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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pickles III" data-source="post: 6643040" data-attributes="member: 6793942">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 Sharpshooter2) the same at level 8 with 18 dex3) A level 4 Dwarf Greatsword fighter with 16 STR wondering about taking +2 STR or Great Weapon Mastery4) the same at level 6 with 18 STRBy 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. 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. 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 <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> though one I was happy with in theory.</blockquote>

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