honestly, i can see a post-feat 5e. the more i read/write about feats online, the less i enjoy feats in game. they're optional but ubiquitous.
...would blessings and charms become boring and cookie-cutter if DDB finally grew some better tracking of supernatural gifts?
A truly “post feat” version of D&D is unlikely to ever happen; people would low-key riot if they tried to roll back that much customization. I wouldn’t be opposed to getting feats in addition to ASI as opposed to instead of, but there’s pros and cons to either model.
honestly, i can see a post-feat 5e. the more i read/write about feats online, the less i enjoy feats in game. they're optional but ubiquitous.
...would blessings and charms become boring and cookie-cutter if DDB finally grew some better tracking of supernatural gifts?
I dont think this will happen at all. If anything they will go harder into feats. They're going from optional in 5e to a core aspect of 5.5
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
honestly, i can see a post-feat 5e. the more i read/write about feats online, the less i enjoy feats in game. they're optional but ubiquitous.
...would blessings and charms become boring and cookie-cutter if DDB finally grew some better tracking of supernatural gifts?
I dont think this will happen at all. If anything they will go harder into feats. They're going from optional in 5e to a core aspect of 5.5
the UA demonstrated that background feats can help customize a character. great. devs hoped that would empower people to pick Skilled, Chef, Musician, etc. if instead the meta is most characters picking Tough, then that wasn't a choice and then things have to be balanced around that assumption. what i could see happening is full feats (Tough, Polearm Master, Sharpshooter, GWM, etc) moved to require 4th-level or else be left to backwards compatible friendly tables. in their place, maybe a bigger selection of half-feats that attempt to better embody the "area of expertise" PHB description of feats (plus half an ASI).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
honestly, i can see a post-feat 5e. the more i read/write about feats online, the less i enjoy feats in game. they're optional but ubiquitous.
...would blessings and charms become boring and cookie-cutter if DDB finally grew some better tracking of supernatural gifts?
I dont think this will happen at all. If anything they will go harder into feats. They're going from optional in 5e to a core aspect of 5.5
the UA demonstrated that background feats can help customize a character. great. devs hoped that would empower people to pick Skilled, Chef, Musician, etc. if instead the meta is most characters picking Tough, then that wasn't a choice and then things have to be balanced around that assumption. what i could see happening is full feats (Tough, Polearm Master, Sharpshooter, GWM, etc) moved to require 4th-level or else be left to backwards compatible friendly tables. in their place, maybe a bigger selection of half-feats that attempt to better embody the "area of expertise" PHB description of feats (plus half an ASI).
This is definitely going to be a problem. I hope they revamp feats so there are truly specific background feats that are more flavour and less mechanically advantageous than the current options. Because right now there's basically 4 options everyone will pick:
1) Tough - martials that want to tank.
2) Magic Initiate - casters that don't get Shield and want Shield, or casters that don't get Healing Word and wand Healing Word
3) Medium Armour - casters that don't get armour and want to be more frontliners
I’m not sure about “everyone”; I’m certainly not interested in MI for those two spells, or Tough and Medium Armor period. There’s always an optimal choice/configuration, but I doubt they will be nearly so universally embraced as this.
there aren't that many options for level 1 feats. (only 10?) And if medium armor and magic initiate don't exist, you dramatically increase the desire/power of multiclass.
Also, magic initiate will be popular, but its not really one option, it could be efficiency focused, or it could be no power, depending on the player. And its a very good lvl 1 feat because it adds much diversity to the character creation.
Defense is simply not the focus of every player. Many optimizers prioritize synergies or offense, and many non optimizers go for something that aligns with character concept. Dnd is not really a game whose focus is peak efficiency. They need feats that apply to all types of players. I guess having to choose between effeciency and character concept, some types of players struggle, but I don't think limiting every one s options is a great idea. Let the efficiency guy get his 8% more survivability, and the concept guy get his musician feat. The hybrid player will have to face having multiple options.
And the premise is arguable anyhow. I have playtested and observed playtesters choose healer, tavern brawler, lucky and musician. even savage attacker, and I think thats the worst one.(mostly because its an efficiency one, and its efficiency is poor) Actually fighting styles taken as well, though we'll see if that remains in game. Heck I even tested an artificer who took crafter, I have yet to see anyone who didnt like their choice.
