D&D 5E Nerfing Great Weapon Master

[CapnZapp]

A decent analogy. Allow your players to have various options, don't allow them to combine them in untoward ways (DM takes responsibility for the balance of his campaign) Or just trust them not to (player restraint).

No, it really is not a decent analogy at all, Tony. His analogy is crafted to suggest the individual components of the combination that breaks GWM are roughly equal. His intent is to suggest no single component can be put to blame, and hence that there really is nothing WotC can or should or ought to do.

It's all deeply and profoundly wrong.

Not only is the suggestion false that there aren't any particular component that, if fixed, would resolve the entire complaint. But I also object strongly to the notion that, in essence, boils down to "as soon as balancing becomes hard and not trivial, its okay for WotC to dump all the hard work in the laps of DMs"

This is profoundly deceptive. Yes, WotC should not spend man-years trying to perfect every last comma of their rules.

But how did we get to here? That's an absurdly relativist stance to take! This isn't one of those cases where you end up writing a wall of text just to cover all your bases!

The fact is that +10 is the bleedingly obvious culprit here, and fixing it not that hard: all the complicated analysis has already been done, right in this and other threads! If you don't want to get fancy (and I'm sure WotC wouldn't want to), replace it with +1 Str and be done with it.

Perhaps now you'll see why that analogy is pretty frikkin far from decent.

 

[CapnZapp]

But I don't think it means the feat is broken, just because it breaks down when you take it over 120 mph. You don't go over 120 by accident; it's a conscious decision. If the players choose to do this, they are making that choice, whether it's because they want to "win" or because they enjoying breaking the system. Sorry, but if there is an issue at all in that scenario (and maybe there isn't, so long as everyone is having fun) then I don't believe that the real issue lies with the feat.

If we really must keep using analogies, this is actually a very good one (the small issue of rpgs not being a matter of life or death notwithstanding)

Tell me of a single car manufacturer who survived such a defect with the argument "it was you going over 120 mph that broke the car, not our shoddy manufacturing".

Would you buy a car from that brand?

Or, to be more precise, would you accept how social media was filled with a few rabid fans of that brand telling you the manufacturer doesn't need to fix this?

 

[CapnZapp]

Again, I'm sympathetic to anyone having this issue.

To be brutally frank, consider sparing us your sympathies.

We would much rather you agreed the feat needs errata, or at the very least stayed silent.

In other words: you aren't really helping. You might think you are, but you really aren't.

Thank you,
Zapp

 

[CapnZapp]

analysis

Hello Tormyr. Apologies in advance for what I am about to do, which is to rip apart your analysis and all the hours I'm sure you spent on it. I don't have anything personal against you, but I need to show certain posters how this is exactly the kind of imprecise analysis that leads to the wrong conclusions.

Again, I wish I could commend you on your work, Tormyr, I really do.

Now then, my biggest complaint is that you - like every analyst I've seen before you - insist on average damage. Average damage simply isn't what makes the feat stick out like a sore thumb. Your ability too boost your damage when it really matters is much more important.

In other words: insisting it's about average DPR actively obscures the feat benefits. That you aren't always stupidly powerful compared to non-feat martials should not be used as an argument against the fact you *can* and *will be* stupidly powerful when you decide you need to. I'm sure this wasn't a conscious decision on your part, so I'm going to ask you to consider what every minmax analyst should consider: how about calculating some nova damage?

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Another thing I'm sure you weren't intentionally suggesting is that the feat is only good at AC 13 even at high levels. Because that's what you chose for your analysis, which might mislead people to think the feat is alright because we don't need to care about you slaughtering AC 13 mooks at high level.

So I need to tell you that you can slaughter AC 18 critters at high level, you just need to powergame the feat a bit. Which leads me to my next point.

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Also much like every other previous analysis, you don't really go all the way, and so your analysis can't show how devastating the +10 part of the feat really is.

If you have advantage, please notice that most misses will be just one or a few points short of a hit (since the probability curve is no longer flat). This means using a bonus die to "top up" your rolled attack is very likely to turn a miss into a hit.

Since nova damage is much more relevant to game balancing, please recrunch your numbers assuming the first half a dozen misses in a fight are given, say, a +1d8 bonus die unless your initial d20 roll is a 2 or a 3 perhaps (despite advantage, mind you) where the "gap" up to a hit might be too large.

What this should do to your numbers isn't mainly to increase the DPR but to allow the player to use the feat against higher ACs.

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Even after all the analysis, you stll end up with nothing but a guess: Your guess is that guess is that a fighter would see an average bonus of 7 DPR at level 1 and 30 DPR at level 20.

My in-game actual experience is that at low level, the DPR isn't the most egregious thing about the feat, since you have few ways to downplay the -5. Instead, the problem there is your ability to dish out over 20 damage in a single hit. At higher levels, a fighter WILL SEE an average bonus of 40 DPR already at level 12-14 or so. What the numbers are at level 20, I can't say. And that's against far higher ACs than 13.

