1. It's roughly the same number of "tactical" options as you get with Weapon Mastery, why is WM celebrated as tons of options
It's not, see literally any post I've made about weapon mastery. 😝
I dislike it because it's not loads of options, it's single effects tied to weapons that you're almost never going to actually swap out because doing so is a) weird or ridiculous narratively, b) clunky mechanically and c) some effects are much better than others.
I want flexibility more along the lines of Brutal/Cunning Strike rather than a choice that's only really masquerading as a choice, and I want effects that are more tactical and impactful than "I attempt Topple 500 times in a row".
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.
Bonuses and choices aren't mutually exclusive; a choice of bonuses or a bonus with a choice of effects is surely not an alien concept?
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.
Why does nobody who replies to my posts bother to read them first?
What I have very specifically said I wanted is "more to do", I have repeatedly mentioned Battle Master as an example of what I like (and it may surprise you to learn, but they have a choice of bonuses), I have spelled out exactly what I want.
That's not to say I'm incapable of being happy with "swap for an attack" effects if they're strong enough to be tempting compared to attack + rider alternatives. I am also in fact one of those weirdos that do use Grapple and Shove, but that's why I also know they're highly situational; I'll risk them when the potential reward is great enough, but that isn't going to be all the time.
But I'm also looking for martials to be made more competitive, and since it's blindingly obvious Wizards of the Coast has no intention of toning down spellcasters, improving martials is the only alternative unless you want the third option of "leave them basically where they are already". That means improving upon what's there already, if it can be done with attack trades for more things that are worth it, great, but that's not what we currently have. Push on weapons is good because it's zero-risk – you don't lose an attack to attempt it, but I'd be fine using Shove if it either didn't have a saving throw, or was a more difficult save to make.
And we're not in a topic for "what do you want instead of mastery", the topic's question is whether it's too spammy, for which the answer is yes. I'm generally in favour of having something additional tied to weapons, but I don't like the proposed system as it's too thin, and it's a mixture of boring and spammy, so it doubles down on the same problem (doing the same thing over and over).
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.
That's still every bit as reductive if your response to martials needing improvements is "suck it up and play a moon druid". I want to see martials and weapon combat in general improved, I feel like I've been relentlessly clear on that point.
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.
Firstly, D&D combat isn't based around formation fighting, so showing off at a tourney is exactly what you should be able to do, as even when facing groups they're rarely anything even close to a formation or combat would take hours to resolve. Secondly, formation fighting was as much about dividing enemy forces, driving them back/forcing them to reform, and any number of other things that aren't well modelled in D&D 5e.
If a knight can knock someone's weapon out of their hand (ideally by wounding the hand, which sounds a lot like an attack with a rider effect to me) then they would do so, because it makes them easier to kill or drive off. If an opponent is also heavily armoured they'd batter at them to drive them back while trying to break their footing(a push or topple type rider) and so-on, because when your opponent has armour it's not really about getting through it, it's about getting around it unless you have specialist weapons.
But in both cases you want to be the one attacking, because that's how you force openings – you don't want to be the one defending against a skilled opponent, because they're not the one in trouble. There are plenty of examples in historic combat of tactics while attacking, because that's exactly what weapon fighting would involve, especially in anything approaching a duel.
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.
I'm sorry but have I fallen into some alternate reality where armoured knights don't exist in fantasy? Because yes, we can literally have both – these are the Forgotten Realms and beyond we're talking about here. We're not building common guards, but adventurers – mass murderers wrapped up in a delusional power fantasy.
3e onwards is very much a "superhero simulator"; characters don't need to follow full realism, though at least some attempt at some realism (or at least realism adjacent logic) helps to keep it at least a little bit grounded, but we're still talking about characters that can make 8 full swings of a halberd in 6 seconds, or 4 times in six seconds continuously for hours without so much as getting out of breath, all while shrugging off constant hits (since 5e combat is based on the "felling trees" paradigm where you hack at each other until one of you is dead).
It's not, nor has it ever been a historic combat simulator, and I'm not proposing it should be – it's a game, and I want fun things to do on my turn as a martial. That doesn't mean choosing between making an attack or wishing I'd made an attack, but nor is it just attacking over and over with an extra layer of spam. I want meaningful, tactical choices, which is why I want mastery to be more geared towards a choice of once per turn(-ish) effects, and I want Battle Master (and Fighter in general) to build on top of that.
But that's not what weapon mastery currently is – it's extra spam, or boring passive. In short, I don't like it as it stands, because the active options don't feel meaningful when you can spam them, and the passive effects don't feel like doing something.
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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.
not really accurate, because the game doesnt let you do what you want all the time. Also the way the subclasses are designed and the background feats/races matter more baseline.
In terms of moment to moment gameplay, objectively, you have more choices.
1. can use action separate from BA, this creates more options
2. have a no Ki version of step/pd
3. the option to deflect or not will be come up more often.