And lastly, the bar is already set by existing backgrounds, these can't all be flavor, they have to compete with bigby's, ravenloft etc, as these will be mutually exclusive.
I think it really depends on the character. For some characters, shield or healing word makes sense. I do have a wizard concept that healing word makes sense for. Most of my wizards, if I took MI, it would be to pick up something else I didn't have access to yet wanted and bless, faerie fire, or even shillelagh would make more sense.
Other characters, MI doesn't make any sense at all. Tough is not something that I find interesting, and would probably never take it. Same with medium armor. My concept would have to require it. Given using a physical shield is a non-starter for 95% of any arcane casters I'd be interested in creating, medium armor isn't something I'd be looking at for most characters. Weapons? I'd consider that though, it's not a GOOD idea, and blowing a feat for four weapons when really, I only want 1 in most cases isn't a path I'd go down very often. Are they good feats? Absolutely, and minmaxxers will take advantage of that. And it's ok that they do so. But I don't think that it's going to be a case where everyone shows up with a character using MI, Tough or medium armor. And if they do? Three solid choices is still pretty darned good, and your wizard certainly isn't getting both medium armor AND healing word. They have meaningful choices to make and meaningful choices is a good thing.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
This is definitely going to be a problem. I hope they revamp feats so there are truly specific background feats that are more flavour and less mechanically advantageous than the current options. Because right now there's basically 4 options everyone will pick:
1) Tough - martials that want to tank.
2) Magic Initiate - casters that don't get Shield and want Shield, or casters that don't get Healing Word and wand Healing Word
3) Medium Armour - casters that don't get armour and want to be more frontliners
4) Alert (possibly)
I think they really need to include a skill half-feat like Skill Expert into the mix of 1st-level feats; my groups have been using 3rd- (now 5th-)level starts with a free feat for a while now, and I actually find myself taking Skill Expert on a lot of characters, even with classes like Bard that already quite quite a few proficiencies (and Expertise) as it just lets you build a character that's competent in more areas, and the extra ability score increase can let you either go broader with ability scores, or start with one that tiny bit higher (enough for a +4 with Point Buy/Standard Array).
The Skilled feat has never been quite as appealing as Skill Expert since that one came out; yes you get more basic proficiencies, but Skill Expert's mix of half-feat, proficiency, and expertise is just so much more useful for building characters IMO.
While the nerfing of grappling/shoving may make it less appealing on a martial (where before you could use it to grab Athletics expertise and grapple/shove with high reliability), it's still a great way to add more general utility on a character, so should appeal to anyone that isn't a combat min/maxxer who just sits around dumb as a post for 100% of the rest of the game.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I agree 9 out of 10 times would take Skill Expert over Skilled. Maybe 10/10. Is Skill Expert too good or Skilled just needs a boost. I don’t think I would want a half feat as a 1st level choice. What if Skilled gave Expertise in one skill? Or is that too much for a 1st level option? You can still get the ASI bump for SE with a 4th level prerequisite.
I agree 9 out of 10 times would take Skill Expert over Skilled. Maybe 10/10. Is Skill Expert too good or Skilled just needs a boost. I don’t think I would want a half feat as a 1st level choice. What if Skilled gave Expertise in one skill? Or is that too much for a 1st level option? You can still get the ASI bump for SE with a 4th level prerequisite.
I think the problem with Skilled vs. Skill Expert is that I'd almost always rather excel at one thing than be a bit better at three, so I could definitely see one Expertise being enough to make Skilled more competitive for me.
As for whether a half-feat is too much at 1st-level… I think it really depends only on what you're balancing against; Tough for example is basically a +4 in Constitution without actually raising that score for the purposes of Constitution saving throws, or the rarely used Constitution checks, so an actual +1 ability score increase from half feat doesn't feel like too much to me, especially if it's encouraging something that's not as combat focused. If you consider a character that has an odd Constitution score taking Skill Expert with Constitution as their +1, then they're getting half the benefits of Tough, with proficiency + Expertise as the other half, but Tough is still usually going to be better if you're trying to build someone that can take a lot of punishment, especially on a Barbarian where any hit-point bonus can effectively be doubled some of the time thanks to Rage.
