D&D 5E Does Your DM Let Everyone Start With A Feat?

[EzekielRaiden]

Is it still a "gotcha" if it's optional? I mean, the player is under no obligation to take the free feat that's being offered, and there's no penalty for refusing it.

I mean, yes? I prefer to know what my options are up-front. They change what choices I would make. Getting a free feat, but only giving it to me after you've ensured I can't think about how it would factor into my character, feels like a gotcha, like manipulating my decision-making process to only permit the decisions you wish me to make. As I said, it would only be mild annoyance, it's not like I'm going to turn my nose up to getting a free feat. But it definitely feels manipulative to intentionally hold it back until after things are proverbially locked in.* It would make me wonder what else is going to be held back until after I've already committed to something, what other areas of the game will involve keeping secrets until after I've already invested into something. Probably not enough to poison my enjoyment of the game, but enough that I'll start asking questions I would never even have thought about before, which can lead to an undesirable emotional response to things down the line.

*Which, I mean, you basically admitted that it is. You'd only give them that feat after you're sure it cannot factor into their choices at character creation: "I figure this is a good way to help round out the characters, while avoiding over-optimized 1st level characters."

 

[CleverNickName]

I mean, yes? I prefer to know what my options are up-front. They change what choices I would make. Getting a free feat, but only giving it to me after you've ensured I can't think about how it would factor into my character, feels like a gotcha, like manipulating my decision-making process to only permit the decisions you wish me to make. As I said, it would only be mild annoyance, it's not like I'm going to turn my nose up to getting a free feat. But it definitely feels manipulative to intentionally hold it back until after things are proverbially locked in.* It would make me wonder what else is going to be held back until after I've already committed to something, what other areas of the game will involve keeping secrets until after I've already invested into something. Probably not enough to poison my enjoyment of the game, but enough that I'll start asking questions I would never even have thought about before, which can lead to an undesirable emotional response to things down the line.

*Which, I mean, you basically admitted that it is. You'd only give them that feat after you're sure it cannot factor into their choices at character creation: "I figure this is a good way to help round out the characters, while avoiding over-optimized 1st level characters."

That's a really weird way to look at gifts.

Imagine if it were anything else in the game, like a magic item or a bag of gems.

DM: "Inside the treasure chest you find a +1 longsword and three onyx gems."
Player: "Oh what, and I'm just supposed to take them, is that it?"
DM: "Um, yes?"
Player: "You know I need a greatsword for my build, and the cleric needs diamonds for his spells. What are you playing at?"
DM: "I...but...look, it's treasure. I mean, you found it but you don't have to pick them up--"
Player: "No no, it's fine, I'll take them. It's just good to know what kind of DM we're dealing with, that's all. Right guys?"
Everyone else: "Dude, what is wrong with you?"

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's a really weird way to look at gifts.

But it's not just a gift, is it?

It would be like giving someone a Steam gift card, but timing it so that card only arrives after the seasonal sale ends, because you don't actually want the person to buy any of the games currently on sale, and the gift card won't cover those games when at full price. Sure, it's still a gift. It's also manipulative.

Edit: And to look at your specific example, no, that's not at all my thought process here. Instead it's, "Oh, you waited until after I took Great Weapon Fighting style to give me my pick of magic weapons where none of them are two-handed. And you did so specifically so that I wouldn't be thinking too much about optimization. Alright."

 

[CleverNickName]

But it's not just a gift, is it?

It would be like giving someone a Steam gift card, but timing it so that card only arrives after the seasonal sale ends, because you don't actually want the person to buy any of the games currently on sale, and the gift card won't cover those games when at full price. Sure, it's still a gift. It's also manipulative.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree with you.

 

[Guest 7034872]

I am the DM. I didn't do that when we started and the others who've taken turns DMing haven't, but I kind of like the idea now that I read about it. So I guess my closest-to-accurate answer has to be, "Yes, any feat we want?"

Seriously, it just hadn't occurred to me to do that, and this is my first time out. I like the idea, though.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yeah, I'm gonna have to disagree with you.

Do you deny that you are trying to manipulate the choices of your players? I quoted you above for a reason: you explicitly said you want to be certain that your players aren't making choices that are "overly optimized." How is that not manipulating what choices they make? How is that NOT giving them a "gift" specifically designed so they cannot use that gift in ways you disapprove of?

 

[CleverNickName]

I am the DM. I didn't do that when we started and the others who've taken turns DMing haven't, but I kind of like the idea now that I read about it. So I guess my closest-to-accurate answer has to be, "Yes, any feat we want?"

Seriously, it just hadn't occurred to me to do that, and this is my first time out. I like the idea, though.

I got the idea from re-reading through Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. I like how you can move the ability score adjustments around, so that your Wood Elf could have a +2 Con and +1 Cha...I felt like it opened up the various 'race' options a lot more. You could roll up a dwarf druid and not feel like you made the wrong choice...know what I mean?

