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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Custom Racial Math, or Why Large is Hard



Starcofski
2015-04-16, 01:03 PM
Here is my pure numbers breakdown of what I will be talking about in this post. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u0gYg5k0sbEHL_CZheEASswJixtSyE8acf1stzkRw2E/edit?usp=sharing)

Hey everyone, so like many others I've been trying to come up with some new racial concepts (for melee) to see how a specialist would fare in a personal world. Included in this study were the base Human, and six new racial concepts. Three of these are approaches for handling Large sized PCs (in the form of Powerful Build, Large Size, and plain bonus dice), while the other three are more defensive (Damage Reduction, Regeneration, and bonus AC). The math was broken down into four points: Level 1, Level 4 (First ASI), Level 6 (Second ASI), and Level 20 (Endgame).

Level 1:
Note that in terms of survival, DR 1 (Slash/Pierce/Bludg) is roughly on par with +1 AC (From the human bonus feat). However, Regen 1 is the strongest (as expected) defensive option. In addition, the Bonus Die is the highest damage output (but this is not an issue to me, as this does not scale well with levels). For safety reasons, Powerful Build has not fully activated, and thus is on-par with the human with just it's secondary portion alone.
Average Damage Per Round:
Human = 9.1, Powerful Build = 9.6, Large = 10.2, Bonus Dice = 13.6
Average Number of turns to be killed by a standard wolf (MM):
Human = 5.3, DR = 4.6, Regen = 5.8, AC = 6.1

Level 4:
Powerful Build's main component activates, but without the Dual Wield feat there is no major difference. The Large Size picks up this feat though, and now hits for essentially 7 average damage per swing (equivalent to a greatsword). I also wish to note that the Bonus Dice is still strong.
On the Defense, DR 1 has fallen a bit behind, but is only due to the human picking up the Heavy Armor Master feat. Regen is still only at 1, but clearly still the top dog for survival.
Average Damage Per Round:
Human = 8.5, Powerful Build = 8.9, Large = 9.2, Bonus Dice = 11.3
Average Number of turns to be killed by a standard Hobgoblin Captain (MM):
Human = 22.2, DR = 16.7, Regen = 25.6, AC = 21.3

Level 6:
All gain their second attack, hitting up to 3 times per round. Having both of the core feats already, Human takes his last strength boost, putting it in third place for damage output. The Bonus Dice is starting to fall off in effectiveness as the others get more attacks, and Powerful Build has come fully online with the Dual Wield feat. Defensively, this Warlord packs quite a punch, and most of the defense builds are within one turn of each other in terms of survival, but now that all three have the Heavy Armor Master, they will easily outlive the human base (barring unforeseen terrible rolls). Regen is still king, having increased to 2.
Average Damage Per Round:
Human = 11.4, Powerful Build = 12.4, Large = 11.7, Bonus Dice = 13.5
Average Number of turns to be killed by a standard Hobgoblin Warlord(MM):
Human = 7.0, DR = 8.8, Regen = 10.2, AC = 9.3

Level 20:
In the end, the Human has 2 extra feats for whatever they wish, compared to 1 or none for the other three. The Large size PC cannot even complete their build, which is making me consider providing at least a +1 bonus to their strength and constitution (not shown are a ton of downsides and disadvantages imposed for this race). But even with the same average damage weaponry, the 22 Strength cap provides a distinct advantage that cannot be glossed over, granting both more damage per hit, and an increased hit chance over all the others. Bonus Dice has fallen to just a smidgen above the human, which is I suppose where it should be for the tradeoffs. Powerful Build might be just too powerful, and could need some negatives added (originally considered reducing their effective AC by 1, same for large).
Defensively, 1 extra Damage Reduction goes a long way, the bonus health and AC even further, and Regen 4 might be downright crazy.
Average Damage Per Round:
Human = 39.8, Powerful Build = 52.5, Large = 58.7, Bonus Dice = 44.3
Average Number of turns to be killed by a standard wolf (MM):
Human = 13.9, DR = 15.1, Regen = 17.6, AC = 16.6

So Playgrounders, what I ask are the following of my new melee-specialists:
1) Are these new numbers too far out of line for such a simplistic setup? If so, by how much?
2) Given 5e's aversion to flat bonuses, but the numbers shown, which of the three Offensive and three Defensive options are the best fit for the system?
3) Any supplementary comments?

