D&D 5E Great Weapon Mastery - once more into the breach! (with math)

[CapnZapp]

Here we are, the final countdown. Thank you for your patience.

So featless Rodrigo went "wait a minute, I have maneuvers too! Ha-ya!". But instead of using precision - he already is pretty good at hitting - he decided to use a maneuver that gives him *damage*. And well... suddenly GWM isn't so awesome anymore. I mean it's still decent, but it's not that stark.

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It's also worth noting that several of the damaging maneuvers only have to be declared when you hit - so there is no chance of a "wasted" maneuver dice. A precision maneuver may fail (ie you need 3 more to hit but you roll a 2 on your d8). Furthermore, several of the damaging maneuvers also can impose negative conditions on the target - fear, being tripped etc.

At this point someone may say "but what if GWM Rodrigo uses precision and damaging maneuvers!" OR a bard inspiration, the luck feat etc etc etc. Sure. But you always have to compare that to featless Rodrigo *also* using more maneuvers, bard juice etc etc etc. And that is THE KEY ELEMENT that seems to be always missing from these analysis - we need to compare like with like. First people were comparing base attacks to GWM + advantage. I showed that if both had advantage, the difference wasn't so great. Then other bonuses got piled on - but again, if you compare PROPERLY it's not such a big difference.

There also comes a point where it's ridiculous to pile too much stuff into a single attack. For example Rodrigo could have had the lucky feat and used it too. Sure but now Rodrigo only has 16 strength... and wouldn't you want to spread out those bonus rolls? Or better yet, keep it for something more important than a single attack, like a key skill check or save?

So in conclusion, I used to think that GWM was OP - maybe not as broken as some made it out to be, but still too good. Now... maybe it's OP?

As per my previous post, GWM Rodrigo can use 90% of featless Rodrigo's maneuvers. That is, Rodrigo is so likely to hit *anyway* that he only seldom needs to use the Precision maneuver, and thus is free to use the same damage maneuver in 9 out of 10 attacks.

Not that this is a good idea: when you say

no chance of a "wasted" maneuver dice

that's severely misrepresenting the actual case.

The reality is that you need to spend a superiority dice on *every* attack if you go the damage-maneuver way.

While you only need to actually spend a superiority die on maybe 1 out of 5 or 10 attacks if you go the precision-maneuver way. (And of course, the main reason to go this way is if your base damage somehow were to be increased by, say, +10...)

The rest of your post is, to be honest, more of a rant than actual analysis. Nothing wrong with that, just that I prefer to leave it uncommented.

 

[CapnZapp]

At this point I'll hold off further replies.

I've apparently gotten 82 notifications (replies plus xp) since Sunday (or was it Saturday - have only been able to read the forums using the EN World app this week) and the gods know how many posts I'm failing to reply to at this rate...

If you feel you posted something for me but didn't get a reply, feel free to repost or "mention" me. I apologize in advance for any post I might have missed. This goes for you Ancalagon but everybody else too.

 

[cmad1977]

Meh

 

[TwoSix]

Yes the white room calculation is great to point a potential problem/abuse. Yes with all stars properly aligned the DPR of GWM and SS will outshine the DPR of the other character builds. But how often does this really happen in balanced games? Not very often. The white room shows potential not actual real game play. And with a little experience and advice, a young DM will quickly do what he has to do to make things right without shutting down the feats.

Yes, but what's the converse? If it DOES balance in a white room, how is it going to harm the average player?

 

[Hillsy7]

Yes, but what's the converse? If it DOES balance in a white room, how is it going to harm the average player?

Well - you could argue that by legislating primarily for extreme examples or powergaming parties, you actually diminish the excitement for an average player who takes only part of a feat powerchain, or discovers only one application of ability combinations that's highly situational.

For example:
Player A is not a powergamer, but likes the sound of GWM, takes it, but uses it inefficiently. Occasionally, he gets on a roll, or against optimal enemies, and he nova's the crap outta an encounter. Amazing - he feels brilliant! He tries again with the next fight against differing enemies, and GWM is a hinderance for him.

Were you to flatten everything out, you risk players not being able to overreach and feel powerful or special for a time. I'm not saying you would by focusing on white room balance, but I'm saying it is a worthwhile consideration.....

 

[TwoSix]

In with the next fight against differing enemies, and GWM is a hinderance for him.[/I]

Were you to flatten everything out, you risk players not being able to overreach and feel powerful or special for a time. I'm not saying you would by focusing on white room balance, but I'm saying it is a worthwhile consideration.....

That's fair. I would reply only that I have no problem with feats that provide signature moments of awesome; they should simply be behind some sort of gating for their frequency. (Resource cost, limited situations, or only on certain die rolls, for example.)

