So, let's compare Flex and Vex. We'll assume a level 1 fighter with a 16 stat and dueling fighting style, and a target with AC 12.
Longsword w/flex: 70% to hit, 5% to crit. Average damage is 7.625
Rapier w/vex: first attack is 70%/5% and average 6.875 (-0.75). Attacks after a hit are 91%/9.75% and average 9.084 (+1.46)
If 34% of your attacks are following a previous hit (indicating around 50% are following a prior attack), the rapier will do more damage. At level 1 that's actually pretty close, but in tier 2 it tends to pull away, because (a) monsters generally take more hits to kill, and (b) damage per hit is increased, which magnifies the effect of increased hit chance.
1. Graze only works when you miss, if you miss 35% of the time then its MOD*0.35 per attack. So with a Max MOD (5) you'd get 5 * 0.35 which is 1.75.
2. 35% is "arbitrary" but it's around the area that Bounded Accuracy is generally aiming for, which is why it is one of the most commonly used numbers for these types of equations as it's a rather middling number. It doesn't mean it'll always be true, nobody is going to figure out every result from a 5% chance to a 95% chance to hit on attack roll.
3. I think you've massively misunderstood the actual mathematics here, Graze wins on normal attacks but Flex easily wins in many situations, such as having advantage. Graze requires a 2-handed weapon which means it additionally has a bigger cost than Flex, where Flex gives you the same damage as a polearm but with a one-handed versatile weapon. Flex additionally works with critical hits, Graze is mostly underwhelming.
Basically if you have any method of getting advantage, Flex is definitely better, if you have any method of increasing the amount of critical hits you get, Flex gets stronger or If you have anything that increases your chance to hit on attack rolls (i.e. Bless Spell), Flex gets better. There are numerous situations that benefit Flex, the only situation that benefits Graze are situations that you as a player want to avoid to begin with since a normal attack will still do more damage than Graze does.
Overall it's not really worth worrying about which is better in a build anyway, as Flex and Graze are obviously aiming at two very different types of build. Flex is going to be usable by Dual Wielders (with feat) and Shield users, people using their other hand for something else while Graze is for 2-handed weapons, where missing attacks can be more of a painful experience.
1) I was referring to the section where you said that Graze should be inflicting 1-5 damage on a miss. I wasn't talking about the average per an attack before it hits or misses.
2) Fair enough.
3) We can do a decent calculation for the additional cost with Graze - that you can only use it once per a turn unless you're using weird Fighter shenanigans - and how it compares to Flex. If your main modifier is +4 or +5, and if you have a 35% chance of hitting, then that's still an average of 1.4 or 1.75 damage per an attack. Meanwhile, Flex deals an average of 1 damage on a hit, which is 0.55 damage per an attack (the chance of critical hits is low and I am too lazy to factor them in when they don't drastically change anything. Even if you dual wield and use flex twice, then it is still not as good as the +4-5 modifiers for Graze, and isn't significantly better than a +3 ability score for characters that are using Graze.
Typically, Graze will be better. Yes, there are exceptions and ways to change this. However, I think that the methods you mentioned will likely not be used by the vast majority of players, and Graze will likely perform much more effectively for those people over all (so it will work best for most people who play the game then). Even if you devote resources to maximizing Flex, it really isn't that big of a difference.
Maybe you are right here and maybe I'm wrong. There are a lot of different scenarios and things are quite confusing. However, my point is that balance needs to be visited and taken seriously, especially with how complicated, confusing, and important it is to the game.
Even if two masteries suit different playing styles, they still should be of a similar power level to ensure that people are not pushed towards one type of play style/build for the sake of doing more in the game.
Anyways, I rest my case. Maybe Flex and Graze are of equal or very similar power levels. I just wanted to use them as one example to show how things aren't properly balanced yet, and this seems to have started a whole conversation, despite the fact that there are other, bigger balancing issues here (such as Vex, and Cleave at certain levels).
1. Graze only works when you miss, if you miss 35% of the time then its MOD*0.35 per attack. So with a Max MOD (5) you'd get 5 * 0.35 which is 1.75.
2. 35% is "arbitrary" but it's around the area that Bounded Accuracy is generally aiming for, which is why it is one of the most commonly used numbers for these types of equations as it's a rather middling number. It doesn't mean it'll always be true, nobody is going to figure out every result from a 5% chance to a 95% chance to hit on attack roll.
3. I think you've massively misunderstood the actual mathematics here, Graze wins on normal attacks but Flex easily wins in many situations, such as having advantage. Graze requires a 2-handed weapon which means it additionally has a bigger cost than Flex, where Flex gives you the same damage as a polearm but with a one-handed versatile weapon. Flex additionally works with critical hits, Graze is mostly underwhelming.
Basically if you have any method of getting advantage, Flex is definitely better, if you have any method of increasing the amount of critical hits you get, Flex gets stronger or If you have anything that increases your chance to hit on attack rolls (i.e. Bless Spell), Flex gets better. There are numerous situations that benefit Flex, the only situation that benefits Graze are situations that you as a player want to avoid to begin with since a normal attack will still do more damage than Graze does.
Overall it's not really worth worrying about which is better in a build anyway, as Flex and Graze are obviously aiming at two very different types of build. Flex is going to be usable by Dual Wielders (with feat) and Shield users, people using their other hand for something else while Graze is for 2-handed weapons, where missing attacks can be more of a painful experience.
1) I was referring to the section where you said that Graze should be inflicting 1-5 damage on a miss. I wasn't talking about the average per an attack before it hits or misses.
2) Fair enough.
3) We can do a decent calculation for the additional cost with Graze - that you can only use it once per a turn unless you're using weird Fighter shenanigans - and how it compares to Flex. If your main modifier is +4 or +5, and if you have a 35% chance of hitting, then that's still an average of 1.4 or 1.75 damage per an attack. Meanwhile, Flex deals an average of 1 damage on a hit, which is 0.55 damage per an attack (the chance of critical hits is low and I am too lazy to factor them in when they don't drastically change anything. Even if you dual wield and use flex twice, then it is still not as good as the +4-5 modifiers for Graze, and isn't significantly better than a +3 ability score for characters that are using Graze.
