Nailed it.
D&D 5E Feats: Do they stifle creativity and reduce options?
Nailed it.
Objectively? No. They allow for more creativity and increase options.
Anyone can feel like there is 'one best path' whenever options are involved. But that's self inflicted. It would exist with or without feats, and with or without multiclassing.
But some DMs have playstyles that reward some choices more than others.
Anyone can feel like there is 'one best path' whenever options are involved. But that's self inflicted. It would exist with or without feats, and with or without multiclassing.
But some DMs have playstyles that reward some choices more than others.
The core feats in 5e act as key guideposts across the spectrum of normal skills/abilities, contrasting what is achievable by any adventurer versus those with highly specialized talents or training (akin to class abilities). Even if you run a game without feats, they can provide a lot of useful insight into other pieces of the system.
Of course, if you frequently disagree with the designers' guideposts, it would follow that you either dumped feats from your game in whole or vastly tweaked the system to your expectations.
Of course, if you frequently disagree with the designers' guideposts, it would follow that you either dumped feats from your game in whole or vastly tweaked the system to your expectations.
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Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad (he/him)
I think you are making a false assumption - that there isn't such a thing as passive insight, or automatic insight check calls.
If you try to imitate something, the opponent gets an insight check in most circumstances (it will be passive or active). It will be contested by your active deception check. This is the same result as if you didn't have the feat. There is no roll saved in these circumstances. You don't have to say, "I make an insight check" every time you use insight. Or maybe you do in your games, but in the games I've been in (several DMs) I will see a DM say, "give me an insight check" without being prompted by the player to do so, or else ask "What is your passive insight" or consult a pre-written list of player's passive insights.
Hussar
Legend
I think that feats do enhance creativity rather than detract.
But, I tend to come at this from the DM's side, rather than the player's. Far too many times, when a player tries to do something that isn't rules defined, the DM will set the difficulty far too high and/or set the cost of failure too high and discourage any further attempts to act outside of the defined rules. And that seems to be a very, very common issue from what I see on message boards whenever someone talks about setting DC's.
For example, in the recent Player's Decide to Go North, I saw more than a few DM's decide that the DC for determining north was based on 10 or even 15, meaning that most groups will fail far more often than succeed on something that I feel is pretty trivial.
Feats allow the players to do things without relying on DM's fiat which often is far too punishing IMO.
But, I tend to come at this from the DM's side, rather than the player's. Far too many times, when a player tries to do something that isn't rules defined, the DM will set the difficulty far too high and/or set the cost of failure too high and discourage any further attempts to act outside of the defined rules. And that seems to be a very, very common issue from what I see on message boards whenever someone talks about setting DC's.
For example, in the recent Player's Decide to Go North, I saw more than a few DM's decide that the DC for determining north was based on 10 or even 15, meaning that most groups will fail far more often than succeed on something that I feel is pretty trivial.
Feats allow the players to do things without relying on DM's fiat which often is far too punishing IMO.
This is an extension of the OD&D argument that the Thief ruined the game. Now, picking locks and climbing walls and sneaking were the purview of a single class, and others - that formerly were able to do those things just fine - were now told they couldn't.
It's a natural progression that's inevitable. Just look at laws. Every time a law is made, there's a group that says 'oh, finally, that egregious oversight is closed', and another says 'that was completely unnecessary, and yet another blow against sanity and liberty'.
OD&D was barely more than telling campfire stories. 3E was about massive amounts of fine-grained crunch. 5E is trying to thread the needle in between, and it's using customer feedback loops unlike any other edition to do it.
Mearls has specifically said (on a DM roundtable with Mercer, Colville, and Lumpkin) that they aimed for accessibility to new players. That's why so much of the older game is embedded in there as 'optional'. I would bet Feats are specifically there because of the expectations of 3e players, but re-done in a 5E way. Much less necessary, much less complicated, very few restrictions on who can take them, no long 'feat trees'. Taking just one can be a character-defining act.
For myself, no, they don't ruin the game, but what we do take them as is guidance on what can be possible without a feat. So, Mage Slayer is the only way a character can interrupt spellcasting outside of Counterspell. Can a character otherwise do things to interfere with spellcasting? Sure, they can try, but those things are not automatic, IMO they'd have to be clever and fun about it, and the attempt would take their full action. Is that a house rule? Sure, but that's what 5E is about!
It's a natural progression that's inevitable. Just look at laws. Every time a law is made, there's a group that says 'oh, finally, that egregious oversight is closed', and another says 'that was completely unnecessary, and yet another blow against sanity and liberty'.
