[1D&D] Weapon Mastery?

[paladinn]

I just saw this referenced in another forum:
https://twitter.com/Indestructoboy/status/1643047797103443968

It looks like they are bringing back some form of weapon mastery, a bit like in BECMI? There seem to be no ranks or attack bonuses, which would blow bounded accuracy. And it seems to be limited to just a few classes.

Anyone know anything about?

[Dienekes]

Yeah, it's being covered mostly over in that Content Creator Summit thread. But it's at 7 pages now, so here's the brief overview.

Weapon Mastery, as of now, are essentially special abilities that apply to the associated weapons. Mastery seems to be the unifying feature of the Warrior Class Group: Barbarians, Monks, and Fighters, meaning those are the three classes that will normally get access to them. But I'd be surprised if there isn't a feat or something for others to use them. Of those three, Fighters will have some means of using the associated mastery special ability with other weapons. The exact mechanics of which are unknown.

The current list of mastery abilities that we know of are:

Puncture: If you hit them last round, you get Advantage this round.

Nick: If you attack with it in your off-hand as a Bonus Action, you can still use your Bonus Action for something else.

Slow: Reduce target speed by 10 feet

Push: Push target back 10 feet

Flex: Only for versatile weapons. Your damage doesn't decrease by 1 die size when using it one-handed

Graze: Deal Proficiency Bonus damage even on a miss


Personal opinions: The concept is interesting. Fighter being able to exchange them sounds theoretically cool. But a lot of the actual effects are pretty dull. Slow and Push allow you to manipulate the battlefield which is nice. But, if you're a frontliner, often times you want the target to stay in your reach so pushing them back isn't really going to be used often. And Slow won't do anything if you and your opponent are pounding on each other. They're both great options to have in your back pocket. But not something that will mater in a lot of fights.

The rest are basically just damage/accuracy buffs. Generically more useful, but pretty dull. Flex is a whopping +1 damage. Whoo.

But Nick is downright disappointing. They already removed the off-hand Bonus Action tax in the earlier playtest to putting it back just to take it away again is strange and randomly screws over Rogues. Not a fan of it.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Nick smacks of the creators having learned nothing from going on twenty years of two-weapon fighting problems. I can't say that surprises me, given what the state of their rulings were the last time I was actively following errata and JC's twitter feed.

[Hurrashane]

Yeah, it's being covered mostly over in that Content Creator Summit thread. But it's at 7 pages now, so here's the brief overview.

Weapon Mastery, as of now, are essentially special abilities that apply to the associated weapons. Mastery seems to be the unifying feature of the Warrior Class Group: Barbarians, Monks, and Fighters, meaning those are the three classes that will normally get access to them. But I'd be surprised if there isn't a feat or something for others to use them. Of those three, Fighters will have some means of using the associated mastery special ability with other weapons. The exact mechanics of which are unknown.

The current list of mastery abilities that we know of are:

Puncture: If you hit them last round, you get Advantage this round.

Nick: If you attack with it in your off-hand as a Bonus Action, you can still use your Bonus Action for something else.

Slow: Reduce target speed by 10 feet

Push: Push target back 10 feet

Flex: Only for versatile weapons. Your damage doesn't decrease by 1 die size when using it one-handed

Graze: Deal Proficiency Bonus damage even on a miss


Personal opinions: The concept is interesting. Fighter being able to exchange them sounds theoretically cool. But a lot of the actual effects are pretty dull. Slow and Push allow you to manipulate the battlefield which is nice. But, if you're a frontliner, often times you want the target to stay in your reach so pushing them back isn't really going to be used often. And Slow won't do anything if you and your opponent are pounding on each other. They're both great options to have in your back pocket. But not something that will mater in a lot of fights.

The rest are basically just damage/accuracy buffs. Generically more useful, but pretty dull. Flex is a whopping +1 damage. Whoo.

But Nick is downright disappointing. They already removed the off-hand Bonus Action tax in the earlier playtest to putting it back just to take it away again is strange and randomly screws over Rogues. Not a fan of it.

