How You Should Buff Martials: Combat

[@bonewizard]

How would you guys buff martials? Anything I missed or should have said? Anything you use in your games?

[@aculous2691]

Nothing concrete, but I really enjoy playing martials in the games me and my buddies run. Since usually by using acrobatics and athletics, I can describe some crazy stuff to pull off in battle and out of battle and my dm usually allows it depending on my roll. I find this way more fun than playing casters since I feel I can creatively take down an enemy by either targeting weak spots or doing some crazy athletic stuff. Its not a solution to the problem, but with a great dm and some creativity playing a martial can feel awesome.

[@Johnhamsta]

It's really an issue of D.M.s not challenging their casters enough. Sabotage and target magic users, same as players would to NPCs. An old mantra from playing Diablo II - "Kill the magic, kill the magic, kill the magic, kill them dead!" Grapple, silence, spread, target casters first, steal or destroy their spellbooks, burgle their component pouches, cut off their hands. Martials do better when violence is fairly targeted.

[@P10NE3R1111]

I don't think I saw you mention anything for melee users to close distance. A common issue as a melee martial is that if a fight starts with you unable to reach the enemy with your normal movement, you are screwed. I won't say give every martial a free dash on their first turn, as longbow fighters could just use that to be even safer. But all melee martials should be able to gap close. Ranged martials need this less, but at least they could then gain another edge over casters that casters dont easily have access to. Also allow martials to heal more. A d10 doesn't go much further than a d6-8 that casters get. Especially when CON also boosts concentration. So doubling hit dice, or making martials gain extra health when spending a hit die will allow them to stay in the fight longer. This might be covered in your tank idea. You covered a lot of the other things I'd like, such as interesting and strong magic items, AoE with the cleave idea, and CC.

[@lasonris8934]

I have some ideas: - This requires a new mechanic, critical cards: if a martial crits you draw a crit card along with the bonus damage applying a different effect or maybe an uppercut attack launching them up and dealing fall damage - STR should get a new ability requirement: they can wielder 2 handed weapons in 1 hand - Those techniques you mentioned (don't need to expand, you made a video) - Advantage on frightened since you are melee - Different types of attacks that BG3 does Thank you for coming to my DM talk

[@kidcharmander3501]

I'm sure someone has mentioned this but ryoko's guide also does a similar thing with techniques based on each weapon trait and has a skill tree system that gets stronger with the number of levels a character has in a martial class. very nice book that is in it's final stages I'd recommend it (Also there's giant kaiju fights which is always a plus)

[@kadnhart6661]

Before I watch: Martials need to break physics in similar but different ways than casters. If a level 20 wizard is Gandalf, then a level 20 fighter needs to be Beowulf. The point where casters can start to open portals should be about when martials can start to punch down walls and overturn carriages. Martials should get increasing bonuses to move speed, jump checks, distance limits for missile weapons, etc. Because that's what martial heroes of lore did.

[@bonewizard]

You might like the videos to come haha

[@user-hv6gi9ux6z]

Honestly this, I hate how martial stats are stuck being "realistic" like a level 20 barbarian still lifts less than some real world people, and that should just. Not be the case

[@notsochosenone5669]

"But thats uNrEaLiStIC". But seriously - 20th level barbarian should be Hercules, not pretty good strongman they are now. Every time i have barbarian in the party i DM i make sure to give them every possible opportunity to show how actually superhumanly strong they are. Last time my L13 barbarian ferried the dead for a day - task absolutely impossible for mortal (and her level 5 self before in campaign) even though her streangth score changed very slightly since then.

[@kubomagico8853]

​@user-hv6gi9ux6z a level 20 barbarian can get to 25 strengh in the 2024 rules without magic items This allows the barbarian to carry 375 pounds and lift 750 pounds for a total of 1125 pounds which is incredibly weak for a god slayer

[@johnathanmonsen6567]

It's one of the big issues, that for whatever reason Wizards just can't seem to let go of making martial characters _completely, perfectly realistic, no matter what level._ I suspect it may be part of the same wider cultural stigma that got people upset about making a Spider-Man Monk subclass? But higher-level martials should ABSOLUTELY have walked in straight out of a Shonen battle anime. What kind of fighter power fantasy _can't_ chop a castle in half?

[@jasonvoeltz6872]

The primal urge to swing a big sword will always motivate man, especially when told that they can get a bigger sword

[@bonewizard]

Its in our DNA

[@talscorner3696]

Have stick, will bap with it

[@dragoknight589]

RULES OF NATURE

[@dzn9338]

No effect? I need a bigger sword!

[@erikwilliams1562]

Manhood is defined by the girth and power of our sword!!!!

[@wybekarsten7731]

Hey Bone Wizard, I don’t want to say anything about the buffs. Instead, I really want to say that I’m really happy you released a video. The last one was six months ago, and I was scared you had quit making KZbin videos :(. I just want to say that I really like your content, and your buffs are super great! I hope that in the future the channel will do even better so that I, and others, can continue to enjoy your content

[@bonewizard]

Aww thank you! Thats really nice. Well I hope the wait was worth it. there will be a new video every week for the next 5 weeks. So look forward to that.

[@Maximilian_Romus]

​@@bonewizardWelcome back

[@dracohawkxxx2079]

@@bonewizardglad to hear, hope you don’t push yourself too hard to get those out. Better a long wait then no videos at all

[@bonewizard]

@ oh the videos are done, the only thing left to do is secure sponsors.

[@scruffles3838]

I also share this sentiment just the wacky doodles and humor itself makes it watch worthy, like I really enjoy your stuff. (And would be completely down for non buff related content) (Or even other ttrpgs, but that's just me)

[@NobodyDungeons]

I love it when players get creative with physical actions. Had a barbarian player who used crowbars and pullies religiously to bypass every physical object in the parties way. At one point the rogue was trying to defuse the bomb and he rolled athletics to see how high he could throw the bomb so it would explode in the air harmlessly. Brute forcing problems isn't always the best solution to a problem, but it sure as hell can solve a lot of them.

[@bonewizard]

You will REALLY like my out of combat video haha

[@Lobsterwithinternet]

@@bonewizardCunning Action! *drops a chandelier*

[@bionicdragon5]

"The door is guarded by two imposing gargoyles. They ask you to solve a riddle, warning you that one of them only tells the truth, while the other always lies." "I throw them both into the sun."

[@Lilith_Harbinger]

That's great but i think some special actions should be engraved in mechanics. Because that's exactly what spells do, and spells can do almost anything. A professional system designer (i.e. WoTC) implying "the player should just be creative with the zero tools we give them" is really lazy.

[@SageDarkwind]

Wild Magic Barbarian: "Hey, why are people who put mustard on hotdogs so insufferable about ketchup?" Me: "Because they've went full mustard. Never go full mustard."

[@bonewizard]

Mustard users shaking and foaming at the mouth if I use ketchup on anything!

[@smolgobbo3826]

@@bonewizardAND RIGHTFULLY SO, YOU CONTEMPTIBLE TOMATO QUAFFER YOU

[@frankfrankerson2]

6-8 encounters per day doesn't help at all because while the wizard runs out of spell slots, the fighters run out of hit points. And when the wizard can't cast high level spells, the fighter is dead. Or you run out of healing spells and take a long rest, which gets the wizard all their slots back. Also, caster vs martial has been a war since at least third edition. Also also, the weapon dice thing is just pathfinder 2e. Also also also, great video!

[@bonewizard]

also very true.

[@gliscaradu1424]

@frankfrankerson2 devil's advocate i guess Those 6-8 don't necessarily need to be combat, 3 of them could be i dunno meeting travellers on the road merchants mercenaries after a party a tavern where they can stop at that sorta thing

[@frankfrankerson2]

@@gliscaradu1424 If the encounter doesn't drain party resources, it's not a part of the math and has no effect on class balance.

[@notsochosenone5669]

@@gliscaradu1424 6-8 number is litteraly from combat section of DMG. Unless you know what "medium social encounter" or "medium trap encounter" is and how they differ from deadly social/trap encounter.

[@samusamu5342]

True, but those encounter don't need to be in a one session they can be soread out to multiple ones

[@greyingproductions]

Hopefully the algorithm picks this up and doesn’t punish you for the hiatus. This is one of my favorite channels, and I hope you get the success you deserve!

[@bonewizard]

I appreciate that! The comments help friend.

[@cryamistellimek9184]

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during WotC designing 5e where they somehow came to the conclusion that people play D&D like it’s pokemon in the tall grass running into problems every 4 seconds.

[@bonewizard]

I have never heard it put that way, and I'm absolutely stealing that haha

[@hawkname1234]

@@cryamistellimek9184 You would need to have been there in 1974 because OD&D was strictly a dungeon crawling game, and dungeon crawling has passed down through the decades.

