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I'm playing my first campaign and I just leveled up and got this combo at lvl 4. Unfortunately, it was getting late and we had to stop right before our 2nd battle.. I'm excited to kill everything
My DM thought my Barbarian was broken for taking this feat. I think the problem is, I once got stupidly lucky (on my birthday no less) and got like 3 Nat 20s in a row (unfortunately, I accidentally rolled one more time than I thought I could, but caught on before applying damage... Should have saved that Nat 20). I love this feat so much lol.
Characters or parties who can easily manufacture advantage is where this feat really shines. Barbarians, for instance, have Reckless Attack which gives them advantage on their attack rolls that turn (at the cost of enemies having advantage against them until the start of their next turn, of course). Wish you has gone a bit more into the actual math of GWM with it's -5 Attack to +10 Damage tradeoff. That attack roll penalty is really steep, but having advantage mitigates some of that. I made a spreadsheet tracking average damage over 100 attack rolls with the help of the dice calculator site AnyDice. Turns out the break-even point for GWM's damage buff is an Armor Class of 18, depending on your actual attack modifiers. If your enemies have an AC lower than 18, then on average the extra damage on successful hits is worth it. 18 or higher, and you're better off using standard attack rolls. Again, this assumes you have advantage when you use the attack.
I really like where your heads at, and I agree! Looking back at it there's a couple videos that I could've broken down the math a little further on, so I'm happy you shared your insight! I'll have to make this the new pinned comment for sure!
@@peterkoncz Hi there! It's been a while, but I believe the score was 16 STR, with a total "to-hit" of +7. It actually barely mattered. If you were level 17 with a "to-hit" of +11 (+5 STR, +6 PB) the breakeven point moved up to an AC of 20. I didn't calculate higher hit modifiers but if a barb had 24 STR and a +2 magic weapon then it might move up to an AC of 21. Granted, the breakeven point just means "this funny number is ever-so-slightly bigger than that funny number", and what may average out over hundreds or thousands of dice rolls may not play out how you expect over a single encounter. Thanks for replying to my four year old comment! xD
The thing I like about this feat is that even though you need a 2 handed weapon to add the 10 damage to your attack, you dont need one to take advantage of the bonus attack.
elven accuracy only works with dexterity, intelligence, wisdom or charisma based attacks. It means that only a hexblade warlock can use the GWM + elven accuracy combo (with pact of the blade).
@@c_kling Shillelagh doesn't work on great clubs by RAW (it specifies clubs or quarterstaves). The only other class/subclass that can do the combo I mentioned is the Battle Smith Artificer (but with Intelligence) and that particular subclass is not that good... at least is not nearly as good as The Hexblade.
4:00 Uuh, I think your wires crossed or something (were you thinking of Sharpshooter perhaps?) while finesse weapons can benefit from the extra attack whenever you crit/finish off a foe the -5 to hit +10 damage bonus bit only works with Heavy weapons and there's no heavy weapon with finesse tag for a dex build to work.
I have a couple points to add. First off, anything that increases your chance to hit is huge. If you're a Paladin, don't sleep on Bless, it adds an average of 2.5 to attack rolls and saving throws, for you and two buds. Advantage is great too, so look for Faerie Fire, anything like Ensnaring Strike or Entangle, Hideous Laughter, whatever else the party can give you (or you can give to yourself; Eldritch Knight, Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger, I'm looking at you). All those I just mentioned, by the way, are first level spells. You'll have em at level 2, or 3 for Eldritch Knight, and in all likelihood before you even get access to GWM anyway unless you picked VHuman. Secondly, there's a formula to calculate your power attack range for best results. It goes like this: *To-hit - (avg dmg/2) + 16* So let's say I have 18 strength and I'm using a greatsword. I'm level 1, I picked VHuman because I'm a filthy optimiser, so I have *+6* to hit, and I'm dealing *11* damage on average. That formula would look like this: *6-(11/2)+16 = 16.5* So it's a good idea to Power Attack if their AC is 16 or less. It's worth noting, this formula takes into account the damage you'd be dealing if you did hit to calculate the risk factor of missing. If you have a Flametongue Greatsword and you're dealing 18 damage per swing as it is, missing that attack is going to lose you far more damage than your regular Glaive, which hits for 9.5 average, so the risk of Power Attacking is less worth it. You can also add Bless into this equation, changing my +6 to hit to a cool +8.5 on average, and bumping my Power Attack range up to 18. Advantage will give you roughly an extra +3.4, so with Advantage, it'll be 19.9. Power Attack anything with an AC less than 19 - most of the Monster Manual. It's pretty common advice to always power attack at advantage, and that's why. Now, my heavy weapon homies, my big hammer bros, my large blade lovers and my fat axe fam, get out there and crunch your numbers. And DMs, if you have a GWM user in the party, a +3 weapon is their wet dream and your wet nightmare. Be careful with that kind of power.
