D&D 5E When -5/+10 starts becoming Very Reliable?

[Ancalagon]

Time for more math.

So I was criticized for having a "straw man" scenario with AC 19... which is a character wearing scale male, a shield, dex 14 and defensive style fighting. It's not a stretch at all. But fine, fine, let's look at an AC 15 situation.

I'm going to compare scenario 1, 2, 3 and 4 again.

If Joe has 18 strength, is level 5 and had a + 1 great sword, his average damage (when raging) is 4 + 7 + 1 + 2 = 14. His to-hit number is 4 + 3 + 1 or +8. this is the baseline for scenario 1

If you are fighting an AC 15 foe, that means you will hit 70% of the time. So the effective damage/attack roll is 14*0.7 = 9.8

If you are in scenario 3, you will do 24 points of damage but hit about 55% of the time. Your effective damage is 13.2. Even without an offset, you are benefiting.

If you are in scenario 2, you still have the same effective + to hit as scenario 1 and are now doing 24*70% = 16.8. Huzza!

BUT if you are in scenario 4, you now have an effective + 13 to hit. You will hit 95% of the time! 14*.95 = 13.3

So it seems that vs lower AC characters, the actual bonus (2 vs 4) is 3.5 damage per attack roll. So in a 3 attacks situation, you are getting about 10 extra damage, on average. There are rounds where it will pay off big (get a bit lucky, hit 3 times) but there are also rounds where that -5 will make you miss, even if it's offset by other bonuses.

 

[Zardnaar]

BUT:

If you have all kinds of bonuses to hit, you still are taking a -5 penalty to your to hit! Don't compare scenario 2 vs 1, compare 2 vs 4!!! If you do the math, it's not that great.

Furthermore, you have to do stuff to get that offset. What if instead of casting bless the cleric had used an offensive spell? There is an opportunity cost. And also a lot of these "offset methods" (like bless) only work on a single roll, not every attack in the round.

No bless works on every attack roll per person blessed.

PHB
"You bless up to three creatures of your choice within range. Whenever a target makes an attack roll or a saving throw before the spell ends, the target can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the attack roll or saving throw".

The more attacks you make the better it is. The opportutnity cost on the cleric is low as any offensive spell has to be better than bless in this scenario. Compare say Spirit Guardians with a bless spell cast in a 5th level slot.

Monk makes 3 or 4 attacks a round
Barbarian makes at least 2
bard makes 1
Battlemaster Fighter makes at least 2 with maybe an action surge
Cleric can attack in follow up rounds (uses Polearm master+staff+shillagh)

Wizard usually doesn't get blessed. If bless enables 1 hit it is already better than any cleric cantrip and it will likely out damage even spirit guardians. On round 2 bless is effecting a minimum of 10 attacks with attacks 11 ,12 and 13 being possible via k points and action surge. 3 of those attacks can benefit from -5/+10, and in one more level the new number is now 11 attacks with 12,13 and 14 being possible with bless on every single one.

I can't think of any other cleric spell that well enable as much damage at level 5 short of maybe spirit guardian in a round vs a horde of enemies conveniently clustered around the caster. Cleric usually blesses themselves, barbarian and monk/bard depending on the situation, level 2 slot is cleric, barbarian, monk and bard, level 3 spell slot the fighter gets it as well.

 

[Ancalagon]

Sorry, I got bless and bardic boosting mixed up.

Even if bless is the better option - and I'm not disagreeing that it is! - there *still is an opportunity cost*. First concentration has to be maintained, so that means that some other spell is not being used. Second, even if bless is better, there still is some other damage spell or whatever the cleric isn't doing. So, using entirely make up numbers, if bless allows a party to do 30 more damage points, but it means the cleric didn't cast a spell that did 10 points of damage, well then the net bonus of the bless spell was 20, not 30.

 

[Arial Black]

So....what you're saying is...is that the feat gives you an extra 3.5 damage per hit (on average)?

Seems fair enough, for a feat!

 

[Ancalagon]

So....what you're saying is...is that the feat gives you an extra 3.5 damage per hit (on average)?

Seems fair enough, for a feat!

Vs someone with a low armor class *and* if you are boosted enough to compensate for the -5 penalty. Look at the first time I did it to see how it looks vs a higher AC foe.

I used to think it was rather over-powered, but now I'm not so sure...

