This sounds like after Tasha’s came out, and everyone was only ever going to play mountain dwarves. Yet, here we are in a world that’s not all dwarves all the time. Sure, there’s people who will pick a mastery, then find a weapon that fits it. But there’s lots and lots of others who just pick whatever weapon is cool for their character, and then end up with whatever mastery happens to be attached. Give folks some credit for not everyone being powergamers.
And for the record, powergamimg, and choosing mastery first is perfectly valid, no method is superior, as long as it’s fun for whoever is playing.
It's not about powergaming, it's about actual absence of options. You don't gain any options with this system, you don't make any more tactical decisions in combat than you did in 5e - your weapon can now do one, and only one additional thing that you spam over and over, unless you carry a golf bag of weapons and switch them for every strike - though most classes are limited in how many weapons that can use even in this convoluted and implausible way.
This. Its why I think they need to really change it up.
I think it stands to reason if masteries could be determined by weapons size and damage type. If the weapon is light, then it automatically has Nick, it it's heavy, it has Graze. If it's bludgeoning, it has Push and Topple, if it's piercing, it has Vex and Slow. Kind of like that. One passive to give more distinction to a group of weapons, and two or three options to apply with a hit.
The question of trade-offs and limitations is also quite important. Just spamming stuff because it's free isn't quite a decision, and some options are better than others, like Topple is usually better than Push. Maybe if would make sense to choose which mastery can be used on each turn? Like you could focus on toppling at the expense of graze on this turn? Fighters could then circumvent this limitation and use different masteries on each strike, and apply one mastery that doesn't belong to the weapon they're using, like Nick with a longsword.
I think it stands to reason if masteries could be determined by weapons size and damage type. If the weapon is light, then it automatically has Nick, it it's heavy, it has Graze. If it's bludgeoning, it has Push and Topple, if it's piercing, it has Vex and Slow. Kind of like that. One passive to give more distinction to a group of weapons, and two or three options to apply with a hit.
The question of trade-offs and limitations is also quite important. Just spamming stuff because it's free isn't quite a decision, and some options are better than others, like Topple is usually better than Push. Maybe if would make sense to choose which mastery can be used on each turn? Like you could focus on toppling at the expense of graze on this turn? Fighters could then circumvent this limitation and use different masteries on each strike, and apply one mastery that doesn't belong to the weapon they're using, like Nick with a longsword.
the thing to realize is, weapon mastery's design, is a lot about making sure fighter is the best at it, and rationing its power via level scaling.
they give other classes a weak mastery, but for them its less about tactics, and more about weapon specialization/build.
if they wanted every one to gain tactics, you'd master the masteries, not the weapons, and you'd be able to use whatever masteries you knew, that worked with the weapon's properties.
but they wanted it to tie heavily into fighter, only fighter and barb have enough masteries per day to use it tactically, only fighter gets to use the weapon property aspect of it, and only fighter's multi attacks allows more than one swap barring thrown weapons. (better tactical and strategic use)
so yeah, its a lot more limited than it could be, but thats because one of its prime goals is fighters must always be best at it. thats why monk can't have it and MA dice, because it would make them the best at certain weapons. Its why barb can't use the property aspect, and why they don't let you learn it by mastery.
sucks in some ways, but other classes got other tricks. barb might get the worst of it, because they don't really have a lot going on, in terms of options in play
Frankly, I don't see a point in limiting masteries/weapons known at all. Its only purpose is to probably reduce the size of the golf bag, but it doesn't do anything to get rid of the golf bag/juggling itself.
The way I see it, all classes with martial aspect should be capable of using all masteries (after all, it's just being able to do, say, one of three things when you melee) - but the fighter should be capable of bending the rules. If a paladin or ranger would have to commit to grazing or attempting to topple on a given turn, a fighter could graze on one attack and topple on the other, and slow on the third despite slow not being on the list of masteries for the weapon.
This approach provides options in combat without having to juggle weapons, and lets fighters use the mechanic to its maximum potential.
