If you caught our last Gamers Grove blog post about the refreshed Player’s Handbook from D&D 2024, then you may be curious about the changes to martial classes that were mentioned in it. In this post we’ll dig into this update to figure out how we’ll be dueling, smashing, and sword-and-boarding in 5e moving forward.
Bonus Action Health Potions
If you’ve played Baldur’s Gate 3 then you’ve already experienced the great equalizer that is bonus action potions. With this simple change, melee classes suddenly have much more staying power in combat. You’ll be able to have a full round of normal speed attacks and get some quick healing in so you can stay on your feet longer.
This is a welcome change as martial classes often find themselves as damage tanks or semi-tough protectors of the squishy backline wizards and rangers. They just take more damage than their unarmored companions and not attacking so you can drink a potion just so you can live to not attack so you can drink another potion was…. not great. Now, you get the best of both worlds.
Weapon Mastery
As your Fighter, Rogue, Paladin, or other melee character progresses through the game you can now accrue what is known as Weapon Mastery. This system rewards players for sticking with a weapon type by unlocking strong bonus effects for your weapon of choice!
For example, if you gain Weapon Mastery with a Dagger then you can gain the Nick trait that allows you to make your two light weapon attacks as one Action. Usually, this would require an Action and a Bonus Action but your proficiency with your weapons has granted you greater speed.
Or maybe you become a master of a Greataxe and your hulking blows now cut swathes through enemies! Cleave allows you to make an extra attack for free against an enemy within 5 ft. of another enemy you’ve hit. Your character has learned to wield their great weapon with such prowess that you crush multiple enemies at once!
There are currently 8 Weapon Masteries to unlock in the new Player’s Handbook which you can check out over here.
Origin Feats
Whenever you start a new character in D&D 5E, you must choose a background. Formerly this gave you a few proficiencies but nothing crazy. Now, they come with Origin Feats which can be extremely useful for melee players. For example, you can now start the game with Tough for extra HP, Savage Attacker for more consistent damage output, Tavern Brawler if you’re looking to throw fists, or Lucky to be a little more agile in combat. In total there are 10 Origin Feats to choose from.
Casting classes also get access to Origin Feats — which we’ll be going over next week — but the ability to start the game with one of the above feats that nearly every melee character finds themselves taking is extremely nice. It always felt bad spending your first feat of the game on something as rudimentary as Tough but… it was also necessary for some builds. Now you just get to start with it!
Wrapping Up
D&D 2024 is giving 5th Edition a second wind, refreshing it for the modern D&D landscape with updated rules and rebalanced classes. For martial classes, things have never looked better! Join us next week when we dig into the changes coming for casting classes. Thanks for reading and, as always, we’ll see you at the Grove.
