D&D (2024) What do you want & expect to see in 2024's 5.5e?

[Filthy Lucre]

So basically, you are asking for a return to late 3.5?

The one true king.

 

[ECMO3]

Even a feat like Actor doesn't really give you much of anything that many tables already has access to and which you already are built for if you've made a PC for whom taking the Actor feat would make sense. A CHA bump? You already have high CHA, so okay it's now higher. Advantage on Deception and Performance? You've already built your PC to be really good at both of those skills already (otherwise you probably wouldn't have taken the Actor feat supposedly for "flavor" to prove it) so Advantage is again just bigger numbers for something you are already doing. The only thing you get which is "special" and is "additive functionality" to your character is the voice mimicry thing.

Getting actor feat with a changeling character is extremely powerful and game changing (excuse the pun). You can look and sound like anyone you have seen and heard. Even on a character with disguise self it can still be very powerful.

Being a half feat you often set up for it by starting with an odd charisma, so you still get the boost you would get from an ASI.

Also while some feats do make you better in what you are already good in, and actor probably falls into this catagory, others don't. The skilled feat specifically targets things you are not proficient in (and therefore either ok or poor before the feat). Prodigy, light, medium and heavy armored, weapon master are all similar. Usually if I am taking alert I am taking on a character with a low perception and I go from being the easiest to surprise to being impossible to surprise. Magic initiate is often taken by non-casters and when it is taken by casters it is usually to get off-list spells they do not have access to otherwise.

 

[Aldarc]

My only real issue with feats is that I don't think a lot of them do what is always talked about as the point of them... this idea that feats let you "customize" your character. Because any feat that just lets you do what you are already doing but better isn't "customizing" your PC at all in my opinion.

If you are a warrior who uses a great weapon and your PC was built for using that great weapon really well... taking the Great Weapon Master feat is merely just taking what you already are and adding bigger numbers to it. I do not call that "customization". Who your PC is hasn't changed. In your table's party you are still the character who has mastered using great weapons and who does massive amounts of damage with them. You never needed a feat to really prove that. You haven't customized, you are still what you always were.

Even a feat like Actor doesn't really give you much of anything that many tables already has access to and which you already are built for if you've made a PC for whom taking the Actor feat would make sense. A CHA bump? You already have high CHA, so okay it's now higher. Advantage on Deception and Performance? You've already built your PC to be really good at both of those skills already (otherwise you probably wouldn't have taken the Actor feat supposedly for "flavor" to prove it) so Advantage is again just bigger numbers for something you are already doing. The only thing you get which is "special" and is "additive functionality" to your character is the voice mimicry thing. But while I can't speak for anyone else, I personally don't think that's really all that great of a feature because I know for at least my table, if I have a player who has built a disguise-focused PC whose whole schtick in the social pillar is to pretend to be other people... I'm so happy to see this rare butterfly of a character concept that I am never going to shiat on them by getting all squirrely and saying crap like "Wellllllllll... while you might look like this person, your voice sounds different and thus I'm going to give you Disadvantage on every Deception check you make when you speak." That would basically be me saying that I think your character design desire is stupid and I'm not going to let you play it. And to thus essentially force that person to take a feat to take Actor just to get over that roleplay hurdle I believe is a terrible way to DM.

So to me... all the feats should mainly be giving out abilities that add completely new game rules and functionality that characters otherwise couldn't get. Nothing would be just "what you are already doing but higher numbers", the feats would mainly be adding new things to the character to let them do things they otherwise couldn't do. And if we want to add a little bit of "higher number" functionality as well, then fine. But that shouldn't be the reason why someone would want to take the feat in the first place. Again... all in my own personal opinion.

This is one reason why I'm wondering whether some of the character customization that feats represent should be further offloaded onto Backgrounds.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I won’t say what I would expect. But I would like an index that is useful and ambiguous areas cleaned up.

