D&D 5E Feats: Do you use them? Are they necessary?

[treps]

It's strange the way 3rd edition changed things, before that people were able to play the game without feats or stat increases (using Wishes was almost the only way to have them increased) and I do recall people being able to play different characters, even in BECM where the choice of classes/races was very restricted, even in AD&D the proficiencies in 2nd were barely used where I used to play at the time and we all played different characters !

But now what I really don't understand is the argument telling that you *need* feats to give depth to the characters so that they are not all the same ones.

 

[Gadget]

I thought feats were great when first introduced; the last couple of editions has shown me they are a fraught mechanical device. While they can add some much needed flavor, they can usually end up being a system mastery min/max device that makes other 'normal' options pale in comparison. There is also the temptation to use feats as a way to 'patch' holes in the system and provide necessary, or at least highly desired, components to a character 'build'. Some have mentioned War Caster for the blade lock and Eldritch Knight already. There are the 'fix the math' feats that tend to come along as well.

I do allow them, because it does allow for some flexibility in designing a character, despite GWM, sharpshooter and the like. Also, they can provide a psudo-multi-class option that I like, since I dislike the open mulit-class system in 5e more than even feats. Taking Ritual caster can give one that Magician flavor/feel without the need for a full on multi-class.

 

[JeffB]

Not sure how to vote.


Been DMing using the Basic rules. So not using feats so far at all.

But if a player wanted one, from what I have read in the PHB so far (recently purchased all the core books), I would allow them.

Don't think they are necessary though. Doubt I would bother with them if I was a player.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I thought feats were great when first introduced; the last couple of editions has shown me they are a fraught mechanical device. While they can add some much needed flavor, they can usually end up being a system mastery min/max device that makes other 'normal' options pale in comparison.

This is one of the reasons why I won't be allowing Feats. As I said in my original post for this thread, as soon as players were allowed to take a feat for their character...their characters attitude and play-style changed. Sometimes drastically. It was reminiscent of Evil alignments. If an evil character is at a distinct disadvantage, where their choices would result in them getting imprisoned, harmed or outright killed...the character will play the 'good guy', Mr.Happy-Fun-Guy, the guy that everyone sees as down to earth and reliable who would never hurt a fly. But as soon as that character gets mutated by a cosmic ray from outer space and can now Fly, lift 10 tonnes, instantly regenerate damage, and control temperatures in a 5km radius....BOOM! They start killing all the people they had to be nice to before, terrorizing everyone else into submission and generally "show their true colours". My players showed that kind of shift in attitude the *second* their PC got a Feat.

This is a problem that I just don't want to deal with or even see in my game. IMHO, a Feat should have Good stuff, and Bad stuff. For example, maybe a character with Heavy Armor Mastery gets all the good stuff, but also has the drawback of taking more damage when not wearing Heavy Armor, as he is trained to lean into certain blows, or turn to position his body to deflect attacks...in stead of avoid them. That's the kind of thing a Feat should be. Give and take. A choice to 'specialize', but at the cost of 'generalization'.

Or I could just say No and be done with it. ... ... Yeah, I think I'll stick with that.

PS: In case you were wondering; in my current World of Generika campaign I am using feats. But I told the players that taking a Feat will only benefit them from a flavour perspective. If they take something that gives them some large mechanical bonus, I will deliberately and happily "up" the monster they are fighting to balance it back down to 0. In short, taking a Feat will never give them much of a mechanical bonus. Ever. However, "narrative bonuses" will be applied aplenty, as needed. So I'd let a Heavy Armor Mastery guy sleep in his armor in certain situations with maybe a DC 15 Con Save to avoid getting a level of Exhaustion. But when fighting that orc warlord? ...the orc warlord does +3 damage above normal when fighting that PC. Why? Uh..."because he's trained to fight guys in Heavy Armor and use it against them". Yeah, that works.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[redrick]

PS: In case you were wondering; in my current World of Generika campaign I am using feats. But I told the players that taking a Feat will only benefit them from a flavour perspective. If they take something that gives them some large mechanical bonus, I will deliberately and happily "up" the monster they are fighting to balance it back down to 0. In short, taking a Feat will never give them much of a mechanical bonus. Ever. However, "narrative bonuses" will be applied aplenty, as needed. So I'd let a Heavy Armor Mastery guy sleep in his armor in certain situations with maybe a DC 15 Con Save to avoid getting a level of Exhaustion. But when fighting that orc warlord? ...the orc warlord does +3 damage above normal when fighting that PC. Why? Uh..."because he's trained to fight guys in Heavy Armor and use it against them". Yeah, that works.

