# What makes Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter so good?



## Rossbert (May 31, 2018)

I am legitimately not trying to start any sort of flame war, but these two feats seem hyped way beyond anything I have seen at the table.

+10 damage is good, probably around doubling your damage on a hit (for argument's sake I am assuming 12 or 11 damage on a hit normally), but it comes with a 25% drop in accuracy. The math definitely works out as a net gain, if I hit 3/4 as often but do twice the damage it is definitely a win, but it hardly seems overwhelming.

When I see someone running it at the table it feels very swingy.  They are less reliable than other fighter types but they have impressive numbers when they hit.  They feel almost like a barbarian in a box but it is not amazing, especially since we play at low enough levels that it works out that anyone who isn't a variant human basically gave up the +2 increase on their primary stat to take it.

At my home game table it is another matter, we use flanking rules and I can count on one hand the number of times a PC has attacked without advantage.  In cases like that the penalty is hardly noticeable.  

Is everyone always attacking with advantage, or am I missing some other game changing aspect?


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## bgbarcus (May 31, 2018)

In my game we play all levels and don't use flanking.  At first those feats seemed overpowered but I started calling out when the -5 caused a miss and the perception changed.  Players with those feats usually save the big damage attacks for low AC monsters, even at high levels. 

The one thing I think may be too much is sharpshooter ignoring disadvantage at long range.  I run quite a few outdoor encounters where distance is important and the sharpshooters become exceptionally powerful in those situations.


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## Cap'n Kobold (May 31, 2018)

Rossbert said:


> I am legitimately not trying to start any sort of flame war, but these two feats seem hyped way beyond anything I have seen at the table.
> 
> Is everyone always attacking with advantage, or am I missing some other game changing aspect?



Several points:
Sharpshooter is generally held up as the most abuseable because the +2 to hit bonus of the Fighter Archery style goes a fair way to offset the penalty.

 Precision attack from the Fighter Battlemaster can also be used to mitigate the penalty sometimes, to make landing a hit with +10 damage more reliable.

The -5/+10 effect of the feat is voluntary. Thus the character can turn it on when they have advantage or when fighting a low-AC opponent, and simply not use it when facing one where the -5 penalty will be more of a problem.

However . . .
A lot of the hype is also due to people emphasising edge cases or positing scenarios that support their particular agenda.
A party can cooperate to aid the character with the feat to help them land those hits. I personally don't have an issue with this, and regard the damage from a GWM strike that lands due to Bless or Inspiration to be more the cleric's or bard's contribution to the fight however.

Heavily-optimised characters, can use those feats as a lever for min/maxing damage though. Particularly when combined with a generous DM who makes magical weapons more generally available than they are by default.


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## Gadget (May 31, 2018)

The feats are so good because, as you have pointed out, there are a number of ways to mitigate the penalty to gain the bonus damage (numerous ways to get advantage, high stats, Magic, etc).  Combine this with the fact that ACs don’t rise as much as earlier editions and it can be quite effective, especially at mid to high levels.  To a min/maxer, trying such things are par for the course.  Besides which, one does not have to use the feat when it would not be to one’s “advantage “.

This why it is generally considered questionable design to give a big bonus to something at the cost of a penalty to something else: players will generally seek out ways to mitigate the penalty while still gaining the benefit of the bonus.

Though I do agree with you that the problems with these feats are sometimes overstated online; every table is different.


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## guachi (May 31, 2018)

It's a combination of several things. 

First, hit chances are relatively high in 5e. You'll hit about 65% of the time or so in melee and 75% with a ranged weapon so the -5 isn't as problematic as if you only hit 50% of the time. 

Second, if you actually do have a 50% chance to hit before the -5 kicks in, just don't use the ability. 

Third, the -5 is fairly easy to overcome. Bless, Precision, Advantage, Archery style.

Fourth, the other parts of both feats are really useful. The bonus action attack from GWM is often worth more extra damage than the -5/+10 part of the feat.


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## iserith (May 31, 2018)

I don't often use feats in my games, but I have some experience with them as DM and a player, particularly Sharpshooter.

One of my favorite characters is Red Creek Rufus, a ranger. He's the world's greatest fisherman, so his primary weapon is a net. With Sharpshooter, that means I can actually throw it from range and suffer no penalty, then have his boar, Belvedere, charge and knock down the target. Prone and restrained sucks big time and this is the primary tactic against a high-AC monster. Against lower-AC monsters, he uses a sling or a dagger because it's not so much the die that's getting stuff done - it's the bonus damage plus Dex mod. Everybody takes a bow with Sharpshooter. But not Rufus!

In games I've DMed where a character has a bow and Sharpshooter, what I've noticed is that the player feels overwhelming pressure to only loose arrows from the bow to the point of sheer boredom. Now, nobody's forcing him or her to do that, but it's hard for many people to imagine any other action being as effective as a ton of damage (even if it's overkill), so that's what they do. And if there's a higher-AC monster, they miss. A lot. Which is even more boring. As a result, players that take Sharpshooter once, don't tend to take it again on subsequent characters. It gets tiresome saying "I loose an arrow!" every turn while others are doing less damaging, but more interesting, stuff.

So I would say it's a good feat, but it's not fantastic. While doing crazy damage is great from an effectiveness standpoint, my experience is that players aren't always that satisfied with that being their characters' main shtick.


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## Blue (May 31, 2018)

There's a lot of ways to increase hit chance, both for yourself and by others in your party.  It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy - one character picks up SS/GWM, suddenly the Cleric makes sure they are one of the Bless targets, others see how much damage they do on a hit so they start helping - more buffs like haste or greater invisibility, debuffs on foes so they grant advantage when attacked, etc.

All of these are decent individually, but may not seem to be the best choice for a character in a vacuum.  Sure, Bless may be, but maybe they'd rather haste someone else.  But SS/GWM synergy makes them all more worthwhile and then they rock the world.

In the Giants hardcore,I played a SS/Crossbow Expert getting base 3-4 attacks a round (two base, one bonus action, often one Horde Breaker from Hunter Ranger), and my party made sure I was buffed out the wazoo so I could bring down the huge bags of HPs that giants are.  Plus I could turn misses into hits with Precision from Battlemaster.  The GWM Vengeance Paladin was similarly buffed, usually with the same Bless and with our sorcerer twinning Haste or something.  When our Monk stunned a foe it was time to go to town.


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## CapnZapp (May 31, 2018)

Rossbert said:


> I am legitimately not trying to start any sort of flame war, but these two feats seem hyped way beyond anything I have seen at the table.
> 
> +10 damage is good, probably around doubling your damage on a hit (for argument's sake I am assuming 12 or 11 damage on a hit normally), but it comes with a 25% drop in accuracy. The math definitely works out as a net gain, if I hit 3/4 as often but do twice the damage it is definitely a win, but it hardly seems overwhelming.
> 
> ...



Take just one case:

A Fighter Battlemaster attacks with advantage (from any out of numerous sources) and one other buff (perhaps a magic weapon or Cleric buff).

She's using the Precision maneuver to turn near-misses into hits.

She's using this against monsters that doesn't sport uncommonly high AC (hitting on a 2 to 6 before the -5)

Suddenly the miss chance isn't 25%.

You will see that a high level fighter will routinely gain 30 points of damage or even more.

The feat is utterly misconstrued, clearly made by a designer inept at min-maxing. 

You're welcome.

Ps. For endless analysis, read previous threads.


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## ad_hoc (May 31, 2018)

The base chance to hit in 5e is high.

Further bonuses to hit are easy to come by. Both through advantage and straight numerical bonuses. A Blessed Barbarian for example.

Damage bonuses, conversely are harder to come by or cost more than comparable bonuses to hit.


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## Blue (May 31, 2018)

iserith said:


> One of my favorite characters is Red Creek Rufus, a ranger. He's the world's greatest fisherman, so his primary weapon is a net. With Sharpshooter, that means I can actually throw it from range and suffer no penalty, then have his boar, Belvedere, charge and knock down the target. Prone and restrained sucks big time and this is the primary tactic against a high-AC monster. Against lower-AC monsters, he uses a sling or a dagger because it's not so much the die that's getting stuff done - it's the bonus damage plus Dex mod. Everybody takes a bow with Sharpshooter. But not Rufus!




Okay, that's just awesome.  Extremely flavorful, effective in an unusual way, effective in a way that helps everyone in the party shine so everyone gets spotlight.  Bravo!



iserith said:


> In games I've DMed where a character has a bow and Sharpshooter, what I've noticed is that the player feels overwhelming pressure to only loose arrows from the bow to the point of sheer boredom. Now, nobody's forcing him or her to do that, but it's hard for many people to imagine any other action being as effective as a ton of damage (even if it's overkill), so that's what they do. And if there's a higher-AC monster, they miss. A lot. Which is even more boring. As a result, players that take Sharpshooter once, don't tend to take it again on subsequent characters. It gets tiresome saying "I loose an arrow!" every turn while others are doing less damaging, but more interesting, stuff.
> 
> So I would say it's a good feat, but it's not fantastic. While doing crazy damage is great from an effectiveness standpoint, my experience is that players aren't always that satisfied with that being their characters' main shtick.




I tend to think that when players intentionally invest resources like a feat into a specific type of action, they intend to use that action.  The player decided upfront they wanted that to be part of their character's main shtick.

The missing a lot surprises me - when I played one if we encountered foes I hadn't fought before I would fire a few shots without the -5 first so I could judge "hey, I hit on an 8 on the die" or "I missed on a 13 on the die" before deciding to activate it or not.

That said, party synergy often had me Blessed and other buffs, or debuffs on foes (monk stun, spells) so that missing was rare against common opponents.

Now, the only time I played a SS was in the Giants module, so we knew that our most common opponents would be giant bags of HPs that would need to be whittled down otherwise combats would last forever.  Very little overkill over the course of a combat, need to do great damage otherwise the giants would be able to wear us down every single time.  That might not be the standard for a normal campaign.

Even so, I would do other actions.  Spike Growth was one of my favorites to discourage giants from closing with the squishier members of the party (including me).


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## 5ekyu (May 31, 2018)

Rossbert said:


> I am legitimately not trying to start any sort of flame war, but these two feats seem hyped way beyond anything I have seen at the table.
> 
> +10 damage is good, probably around doubling your damage on a hit (for argument's sake I am assuming 12 or 11 damage on a hit normally), but it comes with a 25% drop in accuracy. The math definitely works out as a net gain, if I hit 3/4 as often but do twice the damage it is definitely a win, but it hardly seems overwhelming.
> 
> ...



2h-10>d
H=how many results on a d20 hit.
D=damage of a hit without a +10.

Thats the math behind the 5/10 feats. 

So for instance at h=10 and dmg =10 you break even

Higher h lower d better for the 5/10.

So to get a lot of exyra damage out of it you need really high h and not really high d, which often means putside buffs and advantage.

But it also means it varies a lot by assumptions on enemy defenses. If their ac is high from buffs or their able to get disadvantage on your hit, it again becomes a not good option. 

So it is really a circumstantial thing with a lot of assumptions to make it powerful in the excel white room world.


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## houser2112 (May 31, 2018)

These statements:


CapnZapp said:


> Suddenly the miss chance isn't 25%. You will see that a high level fighter will routinely gain 30 points of damage or even more.



don't support this assertion:


> The feat is utterly misconstrued, clearly made by a designer inept at min-maxing.




Quite the opposite, in fact. I think the designer was quite good at min-maxing.


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## TwoSix (May 31, 2018)

1)  The damage bonus scales with the number of attacks you make.  Getting lots of attacks and then finding a feature that adds to each attack is the best way to increase damage in 5e.

2)  Chunky damage is splashy.  Hitting for 20 damage is simply more noticeable than doing 2 hits for 10, despite the fact that 2 hits for 10 is technically better (less overflow damage).  Additionally, one big hit tends to get your more kill shots.  At low levels, doing 8 points of damage doesn't tend to drop enemies, but an 18 point hit will drop quite a few enemies with CR <1.  Splashy and noticeable drive discussions.

3)  Advantage is best at when your base hit chance is ~50%.  With lower AC enemies, or moderate AC enemies with a little bit of a hit bonus (like bless), you fight an awful lot of encounters with about a 75% hit chance, or 50% with the -5 from GWM/SS.  This is obviously purely anecdotal, but as an example, the last 5 combats I've done with my 9th level GWM hexblade, every attack roll I've made has been against an enemy with an AC of either 15, 16, or 17. (I take notes on stuff like this, because I'm a big nerd.)  With my +10 to hit, that's a 70-80% hit chance, or a 45-55% chance with the -5/+10.  
But with advantage, which is easy to get in my game with flanking rules or using shadow of moil, then it's a 93% chance to do an average 12 point hit or a 75% chance to do 22 damage.  It's a massive damage disparity, in situations that are really pretty common and easy to set up.  

4)  The damage bonus is about equal to an ASI on its own, and GWM and SS both have ancillary features that are pretty great by themselves.  Take out the damage bonus, and throw in a +1 to Dex, and I'd still take Sharpshooter on most archer characters.  GWM probably would need another throw in, beyond a +1 Str, but a free bonus action every battle or two isn't bad.


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## DEFCON 1 (May 31, 2018)

Another way to look at its potential is this:  It's gaining you the equivalent of an average +3d6 of sneak attack damage (10.5 vs the feat's 10), and you can add it to every single hit you make.

Whereas as we know, the rogue only gets to add his sneak attack to only one of their attacks in their turn.  The paladin could also smite for about the same average damage on every attack (+2d8, or 9 points), but their spell slots will get used up pretty quickly doing that, whereas the feat-user can keep going.  And in both of these cases, many times the rogue and paladin's bonus damage will be less than average, which in a lot of ways makes the feat-user's set damage result more enticing than a random one.

There are a lot of reasons why certain tables find these feats too good balance-wise versus other options-- both in terms of other feats to take, but also versus what other PCs are capable of doing in the group.  For high DPR tables, those classes that fall behind can fall _really_ far behind, and it can make their contributions in combat almost negligible.  Which if you are a high DPR, big combat type of table playstyle, it will probably cause issues over the long term.

Other styles of table?  Probably not as noticeable.  And you can consider yourself lucky, as you can use these feats as the fun options they were designed to be.  Other tables don't have that luck.


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## jgsugden (May 31, 2018)

It assumes that advantage is rare.

However, people under estimate the risks. Most of the time it gives you a huge advantage and you takemfoes down faster.  However, every once in a while, the negatives of the feat catch you back to back to back... and that gives your foe a chance to take you down.  You might take down 15 foes faster, but if the 16th gets more time to take you down, you're losing out.  The monsters we face only have to try to survive one encounter... PCs want to survive them all. A feat that makes it more likely that you'll fall in combat once in a while is a risky thing.  You can mock up a battle in a spreadsheet and repeat it a few hundred thousand times and see that the risk of death rises in many situations with this feat.

Also, people underestimate how often the feat has no true net impact ... or a pure negative one.  If you do 12 or 22 damage on your first strike and the enemy has 23 hps,  you're likely to require 2 hits to kill it regardless of whether you used the feat or not... so using the feat would have been all negative.  Overkill reduces the benefit quite a bit.

Still a good feat.  Still worth having... but people underestimate the risks.


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## Vymair (May 31, 2018)

For Great Weapon Master, it's not only the -5/+10, it is also the extra attack as a bonus action if you drop a monster or critical.   The ability to generate extra attacks is very nice.    

Both feats are very good in hands of experienced players who can quickly assess likely armor classes of their foes.  At my table, we have several people who have played D&D for decades and are quite analytical, so the benefits from these feats is even larger that the straight math would indicate.   Additionally, if you have ways to generate advantage as a party, these feats are even more effective.  Faerie Fire anyone?


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## houser2112 (May 31, 2018)

I don't have any experience with GWM, but quite a bit with SS. As others have said, it's easy to mitigate the accuracy penalty with your own class features, externally applied buffs, and situational advantage to turn the feat into a pure damage boost. Even so, the damage boost is gravy on top of the meat which is the range and cover penalty mitigation. The feat would be worth taking for those alone, it could be debated. With the damage boost, it's a no-brainer.


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## CapnZapp (May 31, 2018)

5ekyu said:


> 2h-10>d
> H=how many results on a d20 hit.
> D=damage of a hit without a +10.
> 
> ...



If you think you can disprove its real life performance in actual play with your spurious math, think again.


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## CapnZapp (May 31, 2018)

houser2112 said:


> These statements:
> 
> don't support this assertion:
> 
> ...



If you mean "if I'm able to sneak this in under the nose of Mearls, I'm totally gonna dominate combat with my characters" then yes, have a laugh point.


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## iserith (May 31, 2018)

Blue said:


> Okay, that's just awesome.  Extremely flavorful, effective in an unusual way, effective in a way that helps everyone in the party shine so everyone gets spotlight.  Bravo!




Funny aside, I joined a campaign with this character a few months back and the DM actually had to look up whether Sharpshooter applied to the weapons I was using it on - everyone else in her games only took bows!



Blue said:


> I tend to think that when players intentionally invest resources like a feat into a specific type of action, they intend to use that action.  The player decided upfront they wanted that to be part of their character's main shtick.
> 
> The missing a lot surprises me - when I played one if we encountered foes I hadn't fought before I would fire a few shots without the -5 first so I could judge "hey, I hit on an 8 on the die" or "I missed on a 13 on the die" before deciding to activate it or not.
> 
> ...




Players in my games, for whatever reason, tend to do pretty awesome stuff. My experience is that when someone just focuses on "I do lots of damage with this one weapon..." they find they aren't as memorable as the other characters and buyer's remorse sets in. Nobody remember how much damage you do turn by turn. They remember all the other cool stuff that stands out. At least, that's my experience. In my Delve campaign, for example, the Dex-fighter sharpshooter Gil Brightwood is remembered for taking down the corrupt mayor who colluded with the villain and becoming mayor himself. (That and getting a highly unlikely roll of a +2 bow on a random treasure hoard.) His body count in the dungeon is just a footnote, if that.

I also benefit from having a player pool in my campaigns - more players than seats in a particular session. This means multiple players who in turn have more than one character, so any given session can see a change-up in both players and party composition. A Sharpshooter PC might have other PCs in the group that can buff his or her chances to hit, but it's also likely that he or she may not.


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## CapnZapp (May 31, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> It assumes that advantage is rare.



Probably true.

In the real world, savvy players never use it without advantage (except at uncommonly low ACs)


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## Swarmkeeper (May 31, 2018)

iserith said:


> I don't often use feats in my games, but I have some experience with them as DM and a player, particularly Sharpshooter.
> 
> One of my favorite characters is Red Creek Rufus, a ranger. He's the world's greatest fisherman, so his primary weapon is a net. With Sharpshooter, that means I can actually throw it from range and suffer no penalty, then have his boar, Belvedere, charge and knock down the target. Prone and restrained sucks big time and this is the primary tactic against a high-AC monster. .




Red Creek Rufus:  Making Nets Great Again!


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## Fleetwood C. DeVille (May 31, 2018)

Sharpshooter allowed my Halfling rogue's hand-crossbow range (and ability to do sneak attacks) go from 30ft to 120ft. Plus no cover for the targets.

+10 damage was nice, but I hardly ever used it.


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## cmad1977 (May 31, 2018)

These feats are overpowered.

But only to underpowered GMs.


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## jgsugden (May 31, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Probably true.
> 
> In the real world, savvy players never use it without advantage (except at uncommonly low ACs)



Uncommonly low?  If all you care about is average damage, which is a mistake for the reasons I say above, there are a lot of creatures where it makes sense, and many of those appear in higher volumes (fodder or soldier types that are used a lot).   

Another thing to consider: Overpowered is not necessarily bad.  It isn't player vs DM - so it doesn't need to be a balanced game.  All that matters to me is whether the presence of the fun reduces fun for (other) players.


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## BookBarbarian (May 31, 2018)

Rossbert said:


> Is everyone always attacking with advantage, or am I missing some other game changing aspect?




I am. Because that's what Reckless Attack does. It also doubles my crit chance helping me land that bonus action attack from GWM.

Barbarian+GWM are a match made in heaven.


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## 5ekyu (May 31, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> If you think you can disprove its real life performance in actual play with your spurious math, think again.



Math is math... The actual performance of the feats 5/10 feature - as stated - varies by the circumstances involved - most notably the hit chances and base damage. 

One mans spurious is another man's basic mathematics.


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## 5ekyu (May 31, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> I am. Because that's what Reckless Attack does. It also doubles my crit chance helping me land that bonus action attack from GWM.
> 
> Barbarian+GWM are a match made in heaven.



This would seem to,imply enemies are never giving you disadvantage. 

That must be fun.

Tactically, disad-ing heavy hitters is usually a good idea.


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## BookBarbarian (May 31, 2018)

5ekyu said:


> This would seem to,imply enemies are never giving you disadvantage.
> 
> That must be fun.
> 
> Tactically, disad-ing heavy hitters is usually a good idea.




Definitely a good idea, but indeed I haven't encountered too many that give disadvantage on melee attack rolls.

Edit: I have encountered invisibile enemies, but I can't recall any that had Greater Invisibility.


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## 5ekyu (May 31, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> Definitely a good idea, but indeed I haven't encountered too many that give disadvantage on melee attack rolls.



Yup that would be a campaign setting element, circumstance, that strongly favors the combo, etc.


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## Tony Vargas (May 31, 2018)

Rossbert said:


> What makes Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter so good?



There are all sorts of build & party synergy & tactical details to exactly how, but why, at bottom, is because 5e has ways of making multiple attacks with a two-hander or ranged weapon, and that makes the large static damage bonus /per attack/ that much more potent.  That applies to all damage bonuses, really, GWM/SS just grant a particularly large one.


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## TwoSix (May 31, 2018)

jgsugden said:


> Uncommonly low?  If all you care about is average damage, which is a mistake for the reasons I say above, there are a lot of creatures where it makes sense, and many of those appear in higher volumes (fodder or soldier types that are used a lot).
> 
> Another thing to consider: Overpowered is not necessarily bad.  It isn't player vs DM - so it doesn't need to be a balanced game.  All that matters to me is whether the presence of the fun reduces fun for (other) players.



The problem with feats being unbalanced has nothing to do with player versus monsters.  The problem is in inter-option balance.


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## BookBarbarian (May 31, 2018)

5ekyu said:


> Yup that would be a campaign setting element, circumstance, that strongly favors the combo, etc.




I do think the Barbarian, due to proficiencies and Advantage from class features, does have a good chance (maybe even the best chance) to resist being given a condition that causes disadvantage on attack rolls, such as Prone, Restrained, Poisoned, Paralyzed etc.

But yeah there is a good chance my DM just hasn't thrown enough adversaries that cause those at us.

Edit: Of course there could also be other reasons to have disadvantage like environment and such. I haven't encountered much of that yet either.


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## TwoSix (May 31, 2018)

5ekyu said:


> Math is math... The actual performance of the feats 5/10 feature - as stated - varies by the circumstances involved - most notably the hit chances and base damage.
> 
> One mans spurious is another man's basic mathematics.



Which is all well and good (you're not wrong!), but assuming a relatively baseline game, as presented by the DMG and published adventures, GWM and SS are the best damage choices for those situations.


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## AmerginLiath (May 31, 2018)

A thought that I had while reading this thread is how the mitigation of the penalty on these feats has such an opportunity cost both the character him/herself and for the party overall. Yes, the choice of a given maneuver or fighting style can reduce that penalty, but that also means not taking a different maneuver or fighting style (which could benefit a different set of circumstances). Yes, a cleric casting Bless can reduce that penalty as well, but that costs Concentration (which could be used for another buff like Haste or a debuff/control spell) and possibly costs part of the Action Economy. The choice otherwise is to just gamble on the by-the-book risk-reward question of to-hit versus damage. There’s no right answer, but there are many different ways to pose the question.


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## 5ekyu (May 31, 2018)

AmerginLiath said:


> A thought that I had while reading this thread is how the mitigation of the penalty on these feats has such an opportunity cost both the character him/herself and for the party overall. Yes, the choice of a given maneuver or fighting style can reduce that penalty, but that also means not taking a different maneuver or fighting style (which could benefit a different set of circumstances). Yes, a cleric casting Bless can reduce that penalty as well, but that costs Concentration (which could be used for another buff like Haste or a debuff/control spell) and possibly costs part of the Action Economy. The choice otherwise is to just gamble on the by-the-book risk-reward question of to-hit versus damage. There’s no right answer, but there are many different ways to pose the question.



Yes a good deal of the differences come from assumptions about buffs, assistance etc. 

Concentration slot for multi person hold person may open up auto crit chances for multiple folks (crits dont favor the 5/10 as much since the -5 can cost you,more and the 10 is not doubled.)


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## The Crimson Binome (May 31, 2018)

There really just aren't a lot of alternatives, in terms of what can compare. Each characters only has a handful of decision points over their entire career, and of the available options, these are among very few which provide a substantial bonus to damage.

Fifth edition isn't like third edition, when it comes to availability of options. In third edition, you could take feats to increase your damage, but you also had access to magic items. If nothing else, you could get a flaming/shocking sword that increased damage by ~7. 

In fifth edition, you're lucky to find a magic weapon that you can use, and there are only a handful of weapons that really improve your damage. If you don't win the flametongue lottery, then you're very likely to end up as a level 12 character dealing ~10 damage per attack. Or you can take one of these feats and double your damage. It's really kind of a dividing line between the haves and the have-nots, because nobody else is walking around with a miscellaneous +4 or +7 damage from some other source. There's not a huge spread of efficacy based on countless minor modifiers.

Sure, there's a trade-off. Sure, it's not always worth it. But if you want to deal a lot of damage, then you don't really have any other choices. That's why they're such a big deal.


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## FrogReaver (May 31, 2018)

Rossbert said:


> I am legitimately not trying to start any sort of flame war, but these two feats seem hyped way beyond anything I have seen at the table.
> 
> +10 damage is good, probably around doubling your damage on a hit (for argument's sake I am assuming 12 or 11 damage on a hit normally), but it comes with a 25% drop in accuracy. The math definitely works out as a net gain, if I hit 3/4 as often but do twice the damage it is definitely a win, but it hardly seems overwhelming.
> 
> ...




I've seen everyone here talk about parties buffing you and magic weapons and so on.  All that's just gravy but I'll explain the meat below.

Take a Battlemaster Fighter for example.  He gets +2 hit from archery style and precision attack.  (Precision attack is basically a +2/+3 bonus to hit over the whole course of a standard adventuring day).  This basically completely negates the -5 penalty and he is left with +10 damage.  End of explanation.


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## Shiroiken (May 31, 2018)

Great Weapon Mastery, in a vacuum, is only a moderately powerful feat. Against creatures that have high HP and low AC, it's amazing, but otherwise you risk missing, which overall lowers your dpr. The problem that many have is the various ways a character can mitigate the -5 attack penalty, such as from Bless, Advantage, Precision Attack, Magic Items, etc. The perception is that these allow the feat to deal greater damage than it should. I had a polearm master paladin with GWM in my last campaign, and while he was able to deal a lot of damage when he paired up with the raging Wolf Totem Barbarian, I felt that it was manageable. 

Sharpshooter is considered worse, however, because all three abilities work together. You can use it against a target with heavy cover at maximum range, and still only be at -5 to hit. Toss in the +2 from the Archery fighting style, and suddenly everyone is using Chewbacca's crossbow. I personally find the other two abilities to be more problematic than the -5/+10, but to each their own.


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## mpwylie (May 31, 2018)

I don't really have much issue with them being overpowered at my table as I design my encounters keeping it in mind.  My only issue with those two feats is their comparison to the rest of the feats as they are so clearly better than the rest by a decent margin.


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## Caliban (Jun 1, 2018)

Rossbert said:


> I am legitimately not trying to start any sort of flame war, but these two feats seem hyped way beyond anything I have seen at the table.
> 
> +10 damage is good, probably around doubling your damage on a hit (for argument's sake I am assuming 12 or 11 damage on a hit normally), but it comes with a 25% drop in accuracy. The math definitely works out as a net gain, if I hit 3/4 as often but do twice the damage it is definitely a win, but it hardly seems overwhelming.
> 
> ...




Big numbers = big fun

These feats give you big damage numbers.  Therefore they are more fun than any other feat.


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## BookBarbarian (Jun 1, 2018)

Shiroiken said:


> I personally find the other two abilities to be more problematic than the -5/+10, but to each their own.




I think this is true. Big damage just doesn't really screw up the game for me, especially at high level.

Even at lower level a single Sleep spell seemed to have more impact on putting down a baddies than GWM or SS.


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## guachi (Jun 1, 2018)

Shiroiken said:


> Great Weapon Mastery, in a vacuum, is only a moderately powerful feat. Against creatures that have high HP and low AC, it's amazing, but otherwise you risk missing, which overall lowers your dpr.




It's an amazing feat against high AC low HP foes, too. Facing a hobgoblin as a level 2 variant human barbarian with GWM? Well, I guess I don't use the -5/+10 part but I will Reckless Attack to boost my hit chance from 40% to 64%. If you are raging and wielding a two-handed sword you'll one-shot kill the hobgoblin 72% of the time you hit. Hey, look! Free bonus action attack! Multiply your hit chance by your kill chance and you'll get an extra attack 46% of the time (and, therefore, boost your damage 46%). Though, your damage boost would be a little higher than 46% fighting an infinite amount of hobgoblins as any hobgoblin you didn't kill on the first hit you'd automatically kill on the second.

