D&D (2024) Why are weapon masteries limited?

[Ashrym]

Given that you can change at least one of your weapon masteries each long rest, why do you even need to pick them? A character is only likely to want to use a weapon they lack mastery in if they happen to find a really cool magic weapon. And if it's not significantly better than what you are using, you are probably better off waiting until you've switched your mastery. The other scenarios are the equally rare situation where you have been unarmed and have to use what you find, or the even rarer one where there is a significant contextual benefit to using a specific available weapon other than the one you focus on.

So basically, the way it's set up, it doesn't define your character's style (since it can be easily changed), it just discourages you from doing cool things when they come up.

Seems like the system would be better (and save word count) if barbarian, fighter, paladin, ranger, rogues just got this feature instead:

Weapon Mastery
If you have proficiency in a weapon you can use its mastery property when you wield it.

(Edit: To clarify I'm not addressing masteries being tied to certain weapons--I'm accepting that as a given. I'm questioning the merit of characters having to choose which weapons they can use with mastery, rather than just getting to use every weapon with its appropriate mastery. I've updated the wording above to clarify.)

It's because they wanted fighters and barbarians to have more masteries than rangers, paladins, and rogues. This creates some distinction among those classes with weapon mastery where fighter > barbarian > paladin or ranger > rogue in the aspect of weapons that drastically changes with all weapon mastery being available. There would need to be additional changes to maintain that.

Sorry if this was already mentioned. I didn't have time to read the rest of the thread.

 

[Azzy]

Well, often enough it was IME. It was fairly common to have 2 to 3 PCs per player, moving in and out of different adventures as needs and the story demanded.

I never experienced anything like that.

 

[ezo]

I never experienced anything like that.

Well, in AD&D when you healed 1 HP per day without magic (and a bit more per week), a PC sitting out for part of the adventure--while rare--was common enough.

Other times, particularly at higher levels, a PC would be dealing with a quest for something, estabilshing a stronghold, or whatever and be removed for weeks or months of game time.

Just about every player in my 1E/2E days had 2 PCs, commonly playing just one or the other, but sometimes even both.

Campaigns would span several years, even decades, in game time. Our last AD&D campaign even had the children of the original PCs taking up the mantel and finishing the quest their parent began years earlier.

In college I DM'ed our gaming club of over 12 people, so had parties with up to 15 PCs at some points, plus retainers and henchmen. Logistically it was a nightmare, but man it was a blast!

 

[Azzy]

Well, in AD&D when you healed 1 HP per day without magic (and a bit more per week), a PC sitting out for part of the adventure--while rare--was common enough.

Other times, particularly at higher levels, a PC would be dealing with a quest for something, estabilshing a stronghold, or whatever and be removed for weeks or months of game time.

Just about every player in my 1E/2E days had 2 PCs, commonly playing just one or the other, but sometimes even both.

Campaigns would span several years, even decades, in game time. Our last AD&D campaign even had the children of the original PCs taking up the mantel and finishing the quest their parent began years earlier.

In college I DM'ed our gaming club of over 12 people, so had parties with up to 15 PCs at some points, plus retainers and henchmen. Logistically it was a nightmare, but man it was a blast!

Fascinating, but alien to me. My play experience with BECMI, 1e, & 2e is nothing like that.

 

[cbwjm]

I think there was just a single case of henchmen in games I ran. I had 2 players and they were each running evokers, we started at high level but I can't recall how high, no more than 9th though. They each ended up getting a follower, one fighter and one cleric. Otherwise, most games were more like the classic party of adventurers out on their own.

I do like the idea of henchment though, it just never seemed to come to pass.

 

[ezo]

Fascinating, but alien to me. My play experience with BECMI, 1e, & 2e is nothing like that.

Sure, D&D has a wide range of different experiences. Some of the games people have described here are nothing like my own, either!

It helped in AD&D when the Cavalier (Paladin) came along in UA. Several times the lesser henchmen were used as PCs by other players.

We had one Paladin who reached a very high level, and IIRC something like half a dozen PCs were his henchmen at one point or another. It was the beginning of what later became a small army and those characters quested together, but separate from the other PCs in the game, who had other adventures of their own to complete.

 

[Willie the Duck]

That's partly because the TSR people seemed to think it was normal or common to have 8 to 12 PCs in a campaign. Plus hirelings and followers that also needed equipment.

Fascinating, but alien to me. My play experience with BECMI, 1e, & 2e is nothing like that.

