If you look way back at the playtest for 5e, they originally didn't have extra attack as an ability, they had increased damage for single attacks (double base weapon damage, triple, quadruple).
I liked that and wanted them to refine it. Basically it played out like the current rogues cunning strike. Your damage dice went up but you could spend them o other things. I'd of loved if they had a bunch of dice and you could spend none to all of them on each attack. Go crazy at higher levels like think if something like steel wind strike cost 5 dice. So maybe you only end up doing weapon damage but you hit 5 targets and teleport 30 feet. Sadly they got rid of it instead.
If you look way back at the playtest for 5e, they originally didn't have extra attack as an ability, they had increased damage for single attacks (double base weapon damage, triple, quadruple).
The problem with that design is swing-y-ness. If you only have 1 attack per round, and only 4 round combats then there's a 2% chance a character that attacks every turn won't hit at all for an entire combat which is definitely not fun. Being able to get more than one attack is good, but to avoid bloating combat with a zillion attacks there must be diminishing returns for each additional attack, so that a character with 3 attacks is dealing only slightly more damage than one with 2 attacks and one with 4 attacks is practically indistinguishable from one with 3 attacks. It would be pretty easy to design it as such:
1. make all bonus damage once/turn. 2. make all attacks outside of the Attack action never add your ability modifier 3. make all no-action cost additional attacks (Nick, Cleave) deal only 1d4 damage.
Hm... maybe I should write a 5e.24 Slim version of the game.
No worse than saving throws, and it's the way the game already works in tier 1.
Saving throws mostly have "1/2 damage on success" to mitigate the swingy-ness (and people hate save-or-suck spells because of their swingyness) and tier 1 you're dealing with smaller numbers overall which mathematically reduces the swinginess - though I agree from a game-design point of view the absolutely value doesn't matter it's the value vs player/monster HP that matters. Tier 1 combat is much more swing-y like than tier 2 combat which IMO is why most people consider tier-2 to be the sweet spot for DnD. It's not unplayable certainly, but IME most players & DMs prefer mid-tier less swingy combat.
No worse than saving throws, and it's the way the game already works in tier 1.
Saving throws mostly have "1/2 damage on success" to mitigate the swingy-ness (and people hate save-or-suck spells because of their swingyness) and tier 1 you're dealing with smaller numbers overall which mathematically reduces the swinginess - though I agree from a game-design point of view the absolutely value doesn't matter it's the value vs player/monster HP that matters. Tier 1 combat is much more swing-y like than tier 2 combat which IMO is why most people consider tier-2 to be the sweet spot for DnD. It's not unplayable certainly, but IME most players & DMs prefer mid-tier less swingy combat.
Cantrips are save or nothing and those get fired off quite a bit until mid tier 2 in my experience, then casters have so many damn spells they only use utility cantrips. But yes for leveled spells they are save for 1/2 for damage,, save or nothing on non damaging spells. But I would say outside a few spells save or else options are generally considered the superior option. The difference is they effectively have multiple attacks as they hit an area.
that being said I still think the 5e playtest version with 1 attack was superior. I think you could have mitigated that feeling by giving martials a luck pool for rerolls. A reroll to fix a miss that still misses is close to the same as just missing twice. And I think they should have added in more area of effect options for the martials so they could depending on design get multiple attack rolls that way as well.
Longsword was an afterthought. It was supposed to have flex, but people complained about it. Flex would have been mathematically amazing, but we can't have nice things.
This kind of epitomizes my issue with the discourse around martials. People complained that martials are boring, that weapons are boring, because they all do the exact same thing. They said they wanted martials to have options but then when WotC add in a bunch of options, people immediately start complaining their their favourite weapon from an aesthetic point of view doesn't have the most powerful option in terms of dealing damage attached to it. I kind of wish WotC had made all of the Weapon Masteries DPR-neutral, and instead only had them debuff the enemy - slow, sap, disarm, something that prevents them making opportunity attacks, something that reduces their ac by 1 or that gives a -1d4 to their next saving throw.
I'd of been fine with DPR neutral, my main issue is I don't think they should be linked to weapons. Let the maritals learn a certain number of masteries as they level, and they can freely use them with whatever weapon they want. While I get the weapon diversity argument, I think having more options at the fly is more important to entertaining game play.
Dagger with topple or push doesn’t seem right to me so making WM divorced from weapon seems like it would allow weird combos.