It's not like hobgoblins are rare creatures to fight. And a 46% damage boost not even using the part of the feat people find most objectionable is quite nice, don't you think? 

Fighting a goblin the raging Barbarian will always kill if he hits as a goblin has 7 HP and that's the minimum damage our Barbarian can do. So he gets an extra attack as often as he hits, which in this case is just shy of 80%. An 80% damage boost is crazy.

A low level fighter/barbarian/Paladin with GWM steamrolls opponents at low level and you'd never have to use the -5/+10 portion. Heck, a battlemaster or Paladin can always add on extra damage just to ensure he gets enough damage to kill his opponent and get an extra attack.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 1, 2018)

It is generally good in fights you would win anyway. So it speeds up the game. A blessing for the DM.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 1, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> It is generally good in fights you would win anyway. So it speeds up the game. A blessing for the DM.



The issue is intra-party balance.

Nobody has suggested it's a problem for DMs.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 1, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> The issue is intra-party balance.
> 
> Nobody has suggested it's a problem for DMs.




If everyone uses their buffs on the person with that feat, everyone contributes equally. I'd also claim that a wizard with fireball or a good hold person will easily contribute in as many fights as the gwm fighter. What is the problem with one person being good at what he does? And to shamelessly quote myself: it is only outpacing everything else in trivial fights. If you can do a gwm nova with all buffs activated there were also other methods of winning the fight.... and if there should be a fight were that was the only solution or you were lucky hitting more than you should it was a feat worth taking.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 1, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> If everyone uses their buffs on the person with that feat, everyone contributes equally. I'd also claim that a wizard with fireball or a good hold person will easily contribute in as many fights as the gwm fighter. What is the problem with one person being good at what he does?



The problem is when two characters ostensibly have the same niche, with the exception that one is better. Two damage-dealing fighters, where one has this feat and the other tries dual-wielding, is very much a case of one being strictly superior to the other.



UngeheuerLich said:


> And to shamelessly quote myself: it is only outpacing everything else in trivial fights.



It also outpaces everything else in difficult fights against monsters that have HP and damage-output, but low AC; which, because of bounded accuracy, is not uncommon beyond level 8 or so.


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## pming (Jun 1, 2018)

Hiya!



Rossbert said:


> I am legitimately not trying to start any sort of flame war, but these two feats seem hyped way beyond anything I have seen at the table.
> 
> +10 damage is good, probably around doubling your damage on a hit (for argument's sake I am assuming 12 or 11 damage on a hit normally), but it comes with a 25% drop in accuracy. The math definitely works out as a net gain, if I hit 3/4 as often but do twice the damage it is definitely a win, but it hardly seems overwhelming.




Full Disclosure: I don't allow Feats in my game (nor Multiclassing), and we play with PHB, DMG, MM. That's it.

Right. Two things I've harped on about "Feats", but these two and a few others in particular. Many don't agree with me, but that's par for the course really. 

Number One: It's fine and dandy if the players roll 3d6, in order, and keep what you get (hard-core old school). As better and better odds rolling dice go, it gets worse and worse. Heaven help you if your DM uses point buy or some other "choose your stats" method. Why? Someone rolls and gets a 15 for Str, but only a 9 for Dex and a 12 for Con. Having GWM _IS_ going to feel like a trade off. But if that player rolled well, or it's point buy/set group...now the player has high Str, Dex AND Con (e.g., all the important melee combat stats; and "high" I mean no less than 12, with 16, 18 or even 20 being likely for one of them). Next we assume the same sort of "PC Build" focusing for others in the group. We now have Wizards, Clerics, etc that have the same sort of "build focus". After an hour or two of play everyone is 2nd level, but the end of the second session everyone is probably 3rd. Assuming no "Alternate Human Option" was available at level 1, is is now that the PC's get their "Feats". 

The Fighter takes GWM. He was at +6/+4 (Str 18, +2 for Prof). So when using GWM he drops to +1 th, but increases to +14 damage. "I only use it for big fights"...great...but at that point the Cleric slaps down a Bless and some other PC provides another bonus To Hit for the Fighter (maybe a bard, or a Druid using Faerry Fire or something). All it takes is a +1 or +2, with the Bless, and...POOF! That -5 To Hit penalty is removed completely...leaving the Fighter with no "real" drawback, and the gigantic bonus of adding +10 to damage.

That's why we found it borked. It was fine if the players didn't do anything to mitigate the -5 to hit; but the second they did...problem.

Number Two: It made PC's and NPC's _extremely_ "same'ey". If you are a fighter, you take one of the "big ones" (GWM, PAM, SS, etc). If you don't, you WILL be at a disadvantage fighting pretty much any NPC fighter-type, because when you get right down to it, a guard being able to one-shot an uppity peasant with a single polearm thrust GREATLY outweighs the risk of trying to hit him two or three times before you get him. As a PC, you go from being able to last a couple rounds vs two Polearm wielding guards, to being skewered at round 1 because you just took +30 points of damage you wouldn't have otherwise taken. So...Feats didn't "expand and customize for interesting and unique PC's and NPC's"; it did the exact opposite. Two fighter's in the same group? If one of them takes GWM/PAM/SS/etc, then the other HAS TO...or he will, in comparison, "suck as a fighter". PC Fighter 1 = "I do +14 damage with my Polearm"...Fighter 2 = "I get +1 To Hit and +1 to Damage with my Polearm" (because F1 was "big damage brute", and F2 was "well-rounded combatant"). In a game where Hit Points from a large pool determines if you are dead or not...anything that boosts your ability to reduce that pool of Hit Points faster will win.

Anyway, that's my argument in a nutshell. Can Feats be used "well" in a campaign? Sure! I have no doubt. But the Players and the DM would have to "mitigate everything so nothing gets too overpowering". And if you get to that point, my question is: Why even use Feats at all then?

I've always thought that Feats were a cool idea...but _VERY _poorly implemented. They should have been more towards giving the PC's "more impressive...but less numbers". It's really hard to describe, but, for example, I think there should have been one Feat called "Weapon Expert" that gave at most +1th/+2dmg and the PC pics a single weapon. The Feat would mostly allow the user to do things "not normally done"; say, use a long sword as a blunt weapon but keep full damage, the PC would also be able to determine the quality of a long sword and would have a chance to identify a magical long sword, maybe the PC could also try and 'show off' or otherwise intimidate foes by, well, showing off with a cool flourish of swings, jumps, ducks and all that 'movie coolness' type thing. All those more "ephemeral" things that really would show that the PC is an actual expert at Long Swords. 

So, uh, yeah. I don't like feats and find them detrimental to the type of campaign I enjoy running (and, apparently, the type of campaign my players enjoy playing).

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 1, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> The problem is when two characters ostensibly have the same niche, with the exception that one is better. Two damage-dealing fighters, where one has this feat and the other tries dual-wielding, is very much a case of one being strictly superior to the other.
> 
> It also outpaces everything else in difficult fights against monsters that have HP and damage-output, but low AC; which, because of bounded accuracy, is not uncommon beyond level 8 or so.




There are fights where it is like that and there are others. As a DM you should make sure there are both. In high level, it is easier to do a lot of damage, but it is also easier to not get in reach of the gwm fighter and to somehow mitigate the damage. I assume sharpshooter proves more problematic due to that high range. If 2 chars are going for the same niche and one is outpacing the other without having disadvantages somewhere else, one char is just built badly.
Imagine one took gwm and precise strike and the other exactly built fighter took trip attack and +2 dex instead. (Both already had 20 str).
One is looking stupidly at the flying monster. The other one takes out his bow and brings the monster down to earth with a cunning shot.
Now the gwm master fighter whacks on the prone enemy with advantage and -5/+10.
Guess who gets all the credits?

 [MENTION=1742]TW[/MENTION]f: that is comparing apples with oranges.
Twf is not a good idea for pure fighters.


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## Shiroiken (Jun 1, 2018)

guachi said:


> It's an amazing feat against high AC low HP foes, too. Facing a hobgoblin as a level 2 variant human barbarian with GWM? Well, I guess I don't use the -5/+10 part but I will Reckless Attack to boost my hit chance from 40% to 64%. If you are raging and wielding a two-handed sword you'll one-shot kill the hobgoblin 72% of the time you hit. Hey, look! Free bonus action attack! Multiply your hit chance by your kill chance and you'll get an extra attack 46% of the time (and, therefore, boost your damage 46%). Though, your damage boost would be a little higher than 46% fighting an infinite amount of hobgoblins as any hobgoblin you didn't kill on the first hit you'd automatically kill on the second.



You missed the important part "in a vacuum," which is what the Low AC, High HP was referencing. Without any other aspects (like Reckless Attack) it's only an okay Feat: worth taking for those that use that style of weapon, but might not be worth +1 Str modifier. Many abilities, however, greatly improve the efficiency of GWM, which is part of the reason why many DM's hate it. Pretty much anything that can grant Advantage is huge, since it helps with both the -5/+10 and the Critical Hit Bonus Attack.


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## Mistwell (Jun 1, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Take a Battlemaster Fighter for example.  He gets +2 hit from archery style and precision attack.  (Precision attack is basically a +2/+3 bonus to hit over the whole course of a standard adventuring day).  This basically completely negates the -5 penalty and he is left with +10 damage.  End of explanation.




That is a terrible awful no good "explanation". In no way does precision attack "basically a +2/+3 bonus to hit over the whole course of a standard adventuring day". And archery has an opportunity cost of not taking one of the other options, like a higher AC.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 1, 2018)

"The problem that many have is the various ways a character can mitigate the -5 attack penalty, such as from Bless, Advantage, Precision Attack, Magic Items, etc"

As an observation, these do not mitigate the penalty.

You still take a -5. 

Unless the Ac vs hit skew is so far that you are unable to miss on a 2-5 roll, after the +5 you are still getting 5 more chances to miss on a d20 roll. 

If i need an 8 to hit and get a +5 from precision, and all that jazz - i am choosing between hit on 3-20 for x gamage vs hit on 8-20 for x+10 - an almost guaranteed vs a 35% miss.

Now, the question is "what is x" to determine how good that is. 

There is no doubt that in the right circumstances it boosts damage but there often seems to be a presumption that its going to be working very often. 

It seems as if  low ac just slug-o-matic brutes is the norm for adversaries.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 1, 2018)

A last reminder: one should assume that the feat overall gives a benefit. Lets further assume that it needs to be better than savage attacker since that feat is more univerally uswful. Lets also assume that it should be better than +2 strength while fighting with 2 weapons since again +2 is more universally useful. Anything less useful and it was a trap feat.


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## Li Shenron (Jun 1, 2018)

I haven't actually seen either GWF or SS feats in play, so I am commenting only on the math.



Rossbert said:


> +10 damage is good, probably around doubling your damage on a hit (for argument's sake I am assuming 12 or 11 damage on a hit normally), but it comes with a 25% drop in accuracy.






bgbarcus said:


> Players with those feats usually save the big damage attacks for low AC monsters, even at high levels.




I think that in general the idea that a -5 to a d20 roll equates to -25% probability is misleading. I would rather think of it as the following:


```
Old roll to hit   Old prob     New roll to hit    New Prob    Hit rate difference
1 or less          95%          7 or less          70% or more  -21% or less
2                  95%          7                  70%          -26%
3                  90%          8                  65%          -28%
4                  85%          9                  60%          -29%
5                  80%          10                 55%          -31%
6                  75%          11                 50%          -33%
7                  70%          12                 45%          -36%
8                  65%          13                 40%          -38%
9                  60%          14                 35%          -42%
10                 55%          15                 30%          -46%
11                 50%          16                 25%          -50%
12                 45%          17                 20%          -56%
13                 40%          18                 15%          -63%
14                 35%          19                 10%          -71%
15                 30%          20                  5%          -83%
16                 25%          20                  5%          -80%
17                 20%          20                  5%          -75%
18                 15%          20                  5%          -67%
19                 10%          20                  5%          -50%
20 or more         5%           20                  5%          no change
```

Of course my math may be wrong, but what I see is that in general the _hit rate_ (i.e. how often are you actually going to hit the target) is always decreased by more than 25% _except_ against extremely easy targets which you would normally always hit unless you roll a natural 1.

For example, if you would normally hit on a natural 11 or more (hence your hit probability is 50%), if you take -5 then you would hit on a natural 16 or more (probability is 25%). The amount of successful attacks is therefore *halved*, not reduced to 3/4, so in general the loss is quite a lot more significant.

If the table above is correct, then taking -5 in exchange for bonus damage is more convenient against easy-to-hit but high-HP monsters, which in fact also makes sense narratively.

However, the "automatic hit on natural 20" rules creates the anomaly in the last table rows: since you always have at least 5% chance to hit, taking -5 is also _the least_ convenient when you hit on a natural 15 or more, then the cost progressively drops. It might therefore makes sense to take -5 when you would normally hit on a natural 19 or more (because your hit rate drops by half, which is large but doable), and it is actually a no-brainer when you only hit on a natural 20 (because with -5 you still need the same natural 20 to hit).


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## Horwath (Jun 1, 2018)

So far, I found that the best way to deal with GWM/SS is to replace -5/+10 part with +1str/+1 dex.


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## Zardnaar (Jun 1, 2018)

The average AC in the MM being 14.5 (apparently).

 Not sure if I was the 1st to call out these feats in 2014, I was one of the early ones anyway. HotDQ had a +2 Greatsword, found out the hard way a +2 bow/handcrossbow is worse.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 1, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> If everyone uses their buffs on the person with that feat, everyone contributes equally. I'd also claim that a wizard with fireball or a good hold person will easily contribute in as many fights as the gwm fighter. What is the problem with one person being good at what he does? And to shamelessly quote myself: it is only outpacing everything else in trivial fights. If you can do a gwm nova with all buffs activated there were also other methods of winning the fight.... and if there should be a fight were that was the only solution or you were lucky hitting more than you should it was a feat worth taking.



Others have replied. 

Again: it is about balance within a party. 

With GWM you can no longer compete in the "bloke with sword" niche without it. Dealing half as much damage as the other guy is seriously erasing game fun for many players. 

Maybe not for you, but now at least you know why it is considered so broken.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 1, 2018)

Mistwell said:


> That is a terrible awful no good "explanation". In no way does precision attack "basically a +2/+3 bonus to hit over the whole course of a standard adventuring day". And archery has an opportunity cost of not taking one of the other options, like a higher AC.



AC is often good enough. 

Damage is where the game is at.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 1, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Others have replied.
> 
> Again: it is about balance within a party.
> 
> ...




I know all that. And then you see the other guy missing when he would have hit with just 2 points of strength. Of course it is a good feat and if it is important to you to see big numbers go for it. At least it is obvious how to do it. There is no feat chain or strange combo. Just take the feat and be happy. Bit it is far from broken or unbalanced.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 1, 2018)

5ekyu said:


> There is no doubt that in the right circumstances it boosts damage but there often seems to be a presumption that its going to be working very often.



I do not deny it requires a considerable level of system mastery to use right.

Actually that's another black mark against the feat. A feat that encourages casual players to take mathematically-unsound actions (using the feat in circumstances where it statistically lowers your DPR) is a bad feat.

Anyway, once your players have achieved suffienct system expertise, the feat is a damage-enabler bar none. There simply is no other way to reach the pinnacles of DPR. Your party simply will end up focusing all their minmax efforts on the GWMers (since that's much more worthwhile than wasting it on others).

This in itself might have not been such a huge issue if it did not leave every other martial archetype in the dust.

But this is the real issue: the intra-party balance. The way it creates two tiers of martials. The ones with GWM (and SS) and the ones without. At mid to high levels the damage potential differential reaches +50 points of damage - a potential completely unheard of by other means. No wonder the spellcasters focus their efforts on the GWM:ers and not on the others.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 1, 2018)

And (an argument often offered) if your party isn't about the damage (go ahead and claim you're playing the game better than me, you're welcome) so it's not a huge deal.

But if damage isn't a huge deal for you then you will have no objection to another form of the feat which does not wreck _our_ games!

A hypothetical version of the PHB where this feat offers, say, "+1 Str" instead of "-5/+10 damage" (just to pick one commonly offered fix) will, if you're not concerned about damage, work just as well for you. 

And since such a version will make a huge improvement for those of us where DPR is not unimportant... then it stands to reason such a version would please everyone.

What this boils down to is this:

If you really only object to errataing GWM because you don't want change, *then say so*.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 1, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> I do not deny it requires a considerable level of system mastery to use right.
> 
> Actually that's another black mark against the feat. A feat that encourages casual players to take mathematically-unsound actions (using the feat in circumstances where it statistically lowers your DPR) is a bad feat.
> 
> ...




+50 points of damage over how many rounds?

Lets be benefical here and say you hit as often, didn't want to cast a different concentration spell than bless and had time to set every buff up and the enemy is someone who stands there with low ac not trying to stay out of reach... and of course you had your stats maximized and don't need precise strike anyway.
A fighter in mid level has 2-3 attacks per round. Twice as many with action surge.
It is in the best case (excluding  vulnerability) +10 damage net gain per attack ignoring that spending resources to make sure every attack hits lowered damage otherwise. If you remember that you don't double static damage on a crit, it isn't that problematic at all. In 3.5 you doubled everything and could power attack to more than -5/+10 with two habded weapons... and i never heard anyone complaining that the feat is unbalanced...

I am still waiting for a sound calculation that assumes normal circumstances. E.g. having to build up buffs during combat. The fighter being the target of hold personnor dispell magic... actually taking resilience wisdom could be a much higher contributor to overall damage than gwm...
So if you are the guy with the big weapon and other resources than gwm, you can most probably be a big factor in most fights.
If you are not a fighter but a ranger with hunter's mark and extra d8 per hit, trading accuracy becomes less and less attractive.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 1, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> And (an argument often offered) if your party isn't about the damage (go ahead and claim you're playing the game better than me, you're welcome) so it's not a huge deal.
> 
> But if damage isn't a huge deal for you then you will have no objection to another form of the feat which does not wreck _our_ games!
> 
> ...




I'd like the proposed "fix". It needs to be renamed cleave then because the -5/+10 ability is the only one that is bound to heavy weapons (which are all two handed). It would also be a nice option for variant humans that offers a strength boost along with a circumstancially useful offensive feature. That indeed would be a great balanced half feat. Maybe I'd allow both in my games.


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## guachi (Jun 1, 2018)

Horwath said:


> So far, I found that the best way to deal with GWM/SS is to replace -5/+10 part with +1str/+1 dex.




I'm not certain it makes things much better. GWM would still be fantastic and now it has no drawbacks for a one-handed melee weapon wielder. Though maybe that's not a bad thing considering the nerf to Shieldmaster (which is a rule that should be ignored, IMO).

If I were playing one of those races with a +2 Str or +2 Dex bonus and playing a melee character in a point buy game I'd almost always get this ability at level 4 and you'd still have an 18 Strength. Or be a race with a +1 Str, start with a 16 Str, be a fighter, and take heavy armor and GWM and have an 18 Str at level 6.

On the other hand, since it uses a bonus action it's balanced against all the other things you can do with your bonus action.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 1, 2018)

Zardnaar said:


> The average AC in the MM being 14.5 (apparently).
> 
> Not sure if I was the 1st to call out these feats in 2014, I was one of the early ones anyway. HotDQ had a +2 Greatsword, found out the hard way a +2 bow/handcrossbow is worse.



But the average AC in the MM does not matter. How many of those are cr below 2 when most pc races wont see a feat at all possible until level 4, likely 6-8 if they use their first asi to max a primary? Add in sny multiclassing and that delays further.

How many of those are low hp peons in filler encounters where the +10 is more likely overkill or at least simply taking a fight from easy to still easy?

How many of these average ACs without tactical support etc turn out to be encounters that matter?

How useful are GWM and sharpshooter in something asapparently massively complex and awesomely tactical as "an enemy with low level caster throws fog cloud" and so no chance for gaining advantage exists?


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## Zardnaar (Jun 1, 2018)

5ekyu said:


> But the average AC in the MM does not matter. How many of those are cr below 2 when most pc races wont see a feat at all possible until level 4, likely 6-8 if they use their first asi to max a primary? Add in sny multiclassing and that delays further.
> 
> How many of those are low hp peons in filler encounters where the +10 is more likely overkill or at least simply taking a fight from easy to still easy?
> 
> ...




Well low AC+ buffing+ multiple attacks. It has the same problems 3.5 had where you take weapons that deal more damage anyway (two handed) and then add -1/+2 damage on top of it (plus 50% str mod in 3.5 as well) which means you deal around double or triple the damage of other weapon options.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 1, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> +50 points of damage over how many rounds?
> 
> Lets be benefical here and say you hit as often, didn't want to cast a different concentration spell than bless and had time to set every buff up and the enemy is someone who stands there with low ac not trying to stay out of reach... and of course you had your stats maximized and don't need precise strike anyway.
> A fighter in mid level has 2-3 attacks per round. Twice as many with action surge.
> ...



Or warlocks or paladins or even rogues... Anything that raises the base value of D (damage on typical hit without +10) raises the high to hit needed to make it even worthwhile. 

2h-10 > d.

While the omg guys are right that if you knows its bad you wont use it, the fact is everytime you dont use it hits that dpr... Overall lowering the gains from this feat.

Its more like the reference to dpr is to dp1fr - amount you can get in one round in highly favorable circumstances.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 1, 2018)

In a wide open game, all feats on the table, i would take lucky before either gwm or the bow.

If lucky were off the table, it would depend on a lot of factors.


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## mpwylie (Jun 1, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> And (an argument often offered) if your party isn't about the damage (go ahead and claim you're playing the game better than me, you're welcome) so it's not a huge deal.
> 
> But if damage isn't a huge deal for you then you will have no objection to another form of the feat which does not wreck _our_ games!
> 
> ...




There are many tables and many playstyles and it's not about one way being better,  to each his own. And I am not saying the feats cannot be OP at some tables or that those tables are wrong for it, but I see no reason why the PHB needs amended to any one table.  Isn't this what house rules are for?  I am sure I have house rules at my table that you and others wouldn't like, but I'm not calling for the PHB to be amended to my changes.  The base game lays out basic rules, but no where does it say that you have to follow them to the letter at your table.  Remove it, alter it, whatever you want,  you have the power!


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## CapnZapp (Jun 1, 2018)

guachi said:


> I'm not certain it makes things much better. GWM would still be fantastic and now it has no drawbacks for a one-handed melee weapon wielder. Though maybe that's not a bad thing considering the nerf to Shieldmaster (which is a rule that should be ignored, IMO).
> 
> If I were playing one of those races with a +2 Str or +2 Dex bonus and playing a melee character in a point buy game I'd almost always get this ability at level 4 and you'd still have an 18 Strength. Or be a race with a +1 Str, start with a 16 Str, be a fighter, and take heavy armor and GWM and have an 18 Str at level 6.
> 
> On the other hand, since it uses a bonus action it's balanced against all the other things you can do with your bonus action.



Believe me when I say "still fantastic" is a marked improvement over utterly broken


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 1, 2018)

AmerginLiath said:


> Yes, the choice of a given maneuver or fighting style can reduce that penalty, but that also means not taking a different maneuver or fighting style (which could benefit a different set of circumstances)



 The maneuver in question is arguably one of if not /the/ best maneuver, before taking GWM into account.  If you're taking Sharp Shooter, it's pretty darn likely you're deeply committed to archery already, and have the Archery style if it's available to your class.  Those combos are intuitive - almost inevitable, really, there's not a lot of chaff to sort through.



> Yes, a cleric casting Bless can reduce that penalty as well



 It's a bonus, anyway, so it's really not mitigating the penalty, you're still taking a -5, if you weren't, you'd be +1-4 from the bless, which is nothing to sneeze at.




FrogReaver said:


> Take a Battlemaster Fighter for example.  He gets +2 hit from archery style and precision attack.  (Precision attack is basically a +2/+3 bonus to hit over the whole course of a standard adventuring day).  This basically completely negates the -5 penalty and he is left with +10 damage.  End of explanation.



 Or, you can just enjoy that approximate/hypothetical +5 to hit without using the feat.  



CapnZapp said:


> Others have replied.
> 
> Again: it is about balance within a party.



 Also balance at the choice point of an ASI/Feat.  



> With GWM you can no longer compete in the "bloke with sword" niche without it. Dealing half as much damage as the other guy is seriously erasing game fun for many players.
> Maybe not for you, but now at least you know why it is considered so broken.



OTOH, 'bloke with a sword' is more competitive with it included.  OTOOH, it's optional...


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## Caliban (Jun 1, 2018)

D&D doesn't care if you just barely hit the target's AC, or if you hit AC+10.   You do the same damage regardless...unless you have GWM/SS.  In that case, if you can hit AC+5 regularly, then you get +10 damage.   

The feats reward you for having a very high attack bonus in comparison to the target's AC, and no other feats reward you in that way.   It makes your character more efficient, converting excess attack bonus in to damage.   And if the target has a high AC, you can just forgo the extra damage and effectively get +5 to your attack (assuming your default is using the -5/+10). 

But for it to be broken, you have to have that excess attack bonus vs AC against most of your opponents.   Which comes down to how the DM adjusts the game to deal with feats.

(In my current home campaign, none of the players have GWM or SS - and I still regularly add 50 HP to 100 HP to the "boss" monsters to get them to last another round or two...)


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## Mistwell (Jun 1, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> AC is often good enough.
> 
> Damage is where the game is at.




Your experience differs from mine. Particularly if you are a melee combatant as opposed to a ranged combatant, a point of AC outranks two points of damage...particularly since damage is wasted in an overkill more often than AC is wasted in damage prevention (damage prevented is usually far more in quantity than the damage you would have done to them). AC is tied much more to bounded accuracy in this game than damage is tied to it. There are nearly limitless ways to increase damage, but a very finite number of ways to increase AC. On-balance, I personally rank AC higher for melee combatants.


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## devincutler (Jun 1, 2018)

My problem stems solely from Sharpshooter. I don't have a problem with GWM because the practitioner has to get up close and personal and subject himself to damage. Additionally, there are fewer ways to mitigate the penalties that should be associated with the feat.

Sharpshooter has the benefit of allowing the PC to be super effective at very long distances, making even less chance that a missile user will take damage or be put in danger. Shooting at full attack from 600 feet pretty much puts the Sharpshooter out of range of every spell in the game, even with the SPELL SNIPER feat up. Of course, you can argue that dungeons rarely allow for a 600 foot shot, but many encounters take place out of doors, and if the Sharpshooter eventually can fly (not difficult with a 5th level wizard in the party), then he can rise 600 feet above the fray and rain unanswerable death down on foes, and really how many foes have the Spell Sniper feat? So in practice the longest effective range of spells is 150 feet (e.g. fireball). The Sharpshooter can stand back at 200 feet and fire at full effectiveness.

Sharpshooters can take the fighting style that allows them a +2 to hit. This is the ONLY fighting style that provides a bonus to hit. Sharpshooted also completely ignore the cover penalty that is inherent in ranged weapon attacks and is, IMO, a tradeoff for standing off and out of danger.

Finally, the combined effect of all 3 of the Sharpshooter abilities put together is simply stupid ont he face of it. From 600 feet away (2 American football fields), the Sharpshooter can put an arrow through an arrow slit JUST AS EASILY as hitting a target 10 feet away with no cover. And he can not only put the arrow through that slit from 200 meters, but he can hit a vital spot to cause +10 damage. It's insane.

My homebrew says that a Sharpshooter gets all of the RAW abilities, but can only utilize one of them at a time.


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## devincutler (Jun 1, 2018)

Zardnaar said:


> The average AC in the MM being 14.5 (apparently).
> 
> Not sure if I was the 1st to call out these feats in 2014, I was one of the early ones anyway. HotDQ had a +2 Greatsword, found out the hard way a +2 bow/handcrossbow is worse.




Yep. When I ran HotDQ a PC had the fighting style to grant a +2 to hit with ranged weapons and received a +2 longbow. HIs Dex was 20 (16 Dex +2 for elf +2 for ASI at 4th level). That was all she wrote. Using Sharpshooter, the dragons what were supposed to be scaring the crap out of the party were being brought down like rain from the sky.


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## mpwylie (Jun 1, 2018)

devincutler said:


> My homebrew says that a Sharpshooter gets all of the RAW abilities, but can only utilize one of them at a time.




So first,  I think that is a great homebrew solution.  I myself have absolutely no issue with GWM but feel SS gives too much for a single feat.  I have never had enough of an issue with sharpshooter to bother changing it but I have always felt it would have been better split into 2 separate feats.  I think your solution is even better.



devincutler said:


> Sharpshooter has the benefit of allowing the PC to be super effective at very long distances, making even less chance that a missile user will take damage or be put in danger. Shooting at full attack from 600 feet pretty much puts the Sharpshooter out of range of every spell in the game, even with the SPELL SNIPER feat up. Of course, you can argue that dungeons rarely allow for a 600 foot shot, but many encounters take place out of doors, and if the Sharpshooter eventually can fly (not difficult with a 5th level wizard in the party), then he can rise 600 feet above the fray and rain unanswerable death down on foes, and really how many foes have the Spell Sniper feat? So in practice the longest effective range of spells is 150 feet (e.g. fireball). The Sharpshooter can stand back at 200 feet and fire at full effectiveness.




