Plus Battlemaster and to a lesser degree Monks already cover the general “tactical use of abilities” area of martial play. It’s not that Wizards is giving this segment no support, but they have- probably correctly- concluded that it’s a smaller segment of the general population of martial players.
In 4e, everyone had similar levels of power and control. It slowed combat down. Now, those control options are pretty much only a caster thing again, and the martial caster divide is back. For consistent damage, martials are imo, competitive. It's heavy control spells that really cause problems for the game. Completely deleting monsters from the encounter math for a period of time is where caster power truly comes from, and that's something that a martial simply can't do.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
This is only true because martial players refuse to sacrifice DPR to do something else. Everyone is gushing about Push being able to move enemies into AoE spells, when martials can already do that with Grapple & Drag! Why is Push suddenly this amazing thing but nobody ever uses Grapple? - ANS: because martial players want to hit stuff with big weapons for big damage.
Martial players don't really want options, they want to hit stuff with weapons - if they wanted lots of tactical options they could go play a Moon Druid with it's dozens of situationally powerful spells and dozens of different animal forms with different abilities to choose from. They don't, and Moon Druid is much maligned for being "Too complicated" because "I don't want to have to look through half a dozen books to find the optimal choices".
Fundamentally the fantasy for martial players is "Rarr! Big axe go Smash!". It's why Riposte is the favourite Battlemaster maneuver, and why Grapple, Shove, and Push are massively underutilized, despite being very good options in many situations. It's why GWM and PAM are considered must-takes but Shield Master with it's choice of Shove/Push as a BA is considered a 2nd or 3rd tier feat. Sure people love the Weapon Mastery, but that is specifically because it just adds on top of "Rarr! Big axe go Smash!", it isn't really a choice as nothing is sacrificed and especially won't be a choice as soon as the party gets magic weapons.
According to D&D Beyond statistics, martials remain more popular than casters across the platform. This is despite the omnipresent narrative of "martials suck, everyone should play a caster." So clearly, there is demand for simple straightforward characters, that fulfill their presented fantasy.
To be fair, grappling and shoving do heavily favor characters who are built to support such actions. A lot of such options, including later added ones like disarming, favor PCs who invest in the required stat, usually Strength.
The reason that Push is getting a lot of hype is because it's cheap and easy. There's already a lot of existing features that let PCs push enemies on attack, but they're typically limited to once a turn, are one of several possible options, and/or require a saving throw. The Push mastery is simply on-hit, not requiring compromising on damage. It's massively more effective than most existing options for pushing an enemy. (Frankly, isn't it bizarre that you can push an enemy farther with a weapon attack than you can with the dedicated push action?)
But I think this hits the nail on the head with many of the problems with how the playtests have approached new features. There's a rare few things that have gotten reined in to reasonable limits, but stuff like Weapon Mastery, Cunning Strikes, Brutal Strikes have gotten high approval because the subset of players who want to feel as powerful as possible, every single turn. They don't want trade-offs or reasonable limits or meaningful choices, they want as many effects and as much damage as possible. Even if a class has severely limited options (see: Monks in comparison to Cunning/Brutal Strikes) they're fine if those limited options feel powerful.
Part of that can be attributed to limited options for such things existing in 5e, as well as certain overpowered options (namely Those Three Feats), but I feel like the kind of game that the sort of people responding to the playtests, the kind of game where Barbarians can apply three separate effects in a single attack with no limit or cost, isn't necessarily the sort of game a lot of average 5e players want to play. And by designing features based on feedback from those sorts of players, all that will happen is an even greater gulf between players who base their choices around flavor and those who optimize every PC choice.
But I don't know anyone who seriously sees the issue of martial vs. caster balance as one where their preferred solution is for martials to stay repetitive but be slightly more effective – everyone I know is desperate for more things to do as martials, because that's the real big difference between them and casters; casters can have answers to everything, whereas martials just hit stuff or, if they're feeling really adventurous, hit stuff some more. When I'm playing a martial what I want are options, I want to be choosing between different options for risk and reward.
This is only true because martial players refuse to sacrifice DPR to do something else. Everyone is gushing about Push being able to move enemies into AoE spells, when martials can already do that with Grapple & Drag! Why is Push suddenly this amazing thing but nobody ever uses Grapple? - ANS: because martial players want to hit stuff with big weapons for big damage.
Martial players don't really want options, they want to hit stuff with weapons - if they wanted lots of tactical options they could go play a Moon Druid with it's dozens of situationally powerful spells and dozens of different animal forms with different abilities to choose from. They don't, and Moon Druid is much maligned for being "Too complicated" because "I don't want to have to look through half a dozen books to find the optimal choices".
Fundamentally the fantasy for martial players is "Rarr! Big axe go Smash!". It's why Riposte is the favourite Battlemaster maneuver, and why Grapple, Shove, and Push are massively underutilized, despite being very good options in many situations. It's why GWM and PAM are considered must-takes but Shield Master with it's choice of Shove/Push as a BA is considered a 2nd or 3rd tier feat. Sure people love the Weapon Mastery, but that is specifically because it just adds on top of "Rarr! Big axe go Smash!", it isn't really a choice as nothing is sacrificed and especially won't be a choice as soon as the party gets magic weapons.
According to D&D Beyond statistics, martials remain more popular than casters across the platform. This is despite the omnipresent narrative of "martials suck, everyone should play a caster." So clearly, there is demand for simple straightforward characters, that fulfill their presented fantasy.
You answered your last point earlier in your own post. People think casters - e.g. Moon Druid - are complex. So they play martials. When casters aren’t actually that complex at all, in my opinion. You just need to track resources and have an idea of what spells you want to be using.
Also, hit loads of stuff with weapons and tactical choices aren’t mutually exclusive, such as with the Battlemaster subclass. Telling martial players who want options ‘go play a caster’ is kinda unhelpful. Limiting “martial players” to the box of ‘big axe go smash’ is also really unhelpful when the only useful option you have on your turn is attacking things. Why shouldn’t a martial be as tactically engaging and complex as a moon druid? It’s entirely possible to play a “simple” moon druid. You stick to a few wildshapes, and a few spells (like healing word, moonbeam, spike growth) - even get help from a more experienced player or your DM, it’s what they are there for. If not, there will be help you can ask for. This is a collaborative role playing game. Complexity and simplicity are not mutually exclusive. Rune Knight and Champion are on the same class chassis, for instance. Demand can be fulfilled for both people who want complexity and those who want simplicity - and leaving martials as the simple option and casters as the complex option means new players will feel outshined by more experienced players who play casters.
Plus, using grapple and shove sucks. It’s really boring. “I grab the enemy and drag them through the spike growth/spirit guardians/wall of fire et cetera”. Grapple and shove also require checks. Things like Push and Crusher do not, which makes them guaranteed, and in addition to the probably better damage you can do with a weapon attack. “I grab some enemies and move them around so the casters can be more effective”, while it may be options, are shitty options, which don’t allow martials to do anything especially unique to them.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
Miley Cyrus music should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
This is only true because martial players refuse to sacrifice DPR to do something else. Everyone is gushing about Push being able to move enemies into AoE spells, when martials can already do that with Grapple & Drag! Why is Push suddenly this amazing thing but nobody ever uses Grapple? - ANS: because martial players want to hit stuff with big weapons for big damage.
Martial players don't really want options, they want to hit stuff with weapons - if they wanted lots of tactical options they could go play a Moon Druid with it's dozens of situationally powerful spells and dozens of different animal forms with different abilities to choose from. They don't, and Moon Druid is much maligned for being "Too complicated" because "I don't want to have to look through half a dozen books to find the optimal choices".