Now I think you are implying that in actual gameplay you will have less choices, I disagree. Not because you have so many now, but you definitely didnt have more before. The things you are referring to, were always bad options(moving in and out of battle, running and returning for weak damage), in fact the changes they have made to monk make that playstyle of moving around more viable.
having separate BA gives more ways to split your action/BA to disengage (allowing spell options, ability to escape without ki cost etc.
Stunning strike dmg rider coming closer with flurry means not doing FOB all the time isn't horrible dpr, aka, you can use your BA for no Ki disengage or dash, and do OK dmg.
having no Ki BA disengage/dash clearly makes you better at, and have more options for dipping in and out.
deflect attacks means you can leave AoO, and mitigate that damage, possibly dealing more damage for moving in and out of combat, while putting your self in a less dangerous/more advantageous position.
A big flaw in your analysis, is from 1-8 maintaining Ki is a prime consideration, and you now have a lot more ways to be somewhat monkish while mitigating/choosing when to spend Ki. After that, its subclass dependent, but many subs increase their Ki costs at either 11 or 17, and monk can generally use up to 3ki per round baseline optimally (stun+BA+reaction)
So the new monk is actually better at standing still AND better at moving in an out than before. Before the monk was bad at standing still, and bad at doing DPR while moving in and out, and not really that good at moving in and out anyway(needed Ki to disengage which lowers damage, and need to get back in every turn)
The monk you are thinking of never actually existed, you are thinking why didnt they make that monk more viable while keeping it bad at being in melee, but that wasn't 2014 monk. It was just bad at both melee and skirmishing.
The reason they didnt change monk to be a better skirmisher at the cost of meleeing safely is because that dichotomy is not a monk fantasy or dichotomy, and not actually valuable. For that concept to be valuable, you need to be either inferior in melee, or gain some strong tactical/dmg benefit by slipping in and out of melee. Thats not a monk/martial artist concept. Thats a rogue concept (sneak attack, hide, backstabs then escape). They aren't choosing melee/range effortlessly based on situation, that's a ranger concept. And a monk doesnt have the tools to make either concept work well, its game design forces melee, and its gameplay risks losing DPR by escaping consistently (if you get stuck at range)
A monk's mobility is so they can be wherever they need to be in battle, close/near/tactically advantageous. They can play with the big boys in melee, or chase a far target, or run back to assist the backline without massive dpr or action economy loss.
you don't have to die in melee to be good at being mobile in battle. And new monk does make good use of that mobility. I know from past posts, you prefer a high damage/benefit high risk playstyle, but that wasn't 2014 monk, and it isnt really 2024 monk. (they are 3rd of 4 pure martials in DPR) That style, imo should be filled by rogue subclasses, and perhaps monk subclasses. Which is one of the reasons I think rogue is undertuned. Assassin and swashbuckler should be strong at that playstyle, right now, they aren't.
deflect attacks means you can leave AoO, and mitigate that damage, possibly dealing more damage for moving in and out of combat, while putting your self in a less dangerous/more advantageous position.
This is one of the things my Monk-playing friend mentioned to me. He knew he had the free Step of the Wind or Patient Defense options, but he never used either of them for three reasons:
Monks already have options built into the class and subclasses for escaping melee without sacrificing damage on Disengage.
If he was in a situation where he was in danger, he was far better off spending the Discipline Point for the extra movement or defense instead of taking the free Disengage option.
As you point out here, baiting opportunity attacks with Deflect Attacks significantly lessens the value of Disengage, especially when you can potentially counterattack for more damage than a regular attack, without consuming either your Action or Bonus Action.
Monks have new options, but there's two problems with them. Unlike Weapon Mastery or other classes' cost-free features, they do nothing to contribute to taking down enemies, either with damage or control effects. The other problem, as my friend cited, is that some of them are so powerful that other options aren't worth using in comparison. Once you hit Level 10, the trade-off of using any Bonus Action other than Flurry of Blows is that you're sacrificing most of your damage output in doing so. Deflect Attacks has the exact same issue, in that it's such a powerful reaction that the Monk is discouraged from using any other reaction available to them. Even Step of the Wind's ally-movement feature was something he mentioned not making use of, because most of the time it was better to have an ally attack at range for the one turn it took them to close in rather than for him to give up three attacks.
(I also pointed this out in another thread, but the Stunning Strike damage effect isn't even an option, but a coin-flip as to whether the feature deals damage or stuns. It's bizarre in contrast to options like Divine Smite and Cunning Strike, where a PC is free to choose reliable damage over a save-based effect, but the Monk isn't given that option at all. It can result in situations where a failed save has no effect on an enemy immune to stunning whereas a successful save would still deal damage, or that you can succeed in stunning an enemy where the extra damage might have outright killed them.)
Edit: I brought the subject up while chatting with said Monk player, and he summed it up quite well in my opinion: that in 5e, you can spend two ki points by using Flurry of Blows and Stunning Strike, or you can use two Stunning Strikes. OneD&D only lets you do the former.
deflect attacks means you can leave AoO, and mitigate that damage, possibly dealing more damage for moving in and out of combat, while putting your self in a less dangerous/more advantageous position.
