Why is there such a stigma towards sharpshooter and GWM when casters are better?

[Matticusrex]

Is it so wrong for a martial class to scrape the surface of a caster's power level? It's already bad enough that martials have a huge dependency on feats while clerics, druids, and wizards require nothing to be powerful.

[IShouldntBehere]

I can scarcely imagine a reality where such a fact doesn't hold as absolute ! To partake in earnest disclosure I think it is exceptionally generous that any table even allows meat-headed stick wagglers to be present. It's obvious that the "Martial" so-called classes are really just there to weed out the intellectual gentlemen from the unsophisticated chadbros. The option must be mechanically weak so any true connoisseur of true gaming can do the analysis and come to the correct conclusion. A true intellectual knows how to fight with his mind, no bulky and ungainly muscles and that reality should be reflected in the rules.

[Easy_Lee]

I can scarcely imagine a reality where such a fact doesn't hold as absolute ! To partake in earnest disclosure I think it is exceptionally generous that any table even allows meat-headed stick wagglers to be present. It's obvious that the "Martial" so-called classes are really just there to weed out the intellectual gentlemen from the unsophisticated chadbros. The option must be mechanically weak so any true connoisseur of true gaming can do the analysis and come to the correct conclusion. A true intellectual knows how to fight with his mind, no bulky and ungainly muscles and that reality should be reflected in the rules.

This is, basically, the WotC mindset. Casters have been the best for so long that, at this point, it's a sacred cow.

If we think of each spell slot as a once-per-day feature, we'll see that casters get far more features than martials. And, as we know, those spell slots can do a wide variety of things.

[Sir cryosin]

I can scarcely imagine a reality where such a fact doesn't hold as absolute ! To partake in earnest disclosure I think it is exceptionally generous that any table even allows meat-headed stick wagglers to be present. It's obvious that the "Martial" so-called classes are really just there to weed out the intellectual gentlemen from the unsophisticated chadbros. The option must be mechanically weak so any true connoisseur of true gaming can do the analysis and come to the correct conclusion. A true intellectual knows how to fight with his mind, no bulky and ungainly muscles and that reality should be reflected in the rules.

What you say? You callin me stupid.

Hahahaha

[MrStabby]

There is a certain narrow viewpoint that occasionally surfaces that "best"=high at will single target damage.

You can do high at will single target damage with some of these characters, so they are good - by the definition of good that these players use. It isn't a wrong definition for those players, but those players don't appreciate the more subtle or sophisticated ways characters can be good :smallwink:

[fishyfishyfishy]

I don't get it either. I like my weapon using classes to be the kings and queens of damage, and have no problems with them getting nice things.

[CursedRhubarb]

LvL 20 wizard: near almighty and powerful magic...but a critical from a kobold can cripple them.

LvL 20 barbarian: hits for decent smackdown damage, laughs it off when a mountain falls on them.

Eh, sounds about right. Power and damage soakability even out pretty well.

[smcmike]

I don't personally have a problem with them, but my guess is that these feats are seen as problematic because they get compared to other martial builds, not casters.

[Easy_Lee]

LvL 20 wizard: near almighty and powerful magic...but a critical from a kobold can cripple them.

LvL 20 barbarian: hits for decent smackdown damage, laughs it off when a mountain falls on them.

Eh, sounds about right. Power and damage soakability even out pretty well.

A level 20 wizard with a meager 10 Constitution still has 72.5 hit points. Given that he also has the Shield spell, and may even have it as his signature spell, he's going to be pretty hard to hit. Add to that contingency, advanced scouting, various forms of non-detection, foresight, wish...

The wizard trades HP and weapons for a vast and flexible array of features.

[Specter]

This is doubly true considering that the lowest HD a caster can have now is d6, and most of them will have a d8. So much for being too frail. A bard, using average HP and 18 CON, will have 183HP by level 20. A fighter will have 224 with 20CON.

[Tanarii]

I reject your premise that "casters are better".

(Someone who's an expert on Logical fallacies, does the OP count as Begging the Question?)

[Specter]

I reject your premise that "casters are better".

(Someone who's an expert on Logical fallacies, does the OP count as Begging the Question?)

Yes, since he used a premise that needs proving in order to prove another premise.
But the way I see it, even with 'better' being relative, in most cases he'd be right.

[smcmike]

I reject your premise that "casters are better".

(Someone who's an expert on Logical fallacies, does the OP count as Begging the Question?)

I don't think so. I think it's just a premise that needs proving, not a circular argument.

Here's a version of the argument:

GWM and Sharpshooter are for martials
Martials are weaker than casters
Therefore
GWM and sharpshooter are not overpowered.

Martials are weaker than casters is an independently provable assertion.

[Tanarii]

Yes, since he used a premise that needs proving in order to prove another premise.
But the way I see it, even with 'better' being relative, in most cases he'd be right.I'm not sure it counts then. I think begging the question uses the premise that needs proving to prove the premise itself. Not a second premise.

Obviously that's independent of the premise being 'correct' or not. It just jumped out at me because in this case, I do disagree with the premise. :smallwink:

[Easy_Lee]

Here's the thing: martials do at-will damage and tank hits, while casters do everything else. The same breakdown existed in EverQuest, and it worked fairly well there. However, there were still a few things to consider:

Because casters had so many more abilities, they solo'd much better than martials.
Because players wanted to kill the maximum number of mobs in the least amount of time, martials were needed to deal at-will damage, rather than letting casters waiting until their mana bars were full. Casters were primarily there to buff, heal, and deal with contingencies like adds. This is comparable to having an indefinite number of encounters per day.

However, casters in EQ couldn't do half of what they can do in D&D. And they were still considered to be somewhat OP for their overall greater capabilities.

Now consider that, in D&D, players are expected to only have a few encounters per day. Then they can go off and have their rests, and be ready to go the next day. Also consider that some casters, especially warlocks, can deal pretty decent at-will damage. Furthermore, consider that builds like EK 7 / Wizard 13 or AT 9 / Wizard 11 are possible, creating a character with good casting and good martial ability. And furthermore, consider that many spells, such as Shield and False Life, can offset sudden and unexpected damage. Finally, consider that a wide variety of minion spells exist, such as animate objects and summon creature.

It's no wonder why many consider casters to be the best. They do far more things than martials can do, and can sometimes end encounters with one or two well-placed spells. When it's time to rest, it's difficult to stop casters from just pulling a rope trick or teleporting to safety. And, of course, there's nothing stopping a caster from having high dexterity and the Alert feat, to even deter ambushes.

[Dalebert]

Acknowledging this is fairly anecdotal, but in most of the games I play, it feels like the martials are getting most of the glory. They dish out the most consistent damage and get the most kills. Often times, I get one round in and everything at all threatening is dead. Paladins are popular in my groups and they use most of their slots to smite so they get a lot of burst damage. I'm used to playing with folks who are very good at building martials with just the right class combos and feats. Every now and then I do get to have fun with a fireball or two even though my sorlock is more about buffs.

I think that's it. If I built blasty characters, I could keep up with the martials better, but I'm too well aware that it's not the most effective build on behalf of the whole party's effectiveness overall in terms of both damage and survivability. What tends to be more effective if you think in whole-party terms rather than stealing-glory-for-yourself terms, it's generally more effective to buff martials and/or do crowd control than to blast. I don't mind that the martials get a lot of the glory and when I am playing a martial, I make sure to reassure the support PCs about how much they're helping when they hang back and support.

I will admit, I finally made a rogue more focused on getting in there and consistently (this is key) dishing crazy damage and I'm having a LOT of fun, maybe the most fun yet.

[DragonSorcererX]

Casters are better not only because of the mechanics but because of the fluff, the style, and the special effects!

What is more cool, a meh plain average mundane generic <insert more adjectives here> fighter or an eldritch knight?

[Dalebert]

What is more cool, a meh plain average mundane generic <insert more adjectives here> fighter or an eldritch knight?

Maybe they should just make no characters mundane, from a purely fluff perspective. When I watch movies, I'd really much rather they just say someone has super powers in many cases. I have a hard time pressing the "i believe" button when Batman does something inhumanly impossible than if Spider-man does it. They've given me an excuse for pressing that "i believe" button by saying something amazing and impossible in the mundane world has happened in this fictional universe to give Spider-man superpowers. Now when he dodges bullets, I'm liek "yeah, sure". *shrug* When Batman gets in all the fights with gun-wielding psychopaths and keeps surviving, I'm just completely taken out of the story. He's being protecting purely by plot armor and it feels like cheating.

What if all "fighters" were enhanced humans in some way, like champions of the gods and benefiting from their favor like Perseus or some other explanation?

[smcmike]

Maybe they should just make no characters mundane, from a purely fluff perspective. When I watch movies, I'd really much rather they just say someone has super powers in many cases. I have a hard time pressing the "i believe" button when Batman does something inhumanly impossible than if Spider-man does it. They've given me an excuse for pressing that "i believe" button by saying something amazing and impossible in the mundane world has happened in this fictional universe to give Spider-man superpowers. Now when he dodges bullets, I'm liek "yeah, sure". *shrug* When Batman gets in all the fights with gun-wielding psychopaths and keeps surviving, I'm just completely taken out of the story. He's being protecting purely by plot armor and it feels like cheating.

What if all "fighters" were enhanced humans in some way, like champions of the gods and benefiting from their favor like Perseus or some other explanation?

Meanwhile, when I watch movies and the big action sequence devolves into a lot of CGI with no reference to actual human experience, I tune right out. I'm shocked at how boring I find many modern action sequences - literally the least interesting part of many movies.

[Zman]

Because those feats allow at will damage that outpaces the games assumptions and it is quite an easy fix, and those options overshadow essentally all martial options that are not GWM, PAM, or Sharpshooter. Fixing overall caster balance is a much larger challenge.

[famousringo]

Meanwhile, when I watch movies and the big action sequence devolves into a lot of CGI with no reference to actual human experience, I tune right out. I'm shocked at how boring I find many modern action sequences - literally the least interesting part of many movies.

Completely agree. When it goes completely over the top, my suspension of disbelief collapses and my eyes start rolling.

And I'm the sort of guy who will play a normal human being surrounded by supernatural monsters, because at that point, it's the plucky everyman who becomes exceptional.

As for casters vs martials, I have a different angle. Why spend a daily resource to do martial-like damage for a single round? I'll either use magic for AoE, control, or best of all, to bypass an encounter completely if possible.

[Vorpalchicken]

It's really because you can get those feats at fourth or even first level, before casters can exert their dominance. A lot of games never make it past the early levels.

That being said, I believe the feats should not be restricted at all. Martials excelling at the early levels doesn't hurt the game.

Even at mid level, the power attack feats pale against the power of a caster.

Casters who seek power must be patient.

[Grod_The_Giant]

LvL 20 wizard: near almighty and powerful magic...but a critical from a kobold can cripple them.
Even if hit points didn't scale nicely, critical hits do essentially nil in this edition.


I don't personally have a problem with them, but my guess is that these feats are seen as problematic because they get compared to other martial builds, not casters.
This. The feats are more efficient at dealing damage than pretty much any other option, which is a Bad Thing insofar as it places an unnecessary emphasis on those two styles.

[Tanarii]

Also consider that some casters, especially warlocks, can deal pretty decent at-will damage. Furthermore, consider that builds like EK 7 / Wizard 13 or AT 9 / Wizard 11 are possible, creating a character with good casting and good martial ability.Yeah, multi-classing can throw off class balance really fast with good synergy. But that goes both ways. Multi-class characters are usually better spell-free combat (edit: or with basic-level magic item / spell support) than pure casters.


Also, I can't wonder if there's a definitions problem here. Classes I consider Martial, regardless of subclass: Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue. Also, I consider a reasonable amount of magical item support, and spell buffing/healing support (either self-cast or cast by another caster) to be fair play and count towards them being 'balanced'.

Also I'll admit there's possibly a breakdown a little with the highest level of play. I'm not familiar with the 17+ top tier, and no where near as up to speed on 11-16 as pre-10th. But that's always been true for D&D. Because god-spells (ie 6th level on up) were designed for the end-game / epic-level play levels of 11+ in the original game. And then later on, those levels became somehow standardized as 'normal levels for play' in various editions, despite most of the PHB's being fairly clear that this level of play was supposed to be for some of the top-most heroes in a given game-world.

[MaxWilson]

Is it so wrong for a martial class to scrape the surface of a caster's power level? It's already bad enough that martials have a huge dependency on feats while clerics, druids, and wizards require nothing to be powerful.

It's because some people don't like dominant options to exist.

There are some people who object to Sharpshooter/GWM because they think it obsoletes spellcasters, and those people are clearly wrong, but there are other people who object to the fact that Sharpshooter/GWM make certain kinds of fighters have a much higher damage output than other kinds, which to them is much like removing options from the game.

That's why.

P.S. I might as well explain why I don't share that perspective: Sharpshooter/GWM effectively create options, because if they didn't exist, the most efficient way to deal damage would be to be a spellcaster (e.g. Warlock with Spell Sniper) or maybe a Hunter 5/Rogue X, and fighters wouldn't exist at all except for tanking at low level. I don't find the idea of fighter-less games very cool, so I'm perfectly fine with what Sharpshooter/GWM do to the game.

[hymer]

Maybe they should just make no characters mundane, from a purely fluff perspective.

5e is nearly there already. There is no purely nonmagical classes, and about a handful of nonmagical subclasses in the PHB, IIRC. By that I mean you could make a non-magical barbarian, fighter or rogue, but even for them some of their subclasses add spells.

[Bohandas]

I can scarcely imagine a reality where such a fact doesn't hold as absolute ! To partake in earnest disclosure I think it is exceptionally generous that any table even allows meat-headed stick wagglers to be present. It's obvious that the "Martial" so-called classes are really just there to weed out the intellectual gentlemen from the unsophisticated chadbros. The option must be mechanically weak so any true connoisseur of true gaming can do the analysis and come to the correct conclusion. A true intellectual knows how to fight with his mind, no bulky and ungainly muscles and that reality should be reflected in the rules.

The part about muscles not contributing is definitely true both in real life and in some of the better fiction (like that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy schoots the swordsman. It's funny because it's true; that is exactly how that scene would play out in real life.

[Tanarii]

but there are other people who object to the fact that Sharpshooter/GWM make certain kinds of fighters have a much higher damage output than other kinds, which to them is much like removing options from the game.Well, removing them from the arsenal of players that are heavy optimizers. Some players will still play a non-combat-optimal build anyway for other reasons.


P.S. I might as well explain why I don't share that perspective: Sharpshooter/GWM effectively create options, because if they didn't exist, the most efficient way to deal damage would be to be a spellcaster (e.g. Warlock with Spell Sniper) or maybe a Hunter 5/Rogue X, and fighters wouldn't exist at all except for tanking at low level. I don't find the idea of fighter-less games very cool, so I'm perfectly fine with what Sharpshooter/GWM do to the game.Personally I dislike shutting down balance within a class far more than I do between classes. But I also prefer single-class & feat-less games. So I'm one of those that instinctively goes "that's unbalanced" because I'm comparing to not taking the feat at all.

But what really is starting to bug me (Edit: in theory, since as I said I don't see feats much outside of AL) is the Feats that remove tactical play. Specifically the cover/concealment/close combat aspects of Spell Sniper, Sharpshooter and (as I recently had my attention drawn to) Crossbow Expert.

[gkathellar]

Because those feats allow at will damage that outpaces the games assumptions and it is quite an easy fix, and those options overshadow essentally all martial options that are not GWM, PAM, or Sharpshooter. Fixing overall caster balance is a much larger challenge.

Pretty much this. GWM, PAM, and Sharpshooter are unquestionably stand-outs amount the options for martials, so they get attention for that. On the other hand, "casters are god" is not nearly so ubiquitously accepted a premise, even though it's categorically true, so people focus on the other issue.

[Pex]

It's Fighters Can't Have Nice Things thinking, sometimes referred to Guy At The Gym.

Spellcasters can do whatever they want because it's "MAGIC!" Everyone else is limited by what can be done in the real world by the average joe. Sure, Michael Phelps can win Gold in the same event in 4 consecutive Olympics, but your character is not Michael Phelps how dare you think you should have such power you min/max rollplaying powergamer munchkin. These players get so hard up on realism and/or fear of player characters doing powerful things that anything a character can do on a consistent basis must be suspect and scrutinized.

[mgshamster]

I don't like the idea that GWM/SS/PAM are considered over powered. To me, they're solidly in the right area of power. If they seem like they're too powerful, it's because they're being compared relative to another fighting style that's less powerful.

The fix, then, is to improve those other fighting styles (and/or feats) to bring them up to these martial options.

[Tanarii]

It's Fighters Can't Have Nice Things thinking, sometimes referred to Guy At The Gym.I see a lot of this, but it's by no means universal.

Far more common is my type of knee-jerk reaction: OMG DPS IS HAXXOR!!!

