Zardnaar
Legend
This is an old debate and there is a thread currently going downhill. So why would my opinion be any more relevant than any one else? For what it is worth I have probably played 5E more than most players and I generally have a decent idea on how to break the various D&Ds as I have been playing for over 20 years and some things do not change to much between the editions.
At the most basic level Sharpshooter (SS) and Great Weapon Master (GWM) have a -5/+10 effect with various other effects that are also good by there own such as eliminating all penalties at firing into melee or a bonus action cleave effect.
At the most basic level of min/maxing, char op whatever if you can eliminate the -5 part of the feat you get a +10 bonus to damage. That right there tends to break 5E IMHO. If you have a hard look at the PHB the designers have been very careful with bonus damage effects generally limiting it to a minor attack (1d4/1d6 Monk, off hand attack TWF, Polearm Master Feat 1d4+ strength etc) or a bonus dice of damage (hex, hunters quarry, level 8 cleric etc). That bonus damage often uses your bonus action as well in some way.
Of the two feats SS is generally regarded as the worst one since you can get a +2 bonus to hit off the archery style if you are a Fighter or Ranger. That turns SS into a -3/+10 effect.
That the most basic level that is how these feats work and eliminating that -5 penalty is the key to abusing them. Note most things are not broken by themselves with the odd exception of certain spells in various editions. For example greater/improved invisibility is nasty, combine it with fly and yeah it becomes so much worse.
So the idea in 5E is to buff your characters to mitigate the -5 penalty. Note even without the SS/GWM feat getting buffed to hit is always good in D&D regardless of edition. This applies in OD&D, 4E, 5E doesn't matter it is always good in combat with opportunity cost really being the main thing to consider (eg cast prayer or fireball).
In 5E I consider (IMHO) that there are 3 levels of buffing effects to consider.
1. A decent buff. For example advantage.
2. 2 ore more buff effects. Advantage+ a numeric bonus Example advantage+ war clerics +10 thing to hit.
3. 3 or more buff effects- advantage, +numeric effect+numeric effect example advantage+ war clerics +10 thing to hit, + a bard dice.
In general a single decent buff effect can mostly mitigate the effect of SS/GWM, the more buffs you pile on the more the -5 part of the feat doesn't matter. In some cases you can actually get a massive boost to hit and damage doing this. A very very basic example would be a war cleric who can use his domain power to get a +5 bonus to hit and plus 10 damage.
So not only have you managed to mitigate the effect of the feat you are outright getting a massive boost, see previous example of how the 5E class design deals with bonus damage. A +10 boost to damage should be ringing alarm bells IMHO all by itself. So far I have kept things somewhat basic with no number crunching or assumptions about the AC of likely opponents because IMHO white room theory crafting is a waste of time as there are to many variables in a D&D game let alone between playstyles, ability generation etc. In general though ACs in 5E tend to be low even at the higher levels.
So what would be the basic enabler in 5E or the worst offenders? Two stand out and they are.
1. Bless. You get a 1d4 bonus to hit, combined with the archery style you have more or less eliminated all of the draw back for using SS and GWS now has an average of -2.5 to hit not -5. A single stat buff and you are now only
marginally behind the curve, 2 stat buffs and SS you are actually now getting a bonus relative to what you had.
2. Faerie Fire. Advantage is very easy to get in 5E but this is a level 1 spell that can hit multiple targets. Its not as reliable as bless but at higher levels I like using this on dragons to waste their legendary resistances so they can use an auto save feature with limited uses or they can gamble with crappy dex saves and faerie fire on a Dragon is great. Saves do not scale well in 5E either along with ACs.
The following classes get these spells.
Bless All clerics, All level 2+ Paladins
Faerie Fire. All Bards (that pick it), All Druids, Light Cleric, Fae Pact Warlock (that pick it)
One can also multi class to get these spells and a 1 level cleric dip for a Sorcerer for example gets you bless and it is a cheap spell to quicken and the Sorcerer is also one of the better buffers in the game due to metamagic and proficiency in con saves.
Since both effects are low level they require very little resources to use. Bless is so good it even compares well with Spiritual Guardians. One deals 3d6 bonus damage to foes close to you, the other in a 3rd level slot grants 1d4 to attacks and saves to 5 characters. Bless also makes it more likely to pass concentration rolls on itself and is good in every fight that involves attack rolls or saves (that would be most of them) vs a spell that can deal a moderate amount of damage up close.