Likewise Magic Initiate is granting extra cantrips, and an extra spell, along with a free casting of that, so in many ways it's (very) roughly equivalent to a level in a casting class, maybe some fraction of a level (two thirds-ish?), so is an extra +1 ability score too strong compared to that? It's tricky, and I could definitely see it being too much if there were combat oriented half-feats in the mix like Crusher/Piercer/Slasher (although their other halves aren't that strong really), but for a mostly out-of-combat feat I feel like it's okay, especially if it makes other "optimal" choices harder.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
honestly, i can see a post-feat 5e. the more i read/write about feats online, the less i enjoy feats in game. they're optional but ubiquitous.
...would blessings and charms become boring and cookie-cutter if DDB finally grew some better tracking of supernatural gifts?
I dont think this will happen at all. If anything they will go harder into feats. They're going from optional in 5e to a core aspect of 5.5
the UA demonstrated that background feats can help customize a character. great. devs hoped that would empower people to pick Skilled, Chef, Musician, etc. if instead the meta is most characters picking Tough, then that wasn't a choice and then things have to be balanced around that assumption. what i could see happening is full feats (Tough, Polearm Master, Sharpshooter, GWM, etc) moved to require 4th-level or else be left to backwards compatible friendly tables. in their place, maybe a bigger selection of half-feats that attempt to better embody the "area of expertise" PHB description of feats (plus half an ASI).
Adding the option to pick things like chef and musician is like adding a slot to pick alignment. You might as well leave it blank
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Adding the option to pick things like chef and musician is like adding a slot to pick alignment. You might as well leave it blank
chef (half-ASI aside) allows party to heal an additional 1d8hp per short rest and musician could, per early UA, provide the party inspiration. that's more utility than alignment in most campaigns. is leaving it blank a sort of protest against what might be perceived as chores rather than hobby or freely shared gifts?
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
If it has a mechanical benefit, why are we complaining about things that might actually be fun, like, casting an extra spell?
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
honestly, i can see a post-feat 5e. the more i read/write about feats online, the less i enjoy feats in game. they're optional but ubiquitous.
...would blessings and charms become boring and cookie-cutter if DDB finally grew some better tracking of supernatural gifts?
I dont think this will happen at all. If anything they will go harder into feats. They're going from optional in 5e to a core aspect of 5.5
the UA demonstrated that background feats can help customize a character. great. devs hoped that would empower people to pick Skilled, Chef, Musician, etc. if instead the meta is most characters picking Tough, then that wasn't a choice and then things have to be balanced around that assumption. what i could see happening is full feats (Tough, Polearm Master, Sharpshooter, GWM, etc) moved to require 4th-level or else be left to backwards compatible friendly tables. in their place, maybe a bigger selection of half-feats that attempt to better embody the "area of expertise" PHB description of feats (plus half an ASI).
Adding the option to pick things like chef and musician is like adding a slot to pick alignment. You might as well leave it blank
Why?!? What’s wrong with those feats? Sure, they’re not “combat optimal,” but D&D isn’t supposed to be a combat-centric game. It’s supposed to be an RPG with all kinds of possibilities for people emphasizing any or all of the different aspects of the genre. I would totally take either of those feats over something that was more advantageous in combat if they better suit my character.
It absolutely is a combat-centric game, and always has been. While I respect your opinion on those feats, I wouldn't touch most of those feats with a 10 foot pole, story reasons or not.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
It absolutely is a combat-centric game, and always has been. While I respect your opinion on those feats, I wouldn't touch most of those feats with a 10 foot pole, story reasons or not.
Combat is a major aspect of D&D, but I argue that it is not the main focus of the game. Just because a lot of people downplay the significance of the RP aspects of the game and often reduce social encounters to little more than skill checks, and just because they choose to completely disregard the exploration aspects of the game and dismiss things like resource tracking, and just because they often fail to either include puzzle solving in their games or fail to recognize it for what it is when it does happen, none of that actually means the singular main focus of D&D is combat. It means those tables are primarily focused on combat, and that’s absolutely fine. After all, there is no wrong way to D&D (except if you’re a wangrod who spoils the game for others). But the actual game of D&D itself does include those aspects, and it’s up to the individual groups of people who play the game to determine what is or is not the main focus for their own groups.