Meaning that these numbers feel close to what you will actually see in practical play, if we focus on the last number, the DPR:
Fighter: Level 1 - 88% to hit, 9.1 DPR; Level 20 - 99.8% to hit, 49.3 DPR
GWM Fighter: Level 1 - 64% to hit, 21.6 DPR; Level 20 - 91% to hit, 101.4 DPR

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I also need to call you out on your thoroughly unscientific comparison to rolling a crit on an Arrow of Slaying? My response is simply: so what?

More generally, the complaint is contrasting two martials, one with the feat and one with some other available game feature.

NOT with banishment wizards. The fact that other people can do stuff too is utterly irrelevant to the complaint that there are no other ways to compete for DPR if you are a martial with a comrade using GWM.

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Then, for the real whammy.

Now redo the numbers but for Sharpshooter instead of GWM. No longer will there be any misses due to not reaching a new foe. The Cleave part can be turned into an assured extra hit (through Crossbow Expert). And the Archery fighting style gives you a gift you certainly didn't need; increasing your AC threshold by 2.

 

[CapnZapp]

One point I've seen a few times from those in favor of GWM and SS as they are, is that it's meant to quickly kill off enemies with lower AC and hit points.

So how about this instead of -5/+10: Whenever you hit and deal damage with a melee attack with a heavy weapon (or with an attack from a ranged weapon in SS' case), if the creature's remaining hit points after you deal the damage are equal to or less than your level, it is reduced to 0 hit points.

There we go. The feat becomes perfect for killing mooks (and you don't even need to take a penalty to hit to do so), but your damage is brought back in line with everyone else when bringing down bigger game. And it scales with level so it's not too strong early.

This is one of the most intriguing suggestions I've read about!

 

[Fanaelialae]

What really is simple is that there exists a version of the feat that works for me AND other people - a feat that is strictly superior (in the number of people that enjoy it) than the rulebook attempt.

The version that replaces power attack for +1 strength? If that works for you then I am happy that you have found your solution!

However, nothing personal, but I find that version of the feat both less interesting and anemic from a design standpoint. It's hard for me to imagine anyone who would waste a feat on that. I think that a lot of people, even ones that are having problems similar to your own, might not find that an acceptable solution. IMO, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

You are, of course as always, welcome to do as you like. If it works for you and your players are happy with it, that's great! This is just my 2 cents.

This is a disingenious analogy.

In a combination of say -5, advantage from Monk's Stun, +10, Precision Strike, Lucky and Bless, the component that sticks out like a sore thumb is the +10.

It is the +10 that is the enabler that makes the entire chain worthwhile. Any other component can be replaced for something else. But there is no other game effect that comes close to providing that much of a damage boost consistently over ever level of the game than GWM/SS. You either resign yourself to picking up a greatweapon or you might as well skip trying to make a DPR build.

What is your reason for still protecting WotC and their design decisions, Fanaelialae? What do you gain from making up these analogies? You just twist the facts, and it all comes across as raising smokescreens.

There is nothing disingenuous about my analogy. I think that if you actually did the math on that combo, you'd find that the other elements add quite a bit of DPR themselves. Because until you run up against the limit on accuracy (only miss on a natural 1 plus advantage/rerolls) every increase to accuracy corresponds with an increase to DPR.

And again, your players are making a conscious effort to do so. This is not a combo that is at all likely to occur by accident.

Protecting WotC? Seriously? I'm one guy on an obscure thread on an obscure message board (trust me, it's fairly obscure; I've spoken to plenty of TT gamers who've never even heard of ENWorld) discussing this with some other guys/gals on the same obscure message board. You've even admitted that WotC doesn't maintain a presence here and probably isn't aware of this thread. What exactly am I protecting WotC from?

I'm sharing my own views in a public (albeit obscure) forum. And also reading about the views of others on that same forum. Even if I don't agree with everyone's views, I can still take away a lot from them. You are welcome to disagree with those views. But throwing around accusations of some hidden agenda? Come on...

If we really must keep using analogies, this is actually a very good one (the small issue of rpgs not being a matter of life or death notwithstanding)

Tell me of a single car manufacturer who survived such a defect with the argument "it was you going over 120 mph that broke the car, not our shoddy manufacturing".

Would you buy a car from that brand?

Or, to be more precise, would you accept how social media was filled with a few rabid fans of that brand telling you the manufacturer doesn't need to fix this?

It's not like in this metaphor you go over 120 mph and the wheels fall off. It's more like the defect is that at those speeds the fuel mileage sucks and a cop might pull you over. I suspect that given those circumstances, much as is the case with power attack, most owners wouldn't be aware of the problem and those who drive under 120 mph (the vast majority) wouldn't worry too much about it. But if you know someone who does drive this car over 120, and you know something about cars, you might want to help brainstorm solutions for their problem.

