D&D (2024) 75 Feats -- not nearly enough

[Argyle King]

By any given character, sure. Do you only play one character over the life of an edition?

No, I don't.

Dividing 75 by 3 choices (assuming backgrounds with feats,) I would need to play 25 characters to 11th level. How long does. When D&D was my primary game, it took the usual group about a year of sessions to reach level 20, so let's say 6 months for level 11. It would take about 12 years of playing D&D and intentionally choosing different feats every time to get through 75.

In the current iteration of 5E, given that feats compete against ability score adjustments, there are only a few feats that most people I've played 5e with even consider taking. Those few tend to be the ones that are so good that, even for someone who doesn't min-max, it is obvious those feats should be taken, as the others tend to mean actively hurting your character's abilities.

The importance of those choices are highlighted even more by their rarity.

It could be the case that D&D 5.24 has made vast changes to the structure of feats and feat selection.

I'm vaguely aware (I think) that some feats will be leveled now. Hopefully, the good feats aren't hidden behind a chain of requirements that aren't wanted. If so, that would mean missing multiple ability score increases, just to get one feat; in that case, I feel that more people would be inclined to just take the ability score increases.

 

[teitan]

In DC warrior choose a weapon to specialize in.

That's basically a Fighting style fest.

Most DCC have a specialization

So did 1e. Stretching like Plastic Man.

 

[Minigiant]

So did 1e. Stretching like Plastic Man.

The point is some are saying that we don't need any mechanical differentiation within a class.

 

[ezo]

We have all the feats re-tooled as half feats and +2 ASI is not an option. If you start with a 16, it is going to take you four feats to get it to 20. So, even though we start with a feat at level 1, 4, 8, and 12 is basically the quickest you can get to 20.

 

[tetrasodium]

We have all the feats re-tooled as half feats and +2 ASI is not an option. If you start with a 16, it is going to take you four feats to get it to 20. So, even though we start with a feat at level 1, 4, 8, and 12 is basically the quickest you can get to 20.

Hopefully your concern is accepted as one of the many valid and reasonable reasons that going back to a cap of 18 is long overdue now that wotc has a chance to correct that particular mistake of 2014

 

[ezo]

Agreed. 18 is better. Increase proficiency bonus if you want to make up the difference... something like +1 to +7, or +2 to +8 maybe.

 

[Scott Christian]

The promise of 75 feats announced in the Gameinformer Magazine feature sounds promising, but I'm not sure it actually represents a big step forward. Let's tally what we've seen. (In some ways this is an update of the survey I did on feats post-Playtest 7, last September.)

Level 1 Feats:
10 Level-1 feats in PT 1 and 2.
5 feats without ASI in Tasha's.
6 Fighting styles in PT 6, framed as feats.

Level 4 feats:
1 ASI, framed as a feat.
29 feats with a +1 ASI in the playtest materials.
10 feats with a +1 ASI in Tasha's.

Epic feats: considered, but then removed.

So if the feats from Tashas were all brought into the game (in a revised form or not), and including fighting styles, we have good reason to believe we've seen 61 of the 75 feats.

Of the remaining 14:

• There are at least 5 fighting styles that could be added from Tasha's. These include unarmed and thrown weapons, which I'd really like to see included. If these were in, we'd really be looking at only 9 things we've not seen.
• As I noted before, there are three feats in the 2014 PHB we've not seen versions of yet: Dungeon Delver, Linguist, Martial Adept. Possibly that's three more.
• There could be species-specific feats, like what we saw in Xanathar's. I hope there aren't, but it's a possibility.

Of course I don't know whether everything from Tasha's will be included, but if it were (and I think it's a fair guess), then the amount of new feats may increase slightly, but not a lot.

All that's to say, 75 feats sounds like a lot, but I am not actually sure it will make as big a difference as it might have done.

I always thought the idea of attaching feats to ancestry and class were the better option. Maybe let another class or ancestry take an outside feat at some kind of cost.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

My group has been gaming together for 35+ years we come from a similar perspective and cooperate to make the games we want to play - I am lucky there

You are not alone. I am going to play later with some lifetime friends!

We really hit AD&D hard about 35 years ago!

 

[Sulicius]

Someone mentioned that the 2014 PHB has 42 feats, I'll assume that's close enough to accurate.... Jumping from 42 to 75 doesn't say anything about restoring build level specialization through feats. There's no way to even guess the impact without wotc taking the time to clarify that the feat count increase is intended to solve the problems caused in 2014. The problems with those 42 is that many of them are just awful and what dozen or so S A & B tier feats remain are almost entirely for one particular subset of classes with a singular niche. Even classes that do have options they could "choose" lower tier feats, that choice is often one between feat A B C* or B C A* at class level rather than build level. A lot of that nonchoice can be pinned directly on wotc's choices to erode the concept of niche protection & streamlining away "complex" mechanical hooks needed to differentiate different builds through specialization.



* All three of which may or may not even have a chance to matter at any point & may or may not even be noticed if they do. Think about how many times you've seen a class guide suggest resilient con or warcaster just because there's nothing better as an example.

Let’s be fair: character options don’t all have to be the optimal choice in combat. Some are there to make players get features that help them bring their character to life.

And whatever WotC will do, optimizers will only recommend a handful. That’s what optimizers do.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Jumping from 42 to 75 doesn't say anything about restoring build level specialization through feats.

I'm not an optimizer by any stretch of the imagination. Could you tell me what you mean by "build level specialization"?

The problems with those 42 is that many of them are just awful

I agree that many of them are awful - in both directions. (In that some of them are too good and most of them are too... not good.)

Did you see the playtest versions of the feats? I think many of them were MUCH improved. I expect another pass at balance before publication, though.

But yeah, I agree with @Sulicius above. There's nothing WotC can do to stop optimizers from suggesting that, say, 5 feats are better than all the rest. That's what they do. The closest WotC will ever be able to get is to have optimizers argue over which 5 feats are best, and/or admit that the margin between "top 5" and the next tier is low. (Assuming WotC manages to pull off anything that resembles balance parity).

As usual, we will have to see the final form these Feats take.