Does a barbarian need great weapon master?

[Rfkannen]

I have seen a lot of talk about how barbarians work really well with great weapon master, but how do they do without it? I am thinking of rolling up a barbarian and kind of like the idea of being able to switch out my weapon load out for the situation (sword and shield for when we face lots of little enemies, great weapon for one big one). But I am slightly worried that a barbarian without that feat is just weakening themselves.

while on the subject, any other feats that work well with barbarians? Specifically thinking of ones that increase utility.

Im thinking path of the zealot or berzeker. leaning towards berzerker

[firelistener]

Feats are never necessary. 5e has been designed from level 1 to 20 with the mindset that players have zero magic items or feats. They certainly are great, but those things are never needed to be effective in combat or role play scenarios.

With that in mind, your plan sounds great. You can even just use a longsword a swap to holding it with both hands for the d10 (versatile property) if you don't want to actually carry multiple weapons. That said, having a greataxe or greatsword would be best for the higher damage dice. Greataxe has bigger potential crits, but greatsword does more "normalized" damage (meaning you will roll closer to the middle number, 6, most of the time). It's up to you which one sounds better.

Annecdotally, I played a greatsword-wielding bear totem barbarian without any feats and loved it.

[JellyPooga]

What sort of Barbarian?

- Eagle Totem Barbarian + Mobile Feat is a veritable ICBM on the battlefield; that bonus action Dash combined with additional move speed and ignoring difficult terrain makes you fast.

- Wolf Totem Barbarian + Sentinel with Sword+Board is really good for just sitting on the front line and being annoying to your enemies. They want to take you out because you give advantage to your friends and poke them if they don't attack you, but at the same time, your pokes aren't exactly super-mega damage and your AC is irritatingly high for someone that takes half damage on top.

To answer more directly; No, you don't require GWM. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that while GWM is nice and all, it's by no means essential. Yes, Barbarian gets, perhaps, a little more use out of it than others due to Reckless, but that doesn't mean you're "missing out" or "underpowered" if you don't take it.

Never forget, also, that while a Barbarian will often want to use Rage, that doesn't mean they're always going to have it active. A Barbarian can get a lot of utility out of Magic Initiate or even Ritual Caster, if you want to add a little magical flair to your character. If traps are your GMs thing and you don't have a traps-guy, then Dungeon Delver can extend your utility as a mine-sweeper without having to get all worked up about it and waste your Rage uses and/or HP setting off traps. Resilient can shore up a weak Saving Throw (e.g. Wisdom) to avoid situations where a single spell or effect will take you out of a fight or compromise your ability to protect your companions.

[Expired]

I have seen a lot of talk about how barbarians work really well with great weapon master, but how do they do without it? I am thinking of rolling up a barbarian and kind of like the idea of being able to switch out my weapon load out for the situation (sword and shield for when we face lots of little enemies, great weapon for one big one). But I am slightly worried that a barbarian without that feat is just weakening themselves.

while on the subject, any other feats that work well with barbarians? Specifically thinking of ones that increase utility.

Im thinking path of the zealot or berzeker. leaning towards berzerker

. . .Annecdotally [sic], I played a greatsword-wielding bear totem barbarian without any feats and loved it.
If your game has feats and you are concerned with optimization, I'd take PAM then GWM and Bear Totem for the resistance to all damage but Psychic whilst raging. Mobile is a very good choice to ensure that you can reach the frontlines, which is where a Barbarian is best, and it also scales with the Eagle Totemic Attunement which grants flight equal to your walking speed (40ft level 5+ and 50ft level 5+ and Mobile) should you choose that Primal Path. In addition, PAM and Mobile synergize because you can attack 2-3 enemies, depending on level, who are within 5ft of you and back up 15ft from them without taking an attack of opportunity thus forcing them to trigger an AoO if they want to approach you again—bonus points if you have Sentinel because it will reduce their speed to 0 if you hit and they will be outside their reach to hit you unless they themselves have a polearm or a ranged/thrown weapon.

Otherwise, if you insist on not taking GWM, or even PAM for that matter, go Berserker because for a game with no feats (or if you choose to forgo them), the ideal Primal Path is Berserker with either a greatsword or greataxe for the no-feat required bonus action attack (at the price of one point of exhaustion).


What sort of Barbarian?

- Eagle Totem Barbarian + Mobile Feat is a veritable ICBM on the battlefield; that bonus action Dash combined with additional move speed and ignoring difficult terrain makes you fast.

- Wolf Totem Barbarian + Sentinel with Sword+Board is really good for just sitting on the front line and being annoying to your enemies. They want to take you out because you give advantage to your friends and poke them if they don't attack you, but at the same time, your pokes aren't exactly super-mega damage and your AC is irritatingly high for someone that takes half damage on top.

To answer more directly; No, you don't require GWM. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that while GWM is nice and all, it's by no means essential. Yes, Barbarian gets, perhaps, a little more use out of it than others due to Reckless, but that doesn't mean you're "missing out" or "underpowered" if you don't take it. . .
Agreed on all counts. It's very hard not to be effective in combat with a Barbarian and if you have a concept in mind that will make it more fun for you, you should do it—unless your DM is like mine and runs combat as war and will mercilessly slaughter your PCs unless they are min-maxed, then you have nothing to worry about.

[Eldariel]

It's obvious that the class with easy advantage on all attacks likes options that provide extra damage in exchange for accuracy. Yes, it's fine to play without it but it's obviously not as efficient. Thus it's just a matter of where you draw the line; that is to say, how strong the other party members are, how strong the opposition is, how much damage you wish to deal in the first place, etc.

[LudicSavant]

I have seen a lot of talk about how barbarians work really well with great weapon master, but how do they do without it? I am thinking of rolling up a barbarian and kind of like the idea of being able to switch out my weapon load out for the situation (sword and shield for when we face lots of little enemies, great weapon for one big one). But I am slightly worried that a barbarian without that feat is just weakening themselves.

while on the subject, any other feats that work well with barbarians? Specifically thinking of ones that increase utility.

