D&D 5E Feats: Toughness, Inspiring Leader, Healer, and Magic Initiate

[Xeviat]

Hi everyone. I posted a similar post quite a while ago, but the game has aged and matured so I wanted to see what the group thought about this now.

I think we can all agree that +2 Con is a worthwhile ASI for the most part. It benefits everyone. You get +1 HP/level, +1 HP healed per HD, and +1 Con checks and saves.

Toughness thus sounds like a balanced feat. Instead of the above, you gain +2 HP/Level. That’s 10 HP at 5th level.

Or you can take Inspiring Leader and grant yourself and your whole party 5-9 temp hp per short rest, depending on your Charisma.

Or you can take Healer and heal 13.5 damage to each party member each short rest for the small price of a healer’s kit charge.

Or you can take Magic Initiate and cast 1 cure wounds for 8.5 hp once per day ...

My point at the moment is that I think Toughness is a little weak, Magic Initiate starts okay but becomes weak, and Inspiring Leader and Healer are too strong. They’re so strong that once my players saw the value in them, every party had them both represented.

I’d like to hear your thoughts. I’ll come back and post some charts, but here are my initial ideas:

For Toughness, functionally combine Toughness and Durable: change Toughness to +2 HP/Level and +2 HP to HD healing; this way it functions as +4 Con for hp purposes.

For Magic Initiate, the size of the spell slot of your 1/day spell should scale with level. A 1st level spell isn’t as valuable at 11th or 20th Level. I’m tempted to make it a short rest recovery and have it scale at level/4 (rounded up), or leave it daily and have it be level/2 (rounded down). Magic Initiate has its cantrips, so magic Initiate (cure wounds) doesn’t have to be as good as Healer.

For Inspiring Leader, I can’t really reduce the amount of temp hp it grants. It would compare reasonably with my new Toughness, which grants up to levelx4 hp per day, with a 4 person party even if it worked only once per day; it would still be 80 to 100 temp HP per day party wide.

For Healer, I’d like to make the feats function partially just part of the healer’s kit. The feat could just improve the amount healed when you apply a healer’s kit. Over a day, a 20th Level Party could get 28x4x3 hp, or over 300. Parties probably don’t take damage so evenly, but even for one person it’s 87 hp over the day, or as much my new Toughness.

What are your thoughts? Feats should be nice, but not so nice they become all but requires.


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[clearstream]

Hi everyone. I posted a similar post quite a while ago, but the game has aged and matured so I wanted to see what the group thought about this now.

I think we can all agree that +2 Con is a worthwhile ASI for the most part. It benefits everyone. You get +1 HP/level, +1 HP healed per HD, and +1 Con checks and saves.

Toughness thus sounds like a balanced feat. Instead of the above, you gain +2 HP/Level. That’s 10 HP at 5th level.

Or you can take Inspiring Leader and grant yourself and your whole party 5-9 temp hp per short rest, depending on your Charisma.

Or you can take Healer and heal 13.5 damage to each party member each short rest for the small price of a healer’s kit charge.

Or you can take Magic Initiate and cast 1 cure wounds for 8.5 hp once per day ...

My point at the moment is that I think Toughness is a little weak, Magic Initiate starts okay but becomes weak, and Inspiring Leader and Healer are too strong. They’re so strong that once my players saw the value in them, every party had them both represented.

I’d like to hear your thoughts. I’ll come back and post some charts, but here are my initial ideas:

For Toughness, functionally combine Toughness and Durable: change Toughness to +2 HP/Level and +2 HP to HD healing; this way it functions as +4 Con for hp purposes.

For Magic Initiate, the size of the spell slot of your 1/day spell should scale with level. A 1st level spell isn’t as valuable at 11th or 20th Level. I’m tempted to make it a short rest recovery and have it scale at level/4 (rounded up), or leave it daily and have it be level/2 (rounded down). Magic Initiate has its cantrips, so magic Initiate (cure wounds) doesn’t have to be as good as Healer.

