A Whole New World of Hurt
No longer are we limited to the trap of the highest number wins; new mastery properties give your weapons all kinds of ways to bonk, bang, and bamboozle your enemies in style. While Weapon Mastery is class-gated, not weapon-innate, meaning only fighters, barbarians, paladins, rangers, and rogues have it baked in, The Weapon Master feat gets you one mastery property (instead of two) plus a point in Strength or Dexterity, so you don’t have to feel left out of the bonk party.
Two Weapons, One Choice
Each eligible character picks two weapon types at character creation and can swap both on a long rest, keeping fighters from hot swapping from their Big Bag of Weapons. It also, for the first time in 5e, gives a non-spellcasting player a real decision at character creation beyond “what deals the most damage.” Do you want a melee weapon with control properties and a ranged backup? A setup weapon and a closer? This is the kind of choice that used to be locked behind magic items, but now it starts at level 1.
The Eight Properties
Cleave and Graze are the ones that’ll disappoint you if you came for versatility. Cleave lets a hit spread to an adjacent enemy without the ability modifier bonus, similar to Light but across two targets. Graze deals your ability modifier in damage on a miss. Both are heavy, two-handed weapons only. Consistent, but not interesting. More damage doesn’t close the gap between a fighter and a full spellcaster at level 10.
Nick is where it starts to get good. Light weapons normally use your bonus action for the second attack. Nick folds that into the Attack action, freeing your bonus action for something else. For a Rogue, that’s suddenly a real opening: Steady Aim for advantage, a second attack already handled, sneak attack on deck.
Push, Sap, Slow, and Topple are the ones worth building around. Push shoves a hit creature 10 feet straight back. No opportunity attack triggers because forced movement isn’t voluntary movement, so this is clean battlefield control at range if you’re running a heavy crossbow. Sap slaps disadvantage on the creature’s next attack roll, including spell attack rolls, with no size restriction and no saving throw. Slow knocks 10 feet off movement until your next turn and doesn’t stack, which is the right ruling to keep a party of archers from turning every encounter into an absolute crawl.
Topple is the standout. A hit creature makes a Constitution saving throw against DC 8 plus your attack ability modifier plus your proficiency bonus. Fail, and they’re prone: disadvantage on attack rolls, and every melee attacker within 5 feet gets advantage in return. The DC at mid levels is sitting around 15 to 16, which is enough to make even decent Constitution saves nervous. There’s no size cap, which means a halfling with a quarterstaff can put a Tarrasque on the floor given a lucky roll. Better: if the Tarrasque has legendary resistance, burning one on a Topple check still costs them a resource. Spending your Fighter’s attack action to eat legendary resistances is not nothing.
For a deeper ruling on how these properties interact with multi-attack and bonus action sequencing, the edge cases are worth reviewing before your next session.
Vex closes the list: hit a creature and deal damage, and your next attack roll against that same creature has advantage. It doesn’t transfer to allies, and the advantage is mandatory, not optional. That second part matters, because if you Vex on your main action and then have a bonus action attack queued up, you’re burning the advantage on the smaller hit. Better to bonus action first, then use your main action to Vex into your next turn’s big swing. Rapiers and short swords have Vex, which makes it native to Rogues who already want consistent sneak attack triggers. Pair Vex with sneak attack conditions and the engine runs itself.
Now go forth and build the Banana Peel Party the world needs.