This is one of the things my Monk-playing friend mentioned to me. He knew he had the free Step of the Wind or Patient Defense options, but he never used either of them for three reasons:
Monks already have options built into the class and subclasses for escaping melee without sacrificing damage on Disengage.
If he was in a situation where he was in danger, he was far better off spending the Discipline Point for the extra movement or defense instead of taking the free Disengage option.
As you point out here, baiting opportunity attacks with Deflect Attacks significantly lessens the value of Disengage, especially when you can potentially counterattack for more damage than a regular attack, without consuming either your Action or Bonus Action.
Monks have new options, but there's two problems with them. Unlike Weapon Mastery or other classes' cost-free features, they do nothing to contribute to taking down enemies, either with damage or control effects. The other problem, as my friend cited, is that some of them are so powerful that other options aren't worth using in comparison. Once you hit Level 10, the trade-off of using any Bonus Action other than Flurry of Blows is that you're sacrificing most of your damage output in doing so. Deflect Attacks has the exact same issue, in that it's such a powerful reaction that the Monk is discouraged from using any other reaction available to them. Even Step of the Wind's ally-movement feature was something he mentioned not making use of, because most of the time it was better to have an ally attack at range for the one turn it took them to close in rather than for him to give up three attacks.
(I also pointed this out in another thread, but the Stunning Strike damage effect isn't even an option, but a coin-flip as to whether the feature deals damage or stuns. It's bizarre in contrast to options like Divine Smite and Cunning Strike, where a PC is free to choose reliable damage over a save-based effect, but the Monk isn't given that option at all. It can result in situations where a failed save has no effect on an enemy immune to stunning whereas a successful save would still deal damage, or that you can succeed in stunning an enemy where the extra damage might have outright killed them.)
Edit: I brought the subject up while chatting with said Monk player, and he summed it up quite well in my opinion: that in 5e, you can spend two ki points by using Flurry of Blows and Stunning Strike, or you can use two Stunning Strikes. OneD&D only lets you do the former.
as monk actually playtesting, you don't have infinite Ki points, especially in most actual released content where you are level 1-10. I can tell you when you have 4 ki points, using one Ki to disengage doesnt feel great.
Your friend has a point, but this test has never been, how would I/he/you design monk. its always been, is it better or worse than 2014, or broadly are you satisfied with these features. Your BA has ALWAYS been best used as FOB. The MAJOR difference now is not only are the other options improved, but you can use your BA OR your action, which helps in certain cases, especially when low Ki.
before, you could give up 50% of your dps to disengage, xor dash, xor dodge, now you can give up 50% to disengage+dash+carry, or dodge+temphp+disengage. Which is a better choice?
before at low Ki, you had no real options, now you have some options and an unlinked BA. which is a better choice?
before you had a bunch of not great reaction choices mostly dictated by enemies, now you have the same reaction choices +1 that comes up more often. Do I wish I had some other great reactions? sure, do I wish I didn't have to choose between defense, and maybe sentinel(or maybe if I still had access to PAM Staff but we dont), sure. But would I rather have a monk with a deflect attacks reaction than a monk with 2014 reactions? Not at all, monk had pretty poor reaction choices before, and you always only get one reaction.
Stunning strike fail case is a mitigation for wasting a ki with no effect. Especially if you can only attempt one per round. I might have preferred a martial strike feature with a bunch of options, but is it better than 2014 stunning strike? yes, its a lot better to have a fail usecase, and its actually better for monk ki flow, and monster design that monks can't waste all their Ki gambling on a 1 round shutdown. My main issue is sometimes I just want to go for the fail, I had a number of fights that dragged because I rolled stun when I needed the damage to secure a kill.
The survey doesnt ask us, is this the way you would have done it? its are you satisfied? (with if your not, we will probably revert to 2014) The first playtest monk was basically 2014 monk with slightly updated features for onednd to function within the changes. It was rated extremely poorly because baseline monk was not a great class, and is an even worse class in a onednd context (other classes got more versatility and a higher dpr floor). the second monk reached its high satisfaction in relation to 2014 monk and UA5 monk.
in my redesign of monk, I'd have had unarmed masteries, more reaction(like) abilities with more reactions, and a bunch of cunning/brutal/smite menu options with stunning strike as one option. But they aren't incorporating me on the design team. UA8 monk isnt my best monk design, its the best monk design they have shown us, there is a difference.
Its a clearly improved version of monk, and its apparently the one they are willing to give us.
what I'm getting at here is you aren't really understanding what the communities real role in this process is. We don't make the design, we just say generally how we feel about the selection they give us. You are overestimating the the input of the community, and what they are trying to get out of us. I'm not saying they ignore us completely, but they are only interested in our detailed feedback as a glimpse into the minds of certain users, not as co-designers, or even a sign of the 'will' of the people. The discussions we have here represent our various understandings, perspectives, reasonings, maybe our possible game design choices, and some of our experiences, but its mostly just a thought experiment. I'm not expecting the consensus here, or in reddit, or etc to match the final product. Even the consensus of the surveys won't represent the 'will' of the people.
