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

[CapnZapp]

It means that even if you can prove it's broken by the numbers, it's not broken because the DM can always make sure it's 'situation' comes up exactly enough to balance it.

Thanks, but this is a perilous route to go. I could respond "but I as the DM can't control a feat like GWM - it is entirely in the hands of the players, and it is universally useful in all adventures" unless you mean I fix the issue by never throwing low-AC monsters at the heroes.... but let's stop there, because I'm not sure that is the actual argument.

I suppose there's levels of broken? There's broken only in the hands of those evil optimizers (so shun them), breaks even with just obvious decisions, breaks without even trying, doesn't break if you're terribly careful to avoid breaking it, not broken if the DM constantly fixes it, and/or just plain broken all the time no matter what.

Again, the feats aren't so much "broken" as telling players to stay away from any weapon combo that can't benefit from them. That's more "bad" than "broken".

So, OMGWTFBBQ Damage {Insert Style} Feats? Round it out? Make -5/+10 just an attack option anyone can take?

Are you now engaging in a discussion of how to fix this?

Because if so I'm sorry, that's way too premature. First I would like to have people with me, first I would like to finally once and for all convince the sceptics that, yes, the feats are too good to be used (in a combat-heavy campaign featuring players good with math). And second, that part is (at least to me already a done discussion: switch out the -5+10 for +1 Strength and everything's perhaps not perfect, but certainly "good enough").

 

[CapnZapp]

As a long-time optimizer and powergamer myself, I am a bit offended when some people claim to speak for me or that I must agree with their theories. I see the benefits of these feats. Of course I do. I don't see how they break D&D. And I certainly don't see how they are obvious must-have choices over a plethora of other good choices.

Since you apparently have me on your ignore list I fail to see how you can conclude I am speaking for you.

(If you see this message, I suggest you re-apply the ignore. Remove me, then add me back)

 

[CapnZapp]

You have this habit of thinking that because I disagree with you I must not have "optimizer's eyes."

You are wrong. I can disagree with you even though I do have the ability to optimize and recognize optimization.

Because what we disagree on is not the effect of the combination of factors that go into the optimal scenario, but that a single one of those factors can be ruled as over-powered because of the performance of the entire combination of factors - because those other factors (buffs, for example) are not an inherent part of the single factor (the feat).

This is exactly the core of the issue.

I am claiming that, yes, by itself, a feat like GWM isn't terribly overpowered. That is what I mean when I'm saying that as long as you can't mitigate the -5 part, the +10 part isn't unbalancing (except in corner cases, which we can ignore).

But the reaction I expect from that isn't "okay then, so nothing wrong, let's move on".

The reaction I expect is "interesting, how often and how easy is those mitigating factors to come about?"

Because that's my point. The designer of the feat failed to realize how many and varied the ways are to make the -5 part go away, either in full or in part. This in turn makes the feat useful in too many situations, against too many monsters.

In essence, the core balancing question (that is never discussed IIRC) is:

What AC cut-off point was the designer gunning for? (I know this is a moving target, slightly moving upwards as the character levels up; I believe the math analysis pegs the cutoff at whatever AC you hit when you roll 8 on your attack die).

But bear with me as I attempt to illustrate.

If (and that is merely speculation) the feat was designed so it would only provide most of its benefit* against AC 10 or lower foes, then it would probably be quite alright (or even woefully underpowered, but lets leave it at that).

A naive example is Strength 18, proficiency bonus +3, and the full -5 penalty. This means you need to roll 8 to hit AC 10.

But if the feat turns out to provide most of its benefit against AC 15 or below, then I hope we can agree it is overwhelmingly impactful. As in "the average player can reasonably expect a significant portion of the foes she will face will sport AC 15 or less".

A more realistic example is Strength 20, proficiency bonus +4, and the penalty reduced to -2 on average. This means you need to roll 8 to hit AC 15.

And if the feat is in play in a high magic campaign, providing a benefit against AC 20 or less, then it should be clear to everyone its damage boost is off the charts. The feat is utterly broken in this scenario - as in there is no other combat feat providing even remotely the same bonus.

