D&D 5E Current take on GWM/SS

[Minigiant]

Sure. But having a tank would not have been a guarantee of success in such a situation. Having a tank does not mean that the party can take on a bugbear fight while mostly out of resources.

It helps. Someone with High Str or Athletics might have made a check and stopped the bugbears from surprise-clubbing whoever they wanted.

The issue wasn't resources. The issue is that whole party was made of glass and easily tipped over or pushed aside. We had to fight every fight one our terms, overextend resources, or die.

That would be so annoying without Resilient: Con or Warcaster. Can you imagine concentration in a campaign that didn't allow feats? Must be a nightmare for casters. They must be hating life.

My guess for the reason why so few monsters have ranged multiattacks is that if they did, concentration would drop so often than surprising foes and novaing would be too important at high levels.

Here's the scary one. Thrown melee weapons. Swap out those greatswords multiattacks for handaxes on some of those monsters. Insane.

 

[DaveDash]

Well there's that, the fact that many parties lack a dedicated buffer or debuffer, archer is a 5th wheel role in D&D if the party isn't optimizing individually and GW warriors have mobility/range issues, and cheap low CR monsters can spam attacks for cheap Concentration checks.

Personally I think War Caster is some kind of reverse psychology trick to get DMs to put kobolds in boxes just to pop out and force DC 10 Con checks to lose concentration.

A cleric's nightmare is a high CR monster in the middle with some kobolds wit +1 blowguns each in a different corner out of AOE range.

I've watched quite a few games on youtube from different groups. There seems to be two camps.

Those influenced by CRPG gaming tend to group optimize, strategize in combat, and treat each combat like an individual little tactical war game. There's a couple of groups out there I've seen who play D&D this way - unfortunately though one group has given up on 5e and has gone back to streaming pathfinder which is a chore to watch.
I've ran into about 8-10 Kobolds with my Cleric and didn't get hit once. Why - dodge action + high AC. I drew fire while everyone else picked them off from range. That's MMO thinking - I don't care about doing damage or being the 'star', I want our group to win. In MMO's you need to play like this or you simply cannot proceed through to the next boss and get your rewards. It conditions you to think differently.
When we pick characters and builds, we think of "Role that will help the party win" first, "concept" second.

Lots of other groups that I've seen don't really do this kind of thing. They don't focus fire. They don't use the dodge action. They don't utilize cover and pop out and attack. They do what their characters would do, which often leads to some pretty poor tactical decisions. But hey, they seem to be having fun. The EK in your example earlier probably would have lived if he used dodge and his hand crossbow bonus action to attack.

 

[aramis erak]

Seems to be like there's a ton of players who don't go past level 8 and think everything is rosy.

Probably why the feats are there in the first place and won't be changed, by the time they start to become a real issue most campaigns are ending.

Which is weird I find because we've levelled quite fast in 5e. Level 17 soon. Never had a campaign go this high without starting high.

In my case, it has nothing to do with desire, and everything to do with "not there yet"...

Looking at my players in two states (I relocated temporarily - 2.5 mo - mid Adv. League Season), and ran a newbs table there. Plus I've got my home game.
1st level lasts 1-2 session
2nd level lasts 2-3 sessions
3rd level lasts 3-6 session
4th lasts 3-7 sessions. My home group has been 4th for 5 sessions - but they also keep a henchman, and I fell back on older editions: henchmen get half a share of XP, and a full share of treasure. And are (generally) controlled by one PC. My first AL table hit 5th right on schedule according to the benchmarks in HotDQ...

See, the thing is that combat slows down around 4th to 5th, because you need more monsters to challenge, as you've been using the up to CR4 monsters since level 1. It's not a bad design decision, but, IIRC, it was an intentional part of it. At 5th and up, you start seeing bigger monsters in the official stuff. (aside: What they haven't done is a good level 3-7 module...)

