In the extremely rare scenario that two pcs with weapon mastery both hit one target with bows, then yes, that is redundant for slow. I don't really see a problem with that considering using slow at all is redundant if you have extra attack. The same goes for the majority of weapon masteries.
Also:
Each weapon has a mastery property, which is usable only by a character who has a feature, such as Weapon Mastery, that unlocks the property for the character. The properties are defined below.
To respond to this statement: "For example, in 4e there were almost no carbon copies of weapons that do same thing, but in this system there are. A flail is a d8 damage sap weapon. A longsword is a d8 damage sap weapon. A Morningstar is a d8 damage sap weapon. A war pick is a d8 damage sap weapon. That is four weapons that are carbon copies of one another. This new system lacks any creativity or flavor."
How is that a problem with weapon masteries? Before them, there were weapons that were actually carbon copies,
Those weapons vary in damage type. Also, two of those have the versatile property while the other two don't.
The weapon masteries themselves are not balanced and some just dont need to be there. Nick totally convolutes dual wielding and its something that they easily just add to the dual wielding mechanic in general. Also, why would a sickle be able to attack more times than a small hammer or something lol. If you wanna just throw dice at players to appease them, just let all light weapons attack more or something. They also didnt plan for any type of overbalancing with this, rogues dont get their primary damage from weapon damage, it comes from weapon procs like booming blade, poisons, sneak attack, and crits. A dagger with weapon poison is just adding a glaive attack to every rogue/fighters turn lol, which is wild because theres absolutely nothing wrong with rogues or fighters currently. With the exception that non-battle master fighters are kind of boring.
You see, there is something called "balance" that wouldn't exist if light weapons were buffed even more. Also, rogues get almost all of their damage from sneak attack, not those other things that are very rare and mostly insignificant.
Another misbalance example for weapon masteries are weapons that give advantage or prone knockdowns. If you have advantage on an attack, youre more likely to hit and get advantage again. So youre pretty much just giving perma advantage to rogues lol. Again, something that they dont need. It also trivializes the idea of advantage. Advantage is so incredibly game changing and its normally supposed to be challenging to setup advantage. Arcane tricksters take familiars specifically to get advantage, but this comes at a cost and its a fragile technique. True Strike is COMPLETELY useless now lol. It was already bad, now its totally useless because advantage/disadvantage is super trivialized now. Knockdown and slowing mechanics are super busted and nobody wants to roll that many extra dice every turn. And players a not going to be having a good time when a handful of low level guards perma-prone a player. You always have to remember that these mechanics are so universal now, you have to assume that ALL ENEMIES have access to these mechanics.
Refer to previous point of why giving all light weapons nick for free is a bad idea.
Refer to the above rule preventing enemies from using weapon masteries.
Any mechanic that incentivizes item juggling is bad and is always bad. The clear evidence of this is that any game thats playable on screen, like a non-tabletop game, will always have severe restrictions on weapon juggling. Such as in Baldurs Gate how it pretty much wastes your turn doing so. And Knights of the Old Republic. This is also why these games have inventory systems that only allow you to carry X things at a time, such as a left/right hand slots and maybe a switch slot that allows you to use a ranged weapon, or two ranged weapon in the case that a ranged weapon is one handed. The only reason why item juggling exists, frankly in my opinion, is because the dnd community has a ton of theater kids that end up reading the rules in such a way to where it allows them to make an anime character that has no logical sense to it.
Counterexample: combat in Terraria is mostly based on switching weapons for the scenario. You have various swords, yoyos, flails, spears, and even some harpoon-type weapons, and that's only for a melee play style.
And yes, the new masteries absolutely have to do with the Dual Wielder feat explicitly and the weapon masteries are what makes this feat potentially broken. It literally just doubles everything lol. This is not theory lawyering, this is just best-option in almost any video game that could exist. Dual Wielder feat allows a rapiers to get double the chance for advantage, warhammer users can push someone 20 feet per round, your chance to topple someone with a battleaxe is double, you can use dual wielder feat to get two topples a round with quarterstaffs and its even more ridiculous if you use Polearm master which allows for a potential 3 topples a round with a quarterstaff as long as theres an enemy that enters your attack range. If you have DW and Polearm Master, you can dual wield a quarterstaff and a warhammer allowing you to topple an enemy, if that fails you push them with bonus action warhammer, and then you topple attempt again when the enemy re-enters your attack range. Its not "theory lawyering," its an obvious quagmire that arises in the game if anyone strategizes at all. And again, this goes back to the first point. Great, a quarterstaff user is toppling people at least twice if not 3 times a round which is 3 more dice rolls than we need.
Oh no! People get to attempt to inflict a non-stacking condition multiple times per turn at the cost of multiple feats. Whatever shall we do?
I do not like them, I think they are boring. I would have preferred something along the lines of the rogues new sneak attack options. Give them a d6 bonus damage die that they can choose to spend on a variety of features. So either martials do a base more damage with weapon attacks or they can choose to do a variety of crowd control features. Maybe have high level moves that require multiple hits and die uses.
They don't break the game or anything, they are just boring. They aren't balanced amongst each other very well and may narrow the use of weapons even more than they currently are, but my main issue is like I said, its boring.
