D&D 5E Current take on GWM/SS

[FormerlyHemlock]

If you are making a claim on the power of any of these, please state the exact specifics of class, race, feats, and spells (and/or DPR) that make them so potent, more so than other options at those levels.

For example, Maze is an 8th level spell. That doesn't matter at ~95+% of all tables and there are other same level spells that are more potent like Feeblemind.

So to illustrate your point, you need to supply some specific details.

That's called "Shifting the burden of proof." I'll go along with it to a limited extent though, because there are probably readers who aren't familiar with some of these tactics and might find the post beneficial.

#0. Sharpshooter (our baseline). Main uses are killing things at extreme range (600', which is "extreme" in D&D terms but not in real life), and adding up to 100% damage against low-AC targets. An 11th level Archery-specialized Eldritch Knight with 20 Dex and the Magic Weapon spell (for a +1 bow) can do 49.88 points of damage (including crits, math on request) per round to a CR 4 AC 12 Ettin, or 31.43 to a CR 5 AC 18 Drow Elite Warrior. (Without Sharpshooter it would be 32.18 and 24.30 respectively, but that doesn't matter for our analysis.) Cost: 15 silver pieces, or 7.5 if you recover 50% of your arrows.

#0b. If another PC casts Bless on the Sharpshooter, the Sharpshooter's Ettin damage increases to 57.57, and his damage to the drow increases to 39.115.

#1. Sorlock. A Sorlock can also do damage from extreme range (1200' maximum with Distant Spell, which is about the furthest away you usually notice things in real life, at least in my city; Distant Spell is more unpopular than it should be, so 600' for Eldritch Spear + Spell Sniper is a more usual maximum for a Sorlock, or 240' if he doesn't take Eldritch Spear). An 11th level Sorlock with Cha 20 and Quickened Spell will do 58.35 points of damage to the Ettin (cost: 2 sorcery points), or 39.45 to the drow. At close range on a target he's already Hexed that jumps to 78.30 and 53.10 points of damage, respectively, significantly more than the Sharpshooter.

#2. Animate Objects. For one 5th level spell and an object manipulation ("turn my coin pouch inside-out"), the Sorcerer can animate ten copper pieces, each of which then becomes a Tiny creature, which then flies at a speed of 30' and attacks at +8 for 1d4+4 points of damage each (with blindsight). They have 200 HP between them all, each with AC 18, and between all ten of them they will do 56.50 points of damage to the Ettin per round, or approximately 37 DPR to the elite Drow. (I didn't account for the Drow's Parry so it will be slightly lower in reality.) In return the Ettin inflicts 14.90 damage and the drow inflicts 19.40 (oddly, the coppers are not immune to poison).

#2b. If another PC (e.g. Shadow Monk) casts Darkness, the coppers will do 65.98 damage to the Ettin per turn due to advantage, taking 7.05 damage in return due to disadvantage. They will inflict about 54 DPR on the Drow Elite Warrior per turn (again, I didn't compute Parry), taking 9.07 damage in return due to disadvantage.

#3. Since a Sorlock is a Warlock 2/Sorcerer 9, he can of course combine options #1 and #2 to inflict 114.85 points of damage to the Ettin or 76-ish DPR to the Drow, taking a respective 14.90 or 19.40 points of damage to his coins in return. They have 200 HP so it would take a lot of drow to kill all the coins in time to matter.

Some of the other options I named such as Polearm Master are merely comparable to GWM/Sharpshooter rather than flatly superior to it; others are more like the ones I just deconstructed for you in this post. E.g. Simulacrum as-written doubles the Sorlock's damage output yet again.

Is there anyone who can honestly tell me that option #0 looks like the strongest option on the table here?

 

[Celtavian]

Polearm Master without GWM is fine as is Crossbow Expert without Sharpshooter.

Hemlock did illustrate why I don't want to change them right now. Some of the stuff casters can do is pretty nutty. I've used the animate objects combination with an evoker. Quite a potent combination. Once you set them to killing something, you can play the hide behind cover game while the objects do their job and you drop an occasional blast on top of it.

The skeletal archers can do more damage. I don't play in a world as loose as Hemlock's. Wandering around with skeletal archers would be a severe hindrance to our party. Scouting would be messed up. Everything would hear us coming. I'd have to keep them supplied with arrows. It would be a pain in the ass.

I just came up with an odd druid combination that could do some nutty damage by 6th level. Summon some poisonous snakes. Turn into a Giant Constrictor Snake to grapple and restrain a target crushing it for 2d8+4 damage per round past magical damage resistance due to being a Moon Druid. Use Conjure Animal to summon 8 Giant Poisonous Snakes that get +6 to hit with advantage. They'll do 1d6+4 piercing plus 3d6 poison damage with a DC 11 Con save. Against an AC 16 creature with a 14 Con, you could do something like 13 bludgeoning from constrict. You figure six of the snakes will hit about half will do full poison damage. You're looking at:

Constrict: 13 damage.
Three snakes full damage: 22 piercing and 30 poison.
Three snakes half poison damage: 22 piercing and 15 poison.