So as far as this,  I see this argument a lot.  There is a very simple solution to this issue.  First, don't build encounters on an endless, flat, featureless plane. Put your bad guys in the woods, in a camp, in an outpost, in an area with shubbery and/or a natural trench in the terrain. Second, any intelligent creature is going to be well smart enough to not stand there taking arrows in the face. Even the less intelligent creatures living in the world, if they have lived long enough for your characters to encounter them, must have at least some survival instinct.  Heck,  my one dog used to make a loud fart and run and hide not smart enough to realize it was him that made the noise and even he as smart enough to run and hide on the porch as soon as I would fire the first bolt from my crossbow when target practicing.  And lastly,  I usually add 1 extra monster to my outdoor encounters as I know one is going to die immediately, if not from ranged attacks, then because my party snuck up and inst-gibbed one in the surprise round.

If my players start firing from 600ft or decided to fly up 600ft and rain down arrows,  once the first monster was hit they would have nothing left to shoot at.  The monsters would dive behind/under cover, whether that is a rock wall lining the area, a cart, a tree, a building, or whatever else was appropriate for the setting, even one of them with the ability to cast fog cloud works.  Never even once have my characters been able to stand back and kill an encounter from 600ft.


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## Zardnaar (Jun 2, 2018)

mpwylie said:


> So first,  I think that is a great homebrew solution.  I myself have absolutely no issue with GWM but feel SS gives too much for a single feat.  I have never had enough of an issue with sharpshooter to bother changing it but I have always felt it would have been better split into 2 separate feats.  I think your solution is even better.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




 I don't sharpshooter gets around the cover thing and if you start metagming against the PCs all the time to counter sharpshooter the problem is really the sharpshooter feat.


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## devincutler (Jun 2, 2018)

mpwylie said:


> So first,  I think that is a great homebrew solution.  I myself have absolutely no issue with GWM but feel SS gives too much for a single feat.  I have never had enough of an issue with sharpshooter to bother changing it but I have always felt it would have been better split into 2 separate feats.  I think your solution is even better.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




The problem is that no amount of cover beyond total cover works against Sharpshooter. Yeah, you can take cover under trees. Won't matter. You can jump into a trench. Won't matter. Remember, someone who is flying has the wherewithal to come at the target from a 180 degree angle.


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## Rossbert (Jun 2, 2018)

devincutler said:


> My problem stems solely from Sharpshooter. I don't have a problem with GWM because the practitioner has to get up close and personal and subject himself to damage. Additionally, there are fewer ways to mitigate the penalties that should be associated with the feat.
> 
> Sharpshooter has the benefit of allowing the PC to be super effective at very long distances, making even less chance that a missile user will take damage or be put in danger. Shooting at full attack from 600 feet pretty much puts the Sharpshooter out of range of every spell in the game, even with the SPELL SNIPER feat up. Of course, you can argue that dungeons rarely allow for a 600 foot shot, but many encounters take place out of doors, and if the Sharpshooter eventually can fly (not difficult with a 5th level wizard in the party), then he can rise 600 feet above the fray and rain unanswerable death down on foes, and really how many foes have the Spell Sniper feat? So in practice the longest effective range of spells is 150 feet (e.g. fireball). The Sharpshooter can stand back at 200 feet and fire at full effectiveness.
> 
> ...






I tend to not even think about sharpshooter due to the small group size I have.  My main non-AL game has four PCs and we tend to have overlapping but not matching roles.  If the character with a d10 hit die and possibly the only one with heavy armor decides he wants to stay 600 feet away from danger, the healer (anything from a cleric to a sorcerer) may have words with them, not to mention the now far more obvious target spellcaster (likely a wizard, sorcerer or warlock) especially if they are buffing with a Fly spell or similar.

It doesn't invalidate your concern but may illustrate why it has never crossed my mind.


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## Rossbert (Jun 2, 2018)

Duplicate post


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## Rossbert (Jun 2, 2018)

devincutler said:


> The problem is that no amount of cover beyond total cover works against Sharpshooter. Yeah, you can take cover under trees. Won't matter. You can jump into a trench. Won't matter. Remember, someone who is flying has the wherewithal to come at the target from a 180 degree angle.



 I suspect he wasn't particularly concerned with cover as just being not visible as a target at all.  Even though a flying creature 600 feet away can get an angle to see into a trench or over a wall, it is probably a fairly steep angle at that kind of distance and will take a good bit of movement, and probably time.  It doesn't do anything for any significant amount of plant cover or fog though, which is why concealment has been a time honored strategy for archers.  As well as giving Fog Cloud a reason to exist.


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## mpwylie (Jun 2, 2018)

Zardnaar said:


> I don't sharpshooter gets around the cover thing and if you start metagming against the PCs all the time to counter sharpshooter the problem is really the sharpshooter feat.




Sharpshooter doesn't get around full cover and magically allow your PCs to see through objects.  Gaining full cover is not difficult unless you are a huge creature. And it's not metagaming to have my monsters do things that are basic common sense and survival instinct.  I wouldn't expect the PCs to stand in the open taking arrows in the face from 600ft,  why would I expect the monsters to?



devincutler said:


> The problem is that no amount of cover beyond total cover works against Sharpshooter. Yeah, you can take cover under trees. Won't matter. You can jump into a trench. Won't matter. Remember, someone who is flying has the wherewithal to come at the target from a 180 degree angle.




If the monsters are hiding behind something like the trunk of a large tree,  a large bush, or even tall grass large enough to cover them, they are fully covered.  If the PC is flying and the monsters are hiding under the canopy of trees, in a building, under a cart, anything where the PCs cannot see them,  they are fully covered.  If your monsters jump in a trench that is deep enough to break line of sight to the PC, they are fully covered. Same with stepping around the corner or into a building, ducking behind a large cart or rock or anything that is big enough to break line of sight. having things in the environment that are large enough for a monster to hide behind is pretty simple really.


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## devincutler (Jun 2, 2018)

mpwylie said:


> Sharpshooter doesn't get around full cover and magically allow your PCs to see through objects.  Gaining full cover is not difficult unless you are a huge creature. And it's not metagaming to have my monsters do things that are basic common sense and survival instinct.  I wouldn't expect the PCs to stand in the open taking arrows in the face from 600ft,  why would I expect the monsters to?
> 
> 
> 
> If the monsters are hiding behind something like the trunk of a large tree,  a large bush, or even tall grass large enough to cover them, they are fully covered.  If the PC is flying and the monsters are hiding under the canopy of trees, in a building, under a cart, anything where the PCs cannot see them,  they are fully covered.  If your monsters jump in a trench that is deep enough to break line of sight to the PC, they are fully covered. Same with stepping around the corner or into a building, ducking behind a large cart or rock or anything that is big enough to break line of sight. having things in the environment that are large enough for a monster to hide behind is pretty simple really.




You seem to be under the impression that once a foe breaks line of sight and has total cover that the enemy just stands there and scratches his head. If you jump into a trench and have total cover, I fly towards you or fly higher up until I can see you (remember, I only need to see a TINY speck of you to negate total cover and attack you at full value) If you hide behind a tree, I fly over you and shoot down. Trunks are vertical for the most part.


Most of your total cover ideas can be negated by simply flying above the target.


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## mpwylie (Jun 2, 2018)

devincutler said:


> You seem to be under the impression that once a foe breaks line of sight and has total cover that the enemy just stands there and scratches his head. If you jump into a trench and have total cover, I fly towards you or fly higher up until I can see you (remember, I only need to see a TINY speck of you to negate total cover and attack you at full value) If you hide behind a tree, I fly over you and shoot down. Trunks are vertical for the most part.
> 
> 
> Most of your total cover ideas can be negated by simply flying above the target.




If you are 600ft away and fly up,  and the monster jumps in a trench,  it's going to take you a few rounds more than likely to get to an angle to hit them assuming they stay in the same place.  If the monster is the size of an elf and dives under a wagon or cart the size of a Volkswagen,  you are going to have to be back on the ground to try to hit.  If the elf runs into a building,  no amount of flying will help you.  If the elf runs around the corner of a wall,  and you are 200 or 600 ft away,  it's going to take you a few rounds to get an angle.  Full cover is not the mystical unicorn you seem to make it out to be.  Sure,  your PC can spend a half and hour flying back and forth trying to get an angle to attack. and while you do this, does the rest of your party just stand around 600ft away watching you fly around?  Oh and while they waste that half hour,  the reinforcements are likely going to be called in...now it's a party. 

Again,  I am not disagreeing that sharpshooter is a bit too powerful,  but you are making it much more powerful than it really is.  Stick with your homebrew rule,  as I said I think it's a great idea to solve the problem at your table, it's just an issue at my table.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 2, 2018)

devincutler said:


> My problem stems solely from Sharpshooter. I don't have a problem with GWM because the practitioner has to get up close and personal and subject himself to damage.



Again, this is not the complaint.

The complaint is, that if a martial character wants to do damage (and who does not?) he or she pretty much MUST get one of these feats if feats are allowed, or see himself comprehensively outclassed by those allies who do.


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## devincutler (Jun 2, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Again, this is not the complaint.
> 
> The complaint is, that if a martial character wants to do damage (and who does not?) he or she pretty much MUST get one of these feats if feats are allowed, or see himself comprehensively outclassed by those allies who do.




Well, since my players play fighters without the feat, and my son plays a barbarian without the feat, and not a single martial type in the last 4 day Convention AL fest I attended had the feat, I'd say a LOT of martial characters "don't want to do damage", which is actually foolish for you to say because technically a fighter without the feat still does SOME damage. But I know what you meant to say was "if a martial character wants to maximize damage".

And the answer to that is that there are other things a material character can do aside from maximizing damage. Like maxing AC.


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## dco (Jun 3, 2018)

Rossbert said:


> I am legitimately not trying to start any sort of flame war, but these two feats seem hyped way beyond anything I have seen at the table.
> 
> +10 damage is good, probably around doubling your damage on a hit (for argument's sake I am assuming 12 or 11 damage on a hit normally), but it comes with a 25% drop in accuracy. The math definitely works out as a net gain, if I hit 3/4 as often but do twice the damage it is definitely a win, but it hardly seems overwhelming.
> ...



You answered yourself, doubling average damage, for me that's bad design in a game where hitting is not difficult and the real armor are the hit points. But that's not all, the feats have more features, sometimes you can get an extra attack with GWM, that can mean 2-4x more damage, you have no penalty for long range and ignore some covers for sharpshooter.

Ok, accuracy is lower, but with 2 attacks if you need a roll of 11 to hit if you use GWM or Sharpshooter (a roll of 16) you will do practically the same average damage if we consider the feat is doubling this damage. That should cover an armor class of 16+Proficiency, most enemies, but the chances of criticals are the same and GWM could add another attack and Sharpshooter can reduce some penalties.
Once you add bonuses to hit from magic weapons, bless, bardic inspiration... self buffs from the classes like barbarian's reckless attack, rerolls with extra dice from Battlemasters, paladins with advantage or CHA bonuses...debuffs like hold person...and monsters with low armor class the probability of doing more damage raises fast.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 3, 2018)

The -5/+10 part is overrated because bad math. It just makes you look awesome. Make a list. Note how much damage you actually lose if you don't trust calculations that are not based on wrong assumptions. For a large part of the game, it is only worth using if enemy AC is lower than 17 or 18 and in that case the increase is only marginal and is more or less a gamble. Increasing the odds usually results in lower damage elsewhere. Casting bless means not casting guiding bolt or inflict wounds. Direct damage that can't be resisted completely and might end the fight even faster. At higher level you can use a better spell of course that might compete with concentration. Of course if stakes are low and you want to save spells, bless is always a good option.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 3, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> The -5/+10 part is overrated because bad math. It just makes you look awesome. Make a list. Note how much damage you actually lose if you don't trust calculations that are not based on wrong assumptions. For a large part of the game, it is only worth using if enemy AC is lower than 17 or 18 and in that case the increase is only marginal and is more or less a gamble. Increasing the odds usually results in lower damage elsewhere. Casting bless means not casting guiding bolt or inflict wounds. Direct damage that can't be resisted completely and might end the fight even faster. At higher level you can use a better spell of course that might compete with concentration. Of course if stakes are low and you want to save spells, bless is always a good option.



Lol.

Yeah, "usually results in lower damage elsewhere".

Said by someone that apparently is totally new to the concept of optimization or minmaxing.

You're right about bad math being involved in rating the feat. Not just what you think.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 4, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Lol.
> 
> Yeah, "usually results in lower damage elsewhere".
> 
> ...




Times of optimization lie behind me. Possible. But unfun. Buildup often means suffering for many levels until combos come online. And when you are finally there, combats are often not as you expect them. If your games are that repetitive more power(gaming) to you.

I have yet to see a build from you that deals enoigh self sustained damage from level 1 onward that shows how op GWM is.
I have yet to see the build that does 50 more points of damage than the non optimized one without unreasonable assumptions.


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## Staffan (Jun 4, 2018)

devincutler said:


> Most of your total cover ideas can be negated by simply flying above the target.



And thus, the existence of the Sharpshooter feat combined with flying spells explains why dungeons, not castles, are the primary form of fortification in D&D settings.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 4, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Times of optimization lie behind me. Possible. But unfun. Buildup often means suffering for many levels until combos come online. And when you are finally there, combats are often not as you expect them. If your games are that repetitive more power(gaming) to you.
> 
> I have yet to see a build from you that deals enoigh self sustained damage from level 1 onward that shows how op GWM is.
> I have yet to see the build that does 50 more points of damage than the non optimized one without unreasonable assumptions.



Thank you for switching your argumentation over.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 4, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Thank you for switching your argumentation over.




I see it more as an additum.
A lot of builds assume bless casted on you. That is a full round of casting. Bless is a concentration spell. Clerics having to put resources in keeping up bless mpre easily means losing out somewhere else. Paladin aura is often used in builds to shore up defenses. That either assumes generous stats or hexblade multiclass. You find barbarian rage or avenger oath as a source of advantage which is also not always on. Admittedly that is something that indeed happens usually in fights were stakes are high. Bit then both paladins and barbarian need a bit more work to make use of GWM since their base damage is higher due to rage or smite.

And then last but not least other feats cam make a fight completely unnecessary. Magic initiate disguise self or actior come to mind. Alert could also prove more useful as you might get to act one extra turn where the GWM is just surprised.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 4, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I see it more as an additum.
> A lot of builds assume bless casted on you. That is a full round of casting. Bless is a concentration spell. Clerics having to put resources in keeping up bless mpre easily means losing out somewhere else. Paladin aura is often used in builds to shore up defenses. That either assumes generous stats or hexblade multiclass. You find barbarian rage or avenger oath as a source of advantage which is also not always on. Admittedly that is something that indeed happens usually in fights were stakes are high. Bit then both paladins and barbarian need a bit more work to make use of GWM since their base damage is higher due to rage or smite.
> 
> And then last but not least other feats cam make a fight completely unnecessary. Magic initiate disguise self or actior come to mind. Alert could also prove more useful as you might get to act one extra turn where the GWM is just surprised.



Sorry now you're just grasping. 

The hard minmaxing fact remains: offense is the best defense. Removing the foe's hit points is the goal of combat. If you play a fighter or other martial your primary job is this and nothing but this. Having feats that make you twice as good at your job, is simply unsustainable - it drastially reduces options in the game, since it is decidedly unfun to play a build that kills foes half as fast as your buddy.

Everything else is just words.

Why are you so opposed to the concept that the devs have failed to rein in the balance of a few feats?

If you're not running a combat-focused campaign where DPR matter, why oppose the idea of errataing these feats? They wreck some campaigns and don't bother others, so fixing them will stop them from disrupting the first category while still not impact the second. It's a win win situation.

You come across as someone trying _everything_ in your power to not have to concede these feats are too good. 

Why? What is so devastating about such a conclusion that makes you work so hard at avoiding it?


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 4, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Sorry now you're just grasping.
> 
> The hard minmaxing fact remains: offense is the best defense. Removing the foe's hit points is the goal of combat. If you play a fighter or other martial your primary job is this and nothing but this. Having feats that make you twice as good at your job, is simply unsustainable - it drastially reduces options in the game, since it is decidedly unfun to play a build that kills foes half as fast as your buddy.
> 
> ...




I stopped when you said "twice as good" that is plain wrong. Even at white room that is not true. And in actual play it is even less true.
It is fact that feats are good or say the best to make a pure GW fighter more awesome. And that is exactly what as full feats they should be doing.
There is nothing devastating. I don't try hard to avoid it. It is fact that they are a bit overrated and not as OP as you seem to believe.
And you already have a fix for your game. The half feat "cleave" which is also at the right power level. I still wait for a caculation that makes a GWM deal "twice as much" damage... or say 50% more.


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## Coroc (Jun 4, 2018)

[MENTION=6922357]Rossbert[/MENTION] apart from your flanking rule i see it exactly the same, playing a ranger with SS, with my DM i always have to take a good guess wether to use the -5/+10 or not. With  SS the constant no disadvantage whith cover / range Thing seems to come up nearly as often and is of course totally useful then. Like warcaster or lucky.

It is all about context. Had i taken +2dex instead of the feat i would have had disad due to cover on some occasions but i would have had +1 to hit +1 damage + 1 armor +1 dex save all the freakin time. So the feat is balanced, nothing more nothing less.

I guess it might improve a bit on higher Levels when your base to hit goes up , with opponent armor about staying the same, but then you might also need it because the mob has insane hp.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 4, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> It is fact that feats are good or say the best to make a pure GW fighter more awesome. And that is exactly what as full feats they should be doing.



No.

What the feats are doing in practice is invalidating every other fighter build that wants to damage foes.

It reduces variety. It outdistances throwing knives, spears or what not by such a large margin it is not even funny.

Moreover those feats (together with a few unfortunate cantrip builds) invalidate monster stats to the point where mid- to high level CRs become jokes.

They are entirely bad for the game and must be nerfed in combat focused campaigns.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 4, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> No.
> 
> What the feats are doing in practice is invalidating every other fighter build that wants to damage foes.
> 
> ...




Still waiting for a build that does what you say. Its your turn to prove how it is OP.
Until now you are jist stating it with no backup whatsoever. If you show me the build based on sound assumptions I will evaluate it and might get to the same conclusion. Right now you are just babbling.


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## MrHotter (Jun 4, 2018)

For home games, this is easy enough to deal with. After seeing all the controversy over these feats, I've house ruled that anyone using a -5/+10 action would auto miss on 1-5 rather than just on a 1. That should make it so the player may not want to use the feat every attack even on low AC foes. 


I'm sure different DMs have a different idea of how to balance these feats (up to removing them from their game), but as long as they communicate their house rules before the characters are created, then it should work out for the table.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 4, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Still waiting for a build that does what you say. Its your turn to prove how it is OP.
> Until now you are jist stating it with no backup whatsoever. If you show me the build based on sound assumptions I will evaluate it and might get to the same conclusion. Right now you are just babbling.



I'll clue you in to a start: create a Battlemaster with GWM (or better SS/CE) using Precision manuever; and getting Advantage from your favorite source (could be somebody casting Faerie Fire, could be a barbarian attacking recklessly, or a monk stunning the target just to mention three).

But that's all I'm gonna do. 

Why? Because you're not new around here - you _know_ I have been active in GWM threads since the dawn of time (or at least the release of 5E). 

And I'm not going to repost the math only for you to ignore it, thus wasting my time. The above start is what you're getting from me.


----------



## Rossbert (Jun 4, 2018)

TL; DR summary (or what I'm gathering)

Cleave is good on high AC low HP targets
Sharpshooter is good while flying and outdoors in general where you can dictate range of engagement (and your party is cool with waiting at your max range)
-5/+10 is good when you have lots of attacks and are either willing to absorb the increase miss rate or you (and maybe party composition) build around finding every accuracy buff you can to mitigate the penalty and/or know the target has low AC

So it seems part of why I've never seen much of an issue (if there is one) is that it takes mid to high levels to really outpace other options (even dual weapon can theoretically add more damage (let's say an extra 11 a turn) depending on the number of attacks, with no penalty to hit) and most of my play either doesn't get that high or doesn't specifically lay down enough support to make it amazing.

I think it is enough of an issue at this point and  toworry about it before someone I play with feels it is ruining things is borrowing trouble.  Besides, there is a chance it may never hit the home game table at all and my AL characters are 3-4 levels away from the next ASI anyway.


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## Coroc (Jun 4, 2018)

Be it Advantage or bless, it just shifts the probability to hit, but it also does this for attacks without the feat.

And that pick your favourite source of Advantage be it barbarian or Monk or who sounds like wish for your favourite song to me. 1 source of disadvantage and all is cancelled out even if all three are in effect before.

You hit more often without GWM / SS on than with, and if you picked the main Attribute increase instead you hit even more often. You save on the Dragons breath and only take half damage because your dex is 1 Point higher. You got ss instead? Bad luck you are dead. You cannot easily describe loads of possible complex Scenarios with some simple math.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 4, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> I'll clue you in to a start: create a Battlemaster with GWM (or better SS/CE) using Precision manuever; and getting Advantage from your favorite source (could be somebody casting Faerie Fire, could be a barbarian attacking recklessly, or a monk stunning the target just to mention three).
> 
> But that's all I'm gonna do.
> 
> ...




I´ll give you the monk one. He is stunning anyway. How is the barbarian recklessly attacking helping the battlemaster? I guess multiclassing. Precision manever is a wash. You gain an average of +6.5 to hit at latest level. You could use that to negate a miss anyway or use trip maneuver for example when you hadn´t missed due to -5 already. And then you are attacking with advantage when using -5/+10 is a net gain.
The other one casting fairy fire falls flat because he could have casted fireball instead. Or if you are a powergamer, bless so you can combine it with advantage.

And you are not new to these threads either, and I tried googling for a build you gave and google told me you were also evasive last time only telling from your powergamer build instead of showing it.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 4, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I´ll give you the monk one. He is stunning anyway. How is the barbarian recklessly attacking helping the battlemaster? I guess multiclassing. Precision manever is a wash. You gain an average of +6.5 to hit at latest level. You could use that to negate a miss anyway or use trip maneuver for example when you hadn´t missed due to -5 already. And then you are attacking with advantage when using -5/+10 is a net gain.
> The other one casting fairy fire falls flat because he could have casted fireball instead. Or if you are a powergamer, bless so you can combine it with advantage.
> 
> And you are not new to these threads either, and I tried googling for a build you gave and google told me you were also evasive last time only telling from your powergamer build instead of showing it.




Ive posted the builds about 100x by now in multiple threads for years.  I'll tell you what.  Why don't you create a single classed barbarian or fighter without feats and I will create one with feats.  No buffs. No magic weapons. You can even choose the character level we are looking at. I will be happy to show you how much more damage these feats add.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 4, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I´ll give you the monk one. He is stunning anyway. How is the barbarian recklessly attacking helping the battlemaster? I guess multiclassing. Precision manever is a wash. You gain an average of +6.5 to hit at latest level. You could use that to negate a miss anyway or use trip maneuver for example when you hadn´t missed due to -5 already. And then you are attacking with advantage when using -5/+10 is a net gain.
> The other one casting fairy fire falls flat because he could have casted fireball instead. Or if you are a powergamer, bless so you can combine it with advantage.
> 
> And you are not new to these threads either, and I tried googling for a build you gave and google told me you were also evasive last time only telling from your powergamer build instead of showing it.




Experts claims should be taken at face value without proof, even if they are unwilling to provide data to support specific claims like double...

right?

thats the whole basis of the I-intific method, isn't it?

Seriously though, when something as simple as fog cloud shuts down advantages... but we cant talk about that cuz its not in every monster... the difference between theory and actual play grows.

In the right circumstances, under the right assumptions, against the right foes with the right limitations.... these feats are quite impressive.

Elsewhere, as even some of the proponents says, you would be wise to not use them and shoot normally.

So the question becomes how often in any given game are all those ducks lining up to make these feats shine vs how many times its better to not use them at all? 

pretty much the same as with every other feat choice or character build option.

how many attacks and shining moments do mobile or charger or both together get you over time in actual play? 

how many times does mage slayer really turn the tide of battle in actual play? 

those wont lend themselves to white room excel tabulation tho so... not as many _expert_ opinions.

To me, over time, it seems like doing more of the same is good - adding another plus or doing another die or whatever - but as far as actual tactical play works out it is the cases where you can do something new or take something big from rare to common (like say imposing disad on saves vs anything - but yes - concentration checks are big) that gets you big swings when it matters.

"I did +50 when my downed disadvantaged foe is hit by all five of my attacks in a round" is sure a woo hoo moment... but against such a foe how often would they have been up if you hand't but the rest of the turn played out anyway?

How many PCs were just un-paralyzed by that disadvantaged concentration check?


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## CapnZapp (Jun 4, 2018)

5ekyu said:


> So the question becomes how often in any given game are all those ducks lining up to make these feats shine vs how many times its better to not use them at all?
> 
> pretty much the same as with every other feat choice or character build option.



Great. So now you're relativizing to the point where every option is about the same: "it can be good and it can be less good". 

Seriously. 

Well, okay - it's up to the OP I guess.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 4, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Ive posted the builds about 100x by now in multiple threads for years.  I'll tell you what.  Why don't you create a single classed barbarian or fighter without feats and I will create one with feats.  No buffs. No magic weapons. You can even choose the character level we are looking at. I will be happy to show you how much more damage these feats add.




No, it is the other way round. And noone stated that it has to be without multiclassing or feats or the like. Please stay out of the conversation if you are unwilling to read every post. I never even said that the feat is not increasing damage by a good amount. I am saying that it is not as OP as some people claim because of denying reality of many games (I don´t speak about yours)

But, I am now willing to make a character fo you. half orc barbarian level 3. Berserker style. One encounter. Str 16, Con 16, Dex 14, Wis 12, In 8, cha 8 Longbow, Great  axe, Scale armor.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 4, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> I will be happy to show you how much more damage these feats add.



Don't bother. Let's just add Ungeheuer to the small list of people that for some unfathomable reason cannot enjoy the game anymore if any of the complaints about imbalance are true. 

That last argument "Google told me" is a hoot. I suspect you'd be more successful convincing a flatearther the world is round...

Anyway - this thread is about the OP asking why these feats are too good. I believe we have answered the question comprehensively. I do not think the OP needs Ungeheuer to believe it.


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## MrHotter (Jun 4, 2018)

As a poster who does not post very often, has there been any well-received suggestions for updating the -5/+10 feats to help balance them out? Has WotC responded to any suggestions or concerns about the feats? 

I don't think the feats should be removed, but I've thought of house ruling them to -5/+5, but ended up house ruling that an auto miss is on 1-5 when using the -5/+10. That way there are fewer cases where the power attack is the best choice for every attack. 


It's not that my table is the kind where the players are trying to min/max, but I would like to keep them from feeling they must have the 'one true build' for their character.


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## TwoSix (Jun 4, 2018)

MrHotter said:


> As a poster who does not post very often, has there been any well-received suggestions for updating the -5/+10 feats to help balance them out? Has WotC responded to any suggestions or concerns about the feats?
> 
> I don't think the feats should be removed, but I've thought of house ruling them to -5/+5, but ended up house ruling that an auto miss is on 1-5 when using the -5/+10. That way there are fewer cases where the power attack is the best choice for every attack.
> 
> ...



Not by WotC, no.  Anything in the core rules is locked in at this point, and recent tweets/sage advice have gone in the direction of literal reading of the rules, and away from any interpretations of intent.  (See: recent ruling on Shield Master/bonus actions.)

There's a general consensus (among optimizers, not the community at large) that those feats are too strong, but nothing close to a consensus as to how to correct them.  The broadly supported options I've seen are removing the -5/+10 mechanic and replacing with a +1 to Str or Dex, or simply removing the feats entirely.  I've seen changing the -5/+10 to something better also debated, but no real agreement on the best place to put the numbers.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 4, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Don't bother. Let's just add Ungeheuer to the small list of people that for some unfathomable reason cannot enjoy the game anymore if any of the complaints about imbalance are true.
> 
> That last argument "Google told me" is a hoot. I suspect you'd be more successful convincing a flatearther the world is round...
> 
> Anyway - this thread is about the OP asking why these feats are too good. I believe we have answered the question comprehensively. I do not think the OP needs Ungeheuer to believe it.




And you should be added to the list of people who are not as kind as putting an @ before my name. And to the list of people who won´t enjoy the game because anywhere there are small imbalances that exist in a white or pink or whatever room.


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## cmad1977 (Jun 4, 2018)

In my experience these feats only wreck the games of GMs who shouldn’t be playing with feats. Start smaller and grow into the ‘advanced’ parts.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 4, 2018)

MrHotter said:


> I'm sure different DMs have a different idea of how to balance these feats (up to removing them from their game), but as long as they communicate their house rules before the characters are created, then it should work out for the table.



Minor notational issue, but no DM should ever have to worry about removing a feat, unless they're in the middle of a campaign where someone already has it. The default state for any new campaign is to not allow feats or multi-classing at all. In order for a specific feat to present itself as an issue, the DM has to go out of their way to allow feats _and_ to allow that specific feat.