[@sam7559]

It's because D&D is a dungeon crawler game that people misuse. You're suppose to be dungeon delving.

[@pogodonuts]

@@sam7559it used to be a dungeon crawler game heavily based on resource management, but the current edition is definitely not a dungeon crawling game but holds on to a bunch of stuff from the old editions to make people happy. There’s no reason the 10 ft pole should be in 5e, but it’s a sacred cow the designers kept

[@Sircreepington9th]

The best suggestion I’ve seen comes from Fool’s Gold since it’s a setting that’s very high power. Martial characters gain an extra feat from the start, plus one extra feat for every ASI they get. They also say that Casters don’t need to choose their spells and have full access to all spells they know.

[@bonewizard]

Thats sounds like a fun idea. Though from what Dingo has told me, if Felix gives you boosts it means you should be afraid of what is to come haha

[@Sircreepington9th]

@ Oh, of course. Always fear what the DM can do.

[@NobodyDungeons]

One thing I like to do is add video game mechanics to combat with a specific focus on martials. So, you can dodge roll to avoid attacks, stagger enemies, and so much more. Martials tend to be better at these things on account of the fact that they have the physical capacity to do so.

[@bonewizard]

That makes sense to me. Give martials a resource pool to use cool abilities is a good thing.

[@Lobsterwithinternet]

⁠@@bonewizardFun Fact: They were going to make the Battlemaster’s techniques standard for the Fighter during playtesting for 5E but they decided against it.

[@sev1120]

As a DM, I have a "stances" system for martials. There's the "Default" stance, but they can switch to one of a few others (2 generic, and 2 based on their class) There's the Power and Agility basic stances, that give a simple trade off. You're either easier to hit and hit harder, are harder to hit but don't hit as hard. Fighter stances are "Master's stance" and "Champion's stance" Master's stance is available to all fighters, and you can use 1 manoeuvre with a d4 in every attack without expending resources. It upgrades to a d6, and then a d8 at high levels. Champion's stance gives you a bonus to hit, and a slight heal every time you deal damage (represented as "gaining momentum") Monks have "Moon stance" and "Sun stance" Moon stance boosts the monk's evasiveness. They gain advantage on saving throws, and at higher levels fain the evasion feature's "no damage on successful saves" for all saving throws Sun stance augments the Monk's offense. You gain an additional attack as part of the attack action, and when you use Flurry of Blows, so long as you hit at least one of the attacks, you can spend a ki/focus point to make 2 more attacks as part of the same bonus action, with the repeat ending either when you choose to, or if you miss both attacks for the latest flurry of blows. Rogues gain "Mastermind's stance" and "Assassin's stance" Mastermind's stance allows you to give your Sneak Attack damage to allies, and gives bonuses to stealth both individually and as a group Assassin's stance jacks Sneak Attack up to 11. For every die of Sneak Attack Damage, get an additional die of Sneak Attack Damage (for example, a 5th level rogue normally has 3d6. With Assassin's Stance, it becomes 6d6.) Barbarians gain "Earthshaker stance" and "Cloudbreaker stance" Earthshaker stance gives you a variant of Heavy Armour Mastery where all damage is reduced by a flat amount (con mod+proficiency), which applies after resistances (so if the damage is low enough, you can shrug off the hit completely) Cloudbreaker stance is offensively focused. You roll a number of d8's equal to your rage damage bonus on the barbarian table at the start of each turn. Whatever the result is, that's your Rage Damage Bonus until your next turn, when you can roll again or keep the previous result

[@lml55]

I tend to give resources to my melee classes, or just make shit up and give them their own spell list thats very warrior coded

[@nugget0928]

No one can be first while I’m here. Finished watching the video: great work as always bone man. Also, dexterity is even better than you said, because the reduced damage of ranged weapons only applies to normal ranged weapons, like bows and crossbows. Firearms and anachronistic weapons, which are admittedly entirely absent in most D&D games, close that gap and then some while providing zero melee counterparts. Imagine joining a cyberpunk game with a 2d6 strength based weapon whose design hasn’t advanced since the 3rd century and the dude next to you has an antimatter rifle with 6d8 damage at 120/360 that scales with dexerity. And you’re both fighters, so you make multiple attacks. And the only choke point of that weapon, ammo, can be ignored if you don’t use your bonus action or your action surge to attack.

[@bonewizard]

Not if we are all the first.

[@nugget0928]

@ that’s beautiful

[@MrLucky-kh2mv]

CURSE YOUUUUUU

[@TheDisplacerBeast]

I hate to say you were second

[@nugget0928]

@ NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[@Too-Much-Caffeine]

I'm REALLY glad you included that section for your monk. My buddy is playing your reworked open palm and with the original weapon buffs he'd be one shotting anything I throw at him.

[@bonewizard]

yyyyyup. I was so pleased when I ran the numbers for my magic weapons with each class... then i ran them for monk 🤮

[@Nyroe]

​@@bonewizard Don't worry about it man, everybody knows that Monks don't use weapons - so it's completely balanced and nothing is wrong.

[@nicolasnaborowski4143]

35:01 the OSP reference is phenomenal

[@bonewizard]

Love their work

[@timjim-ks8gi]

The patented hey kid you like proving yourself maneuver. Works every time (Really fast) This message has been approved by king pelias of iolcas

[@8umber]

The most broken party set up is a ranged party with rangers,warlocks, and wizards. Seriously we did the tyranny of dragon's first big map and our entire crew smoked everything that came within a hundred feet of us with arrows and spells. Our DM was scared of us and actually asked one of us to switch to a melee class to balance the game in a way. I ended up switching to a heavy armored fighter with a great sword. I ended up slicing a dragon in half....

[@rommdan2716]

My god, this is such a badly designed game

[@8umber]

@rommdan2716 still a fun game though

[@rommdan2716]

@@8umber Nah, you have way more fun once you join better designed games

[@8umber]

@@rommdan2716 that is your opinion and you are entitled to it I simply prefer DND

[@rommdan2716]

@@8umber It's funny how people who have never played other games think they can say that, lol

[@Crash_Junior-]

I love this. Your videos are great. Im a fighter and monk main, and I constantly feel like im outclassed by the casters. I just started a new campaign, and we're only at level 2, but im the only martial (im playing monk) in a party of 4 others who are casters. On a side note, I love your humor, and I liked how the bullet holes stayed the whole time. That was a funny touch. Im glad you started uploading again

[@bonewizard]

Glad you liked the video. And hey send this to your DM, maybe they will throw you a bone.

[@demonac]

13:20 Watch out! That priest bears the Mark of the Beast: "a"

[@bonewizard]

He comes from the land of Stockphotopia

[@hyrapower]

I will now dedicate my time to learning about closing the gap. Thank you bone lord for giving us the solutions wotc refuses to do

[@bonewizard]

I try my best. Hopefully it helps your games!

[@hyrapower]

You have literally helped my active campaign so many times. I got me a bone artificer and bought that book because of you. Got the much needed upgrades to the spore druid because of you. Next up is helping martials. ​@@bonewizard

[@pizzaemperor3553]

I'd also recommend KibblesTasty's Variant Martial Progression if the disparity is an issue

[@smargio]

Commenting on the video to support the channel

[@bonewizard]

Thank you comrade.

[@notsochosenone5669]

Equipment weight is actually even worse than you described - because after heavy armor and heavy weapons str-based character can actually carry less than dex-based ones. It is even more relevant for tables that use variant rule with str*5 carrying capasity. It is honestly hilarious how bad Strengh is as a stat in every way.

[@bonewizard]

i think the concept of equipment can work, but it needs to be HEAVILY simplified.

[@danielbarnes1241]

Honestly so glad you chose to buff the martials. So many people want to gut the casters into near unplayablity like that wasn't why they got giga buffed over the years in first place. No one wanted to be the squishy loser who couldn't do anything til like level 12

[@bonewizard]

buffs are greater than nerfs. I still think some spells should be toned down a lot, but I don't think they should be gutted.

[@ArvelDreth]

Casters should be nerfed in some ways but honestly I think they should be buffed in some other ways too.

[@MythicMachina]

One of the reasons i'm hesitant about going back into PF2e. I played one game as a Swashbuckler and liked it, but I know they heavily kneecapped the casters.

[@bonewizard]

@@ArvelDreth Ya like making their buffing spells better. Let teamwork be magic.

[@ArvelDreth]

@@bonewizard in my games I allow casters to concentrate on up to 1 + Con mod spells at once (minimum 1), but while concentrating on multiple spells the concentration DC increases by half the total level of all spells rounded down and you lose concentration on all spells if you fail. So if someone was concentrating on two 4th level spells and took 31 damage then the DC would be 19 (15 from the damage and +2 from each spell). I've been running it like that for a few groups for about five years now and it has significantly boosted how much fun we all have.