Typically, Graze will be better. Yes, there are exceptions and ways to change this. However, I think that the methods you mentioned will likely not be used by the vast majority of players, and Graze will likely perform much more effectively for those people over all (so it will work best for most people who play the game then). Even if you devote resources to maximizing Flex, it really isn't that big of a difference.
Maybe you are right here and maybe I'm wrong. There are a lot of different scenarios and things are quite confusing. However, my point is that balance needs to be visited and taken seriously, especially with how complicated, confusing, and important it is to the game.
Even if two masteries suit different playing styles, they still should be of a similar power level to ensure that people are not pushed towards one type of play style/build for the sake of doing more in the game.
Anyways, I rest my case. Maybe Flex and Graze are of equal or very similar power levels. I just wanted to use them as one example to show how things aren't properly balanced yet, and this seems to have started a whole conversation, despite the fact that there are other, bigger balancing issues here (such as Vex, and Cleave at certain levels).
1) What I meant by 1-5 was that MOD is going to be between 1 and 5, if you had a mod below 1 then you don't do damage and getting a mod above 5 is difficult, more so early on.
3) Graze is powerful on normal attacks, it's weakened by multiple scenarios tho. Overall, most of the masteries are actually more balanced then they appear, and it mostly comes down to the types of weapon they apply too. Vex for example, generally only applies to D4 or D6 weapons, the only D8 weapon that benefits from Vex is Rapier and the only D10 is pistol (which a lot of DMs won't allow in a lot of campaigns). Admittedly a fighter could get Vex on a longbow once they hit level 7, or a heavy crossbow, but it's a very limited niche.
I do agree that Vex is overpowered and should be limited to once per round for a given character but a Barbarian isn't going to switch to use a shortsword over a greatsword because of Vex, at least I doubt they would given they have another way to get advantage if they really need it. But Vex, even on a d4 is giving too much by being usable multiple times a round.
Other than Vex, most of the masteries are actually quiet balanced, more so then I think they initially appear to be. The only Mastery that likely should be done away with is Nick, unless Nick is given as default to Rogues. After all, in British Slang, to Nick something, is to steal it. "He nicked her car" or, "did he nick that watch", so quiet a fun one for Rogues to get.
I love the idea of weapons doing something other than straight damage, but I feel like the weapon mastery system presented in UA really misses the mark. Changing mastery on a rest makes no sense whatsoever and completely pulls me out of the RP party of the game; it smells like a bone thrown to the min-maxers, not part of a logical class progression. Mastering a weapon takes 100s of hours of practice, and your not going to pick one up in a few hours of casual practice. Furthermore, many people have already pointed out that if you can switch your mastery basically at will, having multiple masteries is pointless.
I suggest that instead of mastering a weapon, you master a technique. In other words, weapon technique: cleave, would allow you to use the cleave property of any weapon that has it. This way, having multiples of the feat would enable you to bring a bigger bag of tricks to the fight, without the weirdness of a rapier master waking up one morning and suddenly being a mace expert, just because they found amace of disruption the night before.
I love the idea of weapons doing something other than straight damage, but I feel like the weapon mastery system presented in UA really misses the mark. Changing mastery on a rest makes no sense whatsoever and completely pulls me out of the RP party of the game; it smells like a bone thrown to the min-maxers, not part of a logical class progression. Mastering a weapon takes 100s of hours of practice, and your not going to pick one up in a few hours of casual practice. Furthermore, many people have already pointed out that if you can switch your mastery basically at will, having multiple masteries is pointless.
I suggest that instead of mastering a weapon, you master a technique. In other words, weapon technique: cleave, would allow you to use the cleave property of any weapon that has it. This way, having multiples of the feat would enable you to bring a bigger bag of tricks to the fight, without the weirdness of a rapier master waking up one morning and suddenly being a mace expert, just because they found amace of disruption the night before.
That is what i suggested in the playtest. Though I would prefer a more battlemaster maneuver system built in for martials, this is kind of close.
I love the idea of weapons doing something other than straight damage, but I feel like the weapon mastery system presented in UA really misses the mark. Changing mastery on a rest makes no sense whatsoever and completely pulls me out of the RP party of the game; it smells like a bone thrown to the min-maxers, not part of a logical class progression. Mastering a weapon takes 100s of hours of practice, and your not going to pick one up in a few hours of casual practice. Furthermore, many people have already pointed out that if you can switch your mastery basically at will, having multiple masteries is pointless.
I suggest that instead of mastering a weapon, you master a technique. In other words, weapon technique: cleave, would allow you to use the cleave property of any weapon that has it. This way, having multiples of the feat would enable you to bring a bigger bag of tricks to the fight, without the weirdness of a rapier master waking up one morning and suddenly being a mace expert, just because they found amace of disruption the night before.
That is what i suggested in the playtest. Though I would prefer a more battlemaster maneuver system built in for martials, this is kind of close.
Battle master as the base for fighter is hands down the best idea with action surge, second wind and indomitable
I dont like what they did with Weapon Mastery. Its basically Weapon Master in a day for a day. Its like they mastered every weapon and are just terribly rusty and forget all techniques they learned the day before. Its terrible game design if you ask me. Im hoping it was only wriiten this way for playtest reasons.
I see the problem thematically with the ability to change Weapon Mastery on a long rest, but it'd kinda suck if you forced players to choose between having a cool weapon mastery or using a +1 weapon that they aren't proficient in. Maybe a day or week of downtime would be best, to allow the adaptability but not just let characters sleep for 8 hours to become masters of flails. It's not like downtime is unheard of within a class's structure, considering Scribe Spell.
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I dont like what they did with Weapon Mastery. Its basically Weapon Master in a day for a day. Its like they mastered every weapon and are just terribly rusty and forget all techniques they learned the day before. Its terrible game design if you ask me. Im hoping it was only wriiten this way for playtest reasons.
I mean, I guess you could say that about prepared casters as well who can essentially do the same thing.