Fundamentally the fantasy for martial players is "Rarr! Big axe go Smash!". It's why Riposte is the favourite Battlemaster maneuver, and why Grapple, Shove, and Push are massively underutilized, despite being very good options in many situations. It's why GWM and PAM are considered must-takes but Shield Master with it's choice of Shove/Push as a BA is considered a 2nd or 3rd tier feat. Sure people love the Weapon Mastery, but that is specifically because it just adds on top of "Rarr! Big axe go Smash!", it isn't really a choice as nothing is sacrificed and especially won't be a choice as soon as the party gets magic weapons.
According to D&D Beyond statistics, martials remain more popular than casters across the platform. This is despite the omnipresent narrative of "martials suck, everyone should play a caster." So clearly, there is demand for simple straightforward characters, that fulfill their presented fantasy.
To be fair, grappling and shoving do heavily favor characters who are built to support such actions. A lot of such options, including later added ones like disarming, favor PCs who invest in the required stat, usually Strength.
The reason that Push is getting a lot of hype is because it's cheap and easy. There's already a lot of existing features that let PCs push enemies on attack, but they're typically limited to once a turn, are one of several possible options, and/or require a saving throw. The Push mastery is simply on-hit, not requiring compromising on damage. It's massively more effective than most existing options for pushing an enemy. (Frankly, isn't it bizarre that you can push an enemy farther with a weapon attack than you can with the dedicated push action?)
But I think this hits the nail on the head with many of the problems with how the playtests have approached new features. There's a rare few things that have gotten reined in to reasonable limits, but stuff like Weapon Mastery, Cunning Strikes, Brutal Strikes have gotten high approval because the subset of players who want to feel as powerful as possible, every single turn. They don't want trade-offs or reasonable limits or meaningful choices, they want as many effects and as much damage as possible. Even if a class has severely limited options (see: Monks in comparison to Cunning/Brutal Strikes) they're fine if those limited options feel powerful.
Part of that can be attributed to limited options for such things existing in 5e, as well as certain overpowered options (namely Those Three Feats), but I feel like the kind of game that the sort of people responding to the playtests, the kind of game where Barbarians can apply three separate effects in a single attack with no limit or cost, isn't necessarily the sort of game a lot of average 5e players want to play. And by designing features based on feedback from those sorts of players, all that will happen is an even greater gulf between players who base their choices around flavor and those who optimize every PC choice.
Do you have any evidence for this assertion? Martials getting more powerful is not necessarily symptomatic of optimisers ruining the game, especially since casters are just more powerful anyway in 5e and likely still will be in One D&D.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
Miley Cyrus music should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
Do you have any evidence for this assertion? Martials getting more powerful is not necessarily symptomatic of optimisers ruining the game, especially since casters are just more powerful anyway in 5e and likely still will be in One D&D.
As I've read, the most popular features in the playtests have been the ones that have added unlimited-use cost-free features like Weapon Mastery, Cunning Strikes, or Brutal Strikes, or have lessened limitations on existing features like Deflect Missiles becoming Deflect Attacks or Warlocks getting a third attack. The more controversial changes are the ones that improve existing features but also limit the most egregious abuses of them, such as Smites being once a turn or Wild Shape not effectively giving tons of extra HP. Even Stunning Strike being limited to once a turn was a heated topic, until it got the damage rider on a passed save (which is another form of removing a cost from an ability).
The problem isn't making classes more powerful, it's that subsequent playtests have leaned more and more towards unlimited-use cost-free abilities, and a lot of folks I've talked to about OneD&D aren't enthusiastic about the results - but they aren't the sort to fill out the surveys, or follow people who have strong opinions on D&D and the direction of OneD&D.
Plus, using grapple and shove sucks. It’s really boring. “I grab the enemy and drag them through the spike growth/spirit guardians/wall of fire et cetera”. Grapple and shove also require checks. Things like Push and Crusher do not, which makes them guaranteed, and in addition to the probably better damage you can do with a weapon attack. “I grab some enemies and move them around so the casters can be more effective”, while it may be options, are shitty options, which don’t allow martials to do anything especially unique to them.
Sorry but I don't understand this argument. You can easily run the math but checks are the MOST likely thing to succeed in D&D 5e, they are more likely to succeed than saving throws, and more likely to succeed than attack rolls. Grappling with minimal investment - i.e. be a STR character and have proficiency in Athletics - is the most likely to succeed thing you can do on your turn. The 'problem' with grappling is that it requires giving up a weapon attack to do it - which as I said repeatedly is what martial players most want to do! They want to make as many weapon attacks as possible, so the only 'options' they will accept are things that add on to those weapon attacks not anything that substitutes for the weapon attacks - thus not a hard choice between doing X or doing Y, but just more stuff: doing X and Y at the same time.
There is no difference between "I grab some enemies to make casters more effective" and "I use a Weapon Mastery to make casters more effective" so I don't understand why the weapon mastery Push is somehow fundamentally more exciting for a martial than grappling / shoving.
Do you have any evidence for this assertion? Martials getting more powerful is not necessarily symptomatic of optimisers ruining the game, especially since casters are just more powerful anyway in 5e and likely still will be in One D&D.
As I've read, the most popular features in the playtests have been the ones that have added unlimited-use cost-free features like Weapon Mastery, Cunning Strikes, or Brutal Strikes, or have lessened limitations on existing features like Deflect Missiles becoming Deflect Attacks or Warlocks getting a third attack. The more controversial changes are the ones that improve existing features but also limit the most egregious abuses of them, such as Smites being once a turn or Wild Shape not effectively giving tons of extra HP. Even Stunning Strike being limited to once a turn was a heated topic, until it got the damage rider on a passed save (which is another form of removing a cost from an ability).
The problem isn't making classes more powerful, it's that subsequent playtests have leaned more and more towards unlimited-use cost-free abilities, and a lot of folks I've talked to about OneD&D aren't enthusiastic about the results - but they aren't the sort to fill out the surveys, or follow people who have strong opinions on D&D and the direction of OneD&D.
Egregious abuses is a bit much. Paladins have no range and are built to be powerful in close quarters, and multiple smites per turn isn't game breaking. Even with multiple smites in a turn, paladin will never reach wizard levels of utility and power potential (though it may get close but literally only through optimization). The slots you burn and the fact that paladins get two attacks max is already a good limitation. Giving martials more cost-free abilities both 1) makes them more fun for people that dislike playing only casters to keep up with the party 2) helps close that caster/martial divide. I don't understand why they would need to nerf paladin, and it makes no sense to me that you can counterspell a smite.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ — “sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.” ——————| EXTENDED SIG |—————— Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
I wonder how Weapon Mastery would have been received if, instead of being something you can do on every attack with no cost, it had the limitations of:
Being once per turn
For on-hit effects like Push and Topple, you have to sacrifice adding your ability modifier to the damage roll of the attack.
I think it would have been much less well-received among survey respondents, simply on the basis of being something with an actual cost and trade-off rather than effectively free and unlimited.
I do wonder how much the designers at WotC feel certain features do need to be reined in post-playtesting. I'm sure they understand that presenting a feature, then presenting a less-powerful redesign is inevitably going to result in backlash, even if nerfing the feature is reasonable for the sake of balance. It does make me wonder if that will hurt OneD&D on release, if certain features and classes aren't as unlimited or powerful as they were in the playtest.
Do you have any evidence for this assertion? Martials getting more powerful is not necessarily symptomatic of optimisers ruining the game, especially since casters are just more powerful anyway in 5e and likely still will be in One D&D.
As I've read, the most popular features in the playtests have been the ones that have added unlimited-use cost-free features like Weapon Mastery, Cunning Strikes, or Brutal Strikes, or have lessened limitations on existing features like Deflect Missiles becoming Deflect Attacks or Warlocks getting a third attack. The more controversial changes are the ones that improve existing features but also limit the most egregious abuses of them, such as Smites being once a turn or Wild Shape not effectively giving tons of extra HP. Even Stunning Strike being limited to once a turn was a heated topic, until it got the damage rider on a passed save (which is another form of removing a cost from an ability).
