D&D 5E Sharpshooter/Great Weapon Master and Why They Are Broken 101.

[Zardnaar]

My group is obviously quite different from yours, with a very diffent playstyle. This then leads to YMMV, as the feats appear to be broken in your group. But after 30 years of DMing, I may have developed different techniques to handle these sorts of situations, rather than resorting to the insistence that the game rules themselves are broken.

Well there was a lot of broken stuff in 3E as well. But a lot of groups did not play the way some on the boards played so the game was not broken for a lot of players.

In a vacumn persistent spell is not broken. Throw in divine metamagic, divine power and a few other bits and pieces though. When 5E 1st landed my PCs went a bit gonzo with the PCs these days not so much.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

...Of the two feats SS is generally regarded as the worst one since you can get a +2 bonus to hit off the archery style if you are a Fighter or Ranger. That turns SS into a -3/+10 effect.

I can't take your math seriously when you phrase things this inaccurately: You cannot turn the Sharpshooter effect into -3 to-hit for +10 damage by adding the +2 bonus from the archery fighting style, you also have to target an AC so low that you would only miss on a 1 without taking the penalty from Sharpshooter and would hit on a roll of 4+ on the die.

Because otherwise you are still a full 5 points behind what you would have if not taking the penalty.

That inaccuracy of presentation aside; your math and examples do not show that the results achieved are actually bad for the game in any way since they require teamwork between characters and specific selection of abilities to aid in that team goal - which seems to me to be working as intended.

 

[Zardnaar]

I can't take your math seriously when you phrase things this inaccurately: You cannot turn the Sharpshooter effect into -3 to-hit for +10 damage by adding the +2 bonus from the archery fighting style, you also have to target an AC so low that you would only miss on a 1 without taking the penalty from Sharpshooter and would hit on a roll of 4+ on the die.

Because otherwise you are still a full 5 points behind what you would have if not taking the penalty.

That inaccuracy of presentation aside; your math and examples do not show that the results achieved are actually bad for the game in any way since they require teamwork between characters and specific selection of abilities to aid in that team goal - which seems to me to be working as intended.

And yet the archery style does help mitigate the penalty. With bless in effect you now have the option of.

1. +4.5 to hit OR
2.+ 10 damage

And even on higher AC targets if you can spam enough attacks odds are some of your shots will hit you are still better off using SS over +4.5 to hit.

No one can really say wrking as intended but see how they designed extra damage into the classes and how careful they were with it (bonus action attacks or bonus dice of damage) I think a +10 bonus to all damage is not working as intended.

Which is what these feasts functionally turn into and even if 60% of your attacks miss the ones that do connect you are still dealing more damage than what you would had you not taken the -5 penalty and hit 100% of the time.

 

[Prism]

This again. All I will say is that it is impossible to negate the penalty to hit completely (unless the AC is super low), and you are still -5 to hit behind the rest of the party. At low levels (up to about 8th) the average damage increase is tiny. At higher levels it becomes a little more, but we are still talking about around 2-3 extra points of damage per hit (assuming bless). Barbarians can push it a little more with constant advantage but only get 2 attacks. That certainly doesn't break my game.

You get to kill the hordes a little bit faster. When it really matters against a tough high level opponent with a high AC, it barely makes a dent on them. If you happen to get a magic weapon that has a bonus to damage (eg flame tongue) then its usually not worth using the feat at all.

Of the two feats, sharpshooter is slightly better due to the ignoring cover and the reliability of ranged combat in general when it comes to rarely wasting a round.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

And yet the archery style does help mitigate the penalty.

Again, no it doesn't. The penalty is always there unless you are also targeting an AC that you would only miss on a 1 normally, and would only miss on less than 5 numbers higher while taking the penalty - to phrase that clearly, unless you only miss on a natural 1 normally, and only miss on a natural 1-5 when taking the penalty, it is still a -5 penalty both in name and in effect.

With bless in effect you now have the option of.

