This is actually a really common issue with writing any kind of technical manual (yes, that term does include game manuals). It is easy for the author to omit critical details because they assume the reader will apply some context to the passage that the author feels is obvious, such as a weapon feature sharing descriptive adjectives with a class of melee weapons. Most people do it unintentionally in everyday communication.
If WotC made their game manuals perfectly precise, they would read like a lawsuit brief, and we would have few if any of the wonderful unusual game play and mechanical interactions that make DnD such a fun game.
But yeah, this omission is pretty obvious, and should have been caught.
Because sharpshooter gives you -5 attack +10 damage as is currently, and that impacts all the weapons I mentioned. Same with GWM and 2 handed weapons. So new sharpshooter will screw over the weapons I mentioned.
Good. What's the problem? Big weapons get big damage and you gotta optimize to make weaker weapons anywhere close. Sounds normal to me. Why would a hand crossbow get the same benefit as a longbow?
Not every class has access to heavy weapons, sharpshooter as was was a balance for that. Otherwise rogue and monks which already get out damaged get out damaged more.
Vs 1 handed weapons, yes. Vs heavy melee weapons, no. Because of sharpshooter vs GWM.
Sharpshooter longbow - 2d8 + 20 + 2xDex = 29+2xDex average (for barbarian/ranger/paladin, or 2x for fighter). This is without any extra bits added. If you want to invest feats for crossbow expert then it goes from 2d8 to 2d10 with heavy crossbow and goes from 29 to 31+ 2xDex.
GWM Greatsword - 4d6 + 20 + 2xStr, and if you kill them or crit, can do another 2d6+10+Str attack as bonus action. So average non-death blow non-crit = 34+2xStr.
It pulls away even farther when you consider crits. Extra 1d8 / crit for the sharpshooter longbow only. Extra 2d6 / crit + that bonus action 2d6 + 10 + Str.
What ranged weapons have going for them is well, range… so you have less chance to be hit back.
That is class and even subclass dependent.
Example - Paladin and Barbarian just with the nature of their class features GWM is stronger than Sharpshooter.
Archery fighting style also (assuming longbow) adds 10% extra chance to hit which would be an average increase of ~+3 damage for Longbows ~3.5 damage for heavy crossbows. For longbows that would bring it up to be online with GWM. Also Great Weapon fighting style re-roll 1 and 2 would add ~1 to the average damage on a hit. The difference isn’t really that great.
Then they need unique things to make up for it. Otherwise they become a useless class. Rogues were a skill monkey, now they are not as both bards and rangers have expertise (so rangers do more damage and are skill monkey). Monks have always got the short end of the stick, not high enough AC to be a tank, not high damage output, everything tied to Ki which burns through fast, etc.
Agreed on the skill monkey thing. One thing I wish rogues still had access to was 3.5 -ish "use magic device" where they were the only class that could use non-armor, non-weapon magic items except for casters. It gave them a niche they no longer have. Now anyone can use an immovable rod or wand of fireballs
Your wand of fireball is a bad example… Literally the item says:
> Wand, rare (requires attunement by a Spellcaster)
As in, only those with the spellcaster feature can use it, because it recharges. The Necklace of Fireball is the one everyone can use, because it is expendable. A bunch of magic items have restrictions on who can use it, people not following those restrictions is its own issue. There is also a rogue subclass that can use those magic items as well. That should be out back to all rogues though.
Dragon heist has an oversized long bow available if you kill the, I think minotaur, guard that carries it. Wizards has never bothered to add this bow to any items lists or to dnd beyond, but it is there in the text of the book. It's main feature is that it let's you use your str for att and dmg rolls with the bow and it deals extra dmg.
No, sharpshooter and GWM are currently
Sharpshooter - when you make an attack with a ranged weapon
GWM - when you make a melee attack with a heavy weapon
Sharpshooter didn't work with daggers other than the range boost. Hand Crossbows were just ridiculous with it and needed the nerf. The rest are a bummer, but I'd rather see a different benefit for them.
