Is GWM actually that good?

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I read that at some tables GWM is the preferred style for melee martials, to the point of being a must have. With the exception of a Barbarian, who can effectively halve damage and create advantage with limited impact on the action economy, and tier 3 fighters who get 3+ attacks and have scaled their attack bonus significantly beyond the ACs of most foes, we just haven't seen it be that effective at our table.

Basic issues are 1) the penalty on the attack modifier creates a lot of misses and mitigates the average damage boost you actually get, and 2) the drop in AC without a shield is significant for a character who is trying to get into melee. 3) Fighting styles to support other feats, like Archery and Dueling are better than GWF.

Don't get me wrong; I think it's a decent option, but I'm usually not awed when someone at our table goes with it. What are those that think this is great seeing that I'm not?

[LudicSavant]

I read that at some tables GWM is the preferred style for melee martials, to the point of being a must have.

GWM is a good feat, but it's not a must have -- there are plenty of well-optimized builds that don't use it.

[animorte]

I've never cared for it, nor have I ever actually seen somebody use it. Each of your three points are a concern when I'm playing a martial. I prefer more reliable circumstances for more reliable results as far as defense and offense are concerned, though I'm sure it feels exceptional each time somebody sees that damage bonus. It allows them to forget all the times they probably missed because of it.

[solidork]

It's been working out decently for me on my Paladin but I've got a lot of ways to enhance my accuracy
- Bless
- Bardic Inspiration
- Faerie Fire
- Knocking prone by jumping onto people as a Harengon (Tasha's "falling onto other creatures" rules)

I'm considering asking if I can switch to the One D&D version. I want to take Resilient: Con at 8 so that casting Haste on myself is only not optimal instead of actively bad, but then I'd have 17 Strength until level 12.

[Kane0]

Admission time: i've never actually used the -5/+10 myself, even when taking GWM or SS. I really hate missing.

BA attack feats though, i've used a bunch. Those live up to the hype

[Schwann145]

I think it gets a lot more attention than it deserves because some classes rely so heavily on it, namely Barbarians and melee Fighters.
If you're a Barbarian not using GWM, you're gonna be really disappointed with your damage output, plain and simple*.

Other classes that have better options don't get stuck relying on it; Paladins can smite, Warlocks can rely on melee invocations, etc.

*-Unless you're specifically playing a different strategy, like an Ancestors Tank.


Also, I think SS should be part of any conversation about GWM, and I think just about every archer character (that isn't trying to abuse dual-wielding hand xbow shenanigans) ends up with SS.

[Witty Username]

GWM boils down to the Fire blast mentality. Every Pokémon player gets to the point where they have to choose between flamethrower (90 power, 100% accuracy) or fire blast (110 power, 85% accuracy). The argument for fire blast has been summed up as: I would rather lose some of the time because I missed when I needed to hit instead of losing all the time because I didn't do the damage I need on that hit.

Alot of the same principles apply, rogue with sneak attack, is doing plenty of damage without the +10, so the -5 is a unnecessary risk (SS, but same principles) meanwhile a fighter with a d10 weapon is much less likely to hit lethal damage in X turns, the +10 will drop that turn count, but the -5 means more interference from the dice gods. Also, there is the leveraging of to hit bonuses. Something like bless on top of a +8 to hit will mean some enemies like zombies, are more than unmissable, GWM allows to shift some of that waste into damage.

GWM is probably the best option, but it doesn't remove the need for nuance or prevent play mistakes. It is part of the ecosystem of a build.

[Cheesegear]

I read that at some tables GWM is the preferred style for melee martials, to the point of being a must have.
[...]
Basic issues are 1) the penalty on the attack modifier creates a lot of misses and mitigates the average damage boost you actually get, and 2) the drop in AC without a shield is significant for a character who is trying to get into melee. 3) Fighting styles to support other feats, like Archery and Dueling are better than GWF.
[...]
What are those that think this is great seeing that I'm not?

Those three issues are all solved with good party composition.

If you treat the Martial as an individual character, competing with the other characters at the table...Yes. GWM sucks. You're going to miss your attack, then you're going to attacked in return. You deal no damage, and take more damage. That's an awful round for you.

But, +10 damage, is +10 damage. It's very...Efficient. In high-Tier 1, you can one-shot a lot of hostiles. In Tier 2, you're looking at +20, +30 or even +40 damage per turn. That's a big ****ing deal. All's you have to do is be able to hit...And that's where your party comes in. Bardic Inspiration and Bless are available to you, from Level 1 - and from there it only gets better. You take damage on the return? No you didn't. The hostile is dead. Even if you did...Your party can heal you. You've got Second Wind. Something.

The problem is, at the end of the day, it's "just" damage. There are so many ways in this game to deal damage that "making your numbers bigger" just doesn't seem all that impactful. Certainly, when you start dealing with Hit Point sponges, they'll soak the 87 damage and then punt you across the room. That was a nice Action Surge you did, but you can't do it again...

Dealing "just" bigger damage is very good...If you want bigger damage. It's kind of a must-have.

However, if your DM is moderately clever, or your party composition sucks, you'll find that your character needs more than just "big damage" to be effective, and that's when people start finding GWM to be underwhelming. You deal 20 damage to the Goblin...You know that only have 7 Hit Points, right? What was the benefit, again?

[kazaryu]

I think it gets a lot more attention than it deserves because some classes rely so heavily on it, namely Barbarians and melee Fighters.
If you're a Barbarian not using GWM, you're gonna be really disappointed with your damage output, plain and simple*.
.
bolding mine.
this is an objectively false statement. I once played a barbarian and not only did i not have GWM...specifically fought with a rapier. now, granted, I didn't use dex with it. but still. i was totem, but not bear (eagle, if i recall). and at no point did i feel disappointed by my damage output. certainly it helped some that had 4 levels in rogue for that extra 2d6 SA every round. but thats nothing compared to an extra 20 damage per round except for the few times i'd miss.

people really need to stop pretending that the -5/+10's are essential for damage. they're obviously always going to be a damage buff, but that doesn't mean you need them in order to do adequate damage.

[Skrum]

My feeling is that if you have easy access to advantage, GWM is very good. If you don't have frequent advantage (like, 75%+ of your attacks), GWM is skipable.

Basically, you need to be a barb (and not mind getting hit a lot), or better yet, be playing at a table with flanking rules.

[strangebloke]

I mean this is just "overrated" discourse.

I think its more helpful to contextualize things.

Great weapons are, in a featless game, pretty bad with little to recommend them. They deal marginally higher damage than longswords and rapiers, and even that gap is closed considerably by dueling style compared to GWFighting style. The only real recommendation is that for a spellblade you can always take a hand off the weapon to cast shield or whatever. A real upside if not a game changing one.

GWM takes this very bad weapon choice and makes it... better. Getting an extra attack every couple turns? Very good! The math shows that the -5/+10 not only adds damage in many cases, but adds enough damage to more than justify the feat. And in some cases it's essentially free, particularly if you have advantage or some other accuracy booster. And of course this has synergy with the cleave effect. This is a great feat! Its not like Dual Wielder or similar which isn't terrible but also isn't enough to carry the archetype. GWM is enough to make people play with glaives and greatswords! Its a good feat!

the problem is that the other supermartial feats are even better. PAM just gives you an essentially unconditional BA attack, and often adds a 4th conditional reaction attack. Attacks are good! GWM and PAM can be used together and often are, but have a degree of anti-synergy because they compete for the bonus action. GWM actually pairs more organically with Sentinel, which is weaker than PAM but... I digress. CBE and Sharpshooter are crazy, particularly with how common accuracy boosters for archers are. And because in 5e most martials aren't natively very mobile, melee martials have to invest heavily in resources to keep up with flying enemies, move across large arenas, etc. which means that if the melee guy isn't dealing more damage when they finally get in to deal damage, they're going to be falling behind in other areas. The barbarian needs boots of flying, but the ranger doesn't need that and got an amulet of mindreading instead.

So in summary

GWM is a good feat
It improves one of the most lackluster melee martial archetypes
melee martials archetypes are generally worse than ranged martial archetypes
ranged martial archetypes are generally worse than casters by a lot.

GWM is the king of the dump it grew up in.

I love it and use it on tons of characters.

[LudicSavant]

Largely agree with what Strangebloke said. There's little reason to use two handed weapons without GWM. It's less a case of "GWM is OP" and more of "two handed melee weapons are underpowered without GWM."

[Hytheter]

An excerpt from my weapon rework daydreams, that relates to two-handers:
Longsword is base d10
Greatsword is base d12
Any melee* weapon wielded in two hands rolls an extra dice.

*Or give ranged weapons smaller dice.

- Makes two-handing a longsword actually worthwhile even if you have duelling. Also gives one-handed Strength-chars a slight edge over their rapier-using counterparts.
- Makes big two-handers like greatswords hit like a truck, as they should, instead of getting like 2 damage at the cost of 2AC. Epic crits.
- Gives melee a distinct damage advantage over ranged.
- Opens up design space for holding a greatsword in one hand like the Mountain in GoT, or gripping a dagger in two hands. For example.

[Schwann145]

this is an objectively false statement. I once played a barbarian and not only did i not have GWM...specifically fought with a rapier. now, granted, I didn't use dex with it. but still. i was totem, but not bear (eagle, if i recall). and at no point did i feel disappointed by my damage output. certainly it helped some that had 4 levels in rogue for that extra 2d6 SA every round. but thats nothing compared to an extra 20 damage per round except for the few times i'd miss.

people really need to stop pretending that the -5/+10's are essential for damage. they're obviously always going to be a damage buff, but that doesn't mean you need them in order to do adequate damage.
There's a lot of issues with this comparison.
For one, you're not describing a Barbarian, you're describing a Multiclass, which changes the "equation" entirely.
For two, you're not comparing "+2d6 vs +20." You're actually comparing "+2d6 vs +Nothing(Maybe +1 to each attack from a Rage bump, if you leveled enough)."

My question to you: Would you be satisfied if this character you describe didn't have the Sneak Attack damage at all, and only dealt Weapon+Stat+Rage damage? Because that's what a Barbarian without GWM has to settle for (subclasses aside).



*good stuff**agreeing with good stuff*
I third this.

[CTurbo]

GWM is EXCELLENT for Barbarians, good for Fighters, and probably a pass for most other classes with the exception of a few Paladin builds(Devotion and Vengeance) and a rare Str Ranger.

PAM is far superior IMO for any build outside of the Barbarian. Of course you can have both, but PAM>GWM and should be the first option.

[Kane0]

An excerpt from my weapon rework daydreams, that relates to two-handers:
Longsword is base d10
Greatsword is base d12
Any melee* weapon wielded in two hands rolls an extra dice.


....huh. Thats a neat idea actually, gonna steal that

[kazaryu]

There's a lot of issues with this comparison.
For one, you're not describing a Barbarian, you're describing a Multiclass, which changes the "equation" entirely.
For two, you're not comparing "+2d6 vs +20." You're actually comparing "+2d6 vs +Nothing(Maybe +1 to each attack from a Rage bump, if you leveled enough)."

My question to you: Would you be satisfied if this character you describe didn't have the Sneak Attack damage at all, and only dealt Weapon+Stat+Rage damage? Because that's what a Barbarian without GWM has to settle for (subclasses aside).


although you do bring up a good point that i *should* have compared to non GWM, my answer would still, unequivocally be, yes.

for 2 reasons.
first: without sneak attack i'd have been dealing about the same amount of damage anyway 2d8+2d6 vs 4d6, my damage per round was only ahead of great weapon damage by the difference between 2d6 and 2d8 (2). which is relatively minor once you factor in static damage (24 vs 22) is a pretty minor bump. so objectively i was basically doing as much damage as a great weapon barb that didn't have one of those.

second, and the real reason i would have been fine is just...attitude. i didn't come in with any preconceived notions for how much damage i should be doing.

Just to be clear, i want to point out. im not saying that great weapon damage shouldn't generall be higher. i've long lamented the fact that the difference between a long sword and a so called 'heavy weapon' was so small, especially with how those weapons are treated by the rules. My only point is that you're not guaranteed to feel disappointed with damage without GWM. you can be perfectly content with it.

[Dalinar]

The more you can improve the accuracy of an attack, the more it becomes worth it to increase the damage of the attack; the more you can increase the damage of the attack, the more important it becomes to land it in the first place; and the more accurate and powerful your attacks are, the more it becomes worth it to invest in ways to increase the number of attacks you have.

GWM improves two of those three factors, giving you a chance of getting a bonus action attack sometimes (granted, that part's almost irrelevant when combined with PAM, which is a popular combo) while also increasing the damage you can deal with an individual attack at the cost of some accuracy.

The thing about the -5/+10 mechanic (true for Sharpshooter as well) is that the more likely you are to hit in the first place, the more likely that taking the -5/+10 is worth it. In other words, the more you optimize for having really accurate attacks, the better a deal -5/+10 becomes. Consider these two situations:


If you're fighting something with really high AC (or you have disadvantage) and you have a 30% chance to hit, GWM reduces that to a 5% chance. You'd have to expect the GWM version of the attack to do six times the non-GWM, which is never going to happen mathematically. The attack would need to deal under 2 points of damage (not counting resistances which also affect GWM).
On the other hand, if you're fighting something with moderately low AC and you have a 75% chance to hit, GWM reduces that to a 50% chance. If you hit 2/3 as often but deal more than 3/2 the damage, GWM is worth it.


