D&D 5E Current take on GWM/SS

[Psikerlord#]

I agree.
Skill monkeys have Expretise. Mages have magical effects. Priests can heal.

Fighters without feats aren't boring but their range of effects and roles is low. So they have to be best at it by a point where you have to notice what is lost by not having one.

So you like the strictly defined roles of 4e. Then I can see why you want the +10 "striker" feat. Fair enough but the striker mechanics was the bit of 4e I loathed (I liked 4e plenty overall, we played it for 3 years). But it's not for me.

 

[Minigiant]

While this might be possible, many DMs will still limit its use. As DM, I would still limit poison applied to a weapon for a single minute (as per the poison kit in the PHB). So the PCs using it either have to get into combat right after applying it, or they have to use up an action in combat to apply it to their weapons. GWM and SS are always available.

Do your players ever get into a combat after roleplaying with the NPCs? It doesn't take much for a minute to disappear at the table. As DM, the PCs who put venom on their weapons before entering the Princess' chamber lost the potency after talking to the Princess' maid for a minute of real time.

Most encounters at my table, the PCs will have to use up a precious action in combat to apply the venom. The duration is just too short to reliably use it before an encounter.

The DM should also use the rules for milking the snake. There is a chance that the PC poisons himself. Not a big deal most of the time, but it could be problematic if the PC milks the snake on an adventuring day (or alternatively, the DM turns a day where the Ranger milked the snake and got poisoned into an encounter day).

At the table where I play, my ranger applies the poison in battle as a action. If we get surprise, I do it then. The DM limits everyone to 6 vials/flasks on person and all mine are poison for conjured snakes. The wizard and my ranger conjure, sleep, and milk 8 snakes a day on downtime and I heal on myself if I fail. We averaged it to 2 doses a day with me poisoning myself every day. We had a year downtime and the wizard's lab has over 300 doses of serpents poison in his refrigerated vault. We got attacked once in the middle but having half the party fight while the other does nothing isn't a great idea.

At the table I DM, my player "own" a wyvern. They opt to milk her rarely.

So you like the strictly defined roles of 4e. Then I can see why you want the +10 "striker" feat. Fair enough but the striker mechanics was the bit of 4e I loathed (I liked 4e plenty overall, we played it for 3 years). But it's not for me.

Well skill monkey isn't a 4e role. Rogues were forced in the 4e striker role in that edition. Rogues were traditionally skill monkeys who can do a bit of striking. They went back to their traditional role in 5th.

Fighters are straight up striker in 5th as default as the only other role they have access to by default is defender via Protection style or leader via battlemaster or controller via EK. Therefore a fighter has to deal more damage than a rogue as a rogue has 2 roles by default and fighters only 1.

And that's why I'm fine with it. If you keep fighters and rogues too close in damage, you might inadvertently make fighters weak rogues.

 

[DaveDash]

At the table where I play, my ranger applies the poison in battle as a action. If we get surprise, I do it then. The DM limits everyone to 6 vials/flasks on person and all mine are poison for conjured snakes. The wizard and my ranger conjure, sleep, and milk 8 snakes a day on downtime and I heal on myself if I fail. We averaged it to 2 doses a day with me poisoning myself every day. We had a year downtime and the wizard's lab has over 300 doses of serpents poison in his refrigerated vault. We got attacked once in the middle but having half the party fight while the other does nothing isn't a great idea.

At the table I DM, my player "own" a wyvern. They opt to milk her rarely.



Well skill monkey isn't a 4e role. Rogues were forced in the 4e striker role in that edition. Rogues were traditionally skill monkeys who can do a bit of striking. They went back to their traditional role in 5th.

Fighters are straight up striker in 5th as default as the only other role they have access to by default is defender via Protection style or leader via battlemaster or controller via EK. Therefore a fighter has to deal more damage than a rogue as a rogue has 2 roles by default and fighters only 1.

And that's why I'm fine with it. If you keep fighters and rogues too close in damage, you might inadvertently make fighters weak rogues.

And that's what the action surge mechanic is there for.

Fighters also aren't completely hopeless out of combat like previous editions. A dex based fighter can make a reasonable scout. Have you seen how pathetic most passive perceptions are in the MM?

I doubt its RAI to have fighters out damage everyone else 2:1 and then 4:1 on an action surge, these feats are clearly designed with "tradeoff" in mind - otherwise they'd give a flat bonus without penalty.