[@holopldl]

Interested to see the tank video next week. The "fairest" I have felt combat was when the enemies were smart and relentlessly target the casters while the martials desperately use their very limited ability to stop the squishies from dying. Turns out, casters are also better at crowd control than martials and unless you have sentinel, you're forced to just grapple desperately. This is assuming, or course, the enemies can't fly or have good range attacks. If the DM plays it straight and boring, martials function as basically HP shields for the casters. They could be replaced by some number of summoned skeletons and be roughly the same in terms of impact. (Except of course, the chance of player death).

[@bonewizard]

oh... ya know those people who just ignore the high AC martials and only attack the casters? Ya, I call out those DMs. I do not treat them nicely in the tanking video haha.

[@randomyoutuber4189]

⁠​⁠@@bonewizardthose dms begin to have like “these imperceptible vibrations” or something

[@Lobsterwithinternet]

@@bonewizardThat’s when you give your martial classes taunting abilities that force them to fight you like with the Knight subclass.

[@bonewizard]

@@randomyoutuber4189 DARK! lol

[@donavandunn9824]

The problem with people saying 6-8 encounters leave a very important detail out, it's 6-8 MEDIUM encounters. For a party of 4 level 3 people, that's 6-7 goblins. I don't know many people that don't run harder battles, and by the end of like encounter 3 of 6, the Martials are near death making it hard to play

[@bonewizard]

medium or hard encounter, its still 6 to 8 encounter. That's annoying amount of work to deal with, and barley anyone likes doing it cuz it such a hassle.

[@elhoteldeloserrantes5056]

I agree 6-7 encounters would look like this: the wizard has no spells slots Martials death in the background. Like martials have resources KI action surge, rage...

[@Johnhamsta]

Are your goblins trying to ambush, dogpile, and slit the throats of the party's casters? If not, you need to elevate your goblins' brutality to challenge your party.

[@notsochosenone5669]

@@Johnhamsta How does it fix "martials are weaker" problem again? It actually only proves the point, lol.

[@elhoteldeloserrantes5056]

​@@JohnhamstaYou missed the point so hard that saturn took the attack...

[@purplepixel2240]

Thank you Mr Bone Wizard, I have just sent this doc to my martial players and they will be overjoyed, you have once again saved my table's enjoyment of the dragon game

[@bonewizard]

Glad i could help! I hope they like it. Remember, the magic weapons are a soft system.

[@BlueStormBreaker]

BABE BABE WAKE UP!! BONE WIZARD POSTED A NEW VIDEO!!!!

[@bonewizard]

if couples watch my videos together, I can die happy.

[@samusamu5342]

Laserlama and his martial reworks are great, but if you use them all people playing martials SHOULD use the alt versions. They give all martials maneuvers.

[@bonewizard]

sounds cool

[@badgamer9981]

You don't understand how loud i yelled when i saw this in my feed

[@bonewizard]

How loud?

[@user-lh1yb8ll1h]

Your buffing videos have really ignited a passion in me for understanding gane design and mechanics, so thank you and keep up the good work

[@bonewizard]

I'm glad you enjoyed the video! Now good make some cool stuff.

[@Biblicallyaccuratezealot]

I had given weapons similar abilities. The amount of uses were tied to your proficiency bonus and the save was tied to the stat the weapon uses (STR for great sword, DEX for rapier) A character only gained access to these masteries if they had proficiency with the weapon. Every one of my players loved them. I also had altered the damage die of some of the weapons to make it worth using them.

[@bonewizard]

Sounds dope! Glad you found a solution your players liked.

[@lordmars2387]

Excellent video, I'd like to share some good ideas I've heard and thought of. 1. Combine strength and Constitution into brawn. They both give so little in terms of out of combat but put together they are on par with dex in terms of flexibility. 2. Int mod bonus grants extra skills, because intelligence is the strength of the mental stats (not in a good way). 3. To everyone who says martials are resourceless and you fix the power balance with more encounters, HORSE MOUNDS. What do barbarians get on a short rest...nothing but hit dice healing. Do you know what a martials primary resource is? HP, HP they barely get extra of; looking at you 2014 monk. I have played a Dungeon Crawl as a barbarian, you have to act like a coward when you're out of rages because you dont really have other survivability options especially at low levels. Looking forward to the day you do artificer.

[@bonewizard]

1. ok I could see that working. I may not use it but I like the idea of consolidating abilities. 2. I do something like that but a but more toned down. 3. Well with the 2024 rules of DnD barbarians get 1 rage back on a short rest. So that's good. 4. Artificer may not be for awhile. If I do my job right, I'll release right before WoTC does to embarrass them.

[@tamasszalanics7507]

Incredible video, I love the buffs to Strength. For over a year now I've been working on a huge ruleset that reworks most of DnD (no I'm not switching to another system). The google document is over 100 pages, some of it is "stolen" from a number of DnD books, and are mashed together to make something fantastic (love your Monk changes). All of the classes got huge reworks, and I'm still working on spell reworks, there are hundreds of them, and I want to add more. I don't want to go into details, but one balance change I can recommend, to keep the Strength users one step ahead of Dexterity users, is that when a creature is Flanked, it cannot add its Dexterity (if positive) to their AC. (this replaces the original flanking rules) There are numerous other changes that buff martials, but almost all are sppecific to the system tweaks I use (such as AC being divided to Dodge, Damage Reduction and Critical Threshold), and this document is too long to share in a KZbin comment. I couldn't find a great way to fix the tanking potencial of martials (,also my players never cared about it), but I made the Marker Feat: Whenever you hit a creature with a Melee Weapon Attack during your turn, you Mark them until the start of your next turn. Making Opporunity Attacks against Marked creatures does not consume your reaction. A creature can only provoke an Opportunity Attack from you once per turn. I know this does not solve the issue, and that once again this helps the Fighter more than anyone else, so I hope that your solution is more universal, and that it could work without mix and matching a number of feats, just to do the most basic tanking move. (btw, numerical proof of how tanky casters are can be found on Tabletop Builds: The "Squishy Caster" Fallacy)

[@LeFlamel]

My brother in Christ, a deep enough rework *is* switching to a new system.

[@bonewizard]

Glad you like the video. Love to see that im not the only one deep in the homebrew sauce. I generally avoided flanking because I just thought it to be too easy to get advantage, but I do like your idea. It keeps the tanky guys tank and the dex users rightfully afraid if they are surrounded.

[@RolltoMissRPG]

I like to play casters which buff the martials before causing any damage anyway. Bards and Clerics unite. Defeat them with friendship🎉

[@bonewizard]

You are playing DnD 100% correct. Fighting as a team is WAY better than everyone doing their own thing.

[@kingapple8389]

I feel like the best sources that tackle the martial vs caster divide for my games are the martial systems put in place in Ryoko's Guide to the Yokai Realms for just two reasons: Extra Attack Improvements and Weapon Masteries. Each martial or half martial class gets an Extra Attack Improvement at 7th level that passively makes their attacks better in a way that is thematic to their class, so like a Fighter who gets a bunch of attacks gets an Extra Attack Improvement that has them get into a flow state as they attack against a creature's defenses, giving them a +1 to attack rolls for each subsuquent attack roll if their attacks are all made against the same creature. The Weapon Masteries system gives weapon properties more diversity by letting you choose which weapons you want to become better at and learn techniques for and even have a Superior Strike system that works very similarly to your Weapon Techniques system. So a character who specs fully into Light weapons can use their Light weapons in various techniques and even use the Superior Strike attack that is tied to that Light weapon

[@Cornman6425]

Bone Wizard uploaded, a joyus new year!

[@bonewizard]

I have awoken from Cryo sleep! What year is it?!

[@Cornman6425]

@bonewizard last I checked, 2164

[@bonewizard]

@@Cornman6425 And silk song still isn't out yet.

[@Cornman6425]

​@bonewizard don't remind me :(

[@couver73]

I think Pathfinder 2nd Edition had a fairly simple way of going about magic weapons dealing more damage to let them them keep up with casters. They had three tiers of runes (much like how magic items can go up to +3), and each rune adds one additional weapon damage die, full stop. Granted, in that system, weapons cap out at 1d12 with no double damage dice weapons in sight, so it makes sense there. DMs, if you go this route, obviously keep a close eye on the 2d6 weapons. You might have to do the d12 thing in this video but with d6s.

[@bonewizard]

I actually think I got my idea to add more damage dice from the pathfinder 2e playtest!

