D&D 5E New Feats Survey!

[Parmandur]

There's also the question of how you count Ravenloft. I've excluded it, but we have a small Ravenloft campaign (3 PCs), and none of them have Feats, but all of them have Supernatural Gifts or whatever they're called, which the DM was willing to allow to be swapped for Feats, but no-one made that choice.

I mean, who designed the Ravenloft Dark Gifts, based on the data in question? The same guy who did the Theros Supernatural Gifts, come to think of it, think his name rhymes with "Heremey Bawford"...

I wouldn't be surprised in the next take includes something like those as a core option, if people liked them in Theros, Strixhaven, and Ravenloft.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, who designed the Ravenloft Dark Gifts, based on the data in question? The same guy who did the Theros Supernatural Gifts, come to think of it, think his name rhymes with "Heremey Bawford"...

I wouldn't be surprised in the next take includes something like those as a core option, if people liked them in Theros, Strixhaven, and Ravenloft.

That's precisely my point. Those can be exchanged for Feats, and they're a Level 1 feature. They're a course-correction, imho. WotC realized people did like Feats and similar character customization (that wasn't race/class/background - and honestly background is terribly implemented in 5E, very weak), but they'd manufactured a situation where players didn't have access to it, in practical terms.

And yes I agree I'd be very surprised if something like them isn't built into DND2024.

 

[Maxperson]

He did not dive into specifics, but he was countering the narrative that people playing the game make choices based on power optimization:

"Many players love the customization possible with feats, but a larger group of players is happy to make characters without feats."

That sounds like while the no feat group is larger, the pro feat group is also very large. I'd guess from that statement that somewhere between 55% and 65% don't use feats.

 

[Parmandur]

Exactly. Reading "ASIs are extremely competitive with Feats and typically seen as superior" as "People don't want Feats" isn't a rational approach.

People absolutely do care though. The main reason, at least anecdotally, I've seen for people not picking Feats is that they perceive ASIs as "better" mechanically. At least up until they get a 20 in their main stat and find out it can't go any higher. People like the idea of Feats. But 5E carefully crafted a situation where they were put in competition with something both easier to deal with, and often more powerful, so obviously they lose.

I've heard countless players in 5E complain that they'd like to get a Feat, but because PCs don't start with a Feat (except they kind of do in Theros and Ravenloft - and Strixhaven?) by default they can't have one, and typically a lot of players don't feel like can drop the L4 or L8 ASIs into Feats either (because that's usually +2 main stat in both cases, or +2, then +1/+1).

If it's correct that Strixhaven continues the trend of "special power or Feat at L1" which Theros and Ravenloft had, I expect we'll see the same in DND2024's default setup, perhaps either just with Feats, or with some "generic" special powers and Feats to choose from.

Strixhaven gives each a player a free Feat with their Background, and the new Feats are pretty cool, Class role bending stuff (without being OP). If Feats were more like the recent books, and not in competition with ASI, they might be tolerable.

My experience has been people's eyes glazing over when they started reading the Feats page, followed by relief when they were told they didn't have to read all of that if they just boosted their stats. And in 3E, it was just having people's eyes glaze over and stay that way before mysteriously not coming back....

 

[Parmandur]

That's precisely my point. Those can be exchanged for Feats, and they're a Level 1 feature. They're a course-correction, imho. WotC realized people did like Feats and similar character customization (that wasn't race/class/background - and honestly background is terribly implemented in 5E, very weak), but they'd manufactured a situation where players didn't have access to it, in practical terms.

And yes I agree I'd be very surprised if something like them isn't built into DND2024.

I think Strixhaven points the way towards a solution killing two birds with one stone: make Feats a component of Background, with each Background getting a selection of default Feats to choose from.

 

[LordEntrails]

ASIs are too rare to skip raising an ability score for a feat that seems cool but winds up being only occasionally useful, if that.

For you, some some others. But not for everyone.

I've never taken an ASI. It's not that I don't have experience, I just find ASIs boring. They tell very little story.

Yep, this I agree with.

