D&D 5E Feat Workshop

[CapnZapp]

Great Weapon Master

Beware of encouraging stacking up of disadvantages.

I understand the general concept, but I vaguely feel that "disadvantage abuse" isn't as disruptive as "advantage abuse". I might be wrong, but at least my powergaming players aren't especially interested in breaking the game engine just for the lulz, they're interested in optimization.

I just might lack the play experience, but I don't see how "disadvantage abuse" makes you more powerful - it seems to be much more about you keeping a decent shot at doing something even when common sense says it should be much more difficult.

While this can threaten campaign verisimilitude, can it directly threaten to trivialize encounters and monsters?

Part of the problem of GWF (and SS) is that it's limited to certain weapons. It would be better to have a Feat for melee weapons and a (slightly different) Feat for ranged weapons. I like the use of Disadvantage, rather than the -5, even though Disadvantage is often less than that. I also like the use of the Proficiency bonus, but I would suggest it be double the Proficiency modifier. Gaining Advantage for +2 damage is pretty weak, and it doesn't really become worthwhile until much higher level (16, by your -3/+6 example).

Not sure what you mean by the first problem. Limiting a feat for two-handed combat only isn't a problem in my book. The problem before was that original GWM was too good, making the choice of other melee weapons cost too much in lost DPR relative to greatweapons.

The ideal is to give two-weapon users a unique something that you don't get using a dagger. Also note the incoming UA feats for hammers, spears etc.

I realize you might dislike having many feats for various kinds of weapons, but I can't say do. Having one feat for axes and another for flails isn't bad in my book. Thus I want to keep GWM restricted to two-handed use.

Double proficiency balances the feat for low-level use but breaks it for high level use. I need my feats to be never overpowered, even if I have to make them underpowered at the other end.

But that's not the reason for the +2 at low levels. I could have made the damage bonus a straight +5. But I don't want to, since I don't want low-level characters to have any way of significantly increasing their damage output for a single strike. (Rules for hardness, breaking of chains and locks, etc work on the assumption you can't normally deal more than 1d12+Strength damage. While +5 is half as problematic as the previous +10, I felt like taking a conservative start).

So if you complain "this feat will never be taken at low level" that's probably correct, but also not a problem.

The interesting question to me is: can this feat interest a, say, level 10 fighter?

Because if it can, then it's good enough for me.

The real issue is something else. I realize all level 16 two-handed fighters will pick this feat.

The big question is: is is still sufficiently interesting to fight with other styles (single weapon, sword and board, dual-wield etc)?

My hope is that players that want to play one of those styles will go "okay so I gain a fair bit of damage by going GWM, but not so much so I feel compelled to go GWM, and only at high levels, where lots of damage isn't as valuable as it is at low to mid levels".

Great Weapon Master - New text suggestion:

"You've learned to trade accuracy for momentum.

Before you make a melee attack with a heavy or versatile weapon that you are proficient with and wielding with two hands, you can choose to take disadvantage on the attack. If the attack hits, you add your proficiency bonus to the attack's damage."

Thanks!

Out of curiosity: why the hedging? What (corner) cases do you see stopped by both calling out the weapon and the hand use? Or do you simply prefer specifying weapons by properties? Or it's more a matter of making it clear how its supposed to work?

One thing: Your phrasing allows user to turn it on and off for individual attacks. I meant to force the player to endure disadvantage during the rest of the round and indeed the entire turn (including any OA).

 

[Horwath]

Here is my try on this.

All feats reduced in power to "half feats" and hopefully little more balanced.

Alert: cannot be surprised, hidden enemies do not have advantage vs you.

added; Improved initiative: you gain +6 to initiative roll

Actor: same as PHB version, plus added proficiency in disguise kit

Charger: If you take Dash action and you move last 20ft in straight line towards an enemy, you can make one melee attack as a bonus action. Add your proficiency modifier to damage. If you have extra attack feature add double proficiency modifier instead.

Crossbow expert: ignore loading properties of a crossbow(you still need 2 hands to load a crossbow). You do not suffer disadvantage on attacks while you are in opponents melee reach.
extra attack feature as a bonus action gone and not coming back.

Defensive duelist: same as PHB, bad enough to be half feat.

