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

[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 .

A well placed hold person or spirit guardians can make all the difference.

Like bless, both use concetration, as do many other useful spells (I love the conentration mechanic). With damage in the mid levels often approaching 30-40 damage per hit, and clerics lacking con save proficiency that also creates another issue alltogether.

Dont get me wrong, bless is a totes awesome spell that sees a lot of use in my game. IMO its intentionally OP because its the clerics job to buff the party and they wanted players casting it. Thats more of an issue with bless though than with GWM.

They did similar with the blasty spells for wizards (like fireball).

Of course (as alluded to above) I have no problem with the cleric (and bard with inspiration) defaulting to buffing the party, the fighters, barbarians and paladins defaulting to hitting things hard(er) with big sharp pointy things, and the wizard defaulting to blowing things to kindgom come with fireball.

To me, that sounds like DnD as it should be played.

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

Age of Worms starts off good and goes downhill later IMHO but it may work better under 5E. I thought the Savage Tide was the best 3.5 AP (including the early Paizo ones), with maybe Rise of the Runelords as second and AoW as 3rd.

I'm looking at converting some 1E Dungeon advertures to 5E and ran arough conversion of Moneky Isle for a 1 player 1 DM with 15 mins prep.

With no prep I have likely had some ideas circulating in my head but I will wing it for the most part and pad out the time with a lot of RP. One of our best 5E sessions involved 0 combat and I set the adventure in a Paizo city (I often default to Sasserine her) and the adventure was an ad hoc yachet race that was supposed to be a short sabotage the boat type event but turned into a sailing regatta with several rounds to pick the winner.

PCs ended up sabotaging the boat, getting competing sailors thrown jail over night, getting opposing sailors drunk, sabotaging ropes and sails and dosing booze with laxatives.

I like minimal prep over no prep but if I am running a prepublished adventure for example most of the time you do not need the worlds best combatants and D&D tends to work better without to much min maxing. If the PCs get to anoying you an always pull a tuckers Kobolds on them or Tomb of Horrors.

If I have had a bit of time to prep and pull out the stops on a dungeon hack for example I can be a real bastard. Pit traps into energy draining undead, glyphs of warding on ladders+strength save, pit trap onto a gelatinous cube or overlapping fields of traps so triggering one will set off a chain of traps.

I pulled a good one in 2nd ed, PC picked a fight with an NPC who was mostly a non combatant, NPC triggers a trap sending the PC down a chute covered in blades. The blades had a paralysis poison on it (save at -4 as well), then you get thrown into an ally taking falling damage which triggers another trap dumping you in a room a spear trap with more paralysis poison on it + with a carrion crawler.

From the Ashes (Dungeon 17) has a pit trap that dumps the PCs 200 feet (20d6 falling damage) into a lake of magma (instant death unless protected vs fire then 20d6 damage a round).

In 5E if PCs use things like 10' poles to tap the ground to find a pit trap or use marbles to find slopes I tend to grant advantage on looking for traps.

 

[Prism]

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.

Just to pick up in this statement with an example. A Strength 20 greatsword wielding fighter might do 13.3 point of damage per hit normally or 23.3 points of damage per hit using the feat.

85% of 13.3 is 11.3 damage
60% of 23.3 is 13.98 damage

So in this optimal case (high hit chance) we are talking an extra 2.5 points of damage per hit for the cost of a feat. Is that really worth all this worry? In comparison a flame tongue sword does an extra 7 points of damage per hit. Where are all the advisory threads telling DM's not to hand one out as they break the game?

 

[Zardnaar]

A well placed hold person or spirit guardians can make all the difference.

Like bless, both use concetration, as do many other useful spells (I love the conentration mechanic). With damage in the mid levels often approaching 30-40 damage per hit, and clerics lacking con save proficiency that also creates another issue alltogether.

Dont get me wrong, bless is a totes awesome spell that sees a lot of use in my game. IMO its intentionally OP because its the clerics job to buff the party and they wanted players casting it. Thats more of an issue with bless though than with GWM.

