D&D General The Death of DIP feats...

[Remathilis]

Ok, let's start by defining what a DIP feat is. A Dip feat is a feat that grants a use of a specific class feature to a character who doesn't get it, or an additional use for a character that does. It can be used in lieu of multi classing to get certain class abilities. Though never spelled out as such, the following feats could be considered Dip feats.

Martial Adept (superiority dice/maneuvers)
Metamagic Adept (sorcery points/metamagic)
Eldritch Adept (invocations)
Fighting Initiate (fighting style)
Weapon Master (weapon mastery)

You can argue that Magic Initiate and other caster feats that grant spell prepared count, but since spellcasting is so big and ubiquitous it's a different thing altogether. I'm leaving it and all the feats that grant spells out for now.

I want to address this in reverse order. Weapon Master is new to 2024, granting a single mastery to a character. Most weapon users will already have this though, and an extra weapon rarely helps. It's only really useful for casters who want to go into a warrior route (bladelocks and warpriests) or weapon-using monks.

Fighting Initiate works funky now that fighting styles are also feats, one with a prerequisite of "have to be able to use fighting styles." It's not clear if the feat also gives you a fighting style feat as well, or is it now just a tax to take the other feats. I'm going to leave that alone for not except to say it's not overly clear how the old feat works with the new.

That leaves the three Adept feats. Interestingly, martial adept was in the 2014 PHB and is one of the few feats that didn't make it to 2024. And Eldritch Adept currently can't even take most of the invocations in the 24 PHB due to the "prerequisite restriction" on the feat (it can get the three pacts, Armor of Shadows and Eldritch Mind, far less than it could get using 2014). Metamagic Adept still works fine, but it was always so narrow that it was difficult to use (having 2 sorcery points you can't use for anything else). Further, both of these feats were passed over when most of Tasha's feats made it into the PHB. I believe that is intentional.

So what does this all mean? I think WotC has decided to abandon this style of feat design. I can speculate as to why. First, it tried to give other characters a taste of a class's toys, but they were so restricted that they didn't seem worth it. Further, they were almost feat taxes for characters who did get those features, especially for how starved battle masters and sorcerers were for their respective resources. In short, I think Dip feats are going to end up in the bin with racial feats in the "convert from 2014 if you want" but I don't imagine any of them are getting updates nor will new ones be added.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Fighting Initiate works funky now that fighting styles are also feats, one with a prerequisite of "have to be able to use fighting styles." It's not clear if the feat also gives you a fighting style feat as well, or is it now just a tax to take the other feats. I'm going to leave that alone for not except to say it's not overly clear how the old feat works with the new.

I have thoughts on your point generally, but I'll start with this, since I do not see how this is at all funky or unclear.

If you play with a DM that allows you to take the "Fighting Initiate" Feat from Tasha's, then taking the feat at 4th level or above gives you the ability to choose any of the 2024 fighting styles (but no ASI).

What other reading is plausible?

 

[Kobold Stew]

As for the general point: I suspect all of these feats were omitted because (a) they weren't going to be origin feats, and (b) if ported over as is, they couldn't simply add +1 ASI, which all the general feats offer, in one form or another (I'm not saying that's my position, but it's the position that I think can reasonably be imputed to the designers). They made a choice not to present a weaker version of the ability.

They made a choice to limit the number of feats (and when counting the feats, they bloomed the numbers to make it sound exciting, when it was clear that they were really not expanding things very much at all, as discussed here.)

If you want them as written, at level 4+ but without an ASI, I suspect most DMs would let you.

Going forward? You may be right that we won't see them soon. For those that want them, perfectly viable if slightly underpowered options already exist.

 

[Charlaquin]

In short, I think Dip feats are going to end up in the bin with racial feats in the "convert from 2014 if you want" but I don't imagine any of them are getting updates nor will new ones be added.

I don’t know about dip feats, but personally I love the species feats as origin feat options. Remove the ability score increase from any that have them, and offer that players can choose to take an origin Feat from their species instead of their background if they want to.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I don’t know about dip feats, but personally I love the species feats as origin feat options. Remove the ability score increase from any that have them, and offer that players can choose to take an origin Feat from their species instead of their background if they want to.

Yes. This x1000.

Something like;

Elf

• dark vision
• don't sleep or age.
• Pick 2 feats from the Origin feats. The following feats are Origin feats for you: Elven Acuracy, Wood Elf Magic, Drow High Magic, High Elf Magic, Mobile or Skulker, Sharpshooter.

 

[Remathilis]

I have thoughts on your point generally, but I'll start with this, since I do not see how this is at all funky or unclear.

If you play with a DM that allows you to take the "Fighting Initiate" Feat from Tasha's, then taking the feat at 4th level or above gives you the ability to choose any of the 2024 fighting styles (but no ASI).

What other reading is plausible?

There was some confusion if Fighting Initiate actually grants you the FIghting Style of your choice or merely the option to take Fighting Style feats later. Admittedly, the second reading is unduly harsh (essentially requiring you to take two feats to get a fighting style, most of which are barely worth one) but some people tried to argue the feat doesn't grant you another feat as part of the benefit.

 

[Kobold Stew]

There was some confusion if Fighting Initiate actually grants you the FIghting Style of your choice or merely the option to take Fighting Style feats later. Admittedly, the second reading is unduly harsh (essentially requiring you to take two feats to get a fighting style, most of which are barely worth one) but some people tried to argue the feat doesn't grant you another feat as part of the benefit.

That's just silly!

 

[Minigiant]

So what does this all mean? I think WotC has decided to abandon this style of feat design. I can speculate as to why. First, it tried to give other characters a taste of a class's toys, but they were so restricted that they didn't seem worth it. Further, they were almost feat taxes for characters who did get those features, especially for how starved battle masters and sorcerers were for their respective resources. In short, I think Dip feats are going to end up in the bin with racial feats in the "convert from 2014 if you want" but I don't imagine any of them are getting updates nor will new ones be added.

It's mot that the "class dip" feats were patches to the 2014 PHB.

Martial Adept was a patch to make the 2014 Champion not boring at mid levels and to give the 2014 Battlemaster more dice. Fixed in 2024

Metamagic Adept and Eldritch Adept (invocations) were patches to sorcerer and warlock respectively.

Fighting Initiate was a patched to 2014 FS. Fixed in 2024.

The dip feats are not needed for patches. OP if updated to +1 ASI General feats.

 

[Horwath]

just add +1 ASI to those feats and your good to go.

feats were bad when Tasha's came out and with +1 they might be passable.

 

[Merlecory]

I don't think that the 2014 feats can be viewed as a patch.
In 2014, feats are optional. I would have a hard time imagining you would go to the effort to write patches to your classes, but not either or them in the base class, or at least put them in a list of options you know players will actually use.