Now we're definitely leaving the kindergarten behind. In this example we sport Strength 22, proficiency bonus +5, another bonus of +2 and the penalty reduced to -1 on average. This means you need to roll 8 to hit AC 20.

The sad part is that this last scenario is not some far-fetched improbable monty haul kind of fever dream. Many many campaigns at double digits will get there, just by playing the game normally. The +2 could come simply from a +2 weapon, but there are (as I'm sure you will agree) many other ways to gain such a benefit. The penalty reduced to -1 is actually generous, because a bit of it is still there. In reality there are bonuses that add much more than a mere Bless 1d4, and it comparatively easy (especially at that level) to combine two or more effects such as advantage plus bless.

As for the Strength 22, you might be ready to decry, say a Belt of Giant Strength as the real culprit. But again, no, the real problem is the feat. Yes, the belt adds +1 +1 on top of what's normally possible, but that is in itself not terribly unbalancing. It is the compound effect of raising the feat's cutoff point to AC 20 that is the real culprit here.

Besides, you can gain a Strength 22 in other ways. And even if you absolutely will not accept that Strength 22 can occur in a "normal" campaign - fine, then the cut off point stays at AC 19.

That is still way too high. That is still way higher than the designer must have foreseen.


*) By "most of its benefit" I mean, that against the very AC that is its cutoff point, there is no problem, since the dpr increase (compared to not using the feat) is barely positive. But if that AC cutoff point is too high, it allows a too-wide spectrum of foes where it is not merely good, but great, or even wildly powerful.

Now, I maintain that while the feat itself might be designed for a reasonable AC cutoff point, the designer failed to take into account all the varied ways of increasing that cutoff point (sometimes drastically).

That does not mean that those "ways" (bonuses from spells, items and class features) are themselves unbalanced.

Because the real problem is the feat. The feat represents a too-great damage output to elevate by those other "ways". There are few or even no other ways to use those ways to add so much damage to each and every blow you make.

It is clearly the feat that is the source of the problem.

You can't add ten points of damage to a feature (an "attack) that normally deals only that much damage, that's a 100% increase. The designer evidently thought the -5 part would keep that under control, but then he or she failed to account for player creativity and cunning.

What other martial character? There is no guarantee of their being any other martial character in the party, nor of another martial character that happens to be in the party having better damage - so again I ask, Outdamaged by who and why does that matter?

Which is exactly the thing I've said to you numerous times so far - that something not working appropriate in one of our campaigns doesn't mean it won't work appropriately in another, which I acknowledge when I say things like "seems to be working as intended" because the thing can work without alteration, when you say things like "is broken." because it doesn't work appropriately in your campaign (and then rudely insist that anyone whose campaign it works in just isn't looking at it with the "right" eyes.)

Also, I used the phrase "keeping up" not because the rest of the party is doing roughly equal portions of the damage, but because the barbarian is keeping up enough damage that it isn't out of place to refer to him as the party's "go to damage dealer." But I can see why one would assume the other usage as you have done.

Let me adress the "what other martial character" bit:

I am saying the feats' biggest issue is that it steers players towards build choices involving greatweapons and ranged weapons, because that is the only two weapon groups that can be used with -5+10.

What is so hard to understand about that?

No, if everyone else is a spellcaster, then the biggest issue with the feats never comes up. So what? Just because it no longer is an issue in your campaign does not mean it ceases to be a general problem.

Again, the most clear and direct way of explaining the problem is to visualize a group where two players want to play an offensive fightery person. Without feats, the difference between the barbarian with a greataxe (say) and the ranger with sword and shield (say) is nicely contained - one does a bit more damage, the other has a bit more defense.

But when you add feats, all of this is thrown out of whack. Because suddenly one character (the barbarian in this example) will start doing damage leaps and bounds above the other one. For a player with at least a nominal interest in the "game" part of the session, that is, a player not oblivious to his character's effectiveness, it no longer is excusable to abstain all that damage.

The feat reduces choice, since with the feat you become so much better at your fundamental job, which is to deal damage. Not just a little better, but too much better.

