D&D 5E Great Weapon Mastery - once more into the breach! (with math)

[TwoSix]

Yep, white room can help point out some problems. And yes, if a DM allows that kind of boosting these feats can become quite troublesome. On the other hand, the white room can make something quite normal appear quite unbalanced if taken too far. Extremes are just that, extremes...

I'll be honest, I don't feel you read my post re: intra-PC concept choice.

 

[FrogReaver]

No, numbers don't lie.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?553760-Repeatable-DPR-Kings

For and giggles, throw in a Vorpal blade to be real crazy.

I looked into the math on that. I didn't redo everything but it looks pretty accurate after getting a chance to check it out.

I wonder how an elven accuracy Barbarian Fighter using a greatsword and GWF would stand?

 

[Yunru]

I looked into the math on that. I didn't redo everything but it looks pretty accurate after getting a chance to check it out.

I wonder how an elven accuracy Barbarian Fighter using a greatsword and GWF would stand?

Haha
I don't think it'd add enough to offset all the dice that get doubled on a crit unfortunately, but I'm fairly certain blow regular GWFs out of the water.
It does also make you a bit of a glass cannon though, with everyone having advantage against you (the hopeful counter measure is to kill them first with overwhelming damage).

Alas, still no match for a spellcaster.

#EndCasterSuperiority

 

[FrogReaver]

Haha
I don't think it'd add enough to offset all the dice that get doubled on a crit unfortunately, but I'm fairly certain blow regular GWFs out of the water.
It does also make you a bit of a glass cannon though, with everyone having advantage against you (the hopeful counter measure is to kill them first with overwhelming damage).

Alas, still no match for a spellcaster.

#EndCasterSuperiority

I think it will more than compete with your crit fisher. I'll do the math some day

 

[Helldritch]

I'll be honest, I don't feel you read my post re: intra-PC concept choice.

Were you talking about this?

When a feat affects a character's bread and butter round-in, round-out combat contribution, that's when I think a more judicious eye towards balance should be applied. Especially when they provide a de-facto steering towards certain concepts, and away from others. I would have much less of a problem with GWM/SS, for example, if they were replaced with a feat called "Power Attack", which gives a -5 to hit for +10 to damage for any weapon attack. It's still not perfect (the offensive boost provided could well be considered a feat tax, and it puts melee attackers without Extra Attack (like rogue) too far behind every other melee attacker), but at least it puts dual-wielders and one-handed weapon users in the same range as two-weapon fighters and archers.

That's my principal concern with balance, to see that player choice of concepts not be constrained by any concern about base utility.

I read it. I don't feel like my players (doing melee characters) feel that they must absolutely have a GWM or a SS in the group to be effective. In fact, the highest DPR characters so far in both of my current group are the two assassins...

But your idea of a power attack feat is quite interesting. Maybe it could be restrained to one handed weapons. This would counter balance the GWM...

 

[Hillsy7]

When a feat affects a character's bread and butter round-in, round-out combat contribution, that's when I think a more judicious eye towards balance should be applied. Especially when they provide a de-facto steering towards certain concepts, and away from others. I would have much less of a problem with GWM/SS, for example, if they were replaced with a feat called "Power Attack", which gives a -5 to hit for +10 to damage for any weapon attack. It's still not perfect (the offensive boost provided could well be considered a feat tax, and it puts melee attackers without Extra Attack (like rogue) too far behind every other melee attacker), but at least it puts dual-wielders and one-handed weapon users in the same range as two-weapon fighters and archers.

That's my principal concern with balance, to see that player choice of concepts not be constrained by any concern about base utility.

I don't necessarily disagree - I think there is always a risk with add on abilities like feats (and to be fair, in spell choices occasionally), where there can be a feeling of being corralled. I know when I was listening to the penny arcade podcasts around the playtest launch I was quote excited about totally compartmentalised classes where certain core abilities could be bolted on.

Having said that, I don't think 5e has done too bad a job with supporting design choice rather than simply fracturing it across the core class, feats, & archetypes. Specifically, I feel like the 3 feats we've been talking about (GWM, SS, and SM) feel like bonuses to already selected play styles (GWF, Archery, and Duelling), should you want them. And here's where I'd probably let them have a little helping hand to the non-optimising player to have that "Awesome" thing they do.

