Melee Weapon Mastery

[HeapThaumaturgist]

So a buddy of mine had a question:

Does Melee Weapon Master stack with Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization?

Here's the text:

"When you select this feat, choose bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing. You must have Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization with a melee weapon that deals this type of damage. When using any melee weapon that has the damage type you selected, you gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls and a +2 bonus on damage rolls."

Beyond prereqs, there are no call-outs to Focus or Specialization listed anywhere in the feat. The bonus type is an un-named bonus and the un-named bonuses are coming from things with different names. Everything I can see says it stacks.

So, say, you have WF (Dwarven War Axe) and WS (DWA), granting you a +1 to attacks and +2 to damage with any DWA.

You have MWM(Slashing) and pick up a Longsword ... you get +2 attack and +2 damage.

You have MWM(Slashing) and pick up a DWA ... you get +3 Attack and +4 Damage. Right?

He kept saying they stacked, but I never bothered to read the feat clearly. I thought it just gave him the focus/specialization benefits with all slashing melee weapons, but it appears to give him that AND MORE with the DWA.

--fje

 

[Mouseferatu]

Yep. There's nothing to say they don't stack, so they stack.

It just means that you've now gained a lot of ability with all weapons of your favored type, but your true favorite weapon--i.e. the one you've specialized in--is still better than all the others.

 

[RangerWickett]

The idea behind it is that WotC thinks they had previously somewhat underpowered fighters, and they're trying to make up for it.

 

[Mouseferatu]

The idea behind it is that WotC thinks they had previously somewhat underpowered fighters, and they're trying to make up for it.

Yep. Until PHB2, there was no mechanical reason to keep taking fighter levels after, oh, 10 or 12.

The addition of these feats make fighters viable all the way up, and returns them to the spot in the game that they should hold: i.e. a class called "the fighter" really ought to be, oh, I dunno, the game's best fighter.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Then they released the Bo9S.

D'OH!

But now I feel bad, the guy's been saying they stack for weeks now. I've always said: "Really? Nah. Well maybe. I'd have to see." Just didn't think of opening the book up outside of the game to look it up until he asked me to.

He's had that one since 12th level and I don't think he's gotten the full use out of it the whole time. He'll be hitting 15th soon and getting a new feat and I was going to suggest Slashing Flurry.

--fje

 

[comrade raoul]

I feel compelled to point out that while there are lots of great ways to make the fighter stronger, creating massively powerful feats that are available to anyone with four fighter levels and that are so much better than anything else available at that level to all but mandate their selection is probably not the best way they go about it.

(I think, though I suspect I'm close to alone in this, that denying that these feats stack should be a more or less universal house rule, though MWM could plausibly stack with the Greater versions, continuing to provide a small boost even with your favored weapon.)

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I don't really find it overpowered. Heh. For a fighter, that's not broken at all.

It's only lately, with feats like this and stuff like Occult Slayer that he's matching the damage output of my Barbarian/Cleric.

He gets to do more damage in the first three rounds of the fight, then I get to do more damage for the last ... round, usually. By three rounds in the rogue has moved to flanking for the TWF Sneak Attack goodness and I'm buffed to the rafters and throwing the 100hp Smite super-boom.

As the dedicated front-line meleeist "Tank", he's caught pretty much all of the PC deaths in the face as it is. We'll give him the additional +2 damage.

--fje

 

[Venator]

Ari, is there any chance that you have talked with David Noonan to see if this was his intent when he wrote the feat?

The table and flavor text really point in the direction that the feat simply intended to spread the focus + spec bonuses around to all weapons of the same type, but the text seems to contradict that. At this point, I'm wondering what the intent was and not the way the feat actually works.

Thanks!

 

[comrade raoul]

I don't really find it overpowered. Heh. For a fighter, that's not broken at all.

I totally agree, for characters who spend their whole careers as fighters, which I agree might've been the intent. But is it balanced for 6th-level single-classed fighters (who have +3 attack/+4 damage with their favored weapons), compared to other 6th-level characters? Is it balanced for a high-level fighter 4/barbarian n?

 

[comrade raoul]

And, moreover, the big beef I have with Melee Weapon Mastery isn't that it's overpowered, exactly, but that it balances fighters in the wrong way--by being much better than other feats they could have at that level. In effect, it's punishing players who aren't astute enough to pick the feat, and reducing the meaningful choices of players who are.