A 16 STR greatsword attack expects to deal about 10 damage (2d6+3); GWM would double that. The bonus action from PAM on the same 16 STR expects about 5.5 damage(d4+3); GWM nearly triples that. So you'd need a monster with relatively high AC to make GWM not worth it in those cases.

The more accuracy you can stack from things like advantage, bless, etc. the better the math works out for -5/+10; on the other hand, if you put all that effort into stacking damage bonuses instead, it's less likely to be a net gain. If you've got a 10d6 sneak attack queued up (35 bonus damage), that -5 accuracy is a much harder sell.

In particular advantage is kinda weird; if you're already going to hit 70% of the time and get advantage, that's a 91% hit rate. GWMing on that would be a 45% hit rate, but applying advantage turns that to 69.75%. You've actually only lost 21.25%, rather than the 25%.

Throwing a Bless on top of that situation closes the gap even further; now your base accuracy is 82.5%, down to 57.5% if you GWM. Adding the advantage brings the base attack to 96.625% accurate and the GWM attack to 81.625% accurate. In this situation, advantage reduced the accuracy loss to only 15%! You're barely ever going to miss even if you do swing for the fences.

Against a super-high AC target (somewhere less than 60% accuracy I believe), advantage actually makes the math worse for GWM, but at that point you're already pretty desperate to hit at all, so it likely would've been a questionable decision anyway.

Please correct me if any of the specific numbers are wrong. I think I at least got the overall logic of the situation right, though.

There's a few situational considerations, like attacking a low-HP enemy who will likely die anyway (hard-capping the damage you can do and increasing the value of accuracy and attack-more-times), or if there are additional effects riding on the attack besides just damage (Paladin smite spell effects, or attacks against a target that's concentrating).

But if you (OP or anyone else) are experiencing a gap between the way GWM/SS are hyped up and how they play out in practice, it may come down to using it in situations where your chance to hit is already in doubt.

[Witty Username]

second, and the real reason i would have been fine is just...attitude. i didn't come in with any preconceived notions for how much damage i should be doing.


While this is definitely a possibility, and I would say those with this take are probably better for it, this can get complicated in actual practice.

Part of the reason people care about class balance is overshadowing, and how this can be detrimental in party play. For some tangible examples, I have a couple players at my table that have been turned off from player options because of things like this.
One was a sun soul monk, who ended up changing characters because he felt his character was not contributing to the party, part of this being that we were mostly pretty sturdy characters with good damage dealing abilities (I was a hexblade bard, and to round out was a Paladin w sorcerer dip mostly for shield and a shepard druid). The other was in between games, going over concepts and builds, and the idea of archer character was floated, and the response was that it would feel bad to play a archer character because of the ease to do a similar play pattern as warlock and do as well or better without much investment.

For barbarian, I personally think they do ok damage with heavy weapons, there are oddities outside of that that I notice (like say the damage boost from rage matches deuling at low levels, so a sword and shield barbarian is a little behind on damage of other martials at low levels with similar weapons. Also, brutal critical feels bad every level its gotten where another character gets a something (the rogue gets the same ability at level 1 after all). Will this matter to all players, no. Will this be a deal breaker for some, definitely.

[Snivlem]

I've never cared for it, nor have I ever actually seen somebody use it. Each of your three points are a concern when I'm playing a martial. I prefer more reliable circumstances for more reliable results as far as defense and offense are concerned, though I'm sure it feels exceptional each time somebody sees that damage bonus. It allows them to forget all the times they probably missed because of it.

Honestly I think the cognitive bias is more likely to go the other way.
Missing feels bad. Missing because you applied gwm feels even worse. Your mind is more likely to ignore all the extra damage they would have done all the times they would have hit either way if they had also applied the gwm penalty, and remember the times you missed because you applied it.
That is also the likely reason why so many people in this thread don't like the feat despite its huge, mathematically provable, impact.

[tokek]

Honestly I think the cognitive bias is more likely to go the other way.
Missing feels bad. Missing because you applied gwm feels even worse. Your mind is more likely to ignore all the extra damage they would have done all the times they would have hit either way if they had also applied the gwm penalty, and remember the times you missed because you applied it.
That is also the likely reason why so many people in this thread don't like the feat despite its huge, mathematically provable, impact.

Its impact is good when conditions are good. When you can gain advantage its a powerful feat.

When you cannot gain advantage its pretty marginal. Whether its better than an ASI without advantage really depends on target AC and other factors (high HP targets suffer fewer wasteful overkill hits with it for example)

When you have disadvantage its a hindrance and should not use it.

The majority of combat encounters you will be able to get your teamwork and/or your build options working to get that advantage. But for me its always the encounters where things are going wrong that decide whether a character survives or not - which is when this feat ceases to work for you. That may just be the style of game I play where real danger of death is always in the background even if not ever-present.

[stoutstien]

The +/- portions of GWM and SS are weird in that the lower your initial damage is the better they get. It is realistically possible to have characters that they're damage is so high that it's hardly ever worthwhile to use it.

SS has the benefit of have the good/bad portion with cover and range (good in theory bad in practice) but GWMs second bullet is limited by action economy that almost always has competition. Bonus actions have grown increasingly commonplace.

IMO this leaves GWM is the "nice to have" category unless it's purely a theme pick. I generally add it to weapons as a tag instead.

[Cheesegear]

GWM is the king of the dump it grew up in.

QFT. GWM is the best pick for a bad idea.

I think I can count on one the number of hostiles I use where their Ranged attacks are more and/or better than their Melee attacks.
That is, the vast majority of hostile creatures in the game are Melee-based creatures. If you walk up to a hostile with +12 to hit that deals 6d6+6 damage with Multiattack...Taking -5 on your attack roll is a very bad idea unless you can mitigate it.

To that end, IMO, the party role for a Melee character isn't to deal damage...But to take damage. GWM just doesn't fit how the game is played. But if you are going to take GWM...I expect your character to die around Level 7 or 8.

[diplomancer]

Largely agree with what Strangebloke said. There's little reason to use two handed weapons without GWM. It's less a case of "GWM is OP" and more of "two handed melee weapons are underpowered without GWM."

This. But then, some people want to be swinging a big weapon in combat, and care less for optimal play (but still care enough to want GWM to compensate for it)

[Mastikator]

This. But then, some people want to be swinging a big weapon in combat, and care less for optimal play (but still care enough to want GWM to compensate for it)

It doesn't compensate for it. You need either a creature with very low AC or to pile advantages and buff spells and optimize your character for it to pay off and be better than just raising your strength.

On the other hand the UA GWM is a +1 strength half feat that adds your proficiency bonus to damage once per turn, and adds the conditional bonus action attack. This is actually way better on someone who cares less for optimal play because it just works and you don't have to strategize.

The only time a +10 damage / -5 to hit is actually worth using is when you have advantage against a medium AC creature, or when you attacking a low AC creature.

[diplomancer]

The only time a +10 damage / -5 to hit is actually worth using is when you have advantage against a medium AC creature, or when you attacking a low AC creature.

Or you have other accuracy boosts. There are plenty of them in the game. But this is not a hill I'm willing to die on. I think it's pretty clear that if, as a Martial, what you want to do is a lot of damage, you're better off going ranged, since I believe the accuracy boost of Archery fighting style more than compensates for both the smaller weapon die and even the GWF style damage boost, specially when using the -5,+10 feats. If you're going melee, you should focus more on defense and on ways of making opponents want/have to target you and not other party members.

[Leon]

Its a option. Whether its a good or bad option will vary from player to player, character to character. Like all the feats, weapon based or not a lot is said about them that really only matters for the person saying it and often in a white room.

[Frogreaver]

I'm not a huge fan of GWM in general. Most characters probably shouldn't take it. However, ones that get accuracy boosts, or ones in parties that regularly supply accuracy boosts make it very strong.

I'd also note that the bonus action attack part of it is generally very underrated.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

My feeling is that if you have easy access to advantage, GWM is very good. If you don't have frequent advantage (like, 75%+ of your attacks), GWM is skipable.

Basically, you need to be a barb (and not mind getting hit a lot), or better yet, be playing at a table with flanking rules.

Flanking... this option would definitely alter the paradigm and is maybe some of the answer to my question about different perspectives. I could definitely see this being a game changer for GWM and melee builds in general if a table used these rules. We never have, but as I think about it, this change would make the power attack way better... but enemies are also going to hit more often as well. I can imagine combat being pretty quick and lethal using flanking.

[LudicSavant]

The +/- portions of GWM and SS are weird in that the lower your initial damage is the better they get. It is realistically possible to have characters that their damage is so high that it's hardly ever worthwhile to use it.

True.

One of the most common (and least useful) comparisons I see from people who overestimate GWM (e.g. considering it OP rather than merely good) is comparing some greatsword-wielding character with base weapon damage (and no other features except maybe Advantage) to the same greatsword-wielding character with +2 Strength, then going 'wow, what an increase!'

And the reason this comparison isn't especially useful is because A) as Strangebloke says, GWMless two-handed weapons are outperformed by most things, not just GWM, and B) like Stoutstein says, because GWM doesn't just scale up with accuracy boosters, it also scales down with damage-per-hit boosters and status riders and the like -- something that is all too easily overlooked if the only comparison one considered is using base weapon damage.

The real competition for a VHuman GWM Barb isn't an otherwise identical build minus GWM, it's a sharpshooter battlemaster or a grappler rune knight or a shadow blade gish or a bugbear ambusher or an ancestral tank or a valenar dexadin or a hexbow or a melee Cleric or whatever else.

[Dr.Samurai]

I read that at some tables GWM is the preferred style for melee martials, to the point of being a must have. With the exception of a Barbarian, who can effectively halve damage and create advantage with limited impact on the action economy, and tier 3 fighters who get 3+ attacks and have scaled their attack bonus significantly beyond the ACs of most foes, we just haven't seen it be that effective at our table.

Basic issues are 1) the penalty on the attack modifier creates a lot of misses and mitigates the average damage boost you actually get, and 2) the drop in AC without a shield is significant for a character who is trying to get into melee. 3) Fighting styles to support other feats, like Archery and Dueling are better than GWF.

Don't get me wrong; I think it's a decent option, but I'm usually not awed when someone at our table goes with it. What are those that think this is great seeing that I'm not?
I think part of this is the online discussion tending to exaggerate... well, basically everything lol. I play barbarians often. None of them have used GWM. My current barb is sword and shield (though is currently using a magic battleaxe at the moment). My previous barb went PAM with spear and shield, then switched to dual-wielding, and then went back to spear and shield. My barb before that used a one-handed weapon and kept his off hand free, eventually winding up with a Scimitar of Speed.

My current Rune Knight fighter DOES have GWM. Do I think it's a must have? No. But I tend not to worry about playing the most powerful version of anything. If the character that I want to roleplay goes in that direction, that's fine. But I don't want the rules to dictate the character I build every single time, so I don't worry about what's considered most optimal (also because that will vary table to table, as you are getting at in your OP).

In this case, the character is a devotee or champion of Erythnul and a giant axe seemed appropriate because he has an executioner's theme. So I nabbed GWM.

And, in my experience, it makes quite a difference. And I suspect it would have made a bigger difference in my previous game had I been using it with my barbarian (because of Reckless Attack and frequent Bless from the cleric).

In my Rune Knight game, we don't have a cleric or bard handing out bonuses to hit. What I tend to do is, if I'm up against an enemy that seems strong, I'll try to knock him down first with a Shove attack. If successful, I Power Attack with the following two attacks (level 11 fighter). Then Action Surge for 3 more attacks. I can clear an enemy pretty easily if I'm landing hits. I try to only use it when I have Advantage, or if I know the enemy AC is relatively low (we're in Against the Giants, and by now we know hill giants are pretty easy to hit).

One thing to note as well is that the damage synergizes really well with a party, because a couple of hits deal so much damage it can clean up an enemy wounded by someone else. Do our monk and druid hit hard? No. But between and AoE and attacks+flurry, my fighter and our ranger can power attack and clean up some enemies pretty quickly, and GWM then grants me another attack as a bonus action (though I'll say my Rune Knight has plenty of uses for that bonus action). This is opposed to just landing some basic attacks and leaving enemies at 7 hit points or something like that. My Initiative is -1. If I go after my party members, I'm probably killing something in turn 1.

Having now played with it for the first time, I can definitely see the appeal. I wouldn't call it a no-brainer, and I wouldn't make all of my characters heavy weapon users going forward. But I have seen the impact and it's definitely there.

Also, as someone that loves playing martials, it just seems appropriate to deal this much damage on a hit. It's much more fun to feel like I can kill monsters in D&D instead of feeling like I can whittle down monsters in D&D and maybe me and my party can kill it before it kills one of us. In a lucky turn, I was fighting a hill giant in complete darkness and attacking with Blind-Sight, so I had Advantage. With Action Surge, I killed the giant in that turn. It felt awesome and thematic, as my character plays up his lethality and spookiness when he fights. Without GWM, I would have dealt some decent damage across all the attacks, and the giant would have likely retreated or tried to lumber out into the great hall where there was light. Which is fine, but not as fun as knowing that... sometimes with luck and Advantage you can just KO an enemy. In stories, warriors are usually leading the way and dispatching enemies. In D&D, they do chip damage/death by a thousand cuts, and that's lame.

[stoutstien]

Fighters tend to be able to grab GWM just due to having lots of attacks(the single biggest factor in its impact) and extra ASIs. Even if they only use it occasionally it's less of an investment for them. I'd personally rather diversify over more damage but it is what it is.

