Everything you need to know about the new weapon mastery rules for D&D 5e 2024
If you’ve been following along with Wizards’ recent announcements for the new Player’s Handbook 2024, you may have noticed some new features of weapons known as weapon mastery.
This is an entirely new set of properties available for martial classes. It looks like a great way to enhance martials and make them more tactical. If you’re wanting to know exactly what weapon mastery is and how it works, I’ve put together all the details below.
What is weapon mastery?
Every weapon in the 2024 Player’s Handbook will now have a weapon mastery property on top of its normal capabilities. This includes things like the ability to push a target back 10ft or glance an enemy with a small amount of damage even if you miss your target.
Personally, I’m very excited for this feature. It’s just one way to help martials maintain power levels with casters while also giving them a more tactical approach. It also helps distinguish different weapons from one another. A longbow, for instance, can be used to slow an enemy down (perhaps because they’ve been hit in the leg) while a crossbow can push them back 10ft (as you’d expect when struck with such power). It’s a great move flavour-wise too!
You can see the original video reveal of the weapon mastery rules which I’ve embedded below.
Who can use weapon mastery?
Only certain martial classes can use weapon mastery. This includes:
- Barbarian
- Fighter
- Paladin
- Ranger
- Rogue
Classes that don’t have weapon mastery, can still use the same weapons they could before in the same way (adding their proficiency bonus to attack rolls), they just won’t get access to the mastery property of that weapon.
How does weapon mastery work?
Each class with weapon mastery options can choose from a set number of weapons to gain mastery in. They can only gain mastery in certain types of weapons (this seems to be weapons they are proficient in). This means that most of these classes will have very few restrictions other than rogues who are restricted to simple weapons and martial weapons with the light or finesse properties.
All classes with weapon mastery have access to 2 weapon masteries at a time. For fighters and barbarians, this number grows as they gain levels with fighters (the true masters of weapons) getting the most masteries.
You can change which weapons you have mastery in when you take a long rest. Presumably you do some training with your weapon to gain the mastery property for it. Doing so may mean losing mastery in another weapon if you’ve already reached your maximum number of weapons masteries.
Each weapon has a mastery property associated with it, making it more tactical than ever which weapon you choose. There are also no limitations to how many times a weapon mastery property can be used. You might also want to consider combinations of weapons as a party that might complement one another.
What properties are associated with weapon masteries?
Below I’ve put together all the different properties for weapon masteries we’ve had revealed so far and will add to this list as more masteries are revealed:
| Property | Description | Example weapon |
|---|---|---|
| Cleave | If you hit an opponent, you can make another attack roll against another creature next to your target (as if you’ve struck through them into someone else). This strike is slightly weaker than your standard attack though (you don’t add the extra damage from your ability score modifier). | Greataxe |
| Graze | Even if you miss your target, you’ll still graze them causing a little damage equal to your ability score modifier. | Greatsword |
| Nick | Allows you to make a 2nd attack as part of your main attack when wielding 2 weapons, freeing up your bonus action for other things. | Dagger |
| Push | Knock back a creature you hit by 10ft (no saving throw allowed). This only affects large or smaller creatures. | Great club, heavy crossbow |
| Sap | Inflicts disadvantage on your target’s next attack roll. | Mace, flail, longsword |
| Slow | Reduces your target’s speed by 10ft until the start of your next turn (can’t affect the same creature multiple times in the same turn). | Light crossbow, longbow, javelin |
| Topple | Causes the target to take a constitution saving throw or be knocked prone. | Maul |
| Vex | Hitting a creature gives you advantage on your next attack before the end of your next turn. | Shortsword |
Weapon mastery tactics
There’s a ton you can do to use weapon mastery to your advantage. Below are a few ways you can make your martial more effective with these properties:
Cleave for hordes: Martials are typically poor at damaging multiple enemies with few AoE abilities. Cleave partially addresses this by allowing a single attack to damage up to 2 enemies. More attacks will mean more enemies hit too so you can use it to effectively target large groups of enemies, especially if you’re a tank and want to be in the middle of the fray.
Nick helps with action economy: Rogues are hugely reliant on landing their sneak attacks, but with only one attack, are often reliant on two weapon fighting to make this reliable. This means though that your bonus action can’t be used to disengage with your cunning action for those valuable hit and run tactics. You can now use nick to free up your bonus action for cunning action (or other things) allowing rogues to do both.
Keep your enemies far away: The slow property is a great way for ranged warriors to keep their enemies at distance by slowing them down. You can shoot, move away and reliably know that your enemy can’t reach you.
Push your enemies off ledges: Use push to hit enemies on high ramparts or cliff edges to knock them tumbling into a chasm. You can also knock them away to escape without incurring an opportunity attacks.
Sap for debuffs and attracting attacks: Sap is a great way to debuffs enemies by giving them disadvantage on their next attack roll. If you have extra attacks, you can distribute them across multiple enemies to apply disadvantage to more enemies. This will likely also draw enemy attacks against you; which is great for tanks, but just be aware of this if you’re less tough.
Topple for extra attacks with advantage: If your character has extra attacks, knocking an enemy prone with topple will allow subsequent attacks to be made with advantage (as long as you’re 5ft away). You can also use this to aid your other melee allies too.
You’ll likely only get this benefit for a turn till your enemy stands up though. Also, be aware that attacks made from more than 5ft away will be made with disadvantage.
Reliable sneak attack with vex: Vex is a great option for rogues looking to make sneak attacks. If you’re struggling to gain advantage in other ways reliably, you can use vex to gain that advantage and ensure you can land a sneak attack on your next attack roll.
So that’s everything you need to know about the new weapon mastery rules. Let me know what you think of them and what other tactics you might use when these rules land in September in the comments below.
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