Weapon Mastery is a new combat feature in the 2024 Dungeons & Dragons rules that allows martial classes to specialize in specific weapons and unlock unique combat abilities.  Each weapon has a specific mastery property that can be activated when the character masters that weapon type. Weapon Masteries are available to martial classes: Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue. Players can also gain Weapon Mastery by taking the Weapon Master feat, which allows any class to unlock a weapon’s mastery property.

I have been criticized in my review of the D&D 5.5 Classes for simply showing how they differed from the D&D 5E classes and not expressing my opinion on the differences. I will be doing that later, when I have finished comparing all the classes.  In this post I am doing something different. I’m calling this a “critical” review in which I will be expressing my opinions and also showing how I arrived at those opinions.

Some Background

As a DM, you learn to quickly evaluate the things that players want their characters to do. The way I do this is to visualize exactly what that would look like. Sometimes a player character’s desired action is imposable or would not result in his intended outcome. Sometimes this is a rule that the player misinterprets but more often they simply overlooked something in the current situation or in the environment.

I encourage my players to always try to imagine their character’s environment and have them do what makes sense in their current situation. Let me worry about the rules after they decide what to do. If there is a specific rule to cover their action I will use that, otherwise they just do it, or I come up with a rule to cover the unique situation.

I use this same technique when evaluating game mechanics.
I try to visualize what a character is doing and ask myself these questions:
“What would it look like? How are they doing that?”
“Is that something that makes sense?”
“Would I enjoy seeing the PCs doing it on a regular basis in a game I am running?”
“Would the players object to the monsters doing that?”

Applying this to the Weapon Mastery properties.

CLEAVE: If you hit a creature with a melee attack roll using this weapon, you can make a melee attack roll with the weapon against a second creature within 5 feet of the first that is also within your reach. On a hit, the second creature takes the weapon’s damage, but don’t add your ability modifier to that damage unless that modifier is negative. You can make this extra attack only once per turn.

• What weapons have this feature?
  1. The Greataxe and the Halberd.
  2. These are both Heavy, Two-Handed, bladed weapons and the Halberd has Reach.
• What would it look like?
  1. “Two monsters are directly in front of you, standing side by side. You make a tremendous swing with your Greataxe. It slices through the first one and continues on to cut into the other one as well.”
  2. “There are two monsters in front of you, one directly in front of you, only 5 feet away and another just behind the first one. You take a great swing with your Halberd and slash through the near one causing it a great amount of damage. Your Halberd provides you with the reach you need to attack the other monster, the one behind making this a more difficult target (half cover). You swing again at the second monster and hit it doing slightly less damage.”
• Does it make sense?
  1. It does for the Greataxe.
  2. It only makes sense for the Halberd (which has the “reach” property) if the arc that the head of the weapon makes passes through both creatures. As written, you could make the second attack on a creature standing behind the one standing in front of you that you hit first. That does not make as much sense.
• Would I enjoy seeing the PCs doing it on a regular basis?
  1. It is very cinematic, I think it would make combat more fun.
• Would the players object to the monsters doing that?
  1. I don’t think they would object to it, but wouldn’t want a monster to hit a second PC that was standing behind the one in front of the monster.

Conclusion: This could be fixed with a house rule to not allow a Halberd to attack a creature behind one in front of you. To speed up combat, I wouldn’t require a second attack roll. I’d use the one roll to determine if the other attack did damage. After all, this is really only one attack that is potentially hitting two creatures. A rule I have used in the past is that if there are two creatures directly in front of you, if you are swinging a heavy slashing weapon and you drop the first creature to 0 HP, if your to-hit roll is high enough to hit the adjacent creatures AC, you can give any remaining damage to that creature.

GRAZE: If your attack roll with this weapon misses a creature, you can deal damage to that creature equal to the ability modifier you used to make the attack roll. This damage is the same type dealt by the weapon, and the damage can be increased only by increasing the ability modifier.

