D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: 16 New Feats

"Today’s Unearthed Arcana presents a selection of new feats for Dungeons & Dragons. Each feat offers a way to become better at something or to gain a whole new ability."

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The feats include Artificer Initiate, Chef, Crusher, Eldritch Adept, Fey Touched, Fighting Initiate, Gunner, Metamagic Adept, Poisoner, Piercer, Practiced Expert, Shadow Touched, Shield Training, Slasher, Tandem Tactician, and Tracker.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Here is the list of invocations non-warlocks can take with the feat. It's sort of a mini-guide. I am curious about the ones which do not list a prerequisite but mention "using a warlock spell slot" and how that works with the feat for a non-warlock.

Armor of Shadows: You can cast mage armor on yourself at will, without expending a spell slot or material components.
Beast, Speech: You can cast speak with animals at will, without expending a spell slot.
Beguiling Influence: You gain proficiency in the Deception and Persuasion skills.
Devil's Sight: You can see normally in darkness, both magical and nonmagical, to a distance of 120 feet.
Eldritch Sight: You can cast detect magic at will, without expending a spell slot.
Eyes of the Rune Keeper: You can read all writing.
Fiendish Vigor: You can cast false life on yourself at will as a 1st-level spell, without expending a spell slot or material components.
Gaze of Two Minds: You can use your action to touch a willing humanoid and perceive through its senses until the end of your next turn. As long as the creature is on the same plane of existence as you, you can use your action on subsequent turns to maintain this connection, extending the duration until the end of your next turn. While perceiving through the other creature’s senses, you benefit from any special senses possessed by that creature, and you are blinded and deafened to your own surroundings.
Mask of Many Faces: You can cast disguise self at will, without expending a spell slot.
Misty Visions: You can cast silent image at will, without expending a spell slot or material components.
Thief of Five Fates: You can cast bane once using a warlock spell slot. You can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

There are some great invocations in there. But yeah, not Agonizing Blast.

To me the "worth a feat" winners seems to be Devil's Sight as the way to get darkvision with a feat (and darkvision that sees through the spell darkness which Drow all already have), Mask of Many Faces or Misty Visions for at will illusion shenanigans, Beast Speech to be Dr. Doolittle, Gaze of Two Minds for various scouting, Fiendish Vigor for at-will Temp HP (I'd probably just go with Tough, but to each their own), or Eyes of the Runekeeper for nerding out. I don't think any make this a must have feat, but I can see how any of them might fit a particular character or campaign. I would caution people that at will casting of Disguise Self, Silent Image, or Beast Speech is not necessarily so much more valuable in game situations as casting them once or twice most of the time, but I can see how the at-will versions could define a character.

Indeed I think this is the great thing for the game in making these available by feat rather than multiclassing. Previously a Beast Master who wanted to be able to chat with his wolf all the time would have had to be fairly charismatic and willing to sell his soul to the fairy queen or whomever. Then he would have to spend two levels gaining a lot of other abilities that didn't really fit his aesthetic, before finally he got the one thing he was actually interested in. Now he just practices talking to his wolf instead of working on his dexterity for a while and eventually the wolf starts talking back.

 

[cbwjm]

They have before, so it's not off the table, but I don't see them reprinting spells for feats (they don't for subclasses), when they could make it broader.

I doubt that. They're not going to put the Xanathar's spells in Xanathar's 2.0, unless something requires them to. The PHB+1 AL rule is broken, and needs fixing. That's not a reason to reprint something, as most people do not play AL.

If they decide that a feat is going to use a specific spell from Xanathar's or another non-PHB source then they would reprint it. They do it for races that use non-phb spells. If a feat has a single spell and it is in a book similar to Xanathar's with a spell section, I could see the spell being included with the rest of the spells otherwise they will include a box next to the feat with the spell description.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

One of the things I do like about these feats is that it just adds a bit of flair to combat, and makes it more cinematic. Imagine a Satyr Bard running across the field giving hurt allies cupcakes and smoothies to boost their energy. Or, a Shadar-Kai assassin rogue quickly adding poison to a crossbow bolt, then hiding behind some shrubs, firing the bolt through a carriage's window at a rival noble, as the Wizard casts Hold Person on the coachman. You could have a raging mountain dwarf barbarian with huge maul, running towards an ogre, leaping into the air and smashing it backwards off a ledge, causing it to fall off a cliff into a river below.
It just makes it seem a lot cooler, and to me also adds a bit of realism to the game.

