I really dislike how heavily the base class feature rely on your DM giving you magic items. Artificers keep getting "you can attune to 1 more item" as they level up but it is such a shame that you dont GET anything by yourself. You have to wait for the DM to hand them out and it could feel unfair to the rest of the party too... i wish they would solve this issue (I know you can use an infusion to create the item yourself but that means you have less infusions)

In a vacuum, that all sounds good. But... That VAST majority of the rules are centered around combat, AND the vast majority of the character creation is centered around how the character will perform in combat. By insisting that the majority of the game have no combat you simultaneously insist that most of what your players have to interact with the world becomes meaningless. For instance, social interaction don't require class features. You can replace a high level Barbarian in any social encounter with an NPC stat block, and get the same outcome. But wait, it gets worse... Since you've punished players for building traditionally strong characters, you should expect that the characters they end up with are not built toward traditional strengths. This means that when combat DOES occur, they won't be as good at it, meaning you'll need to dial back the difficulty to prevent TPKs. If you don't want a combat centered game, you probably need a game system that doesn't devote all of its rules to combat.

So you lose the three things that make a monk a monk. That's kinda the best parts, better movement, added attacks from MA feats, and the damage buff from unarmored attacks.

Wow. You really make things as complicated and nonspecific as possible, and then make sure that there's as little benefit as possible. How about this- Magical Tinkering: at the end of a long rest you can create a small device which duplicates the effect of one cantrip which does not utilize an attack roll or a saving throw. You can create additional devices like this at the end of subsequent long rests, up to a number equal to your intelligence modifier. You can dismantle any of these as an action, or if you create one in excess of your intelligence modifier the oldest device ceases to function. Bang, done. No balance issues, and easy for the player to find their own uses.

hit points!? wow. I do allow my players to re-roll 1s, but this is a HUGE buff

I have gotten into the habit of calling it 5.24, so I can call the rules in 2014 5.14, but YMMV.

It sounds great on a monk, attacking 3 times with daggers then flurry of blows for 3 more on a bonus action, however monks get no weapon mastery.

The thing you missed is that monks need to take the weapon mastery feat as they don't get weapon mastery as standard.

Weapon masteries aren't inherent for every class. Monk doesn't get weapon mastery so they wouldn't be able to use nick for dual wielding or topple for the quarterstaff. The weapon mastery states Each weapon has a mastery property, which is usable only by a character who has a feature, such as Weapon Mastery, that unlocks the property for the character. So you would have to either multiclass into a class that gets weapon masteries or take the new weapon master feat.

I think that the trident deserves an honorable mention since you can throw it on a flying foe to bring it down. Yes the range is short 20/60 but you have a chance to bring it to the ground giving a melee a easy way to fight off such threats, at least you're not sitting duck an with enemies with low/medium con save have a decent chance to fail.

A Warlock can also change Topple for Chr as your stat with pack of the blade. Yes I am planing a 1 fighter/ x warlock and am thing of doing it as a build.

Weapon masteries are essentially status ailment cantrips for Marshalls

So you can do it with the same hand?

You are talking so much about monks, but they don't even get any weapon masteries.

IIRC the "Slow" text, it says it can only apply to the same creature 1/turn. Not that you can only use it 1/turn. So if you have 2 attacks, you could either focus fire, or slow 2 targets. As a Player, this makes it somewhat interesting tactically. Focusing fire is more often better, but kiting multiple enemies might make sense, although it could lead to rather boring combats if the GM isn't careful. As a GM, I think using Slow occasionally as a way to play Paper vs the Melee Rocks in the party can be a nice mix up.

An extremely niche use of graze : possibly preventing an enemy from regenerating. This only really works well enough to mention if the enemy is very hard to hit, and your weapon does a base damage that shuts off the regen (e.g. a sunblade vs a vampire). But I thought I'd mention it anyway :)

12:01 Don't forget about shillelagh which thanks to magic initiate let's you make attacks with quarterstaff using your spellcasting modifier

Graze forces concentration every turn, also it can make a diference between 1 more round for the enemy to do something nasty to your party or not!

You keep saying each Sap and Slow can only be used Once once you use it you can not do it again that turn, you can use them only once per Target. What if the Fighter makes 3 Attacks, each against a different target, and pushes each one 10' into the Spike Growth? You can also use Push multiple times move up and attack the same target each time.