1- Not sure why youd assume that NPCs wouldnt attack the same player? Do you normally have NPCs just 1v1 everyone at the table because thats super suboptimal and wouldnt provide any real difficulty. Youre actually theoretically MORE LIKELY to be hit by enemies of the same type. Unless all of your fights have literally 6 different monsters, then no its actually more common for same-type enemies to be fighting your PCs. Multiple use Masteries are not redundant. Moving someone 20 feet by using push twice is not redundant, but it is OP to have on any every-turn basis. Having double Vex because of two rapiers is way better because the Advantage will start to apply to your main and offhand attacks and it lets you try again if you miss the first vex. This doesnt even get into the territory of "why are we having this deep of a mechanical discussion just because its a rapier and not an axe." This is HYPER convoluted.
2- Why create a new mastery system thats supposed to make weapons more unique and diverse, yet theyre all still just carbon copies of eachother. This is what you said: "Weapons are repetitive so lets fix it. Ok, theyre still repetitive after the fix. Who cares because they were repetitive before." This isnt a fix to the problem
3- Light weapons did get a buff because some light weapons get a full extra attack now. Most of them do actually. Thats a buff, not a nerf. What Im saying is that dual wielding light weapons is already fine in DnD and any problem with them can be negated through poisons and other items. Which are NOT rare. Im actually surprised that you said Poisons are rare and insignificant. We must be living in different DnD universes because Potions and Poisons are very helpful and you can get common poisons at very early levels. Basic poison doubles the damage of a dagger. Once again, adding an extra attack to a weapon is almost never the balancing option for this reason ESPECIALLY daggers. Like Im pretty sure the whole point of daggers doing low damage is because of Poison. If you have +2 Daggers and Poison, Nick adds 2d4 +2 raw damage by itself. This makes fury of blows almost always suboptimal because straight up daggers are better for monks now lol.
4- -I didnt say we should give all weapons Nick, I think this should be completely removed -True strike is still more costly to generate Advantage than it is for a weapon that just always give it, especially if you dual wield weapons that give it. Its not even close to being the same -I still dont see any rule that explicitly says NPCs cant have masteries and nobody gave a rule they just said you cant do it. I dont see an "above listed rule." It actually wouldnt make sense to have NO NPCs have masteries. Ya because your lvl 3 Monk is better with weapons than a lvl 15 Fighter NPC. Totally makes sense.
5- This game isnt Terraria
6- Ya bro, when you put stuff into any game, you have to consider stuff thats already in the game. Thats what balancing means. WotC have designed a new game without considering any of the stuff thats already in the old game. Instead of balancing any feats or considering them for balancing purposes, they pretend like they dont exist and they add a totally new thing into the game as if DnD is a blank slate. Yes, it is important to consider how strong a feat will be when combined with a new system because feats are literally in the game and they exist and they are a huge part of game balance. Whatever shall we do? Get rid of the mastery system, thats what we do lol, and keep bugging WotC until they hire better developers.
1- Not sure why youd assume that NPCs wouldnt attack the same player? Do you normally have NPCs just 1v1 everyone at the table because thats super suboptimal and wouldnt provide any real difficulty. Youre actually theoretically MORE LIKELY to be hit by enemies of the same type. Unless all of your fights have literally 6 different monsters, then no its actually more common for same-type enemies to be fighting your PCs. Multiple use Masteries are not redundant. Moving someone 20 feet by using push twice is not redundant, but it is OP to have on any every-turn basis. Having double Vex because of two rapiers is way better because the Advantage will start to apply to your main and offhand attacks and it lets you try again if you miss the first vex. This doesnt even get into the territory of "why are we having this deep of a mechanical discussion just because its a rapier and not an axe." This is HYPER convoluted.
I said PCs, not NPCs. (NPCs can't use weapon masteries)
2- Why create a new mastery system thats supposed to make weapons more unique and diverse, yet theyre all still just carbon copies of eachother. This is what you said: "Weapons are repetitive so lets fix it. Ok, theyre still repetitive after the fix. Who cares because they were repetitive before." This isnt a fix to the problem
No, but what you said was, 'Weapons are carbon copies of each other, so weapon masteries are bad.' I said 'First of all, those weapons aren't the same, and second of all, that is a problem that weapon masteries solved." They're still repetitive, but none are actual copies anymore.
3- Light weapons did get a buff because some light weapons get a full extra attack now. Most of them do actually. Thats a buff, not a nerf. What Im saying is that dual wielding light weapons is already fine in DnD and any problem with them can be negated through poisons and other items. Which are NOT rare. Im actually surprised that you said Poisons are rare and insignificant. We must be living in different DnD universes because Potions and Poisons are very helpful and you can get common poisons at very early levels. Basic poison doubles the damage of a dagger. Once again, adding an extra attack to a weapon is almost never the balancing option for this reason ESPECIALLY daggers. Like Im pretty sure the whole point of daggers doing low damage is because of Poison. If you have +2 Daggers and Poison, Nick adds 2d4 +2 raw damage by itself. This makes fury of blows almost always suboptimal because straight up daggers are better for monks now lol.
Basic poison gets you 1d4 poison damage at the cost of a bonus action and 100 gp. That is insignificant and rare. It also works only once per turn and is practically incompatible with a light/duel wielder bonus action attack. (free rules)
4- -I didnt say we should give all weapons Nick, I think this should be completely removed -True strike is still more costly to generate Advantage than it is for a weapon that just always give it, especially if you dual wield weapons that give it. Its not even close to being the same -I still dont see any rule that explicitly says NPCs cant have masteries and nobody gave a rule they just said you cant do it. I dont see an "above listed rule." It actually wouldnt make sense to have NO NPCs have masteries. Ya because your lvl 3 Monk is better with weapons than a lvl 15 Fighter NPC. Totally makes sense.