[@timjim-ks8gi]

Rune of striking go brrrrrr

[@oiman5733]

@@bonewizard Dude you gotta check PF2e out at some point. We here have like 25(?) classes right now with 4 more coming in the next 2 years (2 this year at GenCon and two more next year). Would love to hear about your opinions on the PF2 rogue, swashbuckler, investigator, ranger, and monk.

[@bonewizard]

@@oiman5733 TBH my friends keep saying they are gunna run a game of PF2e, and then just never doing it. Its annoying.

[@mromega7493]

I had an idea that magic items that have a very high rarity, can have a unique move that allows them to do not only bonus damage but also have a unique effect, like say get rid of the Dex bonus from enemies AC, which not only works on armor but also works on unarmored creatures. This admittedly isn’t to crazy for something like legendary items, but you can still add something unique to them

[@bonewizard]

ya, thats sounds cool. My opinion with magic items is go to go nuts designing them. If its too strong, its easy to scale back. Or just don't give to your party and make another more fitting one.

[@spartan5018]

24:53 that bee on the far right is the mascot of a community college I went too

[@bonewizard]

oh nice, i just pulled it off google images.

[@spartan5018]

@bonewizard i mean I figured i just thought it was a funny coincidence since that was more likely than you being from Binghamton New York. (It sucks don't go there)

[@bonewizard]

@@spartan5018 Ok noted, I will cross it off my summer vacation spots.

[@jackcrackems6760]

Your animation and editing skills are on full display this video man! Not only was the content very entertaining, but was quite fun to watch!

[@bonewizard]

Thanks

[@trentgrady9389]

23:00. YOU MONSTER!!!!

[@bonewizard]

I'll f*ckin do it again

[@LanceDyas]

One thing I have considered is addressing non-combat versatility might mean a decent skill system (and letting martials be better at those)

[@bonewizard]

Yup. I agree. I talk about that in a later video in this series. That video has a lot of dead horses.

[@LanceDyas]

@@bonewizard oh was mildly confused til my vernacular parser kicked in... as in "beating a dead horse"

[@bonewizard]

@ nope i was being literal. I mean there is will a lot of horses that are thrown hundred of feet, and then fall, in that video.

[@notsochosenone5669]

Problems with magic weapon solution are simple: 1) Best magic items are "caster-only". 2) Casters can use weapons too (bladelocks and halfcasters are even pretty good at this). 3) Magic items arent part of class progression - and it would feel shitty if you only good in damage because your party doesnt have paladin today. Class power doesnt need to be tied into things class can't guarantee to have access to. Classes themself should be strong enough.

[@bonewizard]

did you comment before watching the whole video?

[@notsochosenone5669]

@@bonewizard "Class power doesnt need to be tied into things class can't guarantee to have access to. Classes themself should be strong enough." part doesnt change. And making untested homebrew magic items based on vibes randomly is not a good solution. It is MUCH easier to nerf couple outlier spells instead. Sudenly casters cant just outdamage martials if their Emanation spells are once per round (instead of turn), their mass summons gone (like in 5.24e) and their Fireball is 6d6 (as it should be in the first place). On top of other spell nerfs, like Hipnotic Patter, Fear, Wall of Force, Shield, etc. I know, "but nerfs bad ((", but for actual health of the game nerfs are neccesery, straight up.

[@robertally5608]

​@@notsochosenone5669The thing is if your going to have good magic items in your game you need to balance around them, otherwise the weapons break the game, even pathfinder 2e where you can make the argument that martials are a bit stronger then casters is balanced around martials keeping up with there magic weapon progression in order to remain viable

[@bonewizard]

Did you comment before watching the whole video? I'm thinking you did!

[@RowbotMaster]

Ok I was at work when I made my other comments so I have a bit more time now. I really appreciate that you're making an effort to do this, I'm starting a new campaign soon and so rewatched some of your monk vids and slightly tweaking it for my tastes(basically doing the magic brass knuckles thing instead of the weapon bond thing) and I think our versions would do very similar damage in a blank room but just a few trope inspired ideas I'm planning to add that'd give some more non-combat versatility that you're free to take and tweak Lvl 12: ki sense: by sensing the ki in others you gain blind sight out to 30 feet though it can only be used to see creatures and can be blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt Lvl 16: building on tongue of sun and moon you gain telepathy out to a range of 60 feet Lvl 19: Art of weightlessness: basically they can choose how much gravity affects them, anywhere from 0 to 100% and they adjust it as part of their movement. Allowing super old and powerful monk to meditate while floating in the air. I would have made it flight but it makes sense for sun soul especially as an iron man type of thing

[@bonewizard]

Sounds cool. Though I would consider lowering that blind sense ability. Level 12 seems a bit high. Also consider at what level you will realistically get to in your game.

[@RowbotMaster]

@bonewizard this campaign is starting at lvl 4 but yes I understand what you mean. I'm also giving half of the improved movement(probably letting players pick) at lvl 6 and just generally breaking things up to hand out more evenly, kinda like what you did with diamond soul

[@jamesmcdonald1108]

Oh shit, bone wizard is back! Welcome back man we missed you.

[@MrGoblin1000]

Speak for yourself. I didn't miss him, his sexy skull or his beautiful voice! I totally did not lay in my bed weeping as I prayed to a dead God to bring back Bone Wizard.

[@bonewizard]

you sir need Jesus

[@bonewizard]

Im in my discord pretty often if that helps. Also new video next week and the week after that.

[@dragonriderabens9761]

24:54 on this note, one of the expansion books (I forget which one. I think it’s either Xanathar’s or Tasha’s) gives every caster a focus that requires attunment, gives a bonus based on the class (warlocks can restore a pact spell slot, wizards get an extra level of arcane recovery, clerics/paladins get an extra channel divinity etc etc) and come in +1 (uncommon) +2 (rare) and +3 (very rare) qualities That + is added to their spell casting modifiers when using the item as a focus. It doesn’t add more damage directly, but it does make spell saves harder to save on by raising the DC by a little and makes it easier to hit with attack roll based spells DC cap goes from a 19 to a 22 at maximum, but at the cost of an attunment slot Also, all the items are class appropriate from a flavor perspective For example, the wizard one is a hat, while the artificer one is basically a sonic screwdriver

[@bonewizard]

See i wouldn't add that to my games. But thats just me. I like my PC's DCs to stay at where they should be.

[@dragonriderabens9761]

@@bonewizard fair, but this is official material published by WOTC Not homebrew You could homebrew it to add the utility aspects, and have the +1/2/3 be something else, since you don’t like PCs being able to boost their DCs For example, the wizard one could have the +2 version add 2 extra levels of arcane recovery instead of 1 Also, I was mistaken These are DMG items Not expansion book items Also, the wizard one is a book, not a hat Still thematically appropriate

[@caliveil1627]

Your the hero of all martial class players

[@bonewizard]

Haha, well I'm glad you guys find these videos useful.

[@davidp9854]

The wait for a new video was totally worth it. Greetings from Spain.

[@bonewizard]

Que tal?

[@davidp9854]

@@bonewizard Well, pretty good and looking forward to the next video. How are you?

[@bonewizard]

@davidp9854 Good. Just trying to answer all the comments today. Cant complain.

[@nacholord2328]

I do 6-8+ encounter days. It doesn't get close to fixing the divide. Martials also have resources (hit points).

[@bonewizard]

its also just like... more work. Id rather alter the PCs than do so much more work than I want to.

[@nacholord2328]

​@@bonewizardWe do more encounters by not long resting We have a heavily homebrewed version of gritty realism that makes it not awful

[@hyrapower]

Love you repping waterflame and castle crashers for the music

[@bonewizard]

I remembered how good the castle crasher ost was while editing this. I was sleeping on it for years.

[@IllovedShade]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS THE KING IS BACK

[@bonewizard]

[@yharleththegrandobserver236]

I absolutely love your videos, boney!

[@bonewizard]

Thanks for the love!

[@freddieadams8435]

17:06 dam didn't know Bone Wozard was chill like that.

[@zEr-ne5ri]

btw wheres that form?

[@freddieadams8435]

@zEr-ne5ri bleach abridged by Project Mouthwash.

[@zEr-ne5ri]

@@freddieadams8435 thanks

[@bonewizard]

bleach abridged is so good.

[@NobodyDungeons]

What I often do for rogue sneak attack is give them a number of sneak attack dice equal to their level. So, a 5th level rogue would have a DPR of roughly 22 damage using a short bow with advantage on the attack which is on par with the fighter using sharp shooter and crossbow expert. I also made a rogue subclass which trades sneak attacking for doing a butt load of attacks. Had a player who wanted a rogue that was more focused on open speedy combat and this was the result.