For my home group, they're taking on 2000xp fights... but splitting it 6 ways. My youngest (E) joined late, as did another player (J). Rest of party were 4/4/4/3

Session	J	E	Total Party	RP, crazy villagers, tax day,
1	J joins, makes 2nd	not playing	4/4/4/3/2	Medusa and demimedusae (homebrew)
2	2	Joins	4/4/4/3-4/2/1	Lots of travel, minor encounters
3	3	2	4/4/4/4/2-3/1-2	Spectator, 15 Crawling Claws, 10 Skeletons
4	3	just a hair shy of 3	4.99/4.8/4/4/3.9/2-3	spectator, 11 skeletons (2 w/magic), 2 RP goals

 

[Celtavian]

Just for giggles - not really trying to prove anything here - I found some more numbers from a high level fight we had recently.

DM wanted to play test a custom creation of his - this massive abomination of a thing called the 'Haug-maag'. It was a hell of a thing to fight, CR20. Mostly because he gave it way too many riders (stun on hit, fear aura, roll on the madness table in its presence lol, and he gave it the Krakens swallow ability but made it so it could attack and bite in the same round it could grapple).

I also wanted to play test a couple of concepts for some characters I am playing right now at a higher level.

Level 17 Frenzy Barbarian (GMW), 17 Draconic Sorcerer, Fighter/Cleric(War), and Rogue15/Ftr2. The frenzy barbarian got completed fouled up in this fight and was pretty ineffective. Made me miss having a Paladin with misty step and their fear immunity aura.

View attachment 68885

Despite having about 450 hp, it only lasted 2.5 rounds.

Poor bastard barbarian. I was thinking of trying one. You just convinced not to. I hate missing Frightened saves. If it wasn't for the paladin. I bet the GWM fighter in our group would have been peeing his pants more often than hitting.

How did your sorcerer do that much damage?

 

[DaveDash]

Poor bastard barbarian. I was thinking of trying one. You just convinced not to. I hate missing Frightened saves. If it wasn't for the paladin. I bet the GWM fighter in our group would have been peeing his pants more often than hitting.

How did your sorcerer do that much damage?

Yeah it was after this fight that I realized that:

1. Despite the Sorcerers ability to dish out a lot of damage, the Wizard probably would have been more useful in this fight due to his ability to mitigate a lot of stuff from happening/after it happens.
2. Paladins are probably one of the best classes in the game to have in your party, not only due to the damage they can do, but all the other stuff they do as well is amazing.
3. I also miss having a Bard. Bardic inspiration and cutting words are just so good later on.

I wasn't a huge fan of the Frenzy Barbarian after this fight either, once fouled up for whatever reason he doesn't have a lot he can do. I think a bear totem Barbarian would probably be way better at higher levels.

As for the Sorc damage:
Meteor Swarm then a 8th level scorching ray + quickened fire bolt. 1/day type stuff.

 

[Minigiant]

I've watched quite a few games on youtube from different groups. There seems to be two camps.

Those influenced by CRPG gaming tend to group optimize, strategize in combat, and treat each combat like an individual little tactical war game. There's a couple of groups out there I've seen who play D&D this way - unfortunately though one group has given up on 5e and has gone back to streaming pathfinder which is a chore to watch.
I've ran into about 8-10 Kobolds with my Cleric and didn't get hit once. Why - dodge action + high AC. I drew fire while everyone else picked them off from range. That's MMO thinking - I don't care about doing damage or being the 'star', I want our group to win. In MMO's you need to play like this or you simply cannot proceed through to the next boss and get your rewards. It conditions you to think differently.
When we pick characters and builds, we think of "Role that will help the party win" first, "concept" second.

Lots of other groups that I've seen don't really do this kind of thing. They don't focus fire. They don't use the dodge action. They don't utilize cover and pop out and attack. They do what their characters would do, which often leads to some pretty poor tactical decisions. But hey, they seem to be having fun. The EK in your example earlier probably would have lived if he used dodge and his hand crossbow bonus action to attack.