In other words, it's broken in comparison to the baseline builds: using the option is incredibly superior DPS to NOT using the option, making it appear to be a 'requirement' for anyone that is inclined towards optimization.

[Easy_Lee]

As I said, for me the issue is that casters have more features. If you consider each spell as a feature, as in something you can do, it's clear that casters have far more features. And unless you have a very high number of encounters per day, the casters won't run out of their features, either.

[MaxWilson]

I don't like the idea that GWM/SS/PAM are considered over powered. To me, they're solidly in the right area of power. If they seem like they're too powerful, it's because they're being compared relative to another fighting style that's less powerful.

The fix, then, is to improve those other fighting styles (and/or feats) to bring them up to these martial options.

Yep. I'm looking at you, Dual Wielder. :-)

One thing I've considered is to make Dual Wielder also make your off-hand attack not cost your bonus action. It still doesn't scale, but at least now you can do something else with your bonus action. It might make Dual Wielder popular among melee Rogues.

There are other things you could do instead, but I agree that it's better to improve the weak ones than nerf the fun ones.

[Rysto]

It's Fighters Can't Have Nice Things thinking, sometimes referred to Guy At The Gym.

I have no problems with Fighters having nice things. My objection is that they have one thing so nice that it overshadows all other possible options. It makes for a single boring, cookie-cutter build. I don't really care if the solution is to nerf GWM or boost the other options, but what I want is the ability to make interesting choices between differentiated options when building a martial character.

[mgshamster]

As I said, for me the issue is that casters have more features. If you consider each spell as a feature, as in something you can do, it's clear that casters have far more features. And unless you have a very high number of encounters per day, the casters won't run out of their features, either.

Even with that, I've always been adverse to the idea that the adventure day should stop when the caster runs out of spells.

It bugs me that I can't keep adventuring because the caster in the party ran out, and I'm outvoted on whether we need to turn back for a long rest.

As far as balance goes, that's where the balance point was supposed to lie - the caster would run it and be significantly weaker than the martials for the latter portions of the day. But it seems we never get to that point.

On a completely separate note, what do you think of the idea of "spell walls" akin to the feat walls of older editions? Basically make it so in order to get the fireball spell, you must first have a fire based cantrip, 1st level, and 2nd level spell. There was a 3PP spell system with that idea designed for PF called Spheres of Power. I bought it, but never had a chance to play with it.

[Tanarii]

Even with that, I've always been adverse to the idea that the adventure day should stop when the caster runs out of spells.

It bugs me that I can't keep adventuring because the caster in the party ran out, and I'm outvoted on whether we need to turn back for a long rest. Well, the assumption that the party gets to control if they take a long rest requires a certain style of play in the first place.

Even so, at a certain point spellcasters are generally using level 1+ spells for about 1/2 or more of their combat rounds in a DMG-balanced encounter day of combat encounters. That break point is (around or about) 5th-7th level IMX.

[Kogrean]

The problem with GWM and SS is that they help damage so much for certain martial builds that they become a feat tax, especially for new players that think their fighter can only attack every turn.

I have to disagree with the idea that casters are better though. Their spells provide numerous and powerful options, but they all lead to performing the same sorts of things; buffing, debuffing, controlling, healing, or blasting. If you examine 5e characters by their abilities to do those things, virtually any character can do between some or all of those things. For example, a grappler can control and debuff and damage. If a table is having issues with casters having their resources constantly replenished, there are modifications to the adventuring day that can be made.

The thing I love about 5e is that there is enough flexibility for any character to shine as long as the DM remembers that the point of dnd is for everyone to have fun and moves the game in a direction that achieves that.

[Specter]

Also, it's important to note that GWM and SS are situationally awesome. If you try that -5/+10 thing against any self-respecting sword-and-board EK, for example, be ready to miss on all of your attacks.


Because those feats allow at will damage that outpaces the games assumptions and it is quite an easy fix, and those options overshadow essentally all martial options that are not GWM, PAM, or Sharpshooter. Fixing overall caster balance is a much larger challenge.

Not really. They're the best choices when it comes to damage, but damage is not the only thing that matters, and that's why there are guys wearing shields instead of just going full retard, I mean, full greataxe on the battlefield.


Meanwhile, when I watch movies and the big action sequence devolves into a lot of CGI with no reference to actual human experience, I tune right out. I'm shocked at how boring I find many modern action sequences - literally the least interesting part of many movies.

Amen to that. That's how I feel about most full casters.

[Zman]

It's Fighters Can't Have Nice Things thinking, sometimes referred to Guy At The Gym.

Spellcasters can do whatever they want because it's "MAGIC!" Everyone else is limited by what can be done in the real world by the average joe. Sure, Michael Phelps can win Gold in the same event in 4 consecutive Olympics, but your character is not Michael Phelps how dare you think you should have such power you min/max rollplaying powergamer munchkin. These players get so hard up on realism and/or fear of player characters doing powerful things that anything a character can do on a consistent basis must be suspect and scrutinized.

I find the feats poorly balanced and am not someone who thinks Fighter's cannot have nice things. But, you are condescendingly painting a lot of people with that brush. I see them as not a problem that they can do them, but that the system wasn't built for that level of damage output and three options are vastly superior to every other Fighter options that if they don't pick one of them they are intentionally gimping their character in relation to what they could do. It has nothing to do with nice things, but that some of your things are so much nicer than your other things that you might as not well even consider them.


I don't like the idea that GWM/SS/PAM are considered over powered. To me, they're solidly in the right area of power. If they seem like they're too powerful, it's because they're being compared relative to another fighting style that's less powerful.

The fix, then, is to improve those other fighting styles (and/or feats) to bring them up to these martial options.

See, I disagree that they are in the right area of power, if you see what GWM does on a Reckless barbarian it is quite clear they are breaking out of what the system was designed to handle and they most certainly are vastly better than other feat or ASI choices. Considering they cost an ASI/Feat choice, having some that are so much better than others is problematic.

What I did in my fix is to tone all three of them down, while adding other roughly equally powered combat feats for other styles of fighting. Now a character can pick a combat option and if they want to spend a feat on it they can become much better at it, but none of those options are so good they make the rest virtually irrelevant.


Yep. I'm looking at you, Dual Wielder. :-)



See, the problem is that you are spending a Feat/ASI on them and that has to be a rough metric for worth. Right now GWM, Sharpshooter, and PAM are just leagues above other options and make something like Dual wielder look bad when in fact Dualwielder isn't bad at all, it is about right for power and its main failing is TWF itself which needed a second offhand attack at later levels to keep up. By limiting the Power Attack to only a single attack per turn you still have a fun feature that is powerful, but isn't overwhelmingly so and doesn't blow the ceiling off damage.

[Zman]

Also, it's important to note that GWM and SS are situationally awesome. If you try that -5/+10 thing against any self-respecting sword-and-board EK, for example, be ready to miss on all of your attacks.



Not really. They're the best choices when it comes to damage, but damage is not the only thing that matters, and that's why there are guys wearing shields instead of just going full retard, I mean, full greataxe on the battlefield.



Of course damage is not the only thing that matters, but when we look at damage as a frame of reference they are broken, which means they are just downright better than their other competing optoins.

Yes, they are situationally awesome... sure making a power attack doesn't do much against a high AC enemy, but against a low AC enemy especially with advantage you can put out levels of damage the system just wasn't built to handle. And GWM is very good with its ability for a bonus action attack on Crit or Kill which comes up every two or three turns or so depending on the battle, sometimes nearly every round. So that half of GWM is nearly worth a feat in and of itself, and then you give it the situationally broken option that pushes it further beyond what a feat should be worth.

Sharpshooter with Archery for a Fighting style is almost always a net damage boost except vs the highest AC enemies and against low AC enemies puts out incredible and reliable damage. The other parts of the feat mean you can feasibly do it from 600' and ignore even the heaviest cover.

Also, don't use the R word on the forums.

[mgshamster]

See, I disagree that they are in the right area of power, if you see what GWM does on a Reckless barbarian it is quite clear they are breaking out of what the system was designed to handle and they most certainly are vastly better than other feat or ASI choices. Considering they cost an ASI/Feat choice, having some that are so much better than others is problematic.

What I did in my fix is to tone all three of them down, while adding other roughly equally powered combat feats for other styles of fighting. Now a character can pick a combat option and if they want to spend a feat on it they can become much better at it, but none of those options are so good they make the rest virtually irrelevant.

I have a suspiscion that you're right when using monsters out of the MM, but wrong when using the recommended HP for designing monsters in the DMG.

Remember how everyone was saying that the HP recommendations for CR was ridiculously high? I wonder if that was the intent for the power level of some of these feats. And since the monsters in the MM wasn't designed with the guidelines in the DMG, t ended up being less, which better aligns with your analysis.

Pure speculation on my part, here.

[SharkForce]

Maybe they should just make no characters mundane, from a purely fluff perspective. When I watch movies, I'd really much rather they just say someone has super powers in many cases. I have a hard time pressing the "i believe" button when Batman does something inhumanly impossible than if Spider-man does it. They've given me an excuse for pressing that "i believe" button by saying something amazing and impossible in the mundane world has happened in this fictional universe to give Spider-man superpowers. Now when he dodges bullets, I'm liek "yeah, sure". *shrug* When Batman gets in all the fights with gun-wielding psychopaths and keeps surviving, I'm just completely taken out of the story. He's being protecting purely by plot armor and it feels like cheating.

What if all "fighters" were enhanced humans in some way, like champions of the gods and benefiting from their favor like Perseus or some other explanation?

maybe you should check out earthdawn :P

(i get a kick out of a lot of the "new" and "unique" ideas people have been crediting D&D for coming up with sometimes... most of the time, someone else did it first and, imo, better... earthdawn, for example, had martial adepts for decades before Bo9S, and legendary magic items are the only really magical items, if it isn't legendary it's basically just a regular piece of equipment :P )

but yeah, there's a lot going on with martials. some people think they shouldn't even be allowed to deal large amounts of damage (i think that's perfectly fine, since they don't do anything else extremely well most of the time), some people are ok with it, and many of the people that are ok with the damage in general aren't too happy that you only get that damage if you take certain specific builds, and a number of other combat styles have little or no support whatsoever (that's me... i'd much rather see more options for dealing as much damage as a glaive or hand crossbow. well, actually, i'd rather see hand crossbow removed as the best damage option and making it more of a tossup between heavy crossbow and longbow, which *should* be the better ranged damage options. i would also prefer it if heavy crossbows didn't work exactly the same as longbows, while we're at it... a heavy crossbow should be something you use completely differently from the way you would use a longbow)

[Zman]

I have a suspiscion that you're right when using monsters out of the MM, but wrong when using the recommended HP for designing monsters in the DMG.

Remember how everyone was saying that the HP recommendations for CR was ridiculously high? I wonder if that was the intent for the power level of some of these feats. And since the monsters in the MM wasn't designed with the guidelines in the DMG, t ended up being less, which better aligns with your analysis.

Pure speculation on my part, here.

Definitely pure speculation. If they fully understood the powerlevel of the feats before putting them to paper they would have made other not terrible, there would have been consistency. If you are crediting them with that much forethought and nuanced understanding of powerlevels, you can't ignore how they utterly missed the mark putting GWM, Sharpshooter, and PAM in the same section next to Dual Wielder, Savage Attacker, or Charger.

Also, using the suggestions in the DMG for monster creations is a lot of art, nut just number crunching. They even say as much. And honestly, their monster creation rules are rife with problems and not entirely consistent, logical, or usable without massaging the results to where they need to be, I certainly wouldn't go so far to say they were created with a masterful understanding of the three optional feats balance points, I think it is safer to say they just missed the mark on Feat balance.

[DragonSorcererX]

Even with that, I've always been adverse to the idea that the adventure day should stop when the caster runs out of spells.

I use the Epic Heroism Rest Variant (DMG p. 267) + Healing Surges (DMG p. 266) + Spell Points (DMG p. 288), this means two things:
- Everyone has an auto-heal as good as the fighter.
- Casters can go BOOOM all the day.

[Specter]

Of course damage is not the only thing that matters, but when we look at damage as a frame of reference they are broken, which means they are just downright better than their other competing optoins.

Yes, they are situationally awesome... sure making a power attack doesn't do much against a high AC enemy, but against a low AC enemy especially with advantage you can put out levels of damage the system just wasn't built to handle. And GWM is very good with its ability for a bonus action attack on Crit or Kill which comes up every two or three turns or so depending on the battle, sometimes nearly every round. So that half of GWM is nearly worth a feat in and of itself, and then you give it the situationally broken option that pushes it further beyond what a feat should be worth.

Sharpshooter with Archery for a Fighting style is almost always a net damage boost except vs the highest AC enemies and against low AC enemies puts out incredible and reliable damage. The other parts of the feat mean you can feasibly do it from 600' and ignore even the heaviest cover.

Also, don't use the R word on the forums.

The consistent damage part is true, but only with advantage. A level 5 fighter with 18 strenght has a +7 to hit; without advantage it's +2 for +10 damage. Against a commoner, that's still missing on a 7 or lower. Not cool. With advantage it's less of a matter, but then again if you have a constant source of advantage like Reckless Attack it comes at a price, in this case being attacked more easily.

As for the R word, I was referencing Robert Downey Jr.'s character in Tropical Thunder, not anything else.

[mgshamster]

Definitely pure speculation. If they fully understood the powerlevel of the feats before putting them to paper they would have made other not terrible, there would have been consistency. If you are crediting them with that much forethought and nuanced understanding of powerlevels, you can't ignore how they utterly missed the mark putting GWM, Sharpshooter, and PAM in the same section next to Dual Wielder, Savage Attacker, or Charger.

Also, using the suggestions in the DMG for monster creations is a lot of art, nut just number crunching. They even say as much. And honestly, their monster creation rules are rife with problems and not entirely consistent, logical, or usable without massaging the results to where they need to be, I certainly wouldn't go so far to say they were created with a masterful understanding of the three optional feats balance points, I think it is safer to say they just missed the mark on Feat balance.

I think that's a better insight than what I posted. I agree with you.

[Pex]

I find the feats poorly balanced and am not someone who thinks Fighter's cannot have nice things. But, you are condescendingly painting a lot of people with that brush. I see them as not a problem that they can do them, but that the system wasn't built for that level of damage output and three options are vastly superior to every other Fighter options that if they don't pick one of them they are intentionally gimping their character in relation to what they could do. It has nothing to do with nice things, but that some of your things are so much nicer than your other things that you might as not well even consider them.


No problem. You are not one of those players. That doesn't mean those players don't exist as to a reason for the stigma. There's a player like that in my Pathfinder group. He once got upset a high level NPC ranger we fought got 6 arrow shots in a round via whatever features and feats the DM built him with, but he had no problem with my oracle getting 14 holy ice spear attacks from one 5th level spell just because I had cast a spell.

[The Fury]

I can scarcely imagine a reality where such a fact doesn't hold as absolute ! To partake in earnest disclosure I think it is exceptionally generous that any table even allows meat-headed stick wagglers to be present. It's obvious that the "Martial" so-called classes are really just there to weed out the intellectual gentlemen from the unsophisticated chadbros. The option must be mechanically weak so any true connoisseur of true gaming can do the analysis and come to the correct conclusion. A true intellectual knows how to fight with his mind, no bulky and ungainly muscles and that reality should be reflected in the rules.

Is that really the case though? I'm not that familiar with 5e but in just about every other D&D version I've seen, (aside from 4,) by the time a caster is high enough level to be casually slinging high-power spells around, they don't really need to be that clever anymore. Rudimentary strategy is usually enough to get by. At the same level, non-casters are often much weaker mechanically and need to rely more on careful planning, lateral thinking and the ability to improvise.

As for "chadbros," the ones I've met around the gaming table seem to prefer casters as often as not. It really depends on their preferred approach.

[Sigreid]

IMO the real answer to the original question is that humans, particularly of the sort that would log on to the internet to spend hours debating the finer points of a game have a natural inclination to find something to complain about.

[Vogonjeltz]

Is it so wrong for a martial class to scrape the surface of a caster's power level? It's already bad enough that martials have a huge dependency on feats while clerics, druids, and wizards require nothing to be powerful.

Clerics, Druids, and Wizards have the lowest DPR in the game.

The stigma is that Sharpshooter and GWM double the damage output in some cases, and the damage output is (without that) already significantly higher than any caster can hope to achieve.

Spellcasting is inferior when it comes to damage output each round.

As to why SS and GWM are perceived as being so powerful, probably because 10 seems like a very large number to tack on to damage, and it doesn't itself have to be rolled.

[Dalebert]

When I'm playing a caster, I feel like I just need to be there for the utility. When we're needed, we're needed very much. You need healing (to get dangerous martials back into a fight) or you need a way to breath underwater. It feels like martials are where all the glory is.

[jas61292]

As has been mentioned, the OP is clearly begging the question. That said, it also ignores the real issue most people like me have with the feats.