Just for arguments sake I treat advantage as a +4 bonus. Whats better than advantage? Advantage and a actual +4 bonus which is a good bless roll or a bard dice (3.5 or 4.5 avg at low levels). Bless +advantage is more than mitigates the drawback of both SS and GWM. Even without faerie fire how easy is advantage to get in 5E? The answer is very easy. Thing that grant advantage in 5E
1. Class abilities (Barbarians, Avenger Paladins, Battlemaster Fighters etc)
2. Help Action (bonus action with Mastermind Rogue)
3. Various spells
4. Some feats.
5. Conditions (often via spells and feats)
There are probably more ways of doing it but these are the main offenders. The following conditions grant advantage.
Blinded
Invisible
Paralysed
Prone (for melee)
Stunned
Unconscious
Just match the condition with various spell effects and class abilities. Even something like the Shield Master feat can knock an opponent prone using a bonus action and the shove action. Expertise in athletics is fun in that scenario.
So the theory crafter so far will likely argue that you can only use those feats on low AC targets reliably. Assuming you have no spellcasters or any class features that help mitigate this in effect this means a party of champion fighters and thief rogues. If you have a war cleric and/or a bard you can start reliably using SS and GWM on AC 20+, I have seen it connect on AC 23 and 24 opponents.
Even without to many (or any) mitigating factors however what also breaks these feats is extra attacks. Whats worse than +10 Damage on an attack? +10 damage on 7 attacks. One can get extra attacks via things like action surge, Crossbow Expert (CE), Polearm Master and the GWM feats. A hunter Ranger using horde breaker also can get a situational bonus attack (with a potential +10 damage vs a 1d8 bonus damage with colossus slayer). These all eat your bonus action of course.
And of course as you level up and get more attacks bless is one of the few spells that scales with you all the way up to level 20. How do you get 7 attacks in 5E? Level 11 + fighter, crossbow expert + action surge. Assuming you have say an 18 dexterity + those 2 feats. All fighters of all races with the default array can get 18 dex and 2 feats by level 11 more than likely the dex will be 20.
Average damage per attack 1d6+4 (7.5)
With SS 1d6 +14 (17.5)
7 attacks average damage is damage 52.5 or 122.5 with SS. If 3/7 attacks hit with SS damage is the same so accuracy is not required. If you are buffed enough more than 3 of those attacks are going to hit. And yes I have seen this happen as I have seen 5/5 attacks with SS hit (level 9 fighter action surge CE)
Even without action surge and 2 attacks at low levels (Hunter Ranger+Horde Breaker) 1d8+4 or a 1d8+14 only 1 of those attacks has to connect and the ranger is already out damaging a ranger who manages to connect with both shots (+8 to hit with 1 attack, +3 to hit with 2 attacks). The more attacks you make the more SS/GWM becomes bonkers except vs some of the highest ACs (18+)in the game assuming there are no buffs whatsoever being used. A simple bless spell blows that theory out of the water. This is also assuming no magical weapons are being used, the default array and not having a 20 in your prime ability which is likely.
With advantage AC 18 more or less is AC 13/14 and even at low levels sucking up the full -5 penalty as long as some attacks hit you are dealing more damage than by not using SS at all and you have a 50/50 chance to hit if you make more than 1 attack. AC 18 is also a high AC in 5E.
Melee is a bit different as they have less accuracy than the ranged builds but they can often give themselves advantage to hit in some way or gain it off another PC helping them.
The only way SS and GWM are not broken is the DM metagames against the PCs by using high AC opponents all of the time, hands out no magic items and the PCs do not buff themselves and/or you only use non spell casting classes (Monks, Fighters and Rogues can grant advantage though in various ways). I had a DM where 18 AC was the average AC (chainmail+shield) and we still managed to use those feats.
All of the WotC adventures have magic items in them, the 3pp ones do, and PCs usually buff themselves in some way even if it is getting a 20 in their prime attribute (18 also works good enough).
Bless ranges from being outright broken with these feats to being OP without them and by OP I mean better than all of the other level 1-3 cleric spells most of the time. Advantage is trivially easy to get, numeric bonuses are a bit harder (hint Lore Bards are very very good) but there is enough of them in the game you can get them as well. If you lack a cleric and a paladin you just use faerie fire instead unless you lack a Paladin, Bard, Cleric, Druid and if you lack them you can just use other spells instead (unless you lack a Sorcerer, Wizard, Warlock).
So yes those feats are fine if you have no support classes and no arcane class or do not use 7/13 classes or take any martial class of feat that can grant advantage so no martial class that can knock stuff prone which eliminates some Monk, Rogue and Fighter Options. Barbarians can give themselves advantage so eliminate them as well. That more or less leaves Champion Fighters and Thief Rogues out of 38 PHB subclasses.
