BookBarbarian
Expert Long Rester
Hmm I think Versatile Weapons are almost exclusively wielded one-handed. If anything I like to buff their two handed use.
Edit: I see someone else has brought up the same point. Feel free to ignore me.
D&D 5E [Homebrew] Defensive Duelist
Hmm I think Versatile Weapons are almost exclusively wielded one-handed. If anything I like to buff their two handed use.
Edit: I see someone else has brought up the same point. Feel free to ignore me.
clearstream
(He, Him)
The intent of my revision was that a versatile weapon wielded in two hands would also be able to use the feat, i.e. "...one-handed or Versatile". While perhaps versatile weapons should have their own feat, I don't see harm in broadening feats like Defensive Duelist, and elsewhere WotC's designers have claimed that a goal of theirs was to ensure feats could be used by a wider range of characters. The original version of DD limits to finesse and has the Dex 13 requirement, which... seems really at odds with what they do with feats elsewhere.
For me, the key to Defensive Duelist is resolving the over-leveraged action-economy. When I ask myself - why wouldn't a player take this feat? - I come up with answers like:
I'm using my reaction for Uncanny Dodge (doubly poor in the un-revised version given that Rogues will be a key user of finesse weapons!)
I'm using my reaction to cast Shield
I'm saving my reaction to Riposte
I'm saving my reaction for Sentinel triggers
I'm saving my reaction for Opportunity Attacks
I'd rather have +1 AC always, +1 initiative, +1 attack modifier, +1 damage, +1 to skills
I'm sword-and-board and would rather have Shield Master
It's not skilfull i.e. I can't make it play into my other abilities
I feel that if this feat can play into those, instead of forestalling them, it starts to become good. If it is broader - matters to more characters - by removing the pre-req and letting it work for Longsword et al, that helps. Limiting to finesse just feels like bad design to me: it puts the feat in direct competition with a Dexterity ASI and pushes it away from sword-and-board unnecessarily. Unnecessary, is how those limitations feel: I don't think anyone is saying the feat will be OP if it covers all one-handed and versatile.
Even with the use broadened and the reaction resolved, I feel like the feat doesn't out-compete alternatives for ASIs. At 4th I think many characters will prefer an ability increase. And I dislike the paradoxical narrowing that entails (of making the feat priority more a Fighter 6th pick). Hence pulling what is otherwise a trap feat - Savage Attacker - into it. This works reasonably for Versatile weapons as it adds a point of damage to them even when rolling one die, and obviously pays off for a key client which is Sneak Attack damage. The feat then does as well on damage as +2 Dex, and much better on AC. Losing in trade initiative, attack modifier, and some skill improvements. It starts to look better than the ASI unless you're already using your reaction for something. With the reaction fixed it's starts moving toward the power of SS and SM.
[MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION]'s version upgrades Dodge to give you one attack. That will be reasonable for Rogues, discouraging for Fighters. It gets rid of OAs making it conflict with Sentinel and Polearm Master. On the other hand, it would reward Battlemasters with Riposte who are using their reaction that way. It then counteracts that by demanding your reaction to get future advantage.
It was helpful to see this direction explored. I feel it moves quite far away from what the original does (my design intent is generally conservative - limiting additional concepts and language). For me, crucially, it doesn't seem to resolve my posited reasons for being unable to take DD.
Cap'n Kobold
Hero
How would something like (using some of the mechanics in the feats UA):
Defensive Duellist
You have extensive training in fighting a single foe, with an emphasis on foiling their attacks and capitalising upon the openings that they make.
You have advantage on any attack that uses your Reaction against any opponent that you hit in your previous turn.
If an opponent within your reach attacks you with disadvantage and the higher of their rolls wouldn't hit your AC, you may use your reaction to make an immediate melee weapon attack against them.
When you strike an opponent with a melee attack, you may choose to forego dealing damage in order to grant them disadvantage on the next attack that they make.