I play a Human Conquest Paladin with this feat along with 18 to Strength and I do say that the chances of the -5 penalty can even out a bit for the +10 to damage. I would say if a creature presumably has an armor class of 16 or below, it's viable. It can help come in a tight pinch if the party is up against a higher ranked enemy with a higher AC, but this is only exception to Conquest Paladin's "Guided Strike" channel divinity ability which give +10 to the attack roll. So it's either a trade between a 30ft chance of Frightening (which most high CR enemies usually have either moderate to high wisdom or a feature which gives them advantage on saves or immunity) or a chance of ensuring your attack goes through for extra damage. Again, depends on the encounter situation in play. I was once successful on landing a crit with the Feat boost in play. But out of multiple sessions and test encounters, don't expect too much on a situation like this to happen frequently.
Man that sounds BADASS!!! I'm happy you're getting so much use out of it! I really appreciate you taking the time to comment! Feel free to use the Discount Code 'COMMENT', and get a free One Shot at chancesguild.com/collections/job-board!
I'm making a campaign for my players that's lvl 20 in the blood wars and it's supposed to be very challenging and a place to test lvl 20 builds you don't get to see otherwise. One of the bosses they will face is just three player character builds of my own as npcs (they are a party of three). I quickly learned that a raging lvl 20 zealot barb with a belt of fire giant strength and a +3 great axe is terrifying with GWM. Your first hit is a juicy (1d12+9+4+10)+(1d6+10) with a plus 13 to hit with advantage from reckless. This barb also cannot die from just damage because until rage stops, they keep going, and they have over 300 hp. My point being is that the only time GWM isn't good is at low levels when your to hit is fairly low.
Doing a build with Elven Accuracy and Great Weapon Master (that isn’t hexblade 😱) it comes online level 8-12. Aereni Elf (+2 dex, +1 int) - Battle Smith Artificer - Shield and War Hammer (1d8/1d10 B) early levels // Maul (2d6 B) later levels. Your weapon uses intelligence for attk and dmg. - Taking Elven Accuracy (EA) for that triple roll, which means an increase to attack and crit chances. Also steel defender can force reliable advantage through flanking. - Taking Great Weapon Master (GWM). Being an artificer, your weapon at level 10 will have a +2 through infusions so it makes that -5 from GWM more of a -3. So -3 to hit for +10 dmg. When you have advantage (which you usually should bc of steel defender) you have 3 chances to hit/crit that “-3 swing” bc of EA. You DO need a bonus action to control your steal defender to attack or repair. But if you attack instead, you do more damage than the defender anyway, so it can instead maintain its dodge (increasing its survivability) & move while you instead attack. One thing I like about this build is the amount of options for attacking you’ll have so if your steel defender goes down, you still have options. As well as, battle Smith artificers are made for single target combat, which I supposed makes them vulnerable to mobs somewhat. This build makes a lot of your hits hit hard and often while rewarding you with even more dmg/attacks when you succeed. I think this helps lessen the issue of mobbing. Essentially if you focus one small enemy at a time you could probably one or two shot them and have your extra attack (from your subclass) or bonus attack (from GWM) to move and hit another enemy, all while your defender helps you survive and attack more efficiently. I’m currently at level 4 and will be taking a +2 increase in intelligence bc I did the numbers and the build was more smooth in scaling if you do the feats at 8th and 12th vs 4th and 8th (but still perfectly doable and scaling good). I’ve also only been playing D&D a year now (pathfinder 2 years prior) so we will see how well this works. Seems good in theory, but we shall see. I hope it’s great, bc honestly I’ve been dying to whoop ass with a big hammer in table top ever since Destiny 2 released the titan solar subclass with the big ass Maul.
