What feats are "missing"?

[Negflar2099]

The thinking on this was answered on twitter recently.

but the Eldritch Knight can't cast spells through his arrows, right, unless I'm missing something. That's still not quite the same.

 

[RhaezDaevan]

I haven't seen anyway to treat a weapon as a spell focus, only the reverse (staff treated as quarterstaff). There could be a feat for this. Perhaps:

+1 to either str or dex.
Choose one weapon you're proficient in. It is treated as a spell focus for spells cast by you. It is also treated as magical.

What do people think? Does it need something more? It doesn't replicate any class feature that I know of and it can be useful for multiple classes.

 

[jadrax]

I haven't seen anyway to treat a weapon as a spell focus, only the reverse (staff treated as quarterstaff). There could be a feat for this. Perhaps:

+1 to either str or dex.
Choose one weapon you're proficient in. It is treated as a spell focus for spells cast by you. It is also treated as magical.

What do people think? Does it need something more? It doesn't replicate any class feature that I know of and it can be useful for multiple classes.

Interesting. A lot of overlap with War Caster (which allows you ignore Somatic Components which is the basic upshot of this feat).

However the true benefit of this Feat is you make your Weapon attacks magical. I would imagine as it stands, way more Fighters and Rogues would take it than spell casters.

 

[DammitVictor]

Telepathy

• You can communicate telepathically with any creature you have charmed, or any creature in line of sight within 60 feet, that can understand a language.
• You can sense the presence and Intelligence score of every sentient creature in line of sight within 60 feet.
• You can touch a number of creatures up to your spellcasting ability modifier to create a telepathic link with them, which allows you to communicate with those creatures anywhere as long as they are on the same plane.

Mindbender
Prerequisites: Telepathy ability, proficiency in Insight and Persuasion, ability to cast charm person and 3rd level spells

• You may add twice your proficiency bonus to Insight and Persuasion checks.
• You learn the following spells: detect thoughts, suggestion
• You add the following spells to your class spell list: mass suggestion, dominate person

 

[RhaezDaevan]

Interesting. A lot of overlap with War Caster (which allows you ignore Somatic Components which is the basic upshot of this feat).

However the true benefit of this Feat is you make your Weapon attacks magical. I would imagine as it stands, way more Fighters and Rogues would take it than spell casters.

You're forgetting Rangers and Paladins as well, especially Rangers who don't normally have a spell focus. Paladin's could have a holy symbol on their armor or shield, but it could still be useful to treat their weapon as a focus too.

 

[Li Shenron]

There were feats in the playtest that I wish had stayed in the game. One in particular that I miss was a feat called Arcane Archer that basically replicated the Arcane Archer prestige class. I thought it was a great way to do prestige classes and a really fun feat. I don't know why it was left out of the final version.

I heard someone mention that it just got renamed but it's still in the PHB.

OTOH, I just thought that WotC would really make me happy if they put Arcane Archer and a bunch of other feats inspired by older PrCl/archetypes in the DMG.

I think feats are likely the hardest thing to design in the game. You want things that not everyone (or even each member of class X) would want or feel they need. You also want something that "anyone watching the game for an hour would realize who has what feat(s)".

Yes I agree they are very hard!

Mearls has explained clearly before that in design they wanted to keep a principle of "class trumps race trumps spell trumps feat" (although the order may be different), meaning that no feat should allow someone to become better than another class at something which the other class is strongly identified with, like Rogue's sneak attack or expertise, the Barbarian's rage or the Druid's wildshape.

Combat feats are OK, but a single combat feat should not make e.g. a Wizard or Rogue an overall better combatant than a Fighter. It can make such Rogue better e.g. with polearms than a Fighter, because the Fighter is not necessarily associated with polearms. This means that the feat shouldn't cause the Rogue who starts using ONLY polearms after taking the feat, to end up being better in every combat than the Fighter who hasn't taken any feats.

"Multiclassing feats" are still valid design, but those clearly serve the purpose of creating characters that do have another class' stick, but notice that they won't ever get as good as a single-class of the other class anyway.