The solution to increase DM workload by rebalancing encounters around one player is still not a very good solution, compared with house ruling the feats down to something more reasonable.

I've just spent the last 8 months converting a module. It's a lot of work and I don't want to do it again. When I run Princes next, the last thing I want to do is rebalance all the encounters due to these feats.
It's far simpler to just house rule them. My preferred option is to leave the -5/+10 mechanic in there but remove the cover clause from SS and the melee clause from XBE, brining an element of tactical choice back into play. You can risk doing your big nova at the start of the encounter when the entire picture isn't clear, or you can wait to see how the battlefield develops but suffer cover penalties to your attack roll.
That's a much better solution than just an always on no brainer option.

 

[Hussar]

Again though, focus fire is more useful than AoE. 28 damage to 4 targets is generally worse than 56 damage to a single target. This is because the spread out damage doesn't typically kill an enemy, while focus fire, especially if multiple characters do so, can kill an enemy. Killing enemies faster results in reduced total damage received.

AoE is great against nooks with low HP, and that is perfectly acceptable. But don't confuse the effect of the DPR caused by a fighter who can action surge for 100 damage to a single target at level 8 to that of s wizard who hits 5 targets for 20 expected damage each (after accounting for save for 1/2).

Not entirely true. After all, damaging a group of baddies sets them up for Sleep spells. Wizard fireballs and then sleep's on the next round can turn a combat pretty quickly.

And, how much DPR is that worth? Opportunity costs rack up pretty quickly.

 

[DaveDash]

Not entirely true. After all, damaging a group of baddies sets them up for Sleep spells. Wizard fireballs and then sleep's on the next round can turn a combat pretty quickly.

And, how much DPR is that worth? Opportunity costs rack up pretty quickly.

An 8th level CBE + SS can do this too though. He can divide his attacks up against 3 creatures at level 8, or 5 on an action surge, and +1 if he also expends a 3rd level spell (or has one cast on him).

Or the Wizard can soften everyone up with a Fireball and the SS +XBE finishes them all off, pretty common tactic that we used. No sleep required.

The Wizard's fireball is better AoE (do note creatures in cover get a +2 to +5 bonus to their saving throw) but the Fighters at-will ability to clear out large numbers of smaller creatures is not to be underestimated, and then he can switch to being a single target damage machine as required.

Players also tend to hoard their resources for big fights - most of the time I see spell casters casting cantrips. If you can win a fight with cantrips it's far safer to do so - because spell slots are so limited in 5e.
This is why I see much bigger number discrepancies in damage output because apart running out from bolts or arrows, XBE + SS Fighters don't have to worry about such constraints. Their DPR is 'always on'.

 

[Minigiant]

And that's what the action surge mechanic is there for.

Fighters also aren't completely hopeless out of combat like previous editions. A dex based fighter can make a reasonable scout. Have you seen how pathetic most passive perceptions are in the MM?

I doubt its RAI to have fighters out damage everyone else 2:1 and then 4:1 on an action surge, these feats are clearly designed with "tradeoff" in mind - otherwise they'd give a flat bonus without penalty.

The solution to increase DM workload by rebalancing encounters around one player is still not a very good solution, compared with house ruling the feats down to something more reasonable.

I've just spent the last 8 months converting a module. It's a lot of work and I don't want to do it again. When I run Princes next, the last thing I want to do is rebalance all the encounters due to these feats.
It's far simpler to just house rule them. My preferred option is to leave the -5/+10 mechanic in there but remove the cover clause from SS and the melee clause from XBE, brining an element of tactical choice back into play. You can risk doing your big nova at the start of the encounter when the entire picture isn't clear, or you can wait to see how the battlefield develops but suffer cover penalties to your attack roll.
That's a much better solution than just an always on no brainer option.

A default Dex rogue outclasses a featless Dex fighter by a lot in ability checks. There was a rather big argument after a session at a table where the Dex Fighter player felt underpowered to the rogue as he went TWF. The DM had to let him bring another PC.

I don't know what percentage a fighter was designed to deal than others be I know if the designers had any skill they make fighters to deal more than others. Since that's all they let them do in the Basic Rules: do damage.

I'm not saying a DM has to redo their adventures. But feats are an option. Feats are a option that grants great and new choices: to focus or to broaden. You don't have to allows feats. But once you do, it changes things.

It's just like if you allow flanking. Suddenly your goblin matron and her 12 little goblins are extremely deadly. You might have to reduce the number of goblins.

