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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Blue Lantern
In fact I dare you to name 5 examples of situation where Two weapon fighting or using a single weapon with no shield is objectively better than PAM or GWM.
Of course there isn't.
Even in a game without any Feats, there isn't a situation where going einhander is a good idea without the Mariner Fighting Style or being a Thief Rogue so you have a hand free to do things like spray people with oil and then set them on fire.
The majority of situations would be ones where one was fighting in conditions where one would normally not desire to fight, like when climbing.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Zalabim
It's also based on your biases and assumptions. It's still arbitrary.
In a technical sense, sure, but Kryx does a pretty good job at looking at a wide variety of test cases.
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Originally Posted by
polymphus
PAM really needs a rule that says 'cannot be taken on a character with the sentinel feat' (and sentinel needs one vice versa).
I don't think it would fix everything, but it would definitely lessen the room for abuse.
This is not the overpowered combo. The OA bonus is working as intended. The thing that is overpowered is the bonus attack, since per attack riders can ride that tiny 1d4, and since bonus action attacks were allegedly the domain of TWF. Duel-wielder is an awful feat that supports an awful style.
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Originally Posted by
djreynolds
Are these feats truly ruining the game? I haven't seen it.
Sure you might be beating on mooks, but at 8th level through 12th you are facing stuff that sends most fighters running away in fear. Its so easy to disable a fighter or even a totem barbarian or an archer with an easy spell.
I've seen threads on here complaining about exactly that. It doesn't get game-breaking until you combine SS with a battlemaster fighter, sure, but that doesn't mean its good design either. Spellcaster dominance didn't ruin 3.5 for martials; I had quite a lot of fun as a hyper-optimized-but-still-pathetic paladin.
Yes, a Vhuman BM fighter with SS and Crossbow expert will be a one trick pony, but its trick will render half the of the rest of the party members' tricks useless. The paladin gets to give everyone +5 to all saves because that's a niche. Almost no one else really boosts party member saves. Damage dealing, though, is something everyone has class features for.
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Originally Posted by
Zalabim
Hyperbole doesn't help your case. PAM, SS, and GWM clearly perform better or worse in various situations even if you limit the comparison to combat.
Fine. SS is niche to those instances where you are able to make ranged attacks and have advantage or some other bonus to mitigate the loss in accuracy. GWM is niche to situations where you can make melee attacks and have advantage or some other bonus to mitigate the loss in accuracy. Barbarians and BM fighters always have some means of mitigating that loss in accuracy. Additionally, SS let's you make more ranged attacks, by removing cover, and GWM let's you make more melee attacks by giving you free attacks. It's self-synergistic!
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Originally Posted by
Rebonack
So allow me to share what I've come up with for Pole Arm Master.
What is a reach weapon guy's thing? Well, I would say their main job is zone control. So why not focus them on that rather than allowing them to invalidate the advantage that TWF is supposed to grant?
Fighting Style: Phalanx Fighting While wielding a melee weapon with the Reach property hostile creatures treat all area within your reach as difficult terrain.
Style Feat: Pole-arm Master You have mastered the use of reach weapons, granting you several benefits.
-You may make a single attack as a reaction against a foe who enters your reach.
-You may enter a defensive stance as a bonus action. While in this stance opportunity attacks do not use a reaction until the beginning of your next turn.
And as an example of making a bad Fighting Style less terrible-
Fighting Style: Protection Allies adjacent to you gain the benefit of your shield bonus to their AC. A creature does not benefit from more than one shield bonus to AC.
Nicely done for both of these. Your PAM seems to be trodding on the toes of the tunnel fighter a little bit.
My GWF/GWM:
Great Weapon Fighting: When making a melee weapon attack with a two-handed weapon, or a versatile weapon being wielded in two hands, if the damage from your weapon is 9 or more, you deal an additional 5 damage of the same type as the damage of your weapon.
(1d10 gets to 9 or greater 20% of the time, 2d6 gets to 9 or greater ~28% of the time, and 1d12 gets to 9 or greater 33.3% of the time. So this comes out to a +1 for a polearm, a +1.4 for a greatsword, and a +1.66 for a greataxe, which makes it better than current GWF but not ludicrously so. This fits in nicely with great weapon crit synergy, as well as feeling good thematically. You don't pick up a greataxe for dependability, you pick it up for heavy damage)
Great Weapon Master: Once per round, if you reduce a creature to zero hitpoints as part of a melee weapon attack with a heavy weapon, you can immediately take a free attack action against a creature you threaten.
