D&D 5E Suggested Errata

[FormerlyHemlock]

I've had a similar idea, and someone convinced me that all lower numbers did was make it be in play more often, so it had more cumulative effect on the game then the higher numbers. How about -5/+5 instead?

I let anybody attempt a -5/+5 headshot with any weapon, no feat required. It's usually a wash, no net benefit. Handy for zombie-killing though, since they have low AC and can shrug off low-damage blows.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

My suggested change, if any, to the -5 attack / +10 damage options in both feats is to make it scale equal to proficiency bonus. Start at -2 / +4 and scale up at a rate of -proficiency / +2 x proficiency. It makes it actually usable at lower levels with the player overshadowing all others in damage, and "buffs" so the player doesn't get upset their feat got "nerfed". I say "buffed" because most games don't reach level 17 anyway.

My larger issue with those two feats has never been with the damage bit anyway. In truth I only have issue with sharpshooter, and specifically with two elements, the combination of the damage bit with the archery fighting style and the ignoring 3/4 cover at maximum range. An archer should not be able to fire at a guard hiding behind a 3in arrow slit in a castle 300 feet away with no penalty to the attack roll. Within the first range incriment? Sure, but not at maximum range.

In my games, I tend to houserule them as follows:
1) I give the player the choice to use the proficient option above for damage or the default. They must follow this choice for the rest of the game.
2) For Archery fighting style, I rule that instead of a +2 attack bonus, it instead ignores half cover. The true intent of the style is to deal with half cover anyway.
3) For Sharpshooter, I have toyed with either ruling that it instead bumps cover down by one degree (half becomes none, and 3/4 becomes half), or that the ignoring cover only applies to the first range incriment. I say toyed because I've yet to actually do so in my table. My simpler solution was to rule that in order for those cover benifits to apply the archer must be able to SEE their target, like many other abilities in the game, and then I'm ruthless with said archers and perception checks to see the aforementioned guard behind a 3in arrow slit. It has worked well so far.

 

[Blue]

I let anybody attempt a -5/+5 headshot with any weapon, no feat required. It's usually a wash, no net benefit. Handy for zombie-killing though, since they have low AC and can shrug off low-damage blows.

See, I don't see this as a wash. The crossbow expert I was talking about a moment ago - we're in STK fighting a lot of AC 11-13 giants. I have +11 to hit at 7th level. (+3 proficiency, +4 dex, +1 magic hand crossbow, +2 archery style, +1 close combat style). I'd love to go from "miss 5% of the time" to "miss 30% of the time and have +5 damage on every attack" without having to spend resources to get it. (And that's before a Bless goes off.)

Sure, we will fight plenty of other things with higher ACs, but being able to pull that out occasionally vs. high HP / low AC foes would be a boost. With all the other benefits of SS like fire up to long range without penalty, and it would still be worthwhile.

If characters had a 50/50 chance to hit, The -5/+10 would be a reasonable trade-off. It's when the they hit very often that it gets be be a big bonus. It's when hit%*expectedDamage < (hit%-25%)*(expectDamage+5) is when it's mathematically worthwhile. (Plus all sorts of situational - if they only have a few HPs it's likely wasted, if the extra damage may kill before it's action and others won't it's more worth it, etc.)

-5/+5 is an occasional use, big bonus to damage. (And something like -2/+3 is a near constant boost to damage.)

 

[Blue]

My suggested change, if any, to the -5 attack / +10 damage options in both feats is to make it scale equal to proficiency bonus. Start at -2 / +4 and scale up at a rate of -proficiency / +2 x proficiency. It makes it actually usable at lower levels with the player overshadowing all others in damage, and "buffs" so the player doesn't get upset their feat got "nerfed". I say "buffed" because most games don't reach level 17 anyway.

My larger issue with those two feats has never been with the damage bit anyway.
...

Almost everyone else who think SS/GWM are overpowered specifically talks about the damage as part of it, so I think that's still worth addressing. I'm also going to address it without your house rule changes to the Archery fighting style so that it's generally applicable.

The hit penalty/damage bonus comes into play when the normal expected damage per attack ( hit% * expected damage on hit ) is less than after adjustment ( (hit% - X) * (expected damage on hit * Y)). Crits change this a little, but for the most part that math favors it's use. I'm going to leave it out for simplicity. This is also just talking about the math, not the situation. If a foe has 3 HPs left, you wouldn't use it. If it goes next and the damage bonus will likely kill it, you likely use it to deny the action. That sort of thing is outside the math below, we all realize there are exceptions. Also not discussed are things like sneak attack that only apply once per round and multiple chances to hit in a round, just to keep things easy.

SO, let's look the the supposed 50/50 bounded accuracy change to hit that will never, ever happen if someone is optimizing toward SS/GWM (and therefore optimizing to hit).

50% * damage = D/2 (a/k/a) 2D/4
25% * (damage + 10) = (D+10)/4

The balance point is:
2D/4 = (D+10)/4 ... 2D = D+10 ... D=10

If you average 10 points on a hit, with a 50/50 shot it doesn't matter if you use the feat. That's not hard to reach. A 1st level greatsword with a +3 str is at that. At low stats it's harder to reach with a longbow or hand crossbow, making SS a damage boost even at low levels.

But that's a theoretical point, assuming you aren't trying to get a bonus to hit. Character to hit, if that's something you focus on, can increase a lot quicker than AC. Increasing attack stat, taking the archery fighting style, having Bless or other buff up, finding magic items, debuffs on foes providing advantage - when you take that into consideration the chance to hit can skyrocket.

So, if we accept that to hit can grow faster than AC, then 1st level is the "worst" for these feats and they only get more powerful. So let's look at a 1st level character and assume these feats get more powerful from here.

