D&D 5E So Was That Z Fellow right?
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Nick Hatfield
First Post
I'm not sure why you feel the need to be so abrasive. I said nothing about "the game cannot be broken". It seems you are simply here to act like you are better than everyone else instead of providing meaningfully to the discussion. Being dismissive of other people is not going to win you any awards.
Hussar
Legend
Heh, makes me glad I play in Primeval Thule.
No Pistol Crossbows. Poof, end of problem.
But, in any case, this is an EXTREMELY limited build. One specific class (battle master) forced to use specific feats (note, it takes 10 LEVELS to actually pull it off - most games will only see this at the very top end of the campaign), and specific weapons.
This doesn't make anything broken.
If you could do this with any weapon and more than one specific class using one, and only one, character ability, then it might be broken.
Otherwise, it's complete bollocks. It's white room theory crafting. Heck, any group that doesn't have a fighter in it won't have this issue. Any group that doesn't have someone cheesy crafting using pistol crossbows and taking advantage of a rather poorly defined rule, it doesn't happen.
If EVERY fighter you see in the game is a battle master using these feats and pistol crossbows, I'm thinking that the problem is more your table than the game. I've yet to see a single character choose to use a pistol crossbow. Never seen it.
Complete non-issue at my table.
Fanaelialae
Legend
We've been over this Zapp. Public forum, yada yada yada; I don't feel like rehashing it. Suffice it to say that you don't get to tell me to shut up and go away just because you don't like what I'm saying.
I showed some math. I was explicit about that I was showing. I followed exactly what Fogreaver said, with the one exception of having this guy use superiority on a miss of 5 or less rather than a 4 or less. As I said before, using 4 or less would have changed very little (off the top of my head, I believe it would add something like 0.125 Expected Damaged per Attack to the first fighter). He said nothing about advantage (it's certainly a thing, but then so is disadvantage). You want to show your own facts, go right ahead, I'm not stopping you.
Those are results of around +50% DPA. Whether or not it's OP, it's pretty P.
And that still look's pretty good. AC 20 isn't that common across the range of 5e monsters.
Well, maybe that build is broken.
I mean, I've never seen charging shenanigans in my 4e game, but that doesn't mean they're not broken builds.
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Having gone through the numbers game on GWM enough times with lovely spreadsheets that compare builds and cover any AC, +to hit, or adv/dis, I can tell you that GWM can give 0%-90% extra damage: 0% or worse in bad situations such as high AC or disadvantage (so don't use it in those) and 90% in any ideal situations (low AC or advantage). In all but the worst situations, a PC could always use GWM and still get some increase, but the overall is much better if at least not using it with disadvantage.
Our last campaign covered levels 1-20 and had a half-orc Champion fighter with a Defender greatsword, the GWM feat, and GWF style. She routinely did more damage than anyone else. This was usually in the 50%-66% range, but near the end of the campaign, the wizard would cast foresight on her. With a +14 to hit, advantage, and a 18-20 crit range, she could land 9 hits on an action surge and do around 250+ damage on a turn. The party lost wish, meteor swarm, and other 9th-level spells for the day, but they viewed it as a good combination of PC powers in many circumstances.
Because the effects of this build occurred over time, it was easy to see the effects and adapt to them. The end result was that the I often considered her to be worth 2 PCs. Some of the encounters were cakewalks, some were middle of the road, and some were harrowing. Despite the obvious combat proficiency, the other members of the party still had lots of moments to shine in and out of combat.
Occasionally I would also give the party an, "Oh,
," moment by removing her from the field of battle or turning her on the party. Fear effects, mind control, maze, banishment, curses, all drastically would alter the balance of power and send the party scrambling to figure out how to deal with the situation. Other times, just being in the thick of things meant she fell. One of the worst was when the party went up against a ancient silver dragon shape-changed into an elf. The dragon had an antimagic field that covered her and her erinyes bodyguards. The fighter tried to run in but found she could not do 35 damage in a single hit to force the dragon to drop concentration (minimum the dragon could roll was a 17). The dragon grappled and then pinned the fighter prone while the erinyes hacked away at her. The paladin got a very lucky contested roll to pull the fighter to safety. Otherwise the fighter would have died. Another time an evil palading cast banishment on the paladin. With the anti fear aura gone, the fighter succumbed to the fear effects and had to stay away from the battle. The monk died. The wizard barely managed to break the banishment (I allow dispel magic to be cast on spellcasters who are concentrating). With the anti-fear aura back in place, the fighter was able to get back in the action). They then used a rod of resurrection on the monk to bring him back.
tl;dr
GWM is powerful. Other party members still shine. Changes happen so slowly over levels that they are easy to adapt to. Budget encounters for one additional party member if needed. There are lots of ways to keep encounters fun and challenging.