OD&D was barely more than telling campfire stories. 3E was about massive amounts of fine-grained crunch. 5E is trying to thread the needle in between, and it's using customer feedback loops unlike any other edition to do it.
Mearls has specifically said (on a DM roundtable with Mercer, Colville, and Lumpkin) that they aimed for accessibility to new players. That's why so much of the older game is embedded in there as 'optional'. I would bet Feats are specifically there because of the expectations of 3e players, but re-done in a 5E way. Much less necessary, much less complicated, very few restrictions on who can take them, no long 'feat trees'. Taking just one can be a character-defining act.
For myself, no, they don't ruin the game, but what we do take them as is guidance on what can be possible without a feat. So, Mage Slayer is the only way a character can interrupt spellcasting outside of Counterspell. Can a character otherwise do things to interfere with spellcasting? Sure, they can try, but those things are not automatic, IMO they'd have to be clever and fun about it, and the attempt would take their full action. Is that a house rule? Sure, but that's what 5E is about!
Certain feats enable certain builds that are attractive to certain types of players. Your run of the mill optimizer will just seek out the next best build in a game without feats. I wouldn't try to use feats/no feats as a switch to social engineer my friends into being creative, and I don't think there's a direct connection between feat availability and the ability to express a variety of character concepts.
During session 0 of my latest campaign, I strongly advocated to my players for a game without feats and multiclassing. I also advised them they would be participants in part 1 of a 3-part campaign (roughly structured levels 1-8, 8-12, 12-15) and that we could revisit character creation and progression options between each part of the campaign. I also suggested that when we reach part 2 or 3, we would then activate feats, multiclassing, and possibly other options as a sort of "prestige class system." The players consented. They're going to hit level 4 soon, so it's just ability score increases for now.
I'm leaving the fluff of any potential prestige classes to the players. Maybe they're something new and unique, maybe they discover and join an ancient secret order. Or they can ignore that narrative framing and just treat their new abilities as a thing they've been practicing, I'm not actually that picky. The point is to shunt whatever imbalance these optional systems have into Tier 2 and higher, where things are a little crazier anyway. It enhances stability in Tier 1, and preserves most builds for players accustomed to games with those options (admittedly, it imposes some narrative timing on how the character acquires their build, unlike someone who acquires a feat or multiclass level earlier in their career)
It may not actually work out that way. As I said, the plan is to revisit character creation and progression options at a later time, and the group may decide to maintain the status quo. I'm fine either way. For now I appreciate the absence of feats and multiclassing for the reduced complexity. It has produced no noticeable effect on the creativity of my players.
During session 0 of my latest campaign, I strongly advocated to my players for a game without feats and multiclassing. I also advised them they would be participants in part 1 of a 3-part campaign (roughly structured levels 1-8, 8-12, 12-15) and that we could revisit character creation and progression options between each part of the campaign. I also suggested that when we reach part 2 or 3, we would then activate feats, multiclassing, and possibly other options as a sort of "prestige class system." The players consented. They're going to hit level 4 soon, so it's just ability score increases for now.
I'm leaving the fluff of any potential prestige classes to the players. Maybe they're something new and unique, maybe they discover and join an ancient secret order. Or they can ignore that narrative framing and just treat their new abilities as a thing they've been practicing, I'm not actually that picky. The point is to shunt whatever imbalance these optional systems have into Tier 2 and higher, where things are a little crazier anyway. It enhances stability in Tier 1, and preserves most builds for players accustomed to games with those options (admittedly, it imposes some narrative timing on how the character acquires their build, unlike someone who acquires a feat or multiclass level earlier in their career)
It may not actually work out that way. As I said, the plan is to revisit character creation and progression options at a later time, and the group may decide to maintain the status quo. I'm fine either way. For now I appreciate the absence of feats and multiclassing for the reduced complexity. It has produced no noticeable effect on the creativity of my players.
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Li Shenron
Legend
(replying before reading others' replies... apologies if I say something already said)
I always feel 'sophomore', and maybe that's why I like feats... but I can totally understand how the playstyle described is very valid, makes sense, and can totally result in satifsying games.
However, as soon as I see your examples I balked at your choice of them, because some of them give me the exact opposite feeling! Here is why...
My gut feeling is that mimicing the speech of other persons is nearly impossible. It takes a huge talent to do so in real life, very few people (actually, even very few actors) can do that, and those who do probably had to exercise extensively.