I play a Paladin with this feat. It works well with using my steed (find steed) to flank for advantage along with the Bless spell. And I love Chance’s advice about moving to a new target for the bonus action attack. Last session I was dealing close to 70 damage each round for a few rounds.
"On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action." Can this can be used with any melee weapon?
I'm hoping to try a Champion Fighter (Improved Critical), Half Orc Savage Attack (extra damage dice on critical), Great Weapon Fighter (re-roll 1's and 2's for damage), Crusher (If critical Advantage till end of next turn) , Heavy Weapon (-5 attach, +10 damage). See if I can get as far as Savage Attacker feat (advantage on damage roll).
@@ChancesSpellbook Weirdly, that seems to only be half true upon further inspection. The first part of the ability has no weapon restriction, it only says "You've learned to put the weight of a weapon to your advantage, letting its momentum empower your strikes. You gain the following benefits: On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action." This means you could use any melee weapon, even up to a freaking dagger, and still derive some of the benefits of Great Weapon Master. The second part of the ability, however, does have the prerequisite, "before you make a melee attack with a heavy weapon that you are proficient with," so you'll be limited to the stuff everyone expects to use in conjunction with this feat.
So my problem is , if you have a barbarian that goes into rage with frenzy , they already get to hit with a melee weapon as a bonus action. So would it allow u another bonus action if u Crit or kill ? Essentially making the barbarian hit twice in a turn cause of extra attack + frenzys attack as a bonus action + (possibly) hitting again for any crits or enemies u killed
I don't think this is a very good feat compared to Sharpshooter because it's not as much of a proportional increase in damage for the same downside in hit chance. For example the damage doubles but the chance to hit halves with the net result being... pretty much the same average damage. That can easily be the case with Fighter 4 STR16 with a great sword against an AC16 enemy. That's an average of 10 damage per hit, +5 to hit, so need an 11 or higher to beat AC16 so 50% chance. With GWM that's now an average of 20 damage per hit but +0 to hit, you need to roll a 16 or higher so 25% chance, average damage of 5 per hit. Sharpshooter is worth it because it's typically only 1d6 or 1d8 + dex. It's also way easier to gain advantage with ranged attacks. Sharpshooter negating cover and range make a way bigger difference than crit-fishing for attacks that you need to burn a bonus action to use... bonus actions aren't free. For example if you used a bonus action to rage and you then score a critical... uh on... can't make that additional attack.
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Great axe+ Great weapon master+ reckless+ rage= dead everything
I'm playing my first campaign and I just leveled up and got this combo at lvl 4. Unfortunately, it was getting late and we had to stop right before our 2nd battle.. I'm excited to kill everything
@@timcg might not land every blow but when you do hit... my Gods is it glorious.
My DM thought my Barbarian was broken for taking this feat. I think the problem is, I once got stupidly lucky (on my birthday no less) and got like 3 Nat 20s in a row (unfortunately, I accidentally rolled one more time than I thought I could, but caught on before applying damage... Should have saved that Nat 20). I love this feat so much lol.
Haha that's quite the experience!
Characters or parties who can easily manufacture advantage is where this feat really shines. Barbarians, for instance, have Reckless Attack which gives them advantage on their attack rolls that turn (at the cost of enemies having advantage against them until the start of their next turn, of course).
Wish you has gone a bit more into the actual math of GWM with it's -5 Attack to +10 Damage tradeoff. That attack roll penalty is really steep, but having advantage mitigates some of that. I made a spreadsheet tracking average damage over 100 attack rolls with the help of the dice calculator site AnyDice. Turns out the break-even point for GWM's damage buff is an Armor Class of 18, depending on your actual attack modifiers. If your enemies have an AC lower than 18, then on average the extra damage on successful hits is worth it. 18 or higher, and you're better off using standard attack rolls. Again, this assumes you have advantage when you use the attack.
