Epic Boon of Irresistable Offense adds the amount of the score increased by the feat, which won't be the warlocks casting ability score, so I will be removing the Epic Boon of Irresistable Offense for level 20 baseline damage moving forward.
It would be cool if shields had a weapon mastery so a sword and board character could use both on their turn, further closing the gap between that and two handed weapons.
DPR is just one part of combat--the shield is great for its AC. The damage you don't take means the you can stay in the fight longer or your healer can do something else on their turn.
broken my keys recently even though I was subscribed. 50% chance to break key unsubscribed x0.05% critically do so while in a rush vs 0.05 %chance whist subscribed + hex + no longer in a rush means under the new rules AND being subscribed the chance of me being locked out of the house is mathematically superior by 13.75 (rounded)%. Thank you Chris, my cost of cutting new keys means I can now buy a second house to hold all my unpainted miniatures in.
So fun fact about the new hex design, your crit chance is actually slightly higher than 5% if you have more than 1 beam since if you miss, you get to re-attempt to roll a crit. The difference is pretty minor but it scales inversely with your chance to hit (i.e. if you're more likely to miss then you're more likely to crit since hex only gets applied to hits). 60% Hit Chance - 5%, 7%, 7.8% and 8.12% respective crit chance for 1, 2, 3 and 4 beams 70% Hit Chance - 5%, 6.5%, 6.95%, 7.085% 50% Hit Chance - 5%, 7.5%, 8.75%, 9.375%
But if you hit with the first, apply hex, then crit with the second, you are missing on the crit for hex. I don't think you would not apply hex and "save" it for a crit.
@@asdad54 it’s not about not using hex until you crit, it’s about the fact that if you are hitting repeatedly, then the crit is calculated based on the chance that the first time you do hit is more likely to be a crit. To illustrate: if you only hit on a 19 or 20, then you have a 5% chance to crit on any singular attack. BUT if you keep on swinging until you eventually hit, then the chances of that hit being a crit is not 5%, it is 50% because you either rolled a 19 or a 20.
The stability of 1/turn damage boosts is even more useful for builds that don't focus on damage, but want to still contribute effectively. IMO, that's a big part of the case for Rogue multiclassed with an extra attack class. It's not that Rogue damage is so amazing, but rather that with a couple tries at it, it's decent and reliable. If I had a wishlist, it would be for a wider variety of thisntype of feature, so that different classes retain different feels and flavors, but benefit from similar reliability.
Exactly, it dramatically decreases the variance of your damage output from round to round. As long as you apply your 1/turn damage boost, your damage is respectable on all of your turns. On the contrary, a GWM or Sharpshooter build will either do 0 damage on a turn or tons of damage. As a DM, it's much easier to build an encounter when PCs do reliable damage (e.g. 1/turn damage with multiple attacks). With GWM and Sharpshooter, a "difficult" encounter can easily turn into either a TPK or a walk in the park depending on the PCs getting a streak of bad or good rolls respectively.
@@SortKaffe I think you can mitigate this by pointing this randomness out to the players to make sure at least not all of them play casino damage classes making encounters very risky, unless that is what they want.
My son played the playtest barbarian in a level 20 one-shot two weapon fighting maces and was keeping up respectfully with other melee members of the party, while debuffing enemies with weapon mastery
This is super interesting, but it also seems like it's gonna make standardized damage calcs come with a whole bunch of more caveats. If every attack in a round does roughly similar damage on hit, you don't really have to worry about the expected hit rate used nearly as much. As long as you're using the same AC and magic item assumptions with the builds that are being compared, you're gonna get comparable results. When a significant amount of damage per turn of many builds is tied up in "Hit at least once" conditions, how likely you are to actually hit with a single is actually going to change how those builds compare against ones that don't do that but makes more attacks per turn. "What is the highest dpr build" might become a lot more dependent on how your GM stats their monsters and hands out items.
@@agilemind6241 This wasn't a complaint, it was an observation. Going forward it's important to keep the implications in mind when consuming or creating guides.
That was already the case with the +10 dmg -5 to hit feats though. Those have different dpr numbers proportionally to other builds depending on the ac of the target. It's just that those builds were usually the best case at every number value just at different levels.
Okay, but that has a number of caveats. If the amount and magnitude of all riders added together eclipse the base weapon's damage die, the base weapon will just become irrelevant. People will just use a dagger because they still get +123465789 to their damage either way. Would it not be much worse that whats going on now with XBE and PAM? Right now barbarians and paladins do the same thing, fighters and rangers do the same thing - attack as many times as possible with +10 damage. But there is a difference between those characters beyond "'where do I get another 1d4 damage from?". With these changes, everyone would do the same thing - attack as many times as possible to apply +1d4 damage 1/turn effects, with the only source of difference being where those effects originate from. Would there be virtually any difference between those characters doing different things? Would the things even be different at all? Hell, a sorcerer will just quicken enlarge and booming blade with a dagger,
At first I also wasn't a fan of the once-per-turn changes, but after playing with some of my current characters that have those features (such as the old Protector Aasimar) I think this is ultimately a good change for the game. It's a little premature to critique that it's one more thing to track and such. I think once people actually play with it they'll understand its advantages. Anyone who's experienced with Rogues probably understands this innately. What it's effectively doing is raising the floor of your potential DPR while the ceiling remains the same. Instead of your damage being split 50/50 between two attacks, the first attack that hits does 75% (made up number) of your potential damage; this makes missing with one attack not feel as bad. Will it feel a little bad when you crit on the second attack and not the first? Sure. But it'll also feel amazing when you crit on the first attack. This also makes concentration checks against enemy spellcasters more potent when you have so much damage baked into the first attack that hits.
It slightly reduces the ceiling as well, but makes it more likely to reach the ceiling than using the old GWM or Sharpshooter feats. Nonetheless, I find it healthy for the game that damage is less swingy.
The thing that made me the happiest in play testing was how much more viable it is to play with different weapon combinations. We had each player use a different weapon set-up (Non-pole-arm two handed weapons, pole-arms, sword and board, dual wielding, and non-hand crossbow ranged weapons). Each had advantages in certain areas but nothing that made one of them stand out as being definitely better than the other players. Definitely a huge improvement over what I normally see where 99% of what I see are either a hand-crossbows, a glaive, or a rapier.
Me too. It's not random I chose to compare morningstar and shield with barbarian - I playtested that combo recently (video is coming on results of that)
I do think that there’s something to be said for how much DPR dominates discussions for a lot of builds in D&D. Kinda shows how much the design of the game could maybe use a facelift for how encounters and scaling would work.
Depends on where you look tbh, there's enough spaces where people talk about more fancy stuff than pure DPR DPR simply is the best for videos like this, because you can measure it How do you measure the average impact of a Wall of Force? Of running backwards at full speed with Spirit Guardians on? Of summoning flying creatures for your party to ride on? On the other hand, almost everything has an AC and HP
It isn't really the design of the game that has to change for that, just the discussion (Not that the rules are in any way so perfect they should not be messed with). DPR is always going to come into the conversation, partly as it is more analysis ready, and a very useful measure for comparing the primary damage dealing builds. However there is so much that can have huge impact but does nothing for DPR dealt, or nothing for that PC's DPR. But that then gets rather more subjective, as in the Teir List scores he's done for all the various species of D&D or rather more situational even when you can easily crunch some numbers. A great healing ability/skill for instance doesn't factor into DPR at all, and when its needed is probably worth way more than another turn worth of damage, even great damage. However healing can only be useful when you actually need to heal in combat, does nothing at all otherwise.
@@Gearhead966 yes, so you'd lose Sap. Flex + Shield is probably better for a fighter so you can use Shield Master on your first attack to knock opponents prone to give you advantage on you subsequent attacks though.
Hex's new design is actually nice with the old Pact Magic. Bring that back, remove concentration for warlocks like hunters mark for rangers and have the curse side of the spell affect a saving throw instead of ability check and its genuinely a good class feature to keep using throughout the whole campain
Yeah, but for players committed to concentrating on a 5th level hex in the old system, i think the change isn't that big? Apart from there being much better uses for your concentration, especially with the new spell list
Hey! Btw, when calculating crits, the chances of hex being a crit are actually not 5%! Not very intuitive, but if you already accounted for the chance to miss, the crit must be calculated on the % of hits that become crits. To illustrate: if you can only hit on a 19, then technically there is a 5% chance to crit, but if you are swinging until you hit, then your hits have a 50% chance to be crits, since you only hit on a 19 or 20. Might help boost the numbers on new hex, since even though you hit 98% of the time, the first hit where you apply hex has a greater than 5% chance to be a critical! Great vid and I shake your virtual mathematician hand good sir!
It's interesting to see that the new hex out damages the old hex on paper, but one thing the graph doesn't show you is how much damage you might be losing to overkill. Bigger, once per turn damage features are going to lose more damage in this way than smaller multiple per turn damage boosts. Old hex on 2 different enemies when the 1st enemy dies on the 1st hit might change how it feels when used in play.
I think the thing to note is that simply going PAM and GWM is not the most optimized melee damage route now. People will be working in DW for the double draw/stow (and incidental d8 damage die). Weapon juggling between a polearm and a d8 one hander and scimitar is going to be the new normal if the changes to the attack action aren’t touched. This should lead to a bigger gulf between sword and board and same class min/maxed for damage.
Adding multiple '1 per turn' options will become the new opti for 5.5 for sure. A smite, sneak attack, frenzy (or something), etc all being tossed on at once.
One interesting side effect of the new hex is that it is now almost as good as good for bladelocks as it is for blastlocks. The reason why it still feels nerfed is that you have to upcast it to do the damage you used to do. Sure, pact slots were already upcasting it automatically, but that's not the only way to cast hex. If you got hex from your race (hello hexblood) or from a feat, or your capstone (playtest warlock) you could still benefit from that 1st level casting. It was a waste of concentration if you had any real spells, but it was still a viable option. Now all those uses are gone. Maybe hex should be a cantrip and scale automatically like other cantrips? And maybe not require concentration? Then I think it could actually be a warlock stable, and hexbloods main feature wouldn't be all useless.
I did the math for someone and removing concentration is too good because of other spells that can stack (example I used to show it was blade of disaster)
Been awhile since I looked at the altered Hex, does it still last 8 and 24 hours with the Up cast? Otherwise you are burning more resources for essentially the same effect. The new version also makes it equally useful with firebolt/chill touch as it does with EB so when you get to have things that boost your to hit you will do more with other spells than you will EB.
The playtest added an invocation that gave you an advantage on concentration checks to maintain hex. In my survey I recommended more invocations to improve hex if they really want to make it a staple Warlock spell that people will use consistently.
I suggested making it a cantrip that scaled with Warlock levels from 1d6 to 4d6, It would play into Warlock's schtick of doing resourceless damage through the day, and would make the half caster Warlock (Celestial for the healing) bearable to me.
@@freman007 the only issue I see with that is it either needs a duration (if they stick with 1hour it would work) or it acts like the Smite spells and as part of the casting you also cast EB. (I like this less as it essentially makes EB little more than a cantrip you stick on your warlock to use hex.)
