Is my weapon too OP?

[Kwinza]

I'm playing a lvl 8 barb6/fighter2 goliath and my dm has let me use a large sized maul. 4d6 bludgeoning dmg per hit.

Now until recently I'd been doing around the same dmg per round as the rogues, but while giving everyone advantage against me, so I thought it was fine.

Then my DM let me get an enchantment on the hammer, I chose thunder and he made up the enchantment. The weapon became a +1 doing 4d6 magic dmg + 1d6 Thunder dmg.

This seemed to be a tipping point of sorts because holy hell my average dmg has gone up.

Would you say thats too much for a weapon or quite ok? The casters can still out do me with the ol' hex quickened scorching ray combo.


(fun fact, I named the weapon "Thunderstruck" and secretly one of the other players preped the song on there phone to play when I crit, which made everyone laugh XD)

[Jerrykhor]

Depends on your appetite for power gaming. If your DM gave that to you, obviously he don't think its too OP. Maybe he throws even more OP monsters at you.

But yes, 5d6+STR+1 damage per attack is high. Casters can't keep that up forever but you can. Hex+Scorching ray+Quickened is 2 spell slots+2 sorcery points, that's a lot of daily resource, so they are still lose out. Assuming you are going for the crit fishing build, Champion's extended crit range+Brutal Critical would make for some monstrous damage.

[Kwinza]

Due to having that weapon and some in character development, I'm not going to go crit finishing with champion.

I'm going to try to mitigate the crazy dmg while getting some utility and go battlemaster.

[BobZan]

On a normal game, it is very OP.

But OPness is based on game expectations.

[mephnick]

But OPness is based on game expectations.

It's objectively OP based on system expectations. The more you throw the expectations of the system out the window the more the DM has to adjust and eventually the whole thing falls apart unless the DM has a really good handle on the mechanics of the game.


Depends on your appetite for power gaming. If your DM gave that to you, obviously he don't think its too OP. Maybe he throws even more OP monsters at you.

That's how it starts unraveling. Are other characters getting things this good? This would annoy me as another player at the table. Especially if the DM starts throwing harder encounters at us because he messed up and gave one player a god weapon and the rest of us just have to deal with it. So now the DM gives everyone a god weapon. Now the party needs to be treated as like 5 levels above what they are. Now the combats are too easy. Then the DM over adjusts and the game becomes rocket tag. It's a slippery slope. But...



Would you say thats too much for a weapon or quite ok?

None of this matters if your group doesn't care and your DM handles it properly.

[noob]

That's how it starts unraveling. Are other characters getting things this good? This would annoy me as another player at the table. Especially if the DM starts throwing harder encounters at us because he messed up and gave one player a god weapon and the rest of us just have to deal with it. So now the DM gives everyone a god weapon. Now the party needs to be treated as like 5 levels above what they are. Now the combats are too easy. Then the DM over adjusts and the game becomes rocket tag. It's a slippery slope. But...


That slippery slope is enjoyed by some people: it is some way of bypassing the whole xp system and getting to fight awesome stuff while not making players be aware that what happened is that they basically got to level 20 early and are starting the epic progression.
Many players are adverse to the idea of starting adventures with high level characters but few players are adverse to the idea of getting cool drops so it can be used when the gm wanted a high level adventure but did not want the players to have to get busy making a level 11 character right of the bat and leveling it up each session.

[sithlordnergal]

I would say no, it isn't OP. You're using a large sized maul, so provided you and your DM are following size rules you should have disadvantage on every strike. Reckless Attack mitigates this, making it into a normal roll, but gives everyone advantage on you.

As for the magical weapon damage, again that's no big deal. There are actually some magical glyphs that you can use to permanently apply to a weapon or armor. One such glyph makes the weapon magical and adds 1d6 magical fire damage. The only differences between that glyph and what you got is that the glyph adds fire damage and doesn't add a +1.

It is a powerful weapon, don't get me wrong. But I wouldn't call it broken by any means.

