D&D 5E Current take on GWM/SS

[Hussar]

No I don't want crazy damage in the game, at all. It breaks the HP quotas the monsters have, and upsets the intraparty damage ballpark I want everyone to be in. I understand some groups don't care about this. But I want a return to 2e like damage, a flatter damage ballpark where every PC can bring the smackdown, not a 4e like damage spread where strikers did all the heavy lifting.

Don't get me wrong - I liked 4e overall and played it for years. But over time I came to realize I prefer earlier versions of the game.

2e is your benchmark? Good grief 1st level fighters in 2e can do 47 points of damage. In a game where hill Giants have 42 hp. Fighters in 2e were single target damage gods.

 

[Minigiant]

No I don't want crazy damage in the game, at all. It breaks the HP quotas the monsters have, and upsets the intraparty damage ballpark I want everyone to be in. I understand some groups don't care about this. But I want a return to 2e like damage, a flatter damage ballpark where every PC can bring the smackdown, not a 4e like damage spread where strikers did all the heavy lifting.

Don't get me wrong - I liked 4e overall and played it for years. But over time I came to realize I prefer earlier versions of the game.

What?

2e fighters could kill most 2e monsters in 1-2 rounds. Few 2e monsters had more the 50 HP, low defense, low accuracy, and fighters could off them easy. 2e relied on the PCs never having enough HP and healing to continue it the PCs ever got hit. My fighter could killl 75% of the monsters in 1 turn.

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I did mention that the Fighters could nova whereas the Rogue typically cannot. However, Rogues get the wonderful Uncanny Dodge and Evasion which allow them to stay in fights a long time. That does a lot more than the extra hit point per level that the Fighter gets from hit dice. Sure, an EK can do cool things with magic. So can an Arcane Trickster. Magical Ambush can allow for more damage, especially with an area effect spell. So can Versatile Trickster. Or Assassins. Death Strike. Assassinate (once per encounter at most, but it is still more damage that surprise round than the Fighter, and parties would try to assist such a PC to use his ability, at level 3 for a Rogue elf using a bow, that's 33 average points of damage when the level 3 Fighter is dishing out 11 during that surprise round).

Ranged hiding Rogues can possibly set up advantage more often than Fighters and increase their damage that way as well (rarely missing). The fact remains that without feats, the Rogues are at least competitive. With feats, the melee types win hands down.

I think the damage gap of the fighter and rogue with feats is on purpose.

Rogues get one big attack.
Fighters get 2, 3, or 4 attacks.
Fighter use buffs better than rogues. That's my point. A buffed rogue will NEVER keep up to a buffed fighter after level 5.

It's the same reason why rangers were best striker in 4e: Twin Strike.

Any 5th grader knows that a damage buff grants the mutiattacker better than the single attacker. Mearls and Co had to know this and know we would figure this out. I believe this is intentional. They wanted fighters in a party to kill better during combat than any rogue.

If rogues were supposed to be strikers, they would have removed the once per turn limit on Sneak Attack like the 3rd edition SA.

 

[Psikerlord#]

ah perhaps i am misremebering 2e. I dont remember any damage liek that. then again we played mostly 1 - 8

 

[Minigiant]

ah perhaps i am misremebering 2e. I dont remember any damage liek that. then again we played mostly 1 - 8

Its not that the numbers were high, it is that the HP/damage ratio was low.

40 damage on a 200 HP monster is less of an effect than 8 damage on a 30 HP monster.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think the damage gap of the fighter and rogue with feats is on purpose.

Rogues get one big attack.
Fighters get 2, 3, or 4 attacks.
Fighter use buffs better than rogues. That's my point. A buffed rogue will NEVER keep up to a buffed fighter after level 5.

It's the same reason why rangers were best striker in 4e: Twin Strike.

Any 5th grader knows that a damage buff grants the mutiattacker better than the single attacker. Mearls and Co had to know this and know we would figure this out. I believe this is intentional. They wanted fighters in a party to kill better during combat than any rogue.

If rogues were supposed to be strikers, they would have removed the once per turn limit on Sneak Attack like the 3rd edition SA.

There is no doubt that an offensive buff will help more times for a fighter.

But, you are only looking at the strengths of fighters and ignoring weaknesses. For example, a rogue can attack from range with sneak attack. All he needs is to be able to hide first, or to have a single engaged PC anywhere on the map. The fighter, not so well. Fighters typically have low Dex and using bows or hand axes is not exactly awesome at long range for them.

So yes, when one sets up an encounter where the fighter is able to immediately get into combat and shine, then yes, the fighter can nova and be buffed and do more damage due to multiple attacks per round. When one sets up an encounter where the party is 200 feet away from the fight, the rogue can do 60 points of damage before the fighter even gets into range. When one sets up an encounter in the dark, the rogue often shines.

When one sets up encounters like the 4E paradigm of "We go to the castle. We go to 30x30 room one. We kill the monsters. No other monsters anywhere else hear us. We go to 30x30 room two. Rinse and Repeat.", where nearly every room is a small area where the fighter can get to a foe every single round, then of course the fighter is going to do better. It's the nature of the encounter.


A lot of this is group dynamics, DM preferences, etc. For a DM like myself who likes to focus on each player at various parts of a session, I go out of my way to try to create encounters that some PCs do better than others (likely PC ambush sites where the rogue in our group gets to set up traps or surprise sneak attack, undead ones where the Cleric get to turn undead, large numbers of foe ones where the Bard can cast Hypnotic Pattern or Fireball and the Wizard can cast Web, etc.). A third tier Evoker can do twice as much damage as a Fighter if every encounter is 50 Orcs coming at the party and he can Fireball the snot out of them. But that is an optimal situation for a Evoker. Just like close range encounters are optimal situations for Fighters.