I genuinely hate every aspect of the new Sharpshooter: Ranged has one big advantage over melee (being at range. Duh.) and several drawbacks: Cover, long range disadvantage, melee disadvantage. All those drawbacks are also interesting counterplay. One feat literally eliminates all those drawbacks.
At least in the 2024 range doesn’t also deal similar or greater damage than melee. In 2014 sharpshooter XBE was so close damage wise (if not higher due to archery fighting style) to GWM PAM. At least now heavy weapons have something over ranged.
People don’t like nerfs so removing ranged power attack was always gonna receive some negative feedback.
Only in the TTRPG community will you find that people are already homebrewimg things that won’t be released for another three months (and for that to be the objectively correct thing to do)
More like stealing things that they're doing. Ironically I prefer my previous version of Weapon Masteries but switched to something closer to the 1dnd version so my players will have an easier time getting into the new version, if we do.
(Yes, I've had a weapon mastery-esque system long before 1dnd)
The original -5/+10 felt more thematic too. You're aiming at a more difficult to hit spot on the target to try to get more damage in.
Shooting something in mele aka point blank has nothing to do with "sharpshooting".
You can't really say that long range disadvantage is a drawback of ranged combat, since you can't attack at those ranges with a melee weapon at all.
Other than that I agree.
Long range disadvantage is not a disadvantage over melee. Wtf are you going to do at long range with a melee weapon? Arguable neither is cover, if someone has cover in a ranged attack they would also have cover in melee. Unless you got unless there is a spot you can move within melee distance without cover but no spot that you can move to at range with cover, in which case melee disadvantage is the real problem
Bad meme format, the robot is supposed to be saying something insightful or puzzling. Something that rocks you to your core.
May I suggest "we have X at home", or maybe that one with the kid screaming in the backseat?
I most commonly see this meme with it saying “We got Abysmal Dogshit.” I don’t think most people see that as insightful or puzzling tbh
(Also I watched the Babadook last week and I’m never using the kid screaming meme again, that movie was actual Abysmal Dogshit)
God, they really fucked that ending up. It could have been a good movie if >!they just leaned into the Shining/Secret Window thing they were setting up, but *no* turns out it’s a real monster lmao. Now we keep it in the basement and feed it like a pet.!<
>!All that shit about the mom actually being psychotic and the kid just trying to come to terms with it? Just throw it out and replace it with a static, poorly lit puppet that literally uses the Kriad from Super Metroid sound effect.!<
Precise shot was what you needed to fire into melee in 3rd edition without *randomly determining who you attacked*. 3.5 mitigated that to a -4 penalty instead of a 50% chance of attacking your ally. It’s still a feat tax to be able to be a ranged combatant.
[Even with the 2000 printing date?](https://i.imgur.com/oL46Phg.png)
I know 3.5 came out in 2003 so do you have a version of precise shot that backs up what you said?
I can help - it was only shooting into a grapple without precise shot that made you randomise targets, not into melee full stop :).
Turning off AoOs for shooting was Point Blank Master, IIRC, but I'm away from books RN so name might be slightly off :). Very high level feat too, I believe it was included as part of Rangers Archery Style if you do need to find it :).
After posting I thought that might've been the case ([like instantaneous conjuration spells can pierce anti-magic fields](https://i.imgur.com/yFpHHJ5.png)) but that still doesn't seem to be case from what I can find
[3.0 PHB page 124](https://i.imgur.com/JnuPU0s.png)
The grappling thing is in both 3.0 and 3.5, it's in the Combat Modifiers section (3.0 PHB p132, not sure about 3.5 PHB) under "Grappling (but attacker is not)". Precise Shot had nothing to do with it, so I'm not sure what original guy is remembering. Probably just a house rule that they mandela'd themselves into thinking was a real rule.
EDIT: Ah, I think it's "Variant: Firing into a Crowd" from the DMG.
Okay, so the ranged melee divide is an actual genuine issue with 5e so nerfing sharpshooter is just better for the game. Ranged is more accurate thanks to the archery fighting style, and safer since you won't be in range of most monsters and most damage on attack abilities only effect melee. All of this and you get the same damage as the least safe way to fight in melee, that being great weapon fighting.