A 6th level druid using this tactic would do: 102 damage a round against something that isn't poison immune or resistance.

Of course the snakes can be killed. Hemlock has brought up the concentration problem. I'm a Hill Dwarf with an 18 Con and Resilient: Con as a feat. My con save at 6th level is +7. I'll only lose concentration on a 3 or less. Pretty nasty combination when it works. Not as easy to use as Sharpshooter or GWF. Can't be done at range like Sharpshooter. But powerful when it is applicable.

 

[KarinsDad]

That's called "Shifting the burden of proof."

Actually, it is the opposite of that. You made the claim, you need to provide the proof. Forcing your audience to provide the proof would be shifting the burden of proof.

The burden of proof is on people who believe in UFOs carry extraterrestrial visitors (i.e. those who make the claim), not the people who are skeptical of those claims.

I'll go along with it to a limited extent though, because there are probably readers who aren't familiar with some of these tactics and might find the post beneficial.

#0. Sharpshooter (our baseline). Main uses are killing things at extreme range (600', which is "extreme" in D&D terms but not in real life), and adding up to 100% damage against low-AC targets. An 11th level Archery-specialized Eldritch Knight with 20 Dex and the Magic Weapon spell (for a +1 bow) can do 49.88 points of damage (including crits, math on request) per round to a CR 4 AC 12 Ettin, or 31.43 to a CR 5 AC 18 Drow Elite Warrior. (Without Sharpshooter it would be 32.18 and 24.30 respectively, but that doesn't matter for our analysis.) Cost: 15 silver pieces, or 7.5 if you recover 50% of your arrows.

#0b. If another PC casts Bless on the Sharpshooter, the Sharpshooter's Ettin damage increases to 57.57, and his damage to the drow increases to 39.115.

#1. Sorlock. A Sorlock can also do damage from extreme range (1200' maximum with Distant Spell, which is about the furthest away you usually notice things in real life, at least in my city; Distant Spell is more unpopular than it should be, so 600' for Eldritch Spear + Spell Sniper is a more usual maximum for a Sorlock, or 240' if he doesn't take Eldritch Spear). An 11th level Sorlock with Cha 20 and Quickened Spell will do 58.35 points of damage to the Ettin (cost: 2 sorcery points), or 39.45 to the drow. At close range on a target he's already Hexed that jumps to 78.30 and 53.10 points of damage, respectively, significantly more than the Sharpshooter.

#2. Animate Objects. For one 5th level spell and an object manipulation ("turn my coin pouch inside-out"), the Sorcerer can animate ten copper pieces, each of which then becomes a Tiny creature, which then flies at a speed of 30' and attacks at +8 for 1d4+4 points of damage each (with blindsight). They have 200 HP between them all, each with AC 18, and between all ten of them they will do 56.50 points of damage to the Ettin per round, or approximately 37 DPR to the elite Drow. (I didn't account for the Drow's Parry so it will be slightly lower in reality.) In return the Ettin inflicts 14.90 damage and the drow inflicts 19.40 (oddly, the coppers are not immune to poison).

#2b. If another PC (e.g. Shadow Monk) casts Darkness, the coppers will do 65.98 damage to the Ettin per turn due to advantage, taking 7.05 damage in return due to disadvantage. They will inflict about 54 DPR on the Drow Elite Warrior per turn (again, I didn't compute Parry), taking 9.07 damage in return due to disadvantage.

#3. Since a Sorlock is a Warlock 2/Sorcerer 9, he can of course combine options #1 and #2 to inflict 114.85 points of damage to the Ettin or 76-ish DPR to the Drow, taking a respective 14.90 or 19.40 points of damage to his coins in return. They have 200 HP so it would take a lot of drow to kill all the coins in time to matter.

Some of the other options I named such as Polearm Master are merely comparable to GWM/Sharpshooter rather than flatly superior to it; others are more like the ones I just deconstructed for you in this post. E.g. Simulacrum as-written doubles the Sorlock's damage output yet again.

Is there anyone who can honestly tell me that option #0 looks like the strongest option on the table here?

In a nova round, no. Over the lifetime of a PC, yes.

Option 0 can start at level 1. Alternatively, it starts at level 4 for many PCs. It can be most rounds for most encounters without using up a single resource. Any PC can take it, it is not limited by class. In fact it can be nice for some classes like Elven Wizards who may want to be far away from foes and do not want to waste a cantrip on a damaging cantrip. The fact that it is in the same ballpark damage-wise as these other resource dependent options means that there may be a balance issue.

Over the lifetime of its use, option 0 will typically do more damage than your other examples ever will. Not so much for the -5/+10 aspect (which is a concern once spell synergies start), but just as much for the no disadvantage by range and the ignoring of cover. For a PC that hangs back, it's not uncommon for PCs or other NPCs to get in the way of a foe and in 5E, foes can easily move out, range attack, and then move back into cover. This is one of the few abilities in the game system that can negate that. If you have a 60% chance to hit a given foe and he takes cover, your odds go to 50%. The feat takes that back up to 60%, a 20% increase in DPR. This happens every time a foe is in normal cover. Going from 35% chance to hit with 3/4ths cover to 60% chance to hit increases DPR by 71%.

