D&D 5E When to turn on Great Weapon Master

[shoak1]

Then you might be interested to learn that I am preparing a review of the entire list of feats, precisely to put the spotlight on these issues

yup - let me know when u got it done

 

[Ashrym]

I see where you went here, and it makes sense in a certain way, but its a bit overthought.

I think it's just the opposite. Probability calculation seems like overthought when the feats aren't actually significantly changing the average length of combats. They can definitely add damage and sometimes make a difference but the bigger average isn't making that big of an impact that I would consider it overpowered.

It's simply a fact that actual DPR is limited by the hp actually available to damage in the target. If the number of rounds doesn't decrease by way of damage bonus the actual DPR realized hasn't changed.

Lost damage to overkill happens a lot all around while smaller damage with increased accuracy will lose less damage to overkill to bring them closer. It's definitely a good feat but the "OPness" of it is overstated.

Playing out the law of large numbers has no control over which encounter would see the better damage benefits because it takes a full day to see enough attack rolls to even be relevant. A fighter, for example, with 3 attacks (high level) fighting with +5/-10 in 4 round encounters for 8 encounters in a day makes 96 attacks plus bonus attacks (given the need to roll a crit or drop an opponent this is generally in the 6-12 range depending on dropping opponents; actual crits at 5% chance are about 5 crits in the day). None of those individual rounds or combats has any guarantee of seeing the averages play out. The extra damage will be spikes interspersed throughout that day. IE, each attack averages averages higher but each attack still misses more often and the individual fights aren't long enough to see that higher average playing out consistently. That daily average isn't going to help much with individual encounters.

What that means is the fighter in the example isn't doing 20 DPR in a round just because the day might average out that way based on probability outside of standard variance. The 12-14 attacks typically made in a 4 round encounter on the high level fighter don't even come close to reinforcing the DPR that comes with averaging out probability and will swing a lot with a lot more missing.

It also means that the fighter isn't going to even see that many attacks using -5/+10 because he or she won't use it if AC is higher, or if facing minions who don't have the hp to require the bonus while missing would slow down dealing with them, or if it's important to land hits because the fighter cannot afford to take the chance to miss on important targets (which gets back to no law of large numbers applying to a single creature or combat).

Better damage that's more sporadic doesn't help encounters based on the potential daily average. True story.