This is actually so cool to see! I actually think this convinces me of how great “once per turn” damage really is. I’ve been pretty skeptical of it myself prior, but I’m definitely reevaluating my opinion. This also makes me think that this was probably the design intent with One D&D moving heavily toward OPT damage formats. Just goes to show you how important communicating your design intent is. I imagine if WotC attached a synopsis about this to UA, it would have had significantly greater reception.
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The dopeness of the epic boon doesn't seem to be about average damage to me, but more so the ability to add that 22 damage on top of a crit and get a huge amount of damage in one hit.
I'm not good with math so this actually helped me to understand how gathering all that "extra damage" as once per turn actually makes it scale higher than once per attack (had the same problem as you thinking that damage was a linear progression and never considered how missing affected the extra damage total per round lol.)
I love science, but I don't speak its language. Thank you for these breakdowns. I know enough math to know I don't quite understand how the calculations actually work, but seeing the numbers broken down like this it still intensely interesting. I'm still the kind of player (and GM) who picks "this looks cool/fun/interesting/thematically or conceptually appropriate" over "this is mathematically proven to be superior," but I appreciate seeing not only that the revisions are closing the gaps between "flavorful" choice and "optimized" ones, but HOW they're doing that and how big those gaps actually are. Awesome work.
I would like to add that for once per turn vs on every hit, the chance to hit matters a lot. While I assume that the 60% chance to hit is taken as some average, it does significantly affect the outcome of the calculation. Specifically for Hex: (1) 2d6 on the first hit vs (2) 1d6 per hit (with 3 beams). Say our chance to hit is X (for example X=0.2 would be a 20% chance to hit). (1): With 3 attacks our change to miss all attacks is (1-X)^3, and so our chance to hit at least once is 1 - (1-X)^3 With a 5% chance to crit (ignoring whether or not that's even possible in oneD&D), we get an average Hex damage of: 2d6 * (1 - (1-X)^3 + 0.05) = 7 * (1 - (1-X)^3 + 0.05) (2): With three attacks our change to hit an attack is X and for each attack we have a 5% chance to crit. We gat an average Hex damage of: 3 * 1d6 * (X + 0.05) = 10.5 * (X + 0.05) Using that we can solve for X (find the chance to hit where 1d6 over multiple hits is equal to 2d6 on the first hit) 7 * (1 - (1-X)^3 + 0.05) = 10.5 * (X + 0.05) The solutions to this equation (when plugged into WolframAlpha) are: X1 = 0.0193126 X2 = 0.60791 X3 = 2.37278 X1 and X3 are irrelivent (since we can't go above 1 or below 0.05 (since at 0 both would always miss)). -------------------------------- *So (for 11th to 16th level) between 0 to 60% chance to hit the "once per turn" is more effective, while above 65% the "once each hit" is better!* -------------------------------- We can also do this for 3d6 on the first hit vs 1d6 per hit with 4 beams (1): average Hex damage: 3d6 * (1 - (1-X)^4 + 0.05) (2): 4 * 1d6 * (X + 0.05) This has two real solutions at X = 0.00634006 (irrelivant) and X = 0.73373 -------------------------------- *So (for 17 to 20th level) between 0 to 70% chance to hit the "once per turn" is more effective, while from 75% the "once each hit" is better.*
Very interesting stuff! The conclusion is dead on: We will see once-per-turn damage being undervalued until we all get used to the new paradigm (assuming it is here to stay). I was pleasantly surprised by the math. It turns out those guys at WotC just might be pretty good at this game-design thing.
lets not get ahead of ourselves with that last part. They still designed both the Champion and the Echo Knight as though they're remotely equal to eachother.
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Nothing hurts my soul more than seeing someone advocating some white room multiclass monstrosity with the assumption that you'll be casting Hex at level 11+. Hex and Hunter's Mark have people losing their minds over 3 damage per attack on average. I get that it's tough to quantify other party members and the ability to inflict status conditions, but there's so many better spells.
Very interesting, but you should also consider that the old lock had to use a level 1 spell (via sorcerer dip or with a longer duration if with an high level lock slot) while the new one is forced to use a level 3/5 slot to keep the baseline damage high enough
This is worse because old Warlock at middle levels could short rest to recover the spell slot and still potentially have Hex up all day. It’s a much larger investment.
I did the warlock maths like a month ago, and not only did I come to the exact same conclusion as you did with the same maths, but I realised that the boon of irresistible offence cannot be taken by anyone with a warlock level by level 20, as you would need a level in fighter or monk or barbarian or bard or ranger or rogue (expert or warrior epic boon), and you can't do that because your straight classed and it's just as well because you're playing a caster, you aren't supposed to have that extra 4.18 dpr still, 41.82 dpr at level 20 is higher than it was at level 19, and definitely higher than in 5e but the big difference is consistency, you are doing on average more consistent damage, and this is actually really good because usually you end up having less moments where you almost killed someone but not quite because you only hit one of your 2 attacks, this front-loads the damage such that you actually get the full value of hex every single turn, instead of just some of it whenever it feels like it this is good game design because now when you give a DPR number for hex, it will be really precise, and only very rarely will it do more or less than that amount, so it is easy to calculate if it is worth using mentally, instead of adding some wierd multiplier that depends on your total (and somehow not your warlock) level basically all weapons now have some viability, their own strengths and weaknesses, this is much more fun than a game where only two different weapons are viable, hand crossbow and glaive also, it lets the devs use more bonus action skills, because the extra attack from these feats always eats a bonus action, well guess what, now you can use your orkish bonus action to charge and gain some temp hp or whatever, and still be doing more damage than the old class did *with* their bonus action the bonus action, is now no longer a manditory part of your damage output, it is now a bonus that you use to add some limited use abilities like second wind, which used to be useless in combat because you needed that BA for damage The very minor change to game design is so darn powerful and it allows for the entire game to be explored in so many new ways that actually fulfill the fantasy, I mean fighters didn't feel like the master of all weapons exactly did they? now each day you can use a whole different set of weapons as a generalist, or you can specialise in any specific weapon, and combined with the newish concept of being able to pick any race on any class, and now any background? now you can pick whatever background you want, whatever class or (or combinationbof classes if you wanted wizard/warlock as bad as I did to be viable) and whatever race you want, and if you stick to a single class, and bump your ability score, and you use your basic class abilities, you won't feel useless at the table I mean they literally made non-feat taking tables viable, and made feat taking tables less gatekept by smurfs and goblins It is rediculous that the community would see all of this and take a pessimistic stance as if Wotc hates you and your mom and your sister and your... you get the point, in 5e I honestly felt like I couldn't really try the martial classes, because I felt bad that any martial I made would basically overshadow all of the martials my friends have all made, so I stuck with casters, that way I can overshadow them without them even realising I contributed at all, in fact I mostly get made fun of for being one of the weakest party members, and I like it like that but yeah I mean, the horror story that made Treantmonk make the god wizard just, I honestly have been afraid to play martials because of stuff like that, but the martial/martial divide is going away and literally noone else is talking about it... Makes me sad hungry, hangry
Once per turn damage was probably done as a way to speed up combat, if you hit it's applied, if you don't it's not, and it only need to be rolled and calculated once per round, instead of how many times did I hit, and how many d6 do I add? The fact that it is also comprable if not better damage that applied to each attack is a welcome surprise.
More likely, the design goal is to decrease the variance of damage outputs by making the bulk of your damage more reliable. As Chris points out in the video, players can actually find it rather confusing that each attack doesn't use the same number of dice for damage. They might either forget to apply it at all or accidentally apply it twice.
Thinking about the implications of more once per turn things, an Arcane Trickster with a couple levels of Warlock or vise versa could really make the burst of sneak attack and new Hex pretty insane with some late game scaling
There's one thing worth considering when talking about average DPR with once per turn effects vs. consistent damage. If average DPR is equal between the two scenarios but there are multiple enemies, it's very likely that the effective DPR of the consistent damage option will be higher. That's because the once-per-turn damage is likely to pass an enemy's HP by a greater margin. The consistent damage dealer can spread their damage around to effectively do more damage. As a very contrived & extreme example, say there are 3 enemies each with 15hp. For simplicity, assume 100% chance to hit. Suppose the once-per-turn damage dealer gets one attack that does 60 damage, while the consitent damage dealer has 3 attacks that each do 20 damage. The consistent hitter will be able to kill all 3 enemies and do 45 damage in the process. The one-big-hitter will do 15 total damage and only kill one enemy. Even though their average DPR against an infinite health pool is equal, the consistent damage dealer is effectively much stronger.
great video, very informative! another thing to point out here: 5e barbarian still did less damage than the OneD&D version, especially when comparing weapon and shield build. 5e GWM PAM: 34.28 / oneD&D GWM PAM: 43.83 5e longsword shield: 23.65 / morningstar shield: 40.2 the new barbarian with just morningstar and shield even does more damage than old gwm pam build, which goes against some stuff i've heard about new martials having a lower damage ceiling (at least when analysing this kind of barbarian build)
Feels like a good opportunity for a comment on the survey. I liked the addition of a limitation to focus AS on "fighter-type" actions, but now I'm going to suggest that they improve the feature by adding language that treats an AS attack action as its own "turn" w/r/t once per turn damage (lots of ways to phrase it in a rule, but that would be the result).
Just take magic initiate primal for hunters mark. It still goes of number of attacks. If you really want to nova then do a 1 level dip and take divine instead for the paladin version now you add 1d6 and 1d4 to every hit.
Just because I haven't seen anyone else comment - There's one benefit of the Shield-Morning star weapon choice that was never mentioned! It leaves your bonus action free for.... Stuff! So the trade is then 18% DPR for +2 AC AND a bonus action. Want a telekinetic barb? Much more viable now.
It would be great to see them have some subclasses that add damage once per turn and others that add damage to every attack. That might give the subclasses more unique flavour.
To be fair, we knew that Zealot barbarian was Kinda crazy as it added damage once per turn and it came out a few years ago... in addition 5 levels of a martial for a rogue was usually wanted by most rogues I played with before level 15
I don't mind that tax. Barbarians and Fighters, the pure martials, are the ones who get it for free. Rangers and Paladins get spells, and should be lower in damage. If they need to get Weapon Mastery to catch up, I think that's a feature not a bug.
@@thebitterfig9903 but the point is that a tax isn’t a fun way to balance things. ANY ability that’s sufficiently superior to other options, such that most, if not all, optimized builds will take it, serves to reduce choice, not increase it. If Paladins and Rangers are strong enough without weapon mastery, then just leave that feat out, and if they’re not, then give it to them without a feat.