The only place where a DM needs to worry about an unbalanced feat is in League play.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 4, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> And you should be added to the list of people who are not as kind as putting an @ before my name.



Oh don't you worry - if I had had the least doubt in my mind you were about to miss one of my posts I most certainly would have!


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 4, 2018)

MrHotter said:


> As a poster who does not post very often, has there been any well-received suggestions for updating the -5/+10 feats to help balance them out?



 I am not aware of any suggestion ever having been well-received, in the history of the boards.



> Has WotC responded to any suggestions or concerns about the feats?



 IDK, but even if they have or do at some point, it'll probably be a nicely-phrased, "the game is just a starting point, do what you like."  Because, well, it is, and you can.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 4, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Great. So now you're relativizing to the point where every option is about the same: "it can be good and it can be less good".
> 
> Seriously.
> 
> Well, okay - it's up to the OP I guess.




i find it hilarious that after actually quoting a small piece of the rather wordy post i made you decided to put "" around something i did not say.

But thats fine. Shows the strength of your position.

In response let me do the opposite and actually put in "" things you have said on this thread...

"Damage is where the game is at."

Thats the underlying basis os the complaints about these feats - that they allow the production of higher amounts of damage in certain situations.

i will submit that in my experience total damage and especially DPR (another point you focus on) is less important than relative damage or effective damage or the single biggest aspect of the game - number of actions. A **lot* more gain can be accomplished by denying the enemy actions or providing them disadvantage on actions they take *in my experience* in a lot more circumstances than trying to maximize DPR at the cost of a party say focusing on supporting the GWM.

Again to quote you...

"I do not deny it requires a considerable level of system mastery to use right.
*Actually that's another black mark against the feat. A feat that encourages casual players to take mathematically-unsound actions (using the feat in circumstances where it statistically lowers your DPR) is a bad feat.*
Anyway, once your players have achieved suffienct system expertise, the feat is a damage-enabler bar none. There simply is no other way to reach the pinnacles of DPR. Your party simply will end up focusing all their minmax efforts on the GWMers (since that's much more worthwhile than wasting it on others)."

So, even as the latter part of that quote drives to the focusing the party on the damage from the GMW instead of the other possibilities - of course how many actions you cost the other side and how many times they miss are things not lending themselves easily to excel white room spreadsheets - the mid-part is aditting that the feat can be good or can be bad... depending on the circumstance and the numbers...

If that is the case, then it seems obvious that the frequency of the circumstances where "its good" and that "its bad" will vary from table to table outside of formal league play with mandatory pre-set encounters 9or outside of static white room excel sheet assumptions.)

But, in my experience, battles are won and lost in actual play more often *not* by DPR but by the relative outputs and restoration rates of both side and that is at least as often as not decided by denying effective actions to one side or the other than it is by just winning a race.

The exceptions in my experience tend to be very brief encounters with seriously under-capable adversaries - like say many of the warm-up and mid-card encounters - many of which are flashes over and (effectively) decided 9if not done) in a round or two. 

For fights that last, rounds in which you de-tooth the boss or some of the main damage dealers - do far more to shift the outcome than does some extra damage output from one character due to throwing lots of actions or power/resources from multiple characters to support one feat.

But again, like most every thing, this will vary a lot from table to table - whether or not the excel sheet says so.


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## Saeviomagy (Jun 5, 2018)

iserith said:


> Players in my games, for whatever reason, tend to do pretty awesome stuff. My experience is that when someone just focuses on "I do lots of damage with this one weapon..." they find they aren't as memorable as the other characters and buyer's remorse sets in.




You say this as though buying sharpshooter somehow reduces the character's ability to have a personality.



cmad1977 said:


> In my experience these feats only wreck the games of GMs who shouldn’t be playing with feats. Start smaller and grow into the ‘advanced’ parts.



This is a pretty poor effort at a cheap shot. The vast majority of feats are reasonable - they give players more options to express characters that have unusual abilities. If some of them change the balance of the game to the point where the DM needs to change the game to accommodate them, as you are suggesting, then those feats are out of line.


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## iserith (Jun 5, 2018)

Saeviomagy said:


> You say this as though buying sharpshooter somehow reduces the character's ability to have a personality.




I would never make that argument and haven't done so here.


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## Saeviomagy (Jun 5, 2018)

iserith said:


> I would never make that argument and haven't done so here.




So how is the quote I posted relevant to the discussion then?


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## iserith (Jun 5, 2018)

Saeviomagy said:


> So how is the quote I posted relevant to the discussion then?




I would say it's relevant to my experience with the feat in actual play and player feedback regarding it.


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## Ashrym (Jun 5, 2018)

Rossbert said:


> What makes Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter so good?




The answer is the way bonus damage is multiplied through multiple attacks.

I think opportunity cost and overkill make an impact on the value of the feats but the fact is that a fighter who takes two weapon fighting style and the dual wielder feat is far behind in average damage compared to a fighter who takes great weapon fighting and great weapon master with the advantage being a point of AC for the dual wielder.

It's counter-intuitive to look at a twf build (which is fine on some classes) and expect a bit of a defensive build instead a damage build. S&B expect lower damage for higher defense.

I find internet complaints can get over-stated and I find 5e generally good to the point I can play any class and I know I will enjoy it but no game is perfect.  TWF is the poster child for fighter discrepancy in that regard.

I let champions who take twf as the first style take improved twf (house rule) for their second style for two off hand attacks on one bonus action because I think that gives the twf fighter a more viable option for the style.


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## Li Shenron (Jun 5, 2018)

I am starting to think we've got it all wrong to always think that feats and multiclassing are for expert players... quite the contrary, perhaps they work best with beginners or casual players, or actually anyone who isn't a min-maxer obsessed with things such as "dpr" and probabilities. Experts should just progressively ban more and more things.

Those who think too much into the math, will always find a proof that something is better than something else, leading to the permanent frustration and unsatisfaction of never finding a perfect system. Perhaps your frustration is a sign that you should just stop talking about the current system, and try some other game, which of course will once again be imperfect, but at least you'll be annoying a different community.


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## houser2112 (Jun 5, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> The default state for any new campaign is to not allow feats or multi-classing at all. In order for a specific feat to present itself as an issue, the DM has to go out of their way to allow feats _and_ to allow that specific feat.




A piece of counter-anecdata: when our group switched from Pathfinder to 5E, the DM didn't explicitly allow MC/feats, but we all assumed those options were allowed. I would bet that a particular DM's favorite flavor of pre-5E D&D (and I would include PF as such a flavor for this purpose) has a strong influence on their willingness to allow the above options.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 5, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> Minor notational issue, but no DM should ever have to worry about removing a feat, unless they're in the middle of a campaign where someone already has it. The default state for any new campaign is to not allow feats or multi-classing at all. In order for a specific feat to present itself as an issue, the DM has to go out of their way to allow feats _and_ to allow that specific feat.
> 
> The only place where a DM needs to worry about an unbalanced feat is in League play.



Talk for yourself. 

Most DMs want PHB content to be good enough to be used as is.

Many use feats. Very few allow feats but first double-check WotC's work. 

Asking DMs to pre-screen every option individually is 
a) dismissive b) ridiculous and c) asking them to do WotC's work


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## Charlaquin (Jun 5, 2018)

With Shapshooter specifically, the Archery fighting style removes a significant chunk of the drawback of taking a -5/+10 attack, the smaller damage dice of bows compared to two-handed weapons makes the trade off of accuracy for static damage more favorable for archers, and the Feat removing penalties for 1/2 and 3/4 cover removes one of the biggest drawbacks of ranged combat over melee (and 5e already favors ranged). It’s also compatible with another one of the most powerful Feats, Crossbow Expert, which eliminates the other drawback of ranged combat and allows you to effectively dual-wield with a weapon that qualifies for Sharpshooter.

Variant human battlemaster fighter with archery fighting style, sharpshooter, and crossbow expert gives you absurdly high at-will DPR for your level. Swapping archery for great weapon fighting and sharpshooter and crossbow expert for great weapon mastery and polearm master gives you similarly high at-will DPR, but with only 10-foot reach instead of 30/120 foot range.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 5, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Talk for yourself.
> 
> Most DMs want PHB content to be good enough to be used as is.
> 
> ...




And you should do the same. You did a poll a while ago and you know most people think the feat is good as is. It is your agenda to change something that is not broken for most people.


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## iserith (Jun 5, 2018)

houser2112 said:


> A piece of counter-anecdata: when our group switched from Pathfinder to 5E, the DM didn't explicitly allow MC/feats, but we all assumed those options were allowed. I would bet that a particular DM's favorite flavor of pre-5E D&D (and I would include PF as such a flavor for this purpose) has a strong influence on their willingness to allow the above options.




That mirrors my experience as well. I run a lot of pickup games, especially for other DMs, and they are almost always surprised that I don't normally use feats in my games. When I explain that it's an optional rule they act like it's the first time they've ever heard that. To a man or woman, they all played D&D 3.Xe and/or 4e.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 5, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> No, it is the other way round. And noone stated that it has to be without multiclassing or feats or the like. Please stay out of the conversation if you are unwilling to read every post. I never even said that the feat is not increasing damage by a good amount. I am saying that it is not as OP as some people claim because of denying reality of many games (I don´t speak about yours)
> 
> But, I am now willing to make a character fo you. half orc barbarian level 3. Berserker style. One encounter. Str 16, Con 16, Dex 14, Wis 12, In 8, cha 8 Longbow, Great  axe, Scale armor.




Ummm. A level 3 half orc can't take great weapon master. Want to try for a character that would actually have the option of taking said feat?


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 5, 2018)

Nope. You can take variant human if you like. You said chose the level. I did. Now it is your turn. Or make it level 4. I take +2 str.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 5, 2018)

houser2112 said:


> A piece of counter-anecdata: when our group switched from Pathfinder to 5E, the DM didn't explicitly allow MC/feats, but we all assumed those options were allowed. I would bet that a particular DM's favorite flavor of pre-5E D&D (and I would include PF as such a flavor for this purpose) has a strong influence on their willingness to allow the above options.



Honestly, the assumptions probably come at the player level. Someone coming at 5E from Pathfinder is going to have different assumptions than someone coming at it from AD&D. And yes, the willingness to allow those options probably has to do with which edition the DM is most comfortable with.

I just feel it necessary to remind people, particularly in threads like this, that the design intent was for you to only include the stuff you actively _want_ to use. Especially coming out of 4E, where everything was assumed to be in-play by default, they knew that this was going to be a hard sell. There's just a certain mindset of player which they're trying the best to discourage, but there's only so much they can do about it.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 5, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Talk for yourself.
> 
> Most DMs want PHB content to be good enough to be used as is.
> 
> ...



You don't speak for most DMs. Nobody here does. Most DMs aren't represented on these boards.

In order to play 5E as it was intended, screening content is explicitly the job of the DM. If you don't want to do the job they give you, then you have no right to complain about the game not working. The game works as the designers want it to work, even if it doesn't work as you (or I) want it to work. If you want it to work differently, then you are empowered to make it so at your own table.

They sold you a bag of parts, and if you ignore the instructions, then you can't reasonably complain about the end product not being functional. You are certainly within your rights to complain that they should have sold you a finished product that worked right out of the box (and I would agree with you), but that doesn't change the reality of what they sold you.


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## Satyrn (Jun 5, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Talk for yourself.
> 
> Most DMs want . . .




Is this a case of 

A) spinning on a dime;
B) do as I say, not as I do; or
C) Delicious irony?

I'm picturing Zapp as a Borderlands psycho screaming "I smell delicious!"


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## BookBarbarian (Jun 5, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Most DMs want PHB content to be good enough to be used as is.




Talk for yourself.



CapnZapp said:


> Many use feats.




How many?



CapnZapp said:


> Very few allow feats but first double-check WotC's work.




How few?



CapnZapp said:


> Asking DMs to pre-screen every option individually is
> a) dismissive b) ridiculous and c) asking them to do WotC's work




I screen nothing but 3rd party and homebrew. My game has yet to break. But I can only talk for myself of course.


----------



## Satyrn (Jun 5, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> My game has yet to brake.



Mine's had way too many stops and starts.


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## Mistwell (Jun 5, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Sorry now you're just grasping.
> 
> The hard minmaxing fact remains: offense is the best defense. Removing the foe's hit points is the goal of combat. If you play a fighter or other martial your primary job is this and nothing but this. Having feats that make you twice as good at your job, is simply unsustainable - it drastially reduces options in the game, since it is decidedly unfun to play a build that kills foes half as fast as your buddy.
> 
> Everything else is just words.




This is incredibly simplistic analysis. Offense is the best defense sometimes, and defense is the best defense sometimes, and it all depends on the circumstances.  There is no generalization that can be made due to the number of factors in play. If you play a fighter or other martial your primary job is sometimes to do more damage, and sometimes to prevent the rest of your party from taking more damage, depending on the circumstances. Your decision that the job of the fighter is exclusively to do damage is faulty logic and deeply simplistic. It's like you're stating that D&D is tic tack toe as opposed to three dimensional chess.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 5, 2018)

Mistwell said:


> This is incredibly simplistic analysis. Offense is the best defense sometimes, and defense is the best defense sometimes, and it all depends on the circumstances.  There is no generalization that can be made due to the number of factors in play. If you play a fighter or other martial your primary job is sometimes to do more damage, and sometimes to prevent the rest of your party from taking more damage, depending on the circumstances. Your decision that the job of the fighter is exclusively to do damage is faulty logic and deeply simplistic. It's like you're stating that D&D is tic tack toe as opposed to three dimensional chess.




Killing enemies faster means the enemies get less turns which means you and your party take less damage.  I can make a very good argument that killing faster is a greater form of damage reduction than almost anything else.


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## BookBarbarian (Jun 5, 2018)

Satyrn said:


> Mine's had way too many stops and starts.




I always like when my typos are pointed out cleverly.

I salute you sir!


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## Mistwell (Jun 5, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Killing enemies faster means the enemies get less turns which means you and your party take less damage.  I can make a very good argument that killing faster is a greater form of damage reduction than almost anything else.




Doing more damage, 1) does not necessarily mean killing enemies faster, depending on the circumstances, and 2) positioning yourself such that a mass of enemies focus on you and your higher AC may well be more important to the party in a given set of circumstances than you killing one or two of that large pack of creatures.

Particularly if you're in a group that has a spell caster that is much better at killing a large group of foes with an area attack than your fighter-type, because they can kill 20 foes when you can only kill 1-4 of them, your position and defense as the fighter-type might in fact be far more crucial for the party than your doing more damage. 

And even that is very simplistic, but at least it's less simplistic than "More damage = Enemies Get Less Turns". It really does depend on the circumstances, and it's not an analysis that is best done by considering just your PC and just the foes - the rest of the party plays havoc with so many other factors in play.  

Sometimes you want to do as much damage to one creature as possible, sometimes you want to do as much damage to many creatures at once is best, sometimes you want to simply keep a group of monsters focused on you, sometimes knocking one creature prone and then grappling them so they cannot move is the most important thing you could do, and sometimes even the dodge action while blocking a corridor is the most important thing you can do for the party.  There is no good generalization that can be made here about damage being the most important thing.


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## devincutler (Jun 5, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Killing enemies faster means the enemies get less turns which means you and your party take less damage.  I can make a very good argument that killing faster is a greater form of damage reduction than almost anything else.




Which means, de facto, the enemies killing your martial as fast as possible is the best tactic for them, and defending thwarts this.

Not to mention doing more damage can mean different things. For example, against a horde of 1 hp rats (to use an edge example), I would rather have 6 attacks that do 1d3 damage than 1 attack that does 4d10+40 damage.


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## Oofta (Jun 5, 2018)

devincutler said:


> Which means, de facto, the enemies killing your martial as fast as possible is the best tactic for them, and defending thwarts this.
> 
> Not to mention doing more damage can mean different things. For example, against a horde of 1 hp rats (to use an edge example), I would rather have 6 attacks that do 1d3 damage than 1 attack that does 4d10+40 damage.




Overkill is pretty much never part of the theoretical discussions because it's too complex to figure out.

Just like there'a always the assumption that GWM will get buffs or advantage that somehow are never applied to the other fighting styles.  Or that maybe, just maybe, chasing after DPR doesn't really matter all that much to some people.


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## BookBarbarian (Jun 5, 2018)

Oofta said:


> Overkill is pretty much never part of the theoretical discussions because it's too complex to figure out.
> 
> Just like there'a always the assumption that GWM will get buffs or advantage that somehow are never applied to the other fighting styles.  Or that maybe, just maybe, chasing after DPR doesn't really matter all that much to some people.




For what it's worth, with GWM I'm usually not concerned with overkill as I'm to busy being happy that my bonus action attack got triggered.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 5, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Killing enemies faster means the enemies get less turns which means you and your party take less damage.  I can make a very good argument that killing faster is a greater form of damage reduction than almost anything else.



But its not like having a higher max  higher dpr on a character on paper and killing faster are linked at the hip. You can do lots more dpr on one character or two on paper and lose while doing less dpr but countering a lot more incoming dmg wins the battle.


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## Zardnaar (Jun 5, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Killing enemies faster means the enemies get less turns which means you and your party take less damage.  I can make a very good argument that killing faster is a greater form of damage reduction than almost anything else.




This and its +1 AC vs +10 damage per attack. Thereis no defensive feat at as good at defending as the -5/+10 ones are at attacking.


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## Ashrym (Jun 5, 2018)

Zardnaar said:


> This and its +1 AC vs +10 damage per attack. Thereis no defensive feat at as good at defending as the -5/+10 ones are at attacking.




A shield is +2 AC, not +1.  It would also be facetious to acknowledge fighting style going with GWM or SS but not S&B, or acknowledging various bonuses to hit but not various bonuses to defense in comparison (like bardic inspiration dice or bane vs bless or disadvantage on incoming attacks).  Shield master is a good feat.

Damage bonuses are multiplied out or restricted by number of attacks.  Defensive bonuses are multiplied out or restricted by number of attackers.  The number of attackers can easily bring defensive bonuses into play more often than offensive.

Defensive builds might (edit: not) be as sexy as MOAR DAMAGE but I think there is a solid argument to be made for their value.  One solid defensive build blocking a choke point can save on damage to the entire party.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 5, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Killing enemies faster means the enemies get less turns which means you and your party take less damage.  I can make a very good argument that killing faster is a greater form of damage reduction than almost anything else.



Not without making unfounded assumptions about the nature of your opponents. There are simply too many variables involved. Even if you're fighting HP16 orcs, and this feat is the difference between killing an orc in one attack and killing an orc in three attacks, the value of a +1 bonus to AC scales with the number of enemies you're fighting.

Specific cases may favor offense more frequently than defense, under many typical conditions, but the general point does not stand.


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## BookBarbarian (Jun 5, 2018)

Ashrym said:


> A shield is +2 AC, not +1.  It would also be facetious to acknowledge fighting style going with GWM or SS but not S&B, or acknowledging various bonuses to hit but not various bonuses to defense in comparison (like bardic inspiration dice or bane vs bless or disadvantage on incoming attacks).  Shield master is a good feat.
> 
> Damage bonuses are multiplied our or restricted by number of attacks.  Defensive bonuses are multiplied out or restricted by number of attackers.  The number of attackers can easily bring defensive bonuses into play more often than offensive.
> 
> Defensive builds might be as sexy as MOAR DAMAGE but I think there is a solid argument to be made for their value.  One solid defensive build blocking a choke point can save on damage to the entire party.




I love me some +1 AC. I'll take Defense Fighting style over GWF on a 2-handed fighter every time.

Edit: However it does seem like the defensive *feats *like Heavy Armor Master, Tough etc aren't quite as impactful as GWM/SS.


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## Ashrym (Jun 6, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> Edit: However it does seem like the defensive *feats *like Heavy Armor Master, Tough etc aren't quite as impactful as GWM/SS.



"seem" is the operative word here.  Big numbers are more prominent in a person's mind than similar numbers more or less often.  One stands out while the other requires tracking to be noticeable.  

Taking no damage from an AoE because of shield master is rather noticeable, however.  ;-)


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## FrogReaver (Jun 6, 2018)

Oofta said:


> Overkill is pretty much never part of the theoretical discussions because it's too complex to figure out.
> 
> Just like there'a always the assumption that GWM will get buffs or advantage that somehow are never applied to the other fighting styles.  Or that maybe, just maybe, chasing after DPR doesn't really matter all that much to some people.




Overkill isn't too complex. It's just a meaningless stat 99% of he time.  What matters is your chance of killin an enemy and how the damage you do impacts your future chances of killing an enemy. This is very closely related to DPR without trying to account for overkill damage.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 6, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> Not without making unfounded assumptions about the nature of your opponents. There are simply too many variables involved. Even if you're fighting HP16 orcs, and this feat is the difference between killing an orc in one attack and killing an orc in three attacks, the value of a +1 bonus to AC scales with the number of enemies you're fighting.
> 
> Specific cases may favor offense more frequently than defense, under many typical conditions, but the general point does not stand.




the totality of cases favor the offense provided by SS and GWM more than the defensive options. That isn't to say here is no case where defense can be better. It's just there's vastly more cases where offense is better than cases where defense is better


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## FrogReaver (Jun 6, 2018)

Ashrym said:


> A shield is +2 AC, not +1.  It would also be facetious to acknowledge fighting style going with GWM or SS but not S&B, or acknowledging various bonuses to hit but not various bonuses to defense in comparison (like bardic inspiration dice or bane vs bless or disadvantage on incoming attacks).  Shield master is a good feat.
> 
> Damage bonuses are multiplied out or restricted by number of attacks.  Defensive bonuses are multiplied out or restricted by number of attackers.  The number of attackers can easily bring defensive bonuses into play more often than offensive.
> 
> Defensive builds might (edit: not) be as sexy as MOAR DAMAGE but I think there is a solid argument to be made for their value.  One solid defensive build blocking a choke point can save on damage to the entire party.




Of course there are circumstances when more defense will be better. But when the totality of cases get considered it will be found lacking. That's mostly due to the fact that the defensive abilities of a GWM fighter are still very similar to the defensive abilities of a non-GWM fighter. AC within 1-2 and hp nearly the same as well. While the offensive abilities of GWM fighter vastly outclass non-GaWM/SS fighters


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## FrogReaver (Jun 6, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Nope. You can take variant human if you like. You said chose the level. I did. Now it is your turn. Or make it level 4. I take +2 str.




Level 4 it is. I'll post analysis when i get back to my desktop this evening


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 6, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Level 4 it is. I'll post analysis when i get back to my desktop this evening




But not both human and level 4. Or actually, you may do it if you only chose feats.
I am really looking forward to that build.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 6, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> But not both human and level 4. Or actually, you may do it if you only chose feats.
> I am really looking forward to that build.




I'll do a half orc for sure. If time permits I'll do a human with 2 feats at level 4


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## Ashrym (Jun 6, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Of course there are circumstances when more defense will be better. But when the totality of cases get considered it will be found lacking. That's mostly due to the fact that the defensive abilities of a GWM fighter are still very similar to the defensive abilities of a non-GWM fighter. AC within 1-2 and hp nearly the same as well. While the offensive abilities of GWM fighter vastly outclass non-GaWM/SS fighters




Except I haven't found defensive builds to be vastly inferior.

Generally, it's 2 AC for the shield, 1 AC for the fighting style (because the offensive builds take the offensive fighting style), and shield master (because feat for a feat).  If we include feats and fighting styles for offensive forms then we include feats and fighting styles for defensive forms.  A magical shield increases that gap if it's included.  The evasion like ability that comes with shield master is much better than not evasion type abilities.

I don't disagree that there's a lot of damage out of GWM and SS.  That's why I had a house rule to improve TWF as a style if a fighter wanted to go that route.  If the argument is that "not all fighting styles are created equal" then I support that argument.

In my experience, S&B is viable in 5e.  Try a high level dex fighter with shield master.  If he's champion he can have defense and dueling fighting styles.  Dueling has the same benefit of bonus damage through multiple attacks (even if it's a smaller bonus, tbf) as other abilities.  If you want, skip shield master and use defensive duelist instead.  2-3 AC difference plus prof bonus to AC once per turn if as needed is better than the 1-2 AC to which you referred.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 6, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> I'll do a half orc for sure. If time permits I'll do a human with 2 feats at level 4




Thank you. Actually I do believe that gwm is a strong feat. So I wxpect a slight damage bump at the cost of more volatility.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 6, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> the totality of cases favor the offense provided by SS and GWM more than the defensive options. That isn't to say here is no case where defense can be better. It's just there's vastly more cases where offense is better than cases where defense is better



Again, I don't think you have enough information to say that for certain. This is D&D. There is no 'totality of cases' because the DM can always introduce a new case. There is no finite number of monsters you might fight, or finite combination of them.

One area where offense probably beats defense is when it comes to solo boss fights. If your DM has a lot of those, then offense is probably the right choice. If your DM doesn't include many solo monsters, and instead favors large groups of weak monsters, it probably shifts in the other direction. But again, there are too many variables to say anything for certain.


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## Istbor (Jun 6, 2018)

Hmmm... what makes Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter so good? 

I think the fact that it triggers so many people on this forum.  That gives me the most enjoyment.  That these two feats can cause so much consternation and cause some to discuss until they are blue in the face. 

That, and it makes hulking brutish warriors and snipers seem extra cool.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 6, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> Again, I don't think you have enough information to say that for certain. This is D&D. There is no 'totality of cases' because the DM can always introduce a new case. There is no finite number of monsters you might fight, or finite combination of them.
> 
> One area where offense probably beats defense is when it comes to solo boss fights. If your DM has a lot of those, then offense is probably the right choice. If your DM doesn't include many solo monsters, and instead favors large groups of weak monsters, it probably shifts in the other direction. But again, there are too many variables to say anything for certain.




Are you suggesting that it's simply a matter we can't have knowledge on?  Or are you asserting hat defens is on par with GWM offense?  Because if the first is your point then that thought equally undermines the notion that defense is better or on par.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 6, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Are you suggesting that it's simply a matter we can't have knowledge on?  Or are you asserting hat defens is on par with GWM offense?  Because if the first is your point then that thought equally undermines the notion that defense is better or on par.



It's going to vary from encounter to encounter, and DM to DM. In some campaigns, the available options for increasing defense will give better results than investing an equivalent amount of resources into offense. There's simply no way to know with any reasonable degree of certainty.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 7, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> It's going to vary from encounter to encounter, and DM to DM. In some campaigns, the available options for increasing defense will give better results than investing an equivalent amount of resources into offense. There's simply no way to know with any reasonable degree of certainty.




Sure, on "any given Sunday" anything can happen.  Just because the best team in the NFL in a given season can get beaten by the worst on any given Sunday doesn't mean we can't know which team is better with a reasonable degree of certainty.  The same thing applies here.  Just because there are enough variables present that some combination of them can allow the defensive option to be better at a specific time doesn't mean there isn't a reasonable degree of certainty about which option/team is generally better.


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## Mistwell (Jun 7, 2018)

We should bring back the old PvP arena we used to do here for 3e


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 7, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Sure, on "any given Sunday" anything can happen.  Just because the best team in the NFL in a given season can get beaten by the worst on any given Sunday doesn't mean we can't know which team is better with a reasonable degree of certainty.  The same thing applies here.  Just because there are enough variables present that some combination of them can allow the defensive option to be better at a specific time doesn't mean there isn't a reasonable degree of certainty about which option/team is generally better.



Okay, but how would you go about actually proving it - either way - without resorting to specific-case scenarios that may never occur during play? If I play through an entire campaign where the greatsword fighter routinely goes down in the first round, and the paladin is the star of every major encounter due to sheer defensive prowess, then your generalization is going to seem unfounded.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 7, 2018)

Mistwell said:


> We should bring back the old PvP arena we used to do here for 3e




As with any game PvP builds are different than PvM builds


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## FrogReaver (Jun 7, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> Okay, but how would you go about actually proving it - either way - without resorting to specific-case scenarios that may never occur during play? If I play through an entire campaign where the greatsword fighter routinely goes down in the first round, and the paladin is the star of every major encounter due to sheer defensive prowess, then your generalization is going to seem unfounded.




It's weird you ask me how to prove it without resorting to specific-case scenarios and then you provide a specific case scenario.  Anyways, the general principles that lead to this conclusion are fairly simple.

1.  Enemy HP tends to quickly outpace the amount of damage a PC will do in a single attack as PC's level.  Why is this significant?  Because the more trials (*attacks) you have before the enemy is defeated the less variance there will be in the number of turns required to defeat the enemy.  This makes average damage be a very good predictor of how many rounds an enemy will last.  

2.  Killing monsters faster means they make less attacks against you.

All that said, you can contrive a specific example that this general advice will not follow for but that's an "any given Sunday" type of example, not actually an argument about which option is better.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 7, 2018)

Ashrym said:


> Except I haven't found defensive builds to be vastly inferior.
> 
> Generally, it's 2 AC for the shield, 1 AC for the fighting style (because the offensive builds take the offensive fighting style), and shield master (because feat for a feat).  If we include feats and fighting styles for offensive forms then we include feats and fighting styles for defensive forms.  A magical shield increases that gap if it's included.  The evasion like ability that comes with shield master is much better than not evasion type abilities.
> 
> ...




