D&D 5E PHB Feats taken - RESULTS

Thank you to everyone who responded to my earlier thread. There were 27 respondents, one of whom does not use the feats option. With the preface that popularity and power are separate (if related) axes, on with the counting...
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What Price, ASI?
ASIs were taken about 85 times (some uncertainty in responses) and the count of feats taken is 154. That ratio is 36% ASIs / 64% Feats or about 1:2.
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Feats, Not Appearing in this Adventure
This distinguished group were not listed as taken...

Charger, Durable, Grappler, Keen Mind, Lightly Armored, Mage Slayer, Medium Armor Master, Moderately Armored, Mounted Combatant, Skulker.
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Feats, You Betcha, Baby
This loathsome bunch were picked more than other feats... a lot more... I'm looking at you, GWM...

Great Weapon Master (16), Resilient (14), Sharpshooter (10), Lucky (9), War Caster (9), Dual Wielder (8), Pole Arm Master (8)

Percentually, out of all ASIs
Great Weapon Master (7%), Resilient (6%), Sharpshooter (4%), Lucky (4%), War Caster (4%), Dual Wielder (3%) Pole Arm Master (3%)

Percentually, out of only ASIs spent on Feats
Great Weapon Master (10%), Resilient (9%), Sharpshooter (6%), Lucky (6%), War Caster (6%), Dual Wielder (5%) Pole Arm Master (5%)
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Feats, One Honorable and One Not So Honorable Mention
I'd like to highlight these two (ig?)noble standouts...

Dual Wielder (8) - given the parity (or lack thereof) of this feat with +2 Dexterity, I feel it demonstrates that people like to take feats that support their character concept.

Savage Attacker (2) - I honestly assess this as a "trap" feat, and would like to add the narrative here that the two respondents who indicated it had been picked, indicated no other feats.
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Feats, Just Give Me the Fe-acts!
Your wish is my command...

16 Great Weapon Master
14 Resilient
10 Sharpshooter
9 Lucky
9 War Caster
8 Dual Wielder
8 Pole Arm Master
7 Alert
7 Shield Master
7 Tough
6 Heavy Armor Master
6 Sentinel
6 Magic Initiate
5 Mobile
4 Crossbow Expert
4 Elemental Adept
4 Inspiring Leader
3 Healer
3 Observant
3 Spell Sniper
2 Actor
2 Defensive Duelist
2 Savage Attacker
1 Athlete
1 Dungeon Delver
1 Heavily Armored
1 Linguist
1 Martial Adept
1 Ritual Caster
1 Sklled
1 Tavern Brawler
1 Weapon Master
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Feats, Can I have some Feat Puns for Reading this Far?
Really? I thought you'd never ask...

Marital Adept
Plucky
Modestly Armored
(A)Durable

You're very welcome.

The armor proficiency feats − Lightly Armored, Moderately Armored, and Heavily Armored − seem unworth a half feat.

Maybe make one feat grants proficiency for any and all armor?

Maybe the categories for the armor system need rethinking? As far as I can tell, the mechanics for each armor itself seems mostly ok, maybe just the way they are grouped and accessed need a revisit?

Maybe being without armor is more viable in 5e because of mobility, effective tanking by other characters to keep hostiles away, crowd control spells, shorter combats that receive less damage, and so on. If so, this is a good thing. But it may make the value of armor more swingy.

Yaarel said:

The armor proficiency feats − Lightly Armored, Moderately Armored, and Heavily Armored − seem unworth a half feat.

Maybe make one feat grants proficiency for any and all armor?

Maybe the categories for the armor system need rethinking? As far as I can tell, the mechanics for each armor itself seems mostly ok, maybe just the way they are grouped and accessed need a revisit?

Maybe being without armor is more viable in 5e because of mobility, effective tanking by other characters to keep hostiles away, crowd control spells, shorter combats that receive less damage, and so on. If so, this is a good thing. But it may make the value of armor more swingy.

Click to expand...

I agree with you that they're not worth a half feat. My understanding of that, is that game basics - such as armor, weapons, saves and skills - can be worth less because they allow characters to step across some basic boundaries. That should be allowed - to enable concept characters - but not benefited. So the classes that "own" those parts of the design space stay highly valued.

