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

[Michael Silverbane]

I would personally be super happy if most feats (and backgrounds) were rewritten to say something along the lines of "When you use X (ability or proficiency) to do Y (thing that anyone could do with X) you gain Z (additional benefit)."

 

[DEFCON 1]

Why is it so hard to admit that some of us actually take these feats SPECIFICALLY to create a new character concept? I literally could not play the character concept I wanted to play - tough as nails guy who can take the beats - without that feat. That's WHY I took the feat.

Devil's advocate here... out of curiosity, was CON your highest stat? Were you a Barbarian? Were you a Hill Dwarf? Did you start at 2nd level when everyone else started at 1st? Because any number of those things would have given you more hit points than the other PCs. Because if you were using HP as your determination of whether you were "tough"... any of those probably could have done just as good (if not better when used in combination) a job at distinguishing you as being "tougher" than your compatriots than the feat. If you didn't have any of those other options, why not? If they would all give you mechanically higher HP totals and you decided that that was what you were using as your determination for "toughness"... then you obviously were choosing not to make yourself as "tough" as you could have been.

Here's another way to look at it and a question that we can all ask ourselves: If the 'Tough' feat gave the exact same mechanical features as it has right now (HP max increased by 2 points per character level) but the feat was called 'Energetic'-- under the flavor assumption that HP is as much energy and stamina as it is bodily health-- would you still have taken it? Would you still think being "tougher" as a character concept just meant having the most HP, regardless of how the game fluffed the HP gain? Or would the correlation between "toughness" and "higher HP" fall by the wayside because of how the game chose to identify what high levels of HP meant? Maybe you would! I don't know. That's up for you to decide-- whether your character would take a feat called 'Energetic' but it would actually infer character toughness.

If not though... that's really my point. All these feats really do is give us game mechanics. Game mechanics which have no story. Any story that comes from game mechanics and math are the ones that we collectively have agreed upon to use as part of this game called 'Dungeons & Dragons', and we give these mechanics funny little names to help denote and remind us of what we've agreed all this math is supposed to mean. But all these little names we've given to all this math is fungible. They don't really matter. The math doesn't care, and when we use the math the little names don't impact anything. We can call hit points "ablative armor" and damage "dents" and the game mechanics work exactly the same.

And thus... any story that comes out of our game sessions really comes from how we choose to narrate it. How we choose to play it. Someone above said that you can't play a "tough" character if you have a low CON and small hit die (like a Wizard) even if you wanted to, because the game mechanics didn't match up. Really? Then how come a 20th level Wizard has way more hit points than a 1st level fighter, even with a low CON and small hit die? Is the wizard actually tougher now because they gained all those levels? Is your 1st level fighter NEVER a "tough guy" because their hit points are lower than 95% of all the other PCs out there of a higher character level?

I would submit that no... you can STILL claim your 1st level Fighter as a "tough" guy, because it's how you roleplay and narrate the character, and not based upon the numbers on your sheet. You DON'T need to take a feat to play your character concept. You can play your character concept however you'd like, completely separate from what the math says. Because anyone who says "My character concept is that I'm the greatest swordfighter in the land, and thus I require to have X, Y, and Z game mechanics in order to represent it"... but that character is still 1st level? Nope, sorry! You ain't. If the game mechanics are what you think you need to make it true... you're going to find your rear end handed to you by a 17th level divination wizard wielding a dagger every single time, proving in fact that your character is not the greatest swordfighter in the land because the math isn't going to hold up its end of the bargain.

Game mechanics can help support your concept. They can reduce the number of times that weird instances that don't make sense occur. But the game mechanics are just math, and the math can screw you over all the time. Two PC warriors standing next to each other but one has 10 more hit points than the other and so the player thinks their character is "tougher". Doesn't mean a whole lot when their PC takes a single critical hit and drops to 0 HP while the "less tough" PC absorbs three hits and doesn't fall. Right then and there the game mechanics and math have blown your character concept away.

