Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Get Better At Skills With These Feats

The latest Unearthed Arcana from Jeremy Crawford and again featuring guest writer Robert J. Schwalb introduces a number of feats which make you better at skills. Each increases the skill's primary ability score, doubles your proficiency bonus, and gives you a little bonus ability. "This week we introduce new feats to playtest. Each of these feats makes you better at one of the game’s eighteen skills. We invite you to read them, give them a try in play, and let us know what you think in the survey we release in the next installment of Unearthed Arcana."

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[Lanliss]

All around these feats are bad design for three reasons, possibly four reasons.

1. Part of the special appeal of Bards and Rogues is their Expertise (double proficiency bonus). Making "expertise" something other classes can take diminishes some of the uniqueness of Bards and Rogues.

I can agree with your other reasons, but find it ridiculous that Bard and Rogue are the only ones capable of this. An Arcane Trickster with the right background can be a better Arcana skill monkey than the Wizard. A Bard with expertise in Athletics can smash the Barbarian in a wrestling competition. That is just wrong. This gives a way for people who are not one of those two exclusive classes to be considered a true "Expert", which I think makes way more sense then only two classes being capable of this particular tier of training.

 

[Horwath]

well, Brawny is the real grappler feat, probably is one of options with bigger market.
Observant was that problem before Perceptive, so not a big deal since they are most reduntant (not anyone that will burn two feats to get a passive perception of 32, 37 with advantage).

I could see making a wood elf druid with those 2 feats. Kind of goes with the "elves keen senses" thing and boost to wisdom is a key to druid.

8th level, 2 feats, 18 wisdom, that is passive of 25 without penalty in darkness. Note overpowered but very usefull tool.

As moon druid you could be nice animal sentry.

 

[flametitan]

I had considered that for the capstone, but more of a die and then show up in dreams to give knowledge, but I am still thinking on that.

Right now I'm looking at what the first five levels should look like.

I haven't quite got the exact levels for every feature pinned down just yet, but what I have in mind is:

1. early superiority dice (with the added benefit that you can give them to allies so they can use your manoeuvres instead)/minor feature from subclass (I'm thinking things like Reckless attack or Second Wind)

2. Overchannel you mentioned (again, I'm aiming about the equivalent to an average round for level 11)

3. Healing buff (once per short rest, a hit die you spend may be added to everyone else you can access to heal. Might switch with the superiority dice thing at 1st level)

4. ASI (though the fact ASIs are class features makes me want to play around with their design, but for now it's probably best not to tamper with a formula)

5. Dice scale, dice are now recharged on a short rest, perhaps the ability for allies (and specifically not you, the mentor) to combine manoeuvres so that they can get the effects of two for the price of one die?

 

[Quickleaf]

I can agree with your other reasons, but find it ridiculous that Bard and Rogue are the only ones capable of this. An Arcane Trickster with the right background can be a better Arcana skill monkey than the Wizard. A Bard with expertise in Athletics can smash the Barbarian in a wrestling competition. That is just wrong. This gives a way for people who are not one of those two exclusive classes to be considered a true "Expert", which I think makes way more sense then only two classes being capable of this particular tier of training.

What you're pointing out might be considered a flaw with the design of Expertise as it appears in the PHB. For example, they might have provided a list of thematic skills for the Rogue and the Bard respectively which are permissible to gain Expertise in. That would protect your Wizard's "arcane lore guy" niche and your Barbarian's "wrestling guy" niche, while still preserving Bards & Rogues as "the best at skills."

That gets into a larger ball of wax about class design that I'm not sure we want to derail this with.

Basically, I'd distill my point #1 to this: Transferring class features into feats (including, for example, Martial Adept allowing any PC to pick up some Battle Master maneuvers) is a proposition that risks weakening the strong themes of the D&D classes. It more readily leads to the kinds of scenarios you're wanting to avoid – characters stealing the niche of other characters.

 

[dco]

Everyone can intimidate without a feat. The feat makes you better at it, as it should.

And sure, the phb should have done more to make that general truth clear.

Wasting an attack to intimidate only one humanoid?

 

[Horwath]

What you're pointing out might be considered a flaw with the design of Expertise as it appears in the PHB. For example, they might have provided a list of thematic skills for the Rogue and the Bard respectively which are permissible to gain Expertise in. That would protect your Wizard's "arcane lore guy" niche and your Barbarian's "wrestling guy" niche, while still preserving Bards & Rogues as "the best at skills."

That gets into a larger ball of wax about class design that I'm not sure we want to derail this with.

Basically, I'd distill my point #1 to this: Transferring class features into feats (including, for example, Martial Adept allowing any PC to pick up some Battle Master maneuvers) is a proposition that risks weakening the strong themes of the D&D classes. It more readily leads to the kinds of scenarios you're wanting to avoid – characters stealing the niche of other characters.

Personaly, I think that transferring class features into general feats is a GOOD idea. And less broken than certain multiclassing.

What is wrong with a cleric and some superiority dices or druid with expertise in stealth and athletics?

Also those feats are available to the classes that have that "niche", so they are always be infront of others if they also take that feat by the same amount.

barbarian and rogue with stealthy feat, rogue still has 2 or 4 more expertise "slots" at his disposal and he is not threaten by one barbarian skill.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Wasting an attack to intimidate only one humanoid?

The Frightened condition is a bit more effective than most intimidate checks would probably allow. Making an intimidate check would normally take an action, so requiring only a single attack is also an improvement to some characters.

You may not regard it as optimal, or very powerful, but I can see some players liking something like that for their characters.

 

[guachi]

Specialist
Choose a skill and gain proficiency in that skill. Gain +1 to the ability score associated with that skill. Additionally, gain a unique benefit corresponding to the skill you choose, referring to the table below.

Rolling all the feats into one feat and calling it "Specialist" like the above does two things, both of them good. One, it reduces the amount of text, though I'd amend the above description to include Expertise.

Two, it makes it impossible to take the feat more than once. If someone who isn't a Bard or Rogue wants to be really good at something he can. But he can only be really good at that one thing.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Wasting an attack to intimidate only one humanoid?

You mean wasting one attack to lockdown a powerful foe? If I'm attacking an orc, and can forgo one attack to impose the Frightened condition on the Orc Chieftain in the fight, which severely degrades its ability to harm me or my party, then heck, yes, I will take that option. Especially if I'm themed as a defender-type character. And also because most humanoids have low WIS(Insight) which means I get a lot of extra mileage out of double prof.

 

[dco]

The Frightened condition is a bit more effective than most intimidate checks would probably allow. Making an intimidate check would normally take an action, so requiring only a single attack is also an improvement to some characters.

You may not regard it as optimal, or very powerful, but I can see some players liking something like that for their characters.

In my games people can talk, roar, etc while they attack and a good exhibition of combat prowess is a good catalyst for Intimidation.
I don't like how the feat goes the way of the 4e imposing more rules for things that could be a simple skill use and roleplaying using the DM's judgement and the basic rules.