Im thinking path of the zealot or berzeker. leaning towards berzerker

Ancestral Guardians do pretty well without GWM. They are so good at directing an enemy's attacks towards themselves that it's more worthwhile for them to bulk up with a shield.

[CTurbo]

I've played 3 different Barbs in 5e and none of them took GWM.

Res(Wis)
Magic Initiate
Ritual Caster
Lucky

^all great feats for Barbs

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Bazerker have the problem with exhaustion. It is too publishing.

I think that Zealot is better.

You can do fine without GWM. But having it doesn't mean you have to always use it.

I am playing a Zealot barbarian right now and in the last two fights I was dual wielding hand axes instead of using my great axe because we had a lot of enemies and they had low HP.
(Level 3, I don't have the feat).

[da newt]

I liked my bear totem barbarian / BM fighter Bugbear with PAM, shield and spear, and dueling FS. He wasn't optimized for DPR, but he was super consistent w/ 3 attacks and frequent OP attacks with +ST+Rage+Dueling added to all hits and superiority dice / action surge when needed.

[Rfkannen]

What sort of Barbarian?

- Eagle Totem Barbarian + Mobile Feat is a veritable ICBM on the battlefield; that bonus action Dash combined with additional move speed and ignoring difficult terrain makes you fast.

- Wolf Totem Barbarian + Sentinel with Sword+Board is really good for just sitting on the front line and being annoying to your enemies. They want to take you out because you give advantage to your friends and poke them if they don't attack you, but at the same time, your pokes aren't exactly super-mega damage and your AC is irritatingly high for someone that takes half damage on top.

To answer more directly; No, you don't require GWM. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that while GWM is nice and all, it's by no means essential. Yes, Barbarian gets, perhaps, a little more use out of it than others due to Reckless, but that doesn't mean you're "missing out" or "underpowered" if you don't take it.

Never forget, also, that while a Barbarian will often want to use Rage, that doesn't mean they're always going to have it active. A Barbarian can get a lot of utility out of Magic Initiate or even Ritual Caster, if you want to add a little magical flair to your character. If traps are your GMs thing and you don't have a traps-guy, then Dungeon Delver can extend your utility as a mine-sweeper without having to get all worked up about it and waste your Rage uses and/or HP setting off traps. Resilient can shore up a weak Saving Throw (e.g. Wisdom) to avoid situations where a single spell or effect will take you out of a fight or compromise your ability to protect your companions.

The character im picturing is non magical, but I had never thought of a ritual caster barbarian before... I really like it!

[greenstone]

I'm playing a zealot barbarian in a current game. I don't intend to take any feats.
The game will finish before level 12, so for my two ASIs I went DEX +1, CON +1 at level 4, and plan to go +2 STR at level 8.

[DarknessEternal]

If you're wielding a heavy weapon, yes. You'd be missing out on quite a bit of damage without it.

If you're not wielding a heavy weapon, then no. That's not a sarcastic statement. Sword'n'board is really good for Barbarian.

[Tanarii]

But I am slightly worried that a barbarian without that feat is just weakening themselves.

They are just weakening themselves. In terms of damage output.

Kryx (https://forums.giantitp.com/member.php?83260-Kryx) was the greatest number cruncher in 5e history (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1d-9xDdath8kX_v7Rpts9JFIJwIG3X0-dDUtfax14NT0/edit#gid=2091322934) and he showed that not using GWM is something like a 20-25% reduction in damage out. Depending on if you also take Polearm master.

The question isn't if you're just weakening yourself. It's if you consider the alternative benefits (typically delaying Str boosts, and not raising Con at all) is worth the trade off.

[LudicSavant]

*snip*

You're overestimating the extent of what is demonstrated by Kryx's sheet, and the precision with which it's demonstrated.

The link acknowledges right at the start that the builds aren't truly optimized (in some cases severely so, like his Eldritch Knight) and that it uses a great deal of assumptions and guesses (often disconnecting these assumptions from relevant factors; for example a character with +15 Constitution saves and Advantage would maintain Concentration just as long as someone with 0 on Kryx's sheet). He also doesn't have the formulas for many of the more complex mathematical interactions of abilities, so simply... doesn't do those calculations. It also isn't updated with new content, like Zealot / Ancestral Guardian / etc.

Changing his assumed or guessed values, or calculating out more of the variables, or updating with new content, or just plain optimizing better than Kryx did in some places, will give you quite different results.

[Arkhios]

Honestly?

No.

Fighter (Champion) is the only class that I can think of (right now) that would "need" it. Even they would be fine without.

[LudicSavant]

If you're wielding a heavy weapon, yes. You'd be missing out on quite a bit of damage without it.

If you're not wielding a heavy weapon, then no. That's not a sarcastic statement. Sword'n'board is really good for Barbarian.

Agreed.

A Barbarian does not need Great Weapon Master and a heavy weapon in order to be a competitive build. It can even arguably be a detriment for some, like Ancestral Guardians. For example let's take a level 8 Ancestral Guardian who goes GWM vs one that doesn't. For a sample enemy let's say AC 17 (since damage comparisons with GWM are pointless if we don't take into account that accuracy penalty). Both using Reckless and Rage on round 1 of a fight. Since the GWM Barb had to take a feat instead of a Str boost, they're basically at -6/+9 here.

With sword and board, you'll have ~20.2 DPR vs AC17, a 97.44% chance of landing your mark (e.g. hitting at least once in your turn), and the extra AC of a shield (which is important when you're attracting more attacks to yourself).
With GWM and a greatsword, you'll have ~24.8 DPR vs AC 17, a 75.99% chance of landing your mark, and lower AC.