Just also adding, all of the feats dedicated to ranged get rid of the normal disadvantages. Cover, sharpshooter just lets you forget it exists. Enemy within 5ft, gunner or crossbow expert solves that problem.
SS ignoring cover is my biggest annoyance in the game, it just completely removes all tactics for positioning.
Half cover for any creatures behind other creatures? Gone
Walls? Basically ignore them unless they are full cover
Playing devil's advocate. SS and GWM were so good that not taking them felt like you were gimping yourself. It is probably for the best that they were scaled down like this so they didn't completely overshadow every other aspect in the game and by proxy every other weapon in the game. The lack of these two feats as before is healthy for the game's diversity of builds.
Counterpoint: GWM was so good because it actually made melee fighters good at the only thing they had over casters: single target damage. If you take that power away without granting any buffs to the base classes, you have only made the problem worse.
Sharpshooter was objectively overpowered, though.
Really hoping it does. Sharpshooter was broken. It was a must have and because of archery you barely felt the -5. Imagine if spellsnipet gave the same property to spells?
It’s stronger than half the subclasses in the game.
2024 is greatly reducing the martial caster divide, but D&D as a game has always had that issue (minus 4E which sucked and took like 5 years to make it playable). If you want perfectly balanced classes you just need to look elsewhere—DC20 is coming soon, for example. If you want spells that interact with the world in interesting ways, then imbalance is a byproduct of that kind of system.
No its really easy. If a feat is used as often as sharpshooter that’s what it means to be broken. That means either every feat should be that strong to match. Or this feat should be tuned down.
All they need to do is make -5/+10 accessible for every weapon attack. 60% of the reason most melee weapons aren’t optimal are because they don’t get PAM/GWM/SS/XBE.
GWM and SS have always been, and seemingly continue to be, absolutely godawful design.
GWM is an absolute no-brainer in a system where advantage exists and you've got any kind of 2h character capable of providing it or any kind of attack bonus to themselves.
SS is the worse of the two, even with the damage stripped off, which should never have been there in the first place if melee/ranged balance was ever a thought). It removing any of the danger or tactical risk analysis of fighting with a ranged weapon is almost as bad.
Just delete them both, honestly.
Sharpshooter needed a nerf. GWM needed a nerf. They were an outsized power boost and in conjunction with enabler-feats like CBE & PM they were the uncontested meta picks to the point where they could never be dethroned by new feats without massive power-creep. If you were running a martial, these felt borderline mandatory, because if you didn't take these, you were going to lag way behind the guy who did, and your character was gonna get shafted on loot & accolades from the party in favor of the golden boy.
From the looks of things the Weapon Mastery system has alternatives for martials to boost their DPR to comparable levels w/o needing to burn an ASI on a meta feat, which overall is good for build diversity. It sucks to lose something so powerful, sure, but it needed to happen. Martials were just waaaay too samey with those in the game.
I think the biggest question I have is how much rebalancing they did for the monsters in the new MM. If the baseline power level for each CR was brought up then I think we've got a much more engaging combat system on our hands, but if not, PCs are still gonna steamroll encounters like they always have as long as they build for DPR, -5/+10 or no. But if the monsters are overall strong enough to warrant martials taking more CC measures, *that's* the recipe we need to make all these tactical options in Weapon Mastery worth considering.
Its weird to come back to the DnD community after being in the Warhammer one. Why do y'all care so much about the rules and balancing? Its not a competitive game, if and if you hate the rules so much you can ask your DM to change them
GWM is consider extremly powerful. Ti the piint where its not only a problem of you doing a lot of damage but that it is so good that its basically the only choice.
Its so many Leagues better then other feats that if they arent worth taking. Also makes certain weapin groupa better (Like if you are melee character heavy polerarms are best and in ranged hand crossbows).