Maybe I misunderstood you, but you seemed to be suggesting, "...its something that they easily just add to the dual wielding mechanic in general."
I'll give you one more chance to avoid making a complete fool of yourself. true strike
Did you read my post? Or the rules? This is the text I quoted:
Each weapon has a mastery property, which is usable only by a character who has a feature, such as Weapon Mastery, that unlocks the property for the character. The properties are defined below.
and additionally, monks don't have access to weapon masteries.
5- This game isnt Terraria
It isn't Knights of the Old Republic either.
6-
Ya bro, when you put stuff into any game, you have to consider stuff thats already in the game. Thats what balancing means. WotC have designed a new game without considering any of the stuff thats already in the old game. Instead of balancing any feats or considering them for balancing purposes, they pretend like they dont exist and they add a totally new thing into the game as if DnD is a blank slate. Yes, it is important to consider how strong a feat will be when combined with a new system because feats are literally in the game and they exist and they are a huge part of game balance. Whatever shall we do? Get rid of the mastery system, thats what we do lol, and keep bugging WotC until they hire better developers.
What weapon masteries are unbalanced? Also, what does a feat have to do with this?
1- It doesnt matter if PC's have repeating masteries. The problem is NPCs with repeating masteries. You keep saying that NPCs cant have masteries but thats not a real thing thats limited. All your players are rerolling if enemies have masteries. The very fact that you think this is a fix shows that the system is bad.
2- Yes, there are carbon Copies of weapons and I listed them.
3- Even if you go with the highly strict RAW for poison, Im using the worst possible example of a poison anyway. And its still convoluted. Youre talking about multiple weapon effects at lvl 1. Ill be fair, I actually didnt realize poison was ruled that way. Everybody Ive ever known has always played like Baldurs Gate and I thought it was that way even moreso because they made it that way in Baldurs Gate lol. So Ill give you that. The mastery still makes it convoluted.
4- If you wanted to tell me that they changed True Strike, you should have just said they Changed True Strike. The entire reason why you tried to do what you just did is because youre banking your response on the fact that I didnt know they changed True Strike lol. This is literally the first time True Strike has ever been this way. You also didnt even get the point. Masteries arent OP because of True Strike bro, Masteries make almost all advantages trivial because weapons just give advantage now. If they changed true strike, then it doesnt matter at all to what Im saying so idk why youd continue banking on that. The change to True Strike does absolutely nothing to prove my point wrong. The mastery is still bad because it trivializes advantage. You responded that way because you were strawmanning.
5- Knights of the Old Republic is LITERALLY DnD. Its literally a scifi version of DnD. It has virtually the exact same system as Baldurs Gate 2 and it was modeled after DnD. Yes, KotR is literally DnD, and idk how to say literally more than literally but KotR is DnD. Terraria is not.
6- The masteries create unbalance because they benefit non martials and rogues more than they benefit martials and certain feats are now priority because of how they synergize with masteries. Again, its also still convoluted lol. You know its unbalanced because you dont want to give them to NPCs. Like you know as soon as NPCs are given these masteries, its over right? The system is so bad, NPCs cant have them or else the game instantly a quagmire. The only difference now is the PCs are running around like anime characters, and the game is still a quagmire, but its just less noticeable because your PCs are sweeping every encounter with their eyes closed. Thats why its not balanced. Like bro just give Martial Characters spell casting abilities already, we know thats what you secretly want. This design is really easy to see if you paraphrase the weapon mastery: "You open the chest and find a 1d8 weapon. You always have advantage when attacking with this weapon." That would be one of the best weapons in the game. That would literally be one of the best weapons in ANY game lol. They pretty much just said that Rapiers hit twice as often now, even though they were never week before.
1- It doesnt matter if PC's have repeating masteries. The problem is NPCs with repeating masteries. You keep saying that NPCs cant have masteries but thats not a real thing thats limited. All your players are rerolling if enemies have masteries. The very fact that you think this is a fix shows that the system is bad.
I've quoted the rule for you multiple times, if you can't accept it, that is your problem. For posterity:
Each weapon has a mastery property, which is usable only by a character who has a feature, such as Weapon Mastery, that unlocks the property for the character. The properties are defined below.
2-
Yes, there are carbon Copies of weapons and I listed them.
They're not. As I noted, they either have different properties, or different damage types.
3-
Even if you go with the highly strict RAW for poison, Im using the worst possible example of a poison anyway. And its still convoluted. Youre talking about multiple weapon effects at lvl 1. Ill be fair, I actually didnt realize poison was ruled that way. Everybody Ive ever known has always played like Baldurs Gate and I thought it was that way even moreso because they made it that way in Baldurs Gate lol. So Ill give you that. The mastery still makes it convoluted.
4- If you wanted to tell me that they changed True Strike, you should have just said they Changed True Strike. The entire reason why you tried to do what you just did is because youre banking your response on the fact that I didnt know they changed True Strike lol. This is literally the first time True Strike has ever been this way. You also didnt even get the point. Masteries arent OP because of True Strike bro, Masteries make almost all advantages trivial because weapons just give advantage now. If they changed true strike, then it doesnt matter at all to what Im saying so idk why youd continue banking on that. The change to True Strike does absolutely nothing to prove my point wrong. The mastery is still bad because it trivializes advantage.
