D&D 5E Sharpshooter/Great Weapon Master and Why They Are Broken 101.

[Flamestrike]

Pretty nicely tooled up yeah?

 

[Zardnaar]

Pretty nicely tooled up yeah?

Its OK a complete lack of magical armor and shields is a little odd by level 9 though.

Hell you find some of that in LMoP.

I assume non magical equipment from the PHB within reason is fine? I have a 6am start tomorrow and a 12 hour day so I'll have to finish off those PCs later.

Bladelock, hex, fireball, rebelling and agonizing, armor of agathys.

The cleric has the light domain,

Sorcerer bloodline I'll think about it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This is an old debate and there is a thread currently going downhill. So why would my opinion be any more relevant than any one else?

I can't imagine. That chest full of medals from the edition war, perhaps?

At the most basic level of min/maxing, char op whatever if you can eliminate the -5 part of the feat you get a +10 bonus to damage. That right there tends to break 5E IMHO.

Finagling a +5 (canceling a -5) would be pretty brutal to Bounded Accuracy, in itself, though, wouldn't it?

Note even without the SS/GWM feat getting buffed to hit is always good in D&D regardless of edition.
This applies in OD&D, 4E, 5E doesn't matter it is always good in combat

Yep. The more so the more often you attack, and in a relative sense, the more so the closer you were to needing a 20 to hit. In 5e, you definitely can attack quite a lot, so it's a bigger benefit than in 4e when you rarely got multiple attacks, or in 3e, where your multiple attacks had declining BAB and required a full action. OTOH, in 5e, your chance to hit is usually pretty good at a baseline, around 65%, vs 50% in 4e, and declining in 3e (buffing to hit was actually really good for those iterative attacks) - all in theory, of course.
with opportunity cost really being the main thing to consider (eg cast prayer or fireball).

In general a single decent buff effect can mostly mitigate the effect of SS/GWM, the more buffs you pile on the more the -5 part of the feat doesn't matter.

I think you are getting at something here. In 5e, it's generally pretty easy to hit, to begin with. ACs just don't get all that crazy high, so you're often able to hit quite easily, a buff to attack isn't that potent when you're not missing a lot, already. What SS/GWM does, then, is to make attack buffing much more effective, precisely because of the penalty. To the extent that the bonus is remotely worth it without buffing, it's going to be excessively good with enough of it...

The only way SS and GWM are not broken is the DM metagames against the PCs by using high AC opponents all of the time, hands out no magic items...

And, of course, the DM is free to do all that, and much, much more...

Even without to many (or any) mitigating factors however what also breaks these feats is extra attacks.

Sure. Extra Attack, multi-attacking of any kind, really, breaks D&D, in general. Always has. It's just too much of a multiplier on whatever you can use to enhance attacks. In 5e, between BA and lack of content, there aren't the huge number of bonuses to stack onto your attacks there were in 3e, but there are enough, and SS/GWM stand out as two of the biggest.

The obvious fix IMHO is eliminate the -5/+10 part of the feat (+1 dex or strength) or limit it to 1/round.

The latter sounds pretty reasonable. Maybe SS could be limited to the first attack each round, on the theory that you don't have as much chance to 'aim' the rest (flimsy theory, I know), while GWM could consume a bonus action to designate which attack is affected?

So, yeah, I admit, I more or less buy the argument that they're broken (maybe not that they're wildly broken).

They're also optional.

I don't use feats when I run outside of AL, so I'm good.

For anyone who doesn't agree with me, they're available.
For anyone who does, and wants to fix them, there are fairly obvious ways of doing so (and it'd be nice to see discussions of the same that don't devolve into arguments over whether they 'need' to be fixed or not).

Strength of 5e's DM Empowerment/rulings-not-rules philosophy.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The obvious fix IMHO is eliminate the -5/+10 part of the feat (+1 dex or strength) or limit it to 1/round.

Since it was quoted before me: that fix for great weapon master is terrible. The other benefits work with any weapon. So you can't just do that or you have to rename the feat. If i thought the feat would need a fix I would change the first benefit to: you add 1.5 times your strength modifier to damage instead of your strength modifier with heavy weapons. That way you increase your damage per round by 1 or 2 (by 1 at level 1 or 4 usually. By 2 at level 8 usually). So you give up 1 to hit for the cleave potential and later be one or 2 damage ahead. Should be good for people who think it is broken. And it would nicely be similar with a 3.5 rule.

I would then remove sharp shooter completeley or would require the use of a bonus action to use either benefit. I really don't like that feat. And I am worried more about the other benefits.

 

[Zardnaar]

Since it was quoted before me: that fix for great weapon master is terrible. The other benefits work with any weapon. So you can't just do that or you have to rename the feat. If i thought the feat would need a fix I would change the first benefit to: you add 1.5 times your strength modifier to damage instead of your strength modifier with heavy weapons. That way you increase your damage per round by 1 or 2 (by 1 at level 1 or 4 usually. By 2 at level 8 usually). So you give up 1 to hit for the cleave potential and later be one or 2 damage ahead. Should be good for people who think it is broken. And it would nicely fit with a 3.5 rule.

The 3.5 rule was bad though combined with power attack. Made anything that was not a the obsolete.

 

[Corwin]

The 3.5 rule was bad though combined with power attack. Made anything that was not a the obsolete.

Did you seriously just dismiss something as not feasible because of a currently nonexistent rule from a previous edition?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The 3.5 rule was bad though combined with power attack. Made anything that was not a the obsolete.

I think you forgot a word and I really don't understand the problem. If you want to say that it made anything besides twohanded swords ovsolete you should not forget that this time strengthed is usually capped at 20.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Did you seriously just dismiss something as not feasible because of a currently nonexistent ability from a previous edition?

Hehe. Yeah that power attack part is to be superseded this time. So it is either this or that.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Anyone deliberately gimping their character is by default a disruptive player IMHO. And no I do not regard not building the most powerful PC possible as gimping but if you are deliberately making a worse PC than the ones in the 5E starter set that is.

I am saying anyone deliberately making a front line melee character with 12 strength is inherently dysfunctional even with the default array.

I can't conceive how you can declare a player disruptive by his choice of PC and if its not up to Starter Set standards. A Strenght 12 melee PC is not dysfunctional despite what you may think, while it's not optinmal in combat (behind by 2 from a 16-17, it can still function! Many monsters AC are low enought in 5E to have a non-optimal PC viable. If that player did put a lower stat in Strenght, he out to have a better one in at least one other attribute somewhere and get to be better than those Starter Set fighters afterall!

What you appear to say is if you're not that good in combat falling behing by even just -2, you're disrupting my game. That's unfortunate for you and your players it seems like such a narrow view of 5E combat to have.

And where bless is a great spell to help those non-optimal PCs, you think it's broken and complaint against it. Even more unfortunate!

 

[Zardnaar]

I think you forgot a word and I really don't understand the problem. If you want to say that it made anything besides twohanded swords ovsolete you should not forget that this time strengthed is usually capped at 20.

Great weapons already do more damage plus better cries and if you add weapon styles revolts add a bit more on top of that.

The gap right now is fine as is imho. Not all classes get combat styles so there is a real choice already between more damage and something else.