Hello adventurers of all shapes and sizes! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the 41st episode of our feat series. Today we’re going to be taking a look at one of the most interesting defeats. It’s interesting because it makes a really cool build and we’ll get into that a little bit later. Today we’re gonna be taking a look at Polearm Master 5e feat. For those characters out there who just like having a weapon with some heft and reach to it.
This feat is found in the players handbook so we should all have access to it. That being said, let’s take a look in the description so we know what we are talking about.
Table of Contents
Description
First and foremost there is no prerequisite for this meaning anyone of any class, race or skillset can use it with no problem and the description reads as followed.
You can keep your enemies at bay with reach weapons. You gain the following benefits: When you take the Attack action and attack with only a glaive, halberd, quarterstaff, or spear, you can use a bonus action to make a melee attack with the opposite end of the weapon.
This attack uses the same ability modifier as the primary attack. The weapon’s damage die for this attack is a d4, and it deals bludgeoning damage. While you are wielding a glaive, halberd, pike, quarterstaff, or spear, other creatures provoke an opportunity attack from you when they enter your reach.
Wow a lot to read they’re also a decent amount to unpack. So let’s go through the walkthrough section here and kind of break this down just a little bit more here.
Walkthrough
So the beginning part kind of sort of self-explanatory, so how it works is you do a normal attack and you can follow it up as a bonus action. With essentially hitting them with the stick part of whatever it is using. So the shaft i guess is will you whak them with and it deals a d4 plus whatever your weapon modifier is.
So that’s pretty good, i really like this one as well because it scales with your level in some form at least. Which i really really do like. And then the second part there which is honestly probably be the best well i mean i guess they’re both really good in combination with one another but i like this one quite a bit.
You could perform a tax of opportunity wheh they enter your range. So what that kind of means so in case you’re not familiar already a tax of opportunity are usually taken when someone leaves your space without taking with this engage action.
What makes this particularly cool, is that you can essentially attack a person for just walking past you. Needless to say in terms of combat where people are running around all over the place, that could be incredibly useful. Reason being is you can essentially attack three times within your turn.
So do a normal attack right! you hit them with the shaft is a bonus action and then whack another person for just walking within that five foot range you since all of your weapons have the reach ability or reach attribute i guess i should correct myself on that. So i think its really really great.
Thoughts
In terms of who benefits the most from this, i wanna say hex blade warlock more than likely. Reason being they’re kind of one of the only melee characters who doesn’t get multiple attacks or not really i mean i guess you can kind of cheese it a little bit but no they don’t really so this is a great way for them to still get at least comparable action economy compared to what a few or the other more melee classes get.
So i think that’s a good one for it. That being said, i don’t if they synergize super well with reach weapon. If you can let me know down in the comments below actually that’d be great. I would homebrew it so they could for sure just for this feat in particular let me naturally a player would have to run a pass me in advance but i don’t see why turn it down.
Overview
Battle is the chaotic. Just because of the combat at the table unfolds in least speed, with the co-players deliberating over their choices, what kind of spells to be used, which enemies to be attacked, i hope the people intend to be under-appreciate just how a chaotic combat is.
Each of their round shall last for about ten seconds, and on an average the combat rarely last more than four rounds. What does it mean is, that most fights – which includes the wizards hurling spells, rogues are striking from the shadows, monks that are climbing up walls to execute a spinning roundhouse kick like they pick a passing arrow with their bare hands – take place in well within a minute.
However if the combat is going to be take few minutes lesser than it takes to toast a pop Tart, of course you’d better to figure out how to dish out the most carnage in as few rounds as it possible. You can embrace the chaos. It becomes the whirlwind of death. Suppose, if it is your ultimate goal, then there’d be nothing better than to grab a long-handled weapon and choose the Polearm Master Feat.
In any case whether you would like to play the defensive bulwark who could stop the charging enemy within their tracks or else a whirling dervish of pain those who’d bring the fight to their foes, the Polearm Master Feat is, well…Crazy good.
What Does this Feat Do?
In dnd 5e the polearm master feat would be striking a better balance in between the defence, control, and damage, allows you to capitalize on the size and even reach of long weapons, also glaives, halberds, quarterstaffs, and spears. But whenever you take the Polearm Master Feat, you gain the following benefits…
- You are capable to keep your enemies at bay with reach weapons.
- However when you take an attack action and also attack with only a glaive, halberd, quarterstaff, or spear, you can utilise a bonus action in order to make the melee attack with an opposite end of the weapon.