If we're not using Reckless Attack (often a good idea for an Ancestral Guardian who effectively makes allies even more durable than they are, and thus attract attacks to themselves), it's actually more beneficial to not use -5/+10 against AC 17. And so the difference in DPR shrinks: 14.25 vs 15. And the SnB will still have a greater chance of landing their mark, thanks to boosting Strength instead of taking GWM.

There are other benefits to not using GWM as well. For example, unless you're one of the races that gets extra arms you can't grapple someone and hit them with your greatsword at the same time. And grappling has numerous benefits.



Grappling does a great deal more than simply getting a foe to attack you instead of someone else. Here are some of the highlights:

1) Hazard Combos. AKA "How to make your casters very happy."


Many abilities not only do recurrent damage if an enemy sticks round, but also extra damage if you have control over the enemy's movement, since they do damage when an enemy enters (willfully or not) and at the start or end of their turn. So by dragging people around you can make things like Spirit Guardians hit twice a round, or rack up damage on Spike Growth, or the like.

Consider for example a Wizard. Usually you would think that they wouldn't deal a whole lot of resourceless damage. However, they could have their familiar pour out a vial of oil on the ground, and they could light it with Create Bonfire, and you can drag the enemy in out of the space (guaranteeing that they take both the "enters" damage on your turn and "ends turn in the area" damage on theirs). And the Wizard is free on future rounds to cast something like, say, Toll the Dead.

So this level 1 Wizard is contributing 2d8+10 (19) resourceless damage on round 1, and 2d8+1d12+10 (25.5) resourceless damage on round 2+. What's more is that Create Bonfire is an AoE (yes, 5 foot cubes can hit multiple creatures (https://twitter.com/jeremyecrawford/status/672590371835088896?lang=en)), and with Grappling Appendages you can grapple multiple people and drag 'em all through. That's about as efficient as Barbarians can get against multiple foes.

And that's just a cantrip used at tier 1. Wait until the casters start breaking out the real guns.

In many party compositions this is a lot more value than just getting 1 more attack in. This is especially true since you can do it to multiple people at a time. And when you count that you will often have them prone-locked as well.

2) Prone-locking. AKA "You can't hit me, everyone can hit you."

An enemy who is shoved+grappled can't stand up unless they blow their entire Action on attempting to break the grapple. Otherwise they're stuck in a prone state, which gives them Disadvantage on their attacks against you (not just all your allies) and gives Advantage to you (without needing to be Reckless) and all of your allies as well (who can all safely stand within 5 feet of the prone target because none of you are good targets).

This provides a considerable offensive and defensive advantage. A Barbarian that has a shield and Disadvantage to be hit will take considerably less damage than they would otherwise, rage or no rage. This bullet point is even more relevant for an Ancestral Guardian, since the enemy has more reason to attack them instead of allies, so you can take that extra durability right to the bank. And granting ongoing Advantage to all your allies often provides more damage than a Barbarian would do on their own with that one attack and bonus action.

Against many enemies, this allows you to clear the encounter with almost no resources spent, including hit points.

3) It can be done without Raging. A Barbarian does not generally have enough rages for a 6-encounter adventuring day, so your non-rage options are important.

4) Why Grappling? (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?468737-The-Grappler-s-Manual-(2-0)-Grappling-in-5th-Edition#whygrappling)

5) Target Control: This goes beyond merely a question of whether or not the enemy is attacking the tank, but extends to things like manipulating line of sight (often important with spellcasters), optimal cover and formations (like putting the guy with the breath weapon in a place his cone can't do squat), and so forth.

6) Ancestral Protectors Only Target One Enemy: Grappling allows you to lock down additional ones.


Likewise, GWM will do nothing for your ranged options (sure, your ranged options aren't ideal anyways, but if you're at a high tactics table enemies WILL try to kite Barbarians and break their rages. Plus, a Zealot or Ancestral Guardian can actually apply their abilities at range).

Another factor is that the higher your per-hit damage gets, the less valuable GWM is, since you're risking more on a miss. For example, if you get a Flametongue, -5/+10 won't be as valuable. Likewise if you're doing things like, say, multiclassing and making a Barbarogue.

Yet another factor is that the less an enemy wants to attack you, the more likely you are to get opportunity attacks (and thus get some extra damage that way), and shields make enemies want to attack you less. Also note that Reckless does not help your opportunity attacks (it only affects attacks made on your turn).

You're also more likely to land extra effects besides that Ancestral mark. For example, Sentinel (which Barbarians like a Wolf Totem will appreciate. I think someone upthread already mentioned them).

These little things all add up. If you want to play a sword and board Barbarian, there are ways to do that quite effectively. They're just a little less straightforward than going GWM Zealot and constantly using Reckless Attack.

[Tes]

Most math done on that specific subject focus on a single PC in a Party of 3-5.
While that one guy might have a very noticeable impact on overall party DPR, that can go south quite handily with a couple of failed Dominate Person spells.

D&D is pretty complex on the math side because the variables involved are pretty much infinite.
Instead of doing max DPR it's imho much more important to reduce damage received relative to damage taken.

If you're not going 2H Greataxe you're not getting the maximum out of Brutal Criticals, that's a pretty simple and objectively true statement.
However if you're a Bear Totem/Ancestral Guardian Barb, putting on a shield reduces the damage that may already be halved by Rage multiplicatively. Taking half damage IF you take damage is something no one else in your party might be able to do without hampering their Action Economy.
So you might be the ideal guy to deal a good chunk less damage (let's say -20% total DPR for the party) but as long as you are reducing the average damage taken by the party to a greater extent (for our example's sake lets assume a made up -30% damage taken) and improve the Action/Resource economy while doing it, you're contributing more than by doing extra damage.

Now combine that with Crowd Control abilities/Spells from your other party members, which again stacks multiplicatively with your defensive abilities. Lets say your party can focus to disable 50% of all enemies through AOE control spells, making it a priority to leave mostly targets unable to attack anything than AC for you to stand in front of. This again stacks multiplicatively with your Damage Resistance and your extra AC from having a shield.