Defensive Duellist
You have extensive training in fighting a single foe, with an emphasis on foiling their attacks and capitalising upon the openings that they make.
You have advantage on any attack that uses your Reaction against any opponent that you hit in your previous turn.
If an opponent within your reach attacks you with disadvantage and the higher of their rolls wouldn't hit your AC, you may use your reaction to make an immediate melee weapon attack against them.
When you strike an opponent with a melee attack, you may choose to forego dealing damage in order to grant them disadvantage on the next attack that they make.
FrogReaver
As long as i get to be the frog
[MENTION=71699]clearstream[/MENTION]
When I make a feat that would work with the rogue you complain it doesn’t work as good for the fighter. When I make something that work for the fighter you complain it doesn’t work as good for the rogue. Nothing will work equally well for both the fighter and the rogue unless you make it require no action, bonus action and no reaction which is a design that has its own problems. It works for 1 feat but once others start getting designed that way it quickly spirals out of control.
When I make a feat that would work with the rogue you complain it doesn’t work as good for the fighter. When I make something that work for the fighter you complain it doesn’t work as good for the rogue. Nothing will work equally well for both the fighter and the rogue unless you make it require no action, bonus action and no reaction which is a design that has its own problems. It works for 1 feat but once others start getting designed that way it quickly spirals out of control.
clearstream
(He, Him)
It wasn't my intent to complain in that way. I was unpacking each option with the aim of seeing what could work.
I guess I believe that it is possible to make a defensive one-handed weapon feat that serves fighters, gishes and rogues. That said, I can see that it could be an easier design task to serve each one separately, which makes one think about something like this in Sage Advice -
"When designing a feat with a narrow use, we consider adding at least one element that can benefit a character more broadly—a bit of mastery that your character brings from one situation to another. The second benefit of Crossbow Expert is such an element, as is the first benefit of Great Weapon Master."
So I guess he's envisioning that Crossbow Expert will be used by a gish... maybe an Arcane Trickster, War Caster or an MC of some sort?
Back on topic, who does the feat need to serve? We have at present
- Great Weapon Master serving Great Weapon Fighting Barbarians and Champions
- Sharpshooter serving Archery Fighters and Rangers, and Rogues
- Crossbow Expert probably targeted at Rogues, but also serving Archery Fighters and Rangers, and players who enjoy the sword-and-hand-crossbow archetype
- Shield Master serving sword-and-board Fighters and Paladins, and Fighter-Rogue MCs and such
- Polearm Master serving Paladins
- Warcaster serving fighting Clerics, Bladesingers, probably War Wizards
- Resilient and Tough rounding out any class
- Alert probably serving Assassins most, and Rogues and lighter armored characters generally
- Mobile serving Monks well, and probably any kiting class e.g. archers
- Lucky serving Bards and Rogues probably more than other archetypes
- Dual Wielder serving players who enjoy the archetype
- Mage Slayer serving... well, there should be an archetype there but we haven't seen it work well yet
That's not a complete list, or even wholly correct I'm sure. My point though is that we can see feats serving collections of archetypes with a fairly clear purpose. Aside from the absence of a mechanically good Dual Wielder and Mage Slayer feat, most of these game effects are pretty good. What seems to be missing is a feat that doubles-down on a defensive fighting style, specifically with a non-dual-wielding one-handed weapon. Consider this from UA
Blade Mastery (Unearthed Arcana 6 June 2016)
You master the shortsword, longsword, scimitar, rapier, and greatsword. You gain the following benefits when using any of them:
You gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls you make with the weapon.
On your turn, you can use your reaction to assume a parrying stance, provided you have the weapon in hand. Doing so grants a +1 bonus to your AC until the start of your next turn or until you're not holding the weapon.
When you make an opportunity attack with the weapon, you have advantage on the attack roll.
