Currently have a player that wants to go with this combo. I'm all for it but questioning why the d4 part could be used with it? Doesn't seem physically real to me that you heavy swing with the butt of a weapon. His thought process 1d10 + X + 10 and bonus attack 1d4 + X + 10.
I can't find any answers on if this is legit. Thanks for the help.
Great Weapon Master require a melee attack with a heavy weapon you're proficient with. Polearm Master lets you make an attack with the opposite end of a glaive, halberd or quarterstaff; the former two have the heavy property. Thus, they can use both feats with a glaive or halberd.
Keep in mind that they're giving up 2 Ability Score Improvements and using the second part of GWM is usually a net loss unless you have advantage (or you're fighting something with extremely low AC like a gelatinous cube.)
The rules of D&D, and most other role-playing games, don't even kind of try to make things seem "physical real" - it's a natural result of the games being written by game designers, rather than physicists with extensive knowledge in various other sciences as would be required to even attempt basing the rules on what real people could actually do (and there'd probably be a lot less magic in the game if that were the case, too).
That said, the important details are these:
The portion of the Great Weapon Master feat you are talking about says it is limited to "a melee attack with a heavy weapon that you are proficient with"
The relevant portion of the Polearm Master feat says it works when you are using "a glaive, halberd, or quarterstaff", and the effect is " a melee attack with the opposite end of the weapon. This attack uses the same ability modifier as the primary attack. The weapon’s damage die for this attack is a d4, and it deals bludgeoning damage."
Both the glaive and halberd are heavy weapons.
Nothing about the special Polearm Master attack says the heavy weapon property is removed.
So yes, the attack that deals 1d4 bludgeoning damage instead of the weapon's normal damage absolutely can benefit from the increased damage from Great Weapon Master, because it checks all the boxes: melee attack, heavy weapon, (and presumably) proficient with.
Awesome. Normally I'm pretty lenient and flexible with the rules but seemed implausible but you are 100% correct. Thank you very much.
Just finished OOTA and nobody used heavy weapons so didn't really have to worry about it. Writing up a 1 shot to get a new player into the game and one of my previous players brought up that combo. I couldn't answer exactly so figured I would ask.
If he is critical hit fishing with his character, he might not be caring about the d4 hit at all and basically just uses it as a contingency. That said, if he lands a hit with that d4 hit and takes the -5 to hit for +10 to damage part of GWM even a tiny 1d4 attack has a potential to be explosive when you consider its minimum damage threshold is 11 damage off a bonus action. They also get opportunity attacks with said weapon if someone steps with their Melee range, which has reach so they have a pretty insane area of control.
Currently have a player that wants to go with this combo. I'm all for it but questioning why the d4 part could be used with it? Doesn't seem physically real to me that you heavy swing with the butt of a weapon. His thought process 1d10 + X + 10 and bonus attack 1d4 + X + 10.
I can't find any answers on if this is legit. Thanks for the help.
Great Weapon Master require a melee attack with a heavy weapon you're proficient with. Polearm Master lets you make an attack with the opposite end of a glaive, halberd or quarterstaff; the former two have the heavy property. Thus, they can use both feats with a glaive or halberd.
Keep in mind that they're giving up 2 Ability Score Improvements and using the second part of GWM is usually a net loss unless you have advantage (or you're fighting something with extremely low AC like a gelatinous cube.)
The Forum Infestation (TM)
The rules of D&D, and most other role-playing games, don't even kind of try to make things seem "physical real" - it's a natural result of the games being written by game designers, rather than physicists with extensive knowledge in various other sciences as would be required to even attempt basing the rules on what real people could actually do (and there'd probably be a lot less magic in the game if that were the case, too).
That said, the important details are these:
So yes, the attack that deals 1d4 bludgeoning damage instead of the weapon's normal damage absolutely can benefit from the increased damage from Great Weapon Master, because it checks all the boxes: melee attack, heavy weapon, (and presumably) proficient with.
Awesome. Normally I'm pretty lenient and flexible with the rules but seemed implausible but you are 100% correct. Thank you very much.
Just finished OOTA and nobody used heavy weapons so didn't really have to worry about it. Writing up a 1 shot to get a new player into the game and one of my previous players brought up that combo. I couldn't answer exactly so figured I would ask.
If he is critical hit fishing with his character, he might not be caring about the d4 hit at all and basically just uses it as a contingency. That said, if he lands a hit with that d4 hit and takes the -5 to hit for +10 to damage part of GWM even a tiny 1d4 attack has a potential to be explosive when you consider its minimum damage threshold is 11 damage off a bonus action. They also get opportunity attacks with said weapon if someone steps with their Melee range, which has reach so they have a pretty insane area of control.