D&D 5E GWM, SS, CEx: updated!

[JacktheRabbit]

How about "No magic crossbows anywhere in this campaign. Ever."

Only relevant if you play the game exactly as written with no content other than published adventures. Which to me sounds boring as hell. Is there even enough material to play just published without having to replay adventures?

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[FrogReaver]

My only concern is that the only reason to play a fighter for most of the game in it's current state is to easily take advantage of those feats with your extra ASI's, improved accuracy from precision etc. I'm concerned that from an optimization perspective, the new balance paradigm that your proposed change will bring is that fighters suck, never play a fighter.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Only relevant if you play the game exactly as written with no content other than published adventures. Which to me sounds boring as hell. Is there even enough material to play just published without having to replay adventures?

Wait...what? Why can't I tell yet-another-crossbow-player "there won't be any magic crossbows in this campaign" if it's a homebrew campaign?

EDIT: Oh, I get it. You thought that I was saying a downside of going crossbow is the absence of magic crossbows in official adventures. No, I meant that any DM who doesn't like the build can simply make it a downside. And warn players upfront about it.

No magic polearms, while I'm at it. Or, at least, if anybody takes GWM/PM all the magic ones will suddenly vanish from the Prime Material Plane.

 

[guachi]

To your, "What then, does too strong mean?", we shouldn't forget what the cost of a feat is: a +2 ASI. How much stronger is GWM than buffing your Strength modifier by 1? An increase from 1100 to 1300 is 18%. +1 Str mod is +5% accuracy, but how does that impact damage? +1 Str mod also helps athletics and encumbrance, et al, but for many builds these are near ribbon status..

The increase to damage and hit from increasing STR/DEX by 2 is worth about 15-20% or so.

 

[clearstream]

The power of Crossbow Expert is that it enables a party of minmaxers to completely ditch melee, and breaking the game (as its intended, individual DMs can obviously still salvage their campaigns).

The need to preserve melee (whether by steel or spell) as the clear damage champion clearly trumps the need for specific spellcaster archetypes.

I didn't note that because it seemed so clear that, that is excactly what the wording does. You have to make a melee attack (more than one, if surrounded by foes). That usually means you have only a bonus action to use for your ranged weapon or spell attack. There are no bonus action ranged spell attacks, but a Sorcerer can use Quickened Spell and an Eldritch Knight has a class feature that does it. A Warlock or Magic Initiate might find a way to use it, maybe by somehow getting the melee attack to be a bonus attack. It looks pretty hard to abuse to me. Can you see a way around it?

And this wording better preserves the design goal of having some broader relevance.

 

[clearstream]

My only concern is that the only reason to play a fighter for most of the game in it's current state is to easily take advantage of those feats with your extra ASI's, improved accuracy from precision etc. I'm concerned that from an optimization perspective, the new balance paradigm that your proposed change will bring is that fighters suck, never play a fighter.

Yes, we must never lose sight of the balance between casters and martials overall. On the other hand, if Fighter viability hinges on choosing GWM or SS/CEx, then that is exactly the sort of narrowing of strategies that we don't want to see. I believe the next step in this process, is to make a similar assessment of casters. My sense is that D&D's balance rests (or should rest) on the following pillars

the primary pillars are

• explore
• fight
• talk

presumably not always in that order

secondary pillars include

• melee weapons are best in melee
• sneak attacks and two-handed melee weapons do the most single-target damage
• single-attack classes scale as strongly as multi-attack classes
• range has a value and comes at a price: about a third less damage
• casters do the most AoE damage
• skill classes - Rogue and Bard (and maybe Ranger) - are best at skills and tools
• caster utility is powerful, but strictly finite
• the highest AC defense is the heavily armoured, defensive martial with shield
• one handed melee weapons are best for defense, good for crowd control, and sustain mixed fighting styles (e.g. sword and hand crossbow)
• caster crowd control is powerful, but strictly finite

As fighters have come to rely more and more on finite resources (action surge, superiority dice) they've come closer to parity with spells. Formerly, I think the assumption that the fighter could fight all day, and would balance out more powerful spells, turned out to be a false hope. Hence I think we can now look at spells over 30 rounds and come to some better conclusions.

 

[clearstream]

I've done some simulations on this (I'll probably post results at some point), and I think the concerns about GWF is a little overblown. Yes, they have good DPR, but they also have to sacrifice AC and a bonus attack. In my simulation, two weapon and dualist/shield master both seem more effective at their role.

I understand your concern - it seemed like overkill to me as well - but at least for fighters it seems like the weakest option overall.

In other words I do think the developers crunched numbers and some things are more balanced than they may seem at first glance.

