Martial Adept 5e

Published on August 21, 2023

Sharpen your blade and focus your mind; it’s time to master the martial techniques with the Martial Adept feat!

A martial adept training to improve their sword skills

Scott Murphy - Wizards of the Coast - Setessan Training

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What Is Martial Adept 5e?

For those who wish to dabble in the art of combat maneuvers without fully committing to the Battle Master archetype, the Martial Adept feat is your ticket. This feat grants you access to two maneuvers of your choice from the Battle Master’s list, enhancing your combat versatility. Additionally, you gain a superiority die, which fuels these maneuvers. Ready your sword, for it is your pen and the battlefield is your canvas!

How Does Martial Adept Work?

This feat provides you with a taste of the Battle Master’s prowess:

You learn two maneuvers of your choice from the Battle Master archetype.
You gain one superiority die, which is a d6. This die is used to fuel your maneuvers.
If you already have superiority dice, you gain one more; however, it remains a d6.

Let’s delve deeper:

The maneuvers offer a range of tactical options, from tripping opponents to parrying incoming attacks. The manuevers available to the Battle Master look great on just about any other martial build, unfortunately, only getting one superiority dice is a major downside that limits this feats effectiveness.

Even though you gain the dice back on a short or long rest, committing an entire ASI/feat to have such a small impact simply isn’t the correct choice for most builds.

Is Martial Adept Good?

We gave Martial Adept a C Tier rating In our 5e Feats Tier List, making it a below-average feat in D&D 5e.

This is a good feat because Battle Master maneuvers can be quite strong, but it is limited by the superiority dice. You only get one die and it doesn’t scale with your level.

This feat is usually most effective for the Battle Master subclass from which it came. This is because you get two new maneuvers and an extra superiority dice, which is a reasonable increase in place of an ASI.

Which 5e Classes Make the Most of Martial Adept?

The color code below has been implemented to help you identify, at a glance, how good the Martial Adept 5e feat is for a specific class/subclass.

Red isn’t going to contribute to the effectiveness of your character build at all
Orange Situationally good, but a below-average option otherwise
Green is a good option
Blue is a great option, you should strongly consider this option for your character
Sky Blue is an amazing option. If you do not take this option your character would not be optimized

Artificer: This doesn't provide much value to most artificers. Even martial artificer subclasses won't benefit much from gaining a couple maneuvers plus one superiority dice per short/long rest.

Barbarian: Some of the Battle Master maneuvers would be great for a barbarian, but only getting one superiority dice per short/long rest drastically limits the effectiveness of this feat.

Bard: This feat is not for spellcasting bards, but Valor and Swords bards wouldn't mind getting some of the Battle Master's maneuvers. Unfortunately, only getting one superiority dice per short/long rest, which drastically limits the effectiveness of this feat.

Cleric: Nothing here for a cleric. Even martial clerics usually don't make enough weapon attacks for this to be worth it.

Druid: Nothing here for a druid. Even shillelagh or Wild Shape druids won't benefit much because they only get one extra superiority dice.

Fighter: This is a fairly good option for Battle Masters that want more dice/maneuvers and for Champions that want to trip a foe and use the advantage to aim for critical hits. It is, however, a bit more clunky than taking something like Lucky.

Monk: While monks would love having access to the Battle Master's maneuvers, only getting one dice and it being a d6 drastically limits the effectiveness of this feat.

Paladin: While paladins would love having access to the Battle Master's maneuvers, only getting one dice and it being a d6 drastically limits the effectiveness of this feat.

Ranger: Ranged rangers can make amazing use of the Battle Master's maneuvers, such as using Trip Attack to knock flying creatures prone. While you still only get one dice, this can be a decent boost to your ranger's kit.

Rogue: Rogues would love to be able to constantly use Trip Attack to knock their enemies prone, but this won't be particularly effective unless you're planning for a Two-Weapon Fighting build who can use Trip Attack on the first strike, then attack with advantage on the second. Plus, you only get one superiority dice per short/long rest, so this is probably not worth it overall.

Sorcerer: Nothing here for a sorcerer.

Warlock: Nothing here for a warlock.

Wizard: Nothing here for a wizard.

Mike Bernier

Mike Bernier is the lead content writer and founder of Arcane Eye. He is a Adamantine best-selling author of Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery on DMs Guild and is a contributing author at D&D Beyond. Follow Mike on Twitter.