- Mainly this basic attack uses the similar ability modifier like the primary attack. The weapon’s damage would be die for this attack is a d4, and it shall be dealing bludgeoning damage too.
- However while you are actually wielding a glaive, halberd, pike, quarterstaff, or spear, the other creatures would provoke a choice attack from you when they enter your reach.
First and foremost the ability to use your bonus action for making an off-hand attack that would apply your ability modifier to the attack roll and even damage is bigger. It is effectively give you two-weapon fighting style without even using to pick the fighting style – but of course allowing you to pick something else, such as Defense or Great Weapon Fighting – a style which allows you to reroll 1’s and 2s on damage rolls with the help of two-handed weapons, meaning that your 1d4 damage off-hand attack is guaranteed to inflict 3-4 bludgeoning damage + your ability modifier too.
Now let’s talk about the defense and control. Although the Polearm Master Feat lets you use your opportunity attack for being strike any kind of enemy that comes within reach of your weapon. Of course it is just because you’re using the weapon as a Halberd or Spear with the Reach property, you are being capable to use your reaction to hit any foe 10ft away, likely before they can get into range to hit you.
At the face value, this is a biggest way to utilise your reaction to be enhancing your damage output per round. Whenever you start to see at how this feature synergizes with your other Feats and abilities, however, that’s when the Polearm Master Feat goes from good to DM’s-lovingly-planned-encounter-ruining-ly great.
What Are The Best Builds for the Polearm Master Feat?
Because of this polearm master feat is all about the characters that are improving their abilities in the melee combat, builds which are focus on their spellcasting (yes of course, the wizard with a quarterstaff could be benefited from this Feat, but there are other things you’re going to want to prioritize like a caster) are not going to be great candidates for Polearm Master.
However it is the martial classes that are looking to wade into the melee, or else plant themselves in between the biggest enemies and also their party’s squishy back line, that are going to be able to capitalize most effectively.
Feat Synergies: Sentinel, Great Weapon Master, Maneuvers
Meanwhile the polearm master feat is being perfectly the best one by itself, but of course whenever you would like to combine it with one or two other Feats or the abilities, the results are staggeringly good.
Sentinel
Mainly this is the quintessential (and, I might argue, essential) connecting for the polearm master feat. Here the sentinel means any creature that you’d hit with an advantage attack has its speed declined to 0 for the remainder of its turn.
Combining of this with the 10-feet reach of a polearm and of course you could be hitting a creature with some of the opportunity attack as it tries to come close with you, stopping it dead in its tracks before it can get into melee range. In that scenario you might move 5 feet back of them, by forcing it to be proc an effect once more time on its next turn. This combo makes you into a near god-tier controller, capable of kiting a single enemy around the battlefield indefinitely.
Lucky
I would say many more but there is literally none of the builds which could not be benefited from the three rerolls per each day that are granted by the lucky feat. You can either give yourself a benefit on an attack, the skill check, or the saving throw or else impose disadvantage on an enemy by making an attack against to you. If you would like to make doubly sure your enemies can’t get within range to hit you, this is another great Feat in my opinion.
Great Weapon Master
There is simple overlap between the Great Weapon Master Feat and this Polearm Master feat, being both of them are use up your Bonus Action. In any case here are one of the “drawbacks” off-hand bonus attack that you can do with your Polearm Master Feat is that it only does 1d4 of damage.
It is being capable of gamble a less likely to be hit in an exchange for a whopping 10 points of an extra damage that is a great way to increase your damage output without keeping the success of your main weapon attack on the line.
Superior Technique/Battlemaster Maneuvers
The Battlemaster Fighter is the guarnateed fantastic build to twin with Polearm Master. For an instance if you’re not playing your Battlemaster and have access to a Fighting Style, at that time you can pick up superior technique for a few superiority dice and a couple of maneuvers in any case.
The maneuvers could do everything from give allies an extra attack to disarm your opponents/enemies – a specifically good shout if you would like to really take being a battlefield controller to an extreme.
Conclusion
That being said, if you have any ideas any crazy ways of using it or any cool stories about polearm master i’d really like hear them down in the comments beneath. Also now that i am thinking about it and please weigh in one this, this is a question for you more experienced players out there.
Could you stack the bugbears long reach with the reach of the polearm and would this feat still be applicable because if so that’s probably hands-down the best race to pick for this feat. In any case please let me know i really appreciate it have a great day everyone and as always happy adventuring.