I just hope that with whatever feedback they get, the game improves. And to be honest, so far imo, the UAs have generally improved in most iterations. The only thing that got worse imo was class progression (but that was changed in spite of feedback) and ranger HM (but that was changed because of OPness, inspite of feedback). And honestly I'm worried how class lists will effect untested iterations, (but that was also not really a majority view point)
a bit of a digression, my bad, this topic and the other are linked in my head.
See I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding in the "discussion about D&D" community about how Monk actually plays at the table, rather than how people think it plays based on reading the class description. This is how I have experienced playing 2014 Monks.
Situation 1: Monk is up against a flying enemy - Monk takes out a shortbow and fires arrows at it, when a caster manages to knock it down the Monk quickly runs up and blitzes through their ki using Attack+FoB+Stunning Strike to keep it down.
Situation 2: Monk is facing a group of enemies. Monk picks out a weak target and runs over & stuns them, they kill it next turn then go and focus fire on the enemy everyone else is hitting using FoB, depending on the relative health of the monk vs the enemy they either do a normal round of attacks spending no ki, or use their special subclass feature to disengage without losing DPR : addle (OH), drunken technique (DM), ranged attack (Sun), reach (4 elements), ranged attack (Kensai).
Step of the Wind / Patient Defense were and will always be niche abilities, they come up maybe once / 3 sessions - because offense is better than defense in 5e, and all the subclasses have unique defensive strategies, and Monk DPR is balanced assuming they get that BA attack every turn. The problem was always that monk had no feats to help their damage scale unlike all the other martial classes.
but we're still talking about characters that can make 8 full swings of a halberd in 6 seconds, or 4 times in six seconds continuously for hours without so much as getting out of breath, all while shrugging off constant hits (since 5e combat is based on the "felling trees" paradigm where you hack at each other until one of you is dead).
That doesn't mean choosing between making an attack or wishing I'd made an attack, but nor is it just attacking over and over with an extra layer of spam. I want meaningful, tactical choices, which is why I want mastery to be more geared towards a choice of once per turn(-ish) effects, and I want Battle Master (and Fighter in general) to build on top of that.
But that's not what weapon mastery currently is – it's extra spam, or boring passive. In short, I don't like it as it stands, because the active options don't feel meaningful when you can spam them, and the passive effects don't feel like doing something.
Yes Extra Yes.
About the fighter. Imo as it is for now Battlemaster is what WM should be for the fighter. Its simple and effective. And its ressource management. It doesnt need your brain to extra compute every weapon with every property and do a freaking factor analysis if u intend to play the class. For insignificant change if u just skip entirely the whole WM system. What I want to say is there is a probability that people will disregard the class for this.
Also about battlemaster I honestly don't think its normal you can push/prone/trip/smoke someone on every ******* attack. Once per attack action should pretty enough.
They should have asked do u want to use the new WM or not. On a realistic sample, it would be very iconic. But this is not a realistic sample that answer the survey. Its normal to listen to the hardcore player for balance purpose, its pretty much a whole new public to listen for design and engagement purpose.
There's been quite a bit of back-and-forth in this thread but from what I've seen, what many from the community seem to want is:
Make Martials stronger in areas other than damage, especially for later tiers, to be more closely comparable to casters
Give Martials more choices in combat that feels impactful and especially doesn't feel worse than attacking (Shove/Grapple mostly falls into the category of feeling worse than attacking)
To me, Weapon Mastery have somewhat delivered on the first point, but like many have said; in an incredibly simplistic and unengaging manner. WM have also somewhat delivered on the second point because it provides a more significant choice of weapon and is just a rider on top of your weapon attack, so it doesn't feel worse than attacking.
In a way I feel like the Battle Master subclass has done a misdeed to martial classes in this aspect of the game because the design space it uses is alternative combat actions exactly like Shove/Grapple. And to not subtract from the subclass you cannot grant these or similar options to everyone or even just to martials.
The way you could succeed in doing it anyway is to make a foundation of tactical actions that martials can utilize in combat and then have the Battle Master expand and/or improve on it - kinda like the Champion mainly just adds more power to a weapon swing Fighter through critical hits and bonus Fighting Style. (A quick sketch would be to grant every martial a specific selection of maneuvers and possibly some choice additions, no superiority dice bonus but still a resource - which could be linked to your proficiency bonus or a chosen ASM. You can regain this resource like +1 at the beginning of combat, +2 on a short rest and full regain on long rest. Then Battle Master would have access to even better versions and other maneuvers exclusive to that subclass AND they could have their superiority dice bonus and very easily could have an increased number of uses and/or easier ways to regain charges - like spend a charge of Second Wind to regain charges.) I would prefer this over the UA versions of Weapon Mastery, but it would be interesting to hook weapon types as a requisite into the mix as well. AKA all martials gets access to A, B, C, D, and E action but using a Dagger would allow the use of A, C, and D actions, but you need a Club to perform A, B, or C and a Polearm to perform D or E. Perhaps the weapon type provides some sort of bonus to the action - like a Dagger or smaller Axe (not Greataxe) grants a bonus to Grappling Strike as you stab it into the opponent and use it as a handle - something that's unfeasible for a Polearm or Club or even a Sword to do, at least in that fashion. Perhaps Fighter can get some specific leniency, bonus or benefit to showcase their weapon prowess - like if these actions had a penalty to succeed, the Fighter can ignore those penalties.