They did similar with the blasty spells for wizards (like fireball).

Of course (as alluded to above) I have no problem with the cleric (and bard with inspiration) defaulting to buffing the party, the fighters, barbarians and paladins defaulting to hitting things hard(er) with big sharp pointy things, and the wizard defaulting to blowing things to kindgom come with fireball.

To me, that sounds like DnD as it should be played.

Fireball being good is a bit of an illusion though. Its better than 3E. While 8d6 looks impressive 5E monsters also have double or triple an AD&D monster hit points and an AD&D wizard eventually gets an 8d6 fireball anyway. A 6d6 fireball from a wand is more effective than 5Es 8d6 fireball relative to what you are hitting. I like 2E fireballs that also capped them, 1E and B/x uncapped ones are a bit nasty in the rare high level games.

In 5E damage spells should have scaled at the same rate as cantrips as opposed to 1E-3E scaling by level. I miss my 5d4+5 magic missiles which is a crap use of a 3rd level spell slot in most cases in 5E and 3E.

SG and Hold person can be great but they are also situational, bless not so much its always good. Hold Person for example only works on humaniods and has a save, bless in a 2nd level slot works on up to 4 targets and more or less gives clerics proficiency on con saves as I have seen SG fizzle due to failed concentration rolls (which brings up warcaster and/or resilient:con as feat taxes).

 

[Zardnaar]

Just to pick up in this statement with an example. A Strength 20 greatsword wielding fighter might do 13.3 point of damage per hit normally or 23.3 points of damage per hit using the feat.

85% of 13.3 is 11.3 damage
60% of 23.3 is 13.98 damage

So in this optimal case (high hit chance) we are talking an extra 2.5 points of damage per hit for the cost of a feat. Is that really worth all this worry? In comparison a flame tongue sword does an extra 7 points of damage per hit. Where are all the advisory threads telling DM's not to hand one out as they break the game?

Depends on the exact situation and GWM is weaker than SS due to the math. GWM+PAM for example with lots of attacks and bless for example rocks. PAM and GWM are both great feats even without the -5/+10 part though.

 

[Flamestrike]

Age of Worms starts off good and goes downhill later IMHO but it may work better under 5E. I thought the Savage Tide was the best 3.5 AP (including the early Paizo ones), with maybe Rise of the Runelords as second and AoW as 3rd.

I'm looking at converting some 1E Dungeon advertures to 5E and ran arough conversion of Moneky Isle for a 1 player 1 DM with 15 mins prep.

With no prep I have likely had some ideas circulating in my head but I will wing it for the most part and pad out the time with a lot of RP. One of our best 5E sessions involved 0 combat and I set the adventure in a Paizo city (I often default to Sasserine her) and the adventure was an ad hoc yachet race that was supposed to be a short sabotage the boat type event but turned into a sailing regatta with several rounds to pick the winner.

PCs ended up sabotaging the boat, getting competing sailors thrown jail over night, getting opposing sailors drunk, sabotaging ropes and sails and dosing booze with laxatives.

PCs are 11th level and have just fough Illthane the Black (and won) and entered the dungeon looking for the Wizard.

Biggest challenge to date was the arena adventure. I restructured it so they had 3 fights per day (with a short rest between). That coupled with nightime adventuring under the arena meant they remained resource starved for the entire adventure.

I like minimal prep over no prep but if I am running a prepublished adventure for example most of the time you do not need the worlds best combatants and D&D tends to work better without to much min maxing. If the PCs get to anoying you an always pull a tuckers Kobolds on them or Tomb of Horrors.

Ive recently redone tomb of horrors for 20th level PCs in 5E. Im including it as an 'unlockable' dungeon near falcons hollow as kind of an 'end game' optional adventure.

The party already have the talisman of the sphere...



(That said my laptop recently packed it in and I lost the whole damn adventure.)

In 5E if PCs use things like 10' poles to tap the ground to find a pit trap or use marbles to find slopes I tend to grant advantage on looking for traps.