5- Knights of the Old Republic is LITERALLY DnD. Its literally a scifi version of DnD. It has virtually the exact same system as Baldurs Gate 2 and it was modeled after DnD. Yes, KotR is literally DnD, and idk how to say literally more than literally but KotR is DnD. Terraria is not.
I didn't realize that. I suppose a quick search would've been prudent. However, KotR is based on 3e, which is different in many ways from 5e.
6-
The masteries create unbalance because they benefit non martials and rogues more than they benefit martials and certain feats are now priority because of how they synergize with masteries. Again, its also still convoluted lol. You know its unbalanced because you dont want to give them to NPCs. Like you know as soon as NPCs are given these masteries, its over right? The system is so bad, NPCs cant have them or else the game instantly a quagmire. The only difference now is the PCs are running around like anime characters, and the game is still a quagmire, but its just less noticeable because your PCs are sweeping every encounter with their eyes closed. Thats why its not balanced. Like bro just give Martial Characters spell casting abilities already, we know thats what you secretly want.
Really. What non-martials get more benefit from weapon mastery than martials? (rogues are commonly referred to as martials btw)
You know, it's good they realized how much slower the game would be if NPCs could use weapon masteries and prevented them from doing so. Also, out of all of dungeons and dragons, this is when you start saying it's like anime? When the fighter hits someone with a greatclub and pushes them 10 feet back? Here I was thinking monks literally running up walls was the turning point.
My current campaign has been running for a while now, so we're slowly shifting from 5e to the new stuff as we all get to know the new system.
I've got a question about the new Weapon Mastery stuff. Let's say a fighter is using the two weapon fighting style with a shortsword in each hand. The fighter is level 12, so they can make 3 strikes with their Attack action and then 1 off-hand strike as a Bonus Action. Shortsword has the Vex property. (Vex. If you hit a creature with a Shortsword and deal damage to the creature, you have Advantage on your next attack roll against that creature before the end of your next turn.) So if the fighter hits with their first swing, they'll have advantage on their 2nd swing, which means they're more likely to hit and get advantage on their 3rd, and then their off-hand attack.
It sounds to me like once the fighter hits a target just once, they trigger a cascade of nearly endless advantages on every strike, every round, forever (or until they miss, which will be very unlikely).
Am I reading that right? Or am I missing something? It seems almost too good to be true.
No, that's about right. But Vex only works on attacks against the same creature, so the chain will always reset when you change targets or make a kill. And the ones most likely to keep standing for several rounds are boss-type enemies, who typically have higher AC or other features that can offset it. It's a definite boost, but it's not truly constant advantage.
1- It doesnt matter if PC's have repeating masteries. The problem is NPCs with repeating masteries. You keep saying that NPCs cant have masteries but thats not a real thing thats limited. All your players are rerolling if enemies have masteries. The very fact that you think this is a fix shows that the system is bad.
Name an NPC and link their statblock here that has a Weapon Mastery feature. Honestly, go for it, I'm interested to see it. To use a Weapon Mastery, the character (whether PC or NPC or Monster) has to have a feature that unlocks it. So far as I'm aware, and I'm happy to be corrected if you use the tooltips to show me the statblock of one, no RAW NPCs get that feature. For example, Knights and Death Knights don't get them.
Now, in the absence of examples to the contrary, we'll assume that's universally true. If so, the only way they do get them is if you homebrew them to have them. That's fine if you want to, but then the problem isn't a reflection on the game or whether Weapon Masteries are good or not - it's completely on you for transplanting a system designed for PCs onto NPCs.
2- Yes, there are carbon Copies of weapons and I listed them.
This has been a thing in 5e long before Weapon Masteries. If anything Weapon Masteries helps (or at least should help) alleviate this.
6- The masteries create unbalance because they benefit non martials and rogues more than they benefit martials and certain feats are now priority because of how they synergize with masteries. Again, its also still convoluted lol. You know its unbalanced because you dont want to give them to NPCs. Like you know as soon as NPCs are given these masteries, its over right? The system is so bad, NPCs cant have them or else the game instantly a quagmire. The only difference now is the PCs are running around like anime characters, and the game is still a quagmire, but its just less noticeable because your PCs are sweeping every encounter with their eyes closed. Thats why its not balanced. Like bro just give Martial Characters spell casting abilities already, we know thats what you secretly want. This design is really easy to see if you paraphrase the weapon mastery: "You open the chest and find a 1d8 weapon. You always have advantage when attacking with this weapon." That would be one of the best weapons in the game. That would literally be one of the best weapons in ANY game lol. They pretty much just said that Rapiers hit twice as often now, even though they were never week before.
WPs benefit non-martials more than martials? In what world is your Wizard benefitting from his dagger's Nick which gives him an additional attack when dual wielding more than the Fighter who is slowing his enemy down and preventing his escape? The only issue I really have is with Rogues, because Vex leads to perpetual Sneak Attacks that makes them OP and detracts from the flavour of their Class in doing so.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Steady Aim requires both your Bonus Action and requires you to not move - which renders the Rogue quite vulnerable.
Yes, you can still get Sneak Attack so long as you don't have Disadvantage and an ally within 5ft of the target, but that at least requires making an ally somewhat vulnerable and in and of itself doesn't confer Advantage - your hit rate will be substantially lower.
Vex gives both Advantage and Sneak Attack on your next hit. Combine that with just not needing Disadvantage (so the Advantage from Vex means you won't get it) and it gets worse.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Not worse, but better, truth is Rogue need Sneak Attack to be competitive or else they're subpar martial combattant. So Vex can help them land it, so is Nick in a sense.
