D&D 5E Can you share your experience with a featless/multiclassless game?

[S'mon]

The page 163 of the Player's handbook says:

However, even they are an optional rule, feats and multiclasses are allowed in the Adventure League's plays, and some claim they as a core part of the edition. Thus, I want to know how was your experiences without theses optional set of rules. This include gaming balance, martials against spellcasters, fighters without feats and so on.

Thanks in advance.

Game works fine without Feats & Multiclassing. Multiclassing favours casters while Feats favour non-casters, but it's not a huge difference. More magic items, especially weapons, easily compensates for any imbalance caused by a lack of Feats. Feats can help compensate for martials being underpowered in a game where there are only 1-3 encounters per Long Rest; IMCs with 1 week long rests it's common to see 6-8 encounters per LR, and the balance is fine.

No Feats means simpler PCs, faster combat, and makes it easier to have PC-class NPCs. This reduces the PC-NPC divide and makes PCs feel more embedded in the world.

 

[S'mon]

A lot of abilities granted by feats I would let players do with a skill check or even for free.

Yes. With no Feats the GM has a lot more flexibility to say "you can do that with a skill check", or grant it as a training reward, or even for free. Some people don't like this kind of GM empowerment but most players are happy.

 

[S'mon]

I don't think I've ever played a No Feat game - but the first thing that would happen would be humans would disappear almost entirely (I've never seen a non-variant human because they are both weak and bland).

IME with Feats ca 70% of PCs are human; without Feats ca 30% of PCs are human. PCs who would have been Human tend to become Half-Elves instead. I also see a lot of High Elves.

I do think the standard human is on the weak side, although the main impetus for playing non-human seems to be to get Darkvision, both to see in the dark and for its superior low-light vision. To be balanced I think the standard human needs a couple more attribute points.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I do think the standard human is on the weak side, although the main impetus for playing non-human seems to be to get Darkvision, both to see in the dark and for its superior low-light vision. To be balanced I think the standard human needs a couple more attribute points.

Agreed.

With rolled stats the normal human see a lot of play at my table. But I also give them +1 skill proficiency.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Hiya!

Ok. I think I see where our heads are butting here. Y'see, I DON'T see the "regular Fighter" as sub-par or 'bad'. Quite the opposite, actually. You see adding of Feats as adding "spice" to your Fighter. We see Feats as adding "spice" to the fighter, but your only real choices of spice is black pepper, salt, or oregano. In other words...all Feats do is add an almost forced, pre-determined "ability" to a generic 'build' of Fighter. Want to be good with a bow? You have no choice...you MUST take Sharpshooting or you will simply be far worse than every other Fighter (Archer) you come across that does have Sharpshooting. So...what did you actually gain by taking that Feat? What 'uniqueness' did you get from taking SS when every other Archer is ALSO going to have SS? You aren't special an more. You are typical. Average. Bland. Expected. You want to be unique? DON'T take SS. You'll suck compared to the SS guys, but at least you'll be different!

As for numbers...I don't know if you were referring to me. I have no problem with big numbers or doing "amazingly cool, super-human tasks of daring-do!" (...proof...I GM a two or three 5-hour sessions of Synnibarr every year, year and a half! [it usually takes that long for my SAN score to replenish] ). Even in D&D land, high numbers isn't bad. Personally, I prefer to see the numbers lower, but that's just preference.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Yep... quite a lot of the combat feats are basically extensions of the Fighting Styles.

Archery goes to Crossbow Expert or Sharpshooter
Defense goes to Heavy Armor Master or Sentinel
Dueling goes to Defensive Duelist or Shield Master
Great Weapon Fighting goes to Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master
Protection goes to Sentinel or Shield Master
Two-Weapon Fighting goes to Dual-Wielder

By taking said feats you aren't really expanding the breadth of your PC... merely it's depth. You become more of what you already are.

 

[TwoSix]

Yep... quite a lot of the combat feats are basically extensions of the Fighting Styles.

Archery goes to Crossbow Expert or Sharpshooter
Defense goes to Heavy Armor Master or Sentinel
Dueling goes to Defensive Duelist or Shield Master
Great Weapon Fighting goes to Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master
Protection goes to Sentinel or Shield Master
Two-Weapon Fighting goes to Dual-Wielder

By taking said feats you aren't really expanding the breadth of your PC... merely it's depth. You become more of what you already are.

I do agree that feats that focus your character in combat are easily the most problematic feats and the best candidates for removal. Ideally, feats grow your characters in breadth, not specialize them further.

 

[Coroc]

I mean if the player thinks feats are too complicated they don't need to take them?

