Polearm Master: Bonus Attack

Polearm Master: Bonus Attack is a passive feature granted by the Polearm Master feat. It grants the ability to make an additional weaker attack with a  Bonus Action after making a melee attack with a polearm.

Description

When attacking with a  Glaive,  Halberd,  Pike,^{[See: Bugs]}  Quarterstaff, or  Spear, you can use a  Bonus Action to attack with the butt of your weapon.

This attack does

1d4 (1~4) + Strength or Dexterity modifier ⁠Bludgeoning

Properties

Details

 Recharge: Per turn

Technical details

UID

PolearmMaster_BonusAttack

Property flags: OncePerTurn

Stats functor context: OnAttack

Grants:

•  Polearm Clout

How to learn

Granted by the feats: Polearm Master

Notes

• The damage modifier of this attack uses Strength or Dexterity, whichever is higher, even if the weapon does not have the finesse property, or Charisma in the case of  Pact of the Blade/ Bind Hexed Weapon. It does not change to spellcasting modifier in the case of  Shillelagh.
• Whether an attack triggers  Polearm Clout is subject to the following conditions:
  • It only triggers once per turn. Therefore, a  Thief who gains Extra Attack through multiclassing cannot twice benefit from Polearm Master: Bonus Attack, even though they have two bonus actions. This behaviour is different from that of  Martial Arts: Bonus Unarmed Strike, which can be used twice (e.g., by attacking with an action, making a bonus action attack, then making the attack granted by Extra Attack, then making a second bonus action attack.)
  • It only triggers if the target is in turn-based mode. As such, it will not trigger on the opening attack that would initialize combat.
  • It only triggers upon a melee weapon attack. Throw attacks made with polearms do not trigger Polearm Clout.
• This passive is not listed on character sheets.

Bugs

• The description omits that Polearm Mastery works with Pikes too. Polearm Master is coded to work with any weapon that is tagged as a SPEAR or STAVE (quarterstaffs), and weapons with Extra Reach (Glaives, Halberds and Pikes)