D&D 5E 5th Edition has broken Bounded Accuracy

[Psikerlord#]

This is what I'm seeing only earlier starting around 8th level.

I dread to think what it will be like by higher levels. The fighter easily knocks out 60+ damage per round with GWM and even worse with Action Surge.

The problem is with the -5/+10 mechanic. Just substitute it with +1 str for GWM and +1 dex for SS (and also remove SS's ability to negate disad when shooting in melee) and everything's golden.

GWM and SS without amendment are both broken. As this (and many other threads) have suggested.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I don't think you're really appreciating all the factors. Having not actually gone through this process and played this character, this is not a surprise.

High level parties have a lot of resources at their disposal. Investing bless is hardly what I call "significant". Foresight is a very efficient investment when you consider all the factors, but it's hardly the only way to gain advantage, which is a big enabler for feats like SS. Faery Fire spam is also another great way. Having a Wolf Totem Barbarian is another great way. Shield Bashing is also great, since monsters frustratingly don't get athletics or acrobatics. Or even worse for the DM, pick up 2 levels of Rogue.

Throwing tons of CR6 mages at the group seems like engineering the fight to take down one party member, which is usually a good indication there is an issue with a build. Also, the SS fighter with foresight can probably kill all of them before they got to act, they have poor AC and 40ish HP from memory.

You're also making a few assumptions such as a Dragon starting right on top of the group (nope), no scouting, no tactical planning, and that the Dragon is all aware and all seeing of all things. I honestly can't remember the exact details, maybe I used a longbow, maybe I didn't. What I do remember is the encounter was over very quickly with the Dragon fleeing with it's tail between its legs. We also fought tons of other things from crypts filled with Skeletons, vampires, wargs, to hordes of demons (one encounter was 110,000XP budget). The main theme was this class combination totally and utterly dominated the combat pillar of the game. Foresight was a factor, but there were times we did not have it up, and the theme was still the same.

The Great Weapon Master Fighter ended up being so useless that we swapped him out with another bow based Sharpshooting Fighter (Actually a Fighter11/Sorcerer6) and he also dominated combat, and hey guess what, only one Foresight to go around.

No one is invincible, and it's easy to sit here and arm chair general and pick holes in things. But what I can say with absolutely confidence is that Fighter + Sharpshooter + Crossbow expert definitely puts strains, if not outright breaks, bounded accuracy at the upper levels of the game.

Whether this is actually a problem or not, I will leave open to debate. What I consider a much bigger issues is this combination completely outclasses melee characters, which can cause issues at the table.

The 1st level slot for Bless is not the significant factor and I never said it was. Concentration, however, is significant. In the case of Bless it's arguably worth it, but the caster nonetheless can't cast any other concentration spells.

Foresight's a great spell. Never said it wasn't. You seem to be misunderstanding what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that if the rest of the party is expending resources to buff you, then that has to be accounted for. A caster's only 9th level spell and the concentration of two casters is quite significant.

Throwing in a few mages (cultists who worship the dragon) isn't engineering a fight IMO. That said, I see nothing wrong with throwing the occasional optimized fight against an optimized party. What's good for the goose and all that...

I'm simply assuming good tactics on the part of the DM. One assumes that ancient dragons got to be that age for a reason. I realize that it wasn't a spellcasting dragon in your case, but had it been it could have simply approached while invisible.

Again, I believe you when you say that your party (and in particular your EK fighter) strains the combat pillar. It's to be expected with an optimized party. If I were your DM I'd let most fights be easy, because that certainly seems what your group was going for, and you've arguably earned it. However, I honestly believe that I could challenge such a party when I wanted to, even without custom building encounters just to destroy your EK. Spells like Dispel Magic and Maze have more uses than just against an EK archer, believe it or not. If you can scout and plan tactics, then you better believe your enemies can use divinations and other methods to learn your tricks. I don't think there's anything wrong with an optimized party, but the DM does have to play at their level or they'll steamroll his encounters. That's just common sense.

I do wonder whether the melee would have seemed quite so outclassed if they'd been the ones receiving Haste and Foresight. I doubt it would have been as optimal a strategy, but it might have made the melee a bit more competitive by comparison.

 

[Bacon Bits]

You say that Sharpshooter makes you deal way more damage and end the fight faster- which it might, but what sort of damage would you be doing without it, 'cause like someone else pointed out while it can greatly increase damage on hits depending on what your damage is with out it it still may not be increasing damage overall.

/Edit/ Sorry I tried replying directly to you Davedash but apparently it didn't work.