(or whatever the second half of GWM reads. Basically Kryx's suggestion. It's nice because it very nicely builds into that image of a guy with a maul just laying waste to the field of people around him. Obviously this works well with my GWF)
My Sharpshooter:
Sharpshooter: As an action, you line up your shots. On your next turn, The ranged increment for all thrown or ranged weapons is doubled, and all ranged weapon attacks you make deal +10 damage.
(wording needs work. Basically, you forgo attacking for a round, and on the next round deal crazy damage. A longbow deals somewhere between 7.5 and 9.5 damage, so this feat does add damage relative to an ASI, but mostly it just allows for really strong ambushes. It can also give the fighter something to do when they won initiative, but are waiting on a buff or something. Obviously this has intense synergy with fighters and with action surge, but it also plays nice with thrower builds. My main concern is that this does not play nicely with classes that have big damage riders. 'Sharpshooter' to me says 'single, deadly attack,' not 'series of somewhat deadly attacks')
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
strangebloke
My Sharpshooter:
Sharpshooter: As an action, you line up your shots. On your next turn, The ranged increment for all thrown or ranged weapons is doubled, and all ranged weapon attacks you make deal +10 damage.
(wording needs work. Basically, you forgo attacking for a round, and on the next round deal crazy damage. A longbow deals somewhere between 7.5 and 9.5 damage, so this feat does add damage relative to an ASI, but mostly it just allows for really strong ambushes. It can also give the fighter something to do when they won initiative, but are waiting on a buff or something. Obviously this has intense synergy with fighters and with action surge, but it also plays nice with thrower builds. My main concern is that this does not play nicely with classes that have big damage riders. 'Sharpshooter' to me says 'single, deadly attack,' not 'series of somewhat deadly attacks')
This doesn't actually increase damage over an ASI since an ASI means that you deal +1 damage and have +1 to hit. On most archers it also adds +1 AC as well as opposed to over 2 rounds you would get +0.5 to +2.5 damage per hit with this feat, which is 0.25 to 1.25 damage per round, barely more than just the damage roll increase of an ASI if you only have 16 Dex, unless the enemy were between 150 and 300 feet away when you have about a 10% to 25% better chance to hit or if they are between 600 and 1200 feet away, although that is unlikely. Also using the 'active' ability of this feat is probably a bad idea unless you get to take the first round out of combat as, if you would kill something in the first round instead of lining up your shots, they would do less damage to your team and if you deal more damage than necessary the extra damage is lost whereas without the active you could have dealt that damage to someone else.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Matrix_Walker
I think it is perfectly fair. there is absolutely zero chance of rolling up an exotic polearm in the DMG... they don't have any.
You can say "your gm can" and sure they can... and sometimes they throw you a bone, but in my experience most of the time, they roll on the tables.
You don't need an exotic, named weapon. You just need a weapon +X, which can appear in nearly any treasure table. A magical longsword with a gimmick can be fun, but a Polearm +1 is just as effective at overcoming resistance.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
strangebloke
Nicely done for both of these. Your PAM seems to be trodding on the toes of the tunnel fighter a little bit.
That was intentional. Tunnel Fighter helped to inform the creation of this new Style/Feat combo for polearm users. However, my general feeling on Tunnel Fighter is that it's a bit overloaded for a fighting style. Fighting styles should be adding a bit of defense, utility, or ~2 damage. It's UA content after all. You test it and tweak it.
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My GWF/GWM:
Great Weapon Fighting: When making a melee weapon attack with a two-handed weapon, or a versatile weapon being wielded in two hands, if the damage from your weapon is 9 or more, you deal an additional 5 damage of the same type as the damage of your weapon.