I could see giving martials that have weapon masteries the ability similar to UA5's Fighters Weapon Expert. Let them be able to switch out their masteries known on a weapon that meets the prerequisites on a LR. Let fighters do like the UA5's Weapon Adept and put two properties on a weapon and let them decide which they use for each hit.
Or let other martials put two masteries known on their weapons that meet the prerequisites and use whichever one they want per attack. And let Fighters be able to put any mastery they know on a weapon that meets the prerequisite and use two of those masteries at a time on each attack. Possibly at higher level have access to masteries on any weapon even if it doesn't meet the prerequisite.
But I don't think that will happen. But who knows, JC did say that even after all the surveys, no matter how well anything scored, they will still be tweaking everything. And maybe a broader mastery system is what they were looking at all along, but only put out this version to gauge the community and get feedback. I mean, they already said 9 of the 12 classes were done playtesting before PHB UA8 came out and we know they will be making changes to those 9 classes before publication. They had just enough information they needed to move forward with those classes.
Frankly, I don't see a point in limiting masteries/weapons known at all. Its only purpose is to probably reduce the size of the golf bag, but it doesn't do anything to get rid of the golf bag/juggling itself.
The way I see it, all classes with martial aspect should be capable of using all masteries (after all, it's just being able to do, say, one of three things when you melee) - but the fighter should be capable of bending the rules. If a paladin or ranger would have to commit to grazing or attempting to topple on a given turn, a fighter could graze on one attack and topple on the other, and slow on the third despite slow not being on the list of masteries for the weapon.
This approach provides options in combat without having to juggle weapons, and lets fighters use the mechanic to its maximum potential.
I'm not sure I agree with the idea of fighters getting the most out of it. Remove masteries are the fighters worse off than other martials? I don't think so, they are generally considered the better martial in 5e. so, why give them the most. I mostly agree with the rest of that, though I'd think it would be cool if there were general masteries and then class specific ones, like a rangers might blend ideas of stealth and martial skill, the barbarian ones might be focused around raw power, the fighters more focused on pure weapon skill.
To be clear, i am not saying i dislike other peoples getting to use masteries better, more, and better user experience of masteries,
but what im saying is that for WOTC its very important that fighters are the best at mastery, by a clear margin. They also want its effects to scale with level.
masteries are bland and made more bland by giving them to more people, spreading it thin. so much mastering going on.
if they wanted tactical, they had slashing-piercing-blunt staring them in the face for some sort of rock-paper-scissors parry/attack system. even if it was only a scaling +/- to damage, it would still be interesting to poke at an axe weilder, and catch claws on a club, or what not. spears against horses, and different shields for different situations. intelligent check and balance stuff. instead they gave us somewhat facilitated two-weapon fighting and two-handed cleave and heavy weapon topple all of which should have been a thing already. it shouldn't take "mastery" to swing a little wide. a master is one who knows that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa. *does a flip* ... which I have.
To be clear, i am not saying i dislike other peoples getting to use masteries better, more, and better user experience of masteries,
but what im saying is that for WOTC its very important that fighters are the best at mastery, by a clear margin. They also want its effects to scale with level.
Yes, it has been their official stance. I personally don't care for it, but they have been clear its how they think it should work .
masteries are bland and made more bland by giving them to more people, spreading it thin. so much mastering going on.
if they wanted tactical, they had slashing-piercing-blunt staring them in the face for some sort of rock-paper-scissors parry/attack system. even if it was only a scaling +/- to damage, it would still be interesting to poke at an axe weilder, and catch claws on a club, or what not. spears against horses, and different shields for different situations. intelligent check and balance stuff. instead they gave us somewhat facilitated two-weapon fighting and two-handed cleave and heavy weapon topple all of which should have been a thing already. it shouldn't take "mastery" to swing a little wide. a master is one who knows that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa. *does a flip* ... which I have.
