I wasn't sure if this was meant to go into the Homebrew section or here. Since it's not finished homebrew but rather a discussion on what is and isn't wrong or right about a mechanical aspect of the system, I decided that this was the most appropriate forum to post it. Hopefully that was the correct decision for my first post here.
D&D 5E Which feats would you change, why would you change them & how would you change them?
- Thread starter One_Shots
- Start date
My first thought on what I would change would be the -5 att +10 damage aspect of Great weapon fighting & Sharp shooter. I would also give serious thought to changing crossbow expert aspect that removes penalty for shooting whilst in melee. Martial adept, weapon master and skilled I think could use a boost.
Libramarian
Adventurer
If you remove or tone down the best feats, players will just take the ability score improvement instead. The ASI is better than most of the feats.
I think eventually I will start a project to holistically tone down 5e. I'm going to run at least one high level vanilla campaign first though.
I think eventually I will start a project to holistically tone down 5e. I'm going to run at least one high level vanilla campaign first though.
I was thinking more along the lines of replacing the removed sections with something useful but does not make other choices less appealing as it is there are a few outlier feats that crowd out all other feats and several that are obviously too weak. With the playtesting period that we had I expected the feats to be far better and more comprehensive than what we got.
I would consider boosting weak feats, rather than toning down strong ones. I've found that the -5/+10 feats compare well +2 to primary ability (of course, they're better than +2 to a secondary ability once you max your primary). I wouldn't mind seeing a feat for finesse weapons and TWF to get -5/+10 as well, to keep those fighting styles in step.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
Non-combat and non-stealth feats that did not grant a +1 to a specific ability I would look at adding it to. With ASI such a nice option, the only feats that seem to be able to compete at low-to-mid levels are combat-oriented feats, but I think the non-combat feats like Actor add a lot to personalizing your character. I'd rather not see a character played for 16 levels before it "suddenly" comes out he's a skilled actor. (Side note, Actor does give +1 Chr, so it's nto one I'm suggesting changing - it just happens to be one of my favorites.)
Heavy Armor Master: Change the damage reduction to be equal to your Proficiency bonus. This tones it down slightly at low levels (only +2), but scales it some so you don't regret taking it at higher levels. (Goes from 3 in original to 2-6 now.)
Linguist: Add in able to pick up new languages in reduced time with the normal downtime rules.
Lucky: I'd change the defensive aspect to "when hit". You ARE lucky after all, doing it on a roll that could miss is a bit pointless. And if your DM doesn't tell the original die you could turn a miss into a hit.
Mounted Combat: Scaling on this is really DM-dependant if the DM allows the players to find level-appropriate mounts. I'd like to adjust it to put a floor on your mount's HPs, AC and saves so you could find better but always have something at least usable, but I'm not sure how.
Polearm Master: The opposite end attack does not have Reach or Heavy keywords even if the weapon does. This one of the top three combat feats, and having an easy bonus attack with reach, magic of the weapon, Str to damage automatically, and could qualify for Great Weapon Master, is a bit much for a bonus attack.
Ritual Caster: Add into the first sentence of the last paragraph: "If you HAVE A SPELL PREPARED or come across a spell in written form, ...". This allows you to scribe spells you know into your ritual book and spend a feat to effectively get the Wizard's ability to cast rituals without preparing them that day.
Savage Attacker: Change it against the Sage Advice clarification and allow you to reroll all the dice associated with the attack. For a feat, it does remarkably little as written. A longsword (d8) it changes the average from 4.5 to 5.8125. So as a feat it adds about 1.3 hps of damage per round. Negligible and nigh worthless.
Skilled: In addition to granting +1 to the appropriate ability (see above), I'd also reduce downtime needs for learning future tools.
Tavern Brawler: Add the Finesse keyword to your unarmed strikes. So you can play an agile brawler as well.
Tough: Your Hit Dice no longer keep up with your HPs, so I'd add 2 to each of them to balance it.
Weapon Master: I'd rename it to something like "Martial Training", simply because Weapon Master sounds like you should be badarse with them, but if you didn't even have proficiency before you're probably just meh at best.
- Dungeon Delver
- Skilled
Heavy Armor Master: Change the damage reduction to be equal to your Proficiency bonus. This tones it down slightly at low levels (only +2), but scales it some so you don't regret taking it at higher levels. (Goes from 3 in original to 2-6 now.)