This is what I thought for a awhile time, too. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out. The best ranged weapons deal an average of 10 damage with ability modifier. If you hit on an 11, you either deal 5 damage (50% chance of 10 damage) or you deal 5 damage (25% chance of 20 damage). [Crits don't affect anything, because they add the same amount of damage and happen equally as often.] If you need less than an 11, then the feat is better. You need 12 weapon + ability damage to catch up if you need a 10 to hit. You need 14 weapon + ability damage to catch up if you need a 9 to hit.

That still may not seem so bad, but needing a 9 or 11 to hit eventually covers basically everything. At high level, rolling an 11 gives you 11 + 6 + 5 = AC 22. Basically nothing has AC 22. Hell, basically nothing has AC 20. So, at high level, you should always use the ability. If the average AC is 15, then at high level with no magic you hit on a 4. Your base weapon + ability mod needs to deal 24 damage to make not using it break even.

From pretty much level 8-10 (earlier if you have the Archery style or find magic weapons) and on, you'll just be using the feat all the time. It's mathematically correct.

You can make it significantly less appealing by making it +7 damage, but you have to be careful. Changing it to +5 damage makes it basically never worth it except with odd weapons like the blowgun.

Personally, I find this kind of math poor game design. I'd rather the feats did something in limited circumstances, like against creatures that resist damage or against creatures with certain characteristics. As it is, it doesn't add flavor to the game. It just adds math.

 

[DaveDash]

I do wonder whether the melee would have seemed quite so outclassed if they'd been the ones receiving Haste and Foresight. I doubt it would have been as optimal a strategy, but it might have made the melee a bit more competitive by comparison.

In my other game (Level 16 at present) that I run, the party does cast such spells (not foresight yet) on the Paladin. That is a normal campaign with magic items, potions are abundant - many of which don't require concentration. He kicks arse, but it's no where near as strained, and he even has a +3 Vorpal Great Sword. If I threw a 108,000 XP budget encounter at that group, they would be forced to flee, even at level 17. With two SS Fighters (one EK, one Fighter/Sorc) in the other group, we demolished it.

The whole Dragon thing has been covered in the other thread. Dragons are weak opponents by themselves, ran RAW, without piling on huge odds in the Dragons favor via terrain, spell casting, tailored minions, lair traps, and other measures. It is not in dispute that the DM can 'win' by doing these things, but that's not really the point.

The whole point in this exercise was to play the game high level through a mini campaign, running things as RAW as possible to see what it was like at higher levels before we actually embarked on our own proper games.
The Fighter + Archer + SS +Crossbow Expert combination was one of the only problems we found in 5e at high levels in terms of 'bounded accuracy' being broken - and what I mean by that is if the DM runs things straight out of the MM he (or she) may run into challenge problems. I did test a SorcLock as well but didn't find it to be an issue.

To have so few issues though is actually testimony to how good 5e is overall.

 

[Celtavian]

Single handedly? You had the wizards only 9th level spell cast on you and the cleric must have been casting bless and you casting haste. Unless you are pretty lucky with your wisdom save you are probably frightened and I'd be surprised if the two concentration spells could both survive the breath weapon reliably. Assuming all that stuff is still going or is cast again you are attacking at +8 including the -5 penalty to hit against the dragons AC 22. Even with advantage from Foresight and Bless that's still pretty hard to hit.

My fighter in general tends to hit 3 times and do about 60 damage. Using GWM he hits twice and does about 60 damage. Against easy stuff and if I get advantage then sure the damage goes up a little but that's rarely the stuff I'm attacking. Our wizard doesn't take Foresight though - too many other interesting spells to cast it seems

I'm not sure why we're debating this again. It was proven mathematically that GWM and Sharpshooter become more powerful as you level due to Bounded Accuracy making it a haves versus have-nots situation. Those of us discussing Sharpshooter and GWM have played campaigns to 16+. I even have a second campaign at level seven. Sharpshooter isn't outclassing everyone at level 7. The Eldritch Blast warlock/fighter and Monk are keeping up with the damage of the Sharpshooter because he does miss more often at level 7. If your campaigns are in that 6 to 12 range that is common in WotC's survey, you'll probably be ok with those feats. They aren't nearly as problematic.

If you plan to play to a good ways past 11th, up to say 14 to 18, be aware that Sharpshooter and GWM (if you expend resources to get the melee martial into the fight) can lead to a martial doing far more damage than everyone else. The math shows that GWM and Sharpshooter are mainly high level problems. To put it in 5E terms you don't start to see the problem until the end of 3rd tier play and the start of 4th tier play. Though you do still get the occasional extreme nova from both feats here and there with Action Surging Fighters or Vow using paladins. It's not quite as a bad because a ki using Monk (especially Way of the Open Hand) or warlock generally does quite a bit more often using their capabilities.