A Wizard could cast the same spell every single adventuring day from 1st-level, but if they need to bench it one time to prepare something else they can't even attempt to cast it because they've suddenly forgotten all the words and gestures.
Meanwhile a Battle Smith can construct a whole new steel defender from scratch without any materials while also sleeping for a minimum of six hours.
The game mechanic is only setting the minimum time that it takes, what the actual process entails is up to the player and their DM; you can always have it take longer and require more steps if you want. I wouldn't for example have a Battle Smith bring back a steel defender on long rest unless I was able to recover the previous one, otherwise it has to wait till I can find materials and a suitable workshop, but that's not required.
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I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I dont like what they did with Weapon Mastery. Its basically Weapon Master in a day for a day. Its like they mastered every weapon and are just terribly rusty and forget all techniques they learned the day before. Its terrible game design if you ask me. Im hoping it was only wriiten this way for playtest reasons.
Really not a good reason that Barbarian and Fighter can't just get all weapon masteries, perhaps if they got a weapon mastery every odd level, they'd get all 9 by level 17 and the ability to change a learnt weapon mastery at every level-up like sorcerers or warlocks can do with spells.
Maybe fighters and barbarians could access the mastery properties of a magic weapon through the magic of the weapon itself. In other words, maybe the magic that makes a greataxe +1 to hit and damage would also, in the hands of a skilled warrior, impart the mastery needed to use the cleave property of the weapon.
1. Graze only works when you miss, if you miss 35% of the time then its MOD*0.35 per attack. So with a Max MOD (5) you'd get 5 * 0.35 which is 1.75.
2. 35% is "arbitrary" but it's around the area that Bounded Accuracy is generally aiming for, which is why it is one of the most commonly used numbers for these types of equations as it's a rather middling number. It doesn't mean it'll always be true, nobody is going to figure out every result from a 5% chance to a 95% chance to hit on attack roll.
3. I think you've massively misunderstood the actual mathematics here, Graze wins on normal attacks but Flex easily wins in many situations, such as having advantage. Graze requires a 2-handed weapon which means it additionally has a bigger cost than Flex, where Flex gives you the same damage as a polearm but with a one-handed versatile weapon. Flex additionally works with critical hits, Graze is mostly underwhelming.
Basically if you have any method of getting advantage, Flex is definitely better, if you have any method of increasing the amount of critical hits you get, Flex gets stronger or If you have anything that increases your chance to hit on attack rolls (i.e. Bless Spell), Flex gets better. There are numerous situations that benefit Flex, the only situation that benefits Graze are situations that you as a player want to avoid to begin with since a normal attack will still do more damage than Graze does.
Overall it's not really worth worrying about which is better in a build anyway, as Flex and Graze are obviously aiming at two very different types of build. Flex is going to be usable by Dual Wielders (with feat) and Shield users, people using their other hand for something else while Graze is for 2-handed weapons, where missing attacks can be more of a painful experience.
1) I was referring to the section where you said that Graze should be inflicting 1-5 damage on a miss. I wasn't talking about the average per an attack before it hits or misses.
2) Fair enough.
3) We can do a decent calculation for the additional cost with Graze - that you can only use it once per a turn unless you're using weird Fighter shenanigans - and how it compares to Flex. If your main modifier is +4 or +5, and if you have a 35% chance of hitting, then that's still an average of 1.4 or 1.75 damage per an attack. Meanwhile, Flex deals an average of 1 damage on a hit, which is 0.55 damage per an attack (the chance of critical hits is low and I am too lazy to factor them in when they don't drastically change anything. Even if you dual wield and use flex twice, then it is still not as good as the +4-5 modifiers for Graze, and isn't significantly better than a +3 ability score for characters that are using Graze.
Typically, Graze will be better. Yes, there are exceptions and ways to change this. However, I think that the methods you mentioned will likely not be used by the vast majority of players, and Graze will likely perform much more effectively for those people over all (so it will work best for most people who play the game then). Even if you devote resources to maximizing Flex, it really isn't that big of a difference.
Maybe you are right here and maybe I'm wrong. There are a lot of different scenarios and things are quite confusing. However, my point is that balance needs to be visited and taken seriously, especially with how complicated, confusing, and important it is to the game.
Even if two masteries suit different playing styles, they still should be of a similar power level to ensure that people are not pushed towards one type of play style/build for the sake of doing more in the game.
Anyways, I rest my case. Maybe Flex and Graze are of equal or very similar power levels. I just wanted to use them as one example to show how things aren't properly balanced yet, and this seems to have started a whole conversation, despite the fact that there are other, bigger balancing issues here (such as Vex, and Cleave at certain levels).
1) What I meant by 1-5 was that MOD is going to be between 1 and 5, if you had a mod below 1 then you don't do damage and getting a mod above 5 is difficult, more so early on.
3) Graze is powerful on normal attacks, it's weakened by multiple scenarios tho. Overall, most of the masteries are actually more balanced then they appear, and it mostly comes down to the types of weapon they apply too. Vex for example, generally only applies to D4 or D6 weapons, the only D8 weapon that benefits from Vex is Rapier and the only D10 is pistol (which a lot of DMs won't allow in a lot of campaigns). Admittedly a fighter could get Vex on a longbow once they hit level 7, or a heavy crossbow, but it's a very limited niche.
I do agree that Vex is overpowered and should be limited to once per round for a given character but a Barbarian isn't going to switch to use a shortsword over a greatsword because of Vex, at least I doubt they would given they have another way to get advantage if they really need it. But Vex, even on a d4 is giving too much by being usable multiple times a round.
Other than Vex, most of the masteries are actually quiet balanced, more so then I think they initially appear to be. The only Mastery that likely should be done away with is Nick, unless Nick is given as default to Rogues. After all, in British Slang, to Nick something, is to steal it. "He nicked her car" or, "did he nick that watch", so quiet a fun one for Rogues to get.