I do exactly the same brother. They cotton on and start interacting with their environment instead of just saying 'I look in the room (rolls perception)'

Back on topic mate, I really wouldnt worry about GWM. Just be a little creative with your encountes, force the 6-8 encounter adventuring day on them more often than not (this greatly reduces the amount of resources they have at their disposal to buff themselves constantly, and takes away other resources on healing, and other stuff) and throw the odd encounter at them where GWM is a liability (high AC monsters, or ones that impose disadvantage on attacks via invisibility or whatever).

Sometimes using GWM should be a great idea (and you want to reward the player for his feat choice, and the group for the party tactics of buffing the fighter etc). Sometimes it should be a pain in the ass, with the fighter swinging away like mad and missing, because the mage was too busy fireballing the mooks, and the cleric had better uses for his concentration slot.

If your party are resorting to the same feat choices and the same tactics over and over again, thats invariably the DMs fault.

 

[Flamestrike]

Depends on the exact situation and GWM is weaker than SS due to the math. GWM+PAM for example with lots of attacks and bless for example rocks. PAM and GWM are both great feats even without the -5/+10 part though.

Re PAM, I dont allow the -5/+10 on the 1d4 bonus action attack.

Its a ruling, but Im not sure its RAW that the butt of the weapon is really 'heavy'. Its not really for balance, just because I dont think the butstroke of the weapon really qualifies.

I also let the bonus action/ d4 damage be piercing instead of bludgeoning if the weapon has a spike on the end. Just because.

 

[Prism]

Depends on the exact situation and GWM is weaker than SS due to the math. GWM+PAM for example with lots of attacks and bless for example rocks. PAM and GWM are both great feats even without the -5/+10 part though.

I totally agree that SS is better - too good though? It brings it up to par with great weapon fighting. Compared to an archer without the feat? Much better so I would say bad design rather than overpowered.

PAM is a great feat. GWM without the +5/-10 would be pretty boring. Not sure anyone would take it for just the bonus attack chance

 

[Flamestrike]

Fireball being good is a bit of an illusion though. Its better than 3E. While 8d6 looks impressive 5E monsters also have double or triple an AD&D monster hit points and an AD&D wizard eventually gets an 8d6 fireball anyway.

Fireball remains a steady mook killer at all levels. Many of your encounters should include a Boss critter roughly CR = Party level and a half dozen or so mooks.

An Orc war chief, an Orog or two and half a dozen orcs with greataxes. That kind of thing.

Using fireball to wipe out the mooks on round 1 is the way to go. It cuts down on return damage from the mooks, clears a path to the Boss for the fighters to close in and finish off.

SG and Hold person can be great but they are also situational, bless not so much its always good. Hold Person for example only works on humaniods and has a save, bless in a 2nd level slot works on up to 4 targets and more or less gives clerics proficiency on con saves as I have seen SG fizzle due to failed concentration rolls (which brings up warcaster and/or resilient:con as feat taxes).

Bless is a great spell, whereas hold person is more situational. But there are times youre dropping a spirit guardians (mobbed by mooks) or a hold person (enemy caster who's used his reaction already) over a bless.

The trick is as the DM to use those encounters. Mix it up. If the party are relying on the same builds and the same tactics, thats generally because you havent done your job as DM.

 

[Flamestrike]

I totally agree that SS is better - too good though? It brings it up to par with great weapon fighting. Compared to an archer without the feat? Much better so I would say bad design rather than overpowered.

PAM is a great feat. GWM without the +5/-10 would be pretty boring. Not sure anyone would take it for just the bonus attack chance

My problem with SS is it removes cover penalties (which is really what the +2 for archery style is meant to do).

I run dungeon heavy adventures though, and tend to have fairly close encounter distances as a consequence, so it doesnt get the love it seems to in other campaigns though.

It lets me gang up on the melee guy while the archer sits back, which leads to a TPK, one at a time. Multiple melee targets (more than one PC in combat) spreads the damage out and lets them fight back more effectively.

Our barbarian used to get the with the rogue cunning action disengaging every round leaving him to get clobbered.

It was even worse seeing as he took sentinel and never got a chance to use it!