D&D (2024) New One D&D Weapons Table Shows 'Mastery' Traits

The weapons table from the upcoming Unearthed Arcana playtest for One D&D has made its way onto the internet via Indestructoboy on Twitter, and reveals some new mechanics. The mastery traits include Nick, Slow, Puncture, Flex, Cleave, Topple, Graze, and Push. These traits are accessible by the warrior classes.

 

[Charlaquin]

And to add to that is that most multiclassing is suboptimal, shooting yourself in the foot. Best avoided.

It is kind of a vestige of 3e’s design, where most options are traps but if you have enough system mastery you can do some pretty OP stuff.

 

[SkidAce]

That's because Multiclassing is a trap option. It's obviously weakening yourself to do it early.

A warrior type wants Extra Attack as fast as possible. Same with casters and 3rd level spells. So you won't do it before level 5. Then suclasses tend to get their 2nd feature level 6 or 7.


So unless your build needs to multiclass as you dislike the core of the class, most people won't multiclass unless right before the campaign ends.

Oddly enough, our current group uses multiclass as a character building concept.

Like the Monk 2 / Barbarian 1. Uses the "raqe" ability to simulate a zen battle state (like girl in Serenity movie)

And the Failed Cleric 1 / Fighter 5. Remembers how to heal his friends, but more esoteric mysteries of the faith are beyond him.

I get your point about power, but for us, the above characters and others are fun and viable.

 

[Parmandur]

Oddly enough, our current group uses multiclass as a character building concept.

Like the Monk 2 / Barbarian 1. Uses the "raqe" ability to simulate a zen battle state (like girl in Serenity movie)

And the Failed Cleric 1 / Fighter 5. Remembers how to heal his friends, but more esoteric mysteries of the faith are beyond him.

I get your point about power, but for us, the above characters and others are fun and viable.

And in 5E, they work fine: but I see people worrying about broken OP combos, when I look and worry about my players shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[tetrasodium]

It is kind of a vestige of 3e’s design, where most options are traps but if you have enough system mastery you can do some pretty OP stuff.

Not really, there are three main differences.

• A lot of the 5e ones don't require MC, just exceeding the unreasonably low bar charop levels expected of PCs by monster math & similar.
• 5e OP combos tend to be blindingly obvious with little or no obstacles to overcome in meeting the requirements for the combos.
• Finally the biggest difference in play is that the 3.x combos tended to be heavy on the min/max with great combos almost always trading strength in one area for a known significant weakness elsewhere while 5e is pretty much the embodiment of no take only give with no meaningful weaknesses on the min side in exchange for max or extreme max. Even if a 5e build does have a weakness it often requires an extremely contrived situation or near-rocks fall level GM intervention if not both before it could maybe possibly matter.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not really, there are three main differences.

I didn’t claim it’s exactly the same, just that it’s similar in that there are many options, most of which are traps, and if you have enough system mastery, you can do some pretty OP stuff.

 

[tetrasodium]

I didn’t claim it’s exactly the same, just that it’s similar in that there are many options, most of which are traps, and if you have the system mastery for it, you can do some OP stuff.

I think that the differences are significant enough to make the analogy questionable at best. In 3.x there were certainly some poorly designed options that missed the intended mark, but with the ivory tower design that generally meant that those options were designed with the intention of being amazing for some build/campaign/etc but were poorly presented like the toughness example described. A very different design was used in 5e, "X is objectively best no questions no ifs to the point of generally just being a forced choice for build x & y." It went from a situation where you could get in trouble if you didn't engage in some planning to one where you almost need to actively try to be suboptimal to not build a 5e character that is pretty OP in comparison to 5e's monsters.

That shift also reduces the GM's ability to put their thumb on the scale when Bob is too optimized for the table or Alice did something dumb without looking like they are playing favorites or being adversarial.

