D&D 5E Feats: Do they stifle creativity and reduce options?

[Mistwell]

I've enjoyed feats since 3e, and used them in every version since then.

However, I know some people who don't like feats. Some of the most experienced players and DMs I know choose to not have feats in their games. They feel it's much more "sophomore" level of play where people are comfortable enough to try some different things (no longer freshmen) but not comfortable enough to do those things without written rules to cover them (senior). Their players can try almost anything listed in the feats by making some sort of check under appropriate circumstances without the need for rules text to overly mechanize it and, by implication, disallow others from trying those things without that feat.

Slowly, I am starting to see their point. I am starting to think the more rules you have, the less freedom and creativity the player's have under the illusion they have more "options" which were almost always options they had if they could think of it in the situation.

I will provide some examples. This is just six examples, but I feel they're fairly representative of the issue in general, and I could argue for many feats outside this subset in a similar manner. In fact, a lot of the feats apply a mechanical benefit which can be assumed by the circumstance bonus rules already in the game.

Actor Feat: "You can mimic the speech of another person or the sounds made by other creatures. You must have heard the person speaking, or heard the creature make the sound, for at least 1 minute. A successful Wisdom (Insight) check contested by your Charisma (Deception) check allows a listener to determine that the effect is faked."

Without this feat in the game, why wouldn't you be able to try a Charisma (Deception) check to try and mimic the speech of another person or sound made by other creatures, contested by a Wisdom (Insight) check? And if Player X has this feat in your game, wouldn't it be natural for a DM to tell Player Y they cannot try that because they don't have the feat and it would step on the toes of Player X who spent a precious resource to gain that "ability"?

Inspiring Leader: "You can spend 10 minutes inspiring your companions, shoring up their resolve to fight. When you do so, choose up to six friendly creatures (which can include yourself) within 30 feet o f you who can see or hear you and who can understand you. Each creature can gain temporary hit points equal to your level + your Charisma modifier. A creature can’t gain temporary hit points from this feat again until it has finished a short or long rest."

Without this feat in the game, if a Player makes a very inspiring speech which the DM judges would give a psychological boost to their allies, the DM might choose to give those allies some temporary hit points from the speech related to the PC's charisma (and probably would limit it to those who could hear it rather than an arbitrary 30' distance). They might even allow it a second time without as rest, under appropriate circumstances (like a forced march while chasing foes who have kidnapped their companion). But with this feat in the game if Player X has it, it would be hard for a DM to justify allowing Player Y to try it, or to even alter the rules to have it work without a short rest or outside 30' because the rule is right there in black and white on a PC's character sheet that way.

Keen Mind: "You always know which way is north. You always know the number of hours left before the next sunrise or sunset. You can accurately recall anything you have seen or heard within the past month."

Without this feat in the game, any of these things could be determined with an appropriate ability/skill check, or perhaps even automatically depending on the circumstances. And maybe it still could even with this feat in the game. However, if Player X happens to have this feat? The DM will probably naturally feel more reluctant to hand out that sort of information without the feat to the other PCs who lack it.

Linguist: "You can ably create written ciphers. Others can’t decipher a code you create unless you teach them, they succeed on an Intelligence check (DC equal to your Intelligence score + your proficiency bonus), or they use magic to decipher it."

Without this feat in the game, I see no reason why any PC couldn't try and create a written cipher which could be broken by an Intelligence check similar to the one described. With it, I can see a DM having trouble justifying allowing such a thing without the feat.

Mounted Combat: "You can force an attack targeted at your mount to target you instead."

Without this feat in the game, I cam definitely see circumstances where a player will argue they can intervene in a strike against their mount like that. With it...DMs will feel the pressure to not allow that if some other player has the feat and they don't.

Skulker: "When you are hidden from a creature and miss it with a ranged weapon attack, making the attack doesn't reveal your position."

Without this feat in the game, I can see a Player reasonably trying to not reveal their position after a missed arrow attack, depending on the circumstances. With the feat, DMs won't want to allow that if another PC has the feat and you don't.

Conclusion: I am slowly starting to agree with this set of more experienced DMs and players I know who don't have feats in their game. Sometimes, the more rules you have for the high level details of every potential circumstance of the game (which is most exemplified by feats) the less freedom you have to try different things if the circumstances call for it because a rule (in a feat) already covers that idea and you don't have that option (feat) on your character sheet (though someone else might).

What do you think? Have you seen this concept in your game? Think I am completely off base? Something in between?

 

[Azzy]

On the whole, no. Certain individual feats? Maybe? Theoretically?

 

[jaelis]

Actor, keen mind, and linguist are IMO kind of poor feats, largely for the reasons you point out.

Mounted Combat and Skulker, I don't know that I would let player do those things without the feat. They are maybe marginal.

But the feats that people get excited about push the rules even further. Not necessarily in broken ways, but thing that it would be surprising if you could do without the feat. Wield a non-light weapon while TWFing? Ignore the loading property? Stop people when you hit them with an OA? I think those kinds of feats can be interesting for the game, when well designed.

 

[Zardnaar]

I want to try a game without feats but the players are addicted to them.

I actually added 10 more feats to the game and added a bonus feat at level 1 houserule (from a reduced list) just to try and get them away from the obvious ones (usually GMW, SS, Shield Master, Healer).

My main objection is kind of power creep. Without them though I notice you tend to get a lot more dex based characters.

