D&D 5E Feats *and* aibility increases

[Dausuul]

Personally, I share Tormyr's sentiment: It's all about choices, and this is one of 'em. Do you want +2 to your prime stat, or do you want combination Cleave and Power Attack with a bit of Improved Critical thrown in? I like that you might choose not to max out your prime stat right away in order to get that sweet, sweet feat. It makes for a bit more diversity in character design. If you take away that choice, you'll see more cookie-cutter builds, because the "right" choice becomes much more obvious. If you're a greatsword fighter, you put your +2 in Strength and take Great Weapon Mastery. Next time, you'll max out your Strength and get Heavy Armor Mastery. Then you'll start working on your Con.

But it won't break the game if you allow it, and it's not the end of the world to have a few cookie cutters. The one thing I would say is that you should limit this benefit only to levels where everyone gets an ability increase (4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, 19th). Otherwise you're favoring the classes like fighter and rogue that get extra ability score increases.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

While I like to enable players, I also like to follow the basic play and character creation rules. I'd have them pick one or the other unless you're playing epic-style or something.

 

[Astrosicebear]

Agree with all the sentiments above.

Its your game, do what your players like... but what players want and what they get are usually two different things.

It wont break anything outright, but while it might be fun to be powerful, its going to get boring quickly. I would say to not allow this on these grounds alone, and you need to set the precedent for future characters/campaigns.

 

[Joe Liker]

It depends what you mean by "break the game." Doing this will cause some pretty extreme balance issues where the warlock is concerned.

Your warlock player may not realize it, but he is getting royally screwed by this request. You might want to offer him extra invocations rather than feats.

If the druid is not moon-flavored, you might want to come up with a little something extra for him, too.

 

[Dausuul]

It depends what you mean by "break the game." Doing this will cause some pretty extreme balance issues where the warlock is concerned.

Your warlock player may not realize it, but he is getting royally screwed by this request. You might want to offer him extra invocations rather than feats.

It's not as bad as all that. While the list of feats that benefit casters is not nearly as long as those that benefit martial characters and skill monkeys, there are plenty of "generic goodstuff" feats that casters can benefit from. Resilient targeting Con is huge for any caster who uses concentration spells. Toughness is always great for folks with smallish Hit Dice. If you find your AC is lacking, pick up a dagger and get Defensive Duelist; who needs the shield spell?

Or you can polish up your skill monkey side. If you have the Mask of a Thousand Faces invocation, the Actor feat will make it about a hundred times better. You probably have a decent Dexterity, consider Skulker to beef up your Stealth. And there's nothing like Lucky for when you really, really need to make that Athletics check to jump over the lava.

The warlock may start struggling to find good feats at really high levels, but s/he shouldn't have any trouble until at least level 12.

(That said, there will obviously be a serious balance problem if the fighter and rogue are able to double-tap their extra ability boosts. As I said above, this benefit should only apply at the levels where everybody gets an ability boost.)

 

[trentonjoe]

Your warlock player may not realize it, but he is getting royally screwed by this request. You might want to offer him extra invocations rather than feats.

I

Why? His feat choices will just be more defensive in nature.

Extra good Saving Throw or More HPs first come to mind.

 

[aramis erak]

There's little reason to give both feats and the standard +2 Stat increment, as most of the feats include a +1 to a stat anyway. Make them choose.

 

[keterys]

If/when I start up my next 5E campaign I was planning on starting people at 4th level with both a stat bump and a feat (that can't be made into a stat bump), but then let it work normally thereafter. It seems like it would work out fine.

As an alternative, let them have feats when their classes say they get them, but the feats can't be ability bumps, and get ability bumps at total character level 4/8/12/16/20 (or any other level set you like - 5/10/15/20, 2 / 6 / 10/ 14 / 18, etc) That way you can't multiclass your way out of ability bumps or take +4 to stats at 4th (though +3 is bad enough). This suggestion is probably less good if you plan to play up into the epic level range, though. For a 1-10 game, sure.

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

What would be the reason to let them have both? I would think it would be worth trying out the new edition as it is and not use old mindsets from previous editions about how powerful characters are and should be. What is the value in handing out extra candy from the beginning and starting an endless spiral of more wants more? Take a run at the game with standard rules and then, if that doesn't satisfy your needs, you can begin tweaking stuff.

 

[keterys]

The primary "problem" with the existing setup is that many characters are thoroughly encouraged to increase a primary statistic to 20, while many feats can hardly compare to +2 in a major stat.

Giving out an extra feat lets you dip into the interesting feat fun space without impinging on a character's raw statistical improvement.

As an anecdotal example, I have a rogue for whom I will not be taking a feat until ~10th level because no feat remotely compares to +2 to Dexterity. Part of that problem is feat selection, so over time I'll have more compelling options*. The other is that stat balance is off for Dexterity - it gives me attack, damage, defense, initiative, and primary skills.

* Ones that don't cost bonus actions, aren't primarily or entirely for melee, etc.