D&D 5E Unearthed Arcana: 16 New Feats

"Today’s Unearthed Arcana presents a selection of new feats for Dungeons & Dragons. Each feat offers a way to become better at something or to gain a whole new ability."

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The feats include Artificer Initiate, Chef, Crusher, Eldritch Adept, Fey Touched, Fighting Initiate, Gunner, Metamagic Adept, Poisoner, Piercer, Practiced Expert, Shadow Touched, Shield Training, Slasher, Tandem Tactician, and Tracker.

 

[Ashrym]

Expertise in brewer's supplies makes hitting the 20 DC to ignore the effects of alcohol a lot easier.

XGtE gives some examples. It's more a creativity issue than a system issue. If a PC isn't taking an action with the tools that might trigger a check that's on the player. If the DM never calls for a check that's his or her perogative but still on the DM.

The real issue there is players don't always have an idea what they might try.

 

[Minigiant]

I agree, and without any real need to roll, expertise in chef's tools wouldn't even really be useful.

Maybe you could add something where it gives expertise and then there is an ability you can roll, making that prof vs expertise matter, but I don't know what it could be.

There are example tasks and their DCs for using every tool in XGTE.

DC 10 to prepare a typical meal or duplicate one.

Hell, XTGE already lets you increase HP gained vis HD on short rest with cooks utensils.
Chef is the upgrade.

That's my point. You could easily go in the XGTE and upgrade half the stuff there into a feat

Fletcher
You have learned to craft arrows arrows, bolts, and darts of high quality. You gain the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain proficiency with woodcarver's tools if you don’t already have it.
• With one hour of work or when you finish a long rest, you may modify up to twenty arrows or crossbow bolts using woodcarver's tools. Ranged attacks with modified ammunition do not have disadvantage at long range and can always be recovered after battle when expended. When you modifiy a piece of ammunition, you can change the damage type when fired with it to bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing.
• With one hour of work using woodcarver''s tools and expending 50 gp worth of materials, you can create a masterwork dart. The range of this dart is (30/120)

^is a underpowered example but you get the premise

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Outside of thieves tools for disabling stuff, you don't really roll when you use tools.

I imagine they are referring to the fact that in XGTE proficiency in a tool gives advantage on related skill checks.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Tools don't give advantage to rolls they are related too?

Per RAW, they only grant advantage if you have the proficiency in the skill (at least, that is how I remember the Xanathar rules reading)

But, even deeper than that, people are less likely to think about their tools if there isn't a time when they are specifically called out. Herbalism giving advantages to survival and medicine checks makes perfect sense, but people are less likely to think of their herbalism kit if they are looking at their skills.

And, since it only grants advantage, it doesn't let you do anything new. Which feels strange.

The real issue there is players don't always have an idea what they might try.

Exactly, Xanathar's is a great starting point, but most players and DMs I've talked to didn't even know there were tool rules in it to look for, let alone new what those rules were.

There are example tasks and their DCs for using every tool in XGTE.

DC 10 to prepare a typical meal or duplicate one.

Hell, XTGE already lets you increase HP gained vis HD on short rest with cooks utensils.
Chef is the upgrade.

That's my point. You could easily go in the XGTE and upgrade half the stuff there into a feat

Fletcher
You have learned to craft arrows arrows, bolts, and darts of high quality. You gain the following benefits:

• Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• You gain proficiency with woodcarver's tools if you don’t already have it.
• With one hour of work or when you finish a long rest, you may modify up to twenty arrows or crossbow bolts using woodcarver's tools. Ranged attacks with modified ammunition do not have disadvantage at long range and can always be recovered after battle when expended. When you modifiy a piece of ammunition, you can change the damage type when fired with it to bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing.
• With one hour of work using woodcarver''s tools and expending 50 gp worth of materials, you can create a masterwork dart. The range of this dart is (30/120)

^is a underpowered example but you get the premise

Right, DC 10 to make a basic meal.

Without chef's tools, 50/50, with prof and a +2 wis? 75% success?

At that point, where does expertise get you? It is a DC 10. And, there is some good stuff in Xanathar's, I love it, but I don't always feel like it is robust enough by itself. For example, advantage on a history check to assess a culture's eating habits? That isn't going to come up naturally.

 

[bedir than]

I imagine they are referring to the fact that in XGTE proficiency in a tool gives advantage on related skill checks.

So much of what takes Tools from cool background information into dice-powered gaming is in Xanathar's. It's a shame.
Players have 0-7 of these from creation, and most of them don't know what it means

 

[Minigiant]

Right, DC 10 to make a basic meal.

Without chef's tools, 50/50, with prof and a +2 wis? 75% success?

At that point, where does expertise get you? It is a DC 10. And, there is some good stuff in Xanathar's, I love it, but I don't always feel like it is robust enough by itself. For example, advantage on a history check to assess a culture's eating habits? That isn't going to come up naturally.

Well I wouldn't expect a good chance of cooking without the utensils needed to make the meal.
Cooking a stew without a pot and spoon is gonna be a tossup.

An actual chef with expertise and +2 ability bonus is rocking a +6. is making that check 80%. 97% if the DM states they have advantage to it.

And as a DM, I'd only make a chef NPC or PC roll at all if making the meal has a degree of difficulty, distraction, or unfamiliarity at all.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

One design objective in these feats is they are good for the class they are based on as well as other classes. This is almost completely useless for a monk to take since it gives stuff they get automatically.

That's why I included increasing the damage dice for a character that already has damage dice for unarmed strikes.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Well I wouldn't expect a good chance of cooking without the utensils needed to make the meal.
Cooking a stew without a pot and spoon is gonna be a tossup.

Right, I was talking about without the proficiency

And as a DM, I'd only make a chef NPC or PC roll at all if making the meal has a degree of difficulty, distraction, or unfamiliarity at all.

Right, and that means that about 85% to 90% of the time, there is no roll.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I do prefer the damage at 1d4 for my suggested feat and adding a not-ridiculous-but-useful rider to a successful hit, like denying reactions to the target for a turn.

Ultimately, it might just be easier to add a +1 Dex to it with it's 1d4 damage (or extra 1d6 for a Rogue) and call it a feat.

Isn't the average damage increase from 1d4 to 1d6 1 point? Is that really that big a difference?

 

[Ashrym]

For example, advantage on a history check to assess a culture's eating habits?

Seeing the remains of a meal to realize it's historically a delicacy in a certain region gives a clue where to travel next, for example.