D&D 5E Nerfing Great Weapon Master

[Zardnaar]

So tell me, how is it a spellcaster can essentially disable a single foe most rounds without it being "broken for a number of reasons, frankly don't know how it got through playtesting" but a fighter doing +10 damage to a single foe most rounds is broken? And then tell me how, in your experience playing games with this feat, your games broke? And I don't mean in theory, I mean in practice.

Spellcasters are limited by daily slots. Its not +10 damage can be more like +30 to +70.

It not comparing martial types to spellcasters, its a problem for example if one warrior type is outdamaging the next 2 put togather.

Or in 1 charactets case via action surge out damaging the rest of the party put togather (polearm master).

It obsolete the other fighting styles and laughs at single attack moderate damage dealers like rogues and war clerics. Why play a war cleric and suck may as well play a light cleric and be good at something.

 

[Mistwell]

Spellcasters are limited by daily slots. Its not +10 damage can be more like +30 to +70.

Sure but in most groups the long rest happens when spell slots run out, and pretty much ever level of spell slots can do this. So, it's not really all that limited. Spellcasters tend to cast spells every encounter after the first few levels.

It not comparing martial types to spellcastets. Its a fproblem for example if one warrior type is outdamaging the next 2 put togather.

Or in 1 charactets case via action surge out damaging the rest of the party put togather (polearm master).

It obsolete the other fighting styles and laughs at single attack moderate damage dealers like rogues and war clerics. Way play a war cleric and suck may as well play a light cleric and be good at something.

Wait wait wait...you JUST ranked these classes a couple days ago in another thread and you were very clear in saying you thought Fighters developed late and were not ranked high and you ranked Clerics much higher than them.

As for the fighter out-damaging the rest of the party for one round because of action surge, do you make this complaint when the wizard let's loose with a fireball two rounds in a row? I doubt it. And yeah, you compare classes to classes. It's fair to compare the GWM fighter to a wizard.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Wait, what monster would you NOT want to incapacitate with your primary class ability? I have no idea how many legendary monsters you guys are fighting but I feel pretty confident most tables have seen the effect of, say, a Sleep spell on ordinary foes. And yes you'd want to incapacitate ordinary foes with your ordinary spell slots just as the fighter wants to hit ordinary foes for additional damage. I am not sure where you're coming from on this.

Why would you spend a spell slot trying to Hold a monster, if it's going to die before it can do any significant damage anyway? Trivial encounters are trivial. There's no benefit to be gained by Holding a monster for one round before the party kills it; at best, you spend a spell slot and prevent a small amount of damage.

But legendary enemies are extremely rare. Wouldn't those be the very fights you'd be OK with the fighter doing +10 damage, given how they are often against foes with a massive number of hit points and/or healing or resistance to damage?

If there's a guideline to how rare things are supposed to be, I must have missed it. Legendary monsters, being the only thing capable of opposing moderately-high-level PCs, tend to be where the PCs are needed. There would be no need to call the PCs in, if there wasn't something sufficiently dangerous as to require their presence. (Unless you have a lot of other high-level NPCs in the setting, but then that calls into question why the legendary monsters still exist at all.)

Nothing in this game has massive numbers of hit points, or resistance to magical weapons, unless you use the PC-creation rules and make a barbarian. Everything else is dead in 2-3 rounds at most.

And yes, most parties have multiple spellcasters who combine their efforts when needed. But regardless, I am still unsure why you're talking about legendary creatures, which are by definition not common.

Are you really going to spend six of your best spell slots in the hopes of getting one effect to land? On a monster which, by the time you've forced that many saves, is probably already half dead? And would be more than half dead, if you just did damage instead of trying to burn its saves?

 

[Zardnaar]

Sure but in most groups the long rest happens when spell slots run out, and pretty much ever level of spell slots can do this. So, it's not really all that limited. Spellcasters tend to cast spells every encounter after the first few levels.



