D&D (2024) Beast Master attack sacrificed for beast attack and Dual Wielder

[Willie the Duck]

I think I know the answer, but wondering what others think.

Beast Master states: "In Combat, the beast acts during your turn. It can move and use its Reaction on its own, but the only action it takes is the Dodge action unless you take a Bonus Action to command it to take an action in its stat block or some other action. You can also sacrifice one of your attacks when you take the Attack action to command the beast to take the Beast's Strike action."

Dual Wielder states: "When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a weapon that has the Light property, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn with a different weapon"

So sacrificing your offhand attack means that the when-clause of dual wielder is not met, and thus you do not get the extra attack with your primary hand, right? I was thinking I could sacrifice the off-hand attack (meaning I didn't need to take the 2wf fighting style and could use my +1 shortsword for all my attacks), but I think it doesn't work. Thus I may as well save myself a feat and use the bonus action to directly command the beast. Do I have this right?

Thanks in advance.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think I know the answer, but wondering what others think.

Beast Master states: "In Combat, the beast acts during your turn. It can move and use its Reaction on its own, but the only action it takes is the Dodge action unless you take a Bonus Action to command it to take an action in its stat block or some other action. You can also sacrifice one of your attacks when you take the Attack action to command the beast to take the Beast's Strike action."

Dual Wielder states: "When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a weapon that has the Light property, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn with a different weapon"

So sacrificing your offhand attack means that the when-clause of dual wielder is not met, and thus you do not get the extra attack with your primary hand, right? I was thinking I could sacrifice the off-hand attack (meaning I didn't need to take the 2wf fighting style and could use my +1 shortsword for all my attacks), but I think it doesn't work. Thus I may as well save myself a feat and use the bonus action to directly command the beast. Do I have this right?

Thanks in advance.

Yes to your question!

Makes no sense otherwise. A (nick) dagger in the off hand should not allow you to bypass the bonus action requirement.

 

[abirdcall]

I don't think the feat does what you think it does. It just lets you use a non-light weapon.

You will want a scimitar for Nick so you can attack with the short sword without a bonus action.

 

[mellored]

I think I know the answer, but wondering what others think.

Beast Master states: "In Combat, the beast acts during your turn. It can move and use its Reaction on its own, but the only action it takes is the Dodge action unless you take a Bonus Action to command it to take an action in its stat block or some other action. You can also sacrifice one of your attacks when you take the Attack action to command the beast to take the Beast's Strike action."

Dual Wielder states: "When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a weapon that has the Light property, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn with a different weapon"

So sacrificing your offhand attack means that the when-clause of dual wielder is not met, and thus you do not get the extra attack with your primary hand, right? I was thinking I could sacrifice the off-hand attack (meaning I didn't need to take the 2wf fighting style and could use my +1 shortsword for all my attacks), but I think it doesn't work. Thus I may as well save myself a feat and use the bonus action to directly command the beast. Do I have this right?

Thanks in advance.

You want to look at Nick property.

When you make the extra attack of the Light property, you can make it as part of the Attack action instead of as a Bonus Action. You can make this extra attack only once per turn.



So as your Attack action (
attack with a Light weapon in your main hand.
Trade your Nick attack for the beast attack
)

Now since you attacked with a Light weapon, you can use your Bonus action
(Make an off-hand attack with the Dual Wielder feat)
Note that the dual wielder feat doesn't add your ability score to damage unless you took two weapon fighting. And can't be traded for the beast attack either way as it is not an "attack action".


Or you can skip the feat, attack, nick, and use the bonus action to command, and end up in the same place.



Also, am I missing something or can you make the beast attack twice? Once with your action, and attack again as your bonus action?

 

[Stormonu]

I'm assuming since everyone only gets one Action, you can't make the beast attack twice as it would be taking "two actions" - not Attacks, but you're using your attack to let the beast do an Attack action.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I don't think the feat does what you think it does. It just lets you use a non-light weapon.

You will want a scimitar for Nick so you can attack with the short sword without a bonus action.

I quoted the relevant part of the feat in my post. I omitted that this attack is on top of the one made using nick. I think you might be thinking of the 2014 feat.

You want to look at Nick property.

Spoiler: spoilered for size

When you make the extra attack of the Light property, you can make it as part of the Attack action instead of as a Bonus Action. You can make this extra attack only once per turn.



So as your Attack action (
attack with a Light weapon in your main hand.
Trade your Nick attack for the beast attack
)

Now since you attacked with a Light weapon, you can use your Bonus action
(Make an off-hand attack with the Dual Wielder feat)
Note that the dual wielder feat doesn't add your ability score to damage unless you took two weapon fighting. And can't be traded for the beast attack either way as it is not an "attack action".


