Weapon Mastery Ultimate Guide - D&D's 2024 Player's Handbook

in today's video I want to Deep dive into weapon Mastery something that was going to be found in the new 2024 players handbook for Dungeons and Dragons game Masters here and weapons have always been a base element in DND but more times than not combat boils down to I swing my sword I I roll to 12 did I hit weapon Mastery should help both with the mechanics of combat but also with a strategy that can benefit the party and I'll list out what I mean as we explore the different types of of weapon Mastery each of the mastery properties of Any Given weapon will also have a prerequisite of a weapon property for example the weapon of uh Mastery of of Nick has a weapon property uh prerequisite of Light which basically means it's going to usually be found on lightweight weapons such as a dagger but for today's video we're going to focus purely on what the Mastery properties themselves can do and not what the prerequisites are cleave can be found on weapons like great ax if you hit a creature with a melee attack you can make an attack with the same weapon against a second creature within 5 ft of the first it still has to be within your reach and on a hit that second creature takes the weapon's damage except you don't add your ability modifier to that damage you can do this attack once per turn in Homebrew games we sort of use this but we'd let the attack hit however many targets were Within Reach it only did weapon damage but each Target beyond the first you had to roll at disadvantage to hit but otherwise if you were surrounded by five enemies cleave them and Whirlwind away and if I'm being completely honest we started kind of doing this years ago on the Warriors cleave and and Whirlwind ability based from World of Warcraft it's nice to see something that gives a massive axe wielder fighter uh something that that can do a touch of area damage in Dungeons and [Music] Dragons Grays can be found on large weapons like glaes and great swords you've basically become so Adept at using this weapon that even if you miss you'll still be able to do a small amount of damage to your target if your attack roll misses you can deal damage equal to the ability modifier that you use to make the attack roll it's still going to be the same type of damage as the weapon type so for example if you used a great sword it would still do slashing damage graze means that you'll dish out some some form of damage which makes each swing of your weapon meaningful while the damage might not be as great as it could be it will at least be something which in turn dissolves the frustration of missing completely and it ensures that when you do swing this weapon that your presence in the battle will still have a a impact might be small but you'll still have an impact Nick can be found on smaller weapons like daggers which have the light weapon property normally the weapon property of light allows you to use a bonus action to make a second attack however weapon Mastery of Nick allows you to make the the the extra attack from that light property as part of your main attack instead of as a bonus action this basically frees up your bonus action and is a perfect complement to say a rogue for example imagine being able to attack with your dagger use its weapon Mastery of Nick for a second attack but then being able to hide as a bonus action push can be found on weapons like great Club but also on Long reaching weapons like a pike but it can also be found on the the heavy crossbow without even going into its description imagine being hit with any of those weapons uh the Great Club is massive it's it's going to knock your socks off the The Pike when it hits can can push you to the ground and the bolt from a heavy crossbow is going to hit with such an impact that that you're likely going to get staggered back a weapon with the Mastery of push has the ability to push a creature up to 10 ft straight away from you without uh them getting a save imagine pushing someone off a cliff and they have no way of make a save or or maybe even into lava and again they can't make a save we're told that there are limitations for example you you wouldn't be able to push an adult red dragon off a [Music] cliff sap can be found on weapons like the mace and even long swords sap lets you hit an enemy and in turn it causes that creature to have disadvantage on its next attack role consider it like this you've just knocked the out of your enemy and they are now standing there head spinning they can still attack they just see two of you so they aren't really sure which one they should attack doesn't Daz them or cause them to be otherwise incapacitated uh they just have a disadvantage I rather like the visual though of the enemy having been hit so hard that they see double you know and that that almost needs to be a condition can we add that to our Homebrew list I mean call it seeing double they they get hit so hard that they see double and have disadvantage what if the creature has the Seeing Double condition and and then is hit with sap would they then get to roll three Dice and take the lowest like super disadvantage I don't know haven't gotten that far into my thought process yet slow can be found on weapons like long bows whips and slings imagine that a big bat is coming towards you at full speed of 30 and that's pretty quick Pace but with slow you can whip your whip or shoot your Longbow and it will reduce the creature speed by 10 ft until the start of your next turn while this doesn't stack uh you you can't just hit the enemy and and slow it by 10 feet then do it again slowing it by an additional 10 feet and I'm already considering home brewing it to allow for that I I realize that slow wears off at the start of your next turn but if if if I've just been shot in the foot or leg and my speed has been reduced by 10 ft unless someone has healed me that that Arrow or Rock from your sling is still in there and I don't see my speed just miraculously increasing further what happens if I'm shot in my other [Music] foot topple can be found on weapons such as a trident or Maul or Quarter Staff when using the weapon Mastery topple and you hit a creature that creature must make a constitution saving throw otherwise they take on the prone condition the example we were provided with explains that a level five fighter can use a mul's topple weapon Mastery to knock an opponent prone then they can use their second attack to action surge to make multiple attacks with Advantage combine that with party members that are also in range suddenly combat and dungeons of dragons has become a lot more [Music] brutal Vex can be found on weapons like blow guns swords even hand crossbows if you had a creature with a weapon that has the Mastery of Vex then your next attack on that creature is done with Advantage imagine being a rogue with a dagger that has a weapon Mastery of Nick and a short sword with a weapon Mastery of Vex and this is almost always going to ensure that you'll be able to sneak attack also these weapon Mastery properties can be used every time you swing the weapon initially I was not a fan of this mechanic I I felt that it was adding something else to slow down combat but a me a member in my Discord pointed out that DND is trying to make Marshall weapons more involved that casters have such a versatility with their spells descriptions that as I mentioned at the top of the video that weapon wielders usually uh end up with the mentality of I I swing my sword weapon Mastery gives Marshall weapons a touch of flare and the ability to embellish descriptions but at the same time the ability to perform something physically additional other than simply swinging or shooting their weapon so in that view weapon Mastery is growing on me the the more I think about it not to mention that combining the different masteries and weapon attacks can really turn combat into a party-wide strategy you know communication will be key but the combinations that players will be able to pull off are going to be pretty spectacular one thing's for sure it's going to make creating combat scenarios a touch more difficult for me as a dungeon master mainly because I'm going to have to keep all of these Maneuvers in mind when I decide to throw a band of of big bad guys at the party I want to thank everyone for joining the video today my name is Brian and I've been playing and running role playing games since the 1980s I also want to thank all of my channel supporters as their contributions have made it so that I didn't need to take on a sponsored ad for this video if you'd like to join as a supporter either here or on YouTube or over on patreon I'll leave a link down in the description patreon members get access to all kinds of fun extras such as uh handcrafted adventures and of course a special section in the game Masters Discord and do be sure to check out our rocken Discord we get up some Lively chat hats in there again the link to that is down below in the description what are some fun Wicked combinations you can come up with right off the top of my head I can see a cleric swinging a mace with a weapon Mastery of sap giving that enemy disadvantage then having the fighter swing down with toppel while the r Rogue steps in to to uh hit with their dagger with Nick I mean combat is going to get nasty but let me know what kind of combos you can come up with down in the comments and until next our path Cross May you not find yourself knocked off a cliff or into a pit of lava because the enemy could potentially have weapon Mastery on their own weapons too couldn't they

Channel: GameMasters

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Id: z1W7G1MMPBI

Length: 9min 47sec (587 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 24 2024