@@theresnoracelikegnome I think that's a really slippery slope, and the game shouldn't work that way. If a fighter wants spells for utility, they have to multiclass into something else, or devote feats to it, and that's fair. It's not unfair to ask characters with spells to have to choose to either invest resources into combat, or to let their combat be a bit worse. If Rangers and Paladins do equal damage to Fighters and Barbarians, have equal combat utility from weapon mastery, but also gain spells, that invalidates the fundamental tradeoff of resource-intensive spells vs low-resource-cost damage. Martials do more damage than a Wizard with a cantrip round after round, but a Wizard with an appropriately leveled spell does something really powerful once. That's the fundamental tradeoff in D&D. Rangers and Paladins are half-casters. They don't have the healing or control of a full Druid or Cleric, but way more than a fighter. In exchange, they do noticeably more damage than a 50%/50% multiclass of Fighter with Druid or Cleric. At least they get to that damage at much lower levels, since they don't delay extra attack. There's some level of damage which would be too low, but a pure Fighter has to be a better damage dealer, a better archer than a Ranger. There have to be trade-offs, or else the Fighter is permanently the un-optimized class. If a Paladin throws all their spell slots into damage with Smites, I'm glad for them to do damage roughly equal to a Barbarian or Fighter. But if they don't, their damage should be noticeably lower, since they get to do all sorts of powerful support things with their spell slots. But if a Paladin matches a Barbarian without smiting, there's literally no reason to play a Martial class at all, and that's far worse than a Paladin having to pay a tax. As I said, any "tax" is a feature not a bug.
@@thebitterfig9903 I wish I could upvote this 100 times. So tired of the 'tax' and 'punishment' rhetoric. Choosing the option you like best is not a tax.
Yes, this was really the video I wanted to see! I was looking forward to seeing you do the math for the new Hex + Eb and I am surprised with the result! It's much closer to the 5e one then I would have thought! That is a good thing I guess.
It was closer than I thought as well, though it's still worth noting that the new warlock must upcast to get these numbers, which is a higher resource cost when you don't have pact magic.
@@TreantmonksTemple true, and the old upcasted Hex also gave you the opportunity to cast it before a short rest (on a bug or something in your bag) and then restore the spellslot in the short rest. So its much more expensive now.
I think your last point was the most important. I hope that the game does move toward more viable options like you mentioned despite the negative community reactions to many changes that would bring more options to the game.
Two weapon fighting is the best fighting style for a barbarian in 1 d&d the additional attack that doesn't require a bonus action that still gives rage damage helps incentivize the vision of a dual battle axe-wielding maniac
I'd love to see a video we're you do this level of a brake down for all the different classes (no multi classing) to see what each one would be like and then how they compare to each other.
IMO, I think a character focusing on damage doing 15-20% more than another character feels good. The sword and board barb likely made the choice early on that it wanted to provide more utility than damage, and the difference between them is the perfect amount to justify going with one over the other.
The thing I still want to see broken down is whether polearms do more damage than other great weapons, since I deeply feel they shouldn't. Extra reach is a benefit, and it should come with a damage penalty, period. Ideally, non-reach great weapons would do about 5%-10% more damage than reach ones. To go a step further, I'd love to see dual wielding be on par damage-wise with 2h non-reach weapons. Those are the two options which limit themselves to a 5-foot reach, and also give up any defensive benefits of a shield. Personally, I kinda think sword and board should do the same damage as 2h reach. I guess I value +2 AC about as highly as 10 foot reach (which also makes opportunity attacks more frequently), but I'd be open to persuasion on their relative strengths.
I always felt like the choice of Hex+Eldritch Blast as the baseline had a lot to do with it being so attainable. All you need is 2 levels of warlock, and then it doesn't matter if you take the other 18 levels in Chipmunk Bloodline Sorcerer or College of Easy Listening Bard, you can still hit the baseline. Now that Eldritch Blast is going to scale with warlock level (instead of character level), I'm not sure whether Hex+Eldritch Blast still makes sense as the consensus "baseline."
I believe the original intent of the baseline was to set an expectation of what damage an average casual joe or a newer player would achieve, as to compare and show calculable results of an optimized character. I don't think it had to do with attainability, but I do like that we will have more variance in builds instead of "Warlock 2/ Anything Else x". Looking forward to the new edition
@@BlueFoxXT The changes are good, I just don't know if the new warlock should automatically be considered "the baseline" just because the old warlock was.
@@lenny-822 That is fair, I was thinking along the same lines before I watched the video. Perhaps the new baseline should be a ranger who concentrates on hunter's mark and just raises Dex with a longbow? Similar mindset, but may not be necessary as Treant's math seems to indicate a similar baseline as 5e anyway
Tiny critique: This maths assumes that the one time you use hex on a critical hit will always be the only time on a turn you use it. It could be that you use hex on a hit you didn’t crit on only to crit next hit.
My take on once a turn damage is it sometimes just feels really wrong. Like, consider giants might. "You're bigger, so you get an extra d6, but only once a turn, for reasons"
Yay! I can cast Hex as a 5th level spell (UP-CAST BY 4 LEVELS) to do 3.88 more damage each turn! The way it is now makes it a terrible use of a 3rd or 5th level slot at mid to high levels and nearly worthless for something like a fighter with Magic Initiate.
This isn't new. When the 5e warlock gets 5th level casting with pact slots, hex isn't your best option for those slots (or your concentration for that matter).
@@TreantmonksTemple Yeah, but if you want to keep using Hex, you can do something like take a level or a few of sorcerer to get a some 1st level slots so you can use them for minor battles and save your 5th levels for big battles. I guess as a long time optimizer, the baseline build, though consistently simple, does in retrospect seem very weak.
Having charger as a pure dmg add on needs to be revised somewhere. Sure we can assume that you can backup and go back in for the bonus dmg but first of you would open up to alot of opportunity attacks and you might not get it off in difficult terrain
It’s important to note that the new warlock will be able to cast hex at levels 3 and 4 and obviously at level 5 much less often than the old one could. At level 20 new warlock gets 2 castings per long rest, while the old one had 4 per short rest! I just wanted to say that it was worth mentioning, if we consider 8 encounters in 1 short rest in between, then the old warlock is fine. The new one? Well, only 2 combats with optimal hex, and it goes down afterwards
This is some great news! Makes me even more excited for Martials in One D&D! Do you think the developers deliberately did this change in features to close the gap, or is this just an incidental outcome of their desire to simplify "add damage" features to once per turn?
Very interesting math on the once per turn effect! Certainly for anyone who can get reliable advantage that 3rd attack becomes much less valuable. I'd be interested to see how it differs for a character who doesn't have advantage though; my instinct is that extra chance to apply the big once per turn boost is valuable enough to make the polearm/hand xbow option very strong. Though obv nowhere near as much as it is now.
But... a 1/turn attack, at advantage, with Elven Accuracy, would yield nearly the same result. This would result in a lot of builds becoming viable, if not optimal, and the gaps between them becoming narrower.
Without diving into the math yet, i guess that advantage will mostly benefit builds that try to work with either a single attack or a lot of attacks - the quadruple EB will profit more from it than the once per turn effect if the chance to proc the latter already is decent (like with a second attack or with a familiars help action) overall, the point Treantmonk discussed in this video will probably outweigh that in its impact on build diversity though, since you need to stack multiple things on top if each other to make a noticable difference
@@derimperator3847 single attack isn't something you CHOOSE. It's something you're stuck with when choosing other things. This is exactly why most single class full casters don't use weapon attacks much. A 1/turn burst damage on these classes is often enough to help, but still leave them far behind their martial teammates. Adding Advantage to the equation significantly increases their averages, and Elven Accuracy even more. They're probably never going to match their martial teammates, but will perform well enough that weapon use isn't a wasted effort (vs cantrips that scale).
Ever since I subscribed to Treantmonk's Temple, I have not broken a single key. Not in the lock, not anywhere else. It just works. I also have not: - Been stung by a potato - Been abducted by the adductor machine in the gym. - Be abducted by the abductor machine in the gym. - Been to the gym enough to get abducted.
I think applying all of our damage dealing features to one attack does that: we used to increase damage of our attacks and increase the number of attacks to increase damage. Now we want to get more attacks so we increase the chance to do use damage feature. For berserker barbarian it should work very well. Imagine you add 1d6 to all of your reckless attacks instead of doing 2d6 to one of them. With advantage the second version can outpace the first one. If you are interested, you can easily do math here yourself. There you can also find interesting that it still heavily dependent on the attack “base” damage without this feature and here all this new interesting weapons comes.
How to optimize damage: Bladesinger since you only need 1 attack to trigger the once per turn effects and you can do a spell to trigger and spell once per turn effects.
Sure, One DnD or new 5e or 5.24 is supposedly backwards compatible, but bladesinger wasn't in the 2014 PHB so who knows if we will be seeing it return to the new version of the game. I love the subclass, but I worry we may lose it, along with several others, in the coming revisions to the books.
@@blackpeoplestorytime802 I mean, maybe. Especially considering it has been revised before. And although it's no Gloomstalker Ranger or Twilight Domain Cleric, it's pretty strong. Still, it would seem weird/unfair to be able to pick Bladesinger as your subclass at level 2 when everybody else is picking their subclass at level 3.
@@PatRiot-le7rd just change the level you get it the features at to what is says in the class table. The features come all in the same tiers of play and also its one level difference in the specific for Wizard. I am very sure this is the intention for the subclasses as I can vaguely recall something like that being written in the One D&D playtest UAs
Hi Chris thanks for the maths. Weapons like flametougues would still be good for "many attacks per round" builds. And if the higher AC of a shield keeps you in the fight longer that would increase your effective dpr
If you take advantage of the Flex weapons, you can use the dueling fighting style for 1d10+2+mod damage while holding a shield.That puts one-handed weapons above the 5e greatsword's base damage.
That's not the most appropriate comparison, because the Sword and Board has two resources (Fighting Style and Mastery) which the greatsword doesn't in your example. Once the 2h option gains their equivalent, the gap closes. A Greatsword with great weapon fighting style does 8.3 per hit, once factoring in the rerolls on 2d6, which is higher than greater than 5.5 + 2 = 7.5 of a Flex + Dueling, and then you'll also get Graze baseline, and that adds a few damage (miss chance * Mod). Is 0.8 damage per hit and between 3 and 5 damage on a miss worth more than +2 AC? Up to you, I can see merits to both options. Note that I've left out the Greatweapon Mastery feat, which adds more damage still, and a chance of bonus attacks, since it isn't as easy to add an equivalent to the Flex Duelist.
Chris, this is profound work, bravo! 🎉 - I think there might be a 2nd “caster” baseline worth looking at : Cleric… level 1-2 is a cantrip… lvl 3-4 is cantrip • spiritual weapon ( which required concentration in the playtest) so then level 5-7 is a cantrip + Spirit guardians…( assume 2? 2.5 foes for SG to hit every round) … now i don’t recall if cantrip damage gets increased in the playtest as in tasha’s at lvl 8 , but if it does the that gets added too… I know this isn’t single target, but it’s reasonably likely as a simple and ( we presume) effective build … Thoughts?
For my money, anything that lessens the strength of any one weapon, or weapon type, over any others is a great move. Hopefully the final implementation of the playtest rules into the final version of the 2024 ruleset will keep that dynamic going.