Now, the important thing that you are disregarding with your analysis is that the spell casters have limited spells. The sharpshooter PC can fire arrows until he runs out which at the levels you are indicating, he rarely does; and the cost is negligible at those levels.

#0 The primary purpose of Sharpshooter is not range, it's getting past cover and nova-ing for extra damage.

#1 Your 11th level Sorlock cannot have both the spell sniper feat and a Charisma of 20. So it is either range, or a bonus to hit. You added the Hex possibility for the Sorlock, but limited the Sharpshooter to an EK for the +1/+1. A Battlemaster Fighter, instead of an EK, could use Precision Attack to increase his DPR for a single attack by about 50% 5 times in an encounter against the Drow. He could use Distracting Strike to increase party DPR on his foe. A Hunter Ranger could use Hunter's Mark, Colossus Slayer, and shoot multiple foes (3, 4, 5, even more) within a 10 foot sphere. And I'm not sure which other spell you are using for your Sorlock. If he is doing Twin Eldritch and Quickened Eldritch, then it costs 3 sorcerer points. But since it costs sorcerer points for the Sorlock to do this level of damage, he is limited to the number of times per day he can do it. Granted, he can swap spells for sorcerer points, but that's resource costly. And he can gain a few extra sorcerer points by his two warlock spell slots, but that's a short rest each time he does it.

#2 While what you say is true about Animate Object, there are not necessarily 10 copper pieces or 10 other tiny objects in the vicinity of the NPCs. Often, the caster has to pull 10 copper pieces out of his own pouch. This means that unless the foes are within 30 feet of the spellcaster when he casts it (typically not for wizards at least since they try to stay away from foes), Animate Object might not work until the second round after casting. A single fireball or breath weapon or counterspell or dispel magic or 30 to 40+ damage to the spell caster (or even Hypnotic Pattern) will often take most or all of the animated copper pieces out. Additionally, this spell cannot be done before level 9 (lots of levels of Sharpshooter racking up extra damage) and even at level 9, it's once or twice per day class depending. Finally, if a player wants to be rolling 10 D20s and 10 D4s, that's going to slow the game down.

#3 It takes 2 rounds to get up to this level of damage.

I agree with you that at higher levels, spell casters can nova for more damage. But for round in, round out damage starting at level 4, the Sharpshooter does more damage in a campaign than +1/+1 (or most spell casters), and a lot more if buffed. Note: I think that GWM is more potent than Sharpshooter unless the GWM PC cannot get in range of targets. And I think that the only unbalancing thing about GWM and Sharpshooter is the -5/+10 portions getting used more than once per turn. It's not that hard to get bonuses to hit (like +2 Archery, +2.5 Bless, + Magic Weapon, etc.) to offset the -5.

Note: How exactly does the 11th level Sorlock get a Simulacrum? Simulacrum doubles the damage of any PC that gets one.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Actually, it is the opposite of that. You made the claim, you need to provide the proof. Forcing your audience to provide the proof would be shifting the burden of proof.

And you claimed that 5E balance is good except for those two feats. I named a bunch of well-known counterexamples and now you're shifting the burden to me. Which I can handle, but you're still doing it.

You're seriously claiming that an elven wizard should learn Sharpshooter? No, that's a terrible plan.

More later from a real computer.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The skeletal archers can do more damage. I don't play in a world as loose as Hemlock's. Wandering around with skeletal archers would be a severe hindrance to our party. Scouting would be messed up. Everything would hear us coming. I'd have to keep them supplied with arrows. It would be a pain*snip*

I'd appreciate it if you would refrain from presenting your confident guesses about my world as if they were facts. In particular, please don't assume you know what kinds of complications arise in my world when someone has a squad of skeletal archers. I'll tell you right now that two of your three guesses as to the looseness of my world are wrong. There's a reason why skeletons stay behind on scouting missions in spite of having +12 to Stealth from Pass Without Trace (I'm pretty harsh on Stealth checks; each sneaking party has to make a multiple stealth checks during any approach, and a single failure from anyone blows the mission--so any large group is bad for stealth, and the scouting is done instead by the Shadow Monk and the Lore Bard who have +18 and +22 respectively, and they always have multiple exfiltration plans in place because some things like Umber Hulks and Intellect Devourers ignore stealth); and arrow logistics are in fact a thing. (The Necromancer spent one of his slots learning Fabricate partially because of this, although so far he's just stockpiled great heaping lots of arrows and weapons and spare armor, and hobgoblin bones, instead.) Skeletons aren't really much worse than fighters on arrow logistics though; inflicting 1000 points of damage from a fighter's bow and inflicting 1000 points of damage from multiple skeletal longbows is within a factor of 3x of the same cost. Instead of costing 5 gp from the fighter it might cost 15 gp from the skeletons--but you also have more bodies to carry arrows and quivers, so it works out overall.

