Five new feats: Please critique

[DiFier]

I like them.

I have no suggestions for the last three but the undead hunter just doesn't quite sit right.

I like the concept but I think my issue with the undead hunter is that the abilities need some explanation. Maybe it just needs some flavor. I understand the advantage to saves vs paralysis. You've been bitten and survived so many times that you are building up a tolerance. The bonus AC sorta makes sense you've fought against swarms and have learned tactics to make you safer in that situation.

But the radiant damage kinda confuses me. How have you gained the ability to do radiant damage? Do you just treat it as radiant damage or is it actual radiant damage?

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

Thanks! Regarding Undead Hunter, I've changed the third bonus two times. Here is the previous bonus I used instead of the radiant damage:

• You gain a +3 damage bonus on attacks against undead. This bonus applies to damage dealing spells and spell-like effects in addition to melee and ranged attacks, and is applied after all other damage is rolled.
• If one of your attacks or spells would bring an enemy down to 0 hit points, that enemy cannot use a special ability to drop to 1 hit point instead.

The first bonus is the traditional "bonus damage to your favoured enemy" type. The second is more specific, it stops zombies from using their Undead Fortitude while also having limited splash effect against for example half-orcs.

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

I just revised Mace Mastery and made it a little more powerful. What do you think about this?

MACE MASTER

You are extra effective against heavily armored opponents. You gain the following benefits:

* You gain advantage on damage rolls with a mace against opponents with heavy armor or natural armor.
* If you attack with a mace and score a critical hit against an opponent in heavy armor or natural armor, that opponent must make a Constitution saving throw (DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier). If the saving throw is unsuccessful, the opponent is stunned for 1 round. Opponents more than one size category larger than you are immune to this effect.

 

[Kyn@BattleBards]

DAGGER MASTER

Your skill with daggers is extraordinary. You gain the following benefits:

* Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
* If you attack with a dagger and roll a 1 on the attack roll, you can use your reaction to treat the roll like a 10 instead.
* If an adjacent opponent attacks you and rolls a 1 on the attack roll, you can use your reaction to make an attack with a dagger against that opponent.

I actually love the way you've put this feat together. One concern on changing a 1 to a 10. Might that be a bit over powered? Maybe not use an Advantage but simply add on a moderate amount of damage instead of rewarding a full 10. Or simply re-roll 1's once.

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

I actually love the way you've put this feat together. One concern on changing a 1 to a 10. Might that be a bit over powered? Maybe not use an Advantage but simply add on a moderate amount of damage instead of rewarding a full 10. Or simply re-roll 1's once.

Thanks for the feedback! You're not the first person to think that this bonus is overpowered, but I just don't see it. The ability to treat a 1 like a 10 is only relevant on 5% of all rolls. You also have to use your reaction to do it. Why do you think it's overpowered?

 

[Kyn@BattleBards]

Thanks for the feedback! You're not the first person to think that this bonus is overpowered, but I just don't see it. The ability to treat a 1 like a 10 is only relevant on 5% of all rolls. You also have to use your reaction to do it. Why do you think it's overpowered?

Perhaps it stems more from the rationale that a fumble turns into max damage. If I ignore that and we do the basic math then with your new model the average damage goes up from 5.5 to 6.4 on a d10. If say we instead rerolled a 1 then average damage would be 5.95. So at the end of the day none of these are truly game breaking. So I take back my concern on the math side. Rationale might be another thing But, good work!

 

[Kobold Stew]

It's the attack roll, though, right? Instead of a fumble (1 on a d20) you get a just-below-average roll (10 on a d20). If that's a hit, then you roll damage as normal.

 

[Kyn@BattleBards]

LOL my terminology is all screwed up this morning. Clearly I need to get some more coffee this morning. I'm delirious

 

[Khaalis]

Couple of quick thoughts:

Dagger Master
I agress the attribute increase should be STR or DEX. I also agree that turning a 1 into 10 doesn't sit right. Why should rolling a Fumble suddenly get you an Average hit roll when a 2-9 doesn't? Doesn't make any mechanical sense. Something more balanced would be allowing a 1 to be re-rolled once per short rest, OR simply state that a 1 is not considred a Fumble (effectively being the same as rolling a 2).

Mace/Maul Master
Advantage vs. Natural Armor doesn't make sense to me. In most cases I can think of natural armor would actually be best against blunt and slashing weapons. Simarly against heavy armor (with the exception of helms). Piercing weapons would be the type to do the best against these armors. However, overall, Mace and Maul Mastery just kind of fall flat for me. If anything I would combine the two into a single feat that affects all bludgeoning weapons more akin to Great Weapon Master than Crossbow Master. The question you need to ask is what makes these weapons "special"? For instance polearms' trick is they have two end to fight with. What are blunt weapons best at? Why would you choose one over other weapon types? Historically blunt weapons were either more commonly available weapon types or were specfically designed for the purpse of impact. Against heavy armor specifically they were designed as helm/skull crushers or if really excelling in their use, busting up the joints in armor. That said, I'd focus on a single feat for use with all "clubbing" style weapons which for D&D terms is basically any blunt weapon. Maybe something like:
* Increase STR by 1 to max 20.
* On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a blunt melee weapon, the target is also stunned until the end of its next turn in addition to the effects of a normal critical hit.