More damage doesn't do that. Sure you can optimize the entire party to Alpha strike entire encounters. That will still "only" improve the party damage output in a linear way and most likely relies on spending long rest resources. Stacking up on control and durability to enable the entire party to control the damage will cost you damage, encounters will be slower, but you'll finish in better shape overall.
I've seen loads of complaints about heals being too weak in 5e. Which appears to be based on people usually opting for the Fireball slugging Evoker + Crossbowmaster Fighter + OoV Pally rather than opening the fight with a Hypnotic Pattern, while the Battlemaster S&B Fighter grapples and prones the biggest remaining threat and the DPR builds burst down the vastly reduced remaining threats one by one.
Not to diminish the importance of a well optimized DPR build, there's just other important roles you can cover if you want to contribute in an effective manner.

On the subjective side of things it feels more rewarding to control a fight and outwit the bad guys, rather than just hope dealing max DPR is enough to beat the bad guys employing proper tactics.


TLDR:
If you just want max damage yes, you'll feel more satisfied grabbing that Greataxe + GWM and slugging it out on the frontlines trading blow for blow.
However if your goal is to contribute in a meaningful way and be a crucial member of your party in combat, you have choices.

[MrStabby]

So no, you dont need it. Yes, the effect is good. Yes reckless attack does help you get more from it.

One thing to note is that it opens up more races of you go sword and board. A gnome ancestral guardian barbarian with sword and board is a tank that is tough to shift.

[Quietus]

Ancestral Guardians do pretty well without GWM. They are so good at directing an enemy's attacks towards themselves that it's more worthwhile for them to bulk up with a shield.

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. I played a Dragonborn Ancestral Guardian barb up to level 8 in Adventurer's League. Level 4 feat was Dragon Roar (+1 str to get 18, and a short rest friendly fear), level 8 I picked up Shield Master. I was running great weapon early on, but then realized that every enemy liked to pile on me because I made the rest of my party really unattractive as targets, so I switched to sword and board. That freed my party to put more resources into damage, while I focused on support by being the biggest pain in the neck I could. Between fear on mobs, the ancestral guardian effect, and at level 6, my ability to mitigate damage to allies, I may not have been contributing the most damage, but I was extremely effective in enabling my party.

[BoringInfoGuy]

Something to keep in mind about Great Weapon Master. It gives two benefits. The bonus action after a crit or dropping a character to 0 HP works with any melee weapon.

The -5 for +10 benefit does require a heavy weapon.

So the feat is not useless without a Great Weapon if you plan on switching your load out depending on situation.

[loki_ragnarock]

I have seen a lot of talk about how barbarians work really well with great weapon master, but how do they do without it? I am thinking of rolling up a barbarian and kind of like the idea of being able to switch out my weapon load out for the situation (sword and shield for when we face lots of little enemies, great weapon for one big one). But I am slightly worried that a barbarian without that feat is just weakening themselves.


So one of the most glaring weaknesses of the barbarian is that rage goes away if the enemy is smart enough to let them throw a tantrum for a round without giving them a target to attack. Just staying out of reach of a barbarian and not attacking him foils rage in a big way, and once rage is foiled reckless attacking with a greatsword is a much riskier proposition.

You know which barbarian never has to worry about that? A barbarian with a javelin. 120 ft range for prolonged rage. And disadvantage doesn't matter; so long as you make the attack, you continue raging.

So don't worry too much about it; GWM doesn't solve that particular issue the way that your pulling the appropriate loadout will. I had a lot of fun with a barbarian throwing a bunch of hand axes back in the day because I envisioned the character as a crazed axe murderer. More axes trumps bigger axes, so the thinking went. At low levels, it out damaged using a greataxe when raging. After extra attack it fell off a bit by comparison, but it was still fun while serving to insulate me from the terror of enemies that just tried to avoid me.

[Amechra]

Arguably GWM is even worse for an Ancestral Guardian than you'd initially think. If you manage to kill an enemy with your first hit (which GWM makes much more likely), you've wasted your Ancestral Mark for the turn. Oops! You really want something like Sentinel instead.

I also think Shield Master and Tavern Brawler are kinda ignored when people discuss Barbarians. Bonus action grapples and shoves are really good on a class that can reliably give themselves advantage on Strength checks, and Shield Master does silly things in conjunction with Danger Sense.

[stoutstien]

I personally don't think GWM is worth it for barbarians outside of tier 4 and even then it's a pretty low priority. They just don't have enough attacks to make it a good investment. Heck I'd rate durable as a better pick if it happens to even out Con modifier.

[GlenSmash!]

GWM just does more damage which is honestly pretty trivial after a point. You might end some combats a round early or so, but it won't make much difference except in specific cases.

When you really need to use Reckless attack is when you need to do consistent damage to a High AC boss that everyone else is having trouble hitting. It would be unwise to -5/+10 in those scenarios. The bonus action attack is nice if you area already raging and don't have one from PAM or some other source.

GWM really shines when fighting hordes of Low AC enemies where a +10 to damage is the difference between a one hit kill and a two hit kill (it also helps trigger that bonus action attack). For example: in a recent battle with Shadows my barbarian used GWM to kill 2 in the turn he raged and 3 in the following turn. One round more and those shadows would have killed our low strength warlock through strength damage.

This is why at level 10 and after a Fighter gets more use out of GWM than a Barbarian. 5-10 though GWM is a fine feat to have, but buy no means necessary to be a good Barbarian.

[DarknessEternal]

Arguably GWM is even worse for an Ancestral Guardian than you'd initially think. If you manage to kill an enemy with your first hit (which GWM makes much more likely), you've wasted your Ancestral Mark for the turn. Oops! .

That's nonsense. A dead enemy is always the preferable outcome.

[stoutstien]

That's nonsense. A dead enemy is always the preferable outcome.
This is usually true. A better statement would be if GWM causes you to miss then AG's on hit features are wasted.

