D&D 5E I hate choosing between ASIs and Feats

[Gradine]

To make things even worse for me I find is the fact that combat and non combat feats are drawn from the same limited pool which often finds the choice of combat viability vs colour/concept forced upon a player.

I really don't understand this issue. I get that combat still has outsized significance over the other two pillars, but I can't really think of a single character choice that exists entirely within the combat pillar. Does it also upset people that they have to choose between combat and non-combat spells? Some skills have some combat applications too. Certainly your choice of race, class and archetype gives you access to differing amounts of combat and non-combat abilities.

Non-combat abilities are not just color or concept; they're designed to help resolve the encounters and challenges that don't revolve around smashing faces in. At least philosophically, in 5e that's two-thirds of the game.

 

[Jester David]

There, I said it.

Yes, I *know* Feats are "optional" and therefore they need to be interchangeable for balance.

What irks me is that in many/most cases ASIs are the optimal choice, so I'm put in the position of choosing statistical optimization or fun. I really want to choose the fun option, but almost always end up going with the optimal.

This is partly true because the Feats I want aren't the handful of OP Feats (Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, Crossbow Expert, Resilient: CON). I want Dungeon Delver, Mage Slayer, Shield Master, Alert, and other fun things that aren't as powerful overall. But I just can't bring myself to sacrifice that constant +1.

And, yes, I *know* that's my choice and I could choose to do otherwise. TYVM.

Sure, I could in theory pick up Feats with my final ASIs...if I ever actually played a campaign that long. (My impression is that my experience isn't unique, that most of us don't spend much time above level 10-12.)

I'm just saying that I would be having more fun if ASIs and Feats were two separate choices. What I hear around the tables (AL at FLGS) is a similar sentiment.

Anybody else wish this had been designed differently?

Yes and no.
I don't disagree and it'd be nice to have both, to not have that choice. As it's a hard choice.
But I like the design and how feats are optional, and how characters can be simpler or more complex. And I like the baseline power level for feats, as there's a bar.

 

[CapnZapp]

I'm fine with it now, because I accept why they did it this way (modular game to appeal to the largest base). However I liked them separated, but for a totally different reason. With a hard cap of 20, ASIs have a point of diminishing returns. If a player rolled high for ability scores, they would cap their primary ability early, meaning that future ASIs were less meaningful. A player who rolled less well would eventually catch up in their primary ability, but the player who rolled well would simply be more well-rounded. As it is now, I usually see players use ASI to reach 18 or 20 in their primary ability, then switch to Feats.

You see diminishing returns where I see great power.

Rolling well means what amounts to free feats!

Each 18 you roll means reaching the cap that much faster, allowing you to take a feat without its greatest cost; the opportunity cost of not increasing your prime ability.

(Sure, you could put an ASI in a secondary ability, but the benefit of doing that, and thus the opportunity cost of not doing it, is much lower. Hence "free"!)

The best suggestion?

Don't allow rolls higher than what the default array gives you in games where feats are included.

Not only is rolling really well great for all the usual reasons; in this edition rolling an 18 is better than many editions ago.

In games with feats, that is. Precisely because the core mechanism of having to choose is based on the assumption that you won't have a 20 in your prime stat until at the level 12 choice.

 

[Azurewraith]

That's kind of like arguing that flight is actually useless: it takes a very special campaign to make it useless all the time. Horses can fit into a 5'x5' dungeon corridor (at half speed and penalties to attack/defense), and there are options (Find Steed, Phantom Steed) for getting a Large mount even in places where a horse isn't allowed or won't fit, like a 2' x 3' corridor made for gnomes.

How often in your games do you actually find Medium creature taking penalties for "Squeezing into smaller spaces"? If that happens frequently, then you're right, a horse wouldn't work in that game, and neither will Large monsters like most of the stuff in the MM, and suddenly Sanctuary, Sharpshooter and spells like Fog Cloud (or other methods for cancelling disadvantage) become amazingly good because your whole game is going to take place in chokepoints. I've never even heard of anyone playing such a game though. More frequently (at least) a healthy portion of the game takes place in reasonably open areas. Many games take place in wide-open areas where flying mounts like Gryphons and Giant Eagles would work, if you had a way to acquire one.

