Jeff Albertson
Explorer
I think it is more likely you are a a poor DM, with major
ing issues, it bothers me to know that douche-bags like you even play the game
D&D 5E Current take on GWM/SS
- Thread starter CapnZapp
- Start date
I think it is more likely you are a a poor DM, with major
ing issues, it bothers me to know that douche-bags like you even play the gameWhy is that? Averaging the dpr gives out a good number that is comparable to all others. Do not look at the number itself,but the difference of different situations.
I would like to point out that unbuffed, the break even point is about AC 14 at level 4 (or level 1 for a human variant GWM PC).
At level 5, it's AC 15.
At level 9, it's AC 16.
At level 13, it's AC 17.
At level 17, it's AC 18.
It increases by 1 every 4 levels without a single buff, a single debuff (or condition), or a single bonus to hit magic weapon.
However, as CR increases, AC also tends to increase. The question is, how much?
Theoretically according to the DMG and MM XP/CR guidelines, a CR 1 creature is about a medium encounter for a party of level 1 PCs and a CR 20 creature is about a medium encounter for a party of level 20 PCs.
Just looking at the CR 4 and higher demons and devils out of the MM (admittedly, a small sample size), monster CRs, monster ACs, the GWM break even point, and the delta between monster AC and GWM break even point are:
Code:
4 13 14 -1
5 15 15 0
5 15 15 0
6 15 15 0
6 15 15 0
8 16 15 1
8 16 15 1
9 17 16 1
9 19 16 3
10 15 16 -1
11 18 16 2
12 18 16 2
13 18 17 1
14 18 17 1
16 18 17 1
17 19 18 1
19 19 18 1
20 19 18 1As a rough rule of thumb here, same CR monsters tend to have ACs 1 higher than the break even point (median for demons/devils is 1 higher, average is 0.78 higher, but it typically ranges from 1 lower to 2 higher).
Upping this to a deadly encounter means multiplying the XP by 2, an AC increase of 0 if we do this by having 2 foes, or by about 1 for a single foe. The CR increase is 1 at low level and 3 at high level. But, upping the CR by 3 does not typically mean an AC increase of 3, usually only an AC increase of 1.
So for a medium encounter where the party might not be buffing too much, the AC of a single creature is about 1 higher than the break even point.
For a deadly encounter where the party will often be buffing, the AC of a single creature is about 2 higher than the break even point and the AC of two creatures is about 1 higher than the break even point.
Using more lower CR creatures usually (but not always) means ACs at or below the break even point.
So it seems to me that it's not too hard to get a +2 to +3 increase in to hit (to go above the break even point) when facing a deadly encounter. A +1 weapon alone is +1 of that, a +3 weapon is +3 (and let's admit that most DMs do eventually hand out magic weapons with a bonus to hit). Bless is +2.5. Advantage (prone, blind, faerie fire, held, feinting, restrained, etc.) against a higher AC foe is +4.5. And finally, most melee PCs will eventually increase their Str (or Dex) to 20 and that is +2 more at higher levels.
Not only does GWM do more DPR straight out of the box than +1/+1, but it eventually leverages to more against the types of similar or higher level challenging foes most PCs encounter at most tables.
Whether this is broken or not is dependent on how much the DM hands out magic weapons, how much the players optimize their PCs, how many different ways the party has to increase to hit with buffs, spells, and conditions, how much players of other melee PCs are bothered that the GWM PC is doing 2 times the damage their PC is doing (it's not just the +10, it's also bonus attacks for a foe dropping to zero or a critical being rolled), and how much the DM gets annoyed when his carefully planned out BBEG is taken out in 2 or 3 rounds.
Why is that? Averaging the dpr gives out a good number that is comparable to all others. Do not look at the number itself,but the difference of different situations.
Because DPR does not take into account how fights are gone.
The most common tactic in our group was the following:
1. Cast fly on the fighter.
2. Everyone else does their damage.
3. Paladin smites doing some decent damage.
4. Fighter Action Surge Novas with GWM absolutely obliterating what we're fighting.
Adult Green dragon took over half its hit points.
Prophet guy riding green dragon later in lair took 115 of 117 hit points. We short rested in a tiny hut after killing the dragon.
Mask guy at end GWM hits him for over 100 points of damage Action Surging.
