D&D 5E Great Weapon Master

[stokleplinger]

I recently played a barbarian with GWM at level 8. My DM ruled (I think correctly) that the GWM -5/+10 could only be used on my first attack, essentially making it a once per round ability. Even with that, adding in Savage Attack I consistently hit and dealt pretty serious damage. The ability to make a bonus attack on a crit or killing a creature only made it better.

Granting ADV to attacks against him kinda sucked, but he was a spirit animal barbarian and was resistant to pretty much everything but psychic damage, so it balanced out. He essentially became a face-wrecking tank, pretty much everything I've ever wanted in a half orc barbarian.

Was it OP? I don't think so... but when everyone else in the party is consistently casting level 4 spells and dealing 4/5d8, 2d6+15 doesn't seem like too much. When you hit on all cylinders and crit (with 3x weapon dmg) with the +10, hit on a bonus attack AND hit on your second attack dealing upwards of 50-60 dmg I can see why people would cry foul, but that's pretty rare.

 

[Sadrik]

I'm thinking of house ruling this to include all strength based melee weapons. Mainly because there just aren't any feats for your regular Longsword-wielding guy.

Does this house rule have any immediately noticeable problems / issues?

Great Weapon Fighting
When you are wielding a melee weapon in two hands, you gain +2 bonus to damage rolls you make with that weapon. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit. (This takes out the rerolling which can create some oddities in my opinion)

Dueling
When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with that weapon. (This is put in to balance the archery +2, +2 to hit is better than +2 to damage, this is very good. This might be what you could do to make this better.)

Protection
As normal but, can use a shield or a weapon to activate the ability. (Adding the ability to use a weapon to block is thematically good.)

Archery
You gain +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with missile ranged weapons. (Limit this to missile weapons)

Throwing
You gain +2 bonus to damage rolls you make with thrown ranged weapons. Thrown weapons for you also have their maximum range increased to x4 (as a missile weapon) instead of x3 (as a thrown weapon). (Make this for someone who really wants to specialize in throwing daggers, darts, hammers or whatever)

 

[guachi]

I recently played a barbarian with GWM at level 8. My DM ruled (I think correctly) that the GWM -5/+10 could only be used on my first attack, essentially making it a once per round ability. Even with that, adding in Savage Attack I consistently hit and dealt pretty serious damage. The ability to make a bonus attack on a crit or killing a creature only made it better.

You can use -5/+10 on one attack, or no attacks, all attacks, or any combination of attacks. The only caveat is that you have to choose to use the ability "before you make a melee attack" (PHB167) and it has to be a "heavy weapon you are proficient with" (PHB167). You aren't even limited to using the attack only on your turn.

 

[Celtavian]

Barbarians with Great Weapon Master are awesome. Almost nothing can stand in melee with a barbarian with Great Weapon Mastrer, Reckless, and Bear Resistance.

 

[Staffan]

I recently played a barbarian with GWM at level 8. My DM ruled (I think correctly) that the GWM -5/+10 could only be used on my first attack, essentially making it a once per round ability. Even with that, adding in Savage Attack I consistently hit and dealt pretty serious damage. The ability to make a bonus attack on a crit or killing a creature only made it better.

Granting ADV to attacks against him kinda sucked, but he was a spirit animal barbarian and was resistant to pretty much everything but psychic damage, so it balanced out. He essentially became a face-wrecking tank, pretty much everything I've ever wanted in a half orc barbarian.

Was it OP? I don't think so... but when everyone else in the party is consistently casting level 4 spells and dealing 4/5d8, 2d6+15 doesn't seem like too much. When you hit on all cylinders and crit (with 3x weapon dmg) with the +10, hit on a bonus attack AND hit on your second attack dealing upwards of 50-60 dmg I can see why people would cry foul, but that's pretty rare.

Crits in 5e only multiply damage dice, not damage bonuses. If you're doing 2d6+15 and crit, you'll deal 4d6+15 instead. Brutal Critical at 9th level increases that to 6d6+15 (or 5d6, as a matter of interpretation - but I think 6d6 is the official answer).

 

[stokleplinger]

You can use -5/+10 on one attack, or no attacks, all attacks, or any combination of attacks. The only caveat is that you have to choose to use the ability "before you make a melee attack" (PHB167) and it has to be a "heavy weapon you are proficient with" (PHB167). You aren't even limited to using the attack only on your turn.

Hmm, we didn't interpret it that way. We played a session where I could do it all the time and it felt really cheesy, so we dialed it back to being the first real attack of the round. It made sense to me because you can only grant ADV on attacks once, so you should only be able to reap the benefits of the feat once.

 

[stokleplinger]

If you're doing 2d6+15 and crit, you'll deal 4d6+15 instead.

He was a half-orc barbarian, I'm not sure if it was a racial ability or what (don't have my PHB handy) but he got an EXTRA damage die on crits already, so he'd do 6d6+15 at level 8. 2d6 for his normal maul damage, 2d6 for the crit via the standard rules and 2d6 from his racial ability. I didn't mean to infer I was tripling the bonuses, I only meant the actual die damage.

 

[Paraxis]

Hmm, we didn't interpret it that way. We played a session where I could do it all the time and it felt really cheesy, so we dialed it back to being the first real attack of the round. It made sense to me because you can only grant ADV on attacks once, so you should only be able to reap the benefits of the feat once.

Can you explain what you mean by "because you can only grant ADV on attacks once".

 

[stokleplinger]

Sorry, I made use of the Reckless Attack ability as well. My typical first attack would be a Reckless Attack to gain ADV on the attack (also granting ADV to attacks against me) coupled with the GWM feat's -5/+10.

Looking back on it, I think that we really only ruled the Reckless Attack being once per turn (because the ADV on attacks against me wouldn't stack) and I probably could have continued to use the GWM -5/+10 on all subsequent attacks. I only ever used them together, so I must have conflated them in my head.

 

[Paraxis]

Gotcha, what works for your group works.

By the book Reckless Attack must be decided on the first attack of the round but you get advantage on all your attacks during your turn, and all enemies gain advantage against you until the start of your next turn. As was mentioned up thread GWM can be applied to any attack you make.

For example 5th level Barbarian using both GWM and Polearm Master, gets 2 attacks with the attack action and can make an extra attack as a bonus action. If he reckless attacks he gains advantage on all 3 and can choose to apply the -5/+10 to 1, 2, or all 3 of those attacks.