D&D 5E Current take on GWM/SS

[Hussar]

His maths means nothing. It's a very specific scenario which is probably the least unfavourable to prove anything about these feats.

I have hundreds of dice rolls that prove that SS at the very least equates to roughly a 2:1 damage output. I find it more hilarious people are taking very specific white room maths over real play data.

It's really easy to test. You can even do it by yourself. Make some characters, make various encounters, use monsters from the MM and see what happens yourself.

The plural of anecdote is not data. Even if we take your rolls as gospel, it only proves that if I play the way you play and have a group that plays the way your group plays, I might have the same problem. In a group that does not constantly burn resources to make sure that the GWF/SS fighters are getting those buffs won't have a problem.

Fighter player to Cleric Player: Hey, on the first round of every combat, I want you to cast Bless on me so I can hit because this feat I took really reduces my hit chances.

Cleric Player: Umm, what? No. Look after yourself. I'm not burning concentration and my first round of combat every time, just so you can be a star. I think I'll be leading off with Banishment thank you very much.

Fighter Player: What? But, if you don't bless me, I can't hit. I'll be missing all the time. Why are you stepping on my fun?

Cleric Player: Why didn't you make a character that was self sufficient? It's better if I actually directly contribute to combat rather than Bless you and then make sure I never get hit and lose concentration. I'm a tank, I'm supposed to be on the front line. I didn't take this War Cleric so I can ride the bench and cheer lead while you kill everything.

Fighter Player: You suck.

I mean, I mentioned that a lot of this problem goes away if you actually follow the advice in the DMG and have 5-7 encounters per day, instead of one. The 15h level Battlemaster Fighter can burn his six superiority dice in one encounter, sure, but, he's got two more before a short rest where he's not hitting anything. The 15th level cleric only has 15 spells slots from levels 1-5 (I'm going to assume that he doesn't want to burn his 6-8th level spell slots on Bless). It's very unlikely he can afford to burn almost half his daily spells on Bless. And, I'm thinking it's a pretty rare player who would burn a 4th or 5th level slot on Bless in any case.

Part of the theory crafting that goes on here is how easy it is to rack up all these bonuses and gain advantage. Sure, that's true when you have 1-2 encounters per day (which, in other threads, Celtavian and I believe Dave Dash mentioned is how they play). However, when you put a bit of pressure on the party, forcing 5-7 encounters per day, pretty much all these issues go away.

So, for me, GWF/SS isn't an issue. The party simply burns through resources too quickly and would badly run out of gas in my style of play. By the 3rd encounter per short rest period and that 6th or 7th encounter per day, the party would get slaughtered if it used up so many resources so early in the day.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes the DMG guidelines create much more powerful monsters. The MM ones are very weak. But those monsters are out of scope in this discussion IMO.

Sorry for the laugh. Posting on mobile on this site is frustrating at best.

100% true. But the game is designed for you to win even hard fights without a PC drops from max to zero. Even if a level 11 party runs into a medium party of orcs with 4 of them including the chieftan buffed by their eye of Grummsh via bless and a spiritual weapon, you will survive hits from all the javelins (maybe not the greataxes)

But my point still stands.

Sharpshooter is powerful but nothing to worry about. It's an archer. Dedicated Archers are usually 5th wheels. Most parties want a melee, mage, healer, and a skills guy before they want an archer. The game is designed that way. If you take an archer before the "core four" archetypes, you tend to suffer bad somewhere else.

Great Weapon Master is powerful but nothing to worry about. Heavy weapons guys and the feat itself are low tier at low levels if you don't have another frontline warrior backing it up. So you can easily find yourself in archer territory of "Grab a shield, second melee weapon or get out". Not as bad as an archer but you have the whole mobility thing biting you as a GWF warrior.

GWM and SS are powerful but mostly fine. The only issues are big parties or starting past level 6 as you can mitigate the weaknesses of the build and optimize more.

 

[DaveDash]

100% true. But the game is designed for you to win even hard fights without a PC drops from max to zero. Even if a level 11 party runs into a medium party of orcs with 4 of them including the chieftan buffed by their eye of Grummsh via bless and a spiritual weapon, you will survive hits from all the javelins (maybe not the greataxes)

But my point still stands.

Sharpshooter is powerful but nothing to worry about. It's an archer. Dedicated Archers are usually 5th wheels. Most parties want a melee, mage, healer, and a skills guy before they want an archer. The game is designed that way. If you take an archer before the "core four" archetypes, you tend to suffer bad somewhere else.

Not really.