Starcofski
2015-04-23, 09:13 PM
Hey playgrounders, back with round 2 of my experiment, though I find myself somewhat surprised this time, as the results show a similar trend to the previous Two Weapon Fighting setup, now with Great Weapon Fighting (Greatswords)! The data can be found on page 2 (titled "GS").

In this scenario, the Powerful Build setup is not as insane, facing an actual drop in damage output relative to the TWF. The Large size pulls out way ahead, outputting roughly 166% of the baseline Human, and the Bonus Die (while slightly better) continues to be the most reasonable choice (with "Reasonable" being a subjective word). Overall, it appears that Powerful Build is not a benefit to GWF as much as I would have liked, but I bet using a Greataxe would yield more interesting results.

Defensively, all three options took a survivability hit (after losing 1 bonus AC from the TWF feat). Because of this, I am contempt to say the three defensive races are probably fine, but I will be knocking the Regen down from a cap of 4 down to 3 to put it in line with the Bonus AC race (and change the scaling to be at levels 6 and 12 instead).

Change notes:
-Redid a number of the calculations, of which a few were wrong (or input incorrectly).
-Lowered Regen race from a max of 4 to 3.
-Added Greatsword page.

eleazzaar
2015-06-03, 05:53 PM
I'm having some trouble tracking this since you use a different series of names in the forum post and the XLS.

Also, correct me, if I'm wrong, but this isn't just a test of those different concepts of being "large", but also associated racial features-- at least stats bonuses. Because then it isn't really a fair test of different versions of "large".


Tyranno can weild heavy as normal once they have >16 str, but treat normal as light weapons.

What's that mean? The only thing "heavy" does is give small races disadvantage. Do you mean "removes the 'two-handed' property?"

Starcofski
2015-06-03, 08:21 PM
I'm having some trouble tracking this since you use a different series of names in the forum post and the XLS.
Also, correct me, if I'm wrong, but this isn't just a test of those different concepts of being "large", but also associated racial features-- at least stats bonuses. Because then it isn't really a fair test of different versions of "large".
Yea it is, but the whole point was to see just what concepts could be explored, or how could they be made feasible.



What's that mean? The only thing "heavy" does is give small races disadvantage. Do you mean "removes the 'two-handed' property?"
I've had serious difficulty wording that properly, but yes. Still not sure of a good way to word it clearly.

eleazzaar
2015-06-03, 09:51 PM
Yea it is, but the whole point was to see just what concepts could be explored, or how could they be made feasible.

Um, so which are you saying?

Creature X doesn't have a boost to Attribute Y because....

a) that's how I designed the creature I was testing, or
b) that seemed neccesary to keep the "large" abilities from being overpowered

Starcofski
2015-06-04, 12:25 AM
Um, so which are you saying?

Creature X doesn't have a boost to Attribute Y because....

a) that's how I designed the creature I was testing, or
b) that seemed neccesary to keep the "large" abilities from being overpowered


Option B. Originally the Mino gave a boost to both Con and Str (giving +2 Str and +1 Con), which put it disproportionately higher than the baseline human. But when I took the attribute bonuses away entirely, it either lost out on health or damage, so having a 22 in either Str or Con was the defining point of the character (with the other two abilities matching the human), and reaching these numbers just isn't possible without the 16s from a special point buy for the Mino. If using the standard point buy rules, the resulting damage potential will be lower (but the human will not be as impacted).

It goes without saying that this testing in a vacuum doesn't compare to a live test, but those have yet to be conducted.