So asking questions about exactly "what person is this" is completely missing the point. The answer is simply "anybody that's trying to be a fightery character but not taking those feats will regret that choice if playing in the same group as somebody that did take those feats"

 

[Arial Black]

The end result is that characters with greatweapon or ranged routinely deal twice as much damage as other weapon choices if not more.

A 1st level warrior-type who has taken GWM has an expected Str of 16, giving a +3 damage modifier. With a greatsword, his damage code is 2d6+3, for an average of 10. GWM would indeed deal twice as much damage on a hit when used than when not used.

After that, it doesn't.

Each increase in Str mod, use of a magic weapon with plusses, means that the +10 does not double the damage.

Every crit doubles the damage dice, but not the +10.

Even this is ignoring the opportunity cost of choosing this feat instead of either +2 Str or a different feat.

Someone said that just the 'cleave' part is better than +2 Str; really? What if there is no other enemy within reach? What if your bonus action has already been used?

Is +10 damage 'better' than +6 to hit and +1 damage (the difference between choosing this feat or +2 Str)?

The enemy has AC 18 (and the parry ability to raise it to 21) and 7 hit points remaining, but I, as a player, don't know that! Is it better to attack at +13 and do 2d6+9 damage, or attack at +8 and do 2d6+19 damage.

What the maths cannot tell you is that 26 damage is not always better than 16 damage, and is actually worse if it comes with an attack penalty.

That -5 penalty never goes away (unless you need a nat 20 to hit even without that penalty). It doesn't go away if you have bless or advantage or any other way to increase your attack chance; you are still at -5 when using it compared to when you are not. Even if you only need to roll a 2 to hit normally (which is outstanding!), using the feat will mean that you will miss 25% more often than if you don't. If you are fighting foes whose AC is actually less than your attack bonus, that isn't the fault of the feat!

The maths that some seem so proud of doesn't prove what they think it proves. 26 damage is not always better than 16 damage, and the -5 attack penalty can actually make it worse. The cleave part is frequently unusable. Meanwhile, +1 to attack and damage from +2 Str will never make things worse.

Maths is a good servant, but a terrible master.

 

[Krachek]

If the -5/+10 feature is a problem, remove it from your game.
Too much high rolled stat, given magic items, DM preferences, players will to optimize, can unbalance some features.
5ed is "build your own game". So do it.

 

[hejtmane]

If the -5/+10 feature is a problem, remove it from your game.
Too much high rolled stat, given magic items, DM preferences, players will to optimize, can unbalance some features.
5ed is "build your own game". So do it.

I have rolled stats and no issues in my game with the feats. I will say the most likely reason is I removed all to hit from magic items so that may keep the power creep of GWM/SS from being to bad but at the same time Archery gets +2 and from what I seen SS is slighty more powerful because of that they miss less than GWM still miss but that extra 10% is pretty stout.

 

[Krachek]

I have rolled stats and no issues in my game with the feats. I will say the most likely reason is I removed all to hit from magic items so that may keep the power creep of GWM/SS from being to bad but at the same time Archery gets +2 and from what I seen SS is slighty more powerful because of that they miss less than GWM still miss but that extra 10% is pretty stout.

Some DM assume that a level 5 character should have +1 equipment, +2 around level 10, +3 around level 15.
It is a "style of play", not a must.
Bound accuracy allow much more versatility in magic items attribution.

 

[CapnZapp]

Maths is a good servant, but a terrible master.

I'll let you play word games with others, but not me.

Feel free to quibble about the exactness of "double the damage", but the fact remains. Having a feat hand out a whopping +10 damage bonus is a bad idea, partly because it can't be used by all fighting concepts equally.

As for "the penalty never goes away" that's a completely ignorant way of simplifying things, which I don't have time for.

The rest of your examples are equally easy to punch holes into, but that's a discussion you are having with someone else.