(1d10 gets to 9 or greater 20% of the time, 2d6 gets to 9 or greater ~28% of the time, and 1d12 gets to 9 or greater 33.3% of the time. So this comes out to a +1 for a polearm, a +1.4 for a greatsword, and a +1.66 for a greataxe, which makes it better than current GWF but not ludicrously so. This fits in nicely with great weapon crit synergy, as well as feeling good thematically. You don't pick up a greataxe for dependability, you pick it up for heavy damage)
I like this WAY more than the vanilla Great Weapon Fighter. Re-rolling dice is fiddly and slows gameplay down. Giving the player the ability to pseudo-crit gives them more fun high-points in play. Though I would be pretty okay with bumping that bonus damage up to +6 to hit that 'two extra damage' sweet spot for the Greataxe. It feels justified to me if we're seeking to tone down or re-structure Great Weapon Master.
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Great Weapon Master: Once per round, if you reduce a creature to zero hitpoints as part of a melee weapon attack with a heavy weapon, you can immediately take a free attack action against a creature you threaten.
(or whatever the second half of GWM reads. Basically Kryx's suggestion. It's nice because it very nicely builds into that image of a guy with a maul just laying waste to the field of people around him. Obviously this works well with my GWF)
So no bonus action required to trigger it? Making the attack actually free would be enough to be a feat all on its own. Though I feel a better route would be to require a bonus action to use the cleave attack. Maybe add in some other passive benefit that helps the great weapon user deal with large numbers of foes? I'm quite fond of style mastery feats giving players something to do with their bonus action. This would cement GWF as the guy who is good at smashing through waves of moderately powerful foes. Maybe something like dealing Prof bonus damage (no riders) to a target within five feet of your primary target each time you hit?
If that's the niche great weapon fighting is covering, then Two Weapon Fighting should probably be tuned toward focusing down a single large target. Stacking rider damage for each successful hit, maybe? One of the big problems as it stands right now is that GWF's niche is pretty clearly 'do ALL the damage!' in all the situations. While TWF's niche is 'looks cool I guess?'.
Fighting Style: Two Weapon Fighting You may add your ability modifier to your off-hand attack. Additionally, drawing weapons does not use your free interaction.
So pretty much what we have already with the important distinction that you can draw both your weapons at once. This also opens up TWF as a viable style for a throwing weapon user.
Mastery Feat: Two Weapon Master You have mastered the use of the double-weapon style, granting you several advantages when fighting with a melee weapon in each hand.
-You may duel wield one-handed weapons that are not light.
-You deal 1d4 bonus damage each time you hit a foe. This bonus damage compounds with each successive attack (1d4 on the first attack, 2d4 on the second, ect).
Two Weapon Fighters thus become the go-to guy for cutting large, threatening opponents down to size. Because of the compounding damage, I don't think one of the usual fixes (second offhand attack if you can make three or more attacks) would be necessary. The compounding damage likewise lets TWF scale nicely with additional attacks as each attack is going to steadily push the rider damage higher. It would probably need to be tuned a bit, but I feel like this would be a nice use of the ability.
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My Sharpshooter:
Sharpshooter: As an action, you line up your shots. On your next turn, The ranged increment for all thrown or ranged weapons is doubled, and all ranged weapon attacks you make deal +10 damage.
(wording needs work. Basically, you forgo attacking for a round, and on the next round deal crazy damage. A longbow deals somewhere between 7.5 and 9.5 damage, so this feat does add damage relative to an ASI, but mostly it just allows for really strong ambushes. It can also give the fighter something to do when they won initiative, but are waiting on a buff or something. Obviously this has intense synergy with fighters and with action surge, but it also plays nice with thrower builds. My main concern is that this does not play nicely with classes that have big damage riders. 'Sharpshooter' to me says 'single, deadly attack,' not 'series of somewhat deadly attacks')
So less over-draw and more draw a bead? Interesting effect. It would be MUCH more situational. My main fear is that if the party sneaks up on some foes and the Sharpshooter takes some time to line up shots, it could totally invalidate the encounter pretty easily. The vanilla Sharpshooter is probably fine as written if the over-draw effect were replaced with, say, being able to recover 100% of your ammo. Ignoring half/three-fourths cover and massively boosting your range are pretty darn powerful all on their own.
I think the over-draw/power attack effects are okay. But they should probably be generic effects rather than getting bundled with a heap of already potent perks.
Power-Attack When making a melee weapon attack you may choose to forgo your Prof bonus to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you deal damage equal to twice your Prof bonus.