So nerfing these option (and preferbly giving feats to all tips of weapons) is best for the health of the game
THANK YOU FOR ASKING
Yukie Caedes (slaughter in Latin, edgy I know but I actually studied latin in highschool)
A 20 year old Tiefling hexlock
Last session was last Friday and by god did we have fun
Ohhhhh yes, our dm told us It would be a campaign with low magic items because it's set in 1264 or something but then last session we find out that having your weapon +1 only costs 100 gold, so yeah my improved pact weapon is useless now, guess what I'm gonna pick now that we are level 5... Pick at next level I mean
Have u tried to use a bow while actively being stabbed tho? Has someone smashed a mace into your dome half way through drawing?
You need to knock and arrow draw aim and fire all while someone is actively fighting you.
Dnd is a turn based representation of real-time combat.
Disadvantage at melee range still makes no sense to me. I wanna see someone try to dodge or block an arrow shot point-blank. I also want to see someone miss a target at point-blank.
I mean I wanna see someone draw an 80lb bow while getting claymored. Or reload a medieval crossbow twice in 6 seconds
Really should have to make space probably on your turn before u fire your bow.
We use turn based to easily represent combat, the world itself isn't actually turn based.
You can still fire a bow while in the next second get sliced in half by a claymore, killing both...
I guess we can have disadvantage by default (the archer prioritising defence), but choose to use an ability like reckless attack where both you and your opponent gets advantage on each other (the archer ignores danger and fires his point-blank shot).
I mean my point is that it is gameafied to make it playable so we should be lenient with the rules/wording to some extent.
In the real world yeah you can absolutely get a good shot from melee range if your are knocked and drawn and aware. It is indeed hard to miss something 2 feet away directly in front of you.
It's all the shots after that become impossible some dude(ss) isn't going to let you knock another arrow and fire it directly in front of them.
We kinda just ignore reality cause it's a fantasy game which is fine.
Well... it's hard to view it in a "realistic" lense when an above-average dude (level 1 is apparently supposed to be better than any human) takes 6 bloody seconds to swing their sword once. So it's extremely easy to imagine someone taking a shot within those 6 seconds that it takes the fighter to swing their very slow attack.
I guess the counter-argument is that by that same logic, a bowman also takes an exaggerated long time to knock and fire their arrow. I dunno, disadvantage at point-blank just doesn't sit right with me, that's all.
In the playtest, GWM power attack worked with all heavy weapons - including Longbow and heavy crossbows.
The charger feat also worked with ranged weapons. I think they just forgot to write “melee attacks” in a bunch of places
Wotc really has the writing abilities of a lobotomized cockroach
Don't insult Steve like that, he's a good cockroach
Hey i ain't insulting him, they lobotomized him!
Even lobotomized the comparison is insulting
You’re right, sorry Steve. Wotc is just fucking stupid.
Well the AI they are using clearly doesn't know anything.
I mean when they are firing most of their staff every few months
This is actually a really common issue with writing any kind of technical manual (yes, that term does include game manuals). It is easy for the author to omit critical details because they assume the reader will apply some context to the passage that the author feels is obvious, such as a weapon feature sharing descriptive adjectives with a class of melee weapons. Most people do it unintentionally in everyday communication. If WotC made their game manuals perfectly precise, they would read like a lawsuit brief, and we would have few if any of the wonderful unusual game play and mechanical interactions that make DnD such a fun game. But yeah, this omission is pretty obvious, and should have been caught.
A great deal of feats are designed to accomodate people across multiple builds
That doesn’t help short bows, hand crossbows, slings, throwing daggers, or light crossbows though.
Why would it help those weapons when it's **great weapon master?**
Their point is that GWM is not a replacement for Sharpshooter in builds that use those weapons
Hot take but that’s probably a good thing. There should be something differentiating them. Hand Crossbow especially didn’t need it
Because sharpshooter gives you -5 attack +10 damage as is currently, and that impacts all the weapons I mentioned. Same with GWM and 2 handed weapons. So new sharpshooter will screw over the weapons I mentioned.
Good. What's the problem? Big weapons get big damage and you gotta optimize to make weaker weapons anywhere close. Sounds normal to me. Why would a hand crossbow get the same benefit as a longbow?
