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

[Bill Zebub]

Weapon mastery isn't the problem. Design bloat is.

Wasn't one of the design goals of 5e to expand D&D beyond the narrow demographic of nerdy males who derive self-esteem from gatekeeping through system mastery?

It was working beautifully, but the root guards are slowly re-establishing themselves.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Weapon mastery isn't the problem. Design bloat is.

I’m amazed that some of the most basic kinds of features can be called bloat by people.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Wasn't one of the design goals of 5e to expand D&D beyond the narrow demographic of nerdy males who derive self-esteem from gatekeeping through system mastery?

It was working beautifully, but the root guards are slowly re-establishing themselves.

5.5 maybe, but historically I'm not actually convinced that was one of 5e's goals when it was designed.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’m amazed that some of the most basic kinds of features can be called bloat by people.

Bloat is content you personally don't want enough that you want it removed for everyone. I really don't see any other definition.

 

[Clint_L]

I thus grant you the power as expert Dungeon Master, to make them an optional rule!!! and I tip my hat to thee for daring to run that many players!!

See my point about using DDB. It makes the choice a little trickier. Since the ultimate goal of the campaign is to wean players into running their own games, I try to use the rules as written for those games, as much as possible, and DDB means masteries are right there on their character sheets.

In my home game removing them would not be an issue, but we like them in our home game where everyone understands what’s going on.

 

[Clint_L]

Look, I don't think my original point was particularly controversial or surprising: weapon masteries slow combat down, which is true at all levels of expertise to some extent, and I am experiencing that they are substantially slowing combat down for beginning players. If they were optional in the rules, it would be much easier to pick and choose when to use them.

I'm finding some of the responses nonsensical, like "why not make spells optional instead?" (lol wut?). Or denying that they do in fact slow the game down, which is telling me not to believe my lying eyes. It seems like criticizing any aspect of them is off-limits for some folks because they are a new ability for martial classes.

I also agree that the game is experiencing rules bloat, and not just because of masteries. There are a fair number of new abilities for all classes, as well as new options coming into the game, and just about all of them are good in isolation, but taken together D&D2024 is definitely a more complex game than D&D2014. That may be good or bad depending on context, but I do think it creates an additional barrier of entry for new players. On the other hand, the new PHB itself is MUCH more comprehensibly written than the 2014 version, so maybe it's a wash.

Certainly if I was making an updated beginners rules kit I wouldn't include masteries, but there's a ton of other stuff I would take out as well, including about 3/4th of the spells.

 

[abirdcall]

While there are elements that increase complexity, there are also quite a lot of simplifications too.

The monk used to need to take the attack action to make an unarmed attack as a bonus action.

In order to use flurry of blows they needed to do so immediately after the attack action.

Now they aren't tied to the attack action which eliminates the need for specific sequencing and remembering which abilities they can use and still use their bonus action attack and which ones they need to have a different bonus action for.

There are lots of these little improvements.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Wasn't one of the design goals of 5e to expand D&D beyond the narrow demographic of nerdy males who derive self-esteem from gatekeeping through system mastery?

It was working beautifully, but the root guards are slowly re-establishing themselves.

We've moved on to designing for nerd males who gatekeep through treating newbies like they can't handle anything but the most simple options.

 

[ezo]

There are lots of these little improvements.

While that may be true, it doesn't change the fact the OP has stated how weapon masteries are causing some of his new players to take longer turns and slowing the game down appreciably (to the point he feels strongly it is an issue).

If any of the players have a Monk, then the changes you list might make the game easier in that respect, but if they are struggling (for whatever reason with weapon masteries... they are still struggling with weapon masteries. Without the changes like you cite, they might be having other difficulties as well.

 

[abirdcall]

While that may be true, it doesn't change the fact the OP has stated how weapon masteries are causing some of his new players to take longer turns and slowing the game down appreciably (to the point he feels strongly it is an issue).

If any of the players have a Monk, then the changes you list might make the game easier in that respect, but if they are struggling (for whatever reason with weapon masteries... they are still struggling with weapon masteries. Without the changes like you cite, they might be having other difficulties as well.

I'm not arguing that.