D&D (2024) Do you actually like weapon masteries?

[Tales and Chronicles]

They are so...minimal, its hard to hate them, but I cant say that they thrill me.

Why cant they just take inspiration from the cantrips they have since 2014!?

Bleeding Strike: stop healing for a turn
Ringing blow: move a creature in any direction 5 ft.
Puncture: advantage against metal armor, stop reaction for a turn.
Lure strike: attack at +10 ft range, pull the target and deal damage.
Guardian strike: deal damage, the target receive X damage if it move on its next turn.

and give the fighter more skills! Martial characters interact with the world through their skills, not magic, so they need some actual skills!

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Pretty easy to stand your ground when you can create magical barriers.

Wizards are fragile and there are plenty of monsters that will rip a Wizard apart if that Wizard tries to tank it in melee. Warriors have a pretty solid role in the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Pretty easy to stand your ground when you can create magical barriers.

Oh, is that a feature of all spellcasters then?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Any reason these couldn't just be fighter-specific feats (perhaps with a feat tree) instead of a different system?

 

[Stalker0]

Any reason these couldn't just be fighter-specific feats (perhaps with a feat tree) instead of a different system?

so either you would need to give fighters more feats (which could mean they could just take other feats and ignore this system, which might lead to combos you don't want), or these fighter specific feats have to be for masteries, in which case how is that really any different than what they are doing now?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Oh, is that a feature of all spellcasters then?

It's a feature all sufficiently high level spellcasters can take. And for most primary casters (other than warlock and sorc) not taking such spells is an almost entirely in character decision to choose not to have given spells prepared

 

[Clint_L]

I'm thoroughly perplexed by the weapon masteries thing. I don't feel like it adds anything of value to the game, other than slowing down combat. It feels like complexity for the sake making the game feel more complex...for the sake of complexity. Sure, it adds more decisions, but not interesting decisions.

And it's also just so arbitrary. Sure, giant hammers might be good for knocking people down, but in most cases the mechanic associated with a given weapon could just as easily apply to almost any other weapon. (And, in fact, they will, since Fighters can arbitrarily assign any mastery to any weapon.)

Do you like it? Why?

I...tend to agree. Haven't really tried them out yet, though.

In general, I think D&D combat is slow and tedious due to all kinds of structural reasons and masteries as currently designed are just one more thing that adds complexity but not in a very compelling way. And I agree that they are arbitrary.

I would like to see them as an optional rule rather than baked into the game. I don't think I'll want to deal with them as currently designed.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Wizards are fragile and there are plenty of monsters that will rip a Wizard apart if that Wizard tries to tank it in melee. Warriors have a pretty solid role in the game.

Meatshield sidekicks to the Main Characters.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Meatshield sidekicks to the Main Characters.

Yeah, I can see that this isn't a real, good-faith conversation. I'm out. GLHF.

 

[jerryrice4949]

I...tend to agree. Haven't really tried them out yet, though.

In general, I think D&D combat is slow and tedious due to all kinds of structural reasons and masteries as currently designed are just one more thing that adds complexity but not in a very compelling way. And I agree that they are arbitrary.

I would like to see them as an optional rule rather than baked into the game. I don't think I'll want to deal with them as currently designed.

I am interested to hear you definition of slow. I DM for a group of 5. Average combat encounter is probably less than 5 minutes. Our longest combat session ever in 16 months of playing together is maybe 20-25 minutes. Belabored combat is often related to the DM.