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

Gradine · Apr 29, 2017

Lanliss said:
Quite possibly, yes. Not so much the Ritual caster, since that is largely "Magic" rather than a specific class ability. Martial Adept, I would say yes. So many discussion talk about how Battlemaster is the Best fighter, people would immediately cry foul of other classes getting his ability.

Imagine, a Barbarian Great Weapon master with Precise Strike!, Or Tripping strike, to get free advantage with his first swing of an axe! He would never need to use Reckless Attack again! That is blatant power creep, and we aren't even counting things like a Rogue in the mix. You won't even need a Battlemaster to let Rogues sneak attack off-turn!

That's kind of my point; nobody actually complains about Martial Adept. And Maneuvers and Superiority Dice are still way more niche than expertise is.

Complaining about something that would have been fine if it were initially included but now suddenly isn't as an add-on because... reasons, I guess?Seems completely silly to me.
This is a non issue.

Satyrn · Apr 29, 2017

cbwjm said:
I do wonder if we had just one or two feats in the PHB that granted expertise if there would be this much push back on these feats.

It wouldn't change what I dislike about some of these feats. I'm fine with the expertise bit.

What I don't like are some of the features, and I don't think the cantrips fit well for any but arcanist.

And personally, I just find them bland. I'd rather have feats that had a theme that was more focused on a story/character -like Tavern Brawler - and happened to offer expertise as a part of that theme.

Oofta · Apr 29, 2017

Satyrn said:
It wouldn't change what I dislike about some of these feats. I'm fine with the expertise bit.

What I don't like are some of the features, and I don't think the cantrips fit well for any but arcanist.

And personally, I just find them bland. I'd rather have feats that had a theme that was more focused on a story/character -like Tavern Brawler - and happened to offer expertise as a part of that theme.

I think that's part of my problem as well - the blandness. It seems lazy to just go through all the skills and say "let's make a feat for that" and attach some power to that feat that no on else has.

Some are not going to have any effect on my game - I currently allow people acrobatics checks to get through difficult terrain if it makes sense, you can currently distract someone with a performance check if it makes sense and no one is going to be undetected walking directly in front of someone who can clearly see them and is paying attention that no matter how stealthy they are. Some feel like their stepping on how I run the game. Others like Brawny's feature are just boring.

Since no one is ever going to ever going to get all the feats for one character it seemed like they could have come up with cool feats and had something along the lines of adding proficiency to skills X, Y or Z and you get bonus <fill in the blank>. Or just a +1 to a stat and proficiency in two skills based on that stat.

doctorbadwolf · Apr 29, 2017

Satyrn said:
It wouldn't change what I dislike about some of these feats. I'm fine with the expertise bit.

What I don't like are some of the features, and I don't think the cantrips fit well for any but arcanist.

And personally, I just find them bland. I'd rather have feats that had a theme that was more focused on a story/character -like Tavern Brawler - and happened to offer expertise as a part of that theme.

Even arcanist would be better with expansion of what Arcana can do, than gaining cantrips, imo. Turn it into Soellcraft, 4e Arcana skill, and Use Magic Device skill, more or less.

cbwjm · Apr 29, 2017

Satyrn said:
It wouldn't change what I dislike about some of these feats. I'm fine with the expertise bit.

What I don't like are some of the features, and I don't think the cantrips fit well for any but arcanist.

And personally, I just find them bland. I'd rather have feats that had a theme that was more focused on a story/character -like Tavern Brawler - and happened to offer expertise as a part of that theme.

The bonus powers are different, I can understand people not liking some of them, it's expertise that I think no one would be complaining about had we had some expertise granting feats right out the door. I do think that some of the bonus powers should be possible with just a skill check, Acrobatics feat stood out to me as needing a different bonus ability since I would allow anyone who made an acrobatics check the ability to ignore difficult terrain.

User_Undefined · Apr 29, 2017

cbwjm said:
The bonus powers are different, I can understand people not liking some of them, it's expertise that I think no one would be complaining about had we had some expertise granting feats right out the door. I do think that some of the bonus powers should be possible with just a skill check, Acrobatics feat stood out to me as needing a different bonus ability since I would allow anyone who made an acrobatics check the ability to ignore difficult terrain.

Acrobat

You become more nimble, gaining the following benefits:

• Increase your Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.