No weapon makes sense with push. And any weapon makes sense with topple as it makes sense with unarmed combat and you body is still available while using a daggers, but even without the rest of your body a dagger to the back of your knee might knock you down.
For many of these especially given how often it can trigger I just accept its basically magic as bolts will not push someone back, especially not 10 feet even Hollywood shotguns don't throw people back 10 feet, maybe Bollywood. Every time you kit someone you wont create a opening, Every time yo hit someone you wont knock them off balance so they are at disadvantage to attack. Every time you hit someone it wont slow them etc. Its magic at this point.
I don't understand how the Dagger Topples someone. It sounds like the unarmed attack does in this scenario not the Dagger itself. Which I would be cool with Unarmed getting Topple. Plus, I actually like Nick quite a bit. It is one if the better ones because it frees up the Bonus Action for Disengage or Bonus Action spells.
Well since my argument is it should not be the weapons that grant masteries but the character that was the point. But if you need to see it as the dagger it can just be knife to the knee. A knife to the knee making someone fall makes a whole lot more sense than a crossbow bolt throwing someone back 10 feet.
That feels even-more-so like it a full class ability. What I like about the WM is that they are (ideally) features which are organic to their design. Daggers are seen as fast weapons which typically are wielded in the offhand when dual wielding so someone who is knowledgeable about weapons would know how to leverage that natural design feature.
Stabbing to the knee or a Called Shot used to be and can be something every weapon could do in D&D until 4e and I do feel like that should make a comeback along with a ton of other more advanced rules like Flanking or from 2e AD&D Armor Corrosion and Damage Nullification.
However, in the case of Daggers I do agree with their choice of Nick being the WM as you can make a Push as part of your Unarmed Attack and then follow-up with Nick on the Attack with Advantage once they are Prone and then Disengage as a Bonus Action if your multi-classed into Rogue and Monk. There are other ways to do this besides multi-classing too.
Now Whips and Longswords; however, I don't understand those choices. I guess with a Whip you can technically kite an opponent if you're lucky, but I do feel like they missed out on failing to play into the Versatile feature of the Longsword which is the only weapon that has that as an option iirc.
The point of monk was just because they are two mastery, like everyone except fighter, barbarian, and oddly warlock.
fighter can't swap any properties unlimitedly, they can swap mastery that fits the properties of the weapon. longsword cant use light required masteries, or heavy req masteries.
They also have to decide in the beginning of the day which masteries for which weapons they will use.
weapon swaps are limited by number of attacks, and fighter has the most number of attacks. a lvl 20 fighter can make 6 to 10 attacks per round.
they can totally use, for example, nick, vex, push and cleave for example in one turn. the next turn they might want to nick sap topple cleave.
fighter actually has a lot of reason to want more masteries, and they are the only one who can really make good use of the system, in part because they can master a number of weapons. Other classes, its just an extra effect for their weapon, not a tactical option.
as far as quality teirs on weapons, sometimes its worth it to use a lower quality weapon, also they are probably going to have different suggested system for item acquisition. Bastions can already create magi items
Yes, a fighter can have 5-6 weapons mastered at a time. They can, theoretically, swap among them in a given round. My point is, they won’t actually do it.
For one, they’re never going to swap a 1-handed weapon for a 2-handed, because they’ll lose an action doffing their shield. Second, they won’t have that many good weapons (I mean, how often are you walking around carrying 4 or 5 melee weapons, anyway?) And even if you are, you’re not going to swap your +3 weapon for a +1 because the mastery on the +1 is better in a given situation. You’ll just use the +3, so you can hit more reliably, and do damage more reliably. Damaging is always going to be more important, because dead is the status effect you most want to apply to an enemy.
And, if you throw in the possibility of having something like crusher/slasher/piercer, you’re going to be actively discouraged from a lot of swapping.
Basic +X weapons are generally plentiful and don't require attunement so you can easily rack up an arsenal of +X weapons.
In the campaign I’ve been playing in for the last 5+ years everyone has a magic weapon but 3 of the 5 players have one magic weapon while two of us have two. I have a +1 spear that I’ve had since about 4th level and a +3 Moon Sickle (mainly for the DC bump on my Land Druid) that I got at 14th or 15th level. My DM let each player choose one magic item, which he had to approve, as a gift from an ancient red dragon we helped. The other character that has two magic weapons is the Fighter.
So I don’t know if I would call that an arsenal of +X weapons after 16 levels of play.