So while it may very well be your opinion that those feats are useless and undesirable (and that’s okay), that doesn’t actually make it universally true. So while WotC “may as well leave it blank” as far as you’re concerned, some of us actually like having those choices made available to us. Why should they then actually “leave it blank” for everyone? Let them offer us those choices, and you go right ahead and feel free to not select them if you prefer not to. But please don’t dismiss other people’s opinions on the matter by stating or implying that their opinion is invalid. (Which is pretty much what you did to rumloverum.)
Also, some of us, myself included, actually like using alignments. I can totally understand why many folks like yourself don’t, and wouldn’t dream of telling you that you’re in any way wrong in disliking them, nor would I insist that you use alignment, even if I was your DM. Many if not most of my players both at my home game and here on DDB choose to not use alignment. I don’t insist they do, even though I would prefer that they did. Would you say that WotC should eliminate alignment from the game just because you dislike it, and therefore deprive me (and others) of the possibility to use it altogether? I should hope the answer to that would be “no.” I would hope that you’d agree that including alignment and leaving the choice of whether or not to use it up to the individuals playing the game is preferable and more inclusive to all than eliminating it and denying those of us who appreciate it the choice entirely. After all, that would directly infringe on my agency as a player to make decisions for my own character and preferred way to play. The same pretty much applies to those feats and the people (myself included) who like the option to use them. Wouldn’t you agree?
I mean, unless your DM really rides you on it (which is a flag towards them as a person, not the system itself), how does it even hurt you to just slap CN or TN in your alignment box and then never look at it again? As has been repeatedly pointed out in discussions over alignment it is descriptive, not proscriptive. Most RPGs with emphasis on social play use some form of personality tracking or description; if you look at the various World of Darkness products you'll actually usually find some firmer and more detailed mechanisms for directing player actions based on the role they chose, typically with the intent of exploring a theme. The Evil/Good and Law/Chaos axes are themes that D&D explores at certain points, and so there's a very simple system to ballpark where your character stands in relation. Complaints about the system, particularly in 5e where it has almost no mechanical impact at all, tend to either be "it offends me by existing" which respectfully is a "you" problem with regards to the person who feels that way when it comes to an entertainment product or "my DM is telling me what I can and can't do because of it", which is a problem with that DM in particular and honestly would still likely crop up in some form or other regardless of what system was in play. To be clear, what I'm saying is you don't pick an alignment and then play your character based on it; you determine how you want to play your character, and then pick the closest alignment as a shorthand reference point of how you're going to play.
…As has been repeatedly pointed out in discussions over alignment it is descriptive, not proscriptive… you don't pick an alignment and then play your character based on it; you determine how you want to play your character, and then pick the closest alignment as a shorthand reference point of how you're going to play.
On top of that, if you change your mind how you want to play your character, or it turns out that the alignment you chose doesn’t really reflect how you play the character, then it’s not like your locked into it or anything either. You just keep on doin’ what you’re doin’ and simply change your character’s alignment to something more fitting. Alignment is by no means immutable by any stretch, and anyone who disagrees or thinks that it is something that should dictate your character’s behavior simply doesn’t understand how it’s sposta work. You dictate your character’s behavior, which in turn dictates your character’s alignment, not the other way around.
As has been repeatedly pointed out in discussions over alignment it is descriptive, not proscriptive.
It's not one or the other, it's whichever you prefer or your DM specifies. Some players pop traits and bonds etc. on their characters then try to play to those, others have a character idea in mind and choose traits/bonds that reinforce or flesh out that idea, but likewise a DM may ask players to make sure they're filled out so they (as DM) can make use them.
The same is true of alignment, except that the big difference is that alignment can have a mechanical effect in the vanilla game; if your campaign features things like evil-only magic items, creatures that can sense alignment etc. then it's somewhat important that either the alignment is correct, or the player and DM agree what their character is when it matters. Otherwise it's just another roleplaying aid; you can either use it or not.
