D&D 5E To feats or not to feats...

[the Jester]

So the feat system in dnd 5ed. as most of you have noticed I'm sure, is completely out of balance.

Let's just stop right there. Have you played the game, or is theorycrafting? In my experience- which so far includes pcs with the Sharpshooter, Spell Sniper, Mobility, Heavy Armor Mastery and Keen Mind feats (off the top of my head)- choosing a feat over +2 to a stat is actually a very hard decision. If the feats were as broken as you suggest, it would be a no-brainer.

Heavy armor mastery is one of your chosen examples. It's also one of the feats I experienced early in 5e. Is it powerful? Oh, absolutely. Is it overpowered? Not in my eyes. I think there's a stronger argument for Sharpshooter or Great Weapon Mastery being overpowered, but neither one is in my experience.

So, in short, if you haven't played with feats in the game, I would suggest reserving judgment. If you have and you don't care for them- well, they are completely optional.

My problem is, since we only have the "early access" to Dnd 5ed. We are in need of a lot of patches... or maybe house rules. What do you guys do?

I don't understand what you mean when you say the "early access" here; do you mean "early access" as in "the game has been released for nearly a year now"? Are you referring to some kind of expectation of massive numbers of splat books? Because that is absolutely not the model 5e is running under.

As for the need for patches, I don't see it. The game is simple yet robust, allowing complexities to emerge, and seems largely bereft of 'trap' options like the 3e Toughness feat. I guess basically, I disagree with your entire premise, and especially with the way you take it for granted that everyone agrees that feats are borken. Everyone doesn't agree; there are a few posters who feel that way, but I don't see any kind of consensus on the topic by any means.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Heavy Armor feat definitely seems too good early on. It nullifies the damage of your average early game baddies, goblins kobolds zombies etc. I think if your entire party had this it would be problematic, but if its just one dude its not so bad because he's not the only one that will be attacked. In fact, if I was a kobold with a slingshot, I'd probably be aiming my rocks at the squishy person in a robe, not the one in bulky armor. Also it scales very poorly. Mid and late game the monsters are doing way more damage per hit and ignoring 3 is actually weak.

For me, the two problematic feats are Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter. The damage increase from these feats are absurd. In theory, -5 to hit for +10 damage is a worthy trade, but in practice with how easily a characters +hit scales up versus how slow monster AC climbs, it quickly becomes a no brainer to abuse. The result is an enormous increase in damage output, but monster HP isn't calculated with feats in mind. The result is that monsters are killed way faster than intended.

Not just that but these two feats greatly outpace alternative damage options. GWM is the biggest reason why two weapon fighting can't compete.

I still allow everything in my games because even these overpowered feats don't break the game. I still wish they did a better job at balancing though.

I agree the -5/+10 mechanic for GWM and SS is OP and is best substituted for +1 str or dex respectively. I also houseruled crossbow expert does not remove disad of shooting in melee. With those 3 amendments, I have found feats work perfectly well and are great for PC customisation. I also think feats are brilliant for making your own, tailored to your PC or table. I dont allow multiclassing however, so not sure if there are OP combos with MCing.

 

[famousringo]

My concern is this:

The feat system clearly skews towards martial characters in general, and fighters in particular. This seems to be a deliberate design choice.

If you leave out the feats, are you effectively punishing martial characters?

 

[Quartz]

The feat system clearly skews towards martial characters in general, and fighters in particular

I count 42 feats in the PHB, and 17 of those are not aimed at the martials, more if you add the armour proficiencies and masteries.

Those feats are

Alert, Actor, Dungeon Delver, Elemental Adept, Healer, Keen Mind, Linguist, Lucky, Magic Initiate, Mobile, Observant, Resilient, Ritual Caster, Skilled, Skulker, Spell Sniper, and (maybe) War Caster.

 

[Li Shenron]

So, how do you guys get around this, do you just not use feats. Or are you okay with some players stacking all the crazy unbalanced feats on top of each other, when other players don't have access to the same type of powercreep.

You have so many options depending on how strong is your fear of feats...