Lol Im sorry bro none of that makes it any better and the rules youve stated are both super new and it just creates more problems. You didnt solve anything. If slow doesnt stack, then its suboptimal for two people to use bows. Thats BAD. That means the system is bad. And slow does stack with other speed debuffs anyway, like frost spells. Furthermore, the speed change to races is bad anyway and that doesnt even make sense and thats historically anti-DnD. Youd totally expect some races to have different speeds. Regardless, reducing someones speed by 10 means you can permakite them anyway so it still doesnt matter. Your point wasnt really made and you didnt keep going because you cant and you only said "I could keep going" to sound sensational. Another problem is this essentially prohibits item creativity, DMs and franchise developers are way less incentivized to make weapons that slow an enemy due to this. Any poison that slows, frost arrow, or other cool things are almost explicitly useless to create now or else itl be way too OP.
Why would masteries only be PCs? Thats not explicitly stated anywhere and a lot of people make NPCs out of regular character sheets. Why would a Monk NPC with a quarterstaff NOT have quarterstaff mastery. Doesnt make sense. And if you run campaigns with no enemy masteries, then Im sorry but your game is dead. Thats a highly overtuned group of PC's for no reason other than to appease players who want their character to be an anime character. Most people in the forums already said that they will be incorporating Weapon Masteries onto at least some NPCs and characters.
Although youre right about my speed reduction being wrong, thats all you responded about. You didnt mention anything I said about any other mastery doubling or stacking. Like how Push can be used twice, or how vex gives your advantage change double if youre dual wielding, or how daggers can attack 3 times which is problematic because daggers tend to stack on-hit effects. Adding a dagger attack isnt just adding a d4, its usually adding multiple other effects. And yes, because of Con saves, you will still be rolling more often at table which bogs the game down for no reason. Like what happens if you concentrating? Getting hit by a Topple weapon causes two Con saves lol... One for the concentration and one for the Topple. Then youd have to create some weird rule where topple has to calculate first otherwise you can win a concentration save and still lose concentration because you got hit prone from the topple con save LOL like bro thats a reaallllyyy bad design. Its objectively a bad game design. Out of the three campaigns Ive played, and over like 12 people, we tried to use them and fully gave up after like six disasters. The system is so convoluted, its only a matter of time before someone forgets a con save or a slow calculation and then a player realizes four turns later and everyones scrambling around to ret-con the situation. Its also incredibly unattractive to new players and especially new DMs. Even if you dont have NPCs do masteries, its still an absolute nightmare for DMs lol, I never want to be in charge of keeping track of this ever again. I shouldnt have to be an accountant to play a board game.
I didn't solve anything because I wasn't trying to. I know of people don't like weapon masteries, and I don't intend to change their mind. I only said that, if you're gonna discuss about the rules, then you obviously need to know those rules. And you don't, so that makes the discussion itself pointless. The book is easily accessible, so just read it, or at least the part you want to discuss about, and then the conversation actually makes sense.
I don't care if a lot of people here give NPCs weapon masteries, that's not how the game is designed. A lot of official books have many enemy NPCs that are humanoids and even have classes. And their stat block is completely different from PC character sheets. The ones called "Diviner, Evoker" etc. are very different than PCs who are evokers, diviners, etc. It's by design. Of course you don't HAVE to use those stat blocks and you can use PC character sheets for NPCs. But if you're gonna do that, then you can't complain about things like the Slow property being uses against PCs, because that's not what the game was designed for, that's something you added because you wanted to. It would be like complaining that it slows down the game to have to make death saves for every enemy. The game is not designed like that, if you change it then it's on you.
And by the way, I do run my games without NPC weapon masteries and they're not dead. Everyone has a lot of fun. I know it's hard for many people here to conceive such a thing, but they're very fun. And no, the PCs aren't overtuned. PCs and NPCs are supposed to be different. It doesn't make sense that only PC monks get something that NPC ones don't? Death saving throws are only for PCs and pretty much nobody complains about that, because most combats would be less fun if you did that for NPCs too. So yeah, if you want to run NPCs like PCs, nothing wrong with that. But you can't complain about weapon masteries not being fun if NPCs have them because they're not supposed to.
Sure, if you want your skill monkey to be as effective as characters dedicated to combat.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Considering Rogues typically only get 1 to 2 attacks per turn, the RNG of how the dice land is still gonna have a lot of say over how well they do in combat, even with the theoretical +3ish bonus to attack.
Topple for a fighter doesn’t seem like it would be as big an issue, as there is a save for it and the benefits of knocking a creature prone are situational. I’m more concerned for something like a Rogue with Vex constantly giving themselves advantage and sneak attack every turn, or a fighter giving an enemy disadvantage on their next attack with every hit. Weapon mastery sounds like it opens up more opportunities to be tactical, but with no limit or cost to use a weapon mastery property and no risk of failure with most of them, it really just sounds like overpowering PC’s and making combat less dangerous for them as they are able to apply all these buffs and penalties every turn with no limit or cost. I don’t know how it plays, but seems like it would be much more interesting if there was a limit to how many times you could invoke the property, because then players would have to make a strategic choice as to when to use the property instead of “duh, obviously always.” Has anyone had any experience with any of the properties besides Topple? What has been the experience?
