D&D 5E Moar Feats

[Emka]

I'm liking these feats. Quality over quantity and all that.

BTW, two different elements for "thunder" and "lightning"? I can see that getting mixed up unintentionally.

 

[wedgeski]

Very happy with these as a mixture of thematic and mechanical bonuses and excited to see MOAR! Gah, what's the date again?

 

[Gargoyle]

Durable is horrible, and it gets worse the larger your hitdie is. A Con 18 Barbarian going from 5-16 healing to 8-16 healing is nothing. Especially when you only recover HALF of your hitdice during a long rest, so this won't even help you 'naturally' heal anything.

If Durable skipped the roll and just let you treat each hitdie as its maximum, even then it would still only be worth taking in a specific kind of a campaign. But at least then it would fit the other campaign-specific feats on this page.

Mechanically I agree that it's niche and not very strong. But the +1 to Con offsets that; compared to a +2 to Con it's possibly a wash, since you would probably take this over a +2 to Con when you have an odd Con score and you're after less downtime and/or lack magical healing it may be the right choice. So weak yeah, but I wouldn't consider it a "gotcha" feat.

I think the balance on these is not comparing them to other feats (I'm betting it is indeed weak then), but always comparing them to a +2 bonus to an ability score. That's going to make some of them feel weaker than others. Trying to balance feats against each other would be too subjective IMO. I also don't think they have to be perfectly balanced, some are just going to be better, and I'm ok with that.

Furthermore, Con is pretty awesome. If they make it a smidgen too good, everyone would take it because everyone can use it, so I think they have to be conservative on these.

 

[Paraxis]

I'm liking these feats. Quality over quantity and all that.

BTW, two different elements for "thunder" and "lightning"? I can see that getting mixed up unintentionally.

Eh, the feats are not as good as a +2 in a primary ability score so meh to most of them.

Thunder = Sonic

Lightning = Electricity

They should have just used sonic and electricity but to late now.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Quite nice feats examples, definitely confirm that the magnitude of 5e feats is at least twice compared to previous editions.

That would be at least twice the magnitude of 3.X's Toughness? Or possibly 4e's +1 to two different elemental damage types? So far the only feat I'd take in preference to a 4e feat of my choice is the Improved Initiative replacement and there are plenty of 3.5 feats I'd take in preference to those three.

 

[Alessandro Guarita]

Elemental Adept also is powerful, and gives a traditional flavor to a spellcaster... I am not so glad it allows bypassing energy resistance, but at least they didn't make the terrible mistake of letting it bypass energy immunity.

True. First I thought to work on a house rule that if you face a enemy with immunity, you treat it with resistance. But if it is the case the feat become a "must have" and every spell user have to take it. And I'm against this kind of feat (like the "natural spell" on 3.x... a feat that EVERY druid take... so it isn't a choice really).

 

[Alessandro Guarita]

Eh, the feats are not as good as a +2 in a primary ability score so meh to most of them.

Well, if it happens to you have 17 on 1st level on 8th level you get 20 on you primary. Now you can take some feats

 

[Pickles JG]

Eh, the feats are not as good as a +2 in a primary ability score so meh to most of them.

Thunder = Sonic

Lightning = Electricity

They should have just used sonic and electricity but to late now.

I prefer the new words less scientific more fantasy.

Also you get at least 5 stat bumps/feats so only the first couple have to compete with boosting your primary attribute (which does admittedly put you to 12th level but still)

 

[Juriel]

Elemental Adept also is powerful, and gives a traditional flavor to a spellcaster... I am not so glad it allows bypassing energy resistance, but at least they didn't make the terrible mistake of letting it bypass energy immunity.

Err... extremely situational is hardly powerful.

You do avoid halving your damage when you're throwing fireballs at salamanders, but that just begs the question of why not use any of a million other spells they aren't resistant to. I bet thundermancers never have to worry about resistances.

Turning 1s on your damage dice into 2s is only useful for d4 spells. Anything bigger, and it gets not worth counting - with a 10d6 spell, you get an average of +1.5 points of damage from this feat, total...

Still, perhaps CharOp will be able to get something out of it after a few more books, and some kind of a Magic Missile Master thing.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Mechanically I agree that it's niche and not very strong. But the +1 to Con offsets that; compared to a +2 to Con it's possibly a wash, since you would probably take this over a +2 to Con when you have an odd Con score and you're after less downtime and/or lack magical healing it may be the right choice. So weak yeah, but I wouldn't consider it a "gotcha" feat.

I think the balance on these is not comparing them to other feats (I'm betting it is indeed weak then), but always comparing them to a +2 bonus to an ability score.

Remember that you don't have to take +2 to an ability score; you can instead take +1 to two ability scores. For Durable to be worthwhile, either the hit dice part needs to stack up to bumping a different stat to an even number (IMO it doesn't - even if you're playing a wizard and bumping strength) or you need to have no odd numbered stats (which is going to be vanishingly rare).

Even then you need a pretty high Con to take advantage of it (depending on whether the roll is meant to include the modifier; my belief is it is) the only time where assuming you spend all your hit dice in a day, it gives you more HP than Pathfinder Toughness is if you are a Wizard (or by inches a Cleric or Rogue) with an already-existing Con of 19 that you can boost to 20.