When a feat affects a character's bread and butter round-in, round-out combat contribution, that's when I think a more judicious eye towards balance should be applied. Especially when they provide a de-facto steering towards certain concepts, and away from others. I would have much less of a problem with GWM/SS, for example, if they were replaced with a feat called "Power Attack", which gives a -5 to hit for +10 to damage for any weapon attack. It's still not perfect (the offensive boost provided could well be considered a feat tax, and it puts melee attackers without Extra Attack (like rogue) too far behind every other melee attacker), but at least it puts dual-wielders and one-handed weapon users in the same range as two-weapon fighters and archers.

That's my principal concern with balance, to see that player choice of concepts not be constrained by any concern about base utility.

 

[guachi]

I'd rather leave that up to the ones claiming it's so great, burden of proof and all that.

I mean, I already gave the maths for a crit-trigger: 28.5% at maximum.

The "kill a creature" trigger? Yeah no, I'm not touching that with a barge pole. Between different HP enemies, the chance that your character is the one to get the killing blow, the nature of the encounter itself, etc? Far too many variables.

Sure there are a lot of variables, but it's not impossible to come up with a reasonable estimate. And it's really easy once you've come up with the estimate to alter your calculations at will.

Then it's simply a matter of % chance of dropping a foe to zero with a non-critical hit multiplied by the chance of hitting with a non-critical hit.

Your damage increase without doing further math is roughly the chance (it's actually a little lower) of getting a critical hit plus the previous chance you just calculated.

Yes, there are lots of variables but if you aren't going to bother to try then your opinion on the feat isn't really a complete one, is it?

 

[guachi]

Only if the analysis assumes you don't have any other use for your bonus action, i.e. initiating Rage, Polearm Master haft attack, Shield Master shove, Wrathful/Thunderous Smite, dual wielding, Cunning Action, etc.

GWM's bonus action attack is great for characters with a bad action economy--it makes it not quite as bad. It's not so great for characters who already fully exploit their action economy.

Let's look at these supposed alternatives for your use of a bonus action:

Cunning Action - This means you are a rogue for at least 2 levels. You aren't using a heavy weapon to sneak attack so you aren't getting the -5/+10 portion ever. If you're a rogue and can't wear a shield because you didn't multi-class you would just use TWF instead. This is a bad example.

Dual Wielding - This is an even worse example. If you are dual wielding you aren't using heavy weapons (and don't try it with dual lances) so no -5/+10. And if you are a dual wielder why on earth would you even consider GWM, anyway? You already always get a bonus action attack. You listing this is face-palm worthy.

Smites - Yes, it would interfere with the use of the bonus action spells of a Paladin. It doesn't prevent you from using a spell slot to smite. Plus, you can expend smite dice if you really want to ensure a creature drops to zero hp and trigger a free attack. Rather than smiting being an interference with GWM it enhances the bonus action attack feature.

Shield Master - If you have Shield Master you're not wielding a heavy weapon so no -5/+10 and, besides, you're likely choosing to use the bonus action prone shove before you've even swung the weapon in the first place. How is this a valid competition with GWM? You aren't taking the feat in the first place.

PAM bonus attack - The extra attack from GWM does not suffer in the slightest from taking PAM. The damage on the extra attack from GWM will always be higher than that for PAM. What suffers is the extra damage from PAM as you'll never use that feature any time you can get an extra attack from GWM. You'd never, ever, ever use the bonus attack from PAM if you triggered GWM bonus attack.

Entering Rage - Finally, you picked an alternative that does hamper GWM bonus attack (or hampers rage) as you can't use both on the same turn. I suspect entering rage will always yield more damage overall but you'd still have to gauge, like you normally would, whether it's worth expending the rage usage resource.

So... I give you one of your six examples. Congratulations?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Let's look at these supposed alternatives for your use of a bonus action:

Cunning Action - This means you are a rogue for at least 2 levels. You aren't using a heavy weapon to sneak attack so you aren't getting the -5/+10 portion ever. If you're a rogue and can't wear a shield because you didn't multi-class you would just use TWF instead. This is a bad example.

Your original words, with which I disagreed, were these:

Not so with GWM. The bonus action attack is still there and it's roughly as much extra damage with the bonus action attack as with the -5/+10 portion. If the armor is high enough you don't use the -5/+10 part. Your damage can't possibly be lower with GWM as without it. The minimum boost should be 10% or so.

I thought your whole argument was that GWM was good and gave a "minimum" of +10% damage even if you completely ignore the -5/+10 part. Did I misunderstand the assumptions of your analysis? Are you restricting your analysis only to DPR-focused heavy weapon wielders after all?

