D&D 5E How game-breaking is it if GW Fighting Style applies to smites?

I agree that GWM is a massively overrated feat. When you math it out, it's really not that great. The 2024 version is an improvement.

Zardnaar said:

Probably should have said phb. There's been a bit of powercreep.

I have seen a PAM+ GWM Paladin in action though. Queen of the nova strike.

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I have seen that in action, and it is not that great as a Nova IME because it is unreliable. A Paladin's Nova is dependant on smite damage and things which hurt your chance to hit kill this. You can get very high numbers with good rolls, but a regular Paladin who took ASIs is going to average more on his Nova turn. In another words you CAN nova harder with a PAM/GWM but you very rarely WILL nova harder than a more traditional paladin due to the awful attack bonus needed to do better than a guy with just ASIs.

With those two feats with -5/+10 you are -7 to your attacks compared to someone who took ASIs.

If you are not using the -5/+10 you are -2 on your attack rolls. You are getting a 3rd attack you can use for smites, but consider TWF is considered weak and a Paladin who took ASIs can use TWF to get 3 attacks (and smites) on a turn with 2 hand axes. They have a better chance to hit on all 3, meaning a better chance to land a smite on all of three and will do more base damage on the main action attacks even with d6 weapons due to their higher strength.

When you really want to Nova though, Paladin's don't get a lot out of PAM because they can cast a smite spell as a bonus action instead, then divine smite on top of that. You are trading one PAM attack with a possible smite if it hits for a smite spell that will land if either of the two action attacks hit.

Banishing Smite as your Bonus action for example is 5d10 extra damage and you have a very good chance of landing that. Blinding Smite, which you get 1 level later than your second feat is 3d8. You use your bonus for these and if you land either of your main attacks you get the damage on top of the weapon and divine smite damage. Plus, with Blinding Smite you have a decent chance of blinding the enemy on the first attack to get the next attack at advantage, driving up the hit chance and average damage even further.

GWM alone would be competitive Nova if you were using Vengence and could get auto advantage, but you are still losing your bonus action the first turn to activate it and you are losing the damage from the bonus action that you would get with a smite spell. Getting advantage on on both attacks, combined with the extra damage, would probably usually make up for that though.

ECMO3 said:

I have seen that in action, and it is not that great as a Nova IME because it is unreliable. A Paladin's Nova is dependant on smite damage and hitting and things which hurt your chance to hit kill this. You can get very high numbers with good rolls, but a regular Paladin who took ASIs is going to average more on his Nova turn. In another words you CAN nova harder with a PAM/GWM but you very rarely WILL nova harder than a more traditional paladin due to the awful attack bonus needed to get any extra damage at all.

With those two feats with -5/+10 you are -7 to your attacks compared to someone who took ASIs.

If you are not using the -5/+10 you are -2 on your attack rolls. You are getting a 3rd attack you can use for smites, but consider TWF is considered weak and a Paladin who took ASIs can use TWF to get 3 attacks (and smites) on a turn with 2 hand axes. They have a better chance to hit on all 3, meaning a better chance to land a smite on all of three and will do more base damage on the main action attacks even with d6 weapons due to their higher strength.

When you really want to Nova though, Paladin's don't get a lot out of PAM because they can cast a smite spell as a bonus action instead, then divine smite on top of that. You are trading one PAM attack with a possible smite if it hits for a smite spell that will land if either of the two action attacks hit.

Banishing Smite as your Bonus action for example is 5d10 extra damage and you have a very good chance of landing that. Blinding Smite, which you get 1 level later than your second feat is 3d8. You use your bonus for these and if you land either of your main attacks you get the damage on top of the weapon and divine smite damage. Plus, with Blinding Smite you have a decent chance of blinding the enemy on the first attack to get the next attack at advantage, driving up the hit chance and average damage even further.

GWM could be competitive Nova if you were using Vengence and could get auto advantage, but you are still losing your bonus action the first turn to activate it and you are losing the damage from the bonus action that you would get with a smite spell.

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In a white room yes. In a real game bard dice, advantage, bless, low ac opponents etc.

I probably wouldn't take both however and there's also multiclass abuse eg hexblade.

You can also smite once you've hi/crit.

Zardnaar said:

In a white room yes. In a real game bard dice, advantage, bless, low ac opponents etc.

I probably wouldn't take both however and there's also multiclass abuse eg hexblade.

You can also smite once you've hi/crit.

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Real-life optimization is all about understanding the specific game, the DM, and your specific situation.

Do you roll instead of point-buy? What rolls did you get? Does the DM allow flanking? Does the DM run monsters more by the book, or do they tend to customize? What kind of monsters do you expect to encounter in the campaign? What capabilities do you anticipate the other party members bringing?