But if you just roleplay your character as a "tough guy"... and narrate everything that happens to him through that lens... the story will always be pertinent to you and the game despite those times than the game mechanics fail. Get knocked to 0 HP? Fall to your knees in a fog and daze, then as soon as you get a bit of healing you jump right back into the fray with little thought to personal safety or mechanically "how close to 0 are your HP". Run into rooms and take blows that the other players might not choose to subject their characters to. When you are at the tavern, take 10 shots of whiskey when the other PCs are merely nursing their drinks. Play up the fact that you have no fear. ANY of those kinds of things will get across in the game that your character is a "tough guy" much, much better than any math.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I’d say those feats are very nearly the only cases in the game of such a thing, and only because they provide no bonus to the thing being done.

Quibble: I disagree 100% on Inspiring Leader. Granting THP from a speech? No, I think 99% of DMs would give Inspiration, or Advantage against fear for a short time, or something, but there is no intuitive link between THP and an inspiring speech in the game.
If there was a class or subclass who gave THP a lot/ as a core feature with flavor of inspiration, sure.

The Skulker benefit, as well, is a direct change to how the rules work. A player trying it would absolutely have to make a stealth check (or SoH with some DMs) to avoid giving away their positions, while others would just say “nope. You attacked, therefor you’ve lost stealth. That’s how it works.” Getting to just automatically avoid losing stealth without even a skill check is a big deal. And it ain’t even the whole feat. Surely you won’t argue that the rest of the feat is stuff you should just be able to do?

Also, Linguist gives 3 languages, and is broadly recognized as a weak feat. How do you play a linguist like Indiana Jones without feats? Some kind of DM house rule?

What a about a barbarian who is practiced in shamanistic ritual magic? Stuck with multi-classing? Just for rituals? Great!

Nah.

My experience is definitely different from yours on the whole post, as well. The long time DMs I know with tons of experience with scores of players over multiple decades all prefer to use all available options (barring something broken, or a narrow story concept that players have bought in to) in their games, viewing barring feats as either “lazy”, or the realm of a lack of confidence.

Anecdotes are weird.

 

[Lanefan]

Actually, no I couldn't. It turned out, just by chance, that my sword and board fighter and the sword and board paladin had virtually identical stats. Both dump statted Dex, high Con, so on and so forth. The two characters were as close as could be.

So, we had identical HP. It doesn't make any sense that I claim that my character is "tough" when the guy standing next to me, who isn't making that claim, is exactly the same. What does "tough" mean when there's no actual difference between two characters. I literally could not play my character as "tough" without that feat. Well, I could, but, it would be mostly as comedy since, given that we had 2 more fighter types in the group, all of us had virtually the same HP, and same (or close enough) AC's.

Nothing stops you from playing as though you're the toughest hombre in the land; and for all we know maybe you were all your life until you met these other guys you're adventuring with.

Since we were all standard array PC's with standard HP on level up

Good, you've identified the source of the problem.

there was virtually no difference between the 4 characters.

You left out the word 'mechanical' between 'no' and 'difference'. But mechanics aren't everything.

Why is it so hard to admit that some of us actually take these feats SPECIFICALLY to create a new character concept?

You're not using the feat to create the concept, you're using the feat to mechanically back up a concept you already had.

I literally could not play the character concept I wanted to play - tough as nails guy who can take the beats - without that feat. That's WHY I took the feat.

There's other ways to achieve much the same ends - though admittedly not right off the hop at 1st level - the most obvious of which is to throw all your resources and treasury shares into improving your AC (at cost of improving your damage output) via better armour, defensive magics, and so forth.

EDIT TO ADD: It just occurred to me to ask: what would you have done if one of more of the other three heavyweights in that party had also happened to take the same toughening feat(s) as you did - would that also invalidate your concept?

Lanefan

 

[RobertBrus]

I have some concern over feats, and the potential bloat that they can create in a game system that was designed, at least to a degree, to minimize bloat. But I also know how much players tend to like feats. So I try to find a balance with allowing them (some of them) without letting "Feat Creep" start us down the road to Pathfinder (for the record I have played Pathfinder and found it enjoyable, but not want I want for my campaign).