- you can just not use feats in your game

- you can evaluate feats one-by-one, let a player tell you which one(s) they want, and say yes/no on an individual basis

- you can let the player try the feat in practice, but tell them that you will ban it after a while if it's problematic

- you can design your own feats instead of using the ones in the PHB

- you can allow all feats freely

...and more!

Personally I would rather let the player take the feats and see how it goes in practice, but tell them in advance that if something goes wrong, we'll have to take that feat away and replace it with another or with the ability score increases.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

My concern is this:

The feat system clearly skews towards martial characters in general, and fighters in particular. This seems to be a deliberate design choice.

If you leave out the feats, are you effectively punishing martial characters?

Well, a mountain dwarf created with point-buy needs to be 8th level to maximize both str and con (I think this is the fastest path). He'll be 12th level when he gets the first feat with no direct application like that, and at that point an increase in wis would boost his perception and improve much needed saves against mental attacks. An EK would also benefit from an increase in int, and both ranger and paladin have other abilities to improve (wis and cha). From all of them, I believe the only one going for a sub-optimal choice is the non-EK fighter, and while it's indeed sub-optimal when compared to Great Weapon Master, it still appears to be perfectly viable, in my opinion.

So, I'd say the answer is no. While feats give you more paths to follow, they're not an option that martials need to stay competitive.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

My concern is this:

The feat system clearly skews towards martial characters in general, and fighters in particular. This seems to be a deliberate design choice.

If you leave out the feats, are you effectively punishing martial characters?

In my opinion, yes. Even if we leave "balance" off the table, fighters are boring if they don't have options like Shield Master bashing, GWM power attacking, Mounted Combatant warhorsing, Sharpshooter sniping, Crossbow Expert dual wielding, Heavy Armor Mastery tanking, etc., which they normally gain at 4th, 6th, and 8th level. For the 6th level one especially, disallowing feats is kind of like ripping out all the wizard's 2nd level specialization options and replacing them with "gain +2 to Intelligence". It's boring​ and makes Abjurors and Necromancers and Diviners more samey.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Well, a mountain dwarf created with point-buy needs to be 8th level to maximize both str and con (I think this is the fastest path). He'll be 12th level when he gets the first feat with no direct application like that, and at that point an increase in wis would boost his perception and improve much needed saves against mental attacks. An EK would also benefit from an increase in int, and both ranger and paladin have other abilities to improve (wis and cha). From all of them, I believe the only one going for a sub-optimal choice is the non-EK fighter, and while it's indeed sub-optimal when compared to Great Weapon Master, it still appears to be perfectly viable, in my opinion.

So, I'd say the answer is no. While feats give you more paths to follow, they're not an option that martials need to stay competitive.

On the other hand, increasing Wisdom will have a negligible effect on his mental saves, whereas taking Resilient (Wisdom) will give him +4 to mental saves and give him a +1 Wisdom on top of that, possibly boosting it to an even number and thus helping perception/etc. just as much as the ASI you suggest. Disallowing Resilient (Wis) sure looks like a nerf to me.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

Over-Powered is really just a point of view.

Yeah, Heavy Armor mastery is pretty awesome. But only if you're proficient in Heavy Armor to begin with.

 

[famousringo]

I count 42 feats in the PHB, and 17 of those are not aimed at the martials, more if you add the armour proficiencies and masteries.

Those feats are

Alert, Actor, Dungeon Delver, Elemental Adept, Healer, Keen Mind, Linguist, Lucky, Magic Initiate, Mobile, Observant, Resilient, Ritual Caster, Skilled, Skulker, Spell Sniper, and (maybe) War Caster.

But nearly all the feats people complain about for being "OP" are martial. The only feat on that list I've seen somebody suggest is too powerful is Lucky.

War Caster is a good one to bring up, since Eldritch Knights are severely limited without it. Feats are clearly made to be an important source of power for martials.

Hemlock raises the excellent point that it's not just about power, but style and differentiation. Taking feats off the table is like taking away cleric domain spells. It narrows the gap between martial characters when one can't specialize in shields while another builds for archery.