Basically expand on the alternative combat actions, which was much more prominent in 3e, many of which have been made into maneuvers in 5e - hence the idea above but maybe not exactly as I described. I would put a resource on the system, but also grant relative easy ways to regain charges during an adventuring day so you "can afford" to use them. For instance a Rogue might want to use something like Feinting Strike to gain advantage for Sneak Attack (which otherwise would happen naturally through the Vex mastery once you get a hit in) and if they only can do it twice per day with no other ways to restore that resource, they are unlikely to use it that often unless we fight a big bad. To me such a system would feel more engaging and takes advantage of an already tested and liked mechanic at the expense that Battle Master feels less distinctive and the removal or need for revamp of the Martial Adept feat - which could be limited to removing the superiority dice, limiting the choices to the base martial selection and perhaps providing 2 uses instead of 1 or a STR/DEX stat increase.
basically, there's two schools of thought. The first is the dying of thirst in a desert crowd. They've been given water and they are happy.
Then there's the guys who don't just want water. Water's boring. They want the option of tea and lemonade too, but they don't want to just pick tea or lemonade. They want to mix and match, and have a reason why they should be picking their tea or lemonade at the time when they are making the choice and they want to limit how many sips of tea or lemonade they can take/day.
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It's not, see literally any post I've made about weapon mastery. 😝
I dislike it because it's not loads of options, it's single effects tied to weapons that you're almost never going to actually swap out because doing so is a) weird or ridiculous narratively, b) clunky mechanically and c) some effects are much better than others.
I want flexibility more along the lines of Brutal/Cunning Strike rather than a choice that's only really masquerading as a choice, and I want effects that are more tactical and impactful than "I attempt Topple 500 times in a row".
Bonuses and choices aren't mutually exclusive; a choice of bonuses or a bonus with a choice of effects is surely not an alien concept?
Why does nobody who replies to my posts bother to read them first?
What I have very specifically said I wanted is "more to do", I have repeatedly mentioned Battle Master as an example of what I like (and it may surprise you to learn, but they have a choice of bonuses), I have spelled out exactly what I want.
That's not to say I'm incapable of being happy with "swap for an attack" effects if they're strong enough to be tempting compared to attack + rider alternatives. I am also in fact one of those weirdos that do use Grapple and Shove, but that's why I also know they're highly situational; I'll risk them when the potential reward is great enough, but that isn't going to be all the time.
But I'm also looking for martials to be made more competitive, and since it's blindingly obvious Wizards of the Coast has no intention of toning down spellcasters, improving martials is the only alternative unless you want the third option of "leave them basically where they are already". That means improving upon what's there already, if it can be done with attack trades for more things that are worth it, great, but that's not what we currently have. Push on weapons is good because it's zero-risk – you don't lose an attack to attempt it, but I'd be fine using Shove if it either didn't have a saving throw, or was a more difficult save to make.
And we're not in a topic for "what do you want instead of mastery", the topic's question is whether it's too spammy, for which the answer is yes. I'm generally in favour of having something additional tied to weapons, but I don't like the proposed system as it's too thin, and it's a mixture of boring and spammy, so it doubles down on the same problem (doing the same thing over and over).
That's still every bit as reductive if your response to martials needing improvements is "suck it up and play a moon druid". I want to see martials and weapon combat in general improved, I feel like I've been relentlessly clear on that point.
Firstly, D&D combat isn't based around formation fighting, so showing off at a tourney is exactly what you should be able to do, as even when facing groups they're rarely anything even close to a formation or combat would take hours to resolve. Secondly, formation fighting was as much about dividing enemy forces, driving them back/forcing them to reform, and any number of other things that aren't well modelled in D&D 5e.
If a knight can knock someone's weapon out of their hand (ideally by wounding the hand, which sounds a lot like an attack with a rider effect to me) then they would do so, because it makes them easier to kill or drive off. If an opponent is also heavily armoured they'd batter at them to drive them back while trying to break their footing(a push or topple type rider) and so-on, because when your opponent has armour it's not really about getting through it, it's about getting around it unless you have specialist weapons.
But in both cases you want to be the one attacking, because that's how you force openings – you don't want to be the one defending against a skilled opponent, because they're not the one in trouble. There are plenty of examples in historic combat of tactics while attacking, because that's exactly what weapon fighting would involve, especially in anything approaching a duel.
