They also took away crossbow expert/single hand crossbow which I'm pretty sure was unintentional (and risibly broken when combined with SS) and Polearm Master with a one handed weapon. And rogues making offturn sneak attacks and using weapon cantrips.
It seems to me that this is both good and bad. Good in the sense that it's nice to have a wide variety of equally powerful options. But it could also be bad if martials now no longer have anything that is as good as GWM/PAM and CE/SS and don't get other features that compensate for that loss of power.
I realize it's kind of a bomb-throwing move to bring this up, but won't that just further weaken martials relative to casters? The rogue, for example, seems to me to be less strong overall--though I may have misunderstood elements of it on my first readthrough. Meanwhile, the Bard and (particularly) the Ranger seem to have gotten more spells prepared than they used to have spells known.
It's kind of an age-old question -- if category A is lessor to category B, is it ever right to go into category A and do any kind of remediation to outlier subcategories that are disproportionate within the category. In general I would say it is a good plan -- that hand-crossbow CBE/SS spammers, halberd PAM/GWM-ers, and one-handed staff/spear and shield PAMers are such disproportionate winners within the martial category doesn't really do much benefit for anyone wanting to play a martial in any other light (be it two weapon fighting, sword and shield, or whatnot). Better to bring those strategies in line with the other options, while simultaneously working on bringing playing a martial up overall (and/or casters down).
Yea. Each individual change is fine in theory, but lowering the ceiling on martial damage while simultaneously giving casters even more versatility isn't a great look.
IMO. All the feat change will do is push people toward multiclass and casters.
Well built multiclasses were already nearly as powerful as the weapon feats and usually more versatile, usually they just came online a few levels later. Say level 7-8 instead of 4-5.
I mean, if this is the only change that happens, yes, any nerf to martials would push people towards other options.
I am seriously curious to see what happens with casters (spells, really) and rest frequency (and fighters outside of combat, but that is another issue). If the worst of the caster spells (or the most MC-benefiting) are re-written to not be so troublesome, and there is better guidance on addressing the 5-minute workday, these may well be stealth nerfs on casters that comes along with these culling of optimal martial tactics.
It's overall a good change. Although I do think a "trade accuracy for more damage" feature would make sense as part of the combat rules.
Yes. A general -5/+5 or add prof bonus to damage instead of attack would just work well for all kinds of weapon users.
I guess I'm in the minority but I actually don't like this change. Yes +10 damage is a big hike but at low levels the -5 often translates to missing entirely and at higher levels the +10 is offset by higher monster HP's and all the high damage ranged attacks that spellcasters get to dish out.
Thinking back to the Vox Machina Vecna fight with Vecna's high AC I seem to recall Percy having to really gamble whether Sharpshooter would allow him to land a hit or not. shrugs But like I said I really seem to be in the minority on this one.
I'm wondering if they are trying to get rid of this strategy in general. SS/GWM land squarely in the 'these are reasonable benefit-offset-by-penalty
unless you have lots of significant ways to make to-hit penalties not significant.' The rolled-stat elven fighter with archery fighting style and SS and 20 Dex by level 4 (and an ally who casts
bless most combats) has a much different experience with the feat than the gwm MAD paladin taking on Vecna.
