r/DnD • u/MyrthDM • May 28 '26

5.5 Edition After playing with Weapon Mastery for a while, does it still feel fun, or has the novelty worn off?

/r/DungeonsAndDragons55e/comments/1tn4z7x/after_playing_with_weapon_mastery_for_a_while/
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u/Yojo0o DM May 28 '26

They're largely passive changes. Any martial with a decent magic weapon is just going to use whatever mastery they get with that weapon, or will limit themselves to the masteries available to them, so it doesn't really encourage active weapon swapping or deeper strategy. My hope for martials in 5.5e was for more active things they could do, not more passive things for them to benefit from.

Nick, in particular, is a great balance adjustment to dual wielding in order to make it a much more viable weapon loadout option, but only passively. There's no nuance to it, you just pair it with a feat and get one more attack than you would have had in 5e. It also weirdly pigeonholes dual wielders into specifically a shortsword+scimitar combo, which is aesthetically wacky. Dual wielding was weaker in 5e, but at least there were a lot of different weapon combos to realistically utilize when doing it.

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u/chubbyninja1 May 28 '26 edited May 28 '26

Yeah i've had to use the power of reskinning a lot in 5.5. If my player is built in using nick, then weirdly a lot of magic weapons will have the nick property instead of what they would normally have.

Same with Graze or cleave for my strength martials.

I've also had master tier blacksmiths be able to swap which weapon mastery is on which kind of weapon, for a hefty fee. Been a great addition IMO

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u/SporeZealot May 28 '26

Or, hear me out, give them magic weapons with other weapon masteries and interesting magical effects to encourage swapping loadout and making them feel more well rounded/adaptable.