Perhaps I was to quick to dismiss this I may have to give it a whirl

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

You see diminishing returns where I see great power.

Rolling well means what amounts to free feats!

Each 18 you roll means reaching the cap that much faster, allowing you to take a feat without its greatest cost; the opportunity cost of not increasing your prime ability.

(Sure, you could put an ASI in a secondary ability, but the benefit of doing that, and thus the opportunity cost of not doing it, is much lower. Hence "free"!)

The best suggestion?

Don't allow rolls higher than what the default array gives you in games where feats are included.

Not only is rolling really well great for all the usual reasons; in this edition rolling an 18 is better than many editions ago.

In games with feats, that is. Precisely because the core mechanism of having to choose is based on the assumption that you won't have a 20 in your prime stat until at the level 12 choice.

Not better than an 18 in AD&D. Not only did an 18 unlock exceptional strength shenanigans and/or a 70% boost to HP and/or amazingly good AC, but if you didn't roll an 18 Int you could never become an archmage[1] and cast 9th level spells. (And it also hurt your chances at spell research and your ability to learn spells at lower levels too.) In 5E you can be a perfectly functional wizard with an Int of 16. So what if you are 20% less efficient at binding demons with Planar Binding? It's only money. Maybe it's worth it to be a Lucky wizard or a Mage Slayer wizard[2] instead of a supergenius wizard.

That's why feats are so popular in 5E, I think. It's because there really isn't that much difference in effectiveness between a middling-high stat and an ultra-high stat. It's the exact opposite of AD&D in that respect. I enjoy 4d6d1 and even 3d6 in order in 5E; but I don't really enjoy 3d6 in 2nd edition, because the stakes are so much higher.

[1] Well, unless you were willing to wait ninety years or so until your age modifiers boosted your Int, or you cast a bunch of Wishes, each of which could IIRC raise your Int by 0.1 points, so twenty Wishes would get you from Int 16 to 18.

[2] Interestingly, Mage Slayer helps you resist your own spells. E.g. you are more likely to get away with dropping a Web spell or Stinking Cloud on your own position because you have advantage to your saves against it.

 

[The Human Target]

I do think it's wonky half a loaf design.

 

[CapnZapp]

Not better than an 18 in AD&D.

That's why I used careful phrasing [emoji4]

 

[Valetudo]

I feel that adding a bonus feat at first lol and excluding variant humans help fix this problem. When I first started running 5th for my group qich had three new players to the game. They at first tried different races and ended up wiping a couple of times even though I warned them that rocket tag was in full effect. They eventually started playing nothing but vhumans for that 1st lvl feat qich tends to be a lot stronger than racial abilities.

 

[Krachek]

There, I said it.

Yes, I *know* Feats are "optional" and therefore they need to be interchangeable for balance.

What irks me is that in many/most cases ASIs are the optimal choice, so I'm put in the position of choosing statistical optimization or fun. I really want to choose the fun option, but almost always end up going with the optimal.

This is partly true because the Feats I want aren't the handful of OP Feats (Great Weapon Master, Polearm Master, Crossbow Expert, Resilient: CON). I want Dungeon Delver, Mage Slayer, Shield Master, Alert, and other fun things that aren't as powerful overall. But I just can't bring myself to sacrifice that constant +1.

And, yes, I *know* that's my choice and I could choose to do otherwise. TYVM.

Sure, I could in theory pick up Feats with my final ASIs...if I ever actually played a campaign that long. (My impression is that my experience isn't unique, that most of us don't spend much time above level 10-12.)

I'm just saying that I would be having more fun if ASIs and Feats were two separate choices. What I hear around the tables (AL at FLGS) is a similar sentiment.

Anybody else wish this had been designed differently?

Just ask your dm to remove ASI and make feat the only choice.
Then you will ask him a feat that can increase ability score....

 

[Guest 6801328]

Just ask your dm to remove ASI and make feat the only choice.
Then you will ask him a feat that can increase ability score....

Several people have suggested variants of this, and aside from the fact that I play AL so this isn't really an option: if I had the "willpower" to request such a rule, I would also have the willpower to just choose feats instead of ASIs.