If X is unbalanced and Y is also unbalanced, that doesn't mean X is ok because Y exists. It means both are bad.

Casters may be better than non-casters (which is a premise I personally don't accept, but that will go with for the moment), but that doesn't mean one type of martial should be allowed to outclass all other martials, just because even in outclassing all other martials it doesn't outclass casters. In fact, I find this especially harmful, as instead of just making certain classes better at certain things, it makes it so that you can only run certain classes certain ways or else be massively outclasses.

But yeah, ultimately, the OP is really a strawman. People don't like the feats because of martial vs martial balance. How it effects martial vs caster balance is completely irrelevant to that point.

[Zman]

The consistent damage part is true, but only with advantage. A level 5 fighter with 18 strenght has a +7 to hit; without advantage it's +2 for +10 damage. Against a commoner, that's still missing on a 7 or lower. Not cool. With advantage it's less of a matter, but then again if you have a constant source of advantage like Reckless Attack it comes at a price, in this case being attacked more easily.

As for the R word, I was referencing Robert Downey Jr.'s character in Tropical Thunder, not anything else.

You don't use Power Attack with a high AC enemy so it doesn't hurt damage and GWM can still boost it through Crit or Kill bonus attack.

Against Med AC enemies you use it everytime and on average see a modest increase in damage. Your bonus action attack is your largest source of additional damage.

Against low AC enemies you hit me hard and your damage boost is huge, this noticeably increases your frequency of the kill bonus action attack.

With Advantage the damage increase persists into the higher ACs and becomes absolutely devastating at the lower end of AC often increasing damage output upwards of twofold.

Sure, Reckless has a downside, but it is so efficient at increasing damage output your kill rate increases proportionally which exponentially decreases your damage taken often making Reckless GWM a solid defensive characteristic.

It boils down to the match atonal reality of the situation being clear, GWM provides massive damage boost that the games base assumptions do not support and are not balanced with other damage dealing feats or the ASI cost.


As to the saying, I got it and couldn't care less, but it doesn't make it appropriate and this forum as a whole is fairly sensitive to such things.

[djreynolds]

I don't like the idea that GWM/SS/PAM are considered over powered. To me, they're solidly in the right area of power. If they seem like they're too powerful, it's because they're being compared relative to another fighting style that's less powerful.

The fix, then, is to improve those other fighting styles (and/or feats) to bring them up to these martial options.

This is this issue. Its not GWM and SS. Its just that other fighting styles aren't as powerful.

My fighter has 2 swings at 5th, and the wizard has a scaling cantrip that is always there, no rest needed.

Yes fighters have action surge, and any other class can poach this for 2 levels. And a 3rd gets you 4 battlemaster SD that recharge on a short rest.

I have played without feats when the game first came out and no multiclassing, trust me when I say I had to get imaginative with the champion and thief.

The CR23 Kraken has an 18AC, my 1st level cleric had the same 18AC. With +11 to hit by level 17, you need a 7 or better to hit, or 12 with GWM/SS... isn't this the real problem.

If his AC was 25, like the CR30 Tarrasque I'm not using sharpshooter or GWM. The problem is the low AC of monsters. Up the AC and no one will use SS or GWM.

[SharkForce]

The CR23 Kraken has an 18AC, my 1st level cleric had the same 18AC. With +11 to hit by level 17, you need a 7 or better to hit, or 12 with GWM/SS... isn't this the real problem.

If his AC was 25, like the CR30 Tarrasque I'm not using sharpshooter or GWM. The problem is the low AC of monsters. Up the AC and no one will use SS or GWM.

but you also start putting limits on what you can have where. when a kraken has 18 AC, you don't need to summon CR 15 monsters to be able to have a decent chance of hitting it, you can summon CR 1/4 monsters and they aren't useless. you don't need to worry that someone will charm or dominate your CR 18 monster and now CR 1 monsters no longer pose a threat to the party in anything remotely like reasonable quantities because their pet is pretty much immune to being attacked. suddenly, the option to pick up feats instead of boosting your attack stats becomes a lot less of an option, because your ability to contribute is rather dramatically impacted if you have a lower attribute. there is a much larger difference between needing 16 vs 17 to hit than there is between needing 10 vs 11. (one makes you hit 25% more often, the other is only 10% more often. it gets worse if someone was considering only 16 in their attack attribute too).

so, no, that isn't the real problem. that's deliberate. it is, in fact, not a bug, but a feature. the whole point of AC progression being so flat with such a low cap is that someone with a +7 or even a +3 attack modifier isn't wasting their time by even trying to attack because they'll just miss anyways. that's why monsters have a ton of hit points, because a +3 or +7 attack roll can whittle away at 300 hit points, but it can't whittle away at needing a 20 to hit something.

i mean, suppose we have an imaginary monster called the punching bag. it has 100 HP and 16 AC. and we have two guys fighting it. one has +11 to hit, one has +3 to hit, and each deal 10 damage per hit.

it will take the +11 guy around 12 attacks to put it down, and the +3 to hit will take around 17 attacks, if my math is right (that's also why your damage is theoretically supposed to scale up with levels as well, to help you deal with higher HP targets better than you could at low levels). that's pretty cool; the guy with +3 to hit is actually not totally useless when fighting the punching bag. he's still not as good as the +11 guy (who probably has more attacks per round, and realistically probably does a more damage per attack, and who probably also has a much better chance of surviving long enough to make the number of attacks needed to kill our punching bag if it were something that actually fights back), but his contribution is meaningful. if we make the punching bag AC 25, suddenly our +11 guy needs around 40 attacks (less because of crits, but i'm getting lazy) and our +3 guy needs 200. (again, not exactly because every time he actually hits will be a crit, but this is for illustrative purposes, so whatever). 12 vs 17 is a definite advantage, but it's not 5 times the difference. you'd certainly rather have the +11 guy around, but the +3 guy is actually doing something against AC 16.

and that is why the kraken doesn't have 25 AC. so that should your high level heroes manage to enlist the help of an army of comparatively weaker creatures, this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0192.html) is not their only use.

[djreynolds]

My only fix is just up the AC and players will use this feature less. But if I'm an archer and the AC is 13, I'm using SS every shot.

[Alcibiades]

Isn't the solution to this problem to improve Sword-and-board and two-weapon fighting with tweak/homebrew feats?

[Steampunkette]

GWM and Sharpshooter both increase damage through attack roll penalty.

The difference is that while GWF will allow you to reroll 1s and 2s on Great Weapon Damage, the Archery fighting style grants a +2 attack bonus.

It has ****-all to do with Casters and more to do with the issue of Archers being able to throw out more damage than Great Weapon Fighters, on average. (Assuming a series of other circumstances are present).

[Strill]

The problem is not of martials vs casters. It's a matter of Feat balance. These feats trump everything else in terms of damage, and thus become obligatory.

[djreynolds]

So is this fix to gimp those feats, or improve the other feats and fighting styles? What do you say?

I like shield master, especially since Mr Crawford said you can do the bonus action first.

I like defensive duelist, coupled with shield master and maybe sentinel... pretty good combo. Throw in mage slayer.

[NNescio]

LvL 20 wizard: near almighty and powerful magic...but a critical from a kobold can cripple them.

That's what your Contingency is for. Or Mirror Image. Or Blink. Or illusions, especially with Illusory Reality. Diviners also get to screw around with dice rolls.

Not to mention that, well, the Lvl 20 Wizard can sneeze off 2d4 + 2 piercing damage anyway, since it only deals a maximum of 10 damage.

[Xetheral]

Personally, I think the issue is that, in terms of combat effectiveness, casters have both a lower floor and a higher ceiling than martials. At one extreme, when casters do nothing in combat but deal damage (and don't always even pick the most effective blast for the situation), martials can steal the show even without feats. Since martials can benefit from feats more than casters can, the most powerful of the feats end up getting a lot of flak. At the other extreme is a table where damage doesn't win fights--spells do. At these tables, even a large increase in damage doesn't significantly help martials catch up to casters, and so the feats aren't seen as problematic.

Complicating matters, where casters fall on the effectiveness range is dependent on far more than player skill and build choices. Playstyle can make a huge difference: if casters are selecting their spells for out-of-combat utility, then their in-combat effectiveness will be lower than it might otherwise be. Additionally, how a particular DM designs, paces, and scales encounters can have just as much of an impact on caster effectiveness as player choices. For example, at a table where there are lots of relatively-easy encounters, damage alone may end fights quickly enough that there isn't time in any given encounter for a caster to make a noticeable difference, even a high-op wizard in the hands of an experienced player. By contrast, at a table where the players often have fewer HP and deal less damage than the opposition, cleverly-used casters are all that stand between the party and a TPK.

So, to reply directly to the OP's question, the stigma arises because, at some tables, casters aren't better than martials.

[Klorox]

I love the premise of this thread.

And, as a player who's played BECMI, AD&D 1e and 2e, 3e, 3.5, pathfinder and 5e, I think 5e needs no fixing. It's a balanced system that's incredibly well made.

I don't get everybody's need to throw house rules and fixes into games; they're really not needed.

[Malifice]

It bugs me that I can't keep adventuring because the caster in the party ran out, and I'm outvoted on whether we need to turn back for a long rest.

Blame your DM for setting bring quests with no time pressure or time constraints.

[Sabeta]

A Fighter with GWM and regular acess to Advantage (ie: Flanking rules) will regular hit upwards of 20 damage per swing. If you kill a creature, you get a bonus action swing for just as much damage. By level 17 you can realistically expect to deal over 100 damage per round (especially with magic items), advantage and good rolls permitting. Toss in an Action surge and then remember that most higher tier spells are on a long rest and deal 10d10 at most.

Don't forget that subtlety is not always required. A Monk can cast Pass without Trace on the entire party, pick a lock on a door, and sneak up to some dudes for a surprise round.
Alternatively, the Fighter may brute the wall down while yelling "CHARGE" and get the same result. Magic has myriad uses but you can't have all of them at once. Yes, the Druid's goodberry's are great at making us not want food anymore, but from an RP perspective I would rather let the Outlander Ranger hunt me a bird to feast on.

The classes are certainly not balanced, but I don't mind that they aren't since doing the most damage or the solving the most puzzles aren't quantifiable in Role Playing. If you're content playing the character who knows everything always, then by all means knock yourself out. My only problem really is with the Ranger, whose fluff can be gotten elsewhere while being half as practical.

[Gastronomie]

My opinion is that the characters don't necessarily have to be balanced (equal in power) as long as they do different things.

So like, if there's two melee Battle Masters in the party, one with scores that are equivlant to 12 points in point buy, and another with 20-20-20-20-20-20, that's unfair. But if the one with low scores is a wizard instead, that wizard can actually do quite a lot of stuff to help the party.

Discussion of whether casters are stronger than frontliners is interesting, but I don't think it's a problem that actually gets a hinderance during gameplay.

Also, someone needs to be the sandbag, the tank, the damage sponge. And by locking down the enemy frontline with opprotunity attacks, the warriors do that quite nicely.

[Tanarii]

I love the premise of this thread.

And, as a player who's played BECMI, AD&D 1e and 2e, 3e, 3.5, pathfinder and 5e, I think 5e needs no fixing. It's a balanced system that's incredibly well made.

I don't get everybody's need to throw house rules and fixes into games; they're really not needed.
As someone that has played all of those plus 4e, I prefer to run 5e without multi classing or feats. As I find both tend to throw the game balance out of whack. At least, in the level 4-10 range. Which is where I've always preferred my gameplay for all editions.

It's not as bad as 2e with skills & powers, or 3e with splats. But given the choice, I prefer 5e without those optional rules. And let's be clear here: both multiclassing and feats are optional rules. Commonly used ones, for sure. But deciding not to allow them at all isn't house-ruling. (Allowing them and changing them would be of course.)

[BigONotation]

I find humorous the attempted reframing of the original premise to make it martial vs martial. So what if the Fighter can do a lot of damage on every swing, the full caster changes reality with a spell slot: Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, Polymorph, Summon Elemental... need I go on?

The argument is still why begrudge the maximized non-magical character when the magical character can do so much more? The answer is still "because magic".

[Tanarii]

The argument is still why begrudge the maximized non-magical character when the magical character can do so much more? The answer is still "because magic".The answer is "because they can't". I still maintain its a flawed premise, at least for the IMO most commonly played levels of the game.

[BigONotation]

The answer is "because they can't". I still maintain its a flawed premise, at least for the IMO most commonly played levels of the game.
I feel using the published adventures is a good measuring stick for levels and challenges. If we're talking the most played levels then its 1,2,3,... which don't seem worth considering because although they are the most common levels, they are not the levels PCs spend the most time being.

[DeAnno]

GWM/Sharpshooter: Villains of the forum, remove all skill from play, need to be nerfed to let martials make choices

Bless: Always left alone, completely fine, doesn't cause any issues.

:smallcool:

If people who did these fixes really cared about comparative balance and choice, they would also go through the spellbook and nerf the best 10% of spells. Whenever I look at some list of "fixes" and see a bunch of feat errata and no spell errata, I pretty much stop reading right there.

[MaxWilson]

See, I disagree that they are in the right area of power, if you see what GWM does on a Reckless barbarian it is quite clear they are breaking out of what the system was designed to handle and they most certainly are vastly better than other feat or ASI choices. Considering they cost an ASI/Feat choice, having some that are so much better than others is problematic.

What I did in my fix is to tone all three of them down, while adding other roughly equally powered combat feats for other styles of fighting. Now a character can pick a combat option and if they want to spend a feat on it they can become much better at it, but none of those options are so good they make the rest virtually irrelevant.

See, the problem is that you are spending a Feat/ASI on them and that has to be a rough metric for worth. Right now GWM, Sharpshooter, and PAM are just leagues above other options and make something like Dual wielder look bad when in fact Dualwielder isn't bad at all, it is about right for power and its main failing is TWF itself which needed a second offhand attack at later levels to keep up. By limiting the Power Attack to only a single attack per turn you still have a fun feature that is powerful, but isn't overwhelmingly so and doesn't blow the ceiling off damage.

When you find yourself nerfing multiple things in order to bring them in line with what you think "the system" is designed to handle, plus all the other things that you'll need to nerf in the future as soon as you realize how to use them effectively, it's time to step back and ask yourself, "Is my view of the system correct?"

If you're under the impression that a Medium fight is supposed to be a pretty good fight, I hate to disabuse you but it's not. Do the math on PC CR and you'll find that PCs in a Medium fight outgun the enemy by an order of magnitude. E.g. a basic 5th level Champion clocks in as CR 4 even without spending Action Surge or Second Wind, so a fight between 4 5th level PC fighters and 2 5th level NPC fighters would officially be "Hard" by DMG standards (3300 XP, where Deadly is 4000 XP) even though it's trivial to show by Lanchester's Square Law that the PCs are 4x as powerful as the NPCs. (Half the HP and half the DPR means the NPCs will inflict only one quarter as many casualties as the PCs will before dying. On average, they'll reduce one PC to half health.) If you expect a Hard fight to actually be hard, you misunderstand the system, which might cause you to think that everything is "overpowered" even though it is really the system and not the individual options which are causing everything to be "too easy" relative to your expectations.

There's a lot of powerful feats and combos in 5E. GWM and Sharpshooter are not outliers. If you find a Reckless Barbarian impressive, you have not yet begun to fully explore the system, which means you're not ready to start fixing the system.

I agree that Dual Wielder's problem is fundamentally a problem with TWF--one solution I've considered is to make the off-hand attack not cost your bonus action if you have Dual Wielder--but I don't agree that GWM, Sharpshooter, and PAM are the only feats which are leagues above Dual Wielder because of it. Sharpshooter, Lucky, Mobile, Crossbow Expert, Inspiring Leader are all top-tier feats; GWM, Shield Master, Warcaster, Resilient, Polearm Master, Heavy Armor Master, Healer, Mounted Combatant are just a hair below that if at all. (Arguably others like Defensive Duelist and Mage Slayer belong on that list, but I don't want to hash that out here.) Instead of nerfing all of those feats down to the same level as Athletic (which admittedly still has its uses in making you sort-of immune to missile because you can drop prone at the end of every turn for almost no movement cost) so that nothing is cool, it would be to create more cool things by tweaking the lame ones up to snuff on an as-needed basis. I've done this in a couple of cases (Protection Fighting Style: I allow you to impose "disadvantage" retroactively by forcing a reroll after a hit, instead of when the attack is first made per RAW) and it works well.

[Cazero]

I find humorous the attempted reframing of the original premise to make it martial vs martial. So what if the Fighter can do a lot of damage on every swing, the full caster changes reality with a spell slot: Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, Polymorph, Summon Elemental... need I go on?
The original premise is nonsensical. The stigma towards -5/+10 feats comes from their apparent superiority on alternative martial styles. Wether casters reign supreme or completely suck is irrelevant to that issue.

[Sabeta]

The problem is not of martials vs casters. It's a matter of Feat balance. These feats trump everything else in terms of damage, and thus become obligatory.

