Master Your Weapons and Armor

Masteries are the true power in the combat of M5. Although Five Magiks does have a system for representing baseline combat ability in the form of Weapon Proficiencies - Weapon Attack, Weapon Damage, Dodge, Endure, and Magic Damage. With names that are fairly self explanatory, each proficiency adds a flat numerical bonus to the relevant statistic. Weapon Attack grants a bonus to hit, Weapon Damage adds to damage, Dodge adds to defense, and Endure adds to protection.

However, numerical bonuses aren’t very exciting, even if they are the bedrock of level related power in tabletop RPGs of this kind. Masteries in M5 add an additional dimension to combat which creates limited combat resources and enables characters to cause effects and avoid damage in a way that isn’t strictly limited to high attack rolls and damage rolls.

Arguably the most powerful masteries are defensive in nature. The armor masteries teach a character to leverage their particular style of armor in both weight and coverage to avoid damage in a variety of ways. For example, a character who wears no armor focuses even more intensely into successfully deflecting attacks at a moment's notice. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Heavy armor can be used to absorb attacks and stop an opponent’s momentum, which can create important openings in combat.

These abilities are limited in use with some usable once per round, but most abilities limited to once per combat. Thematically, this represents the enemy’s ability to anticipate or counter the character’s combat maneuvers causing a previously successful gambit to become ineffective.

However, while defensive masteries are advised for all characters, weapon styles are restricted to the domain of martial characters and even strictly limited to fighters at lower levels. Learning to fight with two weapons, fully leverage a polearm, batter enemies with a shield, or become a skilled sniper are all tasks that require a great deal of training and in game terms it requires multiple masteries to achieve a working set of abilities. In game terms, most characters only receive one mastery at level 4, which means that starting characters often only get one. Non-martial classes are therefore advised to learn how to use their preferred armor type. On the other hand, Fighters gain many bonus masteries and will have three masteries at the starting level.

Masteries let characters be the iconic character a player is looking to be, while at the same time presenting a varied and interesting path of development which is as meaningful for fighters and other martial classes as magic is to spellcasters. Similarly, it creates interesting combat for players by expanding the options of players to avoid damage and control the battlefield.

Comment below if there is a particular style of combat you’ve been wanting to play with a  character and you’re interested in what options M5 has for representing it or reach out to us on our Discord.