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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9007384" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/Z0vLz7C.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Every good 5e campaign that wants to be nice to noncasters is in need of Feats, and Everyday Heroes delivers them in spades. 104 spades, to be exact!As mentioned before, feats are gained at every even level. On those levels a PC has the option to take 2 Minor Feats or 1 Major Feat. Most feats follow the 5e standard in granting 2-3 unique benefits and don’t have prerequisites in order to take (save Multiclass Feats, which have a formula of their own). Minor Feats tend to be ones with less impressive or more situational advantages, while Major Feats have more useful and character-defining benefits.Beyond Minor and Major, Feats are further split into 3 categories: Basic, Advanced, and Multiclass. All Basic Feats are Minor Feats, and all Multiclass Feats are Major Feats. We have 6 Basic Feats, 44 Minor Advanced Feats, 8 Major Advanced Feats, and 46 Multiclass feats.The Basic Feats are simple and straightforward: they include adding +1 to an ability score to a maximum of 20, gaining proficiency in an equipment category, adding +1 to your wealth level (maximum +5), gaining proficiency in a new saving throw, gaining proficiency in two skills, or gaining expertise in a single skill. Obviously there are some good options here, and while technically Basic the options can still be significant enough (like ability score increases or new proficiencies) that a PC who takes them can still see a noticeable bump in their personal capabilities. The Wealth bonus feat is likely the least impactful, as the sourcebook says that it’s possible for one’s Wealth to change due to GM fiat, such as getting rewarded by a wealthy patron.Advanced Feats are closer to what one typically thinks about as Feats, and there’s quite a wide variety. Some are specific for certain builds or playstyles, such as Animal Whisperer that lets you teach animals new commands and you have advantage on checks to influence them, or Impersonator where you have advantage on Performance checks when disguising yourself or your voice. But there are some broadly useful ones whose benefits are apparent: Battlefield Medic grants 1 hit point to targets you stabilize as well as allowing someone to spend a Hit Die with no action on their part provided you succeed on a DC 10 Medicine check in performing first aid; Fast Hands reduces the action requirements for reloading ammo down one step to a minimum of free action, along with clearing jams as a bonus action and disassembling a gun as an action; Gunfighter lets you ignore disadvantage when shooting at an adjacent target, and you can use a bonus action to apply the Burst property for one turn to any non slow-firing weapon; Lead By Example grants advantage on allies’ ability checks when making a group check if you roll first and succeed on that roll; Jack of All Trades and Touch of Grace grant you half proficiency bonus on ability checks and saving throws you are not proficient in respectively; Scout grants you +5 to your Passive Perception and advantage on ability checks to overcome traps.There are also 3 feats which are basically renamed versions of the Crusher, Piercer, and Slasher feats, minus the ability score increase: Brute, Impaler, and Blademaster respectively. With the new features in Everyday Heroes, Impaler is pretty useful in the hands of a Duelist, given that they roll 2d8 damage when wielding a rapier.There are some Advanced Feats which jump out at me in not being initially impressive on their own, but have some good synergy potential: Artful Dodger allows you to make an off-hand attack as a bonus action when you Dodge as an action, waiving the requirement to use the Attack action to off-hand.This is good when combined with Sharpshooter, MMA Fighter, or Master who can add damage to an off-hand attack. Cross-Training lets you substitute another physical ability score for Athletics, Acrobatics, or Endurance checks, letting you be a weak yet agile grappler or bulky tumbler. Renaissance Thinking lets you substitute your Intelligence for making Wisdom-based ability checks and vice versa, so you can let your Smart Hero Mastermind be an even better judge of character and spotter of hidden things, or your Hunter or Master to be a Harvard-level dispenser of knowledge. Whale requires you to have a Wealth Level or 4 or higher, and lets you add it as a bonus to Intimidation and Persuasion checks against a wide variety of characters (bankers, customer service, business owners, politicians to name a few) and advantage on Persuasion when bribing someone with a lower Wealth Level. Punisher lets you make opportunity attacks when an adjacent opponent stands up from prone, picks up an object from the ground or does the Object Interaction action, or makes a special attack against you. The Duelist archetype has 2 Tricks that can trigger appropriate conditions for these opportunity attacks, while a Scrapper can still immobilize a target who stands up by reducing their speed.**The feat specifies that the attack triggers after they stand up from prone as opposed to attempting to do so. Shame, could’ve been a good way to keep an enemy down given that unproning yourself costs half your movement.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/iWii5jt.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The Advanced Major feats are few, but their benefits are significant and self-apparent. Fortune’s Fool is similar to the Lucky feat and is quite powerful, although you spend a luck point to reroll an attack, save, or ability check rather than rolling an additional d20. Guerilla is tailor-built for sneaky shooters and snipers, letting you ignore the penalties from poor visibility, can hide from targets from whom you have poor visibility, and missing with a ranged attack while hiding doesn’t automatically reveal your position. Healthy is your Tough equivalent with +2 HP per level. Harrier lets you add your proficiency bonus to your Defense as a reaction provided you are wielding a melee weapon, and you can make a single ranged attack as a bonus action when you Disengage.