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

[Umbran]

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

If you don't have time for it, perhaps you shou'dn't even mention it. Especially when the implication that others are ignorant is apt to get you a moderator's hairy eyeball.

EVERYONE:

This thread is generating an incredibly large number of reports. Some may be reasonable. Others read very much like people trying to use moderators to win an argument.

Either way - I am not at all convinced this conversation is generating much useful content for the level of acrimony involved. So, here's a consideration - if/when we decide there's too much acrimony, there's several options available to us. Maybe we will close the thread, maybe we will decide the acrimony will go away if we remove certain individuals from the conversation.

Before ANYONE posts again in this thread, they should consider very carefully if we might just decide they are part of the problem, and adjust their language accordingly.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Alternatively, the designer of the feat simply had a different idea of what the typical campaign played by a typical group of players with a typical DM is like than you do.

Well, or the possibility that the game might need to cater to more than just an assumed typical group, which certainly seemed to be the case for an edition hoping to re-unite a fractured fanbase.

Or possibly even just thought "This will work as I intend for the folks not heavily focused on the numbers and optimization of things, and those folks that are heavily focused on the numbers and optimization will be able to see that this option is out of line for their games and make their choice about using it as-is accordingly."

Doesn't sound either probable, nor very flattering. But then mind-reading rarely does.

No, the real problem is the combination. The combination is not an inherent and unavoidable trait of the feat, so the feat (or any other singular piece of the combo) should not be blamed for the combination.

That's... odd. It looks like you're building a condition that could result in nothing ever being judged 'broken.' Is that the idea? The whole concept is just some kind of maya to be seen through by the enlightened?

The designer could be thinking that combos are allowed to be crazy powerful because it requires actually setting them up and knowing when to use them to really make them shine.

That'd be the 'reward for system mastery' reasoning, yes. More likely if Monte Cook had stayed on, I'd think, but not entirely implausible.
I mean, 5e is for fans of all past editions, feats were introduced by 3.0, and 3e fans do like their system mastery, and we are talking about feats that are powerful in a combo.
Yeah, actually pretty plausible.

That's not what I was saying at all. I was addressing the bogus claim that PCs somehow need that -5/+10, and so must gravitate to these two feats for it, or they are gimping themselves.

Ah, that's relative, I guess. Gimping yourself relative the expected challenges under the presented encounter guidelines? Not likely in 5e (though those guidelines can break high as well as low). Gimping yourself relative to the next guy, if the next guy's a rabid optimizer? OK, maybe, iff the feat's as high-impact as all that.

That's why I said plenty of games manage just fine without it. *Yours* included, since you just admitted you don't use feats.

'Admitted?' I'm hardly ashamed of not opting into feats & MCing. Heck, I'm afraid I might be emoting a certain amount of conceit for that decision.

Do your players TPK constantly as a result of a lack of this feat feature? I highly doubt it.

My theory is that they TPK a lot because I run so many 1st-level one shots. But it needs more testing, especially at different levels.
Lots more very entertaining testing.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

But then mind-reading rarely does.

I never said anything about mind-reading, and if you think I did you are willfully misreading me.

That's... odd. It looks like you're building a condition that could result in nothing ever being judged 'broken.' Is that the idea? The whole concept is just some kind of maya to be seen through by the enlightened?

No. Things can be judged broken if they are, on their own, not functioning properly.

I'm only saying that a combination producing a non-functioning result is not evidence that one, but not any of the rest, of the items in the combination is broken.

And if you think I've said otherwise, you are willfully misreading me.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I never said anything about mind-reading.

You were speculating about what a designer was /thinking/, about why he did something. Hence figurative 'mind reading.' Surely you've seen that around here before?

No. Things can be judged broken if they are, on their own, not functioning properly.

That's a definition of 'broken,' I guess, though the 'properly' opens it right back up again, in a very subjective way...

I'd prefer a less restrictive definition, one that can't casually dismiss symptoms such as a broken combo. (Though, of course, those can also be dismissed as intentional rewards for system mastery.) :sigh:

I'd go to my preferred definition of 'balance,' but I'm not sure it even helps in this instance, as deeply down the rabbit hole as the discussion's already gone in avoiding the acknowledgment of a possible system issue.

