D&D 5E Remove feats and replace as magic items

[Nebulous]

I used to do this some in 3e, but for some reason I haven't thought of doing it in 5e. I guess because the rather bland character advancement is definitely spiced up by feats.

But I was thinking today that the array of feats is so wide, and generally uneven, with broken feats on one end, and useless feats on the other that no one ever picks, with most of the good feats generally clustered in the middle, how would work if feats were removed and replaced piecemeal by the DM as magic items? Has anyone else tried this much in 5e? You still get your 4th level +2 boost, but then that sword you find, it's not a sword +1, it's a sword with the Mage Slayer feat. And that bubbly potion is a potion of Lucky feat. And that's a quiver of enchanted elven Sharpshooter arrows. You could go on and on, taking away the +1 or +2 bonus and replacing with a feat. Magic breastplate now has the heavy armor feat. Of course you can still leave the +1 bonus if you like, but I would do one or the other not both, unless it was an extraordinary rare item.

Potions of Great Weapon Master, Ring of Grappling, Cloak of the Spell Sniper.

Has anyone else tinkered with doing that and how did it work out?

 

[Magister Ludorum]

If I had to choose, I would rather replace all magic items with feats than vice versa, but in the ideal world I prefer not to do either.

 

[Nebulous]

I've never actually seen anyone take Linguist, but if you had a Headband of Intellect that did this, it might be worth attuning to.


Linguist
You have studied languages and codes, gaining the following benefits:
• Increase your Intelligence by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You learn three languages of your choice.
• You can ably create written ciphers. Others cannot decipher a code you create unless you teach it to them, they succeed on an Intelligence check (DC = your Intelligence score + your proficiency bonus), or they use magic to decipher it.

 

[Nebulous]

Ring of Toughness.

Your hit point maximum increases by an amount equal to twice your level when you gain this feat. Whenever you gain a level thereafter, your hit point maximum increases by an additional 2 hit points.

So I guess the idea is you are still limited to how many items you can attune to, but it does open up the design space of swapping out feats. Swapping your Tough ring for another ring that is cool would become a difficult choice.

 

[Nebulous]

I'm sure there are side effects I've not thought of. Balance wise.

 

[Nebulous]

Also, I don't run high level games, so I would never think how this impacts 12th-20th level characters.

 

[bedir than]

I've never actually seen anyone take Linguist, but if you had a Headband of Intellect that did this, it might be worth attuning to.


Linguist
You have studied languages and codes, gaining the following benefits:
• Increase your Intelligence by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You learn three languages of your choice.
• You can ably create written ciphers. Others cannot decipher a code you create unless you teach it to them, they succeed on an Intelligence check (DC = your Intelligence score + your proficiency bonus), or they use magic to decipher it.

I'm a former linguist and I hate the linguist feat, and yet I love it as a magic item.

Overall I think this idea works. It's a fun way to have more differentiation in characters.

 

[dave2008]

I used to do this some in 3e, but for some reason I haven't thought of doing it in 5e. I guess because the rather bland character advancement is definitely spiced up by feats.

But I was thinking today that the array of feats is so wide, and generally uneven, with broken feats on one end, and useless feats on the other that no one ever picks, with most of the good feats generally clustered in the middle, how would work if feats were removed and replaced piecemeal by the DM as magic items? Has anyone else tried this much in 5e? You still get your 4th level +2 boost, but then that sword you find, it's not a sword +1, it's a sword with the Mage Slayer feat. And that bubbly potion is a potion of Lucky feat. And that's a quiver of enchanted elven Sharpshooter arrows. You could go on and on, taking away the +1 or +2 bonus and replacing with a feat. Magic breastplate now has the heavy armor feat. Of course you can still leave the +1 bonus if you like, but I would do one or the other not both, unless it was an extraordinary rare item.

Potions of Great Weapon Master, Ring of Grappling, Cloak of the Spell Sniper.

Has anyone else tinkered with doing that and how did it work out?

That is an interesting idea, but may I make a counter proposal? Why not do away with ASIs. Instead of and ASI you have to take a feat. Then through in the UA feats:

Skill Feats
Weapon Mastery Feats

Finally, top that off with a dose of Variant Class Features and I think you are likely to have a very different gaming experience. If really want to make it interesting make stats 18 max, except if your race has a bonus to a stat, you can increase the max of that stat by the same amount.

 

[Nebulous]

That is an interesting idea, but may I make a counter proposal? Why not do away with ASIs. Instead of and ASI you have to take a feat. Then through in the UA feats:

Skill Feats
Weapon Mastery Feats

Finally, top that off with a dose of Variant Class Features and I think you are likely to have a very different gaming experience. If really want to make it interesting make stats 18 max, except if your race has a bonus to a stat, you can increase the max of that stat by the same amount.

That's all very cool stuff Dave, I haven't seen those UA articles (I don't peruse those a whole bunch) but I think I want to focus on actually swapping out feats as magic items in this thread. Have others done it, is it balanced? Not balanced? Stuff like that.

 

[Nebulous]

That is an interesting idea, but may I make a counter proposal? Why not do away with ASIs. Instead of and ASI you have to take a feat. Then through in the UA feats:

Skill Feats
Weapon Mastery Feats

Finally, top that off with a dose of Variant Class Features and I think you are likely to have a very different gaming experience. If really want to make it interesting make stats 18 max, except if your race has a bonus to a stat, you can increase the max of that stat by the same amount.

To say it another way, instead of introducing a slew of alternative UA ideas, take the core feats everyone in 5e has already playtested 6 years and see if we can retrofit them into magic items.