D&D 5E (2024) New Feats, avenues to diversity?

[bedir than]

Do you think anyone will suggest flavourful builds using the Emerald Enclave feats? No, because they're garbage. Or the Harper feats, without relying on hobgoblin? No, because they're garbage for any other character.

These are both flavorful sets of Feats that encourage a diversity of 'build' and of story.

It's one of my favorite things about the Realms books for 2024 -- they do encourage playable non-optimal strategies rather than numbers go brrrrr

 

[Mephista]

Do you think anyone will suggest flavourful builds using the Emerald Enclave feats? No, because they're garbage. Or the Harper feats, without relying on hobgoblin? No, because they're garbage for any other character.

Yes. I think the Emerald Enclave feats will have flavorful suggestions related to druid familiars and ranger companions. Scouting pets is still considered good, yeah? The origin feat is bad, but I don't really consider them to be huge game defining abilities in the first place.

Harper feats are only bad because Help is bad - it needs to be a Bonus Action instead of Action. There's a reason why D&D developed Healing Word and turned potion use as bonus actions. In that case, though, they're actually rather good feats. Arguably too good, if you consider the at-will granting of Disadvantage on spell saves OP.

In fact, you could almost see them as part of some kind of ... commander class. Something about being a lord of war or something...

Okay, joking aside, if I was going to make a good banneret / warlord option, bonus-action Help is going on the menu, and absolutely using these feats. Remaking the Mastermind Rogue is on the menu. I've seen homebrew bards with Help as a BI. There's more potential to mix and match. Maybe we'll see new Weapon Masteries at some point that work like the Help action.

Cold Caster on Elements Monks isn't going to be the "diverse" build, it will be the default, in the same way every Elements Monk is expected to abuse Grappler. 2024 5e actively discourages diverse builds, because not taking the Right Options means your character is simply going to be much worse than other players' characters.

Okay, so the Elemental Monk is expected to abuse Cold Caster AND Grappler now? Man, that's going to be super feat heavy on a class that's already stat hungry.

It seems to me that you have meaningful and diverse choices right here, choosing between some very good options.

(Also, advantage while bloodied is actually mediocre because almost every martial will be using a weapon mastery that provides advantage on most of their attacks—and almost every other weapon mastery isn't worth using in most circumstances even if you have auto-advantage.)

Unless the Martial in question is Push Mastery for other kinds of shinanigans; I know some people that are using Pike with Polearm Mastery for consistent Reaction attacks.

Advantage is easy to get, but its not something we should assume is coming from Mastery specifically. If you have a second source of Advantage generation, that leaves you open to use something other than Topple or Vex for more shinanigans.

 

[Blue]

The problem is that none of the feats introduced in 2024 5e actually encourage flavourful and diverse builds, because they're designed to either be better than all other choices or to be mandatory picks for certain classes.

There's no flavour in "my character choices exist purely to power-game with overpowered character options". If you have Cold Caster or Grappler on an Elements Monk, then I'm going to know there's zero choices you have made for your character that weren't entirely about optimization.

So if an elements monk takes grappler, then you know it's not in the slightest bit for flavor? For how they see the monk they want to play. Not even a tiny bit? Because that's what the word "entirely" means in your "entirely about optimization", that it can only be 0% flavor, only 100% because they wish to optimize.

That's a rather absolutist view.

 

[Horwath]

The problem is that none of the feats introduced in 2024 5e actually encourage flavourful and diverse builds, because they're designed to either be better than all other choices or to be mandatory picks for certain classes.

There's no flavour in "my character choices exist purely to power-game with overpowered character options". If you have Cold Caster or Grappler on an Elements Monk, then I'm going to know there's zero choices you have made for your character that weren't entirely about optimization.

then, if you want non-optimization, add 3 slots for feats that you thing are not powerful, remove +1 ASI that goes with that feat(if any), and have 3 of those slots at levels 1,3 and 5.

then players can have both.

or all monks need to take Chef feat so they appear that players are "not optimizing"?

 

[eclair~]

These are both flavorful sets of Feats that encourage a diversity of 'build' and of story.

It's one of my favorite things about the Realms books for 2024 -- they do encourage playable non-optimal strategies rather than numbers go brrrrr

Yet you haven't suggested any sort of build.

Almost all of the Emerald Enclave feat benefits provide effects that Druids and Rangers already have access to through their spells. The specific spells these feats provide can be ritual-casted. A Druid or Ranger that takes these feats gains no meaningful benefit that their class doesn't already have access to.