1. +4.5 to hit OR
2.+ 10 damage

Again, you are phrasing something in such a way as to make it an untrue statement even if what you are meaning to convey were the truth.

No one can really say wrking as intended but see how they designed extra damage into the classes and how careful they were with it (bonus action attacks or bonus dice of damage) I think a +10 bonus to all damage is not working as intended.

I absolutely can say "working as intended" even though extra damage from other sources is less prone to amplified effect through teamwork.

I can do so because I can see that teamwork as being intended to make each option put into it more powerful - because that's how to encourage teamwork; you make it actually work and be worth something.

...even if 60% of your attacks miss the ones that do connect you are still dealing more damage than what you would had you not taken the -5 penalty and hit 100% of the time.

If you miss more often and deal more damage when you hit, you have to first deal all of the damage you would have dealt when hitting more often before you start getting into the territory of dealing more than you otherwise would have.

So let's go ahead and put some numbers to your claim here and see if it holds true as you have chosen to phrase it: 40% of attacks with the feat benefit hit vs. 100% of attacks without it, that means that the attacks with the benefit of the feat have to do 2.5 times the amount of damage in order to match, and more than that to pull ahead - so the +10 damage from the feat needs to be greater than 1.5 times the base damage of an attack. Which means the base damage of an attack has to be lower than 6.6 (repeating).

Which is not the case with any two-handed weapon I'm aware of unless the character in question has a +1 or lower strength modifier (since two-handed weapons have 1d10, 1d12, or 2d6 damage).

So your claim is shown as being factually inaccurate - so we can't reasonably use it to determine how we feel about whatever the actual case of the feat's performance is.

 

[Zardnaar]

Again, no it doesn't. The penalty is always there unless you are also targeting an AC that you would only miss on a 1 normally, and would only miss on less than 5 numbers higher while taking the penalty - to phrase that clearly, unless you only miss on a natural 1 normally, and only miss on a natural 1-5 when taking the penalty, it is still a -5 penalty both in name and in effect.

Again, you are phrasing something in such a way as to make it an untrue statement even if what you are meaning to convey were the truth.

I absolutely can say "working as intended" even though extra damage from other sources is less prone to amplified effect through teamwork.

I can do so because I can see that teamwork as being intended to make each option put into it more powerful - because that's how to encourage teamwork; you make it actually work and be worth something.

If you miss more often and deal more damage when you hit, you have to first deal all of the damage you would have dealt when hitting more often before you start getting into the territory of dealing more than you otherwise would have.

So let's go ahead and put some numbers to your claim here and see if it holds true as you have chosen to phrase it: 40% of attacks with the feat benefit hit vs. 100% of attacks without it, that means that the attacks with the benefit of the feat have to do 2.5 times the amount of damage in order to match, and more than that to pull ahead - so the +10 damage from the feat needs to be greater than 1.5 times the base damage of an attack. Which means the base damage of an attack has to be lower than 6.6 (repeating).

Which is not the case with any two-handed weapon I'm aware of unless the character in question has a +1 or lower strength modifier (since two-handed weapons have 1d10, 1d12, or 2d6 damage).

So your claim is shown as being factually inaccurate - so we can't reasonably use it to determine how we feel about whatever the actual case of the feat's performance is.

Sharpshooter + crossbow expert was the example I used and the math with that example assumed no buffing being used.

40% is also a low ball thing my players usually only use the feats if they have a 50% chance or better to hit (after the -5). This means buffed or combos like the war cleric + great weapon master (an out right +5 to hit +10 damage).

Its the degree of the team work required I doubt they expected people to very few resources to enable a +10 damage across the board starting form very low levels. A single source of advantage mostly eliminates the -5 penalty and combined with the archery style in effect gives you a bonus to hit and +10 damage.

Your math is wrong when it comes to in game examples I provided. Advantge+bless for example enables those feats to function at an absurd level of power worse than someone taking advantage+bless to hit and not using those feats.

