Revised Grandmastery

[Nominar]

What version of Vanilla, True and your Revised is closest to P&P (in 2 or 3.5)?

In 2nd edition Grandmastery (+++++) granted +3 hit, +5 damage, and +1apr:

- with the Revised table you get one point less of damage which isn't a big difference imo

- with True Grandmastery you get half an attack more than PnP, which is quite noticeable imo, especially at lower levels and then again later on when the uber-powerful items make a big difference if they hit more often in less time

I don't know what your PnP sources are but that is not how GM works in AD&D 2E. Weapon Mastery was first introduced in BECMI D&D and then later for 2E in Player's Option: Combat & Tactics. This is how it works for melee weapons (ranged did it a little differently):

 

Level / To Hit / Dmg

• Proficient / 0 / 0
  
• Specialized / +1 / +2
  
• Mastery / +3 / +3
  
• High Mastery / +3 / +3
  

Special for High Mastery:

- Weapon speed increased by one category (fast = 1-4, average = 5-7, slow = 8+; so slow becomes average, average becomes fast, basically -3 speed).

- Crit on 16 (instead of 18) or better if target is hit by a margin of 5 or more.

• Grand Mastery / +3 / +3
  

Special for Grand Mastery:

- One additional attack per round above and beyond a specialist's attack for their level, so a 12th level GM would attack 3 times per round. The key to understand the number of attacks is the example given which is taken directly out of the book.

- Weapon's base damage die is increased to the next greater die size against all opponents. So 1d8 becomes 1d10, 1d10 becomes 1d12 etc. Weapons that cause multiple dice of damage have their number of dice increased by one. So 2d4 becomes 3d4 etc.

 

I believe the increased dice mechanism must have been trouble to implement so instead they just added fixed extra damage.

 

Specialist Attacks per Round

Level / Att/round

1-6 / 3/2

7-12 / 2/1

13+ / 5/2

 

Grand Master Attacks per Round

Level / Att/round

1-6 / 5/2

7-12 / 3/1

13+ / 7/2

 

So, True Grand Mastery got the number of attacks right. You can read about Weapon Mastery here: http://www.purpleworm.org/rules/ under Player's Option: Combat & Tactics chapter 4: Weapon Specialization & Mastery.

 

In 2nd edition paladins and rangers aren't able to become specialized (++) in a weapon, but in some accessory manual I they were allowed a sort of lesser proficiency. With that in mind I revised the second and third proficiency point progression.

True, it was called Expertise. You can read about it on the website I linked.

[Demivrgvs]

Interesting. I don't remember where I looked for info back then, I do have tons of 1st and 2nd edition books but not the 'Player's Option: Combat & Tactics'.

 

Anyway, I stand corrected, but I still believe 3 attacks per round are more than enough, and borderline unbalanced considering they are all made with no penalty to attack rolls. Not to mention BG offers too many ways to easily improve apr even more (e.g. magical items such as gauntles and weapons).

 

Even the book you've linked says "weapon mastery ... can unbalance a game very quickly. Exercise tight control over the acquisition of weapon mastery in your campaign..." and explains that high and grand mastery should not be gained at character level up like lower level of specialization, but granted in exceptional cases. Getting GM for a fighter is supposed to be like finding a holy avenger for a paladin.

 

Short story: my current revised table is fine imo. You'll still get much more than a fighter should get with standard AD&D rules (as noted GM is an optional AD&D feature, much like Called Shots), and I already offer tons of other improvements to the class.

 

In 2nd edition paladins and rangers aren't able to become specialized (++) in a weapon, but in some accessory manual I they were allowed a sort of lesser proficiency. With that in mind I revised the second and third proficiency point progression.

True, it was called Expertise. You can read about it on the website I linked.

Thanks for the link! I'll bookmark it and stop opening my old and dusty AD&D books.

[Nominar]

Even the book you've linked says "weapon mastery ... can unbalance a game very quickly. Exercise tight control over the acquisition of weapon mastery in your campaign..." and explains that high and grand mastery should not be gained at character level up like lower level of specialization, but granted in exceptional cases. Getting GM for a fighter is supposed to be like finding a holy avenger for a paladin.

Yeah, I would require my players in a PnP game to do some quest like finding a Grand Master and convincing him to teach them, but first they'd have to find something for him. In fact I'm running a 2E game now where one player will be given a chance to achieve High and Grand Mastery through some epic means.

Thanks for the link! I'll bookmark it and stop opening my old and dusty AD&D books.

Glad to be of help. The PurpleWorm site is very handy.

[Ogi]

One quick question, how you can change description itself (using NI)? I mean after installation bonuses change but their description don't. It is somewhere in dialog.tlk?

[Demivrgvs]

One quick question, how you can change description itself (using NI)? I mean after installation bonuses change but their description don't. It is somewhere in dialog.tlk?

I should upload a new beta within 24 hours which will edit these on install.

 

If you're wondering anyway because you may want to edit them in a different way, you just need to edit strings 32116, 32117, 32118, 32119 and 32120. I'll obviously edit them via Weidu, but you can do it yourself via NI: 'search' -> 'stringref...' -> insert the string reference (e.g.32116) and click edit. Rinse and repeat.

[Ogi]

Thanks, adjusted it manually because I prefer using "half" instead of 1/2.