This gave me an idea. What if we looked at some of the spells and found a way to relocate them for martials, would that put less of a divide between martials and casters? It’s say, for instance, martials had something like ‘decapitate’ which would essentially work the same way as ‘powerword kill’ or ‘volly’ which may work similar to ‘meteor storm’ I kind of like this concept, now that I’m thinking about it. It makes me think of the hunter ranger in 5e, it was really powerful in some situations.
This sounds a lot like 4th Edition D&D to me. In that edition, every class had Daily, Encounter, and At Will powers. Some of these powers were styled as spells, but martial powers were described more like maneuvers. You might want to see if you can find a 4E PHB for inspiration.
This gave me an idea. What if we looked at some of the spells and found a way to relocate them for martials, would that put less of a divide between martials and casters? It’s say, for instance, martials had something like ‘decapitate’ which would essentially work the same way as ‘powerword kill’ or ‘volly’ which may work similar to ‘meteor storm’ I kind of like this concept, now that I’m thinking about it. It makes me think of the hunter ranger in 5e, it was really powerful in some situations.
This sounds a lot like 4th Edition D&D to me. In that edition, every class had Daily, Encounter, and At Will powers. Some of these powers were styled as spells, but martial powers were described more like maneuvers. You might want to see if you can find a 4E PHB for inspiration.
Depending on how its done it could. But there are spell mechanics that can work with martial maneuvers. We already have some with save effects does topple feel like a spell for example. Power word mechanics make a lot of sense for martial moves given the abstraction of hit points. When a warrior is facing a enemy weakened to the point they only have X hit points they can pull of various maneuvers on them without a save. You likely would want to go with different effects so it did not just feel like a copy, but something like hamstring, when a enemy's HP is below 3xfighter level you can execute hamstring and drop their speed to 0, save at the end of their turn to break the effect.
This gave me an idea. What if we looked at some of the spells and found a way to relocate them for martials, would that put less of a divide between martials and casters? It’s say, for instance, martials had something like ‘decapitate’ which would essentially work the same way as ‘powerword kill’ or ‘volly’ which may work similar to ‘meteor storm’ I kind of like this concept, now that I’m thinking about it. It makes me think of the hunter ranger in 5e, it was really powerful in some situations.
Something that would be like Battle Master maneuvers with level requirements, that have a feel comparable to the 5e Hunter Ranger's special ability choices?
That could be really cool. I mean, it would make the martials more epic and versatile.
This gave me an idea. What if we looked at some of the spells and found a way to relocate them for martials, would that put less of a divide between martials and casters? It’s say, for instance, martials had something like ‘decapitate’ which would essentially work the same way as ‘powerword kill’ or ‘volly’ which may work similar to ‘meteor storm’ I kind of like this concept, now that I’m thinking about it. It makes me think of the hunter ranger in 5e, it was really powerful in some situations.
This sounds a lot like 4th Edition D&D to me. In that edition, every class had Daily, Encounter, and At Will powers. Some of these powers were styled as spells, but martial powers were described more like maneuvers. You might want to see if you can find a 4E PHB for inspiration.
Oh, I remember 4E, that’s when I started. My first character was a fighter. I always thought the combat was really interesting because of that but you just reminded me of the concept. I didn’t recognize it as that but yeah like that.
This sounds a lot like 4th Edition D&D to me. In that edition, every class had Daily, Encounter, and At Will powers. Some of these powers were styled as spells, but martial powers were described more like maneuvers. You might want to see if you can find a 4E PHB for inspiration.
I have some notes about using 4th edition martial classes (fighter, ranger, rogue, warlord) as subclasses in 5e somewhere. I should write it up to be more accessible. 4e martials were fun, the problem was more with casters being kinda boring.
This gave me an idea. What if we looked at some of the spells and found a way to relocate them for martials, would that put less of a divide between martials and casters? It’s say, for instance, martials had something like ‘decapitate’ which would essentially work the same way as ‘powerword kill’ or ‘volly’ which may work similar to ‘meteor storm’ I kind of like this concept, now that I’m thinking about it. It makes me think of the hunter ranger in 5e, it was really powerful in some situations.
This sounds a lot like 4th Edition D&D to me. In that edition, every class had Daily, Encounter, and At Will powers. Some of these powers were styled as spells, but martial powers were described more like maneuvers. You might want to see if you can find a 4E PHB for inspiration.
Depending on how its done it could. But there are spell mechanics that can work with martial maneuvers. We already have some with save effects does topple feel like a spell for example. Power word mechanics make a lot of sense for martial moves given the abstraction of hit points. When a warrior is facing a enemy weakened to the point they only have X hit points they can pull of various maneuvers on them without a save. You likely would want to go with different effects so it did not just feel like a copy, but something like hamstring, when a enemy's HP is below 3xfighter level you can execute hamstring and drop their speed to 0, save at the end of their turn to break the effect.
Exactly what I was thinking. I just used power word kill as an example but yeah. I was just thinking the biggest problem with the divide is that spells can do so much and so much more than just “I do damage” why can’t martials get some of that epicness? I’ve always flavor texted some spells into cool martial abilities such as shocking grasp into thunder punch or eldrich blast into a spectral bow that can do all sorts of things from the ivocations. Sword burst into Link’s spinning attack or just a flurry of attacks in every direction or Chunli’s spinning bird kick, etc.
Stuff like that, I could go on forever, but I’d like to see these things as actual things for martials to use as part of their classes instead of making them up. That was everyone can use them without having to take feats and other things to gain access to spells.
Too be fair there are some poisons (and diseases) that do spell like effects. Now martials can use them on weapons but most casters are going to not be able to. This puts such Items in the same zone as "spell scrolls" but provides a advantage of stacking on top of a turn rather than just a free use.
This creates a potential power that most of the community doesn't use. if a marital takes equipment into account they can mimic "zone of truth", "sleep", "elemental damage", conditions etc. There is even oil of sharpness allowing +3 for several turns.
I believe a good rework of equipment, nets, vials, poison rules, and re-adding Holy Oils could definitely add some of the caster level utility back into the non caster classes. such rules combined with the new masteries and a couple of class features would probably be enough IMO.
This gave me an idea. What if we looked at some of the spells and found a way to relocate them for martials, would that put less of a divide between martials and casters? It’s say, for instance, martials had something like ‘decapitate’ which would essentially work the same way as ‘powerword kill’ or ‘volly’ which may work similar to ‘meteor storm’ I kind of like this concept, now that I’m thinking about it. It makes me think of the hunter ranger in 5e, it was really powerful in some situations.
This sounds a lot like 4th Edition D&D to me. In that edition, every class had Daily, Encounter, and At Will powers. Some of these powers were styled as spells, but martial powers were described more like maneuvers. You might want to see if you can find a 4E PHB for inspiration.