[@bonewizard]

ya that does about the same as what I suggested. a bunch of d6s isn't bad if you roll digitally.

[@NobodyDungeons]

I used magic stones on my necromancer wizard, and his skeletons started doing insane damage. That was 3d8+18 magical bludgeoning damage using my attack modifiers and the only thing I needed to do was cast some spells yesterday and a use a bonus action cantrip. My skeletons were doing more damage than the rogue and fighter combined some combats.

[@bonewizard]

that is as cool as it is depressing lol

[@lucasdavid9866]

Great vídeo as always. Keep up the good work

[@bonewizard]

Appreciate it!

[@the.dirt.man.]

The Skeletal Sorcerer returns

[@bonewizard]

I never left

[@iselreads2908]

Another delightful take on how to beef up our weapon wielding warriors. All of it done it that boney brand of humor I greatly appreciate no less^^. I have been gifted new ideas to share with my resident chaos gremlins for possible use in the future. Might pair up well with some stuff I found from Dungeon Coach that has martial variants to the dash, disengage, or dodge actions. I do like the variety he's got available, but there are sometimes where we wind up forgetting what the passive abilities the weapons have and we lose out on damage. Either way, really wanna mess with this and see how it runs for us. Well, when technology and life stops getting in the way XD. Thanks for all your hardwork in bringing this to us^^

[@bonewizard]

Glad you like the video. Feel free to let me know how it works in your game. I always welcome playtest feedback.

[@sam-s6o]

OOO MY GOD,HES BACK,HE DID IT,HE DID IT

[@bonewizard]

i have come back with the milk

[@sam-s6o]

@ yippee

[@landler656]

Thanks for the answers bone man

[@bonewizard]

thanks for the comment

[@landler656]

@bonewizard gotta boost the engagement number so more people will see the vid. Disclaimer: I don't know how KZbin works but I think slapping keyboard helps

[@bonewizard]

@@landler656 it does indeed help. Thank you.

[@MagusDouken]

Also, always sucks that martials need to get magical upgrade tools to take on threats who start gaining physical resistances when mages just do their thing.

[@bonewizard]

ok but! I like finding a cool magic sword. Everyone likes it. Every videogame does it for a reason.

[@MagusDouken]

I love me a good magic sword too, but more mages, there isn't really a universal resist button for magic. AFAIK at least. Resist fire, poison, etc? Yeah, but not just general magic.

[@appleseed8282]

Also wild how necessary damage scaling for basic attacks is just a part of the leveling proccess for Casters, but is a missable class feature for Martials.

[@bonewizard]

@@MagusDouken Look lets not lie to ourselves. Once you get a magic weapon, monsters resisting normal damage will never come up again. I don't think it should be that way, but thats how it is. There just are not monsters that resist all normal damage, magic or otherwise.

[@coboldoconlaspada9139]

In our campaign the issue has been solved by giving the martials a PBxday ability where they can go apeshit and either negate 1d12 damage from everywhere or add 1d8 damage to everything. It'd be unbalanced af I know but it's so fun. (we also have high reliance on wis/int checks as well as very loose interpretations of some spells so casters shine outside combat mostly, it's fun for everyone)

[@bonewizard]

Fun is greater than balance. So I complete understand why you would add that to your game. It sounds cool.

[@Jasonwolf1495]

If the going to live in the woods plan ever goes into affect, remember play dead for brown bears and stand your ground for black bears.

[@bonewizard]

what about polar bears?

[@Jasonwolf1495]

@@bonewizard Gun or dynamite. Besides that sorry.

[@danielbarnes1241]

​@@bonewizard If you're in a situation where there's a polar bear you might have bigger problems tbh

[@lucasramey6427]

​@@bonewizardblend in with the snow they might not notice you

[@bonewizard]

@@lucasramey6427 with that big nise if theirs? I doubt it.

[@williamgordon5443]

Another way to help strength builds is to allow someone with high str to use the oversize weapons described in the 2014 DMG, where a "large" weapon has double damage dice, huge weapon does triple dice, gargantuan weapon does quadruple dice. Granted, this is in the DMG on how to design monsters and an argument has been made on if PC can use the weapons, but the description says an oversized weapons does more damage, and a large "CREATURE" does double damage dice.

[@bonewizard]

Ya, it throws more dice at the problem. That's just another way to go about it.

[@vortigern7021]

I have run WotC campaigns and they don't have 6-8 encounters.

[@bonewizard]

LOL

[@notsochosenone5669]

6-8 encounters is a myth that was born from misunderstanding of Combat section of DMG. 6-8 combats was never a standart, it was an example. Actual metric is XP budget per adventuring day - and you can mix and match as many combats as you like in it.

[@daxfer2945]

I'm glad we had similar ideas about weapon buffs and techniques. I'll be eagerly awaiting to see how you'll gift the martials aggro.

[@bonewizard]

great minds think alike. And i'll tell you how they pull aggro; Mind games

[@0asis57]

I’m here to appease the very confusing KZbin algorithm.

[@bonewizard]

You da bes

[@kinajardine9009]

Leveling the playing field can also be done in another way: Changing the 'ready' action's order. Rules as written, you use your reaction AFTER your opponent has carried out the trigger action, including casting spells. Similarly, if say, your party was ambushed and a bunch of enemies have bows trained on them, the enemies holding their fire and waiting to see what the party does. Rules as written, initiative would be rolled and because the enemies are using their ready action, they get to shoot, but only as reaction attacks AFTER the party do their thing. Rules as written, if you were holding a caster at gunpoint, waiting for them to make any kind of move before pulling the trigger, they would still get to cast their spell and you'd just use your reaction to shoot them. Your attack happens AFTER the opponent casts. The ready action could be an easy way for martials to punish careless casters who don't bother to put themselves in cover or assume they can just tank whatever damage the martials dish out by simply changing the event order. Martial classes get access to the 'enhanced ready' or 'overwatch' attacks which allows them to wait for a specific trigger, and if their target isn't in at least 3/4 cover or otherwise hidden or out of range, then THEIR ready action takes precedence and the trigger's action is treated as a reaction instead. This means that even instantaneous spells can now have concentration checks applied. Making martials be their own counterspell just by using tactics and positioning makes them a much greater threat to any creature with special abilities that are more or less just used without any tactical thought for pressure, as long as the party knows what to expect beforehand. It rewards tactical players, it rewards gathering intel before a confrontation, and it doesn't require rolling a saving throw every other move which can slow things down. Yes, there's ways to cheese this, such as the DM changing what the caster does once one of the players uses a ready action to wait for a spell to be cast, or half the party all using overwatch attacks to try and death blossom a single target together, but there's ways to cheese anything, and cheesing is only done to spoil fun. A counterbalance to the 'overwatch attack' could be as simple as requiring it to be the first and only action taken, no movement, and being interrupted before the trigger event happens (And the trigger must be very specific) cancels the overwatch attack.

[@OctopusWilson]

About magic items and the people who don't want them in their game, say for theme reasons. Nothing is stopping you from reflavoring magic items as particularly well crafted weapons or have a bat with nails that does club damage +1d4 piercing. A flame sword that's just regularly coated with oil in rp, and lighting it is just a part of the act of unsheathing it. There's so many easy workarounds to having magic items without the magic

[@bonewizard]

100% agree. Getting cool new items is fun. That's why every video game does it.

[@MythicMachina]

It's also kind of a weird excuse, to me at least. A lot of people forget that dark fantasy does not mean removing the fantastical elements to it. Both Elden Ring and FF16 are good examples of this. Really dark stories, but you can still do some nutty stuff in those games.

[@OctopusWilson]

@@MythicMachina True but I can still respect someone wanting to go no magic or whatever for the setting they create. But yeah as someone who's played many a bard mechanically but only rarely ever rp'd a musician I love to reflavor stuff!

[@neks0073]

Man how times have changed. I remember a time when you had like 3 or 4 videos available that I filtered through occasionally, when I was getting a bit tired of MrRhexx or Viva La Dirt. Life got busy and I now see there are a couple new videos I havent checked out. Super glad you have dedicated more time to making videos and that it is paying off. I don't know if you've heard of 15 Second Reviews? Hilarious guy. His content requires finesse and brainpower to create, as does yours. I think he is in a bit of a slump. Breaking through those first couple thousand subscribers can be tough. Maybe send him a private message, encouraging him to continue💪🤷 Anyway. Love your content. Been a fan for years. Lots of love from South Africa.

[@thebestgummybear9744]

THE GOAT!!! THE GOAT HAS RETURNEDDD!!!!!!!

[@bonewizard]

Ya these videos took awhile but I'm back with a vengeance. Also you are still the commenter with the most amount of hearted comments by the way.