Rogues can already give themselves advantage every turn, and they’re supposed to be using Sneak Attack nearly every turn.
Regarding Sap, keep in mind it doesn’t stack- a given enemy will only ever have one attack at disadvantage from it, regardless of number of hits or sources.
I’m more concerned for something like a Rogue with Vex constantly giving themselves advantage and sneak attack every turn
Speaking as someone playing a 2024 rogue right now, Vex isn't remotely OP. Yeah, you get advantage... if you hit the same creature you did last turn. If you're facing a mob, or someone else takes out the creature before your next turn, you're back at square one
It in no way guarantees you get off sneak attack every turn
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
And even IF vex triggers a Sneak Attack every round... so what? That's literally the only way a rogue can even come close to matching the damage output of any other class. Rogues only get one swing per attack action, so without Sneak Attack they would be doing maybe 10 to 15 hp of damage per round, while the wizard is chucking Fireballs downrange. Rogues are super useful out of combat, but in combat - a rogue without Sneak Attack is just a dude with a knife.
In the extremely rare scenario that two pcs with weapon mastery both hit one target with bows, then yes, that is redundant for slow. I don't really see a problem with that considering using slow at all is redundant if you have extra attack. The same goes for the majority of weapon masteries.
Also:
To respond to this statement: "For example, in 4e there were almost no carbon copies of weapons that do same thing, but in this system there are. A flail is a d8 damage sap weapon. A longsword is a d8 damage sap weapon. A Morningstar is a d8 damage sap weapon. A war pick is a d8 damage sap weapon. That is four weapons that are carbon copies of one another. This new system lacks any creativity or flavor."
You see, there is something called "balance" that wouldn't exist if light weapons were buffed even more. Also, rogues get almost all of their damage from sneak attack, not those other things that are very rare and mostly insignificant.
Counterexample: combat in Terraria is mostly based on switching weapons for the scenario. You have various swords, yoyos, flails, spears, and even some harpoon-type weapons, and that's only for a melee play style.
Oh no! People get to attempt to inflict a non-stacking condition multiple times per turn at the cost of multiple feats. Whatever shall we do?
I do not like them, I think they are boring. I would have preferred something along the lines of the rogues new sneak attack options. Give them a d6 bonus damage die that they can choose to spend on a variety of features. So either martials do a base more damage with weapon attacks or they can choose to do a variety of crowd control features. Maybe have high level moves that require multiple hits and die uses.
They don't break the game or anything, they are just boring. They aren't balanced amongst each other very well and may narrow the use of weapons even more than they currently are, but my main issue is like I said, its boring.
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Not sure why youd assume that NPCs wouldnt attack the same player? Do you normally have NPCs just 1v1 everyone at the table because thats super suboptimal and wouldnt provide any real difficulty. Youre actually theoretically MORE LIKELY to be hit by enemies of the same type. Unless all of your fights have literally 6 different monsters, then no its actually more common for same-type enemies to be fighting your PCs. Multiple use Masteries are not redundant. Moving someone 20 feet by using push twice is not redundant, but it is OP to have on any every-turn basis. Having double Vex because of two rapiers is way better because the Advantage will start to apply to your main and offhand attacks and it lets you try again if you miss the first vex. This doesnt even get into the territory of "why are we having this deep of a mechanical discussion just because its a rapier and not an axe." This is HYPER convoluted.
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Why create a new mastery system thats supposed to make weapons more unique and diverse, yet theyre all still just carbon copies of eachother. This is what you said: "Weapons are repetitive so lets fix it. Ok, theyre still repetitive after the fix. Who cares because they were repetitive before."
This isnt a fix to the problem
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Light weapons did get a buff because some light weapons get a full extra attack now. Most of them do actually. Thats a buff, not a nerf. What Im saying is that dual wielding light weapons is already fine in DnD and any problem with them can be negated through poisons and other items. Which are NOT rare. Im actually surprised that you said Poisons are rare and insignificant. We must be living in different DnD universes because Potions and Poisons are very helpful and you can get common poisons at very early levels. Basic poison doubles the damage of a dagger. Once again, adding an extra attack to a weapon is almost never the balancing option for this reason ESPECIALLY daggers. Like Im pretty sure the whole point of daggers doing low damage is because of Poison. If you have +2 Daggers and Poison, Nick adds 2d4 +2 raw damage by itself. This makes fury of blows almost always suboptimal because straight up daggers are better for monks now lol.
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-I didnt say we should give all weapons Nick, I think this should be completely removed
-True strike is still more costly to generate Advantage than it is for a weapon that just always give it, especially if you dual wield weapons that give it. Its not even close to being the same
-I still dont see any rule that explicitly says NPCs cant have masteries and nobody gave a rule they just said you cant do it. I dont see an "above listed rule." It actually wouldnt make sense to have NO NPCs have masteries. Ya because your lvl 3 Monk is better with weapons than a lvl 15 Fighter NPC. Totally makes sense.
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This game isnt Terraria
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Ya bro, when you put stuff into any game, you have to consider stuff thats already in the game. Thats what balancing means. WotC have designed a new game without considering any of the stuff thats already in the old game. Instead of balancing any feats or considering them for balancing purposes, they pretend like they dont exist and they add a totally new thing into the game as if DnD is a blank slate. Yes, it is important to consider how strong a feat will be when combined with a new system because feats are literally in the game and they exist and they are a huge part of game balance. Whatever shall we do? Get rid of the mastery system, thats what we do lol, and keep bugging WotC until they hire better developers.
