party dynamics and incentives to fight are more than enough to keep a flying character from leaving half your encounters, and that's if you ignore your job as a DM to build encounters around your players.

some tactical consideration about fly : You cannot count on the entire party being able to fly unless you work it with them beforehand. Meaning that if you're flying there will probably be other pcs around and enemies will target them. This can be great if you're a squishy wizard, but is actually a drawback if you're a tank trying to prevent said monsters from attacking other party members. Though if the whole party is flying you can expect the DM to put a higher amount of flying or ranged enemies too. That doesn't mean that you are wrong about flying though but it's important to keep things in perspective. Plus the higher level you go the higher chance of meeting flying enemies you get, leaning that to remain efficient melee characters should invest in getting flight too. Ultimatly it all balances out. You also probably not going to fly if you intend to use mounts. Mounts allows hit and run tactics which is almost as good as flight at keeping away from enemies. And unlike flight, there are a lot more ways to give the party mounts as needed than flight. You just need someone who can ritually cast phantom steed. or to spend some gold on horses. And yeah they are impractical in dungeons, or tight quarters, but if you have tight quarters then you can just have the tank stand in the front. And prevent enemies from reaching you that way. I think you called it doorway dodging. heck even if they are two handers or archers, I think most martial should carry a shield in case they need to do some doorway dodging. Shields are cheap and it's +2 AC. Funnily enough you can tank as an archer. Well it depends on the archer, but crossbow expert remove the drawback of firing into melee and rangers and fighters are tough enough to handle the frontline. So they can act as backup tanks. That means that in practice if you have one of such characters in your party you don't need a tank. You can take every opportunity to fight at range using positioning and battlefield control, and whenever you actually need someone for doorway dodging or to cover the frontline you can send the crossbow guy

Kobald! Is the dybuk the best creature to planar bind in the game that you can summon with a spell ( not including gate of course) ? It seems like it’s the case

I played MTG at a high level. Exact math matters in the realm of probability, which DnD is definitely in. Thank you for pointing this out. I enjoy my white room, lots of wall space for calculations.

I’ve always wanted to ask how you calculate the dpr. How would I do it if I’m fighting a wisp with 19 AC for example?

Barbarians: AC mean "Assumptions Kill." Sorcerer: ...at least he's got the spirit!

Great break down on what you are trying to illustrate, for those who dont understand. I enjoy what you share, some is eye opening for sure. I may use the advice or maybe not. I like to build different and interesting builds which usually goes against your data. I will use it to adjust the mechanics or numbers with the DM so that the concept PC is feasable. I neither want a PC that always succeeds or fails because both are not fun. Failure drives the story as much if not more than always succeeding.

