D&D 5E Analysis of character classes

[Warpiglet-7]

When folks debate the roles and capabilities of classes, is it “fair” to include feats in the discussion?

for example, a class with medium armor proficiency can easily take ‘heavily armored’ and open up the use of strength as primary attack stat, etc

some classes who are seen as having too few spell slots can get a significant boost from several feats (e.g. from Tasha’s or PHB).

discussing GWM and SS…a clas can go from overpowering to much more comparable.

I realize not everyone uses feats but I have only played with folks who do.for me, classes are only as bad as their feat-less selves are.

just curious about where others set expectations and whether feats are assumed when comparing classes and their effectiveness in different areas

 

[Yaarel]

I always use feats, including feat humans.

When comparing classes and subclass archetypes, they should stand on their own and balance well compared to each other.

When comparing "builds", then one can bring in any variable, including feats, magic items, multiclass dips, support from fellow teammates, and so on.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

While there will be talk about "Feats aren't part of the base assumptions of the game", in my experience games where all feats are banned are really, really rare.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Honestly it's unfair not to include feats in the discussion of the fighter and the rogue; they get extra ASIs which can be spent on feats and in my experience (as with yours) most groups play with feats.

With classes other than the fighter and the rogue it's definitely viable to not take a first feat before level 12; all classes get a significant bonus from spending their first two ASIs on raising their primary stat to 20 and array and point buy are both common. It's only when you move into improving your secondary stats (and possibly not them for a monk) that feats are definitely more useful than ASIs. And the feats more or less cancel between classes - except for the two classes that get extra ASIs/feats, when there's little argument to spend ASIs after maxing your primary stat.

But with all classes except the fighter or the rogue most characters are IME likely to only have at most half a feat before level 12 in the majority of cases because they want that sweet 20 in their primary stat and it's a very defensible choice. The fighter should, by the same token, have their first feat no later than level 8 - and has an extra feat of course. This doesn't cancel out.

 

[ECMO3]

When folks debate the roles and capabilities of classes, is it “fair” to include feats in the discussion?

for example, a class with medium armor proficiency can easily take ‘heavily armored’ and open up the use of strength as primary attack stat, etc

some classes who are seen as having too few spell slots can get a significant boost from several feats (e.g. from Tasha’s or PHB).

discussing GWM and SS…a clas can go from overpowering to much more comparable.

I realize not everyone uses feats but I have only played with folks who do.for me, classes are only as bad as their feat-less selves are.

just curious about where others set expectations and whether feats are assumed when comparing classes and their effectiveness in different areas

I think the idea of a specific predefined party roles for certain classes does not translate into 5E. Even with no multiclassing or feats you can build far out from the stereotypes with things like a wizard as the main tank (Bladesinger), a sorcerer as the main healer (divine soul), a Ranger as the party face (Fey Wanderer), a Gish from a bunch of classes. Anyone can pick up abilities like thieves tools and can select skills from backgrounds to lean into support roles.

If you add in feats and multiclass in it, this expands more. And to your point you can get a ton of spells from feats. For example a human level 9/4 Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster is only a level 4 caster but with certain feats this character can have 8 cantrips, 13 known spells and 14 spells cast a day (4 first slots, 3 second level slots plus 5 once a day 1st level and 3 once a day second level). Even if she waits until she gets 20 Dex to start taking feats she can still know 7 cantrips and 11 spells. She can pull 3 of the first level spells and 2 of the cantrips off of any spell list.

For comparison a full blown 13-th level sorcerer has 6 cantrips, 13 spells known and 17 castings a day (not counting converting SPs).

 

[Helldritch]

At some point, multiclassing is the bane of 5ed. So is TCoE... that is why that book isn't used at my table.

 

[Blue]

I think you need to include feats in a discussion of classes, as they have a fairly large effect.

Not the example of heavy armor mastery - if a class doesn't get heavy armor, either it shutdown down partially in it (barbarian, monk), moves your attack stat (hexblade) or it doesn't get extra attack. So going STR for attacking is a losing proposition at 5th level well it becomes extremely inefficient - doesn't do enough attack damage w/o extra attack to justify, and STR doesn't do enough other stuff to justify on it's own.

