D&D General Weapon Mastery - Yea or Nay?

[Stalker0]

It takes 30 seconds to realize that a foe that is prone is prone? Does the player not know that already when they want to attack with advantage? Do fighters with 4 attacks not usually repeatedly attack the same foe to take them out of combat rather than deal a status effect to several only for them to get straight back up again? Does it even take 10 seconds to roll the same saving throw for other foes when you’re expecting it because that’s what this PC seems to do repeatedly?

Make players responsible for their rules and I find they soon learn to remember. If you want to speed things up even more let them roll the saving through dice for the foe at the same time.

To your first paragraph....my players are slow. Yes I have to remind them all the time what statuses are on monsters. Hell they have to doublecheck their DCs all the time.

It is fair that once a fighter prones a target he should at least not have to remember saving throws, so that's a good counterpoint.

To your second paragraph, maybe I should. I am the classic DM mindset of "dm handles all that stuff"....but maybe it would be good for my party to do more of that, maybe it would help their memory

 

[CreamCloud0]

This is a great reason to keep rolling for stats over point buy. There's no shrine for the latter at my table.

sure we can roll for stats, just so long as everyone has to use the same set of resulting stats.

 

[James Gasik]

sure we can roll for stats, just so long as everyone has to use the same set of resulting stats.

That's what I've been doing- I'll have everyone roll and say "these are the arrays you can use to build your characters".

 

[Emerikol]

sure we can roll for stats, just so long as everyone has to use the same set of resulting stats.

I've done it both ways but I admit I don't understand the hatred of rolling stats. My groups were worried about surviving not shining. They were happy when anyone rolled well. If the fighter rolled better great the team is stronger. This rivalry between players just wasn't as big a thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

sure we can roll for stats, just so long as everyone has to use the same set of resulting stats.

That's actually how we do it. Specifically, at the beginning of the campaign I call in my daughter and ask her to roll up a set of stats for everyone to use. It seems to be a good compromise.

 

[James Gasik]

I've done it both ways but I admit I don't understand the hatred of rolling stats. My groups were worried about surviving not shining. They were happy when anyone rolled well. If the fighter rolled better great the team is stronger. This rivalry between players just wasn't as big a thing.

I get the problem. If one character has to struggle to contribute to a scenario when another just waltzes through it, that can lead to frustration- and that frustration has to go somewhere. Typically, it goes towards either the DM for allowing the imbalance, the other player for being unfairly fortunate, or the game itself- this leads to either friction between people or just losing a player.

And it goes the other way too- because the world isn't perfect. I was in a 2e game once where the party started complaining that my Thief wasn't very useful. I couldn't fight very well, and my ability to handle traps was unreliable. Some of this comes down to the design of the class, but the fact that my highest stat was a 15 sure didn't help any!

He meant it as a joke, but I left the game when the party's Fighter (who had 18/89 Strength) commented that he was annoyed that my Thief survived a big battle instead of dying so he could be replaced with a more competent character- as if my smart play and luck in surviving the fight was somehow a detriment, and things would be better if I just jumped off a cliff!

I'm pretty tenacious when it comes to the survival of my characters, thinking that all that effort will be rewarded at some point. Even though it rarely is. It was in that same game that we found a Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, which could have solved some of my problems in combat, but the Fighter complained that it should go to him (yanno, because he needed the extra +1 to hit and +2 to damage for a 19 Strength) rather than be "wasted" on a Thief.

(It ended up being given to the Cleric, which on paper was a good move, but they rarely attacked anything, lol).

 

[GreyLord]

Ok, so our group has been playing 2024 D&D for about 8 or 9 months now. Have been mostly enjoying it - a fine "evolution" of the 2014 rule set. Still finding little nuggets of changes that are easy to overlook, especially with spells (and grappling/shoving!).

But weapon mastery...oof. I get the intent, let's give those martials more tactical abilities! But boy do they slow things down at our table. Even the martials don't like them, and on the DM side its just one more thing to track (and remember for attacks too). So, last session, we decided to ditch 'em.

What are your thoughts on weapon mastery? Not theoretical, but in actual play? Yea or Nay?

My answer is yes and no.

As they are implemented presently, I lean more towards no.

In general...yes.

They needed a little more polish before being put out there. Also, I'd have preferred a few more bonuses to damage and hit for certain situations or skill mastery from Warrior types than what they gave. Something more integrated with feats or skills in more dynamic ways than what we got...etc.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I get the problem. If one character has to struggle to contribute to a scenario when another just waltzes through it, that can lead to frustration- and that frustration has to go somewhere. Typically, it goes towards either the DM for allowing the imbalance, the other player for being unfairly fortunate, or the game itself- this leads to either friction between people or just losing a player.

And it goes the other way too- because the world isn't perfect. I was in a 2e game once where the party started complaining that my Thief wasn't very useful. I couldn't fight very well, and my ability to handle traps was unreliable. Some of this comes down to the design of the class, but the fact that my highest stat was a 15 sure didn't help any!

He meant it as a joke, but I left the game when the party's Fighter (who had 18/89 Strength) commented that he was annoyed that my Thief survived a big battle instead of dying so he could be replaced with a more competent character- as if my smart play and luck in surviving the fight was somehow a detriment, and things would be better if I just jumped off a cliff!

I'm pretty tenacious when it comes to the survival of my characters, thinking that all that effort will be rewarded at some point. Even though it rarely is. It was in that same game that we found a Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, which could have solved some of my problems in combat, but the Fighter complained that it should go to him (yanno, because he needed the extra +1 to hit and +2 to damage for a 19 Strength) rather than be "wasted" on a Thief.

(It ended up being given to the Cleric, which on paper was a good move, but they rarely attacked anything, lol).

Sounds like the issue here is a jerk player.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Sounds like the issue here is a jerk player.

Clearly an opportunity to implement some restrictive rules.

 

[TheSword]

I kinda get why being able to switch them was added into the rules.

If your fighter selects short sword and longsword but then finds a wondrous magical battleaxe it’s a bit crappy find a big chunk of your skill just doesn’t apply. Or perhaps their preferences change in that character. You should be able to wield different weapons within your proficiency and 5e has fully embraced that.

The reason switching is allowed for spells, weapon style feats etc is that it’s just more fun. Once you accept that switching should be possible the time span isn’t really relevant. A day, a week, a month. The style of campaign then can become punitive by preventing players using the full range of their abilities. Better to keep it simple and let it be done at the start of a new day. It’s not as if it’s likely that they will be changed daily… it’s when something relevant happens in the campaign.