Over-Draw When making a ranged weapon attack you may choose to forgo your Prof bonus to the attack roll. If the attack hits, you deal damage equal to twice your Prof bonus.
That reigns things in a little bit early game. Being able to turn a 'sure hit' with advantage into 'a slightly less sure hit that hits like a train' is worth a feat all on its own. It also opens up the effect to a wider range of builds. A Shield Master, for example, would probably love it due to their ability to knock foes on their rear. I don't think either of these need a '+1 to Dex or Str' half-feat status, but if that's required to make them attractive then well enough. I suppose it mostly hinges on whether or not your PC has a reliable means of gaining advantage on the attack.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Matrix_Walker
I think it is perfectly fair. there is absolutely zero chance of rolling up an exotic polearm in the DMG... they don't have any.
You can say "your gm can" and sure they can... and sometimes they throw you a bone, but in my experience most of the time, they roll on the tables.
That's your DM, not all. Talk to him about it.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Pex
That's your DM, not all. Talk to him about it.
Exactly. All but a tyrant, a fool, or a strict proceduralist of a DM will offer their players magic weapons that correspond to their characters' chosen weapons.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Rebonack
That was intentional.
Fair. Personally I do not think that tunnel fighter is op. It's actually pretty situational. How often do you have a nice melee choke point?
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Originally Posted by
Rebonack
Though I would be pretty okay with bumping that bonus damage up to +6 to hit that 'two extra damage' sweet spot for the Greataxe. It feels justified to me if we're seeking to tone down or re-structure Great Weapon Master.
[QUOTE=Rebonack;22253836]
The damage can be retooled. I thought about making it trigger off of weapon damage greater than 8, which would make it more fun for polearm users. My main concern is the *calculate damage*...*calculate damage again* nonsense
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Originally Posted by
Rebonack
So no bonus action required to trigger it?
That's a mistake.
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Originally Posted by
Rebonack
Maybe something like dealing Prof bonus damage (no riders) to a target within five feet of your primary target each time you hit?
+2 damage that you can't get all the time is pretty weak at low levels.
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Originally Posted by
Rebonack
Mastery Feat: Two Weapon Master You have mastered the use of the double-weapon style, granting you several advantages when fighting with a melee weapon in each hand.
-You may duel wield one-handed weapons that are not light.
-You deal 1d4 bonus damage each time you hit a foe. This bonus damage compounds with each successive attack (1d4 on the first attack, 2d4 on the second, ect).
Let's do some math here. Let's say you have four attacks, which is pretty easy as a fighter. Let's say you can hit your target 75% of the time.
At the end of the second round, this feat will grant 12.5 extra damage per attack! With no downside! And, this feat already grants +1 damage. Send a bit OP to me, but hey.
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Originally Posted by
Rebonack
My main fear is that if the party sneaks up on some foes and the Sharpshooter takes some time to line up shots, it could totally invalidate the encounter pretty easily.
Well, that's why it's a niche ability.
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Originally Posted by
Rebonack
I think the over-draw/power attack effects are okay. But they should probably be generic effects rather than getting bundled with a heap of already potent perks.
AC scales slower than attack bonuses. Until this ceases to be true, trading attack for damage is probably not a good idea.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by Hooligan
Bah that is flim-flam and you know it. Only the most hamfisted & neckbearded of dms wouldn't reskin existing weapons for a player they knew had that feat.
That's a canard Hooligan and you appparently don't even know it.
A basic perusal of the DMG loot tables reveals that the chance of a polearm eligible magic weapon occurs less than 1% of the time in eligible treasure hoards.
Furthermore if you flip through the published adventures there are literally next to no polearms.
So, no, you're just wrong, by the book PAM users are screwing themselves six ways from sunday.
Magic Polearms are intentionally rare. Whereas magic swords? Dime a dozen.
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Originally Posted by Pex
That's not being fair. No magic item exists without the DM's permission. If a player likes to use the glaive and the feat for his fun in playing the character while the DM likes to use lots of non-magic item immune to creatures and never gives out a magical glaive, halberd, or quarterstaff in treasure loot the feat is still fine. The DM is a donkey cavity. The DM doesn't have to provide for everything a player wants. That is not the same thing as never providing what the player wants.
