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]

The narrative can bend, sure. My point is that it shouldn't have to.

That’s literally how abstraction works…

 

[tetrasodium]

And we really shouldn’t pigeonhole fighters as the mundane class. An 18th level fighter is not, in any way, mundane. In D&D terms, the highest level fighter in real world history would probably be about 6th-level. IF that. High single/low double digits is like Captain America or Conan.

Conan might have started in that range but grew quite a bit from the first book & movie. Pretty much he's running around with an artifact grade sword(gained in the very first book no less) & has a merlin/eleminster type mentor.

Comparisons to conan only work in the most extreme Monty haul of Monty haul games.

 

[Eubani]

Something I would have liked to of seen is something like:
Bleeding: If hit target AC by greater than say 5 (pulling a number out of my hind end) Ongoing damage at beginning of targets turn equal to attack stat mod till either target or an ally spends an action and succeeds on a DC10 (Wisdom) Medicine check. So either burn a turn (unless unlucky with check) or keep taking damage. Control or damage opponent's (or dice's) choice.

 

[CleverNickName]

By the logic of D&D, heavy armor makes you harder to hit. The Simulationist has long left the building by this point.

To represent a "miss": It's a glancing blow by a sword or axe that bounces right off the armor of a foe, dealing no damage.
To represent a "miss" with a hammer: It's a glancing blow, but unlike the weapons above, it's still gonna hurt at least a little.


e: don't mind me, just rapidly scrolling through the intervening pages looking for red text to make sure the topic of conversation wasn't made verboten

I completely agree. Simulationism and armor get really weird in D&D, especially since there are so many different things that fall under the "armor class" umbrella, and so many ways to define "damage." Everyone finds their own way to square this with the fiction of their game; I'm no exception. My brain parses it like this:

In my mind, a "miss" is an attack that fails to do damage (or fails to remove hit points, if you don't like using the D-word.) A sword can fail to do damage/remove hit points in a number of ways: it can fail to make contact with its target, it can glance off of armor, it can get parried aside by an opponent's blade, it can strike a shield or magical force field, whatever. The same goes for daggers, axes, spears, clubs, arrows, maces...and yes, hammers. (Tangent: why hammers?)

If the attack deals damage in any way (or removes any amount of hit points), I don't call it a "miss." Instead, I measure the amount by making a damage roll, which will inform everyone if the attack was a devastating blow (rolling max damage), just a flesh wound (rolling minimum damage), or anything in between.

I'm not saying this is the right way to parse weapon combat in D&D, and it's certainly not the only way. It's just the way that I will always use.

 

[JohnSnow]

Conan might have started in that range but grew quite a bit from the first book & movie. Pretty much he's running around with an artifact grade sword(gained in the very first book no less) & has a merlin/eleminster type mentor.

Comparisons to conan only work in the most extreme Monty haul of Monty haul games.

Agree to disagree. I don’t remember Howard’s Conan going toe-to-toe with dragons the size of Smaug, or Sorcerers who can step outside time, but maybe I’m misremembering. Am I?

 

[Eubani]

My greatest fear at this point is another 10-20 years of Fighters being less than they should be due to a consistent crowd of people lacking imagination or wanting the Fighter to suck.

 

[Clint_L]

My greatest fear at this point is another 10-20 years of Fighters being less than they should be due to a consistent crowd of people lacking imagination or wanting the Fighter to suck.

What if other people just disagree with you about what fighters should be? By general consensus, fighters are a strong class in 5e, and they are easily the most popular. I certainly find them to be an effective, top tier class. I look forward to play testing weapon mastery to see how it affects them and other warrior classes. I'm not worried about fighters or barbarians; it's monks that I hope get a significant revamp, and I don't see weapon mastery being much of a difference maker, especially considering how many of their attacks don't use weapons.

 

[Parmandur]

What if other people just disagree with you about what fighters should be? By general consensus, fighters are a strong class in 5e, and they are easily the most popular. I certainly find them to be an effective, top tier class. I look forward to play testing weapon mastery to see how it affects them and other warrior classes. I'm not worried about fighters or barbarians; it's monks that I hope get a significant revamp, and I don't see weapon mastery being much of a difference maker, especially considering how many of their attacks don't use weapons.

The way they described it in the meeting, Monks shtick will be thst they are the ones who get Mastery for Simple weapons, so staves and clubs and such: traditional martial arts weaponry.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The way they described it in the meeting, Monks shtick will be thst they are the ones who get Mastery for Simple weapons, so staves and clubs and such: traditional martial arts weaponry.

Ah yes, martials arts weapons. Definitely not swords and polearms or anything else on the martial list.

Like they…know that most of the world has martial arts traditions that specialize in the most advanced weapons of war, alongside any “simple weapon” traditions, right?


Ugh. This is why my mystic gets all simple, and two martial weapons they choose, with no further limitations.

If the martial arts traditions of 1530’s Spain had survive intact and largely unchanged into the modern day, they would be training with rapiers! (I know, HEMA exists) and longswords and other stuff, but certainly not primarily “simple weapons”.

 

[Incenjucar]

My greatest fear at this point is another 10-20 years of Fighters being less than they should be due to a consistent crowd of people lacking imagination or wanting the Fighter to suck.

It would save me a lot of money. Medicore martial classes was a pretty core reason why I skipped 5E. If they do it again, so shall I. We already have plenty of rock'em-sock'em robots rules for people who want it, bring on the fighters who could survive a fight with a school bully.