Since when has damage been obligatory? Haven't you read guides like the 5e Controller or the GOD Wizard? If your damage outpaces the normal gameplay, the DM need only up the HP on encounters to stabilize balance. A Wizard with Illusory Reality on the other hand can bend encounters to his will, and the DM will be scratching his head for weeks trying to find circumstances that the Wizard can't weasel out of.

My only complaint with the "big" Feats are how powerful they are at level one, so I generally disallow V.Human from my games. It's hard for a Wizard to feel cool while plinking Fire Bolts and the nearby Fighter is cleaving dudes in half with damage rolls above 20.

[Tanarii]

If your damage outpaces the normal gameplay, the DM need only up the HP on encounters to stabilize balance.

Which hurts all party members that haven't take the Feats in question.

[Sabeta]

Which hurts all party members that haven't take the Feats in question.

Not really. If you've got an Encounter that can be cleared in 5 rounds on average, but the GWM manages to reduce that to 2 rounds, then just add HP to bring it back to 5 rounds. If it's a boss, then it's as easy as simply adding some health to him. Any other kind of encounter and you can toss in a few more mooks and/or power some of them up. (Balancing here is harder since you don't want the increased health to give the mooks enough time to kill people while you wait on the fighter, but at the same you don't want so many extra enemies that you get swarmed and die anyway) The idea is to curb some of the GWM's potential by letting his excess damage become overflow and therefore wasted.

[Zman]

When you find yourself nerfing multiple things in order to bring them in line with what you think "the system" is designed to handle, plus all the other things that you'll need to nerf in the future as soon as you realize how to use them effectively, it's time to step back and ask yourself, "Is my view of the system correct?"

If you're under the impression that a Medium fight is supposed to be a pretty good fight, I hate to disabuse you but it's not. Do the math on PC CR and you'll find that PCs in a Medium fight outgun the enemy by an order of magnitude. E.g. a basic 5th level Champion clocks in as CR 4 even without spending Action Surge or Second Wind, so a fight between 4 5th level PC fighters and 2 5th level NPC fighters would officially be "Hard" by DMG standards (3300 XP, where Deadly is 4000 XP) even though it's trivial to show by Lanchester's Square Law that the PCs are 4x as powerful as the NPCs. (Half the HP and half the DPR means the NPCs will inflict only one quarter as many casualties as the PCs will before dying. On average, they'll reduce one PC to half health.) If you expect a Hard fight to actually be hard, you misunderstand the system, which might cause you to think that everything is "overpowered" even though it is really the system and not the individual options which are causing everything to be "too easy" relative to your expectations.

There's a lot of powerful feats and combos in 5E. GWM and Sharpshooter are not outliers. If you find a Reckless Barbarian impressive, you have not yet begun to fully explore the system, which means you're not ready to start fixing the system.

I agree that Dual Wielder's problem is fundamentally a problem with TWF--one solution I've considered is to make the off-hand attack not cost your bonus action if you have Dual Wielder--but I don't agree that GWM, Sharpshooter, and PAM are the only feats which are leagues above Dual Wielder because of it. Sharpshooter, Lucky, Mobile, Crossbow Expert, Inspiring Leader are all top-tier feats; GWM, Shield Master, Warcaster, Resilient, Polearm Master, Heavy Armor Master, Healer, Mounted Combatant are just a hair below that if at all. (Arguably others like Defensive Duelist and Mage Slayer belong on that list, but I don't want to hash that out here.) Instead of nerfing all of those feats down to the same level as Athletic (which admittedly still has its uses in making you sort-of immune to missile because you can drop prone at the end of every turn for almost no movement cost) so that nothing is cool, it would be to create more cool things by tweaking the lame ones up to snuff on an as-needed basis. I've done this in a couple of cases (Protection Fighting Style: I allow you to impose "disadvantage" retroactively by forcing a reroll after a hit, instead of when the attack is first made per RAW) and it works well.


Or you can stop insulting my understanding and mastery of the system, take a look at the sphere of martial combat and the power of the relative feats and their price, i.e. an ASI and realize they are too good for their price and limit the number of effective options. Relative small tweaks like I've used fix them with minimal effort. I also fixed Lucky. Mobile is great but fairly easy to replicate with certain classes. Crossbow expert isn't as powerful as you say when you enforce the free hand loading ruling per the Devs.

You opened up the scope of discussion too much, I say look at martial options and feats and the power of each choice and it is very easy to see that there is a large discrepancy.

I find it very ironic you accuse me of a lack of system mastery and insult my view of the system because I tweak the system, yet in the next breath talk about your Houserules. I won't even get into an analysis of them. How about you stop bustling me and stick to a constructive argument, I'll settle for an analysis of combat options and feats among martial classes and the comparative balance of them, then you can show me GWM, PAM, and Sharpshooter aren't overpowered in their respective martial sphere. I look forward to it but never expect to see one.

If you note early in the thread I took the view the game has some issues, and fixing common broken martial feats is easy and enhances the game, but fixing Casters and their power is altogether vastly harder and more complicated.

[MaxWilson]

Or you can stop insulting my understanding... I find it very ironic you accuse me of a lack of system mastery and insult my view of the system

I didn't mean to insult you personally, or at all. My interest here on this forum is fostering insight, not winning status contests. If I disrespected you as thoroughly as you seem to imply, you'd see no replies at all from me--I set idiots to Ignore instead of replying to them.


because I tweak the system, yet in the next breath talk about your Houserules. I won't even get into an analysis of them. How about you stop bustling me and stick to a constructive argument, I'll settle for an analysis of combat options and feats among martial classes and the comparative balance of them, then you can show me GWM, PAM, and Sharpshooter aren't overpowered in their respective martial sphere. I look forward to it but never expect to see one.

Out of curiosity, what are the parameters and the stakes? It sounds like you're asking to be shown that GWM/PAM/Sharpshooter aren't outliers--do I get to choose the parameters and evaluation metrics? Are you choosing them? If so, could you state them up front? Could you justify *why* your parameters are better than anyone else's?

[Zman]

I didn't mean to insult you personally, or at all. My interest here on this forum is fostering insight, not winning status contests. If I disrespected you as thoroughly as you seem to imply, you'd see no replies at all from me--I set idiots to Ignore instead of replying to them.



Out of curiosity, what are the parameters and the stakes? It sounds like you're asking to be shown that GWM/PAM/Sharpshooter aren't outliers--do I get to choose the parameters and evaluation metrics? Are you choosing them? If so, could you state them up front? Could you justify *why* your parameters are better than anyone else's?


Ahh, so telling someone that doesn't agree with you that they should reevaluate their views of system balance and that their experience and system mastery is insufficient is lacking wasn't meant to be insulting. Got it, must have been some nuance there I missed. At least I'm not an idiot and worth your time, I'm touched.

I asked for an analysis of those feats, and as to methodology and parameters that is up to you. As the peer reviewer its my job to point out flaws in your argument, make counter arguments, and examine your methodology for bias. We know or can establish a couple of things, the price of a Feat which is established as one ASI, and how much at will and spike damage the base system was designed around, essentially at will combat options and spell damages in a featless no Multiclass game. How about a cost/benefit analysis of GWM, PAM, and Shapshooter vs Dual Wielder and a Savage Attacker vs an ASI.

Balancing or at least examining at will damage and combat options is fairly easy which is one reason GWM, PAM, and Sharpshooter receive so much criticism, but other aspects of the game such as spells etc become much harder to model and gauge balance and power which is why they get more of a pass, it's subjective balance vs objective balance.

[DeAnno]

Balancing or at least examining at will damage and combat options is fairly easy which is one reason GWM, PAM, and Sharpshooter receive so much criticism, but other aspects of the game such as spells etc become much harder to model and gauge balance and power which is why they get more of a pass, it's subjective balance vs objective balance.

This is an entirely toxic mentality though! If you're going to nerf all the best martial options, and not nerf all the best spell options, of course you're going to change the balance of the game. I don't see why anyone wouldn't be heavily biased away from martials (and DPR in general) in a game where all the strong DPR was nerfed and yet all the strong buffing/control/debuffing was left untouched.

If you don't have the fortitude and wherewithal to fix the whole thing, then touching it at all is just going to break it in a different way.

[ad_hoc]

This is an entirely toxic mentality though! If you're going to nerf all the best martial options, and not nerf all the best spell options, of course you're going to change the balance of the game. I don't see why anyone wouldn't be heavily biased away from martials (and DPR in general) in a game where all the strong DPR was nerfed and yet all the strong buffing/control/debuffing was left untouched.

If you don't have the fortitude and wherewithal to fix the whole thing, then touching it at all is just going to break it in a different way.

Not adding feats to the game is not a nerf. It is just using the rules as is.

The spells are the base rules.

[Tanarii]

Not adding feats to the game is not a nerf. It is just using the rules as is.

The spells are the base rules.This is a point many people seem to miss.

The game is somewhat well balanced without Feats and Multi-classing. Some of those Feats and Multi-class combinations are rather poorly balanced against the cost (respectively 1 ASI, or continuing single class). In both directions, under or over.

That's not to say that all spells are perfectly balanced or flawlessly written either. But the rules are designed to play without feats and without multiclassing, with them provided as an additional option. Spells are built in.

[DeAnno]

I find that calling the featless game fine is a reasonable claim, as long as you don't contend there are 12 classes in it. Fighters and Rogues clearly don't belong in such a game.

I wouldn't agree with the claim myself, but I can see where it's coming from with regards to the other 10 classes.

[mgshamster]

Ahh, so telling someone that doesn't agree with you that they should reevaluate their views of system balance and that their experience and system mastery is insufficient is lacking wasn't meant to be insulting. Got it, must have been some nuance there I missed. At least I'm not an idiot and worth your time, I'm touched.

I asked for an analysis of those feats, and as to methodology and parameters that is up to you. As the peer reviewer its my job to point out flaws in your argument, make counter arguments, and examine your methodology for bias.

When people talk of peer reviews, they're usually talking about professional publications in the scientific (and the rest of the stem) fields.

In those fields, people are expected to question their own biased and understanding all the time. It isn't insulting, it's just a fact of the fields. This is especially the case when opinions differ - one of the first things we do is question our own and other's understandings to see where the difference lies and what led to the different opinions.

If we're going to try to bring in some aspects of the peer review process here, one thing we definitely should not remove is the questioning of our own understanding and the questioning of our own biases.

[IShouldntBehere]

I find that calling the featless game fine is a reasonable claim, as long as you don't contend there are 12 classes in it. Fighters and Rogues clearly don't belong in such a game.

I wouldn't agree with the claim myself, but I can see where it's coming from with regards to the other 10 classes.

I'd like to ask that before reading this post, that you please sit down. If you're on your mobile device on the metro or something wait for a seat to open up, if you're walking down the street find a stoop. Just sit down, I don't want the sheer and utter shock of this post to cause injury to anyone. Once you're sure that if you read this and faint or just suddenly lose your balance from shock you're not going to get a nasty bump on the noggin. Safety first, friend.
WARNING: SHOCKING & POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE CONTENT TO FOLLOW.
Do not read if you have a poor constitution, have a history of heart disease, high blood pressure, if you're pregnant, nursing or considering becoming pregnant.

My group had a featless game. The group had a Rogue and Fighter. It worked fine, everyone had fun. Action Surge still made for plenty of spolight moments, sneak attack was still the groups most reliable damage source. The Fighter & The Rogue even worked together to leverage commanding strike. Seriously it happened, everyone had fun and nobody felt useless. It worked.

[mgshamster]

Woah. Thanks for the warning. I needed it.

[Strill]

Since when has damage been obligatory? Haven't you read guides like the 5e Controller or the GOD Wizard? If your damage outpaces the normal gameplay, the DM need only up the HP on encounters to stabilize balance. A Wizard with Illusory Reality on the other hand can bend encounters to his will, and the DM will be scratching his head for weeks trying to find circumstances that the Wizard can't weasel out of.

My only complaint with the "big" Feats are how powerful they are at level one, so I generally disallow V.Human from my games. It's hard for a Wizard to feel cool while plinking Fire Bolts and the nearby Fighter is cleaving dudes in half with damage rolls above 20.
If you're considering Greatweapon Master for a Wizard, you're doing it wrong. Yes, damage is obligatory for martial classes. What a God Wizard does is completely irrelevant to that.


Not really. If you've got an Encounter that can be cleared in 5 rounds on average, but the GWM manages to reduce that to 2 rounds, then just add HP to bring it back to 5 rounds. If it's a boss, then it's as easy as simply adding some health to him. Any other kind of encounter and you can toss in a few more mooks and/or power some of them up. (Balancing here is harder since you don't want the increased health to give the mooks enough time to kill people while you wait on the fighter, but at the same you don't want so many extra enemies that you get swarmed and die anyway) The idea is to curb some of the GWM's potential by letting his excess damage become overflow and therefore wasted.

You're forgetting that not only do the players have to be balanced with their opponents, but they must also be balanced with one another. If one player is twice as strong as the others, they'll feel left out and unimportant. Your solution means that in order to contribute, every martial character must take GWM or be left in the dust.

[DeAnno]

WARNING: SHOCKING & POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE CONTENT TO FOLLOW.

First, just out of curiosity, I'd wonder if you were even level 6 yet, which is the point at which Fighters begin to get actual bonus ASIs as class features. Really though, since the first two ASIs are usually just fine as actual ASIs, the serious damage doesn't start to kick in until level 8, at which point you need to spend your ASI on Con or Dex or something.

The larger point though, is that banning feats from a Fighter is a rather similar prospect to banning say, the best 1/3 and worst 1/3 of the core spellbook from a full caster. I'm sure such a caster could still be played, and in some circumstances would do just fine and have a great adventure, but people don't go around seriously advocating it as a reasonable idea. Not only because of power concerns, but because those are the main important choices you get to make on such a character, and cutting them that drastically pretty much reduces you to cookie cutter Race/Class/Subclass levels of customization.

[Gastronomie]

Well, unless you're power gaming, I actually suppose it can work.

Casters and Warriors do completely different jobs. Just 'cause warriors lose some options, doesn't mean that the Casters ever step on their feet.

[georgie_leech]

First, just out of curiosity, I'd wonder if you were even level 6 yet, which is the point at which Fighters begin to get actual bonus ASIs as class features. Really though, since the first two ASIs are usually just fine as actual ASIs, the serious damage doesn't start to kick in until level 8, at which point you need to spend your ASI on Con or Dex or something.

The larger point though, is that banning feats from a Fighter is a rather similar prospect to banning say, the best 1/3 and worst 1/3 of the core spellbook from a full caster. I'm sure such a caster could still be played, and in some circumstances would do just fine and have a great adventure, but people don't go around seriously advocating it as a reasonable idea. Not only because of power concerns, but because those are the main important choices you get to make on such a character, and cutting them that drastically pretty much reduces you to cookie cutter Race/Class/Subclass levels of customization.

The thing is, there are multiple avenues to being an effective caster, and there aren't so many 'take this ASAP' spells that you can't get the most powerful and also have room for more. With Martials looking to get damage though, those three feats are so good that they do just what you're concerned about in the second paragraph. They're the cookie cutter feats you take reducing Martials to Race/Class/Subclass as your only real choices. That's the complaint I see more often, at least.

[IShouldntBehere]

First, just out of curiosity, I'd wonder if you were even level 6 yet, which is the point at which Fighters begin to get actual bonus ASIs as class features. Really though, since the first two ASIs are usually just fine as actual ASIs, the serious damage doesn't start to kick in until level 8, at which point you need to spend your ASI on Con or Dex or something.

The larger point though, is that banning feats from a Fighter is a rather similar prospect to banning say, the best 1/3 and worst 1/3 of the core spellbook from a full caster. I'm sure such a caster could still be played, and in some circumstances would do just fine and have a great adventure, but people don't go around seriously advocating it as a reasonable idea. Not only because of power concerns, but because those are the main important choices you get to make on such a character, and cutting them that drastically pretty much reduces you to cookie cutter Race/Class/Subclass levels of customization.

Yes. Not that it matters. I think you'll find tons of other examples that echo my sentiments. Seriously every time this topic comes up multiple people have stated they've played perfectly healthy non-feat games. The game works out of the box, maybe not perfectly but it is functional for many if not most groups that play with the just the basic rules.

Secondly, not using the feat rules and "Banning 1/3rd of spells" are't at all similar. Feats are an optional rule specifically not enabled as part of the base game. The book goes out of it's way to call that your DM has to make an exception to the normal rules in order to enable feats. Feats aren't something "on by default" that you ban. Spells are.

[DeAnno]

Feats aren't something "on by default" that you ban. Spells are.


It's Fighters Can't Have Nice Things thinking, sometimes referred to Guy At The Gym.

I guess that second quote really hits at the heart of what's bothering me so much about this issue. 5e has basically taken Fighters Can't Have Nice Things and baked it into the game core, by making something that is a critical feature collection for mundanes (and an afterthought for Wizards) an optional rule. I suppose I can't really argue with that being how it is in 5e, but I definitely don't think that's right.

