Human barb GWM Polearm feats is insane damage at 4/5?

[Brenoli]

Hi all,

Just wondering whether my thoughts are correct.

Say human (16 strenght obviously) with feat at 1 and then 1 more at 4, taking GWM and Polearm master.

At level 5 while raging and recklessly attacking with halbert or something would mean around 1D10 + 1D10 + 1D4 + 15*3 = 58,5 damage on average assuming all hits, which I would think would happen quite a lot due to continuous advantage from reckless attacking.

Seems like an absurd amount and even with a miss is still around 38.

It's this correct? And true that practically noone else can do this reliably round after round?

[jaappleton]

Hi all,

Just wondering whether my thoughts are correct.

Say human (16 strenght obviously) with feat at 1 and then 1 more at 4, taking GWM and Polearm master.

At level 5 while raging and recklessly attacking with halbert or something would mean around 1D10 + 1D10 + 1D4 + 15*3 = 58,5 damage on average assuming all hits, which I would think would happen quite a lot due to continuous advantage from reckless attacking.

Seems like an absurd amount and even with a miss is still around 38.

It's this correct? And true that practically noone else can do this reliably round after round?

Anyone could do it. But only Barbs can reliably generate Advantage in this way.

If your party includes a Bard or Druid, or Light Cleric, Archfey Warlock, or any Drow, they could cast Faerie Fire to have all enemies in the area be attacked with Advantage until the spell ends.

And that's just one spell that does it. There's tons, and I mean TONS, of other ways to get advantage on your attacks.

[GlenSmash!]

Yup. But I've really only found that combo works in certain situations.

Against a High AC boss, even with reckless attack the -5 from GWM might mean no damage at all in a turn. I'd rather have reliable damage in that scenario than trying for high damage at the risk of no damage.

However against many low HP, low AC foes I will use the -5/=10 to try and one hit kill as many of them as I can.

Shadows in particular are very easy to hit and have something like 16 HP. And you want to kill them as fast as possible as their strength damage is super deadly. In a recent encounter I killed 2 on the turn that I Raged, and 3 on the next turn each with a single hit. Just wiped them out freeing up the rest of the party to deal with the boss.

[Man_Over_Game]

Yup. But I've really only found that combo works in certain situations.

Against a High AC boss, even with reckless attack the -5 from GWM might mean no damage at all in a turn. I'd rather have reliable damage in that scenario than trying for high damage at the risk of no damage.

However against many low HP, low AC foes I will use the -5/=10 to try and one hit kill as many of them as I can.

Shadows in particular are very easy to hit and have something like 16 HP. And you want to kill them as fast as possible as their strength damage is super deadly. In a recent encounter I killed 2 on the turn that I Raged, and 3 on the next turn each with a single hit. Just wiped them out freeing up the rest of the party to deal with the boss.

On this topic, the rule you want to obey is:

With Advantage, use Power Strike (-5/+10) when you need a 12 (on the die) or lower to hit.

Without Advantage, use Power Strike when you need a 10 or lower to hit.

[GlenSmash!]

On this topic, the rule you want to obey is:

With Advantage, use Power Strike (-5/+10) when you need a 12 (on the die) or lower to hit.

Without Advantage, use Power Strike when you need a 10 or lower to hit.

A good rule of thumb.

[Chronos]

Though the precise values will depend on how much non-power damage you do on a hit. There might, for instance, be a situation where it's worth it on the 1d4 butt hit but not on the 1d10 blade hit with a halberd.

[stoutstien]

V human's feat is powerful no matter how u go about it. Healer can heal more than a cleric that blows all their slots on healing word, Heavy armor master can effectively double your health, inspiring leader can double the group's health, shield master can turn you into on demand advantage machine, and so on.
Feats are powerful so it's expected that a race that can get 2 Almost a tier early stands out

[LudicSavant]

Hi all,

Just wondering whether my thoughts are correct.

Say human (16 strenght obviously) with feat at 1 and then 1 more at 4, taking GWM and Polearm master.

At level 5 while raging and recklessly attacking with halbert or something would mean around 1D10 + 1D10 + 1D4 + 15*3 = 58,5 damage on average assuming all hits, which I would think would happen quite a lot due to continuous advantage from reckless attacking.

Seems like an absurd amount and even with a miss is still around 38.

It's this correct? And true that practically noone else can do this reliably round after round?

1) Others can definitely do similar DPR at the same level.

2) It's not quite as reliable as it might appear on paper. Rage is a limited and interruptible resource at this level, and on the first round of rage you can't use your bonus action for PAM. Also the -5 matters, even with Advantage.


A good rule of thumb.

It's really not though. Consider for instance a Paladin with upcast Elemental Weapon, 4th level Divine Smite, GWF, and a Greatsword who needs a 12 on the die to hit. If they decide to power attack, their average DPR drops by ~10 per swing. The +10 just doesn't make up for all the damage they're risking with the miss chance.

The reason MOG's "rule you want to obey" doesn't work is because the relevant variables aren't "what number you need on the die to hit," it's "how much damage are you risking, relative to how much damage you're gaining."

[Aaron Underhand]

Hi all,

Just wondering whether my thoughts are correct.

Say human (16 strenght obviously) with feat at 1 and then 1 more at 4, taking GWM and Polearm master.

At level 5 while raging and recklessly attacking with halbert or something would mean around 1D10 + 1D10 + 1D4 + 15*3 = 58,5 damage on average assuming all hits, which I would think would happen quite a lot due to continuous advantage from reckless attacking.

Seems like an absurd amount and even with a miss is still around 38.

It's this correct? And true that practically noone else can do this reliably round after round?