Mathematically advantage is around a 4.5 to hit, bless is a +2.5 so in effect you have two options if you are under those conditions.

+7 to hit OR

+2 and +10 damage.

OR (with sharpsooter)

+9 to hit or
+4 to hit and +10 damage

Those bonuses are above and beyond what you already have to hit. This is in a real world game of D&D against an unknown AC combined with multiple attacks. At mid levels (5+) the base to hit is usually a minimum of +7 (+3 prof, +4 from stat) or at worst +6 (at best +8) excluding magic items (which PCs usually have if you have played 3pp or WoTC adventures).

In effect you have at least +11 to hit and +10 damage (technically +6 to hit with advantage) which functionally means 60% or more chance to hit through to AC 18 80% at AC 14 and monster ACs in 5E do not tend to be very high.

If 3/5 attacks on average hit for 1d6+14 damage vs 1d6 +4 5 attacks hitting for 1d6+5 damage is an average of 32.5 damage vs 52.5 damage with 3 attacks hitting (and the more you can shift that to 80% with the -5 included the more absurd it gets).

In a real game we have hit AC 22 and 23 with the -5 things (bless, prone, bard dice, higher numbers to hit than these assumed defaults etc). Once proficiency bonus hits +4 or higher and scores get maxed at 20 for example those feats are the gift that keep on giving (along with bless).

 

[Hathorym]

I'm a little confused, Zardnaar. In the sub-optimal class thread, you have mentioned that you get upset if someone is bringing a suboptimal character to your table. Yet here, you are saying that these two feats are over-powered and broken and need to be changed. So, it appears as if you are saying that you don't like optimized characters unless they are not-too-optimized and then they are a drag on the game.

What is the absolute tightrope you expect your players to walk? Where do you draw the line between sub-optimal and optimal? Have you clearly and succinctly laid out what the sweet spot with your player''s characters actually is? Unfortunately, it may be necessary to do a little DM soul-searching rather than blaming your players and the rules.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Sharpshooter + crossbow expert was the example I used and the math with that example assumed no buffing being used.

40% is also a low ball thing my players usually only use the feats if they have a 50% chance or better to hit (after the -5). This means buffed or combos like the war cleric + great weapon master (an out right +5 to hit +10 damage).

Its the degree of the team work required I doubt they expected people to very few resources to enable a +10 damage across the board starting form very low levels. A single source of advantage mostly eliminates the -5 penalty and combined with the archery style in effect gives you a bonus to hit and +10 damage.

It doesn't eliminate the penalty, it merely compensates for it. Without the penalty, having advantage allows you to hit more often (meaning you deal damage more consistently). If used properly, those feats can increase your damage but it will never be +10 per attack unless you never miss (which is unlikely). It's important to keep in mind that, when used improperly, those feats can actually cause you to deal less damage than you normally would.

 

[Zardnaar]

It doesn't eliminate the penalty, it merely compensates for it. Without the penalty, having advantage allows you to hit more often (meaning you deal damage more consistently). If used properly, those feats can increase your damage but it will never be +10 per attack unless you never miss (which is unlikely). It's important to keep in mind that, when used improperly, those feats can actually cause you to deal less damage than you normally would.

They can but I am assuming you can hit around 60%+ of the time with the -5 or 40% of the time if you are using CE+SS. That 10% bonuses from archery style helps a lot with this.

 

[Leatherhead]

I don't know why people keep trying to say these feats are broken. That is literally not the appropriate word for an optional rule used to change the default game into something you like.

Of the two feats SS is generally regarded as the worst one since you can get a +2 bonus to hit off the archery style if you are a Fighter or Ranger. That turns SS into a -3/+10 effect.

Actually its due to the negation of cover, which is effectively a +2 bonus or +5 bonus on hit rolls.

And the real obvious "fix" is to remove Bless, IF you are so inclined to change player characters instead of monsters, that is.