Zardnaar
Legend
By now it is fairly well known that Sharpshooter in particular is somewhere between OP and broken while GWM and Polearm Master (in a vacumn) are better than other things like shield master and sentinel which are your go to feats for sword and board. A Sword and board type can still be competitive vs the critters from the MMM and sentinel is also good for sword and board types using hex/hunters quarry to narrow the gap.
I have found several things in 3PP that are not to OP/out right broken and they buff the other fighting styles.
The 1st one was an EN5ider archetype from an early article. EN5ider 35: Masters of the Wild has the Tempest Ranger archetype. Its basically a hunter variants that gets an extra atack if it hits an opponent with multiple attacks. THis means at level 5 for example you are potentially loojking at 4 attacks a round as a dual wielder vs2 with GWM. Much like the Monk can deal decent damage with lots of small attacks.
The other thing I have found that I like a lot is this PDF
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/185763/10-New-Feats-for-5th-Edition-DD
It has some very interesting feats in it which enable some new options like halfling fighters (that don't suck), the commander feat (4E leader type), non fire using Dragon Sorcerers, and two interesting feats Small Arms Expert and Weapon specialisation. Small arms expert more or less does.
+1 str or dex
Gives thrown weapons the ammunition property
lets you add your strength or dex modifier to damage (in addition to str or dex).
You have to use light weapons, a rapier doesn't do it so daggers and short swords. A halfling fighter looks good, with the default aray you could maybe try and abuse it with a half orc using 2 short swords with 16 strength and dex for +6 damage on each hand (which is roughly the same as Polearm Master anyway).
And Weapon Specialization
+1 strength or dex
+1 dice of damage on a crit
Reroll 1's a'la Halflings (Halflings get to reroll 1 and 2)s.
So something like a halfling fighter using twin short swords with these two feats or two daggers and also throw 7 daggers via action surge at level 11 adding dex+strength to damage which is an extra 14 damage with the default array (20 dex, 14 strength). Not quite as bad as a GWM fighter but still respectable damage and versatility (dex based, range + melee etc).
Our new party for PotA the assassin has taken Small Arms master, uses a short sword and +1 dagger he found (16 stre, 18 dex rolled stats) while the human sword and board fighter is packing Weapon Specialisation. Mostly because it is new options and they are sick of the PHB feats as you tend to default to SS/GWM/PAM or Sentinel/Shield Master. A Tempest Rnager with those feats as well......
From a metagaming PoV magic longswords, daggers etc are a lot more common in the APs as well, magcial polearms and hand crossbows do not seem to exist.
I have found several things in 3PP that are not to OP/out right broken and they buff the other fighting styles.
The 1st one was an EN5ider archetype from an early article. EN5ider 35: Masters of the Wild has the Tempest Ranger archetype. Its basically a hunter variants that gets an extra atack if it hits an opponent with multiple attacks. THis means at level 5 for example you are potentially loojking at 4 attacks a round as a dual wielder vs2 with GWM. Much like the Monk can deal decent damage with lots of small attacks.
The other thing I have found that I like a lot is this PDF
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/185763/10-New-Feats-for-5th-Edition-DD
It has some very interesting feats in it which enable some new options like halfling fighters (that don't suck), the commander feat (4E leader type), non fire using Dragon Sorcerers, and two interesting feats Small Arms Expert and Weapon specialisation. Small arms expert more or less does.
+1 str or dex
Gives thrown weapons the ammunition property
lets you add your strength or dex modifier to damage (in addition to str or dex).
You have to use light weapons, a rapier doesn't do it so daggers and short swords. A halfling fighter looks good, with the default aray you could maybe try and abuse it with a half orc using 2 short swords with 16 strength and dex for +6 damage on each hand (which is roughly the same as Polearm Master anyway).
And Weapon Specialization
+1 strength or dex
+1 dice of damage on a crit
Reroll 1's a'la Halflings (Halflings get to reroll 1 and 2)s.
So something like a halfling fighter using twin short swords with these two feats or two daggers and also throw 7 daggers via action surge at level 11 adding dex+strength to damage which is an extra 14 damage with the default array (20 dex, 14 strength). Not quite as bad as a GWM fighter but still respectable damage and versatility (dex based, range + melee etc).
Our new party for PotA the assassin has taken Small Arms master, uses a short sword and +1 dagger he found (16 stre, 18 dex rolled stats) while the human sword and board fighter is packing Weapon Specialisation. Mostly because it is new options and they are sick of the PHB feats as you tend to default to SS/GWM/PAM or Sentinel/Shield Master. A Tempest Rnager with those feats as well......
From a metagaming PoV magic longswords, daggers etc are a lot more common in the APs as well, magcial polearms and hand crossbows do not seem to exist.
