Every D&D Weapon Mastery From The 2024 Players Handbook, Ranked

The new Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Player’s Handbook features a new kind of ability available to martial characters: weapon mastery. This ability is available to the barbarian, fighter, paladin, ranger, and rogue classes at first level, and gives those classes additional ways to use their weapons. This gives martial characters a bit more utility on the battlefield, ideally helping to balance their power with spellcasters, as well as encourgaing them to try out different weapons.

Every weapon type in the game has one of eight weapon mastery moves tied to it, all of which can be used each round when characters take the Attack action. From slowing enemies down to knocking them over to making future attacks more likely to hit, these new powers can be quite strong. But players looking to make a martial character may be wondering which of these weapon mastery moves is the most powerful, or offers the most utility.

8

Topple Suffers From One Requirement No Other Mastery Move Has

A Strong Power, But Held Back By A Saving Throw

Topple is a tragic weapon mastery, providing one of the more powerful effects, but also being the only move that requires a saving throw. Every other weapon mastery either relies on an attack hitting to take effect or happens regardless of the player’s luck, but this one alone needs both its initial attack to land and for the creature hit to fail a constitution saving throw. This alone puts Topple at the bottom of the scale for weapon mastery moves.

Which is a shame, since Topple’s effect is quite useful. It allows characters using a quarterstaff, battleaxe, lance, maul, or trident to knock an enemy prone with their weapon attack. The rules specify that prone creatures have reduced movement and melee attacks against them within five feet have advantage, all of which is very helpful.

But of course, there’s always a chance that enemies just succeed on the saving throw and are completely unaffected. The fact that the move requires a constitution save is another nail in the coffin, since many monsters have high save bonuses for constitution. The bottom line is that, unlike every other mastery move, Topple has a high risk of failure, making it the riskiest to use and the most likely to fall flat.

7

Cleave Has Several Restrictions That Might Make It Hard To Pull Off

Cleave sounds much better than it is at first glance. Players using a greataxe or halberd can use it to essentially attack two creatures at once, but there are a number of restrictions that make actually attacking multiple creatures with this rather situational. This is largely due to how the move requires the player and their targets to be positioned.

Cleave states that, when players hit a creature and there is another hostile creature within 5 feet of both the player and the first creature, the player can take an attack roll against that creature as well. On a hit, the second creature takes damage from the weapon’s damage dice, but not from the player’s damage modifier. It is worth pointing out that effects from spells like hunter’s mark or elemental weapon still apply to the second hit, but even so, the second creature receives a bit less damage than the first.

But the times when players will be within five feet of two enemies that are also within five feet of each other are rarer than one would think, and some players might end up putting themselves in a needlessly dangerous position just to use this. Besides that, Cleave suffers from only being usable once per round, unlike most other masteries. Overall, its damage potential falls below other options.

6

Graze Is A Powerful Fail-Safe, But Underwhelming At Higher Levels

This Move Starts Off Strong, But Is Quickly Surpassed

Graze is basically a mastery that ensures player attacks will always do at least a bit of damage. It stands out from the other masteries in that it is not used actively, but rather, as an effect when players miss. It applies to attacks made with glaives and greatswords, and when a player misses an attack against a creature, that creature still takes damage equal to the player’s damage modifier, usually their strength.

At early levels, when enemies have less health and martial characters have only one attack, this is a great way to ensure that attack is never fully wasted. But against enemies with tons of health, getting to deal four or five points of damage on a miss doesn’t make much of a difference. Players will notice that Graze gets less and less effective as they level up, contrary to some of the other masteries that improve as martials get more attacks per round.

Graze is also held back by the fact that it cannot stack with any kind of damage buffs. The rules specifically state that the damage from graxe can only come from the player’s ability modifier, so weapon poisons or spell buffs won’t improve it. Still, it is a nice security blanket at early points in the game, and some players may like having assurance that their attacks will always deal at least some damage.

5

Nick Is Amazing For Certain Builds, But May End Up Misleading Players

One Class Specifically Benefits From This Move More Than Others

Nick is a weapon mastery geared specifically towards dual-wielding builds, though it will be more helpful in some cases than others. It applies to a range of light weapons: the dagger, light hammer, sickle, and scimitar, and can be used with them when they are wielded in a character’s off-hand. Its effect is quite simple: instead of making an off-hand attack as a bonus action, players with this mastery can do so as part of their initial attack, getting in two hits for the price of one and retaining one’s bonus action for another use.

This is particularly good for rogues, who already have one excellent use each turn for their bonus action in the form of Cunning Action. This way, they can still make two attacks each turn while also dashing, hiding, or disengaging. Where this falls short is when classes like the fighter try to use it, especially in conjunction with the Dual Wielder feat. It’s a common feat two-weapon fighters will seek out, since it lets them use non-light weapons in their off-hand, but Nick is only available on four specific light weapons.

