Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback GWM

The great weapon master feat is either too good or the other fighting styles need a boost.

GWM is widely regarded as one of the most powerful feats, to the point of commonly being banned when DMs give out a free feat at 1st level. +10 damage is very powerful--and combos extremely well with the BA extra attack--at low levels.

One suggested fix I've seen is that it scales with level: The penalty you take is your proficiency bonus, in exchange for damage equaling 2x your proficiency bonus.
-2 to hit for +4 damage at levels 1-4
-3 for +6 damage at levels 5-8
etc

I had no idea how powerful it was until a recent playthrough. Normally, I increase Laezel's strength and sometimes her dex also. This time I decided to go with GWM, and wow.

And this is you playing the current patch, so presumably making most melee attacks at normal. Back in earlier patches, simply moving behind an enemy gave you Advantage on an attack, drastically increasing the likelihood of hitting with GWM for the low low cost of ~10 ft of movement. I wouldn't be surprised if GWM was a major reason why Backstab Advantage was removed totally and earlier than High Ground Advantage.

I don't understand why you think it's OP.

-5 to hit makes it less likely you actually will hit. You might get +10 to damage, but that -5 can be brutal.

She gets like +5 to hit (+2 Prof and +3 Strength). So you have to get a 17 or higher on the dice to hit Minthara if Lae'zel takes GWM. Am I wrong?

It's been a hot minute since I took that feat. Isn't that how it works in BG3 too?

GWM is good for low-AC, low-HP enemies. As it turns out, these are exactly the enemies you often face at low levels.

With a +3 in STR, a greatsword, and against an AC 12 enemy:
- A normal hit does 1d12+3 (9.5) damage and has a 70% chance of hitting, for expected damage of 6.65
- A normal hit with Advantage has a 91% chance of hitting, for expected damage of 8.65. 30% increase over normal

- A GWM hit does 1d12+3+10 (19.5) damage with a 45% chance of hitting, for expected damage of 8.78. 32% increase over normal
- A GWM hit with Advantage has a 70% chance of hitting, for expected damage of 13.65. 58% increase over a normal Advantage attack, and 55% better than a normal GWM attack
As shown, GWM (at normal) is roughly equivalent to having Advantage on enemies with relatively low ACs. GWM with Advantage is overwhelmingly superior: essentially double Advantage.

If we take a non-Variant-Human situation, you'll either take the feat or get an ASI at level 4. With a +4 in STR:
- A normal hit does 1d12+4 (10.5) damage and has a 75% chance of hitting, for expected damage of 7.88
- A normal hit with Advantage has a 94% chance of hitting, for expected damage of 9.87. 25% increase over normal
We see that GWM (with a +3 in STR) is still superior: +11% damage at Normal, and +38% damage at Advantage.

Also (but no less important), you have to consider damage break points. Dealing 1d12+3+10 damage is *vastly* more likely to kill an enemy than 1d12+3, which
a.) prevents that enemy from taking additional turns, significantly affecting the outcome of the fight
b.) procs GWM's BA attack

If 5e was balanced so that you're typically expected to have a 50% chance to hit (e.g., AC 16 enemies at level 1) then the math is much less favorable to GWM. Alas...

Question: What is that expected damage? And how it can be lower than flat bonus you add?
I mean i would expect that if regular expected damage is 6.65 ... then GWM damage would be 16.65 ... so where i made misstake please?

I'm finding the overall accuracy to be pretty good. The damage is turning out to be a lot more reliable than I anticipated, even with the minus five.

To compensate:

A plus one weapon. A bless spell. Maybe hide before attacking. When necessary, possibly faerie fire or invoke duplicity to get advantage.

Rag, MrFuji is explaining the maths accounting for expected hit rates - they need to be considered when dealing with things that affect your chance to hit, after all. For example, a hit with an average damage of 20, and a 50% expected hit rate has an expected average damage of 10; that is, over 100 'swings', you would expect to do roughly 1000 damage total, by the averages.

It's a well established knowledge that +/- 5 is mathematically equal to have advantage/disadvantage; GWM is essentially letting you take disadvantage to add 10 to your damage - so the more odds-on to hit a creature you are to begin with, the better value GWM is to use. The feat is powerful because players can choose to use it when it's beneficial, and not use it when it isn't.