[GlenSmash!]

This is usually true. A better statement would be if GWM causes you to miss then AG's on hit features are wasted.

I've noticed this on my Zealot. A lot of times landing the 1d6+(level)2 Radiant damage is preferable to a risky chance at another 10 weapon damage.

[Snails]

D&D is pretty complex on the math side because the variables involved are pretty much infinite.
Instead of doing max DPR it's imho much more important to reduce damage received relative to damage taken.

I find the approach of your reasoning persuasive. If combats were about mathematical averages being reliably true, then few battles would need to be played out at all.

IMO, there is a lot to be said for reliable offense and reliable defense in the hands of players with decent tactics. When you have Rage and perhaps Divine Fury already adding to your offense, in some situations it can be tactically optimal to go sword and board.

[Eldariel]

I find the approach of your reasoning persuasive. If combats were about mathematical averages being reliably true, then few battles would need to be played out at all.

IMO, there is a lot to be said for reliable offense and reliable defense in the hands of players with decent tactics. When you have Rage and perhaps Divine Fury already adding to your offense, in some situations it can be tactically optimal to go sword and board.

The game is about probabilities, but there's enough variance in a d20 that in a hundred identically played battles, the outcome is likely to be a bit different every time. Then there's heavily DM fiat territory such as many illusions and terrain manipulation magic and so on. Either way, the game reducing down to math doesn't actually reduce the value of playing anything out; knowing the probabilities doesn't let you know where the dice will land each given time.

[NecessaryWeevil]

Bazerker have the problem with exhaustion. It is too publishing.


Yeah, they've gotten some bad press.

[Snails]

The game is about probabilities, but there's enough variance in a d20 that in a hundred identically played battles, the outcome is likely to be a bit different every time. Then there's heavily DM fiat territory such as many illusions and terrain manipulation magic and so on. Either way, the game reducing down to math doesn't actually reduce the value of playing anything out; knowing the probabilities doesn't let you know where the dice will land each given time.

Absolutely true.

My point is that, as discussed explicitly in the 3e DMG, relying on luck actually tends to disfavor the PCs, as the dice adhering more closely to a reasonable average already favors the PCs in most every combat. And that is why greater DPR is not necessarily tactically optimal, because they (often) come at the cost of broader probability curves. The mathematical averages may say that needing a 12 to hit instead of a 7 pumps the DPR and having a bit of chance to obliterate two enemies on round 1 is a big win. But the bigger practical obstacle for the party as a whole for getting a goodly number of encounters completed in the day is when the best frontliner misses 4 rounds in a row, and only needing a 7 instead of a 12 is a useful mitigation against such poor runs of the dice.

This is a team sport. When the meleeists can reliably wound the enemies, then low level AoE damage spells and Sleep are extremely efficient.

I am certainly not claiming that GWM is anything but good. However, it is not necessarily better than a sword & board barbarian in a party with a bit of tactically savvy.

[Eldariel]

Absolutely true.

My point is that, as discussed explicitly in the 3e DMG, relying on luck actually tends to disfavor the PCs, as the dice adhering more closely to a reasonable average already favors the PCs in most every combat. And that is why greater DPR is not necessarily tactically optimal, because they (often) come at the cost of broader probability curves. The mathematical averages may say that needing a 12 to hit instead of a 7 pumps the DPR and having a bit of chance to obliterate two enemies on round 1 is a big win. But the bigger practical obstacle for the party as a whole for getting a goodly number of encounters completed in the day is when the best frontliner misses 4 rounds in a row, and only needing a 7 instead of a 12 is a useful mitigation against such poor runs of the dice.

This is a team sport. When the meleeists can reliably wound the enemies, then low level AoE damage spells and Sleep are extremely efficient.

I am certainly not claiming that GWM is anything but good. However, it is not necessarily better than a sword & board barbarian in a party with a bit of tactically savvy.

This is certainly true. However, advantage does matter an awful lot here: while the drop from hitting on 7 to hitting on 12 is 25 percent points, being 35,7% less, if you have advantage instead, the drop is only 21,25 percent points or 30,4% less. While the numbers aren't that far apart, the overall chance of rolling high on 2d20 is a significant protection against missing especially if you also have two attacks a round; getting to roll 4 dice and landing with even 1 giving you all the damage you could ask for is already a rather good deal. Of course, if you attacked twice without GWM you'd have great odds of landing two hits but one GWM hit can often be worth two GWMless hits (this does depend in on part on whether you have some superb magic weapon or any such). It's true that missing entirely is the worst that can happen and I think before getting Extra Attack, the risk might be big enough that you don't want to gamble, but once you are rolling enough dice, you can mitigate it to large extent. The bell curve begins to get rather steady and beautiful with a sufficient number of dice; this is why I so like spells like Sleep, they're really reliable at what they do. While you might roll all 1s one day, the chances of that happening are less than 0,01% so you'll probably never see it.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I have seen a lot of talk about how barbarians work really well with great weapon master, but how do they do without it? I am thinking of rolling up a barbarian and kind of like the idea of being able to switch out my weapon load out for the situation (sword and shield for when we face lots of little enemies, great weapon for one big one). But I am slightly worried that a barbarian without that feat is just weakening themselves.

while on the subject, any other feats that work well with barbarians? Specifically thinking of ones that increase utility.

Im thinking path of the zealot or berzeker. leaning towards berzerker

Barbarians are good strikers, and in 5e you never really need to be the best or take feats.

Barbarians make really good leaders. Their base ability to hit hard works well in conjunction with Wolf Totem. Every hit by an ally is like the barbarian did more damage.

For feats, I wouldn't touch a combat related feat unless it gave some utility or fit the fluff of your character.

I rate Actor, Magic Initiate, Ritual Caster, Sentinel (awesome on a Wolf Totem), and Dungeon Delver as better feats than GWM on a Barbarian due to them expanding what a barbarian isn't good at (DD enhances their secondary role of trap finder via HP lol).

