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

[Flamestrike]

By the way, the other thing with mook heavy battles is it makes sharpshooter and GWM overkill.

End result is it doesnt get used so its damage boost is lost (although you get a lot of play out of GWMs extra bonus action attack, and the sharpshooter can target anyone on the board without worrying about cover).

Seriously. Throw an AC 20/ 80 HP boss 'skeleton knight' (+8 to hit, multiattack, 1d8+3 bludgeoning and 3d6 necrotic) and eight AC 13/ 13 HP (+5 to hit, 1d10+3 damage, reach) 'advanced skeletons with longspears' mooks at the party.

 

[Prism]

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.

This is an often overlooked downside to archery. If the fighter is a dedicated ranged opponent then their ability to influence the fight by melee placement (blocking, soaking damage etc) is almost none, unless they also take crossbow expert and are willing to dive in.

I feel that an archer in a party is a bit of a luxury we can't afford in our group of 4. Along with a ranged spell caster that only leaves two to hold the line which is usually not enough - the end result being that the spell caster gets taken out. I get the feeling that many groups play with 5-6 characters which I bet changes things a fair bit. All of the published adventures (and the game itself) seem to assume a non optimised party of 4 with no feats. We have found them challenging even with feats.

 

[Zardnaar]

This is an often overlooked downside to archery. If the fighter is a dedicated ranged opponent then their ability to influence the fight by melee placement (blocking, soaking damage etc) is almost none, unless they also take crossbow expert and are willing to dive in.

I feel that an archer in a party is a bit of a luxury we can't afford in our group of 4. Along with a ranged spell caster that only leaves two to hold the line which is usually not enough - the end result being that the spell caster gets taken out. I get the feeling that many groups play with 5-6 characters which I bet changes things a fair bit. All of the published adventures (and the game itself) seem to assume a non optimised party of 4 with no feats. We have found them challenging even with feats.

4 man party is rough and an archer is a luxury. An archer to me is also kind of a eldritch blast spamming warlock.

4 man party the 4 basic classes, 2 front line, 2 at the back (or one hybrid a Rogue for example). Rogues generally should be in melee though IMHO due to dual wielding and wanting to maximise sneak attack chances.

I would be tempted to dump the wizard for a light cleric and one of the better melee clerics goes on the front line (Nature cleric with polearm master/staff/shillagh war cleric, tempest cleric). Replacing the rogue with a bard or Monk is also doable.

 

[Yunru]

Rogues generally should be in melee though IMHO due to dual wielding and wanting to maximise sneak attack chances.

Ah yes, that's much better than Crossbow Expert and wanting to maximising sneak attack chances by staying above 0hp.

 

[Dausuul]

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.

My analysis (that's my analysis, as what I said in my posts, not what other people said in theirs) holds up fine in a party with no casters at all, so this reply makes no sense.

 

[Corwin]

Bless is always good every combat even if feats are not being used.

Is it? What about all the times your roll succeeded before needing the +d4? Or missed by more than the +d4 could compensate? Is it still *always* good? I'm not sure you quite understand how math works in D&D nor the concept of opportunity costs.

 

[Yunru]

I'm not sure you quite understand [...] the concept of opportunity costs.

Ans therein, methinks, lies the heart of the problem.

 

[Zardnaar]

Is it? What about all the times your roll succeeded before needing the +d4? Or missed by more than the +d4 could compensate? Is it still *always* good? I'm not sure you quite understand how math works in D&D nor the concept of opportunity costs.

Technically true but it is not going to happen that often. We did keep track of it once and any hit enabled by bless counted as damage for the cleric.

BY the mid levels bless was doing anywhere between 20-40 damage per round for a level 1 spell.

We did something similar in regard to a Bard in 3.5 and discovered the bard was inflicting (indirectly) 150% of the parties damage. And you never know when you need to make a save and if players like having +1d4 to hit they love having +1d4 on a saving throw.

Most clerics also do not do much damage without resorting to a spell. Bless does with a low cost of resources used. Test it out with a level 8-11 5 man party with a fighter in it. I recommend taking the healer feat (or someone in the party taking it) or even at low levels. By level 3-5 you can use bless in every single combat and still heal people. Better yet see if you can get a thief to take the healer feat and take warcaster/resilient: con followed by alertness.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

By level 3-5 you can use bless in every single combat and still heal people.

For a very specific quantity of "every single combat"

 

[Zardnaar]

For a very specific quantity of "every single combat"

6-8 is the recommended combat length. If you are playing prepublished I notice this rarely happens even with the official adventures. It was a moronic assumption on the designers to state that espicially when their own adventures do not use it/make any assumption about it and/or is easily avoided anyway.