Wait wait wait...you JUST ranked these classes a couple days ago in another thread and you were very clear in saying you thought Fighters developed late and were not ranked high and you ranked Clerics much higher than them.

As for the fighter out-damaging the rest of the party for one round because of action surge, do you make this complaint when the wizard let's loose with a fireball two rounds in a row? I doubt it. And yeah, you compare classes to classes. It's fair to compare the GWM fighter to a wizard.

Apples oranges. Wizards going to run out of spells fast if they are dropping 2+ lvl 3 spells at level 11 where fighters can get 4 attacks a round or 7 with action surge.
If a wizard was dropping fireballs every round then its a problem.

Of course assuming 6 to 8 encounters 2 short rest assumptions. We have had anywhere from 0 to 12 combat encounters with an average of 4 to 6 I suppose.

 

[CapnZapp]

The games have been functioning OK with this feat.

Nope, it was immediately clear to everyone around the table how this was a singularly disruptive and ill-conceived source of bonus damage.

And that's all before you consider how imbalanced it is.

My reply was to the OP who seemed to focus on the wrong half of the mechanism. It isn't the -5 that needs tweaking, it's the +10 that needs to be removed.


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[CapnZapp]

I don't think changing it to disadvantage will help the problem much. Under many circumstances, a -5 is actually a bigger penalty. Granted, disadvantage also impacts crit chance, but that's relatively minimal from a DPR standpoint.

If you can't use power attack together with advantage, it cuts out the heart of the minmaxer appeal.

So there's that.

But you're right in that it doesn't actually do much to change the underlying math.



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[CapnZapp]

Agonizing blast has a similar impact starting at 5th level, and only increases from there.

When I had this discussion the last time, that was brought up into the discussion.

There is no easy fix. The game simply hands out far too generous bonuses for its own good.

There is no single simple tweak. The game simply fails to account for optimal play.



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[CapnZapp]

That's the thing. Depending on the enemy's AC (and the player's skill at calculating probability) power attack can be a huge boon or a serious detriment.

For example, assume a 50% hit chance. A 20 Strength warrior with a great sword deals about 6 DPR. Using power attack, his DPR drops to about 5.5, because even though his damage increases his accuracy drops to 25%.

Now, admittedly, PCs typically have a better than 50% hit rate. But under many circumstances power attack is a comparable increase to things like duelist fighting style.

How about these assumptions instead?

75% base hit chance (before -5)
Advantage
Reroll 1's
Superiority dice, bless, inspiration etc

End result: fighter reliably hits even AC 18 with GWM/CE four times each round for 40 more damage than otherwise possible.

Note: not armchair theory; actual play experience.

End result: players without the feat feel *completely* inadequate since there is nothing else in the game that can be powergamed to a similar extent.

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[Mirtek]

So tell me, how is it a spellcaster can essentially disable a single foe most rounds without it being "broken for a number of reasons, frankly don't know how it got through playtesting" but a fighter doing +10 damage to a single foe most rounds is broken? And then tell me how, in your experience playing games with this feat, your games broke? And I don't mean in theory, I mean in practice.

It's not about martials vs. magicans, but about martials who actually dislike GWM but feel preassured into using it anyway since it just outperforms any other option. It's not about being overshadowed by the wizard, but by your fellow fighter who took the feat when you did not.

It's as if the greatsword would deal 2d12 and crit on 19-20 and be the only weapon like that and everybody would be "stop complaining, just take the great sword. Who wants to be an axe or hammer fighter anyway?"

 

[Psikerlord#]

So tell me, how is it a spellcaster can essentially disable a single foe most rounds without it being "broken for a number of reasons, frankly don't know how it got through playtesting" but a fighter doing +10 damage to a single foe most rounds is broken? And then tell me how, in your experience playing games with this feat, your games broke? And I don't mean in theory, I mean in practice.

vengeance paladin with this feat, used his paladin adv power and/or bless to negate the penalty, did more damage than the rest of the party. Game folded as a result. later played another game with vengeance paladin, modified the feat, no issues.