[Aimeryan]

The more you can improve the accuracy of an attack, the more it becomes worth it to increase the damage of the attack...[snip]

Excellent post. This is the reason the recent Treantmonk (Chris) video on analysis of the D&Done Fighter vs 5e Fighter was a poor comparison; Chris was using 60% base accuracy, down to 35% with GWM. This is the equivalent of a completely unoptimised Fighter fighting a high AC enemy, completely devaluing GWM. Meanwhile, the Graze portion of the damage for D&Done Fighter was highly upvalued for the same reason.

While I do like the new D&Done Weapon Masteries, I see no reason to remove the +5/-10 options. You still have to optimise for them and/or know to use them on lower AC enemies. If they don't want it to be a Feat tax, then just implement it as a Fighting Style or something (GWF is poor anyway, and the other Fighting Styles don't work with 2H weapons, +1AC aside).

[Dr.Samurai]

The weird thing is that... I don't see any real differences between now and the UA barbarians as far as weapon types and feats go.

I suspect, if you still want to do a lot of damage, you'll be using a heavy polearm and taking GWM and PAM.

Maybe TWF is in the mix now? But... I don't see a change to feat taxes (except now you get a bonus feat at level 1) or to weapon groups (except maybe now TWF might be ok).

But you're still forced to take feats if you want to do deal the most damage, and you're still restricted to certain weapon types.

It's not like my UA sword and board fighter with no feats is going to compete with a GWM/PAM fighter for damage.

[strangebloke]

I generally add it to weapons as a tag instead.
I generally think that the game is better if ALL weapon attacks can do the -5/+10 trick, and then two handers just get additional buffs - like dealing 3d6 or 2d8 natively.

The fact that all ranged characters have access to -5/+10 but only two-hander martials get -5/+10 is just a weird design decision.

QFT. GWM is the best pick for a bad idea.

I think I can count on one the number of hostiles I use where their Ranged attacks are more and/or better than their Melee attacks.
That is, the vast majority of hostile creatures in the game are Melee-based creatures. If you walk up to a hostile with +12 to hit that deals 6d6+6 damage with Multiattack...Taking -5 on your attack roll is a very bad idea unless you can mitigate it.

To that end, IMO, the party role for a Melee character isn't to deal damage...But to take damage. GWM just doesn't fit how the game is played. But if you are going to take GWM...I expect your character to die around Level 7 or 8.
I would disagree with this pretty strongly actually.

If your role is "taking hits" you need to provide a reason for the enemy to target you and not your teammates (if they couldn't have targeted your teammates in the first place, your 'tanking' is just pointless) GWM helps you in multiple ways here. You can deal lots of damage on an OA if they move past you, and you are dealing lots of damage to them in melee so they are incentived to take you out.

This is why I mentioned that GWM pairs nicely with Sentinel, since it makes you harder to bypass and also gets you more (high damage) OAs.

This. But then, some people want to be swinging a big weapon in combat, and care less for optimal play (but still care enough to want GWM to compensate for it)
Aye, this is the key thing. Big Sword Bob loves GWM. Its a huge boost to the archetype he was going to play regardless.

It doesn't compensate for it. You need either a creature with very low AC or to pile advantages and buff spells and optimize your character for it to pay off and be better than just raising your strength.

On the other hand the UA GWM is a +1 strength half feat that adds your proficiency bonus to damage once per turn, and adds the conditional bonus action attack. This is actually way better on someone who cares less for optimal play because it just works and you don't have to strategize.

The only time a +10 damage / -5 to hit is actually worth using is when you have advantage against a medium AC creature, or when you attacking a low AC creature.

This overstates the case IMO. Accuracy bonuses, even just from scaling proficiency and increasing STR scores, are enough to outpace monster AC, meaning that on average GWM is still a win at most levels against enemies of an appropriate CR, even if you lack advantage. And on balance, you'll generally face more low-AC enemies than high, purely because there will always be large numbers of lower CR enemies.

Like, even if you're level 11, it wouldn't be weird for there to be half a dozen CR 2 creatures with 10-13 AC in an encounter, and you'll probably be rocking +9 or more to attacks. Even if you don't have advantage the -5/+10 is going to be easily worth it in that scenario, since you're effectively doubling your damage but losing like 1/3 of your to-hit chance.

[animorte]

I If your role is "taking hits" you need to provide a reason for the enemy to target you and not your teammates (if they couldn't have targeted your teammates in the first place, your 'tanking' is just pointless) GWM helps you in multiple ways here. You can deal lots of damage on an OA if they move past you, and you are dealing lots of damage to them in melee so they are incentived to take you out.
Alternatively, they're just incentivised to avoid you at all costs perhaps disengaging, environmental awareness, or other means of control. Typically a GWM character's mental saves are whack.

Either way, the entire concept of "pulling aggro" is nonexistent in D&D. There is rarely something that a "front-liner tank" has at their disposal to actually limit the targeting capabilities of their enemies. A couple things create disadvantage if they attack someone else or you can knock them prone, there's a few notable channel divinities. Still, none of that actually forces them to focus on you. In fact, it has the potential to do the opposite.

[strangebloke]

Alternatively, they're just incentivised to avoid you at all costs perhaps disengaging, environmental awareness, or other means of control. Typically a GWM character's mental saves are whack.

Either way, the entire concept of "pulling aggro" is nonexistent in D&D. There is rarely something that a "front-liner tank" has at their disposal to actually limit the targeting capabilities of their enemies. A couple things create disadvantage if they attack someone else or you can knock them prone, there's a few notable channel divinities. Still, none of that actually forces them to focus on you. In fact, it has the potential to do the opposite.

I'm just confused by this post.

I am not saying that having GWM makes you a good tank in absolute terms. I am also not saying that tanking is a critical role in 5e. What I am saying is that tanks need to be tough AND they need to generate threat AND they need to punish characters for bypassing them to attack squishier characters. GWM contributes to 2/3 of those goals. Your OAs are pretty fat and your threat is large-ish.

There are better ways of achieving this end of course. Something like Divine Smite achieves the same effect for a paladin natively. Sneak attack can have a similar effect (though melee rogues are pretty fragile if they're using their reaction on sneak attack.)

And really the best tanks are clerics with warcaster or something similar.

But people avoiding the melee dude or prioritizing them as a target is the whole point.

[animorte]

I'm just confused by this post.

~snip~

But people avoiding the melee dude or prioritizing them as a target is the whole point.
I agree. To be more concise, the entire point is that, within this system, there is no reliable way to consistently accomplish those tasks. You can't rely on the DM to run the bad guys straightforward every time. A race to zero HP is not always the sole purpose of combat.


Im going to apologize a bit. I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here. You're discussing the means possible within the confines of this system (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that). I've always been a bit concerned at the design for casters to have the AoE damage, the reliable control, and the out-of-combat utility. This is why I've always preferred spells-known because you are actually required to think about your decisions and have some sort of limitation.

I'll see myself out :smalltongue:

[Mastikator]

This overstates the case IMO. Accuracy bonuses, even just from scaling proficiency and increasing STR scores, are enough to outpace monster AC, meaning that on average GWM is still a win at most levels against enemies of an appropriate CR, even if you lack advantage. And on balance, you'll generally face more low-AC enemies than high, purely because there will always be large numbers of lower CR enemies.

Like, even if you're level 11, it wouldn't be weird for there to be half a dozen CR 2 creatures with 10-13 AC in an encounter, and you'll probably be rocking +9 or more to attacks. Even if you don't have advantage the -5/+10 is going to be easily worth it in that scenario, since you're effectively doubling your damage but losing like 1/3 of your to-hit chance.

I've created and played characters that use GWM and SS. I have to build my entire character around it to make it work. When the bonuses are in effect then the character is devastatingly powerful, imbalanced even. But still it's countered by the DM when he just puts an enemy with 24 AC on the battlemat.

What monsters have 24 AC? Any. The DMG has rules for homebrewing monsters. Seriously, an enemy with splint mail, a shield and the Shield spell and my overwhelming damage is reduced to zero.

It's either so powerful that my DM has to make high AC monsters just for me, or it's nothing. It's either too good in not a good way, or it's a miss. I'm personally really glad the +10/-5 is out.

I'm also using a "power attack" house rule in my game where players can always take a +2x prof / -prof on their attack action.

[strangebloke]

I agree. To be more concise, the entire point is that, within this system, there is no reliable way to consistently accomplish those tasks. You can't rely on the DM to run the bad guys straightforward every time. A race to zero HP is not always the sole purpose of combat.


Im going to apologize a bit. I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here. You're discussing the means possible within the confines of this system (and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that). I've always been a bit concerned at the design for casters to have the AoE damage, the reliable control, and the out-of-combat utility. This is why I've always preferred spells-known because you are actually required to think about your decisions and have some sort of limitation.

I'll see myself out :smalltongue:
oh sure, glad we're on the same page.

I've created and played characters that use GWM and SS. I have to build my entire character around it to make it work. When the bonuses are in effect then the character is devastatingly powerful, imbalanced even. But still it's countered by the DM when he just puts an enemy with 24 AC on the battlemat.

What monsters have 24 AC? Any. The DMG has rules for homebrewing monsters. Seriously, an enemy with splint mail, a shield and the Shield spell and my overwhelming damage is reduced to zero.

It's either so powerful that my DM has to make high AC monsters just for me, or it's nothing. It's either too good in not a good way, or it's a miss. I'm personally really glad the +10/-5 is out.

I'm also using a "power attack" house rule in my game where players can always take a +2x prof / -prof on their attack action.

Typically I run with power attacks for all weapon attacks yeah. There's no reason why a hand crossbow gets -5/+10 and a shortsword doesn't, or why you need a feat for either.

As for the rest. Sure, the DM can send loads of super high-AC enemies at you, and sure the feat doesn't work there.

But why is your DM working hard to counter the GWM guy? The GWM guy has big damage, sure, but its not that much more than a baseline paladin dishes out. The GWM guy can also be countered by Heat Metal or Sleet Storm or any number of things. The DM can just throw swarms at you and then your high single target damage suddenly isn't that useful compared with fireball or cone of cold.

I just never really see GWM as being truly overpowered unless you're at a table of absolute newbs.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Those three issues are all solved with good party composition.

If you treat the Martial as an individual character, competing with the other characters at the table...Yes. GWM sucks. You're going to miss your attack, then you're going to attacked in return. You deal no damage, and take more damage. That's an awful round for you.

But, +10 damage, is +10 damage. It's very...Efficient. In high-Tier 1, you can one-shot a lot of hostiles. In Tier 2, you're looking at +20, +30 or even +40 damage per turn. That's a big ****ing deal. All's you have to do is be able to hit...And that's where your party comes in. Bardic Inspiration and Bless are available to you, from Level 1 - and from there it only gets better. You take damage on the return? No you didn't. The hostile is dead. Even if you did...Your party can heal you. You've got Second Wind. Something.

The problem is, at the end of the day, it's "just" damage. There are so many ways in this game to deal damage that "making your numbers bigger" just doesn't seem all that impactful. Certainly, when you start dealing with Hit Point sponges, they'll soak the 87 damage and then punt you across the room. That was a nice Action Surge you did, but you can't do it again...

Dealing "just" bigger damage is very good...If you want bigger damage. It's kind of a must-have.

However, if your DM is moderately clever, or your party composition sucks, you'll find that your character needs more than just "big damage" to be effective, and that's when people start finding GWM to be underwhelming. You deal 20 damage to the Goblin...You know that only have 7 Hit Points, right? What was the benefit, again?

There's just not much I agree with (fully) here. I mean, sure your party can help you out, but there's an opportunity cost here. Are we casting Bless in tier 1? Maybe, but I often read (and have somewhat bought into the idea that) it's not particularly good until tier 2 when the number of rolls, both offensive and saves start to ramp up. Interestingly, the tier 1 GWM Paly that partly inspired this thread has started using Shield of Faith more regularly than Bless because a) he was getting beat up, and b) it's a BA and is better on action economy when pre-cast. I do think Bless is great, and it helps the math; you're more likely to use the power attack because it's more likely to hit. However, in no case does any spell guarantee +10 damage or, as you say +20 or +30.
We do also have a Bard in the party, so Bardic Inspiration: I mean, sure you can use it to do damage, but if I know I'm likely to need a save neither the Bard nor the Paly is going to be too keen on spamming these on power attacks. Yes those are examples, and they're the ones you've chosen, but I think my broader assessment is: Yes, your party can help you, but sometimes their resources and action economy are better spent than trying to make it more likely the Single Target Guy can get 10 extra points of damage.
On the healing side: pretty much the same. Yes, your party can heal you (and the Paly can heal himself occasionally). But, over a long adventuring day if too many resources are used to heal one front line character who feels the need to do damage rather than fight more defensively, it's counter productive.
I'm not 100% sure what you're meaning with the point around clever DMing, and I do think I'm a fairly clever DM, or at least one who provides my party with a variety of challenges. I do think there's some level of Player vs. DM metagaming and/ or white room tactics around AC and remaining HP to determine when to power attack and when not to. Maybe that's part of what you mean here.

Overall, yes a well balanced party can help the GWM land more effectively and heal; I remain unconvinced that in many cases (maybe due to clever DMing) that committing too many resources and actions in combat to do this is optimal. Thus, building around this feat based on party support is iffy at best.

[Cheesegear]

If your role is "taking hits" you need to provide a reason for the enemy to target you and not your teammates (if they couldn't have targeted your teammates in the first place, your 'tanking' is just pointless) GWM helps you in multiple ways here. You can deal lots of damage on an OA if they move past you, and you are dealing lots of damage to them in melee so they are incentived to take you out.

Fair. In the sense that "The best support is dealing more damage." and "Hostiles can't do damage if they're dead."