• What weapons have this feature?
  1. The Glaive and the Greatsword.
  2. These are both Heavy, Two-Handed weapons and the Glaive has Reach.
• What would it look like?
  1. This is hard to visualize. It reads that you do a little damage even if you miss. I suppose, unlike any other time when an attack misses, it doesn’t “really” miss. Instead it just did a little damage as it passed. So here goes:
  2. “You swing your Greatsword at the monster. It dodges just in time to avoid the full force of your blow, only taking small cut as the blade touches its exposed arm.”
  3. “The evil mage has just cast a spell and is concentrating on maintaining it. He is 50 feet away, too fat for you to reach it to attack with your Greatsword so, out of desperation you throw it at him! You aren’t very good at throwing it, but it grazes him and he appears to be having trouble concentrating on his spell. “
• Does it make sense?
  1. I can see how it might make sense, in a way, but there are several situations where it might not.
  2. Where it says that it happens when an “attack roll with this weapon misses,” what if:
     1. The monster is invisible and you attack where you “think” it is, but it really isn’t there at all. RAW (Rules as Written) would have you make the attack roll and the DM would simply tell you that you missed. So you wouldn’t really know if it was there or not. But it wouldn’t make sense for it to “really” be grazed by the weapon. By the RAW you did attack with the weapon and it did miss, so it should do some damage.
     2. What about a situation where a player’s character makes an attack with a weapon that they weren’t holding? For instance, could a character use the Telekinesis spell to attack with their weapon? It wouldn’t really matter if they could hit anything with it, it will do some damage even if they miss.

• What happens if your weapon is poisoned? The description of basic poison says “A creature that takes Piercing or Slashing damage from the poisoned weapon or ammunition takes an extra 1d4 Poison damage.” A miss in this case would do slashing damage so the creature would also take poison damage. Does it make sense that you can always poison a creature when you attack, even if you miss? I don’t think so, but that’s RAW.

1. What if you roll a natural 1? The attack always misses on a nat 1, so does it make sense that it still does glaze damage? I don’t think so, but by RAW it does.
2. What if a ranged weapon had the GRAZE feature and you attack underwater beyond its normal range? According to the Underwater Combat rules “A ranged attack roll with a weapon underwater automatically misses a target beyond the weapon’s normal range.” It doesn’t mention long range. So as long as it is beyond normal range, no matter how far away it is, be sure to roll to hit, but it will miss and a missed attack does glaze damage. That’s RAW. (They obviously didn’t have the Glaze Weapon Mastery property in mind when they wrote the Underwater Combat rules.)
3. What if you throw your Greatsword at a monster? The target is less than 60 feet away (but if you are underwater it wouldn’t matter if you were further away). This would use the rules for Improvised Weapons. On a hit it will do 1d4 slashing damage, but if you miss it will do damage equal to your ability modifier which is probably more than what you would get if you rolled 1d4. Again, this is RAW.

• What if the target has the Shield spell? Let’s say you attack with your Glaive. Your roll hits, but the creature has a Shield spell that goes into effect when you hit. When the creatures AC is increased by +5 it causes your attack to miss. So the attack misses but you grazed the creature which did some slashing damage. This seems to me to be missing the point of having a Shield spell. It seems reasonable to me that if the Shield spell causes you to miss, you would completely miss and not get any damage. But that’s not RAW.

• Would I enjoy seeing the PCs doing it on a regular basis?
  1. No I wouldn’t. This is the only case I can find where, without magic, you are guaranteed to do some damage whenever you attack, whether you hit the target or not.
• Would the players object to the monsters doing that?
  1. If I was a player, I would object to monsters rolling to attack and, if the attack roll missed, the DM said that I took damage anyway. Even if it wasn’t very much. It wouldn’t feel “fare”.

Conclusion: I guess the thing that bothers me most about this one is that this weapon will do some damage every time you swing it. You will have to have a couple of house rules in place to cover the side cases.

NICK: When you make the extra attack of the Light property, you can make it as part of the Attack action instead of as a Bonus Action. You can make this extra attack only once per turn.

Bad Name: This is the worst possible name for a Weapon Mastery property. It doesn’t “nick” anything. It allows you to change which feature of the game you are using to make an extra attack.

Encourages weapon juggling: To understand the Nick property you need to know the Light Weapon property: “When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a Light weapon, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn. That extra attack must be made with a different Light weapon, and you don’t add our ability modifier to the extra attack’s damage unless that modifier is negative.”

The Nick Weapon Mastery property simply allows you to use your Bonus Action for something else and add your extra light weapon attack to your attack action. It would have helped avoid confusion if they had changed the name of the attack action so you wouldn’t have to remember the difference between an attack action and an attack (they are two different things).

It should be noted that in the 2014 version if the PHB, it specifically says that the second weapon must be “a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand.”  Leaving out the rule that the second weapon must be in your other hand leaves open the possibility that you can sheath the first weapon and then draw the second weapon before making your extra attack.

