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

[Flamestrike]

These feats deal damage. Whoop-de-do-da.

Considering CR 1/2 thugs have 30-40 HP its not an issue. Any monstrous humanoid in chainmail and a shield is AC 18.

5E is structured for 6-8 encounters per day, with each encounter featuring multiple monsters across a range of capabilities and roles (high HP brute, low CR Mook, caster/ leader type etc).

Having some PCs (i.e. warriors who are the main users of these feats) be geared towards taking down the high HP tank/ brute monster is a feature and not a bug. Having a system where the players seek to work together to take down specific threats, buffing each other and working together as a team, is something to be encouraged.

The cleric casts bless. Its hard to take down because he sticks close to the paladin and takes advantage of his divine grace bonus to saves. The barbarian recklessly attacks, knowing his rage resistance will counter the return damage, while the mage hastes the barbarian turning him into a juggernaught of destruction.

This is not the game 'breaking'. Its the game working as intended.

At the end of the battle, the party are down on some resources (1 bless, 1 rage, 1 haste, several cure wounds spells, a shield, a smite or two, a channel divinity or two). Now they push onto the next encounter. And the next. And then maybe a short rest. And then another two or three encounters. And then a second short rest. And then 2-3 more encounters.

Most of the things that negate the -5 to hit require resources (yes, even reckless attack which depletes hit points due to the barbarian getting clobbered more often while its 'on'). Tripping strike, bless, faerie fire etc. Many also require a specific set up, or chew into the action economy.

Then there is the additional opportunity cost that for every PC that has one of these feats, he is missing an ASI (+1 hit, damage, saves and skills).

So your Barbarian with GWM isnt really at -5/+10. Hes really at -6/+9.

 

[Zardnaar]

But if I cast bless to give someone +10 damage, I'm missing out on spirit guardians' 3d8 damage (half on save). What's the math on that trade off?

THis one is a lot harder to work out as it depends on the situation and what type of cleric you are.

Spiritual guardians is very good for nature, life and war domain clerics, not so good for tempest and light clerics. Other clerics might be better off dropping a fireball or Radiance of the Dawn for example instead of SG. Or call lightning.

Bless is always good every combat even if feats are not being used. Its better if feats are being used as ability scores are often a bit lower the the bless bonus is better comparatively , SG is situational.

If you have 2 PCs using the -5/+10 feats or 1 PC + Eldritch Blast I would go as far as saying bless is always better all of the time than every other spell from level 1-3 that a cleric can cast outside of perhaps a situation where you need to deal radiant damage to a heap of undead or perhaps you are being swarmed by massive amounts of weaker critters with 11 hp or less (kobolds, goblins etc). Bless gets better if you have an eldritch blast spamming warlock.

What makes bless so good is it scales with your levels, 1d4 to hit and saves is always nice but it is even better the more attacks you make. Spells like burning hands, guiding bolt etc tend to become less useful as you level up bless gets better as you level up when multiple attacks come online. It may not be optimal depending on the situation but it is never bad. At higher levels you might have a better use for the concentration slot is the main drawback.

Note my PCs rarely use a cure spell, healing word sure an actual cure spell is rare.

 

[Fanaelialae]

They can but I am assuming you can hit around 60%+ of the time with the -5 or 40% of the time if you are using CE+SS. That 10% bonuses from archery style helps a lot with this.

If you can hit 60% of the time with the -5 penalty, then you are hitting 85% of the time without it. Those bonuses are merely compensating for the penalty, rather than eliminating it. The only way to eliminate the penalty is to boost your attack so high that even with the -5 penalty you hit 95% of the time (because a natural 1 is always a miss). Given bounded accuracy, that's an atypical circumstance.

Without a group that coordinates for character creation and tactics, 60% accuracy after the penalty is hardly a given. At my table, having support characters to maintain constant Bless and Faerie Fire is never assumed. If someone wants to play that role, great. If not, also great. It's more important that the players enjoy their characters than that the table achieve some "perfect" level of optimization. In my opinion, the game is more challenging and fun if you don't over-optimize. It's also smart, since no one-trick-pony can withstand a DM's infinite bag of tricks.

I'm not saying it isn't a problem for you. However, it does seem that there are plenty of groups where this simply isn't an issue.

 

[Zardnaar]

These feats deal damage. Whoop-de-do-da.

Considering CR 1/2 thugs have 30-40 HP its not an issue. Any monstrous humanoid in chainmail and a shield is AC 18.