Typical goblin. AC 15. Lae'zel at level 5 has To Hit of +5. Damage is 2d6+3 with Greatsword. She faces typical goblin without GWM. 10 or higher is what she needs to roll to hit. 55% chance of success. Damage is between 5-15. Typical goblin has 7 HP, roughly. So good chance that if you hit, they dead anyway, but at least your chance of hitting is 55%.

With GWM, same enemy, chance of hitting is 15 or higher which is a 30% chance to hit. That's a significant reduction in a person's ability to hit. Damage potential is 15-25, sure - a 100% chance to lob the goblin's head off and get an attack with a BA - but how much less often are you going to hit? 25% less often.

So isn't that kinda a trade-off? I could attack as normal and hit 25% more often for 5-15 damage or hit 25% less often for 15-25 damage.

You guys must play with lucky dice rollers. I can tell you right now, my daughter loves GWM because she always rolls legit 15 or higher on most rolls. My wife... She hates GWM. She can't ever hit with it. She always prefers higher To Hit because at least she's doing some damage as opposed to none each round.

I mean, even against something like a giant boar, with GWM, Lae'zel would need 12 or higher to hit - a 45% chance of hitting. Giant boar has roughly 32 HP. So, most likely still need 2 hits at least to kill it. But you only have a 45% chance to hit.

Without GWM, Lae'zel would have a 7 or higher - a 70% chance. Yes, it might take 3 or 4 hits to kill the giant boar, but dang that's a much better chance of hitting each round.

And especially once you hit higher levels and gain more attacks per round, the difference becomes even more apparent. Fighter gets 2 attacks at level 5. So Lae'zel would get +6 to hit the boar. Without GWM, that's 75% chance of hitting - 6 or higher. With GWM, a 50% chance? I'd much rather have 2 attacks at 75% chance of hitting at 5-15 damage than 2 attacks at 50% chance of hitting at 15-25. I'd likely kill the boar faster with my 75% chance at lower damage than trying to land a single blow at 50% chance doing higher damage.

And, don't forget, I could also have Lae'zel increase Strength to 18 and receive a +4 instead of +3 for her bonus - taking ASI instead of GWM. This then increases her chances even more of hitting at level 5 with 2 attacks. +7 to hit instead of +6. So, instead of 75% probability of hitting, she has 80%. So now the difference between GWM and without it increases even more. 2 attacks at 80% chance doing 5-15 damage versus 2 attacks at 50% chance doing 15-25.

Yeah. I don't see it as being OP.

I see ... thats why i asked, thank you.

Your math is correct in your particular case (for greataxe though, greatsword would average 7 points of damage, not 6.5), however there are couple more things to consider.

1)
In BG3 your base damage will be higher than in PnP, mainly due to magic weapons that add damage on hit and/or dipping weapons in fire, coating them with poison. The higher your base weapon damage is, the greater the effect of lower attack hit-rate is, and the smaller gain +10 to damage is.
In case of level 4 Lae'zel that uses Everburning Blade with 75% hit chance the difference between ASI and GWM would be:
- -5% damage per round with GWM on normal attack,
- +18% damage per round with GWM on attack with advantage.

2)
While calculating the effect of getting bonus attack on reducing enemy to zero hitpoints is hard, GWM feat also gives you a bonus action attack on critical hit. So we just need to modify expected damage by +5% in case of a normal hit, and +9,75% in case of advantage.

So in your given example (Great Axe base damage, 75% hit rate) the differences would be:
- +12% damage per round with GWM on normal attack,
- +49% damage per round with with GWM on attack with advantage.

While the difference is minuscule for a normal attack, with advantage it's definitely notable.

3)
Combining considerations in points 1 and 2 - Lae'zel, lvl 4, GWF, Everburning Blade (or any dipped/coated 2d6 weapon):
- +0.1% damage per round with GWM on normal attack,
- +28% damage per round with with GWM on attack with advantage.

So even in 75% hit chance case, which should be highly favorable to GWM the difference is not big enough to consider the feat OP. At 60% the gap would be -9% and 6% respectively and at 45% the damage would be better without power attack on and difference due to -1 Strength would be -12% and -5%.