I'm sorry but have I fallen into some alternate reality where armoured knights don't exist in fantasy? Because yes, we can literally have both – these are the Forgotten Realms and beyond we're talking about here. We're not building common guards, but adventurers – mass murderers wrapped up in a delusional power fantasy.
3e onwards is very much a "superhero simulator"; characters don't need to follow full realism, though at least some attempt at some realism (or at least realism adjacent logic) helps to keep it at least a little bit grounded, but we're still talking about characters that can make 8 full swings of a halberd in 6 seconds, or 4 times in six seconds continuously for hours without so much as getting out of breath, all while shrugging off constant hits (since 5e combat is based on the "felling trees" paradigm where you hack at each other until one of you is dead).
It's not, nor has it ever been a historic combat simulator, and I'm not proposing it should be – it's a game, and I want fun things to do on my turn as a martial. That doesn't mean choosing between making an attack or wishing I'd made an attack, but nor is it just attacking over and over with an extra layer of spam. I want meaningful, tactical choices, which is why I want mastery to be more geared towards a choice of once per turn(-ish) effects, and I want Battle Master (and Fighter in general) to build on top of that.
But that's not what weapon mastery currently is – it's extra spam, or boring passive. In short, I don't like it as it stands, because the active options don't feel meaningful when you can spam them, and the passive effects don't feel like doing something.
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.
not really accurate, because the game doesnt let you do what you want all the time. Also the way the subclasses are designed and the background feats/races matter more baseline.
In terms of moment to moment gameplay, objectively, you have more choices.
1. can use action separate from BA, this creates more options
2. have a no Ki version of step/pd
3. the option to deflect or not will be come up more often.
Now I think you are implying that in actual gameplay you will have less choices, I disagree. Not because you have so many now, but you definitely didnt have more before. The things you are referring to, were always bad options(moving in and out of battle, running and returning for weak damage), in fact the changes they have made to monk make that playstyle of moving around more viable.
having separate BA gives more ways to split your action/BA to disengage (allowing spell options, ability to escape without ki cost etc.
Stunning strike dmg rider coming closer with flurry means not doing FOB all the time isn't horrible dpr, aka, you can use your BA for no Ki disengage or dash, and do OK dmg.
having no Ki BA disengage/dash clearly makes you better at, and have more options for dipping in and out.
deflect attacks means you can leave AoO, and mitigate that damage, possibly dealing more damage for moving in and out of combat, while putting your self in a less dangerous/more advantageous position.
A big flaw in your analysis, is from 1-8 maintaining Ki is a prime consideration, and you now have a lot more ways to be somewhat monkish while mitigating/choosing when to spend Ki. After that, its subclass dependent, but many subs increase their Ki costs at either 11 or 17, and monk can generally use up to 3ki per round baseline optimally (stun+BA+reaction)
So the new monk is actually better at standing still AND better at moving in an out than before. Before the monk was bad at standing still, and bad at doing DPR while moving in and out, and not really that good at moving in and out anyway(needed Ki to disengage which lowers damage, and need to get back in every turn)
The monk you are thinking of never actually existed, you are thinking why didnt they make that monk more viable while keeping it bad at being in melee, but that wasn't 2014 monk. It was just bad at both melee and skirmishing.
The reason they didnt change monk to be a better skirmisher at the cost of meleeing safely is because that dichotomy is not a monk fantasy or dichotomy, and not actually valuable. For that concept to be valuable, you need to be either inferior in melee, or gain some strong tactical/dmg benefit by slipping in and out of melee. Thats not a monk/martial artist concept. Thats a rogue concept (sneak attack, hide, backstabs then escape). They aren't choosing melee/range effortlessly based on situation, that's a ranger concept. And a monk doesnt have the tools to make either concept work well, its game design forces melee, and its gameplay risks losing DPR by escaping consistently (if you get stuck at range)
A monk's mobility is so they can be wherever they need to be in battle, close/near/tactically advantageous. They can play with the big boys in melee, or chase a far target, or run back to assist the backline without massive dpr or action economy loss.
you don't have to die in melee to be good at being mobile in battle. And new monk does make good use of that mobility. I know from past posts, you prefer a high damage/benefit high risk playstyle, but that wasn't 2014 monk, and it isnt really 2024 monk. (they are 3rd of 4 pure martials in DPR) That style, imo should be filled by rogue subclasses, and perhaps monk subclasses. Which is one of the reasons I think rogue is undertuned. Assassin and swashbuckler should be strong at that playstyle, right now, they aren't.
This is one of the things my Monk-playing friend mentioned to me. He knew he had the free Step of the Wind or Patient Defense options, but he never used either of them for three reasons:
Monks have new options, but there's two problems with them. Unlike Weapon Mastery or other classes' cost-free features, they do nothing to contribute to taking down enemies, either with damage or control effects. The other problem, as my friend cited, is that some of them are so powerful that other options aren't worth using in comparison. Once you hit Level 10, the trade-off of using any Bonus Action other than Flurry of Blows is that you're sacrificing most of your damage output in doing so. Deflect Attacks has the exact same issue, in that it's such a powerful reaction that the Monk is discouraged from using any other reaction available to them. Even Step of the Wind's ally-movement feature was something he mentioned not making use of, because most of the time it was better to have an ally attack at range for the one turn it took them to close in rather than for him to give up three attacks.