If you get into a balance argument about Bless, the side looking to nerf it can't just bring up that it's an optional rule to begin with and you should be happy you're getting any first level spells at all.

[jas61292]

I find humorous the attempted reframing of the original premise to make it martial vs martial. So what if the Fighter can do a lot of damage on every swing, the full caster changes reality with a spell slot: Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, Polymorph, Summon Elemental... need I go on?

And that is exactly why people like you miss the point.

The original question is "Why is there such a stigma towards sharpshooter and GWM when casters are better?"

And the answer is "because it doesn't matter how casters compare when the internal balance of martials is completely messed up."

Oh, and that's ignoring all the people who also would include "and I reject your premise that casters are better."

Honestly, the whole idea of trying to say the feats are OK because casters are better is a complete strawman argument, since it is attacking a point (caster vs martial balance) that is not actually the assertion being made.

[MaxWilson]

I asked for an analysis of those feats, and as to methodology and parameters that is up to you. As the peer reviewer its my job to point out flaws in your argument, make counter arguments, and examine your methodology for bias. We know or can establish a couple of things, the price of a Feat which is established as one ASI, and how much at will and spike damage the base system was designed around, essentially at will combat options and spell damages in a featless no Multiclass game. How about a cost/benefit analysis of GWM, PAM, and Shapshooter vs Dual Wielder and a Savage Attacker vs an ASI.

Balancing or at least examining at will damage and combat options is fairly easy which is one reason GWM, PAM, and Sharpshooter receive so much criticism, but other aspects of the game such as spells etc become much harder to model and gauge balance and power which is why they get more of a pass, it's subjective balance vs objective balance.

You get to specify the metrics you're interested in, not the experiment. Comparing GWM/PAM/Sharpshooter to Dual Wielder and Savage Attacker is good for establishing that GWM/PAM/Sharpshooter isn't trash, but it's the wrong way to prove that they're outliers, because you're neglecting all of the actually good feats like Mobile/Lucky/Warcaster/Crossbow Expert/ad nauseum.

It sounds like you're interested in purely a DPR comparison. If so, do I get to choose how monsters are picked (I'd probably pick a random distribution of Kobold.com-generated encounters because it's reasonably objective) or do you want some other method? Can you justify why the DPR comparison is the right metric to use? Boosting Dex via ASI increases your DPR, but it also increases your Stealth, your chances of winning initiative, your chance to escape grapples, and potentially your AC. Why is measuring DPR alone a better metric than anything else, including whatever metric the 5E designers used to create 5E?

Don't say "because that's easiest," since you're not even the one who's going to have to do the hard work of running the experiment.

If there are specific parameters you're interested in for the experiment, state them now and up-front. I'm peer reviewing your assumptions, right now. For example: DPR isn't even a good measure of combat power. A pure DPR comparison will tell you that greatswords are overpowered and shields are underpowered, because shields without Shield Master contribute zip to your DPR even though they contribute significantly to your overall combat ability. Combat loss ratios would be a better analytical metric; but the metric I'd really like to use would be a test-to-destruction. E.g. let's see whether using [Feat X] increases or decreases the number of randomly-generated kobold.com encounters which you can survive before dying (with a short rest between every pair of encounters), on average, relative to a pure ASI.

Would you sign off on that as a reasonable metric, instead of DPR?

[georgie_leech]

Those seem like reasonable parameters for the most part. If I might make a suggestion though, some degree of healing between encounters seems reasonable. Not to full or anything, but it seems an unusual party that completely lack means of restoring hp except by HD on short rests.

[DeAnno]

Would you sign off on that as a reasonable metric, instead of DPR?

It's a little bit too bad that the boosted skills of the coveted Dex ASI won't come much into play, honestly. Stealth is a pretty good skill, and Dex gets used with Thieves' Tools a lot too.

Another interesting thing to remember about GWM/Sharpshooter, especially the former, is that they are weaker when you don't know the AC of the enemy you are fighting, since you can't make (as) rational decisions about whether to use them or not (this is a stronger effect with GWM, since with Sharpshooter under reasonable conditions you almost always want to use it, unless you also know the remaining hp of your target or something like that.)

Are you going to stress test probabalistically or with actual rolling? Actual rolling makes a lot of things computationally easier but to amass enough data to smooth out the noise you would probably need a computer program to run the battles. If you do plan to do things by mean DPR/Damage taken per round instead of a computer simulation, don't forget the effect of the Dex ASI's increased initiative on the relative chance to go first.

[IShouldntBehere]

I guess that second quote really hits at the heart of what's bothering me so much about this issue. 5e has basically taken Fighters Can't Have Nice Things and baked it into the game core, by making something that is a critical feature collection for mundanes (and an afterthought for Wizards) an optional rule. I suppose I can't really argue with that being how it is in 5e, but I definitely don't think that's right.

If you get into a balance argument about Bless, the side looking to nerf it can't just bring up that it's an optional rule to begin with and you should be happy you're getting any first level spells at all.

Except, they're not critical. The fact there are a substantial number of people playing and enjoying the game with the whole suit of classes in featless games are proof positive the feats are non-critical features. If they were critical it would be impossible for anyone to have a functional game without them, let alone any substantial number of folks.

That aside feats don't anything to elevate characters above "A Guy A Gym" any more than base than base features do. Action Surge and Cunning Action do far more to stretch the edges of human capability than Great Weapon Master does, at the very least. With the exception to the chainguncrossbows case few objections to Feats would have space to be based on a preference for more grounded realism.

Heck that's even ignoring the fact the feats are just terribly designed. The choice to specialize in a weapon type is what the Fighting Style feature does. These kinds of thing just move the bar for "being good at a greatsword" and the like, and create a potential system mastery trap by having a mathematically-solvable best option. If one really does need these features in the game they'd be far better served as either being baked baseline into the respective fighting styles or as an "Improved Fighting Style" class feature on the chart as an addition to the current fighting classes. A mechanic like feats should be for incomparables. They shouldn't be for pure damage formula modifications that ask the user to calculate an inflection point to get any real use.

Though tbh, the Fighting Styles are rather guilty of this too. That's probably a topic for another thread though.

[Cybren]

It's a little bit too bad that the boosted skills of the coveted Dex ASI won't come much into play, honestly. Stealth is a pretty good skill, and Dex gets used with Thieves' Tools a lot
"it's too bad the boosted skills won't come into play" before naming one of the best skills in the game is kind of odd. It also ignores dexterity ability checks like initiative that aren't tied to any particular skill. +2 dex is a pretty powerful ASI, even if it isn't as powerful as some feats.

[Zman]

You get to specify the metrics you're interested in, not the experiment. Comparing GWM/PAM/Sharpshooter to Dual Wielder and Savage Attacker is good for establishing that GWM/PAM/Sharpshooter isn't trash, but it's the wrong way to prove that they're outliers, because you're neglecting all of the actually good feats like Mobile/Lucky/Warcaster/Crossbow Expert/ad nauseum.

It sounds like you're interested in purely a DPR comparison. If so, do I get to choose how monsters are picked (I'd probably pick a random distribution of Kobold.com-generated encounters because it's reasonably objective) or do you want some other method? Can you justify why the DPR comparison is the right metric to use? Boosting Dex via ASI increases your DPR, but it also increases your Stealth, your chances of winning initiative, your chance to escape grapples, and potentially your AC. Why is measuring DPR alone a better metric than anything else, including whatever metric the 5E designers used to create 5E?

Don't say "because that's easiest," since you're not even the one who's going to have to do the hard work of running the experiment.

If there are specific parameters you're interested in for the experiment, state them now and up-front. I'm peer reviewing your assumptions, right now. For example: DPR isn't even a good measure of combat power. A pure DPR comparison will tell you that greatswords are overpowered and shields are underpowered, because shields without Shield Master contribute zip to your DPR even though they contribute significantly to your overall combat ability. Combat loss ratios would be a better analytical metric; but the metric I'd really like to use would be a test-to-destruction. E.g. let's see whether using [Feat X] increases or decreases the number of randomly-generated kobold.com encounters which you can survive before dying (with a short rest between every pair of encounters), on average, relative to a pure ASI.

Would you sign off on that as a reasonable metric, instead of DPR?

I'm not saying a pure DPR examination is critical, but I pointed out performed high end feat to compare against percieved low end feats, to compare against the actual cost of taking those feats i.e. an ASI. As the feats in question are applicable almost solely to damage and combat it narrrows the focus of the examination. As all can be used or must be used with Strength it is a reasonable ASI to use for comparison. Also, as they are almost purely combat damage feats we have to look at how much they push the damage ceiling of the game. I've never said DPR is the most important balancing factor or the only one, but when Feats are almost solely relevant to damage they can be balanced around that metric. If DPR was the only things that mattered Shields would be worthless, but that isn't the truth. In one of the other threads I actually work off the assumption the defensive benefits of a shield are worth the damage increase to a greatsword, turn it into a coefficient I can use to gauge the worth of fighting style like Duelingvs Defense on S&B or GWF vs Defense on a GW fighter. I've also talked at length around here as offense as a defense characteristic and even the flip of defense as an offensive characteristic.

I never said there aren't other powerful feats that could be too good either, but what I am saying as they are more difficult to objectively examine. Even calculating the value of Mobile is very difficult and requires many assumptions and ultimately results in a subject oven and likely biased analysis. You seem to want to compare GWM, PAM, and sharpshooter vs other non combat feats and I believe that is incredibly difficult and misses the point of comparing it to relevant feats and ASI in the same sphere of relevance. You don't compare GWM, PAM, and Sharpshooter to other feats, you first compare them to other damage feats, ASIs, and to the damage assumptions of the base game. That is how you determine their balance. Once balanced you compare other no combat fests to ASI, non combat feats, etc for a more subjective artful balancing.

I think your proposed experiment could have merit, but it would need to a computer simulation ran ad nauseum. The program would have to be incredibly complex, we'd need to establish all the potential variables and account for them, and ultimately the results would r effect whatever biases were hard coded into our tool of examination. My proposed method is the easiest, requires the least amount of assumptions, and is kept mainly in the scope of one aspect of the game where all things that are being examined are part of. GWM is a combat feat, compare it to combat options and against the actual cost paid, ASIs. We don't need to bring other feats into it to establish the balance of those combat feats.

You are welcome to your experiment, but it is only as good as the underlying methodology or program and would require numerous simulations to establish usable data. I mean, we'd need some kind of objective decision making engine that could handle complex situation and ideally make optimal decisions. Given how hard it wa to make a program for chess that beats the best human players I'm thinking such a program for this experiment isn't feasible.

[Zalabim]

The same breakdown existed in EverQuest, and it worked fairly well there.

Casters were primarily there to buff, heal, and deal with contingencies like adds. This is comparable to having an indefinite number of encounters per day.

However, casters in EQ couldn't do half of what they can do in D&D. And they were still considered to be somewhat OP for their overall greater capabilities.

And then there were Magicians, which couldn't do half of what other casters could do in EQ and were still considered to be somewhat OP (for dealing too much damage).


As I said, for me the issue is that casters have more features. If you consider each spell as a feature, as in something you can do, it's clear that casters have far more features. And unless you have a very high number of encounters per day, the casters won't run out of their features, either.

I've seen this in a Venn Euler diagram. Drilling down for a narrow contrast, the EK gets 11 spell slots, with 13 spells known, and 3 cantrips along with 5 other features. The Champion just gets 5 features. Long story short, if there's a problem to be found with all casters or any casters, it's more likely in the quality of their features. Having more moving parts in your class isn't automatically good.


in fact Dualwielder isn't bad at all, it is about right for power and its main failing is TWF itself which needed a second offhand attack at later levels to keep up.

Dual Wielder is bad. It is clearly worse for its character archetypes than +2 Dexterity, but you might still take it because you can't use +2 Dexterity. It is "Tough" bad. It's hard to justify ever taking the feat over the ASI, though not impossible. That is its main failing. It isn't "Charger" bad. Adding another attack to TWF does nothing to change this comparison. I think one of the situations where Dual Wielder actually looks a little bit better is when you don't even have the fighting style.


We know or can establish a couple of things, the price of a Feat which is established as one ASI, and how much at will and spike damage the base system was designed around, essentially at will combat options and spell damages in a featless no Multiclass game.

I'm not sure bolded is true, and I'm certain that some deviation from the baseline has to be allowable. The system is not that fragile. We roll for damage, after all. Anyway, a level 20 Assassin Rogue sneaks up on an enemy, surprises them, wins initiative, and throws two daggers. This does 170 damage, Con for half, and you can reclaim the daggers. I'm more than 95% certain at least one dagger will hit. Average damage is 167.44 * save fail% + 83.72 * save pass%. If that's 45/55, then the average is 121.394. It uses no resources, but cannot be done more than once per encounter, nor probably in every encounter.

A red dragon sorcerer quickens meteor swarm and twins firebolt. This does 145, Dex for half, to effectively everything and +11 to hit for 27 to two targets. In total, that's 344 damage just counting two unlucky souls. Average damage, to two targets, assuming 50/50 saves and 19 AC, is 108.75+18.65=127.4 each, or 254.8 damage total. That's definitely once per day.

A fighter, with GWM and a greatsword and GWF, uses action surge for 8 attacks, a bonus attack, and gets to make an opportunity attack as well for good measure. Granting perfect accuracy and spending 6 superiority dice for damage, that's 272.33~ damage. Assuming the same AC as the rogue, it's upwards of 126.75 damage.

All three are unrealistic and shallow comparisons, but they are possible.


If you're considering Greatweapon Master for a Wizard, you're doing it wrong. Yes, damage is obligatory for martial classes. What a God Wizard does is completely irrelevant to that.

You're forgetting that not only do the players have to be balanced with their opponents, but they must also be balanced with one another. If one player is twice as strong as the others, they'll feel left out and unimportant. Your solution means that in order to contribute, every martial character must take GWM or be left in the dust.

I remember a poster on this forum talking about running a high seas/pirate campaign. They were worried about the rules for grappling and shoving making it too easy to dispose of enemies into the ocean. There are considerations in melee combat other than dealing damage.


First, just out of curiosity, I'd wonder if you were even level 6 yet, which is the point at which Fighters begin to get actual bonus ASIs as class features. Really though, since the first two ASIs are usually just fine as actual ASIs, the serious damage doesn't start to kick in until level 8, at which point you need to spend your ASI on Con or Dex or something.

A Battle Master could use Str, Con, and Cha and have a good rally and social skills. An EK could take good Dex, Con, and Int and be an arcane archer. A Champion could take good Str, Dex, and Con and be a "perfect all-rounder" or switch hitter. I do not believe the extra ASI would be going to waste without feats.


but the metric I'd really like to use would be a test-to-destruction. E.g. let's see whether using [Feat X] increases or decreases the number of randomly-generated kobold.com encounters which you can survive before dying (with a short rest between every pair of encounters), on average, relative to a pure ASI.

Would you sign off on that as a reasonable metric, instead of DPR?

I'd be interested in a test-to-destruction as well. Ideally there's some way to randomize the way the encounters are encountered, like a random scenario or at least random map, so the battlefield is dynamic with different obstacles and encounter ranges. There might be something appropriate in the DMG or a good random generator online. Of course, all similar tests use the same gauntlet. It's just if we're going to collect a lot of data, it should be good data to collect. Then we can worry about assigning value judgments to any information revealed afterwards.

[Edit for the ninja:] When you take a feat that only effects combat in a single style instead of an ASI that has effects in all areas of the game including combat, you're trading non-combat ability for combat ability. Any combat feat that has equal combat ability to its ASI equivalent is too weak. It is impossible to tell if a combat feat that gives you more combat ability than the ASI is too strong without somehow considering the non-combat value of the alternative.

[Zman]

Dual Wielder is bad. It is clearly worse for its character archetypes than +2 Dexterity, but you might still take it because you can't use +2 Dexterity. It is "Tough" bad. It's hard to justify ever taking the feat over the ASI, though not impossible. That is its main failing. It isn't "Charger" bad. Adding another attack to TWF does nothing to change this comparison. I think one of the situations where Dual Wielder actually looks a little bit better is when you don't even have the fighting style.



I'm not sure bolded is true, and I'm certain that some deviation from the baseline has to be allowable. The system is not that fragile. We roll for damage, after all. Anyway, a level 20 Assassin Rogue sneaks up on an enemy, surprises them, wins initiative, and throws two daggers. This does 170 damage, Con for half, and you can reclaim the daggers. I'm more than 95% certain at least one dagger will hit. Average damage is 167.44 * save fail% + 83.72 * save pass%. If that's 45/55, then the average is 121.394. It uses no resources, but cannot be done more than once per encounter, nor probably in every encounter.

A red dragon sorcerer quickens meteor swarm and twins firebolt. This does 145, Dex for half, to effectively everything and +11 to hit for 27 to two targets. In total, that's 344 damage just counting two unlucky souls. Average damage, to two targets, assuming 50/50 saves and 19 AC, is 108.75+18.65=127.4 each, or 254.8 damage total. That's definitely once per day.

