Summary
Playing classes like fighters inDungeons & Dragonscan often feel like you are not doing much, especially on the early levels. Well, the 2024 Player’s Handbook has brought a solution with a new feature called weapon masteries.
Now, all weapons come with a mastery property for characters that can make the most out of their chosen form of dealing damage, be they fighters, barbarians, or even rangers. These properties can push enemies, make them attack with disadvantage, or even hit multiple enemies, so now you need to look beyond the damage die to choose your weapon.
8Slow
Reduce Your Target’s Speed By 10 Feet
While not all weapons that have the slow property are ranged ones, those are the ones that get the most out of this feature. After all, slowing down your target is only worth it when you’re either chasing them down or running away from them, two scenarios that are only useful when you have a ranged weapon.
Since the speed reduction doesn’t stack, the usage of this feature is fairly limited. On melee weapons, you should really look for better alternatives, since most other mastery properties help you deal more damage to your enemies, not make them a bit slower.
7Cleave
Hit Two Enemies At Once
Cleave will be the favored mastery propertyfor most barbarians, since, while only two weapons have it, those weapons are halberds and greataxes. With cleave, you can hit two adjacent enemies with a single attack, although the second target only takes the weapon damage, not your ability modifier.
While cleave might sound nice, it starts underperforming at higher levels, since you can only do that extra attack once per turn, and it has to be a different target than your main one. Still, if you’re often surrounded, this is a good way to take care of multiple enemies at once.
6Graze
Deal Damage Even When You Miss
Only glaives and greatswords have the graze property, mostly due to how large the sharp edges of these weapons are. The property lets you deal damage even when you miss, but you only deal an amount equal to your Strength modifier.
While there aren’t any deep strategies to build with graze, that chip damage builds up, especially when you start doing more and more attacks per turn. Since you are already raising your Strength modifier to deal more damage, graze keeps being decent damage no matterhow far you areon your adventure.
5Nick
Save Your Bonus Action
The nick property lets you make a light weapon attack with your offhand as part of your main attack action, but you can only make this attack once. This means that the point isn’t to deal three attacks in one turn, but to save your bonus action to do something else.
Rogues will love this property, since now they can do other things in combat while not sacrificing any potential damage from striking with their dagger or scimitar. While not the most damaging property, it does open up characters for all kinds of strategies down the line.
4Sap
Give Your Enemies Disadvantage
Sap is a property given by several weapons, and if you land a hit with any of them, you’ll give your enemy disadvantage on their next attack roll. Any kind of frontline support will want a weapon like this, since even when they are focusing on damage, they can still be aiding the party.
The longsword, one of the most popular weapons in the game, has the sap property, so DMs around the world will have to contend with a lot of disadvantage on their BBEGs.
You only need to hit with the weapon, not deal damage, so even if an enemy resists your attacks, you can still make them miss their next one.
3Push
Shove Large Or Smaller Creatures
Not many weapons have the push property, but it is a very good one. It lets you shove enemies away from you in a straight line up to ten feet, letting you have control of the battlefield at all times. While you do need to land the hit to push them, you’re able to do so as many times as you can attack per turn.
Curiously enough, the heavy crossbow is the only ranged weapon with this property, something to keep in mind if you need to keep certain enemies away from an artifact. While you can’t push anything bigger than large, most enemies you’ll encounter are medium, so you can use your multiple attacks to push them all off a cliff.
2Topple
Get Your Enemies Prone
Weapons with the topple property can, on a hit, force your enemy to make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, they are prone, and there are no limits to the size of your enemy or how many times you can try to topple them per turn.
While a prone enemy gives advantage to melee attacks, that same state gives disadvantage to ranged attacks. As such, be sure to judge the situation accordingly, since if you’re the only melee fighter, making your enemy fall prone will only make it harder for everyone else to hit them.
1Vex
Gain Advantage On Your Next Attack
Vex is an interesting mastery property, because it just gets better the more attacks you can make. While most rangers might be tempted to use a longbow, they might start wishing to change to a shortbow, since multiple successful hits with said shortbow are constantly making the next one land with advantage.
Rogues can also benefit from Vex, having their own guaranteed way of securing sneak attacks without outside help. As long as you keep landing hits (and said hits deal damage), you’ll be constantly attacking with advantage until your enemy falls to the ground.