The problem isn't making classes more powerful, it's that subsequent playtests have leaned more and more towards unlimited-use cost-free abilities, and a lot of folks I've talked to about OneD&D aren't enthusiastic about the results - but they aren't the sort to fill out the surveys, or follow people who have strong opinions on D&D and the direction of OneD&D.
It’s also very easy to read into it as “the most popular features in the play test are the ones that add options and the least popular ones are the ones that take them away”. Cunning strikes, Brutal strikes, deflect missiles becoming deflect attack, warlocks getting more and better invocations - all expansion of in-combat options for martials and martial-adjacent playstyles.
By contrast - wildshape for combat, heavily nerfed. Option removed. Divine Smite, heavily nerfed and limiting the paladin to certain playstyles to be more effective. As an optimiser myself I want the biggest variety of playstyles possible to be effective - which is probably why this cohesive demongraphic I have never actually witnessed, ever, IRL or on these forums, responded like it did.
Also.. 2014 monk is shit, to be completely honest. It had bad DPR and bad survivability, and they couldn’t get rid of stunning strike because it’s most of the monk’s power budget in the 2014 and 2024 monk and people would riot. So using it to actually bump up monk’s DPR a little is pretty much the best they could do, especially since most monsters have great CON saves so stunning strike is useless 90% of the time and busted the other ten percent in 2014 and useful, powerful against certain enemies (i.e. squishy back liners) which you want your monk fighting anyway in 2024. It’s enabling the monk playstyle, not allowing stunning strike abuse.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
Miley Cyrus music should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
Plus Battlemaster and to a lesser degree Monks already cover the general “tactical use of abilities” area of martial play. It’s not that Wizards is giving this segment no support, but they have- probably correctly- concluded that it’s a smaller segment of the general population of martial players.
What happened to Monk is part of how I came to the conclusion I presented above. The new Monk with it's 90% approval has FEWER choices than it does in 5e, in fact I'd argue the monk (base class) has basically 0 choices now. Stunning Strike is objectively better than Flurry of Blows from level 5-10, and with Deflect Attacks there is no risk to staying in melee so there is no tactical movement or skirmishing required. One D&D Monk is most effective simply moving up into melee and punching as many times as they can, then standing there and waiting to get hit, until they get to 5th level when they move up into melee and Stunning Strike + punch with their action & bonus action, then at 10th level they move up into melee Stunning Strike + Flurry of Blows. No tactics required, no choices to be made, just move forwards & punch.
Plus, using grapple and shove sucks. It’s really boring. “I grab the enemy and drag them through the spike growth/spirit guardians/wall of fire et cetera”. Grapple and shove also require checks. Things like Push and Crusher do not, which makes them guaranteed, and in addition to the probably better damage you can do with a weapon attack. “I grab some enemies and move them around so the casters can be more effective”, while it may be options, are shitty options, which don’t allow martials to do anything especially unique to them.
Sorry but I don't understand this argument. You can easily run the math but checks are the MOST likely thing to succeed in D&D 5e, they are more likely to succeed than saving throws, and more likely to succeed than attack rolls. Grappling with minimal investment - i.e. be a STR character and have proficiency in Athletics - is the most likely to succeed thing you can do on your turn. The 'problem' with grappling is that it requires giving up a weapon attack to do it - which as I said repeatedly is what martial players most want to do! They want to make as many weapon attacks as possible, so the only 'options' they will accept are things that add on to those weapon attacks not anything that substitutes for the weapon attacks - thus not a hard choice between doing X or doing Y, but just more stuff: doing X and Y at the same time.
There is no difference between "I grab some enemies to make casters more effective" and "I use a Weapon Mastery to make casters more effective" so I don't understand why the weapon mastery Push is somehow fundamentally more exciting for a martial than grappling / shoving.
Because.. you’re attacking while doing it. You, as a player, are actually feeling useful, as opposed to making the caster’s spell work better. You, not the spell, did damage.
Also, saying grappling is more likely to succeed with minimal investment is more than a little misleading. What about.. large or larger enemies? Flying enemies? Enemies that can teleport? Do you really want to grapple a melee enemy, or do you want to attack them and push them away afterwards to protect yourself? More likely to succeed than saving throws is beyond irrelevant, and why would I even grapple at all if I don’t have a zoner caster in my party? Why would I grapple if I do have a zoner caster in my party? They can control enemies for me, much better than I can, on more reliable means. You said yourself saving throws are less likely to succeed than checks, and grapple is contested.
Not to mention grapple is situational and generally useless unless your party builds around the positioning meta, but that makes you an evil minmaxer like the ones ruining One D&D by making it so martials have no tactical choices, because martial should be simple for new players - oh wait. That contradicts itself.
Egregious abuses is a bit much. Paladins have no range and are built to be powerful in close quarters, and multiple smites per turn isn't game breaking. Even with multiple smites in a turn, paladin will never reach wizard levels of utility and power potential (though it may get close but literally only through optimization). The slots you burn and the fact that paladins get two attacks max is already a good limitation. Giving martials more cost-free abilities both 1) makes them more fun for people that dislike playing only casters to keep up with the party 2) helps close that caster/martial divide. I don't understand why they would need to nerf paladin, and it makes no sense to me that you can counterspell a smite.
Paladins have access to all ranged weapons, with OneD&D making thrown weapons much more viable for Paladins with their focus on Strength.
Being able to Smite multiple times per turn lets them boost their damage to a much greater degree than other martials can, especially when you can do so on critical hits for doubled Smite damage. There are several ways for 5e Paladins to get more than two attacks*, and ways for 5e Paladins to use more than one Smite per attack.
Having zero limits or costs on an ability doesn't necessarily make it something that can keep up with casters. In fact, that makes it more likely to be less impactful, because they have to be balanced around being usable on every attack the martial makes. An 8th-level spell can be massively powerful not just because you have to be a high-level PC to use it, but because you can only use it once per day. A feature that a martial receives at lower levels and can use every turn simply cannot have the same impact, because not only would it be hugely imbalanced, but it would also invalidate the features those martials receive at the same high levels.
Paladins haven't been nerfed. Their Smites are more limited, but it's easier to use Smites beyond the standard Divine Smite. Their other features are made much easier to use, with more uses of Channel Divinity and Lay on Hands as a Bonus Action. And it's entirely sensible for Counterspell to work on Smites, because they consume the exact same magical resource that everything else Counterspell functions against works on. Why would Smite be something that can't be Counterspelled, but other Divine magic can be? Why would Booming Blade be vulnerable to Counterspell, but not Smites? Why can a Ranger's special spells like Conjure Volley or Steel Wind Strike be Counterspelled, but not Divine Smite?
*I feel this is a point to highlight, because this is a significant part of many balance issues not just with OneD&D (primarily with Weapon Mastery) but with 5e. In a game where there exists features that apply on any number of attacks made by the user, this inevitably creates a significant gulf between features, feats, and subclasses that give ways to get extra attacks and those that do not. It's why Polearm Master is so dominant, not simply for the added hit but because that added hit can benefit from numerous features like Hunter's Mark or Divine Smite.
Plus, using grapple and shove sucks. It’s really boring. “I grab the enemy and drag them through the spike growth/spirit guardians/wall of fire et cetera”. Grapple and shove also require checks. Things like Push and Crusher do not, which makes them guaranteed, and in addition to the probably better damage you can do with a weapon attack. “I grab some enemies and move them around so the casters can be more effective”, while it may be options, are shitty options, which don’t allow martials to do anything especially unique to them.
Sorry but I don't understand this argument. You can easily run the math but checks are the MOST likely thing to succeed in D&D 5e, they are more likely to succeed than saving throws, and more likely to succeed than attack rolls. Grappling with minimal investment - i.e. be a STR character and have proficiency in Athletics - is the most likely to succeed thing you can do on your turn. The 'problem' with grappling is that it requires giving up a weapon attack to do it - which as I said repeatedly is what martial players most want to do! They want to make as many weapon attacks as possible, so the only 'options' they will accept are things that add on to those weapon attacks not anything that substitutes for the weapon attacks - thus not a hard choice between doing X or doing Y, but just more stuff: doing X and Y at the same time.
