Top 10 Feats You Can Hand Out to Players (That Won’t Break the Game)
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- čas přidán 24. 07. 2024
- In this video, I will be going over the top 10 feats you can hand out to players that won’t break the game at your table. Feats can be incredibly powerful, but not all feats are created equally. Some of these feats are low enough in power to be able to be handed out as a reward to one of your players without disrupting the game any more than giving a player a magic item would.
Video edited by Vince
Written by: Honorable Intent
├ The List
Intro: (0:00)
10: Telepathic: (0:16)
9: Telekinetic: (1:36)
8: Chef: (2:51)
7: Skulker: (4:02)
6: Dungeon Delver: (4:57)
5: Inspiring Leader: (5:56)
4: Fighting Initiate: (7:21)
3: Keen Mind: (8:20)
2: Grappler: (9:22)
1: Linguist: (10:36)
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Telekinetic is insanely strong to give out for free. I've played a character that was incorporated Telekinetic into their usual rotation of control wizard shenanigans and it was often the best use of a bonus action I could hope for.
2 notes:
First: Telekinetic might be a bit too powerful to give to a party member. Forced movement can be powerful. While it cannot benefit from opportunity attacks, it can benefit in other ways. First and foremost, pushing an enemy even 5 feet away from you allows you to then move away without the target provoking opportunity attacks, meaning that anyone can have the equivalent of a Rogue's ability to disengage as a bonus action, which is good for a Ranger or any spell caster (even better on a Ranger as being within 5 feet of a target causes disadvantage on ranged attacks). Additionally, being able to shove an enemy into a hazard or just off a ledge, while could be situational, can incapacitate or even kill a target. Finally, while "Magic Hand" cannot attack, it can use the help action, giving an ally within 30 feet of you advantage for the round (though it does use your action to do so).
- - -
Second: Keen Mind states both in it's flavour text and in it's description that the ability to recall things are either "with uncanny precision" or at the very least "accurate". Saying that they need to roll History to recall those things is not RAW and likely not RAI either. This is pretty table-dependent, as some people could see this as the player with this feat essentially having photographic memory for that month, not requiring the History check. Otherwise, the feat would say that they have advantage on History checks for something within the 30 days. The fact that it even states the 30 day window also gives it the drawback from making it overly powerful.
With that out of the way, Keen Mind is often considered a "flavour feat", but can be a bit underrated and, with a creative player, can be surprise even the DM. A few examples of Keen Mind being more than flavour involve:
-A spell-caster with Prestidigitation can see an object (such as the keys to their jail cell on the jailer's key ring), create an perfect magical duplicate anytime within 30 days and break everyone out.
-Anyone capable of forgery can see an invitation to a party, a lord's signature or seal or any other document and just make their own copy of it.
-Furthermore, a wizard can easily copy spells into their notebook after looking at a spell scroll. They don't even need to have the scroll in their possession, so long as they've seen it. I actually made an Arcane Trickster Rogue with Ritual Caster pull this trick off to learn as many ritual spells as he could.
-Being able to know where north is all the time makes you a walking compass. While this sounds strange, combined with a month-long perfect memory, it also means you can retrace your steps in any cave, building or dungeon you come across. This also means you cannot get lost with no hope of return in most situations as you always know where you came from.
-Knowing how long it is from sunrise or sunset is pretty situational, it does mean you have an unerring sense of time. This *can* be used with (for example) vampires to either know when they'll awaken (sunset) or when the sun will rise, tricking them into the sunlight, or at the very least when they will give up the chase to get rest (as vampires commonly reach a torpor-like sleep during the day and have difficulty waking, depending on how you run them).
Good stuff, but think there’s a bit of detail missed on telekinetic. There’s still a strength save to avoid the movement. This can quite often waste the BA (though mitigated if you aren’t using it for something else anyways). However, where it can really shine is in positioning your allies, especially if they were grappled, since they can auto-fault the DC. (Though the grapple bit is awkward.) Also probably good to note moving yourself doesn’t work well because you can’t exactly move towards or away from yourself.
@@skycastrum5803 While it still requires a save, it's still a bonus action. It gives players a way to pull off a poor man's Cunning Action: Disengage, which is useful for classes who don't have it (especially casters or ranged combatants). Otherwise, they need to use their action to disengage.
@@skycastrum5803Forced movement breaks grapples, so it's very powerful in that regard
I wouldn't consider Telekinetic as a "freebie"... 🤔
Telekinetic is actually really strong. The ability to shove at a distance doesn't seem like much but you'd use it to break grapples.