You also need to know the new rules regarding Equipping and Unequipping Weapons:  “You can either equip or unequip one weapon when you make an attack as part of this action. You do so either before or after the attack. If you equip a weapon before an attack, you don’t need to use it for that attack. Equipping a weapon includes drawing it from a sheath or picking it up. Unequipping a weapon includes sheathing, stowing, or dropping it.”

As an aside: I find it telling that they are calling it “equipping” and “unequipping” instead of the more natural “drawing” and “sheathing”. This is another example of moving the players further away from immersing themselves into the story and into playing a computer simulation. If you are a fighter about to go into battle, you draw your weapon. If you are sitting in front of tour computer you equip your character with his weapon before moving him into battle. To me D&D has always been about using your imagination to imagine what it would be like if you actually were that fighter.

In the previous version “you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to attack.” And you could “draw or sheathe a sword” without taking an action. And “When an object requires your action for its use, you take the Use an Object action. This action is also useful when you want to interact with more than one object on your turn.” (The Use an Object action has been replace by the Utilize action which simply reads “Use a nonmagical object”.)

Confused yet? Don’t worry, you are not alone. And it gets worse.

You also need to know about the TWO-WEAPON FIGHTING Feat: Fighting Style Feat (Prerequisite: Fighting Style Feature) “When you make an extra attack as a result of using a weapon that has the Light property, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of that attack if you aren’t already adding it to the damage.”
I should point out that this feat is NOT required to fight with two weapons. It just adds a little more damage to your second weapon.

• What weapons have this feature?
  1. The Dagger, the Light Hammer, the Sickle, and the Scimitar.
  2. These are all Light weapons.
• What would it look like?
  1. “You run up to the monster, a sickle in one hand and scimitar in the other. You swing your scimitar at the monster following that with a sickle attack.” Note that this wouldn’t have to be a different type of weapon.
  2. “You run up to the monster, shield in one hand and weapon in the other. You swing your scimitar at the monster, sheath it, draw your sickle and attack the monster again.” Note that this wouldn’t have to be a different type of weapon as long as it was physically different, but unlike the previous example your AC has a +2 bonus by holding a shield in your other hand.
• Does it make sense?
  1. I suppose it does make sense that if you are a master in the use of this light weapon you would be able to attack with it very quickly, but why wouldn’t it just allow you to attack with it twice on one attack action rather than requiring you to attack with it on the same attack action but only after you have already attacked with a different light weapon?
  2. Sheathing one weapon you have just attacked with and drawing a different weapon and attack with it would only rarely make sense. Perhaps if the first weapon hit and the monster was obviously immune to damage from it, you might logically switch to a weapon that was different in some meaningful way in the hope that the monster might not be immune to the damage from that second weapon. Changing weapons simply because the game rules require it will never make sense to me.
• Would I enjoy seeing the PCs doing it on a regular basis?
  1. Not if it involved weapon juggling. I doubt that I would even permit it.
• Would the players object to the monsters doing that?
  1. I think they would laugh at a monster that sheathed the first weapon and drew a second one that was identical to the first one. They might suspect that the other one has some hidden magical power the first one lacked. If the monster was doing this every round, my players might start readying and action to make some kind of attack when it was switching weapons.

Conclusion: To be fair, my problem with this isn’t based on any objection to the Nick Weapon Mastery property itself, but to the Light Weapon property. All (or at least most) my objections would be resolved if it required the second weapon to be in your other hand. I will be implementing that as a house rule.
However, this appears to have been changed on purpose. Probably in an attempt to increase the power of martial classes to align them more closely to the magic using classes.

PUSH: If you hit a creature with this weapon, you can push the creature up to 10 feet straight away from yourself if it is Large or smaller.

The weapons that have this Mastery property are all Heavy weapons. The heavy weapon property has changed. Note that in 5E small creatures couldn’t use heavy weapons.

5.5 Heavy Weapons: “You have Disadvantage on attack rolls with a Heavy weapon if it’s a Melee weapon and your Strength score isn’t at least 13 or if it’s a Ranged weapon and your Dexterity score isn’t at least 13.”

5E Heavy Weapons: “Small creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls with heavy weapons. A heavy weapon’s size and bulk make it too large for a Small creature to use effectively.”