* Perfect Shot lets you be able to hit multiple targets with the same attack/bullet based on its Penetration Value. Power Slam grants advantage on all shove/trip attempts and lets you deal your unarmed strike damage whenever you shove/trip them. Signature Weapon lets you name a specific weapon in your possession, and while wielding it you can ignore one source of disadvantage on an attack roll, gain advantage on Intimidation checks and checks to avoid being disarmed, and the weapon will not break as a result of your own actions, abilities, or class talents.** Sweeping Attack lets you once per turn make a special attack with a two-handed or versatile melee weapon wielded in two hands to make one melee attack against each enemy within reach. Which is rather inconvenient as opposed to rolling once and comparing the result to every target’s Defense score, given in some cases you may be rolling a LOT of d20s.*This is a feat useful for both melee and ranged builds! I never would’ve thought!**Useful for Brawlers that are really fond of a specific weapon and people who want to Burst Fire all the time.Now it’s time to cover Multiclass Feats. Instead of mixing up levels like in core 5e, you basically have a primary class you start at, and if you want to gain the features of other classes and archetypes you take Multiclass Feats. All of these feats follow a specific formula: X Hero Training is the basic tier, obtainable at level 2 and you need a 13 or higher in the relevant ability score. X Training are the names of archetypes, which require being 4th level, not being that archetype, being a Class which has access to that archetype OR X Hero Training if you aren’t that class. Advanced X Training requires you to be level 8 and have the prior X Training feat.The X Hero Training feats vary in what they grant you. Some of them grant you Basic Weapon Proficiency if you don’t already have it and/or proficiency in a relevant skill, a limited number of the point-based resources for the mental classes, and either one or both of the universal level 1 and 2 abilities. Some abilities which would be very powerful or no-brainers to get you cannot get via multiclassing, such as Strong Hero’s Power Attack, Agile Hero’s advantage on initiative, or a Hunter’s animal companion. The Smart Hero and their archetype feats give you Plans but are used at a lower effective level.You’d expect these feats to be wordy, but they are extremely concise and informative in what they do communicate. They are shorter than the actual archetype’s description for the same abilities, but they still accurately convey the information:<img src="https://i.imgur.com/PozmRjl.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />There are some interesting outcomes of the multiclass feats. As the mental hero archetype feats grant bonus Genius/Focus/Influence points, PCs who are Smart/Wise/Charming are encouraged to multiclass within their hero type to get more power in their primary functions as well. The damage-scaling abilities such as Brawler’s Smash or Scoundrel’s Vital Strike come into play late, being at the Advanced X Training feat and even then by a much lower value (usually being 2d6). No multiclass feat grants Advanced Weapon Training, which is a good way of preventing damage-scaling from getting too high.Finally, multiclass feats are the primary means of increasing unarmed strike damage, which can stack with increases due to your existing archetype. MMA Fighter Training, Martial Artist Training, and Advanced Martial Artist Training all increase the damage die by one type. Starting out as an MMA Fighter gives you 1d6 right off the bat and one step up at 7th level. Same for the Martial Artist. And the Duelist technically begins play being able to do 2d4 damage with unarmed strikes. For more generic melee bonuses, the Brawler and Scrapper also add one damage die to melee weapon damage rolls at 9th level, and the Commando does as well but all weapons and not just melee.While it is feat-intensive, you can end up with some rather impressive results. A Brawler who goes Agile Hero Training at 2nd, Martial Artist at 4th, MMA Fighter at 6th, Advanced Martial Artist at 8th, will have 2d10 unarmed strike damage at 9th level. A Commando or Scrapper can do the same, but they’ll need to wait until 10th given they’ll need Strong Hero Training for a feat tax. As for a Duelist who follows the same path, they can get the same result albeit with a better starting value initially. The Master is perhaps the one who gains the most via this multiclassing path, as despite making use of unarmed strikes they don’t increase the damage like the MMA or Martial Artist does.Thoughts So Far: Feats are a fun addition for character building, and given that Everyday Heroes dispenses with Vancian spellcasting it’s pretty much a necessary one to ensure that characters don’t end up feeling too much the same. Gaining them every 2nd level, along with the class features, allows for a significant sense of progression as at least one new thing is gained every level. I am highly impressed with how they handled Multiclassing in particular, and I think it proves a good blueprint for game design for other people making their own 5th Edition spinoffs. While there are some feats of more questionable utility than others, it’s clear that the authors for the most part sought to prevent any feats from feeling too necessary to take for most builds. Fortune’s Fool may be the exception, however.Overall Thoughts: When I first heard of Everyday Heroes I more or less shrugged. This hasn’t been the first time someone sought to make a modern-era RPG using the 5th Edition ruleset, and quite a few of those RPGs aren’t really up to par in being balanced or well-designed. While I did like aspects of the original D20 Modern, it hasn’t exactly aged well, so my hopes weren’t very high. But thankfully Everyday Heroes managed to exceed them by leaps and bounds.So out of a 460 page book, we just covered a little over 200 pages. The remaining chapters are covering the meat and bones of the system, which are basically retread 5th Edition ground but with some new twists; a short chapter on Chase scenes and vehicles in combat; and the remainder are GM-centric stuff like adventure creation and a big list of monsters and NPCs.I’ll convert a character or two from some video games I enjoy to showcase what can be done with Everyday Heroes. But after that I may pivot off to reviewing another product unless there’s sufficient demand for me to continue. I hope I gave you an enticing enough sample to showcase why I feel that Everyday Heroes is a stellar RPG!</blockquote>

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