For Inspiring Leader, I can’t really reduce the amount of temp hp it grants. It would compare reasonably with my new Toughness, which grants up to levelx4 hp per day, with a 4 person party even if it worked only once per day; it would still be 80 to 100 temp HP per day party wide.

For Healer, I’d like to make the feats function partially just part of the healer’s kit. The feat could just improve the amount healed when you apply a healer’s kit. Over a day, a 20th Level Party could get 28x4x3 hp, or over 300. Parties probably don’t take damage so evenly, but even for one person it’s 87 hp over the day, or as much my new Toughness.

What are your thoughts? Feats should be nice, but not so nice they become all but requires.

In my feat revisions I merged Durable with Toughness exactly as you are thinking. Strictly speaking, I would say that makes Toughness worth slightly more than +2 Con, but it's very close and I don't see the feat being abused.

 

[Xeviat]

In my feat revisions I merged Durable with Toughness exactly as you are thinking. Strictly speaking, I would say that makes Toughness worth slightly more than +2 Con, but it's very close and I don't see the feat being abused.

But do you have any thoughts on Magic Initiate being weak or Healer and Inspiring Leader being too strong?


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[Xeviat]

In my feat revisions I merged Durable with Toughness exactly as you are thinking. Strictly speaking, I would say that makes Toughness worth slightly more than +2 Con, but it's very close and I don't see the feat being abused.

But do you have any thoughts on Magic Initiate being weak or Healer and Inspiring Leader being too strong?


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[Mistwell]

Magic Initiate doesn't belong in this analysis. You get two cantrips and a first level spell. 99% of the time it's not even about healing. You might get Eldritch Blast, Shillelagh, Vicious Mockery, or Guidance for example. Your first level spell might be Bless or Hex or Find Familiar or whatever. It's really not a good thing to measure the versatility of three spells as if it's a healing power. It's really not.

I have seen it argued Healer is too powerful in the hands of a Thief, who can do it as a free action with their free object interaction. But aside from that, given it takes an action to do it, it's not really very helpful in combat.

 

[Sacrosanct]

As Mistwell points out, my first thought was "you're forgetting about the two cantrips, which are HUGE." Of the feats listed, magic initiate is by far the more effective and useful in my experience. I have never chosen toughness, and never will as written. Then again, I don't choose feats (or any power or ability) based on math. I choose based on what sounds cool or fits my theme. For example, I might choose inspiring leader for my knightly type PC. Or healer for my medic.

 

[jaelis]

Inspiring leader is fine, there are lots of ways to get temp hp and they don't stack.

Healer I think is probably a bit strong, but there is a big difference between healing 10 hp per short rest and actually increasing your max hp by 10. I would probably be inclined to limit the healer's kit to one per long rest and call it fine.

Magic initiate I agree is not weak, but a feat granting CLW 1/day would be. Usually you take MI to get a spell that synerigizes well with your build.

Toughness I think is on the weaker side, but not so much I feel any need to adjust it.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Your argument only really matters if you are playing in a game that is so combat-heavy and dangerous that players feel they have to choose these feats to stay alive, thereby turning them into a feat-tax for their characters. That was a problem with 3E and 4E that they tried to avoid with the design of 5E, which is why feats are an optional system and not a requirement. In general, the only one of those four feats I have ever taken for a character is Magic Initiate and I rarely chose a healing spell with it.

 

[Satyrn]

We have the Healer feat in play at my table. It has not come across as overpowered in any way. I barely see it get used, really.

 

[Blue]

[MENTION=6890747]ro[/MENTION] has a very good thread with alternate feats, and he addresses some of these. You have the same problme I have with initiaite on how poorly it scales, and when I talked to him abotu it I loved his suggestion of effectively making it like am warlock slot - just one slot but the level you can cast goes up (and when it does you learn one spell of that level from your chosen class).

I suggested that you learn spell levels at the same rate the Fighter (Eldritch Knight) and Rogue (Arcane Trickster) do - so 1st level spell at 3rd, 2nd at 7th, 3rd at 13th and 4th at 19th.) His equally good suggestion was at the same tier boundaries that cantrips increase.