Bringing PAM, SS, and GWM in line?

[KorvinStarmast]

Late to the party, but if you want to bring them in line then I'd do what Kryx proposed. Take away the - 5/+10 of GWM and SS, take away with bonus action attack of PM (and crossbow expert as well, honestly), and add +1 strength or dexterity in their place. That would be more consistent with the power curve and prevent low level shenanigans. GWM would still be pretty good, but that's not so bad for a character dedicated wholly to melee DPR.

But I would also revise TWF, so there's that too.

I am not sure I understand how depriving martials of tools is going to benefit that game, particularly given what happens at mid to high level.

My general objection to this crusade against these feats is that whatever "imperfection vis a vis balance" they may present hardly influences play in actual play (versus a white room analysis). When you put a party together you get synergistic effects: from spells, class features, and feats combine not to mention how the players use their brains to put together a plan of action for situation X.

So no, the assertion that the martial tools, that provide some neat boosts at low level and at level 5 (the first significant power spike) have to be stacked up against the broad array of "things" as play continues.

There's a lot more to play, and for that matter to a combat encounter, than DPR. FWIW, I had the chance to work with a guy a couple of days ago in trying to model non attrition based warfare models for Army training centers. If all you train is attrition based combat, you are missing a lot of what it is. While the relationship is only partial, DPR is an attrition based analysis tool.

As to the lottery: someone now and again wins it. And the rest of us (who do play) don't win that big pot, and the rest of us (who don't play) don't win that big pot. That's an irrelevant analogy for this discussion.