There is no difference between "I grab some enemies to make casters more effective" and "I use a Weapon Mastery to make casters more effective" so I don't understand why the weapon mastery Push is somehow fundamentally more exciting for a martial than grappling / shoving.
Because.. you’re attacking while doing it. You, as a player, are actually feeling useful, as opposed to making the caster’s spell work better. You, not the spell, did damage.
Also, saying grappling is more likely to succeed with minimal investment is more than a little misleading. What about.. large or larger enemies? Flying enemies? Enemies that can teleport? Do you really want to grapple a melee enemy, or do you want to attack them and push them away afterwards to protect yourself? More likely to succeed than saving throws is beyond irrelevant, and why would I even grapple at all if I don’t have a zoner caster in my party? Why would I grapple if I do have a zoner caster in my party? They can control enemies for me, much better than I can, on more reliable means. You said yourself saving throws are less likely to succeed than checks, and grapple is contested.
Not to mention grapple is situational and generally useless unless your party builds around the positioning meta, but that makes you an evil minmaxer like the ones ruining One D&D by making it so martials have no tactical choices, because martial should be simple for new players - oh wait. That contradicts itself.
You still don't seem to be understanding my argument. Let me see if I can clarify:
People in the online D&D community complain about martials "not having tactical choices". However, I believe this is a false statement - maybe they are lying to themselves, maybe they are lying in their posts, or maybe they just aren't aware of what they really want (there's no shame it that, if everyone truly knew what would make them happy there would be far fewer miserable people in the world).
My evidence that this is a false statement is that:
1) They hold up the "Push" weapon mastery and the "Crusher" feat as awesome and fantastic, despite the fact that Grapple/Shove was already a very effective means to achieve the same result. The only difference is the Grappling was a choice - you either made a weapon attack OR you attempted to grapple - whereas the Crusher feat and the Push weapon mastery are not a choice - you both attack AND push at the same time. Therefore they don't want a tough choice, they want a straight power boost.
2) The UA 8 Monk was celebrated as a massive improvement over the 5e Monk, despite the fact that there are FEWER choices to be made : positioning is less important b/c monk can take attacks much better, stunning strike is always better than flurry of blows between level 5-10 so is always what you should use your limited resource on, and since stunning strike is limited to 1/turn when you get a surplus of resources you can only spend them on 1x SS + 1x FoB. However, in terms of raw power the UA8 Monk is much more powerful than the 5e Monk. Therefore once again people don't want classes that require them to make tough choices, they want a straight power boost.
3) in 5e there is a feat (Martial Adept) and a fighting style (Superior Technique) that give martial characters limited options they can use in combat. However, these are not chosen by players because they require sacrificing the opportunity to take other feats (GWM, PAM) or other fighting styles (Dueling, Protection) that represent a straight simple always-on power boost. Again we see people choosing the straight always-on power boost over having diverse options in combat. Therefore once again people don't want to make tough choices, they want a straight power boost.
Now there is nothing at all wrong with wanting just a straight power boost for martials, to help them feel relevant next to OP casters. My issue is that how people portray their desires & these changes is incorrect, thus may lead designers down a false path when they go about rebalancing these features.
For instance, I really like the proposal above suggesting rebalancing WM by having it cost you the ability score modifier to the damage, that seems very inline with the Rogue's Cunning strikes or most spells in the game - sacrifice a bit of damage for an additional effect. And if the designers truly believe these new proposals are popular because people want "more options" they might do something like that. But I'm in agreement with the above poster, that doing something like that would probably make a lot of people far less enthusiastic about the new edition, because they don't want "more options" they want a straight power boost.
PS
What about.. large or larger enemies? Flying enemies? Enemies that can teleport? Do you really want to grapple a melee enemy, or do you want to attack them and push them away afterwards to protect yourself?
All of these equally apply to the Push mastery, indeed the Push mastery is significantly weaker than Grapple because the enemy can simply move away on their next turn even without any teleportation. If you're a STR-based martial (only STR-weapons have Push) then why do you want to push enemies away 'to protect yourself'? Surely you are the tank in the party, so you want the enemies to attack you rather than the rogue, or wizard...
Also.. 2014 monk is shit, to be completely honest. It had bad DPR and bad survivability, and they couldn’t get rid of stunning strike because it’s most of the monk’s power budget in the 2014 and 2024 monk and people would riot. So using it to actually bump up monk’s DPR a little is pretty much the best they could do, especially since most monsters have great CON saves so stunning strike is useless 90% of the time and busted the other ten percent in 2014 and useful, powerful against certain enemies (i.e. squishy back liners) which you want your monk fighting anyway in 2024. It’s enabling the monk playstyle, not allowing stunning strike abuse.
I've played with and played as Monks often, and never felt they were "shit". They were great at maneuvering to attack and hinder dangerous enemies, and used their mobility and other defensive features to stay out of harm's way. Frankly, Monk is the perfect example of how a subset of players put value purely into hypothetical damage (when a Monk's forte is often control over raw damage) and hypothetical survivability (where the Monk is expected to have the same durability in direct melee as the Fighter or Paladin, ignoring how the Monk has much more ability to avoid direct melee and survive damage other than direct melee).
In fact, I would argue that, if the Monk wasn't given three changes that are purely about numbers, every other feature it received would be pilloried. If the Monk didn't get Deflect Attacks for melee, if the Monk received additional options aside from Stunning Strike instead of the damage rider on a Stunning Strike save, if the Monk received a feature that focused on control rather than raw damage for Heightened Discipline. It wouldn't matter at all what else the Monk received, how well their new abilities worked with their niche, it would be criticized for not fulfilling a role the 5e Monk was never meant to fulfill.
(I do know a Monk player who playtested the OneD&D Monk, and he found it to be a class that felt both overpowered and boring to play.)
This is only true because martial players refuse to sacrifice DPR to do something else. Everyone is gushing about Push being able to move enemies into AoE spells, when martials can already do that with Grapple & Drag! Why is Push suddenly this amazing thing but nobody ever uses Grapple? - ANS: because martial players want to hit stuff with big weapons for big damage.
There are a bunch of problems with this idea that they should just Grapple or Shove if they want options:
It's not that many options.
It really requires characters built for doing that, or rather it did
Wizards of the Coast have nerfed both of these options hard in the UA so now they are less reliable, and thus less worth the lost attack and less appealing as a result.
The general consensus is that martials need boosting in some ways to better balance them against casters; swapping attacks for something isn't changing the status quo in any way, especially if what you're trading for is now worse.
Martial players don't really want options, they want to hit stuff with weapons - if they wanted lots of tactical options they could go play a Moon Druid with it's dozens of situationally powerful spells and dozens of different animal forms with different abilities to choose from. They don't, and Moon Druid is much maligned for being "Too complicated" because "I don't want to have to look through half a dozen books to find the optimal choices".
This is incredibly and weirdly reductive; the choice isn't "be a fighter or a moon druid", as classes are more than just the mechanics.
If the player wants to play some kind of armoured knight or whatever, then moon druid is the exact opposite of that fantasy. But that doesn't mean all they want to do is hit things either.
Sure people love the Weapon Mastery, but that is specifically because it just adds on top of "Rarr! Big axe go Smash!", it isn't really a choice as nothing is sacrificed and especially won't be a choice as soon as the party gets magic weapons.
They like it (love seems a strong word) because it doesn't weaken them to do it. Shoving can be useful, so can grappling, but I think you're massively over-estimating their value, especially when you've argued on other threads about how knocking an enemy prone isn't always a good thing since it interferes with ranged allies. The best use of these is when you can land both (to provide the target from just standing back up), but that means trading at least two attacks, or if you've got something to Shove (very slowly) towards.