So a GWF gets to have his "power attack" move, but it isn't as good against high AC targets (Crazy power-gaming aside). Your Duellist has a free "shield bash" move which makes them good against high AC enemies, but is less impressive against High HP, Low AC enemies (Or really large ones). An Archer has a "Power Attack" too, and a +
which helps with high AC, but doesn't get opportunity attacks. This feels like a very simple pro-con supplement to the more casual player who's already picked his play style.

Yes, there are mitigations for all of these, but I wouldn't say they are so screamingly obvious as to ruin other choices. And hell, watching a few live streams of D&D, there's quite a few occasions where players simply forget the can "Power Attack" or get a free chance at a knock down. It is a little obvious ("Look at this cool feat you can use Mr Fighter who gets lots of extra feats - Cooeee!"), but I do think it helps that less experienced player get to be awesome at something in certain situations.

But then again I'm pretty comfortable with GWM as it stands and think it does add something positive to a large chuck of players that'd be lacking if you rounded it down....

 

[Hillsy7]

Then it's simply a matter of % chance of dropping a foe to zero with a non-critical hit multiplied by the chance of hitting with a non-critical hit.

Wouldn't you have to estimate the % of time there was another enemy within 5ft when you drop an enemy to zero to get a rough estimate?

 

[TwoSix]

But then again I'm pretty comfortable with GWM as it stands and think it does add something positive to a large chuck of players that'd be lacking if you rounded it down....

Yea, I guess I'm not seeing its positive contribution. I guess I'd rather just see ASI's as the "do what you do better" feature, and feats as a feature that broadens your capabilities. Easy to explain to newcomers, and then every fighting style has its benefits and drawbacks, nothing really out of wack. Really, it's just the trio of GWM, SS, and CE that cause me problems.

 

[Ancalagon]

First thing, remember "remember the extremes".

Rodrigo is only level 7 and has only two attacks. A minmaxed level 15 character can have five attacks.

11 levels of fighter (battlemaster): 3 main attacks plus one "off hand" attack
4 levels of ranger (hunter): adds Horde Breaker "free" attack everytime target has an adjacent ally (which is very common).

As you sort of argued yourself earlier, I believe that the proper metric of measurement is per attack.

Now you're probably wondering why I'm bringing up two-weapon fighting in a GWM discussion. That is because greatweapon wielders aren't the only ones capable of abusing the heck out of the -5/+10 mechanism.

A hand crossbow wielder also gets access to this, through Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert. And Archery alone nearly negates half the -5 all by itself.

I don't dispute that sharpshooter + crossbow expert + archery fighting style is probably broken. It is important here that we stay focused and don't go on tangeants.

Not sure why you feel to phrase it like this, as if I (or others) have ever suggested otherwise.

Well, you kinda did... Remember this?

If only there were a way to effectively lower the AC even more...

And, of course, a powergamer finds a way. Bardic Inspiration. Precision Maneuvers. There are more.

Of course these help a GWM guy hits, but they also help a non GWM guy hit! That's my point!

If you think about it, adding that same die to make sure an 2d6+15 attack hits gives a much larger benefit for the same buck (=precision maneuver).

The math indicates otherwise

Even if we say the superiority die only turns a miss into a hit half the time, half of 2d6+15 is still 11 - way more than the average of the die itself.

Again, the math indicates otherwise. And a precision dice can only be applied on 8/20 rolls. If you missed by 9, adding a d8 won't help. If you hit, adding that d8 won't help either. I calculated the increased average damaged based on the odd of *each number with advantage* coming up and then the *odds of the d8 making a difference* for every number in that 8/20 range, for each AC tested (12, 15, 18, 21). "if we say half the time" - not precise enough.

And more importantly, you don't need to use a Precision maneuver on every attack, only the ones that miss (and don't miss big).

Correct -but the precision maneuver may not even pay off at all. You may have missed by a 3, and then roll a 2 on your d8. The damage dice maneuvers are added on a *hit* - ie you *always* are getting a bang for your buck. That's pretty significant.