I got bored with them as is pretty fast. Oh you fell down again, woo. I missed, well you still take 4 damage is useful specially with how I roll but I just don't care I got bored.
masteries are bland and made more bland by giving them to more people, spreading it thin. so much mastering going on.
if they wanted tactical, they had slashing-piercing-blunt staring them in the face for some sort of rock-paper-scissors parry/attack system. even if it was only a scaling +/- to damage, it would still be interesting to poke at an axe weilder, and catch claws on a club, or what not. spears against horses, and different shields for different situations. intelligent check and balance stuff. instead they gave us somewhat facilitated two-weapon fighting and two-handed cleave and heavy weapon topple all of which should have been a thing already. it shouldn't take "mastery" to swing a little wide. a master is one who knows that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa. *does a flip* ... which I have.
BPS isnt tactical, its not a thing that changes based on whats occurring in the field. Its just know weakness. The key to r p s is you don't know which until the moment it happens. Which won't work with this system.
I'm not sure I agree with the idea of fighters getting the most out of it. Remove masteries are the fighters worse off than other martials? I don't think so, they are generally considered the better martial in 5e. so, why give them the most. I mostly agree with the rest of that, though I'd think it would be cool if there were general masteries and then class specific ones, like a rangers might blend ideas of stealth and martial skill, the barbarian ones might be focused around raw power, the fighters more focused on pure weapon skill.
Every class has its shtick, but the fighters' shtick is kind of not having one, it's being bland and basic. Maneuvers didn't make it into the base class, so what is fighters' core mechanic, core idea? I think being true masters of weapons is a good fit for class identity. Besides, it's not a straight numeric buff, it's mostly about having stuff to do, decisions to make other than just idly poking things with a pointy end (though if you ask me, three topples a turn is already a lot). Of course such changes shouldn't be applied to a class in a vacuum, without any adjustments.
masteries are bland and made more bland by giving them to more people, spreading it thin. so much mastering going on.
if they wanted tactical, they had slashing-piercing-blunt staring them in the face for some sort of rock-paper-scissors parry/attack system. even if it was only a scaling +/- to damage, it would still be interesting to poke at an axe weilder, and catch claws on a club, or what not. spears against horses, and different shields for different situations. intelligent check and balance stuff. instead they gave us somewhat facilitated two-weapon fighting and two-handed cleave and heavy weapon topple all of which should have been a thing already. it shouldn't take "mastery" to swing a little wide. a master is one who knows that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa. *does a flip* ... which I have.
Great! Now I’m going to have Princess Bride quotes stuck in my head all day lol!
Universal "tactical" choices are never going to happen. People have been complaining about it endlessly since 5e came out, so of course WotC knows that the dedicated fans who calculate expected DPR and argue endlessly over rule interpretations want a zillion different things they can do in combat. So if they were going to do it, they would have done so by now.
They haven't and they won't because the people on this board, the talking heads on youtube, they represent a tiny minority of the player base. The people complaining about lack of choices are precisely the ones who can competently homebrew as many combat choices as they want into the game. There are already half a dozen optional combat action in the DMG that you can add for more tactical options, and about a million homebrew weapons, classes, and subclasses you can add or use to give tons of choices. Or add one of the half dozen weapon-action systems out there.
Whereas there is a huge number of casual players out there (not to mention the significant number of children) who don't want to spend 1 hour just reading stuff in order to play their character, or their whole party to be wiped because they made one wrong choice. Most of the players at my tables even when playing a spellcaster end up relying on the same 1-3 go-to spells, this "casters have a hundred choices whereas the Fighter only has one" is IME largely false in actual play, almost every player including the spellcasters do not use the choices available to them and instead have one default strategy they always use. To the point that even the spellcaster player will get frustrated and annoyed if the DM presents a challenge that deliberately makes their default strategy ineffective to try to encourage them to try new things.
WotC knows that for D&D to remain the dominant game in the area, they need to cater to the casuals equally if not more so than the dedicated fans, it's why Flex was included as a Mastery in the first place. They're now catering more to the dedicated fans because of their self-imposed crowd-sourcing strategy to the revision and because the market is probably nearing saturation so gaining new players is less important than retaining current ones, but still the vast majority of the player base is not answering the surveys and even fewer are on these forums.