Vex actually isn't as powerful as it is being made out to be. First it does nothing if you already have advantage. Second it only adds advantage to the next hit ON THE SAME TARGET. The more enemies there are the worse it becomes (conversely with cleave, the more enemies there are the more likely cleave will be usable). Third, it isn't permanent advantage you have to hit the target first. If you have a 60% chance to hit there is a 40% chance you will not gain the advantage of Vex on your next attack. Even if you have advantage and your chance to hit goes to 84% you still have a 16% chance that your next attack will not have advantage. So the damage added is based on several factors did you hit it previously?, is the same target still alive by the time you are making another attack? Finally, Would you have hit anyway?
Lets examine just looking at level 5-10 for now, a big portion of the game. First attack with rapier and dueling Damage is 4.5+2+4=10.5*.6 for the first attack for 6.3 on your first attack, on the second attack there is a 60% chance you will have advantage and a 40% chance you will not. Which means the chance to hit on the second attack is 74% or 7.8 damage for a total 14.1 damage (not including crits.)
Vs Flex with a long sword and dueling . 5.5+2+4=11.5*.6*2=13.8 damage. With crit damage favoring flex weapons and crit chance favoring vex. Crit chance though is still 5% on the first attack and it is 7.8% on the second attack (this adds about .55 damage to flex crit and .58 to vex crit)
Continued attacks against the same target would favor The rapier as the chance to hit would raise to 77.8%-80% never quite reaching true "always advantage" and, of course, should the group have a reliable means of gaining advantage flex would be better.
Essentially as chance to hit increases, flex gets better, as advantage is available flex gets better, which is inverse for graze. As there is only a single target Vex gets better as there are more targets Cleave gets better. From a pure numbers standpoint all of the damage based masteries are surprisingly close.
So, let's compare Flex and Vex. We'll assume a level 1 fighter with a 16 stat and dueling fighting style, and a target with AC 12.
Longsword w/flex: 70% to hit, 5% to crit. Average damage is 7.625
Rapier w/vex: first attack is 70%/5% and average 6.875 (-0.75). Attacks after a hit are 91%/9.75% and average 9.084 (+1.46)
If 34% of your attacks are following a previous hit (indicating around 50% are following a prior attack), the rapier will do more damage. At level 1 that's actually pretty close, but in tier 2 it tends to pull away, because (a) monsters generally take more hits to kill, and (b) damage per hit is increased, which magnifies the effect of increased hit chance.
So as my previous post showed this is a little off. This assumes you have advantage on your subsequent attacks, but as noted there is a 30% chance that you wont.
Which means 70% chance your second attack will have advantage or 91/9.75 for 63.7/6.8 + 30% chance of 70/5 or 21/1.5 for a total 84.7%/8.3% for a grand total 8.42 (+.8)
I dont like what they did with Weapon Mastery. Its basically Weapon Master in a day for a day. Its like they mastered every weapon and are just terribly rusty and forget all techniques they learned the day before. Its terrible game design if you ask me. Im hoping it was only wriiten this way for playtest reasons.
I mean, I guess you could say that about prepared casters as well who can essentially do the same thing.
A Wizard could cast the same spell every single adventuring day from 1st-level, but if they need to bench it one time to prepare something else they can't even attempt to cast it because they've suddenly forgotten all the words and gestures.
Meanwhile a Battle Smith can construct a whole new steel defender from scratch without any materials while also sleeping for a minimum of six hours.
The game mechanic is only setting the minimum time that it takes, what the actual process entails is up to the player and their DM; you can always have it take longer and require more steps if you want. I wouldn't for example have a Battle Smith bring back a steel defender on long rest unless I was able to recover the previous one, otherwise it has to wait till I can find materials and a suitable workshop, but that's not required.
They just need to fix it, It should be flexible enough that if you have the weapon mastery for Vex, then you can use Vex on a weapon with that property maybe just distinguishing between Melee Vex or Ranged Vex. Maybe use the Weapon Drills for that. Initial Weapon Mastery choices should not be easy to switch as they should represent many years of training in "Weapon Mastery".
Instead let each Fighters choices matter so they are distinct from another Weapon Master. As for switching later to say wield a magic weapon it should still be allowable with Training Costs and Downtime between adventures. They should Improve the last 2 fighter weapon mastery features. Im going with Weapon Expert should retain its Weapons Mastery Property and be able to swap one from one you know, Weapon Adept would still swap out of the original weapon mastery property as well as adding another that you know.
I dont like what they did with Weapon Mastery. Its basically Weapon Master in a day for a day. Its like they mastered every weapon and are just terribly rusty and forget all techniques they learned the day before. Its terrible game design if you ask me. Im hoping it was only wriiten this way for playtest reasons.
Really not a good reason that Barbarian and Fighter can't just get all weapon masteries, perhaps if they got a weapon mastery every odd level, they'd get all 9 by level 17 and the ability to change a learnt weapon mastery at every level-up like sorcerers or warlocks can do with spells.
We havent seen it but im assuming they swap any Mastery on a Long Rest too, so how many you have wont really matter..you have them all after do a weapon drill and forget them when you do another drill. lol! Changing Weapon Mastery at level up is a good idea but id still prefer they can change it every level but only with downtime and training myself.
Changing Weapon Mastery more hardly is more realistic, but probably the don't want to return to that weapon expertise of previous editions for which the character was attached to a certain weapon type. They changed the mechanics so combatants would only need be proficient with a category, then can use any weapon equally.
The number of Weapon Mastery are to set how many kind of weapons you can use at full potential at the same time. A weapon is not attached with glue and you could want to change from melee to range, or another damage type one to avoid resistances.
Looks more like Weapon Mastery is to unlock another level of proficiency, then you have for all weapons (like getting martial weapons proficiency), but that you need some time to be used to again if change weapon, and the number of WM you have is how many weapons you can be used to.
Vex actually isn't as powerful as it is being made out to be. First it does nothing if you already have advantage. Second it only adds advantage to the next hit ON THE SAME TARGET. The more enemies there are the worse it becomes (conversely with cleave, the more enemies there are the more likely cleave will be usable). Third, it isn't permanent advantage you have to hit the target first. If you have a 60% chance to hit there is a 40% chance you will not gain the advantage of Vex on your next attack. Even if you have advantage and your chance to hit goes to 84% you still have a 16% chance that your next attack will not have advantage. So the damage added is based on several factors did you hit it previously?, is the same target still alive by the time you are making another attack? Finally, Would you have hit anyway?