Chris, wouldn't the math be a bit wonky for crits; the same problem with mathing out sneak attack where you can account for crit damage by adding 5%, but you don't know which of those attacks will crit. Example: EB Hex Applied EB Miss Crit EB If the hex is only allowed to be applied once per turn, you would have to crit on the first attack that hit only for the hex damage to be applied on a crit. And there are some other situations where you would have advantage on later attacks (not in this scenario, but say a Way of the Open Hand monk or a Battlemaster knocking their target prone on the first attack to have advantage on the rest) where you would hold "once per turn" damage like the new Hex until after you have advantage on those attacks. Just something to think about, I don't know if it changes the model.
Should plot those graphs with something representing the 'max' damage line available too - average is reliable, but if you COULD end up doing substantially more that gets you an idea of how fight swinging the damage can by when you do get lucky, and how lucky you have to get. And the minimum possible may well be worth marking too, though most of the time that will still be zero. So for me I'd just make it simple and apply a shaded set of lines where the intensity of the shading is representing (though only roughly as exact isn't required) how likely that damage outcome is.
I think regardless of the math, the biggest unknown that we're all assuming is that the base hit rate is still going to be 60%. We simply don't know what the new monsters and enemies are going to look like. I wouldn't be surprised if the game devs bump up the hit rate to 70% or higher since spending turns just to miss is probably a universal feels-bad moment across all levels of play. Otherwise, very interesting observation that Hex applying only once per turn might not be as detrimental as we previously thought, especially with upscaled casting.
They have to maintain it to ensure backwards compatibility with published adventures. However, redesigning GWM and Sharpshooter already does a lot to increase the effective chance to hit. Removing the -5 penalty is obvious, but making them half-feats is what ultimately allows one to keep up with the fundamental math despite using feats.
The issue with most of these once per turn feature was that their very weak in dnd 5e, while here their now the baseline feature. However these 1 hit feature really buff classes, feature and abilities that only had 1 attack so now multiattack suffers since it now requires more of a 'make sure to hit 1 time' then 'try to hit a bunch of times'
For the chance to crit numbers there is one stipulation on the math I don't think you accounted for. You may have a high chance to crit, but you are going to use your hex damage on the first hit, which isn't necessarily your crit, so you would have to rework the crits for where it occurs on first hit vs happens on second or later hit as the damage potential is different especially as we scale number of dice. Maybe I just missed it though. Good video and thank you for working out the math.
The real issue with the baseline is that you have to upcast Hex. Now that is competing (in player perception) with spells of a higher level. While this has always been true to a certain extent it does make me thing that using those other spells may be the better comparisons. (Of course that sacrifices simplicity but still leaves me wondering)
Well, it already competed in terms of using your Concentration or precious Warlock spell slots. Chris never adviced to actually rely on Hex past level 4.
Another difference that id like to point out with pike vs morningstar & shield: the pike has another damage advantage in the extended reach. I understand that thats impossible to account for but its another offensive advantage vs the defensive style of the shield.
So should we be trying to multiclass a bunch of 1/turn abilities together since more attacks have diminishing returns? You can't hex and rage, but you could rage + sneak attack + smite + ranger hunters mark, right? It'd be a question of what levels you take in each. And of course the ability scores are super MAD. If 1/turn becomes the norm, multiclassing is going to have a whole new spin.
I did actually break a key in a lock (not mine but a friends) when I wasn't subscribed, now I am and didn't break any keys in locks, so since I'm subscribed the amount of keys I break reduced by 100%!
Small Math Error: The chance to crit on the new hex dmg (not the EB dmg) is a bit higher: The chance to hit is (with 4 attacks): 97%. The chance that the first hit is a crit is 5%/60%=5%/0.6=8.3% (we allready know that it is a hit, so not a rolled 1-8). We get here an average crit dmg of the hex of 0,97*8.3%, over 8.2% If you apply only one attack, it does not matter (5%/60%* 60% =critchance/hitchance *(chance of at least one hit) ) Basically, the chance to hit on the first attack is 5%, so in the old version its fine. But lets assume for the sake of argument an extrem situation: The warlock can attack 100 times in a round, but hits only on a 20 (crit). His chance to hit at leas once is 1-0,95^100=0.99=99%. But of course that is a crit, therefore the hex dmg is doubled. We get therefore 3d6*0.99*2 dmg from the hex.
I could be wrong but I think your math for the crit is slightly off because if you have 2 attacks, hit with the first and crit with the second then you wouldn't get the hex crit damage because it would have been used on the first hit.
I'm surprised people don't use Anydice more often for calculations, I could probably plug a lot of this in directly rather than trying to get a static number
This math for hex is slightly incorrect, because the crit math is wrong. Since the math is done after we know the attack hits, critting is actually a 1+(%to crit/% to hit) modifier. So instead of *1.05, @ 5th level the modifier should be *1.083.
While I appreciate the move to consistant damage having more of a stay, i.e. one off occurrences, I do worry that then any flurry or multi-attack build or style will have nothing. In an ideal world the consistency type would have a higher average while a frequency type would have a higher maximum. Looking at Hex changes is the greatest insight into this, both perform roughly the same but have different natures. The two can work and exist, but for that to happen I think they would need to change the value range a bit. Of course a larger range can host greater variety.
Chris, i would like to throw my hat into the ring and say that Fighter taking magic initiate Primal for hunters mark is the best new baseline. You cap at 4d10+4d6+20+(any once per turn effects ignoring action surge) or 5d6(scimmy)+5d6+25+(any once per turn effects ignoring action surge) if you go two weapon fighting.
For starters, I guess that Hunter's Mark will probably be a Ranger spell, rather than a Primal one once the next round of UAs goes out, and be invalid for Magic Initiate. But even if it is... I think that loses the "simplicity" factor which made the original Warlock baseline the gold standard. Remember, the baseline isn't supposed to be great damage, it's just supposed to be the OK damage that someone who's bringing other utility can do. I'm still in favor of Warlock baseline, that or very basic and vanilla Ranger or Paladin, since that's a middle-ground between full caster utility and the low-utility of a damage-focused melee. Average utility, average damage.
If you roll all Blasts at once, you would always add the Hex damage to a crit if it occurs. If you roll Blasts one at a time ( as you might do with regular attacks), you need to choose each time: do you add Hex damage or wait for the crit and risk losing the damage if you don't hit? Adding the damage boosts to cirits (as opposed to regular hits on the same turn) automatically assumes you know the results of all attacks on that turn, which may not be the way your table plays.
I do think it's somewhat worth considering how much of a drain on your resources new hex is vs old hex Old hex should *always* be active at maximum efficiency. Losing concentration, when it rarely happens, won't be massively impactful for the old warlock. Going off the 6 to 8 encounter per day metric, the new warlock will NOT be able to spend a 5th level spell slot every combat, or every other combat, because they will only have 2. Old warlock having upwards of 12 per day, due to the assumption of 2 short rests and 1 long rest per day (as per the short rests section in the dmg), will mean they can always get hex out, even if they lose concentration. As not-great as it is I do love spirit shroud for the high damage it outputs in situations like this where you're spending a high level slot, even if it'd require you to have a way to stay out of melee but within 10 feet of your target.
I think extra attacks are more important for those higher AC enemies. If you miss two attacks then you do no damage but hitting just once will carry the majority of damage. I wonder if the new optimization will be trying to collect these damage increases like barbarian with hex and other, once per turn damage increases
On the crit damage from new Hex, it's actually even more complicated, because your FIRST hit has to be a crit. This is due to the fact you'll be applying hex damage to the first attack that crits, since you don't know whether a subsequent attack will be a crit or not. Not a huge deal but worth noting. It's going to feel bad if your second hit is the one that crits.
As someone who plays along side a WIDE variety of optimizers and casual, I'm a bit curious not only for the variety of weapon choice, but also the damage floor. Linking damage to the class rather than feat choice seems important for that. Like Barbarian with Speedster feat, or fighter with Actor.
Hey, Chris. I had a discussion in the RUclips comments a while back and they pointed out that people calculating DPR usually leave out magic weapons and other buffs. At least for magic weapons D&D assumes that the martial classes especially do get access to magic weapons. Since many of the new features can only trigger once per turn, that means increasing chance to hit increases DPR for effects that can trigger multiple times in a larger scale than the ones that only trigger once, right? I would be interested to see a deeper dive on that. Magic +1/3 weapons for martials and stuff like Rod of the Pact Keeper for Warlock. How does that change the baseline? Do the changes to things like GWM and Hex actually lower the baseline when magic items are involved? Other stuff to account for would be stuff like Bless, but to me the magic items are a more important focus since not all parties use Bless.
Epic Boon of Irresistable Offense adds the amount of the score increased by the feat, which won't be the warlocks casting ability score, so I will be removing the Epic Boon of Irresistable Offense for level 20 baseline damage moving forward.
The 4.-- is not worth it for the Irresistible Offense Epic Boon .
@@zachschwartz8780 Yep, even using the wrong ability score it wasn't that much
I know it's still in a testing phase, but talk about lack luster for something that is supposed to be so Epic. Lol
I don't think Warlocks can even take the Epic Boon of Irresistable Offense anyway, because it's a Warrior/Expert exclusive.
LOL Treant's math use has always reminded me of someone who's never taken anything past high school lvl algebra...
It would be cool if shields had a weapon mastery so a sword and board character could use both on their turn, further closing the gap between that and two handed weapons.
Love this idea
As long as the gap being closed is not the damage one.
DPR is just one part of combat--the shield is great for its AC. The damage you don't take means the you can stay in the fight longer or your healer can do something else on their turn.
Add the option to hit your shield / drum on it or something similar and provoke one opponent to attack you.
You get +2 to ac
I’ve always wondered why I haven’t broken a key in a lock in the past few years. Now I know. Thanks Chris!
You can't argue with math like that.
Blind faith truly is a wonderful thing.
broken my keys recently even though I was subscribed.
50% chance to break key unsubscribed x0.05% critically do so while in a rush
vs
0.05 %chance whist subscribed + hex + no longer in a rush
means under the new rules AND being subscribed the chance of me being locked out of the house is mathematically superior by 13.75 (rounded)%.
Thank you Chris, my cost of cutting new keys means I can now buy a second house to hold all my unpainted miniatures in.
So fun fact about the new hex design, your crit chance is actually slightly higher than 5% if you have more than 1 beam since if you miss, you get to re-attempt to roll a crit. The difference is pretty minor but it scales inversely with your chance to hit (i.e. if you're more likely to miss then you're more likely to crit since hex only gets applied to hits).
60% Hit Chance - 5%, 7%, 7.8% and 8.12% respective crit chance for 1, 2, 3 and 4 beams
70% Hit Chance - 5%, 6.5%, 6.95%, 7.085%
50% Hit Chance - 5%, 7.5%, 8.75%, 9.375%
Ahhh, the power of math 😂🎉
Dang! I went straight to comment this, but you got the early vid headstart lol. Great explanation!
But if you hit with the first, apply hex, then crit with the second, you are missing on the crit for hex. I don't think you would not apply hex and "save" it for a crit.
@@asdad54 it’s not about not using hex until you crit, it’s about the fact that if you are hitting repeatedly, then the crit is calculated based on the chance that the first time you do hit is more likely to be a crit.
