D&D 5E Giving Feats to Monsters

[Werebat]

The 5E ogre is a boring bag of hit points, but with the right feat or feats it could at least be a LITTLE interesting.

If a DM allows feats in his game, could he not also give feats to monsters?

How many feats should he give them? One per four hit dice?

 

[Lanliss]

That sounds reasonable, and I am in full support of monsters with interesting abilities. You can even do some NPCs the same way. Good luck poisoning a Gourmand Duke.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The 5E ogre is a boring bag of hit points, but with the right feat or feats it could at least be a LITTLE interesting.

If a DM allows feats in his game, could he not also give feats to monsters?

How many feats should he give them? One per four hit dice?

Sure, why not? They're nice little pre-packaged bundles of interestingness.

I'd default to giving a monster one feat per ASI it has earned via its classes. So an adult blue dragon/Dragon Sorcerer 9 would get two feats, just like any other Dragon Sorcerer; and an Ogre who was a Fighter 9 would get three feats.

For monsters that don't have class levels, it's harder to say. I'd probably assume that the feat represents some rare and exceptional quality of the individual specimen and then just eyeball a number for how frequently I want that trait to express itself in the population. E.g. for Orogs maybe I'd say that 15% of Orogs are Heavy Armor Masters. It really depends on my motivation for handing out feats as opposed to just creating a new kind of monster.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

If a DM allows feats in his game, could he not also give feats to monsters?

Of course the DM can give feats to monsters if they want to.

How many feats should he give them? One per four hit dice?

I don't think that establishing a mandatory number is useful. In prior editions and other games which do that, the list of feats on a monster end up stretching needlessly long and inevitably include feats that are there because they have to be, not because they actually fit a theme or provide something interesting. For example, if you mandate 1 feat per 4 hit dice, a balor would end up having 5 feats - and looking at the feats in the book, I can't pick 5 that are actually interesting and enhance the balor in meaningful ways.

So how many feats should be given? As many as are interesting, and as few as feel like genuine improvements rather than "well... I have to add more, so..."

I'd start with 1 or 2, then see how the monster feels in use at the table, adding or subtract after that if it feels necessary.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If a DM allows feats in his game, could he not also give feats to monsters?

Could he? Yes.
Should he? Maybe.
It might be simpler or more fun/interesting to give the benefits of a feat, or a benefit of a feat, or just abilities that are similar to feats.

Should you lock yourself into giving every monster a certain number of feats based on HD or CR or something?
Nooooo...

(Full disclosure: I say that as some who will never run 3.x again if I can possibly avoid doing so.)

 

[Draegn]

I allow foes to do anything the characters can do.

 

[Tormyr]

I sometimes give monsters feats, but I recalculate the CR afterward.

 

[Rhenny]

I give them monster abilities, class abilities, feats, and other things to make them interesting (at least the elite versions of individual monster types). Variety is the spice of life.

Check this out: http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1375

 

[Caliban]

I give them monster abilities, class abilities, feats, and other things to make them interesting (at least the elite versions of individual monster types). Variety is the spice of life.

Check this out: http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1375

Same here.

 

[Caliban]

The 5E ogre is a boring bag of hit points, but with the right feat or feats it could at least be a LITTLE interesting.

If a DM allows feats in his game, could he not also give feats to monsters?

Absolutely.

How many feats should he give them? One per four hit dice?

Honestly, I just give them whatever feels appropriate. If the monster starts being more of a challenge than I intended, they can always die on the next attack that hits or the PC's attacks can start being more effective than expected, or whatever else seems appropriate.