The obvious fix IMHO is eliminate the -5/+10 part of the feat (+1 dex or strength) or limit it to 1/round.
At the most basic level Sharpshooter (SS) and Great Weapon Master (GWM) have a -5/+10 effect with various other effects that are also good by there own such as eliminating all penalties at firing into melee or a bonus action cleave effect.
At the most basic level of min/maxing, char op whatever if you can eliminate the -5 part of the feat you get a +10 bonus to damage. That right there tends to break 5E IMHO. If you have a hard look at the PHB the designers have been very careful with bonus damage effects generally limiting it to a minor attack (1d4/1d6 Monk, off hand attack TWF, Polearm Master Feat 1d4+ strength etc) or a bonus dice of damage (hex, hunters quarry, level 8 cleric etc). That bonus damage often uses your bonus action as well in some way.
Of the two feats SS is generally regarded as the worst one since you can get a +2 bonus to hit off the archery style if you are a Fighter or Ranger. That turns SS into a -3/+10 effect.
That the most basic level that is how these feats work and eliminating that -5 penalty is the key to abusing them. Note most things are not broken by themselves with the odd exception of certain spells in various editions. For example greater/improved invisibility is nasty, combine it with fly and yeah it becomes so much worse.
So the idea in 5E is to buff your characters to mitigate the -5 penalty. Note even without the SS/GWM feat getting buffed to hit is always good in D&D regardless of edition. This applies in OD&D, 4E, 5E doesn't matter it is always good in combat with opportunity cost really being the main thing to consider (eg cast prayer or fireball).
In 5E I consider (IMHO) that there are 3 levels of buffing effects to consider.
1. A decent buff. For example advantage.
2. 2 ore more buff effects. Advantage+ a numeric bonus Example advantage+ war clerics +10 thing to hit.
3. 3 or more buff effects- advantage, +numeric effect+numeric effect example advantage+ war clerics +10 thing to hit, + a bard dice.
In general a single decent buff effect can mostly mitigate the effect of SS/GWM, the more buffs you pile on the more the -5 part of the feat doesn't matter. In some cases you can actually get a massive boost to hit and damage doing this. A very very basic example would be a war cleric who can use his domain power to get a +5 bonus to hit and plus 10 damage.
So not only have you managed to mitigate the effect of the feat you are outright getting a massive boost, see previous example of how the 5E class design deals with bonus damage. A +10 boost to damage should be ringing alarm bells IMHO all by itself. So far I have kept things somewhat basic with no number crunching or assumptions about the AC of likely opponents because IMHO white room theory crafting is a waste of time as there are to many variables in a D&D game let alone between playstyles, ability generation etc. In general though ACs in 5E tend to be low even at the higher levels.
So what would be the basic enabler in 5E or the worst offenders? Two stand out and they are.
1. Bless. You get a 1d4 bonus to hit, combined with the archery style you have more or less eliminated all of the draw back for using SS and GWS now has an average of -2.5 to hit not -5. A single stat buff and you are now only
marginally behind the curve, 2 stat buffs and SS you are actually now getting a bonus relative to what you had.
2. Faerie Fire. Advantage is very easy to get in 5E but this is a level 1 spell that can hit multiple targets. Its not as reliable as bless but at higher levels I like using this on dragons to waste their legendary resistances so they can use an auto save feature with limited uses or they can gamble with crappy dex saves and faerie fire on a Dragon is great. Saves do not scale well in 5E either along with ACs.
The following classes get these spells.
Bless All clerics, All level 2+ Paladins
Faerie Fire. All Bards (that pick it), All Druids, Light Cleric, Fae Pact Warlock (that pick it)
One can also multi class to get these spells and a 1 level cleric dip for a Sorcerer for example gets you bless and it is a cheap spell to quicken and the Sorcerer is also one of the better buffers in the game due to metamagic and proficiency in con saves.
Since both effects are low level they require very little resources to use. Bless is so good it even compares well with Spiritual Guardians. One deals 3d6 bonus damage to foes close to you, the other in a 3rd level slot grants 1d4 to attacks and saves to 5 characters. Bless also makes it more likely to pass concentration rolls on itself and is good in every fight that involves attack rolls or saves (that would be most of them) vs a spell that can deal a moderate amount of damage up close.