I examined the races, classes and backgrounds and came to the conclusion that a Feat is equal to a +2 to an Attribute which in turn is equal to 2 Skill Proficiencies which in turn is equal to 2 Tool Proficiencies which in turn is equal to 4 Weapon Proficiencies which in turn is equal to 4 Armor Proficiencies which in turn is equal to 2 Cantrips

That said the Feat Magic Initiate is a broken feat or overpowered if you will but then my definition for not being balanced is broken

Oh and Languages those are freebies that a player can learn when they get into the game or if their background warrants I would give it to them for free as languages within 5e have taken an even a much lesser degree of unimportance than they did in previous versions

Now with the above equalities one can easily see what should and/or should not be within a Feat that would maintain an overall game balance and make Feats a more concept oriented choice rather than a power-mongering tool to get more for less.

Also when balancing Feats (which I have not fully gotten to as of yet) keep in mind that you are trading that for a +2 to an Attribute which equates to a +1 Something (HP, Att & Dmg, AC, etc...) along with a +1 to Some Saving Throw -- and regardless of whether the Saving Throw is actually more viable than another I equate them all as equal for purposes of game mechanics

We need a much bigger sample.

I would also be interested to see it mapped out when these feats are taken by people. For example, of the 16 that took GWM, how many took it at 1st (Human Variant) or 4th level? 6th for fighters? 8th? That also says a lot.

I am also surprised to see Shield Master so high and Magic Initiate not about 50% higher. I see that feat used a lot to get Warlock hexes flowing by non-spellcasters.

DeJoker said:

I examined the races, classes and backgrounds and came to the conclusion that a Feat is equal to a +2 to an Attribute which in turn is equal to 2 Skill Proficiencies which in turn is equal to 2 Tool Proficiencies which in turn is equal to 4 Weapon Proficiencies which in turn is equal to 4 Armor Proficiencies which in turn is equal to 2 Cantrips

That said the Feat Magic Initiate is a broken feat or overpowered if you will but then my definition for not being balanced is broken

Oh and Languages those are freebies that a player can learn when they get into the game or if their background warrants I would give it to them for free as languages within 5e have taken an even a much lesser degree of unimportance than they did in previous versions

Now with the above equalities one can easily see what should and/or should not be within a Feat that would maintain an overall game balance and make Feats a more concept oriented choice rather than a power-mongering tool to get more for less.

Also when balancing Feats (which I have not fully gotten to as of yet) keep in mind that you are trading that for a +2 to an Attribute which equates to a +1 Something (HP, Att & Dmg, AC, etc...) along with a +1 to Some Saving Throw -- and regardless of whether the Saving Throw is actually more viable than another I equate them all as equal for purposes of game mechanics

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I like your approach of asserting equalities. It is tricky to value an ASI. We can look at the value of +2 on an ability score for each ability, but then we also need to keep in mind that it's possible to gain the same benefit from +1 on an odd ability score. It feels safe to assume that players will apply them in a way that gives their character relevant benefits. So a Rogue might apply to Dex and get the full list of Dex benefits, while a Cleric applies it to Wisdom (or Constitution perhaps).

Strength = +1 to save, attack, damage, manoeuvre DCs and athletics; unlocks chainmail, splint and plate; +2’ long jump, +1’ high jump, +15 lbs carrying; unlocks barbarian, fighter and paladin multiclass
Dexterity = +1 to save, AC, initiative, attack, damage, manoeuvre DCs, acrobatics, sleight of hand, stealth and thieves’ tools; unlocks fighter, monk, ranger and rogue multiclass
Constitution = +1 to save, HP/level, days without food, roll versus thirst, minutes holding breath
Intelligence = +1 to save, spell attacks, spell DCs, prepared spells, arcana, gaming, history, investigation, nature and religion; unlocks Wizard multiclass
Wisdom = +1 to save, spell attacks, spell DCs, prepared spells, animal handling, insight, medicine, perception and survival; unlocks cleric and druid multiclass
Charisma = +1 to save, spell attacks, spell DCs, prepared spells, deception, intimidation, performance and persuasion; unlocks bard, paladin, sorcerer and warlock multiclass; an inspiration die for bards

Looking at your estimation, one skill proficiency is worth +2-6 to one skill. One ASI is worth +1 to between one and five skills and perhaps one to two tools (for any given character). The ASI also does other things such as +1 to one save and +1 to spell, ranged or melee attack rolls. I believe a save is worth at worst one skill proficiency (depending on the save), and +1 attack is worth more or let's call it the same again. Most ASIs then offer additional benefits - better spell DCs, +1 initiative, or some such - and those are probably worth at least one skill. Therefore I suppose I believe that the least one would value an ASI at is four skills. The problem here is that skill proficiencies have diminishing value (picking the nth skill has a lower impact than picking the first skill). Thus I believe that four skills in a bundle are still worth less than one ASI, because skills three and four have lower value. That hints at the problem that we can't just double the number of weapon proficiencies we say are equal, and are done. Because the eighth weapon proficiency would assuredly have less value than the first.