Well, being able to move those ability score adjustments around got me thinking about other things that could be moved around, and here we are.

 

[Guest 7034872]

I got the idea from re-reading through Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. I like how you can move the ability score adjustments around, so that your Wood Elf could have a +2 Con and +1 Cha...I felt like it opened up the various 'race' options a lot more. You could roll up a dwarf druid and not feel like you made the wrong choice...know what I mean?

Well, being able to move those ability score adjustments around got me thinking about other things that could be moved around, and here we are.

Yeah, I mean--wow. I've come to love feats the more I've studied them, and this offers starting characters a bevy of options with extraordinary flexibility. Next time I DM, I'm doing this.

 

[tetrasodium]

Only caveat: We need more good feats.

5e has a fair number of feats right now. Most of them are not very good. They provide minor or incidental bonuses that require the DM to lean into making them worthwhile, otherwise there's no real need to take them. The few which rise above this mediocrity are generally very good, and thus get snapped up quickly, and thus have a "bad" reputation (exclusively among DMs, who are for some reason incredibly touchy about this issue). Stuff like Elven Accuracy, Sharpshooter, Pole Arm Master, etc.

If more feats were of similar impact and benefit as Elven Accuracy, you can bet your britches the pool of feats people take frequently would be equivalently expanded.

Edit: As it is, 5e has somewhere around 80 official feats. Of them, I'd say about half are mediocre to actively bad, and generally not even worth thinking about for most characters in most games (examples: Dual Wielder, the armor proficiency feats, Linguist, Slasher, etc.) Of the remainder, about half are good to great, and the other half are passable, potentially useful for some characters or some tables but generally not that good.

You've got the cause & effect wrong there. They have a "bad" reputation because of a deliberate design choice. 5e is designed so that players can be perfectly effective & excel even if they take a new variant of skilled:underwater basket weaving each time they tak a feat. This is achieved by assuming that feats will provide no contribution towards effectiveness of a PC. If all feats were simply pointless to an similarly useless degree then the feats themselves wouls exist close to the design target but some feats are so far from useless that they are extremely powerful/

 

[CreamCloud0]

I still haven't decided if I'm going to allow everyone to start with a feat at 1st level, but if I do, I don't think I'd want any of the players to know ahead of time that they are getting one. I'd wait until after they had finished rolling up their characters and outfitting them with all their gear...heck, I might even wait until they finish their first long rest on their first adventure...and then I'd hand them an envelope. Inside would be a slip of paper that reads, "Your character can start with one of the following feats, if you want. Enjoy!" A list of about a half-dozen feats would then follow.

I figure this is a good way to help round out the characters, while avoiding over-optimized 1st level characters.

I feel like @EzekielRaiden does have a point though about not revealing the bonus feat exists until after character creation is finished and set in place having a bit of a backhanded sting to it.
If you’re going to be excluding the ‘first-choice’ major optimisation focused feats from their selection anyway I don’t see why your players shouldn’t know what they’re going to get to choose from during the character creation process, they might see a ‘third-choice feat’ that they wouldn’t usually pick but they’re getting a choice for it now without better feats competing to be picked and it inspires them to make an entirely new character concept they hadn’t even been considering before, ‘hey i saw the linguist feat and it inspired me to make a diplomat character who travels between all the big cities translating for them’ ‘oh cool i picked chef and built their backstory around being the cook of a noble they’re trying to return to power’ instead of ‘now i wish that I’d taken the acolyte background i was considering instead of the merchant one i picked it would’ve really gone better thematically with this healer feat’

Edit: TL;DR: if you’re excluding all the really choice feats are the remaining ones they get to pick from really going to be up to the optimisation grade even if they do end up building their characters with the feats in mind?

 

[Blue]

See, this is what I'm worried about.

I might avoid this by forcing the players to choose this first-level "bonus feat" from a short list of options. Feats that I have carefully selected for build options and storytelling potential. I'm thinking stuff like Light Armor Master, Ritual Magic, Skilled...the feats that are nobody's first choice, and probably aren't worth a +2 ASI, but would still pretty good to have for certain builds, or to fill in gaps. It's free, after all, so there'd be nothing to complain about.

If I let them pick any feat at 1st level, it would be the only feat they would ever get...and I don't think that would be very popular with my players.

For a while I was planning "Free half feat at 1st level" or the variant on it "Free half feat at 1st level, but it can't bring your (point buy ability) up to an 18 after racial".

It kept the big combat feats from being on the list, and especially the second one encouraged some character diversity instead of just the top tier feats getting chosen every time.

Another thought, either by itself or with other limitations would be "no two characters take the same feat".

