Occasionally when looking through posts I see people talk about taking Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master so that they can make an improvised weapon attack with a longbow at -10 to hit +20 damage. Do the rules allow this?
Here is Jeremy Crawford on Twitter saying that it can't be. Whereas here is an answer to another question that uses just the PHB without Sage Advice and says otherwise.
Is there anything in the books that backs Jeremy Crawford's ruling? If so, where in the rules does it say this exactly?
I don't want to just say no due to the "Sage Advice says this" reason because having to look up Sage Advice for rulings constantly for this edition is tiring.
Am I wrong in saying that the rules say:
- This shouldn't work because the Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master feats say you have to be proficient. And with improvised weapons, you're not proficient unless you have Tavern Brawler.
- Even if you had all three feats, on page 147-148 PHB under "Improvised Weapons", it doesn't say anything about a weapon losing its traits.
The reason I am asking is a player has recently been asking a lot of munchkin questions (new to 5e from 3.5) and I don't wanna say flat-out no without a decent explanation as to why. If I do allow 3 feats to be taken for 1d4+20+Str at 1d20+prof+Str-10 to hit. Statistically, that doesn't sound better than 1d12+10+Str at only -5. But then again he might want the Archery fighting style and a lot of other weird things.