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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 7357391" data-attributes="member: 1465">(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".</blockquote>

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