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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 7196242" data-attributes="member: 2629">For GWM to have a significant impact on a combat, the use of it must result in the party having different amounts of resources left after the combat than if it was not used.  Even when it is used effectively and deals more damage, it often does not change the amount of resources the PCs have left after the combat at all, and when it does change it, it is often a change that nobody really cares about.For example (with simplified math to exhibit the points): * If the PC deals 25 damage with GWM and 15 without it, if the monster has 26 to 30 hps, it takes the same number of hits to take it down with or without it.* If the PC deals 25 damage with GWM and misses every other attack (needing an 11) (hit, miss, hit, miss, etc...) and deals 15 on a hit and misses every fourth attack (needing a 6) (hit, hit, hit, miss), an enemy with 26 to 45 hit points will fall on the third attack for both.* If you take down an enemy one round faster due to GWM, but the monster would have missed on their attacks in the extra round they'd survive without the GWM being used, the PCs do not lose any extra hps.   I don't know of anyone else that has tried to measure how many resources the feat saves.  However, I did a fairly tedious study with a lot of mock battles trying to control for strategy, die luck, etc... with the explicit goal to see if using GWM put you in a better position at the end of the battle - and in over half of the scenarios it did not.  When it did, it usually proved advantageous, but not always - but the difference was a few extra hps lost or an extra spell slot or two used up.  Only twice did it make a major difference out of 16 tested scenarios.  Obviously, trying to control for so much in such a broad open game is not going to be perfect, and every groups games will have different encounter designs that will differ from what I mocked up, but I felt like I got a pretty nice view that GWM is not having the overwhelming impact on games that people assume it is having.  It is splashy with big damage numbers, but not over the top.</blockquote>

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