TL:DR - D&D is not a tactical war game any more and it's not going to go back to being one, D&D has ~4x more players than Warhammer 40k today, and the videogame world says the same thing - the RPG market is much much larger than tactical strategy games. So D&D is not going to go back to being a strategy game.
Universal "tactical" choices are never going to happen. People have been complaining about it endlessly since 5e came out, so of course WotC knows that the dedicated fans who calculate expected DPR and argue endlessly over rule interpretations want a zillion different things they can do in combat. So if they were going to do it, they would have done so by now.
They haven't and they won't because the people on this board, the talking heads on youtube, they represent a tiny minority of the player base. The people complaining about lack of choices are precisely the ones who can competently homebrew as many combat choices as they want into the game. There are already half a dozen optional combat action in the DMG that you can add for more tactical options, and about a million homebrew weapons, classes, and subclasses you can add or use to give tons of choices. Or add one of the half dozen weapon-action systems out there.
Whereas there is a huge number of casual players out there (not to mention the significant number of children) who don't want to spend 1 hour just reading stuff in order to play their character, or their whole party to be wiped because they made one wrong choice. Most of the players at my tables even when playing a spellcaster end up relying on the same 1-3 go-to spells, this "casters have a hundred choices whereas the Fighter only has one" is IME largely false in actual play, almost every player including the spellcasters do not use the choices available to them and instead have one default strategy they always use. To the point that even the spellcaster player will get frustrated and annoyed if the DM presents a challenge that deliberately makes their default strategy ineffective to try to encourage them to try new things.
WotC knows that for D&D to remain the dominant game in the area, they need to cater to the casuals equally if not more so than the dedicated fans, it's why Flex was included as a Mastery in the first place. They're now catering more to the dedicated fans because of their self-imposed crowd-sourcing strategy to the revision and because the market is probably nearing saturation so gaining new players is less important than retaining current ones, but still the vast majority of the player base is not answering the surveys and even fewer are on these forums.
TL:DR - D&D is not a tactical war game any more and it's not going to go back to being one, D&D has ~4x more players than Warhammer 40k today, and the videogame world says the same thing - the RPG market is much much larger than tactical strategy games. So D&D is not going to go back to being a strategy game.
RPG market in video games, is mostly based off dnd 5e. Even action games tend to have rpg mechanics at its core. hidden randomized damage, positional benefits, weapons with accuracy and multipliers. BG3 is huge btw, game of the year. And they actually added more mechanics and abilities and special weapons. WoW, FFXIV, 99% of jrpgs
Now, i will say that these mechanics are a lot more palatable to regular people when they are mostly automated, but its still a very popular framework. If you look at "tactical strategy" you will most of the dnd knockoffs/borrowers/inspired by.
Thing is some things are nice the first time, but the basics arent that hard, and people get bored with swing and miss after maybe 2-10 hours of play.
Now, is there a market for a faster, less board game math like RPG, definitely, the thing is that would be nothing like 5e, and this is a 5e upgrade. They could try to make the game faster, but they would have to do a lot of work for balance. And really i think the players actually prefer the rough edges of 5e rules. People may complain about slow games, or complex rules, but few people are willing to give up their flavor/immersion for the sake of streamlining. We saw it many times in the UA.
The thing about those casters who use the same 2-3 spells;
A. lots of those spells are pretty good or adequate.
B. Not using an option is easy, not having an option is annoying.
I think that the problem with Masteries being built primarily as a Fighter feature is it makes Masteries weirdly complex in a way that only one class can really take advantage of. Where every weapon has a specific mastery, but also each different mastery has rules for what other weapons they qualify for, which is only relevant if you're playing as a high level fighter. At this point I would either want masteries to be opened up for more tactical options for all classes, or I'd rather they just make it a Fighter class feature and find other tactical options to give to the other Martial classes. Like how Masteries were taken away from Monks because they already get a lot of tactical options from their Disciplines.
masteries are bland and made more bland by giving them to more people, spreading it thin. so much mastering going on.
if they wanted tactical, they had slashing-piercing-blunt staring them in the face for some sort of rock-paper-scissors parry/attack system. even if it was only a scaling +/- to damage, it would still be interesting to poke at an axe weilder, and catch claws on a club, or what not. spears against horses, and different shields for different situations. intelligent check and balance stuff. instead they gave us somewhat facilitated two-weapon fighting and two-handed cleave and heavy weapon topple all of which should have been a thing already. it shouldn't take "mastery" to swing a little wide. a master is one who knows that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa. *does a flip* ... which I have.
