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Great Weapon Master
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<blockquote data-quote="fuindordm" data-source="post: 6519630" data-attributes="member: 5435"><p>OK, so I just did a quick analysis of the feat and the results are actually kind of interesting. I'm not taking into account the possibility that you can mitigate the -5 penalty with advantage.</p><p></p><p>Call P = your probability of hitting with a single attack</p><p>Call W = your average weapon damage with a single attack.</p><p></p><p>Then without GWF your expected damage is P * W</p><p>And with GWF your expected damage is (P - 0.25) * (W + 10)</p><p></p><p>After a little algebra you can find that the line of equality is P = 0.25 + W/40.</p><p></p><p>If you draw a graph with P = [0,1] on the y-axis and W = [0,20] on the x-axis, this line divides the area neatly in half, along a shallow diagonal. The area above the line is where GWF is better than a normal attack in terms of expected damage.</p><p></p><p>1. If your chance of hitting is low then GWF is seldom worth doing. For example, if you have even a slight disadvantage (P<=0.4), GWF only makes sense if W <= 6, which is pretty unlikely for a 2H weapon. Maybe you should consider it if a shadow drained your strength, but even then you should probably prefer increasing your odds of hitting at all over increasing expected damage.</p><p></p><p>2. If your chance of hitting is high (P>0.5) then GWF is usually worth it. But the higher your average weapon damage, the narrower the window. For example, if W=20 (+2 two-handed weapon, Enlarge, and potion of storm giant strength) then GWF is beneficial only if your chance of hitting without it is 75% (P=0.75).</p><p></p><p>I think it is really interesting that the higher you push W, the less useful GWF becomes. It's sweet spot is really in the range W=[5,15], when it is a good strategy at least half the time but not a good strategy against opponents that are already moderately difficult to hit. For W much higher than this range, the probabilities push GWF to a corner case where if you're sure to hit them anyway, you might as well hit them harder.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="fuindordm, post: 6519630, member: 5435"] OK, so I just did a quick analysis of the feat and the results are actually kind of interesting. I'm not taking into account the possibility that you can mitigate the -5 penalty with advantage. Call P = your probability of hitting with a single attack Call W = your average weapon damage with a single attack. Then without GWF your expected damage is P * W And with GWF your expected damage is (P - 0.25) * (W + 10) After a little algebra you can find that the line of equality is P = 0.25 + W/40. If you draw a graph with P = [0,1] on the y-axis and W = [0,20] on the x-axis, this line divides the area neatly in half, along a shallow diagonal. The area above the line is where GWF is better than a normal attack in terms of expected damage. 1. If your chance of hitting is low then GWF is seldom worth doing. For example, if you have even a slight disadvantage (P<=0.4), GWF only makes sense if W <= 6, which is pretty unlikely for a 2H weapon. Maybe you should consider it if a shadow drained your strength, but even then you should probably prefer increasing your odds of hitting at all over increasing expected damage. 2. If your chance of hitting is high (P>0.5) then GWF is usually worth it. But the higher your average weapon damage, the narrower the window. For example, if W=20 (+2 two-handed weapon, Enlarge, and potion of storm giant strength) then GWF is beneficial only if your chance of hitting without it is 75% (P=0.75). I think it is really interesting that the higher you push W, the less useful GWF becomes. It's sweet spot is really in the range W=[5,15], when it is a good strategy at least half the time but not a good strategy against opponents that are already moderately difficult to hit. For W much higher than this range, the probabilities push GWF to a corner case where if you're sure to hit them anyway, you might as well hit them harder. [/QUOTE]
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