Our last campaign covered levels 1-20 and had a half-orc Champion fighter with a Defender greatsword, the GWM feat, and GWF style. She routinely did more damage than anyone else. This was usually in the 50%-66% range, but near the end of the campaign, the wizard would cast foresight on her. With a +14 to hit, advantage, and a 18-20 crit range, she could land 9 hits on an action surge and do around 250+ damage on a turn. The party lost wish, meteor swarm, and other 9th-level spells for the day, but they viewed it as a good combination of PC powers in many circumstances.
Because the effects of this build occurred over time, it was easy to see the effects and adapt to them. The end result was that the I often considered her to be worth 2 PCs. Some of the encounters were cakewalks, some were middle of the road, and some were harrowing. Despite the obvious combat proficiency, the other members of the party still had lots of moments to shine in and out of combat.
Occasionally I would also give the party an, "Oh,
," moment by removing her from the field of battle or turning her on the party. Fear effects, mind control, maze, banishment, curses, all drastically would alter the balance of power and send the party scrambling to figure out how to deal with the situation. Other times, just being in the thick of things meant she fell. One of the worst was when the party went up against a ancient silver dragon shape-changed into an elf. The dragon had an antimagic field that covered her and her erinyes bodyguards. The fighter tried to run in but found she could not do 35 damage in a single hit to force the dragon to drop concentration (minimum the dragon could roll was a 17). The dragon grappled and then pinned the fighter prone while the erinyes hacked away at her. The paladin got a very lucky contested roll to pull the fighter to safety. Otherwise the fighter would have died. Another time an evil palading cast banishment on the paladin. With the anti fear aura gone, the fighter succumbed to the fear effects and had to stay away from the battle. The monk died. The wizard barely managed to break the banishment (I allow dispel magic to be cast on spellcasters who are concentrating). With the anti-fear aura back in place, the fighter was able to get back in the action). They then used a rod of resurrection on the monk to bring him back.tl;dr
GWM is powerful. Other party members still shine. Changes happen so slowly over levels that they are easy to adapt to. Budget encounters for one additional party member if needed. There are lots of ways to keep encounters fun and challenging.
Sacrosanct
Legend
Being called an extreme min/maxer is about as offensive as being called an extreme sports fan, or extreme gamer, or extreme skate boarder, or extreme racer. Not sure a whole lot of people get offended at that. If you automatically associate "extreme min/maxing" as being a bad thing to be offended when called one, then I think that speaks volumes. And if instead you're saying it's offensive to be dismissed, guess what? That's what happens to any and every group that is part of the small minority of extremists in that activity when people are talking about the activity in general. It's called being an outlier. Like how when people think of sports, they tend to dismiss extremist sports because most people don't watch or care about them. Or if you're talking about video games, people don't automatically think of hardcore extremist gamers because most gamers don't get involved in that.
Seems like at least once a month this happens.
* You don't do anything on this forum but complain about the game and the designers and the fans. You say how you like 5e, then proceed to complain about how it's broken, but never actually give specifics about those things you like. Instead its about how this particular mechanic is broken, how monsters are broken, how the designers are lazy, how race design is bad, how classes are broken, how spells are a mess, how anyone defending the game is an apologist, etc etc etc
* Despite all of your complaints about how everything is broken, you have yet (to my knowledge) to actually put out your own material. Lots of people have frequently suggested you do so, and I don't think you've ever actually done it. Guess it's easier to insult people and attack their work when you don't have to put your own butt out there for criticism...Walk the talk.