One issue:  the consensus when using GWM is that Defensive Style is better than Great Weapon Style.  I'm not sure if their is a consensus on duelist vs defensive style but I would tend to take duelist in that scenario.  So I would say it's the opposite.  The offensive focused builds generally take defense styles and the "defense" focused builds generally take offense styles.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 7, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Thank you. Actually I do believe that gwm is a strong feat. So I wxpect a slight damage bump at the cost of more volatility.




I've got an initial barrage of data if I can just figure out how to nicely post it.


ACGWM version+2 Str version%DPR of GWM/+2 Str1120.2113.491.51219.0913.271.441317.8512.991.371416.4912.641.301515.0212.241.231613.4311.771.141711.7111.241.04189.8910.64.93198.639.88.86207.919.27.85


This is with Crits included and the crit portion of GWM included. The GWM column includes calculations for using the better of -5/+10 and not using it against the specific target AC.  Both columns include rage damage bonus and reckless attack.

I have the numbers for Both with Beserker but it will take a bit to get them posted.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 7, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> It's weird you ask me how to prove it without resorting to specific-case scenarios and then you provide a specific case scenario.  Anyways, the general principles that lead to this conclusion are fairly simple.



It's not a specific scenario, though. It's the aggregate of hundreds of hours of play, where defense _consistently_ wins over offense. And sure, that aggregate is made up of several dozen specific scenarios, but when it happens _consistently_, I start to notice a trend. 

And maybe you're in a different game, where that doesn't happen, and you start to notice your own trend. At this point, we don't have enough data to suggest a clear winner in a general case, except to say that it's going to vary between campaigns.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 7, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> It's not a specific scenario, though. It's the aggregate of hundreds of hours of play, where defense _consistently_ wins over offense. And sure, that aggregate is made up of several dozen specific scenarios, but when it happens _consistently_, I start to notice a trend.
> 
> And maybe you're in a different game, where that doesn't happen, and you start to notice your own trend. At this point, we don't have enough data to suggest a clear winner in a general case, except to say that it's going to vary between campaigns.




I don't think you are taking the "any given Sunday" analogy far enough.

Anything can be true of any given encounter within a campaign while not being true of most encounters in the campaign.
Anything can also be true of any given campaign while not being true of most campaigns.

So you saying, "in my campaigns defense is better" really only goes back to telling us what we already know and agree upon and that is "on any given Sunday" defense may very well be better but that still isn't an argument for it actually being better.

I am curious as to what kind of circumstances come up commonly enough in your campaign that end up making defense be better as you claim.  
Maybe most of the enemies target the Fighter/Barbarian and ignore the rest of the party?
Maybe you usually fight creatures with really low hp totals?
Maybe the rest of your party has really focused on damage meaning that the parties damage is really high regardless of what you do?
Maybe your cleric refuses to heal any front line fighter that doesn't have at least an 18 AC?
Maybe your DM really hates the GWM feat and always focus fires down any PC that decided to take it and doesn't make enemies behave that way when a PC does not have said feat?
Maybe you find magic items that really help defensive but not magic items that really help offensive ones?

Care to give us any thoughts on this part?


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 7, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe most of the enemies target the Fighter/Barbarian and ignore the rest of the party?



Melee enemies will target whoever they can reach without provoking an opportunity attack, favoring easy targets and effective (high damage, or spellcasting) targets.







FrogReaver said:


> Maybe you usually fight creatures with really low hp totals?



Bounded Accuracy means that goblins and orcs remain a viable threat at almost any level, and groups of enemies are common at any level.







FrogReaver said:


> Maybe the rest of your party has really focused on damage meaning that the parties damage is really high regardless of what you do?



It's not like a warlock has many alternatives. There's very little point in focusing on defense when you're far enough away that very few attacks are directed against you in the first place.







FrogReaver said:


> Maybe your cleric refuses to heal any front line fighter that doesn't have at least an 18 AC?



Maybe there's no cleric.







FrogReaver said:


> Maybe your DM really hates the GWM feat and always focus fires down any PC that decided to take it and doesn't make enemies behave that way when a PC does not have said feat?



Maybe the DM is role-playing the NPCs based on what makes sense for them, and that means they attack the guy with the big sword who can't defend himself instead of the lady with the shield that they can't seem to hurt.







FrogReaver said:


> Maybe you find magic items that really help defensive but not magic items that really help offensive ones?



In this specific campaign, the great-weapon wielder lucked into a very powerful greatsword around level 10, while the rest of the party was left to make do with an assortment of odds and ends. This actually exacerbated the problem somewhat, as the great-weapon wielder became even more accurate and even greater of a threat, without becoming substantially tougher in any way.

This is just one combination of factors, granted, but none of the individual bits is unreasonable or terribly improbable. This combination of factors is as valid as any other, and this combination of factors is one where a shield-based fighter-type contributed more to the team than the great-weapon fighter-type did.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 7, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> Melee enemies will target whoever they can reach without provoking an opportunity attack, favoring easy targets and effective (high damage, or spellcasting) targets.Bounded Accuracy means that goblins and orcs remain a viable threat at almost any level, and groups of enemies are common at any level.It's not like a warlock has many alternatives. There's very little point in focusing on defense when you're far enough away that very few attacks are directed against you in the first place.Maybe there's no cleric.Maybe the DM is role-playing the NPCs based on what makes sense for them, and that means they attack the guy with the big sword who can't defend himself instead of the lady with the shield that they can't seem to hurt.In this specific campaign, the great-weapon wielder lucked into a very powerful greatsword around level 10, while the rest of the party was left to make do with an assortment of odds and ends. This actually exacerbated the problem somewhat, as the great-weapon wielder became even more accurate and even greater of a threat, without becoming substantially tougher in any way.
> 
> This is just one combination of factors, granted, but none of the individual bits is unreasonable or terribly improbable. This combination of factors is as valid as any other, and this combination of factors is one where a shield-based fighter-type contributed more to the team than the great-weapon fighter-type did.



Two things...

I love when claims like how this option puts all the others to shame so others are not used much at all wind up working in that intelligent enemies being aware of the potential and threat and target those weapon users somehow involves GM bias.

Second, i love again the notion that somehow average damage on paper equates to dropping foes faster in play like the enemies just stand there and let you wail on the like the white room excel sheets do.

Once fights get more complicated than how fast do we beat our way thru a stationary sack of hit points a lot of options become a lot more desirable.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 7, 2018)

I think we're veering dangerously close to relativistic nothingness. 

In fact, many if not most people denouncing the worth of these feats severely underestimate their minmaxing potential. So many posters bringing out detailed math that just from a quick look completely miss the hardcore combinations that bring the feats up to a whole other level.

And then you have the fundamental notion that offense means you get to choose (which enemy dies first). What defense means, is that the enemy is given the choice to ignore your greatest asset. In short: by skipping your impervious behemoth, they're attacking the weakest link.

So even before we go into specifics, _of course_ offense is going to carry the day! It's comparing Panzers to the Maginot line.

Now, if D&D had offered a robust aggro system then I could have seen a point. If defensive tanks were given the power to control the actions of enemies. But it doesn't. It just does not. (There is experiments with token abilities but nothing that really approximates the power of the World of Warcraft Warrior main battle tank)

This means that: sure, if you have a DM that is sympathetic to your build, then yes, how lovely to see the goblins faff about ineffectually at your AC 26 mountain fortress of a character. 

But this build will always be incredibly vulnerable to opponents that walk around that fortress. 

In stark - very stark - contrast you have the optimized killers that leave every other fighter build in the dust. Each time you kill a foe a round earlier you're saving twice as many attacks against your side. A dead enemy can't choose to ignore your high AC and go for the squishies.

And I really am having trouble taking the detractors seriously. If offense meant that you got perhaps one point of attack value or two points of damage for a point of defense, then again: maybe you do have a point.

But D&D doesn't keep that balance. It features feats that blow you out of the water. The damage potential of an attack that otherwise might be 1d12+7 becomes 1d12+17. Times three or five each round! A huge huge increase! And it thinks that the penalty will counteract that; completely missing the feats' greatest power: 

The player is in control, and can choose to *not* use the feats. This means that every time you bring up a player using the feats wrong, your argument is irrelevant, because nobody has ever claimed they're powerful in the hands of the inept.

Instead, they're absolutely ghastly in terms of intra-build balance in the hands of mathematically proficient players who know what they're doing. 

That they're wasted on the average gamer is not a good thing - in fact I consider it another black mark against them. I think that "too-difficult" design is bad design, and a feat that makes you take bad decisions is a bad feat indeed.

But again: the main damage these feats are doing is the way they're saying: "forget about being a cool lethal killer with your throwing knives or with your spear, because compared to the greataxe guy, you simply are not".

Sure, they overturn balance and make monsters look wimpy, but that's not the greatest damage - the main issue is that if you like to contribute to the death of your enemies, these feats severely restricts your choice of weapon, *reducing variety and lessening the fun* of the game.

It boils down to this: 

Some campaigns don't worry about damage, and combat isn't a centrepiece. Some campaigns don't feature a minmaxing player. In lots of campaigns these feats are not a problem, because they're not utilized to their full extent, or because their power (=DPR) isn't valued highly.

But errataing the feats would not change that. These campaigns would just be as happy with fixed feats.

And there's the rub. There are other campaigns, where these feats are absolutely devastating. You simply must use them or fall behind helplessly. These are the campaigns which would greatly benefit from official fixes.

And so every campaign would be better off (or indifferent to) improving these feats, and that is why they obviously should be fixed.

Had there been a group of campaigns that actively would be hurt by bringing these feats in line, then maybe there would be a credible argument against fixing them. But there isn't.

And so: resisting fixing these feats boil down to "they're not a problem for me, so I rather not errata my books". 

And that's a reprehensible stance to take, and I detest it. Just fix these feats already, and the game will be better off for everybody. 

Thank you


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## pemerton (Jun 7, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> That they're wasted on the average gamer is not a good thing - in fact I consider it another black mark against them. I think that "too-difficult" design is bad design, and a feat that makes you take bad decisions is a bad feat indeed.



I agree with this. It's the same reason I didn't like the design of Power Attack in 3E.

It's a purely mechanical oddity of D&D that it has both an attack roll and a damage roll. (Contrast, say, HARP or Burning Wheel which have only a single roll; or Rolemaster as an intermediate case because there is a crit roll but the crit table is determined by attack success.)

Hence these "penalty to hit, bonus to damage" feats are purely playing games within the mathematical space that that rules oddity gives rise to. They don't have any distinctive correlation to the fiction. (A feat that gave a flat bonus to damage, or a flat bonus to hit, would have the same fictional correlation.)

And the maths is a potential trap for new players while allowing others to exploit it.



CapnZapp said:


> Had there been a group of campaigns that actively would be hurt by bringing these feats in line, then maybe there would be a credible argument against fixing them. But there isn't.



I don't agree with this. I think there is a group of campaigns - or, rather, a type of play experience - that these feats are serving. They allow new/inexperienced players to have the experience of finding a way to get an attack buff, or advantage, or whatever, and then doing lots of damage. For someone who experiences that as a moment of lucky, or clever, play - but who hasn't routinised it in the way the mathematically proficient player has - the feat has given something to their game. It's the fighter-player's equivalent of the first time someone realised, in their AD&D game, that Transmute Rock to Mud could be used on the ceiling rather than the floor.

I'm not saying this is a reason the feats are well-designed - I'm neutral on that point, and I can see that they're poorly designed for your purposes. I'm just saying that this is a valuable play experience that I think these feats are providing.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 7, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> I think we're veering dangerously close to relativistic nothingness.
> 
> In fact, many if not most people denouncing the worth of these feats severely underestimate their minmaxing potential. So many posters bringing out detailed math that just from a quick look completely miss the hardcore combinations that bring the feats up to a whole other level.
> 
> ...



This completely fails for me when the idea that damage as calculated under simple situations correlates to offensive output in more complex cases. 

Nothing in these feats or these optimized dpr white rooms gives control or choice over who dies first. Nothing.

How well does that offense white room matter once fog cloud prevents any attack roll advantage? How much choice of who dies first does gwm give you in difficult terrain against an enemy whose mobility feats/features let them get more "attack actions" than the gwm guy gets? How much choice of who dies first does the gwm guy get once grappled or who needs dex saves to move thru to get to them? How good is it as far as who dies first to step arpund the high dc guy if they are healing the others, or maintaining spirit guards and spirit weapon and outputting a lot of damage over a number of targets with swap to healing.

Control and counters carry the day *in more cases more often* in my experience than theortical outputs against hit point sacks and a goid number of the "passed over" feats and builds play to those aspects.

But i do find the reference to vid game aggro interesting.

My take is that the focus and over-valuing off maximized white room damage output vs excel sheets seems to me to derive a lot from vid game boss fights where your tank aggros the boss (often in place) while the damage dealers can wail away. Where often you hit flat out dps tests like death clocks that put the conflict into a damage race once the boss hits x%.

Dps is a lot more meaningful *to success" in those games where its basically built and designed to make it so. But even there, change the circumstances and not so much. Take a dps build optimized for group play assuming tank and healer support into solo challenges and its not uncommon for bad results to apply.


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## Coroc (Jun 7, 2018)

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]   [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]   I think you both exagerate a bit, Saelorn, when you state that in your campaign the GWM got a good Magic greatsword, making him theoretically even better at what he should do best, but otoh stating that now the more a shield wearer would be more use of the Party, why is that so? Do you Count Magic weaponry as a + on secret intimmidation rolls?

And Capn no one denounces the context! - related value of These feats. Still a +2 to your main Attribute is valuable also and it is of use in many  more situations. Unless the Party always survives or has infinite methods of resurrection the GWM out dpr the rest of the gang but dying every Encounter is no gain for the Group.

Otoh [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION]  s table a few Posts up clearly Show the trend: GWM (and SS) the active  -5/+10 part, it is best versus low AC. And that is relatively independant of mob Level because of BA (ok it will get shifted a bit with higher Levels) At Level 1 doing +10 vs a goblin who instantly perishes is impressive. At higher Levels whether you take out 17 or 27 of the 400 HP Dragon is no big gain, more important is to take it out somehow before he hits the Party with his breath weapon for a devastating 3rd time. And in that Scenario a defensive fighter rules.

I did not Analyse exactly what fighter / barbarian build is the base for Frogs table but it does not matter since it is a General rule solely based on statistics.

Again, you can neither reliable count in Advantage  or even bless every fight. If any of those two is a constant resource then your DM is doing it wrong.
And even if it is a constant resource, it only shifts the numbers, either it would also be effective for the defensive fighter making him hit better also or it would free capacity of the cleric e.g. who can now use his concentration for another goodie, thereby improving the Overall dpr of the Group.


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## TwoSix (Jun 7, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> And so: resisting fixing these feats boil down to "they're not a problem for me, so I rather not errata my books".
> 
> And that's a reprehensible stance to take, and I detest it. Just fix these feats already, and the game will be better off for everybody.



I think that's probably the most interesting (and controversial) take in this thread.  I certainly think the preponderance of evidence over the last 4 years has been that these are overall a little too strong.  (I don't see any threads, anywhere, about the feats being terrible and not worth taking.)  

But you're saying something stronger.  Basically, that there's a moral imperative for the community to push for iteration in the system in some manner (errata, new books, an official Sage Advice, a change in AL rules, etc.) when the rules are deemed imbalanced.  "Reprehensible" isn't a word you use for actions you're not taking a moral stance on.  You're also saying that WotC has that same moral imperative to adjust the metagame in a more balanced direction via official recognition.


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## Oofta (Jun 7, 2018)

LOL.  Two threads basically arguing the same thing.

And here I thought the point of the game was to do a build that I have fun playing, whether or not it eeked out the last two percent points of damage while ignoring all other aspects.  Guess I'm just playing the game wrong.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 7, 2018)

Oofta said:


> LOL.  Two threads basically arguing the same thing.
> 
> And here I thought the point of the game was to do a build that I have fun playing, whether or not it eeked out the last two percent points of damage while ignoring all other aspects.  Guess I'm just playing the game wrong.




Or other people define fun a bit differently than you. But go ahead and disparage them through sarcasm. That's typically more acceptable than calling them dirty poo poo head power gamers I suppose.


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## hawkeyefan (Jun 7, 2018)

I’ve been involved in the other thread, which I figured was enough for this topic, but I do want to just jump in here and say that I don’t think that any stance I’ve ever seen anyone take here on EN World, no matter how much I may disagree with them, would be something I’d ever describe as “reprehensible”. 

Labeling opinions about RPG game design as reprehensible is just flat out ridiculous.


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## Oofta (Jun 7, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Or other people define fun a bit differently than you. But go ahead and disparage them through sarcasm. That's typically more acceptable than calling them dirty poo poo head power gamers I suppose.




Good grief.  I can't have an opinion?  Of course play how you want.  I just get tired of the whining "D&D doesn't meet my ideal of perfectly balanced so therefore it's hopelessly broken".  I don't so much care as I just get tired of the same thing on endless spin cycle.  We've had _thousands_ of posts on multiple threads about this.

Want to chase after the ultimate DPR? Go for it!  But if there was an official modification that (for example) gave two-weapon fighters 0.5% more damage than GWM, some people would just be complain because they have to play a two-weapon fighter and their GWM just can't compete any more.

There will always be a handful of builds that will shine in one aspect of the game or another.  It's inevitable unless you change the basic dynamics of the game like 4E tried to do.

But it's just a game.  A game that is easily tweaked and modified to suit the desires of the players and DMs.  Want an option for making that [insert build X] fighter "equal" to the GWM?  Discuss it with your DM and figure out how to make that happen.  Decrease the potential of GWM or increase the potential of [insert build X].  There have been many, many ideas given on how to do it.  Which are all ignored because they aren't "official" and hence the endless spin cycle.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 7, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Or other people define fun a bit differently than you. But go ahead and disparage them through sarcasm. That's typically more acceptable than calling them dirty poo poo head power gamers I suppose.




Hey. I am still waiting for the rest of your analysis. I come to a bit different damage (19.25) against AC 11 for -5/+10 with advantage with great sword and bonus action attack.
I wanted to remind you that the bonus action is already used for entering rage as well as the bersetker extra attack. So I think you should exclude it in your analysis. One reason why I chose barbarian. The other one was that you can easily gain self sustained advantage. I wanted an analysis for the feat where it realistically is weighted against +2 Str. After that it would be stupid to not take the feat as damage dealer althougj a barbarian can also profit from dex and con.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 7, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Hey. I am still waiting for the rest of your analysis. I come to a bit different damage (19.25) against AC 11 for -5/+10 with advantage with great sword and bonus action attack.
> I wanted to remind you that the bonus action is already used for entering rage as well as the bersetker extra attack. So I think you should exclude it in your analysis. One reason why I chose barbarian. The other one was that you can easily gain self sustained advantage. I wanted an analysis for the feat where it realistically is weighted against +2 Str. After that it would be stupid to not take the feat as damage dealer althougj a barbarian can also profit from dex and con.




Yea I will get it posted but it was a pain to type out so I left off where I did. It was taking longer to post than to compute lol. 

While I may lose a bonus action due to raging a few encounters a day I will also gain a few due to killing an enemy.  The loss vs gain of bonus action attacks should be reasonably close IMO. Don't you agree?  Also did you take into account the extra crit damage from half orc?  (Also I used great axe as I remembered that being the weapon you originally posted for the build)


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## Wrathamon (Jun 7, 2018)

For me it was the consistent damage and agree that sharpshooter really is a -3 for +10 because of archery.

I HR it to be 

-5 for 2d6 Damage. You avg 3 less damage but have a chance to go higher or lower. Also, rolling dice is fun. I thought about making it a D12 to make it more swinging. I thought about adding a line about not allowing this to be doubled if you crit. Currently, playing it as you can ... I can see other people abusing it (we dont) but getting 4d6 does make for some crazy damage swings but on average that is +4 damage on a crit.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 7, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Yea I will get it posted but it was a pain to type out so I left off where I did. It was taking longer to post than to compute lol.
> 
> While I may lose a bonus action due to raging a few encounters a day I will also gain a few due to killing an enemy.  The loss vs gain of bonus action attacks should be reasonably close IMO. Don't you agree?  Also did you take into account the extra crit damage from half orc?  (Also I used great axe as I remembered that being the weapon you originally posted for the build)




Yes i used the extra damage. And i specified the one battle where I frenzy. The other don't matter in this calculation. So it should be left out as I assume we are in the big fight that day. I also think outside of rage reckless attack on a regular base is too reckless. So please leave the bonus attack out especially because that is not the part the OP has problems with.
And just to reiterate myself, I think the feat is good and useful so we don't have to prove that part.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 7, 2018)

Coroc said:


> I think you both exagerate a bit, Saelorn, when you state that in your campaign the GWM got a good Magic greatsword, making him theoretically even better at what he should do best, but otoh stating that now the more a shield wearer would be more use of the Party, why is that so? Do you Count Magic weaponry as a + on secret intimmidation rolls?



It goes back to the decision-making process for monsters. They prefer targets that are easy to hit, and targets that are causing more trouble for them. The fancy magic sword made him better at his job, which made him seem like a bigger threat. (The sword itself, being very magical, also made him look more threatening. Imagine your own party in that place, facing one foe in plate armor with a shield, and another foe with a jaggedy lightning-bolt greatsword. Who would _your_ party focus down first?)

In video game terms, his damage was so high that he immediately pulled aggro from all of the enemies, and spent most of the tough fights unconscious. That's not to say he didn't contribute, but slow and steady wins the race. Even if the paladin didn't contribute as much damage over ten rounds as he did during his three, she was able to stay up and engaged the whole time, allowing the warlock and everyone else to do their job.


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## Inchoroi (Jun 7, 2018)

I banned both because my players complained at how OP they were when the Fighter was using them in a campaign.


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 7, 2018)

Oofta said:


> LOL.  Two threads basically arguing the same thing.



 Only two?  That must be a record!



TwoSix said:


> But you're saying something stronger.  Basically, that there's a moral imperative for the community to push for iteration in the system in some manner (errata, new books, an official Sage Advice, a change in AL rules, etc.) when the rules are deemed imbalanced.  "Reprehensible" isn't a word you use for actions you're not taking a moral stance on.  You're also saying that WotC has that same moral imperative to adjust the metagame in a more balanced direction via official recognition.



 By that standard I guess there's a lot about D&D that's morally reprehensible, as well as ethically bankrupt.  

Fairness and balance get conflated a lot, maybe that's what's going on?  Fairness certainly has a moral or at least ethical shading to it.  

I'd actually consider fairness a lower technical hurdle to good game design than balance, though.  To be fair, just put the same choices in front of everyone, with the same access to them.  Balancing those choices, so that each choice is meaningful in itself, and each one remains viable regardless of which other combination of choices was made, OTOH, is comparatively fraught.


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## pemerton (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> I think that's probably the most interesting (and controversial) take in this thread.  I certainly think the preponderance of evidence over the last 4 years has been that these are overall a little too strong.  (I don't see any threads, anywhere, about the feats being terrible and not worth taking.)
> 
> But you're saying something stronger.  Basically, that there's a moral imperative for the community to push for iteration in the system in some manner (errata, new books, an official Sage Advice, a change in AL rules, etc.) when the rules are deemed imbalanced.  "Reprehensible" isn't a word you use for actions you're not taking a moral stance on.  You're also saying that WotC has that same moral imperative to adjust the metagame in a more balanced direction via official recognition.



To follow on from this. I don't agree with [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] that there's some sort of moral imperative of the sort you describe. It's WotC's prerogative to publish what it wants to publish (within the bounds of good taset etc) and if that happens to include broken elements, well, that's how it is!

But I think the community response is a bit different. The community, if it wants to remain healthy and inclusive, probably should at least take seriously that these feats can have certain fairly forseeble implications from their use, and therefore be readu to advise new players who run into those issues, have standard suggestions for how to house rule them, etc. I thnk the response "They've never caused a problem for me, so you must be doing it wrong", which seems to come up a fair bit, isn't the healthiest in this regard.

(If the community wants to drive out wargame-type players and push strongly for a very highly GM-curated experience, of the 2nd ed AD&D sort, then the "you must be doing it wrong" response would make sense. But is that really what the community wants?)


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## ad_hoc (Jun 8, 2018)

pemerton said:


> (If the community wants to drive out wargame-type players and push strongly for a very highly GM-curated experience, of the 2nd ed AD&D sort, then the "you must be doing it wrong" response would make sense. But is that really what the community wants?)




When you say 'community' do you mean ENWorld or 5e players?

Because 5e players are already there.

The 5e subforum on ENWorld by its very nature will attract people who think about 5e a lot. At the very least those posters will tend to post more than others. These people do not represent the 5e player base.

The 5e player base is much too large to be represented by an internet forum.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 8, 2018)

pemerton said:


> To follow on from this. I don't agree with [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] that there's some sort of moral imperative of the sort you describe. It's WotC's prerogative to publish what it wants to publish (within the bounds of good taset etc) and if that happens to include broken elements, well, that's how it is!
> 
> But I think the community response is a bit different. The community, if it wants to remain healthy and inclusive, probably should at least take seriously that these feats can have certain fairly forseeble implications from their use, and therefore be readu to advise new players who run into those issues, have standard suggestions for how to house rule them, etc. I thnk the response "They've never caused a problem for me, so you must be doing it wrong", which seems to come up a fair bit, isn't the healthiest in this regard.
> 
> (If the community wants to drive out wargame-type players and push strongly for a very highly GM-curated experience, of the 2nd ed AD&D sort, then the "you must be doing it wrong" response would make sense. But is that really what the community wants?)




I think it is healthy to tell newcomers that they are usually not making big problems. Big numbers yes. More damage yes. Powergamers may break them. Probably yes. But at that point where they might become an issue, there are different things that also do. And even though they add damage at lowere level even for the unexperienced... that is what those feats should do. And they are so good that they are rarely trap options and at least at low levels there is a cost to them (-2 relevant attribute). It is also quite clear when to use them. In fights with low armor oponents. Against high AC targets. Those which might be more dangerous, +2 str/dex usually is stronger. So I do believe if someone asks me why they are considered (too) good I tell them exactly that.


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## pemerton (Jun 8, 2018)

ad_hoc said:


> When you say 'community' do you mean ENWorld or 5e players?



Either? Both?

I imagine ENworld comes up fairly easily on any sort of Google for 5e advice. So it's one important community. It's not the whole of it.



ad_hoc said:


> Because 5e players are already there.



Are you saying that 5e players are already pushing for a highly GM-curated experience and hence driving out wargame-type players?



UngeheuerLich said:


> I think it is healthy to tell newcomers that they are usually not making big problems.



Sure. But suppose someone posts saying, say, "Ever since my group saw what a GWM fighter can do damage-wise, we're seeing other sorts of fighter archetypes crowded out." What sort of response to that is helpful?

Telling the poster that his/her players are sucky DPR-obsessives doesn't seem, to me, the right way to go. Flagging a range of alternatives - from feat-banning to house-ruling to comparable feats for other fighting styles - isn't the only possible response, but seems healthier.


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## Li Shenron (Jun 8, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> I think it is healthy to tell newcomers that they are usually not making big problems.




I think the _healthiest_ is to tell newcomers *nothing*.

Tell them the rules and show them the options. Let them figure out the rest.


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## pemerton (Jun 8, 2018)

Li Shenron said:


> I think the _healthiest_ is to tell newcomers *nothing*.
> 
> Tell them the rules and show them the options. Let them figure out the rest.



I don't agree with this at all. Reading Dragon magazine - including Forum letters, which were the early-mid 80s version of a message board - helped me a lot in learning how to approach RPGs.


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## Li Shenron (Jun 8, 2018)

pemerton said:


> I don't agree with this at all. Reading Dragon magazine - including Forum letters, which were the early-mid 80s version of a message board - helped me a lot in learning how to approach RPGs.




Yeah but did you do it because someone told you? Nobody told me anything when I was a beginner, I was driven only by my curiosity, but not everyone is like that. Curious players will ask, or will look for insight by themselves. I largely prefer DMs who listen and answer, rather than DMs who tell their players what is better for them.


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## pemerton (Jun 8, 2018)

Li Shenron said:


> Yeah but did you do it because someone told you? Nobody told me anything when I was a beginner, I was driven only by my curiosity, but not everyone is like that. Curious players will ask, or will look for insight by themselves. I largely prefer DMs who listen and answer, rather than DMs who tell their players what is better for them.



I'm not sure I've properly understood your point here. I'm not seeing how GM-player relations factor into the question of what sort of advice (including perhaps refusing to answer requests for advice) does or does not make for a healthy D&D community.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 8, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Telling the poster that his/her players are sucky DPR-obsessives doesn't seem, to me, the right way to go. Flagging a range of alternatives - from feat-banning to house-ruling to comparable feats for other fighting styles - isn't the only possible response, but seems healthier.




That is for sure equally healthy.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 8, 2018)

Li Shenron said:


> I think the _healthiest_ is to tell newcomers *nothing*.
> 
> Tell them the rules and show them the options. Let them figure out the rest.




If they are asking specifically, not responding seems kind of rude, doesn´t it?


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## Li Shenron (Jun 8, 2018)

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure I've properly understood your point here.




Yes maybe I didn't understand you either, and overreacted to Ungeheuer's sentence.



