D&D 5E Great Weapon Master: how about -5 AC instead of -5 to hit?

[Staffan]

That's why no barbarian every ever uses Reckless Attack. Grant Advantage (about a +5 to hit for a 50/50 hit/miss - the equivilent of -5 to AC) for an entire round.

Oh wait, they do it all the time. It's one of their signature moves.

Barbarians are built to compensate for Reckless Attack though. Yes, your enemies get to do up to +50% damage because of advantage. But when raging, you have resistance to physical damage, which halves it, so basically you still only take 75% of normal damage.

 

[Blue]

Barbarians are built to compensate for Reckless Attack though. Yes, your enemies get to do up to +50% damage because of advantage. But when raging, you have resistance to physical damage, which halves it, so basically you still only take 75% of normal damage.

True but incomplete. Barbarians do it so they can damage and drop their opponents. Less attackers means less damage. And that does not require rage resistance - a point barbarians make as they will use Reckless attack even when out of rages (or saving some for future encounters).

That is just as true of every other front line. And what does has more expected damage - an attack with a -5 to hit and a large damage bonus, or an attack with -0 to hit and the same damage bonus. This version of GWM is a lot better at inflicting damage, and killing opponents sooner is ACTIONS worth of damage mitigation.

 

[jgsugden]

Wow! I didn't think that was possible for single target damage in 5e. Do you remember how they did it? My players are not optimizers or very tactical so it is not something I would have to worry about personally, but I am interested none-the-less!

EDIT: It is also interesting how legendary monsters, as written, are actually worse against a solo creature because they can't use all of their legendary actions. That is why I let legendary monsters use any unspent legendary actions at the end of a round.

They had the fighter 11th level multiattack (3 attacks) , the gloom stalker extra attack on attack actions in the first round of combat(1 attack), action surge (4 more - all 4 of those first happen again), haste from a spellcaster ally (1) and a bonus action attack from GWM (1) for 10 attacks. There was also an ally's Pass Without Trace to allow him to approach and get to the prone dragon.

Each attack was with a Flame tongue for 2d6 (average 7 - actually a bit higher due to GWF), with 2d6 from fire (7 more), Great Weapon Master (10), Belt of Storm Giant Strength (+9 to hit and damage), and Rage for 2 more (and reckless attack - but the dragon was prone for the first round). Each attack was at advantage at +10 for 35 ... I can't recall if all hit, but it was brutal. I think there may have been a sorcerer level in there for a divine soul +2d4 to hit once. He was an Eldritch Knight, but if he was a battlemaster he could have had another 6d10, I think. I'm pretty sure that if he'd really wanted to be gross and mix in paladin (instead of barbarian) for smiting on top of all that he could have hit 400.

 

[jgsugden]

The rage's half damage combined with a warding bond is really effective. Add in heavy armor master and that character is hard to even damage. But easy to bypass. A single wall force spell and that character is shut down.

We can play that game all day - a single spell can shut down any PC depending upon the spell.

If it succeed. When it fails, tough luck.
Also, depends a lot on the 5 MWD (or five minute work day) introduced in 3.xed. This strategy is a sure failure in games where the 3 to 6 encounters per day before a long rest is strictly applied.

That is not true. Again - I played a barbarian/fighter for 20 levels. I speak from experience. While we had some '1 encounter during travel' days, most of ou adventures were on a clock where we had X time to stop something to encourage us pushing ourselves to end of resources.

There are no surprise round in 5ed. Did you reintroduced it?

Combat

I don't know if you're bickering over terminology or do not know about the existence of a core element of the combat rules, but either way - in lay terms, a surprise round occurs when one or more combatanta are surprised and suffer the impacts of the 'non-status' of being surprised until they get to go. From the PHB:

The DM determines who might be surprised. If neither side tries to be stealthy, they automatically notice each other. Otherwise, the DM compares the Dexterity (Stealth) checks of anyone hiding with the passive Wisdom (Perception) score of each creature on the opposing side. Any character or monster that doesn't notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter.

If you're surprised, you can't move or take an action on your first turn of the combat, and you can't take a reaction until that turn ends. A member of a group can be surprised even if the other members aren't.

 

[jgsugden]

How did they surprise an ancient blue dragon?

Pass Without Trace, +6 Proficiency from Stealth (it might have been 12 from expertise?) and a bit of dexterity bonus. Then a decent role. If your focus is on the alpha strike, it isn't hard to be insanely hard to spot approaching. That was what they used.

However, there are dozens of ways to get there to alpha strike using magic. Vortex warp. Dimension Door. Teleport.

 

[dave2008]

They had the fighter 11th level multiattack (3 attacks) , the gloom stalker extra attack on attack actions in the first round of combat(1 attack), action surge (4 more - all 4 of those first happen again), haste from a spellcaster ally (1) and a bonus action attack from GWM (1) for 10 attacks. There was also an ally's Pass Without Trace to allow him to approach and get to the prone dragon.

Ok, so not really solo - but good to know what is possible. That is a crazy # of actions, but not much different from a standard 20th level fighter which as 8 actions w/ surge min. Of course the 20th lvl fighter could do it twice!