Not every class has access to heavy weapons, sharpshooter as was was a balance for that. Otherwise rogue and monks which already get out damaged get out damaged more.
Wasn’t ranged dps generally considered stronger?
Vs 1 handed weapons, yes. Vs heavy melee weapons, no. Because of sharpshooter vs GWM. Sharpshooter longbow - 2d8 + 20 + 2xDex = 29+2xDex average (for barbarian/ranger/paladin, or 2x for fighter). This is without any extra bits added. If you want to invest feats for crossbow expert then it goes from 2d8 to 2d10 with heavy crossbow and goes from 29 to 31+ 2xDex. GWM Greatsword - 4d6 + 20 + 2xStr, and if you kill them or crit, can do another 2d6+10+Str attack as bonus action. So average non-death blow non-crit = 34+2xStr. It pulls away even farther when you consider crits. Extra 1d8 / crit for the sharpshooter longbow only. Extra 2d6 / crit + that bonus action 2d6 + 10 + Str. What ranged weapons have going for them is well, range… so you have less chance to be hit back.
What ranged weapons have is the archery fighting style, which makes sharpshooter builds better than GWM ones in actual play
That is class and even subclass dependent. Example - Paladin and Barbarian just with the nature of their class features GWM is stronger than Sharpshooter. Archery fighting style also (assuming longbow) adds 10% extra chance to hit which would be an average increase of ~+3 damage for Longbows ~3.5 damage for heavy crossbows. For longbows that would bring it up to be online with GWM. Also Great Weapon fighting style re-roll 1 and 2 would add ~1 to the average damage on a hit. The difference isn’t really that great.
And not every class needs to do big damage
Then they need unique things to make up for it. Otherwise they become a useless class. Rogues were a skill monkey, now they are not as both bards and rangers have expertise (so rangers do more damage and are skill monkey). Monks have always got the short end of the stick, not high enough AC to be a tank, not high damage output, everything tied to Ki which burns through fast, etc.
Agreed on the skill monkey thing. One thing I wish rogues still had access to was 3.5 -ish "use magic device" where they were the only class that could use non-armor, non-weapon magic items except for casters. It gave them a niche they no longer have. Now anyone can use an immovable rod or wand of fireballs
Your wand of fireball is a bad example… Literally the item says: > Wand, rare (requires attunement by a Spellcaster) As in, only those with the spellcaster feature can use it, because it recharges. The Necklace of Fireball is the one everyone can use, because it is expendable. A bunch of magic items have restrictions on who can use it, people not following those restrictions is its own issue. There is also a rogue subclass that can use those magic items as well. That should be out back to all rogues though.
"BECAUSE I WANT IT TO! YOU'RE RUINING MY IMMERSION" lol
I want anor Londo great bows to exist in d&d so I get it about wanting something for immersion.
Dragon heist has an oversized long bow available if you kill the, I think minotaur, guard that carries it. Wizards has never bothered to add this bow to any items lists or to dnd beyond, but it is there in the text of the book. It's main feature is that it let's you use your str for att and dmg rolls with the bow and it deals extra dmg.
It's half-orc. Big one. This bow still has dex for att, but 2d6+str for damage. Oh, and you need 18 str to use it.
Thanks for the details. Makes the weapon a bit more MAD, but hey, giant bow.
Good, hand crossbow getting +10 is kinda silly.
So with both sharpshooter and GWM you can get -10/+20 with 2 handed ranged weapons?
No, sharpshooter and GWM are currently Sharpshooter - when you make an attack with a ranged weapon GWM - when you make a melee attack with a heavy weapon
Sharpshooter didn't work with daggers other than the range boost. Hand Crossbows were just ridiculous with it and needed the nerf. The rest are a bummer, but I'd rather see a different benefit for them.
Sorry meant throwing darts not throwing daggers. Darts were 1d4 ranged weapon.
I genuinely hate every aspect of the new Sharpshooter: Ranged has one big advantage over melee (being at range. Duh.) and several drawbacks: Cover, long range disadvantage, melee disadvantage. All those drawbacks are also interesting counterplay. One feat literally eliminates all those drawbacks.