I guess at I high level I think of each feat as a mini-class; it should represent some very strong character type in a way that sets your character apart from others, but overlaps with too many other concepts too much to be its own class.

Totally agree that this would be the best plan for feats: use them to cover something that is NO base class main thing. Best is, if the feat really grants something NEW to all base classes.

I wouldn't actually mind to see a few feats that improve one side of a main class, such as one feat improving Wildshape or another improving Rituals. But it has to be designed with care... it must not become a "must-have" and it probably should rather expand the base feature "horizontally" than "vertically" i.e. more flexible rather than more powerful.

- feats that are thematic to specific to character concept that grant expertise on 2 related skills or tools (e.g. Medic = medicine; herbalist kit; Charioteer = animal handling; vehicles (land); Archaeologist = history, religion).

I am not really sure I'd like the expertise suggestions. I have been thinking that in some specific settings having PCs with very high skill bonuses is important; this is the case IMHO in Rokugan, which I'm writing a 5e conversion of. But easy-to-get expertise works in Rokugan because every PC is expected to be a "master" of something like an art or craft, and there are no proper Rogue PCs, so having such feats wouldn't steal one of the Rogue's primary features.

OTOH I really like your thematic suggestions! "Herbalist", "Charioteer" and "Archaeologist" are really great examples of concepts that could be covered by feats because:

1) none of them is a specific concept associated to one class
2) none of them is necessarily a background (although they might be, if you preferred to see them as job occupations / society roles)
3) all of them are complex enough to be represented by a small "bundle" of features, rather than just a single skill for example
4) all of them can provide benefits to be used during adventures and perhaps even combat

For example, a "Herbalist" feat wouldn't just grant proficiency in herbalist's kit (which the PC probably already has since 1st level), but could allow her to create non-magic potions or infusions which cure wounds or have other usefulness. "Charioteer" may not only grant land vehicles proficiency but maybe allow to cut travel times or avoid certain hazards while travelling by wagons, and ease of use of chariots in combat. "Archaeologist" not just history proficiency but some abilities to recognize useful features or dangers in certain locales or dungeons, find routes to locales of historical importance, recognize the age and origin of objects...

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

Telepathy

• You can communicate telepathically with any creature you have charmed, or any creature in line of sight within 60 feet, that can understand a language.
• You can sense the presence and Intelligence score of every sentient creature in line of sight within 60 feet.
• You can touch a number of creatures up to your spellcasting ability modifier to create a telepathic link with them, which allows you to communicate with those creatures anywhere as long as they are on the same plane.

Mindbender
Prerequisites: Telepathy ability, proficiency in Insight and Persuasion, ability to cast charm person and 3rd level spells

• You may add twice your proficiency bonus to Insight and Persuasion checks.
• You learn the following spells: detect thoughts, suggestion
• You add the following spells to your class spell list: mass suggestion, dominate person

In general I like Telepathy, though it may be too good. It's clearly a defining character concept. I don't care for Mindbender, though I could see a feat meant to represent someone who is particularly skilled at influencing others.

 

[DammitVictor]

In general I like Telepathy, though it may be too good. It's clearly a defining character concept. I don't care for Mindbender, though I could see a feat meant to represent someone who is particularly skilled at influencing others.

Yeah. I am not real sure about handing out Expertise with feats. On the other hand, I'm trying to replicate the Mindbender Prestige Class from 3.5's Complete Arcane.

As for Telepathy, can you give any advice on how to tone it down?

 

[Khaalis]

Yeah. I am not real sure about handing out Expertise with feats. On the other hand, I'm trying to replicate the Mindbender Prestige Class from 3.5's Complete Arcane.

As for Telepathy, can you give any advice on how to tone it down?

I would go with this for Feats, based loosely on my psionicist mixed with the ideas you posted.


TELEPATHY
You have the ability to touch others minds as a mentalist, granting you the following benefits.

