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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 6973476" data-attributes="member: 20564">Some thoughts on reading through:Removing Magic Initiate - removes the entire concept of a magical child/blessed by the fae/etc. if you make it part of a "profession".Heavy Strike - this is the effects of the SS/GWM feats that gain the most attention as being broken.  Giving them out to everyone using a weapon for free is a big power up for weapon users, and will probably skew character creation toward more high-chance-to-hit, extra attack classes (archers with the fighting style, barbarians, etc.)  If you want it, I'd consider the damage bonus to be the same as the to-hit penalty (like the old Power Attack from earlier editions).  Also I've seen people do -proficiency/+proficiency so it scales.Cleave - is this a free action (like ranger's hordebreaker) or does it take a bonus action, like the feats grant it now?  Does it apply to spell attacks?  What if the attack applies a condition or other extra effect, does that take effect?  can this crit, and if so what's the effect since it doesn't seem to have damage dice to double.  If I hit something held that gave me auto-crit does the whole crit damage carry over?  If I kill something, cleave and kill something, can I continue to cleave with the remaining damage?  Not having to worry about losing "overflow" damage is a minor bonus to large weapons and those who do a lot of damage on one hit like rogues with sneak attack.  It also removes a weakness that some characters ahve with hordes, because in this case you could potentially kill two (or more?) weak foes with each attack.  This also gets multiplied by your heavy attack bonus, since extra attack means you're more likely to have some left over.  I'm not particularly fond of this.Literacy: I'd suggest you also make it a language choice to pick up.Smith's tool.  Interesting.  Though having a way to add more damage to all weapon attacks plays into what I was talking about before with heavy attack and cleave.Arcanist's tools - a tool proficiency giving a bit more then the Magic Initiate feat, and allowing it to grow more.  Wow.  At first I was skimming and though this was just for ritual spells and liked that arcana skill + tools = ritual caster feat, but that's just an extra bonus included.  Quick nice.Infuser's tools - these give out a lot of very powerful boons for just a tool pick.  +2 AC that stacks with everything will help break bounded accuracy and minimize foe attacks.  Unless foes have them as well in which case the players get even more of them when they kill them and in the meantime everyone misses alot which isn't fun.  Being able to add an arbitrary amount of resistances and advantage on saves is very powerful.  I don't know a caster who will be without a Con-save one in order to keep Concentration on spells.  Granting +2 to an ability, a feat, or up to 80 temp HPs per long rest also are very powerful.  Oh, and spells up to 4th level that recharge on a short rest.  Suddenly the archer in back who doesn't get hit is casting bless or haste so the main casters can use concentration on something else.  And then they can switch out to a new one for the next battle.Really, gold costs to control character growth isn't part of this edition.  These are very powerful.  I'd suggest, well I'd suggest removing this entirely, but baring that I would suggest each taking up an item slot, and requiring attunement.  Though they are still more powerful then most uncommon and many rare magic items.Artist's tools - again allowing casting of spells.To roubnd up on the tools, many of the suggested ones are a lot more powerful then the PHB tools, many are more powerful then what a PHB feat would give you.  They add back in the gold can greatly enhance your character, dilute the pwoer of casters by giving out spells to more people, and just change the balance a lot.  These will have a lot of both direct and ripple effects on your game.Wounds - since foes often are just dead, this will mostly affect PCs.XP - I like what you are giving XP for.  If you avoid encounters by sneaking, distracting, using resources to get past, is that worth XP for the combat question?ConclusionLots of bonuses for weapon wielders plus tools giving out ways to cast spells will make weapon a lot more prevalent.  Characters in general will be significantly more powerful then base PHB, though wounds may gimp one character for a while and leave the player feeling like they aren't contributing to the session or sessions.  The amount of power gain is not even, some classes will be left behind.  Depending on availability, gold plus tool proficiencies (or NPCs) have once again become part of character power.</blockquote>

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