Giving up attacks might be fine if doing so increased your chances of success compared to someone who doesn't have to trade an attack, that would make it much more appealing trade-off. Make Disarm a core action instead of an optional rule, and maybe we wouldn't need mastery, but like I said, WIzards have instead made all of these options worse so it's a moot point anyway. If bonuses on attack(s) is the only thing we're going to get, then it should at least be a good system, but currently it's the worst of all worlds.
According to D&D Beyond statistics, martials remain more popular than casters across the platform. This is despite the omnipresent narrative of "martials suck, everyone should play a caster." So clearly, there is demand for simple straightforward characters, that fulfill their presented fantasy.
Having 2-3 options is hardly going to make martials suddenly as complicated as casters, and there are factors other than "what class is strongest" involved in what players want to play as, otherwise nobody would play Monk – it has always been possible to have fun with sub-optimal characters, and even never feel like they're especially weak, but that doesn't mean the game shouldn't at least aim to rebalance them better. That would be like arguing you don't need to fix a bridge just because it hasn't fallen down yet.
OneD&D may very well be what we're stuck with for the next 10 years, so we should at least want them to do as good a job as possible with it.
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.
By contrast - wildshape for combat, heavily nerfed. Option removed. Divine Smite, heavily nerfed and limiting the paladin to certain playstyles to be more effective. As an optimiser myself I want the biggest variety of playstyles possible to be effective - which is probably why this cohesive demongraphic I have never actually witnessed, ever, IRL or on these forums, responded like it did.
Both of these are perfect examples of why it is not about options, it is about power. Wildshape has been iterated through and is now (UA8) back roughly where it was in 5e but with it costing more spellslots to maintain the HP buffer than the 5e version, however the number of different animal forms you get to choose from has been massively nerfed and because of several features / spells that add damage to each attack you make in WS there is massive disparity in performance between different animal forms, meaning a couple will be massively more powerful than others - i.e. FEWER choices. Yet optimizers only care about the HP you gain from a single use of WS, which is nothing to do with "choices".
Making Divine Smite require a BA means that it conflicts with PAM which means that PAM is for paladin not the clearly optimal build, this actually create more choices since sword & board, greatsword, and PAM all deal roughly the same DPR now, so all three of these options are entirely viable for paladin. Which is actually increasing the variety of playstyles. But you can't see that because you don't actually care about "variety of playstyles" - again maybe it's a deliberate lie because you don't want to admit you only care about big numbers, or maybe you are just not self-aware and have fooled yourself into thinking these clearly false arguments are true, I don't know - but they are false. You dislike the changes to paladin because they are a nerf in terms of maximum power - and again that is a totally fine point of view! But please be clear that it is the drop in power that you don't like, rather than "variety of playstyles", because changes like what was done to Paladin are at least partially designed to balance different playstyles which by definition means decreasing the power of the current highest performing playstyle and lifting up the lowest performing playstyle.
So using it to actually bump up monk’s DPR a little is pretty much the best they could do, especially since most monsters have great CON saves so stunning strike is useless 90% of the time and busted the other ten percent in 2014 and useful, powerful against certain enemies (i.e. squishy back liners) which you want your monk fighting anyway in 2024.
No. You do not want your monk fighting squishy backliners in 2024. Being able to negate 1d10+DEX+level damage each round is a massive defensive ability that you want to be using every round in order to save your entire party from taking that damage, thus you want your monk facing down weapon-using enemies rather than spellcasters (squishy backliners), unless you are certain you can successfully stun the spellcasters (which is definitely NOT the case until tier 3 play at the earliest).
Bringing up Divine Smite conflicting with Polearm Master provides an excellent point regarding a lot of the approved new features and criticized changes to features: that it isn't enough to be able to have X, Y, or Z options on your turns, but that you should be able to do X, Y, and Z all together. As I mentioned earlier, it's possible to have a Barbarian or Rogue apply three different effects, plus bonus damage, all on a single attack without any additional action requirement. Polearm Master remains entirely usable for Paladins, both for the reaction and bonus-action attack; they just can't use that bonus attack and Smite on the same turn. The playtest respondents reply positively to features that can be used entirely independently of action economy, while criticizing changes that put action requirements on features that didn't previously have them.
I suspect that if that sort of philosophy remains a significant part of OneD&D's design, it'll lead to builds focused on triggering as many possible action-free effects on one attack. For example, it would be possible to build a character who can trigger Weapon Mastery, Cunning Strike, Stunning Strike, and a Battle Master maneuver all on one single attack, as early as Level 13. That's part of why limitations on these sorts of abilities are important, not just in restricting the potential of such nova-strikes but providing an incentive to remain in a single class and gain increased usability of that class's options.
It really requires characters built for doing that, or rather it did
Wizards of the Coast have nerfed both of these options hard in the UA so now they are less reliable, and thus less worth the lost attack and less appealing as a result.
The general consensus is that martials need boosting in some ways to better balance them against casters; swapping attacks for something isn't changing the status quo in any way, especially if what you're trading for is now worse.
1. It's roughly the same number of "tactical" options as you get with Weapon Mastery, why is WM celebrated as tons of options, but Grapple/Shove has always been maligned? It's because Grapple/Shove is a choice, you sacrifice damage to choose to do something else, whereas WM is a bonus it adds on top of your attacks without costing you anything at all.
2. No it didn't, if you used Strength as your primary attribute and had proficiency in Athletics then at level 1, your grapple/shove will be equally successful as an attack roll, and it will get MORE powerful as you increase in level because almost no enemies have proficiency in Athletics/Acrobatics so it will be your STR+Prof vs their raw STR. If you built for doing it then your success rate for Grapple/Shove was nearly 100%.
3. I completely agree, Grapple/Shove is awful in One D&D, but that is irrelevant to my argument [though the fact that almost nobody has complained that Grapple/Shove in One D&D is nerfed, supports my argument that hardly anyone uses it now]. My argument is that right now in 2014 5e, where you can get nearly 100% success rate on Grapple/Shove with a little bit of optimization, and even with no optimization your Grapple/Shove is equal or more likely to be successful than a weapon attack, Grapple/Shove is not used and considered terrible because it is a choice it is considered bad precisely because you can either make a weapon attack OR grapple/shove.
4. That's totally fine! Then argue that martials need more power to balance them against casters! But don't argue that they need "more options" or "more choices" if what you actually want is martials to be more powerful.
PS
This is incredibly and weirdly reductive; the choice isn't "be a fighter or a moon druid", as classes are more than just the mechanics.
I never said "fighter", why did you assume every martial character is a fighter? Barbarians are martials, Rogues are martials, Monks are martials, Rangers & Paladins are primarily martials, and yes Fighters are martials.
If the player wants to play some kind of armoured knight...
Armoured knights hit things. They walked in formations on the ground and hit things. They rode horses and hit things. They stood on walls and hit things. Armoured knights occasionally also grappled and wrestled to the ground, if they had a shield they would sometimes hit people with it. That really is about all that armoured knights do, they might shout a battlecry, bang their shield, or blow a war-horn to try to scare their opponents into retreating, but that's really about it. IRL knights didn't waste their time trying to trip people or disarm them (unless they were showing off in a tourney) or shoot fire out of their swords in a giant arc to do AoE damage, didn't teleport around to hit different 6 enemies half way across the battlefield like a magical pingpong ball. They ran at the enemy and hit them to death, or they stood in formation and hit them to death.
This is bringing up the other major conflict: historical realism vs anime / superhero-ism. Which archetype should martials fulfill? The magical anime superhero trope? Or the medieval knight in shining armour? You can't have both.
Then argue that martials need more power to balance them against casters! But don't argue that they need "more options" or "more choices" if what you actually want is martials to be more powerful.