GRAZE: What you are missing with Graze is not DPR (Witch is not everything) it will cause a Concentration Check with every Attack. SAP: Once per Creature Attacked, the more you hit the more you SAP, also at Level 9 You can pull out that Weapon to Sap and then Push or at 11th Level, Topple, Sap and then Push. It is about Flexibility not DPR

Id love to see kobolds with pack tactics using dual scimitars and nicking

Would Cleave work with rider effects like Hex or Summon Minor Elementals?

Graze is good not for the amount of damage it does, but because of it's potential to disrupt a spell caster's concentration.

Graze pairs very well with the Polearm Mastery Feat, which can give you three attacks with a Glaive and thus solid DPR from it by level 5 or so, a full 5.25 by level 6 as a Fighter, or level 8 for anyone else (since that's when you hit Str 20). Various other properties are probably still better, don't get me wrong, but the extra attack from Polearm Mastery is worth keeping in mind for calculation purposes. I'd say it's probably better than Sap, honestly. A lot of the others are better under the right circumstances, but that 'under the right circumstances' is important. I'd also note that you can set up Cleave yourself if you have the ability to move enemies around, which is very doable in a few different ways. It's a lot better if you can do that. It's also worth noting that Topple can also be done with any mental stat via Shillelagh. Which can be grabbed with the Magic Initiate Origin Feat. Slow can also be done with Shillelagh, and any other Mastery can also be done with Charisma via Pact of the Blade, or any mental stat with True Strike (though that's limited by being a cantrip). In general, you can also do weapon swapping mid-turn pretty easily or, as a 9th level Fighter, just swap out the Mastery, which makes once per turn effects better than you're giving them credit for. You can definitely go too far in abusing this, but being able to do it once per turn seems to be a built in rules assumption...swapping out a Cleave and Push weapon, for instance.

I've been wondering on the math for Monks... Topple on a quarterstaff and advantage on the prone enemy, or Nick as you laid out. Both sound like fun to me!

I think you are spot on on your predictions, but what i discovered for myself just now is how broken the monks are. Sure nick + vex monk is strong but imagine topple and slow on a monk... Also it matters WHAT the weapon its on is. Nick is on a lot thrown weapons and combining the feats slasher and crusher - a topple weapon with slasher will basically leave the enemy with 5 or 10 speed depending on which attack you manage to get them prone. Bludgeoning/ slasher + topple, slow or push is also amazing. Attack with a Quarterstaff - topple, swap and attack with a club - slow + Bludgeoning 5feet push, throw an axe for slasher. So you proned the enemy, reduced the speed by 20 and pushed him 5 feet. The enemy has to have 50 speed to actually get back in melee.

cleave works on reaction attacks too.

I would also rate Graze much higher on monsters, because not only do pcs usually have much higher armor class than most monsters, monsters also often have really high strength modifiers and/or lots of attacks.

While I agree with you in both the nick weapon mastery being great, and the new monk being great, I think you are forgetting that monks don't get weapon mastery.

Really weird to see Slow that high as imo it's one of the least impactful masteries, you will always have some melee characters anyways that the monsters can hit so slowing them rarely actually matters.

Graze is the worst mastery by far, especially since it's only found from big two handers that you generally do a lot of damage per hit, making the graze damage just feel like a 'congratulations, you suck, here is your participation prize' type thing, and add to that how easy it is to get advantage in 2024 rules for a melee character, the chances of you missing are significantly reduced. The better your character gets, the less that mastery will do to you. Cleave is imo the best mastery, and the most overlooked one, as it is the only mastery that can seriously increase your dpr, and in most combats your fighting more than one enemy, and the ones where you are only fighting one enemy are generally the easiest ones anyways due to action economy. Another thing that people seem to miss is that while you can't add your ability score modifier to the cleave attack, you can add any other modifiers you have to the damage, like say great weapon master, or rage, or hunter's mark.

Graze gets a better when you have disadvantage on your attacks. people seem to think things will always go their way and they will always be attacking neutrally or with advantage, this is not the case. Ive heard the monster effect redesign have those effects work immediately on a hit without a save.