It's more than fair. What's unreasonable is taking a niche fighting style and expecting that something which is already rare (magic weapons) just happens to exist in the least common of types and falls into a players lap.
Players who take significant risks in their choice of favored weaponry accept the risk that that rare weaponry never ever shows up.
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Originally Posted by jas61292
You know, I always find these discussions funny, because inevitably, a number of people who will, in other threads, talk about how mathematically inferior Two Weapon Fighting is, will balk at the fact that the exact same math shows how OP these feats are compared to a basic ASI. It is a proven fact, yet people love to pretend it isn't. These feats simply are far too powerful compared to every other feat in the game, and good game design would be to see them nerfed.
To be fair I don't consider TWF strictly inferior nor do I agree that those feats are too powerful vis the other feats. It does more damage in some scenarios and less in others, but it also has different cost-benefits.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
Since the idea is random generation from the tables, the tables have as entries Weapon +1, Weapon +2, Weapon +3 in addition to specific named weapons like Frostbrand, Flame Tongue, etc. That means the DM chooses the weapon. If the DM never chooses a glaive that's the DM's fault, not the feat. Still, using random generation tables is an option, not mandatory. DMs are allowed to determine the make up of treasure hoards as they darn well please and no random generation table is going to clob them over the head and sell them into the Illuminati slave pit because of it.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Pex
That's your DM, not all. Talk to him about it.
No, that's the last 6 DMs over 15 years. Talk to them about what? throwing a bone? I already said they may do that, but it's not going to alter the magic items in the book or the tables therein.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Hooligan
Exactly. All but a tyrant, a fool, or a strict proceduralist of a DM will offer their players magic weapons that correspond to their characters' chosen weapons.
This is nonsense... I've never met this unicorn homebrewer, but if he comes to my town, I'd love to join his game.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Pex
Since the idea is random generation from the tables, the tables have as entries Weapon +1, Weapon +2, Weapon +3 in addition to specific named weapons like Frostbrand, Flame Tongue, etc. That means the DM chooses the weapon. If the DM never chooses a glaive that's the DM's fault, not the feat. Still, using random generation tables is an option, not mandatory. DMs are allowed to determine the make up of treasure hoards as they darn well please and no random generation table is going to clob them over the head and sell them into the Illuminati slave pit because of it.
All the named weapons (defender, avenger, frost and firebrand) are choice of sword, or specified as hammer or axe.
Yes, the +1 / 2 / 3 weapons can be any weapon, but then they still have to compete with EVERY OTHER type of weapon.
Of course GMs are allowed to homebrew treasure tables, good luck relying on that.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Matrix_Walker
This is nonsense... I've never met this unicorn homebrewer, but if he comes to my town, I'd love to join his game.
So in a party with a Wizard, a Druid, our hypothetical polearm hero, and a rogue with daggers, if the DM rolls "weapon +2" on the magic item table, he'll proceed to throw out a +2 longbow, or a +2 whip, instead of a +2 glaive or a +2 dagger? That's just silly, in my opinion
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
I think PAM should let you use Dex for quarterstaff and spear. Among other benefits obviously. So you can make Gambit.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Matrix_Walker
No, that's the last 6 DMs over 15 years. Talk to them about what? throwing a bone? I already said they may do that, but it's not going to alter the magic items in the book or the tables therein.
Look kid, no one made you stay in A cave for a decade & a half, playing with a bunch of angry little grumpkins while the gas leaks.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Matrix_Walker
This is nonsense... I've never met this unicorn homebrewer, but if he comes to my town, I'd love to join his game.
My DM has given each PC a "legacy weapon", a magic weapon tailor made for that character which gains more magical properties as they level up, and is tied into that character's personal story in some way. This is a cool thing for a story-focused campaign like ours. For a dungeon-of-the-week kill-the-monsters-get-the-treasure campaign (not knocking that play style by the way, it's just different) it wouldn't make so much sense. This is why RPG design is so hard I guess, there are a lot of variables that depend on the group's preferred play style, and that does interact with fixed written rules, feats and so on. I think this is inevitable and arguing about it will be fruitless. The solution is either some kind of compromise or just accept that you're going to be adjusting the rules for your specific game (something I'm pretty sure most groups do, to one degree or another).
