The Mechanical Impact of -5/+10

TwoSix · Jan 14, 2019

cmad1977 said:
I don’t know. Why can’t the greatswprd wielder hit an opponent at 60’? Or attack more often in a round?

To be clear, you're rejecting my premise that martial classes that use weapons other than heavy weapons or bows/crossbows should be able to do more than 50-60% of the damage of users of those weapons? Ideally, I'd like to see sword and board (with a feat and style investment) around 75-80% of the damage of heavy weapon user, and two-weapon fighting (with a feat and style investment) to be between 90-110% of the damage of a great weapon user.

cmad1977 · Jan 14, 2019

TwoSix said:
To be clear, you're rejecting my premise that martial classes that use weapons other than heavy weapons or bows/crossbows should be able to do more than 50-60% of the damage of users of those weapons? Ideally, I'd like to see sword and board (with a feat and style investment) around 75-80% of the damage of heavy weapon user, and two-weapon fighting (with a feat and style investment) to be between 90-110% of the damage of a great weapon user.

Seems unnecessary but ok.

CapnZapp · Jan 14, 2019

TwoSix said:
Missed the argument. Why can't I do the same thing for my spear wielder or dual-weapon wielder?

You're entirely right, by the way. The ultimate brokenness of these feats is the way they invalidate a lot of concepts.

If a gamer can't optimize the feats well enough to see how good they are (or refuse to acknowledge this) that isn't something that should let WotC off the hook. That is why every time a so-called analysis is published with results that seem to indicate they are reasonable I make it clear the analysis stops well before any effort to actually break them is applied.

TwoSix · Jan 14, 2019

cmad1977 said:
Seems unnecessary but ok.

So, yes, you are rejecting my premise. That's fine, as long as we're on the same page as to what argument is actually being made.

Yunru · Jan 14, 2019

CapnZapp said:
You're entirely right, by the way. The ultimate brokenness of these feats is the way they invalidate a lot of concepts.

If a gamer can't optimize the feats well enough to see how good they are (or refuse to acknowledge this) that isn't something that should let WotC off the hook. That is why every time a so-called analysis is published with results that seem to indicate they are reasonable I make it clear the analysis stops well before any effort to actually break them is applied.

By making an argument that only sounds reasonable when you ignore the costs involved and the situationality of the conditions?

TwoSix · Jan 14, 2019

Yunru said:
By making an argument that only sounds reasonable when you ignore the costs involved and the situationality of the conditions?

Since GWM/SS are the feats that do the most damage for any martial weapon using class that has Extra Attack, the opportunity cost for selecting then over any other feat for a damage-oriented character seems minimal.

Personally, I don't think the -5/+10 mechanic is "too good", I just want it expanded to other fighting styles. Which is why I think sacrificing proficiency bonus to attack for 2*proficiency bonus to damage should be a base rule.

Yunru · Jan 14, 2019

TwoSix said:
Since GWM/SS are the feats that do the most damage for any martial weapon using class that has Extra Attack, the opportunity cost for selecting then over any other feat for a damage-oriented character seems minimal.

Personally, I don't think the -5/+10 mechanic is "too good", I just want it expanded to other fighting styles. Which is why I think sacrificing proficiency bonus to attack for 2*proficiency bonus to damage should be a base rule.

Yeah, I agree that other weapons should have something. But it shouldn't need to be more than +2 damage per attack.

Umbran · Jan 14, 2019

CapnZapp said:
You're entirely right, by the way. The ultimate brokenness of these feats is the way they invalidate a lot of concepts.

If a gamer can't optimize the feats well enough to see how good they are...

Hold on a second.

Let us be clear - with a finite, comprehensible ruleset, there *will* be some options that are better than others. Full stop. Those that like doing deep dives into rules options *will* find them. No game designer can avoid this. It follows, then, that the game can't/shouldn't be designed around preserving all the concepts for optimizers, as it is not a tractable task.

Putting WotC on the hook for a thing they literally cannot avoid is not reasonable.

FrogReaver · Jan 14, 2019

Umbran said:
Hold on a second.

Let us be clear - with a finite, comprehensible ruleset, there *will* be some options that are better than others. Full stop. Those that like doing deep dives into rules options *will* find them. No game designer can avoid this. It follows, then, that the game can't/shouldn't be designed around preserving all the concepts for optimizers, as it is not a tractable task.

Putting WotC on the hook for a thing they literally cannot avoid is not reasonable.

If the difference in effectiveness was at most maybe 20% from the best build to a normal build then I totally agree. When an option can easily cause well over double the damage than another then the game is at fault IMO.

we don’t ask for perfect balance. We ask for an acceptable balance. Doubling damage due to a few choices isn’t acceptable balance.

Yunru · Jan 14, 2019

FrogReaver said:
If the difference in effectiveness was at most maybe 20% from the best build to a normal build then I totally agree. When an option can easily cause well over double the damage than another then the game is at fault IMO.

we don’t ask for perfect balance. We ask for an acceptable balance. Doubling damage due to a few choices isn’t acceptable balance.

It only adds around 1-3 damage to an attack, it's just the nature of multiple attacks in a turn that causes that to escalate.