To illustrate: if you only hit on a 19 or 20, then you have a 5% chance to crit on any singular attack. BUT if you keep on swinging until you eventually hit, then the chances of that hit being a crit is not 5%, it is 50% because you either rolled a 19 or a 20.
Assuming you can crit on a spell attack.
The stability of 1/turn damage boosts is even more useful for builds that don't focus on damage, but want to still contribute effectively. IMO, that's a big part of the case for Rogue multiclassed with an extra attack class. It's not that Rogue damage is so amazing, but rather that with a couple tries at it, it's decent and reliable.
If I had a wishlist, it would be for a wider variety of thisntype of feature, so that different classes retain different feels and flavors, but benefit from similar reliability.
Exactly, it dramatically decreases the variance of your damage output from round to round. As long as you apply your 1/turn damage boost, your damage is respectable on all of your turns.
On the contrary, a GWM or Sharpshooter build will either do 0 damage on a turn or tons of damage.
As a DM, it's much easier to build an encounter when PCs do reliable damage (e.g. 1/turn damage with multiple attacks). With GWM and Sharpshooter, a "difficult" encounter can easily turn into either a TPK or a walk in the park depending on the PCs getting a streak of bad or good rolls respectively.
@@SortKaffe I think you can mitigate this by pointing this randomness out to the players to make sure at least not all of them play casino damage classes making encounters very risky, unless that is what they want.
My son played the playtest barbarian in a level 20 one-shot two weapon fighting maces and was keeping up respectfully with other melee members of the party, while debuffing enemies with weapon mastery
so now that's some metal drumming on enemy skulls I can get behind. Double goats to your son.
Knee-Breaker!
Interesting note: if you have three attacks with advantage you shouldn't apply hex to the first attack unless it was a crit.
Ah, the “when should I smite” conundrum rears its ugly head once more
This is super interesting, but it also seems like it's gonna make standardized damage calcs come with a whole bunch of more caveats.
If every attack in a round does roughly similar damage on hit, you don't really have to worry about the expected hit rate used nearly as much.
As long as you're using the same AC and magic item assumptions with the builds that are being compared, you're gonna get comparable results.
When a significant amount of damage per turn of many builds is tied up in "Hit at least once" conditions, how likely you are to actually hit with a single is actually going to change how those builds compare against ones that don't do that but makes more attacks per turn.
"What is the highest dpr build" might become a lot more dependent on how your GM stats their monsters and hands out items.
It's going to take awhile to get used to it.
Those all sounds like good things to me though.
@@agilemind6241 This wasn't a complaint, it was an observation. Going forward it's important to keep the implications in mind when consuming or creating guides.
That was already the case with the +10 dmg -5 to hit feats though. Those have different dpr numbers proportionally to other builds depending on the ac of the target. It's just that those builds were usually the best case at every number value just at different levels.
Okay, but that has a number of caveats. If the amount and magnitude of all riders added together eclipse the base weapon's damage die, the base weapon will just become irrelevant. People will just use a dagger because they still get +123465789 to their damage either way.
Would it not be much worse that whats going on now with XBE and PAM? Right now barbarians and paladins do the same thing, fighters and rangers do the same thing - attack as many times as possible with +10 damage. But there is a difference between those characters beyond "'where do I get another 1d4 damage from?".
With these changes, everyone would do the same thing - attack as many times as possible to apply +1d4 damage 1/turn effects, with the only source of difference being where those effects originate from. Would there be virtually any difference between those characters doing different things? Would the things even be different at all? Hell, a sorcerer will just quicken enlarge and booming blade with a dagger,
At first I also wasn't a fan of the once-per-turn changes, but after playing with some of my current characters that have those features (such as the old Protector Aasimar) I think this is ultimately a good change for the game. It's a little premature to critique that it's one more thing to track and such. I think once people actually play with it they'll understand its advantages. Anyone who's experienced with Rogues probably understands this innately.
What it's effectively doing is raising the floor of your potential DPR while the ceiling remains the same. Instead of your damage being split 50/50 between two attacks, the first attack that hits does 75% (made up number) of your potential damage; this makes missing with one attack not feel as bad.
Will it feel a little bad when you crit on the second attack and not the first? Sure. But it'll also feel amazing when you crit on the first attack.
This also makes concentration checks against enemy spellcasters more potent when you have so much damage baked into the first attack that hits.
It slightly reduces the ceiling as well, but makes it more likely to reach the ceiling than using the old GWM or Sharpshooter feats. Nonetheless, I find it healthy for the game that damage is less swingy.
The thing that made me the happiest in play testing was how much more viable it is to play with different weapon combinations.
We had each player use a different weapon set-up (Non-pole-arm two handed weapons, pole-arms, sword and board, dual wielding, and non-hand crossbow ranged weapons). Each had advantages in certain areas but nothing that made one of them stand out as being definitely better than the other players. Definitely a huge improvement over what I normally see where 99% of what I see are either a hand-crossbows, a glaive, or a rapier.
Me too. It's not random I chose to compare morningstar and shield with barbarian - I playtested that combo recently (video is coming on results of that)
I do think that there’s something to be said for how much DPR dominates discussions for a lot of builds in D&D. Kinda shows how much the design of the game could maybe use a facelift for how encounters and scaling would work.
Depends on where you look tbh, there's enough spaces where people talk about more fancy stuff than pure DPR
DPR simply is the best for videos like this, because you can measure it
How do you measure the average impact of a Wall of Force? Of running backwards at full speed with Spirit Guardians on? Of summoning flying creatures for your party to ride on?
On the other hand, almost everything has an AC and HP
It isn't really the design of the game that has to change for that, just the discussion (Not that the rules are in any way so perfect they should not be messed with). DPR is always going to come into the conversation, partly as it is more analysis ready, and a very useful measure for comparing the primary damage dealing builds. However there is so much that can have huge impact but does nothing for DPR dealt, or nothing for that PC's DPR. But that then gets rather more subjective, as in the Teir List scores he's done for all the various species of D&D or rather more situational even when you can easily crunch some numbers. A great healing ability/skill for instance doesn't factor into DPR at all, and when its needed is probably worth way more than another turn worth of damage, even great damage. However healing can only be useful when you actually need to heal in combat, does nothing at all otherwise.
Switching from Morning Star to Long Sword moves the 1H + Shield to 39 DPR or so. You'd get 0.92 extra damage per attack.
Is that because of the Flex property?
@@Gearhead966 yes, so you'd lose Sap. Flex + Shield is probably better for a fighter so you can use Shield Master on your first attack to knock opponents prone to give you advantage on you subsequent attacks though.
Hex's new design is actually nice with the old Pact Magic. Bring that back, remove concentration for warlocks like hunters mark for rangers and have the curse side of the spell affect a saving throw instead of ability check and its genuinely a good class feature to keep using throughout the whole campain
Yeah, but for players committed to concentrating on a 5th level hex in the old system, i think the change isn't that big? Apart from there being much better uses for your concentration, especially with the new spell list
Hey! Btw, when calculating crits, the chances of hex being a crit are actually not 5%! Not very intuitive, but if you already accounted for the chance to miss, the crit must be calculated on the % of hits that become crits. To illustrate: if you can only hit on a 19, then technically there is a 5% chance to crit, but if you are swinging until you hit, then your hits have a 50% chance to be crits, since you only hit on a 19 or 20. Might help boost the numbers on new hex, since even though you hit 98% of the time, the first hit where you apply hex has a greater than 5% chance to be a critical! Great vid and I shake your virtual mathematician hand good sir!
It's interesting to see that the new hex out damages the old hex on paper, but one thing the graph doesn't show you is how much damage you might be losing to overkill. Bigger, once per turn damage features are going to lose more damage in this way than smaller multiple per turn damage boosts. Old hex on 2 different enemies when the 1st enemy dies on the 1st hit might change how it feels when used in play.
I think the thing to note is that simply going PAM and GWM is not the most optimized melee damage route now. People will be working in DW for the double draw/stow (and incidental d8 damage die). Weapon juggling between a polearm and a d8 one hander and scimitar is going to be the new normal if the changes to the attack action aren’t touched. This should lead to a bigger gulf between sword and board and same class min/maxed for damage.
Adding multiple '1 per turn' options will become the new opti for 5.5 for sure. A smite, sneak attack, frenzy (or something), etc all being tossed on at once.
One interesting side effect of the new hex is that it is now almost as good as good for bladelocks as it is for blastlocks.
The reason why it still feels nerfed is that you have to upcast it to do the damage you used to do. Sure, pact slots were already upcasting it automatically, but that's not the only way to cast hex. If you got hex from your race (hello hexblood) or from a feat, or your capstone (playtest warlock) you could still benefit from that 1st level casting. It was a waste of concentration if you had any real spells, but it was still a viable option. Now all those uses are gone.
Maybe hex should be a cantrip and scale automatically like other cantrips? And maybe not require concentration? Then I think it could actually be a warlock stable, and hexbloods main feature wouldn't be all useless.
I did the math for someone and removing concentration is too good because of other spells that can stack (example I used to show it was blade of disaster)
Been awhile since I looked at the altered Hex, does it still last 8 and 24 hours with the Up cast? Otherwise you are burning more resources for essentially the same effect. The new version also makes it equally useful with firebolt/chill touch as it does with EB so when you get to have things that boost your to hit you will do more with other spells than you will EB.
The playtest added an invocation that gave you an advantage on concentration checks to maintain hex. In my survey I recommended more invocations to improve hex if they really want to make it a staple Warlock spell that people will use consistently.
I suggested making it a cantrip that scaled with Warlock levels from 1d6 to 4d6,
It would play into Warlock's schtick of doing resourceless damage through the day, and would make the half caster Warlock (Celestial for the healing) bearable to me.
@@freman007 the only issue I see with that is it either needs a duration (if they stick with 1hour it would work) or it acts like the Smite spells and as part of the casting you also cast EB. (I like this less as it essentially makes EB little more than a cantrip you stick on your warlock to use hex.)
This is actually so cool to see! I actually think this convinces me of how great “once per turn” damage really is. I’ve been pretty skeptical of it myself prior, but I’m definitely reevaluating my opinion. This also makes me think that this was probably the design intent with One D&D moving heavily toward OPT damage formats. Just goes to show you how important communicating your design intent is. I imagine if WotC attached a synopsis about this to UA, it would have had significantly greater reception.
I'm not sure if this was the design intent or a happy accident, but I'll take it either way
After subscribing to this channel, i noticed significant % improvement of quality of life, repeated with every time of watching, liking, and commenting on another video
The dopeness of the epic boon doesn't seem to be about average damage to me, but more so the ability to add that 22 damage on top of a crit and get a huge amount of damage in one hit.
I'm not good with math so this actually helped me to understand how gathering all that "extra damage" as once per turn actually makes it scale higher than once per attack (had the same problem as you thinking that damage was a linear progression and never considered how missing affected the extra damage total per round lol.)
Glad to hear it!
I love science, but I don't speak its language.
