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A lot of people on the boards are complaining about "damage inflation," particularly for martial characters. So I thought I'd take a peak across editions for a moment.

I'm going to look at expected damage based on the PHB1 of several editions, including the latest Next playtest. I'll try to look at fighters and wizards at levels 1, 10, and 20 (where applicable). Since I don't have all the DMGs available (given that the DDN one doesn't exist yet), I'm just creating a fighter starting with 16 Str who wields a greatsword. All stat increases go into Str. For the 4e fighter, I'm using the damage from the most straightforward encounter power at that level. (Yes, you'll be using lots of lower-level encounter powers and at-wills, but you'll also be using dailies, so I picked encounter power as a happy medium.)

D&D Next Playtest
Level 1 Fighter: 1d12+3+1d6 damage (average: 13)
Level 10 Fighter: 1d12+4+5d6 damage (average: 28)
Level 20 Fighter: 1d12+5+6d6+20 damage (average: 52.5)

D&D 3.0
Level 1 Fighter: 2d6+4 damage (average: 11)
Level 10 Fighter: 2d6+6 damage twice (average: 26)
Level 20 Fighter: 2d6+7 damage four times (average: 56) 

D&D 4.0
Level 1 Fighter: 2d10+3 damage (average: 17)
Level 10 Fighter: 3d10+4 damage (average: 32)
Level 20 Fighter: 3d10+5 damage (average: 33)

Now, some comments here. Why is the 3.0 damage so high? Because of iterative attacks, of course. If you hit with all four attacks at level 20 you're doing a boatload of damage. In practice, the last attack or two probably won't hit anything in your level range.

BUT there are a couple huge provisos with these numbers: I'm not including feats or magic items. First off, the math for 3e and 4e assumes you'll be getting a steady influx of magic items. A level 20 fighter in either edition who showed up for a battle with a nonmagical weapon and 20 Strength (as all of these fighters have at that level) would be laughed off the battlefield. And I'm not sure it's even possible to get a fighter to level 20 in either edition without taking at least a feat or two that boosts damage. 5e is very different in that high-level monsters are balanced against a party with no magic items, and the only feats that improve weapon damage are laughably horrible. Like, <+1 average damage per round at level 20 horrible. So these numbers actually ARE close to what a lot of 5e fighters will see at high levels, but they're way off for the other editions.

(Example: if that 3e fighter has a +5 Flaming Greatsword at level 20, hardly an over-the-top purchase, and a +4 Belt of Giant Strength, his average damage goes up to 102... and that's STILL lowballing it. Plus he'll have Weapon Specialization and Power Attack to ramp up the damage even further, and God help you if he's got a cleric and wizard around to buff him.)

But I think my basic point should be obvious here: if anything, there is far LESS damage inflation in Next that in any other edition this century. 

Okay, now let's look at the wizard. Here I'm comparing a wizard casting his highest-damage PHB spell I can find at the appropriate levels. (Unlike the above example, I'm using daily powers for the 4e wizard, since the 3e and DDN wizards are using daily spells too.) 

D&D Next Playtest
Level 1 Wizard (Magic Missile): 2d4+4 damage (average: 9)
Level 10 Wizard (Magic Missile): 10d4+20 damage (average: 45)
Level 20 Wizard (Magic Missile): 18d4+36 damage (average: 81)

D&D 3.0
Level 1 Wizard (Magic Missile): 1d4+1 damage (average: 3.5)
Level 10 Wizard (Firebal): 10d6 damage (average: 35)
Level 20 Wizard (Meteor Swarm): 32d6 damage (average: 112)

D&D 4.0
Level 1 Wizard (Chill Strike): 2d8+3 damage (average: 12)
Level 10 Wizard (Lightning Serpent): 2d12+4 damage (average: 17), ongoing 5
Level 20 Wizard (Disintegrate): 5d10+5 damage (average: 32.5), ongoing 10

And just for fun:
AD&D 1.0
Level 1 Wizard (Shocking Grasp): 1d8+1 (average: 5.5)
Level 10 Wizard (Cone of Cold): 10d4+10 damage (average: 35)
Level 17 Wizard (Meteor Swarm): 40d4 damage (average: 100) 

So we learn from this that (a) Magic Missile is REALLY POWERFUL in Next, and (b) wizards are in more or less the same position as fighters when it comes to damage scaling.  (I'm not using Meteor Swarm for Next because I'm not convinced the meteor damage overlaps, by the way.) Also, not for nothing, (c) wizard damage is pretty well-balanced against fighter damage. 

Now, if anyone wants to come in and re-run the numbers here with a different spell selection, or including feats and magic items, that would be more than welcome.

TL;DR VERSION: Damage scaling is no greater in Next than it was in any other WOTC edition, even if you only look at martial characters. That damage is just distributed differently (one big attack with a bunch of MDD rather than iterative attacks).

Feb 28, 2013 -- 2:57PM, Lord_Markelhay wrote:

Just to point this out, the 4e tables should go to 30th level instead of 20th, since that is the new maximum level. Maybe it should go 1st-15th-30th?

The idea of going to level 30 in 4e was to make epic levels "core." You could go past 20 with the epic level splatbook in 3e, and I'm sure there'll be optional rules or splatbooks for epic level in Next, so I don't think a level 30 4e character is equivalent to a level 20 3e/5e character.

Feb 28, 2013 -- 4:24PM, Saelorn wrote:

I have to admit that three attacks for 20 still feels more reasonable than one attack for 50, but that's not really a logical argument. Maybe it's just easier to visualize? I can see an awesome fighter making more attacks, but I can't visualize an awesome fighter suddenly gaining the ability to cleave through three feet of stone. And as much as people say it's an abstraction, and the one attack roll actually represents a number of attacks over the course of the round, it doesn't seem like an accurate representation of that - making multiple attack rolls does seem like an accurate way of modeling multiple attacks in a round.

I've been trying to express the same feeling, but couldn't quite put it in words.
Your explanation was enough for me to recognize it as the same thing I was thinking, but i'm still not satisfied with it to really point to it and say "THAT'S exactly what I wanted to say!!"

(am I making sense here?)

I think the issue most have with damage in Next is that it’s the same scale for every character.  Damage in Next is like the amount of attacks in 3e but unlike the damage which was based on a multitude of magic items. One of the two things I like the most about Next is how magic isn’t such an essential component in character development. We still lost a lot of character development. It was a type of character development that needed to go but it also needed to be replaced.

MDB and MDD might be decent substitutes if they weren’t standard and they were curved against other ways you could develop a character like improving AC, DR, accuracy, the number of attacks, hp in a more meaningful way, crit rate, saving throws, ability scores and the amount of attacks. The problem with damage inflation in Next isn’t that amount its that its standard and it far outranks other forms of improvements.  

"When you take the attack action, make a weapon attack roll, with success dealing damage equal to the damage die of your weapon plus the relevant ability modifier. As you increase in level, your improved skill allows you to make more attacks during your action. This is represented by rolling your weapon damage die multiple times, as shown on the chart, and adding them together. (Do not add your ability modifier more than once.)"

That sounds a lot better to me than the current wording. It would also make more sense as to why you lose one die when you want to trip someone (or use some other maneuver) - it's directly analogous to 3E, using one of your attacks to make a trip attempt, except you only make the one attack roll. Of course, last I heard they were getting rid of the damage exchange when performing a maneuver, so we'll have to wait and see what they do with that.