D&D 5E Current take on GWM/SS

[Thyrwyn]

I'm convinced. We should ban Bless.

 

[Minigiant]

What type of style is TWF?

Monsters don't that crazy of damage compared to a party, at least not single target monsters. Groups of things like giants or demons do pretty decent damage though. There are ways to get rid of them as well.

TWF is an offensive style. The only issue is that it needs external buffs like spells and magic times to do its crazy damage and most of the repeatable damage buffs were purposely lock out of TWF users.

Monster do a lot of damage at high level if they hit. PC HP is low for none defensive builds. Downing high level PCs is rarely but it doesn't chip down like 4e or 2e. A monster with a CR close to your level can drop a PC easy with 2 lucky rolls sometimes.

 

[DaveDash]

I still don't see the problem.

Archery and Heavy Weapons styles are offensive damage dealers.
The feats are balanced with +2 Strength/Dexterity.

The only valid complaint to the power of these feats is when you hit the ability score cap for your attack stat. The feats are more valuable to boosting a secondary score like +2 Con for 1/HP per level and +1 to poison/cod/necrotic/death saves.

And even that is debatable as monsters do crazy damage by the time you hit the ability score cap.

Crazy damage? Unless you design your own monsters like I do, the ones out of the MM do smaller percentages of damages vs PC hps as you level up.

Dragons which have one of the most feared attacks in the game only do 1/3 HP damage to a fighter at high levels, which can mostly be healed away with one spell.

Also killing stuff quickly - especially from range where you're safe (SS gives you a range advantage) is better than planning on soaking damage.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Then as I suspected it's the approach is what's making the feat questionable. The feat itself is otherwise okay given a different approach. In a roleplaying game, I submit that game balance (read: combat balance) is only important as it relates to sharing the spotlight.

As an side, it might be worthwhile to examine why the group prefers combat to the other pillars. As DM, I'd be asking myself, "What can I do to make exploration and social interaction more appealing to my players?" I'd also be asking the players. Exploration and social interaction can be really boring if the DM doesn't present it in a particular way. The key is to present it in a way that engages the players. In the case of players who are keen on math and combat, rewarding exploration and social interaction with things that will give them a boon in combat later is one easy way to do it. Another way is to make sure the stakes for scenes drawing upon the other two pillars are as compelling as combat. This is fodder for another thread, of course, but it's worth considering I think.

All good advice.

 

[Minigiant]

Crazy damage? Unless you design your own monsters like I do, the ones out of the MM do smaller percentages of damages vs PC hps as you level up.

Dragons which have one of the most feared attacks in the game only do 1/3 HP damage to a fighter at high levels, which can mostly be healed away with one spell.

Also killing stuff quickly - especially from range where you're safe (SS gives you a range advantage) is better than planning on soaking damage.

Well the monsters in the MM are weak to be interesting. If you use the DMG guidelines, things can go bad quick if the DM rolls well.

For a medium-hard fight for a level 11 4 member party, a horned devil does

Fork/Fork/Tail at +10 for 15/15/10 damage (Con DC 17 for 10 more)
4 hurled flames at +10 and 14 damage each.
DMG Generic Devil does +8 for 72 damage

It's only kill mages outright and the DM has to be lucky but stuff happens. I did say a feat is more valuable than a Con boost. But it is a debate. By far the most powerful feats when I DM are Actor, Linguist, Keen Mind, and Observant as I am a "totally telegraphed ambush or trap, don't blame me for this" DM.

 

[Coredump]

His maths means nothing. It's a very specific scenario which is probably the least unfavourable to prove anything about these feats.

Wow... how convenient. It was *not my scenario*. It was the one that Celtavian presented to 'prove' how unbalanced the feat was. Except his numbers didn't match up, and if he remembered them accurately, then the fighter was *really* lucky.

But hey, if you don't like that scenario.... by all means present one you do like. But since we know that those 'pesky details' can make a lot of difference, those need to be included also.

I have hundreds of dice rolls that prove that SS at the very least equates to roughly a 2:1 damage output. I find it more hilarious people are taking very specific white room maths over real play data.

