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

[Ancalagon]

How does crossbow expert give an extra attack again? Is this the two hand crossbows no need of extra hands to reload thing again?

I do agree that sharpshooter is more problematic given archery style and the general tactical benefits of ranged attacks...

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[Xeviat]

How does crossbow expert give an extra attack again? Is this the two hand crossbows no need of extra hands to reload thing again?

I do agree that sharpshooter is more problematic given archery style and the general tactical benefits of ranged attacks...

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Hand crossbows are one handed weapons. Crossbow expert lets you make a bonus action attack with a hand crossbow whenever you make an attack with a one handed weapon. So it's TWFing with a single weapon.


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[FrogReaver]

I've done the math on all this before. There is something off with your analysis IMO. It doesn't come close to what I've computed before.

A few guidelines. Precision used correctly over a day comes out very close to +3 attack for the whole day. Math on this is complicated. I ultimately ran a Monte Carlo simulation to figure this out.

Precision is better for any fighters dpr. Even the dual wield fighter.

Here we are, the final countdown. Thank you for your patience.

So featless Rodrigo went "wait a minute, I have maneuvers too! Ha-ya!". But instead of using precision - he already is pretty good at hitting - he decided to use a maneuver that gives him *damage*. And well... suddenly GWM isn't so awesome anymore. I mean it's still decent, but it's not that stark.

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It's also worth noting that several of the damaging maneuvers only have to be declared when you hit - so there is no chance of a "wasted" maneuver dice. A precision maneuver may fail (ie you need 3 more to hit but you roll a 2 on your d8). Furthermore, several of the damaging maneuvers also can impose negative conditions on the target - fear, being tripped etc.

At this point someone may say "but what if GWM Rodrigo uses precision and damaging maneuvers!" OR a bard inspiration, the luck feat etc etc etc. Sure. But you always have to compare that to featless Rodrigo *also* using more maneuvers, bard juice etc etc etc. And that is THE KEY ELEMENT that seems to be always missing from these analysis - we need to compare like with like. First people were comparing base attacks to GWM + advantage. I showed that if both had advantage, the difference wasn't so great. Then other bonuses got piled on - but again, if you compare PROPERLY it's not such a big difference.

There also comes a point where it's ridiculous to pile too much stuff into a single attack. For example Rodrigo could have had the lucky feat and used it too. Sure but now Rodrigo only has 16 strength... and wouldn't you want to spread out those bonus rolls? Or better yet, keep it for something more important than a single attack, like a key skill check or save?

So in conclusion, I used to think that GWM was OP - maybe not as broken as some made it out to be, but still too good. Now... maybe it's OP?

 

[jgsugden]

For GWM to have a significant impact on a combat, the use of it must result in the party having different amounts of resources left after the combat than if it was not used. Even when it is used effectively and deals more damage, it often does not change the amount of resources the PCs have left after the combat at all, and when it does change it, it is often a change that nobody really cares about.

For example (with simplified math to exhibit the points):

* If the PC deals 25 damage with GWM and 15 without it, if the monster has 26 to 30 hps, it takes the same number of hits to take it down with or without it.
* If the PC deals 25 damage with GWM and misses every other attack (needing an 11) (hit, miss, hit, miss, etc...) and deals 15 on a hit and misses every fourth attack (needing a 6) (hit, hit, hit, miss), an enemy with 26 to 45 hit points will fall on the third attack for both.
* If you take down an enemy one round faster due to GWM, but the monster would have missed on their attacks in the extra round they'd survive without the GWM being used, the PCs do not lose any extra hps.

I don't know of anyone else that has tried to measure how many resources the feat saves. However, I did a fairly tedious study with a lot of mock battles trying to control for strategy, die luck, etc... with the explicit goal to see if using GWM put you in a better position at the end of the battle - and in over half of the scenarios it did not. When it did, it usually proved advantageous, but not always - but the difference was a few extra hps lost or an extra spell slot or two used up.

Only twice did it make a major difference out of 16 tested scenarios. Obviously, trying to control for so much in such a broad open game is not going to be perfect, and every groups games will have different encounter designs that will differ from what I mocked up, but I felt like I got a pretty nice view that GWM is not having the overwhelming impact on games that people assume it is having. It is splashy with big damage numbers, but not over the top.

 

[FrogReaver]

Maybe your expectations are off for what 1 player should be able to accomplish even with a very good feat. That there's too many variables to really know if your analysis was biased or not without hearing more elaboration on it.

For GWM to have a significant impact on a combat, the use of it must result in the party having different amounts of resources left after the combat than if it was not used. Even when it is used effectively and deals more damage, it often does not change the amount of resources the PCs have left after the combat at all, and when it does change it, it is often a change that nobody really cares about.

For example (with simplified math to exhibit the points):

* If the PC deals 25 damage with GWM and 15 without it, if the monster has 26 to 30 hps, it takes the same number of hits to take it down with or without it.
* If the PC deals 25 damage with GWM and misses every other attack (needing an 11) (hit, miss, hit, miss, etc...) and deals 15 on a hit and misses every fourth attack (needing a 6) (hit, hit, hit, miss), an enemy with 26 to 45 hit points will fall on the third attack for both.
* If you take down an enemy one round faster due to GWM, but the monster would have missed on their attacks in the extra round they'd survive without the GWM being used, the PCs do not lose any extra hps.

I don't know of anyone else that has tried to measure how many resources the feat saves. However, I did a fairly tedious study with a lot of mock battles trying to control for strategy, die luck, etc... with the explicit goal to see if using GWM put you in a better position at the end of the battle - and in over half of the scenarios it did not. When it did, it usually proved advantageous, but not always - but the difference was a few extra hps lost or an extra spell slot or two used up.

