So if your taking the role of front line defense, aka the tank. It seems like your "problem with the feat" is your trying to make it into a way to do more damage while your character is a defensive character that would better benefit from Shield Master or Defensive Duelist.
I warn you, you play a dangerous game giving me openings to discuss my character build
And yeah, he had Shield Master. It's why I went variant human, because being a knight (background) was so vital to my concept that I wanted my sword and shield combo to be the best I could make it by level 1.
Also, you seem under a misconception. My problem with Weapon Master has nothing to do with my Barbarian Knight and how I built him. I knew about the Dawnforged Homebrew that I used from another source (I think I was looking for Magic Items when I found the document), and my Knight is only showing the one time I used it myself (I had a Ranger who played in a game I DM'd use it as well).
I've had a problem with RAW Weapon Master from the beginning, and it has everything to do with how 99% of characters will never take the feat, because the benefits it grants are not worth a feat. Especially in light of the potential of just multi-classing or playing an Elf or Dwarf who get some of the martial weapons you keep mentioning.
The Cleric is your DPR, so why are you a defensive tank trying to compete with that damage? Why does being the lowest damage in the party matter? It should be understood based off of the role you chose as a tank. Their is not need for you to have "decent but not OP offense". My point is/was your competing in a fight against another players role, even though your not intended to be in that role. If you don't die and the Cleric gets to do there DPR because of it you did your job and the party will live because you never went down. That's what a tank does. So being unhappy with not getting more damage from a feat not intended for your role in the party seems so weird. What will happen with this is that that other melee DPR fighters will take your "new feat design" and add it to their DPR build and only make them further form you, then the GM will adapt encounters to increase the difficulty so encounters are not too easy and boring and you will still be just as far behind the rest as ever and the party weight you pull will not change because encounters adapted to the group..... net 0, now two players have wasted feats for no gain. Also... an ASI does the same thing, to this is only useful once you have hit the 20 cap to raise the cap, messing with bounded accuracy and making running the campaign harder on the GM because now everything has to be adjusted. … Its just not beneficial in any way that I can see. Fixing nothing and creating problems for no reason.
Okay, you seem to be missing a few major points here. Maybe a fuller description of my build will make some of it clear.
At level 1, I took shield master because of two reasons. One, I wanted to play a knight who was not a fighter or paladin and that is a very "knightly" feat. Two, in playing a barbarian I got advantage on dex saves. Adding my shield bonus to those saves and being able to reduce a successful save to 0 damage was awesome for a defensive build, plus I always loved the visual of the guy holding off dragon fire with his shield.
At Level 3, continuing my original plan, I took the Ancestral Guardians path. This not only (eventually) provided me with a reaction shield to reduce damage coming into my allies, but also meant that enemies I struck had disadvantage to hit said allies and only did half damage to them.
At level 4, I took the Dawnforged Weaponmaster. Because, I was already a pretty dang good tank. I had a huge pool of hp, I had good abilities to protect my allies, but I was dealing the least amount of damage out of everyone. As a barbarian, who is traditionally on the higher end of damage. Also, by dealing low damage, I was a much lesser threat to the enemies. This would only get worse with time, so I invested in increasing my damage with a homebrew feat I knew of and my DM approved.
LEvel 8, I took Tenacious, which is also Dawnforged and is a combination of Tough and Durable, making me even more of a living punching bag.
Level 12 I took a feat from Tal'dorie called Mending affinity, which increased all of my healing by my proficiency, making it easier to refill my massive hit point pool and keep me on my feet.
None of this has to do with me looking at the RAW Weapon Master feat and feeling it was inadequate. The only reason I took the DF Feat was because I was looking to increase my damage, because it was lower than I liked. I made that choice to have a lower damage ceiling, but that doesn't mean that I had to ignore an ability that could mitigate that.
Pyro-blasters take elemental adept to increase their damage by ignoring fire resistance.
Fighters take resilient Wisdom to shore up their defenses against magic.
I took a feat to increase my damage because it was too low for a front-liner trying to hold the enemies attention.
Also, an ASI would not do the same thing as this feat, since the DF increase the damage by proficiency, meaning that you need 2 ASI's to matching taking this feat at level 4, and it increases it by a max of +6, which is more than any character can get via ASI's.