Pushing is pretty great as you can push them away then move up to them, separating then from your allies and theirs. Also works well combined with Sentinel.

[JonBeowulf]

snip

Personal opinions: The concept is interesting. Fighter being able to exchange them sounds theoretically cool. But a lot of the actual effects are pretty dull. Slow and Push allow you to manipulate the battlefield which is nice. But, if you're a frontliner, often times you want the target to stay in your reach so pushing them back isn't really going to be used often. And Slow won't do anything if you and your opponent are pounding on each other. They're both great options to have in your back pocket. But not something that will mater in a lot of fights.

The rest are basically just damage/accuracy buffs. Generically more useful, but pretty dull. Flex is a whopping +1 damage. Whoo.

But Nick is downright disappointing. They already removed the off-hand Bonus Action tax in the earlier playtest to putting it back just to take it away again is strange and randomly screws over Rogues. Not a fan of it.

I don't get the hate/disappointment in fighting classes getting accuracy/damage buffs. Their job is to distribute the dead condition as quickly and frequently as possible. Let someone else control the battlefield. Unless no one else can control the battlefield.

Puncture is great for killing things. Graze helps (I'd like doing a small amount of damage on a miss). I agree that Nick is pretty meh... especially if you don't have anything else to do with your BA.

[GooeyChewie]

I agree that Nick is pretty meh... especially if you don't have anything else to do with your BA.

Even worse, making Nick a weapon mastery thing takes it away from Rangers and Rogues who really would appreciate that bonus action for Hunter’s Mark and Cunning Action.

[JonBeowulf]

Classes that would use Nick don't get it.
Classes that would never use Nick get it.

Smacks of "We've been working on this for hours. Wrap it up folks, it's good enough."

[Dienekes]

I don't get the hate/disappointment in fighting classes getting accuracy/damage buffs. Their job is to distribute the dead condition as quickly and frequently as possible. Let someone else control the battlefield. Unless no one else can control the battlefield.

Puncture is great for killing things. Graze helps (I'd like doing a small amount of damage on a miss). I agree that Nick is pretty meh... especially if you don't have anything else to do with your BA.

Well, first of all, it is just my opinion. Secondly, current Fighter and Barbarian already can distribute the dead condition as quickly and frequently as possible. That was never what their weakness was. Their weakness is repetitive gameplay, and only being good at distributing the dead condition, while having little to no means of interacting with the problems faced in an encounter that might be necessary in order to get them in a position to distribute the dead condition.

Again, just my opinion. But I've played martials in 5e for some time now. They're boring as hell. I kinda refuse to do it anymore. I don't really play 5e as a player unless I'm a caster, because I find the martial gameplay so completely dull it just isn't engaging to me.

[False God]

Oh yay WotC remembered some of the most boring 4e Martial At-Will powers.

[paladinn]

Nick is something you do when shaving, not something in combat.

They need to work on the names at the least

[Telok]

Nick is something you do when shaving, not something in combat.

They need to work on the names at the least

I think "flex" is code for 'nobody ever used the versatile thing so we just upped the damage die and rendered two weapon tags irrelevant while inflating word count and not having to admit we can't be bothered to think of anything useful'.

[OvisCaedo]

It just kind of feels like a second "fighting style" called something else, taking some elements of maneuvers and the IPS feats. Exactly how this will work is... unclear? It's better than nothing but still not really interesting and doesn't sound terribly likely to give more decision making in combat, just kind of being slightly better at it.

or possibly enormously better at it if your weapon mastery is "puncture". The balance on these as presented is just... atrocious.

[Unoriginal]

Apparently, the Fighter will also be able to give themselves more than one mastery per weapon after a certain level.



or possibly enormously better at it if your weapon mastery is "puncture". The balance on these as presented is just... atrocious.

The weapon mastery depends on the weapon you're using. Every dagger have Nick, for example, so Monks, Fighters and Barbarians will all have access to Nick when they have a dagger in hand.

