D&D 5E So Was That Z Fellow right?

Ancalagon · Nov 19, 2017

Henry said:
I appreciate that he took the time to detail one extremely optimized build. Still doesn’t mean that the two feats are broken. Matter of fact, he spent more time talking about how precision attack is broken. Looks like I’ll be removing precision attack from my games.

More seriously, Frogreaver, thanks for explaining your position.

Precision isn't broken. What is pretty good is using it to "remove" the to-hit penalty of feats like sharpshooter or GWM. It may not be as good as it look however as there is an opportunity cost (the dice could have been used to do something else). So the feat is worth about +3 to damage based on my calculations (ie it's not quite broken)

What I find more concerning is how this plus Crossbow Mastery allows the PC to fight at range *and* in melee range equally well. So this is min-maxing without the min. It's just maxing.

FrogReaver · Nov 19, 2017

Ancalagon said:
Precision isn't broken. What is pretty good is using it to "remove" the to-hit penalty of feats like sharpshooter or GWM. It may not be as good as it look however as there is an opportunity cost (the dice could have been used to do something else). So the feat is worth about +3 to damage based on my calculations (ie it's not quite broken)

What I find more concerning is how this plus Crossbow Mastery allows the PC to fight at range *and* in melee range equally well. So this is min-maxing without the min. It's just maxing.

In the archers hands I described its worth a lot more than +3 damage.

Maybe you mean when your leveling and have to choose between sharpshooter and +2 dex for your asi?

cmad1977 · Nov 19, 2017

Oh good more of the ‘a feat breaks my game crowd’.
Pretty fragile game you guys run.

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Ancalagon · Nov 19, 2017

FrogReaver said:
In the archers hands I described its worth a lot more than +3 damage.

Maybe you mean when your leveling and have to choose between sharpshooter and +2 dex for your asi?

I really don't feel like starting this whole math bonanza again... but you indicated that the precision only is used periodically, and not entirely reliably (if you need an extra +3 to hit and you roll a 1 on the d8...). This means that on a *per attack* basis, the boost is not that great, since most attacks it won't help!

FrogReaver · Nov 19, 2017

Henry said:
I appreciate that he took the time to detail one extremely optimized build. Still doesn’t mean that the two feats are broken. Matter of fact, he spent more time talking about how precision attack is broken. Looks like I’ll be removing precision attack from my games.

More seriously, Frogreaver, thanks for explaining your position.

Precision is the engine that runs the combo and it's the complicated part of the combo so that's why I dedicated such time to it. Precision without the -5/+10 feat is generally a slight daily DPR boost in exchange for not getting the option of dealing extra damage when you want (like the start of a fight... I'm a big fan of front loading damage). Also using anything but precision will give some kind of small potentially useful effect. In other words, there's an interesting tradeoff with precision vs other maneuvers as long as the amount of damage you can cause through attacks on a turn is "normal". Once the amount of damage you can cause through attacks on a turn gets high enough (like it does with the -5/+10 feat) then it stops being a meaningful choice as the amount of damage precision adds becomes ridiculous.

Don't feel bad though, it took me a long time to convince most everyone here that precision was really that strong when combo'd with abilities that greatly increases your base damage. It's not at all obvious just how good it makes builds that get big damage bonuses.

Parmandur · Nov 19, 2017

Ancalagon said:
I really don't feel like starting this whole math bonanza again... but you indicated that the precision only is used periodically, and not entirely reliably (if you need an extra +3 to hit and you roll a 1 on the d8...). This means that on a *per attack* basis, the boost is not that great, since most attacks it won't help!

In other words, balanced in actual play under standard adventuring conditions.

FrogReaver · Nov 19, 2017

Ancalagon said:
I really don't feel like starting this whole math bonanza again... but you indicated that the precision only is used periodically, and not entirely reliably (if you need an extra +3 to hit and you roll a 1 on the d8...). This means that on a *per attack* basis, the boost is not that great, since most attacks it won't help!

The only way to stop this kind of misunderstanding is to push the math.

If you make 3 attacks per turn (as the level 10 fighter I described does) then you will make approximately 24-36 attacks over 2 combat encounters. (I think we can both agree there).

If I use precision appropriately 5 times during those encounters I can expect it to turn 4 out of the 5 misses I use it on into hits. Of those 4 uses, each adds an average of 18.5 damage. That's 74 damage total over 8-12 rounds of combat. That's around 6-9 damage added per round by precision.

Sacrosanct · Nov 19, 2017

cmad1977 said:
Oh good more of the ‘a feat breaks my game crowd’.
Pretty fragile game you guys run.

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I especially love how it’s the same people who complain in other threads how the fighter is broken because it can’t do anything out of combat, and when someone brings up how you have two extra feats to get significant out of combat abilities, they say if you do, then the fighter will suck at combat.

Apparently, using a level 6 extra feat on something like ritual caster (which gives tremendous out of combat ability) instead of increasing your DEX is the difference between making the fighter incompetent in combat and being way too OP. With that one ASI choice...

Or more likely, these folks are arguing out of both sides of their mouth. Cognitive dissonance.

And for the record, I for one am glad that the game didn’t “fix” some of the problems that some people are complaining about. For one, they aren’t problems to begin with, and therefore don’t need to be fixed. Secondly, if WoTC did cater to the min/maxers by “fixing” these problems, it would be a disaster of a game from a popularity and sales standpoint. Catering to system mastery will turn off way more gamers than would be attracted. We’ve already seen that over and over.

CapnZapp · Nov 19, 2017

Henry said:
I appreciate that he took the time to detail one extremely optimized build. Still doesn’t mean that the two feats are broken. Matter of fact, he spent more time talking about how precision attack is broken. Looks like I’ll be removing precision attack from my games.

More seriously, Frogreaver, thanks for explaining your position.

If you remove Precision you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater, since Precision isn't broken without any feats to magnify.

But I appreciate listening to us - that course of action does help a lot and is still better than doing nothing.

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CapnZapp · Nov 19, 2017

Ancalagon said:
Precision isn't broken. What is pretty good is using it to "remove" the to-hit penalty of feats like sharpshooter or GWM. It may not be as good as it look however as there is an opportunity cost (the dice could have been used to do something else). So the feat is worth about +3 to damage based on my calculations (ie it's not quite broken)

What I find more concerning is how this plus Crossbow Mastery allows the PC to fight at range *and* in melee range equally well. So this is min-maxing without the min. It's just maxing.

Yes SS + CM is not only broken as hell, it's cheesy as hell as well.

It effectively turns a single hand crossbow into dual-wielded shortswords with 120 ft reach that somehow still qualify for -5/+10 shenanigans.

It's by far the worst game effect allowed by the PHB rules.

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