(I also pointed this out in another thread, but the Stunning Strike damage effect isn't even an option, but a coin-flip as to whether the feature deals damage or stuns. It's bizarre in contrast to options like Divine Smite and Cunning Strike, where a PC is free to choose reliable damage over a save-based effect, but the Monk isn't given that option at all. It can result in situations where a failed save has no effect on an enemy immune to stunning whereas a successful save would still deal damage, or that you can succeed in stunning an enemy where the extra damage might have outright killed them.)
Edit: I brought the subject up while chatting with said Monk player, and he summed it up quite well in my opinion: that in 5e, you can spend two ki points by using Flurry of Blows and Stunning Strike, or you can use two Stunning Strikes. OneD&D only lets you do the former.
as monk actually playtesting, you don't have infinite Ki points, especially in most actual released content where you are level 1-10. I can tell you when you have 4 ki points, using one Ki to disengage doesnt feel great.
Your friend has a point, but this test has never been, how would I/he/you design monk. its always been, is it better or worse than 2014, or broadly are you satisfied with these features. Your BA has ALWAYS been best used as FOB. The MAJOR difference now is not only are the other options improved, but you can use your BA OR your action, which helps in certain cases, especially when low Ki.
before, you could give up 50% of your dps to disengage, xor dash, xor dodge, now you can give up 50% to disengage+dash+carry, or dodge+temphp+disengage. Which is a better choice?
before at low Ki, you had no real options, now you have some options and an unlinked BA. which is a better choice?
before you had a bunch of not great reaction choices mostly dictated by enemies, now you have the same reaction choices +1 that comes up more often. Do I wish I had some other great reactions? sure, do I wish I didn't have to choose between defense, and maybe sentinel(or maybe if I still had access to PAM Staff but we dont), sure. But would I rather have a monk with a deflect attacks reaction than a monk with 2014 reactions? Not at all, monk had pretty poor reaction choices before, and you always only get one reaction.
Stunning strike fail case is a mitigation for wasting a ki with no effect. Especially if you can only attempt one per round. I might have preferred a martial strike feature with a bunch of options, but is it better than 2014 stunning strike? yes, its a lot better to have a fail usecase, and its actually better for monk ki flow, and monster design that monks can't waste all their Ki gambling on a 1 round shutdown. My main issue is sometimes I just want to go for the fail, I had a number of fights that dragged because I rolled stun when I needed the damage to secure a kill.
The survey doesnt ask us, is this the way you would have done it? its are you satisfied? (with if your not, we will probably revert to 2014) The first playtest monk was basically 2014 monk with slightly updated features for onednd to function within the changes. It was rated extremely poorly because baseline monk was not a great class, and is an even worse class in a onednd context (other classes got more versatility and a higher dpr floor). the second monk reached its high satisfaction in relation to 2014 monk and UA5 monk.
in my redesign of monk, I'd have had unarmed masteries, more reaction(like) abilities with more reactions, and a bunch of cunning/brutal/smite menu options with stunning strike as one option. But they aren't incorporating me on the design team. UA8 monk isnt my best monk design, its the best monk design they have shown us, there is a difference.
Its a clearly improved version of monk, and its apparently the one they are willing to give us.
what I'm getting at here is you aren't really understanding what the communities real role in this process is. We don't make the design, we just say generally how we feel about the selection they give us. You are overestimating the the input of the community, and what they are trying to get out of us. I'm not saying they ignore us completely, but they are only interested in our detailed feedback as a glimpse into the minds of certain users, not as co-designers, or even a sign of the 'will' of the people. The discussions we have here represent our various understandings, perspectives, reasonings, maybe our possible game design choices, and some of our experiences, but its mostly just a thought experiment. I'm not expecting the consensus here, or in reddit, or etc to match the final product. Even the consensus of the surveys won't represent the 'will' of the people.
I just hope that with whatever feedback they get, the game improves. And to be honest, so far imo, the UAs have generally improved in most iterations. The only thing that got worse imo was class progression (but that was changed in spite of feedback) and ranger HM (but that was changed because of OPness, inspite of feedback). And honestly I'm worried how class lists will effect untested iterations, (but that was also not really a majority view point)
a bit of a digression, my bad, this topic and the other are linked in my head.
See I think we have a fundamental misunderstanding in the "discussion about D&D" community about how Monk actually plays at the table, rather than how people think it plays based on reading the class description. This is how I have experienced playing 2014 Monks.
Situation 1: Monk is up against a flying enemy - Monk takes out a shortbow and fires arrows at it, when a caster manages to knock it down the Monk quickly runs up and blitzes through their ki using Attack+FoB+Stunning Strike to keep it down.