When doing damage calculations, it is assumed that the fighter is in an optimal close range situation and can attack every round. That is not always the case at the table. Rogues are better at long range than Fighters. Fighters are better than Rogues at short range. Give the PCs 3 short range encounters and 3 long range encounters in a day, the Rogue will probably do as much or more damage than the Fighter and the other PCs will sometimes buff the long range specialists, not the short range one.

 

[SkidAce]

...snip...

Thanks for the reply. I understand your point of view a little better.

 

[spinozajack]

Fix the feat. Don't try to fix the people.

This should be written in stone tablets or stickied somewhere.

Problematic rules cause problems. When those rules upset the balance cart, that's a problem.

It's striking comparing Basic D&D with what happens when you add feats. Suddenly, if you don't pick from a very short list of 2-3 feats, early on, you are WAY behind the power curve of those that do. And many people aren't interested in damage feats, they like stuff like Mounted Combatant or other situational ones.

But if you compare Barbarian A with GWM to Barbarian B without it, A will be dealing close to double damage. That is by definition a "must have" feat. Meaning it's unbalanced. Dual Wielder is the opposite of a "must have", it's a "must avoid". It's a trap. Trap choices are bad for the game, especially when it's for a popular character archetype.

A GWM + PM barbarian is going to be doing 2x - 3x the damage of a dual wielder. And once your attack bonus gets up there, the fighter will be getting near free use of that +10 damage on 4-5 attacks per round. Kind of hard for other classes to compete there.

Rogues don't need to be strikers, but they need to stay in the ballpark of relevance. Without access to GWM because it's for heavy weapons only, they aren't.

I just don't see how any fighter or paladin or barbarian or even ranger, who is strength based, isn't going to end up using a polearm by level 8 or 12 at the very latest. Once they've maxed out their str, and taken GWM, they will take PM, for sure. It's the only thing to take. Really they should take PM at level 1 or 4, when GWM's -5 to hit penalty is harsh. After level 5 or so, it's time to start power attacking.

The basic combat system of the game should be balanced with or without feats used in the game. As soon as you add feats, some fighting styles become worthless. TWF in particular gets weaker and weaker as you gain more attacks, since it only benefits your bonus attack. But the polearm guy is laughing all the way to the bank, because he's got it for free. Meaning he can take the +AC style (power choice), or GWF. Making him strictly superior to the DW character. In Basic D&D this is not the case. Polearms are only situationally useful there.

The polearm master feat would be still worth having even if it only added threatening reach and proficiency. In a game with GWM or other +10 damage feats, you either jump on board or get left behind. Far, far behind.

 

[iserith]

It's striking comparing Basic D&D with what happens when you add feats. Suddenly, if you don't pick from a very short list of 2-3 feats, early on, you are WAY behind the power curve of those that do.

Players aren't in a competition with each other for damage output. It is a cooperative game about storytelling so it's spotlight that matters - how much impact a PC has on the story. Calculating spotlight time requires examining all three pillars, not just combat.

If your game is nothing but combat and your combats all amount to nothing more than a race to get Team Monster to 0 hp, then yeah, those feats are going to seem "off." For everyone else who engages with all three pillars of the game and who design encounters where the enemy can be defeated through means other than hit point attrition, these feats are not an issue.

 

[KarinsDad]

It's striking comparing Basic D&D with what happens when you add feats. Suddenly, if you don't pick from a very short list of 2-3 feats, early on, you are WAY behind the power curve of those that do.

It's interesting that you say this. I remember the first day I started reading the 3E PHB. While other players at my table saw feats and were saying "cool!" . I saw the feats and my first thought was "Holy crap. They are opening up Pandora's box here. This will become a nightmare.".

I was actually pleasantly surprised with 5E's ability to cut back on the number of feats, but I was not too shocked that there were still a few practically must have feats in there (or alternatively, feats themselves are must haves for many players). Once the feat concept was introduced, it's really hard to wean off of it. My players took 7 feats out of 9 opportunities (and 1 of those 2 ability boosts was done in order to replace a Headband of Intellect with a different attunement item, so normally it would have been 8 out of 9).

 

[Minigiant]

.

When doing damage calculations, it is assumed that the fighter is in an optimal close range situation and can attack every round. That is not always the case at the table. Rogues are better at long range than Fighters. Fighters are better than Rogues at short range. Give the PCs 3 short range encounters and 3 long range encounters in a day, the Rogue will probably do as much or more damage than the Fighter and the other PCs will sometimes buff the long range specialists, not the short range one.

I don't agree with this.

I think an archer fighter is better than an archer fighter. The fighter has a better weapon, more shots better armor, more AC, +2 to attack rolls, second wind, and action surge before subclasses and feats.

With subclasses, a champion crits often and can dual wield better via bonus fighting styles if the enemy closes in. The battlemaster gets bonus damage and maneuvers for trick shots. The EK can cantrip and shoot or spell and shoot as well as self buff and debuff with better results from extra attacks.

The rogue cannot boost his damage like fighter can. The fighter does everything better. Many don't like this but that's not a flaw of the game. Damage isn't the rogue's thing. Skills, stealth, and mobility are. Rogues can deal good damage but fighters and other warriors do more.

My fighter did squire all those years to get outdone by a cutpurse.