Dual wielder: You can draw 2 weapons as one object interaction. You can dual wield 2 non light one handed weapons. Your offhand attack is now part of attack action with your main hand attack(s).
This prevents you from making aditional offhand attacks as bonus action.

added; Two weapon defense: while wielding two melee weapons you gain +1 to AC.

Dungeon delver; remove resistance to trap damage and you have a "half feat".

Durable: to have all people included without reference to their con score; you regain max HP from using your HDs.

Elemental adept: chose energy type: acid, cold, fire, lightning or thunder. You ignore damage resistance for that energy type with your spells and abilities.

added Elemental master: requires Elemental adept; you can change and acid,cold,fire,lightning or thunder spell damage to the type chosen by Elemental adept.

Grappler: as PHB, half feat.

Great weapon master; when you score critical hit or reduce a creature to 0 HP with non light melee weapon, you can make one attack with that melee weapon as a bonus action.

added; Power attack: when you attack with two handed melee weapon(or versatile weapon in two hands) you can take -3 penalty to attack and gain +5 to damage roll.

Healer: as PHB but instead of 1d6+4+max No.HDs, you heal 1d6+max No.HDs

Heavily armored: as PHB

Heavy armor master: as PHB

Inspiring leader: requires charisma 14; needs only 1 min of speech. affects you and a number of allies equal to your level × your charisma bonus. Gain temp HP equal to half your level + your charisma bonus.

added Inspiring leader, improved: requires charisma 16, Inspiring leader: gain temp HPs equal to your level + 2×charisma bonus.

Keen mind: this blows; as PHB but add one skill or tool proficiency to it.

Lightly armored: as PHB

Linguist: as PHB, add proficiency in forgery kit.

Lucky: as PHB but only 2 luck points.

Mage slayer: drop advantage on saves and you get a half feat.

Magic initiate: you gain only 2 cantrips from chosen class.

added; Magic adept: requires Magic initiate; gain one 1st level spell from chosen class. You can cast it once per long rest.

Martial adept: gain one maneuver and one superiority die. Die is d6 or what ever your class has if you have this feature. Can be taken two times.

Medium armor master: +1 AC in medium armor. medium armor does not have stealth penalties.

Mobile: your movement does not provoke attack of opportunitiy

added; Fleet of foot: +10ft speed. When you take Dash action, difficult terrain does not slow your movement.

Moderately armored: as PHB

Mounted combatant: bad and limited to be half feat.

Observant: as PHB, or add +5 to passive insight also.

Polearm master: when you make attack with any long hafted weapon with two hands(quarterstaff, spear, pike, halberd, guisarme, etc...) you can make one attack with opposite end as a bonus action. Attack deals 1d4 B damage. Use str for attack and damage

added; Hold the line: opponents provoke AoO when they enter your melee reach.

Resilient: as PHB

Ritual caster: as PHB

Savage attacker: as PHB

Sentinel: as PHB but drop the 3rd part.

added: Intercept: when a creature in your melee reach makes attack against a target other than you, as a reaction you can make one melee attack vs that creature.

Sharpshooter: ignore attack penalty with weapons at long range. Ignore cover bonuses to AC.

added; Power shot: when making an attack with ranged weapon, you can take -3 penalty to attack and gain +5 bonus to damage roll.

Shield master: as PHB but drop the 3rd ability.

Skilled: gain proficiency in two skills or 3 tools. Can be taken 3 times.

Skulker: as PHB but drop auto hide if you miss with attack.

Spell sniper: as PHB but you do not gain an extra cantrip.

Tavern brawler: as PHB but after attack action with melee weapon you can use bonus action to make one unarmed attack or one grap attempt.

Tought: you gain one HP per level. Can be taken 2 times.

Warcaster: as PHB

Weapon master: gain one fighting style. Gain proficiency in one weapon. Can be taken 2 times.


If lightly, moderately or heavily armored is still too weak, maybe add it to Skilled feat instead of one skill proficiency.

 

[Sadras]

I like them [MENTION=6801299]Horwath[/MENTION], just want to get your thoughts on those below

Here is my try on this.

Sharpshooter: ignore attack penalty with weapons at long range. Ignore cover bonuses to AC.

Isn't this still too much? Ignoring cover with a character that would most likely have the archery style (+2 to hit) adds quite the kick. It way outclasses GWM (below) in my opinion.