How many monsters are going to die sooner because I do 5% more damage in a round? Less than are going to make a difference in most combats. Sure, increasing your DPR by 1 (or whatever) sounds great, but from my experience really doesn't make a difference in play. I know myself as a DM I end up adjusting the encounters/NPCs anyway. If the party does X+10% DPR, I tend to adjust NPC hit points or number of creatures or whatever to keep combat fun for the players.

It is, to me, so much more interesting and fun to do things I can't do without a feat. Sure, maybe I don't use the feat every combat, but its something I can't do without a feat. It's more fun. I'm glad they are optional, that way folks who care more about DPR than options can take ASI's, and those who care more about options than DPR can take Feats.

 

[Parmandur]

"Many players love the customization possible with feats, but a larger group of players is happy to make characters without feats."

That sounds like while the no feat group is larger, the pro feat group is also very large. I'd guess from that statement that somewhere between 55% and 65% don't use feats.

Yeah, that sounds about right: the numbers from D&D Beyond, filtered for active characters with access to all of the books, showed a 2:1 split against Feats (higher at lower Levels, then the minority who played high level liked Feats too), which may or may not be representative, but seems about right. A large minority likes Feats, and WotC wants to service everyone.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Strixhaven gives each a player a free Feat with their Background, and the new Feats are pretty cool, Class role bending stuff (without being OP). If Feats were more like the recent books, and not in competition with ASI, they might be tolerable.

My experience has been people's eyes glazing over when they started reading the Feats page, followed by relief when they were told they didn't have to read all of that if they just boosted their stats. And in 3E, it was just having people's eyes glaze over and stay that way before mysteriously not coming back....

I think the big problem with Feats that you're describing here is really organisation and presentation.

I mean, yeah some are just boring, but the issue of having to read through a bunch of totally irrelevant Feats to pick out the few that might be relevant? That's always sucked. And on top of that, you have idiocy like Crossbow Expert being more used by people who use spells than Crossbows, which brings back bad memories of earlier editions and trying to figure out horrible corner-case usages of Feats, some of which were fairly clutch in practical terms.

If they just reorganised Feats under like "Magic" "Fighting" and "Skills" and maybe "Misc/Other" (lol), I think 75% of the eye-glazing would stop right there.

Add in yes, some more exciting and bizarre Feats, and absolutely that helps stop the eye-glazing. Delete some boring Feats, and make the ways to gain proficiencies/skills/languages without messing with Feats a lot more obvious and player-facing than they already are, and we'd be seriously cooking with gas. Also if you see a Crossbow Expert situation, either change it so the corner-case thing can't happen, or make a magical equivalent of it or whatever.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah, that sounds about right: the numbers from D&D Beyond, filtered for active characters with access to all of the books, showed a 2:1 split against Feats (higher at lower Levels, then the minority who played high level liked Feats too), which may or may not be representative, but seems about right. A large minority likes Feats, and WotC wants to service everyone.

I genuinely don't understand your rhetoric here.

"Likes" is disingenuous because it implies the others dislike them. And you're not a poster I associate with disingenuous arguments, so why do you keep going back to that? You must realize it's incorrect at this point. "Use", sure. "Likes" we dunno. I guess you can say that "at a minimum", a large minority "likes" Feats, but we don't know the feelings of people who don't use them.

The fact that lower-level character are less likely to have Feats shows (or at least incredibly strongly suggests that) "liking" Feats isn't the primary issue, rather competition with ASIs is.

Focusing solely on characters L12 and above would be more interesting in terms of statistics for seeing whether people "like" Feats. I don't have those figures available myself though. There are reasonable arguments that maybe people who play at high levels are unrepresentative freaks (lol) but that aside you could make a much more genuine analysis that way.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Never seen point buy used, but using that optional rule would kill Feats as an option if they were on the table: improving Spell DCs, AC, or attack modifier is tremendous.

The one time I played a game where the DM allowed Feats, I was planning to get one by choosing a Variant Himan, but then I rolled all odd numbers, and getting better at everything was too attractive. So nobody chose a Feat that game.

Yeah I just have played a lot and run a lot and never seen a point or two of difference actually matter all that much.

I will say tho, that if I am planning a very MAD build, I’ll look at ASIs. Even then, only 1, to catch up a third stat to my other two higher stats.