D&D 5E Sage Advice is back!

[Charlaquin]

Yeah. I just watched that. Can’t say I’m enjoying the stated direction things will be going.

Feat chains are in going forward.

Backgrounds with feats are in going forward.

The use of hit dice will be expanded. Not sure where that’s coming from or where it’s going.

Im ambivalent about feat chains, but this sounds cool to me otherwise.

 

[jayoungr]

I thought they made a deliberate decision to move away from feat chains in 5E. I wonder why they decided to go back on that.

 

[Parmandur]

As I said in the Dragonlance thread - having Backgrounds carry a Feat with them by default would break mathematical compatibility with the current game in a way that none of the other changes they have made so far do. So I hope that these experiments are being kept to optional books and setting specific Backgrounds and not something they're thinking of putting into the Anniversary Edition.

The one way I could see this work mechanically is if they allow you to swap your +2 ASI at 1st level for a Feat, and you have to do that to take any Background with a Feat attached. Which I think would be a good idea to be honest, so I could see how they could make this mechanically compatible with the current edition if they do it that way.

It doesn't really break the math of the game.

 

[Jer]

I thought they made a deliberate decision to move away from feat chains in 5E. I wonder why they decided to go back on that.

Because after 10 years they've changed their minds and think they can do them better than in 4e or 3e?

I mean it's been nearly a decade of them attaining their own level of design mastery with the game they created - figuring out that you've boxed yourself in design wise and wanting to open up the design space is a natural thing to be thinking at this point.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't like the feat chains. To me it smacks of 3E system mastery expectations. 90% of my players will never read the books enough to figure out feat chains, so I hope the design won't assume widespread use of them moving forward, because if so many players will be "left behind" or make trap choices. Accommodating casual players is a big part of 5E's success and I'm against anything that jeopardizes that approach.

There are no trap choices built into feat chains in 5e, because the intro feat is still a feat on par with all of the other feats. Even if you don't "master" the system enough to understand that choice 1 leads to choice 2 if you opt to do that, choice 1 is still sufficient.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't like the feat chains. To me it smacks of 3E system mastery expectations. 90% of my players will never read the books enough to figure out feat chains, so I hope the design won't assume widespread use of them moving forward, because if so many players will be "left behind" or make trap choices. Accommodating casual players is a big part of 5E's success and I'm against anything that jeopardizes that approach.

I don't think backgrounds with feats are in any way necessary but I do acknowledge they are a logical response to what a lot of people actually want and many groups are already doing in practice anyway ("starter feat" for everyone).

I suspect this will be much less of a problem in 5e than it was in 3e because you get a much smaller number of much more impactful feats to work with. 3e feat chains were often long and required you to take several boring feats before you could get to the actually good feat in the chain. And sometimes there would be more feats further down the chain that weren’t actually worthwhile. So you had to know which feats were worth it and which ones weren’t and basically plan your whole character from 1st level, which required a ton of system mastery. From the feat chains we’ve seen in UA, I don’t think that’s likely to be a problem in 5e. Each feat in the chain looks plenty good on its own, and the chains are necessarily quite short because you only have a handful of feats to work with, especially since they compete with ability score increases.

 

[Maxperson]

I thought they made a deliberate decision to move away from feat chains in 5E. I wonder why they decided to go back on that.

He said why. They got a lot of positive feedback from people who enjoyed the short chains in Strixhaven.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

I’m excited about the return of feat chains, and I’m interested in seeing what other mechanics using hit die they will experiment with.

Backgrounds with feats is a bit curious. Are they making Feats a default in the revision or are they still optional? Is this due to the popularity of groups giving free feats at first level?

 

[Azzy]

Just as long as the early feats in the chain aren't crap choices. Still, not a fan.

 

[Maxperson]

Just as long as the early feats in the chain aren't crap choices. Still, not a fan.

When he talked about it he talked about the later feats being better than the standard for feats. That means that the intro feats will be of standard quality and then later ones a bit better.