Lets examine just looking at level 5-10 for now, a big portion of the game. First attack with rapier and dueling Damage is 4.5+2+4=10.5*.6 for the first attack for 6.3 on your first attack, on the second attack there is a 60% chance you will have advantage and a 40% chance you will not. Which means the chance to hit on the second attack is 74% or 7.8 damage for a total 14.1 damage (not including crits.)
Vs Flex with a long sword and dueling . 5.5+2+4=11.5*.6*2=13.8 damage. With crit damage favoring flex weapons and crit chance favoring vex. Crit chance though is still 5% on the first attack and it is 7.8% on the second attack (this adds about .55 damage to flex crit and .58 to vex crit)
Continued attacks against the same target would favor The rapier as the chance to hit would raise to 77.8%-80% never quite reaching true "always advantage" and, of course, should the group have a reliable means of gaining advantage flex would be better.
Essentially as chance to hit increases, flex gets better, as advantage is available flex gets better, which is inverse for graze. As there is only a single target Vex gets better as there are more targets Cleave gets better. From a pure numbers standpoint all of the damage based masteries are surprisingly close.
If you already have a way to gain advantage then yes, Vex is weakened, however your numbers are quiet off.
'4.5+2+4=10.5*.6' should be (4.5+2+4) * 0.6 + 4.5 * 0.05 = 10.5 *. 6 + 4.5 * 0.05 = 6.525 average DPR
That is an increase of almost +3 DPR, a fair bit higher than your numbers showed and more than Flex gives by more than a long shot.
Vex is more situational of course, but if you're a level 5 fighter and you action surge, you could potentially get up to three attacks with advantage and if you're a champion beyond that, the critical hits start to add up, getting up to a 19% (later goes up to 27.75% critical chance!). The other issue is if you have other sources of damage, these add up with Vex but do not with Flex, what if you're using a Rapier +2? Even at the 60%.
With a +2 weapon, from the additional damage alone you get to a 3.2 DPR increase. Overall, if you get Vex off once, you're getting the same average damage increase as 4.5~5.5 attacks using Flex, with just 2 attacks with Vex, the first to activate and the second to use it. If you have any other source of damage increase, it can even go well above the equivalent of 5.5 attacks using Flex, or if you have a Cleric or Paladin use a spell like Bless. Vex does become useless if say, a Druid or Ranger casts Faerie Fire, but then switching weapons isn't hard.
Lastly there is a crazy tactic that Vex opens up, you cast haste on yourself, you use the haste action to perform an attack with a shortbow and if it hits you get advantage on your next attack roll, you can now use a powerful spell with an attack roll and give yourself advantage on it, you then cast a spell like Guiding Bolt, Green-Flame Blade or Booming Blade. Additionally, if somebody else cast haste on you, you could use something like Vampiric Touch. Or you can do a similar thing with the Swift Quiver spell. Overall, Vex opens a lot of new potential builds and tactics whereas flex just converts a d8 to a d10... cool...
So as my previous post showed this is a little off. This assumes you have advantage on your subsequent attacks, but as noted there is a 30% chance that you wont.
It actually assumes there's a 65% chance you won't -- 50% that you aren't attacking the same target twice in a row, and then 30% that, even if you are, the prior attack was a miss. If you're continually attacking the same target your hit rate gradually approaches 88% (it maxes at 91%, but because you're going to miss sequences, it averages less).
I dont like what they did with Weapon Mastery. Its basically Weapon Master in a day for a day. Its like they mastered every weapon and are just terribly rusty and forget all techniques they learned the day before. Its terrible game design if you ask me. Im hoping it was only wriiten this way for playtest reasons.
Really not a good reason that Barbarian and Fighter can't just get all weapon masteries, perhaps if they got a weapon mastery every odd level, they'd get all 9 by level 17 and the ability to change a learnt weapon mastery at every level-up like sorcerers or warlocks can do with spells.
Just give them all the masteries or make your masteries permanent like Fighting Styles. The current design is just stupid busywork. The fundamental design question is: Should a player's choice of Weapon Mastery limit their choice of weapons they use? If the answer is yes then they should get 1 weapon mastery that cannot be changed, and only gain additional weapon masteries slowly as they progress through levels. If the answer is no then they should get all the weapon masteries.
If instead the issue the designers are worried about is players carrying around a whole suitcase of weapons that they swap in/out all the time, then they should either (1) clarify encumbrance limits to reduce the number of weapons a character can carry around at a time (2) change the rules so that rather than drop/draw weapons for free every turn, characters instead get to draw their weapons for free as part of rolling initiative and then can swap weapons during combat only by using a bonus action.
In other games drawing a weapon and attack on the same turn implies a penalty. I always though that would give disadvantage unless you get the typical “quick draw” feat.. If not many things are trivialized, like hiding a drawn dagger for surprise attack or having a free hand.
Vex actually isn't as powerful as it is being made out to be. First it does nothing if you already have advantage. Second it only adds advantage to the next hit ON THE SAME TARGET. The more enemies there are the worse it becomes (conversely with cleave, the more enemies there are the more likely cleave will be usable). Third, it isn't permanent advantage you have to hit the target first. If you have a 60% chance to hit there is a 40% chance you will not gain the advantage of Vex on your next attack. Even if you have advantage and your chance to hit goes to 84% you still have a 16% chance that your next attack will not have advantage. So the damage added is based on several factors did you hit it previously?, is the same target still alive by the time you are making another attack? Finally, Would you have hit anyway?
Lets examine just looking at level 5-10 for now, a big portion of the game. First attack with rapier and dueling Damage is 4.5+2+4=10.5*.6 for the first attack for 6.3 on your first attack, on the second attack there is a 60% chance you will have advantage and a 40% chance you will not. Which means the chance to hit on the second attack is 74% or 7.8 damage for a total 14.1 damage (not including crits.)