Well the EK in my party panicked as the bugbears had him surrounded on the surprise round after some barreled though the rest of us

But what you say is true.
If your party plays like a MMO or just very tatcially, 5th edition is very easy with the feats.
If your party plays for fun, heavily roleplays "combat personality", doesn't dodge spam, or just don't have all the tactical system mastery, there are no problems with feats.

 

[KarinsDad]

You have a seven person group. Did anyone in your group take the feats? Is your party buffing to assist them? I think you said you had some druids? So faerie fire instead of bless? Faerie fire is really powerful. I want to see what faerie fire and bless do together. You might even be able to stick faerie fire on a legendary creature if they think it is a weak effect that won't damage them. They may just let it happen.

Our group and the advancements they took:

1) Human Variant Battle Master Fighter 6: Heavy Weapon Master, Sentinel, and Great Weapon Master feats.
2) Forest Gnome Ranger 2 Evoker Wizard 4: +2 Int (he had a headband of intellect, but liked his other 3 attunement items more, so he boosted Int and gave the headband to the Rogue)
3) Half Elf Arcane Trickster Rogue 6: +2 Dex
4) Mountain Dwarf Tempest Cleric 6: Alert
5) Lightfoot Halfling Lore Bard 6: Mobility
6) Wood Elf Moon Druid 6: War Caster
7) Half Elf Vengence Paladin 6: Defensive Duelist

So, mostly the PCs have taken feats and GWM was taken once. But, we do not have an archer, and only two PCs use two weapon.

In reality, the party tends to not buff the Fighter because he is so good. Not that they never buff him, but as an example, both the Paladin and the Cleric can cast the Aid spell. The group often casts a 5 point Aid on 3 PCs and a 10 point Aid on 3 PCs. The Fighter usually gets a 5 point Aid because he is just that good. However to be fair, the Bard often gives the Fighter Bardic Inspiration and the party often takes short rests between encounters (so far, they haven't run into many running battles or "time is running out" scenarios where short rests cannot be taken). So the Fighter often has a full complement of superiority dice. This makes a difference because the Fighter can use his dice to get advantage (to cancel out -5/+10) and a bonus superiority die to damage. So he often does that once on his turn. I often throw out encounters to challenge a 7 PC group, so they use up their renewable resources with little regard to saving them because the encounters are challenging and it is often easy to rest.

In addition, the Fighter has Sentinel. His declared purpose is to be a tank (relatively high AC, HWM, second wind, and feint), not a damage dealer (although he deals a lot of damage). He purposely moves his PC into groups of NPCs as often as possible, even taking OAs in order to position himself with the most number of foes surrounding him.


But, a 7 party group runs a bit differently than a 4 party group. The group has 5 PCs out of 7 that can heal. The group has PCs with ACs of 22 (25 with Defensive Duelist), 18/20 (20/22 with Shield of Faith), 18/20 (damage mitigation), 18/20 (23/25 with Shield), 17/19 (often 16 Barkskin wild shaped), 17 (22 with Shield, but can Disengage), and 17 (22 with Shield, but has Mobility). The group often has someone nearby that can heal and most of the group can form a front line (the Druid often wild shapes to large or huge sized creatures, so tends to form a front line by himself).

There is so much overlap and so many options in a 7 party group that the difference from GWM (which the Fighter did not acquire until level 6, so only 2 gaming sessions so far) has not yet become obvious (and our players do not hang out at the gaming forums). As time goes on, I suspect that there will be a party shift. I think that it is inevitable. Players tend to use the best tactics that are easiest to spot IME.

The Cleric does not often cast Bless (usually once per day max), but now that the Fighter has GWM and the Druid (wild shaped multiple attacks per round), I suspect that she might start casting it a bit more often.


The Cleric is primarily a two handed weapon PC, so I could see her taking the GWM feat. And the Halfling does limited damage, so she might take SS and use her Bardic Inspiration to self buff (although she is the primary arcane spell caster at the moment with both Fireball and Haste, so she might focus on being a spell caster).

 

[kevin.d.alappat]

Hello I'm new and need help with d&d

 

[Ashkelon]

Sorry, but that is way to incomplete to be considered 'in depth'.


