Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?

[Blue Lantern]

Balance is very important.

Yes, within some tolerances, some players won't notice or care. I had a lot of fun in 3.5. It depends on how good your party is.

But imbalance is still bad. New players can feel trapped by the lack of good options, or by the lack of good non-complex invests. I've seen new players utterly lose interest in the game because their build didn't do what they expected, or was completely overshadowed in what they expected their role to be.

And I have seen players purposely chose an "unoptimal" option even when presented with a better one that would not change the concept of the character and still had a blast playing.

I don't like to make assumption but I would dare say that people who go to internet forum to ask for optimisation help to squeeze that +5 DPR are not in the majority among players, let alone new players.

Hell, the majority of people would hardly notice that a GWM fighter did 10 to 20 more damage that the TWF ranger over the course of 5 or 6 session, unless specifically looking for it.

So if I want to play 'ranged dps,' I go ranger and pump dex, right? No, you go battlemaster with sharpshooter.

Yet somehow lots of people still plays ranger, and enjoys it, I had a player who choose to play the original PHB beastmaster even when given the possibility to use the revised version. Didn't use sharpshooter, and still was enjoin the game

gwm and sharpshooter are two of the most ridiculous, out of balance things in 5e, and I don't think it's wrong to want to change that.

Neither is wrong to leave them as they are, because plenty of people can play with them without issue.

I have houserules on the subject, but it is mostly because I am a bit obsessive on the matter and enjoy the intellectual exercise, but I am also well aware that I could play or run games with the rules as they are and would have not had problems for 95% of the cases.