5E is structured for 6-8 encounters per day, with each encounter featuring multiple monsters across a range of capabilities and roles (high HP brute, low CR Mook, caster/ leader type etc).



Having some PCs (i.e. warriors who are the main users of these feats) be geared towards taking down the high HP tank/ brute monster is a feature and not a bug. Having a system where the players seek to work together to take down specific threats, buffing each other and working together as a team, is something to be encouraged.

The cleric casts bless. Its hard to take down because he sticks close to the paladin and takes advantage of his divine grace bonus to saves. The barbarian recklessly attacks, knowing his rage resistance will counter the return damage, while the mage hastes the barbarian turning him into a juggernaught of destruction.

This is not the game 'breaking'. Its the game working as intended.

At the end of the battle, the party are down on some resources (1 bless, 1 rage, 1 haste, several cure wounds spells, a shield, a smite or two, a channel divinity or two). Now they push onto the next encounter. And the next. And then maybe a short rest. And then another two or three encounters. And then a second short rest. And then 2-3 more encounters.

Most of the things that negate the -5 to hit require resources (yes, even reckless attack which depletes hit points due to the barbarian getting clobbered more often while its 'on'). Tripping strike, bless, faerie fire etc. Many also require a specific set up, or chew into the action economy.

Then there is the additional opportunity cost that for every PC that has one of these feats, he is missing an ASI (+1 hit, damage, saves and skills).

So your Barbarian with GWM isnt really at -5/+10. Hes really at -6/+9.

Except you will eventually get the asame bonus to hit and whats better than +1 to hit and damage? An extra attack which is what CE and GWF both enable along with Polearm Master.

The 3 big hitters in 5E at higher level are.

Fighter using SS+CE
Sorlock (Warlock 2/SorcererXYZ)
Fighter using GWM+PAM.

Barbarians Paladins and Rangers just using GWM by itself still deal plenty of damage though along with a Warlock not using metamagic. Rangers with SS as well in the mid levels. In 5E some classes peak at different times relative to the others.

With your proficency bonus and stats increasing at a faster rate than monster ACs along with more ways to enable advantage to come online SS and GWM get a lot nastier later in the game, a level 17 fighter with a feat combo and foresight for example will likely deal more damage than say a meteor swarm spell.

In the mid levels things like twinned haste and greater invisibility become options and yes I have seen them used with those feats or a hasted SS+CE+action surge combo 9 attacks a round at +15 damage level 11.

If you pace yourself (plenty of low level slots to use bless with) you will never run out of bless spells from level 5 onwards along with things that refresh on short rests such as bard/superiority dice and ki points all of which can be used for a bonus to hit or grant advantage. Its not to unusual to have 2 or 3 casters in the party since everything casts spells in 5E so you only need to use 1 spell per combat so its not like you will run out of spells anytime soon either and a cleric casting bless can bless 2 PCs using the -5/+10 feats and himself for 4 combats in a day just using lvl 1 slots. Level 2 slots they can get 4 PCs and you have things like cast a flaming sphere as a light cleric for midddling damage or bless most of the party hmmmn.

 

[Zardnaar]

If you can hit 60% of the time with the -5 penalty, then you are hitting 85% of the time without it. Those bonuses are merely compensating for the penalty, rather than eliminating it. The only way to eliminate the penalty is to boost your attack so high that even with the -5 penalty you hit 95% of the time (because a natural 1 is always a miss). Given bounded accuracy, that's an atypical circumstance.

Without a group that coordinates for character creation and tactics, 60% accuracy after the penalty is hardly a given. At my table, having support characters to maintain constant Bless and Faerie Fire is never assumed. If someone wants to play that role, great. If not, also great. It's more important that the players enjoy their characters than that the table achieve some "perfect" level of optimization. In my opinion, the game is more challenging and fun if you don't over-optimize. It's also smart, since no one-trick-pony can withstand a DM's infinite bag of tricks.

I'm not saying it isn't a problem for you. However, it does seem that there are plenty of groups where this simply isn't an issue.

I'm not saying you have to break the game or play this way but if you want to abuse those feats that is how you do it. Bless is a big offender and advantage effects which most classes can get in some way or another combined with multiple attacks.

If you have a choice between hititng 80%5 % of the time and 60% of the time with +10 damage the math heavily favours the +10 damage option.

 

[Flamestrike]

Except you will eventually get the asame bonus to hit and whats better than +1 to hit and damage? An extra attack which is what CE and GWF both enable along with Polearm Master.