To be brutally frank, consider sparing us your sympathies.

We would much rather you agreed the feat needs errata, or at the very least stayed silent.

In other words: you aren't really helping. You might think you are, but you really aren't.

Thank you,
Zapp

No offense Zapp, but this being a public forum and all, I don't need your permission to participate. Just because you disagree with my views doesn't mean you get to tell me to shut up and go away, no matter how politely you might phrase it. I am going to continue to participate in this discussion and others so long as I please. If you feel that I am violating forum policy, please feel free to report me to the mods and, if I am in the wrong, they will inform me that my behavior is unacceptable (in which case I will most certainly desist) or ban me from responding to the thread. Please, don't make this into a personal disagreement. We're debating an arcane topic on a obscure forum, that is all. There is an exceedingly high probability that our debate here will have exactly zero impact on official 5e. That would not change even if I were to suddenly flip my stance and agree with you 100%. The best we can realistically hope to accomplish here is to find an acceptable house rule for you and others who are experiencing this issue. Whether or not you like or agree with my contributions, I don't think you can deny that I have contributed ideas to this discussion.

Whether or not you want them, you have my sympathies on the matter. I've been in similar situations. I think most, if not all, DMs have. It sucks when your game is teetering due to some issue and you have to scramble as a DM to try to restore balance before the campaign topples into shambles. I've been there. That doesn't mean that I necessarily agree with your analysis of the problem. I'm sorry, I don't. I think that there are better solutions out there than replacing power attack with +1 to strength.

 

[Maxperson]

What really is simple is that there exists a version of the feat that works for me AND other people - a feat that is strictly superior (in the number of people that enjoy it) than the rulebook attempt.

You and some other people, sure. You and all other people like you are claiming? Not even remotely close.

So how about YOU stop trying to force your way onto those of us that can't use the existing feat.

You're going to have to explain to me how my stating that it works just fine for my game, and telling you that you can fix it for yours since it's broken for you, is me forcing you to use it my way. One of us isn't understanding English.

So far you haven't provided a compelling argument why a fixed feat would wreck your games

I enjoy the feat as is, since it's not broken. If you feel that it is broken, fix it for your game. Don't try to force your way on me.

 

[Maxperson]

Thank you for providing your highly personal definition of what we are allowed to consider broken. Since apparently nothing about 5e can be broken by definition, I guess we should all just shut up and enjoy the game now?

Or, because you know, I didn't tell you to shut up and enjoy the game as is, you can fix the issues that affect YOUR game and enjoy the game like you want to play it. You're arrogant and one true wayist if you want to come into my game and fix things that aren't broken, though.

 

[Maxperson]

In a combination of say -5, advantage from Monk's Stun, +10, Precision Strike, Lucky and Bless, the component that sticks out like a sore thumb is the +10.

In a combination with all of those things, it's no longer the fighter doing that additional +10 damage. If the fighter is relying on other classes to enable him to reliably do that damage, that +10 damage is now split among all the PCs contributing for DPR. Put more simply, if you would have missed except for the advantage from the monk's stun, the monk contributed half of your damage that swing.

 

[Maxperson]

The distinction between non-functional & OP or 'abuseable?' Or the specific examples?

All of it.

Because I don't think there's a lot of room for subjectivity in a mechanic that supposed to model a challenge becoming more difficult actually making it /easier/ - that's non-functional.

It's supposed to model a challenge being easier, not harder, that's why it's a feat. Feats are there to make things easier, not harder. The premise that you take a feat to make things more difficult is flawed.

Similarly, when the feats available to improve on two combat styles can deliver a lot more benefit than those available to other styles (and I'm not even sure, atm, if all the combat styles have such feats available), that's not a subjective things, that's what feats are available, and how they work, mechanically.

Disparity is going to happen in any game where you aren't all making boring clones of one another. Disparity is okay. There's nothing inherently broken about it. All you have left after that is whether you personally feel that the disparity is okay or not. If you do, change it. If you don't, don't.

Opinions about those things can be subjective. If you think fighters who choose archery or two-handed melee weapons simply should be able to cheese up much higher DPR via some not-to-difficult-to engineer combo centered around one of those imbalanced feats, then that's subjective. It's not wrong to have that preference, it may work well for your group, or it may be purely theoretical in that no one actually does that. If you dislike it, and want a more balanced game, that's also a preference, and preferences are subjective - and you have a little work to do to fix things up, not because the rules are "broken for you" (they're the same for everyone, until you change 'em) but because your preference is to fix them.

Agreed.

If you stop your players from abusing it or can count on them not to, then /that's a fix/. Not every fix to a bad mechanic involves changing the mechanic, nor or those two off-hand characterizations the only ways to do so.

Sure. If it's broken for you, there are many ways to fix the issue.