Depending on how its done it could. But there are spell mechanics that can work with martial maneuvers. We already have some with save effects does topple feel like a spell for example. Power word mechanics make a lot of sense for martial moves given the abstraction of hit points. When a warrior is facing a enemy weakened to the point they only have X hit points they can pull of various maneuvers on them without a save. You likely would want to go with different effects so it did not just feel like a copy, but something like hamstring, when a enemy's HP is below 3xfighter level you can execute hamstring and drop their speed to 0, save at the end of their turn to break the effect.
Exactly what I was thinking. I just used power word kill as an example but yeah. I was just thinking the biggest problem with the divide is that spells can do so much and so much more than just “I do damage” why can’t martials get some of that epicness? I’ve always flavor texted some spells into cool martial abilities such as shocking grasp into thunder punch or eldrich blast into a spectral bow that can do all sorts of things from the ivocations. Sword burst into Link’s spinning attack or just a flurry of attacks in every direction or Chunli’s spinning bird kick, etc.
Stuff like that, I could go on forever, but I’d like to see these things as actual things for martials to use as part of their classes instead of making them up. That was everyone can use them without having to take feats and other things to gain access to spells.
Too be fair there are some poisons (and diseases) that do spell like effects. Now martials can use them on weapons but most casters are going to not be able to. This puts such Items in the same zone as "spell scrolls" but provides a advantage of stacking on top of a turn rather than just a free use.
This creates a potential power that most of the community doesn't use. if a marital takes equipment into account they can mimic "zone of truth", "sleep", "elemental damage", conditions etc. There is even oil of sharpness allowing +3 for several turns.
I believe a good rework of equipment, nets, vials, poison rules, and re-adding Holy Oils could definitely add some of the caster level utility back into the non caster classes. such rules combined with the new masteries and a couple of class features would probably be enough IMO.
Too be fair there are some poisons (and diseases) that do spell like effects. Now martials can use them on weapons but most casters are going to not be able to. This puts such Items in the same zone as "spell scrolls" but provides a advantage of stacking on top of a turn rather than just a free use.
This creates a potential power that most of the community doesn't use. if a marital takes equipment into account they can mimic "zone of truth", "sleep", "elemental damage", conditions etc. There is even oil of sharpness allowing +3 for several turns.
I believe a good rework of equipment, nets, vials, poison rules, and re-adding Holy Oils could definitely add some of the caster level utility back into the non caster classes. such rules combined with the new masteries and a couple of class features would probably be enough IMO.
This gave me an idea. What if we looked at some of the spells and found a way to relocate them for martials, would that put less of a divide between martials and casters? It’s say, for instance, martials had something like ‘decapitate’ which would essentially work the same way as ‘powerword kill’ or ‘volly’ which may work similar to ‘meteor storm’ I kind of like this concept, now that I’m thinking about it. It makes me think of the hunter ranger in 5e, it was really powerful in some situations.
This sounds a lot like 4th Edition D&D to me. In that edition, every class had Daily, Encounter, and At Will powers. Some of these powers were styled as spells, but martial powers were described more like maneuvers. You might want to see if you can find a 4E PHB for inspiration.
Depending on how its done it could. But there are spell mechanics that can work with martial maneuvers. We already have some with save effects does topple feel like a spell for example. Power word mechanics make a lot of sense for martial moves given the abstraction of hit points. When a warrior is facing a enemy weakened to the point they only have X hit points they can pull of various maneuvers on them without a save. You likely would want to go with different effects so it did not just feel like a copy, but something like hamstring, when a enemy's HP is below 3xfighter level you can execute hamstring and drop their speed to 0, save at the end of their turn to break the effect.
Exactly what I was thinking. I just used power word kill as an example but yeah. I was just thinking the biggest problem with the divide is that spells can do so much and so much more than just “I do damage” why can’t martials get some of that epicness? I’ve always flavor texted some spells into cool martial abilities such as shocking grasp into thunder punch or eldrich blast into a spectral bow that can do all sorts of things from the ivocations. Sword burst into Link’s spinning attack or just a flurry of attacks in every direction or Chunli’s spinning bird kick, etc.
Stuff like that, I could go on forever, but I’d like to see these things as actual things for martials to use as part of their classes instead of making them up. That was everyone can use them without having to take feats and other things to gain access to spells.
Too be fair there are some poisons (and diseases) that do spell like effects. Now martials can use them on weapons but most casters are going to not be able to. This puts such Items in the same zone as "spell scrolls" but provides a advantage of stacking on top of a turn rather than just a free use.
This creates a potential power that most of the community doesn't use. if a marital takes equipment into account they can mimic "zone of truth", "sleep", "elemental damage", conditions etc. There is even oil of sharpness allowing +3 for several turns.
I believe a good rework of equipment, nets, vials, poison rules, and re-adding Holy Oils could definitely add some of the caster level utility back into the non caster classes. such rules combined with the new masteries and a couple of class features would probably be enough IMO.
Interesting. Where are these poisons and things listed? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen them.
It's a fair point actually that these are options casters can't or won't usually use, but you just don't see them used much by martials, including on big name D&D shows like Acquisitions Incorporated, Critical Role etc. If they're supposed to be a core feature then Wizards of the Coast haven't done a very good job of emphasising them.
The DC's on poisons also don't scale, and it can be a very expensive habit to feed; equipment in general needs a major rethink as there are also a bunch of items that Rogues should be using yet you hardly see those either because they're bad in later tiers (and not amazing in tier 1 either). We also just don't really want any class to be item dependent, because that puts them at the mercy of item availability.
Really each class should be balanced on its own in isolation (with nothing but starting gear), and then all classes should have access to a similar mix of useful items they can be supplemented by so they remain balanced assuming a balanced mix of availability.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Too be fair there are some poisons (and diseases) that do spell like effects. Now martials can use them on weapons but most casters are going to not be able to. This puts such Items in the same zone as "spell scrolls" but provides a advantage of stacking on top of a turn rather than just a free use.
This creates a potential power that most of the community doesn't use. if a marital takes equipment into account they can mimic "zone of truth", "sleep", "elemental damage", conditions etc. There is even oil of sharpness allowing +3 for several turns.
I believe a good rework of equipment, nets, vials, poison rules, and re-adding Holy Oils could definitely add some of the caster level utility back into the non caster classes. such rules combined with the new masteries and a couple of class features would probably be enough IMO.
The problem with Poisons is that they are expensive (even a basic poison is 100GP), take an action to apply and only half of them are applicable to weapons, if you apply it in advance, you don't know what the next creature you'll strike is and basic poison only lasts 1 minute on a weapon. Overall Poisons really aren't usable in 5E, unless it's Purple Worm Poison, it's rarely worth the action cost of applying a poison, most of the poisons have lowish DCs, more so for late game.
