D&D 5E How weak is Athlete Feat?

[UnsounderGnome]

Admittedly this is a very niche use, but there is a pretty cool Druid/Monk grappler build based around grappling and then jumping the enemy up in the air and then powerbomb/suplex/your flavor of choice them to the ground for fall damage. Athlete feat is a super big part of making that work at all.

 

[Iry]

Admittedly this is a very niche use, but there is a pretty cool Druid/Monk grappler build based around grappling and then jumping the enemy up in the air and then powerbomb/suplex/your flavor of choice them to the ground for fall damage. Athlete feat is a super big part of making that work at all.

Beastial Soul Barb/Strength Domain Cleric - Michael Jordan.

 

[Burnside]

The climb speed can be extremely useful in some campaigns, and depending on how the DM treats climbing. I'm finishing up a Tomb of Annihilation campaign where climbing happens a lot; our DM requires taking an action to use an Athletic check for all creatures that don't have a climb speed. The tabaxi rogue scout gets up a tree or wall with her climb speed and snipes everything in most fights.

The 5' of saved movement on standing is kinda meh, and it would be better if it actually extended your jumping distance rather than just reducing your running jump space requirements.

Combine that with the fact that you do still get a 1-point ASI with this feat and I think it's actually pretty good.

I don't think it makes sense to ever take it if you have some other means of getting a climb speed.

 

[Hriston]

It's not weak at all. The ASI half of it is what it is. The 30 feet of saved movement that it grants is situational, so only worth half as much as it would if the feat just gave you an additional 30 feet of movement. Double movement (or an extra 30 feet) could be a feat all on its own.

 

[Jediking]

I took this feat on my Aarokocra Barbarian. It was the perfect fit - it helped round my Strength score to 16, and the ‘5 ft from prone’ kept me mobile and alive after falling from flying, which was frequent enough to be used often.

I know this is not a common character choice, but I think this is where some feats are great. Some feats are always good (Resilient, Mobile) while others can help a character concept without needing to Multiclass.

I haven’t seen Athlete picked since, except for one other player who picked it for a Fighter in a nautical one-shot specifically for the climbing speed and to jump between ship decks.

it may be a situational feat, but I like to have some of them in the game

 

[Guest 6801328]

I took this feat on my Aarokocra Barbarian. It was the perfect fit - it helped round my Strength score to 16, and the ‘5 ft from prone’ kept me mobile and alive after falling from flying, which was frequent enough to be used often.

It's a thematic fit with what I'm making, which is why I'm considering it even though it's a little lackluster.

With a variant human, the +1 Str/Dex at 1st level also lets you start with a 14 in your primary stat, which lets you boost a lower ability score by two, netting you a +1 modifier. That's worth something.

I haven’t seen Athlete picked since, except for one other player who picked it for a Fighter in a nautical one-shot specifically for the climbing speed and to jump between ship decks.

It would be a good choice for a Saltmarsh campaign, no doubt.

 

[DEFCON 1]

When I redid my feat list for my two Curse of Strahd games, I made sure to split it up into Non-Combat and Combat related feat lists (and there were various points when people would choose from one or the other.) I then combined many of the half-feats together to make larger and more useful versions for people. So Athlete was combined with Mobile to create the Freerunner feat:

FREERUNNER

• Your speed increases by 10 feet.
• You may use a Bonus action on your turn to take the Dash action.
• Difficult terrain doesn't cost you extra movement.
• When you are prone, standing up uses only 5 feet of your movement.
• Climbing doesn't halve your speed.
• You can make a running long or high jump after moving only 5 feet rather than 10.
• When falling, you may reduce the distance fallen by 20' for the purposes of calculating damage.

It was a much more attractive option for the PCs that cared about mobility.

 

[Guest 6801328]

When I redid my feat list for my two Curse of Strahd games, I made sure to split it up into Non-Combat and Combat related feat lists (and there were various points when people would choose from one or the other.) I then combined many of the half-feats together to make larger and more useful versions for people. So Athlete was combined with Mobile to create the Freerunner feat:

FREERUNNER

• Your speed increases by 10 feet.
• You may use a Bonus action on your turn to take the Dash action.
• Difficult terrain doesn't cost you extra movement.
• When you are prone, standing up uses only 5 feet of your movement.
• Climbing doesn't halve your speed.
• You can make a running long or high jump after moving only 5 feet rather than 10.
• When falling, you may reduce the distance fallen by 20' for the purposes of calculating damage.

It was a much more attractive option for the PCs that cared about mobility.

Interesting. Since that has neither the +1 to an attribute from Athlete, nor the thing about Opportunity Attacks from Mobile, did any of your players take it?

We should also talk about Prodigy. Anybody take it? Anybody know anybody who has taken it? I have yet to see it used. With a +1 to an attribute (maybe to the attribute associated with the skill you take expertise in) I would take it for this build, with expertise in Athletics and +1 to Str.

 

[Big Bucky]

Had a player take it in a ToA campaign. Like someone said it’s useful for climbing trees and then sniping. I imagine it would be useful in a pirate campaign too. Have your Swashbuckler running up the rigging and flying off it seems cool.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Interesting. Since that has neither the +1 to an attribute from Athlete, nor the thing about Opportunity Attacks from Mobile, did any of your players take it?

We should also talk about Prodigy. Anybody take it? Anybody know anybody who has taken it? I have yet to see it used. With a +1 to an attribute (maybe to the attribute associated with the skill you take expertise in) I would take it for this build, with expertise in Athletics and +1 to Str.

One PC took it. Others took things like my combined Grappler/Tavern brawler feat, the combined Linguist/Keen Mind type of feat, and so forth. I re-did most feats, removing the +1 to an ability score in every single case and combining/replacing other abilities to make up for it. This particular game did not have any ASIs available at any point, it was only feat selections.