I'd think that the feats: Skilled(not to be confused with Skill Expert), Weapon Master, Tavern Brawler, and Athlete are decent ones that could be given out for free without much fuss. Skilled could let a class with low amounts of skills have some relevant skills or tools. Weapon Master could let some characters have more options, though this is kind of on the stronger side so use a little more discretion. Tavern Brawler is just another one that doesn't have a huge amount of use but could be strong. Athlete is similar to Weapon Master where there is more options but needs a little less discretion.
It's ridiculously obvious that whoever wrote the script for DnDLogs has no idea what the balance of 5e is actually like.
The Chef skill can be very valuable to low level characters, and somewhat valuable to medium level ones as well. This is true, especially, for parties that know the value of short rests, and can be made easier with the addition of a Chest of Preservation, or even a Pouch of Spices.
In one adventure, my Ranger had Chef skill and a Pouch of Spices. He was able to buy large quantities of dried mushrooms in nearly any village or town he visited. Using those, a small cauldron, and the Bag of Spices, he could whip up a quickly made 'mushroom stew' that was flavorful for the Party. Eating his mushroom stews granted party members an additional hit die of healing, which at 1st level, doubled the HP returned to the characters.
Due to some rather spectacularly bad rolls by Party members, the party was forced to rest after fighting nearly a dozen Cave Rats. The Ranger was able to butcher the rats for protein to add to his usual mushroom stew, flavored by his bag of spices. And, it being a Long Rest, he was able to make 'treats' out of some of the meat. Making a sort of spiced jerky treat that when eaten would give temp HP. These proved helpful to keep the party alive and active, when without the temp HP, several would have fallen in battle, and had to fight to survive being 'killed'.
I played the Chef skill off as having been learned by my character from an older Ranger during training as a Ranger. Much later in the campaign, the Ranger got his hands on several nice items... a Cauldron of Plenty, a Chest of Preservation, his Pouch of Spices, and a Decanter of Endless Water. Thus, party meals were 'covered' and bonus treats were assured. It added 'flavor' to the game whenever the Ranger made meals for the Party. And because of all these items that the other party members chose not to take for themselves, totally did away with the need to carry 'iron rations' and other food supplies, even in harsh conditions.
With the Cauldron, the Ranger was able to basically perform the old 'Stone Soup' story in every small hamlet and village the group stopped at, that otherwise would have been at least wary of the party, or outright hostile to them. Funny how a small bowl of warm soup (about half a meal) for 60 people, can change an entire hamlet or village's outlook to be more favorable to one's party.
In one case, the party encountered a hamlet that was starving because the people there were afraid to harvest their crops. The party guarded parties of dwellers of the hamlet to get food stocks, and still fed the entire hamlet every evening from the Cauldron. Doing this for a week enabled the hamlet to build up enough of a stockpile of food that enabled the party to go out and find, and deal with, the issue. The Ranger's Mushroom Soups were especially favored by the dwellers, and during the stay, the Ranger taught several dwellers how to prepare the simple meal. He did have to spend time (several days) collecting all sorts of mushrooms and teaching which were edible, and which were not. But that gave the time for the party to rest fully, and help repair the hamlet's buildings for the dwellers.
Later on, during the overall adventure, the party had occasion to pass through the area again. The hamlet had grown to a small village, with several new buildings and shops. I say 'village' because of these new places, there was a Baker, Butcher, Brewer, Ale house, and an Inn, as well as a new 'store' run by a Trader who had been looking for a place to 'settle down'. The Party was hailed as 'heroes', and treated like visiting nobles. Nothing the village had was 'too good' for their saviors.
This led to the Village becoming a common place to start new quests and adventures, and gave the party a 'home base' to operate from, with villagers firmly on their side of almost any issue. One cannot overstate the utility of having a supportive village for one's party. A Knight even arrived to announce that the village was now part of his fief due to a land grant from the local Baron. The issue caused some problems, until the party returned from a Quest, and the Knight learned that the village was protected by the Party. With some bargaining, the Knight left, assured of the safety of the Village, and very low taxation terms, due to the party's protection. Resulting in the installment of only a 'Sheriff' and a handful of 'Men at Arms' to help protect the place during times the Party was away.