A fighter, with GWM and a greatsword and GWF, uses action surge for 8 attacks, a bonus attack, and gets to make an opportunity attack as well for good measure. Granting perfect accuracy and spending 6 superiority dice for damage, that's 272.33~ damage. Assuming the same AC as the rogue, it's upwards of 126.75 damage.

All three are unrealistic and shallow comparisons, but they are possible.

[Edit for the ninja:] When you take a feat that only effects combat in a single style instead of an ASI that has effects in all areas of the game including combat, you're trading non-combat ability for combat ability. Any combat feat that has equal combat ability to its ASI equivalent is too weak. It is impossible to tell if a combat feat that gives you more combat ability than the ASI is too strong without somehow considering the non-combat value of the alternative.

Dual Wielder grants +1 AC which is about half a Feat, the +1 damage per attack shouldn't keep up damage wise with with combat feats with no AC bonus. With more attacks it gets better. IMO it isn't terribly far off where balance for a combat style feat should be.


About the other stuff, you listed above or Spike damage situations, not any kind of sustained damage situation. The situations listed aren't really relevant or of much use. Rogue uses no resources, except expensive poison and the situation requires set up and how did it throw two daggers? The Sorcerer burnt a 9th level spell and is only doing that trick once a day. The fighter Being able to effectively do that two turns in a row sans superiority dice kind of shows a problem with GWM, better to use trip for advantage then GWM with the next 8 attacks.

Man, I'm having this argument from my phone in two simultaneous threads, haha. Yes, there is more to an ASI than just combat, true. But we can compare combat feats against each other, i.e. savage Attacks vs GWM. Using a STR ASI isn't that problematic as the +1 to Hit and +1 Damage is the main part of the ASI, +1 Athketics, +1 Str Save, and a better carrying capacity isn't that massive. You are absolutely right when you say a combat feat that is only as good as the combat portions of the ASI it is weak. This is how you compare Dual Wielder to Dex, both grant +1 AC, both grant +1 to hit, but without TWF fighting style only Dual Wielder grants +1 damage to offhand attacks, well more than +1 as crits give it about a 7.7% boost. +2 Dex gets other skill, Save, and Init bonuses, but a little leeway may be needed as Dex is a superior stat. This likely tells us Dual Wielder is close and likely a bit underpowered, but isn't so far outside what we are shooting for, the bigger problem is two weapons failings as a style and TWF for fighters making it worse.

[Sabeta]

You're forgetting that not only do the players have to be balanced with their opponents, but they must also be balanced with one another. If one player is twice as strong as the others, they'll feel left out and unimportant. Your solution means that in order to contribute, every martial character must take GWM or be left in the dust.

I'd like to ask that before reading this post, that you please sit down. If you're on your mobile device on the metro or something wait for a seat to open up, if you're walking down the street find a stop. Just sit down, I don't want the sheer and utter shock of this post to cause injury to anyone. Once you're sure that if you read this and faint or just suddenly lose your balance from shock you're not going to get a nasty bump on the noggin. Safety first, friend.
WARNING: SHOCKING & POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE CONTENT TO FOLLOW.
Do not read if you have a poor constitution, have a history of heart disease, high blood pressure, if you're pregnant, nursing or considering becoming pregnant.

I had a group with PAM/GWM, and everyone enjoyed themselves . everyone was more happy playing out their concepts then doing max DPR. The player who did all of the damage balanced the group out because we had a barbarian who did none. (Tavern brawler who refused to use weapons). The Sorcerer had plenty of chances to feel important via control spells and buffs, the barbarian was happy grappling everything he could, and the rogue was content sneaking and stabbing. All the while the fighter had nearly double the DPR of anyone else, and was happy with his damage.

[Rysto]

That shtick is super obnoxious. Would you kindly drop it? And at the same time, stop implying that those of us who value balance in our game are having BadWrongFun? We get it, your group enjoyed your game. Other groups would prefer a game with better balance. Neither group is wrong; they just prefer different things.

[Zman]

That shtick is super obnoxious. Would you kindly drop it? And at the same time, stop implying that those of us who value balance in our game are having BadWrongFun? We get it, your group enjoyed your game. Other groups would prefer a game with better balance. Neither group is wrong; they just prefer different things.
And one step further, the group that values balance would have more fun if the feats are balanced and the group that doesn't will still have fun, it's a net win with a balanced game outside of niche situations.

[Sabeta]

It's fine to prefer different things. I'm responding to the assertion that a group needs to be balanced to have fun. I'm being told that allowing imbalanced parties is bad wrong fun, and I am defending myself from that claim.

Even without feats it's possible to play an inferior or weak character. Does the game suddenly become worse because you have a Chaos Sorcerer, Arcane Trickster, or a Ranger?

[MaxWilson]

It's a little bit too bad that the boosted skills of the coveted Dex ASI won't come much into play, honestly. Stealth is a pretty good skill, and Dex gets used with Thieves' Tools a lot too.

Another interesting thing to remember about GWM/Sharpshooter, especially the former, is that they are weaker when you don't know the AC of the enemy you are fighting, since you can't make (as) rational decisions about whether to use them or not (this is a stronger effect with GWM, since with Sharpshooter under reasonable conditions you almost always want to use it, unless you also know the remaining hp of your target or something like that.)

Are you going to stress test probabalistically or with actual rolling? Actual rolling makes a lot of things computationally easier but to amass enough data to smooth out the noise you would probably need a computer program to run the battles. If you do plan to do things by mean DPR/Damage taken per round instead of a computer simulation, don't forget the effect of the Dex ASI's increased initiative on the relative chance to go first.

I had in mind a Monte Carlo sim. Doing whole-party test-to-destruction analytically would be intractable for me--I'm not that good of a mathematician.


Those seem like reasonable parameters for the most part. If I might make a suggestion though, some degree of healing between encounters seems reasonable. Not to full or anything, but it seems an unusual party that completely lack means of restoring hp except by HD on short rests.

This is a good point--the group should be somewhat representative of a real PC party, if I can manage it.


You are welcome to your experiment, but it is only as good as the underlying methodology or program and would require numerous simulations to establish usable data. I mean, we'd need some kind of objective decision making engine that could handle complex situation and ideally make optimal decisions. Given how hard it wa to make a program for chess that beats the best human players I'm thinking such a program for this experiment isn't feasible.

Okay, I'll consider you off the project, Zman. I offered to do an analysis for you, and you declined.

For the sake of those who are interested though, give me a few days to tinker and then I'll start a new thread. Look for "Combat Analysis: Monte Carlo".


I'd be interested in a test-to-destruction as well. Ideally there's some way to randomize the way the encounters are encountered, like a random scenario or at least random map, so the battlefield is dynamic with different obstacles and encounter ranges. There might be something appropriate in the DMG or a good random generator online. Of course, all similar tests use the same gauntlet. It's just if we're going to collect a lot of data, it should be good data to collect. Then we can worry about assigning value judgments to any information revealed afterwards.

[Edit for the ninja:] When you take a feat that only effects combat in a single style instead of an ASI that has effects in all areas of the game including combat, you're trading non-combat ability for combat ability. Any combat feat that has equal combat ability to its ASI equivalent is too weak. It is impossible to tell if a combat feat that gives you more combat ability than the ASI is too strong without somehow considering the non-combat value of the alternative.

This is true. I figure we can deal with that in the post-analysis phase though, after we know the results. We ought to expect feats like Sharpshooter/Polearm Master/Mounted Combatant/Shield Master to come out stronger than pure ASIs; then we can talk in quantitative terms about whether or not they are the right amount stronger, in the tested scenarios.

BTW guys, I'm not planning on using a battle grid during the tests. I'm planning on doing TotM combat, Bards Tale-style: monsters materialize in your face and attack the party in order, with the first two PCs taking all the hits until they die, and then everyone moves up. (I.e. first two guys are the front rank. Anyone not in the front rank has to use reach or missile weapons.) For this reason I'm not planning on testing Mobile. My reasoning: there's enough technical risk already that I don't want to jeopardize the initial analysis by adding all the complexities of grid combat. I think it's important to know something about grid combat eventually, but at that point you also need to analyze different levels of monster "AI" (how intelligently various DMs play monsters, who they choose to target, whether they choose to take opportunity attacks, how they use terrain, whether they Hide a lot, etc.). For now I just want to do the simplistic analysis.

[georgie_leech]

It's fine to prefer different things. I'm responding to the assertion that a group needs to be balanced to have fun. I'm being told that allowing imbalanced parties is bad wrong fun, and I am defending myself from that claim.

Even without feats it's possible to play an inferior or weak character. Does the game suddenly become worse because you have a Chaos Sorcerer, Arcane Trickster, or a Ranger?

This. I'm one who views the feat Damage balance as bad, and I am a player/DM that is generally irked by a certain degree of imbalance. But we shouldn't claim that proper balance is necessary to have fun with the game. Rather, we should be aware that imbalance can be a potential frustration for people. Like, the Barbarian in the above example probably liked the idea of using whatever was on hand as their weapon, and of grappling enemies into submission, over the idea of doing as much damage as other players. That's not bad, that's just different from how I like to play.

If I was trying to play that character, I would get frustrated and feel like I couldn't contribute as much as the Fighter. So while the game can work even with imbalance, I think it's still generally a good idea to be aware of where imbalances are, so you can work around them if necessary.

[Zman]

Okay, I'll consider you off the project, Zman. I offered to do an analysis for you, and you declined.

For the sake of those who are interested though, give me a few days to tinker and then I'll start a new thread. Look for "Combat Analysis: Monte Carlo".


Why do you consider me off the project, I doubt your or anyone's ability to effectively complete what you are proposing. My concern is how you will approach quantifying Non-Combat aspects of feat. The entire analysis hinges on that and any bias or assumptions made there will compound and influence the results of the simulation. As will any other assumptions that are made about the game.

You still haven't told me how examining combat feats, especially DPR dependent feats, in relation to each other and a primary combat ASI like strength is wrong and won't show me if two combat feats are at least balanced against each other, or close to balanced against the game itself? Str is essential +1 to hit, +1 damage, +1 Str Save, +1 Athletics, and a higher carrying capacity. The largest influence of the ASI is +1 to hit and damage, the rest are relatively minor and far more situational. Why can't we balance GWM against Savage Attacker against +2 Str. Sure, the feats should do more for DPR than the ASI, but it at least frames the conversation. What is wrong about looking at combat feats in the scope of combat balance?


BTW guys, I'm not planning on user a battle grid during the tests. I'm planning on doing TotM combat, Bards Tale-style: monsters materialize in your face and attack the party in order, with the first two PCs taking all the hits until they die, and then everyone moves up. (I.e. first two guys are the front rank.) For this reason I'm not planning on testing Mobile. My reasoning: there's enough technical risk already that I don't want to jeopardize the initial analysis by adding all the complexities of grid combat. I think it's important to know something about grid combat eventually, but at that point you also need to analyze different levels of monster "AI" (how intelligently various DMs play monsters, who they choose to target, whether they choose to take opportunity attacks, how they use terrain, whether they Hide a lot, etc.). For now I just want to do the simplistic analysis.

So, your analysis is already biased in favor of defensive characteristics as the defense for one character has an oversized influence on defending the rest of the party? What other assumptions and technical limitations are going to bias your results?

[georgie_leech]

Why do you consider me off the project, I doubt your or anyone's ability to effectively complete what you are proposing. My concern is how you will approach quantifying Non-Combat aspects of feat. The entire analysis hinges on that and any bias or assumptions made there will compound and influence the results of the simulation. As will any other assumptions that are made about the game.

You still haven't told me how examining combat feats, especially DPR dependent feats, in relation to each other and a primary combat ASI like strength is wrong and won't show me if two combat feats are at least balanced against each other, or close to balanced against the game itself? Str is essential +1 to hit, +1 damage, +1 Str Save, +1 Athletics, and a higher carrying capacity. The largest influence of the ASI is +1 to hit and damage, the rest are relatively minor and far more situational. Why can't we balance GWM against Savage Attacker against +2 Str. Sure, the feats should do more for DPR than the ASI, but it at least frames the conversation. What is wrong about looking at combat feats in the scope of combat balance?

Isn't this what the proposed experiment is trying to do? :smallconfused: Comparing the combat feats and ASI's on 'how effectively does this help me kill things' seems more complicated than a straight DPR check, but more indicative of how things could play out in a game. If we use the ASI as a baseline, we ideally want the range of 'feats that improve damage/accuracy/AC' and 'feats that sacrifice some of that for utility (Mobile etc.)' to be pretty close in terms of effectiveness. Utility feats shouldn't dip too far below the ASI, more straightforward feats shouldn't get to far above.

Oh, and since it's my belief that SS, GWM, and PM are significantly more effective, and science says we should make our hypotheses before seeing the data, I think the data will show that those feats are disproportionately good at improving a character's ability to deal out damage, possibly to the point that they also last longer until destruction on account of fewer living enemies to retaliate. The next step is to run the test and see.

[MaxWilson]

Why do you consider me off the project, I doubt your or anyone's ability to effectively complete what you are proposing.

Because you seemed to be dissociating yourself from it: "you are welcome to your experiment, but...". Seemed almost like you were more interested in "winning" an argument than in good analysis.

Make up your mind: are you in or out? If you're in, say what you've got to say now, in the design phase. I'll tell you whether or not it's something I think can reasonably be achieved. But this:


So, your analysis is already biased in favor of defensive characteristics as the defense for one character has an oversized influence on defending the rest of the party? What other assumptions and technical limitations are going to bias your results?

If you have a specific objection or suggestion to make, please phrase it like the "peer reviewer" you claimed to be. If your real point is that you think all four PCs in the party should be equally-vulnerable to melee attacks (e.g. because your party always fights in wide-open spaces), then say so. I don't think it's realistic to assume that there is no back line, but I'm open to different parameters if you speak up now. I will not however tolerate non-constructive criticism that's non actionable. It's not even clear from the above what you think is creating the bias--I'm having to guess at your intent.

If you want to be involved, be involved. You still have the opportunity to specify some parameters if you're interested in them, if you can justify why your choice of parameters is better than anyone else's. E.g. why is having no front line/back line superior to having one?

My hypothesis is that most disagreements over D&D are really disagreements over assumptions, not numbers. It would be nice if we could expose yours, and everyone else's. Different DMs have different styles when it comes to using high-CR monsters vs. mobs of low-level ones; whether monsters suddenly attack you at 30' distance vs. occupy defensive fortifications with partial cover and a clear sightline out to a quarter-mile; whether monsters ever break and run when they take casualties or fight to the death; whether every fight takes place in 20' and 30' rooms; how common spellcasters are; whether surprise is achievable by PCs; how big corridors are; etc. Those styles vastly impact the utility of various combat and noncombat options, and my conjecture that it's not really meaningful to talk about whether [Feat X] is "overpowered" without that context.

[Zman]

Isn't this what the proposed experiment is trying to do? :smallconfused: Comparing the combat feats and ASI's on 'how effectively does this help me kill things' seems more complicated than a straight DPR check, but more indicative of how things could play out in a game. If we use the ASI as a baseline, we ideally want the range of 'feats that improve damage/accuracy/AC' and 'feats that sacrifice some of that for utility (Mobile etc.)' to be pretty close in terms of effectiveness. Utility feats shouldn't dip too far below the ASI, more straightforward feats shouldn't get to far above.

The proposed experiment... good question. So far it isn't going to accomplish any of those things in a useable manner. It will hinge on entirely biased assumptions that cascade through the experiment. I've repeatedly talked about examining damage and combat feats against each other and vs ASI. Trying to model NonCombat values for feats becomes heavily dependent on assumptions. When looking at the balance of combat, we can do that without injection any more non combat assumptions than absolutely necessary.

Wha he seems to be proposing is a modeled sample party Monte Carlo combat simulation with waterfall ranks. How is this going to model combat options effectively? How is this going to model non combat options effectively? How is this going to model spells correctly? How is this going to model monsters appropriately? How is ignoring monster AI with waterfall ranks going to affect our data? How is this going to determine relative worth of these features? We'll have our choice of which assumptions will heavily bias and invalidate our results from an objective perspective as many of the variables we have are going to be defined based upon assumptions and can't be objectively determined. Even if it spits out data that looks good, how much weight of scrutiny can it really withstand?

I want to know how anyone is proposing using a simulation such as this to model the worth of combat and non combat abilities in a useable manner.

[Gastronomie]

*munches upon popcorn*

Okay, sorry for interrupting this really intelligent argument, but do you guys think you can actually ever convince the guys on the other side? Actually, really, there's actually no need to even convince the other side in the first place. You guys are playing in different games, in different groups, where different people have different opinions on these matter. And both of you guys are probably DMs. DMs have final say - which means you don't need Persuation skills.