FWIW, I think there is a valid argument of the form "they should be more powerful, in a way that has more options than just damage." To me, that is what WM is trying to do. Technically, there are more tactical choices (mostly in choosing a weapon), but much of the time WM amounts to "have an extra rider effect at no real cost" which both makes the character more powerful and makes their attacks have more/different tactical impact. So it broadly feels like "more choices" even without a proper drawback.
Plus Battlemaster and to a lesser degree Monks already cover the general “tactical use of abilities” area of martial play. It’s not that Wizards is giving this segment no support, but they have- probably correctly- concluded that it’s a smaller segment of the general population of martial players.
In 4e, everyone had similar levels of power and control. It slowed combat down. Now, those control options are pretty much only a caster thing again, and the martial caster divide is back. For consistent damage, martials are imo, competitive. It's heavy control spells that really cause problems for the game. Completely deleting monsters from the encounter math for a period of time is where caster power truly comes from, and that's something that a martial simply can't do.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
To be fair, grappling and shoving do heavily favor characters who are built to support such actions. A lot of such options, including later added ones like disarming, favor PCs who invest in the required stat, usually Strength.
The reason that Push is getting a lot of hype is because it's cheap and easy. There's already a lot of existing features that let PCs push enemies on attack, but they're typically limited to once a turn, are one of several possible options, and/or require a saving throw. The Push mastery is simply on-hit, not requiring compromising on damage. It's massively more effective than most existing options for pushing an enemy. (Frankly, isn't it bizarre that you can push an enemy farther with a weapon attack than you can with the dedicated push action?)
But I think this hits the nail on the head with many of the problems with how the playtests have approached new features. There's a rare few things that have gotten reined in to reasonable limits, but stuff like Weapon Mastery, Cunning Strikes, Brutal Strikes have gotten high approval because the subset of players who want to feel as powerful as possible, every single turn. They don't want trade-offs or reasonable limits or meaningful choices, they want as many effects and as much damage as possible. Even if a class has severely limited options (see: Monks in comparison to Cunning/Brutal Strikes) they're fine if those limited options feel powerful.
Part of that can be attributed to limited options for such things existing in 5e, as well as certain overpowered options (namely Those Three Feats), but I feel like the kind of game that the sort of people responding to the playtests, the kind of game where Barbarians can apply three separate effects in a single attack with no limit or cost, isn't necessarily the sort of game a lot of average 5e players want to play. And by designing features based on feedback from those sorts of players, all that will happen is an even greater gulf between players who base their choices around flavor and those who optimize every PC choice.
You answered your last point earlier in your own post. People think casters - e.g. Moon Druid - are complex. So they play martials. When casters aren’t actually that complex at all, in my opinion. You just need to track resources and have an idea of what spells you want to be using.
Also, hit loads of stuff with weapons and tactical choices aren’t mutually exclusive, such as with the Battlemaster subclass. Telling martial players who want options ‘go play a caster’ is kinda unhelpful. Limiting “martial players” to the box of ‘big axe go smash’ is also really unhelpful when the only useful option you have on your turn is attacking things. Why shouldn’t a martial be as tactically engaging and complex as a moon druid? It’s entirely possible to play a “simple” moon druid. You stick to a few wildshapes, and a few spells (like healing word, moonbeam, spike growth) - even get help from a more experienced player or your DM, it’s what they are there for. If not, there will be help you can ask for. This is a collaborative role playing game. Complexity and simplicity are not mutually exclusive. Rune Knight and Champion are on the same class chassis, for instance. Demand can be fulfilled for both people who want complexity and those who want simplicity - and leaving martials as the simple option and casters as the complex option means new players will feel outshined by more experienced players who play casters.
Plus, using grapple and shove sucks. It’s really boring. “I grab the enemy and drag them through the spike growth/spirit guardians/wall of fire et cetera”. Grapple and shove also require checks. Things like Push and Crusher do not, which makes them guaranteed, and in addition to the probably better damage you can do with a weapon attack. “I grab some enemies and move them around so the casters can be more effective”, while it may be options, are shitty options, which don’t allow martials to do anything especially unique to them.
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
Miley Cyrus music should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
Do you have any evidence for this assertion? Martials getting more powerful is not necessarily symptomatic of optimisers ruining the game, especially since casters are just more powerful anyway in 5e and likely still will be in One D&D.
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
Miley Cyrus music should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
As I've read, the most popular features in the playtests have been the ones that have added unlimited-use cost-free features like Weapon Mastery, Cunning Strikes, or Brutal Strikes, or have lessened limitations on existing features like Deflect Missiles becoming Deflect Attacks or Warlocks getting a third attack. The more controversial changes are the ones that improve existing features but also limit the most egregious abuses of them, such as Smites being once a turn or Wild Shape not effectively giving tons of extra HP. Even Stunning Strike being limited to once a turn was a heated topic, until it got the damage rider on a passed save (which is another form of removing a cost from an ability).
The problem isn't making classes more powerful, it's that subsequent playtests have leaned more and more towards unlimited-use cost-free abilities, and a lot of folks I've talked to about OneD&D aren't enthusiastic about the results - but they aren't the sort to fill out the surveys, or follow people who have strong opinions on D&D and the direction of OneD&D.
Sorry but I don't understand this argument. You can easily run the math but checks are the MOST likely thing to succeed in D&D 5e, they are more likely to succeed than saving throws, and more likely to succeed than attack rolls. Grappling with minimal investment - i.e. be a STR character and have proficiency in Athletics - is the most likely to succeed thing you can do on your turn. The 'problem' with grappling is that it requires giving up a weapon attack to do it - which as I said repeatedly is what martial players most want to do! They want to make as many weapon attacks as possible, so the only 'options' they will accept are things that add on to those weapon attacks not anything that substitutes for the weapon attacks - thus not a hard choice between doing X or doing Y, but just more stuff: doing X and Y at the same time.
There is no difference between "I grab some enemies to make casters more effective" and "I use a Weapon Mastery to make casters more effective" so I don't understand why the weapon mastery Push is somehow fundamentally more exciting for a martial than grappling / shoving.
Egregious abuses is a bit much. Paladins have no range and are built to be powerful in close quarters, and multiple smites per turn isn't game breaking. Even with multiple smites in a turn, paladin will never reach wizard levels of utility and power potential (though it may get close but literally only through optimization). The slots you burn and the fact that paladins get two attacks max is already a good limitation. Giving martials more cost-free abilities both 1) makes them more fun for people that dislike playing only casters to keep up with the party 2) helps close that caster/martial divide. I don't understand why they would need to nerf paladin, and it makes no sense to me that you can counterspell a smite.
— δ ψινο • the croc master • hε/hιm δ —
“sᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ, ɪ ᴛᴇʟʟ ʏᴏᴜ, ɪɴ ᴀɴᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴜs.”
——————| EXTENDED SIG |——————
Φ • happily married to • ☁️ℝ𝔼𝔻ℙ𝔼𝕃𝕋☁️ • As vast as the sun, stars, and the sky itself, so is my promise to you • Φ
I wonder how Weapon Mastery would have been received if, instead of being something you can do on every attack with no cost, it had the limitations of:
I think it would have been much less well-received among survey respondents, simply on the basis of being something with an actual cost and trade-off rather than effectively free and unlimited.
I do wonder how much the designers at WotC feel certain features do need to be reined in post-playtesting. I'm sure they understand that presenting a feature, then presenting a less-powerful redesign is inevitably going to result in backlash, even if nerfing the feature is reasonable for the sake of balance. It does make me wonder if that will hurt OneD&D on release, if certain features and classes aren't as unlimited or powerful as they were in the playtest.
It’s also very easy to read into it as “the most popular features in the play test are the ones that add options and the least popular ones are the ones that take them away”. Cunning strikes, Brutal strikes, deflect missiles becoming deflect attack, warlocks getting more and better invocations - all expansion of in-combat options for martials and martial-adjacent playstyles.
