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

[Zardnaar]

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.

Sub optimal being defined making a gimped PC with no way to compensate for it. GWM and SS are still good feats without the -5/+10 part stapled on and the shield master and TWF feat are also good along with polerm master they are not in the same league as SS/GWM. Well at low levels Polearm Master is probably better than GWM, SS it is a bit harder to say that depending on the PC involved.

I basically expect you to stick a 16 in your primary attack number, 14 won't be to bad, 12 is kind of bad. I would like to try a featless game but the players veto it (I do discuss what they want before I run a game). I expect a basic competency from players and I will tell a new player that a 16 in your primary attack stat is a good idea, 12 is a bad idea.

If they have a 16 for example and the lucky feat for example are they optimised? No but they are good enough and that is fine. Running around in heavy armor with 12 strength is outright stupid though.

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

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.

Bless is not the main ofener, its not hat bad in a featless game for example. YOu get a +2 or 3 bonus roughly to hit big whoop.

SS+ archery style is a big offender here IMHO as you say the negating cover thing is good all by itself.

 

[Leatherhead]

Bless is not the main ofener, its not hat bad in a featless game for example. YOu get a +2 or 3 bonus roughly to hit big whoop.

But you aren't running a featless game if you are using feats.

Bless is the only offender that needs to be hammered down in those games.
Magic Weapons only exist as frequently as you want them too, with the bonuses you want them to have. And in the AL they have a huge amount of red tape to compensate for not having total control.
Bardic Inspiration has limited uses.
Advantage can be totally negated by imposing Disadvantage, even if you have multiple sources of Advantage.

This is the kind of crackdown you need to be thinking about when you opt-in to optional rules.

 

[cmad1977]

Works as intended. Not broken. A whole lot of effort for nothing.


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[Zardnaar]

But you aren't running a featless game if you are using feats.

Bless is the only offender that needs to be hammered down in those games.
Magic Weapons only exist as frequently as you want them too, with the bonuses you want them to have. And in the AL they have a huge amount of red tape to compensate for not having total control.
Bardic Inspiration has limited uses.
Advantage can be totally negated by imposing Disadvantage, even if you have multiple sources of Advantage.

This is the kind of crackdown you need to be thinking about when you opt-in to optional rules.

Well there are other things one can do and ig you start building encounters to impose disadvantage for example its metagaming against the PCs. I had enough of that with 3E and as I said I tend to run prepublished now.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

<snipped for space>
Advantge+bless for example enables those feats to function at an absurd level of power...

You have missed my point. I'm talking about how you undermine your own credibility by saying things the way you say them - tossing in statements that are inaccurate phrasings or actually provably wrong, like the "even if 60% of your attacks miss" comment I addressed before - so it becomes impossible to use your input in any meaningful way.

Also, to address the un-snipped bit; "absurd" is subjective - you haven't done anything to prove that anyone should agree with you that the level of power achieved by these combinations of features and optional rules should be considered absurd.

 

[Zardnaar]

You have missed my point. I'm talking about how you undermine your own credibility by saying things the way you say them - tossing in statements that are inaccurate phrasings or actually provably wrong, like the "even if 60% of your attacks miss" comment I addressed before - so it becomes impossible to use your input in any meaningful way.

Also, to address the un-snipped bit; "absurd" is subjective - you haven't done anything to prove that anyone should agree with you that the level of power achieved by these combinations of features and optional rules should be considered absurd.

I never claimed if you miss 60% of the time I claimed that with crossbow expert you can miss 60% of the time and still come out ahead.

The math changes with things like Rangers, Fighters etc using bows.

If you can hit 60-80% of the time+ then those feats are nuts. Its not that hard to do that in 5E because of bless and how easy it is to get advantage.

 

[Satyrn]

But if I cast bless to give someone +10 damage, I'm missing out on spirit guardians' 3d8 damage (half on save). What's the math on that trade off?

 

[Leatherhead]

Well there are other things one can do

Well you could re-balance monsters and design encounters to take into account what your characters are capable of, or make PC attacks have riders on them. But that's not what the discussion of these feats over the multiple threads has been about. This is about finding the easiest "fix" to the "problem" possible. And deleting access to one spell, which is of questionable value without the feats and countermines the design of bounded accuracy to begin with, is by far the easiest solution to the only outstanding issue that could be had. You have your silver bullet, all you need to do is pull the trigger.

and ig you start building encounters to impose disadvantage for example its metagaming against the PCs.

Not at all. Disadvantage is intended to be used against the PCs. Furthermore, imposing Disadvantage does not render abilities that grant Advantage useless, it merely makes them "normalize" the attack. You wouldn't want to impose disadvantage on every attack, because that would get frustrating, but spotlight balance is a thing.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I never claimed if you miss 60% of the time I claimed that with crossbow expert you can miss 60% of the time and still come out ahead.

You still haven't given us any reason to expect that the extra feature working in concert - crossbow expert, in this case - doesn't justify the end result.

Also, as I pointed out before, in order to "come out ahead" while missing 60% of the time, the damage when you do hit has to be significantly greater, such that the +10 from the feat is more than 1.5 times the base damage - which means we have to be talking about a light crossbow with a +2 or less ability modifier, a hand crossbow with a +3 or less ability modifier, or a heavy crossbow with a +1 or less ability modifier, rather than literally all crossbows with all other possibilities for these factors that you are claiming by not being more specific in your statements.