Thank you for these breakdowns. I know enough math to know I don't quite understand how the calculations actually work, but seeing the numbers broken down like this it still intensely interesting. I'm still the kind of player (and GM) who picks "this looks cool/fun/interesting/thematically or conceptually appropriate" over "this is mathematically proven to be superior," but I appreciate seeing not only that the revisions are closing the gaps between "flavorful" choice and "optimized" ones, but HOW they're doing that and how big those gaps actually are.
Awesome work.
I would like to add that for once per turn vs on every hit, the chance to hit matters a lot. While I assume that the 60% chance to hit is taken as some average, it does significantly affect the outcome of the calculation.
Specifically for Hex:
(1) 2d6 on the first hit vs (2) 1d6 per hit (with 3 beams).
Say our chance to hit is X (for example X=0.2 would be a 20% chance to hit).
(1):
With 3 attacks our change to miss all attacks is (1-X)^3, and so our chance to hit at least once is 1 - (1-X)^3
With a 5% chance to crit (ignoring whether or not that's even possible in oneD&D), we get an average Hex damage of:
2d6 * (1 - (1-X)^3 + 0.05) = 7 * (1 - (1-X)^3 + 0.05)
(2):
With three attacks our change to hit an attack is X and for each attack we have a 5% chance to crit. We gat an average Hex damage of:
3 * 1d6 * (X + 0.05) = 10.5 * (X + 0.05)
Using that we can solve for X (find the chance to hit where 1d6 over multiple hits is equal to 2d6 on the first hit)
7 * (1 - (1-X)^3 + 0.05) = 10.5 * (X + 0.05)
The solutions to this equation (when plugged into WolframAlpha) are:
X1 = 0.0193126
X2 = 0.60791
X3 = 2.37278
X1 and X3 are irrelivent (since we can't go above 1 or below 0.05 (since at 0 both would always miss)).
--------------------------------
*So (for 11th to 16th level) between 0 to 60% chance to hit the "once per turn" is more effective, while above 65% the "once each hit" is better!*
--------------------------------
We can also do this for 3d6 on the first hit vs 1d6 per hit with 4 beams
(1): average Hex damage: 3d6 * (1 - (1-X)^4 + 0.05)
(2): 4 * 1d6 * (X + 0.05)
This has two real solutions at X = 0.00634006 (irrelivant) and X = 0.73373
--------------------------------
*So (for 17 to 20th level) between 0 to 70% chance to hit the "once per turn" is more effective, while from 75% the "once each hit" is better.*
Very interesting stuff!
The conclusion is dead on: We will see once-per-turn damage being undervalued until we all get used to the new paradigm (assuming it is here to stay).
I was pleasantly surprised by the math. It turns out those guys at WotC just might be pretty good at this game-design thing.
lets not get ahead of ourselves with that last part. They still designed both the Champion and the Echo Knight as though they're remotely equal to eachother.
@@anachronity9002 😄 True.
@@anachronity9002 WOTC: "Power Creep isn't significant". :: Peace and Twilight Clerics enter the chat.
@@Psuedo-Nim
Banned at my table. Most Tasha's classes are, except Mercy Monk.
@@freman007 Twilight is fixable and worth fixing. Peace Domain..abilities just don't fit peace. I went with the Unity US version instead.
The day I subscribed to this channel I installed an electronic lock with a keypad instead of a physical key. I can attest that subscribing to this channel 100% correlates with key stability.
This is also surprising to me.. but then again, I pretty much never assume that the warlock is wasting their highest slot on Hex :)
Nothing hurts my soul more than seeing someone advocating some white room multiclass monstrosity with the assumption that you'll be casting Hex at level 11+. Hex and Hunter's Mark have people losing their minds over 3 damage per attack on average. I get that it's tough to quantify other party members and the ability to inflict status conditions, but there's so many better spells.
Wow. I’m pretty excited to hear that the damage is keeping up with expectations based on 5e.
Very interesting, but you should also consider that the old lock had to use a level 1 spell (via sorcerer dip or with a longer duration if with an high level lock slot) while the new one is forced to use a level 3/5 slot to keep the baseline damage high enough
This is worse because old Warlock at middle levels could short rest to recover the spell slot and still potentially have Hex up all day. It’s a much larger investment.
Man, it's almost as if the designers have been working on these fixes for a while and found something ing that works!
I did the warlock maths like a month ago, and not only did I come to the exact same conclusion as you did with the same maths, but I realised that the boon of irresistible offence cannot be taken by anyone with a warlock level by level 20, as you would need a level in fighter or monk or barbarian or bard or ranger or rogue (expert or warrior epic boon), and you can't do that because your straight classed
and it's just as well because you're playing a caster, you aren't supposed to have that extra 4.18 dpr
still, 41.82 dpr at level 20 is higher than it was at level 19, and definitely higher than in 5e
but the big difference is consistency, you are doing on average more consistent damage, and this is actually really good because usually you end up having less moments where you almost killed someone but not quite because you only hit one of your 2 attacks, this front-loads the damage such that you actually get the full value of hex every single turn, instead of just some of it whenever it feels like it
this is good game design because now when you give a DPR number for hex, it will be really precise, and only very rarely will it do more or less than that amount, so it is easy to calculate if it is worth using mentally, instead of adding some wierd multiplier that depends on your total (and somehow not your warlock) level
basically all weapons now have some viability, their own strengths and weaknesses, this is much more fun than a game where only two different weapons are viable, hand crossbow and glaive
also, it lets the devs use more bonus action skills, because the extra attack from these feats always eats a bonus action, well guess what, now you can use your orkish bonus action to charge and gain some temp hp or whatever, and still be doing more damage than the old class did *with* their bonus action
the bonus action, is now no longer a manditory part of your damage output, it is now a bonus that you use to add some limited use abilities like second wind, which used to be useless in combat because you needed that BA for damage
The very minor change to game design is so darn powerful and it allows for the entire game to be explored in so many new ways that actually fulfill the fantasy, I mean fighters didn't feel like the master of all weapons exactly did they? now each day you can use a whole different set of weapons as a generalist, or you can specialise in any specific weapon, and combined with the newish concept of being able to pick any race on any class, and now any background? now you can pick whatever background you want, whatever class or (or combinationbof classes if you wanted wizard/warlock as bad as I did to be viable) and whatever race you want,
and if you stick to a single class, and bump your ability score, and you use your basic class abilities, you won't feel useless at the table
I mean they literally made non-feat taking tables viable, and made feat taking tables less gatekept by smurfs and goblins
It is rediculous that the community would see all of this and take a pessimistic stance as if Wotc hates you and your mom and your sister and your... you get the point,
in 5e I honestly felt like I couldn't really try the martial classes, because I felt bad that any martial I made would basically overshadow all of the martials my friends have all made, so I stuck with casters, that way I can overshadow them without them even realising I contributed at all, in fact I mostly get made fun of for being one of the weakest party members, and I like it like that
but yeah I mean, the horror story that made Treantmonk make the god wizard just, I honestly have been afraid to play martials because of stuff like that, but the martial/martial divide is going away and literally noone else is talking about it... Makes me sad hungry, hangry
The key lock graph being 20% and 70% is a nice touch.
If we’re upcasting Hex, you also have to consider other spell options for traditional Warlock, such as Spirit Shroud or Shadow of Moil.
Once per turn damage was probably done as a way to speed up combat, if you hit it's applied, if you don't it's not, and it only need to be rolled and calculated once per round, instead of how many times did I hit, and how many d6 do I add? The fact that it is also comprable if not better damage that applied to each attack is a welcome surprise.
More likely, the design goal is to decrease the variance of damage outputs by making the bulk of your damage more reliable.
As Chris points out in the video, players can actually find it rather confusing that each attack doesn't use the same number of dice for damage. They might either forget to apply it at all or accidentally apply it twice.
Thinking about the implications of more once per turn things, an Arcane Trickster with a couple levels of Warlock or vise versa could really make the burst of sneak attack and new Hex pretty insane with some late game scaling
Perhaps, it's worth investigating
There's one thing worth considering when talking about average DPR with once per turn effects vs. consistent damage. If average DPR is equal between the two scenarios but there are multiple enemies, it's very likely that the effective DPR of the consistent damage option will be higher. That's because the once-per-turn damage is likely to pass an enemy's HP by a greater margin. The consistent damage dealer can spread their damage around to effectively do more damage.
As a very contrived & extreme example, say there are 3 enemies each with 15hp. For simplicity, assume 100% chance to hit. Suppose the once-per-turn damage dealer gets one attack that does 60 damage, while the consitent damage dealer has 3 attacks that each do 20 damage.
The consistent hitter will be able to kill all 3 enemies and do 45 damage in the process. The one-big-hitter will do 15 total damage and only kill one enemy. Even though their average DPR against an infinite health pool is equal, the consistent damage dealer is effectively much stronger.
Super interesting. I hope this wasn't just an accident and that they continue to make adjustments like this that make more weapon options viable.
great video, very informative!
another thing to point out here: 5e barbarian still did less damage than the OneD&D version, especially when comparing weapon and shield build.
5e GWM PAM: 34.28 / oneD&D GWM PAM: 43.83
5e longsword shield: 23.65 / morningstar shield: 40.2
the new barbarian with just morningstar and shield even does more damage than old gwm pam build, which goes against some stuff i've heard about new martials having a lower damage ceiling (at least when analysing this kind of barbarian build)
it is kind of too bad that Action Surge is even more nerfed than I thought when considering this
Feels like a good opportunity for a comment on the survey. I liked the addition of a limitation to focus AS on "fighter-type" actions, but now I'm going to suggest that they improve the feature by adding language that treats an AS attack action as its own "turn" w/r/t once per turn damage (lots of ways to phrase it in a rule, but that would be the result).
Just take magic initiate primal for hunters mark. It still goes of number of attacks. If you really want to nova then do a 1 level dip and take divine instead for the paladin version now you add 1d6 and 1d4 to every hit.
It's best to use AS on a turn where you miss all your attacks now, since you can get that 1/turn damage from it.
@@Razdasoldier problem is hunter's mark has same changes as Hex, and Divine favor lasts only for 1 min, Hex/Hunter's mark last for 1 hour
I think it's still strong tho.
Just because I haven't seen anyone else comment - There's one benefit of the Shield-Morning star weapon choice that was never mentioned! It leaves your bonus action free for.... Stuff! So the trade is then 18% DPR for +2 AC AND a bonus action. Want a telekinetic barb? Much more viable now.
It would be great to see them have some subclasses that add damage once per turn and others that add damage to every attack. That might give the subclasses more unique flavour.
Flavour is free, but it seems they're trying to make damage more reliable and less swingy in general.
To be fair, we knew that Zealot barbarian was Kinda crazy as it added damage once per turn and it came out a few years ago... in addition 5 levels of a martial for a rogue was usually wanted by most rogues I played with before level 15
If you want to talk about must-have feats, I think Weapon Master is the new feat tax for any martial who doesn’t already get it.
I think this is a pretty good take. I've seen others wonder why to do bladelock when you get use eldritch blast, and the answer is weapon mastery.