Vs Flex with a long sword and dueling . 5.5+2+4=11.5*.6*2=13.8 damage. With crit damage favoring flex weapons and crit chance favoring vex. Crit chance though is still 5% on the first attack and it is 7.8% on the second attack (this adds about .55 damage to flex crit and .58 to vex crit)
Continued attacks against the same target would favor The rapier as the chance to hit would raise to 77.8%-80% never quite reaching true "always advantage" and, of course, should the group have a reliable means of gaining advantage flex would be better.
Essentially as chance to hit increases, flex gets better, as advantage is available flex gets better, which is inverse for graze. As there is only a single target Vex gets better as there are more targets Cleave gets better. From a pure numbers standpoint all of the damage based masteries are surprisingly close.
If you already have a way to gain advantage then yes, Vex is weakened, however your numbers are quiet off.
'4.5+2+4=10.5*.6' should be (4.5+2+4) * 0.6 + 4.5 * 0.05 = 10.5 *. 6 + 4.5 * 0.05 = 6.525 average DPR
That is an increase of almost +3 DPR, a fair bit higher than your numbers showed and more than Flex gives by more than a long shot.
Vex is more situational of course, but if you're a level 5 fighter and you action surge, you could potentially get up to three attacks with advantage and if you're a champion beyond that, the critical hits start to add up, getting up to a 19% (later goes up to 27.75% critical chance!). The other issue is if you have other sources of damage, these add up with Vex but do not with Flex, what if you're using a Rapier +2? Even at the 60%.
With a +2 weapon, from the additional damage alone you get to a 3.2 DPR increase. Overall, if you get Vex off once, you're getting the same average damage increase as 4.5~5.5 attacks using Flex, with just 2 attacks with Vex, the first to activate and the second to use it. If you have any other source of damage increase, it can even go well above the equivalent of 5.5 attacks using Flex, or if you have a Cleric or Paladin use a spell like Bless. Vex does become useless if say, a Druid or Ranger casts Faerie Fire, but then switching weapons isn't hard.
Lastly there is a crazy tactic that Vex opens up, you cast haste on yourself, you use the haste action to perform an attack with a shortbow and if it hits you get advantage on your next attack roll, you can now use a powerful spell with an attack roll and give yourself advantage on it, you then cast a spell like Guiding Bolt, Green-Flame Blade or Booming Blade. Additionally, if somebody else cast haste on you, you could use something like Vampiric Touch. Or you can do a similar thing with the Swift Quiver spell. Overall, Vex opens a lot of new potential builds and tactics whereas flex just converts a d8 to a d10... cool...
My math is correct. THIS math is incorrect. Your math is assuming Vex ALWAYS gives advantage after the first attack. It doesn't, it only gives advantage if the first attack hit. In my example that is 60% of the time, the same odds as the sword attack. Which means there is a 40% chance that the vex user will be making there second attack WITHOUT advantage. Which means the second attack has a 60% chance of giving the 84% chance to hit and a 40% chance to have a 60% chance to hit. This results in a roughly 74% chance to hit. Which is the numbers I used. Subsequent attacks against the same target raise this chance, but it NEVER reaches the effect of "always on advantage". Even crit chance is effected because there is a difference in crit chance as well. Your second attack DOESN'T have a 9.75% chance it has a 60% chance to have a 9.75% and a 40% chance to have a 5% which results in a crit chance of around 7.8%
If your numbers are "always on advantage after first attack" than your numbers are wrong and you are massively over valuing vex.
As the chance to hit increases flex does better and better and the value of advantage on next attack stays about the same. If you can increase damage vex gets better of course.
So, let's compare Flex and Vex. We'll assume a level 1 fighter with a 16 stat and dueling fighting style, and a target with AC 12.
If 34% of your attacks are following a previous hit (indicating around 50% are following a prior attack), the rapier will do more damage. At level 1 that's actually pretty close, but in tier 2 it tends to pull away, because (a) monsters generally take more hits to kill, and (b) damage per hit is increased, which magnifies the effect of increased hit chance.
I guess I can't do math lol. My bad; I didn't understand we were factoring in crits and stuff.
1) I was referring to the section where you said that Graze should be inflicting 1-5 damage on a miss. I wasn't talking about the average per an attack before it hits or misses.
2) Fair enough.
3) We can do a decent calculation for the additional cost with Graze - that you can only use it once per a turn unless you're using weird Fighter shenanigans - and how it compares to Flex. If your main modifier is +4 or +5, and if you have a 35% chance of hitting, then that's still an average of 1.4 or 1.75 damage per an attack. Meanwhile, Flex deals an average of 1 damage on a hit, which is 0.55 damage per an attack (the chance of critical hits is low and I am too lazy to factor them in when they don't drastically change anything. Even if you dual wield and use flex twice, then it is still not as good as the +4-5 modifiers for Graze, and isn't significantly better than a +3 ability score for characters that are using Graze.
Typically, Graze will be better. Yes, there are exceptions and ways to change this. However, I think that the methods you mentioned will likely not be used by the vast majority of players, and Graze will likely perform much more effectively for those people over all (so it will work best for most people who play the game then). Even if you devote resources to maximizing Flex, it really isn't that big of a difference.
Maybe you are right here and maybe I'm wrong. There are a lot of different scenarios and things are quite confusing. However, my point is that balance needs to be visited and taken seriously, especially with how complicated, confusing, and important it is to the game.
Even if two masteries suit different playing styles, they still should be of a similar power level to ensure that people are not pushed towards one type of play style/build for the sake of doing more in the game.
Anyways, I rest my case. Maybe Flex and Graze are of equal or very similar power levels. I just wanted to use them as one example to show how things aren't properly balanced yet, and this seems to have started a whole conversation, despite the fact that there are other, bigger balancing issues here (such as Vex, and Cleave at certain levels).
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HERE.1) What I meant by 1-5 was that MOD is going to be between 1 and 5, if you had a mod below 1 then you don't do damage and getting a mod above 5 is difficult, more so early on.
