D&D (2024) Not loving weapon mastery with beginners

[FitzTheRuke]

You're implying that complex is the one true way. We're all old salts here and forget about new players.

I might be an old salt, but I never forget about new players. I've taught somewhere in the neighbourhood of a thousand people to play D&D over the years - I run a learn-to-play monthly. For decades.

I prefer TTRPGs to be simple. 5e is a little too complex for my personal tastes, but it's my best bet to sell product, so it's the game that I teach most often these days.

But IMO threads like this make it sound like if 2014 5e is a 6 (on a scale of 1-10 complexity) then 2024 is a 9, when it's more like a 6.05, which rounds to a 6.

IMO, they're so darn close that it's effectively the same thing. Sure, there's some added complexity here-and-there, and there's also some taken away. Like everyone keeps trying to point out (and are often misunderstood) - The specific make-up of the party makes more difference than the 14-24 change does. A "pure" 2014 party that includes a Wizard, a Druid, a Battlemaster Fighter, a Warlock, and a Cleric, for a random example, is going to take far longer on their turns than a pure 2024 party that has a Barbarian, a Monk, a Rogue, a Cleric, and a Paladin - or many, many, many other combinations of Classes, most prominently dependent on how many pure spellcasters there are in the party.

That's all the "Wizard vs Weapon Master" argument is trying to say - sure, if you compare a 2014 to an otherwise exactly-the-same 2024 party, Weapon Masteries might be a noticeable change, in particular if that party has a lot of classes that use Weapon Mastery, and those Weapon Masteries are the most complex ones - but under most circumstances, with the party made up of various random combinations of features from 5e - I really can't see how WM stand out as anything particularly noticeable, far or less an egregious affront.

Even to new players.

And I played with 5 new players YESTERDAY. And I will do so again soon enough.

 

[Zardnaar]

I might be an old salt, but I never forget about new players. I've taught somewhere in the neighbourhood of a thousand people to play D&D over the years - I run a learn-to-play monthly. For decades.

I prefer TTRPGs to be simple. 5e is a little too complex for my personal tastes, but it's my best bet to sell product, so it's the game that I teach most often these days.

But IMO threads like this make it sound like if 2014 5e is a 6 (on a scale of 1-10 complexity) then 2024 is a 9, when it's more like a 6.05, which rounds to a 6.

IMO, they're so darn close that it's effectively the same thing. Sure, there's some added complexity here-and-there, and there's also some taken away. Like everyone keeps trying to point out (and are often misunderstood) - The specific make-up of the party makes more difference than the 14-24 change does. A "pure" 2014 party that includes a Wizard, a Druid, a Battlemaster Fighter, a Warlock, and a Cleric, for a random example, is going to take far longer on their turns than a pure 2024 party that has a Barbarian, a Monk, a Rogue, a Cleric, and a Paladin - or many, many, many other combinations of Classes, most prominently dependent on how many pure spellcasters there are in the party.

That's all the "Wizard vs Weapon Master" argument is trying to say - sure, if you compare a 2014 to an otherwise exactly-the-same 2024 party, Weapon Masteries might be a noticeable change, in particular if that party has a lot of classes that use Weapon Mastery, and those Weapon Masteries are the most complex ones - but under most circumstances, with the party made up of various random combinations of features from 5e - I really can't see how WM stand out as anything particularly noticeable, far or less an egregious affront.

Even to new players.

And I played with 5 new players YESTERDAY. And I will do so again soon enough.

I'm used to new players but generally one or two at a time. Before running it though I was thing hard about how to include them.

5-7 was new experience for me recently. I'm also seeing a direct comparison between C&C and 5E being run on different days. So it's not nostalgia.

I quite like B/X or OSE conceptually but they lack a few bells and whistles for new players so won't run them. There's limits how far you can go.

Also found a 3.5 holdout group talk to one of them. And rereading 4E and 3.5 for my personal game.

There's a lot I like in 3.5 but 0 nostalgia to run it again.

 

[Vaalingrade]

You're implying that complex is the one true way. We're all old salts here and forget about new players.

I respect new players and their ability to learn rules rather than act like they can't operate basic combat riders.

We're talking 'you can do damage even if you miss', not 3e grappling.

 

[ECMO3]

Every one of the characters I played so far as a player using the 2024 rules has Weapon Masteries. I don't think they have made the game any more fun for me as a player. More complex, more optimized but not more fun. YMMV

 

[Zardnaar]

I respect new players and their ability to learn rules rather than act like they can't operate basic combat riders.