Only twice did it make a major difference out of 16 tested scenarios. Obviously, trying to control for so much in such a broad open game is not going to be perfect, and every groups games will have different encounter designs that will differ from what I mocked up, but I felt like I got a pretty nice view that GWM is not having the overwhelming impact on games that people assume it is having. It is splashy with big damage numbers, but not over the top.

 

[FrogReaver]

In a 5 person party each pc will maybe contribute 20-25% to combat.

Having 1 pc increase combat effectiveness even by 50% will make the party about 10% more effective. That sounds like a spell and a few hp saved to me. (At least most the time)

 

[jgsugden]

Maybe your expectations are off for what 1 player should be able to accomplish even with a very good feat. That there's too many variables to really know if your analysis was biased or not without hearing more elaboration on it.

I was expecting to show that the feat had a huge impact. I chalked up the early results in the testing to odd luck, but they kept coming up similarly as I progressed through testing at different levels.

I simulated/ran a party of one wizard, one cleric and two (human variant) fighters through 4 encounters at each of the following levels: 1, 6, 11 and 17 (for a total of 16 encounters). One was medium, one hard, one difficult, and one double the XP for difficult. I recorded every die roll and every result for each combat. I had rules about what strategies the PCs and monsters would use that I tried to follow as consistently as possible (any set of rules you try to envision falls apart when you face 'real' combat scenarios). When I ran the PCs through the simulations, the fighters had GWM and used it for EVERY attack.

Then, I ran the same simulation, but I had the fighters use GWM optimally (only where it was more likely to result in more damage). I used the same rolls for the same purposes by the same entities. In other words, the first attack by Fighter 1 in a combat used the same attack die roll. The first save by the same PC used the same save die roll result, whether it was for the same monster ability or a different one. If I ran out of previously used rolls, I added more to the series and recorded them.

I then repeated everything a THIRD time, but treated the fighters as if they did not have GWM. I did not replace it with an ability score bonus or other feat. I just ignored that feat. I again used the same die rolls in the same order and tried to use the same strategies.

I considered doing it a FOURTH time, treating the human fighters as if they were not variant humans, but just normal humans, but I decided it was not necessary as it was unlikely to have much of a difference.

The medium and hard battles only saw a few minor changes in remaining resources in a few of the scenarios. Some extra hps lost here or there, maybe a few extra spells. I think it was 5 of the 8 medium and hard challenges across the levels actually results in no changes in used resources at all and 3 of 8 saw minor differences that nobody would really care about.

1 or 2 of the 4 deadly also had absolutely no difference in used resources. The others were also situations in which hp totals might differ in how scenarios play out in at least one of the three approaches - spells used changed a bit more at higher levels especially (11 and 17)... but it would not have been something that made the party try to rest earlier (IMO).

The twice deadly encounters saw the most change as you would expect. All 4 saw changes and one of the changes was quite drastic - the battle lasted several more rounds and the PCs took a lot more damage, using a lot more spells (Mariliths are resource eaters - they suck up hps). However, the other three were not earth shaking differences, although they were bigger.

In the end, I concluded that GWM is generally inconsequential for anything less than deadly and, although it can have an impact on really difficult changes, it wasn't as big as I expected it to be.

 

[FrogReaver]

How many times did you run the battles? Were there turns the fighters couldn't move to a position they could attack something? How often? How many enemies were typically fielded? A few large enemies or many smaller or something in between? How many control spells / abilities were given to the enemies?

Was this a daily string of encounters or did you give fresh resources each encounter? How did the wizard and cleric behave? Did they unload their best spells early and just keep casting big ones?

did you factor in the bonus attack for killing and crowing enemies?

 

[guachi]

So is the problem really the Champion's expanded critical range?

It's obviously the extreme example of getting the bonus action attack. It's worth starting there because if the Champion doesn't do crazy damage from the bonus action attack then no one will.

My guess is that a regular fighter, probably the best candidate for GWM, will do 10-15% extra damage just from the bonus action attack (and not using the -5/+10 part) over a non-GWM player. A lot depends on how often you think that fighter will drop a target to 0 with any particular hit. GWF does 13.33 damage per hit with 20 Strength and 23.33 with the +10 portion.

Basically, it's enough extra damage I find any analysis between GWM and not-GWM to be incomplete and probably useless if you don't account for it. It accounts for a larger chunk of the extra damage than most people realize.

If you (or anyone) were to give me a target AC and an estimate of how often you think a non-critical hit with and without the -5/+10 portion drops a foe to zero I can give you a comparison of damage.

The only think I'm missing at that point is a real simulator that subtracts overkill damage to a foe.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's obviously the extreme example of getting the bonus action attack. It's worth starting there because if the Champion doesn't do crazy damage from the bonus action attack then no one will.

My guess is that a regular fighter, probably the best candidate for GWM, will do 10-15% extra damage just from the bonus action attack (and not using the -5/+10 part) over a non-GWM player. A lot depends on how often you think that fighter will drop a target to 0 with any particular hit. GWF does 13.33 damage per hit with 20 Strength and 23.33 with the +10 portion.

Basically, it's enough extra damage I find any analysis between GWM and not-GWM to be incomplete and probably useless if you don't account for it. It accounts for a larger chunk of the extra damage than most people realize.

If you (or anyone) were to give me a target AC and an estimate of how often you think a non-critical hit with and without the -5/+10 portion drops a foe to zero I can give you a comparison of damage.

The only think I'm missing at that point is a real simulator that subtracts overkill damage to a foe.

In making a comparison of 2 equal dpr candidates I can see overkill mattering. Or if you fight a lot of enemies you can 1 hit kill. Otherwise attacking the same creature over multiple turns the higher dpr character will yield a faster kill on average even if he does more overkill damage on the killing hit.