I'm also not sure but I think you have the mistaken impression that I believe in large standing armies of skeletons at all times. If so, that isn't true either. One necromancer typically has between four and thirty skeletons animated at any given time, depending on whether or not he's at home researching during peacetime or hunting down beholders in the field. (In that case, his four skeletons act mostly as bodyguards and menial servants, which creeps out his friends.) The other necromancer (in another game) just got all of his 26 skeletons blown to smithereens by a cleric, and the player has switched to playing the necromancer's anti-undead Paladin of Vengeance sister, who got killed while attacking her brother's skeletons before the cleric wasted them.

 

[KarinsDad]

And you claimed that 5E balance is good except for those two feats. I named a bunch of well-known counterexamples and now you're shifting the burden to me. Which I can handle, but you're still doing it.

I claimed no such thing. I claimed (and you quoted):

"5E is fairly well balanced. These two feats are not (IMO). You are making an assumption here that the DMs who feel that these feats (combined with other obvious spells and such) are overpowered will feel that other combos are overpowered. That may or may not be true. I only have a handful of houserules since I see few problems in 5E."

So, you responded to my post with your list of "other potent options" without carefully reading what I wrote. I didn't say other potent options did not exist, especially ones that use up resources like spells.

You're seriously claiming that an elven wizard should learn Sharpshooter? No, that's a terrible plan.

Is it? From a roleplaying perspective? From a fun to play perspective?

Not every player wants to spam offensive cantrips.

A High Elven Wizard can start at first level with 16 Dex, 16 Int, and Longbow proficiency.

He does D8+3 damage at 120 feet, 2 more points of damage than Firebolt. At level 4, he learns Sharpshooter and does longbow at 600 feet through non-total cover. His Firebolt spell would still have cover penalties, sometimes from fellow PCs. At level 5, he learns Fly and within a few rounds, he can be out of non-disadvantaged missile range (and most spells) for most outdoor encounters, but still be able to attack back at the cost of a single spell.

When his party assists like with Faerie Fire, he can let loose with the extra 10 points of damage. Alternatively, he could cast Haste on himself and get two Bow shots in per round and be doing similar (and often better) damage to Fire Bolt, all the way up to level 16.

Such a PC would have Darkvision, good bonuses to Stealth, Dex saves, Init, and AC. And Sharpshooter is even better if using the optional DMG hitting cover rule (which our table uses a modified version of).

The build is designed to be fun to play, not the be all end all Int Wizard. In fact, I could see a given player wanting to use the -5/+10 feature a lot to help take out mooks without casting spells. Sure, he'll miss sometimes at -5, but maybe this player doesn't want Firebolt and wants to take Shocking Grasp or Ray of Frost as his offensive cantrip (or no offensive cantrips at all). In such a case, he'll often average more DPR with the bow up to level 16 than he would with his cantrip against low AC foes (high AC foes deserve normal spells).

Will he be as good as an Archer with Sharpshooter? Not with arrows. But, he'll have fun and he will still have spells to back his archery up. And, he'll do similar amounts of weapon damage to PCs like melee Clerics or Lore Bards.


Not everything is about minmaxing a PC.

Edit: Forgot to mention. Minor Illusion of thick heavy bushes and the Wizard can fire -5/+10 with advantage through it. Very few foes will take out an action to potentially discern that it is an illusion. The difference here, though, is that the 18 Int 5th level Firebolt Wizard using the same trick hits AC 12 on a 2 instead of a 5 (11 DPR), the Sharpshooter -5/+10 16 Int wizard hits AC 12 on 6 instead of 11 (13+ DPR). And, of course, Magic Weapon can take care of piercing resistant monsters, very few things can help a Firebolt against a fire resistant monster.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Option 0 can start at level 1. Alternatively, it starts at level 4 for many PCs. It can be most rounds for most encounters without using up a single resource. Any PC can take it, it is not limited by class. In fact it can be nice for some classes like Elven Wizards who may want to be far away from foes and do not want to waste a cantrip on a damaging cantrip. The fact that it is in the same ballpark damage-wise as these other resource dependent options means that there may be a balance issue.

Over the lifetime of its use, option 0 will typically do more damage than your other examples ever will. Not so much for the -5/+10 aspect (which is a concern once spell synergies start), but just as much for the no disadvantage by range and the ignoring of cover. For a PC that hangs back, it's not uncommon for PCs or other NPCs to get in the way of a foe and in 5E, foes can easily move out, range attack, and then move back into cover. This is one of the few abilities in the game system that can negate that. If you have a 60% chance to hit a given foe and he takes cover, your odds go to 50%. The feat takes that back up to 60%, a 20% increase in DPR. This happens every time a foe is in normal cover. Going from 35% chance to hit with 3/4ths cover to 60% chance to hit increases DPR by 71%.