Let's look at the few you mention tho, "Zone of Truth", is Truth Serum, this needs to be ingested fully (not applied to weapons) and has a poultry DC of 11, it additionally has a MAJOR flaw, since nobody casts it then nobody knows if it actually affects the target or not, so if they pass that DC or not, you just don't know.
Second let's look at "Sleep", Well we could be talking, Torpor, Oil of Taggit or Drow Poison. Well Torpor is again ingested, so literally anybody in the group could do that. Well Oil of Taggit and Drow Poison both have a DC13, not the greatest, Drow Poison however, the sleep effect actually has a separate DC, which is 8...
Lastly, almost all poisons exclusively deal Poison damage, not elemental damage (unless you're counting Poison as elemental...), so that isn't really true. The only good poisons are difficult to come by and still of questionable usability, often they are best used before launching a surprise attack since the action cost in combat is difficult and applying them before combat could lead to the poison being wasted on a different target. But then you also have your ingested or inhaled poisons which literally anybody in the party can use and when they do spell type effects, there is no caster, like with Zone of Truth, nobody knows if the effect actually worked on a Truth Serum poison.
I'd say very much that Poisons are not part of the core design of how Martial characters work, they are more for Rogues planning to launch a surprise attack or an attack from a hidden location, making their usage more than just a bit limited. Else wise, the only really good one is Crawler Mucus, which inflicts paralyse and 200GP, so a bit more available than most. The creature gets to roll a save at the end of their turn to try and recover, else wise lasts 1 minute. Paralyse is strong, so too is this. Overall, unless you're a rogue, it is not worth dealing with poisons, except for Purple Worm Poison (2000GP) and maybe Wyvern Poison(1200GP). The costs of the two good poisons are going to stop most parties from using them except for launching stealth attacks on difficult creatures.
EDIT: lets also not forget just how many creatures are resistant or immune to poison damage and immune to the poisoned condition...
Too be fair there are some poisons (and diseases) that do spell like effects. Now martials can use them on weapons but most casters are going to not be able to. This puts such Items in the same zone as "spell scrolls" but provides a advantage of stacking on top of a turn rather than just a free use.
This creates a potential power that most of the community doesn't use. if a marital takes equipment into account they can mimic "zone of truth", "sleep", "elemental damage", conditions etc. There is even oil of sharpness allowing +3 for several turns.
I believe a good rework of equipment, nets, vials, poison rules, and re-adding Holy Oils could definitely add some of the caster level utility back into the non caster classes. such rules combined with the new masteries and a couple of class features would probably be enough IMO.
The problem with Poisons is that they are expensive (even a basic poison is 100GP), take an action to apply and only half of them are applicable to weapons, if you apply it in advance, you don't know what the next creature you'll strike is and basic poison only lasts 1 minute on a weapon. Overall Poisons really aren't usable in 5E, unless it's Purple Worm Poison, it's rarely worth the action cost of applying a poison, most of the poisons have lowish DCs, more so for late game.
Let's look at the few you mention tho, "Zone of Truth", is Truth Serum, this needs to be ingested fully (not applied to weapons) and has a poultry DC of 11, it additionally has a MAJOR flaw, since nobody casts it then nobody knows if it actually affects the target or not, so if they pass that DC or not, you just don't know.
Second let's look at "Sleep", Well we could be talking, Torpor, Oil of Taggit or Drow Poison. Well Torpor is again ingested, so literally anybody in the group could do that. Well Oil of Taggit and Drow Poison both have a DC13, not the greatest, Drow Poison however, the sleep effect actually has a separate DC, which is 8...
Lastly, almost all poisons exclusively deal Poison damage, not elemental damage (unless you're counting Poison as elemental...), so that isn't really true. The only good poisons are difficult to come by and still of questionable usability, often they are best used before launching a surprise attack since the action cost in combat is difficult and applying them before combat could lead to the poison being wasted on a different target. But then you also have your ingested or inhaled poisons which literally anybody in the party can use and when they do spell type effects, there is no caster, like with Zone of Truth, nobody knows if the effect actually worked on a Truth Serum poison.
I'd say very much that Poisons are not part of the core design of how Martial characters work, they are more for Rogues planning to launch a surprise attack or an attack from a hidden location, making their usage more than just a bit limited. Else wise, the only really good one is Crawler Mucus, which inflicts paralyse and 200GP, so a bit more available than most. The creature gets to roll a save at the end of their turn to try and recover, else wise lasts 1 minute. Paralyse is strong, so too is this. Overall, unless you're a rogue, it is not worth dealing with poisons, except for Purple Worm Poison (2000GP) and maybe Wyvern Poison(1200GP). The costs of the two good poisons are going to stop most parties from using them except for launching stealth attacks on difficult creatures.
EDIT: lets also not forget just how many creatures are resistant or immune to poison damage and immune to the poisoned condition...
This is not an insult on your perspective because you have added some great insights to the forum But your response feels more gut reaction than analysis. You have a conclusion then justify with points Rather than looking at the information then drawing conclusions.
Firstly, I included all equipment, diseases, poisons etc. Many of the "elements" (necrotic, fire, acid, holy water) are actually equipment. Secondly assuming you are able to bypass the magic damage, the element dosen't matter (because there is no resistance to non-magic poison as an example )
Now 60% of all creatures with legendary actions are susceptible to poison(even above cr20). Of that remaining amount many are weak to holy water(fiends or undead). Even then often the "immune" to poison creatures are mob types better to not waste the resources on.
If 60% of the time I can choose to use a pool of free "attack attempts".... I'll take it.
You are also not counting harvesting. Anyone with a poisoners kit proficiency can get free poison. Since poisonous creatures are common ... the availability is also common. Not to mention purchasing or befriending acreature or for the specific downtime activity. Poisons are cheap often the cost is only time or hp in non combat senarios.
So looking at my sleep example we've got pseudodragons and brass dragons. Or spiders and centipedes that do paralisys those are readily available.
With Zone of Truth poisons detection of its effects is as simple as skill checks.
Finally, all I I tried to state was martials have a "potential power" that casters don't. Injury and selective equipment. This part of the game still needs rework to become "actual power" because most players don't try to use such tactics. Partially because of ease of use, Partially because of stigma.
Too be fair there are some poisons (and diseases) that do spell like effects. Now martials can use them on weapons but most casters are going to not be able to. This puts such Items in the same zone as "spell scrolls" but provides a advantage of stacking on top of a turn rather than just a free use.
This creates a potential power that most of the community doesn't use. if a marital takes equipment into account they can mimic "zone of truth", "sleep", "elemental damage", conditions etc. There is even oil of sharpness allowing +3 for several turns.