Again unnecessarily narrow: why the disregard for Battleaxes, Flails, War picks and Morningstars? Aside from that the feat seems conflicted. Half the named weapons point to a Dexterity melee characters, who gets +1 to attack rolls and damage and AC, and other stuff, by taking +2 to the ability score. So for many characters only the last line of the feat has any meaning. It's better for Strength melee characters... so that must be who it is aimed at. It's like the designers are saying they want to see some Strength melee characters using one-handed weapons... or Greatswords... I'm really not sure what they're trying to achieve there? On your turn you can gain +1 AC at the cost of the reaction you need to use the one part of the feat that is better than just taking +2 Dex!?
Anyway, you can sense that there is design space around one-handed weapons waiting to be filled. With the finesse rider, Defensive Duelist seems targeted at Rogues and possibly Bladesingers (silly ACs incoming) or other gishes. Maybe the correct thing to do is assume that every Strength melee character who uses a one-handed weapon has got a shield and will take Shield Master? So they're covered.
EDIT I meant to state here clearly that you could well be right, and multiple feats are needed. For me the starting point design-wise is to state the jobs to be done: who needs to be served?
In which case, I land on the focus of the feat being more for Rogues and Rogue MCs - light melee characters who won't be holding the line but could use some help defensively because to do damage they need to get in close. I believe designing around the reaction broadens the feat more. I feel that there can be interesting choices for players in feats that can play into their other features the way that Polearm Master plays well into Smite, or Shield Master through generating advantage plays into Sneak Attack for Fighter-Rogues. For me, each part of the feat should have relevance. I think of it this way
- Using my reaction to increase my AC is interesting because if I start with high AC (sword-and-board, Bladesinger, maybe War Caster) then it is very efficient, or if I start with lower AC (Rogues) it could often be clutch
- Needing the reaction stops it getting crazy - no Defensive Duelist + Shield for example
- Returning the reaction to me once between my turns gets interesting because that opens up Riposte, Sentinel, subsequent Shields, Uncanny Dodges etc - it makes the feat a lot stronger, and more takeable because it supports rather than conflicts with other things I want to do
- Merging with (an improved) Savage Attacker gives me back the point of damage I otherwise lost (by not taking the ASI) so my trade is fairer (initiative, attack modifier and skills, for a decent AC buff and a point or two more damage)
- Broadening (no Dex requirement, wider range of weapons) is just broadening
Cap'n Kobold
Hero
Any caster, particularly those that like using a lot of attack spells. There aren't many guaranteed methods of getting out of melee that let you also cast a decent spell.
In the same way that Great Weapon Master's extra attack on a kill/crit works for any weapon: It doesn't need to be a Heavy, or even a two-handed one.
Most of those feats you list are good for a rather larger range than the ones you give. Possibly depending of the level of min/maxing you view as required for a feat to be used by a certain group. (Although I'm guessing that you're being rather tongue-in-cheek with some of them
).This feat was suggested as a feat specific to weapon types. There was an actual explanation for why it does what it does right after it. There were other feats for some of the weapons that you mention being disregarded in the very same article as well.
The feat is of value to most characters that like using swords, particularly if they have already maxed out their primary attack stat.
As long as you're not dumping a useful secondary combat stat, there's no reason you can't use defensive duellist with a shield. Or as a Strength melee fighter.
I think that part of the issue that you're having is that you're looking at the feats with the eyes of a min/maxer and assuming that every feat must be optimal for one or more limited groups in order to exist.
I'm pretty sure that that is not how the current feats have been designed and is probably the reason that you're not seeing what the designers were going for: your objectives and values, and the assumptions that you're making about the design process just aren't the same.
Case in point. Its a fine attitude to have for designing a homebrew feat for your specific table, who will probably share similar values. It just runs into issues when you try to evaluate existing feats by that metric.
clearstream
(He, Him)
What you say is true. Most are good for more than I listed. A great example being a wide range of casters with Warcaster, as you say, or another being GWM and Precision Battlemaster. I wanted more to reiterate the idea of feats serving purposes for collections of archetypes.Any caster, particularly those that like using a lot of attack spells. There aren't many guaranteed methods of getting out of melee that let you also cast a decent spell.
