D&D 5E Moar Feats

[ZombieRoboNinja]

It would increase the average damage to 32 if it was rerolls 1s. (1d6 reroll 1 is equivalent to 1d5+1, average 4). But the feat doesn't do that, it merely flips a rerolled 1 to a 2. Thus the die distribution is {2,2,3,4,5,6}, which averages out to 11/3, or 3.67, a 1/6 increase on average. So an 8d6 fireball now does 29.33 on average.

Yeah, basically the reroll adds almost nothing to your average damage and is almost never actually relevant. It's kind of like an even worse version of the Great Weapon fighting style. I guess it's there so that this feat "feels" more useful when you're not facing resistant creatures, without actually BEING more useful (which might make it feel like a "feat tax"), but I'd rather they not insult our intelligence and either just leave it out or add a simple +1 to damage or something and save us extra rolls.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Well, we have so far seen two half-constitution feats, and two out of two meet this description. It's a very small sample, but so far it supports this being a common situation. Half-stat feats are clearly not going to offer much on the non-stat side.

In the alpha the Resilience feat could give you +1 Con and proficiency on Con saves, which is WAY better than Durable (thanks to concentration saves).

Out of curiosity, is there a reason we're talking only about wizards with this feat? Yes, they'll statistically benefit from it more often than, say, Barbarians, but I'd guess that UNLIKE the damage rolls that benefit from the Elemental Adept feat, a low roll on HD recovery can be a fairly big deal, especially in a low-magic setting. My level 10 fighter with 19 Con might like the idea of getting a minimum of 10 HP back with every hit die, if potions don't exist and there's no cleric in the group.

 

[Neonchameleon]

No. The only criterion here is that you aren't concerned with being disarmed. You could be a monk, a caster cleric, whatever.

Tavern Brawler does a bit more than that. First there's the grab, opening up a new fighting style. Then there's the possibility you could meet e.g. a Rust Monster. Or you ever want to be subtle rather than wade in there. Situationally useful > useless

Well, we have so far seen two half-constitution feats, and two out of two meet this description. It's a very small sample, but so far it supports this being a common situation. Half-stat feats are clearly not going to offer much on the non-stat side.

In short half stat feats are pretty terrible - whole stat feats have problems matching good 3.5 or 4e feats.

No. If your Constitution is 9, you are still better off with Durable than putting points into Con. The Durable benefit is better than nothing and nothing is what you get otherwise.

Actually, no it isn't. If you have a Con of 9 and put it up to 10 then the Durable benefit is literally nothing. Your minimum hit points healed are twice nothing. Which is, of course, nothing. What you could get otherwise is at worst a standard ability increase, putting one point into Con and one point into any other stat. Which in future allows you to get that stat a feat that can at least do something.

 

[Alessandro Guarita]

Actually, no it isn't. If you have a Con of 9 and put it up to 10 then the Durable benefit is literally nothing. Your minimum hit points healed are twice nothing. Which is, of course, nothing.

Well, not that true. The feat says "minimum of 2". So, yes, Con 10 will give you 2 hp minimum when healing using HD. It's terrible, but it isn't "nothing"

 

[Neonchameleon]

Well, not that true. The feat says "minimum of 2". So, yes, Con 10 will give you 2 hp minimum when healing using HD. It's terrible, but it isn't "nothing"

Point

 

[Dausuul]

In short half stat feats are pretty terrible - whole stat feats have problems matching good 3.5 or 4e feats.

You can't judge the quality of a feat in a vacuum. A feat is only "terrible" if there are other options available that are better. 3.5 and 4E feats are irrelevant; you don't get to take them in 5E. All that matters is what's on the 5E feat list. If you have one odd-numbered stat, and you would normally be willing to spend a stat boost improving it, you can take a half stat feat instead and come out ahead.

Actually, no it isn't. If you have a Con of 9 and put it up to 10 then the Durable benefit is literally nothing. Your minimum hit points healed are twice nothing. Which is, of course, nothing. What you could get otherwise is at worst a standard ability increase, putting one point into Con and one point into any other stat. Which in future allows you to get that stat a feat that can at least do something.

You missed a crucial clause in the feat text, at the very end: "(minimum of 2)."

With the feat, your minimum hit points healed are 2, no matter what your Con modifier. Without it, the minimum is zero. As a matter of fact, in the extreme case that you're playing a wizard with Con 3, taking Durable instead of +2 Con will increase your hit point recovery by a factor of 4. (Though if you're playing a Con 3 wizard, you don't really care about hit point recovery--if you ever lose hit points at all, you're probably dead.)

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

In short half stat feats are pretty terrible - whole stat feats have problems matching good 3.5 or 4e feats.

Honestly, I haven't seen any feats in the alpha that aren't straight-up better than their equivalents from the 3e PHB, when those equivalents exist. If you cherry-pick feats across both those editions I'm sure you can find plenty of overpowered crap, but that's not a very productive baseline.

Anyway, there's a built-in pressure valve here: if the feats suck everyone can take ability score bonuses. Looking at the feat list and what we've seen in the last public playtest (or the leaked alpha if you're feeling naughty), do you actually think you'll be upgrading your secondary and tertiary ability scores rather than taking any feats? Because I sure as heck don't. Tavern Brawler and Elemental Adept might not be your go-to choices at level 4 (unless you have a strong thematic focus in your character), but once you've got your primary scores maxed out they might seem promising.

 

[TwoSix]

Yeah, basically the reroll adds almost nothing to your average damage and is almost never actually relevant. It's kind of like an even worse version of the Great Weapon fighting style. I guess it's there so that this feat "feels" more useful when you're not facing resistant creatures, without actually BEING more useful (which might make it feel like a "feat tax"), but I'd rather they not insult our intelligence and either just leave it out or add a simple +1 to damage or something and save us extra rolls.

The only real utility is that sets your damage floor at 2 * the number of dice, which I guess is something. But considering the chance of rolling under a 16 on 8d6 is only a 0.38%....yea, not so good.

 

[keterys]

You can't judge the quality of a feat in a vacuum. A feat is only "terrible" if there are other options available that are better.

Thankfully, we can compare the value of feats against 2 points of ability score.

It's a rather simple and solid benchmark of quality, really.

 

[Dausuul]

Thankfully, we can compare the value of feats against 2 points of ability score.

It's a rather simple and solid benchmark of quality, really.

Yup. And it's exactly what I'm doing. Like this:

If you have one odd-numbered score: Half-stat feat > 2 points of ability score
If you don't: 2 points of ability score > half-stat feat

I will be the first to agree that if you aren't trying to "even up" a stat, half-stat feats are Suck with a capital Suck. But if you have that one odd stat, and you're done maxing out your primaries (or the odd stat is a primary for some reason), half-stat feats can be quite good.