Nick is even more broken if you go by RAW you could just go attack with your light weapon #1, wield a shield in you other hand and have dueling FS after you finish your attack you swap your weapon to #2 with the nick property and attack with that weapon also getting dueling FS and you still have your BA for e.g. quicken a spell, dual wielder feat ( which gives you another attack ^^ ) also its the only wm to have a Paladin hit the C-Tier instead of the F-Tier is it RAI ? for 100% not, and i expect that wording to be fixed in the next Errata

Good advice! I'm still getting my head around all of the implications of the 2024 systems. But I've got a couple pieces of experience to add to the general principles of quest creation. 1. Players will more consistently follow their emotions than they will follow facts. 2. No DM will be able to predict the players' emotions ahead of time, but they can usually be read during game play. 3. Where you need to motivate players to take specific actions in the quest, leave a "blank spot" that is labeled either "love" or "hate". 4. When you get to that point in the blank spot in the quest, you insert something from recent game play that fits wither the love or hate label. Yes, this does take a bit of note keeping. No, it's not hard. Yes, it's worth it. Example: During game play, the players have some interaction with a shopkeeper and end up making friends with him. Later, the party is introduced to a missing person scenario as a quest hook. In order to get the players to invest emotionally with the quest, the shopkeeper that they recently befriended shows up at the scene of the crime and informs the party that the missing person is someone he loves, begging them to find and rescue them. Not only is there emotional investment from the previous interaction, but pragmatists will observe that a friendly shopkeeper is a great ally in a long-term game.

What I like with masteries is they all excel in a place/build: -A Cleave weapon is perfect primary weapon for fighters, as it is a very situational weapon mastery, so the ability Tactical Master really shores it up by giving other options when Cleave isn't optimal. Cleave weapons also make for a good secondary choice for builds with lots of riders (rage, great weapon master, hunter's mark, brutal critical, extra). [Pro.: huge extra damage/Con.: situational] -A Graze weapon is great brutal strike barbarians; they can't get advantage is any way, so this sures them up. Graze weapons also act as a good back-up weapon when a primary weapon property is situational or has been used up (say there is only one target and you already slowed them, or your first attack already triggered cleave); as Graze is always useful as long as there is a chance to miss. The real negative is that, it gets worse with advantage, and, if you have a poor modifier making you more likely to miss (so Graze comes up more often), it also has less of a damage boost from said poor modifier. [Pro.: never a bad choice/ Con.: never a great choice] -A nick weapon is an S tier choice. With rogues, they definitely want one weapon with nick as it basically doubles their chance for sneak attack. For build with riders (rage, hunter's mark, brutal critical, extra), it is an excellent way to boost your damage output. And for everything else, it is just a free attack if you don't use a great weapon fighting build. In-fact, with weapon juggling, it arguably makes other one handed weapons almost obsolete. The only real negative is that you only want 1 nick weapon at a time, as the primary attacks have no benefit from nick. [Pro.: Free attack/Con.: doesn't apply anything with primary strikes] -The push mastery is amazing on paper and to build around. Forcing movement can often be an optimal play. The catch is that you need to know when to stop using it. You don't want to hit an enemy outside of your reach (say you run out of movement or to get to a pushed enemy you now have to pass by another, triggering oppertunity attacks against you]. So where other masteries are straight forward, this one requires the most thought and planning to use right. It also excels with two feats: crusher - as that can be used to move enemies upwards before you push; adding fall damage to said push. And charger, as it gives the required movement. The final real benefit is it is the best hit and run mastery for melee fighters. But, unlike others, it is size restrictive [Pro.: best with creative players / Con.: size restrictive & probably the most advanced mastery] -The Sap mastery is an underrated one. In when fighting enemies with one big attack, it is huge. And, in almost all situations, even if it is providing disadvantage on enemies with multiattack, it still will lesson the overall damage output of the enemy. That said, like slow, it can only be applied once, so weapon juggling is viable. Where this shines is with grappling builds; as if you are grappling a target, they are more likely to aim for you, so giving them disadvantage on an attack is still huge. [Pro.: this is the best defensive weapon mastery for melee / Con.: doesn't boost your damage and doesn't stack] -A slow weapon is the vanilla of weapon masteries. It is good for kiting, but that tends to get old fast, and rarely you have a whole party built around that. It is ok at making enemies stay with the front liners, but if you are already in melee; reducing an enemies speed by 10 feet when they don't have to move to hit you back isn't going to get you far. So, in most combats, it will be a non-factor. [Pro.: Good at keeping enemies at bay / Con.: Situational and doesn't stack] -The Topple mastery is the only one that requires a saving throw; however, once successful it does boost all melee fighter's attacks by giving them advantage and restricts movement by requiring them to use half to stand back up. It also works nicely with grappling builds, as you can knock them down, and then grapple a prone enemy. The catch here is, once applied, the topple mastery does become redundant (but the fact it does require a saving throw, does make multiple attacks vs an enemy better than weapon properties like sap/slow which are one and done.); and more-over than that, it really hurt the ranged allies in your party, so you have to be mindful [Pro.: can be devastating for enemies especially for parties with melee focus / Con.: not friendly in parties with ranged fighters] -And finally, the Vex weapon master. This one seems the most overrated. Yes, it pairs amazing with nick weapons, but, if you are a rogue using a rapier, even if you hit triggering vex, as mentioned in the video, you have to wait until the next turn to gain said benefit; and by that time the target might already be dead (assuming you didn't kill the target with your own attack). So as a stand alone property, it just isn't the most reliable, and does best with multiple attacks. [Pro.: advantage is always strong / Con.: not a reliable property, as it is more multi-phased compared to the other masteries] So personally, in a vacuum, I would rank them Nick>Push>Topple>Sap>Cleave>Graze>Vex>Slow. But what is fun with them is that these are all highly build dependent and often pair/complement weapon juggling to get off multiple effects.