BPS isnt tactical, its not a thing that changes based on whats occurring in the field. Its just know weakness. The key to r p s is you don't know which until the moment it happens. Which won't work with this system.
i'm not recommending a system of fighters holding a weapon behind their back and the werewolf they're fighting has to guess which one will come out. plenty of boardgames, card games, and strategy video games use a rock paper scissors strong vs weak counter system... age of empires and fire emblem jump to the fore.
RPG market in video games, is mostly based off 5e. Even action games tend to have rpg mechanics at its core. hidden randomized damage, positional benefits, weapons with accuracy and multipliers. BG3 is huge btw, game of the year.
LOL, no definitely not. RPGs in videogames have long long predated 5e and were the dominant form of RPG experience prior to 5e (TBH they probably still are the dominant experience but 5e has certainly massively expanded the exposure of D&D), and D&D has generally had a relatively small share of the market. Mass Effect, Bioshock, Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, Witcher, KoToR, Zelda, Fallout, Dishonoured, Assassin's Creed, Horizon.... etc.. etc... have nothing to do with 5e. The only widely successful game based on 5e is BG3 (with significant inspiration from the Divinity series), and the previous major success based on D&D was back in 1998 with the original Baldur's Gate. Most truly RPG games quickly become "spam the most effective attack until the enemy is dead" and your ability to beat enemies is largely based on your character level rather than your tactics or skill - the Witcher is a prime example of this - dozens of mechanics that almost all players never use because they are completely unnecessary - just whack it with your sword until its dead. Or Elderscrolls is even more along those lines.
BG3 maybe huge and this year's game of the year, but FromSoftware action-RPGs have been game of the year twice in the past 5 years. Since 2014, 8 RPGs have been game of the year only 1 of which has anything to do with D&D.
RPG market in video games, is mostly based off 5e. Even action games tend to have rpg mechanics at its core. hidden randomized damage, positional benefits, weapons with accuracy and multipliers. BG3 is huge btw, game of the year.
LOL, no definitely not. RPGs in videogames have long long predated 5e and were the dominant form of RPG experience prior to 5e (TBH they probably still are the dominant experience but 5e has certainly massively expanded the exposure of D&D), and D&D has generally had a relatively small share of the market. Mass Effect, Bioshock, Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, Witcher, KoToR, Zelda, Fallout, Dishonoured, Assassin's Creed, Horizon.... etc.. etc... have nothing to do with 5e. The only widely successful game based on 5e is BG3 (with significant inspiration from the Divinity series), and the previous major success based on D&D was back in 1998 with the original Baldur's Gate. Most truly RPG games quickly become "spam the most effective attack until the enemy is dead" and your ability to beat enemies is largely based on your character level rather than your tactics or skill - the Witcher is a prime example of this - dozens of mechanics that almost all players never use because they are completely unnecessary - just whack it with your sword until its dead. Or Elderscrolls is even more along those lines.
BG3 maybe huge and this year's game of the year, but FromSoftware action-RPGs have been game of the year twice in the past 5 years. Since 2014, 8 RPGs have been game of the year only 1 of which has anything to do with D&D.
yeah, that was a mistype, I meant to say dnd. many games I was referring to were out before 5e
the context is most video games using board game ttrpg mechanics and concept in the core of their play/game design, and therefore casual players are not automatically against ttrpg boardgame tactical design
masteries are bland and made more bland by giving them to more people, spreading it thin. so much mastering going on.
if they wanted tactical, they had slashing-piercing-blunt staring them in the face for some sort of rock-paper-scissors parry/attack system. even if it was only a scaling +/- to damage, it would still be interesting to poke at an axe weilder, and catch claws on a club, or what not. spears against horses, and different shields for different situations. intelligent check and balance stuff. instead they gave us somewhat facilitated two-weapon fighting and two-handed cleave and heavy weapon topple all of which should have been a thing already. it shouldn't take "mastery" to swing a little wide. a master is one who knows that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa. *does a flip* ... which I have.