[@thebestgummybear9744]

​@@bonewizard woohoop

[@theronlansky4977]

I'm so glad you're back!

[@bonewizard]

This video series took a long time to make haha

[@notsochosenone5669]

No one of "6-8 encounter" guys have an answer to simple question - "If those encounters actually drain caster's spell slots (so they arent criminaly easy) than how exactly martial survive all of those encounters again?" Like, melee fighter would be fucking dead straight up. 6-8 encounters wouldnt fix shit - team full of casters have enough spells to deal with them. In adventuring day with 6-8 challenging combats martials are dead weight that you need to waste resources to revive and heal. In a day with 6-8 easy combats (like it actually written in DMG, but who read those, right?) you don't need to use resources for most of those combats. One cast of spirit guardians or summoning spell from single party member can deal with 2-3 of whose combats. Warlock can also stomp those combats with big spells and eldrich blasts. Also - what about pre 5.24e barbarian? You know, with 3 rages per long rest? With subclasses that straight up stop working once you out of rage?

[@quintec45]

The game is supposed to be balanced around classes that gain things back on SR vs those on LR. The designers intend for the hit die and the recovery of those other resources to bridge the gap. HP, hit die and exhaustion are meant to be the actual currency of how long one can go on an adventuring day. The actual core of the argument about people arguing 6-8 encounters in good faith is not even that they prefer it but rather a statement of fact that mechanically this is how the game is designed. The core of how the classes are designed is around the adventuring day concept and you need to go much deeper than superficial homebrew to change how the game actually feels to play at its core.

[@notsochosenone5669]

@@quintec45 "a statement of fact that mechanically this is how the game is designed." - but it isnt. If you actually read DMG you would know it. 6-8 combats a day is a myth that actually means "WotC can do no wrong, so everyone else is wrong".

[@quintec45]

@@notsochosenone5669 Sorry for the block of text but just citing my sources: "Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer." - 2014 DMG 6-8 is a suggestion but the core of the design intent is force the party to exhaust their resources with an appropriate level challenge. The SR mechanic is meant to pick up the slack. "In general, over the course of a full adventuring day, the party will likely need to take two short rests, about one-third and two-thirds of the way through the day." - 2014 DMG To be clear not saying Wizards is "right," but it is what they say. I also tend to disagree with the overall implementation of the design and agree that many groups don't play this way, but it is the assumption the game designers made when they constructed the rest of the rules for 5e. The point being, If you want to construct effective homebrew you have to address how many other designs are deeply tied into a rules presumption of exhausting the party's resources over a day with multiple Short Rests per Long Rest.

[@notsochosenone5669]

@ "If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer." and if you read this part further you'll find XP budget for adventuring day - ACRUAL metric 5e is balanced around. 6-8 is an example, nothing more. You can have 2 short rests with 3 deadly encounters a day as well. It would even be MUCH better in general. 5.24e doesnt changed much - it is still 5e with all it's flaws. But new encounter calculations now actually work (well, at least work much better than before) - and you can play with 3-4 meaningfull combats a day (or even less) instead of filler slog with 6-8 easy combats that require minimal resource usage.

[@rocizonzin7399]

Thank you Bone Wizard, I love your videos man

[@bonewizard]

Glad you liked it! Hope these buffs van help your game! Any playtest feedback is appreciated.

[@BeaglzRok1]

Just had this conversation with a friend yesterday. He's the Sword and Board Battle Master Fighter in a party of three. He stole a Belt of Storm Giant's Strength from a lich's lair. His Maneuver DC is insane, he gets +9 to damage rolls on top Maneuver dice damage, and he did not get a turn before the War Wizard and Tempest Cleric cast Wall of Force and Insect Plague to kill an Adult Dragon with effectively zero saving throws. This is not counting the other random encounters they had that day, which also used spell slots. A half-decent mage only needs to cast one leveled spell per fair encounter, so the moment a mage hits level 5 they have enough spell slots for the entire adventuring day, and it does not consider that adventuring parties can have multiple casters with multiple Concentration spells. Sure, Champion Fighter gets to crit more often, but Battle Master Fighter just plain chooses to crit (read: roll an extra die of damage) X times per SHORT REST and *also* get some battlefield versatility. This is also not counting that the Cleric REGULARLY maximizes the damage dice on Shatter and Destructive Wave that hit multiple targets, Channel Divinity being a SHORT REST recharge, or that the Wizard can use a Power Surge to boost his own spell damage by half his level. Even if we buff the Fighter's DPS to match, combat ends in one round. That's not the problem, the problem is when the Fighter finally *does* get to do something, that something is doing single-target damage with some secondary effect that just makes thing slightly easier to kill, if it doesn't just die from the attack in the first place. Speaking personally, I have my own Fighter in a Curse of Strahd game. I'm not frustrated because the Sorcerer can just cast Fireball, CoS doesn't pull punches. I'm frustrated because the enemy having a fly speed and being able to teleport as a bonus action makes my Mobile movement speed and grappling borderline useless with no ability for counterplay on my part. I'm frustrated because my only magical weapon is a +1 Dagger and everything else is resisted down to Dagger damage. It's general lack of creative agency rather than not being able to One Punch Man a Vampire. As a 6-8 encounter advocate, it's only feasible in a dungeon-like environment. In normal adventuring travel there's just plain not a high enough saturation of monsters to warrant eight Rattatas in the walk between Pallet Town and Viridian City, you're not going to fight every highway patrol when they're only there to make sure the roads are safe, and at a certain point it cannot suspend disbelief when your Tier 3 party keeps finding town-ending threats a few miles out from the road that they'd never seen in the levels prior. For fuck's sake, if anyone's read Tolkien you know that encounters sometimes have months of space between them. In contrast, if you're sneaking into a cathedral, there's going to be a bunch of normal people that can alert guards, guard animals like dogs, cats, or mage's familiars, guards, low-level casters, maybe a few high-level casters and a Temple Guardian, possibly an enemy adventuring party that had secured lodging in exchange for labor, easily an adventuring day's worth of dudes. Also, don't appreciate the strawman of "fewer encounters badwrongfun" when the system is explicitly designed for that many encounters. I'll admit it's a flaw of the system to require that much work, but frankly we're both being lazy. Something else that came up during the convo, it's annoying that there's so much redundancy in the game. If you take Tavern Brawler and try to #le-down on unarmed fighting with an Unarmed Fighting Style, Monk, and College of Dance Bard, your unarmed fighting never gets any better than 1(dX)+MOD. If you want to be a Bonk and tank things in the buff, you only get to add either CON or WIS, not both. Not that it'd be remotely feasible since both only get the ASIs of a full caster, so maxing out 3 stats is an impossibility even while eschewing feats entirely. This Wizard has never seen an Ork player in a 40k game. He has never experienced the majesty of the d6 dice bucket. I want to hear man's opinions on Expertise since it obliterates bounded accuracy, especially when mixed with the likes of Reliable Talent, Guidance, Bardic Inspiration, etc. Same friend of mine skipped an entire Storm King's Thunder arc because his Bard somehow rolled a 50 Persuasion. I like it as a way of showing that a person is great at a skill, especially if it's a skill with an ability score the character can't really spare investment in, but flat bonuses are the most powerful thing in a game of RNG where statistics will always be a lie when you least expect it and it quickly spirals out of control. Even without Expertise, my CoS Fighter completely dodged a sidequest to find special keys because he can simply roll a 25 Athletics to break a lock with the help of Guidance, Talisman Warlock, Luck Bend Sorcerer, and 5.5e's Second Wind giving you the option to spend a use to add 1d10 to a failed ability check.

[@BenTheTiger131]

“Baller’s Gate: A Dunk Into Avernus” LMAO Bones 12:30

[@bonewizard]

Best module out there

[@Jameshorn87]

These are great thanks for sharing

[@bonewizard]

Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@bluefighter9778]

Great video, Love your content.

[@Fusrodog]

Finally, I can almost play as Muscle Man. Can't wait for the tank video

[@bonewizard]

You know who else can't wait for the tank video?

[@skullinthejar]

Bone Wizard: Made some banger buffs for monk. Is literally the monk guy. Also Bone Wizard: Let's add Strength to the pile of ability scores the monk already needs to be viable :') But really, I like the ideas you've put in the video, so it's cool lol

[@bonewizard]

Glad you like the video. My buffed monk should be fine without the use of weapon techniques, I did consider that. But you can also give them some free uses of it. Go nuts.