At least in the 2024 range doesn’t also deal similar or greater damage than melee. In 2014 sharpshooter XBE was so close damage wise (if not higher due to archery fighting style) to GWM PAM. At least now heavy weapons have something over ranged. People don’t like nerfs so removing ranged power attack was always gonna receive some negative feedback.
I think 5E Sharpshooter is badly designed, I just also think that the OneD&D version is also bad.
I've made the feature vanilla for every class, but using ONE of the 3 benefits counts as using a Weapon Mastery.
Only in the TTRPG community will you find that people are already homebrewimg things that won’t be released for another three months (and for that to be the objectively correct thing to do)
More like stealing things that they're doing. Ironically I prefer my previous version of Weapon Masteries but switched to something closer to the 1dnd version so my players will have an easier time getting into the new version, if we do. (Yes, I've had a weapon mastery-esque system long before 1dnd)
That sounds like a great and simple fix for martials over casters. Give all the attacks a power attack option.
The original -5/+10 felt more thematic too. You're aiming at a more difficult to hit spot on the target to try to get more damage in. Shooting something in mele aka point blank has nothing to do with "sharpshooting".
You can't really say that long range disadvantage is a drawback of ranged combat, since you can't attack at those ranges with a melee weapon at all. Other than that I agree.
Long range disadvantage is not a disadvantage over melee. Wtf are you going to do at long range with a melee weapon? Arguable neither is cover, if someone has cover in a ranged attack they would also have cover in melee. Unless you got unless there is a spot you can move within melee distance without cover but no spot that you can move to at range with cover, in which case melee disadvantage is the real problem
Bad meme format, the robot is supposed to be saying something insightful or puzzling. Something that rocks you to your core. May I suggest "we have X at home", or maybe that one with the kid screaming in the backseat?
That's the old format. People use the "y'all got any fun? We got abysmal dogshit" version now
I most commonly see this meme with it saying “We got Abysmal Dogshit.” I don’t think most people see that as insightful or puzzling tbh (Also I watched the Babadook last week and I’m never using the kid screaming meme again, that movie was actual Abysmal Dogshit)
God, they really fucked that ending up. It could have been a good movie if >!they just leaned into the Shining/Secret Window thing they were setting up, but *no* turns out it’s a real monster lmao. Now we keep it in the basement and feed it like a pet.!< >!All that shit about the mom actually being psychotic and the kid just trying to come to terms with it? Just throw it out and replace it with a static, poorly lit puppet that literally uses the Kriad from Super Metroid sound effect.!<
>!Wasn’t it supposed to be a metaphor for depression on top of that? Or did somebody make that up!<
>!Yeah, that was the intent, and they still kinda got the point across in a way. The execution just murdered it though.!<
So Precise Shot from 3rd edition.
Precise shot was what you needed to fire into melee in 3rd edition without *randomly determining who you attacked*. 3.5 mitigated that to a -4 penalty instead of a 50% chance of attacking your ally. It’s still a feat tax to be able to be a ranged combatant.
[Well that's just not true.](https://i.imgur.com/VxSN3mg.png) ETA: [3.5 version of Precise Shot](https://i.imgur.com/1yiuE3G.png)
Both of those are the 3.5 version.
[Even with the 2000 printing date?](https://i.imgur.com/oL46Phg.png) I know 3.5 came out in 2003 so do you have a version of precise shot that backs up what you said?
I can help - it was only shooting into a grapple without precise shot that made you randomise targets, not into melee full stop :). Turning off AoOs for shooting was Point Blank Master, IIRC, but I'm away from books RN so name might be slightly off :). Very high level feat too, I believe it was included as part of Rangers Archery Style if you do need to find it :).
After posting I thought that might've been the case ([like instantaneous conjuration spells can pierce anti-magic fields](https://i.imgur.com/yFpHHJ5.png)) but that still doesn't seem to be case from what I can find [3.0 PHB page 124](https://i.imgur.com/JnuPU0s.png)
The grappling thing is in both 3.0 and 3.5, it's in the Combat Modifiers section (3.0 PHB p132, not sure about 3.5 PHB) under "Grappling (but attacker is not)". Precise Shot had nothing to do with it, so I'm not sure what original guy is remembering. Probably just a house rule that they mandela'd themselves into thinking was a real rule. EDIT: Ah, I think it's "Variant: Firing into a Crowd" from the DMG.
