Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Good day fellows players.Today I'm here asking your advice and clarification upon a disagreement that has emerged recently among the members of my group, regarding:
1) Extra attack at level 5
2) Nick Property of scimitar
3) The existence of primary hand weapon and secondary weapon
4) How the attacks are counted related to the action economy
For point 1-2: my ranger has taken a Scimitar and want to use the NICK property to use a shortsword with light and finesse and the relative mastery. Now a side argues that at level 5 the extra attack DO NOT applies to the shortsword even if the NICK property transfers the attack from the BONUS ACTION to ACTION, thus resulting in : 1 attack with MAIN HAND WEAPON - 1 extra attack with MAIN HAND WEAPON - 1 attack from NICK with the SECONDARY hand weapon. Meanwhile the other faction insists in that the level 5 extra attack must apply to the the shortsword due to the fact that NICK transferred the shortsword attack from the BA to the ACTION which is affected by the EXTRA ATTACK, in the end the result should be 4 total attacks with Scimitar and Shortsword. Another disagreement branching from these are the WEAPON MASTERIES activation, when and extra attack lands(Or bonus attacks ones) does the masteries activates each time? For example the PUSH mastery, how does it applies on multiple attacks?
Direct consequence of this debate sparked point 3-4: A side argues that the distinction between a declared PRIMARY HAND and SECONDARY weapon does not exists and a player can interchange those weapon choices on the fly, while others says that a player must have a declared a MAIN HAND weapon for abilities and other purposes ( such as the versatile weapons). Also this ignited another debate on how ATTACK actions counted on the ACTION economy, such as "what's even counted as an action when we attack? A Bonus Action attack with light weapons counts as such?"
Bonus question: the rangers wants to understand if and how hunter's mark extra damage roll is applied for each one of the extra attacks, plus the attacks from NICK property. And if on every subsequent attack on a damaged creature they can apply the Colossus Slayer property.
As their DM I could not provide convincing argument for my views on the subjects, I hope that I can have your opinions on these problems.
Thank you.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: The Extra Attack feature can be used once per Attack Action. The attack made as part of the Light Property isn't a separate Attack Action, Nick Property or not.
As for your other question, there is no concept of main hand weapon and secondary/off-hand weapon. It doesn't matter in which hand your weapon is located, the "main" one is the one with which you choose to make your attacks as part of the Attack Action.
The damage of Hunter's Mark applies to all attacks. Colossus Slayer can apply to any of these attacks, but only once per turn.
Extra Attack says "When you take the Attack Action, you can make one additional attack" not "whenever you make an attack as part of the Attack action, you can make one extra attack. No matter what you're doing, Extra Attack gives only one attack if you aren't a high-level fighter.
Thanks for your answer, if you could can you expand on this aspect to make it clear which of the two scenarios unfolds?
As for after reading, if I understood correctly:
Action -> Attack Action -> Players choose a weapon to attack with -> That weapon can attack a second time(Extra Attack) if the player wants -> The player can make an attack with the reaming weapon and expend the extra attack if he did not use before.
All this happens within the initial Attack Action which is counted toward the activation of all if any effect, it's not the attack with the weapon itself which is counted as an attack action it's a simple "attack" a consequence of the decision of undertaking the Attack Action.
Did I get it right?
Also do the masteries trigger each time on a weapon attack/hit ?
Yes. And yes.
There is indeed no such thing as a primary and secondary weapon. If you look through the rules, those terms are never mentioned. Characters do not have a main hand or anything like that.
Here's how the whole thing works:
1) When you take the Attack action, you get to make one attack, with any weapon you're wielding. If you have Extra attack, you get to make a second attack, again with any weapon you're wielding.
(As a side note, the rules allow you to either draw or stow a weapon for each attack you make as part of the attack action.)
(As a second side note: the choice of "Attack action" and "attack" as two separate but related rules terms is very confusing. The normal way of things is that you use your action on your turn to take the Attack action, and then make one or more attacks. Many attack-triggered abilities specify that the attack triggering them has to be made as part of the Attack action. Opportunity attacks, Bonus action attacks, and attacks made as part of spells are attacks, but they are not part of the Attack action.)
2) Anyway, when you attack with a weapon with the Light property, this gives you the ability to make a bonus action attack (which is not part of the Attack action) with a different light weapon. Which hand you use does not matter -- by the rules, you could make the attack action, attack with light weapon #1, stow it as part of the attack action, draw a second light weapon with your free object interaction, and make the bonus action attack with that, all using the same hand.
