D&D (2024) Should full casters and Monks have one weapon mastery?

[CreamCloud0]

It is reasonable for a full caster to swap one cantrip for proficiency with one martial weapon, and wield it magically, using their casting ability if they wish instead of Strength or Dexterity.

Oppositely, it is reasonable for a Fighter to swap proficiency with all martial weapons for instead two martial weapons plus one cantrip.


In both cases, the rest of the class features dont really synergize with the swap, but sometimes it is important for the flavor of a character concept.

IMO this is far FAR from an equal trade.

 

[Corinnguard]

I need a microscope to see the violin.

A regular microscope or an electron microscope?

 

[CreamCloud0]

They are not by any stretch, in fact full casters get fewer "unique" features. When it comes to class features martials have substantially more unique features already than full casters do, and still would even if everyone got a weapon mastery.

so what if casters get fewer 'unique' features, they also have extensive access to the single most powerful and versatile feature in the game,

[insert 'starving' patrick starfish meme here with a wizard hat]: "you took the only weapon features, and now i'm going to be underpowered"

 

[Minigiant]

No

And Martials should also get Weapon Grandmasteries.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Why do posters make threads asking for opinions on something they wish to do... but then argue with everyone who gives an opinion different than the one they suggested?

Look... none of us here can STOP you from doing whatever you want in your home game, so why bother asking for opinions on how you house rule? Just do it! Try it out! See if it works for you! And if it doesn't work, then remove it! Simple as that!

No one cares either way what you do, so you can ask if you're merely curious how others think... but there's no reason to argue the point because you're the final decision-maker anyway. You don't need to convince US of anything.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

As a compromise position, since I myself have definitely desired mastery properties and fighting styles on my blade warlock:

1. As noted above, boost the final Warlock invocation by incorporating Fighting Style and Weapon Mastery. They can already take feats with Lessons of the First Ones, so there's nothing severely off about this, and this makes that final invocation feel a lot less awful as a cost. The Bladelock would thus be getting higher but slower power gains.
2. Rebalance existing full-caster part-martialist subclasses (Valor Bard, Swords Bard, Bladesinger, etc.), to offer a limited selection of Fighting Styles and/or Weapon Masteries. Perhaps see about letting them choose to give up some feature they currently get in order to instead get the Weapon Mastery feat for free (sans ability score improvement.)
3. I'm sympathetic to the "Monks should have this" angle, so perhaps give specific subclasses specific, rather than selected, options, and then a reworked Kensei can be the subclass all about properly integrating weapon training with martial arts? E.g. maybe Shadow gives you Dagger, Light Crossbow, and Quarterstaff, while Open Hand might let you treat your hands as though they had the Topple, Sap, or Graze mastery property (chosen after each long rest). IOW, keeping the choices flavorful and thematic, but also reasonably useful especially for the kinds of things any particular type of monk is likely to do.
4. Potentially rework the Fighting Style feats so that they require either having the Fighting Style class feature, or being at least character level 12. This would put them out of reach for pure single-class full spellcasters in most campaigns, thus preserving the effective "this is a martial feature" element, while still allowing very seasoned, practiced characters to work toward it at very high levels. It would also make sure that weird multiclassing dips other than those into Fighter/Paladin/etc. wouldn't specially advantage anyone, because ASIs are class-linked and if you've MC'd, you're unlikely to get a feat until 13+.

Beyond that, I think we'd definitely be diluting the value of Weapon Mastery and Fighting Style too much.

This would also, incidentally, be a great reason to create an actual Swordmage class. Y'know, one that blends full-throated spell-work with full-throated martial expertise from 1st level, rather than having to settle for being crappy at one side or the other for a long time....

 

[Horwath]

Beyond that, I think we'd definitely be diluting the value of Weapon Mastery and Fighting Style too much.

As both of those can be acquired with 1 level of fighter, with heavy armor,martial weapons and 2 free "healing potions" per day, they are not really that valuable.

what it is overvalued is the feats to get those features outside multiclassing.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes they should. GG

No they shouldn't unless they get unique spells.

All full casters should have a unique spell from level 1-9.

Bards are only full casters because WOTC (and most of the D&D community) couldn't balance them as a 2/3 caster and refused to make unique bardmagic nor give it a flavor past mid levels.

 

[Horwath]

Solution:

martial training feat:
+1 ASI
pick 2 from the list:
martial weapons
fighting style
2 masteries
Light armors+shields
Medium armors
Heavy armors

or pick 4 if you want to remove +1 ASI.

 

[Horwath]

No they shouldn't unless they get unique spells.

All full casters should have a unique spell from level 1-9.

Bards are only full casters because WOTC (and most of the D&D community) couldn't balance them as a 2/3 caster and refused to make unique bardmagic nor give it a flavor past mid levels.

increase bardic inspiration number of dice to bard level+cha mod
reduce casting to 2/3rds.

done.

let bards be best at supporting.