Despite 6 or more* distinct versions of A/D&D in the TSR era, a huge number of play assumptions were never really spelled out. So naturally any number of groups missed, ignored, glossed over, or explicitly removed one or more of the rules or play patterns supporting or predicated on those assumptions. *depending on how you count them

As a different example, BX and BECMI listed Morale rules as optional. Now, that might have been with the thought that experienced DMs could decide when enemies broke, but many treated it as meaning that the norm was enemies fought to the death. Beyond unrealistic, this makes enemies all that much harder (and undead less scary, as that's otherwise their schtick).

Because I'm always curious about how others got a challenging thing to work, I'll ask: how'd you make it work without the PC + henchman mega-crowd?

When I started*, we didn't use henchmen. However, the 3 main players had 2-3 characters (a fighter for everyone, plus 1-2 of the other classes). That, plus we picked up a bevvy of pet blink dogs, displacer beasts, and eventually dragons along the way which fleshed out the party. We also had unarticulated zone-of-control houserules in that the monsters would lunge forward and engage the fighters, even if nothing prevented them from swarming the magic user and thief. I think we also had retreating to the wilderness to lick our wounds (TSR era clerics taking several days worth of spell load-out to heal up even a small party) with only small chance of encounter (and none of the 'rest days happen in real time,' or 'another party might come along and clear out the dungeon while you rest' stuff that West Marches play uses).
*note: as kids

We have another thread going on concerning* whether people "fudged" (OPs definition is wide enough to drive a truck through, and includes most any not-played by-the-book). My attitude has been, 'if you didn't play with 8-12 PCs, plus henchmen, well then something else must have been tweaked.' Possibly just numbers-appearing of the monsters or other what challenges you take on (also when you left the confines of the dungeons). *plus the definition of railroading, which has dominated.

 

[ezo]

That, plus we picked up a bevvy of pet blink dogs, displacer beasts, and eventually dragons along the way which fleshed out the party.

Good point which didn't even think of mentioning!

In one of our longest campaigns, a player's (@Smythe the Bard) character successfully cast Animal Friendship on a Bulette (Neutral align, animal intelligence) and used it as his steed.

We also recruited some other creatures, notably two Hill Giants, who helped serve and protect our stronghold in the end.

 

[Azzy]

Despite 6 or more* distinct versions of A/D&D in the TSR era, a huge number of play assumptions were never really spelled out. So naturally any number of groups missed, ignored, glossed over, or explicitly removed one or more of the rules or play patterns supporting or predicated on those assumptions. *depending on how you count them

As a different example, BX and BECMI listed Morale rules as optional. Now, that might have been with the thought that experienced DMs could decide when enemies broke, but many treated it as meaning that the norm was enemies fought to the death. Beyond unrealistic, this makes enemies all that much harder (and undead less scary, as that's otherwise their schtick).

Because I'm always curious about how others got a challenging thing to work, I'll ask: how'd you make it work without the PC + henchman mega-crowd?

When I started*, we didn't use henchmen. However, the 3 main players had 2-3 characters (a fighter for everyone, plus 1-2 of the other classes). That, plus we picked up a bevvy of pet blink dogs, displacer beasts, and eventually dragons along the way which fleshed out the party. We also had unarticulated zone-of-control houserules in that the monsters would lunge forward and engage the fighters, even if nothing prevented them from swarming the magic user and thief. I think we also had retreating to the wilderness to lick our wounds (TSR era clerics taking several days worth of spell load-out to heal up even a small party) with only small chance of encounter (and none of the 'rest days happen in real time,' or 'another party might come along and clear out the dungeon while you rest' stuff that West Marches play uses).
*note: as kids

We have another thread going on concerning* whether people "fudged" (OPs definition is wide enough to drive a truck through, and includes most any not-played by-the-book). My attitude has been, 'if you didn't play with 8-12 PCs, plus henchmen, well then something else must have been tweaked.' Possibly just numbers-appearing of the monsters or other what challenges you take on (also when you left the confines of the dungeons). *plus the definition of railroading, which has dominated.

My earliest groups started in BECMI, and we moved on to 1e shortly after, and then 2e was released a year or two after that. We played pretty similarly to how the play was described in the BECMI boxed sets. ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[ezo]

My earliest groups started in BECMI, and we moved on to 1e shortly after, and then 2e was released a year or two after that. We played pretty similarly to how the play was described in the BECMI boxed sets. ¯\(ツ)/¯

I'll admit 2E seemed to begin moving away from the henchmen / retainers a bit compared to 1E. Personally, I don't recall using them nearly as much when we adopted more 2E practices.