* Any time someone disagrees with you, you try to bully and shut them down, trying to dictate who gets to participate in a thread, and what content they get to participate in. You don't have the right or authority to do that. Start your own private forum if that's what you want.
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smbakeresq
Explorer
While this math is approximately correct, its also why we play 3-5 combat encounters between rests, or 36-60 attacks. So getting those 4 extra hits in means less than if you are only making 24 attacks.
The issue isn't with the feats, its the adventuring day, and every build assumes frequent short rests to make sure those builds don't run out of resources. If you make your players have more encounters and random encounter then more then to "burst" feats and features lose value while feats and features with staying power gain in value. That's a DM and group issue, and frankly an assumption in published material that you can just rest wherever and whenever you want and the DM wont bother. That WILL NOT happen with any good DM.
POTA specifically put in some places where it might be safe to rest. The DM has to add some in and make sure the environment and creatures act appropriately. In the Caves of Chaos the denizens might not look for you, in the Hobgoblin caves run as a military camp full of lawful creatures your resting players will encounter search parties, patrols, etc to keep them on their toes.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
Average adventure day is 6-8 encounters by DMG. You are saying you typically encounter more than half th expected encounters before a short rest? You are saying there's never days with 2 short tests?
Sacrosanct
Legend
I think those folks who keep touting their expertise in math are forgetting a pretty big factor. I work in project management and testing, and we have a saying: "Garbage in, garbage out." That means, if there is a flaw (garbage) in just one factor of your equation, it doesn't matter how you approach the formula, you're going to end with a bad result.
The flaw I'm seeing here is that some people are assuming that the opponent's total HP is infinite, when what they should be doing, in order to make it a fair comparison and analysis, is to have the opponent's HP be the same for all scenarios. Why is this important? Because if you're adding an extra 10hp per damage per round, then you will NOT have as many rounds of combat as the fighter without these feats. So 74 total damage is not accurate. You can't keep adding damage once a target is below 0.
For example, if a fighter without feats does 10 points per round, and there are 200 total monster HP between rests, that's 20 rounds of combat between rests. If you have a fighter with those feats that adds 5 hp more damage per round, you simply can't use the same 20 round metric to see how much more damage you're doing. That's bad math. The fighter with the feats doesn't add an extra 100 points of damage (5 extra points for 20 rounds) like what is the logic FrogReaver has claimed. The fighter with the feat will go through those 200 HP in 14 rounds (rounded up). So that's 5 points for 14 rounds, not for 20 rounds. Or 70 extra points, not 100.
It may seem like a minor difference, but if you want your math and scenario to be accurate, you have to factor it in. Bottom line is that the fighter with the feat isn't doing as much extra damage as claimed unless the monster HP is infinite. Which it can't be, because then your rounds of combat per rest value would be infinite as well. There can be an argument made about how extra damage means beating the encounter faster which means good, but that's a different argument, and isn't what is being claimed.
The flaw I'm seeing here is that some people are assuming that the opponent's total HP is infinite, when what they should be doing, in order to make it a fair comparison and analysis, is to have the opponent's HP be the same for all scenarios. Why is this important? Because if you're adding an extra 10hp per damage per round, then you will NOT have as many rounds of combat as the fighter without these feats. So 74 total damage is not accurate. You can't keep adding damage once a target is below 0.
For example, if a fighter without feats does 10 points per round, and there are 200 total monster HP between rests, that's 20 rounds of combat between rests. If you have a fighter with those feats that adds 5 hp more damage per round, you simply can't use the same 20 round metric to see how much more damage you're doing. That's bad math. The fighter with the feats doesn't add an extra 100 points of damage (5 extra points for 20 rounds) like what is the logic FrogReaver has claimed. The fighter with the feat will go through those 200 HP in 14 rounds (rounded up). So that's 5 points for 14 rounds, not for 20 rounds. Or 70 extra points, not 100.
It may seem like a minor difference, but if you want your math and scenario to be accurate, you have to factor it in. Bottom line is that the fighter with the feat isn't doing as much extra damage as claimed unless the monster HP is infinite. Which it can't be, because then your rounds of combat per rest value would be infinite as well. There can be an argument made about how extra damage means beating the encounter faster which means good, but that's a different argument, and isn't what is being claimed.
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