Enhancing a striker with a striker feature will just cause a DM to respond with more minions or more HP bloat, which isn't wrong of a DM since they should be challenging the players. It's best to enhance either exploration or social on a Barbarian.

[Eldariel]

Enhancing a striker with a striker feature will just cause a DM to respond with more minions or more HP bloat, which isn't wrong of a DM since they should be challenging the players. It's best to enhance either exploration or social on a Barbarian.

That highly depends on the DM and what is being played. Premade modules and AL are far less likely to see HP bloat making enhancing damage more efficient; and not all DMs respond by just increasing numbers as there's more to difficulty than rolling dice against dice. Terrain and environment in general are generally a bigger deal than the raw numbers on any given characters. So a savvy DM has options beyond "make enemies facetank more damage" to deal with someone going through challenges too easily (though I'd argue GWM Barb is more of a baseline decent damage dealer than "too efficient"; CR 4 enemies can already have 80 HP and resistance to non-magical weapons so even a level 5 Barb with GWM will take a while to slog through that).

EDIT: Just to put it into perspective, without a magic weapon, a level 5 Barb with 16 Str and GWM and a Greatsword will be hitting at +6 with advantage at 8,33 + 3 + 2 damage a hit or +1 with advantage at 8,33 + 3 + 2 + 10 per hit. Babau has 16 AC and 82 HP and resistance to non-magical weapons. Barb swings twice at +6 (adv)/+6 (adv) for 13,33... damage or +1 (adv)/+1 (adv) for 23,33.. damage. 51% chance to hit using GWM, 80% chance to hit without it. He'll hit for 10,66664‬ without GWM or 11,89983 per turn. He'll take 8 turns to drop it alone without GWM or 7 turns to drop it with GWM. I don't think that's a problematic rate of damage by any stretch - though with a magic weapon it would go twice as quickly. Indeed, the Barb will be hardpressed to even win a 1v1 since the Babau has the Weakening Gaze to drop the Barb Str-based damage occasionally (albeit at Con-save so it won't work that often but DC13 Con-save vs. 16 Con Barb still has a 30% chance of failing each turn) and it has pesky spells like Heat Metal, Levitate, and Fear (at low DCs but cast enough times they'll succeed; and Heat Metal doesn't have a save as such anyways, and Barb might not have good Wis saves at this point yet) to complement its somewhat anemic martial prowess (1d8+4 and 1d6+4 at +6).

[bendking]

Need? No.
Will they do a lot more damage? Yes.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

That highly depends on the DM and what is being played. Premade modules and AL are far less likely to see HP bloat making enhancing damage more efficient; and not all DMs respond by just increasing numbers as there's more to difficulty than rolling dice against dice. Terrain and environment in general are generally a bigger deal than the raw numbers on any given characters. So a savvy DM has options beyond "make enemies facetank more damage" to deal with someone going through challenges too easily (though I'd argue GWM Barb is more of a baseline decent damage dealer than "too efficient"; CR 4 enemies can already have 80 HP and resistance to non-magical weapons so even a level 5 Barb with GWM will take a while to slog through that).

EDIT: Just to put it into perspective, without a magic weapon, a level 5 Barb with 16 Str and GWM and a Greatsword will be hitting at +6 with advantage at 8,33 + 3 + 2 damage a hit or +1 with advantage at 8,33 + 3 + 2 + 10 per hit. Babau has 16 AC and 82 HP and resistance to non-magical weapons. Barb swings twice at +6 (adv)/+6 (adv) for 13,33... damage or +1 (adv)/+1 (adv) for 23,33.. damage. 51% chance to hit using GWM, 80% chance to hit without it. He'll hit for 10,66664‬ without GWM or 11,89983 per turn. He'll take 8 turns to drop it alone without GWM or 7 turns to drop it with GWM. I don't think that's a problematic rate of damage by any stretch - though with a magic weapon it would go twice as quickly. Indeed, the Barb will be hardpressed to even win a 1v1 since the Babau has the Weakening Gaze to drop the Barb Str-based damage occasionally (albeit at Con-save so it won't work that often but DC13 Con-save vs. 16 Con Barb still has a 30% chance of failing each turn) and it has pesky spells like Heat Metal, Levitate, and Fear (at low DCs but cast enough times they'll succeed; and Heat Metal doesn't have a save as such anyways, and Barb might not have good Wis saves at this point yet) to complement its somewhat anemic martial prowess (1d8+4 and 1d6+4 at +6).


If the DM doesn't challenge the players, or attempt to, that's a bad DM.

I'm optimistic that anyone DMing is at least putting some effort into the role.

[Eldariel]

If the DM doesn't challenge the players, or attempt to, that's a bad DM.

I'm optimistic that anyone DMing is at least putting some effort into the role.

I'm saying "give monsters extra HP" is pretty lazy far as actually challenging the players goes. A good DM should be able to do better than that without making damage dealers even more useless than they already are. Plus that only works for encounters tailored to PCs; heavily sandbox world will entirely tend to itself with more feedback from the players than the DM - it's entirely up to them if they get themselves up against overwhelming odds or not.

[Tanarii]

But the bigger practical obstacle for the party as a whole for getting a goodly number of encounters completed in the day is when the best frontliner misses 4 rounds in a row, and only needing a 7 instead of a 12 is a useful mitigation against such poor runs of the dice.
A barbarian isn't missing 4 times in a row even with GWM, because of Reckless Attack. With a 84% hit chance without using GWM and a 58% chance with using it, the odds of that are spectacularly low. It will happen 1 out of every 100 4 round combats. Can it happen? Yes. Is it worth worrying about for significantly increasing your overall damage output? Not in the slightest.

[Benny89]

Truth is, if you play with feats - not taking GWM when you have easy access to advantage is just gimping yourself.