3) Graze is powerful on normal attacks, it's weakened by multiple scenarios tho. Overall, most of the masteries are actually more balanced then they appear, and it mostly comes down to the types of weapon they apply too. Vex for example, generally only applies to D4 or D6 weapons, the only D8 weapon that benefits from Vex is Rapier and the only D10 is pistol (which a lot of DMs won't allow in a lot of campaigns). Admittedly a fighter could get Vex on a longbow once they hit level 7, or a heavy crossbow, but it's a very limited niche.
I do agree that Vex is overpowered and should be limited to once per round for a given character but a Barbarian isn't going to switch to use a shortsword over a greatsword because of Vex, at least I doubt they would given they have another way to get advantage if they really need it. But Vex, even on a d4 is giving too much by being usable multiple times a round.
Other than Vex, most of the masteries are actually quiet balanced, more so then I think they initially appear to be. The only Mastery that likely should be done away with is Nick, unless Nick is given as default to Rogues. After all, in British Slang, to Nick something, is to steal it. "He nicked her car" or, "did he nick that watch", so quiet a fun one for Rogues to get.
I love the idea of weapons doing something other than straight damage, but I feel like the weapon mastery system presented in UA really misses the mark. Changing mastery on a rest makes no sense whatsoever and completely pulls me out of the RP party of the game; it smells like a bone thrown to the min-maxers, not part of a logical class progression. Mastering a weapon takes 100s of hours of practice, and your not going to pick one up in a few hours of casual practice. Furthermore, many people have already pointed out that if you can switch your mastery basically at will, having multiple masteries is pointless.
I suggest that instead of mastering a weapon, you master a technique. In other words, weapon technique: cleave, would allow you to use the cleave property of any weapon that has it. This way, having multiples of the feat would enable you to bring a bigger bag of tricks to the fight, without the weirdness of a rapier master waking up one morning and suddenly being a mace expert, just because they found amace of disruption the night before.
That is what i suggested in the playtest. Though I would prefer a more battlemaster maneuver system built in for martials, this is kind of close.
Battle master as the base for fighter is hands down the best idea with action surge, second wind and indomitable
I dont like what they did with Weapon Mastery. Its basically Weapon Master in a day for a day. Its like they mastered every weapon and are just terribly rusty and forget all techniques they learned the day before. Its terrible game design if you ask me. Im hoping it was only wriiten this way for playtest reasons.
I see the problem thematically with the ability to change Weapon Mastery on a long rest, but it'd kinda suck if you forced players to choose between having a cool weapon mastery or using a +1 weapon that they aren't proficient in. Maybe a day or week of downtime would be best, to allow the adaptability but not just let characters sleep for 8 hours to become masters of flails. It's not like downtime is unheard of within a class's structure, considering Scribe Spell.
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I mean, I guess you could say that about prepared casters as well who can essentially do the same thing.
A Wizard could cast the same spell every single adventuring day from 1st-level, but if they need to bench it one time to prepare something else they can't even attempt to cast it because they've suddenly forgotten all the words and gestures.
Meanwhile a Battle Smith can construct a whole new steel defender from scratch without any materials while also sleeping for a minimum of six hours.
The game mechanic is only setting the minimum time that it takes, what the actual process entails is up to the player and their DM; you can always have it take longer and require more steps if you want. I wouldn't for example have a Battle Smith bring back a steel defender on long rest unless I was able to recover the previous one, otherwise it has to wait till I can find materials and a suitable workshop, but that's not required.
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Really not a good reason that Barbarian and Fighter can't just get all weapon masteries, perhaps if they got a weapon mastery every odd level, they'd get all 9 by level 17 and the ability to change a learnt weapon mastery at every level-up like sorcerers or warlocks can do with spells.
Maybe fighters and barbarians could access the mastery properties of a magic weapon through the magic of the weapon itself. In other words, maybe the magic that makes a greataxe +1 to hit and damage would also, in the hands of a skilled warrior, impart the mastery needed to use the cleave property of the weapon.
Vex actually isn't as powerful as it is being made out to be. First it does nothing if you already have advantage. Second it only adds advantage to the next hit ON THE SAME TARGET. The more enemies there are the worse it becomes (conversely with cleave, the more enemies there are the more likely cleave will be usable). Third, it isn't permanent advantage you have to hit the target first. If you have a 60% chance to hit there is a 40% chance you will not gain the advantage of Vex on your next attack. Even if you have advantage and your chance to hit goes to 84% you still have a 16% chance that your next attack will not have advantage. So the damage added is based on several factors did you hit it previously?, is the same target still alive by the time you are making another attack? Finally, Would you have hit anyway?
Lets examine just looking at level 5-10 for now, a big portion of the game.
First attack with rapier and dueling Damage is 4.5+2+4=10.5*.6 for the first attack for 6.3 on your first attack, on the second attack there is a 60% chance you will have advantage and a 40% chance you will not. Which means the chance to hit on the second attack is 74% or 7.8 damage for a total 14.1 damage (not including crits.)
Vs Flex with a long sword and dueling . 5.5+2+4=11.5*.6*2=13.8 damage. With crit damage favoring flex weapons and crit chance favoring vex. Crit chance though is still 5% on the first attack and it is 7.8% on the second attack (this adds about .55 damage to flex crit and .58 to vex crit)
Continued attacks against the same target would favor The rapier as the chance to hit would raise to 77.8%-80% never quite reaching true "always advantage" and, of course, should the group have a reliable means of gaining advantage flex would be better.
Essentially as chance to hit increases, flex gets better, as advantage is available flex gets better, which is inverse for graze. As there is only a single target Vex gets better as there are more targets Cleave gets better. From a pure numbers standpoint all of the damage based masteries are surprisingly close.
So as my previous post showed this is a little off. This assumes you have advantage on your subsequent attacks, but as noted there is a 30% chance that you wont.
Which means 70% chance your second attack will have advantage or 91/9.75 for 63.7/6.8 + 30% chance of 70/5 or 21/1.5 for a total 84.7%/8.3% for a grand total 8.42 (+.8)
They just need to fix it, It should be flexible enough that if you have the weapon mastery for Vex, then you can use Vex on a weapon with that property maybe just distinguishing between Melee Vex or Ranged Vex. Maybe use the Weapon Drills for that. Initial Weapon Mastery choices should not be easy to switch as they should represent many years of training in "Weapon Mastery".
