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?