Now, the important thing that you are disregarding with your analysis is that the spell casters have limited spells. The sharpshooter PC can fire arrows until he runs out which at the levels you are indicating, he rarely does; and the cost is negligible at those levels.

#0 The primary purpose of Sharpshooter is not range, it's getting past cover and nova-ing for extra damage.

#1 Your 11th level Sorlock cannot have both the spell sniper feat and a Charisma of 20. So it is either range, or a bonus to hit. You added the Hex possibility for the Sorlock, but limited the Sharpshooter to an EK for the +1/+1. A Battlemaster Fighter, instead of an EK, could use Precision Attack to increase his DPR for a single attack by about 50% 5 times in an encounter against the Drow. He could use Distracting Strike to increase party DPR on his foe. A Hunter Ranger could use Hunter's Mark, Colossus Slayer, and shoot multiple foes (3, 4, 5, even more) within a 10 foot sphere. And I'm not sure which other spell you are using for your Sorlock. If he is doing Twin Eldritch and Quickened Eldritch, then it costs 3 sorcerer points. But since it costs sorcerer points for the Sorlock to do this level of damage, he is limited to the number of times per day he can do it. Granted, he can swap spells for sorcerer points, but that's resource costly. And he can gain a few extra sorcerer points by his two warlock spell slots, but that's a short rest each time he does it.

#2 While what you say is true about Animate Object, there are not necessarily 10 copper pieces or 10 other tiny objects in the vicinity of the NPCs. Often, the caster has to pull 10 copper pieces out of his own pouch. This means that unless the foes are within 30 feet of the spellcaster when he casts it (typically not for wizards at least since they try to stay away from foes), Animate Object might not work until the second round after casting. A single fireball or breath weapon or counterspell or dispel magic or 30 to 40+ damage to the spell caster (or even Hypnotic Pattern) will often take most or all of the animated copper pieces out. Additionally, this spell cannot be done before level 9 (lots of levels of Sharpshooter racking up extra damage) and even at level 9, it's once or twice per day class depending. Finally, if a player wants to be rolling 10 D20s and 10 D4s, that's going to slow the game down.

#3 It takes 2 rounds to get up to this level of damage.

I agree with you that at higher levels, spell casters can nova for more damage. But for round in, round out damage starting at level 4, the Sharpshooter does more damage in a campaign than +1/+1 (or most spell casters), and a lot more if buffed. Note: I think that GWM is more potent than Sharpshooter unless the GWM PC cannot get in range of targets. And I think that the only unbalancing thing about GWM and Sharpshooter is the -5/+10 portions getting used more than once per turn. It's not that hard to get bonuses to hit (like +2 Archery, +2.5 Bless, + Magic Weapon, etc.) to offset the -5.

Note: How exactly does the 11th level Sorlock get a Simulacrum? Simulacrum doubles the damage of any PC that gets one.

Look, KD, before I address your post, here's who I am and here's what I'm about:

My name is Max. I'm a middle-aged software engineer in Seattle. I've recently picked up 5E within the past year after being away from D&D since the TSR era in the 90s. I've just recently started DM'ing, also within the past nine months or so. My big thing while DM'ing is enabling and respecting player choice. My big thing as a player is versatility and planning ahead. When it comes to Internet forums, I value two things: usefulness and accuracy. In this discussion, I'm focused on trying to point things out that people might not necessarily think of themselves (e.g. new players may not know how to use Planar Binding, and it may not occur to them that breaking the concentration and action economies with it or Animate Dead is a powerful thing), and in preventing people from believing things that are false. I don't want anyone thinking that GWM or Sharpshooter is uniquely good, then nerfing those feats and thinking they're going to have a perfectly-balanced game after that, and being surprised when it doesn't happen. I want them to at least know what they're getting into.

That's who I am. I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, and frankly I don't really care how you run your game. You're not my audience and I'll stop talking as soon as I run out of things to say, even if you're not persuaded yet. Presumably you'll do the same.

That being said:

RE: #1, "Your 11th level Sorlock cannot have both the spell sniper feat and a Charisma of 20. So it is either range, or a bonus to hit." This is simply incorrect. A sorlock can have 20 Cha and Spell Sniper by level 11 as easily as you can have Sharpshooter by level 1, as you yourself note. "Option 0 can start at level 1. Alternatively, it starts at level 4 for many PCs." Rolling is the standard method, and if you roll a 16 you can be a half-elf and start with Cha 18 and boost Cha to 20 at Sorc 4 and pick up Spell Sniper at Sorc 8 (or the other way around). Alternatively, even if you're using the standard array, you can put a 15 in Cha and then be a Variant human for 16 Cha and Spell Sniper at level 1. Then boost Cha at Sorc 4 and Sorc 8. Likewise, you can't twin Eldritch Blast in the first place, nor do you need to--Quicken Spell is all that the numbers I cited rely upon. Yes, a Hunter could Volley to shoot "3, 4, 5, even more" foes within a 10' radius, but what are you trying to prove by citing that? The sorlock could toss a Fireball for more damage over a 20' radius and still Eldritch Blast somebody that round. (Sharpshootered Volley has better range though, I'll give it that. Rangers are pretty cool.) Yes, a battlemaster could boost his damage significantly by using up his dice on Precision Strike and Action Surging--he'd eclipse the sorcerer in damage that turn, maybe. And yes, he can help his party. (So can the sorc, with spells like Web.) So what? The fact that the battlemaster can rival or exceed the sorlock's damage occasionally is indisputably a good thing. Nerf Sharpshooter and GWM and that ceases to be true: you'll have the Sorlock outclassing the battlemaster's damage all day, every day, and still having a nearly-full load of spells. (N.b. I don't actually think Sorlocks should Quicken Spell every round. Cheap, consistent damage is more my style. I'd probably just toss up a Web in a chokepoint for 3 SP to help the whole party and then blast all the enemies that get caught in it. But there are players who do like to nova, and they're the ones who would be Sorlocks if you nerfed Sharpshooter.)

