D&D 5E Do DM's feel that Sharpshooter & Great Weapon Master overpowered?

When the playtest was underway, the mechanics of the system were explained to us as were the reasonings behind various decisions. One of those explanations was that flat bonuses were bad, as were plus damage, minus attack bonuses. And yet, we got both in the published system.

In particular the combination between the Archery fighting style and Sharpshooter seems to be problematic, but so too is GWM + PAM. The consistent factor in these seemingly overpowered combinations is the -5/+10 mechanic. Personally, I do away with that aspect of those feats and I'm finding more and more that other DM's are doing the same. So I wanted to find out if this was a trend and whether the majority (of DM's) think this aspect of those two feats is problematic or not.

I'm sure players love it, which is why I'm hoping and asking for only DM's to respond to the poll.

I feel that is important to point out a few things:

Firstly, it wasn't that flat bonuses, plus damage, minus attack bonuses, and such were explained as being "bad" - it was that having too many of them was difficult to track, and stacking a number of such features together could end badly.

Which is why we have a single -5/+10 mechanic, but it is relegated to an optional rule (more about that important distinction below), and the rules of the 5th edition game make sure to prevent multiplication of the flat bonus part of damage (unlike 3rd/3.5 did).

Second, the optionality of the rules. Something being presented as opt-in (you must specifically choose to use it), rather than opt-out (that's the rule, but you can elect to change the rules), makes it more acceptable to be presenting options that might perform better in one campaign than in another, because the intent is that only those campaigns that are improved (from the participants' view) by including an option will choose to include that option.

So that a combat-heavy campaign makes that -5/+10 look very appealing is the design working as intended, not something being "broken."

Also a result of the optionality of these rules, perception of the options must be carefully kept appropriate - we should not forget that the situation at the table is the result of deliberate choices, especially when it comes to combining multiple of those deliberate choices (i.e. taking two feats, or a fighting style and a feat, or any of the other things being used in conjunction such as spells or magic items).

Does choosing to use feats increase the power level of the characters? Yes, that much is (or at least should be) obvious since they are getting options they otherwise did not have. But that doesn't mean that feats are actually too-powerful to allow.

The actual effects of the -5/+10 also need to be held in clear perception: -5 to hit is a big difference in accuracy. Choosing to have that penalty will cause some attacks to miss. Those misses mean that the average damage added by the feat is actually not the +10 listed, but some smaller number. As a result, the practical effect of the feat is actually very situational - by which I mean it should only be used in particular situations or it will appear to the player using it to be reducing overall damage output thanks to missed attacks.

The folks that I've seen make a case for the feat being broken have only demonstrated that they choose not to run their games outside the limited circumstances when these feats are at their best performance.

I don't. If you crunch the numbers, "in general", +2 Strength balances reasonably well against the package of Great Weapon Master. This only means it becomes "over powered" after someone has a 20 Str, but really this is just allowing them to further specialize in an area without just going for a 22 or 24 in the stat. The progression of monster stats seems to work fine if you allowed increases over 20, so I just consider these specialized feats to be a way of going over 20.

Without advantage, against something with a 65% chance to hit, you actually deal less "average" damage with the -5/+10 when using a Great Sword, Str 20, and Great Weapon Fighter's reroll 1s and 2s. With advantage, you deal slightly more (I did the math on a scrap of paper at work a few days ago, I didn't bring it with me). I could check the numbers at other to hit ranges, to see when it's best to use.

What it does do, though, is give you the change to take something faster than you other wise could. This is only a "problem" when you're dealing with creatures whose HP total is in the 10-20 range. That +10 damage means you could take them out in one hit, and you'll tend to remember when this happens more than you'll remember when they miss. I only think it really becomes an issue when you're dealing with Fighter 11 and 20, when it represents a potential +30 or +40 damage. But the lower hit rate does affect your number of hits against "worthy" opponents. Against low AC opponents, it tears through them, but low HP opponents would die to a successful save on an AoE anyway.

I actually think a standard -5 to hit/+5 damage should be in the basic rules.

Now, it may be a little powerful on Sharpshooter; I haven't tested that. The -5 to hit hurts sharpshooter less, because many Archers are using the Archery style for +2 to hit, and because the 1d8+5 (9.5) damage cap is lower than GWFing's 2d6*+5 (13.3). But still, choosing sharpshooter early means you're at a constant -1 to hit and damage compared to someone who chose an 18 or 20 Dex, not to mention the side benefits of having that larger stat.

I haven't had a problem with it. It does more damage, but that moves combat along. It works best on significantly weaker creatures but can take a nice chunk out of a stronger creature. It is kind of the fighter's fireball (i.e. hit lots of creatures for large damage, just like a fireball).