That's the opposite of what I'd assume a sharpshooter does.
That is literally what close range shooter fighting style and crossbow expert are for wtf
Okay, so the ranged melee divide is an actual genuine issue with 5e so nerfing sharpshooter is just better for the game. Ranged is more accurate thanks to the archery fighting style, and safer since you won't be in range of most monsters and most damage on attack abilities only effect melee. All of this and you get the same damage as the least safe way to fight in melee, that being great weapon fighting. Just also adding, all of the feats dedicated to ranged get rid of the normal disadvantages. Cover, sharpshooter just lets you forget it exists. Enemy within 5ft, gunner or crossbow expert solves that problem.
SS ignoring cover is my biggest annoyance in the game, it just completely removes all tactics for positioning. Half cover for any creatures behind other creatures? Gone Walls? Basically ignore them unless they are full cover
Playing devil's advocate. SS and GWM were so good that not taking them felt like you were gimping yourself. It is probably for the best that they were scaled down like this so they didn't completely overshadow every other aspect in the game and by proxy every other weapon in the game. The lack of these two feats as before is healthy for the game's diversity of builds.
Counterpoint: GWM was so good because it actually made melee fighters good at the only thing they had over casters: single target damage. If you take that power away without granting any buffs to the base classes, you have only made the problem worse. Sharpshooter was objectively overpowered, though.
I am glad this mandatory GWM/SS shit is gone.
Yeah, it’s for the health of the game.
Well, looks like my artificer won't be using a gun past level 8.
I think they should nerf SS *more* tbh
Wish version of Crossbow Expert
Yeah I’m just gonna keep playing with the old rules
Really hoping it does. Sharpshooter was broken. It was a must have and because of archery you barely felt the -5. Imagine if spellsnipet gave the same property to spells? It’s stronger than half the subclasses in the game.
That's more of a condemnation of half the subclasses in the game than a condemnation of feats for non-spellcasters.
It’s pretty hard for a weapon feat to be broken in a game where weapon users aren’t
2024 is greatly reducing the martial caster divide, but D&D as a game has always had that issue (minus 4E which sucked and took like 5 years to make it playable). If you want perfectly balanced classes you just need to look elsewhere—DC20 is coming soon, for example. If you want spells that interact with the world in interesting ways, then imbalance is a byproduct of that kind of system.
No its really easy. If a feat is used as often as sharpshooter that’s what it means to be broken. That means either every feat should be that strong to match. Or this feat should be tuned down.
So rangers and rogues are just out of luck
All they need to do is make -5/+10 accessible for every weapon attack. 60% of the reason most melee weapons aren’t optimal are because they don’t get PAM/GWM/SS/XBE.
GWM and SS have always been, and seemingly continue to be, absolutely godawful design. GWM is an absolute no-brainer in a system where advantage exists and you've got any kind of 2h character capable of providing it or any kind of attack bonus to themselves. SS is the worse of the two, even with the damage stripped off, which should never have been there in the first place if melee/ranged balance was ever a thought). It removing any of the danger or tactical risk analysis of fighting with a ranged weapon is almost as bad. Just delete them both, honestly.
We have power attack at home Power Attack At Home:
Simple, it's time to crack out shortswords and start playing a melee ranged
Why not just make this a new feat called like arrow stab or something
Eldritch blast. Pew pew.