And what shenanigans exactly are we talking about here? The most 'shenanigans' I can think of is adding a owl Familiar to the Rogue so they can get easier Sneak Attacks with Fly By Help. Which honestly sounds like the kind of dirty tactic a Rogue would adore so I'm not sure how that counts? Or maybe like my Life Cleric who took Magic Initiate Druid so he could get some OTHER Attack Cantrip besides friggin' Sacred Flame and a bonus healing spell (I don't really think it's a good idea to go for the whole Life Cleric bonus to Goodberry healing but Goodberry on its own is valuable).

I don't think PAM or Sentinel is really 'shenanigans'.

I trust 5e is robust enough that a DM doesn't needs to micromanage every damn level up the players do. Most of the time when my group play, our new class features/spells/feats only get mentionned when they get used the first time.

"The Hobgoblin runs past you to go attack the Wizard."
"Not if I stop him dead in his track with my Opportunity Attack!"
"Oh, so you got Sentinel?"
"Yup!"
"Alright then, see if you can hit him."

People act like surprising the DM is a bad thing or something? I mean, what's the point of having a 'Cool Trick' if you never get to use it?


That STILL makes no sense... Your argument, putting aside how realistic it is or not, doesn't tell me Feats are bad, it tells me the Fghter is sub par!

And a Fighter really isn't that bad until the very high levels. But it IS Bland if you can't add some extra spice with a Feat. Like, I can build a Battlemaster with high CHA and Rally, for exemple, but then my CHA is pretty uselss outside of Rally itself and maybe 1 or 2 skill rolls here or there. So, I look over to feats and see what I can pick that works with that character. Maybe I can pick up Skill Expertise, or maybe Actor, or maybe Linguist to use my skills on more people, or maybe I'll double down on the Temp HP and go for Inspiring Leader! Or maybe I'll pick up Magic Initiate Bard and pick the Entertainer Background and just have my character introduce himself as a Bard despite not being that class on my sheet. Then I can stay back and in one turn Insult an enemy to death while Praising an ally so they have some Temp HP (Okay now I kinda want to play that, drats!). Or maybe I'll ignore CHA and just grab Healer because nobody's playing a class with healing?

I'm not even thinking about what everybody else is doing, but rather trying to come up with more options I can pick from so I can approach more situations from different angles others than just 'I hit it with my sword'. I like Feats because it gives me things to chose when level up, but it's not as annoying as picking spells.

You want to talk about illusion of choice that end up all looking the same? Look at the Cleric spell list one of these days... Augh. 5e Clerics are SO BORING!

And can we stop this BS elitist judgy thing where people who enjoy rolling big numbers are looked down upon? YES I like to roll high and kick butt in combat. What of it?! My fun is just as valid as you, Mr. "Roleplay More To Make your Character Different"!

well, you obviously like feats. I do also, as a variant and additional challenge for me as dm, and to me they are.
But w/o feats/mc you will not get hex/eb sorlocks or similar glass cannons that easy.

 

[Coroc]

I'd honestly not be interested in playing if feats and MC was removed. 5e is already pathetic for character customisation. Removing those last aspects of it makes it more like picking pre-generated chess pieces than actually having your own character.

I've got three currently active characters:

• A Fire Genasi Battlemaster 5, Forge Cleric 6, with the warcaster and magic initiate (druid) feat (in order to grab control flames as it suits the character background).
• A Lizardfolk Battlerager 6, with the tough feat.
• And a Kalashtar Hexblade 3, who will be grabbing magic initiate (sorcerer) for shape water next level as it suits the character background.

Which makes it pretty clear how important I consider feats and multiclassing for the experience.

well, cool that you use mc for thematic reasons and not for power play. But this thread is rather about pros and cons of mc/feats if i understood op correct, and not what is perceived as better/only method. It really depends upon what your expectations are for you it is a showstopper, but for different playstyles a game w/o feat mc might have its advantages.
To me both methods have their appeal

 

[Ruin Explorer]

For a melee Rogue it is hard to beat magic initiate. You can get a familiar plus booming blade. That adds a lot to your SA damage and meshes very well with cunning action.

Yeah, but that wasn't the stated reasoning, and doesn't kick in at 4th even (it does at 5th though), and I'm skeptical the Familiars are all being used to get Advantage (esp. given they take an hour ten to get back every time they get vaped), given what I know of players keen to get Familiars lol. I don't think we even know if any of them were Rogues.

 

[Undrave]

You have no choice...you MUST take Sharpshooting or you will simply be far worse than every other Fighter (Archer) you come across that does have Sharpshooting

... When am I going to come across another Fighter Archer? If there's already one in the party I'm not going to make one. And pretty sure that pressure is only in your head.