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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh, sorry for misinterpreting you. This all makes so much more sense to me.

No worries. Forums are an imprecise medium, but I still like them more than Twitter!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Psionics was certainly planned, and certainly dropped.

But it maybe be that non-psionics feats where always part of the plan, and there is no direct connection.

Certainly planned for something, but we don't know it was this book yet. I could very well be a Dark Sun book that they were planning it for.

 

[Pauln6]

Apples and oranges. You want a max DPS Kensei Duelling is definitely better.

Very arguably. Hexblades are good at crit fishing, and critical hits double the effect of GWF. But why not have both? A vuman hexblade is SAD, so they will be looking to pick up a second feat by level 12.
And with Fighting Adept, if they find a really good one handed weapon they can change to duelling. Can't do that with GWM.

If you only want the one manoeuvre, who cares? But chances are the pseudo-battlemaster face bard will pick up both feats.

I would certainly take both feats to try and build a Warlord. In fact, since you can't take martial adept twice, a specific feat with a choice of two manoeuvres from a limited Warlord list would get a thumbs up from me too.

I don't like the idea of retraining on a long rest in general and would be dead against it for the skill manoeuvres but as far as general fighting styles go, it's as plausible as Vancian spell casting I suppose. I'd prefer it to take 12 weeks.

Maybe merging the new feat with the weapon master feat would make that worthwhile. Three martial weapons and a fighting style isn't bad. Then add, if you already know a fighting style from another source you can retrain the fighting style granted by this feat after a long rest.

 

[Minigiant]

It's shear flexibility makes it an excellent feat to pick up early.

As we discussed in the monk thread, a monk starts off with Unarmed Fighting style, giving them 1d8 on both attacks. Then switch to duelling (with a shortsword if not a kensei) at level 5. Then switch to something else (if not a kensei) at level 11, such as Thrown Weapon, Blind Fighting or Superior Technique.

And that hexblade? They can't use a 2H sword until level 3, so they can start out with duelling for their first two levels.

That's still variant human. My point is it likely won't be a great early pick to power a concept for nonhumans outside of GW and TW warriors.

Which makes sense as Fighting Initiate feels like a very humanish feat.

 

[Azzy]

Certainly planned for something, but we don't know it was this book yet. I could very well be a Dark Sun book that they were planning it for.

I would think it's for a DS book, too. Psionics would be necessary to do that setting justice, and the 5e setting books is now one of the main ways that WotC provides player content. Even if they were toput psionics in a different book, it would also be reprinted in DS, too.

 

[Parmandur]

Not in a position to watch the whole thing right now, but this just dropped from Crawford:

 

[Azzy]

Not in a position to watch the whole thing right now, but this just dropped from Crawford:

Not in a position to watch it now, either, but thanks for sharing.

 

[Ashrym]

That sounds like punishing bad system mastery to me. Retraining rules are there for newbies.

Furthermore, Spellcasters can retraining a spell choice at level up already, so I don't see any problem extending that to Fighting styles.

I don't like it, personally, because it can create weird narratives over time when characters are retconned by retraining.

Unlearning something trained in and experienced with seems odd. That's true for martial characters or spells known.

It doesn't hurt anything mechanically and allows for fixing what wasn't working as hoped, and allows for upgrading out-leveled abilities that don't scale well. But for gaming it, sleep is a prime example of a spell typically taken and replaced because it's strong early and not later.

I don't like the idea of retraining on a long rest in general and would be dead against it for the skill manoeuvres but as far as general fighting styles go, it's as plausible as Vancian spell casting I suppose. I'd prefer it to take 12 weeks.

It's because vancian casting is less like learning a spell and more like charging up a power during the memorization process.

Neo-vancian is more like a daily retcon, but magic is easier to suspend disbelief because magic for a lot of people. It's not a big deal, mechanically, but pushes versimillitude aspects regardless of what gets retrained.

Overall, I'd rather players have the option. If they don't like the idea they won't use it, and if they are retraining then any issues I might have aren't concerning them to the point of stopping.

I don't agree with forcing my minor concerns on others because it is still a game, after all, and not significant in impact, IME.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not in a position to watch the whole thing right now, but this just dropped from Crawford:

Skimming: one point came up - it is intentional that Crusher etc work with spells/wildshape.

* Admission that Tandem Tactician might be OP.

 

[Pauln6]

I don't like it, personally, because it can create weird narratives over time when characters are retconned by retraining.

Unlearning something trained in and experienced with seems odd. That's true for martial characters or spells known.

It doesn't hurt anything mechanically and allows for fixing what wasn't working as hoped, and allows for upgrading out-leveled abilities that don't scale well. But for gaming it, sleep is a prime example of a spell typically taken and replaced because it's strong early and not later.



It's because vancian casting is less like learning a spell and more like charging up a power during the memorization process.

Neo-vancian is more like a daily retcon, but magic is easier to suspend disbelief because magic for a lot of people. It's not a big deal, mechanically, but pushes versimillitude aspects regardless of what gets retrained.

Overall, I'd rather players have the option. If they don't like the idea they won't use it, and if they are retraining then any issues I might have aren't concerning them to the point of stopping.

I don't agree with forcing my minor concerns on others because it is still a game, after all, and not significant in impact, IME.

It's the UA skill manoeuvres that break disbelief for me. They are cool and flavourful for Knights, or fighter based criminals but allowing a thug to become great at diplomacy between adventures feels a bit wrong. I have less of an issue with combat ones since experienced fighters can choose how to fight and which weapons to use on a daily basis and it gives them a chance to try new combos with their allies. Players may view it as mechanically 'unlearning' but in game, that fighter is simply choosing which technique and set pieces to use of the many that they know.