I really like where your heads at, and I agree! Looking back at it there's a couple videos that I could've broken down the math a little further on, so I'm happy you shared your insight! I'll have to make this the new pinned comment for sure!
Your math doesn't take into account that a critical hit / nat 20 always hits.
what strength score did you use for this calculation?
@@peterkoncz Hi there! It's been a while, but I believe the score was 16 STR, with a total "to-hit" of +7. It actually barely mattered. If you were level 17 with a "to-hit" of +11 (+5 STR, +6 PB) the breakeven point moved up to an AC of 20. I didn't calculate higher hit modifiers but if a barb had 24 STR and a +2 magic weapon then it might move up to an AC of 21. Granted, the breakeven point just means "this funny number is ever-so-slightly bigger than that funny number", and what may average out over hundreds or thousands of dice rolls may not play out how you expect over a single encounter. Thanks for replying to my four year old comment! xD
Awesome videos! Please keep them coming. They really help!
I'm happy you like them!
The thing I like about this feat is that even though you need a 2 handed weapon to add the 10 damage to your attack, you dont need one to take advantage of the bonus attack.
elven accuracy only works with dexterity, intelligence, wisdom or charisma based attacks. It means that only a hexblade warlock can use the GWM + elven accuracy combo (with pact of the blade).
Druids- great clubs/shillelagh?
@@c_kling Shillelagh doesn't work on great clubs by RAW (it specifies clubs or quarterstaves). The only other class/subclass that can do the combo I mentioned is the Battle Smith Artificer (but with Intelligence) and that particular subclass is not that good... at least is not nearly as good as The Hexblade.
Blade Boon+Elven Acc+GWM+Improved Pact W+Hex+HB Curse= Big numbers
4:00 Uuh, I think your wires crossed or something (were you thinking of Sharpshooter perhaps?) while finesse weapons can benefit from the extra attack whenever you crit/finish off a foe the -5 to hit +10 damage bonus bit only works with Heavy weapons and there's no heavy weapon with finesse tag for a dex build to work.
Hie
There's not heavy dex weapon so i think GWM don't work with dex fighter elven accuracy. Have to take hexblade and pact of the blade...
Jeez! Good point, thank you sooo much!
I have a couple points to add. First off, anything that increases your chance to hit is huge. If you're a Paladin, don't sleep on Bless, it adds an average of 2.5 to attack rolls and saving throws, for you and two buds. Advantage is great too, so look for Faerie Fire, anything like Ensnaring Strike or Entangle, Hideous Laughter, whatever else the party can give you (or you can give to yourself; Eldritch Knight, Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger, I'm looking at you).
All those I just mentioned, by the way, are first level spells. You'll have em at level 2, or 3 for Eldritch Knight, and in all likelihood before you even get access to GWM anyway unless you picked VHuman.
Secondly, there's a formula to calculate your power attack range for best results. It goes like this:
*To-hit - (avg dmg/2) + 16*
So let's say I have 18 strength and I'm using a greatsword. I'm level 1, I picked VHuman because I'm a filthy optimiser, so I have *+6* to hit, and I'm dealing *11* damage on average. That formula would look like this:
*6-(11/2)+16 = 16.5*
So it's a good idea to Power Attack if their AC is 16 or less.
It's worth noting, this formula takes into account the damage you'd be dealing if you did hit to calculate the risk factor of missing. If you have a Flametongue Greatsword and you're dealing 18 damage per swing as it is, missing that attack is going to lose you far more damage than your regular Glaive, which hits for 9.5 average, so the risk of Power Attacking is less worth it.
You can also add Bless into this equation, changing my +6 to hit to a cool +8.5 on average, and bumping my Power Attack range up to 18. Advantage will give you roughly an extra +3.4, so with Advantage, it'll be 19.9. Power Attack anything with an AC less than 19 - most of the Monster Manual. It's pretty common advice to always power attack at advantage, and that's why.
