My thoughts noted:
--I think this is fine. If you wanted to try a different route, you could instead of advantage adds +2 to athletics checks. Feats are one of the few places I think its okay to add bonuses because of their specialness. Now +2 may sound weaker than advantage, but I generally find players acquire advantage pretty easily due to creativity, so this would actually be a stronger bonus in many cases.
- Athlete:
- Remove: “climbing doesn’t cost you extra movement” (just a personal hatred of being able to climb at full speed).
- Add: You get advantage on athletic checks
I also did a modification on death saves with durable. In the end, still no one took it. I agree with some others its probably best to rope into toughness or something...its just too niche as a feat for players to take, there are so many options that are generally just better.
- Durable:
- Change to “When you roll a Hit Die to regain hit points, you add your CON bonus twice rather than once”
- Add: You gain a +2 bonus on death saves. On a natural 19 you regain 1 hit point. On a natural 20 you can spend a hit die if you have one available, otherwise you just gain 1 hit point.
--So if we look at the two most common THF weapons:
- Great weapon Master:
- Change: rather than +10 for the -5 you instead change dice your weapon dice as follows. Note: the dice are doubled on a crit as normal...
- d6 → 2d8 (5.5)
- d8 → 2d10 (6.5)
- d10 → 2d12 (7.5)
- d12 → 2d12+2 (7.5)
- 2d4 → 2d10 (6)
- 2d6 → 3d8+1 (7.5)
Greatsword: Goes from avg 7 to 14.5 (not factoring in crits which generally adds about .2-.4 DPS in their somewhere. That's an increase of 7.5.
Greataxe: Goes from 6.5 to 15, increase of 8.5.
So you did close the gap between the two weapons, as funny enough the greatsword does just a bit more damage on a crit. Further, I would say you gave a solid nerf to the feat overall without pushing it into the ground. I think its a feat people will use, but be a little more cautious with.
Overall a good change.
Having had a fair number of heavy armor masters in my game, I don't think you need to increase the values. You would be surprised how easy it is for a DM to show off this feat (you look really good in the horde of mundane archers scenario). I do think adjusting for magical damage makes plenty of sense, there's really no reason this feat should stop working against higher level foes.
- Heavy armor master:
- Change: You reduce damage by 2 at levels 1-8, 3 from levels 9-14, and 4 from levels 15-20
- Add: Magical weapon damage is also reduced if you are wearing magical armor.
--I don't think this will change anything regarding the feat's usage. What I did with the feat (and got a player to use it) is that feat gave a perfect eidetic memory and prevented any kind of memory alteration from effecting him (and he knew it if someone tried). It was not a "strong" feat...but it was a very cinematic one, the adventure involved reality shifting, and because of his perfect mind he could tell when shifts occurred. It made the character feels very cool, even if mechanically the feat was still very weak.
- Keen mind:
- Add: You have advantage on intelligence saving throws and pure intelligence checks (not skill checks).
--I think you have something here, just take it a little further. Maybe add in speak with animals at will, immunity from written traps (like symbols and explosive runes)....it just needs a bit more.
- Linguist:
- Add: You may use a spell scroll to cast (but not learn or copy into your spell book) a spell not on your spell list. The DC is 13+the spell’s level.
- Add: You have advantage on checks to cast or copy spells from scrolls.
--I think we can take this feat so much further. Lets ramp it up with some improvised weapon notions and then sell it with a very cool schtick that nothing else gets.
- Weapon Master
- Change: You gain proficiency in all simple and martial weapons.
1) Attack rolls that don't involve spells always apply your proficiency bonus (defacto proficiency with all weapons, but we are adding it a little bit more so that if there is ever a situation where the DM says "u don't have proficiency on that", the Weapon Master can smile and say "well actually .... ")
2) Regardless of whether you are using a weapon or an unarmed strike, you do a minimum weapon die of d6 damage (d4 if your small).
3) When you have disadvantage on attack rolls, add +2 to the roll.
So what we have here is a character that is such a jack of all trades when it comes to weapons that he's good with them no matter what. The minimum weapon damage is more flavor at the lower levels and allows the classic improvised weapon master (its a slight boost to an unarmed monk not using the defacto quarterstaff, or a decent bonus to a monk who is flavorfully choosing not to wield the defacto quarterstaff). But the real crux, disadvantage for you is a lesser condition... if your in the dark, firing at long distance, have a nasty condition....your so good with weapons that its just not as penalizing as normal. That's a really nice, solid condition that is also very flavorful.... but its not something that your going to see in the charop boards as "hokey" either. Its just a very nice thing to have when the chips are down.
