D&D 5E Nerfing Great Weapon Master

[Corwin]

The DM of our last campaign (OotA) thought the same. He changed it (along with SS). I don't personally think the feats are as big an issue, but that's fine. I joined the campaign after it started so it was already established. But no one had given to trying the houseruled version. So eventually I did. I changed PCs for the last roughly third of the campaign because I figured we should get some playtest in at least. Before the campaign ended. See how it works at the table.

BTW, he changed it by removing the -5/+10 portion of the feat. Instead it ups the weapon damage di(c)e one step. So my goliath EK used a maul doing base 2d8. All the time. With no penalty to hit. Needless to say, I liked it. Combined with Booming Blade, that was a lot of d8s I got to smack people around with.

 

[CapnZapp]

To each their own but in my opinion it is all on the DM.

This is the saddest argument of all.

Yes, blame it all on the DM - WotC gets away scot free. Hooray!

 

[Xeviat]

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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That was the main thing. Because I've only seen a Barbarian abuse it. It sounds like others can with polearm master, and that a fighter's 3rd and 4th attack can mess with it too.


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[hejtmane]

But that's the case of different classes each getting their turn to shine. The issue is with the GWM melee guy and the non-GWM melee guy in the same party with the former outshining the later at every turn.

Really because I have a Barbarian that is built around shoving and grappling he does solid damage but at times out shines the damage dealers when he locks up mobs; see this goes back to epen.

How about the Rogue with sneak attack and a good assassin build played right or a swash buckler can pump out some damage seen it first hand.

I keep hearing this but not seeing my guys cry in fact they are happy that their team mate does the damage because they all have a role or vision they wanted to play. Everyone talks about how great dex and how over powered it is but everyone whines about the strength builds so which is it because what it sounds like to me players are jealous because they are not the top damaging guy and they did not pick the correct build.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

1.) The design of GWM was intentional.
2.) It functions as the designers intended. You can wail on low AC enemies, but attacking so recklessly against high AC enemies is less efficient, if not inefficient.

The mitigating factor to these truths seems to be how poorly the monsters in the book were balanced. Low-AC enemies are much more common than high-AC enemies, and players have a lot of tools available to increase their own accuracy (and oddly enough, relatively few ways to increase their damage).

Maybe the monsters in the book are intended to all be chumps, and this feat is just the best way to exploit that, but it would be much less useful against better-designed enemies?

 

[jgsugden]

"Truths" - please.

You can be sure the devs did not foresee the depths to which GWM can be abused. It's not like WotC have never made a balancing error before...

You describe the intent of the design, but you completely disregard all the posts which state how this design isn't achieved.

No, I didn't. That was explicitly addressed - and was in fact the point of - my response. People fail to see the detriments when they comment about the 'flaws'.

But where you are egregiously wrong is when you claim "nobody is going to change". Let me tell you that when I first brought up this issue (and saw others do it), we were met with compact disbelief.

As more and more gamers play the game and become better at charop, we see more and more acceptance of how unbalanced GWM/CE is.

Really? Can you point me to the posts where people are changing their minds on this topic? I have followed these threads and I do not see this widespread switching of opinion.

Regardless, you're entirely missing the point of my post. People screamed about how overpowered the Mystic Theurge was. However, it was vastly underpowered. In that situation, people were able to see it after playing the class for a while. Here it is not as easy to see unless you really dig into the analysis and account for overkill, etc... However, the point remains: The mere fact that the masses think something is massively overpowered does not, in fact, make it a balance problem. The masses can be very, very wrong.

 

[Corwin]

The masses can be very, very wrong.

I'd go so far as to argue that we have no evidence that "the masses" even have a problem with the feats in question. A handful of squeaky wheels, on a forum site like this, does not "the masses" make.

 

[hejtmane]

This is the saddest argument of all.

Yes, blame it all on the DM - WotC gets away scot free. Hooray!

The sad part is people can not get past that the feat is not going away and it is not going to be changed in 5e core rules.

Really since feats are optional yes it is all on the DM. I do not have any issues with the feats or the damage it produces as a DM not caused any issues in my games or any drama. Yes it is a very valid argument because if a DM thinks it is over powered he can disallow feats just like Multi classing; if the players are jealous then the table along with the DM has to come to an agreement.

The option are pretty simple disallow feats, disallow certain feat combinations, disallow certain feats, modify the feats or work your encounters around those feats. The answers are pretty simple it is all on the DM and his table to figure which course of action they want to take.

Your choice but at the end of the day it is a DM/Table issue

 

[Warpiglet]

The best way to "fix" GWM is to stop using feats. They are an optional rule, after all. Personally, I started enjoying the game so much more after I stopped playing with feats and multiclassing.

I enjoy making characters with feats and perhaps a level in another class. however, I wondered if this would make for a better game overall.

 

[Caliburn101]

It should be changed to something scalable and appropriate. +10 damage at lower level is ridiculous, and -5 to hit at high level is not significant.

The penalty should be half of proficiency bonus and the damage should be equal to proficiency bonus, so it would scale from -1 to hit, +2 damage all the way up to -3 to hit and +6 damage at high level.