Beyond that, fighters and other martial classes don’t have a ton of consistent uses for their bonus action. There’s Second Wind and Rage, but both of those are limited to a number of uses per day, and it just isn’t as good for those classes to retain access to their bonus action, since they won’t always have something to spend it on. Nick is still great for characters that have something else to use their bonus action on, but beyond that, it may end up being less useful than players think going in.

4

Sap Is A Good Defensive Move For Players To Protect Their Party

While Not Always The Best Move, This May Be A Lifesaver

Sap is more defensive than the other weapon mastery options, inflicting disadvantage on an enemy’s next attack. Tanky characters may find it useful in keeping both themselves and their allies from taking damage, and Sap is available on a wide range of weapons. Spears, flails, longswords, morningstars, and war picks can all be used to Sap enemies, meaning a wide range of builds can make use of this ability.

Sap’s disadvantage only applies until the start of the character’s next turn, but it can be applied to multiple enemies in a turn, and is helpful to the whole party rather than just the martial who is attacking. As far as defensive moves go, this is one of the best options to keep enemy attacks at bay. Though in Dungeons & Dragons, offense is almost always the better way to go.

Sap has very little bringing it down besides comparison to some of the other weapon masteries. The three following it here are all better at maximizing player damage towards enemies, and it could even be argued that some other masteries are better defensive options. While giving enemies disadvantage on attack rolls is good, this won’t help against creatures who force saving throws instead. Sap is an excellent option, but not always the best.

3

Vex Provides An Easy Way To Improve Hit Chances

A Straightforward But Powerful Move For Any Build

Vex is comparable to Sap in that it affects hit chances, only this mastery is offensive rather than defensive. It allows martial characters to give themselves advantage on attack rolls against enemies, something which is very helpful to a wide range of builds, from long-range snipers to melee bruisers. It’s nice, then, that Vex is available on so many weapons: the handaxe, dart, shortbow, rapier, blowgun, hand crossbow, and pistol in the 2024 Player’s Handbook.

Gaining advantage in DnD is something that basically every character will try to do, and the only downside to Vex is that there are many ways to gain advantage outside of it. But that doesn’t change the fact that hitting an enemy with an attack is probably one of the easiest ways to gain advantage against them, and the way in which Vex can stack makes it one of the most powerful options for players to grab. The way it works is when players hit an enemy with an attack, their next attack against the same enemy has advantage until the end of their next turn.

This means rogues can hide, hit an enemy with Sneak Attack, gain advantage, and then have that advantage in the next round to gain Sneak Attack again. Even better, fighters with three attacks can chain Vex against an enemy to keep gaining advantage, since there is no limit on how many times it can work per turn. This is the best mastery for improving damage in the long run, just because of how much more likely it makes each attack to hit.

2

Slow Provides An Excellent Debuff To Use On Enemy Creatures

Turning Speed Into Your Greatest Weapon

No matter how much damage an enemy does, they still have to be within a certain range to hit player characters. This makes speed an incredibly important component during combat, and moves that can alter speed quite powerful. Slow does just that, decreasing a target’s speed by 10 feet when they are hit by an attack.

Slow applies to the widest range of weapons out of all the mastery moves, including the club, javelin, light crossbow, sling, whip, longbow, and musket in the 2024 PHB. It is powerful in that it can be applied to multiple creatures in the same turn and affects all forms of speed, not just walking speed. Slowing an enemy down can keep them from reaching an ally or force them to use their action to dash instead of attacking.

It may not deal extra damage, but it makes for great defense, and can be used to stay within range for a player’s own attacks while avoiding those from enemies. Its only downsides are that it can’t be applied to the same creature more than once per round, so no reducing a creature’s speed to zero. And it doesn’t help if the enemy is already standing where they want to be.

1

Push Is Great For Maneuverability And Battlefield Control

Knocking Enemies Around Can Be Better Than Damaging Them

Push is the greatest weapon mastery by far, for a number of reasons. It applies to only four weapons: the greatclub, pike, warhammer, and heavy crossbow, but those last two are among the best. It weaponizes movement speed and positioning in much the same way as Slow, only to a greater extent, physically moving creatures around the field.

When players using Push hit an enemy with a weapon attack, that enemy is knocked backwards 10 feet. There is no saving throw, and no limit on the number of times Push can be used per turn, nor on the number of times it can affect the same creature per turn. The only restrictions are that it doesn’t affect creatures Huge or bigger, and it only pushes creatures directly backwards in a line from where the player attacks from. And those restrictions do almost nothing to hamper the power of this move.

Need to get an enemy out of an ally’s range? Push them back 10 feet. Is a creature standing near a cliff or drop? Push them off it. Need to slow down an enemy but don’t have a weapon with that mastery? Push the enemy away, forcing them to use extra movement to cover the gap. This move offers the most utility to martial characters, and feels like it gets the closest to balancing their abilities with those of spellcasters. Players should give it a try once they start using the 2024 Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook and see for themselves just how strong it is.