D&D 5E D&D Beyond Revisits Popular Feats

The folks over at D&D Beyond have revisited the stats in the most popular feats used by class on the DDB platform.

It looks like the percentage of characters using feats has increased slightly.

Here are the most popular feats in 2018 and now.

And here are the top feats for each class in 2018 and now.

 

[Azzy]

How long have you been playing D&D? Some of us are still traumatized from trying to cast a spell at a climactic moment back in the 1e days and lost it due to getting bonked by a @!#$ sling stone or something.

The fear is real, folks.

Actually, I miss that.

 

[Bacon Bits]

How long have you been playing D&D? Some of us are still traumatized from trying to cast a spell at a climactic moment back in the 1e days and lost it due to getting bonked by a @!#$ sling stone or something.

The fear is real, folks.

We never played with weapon speeds or casting speeds (not in my regular group anyway). It was way too fiddley and slowed the game down too much. Unless the spell said it took more than one round to cast, you just cast the spell on your turn. We started that in Basic D&D and just kept it.

However I do remember a handful of pebbles being used to discharge stoneskin.

 

[ad_hoc]

Aside from differing preferences, I agree with everything but this.

5e is balanced (as much as it is balanced) around any amount of magic items, including none. But also including a few, some or many. Adding any magic items at all does not unbalance the game.

We might have a semantics misunderstanding here.

'Not being part of' means they aren't a factor on the balance which would mean none, some, or many would not affect the balance.

I bring it up because there is no imperative to have character defining magic items. This is a good thing.

 

[Ath-kethin]

We never played with weapon speeds or casting speeds (not in my regular group anyway). It was way too fiddley and slowed the game down too much. Unless the spell said it took more than one round to cast, you just cast the spell on your turn. We started that in Basic D&D and just kept it.

However I do remember a handful of pebbles being used to discharge stoneskin.

It's true IME that many rules that seemed cool on paper (weapon speeds, weapon type vs. armor modifiers, casting times, even spell components) really could drag things to a crawl. I suppose that's why many of them were explicitly optional.

But I wonder how much nervousness about losing a spell stems from that "old school" approach, or at least the perception of it.

 

[Henry]

I continue to be baffled by why so many Monks take Mobile.

It just gives them their powers, again. I get that being Mobile is a Monk thing, but like, they already are.

I found Mobile to be a good pairing with Moon Druid, for similar reasons - bonus action shift, run in, attack with multiattack, and get behind the tank without taking a hit. All the animal forms are glass cannons, so not giving up a free swipe or sticking in melee is pretty nice.

 

[ad_hoc]

I found Mobile to be a good pairing with Moon Druid, for similar reasons - bonus action shift, run in, attack with multiattack, and get behind the tank without taking a hit. All the animal forms are glass cannons, so not giving up a free swipe or sticking in melee is pretty nice.

'Getting behind the tank' just isn't a thing most of the time in the games I play so that's probably where I don't see much value in it.

 

[RogueJK]

Most of the time, in my experience, the Moon Druid is a Tank. They're kind of the epitome of the "facetank" in 5E, with a low AC but high HP pool available, plus healing while Wild Shaped by burning spell slots, designed to soak up a large percentage of enemy attacks.

 

[John R Davis]

Maybe it comes down to styles of play that I'm unfamiliar with. It's got to be something.

What you're saying doesn't make sense to me.

Disengage as a bonus action is usually a bad choice for a Monk.

But...just walking out of melee doesn't actually help them. It is super easy for creatures in 5e to move around the battlefield. They will just walk up to the Monk and keep attacking. And if not the Monk then another vulnerable PC.

The Monk is better off Dodging here if they want to be defensive.

Mobile requires the Monk to attack each creature they want to walk past too. The Monk really wants to be hitting the important enemies with Stunning Strike. They can't do that if they're using up their attacks on the weaker creatures. Attacks which are not as helpful as a magic user's AoE attacks against those same creatures.

And if the Monk stuns a creature that creature can't OA anyway.

Movement gain is diminishing returns too. The Monk already gets a lot of movement so the added distance for Mobile is not as impactful as it would be for another character.

Moving away from a creature without taking an OA after you attack them is just not worth a feat. A feat is a big deal. +2 to Dex or Wis for a Monk is a huge deal.

At most Mobile is worth half a feat for a Monk. It mostly just duplicates what they can already do, just gives them more ways to do it.

I will never understand it I guess. If I had to take a feat for a Monk I would rather take Tough.

It is fantastic for a monk. I run to one who had it from first and has just hit 11th. And once they get items to aid movement elsewhere ( like fly or swim) it becomes very useful.

 

[Coroc]

I am going another direction.

XP slows down exponentially with levels, and gritty rests, means that it takes a long calendar and play time to gain levels. The McGuffins grant a substantial boost to 1 PC, and grant everyone in the party a level, when acquired (this effect, which works on NPCs too, is part of the reason there is a race to get the McGuffins).

The model I have is 1 long rest for level 2 (so 2 weeks), x2 for each level afterwards; so level X takes 2^(X)-2 weeks of adventuring give or take.

Level 6 is just over a year. Level 11 is 30 years of adventuring or intense training. Level 16 is 1000 years of adventuring or intense training.

Which then provides limits on world building (the elves are higher level by a tad). Rare external ways to "cheat" become how you can break this limit (becoming a lich, for example), and the PC party in phase 1 is offered a trail of 13 things that each give a +1 level to a party-ish-sized group and a ridiculous boost to one person (max 1 per person).

If they pull off most of them (phase 2) they'll become the most powerful mortals in the world. Which leads to phase 3; what the 13 omens unlock.

Could you make a thread on this, it sounds very interesting, you can hide it as spoilers for your group so they do not accidently read it?

 

[Coroc]

People evaluate things so differently than I do.

I think Tough is a no-brainer feat... over level 12 or so. I don't really see the allure before then, especially when it competes with +2 Con. I'd probably put Resilient (Wisdom) higher than Resilient (Constitution), too.

Are people really that terrified about losing a concentration spell to damage? I mean, I do think that aspect of concentration is far too punitive -- spells like Hold Person or Ray of Enfeeblement are a complete joke now because there's often 3 checks of some kind made before the spell actually does anything and that is very feelsbad for the player -- but I guess I just don't see spending a feat on it early.

It is more about not getting game changers like bless or spirit guardians interrupted.
Also if you dice out HP on level up tough gives you a (guaranteed) better baseline no matter how you roll.