3) If you have the Nick weapon mastery, that bonus action attack of the Light property can instead be made as an additional attack as a part of the Attack action, leaving your bonus action free. However, the Nick property explicitly restricts the Light property's extra attack to being used once per turn, so if you use Nick, you can't also make an additional attack as a bonus action, unless you have some ability other than the Light property that allows it. (We'll get back to that.)
There is a rules ambiguity with Nick -- it doesn't actually say whether the Nick weapon has to be used for (a) the initial attack that enables the Light bonus action attack, (b) the extra attack, or (c) either one. As the DM, you have to rule on this yourself. (My personal preference is (b), but it's in no way official.)
4) If you have the Dual Wielder feat, the bonus action attack it provides can be used if you've used Nick, because it's not the extra attack of the light property.
5) All told, you get a base of three attacks with Light weapons, Nick mastery, and the Dual Wielder feat. You also get however many extra attacks your abilities give you.
6) To answer your side question about weapon mastery activations, it depends on the mastery. Cleave specifies it can only be used once per turn. If they don't specify that, they can be used whenever they apply. However, Slow, Vex, and Sap aren't effective against the same target more than once a turn. (And Prone also often isn't.)
Hunter's mark says:
Each one of their attacks requires an attack roll, so it's eligible for Hunter's Mark. Rangers tend to use light weapons for this reason.
I Blame BG3 for this thing specifically, it has ingrained this view of weapons in me.
Anyway, thank you all for your answers and time taken to explain these concepts they'll sure improve my DM reasoning skills; I'll make sure to show my players this topic and together we'll come to a resolution on our doubts.
Wish you all the best
its not just BG3, most editions of d&D had it even if they called it something else, most other games have it. 5e went a more simplified method which then may confuse people used to how almost every other non narrative game handles things.(i only played one narrative game did not care for it so I can;t speak for them). but Shadowrun, earthdawn, paladium, most editions of d&d, rolemaster, hero games, gurps etc etc most systems use some kind of concept of a main and off hand which then link to a primary/secondary weapon. And i'd also say it is kind of the intuitive answer. as most people are not naturally ambidextrous.
Interesting so it is, or was, a thing in some other system / Edition. Well so I'm not stupid as I think I am.
I've read the linked topic, that's insane at some points. Since my players are new to the game they are starting to grasp the "meta" part of the game a little by little, I foresee some other shenanigans coming to me soon or later.
Thanks for the answer and tips, they'll turn useful in the future of our games.
Note that while a strict RAW reading seems to allow juggling Light weapons in one hand while holding a shield in the other, plenty of DMs will veto that in play because the intent of Light is to be trading out using a shield or two handed weapon for the extra attack.
Because God forbid players think outside the box... Outrageous!
You're joking, right? Martials are insane. That little juggling trick for extra attacks? They get flattened by the insane output of a Great Weapon Master build.
Biggest DPR builds are gishes that only really use spells for damage riders. Meaning they only really need 1 spell: Spirit Shroud or CME (you might as well just get an enspelled weapon and go full martial).
And in 2024, the new DMG introduced an abomination called Vicious Weapon... They existed before, but they were revamped from jokingly weak to jokingly strong.
Nah. It's almost certainly to keep balance among the various styles of weapon fighting. The relatively trivial damage of an extra small attack or two doesn't do anything to keep up with the power of a full caster.
It's not about stopping thinking outside the box. It's about not allowing something that is, frankly, silly, to step on the schtick of other fighting styles. Somebody with Duelist, a one-handed weapon, and a shield lags behind in damage vs the other styles, in exchange for having a better AC. It's about protecting other players fun.
Of course, AFAIK, the whole thing is basically theoretical, and nobody does it in actual play, likely because it's silly, and doesn't fit people's vision of their character. But if somebody wanted to try it in one of my games, I'd step on it. (Though not the mechanically similar throwing weapon build.)
GWM, PAM, and Light are all fairly comparable in damage output. And they only really compete with full casters if you're running long encounter days, because they can do it all day, while casters run out of juice.
But martials are good enough to feel effective, and that's the most important thing.
Everything that comes as a result of thinking outside the box is silly, because everything that is not silly fits in the box.
And let's be honest, even most of the stuff that fits in the box is also silly. D&D is silly, and it always has been. It "doesn't fit people's vision of their character"? You have to be joking... Do you even play this game? Or are you one of these "forever DMs"?
Building a character around a silly build is the easiest thing in the world, and players do it all the time! Anyone can write a 10-page backstory from 200 DPR Reddit build if they give enough of a damn to try.
You think a Human Fighter who juggles weapons is too silly, but a Plasmoid Trickery Cleric of Waukeen named Chubby Toby who sleeps in a golden bucket isn't? Right...
It's not that good of a build, to be honest with you, and the fact that you keep referring to it as a character you made up around it sounds a bit weird, but it does make my point. Wouldn't be difficult to give Rosie a compelling backstory from what you've already written...