I don't mind that tax. Barbarians and Fighters, the pure martials, are the ones who get it for free. Rangers and Paladins get spells, and should be lower in damage. If they need to get Weapon Mastery to catch up, I think that's a feature not a bug.
@@thebitterfig9903 but the point is that a tax isn’t a fun way to balance things. ANY ability that’s sufficiently superior to other options, such that most, if not all, optimized builds will take it, serves to reduce choice, not increase it. If Paladins and Rangers are strong enough without weapon mastery, then just leave that feat out, and if they’re not, then give it to them without a feat.
@@theresnoracelikegnome I think that's a really slippery slope, and the game shouldn't work that way. If a fighter wants spells for utility, they have to multiclass into something else, or devote feats to it, and that's fair. It's not unfair to ask characters with spells to have to choose to either invest resources into combat, or to let their combat be a bit worse.
If Rangers and Paladins do equal damage to Fighters and Barbarians, have equal combat utility from weapon mastery, but also gain spells, that invalidates the fundamental tradeoff of resource-intensive spells vs low-resource-cost damage. Martials do more damage than a Wizard with a cantrip round after round, but a Wizard with an appropriately leveled spell does something really powerful once. That's the fundamental tradeoff in D&D.
Rangers and Paladins are half-casters. They don't have the healing or control of a full Druid or Cleric, but way more than a fighter. In exchange, they do noticeably more damage than a 50%/50% multiclass of Fighter with Druid or Cleric. At least they get to that damage at much lower levels, since they don't delay extra attack. There's some level of damage which would be too low, but a pure Fighter has to be a better damage dealer, a better archer than a Ranger. There have to be trade-offs, or else the Fighter is permanently the un-optimized class.
If a Paladin throws all their spell slots into damage with Smites, I'm glad for them to do damage roughly equal to a Barbarian or Fighter. But if they don't, their damage should be noticeably lower, since they get to do all sorts of powerful support things with their spell slots. But if a Paladin matches a Barbarian without smiting, there's literally no reason to play a Martial class at all, and that's far worse than a Paladin having to pay a tax.
As I said, any "tax" is a feature not a bug.
@@thebitterfig9903 I wish I could upvote this 100 times.
So tired of the 'tax' and 'punishment' rhetoric. Choosing the option you like best is not a tax.
Yes, this was really the video I wanted to see! I was looking forward to seeing you do the math for the new Hex + Eb and I am surprised with the result! It's much closer to the 5e one then I would have thought! That is a good thing I guess.
It was closer than I thought as well, though it's still worth noting that the new warlock must upcast to get these numbers, which is a higher resource cost when you don't have pact magic.
@@TreantmonksTemple true, and the old upcasted Hex also gave you the opportunity to cast it before a short rest (on a bug or something in your bag) and then restore the spellslot in the short rest. So its much more expensive now.
Interesting. It's nice to see that the game designers managed to remove the obligatory feats and weapon selections.
I think your last point was the most important. I hope that the game does move toward more viable options like you mentioned despite the negative community reactions to many changes that would bring more options to the game.
Two weapon fighting is the best fighting style for a barbarian in 1 d&d the additional attack that doesn't require a bonus action that still gives rage damage helps incentivize the vision of a dual battle axe-wielding maniac
I'd love to see a video we're you do this level of a brake down for all the different classes (no multi classing) to see what each one would be like and then how they compare to each other.
IMO, I think a character focusing on damage doing 15-20% more than another character feels good. The sword and board barb likely made the choice early on that it wanted to provide more utility than damage, and the difference between them is the perfect amount to justify going with one over the other.
The thing I still want to see broken down is whether polearms do more damage than other great weapons, since I deeply feel they shouldn't. Extra reach is a benefit, and it should come with a damage penalty, period. Ideally, non-reach great weapons would do about 5%-10% more damage than reach ones. To go a step further, I'd love to see dual wielding be on par damage-wise with 2h non-reach weapons. Those are the two options which limit themselves to a 5-foot reach, and also give up any defensive benefits of a shield.
Personally, I kinda think sword and board should do the same damage as 2h reach. I guess I value +2 AC about as highly as 10 foot reach (which also makes opportunity attacks more frequently), but I'd be open to persuasion on their relative strengths.
That's fair and makes sense since both the reach and One hand property are defensive styles.
I always felt like the choice of Hex+Eldritch Blast as the baseline had a lot to do with it being so attainable. All you need is 2 levels of warlock, and then it doesn't matter if you take the other 18 levels in Chipmunk Bloodline Sorcerer or College of Easy Listening Bard, you can still hit the baseline. Now that Eldritch Blast is going to scale with warlock level (instead of character level), I'm not sure whether Hex+Eldritch Blast still makes sense as the consensus "baseline."
I believe the original intent of the baseline was to set an expectation of what damage an average casual joe or a newer player would achieve, as to compare and show calculable results of an optimized character. I don't think it had to do with attainability, but I do like that we will have more variance in builds instead of "Warlock 2/ Anything Else x". Looking forward to the new edition
@@BlueFoxXT The changes are good, I just don't know if the new warlock should automatically be considered "the baseline" just because the old warlock was.
@@lenny-822 That is fair, I was thinking along the same lines before I watched the video. Perhaps the new baseline should be a ranger who concentrates on hunter's mark and just raises Dex with a longbow? Similar mindset, but may not be necessary as Treant's math seems to indicate a similar baseline as 5e anyway
The number of attacks is still relevant as it’s the main cause of upping your chance to deliver your big extra damage
I was excited to see the chart had to wait twelve minutes for it but worth it.
Tiny critique:
This maths assumes that the one time you use hex on a critical hit will always be the only time on a turn you use it.
It could be that you use hex on a hit you didn’t crit on only to crit next hit.
My take on once a turn damage is it sometimes just feels really wrong. Like, consider giants might. "You're bigger, so you get an extra d6, but only once a turn, for reasons"
Great video, as always!
Yay! I can cast Hex as a 5th level spell (UP-CAST BY 4 LEVELS) to do 3.88 more damage each turn! The way it is now makes it a terrible use of a 3rd or 5th level slot at mid to high levels and nearly worthless for something like a fighter with Magic Initiate.
This isn't new. When the 5e warlock gets 5th level casting with pact slots, hex isn't your best option for those slots (or your concentration for that matter).
@@TreantmonksTemple Yeah, but if you want to keep using Hex, you can do something like take a level or a few of sorcerer to get a some 1st level slots so you can use them for minor battles and save your 5th levels for big battles. I guess as a long time optimizer, the baseline build, though consistently simple, does in retrospect seem very weak.
Having charger as a pure dmg add on needs to be revised somewhere. Sure we can assume that you can backup and go back in for the bonus dmg but first of you would open up to alot of opportunity attacks and you might not get it off in difficult terrain
It’s important to note that the new warlock will be able to cast hex at levels 3 and 4 and obviously at level 5 much less often than the old one could. At level 20 new warlock gets 2 castings per long rest, while the old one had 4 per short rest! I just wanted to say that it was worth mentioning, if we consider 8 encounters in 1 short rest in between, then the old warlock is fine. The new one? Well, only 2 combats with optimal hex, and it goes down afterwards
This is some great news! Makes me even more excited for Martials in One D&D! Do you think the developers deliberately did this change in features to close the gap, or is this just an incidental outcome of their desire to simplify "add damage" features to once per turn?
I'm not sure, it's very possibly a happy accident
Very interesting math on the once per turn effect! Certainly for anyone who can get reliable advantage that 3rd attack becomes much less valuable. I'd be interested to see how it differs for a character who doesn't have advantage though; my instinct is that extra chance to apply the big once per turn boost is valuable enough to make the polearm/hand xbow option very strong. Though obv nowhere near as much as it is now.
But... a 1/turn attack, at advantage, with Elven Accuracy, would yield nearly the same result. This would result in a lot of builds becoming viable, if not optimal, and the gaps between them becoming narrower.
Without diving into the math yet, i guess that advantage will mostly benefit builds that try to work with either a single attack or a lot of attacks - the quadruple EB will profit more from it than the once per turn effect if the chance to proc the latter already is decent (like with a second attack or with a familiars help action)
overall, the point Treantmonk discussed in this video will probably outweigh that in its impact on build diversity though, since you need to stack multiple things on top if each other to make a noticable difference
@@derimperator3847 single attack isn't something you CHOOSE. It's something you're stuck with when choosing other things. This is exactly why most single class full casters don't use weapon attacks much.
A 1/turn burst damage on these classes is often enough to help, but still leave them far behind their martial teammates. Adding Advantage to the equation significantly increases their averages, and Elven Accuracy even more. They're probably never going to match their martial teammates, but will perform well enough that weapon use isn't a wasted effort (vs cantrips that scale).
Ever since I subscribed to Treantmonk's Temple, I have not broken a single key. Not in the lock, not anywhere else. It just works.
I also have not:
- Been stung by a potato
- Been abducted by the adductor machine in the gym.
- Be abducted by the abductor machine in the gym.
- Been to the gym enough to get abducted.
Sword Bard and Tempest Clerics are squealing with joy.
I think applying all of our damage dealing features to one attack does that: we used to increase damage of our attacks and increase the number of attacks to increase damage. Now we want to get more attacks so we increase the chance to do use damage feature.
For berserker barbarian it should work very well. Imagine you add 1d6 to all of your reckless attacks instead of doing 2d6 to one of them. With advantage the second version can outpace the first one. If you are interested, you can easily do math here yourself. There you can also find interesting that it still heavily dependent on the attack “base” damage without this feature and here all this new interesting weapons comes.
How to optimize damage: Bladesinger since you only need 1 attack to trigger the once per turn effects and you can do a spell to trigger and spell once per turn effects.
Sure, One DnD or new 5e or 5.24 is supposedly backwards compatible, but bladesinger wasn't in the 2014 PHB so who knows if we will be seeing it return to the new version of the game. I love the subclass, but I worry we may lose it, along with several others, in the coming revisions to the books.
@PatRiot-le7rd I feel like most tasha's subclasses will be pretty backward compatible, especially the the bladesinger
@@blackpeoplestorytime802 I mean, maybe. Especially considering it has been revised before. And although it's no Gloomstalker Ranger or Twilight Domain Cleric, it's pretty strong. Still, it would seem weird/unfair to be able to pick Bladesinger as your subclass at level 2 when everybody else is picking their subclass at level 3.
@@PatRiot-le7rd just change the level you get it the features at to what is says in the class table. The features come all in the same tiers of play and also its one level difference in the specific for Wizard. I am very sure this is the intention for the subclasses as I can vaguely recall something like that being written in the One D&D playtest UAs
Hi Chris thanks for the maths. Weapons like flametougues would still be good for "many attacks per round" builds. And if the higher AC of a shield keeps you in the fight longer that would increase your effective dpr
If you take advantage of the Flex weapons, you can use the dueling fighting style for 1d10+2+mod damage while holding a shield.That puts one-handed weapons above the 5e greatsword's base damage.