Do you do the same with ability score increases? If a character takes a +2 to Dex and thereby a +1 to AC, do you automatically up the to-hit bonuses of all all monsters? Increase the AC by 1 to negate the to-hit bonus of the PC?

I mean, obviously, monsters faced will get tougher as players level up, either because the DM always runs balanced encounters, or just because the PCs will get bolder in the opponents they're willing to fight. But the feat is just a sharpened version of the ability score increase. With a +2 in your prime stat, you get a little better at most of the things you do. With a feat, you get a lot better at something that you do sometimes. If the game is just allowed to function naturally, that player will feel the benefit of that feat in those specific situations, but also feel that their stats might not be keeping up as well as they face increasingly challenging monsters.

(I'm a fighter and I get this really cool -5/+10 thing with my Greatsword, but the monsters are getting better armor and I still have a 16 strength...)

Of course, this trade-off does break down if you use 4d6-drop-lowest ability rolls. Characters with rolled ability scores almost always start with a prime stat over 16 before species bonuses, so they can max out that stat much sooner, making the trade-off between a feat and a secondary stat more attractive. (Hell, characters rolling for abilities with the 4d6 method can easily have 20 in an ability at level 1 once their species mods kick in.)

And what's wrong with character's adjusting their strategies once they learn a new skill? The rogue plays very differently once he hits level 2 and gets Cunning Action. Some casters will stick with mundane weapons over cantrips until they hit level 5 and the cantrips get another damage die. Maybe it's a bummer that your cleric took a defensive feat which makes him feel like he can wade into combat like a fighter, but maybe he'll be more cautious once he realizes that he still has fewer hp than the fighter and that things get a lot more tense when the cleric is the first character to get knocked unconscious.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It's strange the way 3rd edition changed things, before that people were able to play the game without feats or stat increases (using Wishes was almost the only way to have them increased)

I started in AD&D2, and back then fighters were pretty reliant on weapon specialization to excel. The feats Sharpshooter/GWM are roughly analogous. Without weapon specialization, fighters lost a lot of their attractiveness in AD&D relative to other classes, and I think the same holds in 5E for feats.

Kits were pretty popular too, and those aren't that different from feats except that kits are less granular.

 

[sidonunspa]

The question is simple. Do you use feats in your campaign, and do you feel they are mostly necessary, or at least expected by the vast majority of players?

Yes, and because.. well one reason.. the fighter sucks without them

 

[DaveDash]

I thought feats were great when first introduced; the last couple of editions has shown me they are a fraught mechanical device. While they can add some much needed flavor, they can usually end up being a system mastery min/max device that makes other 'normal' options pale in comparison. There is also the temptation to use feats as a way to 'patch' holes in the system and provide necessary, or at least highly desired, components to a character 'build'. Some have mentioned War Caster for the blade lock and Eldritch Knight already. There are the 'fix the math' feats that tend to come along as well.

I do allow them, because it does allow for some flexibility in designing a character, despite GWM, sharpshooter and the like. Also, they can provide a psudo-multi-class option that I like, since I dislike the open mulit-class system in 5e more than even feats. Taking Ritual caster can give one that Magician flavor/feel without the need for a full on multi-class.

This isnt really the case in general. Its only the case for Fighters + GMW/SS, or other specific builds like the BladeLock + Polearm master.

The vast majority of the time for most characters, taking a feat is a real trade off, and a real decision.

Trust me, I spend every day creating builds in spreadsheets. Apart from two specific combinations, they're fine. They're much more balanced than spells in AD&D, so hearing old school players banning them because theyre unbalanced is a little bit .... curious.