Great weapon master; when you score critical hit or reduce a creature to 0 HP with non light melee weapon, you can make one attack with that melee weapon as a bonus action.

And with these...

added; Power attack: when you attack with two handed melee weapon(or versatile weapon in two hands) you can take -3 penalty to attack and gain +5 to damage roll.

added; Power shot: when making an attack with ranged weapon, you can take -3 penalty to attack and gain +5 bonus to damage roll.

What about - Take a penalty to attack equal to your proficiency, to gain double your proficiency as bonus damage?

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm a bit surprised to see that you aren't considering Spell sniper, Polearm Master, and Lucky for review.

I would like to invite you to look at my grades for those feats over at my review:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?494701-2016-Feats-Review

If you feel I've missed something that should make them high priority for redesign, let's discuss it over there

 

[TwoSix]

For Great Weapon Master, how about:

"You've learned to trade accuracy for devastating force with your two-handed weapons. Whenever you make an attack with a melee weapon you wield in two hands, you can take disadvantage on the attack to maximize the weapon damage roll of the attack. This effect only applies to the base damage roll of the weapon, not any other effects that add dice to the damage roll, such as Sneak Attack or critical hits."

 

[Shiroiken]

Charger

I see your point, though I felt it slightly strange you could only move fast in combat and not out of it. (Stepping on the Rogue isn't a big concern to me; after all you need to take a feat to get this, and it's only Dashes, not hide or dodge).

I can envision variants in the same vein as yours, but should the feat really only apply in combat?

More directly, should it only apply the round when you close to melee? I realize that's what the d20 "charge" action meant, but I feel it is needlessly harsh to prevent the feat from working if you have to run a few rounds to reach the enemy.

Compare expeditious retreat (the spell) - it doesn't enforce an actual retreat, you can use that spell to run sideways or towards the enemy just fine.

I suppose, but then the name irks me (as Weapon Master and ER do now), since you are not actually charging. If you were acceptable to limiting it to combat, you could say that the dash movement must be towards an enemy instead (this would allow for rapid movement into melee). As you have it, I could see casters and archers using it to get AWAY from melee, which is the opposite intent of the name and original feat.

Great Weapon Master
Not sure what you mean by the first problem. Limiting a feat for two-handed combat only isn't a problem in my book. The problem before was that original GWM was too good, making the choice of other melee weapons cost too much in lost DPR relative to greatweapons.

The problem I've found with the Feat (and SS) is less the power of the feat, but the loss felt to other fighting styles. In the past 2 years, close to 90% of warrior characters I've seen use two handed weapons or archery (mostly two handed weapons). If the feat was available to all of them, then this would lessen quite a bit. I guess your problems are different than mine.

The ideal is to give two-weapon users a unique something that you don't get using a dagger. Also note the incoming UA feats for hammers, spears etc.

I realize you might dislike having many feats for various kinds of weapons, but I can't say do. Having one feat for axes and another for flails isn't bad in my book. Thus I want to keep GWM restricted to two-handed use.

One of the best aspects of 5E IMO was getting rid of weapon specialization. The feats from the UA are an attempt to reintroduce them, and I hated them. Different Strokes.

Double proficiency balances the feat for low-level use but breaks it for high level use. I need my feats to be never overpowered, even if I have to make them underpowered at the other end.

But that's not the reason for the +2 at low levels. I could have made the damage bonus a straight +5. But I don't want to, since I don't want low-level characters to have any way of significantly increasing their damage output for a single strike. (Rules for hardness, breaking of chains and locks, etc work on the assumption you can't normally deal more than 1d12+Strength damage. While +5 is half as problematic as the previous +10, I felt like taking a conservative start).

So if you complain "this feat will never be taken at low level" that's probably correct, but also not a problem.

The interesting question to me is: can this feat interest a, say, level 10 fighter?

Because if it can, then it's good enough for me.

The real issue is something else. I realize all level 16 two-handed fighters will pick this feat.

A feat that is only useful at certain points is a failure in my book. Yes, it's interesting for level 10+ characters, but since most characters end their career at that point, I don't think it would be useful for most.

The big question is: is is still sufficiently interesting to fight with other styles (single weapon, sword and board, dual-wield etc)?