I believe a good rework of equipment, nets, vials, poison rules, and re-adding Holy Oils could definitely add some of the caster level utility back into the non caster classes. such rules combined with the new masteries and a couple of class features would probably be enough IMO.
This gave me an idea. What if we looked at some of the spells and found a way to relocate them for martials, would that put less of a divide between martials and casters? It’s say, for instance, martials had something like ‘decapitate’ which would essentially work the same way as ‘powerword kill’ or ‘volly’ which may work similar to ‘meteor storm’ I kind of like this concept, now that I’m thinking about it. It makes me think of the hunter ranger in 5e, it was really powerful in some situations.
This sounds a lot like 4th Edition D&D to me. In that edition, every class had Daily, Encounter, and At Will powers. Some of these powers were styled as spells, but martial powers were described more like maneuvers. You might want to see if you can find a 4E PHB for inspiration.
Depending on how its done it could. But there are spell mechanics that can work with martial maneuvers. We already have some with save effects does topple feel like a spell for example. Power word mechanics make a lot of sense for martial moves given the abstraction of hit points. When a warrior is facing a enemy weakened to the point they only have X hit points they can pull of various maneuvers on them without a save. You likely would want to go with different effects so it did not just feel like a copy, but something like hamstring, when a enemy's HP is below 3xfighter level you can execute hamstring and drop their speed to 0, save at the end of their turn to break the effect.
Exactly what I was thinking. I just used power word kill as an example but yeah. I was just thinking the biggest problem with the divide is that spells can do so much and so much more than just “I do damage” why can’t martials get some of that epicness? I’ve always flavor texted some spells into cool martial abilities such as shocking grasp into thunder punch or eldrich blast into a spectral bow that can do all sorts of things from the ivocations. Sword burst into Link’s spinning attack or just a flurry of attacks in every direction or Chunli’s spinning bird kick, etc.
Stuff like that, I could go on forever, but I’d like to see these things as actual things for martials to use as part of their classes instead of making them up. That was everyone can use them without having to take feats and other things to gain access to spells.
Too be fair there are some poisons (and diseases) that do spell like effects. Now martials can use them on weapons but most casters are going to not be able to. This puts such Items in the same zone as "spell scrolls" but provides a advantage of stacking on top of a turn rather than just a free use.
This creates a potential power that most of the community doesn't use. if a marital takes equipment into account they can mimic "zone of truth", "sleep", "elemental damage", conditions etc. There is even oil of sharpness allowing +3 for several turns.
I believe a good rework of equipment, nets, vials, poison rules, and re-adding Holy Oils could definitely add some of the caster level utility back into the non caster classes. such rules combined with the new masteries and a couple of class features would probably be enough IMO.
Interesting. Where are these poisons and things listed? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen them.
Any poisonous creature can be harvested. Dc20 nature or poison kit check. It takes 1d6 min.. if you roll below a 15 you inflicts it on yourself.
This is not an insult on your perspective because you have added some great insights to the forum But your response feels more gut reaction than analysis. You have a conclusion then justify with points Rather than looking at the information then drawing conclusions.
Firstly, I included all equipment, diseases, poisons etc. Many of the "elements" (necrotic, fire, acid, holy water) are actually equipment. Secondly assuming you are able to bypass the magic damage, the element dosen't matter (because there is no resistance to non-magic poison as an example )
Now 60% of all creatures with legendary actions are susceptible to poison(even above cr20). Of that remaining amount many are weak to holy water(fiends or undead). Even then often the "immune" to poison creatures are mob types better to not waste the resources on.
If 60% of the time I can choose to use a pool of free "attack attempts".... I'll take it.
You are also not counting harvesting. Anyone with a poisoners kit proficiency can get free poison. Since poisonous creatures are common ... the availability is also common. Not to mention purchasing or befriending acreature or for the specific downtime activity. Poisons are cheap often the cost is only time or hp in non combat senarios.
So looking at my sleep example we've got pseudodragons and brass dragons. Or spiders and centipedes that do paralisys those are readily available.
With Zone of Truth poisons detection of its effects is as simple as skill checks.
Finally, all I I tried to state was martials have a "potential power" that casters don't. Injury and selective equipment. This part of the game still needs rework to become "actual power" because most players don't try to use such tactics. Partially because of ease of use, Partially because of stigma.
I mean, it's a forum, not a thesis, most things are in response to other's comments, so not sure what that comment is meant to mean.
Poisonous creatures are only as common as the DM makes them and while the DM's handbook might say you can harvest poisons, if you check over the poisons themselves, they specify if they can be harvested from a creature.
The list of creatures is pretty small actually, Lycanthropes (Blood of the Lycanthropes), Carrion Crawler (Crawler Mucus), Purple Worm (Purple Worm Venom), Giant Poisonous Snake (Serpent Venom) and Wyvern (Wyvern Poison) being the ones listed (alphabetically sorted by names of the poison). There isn't any other rules that stipulate any other poisons or animals, so while it might say you can harvest a poison from poisonous creatures, there isn't any associated poisons to any other creatures then the ones I listed above; even going with common sense and giving discount basic poisons as 1 use is actually homebrew past this point.
So if you don't harvest, you're back to normal crafting rules which is 1 day for every 5 GP of progress and you still need to pay half the price, so 20 days for a basic poison at 50GP.... and yes, the DM's handbook states basic poison and that it is down to the DM if they want to permit anything but Basic Poison...
So basically, Poisons... not THAT common, if they were, why would Basic Poison cost 100GP to begin with, that is the same price as 2 great swords, 4 rapiers or 20 sets of Padded Armor.
60% of legendary creatures are susceptible to poison...
I am not going to figure it out further, but basically, over half of those listed on dndbeyond have poisoned condition immunity. Might be some similar creatures and some legacy creatures throwing a few numbers off tho.
Of those, the few that don't have Poison immunity, only 1 has a constitution of 20 or less, Iggwilv the ice witch, the rest are Dragons with a CON mod of +6~+8 with CON saving throws of +12~+14... half the poisons out there can't even affect them in any way since they default pass the constitution saving throw. At this point, even Purple Worm Poison is looking extremely weak.
Sorry, but I think you're doing what anybody has to do to make poisons useful in 5E, you're home-brewing, but you just don't realise it. There is nothing wrong with homebrewing, but as anything can be homebrewed, it is outside of what can really be discussed regarding the UA and how classes work. There is certainly room for how things should be fixed, like Poison, which even for Rogue, is very broken with default 5E rules, I certainly think there should be adjustments to make Poison much more usable for Rogues but for other classes, I don't think it should be going to poisons which are very much more thematically Rogue, arguably Ranger at a stretch.
This is not an insult on your perspective because you have added some great insights to the forum But your response feels more gut reaction than analysis. You have a conclusion then justify with points Rather than looking at the information then drawing conclusions.