That said, it can also be used as a DM hook; if a player chose lawful good for session 1 and by session 20 they're kicking people to death for fun, then the DM absolutely should ask the player if they want to choose a different action, or accept an alignment change, because that kind of change can be an interesting thing to happen to a character who has been changed by experience, giving in to temptations/emotion etc.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
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A truly “post feat” version of D&D is unlikely to ever happen; people would low-key riot if they tried to roll back that much customization. I wouldn’t be opposed to getting feats in addition to ASI as opposed to instead of, but there’s pros and cons to either model.
I dont think this will happen at all. If anything they will go harder into feats. They're going from optional in 5e to a core aspect of 5.5
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
the UA demonstrated that background feats can help customize a character. great. devs hoped that would empower people to pick Skilled, Chef, Musician, etc. if instead the meta is most characters picking Tough, then that wasn't a choice and then things have to be balanced around that assumption. what i could see happening is full feats (Tough, Polearm Master, Sharpshooter, GWM, etc) moved to require 4th-level or else be left to backwards compatible friendly tables. in their place, maybe a bigger selection of half-feats that attempt to better embody the "area of expertise" PHB description of feats (plus half an ASI).
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
This is definitely going to be a problem. I hope they revamp feats so there are truly specific background feats that are more flavour and less mechanically advantageous than the current options. Because right now there's basically 4 options everyone will pick:
1) Tough - martials that want to tank.
2) Magic Initiate - casters that don't get Shield and want Shield, or casters that don't get Healing Word and wand Healing Word
3) Medium Armour - casters that don't get armour and want to be more frontliners
4) Alert (possibly)
I’m not sure about “everyone”; I’m certainly not interested in MI for those two spells, or Tough and Medium Armor period. There’s always an optimal choice/configuration, but I doubt they will be nearly so universally embraced as this.
there aren't that many options for level 1 feats. (only 10?) And if medium armor and magic initiate don't exist, you dramatically increase the desire/power of multiclass.
Also, magic initiate will be popular, but its not really one option, it could be efficiency focused, or it could be no power, depending on the player. And its a very good lvl 1 feat because it adds much diversity to the character creation.
Defense is simply not the focus of every player. Many optimizers prioritize synergies or offense, and many non optimizers go for something that aligns with character concept. Dnd is not really a game whose focus is peak efficiency. They need feats that apply to all types of players. I guess having to choose between effeciency and character concept, some types of players struggle, but I don't think limiting every one s options is a great idea. Let the efficiency guy get his 8% more survivability, and the concept guy get his musician feat. The hybrid player will have to face having multiple options.
And the premise is arguable anyhow. I have playtested and observed playtesters choose healer, tavern brawler, lucky and musician. even savage attacker, and I think thats the worst one.(mostly because its an efficiency one, and its efficiency is poor) Actually fighting styles taken as well, though we'll see if that remains in game. Heck I even tested an artificer who took crafter, I have yet to see anyone who didnt like their choice.
And lastly, the bar is already set by existing backgrounds, these can't all be flavor, they have to compete with bigby's, ravenloft etc, as these will be mutually exclusive.
I think it really depends on the character. For some characters, shield or healing word makes sense. I do have a wizard concept that healing word makes sense for. Most of my wizards, if I took MI, it would be to pick up something else I didn't have access to yet wanted and bless, faerie fire, or even shillelagh would make more sense.
Other characters, MI doesn't make any sense at all. Tough is not something that I find interesting, and would probably never take it. Same with medium armor. My concept would have to require it. Given using a physical shield is a non-starter for 95% of any arcane casters I'd be interested in creating, medium armor isn't something I'd be looking at for most characters. Weapons? I'd consider that though, it's not a GOOD idea, and blowing a feat for four weapons when really, I only want 1 in most cases isn't a path I'd go down very often. Are they good feats? Absolutely, and minmaxxers will take advantage of that. And it's ok that they do so. But I don't think that it's going to be a case where everyone shows up with a character using MI, Tough or medium armor. And if they do? Three solid choices is still pretty darned good, and your wizard certainly isn't getting both medium armor AND healing word. They have meaningful choices to make and meaningful choices is a good thing.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
I think they really need to include a skill half-feat like Skill Expert into the mix of 1st-level feats; my groups have been using 3rd- (now 5th-)level starts with a free feat for a while now, and I actually find myself taking Skill Expert on a lot of characters, even with classes like Bard that already quite quite a few proficiencies (and Expertise) as it just lets you build a character that's competent in more areas, and the extra ability score increase can let you either go broader with ability scores, or start with one that tiny bit higher (enough for a +4 with Point Buy/Standard Array).
