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Zardnaar, I basically like these half-feats.
The main issues are:
Flavor-neutral mechanics
Avoid baking setting flavor into the mechanics. Rely more on ‘flavor text boxes’ for flavor. Especially avoid terms like ‘gods’ within the actual mechanics themselves.
Defenses
In 4e, there are no such things as ‘saves’. Instead, the attacker always rolls. The defender has ‘defenses’. Ideally, the redundant defenses AC and Reflex consolidate into one defense. Meanwhile Perception becomes a formal defense, since 4e refers to ‘passive perception’ highly frequently.
• AC/Reflex defense
• Fortitude defense
• Will defense
• Perception defense
Consolidate micro-bonuses
5e has the right idea of eliminating and reducing most bonuses, while allowing the DM to use ‘advantage’ on the fly to represent a situational bonus. Untyped bonuses must cease to exist. The list of bonus types needs to be few and impossible to stack.
• Ability bonus type (Strength, Intelligence, etcetera)
• Proficiency bonus type (leveling)
• Magic bonus type (same thing as tier bonus type)
• Item bonus type (armor/shield, defense amulet, special tools, etcetera)
• Expertise bonus type (special training, insight, Bless spell, preparation, etcetera)
Probably these are the only bonuses the game will ever need.
Abilities
Ability scores must be equal to each other in power, and saliently mutually exclusive. Their math must be identical.
Theater of the Mind
Too many references to micro-moves of 5 feet and 10 feet, create a dependence on a grid, and make Theater of the Mind difficult to implement. Rethink how to characterize these kinds of mechanics within the distance categories of:
• Melee
• Close (within 30 feet)
• Far (beyond 30 feet)
Elf
make ‘Elf’ a creature type, like Giant, Dragon, Elemental, etcetera. Thus the ‘Elf’ can include very different races with very different mechanics. My nomenclature preference.
• Eladrin Elf (Cha): Sun Elf Cha-Int, Moon Elf Cha-Dex
• Sylvan Elf (Dex): High Elf Dex-Int, Wood Elf Dex-Wis, Grugach Elf Dex-Str
• Drow Elf (Dex-Cha)
Keywords
I like labeling each feat with keywords, like [martial], [elf], etcetera. Pretty much every feat here is nonmagical thus gains the [martial] source tag.
Here are comments on individual half feats.
Divine Boon: ‘gods’. Mystic Boon. Make the flavor of 4e mechanics ‘setting neutral’. Even then make the flavor more inclusive. A Paladin might have a code of conduct without any ‘gods’, polytheism might not exist in a particular setting. Fey creatures might lack gods and only care about archfey. Even references to religion can be more inclusive, philosophical, cosmic forces, Primal animistic communities, and so on. A Boon might derive from Arcane power or Psionic Power.
Saving throws: that is, defenses. Attacker always rolls.
Divine Boon
The gods favor you and have blessed you with a portion of their power. You gain a +2 bonus on all saving throws.
Actor: insight. Make the ‘versus Insight’, be ‘versus Perception’, and make Perception a formal defense (like AC/Reflex, Fortitude, and Will).
Actor
You have advantage on any deception or performance checks made to pass yourself off as a different person.
You can mimic the sounds made by another person or creature. You must have heard the person or creature talking or making those sounds for at least a minute. A successful charisma (deception) check opposed by a wisdom (insight) check indicates success.
Alert: actual immunity to surprise might be too much, as it eliminates an important Martial tactic.
Alert
You can’t be surprised while conscious
Other creatures do not gain advantage to hit you if they are hidden from you.
Armor Proficiencies: Consolidate the armors into only two feats.
• Light Armor and Shield Proficiency
• Medium Armor and Heavy Armor Proficiency
Spending two half-feats gets everything. This helps avoids a feat tax for many build concepts.
Armor Proficiency: Light [Martial]
You are proficient with light armor.
Armor Proficiency Medium [Martial]
Requirement: Armor Proficiency: Light
You are proficient with medium armor
Armor Proficiency: Heavy [Martial]
Requirement: Armor Proficiency: Medium
You are proficient with heavy armor
Armored Defense [martial]
Requirement: Proficient in Medium or Heavy Armor
You gain a +1 bonus to AC while wearing armor.
Athlete: The micro-measurments of movement create dependence on a grid, and makes Theater of the Mind difficult. This is a feat, just give the ability to stand for free during any move.
Athlete
When you are prone standing up only uses 5’ of your movement
You may climb surfaces at full speed and have advantage on any climb checks.
Charger: ‘use dash as a bonus action’, needs a ‘such as’ example of who would normally do this. The example serves to make the intent of the rules more obvious, so there is no rules mastery required to make sense of who would or wouldnt use this feat.
Charger
If you use the dash action, as a bonus action you gain an extra 1d6 damage.
[martial]: I am cool with feats being labeled by source, but pretty much all of these feats are ‘martial’. They are feats, so an arcane Swordmage can probably take this martial Cleave feat.
Cleave [martial]
Once per round when you reduce an opponent to 0 hit points or less with a melee attack you can make an additional attack against an opponent within reach as a bonus action.
Combat Expertise: the name of this feat seems confusing. Normally a reader assumes ‘combat expertise’ makes one better at combat attacks, but this feat actually makes one worse at attacks, a ‘disadvantage’. The gain for this impairment is to become more difficult to be hit by others. So it is really ‘Combat Defense’. But I consider this not worth a feat. The tradeoff is a wash. It seems more like a normal standard ability that any character could do for free − choose to fight defensively.