Crossbow expert is a totally different feat. And yeah, you can max out your Dex, and take crossbow expert and sharpshooter and use a hand crossbow. A Vuman fighter can do so by 6th level. Lets assume he takes the archery style as well.

That superoptimised fighter gets 3 attacks per round dealing at +5 to hit dealing 1d6+15. Vs AC 15 he hits around 1.5 times per round dealing around 28-30 damage per round on average. Whoop-de-do-da. If 30 damage per round from a 6th level fighter is breaking your game, you have bigger problems mate.

The 3 big hitters in 5E at higher level are.

Fighter using SS+CE
Sorlock (Warlock 2/SorcererXYZ)
Fighter using GWM+PAM.

No, theyre not. While action surging BM archery fighters going nova can deal considerable spike damage, once action surge and sup dice are spent they fall back to the feild (while still doing good damage). Sorlock is laughably bad in any game that polices the adventuring day untill extremely high level, and if a fighter with a polearm is dominating high level games, then all I can say is 5E got it right with caster/ martial imbalance.

With your proficency bonus and stats increasing at a faster rate than monster ACs along with more ways to enable advantage to come online SS and GWM get a lot nastier later in the game, a level 17 fighter with a feat combo and foresight for example will likely deal more damage than say a meteor swarm spell.

The fact a 17th level fighter, tooled out for archery, going nova, while buffed with a 9th level spell can deal more damage than a meteor swarm (a 9th level spell) to a single target is a good thing.

The party are buring through more resources here. They should be dealing more damage. A 9th level spell dropped on a 17th level crossbow grandmaster should be pretty damn awesome.

In the mid levels things like twinned haste and greater invisibility become options and yes I have seen them used with those feats or a hasted SS+CE+action surge combo 9 attacks a round at +15 damage level 11.

Firstly its a massive resource expenditure for a twinned haste (try doing that for 6-8 encounters per day) and secondly the fact you get better single target damage by buffing the fighter is again a feature not bug.

If you pace yourself (plenty of low level slots to use bless with) you will never run out of bless spells from level 5 onwards along with things that refresh on short rests such as bard/superiority dice and ki points all of which can be used for a bonus to hit or grant advantage.

Thats patently not true. If this is your experience, you're not designing your encounters (and structuring your adventuring days) properly. If your party are reaching the end of the adventuring day long rest with gas in the tank, despite blowing spells and resources like candy, then the problem you're experiencing (and I dont doubt youre seeing a problem) probably lies elsewhere.

Its not to unusual to have 2 or 3 casters in the party since everything casts spells in 5E so you only need to use 1 spell per combat so its not like you will run out of spells anytime soon either and a cleric casting bless can bless 2 PCs using the -5/+10 feats and himself for 4 combats in a day just using lvl 1 slots. Level 2 slots they can get 4 PCs and you have things like cast a flaming sphere as a light cleric for midddling damage or bless most of the party hmmmn.

Give me a typical party composition for your group. Lets say they're 9th level. 5 PCs. Go nuts with GWM/ SS or whatever. I'll design you an adventuring day to challenge the pants off them, just to show you it can be done.

 

[Zardnaar]

Crossbow expert is a totally different feat. And yeah, you can max out your Dex, and take crossbow expert and sharpshooter and use a hand crossbow. A Vuman fighter can do so by 6th level. Lets assume he takes the archery style as well.

That superoptimised fighter gets 3 attacks per round dealing at +5 to hit dealing 1d6+15. Vs AC 15 he hits around 1.5 times per round dealing around 28-30 damage per round on average. Whoop-de-do-da. If 30 damage per round from a 6th level fighter is breaking your game, you have bigger problems mate.



No, theyre not. While action surging BM archery fighters going nova can deal considerable spike damage, once action surge and sup dice are spent they fall back to the feild (while still doing good damage). Sorlock is laughably bad in any game that polices the adventuring day untill extremely high level, and if a fighter with a polearm is dominating high level games, then all I can say is 5E got it right with caster/ martial imbalance.



The fact a 17th level fighter, tooled out for archery, going nova, while buffed with a 9th level spell can deal more damage than a meteor swarm (a 9th level spell) to a single target is a good thing.

The party are buring through more resources here. They should be dealing more damage. A 9th level spell dropped on a 17th level crossbow grandmaster should be pretty damn awesome.



Firstly its a massive resource expenditure for a twinned haste (try doing that for 6-8 encounters per day) and secondly the fact you get better single target damage by buffing the fighter is again a feature not bug.