If you go EK + Sharpshooter + Crossbow expert you won't really suffer anywhere, except maybe the lower levels. But once you start to wind up around level 8 you will probably break the game for the DM, unless he starts customizing monsters and/or starting the whole "increase monster HP/AC" thing which leads to its own problems.

Better to just rewrite the feats to begin with.

 

[Coredump]

You missed some important factors.

1. Until high levels, most enemies only have an AC of 14-16 (with the occasional outlier).
2. Even at high levels, AC typically range from 16-18. An AC of 19+ is rare, and ACs of 22 or higher are typically reserved for CR 20+ enemies.
3. Using random treasure tables, most PCs will have a +2 weapon by level 15, and a +3 weapon by level 20. This means your typical level 20 PC will have +14 to hit, and hit an AC 20 on a 6+ and an AC 22 on an 8+.
4. Also, at higher levels, buffs become more readily available. Bless, Faerie Fire, knocking enemies prone, stunning enemies, paralyzing enemies, and restraining enemies all significantly increase accuracy.

These factors combine to make SS and GWM significantly better than they appear on paper (which is already well above and beyond most feats and even a +2 to an ability score).

I am not sure what you are counting as 'high level', by CR 9 the average AC is 17, by CR14 the average is 19.
Using the DMG suggestions, it is possible, but not likely, that most PCs will have a +2 weapon by level 15. It is likely they will have a Very Rare item, but no guarantee on what it is.

 

[DaveDash]

The plural of anecdote is not data. Even if we take your rolls as gospel, it only proves that if I play the way you play and have a group that plays the way your group plays, I might have the same problem. In a group that does not constantly burn resources to make sure that the GWF/SS fighters are getting those buffs won't have a problem.

Fighter player to Cleric Player: Hey, on the first round of every combat, I want you to cast Bless on me so I can hit because this feat I took really reduces my hit chances.

Cleric Player: Umm, what? No. Look after yourself. I'm not burning concentration and my first round of combat every time, just so you can be a star. I think I'll be leading off with Banishment thank you very much.

Fighter Player: What? But, if you don't bless me, I can't hit. I'll be missing all the time. Why are you stepping on my fun?

Cleric Player: Why didn't you make a character that was self sufficient? It's better if I actually directly contribute to combat rather than Bless you and then make sure I never get hit and lose concentration. I'm a tank, I'm supposed to be on the front line. I didn't take this War Cleric so I can ride the bench and cheer lead while you kill everything.

Fighter Player: You suck.

I don't know anyone that plays this way across 20 years of RPG gaming both in CRPGS, MMOs, and TTRPGs.

This is how it normally works:

Cleric Player: I will cast Bless on myself (so I don't lose concentration as easy), the Fighter because he hits *really* hard with SS, and someone else, because I want to win the encounter using the least resources as possible with the less risk to myself and others. I may cast banish if it's fighting something that can be banished easily but that entire argument is moot because that one spell probably wins the encounter anyway.

I've heard you trumpet on about the resource argument before. Not every fight is deadly. There is a mix of easy and hard fights. For the easy fights, you don't really need to have bless up and the SS guy still has the best attack bonus in the game (and ignores cover) so can plink off low AC enemies usually on a roll of 2-3 or better. No bless required, still massive damage.
Hard fights bless always is on, unless there are exceptions where something else comes up, which is rare. On those hard fights when my Cleric does NOT cast bless, we notice it. It hurts. It's such a powerful spell that it's even worth it using higher level slots to cast it, however I usually save all my first level slots for it. Running more than 4 deadly fights per day, or 4 fights where you're fighting nothing but high AC things is not the norm.

It's not a problem for groups that don't min/max, I'll accept that argument. But by that same logic removing the -5/+10 mechanic probably wouldn't hurt those groups either, because they don't min max! So it could quite happily be removed from the game without fuss.

For the rest of us, including at least one poster here, it's actually potentially game breaking. Zardnaar actually ended up ending one of first D&D 5e campaigns at around level 12 because the SS + Crossbow Expert fighter made it not fun for everyone involved. After that people agreed at his table not to take those feats.

 

[DaveDash]

I am not sure what you are counting as 'high level', by CR 9 the average AC is 17, by CR14 the average is 19.
Using the DMG suggestions, it is possible, but not likely, that most PCs will have a +2 weapon by level 15. It is likely they will have a Very Rare item, but no guarantee on what it is.

At high level you still fight low CR stuff with low ACs. The whole game is designed around this premise, which is why there's only a small handful of high CR creatures in the MM. I think you don't quite get this which is why your assumptions are flawed in your maths.

