D&D 5E Feats, class balance and fun

[UngeheuerLich]

Interesting. For me maxing an ability score has a mildly displeasing side effect, specially when this ability is strength. I am not sure if the game was intended to link directly the physical attributes with the overall character looks, but I can't help imagining every 20 str hero as a hulking pile of muscles. And while it doesn't bother me when every high level barbarian looks just like this, it has a detrimental effect for me when all str-based fighters and paladins also look this way. The way I project the image of the arquetypal fighting hero is something more balanced, with strength and grace complementing each other. And while the game does not really offer many tools for such, I was toying with the idea of creating a feat, or set of feats, to allow for a combination of str and dex for physical (melee and ranged) attack and damage rolls, obviously capping the bonus to +5, so not to incur in any bloat.

I think diverse builds could need some help. +1 int and cha doesn't cut it for fighters. I would at least allow skill training for fighters that want more roleplay opportunities.
A mix of dex and str is also a good idea. It is however quite difficult to make that balanced for a variant human that starts with 16 dex and str. Maybe make str bonus +1/2 dex bonus rounded down to a maximum of +5. A human variant would begin with +4 if he took the feat... but I would not worry too much about that.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I just made 10th level in my first single-class Fighter played in 5e. I find his options in combat pretty boring. He's limited in options compared to my other PCs. Once he's stuck in combat there's not much he can do other than stick it out and fight until he drops. He has one Feat - GWM, which is fine though (literally) hit-or-miss against high AC foes, which we see a lot of. Probably going Polearm Master next to get a boost to Reach attacks. He'd be even more bland without Feats and pumping his high number of ASIs into stats would be pretty pointless from a character concept as he's pretty much already where I want him.

 

[abirdcall]

You are asking a few questions here.

One is: Do you play high level campaigns?

Most tables won't be getting to 14th level.

It's also possible to allow some feats without allowing all feats.

At my table our campaigns usually run between 1-10th level and we allow most but not all feats.

 

[Barolo]

You are asking a few questions here.

Yes, I just wanted to listen to other people's experience.

One is: Do you play high level campaigns?

Well pointed. I didn't notice at first, but this definitely impacts the overall perception of the question.

Most tables won't be getting to 14th level.

It's also possible to allow some feats without allowing all feats.

At my table our campaigns usually run between 1-10th level and we allow most but not all feats.

At lower levels it would definitely bother me less, though playing as, and DMing for martials, feats seem really popular even before main attribute maxing.

 

[Awesome Adam]

Played every edition of the game, love feats.

In 5E we find it rare for a player to take more than one, since you have have to sacrifice the an ABI to get it. Not uncommon to have a character with no feats at all in 5E as well, but I like having the option.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Our group has found the -5/+10 abilities on Great Weapon Mastery and Sharpshooter either to be too powerful or always used, neither of which is good. Other than that, feats are great. It does increase the power of martial classes somewhat disproportionately because caster classes have relatively poor feat selections available. Resilience (Wisdom) in particular is extremely powerful in the late game.

We find it rare for players to take more than one feat before they've capped their primary ability score. After that, it's about 50/50.

 

[Barolo]

Our group has found the -5/+10 abilities on Great Weapon Mastery and Sharpshooter either to be too powerful or always used, neither of which is good.

At my table these feats have never been a problem and aren't even very popular, but I can notice from several other forum threads they seem troublesome for some tables. One of my players once commented that he found it really silly that a feat could make difficult and easy shots completely equal, but even though I agree with him, it was not enough of a bother to either of us to make it worth going over changing SS.

 

[Bacon Bits]

At my table these feats have never been a problem and aren't even very popular, but I can notice from several other forum threads they seem troublesome for some tables. One of my players once commented that he found it really silly that a feat could make difficult and easy shots completely equal, but even though I agree with him, it was not enough of a bother to either of us to make it worth going over changing SS.

It's only a problem when you do the math, and realize that by level 10 or so that it's mathematically correct to use the ability when attacking anything below AC 20. When you combine that with the knowledge that essentially everything has AC 20 or less, you see the issue. Feats that you use every round shouldn't be very powerful. Feats that are very powerful shouldn't come up every round.

 

[Kalshane]

I actually give my PCs a free feat at first level (variant human gets +2, +1, 1 more skill and a free save proficiency in the place of their bonus feat) because I like the variety they offer. Hasn't caused me any problems yet. Ran one game that went up to 16th level. Currently running a game where the PCs are all third (and will likely be hitting 4th in a session or two). We have a barbarian (Great Weapon Master) cleric (Observant), paladin (Shield Master), ranger (Sharpshooter), rogue (Skilled) and wizard (Keen Mind). I don't think the barbarian or ranger have done a -5/+10 attack yet. The barbarian in my previous game did GWM attacks all the time, but the player was apparently cursed to roll low (even with Reckless Attack) whenever they engaged GWM and roll high whenever they didn't, so they didn't land too many.

We actually haven't played without feats.

 

[Vulf]

Our group has found the -5/+10 abilities on Great Weapon Mastery and Sharpshooter either to be too powerful or always used, neither of which is good. Other than that, feats are great. It does increase the power of martial classes somewhat disproportionately because caster classes have relatively poor feat selections available. Resilience (Wisdom) in particular is extremely powerful in the late game.

We find it rare for players to take more than one feat before they've capped their primary ability score. After that, it's about 50/50.

Those feats need to be scaled back to -proficiency for +5 damage. The Ignoring cover part of Sharpshooter trivializes a lot of what DMs try to do to make some encounters more challenging. Especially when it is combined with +2 attack from the fighting style. The cover ignore ability should be swapped for some kind of Quickdraw mechanic or bonus to attacks at short range.