D&D 5E Which feats shouldn't be feats

[Jeff Carlsen]

The problem with feats like charge, disarm, and bull rush is that those have been mechanics everyone can use in every d20 game for the past decade. D&D players are used to being able to do those things.

 

[Viking Bastard]

I have to admit that I don't really get the Charge feet. What's the benefit, exactly? You can move up to your speed and do an attack. Yes? So? What is stopping me from doing that without the feat? Do they mean that you move twice your speed (basically "hustling" for free, as long as you hustle towards a victim)?

 

[am181d]

I have to admit that I don't really get the Charge feet. What's the benefit, exactly? You can move up to your speed and do an attack. Yes? So? What is stopping me from doing that without the feat? Do they mean that you move twice your speed (basically "hustling" for free, as long as you hustle towards a victim)?

Yes. Normally you get one move and one action (which you can use to attack). Charge lets you take one move and one action (which you can use to move again and then attack).

 

[Celebrim]

I think there have far too many new feats in the latest playtest which shouldn't be feats at all, either because they should be a skill use that anyone can do or should be a more specialised class ability

For example, track should be possible for anyone, better if trained in a skill

In general, my rule is that if it is something a child can attempt, then it isn't something that should be a feat.

Facing another child on a playground, a child can trip, shove, push, tackle, grab and throw another child. He won't always succeed and it will generally be rather ungraceful and prone to fumbles, but he can attempt those things. Those basic manuevers should never require a feat.

Anything anyone could do is a skill, defaulting to their inate ability.

The same is true of things like Tracking, Finding Traps, Reading Lips, etc. If a child can attempt it, then it shouldn't be a feat or class exclusive ability. In 3e, they tried to deal with this by saying that everyone could do it, but no one without the feat could do it if the DC was above 20. This isn't a bad way to handle it, but it does seem wierd at times. If you have a +20 search skill, it's odd that you could be so observant and yet still have 0% chance to detect traps with a DC above 20. Like if the DC is 20, you detect it 100% of the time, but just a tiny tiny bit harder and you are blind. I've lately been thinking that the best route might be to bump up all trap DCs by 5-10, and then make the ability simply by +10 to the skill check to detect traps, or track, or whatever else a child can attempt to do at some level. The idea is that a really skillful generalist might can do something without special training, but a far less skillful specialist can do it as well or better.

I disagree however with the assertion that feats should always be short. I believe that feats and spells should have roughly the same length of text behind them, and that its perfectly valid to have feats that are half a page long for the same reason that it is valid to have spells that are half a page long. Many feats, as with many spells, do something simple. But every feat is essentially nothing more or less than a customizable class ability. Some feats ought to be able to radically transform even the archetype of the character that takes them and become the essential part of the character's schtick. Anything that could be a superpower, if it isn't a spell, is a feat. Anything that could potentially make you want to diverge a class into two separate classes, can usually be a feat. Anything that could be a class ability, but which if it were a class ability would make all members of that class too similar, should be a feat.

 

[EvilDwarf]

I. Hate. Feats.

There. I said it lol.

I'm a strong supporter of distinct class abilities. Too much class blur and mechanics that allow everyone to do everything diminishes the D&D aspect, which makes it D&D. I know I feel this way because I started with the White Box and then went straight to AD&D, I'm sure. But fold feats back into classes as core abilities and options.

A mechanic in which anyone can pick locks and find traps isn't class based and isn't D&D. Sorry. Need to open a locked door? Have the rogue pick it. Wait. No rogue? Have the wizard burn a slot for Knock. Wait. No wizard? Have the fighter break it down and alert nearby guards and monsters. Unless the cleric wants to burn a slot for Silence. Classes mean you need a team. Of classes. And different classes have different approaches, but at a cost.

Combat feats? Make 'em ability checks. Your fighter will out bull-rush my wizard every time (well, if the d20 thing weren't so swingy).

Spinning off core class abilities into a subsystem called feats adds needless complexity, requires system mastery, REQUIRES taxes, and blurs and dilutes classes.

I admit having played AD&D for years that we started complaining that all the fighters started to look alike, because they were. (Except for role playing, weapon and armor choice, favorite player tactic, and did I mention role playing.) So when 3e introduced feats as a way to make characters distinct, I was excited. Now I have feat regret.

Distinct core abilities for each class. That's what D&D is. Classes. Feats dilute classes. Make them themes or something instead. Like the Druidic orders maybe. What's the diff you ask, between having a feat section vs. folding them into core theme abilities? Names = concepts = mechanics = play. That's why WoTC wants to call skills something else while trying to make them ability checks.