Why does your land druid have a +1 spear? That's totally useless to them is it not? Why wouldn't they give it to the fighter to add to their collection? Same goes for all the casters. There is very little reason for any caster to hold onto a magic weapon if the Fighter could make use of it. Similarly in the design of 2024, most classes only get 2-3 weapon masteries so would only be looking to pick up 2-3 such weapons, which is often very easy - most games I play in have shops that sell +1 weapons for ~1000 gp each, so looting a couple of sets of plate armour would be sufficient to buy another +1 weapon.
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I liked that and wanted them to refine it. Basically it played out like the current rogues cunning strike. Your damage dice went up but you could spend them o other things. I'd of loved if they had a bunch of dice and you could spend none to all of them on each attack. Go crazy at higher levels like think if something like steel wind strike cost 5 dice. So maybe you only end up doing weapon damage but you hit 5 targets and teleport 30 feet. Sadly they got rid of it instead.
The problem with that design is swing-y-ness. If you only have 1 attack per round, and only 4 round combats then there's a 2% chance a character that attacks every turn won't hit at all for an entire combat which is definitely not fun. Being able to get more than one attack is good, but to avoid bloating combat with a zillion attacks there must be diminishing returns for each additional attack, so that a character with 3 attacks is dealing only slightly more damage than one with 2 attacks and one with 4 attacks is practically indistinguishable from one with 3 attacks. It would be pretty easy to design it as such:
1. make all bonus damage once/turn.
2. make all attacks outside of the Attack action never add your ability modifier
3. make all no-action cost additional attacks (Nick, Cleave) deal only 1d4 damage.
Hm... maybe I should write a 5e.24 Slim version of the game.
No worse than saving throws, and it's the way the game already works in tier 1.
Saving throws mostly have "1/2 damage on success" to mitigate the swingy-ness (and people hate save-or-suck spells because of their swingyness) and tier 1 you're dealing with smaller numbers overall which mathematically reduces the swinginess - though I agree from a game-design point of view the absolutely value doesn't matter it's the value vs player/monster HP that matters. Tier 1 combat is much more swing-y like than tier 2 combat which IMO is why most people consider tier-2 to be the sweet spot for DnD. It's not unplayable certainly, but IME most players & DMs prefer mid-tier less swingy combat.
Cantrips are save or nothing and those get fired off quite a bit until mid tier 2 in my experience, then casters have so many damn spells they only use utility cantrips. But yes for leveled spells they are save for 1/2 for damage,, save or nothing on non damaging spells. But I would say outside a few spells save or else options are generally considered the superior option. The difference is they effectively have multiple attacks as they hit an area.
that being said I still think the 5e playtest version with 1 attack was superior. I think you could have mitigated that feeling by giving martials a luck pool for rerolls. A reroll to fix a miss that still misses is close to the same as just missing twice. And I think they should have added in more area of effect options for the martials so they could depending on design get multiple attack rolls that way as well.
That feels even-more-so like it a full class ability. What I like about the WM is that they are (ideally) features which are organic to their design. Daggers are seen as fast weapons which typically are wielded in the offhand when dual wielding so someone who is knowledgeable about weapons would know how to leverage that natural design feature.
Stabbing to the knee or a Called Shot used to be and can be something every weapon could do in D&D until 4e and I do feel like that should make a comeback along with a ton of other more advanced rules like Flanking or from 2e AD&D Armor Corrosion and Damage Nullification.
However, in the case of Daggers I do agree with their choice of Nick being the WM as you can make a Push as part of your Unarmed Attack and then follow-up with Nick on the Attack with Advantage once they are Prone and then Disengage as a Bonus Action if your multi-classed into Rogue and Monk. There are other ways to do this besides multi-classing too.
Now Whips and Longswords; however, I don't understand those choices. I guess with a Whip you can technically kite an opponent if you're lucky, but I do feel like they missed out on failing to play into the Versatile feature of the Longsword which is the only weapon that has that as an option iirc.
"Life is Cast by Random Dice"
Burn my candle twice.
I have done my life justice
Against random dice.
Why does your land druid have a +1 spear? That's totally useless to them is it not? Why wouldn't they give it to the fighter to add to their collection? Same goes for all the casters. There is very little reason for any caster to hold onto a magic weapon if the Fighter could make use of it. Similarly in the design of 2024, most classes only get 2-3 weapon masteries so would only be looking to pick up 2-3 such weapons, which is often very easy - most games I play in have shops that sell +1 weapons for ~1000 gp each, so looting a couple of sets of plate armour would be sufficient to buy another +1 weapon.