Fair enough, so you just dont' like any offensive feats. GWM, SS, CE, PAM, SM.... all of those will be more than a 10% boost.

What is the comparison missing? It is the most detailed mathematical analysis anyone has posted. It includes values over a number of levels, a range of ACs, expected magic items, and the like. You keep saying the math doesn't show GWM is an advantage, and here it clearly does.

Sure, it doesn't include all the AC numbers, but it includes enough that you can see a trend. It also doesn't include accuracy bonuses from things like bless of faerie fire, but those provide a larger boost to GWM and SS than to someone without those feats. The AC range given uses a high end AC for your characters level, and the net result is that it is almost always worthwhile to take the -5 to hit for +10 damage. For any party with easy access to advantage or bless, using those feats becomes a no brainer.

Finally, if the -5/+10 portion of GWM and SS was changed or replaced, Polearm Master, Crossbow Expert, and the like would be perfectly fine and balanced as feats. It is only in combination with GWM and SS that those feats become unbalanced. Shield master is also fine as is as it is not directly increasing combat potency, but doing so indirectly, and more interestingly than flat out increasing damage.

 

[Pickles III]

Here are my result tables from cranking the

Note that taking the attribute bonus is superior in the most common AC's in the game unless you either (1) use D4 weapons or (2) have an attribute penalty.

Huh why include attack bonuses <+2? (& that is marginal). You also ignore the damage bonus for the ability score which correlates very strongly with the attack bonus.

Really there are only a handful of interesting cases. (& close relatives of these)

1) a level Woodelf 4 Ranger with 16 dex wondering if he should take +2 Dex or Sharpshooter

2) the same at level 8 with 18 dex

3) A level 4 Dwarf Greatsword fighter with 16 STR wondering about taking +2 STR or Great Weapon Mastery

4) the same at level 6 with 18 STR

By my calculations the break even AC at above which ASI is better are
1)17 2)19 3)13 4)14

So the archer should always take the Sharpshooter feat instead of the +2 DEX as AC 17 is high. This is exaggerated as the sharpshooter feat effectively increases his accuracy even more.
The GW fighter has a much closer call & should probably not bother with it until he has maxed out his STR.

This is of course in line with your assessment.

Thank you.

I've ran some numbers myself, since actual game experience is considered too anecdotal.

Note: I've left crits out for simplicity and assumed Human so he can get all his feats and +5 ability score by level 8.

There are errors in this table.

a) Level 8-12 presumably means 11-12 as you get a + prof at 9 & an other attack at 11.

b) There should be no difference between AC 11 12 & 13 for the longbow guy as he only misses on these if he rolls a 1 on the d20 (+10 AB, + 1 or more D4).

Crits work against your case as they increase both characters by the same absolute amount reducing the relative improvement. Not significantly but hey.

That said when I did the numbers I got the similar results ie "Power attack" gives very substantial increases in damage against the most likely ACs.

I was looking for a rule of thumb when to use it based on AC of my opponent & the answer was near enough always.

It was similar in Pathfinder. So few people reached the higher levels, no one saw how overpowered Come and Get Me was as a DM. Or certain high level spell combinations. Or numerous other feat combinations that didn't come online until higher level. Debating in the open community was difficult because of the vastly different play-styles which caused people to experience the game differently.

Well most people do not play that high - based on the WotC survey. This may well change in 5e as it is very easy to level. I suspect though that higher level information was massively under-represented in the playtest data.

This whole disagreement is however about something that is probably not relevant to many people's games, as you point out.


In response to the OP - other I think I will just ban the combination of Sharpshooter & Crossbow Expert & of Great Weapon Master and Polearm Mastery.

I believe Sharpshooter is the most problematic as ranged has had all of its disadvantages cf melee taken away, including less damage, & retains all of its advantages - easy to apply damage & easy to focus fire & unanswered damage.
Historically, in earlier editions, shooting into melee or into cover has been an issue, which mirrors reality where archers have hardly ever been dominant. Probably the worst port from 4e though one I was happy with in theory.