I do agree GWM and PAM and SS need toning down, since they are powerful enough to alter the limits of the game. For my fighter-ranger I waited until level 12 to get SS and that level felt like a power boost equivalent to three or four levels, the feat is that strong. I like the idea of Power Attack and Overdraw as feats in their own right, subtracting prof from attack and adding double prof for damage.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Vogonjeltz
That's a canard Hooligan and you appparently don't even know it.
A basic perusal of the DMG loot tables reveals that the chance of a polearm eligible magic weapon occurs less than 1% of the time in eligible treasure hoards.
Furthermore if you flip through the published adventures there are literally next to no polearms.
So, no, you're just wrong, by the book PAM users are screwing themselves six ways from sunday.
Magic Polearms are intentionally rare. Whereas magic swords? Dime a dozen.
Is it though, Vogon?
No one denies the "way it's written in duh books, huhhh." Don't be purposely obtuse; the point was that only a dogmatic adherence to the Definitive Magic Item Tables yields items actually useful to the players at the rate you describe.
That or the DM is that rare "old-school" miser whose love of hot pockets hasn't killed him/her yet... who, like an angry emphysematous nerd God, just enjoys screwing/screwing with/punishing the characters for their design choices.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Hooligan
Is it though, Vogon?
No one denies the "way it's written in duh books, huhhh." Don't be purposely obtuse; the point was that only a dogmatic adherence to the Definitive Magic Item Tables yields items actually useful to the players at the rate you describe.
That or the DM is that rare "old-school" miser whose love of hot pockets hasn't killed him/her yet... who, like an angry emphysematous nerd God, just enjoys screwing/screwing with/punishing the characters for their design choices.
It's fun how strict adherence to the written text is all fine and dandy as long as it is in the player benefits, but as soon as a Dm uses it to create unexpected consequences he suddenly is a bad guy only out to ruin the poor player's fun.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Blue Lantern
It's fun how strict adherence to the written text is all fine and dandy as long as it is in the player benefits, but as soon as a Dm uses it to create unexpected consequences he suddenly is a bad guy only out to ruin the poor player's fun.
Sorry, maybe you're misinterpreting things. I like a lot of the proposed homebrew rulings people have thrown up here. Personally, I don't find the feats to be a problem at the tables I play at or DM. They have certainly not detracted from the fun of either DM or players.
What is absolutely distasteful to me is the arbitrary (and despite books/tables, the use of magic items is always purely arbitrary) use of magic weapons as a "f**k you" or a "well, these are the consequences of the feat you took!" nothing fun about that, and why else play this dumb game?
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
For PAM: Force the bonus action attack to be an athletics or acrobatics check to do things like shove, trip or disarm.
For GWM: Replace the bonus action attack with 3.5 cleave, and replace the -5/+10 with 3.5 whirlwind. This give two handers greater AOE instead of greater single target. Fits thematically and makes up for lost ac compared to dualist.
For sharpshooter: replace the -5/+10 with that option to range disarm, pin(0 movement for 1 round), or trip where their attack roll is opposed to the targets athletics or acrobatics.
Let the sharpshooter add these effects as riders to regular attacks if he takes disadvantage on the roll.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
gloryblaze
So in a party with a Wizard, a Druid, our hypothetical polearm hero, and a rogue with daggers, if the DM rolls "weapon +2" on the magic item table, he'll proceed to throw out a +2 longbow, or a +2 whip, instead of a +2 glaive or a +2 dagger? That's just silly, in my opinion
Can't speak for anyone else, but personally, yes, that is probably what I would do. Not because I am trying to be mean to the players, but because my biggest complaint with 5e, as a DM, is the overly simplified resistance system. If you just give players ideal magic weapons, then you completely eliminate the significance of 90% of monster resistances. On the other hand, if you give that specific party you suggested a magic... lets say club, suddenly when they face a elemental, instead of them just treating it like every other enemy, the polearm guy has to decide if bonus action and reaction attacks, and the reach of his pike are worth it, compared to doing full damage with the magic club.
In other words, suboptimal magic weapons make the resistance system one of interesting decisions, rather than simply a gate that makes enemies twice as bulky until passed and forever forgotten about.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
Could be worse, I played a way of the open hand Monk for over a year.
In 5e, there is no such thing at all as "unarmed" weapons like gloves.