Now, my heavy weapon homies, my big hammer bros, my large blade lovers and my fat axe fam, get out there and crunch your numbers. And DMs, if you have a GWM user in the party, a +3 weapon is their wet dream and your wet nightmare. Be careful with that kind of power.
Going Battlemaster using Precision Attack could offset the -5 to attack roll. :D
GREAT IDEA!
Reckless Attack is unlimited use though
Polearm master+sentinel+great weapon master = lots of damage on hit
What polearm has the heavy property?
@@almisami The Glaive, Halberd, and Pike have the heavy property.
I play a Human Conquest Paladin with this feat along with 18 to Strength and I do say that the chances of the -5 penalty can even out a bit for the +10 to damage. I would say if a creature presumably has an armor class of 16 or below, it's viable. It can help come in a tight pinch if the party is up against a higher ranked enemy with a higher AC, but this is only exception to Conquest Paladin's "Guided Strike" channel divinity ability which give +10 to the attack roll. So it's either a trade between a 30ft chance of Frightening (which most high CR enemies usually have either moderate to high wisdom or a feature which gives them advantage on saves or immunity) or a chance of ensuring your attack goes through for extra damage. Again, depends on the encounter situation in play.
I was once successful on landing a crit with the Feat boost in play. But out of multiple sessions and test encounters, don't expect too much on a situation like this to happen frequently.
Man that sounds BADASS!!! I'm happy you're getting so much use out of it!
I really appreciate you taking the time to comment! Feel free to use the Discount Code 'COMMENT', and get a free One Shot at chancesguild.com/collections/job-board!
Don’t forget about getting a bless in there before combat which helps mitigate that penalty to as little as -1 to hit!
With advantage, take 8 and add your attack bonus, assume 8, equals 16. A 16 AC will benefit in DPR with the -5hit/+10dmg, A 17AC begins to lower DPR.
I'm making a campaign for my players that's lvl 20 in the blood wars and it's supposed to be very challenging and a place to test lvl 20 builds you don't get to see otherwise. One of the bosses they will face is just three player character builds of my own as npcs (they are a party of three). I quickly learned that a raging lvl 20 zealot barb with a belt of fire giant strength and a +3 great axe is terrifying with GWM. Your first hit is a juicy (1d12+9+4+10)+(1d6+10) with a plus 13 to hit with advantage from reckless. This barb also cannot die from just damage because until rage stops, they keep going, and they have over 300 hp. My point being is that the only time GWM isn't good is at low levels when your to hit is fairly low.
Holy shit
Doing a build with Elven Accuracy and Great Weapon Master (that isn’t hexblade 😱) it comes online level 8-12.
Aereni Elf (+2 dex, +1 int) - Battle Smith Artificer - Shield and War Hammer (1d8/1d10 B) early levels // Maul (2d6 B) later levels. Your weapon uses intelligence for attk and dmg.
- Taking Elven Accuracy (EA) for that triple roll, which means an increase to attack and crit chances. Also steel defender can force reliable advantage through flanking.
- Taking Great Weapon Master (GWM). Being an artificer, your weapon at level 10 will have a +2 through infusions so it makes that -5 from GWM more of a -3. So -3 to hit for +10 dmg. When you have advantage (which you usually should bc of steel defender) you have 3 chances to hit/crit that “-3 swing” bc of EA. You DO need a bonus action to control your steal defender to attack or repair. But if you attack instead, you do more damage than the defender anyway, so it can instead maintain its dodge (increasing its survivability) & move while you instead attack.
One thing I like about this build is the amount of options for attacking you’ll have so if your steel defender goes down, you still have options. As well as, battle Smith artificers are made for single target combat, which I supposed makes them vulnerable to mobs somewhat. This build makes a lot of your hits hit hard and often while rewarding you with even more dmg/attacks when you succeed. I think this helps lessen the issue of mobbing. Essentially if you focus one small enemy at a time you could probably one or two shot them and have your extra attack (from your subclass) or bonus attack (from GWM) to move and hit another enemy, all while your defender helps you survive and attack more efficiently.