I said PCs, not NPCs. (NPCs can't use weapon masteries)
No, but what you said was, 'Weapons are carbon copies of each other, so weapon masteries are bad.' I said 'First of all, those weapons aren't the same, and second of all, that is a problem that weapon masteries solved." They're still repetitive, but none are actual copies anymore.
Basic poison gets you 1d4 poison damage at the cost of a bonus action and 100 gp. That is insignificant and rare. It also works only once per turn and is practically incompatible with a light/duel wielder bonus action attack. (free rules)
Maybe I misunderstood you, but you seemed to be suggesting, "...its something that they easily just add to the dual wielding mechanic in general."
I'll give you one more chance to avoid making a complete fool of yourself. true strike
Did you read my post? Or the rules? This is the text I quoted:
and additionally, monks don't have access to weapon masteries.
It isn't Knights of the Old Republic either.
What weapon masteries are unbalanced? Also, what does a feat have to do with this?
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It doesnt matter if PC's have repeating masteries. The problem is NPCs with repeating masteries. You keep saying that NPCs cant have masteries but thats not a real thing thats limited. All your players are rerolling if enemies have masteries. The very fact that you think this is a fix shows that the system is bad.
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Yes, there are carbon Copies of weapons and I listed them.
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Even if you go with the highly strict RAW for poison, Im using the worst possible example of a poison anyway. And its still convoluted. Youre talking about multiple weapon effects at lvl 1. Ill be fair, I actually didnt realize poison was ruled that way. Everybody Ive ever known has always played like Baldurs Gate and I thought it was that way even moreso because they made it that way in Baldurs Gate lol. So Ill give you that. The mastery still makes it convoluted.
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If you wanted to tell me that they changed True Strike, you should have just said they Changed True Strike. The entire reason why you tried to do what you just did is because youre banking your response on the fact that I didnt know they changed True Strike lol. This is literally the first time True Strike has ever been this way. You also didnt even get the point. Masteries arent OP because of True Strike bro, Masteries make almost all advantages trivial because weapons just give advantage now. If they changed true strike, then it doesnt matter at all to what Im saying so idk why youd continue banking on that. The change to True Strike does absolutely nothing to prove my point wrong. The mastery is still bad because it trivializes advantage. You responded that way because you were strawmanning.
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Knights of the Old Republic is LITERALLY DnD. Its literally a scifi version of DnD. It has virtually the exact same system as Baldurs Gate 2 and it was modeled after DnD. Yes, KotR is literally DnD, and idk how to say literally more than literally but KotR is DnD. Terraria is not.
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The masteries create unbalance because they benefit non martials and rogues more than they benefit martials and certain feats are now priority because of how they synergize with masteries. Again, its also still convoluted lol. You know its unbalanced because you dont want to give them to NPCs. Like you know as soon as NPCs are given these masteries, its over right? The system is so bad, NPCs cant have them or else the game instantly a quagmire. The only difference now is the PCs are running around like anime characters, and the game is still a quagmire, but its just less noticeable because your PCs are sweeping every encounter with their eyes closed. Thats why its not balanced. Like bro just give Martial Characters spell casting abilities already, we know thats what you secretly want. This design is really easy to see if you paraphrase the weapon mastery: "You open the chest and find a 1d8 weapon. You always have advantage when attacking with this weapon." That would be one of the best weapons in the game. That would literally be one of the best weapons in ANY game lol. They pretty much just said that Rapiers hit twice as often now, even though they were never week before.
I've quoted the rule for you multiple times, if you can't accept it, that is your problem. For posterity:
They're not. As I noted, they either have different properties, or different damage types.
I didn't realize that. I suppose a quick search would've been prudent. However, KotR is based on 3e, which is different in many ways from 5e.
Really. What non-martials get more benefit from weapon mastery than martials? (rogues are commonly referred to as martials btw)
You know, it's good they realized how much slower the game would be if NPCs could use weapon masteries and prevented them from doing so. Also, out of all of dungeons and dragons, this is when you start saying it's like anime? When the fighter hits someone with a greatclub and pushes them 10 feet back? Here I was thinking monks literally running up walls was the turning point.
My current campaign has been running for a while now, so we're slowly shifting from 5e to the new stuff as we all get to know the new system.
I've got a question about the new Weapon Mastery stuff. Let's say a fighter is using the two weapon fighting style with a shortsword in each hand. The fighter is level 12, so they can make 3 strikes with their Attack action and then 1 off-hand strike as a Bonus Action. Shortsword has the Vex property. (Vex. If you hit a creature with a Shortsword and deal damage to the creature, you have Advantage on your next attack roll against that creature before the end of your next turn.) So if the fighter hits with their first swing, they'll have advantage on their 2nd swing, which means they're more likely to hit and get advantage on their 3rd, and then their off-hand attack.
It sounds to me like once the fighter hits a target just once, they trigger a cascade of nearly endless advantages on every strike, every round, forever (or until they miss, which will be very unlikely).
Am I reading that right? Or am I missing something? It seems almost too good to be true.
Thank you.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
No, that's about right. But Vex only works on attacks against the same creature, so the chain will always reset when you change targets or make a kill. And the ones most likely to keep standing for several rounds are boss-type enemies, who typically have higher AC or other features that can offset it. It's a definite boost, but it's not truly constant advantage.
