D&D 5E Feats: Toughness, Inspiring Leader, Healer, and Magic Initiate

[CM]

Healer is great for patching people up between fights while kicking in doors and so on, when long concentration spells are still rolling and time is limited, but it's usually a pretty bad choice in combat past level 3-5. There are usually more effective things you can be doing.

The fact that it's limited to one use per character per short rest prevents it from really being overpowered.

Of the three campaigns i'm involved in that have reached level 10, one has a character with inspiring leader (a rogue), one has a character with healer (my own bard). The third has neither, but does have a bladesinger/4e swordmage with custom abilities that mitigate a fair amount of damage, a protection paladin (lay on hands and save aura), and a circle of life druid (a homebrew which gets some spell damage & healing die re-rolls in lieu of wild shape).

I wouldn't call either feat a must-have or overpowered, but they certainly can reduce the need for a dedicated healer character.

 

[Xeviat]

It’s very interesting how our opinions can differ so much on this. Thanks for the input everyone.


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[smbakeresq]

It’s very interesting how our opinions can differ so much on this. Thanks for the input everyone.


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The fact that they can differ is some proof that the feat is balanced.


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[Xeviat]

The fact that they can differ is some proof that the feat is balanced.


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Maybe. But the fact that, over the course of a day, Inspiring Leader will give 1 person more HP than Toughness will still seems unbalanced to me.


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[smbakeresq]

Inspiring leader is a feat that uses CHR and is intended for martial PC that has CHR, so that's a limitation. I have really only seen Paladins take it. Its THP, so once its gone its gone.

Toughness is not very good, but they are real HP, so they can be healed up all the way. At the start of the day all those HP will be there, and will be there when healed.

If I intended to take a feat for CON, I would just start with an odd con and take durable or resilient CON.

 

[Xeviat]

Inspiring leader is a feat that uses CHR and is intended for martial PC that has CHR, so that's a limitation. I have really only seen Paladins take it. Its THP, so once its gone its gone.

Toughness is not very good, but they are real HP, so they can be healed up all the way. At the start of the day all those HP will be there, and will be there when healed.

If I intended to take a feat for CON, I would just start with an odd con and take durable or resilient CON.

I'd totally take both Healer and Inspiring Leader on a Bard. That way I wouldn't need to use as many of my spell slots for healing. Variant human would make the first pick very easy.

 

[Zardnaar]

That's awesome!

I think I was one of the 1st to spot this combo. Its very good and the feat plus rogue makes combat a complete cakewalk. The restore 1 hp part is also abusable.

Healer is probably one of the more broken feats. Compare it with life cleric healing and even at higher levels its more or less a mass cure 1/short rest.

And yes I include healer with the -5/+10 feats.

 

[dco]

I find them balanced.
Toughness grants you HP that are always there, they can stack with temporary hit points, they can be healed, etc. It means more HP in a fight and you can recover them without the need of a short/long rest.
Inspiring leader grants you temporary hit points if you spend 10 min inspiring your friends, but those are temporary, don't stack with other THP, you need a rest to gain them again once they are gone.
Healer gives you more healing using the healing action once per rest, it's not extra HP you have available at the start of a combat. This feat also gives 1HP after stabilization.
Magic initiate gives you 2 cantrips and 1 spells of first lvl. It has mainly other uses.

 

[Bacon Bits]

It's interesting that there is such a difference of opinion on toughness. Talking to my group, they consider it a near must have feat.

The number of combats in your game will certainly influence its strength, but hitpoints are one of the key ways to survive in combat, and nothing does it better than this feat.

For example, if we take a rogue with 12 con. At 4th level it would increase their hp from 27 to 35, which is just under a 30% increase in survivability.

It's not quite that good because it comes at the opportunity cost of +2 Con. Toughness isn't +2 hp/level, it's +1 hp/level over the existing ASI. I'd rather have +1 to Con saves and checks than +4 hit points. If we say that the average hit from an average creature deals 8 damage, then it takes Toughnesss 8 levels to increase survivability by one additional hit over +2 Con.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Maybe. But the fact that, over the course of a day, Inspiring Leader will give 1 person more HP than Toughness will still seems unbalanced to me.


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Inspiring leader is much more situational. I'd expect good game design to have things that happen less often be more impactful when they do, over something that happens way more often in frequency and/or has fewer situational factors that apply.