Linguist: Add in able to pick up new languages in reduced time with the normal downtime rules.
Lucky: I'd change the defensive aspect to "when hit". You ARE lucky after all, doing it on a roll that could miss is a bit pointless. And if your DM doesn't tell the original die you could turn a miss into a hit.
Mounted Combat: Scaling on this is really DM-dependant if the DM allows the players to find level-appropriate mounts. I'd like to adjust it to put a floor on your mount's HPs, AC and saves so you could find better but always have something at least usable, but I'm not sure how.
Polearm Master: The opposite end attack does not have Reach or Heavy keywords even if the weapon does. This one of the top three combat feats, and having an easy bonus attack with reach, magic of the weapon, Str to damage automatically, and could qualify for Great Weapon Master, is a bit much for a bonus attack.
Ritual Caster: Add into the first sentence of the last paragraph: "If you HAVE A SPELL PREPARED or come across a spell in written form, ...". This allows you to scribe spells you know into your ritual book and spend a feat to effectively get the Wizard's ability to cast rituals without preparing them that day.
Savage Attacker: Change it against the Sage Advice clarification and allow you to reroll all the dice associated with the attack. For a feat, it does remarkably little as written. A longsword (d8) it changes the average from 4.5 to 5.8125. So as a feat it adds about 1.3 hps of damage per round. Negligible and nigh worthless.
Skilled: In addition to granting +1 to the appropriate ability (see above), I'd also reduce downtime needs for learning future tools.
Tavern Brawler: Add the Finesse keyword to your unarmed strikes. So you can play an agile brawler as well.
Tough: Your Hit Dice no longer keep up with your HPs, so I'd add 2 to each of them to balance it.
Weapon Master: I'd rename it to something like "Martial Training", simply because Weapon Master sounds like you should be badarse with them, but if you didn't even have proficiency before you're probably just meh at best.
Blue
Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal
How about changing them so you lose proficiency but gain 2x proficiency damage? So a 1st level character is -2/+4, which isn't overwhelming either their chance to hit or monster damage, while at 17th level it's -6/+12, but +12 isn't as big a deal against foes CRs in that range?
This is making an assumption about what you don't like about it, I might be totally off the mark.
I'd make grappler worth using. Grapple during AoO or expertise in athletics , something dope.
Also make great weapon fighter work with melee weapons in general. Ranged and heavy melee pull so far ahead because other melee characters are missing out. There's no reason TWF or sword and board should be 20 to 40 damage behind every other martial striker when their dies aren't that much smaller.
Also make great weapon fighter work with melee weapons in general. Ranged and heavy melee pull so far ahead because other melee characters are missing out. There's no reason TWF or sword and board should be 20 to 40 damage behind every other martial striker when their dies aren't that much smaller.
I would worry that Heavy Armor Master would make a character far too resilient against multi-attack creatures with such a change. Maybe with your example, limit it to work against only one attack per turn?
Linguist definitely needs a boost. A true master of languages would not need 200 days to learn a new language. Even 100 days seems excessive and not something many people will invest in even if they do manage to accumulate that, rather large, amount of downtime. I wonder if it would be appropriate to allow more languages than the base three granted by the feat to an amount equal to the character's Intelligence bonus? That then ties in rather well with the Intelligence boost from the feat as well.
Savage Attacker allowing rerolls on all damage die would be far too powerful in my opinion. Although I agree that it is a poor feat, I wouldn't want to see it become a must have for rogues and paladins and imbalance the game. Can you imagine rerolling 10d6 sneak attacks every turn?
The Skilled change is one that I've actually considered myself. I think that would make it a far better, and more balanced, feat.
Yes, I would rather like to see Grappler be a better, more worthwhile feat.
Iry
Legend
"You have an astounding memory for languages both spoken and written. After listening to a language for a few minutes, or studying a written example, you become competent enough to speak and write that language clearly to any native speaker. Even ancient and forgotten languages may be deduced with a successful Intelligence check."
"You gain Expertise as the class feature possessed by Rogues, Rangers, and Bards. This does not stack with any other source of Expertise that you may gain."
Similar Threads