BPS isnt tactical, its not a thing that changes based on whats occurring in the field. Its just know weakness. The key to r p s is you don't know which until the moment it happens. Which won't work with this system.
i'm not recommending a system of fighters holding a weapon behind their back and the werewolf they're fighting has to guess which one will come out. plenty of boardgames, card games, and strategy video games use a rock paper scissors strong vs weak counter system... age of empires and fire emblem jump to the fore.
So are you suggesting something like 1e, with the weapon vs. AC chart/modifiers? Because the reality would be the weapon being strong against some armors and weak against others — not against other weapons. So either we go to something like that chart, or things like chain mail has vulnerability to piercing weapons, but resistance to slashing.
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This. Its why I think they need to really change it up.
I think it stands to reason if masteries could be determined by weapons size and damage type. If the weapon is light, then it automatically has Nick, it it's heavy, it has Graze. If it's bludgeoning, it has Push and Topple, if it's piercing, it has Vex and Slow. Kind of like that. One passive to give more distinction to a group of weapons, and two or three options to apply with a hit.
The question of trade-offs and limitations is also quite important. Just spamming stuff because it's free isn't quite a decision, and some options are better than others, like Topple is usually better than Push. Maybe if would make sense to choose which mastery can be used on each turn? Like you could focus on toppling at the expense of graze on this turn? Fighters could then circumvent this limitation and use different masteries on each strike, and apply one mastery that doesn't belong to the weapon they're using, like Nick with a longsword.
the thing to realize is, weapon mastery's design, is a lot about making sure fighter is the best at it, and rationing its power via level scaling.
they give other classes a weak mastery, but for them its less about tactics, and more about weapon specialization/build.
if they wanted every one to gain tactics, you'd master the masteries, not the weapons, and you'd be able to use whatever masteries you knew, that worked with the weapon's properties.
but they wanted it to tie heavily into fighter, only fighter and barb have enough masteries per day to use it tactically, only fighter gets to use the weapon property aspect of it, and only fighter's multi attacks allows more than one swap barring thrown weapons. (better tactical and strategic use)
so yeah, its a lot more limited than it could be, but thats because one of its prime goals is fighters must always be best at it. thats why monk can't have it and MA dice, because it would make them the best at certain weapons. Its why barb can't use the property aspect, and why they don't let you learn it by mastery.
sucks in some ways, but other classes got other tricks. barb might get the worst of it, because they don't really have a lot going on, in terms of options in play
Frankly, I don't see a point in limiting masteries/weapons known at all. Its only purpose is to probably reduce the size of the golf bag, but it doesn't do anything to get rid of the golf bag/juggling itself.
The way I see it, all classes with martial aspect should be capable of using all masteries (after all, it's just being able to do, say, one of three things when you melee) - but the fighter should be capable of bending the rules. If a paladin or ranger would have to commit to grazing or attempting to topple on a given turn, a fighter could graze on one attack and topple on the other, and slow on the third despite slow not being on the list of masteries for the weapon.
This approach provides options in combat without having to juggle weapons, and lets fighters use the mechanic to its maximum potential.
I could see giving martials that have weapon masteries the ability similar to UA5's Fighters Weapon Expert. Let them be able to switch out their masteries known on a weapon that meets the prerequisites on a LR. Let fighters do like the UA5's Weapon Adept and put two properties on a weapon and let them decide which they use for each hit.
Or let other martials put two masteries known on their weapons that meet the prerequisites and use whichever one they want per attack. And let Fighters be able to put any mastery they know on a weapon that meets the prerequisite and use two of those masteries at a time on each attack. Possibly at higher level have access to masteries on any weapon even if it doesn't meet the prerequisite.