There's something to be said for that up to about early Tier 2. Once you reach the HP sponges in mid-ish Tier 2, dealing damage becomes...Not so great. Especially if that dealing damage comes at the cost of accuracy.

No. I will agree that you can't force anything to attack you. The game is really bad at that. But, you can make attacking you the most viable option for most hostiles. If they don't choose to attack you even after knowing that attacking you is their best choice of action; I mean your DM might be playing a bit silly.

As I said previously, for the majority of hostiles in the game, their strongest attacks, are Melee attacks. Restricting your hostiles' movement...No, it doesn't "force" them to attack you. It just makes attacking you pretty much the only thing they can do.

Knocking a hostile Prone (Shield Master) so getting up takes their movement - great.
Grappling a hostile (Grappler and Tavern Brawler*) so their movement is literally 0 - also good.
Sentinel reduces their movement to 0 if you hit, which you will, 'cause you aren't taking the -5 to hit.
Crusher you can position your target. Move forwards, Bonus Action Shield Master them, then position them again.
Slasher you can reduce their movement - combine with Shield Master.
*Noting that Tasha's makes Unarmed Strikes viable.

Then there are several Class and Subclass abilities that say "If you attack anyone other than me, Disadvantage." You'd be right. That doesn't force the hostile to attack you...But...Like...Come on. :smallconfused:

If you think I meant an ability like "Your target must use its Action to target you." ...No. I can't even think of any ability off the top of my head that does that - although I'm sure there's one or two.

But I can think of several examples (the above are off the top of my head), where "Your target doesn't have to target you, but, if it doesn't, it's gonna suck for it."


This is why I mentioned that GWM pairs nicely with Sentinel

IMO/IME, anything pairs nicely with Sentinel. Including nothing. Just Sentinel alone is really good. Sentinel, IMO, is one of the best Martial feats in the game.


There's just not much I agree with (fully) here. I mean, sure your party can help you out, but there's an opportunity cost here. Are we casting Bless in tier 1? Maybe, but I often read (and have somewhat bought into the idea that) it's not particularly good until tier 2 when the number of rolls, both offensive and saves start to ramp up.

You're saying that Bless gets even better as you go to higher Tiers with more Attacks. So we do fully agree?


We do also have a Bard in the party, so Bardic Inspiration: I mean, sure you can use it to do damage, but if I know I'm likely to need a save neither the Bard nor the Paly is going to be too keen on spamming these on power attacks. Yes those are examples, and they're the ones you've chosen, but I think my broader assessment is: Yes, your party can help you, but sometimes their resources and action economy are better spent than trying to make it more likely the Single Target Guy can get 10 extra points of damage.

That is partially my point. GWM is not actually that good. You can mitigate it with a Bard. But also the Bard could be doing...Anything else.


On the healing side: pretty much the same. Yes, your party can heal you (and the Paly can heal himself occasionally). But, over a long adventuring day if too many resources are used to heal one front line character who feels the need to do damage rather than fight more defensively, it's counter productive.

I think you've mistaken "Here's how you can mitigate the downside of GWM." as a list of Pros for taking GWM. It's actually the opposite. If you have good party composition (and party dynamics), you can make GWM work. If you don't have good party composition (and party dynamics); Then it's awful. A big part of that is party dynamics. If your party doesn't want to be buffing you and/or healing you all the time (and in a sense; Fair. Why would they?), then GWM is pretty bad... I'm sure your party would much rather you be knocking targets Prone.

That said, if your party is willing to...Babysit...You. Then GWM is pretty good and you should absolutely take it and it's +10 damage per attack and a very solid (early!) pick if you know your campaign is going to end before Level...8?


Overall, yes a well balanced party can help the GWM land more effectively and heal; I remain unconvinced that in many cases (maybe due to clever DMing) that committing too many resources and actions in combat to do this is optimal. Thus, building around this feat based on party support is iffy at best.

Then we do (fully) agree? No? *Thumbs up*

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Fair. In the sense that "The best support is dealing more damage." and "Hostiles can't do damage if they're dead."

There's something to be said for that up to about early Tier 2. Once you reach the HP sponges in mid-ish Tier 2, dealing damage becomes...Not so great. Especially if that dealing damage comes at the cost of accuracy.

No. I will agree that you can't force anything to attack you. The game is really bad at that. But, you can make attacking you the most viable option for most hostiles. If they don't choose to attack you even after knowing that attacking you is their best choice of action; I mean your DM might be playing a bit silly.

As I said previously, for the majority of hostiles in the game, their strongest attacks, are Melee attacks. Restricting your hostiles' movement...No, it doesn't "force" them to attack you. It just makes attacking you pretty much the only thing they can do.

Knocking a hostile Prone (Shield Master) so getting up takes their movement - great.
Grappling a hostile (Grappler and Tavern Brawler*) so their movement is literally 0 - also good.
Sentinel reduces their movement to 0 if you hit, which you will, 'cause you aren't taking the -5 to hit.
Crusher you can position your target. Move forwards, Bonus Action Shield Master them, then position them again.
Slasher you can reduce their movement - combine with Shield Master.
*Noting that Tasha's makes Unarmed Strikes viable.

Then there are several Class and Subclass abilities that say "If you attack anyone other than me, Disadvantage." You'd be right. That doesn't force the hostile to attack you...But...Like...Come on. :smallconfused:

If you think I meant an ability like "Your target must use its Action to target you." ...No. I can't even think of any ability off the top of my head that does that - although I'm sure there's one or two.

But I can think of several examples (the above are off the top of my head), where "Your target doesn't have to target you, but, if it doesn't, it's gonna suck for it."



IMO/IME, anything pairs nicely with Sentinel. Including nothing. Just Sentinel alone is really good. Sentinel, IMO, is one of the best Martial feats in the game.



You're saying that Bless gets even better as you go to higher Tiers with more Attacks. So we do fully agree?



That is partially my point. GWM is not actually that good. You can mitigate it with a Bard. But also the Bard could be doing...Anything else.



I think you've mistaken "Here's how you can mitigate the downside of GWM." as a list of Pros for taking GWM. It's actually the opposite. If you have good party composition (and party dynamics), you can make GWM work. If you don't have good party composition (and party dynamics); Then it's awful. A big part of that is party dynamics. If your party doesn't want to be buffing you and/or healing you all the time (and in a sense; Fair. Why would they?), then GWM is pretty bad... I'm sure your party would much rather you be knocking targets Prone.

That said, if your party is willing to...Babysit...You. Then GWM is pretty good and you should absolutely take it and it's +10 damage per attack and a very solid (early!) pick if you know your campaign is going to end before Level...8?



Then we do (fully) agree? No? *Thumbs up*

On reading this I do think we're more in agreement. On 'babysitting' the GWM, yes that's kind of what I'm thinking. There are levels, combats, spells, other abilities, and party compositions where this kind of support is wise; we use Bless a lot, and buffing 3 characters' saves and attacks is often excellent. If you're making a choice you might otherwise do anyway then great. But if nobody else in your party tends to use attacks and prefers save cantrips, and you're in combat with monsters where saves aren't a thing then buffing the GWM with Bless is probably sub-optimal and a bit of a trap if it happens often.
I started this thread thinking GWM was fair to good, but not great. If other characters mesh well, then sure it might be a bit better, but if they're making sub-optimal decisions to keep the GWM power attack functioning, then it's contributing to make the whole party worse.

[strangebloke]

Fair. In the sense that "The best support is dealing more damage." and "Hostiles can't do damage if they're dead."

There's something to be said for that up to about early Tier 2. Once you reach the HP sponges in mid-ish Tier 2, dealing damage becomes...Not so great. Especially if that dealing damage comes at the cost of accuracy.
Digression on tanking:

Tanking in 5e is weird because its not a designed role. In general, your party wants to be controlling the enemy to limit their offensive options. Sometimes, there will be a party member who is tough enough that them getting hit isn't a problem. Sometimes, this character will also be able to control the enemy and prevent or discourage options besides attacking them.

Spirit guardians is a great tanking ability. It stops the enemy from moving to the back line in many situations, and leaves the cleric (who might be dodging) as the only viable melee target. Tanking!

The issue is that the control options that don't require you to expose yourself to melee are just as good if not better. Making a wall of summons. Hypnotic pattern. Spike Growth. etc. So I think on balance tanking in 5e works its just outclassed by control options that don't expose you to melee. Trip attack is good for tanks! But you can also do it at range and its arguably better at controlling enemies if you do.

I don't think GWM is a great feat for tanks specifically, I just think that in general "providing threat" is a valid means of tanking. As I said, two-handed weapons are by default pretty bad. GWM is a very good feat, its just not enough to save the zweihanders.

[Dr.Samurai]

I read that at some tables GWM is the preferred style for melee martials, to the point of being a must have. With the exception of a Barbarian, who can effectively halve damage and create advantage with limited impact on the action economy, and tier 3 fighters who get 3+ attacks and have scaled their attack bonus significantly beyond the ACs of most foes, we just haven't seen it be that effective at our table.

Basic issues are 1) the penalty on the attack modifier creates a lot of misses and mitigates the average damage boost you actually get, and 2) the drop in AC without a shield is significant for a character who is trying to get into melee. 3) Fighting styles to support other feats, like Archery and Dueling are better than GWF.

Don't get me wrong; I think it's a decent option, but I'm usually not awed when someone at our table goes with it. What are those that think this is great seeing that I'm not?
I am generally interested in overcoming disadvantages or being able to do things in an encounter that I otherwise wouldn't be able to. Mobility is really important to me because I play melee and really like playing melee, and definitely want to hit something every turn I get in combat.

So my current character is a level 11 rune knight fighter.

I took Great Weapon Master, Mobile, and Charger.

No, this is not a post telling you Charger is the bee's knees or anything (though I do like it).

I took Blind Fighting for the Fighting Style, because I prefer to mitigate the penalties from darkness/blindness than have Great Weapon Fighting, and Blind-Fighting has come up in game and has been useful.

But even apart from GWM statistically increasing your DPR, I do like having the stronger attacks. Because it's not just about standing toe to toe and trading blows. Sometimes you get single attacks in as well, such as with Opportunity Attacks, and these are carving off even more hit points with GWM.

In our last session on Friday, we engaged a bunch of yetis. The ranger attacked first and missed with 1 attack but hit with the second, using Sharpshooter. I couldn't reach the yetis, so I Dashed, and used Charger to attack as a bonus action. Between GWM and Charger, I dealt nearly 30 damage on that single attack (2d6+1+4+10+5). Another yeti acted, paralyzed our monk and attacked him. I used my Reaction to activate one of my runes and divert that attack to the wounded yeti, and it killed him.

Had I not had the Charger feat, I'd have to resort to a pathetic javelin attack. But also had I not had GWM the yeti would have still been standing and would have gotten to act on turn 1 (I know because the DM lamented that the yeti's attack just barely killed the wounded yeti).

My opportunity attacks, and my bonus action attacks from Charger and Great Weapon Master are just that much stronger, which means they have a bigger impact even when I'm not standing there unloading 3-6 attacks on someone. As in the case with the yeti, it meant one less enemy getting to have a turn. In the case of Great Weapon Master, if I drop an enemy and trigger the bonus action, I can hit someone else for ~25 damage, and that might kill them if an ally has already wounded them, or is about to wound them.

Friday is not the first time that my attack redirect rune has killed a wounded enemy. The damage I deal with GWM pairs very nicely with that rune redirect, and I often wind up killing enemies off-turn as a Reaction.

This all probably seems super obvious to everyone, but this is my first time using GWM, and I guess the point I'm making is that even these single attacks triggered by other things make a difference. Before, if I'm hitting on an opportunity attack with my spear+shield or something, it's like "awesome, we got another hit in, slowly but surely we'll take this thing down".

With GWM, that +10 damage makes a difference and adds up much quicker (obviously). But it means that those extra attacks that come in impact the battlefield that much more.

Now, take it with a grain of salt; we've mostly been fighting hill giants and ogres (and now yetis) and these are all relatively low AC creatures. I noticed a difference when we fought 2 dozen bugbears, as an example (but didn't really need GWM then anyways). If/When he start fighting higher AC opponents, I'll see if this still holds up.

(Aside, but this is also why I really don't like the new Charger feat, GWM, or Speedster. Instead of increasing options, they just grant mostly static bonuses. Oh well.)

[animorte]

Digression on tanking:

Tanking in 5e is weird because its not a designed role. In general, your party wants to be controlling the enemy to limit their offensive options. Sometimes, there will be a party member who is tough enough that them getting hit isn't a problem. Sometimes, this character will also be able to control the enemy and prevent or discourage options besides attacking them.

Spirit guardians is a great tanking ability. It stops the enemy from moving to the back line in many situations, and leaves the cleric (who might be dodging) as the only viable melee target. Tanking!

The issue is that the control options that don't require you to expose yourself to melee are just as good if not better. Making a wall of summons. Hypnotic pattern. Spike Growth. etc. So I think on balance tanking in 5e works its just outclassed by control options that don't expose you to melee. Trip attack is good for tanks! But you can also do it at range and its arguably better at controlling enemies if you do.
Yeah, that's pretty much exactly where I was going when I joined the conversation initially.

[da newt]

Doc - Without using any ASIs to increase your ST ability (you grabbed 3 feats instead), your odds of hitting w/ the -5/+10 and a +3 ST mod will be quite low against anything with an average AC for a level 11 party to be facing (unless a generous DM provides a ST increasing magic item and or a high + to hit magic weapon). Once you move away from Ogres, Hill Giants, and Yeti (with their very low ACs for melee combatants), it will be important to decide when and if you swing for the fences (especially without reckless for consistent ADV) or you'll be missing almost 1/2 your attacks.