The Skilled feat has never been quite as appealing as Skill Expert since that one came out; yes you get more basic proficiencies, but Skill Expert's mix of half-feat, proficiency, and expertise is just so much more useful for building characters IMO.
While the nerfing of grappling/shoving may make it less appealing on a martial (where before you could use it to grab Athletics expertise and grapple/shove with high reliability), it's still a great way to add more general utility on a character, so should appeal to anyone that isn't a combat min/maxxer who just sits around dumb as a post for 100% of the rest of the game.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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I agree 9 out of 10 times would take Skill Expert over Skilled. Maybe 10/10. Is Skill Expert too good or Skilled just needs a boost. I don’t think I would want a half feat as a 1st level choice. What if Skilled gave Expertise in one skill? Or is that too much for a 1st level option? You can still get the ASI bump for SE with a 4th level prerequisite.
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I think the problem with Skilled vs. Skill Expert is that I'd almost always rather excel at one thing than be a bit better at three, so I could definitely see one Expertise being enough to make Skilled more competitive for me.
As for whether a half-feat is too much at 1st-level… I think it really depends only on what you're balancing against; Tough for example is basically a +4 in Constitution without actually raising that score for the purposes of Constitution saving throws, or the rarely used Constitution checks, so an actual +1 ability score increase from half feat doesn't feel like too much to me, especially if it's encouraging something that's not as combat focused. If you consider a character that has an odd Constitution score taking Skill Expert with Constitution as their +1, then they're getting half the benefits of Tough, with proficiency + Expertise as the other half, but Tough is still usually going to be better if you're trying to build someone that can take a lot of punishment, especially on a Barbarian where any hit-point bonus can effectively be doubled some of the time thanks to Rage.
Likewise Magic Initiate is granting extra cantrips, and an extra spell, along with a free casting of that, so in many ways it's (very) roughly equivalent to a level in a casting class, maybe some fraction of a level (two thirds-ish?), so is an extra +1 ability score too strong compared to that? It's tricky, and I could definitely see it being too much if there were combat oriented half-feats in the mix like Crusher/Piercer/Slasher (although their other halves aren't that strong really), but for a mostly out-of-combat feat I feel like it's okay, especially if it makes other "optimal" choices harder.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
They’ve been clear that there won’t be 1/2 feats at 1st level. In fact being a 1/2 feat is pretty much what makes something 4+.
Adding the option to pick things like chef and musician is like adding a slot to pick alignment. You might as well leave it blank
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
chef (half-ASI aside) allows party to heal an additional 1d8hp per short rest and musician could, per early UA, provide the party inspiration. that's more utility than alignment in most campaigns. is leaving it blank a sort of protest against what might be perceived as chores rather than hobby or freely shared gifts?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
If it has a mechanical benefit, why are we complaining about things that might actually be fun, like, casting an extra spell?
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Why?!? What’s wrong with those feats? Sure, they’re not “combat optimal,” but D&D isn’t supposed to be a combat-centric game. It’s supposed to be an RPG with all kinds of possibilities for people emphasizing any or all of the different aspects of the genre. I would totally take either of those feats over something that was more advantageous in combat if they better suit my character.
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It absolutely is a combat-centric game, and always has been. While I respect your opinion on those feats, I wouldn't touch most of those feats with a 10 foot pole, story reasons or not.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Combat is a major aspect of D&D, but I argue that it is not the main focus of the game. Just because a lot of people downplay the significance of the RP aspects of the game and often reduce social encounters to little more than skill checks, and just because they choose to completely disregard the exploration aspects of the game and dismiss things like resource tracking, and just because they often fail to either include puzzle solving in their games or fail to recognize it for what it is when it does happen, none of that actually means the singular main focus of D&D is combat. It means those tables are primarily focused on combat, and that’s absolutely fine. After all, there is no wrong way to D&D (except if you’re a wangrod who spoils the game for others). But the actual game of D&D itself does include those aspects, and it’s up to the individual groups of people who play the game to determine what is or is not the main focus for their own groups.