That's not the most appropriate comparison, because the Sword and Board has two resources (Fighting Style and Mastery) which the greatsword doesn't in your example. Once the 2h option gains their equivalent, the gap closes. A Greatsword with great weapon fighting style does 8.3 per hit, once factoring in the rerolls on 2d6, which is higher than greater than 5.5 + 2 = 7.5 of a Flex + Dueling, and then you'll also get Graze baseline, and that adds a few damage (miss chance * Mod). Is 0.8 damage per hit and between 3 and 5 damage on a miss worth more than +2 AC? Up to you, I can see merits to both options.
Note that I've left out the Greatweapon Mastery feat, which adds more damage still, and a chance of bonus attacks, since it isn't as easy to add an equivalent to the Flex Duelist.
I DID find this interesting! Thank you!
I love these subscribe percentage bits. Good add 😂
Chris, this is profound work, bravo! 🎉 - I think there might be a 2nd “caster” baseline worth looking at : Cleric… level 1-2 is a cantrip… lvl 3-4 is cantrip • spiritual weapon ( which required concentration in the playtest) so then level 5-7 is a cantrip + Spirit guardians…( assume 2? 2.5 foes for SG to hit every round) … now i don’t recall if cantrip damage gets increased in the playtest as in tasha’s at lvl 8 , but if it does the that gets added too… I know this isn’t single target, but it’s reasonably likely as a simple
and ( we presume) effective build … Thoughts?
That's definitely another possibility for baseline as the cleric strategy you outlined is very much become the standard.
@@TreantmonksTemple Might make a good vid… just saying ( and hoping)
This video is a masterpiece
For my money, anything that lessens the strength of any one weapon, or weapon type, over any others is a great move. Hopefully the final implementation of the playtest rules into the final version of the 2024 ruleset will keep that dynamic going.
Chris, wouldn't the math be a bit wonky for crits; the same problem with mathing out sneak attack where you can account for crit damage by adding 5%, but you don't know which of those attacks will crit. Example:
EB Hex Applied
EB
Miss
Crit EB
If the hex is only allowed to be applied once per turn, you would have to crit on the first attack that hit only for the hex damage to be applied on a crit. And there are some other situations where you would have advantage on later attacks (not in this scenario, but say a Way of the Open Hand monk or a Battlemaster knocking their target prone on the first attack to have advantage on the rest) where you would hold "once per turn" damage like the new Hex until after you have advantage on those attacks. Just something to think about, I don't know if it changes the model.
Reminder that it was Chevy Chase's understanding _there would be no math_
Can spells crit in OneD&D? I remember them being relegated to weapon and unarmed strikes in the first playtest - were they reintroduced at some point?
I totally forgot about that rule.
That was abandoned, so at least currently, spells can crit.
@@TreantmonksTemple oh good, that was a terrible rule. Now paladins need to be able to cast a spell and smite on the same turn.
Should plot those graphs with something representing the 'max' damage line available too - average is reliable, but if you COULD end up doing substantially more that gets you an idea of how fight swinging the damage can by when you do get lucky, and how lucky you have to get. And the minimum possible may well be worth marking too, though most of the time that will still be zero.
So for me I'd just make it simple and apply a shaded set of lines where the intensity of the shading is representing (though only roughly as exact isn't required) how likely that damage outcome is.
This certainly seems promising.
I think regardless of the math, the biggest unknown that we're all assuming is that the base hit rate is still going to be 60%. We simply don't know what the new monsters and enemies are going to look like. I wouldn't be surprised if the game devs bump up the hit rate to 70% or higher since spending turns just to miss is probably a universal feels-bad moment across all levels of play. Otherwise, very interesting observation that Hex applying only once per turn might not be as detrimental as we previously thought, especially with upscaled casting.
They have to maintain it to ensure backwards compatibility with published adventures.
However, redesigning GWM and Sharpshooter already does a lot to increase the effective chance to hit. Removing the -5 penalty is obvious, but making them half-feats is what ultimately allows one to keep up with the fundamental math despite using feats.
Thanks Chris
The issue with most of these once per turn feature was that their very weak in dnd 5e, while here their now the baseline feature.
However these 1 hit feature really buff classes, feature and abilities that only had 1 attack so now multiattack suffers since it now requires more of a 'make sure to hit 1 time' then 'try to hit a bunch of times'
For the chance to crit numbers there is one stipulation on the math I don't think you accounted for. You may have a high chance to crit, but you are going to use your hex damage on the first hit, which isn't necessarily your crit, so you would have to rework the crits for where it occurs on first hit vs happens on second or later hit as the damage potential is different especially as we scale number of dice. Maybe I just missed it though. Good video and thank you for working out the math.
I think you're right. The math for that is probably beyond my ability, but I don't think it would make much difference.
The real issue with the baseline is that you have to upcast Hex. Now that is competing (in player perception) with spells of a higher level. While this has always been true to a certain extent it does make me thing that using those other spells may be the better comparisons.
(Of course that sacrifices simplicity but still leaves me wondering)
Well, it already competed in terms of using your Concentration or precious Warlock spell slots. Chris never adviced to actually rely on Hex past level 4.
Another difference that id like to point out with pike vs morningstar & shield: the pike has another damage advantage in the extended reach. I understand that thats impossible to account for but its another offensive advantage vs the defensive style of the shield.
So should we be trying to multiclass a bunch of 1/turn abilities together since more attacks have diminishing returns? You can't hex and rage, but you could rage + sneak attack + smite + ranger hunters mark, right? It'd be a question of what levels you take in each. And of course the ability scores are super MAD. If 1/turn becomes the norm, multiclassing is going to have a whole new spin.
I did actually break a key in a lock (not mine but a friends) when I wasn't subscribed, now I am and didn't break any keys in locks, so since I'm subscribed the amount of keys I break reduced by 100%!
Small Math Error:
The chance to crit on the new hex dmg (not the EB dmg) is a bit higher:
The chance to hit is (with 4 attacks): 97%. The chance that the first hit is a crit is 5%/60%=5%/0.6=8.3% (we allready know that it is a hit, so not a rolled 1-8).
We get here an average crit dmg of the hex of 0,97*8.3%, over 8.2%
If you apply only one attack, it does not matter (5%/60%* 60% =critchance/hitchance *(chance of at least one hit) )
Basically, the chance to hit on the first attack is 5%, so in the old version its fine. But lets assume for the sake of argument an extrem situation:
The warlock can attack 100 times in a round, but hits only on a 20 (crit). His chance to hit at leas once is 1-0,95^100=0.99=99%. But of course that is a crit, therefore the hex dmg is doubled. We get therefore 3d6*0.99*2 dmg from the hex.
I could be wrong but I think your math for the crit is slightly off because if you have 2 attacks, hit with the first and crit with the second then you wouldn't get the hex crit damage because it would have been used on the first hit.
Wow. Well explained thank you for your information video
Chris, I love your subscription and ring the bell jokes. Lol
I'm surprised people don't use Anydice more often for calculations, I could probably plug a lot of this in directly rather than trying to get a static number
This math for hex is slightly incorrect, because the crit math is wrong. Since the math is done after we know the attack hits, critting is actually a 1+(%to crit/% to hit) modifier. So instead of *1.05, @ 5th level the modifier should be *1.083.
While I appreciate the move to consistant damage having more of a stay, i.e. one off occurrences, I do worry that then any flurry or multi-attack build or style will have nothing. In an ideal world the consistency type would have a higher average while a frequency type would have a higher maximum. Looking at Hex changes is the greatest insight into this, both perform roughly the same but have different natures.
The two can work and exist, but for that to happen I think they would need to change the value range a bit. Of course a larger range can host greater variety.
Chris, i would like to throw my hat into the ring and say that Fighter taking magic initiate Primal for hunters mark is the best new baseline.
You cap at 4d10+4d6+20+(any once per turn effects ignoring action surge) or 5d6(scimmy)+5d6+25+(any once per turn effects ignoring action surge) if you go two weapon fighting.
For starters, I guess that Hunter's Mark will probably be a Ranger spell, rather than a Primal one once the next round of UAs goes out, and be invalid for Magic Initiate.
But even if it is... I think that loses the "simplicity" factor which made the original Warlock baseline the gold standard. Remember, the baseline isn't supposed to be great damage, it's just supposed to be the OK damage that someone who's bringing other utility can do.
I'm still in favor of Warlock baseline, that or very basic and vanilla Ranger or Paladin, since that's a middle-ground between full caster utility and the low-utility of a damage-focused melee. Average utility, average damage.
If you roll all Blasts at once, you would always add the Hex damage to a crit if it occurs. If you roll Blasts one at a time ( as you might do with regular attacks), you need to choose each time: do you add Hex damage or wait for the crit and risk losing the damage if you don't hit?
Adding the damage boosts to cirits (as opposed to regular hits on the same turn) automatically assumes you know the results of all attacks on that turn, which may not be the way your table plays.
jokes on you, chris, im a locksmith, a broken key in a lock is nothing
I do think it's somewhat worth considering how much of a drain on your resources new hex is vs old hex
Old hex should *always* be active at maximum efficiency. Losing concentration, when it rarely happens, won't be massively impactful for the old warlock.
Going off the 6 to 8 encounter per day metric, the new warlock will NOT be able to spend a 5th level spell slot every combat, or every other combat, because they will only have 2. Old warlock having upwards of 12 per day, due to the assumption of 2 short rests and 1 long rest per day (as per the short rests section in the dmg), will mean they can always get hex out, even if they lose concentration.
As not-great as it is I do love spirit shroud for the high damage it outputs in situations like this where you're spending a high level slot, even if it'd require you to have a way to stay out of melee but within 10 feet of your target.
I think extra attacks are more important for those higher AC enemies. If you miss two attacks then you do no damage but hitting just once will carry the majority of damage. I wonder if the new optimization will be trying to collect these damage increases like barbarian with hex and other, once per turn damage increases
On the crit damage from new Hex, it's actually even more complicated, because your FIRST hit has to be a crit. This is due to the fact you'll be applying hex damage to the first attack that crits, since you don't know whether a subsequent attack will be a crit or not.
Not a huge deal but worth noting. It's going to feel bad if your second hit is the one that crits.
I believe you meant to say "you'll be applying hex damage to the first attack that -crits- hits" right?
@@lifetake3103 Oops yeah that's what I meant.
As someone who plays along side a WIDE variety of optimizers and casual, I'm a bit curious not only for the variety of weapon choice, but also the damage floor. Linking damage to the class rather than feat choice seems important for that. Like Barbarian with Speedster feat, or fighter with Actor.
Hey, Chris. I had a discussion in the RUclips comments a while back and they pointed out that people calculating DPR usually leave out magic weapons and other buffs. At least for magic weapons D&D assumes that the martial classes especially do get access to magic weapons. Since many of the new features can only trigger once per turn, that means increasing chance to hit increases DPR for effects that can trigger multiple times in a larger scale than the ones that only trigger once, right? I would be interested to see a deeper dive on that. Magic +1/3 weapons for martials and stuff like Rod of the Pact Keeper for Warlock. How does that change the baseline? Do the changes to things like GWM and Hex actually lower the baseline when magic items are involved? Other stuff to account for would be stuff like Bless, but to me the magic items are a more important focus since not all parties use Bless.