 

[Zardnaar]

Sorry, I got bless and bardic boosting mixed up.

Even if bless is the better option - and I'm not disagreeing that it is! - there *still is an opportunity cost*. First concentration has to be maintained, so that means that some other spell is not being used. Second, even if bless is better, there still is some other damage spell or whatever the cleric isn't doing. So, using entirely make up numbers, if bless allows a party to do 30 more damage points, but it means the cleric didn't cast a spell that did 10 points of damage, well then the net bonus of the bless spell was 20, not 30.

Sacred flame is 2d8 average of 9 deals and is unreliable. Bless can be cast on the cleric which makes it a lot harder to disrupt due to the boost in saves. Its better than the other concentration spells IMHO and it allows the cleric to save spell slots as well

 

[Celtavian]

Time for more math.

So I was criticized for having a "straw man" scenario with AC 19... which is a character wearing scale male, a shield, dex 14 and defensive style fighting. It's not a stretch at all. But fine, fine, let's look at an AC 15 situation.

I'm going to compare scenario 1, 2, 3 and 4 again.



If you are fighting an AC 15 foe, that means you will hit 70% of the time. So the effective damage/attack roll is 14*0.7 = 9.8

If you are in scenario 3, you will do 24 points of damage but hit about 55% of the time. Your effective damage is 13.2. Even without an offset, you are benefiting.

If you are in scenario 2, you still have the same effective + to hit as scenario 1 and are now doing 24*70% = 16.8. Huzza!

BUT if you are in scenario 4, you now have an effective + 13 to hit. You will hit 95% of the time! 14*.95 = 13.3

So it seems that vs lower AC characters, the actual bonus (2 vs 4) is 3.5 damage per attack roll. So in a 3 attacks situation, you are getting about 10 extra damage, on average. There are rounds where it will pay off big (get a bit lucky, hit 3 times) but there are also rounds where that -5 will make you miss, even if it's offset by other bonuses.

The math on both feats has been computed at least two times that I know showing that Sharpshooter and GWM used intelligently and supported by casters is a a huge damage boost over those that cannot use the feats. It is not a 1.8 damage increase. If you want to see an example of Sharpshooter in use compared to other classes, just go look at the 6-8 encounter lvl 13 character thread where the EK hand crossbow guy wit sharpshooter is easily doubling the damage of any other member of the party to see an example of how it is used.

Sharpshooter and to a lesser extent GWM are unlimited use abilities that you can turn on and off at any to maximize damage. They're power feats. There's no way you can manipulate the math to prove otherwise. The only way your math works is if you use both feats all the time. That is not how they are used. They are used under optimal conditions against optimal ACs. When used in that fashion over the course of leveling, they show their superiority by a large amount over other options.

 

[Ancalagon]

If you want to see an example of Sharpshooter in use compared to other classes, just go look at the 6-8 encounter lvl 13 character thread where the EK hand crossbow guy wit sharpshooter is easily doubling the damage of any other member of the party to see an example of how it is used.

If you want to convince me, how about the courtesy of a copy paste of said math, or at the very least a link? That's a pretty big thread for me to dig through.

 

[FrogReaver]

Hard drive on comp fried or I would show the Math. In general it's much better. I used to have all 20 levels of fighter compared against target ac when using those fears and not using them. Assuming an optimized fighter the damage comparison is pretty amazing.

 

[Ancalagon]

Ok, let's look at that EK since you are so insistent

+ 13 to hit
1d6+6 damage
4 attacks per round.

That's pretty bad-ass to start with. Let's look at my above examples.

Vs AC 19: chance to hit is 75%. Average effective damage/ attack is 9.5 X 0.75 = 7.125
Vs AC 15: Chance to hit is 95%. Average effective damage/ attack is 9.5 X 0.75 = 9.025

Let's see what happens if he goes sharpshooter:
Vs AC 19: chance to hit is 50%. Average effective damage/ attack is 19.5 X 0.5 = 9.75
Vs AC 15: Chance to hit is 70%. Average effective damage/ attack is 19.5 X 0.7 = 13.65


So this guy will do 2.625 and 4.625 more per attack using this feat. Oh it's very nice, no doubt about that! But he's not *doubling* his damage! He might be double other party members, but that's mostly because he's (or she) is a highly skilled archer, not because of the feat.