D&D 5E Do DM's feel that Sharpshooter & Great Weapon Master overpowered?

[Arial Black]

Did you generate the attack because the extra damage killed the target, or did you overkill? Cause we're not talking about competition for bonus actions - that exists outside of just GWM.

I wasn't using the -5/+10 at the time. We were fighting elite drow and they have AC 18 with a reaction to give them AC 21 against one attack, so I wasn't using the 'power attack' part.

The point is, if you include the possibility of this feat generating a bonus attack as part of your calculations of how the feat affects DPR, overkill is a thing, lack of another enemy in reach is a thing, lack of usable bonus action is a thing, and all of these things that affect the actual in-game performance of the feat are ignored in maths that say '90 damage is twice as good as 45 damage'. The reality could easily be that 90 damage is no better than 45, and the calculations do not and cannot reflect that.

I'm not suggesting that maths has no point here; I'm suggesting that there is more to it than maths.

 

[Arial Black]

"I am a first level varoant human barbarian with GWM" is most definitely OP.

I'm not convinced that attacking at +0 is going to rule the world, when attacking at +5 will kill your enemy in one blow anyway, without the +10.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

On the contrary, white room maths involving lots of averaging is often meaningless in play at the table, where your actual rolls matter, as opposed to some theoretical expected median/average/bell curve result. If people around the table arent enjoying the -5/+10 because it feels like it's dominating - that's all that matters.

That's a matter of taste. In actual play, people who are good at math are as likely to focus on probability distributions as on samples from the distribution. Such people (like myself) don't find crits exciting nor low damage rolls distressing. What they see if whether or not you've forced an enemy into a disadvantageous position.

If I can arrange the flow of combat so that I get three attacks against you at advantage for every attack you get against me at disadvantage, I frankly don't care what I roll. Even if I roll all 1s and you roll all 20s, I'm still going to feel good about myself. (I may tell the story someday about how your unbelievably lucky rolling saved your skin, but the story will be told with humorous disbelief and not with chagrin on my part.)

Conversely, if I get ambushed when away from my weapons, and I run in the wrong direction to retrieve them and rejoin the party, and yet amazingly everything in the ambush is ineffectual against me due to poor die-rolling, I'm still going to feel like an idiot saved by pure luck. I won't be retelling that story.

So no, in actual play, probability distributions don't cease to matter in the general case. Maybe they do for you, but you're not everyone.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The point is, if you include the possibility of this feat generating a bonus attack as part of your calculations of how the feat affects DPR, overkill is a thing, lack of another enemy in reach is a thing, lack of usable bonus action is a thing, and all of these things that affect the actual in-game performance of the feat are ignored in maths that say '90 damage is twice as good as 45 damage'. The reality could easily be that 90 damage is no better than 45, and the calculations do not and cannot reflect that.

I'm not suggesting that maths has no point here; I'm suggesting that there is more to it than maths.

Or that math is being misapplied in simplistic ways that make the answer wrong in the original problem context:

[FONT=&quot]Ever lower milk prices were driving a dairy farmer to desperate measures. Two years ago, he tried "Beethoven for Bovines" in his barn and milk production dropped 2%. Last year he signed up for "hex the herd" where Genuine Santa Barbara Witches[/FONT]^TM[FONT=&quot] remotely hexed your herd for health and higher production. (The ad had said its hexes were the cause of California's improved milk production, but it didn't seem to work in Wisconsin.) So this year he drove to town to consult the ultimate power source: a theoretical physicist. The physicist listened to his problem, asked a few questions, and then said he'd take the assignment, and that it would take only a few hours to solve the problem. A few weeks later, the physicist phoned the farmer, "I've got the answer. The solution turned out to be a bit more complicated than I thought and I'm presenting it at this afternoon's Theory Seminar". At the seminar the farmer finds a handful of people drinking tea and munching on cookies---none of whom looks like a farmer. As the talk begins the physicist approaches the blackboard and draws a big circle. "First, we assume a spherical cow..." [/FONT]

 

[Corwin]

Have any of you seen a Sorcerer twin a greater invisibility on anyone using those feats? How about foresight advantage 24/7.

So cast your scorn at those culprits then? Why are you directing your ire at otherwise balanced options? Seems misguided if you ask me.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I'm not convinced that attacking at +0 is going to rule the world, when attacking at +5 will kill your enemy in one blow anyway, without the +10.

I would even say that if you had taken alertness, your performance would have been better overall.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Exactly.

It's so sad when the defenders of the feat consistently fail to acknowledge our real-world play experiences, far removed from any "white room" theorycrafting.

This is clearly a feat where the math was shown to work in the white room, but does not actually work in real gameplay, not in the hands of experienced optimizing gamers.

If the feat somehow said "the -5 can never be negated or countered by any means short of a wish" then it would probably be fine.

That is, if the feat simply did not activate the +10 damage part if you attack with Bless or with advantage or any other bonus, then we probably would not have this conversation.

(Of course, then we would all drown in the complaints the feat was artificially restricted in ways you can't really explain, but that's another story )

As someone who is seeing both of these in play, one on a barbarian, alongside a diviner wizard:

It's still not clearly better than any other option in practice.

 

[Corwin]

As someone who is seeing both of these in play, one on a barbarian, alongside a diviner wizard:

It's still not clearly better than any other option in practice.

Agree. I think it likely that those who think these feats are somehow "win buttons" are the ones doing white room analysis.

The other thing to point out whenever a discussion like this is happening: If the feat *isn't* making you better at something, it failed and was a waste of a resource. These feats need to make you better. People get hung up on the fact that they may increase a PCs damage potential. Well, duh. As intended, I say. I see zero benefit to comparing a PC with one of these feats to one without. Other than to show the feat is working as intended.

 

[the Jester]

As someone who is seeing both of these in play...

It's still not clearly better than any other option in practice.

This is me, too. Yeah, the sharpsooting ranger is a machine gun, and yeah, the GWM guy is a monster in melee, but neither dominates the game, and neither strikes me as overpowered compared to the other members of the group. Nor do those two feats end up selected by everyone, not even by every melee-heavy or ranged-attack-based pc in my game; I've actually seen more Spell Snipers and Keen Minds. But also, I am comfortable with not all pcs being equally powerful as long as everyone's having fun, so I haven't given the feats the sort of eye-wateringly intense analysis that some people have- it's just not necessary for my playstyle.

 

[hejtmane]

This is me, too. Yeah, the sharpsooting ranger is a machine gun, and yeah, the GWM guy is a monster in melee, but neither dominates the game, and neither strikes me as overpowered compared to the other members of the group. Nor do those two feats end up selected by everyone, not even by every melee-heavy or ranged-attack-based pc in my game; I've actually seen more Spell Snipers and Keen Minds. But also, I am comfortable with not all pcs being equally powerful as long as everyone's having fun, so I haven't given the feats the sort of eye-wateringly intense analysis that some people have- it's just not necessary for my playstyle.

What I seen of Sharp Shooter have had more of them then GWM but they have more misses now I seen them get on a hot streak with roles like when fighting a dragon the Hancrossbow with sharp shooter with action surge hit every time he fired but that was more a luky streak his lowest role was a 14 no advantage did a crap ton of damage but that was a rare exception like said lucky rolls. Most the time he miss one out of every three shots. The funny thing is no one in the group cares he does more damage because they all have roles they like to play.