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.

 

[TwoSix]

Psssst, the Champion already gets two Styles...and now could get three! Ultimate Champion!

In my own game, I've house-ruled that characters with Fighting Style get every fighting style they're eligible for (although Defense is house-ruled to only work with a shield.) It doesn't come close to breaking anything, since most of the fighting styles are exclusive.

 

[Charlaquin]

They also have to balance firearms against other ranged weapons, and the loading property definitely is a strike against firearms being actually used at the table.

They do have larger damage dice though.

 

[DEFCON 1]

They all seem fine I guess... but I'm one of the people who finds half-feats to be rather pointless. I'm much more the kind of DM that prefers to do feature swaps or just hand out for free small isolated mechanics that players want/need for their characters because they are usually never worth all that much. Especially not when they would have to spend an entire feat slot or do a level dip just to get it. And on top of that... a lot of these feats are all such minor mechanical bonuses that they probably should all have been in the game to begin with. And if these abilities were worthwhile, we DMs would have already been handing them out to players for years now.

Gain proficiency in a new skill? At first it was "you can't do it"... then several years later in XGtE it was "spend 250 days and a crapton of cash and you can do it", and now several more years later it's "okay, you can do it whenever you want." Does anybody really need permission to now... six years into the game... finally be okay with granting a new skill to someone? Has it now suddenly just become okay? You weren't willing to do it before because it might break something, but now that WotC gives their thumbs up, you're gonna be all right with it? Sorry, but I suspect most of us all knew from the beginning that it was kind of dumb that no PC could ever learn a new skill and thus we've been letting players do it for years now and don't need or want them to have to spend a precious feat slot to now "allow" them to. And who out there has been prohibiting their players from letting them use their shield as a spellcasting focus if any player out there ever really cared about that sort of thing? "Nope... you can't use your shield as your focus, you have to have a rod in your backpack instead!" Really? Has that really been such a thing that they now need to make a feat to allow for it?

Personally... from the beginning I have taken the feat list in the PHB and combined bunches of them together to create full packages of like 5 to 8 minor mechanical benefits that actually have a rather constant impact on the PC who takes them and makes them feel like a different type of character... rather than just being just a worse duplicate of another class. Those things aren't feat worthy, they're just basic mechanics. And that's what I find in this UA... a whole lot of basic.

 

[DeviousQuail]

I'm pretty happy with this UA. A lot of those feats would be appreciated at my table. I particularly like the Shield Training feat as a way to get access to shields for those who don't want to MC. A rogue I played a few years back would have preferred this over taking Moderately Armored.

I also really want to build a variant human glamour bard who takes the inspiring leader, healer, and chef feats. At level 8 I will be the ultimate cheerleader/snack provider.

 

[Parmandur]

Based on the alternate class features UA added to what's here, I'm not convinced the next book will have any real theme at all. Straight XGtE 2.0. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Between the Fey/Shadow/Gun thing here, the Planar Subclasses they've tested, and what they've said about recasting how Race works n the Q4 book...a theme emerges.

 

[Parmandur]

They all seem fine I guess... but I'm one of the people who finds half-feats to be rather pointless. I'm much more the kind of DM that prefers to do feature swaps or just hand out for free small isolated mechanics that players want/need for their characters because they are usually never worth all that much. Especially not when they would have to spend an entire feat slot or do a level dip just to get it. And on top of that... a lot of these feats are all such minor mechanical bonuses that they probably should all have been in the game to begin with. And if these abilities were worthwhile, we DMs would have already been handing them out to players for years now.

Gain proficiency in a new skill? At first it was "you can't do it"... then several years later in XGtE it was "spend 250 days and a crapton of cash and you can do it", and now several more years later it's "okay, you can do it whenever you want." Does anybody really need permission to now... six years into the game... finally be okay with granting a new skill to someone? Has it now suddenly just become okay? You weren't willing to do it before because it might break something, but now that WotC gives their thumbs up, you're gonna be all right with it? Sorry, but I suspect most of us all knew from the beginning that it was kind of dumb that no PC could ever learn a new skill and thus we've been letting players do it for years now and don't need or want them to have to spend a precious feat slot to now "allow" them to. And who out there has been prohibiting their players from letting them use their shield as a spellcasting focus if any player out there ever really cared about that sort of thing? "Nope... you can't use your shield as your focus, you have to have a rod in your backpack instead!" Really? Has that really been such a thing that they now need to make a feat to allow for it?

Personally... from the beginning I have taken the feat list in the PHB and combined bunches of them together to create full packages of like 5 to 8 minor mechanical benefits that actually have a rather constant impact on the PC who takes them and makes them feel like a different type of character... rather than just being just a worse duplicate of another class. Those things aren't feat worthy, they're just basic mechanics. And that's what I find in this UA... a whole lot of basic.

Yeah, Feats are lame in concept, admittedly. If one was to use Feats, these seem OK, and less egregious than Multiclassing.

XGtE doesn't have Skill training rules, just Tool and Language training, for what it's worth.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm pretty happy with this UA. A lot of those feats would be appreciated at my table. I particularly like the Shield Training feat as a way to get access to shields for those who don't want to MC. A rogue I played a few years back would have preferred this over taking Moderately Armored.

I also really want to build a variant human glamour bard who takes the inspiring leader, healer, and chef feats. At level 8 I will be the ultimate cheerleader/snack provider.

I still want my Captain America shield throw.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I guess it would depend on the type of piercing weapon.

I can see someone pushing them back with a piercing-type polearm, but I could see the same with any polearm. Less so with a bow though. But I could see someone being pushed back by repeated slingshot bludgeons or the threat of cannon-fire (as opposed to a standard idea of being knocked back in the wake of a warhammer or greatclub).

I'd rather disentangle slashing/crushing/piercing from other weapon sub-types like polearms or ranged weapons or versatile weapons and how they affect the flow combat. These feats seem to do so, by focusing specifically on what comes from those types of damage rather than from the weapons that deal those types of damage.

Eh. On the list of "D&D rules that are hard to explain from a realism standpoint" that ranks about 7,248th. Maybe lower.

The more important question is whether it would be imbalancing, or potentially so with some weird synergy with another ability. And since cantrips can push back or slow down enemies, I don't see why this would be a problem. Explain the physics however you want, I guess.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, Feats are lame in concept, admittedly. If one was to use Feats, these seem OK, and less egregious than Multiclassing.

XGtE doesn't have Skill training rules, just Took and Language training, for what it's worth.

See I like feats. They let you do cool stuff, or do stuff better. And I've never run or played a game since 3rd ed where the players didn't want feats. I just wish it was easier to adjust threats to account for them.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I like the THP from food idea. It reminds me of the role nutritionists take in sports. By manipulating carbohydrate intake up to a big game or competition some athletes see a huge performance boost the day of a game or competition from a sudden influx of carbs.

Also after strenuous anaerobic exercises you need protein to rebuild micro tears in muscle tissue. In a way that's very much healing.