D&D 5E To feats or not to feats...

[Cortrillion]

So the feat system in dnd 5ed. as most of you have noticed I'm sure, is completely out of balance. Lets consider for example the two feats; Heavy armor mastery and Medium armor mastery. The first is just about the best feat in the game, 3 damage reduction from almost all melee combat hits, really powerful, maybe even "overpowerd". Then look at medium armor mastery, +1 ac IF you already have 16 dex. or higher, and no disadvantage on stealth rolls when using medium armor, but only 2 types of medium armor even confers a disadvantage to stealth rolls. But it gets worse, heavy armor mastery also adds +1 str. the medium armor mastery doesn't. And lastly of cause, lets look at light armor mastery... It doesn't exist...

So, how do you guys get around this, do you just not use feats. Or are you okay with some players stacking all the crazy unbalanced feats on top of each other, when other players don't have access to the same type of powercreep.

Fx. a paladin with Heavy armor mastery, Polearm mastery, Great weapon mastery and sentinel, this isn't even bad roll-play, all of it fits well with a holy knight type character. Put on the other side a viking type fighter, Shield mastery.... and maybe medium armor mastery, he is in chain mail after all, he isn't stealthy and he has 14 dex. since he is a warrior, okay then what about... one handed weapon mastery(non existent), charger (really bad but hay..) ok i'm out of ideas. Maybe keen mind so he always know where north is...

My problem is, since we only have the "early access" to Dnd 5ed. We are in need of a lot of patches... or maybe house rules. What do you guys do?

 

[Aribar]

Every edition of D&D with feats have had tons of poorly written or poorly designed feats, either because they were necessary for game math to work (4E's Expertise feats), outright bad (3E's Toughness), or just hilariously broken (3E's Natural Spell). I just roll with it and take the bad parts with the good if I play D&D. I just ask my players to not be jerks about it that always overshadow the other players or break encounters.

 

[S_Dalsgaard]

As has been discussed before, some of the feats are a bit overpowered in some circumstances, but with a few exceptions they seem okay. As for medium vs. heavy armor mastery, +1 to AC is pretty good and if you intend to run around in medium armor, you should consider getting at least a 16 Dex anyway.

At our table we use standard array/point buy and no variant humans, so we generally don't have PCs running around with four feats, even at fairly high levels, as at least two of the first three ASI/feats choices go to stats.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

So, how do you guys get around this, do you just not use feats. Or are you okay with some players stacking all the crazy unbalanced feats on top of each other, when other players don't have access to the same type of powercreep.

Fx. a paladin with Heavy armor mastery, Polearm mastery, Great weapon mastery and sentinel, this isn't even bad roll-play, all of it fits well with a holy knight type character.

That's a 16th level character that got no increase to ability scores (except for 1 point in Strength from heavy armor mastery). If you're playing a human and using point-buy (which I think most people should), having only 17 Str at that point is bad, specially if you're counting on great weapon mastery to increase your damage.

Feats are fine. Some of them are stronger, others are weaker, but fine overall. Mitigating 3 damage when a Nalfeshnee (at CR 13) is biting for 32 is not that much. I hope people will eventually understand that the game is much better when played than when they just evaluate it in abstract.

 

[Shiroiken]

IMO, it's not that some feats are OP, but that others are too damn weak. Medium Armor Mastery is one of the worst in the game, not because the benefits aren't good (which they aren't), but because you'd never want to build a character to use it (i.e. use Medium Armor with 16 Dex before taking the feat). Another god awful one is Savage Attacker (which had potential, but they limited it to 1/turn). Linguist is also weak IMO, because you can learn languages with down time, assuming you game has such.

 

[Delandel]

Heavy Armor feat definitely seems too good early on. It nullifies the damage of your average early game baddies, goblins kobolds zombies etc. I think if your entire party had this it would be problematic, but if its just one dude its not so bad because he's not the only one that will be attacked. In fact, if I was a kobold with a slingshot, I'd probably be aiming my rocks at the squishy person in a robe, not the one in bulky armor. Also it scales very poorly. Mid and late game the monsters are doing way more damage per hit and ignoring 3 is actually weak.