[Kane0]

It has my interest, but i want to see if they stick the landing first.

I do like the return of glancing blows, they were in the 5e playtests. Moving some of the effects from piercer/slasher/crusher into the weapons rather than fighting style or feat also sounds like a good move, but i do want to see how they get around the 'one trick pony vs golf bag of weapons' problem

[Unoriginal]

but i do want to see how they get around the 'one trick pony vs golf bag of weapons' problem

If they do stick the landing, the Fighter will be able to select which mastery they use independently of the weapon, and eventually have several masteries at once, so it would solve the problem.

I really hope they don't do a "you can switch one mastery once a day" or "you need to spend an action to switch" thing, though.

Being able to do it is a decent perk, but it needs to be flowing like water and at will for it to not be "well I guess it's nice" level.

[Skrum]

Here's the real question though - do they scale.

I personally am SICK of every single martial ability being the same exact thing in tier 2, 3, and 4 as it was when you got it at level 2. It's just...it's flatly ridiculous.

Push should push 5' per point of prof bonus

Graze should upgrade to weapon damage dice + prof bonus

Flex should let you use two handed weapons in one hand

Puncture should....ok that's a pretty good ability

Nick shouldn't exist cause it shouldn't take your bonus to attack with an off hand weapon

I dunno, not feeling creative RN. But another set of boring fighting styles does not come close fixing martials.

[ZRN]

Classes that would use Nick don't get it.
Classes that would never use Nick get it.

That's the point though, isn't it - that fighters are the "best at weapons"? If you want TWF fighters to be effective, they probably need some TWF tricks that every other TWF class doesn't have easy access to.

[Luccan]

That's the point though, isn't it - that fighters are the "best at weapons"? If you want TWF fighters to be effective, they probably need some TWF tricks that every other TWF class doesn't have easy access to.

How about no one has to use BA to get a bonus attack when twf and warriors get to make an extra attack with BA if the weapon has Nick?


Here's the real question though - do they scale.

I personally am SICK of every single martial ability being the same exact thing in tier 2, 3, and 4 as it was when you got it at level 2. It's just...it's flatly ridiculous.

Push should push 5' per point of prof bonus

Graze should upgrade to weapon damage dice + prof bonus

Flex should let you use two handed weapons in one hand

Puncture should....ok that's a pretty good ability

Nick shouldn't exist cause it shouldn't take your bonus to attack with an off hand weapon

I dunno, not feeling creative RN. But another set of boring fighting styles does not come close fixing martials.

This is what bothers me about Battlemaster. You could have had any of these at level 3, so what's the point of getting an extra two at level 15? They're clearly level 3 abilities! Except of course what the Battlemaster really gets is the Maneuver dice going up and getting extra damage or a couple random extra effects on top of a few more combat tricks. But unlike Maneuvers we don't yet have any indication that these scale and if they don't (or they only scale for Fighters) that's not really much of a shared mechanic.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Here's the real question though - do they scale.

I actually think the real question is one you identified talking about Puncture -- can the designers balance these enough that a tiny pool of options isn't strictly superior to everything else. Because if Option A is 'you can move someone 5' once per round as a bonus action', Option B is 'you can use weapons as if they are one size smaller than they actually are' and Option C is 'your reach increases by 10', you can make prof+Dex attacks of opportunity per round, everything you hit saves vs Str to avoid falling prone', there's no reason to ever take Option A or B. If they're all bad little ribbons, well, that sucks, but at least variety of suck is preserved, and you have to find the power of the class elsewhere. I just don't want to go back to a situation where the simplest class, Fighter, was also the one with the highest ratio of trap options to functional ones.

[Mastikator]

Here's the real question though - do they scale.

I personally am SICK of every single martial ability being the same exact thing in tier 2, 3, and 4 as it was when you got it at level 2. It's just...it's flatly ridiculous.

