So the feat system in dnd 5ed. as most of you have noticed I'm sure, is completely out of balance.
I knew this was going to be fun the moment I saw this sentence. Making a statement, then throwing around phrases like "as most of you have noticed" doesn't make it any more true. Resorting to massive hyperbole like "completely out of balance" sets the stage for what better be a VERY compelling argument.
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".
Okay. Stop. Right there. I have a guy in the party I DM with HAM and to argue that it's "overpowerd" is an enormous stretch. IMC it's handy, but it doesn't scale well at all as you level up and fight creatures with progressively more powerful attacks. I would never ever say that it's "about the best feat in the game" unless your campaign never progresses beyond the first tier or encounter composition gravitates solely towards hordes vs a smaller number of tougher creatures.
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.
Coincidentally, one of these two types that confer disadvantage is the best in slot. Many characters wearing medium armor either lack the strength for heavy armor (and therefore wouldn't benefit from HAM) or care a great deal about stealth,
otherwise they would be wearing better armor. Add in +1 AC and that's going to help against a greater
variety of attacks than a piddling amount of resistance to non-magical melee attacks. Like, I don't know... magical attacks and spells? AC comes into play on every single attack roll. HAM comes into play only after you've been hit and only if you've been hit by a non-magical melee weapon attack.
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.
First, I consider the value of a feat over the course of the entire campaign and the wide variety of encounters I pit my players against. Then, with that perspective, I reach the conclusion that the feat isn't "crazy unbalanced" and move on with my game.
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...
Wow. Talk about cherry-picking a horrible example. The Viking is a barbarian. He takes the bear totem. He now takes half damage from every non-psychic attack. I guarantee he will outlast your paladin in virtually every single 2nd or 3rd tier melee encounter in the game unless, as I mentioned, you are fighting a horde of weaker foes. He takes GWM and doesn't select any other feats because he's interested in ASIs instead of crappy feats.
Yes. I admit, some feats are better than others. My experience in actual gameplay has demonstrated that they are not, however, "crazy unbalanced", or "overpowerd" and in many cases, it's a better choice to take the ASI instead of a feat.
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?
No. This isn't the "early access" to D&D 5e. That would be D&D Next, a roughly two-year playtest involving more than a hundred thousand players across the globe. These rules are the culmination of months and months of play testing, design, and balancing on a larger scale than you and your friends eyeballing feats during your weekly game. They are not "early access" or "beta", or "in need of a lot of patches", they are the final rules for this edition. Errata will be released, but only to clarify existing rules, not to change or re-balance them.
Now, I probably came off pretty harsh and condescending, but I only do so because, six months ago, I WAS IN YOUR SHOES SAYING THE SAME KINDS OF THINGS.
How did I deal with these "issues"?
I kept playing the game without implementing any of my own rules. The longer I play it, the more I realize these "sky is falling" perspectives so popular amongst certain segments here on ENworld are utterly divorced from actual gameplay reality. And yes, I play with a large number of power gamers, so this isn't a case where my players are too stupid to recognize optimal builds. It's that the difference between "optimal" and "sub-optimal" is much much narrower in this edition than most seem prepared to admit. And very very often a character that is suboptimal is able to make up for it with utility in non-combat game pillars.
Even a feat that is admittedly quite powerful, like GWM, compared to the totally suboptimal TWF approach... The difference is marginal. It's not enough of a difference that I can't counter the "power creep" by throwing in another melee grunt into the encounter and have them focus on the GWM fighter. Or maybe two more at higher levels, or whatever. It literally makes no difference at my table in actual gameplay terms.
Personal recommendations, if you DM:
- Use point buy with your players. Makes it less likely that they'll take feats since ASIs are more needed. I wish I had done this and will only do point buy in all future campaigns.
- Play the game through at least one full campaign through the first three tiers (up to level 16) before making a final verdict on ANY rule. This is what I am doing right now. Many of the issues I spotted early on became less of an issue with time and experience.
- Deploy interesting and varied encounters at your party using a mix of monsters, tactics, and terrain. HAM is less useful when you're fighting a spellcaster. Look online for AngryDM's advice for building interesting combat encounters (unfortunately I think he may have moved this article behind a paywall? But it really helped me) I honestly feel that 90% of reported game balance issues on these boards would be resolved if more DMs put a bit more effort into diversifying this part of gameplay.
- Finally, if all else fails, amp up the difficulty of your combats. I won't go into the specifics of why, as this post is already long enough, but I have found that the disparity in power between party members matters less and less when all of them are more focused on fighting for their lives and continued survival. Something about getting ambushed by a pack of beholders makes the beastmaster and the great weapon fighter less likely to engage in a dick-measuring DPR contest and more likely to run away like scared little bitches. Instead of complaining about the rules, they'll complain about you, as a DM. I'm willing to accept that flak if it means everyone has a good time, as I'm not particularly insecure about my DMing ability.
- Last Resort: Magic Item Distribution: If, somehow, there is such an obvious power difference that none of the above work and the players are actually complaining about it... the easiest solution at this point is to simply hold back on magic items for the OP character. This is far easier than implementing a house rule that may have unforeseen consequences at higher levels. I did this with my party's sharpshooter ranger; most party members had a primary magic weapon by 6th level or so, whereas he had no magical longbow and a magic rapier. He didn't complain because he did insane damage against most creatures and he could still hurt mundane-resistant creatures. Eventually I realized he wasn't as overpowered as I thought at first and I gave him a +1 longbow. You could do the opposite, give the "weak" party members more magic items, but I've found that it's easier to hold off on giving out a magic item to an OP character than to take one away from an underpowered character later when you realize you were wrong.
Hope this helps.