Firstly, I included all equipment, diseases, poisons etc. Many of the "elements" (necrotic, fire, acid, holy water) are actually equipment. Secondly assuming you are able to bypass the magic damage, the element dosen't matter (because there is no resistance to non-magic poison as an example )
Now 60% of all creatures with legendary actions are susceptible to poison(even above cr20). Of that remaining amount many are weak to holy water(fiends or undead). Even then often the "immune" to poison creatures are mob types better to not waste the resources on.
If 60% of the time I can choose to use a pool of free "attack attempts".... I'll take it.
You are also not counting harvesting. Anyone with a poisoners kit proficiency can get free poison. Since poisonous creatures are common ... the availability is also common. Not to mention purchasing or befriending acreature or for the specific downtime activity. Poisons are cheap often the cost is only time or hp in non combat senarios.
So looking at my sleep example we've got pseudodragons and brass dragons. Or spiders and centipedes that do paralisys those are readily available.
With Zone of Truth poisons detection of its effects is as simple as skill checks.
Finally, all I I tried to state was martials have a "potential power" that casters don't. Injury and selective equipment. This part of the game still needs rework to become "actual power" because most players don't try to use such tactics. Partially because of ease of use, Partially because of stigma.
I mean, it's a forum, not a thesis, most things are in response to other's comments, so not sure what that comment is meant to mean.
Poisonous creatures are only as common as the DM makes them and while the DM's handbook might say you can harvest poisons, if you check over the poisons themselves, they specify if they can be harvested from a creature.
The list of creatures is pretty small actually, Lycanthropes (Blood of the Lycanthropes), Carrion Crawler (Crawler Mucus), Purple Worm (Purple Worm Venom), Giant Poisonous Snake (Serpent Venom) and Wyvern (Wyvern Poison) being the ones listed (alphabetically sorted by names of the poison). There isn't any other rules that stipulate any other poisons or animals, so while it might say you can harvest a poison from poisonous creatures, there isn't any associated poisons to any other creatures then the ones I listed above; even going with common sense and giving discount basic poisons as 1 use is actually homebrew past this point.
So if you don't harvest, you're back to normal crafting rules which is 1 day for every 5 GP of progress and you still need to pay half the price, so 20 days for a basic poison at 50GP.... and yes, the DM's handbook states basic poison and that it is down to the DM if they want to permit anything but Basic Poison...
So basically, Poisons... not THAT common, if they were, why would Basic Poison cost 100GP to begin with, that is the same price as 2 great swords, 4 rapiers or 20 sets of Padded Armor.
60% of legendary creatures are susceptible to poison...
I am not going to figure it out further, but basically, over half of those listed on dndbeyond have poisoned condition immunity. Might be some similar creatures and some legacy creatures throwing a few numbers off tho.
Of those, the few that don't have Poison immunity, only 1 has a constitution of 20 or less, Iggwilv the ice witch, the rest are Dragons with a CON mod of +6~+8 with CON saving throws of +12~+14... half the poisons out there can't even affect them in any way since they default pass the constitution saving throw. At this point, even Purple Worm Poison is looking extremely weak.
Sorry, but I think you're doing what anybody has to do to make poisons useful in 5E, you're home-brewing, but you just don't realise it. There is nothing wrong with homebrewing, but as anything can be homebrewed, it is outside of what can really be discussed regarding the UA and how classes work. There is certainly room for how things should be fixed, like Poison, which even for Rogue, is very broken with default 5E rules, I certainly think there should be adjustments to make Poison much more usable for Rogues but for other classes, I don't think it should be going to poisons which are very much more thematically Rogue, arguably Ranger at a stretch.
Sorry for the caveat, its easier to start off with such when you defend the exploration/preparation parts of the game.
Here Are the rules indicated for dms: /dmg/running-the-game#CraftingandHarvestingPoison . A dm chosing not to allow harvesting from any poisonous creature Is homebrewing a rule or using fiat. The rule is it must be a poisonous creature (not drow or sprites, Possibly not a magic summon as well). The example specifically says "a snake", Showing it isn't intend to be an all inclusive list.
A character can instead attempt to harvest poison from a poisonous creature, such as a snake, wyvern, or carrion crawler. The creature must be incapacitated or dead, and the harvesting requires 1d6 minutes followed by a DC 20 Intelligence (Nature) check. (Proficiency with the poisoner’s kit applies to this check if the character doesn’t have proficiency in Nature). On a successful check, the character harvests enough poison for a single dose. On a failed check, the character is unable to extract any poison. If the character fails the check by 5 or more, the character is subjected to the creature’s poison.
for my 60% I was using A different tool set (to be left un-named as a beyond competitor) I got 151 total legendary creatures and 56(37%) of those with poison immunity. I think the difference may be in adventure specific monsters.
Now as for the constitution of such monsters and static poison DC.
1. Saving for half is still extra damage on top of a fully normal turn.
2. There also are very few creatures that require no saves such as the flying snake, Ygochlo, grung or myconid. In particular flying snake is probably the easiest to get as I understand they are used by the zentarim in Forgotten realms lore.
3. we are still talking about extreme cases and a little extra variance is expected with normal play ranges. ITs good for the boss type creatures to have to be understood for adventure planning. Always effective strategies suck and even mages have to interact with anti-magic tools.
I mostly agree with your last paragraph. 5eR is supposed to be the same system just tweaked to fix issues. I am just presenting that poison (and equipment martials use ) is one avenue of achieving balance when there is an upset. poison Dc's , Holy oil, greek fire, special equipment, etc could Be adjusted to give martials a unique point for "epic actions" Cergonian123 asked for. My experience is that it is possible even in 5e. There are some liveplays that also have used such equipment to great effect. Now not everyone has that experience so IT should at least be accounted for in the game.
I will now quit clogging the thread on masteries because it is tangential but not core to the concept. ( if anyone wants more discussion I suggest a new thread)
Sorry for the caveat, its easier to start off with such when you defend the exploration/preparation parts of the game.
Here Are the rules indicated for dms: /dmg/running-the-game#CraftingandHarvestingPoison . A dm chosing not to allow harvesting from any poisonous creature Is homebrewing a rule or using fiat. The rule is it must be a poisonous creature (not drow or sprites, Possibly not a magic summon as well). The example specifically says "a snake", Showing it isn't intend to be an all inclusive list.
A character can instead attempt to harvest poison from a poisonous creature, such as a snake, wyvern, or carrion crawler. The creature must be incapacitated or dead, and the harvesting requires 1d6 minutes followed by a DC 20 Intelligence (Nature) check. (Proficiency with the poisoner’s kit applies to this check if the character doesn’t have proficiency in Nature). On a successful check, the character harvests enough poison for a single dose. On a failed check, the character is unable to extract any poison. If the character fails the check by 5 or more, the character is subjected to the creature’s poison.