• What weapons have this feature?
  1. The Greatclub, the Pike, the Warhammer, and the Heavy Crossbow.
• What would it look like?
  1. “You load your Heavy Crossbow, Take careful aim and release the bolt that flies into the monster, striking him in the chest. It not only penetrates his armor it also causes him to stumble 10 feet further away from you.”
  2. “You hit the monster in front of you with your greatclub. It recalls from the damage and staggers back 10 feet. (And, if you can make another attack.) You rush up to it and hit again. It is pushed back another 10 feet. ”
• Does it make sense?
  1. If you are a master in the use of this heavy weapon you might be able to push a creature away when you hit it. But maybe not every time. It would make more sense to me if the creature got to make an opposed DEX or STR check, and you were limited to only attempting this once a turn.
  2. I don’t think it makes sense for a small or weak PC to be able to push a large sized creature.
  3. It also doesn’t make sense for a range weapon to push back a creature.
• Would I enjoy seeing the PCs doing it on a regular basis?
  1. Not as written. I can envision a group of PCs just pushing the monsters all over the place every round. This would be funny the first time, but would get old very fast.
• Would the players object to the monsters doing that?
  1. What if the DM gave this to a hoard of goblins? Even if the PCs were at higher levels, what fun it would be for two goblins to be pushing a PC back and forth between them. I don’t think the players would enjoy this very much.

Conclusion: There is already a shove option of the Unarmed Strike action: “… a melee attack that involves you using your body to … shove a target within 5 feet of you. … The target must succeed on a Strength or Dexterity saving throw (it chooses which), or you either push it 5 feet away or cause it to have the Prone condition. The DC for the saving throw equals 8 plus your Strength modifier and Proficiency Bonus. This shove is possible only if the target is no more than one size larger than you.”

I don’t see the need for the Push Weapon Mastery property unless it were modified to read “If you hit a creature with this weapon, in addition to any damage, you can attempt to shove the creature. Refer to the shove option of the Unarmed Strike rule.” And I would remove the property from the Heavy Crossbow.

SAP:  If you hit a creature with this weapon, that creature has Disadvantage on its next attack roll before the start of your next turn.

• What weapons have this feature?
  1. The Mace, the Spear, the Flail, the Longsword, the Morningstar, and the War Pick.
• What would it look like?
  1. “The bash the monster took when you hit it with your weapon shook it up so badly, it should have difficulty in making an effective attack.”
• Does it make sense?
  1. The way I read it, it will only effect the creatures next attack, even if it was “sapped” multiple times this round.
• Would I enjoy seeing the PCs doing it on a regular basis?
  1. I would like it better if it didn’t do this automatically, every time you hit with the weapon.
• Would the players object to the monsters doing that?
  1. I think so. They would much rather the monster did more damage than for it to make their PC attack with disadvantage.

Conclusion: I think I would like this better with a house rule to allow the target to make a save of some sort to overcome the sap.

SLOW: If you hit a creature with this weapon and deal damage to it, you can reduce its Speed by 10 feet until the start of your next turn. If the creature is hit more than once by weapons that have this property, the Speed reduction doesn’t exceed 10 feet.

This could be especially bad when used with slasher feat. Which reads, in part:

SLASHER: General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+) “… Hamstring. Once per turn when you hit a creature with an attack that deals Slashing damage, you can reduce the Speed of that creature by 10 feet until the start of your next turn…”

• What weapons have this feature?
  1. The Club, the Javelin, the Light Crossbow, the Sling, the Whip, the Longbow, and the Musket.
  2. This looks like a list of weapons that have nothing in common. It may just be the ones that didn’t work with any other weapon mastery.
• What would it look like?
  1. “You hurt the monster pretty bad. It looks like that will slow him down.”
• Does it make sense?
  1. Reducing a creature’s speed by 10 feet for no reason other than you did damage to it is stretching my imagination.
  2. When used along with the Slasher feat it will reduce the creature’s speed by a total of 20 feet.
  3. The Slasher feat makes sense (when the creature has feet) but the Slow Weapon Mastery property, not so much.
• Would I enjoy seeing the PCs doing it on a regular basis?
  1. If monsters were slowed 10 (or 20) feet every round, combat would soon quit being fun.
• Would the players object to the monsters doing that to their PCs?
  1. I can hear the whining now.

Conclusion: It would be hard for me to allow this in my games without nurfing it somehow. Perhaps allowing the PCs to attack with damage, or attack to slow, but not both. Also, I wouldn’t allow it to stack with the Slasher feat.

TOPPLE: If you hit a creature with this weapon, you can force the creature to make a Constitution saving throw (DC 8 plus the ability modifier used to make the attack roll and your Proficiency Bonus). On a failed save, the creature has the Prone condition.

