D&D General Weapon Mastery - Yea or Nay?

[Bill Zebub]

It's all fun and games until they bring back the "Weapon Type vs. Armor Class Table."

I thought of exactly that example when reading the post you're responding to.

That's another one where having it baked into VTTs would make the mechanic completely seamless, and I still would not want it because I don't want that optimization to factor into player decision-making. I want a story game, not a math game.

 

[R_J_K75]

Nope. I didn't like them. I only DM'd 2024 for a few months and overall, I didn't care for it. The action economy and things a player/class can do in a round was just too much for me to keep track of. It was the main reason I was turned off to 5E.

 

[orangefruitbat]

Yeah I'm fully into Shadowdark now, and starting to explore Dragonbane.

But if @Micah Sweet can constantly chime in on games he doesn't play anymore, so can I!

Dragonbane is another game on my want to play list. It's really pretty fantastic.

 

[Kannik]

Didn't vote, as I haven't played with them yet (the 5e game I'm in at the moment is mid-stream of a long adventure), but thematically I'd much prefer these abilities were on the character rather than on a/the weapon. (Which would also avoid the potential for the golf bag shuffle.)

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I don't know, I've DMed a total of three combats in 2024 D&D. So far the weapons properties seem like more of a time suck than cantrips ever were. Maybe it's just my table.

YMMV, but 3 combats probably isnt enough time to judge a new subsystem.

I like them, mostly. I feel there's 80% of the way there. I would have preferred people pick the effect, and then each weapon has what can be applied. I prefer BG3 weapon maneuvers, which feels like the prototype. Remove the once per short rest limitation and you're good.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I was already waffling toward OSR, and Weapon Masteries is what finally shut the door on D&D for me.

Same. Weapon masteries and the expanded stat blocks on signature monsters in the MM did it for me.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I also think Weapon Mastery tried to fill a niche that honestly was already well handled by the Grapple rules. 2014 grappling is awesome. you can do all sorts of control with it.

1) Knock a person back.
2) Hold them in place
3) Move them to where you want them.
4) REALLY hold them in place (followup with a prone grapple and now they are basically restrained for all intents and purposes).

and it was relatively easy to do, an opposed athletics check which many monsters were not great at. Sure its not the control that casters can do, but it was so easy to apply that it was often just as useful.

Compared to the 2024 system which is far harder to do + weapon masteries....in a way I think a lot of martial control builds actually took a step back rather than forward.

Grappling required a specific build, though, and a build that wasn't going to be good at much else other than grappling. Weapon Mastery allows a wider range of builds to utilize such control effects, while still being good in battles where those effects aren't as useful.

 

[Gladius Legis]

I'm all in on them, warts and all.

It literally takes 3 more seconds to resolve mastery effects once you get the hang of them. I do not understand those who say it slows combat down.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I thought of exactly that example when reading the post you're responding to.

That's another one where having it baked into VTTs would make the mechanic completely seamless, and I still would not want it because I don't want that optimization to factor into player decision-making. I want a story game, not a math game.

One other thing I forgot to add.

For those people who still play theater of the mind ... the choice of weapon masteries is a little more limited.
Cleave, Graze, Nick, Vex and Sap are still the same.

Topple is ... relatively the same (with the disadvantage of being the one that does slow things down) but slightly less useful.

Slow and push, however, are practically useless. Which isn't a fault of them, per se, but they share that in common with a lot of the abilities that provide small advantages for the grid (mostly movement-related).

 

[Gladius Legis]

Slow and push, however, are practically useless. Which isn't a fault of them, per se, but they share that in common with a lot of the abilities that provide small advantages for the grid (mostly movement-related).

They're not useless at all in TotM. A longbow inflicting slow in TotM means the enemy is going to have a tougher time closing in to melee with you. Pushing an enemy away in TotM may give an ally a chance to back away and not draw an opportunity attack it may have otherwise.