Or you can skip the feat, attack, nick, and use the bonus action to command, and end up in the same place.

Right, so you can attack with your main hand, trade your nick attack for the beast attack, and get a bonus attack via Dual Wielder with your off hand (which will not give ability score damage, and in my scenario would not be the +1 short sword).
What I'd been hoping would work would be to attack with main hand, attack with off-hand with nick -- but not really, instead sacrificing if for the beast attack, but still triggering Dual Wielder (giving me an extra attack with my main hand, which has the +1 weapon and dex Mod-to-damage).

Also, am I missing something or can you make the beast attack twice? Once with your action, and attack again as your bonus action?

Based on the text block for the Beast Master, it would seem the answer is yes. Based on the beast itself not getting two actions, it would seem no. They really should have an 'Alternatively,' or 'Additionally (and in this case the beast gets to act twice)' in the text block to make it clear.

 

[abirdcall]

I quoted the relevant part of the feat in my post. I omitted that this attack is on top of the one made using nick. I think you might be thinking of the 2014 feat.

Right, so you can attack with your main hand, trade your nick attack for the beast attack, and get a bonus attack via Dual Wielder with your off hand (which will not give ability score damage, and in my scenario would not be the +1 short sword).
What I'd been hoping would work would be to attack with main hand, attack with off-hand with nick -- but not really, instead sacrificing if for the beast attack, but still triggering Dual Wielder (giving me an extra attack with my main hand, which has the +1 weapon and dex Mod-to-damage).

Based on the text block for the Beast Master, it would seem the answer is yes. Based on the beast itself not getting two actions, it would seem no. They really should have an 'Alternatively,' or 'Additionally (and in this case the beast gets to act twice)' in the text block to make it clear.

You can do that without the feat. Look at the light weapon property.

The only difference is that 1 weapon doesn't need to be light.

It is not a good feat.

 

[Willie the Duck]

You can do that without the feat. Look at the light weapon property.

The only difference is that 1 weapon doesn't need to be light.

It is not a good feat.

I'm not sure if we are looking at the same feat.
For a non-Beastmaster Ranger, it looks like a very good feat. If both of your weapons are light, and one of them has the nick property, it looks to me like you can add two attacks to your standard allotment.

Ex. level 4 (to keep multi-attack out of it) -- you have one attack with your primary hand. You make an additional attack with your off hand, that (due to nick) is part of your attack action and not a bonus action. You have now made an attack with two light weapons as a part of the attack action. You may now invoke the feat and make one (further) extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn with a weapon that is different from either of the two weapons you have already used (and each is different from the other). It's not clear to me how that wouldn't work, but if you can explain it, I am certainly not an expert.

 

[Charlaquin]

You can do that without the feat. Look at the light weapon property.

The only difference is that 1 weapon doesn't need to be light.

It is not a good feat.

The dual wielder feat in 2024 is a bit different than the one in 2014. It says:

When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a weapon that has the Light property, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn with a different weapon, which must be a Melee weapon that lacks the Two-Handed property. You don't add your ability modifier to the extra attack's damage unless that modifier is negative.

This extra attack with the bonus action is a completely separate bonus action attack from the one you make with the Light property. You can, therefore, use it in conjunction with the Nick property to make a total of 3 attacks (or 4 if you have the Extra Attack feature): one with a Light weapon, using your action to take the Attack action, one with a different Light weapon as part of that same action using the Nick property, and one with a melee weapon using your bonus action with the Dual Wielder feat. This is a bit odd, but Jeremy Crawford did, apparently, confirm at Gen Con that this interaction was intended.

 

[abirdcall]

The dual wielder feat in 2024 is a bit different than the one in 2014. It says:

When you take the Attack action on your turn and attack with a weapon that has the Light property, you can make one extra attack as a Bonus Action later on the same turn with a different weapon, which must be a Melee weapon that lacks the Two-Handed property. You don't add your ability modifier to the extra attack's damage unless that modifier is negative.

This extra attack with the bonus action is a completely separate bonus action attack from the one you make with the Light property. You can, therefore, use it in conjunction with the Nick property to make a total of 3 attacks (or 4 if you have the Extra Attack feature): one with a Light weapon, using your action to take the Attack action, one with a different Light weapon as part of that same action using the Nick property, and one with a melee weapon using your bonus action with the Dual Wielder feat. This is a bit odd, but Jeremy Crawford did, apparently, confirm at Gen Con that this interaction was intended.

Fair enough but then they both need to be light weapons to be using Nick. A feat for a bonus action 1d6 attack is quite poor (need the fighting style too). Most characters will already have something better and if not, other feats provide something better.

In the case of this question I don't think there is any difference. 1 attack is being replaced by the beast master either way.

Dual Wielder is not the worst feat in the book but it's not good.