Push should push 5' per point of prof bonus

Graze should upgrade to weapon damage dice + prof bonus

Flex should let you use two handed weapons in one hand

Puncture should....ok that's a pretty good ability

Nick shouldn't exist cause it shouldn't take your bonus to attack with an off hand weapon

I dunno, not feeling creative RN. But another set of boring fighting styles does not come close fixing martials.

Tying everything to proficiency bonus makes it really awesome for full casters that dip 1 level fighter. I'd rather it scale on martial class, so a fighter 10 gets better mastery than a fighter 1/bard 9.

But I agree in principle, it should scale, and transform.

I'd let graze add strength bonus damage to 1, 2 and 3 adjacent targets at martial level 5, 11, 17 for instance. (when hitting, while keeping the +prof bonus on miss)

Flex I kinda don't like, not sure what to do with it though.

[Melil12]

That's the point though, isn't it - that fighters are the "best at weapons"? If you want TWF fighters to be effective, they probably need some TWF tricks that every other TWF class doesn't have easy access to.

Yeah but what does the fighter need to use his BA on? Second wind/Action surge …. ??

[paladinn]

Slightly off-topic, but one of the "newer" features of PF2 evidently is that only fighters get Attacks of Opportunity (without taking a feat). I wonder if this might be something to adapt.

Always good to buff the fighter whenever possible

[Kane0]

Slightly off-topic, but one of the "newer" features of PF2 evidently is that only fighters get Attacks of Opportunity (without taking a feat). I wonder if this might be something to adapt.

Always good to buff the fighter whenever possible

Given that 5e AoOs dont trigger on as many things, warriors getting extra triggers would be a way to do this without doing the whole 'take something away and give it back to a select few' thing, especially since many wont call that progress but rather gating.

[Envyus]

Nick improves two weapon fighting a lot. It lets you make the off hand attack for free without costing a bonus action. Then you can use the bonus action to make a second off hand attack.

Also pretty sure Rangers and Rogues will get access to a few Masteries.

[Leon]

Tying everything to proficiency bonus makes it really awesome for full casters that dip 1 level fighter. I'd rather it scale on martial class, so a fighter 10 gets better mastery than a fighter 1/bard 9.


Going by WotC track record that means at 10th level the fighter will be doing 5 damage on a miss because they firmly believe in it being half your level for such things

[t209]

To be honest, this I kinda like since I even thought about weapon special feats.
Though admittedly from Battle Brothers game.

[Theodoxus]

Given that 5e AoOs don't trigger on as many things, warriors getting extra triggers would be a way to do this without doing the whole 'take something away and give it back to a select few' thing, especially since many wont call that progress but rather gating.

I like this approach better too. If Fighters got basically all the old 3.x AoO triggers, it would definitely help. Ranged attacks within reach? OA. Casting within reach? OA. Moving around a Fighter? OA. Standing up from Prone? OA. Give Fighters a number of OAs per round equal to their PB? Fighters become VERY sticky at that point.

Regarding the Masteries themselves. I think Push (for bludgeoning) should be knockdown, akin to a wolf attack. Str save (possibly Con save) to avoid being knocked prone. Perhaps at a higher level, can include a Push on top of the proning attack.

Flex, if it's truly to represent flexibility, it should do all the things. Allowing for the higher dice when a versatile weapon is used one handed. Allowing for one-handing a two-handed weapon that doesn't have either Reach or Ranged keywords (one handing a greatsword or maul is epic. One handing a halberd or a longbow is silly). I also think Flex should increase damage by +1 when a versatile weapon is wielded two-handed (its better than increasing the die, for weapons that might end up at a d12 (homebrew bastard swords are typically d10/d12 versatile), so avoids jumping to a d20 damage die). But as it is now, Flex just means a longsword always does a d10, so there's never any incentive for going two-handed. A d10+1 isn't significant, but better than nothing (might need to be +1 to Hit and Dam to make it actually enticing to use a versatile weapon two-handed as a Fighter...)

I do like the idea of increasing the abilities by level, and would be fine with them getting boons anytime the martial classes get an Extra Attack. If that means Barbarians and Monks only get one bump, while Fighters get up to 3, that works for me.