The main thing I see flex touching on is the 'bastard' hand and a half sword from previous versions of dnd. Higher damage and with the right circumstances held in one hand. It is useful for trying to get a bit more damage from sword and board playstyle just nothing outside of that. At least nothing I can see. I do feel like not everything with versatile should have flex. I too would like the spear or quarterstaff mastery to be reach or something else (wait couple weapons have versatile and topple). I would take topple on a quarterstaff or spear.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
The rogue has been fixed if they keep it as is in this UA. Cunning Strike doesn’t completely close the gap on spellcasters, but it gives the rogue an actual chioce every time they land there sneak attack. Now is a Rogue with thieves tools better than a Wizard with knock will always be debatable depending on the circumstances, but I feel Cunning Strike is fun. It’s like WotC heard us say we want battle master maneuvers for all fighters and said no, but here we will put them on all rogues. Lol. I get it, they don’t want to get rid of a fan favorite subclass just to make it the base fighter. Also there is a question of balance at that point because superiority dice grow as you level, so would that mean all the other fighter subclass features need to be nerfed if they were all given superiority dice. I’m of a kind of having my cake and eating it too. Give all fighters d4 superiority dice that never scale up and don’t give them as many maneuver options or uses per rest then keep battle master subclass and give them scaling dice by level, more options and uses as they level. So all fighters do what Battle masters do but Battle masters do it much better. To me that’s fun. Weapon Masteries are nice, but aren’t fun.
Hopefully the rogues cunning strike will review well enough they expand it.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Flex isn’t a bad mastery, versatile is a bad property. The inclusion of masteries actually has the potential to improve versatile as a property. You should get a different property when you hold a versatile weapon in two hands. So a longsword could be flex one handed with graze two handed, a battle axe could be topple one handed with cleave two hand, and so on for all versatile weapons.
Flex isn’t a bad mastery, versatile is a bad property. The inclusion of masteries actually has the potential to improve versatile as a property. You should get a different property when you hold a versatile weapon in two hands. So a longsword could be flex one handed with graze two handed, a battle axe could be topple one handed with cleave two hand, and so on for all versatile weapons.
That’s an interesting idea. Although the other weapons might need something more or versatile weapons (with two mastery effects) would be must have weapons.
Flex isn’t a bad mastery, versatile is a bad property. The inclusion of masteries actually has the potential to improve versatile as a property. You should get a different property when you hold a versatile weapon in two hands. So a longsword could be flex one handed with graze two handed, a battle axe could be topple one handed with cleave two hand, and so on for all versatile weapons.
That’s an interesting idea. Although the other weapons might need something more or versatile weapons (with two mastery effects) would be must have weapons.
Nah, because if you want big damage and GWM you still need that real heavy two hander. The only weapons that would seem odd is the 1d8 one hand only weapons, but I think those are the only ones that have the sap. Having a unique weapon mastery might be enough
Nah, the best way to the martial-caster imbalance is to nerf casters. Its that simple. Either reduce the length of spells (ten rounds is actually super long in dnd), have spells do less damage, or both. Or, you could make some classes have access to better tanking abilities that let them live longer. DnD isnt that much different than any other video game and Game Theory is what sets balancing standards, not the medium that the game is played in. The caster-martial disparity has existed for a long time in DnD and they purposefully wont fix it because theyll get complaints about it from people who primarily play casters.
As for weapon masteries, youre right they dont have to be that interesting and they can still be balanced and new. If you need to implement a system this convoluted and large just to balance the game between casters and melee, then you have a far bigger problem on your hands. You know how in Halo 3, you could customize the settings so everyone ran super fast, had overshields, jumped really high, and started with rocket launchers? Eventually DnD will approach that type of gameplay if you keep adding systems for balancing purposes instead of actually balancing the systems that are already in place. This is actually why WoW started to die. There was a specific moment when they gave Rogues a healing ability, and it was completely fan service. Slowly you ended up in a situation where every class could do almost everything to an extent; everyone had some type of jump, everyone had some type of self heal, everyone had a stun and interrupt, you could either tank or dodge. Etc. Everyone complains that spellcasters are super strong, and then they refuse to play spellcasters lol. They just want their Barbarian to do everything a wizard does. Its hilarious too, within like a day of release every fighter started carrying fifteen weapons in a bag bahaha. Thats not good bro
Its way too convoluted and youre essentially just adding spell effects to weapon attacks. At what point do we just grant martial classes a special rune system that allows them to stamp Sword Shapes onto the rune, which allows you to do a bunch of super duper cool special effects when you attack with that sword. Whats the difference between a Wizards Slow and a Rangers Slow? One is objectively worse by a long shot. Pun Intended.