UngeheuerLich said:


> If they are asking specifically, not responding seems kind of rude, doesn´t it?




Obviously (see my previous post).

I kind of took your comment in the last page to suggest that the DM should somehow warn newcomers of potential problems, and just meant to say that it's better not to mention any of those problem at all. Because maybe those problems won't even show up after all, but also because it's best not to introduce the game starting from a point of view of how the game could have been better. For the specific case of GWM or SS, I would suggest not to mention them at all to newcomers: maybe nobody will even pick those feats, and even if they do maybe they won't break the game.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 8, 2018)

Li Shenron said:


> Yes maybe I didn't understand you either, and overreacted to Ungeheuer's sentence.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Of course. I would not bring it up if I am not asked. Sadly the internet is full of posts siggesting that they are broken op. And so the thread started. And my take is: chill. No problem if you don't think hitting once every 4 rounds for 25 damage is better than hitting every 2 rounds for 10 or so.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 8, 2018)

If you hit five times in one round, for something like 100 points, the bloke with a longsword will look like a chump with his 4d8+20.

It is a problem to me. It might not happen every round, but it should not happen at all (without significant resource burn).

And if it isn't to you, you should have no difficulty agreeing to a fix, since apparently no degree of overshadowing is bothersome to you.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 8, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> No problem if you don't think hitting once every 4 rounds for 25 damage is better than hitting every 2 rounds for 10 or so.



I should be so lucky. None of my players are so disinterested (in mechanical efficiency) or inexpert (in system mastery) as to arrive at something as modest as that.

The fact is: the fix is not for you. I am only asking you agree to the fix for the benefit of others.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 8, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> I should be so lucky. None of my players are so disinterested (in mechanical efficiency) or inexpert (in system mastery) as to arrive at something as modest as that.
> 
> The fact is: the fix is not for you. I am only asking you agree to the fix for the benefit of others.




Your fix may hinder other people's fun. I am sorry for you that you seem to not have fun. I am also sorry for you that you tool my numbers I just made up as anything more than an example for new players. And I am sorry for you that I don't agree wirh you that we need an official fix here.
I still wait for a screenshot of the characters that do all those terrible things to your monsters and fellow players. Really. Until you somehow show me uneer which conditions you get "twice as much" damage I will take you bit not your complaints seriously.
I am nlt even asking for a calculation. Just the ultimate damage build that double's damage with that feat or that feat in combination with PAM and Lucky if you want. I can then evaluate if I see it as problematic as you and will even support you fix that feat agenda. But not without any facts.


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## Oofta (Jun 8, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> I should be so lucky. None of my players are so disinterested (in mechanical efficiency) or inexpert (in system mastery) as to arrive at something as modest as that.
> 
> The fact is: the fix is not for you. I am only asking you agree to the fix for the benefit of others.




No, you're asking that everyone agree with you and your analysis.

Personally, I'll be happy for my buddy if he's having fun with his build, whatever it is.  We each make choices on what kind of build we want, each with different strengths and weaknesses.  Some are going to be better at some things than others and I'm OK with that.  As many people are.


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## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

Oofta said:


> No, you're asking that everyone agree with you and your analysis.



To be fair, this is hardly [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]'s analysis alone; that GWM and especially SS are probably too strong for one feat is accepted in pretty much every discussion site focused on balance and optimization.  

Granted, that's only one subset of the expansive population of 5e players; nonetheless, that's the group with the most investment in finding and identifying problematic feats.  Fundamentally, if build balance isn't a concern for your group, than the actual design of the feats shouldn't be of interest to you other than that they provide an experience that matches the concept of the feat.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> To be fair, this is hardly [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]'s analysis alone; that GWM and especially SS are probably too strong for one feat is accepted in pretty much every discussion site focused on balance and optimization.
> 
> Granted, that's only one subset of the expansive population of 5e players; nonetheless, that's the group with the most investment in finding and identifying problematic feats.  Fundamentally, if build balance isn't a concern for your group, than the actual design of the feats shouldn't be of interest to you other than that they provide an experience that matches the concept of the feat.




That is fundamently wrong. A feat called gwm mist be so good that someone not as adept as some others need to have the feeling that they did the right choice and didn't fell for a trap option. A half-feat called cleave would be a great option. It just has nothing to do with great (heavy) weapons anymore.
Quesrion is if such a feat is needed at all. My take is "yes".  Probably something different that is automatic and has no active part.
Or maybe just making it once per turn would be useful as the bonis is fixed then and does not get out of hand. In the case of SS I would even go as far and habe it cost a bonus action.


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## Sadras (Jun 8, 2018)

I have found both those feats OP and have as yet to act on it. OP in a sense that any other fighter-build appears to fall short. I have not done calculations myself - I trust the far better mathematicians here on Enworld. Thankfully I'm only dealing with GWM and not SS (that character retired). But the GWM is a 10th level BM who has a high AC and has dipped into wizard and uses the _Shield_ spell. The sorcerer often _Hastes_ him so he is well-optimised in combat.

Both feats in my opinion require a rethink.

EDIT: The only thing I have done thus far, is amend the flanking rules to limit the ease with which Advantage is gained and which rules assists against a ridiculous high AC.


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## Oofta (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> To be fair, this is hardly [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]'s analysis alone; that GWM and especially SS are probably too strong for one feat is accepted in pretty much every discussion site focused on balance and optimization.
> 
> Granted, that's only one subset of the expansive population of 5e players; nonetheless, that's the group with the most investment in finding and identifying problematic feats.  Fundamentally, if build balance isn't a concern for your group, than the actual design of the feats shouldn't be of interest to you other than that they provide an experience that matches the concept of the feat.




But the tone we always get from Mr Zapp is that "I have spoken the truth, no other discussion is needed."

There are a lot of options, each with different pluses and minuses.  Depending on your campaign, party and other options GWM may be the best choice for people that seek DPR optimization. I don't think that's automatically a bad thing and haven't seen it as an issue in my games. Maybe others have.

As a DM it's my job to challenge whatever PCs the players bring to the table while helping to tell a fun and engaging story.  If I can't do that I don't blame the system, I blame myself.


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## Coroc (Jun 8, 2018)

Again, SS and GWM is only a good solution if you go versus Low AC Mobs a lot, or if you can compensate the to hit malus by Advantage or bless.

Advantage requires some Investment of another Party member. Bless requires someone uses and maintains his concentration Slot.

SS and GWM w/o Advantage or bless are like a high bet in a poker game on one side: You bet much in the hope to gain much. But unlike in a poker game  your chances to win are lower than if you bet less. 

To do damage to a mob you got to hit. The worst damage Output is zilch in the case you do not hit, no matter your build.

A single disadvantage can cancel out three sources of Advantage. A single hit and a botched Constitution save can end a casters bless.


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## Coroc (Jun 8, 2018)

I will do a Little math just in my head:

Lets asume char A Str 16 GWM, Char B Str 18 without GWM. Both got +3 prof. Both use a greataxe for average damage of 7


Mob1  AC12

Char A hits on a rolled (12+5-3-3) 11 and up  so 45% of the time for 7+3 +10 =20 average

Char B hits on a rolled (12+0-3-4) 7 and up so 65% of the time for 7+4+0=11 average

Mob2   AC18

Char A hits on a rolled (18+5-3-3) 17 and up  so 15% of the time for 7+3 +10 =20 average

Char B hits on a rolled (18+0-3-4) 11 and up so 45% of the time for 7+4+0=11 average

Fazit: 

Char B hits the high AC mob as reliable as  Char A the low AC mob.

If you asume a 50% Chance to hit gives a balanced average fight then Char B does down both Mobs in average time

Char A does down Mob1 in half  the time that char B would Need, hence the felt OP in combat.

But without Advantage or at least bless Char A keeping his -5/+10 active with mob 2 Char B will hit this mob   3 times more often!
Let us do the math for my last Statement: 3*11=33.   1*20=20. So in plain comparison the guy without GWM does 50% more damage to the AC18 mob2.
If the GWM would Switch off -5/+10 then he would have a 5% reduced Chance to hit and 10% less damage vs the guy who took the ASI. well not exactly, ther is this reroll 1s rule which would equalize the damage output a bit.


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## Oofta (Jun 8, 2018)

Coroc said:


> Again, SS and GWM is only a good solution if you go versus Low AC Mobs a lot, or if you can compensate the to hit malus by Advantage or bless.




While not considering how much the advantage or bless would help other builds, or what else the PCs granting advantage or bless could be doing.


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## Staffan (Jun 8, 2018)

Here's how I see it:

GWM and SS are good feats, possibly the best ones, but not as good as their detractors say they are (at least not Great Weapon Mastery).

In most cases, you would be better off with +2 to Strength or Dexterity. But one of the issues with the feats is that you can take them once you've gotten to Str/Dex 20, so you'll be even better. In addition, they do have a spectacular effect - +10 damage *feels* really big, even if it mathematically is compensated to some degree by not happening as often.

The feats shine more when you have ways of improving your accuracy, often coming from other party members. This is where Sharpshooter starts getting iffy - most characters who take the feat also have the Archery fighting style for +2 to hit, and they have a lower base damage than twohanders so the cost of a miss is lower.

There are also the secondary effects of the feats: the chance of extra attacks with GWM, and the accuracy benefits of SS. I don't really have a problem with GWM in this regard, because crits and dropping foes are rare enough that it won't be overwhelming. But the benefits of Sharpshooter both aid in accuracy, by removing the two main problems with ranged attacks - disadvantage for long range and the ease with which foes can have cover. That might be a problem.


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## ad_hoc (Jun 8, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Either? Both?
> 
> I imagine ENworld comes up fairly easily on any sort of Google for 5e advice. So it's one important community. It's not the whole of it.




And how many people would you estimate ENWorld reaches this way?



> Are you saying that 5e players are already pushing for a highly GM-curated experience and hence driving out wargame-type players?




I'm saying they already aren't wargame players. There is no 'driving out', they're just already there.



pemerton said:


> I don't agree with this at all. Reading Dragon magazine - including Forum letters, which were the early-mid 80s version of a message board - helped me a lot in learning how to approach RPGs.




That was a different game in a different time.

Don't make 5e complicated, let it be the simple to learn and play game that it is.


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## BookBarbarian (Jun 8, 2018)

Sadras said:


> The only thing I have done thus far, is amend the flanking rules to limit the ease with which Advantage is gained and which rules assists against a ridiculous high AC.




Do you mean the optional flanking rules form the DMG?

I hate how trivially easy it makes it to get Advantage. So much that I'd never use them as written. I'm curious to see what you've come up with.


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## guachi (Jun 8, 2018)

Coroc said:


> Again, SS and GWM is only a good solution if you go versus Low AC Mobs a lot, or if you can compensate the to hit malus by Advantage or bless.




No, it isn't. It's as if you've forgotten the other parts of the feat. The free bonus action attack and removing to-hit penalties are extremely useful. GWM is a good solution if there's a creature you can kill this turn or can get a critical hit.

At level 1 you can one-shot a goblin fairly easily with a greatsword with GWF. A raging barbarian (without GWF) always will. A non-raging barbarian will do so 92% of the time on a hit. A fighter or level 2 paladin with GWF and a 16 STR will do so 99.3% of the time. A level 1 or 2 PC will with 16 STR will hit the AC 15 goblin 55% of the time so you get that extra attack 50-55% of the time. Since you have one attack per turn that's a 50-55% damage boost. 

So at low levels it's great because you can kill things in one round/one hit and get the extra attack. At higher levels you have lots of tools at your disposal to overcome the -5 part of the -5/+10 and the extra attack is just gravy.


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## Oofta (Jun 8, 2018)

guachi said:


> So at low levels it's great because you can kill things in one round/one hit and get the extra attack. At higher levels you have lots of tools at your disposal to overcome the -5 part of the -5/+10 and the extra attack is just gravy.




The non-GWM fighter could also use those same tools to increase their hit and damage potential.  Two weapon fighters would probably mow down the goblins at 1st level just about as quickly, while always getting a bonus attack and have a better chance of taking out that hobgoblin that shows up with their 18 AC.

Nobody is arguing that GWM is a bad feat.  But there is a lot of hyperbole and exaggeration about how overpowered it is and that all other build pale in comparison to the overwhelming might of the all-powerful GWM.  That if you play a fighter, the only viable options are GWM and SS and every other build is for losers.  That DMs with PCs that have those feats can't set up encounters that can be a challenge.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 8, 2018)

Sadras said:


> I have found both those feats OP and have as yet to act on it. OP in a sense that any other fighter-build appears to fall short. I have not done calculations myself - I trust the far better mathematicians here on Enworld. Thankfully I'm only dealing with GWM and not SS (that character retired). But the GWM is a 10th level BM who has a high AC and has dipped into wizard and uses the _Shield_ spell. The sorcerer often _Hastes_ him so he is well-optimised in combat.
> 
> Both feats in my opinion require a rethink.
> 
> EDIT: The only thing I have done thus far, is amend the flanking rules to limit the ease with which Advantage is gained and which rules assists against a ridiculous high AC.




Ok. That is something and I can feel with you. Just something to think about: Is it really overpowered or just good use of resources and feels maybe stronger as it is.
Some things to remember:
Reaction used for shield means no OA
Is he protected vs spells that might render him stunned or paralyzed.
Is the sorcerer protected vs attacks that break his concentration which leaves the fighter disabled for a turn? Yes he is partially because the standard DC 10 is easily done. Paralizing the sorcerer should work fine though.
What spells could the sorcerer have used instead of granting the fighter an extra attack.
What maneuver could the fighter have used instead of precision attack.
How much damage would the fighter do without the feat. 30 instead of 20 is less impressive than 20 vs 10.

So. Everything together: good use of resources and team play or just killing the fun?


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## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

Oofta said:


> Nobody is arguing that GWM is a bad feat.  But there is a lot of hyperbole and exaggeration about how overpowered it is and that all other build pale in comparison to the overwhelming might of the all-powerful GWM.  That if you play a fighter, the only viable options are GWM and SS and every other build is for losers.



The actual most problematic build is the CE/SS build.  It's like a dual-wield build combined with GWM, except more accurate and works out to 120 feet.  



Oofta said:


> That DMs with PCs that have those feats can't set up encounters that can be a challenge.



That isn't really the argument.  The argument is that the damage of these builds makes using the CR system less reliable, and that the encounters presented in published adventures might be easier than anticipated.


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## Oofta (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> The actual most problematic build is the CE/SS build.  It's like a dual-wield build combined with GWM, except more accurate and works out to 120 feet.




I would argue that most people don't do CE/SS correctly.  Based on official errata, you need a free hand to load a crossbow.  So _if_ you are walking around with two loaded hand crossbows (_really?_) then the first round you can fire both.  

After the first round?  Unless you're playing a Thri-Kreen where do you get the extra hand?  If the DM's OK with it you could always have the bandolier of loaded hand crossbows, ignore the free hand rule or automatically/magically reloading weapons.  But that's going to depend on campaign and style.

But it is one of the sillier builds out there.  I don't ban them, but in real life a hand crossbow is a toy, not a real weapon. 



TwoSix said:


> That isn't really the argument.  The argument is that the damage of these builds makes using the CR system less reliable, and that the encounters presented in published adventures might be easier than anticipated.




I've DMed for different groups and I had to have different difficulty multipliers for each group.  Neither had GWM or SS, used same basic assumptions for ability scores (point buy), received roughly the same rewards etc.  

The DM always has to adjust for their group and they always have in every edition.


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## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

Oofta said:


> I would argue that most people don't do CE/SS correctly.  Based on official errata, you need a free hand to load a crossbow.  So _if_ you are walking around with two loaded hand crossbows (_really?_) then the first round you can fire both.
> 
> After the first round?  Unless you're playing a Thri-Kreen where do you get the extra hand?  If the DM's OK with it you could always have the bandolier of loaded hand crossbows, ignore the free hand rule or automatically/magically reloading weapons.  But that's going to depend on campaign and style.
> 
> But it is one of the sillier builds out there.  I don't ban them, but in real life a hand crossbow is a toy, not a real weapon.



Why would you use two hand crossbows?  You use one.  Since CE lets you ignore the loading property, you can fire it exactly like you fire any ranged weapon.  And using the hand crossbow counts as the Attack option that triggers the bonus action hand crossbow attack.  

Sage Advice compendium here for clarification.


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## Oofta (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> Why would you use two hand crossbows?  You use one.  Since CE lets you ignore the loading property, you can fire it exactly like you fire any ranged weapon.  And using the hand crossbow counts as the Attack option that triggers the bonus action hand crossbow attack.
> 
> Sage Advice compendium here for clarification.




I stand corrected. Sage Advice is perfectly ok with this stupidity, but a shield master can't choose when to use their bonus attack because it's too cheesy. 

I'd just ban this in a home game.  It's dumb for a weapon that shouldn't be anything other than a toy or perhaps a poison delivery device.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 8, 2018)

Coroc said:


> Bless requires someone uses and maintains his concentration Slot.



True, but if they were going to cast that spell anyway, then the _added_ cost associated with your ability is zero. Bless is a great spell regardless, and one of the go-to actions for any cleric who doesn't have something better to do at the start of a fight.


Coroc said:


> A single hit and a botched Constitution save can end a casters bless.



Not necessarily true, since it's possible to have a Con save bonus high enough that most concentration checks are automatic.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 8, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Quesrion is if such a feat is needed at all. My take is "yes".  Probably something different that is automatic and has no active part.



My favorite version of Cleave is that surplus damage after dropping a foe can be applied to another enemy within reach. It's not quite as useful against small groups of large enemies, but it's great against large groups of chumps, and it doesn't require any extra dice to be rolled.


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> Sage Advice compendium here for clarification.



Is the title '_Sage_ Advice' used with intentional irony, I wonder?

That aside, the whole "burn it with realism" answer to balance issues requires very inconsistent application of realism.


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## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

Oofta said:


> I stand corrected. Sage Advice is perfectly ok with this stupidity, but a shield master can't choose when to use their bonus attack because it's too cheesy.
> 
> I'd just ban this in a home game.  It's dumb for a weapon that shouldn't be anything other than a toy or perhaps a poison delivery device.



Glad to see you've come around.


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## Oofta (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> Glad to see you've come around.




Meh.  I've always thought SS was overpowered, and a feat tax for ranged weapon attackers when all the benefits are considered.  Well, that and I could have sworn the feat said that you must have a loaded hand crossbow.

But it's also an easy fix.  I either tweak it, ban it or just have a grue jump out of the darkness and eat the guy who's two football fields from the rest of the party.


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## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

Oofta said:


> Meh.  I've always thought SS was overpowered, and a feat tax for ranged weapon attackers when all the benefits are considered.  Well, that and I could have sworn the feat said that you must have a loaded hand crossbow.
> 
> But it's also an easy fix.  I either tweak it, ban it or just have a grue jump out of the darkness and eat the guy who's two football fields from the rest of the party.



Heh.  The great irony of these threads is that no one really has a serious problem with any of the proposed solutions, the controversy is about the diagnosis of (and frankly, the tone of some of the posts about) the problem.


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## Oofta (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> Heh.  The great irony of these threads is that no one really has a serious problem with any of the proposed solutions, the controversy is about the diagnosis of (and frankly, the tone of some of the posts about) the problem.




Well, _some_ people (person?) seem to think that unless there's official changes to the rules that 5E is broken.

I guess we all have our sore spots.  Me?  The idea that you could be at the extreme range of what a bow (or crossbow) could do can still hit someone looking through a crack in the wall with no penalty.  Really?  You're 2 football field away. How are you even seeing your target to hit them?  I'm not even sure the -5/+10 thing bothers me all that much.  You are taking a 25% penalty to attack after all.  But I think I'll just use the suggestion that someone had in one of these threads to allow only 1 option at a time: choose one option of no cover penalty, ignore range penalty or take -5/+10 but not all 3 at the same time.

The idea of the "super archer" is a pretty well established trope though, whether or not it's realistic.  I just have a problem with someone with a glorified slingshot laying waste to everything around them.


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 8, 2018)

Oofta said:


> Well, _some_ people (person?) seem to think that unless there's official changes to the rules that 5E is broken.



 They're (he's?) technically right. 

But it's _still_ not a problem, because, on the same technicality, no one is actually playing (broken) 5e.


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## Mistwell (Jun 8, 2018)

Oofta said:


> I stand corrected. Sage Advice is perfectly ok with this stupidity, but a shield master can't choose when to use their bonus attack because it's too cheesy.
> 
> I'd just ban this in a home game.  It's dumb for a weapon that shouldn't be anything other than a toy or perhaps a poison delivery device.




Obviously they are using a fully automatic crossbow.


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## Oofta (Jun 8, 2018)

Mistwell said:


> Obviously they are using a fully automatic crossbow.




Actually I envision it more like Hawk the Slayer.


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## SkidAce (Jun 8, 2018)

Oofta said:


> Well, _some_ people (person?) seem to think that unless there's official changes to the rules that 5E is broken.
> 
> I guess we all have our sore spots.  Me?  The idea that you could be at the extreme range of what a bow (or crossbow) could do can still hit someone looking through a crack in the wall with no penalty.  Really?  You're 2 football field away. How are you even seeing your target to hit them?  I'm not even sure the -5/+10 thing bothers me all that much.  You are taking a 25% penalty to attack after all.  But I think I'll just use the suggestion that someone had in one of these threads to allow only 1 option at a time: choose one option of no cover penalty, ignore range penalty or take -5/+10 but not all 3 at the same time.
> 
> The idea of the "super archer" is a pretty well established trope though, whether or not it's realistic.  I just have a problem with someone with a glorified slingshot laying waste to everything around them.




As an aside, if the foe is that far away and looking through a crack, the pc CAN'T see them (imho) so they cant attack them.


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## Oofta (Jun 8, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> As an aside, if the foe is that far away and looking through a crack, the pc CAN'T see them (imho) so they cant attack them.




You obviously have never played with [name redacted because I still play with the guy].


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## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> As an aside, if the foe is that far away and looking through a crack, the pc CAN'T see them (imho) so they cant attack them.



Even beyond that, SS only lets you ignore half and 3/4 cover.  The DM is totally within the rules (and completely justified) to rule that a guy behind a wall with a tiny crack in it is defined as total cover.


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## Oofta (Jun 8, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> Even beyond that, SS only lets you ignore half and 3/4 cover.  The DM is totally within the rules (and completely justified) to rule that a guy behind a wall with a tiny crack in it is defined as total cover.




OK ... 600 feet away looking through an arrow slit (3/4 cover), no cover, no penalty.  Still silly.


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## TwoSix (Jun 8, 2018)

Oofta said:


> OK ... 600 feet away looking through an arrow slit (3/4 cover), no cover, no penalty.  Still silly.



No argument there.  Almost seems pretty worthwhile to get rid of that whole feat, really.


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## Ovinomancer (Jun 9, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> No argument there.  Almost seems pretty worthwhile to get rid of that whole feat, really.



Still think the best fix is to put "or" between the benefits.  You're sharpshooting to ignore cover OR ignore long range OR make headshots.


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## guachi (Jun 9, 2018)

Oofta said:


> The non-GWM fighter could also use those same tools to increase their hit and damage potential.  Two weapon fighters would probably mow down the goblins at 1st level just about as quickly, while always getting a bonus attack and have a better chance of taking out that hobgoblin that shows up with their 18 AC.
> 
> Nobody is arguing that GWM is a bad feat.  But there is a lot of hyperbole and exaggeration about how overpowered it is and that all other build pale in comparison to the overwhelming might of the all-powerful GWM.  That if you play a fighter, the only viable options are GWM and SS and every other build is for losers.  That DMs with PCs that have those feats can't set up encounters that can be a challenge.




Doing the math, a fighter of level 1 or 2 (so no archetypes to worry about) with GWM/GWF kills hobgoblins faster than one with TWF/TWF (feat and fighting style). It's close, but the GWM/GWF guy wins. He also beats the dual-wielder in killing goblins.

I'll come up with more specific math shortly.


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## Krachek (Jun 9, 2018)

Math are simple.

For a base damage of 10.

With 50% accuracy. Need a 11. +4 vs AC 15.
0.50 x 10 = 5. With SS 0.25 x 20 = 5. Same damage.

With 75% accuracy. Need a 6. +9 vs AC 15
0.75 x 10 = 7.5  With SS 0.50 x 20 = 10. +2.5 for SS. Still lower than hunter's mark.

With 95% accuracy. Need a 2. +13 vs AC 15.
0.95 x 10 = 9.5  With SS 0.70 x 20 = 14. +4.5 for SS. Better than hunter's mark.

With 115% accuracy. Ex: +18 vs AC 15. Miss only on a 1.
0.95 x 10 = 9.5  With SS 0.95 x 20 = 19. +9.5 for SS.

As soon as your effective bonus beats the target AC by 3 or more, you're having a straight +9.5 bonus to damage roll.
At low level using -5/+10 is not so good unless you hit very low AC. But as your to hit bonus get better your damage bonus increase.
An high level archer with +5 dex, +6 prof, +2 fighting style, +2 magic weapon has a +15 bonus. Vs AC 12 he has the +9.5 bonus to damage roll. With some help (Bless, advantage) he can have the +9.5 bonus to damage roll to AC as high as AC 18.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 9, 2018)

pemerton said:


> Either? Both?
> 
> I imagine ENworld comes up fairly easily on any sort of Google for 5e advice. So it's one important community. It's not the whole of it.
> 
> ...



My response would be "how is it a problem? Those wanting to play characters with GMW will do so. Others who dont wont. It doesnt matter what their reasons are... Right? How are the others being crowded out when everyone makes their own choices?"

If you see other folks chosing to play gwm characters as a problem, tell yourself "i dont get to pick other people's characters."

If you see you choosing to play gwm characters as a problem, tell yourself " i can choose whatever is allowed" 

There is no crowding out, just preferences and priorities and choices... Unlesd the game lets others harrass folks over character choices or something like that.


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## guachi (Jun 9, 2018)

Krachek said:


> Math are simple.




The math's simple for the -5/+10 part. That's been solved years ago. That's not what I'm talking about. The question I'm dealing with is whether TWF/TWF is better than GWF/GWM killing lowly goblins and hobgoblins at level 1 or 2 where you'd never use the -5/+10 part because it's stupid to use it.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 9, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> As an aside, if the foe is that far away and looking through a crack, the pc CAN'T see them (imho) so they cant attack them.



Yup. Though if they had reason to think they were there they could shoot at unseen target with disad and...


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## Ovinomancer (Jun 9, 2018)

guachi said:


> Doing the math, a fighter of level 1 or 2 (so no archetypes to worry about) with GWM/GWF kills hobgoblins faster than one with TWF/TWF (feat and fighting style). It's close, but the GWM/GWF guy wins. He also beats the dual-wielder in killing goblins.
> 
> I'll come up with more specific math shortly.




I did that math, too.  I got that GWM not power attacking vs Hobgoblins is a tad shy of 3% more effective (*SEE EDIT 2*).  I don't think you'd notice it at the table at all.  A power attacking GWM is about 3% worse, and again, I don't think you'd notice.

Vs Goblins, a power attacking GWM is about 25% less effective than a TWF, but a non power attacking GWM is about 15% more effective than the TWF at killing goblins.  

This is a bit of a tricky comparison, and for simplicity I treated foes as either 100% healthy or 100% dead, so no carryover damage. 

Method:  
1.  Determine likelihood of normal hit. 
2.  Determine likelihood of a normal hit killing foe.
3.  Determine likelihood of critical hit killing foe.

For GMW: 
4.  Multiply 1X2 above and add to .05 x 3.  This is the chance for the first swing to kill a foe.
5.  Add the result of 4 to the square of 4.   This is the chance that the first swing kills plus the chance the bonus swing kills.

For TWF:
6.  Multiply 1 and 2 above and add to .05 time 3.  This is the chance that a single hit in a round kills a foe.
7.  Square 1.  This is the chance that both attacks normally hit.
8.  Multiply 1 times 0.05.  This is the chance that one attack hits and one attack crits.
9.  Square 0.05.  This is the chance both attacks crit.
10.  Determine the odds that damage from 7, 8, and 9 kill a foe.  Multiply times their respective hit chances.  Add together.
11.  Add 10 to 6.  This is the sum of the possible outcomes for both attacks to kill a foe.

Hmm.  Just realized I failed to add in the chances for TWF to kill a foe with each attack.  That will plus TWF up a bit, but not much.

EDIT:  I was wrong, it brings TWF vs goblins into parity with GWM no power attack.  This is due to the better than even chance to kill a goblin with 1d8+3.  It does do very little with hobgoblins.

EDIT2:  I also just realized I didn't account for GWF.  *That's makes GWM no power attack about 10% better than TWF vs hobgoblins and the same with goblins*.  Which makes sense, as GWF is about a 10% increase in damage output for 2d6 weapons (this actually varies based on flat bonus).


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## guachi (Jun 9, 2018)

I gave up trying to account for hits that don't kill in a formula. I ended up running a program of 50 rounds attacking a goblin or a hobgoblin.

The results after 300 round is that TWF is slightly ahead. Initial calculations made it look the opposite, but so far it's TWF in the lead by about 5%. Though I will say the random trials are highly variable.

I suspect something like zombies are the best case scenario for GWM and maybe an ogre.