Dual Wielding - This is an even worse example. If you are dual wielding you aren't using heavy weapons (and don't try it with dual lances) so no -5/+10. And if you are a dual wielder why on earth would you even consider GWM, anyway? You already always get a bonus action attack. You listing this is face-palm worthy.

Exactly my point. At most it will give you a +Str or +Dex to damage, if you're dual-wielding without benefit of the TWF fighting style. (Paladins sometimes do this BTW.) But you'd never consider GWM as boosting your damage by +10%, because it doesn't.

Smites - Yes, it would interfere with the use of the bonus action spells of a Paladin. It doesn't prevent you from using a spell slot to smite. Plus, you can expend smite dice if you really want to ensure a creature drops to zero hp and trigger a free attack. Rather than smiting being an interference with GWM it enhances the bonus action attack feature.

You're treating being forced into using Divine Smite over smite spells as a positive, but smite spells are typically superior to Divine Smite, so you'll want to use them. Again, this means you don't get that "minimum" boost of +10%.

PAM bonus attack - The extra attack from GWM does not suffer in the slightest from taking PAM. The damage on the extra attack from GWM will always be higher than that for PAM. What suffers is the extra damage from PAM as you'll never use that feature any time you can get an extra attack from GWM. You'd never, ever, ever use the bonus attack from PAM if you triggered GWM bonus attack.

At this point I think I must be misunderstanding your argument, because if you were arguing for the strength of the GWM bonus action attack as a substantial damage boost, you couldn't possibly say this. A Polearm Master Great Weapon Master fighting a high-AC foe gets near-zero benefit from GWM, because (1) he's already got a bonus action attack, and so all GWM does is occasionally boost that attack from d4+Str to d10+Str; (2) the enemy AC prevents -5/+10 from being a net benefit. An 8th level PM Str 20 fighter vs. a CR 6 AC 20 Hobgoblin Warlord does 13.5 damage to the hobgoblin per round; adding GWM for the -5/+10 on the haft attack boosts the damage to 13.63 per round (-5/+10 isn't helpful on the main attacks); on rounds when the GWM bonus action attack applies, you'll average 15 damage per round (again, the -5/+10 isn't helpful). If you're a Champion you can expect to get that bonus action attack 19% of the time (two attacks, each with a 10% chance of critting), so your expected damage is 15 * 0.19 + 13.63 * 0.81, giving you an expected 13.89 DPR. GWM boosted your average damage by 0.39/13.5 = 2.9%, far short of that 10% minimum you estimated.

That is why it is fallacious to analyze GWM's bonus attack without considering opportunity costs.

Entering Rage - Finally, you picked an alternative that does hamper GWM bonus attack (or hampers rage) as you can't use both on the same turn. I suspect entering rage will always yield more damage overall but you'd still have to gauge, like you normally would, whether it's worth expending the rage usage resource.

So... I give you one of your six examples. Congratulations?

Again I ask--was I misunderstanding your point? Because the point I thought you were trying to make has been thoroughly debunked, and you aren't even trying to defend it, which makes me suspect that it's not your position after all. The bonus action attack is not a minimum of +10% to damage to all warriors, and you seem to acknowledge that by concentrating your rebuttal on scenarios where the -5/+10 component of GWM applies.

The examples I named were chosen to make a point; but only two of my six examples might be using heavy weapons in the first place.

 

[Helldritch]

Yes, but what's the converse? If it DOES balance in a white room, how is it going to harm the average player?

[MENTION=6689191]Hillsy7[/MENTION] answered that better than what I could've done.

The only thing I would add is that if things works smoothly in a white room, something is wrong. The game's outcome becomes predictable and with predictability, comes boredom and the game becomes quite a lame one indeed.

If a GWM or SS were meant to be able to pull the -5/+10 at all times without problems, it would be no wonder that everybody would do something like that. In fact, you would only see SS and GWM. No need for wizards, clerics or heavy AC fighter types. Just GWM and SS... It would be a boring game indeed.

All white room analysis I see assume, advantage, bless, haste and god's knows what else. But if you remove those, then suddenly the feat isn't that OP. In fact, as a DM you're there to ensure that sometimes, the feat is usable, and other times it is not that great. The barbarian rages and attacks recklessly? The target should dodge! No more advantage. And the target's friends now shoot the barb with their arrows/bolt/cantrips and god knows what... The Paladin is boosted with every spell thinkable? Good, a dispel magic should do the trick for every spells under 4th level. I am the DM, I control the combat and the opponents. I can make sure that all builds will shine at one point or the other.

Yep, white room can help point out some problems. And yes, if a DM allows that kind of boosting these feats can become quite troublesome. On the other hand, the white room can make something quite normal appear quite unbalanced if taken too far. Extremes are just that, extremes...