Thats patently not true. If this is your experience, you're not designing your encounters (and structuring your adventuring days) properly. If your party are reaching the end of the adventuring day long rest with gas in the tank, despite blowing spells and resources like candy, then the problem you're experiencing (and I dont doubt youre seeing a problem) probably lies elsewhere.



Give me a typical party composition for your group. Lets say they're 9th level. 5 PCs. Go nuts with GWM/ SS or whatever. I'll design you an adventuring day to challenge the pants off them, just to show you it can be done.

My group doesn't have a typical composition. Assuming a point buy party and a basic composition my PCs would probably build something like this.


Lore Bard (blaster, feats spell sniper picking up eldritch blast, steals hex+fireball)
Ranger Hunter (SS, longbow)
Human Rogue (thief, 20 dex, healer feat, some other feat)
Avenger Paladin (GMW, 18 strength, 16 or 18 charisma)
Battlemaster Fighter 8/Rogue1 (20 strength, shield master, sentinel)

That would be something they might play with their favourite classes assuming they wanted 2 PCs with the -5/+10 feats.

They might also play something like this.

Light Cleric (18 wisdom, warcaster+healer feat)
Abjurer Wizard (20 int, alertness feat)
Oath of the Ancients Paladin (GWM)
Fighter1/Valor Bard 8 (Shield Master, 14 charisma, 20 strength or half elf) or Nature cleric (20 wisdom, Polearm master feat
Crossbow Expert Fighter (20 dex, SS+CE)

The 2nd party would likely focus on debuff/preventing damage.

If you are designing encounters to screw the PCs over its not hard. Here is 4 flameskulls have fun with that take 32d6 damage. As I said I use mostly prepublished adventurers as I can't really be assed designing encounters specifically tailored to the PCs. This is what I did in 3E and I got sick of it fast rather than waste time doing that with 5E I would be more likely to play AD&D or an OSR game.

However they designed it you would have bard dice, short rest mechanics (inspiration dice, cleric domain powers,ki points, action surge, healer feat and 2-3 spell casters. The only constant would be the healer feat and at least 1 spellcaster probably a bard or other charisma based class (Sorcere, Paladin etc) and more likely 2 or 3 (4 in a 6 man party+ a half caster as well).

 

[Dausuul]

Let's assume a 6th-level greatsword fighter, with Strength 18, who is trying to decide between +2 Strength or Great Weapon Mastery.

In terms of damage output, here is what picking GWM instead of +2 Strength gets you, based on your opponent's AC and the buffs you have going. Note that I am only considering the impact of the -5/+10 option. In fact, GWM is better than this, because you also get a bonus attack when you drop a foe.

Enemy AC	No buffs	Advantage	Bless	Advantage + bless
AC 10	+14% dmg	+45% dmg	+35% dmg	+56% dmg
AC 11	+11%	+40%	+27%	+52%
AC 12	+8%	+35%	+20%	+47%
AC 13	+5%	+29%	+14%	+42%
AC 14	+0%	+23%	+10%	+37%
AC 15	-4%	+17%	+6%	+32%
AC 16	-9%	+10%	+3%	+26%
AC 17	-14%	+2%	-2%	+20%
AC 18	-15%	-8%	-7%	+13%
AC 19	-16%	-13%	-12%	+5%
AC 20	-17%	-14%	-15%	-3%

As you can see, the feat by itself is fairly well balanced. You gain on the low ACs but lose out on the high ACs*. However, layering on buffs shifts the balance toward GWM.

Now assume a 6th-level longbow archer, with Dex 18, deciding between +2 Dex or Sharpshooter (no Crossbow Expert shenanigans). This one is a whole other ballgame:

Enemy AC	No buffs	Advantage	Bless	Advantage + bless
AC 10	+52% dmg	+79% dmg	+77% dmg	+88% dmg
AC 11	+42%	+74%	+67%	+85%
AC 12	+32%	+68%	+57%	+81%
AC 13	+29%	+62%	+47%	+76%
AC 14	+25%	+56%	+39%	+71%
AC 15	+21%	+50%	+33%	+65%
AC 16	+16%	+43%	+27%	+59%
AC 17	+11%	+35%	+23%	+53%
AC 18	+5%	+27%	+19%	+46%
AC 19	-3%	+17%	+14%	+39%
AC 20	-11%	+6%	+8%	+31%

Why the difference? Two reasons. First, the Archery fighting style effectively reduces the enemy's AC by two, and low ACs favor GWM/SS. Second, the archer's base damage per hit is 8.5 instead of 12.333, which means that the +10 from Sharpshooter is proportionally much bigger. Even without buffs, Sharpshooter is almost always superior**. With buffs, it becomes absurd.