If all I am as a character is someone walking down the road with a bag full of feats that I can reach into whenever I come across a problem, then where goes the joy of creativity and imagination? I'm not suggesting that allowing feats will do this to the game, but I urge caution in regard to rules/mechanics bloat, and anything that deprives players--and GM's--the opportunity to exercise and express their imagination. You might say it is the difference between a "bag of holding" versus a backpack. And of course finding that well-balanced point.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Here's another way to look at it and a question that we can all ask ourselves: If the 'Tough' feat gave the exact same mechanical features as it has right now (HP max increased by 2 points per character level) but the feat was called 'Energetic'-- under the flavor assumption that HP is as much energy and stamina as it is bodily health-- would you still have taken it? Would you still think being "tougher" as a character concept just meant having the most HP, regardless of how the game fluffed the HP gain? Or would the correlation between "toughness" and "higher HP" fall by the wayside because of how the game chose to identify what high levels of HP meant? Maybe you would! I don't know. That's up for you to decide-- whether your character would take a feat called 'Energetic' but it would actually infer character toughness.

This isn't fourth edition, though. Fluff and flavor are not infinitely mutable. Even if HP is an amalgamation of skill and fatigue and toughness (which the 5E rules seems to imply), all it means is that HP isn't the be-all metric for measuring toughness - you could be very tough, and have low HP, if you don't have much skill or stamina.

You can't play someone with a low Constitution score as a tough guy, because Constitution is the primary metric of toughness. A level 1 fighter is very possibly tougher than a level 20 wizard, but the wizard is skilled enough to overcome that difference for many practical matters. (The level 1 fighter is still more likely to save against poison, though, because that only cares about toughness rather than skill or stamina.)

The reason that the Tough feat lets you play a tougher character is that it says so, and then it reflects it within the game mechanics. You could also theoretically have an Energetic feat, which had the same mechanical effect, but represented the character having greater stamina rather than toughness. If you had two rangers with otherwise-identical stats, but one of them had the Tough feat and the other had the Energetic feat, the former would be tougher than the latter, who would be more energetic.

The reason why you might need a Tough feat to represent a tougher-than-average character is because there aren't a lot of ways to represent toughness, given the simplicity of the model. The primary metric for toughness is just your Con score, but a lot of people have a very high Con score. If everyone in the party has Con 20, which is a thing that happens more than you might imagine, then everyone in the party is objectively very tough and nobody is noticeably more tough than anybody else (although the fighter is more skilled than the wizard, if they're of equal level, and so has more HP). If you want to play a noticeably-tougher character in a party where everyone has high Con, the Tough feat gives you a way of doing so. (So does the Hill Dwarf, of course, but racial options also come with a lot of extra baggage that might not fit your character concept.)

 

[houser2112]

And thus... any story that comes out of our game sessions really comes from how we choose to narrate it. How we choose to play it. Someone above said that you can't play a "tough" character if you have a low CON and small hit die (like a Wizard) even if you wanted to, because the game mechanics didn't match up. Really? Then how come a 20th level Wizard has way more hit points than a 1st level fighter, even with a low CON and small hit die? Is the wizard actually tougher now because they gained all those levels? Is your 1st level fighter NEVER a "tough guy" because their hit points are lower than 95% of all the other PCs out there of a higher character level?

Because D&D works like this, you pretty much have to assume equal levels when comparing characters, and this paragraph is a bit disingenuous because of it.

 

[Wiseblood]

I would give feats a 6 out of 10 for stifling creativity and a 8 out of 10 for reducing options.

 

[Kinematics]

So, curious question: If you could expand on the base rules of the game, and thereby eliminate a feat, would you? And if so, which feats would you eliminate that way?

I see feats as mainly being ways to "break" a rule (eg: Skulker keeping you from revealing yourself if you miss a shot while hidden), but otherwise just provide a way to be better at a thing you can already do. I don't see the inability to break those rules without the feats as problematic, or "stifling creativity", though in a game without feats, I would not object to having other ways for the characters to break the rules.