Conversely, you can get permanent damage reduction from magic, the ability to BA-cast a cantrip, to significantly boost the damage of your spells, and to bypass resistance so that you can make use of your other benefits much more often.

One of these makes the build it is meant for much, much more powerful than the same build not making use of the feats. The other adds next to nothing. One set of these feats will be on every radiant-focused caster. The other will be used by almost no one, including the classes it is supposedly meant for.

 

[eclair~]

So if an elements monk takes grappler, then you know it's not in the slightest bit for flavor? For how they see the monk they want to play. Not even a tiny bit? Because that's what the word "entirely" means in your "entirely about optimization", that it can only be 0% flavor, only 100% because they wish to optimize.

That's a rather absolutist view.

You say this, but I haven't come across one single take on the Elements Monk that doesn't acknowledge that abusing grappling is the main draw of the subclass. It's an extremely weak and bland subclass unless you build around abusing grappling.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

Yes. I think the Emerald Enclave feats will have flavorful suggestions related to druid familiars and ranger companions. Scouting pets is still considered good, yeah? The origin feat is bad, but I don't really consider them to be huge game defining abilities in the first place.

Harper feats are only bad because Help is bad - it needs to be a Bonus Action instead of Action. There's a reason why D&D developed Healing Word and turned potion use as bonus actions. In that case, though, they're actually rather good feats. Arguably too good, if you consider the at-will granting of Disadvantage on spell saves OP.

In fact, you could almost see them as part of some kind of ... commander class. Something about being a lord of war or something...

Okay, joking aside, if I was going to make a good banneret / warlord option, bonus-action Help is going on the menu, and absolutely using these feats. Remaking the Mastermind Rogue is on the menu. I've seen homebrew bards with Help as a BI. There's more potential to mix and match. Maybe we'll see new Weapon Masteries at some point that work like the Help action.


Okay, so the Elemental Monk is expected to abuse Cold Caster AND Grappler now? Man, that's going to be super feat heavy on a class that's already stat hungry.

It seems to me that you have meaningful and diverse choices right here, choosing between some very good options.

Unless the Martial in question is Push Mastery for other kinds of shinanigans; I know some people that are using Pike with Polearm Mastery for consistent Reaction attacks.

Advantage is easy to get, but its not something we should assume is coming from Mastery specifically. If you have a second source of Advantage generation, that leaves you open to use something other than Topple or Vex for more shinanigans.

Also, "Street Justice" being another compete item for feats. Possibly, you want nothing to do with grappling? Grappling can be a suboptimal burn to if you end up fighting bigs alot... maybe you'd rather kite better?

 

[bedir than]

Almost all of the Emerald Enclave feat benefits provide effects that Druids and Rangers already have access to through their spells. The specific spells these feats provide can be ritual-casted. A Druid or Ranger that takes these feats gains no meaningful benefit that their class doesn't already have access to.

Yeah, why would you do this as someone who already gets the abilities!

A Barbarian in tune with nature and animals is an excellent story.
A Rogue-Thief using their communion with animals to help them steal is a wonderful trope without past support in 5e barring a multiclass dip.

I could see a fun way to Paladin this too. Oath of the Ancients tale connects rather well here to expand the story.

 

[Remathilis]

Ever since Astarion's dropped, I've been looking at having a dhampir with love bites and treacherous allure and then pick either glamour bard or enchanter wizard and basically use the charmed condition to get advantage constantly. There is probably better ways to do that, but this seems so fun.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

The problem is that none of the feats introduced in 2024 5e actually encourage flavourful and diverse builds, because they're designed to either be better than all other choices or to be mandatory picks for certain classes.

There's no flavour in "my character choices exist purely to power-game with overpowered character options". If you have Cold Caster or Grappler on an Elements Monk, then I'm going to know there's zero choices you have made for your character that weren't entirely about optimization.

I dunno, I actually felt inspired with the two builds I proposed in this thread and personally I think Cold Caster works better on Open Hand Monk with 3 levels in Winter Walker because, well, you need to have something to use with these penalties.

On another thing, I finally found a good class to pick for the Purple Dragon Rook/Commandant/Boon of bloodshet build combo - Bladesinger Wizard. If only because out of all melee classes this one WILL be bloodied the most. And the image of a nerd beating enemies while bruised and battered is appealing to me.