 

[Guest 6801328]

, or ask the DM for Bracers of Archery when the game starts out.

Is that a thing? Do people ask their DMs for specific magic items, and the DM complies?

 

[Rancho]

Some interesting stuff here!

- The Chef one is really fun. I was sad that the gourmet UA feat never got published, so I appreciate the redo.

- A lot of feats that give you a limited version of a class feature (invocations, metamagic, and so forth). I wonder if that's a direction they'll be expanding upon even further.

- Crusher/Piercer/Slasher are pretty neat: providing half an ASI and a small buff to their damage type

- Poisoner is interesting. Also, it looks like the ability to overcome poisoning resistance portion works outside of just weapon attacks. So I can see this one being useful for the alchemist artificer and other subclasses that use poison spells.

- Tandem Tactician seems tailor made to be used with the Mastermind Rogue. Could be a fun build alongside a familiar.

 

[Andras]

eta- never mind

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, but I fail to see how this affects this. Rangers don't get much of a boost from this, and Rogues do (when they didn't need one). Rogues can give most of their earlier ASIs and racial features and subclass to become a better Ranger than a real Ranger, at fairly low levels.

But they aren’t better than the ranger.

They are, at most, a better sniper, and good at wilderness challenges in a different way. They don’t get “I win” buttons, they just get really good skill checks. Meanwhile, with these feats, the ranger can gain the only thing that the Rogue has that the ranger doesn’t, while still also benefiting from the rest of the feat.

The rogue hasn’t gained any ground on the ranger with these feats.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

To me the "worth a feat" winners seems to be Devil's Sight as the way to get darkvision with a feat (and darkvision that sees through the spell darkness which Drow all already have), Mask of Many Faces or Misty Visions for at will illusion shenanigans, Beast Speech to be Dr. Doolittle, Gaze of Two Minds for various scouting, Fiendish Vigor for at-will Temp HP (I'd probably just go with Tough, but to each their own), or Eyes of the Runekeeper for nerding out. I don't think any make this a must have feat, but I can see how any of them might fit a particular character or campaign. I would caution people that at will casting of Disguise Self, Silent Image, or Beast Speech is not necessarily so much more valuable in game situations as casting them once or twice most of the time, but I can see how the at-will versions could define a character.

Indeed I think this is the great thing for the game in making these available by feat rather than multiclassing. Previously a Beast Master who wanted to be able to chat with his wolf all the time would have had to be fairly charismatic and willing to sell his soul to the fairy queen or whomever. Then he would have to spend two levels gaining a lot of other abilities that didn't really fit his aesthetic, before finally he got the one thing he was actually interested in. Now he just practices talking to his wolf instead of working on his dexterity for a while and eventually the wolf starts talking back.

At will mage armor or disguise self is much more valuable than 1/day. Disguise self at will is a game changer. It’s diet changeling, but more Diet Dr Pepper than Diet Pepsi (ie, Diet Dr Pepper is basically indistinguishable from regular DP).

The feat shines more for warlocks, but for non warlocks there are definitely some choices that can change a whole character.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Oh man, Crusher goes great with Booming Blade, you get the bonus damage instantly after you move them 5ft.

They have to willingly move to take the damage. However you are forcing them to take the damage or accept the new position you put them in, which is still pretty awesome.

- Tandem Tactician seems tailor made to be used with the Mastermind Rogue. Could be a fun build alongside a familiar.

It's unnecessary for a Mastermind Rogue, just letting them do what they can already do better. I think it is strongest in the hands of whatever character has a lot of unused bonus actions. Rogue's have some of the busiest bonus actions around.

But yes, it is made to stack on the Mastermind's abilities. If you really wanted to fully commit you'd build a Mastermind Rogue/Wizard with the Flock of Familiars spell and this feat who used all of their actions and bonus actions and the all actions of their familiars to generate advantage for allies, all while staying up to 40 feet away from the enemy. Eventually they could get a simulacrum and have them do it at well.

 

[Fenris-77]

Mask of Many Faces. On a V-Human. I've written up more than a few characters that MC'd into Warlock just for Mask. Yay!

On the whole, I like the idea here. In many cases I'd rather stay single classed and just pick up a small touch of something else, and this seems like a great way to get that done. From a design standpoint I think it's interesting too, as it provides at least some index of what bits of what classes the design team sees as roughly equivalent. Maybe very roughly, but it's still an interesting snap shot of X = Y = Z for those of us who can't resist hacking the game, a useful shorthand balance tool at the very least.