 

[Blue]

I feel like @EzekielRaiden does have a point though about not revealing the bonus feat exists until after character creation is finished and set in place having a bit of a backhanded sting to it.
If you’re going to be excluding the ‘first-choice’ major optimisation focused feats from their selection anyway I don’t see why your players shouldn’t know what they’re going to get to choose from during the character creation process, they might see a ‘third-choice feat’ that they wouldn’t usually pick but they’re getting a choice for it now without better feats competing to be picked and it inspires them to make an entirely new character concept they hadn’t even been considering before, ‘hey i saw the linguist feat and it inspired me to make a diplomat character who travels between all the big cities translating for them’ ‘oh cool i picked chef and built their backstory around being the cook of a noble they’re trying to return to power’ instead of ‘now i wish that I’d taken the acolyte background i was considering instead of the merchant one i picked it would’ve really gone better thematically with this healer feat’

To add a third voice to this - a starting feat can add interesting color to a character. I helped out test an ability score draft here on ENworld a few months back (it was a lot of fun) and there were also some other goodies. I drafted a random starting feat that turned out to be Telepathic, and I had that flavor the entire backstory and RP for the character under the assumption they had it since being a child. (It can not just talk, but also do Detect Thoughts.)

 

[CleverNickName]

@EzekielRaiden , @CreamCloud0 : I'm really not seeing the issue, or at least I don't see it as being as severe of an issue. (Maybe I'm blind?) I am not preventing the player from doing anything that they weren't already planning on doing, even optimizing their character to the fullest extent of the rules if they want to. I am not forcing them to take something they might not want, either. They can still play the same character they had intended to play, in exactly the same way that they were intending to play it. The only difference is they also get to start with their choice of a free feat, which is to be chosen from a short list.

I can't figure out why this would ever be a bad thing from the player's perspective. I'm not saying it couldn't happen; people are fickle and it wouldn't be the first time I was oblivious to a social interaction and accidentally hurt peoples' feelings. If it is truly a sticking-point, if the player is truly displeased about being offered a free feat as a surprise, I would take the player aside to work out an amiable solution.

 

[CreamCloud0]

@EzekielRaiden , @CreamCloud0 : I'm really not seeing the issue, or at least I don't see it as being as severe of an issue. (Maybe I'm blind?) I am not preventing the player from doing anything that they weren't already planning on doing, even optimizing their character to the fullest extent of the rules if they want to. I am not forcing them to take something they might not want, either. They can still play the same character they had intended to play, in exactly the same way that they were intending to play it. The only difference is they also get to start with their choice of a free feat, which is to be chosen from a short list.

I can't figure out why this would ever be a bad thing from the player's perspective. I'm not saying it couldn't happen; people are fickle and it wouldn't be the first time I was oblivious to a social interaction and accidentally hurt peoples' feelings. If it is truly a sticking-point, if the player is truly displeased about being offered a free feat as a surprise, I would take the player aside to work out an amiable solution.

I think it’s best summed up not as ‘i don’t get to play the character i was going to play’ but rather ‘if i had known i was going to get this my entire character might have been developed in a different direction than what it was and incorporated it better’

EDIT: going back to the magic weapon comparison it’s like If i had known i was going to get this +1 dagger immediately after I made my character i probably would’ve made a rogue who could’ve benefited from it more rather than my wizard who doesn’t want to touch melee range with a 10-foot pole.

 

[CleverNickName]

I think it’s best summed up not as ‘i don’t get to play the character i was going to play’ but rather ‘if i had known i was going to get this my entire character might have been developed in a different direction than what it was and built into it’

I guess I want to avoid the former, but I don't think the latter is a problem? Seems like it would be a similar situation to the GWF barbarian finding a really cool flaming longsword in a treasure hoard. Not every piece of treasure is going to be 100% optimal for every character in the group, right?

 

[MichaelSomething]

Why would I give characters an extra thing at level one? I thought people wanted level one to be basically commoners, not adventure ready heroes.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Why would I give characters an extra thing at level one? I thought people wanted level one to be basically commoners, not adventure ready heroes.

This is probably the only viable reason I've heard that would convince me to not give a feat at level 1...

And something I've thought about, but unfortunately since the can of worms has already been opened, it is hard to put them back.

 

[CleverNickName]

Why would I give characters an extra thing at level one? I thought people wanted level one to be basically commoners, not adventure ready heroes.

I mean, you're not wrong...

It depends on the campaign, I guess. For me, I'm getting ready to kick off a high-powered, gritty, swashbuckling adventure campaign. This seems like a nice fit for that.

 

[ScuroNotte]

We allow all to pick a feat but allow the Human to select 2 feats since the other races get other superior benefits.

 

[tetrasodium]

Why would I give characters an extra thing at level one? I thought people wanted level one to be basically commoners, not adventure ready heroes.

When PCs have things they need & regularly cycle out old gear for new it can be to entice player buyin & generate was I recently saw as plot hooks the gm can expect the player will bite every time. But that requires churn & need or it tends to become a one sided gift.


On top of that when the system includes a very low powered start where the PCs are "basically commoners" it provides the GM more room to dial them up on a case by case based on participation & such.