What makes Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter so good?

[Rossbert]

I am legitimately not trying to start any sort of flame war, but these two feats seem hyped way beyond anything I have seen at the table.

+10 damage is good, probably around doubling your damage on a hit (for argument's sake I am assuming 12 or 11 damage on a hit normally), but it comes with a 25% drop in accuracy. The math definitely works out as a net gain, if I hit 3/4 as often but do twice the damage it is definitely a win, but it hardly seems overwhelming.

When I see someone running it at the table it feels very swingy. They are less reliable than other fighter types but they have impressive numbers when they hit. They feel almost like a barbarian in a box but it is not amazing, especially since we play at low enough levels that it works out that anyone who isn't a variant human basically gave up the +2 increase on their primary stat to take it.

At my home game table it is another matter, we use flanking rules and I can count on one hand the number of times a PC has attacked without advantage. In cases like that the penalty is hardly noticeable.

Is everyone always attacking with advantage, or am I missing some other game changing aspect?

 

[bgbarcus]

In my game we play all levels and don't use flanking. At first those feats seemed overpowered but I started calling out when the -5 caused a miss and the perception changed. Players with those feats usually save the big damage attacks for low AC monsters, even at high levels.

The one thing I think may be too much is sharpshooter ignoring disadvantage at long range. I run quite a few outdoor encounters where distance is important and the sharpshooters become exceptionally powerful in those situations.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I am legitimately not trying to start any sort of flame war, but these two feats seem hyped way beyond anything I have seen at the table.

Is everyone always attacking with advantage, or am I missing some other game changing aspect?

Several points:
Sharpshooter is generally held up as the most abuseable because the +2 to hit bonus of the Fighter Archery style goes a fair way to offset the penalty.

Precision attack from the Fighter Battlemaster can also be used to mitigate the penalty sometimes, to make landing a hit with +10 damage more reliable.

The -5/+10 effect of the feat is voluntary. Thus the character can turn it on when they have advantage or when fighting a low-AC opponent, and simply not use it when facing one where the -5 penalty will be more of a problem.

However . . .
A lot of the hype is also due to people emphasising edge cases or positing scenarios that support their particular agenda.
A party can cooperate to aid the character with the feat to help them land those hits. I personally don't have an issue with this, and regard the damage from a GWM strike that lands due to Bless or Inspiration to be more the cleric's or bard's contribution to the fight however.

Heavily-optimised characters, can use those feats as a lever for min/maxing damage though. Particularly when combined with a generous DM who makes magical weapons more generally available than they are by default.

 

[Gadget]

The feats are so good because, as you have pointed out, there are a number of ways to mitigate the penalty to gain the bonus damage (numerous ways to get advantage, high stats, Magic, etc). Combine this with the fact that ACs don’t rise as much as earlier editions and it can be quite effective, especially at mid to high levels. To a min/maxer, trying such things are par for the course. Besides which, one does not have to use the feat when it would not be to one’s “advantage “.

This why it is generally considered questionable design to give a big bonus to something at the cost of a penalty to something else: players will generally seek out ways to mitigate the penalty while still gaining the benefit of the bonus.

Though I do agree with you that the problems with these feats are sometimes overstated online; every table is different.

 

[guachi]

It's a combination of several things.

First, hit chances are relatively high in 5e. You'll hit about 65% of the time or so in melee and 75% with a ranged weapon so the -5 isn't as problematic as if you only hit 50% of the time.

Second, if you actually do have a 50% chance to hit before the -5 kicks in, just don't use the ability.

Third, the -5 is fairly easy to overcome. Bless, Precision, Advantage, Archery style.

Fourth, the other parts of both feats are really useful. The bonus action attack from GWM is often worth more extra damage than the -5/+10 part of the feat.

 

[iserith]

I don't often use feats in my games, but I have some experience with them as DM and a player, particularly Sharpshooter.

One of my favorite characters is Red Creek Rufus, a ranger. He's the world's greatest fisherman, so his primary weapon is a net. With Sharpshooter, that means I can actually throw it from range and suffer no penalty, then have his boar, Belvedere, charge and knock down the target. Prone and restrained sucks big time and this is the primary tactic against a high-AC monster. Against lower-AC monsters, he uses a sling or a dagger because it's not so much the die that's getting stuff done - it's the bonus damage plus Dex mod. Everybody takes a bow with Sharpshooter. But not Rufus!

In games I've DMed where a character has a bow and Sharpshooter, what I've noticed is that the player feels overwhelming pressure to only loose arrows from the bow to the point of sheer boredom. Now, nobody's forcing him or her to do that, but it's hard for many people to imagine any other action being as effective as a ton of damage (even if it's overkill), so that's what they do. And if there's a higher-AC monster, they miss. A lot. Which is even more boring. As a result, players that take Sharpshooter once, don't tend to take it again on subsequent characters. It gets tiresome saying "I loose an arrow!" every turn while others are doing less damaging, but more interesting, stuff.

So I would say it's a good feat, but it's not fantastic. While doing crazy damage is great from an effectiveness standpoint, my experience is that players aren't always that satisfied with that being their characters' main shtick.