Combat Expertise
You gain disadvantage on your attack rolls. Your opponents gain disadvantage on attack rolls against you. You can only use this feat while making melee attacks.
[martial]: Pretty much all of the feats in the post are ‘martial’. An arcane Swordmage, a divine Paladin, a psionic (?) Bard, can all probably select this ‘martial’ feat.
Dagger Master: I think I understand the logic of making a low-damage weapon more viable. But I worry about how daggers might interact with other feats and features, making the +2 to hit less balanced. But a +2 might be a decent standard for d20 feat bonus anyway.
Dagger Master [martial]
You gain [score]gains[/score] a +2 bonus to initiative and +2 bonus to hit when using daggers.
Dual Wielder: seems ok, but it is obviously of interest to char op damage output.
Dual Wielder
You master fighting with two weapons gaining the following benefits.
You gain +1 AC
You can use two weapons even when one of the weapons is not a light or finesse weapon.
Dodge: reflexes. Consider consolidating the AC and the Reflex into a single defense, that can benefit from Dexterity dodging and armor deflecting.
[martial]: pretty much every one of these feats is martial.
Dodge: +1. Avoid too many micro bonuses. Have a small number of possible bonuses, and make it impossible for them to stack. 5e had the right idea of eliminating bonuses and reducing almost all situational bonuses to ‘advantage’.
Consider the possibility of a dodge feat, that as a reaction per short rest, can boost the AC/Reflex defense, or allow a counter attack to negate the attack that would have hit, or something like that.
Dodge [Martial]
Your training and reflexes allow you to react swiftly to avoid an opponents’ attacks.
Requirement: Dex 13.
Benefit: You gain a +1 dodge bonus to your AC.
Dwarven Resilience: I like it, but since it only affects one attack, maybe make it boost the Fortitude defense too?
Dwarven Resilience
As a reaction you gain resistance to an incoming source of damage. This ability can be used one per short rest.
[dwarf]: pretty much anyone could take this feat.
[martial]: pretty much anyone could take this feat.
Dwarven Weapon Training: Depends on the particular dwarven ‘culture’. Perhaps allow the dwarf to use Constitution instead of Strength for attacks and damage.
Weapon: I would probably separate the weapon types, allowing a different weapon mechanic for each weapon concept. Dwarven Hammer Training. Dwarven Miningpick Training. Dwarven Woodaxe Training.
Dwarven Weapon Training [Dwarf, Martial)]
Requirement: Dwarf
Benefit: You gain proficiency and a +2 bonus to damage rolls with axes and hammers.
Elven Grace: ‘Grace’ can mean a lot of things. I would call this feat ‘Elven Weapon Training’. Except split the feat up for different weapon types. Longsword Training. Longbow Training.
Elven: I like how 4e splits up Elf, Eladrin, and Drow, each with completely separate mechanics, abilities, and traits. But I dislike how 4e stops calling Eladrin and Drow an ‘Elf’. Make ‘Elf’ a Creature Type, like Dragon, Giant, Elemental, and so on. That way, races that are completely different from each other can still be referred to as ‘Elf’.
Elf: elf or elf ancestry or elf upbringing
Suggested version of this feat:
High Elf Longsword Training [elf, arcane, martial]
You gain proficiency with the Longsword, your magic bonus increases by 1 to hit using it, and you can substitute Dexterity or Intelligence in place of Strength for its attack and damage.
And so on for each weapon culture.
Elven Grace
You gain a +1 bonus to hit while using a long sword, short sword, longbow or shortbow.
Elven Soldier [Elf, Martial]
Requirement: Elf
Benefit: You gain proficiency and a +2 bonus to all damage rolls with long swords and all spears.
Fleet of Foot: The micro-measures of movement create grid dependency and make Theater of the Mind more difficult to achieve using this gaming system. Perhaps something like the following instead.
Fleet of Foot
When you use your movement to avoid opportunity attacks, you can move again. In a race, you can outdistance the speed of a typical human (30) or slower.
Fleet Foot
Your base speed increases by 10’.
Fine.
First Strike
You have advantage against anyone you beat for initiative in the first round of combat
Great [Defense]: Wait, there is no such thing as a 4e fortitude ‘save’. It is a defense score. In any case, as defenses AC/Reflex, Fortitude, Perception, and Will, need to all use the same combat math. So an ‘advantage’ on all AC/Reflex would be wildly broken. The other defenses, Great AC/Reflex, Great Will, and Great Perception should have identical math.
Great Fortitude
You gain advantage on fortitude saves.
Great Weapon Master: boring but balanced, and appeals to char op. Possibly too many microbonuses are better to avoid.
Great Weapon Master
You gain a +2 bonus to damage while using a two handed weapon.
Halfling Skirmisher: See Elf Grace, aka ‘Wood Elf Longsword Training’. Split weapons into separate weapon concepts, for separate cultures.
Halfling Skirmisher [Halfling, Martial)
You gain a +2 bonus to hit with all slings and thrown weapons.
Heroic Inspiration: Call it ‘Human Inspiration’. The mechanics seem fine. Except there are ‘defenses’ and no ‘saves’.
Heroic Inspiration [Human]
You gain advantage on an attack roll, saving throw or ability check. You may not use this abilty again until you complete a short rest.
