D&D 5E New Feats Survey!

[Aldarc]

Filled it in, thanks. A lot of Feats could do with a bit of tweaking one way or another. 5E has some somewhat confused ideas as to what Feats are for, with 3E-style "enabling" Feats like Charger, which absolutely should not exist under 5E's stated philosophy, a ton of Feats which aren't quite "taxes" but are 80% of the way there, and a bunch of "so weak or niche it's kind of insulting and/or a trap to newer or less system-savvy players".

This doesn't even mention the interaction between feats and ASIs or how that affects the feat progression of SAD vs. MAD classes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This doesn't even mention the interaction between feats and ASIs or how that affects the feat progression of SAD vs. MAD classes.

Yes good point, I stupidly failed to mention the ASI issue in my survey response too, hopefully others will.

 

[AtomicPope]

Beat ‘em by two minutes.

If that matters. Mods will decide.

Thunderdome!

Two posts enter! One post leaves!

 

[TerraDave]

What a hot mess.

People: please do this survey. And complain!

 

[Yaarel]

To sum my survey responses:

• I love feats!
• Rewrite all of the feats in the Players Handbook from scratch!


The design space for a feat is perfect: equivalent to a +2 ability score boost. But in hindsight most of the PH feats are unworthy of this design space. Sometimes one needs to combine two or more feats just to feel like a comparable choice.

And even the feats that are good choices, can benefit from rethinking, such as instead using the proficiency bonus in calculations so it scales better while leveling.

Fortunately, the feats in Xanathars and Tashas feel like they balance better with an ability boost. Each edition has its own gaming engine, and it takes time to realize what is powerful or not in the new system.



I forgot to mention, proficiency with all armors − light, medium, heavy, and shield (and etcetera if any) − is worth about one feat altogether.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I said that it is a bad idea to make feats compete with ASIs and that many feats are just too fiddly. I like feats that just give you some new stuff your class wouldn't otherwise get like spells or proficiencies, but a lot of other feats seem rather bloaty.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I wish they would put up a new UA as those are always good for discussion.

 

[Horwath]

too bad that there no category lower than "Very dissatisfied"

 

[Yaarel]

too bad that there no category lower than "Very dissatisfied"

Heh, for some feats, I would have used that lower rating.

 

[Oofta]

I like the idea of feats but there are only a handful I ever see used. Some are overpowered such as Sharpshooter, others are overpowered in combination Polearm Master + Sentinel, others sound good but it's too dependent on DM interpretation such as Shield Master. With Shield Master, it's kind of a pointless feat if you limit the bonus action shove until after all attacks have been resolved. Sounds great on paper when you first read it (and puts the sword-and-board on even footing with GWM and SS) but then you realize the only useful thing is the no damage on dex saves you succeed on which your strength based PC is probably going to fail anyway because there's only 2 spells that require a dex save that target an individual.

Then there are the ones that are just bad because I don't remember anyone ever taking them but they limit things that should have been part of the base rules. Grappler is a great example - I don't remember the last time a PC used grapple because it tends to be kind of pointless most of the time. But the feat implies that if my PC tackles someone trying to escape that I can't restrain them without the feat.

Hopefully some of the issues will be resolved, wouldn't be enough to get me to upgrade in and of itself but it's a start.