Also, despite me going through this. I never once said you had to like this homebrew feat. You don't like a damage increase? Fine. Don't use it, it was just a suggestion. All I have been trying to do is show that it isn't incredibly overpowered. As you mention, damage is the easiest thing for a DM to account for in a fight. You want to come up with a better homebrew, then that's awesome, I'd love to talk about it. But the RAW feat is bad, and my opinion on that has nothing to do with my previous character or the homebrew I replaced the feat with. That is a separate discussion.
The assertion it that a Wizard, with taking weapons master for shortsword proficiency and warcaster is worried about playing optimal... if they were they would intellect to 20 first. 16 -> 18 lvl 4, 18 -> 20 lvl 8, Warcaster lvl 12, flavor weapons proficancy for warcaster booming blade spell attack with a melee weapon... of which they could have a 16 dex for mage armor and they could have no intention of moving into melee combat but the GM sneaks monsters behind them, they are fighting in tight space dungeon, and enemies are deliberately engaging different enemies triggering opportunity attacks by the wizard. … that's all completely reasonable to happen. But it does require the feat to have weapon proficiency unless the at high levels with bounded accuracy monster AC, the wizard wants to be stripped of the +6 to hit proficiency provides making flavor choices like this unfeasible. Booming blade is great control spell and it could be used to keep a rogue or caster away from your tank a round or suffer a great deal of damage and with +3 dex and +6 proficancy it's a functional flavor option. Without this feet as it its you remove this player choice option as an in rules functional player choice my restricting them form a possible +9 to a max of +3 that is not likely to be able to hit with bounded accuracy. This kind of unique game play is exactly why feats exist and your suggestion to make it a +1 to hit, +1 damage removes it for something that can be achieved with an ASI or raises it above the intended bounded accuracy cap when used by a fighter with a +3 sword and 20 strength and now another redundant +1/+1.... If your going to cause that pain, at the least I recommend you make it a "weapon specialist" feat of its own, instead of removing options only do add something optimizers will take to break bounded accuracy.
I kind of got lost in the wall of text, but here are some thoughts, ignoring your misunderstanding of the homebrew feat, since I covered that above.
Why is this wizard using a shortsword?
If they are looking for a finesse weapon, they have daggers. The average difference in damage mathematically is +/-1. By taking the weapon master feat, all you are doing is either getting flavor or getting a +1 to damage. The exact thing you don't want from the feat.
You're meandering example of why a wizard would use booming blade as a reaction to hit monsters running past them, or how booming blade is a useful melee attack if they are ambushed from behind has nothing to do with them using a shortsword.
Booming blade works with daggers, it works with staves, if this is just talking about using the cantrip in emergencies... well then it addresses nothing about the feat itself.
Your entire premise is "But what if I want to play a wizard with a sword, but I don't want to play an Elf?"
That is a terrible defense of this feat. You can find alternative ways to get weapons proficiencies. If it is only about flavor then we can find other ways to get there. But, mechanically, it is a bad feat. It offers nothing to the vast majority of characters and players.
Lets, say you don't take it for DPR optimization. Once you make that change others can get it and will. That has to be taken into account. With bounded accuracy and as much as a +6 or +30% increase in "to hit" is a HUGE DEAL as ACs meat or pass AC23 then its the difference of 5% hit on natural 20 or 30% hit which makes a profound impact on the use of those weapons. Even at lower levels its still at least a +2 or +10% chance to hit.
Ummm... they already can? The homebrew feat I mentioned has been published for almost two years or more.
Yes, if a DM allows it in their game they must account for it. It is homebrew, you always have to account for adding homebrew into your game.
My only point is that +6 damage, while it feels good to the player, isn't wrecking encounters and ruining the game. I played it, I took the feat not to do the most damage ever, though I know I could, but because it fit my concept and let me stay in line with my party.
Story GM and its easier to follow the rules than debate house rules, so having the feat allows the action at all and role playing the gaining of the skill can be done so its interesting and not just .."look I can use swords now!" … which I am not thrilled about (I would like to use feats when I get them) but I understand.
Umm... roleplaying the gaining of a weapon proficiency can be done too? Training montages are a thing, and watching a warrior learning how to use their weapon can be an engaging story. Heck, I've read more than one book where the main character spends a good quarter or more of the story being taught ho to fight.
I get some DM's don't like houserules. That sucks. But, it doesn't change anything I'm saying. The original feat is still a bad feat, whether DM's use houserules or not. Whether it is the only way to make a human gandalf the grey wielding a longsword or not. It is still a bad feat.