I know that is what it says, but look at the creatures mentioned, Snake, Wyvern and Carrion Crawler. Look at the list I supplied. There is no relevant poison to a Pseudodragon or any other snake except a Giant Poisonous Snake, those items literally don't exist. In this case, I'm putting it down to an oversight that it should be saying that a character can instead attempt to harvest poison from a creature to which there is a known poison; since after all, nothing actually even defines what a Poisonous creature even is, is it creatures that inflict poison damage, or the poisoned condition? there is no poison tag tho some creatures contain poison in their name... and even under all of those, werewolves which are Lycantropes aren't any of those yet still have a related poison.
Poison just needs a full overhaul, and I think we can both agree to that, I'd disagree that it should be the fix to Martial classes to get more versatile effects and while it's not necessary, Poisons are a somewhat unrealistic solution, most people would know handling poisons is dangerous and putting poisons on weapons more so, it needs expert knowledge and experience which really is something for the "expert" classes.
Personally I think all the Martial Classes should get special moves similar to Monk/Battlemaster Fighter which can apply certain effects, not just these masteries. The Masteries are good, just not enough in my opinion, something simple but resource based.
Would it have killed someone if Graze dealt half damage on a miss? (Other than the enemies of course) Considering how many "half damage on a successful save" spells there are, I find it hilarious that a weapon with Graze could only deal 5 damage max (obviously before getting either an epic boon or an item that lets you go beyond a +5). Dealing half damage would also account for any other bonus to damage rolls your character may have (like dueling or rage), but not applying extra damage that happens on a hit (like smites or sneak attack).
On a side note, would it be a good idea to add a higher category for weapons? Simple and Martial have barely any difference when it comes to damage and the restrictions that most martial weapons have are almost irrelevant since they don't care about ability scores, making every single caster that gets Martial proficiency (either through a feat or a subclass) just as competent as warriors when wielding weapons. A new category of weapons only accessible to the Warrior group (preventing feat and subclass access) with stats requirement (so just multiclassing 1 lvl would still not be enough) would make them special an unique.
While I believe the forum needs to revolve around the Unearthed Arcana content. I also believe the occasional post and related to the topic of a house brew is warranted as a suggestion and useful to the developers, so long as it comes out of natural discussion from rule design in the playtest.
Considering how many "half damage on a successful save" spells there are
Those spells cost a resource to use though (spell slots), compared to attacks which you can normally keep doing for free every six seconds 14,400 times per day (less any time you spend on inconvenient things like not hacking someone to pieces).
Plus attack spells often do nothing on a miss as well, though there are a few that have secondary blasts or whatever that might still kick in. And there are plenty of spells that also just do nothing on a save, including all cantrips.
IMO Graze is fine as is, the main problem is it's only really worth activating if you know a target has a high AC, or you're fighting it in the dark or something, either way you're gambling on a significant enough portion of your attacks missing for Graze to outperform something else. Also I'm less interested in the passive effects personally, if it's to compete with spells then I want more things to do.
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Considering how many "half damage on a successful save" spells there are
Those spells cost a resource to use though (spell slots), compared to attacks which you can normally keep doing for free every six seconds 14,400 times per day (less any time you spend on inconvenient things like not hacking someone to pieces).
Plus attack spells often do nothing on a miss as well, though there are a few that have secondary blasts or whatever that might still kick in. And there are plenty of spells that also just do nothing on a save, including all cantrips.
IMO Graze is fine as is, the main problem is it's only really worth activating if you know a target has a high AC, or you're fighting it in the dark or something, either way you're gambling on a significant enough portion of your attacks missing for Graze to outperform something else. Also I'm less interested in the passive effects personally, if it's to compete with spells then I want more things to do.
Graze is actually one of the better options in terms of DPR. Typically you have a 65% chance to hit, which means Graze is activating most rounds from level 5 and above.
Graze seems to have been written with 5e Great Weapon Master in mind, so that you could still deal damage even if you decrease your chance to hit.
Well, there are not that many things to do with a weapon other than attacking that are not already combat actions available to anyone even if you don't have a weapon (you could always push a target shove or try to grapple), maybe have some masteries that add to your ability checks (like intimidation, survival or performance). Surely not AoE damage, since Cleave seems to be mastery meant for AoE damage.
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This sounds a lot like 4th Edition D&D to me. In that edition, every class had Daily, Encounter, and At Will powers. Some of these powers were styled as spells, but martial powers were described more like maneuvers. You might want to see if you can find a 4E PHB for inspiration.
Depending on how its done it could. But there are spell mechanics that can work with martial maneuvers. We already have some with save effects does topple feel like a spell for example. Power word mechanics make a lot of sense for martial moves given the abstraction of hit points. When a warrior is facing a enemy weakened to the point they only have X hit points they can pull of various maneuvers on them without a save. You likely would want to go with different effects so it did not just feel like a copy, but something like hamstring, when a enemy's HP is below 3xfighter level you can execute hamstring and drop their speed to 0, save at the end of their turn to break the effect.
That could be really cool. I mean, it would make the martials more epic and versatile.
Oh, I remember 4E, that’s when I started. My first character was a fighter. I always thought the combat was really interesting because of that but you just reminded me of the concept. I didn’t recognize it as that but yeah like that.
I have some notes about using 4th edition martial classes (fighter, ranger, rogue, warlord) as subclasses in 5e somewhere. I should write it up to be more accessible. 4e martials were fun, the problem was more with casters being kinda boring.
Exactly what I was thinking. I just used power word kill as an example but yeah. I was just thinking the biggest problem with the divide is that spells can do so much and so much more than just “I do damage” why can’t martials get some of that epicness?
I’ve always flavor texted some spells into cool martial abilities such as shocking grasp into thunder punch or eldrich blast into a spectral bow that can do all sorts of things from the ivocations. Sword burst into Link’s spinning attack or just a flurry of attacks in every direction or Chunli’s spinning bird kick, etc.
Stuff like that, I could go on forever, but I’d like to see these things as actual things for martials to use as part of their classes instead of making them up. That was everyone can use them without having to take feats and other things to gain access to spells.
Too be fair there are some poisons (and diseases) that do spell like effects. Now martials can use them on weapons but most casters are going to not be able to. This puts such Items in the same zone as "spell scrolls" but provides a advantage of stacking on top of a turn rather than just a free use.
This creates a potential power that most of the community doesn't use. if a marital takes equipment into account they can mimic "zone of truth", "sleep", "elemental damage", conditions etc. There is even oil of sharpness allowing +3 for several turns.
I believe a good rework of equipment, nets, vials, poison rules, and re-adding Holy Oils could definitely add some of the caster level utility back into the non caster classes. such rules combined with the new masteries and a couple of class features would probably be enough IMO.
