[UPDATED] Most D&D Players Prefer Humans - Without Feats!

I've played in games that don't allow multiclassing, but never games that don't allow feats. Go figure.

 

[FrogReaver]

Depends upon your age/experience & the character you envision.




Oh I disagree 100%+. If feats are allowed, then each time you're eligible you should make the choice that will best represent your character & how you see them developing. Character =/= class.
Sometimes that'll be an ASI. Other times it might be a feat.

For ex: My 1/2ling Warlock Bree. Her Charisma is not maxed out. This has not proven a problem.
*At 4th lv I took Magic Initiate to represent her patron teaching her some additional tricks . Tricks that both help her & further the patrons goals.
The next time she lvs up will be to 8th.
*By your logic I should raise my Cha. And should've raised it at 4th. This however would be the least effective & least interesting thing I could do.
*In her two years of adventuring she's learned a good deal. Not really on the intelligence side, more on the wisdom side. Very much like a child learning not to touch hot stoves, etc. No, wait, it's exactly like that. She's becoming wiser. Not doing (as many) foolish things. Thinking more before acting. Realizing her actions have consequences.
*She's also proven surprisingly adept at Medicine checks to stabilize people. Plenty of natural 20s. You need a combat medic, apparently you want Bree.... Play seems to suggest the Healer feat.

At 8th lv she's going to get one of these: +2 Wis OR Healer feat. She'll get the other at 12th - unless 4 more lvs of play reveal/require something else of her....
So the question is; do I feel she's learned enough to warrant that wisdom bump at 8th? Atm I'm thinking no, not yet.





Bleh. Forced Array + no racial mods? Could I just roll the dice instead? Or replace some of those scores with lower #s if I thought that'd better represent my character? Because I don't suffer stat envy, & I really don't want to be a clone.

I thought the advice was that you should always pick what is most fun. Does that not apply to feats?

 

[ccs]

I am currently playing a PC that chose a feat at 4th level, and I regret it. It's a great feat (Shield Mastery) but it's just not coming up often enough to make it worth it or interesting for me. I thought it would be a common thing that was useful and flavorful, but the reality has been that knocking things down tends to make our ranged attackers pissed that they now get disadvantage to hit that foe, and knocking them back just hasn't been helpful most of the time, and the dex save benefits rarely come up. I wish I had taken the ASI, which would have come up just about every single combat and many non-combat encounters as well.

And the feat I originally was planning to choose (Polearm Master) would have been a disaster despite being considered a "powerful" feat. We've never found a single magical polearm during our adventures, either as treasure or for sale, and the number of creatures resistant to non-magical damage is so high that the feat would have been a real disappointment.

I can see that others may have, over time, come to the conclusion that feats are often just not as good as they look on paper

Other than not being useful often enough, does Shield Mastery best describe how you envision your character?

Is it possible that you & your ranged party members just need better teamwork?
Say, you knock them down, stab them & back off a bit.
Your teammates ready action & only shoot the target once its' spent 1/2 its' move standing up, but before it goes anywhere.
Next round you move in, prone it, repeat.

would that work?

 

[MoonSong]

Heh. Different strokes. I'd never even consider playing the feat human. The stat bonuses are just too good. Being able to bump virtually every stat into the positive (save one) is a major selling point AFAIC. A single feat just isn't worth it.

That is my problem with standard human, having so few weaknesses doesn't feel particularly human to me, and feels unapproachable. It makes me miss the times when being human meant you were the baseline.

 

[Leatherhead]

Hrm, players are making characters with giant holes in their competency? FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC.

Ubermensches are boring. Be risky, have a glaring weakness, it will be more fun for the group! And besides, if you are relying exclusively on your ability score modifier to save you from the wrath of magical attacks and skill checks, you are in for a sorry time: Even a 14 in the ability is going fail you on the important rolls most of the time.

 

[FrogReaver]

So here's some considerations (leaving out multiclassing).

#1 At level 1-3 the only characters that use feats are variant humans.
#2 At levels 4-5 the only characters that use feats are those that pick a feat at level 4 or those that were #1
#3 At levels 6-7 the only characters that use feats are #1, #2, or fighters that take one at level 6
#4 At levels 8-9 the only characters that use feats are #1, #2, #3 or any character that takes a feat at level 8.

If we take the data that 25% of people choose human as their race then that would mean at most 25% of level 1-3 characters have feats.
Monks, Rogues, Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, Wizards, Clerics, Bards usually don't take an ASI at level 4 for a combination of reasons. The +2 ASI is much stronger. The ability the feat grants would feel out of place to suddenly obtain. General purpose feats they may have wanted may seem less necessary or useful after getting a feel of how the game is playing through the first 3 levels.

Barbarians, Fighters, Paladins and Rangers have a lot more interesting feat options as some of the only feats that can directly compete with the +2 ASI while not feeling out of place are the weapon feats. Even then, such characters may still take the ASI first and wait on the feat.

So of these 1/3 class choices maybe somewhere between half and 1/3 of them take a feat at level 4. That's 10-15%. However some of those could have already been variant humans and we don't want to count them twice. As such we are looking at maybe +10% of characters gaining a feat for the first time at level 4.

