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

[Horwath]

IMHO, "power attack" should be it's own separate half-feat.

+1 STR or DEX
-1 attack, +2 damage(+3 damage for heavy melee weapons, +1 damage with light weapons)

at 5th level:
-2 attack, +4 damage(+6/+2)

at 11th level:
-3 attack, +6 damage(+9/+3)

at 17th level:
-4 attack, +8 damage(+12/+4)

 

[Stormonu]

IMHO, "power attack" should be it's own separate half-feat.

+1 STR or DEX
-1 attack, +2 damage(+3 damage for heavy melee weapons, +1 damage with light weapons)

at 5th level:
-2 attack, +4 damage(+6/+2)

at 11th level:
-3 attack, +6 damage(+9/+3)

at 17th level:
-4 attack, +8 damage(+12/+4)

I just have it direct scale to PB - lose the PB bonus to get twice that as damage. (-2/+4, -3/+6,-4/+8,-5/+10,-6/+12)

 

[Dausuul]

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.

The problem is not that the feat in isolation is powerful. The problem is that it combos with absolutely anything that boosts your accuracy, and the more accuracy boosts you can scrounge, the better it gets.

Take a 5th-level barbarian with 18 Str, a greatsword, and a 65% base chance to hit. Reckless Attack improves your hit chance to 87.75%, with a 9.75% chance of a crit. You average 2d6 (base greatsword) +4 (Str) +2 (rage) = 2d6+6 or 13 damage per hit, +7 on a crit, with two attacks. Factoring in accuracy and crits, you average 24.18 damage.

What happens if you drop Str to 16 and pick up GWM instead? Base chance to hit drops to 35%, but Reckless Attack brings it back up to 57.75%. Average damage per hit is 22, +7 on a crit. Crit chance is still 9.75%, but in addition to damage, you get a bonus attack on a crit; with two attacks, this has an 18.55% chance to trigger each round. (Bonus attack also happens on a kill, but I'll assume that cancels out the times you don't have a bonus action free.) Work it all out and you get 29.26 damage per round, or a 21% increase. That's the baseline for what you, the barbarian player, can get from the PHB on your own, and it's already quite respectable.

But what if there's a cleric in the party who casts bless? Both barbarians benefit, but the improvement to a regular barbarian -- who was already hitting 7 attacks out of 8 -- is small: Your DPR becomes 25.92. A GWM barbarian, however, shoots up to 35.81! The net benefit of GWM in this scenario is +39% DPR.

What if you find a magic weapon? With a +1 greatsword, it's a 25% DPR advantage for GWM; with a +1 greatsword and bless, it's 42%.

And in any situation where you are comparing GWM to other feats instead of to +2 Str (say variant humans are allowed, or you reach 12th level), it gets absolutely nuts. If this 5th-level barbarian is a variant human, the benefit of GWM is +39% DPR before we even consider magic weapons or spells. That's the bar another feat must reach -- if not in raw damage, then in overall tactical benefit -- to be worth taking over GWM. With a +1 greatsword and bless, it's +56%.

 

[TwoSix]

My current houserule is to just allow power attack for all weapons, as a general buff to martials.

Light weapons are -2/+4.
Heavy weapons are -6/+12.
Versatile weapons in 2 hands are -5/+10.
All other weapons are -3/+6.

GWM and SS still exist as feats, but are now half feats with the -5/+10 bullet point removed.

 

[Fanaelialae]

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.

Sure, but I was just discussing how the math works. The guy without GWM can benefit from everything you listed just as easily.

Let's look at my previous example, but assume this character has exactly enough to hit bonus that he only misses on a natural 1, and always has advantage.

Keep in mind that this is extremely generous and will certainly not always be true in actual play. For example, while advantage is admittedly easy to get, disadvantage isn't hard to inflict (and cancels out advantage).

The character has a 99.75% chance to hit, for 8 damage per hit. With GWM, they need to roll a 7 or better to hit, meaning that with advantage their chance to hit is 92%, for 18 damage.

Without GWM: 7.98 DMG
With GWM: 16.56

GWM increases the damage by about 108%.

Now let's add 9 damage for a 1st level smite to each.

Without GWM: 16.9575 DMG
With GWM: 24.84 DMG

GWM increases the damage by about 46% in this instance.

As you can see, the same trends hold in this (exceedingly generous) example. The more damage you do, the less value GWM adds. It certainly doesn't make it bad. But that's how the math works.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

IMHO, "power attack" should be it's own separate half-feat.

+1 STR or DEX
-1 attack, +2 damage(+3 damage for heavy melee weapons, +1 damage with light weapons)

at 5th level:
-2 attack, +4 damage(+6/+2)

at 11th level:
-3 attack, +6 damage(+9/+3)

at 17th level:
-4 attack, +8 damage(+12/+4)

I think that should just be a regular maneuver anyone can do. That's pretty weak for a feat.

 

[Quickleaf]

Sure, but I was just discussing how the math works. The guy without GWM can benefit from everything you listed just as easily.

Let's look at my previous example, but assume this character has exactly enough to hit bonus that he only misses on a natural 1, and always has advantage.

Keep in mind that this is extremely generous and will certainly not always be true in actual play. For example, while advantage is admittedly easy to get, disadvantage isn't hard to inflict (and cancels out advantage).

The character has a 99.75% chance to hit, for 8 damage per hit. With GWM, they need to roll a 7 or better to hit, meaning that with advantage their chance to hit is 92%, for 18 damage.

Without GWM: 7.98 DMG
With GWM: 16.56

GWM increases the damage by about 108%.

Now let's add 9 damage for a 1st level smite to each.

Without GWM: 16.9575 DMG
With GWM: 24.84 DMG

GWM increases the damage by about 46% in this instance.

As you can see, the same trends hold in this (exceedingly generous) example. The more damage you do, the less value GWM adds. It certainly doesn't make it bad. But that's how the math works.

Gotcha. Yeah, didn't mean to question your point about diminishing returns from GWM the higher per attack damage. Absolutely a good point.

 

[FrogReaver]

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

I don’t find the -5/+10 for rogue to be very good. Even with EA. As you level and sneak attack damage bonus adds up, the damage difference is less and less and at some point becomes basically nothing.

Now sharpshooter for range and ignoring cover is good! But that’s more tactical than an outright damage buff.

 

[FrogReaver]

I just have it direct scale to PB - lose the PB bonus to get twice that as damage. (-2/+4, -3/+6,-4/+8,-5/+10,-6/+12)

I’ve never understood the fascination with PB scaling of power attack feats.

 

[FrogReaver]

Sure, but I was just discussing how the math works. The guy without GWM can benefit from everything you listed just as easily.

Let's look at my previous example, but assume this character has exactly enough to hit bonus that he only misses on a natural 1, and always has advantage.

Keep in mind that this is extremely generous and will certainly not always be true in actual play. For example, while advantage is admittedly easy to get, disadvantage isn't hard to inflict (and cancels out advantage).

The character has a 99.75% chance to hit, for 8 damage per hit. With GWM, they need to roll a 7 or better to hit, meaning that with advantage their chance to hit is 92%, for 18 damage.

Without GWM: 7.98 DMG
With GWM: 16.56

GWM increases the damage by about 108%.

Now let's add 9 damage for a 1st level smite to each.

Without GWM: 16.9575 DMG
With GWM: 24.84 DMG

GWM increases the damage by about 46% in this instance.

As you can see, the same trends hold in this (exceedingly generous) example. The more damage you do, the less value GWM adds. It certainly doesn't make it bad. But that's how the math works.

IMO. The better part of GWM at least lower level is the ability to smite kill an enemy and be rewarded with a bonus action attack.