What makes Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter so good?

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.

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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.

BookBarbarian said:

Mindless Rage? I love that ability. It's Frenzy itself that is disappointing.

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You’re right it was the Frenzy feature I was meaning.

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.

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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?

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.

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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.

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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!

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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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.

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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).

ad_hoc said:

Again, they don't. Please stop.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Saelorn said:

Wrong article. Try this one: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasyCharacterClasses

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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.

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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).

BookBarbarian said:

I'd personally hate to see GWM Fighters fall by the wayside...

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Hopefully, it'd be more the case of other fighters getting up from the wayside and joining the GWM & SS Fighters.

Tony Vargas said:

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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Hmm. I fail to see how the suggestion of limiting the -5/+10 to Berserkers would help those other fighters.