D&D 5E Resilient Feat

[Awesome Adam]

Saelorn, I don't understand the point you are attempting to make. You appear to have gone from arguing against taking Resilient more than once to arguing against feats altogether.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Saelorn, I don't understand the point you are attempting to make. You appear to have gone from arguing against taking Resilient more than once to arguing against feats altogether.

Resilient is bad for the game, because feats in general are bad for the game. Letting someone take the feat more than once is only exacerbating the problem.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

Resilient is bad for the game, because feats in general are bad for the game. Letting someone take the feat more than once is only exacerbating the problem.

I think this is a huge assumptiin. Perhaps feats are not good for your game or your table, but that doesn't mean it is bad for others. When I DM, my games encourage feats as they increase the players' power and their options. This is never bad, especially when the goal is to create an interesting story full of epic characters. If the goal is to make the game about the mechanics and challenge, like a video game, then sure, I can see your perspective. But once again, your assumption suggests there is only a single way to play, which is just not the case.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

For those unclear on taking feats multiple times, the general rule (in the introductory part of the Feat section) is that you cannot take the same feat more than once unless it specifically says you can. As far as I recall, there is only one feat in the entire PHB that lets you take it more than once.

 

[thalmin]

For those unclear on taking feats multiple times, the general rule (in the introductory part of the Feat section) is that you cannot take the same feat more than once unless it specifically says you can. As far as I recall, there is only one feat in the entire PHB that lets you take it more than once.

Thus the comments from some of the DMs whose responses included "I allow...", or something similar. Or even those who said "I don't allow...". Most of us know the rule. We also know that as DMs we can interpret the rules, or even change them. Whatever helps us run a better game for our players.

What works for some DMs, some campaigns, or some groups doesn't work for others. The best part is, we don't all have to run, or play, the same way. We can all have it our own way.

 

[Dausuul]

Hmm. This is actually a tough call. What it boils down to is this: I want players to have interesting choices for their feat picks, such that two PCs of the same race, class, and general build might end up with different picks. There are three ways to achieve this:

1. After the PC has selected all "must-have" options, there are feat slots left over.
2. There are more "must-have" options than feat slots available.
3. There are no "must-have" options. This one is not achievable with the feat list as written.

After some consideration, I think option #2 is more achievable in a typical campaign. Most PCs will get 2-5 ability score increases over their careers; level 4, level 8, maybe level 12, maybe variant human, maybe one extra for fighter/rogue. (Levels 16 and 19 are happy mushroom dreams, not actual levels you might reasonably hope to reach.) Boosting your primary stat is very much a "must-have" option, and you can expect to spend two of your 2-5 ASIs on that. That leaves you with 0-3 to spend on feats. If you're anything other than a variant human fighter/rogue, you're looking at 0-2. If you're neither variant human nor fighter/rogue, it's 0-1.

That's not a lot of slots. Just about every character in the game has one "must-have" feat, and the vast majority have two or more. Therefore, increasing the number of "must-have" feats will boost diversity rather than reducing it, because there will be too many to get them all and PCs will have to give up one or more. Thus, it makes sense to allow taking Resilient multiple times.

On the other hand, if I were running a high-level campaign where levels 16 and 19 were real actual things, and fighters and rogues had a good shot at getting a second bonus feat, I would lean toward disallowing it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Hmm. This is actually a tough call. What it boils down to is this: I want players to have interesting choices for their feat picks, such that two PCs of the same race, class, and general build might end up with different picks. There are three ways to achieve this:

1. After the PC has selected all "must-have" options, there are feat slots left over.
2. There are more "must-have" options than feat slots available.
3. There are no "must-have" options. This one is not achievable with the feat list as written.

The third option is achievable, if you don't use feats whatsoever. The two rogues will both max out their Dexterity scores by level 8, and all subsequent boosts can be spent between Con (for HP) or one of the skill-affecting stat (Int, Wis, Cha). You could even put points into Strength, if you really felt like it, since you're not really losing out on anything otherwise; there's virtually zero opportunity cost.

 

[thalmin]

You missed the part where Dausuul said

I want players to have interesting choices for their feat picks...

No feat picks is not the same as interesting feat picks.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It just turns out that the most interesting choice is, when you get a feat pick, you have to choose an ability score instead of any feats.

I guess you could consider that to be the trivial solution, even if it's the only valid solution because the problem is otherwise over-constrained.

 

[CapnZapp]

Resilient is bad for the game, because feats in general are bad for the game. Letting someone take the feat more than once is only exacerbating the problem.

So that's a "yes, I'm arguing against feats altogether" then Saelorn?

Just checking.

To me using feats is the life-blood of 5E character customization, and throwing out all feats just because a few are in need of another round of balancing is like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I really can't use the feat advice of people not using feats, is what I'm getting at.