Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Feats for Races

I find this line mystifying: "These feats don’t assume that multiclassing is used in a campaign."

What are they trying to say here? Do these feats become unbalanced when combined with multiclassing?

Also, some of the feats significantly alter a character's body. Barbed Hide, for example, endows a Tiefling with a barbed hide. That's not the sort of thing that you can acquire through training. Which gives rise to the question, "Why couldn't the Tiefling do this at level 1?" It's not like Pole Arm Master, where you can explain the acquisition of the new ability through practice and training. Either you were born with a barbed hide or you weren't.

Same with Dragon Wings: "You sprout draconic wings." I'm not well-versed in Dragonborn lore, but is that really something that just... happens during their adult life?

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Leatherhead]

It's the cantrip (which is in addition to the two once/day spells). Most likely it's shillelagh. Though it's too bad they again insist you must use Wisdom as the spellcasting ability. I wish they'd tried "any of Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma (at your option)" for once. Bladelock's are dying for a charisma-based shillelagh.

I honestly glossed over that, mostly because it was at the end of the document.

Looking at it, I think Shillelagh would be a bad pick, simply because you can't swap the casting stat. You are more likely to pick up Poison Spray or Produce Flame to supplement your cantrip arsenal, Guidance as a skill buff, or Druidcraft for some fun.

In fact, Guidance is the best bet here.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Far too many of these go back to the well of "gain double proficiency bonus if already proficient", but the ones that don't go to that well are for more interesting.

Not sure if some of these could be over power or not, Dwarf Rogue with Dwarf Resilience seems like a fun combo.

Some of these listed seem like they can easily be swapped out for some of the racial abilities a race gets at character creation if you want to make a variant of that race.

IMO, Dragonborn should now start with one of; Breath Weapon, Wings, and Dragonfear, and can use a feat to gain the others.

Anyway, I mostly like these.

Critter Friend, and feats like it, imo, should spell out capabilities, rather than giving spells. Drow High Magic obv should have spells, but Critter Friend seems like something that should just be a feature. The flavor doesn't feel like a spell, so why make it possible for the gnome to be counterspelled or anti-magiced?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Tieflings could get a lot more feats, but there could be a small book on Tieflings in much the same way you could get a book on different variations of elves.

But even though this article doesn't acknowledge the existence of the Tiefling variants in other sources, I think they should get a simple feat like, "Pick the abilities of another Tiefling variant". Though I would see most just trying to pick the flight variant as that option.

 

[Arryn]

I love how the trend in D&D is that Humans are these incredibly versatile beings... Well most of the Humans I know can barely tie their own shoes... Where does this come from?

 

[Bacon Bits]

I love how the trend in D&D is that Humans are these incredibly versatile beings... Well most of the Humans I know can barely tie their own shoes... Where does this come from?

They overspecialized in the Social Media skill.

 

[cbwjm]

Cool, I'm liking what I see here although I think that some of these feats could be expanded a bit beyond their current races. For instance, Fey Teleportation I feel could be expanded to any elf instead of just a high elf since they all have fey ancestry.

Dragonfear is kind of funny, it works fine, it's just that when I read it, I imagined a party engaged in combat, the dragonborn roars, and one of the guards around the corner who is rushing to help says "wtf was that?" before engaging.

Elven Accuracy I would probably change to "When you have advantage on an attack roll, you can roll 3 dice instead of 2." Although that doesn't really change anything, I can imagine it becoming the norm in my games.

What's cool about these feats is that I was looking at the pathfinder advanced race guide the other day just thinking that I could come up with some racial feats and today, we have them.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

As for the actual feats themselves:

Barbed Hide could actually be for Bladeling heritage, even though Bladelings are just Lower Planar humanoids instead of fiends.

Critter Friend and Wonder Maker go well with distinguishing the the Gnome subraces. But Fade Away is very much the 4e Gnome ability, but also more likely something that I feel that while Forest Gnomes and Svirfneblin could get, I don't think Rock Gnomes should get that one.

Dwarf Resilience could potentially be abused even if it cost hit die. Maybe it should be gain Temp HP, instead of healing.

Flames of Phlegethos, this seems like it would work with the Fire Bolt or Green Flame Blade cantrips.

Grudge Bearer, seems to be that old Dwarven advantage where they got a bunch of bonuses against Orcs, except this time it's far more flexible. Could see some picking Humans and Elves as the humanoids covered by that option.

Fey Teleportation I don't like given my feelings on the 4e blink elves but reasonable for a feat.

Those Half-Orc feats, just make the Orcs from Volo's Guide seem even weaker to Half-Orcs in comparison.

 

[flametitan]

I love how the trend in D&D is that Humans are these incredibly versatile beings... Well most of the Humans I know can barely tie their own shoes... Where does this come from?

It's a side effect of giving each race a "hat"; a predefined culture/personality. Trying to apply one to humans would cause more confusion than its worth, so worldbuilders shrug and just go "humans are the flexible ones." They end up filling a niche of a lack of niche. The fact that in old Folklore this was how the fantastic creatures had similar personalities while humans could be diverse also helps give it credence.

 

[cbwjm]

IMO, Dragonborn should now start with one of; Breath Weapon, Wings, and Dragonfear, and can use a feat to gain the others.

Anyway, I mostly like these.

Critter Friend, and feats like it, imo, should spell out capabilities, rather than giving spells. Drow High Magic obv should have spells, but Critter Friend seems like something that should just be a feature. The flavor doesn't feel like a spell, so why make it possible for the gnome to be counterspelled or anti-magiced?

Good idea re: Starting Dragonborn. It's what I've seen some homebrew do so it makes sense to use the feats and swap them around as desired. I can also see the speak with animals spell being a feature instead of a spell, pretty sure that was how they were in past editions, they were just able to talk to certain animals. I'd probably bring it back to that if this feat was picked up instead of it being a spell. In most instances, it probably wouldn't change much, but still I like it better as just a natural ability, no spellcasting required.