If you sincerely want to have a discussion with me Arial, you will have to skip the easy strawman questions, since I will have none of that.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Thanks, but this is a perilous route to go. I could respond "but I as the DM can't control a feat like GWM - it is entirely in the hands of the players, and it is universally useful in all adventures"

Well, you can control it in the sledge-hammer sense of banning it, or in the simple sense of not opting into feats in the first place (not a bad idea at all, IMHO - feats, MCing, magic items, they're none of them assumed for the game to work, the flip side of that being that the game just might not work as well - not that it's perfect without 'em - once you've let them in).

unless you mean I fix the issue by never throwing low-AC monsters at the heroes.... but let's stop there, because I'm not sure that is the actual argument.

Hey, we're not limited to only one argument.

The DM who wants to be somewhat permissive can opt into everything the PH presents as optional, and then simply cope with it in play. DMing has traditionally meant making the game your own, back in the day we DMs all had our prefered variants, or at least a sub-set of the rules we consciously ignored or just plain missed, that made our games that much better than they might have been had we run the game as written like contemporaneous 8 bit computers running BASIC programs. (Because I never get tired of making fun of how freak'n old I'm getting - hey, we're all gonna get old, might as well have some fun with it.)

Again, the feats aren't so much "broken" as telling players to stay away from any weapon combo that can't benefit from them. That's more "bad" than "broken".

Doesn't matter which b-word you use. They're feats, they do stuff, they do that stuff for only specific combat styles. Point. Are there other feats for other styles? Is there something about adding feats that beefs up those other styles indirectly (are they less dependent on having high stats, for instance, since feats consume ASIs)? (I'm honestly not sure, I decided not to use feats, so haven't exactly gone through them with a fine-tooth comb.)

Are you now engaging in a discussion of how to fix this?

Yep. Only point of identifying a problem is to fix it.

Because if so I'm sorry, that's way too premature. First I would like to have people with me, first I would like to finally once and for all convince the sceptics that, yes, the feats are too good to be used (in a combat-heavy campaign featuring players good with math). And second, that part is (at least to me already a done discussion: switch out the -5+10 for +1 Strength and everything's perhaps not perfect, but certainly "good enough").

And that's what's getting you into trouble. You're never going to convince everyone. Some people only see as far as their own experiences, some have a vested interest in defending options they like to take advantage of, some have an emotional investment in the game & defend it reflexively, some dislike certain play styles and see an opportunity to highlight their downsides.

Besides, if you need to convince others, are you really that convinced yourself?

He told me I had the wrong eyes, and he said that everyone will see the problem when their players level up (and their characters to) - and that is his parenthetical add-on to his original choice of words, not mine.

OK, and I didn't take that the way you did, but, he's re-itterated it (above) quite unequivocally, so you two are, indeed, equally guilty in the exchange. Color me convinced on that point.

That thread was a case of someone saying an issue was a mechanical issue (meaning one inherent to the mechanics themselves) and me saying the issue was non-mechanical in nature in an effort to help them solve the problem they were experiencing - and you misinterpreting that much the same way you are misinterpreting me in this thread.

And you were in the wrong there. And here if that's the ultimate point you're trying to make. The issues are with the mechanics. In this case, with combinations of mechanics, as well. Mechanics with issues can not only be worked around or fixed, they can be leveraged, as I pointed out to Capp, above. But that doesn't mean that anyone experiencing problems caused by those mechanics is at fault and should change the way they play, rather than change the mechanics.

Now, I'm sure you didn't actually say that either, and I'm just misunderstanding you. Let me apologize in advance.

I am claiming that, yes, by itself, a feat like GWM isn't terribly overpowered. That is what I mean when I'm saying that as long as you can't mitigate the -5 part, the +10 part isn't unbalancing (except in corner cases, which we can ignore).

It's hard for anything to be overpowered 'by itself' (compared to what, if it's by itself), and not meaningful to examine the effectiveness of something in isolation from the rest of the system, since it's synergies that can 'break' a game most dramatically & unexpectedly.

But the reaction I expect from that isn't "okay then, so nothing wrong, let's move on".

Every complaint about every problem in every edition of the game has always gotten that reaction from at least some members of the community. It's a cosmological constant of D&D that for every flaw, there is a host of zealous defenders who can't bear to see it corrected. (OK, with the possible exception of gender-based STR maxima, and a few other un-lamented archaisms)

The reaction I expect is "interesting, how often and how easy is those mitigating factors to come about?"