We're talking 'you can do damage even if you miss', not 3e grappling.

It's still more complicated than 1d6+3 damage. That's objective. What you like is subjective.

Actually came up in my 5E for newbies game (now campaign) session 0


I passed the 3 core 5E books to my youngest player and made a joke (here's 900 pages you have 10 minutes to make a character". He ended up picking a preconstructed character.

And I held up keep on the borderlands and basic fantasy and said something like "here's what I had to deal with". Then replaced basic fantasy with the rulebook out of the starter set.

Each player was provided a two page cheat sheet, I picked a newbie friendly adventure. And tgey played those 2 levels that everyone here on ENworld dumps on and hates. They don't have to make any decisions on what to pick beyond class and on /off buttons eg action surge.

Each player had a choice of a pre constructed characters, build their own, ask an experienced player or tell me what you want to do and I'll build it for you (eg Elf archer).

 

[Zardnaar]

Every one of the characters I played so far as a player using the 2024 rules has Weapon Masteries. I don't think they have made the game any more fun for me as a player. More complex, more optimized but not more fun. YMMV

I have to inform you that your opinion is wrong therefore I am.
Just in case s/.

 

[Horwath]

You're implying that complex is the one true way. We're all old salts here and forget about new players.

why are we talking about new players as they are idiots and cant learn anything?
sure, they might struggle a few sessions, but that is normal. You cannot learn any other way.

and players that do not want to learn will not learn simple or complex rules.

Recently I've been gaming with new players so I'm seeing them at level 1 and 2 in 5E. 1 got parachuted into OSR at level 5. Another is going Thursday but hasn't played since red box and AD&D.

As a player I like 5E and 3.5 levels of complexity. As a DM I swing more towards basic 5E and OSR games.

We played one game starting with new players at level 6. There were some muddling around for a session or two but they all got it in the end.


similary;
on friday we played this somewhat simple boardgame of Twilight Imperium 4E, we had 3 new players out of 7 total.
They had a 10min tutorial how to play the game and we helped them with few moves a long the way so they can learn.
One of them won the game. Sure we ignored her creeping along with victory points as we bashed eachother, but in the end we could not stop it when it became obvious.

Lesson; never underestimate new players.

 

[Zardnaar]

why are we talking about new players as they are idiots and cant learn anything?
sure, they might struggle a few sessions, but that is normal. You cannot learn any other way.

and players that do not want to learn will not learn simple or complex rules.

We played one game starting with new players at level 6. There were some muddling around for a session or two but they all got it in the end.


similary;
on friday we played this somewhat simple boardgame of Twilight Imperium 4E, we had 3 new players out of 7 total.
They had a 10min tutorial how to play the game and we helped them with few moves a long the way so they can learn.
One of them won the game. Sure we ignored her creeping along with victory points as we bashed eachother, but in the end we could not stop it when it became obvious.

Lesson; never underestimate new players.

It's more the push back that people can't even comprehend others like simpler.

Is it overly complex if you're used to battlemasters ir use feats already? Not really.

It's more complex than 2014 though which was more opt in comparatively.

And people think I'm bad with my Southern Man LN/LE DM thing.

 

[Horwath]

It's more the push back that people can't even comprehend others like simpler.

Is it overly complex if you're used to battlemasters ir use feats already? Not really.

It's more complex than 2014 though which was more opt in comparatively.

And people think I'm bad with my Southern Man LN/LE DM thing.

yeah, we played with bonus 1st level feat in every campaign except 1st one in 2014.
It is very simple, but it can be complex-up if you want. but you can break it that way.

but we tried with 3 feats at 1st level in one campaign. Was fun, you can have you character concept done very early and leaves room for more cool feats to be taken as "mandatory" ones are all set at 1st level.

GWM, PAM, SENT at level one as a fighter and then you can take your Skill explert, Skilled, Inspiring leader and others.

 

[Will Brandiman]

Thanks for helping me make my point.

The DM is forced to remember all of it and track it.

Most players will think that managing all aspects of the combat is on the DM, even their own effects.

I'd disagree on that. If your character has applied a condition or other effect then it's up to you to remind the DM of that if he/she forgets. As a player, I always remind the DM, for example, that he has disadvantage on his attack rolls because my character is dodging. If the DM forgets and I don't remind him, tough! We don't go back and change the results 5 minutes later when someone remembers!