EDIT: For comparison to OP items/weapons. Your weapon can do 5d6 average damage, but in exchange you will never attack with advantage since advantage does not stack.

For me, an op weapon would be something like Blackrazor or the Rod of Lordly Might. In Blackrazor's case, it is a +3 Greatsword where if you kill something with it you gain temp HP equal to the target's max hp.

Meanwhile the Rod of Lordly Might turns into a +3 Mace, +3 Spear, +3 Battleaxe, Flametongue Sword of your choice I believe (which can be a greatsword), paralyze a target on a hit, deal an additional 4d6 necrotic damage on a hit that heals you, cause everything within 30 feet of you to be frightened of you, can turn into a 50ft ladder, a battering ram that gives +10 bonus to athletics checks, and turns into a compass. The only downside to it is that the Paralyze, 4d6 necrotic, and fear effect are once a day

[jaappleton]

Ok.

Everyone at the table needs to sit down.

Yes, by a normal game standard, your weapon is, in fact, OP. Largely so. You cannot compare your 'at will' damage to a spellcasters 'Y Spell + X Spell combo', because they have finite resources. You can swing the hammer all day, they can't cast all day. That's comparing apples and shoes.

Now, by giving you weapons like that, your DM is (likely unintentionally) creating an arms race. When they realize you're now doing too much damage, they need to throw tougher monsters at the group. You were given a shotgun, now the kobolds need mortars.

That's going to be bad for everybody.

Now, you need to decide together if.... you give a **** about that. You might not, and want to keep going as it is, with this super maul. And that's perfectly OK, if its fun for everyone at the table.

But if other party members feel like they're lagging behind and are being overshadowed... Something needs to give. And the answer isn't to give them super weapons, its to bring yours in line with the normal standard.

[sithlordnergal]

That's how it starts unraveling. Are other characters getting things this good? This would annoy me as another player at the table. Especially if the DM starts throwing harder encounters at us because he messed up and gave one player a god weapon and the rest of us just have to deal with it. So now the DM gives everyone a god weapon. Now the party needs to be treated as like 5 levels above what they are. Now the combats are too easy. Then the DM over adjusts and the game becomes rocket tag. It's a slippery slope. But...


I'll be honest...I've never really believed that slippery slope exists. In general, I find it comes down to how well a DM can build an encounter. And trust me, I have seen broken builds and unbalanced parties. I DM in Adventures League, and have one player who did stuff like running single chapters of Hardcovers to get boosts, or played specific modules to get items. He came into ToA with a cleric that had 26 ac, 24 Wisdom, some +2 weapon, and a shield that gave him an initative boost. Meanwhile the rest of the party had +1 weapons at best.

And yet I was able to challenge him, and nearly killed that Cleric without throwing something that would have wiped out the rest of the party.

[tieren]

Its also possible you are nearing the end of the campaign and the DM is loading the party up for an epic finale so (s)he may not care too much about long term balance effects.

Conversely, if my DM were to offer such a weapon I would be sure it was cursed, possessed, sentient and eager to kill me.

[jaappleton]

I'll be honest...I've never really believed that slippery slope exists. In general, I find it comes down to how well a DM can build an encounter. And trust me, I have seen broken builds and unbalanced parties. I DM in Adventures League, and have one player who did stuff like running single chapters of Hardcovers to get boosts, or played specific modules to get items. He came into ToA with a cleric that had 26 ac, 24 Wisdom, some +2 weapon, and a shield that gave him an initative boost. Meanwhile the rest of the party had +1 weapons at best.

And yet I was able to challenge him, and nearly killed that Cleric without throwing something that would have wiped out the rest of the party.

While I applaud you for dealing with it in a wonderful way, I have to disagree on the slope not existing. The 'Monty Haul Campaign', so to speak, has been a thing many DMs have struggled with at times.

[sithlordnergal]

While I applaud you for dealing with it in a wonderful way, I have to disagree on the slope not existing. The 'Monty Haul Campaign', so to speak, has been a thing many DMs have struggled with at times.