The extra BA attack is the best part of GWM. The -5/+10 is gravy.

Without an additional way to trigger Opp Atts (no PAM or Sent), I'd be surprised if you got to use them often.

The redirect rune is very handy, although the 1/rest limitation does limit it's power.

[Dr.Samurai]

Doc - Without using any ASIs to increase your ST ability (you grabbed 3 feats instead), your odds of hitting w/ the -5/+10 and a +3 ST mod will be quite low against anything with an average AC for a level 11 party to be facing (unless a generous DM provides a ST increasing magic item and or a high + to hit magic weapon).
Strength 18, as I'm variant human. With a +1 weapon, I'm at +9 to hit, 1 behind a 20 Strength character. (We also just leveled up to 12, but I'm not sure if I should go 20 Strength or take something else.)

Once you move away from Ogres, Hill Giants, and Yeti (with their very low ACs for melee combatants), it will be important to decide when and if you swing for the fences (especially without reckless for consistent ADV) or you'll be missing almost 1/2 your attacks.
I agree. Our Open Hand Monk goes for Prone conditions on enemies, or of course, the mighty Stun. I will also go for a Shove Prone with my first attack if the enemy looks beefy and I want to Action Surge.

Also, I don't know what the AC range of the game is going to be. The encounters we have so far are challenging, and they are against low AC enemies. It's not a guarantee that encounters are going to switch to regularly high AC enemies. It might, I don't know. But if it doesn't, then this doesn't apply. As I mentioned earlier, we faced a bunch of bugbears and higher AC was noticeable. But that was 1 encounter out of many.

And that's sort of the nature of a lot of these discussions. It is true that against higher AC enemies GWM will suffer. But it's not necessarily true that you will regularly face high AC enemies in any given game. (That said... I believe we will be facing fire giants at some point, as they've been mentioned a couple of times. But... that's why we seek Advantage :smallcool:.)

The extra BA attack is the best part of GWM. The -5/+10 is gravy.
I don't agree. I've found the damage racks up very quickly and takes enemies out faster than any other martial I've played to date. (My last barbarian had a magic spear that dealt +2d6 radiant damage, and also some magic gauntlets that added +1d6 fire damage to his attacks, and he was dual wielding, so I'd say it's about on par with that barbarian with damage dealt/impact, except it was a bonus action to activate the gauntlets, and a lot of enemies were fire immune, but that barbarian was far more accurate.)

Without an additional way to trigger Opp Atts (no PAM or Sent), I'd be surprised if you got to use them often.

The redirect rune is very handy, although the 1/rest limitation does limit it's power.
My example is just a jump off point; it isn't built for opportunity attacks.

The point I want to make is that GWM's damage just stacks with everything else very well. All other attacks are more impactful. Let's say you do have Polearm Master/Sentinel instead of Charger/Mobile. Then your opportunity attack isn't dealing 2d6+5. It's dealing 2d6+15, almost twice as much damage.

My main attacks are more powerful, so when I use the redirect rune, it sometimes kills the enemy. And if it doesn't kill the enemy, then GWM makes it easier to kill them after that damage (and get the bonus action attack). If I were just using a spear and shield or a longsword, that wouldn't happen nearly as often. I'd need another turn or two of attacks. I'd use the Redirect rune but the monster would still be fighting and I likely wouldn't kill it next turn. If I kill an enemy and use the bonus action from GWM to attack another, it's almost as if I started fighting it last turn because that attack nearly deals double damage.

[Tanarii]

Yes, it's that good a Feat. It is wildly out of line with most other feats.

For Barbarians, it is an auto-pick if available. It's always a better pick than a Str ASI.

For Fighters it's a very good pick, but its value is boosted if you can get reliable advantage. So far more valuable for Battlemasters, who have access to adding Prone on a melee attack via Trip.

For Paladins, it's less valuable because they add damage via Smite. However if they know they will use spells for non-Smite a lot, they're in the same place as Fighters. Which means it's most commonly seen on Vengeance Paladins, who can get Advantage against BBEG very easily with their Channel Divinity.

Str Pact of the Blade Warlocks (or Hexblades if allowed) it's usually not valuable, because one assumes the build will include adding static bonus of Cha to attacks.

One thing to keep in mind is it is very frequently paired with Polearm Mastery. The increase on damage is amplified by this combination of feats, because of the bonus action attack.

[strangebloke]

Also worth mentioning. GWM math changes RADICALLY if you've got a big magic greatsword. The smug character in my PFP did not take GWM lol, she took sentinel. The combo of

no native accuracy boosting (I was a drakewarden)
no allies with accuracy boosting as a priority
A giant magic ax that dealt 4d8 damage
a DM who had a fetish for 20+ AC

Meant the -5/+10 was just utter rubbish in that game. I'd purely have taken the feat for the BA attack if anything.

But the reverse of all of the above could be true in your game!

[stoutstien]

Yes, it's that good a Feat. It is wildly out of line with most other feats.

For Barbarians, it is an auto-pick if available. It's always a better pick than a Str ASI.

The maths disagree with this assertion even in the most favorable white room scenarios.

[Dr.Samurai]

I also want to point out, to drive the synergy point home, that GWM lets you take better advantage of buffs, debuffs, crowd control, etc. Splitting the battlefield and forcing enemies to move around, move while slowed, etc. is going to work better with a martial that can deal more damage in the short time the spell or feature is active. Especially if a caster is concentrating, Power Attacks will get more mileage out of effects that will end in a turn or two or could drop due to concentration.

[Tanarii]

The maths disagree with this assertion even in the most favorable white room scenarios.
No, the maths back it up, both in the white room and in any reasonable play scenario. A DM would have to throw wildly high-for-the-Barb's-level ACs consistently for Str to be better than a GWM with always on advantage.

Across the typical adventuring day, the gain for a Barbarian with GWM instead of Str is something like 15%, or 25% with PAM.

Edit: if you mean it's possible to construct rare boss battle scenarios where a Barb would have been better off with Str due to this particular enemy having very high AC for the Barb's level ... yes, absolutely. It's always a better pick, "always better in the aggregate" or "always better overall", not "always better in every conceivable scenario".

[stoutstien]

No, the maths back it up, both in the white room and in any reasonable play scenario. A DM would have to throw wildly high-for-the-Barb's-level ACs consistently for Str to be better than a GWM with always on advantage.

Across the typical adventuring day, the gain for a Barbarian with GWM instead of Str is something like 15%, or 25% with PAM.

Edit: if you mean it's possible to construct rare boss battle scenarios where a Barb would have been better off with Str due to this particular enemy having very high AC for the Barb's level ... yes, absolutely. It's always a better pick, "always better in the aggregate" or "always better overall", not "always better in every conceivable scenario".

PAM? Definitely. GWM? No.
Usually because it fails to factory in missing your first attack therefore you're likely not going to use it on your second attack. At best it is worth about seven and a half points of damage per attack when the star line up.

[Dr.Samurai]

PAM? Definitely. GWM? No.
Usually because it fails to factory in missing your first attack therefore you're likely not going to use it on your second attack. At best it is worth about seven and a half points of damage per attack when the star line up.
I don't stop attacking my enemy if I miss with my first attack, and the same goes for GWM. I don't stop using it just because I miss. Especially if I rolled low. Also, it can go in the other direction as well; you want to land a power attack because you didn't land any damage on your first attack.

[stoutstien]

I don't stop attacking my enemy if I miss with my first attack, and the same goes for GWM. I don't stop using it just because I miss. Especially if I rolled low. Also, it can go in the other direction as well; you want to land a power attack because you didn't land any damage on your first attack.

Then you probably end up doing less overall damage in the time frame when it's most important.

-Zealot barbarian enters rage and RA + GWM and misses the first swing. You're telling me that you're adding to the risk of not applying the entirety of divine fury on top of your normal weapon damage and rage bonus because the graph told you to?

[Dr.Samurai]

Then you probably end up doing less overall damage in the time frame when it's most important.
How do you arrive to this conclusion?

Does a GWM Power Attack ever hit, in your estimation?

-Zealot barbarian enters rage and RA + GWM and misses the first swing. You're telling me that you're adding to the risk of not applying the entirety of divine fury on top of your normal weapon damage and rage bonus because the graph told you to?
What graph? I use it because I think I'm going to hit and I'll deal more damage with it if I do. And, statistically, I will hit. And in actual gameplay, I hit.

I don't see what you're suggesting to be any more ridiculous than missing with the first attack and deciding not to use GWM again.

Zealot may have different considerations. But zealot is a single subclass, out of many.

[diplomancer]

Then you probably end up doing less overall damage in the time frame when it's most important.

-Zealot barbarian enters rage and RA + GWM and misses the first swing. You're telling me that you're adding to the risk of not applying the entirety of divine fury on top of your normal weapon damage and rage bonus because the graph told you to?

I'd say, if you're Reckless Attacking, definitely yes. You've already paid the main cost. If not Recklessly Attacking, I would not, but I am risk-averse and don't like feeling I've wasted my whole turn. It might still be better in the long run to "follow the graph", though.

The only situation I'd consider doing otherwise is if the first attack miss told me I have underestimaded the enemy's AC.

[Dr.Samurai]

Agreed. If you miss because you rolled a 14 and it was still not high enough, then you know you're dealing with a high enemy AC and you probably shouldn't Power Attack.

[stoutstien]

How do you arrive to this conclusion?

Does a GWM Power Attack ever hit, in your estimation?

What graph? I use it because I think I'm going to hit and I'll deal more damage with it if I do. And, statistically, I will hit. And in actual gameplay, I hit.

I don't see what you're suggesting to be any more ridiculous than missing with the first attack and deciding not to use GWM again.

Zealot may have different considerations. But zealot is a single subclass, out of many.

It hits when it hits it misses when it misses. The problem with a lot of white room analysis is it fails to consider timing. It makes you miss more often and if you miss it an opportune times then the situation has changed and you have to readjust. RA lessen the chance of this but it can still realistically be as high as 40% chance everytime you enter combat. Saying you use +/- because your first swing missed is the definition of cost sunk fallacy. You need to do it to make up ground from using it.

Speaking of subclasses you have more who don't usually lean on the Pam + GWM combo than do. Realistically you're talking about totem barbarians only not the class as a whole.
Beast, storm, wild magic, battle rager, zealot, berserker and maybe even guardian have sharp diminishing returns regarding the action economy conflict and landing blows with GWM/PaM.

[Dr.Samurai]

You're not describing why you missed. If you roll a 6 on the die, that's not a reason to not use GWM.

And I disagree re subclasses.

If we're looking at only GWM (not PAM, because thread is not asking about PAM), then any of those subclasses can still make use of GWM with no problem.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Also worth mentioning. GWM math changes RADICALLY if you've got a big magic greatsword. The smug character in my PFP did not take GWM lol, she took sentinel. The combo of

no native accuracy boosting (I was a drakewarden)
no allies with accuracy boosting as a priority
A giant magic ax that dealt 4d8 damage
a DM who had a fetish for 20+ AC

Meant the -5/+10 was just utter rubbish in that game. I'd purely have taken the feat for the BA attack if anything.

But the reverse of all of the above could be true in your game!

I'd agree with this; the availability of magic weapons is a wild card and can drastically alter the math here. I'm not a big proponent of the supposed caster/ martial divide, partly because I do tend to throw out some good items (particularly as the game moves on) in part to make sure martials are really good at single target damage. There are a significant number of the more powerful items where the damage bonus is way more than the attacking bonus; sometimes the attacking bonus is nil. Of the 2 exceptions to the fair-to-good assessment I put in my OP (Barbs and 11+ level fighters) the high level fighters are definitely subject to this. By tier 3 every martial at my table is going to have a powerful weapon, and I'd suspect that's the case at a lot of tables. How much this alters the paradigm depends on the weapon of course, but if your base damage is 23 hp average (as per strangebloke's example) and there's no attack bonus, the overall benefit of the power attack is reduced significantly.

[stoutstien]

You're not describing why you missed. If you roll a 6 on the die, that's not a reason to not use GWM.

And I disagree re subclasses.

If we're looking at only GWM (not PAM, because thread is not asking about PAM), then any of those subclasses can still make use of GWM with no problem.

Make use ≠ good return

[Dr.Samurai]

Make use ≠ good return
You may know better than me; as I've said this is my first game currently using GWM.

It seems to me I've gotten not only good returns, but great returns on it, and that's informing my comments here.

I've played many games doing one handed spear damage, longsword damage, unarmed damage. And GWM plays very differently, and kills things faster, whether on my turn or off turn. It's a difference I can't deny.

[da newt]

let's see if we can add some simple math (ignoring crits - check my math).

18 St, +3 proff, +1 great sword barbarian level 8 so +8 to hit

+/- damage = 2d6(7)+5+10=22 vs normal 2d6(7)+5=12

vs ac 15: +/- 45% chance to hit, 70% chance to hit w/ RA, normal 70% chance to hit, 91% to hit w/ RA
vs ac 18: +/- 30%, 51% w/ RA, normal 55%, and 80% w/ RA
vs ac 20: +/- 20%, 36% w/ RA, normal 45%, and 70% w/ RA

30%(22)= 6.5, 55%(12)=6.5
51%(22)= 11, 80%(12)= 9.5
36%(22)= 8, 70%(12)=8.5

So if we ASSUME +8 to hit and +1 dam, then with RA at and above AC 20 you will average more damage if you don't +/- (but then you also have to consider if RA actually is a net + for you or net - depending on the badguys damage increase w/ ADV), and if you can't get ADV then AC 18 is your cutoff.