Share your data and scenario assumptions. That's what the "justified" word in the title of this thread is about. Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[clearstream]

My only concern is that the only reason to play a fighter for most of the game in it's current state is to easily take advantage of those feats with your extra ASI's, improved accuracy from precision etc. I'm concerned that from an optimization perspective, the new balance paradigm that your proposed change will bring is that fighters suck, never play a fighter.

Okay, so I created a first-pass assessment of Wizard based on the following spell list* and assumptions -

Nx Fire Bolt
4x Magic Missile
3x Levitate
3x Fireball
3x Evard's Black Tentacles
2x Wall of Force
1x Disintegrate

1. Wizard has 20 Int**
2. Save DC is 17 so foe has ~40% to save (where relevant)
3. Trivialising a target counts as killing it (foes are assumed to have ~100 HP each)
4. Arcane Recovery once for a 3rd and a 2nd level spell slot
5. AoEs hit on average four targets
6. A0E damage is counted about equal to single-target damage
7. Wall of Force trivialises two targets, no save (you knew WoF was OP, right?)
8. Levitate trivialises one target if it fails to save
9. Spam Fire Bolt when out of spells or situation doesn't justify another cast

To give an insight into the damage calculations, Fireball = 4*((8*((6+1)/2)*0.6)+(8*((6+1)/2/2)*0.4)) or targets*((average full damage*chance of full damage)+(average half damage*chance of half damage)). Something like Evard's Black Tentacles is similar, but we just use an exponent to continuously reduce the damage (chance foe is caught, and remains caught, and then remains caught, and then remains caught, etc).

So what does that make me think? Well for one thing, thanks to @FrogReaver for drawing my attention to making estimates over a full adventuring day! My estimate suggests an 11th Wizard could put out an effective ~1500 damage/day. Much of it at decent ranges. For me, that points clearly to cutting "Once per turn" from GWM. But what about SS? Is it really right that SS should beat out one-handed so... handily (heh). And what about the single or few attack classes?

I believe one-handed melee needs to do more damage than SS/CEx. Either because SS/CEx does less, or because it does more. Same goes for the single/few attack classes. They are lacking.




* Wizard has more spells than this, but the rest are assumed to be utility or deal less effective damage (true?). Things like Greater Invisibility for constant advantage to an ally are possible, but to date we've been looking at output without allies. Polymorph could trivialise one target if it failed to save (or do something about as effective) so Tentacles is better, at least for this purpose.
** Why use Wizard? Straight levels in Wizard has been the bar for power in all editions of D&D where Druid wasn't godlike.

 

[Coroc]

Ahm i miss something here: How much damage does SS/GWM substract in the case you do not have Advantage / active bless / precision?

Is it already factored in in your first calculation for the 1700 damage?

Which precondition does apply: Is it you always got Advantage? which armor class is targeted? There are so many things to be counted in here, e.g. bless gets an average of +2.5 for the to hit BUT it also gives this to the fighter with just a stat increase.

To make a somehow fair calculation i would rather compare a fighter with STR18 and GWM and one w/o GWM but STR20, the same goes for SS, if it is a CE then even compare the dex 16 CE SS with a featless guy but 20DEX for a start and the nyournumbers look different i bet.

 

[FrogReaver]

The fighter doesn't just compete with casters. He competes with rogues, barbarians, paladins rangers and monks too. We already know the fighter gets no social or exploration benefits. Without those feats rangers and paladins and rogues likely overtake him in damage too. Monks even stay competitive with him. IMO. At that point why play a fighter?

Yes, we must never lose sight of the balance between casters and martials overall. On the other hand, if Fighter viability hinges on choosing GWM or SS/CEx, then that is exactly the sort of narrowing of strategies that we don't want to see. I believe the next step in this process, is to make a similar assessment of casters. My sense is that D&D's balance rests (or should rest) on the following pillars

the primary pillars are

• explore
• fight
• talk

presumably not always in that order

secondary pillars include

• melee weapons are best in melee
• sneak attacks and two-handed melee weapons do the most single-target damage
• single-attack classes scale as strongly as multi-attack classes
• range has a value and comes at a price: about a third less damage
• casters do the most AoE damage
• skill classes - Rogue and Bard (and maybe Ranger) - are best at skills and tools
• caster utility is powerful, but strictly finite
• the highest AC defense is the heavily armoured, defensive martial with shield
• one handed melee weapons are best for defense, good for crowd control, and sustain mixed fighting styles (e.g. sword and hand crossbow)
• caster crowd control is powerful, but strictly finite

As fighters have come to rely more and more on finite resources (action surge, superiority dice) they've come closer to parity with spells. Formerly, I think the assumption that the fighter could fight all day, and would balance out more powerful spells, turned out to be a false hope. Hence I think we can now look at spells over 30 rounds and come to some better conclusions.