My hope is that players that want to play one of those styles will go "okay so I gain a fair bit of damage by going GWM, but not so much so I feel compelled to go GWM, and only at high levels, where lots of damage isn't as valuable as it is at low to mid levels".

The only way to do that would be to set the penalty and bonus by character level. You could set it up as -1/+2 from levels 1-8, then -2/+4 for 9-15, and finally -3/+6 at levels 16+. Using Disadvantage across the board means that the cost/benefit ratio is bad in the beginning and excellent at the end, so players will only take it at higher levels (and yes, every level 16 two handed fighter would take this).

 

[CapnZapp]

[MENTION=6775477]Shiroiken[/MENTION]: not to dwell on this, since it's okay to have different opinions, but:

Charge: agree, if I can tie the movement to combat in a graceful manner, I will. I don't think wizards running away should be a concern, however - if they take it despite wasting all the other benefits, let them.

Agree on loss felt to other fighting styles. The solution is to offer them another feat. Each fighting style should have a feat. Agree the UA idea to tie the feats to actual implements is too narrow. A feat should work for all tools for a certain fighting style. Whether you dual wield two daggers or two hammers is not something the feat should constrict.

Ideally a feat (or other kind of ability) is as useful at level 1 as at level 20. Action Surge, for instance. But a feat must be fairly simple to work at all, and if I need to make a hard choice between overpoweredness at one end and underpoweredness at the other, I will choose the latter every time.

In the end, the player's choice fixes this. Joe not taking a too poor feat is not a big problem. Sue taking a too good feat is.

 

[guachi]

Charger

Re: "melee attack", yes, I dislike having to say "melee weapon attack or unarmed attack". But before making the change: what's wrong with a bladesinger (say) charging? Would it really be bad to allow melee spell attacks?

It probably wouldn't be bad. I was just basing it on the original text which is limited to a melee weapon attack. Though now that I think on it a "melee weapon attack" includes unarmed strikes. Unarmed strikes aren't melee weapons but they are a melee weapon attack so my extra wording isn't necessary.

 

[guachi]

Cleave

Great Weapon Master (aka your Cleave) - Leave the text of bullet point one identical to that of the original feat, remove bullet point two from the original feat, add +1 strength.

Since I attempted to do exactly that, what do you feel I missed (other than the crit-bit )?

Now that I look at your text again, nothing except the crit part. Lifting the text directly from the book does change a few things from your version - foe is changed to creature (minor change but consistent with 5e wording). a melee attack is changed to one melee weapon attack and that's significant as it precludes melee spell attacks. I assume from the explanatory text that you want it to apply to weapons only.

 

[guachi]

Great Weapon Master

Great Weapon Master - New text suggestion:

"You've learned to trade accuracy for momentum.

Before you make a melee attack with a heavy or versatile weapon that you are proficient with and wielding with two hands, you can choose to take disadvantage on the attack. If the attack hits, you add your proficiency bonus to the attack's damage."

Thanks!

Out of curiosity: why the hedging? What (corner) cases do you see stopped by both calling out the weapon and the hand use? Or do you simply prefer specifying weapons by properties? Or it's more a matter of making it clear how its supposed to work?

One thing: Your phrasing allows user to turn it on and off for individual attacks. I meant to force the player to endure disadvantage during the rest of the round and indeed the entire turn (including any OA).

The hedging is because of the way Great Weapon Master and Great Weapon Fighting are worded. GWM has two points - one that applies to any melee weapon and the second applies only to heavy weapons you are proficient with. GWF applies to any melee weapon you are wielding in two hands (and also has either the two-handed or versatile property).

So that's three features with three different weapon requirements in two abilities with the name "Great Weapon" in them.

I'd like the (new) GWM feat to work with the same weapons the GWF style does, namely two-handed and versatile weapons. I know my original proposal said versatile or heavy, but I think lifting the text directly from GWF style works better so the new version would look like this:

You've learned to trade accuracy for momentum.

Before you make a melee attack with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can choose to take disadvantage on the attack. If the attack hits, you add your proficiency bonus to the attack's damage. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.

As to allowing it to turn on an off per attack - that's taken directly from the existing GWM feat that allows you to do just that. I didn't feel the need to change it.