The sheriff and his men had 'easy duty' for the most part, and cordial relations with the village's inhabitants. The low tax was much appreciated by the villagers. And the party was always welcomed with open arms by the sheriff and the villagers. The party's cleric was able to found a shrine to her goddess in the village, and the other members of the party were able to either establish businesses, or 'buy in' into existing ones. Making the place even better in terms of finances overall. This lead to another round of village growth, which led to Bandit attacks, which led to villagers training to protect their village as 'town guard' in support of the Sheriff and his men. The low taxes helped to free up enough wealth to afford a wooden palisade around the 'town', which increased security. And all the wealth the party was passing around didn't hurt things at all.
As of the last played session, the village had grown to small town size, with a palisade wall, gates and towers, and a population fairly well-trained to protect it in the absence of the party's members. During that session, the local Knight has implored the Party to do the same with several other hamlet and villages nearby. All, of course, to benefit himself. But also to 'look good' to the local Baron, of whom he was trying to convince to grant him additional land grants.
It was very nice to be able to call upon the Knight and his retinue, and a group of Men at Arms, to bolster the Sheriff, his Men at Arms, and the Party members, to deal with an Orc invasion quickly and efficiently. Again, earning the respect and admiration of the town's folk.
We'll see where this all goes, with time.
I would consider Telekinetic, Telepathic and Inspiring Leader to be very powerful feats.
Keen Mind is indeed weak, but your comments on what accurately means I do not agree with. Accurately means that you remember details.
My DM let my Beast Barbarian (that already had Medicine Expertise from a UA playtest feature and Herbalist's Kit proficiency) to train to get the Chef feat. He even let it provide Expertise to the tool since I already spent time earning proficiency in the tool previously, and it's hard to enact the redundant tool proficiency rule when you're specifically training for a profession. Super flavorful to be able to use her botany knowledge to make healthy food, and it even let her "poison" a supremely unhealthy mafia boss that was on way too much medicine with even more medicine that he should not have been taking.
Said DM also included a magical manual (in the vein of the ability manuals and tomes) that allowed for learning a Fighting Style after 48 hours of study. Since Beast Barbarians are already the Natural Weapons subclass, being able to do good unarmed damage without having to spend a Rage and getting bonus damage on Grapples was good synergy.
Fighting Initiate can be really powerful. Archery is insane at low levels (especially if you give it to a ranged character who normally wouldn't get a fighting style, e.g., a ranged rogue) and it remains relevant at higher levels too. +1 AC is nothing to scoff at, especially on a heavily-armored character with bounded accuracy. Protection and Interception are not very popular options for paladins and fighters as their _main_ fighting style, but if you give them the feat as a freebie, they can make your life as a DM hell. Superior Technique basically makes this feat equivalent to the Martial Adept feat, and that has a few cool uses for every character. (Sure, most options are tied to weapon attacks, but even spellcasters would benefit from, e.g., the Ambush maneuver.)
Give out the ones the non half feats excluding sharpshooter, GWM and tough.
Fighting initiate, martial initiate, metamagic adept, defensive duelist, all are good. Campaign specific ones are fine too like the FtD dragon ones can be nice in the Stormwreck Isle campaign.
Not the ranger using the freebie Telekinetic to push an enemy through spike growth every turn
In general, I wouldn't consider half-feats as freebies, Especially if they're to be given to a full caster
Telekenitic could be useful to shove someone or something off a cliff, or pull an ally away from an enemy without the AOO and mage hand can be very useful. Not game breaking, but my fav from this list. I've also heard many people love inspiring leader, and they have picked it. Never been a choice I'd make, but I do see its helpfulness.
For half feats I'd probably think twice before giving out something that bumps a character's primary stat (e.g., +INT for a wizard), the other parts of the feat are generally fine, but you start to lose bounded accuracy if you're not careful.
Why not just negate the stat increase, and if they wish to take the full version at some point, D.M. can choose another half-feat? Or talk with the D.M. to find another.
Telekinetic: One of the strongest Feats outthere
These Guys: Yea give it for free !
some feat are interesting to use as Quest rewards like shadow touch fey touch
What about chef + good berry+ life domain cleric. Make goodberry muffins as a treat. 3 berries a muffin healing 12+ the temporary hit points, at 1 lvl as a bonus action. Plus you want more healing just more berries per muffin or make pie slices.
Goodberry specifically states that "a creature can use its action to eat one berry" so personally I would not allow this as a DM. If you don't take the time, the magic doesn't work. And you can't stuff three in your mouth at once, you'll only benefit from one of them as part of that action. You can't "hide the pill" of eating a goodberry as an action by putting it in something else you can eat as a bonus action. Letting players circumvent specific rules like that leads to balance nightmares.