Player tip #1: When enemies are playing the "popup game" with cover, popping up, shooting at you, and then ducking back under cover, Spell Sniper Sorlocks are way better at fighting them than Sharpshooters are. The reason is because by RAW you can ready a single weapon attack or you can ready a spell--but you can't Action Surge or use Extra Attack features on a readied attack. Ergo, the Sorlock will be getting 3d10+15 from three attacks (or 3d10+3d6+15 if hexed), but the Sharpshooter will be getting only 1d8+15 with his single attack. Sharpshooter and Spell Sniper can both negate half or three-quarters cover, but neither one can negate full cover, which is what the bad guys will have at the end of each of their turns if the popup game is being played truly effectively. If the DM is being merciful they may have only 3/4 cover, and then Sharpshooter is a great help, as is Spell Sniper.

Player tip #2: Sorlocks should take their first level in Sorcerer, not Warlock, because proficiency on Constitution saves helps you keep Concentration. And Concentration can help you not blow important spells, such as keeping Polymorph up when you've turned the fighter into a Giant Ape, and not losing Animate Objects.

Player tip #3: A 9th level Sorcerer/Warlock 2 is not limited to only two castings of Animate Object. He's got one 5th level spell slot, and three 3rd and three 4th level slots. A 3rd and a 4th level slot equals seven sorcery points, and seven sorcery points buys a 5th level slot. In principle he could cast the spell up to six times in a day and have three 1st level slots left over (plus warlock slots) plus 2 sorcery points; in practice it's probably better to cast other spells, because Animate Objects is only useful in some situations. As KD correctly notes, it's not great when the enemy is far away because it takes so long for the objects to fly over there--I've had fights where the objects spend half the time flying to enemies or chasing after retreating enemies. That's great as a distraction if your goal is just to keep certain enemies off your back, but it isn't great for actually killing things. In many cases you'll want to cast something else, so you should probably never hit that "six Animate Objects per day" theoretical threshold.

Player tip #4: has nothing to do with Sharpshooter, but--all sorcerers should learn Expeditious Retreat and Counterspell at some point before 9th level. They're both lifesavers.

@KD: RE Simulacrum, I didn't mean that an 11th level sorc had access to Simulacrum. Those last couple of paragraphs were no longer talking about the specific example of the 11th level Sorlock and were back to talking about the general game:

Some of the other options I named such as Polearm Master are merely comparable to GWM/Sharpshooter rather than flatly superior to it; others are more like the ones I just deconstructed for you in this post. E.g. Simulacrum as-written doubles the Sorlock's damage output yet again.

If you're asking, "At what point does Simulacrum double his damage output?", the answer is "Whenever the Wizard learns it and casts it on him, likely at 14th level; or whenever the Sorlock himself learns Wish and uses it to duplicate Simulacrum, likely at Sorc 17." N.b. in my game Simulacrum is only as effective as AD&D Simulacrum + Reincarnation + Limited Wish; that is, you get 40 to 65% of the abilities of the original, not 100%. In return, I let Simulacra regain spell slots normally. But that wouldn't matter for the Sorlock simulacrum anyway because even under RAW, he regains sorcery points normally, which can be converted into spell slots as needed.

In short, Simulacrum is another of those things which is superior to the Sharpshooter/GWM feats in magnitude of effect.

 

[Celtavian]

I'd appreciate it if you would refrain from presenting your confident guesses about my world as if they were facts. In particular, please don't assume you know what kinds of complications arise in my world when someone has a squad of skeletal archers. I'll tell you right now that two of your three guesses as to the looseness of my world are wrong. There's a reason why skeletons stay behind on scouting missions in spite of having +12 to Stealth from Pass Without Trace (I'm pretty harsh on Stealth checks; each sneaking party has to make a multiple stealth checks during any approach, and a single failure from anyone blows the mission--so any large group is bad for stealth, and the scouting is done instead by the Shadow Monk and the Lore Bard who have +18 and +22 respectively, and they always have multiple exfiltration plans in place because some things like Umber Hulks and Intellect Devourers ignore stealth); and arrow logistics are in fact a thing. (The Necromancer spent one of his slots learning Fabricate partially because of this, although so far he's just stockpiled great heaping lots of arrows and weapons and spare armor, and hobgoblin bones, instead.) Skeletons aren't really much worse than fighters on arrow logistics though; inflicting 1000 points of damage from a fighter's bow and inflicting 1000 points of damage from multiple skeletal longbows is within a factor of 3x of the same cost. Instead of costing 5 gp from the fighter it might cost 15 gp from the skeletons--but you also have more bodies to carry arrows and quivers, so it works out overall.

