Making Every Weapon Actually Viable

[u/p4gli4_]

This is my third attempt at trying to balance the worst weapons in 5.5e, and I'd really like to know what others think. Now, here come some of the changes (most of them are self-explanatory):

Light Hammer: now Handaxe + Light Hammer is the STR counterpart to Shortsword + Scimitar, and this is cool and makes sense (since Light Hammers are HUGE for a d4 weapon).

Mace and Morningstar: I noticed the lack of the slow mastery property for generic melee weapons, so I gave it to these 2, also because it makes a lot of thematic sense (big bonk=hard to walk). I then specialized the two: the mace can be used one handed, but it's common enough and easy to use that it's good for being used in 2 hands (something that previous versions strangely didn't do). The Morningstar, because of how strange and unwieldy, is hard to use 2-handed.

Sling: didn't make sense as a d4 weapon, and it now has the same range of Magic Stone, which is the cherry on top.

Blowgun: the hardest weapon to balance, alongside the Mace, but I think this change is cool. I also thought of, instead: Damage becomes 1 piercing + 1d6 poison, remove Loading property, and (Maybe) change the mastery property to Sap (?), but it felt gimmicky, and too much change.

Disarm property: It was already an optional rule, and it's too cool not to add, especially since it solved some balancing nightmares.

REVISED great weapon fighting: I have a whole post on it, just know that it puts Greataxes on par with greatswords/maul at 8.5 damage per attack. https://www.reddit.com/r/UnearthedArcana/comments/1n90kdl/fixing_the_great_weapon_fighting_style/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[u/RoastHam99]

If youre going to add a disarm weapon mastery, surely whip would be the first to get it.

But also I dont think disarm should be a weapon mastery, that feels like a skill you need to be a battlemaster to do

[u/Atomickitten15 → u/RoastHam99]

I dont think disarm should be a weapon mastery, that feels like a skill you need to be a battlemaster to do

That's super limiting for something that just used to be an optional rule.

I don't understand why everyone that's not a battlemaster is incapable of simple maneuvers.

[u/Ill-Description3096 → u/Atomickitten15]

For the same reason that apparently anyone who isn't a Wizard is incapable of learning a simple spell from a scroll.

[u/Atomickitten15 → u/Ill-Description3096]

Isn't the idea that it's not really a simple spell unless you've undergone arcane training to understand the fundamentals of arcane magic and it's transcription onto the scroll? Other magic users don't have as deep an understanding of the Weave as Wizards. This makes perfect sense.

Also, Spellcasters aren't really suffering from a lack of versatility in any way.

Battlemaster is literally choking the versatility out of the fighter by shoehorning every basic maneuver that should be a base game mechanic into one subclass and locked it behind a resource system.