Undead Hunter
This doesn't feel quite right to me either. Advantage vs paralyzation doesn't speak undead to me. Yes Some undead paralyze but its only a select few. Also the AC bonus doesn't make sense to me. I can understand the concept but only for against mook undead and this ability isn't undead specific, its against ALL foes which is technically too powerful, almost a feat unto itself IMHO. Looking at the Mage Slayer, the feat is useful for more than just "mages" true, but its effectively been boiled down to the concept that what a mage slayer needs is effects against magic because that what makes a "mage". So the question becomes "what makes undead uniquely different from other foes"? Well basically that is the Undead Type as its really the only common element to all undead. What else is pretty common and that could be used to create feat specific abilities?
* Overcome an undead's DR/immunity from nonmagical weapons, thus your melee attacks act as magical
* Gaining advantage on Saving Throw rolls vs undead attacks
* Doing additional Radiant damage on attacks (as undead arent immune)
Or model after mage slayer...
* When an undead creature within 5 feet of you uses an attack action, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against that creature


JMHO. YMMV.

 

[Vicar In A Tutu]

Thank you for the very detailed feedback!

Dagger Master
I agress the attribute increase should be STR or DEX. I also agree that turning a 1 into 10 doesn't sit right. Why should rolling a Fumble suddenly get you an Average hit roll when a 2-9 doesn't? Doesn't make any mechanical sense. Something more balanced would be allowing a 1 to be re-rolled once per short rest, OR simply state that a 1 is not considred a Fumble (effectively being the same as rolling a 2).

A lot of people don't like the 1 automatically becoming a 10. I think I'll follow your advice and allow the player to reroll a 1 instead and must take the new roll, even if it's another 1. I don't like restricting it to once per short / long rest, as I don't think that's necessary. It's not that strong

Mace/Maul Master
Advantage vs. Natural Armor doesn't make sense to me. In most cases I can think of natural armor would actually be best against blunt and slashing weapons. Simarly against heavy armor (with the exception of helms). Piercing weapons would be the type to do the best against these armors. However, overall, Mace and Maul Mastery just kind of fall flat for me. If anything I would combine the two into a single feat that affects all bludgeoning weapons more akin to Great Weapon Master than Crossbow Master. The question you need to ask is what makes these weapons "special"? For instance polearms' trick is they have two end to fight with. What are blunt weapons best at? Why would you choose one over other weapon types? Historically blunt weapons were either more commonly available weapon types or were specfically designed for the purpse of impact. Against heavy armor specifically they were designed as helm/skull crushers or if really excelling in their use, busting up the joints in armor. That said, I'd focus on a single feat for use with all "clubbing" style weapons which for D&D terms is basically any blunt weapon. Maybe something like:
* Increase STR by 1 to max 20.
* On your turn, when you score a critical hit with a blunt melee weapon, the target is also stunned until the end of its next turn in addition to the effects of a normal critical hit.

When modelling the specific bonus of a mace, I did some googling. In most of the sources I read (admittedly they were all online and not particularly in depth), maces were in medieval times "armor fighting weapons". I wanted them to extra effective against armored opponents. I agree that the most elegant way of going about this would be to make a single feat for all bludgeoning weapons. I just like there to be more granularity and differentation between the weapons, not just the weapon types. With that said, I think the feat you suggested, giving unconditional stun for 1 round on a critical (no saving throw) is a bit too powerful. Against bosses, because there is no saving throw, the potential of just losing 1 round would be catastrophic. The variance would be a bit too much, I think.

Undead Hunter
This doesn't feel quite right to me either. Advantage vs paralyzation doesn't speak undead to me. Yes Some undead paralyze but its only a select few. Also the AC bonus doesn't make sense to me. I can understand the concept but only for against mook undead and this ability isn't undead specific, its against ALL foes which is technically too powerful, almost a feat unto itself IMHO. Looking at the Mage Slayer, the feat is useful for more than just "mages" true, but its effectively been boiled down to the concept that what a mage slayer needs is effects against magic because that what makes a "mage". So the question becomes "what makes undead uniquely different from other foes"? Well basically that is the Undead Type as its really the only common element to all undead. What else is pretty common and that could be used to create feat specific abilities?
* Overcome an undead's DR/immunity from nonmagical weapons, thus your melee attacks act as magical
* Gaining advantage on Saving Throw rolls vs undead attacks
* Doing additional Radiant damage on attacks (as undead arent immune)
Or model after mage slayer...
* When an undead creature within 5 feet of you uses an attack action, you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against that creature.

Simply put I don't want to make a feat that only work if you meet a particular type of enemy. I want to make a thematic feat, based on a type of enemy and several of the most iconic creatures in that type and / or scenarios that this type of creature evokes. The first bonus comes from the iconic ability of ghouls (but also liches and revenants). The second bonus harkens to the iconic imagery of being surrounded by hordes of ravenous dead (zombies, skeletons, etc. often attack in large groups). The third bonus shuts down the zombies Undead Fortitude. If all the bonuses from a feat only work against a specific type of enemy, the feat is far too narrow.