So overall yes, I like the approach of a straight assertion of equivalencies, while not at this point being able to agree with your assigned values. [Edit: I mean, the values that RAW might seem to have applied to them, as represented in races etc.]

jgsugden said:

We need a much bigger sample.

I would also be interested to see it mapped out when these feats are taken by people. For example, of the 16 that took GWM, how many took it at 1st (Human Variant) or 4th level? 6th for fighters? 8th? That also says a lot.

I am also surprised to see Shield Master so high and Magic Initiate not about 50% higher. I see that feat used a lot to get Warlock hexes flowing by non-spellcasters.

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More data is good, but some data is better than none I feel like at about the 20 responses point one starts to have some valid information. These 26 are a good start. We probably could predict some trends from them that will prove to be about right over a lot more groups. To take two extremes, we can't say that GWM will appear in every group, but we can say it's far more likely to appear than Charger.

Shield Master is solid, power-wise. Magic Initiate is hard for people to value. I agree with you that it's a solid feat.

Yaarel said:

The armor proficiency feats − Lightly Armored, Moderately Armored, and Heavily Armored − seem unworth a half feat.

Maybe make one feat grants proficiency for any and all armor?

Click to expand...

My issue with this is that one feat can take someone from no armor to plate (and shield?) for 8 steps (10 steps) of AC. And being able to dump DEX (for CON?)

A more likely would be a wizard or sorc picking up medium armor and a shield. Dex 14 would go from AC 15 (using a slot for mage armor) to AC 19 (half plate, shield +2 dex)

Yaarel said:

Maybe the categories for the armor system need rethinking? As far as I can tell, the mechanics for each armor itself seems mostly ok, maybe just the way they are grouped and accessed need a revisit?

Click to expand...

A whole different question, but I'd say yes. Of course I'm a heretic who would rather collapse the categories so light/med/heavy provided 10/12/14 and proficiency gave +2/+3/+4. And skin your armor however you like. No one picks the other armors once they can afford the best of their category except maybe breastplate when they are willing to take AC for lack of disadvantage with stealth.

Blue said:

My issue with this is that one feat can take someone from no armor to plate (and shield?) for 8 steps (10 steps) of AC. And being able to dump DEX (for CON?)

A more likely would be a wizard or sorc picking up medium armor and a shield. Dex 14 would go from AC 15 (using a slot for mage armor) to AC 19 (half plate, shield +2 dex)

... Of course I'm a heretic who would rather collapse the categories so light/med/heavy provided 10/12/14 and proficiency gave +2/+3/+4. And skin your armor however you like. No one picks the other armors once they can afford the best of their category except maybe breastplate when they are willing to take AC for lack of disadvantage with stealth.

Click to expand...

If a player wants a character concept that organizes around armor, I see no need for a feat tax to implement it. A Wizard who wants to wear heavy armor? One feat should cover it.

That said, it might be more useful to distinguish ‘Light’ armors that benefit from Dexterity to some degree, versus ‘Heavy’ armors that benefit from Strength to some degree.

So ‘chain shirt’ and ‘breastplate’ would still count as ‘Light’ armor. The best choice of armor might depend on how high the Dexterity actually is. Studded Leather might end up being a higher AC than Scale, for example. So it seems unhelpful to separate these into two separate categories.

That said, if Scale and Chain are both part of ‘Light’ armor, then I would like to see more differentiation between them.

For example. Make the Chain shirt AC 13 (Dexterity max +4) versus Scale brigandine AC 14 (Dexterity max +3), each totaling AC 17 depending on Dexterity, to make them equally competitive. The Chain shirt allows more maneuverability versus the stiff and bulky Scale cuirass.

Similarly, the solid Breastplate cuirass is well secured with straps to wear it comfortably: Breastplate AC 14 (Dexterity max +3). Thus, depending on Dexterity, it is competitive with ‘Half’ Plate (with minimal coverage and no chain armor underneath)

It seems all Light armors should be allowed to total AC 17, when accounting for Dexterity.

At the same time, remove all strictly inferior armors from the list of options. The DMs Guide can have a separate list with inferior armors for environments where technology or resources are unavailable.



With the above thought experiment. A character only needs one feat to wear any kind of Dexterity ‘light’ armor, or instead, only needs one feat to wear any kind of Strength ‘heavy’ armor.

Linguist is unworthy of a feat. The design space where languages belong is Background, and possibly Downtime to learn a new language.

Deciphering an unknown language is really an Intelligence check, with a proficiency in skills like History offering a bonus.