In conclusion in BG3 specifically GWM is not overpowered choice for two-handed fighting style, but it's a good feat that competes with ASI. Would I take it for Battlemaster Lae'zel? Probably not on level 4 or 6, but on level 8 most likely. For a Wildheart Barbarian? As soon as possible.
If Larian adds PAM, that works the same way it is used in PnP and/or Variant Human (no sacrifice on Strength score for getting a feat) then my opinion would change.

That all said, if OP asked are two-handed weapons too good compared to two weapon fighting or swoard and board, my answer would be yes, especially after getting Extra Attack. In addition the feats the other styles get are a lot worse than GWM.

I value consistency very highly in my builds, which is why I've usually avoided GWM. I've never done the math, though, so I'd like to thank GM4Him for that. Looking through the numbers, I may be changing my mind soon.

The first setup has an expected damage of 16, while the second deals 20. This doesn't factor in the occasional extra attack or the fact that GWM is opt in.

It's worth another run through. Any news on the next patch?

It is a trade-off, yes, but GWM is always optional which is a huge benefit of the feat. Also, be careful about your percentages. With a base 55% chance to hit, GWM (-5 for a 30% to hit) will hit (55%-30%)/55=45% less often (almost half), not 25%. Alternatively, a normal hit will hit (55-30)/30=83% more often than GWM (almost 2x), not 25%.

- Without GWM (using 1d12+3 because it has a uniform distribution=easier statistics) you have a 75% chance to deal at least 7 damage, and a 55% chance-to-hit. 0.75*0.55= 41% to OHKO a goblin.
- With GWM, you have a 30% chance to hit and 100% chance to kill. 30% chance to OHKO a goblin. But you get an extra attack if successful.

HOWEVER, goblins in BG3 have closer to 13 AC and 10 HP (unless things have changed since I last played/heard)
- Without GWM, you have a 50% chance to deal at least 10 damage, and a 65% chance-to-hit. 0.50*0.65=32% to OHKO
- With GWM, you have a 100% chance to deal at least 10 damage, and a 40% chance to hit. 40% chance to OHKO.
GWM wins straight out.

Again, GWM is optional so you can tailor your attacks to each enemy's AC and remaining HP.
Good points all. Specifics of BG3 monsters, weapons, and abilities, as well as the extra attack due to getting a crit, are relevant.

The takeaway seems to be: GWM is nigh-universally better if you'll frequently have Advantage on attacks, but is much less effective (ranges from being slightly better to slightly worse) if you're attacking at normal.

>:(

>:([/quote]
Whoops, didn’t mean to denigrate your work, mrfuji3. My brain classifies posts with color as too intricate to dive into; I barely skimmed your excellent explainer.

You’re right that one hit kills matter a lot. I think a simulation could give a good idea of the total value of GWM versus ASI, though it’s unclear at this time whether I can be bothered to build it.

No worries! I'm the first to admit that my posts can get long ^_^, and I definitely skip posts when browsing this forum.

I'm sure someone has does a detailed simulation of this; whether it's correct and published is the question! And I suppose how applicable that simulation would be for BG3...

i don't see why GWM is good. -5 attack is a big hefty penalty to me. that's like what? 10 strength/dex to get +5 attack for what? 10 damage? yeap +10 damage does sounds nice but only when you have super high attack and the enemies we are fighting are rats? even with advantage it may be tough to roll a good dice. not quite sure with a physical dice but in solasta even with advantage the miss chance are pretty high.

It's explained in my and @Elebhra's posts above!

To summarize, GWM is vastly superior when you have advantage on an attack, and is generally superior if the enemy AC is low (<12) and your weapon isn't super magically buffed. +10 damage is a lot when basic heavy weapons deal ~10 damage on average, and importantly on a hit, GWM guarantees a high minimum damage (~14) whereas a normal hit can easily do only ~4-6 damage. This makes kills much more likely. Essentially, GWM is high risk, but often higher reward.

Not a bad idea, in general, but I don't think it would make it any less powerful, maybe the opposite.
In fact, I DO NOT think of it as a particularly overpowered feat because I find the downside (-5 to dice roll to hit) way too heavy to rely on it.
As Flooter said, I also tend to value consistency and reliability over crossing fingers and hoping in a lucky jackpot.

And how often does a character who can use great weapons get Advantage? And even if you do, many enemies have higher than 12 AC. Like goblins, Gith, gnolls, bugbears, duergar, minotaurs... Most monsters in BG3.