Good video mate. I like how multiple weapon masteries could be used together particularly using push to move two enemies together so that I can get a cleave attack off. I think wizards has really improved martials with these tactical options, it stops them feeling so similar every round as you do more than just bash things.

Monk doesn’t naturally get weapon masteries right? Best build path might be to start Fighter 1 then go for monk 5.

The thing you miss about Graze is the fact that it spreads damage out. Think about how often a DM describes how an enemy looks really close to going down, if you dont have Graze, around 35% of the time you would attempt to take them out and miss, which might give them an additional turn in combat. With Graze however, you will most likely take that enemy out evenif you missed, which will prevent you and your allies from getting hit by that enemy for another round.

this is a very good video.

You missed something about Sap. You can apply Sap more than once a turn if that second application is to a different creature. The more attacks you have the more Disadvantages you can apply, so long as the creatures are within your range of movement. This is excellent on a fighter and is essentially the Tank weapon mastery.

I think when adding features to monsters that things like Topple have already existed for awhile with wolves and pounce like abilities, so that's not really something new. Nick also isn't very useful since you could just build it into their multiattack, so now its just a different explanation for that. Cleave is sort of the same, but I do like it as a small little way to try and get party members to get out of the paladin's aura. The fun abilities for monsters though would be things like Graze so that a minion still stays dangerous when they are probably missing every time, and snagging a bit of extra damage. Sap, Slow, and Push are all fun in my mind for a bit more tactics. Especially since it can mean spreading damage around the party is a bit better. Such as having the whole party weakened by Sap or pushed into Lair effects (or kept there with Slow).

I will say that I think you are massively under appreciating weapon swapping. In a fight against a zombie you'll hit basically every attack so sure Graze is gonna suck, stick with push or sap options. But in a fight against something like a Helmed Horror and its 20 AC? you're gonna miss a lot, so pulling out Graze is going to be a big bonus. and probably close to half your total expected damage. When blocking a doorway, you dont want to push with your first attack because you want to stay where you are, so using a Topple and then swapping to Graze or Cleave if that works will give you the best outcomes. Nick of course is always good, but only if you're planning to do dual wielding. If you want to take GWM it'll be useless for you

great video, would recommend for players and dms

All Artificers desperately need the ability to use Intelligence for attack and damage rolls, as well as Extra Attack. The Armorer and Battle Smith are the only two subclasses that get these benefits, and it's no coincidence that they're far stronger than other Artificers. The Alchemist just can't do much to contribute. The elixirs are not very impactful, and some are borderline useless, like the transformation elixir. To an extent, you can work around this by just making the better ones, but some of your elixirs are random, so you're inevitably going to get duds every now and then. Their ability to add their Intelligence to damage and healing rolls suffers from the requirement that you use alchemist's supplies as the spellcasting focus. It conflicts with the option to use infused items as a focus, and means that some spells, like Green Flame Blade, can never gain the benefit. I think the Artillerist could do okay if the base class was buffed, but the Alchemist needs some serious revision if it's going to have any chance of keeping up with other characters.

I don’t believe this works because the shield requires the utilize action to remove

I had a really fun once in a campaign, where my Rogue was a masterful Pickpocket, and loved her Gloves of Thievery. I used them both in roleplay and in combat. because I also liked walking around with small bags of Sparkpowder Bombs~ hehe... a quickly slip of risk and suddenly an enemy was walking around with a grenade in their pocket... sigh I miss those days...