EDIT: Just to be clear, the only part of GWM that's really doing anything is the extra attack on dropping a foe to zero hp. Power attack is not used and critical hits have a miniscule effect versus goblins (.05%) and about 1% versus hobgoblins.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 9, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> My favorite version of Cleave is that surplus damage after dropping a foe can be applied to another enemy within reach. It's not quite as useful against small groups of large enemies, but it's great against large groups of chumps, and it doesn't require any extra dice to be rolled.




There is an optional rule in the DMG that allows exactly this if you take a foe from full damage to 0.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 9, 2018)

Oofta said:


> The non-GWM fighter could also use those same tools to increase their hit and damage potential.  Two weapon fighters would probably mow down the goblins at 1st level just about as quickly, while always getting a bonus attack and have a better chance of taking out that hobgoblin that shows up with their 18 AC.
> 
> Nobody is arguing that GWM is a bad feat.  But there is a lot of hyperbole and exaggeration about how overpowered it is and that all other build pale in comparison to the overwhelming might of the all-powerful GWM.  That if you play a fighter, the only viable options are GWM and SS and every other build is for losers.  That DMs with PCs that have those feats can't set up encounters that can be a challenge.



Goblins have 7 hit points. ANY attack will kill them (since you need to roll a 1 on top of your +5 from ability to not to). They are hardly representative of monster enemies. 

In fact, goblins are so inappropriate as example critters, I call it out: using them to play up the benefits of TWF is grossly mischaracterizing the relative worth of the various play styles. Anyone that does should simply not be trusted. Yes, a TWF fighter is a good goblin killer, but that does not matter in the least. The _overwhelming_ majority of 5E monsters have much more hp than you can remove with a simple 1d8+5 attack.

GWM and SS create two tiers of martial characters. The ones that deal massive damage, and the ones that do not. 

If you're happy doing significantly less damage than your ally, all is well, and this discussion is not for you. Of course, you should have no problem balancing the two since after all - damage is not important to you so you won't have any problems getting relatively more of it.

But if you're like many players, getting to be much less effective at your number one job (killing monsters) is not fun.

And if you have any sympathy for your fellow gamers you _will_ agree these feats need fixing. 

I am not accusing players who choose TWF to be losers. I WANT the rules to support TWFers and dagger throwers and spear chuckers. I am just being realistic when I say these concepts cannot compete in DPR which limits their attractiveness for far too many players, reducing variety for no good reason.


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## Krachek (Jun 9, 2018)

guachi said:


> The math's simple for the -5/+10 part. That's been solved years ago. That's not what I'm talking about. The question I'm dealing with is whether TWF/TWF is better than GWF/GWM killing lowly goblins and hobgoblins at level 1 or 2 where you'd never use the -5/+10 part because it's stupid to use it.




At level 1 with 16 in main stat, human variant.
Twf and dual wielded feat allows you +5 to hit 2d8+6 damage. Avg 15
Gwf and GWM give
+5 to hit 2d6+1+3. Avg 11. Assume +1 damage for gwf.

Vs AC 15, need 10 to hit. 
0.55 x 15 8,25. Best option
0.55 x 11 6.05.
0.30 x 21 6.3 for -5/+10. 

with advantage, assuming +5 if you need 10, and +4 if you need 15.
0.8 x 15  12
0.8 x 11 8.8
0.5 x 21 10.5 for -5/+10. Better, but still under twf. But if you kill the creature you get a bonus action attack. Doubling your damage per round.

for a combat vs goblin, gwf assuming kill out right , twf need roll 4 on d8 0.625. But even with gwf you can still miss the kill! And dont use -5/+10!
twf kill 0.64 goblin per round. 2x 0.625 x 0.55
Gwf kill 0.85 goblin per round. 0.55 + 0.55 x 0.55
On 10 rounds, gwf wins killing 8 goblin vs 6!


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## Oofta (Jun 9, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Goblins have 7 hit points. ANY attack will kill them (since you need to roll a 1 on top of your +5 from ability to not to). They are hardly representative of monster enemies.
> 
> In fact, goblins are so inappropriate as example critters, I call it out: using them to play up the benefits of TWF is grossly mischaracterizing the relative worth of the various play styles. Anyone that does should simply not be trusted. Yes, a TWF fighter is a good goblin killer, but that does not matter in the least. The _overwhelming_ majority of 5E monsters have much more hp than you can remove with a simple 1d8+5 attack.
> 
> ...




I wasn't the one who initially brought up goblins, I was responding to someone else.  But I also think that the power of GWM is overstated, at least at the levels that most people attain.  Maybe I'll fire up my version of a combat simulator later, it sounds like it's going to rain today anyway.


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## Ovinomancer (Jun 9, 2018)

Krachek said:


> At level 1 with 16 in main stat, human variant.
> Twf and dual wielded feat allows you +5 to hit 2d8+6 damage. Avg 15
> Gwf and GWM give
> +5 to hit 2d6+1+3. Avg 11. Assume +1 damage for gwf.
> ...




Your assumptions are offbase.  The average damage on TWF isn't 15 unless both hit, and that chance isn't 2x.55.  It's .55x.55, ie the chance the first hits times the chance the second hits.  This incorrect assumption means your TWF calculations are off base.  You need to find the chance that 1 attack out of 2 hits and kills (normal and crit) and then the chance of 1 normal hit and 1 crit, and then the chance of 2 normal hits, and then the chance of 2 normal crits.  These are actually not small enough to not matter.  The end result for TWF vs goblins is .86 goblins a round.  GWM has similar errors, it's full GpR (goblin per round) with GWF is .95. Without GWF, it's statistically tied with TWF/TWS.

Also, advantage should never be assumed to be a flat increase.  While at those two breakpoint and with the analysis you're running you aren't introducing too much error, in other analyses a flat bonus assumption will lead you astray.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jun 9, 2018)

guachi said:


> I gave up trying to account for hits that don't kill in a formula. I ended up running a program of 50 rounds attacking a goblin or a hobgoblin.
> 
> The results after 300 round is that TWF is slightly ahead. Initial calculations made it look the opposite, but so far it's TWF in the lead by about 5%. Though I will say the random trials are highly variable.
> 
> ...




So, zombies.  22 hitpoints.  TWF has trouble with these if you're your looking at straight out kills, as TWF requires 2 hits for it to be possible.  So you only have 2 normal hits, 1 crit 1 normal, and 2 crit cases to solve for.

2 normal hits is 2d8+6, or 2d8 needing a 16, so 0.016 chance of max damage roll.

1 normal 1 crit is 3d8+6. 3d8 needing a 16 or better is 0.316.

2 crit is 4d8+6 needing 16 or better or 0.701.

Hit chance for 2 hits vs AC 8 with +5 are:

2 normal .85x.85= .7225
1 normal 1 crit .85x.05 = .0425
2 crit = .05x.05 = .0025

Adding up its [0.016x0.7225] + [0.316 x 0.0425] + [0.701 x 0.0025] = 0.01156 + 0.001343 + 0.00175 = 0.0147.  TWF is NOT doing a good job outright killing zombies.

GWF, on the other hand, is in it's perfect zone.  -5/+10, need 13 or better to hit AC 8.  Only considering a normal hit without a second attack or crit chance (because it wins right there), you have

Needs to roll 2d6+13 > 22 or 2d6 > 9.  With GWF that's 0.494 chance.  Multiple by chance of normal hit 0.35 and you get 0.173.  That's already 10x greater than TWF.  It get's lots worse adding crits and second attacks.  Overall chance to kill a zombie is .272, or  18.5 time the 1 hit kill chance of TWF.

----------------

To me, the best fix for GWM is another *OR*.  You can either get the cleaves *OR *power attack.  If you cleave, you can't power attack same round, if you power attack, you can't cleave same round.  Done.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 9, 2018)

guachi said:


> I gave up trying to account for hits that don't kill in a formula. I ended up running a program of 50 rounds attacking a goblin or a hobgoblin.
> 
> The results after 300 round is that TWF is slightly ahead. Initial calculations made it look the opposite, but so far it's TWF in the lead by about 5%. Though I will say the random trials are highly variable.
> 
> ...




Did you factor in great weapon fighting style because it will significantly increase your chance of one shooting a goblin


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jun 9, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Did you factor in great weapon fighting style because it will significantly increase your chance of one shooting a goblin




Yup.  I was actually surprised at how much, but then, when I considered you're looking for a 4+ on 2d6, rerolling 1s and 2s is a noticable effect.  The PDF for both is kind interesting.


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## FrogReaver (Jun 9, 2018)

@UngeheuerLuch



This is the info for when you are raging and using Beserker ability for both setups.  Below are the numbers for raging and no beserker.

**Note GWM -5/+10 is only being used against AC's where it is beneficial to.  Otherwise the attack is made without that and without +2 Str

My conclusion is that the Beserker ability when active makes both options be virtually equal (too close to call a winner), howerver, when the beserker ability is not active then GWM looks to be better IMO.

I made a small mistake on the chart below by not including the GWM extra attack with non -5/+10 GWM attacks that occur against higher AC's.  I have fixed it in the quote below.



FrogReaver said:


> I've got an initial barrage of data if I can just figure out how to nicely post it.
> 
> 
> ACGWM version+2 Str version%DPR of GWM/+2 Str1120.2113.491.51219.0913.271.441317.8512.991.371416.4912.641.301515.0212.241.231613.4311.771.141711.7111.241.041810.1910.64.96199.479.88.95208.689.27.94
> ...


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 9, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> @UngeheuerLuch
> 
> View attachment 98293
> 
> ...




Thank you.
My conclusion matches yours.

Something to add:
If you have GWM reckless attacking is a necessity.
The first round of rage has no bonus attacks
You can use a shield if you are not settled on gwm. But even a gwm can cleave with a one handed weapon. (A significant feature of the feat which is often neglected.
+2 str helps with javelins.
+2 helps with grappling and athletics in general
AC greater than 16 makes the feat less useful

So the feat is quite useful but at least at that point the best you can hope for is a 50% increase in damage and you are still risking not to hit at all, even against lower AC targets and that is not always worth risking.


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## Sadras (Jun 10, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Ok. That is something and I can feel with you. Just something to think about: Is it really overpowered or just good use of resources and feels maybe stronger as it is.
> Some things to remember:
> Reaction used for shield means no OA
> Is he protected vs spells that might render him stunned or paralyzed.
> ...




All good points.



> So. Everything together: good use of resources and team play or just killing the fun?




I feel it requires a little more work from me to ensure that the above combination does not diminish the fun at the table (including my fun). I think some thought should be given to DMs who have had little to no experience when having to deal with such a tactical combo.


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## guachi (Jun 11, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Did you factor in great weapon fighting style because it will significantly increase your chance of one shooting a goblin




Yup. Simple level one fighter with the appropriate feat and style. If you run random trials fighting five goblins (yes, the level 1 dude will be dead. Whatever.), after 50 random trials with 250 goblins giving their lives for science GWF came out just ahead of TWF. It was close enough I'd actually call it a tie. GWF was 3% better.

Fighting 3 hobgoblins took both GWF and TWF a little longer and GWF was barely ahead after 50 trials. Like .5% ahead. Despite hobgoblins being much harder for the TWF fighter to one-shot, only doing so with max damage, the lower hit chance and lower one-shot chance for the GWF fighter means fewer bonus action attacks.

Against 3 zombies, the GWF fighter dominated after 50 trials with the TWF guy taking 50% longer (or the GWF figher taking 33% less shorter. Whatever). The GWM guy could actually do his power attack and one-shot zombies and inflict so much damage they couldn't make the save. There were a few cases the GWF fighter took out 3 zombies in 3 straight hits. The TWF fighter, while hitting on a 3 or higher, suffered from doing so little damage the saves were easy to make. I did this as it's probably best case low-level scenario for the GWF guy.

I was actually surprised at the results as goblin fighting at level one should be a place where the TWF guy shines. But, nope. The TWF guy would probably do better against a single foe with higher AC and higher HP like a hobgoblin leader where the GWF guy only gets an extra attack on a crit.

You're right, though. The GWF style is a beast against goblins and hobgoblins. I think in all 50 trials against 250 goblins there was exactly one time where the GWF guy didn't one-shot the goblin. The actual chance is about 1% not to one-shot.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 11, 2018)

The TWF should have +1 AC so against 250 goblins he will take about 12 hits less. So he has some advantage. I'd be honest here: twf feat is not that strong.


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## Coroc (Jun 11, 2018)

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]   "Not necessarily true, since it's possible to have a Con save bonus high enough that most concentration checks are automatic."

And now your GWM not only requires his cleric Buddy to cast bless for him, but also that the cleric has taken warcaster and invested in Con


----------



## Li Shenron (Jun 11, 2018)

So because a *20th level maxed-out* character has +10 damage bonus against a monster with a low-level AC, we should worry and ban the feat since level 1?

Besides, we gotta stop this negative mentality that the game has to be _competitive_ among the players. If my friend is playing an archer in the same group and is dropping goblins left and right, this actually benefits me as well. Am I doing less damage than the archer? Who cares, I have tons of other things to do to 'shine', unless the _only_ thing I am capable/interested of doing in the whole game is just damage, and if that's the case then _I_ should pick that feat too. 

Some people are just obsessed by having a smaller dpr


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 11, 2018)

Coroc said:


> And now your GWM not only requires his cleric Buddy to cast bless for him, but also that the cleric has taken warcaster and invested in Con



It only requires a +9 bonus for _most_ concentration saves to be automatic, and the Bless spell itself provides +1d4 to that. You are not describing an unusual situation at all.


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## Sadras (Jun 11, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> Do you mean the optional flanking rules form the DMG?




Yes.



> I hate how trivially easy it makes it to get Advantage. So much that I'd never use them as written. I'm curious to see what you've come up with




Keep in mind party size and composition are different from table to table and my issue was less the GWM but the high AC of the character. I wanted to make mobs surrounding the character more threatening. I'm not really satisfied with this solution but this is what we currently use and this mainly because we predominantly play ToM. Even when we do use a grid, we stick to the below table. 

1 opponent   - normal
2 opponents - Lesser Advantage (+2 on attack roll)
3 opponents* - Advantage (per PHB)
4 opponents* - Advantage (per PHB)
5 opponents* - Greater Advantage   (Advantage +2)
6 opponents* - Greater Advantage   (Advantage +2)
7 opponents* - Greater Advantage   (Advantage +2)
8 opponents* - Greater Advantage+ (Advantage +2, and every hit converts into a critical hit)

* Advantage only allowed if the environment allows for the target to be surrounded, otherwise the 3rd+ opponent only gains Lesser Advantage.

EDIT: It bolsters low-level enemy combatants with their +2 to +4 attack bonuses, ensuring their relevance for longer throughout the campaign.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 11, 2018)

Li Shenron said:


> So because a *20th level maxed-out* character has +10 damage bonus against a monster with a low-level AC, we should worry and ban the feat since level 1?
> 
> Besides, we gotta stop this negative mentality that the game has to be _competitive_ among the players. If my friend is playing an archer in the same group and is dropping goblins left and right, this actually benefits me as well. Am I doing less damage than the archer? Who cares, I have tons of other things to do to 'shine', unless the _only_ thing I am capable/interested of doing in the whole game is just damage, and if that's the case then _I_ should pick that feat too.
> 
> Some people are just obsessed by having a smaller dpr




I am not sure why you were referring to that post and accuse me of wanting to ban that feat... I am totally against that. Neither do I think, that intergroup competition is good for the game. I do however believe, that a class that can´t contribute at all is underpowered... yet to have to see such a case.

Edit: I don´t even find my post where I said that...

Edit2: It is because It was not my post and you addressed the quote to the wrong person and I´d like you to correct that post. Thank you.


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## TwoSix (Jun 11, 2018)

Li Shenron said:


> So because a *20th level maxed-out* character has +10 damage bonus against a monster with a low-level AC, we should worry and ban the feat since level 1?
> 
> Besides, we gotta stop this negative mentality that the game has to be _competitive_ among the players. If my friend is playing an archer in the same group and is dropping goblins left and right, this actually benefits me as well. Am I doing less damage than the archer? Who cares, I have tons of other things to do to 'shine', unless the _only_ thing I am capable/interested of doing in the whole game is just damage, and if that's the case then _I_ should pick that feat too.
> 
> Some people are just obsessed by having a smaller dpr



If the feat adds nothing to the game beyond damage, why not just drop it?

Better question:  If the feat had never been in the game to being with, would you be asking for its inclusion?


----------



## Li Shenron (Jun 11, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> If the feat adds nothing to the game beyond damage, why not just drop it?
> 
> Better question:  If the feat had never been in the game to being with, would you be asking for its inclusion?




90% of the game material is unnecessary to the game. OD&D worked fine with 3 classes, so what?


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## TwoSix (Jun 11, 2018)

Li Shenron said:


> 90% of the game material is unnecessary to the game. OD&D worked fine with 3 classes, so what?



That doesn't really answer my question.


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## Li Shenron (Jun 11, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> That doesn't really answer my question.




The answer is obviously NO, if GWM didn't exist, I would not have asked for it. But it's a mean question because that could be said about most of the exact game mechanics. And then, I would have certainly asked _something _in terms of tactical feats, we got GWM and thus I am glad we did. I liked the idea of Power Attack and Combat Expertise back in 3e, so this kind of feats are a good fit for me, especially if a group wants to bring back a 3e feel to the game. So no, I would not have demanded for them, but I am happy they included them. Does this answer in retrospective make your question a better one?


----------



## TwoSix (Jun 11, 2018)

Li Shenron said:


> The answer is obviously NO, if GWM didn't exist, I would not have asked for it. But it's a mean question because that could be said about most of the exact game mechanics. And then, I would have certainly asked _something _in terms of tactical feats, we got GWM and thus I am glad we did. I liked the idea of Power Attack and Combat Expertise back in 3e, so this kind of feats are a good fit for me, especially if a group wants to bring back a 3e feel to the game. So no, I would not have demanded for them, but I am happy they included them. Does this answer in retrospective make your question a better one?



Answers my point in the affirmative.  You're not attached to the exact mechanics, you want the conceptual niche that the feat occupies to be filled.  A similar conceptual feat with a better balance point could have been in the PHB back in 2014 and you wouldn't have a problem.


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## guachi (Jun 11, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> The TWF should have +1 AC so against 250 goblins he will take about 12 hits less. So he has some advantage. I'd be honest here: twf feat is not that strong.




If an opponent has a 50% chance of hitting then +1 AC reduces the hit chance to 45%. So basically a 10% reduction in number of times hit. It's not nothing, of course. But TWF is best from level 1-4 before Extra Attack kicks in but it's still not great when combined with the DW feat.

For kicks, I'll look at PAM and Shield Master (original ruling) when I get home from work today.

It'll be a melee feat showdown!


----------



## BookBarbarian (Jun 11, 2018)

Sadras said:


> Yes.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Interesting. It still seems to steal some thunder from Wolf totem 3 and Pact Tactics, but having 3+ party members next to one enemy is a lot less likely to occur.


----------



## Sadras (Jun 11, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> Interesting. It still seems to steal some thunder from Wolf totem 3 and Pact Tactics, but having 3+ party members next to one enemy is a lot less likely to occur.




Ah, no Barbarian at our table - just looked it up, but you are certainly right in both respects. Thanks!
It definitely needs a rethink - especially when you're playing mostly ToM (perhaps an initial AoO cost or a bonus action to maintain).


----------



## BookBarbarian (Jun 11, 2018)

Sadras said:


> Ah, no Barbarian at our table - just looked it up, but you are certainly right in both respects. Thanks!
> It definitely needs a rethink - especially when you're playing mostly ToM (perhaps an initial AoO cost or a bonus action to maintain).




It certainly does add a fear of Hordes for players. 

Well, I'm already afraid of hordes given the action economy.


----------



## Satyrn (Jun 11, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> Well, I'm already afraid of hordes given the action economy.




I've got a headache, so I can't think of how to make a witty comment about how hordes mess with the action economy the way hoards mess with the magic item economy. 



So, uh, maybe consider this a setup for someone funnier to deliver the punchline.


----------



## BookBarbarian (Jun 11, 2018)

Satyrn said:


> I've got a headache, so I can't think of how to make a witty comment about how hordes mess with the action economy the way hoards mess with the magic item economy.
> 
> 
> 
> So, uh, maybe consider this a setup for someone funnier to deliver the punchline.




Plucky Adventurers killed another Dragon, further devaluing Gold. Stay tuned. Details at 11:00.


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## Oofta (Jun 11, 2018)

guachi said:


> If an opponent has a 50% chance of hitting then +1 AC reduces the hit chance to 45%. So basically a 10% reduction in number of times hit. It's not nothing, of course. But TWF is best from level 1-4 before Extra Attack kicks in but it's still not great when combined with the DW feat.
> 
> For kicks, I'll look at PAM and Shield Master (original ruling) when I get home from work today.
> 
> It'll be a melee feat showdown!




I need to double check some stuff, but when I did a comparison Shield Master (original ruling) came out on top in most cases assuming champion fighter not getting any other buffs for survivability.  My samples also included things like hell hounds where the save bonus may have helped some.  But from what I remember, there wasn't a huge difference until higher levels that most people never hit anyway.

If I get around to it I may revisit my simulation and post some results, but I've been busy lately.


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## Staffan (Jun 11, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> Plucky Adventurers killed another Dragon, further devaluing Gold. Stay tuned. Details at 11:00.




I vaguely recall something in the 1e PHB or DMG saying that the prices in the PHB were adjusted for the kind of "gold rush pricing" you'd get when you have adventurers unearthing buried gold by the ton and spending it as fast as they find it.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 11, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> If the feat adds nothing to the game beyond damage, why not just drop it?
> 
> Better question:  If the feat had never been in the game to being with, would you be asking for its inclusion?



Exactly. 

What I hear here is that the only reason to keep it as is, is: I don't want change.

That's actually a valid reason. 

At least we get to finally progress the discussion past the "it's totally not overpowered" smokescreen.


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## TwoSix (Jun 11, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> Exactly.
> 
> What I hear here is that the only reason to keep it as is, is: I don't want change.
> 
> ...



Darn right.  "The gain is small enough in utilitarian terms to make changing it not worth it" is a legitimate talking point.  "It's fine unless you're a damage loving munchkin" is not.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 11, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> "It's fine unless you're a damage loving munchkin" is not.



No but "it damages many campaigns, is neutral to others, and is beneficial to none" is.


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## Ovinomancer (Jun 12, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> No but "it damages many campaigns, is neutral to others, and is beneficial to none" is.




It's a benefit to my games. There, statement refuted.  And, to head it off at the pass, it's a benefit because it allows players that care to invest in build options they like and it doesn't distort my games if taken.  I don't even really have to work around it much, and I have players that like to tweak builds and have a strong grasp of tactics.  I do, however, do more than just fights, so maybe that's why I don't see it as such a problem -- the barbarian hits really hard but then finds out dumping CHA has bad effects when diplomacy is called for.  I also have plenty of encounters where reducing hp isn't the primary goal.  So, it works fine for me, and my players enjoy the option.  

Would a different option be similarly good?  Sure, I guess, but that's counterfactual and a poor argument.  There's lots of things that could have been different and we can't evaluate hypothetical different things because they didn't happen.  Insisting that WotC could have done a better job by you is fine, I guess, but WotC really doesn't care about your crusade here and aren't going to publish a new version officially just to suit your tastes.  What's written is fine.  Now, if you want to talk about ways to make it better for you and your style, there's plenty to talk about.  I've presented quite a few options myself that address your complaints.  I like talking about game design, the grittier the better, which, come to think of it, is probably why I find your cries for official redress so odd - design-wise the published feats work as intended: they're optional rules with the caveat that you'll need to adjust the game to fit.  That seems right to me.


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## CapnZapp (Jun 12, 2018)

Ovinomancer said:


> It's a benefit to my games.



I don't believe you. I believe you say so only to deny yourself the truth. These feats make some (but not all) players decide against playing fighters with spears, throwing knives or whatnot, because they offer such a huge increase in primary efficiency. Other players couldn't care less, but also would not be disturbed by feats that were actually balanced and included more variety.

But I do not suppose we can get any further, so I guess our discussion is at an end. The OP has been given ample answer as to what exactly makes these feats so good. 

All we can do now is await the revised edition and hope these feats are included in it.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jun 12, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> I don't believe you. I believe you say so only to deny yourself the truth. These feats make some (but not all) players decide against playing fighters with spears, throwing knives or whatnot, because they offer such a huge increase in primary efficiency. Other players couldn't care less, but also would not be disturbed by feats that were actually balanced and included more variety.
> 
> But I do not suppose we can get any further, so I guess our discussion is at an end. The OP has been given ample answer as to what exactly makes these feats so good.
> 
> All we can do now is await the revised edition and hope these feats are included in it.




Just to be absolutely clear, you're accusing me of lying just so you can continue to be right?

My last group had two SS, a sword and board pally, and a non-GWM barbarian and finished at 12th level.  7 total PCs.

Before that, over 10 PCs through 11th, 1 SS vs a barbarian non-GWM,  and a shield mastery fighter, and a PAM/Sentinal pally.

Current game, sword and board HAM fighter.  That one's only at 4th, so I'll probably see the ranger take SS. 5 pcs.

Challenges OTHER than combat significantly increase the opportunity cost of GWM/SS.


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

Ovinomancer said:


> Just to be absolutely clear, you're accusing me of lying just so you can continue to be right?
> 
> My last group had two SS, a sword and board pally, and a non-GWM barbarian and finished at 12th level.  7 total PCs.
> 
> ...




Same here.  GWM seems to be quite unpopular in the games I've played as well.  Most people play what they think fit their character.  In addition, most people ignore the optimizers and either increase ability scores or take feats that shore up a weakness or be fun for some other reason.

Posts like [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION]'s really make me wish we could downvote.


----------



## Sadras (Jun 12, 2018)

@_*Ovinomancer*_ are you playing the feats as written or have you tweaked them at your table with the _or_ between the benefits as you have suggested on these boards?



			
				CapnZapp said:
			
		

> All we can do now is await the revised edition and hope these feats are included in it.




 @_*CapnZapp*_ - As you know WotC released an UA with feats relating to other weapons categories. Ofc not all categories were covered (spear user or knife thrower), but they did in good faith outline their thinking about their design philosophy for weapon-styled feats. Whatever its faults this edition is more shared and transparent between the designers and their playerbase than ever before. At times we agree and at times we disagree - but with the free release of UA along with their design philosophy as well as the DMs Guild they are essentially encouraging you (the DM or player) to take part in the design process to suit the needs of your table and character.
I do not see how *these two feats alone can propel you to request a revised edition* especially given the easy fixes for your table that you and others have provided numerous times on these boards and given the designers'/publishers' encouragement for homebrewery.

Do I think the feats can be an issue at certain tables? Sure they can be under specific circumstances (which includes DM inexperience). 

Am I demanding a revised edition? Heck no!

EDIT: Just to be clear, the recent clarification of the use of Shield Mastery irritates me more than these two feats. I will just have to ignore this recent ruling - but I won't be calling for a new edition.


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## Umbran (Jun 12, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> But I do not suppose we can get any further, so I guess our discussion is at an end.




Yes, but not for the reason you seem to imply.  

The point at which you claim that other people are lying, or otherwise deny their experiences, is the moment when you are closed to information or evidence.  You can go no farther here, because you will no longer accept facts that run contrary to your preferred notions - you will even construct a narrative that others lie in order to protect your preconceptions.  How sad is that?

Calling folks liars in this manner is extremely rude.  Do not post in this thread again.


----------



## Krachek (Jun 12, 2018)

We can do a contest : How to reduce optimizing with less change as possible to the rules.

I do it in 2:
Change the -5/+10 for an +1 ability increase.
Disallow MC for Paladin and Sorcerer. Add Warlock if you want it.


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Everyone remember back in the day when certain posters would claim that quadratic wizards weren't a problem in Their games. @_*Ovinomancer*_ reminds me of that..


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Krachek said:


> We can do a contest : How to reduce optimizing with less change as possible to the rules.
> 
> I do it in 2:
> Change the -5/+10 for an +1 ability increase.
> Disallow MC for Paladin and Sorcerer. Add Warlock if you want it.




I suspect that the -5/+10 feats are one of the few things keeping us from complaining that full casters are much too strong.

if they were removed we would just be back to complaint about weaknfighters compared to wizards and clerics.


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Everyone remember back in the day when certain posters would claim that quadratic wizards weren't a problem in Their games. @_*Ovinomancer*_ reminds me of that..




He's not the only one saying that they don't see the problem at their table.  Some people seem to say that every fighter out there uses this one feat and only this feat, but I've never seen it. YMMV.


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Oofta said:


> He's not the only one saying that they don't see the problem at their table.  Some people seem to say that every fighter out there uses this one feat and only this feat, but I've never seen it. YMMV.




That's kind of he point..  many people used to say quadratic wizards were not a problem at their tables. We all now ageee such a thing is problematic and such people were either naive or blinded.


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> That's kind of he point..  many people used to say quadratic wizards were not a problem at their tables. We all now ageee such a thing is problematic and such people were either naive or blinded.




So in other words: people who disagree with you and don't see the issue in their games are either naïve or blind.

