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

[Flamestrike]

So: GWM is at the top end of the feat power scale

If we assess feats on a metric of damage per round.

Lucky and Resilient (Wisdom) are obviously crap feats seeing as they add nothing to your DPR. Heavy armor mastery sucks as well. And so forth.

Also, can you re-asess those feats with two other variables in mind? First is the opportunity cost for taking the feats (reduce the bonus to -6/+9 to account for the opportunity cost of not raising your attack stat) and reduce the damage per round to account for your casters using thier action to cast buffing spells instead of damaging ones.

Haste for example is great, but sometimes fireballing your enemy to cinders on round 1 kind of makes it a little moot.

 

[Zardnaar]

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.



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



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.



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.



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.

I know how to do it but it's more work to account for 2 feats that are out of whack vs other feats. More work is not good design and even that Half an hour of prep is time spent that I would rather be doing something else either designing no combat stuff or messing around on the Xbox One or PS4.

 

[Dausuul]

Also, can you re-asess those feats with two other variables in mind? First is the opportunity cost for taking the feats (reduce the bonus to -6/+9 to account for the opportunity cost of not raising your attack stat) and reduce the damage per round to account for your casters using thier action to cast buffing spells instead of damaging ones.

The first is already accounted for, and I made that quite clear: This is comparing GWM/Sharpshooter to taking +2 to your attack stat. The second is irrelevant. Whatever opportunity cost the caster incurs for buffing the 18 Str/GWM fighter, would also be incurred for buffing the 20 Str fighter.

 

[Flamestrike]

I know how to do it but it's more work to account for 2 feats that are out of whack vs other feats.

Increase AC. Use the occasional poor lighting, slippery floors or invisible critters for disadvantage. Give monsters abilities like Parry (+ Prof to AC). Make them harder to hit. Done.

SS + GWM pay off is in DPR, with lower ACs bearing the brunt. Strip advantage, or increase AC, or impose disadvantage, and the feats become a liability.

SS also requires range to work, and both SS and GWM require the user to forgo a shield and have both hands occupied. Get up close and personal and beat them down, or hit them in a weak spot (like cruddy saves).

More work is not good design and even that Half an hour of prep is time spent that I would rather be doing something else either designing no combat stuff or messing around on the Xbox One or PS4.

No offence, but a lazy DM is a bad DM.

We had a saying the army 'Prior preparation and planning prevents piss poor performance'. It holds true to pretty much everything.

If you're struggling with Fighters doing more damage with power attack vs low AC's, God help you when high level spells come online. The planning to challenge a 'high damage fighter' is nothing compared to a well played high level mage with clairvoyance, scry and die, teleport, simulacrum, divination, wish, clone, planar travel and so forth.

High level / high damage fighers can be countered by increasing AC or HP, which is easily done on the fly, and if you get it wrong, you simply have a dead monster (of which there will always be more).

"Hey bro, I can deal 100 points of damage a round with my sword"

"Cool bro. I can teleport to another continent, scry your location, travel to other planes of existance, and call down meteors on your face while ethereal... or just get my Simulacrum here to do it while I chill in a planar dimension of my own creation"

Its no biggie. One of those situations can be reigned in by upping the monsters AC by 3 points leaving you all the PS4 time in the world. The other situation requires planning.

 

[Flamestrike]

The first is already accounted for, and I made that quite clear: This is comparing GWM/Sharpshooter to taking +2 to your attack stat. The second is irrelevant. Whatever opportunity cost the caster incurs for buffing the 18 Str/GWM fighter, would also be incurred for buffing the 20 Str fighter.

Its entirely relevant for overall DPR.

Yes [action] by caster for [buff spell on fighter] followed by [action] by fighter to [attack] = 50 percent damage increase for the Fighter.

What about [action] by caster for [boom spell] followed by [action] by fighter to [attack].

Which combo deals more damage, sooner? Same action economy, same resource expenditure.

You're looking at everything in isolation. Of course the fighter is going to get good spike damage returns when buffed up the wazoo, doing the thing he's optimised to do. Again, this is a feature not a bug. But are those returns the best return possible [for the same resource expenditure] across the board for the party?

An example was offered earlier of a 17th level fighter doing 'tons of damage' with foresight cast on him. That same 9th level slot could be used to meteor swarm a mob, dealing the same or more damage as the fighter can dish out, but to dozens of foes at once, ending the encounter in a round (and stopping further resource drain via healing, more spells being needed to be used, hit dice drain and damage etc).

Take a hollistic 'whole of party' approach.

 

[Dausuul]

Take a hollistic 'whole of party' approach.

I tell you what. You're the one who wants this comprehensive and massively time-consuming analysis done. You do it.

Also, I'm not Zardnaar, or whoever else you're arguing with. As far as I'm concerned, talking about what happens at level 17 is absurd. Nothing happens at level 17, because no one ever reaches it.

For me, I'm pretty content with the result of my analysis-in-isolation: GWM is a very potent feat (as indicated by the plain-vanilla numbers), but not so much that I would advocate for changing it. Sharpshooter, however, is in serious need of a nerf. With just a plain ol' longbow fighter, you get a very big damage boost over +2 Dex. Throw in advantage (which can come from a multitude of sources) and that damage boost goes to the moon.