Writing characters isn't hard. I've got dozens, I'm sure people who've been playing longer than me have hundreds. You'd "step on it"? You could have at least come up with a more original excuse for your power trips. Unless a player is getting so strong that they overshadow the other players and prevents them from enjoying the game, let players have fun the way they want to. It's just a game.
The silliness, frankly, is that a character can make just as many attacks holding a shield in one hand and drawing and stowing weapons with the other as another character (specialized in fighting with two weapons, not some random build) holding a weapon in each hand. Even more silly is that it is more attacks than that same shield-wielding character can make without drawing and stowing multiple weapons. THAT'S what DMs don't like, and it's what I, personally, find doesn't fit the "fantasy" of a shield-wielding character.
It's just silly.
Do you hold a patent on the fantasy of shield-wielding characters? Because unless you do, it's not your call to make.
I think it's very arrogant to claim ownership over what people can or cannot fantasize about, even within the context of your own games.
I disagree. It's not free, as it takes your free object interaction every single turn, and any other weapon swap you might want to do. You also lose the ability to grapple and perform weapon attacks on the grappled target entirely. And if your target dies before you can finish your sequence, you can end up with the wrong weapon in hand, or even no weapon at all (and screw up an AoO, or even prevent you from using Defensive Duelist's parry). Also, any buffs that require you to keep holding the weapon, like Shillelagh, or the bonus fire damage from Flame Tongue don't work with this build (but do if you're actually dual wielding). It might seem great on the paper, but in practice, juggling weapons like this is full of caveats.
While it can be made with any weapon, Extra Attack gives you one more weapon attack to trigger the extra attack of the Light property made as part of the Attack action with Nick Property. For example at my table you could make the following sequence;
1.Attack with Scimitar［Attack Action］2.Attack with Shortsword［Attack Action］3.Attack with Scimitar［Nick Mastery］
1.Attack with Shortsword［Attack Action］2.Attack with Scimitar［Attack Action］3.Attack with Scimitar［Nick Mastery］
1.Attack with Shortsword［Attack Action］2.Attack with Scimitar［Nick Mastery］3.Attack with Shortsword［Attack Action］
1.Attack with Shortsword［Attack Action］2.Attack with Scimitar［Nick Mastery］3.Attack with Scimitar［Attack Action］
Reading this sparked another question.
Since the Nick property has a "limiter" stating that " You can make this extra attack only once per turn." if the following situation arises:
Scimitar[attack action] -> Light property procs -> Nick procs -> Shortsword attack[attack action due to Nick] -> ????
Now the Shortsword should proc it's properties and mastery too. The property obliviously is Light, the player should be entitled to make an extra attack with a bonus action with a different light weapon, which could be the scimitar. Due to the fact that Nick spared the BA originally allowing to hit with shortsword.
Given this premise, now which of the following outcomes is correct?
1-> Scimitar[bonus action due to light]
2-> No extra attack from light property due to the Nick "limiting" which applies to other light weapon property.
There's only one extra attack of the Light property that can be made, wether as a Bonus Action or as part of the Attack action instead.
Once you've made it in one way or another, you have reached the limit of 1/turn as explain in Your Guide to Weapon Mastery in the 2024 Player's Handbook | Dungeons & Dragons
My point was that none of those caveats matter when comparing number of attacks. The simple truth is that, RAW, a character that has a shield and swaps weapons with the other hand will be able to make more attacks than one that does not swap. THIS is the fantasy I am talking about that doesn't align. The one that says a shield wielding character can make tons of attacks, but only if they spend time stowing and drawing weapons.
No, plenty of "outside the box" ideas are perfectly reasonable when paired with a supporting concept.
You caught me. I've never ever played this game.
But yes, most people have a vision of their character, including how they fight. They build archers, or axe-wielding dwarven barbarians, or the guy in armor, fighting with a sword and shield.
...or the nimble warrior with a weapon in each hand, attacking the enemy from multiple angles. It's an archetype.
But "guy who's got a shield in one hand, and makes lots of attacks by drawing and sheathing multiple weapons" is... not an archetype. It breaks verisimilitude that that would give you more attacks than boring sword-and-shield guy.
It's an artifact of the rules.
And yes, D&D is often silly, especially if you think about it too hard.
But this is the wrong kind of silly. It's not goofy. It's not fine on its face until you think about it too hard. It draws attention to the fact that you're playing a game with arbitrary rules.
It's certainly not "thinking outside the box".
And if you were playing some kind of humorous meta-commentary game that mocks the weirdnesses of the rules, it'd be fine. But that's a very specific type of game.