Cap'n Kobold
Hero
. . . and how about out of melee? Out of combat?I'm not sure what you caonsider a martial. Fighter, Monk, Barbarian and Rogue? In any case they already have their thing. Fighters get an extra ASI already, Barbarians have their Rage and a bunch of cool subclass abiltiies and Rogues are just all around useful with a crap ton of abilities and like Fighters they also get an extra feat. Monk is the only one that really seems to need another feat and not many combat feats are great for a Monk.
If I did this I would give it to all PCs. If you give it only to martials then Gish and Melee casters won't be able to keep up. At 13th level for example a fighter will have 4 more feats than a bladesinger or a Paladin and will blow them out of the water in melee.
Would you care to explain this claim?A fighter should not be way better at melee than other characters designed for melee. Just because they decided to play a class without magic buffs does not mean you should make them more powerful.
A Paladin with smites or a Bladesinger is going to be WAY behind a fighter with 4 extra feats when it comes to melee and they shouldn't be. I wouldn't mind a little bit behind in melee (and both of those are already are with the current RAW) but it should be close, the fighter should not be running away with it. If a figther takes 3 rounds to kill a particular bad guy in melee without using limited resources a Bladeinsger or Paladin with the same strength should be able to do it in 4 rounds, also without spending any limited resources.
By 13th level, the Fighter will probably have run out of feats that are going to actually improve them in melee quite a while ago, and both the Paladin and Bladesinger will likely have caught up. You rapidly hit a point of diminishing returns after perhaps the second feat where each extra feat improves you less.
A bladesinger who really feels like pulling out all of the stops is quite capable of blowing most fighters out of the water within a melee fight at 13th level. Even restricting the comparison to "melee attacks only" a 13th level bladesinger can still cast 7th level spells and if they decide to go absolutely beastmode, a mere mundane fighter isn't going to keep up.