By contrast - wildshape for combat, heavily nerfed. Option removed. Divine Smite, heavily nerfed and limiting the paladin to certain playstyles to be more effective. As an optimiser myself I want the biggest variety of playstyles possible to be effective - which is probably why this cohesive demongraphic I have never actually witnessed, ever, IRL or on these forums, responded like it did.
Also.. 2014 monk is shit, to be completely honest. It had bad DPR and bad survivability, and they couldn’t get rid of stunning strike because it’s most of the monk’s power budget in the 2014 and 2024 monk and people would riot. So using it to actually bump up monk’s DPR a little is pretty much the best they could do, especially since most monsters have great CON saves so stunning strike is useless 90% of the time and busted the other ten percent in 2014 and useful, powerful against certain enemies (i.e. squishy back liners) which you want your monk fighting anyway in 2024. It’s enabling the monk playstyle, not allowing stunning strike abuse.
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
Miley Cyrus music should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
What happened to Monk is part of how I came to the conclusion I presented above. The new Monk with it's 90% approval has FEWER choices than it does in 5e, in fact I'd argue the monk (base class) has basically 0 choices now. Stunning Strike is objectively better than Flurry of Blows from level 5-10, and with Deflect Attacks there is no risk to staying in melee so there is no tactical movement or skirmishing required. One D&D Monk is most effective simply moving up into melee and punching as many times as they can, then standing there and waiting to get hit, until they get to 5th level when they move up into melee and Stunning Strike + punch with their action & bonus action, then at 10th level they move up into melee Stunning Strike + Flurry of Blows. No tactics required, no choices to be made, just move forwards & punch.
Because.. you’re attacking while doing it. You, as a player, are actually feeling useful, as opposed to making the caster’s spell work better. You, not the spell, did damage.
Also, saying grappling is more likely to succeed with minimal investment is more than a little misleading. What about.. large or larger enemies? Flying enemies? Enemies that can teleport? Do you really want to grapple a melee enemy, or do you want to attack them and push them away afterwards to protect yourself? More likely to succeed than saving throws is beyond irrelevant, and why would I even grapple at all if I don’t have a zoner caster in my party? Why would I grapple if I do have a zoner caster in my party? They can control enemies for me, much better than I can, on more reliable means. You said yourself saving throws are less likely to succeed than checks, and grapple is contested.
Not to mention grapple is situational and generally useless unless your party builds around the positioning meta, but that makes you an evil minmaxer like the ones ruining One D&D by making it so martials have no tactical choices, because martial should be simple for new players - oh wait. That contradicts itself.
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
Miley Cyrus music should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
Paladins have access to all ranged weapons, with OneD&D making thrown weapons much more viable for Paladins with their focus on Strength.
Being able to Smite multiple times per turn lets them boost their damage to a much greater degree than other martials can, especially when you can do so on critical hits for doubled Smite damage. There are several ways for 5e Paladins to get more than two attacks*, and ways for 5e Paladins to use more than one Smite per attack.
Having zero limits or costs on an ability doesn't necessarily make it something that can keep up with casters. In fact, that makes it more likely to be less impactful, because they have to be balanced around being usable on every attack the martial makes. An 8th-level spell can be massively powerful not just because you have to be a high-level PC to use it, but because you can only use it once per day. A feature that a martial receives at lower levels and can use every turn simply cannot have the same impact, because not only would it be hugely imbalanced, but it would also invalidate the features those martials receive at the same high levels.
Paladins haven't been nerfed. Their Smites are more limited, but it's easier to use Smites beyond the standard Divine Smite. Their other features are made much easier to use, with more uses of Channel Divinity and Lay on Hands as a Bonus Action. And it's entirely sensible for Counterspell to work on Smites, because they consume the exact same magical resource that everything else Counterspell functions against works on. Why would Smite be something that can't be Counterspelled, but other Divine magic can be? Why would Booming Blade be vulnerable to Counterspell, but not Smites? Why can a Ranger's special spells like Conjure Volley or Steel Wind Strike be Counterspelled, but not Divine Smite?
*I feel this is a point to highlight, because this is a significant part of many balance issues not just with OneD&D (primarily with Weapon Mastery) but with 5e. In a game where there exists features that apply on any number of attacks made by the user, this inevitably creates a significant gulf between features, feats, and subclasses that give ways to get extra attacks and those that do not. It's why Polearm Master is so dominant, not simply for the added hit but because that added hit can benefit from numerous features like Hunter's Mark or Divine Smite.
You still don't seem to be understanding my argument. Let me see if I can clarify:
People in the online D&D community complain about martials "not having tactical choices". However, I believe this is a false statement - maybe they are lying to themselves, maybe they are lying in their posts, or maybe they just aren't aware of what they really want (there's no shame it that, if everyone truly knew what would make them happy there would be far fewer miserable people in the world).
My evidence that this is a false statement is that:
1) They hold up the "Push" weapon mastery and the "Crusher" feat as awesome and fantastic, despite the fact that Grapple/Shove was already a very effective means to achieve the same result. The only difference is the Grappling was a choice - you either made a weapon attack OR you attempted to grapple - whereas the Crusher feat and the Push weapon mastery are not a choice - you both attack AND push at the same time. Therefore they don't want a tough choice, they want a straight power boost.
2) The UA 8 Monk was celebrated as a massive improvement over the 5e Monk, despite the fact that there are FEWER choices to be made : positioning is less important b/c monk can take attacks much better, stunning strike is always better than flurry of blows between level 5-10 so is always what you should use your limited resource on, and since stunning strike is limited to 1/turn when you get a surplus of resources you can only spend them on 1x SS + 1x FoB. However, in terms of raw power the UA8 Monk is much more powerful than the 5e Monk. Therefore once again people don't want classes that require them to make tough choices, they want a straight power boost.
3) in 5e there is a feat (Martial Adept) and a fighting style (Superior Technique) that give martial characters limited options they can use in combat. However, these are not chosen by players because they require sacrificing the opportunity to take other feats (GWM, PAM) or other fighting styles (Dueling, Protection) that represent a straight simple always-on power boost. Again we see people choosing the straight always-on power boost over having diverse options in combat. Therefore once again people don't want to make tough choices, they want a straight power boost.
Now there is nothing at all wrong with wanting just a straight power boost for martials, to help them feel relevant next to OP casters. My issue is that how people portray their desires & these changes is incorrect, thus may lead designers down a false path when they go about rebalancing these features.
For instance, I really like the proposal above suggesting rebalancing WM by having it cost you the ability score modifier to the damage, that seems very inline with the Rogue's Cunning strikes or most spells in the game - sacrifice a bit of damage for an additional effect. And if the designers truly believe these new proposals are popular because people want "more options" they might do something like that. But I'm in agreement with the above poster, that doing something like that would probably make a lot of people far less enthusiastic about the new edition, because they don't want "more options" they want a straight power boost.
PS
All of these equally apply to the Push mastery, indeed the Push mastery is significantly weaker than Grapple because the enemy can simply move away on their next turn even without any teleportation. If you're a STR-based martial (only STR-weapons have Push) then why do you want to push enemies away 'to protect yourself'? Surely you are the tank in the party, so you want the enemies to attack you rather than the rogue, or wizard...
I've played with and played as Monks often, and never felt they were "shit". They were great at maneuvering to attack and hinder dangerous enemies, and used their mobility and other defensive features to stay out of harm's way. Frankly, Monk is the perfect example of how a subset of players put value purely into hypothetical damage (when a Monk's forte is often control over raw damage) and hypothetical survivability (where the Monk is expected to have the same durability in direct melee as the Fighter or Paladin, ignoring how the Monk has much more ability to avoid direct melee and survive damage other than direct melee).