If your attacks do more damage than just 12 without the +10, then the cutoff AC goes down. If your to hit goes up, so doe the cuttoff AC.

Right?

Well factually I forgot the damage from rage so ...

[Tanarii]

PAM? Definitely. GWM? No.
Usually because it fails to factory in missing your first attack therefore you're likely not going to use it on your second attack. At best it is worth about seven and a half points of damage per attack when the star line up.
GWM, yes. With the adjustment to hit chance. For a Barbarian, who get advantage on all attacks, it's a better choice that Str.

[LudicSavant]

Having just read the last page or so of discussion, this seems like it may be pertinent.


True.

One of the most common (and least useful) comparisons I see from people who overestimate GWM (e.g. considering it OP rather than merely good) is comparing some greatsword-wielding character with base weapon damage (and no other features except maybe Advantage) to the same greatsword-wielding character with +2 Strength, then going 'wow, what an increase!'

And the reason this comparison isn't especially useful is because A) as Strangebloke says, GWMless two-handed weapons are outperformed by most things, not just GWM, and B) like Stoutstein says, because GWM doesn't just scale up with accuracy boosters, it also scales down with damage-per-hit boosters and status riders and the like -- something that is all too easily overlooked if the only comparison one considered is using base weapon damage.

The real competition for a VHuman GWM Barb isn't an otherwise identical build minus GWM, it's a sharpshooter battlemaster or a grappler rune knight or a shadow blade gish or a bugbear ambusher or an ancestral tank or a valenar dexadin or a hexbow or a melee Cleric or whatever else.

Building on this...

To better test whether or not GWM is a "must have" for a Barbarian, then I recommend comparing the GWM Barb to Barb builds that are optimized to make use of strategies other than GWM (like Beast Barbs or a Zealot with a Flametongue or an Ancestral tank or what-have-you), and seeing what you get.

[stoutstien]

Like bugbear Boogeyman beast barbs. Although in that case alert might beat out strength but it's close.

[Dr.Samurai]

I think anyone will agree that some specific builds will not want to make use of it.

But are we refuting the idea that GWM is always the best option, or are we demonstrating why it is or can be a good option? Because those are two different aims here.

I think between Bounded Accuracy meaning you can be facing normal/low ACs all throughout every tier, combined with access to spells, features, and Advantage that boosts Accuracy, GWM can be very worthwhile.

As others have said... if it's all high AC enemies and there's no boost to attack... not worth it.

It's also not obvious to me exactly how it's interfering with the barbarian subclasses listed, with the exception of Ancestral and Zealot, that both require a successful hit to use their features.

[Sigreid]

It's really good if you know when to use it. There are a lot of monsters that have a fairly low to moderate AC and a ton of hit points. It's basically for use against them. It should never be used against opponents you aren't confident of hitting the majority of the time with that penalty...unless you've figured out that you'll only hit on a crit anyway.

[strangebloke]

An attack that deals a million damage but only hits one in a thousand times has a high average DPR but is practically useless. This is somewhat true of GWM as well to a lesser degree, but its contingent on the AC of enemies in question.

For example, lets say you're fighting a load of mummies in a particular dungeon at mid-high level. They have very low AC (11) and GWM is insanely worth it with RA both because you'll be getting that BA attack a lot and because with +11 attack and advantage the -5 only increases your miss rate marginally. (in this specific example, from 0.25% to 6.25%) That's an increase but a pretty marginal one, give that you're effectively doubling damage.

Contrarily if you're fighting something with AC 16 (like a chuul) and no advantage, you go from 25% miss chance to 50% miss chance by using -5/+10. It's technically worth it with a naked greatsword, but if its a flaming greatsword, probably not, and in either case it might just be a bad idea to use in some situations.

[Tanarii]

Against AC 16 with +8 to hit (level 9, Str 18) with a flaming great-sword a Barbarian is still looking at a DPR increase. Because they have advantage always on. And their hit rate is "only" 64% when using it, the same as the typically quoted baseline in most DPR calculations (65%). And that's a fairly poor case for GWM Magic item to be using, it adds a huge amount to base damage and nothing to hit. And if you increase to AC 18, GWM still comes out ahead. If you go with Str 18 and a +2 weapon instead (more common than a flame tongue), GWM is even better increase.

GWM is basically a feat to give Barbs a way to convert all that excess hit chance into damage. :smallamused: And honestly, if it was a appropriately written (ie maybe not -5/+10 exactly), it'd be awesome if they'd just made it a Barbarian class feature in the first place. At least then it wouldn't be a mandatory feat tax for Barbarians.

[stoutstien]

I think anyone will agree that some specific builds will not want to make use of it.

But are we refuting the idea that GWM is always the best option, or are we demonstrating why it is or can be a good option? Because those are two different aims here.

I think between Bounded Accuracy meaning you can be facing normal/low ACs all throughout every tier, combined with access to spells, features, and Advantage that boosts Accuracy, GWM can be very worthwhile.

As others have said... if it's all high AC enemies and there's no boost to attack... not worth it.

It's also not obvious to me exactly how it's interfering with the barbarian subclasses listed, with the exception of Ancestral and Zealot, that both require a successful hit to use their features.

Beast- can use gwm but claw is by far the strongest offensive option and more attack and rage damage add up fast.

Battlerager- busy bonus action and no AC makes THP better. Shields go a long way with them.

Berserker - bonus action attack is Superior to both Pam and GWM if you don't mind the exhaustion. Retaliation is limited by range as well. Interesting the bonus action attack doesn't need to follow the attack action. Still a mess.

Storm Harald- again bonus action clog. Basically have to spam aura or you don't have a subclass

Totem - sure GWM away.

Wild magic- actually one of the better GWM options after lv 6 but the attack bonus pales in comparison to spell slot Recovery. Again bonus action heavy. 1d3 is annoying.

[LudicSavant]

Against AC 16 with +8 to hit (level 9, Str 18) with a flaming great-sword a Barbarian is still looking at a DPR increase. Because they have advantage always on. And their hit rate is "only" 64% when using it, the same as the typically quoted baseline in most DPR calculations (65%). And that's a fairly poor case for GWM Magic item to be using, it adds a huge amount to base damage and nothing to hit. And if you increase to AC 18, GWM still comes out ahead. If you go with Str 18 and a +2 weapon instead (more common than a flame tongue), GWM is even better increase.

GWM is basically a feat to give Barbs a way to convert all that excess hit chance into damage. :smallamused: And honestly, if it was a appropriately written (ie maybe not -5/+10 exactly), it'd be awesome if they'd just made it a Barbarian class feature in the first place. At least then it wouldn't be a mandatory feat tax for Barbarians.

Checking this for my own curiosity... and assuming we're talking about a Flametongue Zealot specifically...

Level 9 Flaming Greatsword Zealot with 20 Str (+9 to hit / 4d6+8 damage / 1d6 brutal critical / 1d6+4 radiant rider) vs AC 16:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aK8pxM7kKNaJ3asbBrlTB53n9pW9swzUGbFp-GcOiH0/edit?usp=sharing

Normal / Advantage
39.6025 / 51.2637125

Level 9 Flaming Greatsword Zealot with 18 Str (+8 to hit / 4d6+7 damage / 1d6 brutal critical / 1d6+4 radiant rider) and GWM vs AC 16, on the turn you enter rage:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aK8pxM7kKNaJ3asbBrlTB53n9pW9swzUGbFp-GcOiH0/edit?usp=sharing

Normal Advantage
35.8675 / 50.0846

Level 9 Flaming Greatsword Zealot with 18 Str (+8 to hit / 4d6+7 damage / 1d6 brutal critical / 1d6+4 radiant rider) and GWM vs AC 16, on turns you have your bonus action:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G8yJy6Y6RofT6XMQcfpajJdLDJDCBqybInhxaYtB2zI/edit?usp=sharing

Normal / Advantage
37.2836875 / 54.08129471

So in this situation it is an increase against AC 16, but only on round 2+, while Reckless.

[strangebloke]

Agreed with Ludic. I think that in general GWM is a very good feat for barbarians, but its not even the best - PAM fills that role unless you can't get access to a magic polearm. 1-2 extra attacks most turns is a way larger damage increase across the board than GWM, which tends to be feast or famine (more often feast if you can spam RA, but that carries its own costs. Melee is dangerous and even resisting lots of damage only offsets damage to a point.)

Plus, pretty consistently people undervalue feats that broaden the kit of the character, and barbarians if anyone are in dire need of some broadened capabilities. Due to the way barbarians work, with high-ish base damage, high hp, high accuracy, resistances, etc. they're particularly well-positioned to simply ignore pure damage feats and subclass abilities.

Its for this reason that I think the AG is so good.

[Dr.Samurai]

Beast- can use gwm but claw is by far the strongest offensive option and more attack and rage damage add up fast.
I'm not sure that three claw attacks is stronger than two power attacks and a potential bonus action attack.

But even still, Beast comes with other options. Going GWM and then using the tail to deflect one attack is also viable.

Battlerager- busy bonus action and no AC makes THP better. Shields go a long way with them.
You're treating the bonus action attack on GWM as if it procs every single turn. It doesn't. It's perfectly fine that the battlerager has a reliable bonus action attack, that can be upgraded to a full blown heavy weapon power attack when they crit or kill an enemy.

Berserker - bonus action attack is Superior to both Pam and GWM if you don't mind the exhaustion. Retaliation is limited by range as well. Interesting the bonus action attack doesn't need to follow the attack action. Still a mess.
Same comment here as with battlerager (basically, your argument would preclude anyone from taking PAM and GWM together because PAM provides a bonus action attack which interferes with GWM's bonus action attacks). In addition, the native bonus action attack benefits from Power Attack. As does Retaliation. So again, I'm seeing synergy, but not seeing the issue.

Storm Harald- again bonus action clog. Basically have to spam aura or you don't have a subclass
That's fine, you can spam your aura feature, and occasionally use the bonus action from GWM. You're still power attacking with Extra Attack.

Totem - sure GWM away.
All of these subclasses can do this.

Wild magic- actually one of the better GWM options after lv 6 but the attack bonus pales in comparison to spell slot Recovery. Again bonus action heavy. 1d3 is annoying.
Wild Magic is a great subclass for GWM. When thinking about your own damage potential, it's not the barbarian's responsibility to recover slots for spellcasters. With your Wild Magic feature, 5/8 do not require a bonus action to use. Of the other 3, being able to teleport or potentially blind an enemy are great abilities to use when you're not triggering GWM attacks, and fine options to have if you do trigger the attacks. You also have your own native Bless-lite feature to pair with Reckless Attack. And at level 10 your wild magic features can be used as a Reaction when you take damage or make a saving throw.

I'm really not seeing the issue, and all of these reasons given also ignore being in combat without Rage, in which you won't have to be this overly concerned with bonus action rage features, but still be able to Power Attack.

Also, not sure why we're throwing in a random Flame Tongue as part of the comparison. Is the idea that a barbarian will not take GWM because they think some day they're going to find a Flame Tongue? Or that if they do have GWM they will stop using it if they find a Flame Tongue?

Can someone compare the non-GWM barbarian w/ Flame Tongue to a GWM barbarian with a +2 weapon?

Re: Broadening the kit

I don't think that people undervalue this. I think people just don't have a need to cover all the bases. That's a very specific playstyle or mindset. I don't need every character I make to be a tank and a striker and a sneak that can also heal the healer in a pinch and act as a party face. I don't want to devote my build levels and gear and feats into being some sort of one-man adventuring party. It's cool, and I dig the builds, but it's not something that needs to be sought after. GWM plays very heavily into the barbarian's strengths, and there's merit in doing that as well.

[LudicSavant]

Can someone compare the non-GWM barbarian w/ Flame Tongue to a GWM barbarian with a +2 weapon?

The above GWM Barbarian (the one with a Flametongue) would actually do less average damage vs AC 16 if they had a +2 weapon instead:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WHjQnikFKvyfP2Pu8FM2ZI2gVvSYg8Dj2ya6sBTtpb0/edit#gid=151780215

Normal / Advantage
34.2561875 / 52.31233985

(as a reminder, with a flametongue in the same conditions, they did 37.2836875 / 54.08129471)

[Tanarii]

Can someone compare the non-GWM barbarian w/ Flame Tongue to a GWM barbarian with a +2 weapon?
Flametongue will usually do more damage. But in either case, generally using GWM does more than not using it.

What's different is the breakpoint AC where you stop using it. E.g. for my previous level 9 Barb, with +8 to hit for base 18 damage you stop at AC 17. For +10 to hit with base 13 damage you stop at AC 21.

Here's a link to the formulas:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?472938-Great-Weapon-Mastery-How-to-5-10-Like-a-Pro

[Witty Username]

An attack that deals a million damage but only hits one in a thousand times has a high average DPR but is practically useless. This is somewhat true of GWM as well to a lesser degree, but its contingent on the AC of enemies in question.


And if you need an enemy dead this round, it doesn't matter if you have an accuracy of 100%, if you can't deal lethal damage.

Take say the common Zombie, 22 average HP, if you are using a longsword, it will take about 4 hits to kill a single zombie, with GWM (so greatsword instead) it will take 2, possibly 1 with a high roll.

Pokémon solved this problem awhile ago, generally a sacrifice of accuracy is worth it to reduce the number of hits required to win.