 

[DaveDash]

A default Dex rogue outclasses a featless Dex fighter by a lot in ability checks. There was a rather big argument after a session at a table where the Dex Fighter player felt underpowered to the rogue as he went TWF. The DM had to let him bring another PC.

I don't know what percentage a fighter was designed to deal than others be I know if the designers had any skill they make fighters to deal more than others. Since that's all they let them do in the Basic Rules: do damage.

I'm not saying a DM has to redo their adventures. But feats are an option. Feats are a option that grants great and new choices: to focus or to broaden. You don't have to allows feats. But once you do, it changes things.

It's just like if you allow flanking. Suddenly your goblin matron and her 12 little goblins are extremely deadly. You might have to reduce the number of goblins.

Except that most feats are reasonably well balanced - the designers do have an balance intent with each feat - and offer interesting choices to players. The only issue with feats I have are Polearm Master + Warcaster OA + EB silliness, which the designers have confirmed is not RAI. I also 'house rule' this too.

It's not a binary decision. It's not "no feats" or "all feats". Most feats offer interesting tactical choices to players beyond stacking on pure numbers. SS + XBE combined take away interesting tactical choices and encourage the same thing over and over because it's so vastly superior.
Even with various house rules these feats are very attractive.

Again it's not an issue in isolation, it's an issue when factors combine at the table to break the bounds in which the game was designed. I don't think the designers really care too much about these feats, the majority of their customers won't get to a level where they will break, and from what I have seen a lot of D&D players don't really group optimize. There are cases however where these feats can ruin the game if you're a new DM and you don't understand the consequences, to dismiss them as *NEVER* an issue is doing a disservice to new players entering the game.

I feel much more comfortable with [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION] 's approach which is play the game out RAW to start with and assess the impact from there.

 

[KarinsDad]

I feel much more comfortable with [MENTION=5834]Celtavian[/MENTION] 's approach which is play the game out RAW to start with and assess the impact from there.

I tend to do this as well for the most part, but when a set of math clearly indicates a significant balance problem, I also house rule to nip that problem in the bud. With all of their experience with the game, a lot of things were still changing within the last 6 months before the game was sent to the printers and designers are not omniscient.

 

[Hussar]

My issue with this, or at least one issue is that we're focusing on one character and not the group. For example:

If Fighter + feats + cleric action = 100

What does
Fighter + feats + the action of another character equal?

If that second equation is close to the first then there is no real balance issue. After all the group is doing similar damage and is equivalently effective. After all, the second equation leaves the cleric completely free to contribute.

It's only a problem if the first equation cannot be equalled by the second. And there is some wiggle room here. If group 1 defeats an encounter in 3 rounds and group 2 takes 4, do we really care?

I'm not convinced that there is that much disparity between the two groups.

 

[DaveDash]

My issue with this, or at least one issue is that we're focusing on one character and not the group. For example:

If Fighter + feats + cleric action = 100

What does
Fighter + feats + the action of another character equal?

If that second equation is close to the first then there is no real balance issue. After all the group is doing similar damage and is equivalently effective. After all, the second equation leaves the cleric completely free to contribute.

It's only a problem if the first equation cannot be equalled by the second. And there is some wiggle room here. If group 1 defeats an encounter in 3 rounds and group 2 takes 4, do we really care?

I'm not convinced that there is that much disparity between the two groups.

No.

It's Fighter + Feats > Sorcerer || Evoker || Barbarian + Feats.
Fighter + Feats > Paladin + Feats over the course of a day.
Fighter + Feats >> Fighter.
Fighter + Feats >> Rogue.
Fighter + Feats + Bless (insert other effect here) >> Sorcerer + Fighter.

And

Fighter + Feats + Bless (insert other effect here) > Monsters Manual = DM workload++

Now whether or not that is an issue or not depends on these factors:
If your group is new (DM including), and you have a player who has read about these things on a guide, you're going to have a problem.
If your group are optimizers and the DM is new to 5e, you're going to have a problem.
If you're running an official AP and don't have time to tweak it you're going to have a problem.

However:

If your group doesn't go beyond level 8-12 you probably won't have a problem.
If your group doesn't group optimize you probably won't have a problem.
If your group (DM included) doesn't care about one single player totally dominating the combat pillar of the game you probably won't have a problem.

There are no conditions however in which these feats never cause a problem ever. They either cause problems, or do not cause problems. The mere fact however that there is the potential for problems means new DM's especially should be wary of them.