I'm also not sure but I think you have the mistaken impression that I believe in large standing armies of skeletons at all times. If so, that isn't true either. One necromancer typically has between four and thirty skeletons animated at any given time, depending on whether or not he's at home researching during peacetime or hunting down beholders in the field. (In that case, his four skeletons act mostly as bodyguards and menial servants, which creeps out his friends.) The other necromancer (in another game) just got all of his 26 skeletons blown to smithereens by a cleric, and the player has switched to playing the necromancer's anti-undead Paladin of Vengeance sister, who got killed while attacking her brother's skeletons before the cleric wasted them.

The strategy seems unsound and mostly isn't possible the way we play. Necromancers would be viewed as defilers of the dead and hunted if they were known to wander about with skeletons. My groups are not usually far enough away from civilization often enough to make such strategies as common as the example of their effectiveness and easy use you use in these discussions. Your proclamations make it sound like the skeleton strategy is as easy as casting a fireball or magic missile. I'm dubious that it is that easy to deploy them and have them wander about dungeon environments with a party.

 

[KarinsDad]

Look, KD, before I address your post, here's who I am and here's what I'm about:

My name is Max. I'm a middle-aged software engineer in Seattle. I've recently picked up 5E within the past year after being away from D&D since the TSR era in the 90s. I've just recently started DM'ing, also within the past nine months or so. My big thing while DM'ing is enabling and respecting player choice. My big thing as a player is versatility and planning ahead. When it comes to Internet forums, I value two things: usefulness and accuracy. In this discussion, I'm focused on trying to point things out that people might not necessarily think of themselves (e.g. new players may not know how to use Planar Binding, and it may not occur to them that breaking the concentration and action economies with it or Animate Dead is a powerful thing), and in preventing people from believing things that are false. I don't want anyone thinking that GWM or Sharpshooter is uniquely good, then nerfing those feats and thinking they're going to have a perfectly-balanced game after that, and being surprised when it doesn't happen. I want them to at least know what they're getting into.

That's who I am. I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, and frankly I don't really care how you run your game. You're not my audience and I'll stop talking as soon as I run out of things to say, even if you're not persuaded yet. Presumably you'll do the same.

That being said:

RE: #1, "Your 11th level Sorlock cannot have both the spell sniper feat and a Charisma of 20. So it is either range, or a bonus to hit." This is simply incorrect. A sorlock can have 20 Cha and Spell Sniper by level 11 as easily as you can have Sharpshooter by level 1, as you yourself note. "Option 0 can start at level 1. Alternatively, it starts at level 4 for many PCs." Rolling is the standard method, and if you roll a 16 you can be a half-elf and start with Cha 18 and boost Cha to 20 at Sorc 4 and pick up Spell Sniper at Sorc 8 (or the other way around). Alternatively, even if you're using the standard array, you can put a 15 in Cha and then be a Variant human for 16 Cha and Spell Sniper at level 1. Then boost Cha at Sorc 4 and Sorc 8. Likewise, you can't twin Eldritch Blast in the first place, nor do you need to--Quicken Spell is all that the numbers I cited rely upon. Yes, a Hunter could Volley to shoot "3, 4, 5, even more" foes within a 10' radius, but what are you trying to prove by citing that? The sorlock could toss a Fireball for more damage over a 20' radius and still Eldritch Blast somebody that round. (Sharpshootered Volley has better range though, I'll give it that. Rangers are pretty cool.) Yes, a battlemaster could boost his damage significantly by using up his dice on Precision Strike and Action Surging--he'd eclipse the sorcerer in damage that turn, maybe. And yes, he can help his party. (So can the sorc, with spells like Web.) So what? The fact that the battlemaster can rival or exceed the sorlock's damage occasionally is indisputably a good thing. Nerf Sharpshooter and GWM and that ceases to be true: you'll have the Sorlock outclassing the battlemaster's damage all day, every day, and still having a nearly-full load of spells. (N.b. I don't actually think Sorlocks should Quicken Spell every round. Cheap, consistent damage is more my style. I'd probably just toss up a Web in a chokepoint for 3 SP to help the whole party and then blast all the enemies that get caught in it. But there are players who do like to nova, and they're the ones who would be Sorlocks if you nerfed Sharpshooter.)