[@thedragonknight3600]

I would say that maybe giving THAT much damage just innately to magic weapons is a lot just in conception. I disagree with the idea, but I respect the idea. One last thing that is important to consider with casters versus martials that you didn’t mention, but also kind of doesn’t bear mentioning so I get why, is…. If a Wizard’s casting a spell, they’re generally picking a spell with a saving throw. Most spells put avoiding or taking damage on the enemies, with a a few exceptions. And this most spells deal half damage on a successful save. Meanwhile a Fighter, if they’re unlucky or the enemy has really high AC, can just straight up miss all of their attacks. And thus the meager impact they MIGHT be able to do is even less because of misfortune. Meanwhile even a handful of enemies successfully saving on a spell, while not super victorious feeling, still has an impact. So playing any martial ends up as a binary of ‘do I hit? If yes, I was useful! If no, I was useless’ while casters have a scale of how awesome their spell was, with it being eh at worst. To clarify, I’m not asking for a fix. That’s the point of chance. I’m just mentioning it to highlight how the divide feels even wider.

[@bonewizard]

You could argue caster's damage dealing spells should deal less damage to close the gap between martials. And in regard to the magic weapons doing too much damage, it is generally on par with wizard. But again, soft system, use your best judgement.

[@Kajnake]

Thank you for buffing my monk boy once again

[@bonewizard]

No problem bud

[@burgscratch6301]

Been working on a custom TTRPG with friends, hopefully we can get it out there on the market for people to enjoy. As for how that relates to this, the versatility we have in this system is pretty close to what you laid out for martial versatility. Though multiple damage dice isn't something I considered for boosting martial damage; it sounds cool to me, at least.

[@bonewizard]

Sounds awesome, best of luck on your TTRPG. If you ever want someone to do an ad read, hit me up.

[@sinistertwister686]

I gotta say, I wasn't convinced with your solution at first... but when you said that number of uses fot these new weapon traits depends on STRENGTH modifier, I knew you were cooking something real good!

[@bonewizard]

i try to make some spicy meatballs

[@czowiekcma7099]

Incredible, will steal this

[@bonewizard]

Steal to your hearts content

[@Wilzekify]

I think you’d like my idea for a general martial feature: Peak Physical Performance, a burst of physical might that allows you to perform supernatural stunts (basically, anime hero mode). You gain one use per short rest when you reach total of 4 levels in martial classes (analogous to spell slot progression when multiclassing) and two uses at lvl 10. You can use this feature by expending a bonus action or a reaction. For a bonus action you can choose to: sprint up to 5x your movement, during which you can also make a leap forward up to 2x your movement (you can attack during that) / jump vertically up to 2x your movement speed (don’t take fall damage for the distance you jumped up) / lift up, carry, drag an object weighing up to 120x your Strength (1000kg at 20 STR); as a reaction you can choose to: not get grappled/proned/stunned/blinded/poisoned condition / not take fall damage / take the hit for your ally within 30ft being attacked, jumping to their space, pushing them 5ft away and becoming the target of the attack. It obviously doesn’t close the gap on its own, but it’s a way to give martials some spell-like, unrealistic (lmao) ability, and at the very least make them FEEL COOL.

[@bonewizard]

Those do sound cool. It sounds like a good time. The only one I HARD disagree with is choosing to not get a debuff condition. I disagree because I don't think guarantees like that belong in a dice game, from the DM or the players. Im here to roll dice! But that's just me. Id probably change that to giving yourself a big bonus.

[@Wilzekify]

@ I understand that. Giving an advantage, extra reroll or +10 could do essentially the same thing without cutting out dice from a dice game in many cases. BUT sometimes you don’t roll separately for that at all, like being grappled as part of an attack, and that’s a unique aspect of this feature that isn’t replicable by a spell, you can still shrug those effects off.

[@41217beingbored]

I like the idea of weapon technique as the next level to weapon mastery. Slowly upgrading and adding what you can do if you stick with a certain weapon at certain levels. Kinda like the new 2024 rogue sneak attack uses.

[@bonewizard]

weapon techniques that improve as you level up could be very interesting.

[@pubcle]

In the system I'm designing, which is drastically different from D&D, there is an equally drastic gulf between magic, melee, & ranged. Maybe some of it will be of use, maybe it won't. Melee options vary in how damage is dealt - you have different types of attacks that might damage armor, hit multiple opponents, or go all in on higher damage, then multiple skills in these types as you grow like a massive lunge that can hit further but leaves you vulnerable. These also are tied to weapons, a thrust or cut with a club or bludgeon with a dagger are going to be less effective than a thrust with a spear & a chop with an axe. Also the scale is 3 instead of 5 feet & every melee weapon has a specific range. Melee characters are also essential, unless you have absurd burst damage & luck it will almost necessitate someone able to frontline. This is because entering melee with someone enters a state called engaged, which limits movement. Magic is also very powerful but unpredictable. It is more a blessing from communing wigh spirits in thw lore, granted in a sort of negotiation & upon you. To make magic feel like this it is a deck building game, your spells are cards, you have 3 cards in your hand, you need to take actions to fill your hand, & one additional card of a random spell is added to your deck. Magic alters the terrain, creates special effect damage like burning or blighted, heals, & more. Positioning in this game is vital, so something that changes the positions & movement is massively helpful. Ranged is the one I'm still most developing, but as it stands is very much built around burst damage. I haven't figured out much for giving it a larger variety of skills yet though. There is also a branch of skills for companions, where if you have a companion character that takes up a set of skills. Then there's a few unique ones out there like the Witch Slayer who specifically absorbs, deflects, & utilizes hostile spelks for his or her own purposes. Oh also on weight I use how much space you have instead. Basically, how big are your pockets & how many? Rolling 20 dice isn't an issue if you have a dice tray, though adding em all up might be a bit

[@Freesteve905]

That +1,2,3 weapons having slots for extra effects is how pathfinder 2e does it

[@bonewizard]

ya NGL I may have subconsciously copied that and didn't realize until deep into editing.

[@Team_Orchid]

Something not mentioned in the strength vs dexterity is that 5E has free dex to damage for the weapons that can be used with dex, meaning strength's big selling point is that you get big damage dice. Going from d10 or d12 damage to d6 or d8 is absolutely worth it when you get to invest in the god stat over the stat that really only does one thing.

[@YawdroGaming]

Yes! This is why you should give martials magic weapons early on! A javelin of lightning is pretty useful too! Your melee folks won't be too strong. Thankyou for addressing this!

[@bonewizard]

i just want a flaming sword as early as possible. Gimme that and ill be a happy boy.

[@Armad0s13]

12:00 I've been running the same campaign for about 5 years now. In all of that time I've only managed 8 encounters in the same session once and even counting the times it happened across multiple sessions it only actually happened 3 times in total. I liked all 3 of those times, they were good times, and they had a good impact on the character roleplay for my players. But if anything, in 2 of those 3 cases the lesson learned was that it in NO WAY fixes the martial caster divide. Unless you view martials as side characters in the casters story by the time we got to encounter 8 and Paige my player's lone dedicated caster was out of gas the two martials were in single digit hp and one of them was on their SECOND CHARACTER having outright died halfway through. Maybe if the martials are exclusively ranged combatants who run at the first sign of melee it would have been different, but they weren't being stupid or taking risks enemies just didn't get deleted by burning hands anymore and actually got into reach of them and started whittling down those Hit points round by round. It can be a good time for other reasons like if you want your heroes to struggle for it but no way the people saying it fixes the balance have actually run those numbers or played those games. I can confirm having tried this solution (and even liking what it did for my game the few times I managed it) to say that this did not actually make Isaac our funny barbarian feel like Paige our at this point guiding star's equal. It actually did the complete opposite and the times I managed to do that might as well have been the Wizard carries her two friends on her back for 3 hours and they sheepishly help her cross the last 10 feet into the hotel lobby. So, thanks for the rest of this video I'll be sharing it before we meet up this Thursday see if they want to give this a shot in the eternal quest to get our rogue and barbarian to actually feel like the wizards costar instead of her backdrop. (Can't stress our wizard is not trying to outshine them they are a delight, this really is just a only character the game lets function takes care of their unfortunately punished friend's situation). Be back next week to hopefully learn how when I try and do the 4th of those actually 8 encounter days we don't end up at 3/4 times ended with a character dying halfway through and needing a back up sheet.

[@bonewizard]

Hey thanks for this comment. I think it really illuminates what that amount of encounters is like to run and to be a player in. Hopefully my homebrew can help your martial characters. Seems they could use the help incase they go for another long haul haha

[@ridgetmacaroni7015]

I love how you immediately made the Weapon Mastery system better lol, it hasn't even been out for like 3 months

[@bonewizard]

eh it wasn't that hard.