I am not going to get into hard numbers, but I have had 2 players use it in a campaign that ranged from level 1 to 19 over 2.5 years and is still going strong. The PCs use the feats when they feel like they can still hit. This increases when they have advantage on attack rolls and attack weaker foes. As the battles have become harder, it definitely helps the fighter contribute to quickly finishing encounters.

I've never had an issue with either of them at my table. Of course, I rarely run at a level high enough for anyone but a Variant Human to gain a feat - and don't use feats unless I'm running AL. So that might have something to do with it. ("Optionality" and all.)

I will freely admit that I do not know if they would cause a problem in my games or not. In my last campaigns, barely anyone took feats, so it never came up.

That being said... for my two Curse of Strahd campaigns currently, I did a whole bunch of feat merging/adding/editing just based upon how I wanted them to work specifically for this style of game. Thus I did my own edit to SS/GWM in order to bring them to a level I was happy with... that being you can take a minus to attack equal to your proficiency bonus to do double your proficiency bonus in damage. So in these two campaigns, if anyone takes them I'll be seeing a bunch of -2/+4 or -3/+6, rather than the prototypical -5/+10. Again, I have no idea what their effects will be, but for this style of campaign, I thought bringing their power down a bit would work better for my purposes.

It's not that they're bad, so much as they're bad in context of the ludicrously low AC values for monsters in the Manual. If you bump up the AC of everything by four or five points, then suddenly that -5 becomes a real consideration, rather than it being negligible because you're going to hit anyway.

Saelorn said:

It's not that they're bad, so much as they're bad in context of the ludicrously low AC values for monsters in the Manual. If you bump up the AC of everything by four or five points, then suddenly that -5 becomes a real consideration, rather than it being negligible because you're going to hit anyway.

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So unless you alter the entire system, it's fine?

Saelorn said:

It's not that they're bad, so much as they're bad in context of the ludicrously low AC values for monsters in the Manual. If you bump up the AC of everything by four or five points, then suddenly that -5 becomes a real consideration, rather than it being negligible because you're going to hit anyway.

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This seems to the be the essential point. A character with one of these feats is not going to take the penalty if the target is difficult to hit. But if the target has a low AC? Sure. Especially since the one player we have who took the Sharpshooter feat tends to want to use this effect when he has bless, an inspiration die,and/or advantage. Combined with archery style, low AC targets get hit fairly regularly, even with -5 Attack.

What our group decided to do was remove the -5/+10, replacing it with the ability to use a bow in melee without incurring disadvantage (ala Crossbow Expert). The player is still very satisfied with the feat.

One note: whether the feats are overpowered is a different question than whether they should have a -5/+10 option. I simply don't like that option, as it rewards the player who twinks out his character to an extreme. The character I mentioned above? At 6th level, he already has a +10 Attack bonus with a bow (+5 Dex, +3 Prof, +2 Archery style). Tack on bless, advantage, etc. and it gets out of hand pretty quickly. He does 1d8 (bow) + 1d8 (colossus slayer) +1d6 (hex) +1d6 (sneak attack) +5 (Dex mod) damage. He obviously doesn't get all of that for every attack, but often enough that adding a potential +10 damage...nope. Other groups may not mind.

One_Shots said:

When the playtest was underway, the mechanics of the system were explained to us as were the reasonings behind various decisions. One of those explanations was that flat bonuses were bad, as were plus damage, minus attack bonuses. And yet, we got both in the published system.

In particular the combination between the Archery fighting style and Sharpshooter seems to be problematic, but so too is GWM + PAM. The consistent factor in these seemingly overpowered combinations is the -5/+10 mechanic. Personally, I do away with that aspect of those feats and I'm finding more and more that other DM's are doing the same. So I wanted to find out if this was a trend and whether the majority (of DM's) think this aspect of those two feats is problematic or not.

I'm sure players love it, which is why I'm hoping and asking for only DM's to respond to the poll.

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I've got a game with both of them in it.

I don't think it's a major problem. The GWM barbarian is a crushinator, but both him and the sharpshooter ranger miss enough attacks that they've occasionally regretted taking the -5. Over the life of the character, I don't know that it's much better than an always-on +1 bonus to hit and damage, and it's definitely more situational. Both have resulted to attack/advantage spam to try and get the odds to work in their favor, and sometimes it works, but the ranger missed every attack on a turn last session, and the barbarian whiffs on the regular even with advantage so....heh.

It's notably a good option. It isn't notably a more powerful option than every other option, nor is it so powerful of an option that everyone needs to do it, and it's not powerful enough to affect the way I make or run encounters.