So for this next table I calculate the impact of using a precision battlemaster maneuvre on an attack done with GWM. And it looks like [MENTION=12731]CapnZapp[/MENTION] is correct, it *realllly* makes a big difference:
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First thing, remember "remember the extremes".
Rodrigo is only level 7 and has only two attacks. A minmaxed level 15 character can have five attacks.
11 levels of fighter (battlemaster): 3 main attacks plus one "off hand" attack
4 levels of ranger (hunter): adds Horde Breaker "free" attack everytime target has an adjacent ally (which is very common).
Now you're probably wondering why I'm bringing up two-weapon fighting in a GWM discussion. That is because greatweapon wielders aren't the only ones capable of abusing the heck out of the -5/+10 mechanism.
A hand crossbow wielder also gets access to this, through Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert. And Archery alone nearly negates half the -5 all by itself.
Not saying you must do this to get valid results. Just flagging that Rodrigo has a few steps remaining before he can be considered optimized.
BUT if we stop here, we will make the error I mentioned at the begging - we are not comparing the same things! Featless Rodrigo, he too has maneuvers, and these also have to be considered - it's not fair to compare GWM + maneuvers to normal attack without maneuvers
Not sure why you feel to phrase it like this, as if I (or others) have ever suggested otherwise.
But each maneuver you spend on damage adds 1d8 (and later 1d10 etc) damage per maneuver, or +4,5 damage on average.
If you think about it, adding that same die to make sure an 2d6
+15 attack hits gives a much larger benefit for the same buck (=precision maneuver).
Even if we say the superiority die only turns a miss into a hit half the time, half of 2d6+15 is still 11 - way more than the average of the die itself.
And more importantly, you don't need to use a Precision maneuver on every attack, only the ones that miss (and don't miss big).
Say (again very roughly, just for example's sake) you hit (without precision) half the time. This means that the average benefit of Precision superiority dice doubles (since half the time, you gain all the damage without having to spend your superiority die) back to 22.
And, just for complete transparancy, that 2d6+15 (or 22 on average) might be "only" 1d6+15 (since we could be talking, not greatswords, but hand crossbows). Still, that averages out to 18 if we round down.
Okay, so what's the deal with "22 on average" - don't you ever miss? Yes, we do. And so 22 is actually slightly high.
Say our attack bonus is +12, or +7 when using -5/+10. Note: no magic bonuses assumed - this assumes Archery, and is equivalent to a GWM user with a magical +2 greatweapon.
Against AC 15, this means he has a 87% chance of hitting. In other words, there is only a 13% risk of having to use his superiority d10's.
But wait! The risk of actually rolling so low that a d10 doesn't stand a very good chance of turning miss into hit is only... (at this point, let's assume we won't "waste" our superiority dice on rolls of 1, 2 and 3. The probability of rolling 4, 5, 6 or 7 on a d20 with advantage is 10%. The probability of the miss actually becoming a hit is then 70%, 80%, 90%, and 100% respectively, or 85% on average.
So we have the following outcomes:
Rolling 1-3: 2.25%
Rolling 4-7, adding Precision and still missing: 1.5%
Rolling 4-7, adding Precision and turning miss into hit: 8.5%
Rolling 8-20: 87%
Our character has an excellent ~95% chance of delivering his 18 (1d6+15) damage each attack, which means that his average DPR will be 18x5x95%=86.5
Also note that he will have to spend an average of 0.5 superiority dice (10% chance each attack) each such round, so he can keep this up for
ten (10) rounds.
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Now let's contrast this to another character that didn't pick GWM (or SS/CE) and didn't pick Precision. This character's party is just as good at fixing advantage for our hero, so that part stays the same.
The best base damage will be 2d6+1d10+7 or 19. (Now I'm generously giving this guy a +2 Greatsword. He's going to need it)
Everything else stays the same, so he still hits on 8+
So we have the following outcomes:
Rolling 1-7: 13%
Rolling 8-20: 87%
His average DPR is 19x5x87%=83
83 is almost equal to 86. What gives?
Now note that this hero spends a superiority die in 87% of all attacks. He spends an average of 4,35 superiority dice per round, burning through all his such dice in less than two rounds.
(Though to be fair: he will gain something more than the superiority damage. He might for instance make the foe prone, thus saving on other advantage-enabling party resources)
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In general, I feel GWM was designed without realizing how easy you can hit fairly high ACs through combined tactics. The tactic of Precision should more accurately be called *not* using Precision, since in 90% of attacks you
don't use Precision.
And in all those cases, you could use another maneuver instead.
Now you see why the two options aren't comparable.
In a true nova battle I could use my first three or four superiority dice to add another +5.5 (1d10) x 87% on top of my 86.5 DPR if I really wanted. The damage increase isn't all that perhaps, but I get to enjoy the same make-prone effect as the other guy.
(Of course, this is a headless idea unless you somehow know burning through all your superiority dice in a single round is a good idea)
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All that remains to be said is that if you didn't pick GWM, what feat did you take instead?
(I haven't included it so far - hopefully you see we need to pick one specific choice).
Let's see how much of this insight is present in that next post of yours...