@ryanheath6825 I am aware of the one per action. Just thought that the chef feat would cancel it out due to its allowing you to eat the treat, which If allowed by a dm, would bypass/negate the only eating one per action. As the feat allows you to technically eat more than one. It be cool for a chef healer build
Definitely don't agree with half the list. The first two are a big no-no, Inspiring Leader has no limit for the number of times per day it can be used, and Chef has some shenanigans that can be exploited. The others are fine, but Keen Mind has issues that were brought up in the video. Feats I would have expected to see on here are Lightly Armored, Weapon Master, Prodigy, and Dragon Hide. There are way better feats than these out there. A wizard or sorcerer would love lightly armored instead of needing to take a single level dip into a martial class, and a cleric that doesn't get martial weapons, or a monk that wants a longsword, could make use of Weapon Master. Skill Expert replaces Prodigy for usefulness, and almost no one uses Dragon Hide when you can wear actual armor or use any weapon that does more than 1d4.
Unless I'm mistaken, Fighting Initiate is from Tasha's, not the Players' Handbook!!
My DM's homebrew world (still based in D&D mechanics and stuff) has eight Auspices (basically gods), and each of our characters is blessed by one of them (she offered each of us a choice for which one to be blessed by based on our characters we made for the campaign).
Death Cleric: Nox the Bat, Auspice of Death (also her deity), she got Telepathic.
Bladesinger: Sol the Phoenix, Auspice of the Sun, she got Mobile
Scribes Wizard: Aether the Cuoatl, Auspice of Chaos, she got Metamagic Adept
My Gloomstalker/Arcane Trickster: Justicar the Marut, Auspice of Order, I got Alert
Everyone else makes solid use of their abilities and has fun with them, but nothing really gamebreaking. Except for me. I'm a Gloomstalker (bonus initiative) and I was awarded a pair of homebrew boots that added +10 speed (which I was already sold on!) and a +1d6 to initiative rolls. I routinely roll 25-30 on initiative with my +11 bonus from DEX, WIS, and Alert and we have yet to have a combat session in our 18 months of this campaign where I didn't go first ☺
ah yes magic hands
Armor progression and/or Mastery?
Shield Master.
Telekinetic can have a HUUUUGE Ipmact...other than that I agree
“Magic hand” 1:45
I've always liked Chef it's just cool to me that eating a snacko can revive a downed character and it'a just so flavorful
it can't revive a downed character because it grants temp hp, which doesn't actually heal a dying/unconscious creature.
@@matthewmoran1866 oh fr I didn't know that's good to know though
Surprise tough is not on here
Tough is amazing, add double your level to hp and a free plus 2 on top of Con per level? It’s good
@@shawngallagher8764 fair point
Mental prison with telekinetic is fun
I get your point, but agree to disagree. Why Fighting Initiate? Most martials get a FS anyway! I use to hand out Martial Adept for free for martials and make it 1x per initiative, to make combat more interesting. Other contenders for give away for free, because they are thematic but not worth an ASI, are Mounted Combatant, Shield Master, Athlete, Charger, etc. However, a half feat is always too powerful to be given away for free, especially Telepathic and Telekinetic and campaign depending Chef, too. The secondary effects of Crusher, Piercer and Slasher can or should be given to the user of the corresponding weapon type. (The upcoming edition seems to fix the lacking weapon properties).
Your take on Comprehend Languages is dead wrong, since the literal definition of a "cipher" is a code within writing, the exact thing that the spell specifies that it doesn't recognize.
Second, one should never hand out a free half ASI. *EVER*. Even if you hand it to someone that doesn't hugely benefit from the score increase mechanically, you are setting yourself up for a slippery slope the next time, or the time after. Don't do it.
"Hand out"?
Yes, see DMG 231. You can give out feats as rewards instead of treasure, in the form of special training from a person or organization in the world
Telepathic and telekinetic are way too strong to give for free
telepathic doesnt let you know if a thinking creature is nearby
It allows you to cast Detect Thoughts, which does.
@@rogerwilco2 yes but just having detect thoughts prepared doesn't give you that ability, you need to actually use it, therefore it's not just some sentient creature rader
Is this bait?
Skulker is one of the most powerful feats in the game. It literally turns you into the fucking Predator! Clearly the person who made this video does not know how the Stealth rules work, because this feat is practically mandatory for a Scout Ranger or Assassin Rogue.