I’m currently at level 4 and will be taking a +2 increase in intelligence bc I did the numbers and the build was more smooth in scaling if you do the feats at 8th and 12th vs 4th and 8th (but still perfectly doable and scaling good). I’ve also only been playing D&D a year now (pathfinder 2 years prior) so we will see how well this works. Seems good in theory, but we shall see. I hope it’s great, bc honestly I’ve been dying to whoop ass with a big hammer in table top ever since Destiny 2 released the titan solar subclass with the big ass Maul.
I play a Paladin with this feat. It works well with using my steed (find steed) to flank for advantage along with the Bless spell. And I love Chance’s advice about moving to a new target for the bonus action attack. Last session I was dealing close to 70 damage each round for a few rounds.
"On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action." Can this can be used with any melee weapon?
Yes, says nothing about a weapon with heavy property on that part.
I'm hoping to try a Champion Fighter (Improved Critical), Half Orc Savage Attack (extra damage dice on critical), Great Weapon Fighter (re-roll 1's and 2's for damage), Crusher (If critical Advantage till end of next turn) , Heavy Weapon (-5 attach, +10 damage). See if I can get as far as Savage Attacker feat (advantage on damage roll).
Hot dam you need a award
Look into assassin
What happens if you have multiple critical hits?
You would only be able to take advantage of the feat once per turn!
You can only take one bonus action per turn, so the extra attack part of the feat can only occur once without some kind of special interference.
oo intering need to found dex base mele whepons
What happens when u use Great WP Master and you crit, do you still get the -5 penalty?
Crits never miss, so the -5 wouldn't factor in!
What happens if you have multiple critical hits?Do you get multiple bonus actions?
You would only be able to use that feature once per turn!
Is this feat worth taking if you have extra attack?
Hmmm I might recommend against it, it would depend on play style though!
The feat does not say that you can use the -5 hit +10 dmg once per turn so yeah it's worth it
Im a wolf totem barb. With a great axe and great weapon master. Lots of dmg.
Knock down, chop up, knock down, chop up
Do you have to use only great weapons to use this feat?
Yes he made a mistake when he said you can use Dex based weapons. This is a feat for heavy weapons.
Haha guilty as charged, Bruce is right!
@@ChancesSpellbook Weirdly, that seems to only be half true upon further inspection. The first part of the ability has no weapon restriction, it only says "You've learned to put the weight of a weapon to your advantage, letting its momentum empower your strikes. You gain the following benefits: On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a melee weapon or reduce a creature to 0 hit points with one, you can make one melee weapon attack as a bonus action." This means you could use any melee weapon, even up to a freaking dagger, and still derive some of the benefits of Great Weapon Master.
The second part of the ability, however, does have the prerequisite, "before you make a melee attack with a heavy weapon that you are proficient with," so you'll be limited to the stuff everyone expects to use in conjunction with this feat.
So my problem is , if you have a barbarian that goes into rage with frenzy , they already get to hit with a melee weapon as a bonus action. So would it allow u another bonus action if u Crit or kill ? Essentially making the barbarian hit twice in a turn cause of extra attack + frenzys attack as a bonus action + (possibly) hitting again for any crits or enemies u killed
I don't think this is a very good feat compared to Sharpshooter because it's not as much of a proportional increase in damage for the same downside in hit chance. For example the damage doubles but the chance to hit halves with the net result being... pretty much the same average damage.
That can easily be the case with Fighter 4 STR16 with a great sword against an AC16 enemy. That's an average of 10 damage per hit, +5 to hit, so need an 11 or higher to beat AC16 so 50% chance.
With GWM that's now an average of 20 damage per hit but +0 to hit, you need to roll a 16 or higher so 25% chance, average damage of 5 per hit.
Sharpshooter is worth it because it's typically only 1d6 or 1d8 + dex. It's also way easier to gain advantage with ranged attacks.
Sharpshooter negating cover and range make a way bigger difference than crit-fishing for attacks that you need to burn a bonus action to use... bonus actions aren't free. For example if you used a bonus action to rage and you then score a critical... uh on... can't make that additional attack.
stop saying “that be said” so much.