For me, the two problematic feats are Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter. The damage increase from these feats are absurd. In theory, -5 to hit for +10 damage is a worthy trade, but in practice with how easily a characters +hit scales up versus how slow monster AC climbs, it quickly becomes a no brainer to abuse. The result is an enormous increase in damage output, but monster HP isn't calculated with feats in mind. The result is that monsters are killed way faster than intended.

Not just that but these two feats greatly outpace alternative damage options. GWM is the biggest reason why two weapon fighting can't compete.

I still allow everything in my games because even these overpowered feats don't break the game. I still wish they did a better job at balancing though.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I reject the premise of the question. Almost every feat has a good use for certain characters. I have taken or can imagine taking med armour master for
* dex-based fighter (see esp. with the Mariner fighting style in the recent extra materials)
* ranger
* dex-based Paladin
* nature or light or trickery cleric
* any armour-wearing barbarian.
The feat has a clear place in the game, and is a big help to some character builds.

Sure, some feats seem weak or boring (to me), but I do not believe that problem is anywhere near as bad as you describe that fixes or patches are required. (In terms of overpowered feats, I understand the arguments about the -5/+10 ones; that's they only ones I think might need adjustment, but I have not seen it abused in our games, despite the math.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Part of what makes Heavy Armor Mastery so good is that it works on each attack when a Multiattack is coming your way. A SIGNIFICANT number of monsters rely on multiattack to do the heavy lifting of melee damage for them. For a critter with 3 or 4 attacks that they use in multiattack, that DR 3 just became DR 9 or DR 12.

But +1 AC is at least as good, and even better when facing off against monsters that rely on one hard hit. AC is hard to come by, and never becomes useless - high-level monsters aren't hitting much more often than low-level monsters.

Most feats are fine unless you've got some major twinks who abuse -5/+10.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't worry about it. Anything that is an issue can be changed as necessary. If I don't like it, I don't allow it or I adjust it so I do.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Our first game ever...no Feats. Our second mini-campaign. No Feats again. Our third, and current, we decided to try Feats. Like blaming your flatulence on an old gypsy lady walking by...big...MISTAKE! (virtual cookie to those who get that reference).

The *moment* I said "OK, we'll give Feats a shot", there were unbalancing issues. The party was all 1st level. There was a Wyr (think lizard-man), a pair of Cu'Lain (think 10" tall fairies) and a Human (think female basketball player). The human, a Thief, took Crossbow Expert. POOF! She was suddenly doing more damage than the Wyr was....and he was a 18 Str behemoth-sized Paladin. She wan't doing more damage only in some situations...it was, literally, almost every single round. If she got to use her Sneak Attack? She was doing double what anyone else in the group could put out.

This fourth mini-campaign (yeah, we try a lot of different campaigns until one "sticks"), I initially said No feats. But, seeing as I wanted to get the "full 5e experience", decided to use them anyway...with the caveat that I'd happily re-balance encounters if needed because of Feat choices.

So far...it's not making a HUGE difference. But I think that's because the players have taken Feats that fit the character rather than 'buff up' the character. Probably has something to do with me outright saying Don't take a Feat to get tougher...it won't work; if you can do +10 damage, I'll just give monsters you fight more hp; so don't bother playing the numbers-game. It will be a waste of your time. And, lo and behold, nobody has taken any of the "power feats". Every character has a feat that 'fits' with the character concept, as opposed to taking a feat because if you don't, you suddenly suck compared to everyone else in the party.

My next campaign? No Feats as a default. Exceptions may be made, but they will be available only on a case by case, story based, RP'ing-centric, basis. Kind like how the "epic level bonuses" things in the DMG are given out. Someone with a Feat, PC or NPC, will be a rare individual, gifted with unnatural skill or secret training. For example, something like "Only the Stone Knights of the Hidden Mountain are trained in the secret art of the Stone Root Stances. It is said that they can turn what would be a deadly hit into a mere scratch when they wear their sacred Grey Plate armor" (Feat: Heavy Armor Mastery). This adds a lot of flavour, and also makes Feats actually feel "special".

^_^

Paul L. Ming