When you design a system like this, it has to be broad, and simple. This is the specific type of system where you need to avoid complexity. Instead of adding a mastery for each weapon itself, just add a mastery for the damage type of the weapon. You know what doesnt make sense? A Greatsword not being able to cleave. On the other hand, if a Greatsword had a greater chance to hit because its a large slashing weapon, that would make sense. You could do a system where piercing weapons crit on 19-20, Slashing weapons add a +# onto your hit roll, and blunt weapons deal some damage even if you miss. Or, you could nerf spellcasters. Or, you could give some classes access to more movement speed and better tanking abilities. You could literally do anything BUT what theyve done here and it would probably be better. Versatile weapons could swap between Crit and Slashing. Entire player builds could be based around the fact that your character likes to hold his rapier in the Crit pose instead of the Slashing one. Simple systems can sometimes open up more possibilities than complex ones. You could even argue that the current system is limiting in the fact that some Masteries are objectively better than others, or how some of the current masteries are better to use in some situations and if youre in that situation, you should always use a weapon with that mastery.
The main thing I see flex touching on is the 'bastard' hand and a half sword from previous versions of dnd. Higher damage and with the right circumstances held in one hand. It is useful for trying to get a bit more damage from sword and board playstyle just nothing outside of that. At least nothing I can see. I do feel like not everything with versatile should have flex. I too would like the spear or quarterstaff mastery to be reach or something else (wait couple weapons have versatile and topple). I would take topple on a quarterstaff or spear.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Hopefully the rogues cunning strike will review well enough they expand it.
I would expect them to refine rather than expand.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
I would be fine if they refine and expand weapon masteries.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Flex isn’t a bad mastery, versatile is a bad property. The inclusion of masteries actually has the potential to improve versatile as a property. You should get a different property when you hold a versatile weapon in two hands. So a longsword could be flex one handed with graze two handed, a battle axe could be topple one handed with cleave two hand, and so on for all versatile weapons.
That’s an interesting idea. Although the other weapons might need something more or versatile weapons (with two mastery effects) would be must have weapons.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Nah, because if you want big damage and GWM you still need that real heavy two hander. The only weapons that would seem odd is the 1d8 one hand only weapons, but I think those are the only ones that have the sap. Having a unique weapon mastery might be enough
Nah, the best way to the martial-caster imbalance is to nerf casters. Its that simple. Either reduce the length of spells (ten rounds is actually super long in dnd), have spells do less damage, or both. Or, you could make some classes have access to better tanking abilities that let them live longer. DnD isnt that much different than any other video game and Game Theory is what sets balancing standards, not the medium that the game is played in. The caster-martial disparity has existed for a long time in DnD and they purposefully wont fix it because theyll get complaints about it from people who primarily play casters.
As for weapon masteries, youre right they dont have to be that interesting and they can still be balanced and new. If you need to implement a system this convoluted and large just to balance the game between casters and melee, then you have a far bigger problem on your hands. You know how in Halo 3, you could customize the settings so everyone ran super fast, had overshields, jumped really high, and started with rocket launchers? Eventually DnD will approach that type of gameplay if you keep adding systems for balancing purposes instead of actually balancing the systems that are already in place. This is actually why WoW started to die. There was a specific moment when they gave Rogues a healing ability, and it was completely fan service. Slowly you ended up in a situation where every class could do almost everything to an extent; everyone had some type of jump, everyone had some type of self heal, everyone had a stun and interrupt, you could either tank or dodge. Etc. Everyone complains that spellcasters are super strong, and then they refuse to play spellcasters lol. They just want their Barbarian to do everything a wizard does. Its hilarious too, within like a day of release every fighter started carrying fifteen weapons in a bag bahaha. Thats not good bro
Its way too convoluted and youre essentially just adding spell effects to weapon attacks. At what point do we just grant martial classes a special rune system that allows them to stamp Sword Shapes onto the rune, which allows you to do a bunch of super duper cool special effects when you attack with that sword. Whats the difference between a Wizards Slow and a Rangers Slow? One is objectively worse by a long shot. Pun Intended.
When you design a system like this, it has to be broad, and simple. This is the specific type of system where you need to avoid complexity. Instead of adding a mastery for each weapon itself, just add a mastery for the damage type of the weapon. You know what doesnt make sense? A Greatsword not being able to cleave. On the other hand, if a Greatsword had a greater chance to hit because its a large slashing weapon, that would make sense. You could do a system where piercing weapons crit on 19-20, Slashing weapons add a +# onto your hit roll, and blunt weapons deal some damage even if you miss. Or, you could nerf spellcasters. Or, you could give some classes access to more movement speed and better tanking abilities. You could literally do anything BUT what theyve done here and it would probably be better. Versatile weapons could swap between Crit and Slashing. Entire player builds could be based around the fact that your character likes to hold his rapier in the Crit pose instead of the Slashing one. Simple systems can sometimes open up more possibilities than complex ones. You could even argue that the current system is limiting in the fact that some Masteries are objectively better than others, or how some of the current masteries are better to use in some situations and if youre in that situation, you should always use a weapon with that mastery.
I just want the alternate universe where people didn’t whine the Battle Master manoeuvres off of the base Fighter