D&D 5E No Feats Allowed?

[Zardnaar]

I am thinking of running 5E with no feats. I have not done this since we played the basic boxed set before the PHB released. I am interested to see what effect this would have on the following.

1. Class and race selection.
2. The various combat styles minus sharp shooter and great weapon master.

THe default human might look bad but I will be allowing 4d6 drop the lowest and multiclassing. Party like its 1989 (or 1978).

How many people here have actualy tried this? In one of our groups we had a lot of new players using feats and we have a barbarian doing ll the damage (18 str/con, 16 dex claims to have rolled 12,11,12,11 for hit point by level 4) my sword and board avenger Paladin and the rest have sily things do to not knowing what they are doing. So for newer players I was wondering if no feats is a better idea.

 

[Giant2005]

I haven't actually played in a featless game, but I have played plenty of characters that haven't had any feats and they work just fine.
With the exception of Crossbow Expert, Polearm Master and Shield Master, an ASI tends to make you more of a powerful combatant than a feat anyway. It would kind of suck to lose the opportunity for flavor feats though. Maybe you could give each of the players one of the non-combat feats each as a freebie. It shouldn't make the game any more complicated for new players if you choose the feat yourself based on their character.

 

[iserith]

I've never banned feats or the like from the game, though sometimes I will incentivize taking certain things. For example, I offered a reward for taking a race, feat, or class option from the Eberron UA when setting up my Eberron campaign. (I also rewarded players for coming up with a bad-ass pulp fiction type name and creating a backstory of Tweet-length or less in that one.)

I don't do rolling for ability scores in my games, preferring standard array. If I were to do random ability scores, it'd have to tie into the theme of the game I was running somehow.

 

[Istbor]

Since feats are only optional, I think the game will work fine. Since it is designed in such a way to work without feats. Perhaps you will see more multi-classing from players trying to get a certain concept down? That is if you allow it.

Should turn out to be a game of D&D.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't have feats in the game I'm running, and it works fine. Every character has at least three stats that they care about, so every boost is still useful in some capacity.

 

[TwoSix]

Amateurs. In my next game I'm banning classes.

 

[feartheminotaur]

The first 5e game I played at the FLGS was right after the DMG came out. It did not have any of the optional rules (MC, Feats). 6 PCs, everyone but the DM was new to 5e, and a couple of players were new to DnD in general.

We made 3rd level characters (we played a reworked Forge of Fury) with everyone rolling 4d6 drop the lowest. We played four sessions to 5th level. At 4th level, I don't think anyone would have taken feats if they could - so it may be an academic question if you don't plan on playing to higher levels/very long.

The "no MC" influenced classes more than "no feats", but the human fighter did whine (and eventually left over*) not being able to go variant and take GWM or Polearm Master, so he changed to a half-orc and went sword and board.

Everyone played a non-human for the racial goodies and we had two elf wizards (an evoker and a diviner), a dragonborn fire sorc, a dwarf life cleric (me), a ranged wood-elf rogue and the half-orc fighter.

As for combat, damage was lower, but so was survivability (since killing monsters first is the best defense). There were no uber players (though some tried...) with casters (naturally) doing the most damage. It was one of the better games I've played.

So, I don't think it was a problem at all. It was just DnD, we didn't really notice at all.


* This guy - I have to elaborate on why he left. He left the game because he could do "sick damage" with his Fighter/Barb (GWM+Polearm+Reckless Att+Percision Att) in his Monty Haul/Hack n' Slash game (e.g., he bought a Belt of Giant Strength at 5th level). Since dude complained about everything 5e (and WOTC) the whole time we were kinda happy he left (did you know that not getting magic items at character creation was "unfair", "wussy" and "wrecked characters" and that role playing was for "chicks and theater nerds"? If you didn't, he was happy to go into to detail about it). So, there are players that would bail from a "no feat" game. Some for grounded, well thought out reasons, some for...well, some because they're just jerks about DnD.

 

[Lanefan]

Amateurs. In my next game I'm banning classes.

I'll be impressed if you also get around to banning all races...

Lan-"if I ever run 5e it'll almost certainly be featless, so I'm interested in how other featless games have worked out"-efan

 

[feartheminotaur]

In general - I've played in maybe 20 games with feats and outside a couple of +1 attribute feats taken to shore up an odd state, every feat taken was one of the usual: -5/+10, lucky, magic initiate, resilience, polearm/shield master, sentinel.

Most games where I see feats come in to play are ones with PCs in the 8-16 level range (variant humans excepted) since 4th is usually "max my prime stat". I'd love to see the results of a game like @lowkey13 is suggesting where the more popular (for optimization) are eliminated.