• You can communicate telepathically with any creature you can see within 30 feet of you. You don’t need to share a language with the creature for it to understand your telepathic utterances, but the creature must be able to understand at least one language. This communication is two-way.
• You can read a creatures thoughts. You can use your access to the creature’s mind to command it. As an action, choose one creature that you can see within 60 feet of you. That creature must make a Wisdom saving throw against your Psionic power save DC. If the creature succeeds on the saving throw, you can’t use this feature on it again until you have finished a long rest. If the creature fails its save, you can read its surface thoughts (those foremost in its mind, reflecting its current emotions and what it is actively thinking about) when it is within 60 feet of you. The effect lasts for 1 minute. During that time, you can use your action to end this effect and manifest the suggestion power on the creature without expending the power points. The target automatically fails its saving throw against the power.

MINDBENDER
Prerequisite: Telepathy feat
You are not only good as a mentalist but also as a controller, gaining the following abilities:

• You gain proficiency in Persuasion if you do not already have it. If you are already proficient, you gain Expertise in it instead, applying double your proficiency bonus to Persuasion skill checks.
• As an action, you can cause each creature in a 10 foot cube originating from you to make a Wisdom saving throw against a DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier. The creatures that fail their saving throws are all charmed or frightened by you (your choice) until the end of your next turn. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
• You gain the ability to generate a telepathic field of white noise static that disrupts mind-influencing effects. As an action, you can manifest the field which lasts until the end of your next turn. During that time, you and any friendly creature within 30 feet of you have advantage on saving throws against being frightened or charmed. The field also ends if you are incapacitated or if you voluntarily end it (no action required).

I prefer the idea that non-casters can take these feats and use the abilities. If you want one that it purely caster we could try to work on that.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I would go with this for Feats, based loosely on my psionicist mixed with the ideas you posted.


TELEPATHY
You have the ability to touch others minds as a mentalist, granting you the following benefits.

• You can communicate telepathically with any creature you can see within 30 feet of you. You don’t need to share a language with the creature for it to understand your telepathic utterances, but the creature must be able to understand at least one language. This communication is two-way.
• You can read a creatures thoughts. You can use your access to the creature’s mind to command it. As an action, choose one creature that you can see within 60 feet of you. That creature must make a Wisdom saving throw against your Psionic power save DC. If the creature succeeds on the saving throw, you can’t use this feature on it again until you have finished a long rest. If the creature fails its save, you can read its surface thoughts (those foremost in its mind, reflecting its current emotions and what it is actively thinking about) when it is within 60 feet of you. The effect lasts for 1 minute. During that time, you can use your action to end this effect and manifest the suggestion power on the creature without expending the power points. The target automatically fails its saving throw against the power.

MINDBENDER
Prerequisite: Telepathy feat
You are not only good as a mentalist but also as a controller, gaining the following abilities:

• You gain proficiency in Persuasion if you do not already have it. If you are already proficient, you gain Expertise in it instead, applying double your proficiency bonus to Persuasion skill checks.
• As an action, you can cause each creature in a 10 foot cube originating from you to make a Wisdom saving throw against a DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Wisdom modifier. The creatures that fail their saving throws are all charmed or frightened by you (your choice) until the end of your next turn. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
• You gain the ability to generate a telepathic field of white noise static that disrupts mind-influencing effects. As an action, you can manifest the field which lasts until the end of your next turn. During that time, you and any friendly creature within 30 feet of you have advantage on saving throws against being frightened or charmed. The field also ends if you are incapacitated or if you voluntarily end it (no action required).

I prefer the idea that non-casters can take these feats and use the abilities. If you want one that it purely caster we could try to work on that.

These are both better, though you're still handing out expertise.

I'd take one more step, and remove the Telepathy requirement from Mindbender, and the suggestion ability from Telepathy as well. That way the two feats, while both psionic in nature, are completely divorced from one another. Telepathy lets you communicate and read minds. Mindbender lets you throw up telepathic fields that charm or protect. You can pick up either independently.

I think the original Mindbender concept above feels like a Psion subclass.