 

[Minigiant]

Finally the biggest difference in play is that the 3.x combos tended to be heavy on the min/max with great combos almost always trading strength in one area for a known significant weakness elsewhere while 5e is pretty much the embodiment of no take only give with no meaningful weaknesses on the min side in exchange for max or extreme max. Even if a 5e build does have a weakness it often requires an extremely contrived situation or near-rocks fall level GM intervention if not both before it could maybe possibly matter.

It's more that the design of 5e classes have such obvious strengths and weaknesses and the scale is so unbalanced that your "min" was probably bad and hopeless already or easily fixed.

A paladin can't really fix their low exploration ability. But a level dip into Hexadin or Sorcadin fixes your poor ranged attack and boosts your smiting. And anyone with a grasp of the game can see it.

Which begs the question of what type of game are the in house playtest DMs running? In what world am I taking Longsword Mastery? Are the only treasure magic longswords?

 

[Charlaquin]

I think that the differences are significant enough to make the analogy questionable at best. In 3.x there were certainly some poorly designed options that missed the intended mark, but with the ivory tower design that generally meant that those options were designed with the intention of being amazing for some build/campaign/etc but were poorly presented like the toughness example described. A very different design was used in 5e, "X is objectively best no questions no ifs to the point of generally just being a forced choice for build x & y." It went from a situation where you could get in trouble if you didn't engage in some planning to one where you almost need to actively try to be suboptimal to not build a 5e character that is pretty OP in comparison to 5e's monsters.

That shift also reduces the GM's ability to put their thumb on the scale when Bob is too optimized for the table or Alice did something dumb without looking like they are playing favorites or being adversarial.

Again, I don’t disagree that there’s a significant difference. It’s a similarity of kind, not of degree.

 

[tetrasodium]

It's more that the design of 5e classes have such obvious strengths and weaknesses and the scale is so unbalanced that your "min" was probably bad and hopeless already or easily fixed.

A paladin can't really fix their low exploration ability. But a level dip into Hexadin or Sorcadin fixes your poor ranged attack and boosts your smiting. And anyone with a grasp of the game can see it.

Even the "hopeless" min in 5e doesn't really matter in play. You almost need to go into "well Alice has nothing to help with $scenario but bob utterly trivializes it or it doesn't matter even if nobody is good at it because we have silly carry capacity whilre Chuck can passively find food/water & shelter for himself plus the rest of the group." The system went from bow wielding skeletons being a serious concern to most non-gish mid or high level caster unless they burn slots to (de)buff for them & most tankish types being terrified of certain things (touch attacks, x save, high ac monsters, brute type monsters, etc) over to "well... maybe if the gm does makes exploration a requirement with a doom clock or something and makes it so only the paladin can attempt to do it"

Which begs the question of what type of game are the in house playtest DMs running? In what world am I taking Longsword Mastery? Are the only treasure magic longswords?

100% yes, that kind of thing repeats over & over again in 5e edit: A lot of the time things seem to be designed for what would be cool for a gamelit or litrpg character rather than one that exists in a ttrpg

 

[Chaosmancer]

I will never understand the thought process that goes behind "this game doesn't offer me the chance to utterly ruin my character for play and make myself worthless. It is a terrible game!" Especially since it often comes from people we all know would spot the bad options and avoid them completely.

No one plays DnD to fail. Well, okay, I've met someone who does, but he does it to troll other people he is playing with, not because he thinks that is the point. But other than him, I'm glad the game lends itself to avoiding trap options that will make the player unable to contribute. Those options shouldn't exist.

And if you feel the game is too easy, has no stakes, and is utterly trivialized... maybe remember the design standard.

The Monsters and traps were not designed for a party with Feats.
The Monsters and traps were not designed for a party with Magic Items.
The Monsters and traps were not designed for a party that Multi-classes.

So if you have a group that does all three, then you need to buff the monsters and create more dangerous encounters. You can bemoan that they never should have made that choice, but they did, and after you are no longer a new player learning how DnD works, you need to start accounting for those design decisions.