Look at all that wonderfully selective, sketchy, and myopic math. I love it. I noticed you gave the feat guy the same bonus as the regular one. Why is that, do you think? I mean, isn't he supposed to be +1 or +2 behind the "regular" guy? After all, he's taken a feat (or two, as most people are arguing). Yet here you are hand-waving that significant opportunity cost. Was that intentional?
No, it was using the same character in my first post. A level 9 character that was either a Fighter or a Variant Human that had taken the Sharpshooter feat.
I'm ignoring Crossbow Expert my posts because I don't have a big problem with that feat. Crossbow Expert adds +1 damage per attack, which is less than 1 average damage. That's
worse than +2 Dex. I think Crossbow Expert is a poor feat because it breaks my suspension of disbelief (I can't imagine loading a heavy crossbow that quickly) and because it makes bows less desirable. I prefer the default scheme where single attack classes prefer crossbows, and multi-attack classes prefer bows. Then both have a place.
But irregardless, no, I can't say that you shouldn't have a problem with it. I just don't get the problem you think you are having. It baffles me. Are you saying I am *supposed* to have a problem with it? Like, is it a requirement?
No, not at all. However, every time people bring this up, there are invariably people in every thread who say, "Oh, I haven't observed that in my game," or, "Oh, feats are optional so just don't play with them," or, "Oh, it's really not better than an ASI," or, "Oh, just change the way you DM the game," or any of a dozen other responses that say, "You're wrong and this isn't a problem." In other words, their concerns get dismissed, and instead of the thread being about, you know, the common problem that some people are having, it's always about defending their statement that the problem they're having is even a problem at all.
Yes, the feat gives you more damage on average. Shouldn't it? I mean, seriously here. Stop and think about that for a minute. Shouldn't it?!
Also, and besides all that, you also conveniently neglected to factor in all the non-attack/damage benefits you get from instead taking that dexterity increase. You know, like valuable initiative, very useful skills, and an extremely common save bonus. Stuff like that. Just those amazingly useful benefits. So, yes. That's precisely how its supposed to work. If you sacrifice the bulk of a wide benefit to focus on a single, restricted aspect of that broader bonus, should it not exceed the otherwise general benefit in that narrowly focused area? Please answer that specific question. I'm curious about your take on that common design feature.
Is it ok for -5/+10 to be a universal damage bonus against all opponents as long as you are following the restriction of using a weapon of the requisite type because it's still more restrictive than an attribute bonus?
No, not as presented.
If the feat is supposed to just make you deal more damage as an archer, than -5/+10 is a horrible game mechanic to do it with. If they wanted the Feat to make you deal more damage to all targets, then it should say, "When you make a ranged weapon/heavy weapon attack, you deal an additional +3 damage." Having the game say, "Before you attack, you may take a -5 penalty to your attack roll. If you do, you deal an additional +10 damage when you hit." is poor design. Why? Because if you can't evaluate the outcome of a mechanic and be right about it, then it's a poor mechanic. And -5/+10 isn't an obvious mechanic. It's not at all obvious that, after a certain point, the feat is just always worth it to use against every target you find. That means players will evaluate the mechanic incorrectly, and that makes them
frustrated. The advantage of mechanics like
+1 longsword over, for example, a
-1 to hit/+2 damage longsword is that it's easy to evaluate and you know you should use it. You know it's a benefit all the time, and you don't have to worry that you'll find out six months later that you've been "playing wrong" the whole time. The game just tricked the player. That's the kind of stuff that makes people quit playing a game.
This is one of the common problems they have designing Magic cards: you have to make the power level of cards understandable so that when people read them, they can evaluate them correctly. If they produce cards that are much more powerful than people evaluate, then they won't understand why they keep losing and will quit the game. For a long time WotC specifically created "testing" cards that they knew were bad just so players would be happy that they could correctly evaluate cards.
Look at the other abilities on feats. Not just Sharpshooter or GWM's other abilities. Any feat. How many of them do you opt
not to use every time you possibly could, excepting cases where the use is limited in number (e.g., Defensive Duelist, Lucky)? Hint:
None of them. Feats are all designed that you
want to use them whenever they come up, and whenever they come up they're
always good. Except for -5/+10. You read that and think, "Hm, this won't be good all the time."
How about if -5/+10 is supposed to be situational or just for dealing more damage to low armored targets? Or for some high risk/high reward mechanic where you are gambling because you're sacrificing average dpr in exchange for maybe dealing higher burst dpr and maybe taking out a target one round sooner? Those, I believe, is what they actually intend for you to use this ability for. However, if that's what it's supposed to do, then it does a poor job because -- as I think I've already adequately shown -- after level 9 the mechanic doesn't punish you for using it "incorrectly" against high AC targets. The mechanic doesn't reinforce the design. The highest AC you're likely to see for the vast majority of the game is AC 20, and it's still often better to use it against those targets.
How about 5e design tenants? Does -5/+10 follow those? Ease of play, simplicity of rules, intuitiveness of design, quickness of play, and relatively quick game pacing? No, not really. If -5/+10 is something you're just always supposed to use then, yeah, it's pretty easy, but it adds an additional set of modifiers to your attacks, making it not very simple. If -5/+10 is supposed to be situational, then it encourages players to stop and calculate whether or not it's advantageous to use their ability. It encourages
stopping play to do math which breaks up the flow of the game and slows down the pacing. Now, it's not as bad as 3.5e Power Attack, which
really made you stop and do math, but it's still not an improvement.
So, if -5/+10 is supposed to be a straight damage bonus against all opponents, then it's very poorly designed because nobody will evaluate it correctly. If -5/+10 was supposed to be situational or high risk/high reward, then it's very poorly designed because by level 9 it stops being situational and it stops being a gamble. It becomes a safe bet. If -5/+10 was supposed to reinforce 5e's design goals, then it's very poorly designed because it's either needlessly complicated (if you're supposed to always use it) or slows the game down (if it's supposed to be situational).
So, no, the problem with -5/+10 doesn't need to be that it deals additional damage against all targets -- although that's a problem, too, and it's how you're likely to discover the issue in-game -- it's that a) it's difficult to evaluate, b) isn't situational or a gamble when it looks like it should be, and c) doesn't fit the design tenants of 5e. It doesn't have to be broken or overpowered.
It's just a bad design.