For D&Ds purposes, generally the number of attacks (and therefore number of turns in an absolute sense) is easily reduced by GWM. Even stuff like goblins are tough enough to survive a sword swing.

[LudicSavant]

GWM boils down to the Fire blast mentality. Every Pokémon player gets to the point where they have to choose between flamethrower (90 power, 100% accuracy) or fire blast (110 power, 85% accuracy). The argument for fire blast has been summed up as: I would rather lose some of the time because I missed when I needed to hit instead of losing all the time because I didn't do the damage I need on that hit.


Pokémon solved this problem awhile ago, generally a sacrifice of accuracy is worth it to reduce the number of hits required to win.

It's been a while, but last I checked pro pokemon players were still taking Flamethrower over Fire Blast quite often. Has that changed? Or am I misunderstanding the point you're trying to make?

[animorte]

It's been a while, but last I checked pro pokemon players were still taking Flamethrower over Fire Blast quite often. Has that changed? Or am I misunderstanding the point you're trying to make?
Last I checked, they don't care as much about damage. It's all about status effects and item placement. :smallwink:

[LudicSavant]

Last I checked, they don't care as much about damage. It's all about status effects and item placement. :smallwink:

I guess I don't really understand the point, re: Pokemon. If it's that Fire Blast is generally perceived as superior to Flamethrower, I'm not sure if that's true.

[Kane0]

Im a scrub, i just pick out four different type attacks for coverage and call it a day.

[stoutstien]

You can't use the +/- for reaction based attacks it's limited to on turn attacks only.

It's not that barbarian's of different subclass can't leverage GWM. It's the fact that the net increase it gives is so small that most of the subclasses are going to have internally built in options that is going to make that Gap disappear if they are halfway attempting to do so.

[diplomancer]

You can't use the +/- for reaction based attacks it's limited to on turn attacks only.

This is wrong. The bonus action benefit when you score a crit or kill an enemy is on your turn only (or it would definitely be too powerful), but the -5,+10 can be used on any attack.

[stoutstien]

This is wrong. The bonus action benefit when you score a crit or kill an enemy is on your turn only (or it would definitely be too powerful), but the -5,+10 can be used on any attack.
You're correct I had the bullets flipped.

Either way it doesn't change the fact that GWM is nowhere close to a *always better* threshold for barbarians as a whole. It's sometimes better and if you build for it it can be good but doesn't mean there's not other just as accessible options out there but don't use it. And a lot of those other options don't rely on psychic ability to be able to predict both AC thresholds and restrictive positioning.

[Hytheter]

I guess I don't really understand the point, re: Pokemon. If it's that Fire Blast is generally perceived as superior to Flamethrower, I'm not sure if that's true.

IIRC from my old comp Pokemon days Fire Blast is often (but not always, depends on the set and maths based on specific threats) preferred over Flamethrower. While it does have a higher DPT, the more important benefit is that it can turn 2HKOs into OHKOs, or similar. Pokemon is basically rocket tag a lot of the time, so it can be better to risk a miss 15% of the time than to let an opponent live on fractional HP 100% of the time.

You also see Hydro Pump over Surf a lot too.

Thunder and Blizzard are too inaccurate, though; there's obviously a break point where the risk outweighs the benefits.

[Yakk]

Often +2 to your attack attribute rivals GWM.

But you run out of times you can take +2 to your attack attribute, and GWM makes combat more complex (which is fun for some people) and GWM can be cross-optimized with other stuff often.

PAM is often very strong (especially at low levels) - it is one of the few feats that deals clearly and significantly more damage than taking +2 to your attack stat (the other is XBE). They both grant an easy extra attack, and taps are strong in D&D.

GWM/SS without synergy is usually a toss-up compared to +2 to your attack stat. With synergy, they can be noticeably better. And they are an additional option you can do *along side* capping your attack stat.

Barbarians have built-in synergy, as do a few other classes and subclasses (BM, Samurai, etc).

[Gignere]

You can't use the +/- for reaction based attacks it's limited to on turn attacks only.

It's not that barbarian's of different subclass can't leverage GWM. It's the fact that the net increase it gives is so small that most of the subclasses are going to have internally built in options that is going to make that Gap disappear if they are halfway attempting to do so.

What doesn’t happen off turns is reckless attack. You don’t gain advantage on your off turn attacks. But from reading the posters it seems like most people houserules it that it does.

[Bigmouth]

So without advantage, GWM seems pretty lackluster. The main benefit seems to be just seeing higher damage when you do hit and a LOT of players live to see those big numbers. With a 1d12 weapon and a +3 STR each missed attack due to the GWM penalty is going to cost you 9.5 lost damage on average. So if your GWM hits equal the missed attacks, your gains are minimal. Attacks that hit with GWM need to be more than those lost. I like to do this stuff out of 20 attacks for simplicity (thanks d20). So you need to be at least hitting on a 10+ for it to be an actual bonus and not just a "Yay! Big numbers!"

Damage lost on 5 misses: STR +3 47.5
Damage lost on 5 misses: STR +4 52.5
Damage lost on 5 misses: STR +5 57.5

So GWM seems worse with higher strengths at first glance, but higher strengths also effect the number you need to hit. So if a +3 STR was going to hit on 10+, a +5 STR is going to hit on 8+. So while you'd lose more damage on your misses (57.5 over 20), you'd also hit with GWM 2 times more than with the +3, so you'd gain 80 over 20 attacks as opposed to 60 over 20. .625 dmg per attack roll on average, versus 1.125 dmg added per attack roll.

After seeing some mention of ACs higher up in the thread, I went looking. So the DMG has suggested ACs by CR, which supposedly matches up very nicely with the creatures in the SRD if you do the analysis. Average ACs start at 13 and work up to averaging 19 at 17+ Comparing that to Proficiency Bonuses along with a STR bonus of +3 to get any idea of baselines yields this

AC by CR 0-3: 13AC PB LVL 01:+2 STR:+3 Total Attack Bonus: 5 Hit on 8+
AC by CR 4: 14AC PB LVL 01:+2 STR:+3 Total Attack Bonus: 5 Hit on 9+
AC by CR 5-7: 15AC PB LVL 05:+3 STR:+3 Total Attack Bonus: 6 Hit on 9+
AC by CR 8-9: 16AC PB LVL 09:+4 STR:+3 Total Attack Bonus: 7 Hit on 9+
AC by CR 10-12: 17AC PB LVL 09:+4 STR:+3 Total Attack Bonus: 7 Hit on 10+
AC by CR 13-16: 18AC PB LVL 13:+5 STR:+3 Total Attack Bonus: 8 Hit on 10+
AC by CR 17+: 19AC PB LVL 17:+6 STR:+3 Total Attack Bonus: 9 Hit on 10+

STR+3/8+ 65%(40% W/GWM) DPA 6.18(7.8) STR+4 7.35(9.25) STR5 8.63(12.9)
STR+3/9+ 60%(35% W/GWM) DPA 5.7(6.83) STR+4 6.83(8.2) STR5 8.05(11.83)
STR+3/10+ 55%(30% W/GWM) DPA 5.23(5.85) STR+4 6.3(7.18) STR5 7.48(8.6)

So that's without taking advantage into account. So what do those numbers look like? I decided to take a look. Afterwards I decided to look at the numbers with higher STR bonuses. DPA=Damage per Attack (not per attack that hits)
STR+3/8+ 87.75%(64% w/gwm) DPA 8.34(12.48) STR4+:91%/69.75% 9.55 /14.3 5+:93.75%/75% 10.78/16.12
STR+3/9+ 84.00%(57.75% w/gwm) DPA 7.98(11.26) STR4+:87.75%/64% 9.21/13.12 5+:91%/69.75% 10.47/15
STR+3/10+79.75%(51% w/gwm) DPA 7.58(9.95 DPA) STR4+:84%/57.75% 8.82/11.84 5+:87.75%/64% 10.09/13.76

But how does that hold up compared to PAM? Need to do things a bit different here due to attacks per round. Also, first time I had thought of the fact that on a DPA basis, PAM becomes weaker as you get more attacks per round. D10 Weapon
STR+3/Hit on 8+: Base 5.53 APR 1: 3.58 (9.11) APR 2: 1.79 (7.32) APR 3: 1.19 (6.72) APR 4: .9 (6.43)
STR+3/Hit on 9+: Base 5.1 APR 1: 3.3 (8.4) APR 2: 1.65 (6.75) APR 3: 1.1 (6.2) APR 4: .83 (5.93)
STR+3/Hit on 10+: Base 4.68 APR 1: 3.03 (7.71) APR 2: 1.53 (6.2) APR 3: 1.01 (5.69) APR 4: .76 (5.44)
STR+4/Hit on 8+: Base 6.65 APR 1: 4.55 (11.2) APR 2: 2.28(8.93) APR 3: 1.52(8.17) APR 4: 1.14(7.79)
STR+4/Hit on 9+: Base 6.18 APR 1: 4.23(10.41) APR 2: 2.12(8.3) APR 3: 1.41(7.59) APR 4: 1.06(7.24)
STR+4/Hit on 10+: Base 5.7 APR 1: 3.9 (9.6) APR 2: 1.95(7.65) APR 3: 1.3(7.0) APR 4: .98(6.68)
STR+5/Hit on 8+: Base 7.88 APR 1: 5.63(13.51) APR 2: 2.82(10.7) APR 3: 1.88(9.76) APR 4: 1.41(9.29)
STR+5/Hit on 9+: Base 7.35 APR 1: 5.25 (12.6) APR 2: 2.63(9.98) APR 3: 1.75(9.1) APR 4: 1.31(8.66)
STR+5/Hit on 10+: Base 6.83 APR 1: 4.88(11.71) APR 2: 2.44(9.27) APR 3: 1.63(8.46) APR 4: 1.22(8.05)
Now with advantage
STR+3/Hit on 8+ ADV: Base: 7.46 APR 1: 4.83 (12.29) APR 2: 2.42 (9.88) APR 3: 1.61 (9.07) APR 4: 1.21(8.67)
STR+3/Hit on 9+ ADV: Base: 7.14 APR 1: 4.62 (11.76) APR 2: 2.31(9.45) APR 3: 1.54(8.68) APR 4: 1.16(8.3)
STR+3/Hit on 10+ ADV: Base: 6.78 APR 1: 3.84( 10.62) APR 2: 1.92(8.7) APR 3: 1.28(8.06) APR 4: .96(7.74)
STR+4/Hit on 8+ ADV: Base: 8.65 APR 1: 5.92(14.52) APR 2: 2.96(11.56) APR 3: 1.97(10.62) APR 4: 1.48(10.13
STR+4/Hit on 9+ ADV: Base: 8.34 APR 1: 5.7(14.04) APR 2: 2.85(11.19) APR 3: 1.9(10.24) APR 4: 1.43(9.77)
STR+4/Hit on 10+ ADV: Base: 7.98 APR 1: 5.46(13.46) APR 2: 2.73(10.73) APR 3:1.82(9.8) APR 4: 1.37(9.35)
STR+5/Hit on 8+ ADV: Base: 9.84 APR1: 7.03(16.87) APR 2: 3.52(13.36) APR 3: 2.34(12.18) APR 4: 1.76(11.6)
STR+5/Hit on 9+ ADV: Base: 9.56 APR1: 6.83(16.39) APR 2: 3.42(12.98) APR 3: 2.28(11.84) APR 4: 1.71(11.27)
STR+5/Hit on 10+ ADV: Base: 9.21 APR 1: 6.58(15.79) APR 2: 3.29(12.79) APR 3: 2.19(11.4) APR 4: 1.65(10.86)

So the most important thing I learned from all this is that I should have done this on a spreadsheet, it would have taken a fraction of the effort. Secondly I learned that PAM is great when you don't have a lot of attacks, so great to take early or if you're never going to have 3 or 4 attacks per round. Better when you only have 1 and pretty even at 2 (worse at 9- better at 10+). Crits are not factored into these numbers sadly, though they'd skew things slightly in favor of the larger base damage of the GWM weapons. Last thing I learned was that I should ignore the voice in my head that says "You're almost done, there's no need to do a spreadsheet for this".
I doubt this will even be decipherable to anyone but myself...but there it is. :D

[Zuras]

It's really good if you know when to use it. There are a lot of monsters that have a fairly low to moderate AC and a ton of hit points. It's basically for use against them. It should never be used against opponents you aren't confident of hitting the majority of the time with that penalty...unless you've figured out that you'll only hit on a crit anyway.

This pretty much summarizes the situation. I don’t really know why GWM requires any in-depth discussion at this point. Asking “is GWM good” is basically like asking if Fireball is good. It’s amazing for its use case, and strong enough that some players try to use it even in situations where it’s not optimal.

Thanks to bounded accuracy, there are no real rewards for excessive to-hit bonuses without GWM/SS, but by Tier 3 most parties have the tools to generate significant bonuses beyond what they need, since those same spells and abilities were needed in Tier 2.

A significant element of GWM’s power is that some of the 5e magic items didn’t get the bounded accuracy memo. If you get your hands on a +3 greatsword and belt of Fire Giant Strength it’s almost irresponsible to not pick up GWM, but that’s because they decided to keep straight + to hit items in a bounded accuracy system. If you can control item availability as a DM, that’s not a problem, but in organized play it’s extremely common.

[Rerem115]

GWM also increases in value at 'high powered' tables; ones where you roll 4d6, keep 3 and reroll 1s, or start with a free feat at 1st level regardless of lineage, or maybe even both. The conflict of '+2 Strength vs PAM vs GWM' becomes a lot easier to resolve if you already have 20 Strength and/or one of the two feats already!

