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<blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 8450548" data-attributes="member: 2629">There is a lot of White Room work here with cracks in the paint showing different colors.&nbsp; If you're going to do this type of analysis, I suggest you prepare by doing the following exercise.&nbsp; When you run your PCs, track effective damage per PC.&nbsp; Effective damage is damage dealt to an enemy that brings their health lower down to 0, but disregards all damage dealt that goes below 0.&nbsp; Track it per round of combat.&nbsp; Be sure not to disregard any results when you do this - if your GWM doesn't get to attack in the last round, or if they find that they're just wrapping up individual weenies rather than facing a big threat, don't ignore those situations.&nbsp; It is enlightening to really pay attention to the details here.GWM: The utility of GWM is highly variable from game to game.&nbsp; If you're fighting beasts all the time, then it is great against those low ACs.&nbsp; If you're fighting high AC enemies all the time, it can be nearly a waste of a feat.&nbsp; However, most people focus on DPR and assume a 'middle of the road' AC distribution.&nbsp; Even when you do so, they fail to account for several handicaps of GWM.&nbsp; First - overkill.&nbsp; If an enemy has 7 hps and you're doing either 2d6+5 or 2d6+15, GWM is not valuable to you - and people do not discount the value of the DPR of GWM attacks for the reality that it inflicts more overkill than lesser damage attacks.&nbsp; Second, reducing your chance to hit increases the variability in combat - which opens the door to more bad luck streaks.&nbsp; I've seen far too many big weapon fighters go down due to a 'run of bad luck' that would not have been so bad had they not been using GWM.&nbsp; Monk Damage: Monks are not intended to stay up to speed with other classes in damage dealing. They're just not. They have other special abilities that allow them to be effective, like stun, but they're intended to deal less damage than other classes - when concentrating on one foe. Their ability to split up their damage into three or four pools early on will reduce the damage lost to overkill, and keep them effective combatants from a damage perspective, but they arenot intended to be high damage PCs.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="jgsugden, post: 8450548, member: 2629"] There is a lot of White Room work here with cracks in the paint showing different colors. If you're going to do this type of analysis, I suggest you prepare by doing the following exercise. When you run your PCs, track [I]effective damage[/I] per PC. [I]Effective damage[/I] is damage dealt to an enemy that brings their health lower down to 0, but disregards all damage dealt that goes below 0. Track it per round of combat. Be sure not to disregard any results when you do this - if your GWM doesn't get to attack in the last round, or if they find that they're just wrapping up individual weenies rather than facing a big threat, don't ignore those situations. It is enlightening to really pay attention to the details here. [B]GWM: [/B]The utility of GWM is highly variable from game to game. If you're fighting beasts all the time, then it is great against those low ACs. If you're fighting high AC enemies all the time, it can be nearly a waste of a feat. However, most people focus on DPR and assume a 'middle of the road' AC distribution. Even when you do so, they fail to account for several handicaps of GWM. First - overkill. If an enemy has 7 hps and you're doing either 2d6+5 or 2d6+15, GWM is not valuable to you - and people do not discount the value of the DPR of GWM attacks for the reality that it inflicts more overkill than lesser damage attacks. Second, reducing your chance to hit increases the variability in combat - which opens the door to more bad luck streaks. I've seen far too many big weapon fighters go down due to a 'run of bad luck' that would not have been so bad had they not been using GWM. [B]Monk Damage: [/B]Monks are not intended to stay up to speed with other classes in damage dealing. They're just not. They have other special abilities that allow them to be effective, like stun, but they're intended to deal less damage than other classes - when concentrating on one foe. Their ability to split up their damage into three or four pools early on will reduce the damage lost to overkill, and keep them effective combatants from a damage perspective, but they arenot intended to be high damage PCs. [/QUOTE]

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