So while it may very well be your opinion that those feats are useless and undesirable (and that’s okay), that doesn’t actually make it universally true. So while WotC “may as well leave it blank” as far as you’re concerned, some of us actually like having those choices made available to us. Why should they then actually “leave it blank” for everyone? Let them offer us those choices, and you go right ahead and feel free to not select them if you prefer not to. But please don’t dismiss other people’s opinions on the matter by stating or implying that their opinion is invalid. (Which is pretty much what you did to rumloverum.)
Also, some of us, myself included, actually like using alignments. I can totally understand why many folks like yourself don’t, and wouldn’t dream of telling you that you’re in any way wrong in disliking them, nor would I insist that you use alignment, even if I was your DM. Many if not most of my players both at my home game and here on DDB choose to not use alignment. I don’t insist they do, even though I would prefer that they did. Would you say that WotC should eliminate alignment from the game just because you dislike it, and therefore deprive me (and others) of the possibility to use it altogether? I should hope the answer to that would be “no.” I would hope that you’d agree that including alignment and leaving the choice of whether or not to use it up to the individuals playing the game is preferable and more inclusive to all than eliminating it and denying those of us who appreciate it the choice entirely. After all, that would directly infringe on my agency as a player to make decisions for my own character and preferred way to play. The same pretty much applies to those feats and the people (myself included) who like the option to use them. Wouldn’t you agree?
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I mean, unless your DM really rides you on it (which is a flag towards them as a person, not the system itself), how does it even hurt you to just slap CN or TN in your alignment box and then never look at it again? As has been repeatedly pointed out in discussions over alignment it is descriptive, not proscriptive. Most RPGs with emphasis on social play use some form of personality tracking or description; if you look at the various World of Darkness products you'll actually usually find some firmer and more detailed mechanisms for directing player actions based on the role they chose, typically with the intent of exploring a theme. The Evil/Good and Law/Chaos axes are themes that D&D explores at certain points, and so there's a very simple system to ballpark where your character stands in relation. Complaints about the system, particularly in 5e where it has almost no mechanical impact at all, tend to either be "it offends me by existing" which respectfully is a "you" problem with regards to the person who feels that way when it comes to an entertainment product or "my DM is telling me what I can and can't do because of it", which is a problem with that DM in particular and honestly would still likely crop up in some form or other regardless of what system was in play. To be clear, what I'm saying is you don't pick an alignment and then play your character based on it; you determine how you want to play your character, and then pick the closest alignment as a shorthand reference point of how you're going to play.
On top of that, if you change your mind how you want to play your character, or it turns out that the alignment you chose doesn’t really reflect how you play the character, then it’s not like your locked into it or anything either. You just keep on doin’ what you’re doin’ and simply change your character’s alignment to something more fitting. Alignment is by no means immutable by any stretch, and anyone who disagrees or thinks that it is something that should dictate your character’s behavior simply doesn’t understand how it’s sposta work. You dictate your character’s behavior, which in turn dictates your character’s alignment, not the other way around.
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It's not one or the other, it's whichever you prefer or your DM specifies. Some players pop traits and bonds etc. on their characters then try to play to those, others have a character idea in mind and choose traits/bonds that reinforce or flesh out that idea, but likewise a DM may ask players to make sure they're filled out so they (as DM) can make use them.
The same is true of alignment, except that the big difference is that alignment can have a mechanical effect in the vanilla game; if your campaign features things like evil-only magic items, creatures that can sense alignment etc. then it's somewhat important that either the alignment is correct, or the player and DM agree what their character is when it matters. Otherwise it's just another roleplaying aid; you can either use it or not.
That said, it can also be used as a DM hook; if a player chose lawful good for session 1 and by session 20 they're kicking people to death for fun, then the DM absolutely should ask the player if they want to choose a different action, or accept an alignment change, because that kind of change can be an interesting thing to happen to a character who has been changed by experience, giving in to temptations/emotion etc.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.