Instead let each Fighters choices matter so they are distinct from another Weapon Master. As for switching later to say wield a magic weapon it should still be allowable with Training Costs and Downtime between adventures. They should Improve the last 2 fighter weapon mastery features. Im going with Weapon Expert should retain its Weapons Mastery Property and be able to swap one from one you know, Weapon Adept would still swap out of the original weapon mastery property as well as adding another that you know.
We havent seen it but im assuming they swap any Mastery on a Long Rest too, so how many you have wont really matter..you have them all after do a weapon drill and forget them when you do another drill. lol! Changing Weapon Mastery at level up is a good idea but id still prefer they can change it every level but only with downtime and training myself.
Changing Weapon Mastery more hardly is more realistic, but probably the don't want to return to that weapon expertise of previous editions for which the character was attached to a certain weapon type. They changed the mechanics so combatants would only need be proficient with a category, then can use any weapon equally.
The number of Weapon Mastery are to set how many kind of weapons you can use at full potential at the same time. A weapon is not attached with glue and you could want to change from melee to range, or another damage type one to avoid resistances.
Looks more like Weapon Mastery is to unlock another level of proficiency, then you have for all weapons (like getting martial weapons proficiency), but that you need some time to be used to again if change weapon, and the number of WM you have is how many weapons you can be used to.
If you already have a way to gain advantage then yes, Vex is weakened, however your numbers are quiet off.
'4.5+2+4=10.5*.6' should be (4.5+2+4) * 0.6 + 4.5 * 0.05 = 10.5 *. 6 + 4.5 * 0.05 = 6.525 average DPR
Then the advantaged attack should be:
(4.5+2+4) * 0.84 + 4.5 * 0.0975 = ~10.5 *. 84 + 4.5 * 0.0975 = 9.25875 Average DPR
That is an increase of almost +3 DPR, a fair bit higher than your numbers showed and more than Flex gives by more than a long shot.
Vex is more situational of course, but if you're a level 5 fighter and you action surge, you could potentially get up to three attacks with advantage and if you're a champion beyond that, the critical hits start to add up, getting up to a 19% (later goes up to 27.75% critical chance!). The other issue is if you have other sources of damage, these add up with Vex but do not with Flex, what if you're using a Rapier +2? Even at the 60%.
(4.5+2+2+4) * 0.6 + 4.5 * 0.05 = 12.5 *. 6 + 4.5 * 0.05 = 7.725 average DPR
(4.5+2+2+4) * 0.84 + 4.5 * 0.0975 = ~12.5 *. 84 + 4.5 * 0.0975 = 10.93875 Average DPR
With a +2 weapon, from the additional damage alone you get to a 3.2 DPR increase. Overall, if you get Vex off once, you're getting the same average damage increase as 4.5~5.5 attacks using Flex, with just 2 attacks with Vex, the first to activate and the second to use it. If you have any other source of damage increase, it can even go well above the equivalent of 5.5 attacks using Flex, or if you have a Cleric or Paladin use a spell like Bless. Vex does become useless if say, a Druid or Ranger casts Faerie Fire, but then switching weapons isn't hard.
Lastly there is a crazy tactic that Vex opens up, you cast haste on yourself, you use the haste action to perform an attack with a shortbow and if it hits you get advantage on your next attack roll, you can now use a powerful spell with an attack roll and give yourself advantage on it, you then cast a spell like Guiding Bolt, Green-Flame Blade or Booming Blade. Additionally, if somebody else cast haste on you, you could use something like Vampiric Touch. Or you can do a similar thing with the Swift Quiver spell. Overall, Vex opens a lot of new potential builds and tactics whereas flex just converts a d8 to a d10... cool...
It actually assumes there's a 65% chance you won't -- 50% that you aren't attacking the same target twice in a row, and then 30% that, even if you are, the prior attack was a miss. If you're continually attacking the same target your hit rate gradually approaches 88% (it maxes at 91%, but because you're going to miss sequences, it averages less).
Just give them all the masteries or make your masteries permanent like Fighting Styles. The current design is just stupid busywork. The fundamental design question is: Should a player's choice of Weapon Mastery limit their choice of weapons they use? If the answer is yes then they should get 1 weapon mastery that cannot be changed, and only gain additional weapon masteries slowly as they progress through levels. If the answer is no then they should get all the weapon masteries.
If instead the issue the designers are worried about is players carrying around a whole suitcase of weapons that they swap in/out all the time, then they should either
(1) clarify encumbrance limits to reduce the number of weapons a character can carry around at a time
(2) change the rules so that rather than drop/draw weapons for free every turn, characters instead get to draw their weapons for free as part of rolling initiative and then can swap weapons during combat only by using a bonus action.
In other games drawing a weapon and attack on the same turn implies a penalty. I always though that would give disadvantage unless you get the typical “quick draw” feat.. If not many things are trivialized, like hiding a drawn dagger for surprise attack or having a free hand.
My math is correct. THIS math is incorrect. Your math is assuming Vex ALWAYS gives advantage after the first attack. It doesn't, it only gives advantage if the first attack hit. In my example that is 60% of the time, the same odds as the sword attack. Which means there is a 40% chance that the vex user will be making there second attack WITHOUT advantage. Which means the second attack has a 60% chance of giving the 84% chance to hit and a 40% chance to have a 60% chance to hit. This results in a roughly 74% chance to hit. Which is the numbers I used. Subsequent attacks against the same target raise this chance, but it NEVER reaches the effect of "always on advantage". Even crit chance is effected because there is a difference in crit chance as well. Your second attack DOESN'T have a 9.75% chance it has a 60% chance to have a 9.75% and a 40% chance to have a 5% which results in a crit chance of around 7.8%
If your numbers are "always on advantage after first attack" than your numbers are wrong and you are massively over valuing vex.
As the chance to hit increases flex does better and better and the value of advantage on next attack stays about the same. If you can increase damage vex gets better of course.