[Dr.Samurai]

You can't use the +/- for reaction based attacks it's limited to on turn attacks only.
No, and that's part of its power. This impacts any attack you make, if you choose. And if you have accuracy bonuses on those attacks, you're getting a lot of mileage out of the feat.

It's not that barbarian's of different subclass can't leverage GWM. It's the fact that the net increase it gives is so small that most of the subclasses are going to have internally built in options that is going to make that Gap disappear if they are halfway attempting to do so.
I can only imagine that you're ignoring the Power Attack to make this determination, or assuming that you miss more often than not.

This pretty much summarizes the situation. I don’t really know why GWM requires any in-depth discussion at this point. Asking “is GWM good” is basically like asking if Fireball is good. It’s amazing for its use case, and strong enough that some players try to use it even in situations where it’s not optimal.

Thanks to bounded accuracy, there are no real rewards for excessive to-hit bonuses without GWM/SS, but by Tier 3 most parties have the tools to generate significant bonuses beyond what they need, since those same spells and abilities were needed in Tier 2.

A significant element of GWM’s power is that some of the 5e magic items didn’t get the bounded accuracy memo. If you get your hands on a +3 greatsword and belt of Fire Giant Strength it’s almost irresponsible to not pick up GWM, but that’s because they decided to keep straight + to hit items in a bounded accuracy system. If you can control item availability as a DM, that’s not a problem, but in organized play it’s extremely common.
Indeed. Flame Tongue isn't the only magic item in the DMG lol.


Yeah, I feel like a lot of this is just... sideways. Like... I never deal 55% damage. I either hit, or I miss. And when I'm attacking with Advantage, I hit often, even when Power Attacking. And when I do that, I deal a lot more damage. And if I have a Flame Tongue instead, I deal even more damage when I hit. Not 45% damage, or 65% damage. But a full 30 damage.

[stoutstien]

No, and that's part of its power. This impacts any attack you make, if you choose. And if you have accuracy bonuses on those attacks, you're getting a lot of mileage out of the feat.

I can only imagine that you're ignoring the Power Attack to make this determination, or assuming that you miss more often than not.

Indeed. Flame Tongue isn't the only magic item in the DMG lol.


Yeah, I feel like a lot of this is just... sideways. Like... I never deal 55% damage. I either hit, or I miss. And when I'm attacking with Advantage, I hit often, even when Power Attacking. And when I do that, I deal a lot more damage. And if I have a Flame Tongue instead, I deal even more damage when I hit. Not 45% damage, or 65% damage. But a full 30 damage.

I'm not ignoring the power attack. I'm factoring accuracy and on hit bonuses that can only decrease it's value as it has a hard cap for a class that get relatively few attacks.
I'm not saying anybody stupid from taking it it's just not an automatic upgrade over other options. That's it.

There's at least one non cheesy build for just about every subclass of the barbarian that doesn't use GWM that is close enough in output that challenges that belief. And that's just factoring damage where a lot of the other options are actually giving you tools other than damage which is usually the weak points of the class. GWM is twice as bad for stuff like this because anytime you don't use it dead space. It makes stuff dead *slightly* faster assuming a lot of things that are only relevant at a table level and you aren't dead from RA without added mitigation.

[Damon_Tor]

I read that at some tables GWM is the preferred style for melee martials, to the point of being a must have. With the exception of a Barbarian, who can effectively halve damage and create advantage with limited impact on the action economy, and tier 3 fighters who get 3+ attacks and have scaled their attack bonus significantly beyond the ACs of most foes, we just haven't seen it be that effective at our table.

Basic issues are 1) the penalty on the attack modifier creates a lot of misses and mitigates the average damage boost you actually get, and 2) the drop in AC without a shield is significant for a character who is trying to get into melee. 3) Fighting styles to support other feats, like Archery and Dueling are better than GWF.

Don't get me wrong; I think it's a decent option, but I'm usually not awed when someone at our table goes with it. What are those that think this is great seeing that I'm not?

It's overrated. It is great at turning two-shot mooks into one-shot mooks pretty reliably, and that's a great thing. But it's also a trap: against bosses (dragons, casters with shield, warlords in full plate, anyone else with AC worth a damn) it actively hurts you. And casual players aren't likely to have looked up/figured out the breakpoints at which an enemy's AC makes the feat a detriment, and so are more likely to employ it at the worst possible times.

I'm more inclined to let casters clear out the mooks while the martials gear their builds towards BBEG mitigation.

[Witty Username]

I guess I don't really understand the point, re: Pokemon. If it's that Fire Blast is generally perceived as superior to Flamethrower, I'm not sure if that's true.


It's been a while, but last I checked pro pokemon players were still taking Flamethrower over Fire Blast quite often. Has that changed? Or am I misunderstanding the point you're trying to make?
It depends on the with Mon you are using, but last I checked the lower accuracy moves get used on all but the highest end pokes in terms of attack stats (if the Raw power of the poke is high enough, it stops mattering). The lower accuracy moves have also been nerfed accross the board a couple times to make the tradeoffs more apparent. I am about 2 gens behind so stuff may have changed since.

[Dr.Samurai]

I'm not saying anybody stupid from taking it it's just not an automatic upgrade over other options. That's it.
I think the rest of your post is really downplaying it's potential impact, but I agree with this here.

[strangebloke]

The above GWM Barbarian (the one with a Flametongue) would actually do less average damage vs AC 16 if they had a +2 weapon instead:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WHjQnikFKvyfP2Pu8FM2ZI2gVvSYg8Dj2ya6sBTtpb0/edit#gid=151780215

Normal / Advantage
34.2561875 / 52.31233985

(as a reminder, with a flametongue in the same conditions, they did 37.2836875 / 54.08129471)


So without advantage, GWM seems pretty lackluster. The main benefit seems to be just seeing higher damage when you do hit and a LOT of players live to see those big numbers. With a 1d12 weapon and a +3 STR each missed attack due to the GWM penalty is going to cost you 9.5 lost damage on average. So if your GWM hits equal the missed attacks, your gains are minimal. Attacks that hit with GWM need to be more than those lost. I like to do this stuff out of 20 attacks for simplicity (thanks d20). So you need to be at least hitting on a 10+ for it to be an actual bonus and not just a "Yay! Big numbers!"
---

So the most important thing I learned from all this is that I should have done this on a spreadsheet, it would have taken a fraction of the effort. Secondly I learned that PAM is great when you don't have a lot of attacks, so great to take early or if you're never going to have 3 or 4 attacks per round. Better when you only have 1 and pretty even at 2 (worse at 9- better at 10+). Crits are not factored into these numbers sadly, though they'd skew things slightly in favor of the larger base damage of the GWM weapons. Last thing I learned was that I should ignore the voice in my head that says "You're almost done, there's no need to do a spreadsheet for this".
I doubt this will even be decipherable to anyone but myself...but there it is. :D
The spreadsheet you want to make has been made! Ludic's spreadsheet in the quote above is very, dare I say it, comprehensive.

PAM is very good for pure damage, yeah


This pretty much summarizes the situation. I don’t really know why GWM requires any in-depth discussion at this point. Asking “is GWM good” is basically like asking if Fireball is good. It’s amazing for its use case, and strong enough that some players try to use it even in situations where it’s not optimal.

Thanks to bounded accuracy, there are no real rewards for excessive to-hit bonuses without GWM/SS, but by Tier 3 most parties have the tools to generate significant bonuses beyond what they need, since those same spells and abilities were needed in Tier 2.

A significant element of GWM’s power is that some of the 5e magic items didn’t get the bounded accuracy memo. If you get your hands on a +3 greatsword and belt of Fire Giant Strength it’s almost irresponsible to not pick up GWM, but that’s because they decided to keep straight + to hit items in a bounded accuracy system. If you can control item availability as a DM, that’s not a problem, but in organized play it’s extremely common.

Pretty much. GWM is strong but requires support in the form of movement-enhancers to let you be consistent, and accuracy enhancers to broaden the range of instances where GWM can boost your damage. Among accuracy boosters, advantage is particularly good because it changes the nature of the tradeoffs between 5 accuracy and 10 damage.

[Tanarii]

So GWM seems worse with higher strengths at first glance, but higher strengths also affect the number you need to hit.It is not. A Str goes up, the addition to hit makes GWM better faster than the added damage makes it worse in a 2:1 ratio. Even without advantage.

What does impact the maximum AC you want to use it against is if you get sources of damage elsewhere that come without a bonus to hit. That's why Flametongue swords are worth calling out. But I got from this thread that was interesting and I didn't know before what checking the numbers and seeing that a Barb is still better off using a Flametongue weapon than a +2 weapon with GWM. Just with a lower AC where they would just make normal attacks. But AC 17 or lower enemies are still somewhat common at mid levels, so it still worth having.


After seeing some mention of ACs higher up in the thread, I went looking. So the DMG has suggested ACs by CR, which supposedly matches up very nicely with the creatures in the SRD if you do the analysis. Average ACs start at 13 and work up to averaging 19 at 17+ Comparing that to Proficiency Bonuses along with a STR bonus of +3 to get any idea of baselines yields thisIts unreasonable to assume that the typical enemies you'll be facing are CR = level. Either CR = 1/2 level or CR = level minus 3 steps is more in line with the system expectations.

[Bigmouth]

@Strangebloke I knew that someone on GitP had an amazing spreadsheet, even thought it was probably LudicSavant, but I wanted to do the numbers for myself. Thanks for confirming it was LudicSavant though. I'll have to go take another gander at their impressive work.

@Tanarii I totally agree. I only said "seemed' after talking about the 'lost damage' over 20 attacks. Sadly I wrote the post as I worked through it, but the numbers deeper in the post definitely show that despite the -5 penalty, GWM is a net gain.

On the subject of CR=LVL. Excellent point. I went with CR=LVL because it was easy and the first thing that jumped to mind. However, I think that even this higher than reality CR shows that on average, the actual difficulty of hitting isn't as high as some people suggest.

[Witty Username]

Another thing to consider is that attacks are inherently unreliable, take say tier 1, AC will often range from 11-15, and the occasional 16. This means that even a str 16 and proficiency your looking at a 75 to 55% accuracy. This means that GWM doesn't necessarily turn hits into misses in the same way a 25% accuracy hit would do for other games. And if the damage starts counting for 2 hits (+10 dmg is about right for that), your damage loss on missed attacks starts looking much more reasonable.

For fun, I decided to punch in the chance of landing two attacks at 75%, and got 56%, so the hit damage on GWM and landing 2 attacks in a row is close to the same chances. If you need leathal damage GWM is about as good as a second attack in the moment (don't use on exceptionally weak or heavily damaged opponents, obviously)

[LudicSavant]

Yet another variable to take into consideration beyond the usual 'average DPR against average monster AC' is a GWM character's role -- essentially, it's to hit the biggest, nastiest single target as hard as you can.

However, GWM is naturally better at punching down than it is at punching up, but not good enough at punching down to actually make you good against mook swarms (you'll want to call your local fireball or spirit guardian junkies for that).

And when punching up at the sort of single target enemies who can threaten optimized parties if they aren't killed ASAP, their AC is often higher than the 'average AC for a Medium CR creature' that many people compare against by default. And they are more likely to have other kinds of defenses that make them harder to hit, too (like inflicting Disadvantage, or even just stuff that makes a melee character have to work harder to actually get in range of them).

So as impressive and memorable as GWM obliterating some monsters may be, it might not actually be raising the ceiling of what the party can take on as much as one might expect.


@Strangebloke I knew that someone on GitP had an amazing spreadsheet, even thought it was probably LudicSavant, but I wanted to do the numbers for myself. Thanks for confirming it was LudicSavant though. I'll have to go take another gander at their impressive work.

https://forums.giantitp.com/images/sand/icons/icon_thumbsup.png

[5eNeedsDarksun]

Yet another variable to take into consideration beyond the usual 'average DPR against average monster AC' is a GWM character's role -- essentially, it's to hit the biggest, nastiest single target as hard as you can.

However, GWM is naturally better at punching down than it is at punching up, but not good enough at punching down to actually make you good against mook swarms (you'll want to call your local fireball or spirit guardian junkies for that).

And when punching up at the sort of single target enemies who can threaten optimized parties if they aren't killed ASAP, their AC is often higher than the 'average AC for a Medium CR creature' that many people compare against by default. And they are more likely to have other kinds of defenses that make them harder to hit, too (like inflicting Disadvantage, or even just stuff that makes a melee character have to work harder to actually get in range of them).

So as impressive and memorable as GWM obliterating some monsters may be, it might not actually be raising the ceiling of what the party can take on as much as one might expect.



https://forums.giantitp.com/images/sand/icons/icon_thumbsup.png

I think this is an interesting point. This POV reminds me of a discussion I was having after playing an Assassin, which works the best when you need it least. In that case once we'd successfully scouted out the enemy and the stealthy members of the party had gotten surprise, the combat was probably going to go well anyway. While high CR doesn't always = high AC there's enough of a correlation here to make an impact, and those high CR monsters are likely more resistant to things that are going to provide advantage.

[Aquillion]

It depends on the with Mon you are using, but last I checked the lower accuracy moves get used on all but the highest end pokes in terms of attack stats (if the Raw power of the poke is high enough, it stops mattering). The lower accuracy moves have also been nerfed accross the board a couple times to make the tradeoffs more apparent. I am about 2 gens behind so stuff may have changed since.Although it's worth pointing out that the damage difference is *much* bigger here. Depending on your stats and weapon, GWM can roughly double your damage, while it is extremely unlikely that it will halve your chance to hit.