I'm only saying that a combination producing a non-functioning result is not evidence that one, but not any of the rest, of the items in the combination is broken.

It seems like you're going from that to implying that none of the individual item could be judged broken. Which gets to the point of being a perfect, if meaningless, defense against almost any accusation of brokenness (short of a mechanic just not being usable as written). If that wasn't your point, though, I'm sorry to have mentioned it.

Alternatively, could we be getting to the possibility that they're each broken?

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Hence figurative 'mind reading.' Surely you've seen that around here before?

Whether I've seen it before or not doesn't change that the phrase is not accurate to what I was doing.

It seems like you're going from that to implying that none of the individual item could be judged broken.

No, I'm not.

...casually dismiss symptoms such as a broken combo

And honestly, no it doesn't.

You are misreading me, and let's leave it at that.

Alternatively, could we be getting to the possibility that they're each broken?

I suppose that is a possibility, even though one of the very few things that both sides of this discussion about these feats have agreed on is that each individual element involved in these combinations some find problematic work just fine alone.

 

[Ovinomancer]

He is not "circumventing" the ignore feature. It seems to not be working properly for you. So...

1) CapnZapp, please stop responding to Corwin.

2) Corwin, cut some slack while we work out what is wrong. The advice to take CapnZapp off your list, and then put him back on, is probably not a bad idea.

The block feature doesn't work on tapatalk.

 

[Arial Black]

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.

Ah! A tried and true debating tactic: "I actually have excellent answers which disprove everything you said, but I'm keeping them to myself because 'reasons'. You'll just have to trust me that I win and you lose. Trust me!"

I blame Trump!

The fact remains that the determination of whether this feat is overpowered must be taken in context. You acknowledge some of that context (It's overpowered when combined with other things) while in the same breath deliberately ignore other parts of the context (so few remaining hit points that +10 damage would be wasted, ignoring the -5 penalty, assuming that the cleave part is always usable).

This bias makes your case fatally flawed. Your refusal to engage with the perceived flaws in your case does not constitute a successful defence of that case!

 

[Helldritch]

I still see no problems with these feats. A single fireball does more damage and kills more critters than either of these 'over powered' feats can do in a single combat. And I am not even talking about meteor swarm... Let the martial classes have a bit of awesomeness once in a while.

Last night, I saw a 48hp fireball (perfect roll) against a group of 8 Orogs. None saved, all died. Is fireball over powered????

We can all see some extraordinary rolls/dmg at times. Exception is not the rule. Using a feat with winning conditions is not an abuse, it is clever play. Using a feat with no chance to alleviate some of the penalty is not playing with cleverness, far from it. I will never punish a player from playing with his/her wits. Never.

 

[Sadras]

Last night, I saw a 48hp fireball (perfect roll) against a group of 8 Orogs. None saved, all died. Is fireball over powered????

Certainly not, but the dice and/or the dice cup certainly are.
I suggest you switch to d4s or remove the dice altogether.

 

[shoak1]

Look CapnZapp, I line up w/you 90% on the feat issue, and would love to be proven wrong in my assessment that GWM is NOT overpowered - but I think you are wrong on this. So please ponder, evaluate, and respond directly to this point and tell me what I am missing:

Except in EXTREME situations, there will always be 5 pips on the d20 that miss BECAUSE GWM is turned on - they might be DIFFERENT pips when you are buffed, but they are still misses directly as a result of turning GWM on. That means that regardless of buffs, you ALWAYS lose 25% of your standard average damage EVERY TIME you utilize this feat - BUFFS OR NO BUFFS, mitigation or no mitigation. AND - you never gain more than your chance to hit x10 extra damage to begin with. The idea that buff mitigation somehow changes this is therefore, unless I am missing something, a fallacy. In order for it to be a factor, you would have to have so many buffs that your target to hit # goes below 5 WHEN GWM is on, something that shouldn't really ever happen in a competitive game.

Together, this means that on average, regardless of buffs, GWM gives you a maximum of +4 average damage, and even that is situational - namely when you are facing low ACs (or that potential +4 damage buff goes down some, even if buffed).