The reaction I'd hope for is 'how do we fix that?' Because, as DMs, that's a big part of our jobs, banging the game into the shape we want. (The other reaction I'd expect is 'how can we exploit that to the maximum possible degree?')

Because that's my point. The designer of the feat failed to realize how many and varied the ways are to make the -5 part go away, either in full or in part. This in turn makes the feat useful in too many situations, against too many monsters.

Can you really draw that conclusion about the thought processes of the designer? Maybe it was intentional, to reward system-mastery or create a couple of optimal builds for classes (ranger, fighter) that might not otherwise seem that obviously fit for optimization. Maybe it wasn't deemed a problem because it was an optional sub-system, and DMs would be assumed to use it advisedly? Maybe it was a compromise between good design and evoking the feel of 3e?

And if the feat is in play in a high magic campaign

Then the DM has made a conscious choice to cope with PCs that are 'just better.' So awareness of the issue is desirable, but 'fixing' it may not be - the characters are supposed to be more over the top. Of course, the DM could just not hand out much in the way of two-handed weapons or bows, while giving out potent weapons & shields that don't dovetail with the feats at all, thereby 'balancing' them.

That does not mean that those "ways" (bonuses from spells, items and class features) are themselves unbalanced.

5e was trying to avoid too many stacking bonuses to d20, and, especially, to avoid the systematic optimization-driven stacking we had in 3e or the expectation of stacking built into the system we had in 4e.

It is clearly the feat that is the source of the problem.

It's probably fair to say that it is a significant factor that synergizes unexpectedly/excessively with other aspects of the system that, themselves, might also be problematic in other combos. The more optional rules you add, the more of that there's likely to be. Feats or magic items might cause you some issues, both could cause you signficianly more if they happen to feed on eachother like that. As a DM, you can use that to your advantage to correct a problem you see in your campaign - if the archer in your game is languishing, opening up Sharpshooter and giving him a magic bow may propel him to MVP some of the time, and it's all good.

One of the problems with looking for signs of brokeness in the details of individual feats is that there's a lot of brokeness in D&D as a matter of course. Because it's D&D. It's complex and, as an RPG, it gives players a lot of options, even if one edition may not give a not a lot of mechanical options relative to another, the range of things players might decide to do is open-ended in any RPG. One element of the game might be more powerful than other seemingly-equally-valued altneratives, but that doesn't mean it can't be used by a player or a DM to counter something else with the same or opposite problem.

You can't add ten points of damage to a feature (an "attack) that normally deals only that much damage, that's a 100% increase.

Nod. And, it's also a red flag because /any/ static damage bonus is cause for concern a system that has a lot of multi-attacking, which 5e certainly does, quite a few classes having Extra Attack feature, and there being other options to allow bonus action attacks.

I am saying the feats' biggest issue is that it steers players towards build choices involving greatweapons and ranged weapons, because that is the only two weapon groups that can be used with -5+10.

What is so hard to understand about that?

Seems straightforward. The possible solutions, on opposite extremes, of not using feats (or banning those specific feats) on the one hand and adding similar feats for other weapon groups (or making a -5/+10 'reckless attack' option universally available), seem pretty straightforward, too.

No, if everyone else is a spellcaster, then the biggest issue with the feats never comes up. So what?

So the majority of PC options /are/spellcasters, it's not a trivial possibility. If it means the feat goes from letting a PC in one campaign dominate, to letting a similar PC in a different campaign keep up - it changes everything. For that campaign.

 

[iserith]

A player just created and played a Dex-fighter in my campaign that has Sharpshooter. Like others have said, everyone remembers the hit and big damage, especially at apprentice tier where that's enough to put down many "low-level" monsters, but never seem to remember the times he completely whiffs. Luckily, the group appears to enjoy the times when the big damage bails them out of a tough spot, such as when an enraged bugbear was charging them down, rather than kvetch about how one of their team members out-damages them.