We are now at around 20-35% of all characters with a feat by level 4. For many characters in many games they may not get another chance to take a feat before the campaign ends. If they do go past level 7 then it's likely they only have 1 more chance to take a feat before the campaign ends or nearly ends.

Basically, for characters actually played I would expect less than 50% of such characters to take feats before they are retired.

If planning out a whole 1-20 build I expect to see feats pop up quite a bit more in the 12-20 level ranges.

 

[Morrus]

UPDATE! Jeremy Crawford dropped me a note with some clarifications. Here's what he said:

"Quick clarification: I said that humans are the most-played race, and characters with feats are in the minority. In contrast, the website's story states that I said most characters are humans without feats—not quite right.

I also didn't say anything about a character's background being more important to the player than the character's class."

(I misunderstood that last bullet point there, but thanks to Jeremy for the clarification!)

 

[Morrus]

This is the same forum that argued against 5e doing well despite having Amazon sales rankings available.

"The forum" has never argued anything. It's a community containing many varied people with different opinions, like any other. You're one of them.

 

[Horwath]

Depends upon your age/experience & the character you envision.

Been playind D&D quite a while now.
But my point was not about character concept, but simple input-output or mechanics.

If you are archer +2 dex is better than sharpshooter, unless you are battlemaster with +die roll to attack so you can do clutch maneuver on your "powershot" to negate -5 attack roll.
For rogues "Sharshooter" vs +2 dex is negative DPS all around.

Oh I disagree 100%+. If feats are allowed, then each time you're eligible you should make the choice that will best represent your character & how you see them developing.
Character =/= class.
So sometimes that'll be an ASI. Other times it might be a feat. And if it's an ASI? That doesn't mean it'll go into whatever your classes primary stat is.

For ex: My 1/2ling Warlock Bree. Her Charisma is not maxed out. This has not proven a problem.
*At 4th lv I took Magic Initiate to represent her patron teaching her some additional tricks . Tricks not found on the warlock spell list but that both help her & further the patrons goals.
The next time she lvs up will be to 8th.
*By your logic I should raise my Cha. And should've raised it at 4th. This however would be the least effective & least interesting thing I could do.
*In her two years of adventuring she's learned a good deal. Not really on the intelligence side, more on the wisdom side. Very much like a child learning not to touch hot stoves, etc. No, wait, it's exactly like that. She's becoming wiser. Not doing (as many) foolish things. Thinking more before acting. Realizing her actions have consequences.
*She's also proven surprisingly adept at Medicine checks to stabilize people. Plenty of natural 20s. You need a combat medic, apparently you want Bree.... Play seems to suggest the Healer feat.

At 8th lv she's going to get one of these: +2 Wis OR the Healer feat.
She'll get the other at 12th - unless 4 more lvs of play reveal/require something else of her....
So the question is; do I feel she's learned enough to warrant that wisdom bump at 8th? Atm I'm thinking no, not yet.

I liked the character idea, and I'm sure that DM will adapt to your party even if you all make non optimal characters. In the end, roll over encounters or TPK's are both not fun. You need hard/deadly encounters that will challenge your party but not kill them if they make one mistake or poor choice of action.
But, your warlock would be simply better in combat if you got charisma raised by +4 from 4th and 8th level. Followed by spell sniper after cha is maxed out.

This has nothing to do with character concept or roleplaying, just simple math.

Bleh. Forced Array + no racial mods? Could I just roll the dice instead? Or replace some of those scores with lower #s if I thought that'd better represent my character? Because I don't suffer stat envy, & I really don't want to be a clone.

This array is as forced as standard array with racial boosts. Just an option to take.

you can make point buy from 6 to 18 if you like. I would keep max at 18 to reduce overall power a little.

Also, I do not like racial ability bonuses for the reason that 20 in your primary is so damn strong and not optimal races delay their feat choice by another 4 levels.

But even with array same for all players, you are not a clone as you can rearange them into 6 abilities in different way each time.


But perfect solution for me would be to split ASIs into 3 categories.

1. ASI; just ability boosts if you do not already include them at start(Like Pillars of Eternity). Then start with higher abilities without racial bonuses and no boosting on certian levels.

2. Combat feats:"strong PHB feats";

3. Racial/UA skill feats/"weak PHB feats"

 

[MoonSong]

Double post weird is weird...

 

[HorusZA]

There's loads of theorycrafting and analysis going on here as to why Feats don't appear to be popular. I haven't read every post in this thread but my explanation is way simpler:

In my experience, Players are generally lazy. I suspect this is probably more true for casual players which, I suspect, comprises the majority of the global D&D player base. I don't mean this in a nasty way, but trying to get my players to read a handout I emailed before a game nevermind a rulebook is like herding cats. Members of this exalted Enworld community are probably an exception to this hence the detailed analysis of optimal builds, feat selection, etc.

What does this have to do with Feats?

Picking a Feat requires me to read loads of pages of rules (work). I have to apply cognitive energy to understand the rules surrounding the Feat (work). I may even have to read all the Feats so I can pick the right one (loads of work). And after picking it, I must remember what it does (work) or I have to write it down somewhere (more work). During the game I have to be on the lookout for an opportunity to use my Feat (constant work).

The alternative? Pick an Attribute, add +1 to it and maybe update some bonuses. Aaaaaand... done! Easy-peasy! I can now forget about it and get on with the game.

Anyways, that's my theory.