Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Get Better At Skills With These Feats

The latest Unearthed Arcana from Jeremy Crawford and again featuring guest writer Robert J. Schwalb introduces a number of feats which make you better at skills. Each increases the skill's primary ability score, doubles your proficiency bonus, and gives you a little bonus ability. "This week we introduce new feats to playtest. Each of these feats makes you better at one of the game’s eighteen skills. We invite you to read them, give them a try in play, and let us know what you think in the survey we release in the next installment of Unearthed Arcana."

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[Valetudo]

With these feats, a level 13 Cleric can achieve a passive Perception of 30.

So much for bounded accuracy.

just curious, where does he get the last three points?

 

[Ganymede81]

I have a cleric of Kord with the Athlete feat, and I am not sure I like the Brawny feat any better. I really wanted to, too.

I do love this overall idea, though.

 

[cbwjm]

How could some DCs not increase? There are some challenges that you want to be, well, challenging.

"Well, I guess it's okay that the cleric auto-detects every trap with his passive perception. After all, he spent a feat."

"Yeah, you can convince every NPC as long as they don't start hostile, you took the diplomacy feat."

Either you fiat that things that should be /possible/ with skills are impossible - in other words "say no" to any solutions you don't approve which is bull, or you see that things you want to happen /sometimes/ now happen /very commonly/, especially at the higher levels when you have the free ASIs to take these.

They won't increase because I don't want to screw over the players who have chosen these feats or the players who haven't. That's not how I run a game.

 

[Geeknamese]

Rogues and Bards would get no benefit at all from the Expertise feature if they picked up the Skill Feat with the same skill aside from the ASI and ribbon.

Per the PHB: "Occasionally, your proficiency bonus might be multiplied or divided (doubled or halved, for example) before you apply it. For example, the rogue's Expertise feature doubles the proficiency bonus for certain ability checks. If a circumstance suggests that your proficiency bonus applies more than once to the same roll, you still add it only once and multiply or divide it only once."


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[Prakriti]

just curious, where does he get the last three points?

A level 13 human Cleric has 20 Wisdom and 2 feat slots.

10 is the base for a passive skill
+5 Wisdom modifier
+5 Proficiency bonus
+5 Perceptive (UA feat)
+5 Observant (PHB feat)

= 30 passive Perception.

 

[cbwjm]

just curious, where does he get the last three points?

Starting with a 16 Wisdom, spending 3 ASIs on +2 wisdom, Perceptive Feat (+1 wisdom), Observant Feat (+1 wisdom)

At level 13, he'd have 10 (base) + 10 (double proficiency) + 5 (wisdom) +5 (alert feat) = 30. Before he could have had it at 25 which was probably high enough to spot anything anyway. An extra +5 I don't think really does anything.

 

[Geeknamese]

A level 13 human Cleric has 20 Wisdom and 2 feat slots.

10 is the base for a passive skill
+5 Wisdom modifier
+5 Proficiency bonus
+5 Perceptive (UA feat)
+5 Observant (PHB feat)

= 30 passive Perception.

If a player with Variant Human wants to get their Wis to 20, get Warcaster, and then spend their last two Feats to get a Passive Perception of 30 to auto avoid traps, more power to them. They deserve that auto-success because they built their char to be the ultimate trapfinder. They miss out on improving their saves through Resilient Feats, using their ASIs for other abilities, etc.


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[TwoSix]

A level 13 human Cleric has 20 Wisdom and 2 feat slots.

10 is the base for a passive skill
+5 Wisdom modifier
+5 Proficiency bonus
+5 Perceptive (UA feat)
+5 Observant (PHB feat)

= 30 passive Perception.

To be fair, it's not like these possible abuses aren't equally possible with a 1 level rogue dip.

 

[Kobold Stew]

A level 13 human Cleric has 20 Wisdom and 2 feat slots.

10 is the base for a passive skill
+5 Wisdom modifier
+5 Proficiency bonus
+5 Perceptive (UA feat)
+5 Observant (PHB feat)

= 30 passive Perception.

Must also be (variant) human, or else this is only possible at level 16.

Plus, this DC for Perception is already possible with variant humans and multi classing:
Rogue 1/Cleric (or Druid or Monk or Ranger) 12
Rogue (or Bard) 5/Cleric (or Druid or Monk or Ranger) 8
Rogue (or Bard) 8/Cleric (or Druid or Monk or Ranger) 5

None of these are builds I have seen people complaining bout before, an dnone of them is obviously suboptimal-- DC30 Passive Perception has been possible all along.

EDIT: ninja'd, by someone with a slightly higher perception skill.

 

[Blue]

They won't increase because I don't want to screw over the players who have chosen these feats or the players who haven't. That's not how I run a game.

"Player B - in order not to screw you over, I'm going to make sure that player A can always succeed at doing a task you've invested in. I hope that makes you feel empowered."