Re; 100% chance to hit DPR calculation, like you said, it's easier, and I think it works sufficiently well when you're comparing two options. If option A has higher DPR than option B with 100% chance to hit, often the DPR ratio will remain the same if the chance to hit is only 65%. It's only when you start figuring in things that manipulate the chance to hit that it matters. Re; flying being overpowered, it's definitely strong, but I'm okay with it. I think it's fine for singular PCs to hard counter a limited selection of enemies. There are still plenty of enemies that are a threat to them, and that protection doesn't extend to their party members (unless _everyone_ is a flying race). It would be like saying you, as the DM, shouldn't ever throw flying enemies at the party, because there are some PC builds that can't deal with flying enemies. Now, if the party is ill-equipped to fight flying enemies, then you should probably go a little easy on them at first, but the onus is on them to figure out something to deal with flying enemies. (If needed, you could provide them with a magic item, but at least make it not a straightforward solution, so they still have to work to make it solve whatever problem they're dealing with, flying enemies in this case.) But it's okay for the players to have an easy win sometimes. If every time a player gets/uses a cool ability, your reaction is to counter it to make it useless, I don't think that's good DMing. Whether or not any or all of the players took a flying race, you should be throwing a mix of monsters at them, some of which will be hard countered by flying, and some of which won't be. If _all_ you're throwing at them are enemies hard countered by flight, that's a DM issue. If the current campaign makes it difficult to introduce new monsters that can handle flying PCs, then consider raising the stakes, e.g. introducing alternate objectives, such as protecting a specific NPC or location. Flight is really only OP in the white room, as there are many ways a DM can diminish its value or nullify it completely. But again, you shouldn't do that all the time, just some of the time. Let the players feel like a badass sometimes. I feel like there's a very fine balance between tailoring the campaign to suit the players but also remaining unbiased and not making changes, either to make an easy encounter harder or to make a hard encounter easier. If you've already created a scenario that the players can steamroll if they have a particular ability, and they do indeed have said ability, let them steamroll that scenario. "Easy" doesn't mean "boring", because often the players are cognizant of the hypothetical challenge a scenario poses. Slaying an ancient dragon without rolling a single attack might feel anti-climactic, but the players are still aware of the difficulty that an ancient dragon poses, and feel clever or badass for bringing it down in such a manner. It's also worth pointing out that as the party becomes more renowned, people will hear of their exploits. This includes their enemies. Sure, random wolves or gobbos or whathaveyou will still fall prey to whatever broken tactics the party is using, but more intelligent and knowledgeable enemies will adapt to those tactics and actively counter them. And again, this shouldn't be all the time, which is why you still occasionally throw randos at them who have no idea about their tactics. But it does mean that the BBEG and his underlings are prepared, and those will be the more important battles.

But kobold! Ty for the explanation. Very good video.

Yeah, this is why whenever i talk about the mathematics of damage, I immediately use 0.5+(X 0.5) = Hit percentage | X - (Y 0.5) X is a function of your hit bonus, while Y is a function of the enemy's ability to not be hit. every +1 is 5% effectively. So then when you calc your average damage, take your DPR and then factor in your hit chance (Let's say it's 100 DPR) and use that to reduce your DPR. We don't factor in crits or crit misses since crits effectively double damage while crit misses eliminate damage and when I calculate DPR, I calculate per attack. 75% chance to hit in this example would mean that you get an even 75 damage since 25% of the time you will deal no damage. The point of running the mathematics behind this hilariously enough isn't to minmax, but instead what I have been using for about 10 years now to run games where I can sufficiently challenge players based on their individualized stats due to CR being a terrible measurement. Sometimes I will intentionally raise the stakes and have a counter in m head knowing full well that if the enemies get their DPR for 10 rounds, they will kill at least one party member with split damage or 3-4 rounds with targeted damage. This means that the party will have to actually understand their magic items, spells and remember that there's alternative ways to do combat. It's not often I kill characters. Maim, smash and incapacitate them though? I do a lot of that. The game runs smoother when characters are somewhat afraid of the possibility of dropping dead in an effort to save what they hold dear.

"I think it's a good idea just to have a basic understanding of things" my man, if only half of the people in this world shared that thought

Running with 100% to hit makes sense sometimes! If you're comparing builds that have the same to hit, for example. A fighter with a longsword and a fighter with a rapier for example. But yeah overall agreed. The really telling thing is that as soon as you start making the room less "white" aka adding things like terrain and doorways and trees and whatnot, the people who scream 'whiteroom' get angrier (especially as it usually reinforces points like the one about flight speed) The only thing I will say with respect to your last point is that even within the "meeting point" that is the books, there's still a lot of variance in terms of experience. Some DMs think running 12 encounter days is normal, others think 2-3 is "more than enough." This does drastically change the balance of a lot of features.

4:35 That reminds me, how do you determine what range of enemy AC is most relevant to a given level? Do you just go with what gives a 60% or 65% chance to hit given the "baseline" attack roll modifier for that level's proficiency bonus and expected ability score modifier? Refer to one of those resources which averages out the AC of WORC published creatures in a given tier? Something completely different?