 

[Szatany]

The problem with feats like charge, disarm, and bull rush is that those have been mechanics everyone can use in every d20 game for the past decade. D&D players are used to being able to do those things.

But were they actually using them? In 6 years of both playing and DMing 3rd edition, I've seen ppl use disarm maybe once or twice, same with bull rush. Monsters bull rushed much more often though. That's why I'm very ok with disarm being usable only if you have that ability.
Charging, on the other hand, was commonly performed action. It should never ever require a feat.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think this is mostly an issue of presentation.

The point has been made that you can do all these things without feats. NEXT is wide open for improvisation, and there is nothing stopping any character at all from making an ability check to disarm, disable a trap, taking a charge...whatever.

I think rather than tamp down on feats, this needs to be made more explicit. How does one do these things without the feat?

That said, I do think that feats could do less of the heavy lifting, here, at least as far as the design psychology of the thing goes. While it might not be functionally different from giving fighters an ability choice or a bonus feat that can be used to gain an ability at Level X, it feels a lot less connected. The class doesn't feel like a whole.

It's also true that, hypothetically, multiclassing can address some of the exclusivity issues that the feats are now appear to be trying to solve.

That said, I think it's time to run a character who tries to grab as many different class features as possible with feats.

 

[Gargoyle]

I like the idea of feats, I too loved them at first in 3e. And even though there were problems then, I felt like it was much better than what we had before.

My biggest gripe with feats however is that there are too many. That's why there are so many bad ones. Trim it so you have only a page or two listing a few dozen feats, make them all combat oriented so we don't have to choose between flavor and power, get rid of the ones that are boring and passive (+1 to this, or +2 to that) and the ones that imply that you can't attempt a particular action without the feat (looking at you pick pocket), and above all create some strict guidelines in the DMG so that people know how to create new feats properly. It's too easy for game designers to release a splatbook or Dragon article full of bad feats. Even if a feat looks great on its own, it has to mesh well with the rest of the feats and class abilities out there, and the more we have, the harder it is to do this properly.

Keep the feat list tight and focused and we will only have good feats to choose from.

 

[1of3]

I think Specialties are a way to tame the uncontrolled growth of feats. If you always make sure to have such a theme for your crunch, it necessarily becomes more compact. Of course, to achieve that each feat would actually have to be part of a Specialty.

 

[Celebrim]

My biggest gripe with feats however is that there are too many. That's why there are so many bad ones.

I can't agree with that at all. The reason that there are so many bad feats is that they are too easy to make, causing designers to churn them out without much reflection. More agonizing should be done over your feat list than is usually done, but in my opinion the ideal number of classes is about 8-15, the ideal number of skills is like 20-40, but the ideal number of feats is probably 1000 (or more). There are as many feats as there are character concepts. I believe its perfectly possible to have 1000 well balanced, totally intriguing, interesting feats - though I can perfectly sympathize with your feelings if you don't think so given that 90% of the feats that were published were garbage.

Trim it so you have only a page or two listing a few dozen feats, make them all combat oriented so we don't have to choose between flavor and power

Again, I can't agree with that at all. Combat oriented is not the limited of character concept, nor is it a sacrifice of power necessarily to gain an out of combat ability and forgo an in combat ability. That you assert otherwise implies that you think physical combat is the only important thing that can happen, which I refuse to accept. Besides which, often a feat can be both a combat ability and an out of combat ability either because it impacts movement, and hense your tactical options, or because you've designed your skill system well so that skills provide for active abilities with the potential to impact combat.

For example, in my game all of the following skills directly impact combat either by being used in combat, or by relating to using or defending against combat manuevers: balance (movement, resists trip, circle manuever, clinch manuever), climb (movement, some clinch manuever checks), bluff (diversion manuever), disguise (distract manuever, feint manuever), escape artist (grapple defence checks), hide (increased surprise chance), jump (movement), leadership (buffs and debuffs), listen (resists surprise, resists invisible creatures), move silently (increased surprise chance), porter (reduced encumbrance penalties), run (faster speed), sleight of hand (quick draw manuever, filch manuever), sense motive (many manuever defence checks), spot (resist surprise), tumble (movement, evasion, fast stand, roll, etc.), tactics (more than I can list), use magical device, use rope (lasso) and probably more I can't remember. And that's not counting skills that lead to feats or feats that use skills. Many of those skills also have out of combat uses. At that point, well, investing in out of combat abilities is investing in combat abilities.

It's too easy for game designers to release a splatbook or Dragon article full of bad feats.

Yes, now you've hit upon it.

Keep the feat list tight and focused and we will only have good feats to choose from.

The danger of that is that it encourages designers to see a new class as being the solution to everything, or to think that only spell-casters can get good stuff because all the interesting things should be spells.