You don't need feats to fix anything. Learn to let go of RAW. I have.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Do you do the same with ability score increases? If a character takes a +2 to Dex and thereby a +1 to AC, do you automatically up the to-hit bonuses of all all monsters? Increase the AC by 1 to negate the to-hit bonus of the PC?

Nope. Why? Ability score increases are not OPTIONAL, like Feats are.

I mean, obviously, monsters faced will get tougher as players level up, either because the DM always runs balanced encounters, or just because the PCs will get bolder in the opponents they're willing to fight. But the feat is just a sharpened version of the ability score increase. With a +2 in your prime stat, you get a little better at most of the things you do. With a feat, you get a lot better at something that you do sometimes. If the game is just allowed to function naturally, that player will feel the benefit of that feat in those specific situations, but also feel that their stats might not be keeping up as well as they face increasingly challenging monsters.

(I'm a fighter and I get this really cool -5/+10 thing with my Greatsword, but the monsters are getting better armor and I still have a 16 strength...)

I've said this in other threads and whatnot back when we were still playtesting 5e. My contention was that I didn't want Feats to have the "...but this one goes to 11..." mentality that most of the Feats from previous versions of the game had. Yes, there were a lot of feats that didn't just grant "bonuses", and those were ones that nobody took...and if you did, chances were that someone you play with or might play with would get all pissy because of "stupid choices for feats...now you suck and my character has to pull up the slack!...grumble-grumble". It's easy to find examples of people verbally attacking other players for "stupid feat choices" all over the place.

How Feats should have worked was a LOT less "+1's", and a lot more "here's something cool you can do, or reduce, or ignore". For example, GWM should drop the -5/+10 and replace it with something "non-pluss'y"...say, give the GWM Reach with it. Or, as I said in my other post, each Feat should have a drawback to using it. So in stead of the -5/+10 as is, leave it in, but add Attacking like this can cause you to lower your defenses, so any attacks against you that round from an opponent in melee with you gets Advantage. But just flat out numbers adjustments? Bad idea...really bad. It encourages min/maxing power-building as players try to give their character every bonus they can via any means they can just to offset that -5. If/when they succeed, it's basically a free +10 to damage. Terrible design if you ask me.

Of course, this trade-off does break down if you use 4d6-drop-lowest ability rolls. Characters with rolled ability scores almost always start with a prime stat over 16 before species bonuses, so they can max out that stat much sooner, making the trade-off between a feat and a secondary stat more attractive. (Hell, characters rolling for abilities with the 4d6 method can easily have 20 in an ability at level 1 once their species mods kick in.)

If you use 4d6-L? You do realize that is the default character stat creation method, right? Just checking. And yes, that is how we do it...most of the time.

And what's wrong with character's adjusting their strategies once they learn a new skill?

It wasn't about adjusting strategies. It was a lot more than that. It was a character personality change. Like, up until level 4, the cleric was all about RP'ing that violence should be the last resort, or that a plan of attack should be agreed upon so as to minimize party casualties/damage, etc. But as soon as he got that magical -3 to damage taken...it was all Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead! when fighting *anything* that was likely to only do small'ish damage (re: 1d4+1 or 2d4, or 1d6+2, etc). Yes, the tactics could have changed with him offering to go in first to draw attacks, or maybe positioning better so he could take on more than one at a time while protecting the wizard, etc. But it didn't pan out that way. It's like he was a new character.

And before you think of this as an isolated incident...no, it's not. As I said, I saw this phenomenon happen time and time again (usually not *quite* as extreme, but easily noticeable) with my group. Conferring with other DM's here in town and on the net showed me that I wasn't alone in seeing this. Feats are also an either/or thing, despite how the designers wanted it to be. If one player chooses Feats for his character, ALL characters need to start taking Feats or they risk being "one upped" by the guy with the Feats.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Mercule]

a Feat should have Good stuff, and Bad stuff

Having lower ability scores than if they didn't take a feat isn't "bad stuff"? Unless you've removed the ability score increase altogether, it's not a zero-sum.