But some feats are very commonly tied to builds. Archers are often evaluated with Sharpshooter and or Crossbow expert. Great Weapon Mastery is often found on Vengeance Paladins. Fighter and Rogues with extra ASI can get more, the fighter especially having a wide array that many martials like that includes the ones mentioned before, other weapon ones like PAM, Sentinel, Elven Accuracy, Shield Master, and any of the first tier feats like Lucky, and half feats depending on their ability scores.

And you need to understand what a class does - which means understanding common builds for it - in order to accurately discuss classes. I would go so far as to say that a discussion off classes that doesn't include feats is just wrong - it's trying to look at the class without context of how it's actually played and how everything comes together.

 

[FrogReaver]

When folks debate the roles and capabilities of classes, is it “fair” to include feats in the discussion?

for example, a class with medium armor proficiency can easily take ‘heavily armored’ and open up the use of strength as primary attack stat, etc

some classes who are seen as having too few spell slots can get a significant boost from several feats (e.g. from Tasha’s or PHB).

discussing GWM and SS…a clas can go from overpowering to much more comparable.

I realize not everyone uses feats but I have only played with folks who do.for me, classes are only as bad as their feat-less selves are.

just curious about where others set expectations and whether feats are assumed when comparing classes and their effectiveness in different areas

There is no fully agreed upon method of analysis. Generally speaking when I kick off an analysis discussion, I do it for how my table is currently running. If I'm responding to someone elses analysis, I'll answer on whether they wanted to include feats or multiclassing or not. I find understanding how classes perform without feats or multiclassing and with feats and multiclassing to be paramount to truly understanding the class.

The one thing I can say is that analysis of specific levels - especially of high levels tends to hide opportunity costs that impact the character throughout most of the game. So to really get an idea of how classes perform you need to look at a variety of levels. This is one thing that players who have their wizard dip into cleric early for armor and shields generally overlooks. Offensive Feat setups like GWM/SS also come with an opportunity cost at least early. They mean you are not taking another feat or increasing your primary stat. They mean you are restricting your weapon type such that magical weapons you find may not be as useful. Variant human means you don't have darkvision which either means a caster uses a 2nd level slot and spell prepared/known to grant you that ability or a caster keeps up the light spell/torch (potentially coming with it's own in fiction disadvantages) so you don't attack with disadvantage in the dark. There are lots of tradeoffs and only some are easily accounted for in the whiteroom.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I think the idea of a specific predefined party roles for certain classes does not translate into 5E. Even with no multiclassing or feats you can build far out from the stereotypes with things like a wizard as the main tank (Bladesinger), a sorcerer as the main healer (divine soul), a Ranger as the party face (Fey Wanderer), a Gish from a bunch of classes. Anyone can pick up abilities like thieves tools and can select skills from backgrounds to lean into support roles.

If you add in feats and multiclass in it, this expands more. And to your point you can get a ton of spells from feats. For example a human level 9/4 Eldritch Knight/Arcane Trickster is only a level 4 caster but with certain feats this character can have 8 cantrips, 13 known spells and 14 spells cast a day (4 first slots, 3 second level slots plus 5 once a day 1st level and 3 once a day second level). Even if she waits until she gets 20 Dex to start taking feats she can still know 7 cantrips and 11 spells. She can pull 3 of the first level spells and 2 of the cantrips off of any spell list.

For comparison a full blown 13-th level sorcerer has 6 cantrips, 13 spells known and 17 castings a day (not counting converting SPs).

I personally recoil at the idea of what my character “is supposed to do” and only mention roles vis a vis typical analyses!

(that said I try to be a help—-no pacifist fighters or whatever for my group).

I think I got curious as I was reading all the responses in a thread “do artificers suck” and realized folks might be comparing different things.

for example, I was thinking about taking heavily armored at level 1 and a con/str bonus…and my concerns about durability seemed different than perhaps the worries of some others.

 

[abirdcall]

At some point, multiclassing is the bane of 5ed. So is TCoE... that is why that book isn't used at my table.

Okay, I hear you but the summon spells in Tasha's are so much better for the game than the old summoning spells.

Everyone gets 1 creature. That's it. And no going through monster books looking for the best ones.