But I don't think that will happen. But who knows, JC did say that even after all the surveys, no matter how well anything scored, they will still be tweaking everything. And maybe a broader mastery system is what they were looking at all along, but only put out this version to gauge the community and get feedback. I mean, they already said 9 of the 12 classes were done playtesting before PHB UA8 came out and we know they will be making changes to those 9 classes before publication. They had just enough information they needed to move forward with those classes.
I'm not sure I agree with the idea of fighters getting the most out of it. Remove masteries are the fighters worse off than other martials? I don't think so, they are generally considered the better martial in 5e. so, why give them the most. I mostly agree with the rest of that, though I'd think it would be cool if there were general masteries and then class specific ones, like a rangers might blend ideas of stealth and martial skill, the barbarian ones might be focused around raw power, the fighters more focused on pure weapon skill.
To be clear, i am not saying i dislike other peoples getting to use masteries better, more, and better user experience of masteries,
but what im saying is that for WOTC its very important that fighters are the best at mastery, by a clear margin. They also want its effects to scale with level.
masteries are bland and made more bland by giving them to more people, spreading it thin. so much mastering going on.
if they wanted tactical, they had slashing-piercing-blunt staring them in the face for some sort of rock-paper-scissors parry/attack system. even if it was only a scaling +/- to damage, it would still be interesting to poke at an axe weilder, and catch claws on a club, or what not. spears against horses, and different shields for different situations. intelligent check and balance stuff. instead they gave us somewhat facilitated two-weapon fighting and two-handed cleave and heavy weapon topple all of which should have been a thing already. it shouldn't take "mastery" to swing a little wide. a master is one who knows that Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro. unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa. *does a flip* ... which I have.
Yes, it has been their official stance. I personally don't care for it, but they have been clear its how they think it should work .
I got bored with them as is pretty fast. Oh you fell down again, woo. I missed, well you still take 4 damage is useful specially with how I roll but I just don't care I got bored.
BPS isnt tactical, its not a thing that changes based on whats occurring in the field. Its just know weakness. The key to r p s is you don't know which until the moment it happens. Which won't work with this system.
Every class has its shtick, but the fighters' shtick is kind of not having one, it's being bland and basic. Maneuvers didn't make it into the base class, so what is fighters' core mechanic, core idea? I think being true masters of weapons is a good fit for class identity. Besides, it's not a straight numeric buff, it's mostly about having stuff to do, decisions to make other than just idly poking things with a pointy end (though if you ask me, three topples a turn is already a lot). Of course such changes shouldn't be applied to a class in a vacuum, without any adjustments.
Great! Now I’m going to have Princess Bride quotes stuck in my head all day lol!
Universal "tactical" choices are never going to happen. People have been complaining about it endlessly since 5e came out, so of course WotC knows that the dedicated fans who calculate expected DPR and argue endlessly over rule interpretations want a zillion different things they can do in combat. So if they were going to do it, they would have done so by now.
They haven't and they won't because the people on this board, the talking heads on youtube, they represent a tiny minority of the player base. The people complaining about lack of choices are precisely the ones who can competently homebrew as many combat choices as they want into the game. There are already half a dozen optional combat action in the DMG that you can add for more tactical options, and about a million homebrew weapons, classes, and subclasses you can add or use to give tons of choices. Or add one of the half dozen weapon-action systems out there.
Whereas there is a huge number of casual players out there (not to mention the significant number of children) who don't want to spend 1 hour just reading stuff in order to play their character, or their whole party to be wiped because they made one wrong choice. Most of the players at my tables even when playing a spellcaster end up relying on the same 1-3 go-to spells, this "casters have a hundred choices whereas the Fighter only has one" is IME largely false in actual play, almost every player including the spellcasters do not use the choices available to them and instead have one default strategy they always use. To the point that even the spellcaster player will get frustrated and annoyed if the DM presents a challenge that deliberately makes their default strategy ineffective to try to encourage them to try new things.
WotC knows that for D&D to remain the dominant game in the area, they need to cater to the casuals equally if not more so than the dedicated fans, it's why Flex was included as a Mastery in the first place. They're now catering more to the dedicated fans because of their self-imposed crowd-sourcing strategy to the revision and because the market is probably nearing saturation so gaining new players is less important than retaining current ones, but still the vast majority of the player base is not answering the surveys and even fewer are on these forums.