Player tip #1: When enemies are playing the "popup game" with cover, popping up, shooting at you, and then ducking back under cover, Spell Sniper Sorlocks are way better at fighting them than Sharpshooters are. The reason is because by RAW you can ready a single weapon attack or you can ready a spell--but you can't Action Surge or use Extra Attack features on a readied attack. Ergo, the Sorlock will be getting 3d10+15 from three attacks (or 3d10+3d6+15 if hexed), but the Sharpshooter will be getting only 1d8+15 with his single attack. Sharpshooter and Spell Sniper can both negate half or three-quarters cover, but neither one can negate full cover, which is what the bad guys will have at the end of each of their turns if the popup game is being played truly effectively. If the DM is being merciful they may have only 3/4 cover, and then Sharpshooter is a great help, as is Spell Sniper.

Player tip #2: Sorlocks should take their first level in Sorcerer, not Warlock, because proficiency on Constitution saves helps you keep Concentration. And Concentration can help you not blow important spells, such as keeping Polymorph up when you've turned the fighter into a Giant Ape, and not losing Animate Objects.

Player tip #3: A 9th level Sorcerer/Warlock 2 is not limited to only two castings of Animate Object. He's got one 5th level spell slot, and three 3rd and three 4th level slots. A 3rd and a 4th level slot equals seven sorcery points, and seven sorcery points buys a 5th level slot. In principle he could cast the spell up to six times in a day and have three 1st level slots left over (plus warlock slots) plus 2 sorcery points; in practice it's probably better to cast other spells, because Animate Objects is only useful in some situations. As KD correctly notes, it's not great when the enemy is far away because it takes so long for the objects to fly over there--I've had fights where the objects spend half the time flying to enemies or chasing after retreating enemies. That's great as a distraction if your goal is just to keep certain enemies off your back, but it isn't great for actually killing things. In many cases you'll want to cast something else, so you should probably never hit that "six Animate Objects per day" theoretical threshold.

Player tip #4: has nothing to do with Sharpshooter, but--all sorcerers should learn Expeditious Retreat and Counterspell at some point before 9th level. They're both lifesavers.

@KD: RE Simulacrum, I didn't mean that an 11th level sorc had access to Simulacrum. Those last couple of paragraphs were no longer talking about the specific example of the 11th level Sorlock and were back to talking about the general game:



If you're asking, "At what point does Simulacrum double his damage output?", the answer is "Whenever the Wizard learns it and casts it on him, likely at 14th level; or whenever the Sorlock himself learns Wish and uses it to duplicate Simulacrum, likely at Sorc 17." N.b. in my game Simulacrum is only as effective as AD&D Simulacrum + Reincarnation + Limited Wish; that is, you get 40 to 65% of the abilities of the original, not 100%. In return, I let Simulacra regain spell slots normally. But that wouldn't matter for the Sorlock simulacrum anyway because even under RAW, he regains sorcery points normally, which can be converted into spell slots as needed.

In short, Simulacrum is another of those things which is superior to the Sharpshooter/GWM feats in magnitude of effect.

I guess you missed the part where I stated "I agree with you that at higher levels, spell casters can nova for more damage."

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The strategy seems unsound and mostly isn't possible the way we play. Necromancers would be viewed as defilers of the dead and hunted if they were known to wander about with skeletons. My groups are not usually far enough away from civilization often enough to make such strategies as common as the example of their effectiveness and easy use you use in these discussions. Your proclamations make it sound like the skeleton strategy is as easy as casting a fireball or magic missile. I'm dubious that it is that easy to deploy them and have them wander about dungeon environments with a party.

Yes, that was why I said you got two of the three guesses wrong and not all three. You are in fact correct that I let necromancers get away with more socially than you do. They're viewed as dangerous, arrogant types whose murder machines could easily get somebody killed (basically a "mad scientist" vibe), kind of like someone who purposefully breeds barely-controlled land sharks. (Hence the necromancer not keeping more than a token force of skeletons on hand during peacetime.) But they're not viewed as defilers of the dead, although zombies horrify people and smell bad. In that respect my world is indeed looser than yours.

No, I don't think that raising skeletons is as simple as casting Magic Missile. Not only do you have to have bones on hand, you need weapons and armor for them too. It's easy if you've prepared ahead of time, but you can cast Fireball while standing naked on the shore of a lake that you just swam across, with nothing but your arcane focus medallion; you can't raise a skeletal army quite that quickly. As I said in my previous post, as a player my big thing is versatility and foresight--many things are easy only because I've taken steps to make them easy. An example of that would never letting all my skeletons get too close to each other; a standard formation is squads of five or ten with a 50' separation between squads, even if that means that some squads are straggling behind out of sight in a dungeon environment. It's more important to me not to put all my eggs in one basket.

Edit: final point is that if the strategy isn't feasible the way you play, obviously you shouldn't do it! If I were at your table and it was clear that skeletons would be an unacceptable hassle given social constraints, I wouldn't use them, of course. (Well, I might be tempted to cast Seeming on them all and try it anyway... but I probably just wouldn't bother.) (A)D&D is all about accepting the logic of the game as it stands and playing within those constraints.