D&D 5E General Feats Discussion

Saw some discussion of Feats scattered around the forums, and thought that it would make more sense to have a centralized discussion thread.

So. Feats! Which ones do you like? Which do you hate? Which ones are you unsure how to interpret? Which ones do you plan to house-rule the bajeezus out of?


I'll start off. Grappling and the Grappler feat really gets my gaming-nerdery butting heads with my fighting sport-nerdery, and I'm not sure if I'm not interpreting it correctly or what. I think that the takedown-to-pin itself should do at least a little bit of damage to the target (ever taken a hard harai goshi or gut-wrench suplex onto the mat?.... now add cobblestones, and replace your opponent with some fantasy super-warrior... that's worth at least 1 point of damage). I think the character pinning an enemy should be able to attack with one handed weapons.


I plan on house-ruling it all so that;

A character grappling without the Feat can;

- Grab an opponent, reducing his movement to 0. Neither PC nor enemy can attack. ( Basically, a boxer's clinch)

- PC's allies get advantage to attack the grappled enemy during this grapple. Enemy's allies get advantage attacking PC.

A character WITH the Grappler Feat can;

- Grab an opponent, reducing movement to 0.

-Attack opponent with advantage with one-handed melee weapons.

-Pin opponent, doing unarmed damage (which scales with the Tavern Brawler feat).

-Attack opponent with one-handed melee weapons with advantage while pinning.



Essentially, I think a professional warrior, trained as a Grappler, should be able to clinch, grab-and-stab, throw, and ground-and-pound.


What do you guys think? Also, what do you think of any other feat?

I feel like I'll probably be alone in saying this, but... I think most of the feats kind of suck. A few are quite good (Heavy Armor Mastery) but most do NOT seem worth taking instead of just getting +2 to your primary ability score.

Hiya.

We are all still leary on using Feats, actually. Originally I was NOT going to use them at all. But after playing the game for a while and seeing how/where the "feel" of the game is going...maybe. I had a short discussion with my group about it and most of them were still on the fence about it, but were willing to give it a try. So...I think we'll use them as-is to see if what we think.

My current take on them: FAR better than how previous 3.x incarnations handled them! Feat "stacking" doesn't seem to be a problem mainly because the feats give the person something he can do with the feat as opposed to a simple "power creep add-on" (the reason why we all hated 3.x/PF feats!). I think 5e's way of handling them is better...but I guess we were scarred so badly from previous 3.x/PF experiences that we can't help but be a bit skittish around them. Oh, also, there aren't that many of them! Having FOUR pages of LISTS of feats (PFAPG I'm looking at you!) is just outright disgusting...but having four pages of Feats (that's actual feat descriptions) is pleasantly surprising.

As far as I'm concerned...less Feats (even though they ARE OPTIONAL) is a good thing. I only hope they continue the trend with other books they put out. I don't want each book (regardless of what type of book it is) to have two or three more pages of more feats. "Over two dozen NEW feats!" is NOT a selling point for a book! IMHO, of course.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I wouldn't change anything about grapple rules, they are fine.

The only thing I would change about the Grappler feat is:

From: Creatures that are one size larger than you don’t automatically
succeed on checks to escape your grapple (since this is for a rule in Alpha that does not exist anymore).

To:
- (maybe) Grapple 1 larger creatures (hue for mediums).
- or, use the grappled creature as a shield.

I particularly like the feat that gives 1+ to deference with a light weapon on the off hand; I have a really cool bard that basically ducks and weaves into combat with a shortsword and longsword.

Ragmon said:

I wouldn't change anything about grapple rules, they are fine.

The only thing I would change about the Grappler feat is:

From: Creatures that are one size larger than you don’t automatically
succeed on checks to escape your grapple (since this is for a rule in Alpha that does not exist anymore).

To:
- (maybe) Grapple 1 larger creatures (hue for mediums).
- or, use the grappled creature as a shield.

Click to expand...

No? I really like the idea of letting my PC's attack while pinning. Otherwise, the pin seems a bit useless.

I'm a bit torn on Heavy Armor Master. I think I'd like it much more if I could have taken it at 1st level, but still. Strength increase and -3 is nothing to sneeze at.

77IM said:

I feel like I'll probably be alone in saying this, but... I think most of the feats kind of suck. A few are quite good (Heavy Armor Mastery) but most do NOT seem worth taking instead of just getting +2 to your primary ability score.

Click to expand...

I like it like that, I want feats to be equal or slightly lesser to the ability boost.

Perfect. Simpler PCs, and when they want the qualities of a feat for mechanics or concept, there is an investment cost.

77IM said:

I feel like I'll probably be alone in saying this, but... I think most of the feats kind of suck. A few are quite good (Heavy Armor Mastery) but most do NOT seem worth taking instead of just getting +2 to your primary ability score.

Click to expand...

For a lot of players, what you say will hold true. The Designers (apparently) were intending to make the decision to not take a Feat and keep the PC simple and effective an attractive route.

Of course, a lot of PCs will reach 20 at level 8. Is +2 to your secondary ability score better than a Feat? Again, simply boosting Con is perfectly reasonable.

There are nuances for those interesting in pursuing them. But you are not losing out on much by not caring. Good.

(deleted double post)

The feats offer another way to individualise characters. I am happy that there are few, and hope that by and large it stays that . Certainly do not want the proliferation of feats in 3.5.

Having said that I can see scope for well chosen and crafted feats. For instance if/when Eberron comes online then Dragon Marks could well be feats.