To have SS at 1st we're talking a human variant, so let's go 16 dex after racial. Add in archery fighting style and you have +7 to hit (+2 prof, +3 dex, +2 style). expected damage is d8+4=8.5 on average. Let's assume at 1st that there aren't enough spell slots for Bless or advanatage through debuff to be standard.

Against a "standard" CR 1 opponent we're looking AC 14. A 70% chance to hit.

So let's do some math.
Baseline = 70% * 8.5 avg damage = 5.95 expected per attack.
-5/+10 = 45% * 18.5 avg damage = 8.325 expected per attack (+40% damage)
-prof/+2xprof = 60% * 12.5 avg damage = 7.5 expected per attack (+26% damage)

Looks like -prof adds less, eh? That's true if all you fight is average AC monsters which is a good start toward balancing. But we also need to look at the range it still is worthwhile.

AC 18 is pretty dang good for CR 1 foes. that's back to the 50/50% with a +7 to hit.

Baseline = 50% * 8.5 = 4.25
Base feat = 25% * 18.5 = 4.625
-prof = 40% * 12.5 = 5

At these higher ACs, the -prof/+2xprof is better than the book feat. But neither has a big bonus.

What I draw from this is:

At 1st level, with foes doing a bell curve around average AC, SS will give a good bonus to damage for a character trying to optimize it's use, +40%/+25% against average AC opponents. For lower AC foes the base SS will have a greater increase but at higher ACs the -prof house rules SS will eventually overtake it, including getting to a point where -5/+10 still isn't useful but -2/+4 still is. This means that outside on situational needs like low HP target or disadvantage, the -prof version should be "always on" because you won't reach an AC where it's a penalty.

Pulling back in that modifier to hit increase faster than ACs, as levels increase SS will get more powerful. The base feat and the houseruled feat will eventually converge at -5/+10.

EDIT: I just realized I messed up the base damage, it should be d8+3=7.5 average. This makes the feat even more powerful. I don't feel like redoing all the math though, this took some time to calculate.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

See, I don't see this as a wash. The crossbow expert I was talking about a moment ago - we're in STK fighting a lot of AC 11-13 giants. I have +11 to hit at 7th level. (+3 proficiency, +4 dex, +1 magic hand crossbow, +2 archery style, +1 close combat style). I'd love to go from "miss 5% of the time" to "miss 30% of the time and have +5 damage on every attack" without having to spend resources to get it. (And that's before a Bless goes off.)

Even with your enormously (and questionably) stacked bonuses against low-AC giants, it's pretty close to a wash. Your expected damage against AC 13 is 7.30. Taking a -5/+5 headshot would boost it to 8.93. This is similar to the zombie scenario I noted previously, and honestly it doesn't seem out of line to let an expert archer hit a soft target for slightly more damage.

But let's take a more normal case to understand why I say "it's usually a wash": a 7th level Fighter with Dex 18 and Archery Style shooting at a goblin with a longbow. He has +9 to hit, for d8+4 damage, and the goblin has AC 15. His expected damage is 6.60. If he takes -5/+5, his expected damage is 6.98. If it were a hobgoblin, his damage would drop from 5.33 (shooting normally) to 4.95 (when attempting -5/+5 headshots). I don't consider either of those changes significant: they're both a wash as far as I'm concerned. You probably won't even notice the difference between the two options, because it's swamped by the variability introduced by the dice themselves.

Sharpshooter, however, turns it from -5/+5 (usually a wash) to -5/+10 (often a good idea). Which, IMO, is exactly in line what a Sharpshooter should be: take this feat if you want to be good at headshots and distance killing.

 

[Mirtek]

iMHO the main problem are barbarians withs their always-advantage using GWM to make fighters look bad. That they are granting advantage is not hurting them as much as their always-advantage with GWM benefits them

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

Almost everyone else who think SS/GWM are overpowered specifically talks about the damage as part of it, so I think that's still worth addressing. I'm also going to address it without your house rule changes to the Archery fighting style so that it's generally applicable.
...
What I draw from this is:

At 1st level, with foes doing a bell curve around average AC, SS will give a good bonus to damage for a character trying to optimize it's use, +40%/+25% against average AC opponents. For lower AC foes the base SS will have a greater increase but at higher ACs the -prof house rules SS will eventually overtake it, including getting to a point where -5/+10 still isn't useful but -2/+4 still is. This means that outside on situational needs like low HP target or disadvantage, the -prof version should be "always on" because you won't reach an AC where it's a penalty.

It should be noted that my houserules are just that, houserules.

Definitely interesting math there, and taking a look at it, it is worth contemplating if I shall continue using a -prof /+2 x proficiency model. My thoughts regarding the feats are mixed, hence why I'm trying to avoid a knee jerk reaction change.

I figure the feat as intended should be a meaningful choice, a legitimate risk of missing against higher ac people, and my change does admittedly fail at that. I should note I myself am not bothered by people saving the feat for lower AC monsters like zombies, nor I am I phased by magic item stacking (the DM has complete control over magic items and rust monsters exist).

As for class ability stacking like bless or debuff spells? That I feel is the game working as intended, assuming they come from more than one source, are limited, or have a trade off. Gods forbid I encourage the players at my table to actually use character synergy or strategy in combat. Clearly I thought they were just supposed to whine and try to kill each other.

...sarcastic jokes aside, my main concern is that the feat remains a meaningful choice, without being "required". What I don't want is for two fighters/barbarians/whatever who are identical builds except the GWM/SS feats and to have one player (without the feats) have less "fun" or feel outshined unless they gets it as well. I realize this is harder to quantify with napkin math and whiterooming, especially comparing other feats that don't as easily convert to combat dpr.

I'd imagine, for example, the fighter who selects the "Healer" feat vs. the GWM, all other things identical, will still be effective, just in different ways.