The reason that first comes to mind for why the people may ignore hit rate for most to hit attacks is that the hit rate in most cases is the same from attack to attack. unless it scales separately from your character like with conjure animals, it applies a bonus/penalty like bless or bane, or it ignores ac like magic missile, the percent reduction remains the same and as a result isn't very important when comparing to one another. with all that being said i agree with the overall point of the video, if a specific situation doesn't already exist then you assume average conditions and work from there.

This is why I view damage as a range, lowest to highest assuming to hit, and then dealing with attack chance separately. So optimize your chance to hit.

The only games I think racial flight is balanced for are ones where everything happens in dungeons with

I enjoy what you tell us. even if its not something I think about when playing. I think you should write a book on how to do math.

I like how Gator was still listening despite leaving. "NO!"

As a proud spreadsheet warrior I like to see good math. I hope this video reaches lots of people!

You have no idea how convenient this video is. Yesterday I had an argument with my table in which a spell worked on the party without saving throws. When the caster's concentration was broken, all enemy units suddenly knew this no-save spell to trap the party in a 120-foot bubble. I tried to talk to the dm about this and his response was "shut up or I'll kick you off the table"... Everyone reacted with the argument that I don't like games with good stories because I'm a guy who thinks mechanics are more important... I have never been more convinced in my life that this table was not for me.

Re: What racial feature can counter 1% of all creatures. Changeling's Shapechange? Maybe? Obviously not the point of your question, but I really feel like that feature is super overpowered, as it feels unreasonable for most creatures to be aware and constantly paranoid for their existance.

Great video! Just to help out the internet build posters (including myself, though I do know how to roll a d20), could you post a quick video or spreadsheet of formulas for calculating dpr, dtr, etc.?

Does this white room have black curtains?

Huh. This video has caused me to reevaluate my tendency to call people out for this type of thinking. Thanks, Kobold!

Great vid and agreed with most of the points here especially how people have to try to find a common ground when discussing dnd instead of defaulting to what's done at their table. probably the only thing i slightly disagreed with is the answer to the question: killing a creature or controlling a creature for 10 rounds? i'd definitely pick killing a creature. a dead creature is dealing 0 dmg and not obstructing the battlefield. of course, i'm assuming here the dmg is sufficient enough to kill the creature or very close (maybe about dealing 70% of the creatures hp in 1 turn) that your allies that go next can finish the creature off. if it's not sufficient, then control is indeed better. for example vs. enemies with 14-28 hp, i'm not going to cast hypnotic patternn. i'm just going to cast fireball.

both as a DM and a player i care more on having fun than having the optimal math, flying is only op if you follow prewritten campaigns in a homebrew campaign I can just add crossbows to my bandits or make the spiders acid spit, or flying enemies, or cave combat a lot of option are in the books to counter flying. some sub-optimal spell or classes are just fun. doing more damage could be fun but maybe you ave way more fun casting hex and pot shooting a enemy, or summoning a beast I described the form of. i don't really mind the new UA Kobold I am happy that they fix the negative modifiers and no longer need to cower or beg.

5:40 interesting addtion: assuming that you calculate your damage onyl with the damage you do when you hit also ignores features that make it much easier to hit. archery fighting style, trance of order (every roll below 10 becomes a 10 then add modifiers) etc. with no thinking you know these increase your dpr but without the formulas you cant say how valuable they are

I tried to wash the smudges off the screen...Then realized ITS'S THE VIDEO.

adjusting for AC is more accurate but it doesn't matter if all you want to know is one weapon combo more effective than another because they all are equally effected by the AC. It would only matter if you are comparing to hit attack to something like saving throw or if there is a to hit modifier involved.

When I calculate average damage I only ever factor in amour class when I am figuring out with advantage or when the chance to hit is different for the 2 I am comparing, and yes I forgot to add crit chance into it

4:55 for a lvl 5 player this is the minimum average, even bullywugs can get 14/15 AC if they equip a shield, and can even put medium armor on, if you just want to spice up a little monster encounter.