Each attack was with a Flame tongue for 2d6 (average 7 - actually a bit higher due to GWF), with 2d6 from fire (7 more), Great Weapon Master (10), Belt of Storm Giant Strength (+9 to hit and damage),

OK a lot of magic item fire power. You didn't mention that in your starting post. Another thing I don't have to worry about!

and Rage for 2 more (and reckless attack - but the dragon was prone for the first round). Each attack was at advantage at +10 for 35 ...

and -5 from GWM, not that it makes much of a difference

I can't recall if all hit, but it was brutal. I think there may have been a sorcerer level in there for a divine soul +2d4 to hit once. He was an Eldritch Knight, but if he was a battlemaster he could have had another 6d10, I think. I'm pretty sure that if he'd really wanted to be gross and mix in paladin (instead of barbarian) for smiting on top of all that he could have hit 400.

It is amazing you have remembered that much! Again nothing I need to worry about with my group, but it is good to know what is possible. Thank you for sharing.

 

[tetrasodium]

I've just been watching a Matt Easton video about poleaxes and he makes the point that if you make a power blow you leave yourself open. Especially if you miss. In D&D terms this would be equivalent to giving opponents Advantage or -5 AC. I think in this case that -5 AC is much more game-friendly as Advantage against someone with an AC of 20+ isn't so hot and it allows Advantage and Disadvantage on top. And the Shield spell. Has anyone experimented with this?

it would need to be a thing not easily discarded. If it was -5ac till out of initiative or for 10 minutes then maybe, but -5ac till your next attack would be the same as zero. -5 ac till the start of your next turn would just result in using it when there was basically no meaningful risk. The +10 damage though is a bad design.

 

[Professor Murder]

That's why no barbarian every ever uses Reckless Attack. Grant Advantage (about a +5 to hit for a 50/50 hit/miss - the equivilent of -5 to AC) for an entire round.

Oh wait, they do it all the time. It's one of their signature moves.

As I stated earlier, while the conventional wisdom is that Advantage is as if one gets a +5 to hit, it is not in fact a to hit bonus. If an effect grants advantage, all other sources of advantage are ignored. My point was if an attacker ALSO had advantage, the effects would stack after a sense, giving a +10 to attack.

Granting foes advantage is a cost yes, but the saving grace is that an attacker can only benefit from advantage once. So, if you are already granting advantage due to using reckless charge, mechanically there is no downside for doing other things that grant further advantage. Furthermore, if you can inflict disadvantage by any means, you can negate advantage. Someone could have 100 things that grant advantage, they still only roll one extra die. Someone could have 1000 things that grant advantage, and you just come up with a single means of granting disadvantage, they are all negated.

I hope that cleared things up.

 

[Blue]

As I stated earlier, while the conventional wisdom is that Advantage is as if one gets a +5 to hit, it is not in fact a to hit bonus. If an effect grants advantage, all other sources of advantage are ignored. My point was if an attacker ALSO had advantage, the effects would stack after a sense, giving a +10 to attack.

Granting foes advantage is a cost yes, but the saving grace is that an attacker can only benefit from advantage once. So, if you are already granting advantage due to using reckless charge, mechanically there is no downside for doing other things that grant further advantage. Furthermore, if you can inflict disadvantage by any means, you can negate advantage. Someone could have 100 things that grant advantage, they still only roll one extra die. Someone could have 1000 things that grant advantage, and you just come up with a single means of granting disadvantage, they are all negated.

I hope that cleared things up.

I agree, there are a couple of corner cases that do not come up often with monsters where they would have double advantage and therefore "waste" one. Let's consider that a 10% reduction in the power of advantage. +"4.5" to hit is still close enough to -5 to be hit that it's still a completely viable example that a defense trade off of that magnitude for an offense boost is not a rare occurrence, but rather regular usage for the class that can do it (barbarians).

 

[Helldritch]

We can play that game all day - a single spell can shut down any PC depending upon the spell.That is not true. Again - I played a barbarian/fighter for 20 levels. I speak from experience. While we had some '1 encounter during travel' days, most of ou adventures were on a clock where we had X time to stop something to encourage us pushing ourselves to end of resources.Combat

I don't know if you're bickering over terminology or do not know about the existence of a core element of the combat rules, but either way - in lay terms, a surprise round occurs when one or more combatanta are surprised and suffer the impacts of the 'non-status' of being surprised until they get to go. From the PHB:

And I do speak from experience too.
A dragon CR 23. Then it must be the ancient blue dragon.
It was in the open and not buried in the sand?
Wasn't the lair bigger than at least 240 feet across?
Where were its minions? Scorpions should have "seen" you with their tremor sense. A fight so near the lair would have warned it.

Also: Passive perception of 27 very hard to beat. Assuming standard array, it means 20 Dex, for +11. A 17 was required to beat the passive perception. And what about Legendary action, the dragon makes a perception check? A +5 initiative is good. But you need higher than 19 because at 20 the dragon will bury itself preventing you from attacking it. Unless you took the alert feat? You could ready your action to use your reaction to attack it once. But not one more attack. After that, the dragon would unbury itself and poof.

For the surprise round. If the dragon was lucky and could go first after forfeiting its first turn, it could have taken a reaction. If not then you still needed a good roll. As for the no surprise round that I spoke of, it was more in relation to what used to be a surprise round back in the days. Sorry if I had not been clear enough.

I am very curious about your character set up. To solo a blue without dying and suffering no damage at all requires more than a few lucky rolls.
Ranger/barbarian/fighter/warlock. A very MAD oriented character. I am very very curious about your character development and how it worked out. We did some of these 4 classes characters in our white room analysis and they always were suboptimal. If such a character can take on a CR23 alone, I am very intrigued.