There are several other ways to cause the prone condition:

The Rogue has Cunning Strike (a level 5 feature). One of its features is Trip (Cost 1d6). “When you deal Sneak Attack damage … If the target is Large or smaller, it must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or have the Prone condition.”

The Warrior of the Open Hand Monk has the Open Hand Technique (a level 3 feature). One of its features is Topple. “Whenever you hit … with … Flurry of Blows … the target must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw or have the Prone condition.”

The Ranger can summon a Primal Companion (a level 3 feature). The Beast of the Land: If it moves 20 feet to hit ” … the target has the Prone condition if it is a Large or smaller creature.”

A Goliath with the Hill Giant Ancestry has the Tumble trait: “When you hit a Large or smaller creature with an attack roll and deal damage to it, you can give that target the Prone condition.”

The SHIELD MASTER feat. General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+, Shield Training). Among other benefits you get Shield Bash: “… you can immediately bash the target with your Shield … forcing the target to make a Strength saving throw … On a failed save, you … cause it to have the Prone condition …”

• What weapons have this feature?
  1. The Quarterstaff, the Battleaxe, the Maul, and the Trident.
• What would it look like?
  1. “You use your Quarterstaff to knock your opponent’s feet out from under him. He lands on his back with a thud.”
  2. “You walk up to the ancient dragon. You hit it with your Battleax in just the right spot and it falls to the ground.”
• Does it make sense?
  1. Allowing the creature a saving throw helps. But won’t that also slow down combat with creatures making CON saves all the time?
  2. Why does it not have any size limitations? Yes, larger creatures may be more likely to make their save, but should a PC be able to knock a Gargantuan prone just because he pokes it with his trident? That doesn’t make sense.
  3. What if it is a creature, such as an Ooze, that is immune to the prone condition? I must assume that it would not be effected, but that’s not clear.
• Would I enjoy seeing the PCs doing it on a regular basis?
  1. Occasionally maybe, but not every round of every combat.
• Would the players object to the monsters doing that?
  1. If they face a monster that requires them to make a DEX save or fall prone every time it hits them. They would tolerate it if one monster did that, but not if one monster did it in every round of every combat.

Conclusion: I think it is a little over-powered and will slow combat. Especially when used along with some of the other Weapon Mastery properties.

VEX: If you hit a creature with this weapon and deal damage to the creature, you have Advantage on your next attack roll against that creature before the end of your next turn.

Bad Name: This is also a badly named feature. I don’t know what I would have called it instead, but “vex” doesn’t say “you get advantage on your next attack” to me.

• What weapons have this feature?
  1. The Handaxe, the Dart, the Shortbow, the Rapier, the Shortsword, the Blowgun, the Hand Crossbow, and the Pistol.
  2. 3 of these are melee weapons, 6 are range weapons.
• What would it look like?
  1. “Your attack hits the monster. You now realize where it is most vulnerable so you try to hit it in the same way next time.”
• Does it make sense?
  1. I suppose it makes a little sense that you could learn about a creatures weak spots against a particular weapon. However, I see nothing about these weapons that would make them especially useful in this regard. In other words, why do these weapons have this specific Weapon Mastery property? It doesn’t make sense to me that they would as opposed to any other type of weapon.
  2. It feels like WoTC needed some other things that some other types of weapons could do, so they picked this.
• Would I enjoy seeing the PCs doing it on a regular basis?
  1. They aren’t doing anything other than hitting with a weapon, then – like magic – they get advantage on their next attack. It doesn’t interfere with the game, it’s just one more thing the player has to keep track of.
• Would the players object to the monsters doing that?
  1. Considering that most monsters get multiple attacks, if they got advantage on the next one after every hit, the PCs would be hit much more often. So no, I don’t think they would like the monsters to have this feature.

Conclusion: I don’t care for this one very much. I don’t really have any objection to the rule other than it just doesn’t “feel” right. You get advantage on the next attack you make on this monster, but only because you hit it with this particular weapon. But the next attack you make can be with a completely different weapon, or even with a spell that requires an attack roll. It might be that this is because the damage you did causes it to be easier to hit, but nobody else gets advantage to hit it. I can’t seem to visualize any reason that this makes logical sense.

Final thoughts:

I like the idea of giving different weapons additional features that can be used in combat. It makes the selection of a weapon more than the damage it does. It is also good that WoTC is attempting to make the martial classes more on par with the other classes by giving them things that they can use to control the battlefield and do more damage. But I don’t think that I like the weapon mastery system in D&D 5.5.

What do you think?