Give me a break.  This is exactly the type of response Umbran was warning people about a few posts up.


----------



## Sadras (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> That's kind of he point..  many people used to say quadratic wizards were not a problem at their tables. We all now ageee such a thing is problematic and such people were either naive or blinded.




To be fair there are still many people playing the older editions - to say we all agree that it was/is problematic is not accurate. Perfect balance between classes and sub-classes is not every table's priority - that is not to say that imbalance is not a problem for other tables.


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Sadras said:


> To be fair there are still many people playing the older editions - to say we all agree that it was/is problematic is not accurate. Perfect balance between classes and sub-classes is not every table's priority.




Pardon my hyberbole. A significant majority agrees with that assessment?


----------



## Sadras (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Pardon my hyberbole. A significant majority agrees with that assessment?




Based on the responses I have seen on Enworld over the years, I would tend to agree with you.

EDIT: Added the words _tend to_


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Pardon my hyberbole. A significant majority agrees with that assessment?




You'd have to do a survey to see how many people think GWM is "broken".  I don't see it as a significant majority on these threads.  I'd say a vocal minority think it's broken, others see it as slightly overpowered but not a big deal, others think the white room simulations and (possibly) inaccurate math overstate the issue.

I can only relate my experience: it's not a problem


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Oofta said:


> So in other words: people who disagree with you and don't see the issue in their games are either naïve or blind.
> 
> Give me a break.  This is exactly the type of response Umbran was warning people about a few posts up.




You are putting words in my mouth. I must ask you to stop that.


----------



## Sadras (Jun 12, 2018)

@_*FrogReaver*_, from my experience GWM used by a BM-Wizard under the effects of Enlarge, Shield and Haste - is a powerful combo. How well that compares to other combinations of damage dealing characters/classes I cannot say - for a number of factors. If I had to vote on it, I would say slightly overpowered but not a big deal. 

These days I find the spell _Haste_ to be more troublesome.


----------



## SkidAce (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> That's kind of he point..  many people used to say quadratic wizards were not a problem at their tables. We all now ageee such a thing is problematic and such people were either naive or blinded.




We do not all agree.


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> You are putting words in my mouth. I must ask you to stop that.




I'm confused, and apologize if I misunderstand.  




FrogReaver said:


> That's kind of he point..  many people used to say quadratic wizards were not a problem at their tables. We all now ageee such a thing is problematic and such people were either naive or blinded.





My interpretation of what you've said is roughly "GWM is equivalent to quadratic wizards from previous editions.  Anyone who doesn't see that is either naïve or blind."

Are you _not_ saying that?  If not, why bring up issues with previous editions that have nothing to do with GWM and SS?


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Oofta said:


> I'm confused, and apologize if I misunderstand.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




So let's start here.  Do you dispute my claim about quadratic wizards being problematic and that those who defended them were naive or blind?

i promise I will get to the thrust of your question quickly.


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> So let's start here.  Do you dispute my claim about quadratic wizards being problematic and that those who defended them were naive or blind?
> 
> i promise I will get to the thrust of your question quickly.




I agree that in previous editions at higher levels wizards were far more powerful than other classes.  Whether that's an issue for anyone is personal preference.  Wizards were quite squishy and underpowered at lower levels, and high level games in my experience were rare.  But yes, somewhere around 14th level, fighters simply became meat shields for the casters.

I would disagree with someone who felt differently, I would not call them blind or naïve.


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Oofta said:


> I agree that in previous editions at higher levels wizards were far more powerful than other classes.  Whether that's an issue for anyone is personal preference.  Wizards were quite squishy and underpowered at lower levels, and high level games in my experience were rare.  But yes, somewhere around 14th level, fighters simply became meat shields for the casters.
> 
> I would disagree with someone who felt differently, I would not call them blind or naïve.




What would you do and what would you call them when they made the claim that such things did not occur at their table?


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> What would you do and what would you call them when they made the claim that such things did not occur at their table?




I would relay my experience and disagree. I would try to determine why their experience was different.  I would chalk it up to people running a different style of game than I do.  

All of which you can done without being insulting.


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Oofta said:


> I would relay my experience and disagree. I would try to determine why their experience was different.  I would chalk it up to people running a different style of game than I do.
> 
> All of which you can done without being insulting.




Well I disagree. The way these conversations go is that the initial complaint gets disregarded and diminished by such posters to the point where it's no longer a your game vs my game difference but a you are doing something wrong, their is no problem and we play the same as you, etc. That's insulting. When that happens the only thing left to believe is that the other side is blind and naive.


----------



## dco (Jun 12, 2018)

SkidAce said:


> We do not all agree.



Obviously it is not going to be a problem for all, some people don't care if their character is inferior or better than others, if the fights are easier or more complicated, if there are lots of magic items or not, if there is roleplaying or not, etc. It can be said of anything, so it is a pointless discusion.

Another thing is the balance of damage, who cares if people has problems or not when the math is there.


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Well I disagree. The way these conversations go is that the initial complaint gets disregarded and diminished by such posters to the point where it's no longer a your game vs my game difference but a you are doing something wrong, their is no problem and we play the same as you, etc. That's insulting. When that happens the only thing left to believe is that the other side is blind and naive.




In other words:  if anyone disagrees with you they are blind and naïve.  

So how am I putting words in your mouth?


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Oofta said:


> In other words:  if anyone disagrees with you they are blind and naïve.
> 
> So how am I putting words in your mouth?




Again that's words in my mouth and not what I said. I said when someone disagrees to the point of invalidating my experience then that is insulting.  When they are willing to do that then I am justified in believing them blind and naive.


----------



## UngeheuerLich (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Again that's words in my mouth and not what I said. I said when someone disagrees to the point of invalidating my experience then that is insulting.  When they are willing to do that then I am justified in believing them blind and naive.




Hey. I think you two are running in circles. Its a problem for you but not for him. Both can be true. 
It is also no problem for me. The challenge you accepted showed that the feat did exactly what I expected it to do and is at the powerlevel I want. At least at that level.
If it should be problematic some day, I would limit it to once per turn. But at that level it seems perfect. For the SS I'd tend to do the same if it should prove problematic.
It is the same 1/turn I might add to healing spirit.

I would not want to be called naive or blind if I have not seen the problems show in my campaign. I would not accuse you of playing wrong if they did.


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Again that's words in my mouth and not what I said. I said when someone disagrees to the point of invalidating my experience then that is insulting.  When they are willing to do that then I am justified in believing them blind and naive.




Right.  So if someone disagrees with you call them blind and naïve.  No one is putting those words in your mouth, I am merely repeating them..  I guess I should probably just report it instead and let the moderators deal with it.

We all have different opinions and experiences.  I don't agree with a lot of things people post. People disagree with me all the time.  Occasionally I probably get a little perturbed and cross a line in my response.

But I accept responsibility and apologize.  I don't think it's justifiable to think that my opinion is the only valid one.

Many people disagree with the basic premise that GWM is 'broken".  That's all.


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

UngeheuerLich said:


> Hey. I think you two are running in circles. Its a problem for you but not for him. Both can be true.
> It is also no problem for me. The challenge you accepted showed that the feat did exactly what I expected it to do and is at the powerlevel I want. At least at that level.
> If it should be problematic some day, I would limit it to once per turn. But at that level it seems perfect. For the SS I'd tend to do the same if it should prove problematic.
> It is the same 1/turn I might add to healing spirit.
> ...




Then I wouldn't refer to this behavior as naive or blind


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Oofta said:


> Right.  So if someone disagrees with you call them blind and naïve.  No one is putting those words in your mouth, I am merely repeating them..  I guess I should probably just report it instead and let the moderators deal with it.
> 
> We all have different opinions and experiences.  I don't agree with a lot of things people post. People disagree with me all the time.  Occasionally I probably get a little perturbed and cross a line in my response.
> 
> ...




Discussion over


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Again that's words in my mouth and not what I said. I said when someone disagrees to the point of invalidating my experience then that is insulting.  When they are willing to do that then I am justified in believing them blind and naive.



To jump in, I'm not invalidating your experience.  I've been in quite a few if these threads correcting maths and showing that GWM and SS are indeed powerful choices and can, in the extremes, lead to dramatic differences to the point of completely overshadowing other choices.  So, I'm clearly not denying the problem can exist.

What I said was that they aren't a problem _for me_ because my games are not as combat focused and often involve challenges that aren't "reduce hitpoints at the fastest rate."  The counterclaim was that _my_ game didn't exist.  How you reached the idea that I was denying your game I cannot fathom.

Clearly, if you play where combats are primary focus and have optimizing players, these feats are a problem   I've offered numerous choices to offset this, as I clearly see how that problem can obtain.  My game isn't better than your game, it's _different_. I'll offer suggestions to help overcome problems others are having because differences exist and playstyles are varied.  

What I categorically reject is the notion that WotC owes anyone a redo because they've chosen to use optional rules and yet refuse to make adjustments because of that.  The rules do not promise you everything works with all or any options turned on; you, as players, have the duty to make it work for you.  Period.  Want help, I and scores of others are willing.

As an aside, I have lots of issues with LFQW, and enjoy that 5e had tamped that down greatly.  Your assumptions about my opinions and motivations are incorrect on almost all counts.


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Ovinomancer said:


> To jump in, I'm not invalidating your experience.  I've been in quite a few if these threads correcting maths and showing that GWM and SS are indeed powerful choices and can, in the extremes, lead to dramatic differences to the point of completely overshadowing other choices.  So, I'm clearly not denying the problem can exist.
> 
> What I said was that they aren't a problem _for me_ because my games are not as combat focused and often involve challenges that aren't "reduce hitpoints at the fastest rate."  The counterclaim was that _my_ game didn't exist.  How you reached the idea that I was denying your game I cannot fathom.
> 
> ...




Thanks for clarifying. I am sorry if I was overly critical and took anything you had previously said wrong


----------



## Krachek (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> I suspect that the -5/+10 feats are one of the few things keeping us from complaining that full casters are much too strong.
> 
> if they were removed we would just be back to complaint about weaknfighters compared to wizards and clerics.




Why those feats are optional if they are mandatory to Classes balance?


----------



## Mistwell (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Everyone remember back in the day when certain posters would claim that quadratic wizards weren't a problem in Their games. @_*Ovinomancer*_ reminds me of that..






FrogReaver said:


> That's kind of he point..  many people used to say quadratic wizards were not a problem at their tables. We all now ageee such a thing is problematic and such people were either naive or blinded.






FrogReaver said:


> You are putting words in my mouth. I must ask you to stop that.




OK let's not put words in your mouth. What precisely was the point of you saying:

1) remember when...certain posters would claim X?
2) Ovi's [argument] reminds me of [#1]
3) [T]he point.. many people used to say X. We all now agree such a thing is problematic and such people were either naive or blinded

I am failing to see how [MENTION=6801845]Oofta[/MENTION] put words in your mouth, but I will listen to your clarification. How were you saying anything other than "people like Ovi who say things which remind me of X are, like those people before him, either naive or blinded?" 

Because if you didn't mean to communicate that, then you probably need to clarify what you said and apologize to Ovi for making a reasonable implication about him from your words.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 12, 2018)

Oofta said:


> He's not the only one saying that they don't see the problem at their table.  Some people seem to say that every fighter out there uses this one feat and only this feat, but I've never seen it. YMMV.



 Yeah, it makes so much more sense when the fighter uses his one bonus ASI at 6th level for GWM/SS when he's behind on damage, for Actor when he's behind in the Social Pillar, or to shore up a low stat when he's suffering from bad saves, etc, etc, etc....







FrogReaver said:


> That's kind of he point..  many people used to say quadratic wizards were not a problem at their tables. We all now ageee such a thing is problematic and such people were either naive or blinded.



Except for the people still saying it, of course.  And, seriously, there are players/campaigns for which LFQW if still a feature, not a bug.




Krachek said:


> Why those feats are optional if they are mandatory to Classes balance?



 Because class balance is optional.  
If, for some reason, you want class balance, and want to play run D&D, anyway, you can opt into it.  You choose a specific sub-set of the rules that you find least imbalanced or most susceptible to being balanced, run your campaign in 6-8 encounter/2-3 short rest 'days,' place a variety of challenges that puts each PC in the spotlight, in turn, place magic items and any other perks with an eye towards maintaining or re-establishing that balance, etc...


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Jun 12, 2018)

Krachek said:


> Why those feats are optional if they are mandatory to Classes balance?



It's not just balance, either. I would also argue that GWM is fundamental to class _identity_.

In the big core game that I ran, the Barbarian player was somewhat disappointed to find out that his class was actually an extremely durable tank, rather than an offensive powerhouse. The Power Attack portion of GWM appears to be designed specifically to address that issue, except they buried it over in the feats, which are twice as optional as the Barbarian class is.


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Mistwell said:


> OK let's not put words in your mouth. What precisely was the point of you saying:
> 
> 1) remember when...certain posters would claim X?
> 2) Ovi's [argument] reminds me of [#1]
> ...




I'll give you a chance to catch up on the thread before I respond.


----------



## Mistwell (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> I'll give you a chance to catch up on the thread before I respond.




Nope we're not talking about the new ground you carved out after that, I am asking how he put words in your mouth when, from everything you said to that point, he was concisely and accurately describing what you had said back to you.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jun 12, 2018)

Sadras said:


> @_*Ovinomancer*_ are you playing the feats as written or have you tweaked them at your table with the _or_ between the benefits as you have suggested on these boards?




In two games (the last two mentioned) I offered SS in both original format and in subbed +1 DEX vs -5/+10 format.  I had the alternate selected by two players and the original by the 3rd.  I didn't see any real delta.  I also offered both versions of GWM, but had no takers.


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> It's not just balance, either. I would also argue that GWM is fundamental to class _identity_.
> 
> In the big core game that I ran, the Barbarian player was somewhat disappointed to find out that his class was actually an extremely durable tank, rather than an offensive powerhouse. The Power Attack portion of GWM appears to be designed specifically to address that issue, except they buried it over in the feats, which are twice as optional as the Barbarian class is.




Funny what people think is "good enough" or fundamental to their identity.  My wife was quite happy with her barbarian in our last campaign, but had gone with an axe and shield build so she could be sort-of-tanky but make up for it by always being reckless.  She never complained about not doing enough damage.

Which is not to say your buddy was wrong in any way.  Just that different people have different concepts of what's fun to play and what makes a barbarian a barbarian.  Kind of relates back to the whole premise though ... GWM is broken for some people, not a consideration for some and a defining characteristic (in a good way) for others.


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Mistwell said:


> Nope we're not talking about the new ground you carved out after that, I am asking how he put words in your mouth when, from everything you said to that point, he was concisely and accurately describing what you had said back to you.




Opinions are like ... everyone's got one

Anyways, I don't think this forum is the place to try and put words in others mouths. If you can't move on from your misunderstanding of my words then this discussion can be over as well


----------



## Mistwell (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Opinions are like ... everyone's got one
> 
> Anyways, I don't think this forum is the place to try and put words in others mouths. If you can't move on from your misunderstanding of my words then this discussion can be over as well




It would be swell if you explained how there was any misunderstanding of your words by others. It sure looks like you misspoke, but I am again open to hearing how I am wrong. "Nuh uh!" is not really an explanation.


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Mistwell said:


> It would be swell if you explained how there was any misunderstanding of your words by others. It sure looks like you misspoke, but I am again open to hearing how I am wrong. "Nuh uh!" is not really an explanation.




Already explained. Please read the comments you refused to catch up on but instead demanded me to answer without you considering those comments.


----------



## ad_hoc (Jun 12, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> It's not just balance, either. I would also argue that GWM is fundamental to class _identity_.
> 
> In the big core game that I ran, the Barbarian player was somewhat disappointed to find out that his class was actually an extremely durable tank, rather than an offensive powerhouse. The Power Attack portion of GWM appears to be designed specifically to address that issue, except they buried it over in the feats, which are twice as optional as the Barbarian class is.




Or maybe, just maybe, it is their 'reckless attack' feature.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Jun 12, 2018)

ad_hoc said:


> Or maybe, just maybe, it is their 'reckless attack' feature.



Reckless attack is designed to work with Power Attack. That's why they have it. If they don't have Power Attack, then the class just has extremely high durability and accuracy; it doesn't actually hit _harder_.

Barbarians aren't generally know for the extreme precision of their strikes. They're supposed to hit _hard_.


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> Already explained. Please read the comments you refused to catch up on but instead demanded me to answer without you considering those comments.




Did you?  I thought it basically came down to "I felt justified in what I said because I agree with the OP and other people do not".  

Because I try really, really hard to not misrepresent what people say and to get a better understanding if I think I may have - as you put it - put words into your mouth.


----------



## FrogReaver (Jun 12, 2018)

Oofta said:


> Did you?  I thought it basically came down to "I felt justified in what I said because I agree with the OP and other people do not".
> 
> Because I try really, really hard to not misrepresent what people say and to get a better understanding if I think I may have - as you put it - put words into your mouth.




I thought I made clear our discussion on this was over


----------



## Oofta (Jun 12, 2018)

FrogReaver said:


> I thought I made clear our discussion on this was over




I was responding to your statement saying reading the rest of the comments made everything perfectly clear.  As far as I can tell the only thing they make clear is that you feel really, really justified in saying that anyone that disagrees the statement "GWM IS BROKEN" is blind or naïve. 

If I'm missing something please let me know and I will happily and sincerely apologize.


----------



## Ovinomancer (Jun 12, 2018)

Hypothetically, a poster strongly implied that other posters might be blind and naive, but stopped just before saying other posters _were_ blind and naive, this preserving deniability should anyone be inclined to report a breach of site rules.

If you think I'm saying anything about any poster in this thread, don't put words in my mouth, read this again to understand, and this conversation is finished.  QED.


----------



## Krachek (Jun 12, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> Reckless attack is designed to work with Power Attack. That's why they have it. If they don't have Power Attack, then the class just has extremely high durability and accuracy; it doesn't actually hit _harder_.
> 
> Barbarians aren't generally know for the extreme precision of their strikes. They're supposed to hit _hard_.



It give me the idea to convert GWM to replace the frenzy berserker ability at level 6,


----------



## BookBarbarian (Jun 12, 2018)

Krachek said:


> It give me the idea to convert GWM to replace the frenzy berserker ability at level 6,




Mindless Rage? I love that ability. It's Frenzy itself that is disappointing.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Jun 12, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> Mindless Rage? I love that ability. It's Frenzy itself that is disappointing.



From a balance standpoint, how would it be if GWM replaced Frenzy, and three levels of barbarian was the only way to gain the benefit of that feat?

Because off hand, it seems like it would easily solve the identity crisis of the class, creating a very strong distinction between offensive barbarians and defensive ones.


----------



## BookBarbarian (Jun 12, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> From a balance standpoint, how would it be if GWM replaced Frenzy, and three levels of barbarian was the only way to gain the benefit of that feat?
> 
> Because off hand, it seems like it would easily solve the identity crisis of the class, creating a very strong distinction between offensive barbarians and defensive ones.




I'd personally hate to see GWM Fighters fall by the wayside. While filling a similar function I find a Battlemaster using Precision attack with GWM thematically very different than Barbarian using Reckless Attack.

For my part I just made it so everyone can use -5/+10 if they are wielding a melee weapon in two hands and using Strength to Attack.


----------



## Krachek (Jun 12, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> Mindless Rage? I love that ability. It's Frenzy itself that is disappointing.



You’re right it was the Frenzy feature I was meaning.


----------



## ad_hoc (Jun 13, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> Reckless attack is designed to work with Power Attack. That's why they have it. If they don't have Power Attack, then the class just has extremely high durability and accuracy; it doesn't actually hit _harder_.
> 
> Barbarians aren't generally know for the extreme precision of their strikes. They're supposed to hit _hard_.




It just isn't. Feats are an entirely optional part of the game. The rest of the game is not designed around them.

That is also your view of Barbarians and your view of 'hitting hard'. Reckless Attack requires them to use Strength. Barbarians usually have 16+ Strength. That allows them to hit pretty hard.

They're not being precise, they're jumping, lunging, and swinging wildly with no regard for their safety. A beast of an opponent who doesn't care about getting stabbed is frightening. How do you defend yourself from such a monster?


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Jun 13, 2018)

ad_hoc said:


> It just isn't. Feats are an entirely optional part of the game. The rest of the game is not designed around them.



I agree that feats are optional. I don't use them in my game. That's why I think it's weird that they buried such an important ability in there.



ad_hoc said:


> That is also your view of Barbarians and your view of 'hitting hard'. Reckless Attack requires them to use Strength. Barbarians usually have 16+ Strength. That allows them to hit pretty hard.



That's not just my opinion. That's the opinion over on tvtropes, which is _the_ source for pop-culture tropes. A barbarian class is supposed to deal a lot of damage.

Strength 16 is irrelevant next to the size of the damage die. Power Attack roughly _doubles_ the total damage of the attack. Without Power Attack, the barbarian outputs less damage than the _fighter_, which is _entirely_ at odds with how these things are supposed to work. The fighter is supposed to be _balanced_, with the barbarian being more offensively-oriented, and the paladin being the defensive counterpart.

Turning the barbarian into a _defensive_ powerhouse, with _half_ as many attacks as the fighter and with no way to compensate for that, is _entirely_ the wrong concept!


----------



## ad_hoc (Jun 13, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> That's not just my opinion. That's the opinion over on tvtropes, which is _the_ source for pop-culture tropes. A barbarian class is supposed to deal a lot of damage.




Again, they don't. Please stop.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BarbarianHero

"The Barbarian Hero is the ancient-era (or Future Primitive) badass, armed with muscles upon muscles and a variety of very sharp bladed objects, whose job it is to kill lots of monsters and kick lots of ass."

"His enemy will often be a Sorcerous Overlord: both an overlord for him to be anti-authoritarian against and an Evil Sorcerer for him to be physical and brave against to emphasise the ideal of combined physical and mental mastery. "

So, lots of muscles, job is killing monsters, anti-authoritarian (read: anti-order, chaotic), and brave.

Sounds like 5e hit the nail on the head here.

(and side note: Barbarians do deal a lot of damage. Every Barbarian player I have seen have loved dealing out lots of damage. Only Paladins with their smites outclass them.)



> Strength 16 is irrelevant next to the size of the damage die. Power Attack roughly _doubles_ the total damage of the attack. Without Power Attack, the barbarian outputs less damage than the _fighter_, which is _entirely_ at odds with how these things are supposed to work. The fighter is supposed to be _balanced_, with the barbarian being more offensively-oriented, and the paladin being the defensive counterpart.




You're just making these things up. I get that this is what you want, but it not being this way by default isn't wrong. There are even optional things in the game called feats that can be used to customize characters.



> Turning the barbarian into a _defensive_ powerhouse, with _half_ as many attacks as the fighter and with no way to compensate for that, is _entirely_ the wrong concept!




Well if you only play the game at level 20 then, yes, things will be wonky.

The game is designed around the sweet spot of levels 5-10.

I would think at level 20 the problem would be the full spellcasters not which is better - Fighter or Barbarian.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 13, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> From a balance standpoint, how would it be if GWM replaced Frenzy, and three levels of barbarian was the only way to gain the benefit of that feat?
> 
> Because off hand, it seems like it would easily solve the identity crisis of the class, creating a very strong distinction between offensive barbarians and defensive ones.




That is one of the best ideas i have heard of in this thread. I maybe would not replace it but just add it. Then you can replace great weapon mastery with the cleave feat (+1str instead of -5/+10).


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 13, 2018)

ad_hoc said:


> Again, they don't. Please stop.



Wrong article. Try this one: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasyCharacterClasses

"The Barbarian: Other Names: Berserker, Gladiator, Viking. The Barbarian is a breed of Fighter focused more on damage than defense."



ad_hoc said:


> You're just making these things up. I get that this is what you want, but it not being this way by default isn't wrong. There are even optional things in the game called feats that can be used to customize characters.



I'm not the one making it up. My player was the one who brought it up, and before that point, I hadn't even thought of it. (I honestly hadn't considered the possibility that anyone would ever _want_ to play a barbarian. It's such an un-civilized class.) Once they mentioned it, though, I was forced to agree; because I've read tvtropes, and I am familiar with the trope.



ad_hoc said:


> Well if you only play the game at level 20 then, yes, things will be wonky.
> 
> The game is designed around the sweet spot of levels 5-10.



The game goes from 1-20, and any argument that only considers part of that range is deficient. Barbarians start out on par with fighters (_very_ slightly ahead, actually, thanks to their rage bonus), but fall off around the half-way mark - when fighters gain a 50% increase in the thing that they do every round, and barbarians gain yet-another defensive ability (which is unlikely to ever trigger, given the sheer number of effective HP they already have). On average, over the course of twenty levels, a barbarian does less damage in a round than a fighter does... unless feats are in play, at which point the combination of Reckless Attack and Power Attack allow them to re-gain their position.



ad_hoc said:


> I would think at level 20 the problem would be the full spellcasters not which is better - Fighter or Barbarian.



In my experience, a level 20 fighter type (whether barbarian or paladin) can tear halfway through a boss in about two rounds, while the level 20 wizard or warlock is still trying to work their way through its Legendary Resistance.


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## ad_hoc (Jun 13, 2018)

Saelorn said:


> Wrong article. Try this one: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasyCharacterClasses




D&D is about creating fantasy stories. If you care more about characters as game mechanics than as story archetypes then 5e is probably not for you. Probably why you're having a hard time with this.



> game goes from 1-20, and any argument that only considers part of that range is deficient.




Take a look at the experience table. It is designed to have the majority of the game take place from 5-10. 1&2 are very quick, 3&4 are fairly quick, then 5-10 are slow. 11+ gets faster and faster as it goes.

Then think about how many stories end either through TPK, finishing the grand adventure, wanting to move on to a new game, or dissolution of play groups. 

Now estimate how much game time is played at level 20.

I am betting it is somewhere in the range of .01% or lower of total 5e game time. Many millions of people are enjoying the game without playing the high levels. The game is just fine.

The designers have said as much, they didn't put much design time into the high level rules. There isn't even an adventure that goes there yet (first one, 4 years in, is scheduled to be released soon).


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 13, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> I'd personally hate to see GWM Fighters fall by the wayside...



 Hopefully, it'd be more the case of other fighters getting up from the wayside and joining the GWM & SS Fighters.


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## BookBarbarian (Jun 13, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> Hopefully, it'd be more the case of other fighters getting up from the wayside and joining the GWM & SS Fighters.




Hmm. I fail to see how the suggestion of limiting the -5/+10 to Berserkers would help those other fighters.


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## Tony Vargas (Jun 13, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> Hmm. I fail to see how the suggestion of limiting the -5/+10 to Berserkers would help those other fighters.



 That specific 'solution?' - in a relative sense, they wouldn't be overshadowed by GWM anymore?  They might be overshadowed by Berserkers & Sorcerers and/or whatever else.  ::shrug::


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## BookBarbarian (Jun 13, 2018)

Tony Vargas said:


> That specific 'solution?' - in a relative sense, they wouldn't be overshadowed by GWM anymore?  They might be overshadowed by Berserkers & Sorcerers and/or whatever else.  ::shrug::




That was the solution I was asked about. ::shrug::


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## TwoSix (Jun 13, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> That was the solution I was asked about. ::shrug::



I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but my shoulders are getting sore.  ::shrug::


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## BookBarbarian (Jun 13, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but my shoulders are getting sore.  ::shrug::




Great Weapons will do that to you.


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## Satyrn (Jun 13, 2018)

TwoSix said:


> I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but my shoulders are getting sore.  ::shrug::




::shrug::


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## 5ekyu (Jun 14, 2018)

CapnZapp said:


> I don't believe you. I believe you say so only to deny yourself the truth. These feats make some (but not all) players decide against playing fighters with spears, throwing knives or whatnot, because they offer such a huge increase in primary efficiency. Other players couldn't care less, but also would not be disturbed by feats that were actually balanced and included more variety.
> 
> But I do not suppose we can get any further, so I guess our discussion is at an end. The OP has been given ample answer as to what exactly makes these feats so good.
> 
> All we can do now is await the revised edition and hope these feats are included in it.



It is not often that a poster goes wholehog in their fervor as to tell a GM  they are wrong about results in games run by the GM and likely never seen by the poster.

It answers any questions about credibility i might have had, so thanks.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jun 14, 2018)

BookBarbarian said:


> Hmm. I fail to see how the suggestion of limiting the -5/+10 to Berserkers would help those other fighters.




One of the classes where it thematically fit and a class that can not get as mileage out of the feat because frenzy uses the bonus action. It also allows different classes to take the cleave feat for different weapons. So sword and board fighters don't feel they wasted half of the feat just to have the bonus action attack.


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## dco (Jun 14, 2018)

Krachek said:


> It give me the idea to convert GWM to replace the frenzy berserker ability at level 6,



I like your idea, I don't use feats and I was never happy with that class ability, I will use that in my games. Now the Berserker can fight reliably with two weapons if he wants, no more exhaustion and the ability suits the berserker, you go Frenzy you lose accuracy. But no on/off posssibility, once you entre Frenzy you have -5/+10 during all rage time.


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## psychophipps (Jun 15, 2018)

So there you have it. It either matters and is completely Boss, or it doesn't and isn't.

Great job, guys. Really.

#golfclap


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