Situation 2: Monk is facing a group of enemies. Monk picks out a weak target and runs over & stuns them, they kill it next turn then go and focus fire on the enemy everyone else is hitting using FoB, depending on the relative health of the monk vs the enemy they either do a normal round of attacks spending no ki, or use their special subclass feature to disengage without losing DPR : addle (OH), drunken technique (DM), ranged attack (Sun), reach (4 elements), ranged attack (Kensai).
Step of the Wind / Patient Defense were and will always be niche abilities, they come up maybe once / 3 sessions - because offense is better than defense in 5e, and all the subclasses have unique defensive strategies, and Monk DPR is balanced assuming they get that BA attack every turn. The problem was always that monk had no feats to help their damage scale unlike all the other martial classes.
Yes Extra Yes.
About the fighter.
Imo as it is for now Battlemaster is what WM should be for the fighter. Its simple and effective. And its ressource management.
It doesnt need your brain to extra compute every weapon with every property and do a freaking factor analysis if u intend to play the class.
For insignificant change if u just skip entirely the whole WM system.
What I want to say is there is a probability that people will disregard the class for this.
Also about battlemaster I honestly don't think its normal you can push/prone/trip/smoke someone on every ******* attack.
Once per attack action should pretty enough.
They should have asked do u want to use the new WM or not. On a realistic sample, it would be very iconic.
But this is not a realistic sample that answer the survey.
Its normal to listen to the hardcore player for balance purpose, its pretty much a whole new public to listen for design and engagement purpose.
There's been quite a bit of back-and-forth in this thread but from what I've seen, what many from the community seem to want is:
To me, Weapon Mastery have somewhat delivered on the first point, but like many have said; in an incredibly simplistic and unengaging manner. WM have also somewhat delivered on the second point because it provides a more significant choice of weapon and is just a rider on top of your weapon attack, so it doesn't feel worse than attacking.
In a way I feel like the Battle Master subclass has done a misdeed to martial classes in this aspect of the game because the design space it uses is alternative combat actions exactly like Shove/Grapple. And to not subtract from the subclass you cannot grant these or similar options to everyone or even just to martials.
The way you could succeed in doing it anyway is to make a foundation of tactical actions that martials can utilize in combat and then have the Battle Master expand and/or improve on it - kinda like the Champion mainly just adds more power to a weapon swing Fighter through critical hits and bonus Fighting Style.
(A quick sketch would be to grant every martial a specific selection of maneuvers and possibly some choice additions, no superiority dice bonus but still a resource - which could be linked to your proficiency bonus or a chosen ASM. You can regain this resource like +1 at the beginning of combat, +2 on a short rest and full regain on long rest. Then Battle Master would have access to even better versions and other maneuvers exclusive to that subclass AND they could have their superiority dice bonus and very easily could have an increased number of uses and/or easier ways to regain charges - like spend a charge of Second Wind to regain charges.)
I would prefer this over the UA versions of Weapon Mastery, but it would be interesting to hook weapon types as a requisite into the mix as well. AKA all martials gets access to A, B, C, D, and E action but using a Dagger would allow the use of A, C, and D actions, but you need a Club to perform A, B, or C and a Polearm to perform D or E. Perhaps the weapon type provides some sort of bonus to the action - like a Dagger or smaller Axe (not Greataxe) grants a bonus to Grappling Strike as you stab it into the opponent and use it as a handle - something that's unfeasible for a Polearm or Club or even a Sword to do, at least in that fashion. Perhaps Fighter can get some specific leniency, bonus or benefit to showcase their weapon prowess - like if these actions had a penalty to succeed, the Fighter can ignore those penalties.
Basically expand on the alternative combat actions, which was much more prominent in 3e, many of which have been made into maneuvers in 5e - hence the idea above but maybe not exactly as I described. I would put a resource on the system, but also grant relative easy ways to regain charges during an adventuring day so you "can afford" to use them. For instance a Rogue might want to use something like Feinting Strike to gain advantage for Sneak Attack (which otherwise would happen naturally through the Vex mastery once you get a hit in) and if they only can do it twice per day with no other ways to restore that resource, they are unlikely to use it that often unless we fight a big bad. To me such a system would feel more engaging and takes advantage of an already tested and liked mechanic at the expense that Battle Master feels less distinctive and the removal or need for revamp of the Martial Adept feat - which could be limited to removing the superiority dice, limiting the choices to the base martial selection and perhaps providing 2 uses instead of 1 or a STR/DEX stat increase.
basically, there's two schools of thought. The first is the dying of thirst in a desert crowd. They've been given water and they are happy.
Then there's the guys who don't just want water. Water's boring. They want the option of tea and lemonade too, but they don't want to just pick tea or lemonade. They want to mix and match, and have a reason why they should be picking their tea or lemonade at the time when they are making the choice and they want to limit how many sips of tea or lemonade they can take/day.
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