Quote Originally Posted by Pex View Post
I prefer DMs who respect their players and don't assume skullduggery for every build choice they make. If you hate the feat so much ban it. Problem solved. When it's available and the player takes it you don't passive aggressively punish him for it by never giving him a magical version of his weapon of choice.
I tell players not to expect any particular magic items. They shouldn't expect to have all their attunement slots filled, either. They don't get to plan around a magic-mart. If that means the build the internet told them is perfect might not work, too bad.

PAM is strong. Players picking it might not get the perfect pole arm of their dreams quickly, or ever. They might die, too. Using a battleaxe or scimitar is probably preferable to dying.


It isn't like 80% of the monsters in the MM have resistance to non-magical weapons, and it isn't like some magical weapon fairy is going to distribute magical weapons of the preferred type throughout hell or the underdark with the party in mind.

Every paladin has magic weapon on their spell list, every blade warlock has access to improved pact weapon

And, of course, anyone can have a weapon silvered for 100gp.

Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
Yeah, in a no feat campaign, the incidents of polearm characters was comparatively low. Greatsword and Greataxe characters were still somewhat common, but nowhere near as common as in a feat campaign.

Because PAM and GWM are so OP, they significantly skew the results when I was playing in AL. The frequency of polearm users, and now spear and shield users, is almost exclusively because of mechanical advantage.

That's fine, but it needs to be recognized.

Of course that's the case.

It's not quite as bad as spiked chain builds in 3e, but it's close.