Thank you.

The words next to kobold: This is not a player channel Me: I have betrayed myself

Your point about a MIDDLE GROUND for conversations about DND: THANK YOU! I am so sick and tired of arguments upon which the foundation is homebrew and house rules! "We're still playing 5e, there's no wrong way to play" and while that is not completely untrue, if we are in a discussion regarding the game as a whole, the framework of our understanding has to be something upon which we can agree and that has to be OFFICIAL SOURCES not niche house rules that are specific to your own game or purely hypothetical and used only for the sake of disagreement.

I will say that the 100% hit chance calculations can be a useful heuristic when comparing things where hit probability is going to be similar. E.g. comparing a gwm build to an ss build. Or trying to decide if you're better off using your dagger or your maul to fight the creature with bludgeoning resistance.

In german there's a nice word for those kinds of words/phrases like white room. They're called "Totschlagargument" (lit. murder argument) and basically nullify anything else someone might tell you.

If you have a Flying Barbarian, you're going to be fighting enemies with ranged attacks.

Guys, does your white rooms have cushioned walls as well? Im asking for a friend

One of the factors in 5e that I feel a lot of people dismiss is the lack of in game economy. This issue normally comes up when talking about resistances to non magical weapons because the general response to mid tier up is that "the party will probably have magical weapons at that point," but there is no mechanical thing backing that claim up. In game if you have a magic item for the most part its meant to count as a bonus and not something you are always going to get. This has also lead to an issue with in game rewards not really having a meaning outside of magic gear, encounters that make assumptions that are wrong, or character expectations that do not happen. I appreciate that this channel does not count magic weapons as a part of dpr and expected progression, but I see a lot of builds that depend on at a minimum of a +1 weapon past a certain level. When talking about the way the games mechanics work together the assumption must be that no magic items are given or the discussion is about a specific magic item. This just leads to non magic resistance being way stronger then it should in balancing discussions until a way of getting a consistent way of gaining items is available.

I Agree with all your points but quick note magic missile is the only thing that auto hits which means it’s dpr is just the average of d4’s also great video

Hey Kobolt, I have a question? Where can I find the statistic for the percentage avarage of each dices, since there are spells that can modify what you roll on a d20 like bless and bane. It would be a totally useful to have those type of percentages. But by far my most concern percentage is the avarage number rolled for each dice. This a good skill to know as a DM for planing encounter that are fair and possible to overcome without fustrating the players. As player this is okay so that way they can feel that they are making the right desicion for a effective character, because that's something that all players want. On the other hand this can turn to be something super meta where the player is just obsessed with making the most powerful build. But I think we both agree on the power gamer problem. Anyways great video super Insight full.

Generally, if you are comparing a basic build with GWM to another, or if you are comparing two without, the exact to hit comes out in the wash. Problems arise when you are comparing between them, or if you expect damage to accurate. Same goes for ranged attacks, since the Archery fighting style throws everything off.

I've been trying to explain the average DPR thing to a couple of the players at my table and they still just don't care lol That said, I'm never sure what the best AC to assume when calculating actual average DPR. Anybody have a suggest for this?

Flavoring my banishment spells to send people to the white room now

Do you think you'll ever cover what you can do with manifest mind? Like a 300 foot misty step ?

Then a 1 hitting is a table thing we do, cuz we've played against creatures where rolling a 1 with modifiers makes it where we hit cuz the AC of a creature is that low.

What's your opinion on the invulnerability spell?

How do you calculate damage for a spell caster? Also, can you please make a video with the average stats for a monster. If there any average stats where can I get them? Thank you for the videos.

