D&D 5E Feats: Toughness, Inspiring Leader, Healer, and Magic Initiate

Bacon Bits · Oct 18, 2017

Toughness is somewhat weak, but it does allow you to break 20 Con, and +3 hp/level would be nuts at high level. If I were to make a change, I'd probably combine Toughness with the non-ASI half of Durable. They're both slightly weak feats by themselves. As printed I've only ever considered Toughness at high level after I've maxed Con and Str as a Fighter. And I ended up taking Sentinel and Mobile over it.

Healer is a bit weak. It could easily grant proficiency with the Healer's Kit and Herbalism Kit. I feel like these "Profession" style feats should be a complete thing, although I guess that's what Backgrounds are for. Given the power of long rest healing, it's a bit difficult to make non-combat healing overpowered.

Inspiring Leader is mostly fine, although I could see it having some benefit for NPC interactions. It would be more meaningful if you might interact with NPC companions more often or if it didn't feel subsumed by heroes' feast at higher levels. The limit of six seems pretty arbitrary, but there's nothing stopping you from affecting 12 creatures in 20 minutes, either.

Stalker0 · Oct 18, 2017

It's interesting that there is such a difference of opinion on toughness. Talking to my group, they consider it a near must have feat.

The number of combats in your game will certainly influence its strength, but hitpoints are one of the key ways to survive in combat, and nothing does it better than this feat.

For example, if we take a rogue with 12 con. At 4th level it would increase their hp from 27 to 35, which is just under a 30% increase in survivability.

It's not an excoting feat, but it's not weak by any stretch

Valetudo · Oct 19, 2017

All the MI feat needs is to add the spell you learn also as a bonus spell known.

FrogReaver · Oct 19, 2017

The question is how do you envision feats? Should they be good enough early to make you consider them over a primary stat bump and if they are how much better are they with variant human?

Healer Feat - It adds way to much HP at low levels. At level 1 it heals an average of 8.5 hp per party member per short rest. At level 1 it heals more than a level 1 cure wounds. It allows any level 1 character to do more healing than a level 1 cleric. It's much to storng of a feat at this level.

Making it only apply once per day would go a long way.

Inspiring leader - I would make it more accessible to all character by removing it's reliance on charisma and lowering the amount it can do early a bit. I would sit its temp hp equal to level+2 and only make it apply once per day. To make it more interesting I would consider allowing it to give a +2 initiative boost to any character that can see or hear a person with this feat.

Toughness - I like your change. It helps. I think tough could be calculated like this and it would help hp boost = 2*Level + 2. I feel it needs a little extra umph to make it worth it early. I don't know that I've ever seen a person take tough at level 4.

(An additional cool feat would be one that adds your con mod to all magic healing spells used on you except good berry - might be too strong though)

Magic Initiate - I would give this +1 to the mental stat you choose and make it be the first in a progression you could opt into. If you want even more spells then use your feats for them. The 2nd taking of magic initiate would maybe give 2 level 2 spell slots and an additional level 1 spell (you can use any of these spell slots for any of your magic initiate spells as long as they are of proper level). Then magic initiate the 3rd time would give you 2 level 3 slots and an additional level 2 and a level 3 spell. 3 feats to get up to a level 3 spell with multiple casts of each spell doesn't sounds terrible to me. (Though maybe you are giving up too much for these)?

Horwath · Oct 19, 2017

Merge Thoughness with durable and buff durable to max HP heal for spending HDs.

Little buff, less rolling and calculating. Me like.

clearstream · Oct 19, 2017

Xeviat said:
But do you have any thoughts on Magic Initiate being weak or Healer and Inspiring Leader being too strong?

I do.

Magic Initiate isn't too weak, it is a strong feat that offers something to both people pursuing a concept and people trying to optimise. One interesting point about MI is that the power of the feat really depends on how imaginatively you use it.