It's mostly an FYI for you and any other player entering the end of tier 3 and start of tier 4 play.

 

[Celtavian]

At the same time? Nearly everyone I hear actually talk about their characters either (a) is playing in a game with house-rules that enable access to feats separately from ASIs, or (b) shoots for a 20 as soon as humanly possible because the benefits are just that good, for your main stat.

Yes, I have seen a few people shrug it off and say that they'd rather have the feats. But the vast majority of people I see talking about it go for the ability scores. Then again, there also seems to be an unbelievable amount of DM antipathy for feats in the first place, so perhaps that is distorting the sample.

Some feats are amazing with certain combinations. If you're playing that combination, you want the feat that makes it go. You're almost always going to mix it up. You want your max stat. Some feats are great like Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert for an archer. Shield Mastery and Heavy Armor Mastery for a defensive fighter. It all depends on what you're trying to build.

 

[Celtavian]

Yeah I like the feat, especially the bonus attack. Its just that me character does about 20 damage per hit as it stands. So if I miss an attack it wipes out two of the +10's anyway. And -5 is pretty much going to miss on attack on average. The AC's are high enough at 18-22

How are you doing 20 a hit? An average Greatsword or Greataxe wielding fighter absent magic items will do 2d6+5 or 1d12+5. Both weapons average about 12 damage per hit. So how are you getting to 20? An explanation might some light as to why your experience differs because those are not standard numbers for many of us. Thus you must be doing something differently to get an average of 20 damage.

As I've stated, we've already discussed this to the nth degree. The math does not support your conclusion at all. The math doesn't add up for you doing 20 damage per hit without some major magical modification.

 

[Celtavian]

I'm playing a 20th level character with maxed stats and a +3 weapon. I can state that I do not hit all the time. Using great weapon master is risky unless I get advantage, as one miss usually means less damage and two misses certainly does. In play, at least for us, it doesn't seem a problem

Even with a +3 weapon you should only be averaging 15 points of damage a hit.

Your hit roll should be +6 proficiency +5 stat +3 weapon =+14 (without GWM) -5 =+9 (with GWM)

Average damage without GWM: 15 per hit. 45 damage with three hits.

Average damage with GWM: 25 her hit. 50 points with two hits. 75 with three hits.

Two hits with GWM exceeds the damage you do with three hits without it. Three hits with GWM blows non-GWM hits out of the water.

If you're a fighter with four attacks.

No GWM: 4 hits: 60 average damage.
GWM: 100 average damage.

You need to hit all four times to beat two GWM hits. Three GWM hits out of four does more damage than four hits without by about 25%.

We've heavily discussed the math on GWM and Sharpshooter. It's not a debate you should entertain at level 20. The math is not in you favor.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm not sure why we're debating this again. It was proven mathematically that GWM and Sharpshooter become more powerful as you level due to Bounded Accuracy making it a haves versus have-nots situation. Those of us discussing Sharpshooter and GWM have played campaigns to 16+. I even have a second campaign at level seven. Sharpshooter isn't outclassing everyone at level 7. The Eldritch Blast warlock/fighter and Monk are keeping up with the damage of the Sharpshooter because he does miss more often at level 7. If your campaigns are in that 6 to 12 range that is common in WotC's survey, you'll probably be ok with those feats. They aren't nearly as problematic.

If you plan to play to a good ways past 11th, up to say 14 to 18, be aware that Sharpshooter and GWM (if you expend resources to get the melee martial into the fight) can lead to a martial doing far more damage than everyone else. The math shows that GWM and Sharpshooter are mainly high level problems. To put it in 5E terms you don't start to see the problem until the end of 3rd tier play and the start of 4th tier play. Though you do still get the occasional extreme nova from both feats here and there with Action Surging Fighters or Vow using paladins. It's not quite as a bad because a ki using Monk (especially Way of the Open Hand) or warlock generally does quite a bit more often using their capabilities.

It's mostly an FYI for you and any other player entering the end of tier 3 and start of tier 4 play.

You can start seeing problems with it sooner around level 8-11 if the party builds around it. For example a shield master Bard or Fighter /Thief combined with a GWM character combined with spells like hex and enhance ability along with bless and anything that grants advantage.

 

[Celtavian]

You can start seeing problems with it sooner around level 8-11 if the party builds around it. For example a shield master Bard or Fighter /Thief combined with a GWM character combined with spells like hex and enhance ability along with bless and anything that grants advantage.

True. Knocking someone prone to set up the GWM is a great use of a Shield Bash. Sharpshooter comes on line earlier than GWM due to the +2 from Archery Style.