This is a very common mistake, annoyingly common. The flying barbarian could be more optimal, but almost always wont be. HP are not a precious commodity to be protected, they are an expendable resource. if you don't spend your HP that is money left on the table. Never expend resources to avoid damage that is less than what you can restore on a short rest. A barbarian gets half their level x (1d12+con) for free every day. At 6th level that is 33hp on average. If they aren't using it they are wasting it. Throw in whatever you had to spend to make them fly and it is almost always better to spend that resource on something else. Remember the barbarian flying does not stop the enemy doing damage. It just means that damage will happen to a different target, one that probably doesn't have resistance and a massive pool of hit dice.

6:05 What about the clockwork soul level 14 feature ?

So, I am new to calculating the DPR for things in D&D... but I am super interested because I believe it will help me judge when I need to help boost a PC or need to relax of helping one out. That being said... where are you getting your damages for the longsword? Even when two-handed wielding, isn't it 1d10? A L5 fighter (thus 3 proficiency) with 18 Str should have a to-hit bonus of +7 and do 1d10+4 with the weapon, right? So, since you COULD roll a 1 on the d10 as likely as a 10, wouldnt the calculation use 5.5 as the average? 65% * 9.5 + 5% * 5.5 = 6.45? (I didn't round for accuracy in the math) Also, while I understand that Attack Bonus, Enemy AC and the randomness of the d20 have to be considered for Chance to Hit, what is the actual calculation for such chance? Thank you so much Pack Tactics for the wonderful content and thank you to any community members who stop to answer my questions!!!

As a DM, when I'm making encounters I usually go with the basic calculation (100% hit) for understanding the basics of how much damage my players will put out a round and how much damage the monsters will put out a round. Since this number is always high, it means that any encounter I create with these basics in mind will run a little longer than expected when it comes to PCs winning, and a lower chance of a TPK should things go sideways. Easy math for easy encounter creation. With that in mind, I believe the full math is best when trying to make systemic changes, add new feats, classes, abilities and the like. For anything system related, use the better math. For quick checks to make sure an encounter will go well? Fast math works fine.

There's a place for 100% hit chance calculation. Simplification. So long as you know it's inaccurate, and you you judge everything by the same metric. (Of course, great weapon can mess this up, but again, Simplification.) It also helps to determine worst/best case scenarios for a particular instance, so you know how far things can swing. Besides, you can always input into a accuracy calc to really figure it out.

If only for the purpouse of mental excercise, Dhampir probably get bypass a solid 1+% of creatures with his perma spider climb but then again they can just get wings who cares about dhampirs

Does it have black curtains and is at the station?

The majority of math people do about 5e is wrong because Mike Mearls is bad at math and encouraged a game environment where people wouldn't think things through. That said, we get some stand out creators like you, who get told they're bad at math because there are so many people who don't understand the math and think they're right. It's too bad that you have to put up with that kind of stuff but I am glad for the content you make. Keep at it and don't let people who don't understand basic probability tell you that they're wrong.

I'd say it's fairly easy to counter a flying race with something entirely in the book. A net. That's all, net or a web ability like a giant spider's. It's reasonable to say a massive portion of the monster manual has a net or will be paired with creatures capable of having a net. Sure, it requires a little bit of fiat but in a world where some people can fly at will I imagine people are prepared to stop flying creatures.

Dice are chaos you can't just believe they roll at the mathematical odds

There can be value in using 100% to hit when comparing two builds that will have the same accuracy, since accuracy will affect them equally and it saves effort to not include it. Otherwise yes

Kobold, do you ever think you might make some videos on how to buff weaker spells or abilities to make them more viable (at least emotionally)? Your videos are always really cool in that they make me think about the game in ways I usually don't, unfortunately I can't help but feel I'm limiting my own choices when I look at all the cantrips and there's only really two worth taking. I'm not saying you should obvi cause you should do what you want I just think your knowledge of math as it applies to deconstructing the game is cool and I think lot's of people would find a video like "How I would fix X spell" compelling :D