I can't believe that someone can say "why wouldn't you be able to". Honestly, you can't really even try to pass like someone else. As for animals, maybe imitating some of them (dogs, crows, cats) could be tried, and some simple people can be fooled. Or you can change your voice to generically pass as someone else than you, but imitating a specific person? No way... try yourself to learn to modulate your voice and imitate one other person, and see how long time it takes, if you ever can learn that. We're not talking about imitating for the purpose to make a joke, we're talking about impersonating someone.
Despite the usefulness of this ability, to me it totally makes sense that nobody can reasonably succeed without innate talent and/or extensive training, which is what feats represent.
Generically "inspiring" someone through speech clearly shouldn't require a special ability, because it's something very natural that every person does. But this feat is about a very specific benefit, in the form of temporary hit points. Why must the game allow anyone to earn a very specific benefit? The benefit is very gamist in the sense that it doesn't naturally represent something related to narrative, but is very much rules-bound, it is defined only in a game that uses HP and temporary HP in particular, so it makes sense that a benefit that leverage specifically on a rule requires a cost defined within the rules framework.
The feat specifically says you always know. This feat doesn't imply others should not be allowed to sometimes know, or always try. It just means that if you have this feat you bypass any chance of failure.
I would rather understand a DM who is concerned with bypassing any chance of failure, than a DM who is concerned with other PCs suffer because someone has this ability.
This feat is more open to your sort of criticism that the previous ones IMO, because the benefit is not fool-proof.
I would not allow something like that for free, once again because this specifically touches the core rules of the game. OTOH I can understand that some gaming group would want a much more open-ended combat rules, where you could try anything. It's a very different game from standard 5e, but it can be done. I remember that there were lots of talks in 3e about making the mechanics of power attack, combat expertise etc. being core combat rules open to everyone. So after all this is a good example.
Quite similar to the previous case, with the added complication that hiding rules in 5e often confuse people. I think it's an area of the rules that many groups handle with house rules (or just read the book differently) and this specific feat might be simply non-applicable for some of them. So I would read this feat as "to be used only if you enforce the general rule of revealing your position when attacking from range".
I always feel 'sophomore', and maybe that's why I like feats... but I can totally understand how the playstyle described is very valid, makes sense, and can totally result in satifsying games.
However, as soon as I see your examples I balked at your choice of them, because some of them give me the exact opposite feeling! Here is why...
My gut feeling is that mimicing the speech of other persons is nearly impossible. It takes a huge talent to do so in real life, very few people (actually, even very few actors) can do that, and those who do probably had to exercise extensively.
I can't believe that someone can say "why wouldn't you be able to". Honestly, you can't really even try to pass like someone else. As for animals, maybe imitating some of them (dogs, crows, cats) could be tried, and some simple people can be fooled. Or you can change your voice to generically pass as someone else than you, but imitating a specific person? No way... try yourself to learn to modulate your voice and imitate one other person, and see how long time it takes, if you ever can learn that. We're not talking about imitating for the purpose to make a joke, we're talking about impersonating someone.
Despite the usefulness of this ability, to me it totally makes sense that nobody can reasonably succeed without innate talent and/or extensive training, which is what feats represent.
Generically "inspiring" someone through speech clearly shouldn't require a special ability, because it's something very natural that every person does. But this feat is about a very specific benefit, in the form of temporary hit points. Why must the game allow anyone to earn a very specific benefit? The benefit is very gamist in the sense that it doesn't naturally represent something related to narrative, but is very much rules-bound, it is defined only in a game that uses HP and temporary HP in particular, so it makes sense that a benefit that leverage specifically on a rule requires a cost defined within the rules framework.
The feat specifically says you always know. This feat doesn't imply others should not be allowed to sometimes know, or always try. It just means that if you have this feat you bypass any chance of failure.
I would rather understand a DM who is concerned with bypassing any chance of failure, than a DM who is concerned with other PCs suffer because someone has this ability.
This feat is more open to your sort of criticism that the previous ones IMO, because the benefit is not fool-proof.
I would not allow something like that for free, once again because this specifically touches the core rules of the game. OTOH I can understand that some gaming group would want a much more open-ended combat rules, where you could try anything. It's a very different game from standard 5e, but it can be done. I remember that there were lots of talks in 3e about making the mechanics of power attack, combat expertise etc. being core combat rules open to everyone. So after all this is a good example.
Quite similar to the previous case, with the added complication that hiding rules in 5e often confuse people. I think it's an area of the rules that many groups handle with house rules (or just read the book differently) and this specific feat might be simply non-applicable for some of them. So I would read this feat as "to be used only if you enforce the general rule of revealing your position when attacking from range".
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