Barbarians, Hexblades, Vengeance Paladins, Devotion Paladins and Battlemaster Fighters should always pick GWM (or SS for Hexblades and Fighters) because it's a waste to not capitalize fully on those free advantages/accuracy bonuses.

They just get so much out of it. Same is with PAM and Vengeance Paladins and Hexbaldes. They just get so much more power thanks to that.

Of course you can play Sword n Shield Zealot Barbarian or Hexblade. That is not problem.

But will they be as strong as GWM or PAM + GWM builds? No.

And all of them won't be as strong as Archery + XBE + SS builds. That's just how it is.

But that shouldn't stop you.

I had good fun playin 1 Hexblade/9 Ancestral Guardian PAM + Sentinel Barbarian. He wasn't best optimized for damage but his DPR with Hex was solid and when I needed to go Reckless + Rage, I was going for Curse and I had great fun with him. He could force enemies to attack him, he was super sticky thanks to Sentinel + PAM and he could protect his allies + he had good WIS Saving throws.

A fun character.

So if you want to play something becasue it's "cool" - go for it. But if you are looking for min-maxing - PAM, GWM, SS, XBE are THE WAY. That's how it is.

[Eldariel]

Truth is, if you play with feats - not taking GWM when you have easy access to advantage is just gimping yourself.

Barbarians, Hexblades, Vengeance Paladins, Devotion Paladins and Battlemaster Fighters should always pick GWM (or SS for Hexblades and Fighters) because it's a waste to not capitalize fully on those free advantages/accuracy bonuses.

They just get so much out of it. Same is with PAM and Vengeance Paladins and Hexbaldes. They just get so much more power thanks to that.

Of course you can play Sword n Shield Zealot Barbarian or Hexblade. That is not problem.

But will they be as strong as GWM or PAM + GWM builds? No.

And all of them won't be as strong as Archery + XBE + SS builds. That's just how it is.

But that shouldn't stop you.

I had good fun playin 1 Hexblade/9 Ancestral Guardian PAM + Sentinel Barbarian. He wasn't best optimized for damage but his DPR with Hex was solid and when I needed to go Reckless + Rage, I was going for Curse and I had great fun with him. He could force enemies to attack him, he was super sticky thanks to Sentinel + PAM and he could protect his allies + he had good WIS Saving throws.

A fun character.

So if you want to play something becasue it's "cool" - go for it. But if you are looking for min-maxing - PAM, GWM, SS, XBE are THE WAY. That's how it is.

I'm not sure a Sentinel + PAM build is really less optimal than a GWM + PAM build; it's just a specialized build against a specific type of opposition. It might not do as much damage but it can entirely deny enemies turns; reach + sentinel + PAM is extremely strong against melee dorks. Of course, nothing is stopping you from taking both. Really, damage isn't all that important in the grand scheme of things. Martial types can contribute some control which can be more valuable than raw beat 'em up. Of course, for caster enemies all you can do is have lots of damage so there's that but martial types good against other martials can be worthwhile in some campaigns.

[Tanarii]

The important qualifications for considering GWM and if it's worth it or not worth it is: what are you comparing it to?

Compared to a Strength ASI, if you have easy access to advantage, it is almost always worth it. Even then there are caveats, like not planning to grapple a lot.

Compared to wanting to make a defensive build of some kind, or delaying a Con or Dex ASI (because you're going to raise Str next) it may not be. Or utility feats or off-combat mental stat ASI. Depends what you want.

[MrStabby]

The important qualifications for considering GWM and if it's worth it or not worth it is: what are you comparing it to?

Compared to a Strength ASI, if you have easy access to advantage, it is almost always worth it. Even then there are caveats, like not planning to grapple a lot.

Compared to wanting to make a defensive build of some kind, or delaying a Con or Dex ASI (because you're going to raise Str next) it may not be. Or utility feats or off-combat mental stat ASI. Depends what you want.

Whilst I think this is true, there in an element of context as well. The element of 'if you want to be good at X, then play class Y instead'. Now I still believe that a sword and shield is a good choice for some barbarians (yeah, mainly wolf totem and ancestor) but for others i get to feel that you could realise your ideas and your priorities better with a different class.

[Eldariel]

It's true that optimisation in general reduces down to opportunity cost; you pick the best class, the best subclass, the best race, the best background, the best feats, and the best equipment to a given purpose. However, you can further specialize optimisation - it's a completely valid question to ponder whether a given Barbarian is the best Barbarian for X purpose. Just because a Druid/Wizard/Bard/Cleric almost always does everything better if they put their minds to it doesn't invalidate the question from an optimisation perspective: it's just optimising a different thing, i.e. optimising the class to a purpose rather than optimising the character to a purpose. Barbarian optimised to control an area or tank or whatever is a perfectly valid concept and quite competitive within the paradigm of the class.

[N810]

I find the Effectiveness of GWM goes down in the later levels as the AC of your enemies goes up an up.

[Benny89]

I find the Effectiveness of GWM goes down in the later levels as the AC of your enemies goes up an up.

Hm, I disagree with it. In 5e AC doesn't scale as much as accuracy does. For example High CR enemies like Zariel or Ancient Red Dragon have like 21 and 22 AC. Meanwhile if you take a character with +6 Proficiency, +2 Weapon (which should be no brainer in Tier 4), 20 in main stat, so +5 you have have +13 to hit. If you play class that can easly generate advantage- that is another +5. So +18. GWM is -5. That is +13 to hit. With advantage you only need to hit 7 to hit AC 20 enemy.

Number to roll:

No. Normal. Advantage.
9. 0.600 0.840
8. 0.650 0.877
7. 0.700 0.910

So I say GWM scales really well for higher levels as in 5e AC doesn't shoot up to like 25-30 values in Tier 4. While bounded accuracy goes to really high levels.

And of course we don't take into account here other GWM boosts like Bless, Lucky or Elven Accuracy.

[LudicSavant]

I find the Effectiveness of GWM goes down in the later levels as the AC of your enemies goes up an up.


