D&D 5E Full feats from Tasha's: are they worth a "full feat slot"?

[Paul Farquhar]

yes, blind fighting is an outlier in styles, so it has to be addressed in balance between styles.
but, really it's just 10ft(so any ranged attack with have auto-advantage all the time) and all it does is removes the need to carry around a torch. In a game where everyone has darkvision by 3rd level in one way or the other.

This is the sort of lack of knowledge that makes me think theorycrafters have never actually played D&D.

The purpose of Blindfighting is not to "see in the dark". It's to reverse the automatic advantage/disadvantage caused by fighting unseen opponents who are invisible/in magical darkness/cast blindness/have a gaze weapon like a medusa.

It gets even better if you can set it up yourself by casting Darkness.

It's comparable to Devil's Sight, which has longer range, but doesn't work in such a wide range of conditions (and has a spellcaster pre-requisite).

two weapon fighting: at 4th level, where you have 16 in attack stat gives you +3 damage to one attack vs. +1 attack and +1 damage to two attacks, and before mentioned additional bonuses for higher str/dex.

Which is better depends on the AC of your opponent.

Unarmed fighting as Monk? yeah thanks, but I'll take my +2 dex instead.

You would be very wrong to do so if you are trying to maximise your damage below level 5, and once you get past the level where it boosts your damage you simply trade it in for something else like Blindfighting.

Superior technique gets worse as you have more battlemasters dice.
it' OK at 4th level where you go from 4 dice to 5(+25%) and from 3 to 4 maneuvers(+33%)
at 15th level you get 6 dice, so 7 makes it +17% and you get extra maneuver on top of 9 that you already know. No real help there.
and extra dice does not scale(or it does, I might be reading RAW wrong)
and in the end Martial adept feat from PHB is better.

Martial Adept is better on it's own. But you can't take it twice. Taking both turns two mediocre feats into two good feats. And no one actually plays D&D at level 15. It's level 3-9 that matter.

 

[Guest User]

And no one actually plays D&D at level 15.

The books I used yesterday said "Dungeons and Dragons". I'd like to think of myself and friends as "people". Our character sheets indicate we are 16th level.......
........so your statement must be false.

Why do people continually feel the need to make false statements, that are obviously untrue?

Most people don't drive Lamborghini vehicles, but some do. I would hazard a guess that a larger percent of D&D players play Tier 4 games, then the percentage of drivers in the world that own and drive supercars.

 

[Ace]

My hunch is the more feats your character has to spare the less of a cost that full feats are worth.

Generally a variant human, a fighter or a rogue of any kind can always spare one, maybe two . Classes that have few dependencies can spare one, keeping in mind that any feat needs to be worth more than extra constitution.

Of that list I think the feats have some niche uses but mostly for very specific builds otherwise I don't think they measure up other than for maybe variant human where you always have a feat.

 

[Weiley31]

As a Battlemaster player, I like that Fighting Initiate can let me have dueling(or insert your preferred Fighting Style of choice) AND Superior Technique which also goes well when combined with taking Martial Adept: This allows me to have a crapton of Superiority Die and Maneuvers once I'm highly leveled up.

Heck, even the Champion can become somewhat interesting as you can get THREE Fighting styles and be a tad bit Battlemaster lite by taking Superior Technique.

Only thing I'd say, for Fighting Initiate, is house rule it to include a +1 to STR or DEX.

 

[Shiroiken]

My hunch is the more feats your character has to spare the less of a cost that full feats are worth.

Generally a variant human, a fighter or a rogue of any kind can always spare one, maybe two . Classes that have few dependencies can spare one, keeping in mind that any feat needs to be worth more than extra constitution.

Of that list I think the feats have some niche uses but mostly for very specific builds otherwise I don't think they measure up other than for maybe variant human where you always have a feat.

This is a big thing to consider. On average, except for variant humans and fighters, most characters will get 1 feat over the course of the campaign. If the campaign is longer than most (lv 12+) or someone is going for a specific build, then you'll see multiple feats. Feats are very much in competition with both an ASI and each other, which is why you see the same 5-10 feats taken. New feats need to stand up to GWF, SS, Lucky, Healer, Leadership, Resilient, Warcaster, etc. to be considered viable.

 

[NotAYakk]

Which is why my standard for a feat is "could you build a PC around it", both mechanically and conceptually.

 

[bedir than]

Which is why my standard for a feat is "could you build a PC around it", both mechanically and conceptually.

Yep. There's very little narrative around "I got stronger" when compared to any feat. Story creep is more important than power creep.

 

[jgsugden]

You could turn them into half feats, but there is no reason to do so. They are powerful enough to be within the range of a reasonable feat as is.

 

[Ace]

Fighting Initiate is a curious feat. I wouldn't use it very often but used correctly it isn't too bad a feat.

Its undoubtedly better with UA fighting styles like Mariner but it does have some uses. taking Defense style with a heavy armor/full plate character is pretty good since its an all the time +1 AC and I could see Dual Wielder + Two Weapon Fighting Rogues or Thrown Weapon Variant Human Paladins (axe for the win) or Rogues as well.

On the whole though, sans multiclassing 5E is less optimizable than you might think.

Two ASI's almost always go into the primary stat and that keeps you busy till 12th level which is where a fair number of games end.

Now if you are using rolled stats and get good rolls feats can be better of course.

Not Tasha's feats here but I had a Barbarian with rather high physical stats and taking Resilient /Dexterity and Shield Mastery made him quite tanky even at low levels.

A high roll might free up an ASI otherwise used for Con or something else.

On the whole though outside of niche/RP builds and a few optimizations like War Caster or the like and of course the stuff I mentioned above, charterers are so feat starved that most feats simply aren't worth it.

The general game assumption that you'll max you main stat, the reality is you have 3 ASI for twenty levels, maybe 2 if you boost CON as many do to increase durability. That isn't much really.

Now this isn't a bleat for "more feats." or something, 5E is good as is but its just being realistic . You are probably going to take one feat, maybe two if variant human in most games so choose wisely.

 

[Weiley31]

Fighting Initiate is also nice because it can allow some classes, like the Barbarian, gain a fighting style that they normally wouldn't be able to get.