In fact, I would argue that, if the Monk wasn't given three changes that are purely about numbers, every other feature it received would be pilloried. If the Monk didn't get Deflect Attacks for melee, if the Monk received additional options aside from Stunning Strike instead of the damage rider on a Stunning Strike save, if the Monk received a feature that focused on control rather than raw damage for Heightened Discipline. It wouldn't matter at all what else the Monk received, how well their new abilities worked with their niche, it would be criticized for not fulfilling a role the 5e Monk was never meant to fulfill.
(I do know a Monk player who playtested the OneD&D Monk, and he found it to be a class that felt both overpowered and boring to play.)
There are a bunch of problems with this idea that they should just Grapple or Shove if they want options:
This is incredibly and weirdly reductive; the choice isn't "be a fighter or a moon druid", as classes are more than just the mechanics.
If the player wants to play some kind of armoured knight or whatever, then moon druid is the exact opposite of that fantasy. But that doesn't mean all they want to do is hit things either.
They like it (love seems a strong word) because it doesn't weaken them to do it. Shoving can be useful, so can grappling, but I think you're massively over-estimating their value, especially when you've argued on other threads about how knocking an enemy prone isn't always a good thing since it interferes with ranged allies. The best use of these is when you can land both (to provide the target from just standing back up), but that means trading at least two attacks, or if you've got something to Shove (very slowly) towards.
Giving up attacks might be fine if doing so increased your chances of success compared to someone who doesn't have to trade an attack, that would make it much more appealing trade-off. Make Disarm a core action instead of an optional rule, and maybe we wouldn't need mastery, but like I said, WIzards have instead made all of these options worse so it's a moot point anyway. If bonuses on attack(s) is the only thing we're going to get, then it should at least be a good system, but currently it's the worst of all worlds.
Having 2-3 options is hardly going to make martials suddenly as complicated as casters, and there are factors other than "what class is strongest" involved in what players want to play as, otherwise nobody would play Monk – it has always been possible to have fun with sub-optimal characters, and even never feel like they're especially weak, but that doesn't mean the game shouldn't at least aim to rebalance them better. That would be like arguing you don't need to fix a bridge just because it hasn't fallen down yet.
OneD&D may very well be what we're stuck with for the next 10 years, so we should at least want them to do as good a job as possible with it.
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.
Both of these are perfect examples of why it is not about options, it is about power. Wildshape has been iterated through and is now (UA8) back roughly where it was in 5e but with it costing more spellslots to maintain the HP buffer than the 5e version, however the number of different animal forms you get to choose from has been massively nerfed and because of several features / spells that add damage to each attack you make in WS there is massive disparity in performance between different animal forms, meaning a couple will be massively more powerful than others - i.e. FEWER choices. Yet optimizers only care about the HP you gain from a single use of WS, which is nothing to do with "choices".
Making Divine Smite require a BA means that it conflicts with PAM which means that PAM is for paladin not the clearly optimal build, this actually create more choices since sword & board, greatsword, and PAM all deal roughly the same DPR now, so all three of these options are entirely viable for paladin. Which is actually increasing the variety of playstyles. But you can't see that because you don't actually care about "variety of playstyles" - again maybe it's a deliberate lie because you don't want to admit you only care about big numbers, or maybe you are just not self-aware and have fooled yourself into thinking these clearly false arguments are true, I don't know - but they are false. You dislike the changes to paladin because they are a nerf in terms of maximum power - and again that is a totally fine point of view! But please be clear that it is the drop in power that you don't like, rather than "variety of playstyles", because changes like what was done to Paladin are at least partially designed to balance different playstyles which by definition means decreasing the power of the current highest performing playstyle and lifting up the lowest performing playstyle.
No. You do not want your monk fighting squishy backliners in 2024. Being able to negate 1d10+DEX+level damage each round is a massive defensive ability that you want to be using every round in order to save your entire party from taking that damage, thus you want your monk facing down weapon-using enemies rather than spellcasters (squishy backliners), unless you are certain you can successfully stun the spellcasters (which is definitely NOT the case until tier 3 play at the earliest).
Bringing up Divine Smite conflicting with Polearm Master provides an excellent point regarding a lot of the approved new features and criticized changes to features: that it isn't enough to be able to have X, Y, or Z options on your turns, but that you should be able to do X, Y, and Z all together. As I mentioned earlier, it's possible to have a Barbarian or Rogue apply three different effects, plus bonus damage, all on a single attack without any additional action requirement. Polearm Master remains entirely usable for Paladins, both for the reaction and bonus-action attack; they just can't use that bonus attack and Smite on the same turn. The playtest respondents reply positively to features that can be used entirely independently of action economy, while criticizing changes that put action requirements on features that didn't previously have them.
I suspect that if that sort of philosophy remains a significant part of OneD&D's design, it'll lead to builds focused on triggering as many possible action-free effects on one attack. For example, it would be possible to build a character who can trigger Weapon Mastery, Cunning Strike, Stunning Strike, and a Battle Master maneuver all on one single attack, as early as Level 13. That's part of why limitations on these sorts of abilities are important, not just in restricting the potential of such nova-strikes but providing an incentive to remain in a single class and gain increased usability of that class's options.
1. It's roughly the same number of "tactical" options as you get with Weapon Mastery, why is WM celebrated as tons of options, but Grapple/Shove has always been maligned? It's because Grapple/Shove is a choice, you sacrifice damage to choose to do something else, whereas WM is a bonus it adds on top of your attacks without costing you anything at all.
2. No it didn't, if you used Strength as your primary attribute and had proficiency in Athletics then at level 1, your grapple/shove will be equally successful as an attack roll, and it will get MORE powerful as you increase in level because almost no enemies have proficiency in Athletics/Acrobatics so it will be your STR+Prof vs their raw STR. If you built for doing it then your success rate for Grapple/Shove was nearly 100%.
3. I completely agree, Grapple/Shove is awful in One D&D, but that is irrelevant to my argument [though the fact that almost nobody has complained that Grapple/Shove in One D&D is nerfed, supports my argument that hardly anyone uses it now]. My argument is that right now in 2014 5e, where you can get nearly 100% success rate on Grapple/Shove with a little bit of optimization, and even with no optimization your Grapple/Shove is equal or more likely to be successful than a weapon attack, Grapple/Shove is not used and considered terrible because it is a choice it is considered bad precisely because you can either make a weapon attack OR grapple/shove.
4. That's totally fine! Then argue that martials need more power to balance them against casters! But don't argue that they need "more options" or "more choices" if what you actually want is martials to be more powerful.
PS
I never said "fighter", why did you assume every martial character is a fighter? Barbarians are martials, Rogues are martials, Monks are martials, Rangers & Paladins are primarily martials, and yes Fighters are martials.
Armoured knights hit things. They walked in formations on the ground and hit things. They rode horses and hit things. They stood on walls and hit things. Armoured knights occasionally also grappled and wrestled to the ground, if they had a shield they would sometimes hit people with it. That really is about all that armoured knights do, they might shout a battlecry, bang their shield, or blow a war-horn to try to scare their opponents into retreating, but that's really about it. IRL knights didn't waste their time trying to trip people or disarm them (unless they were showing off in a tourney) or shoot fire out of their swords in a giant arc to do AoE damage, didn't teleport around to hit different 6 enemies half way across the battlefield like a magical pingpong ball. They ran at the enemy and hit them to death, or they stood in formation and hit them to death.
This is bringing up the other major conflict: historical realism vs anime / superhero-ism. Which archetype should martials fulfill? The magical anime superhero trope? Or the medieval knight in shining armour? You can't have both.
FWIW, I think there is a valid argument of the form "they should be more powerful, in a way that has more options than just damage." To me, that is what WM is trying to do. Technically, there are more tactical choices (mostly in choosing a weapon), but much of the time WM amounts to "have an extra rider effect at no real cost" which both makes the character more powerful and makes their attacks have more/different tactical impact. So it broadly feels like "more choices" even without a proper drawback.