Actually it is 2d10+d4+3*13 = 52.5

Your strength is only 16. your native attack is only +6, so just +1 for the +10 damage

A vhuman hunter ranger with sharpshooter, hunter's mark and archery fighting style can do

3*(d8+d6+14) = 66 with a native attack of +9 (so +4 with the bonus damage) assuming two enemies are adjacent, triggering the third attack.

[GlenSmash!]

It's really not though. Consider for instance a Paladin with upcast Elemental Weapon, 4th level Divine Smite, GWF, and a Greatsword who needs a 12 on the die to hit. If they decide to power attack, their average DPR drops by ~10 per swing. The +10 just doesn't make up for all the damage they're risking with the miss chance.

I thought MOG said 12 on the die was for with advantage? Is that accounted for in your scenario?

Still I agree additional damage riders definitely affect when I choose to -5/+10.

I'm playing a Zealot right now and I'd much often rather land an extra 1d6+3 Radiant than 10 Slashing in a lot of scenarios.

In the Shadows scenario I previously mentioned I needed the +10 to one-hit-kill each of them and I wanted to kill them quickly as strength damage was about to destroy our low strength Warlock and I only need a 5 on the die roll to hit so -5/+10 was a no-brainer there.

Fighting a horde of hobgoblins would be a different story.

[RulesJD]

Actually it is 2d10+d4+3*13 = 52.5

Your strength is only 16. your native attack is only +6, so just +1 for the +10 damage

A vhuman hunter ranger with sharpshooter, hunter's mark and archery fighting style can do

3*(d8+d6+14) = 66 with a native attack of +9 (so +4 with the bonus damage) assuming two enemies are adjacent, triggering the third attack.

He said +15 because of the extra +2 Rage damage.

That's not the comparison you want to make here, because two enemies adjacent is a massive additional condition. Instead, compare a V. Human Gloomstalker with SS and Xbow Expert. Or a BM Fighter with SS + Xbow + Precision die. Those combos have far easier requirements.

To answer the OP's question:

Yes, it is brokenly OP and has been since 5E's launch. It's the cause of countless threads and "Help I'm a DM and my Barbarian PC is soloing fights the rest of the group struggles against". It's a combo as old as 5E, so DMs nerf it and some don't.

[Man_Over_Game]

12 with Advantage, or 10 without Advantage, is based on the average 10 base damage on the hit.

Now, if you deal more base damage (like if you have Barbarian Rage, you have Rogue's Sneak Attack, or some kind of buff), then those values will be less. As in, 10 with Advantage, or 8 without Advantage (as just an example, if your base damage is higher).

Basically, the less you risk, the better it is to Power Attack.
On the same topic, it's a LOT more worthwhile to Power Attack on the 1d4 attack than it is with the 1d10.

But the average damage per hit of a martial character is around 10 damage on a hit (which accounts for a +4 modifier and roughly a 1d10 weapon). But that's why it's a general rule. If you're dealing 30 damage per hit, you shouldn't be power attacking anything that requires more than 7 on the die to hit, even with Advantage.

To put it into perspective, if you only deal 1 damage on a hit, it doesn't matter how inaccurate you are, because GWM will multiply your damage by x10.

[LudicSavant]

I thought MOG said 12 on the die was for with advantage? Is that accounted for in your scenario?

Here's the exact figures for -5/+10 DPR difference for the scenario stated:

12 to hit (normal): -10.14583333 DPR
12 to hit (advantage): -12.796875 DPR

10 to hit (normal): -9.145833333 DPR
10 to hit (advantage): -8.867708333 DPR

You should not be power attacking in ANY of these scenarios. Any way you slice it you're losing about 10 DPR per swing.


12 with Advantage, or 10 without Advantage, is based on the average 10 base damage on the hit.

Then it's not a general "rule you should obey" it's what you should do in that specific situation, and not others.

Not to mention that you made no mention of that "10 base damage" assumption in your original post.

[Keravath]

The math for a range of weapons is here:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?655006-The-math-of-GWM-SS

Basically, the lower the damage of the weapon+mods the higher the to hit you can choose to use GWM/SS at to break even in terms of damage.

The 10 and 12 numbers cited by MOG are a reasonable rule of thumb looking at the table in the linked article for a range of weapon damage.

However, the damage using GWM is much more sporadic though larger even with advantage at low levels, it isn't reliable.

In practice, I don't really find GWM becoming unbalancing until tier 3 when opponent AC starts to level off but magic weapons become more common, combat stats get closer to maxed and other magic items can tip the balance towards GWM very significantly (e.g. Belt of Giant strength).

At level 4/5, the theoretical damage from PAM+GWM is very rarely realized, though when a character does get lucky and makes the rolls it is relatively large. There are a number of builds that can do this, barbarian is just one of the easier ones.

[LudicSavant]

*snip* It is reasonable with the caveat that you are doing damage in those specific ranges (the ones in the thread linked are actually pretty narrow, including no class abilities, magic gear, or riders of any kind), and that it is an approximation even then (On that chart there are only 2 cases out of 15 listed for which the "10/12" figure fits).

It is misleading to just tell a new player that it's a general "rule they should obey" without that context, as it is not difficult or rare to exceed those ranges.

[GlenSmash!]

It is misleading to just tell a new player that it's a general "rule they should obey" without that context, as it is not difficult or rare to exceed those ranges.

I've never equated a "rule of thumb" as a "rule they should obey".

Its a guideline for when I don't want to think very hard. You know, just eyeball it and compare it to my thumb.

[LudicSavant]

I've never equated a "rule of thumb" as a "rule they should obey".
I know. Sorry if I was unclear, I was referring to this comment:


On this topic, the rule you want to obey is

[GlenSmash!]

I know. Sorry if I was unclear, I was referring to this comment:

Ah. Carry on then.