Inspiring Leader is strong, but was taken only 4 times out of ~240 ASI choices in my survey of feats, responded to by people representing 27 groups. Possibly because it's altruistic: it makes everyone stronger, not just the character who takes it. There are several sources of temp HP in 5e and depending on the party its value can be diminished. Is it worth more than an ASI? Probably yes! Tough = 2*level HP. IL gives 1*Level*PCs so is about twice as effective, even with no Charisma bonus. Should it be nerfed? I don't think so. For me, nerfing isn't just about limiting power, it's about overall balance where we aim to avoid overshadowing, broaden strategies, avoid warping the narrative. IL is very efficient, but Tough was chosen 7 times - nearly twice as often. So IL isn't narrowing the options against the feat it most closely competes with. Healer was taken 3 times... not much less often than IL. Resilient was taken more than all three put together, frequently choosing Con.

Stalker0 · Oct 19, 2017

vonklaude said:
I do.

Inspiring Leader is strong, but was taken only 4 times out of ~240 ASI choices in my survey of feats, responded to by people representing 27 groups. Possibly because it's altruistic: it makes everyone stronger, not just the character who takes it. There are several sources of temp HP in 5e and depending on the party its value can be diminished. Is it worth more than an ASI? Probably yes! Tough = 2*level HP. IL gives 1*Level*PCs so is about twice as effective, even with no Charisma bonus. Should it be nerfed? I don't think so. For me, nerfing isn't just about limiting power, it's about overall balance where we aim to avoid overshadowing, broaden strategies, avoid warping the narrative. IL is very efficient, but Tough was chosen 7 times - nearly twice as often. So IL isn't narrowing the options against the feat it most closely competes with. Healer was taken 3 times... not much less often than IL. Resilient was taken more than all three put together, frequently choosing Con.

We need to be a little careful using that survey to dissect the pecking order of feats. The sample isn't that high, so while I think it clearly shows certain feats are a cut above the rest...you can't use it to sort the strength of all the feats.

Now of the feats mentioned in the quote were picked so much more than the others that it constitutes a balance concern imo

clearstream · Oct 19, 2017

Stalker0 said:
We need to be a little careful using that survey to dissect the pecking order of feats. The sample isn't that high, so while I think it clearly shows certain feats are a cut above the rest...you can't use it to sort the strength of all the feats.

Agreed. It is suggestive but not definitive.

Stalker0 said:
Now of the feats mentioned in the quote were picked so much more than the others that it constitutes a balance concern imo

My point exactly

ro · Oct 19, 2017

As @Blue mentioned, I have some revisions of these and many other feats at my thread Feats - Improved!. I'd be glad for all of your input on all of them!

@Xeviat, I like the idea of Magic Initiate scaling. One version in Feats - Improved! gives spells like so:
-- At 4th level, one 1st-level spell.
-- At 8th level, one 2nd-level spell.
-- At 14th level, one 3rd-level spell.
-- At 19th level, one 4th-level spell.
with a single spell slot that matches the level of the highest level spell, which recharges after a long rest.

@Mistwell, you mention Healer not being much use in combat. My proposition is to add a benefit to encourage its use, such as extending the range of healing spells when you run toward your allies to help them.

@Satyrn brings observation about how much Healer is actually used in play. Some balancing needs to be done, but it would be better if we could make it more interesting to use in combat.

I think @vonklaude proposes a good solution of merging Tough and Durable, although this is mostly to salvage Durable.

Inspiring Leader is generally considered solid.

@FrogReaver points out that Healer is very strong at low levels. How could we balance its potency? It is basically a Cure Wounds + your level, near unlimited. That's quite a deal.

Xeviat · Oct 19, 2017

Inspiring Leader is (Cha+Level)*PCs*Short Rests. That’s the problem. Limiting it to 1/long rest would still be valuable. How many times can your boss give you a pep-talk and still have it invigorate you?

To everyone, yes, Magic Initiate offers more than just the first level spell slot. It offers the two cantrips. I consider the two cantrips to be a strong half a feat. The spell slot portion is simply weak. It’s hard to justify a primary spellcaster taking it, unless they’re cheesing some cantrip.

Healer isn’t so good in combat ... except that it is better than cure wounds. When does a max level cure wounds become better?

Level 1: Healer 1d6+5 (8.5) vs 1d8+3 (7.5)

Level 3: Healer 1d6+7 (10.5) vs 2d8+3 (12)

Okay, right away. But it still works, on an average party size, up to 12 times a day. Rather than limiting it per day, I’d rather add some of its ability to the healer Kit itself. Groups without this feat simply don’t last through a “full adventuring day” without sucking down potions.

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