TL:DR - D&D is not a tactical war game any more and it's not going to go back to being one, D&D has ~4x more players than Warhammer 40k today, and the videogame world says the same thing - the RPG market is much much larger than tactical strategy games. So D&D is not going to go back to being a strategy game.
RPG market in video games, is mostly based off dnd
5e. Even action games tend to have rpg mechanics at its core. hidden randomized damage, positional benefits, weapons with accuracy and multipliers. BG3 is huge btw, game of the year. And they actually added more mechanics and abilities and special weapons. WoW, FFXIV, 99% of jrpgsNow, i will say that these mechanics are a lot more palatable to regular people when they are mostly automated, but its still a very popular framework. If you look at "tactical strategy" you will most of the dnd knockoffs/borrowers/inspired by.
Thing is some things are nice the first time, but the basics arent that hard, and people get bored with swing and miss after maybe 2-10 hours of play.
Now, is there a market for a faster, less board game math like RPG, definitely, the thing is that would be nothing like 5e, and this is a 5e upgrade. They could try to make the game faster, but they would have to do a lot of work for balance. And really i think the players actually prefer the rough edges of 5e rules. People may complain about slow games, or complex rules, but few people are willing to give up their flavor/immersion for the sake of streamlining. We saw it many times in the UA.
The thing about those casters who use the same 2-3 spells;
A. lots of those spells are pretty good or adequate.
B. Not using an option is easy, not having an option is annoying.
I think that the problem with Masteries being built primarily as a Fighter feature is it makes Masteries weirdly complex in a way that only one class can really take advantage of. Where every weapon has a specific mastery, but also each different mastery has rules for what other weapons they qualify for, which is only relevant if you're playing as a high level fighter. At this point I would either want masteries to be opened up for more tactical options for all classes, or I'd rather they just make it a Fighter class feature and find other tactical options to give to the other Martial classes. Like how Masteries were taken away from Monks because they already get a lot of tactical options from their Disciplines.
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i'm not recommending a system of fighters holding a weapon behind their back and the werewolf they're fighting has to guess which one will come out. plenty of boardgames, card games, and strategy video games use a rock paper scissors strong vs weak counter system... age of empires and fire emblem jump to the fore.
LOL, no definitely not. RPGs in videogames have long long predated 5e and were the dominant form of RPG experience prior to 5e (TBH they probably still are the dominant experience but 5e has certainly massively expanded the exposure of D&D), and D&D has generally had a relatively small share of the market. Mass Effect, Bioshock, Final Fantasy, Dark Souls, Witcher, KoToR, Zelda, Fallout, Dishonoured, Assassin's Creed, Horizon.... etc.. etc... have nothing to do with 5e. The only widely successful game based on 5e is BG3 (with significant inspiration from the Divinity series), and the previous major success based on D&D was back in 1998 with the original Baldur's Gate. Most truly RPG games quickly become "spam the most effective attack until the enemy is dead" and your ability to beat enemies is largely based on your character level rather than your tactics or skill - the Witcher is a prime example of this - dozens of mechanics that almost all players never use because they are completely unnecessary - just whack it with your sword until its dead. Or Elderscrolls is even more along those lines.
BG3 maybe huge and this year's game of the year, but FromSoftware action-RPGs have been game of the year twice in the past 5 years. Since 2014, 8 RPGs have been game of the year only 1 of which has anything to do with D&D.
yeah, that was a mistype, I meant to say dnd. many games I was referring to were out before 5e
the context is most video games using board game ttrpg mechanics and concept in the core of their play/game design, and therefore casual players are not automatically against ttrpg boardgame tactical design
So are you suggesting something like 1e, with the weapon vs. AC chart/modifiers? Because the reality would be the weapon being strong against some armors and weak against others — not against other weapons. So either we go to something like that chart, or things like chain mail has vulnerability to piercing weapons, but resistance to slashing.