D&D (2024) With Weapon Mastery likely making it in, do you want optional exotic weapons and exotic weapon masteries?

[Minigiant]

Currently, it's a playtest and we haven't gotten any refinement on the mastery system.
Other than "people really liked it", they haven't gone though the feedback.

We are also passed the experimental phase of the playtest.

WOTC isn't going to playtest "Build a Weapon". There isn't enough time to test it. They wasted that time in the OGL fiasco.
So unless Mastery gets very very bad survey results, this is what we are getting and it will just be tweaked.

If we are lucky, we might get a few new core masteries if there are enough "We want more masteries" or "Too many weapons have Flex".

But there isn't enough time to playtest a "Build a Weapon" well by the time WOTC needs the PHB to be done to send to the printers next year,

Exotic Weapons in aDM or splat book could add new masteries and help DMs flavor their regions and monsters with new stuff.

Orcs charging the party with double-axes, cleavers, and waraxes could give a standard orc enounter a bit more flavor and new goodies for the party if they survive.

 

[tetrasodium]

STR 8 and 18 were mentioned as corner cases

I think there should be some visceral cost to dump stats and consider 10 to be so dump stat adjacent that lumping it in with 8 works to make investment a thing more brightly displayed in actual play. With light medium and heavy armor being linked to dex con and str respectively it allows room for almost any build to justify a 12 or 14* in an armor gating stat while still allowing tangible benefits for deeper investment. 8 &10 should be robe wearing Squishies or a bit more crunchy but aiming for a different armor group.

* I described a bit of hypothetical example in post 77

 

[Scott Christian]

Exotic weapons are just another way to min-max. To make sure you do 1 point more damage than the person next to you who has the same exact build.

 

[Horwath]

I think there should be some visceral cost to dump stats and consider 10 to be so dump stat adjacent that lumping it in with 8 works to make investment a thing more brightly displayed in actual play. With light medium and heavy armor being linked to dex con and str respectively it allows room for almost any build to justify a 12 or 14* in an armor gating stat while still allowing tangible benefits for deeper investment. 8 &10 should be robe wearing Squishies or a bit more crunchy but aiming for a different armor group.

Example of table:

STR 8 , +1 AC, MAX DEX +6
STR 10, +2 AC, MAX DEX +5
STR 12, +3 AC, MAX DEX +4
STR 14, +5 AC MAX DEX +2
STR 16, +7 AC, MAX DEX +1
STR 18, +8 AC, MAX DEX +0

 

[Azzy]

Returning weapon are magical. Go see some boomerang throwing on utubes, you will see that throwing a boomerang in a dungeon is pure fantasy and magic.

We're talking D&D—ostensibly a game of fantasy and magic.

 

[Azzy]

Sure, I'd like "exotic" weapons—balanced as simple or martial (depending on the weapon's concept) weapons that have Mastery properties that are different from the standard ones.

 

[CreamCloud0]

We're talking D&D—ostensibly a game of fantasy and magic.

i mean, who's to say that all boomerangs in DnD aren't passively enchanted through their inherent creation to have the returning property? like if it doesn't return then you failed to make a boomerang you just made a bent stick.

Sure, I'd like "exotic" weapons—balanced as simple or martial (depending on the weapon's concept) weapons that have Mastery properties that are different from the standard ones.

yeah, i'd like exotic weapons to inherently offer a unique/different fighting style to standard weapons, the introduction of weapon masteries manages to blur the line for me a little (in a good way) between what ordinary weapons are capable of and exotic ones, when weapons were basically just beatsticks with an attacking stat, a damage die and a range weapons that could push or pull or trip or slow opponents would be good candidates for exotic weapons, now that we seem to be having that as standard i'd like to see exotic weapons go a little wild with their combinations of properties and extra effects, enough to justify 'investing in this weapon specifically' as an actual meaningful customisation choice for your character, not just them being the powergamer's greatsword+ or whatever.

 

[tetrasodium]

Example of table:

STR 8 , +1 AC, MAX DEX +6
STR 10, +2 AC, MAX DEX +5
STR 12, +3 AC, MAX DEX +4
STR 14, +5 AC MAX DEX +2
STR 16, +7 AC, MAX DEX +1
STR 18, +8 AC, MAX DEX +0

That's a good skew with heavy dex/str investment at the extremes. Somewhere in the middle (like the bold ones) I'd change the strength requirement to con to add some teeth into the "what armor does my PC wear" question during CharOp. It doesn't really hit most builds all that much but for the diplomancer tracker knowledge repository weird MC caster it puts an opportunity cost like "appropriately squishy" or means that they needed to lag a bit behind the classes that individually specialize in those areas to sport the AC.

 

[mellored]

If we are lucky, we might get a few new core masteries if there are enough "We want more masteries" or "Too many weapons have Flex".

Then why not focus on figuring out more masteries first?

But there isn't enough time to playtest a "Build a Weapon" well by the time WOTC needs the PHB to be done to send to the printers next year,

Build a weapon is a fighter class feature.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Sure, I'd like "exotic" weapons—balanced as simple or martial (depending on the weapon's concept) weapons that have Mastery properties that are different from the standard ones.

This.

While people talk about 'exotic' weapons as if they're all some super powered feat-locked mega weapon, but they're usually just a weapon that doesn't fit the outdated 'Medieval-Europe-Except-it's-Renaissance-but-there's-magic-and-fantasy' mold and is either locked to discourage being not European, or positively discriminated to the point that it's a super special weapon that doesn't afraid of anything.

Just let them be weapons.