 

[Zardnaar]

Going boom tenda to deplete spells fast. Bless often lasts the whole encounter expending only a level 1 slot.
A few clerics also lack decent boom spells .

 

[Zardnaar]

Increase AC. Use the occasional poor lighting, slippery floors or invisible critters for disadvantage. Give monsters abilities like Parry (+ Prof to AC). Make them harder to hit. Done.

SS + GWM pay off is in DPR, with lower ACs bearing the brunt. Strip advantage, or increase AC, or impose disadvantage, and the feats become a liability.

SS also requires range to work, and both SS and GWM require the user to forgo a shield and have both hands occupied. Get up close and personal and beat them down, or hit them in a weak spot (like cruddy saves).



No offence, but a lazy DM is a bad DM.

We had a saying the army 'Prior preparation and planning prevents piss poor performance'. It holds true to pretty much everything.

If you're struggling with Fighters doing more damage with power attack vs low AC's, God help you when high level spells come online. The planning to challenge a 'high damage fighter' is nothing compared to a well played high level mage with clairvoyance, scry and die, teleport, simulacrum, divination, wish, clone, planar travel and so forth.

High level / high damage fighers can be countered by increasing AC or HP, which is easily done on the fly, and if you get it wrong, you simply have a dead monster (of which there will always be more).

"Hey bro, I can deal 100 points of damage a round with my sword"

"Cool bro. I can teleport to another continent, scry your location, travel to other planes of existance, and call down meteors on your face while ethereal... or just get my Simulacrum here to do it while I chill in a planar dimension of my own creation"

Its no biggie. One of those situations can be reigned in by upping the monsters AC by 3 points leaving you all the PS4 time in the world. The other situation requires planning.

Not so much as lazy but the days of spending 4 to 8 hours prepping are long gone.

Designing 6 to 8 encounters is likely to take longer than half an hour. I can prep a OSR adventure in half an hour and I ran a game of 5E last weak with 15 mins prep none of which was designing encounters.

I can also run a game with no prep but would prefer an OSR game for that.

 

[Flamestrike]

Going boom tenda to deplete spells fast. Bless often lasts the whole encounter expending only a level 1 slot.
A few clerics also lack decent boom spells .

Are clerics in your game using their action (and their concentration slot) to cast spells to buff the fighters, who are then doing a ton of damage with weapons... fighting monsters?

Surely thats the game working as intended.

Bless lasts 1 minute. You'll need 6-8 slots to last all day, plus other slots for healing, removing curses, restorations, other buffs, spirit guardians etc. Plus more if concetration drops.

How much damage is hold person worth? At least a whole rounds worth of auto crits for the whole party.

I tell you what. You're the one who wants this comprehensive and massively time-consuming analysis done. You do it.

Im not asking you to do it. Im just pointing out that the fact its not accounted for ruins your entire analysis.

I have no problem with caster expending resource on a fighter (who is himself expending a resource in an ASI) to be better at what the fighter does in the first place. Just like invisibility on the Rogue with expertise in Stealth and cunning action, or charm person assisting the Bard with expertise in persuasion talk the encounter down isnt broken.

A buffed fighter with a focus on dealing damage deals more damage. Who cares? Also, the resources (and time, and concentration slot) expended to get him buffed up could have been spend elsewhere for a greater damamge boost in any event. Instead of Haste (for example) Fireball or hold person, or whatever.

Also, I'm not Zardnaar, or whoever else you're arguing with. As far as I'm concerned, talking about what happens at level 17 is absurd. Nothing happens at level 17, because no one ever reaches it.

Maybe not in your games. My campaigns go well into epic.

For me, I'm pretty content with the result of my analysis-in-isolation:

You can be content with your white-room analysis, but youre self evidently wrong. There are variables you're not taking into account. Combat isnt about white room analysis or all about how much damamge the fighter spits out each round when buffed. Its a teamwork game with a more important metric being how quickly the party (as a whole) ends the encounter expending the least resources possible.

Sometimes the best way to do that is buffing the fighter. Sometimes its via a save or suck, or a fireball. Not every encounter is the same, and certainly no single encounter is whiteroom.

 

[Flamestrike]

Not so much as lazy but the days of spending 4 to 8 hours prepping are long gone.

Designing 6 to 8 encounters is likely to take longer than half an hour. I can prep a OSR adventure in half an hour and I ran a game of 5E last weak with 15 mins prep none of which was designing encounters.

I can also run a game with no prep but would prefer an OSR game for that.

I applaud you if you can run even mid level games with no prep time. Some very good DMs can do it.

I spend about 30 minutes prep for every 2 hours of play time (around 2 hours a week for a 6 hour session on the weekend).

I am converting Age of Worms in 5E from 3E though. Most of it is ensuring timeframes for the 6-8 encounter adventuring day is adhered to, and monster conversions (adding mooks to solo encounters, tweaking HP and AC here or there, and appropriate 'counts as' for NPCs).

Party is currently 11th. The EK has GWM (as did the Barbarian before him). The Cleric has bless. Zero issues.