Cool. Thanks! It's always nice to be sure.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
Name an NPC and link their statblock here that has a Weapon Mastery feature. Honestly, go for it, I'm interested to see it. To use a Weapon Mastery, the character (whether PC or NPC or Monster) has to have a feature that unlocks it. So far as I'm aware, and I'm happy to be corrected if you use the tooltips to show me the statblock of one, no RAW NPCs get that feature. For example, Knights and Death Knights don't get them.
Now, in the absence of examples to the contrary, we'll assume that's universally true. If so, the only way they do get them is if you homebrew them to have them. That's fine if you want to, but then the problem isn't a reflection on the game or whether Weapon Masteries are good or not - it's completely on you for transplanting a system designed for PCs onto NPCs.
This has been a thing in 5e long before Weapon Masteries. If anything Weapon Masteries helps (or at least should help) alleviate this.
WPs benefit non-martials more than martials? In what world is your Wizard benefitting from his dagger's Nick which gives him an additional attack when dual wielding more than the Fighter who is slowing his enemy down and preventing his escape? The only issue I really have is with Rogues, because Vex leads to perpetual Sneak Attacks that makes them OP and detracts from the flavour of their Class in doing so.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
To me Rogue consistent Sneak Attack isn't OP but by design, or else they wouldn't have a way to use it when an ally is nearby or via Stead Aim.
Steady Aim requires both your Bonus Action and requires you to not move - which renders the Rogue quite vulnerable.
Yes, you can still get Sneak Attack so long as you don't have Disadvantage and an ally within 5ft of the target, but that at least requires making an ally somewhat vulnerable and in and of itself doesn't confer Advantage - your hit rate will be substantially lower.
Vex gives both Advantage and Sneak Attack on your next hit. Combine that with just not needing Disadvantage (so the Advantage from Vex means you won't get it) and it gets worse.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Not worse, but better, truth is Rogue need Sneak Attack to be competitive or else they're subpar martial combattant. So Vex can help them land it, so is Nick in a sense.
I didn't solve anything because I wasn't trying to. I know of people don't like weapon masteries, and I don't intend to change their mind. I only said that, if you're gonna discuss about the rules, then you obviously need to know those rules. And you don't, so that makes the discussion itself pointless. The book is easily accessible, so just read it, or at least the part you want to discuss about, and then the conversation actually makes sense.
I don't care if a lot of people here give NPCs weapon masteries, that's not how the game is designed. A lot of official books have many enemy NPCs that are humanoids and even have classes. And their stat block is completely different from PC character sheets. The ones called "Diviner, Evoker" etc. are very different than PCs who are evokers, diviners, etc. It's by design. Of course you don't HAVE to use those stat blocks and you can use PC character sheets for NPCs. But if you're gonna do that, then you can't complain about things like the Slow property being uses against PCs, because that's not what the game was designed for, that's something you added because you wanted to. It would be like complaining that it slows down the game to have to make death saves for every enemy. The game is not designed like that, if you change it then it's on you.
And by the way, I do run my games without NPC weapon masteries and they're not dead. Everyone has a lot of fun. I know it's hard for many people here to conceive such a thing, but they're very fun. And no, the PCs aren't overtuned. PCs and NPCs are supposed to be different. It doesn't make sense that only PC monks get something that NPC ones don't? Death saving throws are only for PCs and pretty much nobody complains about that, because most combats would be less fun if you did that for NPCs too. So yeah, if you want to run NPCs like PCs, nothing wrong with that. But you can't complain about weapon masteries not being fun if NPCs have them because they're not supposed to.
Sure, if you want your skill monkey to be as effective as characters dedicated to combat.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Considering Rogues typically only get 1 to 2 attacks per turn, the RNG of how the dice land is still gonna have a lot of say over how well they do in combat, even with the theoretical +3ish bonus to attack.
Topple for a fighter doesn’t seem like it would be as big an issue, as there is a save for it and the benefits of knocking a creature prone are situational. I’m more concerned for something like a Rogue with Vex constantly giving themselves advantage and sneak attack every turn, or a fighter giving an enemy disadvantage on their next attack with every hit. Weapon mastery sounds like it opens up more opportunities to be tactical, but with no limit or cost to use a weapon mastery property and no risk of failure with most of them, it really just sounds like overpowering PC’s and making combat less dangerous for them as they are able to apply all these buffs and penalties every turn with no limit or cost. I don’t know how it plays, but seems like it would be much more interesting if there was a limit to how many times you could invoke the property, because then players would have to make a strategic choice as to when to use the property instead of “duh, obviously always.” Has anyone had any experience with any of the properties besides Topple? What has been the experience?
Rogues can already give themselves advantage every turn, and they’re supposed to be using Sneak Attack nearly every turn.
Regarding Sap, keep in mind it doesn’t stack- a given enemy will only ever have one attack at disadvantage from it, regardless of number of hits or sources.
Speaking as someone playing a 2024 rogue right now, Vex isn't remotely OP. Yeah, you get advantage... if you hit the same creature you did last turn. If you're facing a mob, or someone else takes out the creature before your next turn, you're back at square one
It in no way guarantees you get off sneak attack every turn
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
And even IF vex triggers a Sneak Attack every round... so what? That's literally the only way a rogue can even come close to matching the damage output of any other class. Rogues only get one swing per attack action, so without Sneak Attack they would be doing maybe 10 to 15 hp of damage per round, while the wizard is chucking Fireballs downrange. Rogues are super useful out of combat, but in combat - a rogue without Sneak Attack is just a dude with a knife.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.