Just for arguments sake I treat advantage as a +4 bonus. Whats better than advantage? Advantage and a actual +4 bonus which is a good bless roll or a bard dice (3.5 or 4.5 avg at low levels). Bless +advantage is more than mitigates the drawback of both SS and GWM. Even without faerie fire how easy is advantage to get in 5E? The answer is very easy. Thing that grant advantage in 5E
1. Class abilities (Barbarians, Avenger Paladins, Battlemaster Fighters etc)
2. Help Action (bonus action with Mastermind Rogue)
3. Various spells
4. Some feats.
5. Conditions (often via spells and feats)
There are probably more ways of doing it but these are the main offenders. The following conditions grant advantage.
Blinded
Invisible
Paralysed
Prone (for melee)
Stunned
Unconscious
Just match the condition with various spell effects and class abilities. Even something like the Shield Master feat can knock an opponent prone using a bonus action and the shove action. Expertise in athletics is fun in that scenario.
So the theory crafter so far will likely argue that you can only use those feats on low AC targets reliably. Assuming you have no spellcasters or any class features that help mitigate this in effect this means a party of champion fighters and thief rogues. If you have a war cleric and/or a bard you can start reliably using SS and GWM on AC 20+, I have seen it connect on AC 23 and 24 opponents.
Even without to many (or any) mitigating factors however what also breaks these feats is extra attacks. Whats worse than +10 Damage on an attack? +10 damage on 7 attacks. One can get extra attacks via things like action surge, Crossbow Expert (CE), Polearm Master and the GWM feats. A hunter Ranger using horde breaker also can get a situational bonus attack (with a potential +10 damage vs a 1d8 bonus damage with colossus slayer). These all eat your bonus action of course.
And of course as you level up and get more attacks bless is one of the few spells that scales with you all the way up to level 20. How do you get 7 attacks in 5E? Level 11 + fighter, crossbow expert + action surge. Assuming you have say an 18 dexterity + those 2 feats. All fighters of all races with the default array can get 18 dex and 2 feats by level 11 more than likely the dex will be 20.
Average damage per attack 1d6+4 (7.5)
With SS 1d6 +14 (17.5)
7 attacks average damage is damage 52.5 or 122.5 with SS. If 3/7 attacks hit with SS damage is the same so accuracy is not required. If you are buffed enough more than 3 of those attacks are going to hit. And yes I have seen this happen as I have seen 5/5 attacks with SS hit (level 9 fighter action surge CE)
Even without action surge and 2 attacks at low levels (Hunter Ranger+Horde Breaker) 1d8+4 or a 1d8+14 only 1 of those attacks has to connect and the ranger is already out damaging a ranger who manages to connect with both shots (+8 to hit with 1 attack, +3 to hit with 2 attacks). The more attacks you make the more SS/GWM becomes bonkers except vs some of the highest ACs (18+)in the game assuming there are no buffs whatsoever being used. A simple bless spell blows that theory out of the water. This is also assuming no magical weapons are being used, the default array and not having a 20 in your prime ability which is likely.
With advantage AC 18 more or less is AC 13/14 and even at low levels sucking up the full -5 penalty as long as some attacks hit you are dealing more damage than by not using SS at all and you have a 50/50 chance to hit if you make more than 1 attack. AC 18 is also a high AC in 5E.
Melee is a bit different as they have less accuracy than the ranged builds but they can often give themselves advantage to hit in some way or gain it off another PC helping them.
The only way SS and GWM are not broken is the DM metagames against the PCs by using high AC opponents all of the time, hands out no magic items and the PCs do not buff themselves and/or you only use non spell casting classes (Monks, Fighters and Rogues can grant advantage though in various ways). I had a DM where 18 AC was the average AC (chainmail+shield) and we still managed to use those feats.
All of the WotC adventures have magic items in them, the 3pp ones do, and PCs usually buff themselves in some way even if it is getting a 20 in their prime attribute (18 also works good enough).
Bless ranges from being outright broken with these feats to being OP without them and by OP I mean better than all of the other level 1-3 cleric spells most of the time. Advantage is trivially easy to get, numeric bonuses are a bit harder (hint Lore Bards are very very good) but there is enough of them in the game you can get them as well. If you lack a cleric and a paladin you just use faerie fire instead unless you lack a Paladin, Bard, Cleric, Druid and if you lack them you can just use other spells instead (unless you lack a Sorcerer, Wizard, Warlock).
So yes those feats are fine if you have no support classes and no arcane class or do not use 7/13 classes or take any martial class of feat that can grant advantage so no martial class that can knock stuff prone which eliminates some Monk, Rogue and Fighter Options. Barbarians can give themselves advantage so eliminate them as well. That more or less leaves Champion Fighters and Thief Rogues out of 38 PHB subclasses.
The obvious fix IMHO is eliminate the -5/+10 part of the feat (+1 dex or strength) or limit it to 1/round.
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