Another way I kind of deal with them is just do not put magic polearms and hand cross bows in. Sure players can take the obvious feats but not going to feed the powergamer.

Mistwell you are about where I was towards the end of 3.5 and 4E dying. Started thinking about things like "Does this stuff make the game more fun" and how did we have fun with B/X back in the day with F all options and modern D&D can be 0 fun at times".

My 1st fighter was more or less a 3E warrior (with better saves) and I still had fin in B/X.

 

[MarkB]

You make a good point. Maybe the better approach would be for all feats to work something like Athlete, which takes something you can already do and lets you do it better, or Magic Initiate, which provides the ability to do things that a character would not be expected to accomplish just through a sufficiently good skill check.

I'll point out that if you're going to pick up feats on this matter, you should also look at backgrounds, as many of their features are in a similar vein.

 

[Satyrn]

Slowly, I am starting to see their point. I am starting to think the more rules you have, the less freedom and creativity the player's have under the illusion they have more "options" which were almost always options they had if they could think of it in the situation.

I started feeling this way after creating a couple Pathfinder characters, and seeing how all the choices I could make about what my character could do once I was playing him also felt like I was deciding the things he would never do.

And then I saw a similar issue with the way 3e handled the skills, and all the rules provided by supplements (both WotC and 3rd Party) provided in supplements for "additional uses" of each skill. Especially with the "Trained Only" things.

And I just started feeling that all these rules that let our character do something were more and more restrictive.

I like that feats and skills add definition to a character, but I do find they limit options in play, and make me and my players pick actions based on the mechanics.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

On the whole, most of the examples mentioned here are too niche to really come up with during play.

If someone needs to imitate a particular voice or animal sound, then sure, that's probably an opposed check of Deception vs Insight. If someone needs to figure out North, then that's obviously a Survival check. I've never seen anyone decide to create a cypher without having just read the rules for it and realizing that they could (once, in third edition), but I can imagine someone thinking to do so, and I can't think of any reason to deny them the possibility if they really wanted to.

The big ones are things like Inspiring Leader and Mounted Combat, which anyone who could do would probably do quite frequently.

If anyone can make an inspiring speech to grant temporary HP, then it's a fair bet that someone is going to whenever it would matter, so every orc you ever fight is going to have +7 temporary HP. Apparently, that's just the way the world works. Likewise with attacking mounts, which is just a pointless exercise in futility, so all attacks against a mount are automatically aimed at the rider.

Or more likely, as the DM, I'm going to say that nobody can inspire anyone mechanically (unless they're a bard); and intercepting a hit against another creature requires you to ready that action ahead of time (so it will almost never happen). It doesn't generally benefit the game to give everyone more options, because it's still a level playing-field, but now it's more complicated. The only time I've ever handed out feat abilities to everyone was in saying that anyone can draw two weapons as a single object interaction, because it seemed obvious without looking at any of the feat rules.

 

[5ekyu]

On the whole, no. Certain individual feats? Maybe? Theoretically?

Agree. I think the "problem" is that some feats provide very marginal specified benefits - some may coincide with partial ability bonuses or other benefits.

In most of the examples above, the poster skipped the +1 abilities and mostly tangible other benefits like what was it multiple languages or advantage on pssing off as someone else.

These are - except i think inspiring and skulker- the third and somewhat fluff feat parts.

So, there is nothing stopping the GM from *in certain cases* allowing these to others but allowing it in more common circumstance for feat holders to show their specialized training.

Like how anyone can try to hide when out of sight but wood elves can hide in light foliage and halflings when covered partially by medium sized folks.

As for skulker not giving away his position one key limitation of hiding is that an attack reveals your position. It would be rare INO for the circumstance to void that but this feat is nice for that. Its vision and bonus though are good.

However, as for inspiring leader, i have never seen a GM use temp hp as a bonus for talking outside of magic. The rules give multiple ways to handle "fired up" abd between giving advantage and using inspiration IMO most GMs wanting to reward a strong check would go that route not the clunky temp HP mechsnic which would, for instance, clash with THP from Innervate and a host of abilities. What, was the speech not inspiring to the Sorc with Innervate?

So, to me, the perspective is interesting but not particularly compelling and the examples presented in an incomplete and possibly misleading way.

 

[Yunru]

Keen Mind, Linguist and Mounted Combat are all bad logic for the theoretical DM.

Having a player be able to not have to make a check doesn't in any way prohibit another character from attempting a check as normal.

Sure, a party with a Keen Mind'd player will have that info handed to the Keen Mind player, but that's a right and proper pay off for their investment.

Sure a player with Linguist can make a cipher with a DC of Int Score + Proficiency (and thus a minimum of 10, maximum of 26 (without magical items)), but that doesn't stop a player without from making a cipher with DC of 1d20 + Int Mod (minimum of 1, maximum of 25).

Mounted Combat, again, doesn't stop a player from trying to intercept an attack for their mount, the player with the feat just doesn't have to try.

Skulker also follows this trend. It doesn't stop a player from trying, it stops a player with the feat from failing.


Re: Inspiring Leader:
What?
Inspiring Leader existing stops a DM from letting a player try an inspiring speech? What nonsense is this? But before we even get to that line, there are plenty of awards for an inspiring speech, just because the feat uses one, suddenly they're all invalid? (Personally, I'd give the players an inspiration point)

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*