• You gain proficiency in the Acrobatics skill. If you are already proficient in the skill, you add double your proficiency bonus to checks you make with it.

• As a bonus action, you can make a DC 15 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If you succeed, difficult terrain doesn’t cost you extra movement until the end of the current turn.

Do you allow anyone to make the check as a bonus action? Or does it take their full action to ignore difficult terrain? Or is it a check that's made as part of their movement? If the answer is the first or third choice, then yes, I can see how the feat wouldn't seem that great for your table. Otherwise, all the feat does is allow a character to do what they already could, but faster.

cbwjm · Apr 29, 2017

User_Undefined said:
Do you allow anyone to make the check as a bonus action? Or does it take their full action to ignore difficult terrain? Or is it a check that's made as part of their movement? If the answer is the first or third choice, then yes, I can see how the feat wouldn't seem that great for your table. Otherwise, all the feat does is allow a character to do what they already could, but faster.

I would allow it as part of the movement although I could see using a bonus action as a cost of doing it.

Oofta · Apr 30, 2017

User_Undefined said:
Do you allow anyone to make the check as a bonus action? Or does it take their full action to ignore difficult terrain? Or is it a check that's made as part of their movement? If the answer is the first or third choice, then yes, I can see how the feat wouldn't seem that great for your table. Otherwise, all the feat does is allow a character to do what they already could, but faster.

I do it the same as [MENTION=6788732]cbwjm[/MENTION] if I think it makes sense, it's just part of the movement. A lot of times I'll also allow athletics. So either dive dextrously through the thick brush or muscle your way through.

There are times when it doesn't make sense. If the difficult terrain is a supernatural effect of a monster warping space for example.

So just another feat I don't need.

Hussar · Apr 30, 2017

Oofta said:
I think that's part of my problem as well - the blandness. It seems lazy to just go through all the skills and say "let's make a feat for that" and attach some power to that feat that no on else has.

/snip

Since no one is ever going to ever going to get all the feats for one character it seemed like they could have come up with cool feats and had something along the lines of adding proficiency to skills X, Y or Z and you get bonus <fill in the blank>. Or just a +1 to a stat and proficiency in two skills based on that stat.

Umm, you can't really complain about blandness and then come up with a feat that is even more bland.

+1 to stat and 2 proficiencies. And this is different from the existing Skill feat how? Oh, right, 3 proficiencies and no stat bump. Not exactly rocking the boat.

Isn't the point of a feat to do something no one else can? Isn't that how most of the feats work? Sharpshooter and GWF. Alert (cannot be surprised), and others. I mean, let's compare to a standard PHB feat shall we:

Athlete feat said:
Athlete
You have undergone extensive physical training to gain the following benefits:

Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
When you are prone, standing up uses only 5 feet of your movement.
Climbing doesn’t cost you extra movement.
You can make a running long jump or a running high jump after moving only 5 feet on foot, rather than 10 feet.

Now, you're telling me that the acrobatics feat, where you can cross difficult terrain is going to have an impact on your game, but, the fact that anyone with this feat can jump their strength, as part of their movement, anytime they want. Kinda negates most difficult terrain penalties when I can simply jump 15 feet. And I would think that climbing thing would come up rather often.

I'm thinking that the Athlete feat is likely the baseline for skill feats that they are looking at.

doctorbadwolf · Apr 30, 2017

Oofta said:
I do it the same as [MENTION=6788732]cbwjm[/MENTION] if I think it makes sense, it's just part of the movement. A lot of times I'll also allow athletics. So either dive dextrously through the thick brush or muscle your way through.

There are times when it doesn't make sense. If the difficult terrain is a supernatural effect of a monster warping space for example.

So just another feat I don't need.

Doesn't that seem counter to how the skill system and action economy work, in general, though?

Special movement normally requires an Action.

The unwritten rule seems to be that skill checks which are an active thing you do, and which give you a direct benefit on a success, are an Action unless specificied otherwise or unless you've a feature that says otherwise.

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

Gradine

The Elephant in the Room (she/her)

Satyrn

First Post

Oofta

Legend

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle

cbwjm

Seb-wejem

User_Undefined

First Post

cbwjm

Seb-wejem

Oofta

Legend

Hussar

Legend

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle

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