D&D 5E Unarmored Defense as a Feat?

[Dausuul]

At roughly level 10, a dex fighter would have 20 AC and about 114 HP without a fighting style which is ahead of the curve defensively.

At level 10, you can get Dex 20 and Con 18. If you play variant human and use your free feat on Unarmored Defense, that gets you AC 19. A fighter without the feat at that level would have AC 17.

You can add a shield if you like, but the fighter without the feat can add a shield too. It doesn't change anything--you're still only getting 2 points of AC from the feat. And that's for a fighter. Non-fighters have to wait till level 12 to get even +2 AC.

It isn't hard to get 20 con by level 8 as a fighter, and I'm excluding variant humans which can afford a feat for free.

Wait a minute, you're excluding variant humans? And you are proposing to have 20 Con, 20 Dex, and a feat by level 8? That's five ASIs. Fighter gets you three. Where are you getting the other two?

 

[Stalker0]

Honestly I think this is even more a half feat.

In most cases, your going to get a +1 AC...to classes they don't have the best AC to begin with (aka your not breaking bounded accuracy). It gets a little better scaling later on, but if your game allows any magic items that will already be compensated for.

Its an ability that seems cool, but its lack of stacking with other options keeps it in check. I think its perfectly fine, even a bit weak, as a feat.

 

[Asisreo]

At level 10, you can get Dex 20 and Con 18. If you play variant human and use your free feat on Unarmored Defense, that gets you AC 19. A fighter without the feat at that level would have AC 17.

You can add a shield if you like, but the fighter without the feat can add a shield too. It doesn't change anything--you're still only getting 2 points of AC from the feat. And that's for a fighter. Non-fighters have to wait till level 12 to get even +2 AC.


Wait a minute, you're excluding variant humans? And you are proposing to have 20 Con, 20 Dex, and a feat by level 8? That's five ASIs. Fighter gets you three. Where are you getting the other two?

+2 to dex, +1 to con. That would start you at 17 dex, 16 con. Asi1 gets you to 19 dex 16 con, asi2 gets 20 dex, 17 con, asi3 does 20 dex, 19 con. I was slightly off but I consider level 14 to be a midlevel fighter still.

 

[jgsugden]

I encourage people not to thin of feats, but instead think of boons. If you make it a feat, everyone looks for ways to max it out. If you give it to a PC as a boon, then it is specific to that PC and can be crafter to not be too powerful.

 

[Remathilis]

I don't think I'd let it use ANY ability score, that is to me a bit too liberal (I have a hard time envisioning how Cha would work - "Not the Face!" ? ), but overall I think it's a good feat.

I'd probably limit it to Int, Wis or possibly Con myself.

I have a bard subclass I made that is a dancer. They get Dex/Cha to AC to reflect thier dancing as both a performance that distracts foes and uses thier grace to avoid blows.

 

[dmhelp]

For an unarmored defense feat I would use:
AC 9 + proficiency + dex modifier

At level 1 AC = 11 + dex mod
At level 20 AC = 15 + dex mod

So at high level it gets similar to a high stat monk. At mid level it is similar to draconic sorc. At low level it is similar to leather.

 

[jayoungr]

Moreover, I'd like to see Proficiency somehow add into AC - make AC calculation 8 + proficiency mod + dexterity mod for regular AC and Unarmored Defenses.

Pretty sure they deliberately didn't do that in order to prevent AC creep with level, which leads to low-level monsters not being able to even hit higher-level PCs, and bounded accuracy was one of the bedrock design goals of 5E.

 

[Stormonu]

Pretty sure they deliberately didn't do that in order to prevent AC creep with level, which leads to low-level monsters not being able to even hit higher-level PCs, and bounded accuracy was one of the bedrock design goals of 5E.

Proficiency goes from +2 (at 1st level) to +6 (at 17th level). I think the system can handle that without falling apart, and if the game designers are worried that a goblin can't hit the plate armored 17th level fighter, well, that's a trivial concern.

 

[jayoungr]

Proficiency goes from +2 (at 1st level) to +6 (at 17th level). I think the system can handle that without falling apart

I think it would make a bigger difference than you think it would. A +6 is an extra 30% chance to hit.

Sure, you can up the ACs to compensate, but why get into that arms race?

 

[Stormonu]

I think it would make a bigger difference than you think it would. A +6 is an extra 30% chance to hit.

Sure, you can up the ACs to compensate, but why get into that arms race?

I think you missed that starting AC would be 8, not 10. So the +6 is only a +20% chance bonus. Also, for Unarmored Defense at least, this would offset the lack of magical gear that increase AC at higher levels.