They are not even listed as being weapons at all.
So, while everyone else is running around with +2 or even a +3 weapon or some magic weapon with special properties there is zero chance an unarmed monk will ever get anything.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Dudewithknives
In 5e, there is no such thing at all as "unarmed" weapons like gloves.
So, while everyone else is running around with +2 or even a +3 weapon or some magic weapon with special properties there is zero chance an unarmed monk will ever get anything.
It's really sad to see DMs play in this manner. There is an element of realism in that more standard weapons would be more common, but to allow a player to pick a "non-standard" option and then provide no magic items for it while providing magic items for the other players is poor DMing imo.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Kryx
It's really sad to see DMs play in this manner. There is an element of realism in that more standard weapons would be more common, but to allow a player to pick a "non-standard" option and then provide no magic items for it while providing magic items for the other players is poor DMing imo.
Some DMs, quite a few in fact, just roll on the charts, and go with it.
Plenty of them when it lands on + whatever "weapon" will give out whatever weapon is used by the player who uses the weapon most. However, there are no unarmed weapons at all.
A dm could easily say a +2 weapon they found is a glaive, a crossbow or whatever because they are weapons listed in the PHB, unarmed weapons just plain do not exist at all.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Dudewithknives
A dm could easily say a +2 weapon they found is a glaive, a crossbow or whatever because they are weapons listed in the PHB, unarmed weapons just plain do not exist at all.
Example item for DMs who want to use it:
INSIGNIA OF CLAWS Wondrous item, uncommon pg 94 HoTDQ
The jewels in this insignia of the Cult of the Dragon flare with purple light when you enter combat, empowering your natural fists or natural weapons.
While wearing the insignia, you gain a +1 bonus to the attack rolls and the damage rolls you make with unarmed strikes and natural weapons. Such attacks are considered to be magical.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
jas61292
Can't speak for anyone else, but personally, yes, that is probably what I would do. Not because I am trying to be mean to the players, but because my biggest complaint with 5e, as a DM, is the overly simplified resistance system. If you just give players ideal magic weapons, then you completely eliminate the significance of 90% of monster resistances. On the other hand, if you give that specific party you suggested a magic... lets say club, suddenly when they face a elemental, instead of them just treating it like every other enemy, the polearm guy has to decide if bonus action and reaction attacks, and the reach of his pike are worth it, compared to doing full damage with the magic club.
In other words, suboptimal magic weapons make the resistance system one of interesting decisions, rather than simply a gate that makes enemies twice as bulky until passed and forever forgotten about.
I agree with your sentiment on the simplification of resistances, but doing this too much really robs your players of their character of if he is build around a certain style. It's like taking Mjolnir away from Thor. Sometimes it makes a good story, but do it too much and it's boring.
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
Elric VIII
I agree with your sentiment on the simplification of resistances, but doing this too much really robs your players of their character of if he is build around a certain style. It's like taking Mjolnir away from Thor. Sometimes it makes a good story, but do it too much and it's boring.
I agree that DMs shouldn't shaft players, but I also don't like builds that require a certain sub-type of weapon to be effective.
In my mind, the biggest problem with these feats is their narrow specialization. A fighter (especially) should be able to switch back and forth between all types of melee weapons (or between all types of ranged weapons, since one requires STR and the other DEX) and have roughly the same efficacy. Variations in efficiency should be on the order of fighting styles (+1/+2 damage or +1 AC) than these feats.
Denying someone a magic polearm shouldn't break a build. Tying the bonuses to specific types of weapons, while thematic, makes the breakage due to imbalanced numbers worse. Tone down the numbers, beef up the class features, and spread the love to many types of weapons.
This is all my personal opinion--no one in any of the games I've been in has actually taken these feats. I get more casters than I do martials--in the game I'm in as a player I'm the only front-line type. 2 clerics, a bard, a ranged fighter, a sorcerer, a warlock, and me (sword-and-board fighter).
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Re: Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?
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Originally Posted by
PhoenixPhyre
Denying someone a magic polearm shouldn't break a build.
It shouldn't, but neither should you deny them in the long run if you give out magic weapons. If you don't give out magic weapons then there is no issue. If you give out usable magic weapons (not clubs), but not to a certain PC for whatever reason then that's poor DMing imo.