See, for instance, I've looked at Zman's tweaks and some I found to be probably better than the original rules, but as I explained to him once, my IRL friends are satisfied with the current PHB etc. material, so they don't need those tweaks. No doubt Zman's IRL friends need those tweaks to enjoy the game, but that's not the case with everybody. And the same goes for everything. Each table can have its own set of homebrew rules. No need to convince others that your table rules or ways of thinking are absolute and superior.

How about just keeping our opinions to ourselves, and only "expressing" them. Explaining them to people who aren't sure which path to take, and not forcing them upon people who are already shutting their ears in front of you. Don't "try to prove you're right by arguing how the other side is stupid". It's really... I mean, it's probably just stressful for both of you, especially since both sides will never give up.

[georgie_leech]

The proposed experiment... good question. So far it isn't going to accomplish any of those things in a useable manner. It will hinge on entirely biased assumptions that cascade through the experiment. I've repeatedly talked about examining damage and combat feats against each other and vs ASI. Trying to model NonCombat values for feats becomes heavily dependent on assumptions. When looking at the balance of combat, we can do that without injection any more non combat assumptions than absolutely necessary.

Wha he seems to be proposing is a modeled sample party Monte Carlo combat simulation with waterfall ranks. How is this going to model combat options effectively? How is this going to model non combat options effectively? How is this going to model spells correctly? How is this going to model monsters appropriately? How is ignoring monster AI with waterfall ranks going to affect our data? How is this going to determine relative worth of these features? We'll have our choice of which assumptions will heavily bias and invalidate our results from an objective perspective as many of the variables we have are going to be defined based upon assumptions and can't be objectively determined. Even if it spits out data that looks good, how much weight of scrutiny can it really withstand?

I want to know how anyone is proposing using a simulation such as this to model the worth of combat and non combat abilities in a useable manner.

So how do you propose we 'examin[e] damage and combat feats against each other and vs ASI?'

EDIT @gastronomie: For me at least this kind of experiment is less about providing one side right and the other wrong and more about getting a better understanding of my own position. Do these feats actually differ enough from the baseline to be concerning? What tweaks can be made to bring it closer without over shooting the mark? And if the Monte Carlo Sim works towards getting useful data, it will also leave us with a useful tool to test other homebrew feats or the like.

[MaxWilson]

The proposed experiment... good question. So far it isn't going to accomplish any of those things in a useable manner. It will hinge on entirely biased assumptions that cascade through the experiment. I've repeatedly talked about examining damage and combat feats against each other and vs ASI. Trying to model NonCombat values for feats becomes heavily dependent on assumptions. When looking at the balance of combat, we can do that without injection any more non combat assumptions than absolutely necessary.

Wha he seems to be proposing is a modeled sample party Monte Carlo combat simulation with waterfall ranks. How is this going to model combat options effectively? How is this going to model non combat options effectively? How is this going to model spells correctly? How is this going to model monsters appropriately? How is ignoring monster AI with waterfall ranks going to affect our data? How is this going to determine relative worth of these features? We'll have our choice of which assumptions will heavily bias and invalidate our results from an objective perspective as many of the variables we have are going to be defined based upon assumptions and can't be objectively determined. Even if it spits out data that looks good, how much weight of scrutiny can it really withstand?

I want to know how anyone is proposing using a simulation such as this to model the worth of combat and non combat abilities in a useable manner.

Er. I don't want to tip my hand too much here, by promising something I haven't delivered yet, but FWIW what I'd actually like to deliver is not just an analysis (e.g. a forum post)--I want to deliver a simulator. Yes, it will be simplistic. No, it won't be able to model all the spells in the PHB. But you'll be able to look at the code on github and tweak it if you disagree with the parameters; and you'll be able to use it to predict whether a given party lasts longer against the monsters with a Sharpshooter fighter or a Agonizing Blast Spell Sniper Warlock, and whether a GWM Polearm Master Barbarian or a Heavy Armor Master Eldritch Knight is better at keeping you alive.

It won't be perfect, but it will be better than DPR analysis.

=======================================


How about just keeping our opinions to ourselves, and only "expressing" them. Explaining them to people who aren't sure which path to take, and not forcing them upon people who are already shutting their ears in front of you. Don't "try to prove you're right by arguing how the other side is stupid". It's really... I mean, it's probably just stressful for both of you, especially since both sides will never give up.

Posts like this always make me wonder who they're addressed to. When you say "both of you", am I one of the people you're talking to, or are you addressing one of the other arguments going on simultaneously on this thread? :-P

If you're talking to me, I'll say I'm not stressed about it, and not particularly interested in forcing anything upon anybody. But I am glad to hear that some posters are actually interested in a sound analysis and have contributed some ideas they'd like to see included (e.g. healing). It means that if I do the work there's at least one or two people besides myself who will benefit from it.

[DeAnno]

BTW guys, I'm not planning on using a battle grid during the tests. I'm planning on doing TotM combat, Bards Tale-style: monsters materialize in your face and attack the party in order, with the first two PCs taking all the hits until they die, and then everyone moves up. (I.e. first two guys are the front rank. Anyone not in the front rank has to use reach or missile weapons.)

There might be some smaller steps available between this and a full grid sim. You could for example have some probability that a monster materializes in the back instead of the front to represent the probability of the melee characters failing to control the battle line. In specific I worry a bit that this front/back model will either discount the AC benefits Dex ASIs give to Archers, or discount the benefit of Crossbow Masters not caring about people getting into their face. This does require some additional assumptions and behavior however (though not an overwhelming amount, I think), so should probably not even be attempted until you have a working core.



I had in mind a Monte Carlo sim. Doing whole-party test-to-destruction analytically would be intractable for me--I'm not that good of a mathematician.

Naively, it's not too hard to do 1v1 combats analytically. Determine the mean DPR going both ways (there are some standard ways to account for superiority dice over different periods of time, I keep meaning to make the thread but I haven't cleaned up my tables). Then look at initiatives and let the "winner" go first, with some fraction of a turn (between 0.5 and 1) determined by the initiative winner's chance to actually win. Then just have them DPR each other until they die.

With more importance to your sim, the way a human should optimally use Superiority Dice for Precision Attack is to wait until they miss by N or less, where N is some number based on how desperate they are to deal damage quickly and how long they expect to have to fight for (usually for d8s N=5 is not an unreasonable assumption, though if dice are consistently running out or going unspent you would want to adjust that up or down) This results in a mean DPR boost which is a flat percentage of their damage per attack, and completely independent of the enemy AC; GWM and Sharpshooter benefit from proper Superiority die usage a LOT. Superiority dice become much less efficient when you don't know enemy AC exactly though (you can lose literally almost half the DPR bonus by even being wrong by 1 point 2 points of AC), so I'm not sure how reasonable it is to give the PCs exact information in the sim.

I am fairly sure as a result of all this that a Champion/EK/Ranger is much worse at using GWM/Sharpshooter than a Battlemaster though, so it's something that definitely needs to be addressed eventually.

EDIT: This is the Google Doc I'm working on some of this in, it may not be entirely transparent but you can probably get the idea of what's going on in the first sheet at least https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1j4vgvQIcsNSZbwecvNFxI52Mh6fv4JT-IRVnSR9nxxE/edit#gid=0

[MaxWilson]

Naively, it's not too hard to do 1v1 combats analytically. Determine the mean DPR going both ways (there are some standard ways to account for superiority dice over different periods of time, I keep meaning to make the thread but I haven't cleaned up my tables). Then look at initiatives and let the "winner" go first, with some fraction of a turn (between 0.5 and 1) determined by the initiative winner's chance to actually win. Then just have them DPR each other until they die.

Sure, but there's a huge gap between modelling a 1v1 analytically and modelling whole-party repeated-combat test-to-destruction. The cumulative resource depletion aspect alone is enough to render the problem analytically intractable (to me, at least); the whole-party aspect just makes it even worse even before you need to start accounting for things like geometry (as you mentioned, there's an AC benefit to Dex if someone slips through your front lines; modelling that in a Monte Carlo is relatively straightforward and intuitive, whereas modelling it analytically is... I don't even know where to start! Spherical cow?).

I'll bear in mind your concerns about back line benefits and Crossbow Expert, etc. First we need a working core though. Start small. :)

BTW, in any scenario where front/back doesn't work, that means your frontage is more than 10', which means you're almost guaranteed to be in an area big enough to use Mounted Combatant and mobile tactics effectively, which is exactly why I'd want to model it on a grid. (Even if, for the sake of argument, we make it a closed grid like a set of four interconnected 40'x40' rooms with 10' hallways between them. In reality of course you'd also be able to exit those four rooms and exploit the infinite world beyond--but again, start small.)

[Cybren]

Let's not forget that theater of the mind is the default assumption of 5E, so the initial proposal isn't useless. It will fairly accurately represent the play experience of a large number of groups

[Ashrym]

First, I also disagree with the premise of the OP that casters are better. Casters are different and better is subjective. I prefer martial or skill value to my characters over spells without fail because spells have become over-rated as they've lost value in potency in this edition.

Second, I had a similar discussion on another forum recently, and several people stated that it's more common for people to go sword and board for the defense because they do no damage when the drop and feel they cannot afford to give up armor class in order to be effective. In my experience, more people focus on damage but I know that damage alone is not a good indication of effectiveness. Damage mitigation is important so I'm looking forward to the simulator being discussed. My first thought on all the variables was that sounds crazy and Monte Carlo definitely sounds easier.

Third, sharpshooter and great weapon master have nothing to do with a spell caster comparison. Spell casters struggle with damage in comparison with or without those feats. Cantrips suck for damage as a general rule. The issue is that two weapon fighting style for rangers and fighters doesn't sync well with ranger subclass abilities or fighter extra attacks so it's typically delegated to less martially offensive classes for combat and the corresponding feat split with a small bonus to AC and a bonus to damage via larger weapons instead of going for big damage. Characters who want TWF don't have the big damage numbers and that's what a person would typically be looking for with TWF. Sword and board with shield master works well for someone going defensive in comparison.

Next, a featless game isn't a struggle for fighters and especially not for rogues. Rogues don't take PAM, GWM, or SS anyway. They rely on skills, class abilities, and sneak attack. The idea that not having feats most rogues won't have outside of some very specific builds would be a problem is silly. Fighters don't need those feats either because they'll just look at their combat styles and continue their combat styles without that damage bonus. Those that don't see as much value in damage won't care. With no feats at all, it's not like +4 WIS is going to be bad for a fighter who will get a minimum of some better ability checks and saving throws in exchange for the feats.

Finally, every spell is not a class ability. Casting spells is a class ability. Each new level of spell replaces a class ability that other classes gain. Spell casting is already considered the equivalent of many class abilities when looking at the charts, even with the limited slots. I saw a comment earlier about having defenses from spells. Action economy makes that a big trade off. Other than contingency that only matters once in a day at best casting a defensive spell is not casting an offensive or utility spell.

Regardless, the simulator sound intriguing. Feats seem like they are there for flavor and options more than balanced for character ability or against each other and that comparison is what seems interesting. Not another "but magic is so OP because..." discussions.

[Strill]

I remember a poster on this forum talking about running a high seas/pirate campaign. They were worried about the rules for grappling and shoving making it too easy to dispose of enemies into the ocean. There are considerations in melee combat other than dealing damage.
And your point is? I said that damage is obligatory for martial classes, and that's still true. The fact that you can sometimes defeat enemies through grappling doesn't change that.


I'd like to ask that before reading this post, that you please sit down. If you're on your mobile device on the metro or something wait for a seat to open up, if you're walking down the street find a stop. Just sit down, I don't want the sheer and utter shock of this post to cause injury to anyone. Once you're sure that if you read this and faint or just suddenly lose your balance from shock you're not going to get a nasty bump on the noggin. Safety first, friend.
WARNING: SHOCKING & POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE CONTENT TO FOLLOW.
Do not read if you have a poor constitution, have a history of heart disease, high blood pressure, if you're pregnant, nursing or considering becoming pregnant.

I had a group with PAM/GWM, and everyone enjoyed themselves . everyone was more happy playing out their concepts then doing max DPR. The player who did all of the damage balanced the group out because we had a barbarian who did none. (Tavern brawler who refused to use weapons). The Sorcerer had plenty of chances to feel important via control spells and buffs, the barbarian was happy grappling everything he could, and the rogue was content sneaking and stabbing. All the while the fighter had nearly double the DPR of anyone else, and was happy with his damage. Good for you. That doesn't invalidate my point.


Except, they're not critical. The fact there are a substantial number of people playing and enjoying the game with the whole suit of classes in featless games are proof positive the feats are non-critical features. If they were critical it would be impossible for anyone to have a functional game without them, let alone any substantial number of folks.Some people managed to play fighters in 3e. Does that mean that 3e fighters weren't bottom-tier trash? No. It means that they or the party's Wizard didn't have a very good handle on the rules, and couldn't notice the issues. With more experience, these problems become more apparent.


It's fine to prefer different things. I'm responding to the assertion that a group needs to be balanced to have fun. I'm being told that allowing imbalanced parties is bad wrong fun, and I am defending myself from that claim. Essentially what you're saying is that because the majority is fine, we should ignore the problems faced by minorities.

The fact is there is no reason to be against a more balanced game. It's better for people who want it, and takes away nothing from people who don't care. You're just stirring up **** to be a jerk.


Even without feats it's possible to play an inferior or weak character. Does the game suddenly become worse because you have a Chaos Sorcerer, Arcane Trickster, or a Ranger?
Those classes aren't mechanically weak, and you have no idea what class balance is.

Beastmaster Rangers don't fit their archetype well, but they're mechanically strong. Hunter Rangers are totally fine.

Arcane Tricksters are totally fine.

Chaos Sorcerers aren't inherently weak or strong. The only problem with the class is that they require the DM to give you surges, which just means you need to set clear expectations and communication with your DM.

[Ashrym]

@strill

Speculation on the ability of players to play is just that. I probably do well without spells on non-spell casting classes because of experience. That's not an argument to support whether a class is weak or there is a problem. As a case in point.....

meta-magic wish >> wish

.....very easily. I think you might be missing some of your own experience with some of those classes. Sorcerers run around with clones and contingencies as well by using wish during downtime, and can twin simulacrum if they want.

There's only one ability that's affected by the need to roll a surge (controlled chaos) but surges don't happen often enough for that to matter when it's a 1 in 20 chance for a surge. The DM part was not included in the errata so it's open to interpretation how a DM applies it. I have players roll d20 every spell and if they roll a surge they'll recover tides of chaos (if they've used it) and roll twice per controlled chaos. That appears to be the intent, considering sorcerers don't typically have enough slots to trigger a surge in any given day a lot of the time.

[Zalabim]

BTW guys, I'm not planning on using a battle grid during the tests. I'm planning on doing TotM combat, Bards Tale-style: monsters materialize in your face and attack the party in order, with the first two PCs taking all the hits until they die, and then everyone moves up. (I.e. first two guys are the front rank. Anyone not in the front rank has to use reach or missile weapons.) For this reason I'm not planning on testing Mobile. My reasoning: there's enough technical risk already that I don't want to jeopardize the initial analysis by adding all the complexities of grid combat. I think it's important to know something about grid combat eventually, but at that point you also need to analyze different levels of monster "AI" (how intelligently various DMs play monsters, who they choose to target, whether they choose to take opportunity attacks, how they use terrain, whether they Hide a lot, etc.). For now I just want to do the simplistic analysis.

Normally I'd suggest that enemies with ranged attacks can attack the back line, and I have to ask whether the front line will provide cover for attacks across it either way, but I do think that focusing all the attacks on the front line will actually destroy the party faster.


And your point is? I said that damage is obligatory for martial classes, and that's still true. The fact that you can sometimes defeat enemies through grappling doesn't change that.

My point is that there are considerations other than damage in melee combat. Like the ability to control the battlefield, control the enemy, or stand your ground. It helps to be in the right place, avoid the wrong place, put the enemy in a bad place, and stay up when others would fall. It's not all big swords and battle cries.

It's also true that GWM doesn't make as big of a difference as you and Sabeta are talking about and there are situations that make its damage bonus unimportant, but that was not my point.

[MaxWilson]

Normally I'd suggest that enemies with ranged attacks can attack the back line, and I have to ask whether the front line will provide cover for attacks across it either way, but I do think that focusing all the attacks on the front line will actually destroy the party faster.

Oh, sure, absolutely. That's how it worked in Bard's Tale, and that's how I am planning on simulating gnolls/hobgoblins/etc. Breath weapons will just use the TotM rules from the DMG, which means that breath weapons from e.g. an adult dragon will affect the whole party even if there are six PCs. (AFB, but I'm pretty sure that a 60' cone in TotM rules hit six enemies.)

Likewise, ranged PCs will be able to attack something other than the front rank of monsters.

And yes, partial cover (+2 AC bonus) will be factored in. Especially since we're analyzing Sharpshooter, and ignoring cover is one of its major benefits. I'm not planning on applying 3/4 cover no matter how many ranks of allies or enemies are between you and the target, because I wouldn't do that in an actual game, but I do apply partial cover for creatures being in the way.