Normally, I wouldn't recommend GWM outside of barbarians. But in one of my recent games, the DM said they were using the DMG flanking rules. That's such a commonly used rule, and changes the build calculus towards melee so heavily, that I always ask at session zero if it's in use. Combine that with rolling stats and doing well (17-15-14-14-10-9). And knowing that one of the other players was playing a buff-focused twilight cleric, so bless and extra survivability would be frequent. That pushed me towards one of my favorite concepts, the Elven Accuracy boosted melee flanker with GWM. (Specifically, a shadar-kai battle smith artificer.)

jayoungr said:

I've got a paladin in my game who took Great Weapon Master and wanted to know whether the damage bonus applies to smites. Apparently, there are conflicting rulings about it online.

I tend to think that a strict reading of the feat implies that it applies to weapon damage only, not to enhancements like smites; but on the other hand, I like to rule in players' favor when possible; but on the third hand, I don't want to accidentally break my game and regret it. So I'm wondering if anyone has seen this combo in action, where the damage bonus is allowed to apply to smites, and can comment on how unbalancing it actually is. Thanks.

NOTE: My question is not about how the rule works as written. My question is about what would happen if I make the more permissive ruling and allow the two options to stack.

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Jumping in a bit late, but what is really the issue here?

You declare GWM -5 for +10 damage, roll, hit, decide to add smite as well, roll damage for weapon, add bonuses--including the +10 for GWM, roll smite damage, and add that as well.

Done, right? What am I missing?

ECMO3 said:

Sharpshooter is a strong feat. GWM is not IME. In a game that splits all 3 pillars GWM is well below average and below an ASI generally. In a combat oriented game it is middle of the road and about equal with an ASI.

Based on my play experience if you are playing a game that is combat heavy I think the following feats are all generally more powerful than GWM:

Sharpshooter
Sentinel
Fey Touched
Drow High Magic
Second Chance
Fey Teleportation
XBE
Alert
Dragon Fear
Elven Accuracy
Martial Adept
Fighting Initiate
Magic Initiate
Lucky
Heavy Armor Master
Giant feats (all of them)
Crusher
Slasher
Skulker
Gift of the Gem Dragon
Dragonlance feats (all of them)

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Barbarian with early GWM is really good. One of the few cases that’s significantly better than an ASI.

remember that until you get your 3rd feat, 12th level or 8th for fighters, GWM and SS is -6/+9.
that is worse except when you have base hit chance of 70% or higher.

FrogReaver said:

Barbarian with early GWM is really good. One of the few cases that’s significantly better than an ASI.

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and rogue with SS and Aim bonus action. add 8th level elven accuracy for more hit chance.

Fanaelialae said:

A smite is triggered by hitting with a weapon attack, so I see no reason it wouldn't work.

Also keep in mind that the more damage you do, the worse GWM is for your overall damage.

Let's say you normally have on average a 75% to hit for an average of 8 damage. GWM reduces your hit chance to 50% but raises your damage to 18.

Without GWM: 6 DMG
With GWM: 9 DMG

GWM results in a 50% damage improvement.

Now let's add 9 damage from smite to each.

Without GWM: 12.75 DMG
With GWM: 13.5 DMG

GWM still does more damage, but only by around 6%.

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That calculation assumes unlimited spell slots. As soon as you factor that in, GWM is still situationally useful.

Paladins usually have ways to imcrease their to hit bonus (devotion +cha, vengeance advantage). So even if you hot less, you are still good at hitting and you might save one or the other spell slot.
The cleave part always comes in handy.

So while definitely less useful than on other melee classes, it is still quite ok.


On the other hand, allowing great weapon fighting style to stack with smites is a whole different story. And before the errata quite early in the 5e life cycle, it was definitely OP. That combined with no rule that disallowed stacking paladin auras made some fun paladins.

Fanaelialae said:

A smite is triggered by hitting with a weapon attack, so I see no reason it wouldn't work.

Also keep in mind that the more damage you do, the worse GWM is for your overall damage.

Let's say you normally have on average a 75% to hit for an average of 8 damage. GWM reduces your hit chance to 50% but raises your damage to 18.

Without GWM: 6 DMG
With GWM: 9 DMG

GWM results in a 50% damage improvement.

Now let's add 9 damage from smite to each.

Without GWM: 12.75 DMG
With GWM: 13.5 DMG

GWM still does more damage, but only by around 6%.

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While objectively looking at the numbers, your analysis of the damage difference difference between no-GWM and GWM is accurate, it's not true to table experience, IME.

Because players aren't dumb (well...unless falling damage or treasure-in-risky-places are involved). They quickly learn how to strategize to minimize the decreased accuracy imposed by GWM – buffs, getting advantage, focusing on lower AC foes.

So if the player is gaming the game to manipulate that % chance to hit, your initial number comparison no longer holds.