[@MythicMachina]

I got a few things but first I wanna appreciate the bullet holes staying for the rest of the video. But when it comes to the weapon skills, what they could level up with the player? Like, certain skills have various tiers that will become more potent as you level up, and not just in damage either! Maybe some kind of pole vault skill at lower level becomes a Dragoon jump at higher levels! Or maybe that sweep attack becomes a spinning cyclone that acts as a moving AoE. It might lean into feeling a bit spell-like at times, but spells have dipped into martial stuff as well (look at Steel-Wind Strike). When it comes to magic items, I really like items that have active effects over just raw damage. Even if sometimes those active effects are just a temporary buff. 5e has more horizontal progression than vertical, so I like to lean into that. Also, Elden Ring's Ashes of War actually works as a pretty decent base for magic item swapping. Standard +# weapons could work as a base, and you could find other items that slot into said weapons to give special abilites. You could also make it that weapons with lesser damage dice get more skill slots, allowing for even more versatility.

[@bonewizard]

1. The weapon techniques leveling up as the player levels up was an idea that I had not considered. I'm not opposed to it. I'll give the idea some thoguht. 2. 100% agree that's why I think being able to combine magic weapons is so great. It's like elden ring, but having more than one ash of war if you have a +2 weapon.

[@hopecaster98]

good vid, and I think more people need to realize that no table plays d&d the exact same way as another table, so some table will have a problem with x while it never comes up at a different table. Like the table I play at uses a "safe haven" system which makes it so you cannot long rest unless you're in a "safe haven" typically a town. This kinda functions similarly to the 6-8 encounters a day thing while we're out in a dungeon or adventuring in the wilds its just spread across the whole journey instead of a single day. Currently we're in a realm hopping journey to get to a mythical drow city and on this journey there will be no safe havens, its been 10 sessions since our last long rest and probably 5-7 more. As a 7 fighter 3 wizard I've basically been at full power the whole way while our artificer and cleric are actively having to ration and manage their spells slots. That system has squashed down a lot of the martial v caster stuff for my group. All that being said I will be using that weapon technique system in some way, probably not as a basic rules change to the system but those techniques could make for really cool additions to unique character abilities or magic weapons. I'm not sure how I feel about the extra damage from the magic items bit feels like odd to just give everyone d12s but hey if that works for other tables all the more power to them. Love your vid been watching since the barbarian vid and your ideas are very fun even if I don't always agree with the change it leaves me with a nugget of inspiration to pull from. Can't way to see how you address the tanking part. Also wondering if you're gonna touch the out of combat utility portion.

[@bonewizard]

This may have been the most polite comment I have ever received saying they disagreed with me haha! And you are 100% right every table is different and needs to find what works for them. Like i wouldn't run my game like yours, but your games still sound rad. The weapon techniques can make some great magic items. And that alot easier to balance for because those can be super custom. And yep, there will a video talking about how to buff martials for out of combat. That video should come out in like 2 weeks.

[@hopecaster98]

@@bonewizard noice looking forward to that out of combat vid

[@MoreInsane96]

Just started reading the techniques. I have a small homebrew rule that makes so when a creature is knocked back into a wall they take 1d4 of damage for each 5ft they should have been pushed. I'm worried that Batter Up would be too strong that way. On the other hand, as a GM I should avoid monsters playing near walls.

[@bonewizard]

Your other hand is right. Your DM should FEAR walls. Just remember, there is no reason your DM's creatures can't use weapon techniques too.

[@Saibrock]

I've always said that any attempt to "fix" martials *has to* start with maneuvers. Weapon techniques are a decent first step, but there's just no way they can actually keep up with spells without being designed to be broken like spells are.

[@bonewizard]

That will be addressed in a video that will come out a few weeks from now.

[@Saibrock]

@ But what if I cannot wait?

[@bonewizard]

@@Saibrock idk, learn to knit?

[@robertovelez693]

Another counter argument against 6-8 encounters a day besides the great one you gave is that health is also a resource and when casters are more tanky (shield, absorb elements, silvery barbs, armor dip) and can fight safer/have one spell shutdown throwing move encounters out just gets martials killed

[@bonewizard]

ooooh dont worry! I talk about the shield spell later.

[@theirontitan]

My fix for this is basically blade oils/potions and weapons with secondary effects. I have homebrew rules and recipes for poisons and materials that deal extra damage to specific things, like cold-iron weapons dealing more damage to fey, elves and druids, or lycansbane that makes all of your attacks on lycans deal double damage. As for versatility, i like putting secondary effects on weapons, like a wildfire blade (another homebre item) can set stuff you hit on fire and cast a modified flame blade for some cool duel weilding once per long rest. Or my weapon im currently using ive named gavoudin, its a +2 greatsword with some one use effects like "chase", which lets me cast expedious retreat without concentration, "consume" which lets me heal hp equil to a single attack, and "track" wich passively gives me advantage on checks with smell and hearing. Or just litterally giving weapons that do thier own versoin of smite. Same with shields, my players like shields, and shield of shield (a shield that lets you cast shiled once per long rest) is a fan favorite.

[@theirontitan]

I also give out a lot of boons as we play, a lot of which give martials access to spells, limited use effects, and damage bonuses. My favorite being when a player made a deal with a Hag to gain some magic, he got a cantrip, first, and second level spell from the warlock list to cast for free once per spell (unlimited for cantrip as normal), and another guy that asked her for a weapon that let him expend stuff for more attacks. I do still give stuff to casters, but it's mostly access to more spells, spell slots, etc.

[@bonewizard]

Ya all those ideas sound great! More options for martials is dope.

[@theirontitan]

@bonewizard thank you very much, I spend too much time on this stuff😂

[@theirontitan]

Feel free to steal these ideas

[@bonewizard]

@@theirontitan i just might

[@christopherbryan160]

First of all, according to the 2014 DMG: "most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day", so it doesn't really recommend the number of encounters, it just says how many a party CAN typically deal with. Additionally, it defines an encounter as any kind of challenge including but not limited to: social interactions, puzzles, traps, and combat. In 4e terms most of these would be "skill challenges", which don't typically eat into party resources. Most wizards aren't going to be spending spell slots mid-conversation with an NPC, although a bard might.

[@bonewizard]

i define an encounter as "anything you could spend resources on"

[@wagz781]

Congratulations, you have reinvented battle master's maneuvers! Woo! Sarcasm aside, you do have some lovely ideas with the weapon customization. I've toyed around with a similar thing. Also: easy fix for the 6-8 encounter thing (it's some bs) just use grim reality. The barb will need some lovin, but I've found it's so compatible with pretty much everything pre-tasha's that it feels more like it was the original default. It's a lot easier to fit in more encounters when your adventuring "day" is more like an adventuring week/fortnight. It's an old timey word for 2 weeks, not that fortnight. Best part is: no extra work. Hell, you can even do slightly less work since you can start easing up the difficulty of encounters a little bit. Fewer statblocks to prepare also means a faster combat. I personally like it because it also gives my players time for downtime stuff and just letting plotlines breath when they finally take their long rests. Martials still need help in other areas, though. Personally I like to fix the tankiness issue by bringing back DR and weapon/armor charms. It leaves the monk and barb a little high and dry, but Woad and Tattoos to facilitate things for unarmored martials (but not casters) is fine. Weapon charms also gives their weapons some passive forms of adjusting how they interact with things without being reliant on triggers. Triggers can be fun, but having all your cool shit locked behind something that can possibly never happen isn't fun. Which is why I don't like crit based triggers unless you can increase crit range. It's also just kinda a "win more" mechanic.

[@bonewizard]

The "remaking battle master maneuvers" concept is not lost on me. I tried to make them different, but there are absolutely a lot of similarities. I think magic items that give DR can go a long way.

[@wagz781]

@@bonewizard tbf the maneuvers are a good baseline. It's what I did personally before I gave up on 5e.

[@jessewilliams3166]

Fun mini alternative to the whole resource thing. Instead of 6 to 8 combat encounters to make you rage quit DMing due to it becoming a part time job per week to set up. Why not... and hear me out on this. Make spell slots not restore fully on a long rest, maybe apply arcane recover level spell slot recovering on a long rest. That way, that mighty fireball feels mighty as you could in theory recharge 1 per long rest, but then it feels like a trump card rather then " Eh most GM's barely runs more then 3 combats then I get all it back, so I'm gonna use all 6 of my 4th and 3rd lvl slots to cook the combat encounters." This also allows short rest focused classes to shine even more since their stuff would come back, and the HP gap restored.... thus allowing martials initial intention of being consistent aggro sponges could work. As compensation, make some of the balanced utility spells rituals so you can with prep do them without pressuring your resources.

[@jessewilliams3166]

Side note, allow barbarians to restore a rage use on short rest

[@bonewizard]

i actually really like this idea. No one will ever accept this idea and add it to their game! But I do like it.

[@bonewizard]

I agree. That has even been added do the 2024 rules of DnD.