I guess I don't see it then cause its basically a way of life for an AL DM. If you DM a table and you don't have at least one player with nearly a 30 AC, spell DC of 18 at level 9, and at least one weapon that deals an extra 1 or 2d6, you're either playing with Tier 1 characters, or this batch is from the new AL rules.

[GlenSmash!]

I'm playing a lvl 8 barb6/fighter2 goliath and my dm has let me use a large sized maul. 4d6 bludgeoning dmg per hit.

Now until recently I'd been doing around the same dmg per round as the rogues, but while giving everyone advantage against me, so I thought it was fine.

Then my DM let me get an enchantment on the hammer, I chose thunder and he made up the enchantment. The weapon became a +1 doing 4d6 magic dmg + 1d6 Thunder dmg.

This seemed to be a tipping point of sorts because holy hell my average dmg has gone up.

Would you say thats too much for a weapon or quite ok? The casters can still out do me with the ol' hex quickened scorching ray combo.


(fun fact, I named the weapon "Thunderstruck" and secretly one of the other players preped the song on there phone to play when I crit, which made everyone laugh XD)

For comparison, your weapon does 1d6 more damage per hit than a Flame Tongue Greatsword while also being a +1 Weapon which the Greatsword is not. And you don't have to use a bonus action to activate the extra damage.

Now that is a rare weapon, but the easiest I could compare it too.

Even compared to a Very Rare +3 Weapon, you will be doing more damage per hit (average 10.5 vs 3) but obviously have a -2 to hit. I know a lot ov players that would take a -2 to hit for a +7.5 damage per hit. Heck I regularly trade -5/+10 with Great Weapon Master on my Current Barbarian.

So to me what you have is a Very Rare to Very rare+ but maybe not Legenday Weapon focusing more on damage than accuracy.

[AvvyR]

Keep in mind that by having disadvantage on every attack, even if you cancel it with Reckless Attack, it means you can never get advantage on an attack. Instances of Advantage/Disadvantage don't stack.

Enemies always having advantage on you, and you never having advantage against them is a heavy price.

[Man_Over_Game]

You're dealing about 22x2 damage per hit. 44 damage per turn.

For damage comparison against a Rogue, assuming the Rogue has Sneak Attack applied 75% of the time and has the same hit chance that you do, a Rogue with a Rapier at the same level deals about 18 damage per turn.

You're dealing about 2.5x more damage than the Rogue, unless he has some kind of magical item that turns this around.

For deeper comparison, a level 20 Rogue at 75% Sneak Attack chance deals a little under 35 damage a turn without magic.

[Nhorianscum]

It's a strong weapon but even ignoring the oversized drawback you're not exactly dishing out gamebreaking damage.

[mephnick]

And yet I was able to challenge him, and nearly killed that Cleric without throwing something that would have wiped out the rest of the party.

But did you do it without the rest of the party feeling like pitied add-ons? People aren't dumb, they know when they're being pandered to.

Obviously this is the internet and you can just say "Why yes I did." but I have my doubts.

[sithlordnergal]

But did you do it without the rest of the party feeling like pitied add-ons? People aren't dumb, they know when they're being pandered to.

Obviously this is the internet and you can just say "Why yes I did." but I have my doubts.

I was able to pull it off, though I'll admit doing it requires you to know your players, their play styles, the strengths/weaknesses of any given class, and the abilities of the NPC enemies. It can be tricky if you don't have the same group at every table, luckily this was a group I had DMed for half a year. Without going too deep into party comp and individual styles, the party was made up of a Wizard, two Rogues, a Ranger, and the Cleric. I basically built the encounter from the ground up. I did give the cleric a chance to shine as a tank, as they were the only one who could survive melee and had built themselves to do it, but I relied more on Dex, Strength, Intelligence, and Charisma saves to do damage and debuff the party. That way the Cleric was not the star of the show.