D&D 5E GWM/SS alternative mechanics to the -5/+10 bonus?

[CapnZapp]

This thread is for you who believe the -5/+10 part of Great Weapon Mastery and Sharpshooter feats is too good.

If you feel the feats are fine, or don't use feats at all, please feel free to not post in the thread. Thank you.

I know most of you advocate replacing the -5/+10 bit with a simple +1 to Strength (or Dexterity).

But what about this:

GREAT WEAPON MASTER
You’ve learned to put the weight of a weapon to your advantage, letting its momentum empower your strikes.

You gain the following benefit: On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action.

In addition, your maximum but not current Strength is increased by 2 (normally to 22).​

(and similar for Sharpshooter)

This way, GWM does give out something unique, retaining its desirability. BUT, it takes a while to reap that potential (since most characters wouldn't be able to reach Strength 22 before level eight or so) and, of course, the benefit would be part bragging rights and only part mechanical. An effective +1 to attacks and damage sure is less disruptive to play than a whopping +5 or more to damage.

Thoughts? Ideas?

 

[Zardnaar]

I think I like the +1 dex or strength options better. I have also thought about -2 to hit with an extra dice of damage.

 

[jodyjohnson]

I wouldn't use a version that raised the stat cap and required an optimizer to spend yet another ASI on increasing their DPS.

 

[feartheminotaur]

Raising the cap to 22 seems reasonable. It's Cleave and a non-benefit (at first) since you take the feat and then have to wait until the next ASI/Feat, if any, to benefit from it. Which, I don't personally like, but think is fair (although some would disagree). I'd be a little more wary of raising Dex to 22 given its affect on AC.

In my games I've amended the second feature of GWM to this: "Before you make a melee attack with a heavy weapon that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a penalty equal to your proficiency bonus to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you add double your proficiency bonus to the attack’s damage"

Barring that, I've played where it was a straight +2 to damage in place of -5/+10.

 

[Sunseeker]

I would have tied it to proficiency, personally. It might make the feat better, it might make it worse. Subtract proficiency from attack, add it to damage instead. That way it's a 1/1. Keeps the numbers down a bit, but also lets those people who feel they have a very easy time hitting, but don't deal much damage, flip the equation around.

Simple bumps to stats are boring IMO and all of them, on every feat, should be replaced with an interesting feature or reduced to "lesser" feats that you can pit up in exchange for only one of your two points for stats.

 

[n0nym]

Simple bumps to stats are boring IMO and all of them, on every feat, should be replaced with an interesting feature or reduced to "lesser" feats that you can pit up in exchange for only one of your two points for stats.

QFT. I've adopted the "lesser" feats (basically 3rd edition feats) and it works fine.

For GWM/SS, I think giving them some kind of manoeuvers is the most interesting thing to do. I liked how you could destruct things in 3rd edition, so maybe give them a "rend armor" feature like :

Sunder : before you make a melee attack with a heavy weapon that you are proficient with, you can choose to target your foe's equipement (see DMG p246-247 for AC values and hit points). If the attack hits, you damage the ennemy's armor or shield instead of dealing damage normally.

If you manage to reduce its hit points to 0, it gets the "Broken" condition which halves its AC. You can of course adjust items hit points based on their level of worksmanship or the weapon dealing the damage (a maul would have a hard time damaging a chainmail but would wreck a plate armor).

 

[Blue]

Ugh, raising the cap affects so many things. Look, get more Init, AC, Dex saves, etc. That's a much uglier solution depending on the level you play to. An archer Fighter with lots of ASI would love it to death.

 

[JackOfAllTirades]

I would have tied it to proficiency, personally. It might make the feat better, it might make it worse. Subtract proficiency from attack, add it to damage instead. That way it's a 1/1. Keeps the numbers down a bit, but also lets those people who feel they have a very easy time hitting, but don't deal much damage, flip the equation around.

Excellent solution, and I like the fact that it scales with level. One of the issues I have with GWM and SS feats is that they give a 4th level character (or a 1st level variant human) a massively front-loaded benefit which seems too big for their level, then becomes less relevant (or less unbalanced, if you're in a generous frame of mind) over time because it never scales up.

I'd have no problem keeping the two-for-one trade off for attack penalty v. damage: -2/+4 isn't bad for a 1st-4th level character, and -5/+10 shouldn't break the game for 13th to 16th level characters, really. (And if you're playing to 20th, they'll get -6/+12 but so what?)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

what about: when attacking with great weapons you add 1 and a half time your str bonus to damage.

 

[Horwath]

I have two option for exchange of the -5/+10 part.

either +1 str or dex or add great weapon style to GWM and archery style to SS.