So: GWM is at the top end of the feat power scale, and an optimized party can take significant advantage. Sharpshooter is just broken. I suggest reducing Sharpshooter to -5/+6, which puts it on par with GWM at -5/+10.

[SIZE=-2]*I do account for the fact that you can choose not to use the -5/+10 option. You still come out behind, however, since you've got Str 18 and your alternate-universe self has Str 20.

**Though the archer has more of a tradeoff: Increasing Dex will grant +1 AC as well as +1 to hit/damage. However, +1 AC for a ranged combatant is pretty small. Maybe -5/+7 instead of -5/+6.[/SIZE]

 

[UngeheuerLich]

That thread again.

The feats are good. Especially with teamwork. And especially against monsters where you are way ahead anyway.

AC 8 monster, many hp. You shortcut the fight. More power to you.

Know what is also funny. If you remove the -5/+10 part of the feat, there is nothing left of great weapon. The other benefit works with any melee weapon.


With sharpshooter I more or less agree. Lower base damage and other annoying benefits will make that feat overly powerful in many situations.

 

[Flamestrike]

My group doesn't have a typical composition. Assuming a point buy party and a basic composition my PCs would probably build something like this.


Lore Bard (blaster, feats spell sniper picking up eldritch blast, steals hex+fireball)
Ranger Hunter (SS, longbow)
Human Rogue (thief, 20 dex, healer feat, some other feat)
Avenger Paladin (GMW, 18 strength, 16 or 18 charisma)
Battlemaster Fighter 8/Rogue1 (20 strength, shield master, sentinel)

That would be something they might play with their favourite classes assuming they wanted 2 PCs with the -5/+10 feats.

They might also play something like this.

Light Cleric (18 wisdom, warcaster+healer feat)
Abjurer Wizard (20 int, alertness feat)
Oath of the Ancients Paladin (GWM)
Fighter1/Valor Bard 8 (Shield Master, 14 charisma, 20 strength or half elf) or Nature cleric (20 wisdom, Polearm master feat
Crossbow Expert Fighter (20 dex, SS+CE)

The 2nd party would likely focus on debuff/preventing damage.

GWM on a Paladin is often a bad idea. Paladins are better maximising hit chance (they can always stack smite on top after they hit) rather than missing a lot. Rogues have a similar issue with sharpshooter.

If you want me to design an adventuring day for one of those groups, pick 1 and Ill do it.

If you are designing encounters to screw the PCs over its not hard. Here is 4 flameskulls have fun with that take 32d6 damage.

You dont design encounters to 'screw the party over'. You design them to challenge them.

As I said I use mostly prepublished adventurers as I can't really be assed designing encounters specifically tailored to the PCs.

Thats a DM issue, not a player or feat issue. If you cant be bothered designing encounters, and would rather have others do so for you (with no idea of your party composition) then you're often going to run into problems.

Even with premade adventures, I'll read through the adventure and tweak the encounters towards the party. Once you get good at it, you can run AD+D modules or 3E modules or 4E modules for your group with minimal prep time.

This is what I did in 3E and I got sick of it fast rather than waste time doing that with 5E I would be more likely to play AD&D or an OSR game.

It takes half an hour to an hour of prep time to design a 6-8 encounter adventuring day in 5E man. In 3E it would take that long just to design a single encounter (feats, CR adjustments, skills, templates, billions of sourcebooks etc). Its much easier now-adays and can be almost done on the fly. If youre stuck, double the critters HP and up its CR by 1.

In 5E you can plonk your Bearded devil in full plate, up his AC to 18, give him a hell hound 'henchman' and some cultist mooks and you're set. You can reskin a monster (the 'War troll' is really an Ogre in Banded mail with AC 17, multiattack and +1 CR) etc.

However they designed it you would have bard dice, short rest mechanics (inspiration dice, cleric domain powers,ki points, action surge, healer feat and 2-3 spell casters. The only constant would be the healer feat and at least 1 spellcaster probably a bard or other charisma based class (Sorcere, Paladin etc) and more likely 2 or 3 (4 in a 6 man party+ a half caster as well).

Pick me a group, and Ill design a set up for them. Lets see how full of resources they are by the end of the adventuring day.