D&D 5E A change that improves half-feats

[ECMO3]

I view a Feat as worth about 8 skill proficiencies (albeit some skills are better than others).

They do vary but I find them less valuable than this. In general, I think they are worth about 2-3 skill proficiencies. I often use feats to get extra proficiencies, usually through skill expert or prodigy. In terms of feats I take with my characters these two are in the top 10. Since Tasha's skill expert is probably the third most often feat I take (after Fey touched and Shadow touched).

It also depends heavily on your game though. If your game is combat heavy skills are going to be less important in general (with the exception of athletics an possibly stealth). If your game is RP heavy I think skills will have higher importance mechanically.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Perception shouldn't be a skill. It's strictly better as a choice than any other skill and is by far the one most rolled in my tables

I would change it to just always being a passive ability, without any rolls involved in searching for things. Things would have a "Perception DC" that PCs with a Perception Score of that number or higher would be able to notice. I would then change the Search action to give you a +5 to your Perception score for the next round. I might even consider doing the same to Insight, too. That would stop PCs from spamming Perception and Insight, like "Do I see a secret door/trap now!?!? What about me!?!? Or ME!?!?", where they get to do a Search/Insight action if they want to get a bonus to their Passive Perception/Insight, but they know that they're not going to have a chance of getting a score if they do it again if they roll low.

 

[clearstream]

What wizard is going to take Lightly Armored? It gives them something that they can already acquire multiple different ways. They can take a subclass to get the same thing, and they get that earlier. They can multiclass for a one level poach and get not only the same thing, but a whole bunch of other abilities alongside it. Or, they can just do what all normal wizards do and use Mage Armor and get just the same AC out of the deal. So what does the feat actually do? It just changes the fluff of this wizard's defenses from being magical force to actual metal. Yeah. Great. Wonderful reason to lose +2 to their INT. That's something their DM should have already handwaved and allowed in the first place because it means nothing mechanically.

There might be some marginal arguments for lightly armored, but what your comment made me think about is simply removing the prerequisite from moderately armored. Medium armor might genuinely be worth taking as a caster. Too strong do you think?

For my money... feats should always grant new abilities that classes can't already acquire through normal gameplay means. Especially if those means are via subclasses, because those show up 1 to 3 levels earlier than your first attempt at getting the feat, which means your fluff desires to make your character your own have come online that much earlier.

This speaks to the question of what job do feats do? For me, their general jobs are

1. enable creative play
2. support a style of play

So feats should help players imagine a wider range of character concepts, and help them go deeper into a style the game supports. That means feats could provide

• abilities that classes cannot acquire through normal gameplay (your point)
• distinctive class elements (e.g., metamagic adept) that can also be taken by characters in the class to strengthen core capability
• support for martial styles (e.g., sword-and-board, dual-wield, great-weapon, bow, unarmed, damage-types)
• spell and proficiency dips
• support for explore pillar (this area is underserved, but e.g., observant)
• support for social pilar (also underserved, but perhaps e.g., telepathic?)

Feats are easy to balance, given the known value of ASIs plus some solid anchoring feats. Clean feat designs like Skill Expert and Fey Touched (and contrast those with the rubbishy designs of Savage Attacker and Athlete!) Something I would like to see in a 6e would be not more feats, but each current feat reconsidered for purpose and balance. I think there should be a general rule like mine for half-feats with in mind making feats relevant to the widest range of character concepts possible, given each feat's location in the design space.