In the same way that Great Weapon Master's extra attack on a kill/crit works for any weapon: It doesn't need to be a Heavy, or even a two-handed one.
Most of those feats you list are good for a rather larger range than the ones you give. Possibly depending of the level of min/maxing you view as required for a feat to be used by a certain group. (Although I'm guessing that you're being rather tongue-in-cheek with some of them
I feel you nail the reason for taking Blade Mastery in a mechanical sense: the character is already maxed out on their ability score. The designer narrative accompanying Blade Mastery read more like stream of consciousness than hard analysis. Did you get the same feeling? The designer narrative didn't even touch on the feat being for higher-tiers.
My goals are all about making more of the design space relevantly available, and helping characters shine in their part of it without distorting the narrative. For me, a designer must minimax, so that players don't have to. There should be no trap feats, and lots of options that are solid and differentiated.
There are many reasons why a feat can be less take-able -
- It serves archetypes that aren't played very often (we see the inverse of that with Dual Wielder, a feat that gets taken disproportionately more often than its mechanical strength would suggest)
- For archetypes that want the feat, there is another, more narratively relevant way to spend the ASI (i.e. something that will come up more often in their campaign)
- For archetypes that want the feat, there is another, more mechanically effective way to spend the ASI (i.e. something that will do the job better in their campaign)
- The gravity well of another feat drags archetypes into it (players choose to play characters well served by the game mechanics, and avoid those less well served)
- The value of the feat is obfuscated: it's hard to tell what it does or how it will feel in play
From 27 groups spending 239 ASIs, we saw GWM taken 16 times, Sharpshooter taken 10 times, and Defensive Duelist taken twice. I'm duly cautious about the survey. In the context of a dozen other feats being taken zero times, I feel like we have a strong tip that Defensive Duelist is in design space that players want to explore. It's clear that it's not exciting as much as other feats.
I'm always designing for the community, not just my table. My intent is to pull together work I have done on campaign pillars and pacing and publish it as a free download on DMG. These feat revisions once tested will be part of that.
More than that however, I would say that a jobs to be done approach is more relevant when designing for the broader community. The DM designing for their local meta can ignore swathes of mechanics that aren't appearing. The designer attempting work for the community has to ask wider questions. Do you see what I mean?
Coming back to using Defensive Duelist with a shield. [MENTION=6795602]FrogReaver[/MENTION] raised a reasonable point about the feat being potentially conflicted by trying to serve opposed purposes. Fighters want to use their Extra Attack, so a feat that takes their Attack action is competing with that. Rogues want to use their Bonus action, similarly. Riposte Battlemasters, Polearm Masters, Sentinels, and 5th level Rogues want to use their Reaction. For sword-and-board Fighters, a defensive feat's job probably works more around efficiency as they take fewer hits anyway. For a Rogue it could work around fairly constant use, but that is a bit of a puzzle because of Uncanny Dodge and also the desire for second-bites of the Sneak Attack apple with Opportunity Attacks.
My version is designed to address both sides of that equation by using and then giving back a reaction (once). Perhaps a cleaner version is this
Defensive Duelist
When you are wielding a one-handed or Versatile melee weapon with which you are proficient and a creature hits you with a melee attack, once per round you can add your proficiency bonus to your AC against that attack, potentially causing the attack to miss you.
Once per turn, when you roll damage for a melee weapon attack, you can reroll the damage dice and use either total.
Cap'n Kobold
Hero
The designer narrative was an insight into how they design feats: That they should be thematic, self-contained enough to benefit almost any character who takes it, and add a layer of flavour and texture to a character without becoming more important that their actual class abilities.
Hard analysis of who would get the most benefit out of it, or how the feat stacks in power given assumption X against an ASI or other feat Y isn't a priority.
