D&D General Weapon Mastery - Yea or Nay?

[Snarf Zagyg]

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.

Serious question... do you play ToTM?

I do. And while I respect that different people play differently, I can tell you that they way we play it, it's useless.

 

[payn]

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.

I think that goes back to ol @Snarf Zagyg's point that the system seems designed to not close any door completely. The rub, of course, is no door is completely open either.

 

[Charlaquin]

I like them, although honestly I find the implementation of them a little too restrictive; I'd prefer them to be a bit more flexible. But I can't say I've seen them slow down combat particularly meaningfully.

I feel exactly the same. I’m thinking of introducing a house rule where instead of gaining mastery in specific weapons, you learn specific weapon mastery properties, and when you attack with a weapon that is eligible for one or more of the masteries you know, you can choose one of them to apply to that attack.

For clarity, Cleave and Graze can be used on any melee weapon with the Heavy property, Nick can be used on any weapon with the Light property, Push can be used on any weapon with the Heavy, Two-Handed, or Versatile property, Sap can be used on any weapon with the Versatile property or no properties, Topple can be used on any weapon with the Heavy, Reach, or Versatile property, and Vex can be used on any weapon with the Ammunition, Finesse, or Light property.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Serious question... do you play ToTM?

I do. And while I respect that different people play differently, I can tell you that they way we play it, it's useless.

I don't. But I can't imagine needing a grid to model such things as hampering an enemy from closing in on you or pushing an enemy away so it doesn't threaten one of your allies anymore.

 

[Charlaquin]

Serious question... do you play ToTM?

I do. And while I respect that different people play differently, I can tell you that they way we play it, it's useless.

I’m not the one you asked, but I run both TotM and on grid, and I find uses for slow and push in TotM. But I don’t adhere strictly to the distance numbers when running TotM. I keep it abstract and focus on the spirit of the property over the letter. Push gets enough distance to allow you to move away without provoking an opportunity attack. Slow insures they can’t keep up with you if you full move away.

 

[Stalker0]

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.

1) Get strength or like a monk that can use dex for grapple
2) Take athletics proficiency through class, background, feat, whatever.

and done.

now sure you can go for expertise to really lock in but you really don't have to. Even that gives you a very solid grapple against a lot of opponents.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I’m not the one you asked, but I run both TotM and on grid, and I find uses for slow and push in TotM. But I don’t adhere strictly to the distance numbers when running TotM. I keep it abstract and focus on the spirit of the property over the letter. Push gets enough distance to allow you to move away without provoking an opportunity attack. Slow insures they can’t keep up with you if you full move away.

Fair. I shouldn't say completely useless. Instead, they are greatly diminished in use, and depending on the abstraction used, may either be much less useful or bordering on completely uselessness.

By the way- this isn't a new thing. In 5e Classic, the mobile feat was less useful in ToTM. It's just an aspect of play that differentiates grid play and ToTM.

ETA- but I should add that once you remember the weapon choices and give it some thought, it should become obvious why my players have avoided these two weapon masteries completely in ToTM.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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!

Shadowdark is a great game. I've been having a lot of fun with it lately.

 

[Seramus]

Fair. I shouldn't say completely useless. Instead, they are greatly diminished in use, and depending on the abstraction used, may either be much less useful or bordering on completely uselessness.

It's certainly invisible most of the time, unless you're reporting the impact to the players a lot. I do a fair amount of ToTM, so I keep track of things like "Because they used a slow effect last round, the enemy doesn't quite reach them this round", but unless I verbalize it to the player they don't know. I actually do try to verbalize it specifically for that reason, but I can easily forget when I'm in the middle of narrating a battle with a dozen other things to describe.

And that's not including GMs who genuinely do forget an enemy is slowed or a character has mobile.

 

[Bill Zebub]

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.

Yeah I have no trouble converting grid-based rules to TotM. It just requires good trust between players and GM. "How many of the bandits can I hit with my Fan of Flames?" "Um, I'll give you three." "Cool...."