[KorvinStarmast]

IMO the real answer to the original question is that humans, particularly of the sort that would log on to the internet to spend hours debating the finer points of a game have a natural inclination to find something to complain about. This is correct.


GWM and Sharpshooter both increase damage through attack roll penalty.

=========

It has ****-all to do with Casters and more to do with the issue of Archers being able to throw out more damage than Great Weapon Fighters, on average. (Assuming a series of other circumstances are present). yeah but let's give the OP credit for yet another martials versus caster troll. It's a common sort of thread and you can predict the responses. If the party of players is in competition with one another then issues like this may come up. If the party of players play as a team, this question doesn't come up. So who are you playing with at your table: team mates or rivals?

[SharkForce]

yeah but let's give the OP credit for yet another martials versus caster troll. It's a common sort of thread and you can predict the responses. If the party of players is in competition with one another then issues like this may come up. If the party of players play as a team, this question doesn't come up. So who are you playing with at your table: team mates or rivals?

well, it has been a while since the last one. clearly, we were due for another one.

(which isn't to say that i disagree that casters get ridiculously stronger at higher levels, i've just learned not to bother talking about it because the discussions go nowhere and apparently martials are perfectly happy with their power level, so what's the point in trying to 'fix' anything if it's working well enough that everyone is happy?).

[mgshamster]

well, it has been a while since the last one. clearly, we were due for another one.

(which isn't to say that i disagree that casters get ridiculously stronger at higher levels, i've just learned not to bother talking about it because the discussions go nowhere and apparently martials are perfectly happy with their power level, so what's the point in trying to 'fix' anything if it's working well enough that everyone is happy?).

It's the idea that you're measuring a delta value.

The delta value between martials and casters is smaller than it was back in 3.P. Those coming from that Edition are very happy; since they've been looking at such a large delta value for so long, the smaller value in 5e makes it seem like they is practically* no difference.

For those trying to look at it with a fresh eye, they can measure* the difference.

And that's where we get to the next step - the * marks above. Some people see that measured difference and want to fix it. Some people don't see it. And then some people see that measured difference and declare that practically it is inconsequential.

So here we have the three main points of disagreement among posters looking at the difference between martials and (casters or other martials or specific feats or something else): there isn't a difference, there is a difference and it doesn't matter, and there is a difference and it does matter.

Personally, I waver between points 2 and 3 - I agree that there is a measurable difference. But I vary in agreement to whether it matters. Regardless of my own opinion - I try to support those who believe it needs to be fixed and will try to help them with any proposed fix they may have.

[DeAnno]

I think the main divisions are between those who think overall balance of roles is more important and those who think in-class/role balance of options is more important. Those who are angry about role balance hate the idea of nerfing GWM/SS without compensation, because they tend to be taken by character with weaker roles and doing that just crowds the balance more towards pure spellcasting parties.

Those who think balance within a role is more important insist that roles can't be compared in strength directly, and so squeezing the value of martial feats to a mean doesn't do appreciable damage to role balance.

Both sides have reason to be extremely frustrated with the conversation. Overall balancers are annoyed because core is bad enough as it is, and people want to make it worse. Role balancers are annoyed because most people seem to agree GWM/SS are stronger than usual options and yet people are resisting calls to equalize.

There's the sideline disagreement that some people think Feats, not even top end Feats, should ever be stronger than ASIs, and that some other people think that this is reasonable and an expected part of the system. This one is dovetailed with frustration because of ambiguity in how optional feats are depending on who you ask, and gets back to the extremely divisive "Rulings, not Rules" mentality present in 5e.

So basically, this thread is managing to target and expose all the major divisions in the community all at once.

[georgie_leech]

Not true, we haven't discussed Stealth Rules yet! :smallbiggrin:

[Pex]

I think the main divisions are between those who think overall balance of roles is more important and those who think in-class/role balance of options is more important. Those who are angry about role balance hate the idea of nerfing GWM/SS without compensation, because they tend to be taken by character with weaker roles and doing that just crowds the balance more towards pure spellcasting parties.

Those who think balance within a role is more important insist that roles can't be compared in strength directly, and so squeezing the value of martial feats to a mean doesn't do appreciable damage to role balance.

Both sides have reason to be extremely frustrated with the conversation. Overall balancers are annoyed because core is bad enough as it is, and people want to make it worse. Role balancers are annoyed because most people seem to agree GWM/SS are stronger than usual options and yet people are resisting calls to equalize.

There's the sideline disagreement that some people think Feats, not even top end Feats, should ever be stronger than ASIs, and that some other people think that this is reasonable and an expected part of the system. This one is dovetailed with frustration because of ambiguity in how optional feats are depending on who you ask, and gets back to the extremely divisive "Rulings, not Rules" mentality present in 5e.

So basically, this thread is managing to target and expose all the major divisions in the community all at once.

You're missing the group of players who don't care about balance at all and only care about what's fun* but willing to be mindful of stuff that truly breaks the game. Changing the feats, which don't truly break the game, breaks their fun.

*This is not to imply those who do care about balance don't care about fun. :smallsmile:

[Cybren]

You're missing the group of players who don't care about balance at all and only care about what's fun* but willing to be mindful of stuff that truly breaks the game. Changing the feats, which don't truly break the game, breaks their fun.

*This is not to imply those who do care about balance don't care about fun. :smallsmile:

I certainly count myself as someone that doesn't regard balance with any importance at all, and generally speaking see it as somewhere between pointless and actively undesirable

[KorvinStarmast]

Not true, we haven't discussed Stealth Rules yet! :smallbiggrin: Barkeep, another beer for Georgie! :smallbiggrin:

You're missing the group of players who don't care about balance at all and only care about what's fun* but willing to be mindful of stuff that truly breaks the game. Changing the feats, which don't truly break the game, breaks their fun. Nicely put.

[Tanarii]

*This is not to imply those who do care about balance don't care about fun. :smallsmile:ya.

For some folks being overshadowed by another player during play removes their fun. For others, being forced to pick a specific choice during character building or advancement to avoid being sub-par (by whatever metric they are using). Others, having an existing option nerfed destroys their fun. ... or focusing so much on mechanics ... or combat ... or talky-time ... or resources ... or or or.

Honestly I think the biggest problem is the assumption that somehow others saying "I think this needs to change, how should I do it" is somehow going to change things at your table, and saying "it's fine" and refocusing the argument on if it's fine or not. (I'm guilty of that in Ranger threads and Skill DC threads)

Of course, if the community (not this particular one in particular, just as a whole) spends enough bitching about something, it'll probably change in the next edition.

[djreynolds]

If you take a look a the MM, you will see that many creatures do not have high AC, especially compared to their PC adversaries.

In 3.5E it was possible to make characters that were unhittable, which is awesome, but combat took forever.

Now in 5E, IMO, the designers wanted players to roll, hit and do damage. I mean a fireball does 8d6, that's fun. Paladins can do gobs of damage smiting and the monsters have oodles of HP. Yet they have lower AC. So everyone is rolling and hitting and doing damage. And that's fun and players are not just sitting there trying to hit an AC40 or whatever.

The issue is with feats like SS/GWM you can add possibly +10 in damage per strike but at -5 to hit. And you would think most players are going to miss more than they hit, but with archery style, the bless spell, sacred weapon, and advantage that -5 can become irrelevant. So irrelevant is the -5 to hit, that players will often only use GWM/SS, as they always hit, or way more than 50% of the time, if not more. And that damage is +10, not 1d10.

Even with standard array, a 4th level warrior with a 16 in dex is actually better off taking GWM or SS as they do not have to roll that high to hit. A 4th level ranger with a 16 dex and archery style has +7 to hit some monster whose AC tends to run in the 13-15 range. Meaning he needs to roll a 8 or better. Tack on the -5 from sharpshooter and now the archer needs a 13 to hit AC15.

I'm going to use SS for every attack if I only need a 13 to hit. And as a ranger, I might hide for advantage, rolling twice and taking the higher of the two rolls. And if smartly played, I will have a cleric or paladin spamming bless.

Now I have tried to change things up a bit and had players using SS roll 1d6-1 instead of taking the -5, but also roll 1d10 instead of getting the flat 10 damage... it was too much rolling.

So now I'm faced with a dilemma, CR appropriate monsters are going down too easy. I can change out the monsters or add in their ranks some AC 18 hobgoblins, CR 1/2, making the ranger with +7 to hit and using SS have to roll a 16 to AC 18. And now the archer couldn't reliably use SS without advantage or the bless spell being casted, + 1d4.

But I up the CR and chose a more powerful monster instead, the PCs may not be ready for this challenge or they use too many resources.

So I have found simply outfitting the monsters with armor to increase AC helps, adding magical support of a monster shaman/bard/cleric also helps out. There is no reason not give a creature a shield or the shaman not to have access to the shield spell themselves.

I have found this the only solution to the GWM/SS debate, its not crazy that the creatures you are facing have acquired armor or that they too have support caster in their ranks.

The other solution is instead of the flat -5/+10, try out 1d6-1/1d10. I mean, it is more rolling, but you are going to roll that 1d4 for bless. Or just roll a 3d4-2 instead of the flat +10 damage.

And when in doubt throw in some nasty Hobgoblins.

[Talionis]

I don't have a problem with House Rules or Homebrew. If the DM wants to run the rules by the players and they decide to adopt them as a group, so be it. But I will say this...

The game designers made decisions to balance the game. Each ASI and feat are not balanced against each other, and some are better than others. You can try to spend a lot of time adding and removing rules your group doesn't like, and if that's your thing... so be it have fun. But the Game Designers, while not perfect, are impartial. I always worry in small groups that someone is trying to get an advantage or make his favorite feat or combo more powerful in comparison. The Game Designers put the rules and feats in there... Deal with the world you've been given. You get to make so many decisions already.

Over time, we should see more spell and feat competition as new books add more material.

One of the nice things about Fifth Edition is with the lack of truly broken things, the gap between different feats and spells is much smaller and generally things will work out if players don't always pick the best spells or the best feats.

What has work best for me in my play groups is players talking with the DM in advance of starting a new character and telling him the combos they want to try to get. Talking about it and whether it will be too powerful for a particular table. It maybe that GWM is perfect for a Bladelock, but too much on a Fighter. Asking the Fighter to take another feat if done politely and in a reasoned way has led to more balance. We've tried a feat and after a gaming session seen it was a little overpowered and we've retconned the feat out of one character, but left it on another. It maybe a little more work for the DM, but without banning things totally we've come to some homeostasis points. We even have re-enstated feats back after certain levels because we noticed that the Fighters damage could come up a little because the DM changed up some of the monsters and we were actually hitting higher levels.

I would not be for straight banning. You may have a game that is higher optimization and with all characters running feats like SS and GWM its all balanced and fine. You may run another game where everyone is trying out poorly optimized combonations and it makes sense to steer players away from choosing certain feats. But look at the whole picture and decide.

[Vogonjeltz]

I find humorous the attempted reframing of the original premise to make it martial vs martial. So what if the Fighter can do a lot of damage on every swing, the full caster changes reality with a spell slot: Fireball, Hypnotic Pattern, Polymorph, Summon Elemental... need I go on?

So the wizard "changes reality" with Fireball by dealing 8d6 save for half, while the fighter "changes reality" with a sword swing by dealing 2d6+5 x # of attacks?

Huh, I guess all fighters have reality warping powers from the ground up.

Most spells do little more than give alternative methods for dealing damage or replicate an ability check or basic roleplaying (I'm looking at you Charm spells).

Worse, spells can only be done a few times per long rest (which is at most once per 24 hours, but possibly less depending on circumstances allowing for 8 uninterrupted hours). So the Wizard almost always will be out of gas long before the day is done.

Now, there's nothing wrong with having a class that functions on limited use abilities, I enjoy playing a Wizard almost as much as the more useful Fighter. It's just a different play style.


With more importance to your sim, the way a human should optimally use Superiority Dice for Precision Attack is to wait until they miss by N or less, where N is some number based on how desperate they are to deal damage quickly and how long they expect to have to fight for (usually for d8s N=5 is not an unreasonable assumption, though if dice are consistently running out or going unspent you would want to adjust that up or down) This results in a mean DPR boost which is a flat percentage of their damage per attack, and completely independent of the enemy AC; GWM and Sharpshooter benefit from proper Superiority die usage a LOT. Superiority dice become much less efficient when you don't know enemy AC exactly though (you can lose literally almost half the DPR bonus by even being wrong by 1 point 2 points of AC), so I'm not sure how reasonable it is to give the PCs exact information in the sim.

I am fairly sure as a result of all this that a Champion/EK/Ranger is much worse at using GWM/Sharpshooter than a Battlemaster though, so it's something that definitely needs to be addressed eventually.

It's worth noting that there may be non-damaging action combinations which provide superior damage reduction return. Or actions which make more sense in solo combat vs team combat and vice versa.

i.e. substituting shove/grapple/disarm/climb aboard (or any other contest) for an attack; using a 1h weapon while climbing aboard to avoid enemy attack as the opponent might not even be able to attack if you are in a particular location; etcetera.


For those trying to look at it with a fresh eye, they can measure* the difference.

And that's where we get to the next step - the * marks above. Some people see that measured difference and want to fix it. Some people don't see it. And then some people see that measured difference and declare that practically it is inconsequential.

So here we have the three main points of disagreement among posters looking at the difference between martials and (casters or other martials or specific feats or something else): there isn't a difference, there is a difference and it doesn't matter, and there is a difference and it does matter.

Personally, I waver between points 2 and 3 - I agree that there is a measurable difference. But I vary in agreement to whether it matters. Regardless of my own opinion - I try to support those who believe it needs to be fixed and will try to help them with any proposed fix they may have.

What is there to fix?

Brief comparison:

Wizard vs Fighter.

Cantrip vs Weaponry, the Fighter is going to outdamage the Wizard.
Spells can provide a surge of damage, but because spells are limited use, it's only a tiny damage increase.

Think of it in terms of graphing damage as a line:

y = ax + b

A champion fighter has a superior coefficient a.
A Wizard, or Battlemaster, or any other class capable of throwing out some burst, has a better coefficient b.

In the short run, b can be high or higher, but in the long run a wins out. It's really just a question of duration (i.e. how many total rounds are we looking at?)

[GlenSmash!]

I like GWM. I like sharp shooter. I wish other styles of fighting were up to par with these two. The recent UA on feats seems like an effort to address concerns like mine. I look forward to whatever new feats they add based on the feedback from that UA.

[Ashrym]

I like GWM. I like sharp shooter. I wish other styles of fighting were up to par with these two. The recent UA on feats seems like an effort to address concerns like mine. I look forward to whatever new feats they add based on the feedback from that UA.

Shield styles are pretty good too. The damage done for other feat like great weapon master, pole arm master, or sharp shooter etc are pretty nice but adding in a damage done / damage taken comparison instead of just damage done changes perspective. Two weapon fighting needs some work but shields are pretty good.

Case in point, give a S&B fighter shield master with mobility. If he's using the attacks to shove prone first (bonus action), damage with the rest, then he uses move to back off. mobility means the opponent gets no opportunity attack, requires half it's movement to crawl or get rid of prone, and needs to cover 40 ft to get to the fighter again in order to attack which means if his movement is less than 80 ft he needs his action to close and doesn't get to attack. If the opponent keeps closing it's a rinse and repeat as the fighter eventually kills it without it even getting to attack.

That limits his options to waiting for the fighter to close again in order to get some attacks in or switching to ranged. He's got an easy disengage mechanism, dex save benefits, higher AC, and a bonus action shove. There are 3 fighting styles from 1st level that work with a shield. Protection is more reliable than vicious mockery (it's amazing how many people say vicious mockery is awesome for the disadvantage even though it allows a save but claim protection, which offers the same key benefit, sucks even though it's guaranteed disadvantage), higher AC works, and dueling increases damage anyway.

Defensive S&B only looks like it sucks in comparison if a person is only looking at damage and that's not why people make S&B characters.

[DeAnno]

Defensive S&B only looks like it sucks in comparison if a person is only looking at damage and that's not why people make S&B characters.

Ideally there could be a sort of martial Rock-Paper-Scissors between Control (ie, Sentinel Shove etc), Melee DPS, and Ranged DPS. Ranged doesn't care about control effects, and is better at dealing damage, so beats Control. Melee is faster and has generally better DPS/AC stats than Ranged, so wins that edge. Control can rein in Melee DPS and prevent it from engaging, so wins that edge.

That isn't so far off from the situation now, except that Melee DPS isn't really faster enough than Ranged, and Martial Control doesn't get talked up on the forums alot (it's also somewhat convolved with Melee DPS due to Polearm Master.) I think if I was really of a mind to fix it, I would make a feat for axes/swords with a bonus action attack and some kind of charging effect (one worth having, not like Charger.)