Hm, I disagree with it. In 5e AC doesn't scale as much as accuracy does. For example High CR enemies like Zariel or Ancient Red Dragon have like 21 and 22 AC. Meanwhile if you take a character with +6 Proficiency, +2 Weapon (which should be no brainer in Tier 4), 20 in main stat, so +5 you have have +13 to hit. If you play class that can easly generate advantage- that is another +5. So +18. GWM is -5. That is +13 to hit. With advantage you only need to hit 7 to hit AC 20 enemy.

Number to roll:

No. Normal. Advantage.
9. 0.600 0.840
8. 0.650 0.877
7. 0.700 0.910

So I say GWM scales really well for higher levels as in 5e AC doesn't shoot up to like 25-30 values in Tier 4. While bounded accuracy goes to really high levels.

And of course we don't take into account here other GWM boosts like Bless, Lucky or Elven Accuracy.

If you're going to throw magic items into the equation, they tend to benefit sword and board more than GWM. Shields provide a significant AC advantage (and are a full rarity tier lower than a +X shield of the same caliber, which they also stack with). And if you grab a Flametongue or something, it's less worthwhile to take an accuracy penalty.

But let's look at your example of a tier 4 character with a +2 weapon (let's say a Greataxe for those Brutal Criticals) against an Ancient Red Dragon. Let's say a Zealot, since that's the most damaging Barbarian and if someone's saying you gotta take GWM, clearly they value damage.

So let's take our tier 4 raging Zealot. Say, level 18 (you said 20 in main stat, so I assume they don't have their capstone yet). They get +4 damage from raging, +5 from strength, and +2 from their sword, for a total of 1d12+11. They also get +1d6+9 if at least one hit lands, and they get +3d12 if they get a crit. And we'll say they're Reckless Attacking and entering rage this turn (using up their bonus action).

Under these circumstances, their average DPR will be 47.04585. If they instead use -5/+10, their average DPR will be 47.5866.

That's right, the DPR for the greataxe Zealot barely changed at all.

How can this be? Well it's pretty straightforward, actually: AC scaling isn't the only thing working against the Barb here. The higher your base damage, the more damage is being risked by your increased miss chance, and the less of a percentage gain the +10 is. Between the rage damage, the zealot bonus damage, the magic weapon damage, and the red dragon's AC, GWM is risking quite a bit on a miss relative to its damage gained. Enough so that it basically cancels out in this particular case.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/692812055304077353/700462667277664266/BarbarianGWMCalc.png

Ah, but what if you're not fighting a big beastie like a red dragon, but instead fighting a swarm of mooks? In that case, Reckless GWM will certainly provide a noticeable damage boost, but there's something else to consider: the damage you take! Just going from 19 AC to 17 AC + advantage for enemies will make a huge difference in the damage you take from mook swarms in particular. We're not talking some piddly amount like +15% damage, either. For example, a horde of bandits will deal fully ~226% damage going from 19 AC to 17 AC + advantage.

How can it be that much? Well, again, it's pretty simple. Against 19 AC, bandits would only hit 25% of the time (1 in 4 attacks). Against AC 17 with Advantage, they hit 57.75% of the time (more than 1 in 2 attacks, e.g. doing more than twice as much damage from that alone), and have a 9.75% crit rate too. Turns out that Reckless Attacking with a two-handed weapon can, in fact, be rather reckless.

Now don't get me wrong, GWM is a good feat to take for many builds. But it is not necessary for optimization. There are plenty of builds and strategies that are competitive without it.

[Eldariel]

The value of GWM obviously depends on target AC and your damage bonuses. It's much like old 3e Power Attack math except in 3e, you could take as much as would be optimal making it more worthwhile with smaller advantages, and in 3e it was easy to stack hit bonuses from things like Flanking, Prone, High Ground, Charge, etc. while in 5e they're all reduced down to advantage meaning there are basically no numeric bonuses. Against low AC targets like...say Giants or whatever, it's quite worthwhile to pound on them with GWM but the higher the AC gets, the lower the effective value. The more auxiliary damage sources you have, the lower the benefit of GWM as well. Sharpshooter is obviously worthwhile more often since the +2 from Archery really does a ton to this end and archers have lower base damage to boot.

[Snails]

Yes, the counterargument that the increased miss chance is not a big deal when you have Advantage is true.

But it is less obvious that boosting your own offense 20-30% at the cost of your enemies offense going up 100% (due to Reckless) is such a good deal, unless you expect to regularly drop enemies and gain free attacks. You do have Resistance to help you survive, but you are also in the midst of the battle and are easily identifiable as the softest effective AC among the PCs. My DMs generally do not single out one PC to target...unless player tactics encourage the enemies to do so.

[Tanarii]

Yes, the counterargument that the increased miss chance is not a big deal when you have Advantage is true.

But it is less obvious that boosting your own offense 20-30% at the cost of your enemies offense going up 100% (due to Reckless) is such a good deal, unless you expect to regularly drop enemies and gain free attacks. You do have Resistance to help you survive, but you are also in the midst of the battle and are easily identifiable as the softest effective AC among the PCs. My DMs generally do not single out one PC to target...unless player tactics encourage the enemies to do so.
Generally speaking as a Barbarian, encouraging the enemies to target you is a good thing. It's a reason to use Reckless, not an argument against. Because Barbarians generally have huge numbers of HPs to go along with resistance. Unless you're significantly outnumbered by hard hitting enemies.

But that is why I said the (typical) path of pushing back or discarding Con ASIs in favor of GWM / PAM is a relevant consideration. Because it is a trade off of durability for even more offense, and durability is one of your strengths as a class, and you already trade it off for offense at will. Reducing durability more permanently does theoretically have the potential to reduce Reckless from 'always on', especially when Raging, to something less.

Although my experience with other players of AL GWM Barbarians isn't that they didn't have to stop using reckless very often.