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.

 

[EthanSental]

Maybe. But sometimes it is possible to give nice things and make reasonable rules most people can live with it.

And the proposal is: take 5 damage or lose your reaction once per turn.

As a fighter mlst of the time I hope the enemy choses to lose theory reaction and I can reposition freely.

For this UA, can we tell how much damage on a graze would inflict? Just curious or do we need to wait for it to see what they have? Is it 1 plus Str or ability modifier for the 2 weapons that have it listed?

 

[Zaukrie]

You say you don't want to replace attack rolls with save throws, but you keep putting an equal-sign between them.

The biggest difference that comes to mind is that one is a magical exploding ball of fire, the other is a pointy stick. It's easy for me to understand why damage might be inescapable when a room is exploding along with everything in it. But when you're jabbing at someone with an ordinary pointy stick, its quite easy for me to see how they might, you know...miss. Completely. As in, not make contact with anything, not force a response from their target, and not impress anyone who might be watching.

Some people in this thread clearly see it differently. I can't really speak to that; all I can say about it is that weapon damage on a miss doesn't really make sense to me. So I won't use it.

There are dozens of swings in a fight. Most do no harm. We roll for the ones that might do damage. This simulates that a fighter does some damage every six seconds. And damage isn't a body hit, necessarily. Hit points simulate a lot more than actual cuts.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Hit points include nonphysical componemnts, including fatigue, not paying attention, and so on.

And it has since the beginning of the game, but catering to simulationist views over and over has allowed the idea that abstraction isn't a thing and rules are physics to take hold.

That's why I fully support baking these abstractions in, aggressively and blatantly, is the only way to break this cycle and fully open the design space to make the game the best it can be, free of guy at the gym fallacies and abstraction-limiting concerns.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

The trouble is, my brain keeps defaulting to "why bother with the attack roll at all" if the target is going to take damage no matter what. How is this different from automatically rolling damage every round and letting a roll of 1 be that "graze" result?

It's just a different mechanical method of getting to that result. The answer to your question is: Because rolling the d20 represents, for the player, the act of swinging your sword (or whatever). There's the chance to crit. The chance for a regular hit. This just ALSO gives you the chance for a small amount of damage on a low d20 roll, resulting in a grazing hit. It's a consolation prize for the martial character, letting them know that they're very good with their chosen weapon.

It's all about how it feels. Your method would just ruin the feel of the game, frankly. This doesn't.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I just think of Sarah Connor in Terminator, "On your feet, soldier!" I didn’t find it hard to conceptualise at all!

You're absolutely right. I was just hung up on the use of the word "dying" for being at 0 HP. It's pretty darn hard to get up just because someone yells at you when you're actually dying.

OTOH, it's easy to imagine that you only thought you were dying ("it hurts soooo much!") but the Warlord snapped you out of it when he yelled at you. Apparently, sometimes in D&D "dying", isn't really dying.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

They might, you know...miss. Completely. As in, not make contact with anything, not force a response from their target, and not impress anyone who might be watching.

I tell you, if I imagined everyone actually WHIFFING every time they rolled a "miss" on a d20, we'd have some really, REALLY incompetent combatants.

No, I like it to be (like life) a LOT more complicated than that. I like it to be anything I can imagine (and I can imagine a LOT). Blocks, thumps, armor clangs, parries, grazes, lunges, threats, headbutts, elbows.

The last thing I'd want is to allow the game (which already does too much, IMO, to make it feel like everyone is standing stock-still and then just whishing their weapon either past or into the other character, while they stand stock still and either cringe and take it or smile that it passed them by).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I just think of Sarah Connor in Terminator, "On your feet, soldier!" I didn’t find it hard to conceptualise at all!

the very first warlord we saw in 4e made it a habit of having movie quotes of times someone was down and out and they got pulled up with inspiration, after a few times we realized it was no more or less ridicules then anything else we have done in D&D for the last 30 years

 

[UngeheuerLich]

For this UA, can we tell how much damage on a graze would inflict? Just curious or do we need to wait for it to see what they have? Is it 1 plus Str or ability modifier for the 2 weapons that have it listed?

I honestly don't know. Extrapolating from 4e I'd say just ability modifier. But 1+ ability modifier sounds also reasonable (minimal damage).

*edit to clarify: extrapolating from a single point of data has a big uncertainity attached to it.

 

[EthanSental]

It may take some getting used to but our table will try it when it’s released and see what we think and give feedback on the survey. Some of what Fritz says hits home and I remember back in our 2e days, we used to keep up with armor damage and such so our “wants” in our game have changed and if this helps that fighter feel a little more different, can’t hurt to try it.

 

[Vaalingrade]

the very first warlord we saw in 4e made it a habit of having movie quotes of times someone was down and out and they got pulled up with inspiration, after a few times we realized it was no more or less ridicules then anything else we have done in D&D for the last 30 years

IIRC, they really said nothing about the warlord prerelease, so it was a surprise when I got the book and read over the warlord and was like 'oh cool, it's like the charismatic warrior dude I normally need a bard to make' and grokked that the heals were morale boosting. Because that's how HP works and has always worked.