Even on this forum, which has a much higher proportion on optimisers than the general D&D playerbase, they're in the general minority. Hence why feats aren't usually designed with min/maxing in mind.
And they will likely be very useful to those of a similar attitude to yours when it comes to feats and character design. I'm just explaining why the official feats designed for the wider D&D community don't fit within the design criteria you were using, since you mentioned that you didn't understand.
I'm pretty sure that I understand what you're getting at. I just don't agree that this is the approach that has been taken for the wider community. The feats aren't designed to only benefit a small pool of possible character concepts each. They're designed to add flavour and additional options rather than a mathematical +X% to theoretical DPR or character survivability.
Amongst the optimiser subset who actually worry about things like the local meta, or mathematical effectiveness? Definitely. The broader D&D community however? Not so much.
clearstream
(He, Him)
That seems more refuted than supported by the responses to a survey of feats. With 239 ASI choices reported, the top picks were (in order)
Great Weapon Master
Resilient
Sharpshooter
Lucky
War Caster
Dual Wielder
Polearm Master
Shield Master
Tough
Alert
Feats that were reported not taken at all, included
Charger
Durable
Grappler
Keen Mind
Lightly Armored
Mage Slayer
Medium Armor Master
Moderately Armored
Mounted Combatant
Skulker
Of the top picks, the only one that isn't mechanically powerful is Dual Wielder. I believe that shows a community appetite for feats that add flavour and texture, overcast by a greater appetite for feats that have mechanical efficacy. Of those that were reported not taken, it's hard to spot anything mechanically powerful among them.
I agree that adding flavour and texture to a character without becoming more important than their class abilities is valuable. A feat must "benefit almost any character who takes it" and that is probably where attending to where it sits among other options becomes important. I can't remember right now which designer it was who first mooted that balance in RPGs includes ensuring that more strategies are mechanically valid. A game studies philosopher summarised it as
An option is overpowered if, when presented as a choice, it will always be chosen by members of a group.
An option is balanced if, when presented as a choice, it will be chosen sometimes, due to its ability to fulfil requirements.
An option is underpowered if, when presented as a choice, it will always be ignored by the group.
For me the burden falls on the game designer - especially the professional designer, or designer for a community - to design for balance. That's not about making the feat one designs "optimal" from a power-gamer's perspective, because for a power-gamer "optimal" means "at the top of the power curve". Rather that is about the middle point i.e. "balanced". That includes both flavour and mechanical considerations.
clearstream
(He, Him)
@FrogReaver @Cap'n Kobold
After a bit of playtesting, I've found giving back the reaction to be too strong when used by a character with a high base AC. I believe the Defensive Duelist feat per RAW serves sub-classes that aren't using their reaction for other things best. For example Champions. The Savage Attacker merge works okay for those classes, although I find in play it is easy to forget! Allowing a wider range of weapons works nicely. There probably needs to be a better feat for Versatile weapons, but adding them seems an overall positive for this feat. Final text is -
Defensive Duelist
When you are wielding a one-handed or Versatile melee weapon with which you are proficient and a creature hits you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to add your proficiency bonus to your AC against that attack, potentially causing the attack to miss you.
Once per turn, when you roll damage for a melee weapon attack, you can reroll the damage dice and use either total.
After a bit of playtesting, I've found giving back the reaction to be too strong when used by a character with a high base AC. I believe the Defensive Duelist feat per RAW serves sub-classes that aren't using their reaction for other things best. For example Champions. The Savage Attacker merge works okay for those classes, although I find in play it is easy to forget! Allowing a wider range of weapons works nicely. There probably needs to be a better feat for Versatile weapons, but adding them seems an overall positive for this feat. Final text is -
Defensive Duelist
When you are wielding a one-handed or Versatile melee weapon with which you are proficient and a creature hits you with a melee attack, you can use your reaction to add your proficiency bonus to your AC against that attack, potentially causing the attack to miss you.
Once per turn, when you roll damage for a melee weapon attack, you can reroll the damage dice and use either total.
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