Hundreds of dice rolls? That is what, one or two encounters? Three maybe?

Then present them, because otherwise you are just making arbitrary claims and proclaiming that you are right.

(NOTE: You did present some, and I will get to those in a moment.)

 

[Ashkelon]

Thanks for the reply. I'm aware that all the buffs and condition you listed will make those two feats even stronger. I just tried to show, that the targets AC is the main factor and if you guys think that GWM and SS are hurting your game you can play with them, just give monsters a +2 or +3 on their AC, limit magic items with high +hit mods and you are good to go.
I believe stunning, knocking enemies prone, etc. should be effective methods to increase your damage output. The only thing we cut is "bless".

Here is the issue with that line of thinking. You are essentially saying that to counteract GWM and Sharpshooter, you should give monsters greater defenses and hand out less treasure. Well, sure that works for experienced DMs, but that doesn't work for newb DMs or adventure league. Nor does it work when some party members have these feats and others do not. In fact, that suggestion artificially punishes the players who don't choose those feats (or can't because the don't use a ranged or two handed weapon).

Not only that, all you have done is create a treadmill where you are increasing the monsters defenses because the game designers created a bad feat that makes combat too easy. Isn't it a better solution to change the feat so combat isn't made trivially easy in the first place?

Furthermore, gaining advantage is a good enough boon of its own right. Using hold monster to give the melee warriors free advantage and free crits is amazingly powerful. Using faerie fire to give everyone advantage on attacks for s whole encounter is similarly powerful. But when combined with SS and GWM they become absurdly powerful. Those fears simply increase player damage by too much with any party with an inkling of tactical sense.

Even the free attack on a crit is a fairly noticeable boost to damage per round. The -5/+10 portion of those feats simply isn't needed. Those feats would be fine if changed to to -2/+3 or +1 Str or Dex. But with how easy it is to boost your accuracy in 5e and with how low your typical enemies AC is, those feats are just too much.

 

[DaveDash]

Wow... how convenient. It was *not my scenario*. It was the one that Celtavian presented to 'prove' how unbalanced the feat was. Except his numbers didn't match up, and if he remembered them accurately, then the fighter was *really* lucky.

But hey, if you don't like that scenario.... by all means present one you do like. But since we know that those 'pesky details' can make a lot of difference, those need to be included also.

Hundreds of dice rolls? That is what, one or two encounters? Three maybe?

Then present them, because otherwise you are just making arbitrary claims and proclaiming that you are right.

(NOTE: You did present some, and I will get to those in a moment.)

Until you can prove with maths all the factors that happen in a real game, your posts are meaningless.

You claimed way back in this thread that 2:1 almost never happens. Wrong. I've given some sample data but its a bit of work going back and compiling all this stuff so I don't feel the need to do any more.

If you wanted to get objective it about it you'd do your own experiments to see for yourself, instead of trying to prove your maths arguments are correct.

 

[DaveDash]

Well the monsters in the MM are weak to be interesting. If you use the DMG guidelines, things can go bad quick if the DM rolls well.

For a medium-hard fight for a level 11 4 member party, a horned devil does

Fork/Fork/Tail at +10 for 15/15/10 damage (Con DC 17 for 10 more)
4 hurled flames at +10 and 14 damage each.
DMG Generic Devil does +8 for 72 damage

It's only kill mages outright and the DM has to be lucky but stuff happens. I did say a feat is more valuable than a Con boost. But it is a debate. By far the most powerful feats when I DM are Actor, Linguist, Keen Mind, and Observant as I am a "totally telegraphed ambush or trap, don't blame me for this" DM.

Yes the DMG guidelines create much more powerful monsters. The MM ones are very weak. But those monsters are out of scope in this discussion IMO.

Sorry for the laugh. Posting on mobile on this site is frustrating at best.

 

[Ashkelon]

Wait, who was saying that the math shows that GWM and SS don't significantly increase player damage. How can they even make that claim? The math clearly shows the opposite (and that is before taking into account the large number of ways to increase accuracy they are easily available to players).