It was major fight after major fight that this happened in a WotC designed module. You could pull monsters out of the monster manual and show exactly the same trend.
If you're not taking into account the hit points of the creature, how can you show how fast the GWM can burn through those hit points? The faster you burn their hit points, the higher percentage of damage you will do in the majority of fights. DPR does not reflect this well at all. It gives you a number that assumes an unlimited number of rounds against an unlimited amount of hit points. That is not how the feats work in conjunction with group resources.
Yes, and that makes for a fine story for around the campfire. But when you supplied the actual numbers, we discovered that the bard also cast Bless, and the fighter rolled *extraordinarily* well. Even factoring in Precision dice and Bless, he rolled considerably above average. And fighters are *supposed* to do a butt-ton of damage, expecially with Action Surge...its kind of their 'thing'.
Having such a large range though means that when you do roll well you can trivialize encounters with one character.
They can do 4:1 damage ratios over other characters on an action surge. 140 damage falls within the *expected* range. Without those feats they're "only" doing 2:1 damage ratios and you don't get one player cakewalking a high level Dragon fight (or other fight meant to be cinematic) with a couple of lucky rolls.
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How did he roll above average? I listed an example of his rolls. His base rolls were very average. It doesn't take above average rolls to hit. The damage was 8 points above the average. The hit rolls were average. Go look at that post again. You'll see those rolls were average. It doesn't require above average hit rolls to do that damage.
Yeah. Action Surging fighters do a ton of damage without GWM and Sharpshooter, nearly twice as much with them. That's been the point behind my posts. You're ok with them being able to nearly double their damage during an Action Surge nova with GWM or Sharpshooter. I don't think I'm ok with it. It cheapens the contributions of other classes and encourages all the other martial types towards those feats. I don't know that I like that. You haven't addressed either of those issues.
All you've been stating is "It's not overpowered. You're wrong about that." That has never been my argument. I'm still torn on whether to remove them because of what casters can do at higher level. When I keep them in, the wizard simulacrum's the GWM or CE/Sharpshooter, I've got double hell on my hands as a DM. The fact the wizard can summon a bunch of creatures and simulacrum would make the fighter's contributions appear less. If you're playing some nutty bard one-man-army concept, you can have the bard take conjure animals, simulacrum, and use planar binding to get some nutty stuff going. Then you have double GWM/Sharpshooter guy, a bunch of animals, and a few bound creatures. Then the bard or wizard with simulacrum is also taking advantage of the feats. Though he'll do less damage with no magic items. I have to think about those high level possibilities before I take the feats out. I don't know if I'm even going to take that route yet.
It's one of those high level conundrums. I want to figure out how I should take care of it.
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As you know, it doesn't even require above average rolls. You stack so many rolls together that a low roll can be offset by average rolls from the other dice.
The Battlemaster was stacking a d10, a d4, a d10, and a d10 inspiration dice when he needed. His dice pool was 5 d10 Battlemaster dice and 1 d10 Bardic Inspiration dice, and one Inspiration dice for advantage. When you have that many resources to hit with for nova fights every short rest, you can do that two to three times a day. How many epic fights you going to make a day? So many that you burn out the rest of the party as well? If you have a warlock or a monk, you have to allow short rests or they will be screwed.
We were running EK + XBE/SS, Wolf Totem Barbarian/Rogue (perma advantage basically), Sorcerer (Twin Haste), and Life Cleric/Lore Bard for a while.
We were steamrolling 4 deadly*3 fights per day once we past level 8.
Barbarian/rogue is an interesting combo... using finesse weapons with strength for reckless sneak attack? Also, who was getting advantage from the Wolf Totem feature? Looks like no one else in the party was melee (maybe the cleric/bard).
I was thinking a little more about sharpshooters with Haste. If you don't already have a source of advantage, a net seems like a good way to get it. Throwing a net consumes your entire attack action even if you have multiple attacks, but Haste gives you an extra attack action that can only use one attack anyway. And with XBE/SS, you can throw a net in melee or up to 15' without disadvantage.
So an attack routine for a level 11 XBE/SS with Haste could be to throw the net and then follow it up with four hand crossbow shots with advantage against the now-restrained target. Plus, of course, the benefits to the whole party of restraining an enemy.
Yet another way the -5 from Sharpshooter can be mitigated.
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