Too be fair there are some poisons (and diseases) that do spell like effects. Now martials can use them on weapons but most casters are going to not be able to. This puts such Items in the same zone as "spell scrolls" but provides a advantage of stacking on top of a turn rather than just a free use.
This creates a potential power that most of the community doesn't use. if a marital takes equipment into account they can mimic "zone of truth", "sleep", "elemental damage", conditions etc. There is even oil of sharpness allowing +3 for several turns.
I believe a good rework of equipment, nets, vials, poison rules, and re-adding Holy Oils could definitely add some of the caster level utility back into the non caster classes. such rules combined with the new masteries and a couple of class features would probably be enough IMO.
Interesting. Where are these poisons and things listed? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen them.
You can find them with a search for "poison" in equipment, a bunch of them are even in the basic rules.
It's a fair point actually that these are options casters can't or won't usually use, but you just don't see them used much by martials, including on big name D&D shows like Acquisitions Incorporated, Critical Role etc. If they're supposed to be a core feature then Wizards of the Coast haven't done a very good job of emphasising them.
The DC's on poisons also don't scale, and it can be a very expensive habit to feed; equipment in general needs a major rethink as there are also a bunch of items that Rogues should be using yet you hardly see those either because they're bad in later tiers (and not amazing in tier 1 either). We also just don't really want any class to be item dependent, because that puts them at the mercy of item availability.
Really each class should be balanced on its own in isolation (with nothing but starting gear), and then all classes should have access to a similar mix of useful items they can be supplemented by so they remain balanced assuming a balanced mix of availability.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
The problem with Poisons is that they are expensive (even a basic poison is 100GP), take an action to apply and only half of them are applicable to weapons, if you apply it in advance, you don't know what the next creature you'll strike is and basic poison only lasts 1 minute on a weapon. Overall Poisons really aren't usable in 5E, unless it's Purple Worm Poison, it's rarely worth the action cost of applying a poison, most of the poisons have lowish DCs, more so for late game.
Let's look at the few you mention tho, "Zone of Truth", is Truth Serum, this needs to be ingested fully (not applied to weapons) and has a poultry DC of 11, it additionally has a MAJOR flaw, since nobody casts it then nobody knows if it actually affects the target or not, so if they pass that DC or not, you just don't know.
Second let's look at "Sleep", Well we could be talking, Torpor, Oil of Taggit or Drow Poison. Well Torpor is again ingested, so literally anybody in the group could do that. Well Oil of Taggit and Drow Poison both have a DC13, not the greatest, Drow Poison however, the sleep effect actually has a separate DC, which is 8...
Lastly, almost all poisons exclusively deal Poison damage, not elemental damage (unless you're counting Poison as elemental...), so that isn't really true. The only good poisons are difficult to come by and still of questionable usability, often they are best used before launching a surprise attack since the action cost in combat is difficult and applying them before combat could lead to the poison being wasted on a different target. But then you also have your ingested or inhaled poisons which literally anybody in the party can use and when they do spell type effects, there is no caster, like with Zone of Truth, nobody knows if the effect actually worked on a Truth Serum poison.
I'd say very much that Poisons are not part of the core design of how Martial characters work, they are more for Rogues planning to launch a surprise attack or an attack from a hidden location, making their usage more than just a bit limited. Else wise, the only really good one is Crawler Mucus, which inflicts paralyse and 200GP, so a bit more available than most. The creature gets to roll a save at the end of their turn to try and recover, else wise lasts 1 minute. Paralyse is strong, so too is this. Overall, unless you're a rogue, it is not worth dealing with poisons, except for Purple Worm Poison (2000GP) and maybe Wyvern Poison(1200GP). The costs of the two good poisons are going to stop most parties from using them except for launching stealth attacks on difficult creatures.
EDIT: lets also not forget just how many creatures are resistant or immune to poison damage and immune to the poisoned condition...
This is not an insult on your perspective because you have added some great insights to the forum But your response feels more gut reaction than analysis. You have a conclusion then justify with points Rather than looking at the information then drawing conclusions.
Firstly, I included all equipment, diseases, poisons etc. Many of the "elements" (necrotic, fire, acid, holy water) are actually equipment. Secondly assuming you are able to bypass the magic damage, the element dosen't matter (because there is no resistance to non-magic poison as an example )
Now 60% of all creatures with legendary actions are susceptible to poison(even above cr20). Of that remaining amount many are weak to holy water(fiends or undead). Even then often the "immune" to poison creatures are mob types better to not waste the resources on.
If 60% of the time I can choose to use a pool of free "attack attempts".... I'll take it.
You are also not counting harvesting. Anyone with a poisoners kit proficiency can get free poison. Since poisonous creatures are common ... the availability is also common. Not to mention purchasing or befriending acreature or for the specific downtime activity. Poisons are cheap often the cost is only time or hp in non combat senarios.
So looking at my sleep example we've got pseudodragons and brass dragons. Or spiders and centipedes that do paralisys those are readily available.
With Zone of Truth poisons detection of its effects is as simple as skill checks.
Finally, all I I tried to state was martials have a "potential power" that casters don't. Injury and selective equipment. This part of the game still needs rework to become "actual power" because most players don't try to use such tactics. Partially because of ease of use, Partially because of stigma.
Any poisonous creature can be harvested. Dc20 nature or poison kit check. It takes 1d6 min.. if you roll below a 15 you inflicts it on yourself.
Risk and reward tied together.
I mean, it's a forum, not a thesis, most things are in response to other's comments, so not sure what that comment is meant to mean.
Poisonous creatures are only as common as the DM makes them and while the DM's handbook might say you can harvest poisons, if you check over the poisons themselves, they specify if they can be harvested from a creature.
The list of creatures is pretty small actually, Lycanthropes (Blood of the Lycanthropes), Carrion Crawler (Crawler Mucus), Purple Worm (Purple Worm Venom), Giant Poisonous Snake (Serpent Venom) and Wyvern (Wyvern Poison) being the ones listed (alphabetically sorted by names of the poison). There isn't any other rules that stipulate any other poisons or animals, so while it might say you can harvest a poison from poisonous creatures, there isn't any associated poisons to any other creatures then the ones I listed above; even going with common sense and giving discount basic poisons as 1 use is actually homebrew past this point.
So if you don't harvest, you're back to normal crafting rules which is 1 day for every 5 GP of progress and you still need to pay half the price, so 20 days for a basic poison at 50GP.... and yes, the DM's handbook states basic poison and that it is down to the DM if they want to permit anything but Basic Poison...
So basically, Poisons... not THAT common, if they were, why would Basic Poison cost 100GP to begin with, that is the same price as 2 great swords, 4 rapiers or 20 sets of Padded Armor.
60% of legendary creatures are susceptible to poison...