I would love for all of the races to be presented together and likewise for all of the classes to be compiled.

that said, it will be a hard row to hoe—that’s a lot of info in one place.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Getting actor feat with a changeling character is extremely powerful and game changing (excuse the pun). You can look and sound like anyone you have seen and heard. Even on a character with disguise self it can still be very powerful.

Being a half feat you often set up for it by starting with an odd charisma, so you still get the boost you would get from an ASI.

Well, like I said, this would only be a boon if your DM was such a stickler for this sort of thing that they were going to penalize you repeatedly for not sounding like the people you were trying to impersonate (throwing up Disadvantage on ever Deception check for example). But to me, that's the kind of stuff I hate to see as both a player and a DM, all in the name so-called "realism". Impersonating people is such a minor effect in D&D gameplay (even within a setting like Eberron) that to force someone to blow their one feat slot in the first 7 levels of the game just to allow them to do the exact thing they built their character for without penalty... kinda sucks in my opinion. Especially when that action is only going to come up once every like... third, fifth, eighth session.

A DM wants to train their players not to bother making characters that are focused on things unrelated to combat? Keep penalizing them for their choices and make them use their feats to "fix" them.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is one reason why I'm wondering whether some of the character customization that feats represent should be further offloaded onto Backgrounds.

This exactly what I did for my upcoming Theros game (where almost all the characters are Human). I re-worked most of the backgrounds by not only giving Expertise for the primary skill of the two, I also made feats for them that specifically gave additional functionality as well as bonuses to the things they would do due to the background they chose.

The Physician background had an applicable Physician feat. The Philosopher and Epic Poet backgrounds had an Orator feat to take. The Scout had a Spotter feat, the Athlete had a Wrestler feat, etc. etc. My players were quite happy.

 

[Aldarc]

This exactly what I did for my upcoming Theros game (where almost all the characters are Human). I re-worked most of the backgrounds by not only giving Expertise for the primary skill of the two, I also made feats for them that specifically gave additional functionality as well as bonuses to the things they would do due to the background they chose.

The Physician background had an applicable Physician feat. The Philosopher and Epic Poet backgrounds had an Orator feat to take. The Scout had a Spotter feat, the Athlete had a Wrestler feat, etc. etc. My players were quite happy.

Yeah, so if you had a Mage's Apprentice or Hedge Wizard Background, for example, then the Fighter or Rogue could potentially pick up a cantrip or spell at the start instead of having to wait around until level 3 before they get to properly play their Eldritch Warrior or Arcane Trickster.

 

[Nefermandias]

Nah.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

So basically, you are asking for a return to late 3.5?

Really the things I loved more in 3.5 but they aren't in 5th yet.

 

[ECMO3]

Well, like I said, this would only be a boon if your DM was such a stickler for this sort of thing that they were going to penalize you repeatedly for not sounding like the people you were trying to impersonate (throwing up Disadvantage on ever Deception check for example).

I think there is a huge difference in being able to bluff and being able to mimic someone. Skill checks are not automatic and I don't think most DMs would allow a player without the feat to mimic someone's speech to his closest friends or his wife for example and if they did it would be an insanely high DC. This feat does that and gives a mechanic for it which is a lot easier to pass.

Further in the game with the changeling I am talking about, he did not blow his slot, he chose it and it comes up nearly every session, it is fun and it is downright awesome in combat against any kind of organized humanoids. Literally on a dungeon crawl right now, eliminating a clan of Dueregar. We clear one room, he impersonates one of the people in it or the Lieutneant and he goes into the next room. He scouts it out and then we whisper to him for the layout. He positions himself or sometimes even starts ordering others around in unfavorable positions, put down their weapons and help him with this...... Then we go in and kill them. He orders them around in battle too (at least until he attacks). Rinse and repeat. He is a Warlock and I think it is far more effective than if he took the ASI or really any other feat I can think of.

Is it kind of cheesy spamming it like this? Yeah kind of, but so is GWM or SS or any other combat-related feat.