There is much more to D&D than dealing damage, but combat is a core pillar of the game. No one wants to feel like their character is underperforming or failing to pull their weight in a fight.
But how much damage is good damage? What qualifies as great? And what exactly is considered burst damage?
To answer these questions, we can look at encounter design and calculate a single character’s hit point “share” of the combat load.
Damage Calculation Assumptions:
- A “High” difficulty combat encounter is modeled using the XP budgets found in the 2024 DMG.
- A character’s “share” of an encounter is based on the average HP of a monster whose CR closest matches (without exceeding) that character’s XP budget.
- While actual encounters may feature higher CR monsters, the total HP in the encounter will never exceed this baseline if the XP budget is spent on more challenging foes.
- Building on work from blogofholding.com, the average monster HP is 24 for a CR 1/2 monster and 15+15*CR for CR 1+ monsters
- “Good” Damage is defined as dealing enough damage to dispatch a character’s share of encounter HP within 4 rounds.
Some interesting math emerges when we use these assumptions, as you can see in the rightmost column:
| Character level | XP Budget per Character | Closest CR (without going over) | HP Share per Character | DPR to kill in 4 rounds | DPR per CLvl |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100 | 1/2 | 24 | 6 | 6 |
| 2 | 200 | 1 | 30 | 7.5 | 3.8 |
| 4 | 500 | 2 | 45 | 11.3 | 2.8 |
| 6 | 1400 | 4 | 75 | 18.8 | 3.1 |
| 9 | 2600 | 6 | 105 | 26.3 | 2.9 |
| 12 | 4700 | 8 | 135 | 33.8 | 2.8 |
| 15 | 7800 | 11 | 180 | 45 | 3 |
| 18 | 14200 | 15 | 240 | 60 | 3.3 |
Things are a little wonky in Tier 1, but in Tier 2+ the math clusters around needing to deal 3 DPR per character level to clear a character’s share of a high-difficulty encounter within 4 rounds.
By adjusting the math slightly for the early game, we can define our benchmarks:
Defining Single-Target Damage
Burst Damage (2 Rounds): Burst damage clears your share of encounter HP in just 2 rounds. This is exactly double the “Good” baseline: 9 + 3 DPR per CLvl (Tier 1), or 6 DPR per CLvl (Tier 2+).
Good Damage (4 Rounds): To clear your share of HP in 4 rounds, you need 4.5 + 1.5 DPR per CLvl (Tier 1). At Tier 2+, this smooths out to 3 DPR per CLvl.
Great Damage (3 Rounds): Great damage means clearing your share of the encounter in 3 rounds instead of 4. This ensures that even if you lose initiative, combat ends with the same number of monster turns. This requires 33% more damage: 6 + 2 DPR per CLvl (Tier 1), or 4 DPR per CLvl (Tier 2+).
Defining Area of Effect (AoE) Damage Single-target damage is straightforward, but what about AoE?
Let’s assume a standard party of four: one player focusing on AoE damage, and the other three dealing “Good” single-target damage. In this scenario, “Good” AoE damage should deal enough damage to help two of those single-target players clear their HP share 1 round faster.
This means you need to hit at least 2 monsters in your AoE for half the value of Good single-target damage, for 2 rounds in a row.
Good AoE Damage (2+ Targets): 2.25 + 0.75 DPR per CLvl (Tier 1), or 1.5 DPR per CLvl (Tier 2+).
Great AoE Damage (2+ Targets): Enough to help two players dealing Great single-target damage finish 1 round faster. This requires 3 + 1 DPR per CLvl (Tier 1), or 2 DPR per CLvl (Tier 2+).
Put it all together, and we have our final benchmarks:
| DPR needed for Tier 1 | DPR needed for Tier 2+ | |
| Good Single-Target Damage | 4.5 + 1.5 per CLvl | 3 per CLvl |
| Great Single-Target Damage | 6 + 2 per CLvl | 4 per CLvl |
| Burst Single-Target Damage | 9 + 3 per CLvl | 6 per CLvl |
| Good AOE Damage (2+ Targets) | 2.25 + 0.75 per CLvl | 1.5 per CLvl |
| Great AOE Damage (2+ Targets) | 3 + 1 per CLvl | 2 per CLvl |