 

[Blue]

There's a lot of ways to increase hit chance, both for yourself and by others in your party. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy - one character picks up SS/GWM, suddenly the Cleric makes sure they are one of the Bless targets, others see how much damage they do on a hit so they start helping - more buffs like haste or greater invisibility, debuffs on foes so they grant advantage when attacked, etc.

All of these are decent individually, but may not seem to be the best choice for a character in a vacuum. Sure, Bless may be, but maybe they'd rather haste someone else. But SS/GWM synergy makes them all more worthwhile and then they rock the world.

In the Giants hardcore,I played a SS/Crossbow Expert getting base 3-4 attacks a round (two base, one bonus action, often one Horde Breaker from Hunter Ranger), and my party made sure I was buffed out the wazoo so I could bring down the huge bags of HPs that giants are. Plus I could turn misses into hits with Precision from Battlemaster. The GWM Vengeance Paladin was similarly buffed, usually with the same Bless and with our sorcerer twinning Haste or something. When our Monk stunned a foe it was time to go to town.

 

[CapnZapp]

I am legitimately not trying to start any sort of flame war, but these two feats seem hyped way beyond anything I have seen at the table.

+10 damage is good, probably around doubling your damage on a hit (for argument's sake I am assuming 12 or 11 damage on a hit normally), but it comes with a 25% drop in accuracy. The math definitely works out as a net gain, if I hit 3/4 as often but do twice the damage it is definitely a win, but it hardly seems overwhelming.

When I see someone running it at the table it feels very swingy. They are less reliable than other fighter types but they have impressive numbers when they hit. They feel almost like a barbarian in a box but it is not amazing, especially since we play at low enough levels that it works out that anyone who isn't a variant human basically gave up the +2 increase on their primary stat to take it.

At my home game table it is another matter, we use flanking rules and I can count on one hand the number of times a PC has attacked without advantage. In cases like that the penalty is hardly noticeable.

Is everyone always attacking with advantage, or am I missing some other game changing aspect?

Take just one case:

A Fighter Battlemaster attacks with advantage (from any out of numerous sources) and one other buff (perhaps a magic weapon or Cleric buff).

She's using the Precision maneuver to turn near-misses into hits.

She's using this against monsters that doesn't sport uncommonly high AC (hitting on a 2 to 6 before the -5)

Suddenly the miss chance isn't 25%.

You will see that a high level fighter will routinely gain 30 points of damage or even more.

The feat is utterly misconstrued, clearly made by a designer inept at min-maxing.

You're welcome.

Ps. For endless analysis, read previous threads.

 

[ad_hoc]

The base chance to hit in 5e is high.

Further bonuses to hit are easy to come by. Both through advantage and straight numerical bonuses. A Blessed Barbarian for example.

Damage bonuses, conversely are harder to come by or cost more than comparable bonuses to hit.

 

[Blue]

One of my favorite characters is Red Creek Rufus, a ranger. He's the world's greatest fisherman, so his primary weapon is a net. With Sharpshooter, that means I can actually throw it from range and suffer no penalty, then have his boar, Belvedere, charge and knock down the target. Prone and restrained sucks big time and this is the primary tactic against a high-AC monster. Against lower-AC monsters, he uses a sling or a dagger because it's not so much the die that's getting stuff done - it's the bonus damage plus Dex mod. Everybody takes a bow with Sharpshooter. But not Rufus!

Okay, that's just awesome. Extremely flavorful, effective in an unusual way, effective in a way that helps everyone in the party shine so everyone gets spotlight. Bravo!

In games I've DMed where a character has a bow and Sharpshooter, what I've noticed is that the player feels overwhelming pressure to only loose arrows from the bow to the point of sheer boredom. Now, nobody's forcing him or her to do that, but it's hard for many people to imagine any other action being as effective as a ton of damage (even if it's overkill), so that's what they do. And if there's a higher-AC monster, they miss. A lot. Which is even more boring. As a result, players that take Sharpshooter once, don't tend to take it again on subsequent characters. It gets tiresome saying "I loose an arrow!" every turn while others are doing less damaging, but more interesting, stuff.

So I would say it's a good feat, but it's not fantastic. While doing crazy damage is great from an effectiveness standpoint, my experience is that players aren't always that satisfied with that being their characters' main shtick.

I tend to think that when players intentionally invest resources like a feat into a specific type of action, they intend to use that action. The player decided upfront they wanted that to be part of their character's main shtick.

The missing a lot surprises me - when I played one if we encountered foes I hadn't fought before I would fire a few shots without the -5 first so I could judge "hey, I hit on an 8 on the die" or "I missed on a 13 on the die" before deciding to activate it or not.

That said, party synergy often had me Blessed and other buffs, or debuffs on foes (monk stun, spells) so that missing was rare against common opponents.

Now, the only time I played a SS was in the Giants module, so we knew that our most common opponents would be giant bags of HPs that would need to be whittled down otherwise combats would last forever. Very little overkill over the course of a combat, need to do great damage otherwise the giants would be able to wear us down every single time. That might not be the standard for a normal campaign.

Even so, I would do other actions. Spike Growth was one of my favorites to discourage giants from closing with the squishier members of the party (including me).