Say (again very roughly, just for example's sake) you hit (without precision) half the time. This means that the average benefit of Precision superiority dice doubles (since half the time, you gain all the damage without having to spend your superiority die) back to 22.

Again your roughly half doesn't seem to ban out.

And, just for complete transparancy, that 2d6+15 (or 22 on average) might be "only" 1d6+15 (since we could be talking, not greatswords, but hand crossbows). Still, that averages out to 18 if we round down.

Okay, so what's the deal with "22 on average" - don't you ever miss? Yes, we do. And so 22 is actually slightly high.

Say our attack bonus is +12, or +7 when using -5/+10. Note: no magic bonuses assumed - this assumes Archery, and is equivalent to a GWM user with a magical +2 greatweapon.

Against AC 15, this means he has a 87% chance of hitting. In other words, there is only a 13% risk of having to use his superiority d10's.

But wait! The risk of actually rolling so low that a d10 doesn't stand a very good chance of turning miss into hit is only... (at this point, let's assume we won't "waste" our superiority dice on rolls of 1, 2 and 3. The probability of rolling 4, 5, 6 or 7 on a d20 with advantage is 10%. The probability of the miss actually becoming a hit is then 70%, 80%, 90%, and 100% respectively, or 85% on average.

So we have the following outcomes:
Rolling 1-3: 2.25%
Rolling 4-7, adding Precision and still missing: 1.5%
Rolling 4-7, adding Precision and turning miss into hit: 8.5%
Rolling 8-20: 87%

Our character has an excellent ~95% chance of delivering his 18 (1d6+15) damage each attack, which means that his average DPR will be 18x5x95%=86.5

Also note that he will have to spend an average of 0.5 superiority dice (10% chance each attack) each such round, so he can keep this up for ten (10) rounds.

---

Now let's contrast this to another character that didn't pick GWM (or SS/CE) and didn't pick Precision. This character's party is just as good at fixing advantage for our hero, so that part stays the same.

The best base damage will be 2d6+1d10+7 or 19. (Now I'm generously giving this guy a +2 Greatsword. He's going to need it)

Everything else stays the same, so he still hits on 8+

So we have the following outcomes:
Rolling 1-7: 13%
Rolling 8-20: 87%

His average DPR is 19x5x87%=83

83 is almost equal to 86. What gives?

Now note that this hero spends a superiority die in 87% of all attacks. He spends an average of 4,35 superiority dice per round, burning through all his such dice in less than two rounds.

(Though to be fair: he will gain something more than the superiority damage. He might for instance make the foe prone, thus saving on other advantage-enabling party resources)

---

Ok this is just a mess. One guy has magical weapon one doesn't, one is using a hand crossbow one isn't... and as I've pointed out before, the guy without GWM doesn't seem to have something else to compensate (higher stats, another feat, whatever... is that why you gave him a magic weapon?). AND your math for the benefits of precision is very fuzzy. I'm very reluctant to accept this conclusion, it lacks robustness.

 

[FrogReaver]

Haha
I don't think it'd add enough to offset all the dice that get doubled on a crit unfortunately, but I'm fairly certain blow regular GWFs out of the water.
It does also make you a bit of a glass cannon though, with everyone having advantage against you (the hopeful counter measure is to kill them first with overwhelming damage).

Alas, still no match for a spellcaster.

#EndCasterSuperiority

So the fighter barbarian with elven accuracy and using precision (assuming I added precision maneuver into the equation correctly) is telling me that the fighter barbarian with a greatsword does more damage than your crit fisher in most situations. No magic weapon. No other abilities used except barbarian rage, reckless attack and precision attack. Requires 11 levels of fighter and 2 levels of barbarian. I am looking at level 20 DPR. Any other classes can be used afterwards.

AC DPR
11 89.35
12 89.27
13 89.07
14 88.68
15 88.03
16 87.05
17 85.70
18 83.90
19 81.58
20 78.69
21 75.16
22 70.92
23 65.92
24 60.08
25 53.35
26 45.66
27 36.94
28 27.13
29 16.18
30 16.18