I'm new to D&D 4e and I am an illusionist Wizard. We have 3 PCs playing, but one of our players should do a lot of damage.
Which class does the most damage?
[RPG] What class does the most damage overall
dnd-4e
Related Solutions
The Rules Compendium has all the updated rules for the core system, like changes to skills and skill challenge DCs and whatnot. You should pick that up if you don't mind buying another book.
Changes to the races and classes are pretty specific. Do you mind editing the question to list what your players are planning to play?
I think the biggest change outside of specific power tweaks to the classes in the first Player's Handbook is that a rogue can apply his Sneak Attack damage once per turn rather than once per round.
The answer to your question is "yes."
This is clearly a communication and expectations issue.
Here are some things that will help your group:
A DDI subscription if you don't already have one. This gives you a searchable rules database and should help put everyone on the same page. Also the online character builder can help get everyone a character sheet with all of their powers and abilities in front of them. It also helps with the math.
Clear communication between group and DM. If you are unhappy with loot payouts talk to the DM. You might want to talk to him about why specific magic items in 4e are important (the math gets quite wonky if you don't have level weapon/armor/neck slot). If he wants to make magic items rare in his game talk to him about intrinsic bonuses to offset the imbalance (see the dark sun rules for this).
- In 4e a specific encounter level relies on players being able to do a certain amount of damage, hit a certain percentage of the time and avoid a certain percentage of attacks. In order to hit often enough and do enough damage PCs need magic weapons (improves to hit and damage). In order to not take too much damage (ie not get hit as often) they need better armor (AC) and neck slot items (Non AC defenses or NADs). These can be provided in one of two ways. Either through magic items (the traditional way) or through intrinsic bonuses (a different way) which basically model magic weapons, but keep them scarce, good for settings like Dark Sun where magic is rare.
Failing to get these bonuses will make encounters harder as levels increase. The math already favors the monsters as levels increase even with magic items and full accuracy and damage feats (see this answer for the maths). 4e as designed relies no players and monsters being on basically the same footing as you level up, forgoing magic items puts the advantage fully in the monsters' court.
Suggest that your group form a social contract. It doesn't have to be written down, but it would help. You already have an implicit one, just firm it up into something more explicit that will help you to talk about expectations for the game.
If you think the DM is being unfair or unjust talk to him about it and make sure he remembers the first rule of DMing: You are there to facilitate the story, not to screw your players. Ultimately D&D is about the PCs winning (most of the time), if your DM forgets that it can get ugly.
Finally communicate, communicate, communicate! but don't be a dick about it. Nicely and politely talk to the DM about why he isn't dropping loot, ask him if there is a reason? maybe there is. Talk to him about the math, if you need the evidence look around here we do math pretty well.
Lastly remember that A. its just a game and B. its supposed to be fun. If you are having fun, why are you worrying? if you aren't having fun then talk to your DM and see if you can make it more fun. If not, it might be time to find a new group.
Best Answer
Any class can, so long as they can find a sufficient edge case to break (charging, frostcheese, zone-overlapping, crit-fishing, and multi-attacking all feature). At present, Invokers and dragonborn lead in the epic tier, Sorcerers and Battleminds in paragon, and Elementalists and (thieves) chargers in heroic.
Good question, and the answer changes significantly by level. The "damagers" tend to be strikers. The easiest "lots of damage" strikers are an Essentials Thief and a Twin-Strike Ranger. My recommendation is for essentials thief, as they provide interesting play and tactics, without being the boring "twang-twang" of ranger. The other significant advantage of ranger and thief is that they don't require significant optimization to get damage out of.
For ranger: static-mod is king. Get bonuses to damage rolls as fast as you can, and your damage output will be astronomical. For thief, charging is king. Take a look at the lovely combination provided by cunning stalker and surprising charge for "I'm going to do a tremendous amount of damage to you."
Check out this link for the theoretical optima of strikers and damage output. Be advised that most DPR specced builds are insane glass cannons.
If you have more specific requirements: party composition, races, level, and expected monsters, we can help you with a specific build.
At present, a Dragonbreath Sorcerer | Shaman has the highest theoretical damage in the game, being able (at level 30) to kill 14 standard enemies per round. These numbers are considered silly and will cause your game to fail for one of many reasons.
Or, how to optimize a slash-slash ranger.
First, a note of warning. Rangers are boring. For the next 30 levels, your two-weapon ranger will be spamming twin-strike. It's just that good. However, you can get interesting RP out of them, so all hope is not lost. (Just make sure the player isn't interested in making interesting tactical choices).
For a look at how to build a ranger, check out the ranger link here, which goes into far more detail. If you just want a level by level build, here's one by LDB. (LDB is lordduskblade, one of the more notable pepole on the wizards forums.) It's hard to go wrong building on those lines. And, on a happy note, he'll be throwing lots of dice around every given round. On a less happy note, melee rangers tend to be a bit ... fragile. Make sure he's very good buddies with your paladin.
Another important factor is what books and errata you're using.
Rough metrics of effectiveness:
Does each character have one and only one primary stat? Primary stat is determined by "my powers use this stat to attack." While it is... theoretically possible to make a "balanced" paladin (between STR and CHA) it's a lot easier to really really mess up a balanced paladin. (I've done that. It kinda sucked.). Is the stat 16 or better? 16 means they'll be missing often, 18 is usually the norm (means a 16 pre-racial) and 20 is best for strikers (usually)
Does each character know who they'll buddy with? Generally you want the defender to buddy with the melee leader if you have one, or with the melee striker if you don't.
Without getting into character design theory in the middle of a post, D&D has roughly 3 axes of design-space: Damage-done, Damage-received, and Damage-mitigated. With a ranger and a barb in your party you'll be very very good at damage-done* (probably) soso at damage-recieved (paladin is decent) and absolutely pants at damage-mitigated, as you're relaying on your paladin for healing.
Also, ranged monsters are going to be real problem. Not a whole lot you can do about it, though it sounds like with brutes and minions (minions are your job, BTW, make sure you have Area bursts) the party is well equipped to deal with them.
Summary: check out the forums for help in finding the traps in character builds, the handbooks are excellent and well maintained.