Reviewing the feats:

• Alert: Is fine.
• Athlete: Is fine. Maybe add that swim speed isn't reduced, as well as climbing.
• Actor: Would prefer if there were rules for mimicking others, in order to figure out why this is "better".
• Charger: Feels like something that belongs in the base rules.
• Crossbow Expert: I'd probably drop the bit about ignoring the Loading feature.
• Defensive Duelist: Is fine.
• Dual Wielder: Ehh.. Not sure what to do with this.
• Dungeon Delver: Is fine for a classic dungeon campaign. Can be ignored otherwise.
• Durable: Is mostly fine. Might add another minor benefit. EG: You always start a combat round with at least 1-2 temporary HP.
• Elemental Adept: Mechanically decent, but not very flavorful.
• Grappler: Eliminate. Build better default grappling rules.
• Great Weapon Master: Use first feature only. Eliminate second feature (but maybe add some minor extra feature). Allow "power attack" (sacrifice proficiency bonus for extra damage) as a default option in the rules.
• Healer: Is fine.
• Lightly/Moderately/Heavily Armored: Would combine them into a single feat. Any 'gating' of who can progress to which armor level could be bypassed by just taking a single level of Fighter. The extra complexity in feats isn't needed.
• Heavy Armor Master: Is fine.
• Inspiring Leader: Conflicted. Repetitive use feels cheap. Maybe tie benefit to another capability. EG: Give temp hit points from a well-cooked meal (once per long rest, requires at least an hour of prep). Maybe something similar for inspirational speeches, instead of being a per-short rest feat. Turn this into something else. Sacrifice action to give another character an action?
• Keen Mind: Feels like it could use one or two more minor benefits. But also feels like it's a supportive feat for a highly social character (ie: remembers all the gossip, can name everyone who was at the various dance parties, and who was talking to whom, etc), and just has the direction and time sense tacked on as afterthoughts.
• Linguist: Mostly OK, in a game where languages matter. Maybe tack on an ability to read lips. Iffy since you can train in new languages, making the feat redundant.
• Lucky: Maybe drop it to 2 rolls instead of 3.
• Mage Slayer: Is fine.
• Magic Initiate: Is fine.
• Martial Adept: Seems fine.
• Mobile: Is fine.
• Mounted Combatant: Seems fine.
• Observant: Is fine.
• Polearm Master: Is fine. Does bring up the question of why you can't make opportunity attacks against creatures entering your reach, in general, though.
• Resilient: Is fine.
• Ritual Caster: Is fine.
• Savage Attacker: Seems fine.
• Sentinel: Is fine.
• Sharpshooter: Drop third feature.
• Shield Master: Is fine.
• Skilled: Is fine.
• Skulker: Is fine.
• Spell Sniper: Ehhh.. Seems limited to low levels, mostly, because of requiring attack rolls, which most spells don't have. Consider a re-think.
• Tavern Brawler: Is fine (particularly with improved grappling rules).
• Tough: Reasonable.
• War Caster: Is fine.
• Weapon Master: Eliminate. Allow training in weapon proficiencies, like the tool proficiency training. (Maybe even roll armor proficiencies into that.)

So the rule expansions I'd use to eliminate feats would be:

• Improve grappling rules. Eliminate Grappler.
• Add charging rules. Eliminate Charger. (Though possibly bring it back in if the below issue of opportunity attacks during approach is implemented. Charger could likely break through that.)
• Add a 'Power Attack' rule. Eliminate that feature from GWM and SS.
• Add training during downtime for weapon proficiencies. Eliminate Weapon Master feat. (Might be problematic if no downtime is given.)
• Possibly add training for armor proficiencies, and eliminate lightly/moderately/heavily armored feats. (Might be problematic if no downtime is given.)
• Provide base rules that show in what ways the Actor feat improves on them, or breaks limits.
• Consider: Opportunity attacks for creatures entering reach, in general? Probably slows down the game a bit, as people Dodge or Disengage to enter melee range. Feels like it has some potential, though.

 

[iserith]

I'm not sure I understand the argument that you can't be the "tough as nails guy" without the feat when two characters in the party have similar levels of toughness. Maybe if the concept was "toughest guy in the party." But otherwise, I don't see it.

Here's an unassailable argument for keeping feats though: "I like feats." It won't win over people who don't like them, or like them in some games and not others, but at least it can't be argued against.