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

[Mistwell]

No, that's wrong. Both in that the folk regarding them as OP are not representative of a large enough portion of the gaming populace to be considered the "general" opinion, and in that the feats are not at all over-powered.

I disagree. In pretty much every discussion of that topic, on any message board or other messaging source I know of, those two feats are the most complained about (by far) in terms of balance. The people saying they are too powerful seem to outnumber the people saying they are fine 10 to 1 or more. And I am the type that almost always says stuff is fine...and even I think they are overpowered. And the reason they are overpowered are the reasons Zard is mentioning - too many ways to offset the negative and make the feat into almost-total positive. +10 per attack is a LOT. Too much, when the drawbacks are minimized.

 

[Zardnaar]

You have a group of players who work well with each other as a team. I don't mean the PCs, just the players themselves. I've never known a player of a wizard who sacrifices their action to use the help action for five levels. It's effective damage-wise, but it means that player is sacrificing zapping something - which most players would prefer even if it does less damage through the indirect benefit of the help action.

I played a bard who used fairy fire and bardic inspiration and bless and the help action, and I had a blast doing it. But it takes a certain personality to do that, and not everyone will enjoy it.

I did it for 4 levels and sometimes at level 5. Mostly becuase the opportunity cost for the healer feat was low due to eh feats for spellcasters and the rubbish damage firebolt and other cantrips were doing. I did not do it all of the time but used shield to bump up my AC and the healer feat if I got hit. Generally our wizards sit back and spam firebolts and be semi useless as even throwing a dagger or using a crossbow is better than firebolt if you have a half decent dex score.

 

[CapnZapp]

4: Joe does a normal attack with bonuses! (bless, advantage whatever). He will attack for less damage, but hit more often!

So when detailing your argument, it's not just 1 vs 2 that matters, it's 2 vs 4.

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 19 foe, that means you will hit 50% of the time. (So the effective damage is 7)

If you are in scenario 3, you will do 24 points of damage but hit about 25% of the time - this is a bad deal, you've reduced your chances of hitting by half and you haven't even doubled your damage (so 24/4 =6). But as you say, this almost never happens.

If you are in scenario 2, you still have the same effective + to hit and are now doing 24 points of damage (effective 12). Huzza!

BUT if you are in scenario 4, you now have an effective + 13 to hit. You will hit 75% of the time! 14*.75 = 10.5

So yes, scenario 3 is better than scenario 4... but not as much as you think. The math changes of course depending on the circumstances. I suspect GWM works better vs lower AC monsters. But then, if you are fighting little minions (say goblins), you're just over-killing them anyway.

But the entire point of the thread is:

a. You only use GWM when you have a good, not merely average, chance of hitting
b. If you only have an average chance of hitting, find ways to increase this chance of hitting and still use GWM

So your scenario is a straw man, unfortunately, since you assume you would use GWM in a scenario where it is mathematically unfavorable to use it.

Enabling GWM in this way is one of the best way to deal damage, which is
1) unbalanced (the feat, that is)
2) possibly less fun, since the other characters would rather want to use their abilities for their own attacks and spotlight

The simple truth is that the way GWM provides a +30 damage potential as early as level 5 (two attacks, third attack using bonus action or reaction) is an ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE DAMAGE SPIKE few other abilities can top or even match.

When it is simple to the point of being trivial to gain enough bonuses to very seldom see such stratospheric ACs where GWM usage doesn't pay off, there is a real problem.

 

[CapnZapp]

No, that's wrong. Both in that the folk regarding them as OP are not representative of a large enough portion of the gaming populace to be considered the "general" opinion, and in that the feats are not at all over-powered.

None of your arguments are relevant.

You can certainly hold the opinion "they're not too good for my campaign", but don't try to blur the point here.

Who regards the as OP is irrelevant.

Only the math is relevant.

 

[DeanP]

As a DM, feats like great weapon master make it fun to run a horde o' beasties attacking the group.

 

[Ancalagon]

B

The simple truth is that the way GWM provides a +30 damage potential as early as level 5 (two attacks, third attack using bonus action or reaction) is an ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE DAMAGE SPIKE few other abilities can top or even match.

Erm, by my math, the actual damage improvement is 1.5 *per attack*. I will run the numbers again with lower AC since you seem to consider my scenario a "strawman" but I have to go at the moment - stay tuned.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I disagree. In pretty much every discussion of that topic, on any message board or other messaging source I know of, those two feats are the most complained about (by far) in terms of balance.

Being the most complained about in those media does not inherently mean being actually a problem.

The people saying they are too powerful seem to outnumber the people saying they are fine 10 to 1 or more.

The people also seem to be the same people sharing their opinion in many different places (such as Zardnaar and Psikerlord having both said the same as they do in this thread on the WotC forums previously), and so frequently that many folks with differing opinions have simply grown tired of responding (myself for example having taken a long break from such counter-claims until deciding that I'm not too worn out on disagreeing at this time).

And I am the type that almost always says stuff is fine...and even I think they are overpowered. And the reason they are overpowered are the reasons Zard is mentioning - too many ways to offset the negative and make the feat into almost-total positive. +10 per attack is a LOT. Too much, when the drawbacks are minimized.

Zard has only demonstrated that dedicating various team resources to enhancing the effectiveness of the team works - not that all the things combined that lead to the perception of this single feature being over-powered actually means that the feature, alone, considered for what it does at default and not what it can do if enhanced by combination with numerous other variables, is overly powerful.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

None of your arguments are relevant.

You can certainly hold the opinion "they're not too good for my campaign", but don't try to blur the point here.

Who regards the as OP is irrelevant.

Only the math is relevant.

If my argument is irrelevant, Zard's is irrelevant for the same reasons.

It is the math, the same math in fact that Zard uses to reach his opinion, that I base my opinion on - because I reach the conclusion not of "features that are more useful if used in team efforts are individually broken because of that fact", which is Zard's clear position given that he has frequently called out both bless and the -5/+10 features as "over-powered" and offers no proof other than that they can be used in combination (which might be evidence that their combining is over-powered, but is absolutely not evidence that each is individually too powerful). I reach the conclusion that "teamwork is actually rewarded, and is thus more beneficial than not working as a team."

Then there is Psikerlord's position, which shows not that the features are too potent for 5th edition as written, but that Psikerlord prefers a much lower power-scale than the 5th edition game treats as its default.

 

[Jester David]

TLDL
The -5 part of SS/GMW in this party is comically easy to offset.

Yup. Just like every other RPG game out there, when the party builds to optimize and coordinate, they can break the game.

 

[Ancalagon]

And the reason they are overpowered are the reasons Zard is mentioning - too many ways to offset the negative and make the feat into almost-total positive. +10 per attack is a LOT. Too much, when the drawbacks are minimized.

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.