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

[Horwath]

I feel that feats are good for the development of characters, however...

there is a problem in power level of feats, same pool for "combat" and "non-combat" feats and ASI's

All feats should go to "half-feat" power level. Easy thing to do with all current feats.
Then have separate ASI resource pool. let's say 6 times of +1, spread over 20 levels.
7 combat "half-feats" spread over 20 levels.
7 non-combat "half-feats" spread over 20 levels.

Then each class can have some(or none) bonus feats that are picker from more narrow pool.

I.E:

Level

prof bonus

bonus

1	2	non-combat feat
2	2	combat feat
3	2	+1 ASI
4	2	non-combat feat
5	3	combat feat
6	3	+1 ASI
7	3	non-combat feat
8	3	combat feat
9	4	+1 ASI
10	4	non-combat feat

11	4	combat feat
12	4	+1 ASI
13	5	non-combat feat
14	5	combat feat
15	5	+1 ASI
16	5	non-combat feat
17	6	combat feat
18	6	+1 ASI
19	6	non-combat feat
20	6	combat feat

As for multiclassing; with this switch of feats/ASIs from class to level features, I would only allow even split classes. That is, two classes MUST always be within 1 level of eachother.


If that feels too weak, maybe we could add extra class levels at certain levels.

I.E. you get levels in both classes(average HPs) at levels 5,11,17,20. That would make 5th level character(tier2) a 3/3 split, 11th level character(tier3) a 7/6 split, 17th level character(tier4) a 10/10 split, and 20th level character(capstone) a 12/12 split.

 

[Seramus]

It was almost exactly the same, but slightly less interesting. My group likes feats so much everyone gets one at 1st level now.

It is true that seeing the 8th GWM character or Sorlock can feel boring for the DM. But in many cases, it's the very first time for that specific player.

 

[Arial Black]

Played an entire 2.5 year campaign of Tomb of Annihilation with no feats, no multi-classing, and standard array ability scores. Was totally fun and enjoyable. Nobody felt like anything important was missing.

For the record, the DM stipulated no feats and standard array. Multi-classing was probably allowed, but nobody did it.

Did anyone play a human?

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Anyone attempt banning feats for ASI, but allow variant humans to grab a feat at creation?

No. I've found featless games are really rare, but the vhuman is often one of the issues they are trying to solve.

No feats except for the Fighter and Rogue extra ASIs is a variant I've seen a few times that seems to work out better than no feats at all.

 

[Arial Black]

Hiya!

Think of it this way. You go compete in a 500m bicycle race...and everyone there is given a choice of what bike to ride. There is the Standard Bike (which is coloured any colour other than blue, red or black,) which everyone is allowed to use by default. Or, if you want, you can choose from three pro-level hyper-engineered racing bikes (which are blue, red or black). You look around the field and see...? Yeah...you see that EVERYONE is using a blue, red or black bike. Because anyone who is using a silver bike is at a disadvantage.

So the "same-y'ness" changes from multiple colours of bikes in the field...to one of three choices; blue, red or black. Not a silver, gold, white, yellow, green, or purple bike to be seen. That's what I was getting at.

You see a Cleric and look at the sheet; . So in stead of seeing 100 clerics, all with different spells....you see 100 fighters, all preparing cure wounds, spiritual weapon, spirit guardians, the usual list. Oh, you may find the odd create or destroy water, locate object, feign death, but the result is that every single one of those clerics is "worse at casting" than you are with the popular spells.

When simply looking at it between two or three characters, it looks diverse. But extrapolate that out to the NPC's and campaign world at large... and every cleric is using the same spells. The only fix is to ban spells and replace them with Wisdom bonuses.

FIFY.

When you see people picking the same feats as a reason to ban feats, it follows that people picking the same spells is a reason to ban spells.

Really, your solution to the 'problem' of 'same-y'ness'....is to force ALL fighters to increase Str/Dex/Con?

 

[Burnside]

Did anyone play a human?

Nope.

 

[Burnside]

To me that doesn't show what you're saying. You were talking about "amazing feats", and Magic Initiate isn't an "amazing Feat", really. It's decent but it's not wild, and people picking it at level 4 are not doing it for optimization reasons, they're doing for it for RP reasons - literally to get a familiar.