The game is actually designed that if you have an encounter with multiple creatures they're generally ~5 CR or lower than the party level. Even at level 16 I am using CR3 and CR5 creatures in encounters with 3+ more creatures, because that's how the game is designed to be played.
Go work it out using the DMG encounter guideline rules, since you're so fond of maths.

 

[Minigiant]

Not really.

If you go EK + Sharpshooter + Crossbow expert you won't really suffer anywhere, except maybe the lower levels. But once you start to wind up around level 8 you will probably break the game for the DM, unless he starts customizing monsters and/or starting the whole "increase monster HP/AC" thing which leads to its own problems.

Better to just rewrite the feats to begin with.

I bolded something for emphasis.
Many games don't get to level 8 if you start from level 1.
An archer EK is a detriment to the party from level 1-5 unless you have a strong frontline or the "core four" already.

 

[KarinsDad]

Sharpshooter is powerful but nothing to worry about. It's an archer. Dedicated Archers are usually 5th wheels. Most parties want a melee, mage, healer, and a skills guy before they want an archer. The game is designed that way. If you take an archer before the "core four" archetypes, you tend to suffer bad somewhere else.

I don't buy this. Healing, for one, is almost nonexistent at most tables in most combats. Bards, Druids, and Clerics can cast either Cure Wounds or Healing Word; Paladins and Rangers can cast Cure Wounds; and Fighters can do damage mitigation (Second Wind, Feint);, and everyone can use dice to heal out of combat. Bards, Druids, and Rangers can cover the skills guy portion in many cases as well.

A dedicated archer, especially a Ranger, is very welcome in most groups as one of the core four. He can heal, skill, stealth, and kill at range before bad guys necessarily get in close. Buffed up with Sharpshooter, he's a beast (and even not buffed, the +2 to hit negates a fair portion of the -5 to hit). I don't know of many groups that would say "Don't bring him in, bring in a Rogue instead".

 

[DaveDash]

I bolded something for emphasis.
Many games don't get to level 8 if you start from level 1.
An archer EK is a detriment to the party from level 1-5 unless you have a strong frontline or the "core four" already.

It's definitely not a detriment. He still has the best attack bonus in the game (+7 at level 1 is quite absurd), and can use full cover as protection in between rounds. He also still does have great hit points and a very good AC, better than other options.

I ran a EK Crossbow Expert in an 'arena' tournament where we were doing deadly fights each level - starting at level / They started off Deadlyx2, and went up to Deadlyx5.
Early on I put him in heavy armour despite the fact he didn't have the strength for it. It made him a very tough opponent and he took the least damage in the group.
He was absolutely critical to the groups combat success.

 

[Coredump]

They were fighting creatures with an AC range of 13-18. Attack bonus of +14.5 with bless, so +9.5 using the -5/+10, which means he was hitting on rolls of 3.5-7.5 effectively. Even against the AC18 creatures it's still worth his time using -5/+10 since his hit chance is over 50%, and on four attacks the +10 makes up over 50% of his average damage (otherwise 8.5).

Okay, thank you for providing the information you could. Unfortunately, this just highlights the problem with "using real data" as you like to say.

First, since this is a "real" encounter with "Real Data".... how do they have an attack bonus of 14.5? Shouldn't it be 14? or 15?

Second, what you are telling me does not match the data you provided.

The Longbowman had 3 crits, on a 32. Which means an attack bonus of 12, not 14.5
The Crossbowman had 1 crit on a 32. Which means an attack bonus of 17 (to give a +12 bonus after SS)
The Crossbowman also rolled a 32 which did not crit.... no idea what that means...

If the crossbowman had an attack bonus of 9.5 as you say... how was he rolling those 30,31,32 results?
If their bonus was 14.5, how did no one get anything beyond a 32?

How do we know that they were targetting equivalent AC creatures? Was the SS player 'cherry picking' the low AC creatures?



I like Data, I really do. It helps discover issues that may not have been evident otherwise. But to be useful, data needs to be accurate and the details must be known. What you have presented does not match what you are telling us. Based on the numbers, it looks like the SS player had a much higher attack bonus.
Second, you are looking at someone with two synergizing feats (SS and CE) and somehow determining that only one of them is the "problem".

I have lots more data like this but I think its time for the nay Sayers to generate their own data.

Data like this isn't very useful. But if you have more accurate data, that matches what you say was happening in the game... then it would be great to see it.

With ways of gaining advantage (shield bashing foes for the crossbow expert to walk up and nail) for example brings out damage levels that the game isn't designed to handle.

Yes, if multiple PCs are willing to work together, they will cause more damage than if they do not work together. I find this to be a feature, not a bug.