There is 14 pages of Legendary creatures: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-is-legendary=t&filter-search=&filter-type=0&page=14
There is 8 pages of Legendary creatures with Poison immunity: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-condition-immunity=11&filter-is-legendary=t&filter-search=&filter-type=0&page=8
I am not going to figure it out further, but basically, over half of those listed on dndbeyond have poisoned condition immunity. Might be some similar creatures and some legacy creatures throwing a few numbers off tho.
But let's look at CR20 legendary creatures: https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-type=0&filter-search=&filter-cr-min=24&filter-cr-max=24&filter-armor-class-min=&filter-armor-class-max=&filter-average-hp-min=&filter-average-hp-max=&filter-is-legendary=t&filter-is-mythic=&filter-has-lair=
Of those, the few that don't have Poison immunity, only 1 has a constitution of 20 or less, Iggwilv the ice witch, the rest are Dragons with a CON mod of +6~+8 with CON saving throws of +12~+14... half the poisons out there can't even affect them in any way since they default pass the constitution saving throw. At this point, even Purple Worm Poison is looking extremely weak.
Sorry, but I think you're doing what anybody has to do to make poisons useful in 5E, you're home-brewing, but you just don't realise it. There is nothing wrong with homebrewing, but as anything can be homebrewed, it is outside of what can really be discussed regarding the UA and how classes work. There is certainly room for how things should be fixed, like Poison, which even for Rogue, is very broken with default 5E rules, I certainly think there should be adjustments to make Poison much more usable for Rogues but for other classes, I don't think it should be going to poisons which are very much more thematically Rogue, arguably Ranger at a stretch.
Sorry for the caveat, its easier to start off with such when you defend the exploration/preparation parts of the game.
Here Are the rules indicated for dms: /dmg/running-the-game#CraftingandHarvestingPoison . A dm chosing not to allow harvesting from any poisonous creature Is homebrewing a rule or using fiat. The rule is it must be a poisonous creature (not drow or sprites, Possibly not a magic summon as well). The example specifically says "a snake", Showing it isn't intend to be an all inclusive list.
for my 60% I was using A different tool set (to be left un-named as a beyond competitor) I got 151 total legendary creatures and 56(37%) of those with poison immunity. I think the difference may be in adventure specific monsters.
Now as for the constitution of such monsters and static poison DC.
1. Saving for half is still extra damage on top of a fully normal turn.
2. There also are very few creatures that require no saves such as the flying snake, Ygochlo, grung or myconid. In particular flying snake is probably the easiest to get as I understand they are used by the zentarim in Forgotten realms lore.
3. we are still talking about extreme cases and a little extra variance is expected with normal play ranges. ITs good for the boss type creatures to have to be understood for adventure planning. Always effective strategies suck and even mages have to interact with anti-magic tools.
I mostly agree with your last paragraph. 5eR is supposed to be the same system just tweaked to fix issues. I am just presenting that poison (and equipment martials use ) is one avenue of achieving balance when there is an upset. poison Dc's , Holy oil, greek fire, special equipment, etc could Be adjusted to give martials a unique point for "epic actions" Cergonian123 asked for. My experience is that it is possible even in 5e. There are some liveplays that also have used such equipment to great effect. Now not everyone has that experience so IT should at least be accounted for in the game.
I will now quit clogging the thread on masteries because it is tangential but not core to the concept. ( if anyone wants more discussion I suggest a new thread)
I know that is what it says, but look at the creatures mentioned, Snake, Wyvern and Carrion Crawler. Look at the list I supplied. There is no relevant poison to a Pseudodragon or any other snake except a Giant Poisonous Snake, those items literally don't exist. In this case, I'm putting it down to an oversight that it should be saying that a character can instead attempt to harvest poison from a creature to which there is a known poison; since after all, nothing actually even defines what a Poisonous creature even is, is it creatures that inflict poison damage, or the poisoned condition? there is no poison tag tho some creatures contain poison in their name... and even under all of those, werewolves which are Lycantropes aren't any of those yet still have a related poison.
Poison just needs a full overhaul, and I think we can both agree to that, I'd disagree that it should be the fix to Martial classes to get more versatile effects and while it's not necessary, Poisons are a somewhat unrealistic solution, most people would know handling poisons is dangerous and putting poisons on weapons more so, it needs expert knowledge and experience which really is something for the "expert" classes.
Personally I think all the Martial Classes should get special moves similar to Monk/Battlemaster Fighter which can apply certain effects, not just these masteries. The Masteries are good, just not enough in my opinion, something simple but resource based.
Would it have killed someone if Graze dealt half damage on a miss? (Other than the enemies of course) Considering how many "half damage on a successful save" spells there are, I find it hilarious that a weapon with Graze could only deal 5 damage max (obviously before getting either an epic boon or an item that lets you go beyond a +5). Dealing half damage would also account for any other bonus to damage rolls your character may have (like dueling or rage), but not applying extra damage that happens on a hit (like smites or sneak attack).
On a side note, would it be a good idea to add a higher category for weapons? Simple and Martial have barely any difference when it comes to damage and the restrictions that most martial weapons have are almost irrelevant since they don't care about ability scores, making every single caster that gets Martial proficiency (either through a feat or a subclass) just as competent as warriors when wielding weapons. A new category of weapons only accessible to the Warrior group (preventing feat and subclass access) with stats requirement (so just multiclassing 1 lvl would still not be enough) would make them special an unique.
While I believe the forum needs to revolve around the Unearthed Arcana content. I also believe the occasional post and related to the topic of a house brew is warranted as a suggestion and useful to the developers, so long as it comes out of natural discussion from rule design in the playtest.
Those spells cost a resource to use though (spell slots), compared to attacks which you can normally keep doing for free every six seconds 14,400 times per day (less any time you spend on inconvenient things like not hacking someone to pieces).
Plus attack spells often do nothing on a miss as well, though there are a few that have secondary blasts or whatever that might still kick in. And there are plenty of spells that also just do nothing on a save, including all cantrips.
IMO Graze is fine as is, the main problem is it's only really worth activating if you know a target has a high AC, or you're fighting it in the dark or something, either way you're gambling on a significant enough portion of your attacks missing for Graze to outperform something else. Also I'm less interested in the passive effects personally, if it's to compete with spells then I want more things to do.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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Graze is actually one of the better options in terms of DPR. Typically you have a 65% chance to hit, which means Graze is activating most rounds from level 5 and above.
Graze seems to have been written with 5e Great Weapon Master in mind, so that you could still deal damage even if you decrease your chance to hit.
Well, there are not that many things to do with a weapon other than attacking that are not already combat actions available to anyone even if you don't have a weapon (you could always push a target shove or try to grapple), maybe have some masteries that add to your ability checks (like intimidation, survival or performance). Surely not AoE damage, since Cleave seems to be mastery meant for AoE damage.