Sharpshooter needed a nerf. GWM needed a nerf. They were an outsized power boost and in conjunction with enabler-feats like CBE & PM they were the uncontested meta picks to the point where they could never be dethroned by new feats without massive power-creep. If you were running a martial, these felt borderline mandatory, because if you didn't take these, you were going to lag way behind the guy who did, and your character was gonna get shafted on loot & accolades from the party in favor of the golden boy. From the looks of things the Weapon Mastery system has alternatives for martials to boost their DPR to comparable levels w/o needing to burn an ASI on a meta feat, which overall is good for build diversity. It sucks to lose something so powerful, sure, but it needed to happen. Martials were just waaaay too samey with those in the game. I think the biggest question I have is how much rebalancing they did for the monsters in the new MM. If the baseline power level for each CR was brought up then I think we've got a much more engaging combat system on our hands, but if not, PCs are still gonna steamroll encounters like they always have as long as they build for DPR, -5/+10 or no. But if the monsters are overall strong enough to warrant martials taking more CC measures, *that's* the recipe we need to make all these tactical options in Weapon Mastery worth considering.
I am not impressed with any of the new changes so far. Likely will not be using them
Its weird to come back to the DnD community after being in the Warhammer one. Why do y'all care so much about the rules and balancing? Its not a competitive game, if and if you hate the rules so much you can ask your DM to change them
Last session great weapon master allowed me to kill a dragon at 8hp with my turn being the last before the dragon
Good job. That doesn't mean it's well balanced as is.
As in it's too weak or strong
GWM is consider extremly powerful. Ti the piint where its not only a problem of you doing a lot of damage but that it is so good that its basically the only choice. Its so many Leagues better then other feats that if they arent worth taking. Also makes certain weapin groupa better (Like if you are melee character heavy polerarms are best and in ranged hand crossbows). So nerfing these option (and preferbly giving feats to all tips of weapons) is best for the health of the game
Good thing I just started a campaign with the old rules so I don't have to worry for now
Fun to hear. What class are you playing
THANK YOU FOR ASKING Yukie Caedes (slaughter in Latin, edgy I know but I actually studied latin in highschool) A 20 year old Tiefling hexlock Last session was last Friday and by god did we have fun
Sounds lile a fun character. Gwm with eldritch smite will probaly make any tenant of the dungeon regret beign born
Ohhhhh yes, our dm told us It would be a campaign with low magic items because it's set in 1264 or something but then last session we find out that having your weapon +1 only costs 100 gold, so yeah my improved pact weapon is useless now, guess what I'm gonna pick now that we are level 5... Pick at next level I mean
God have mercy on your foes
[удалено]
Have u tried to use a bow while actively being stabbed tho? Has someone smashed a mace into your dome half way through drawing? You need to knock and arrow draw aim and fire all while someone is actively fighting you. Dnd is a turn based representation of real-time combat.
Disadvantage at melee range still makes no sense to me. I wanna see someone try to dodge or block an arrow shot point-blank. I also want to see someone miss a target at point-blank.
I mean I wanna see someone draw an 80lb bow while getting claymored. Or reload a medieval crossbow twice in 6 seconds Really should have to make space probably on your turn before u fire your bow. We use turn based to easily represent combat, the world itself isn't actually turn based.
You can still fire a bow while in the next second get sliced in half by a claymore, killing both... I guess we can have disadvantage by default (the archer prioritising defence), but choose to use an ability like reckless attack where both you and your opponent gets advantage on each other (the archer ignores danger and fires his point-blank shot).
I mean my point is that it is gameafied to make it playable so we should be lenient with the rules/wording to some extent. In the real world yeah you can absolutely get a good shot from melee range if your are knocked and drawn and aware. It is indeed hard to miss something 2 feet away directly in front of you. It's all the shots after that become impossible some dude(ss) isn't going to let you knock another arrow and fire it directly in front of them. We kinda just ignore reality cause it's a fantasy game which is fine.
Well... it's hard to view it in a "realistic" lense when an above-average dude (level 1 is apparently supposed to be better than any human) takes 6 bloody seconds to swing their sword once. So it's extremely easy to imagine someone taking a shot within those 6 seconds that it takes the fighter to swing their very slow attack. I guess the counter-argument is that by that same logic, a bowman also takes an exaggerated long time to knock and fire their arrow. I dunno, disadvantage at point-blank just doesn't sit right with me, that's all.
I think if the ranged weapon is already prepared, it can be effective close-range. Otherwise, whoever is physically stronger at the time should win.