This has always been a classic issue in D&D. Some people really want that familiar. They will do whatever it takes to get that familiar. I've seen that since 2E. That is not specific to Feats.

Sort of ignoring the fact that familiars in 5E are, in fact, an amazing thing for any class to have. So a feat that gives you a familiar PLUS two wizard cantrips is, in fact, an amazing feat.

You are also assuming that this is the only feat that gets duplicated. It isn't. Multiple characters with Great Weapon Fighting in same party, seen it. Multiple character with Sentinel in same party, definitely seen it.

It's not the end of the world and like I said I do allow feats. I'm just bothered by the argument that "I need feats to create my unique custom build~!" when my experience as a DM - and I've DMed for hundreds of players over the past 4 years - is that most players' unique, distinctive custom feat build is one of the same 3-4 builds everyone else is making.

 

[Undrave]

Yes there is a player who wants to say how he can’t build his character concept without feats but when I ask him to explain the concept really is just ‘cool dpr “

So?

I will toss out there that I’m very particular about how I say it... I express that I’m “not using the optional feat rule’ as opposed to saying ‘I’m banning feats’ as one implies that players are owed it while the other keeps in terminology of the game that it isn’t I in fact it core and instead an optional rule choice

Unrelated to you, I feel like WotC WANTED feats to be a core feature but they got cold feat because people hated feat bloat. They're stuck in this awkward situation where they still print new feat for this 'optional' feature that is totally available in Adventure League.

When simply looking at it between two or three characters, it looks diverse. But extrapolate that out to the NPC's and campaign world at large... and every fighter is using a 2h weapon, polearm or composite longbow.

NPCs aren't built like PCs. If all the Fighter in the world all look like your PCs then it's an issue with the DM. Besides, more NPCs won't be able to afford the high end weapons. They'll be stuck with Shortbows and Spears. I don't get why you're annoyed... what kind of fighters do you want to see? There's really like 5 types of fighter :

-BIG weapon
-LONG weapon
-Weapon and Shield
-Two Weapons
-Long Range Weapon

You can try to go for a DEX build with a Rapier, and maybe you can TRY to make the clearly inferior thrown weapons work, but finesse is more of a rogue thing and thrown weapon is just a subset of two weapons. And using a Rapier doesn't preclude the use of a shield so it's just a subset of Weapon and Shield. If you don't carry a shield you might still have a bonus to your defence somehow that result in the same damn thing.

We even got feats based on damage style now so your Sword and Board can be Mace and Board or maybe your Big Weapon guy now uses a war pick for that piercing damage. If we ignore Long Range Weapon, that's 3 additional option for each of the other four: Slash, Pierce or Bludgeon, resulting in (3x4)+1= 13 'basic' builds for fighter. Without getting into subclass choices.

And that's not even considering the feats that don't ACTUALLY have anything to do with your weapon configuration choices: Heavy Armour Master, Medium Armour Master, Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, Magic Initiate, Ritual Caster, Artificer Initiate, Martial Adept, Inspiring Leader, Resilient, Skill Expert, Charger, War Caster.

And that's not considering Crossbow Experts or Tavern Brawler for the corner cases.

I could make a ton of fun customize builds with synergy and I wouldn't even need to stop thinking about the damage number. Like, I don't know how good any of these I mentioned are mathematically, I just know those combination would work together and feel like building my character's style.

It's not the end of the world and like I said I do allow feats. I'm just bothered by the argument that "I need feats to create my unique custom build~!" when my experience as a DM - and I've DMed for hundreds of players over the past 4 years - is that most players' unique, distinctive custom feat build is one of the same 3-4 builds everyone else is making.

They're fun builds, Burnt.

Also, as someone pointed out, it might be boring for you, but it might be the first time that specific player has use this build so cut them some slack. Now, if they ALWAYS bust out the same character you can start rolling your eyes.

 

[Burnside]

They're fun builds, Brunt.

New one for me. What's this mean?

 

[TwoSix]

New one for me. What's this mean?

Looks like he mixed the "They're good dogs Brent" meme with the start of your username. I admit I LOLed.