Am I the only one, who's still missing something like:
Close quarters caster: increase Wis/Int/Cha +1 Cast any spell from melee range without disadvantage.
I mean the gunner now gives me Dex+1, wich is kinda good as well. But as a Warlock i am never going to use a firearm, since i can also use eldritch blast from melee now.
So I want to talk eldritch initiate. You have access to any eldritch invocation without prerequisites, unless you are a warlock.
that means all characters could choose from the following:
armor of shadows: At will mage armor, wizards and sorcers will snap this up in a heart beat beast speech: Druids and ranges grabbing this elft right and center I predict beguiling influence: I don't see this being too interesting to people devil's sight: This might be popular for variant humans eldritch sight: Finally wizards can do what they always feel they should be able to do. eyes of the rune keeper: This could solve a lot of puzzles straight away, especially given the very broad wording: You can read all writing. that would include codes fiendish vigor: Meh gaze of two minds: I mean, if you don't already have a familiar, this could be helpful mask of many faces: Shape-shifting! misty visions: If an illusionist wizard DOESN'T"T take this, kick them out of the game.
Mostly a lot of at will first level spells, which is pretty awesome.
Quickened Spell This might have interactions with Eldritch Knights or Paladins, but I'm not super familiar with either. Call Lightning is the only spell that really benefits from this that didn't before that I can find.
My Paladin would love to quicken a Hold Person to gain auto-crits on my hits that round instead of having to wait until the next round.
ALL RIGHT. Now that I’ve had a bit of time to digest, let’s examine this a bit differently, shall we?
Many of these are not new. Not really. “Gain a single choice of Fighting Style”, “gain an Eldritch Invocation”, “gain a little Metamagic”, and the like are all amongst the most common and popular homebrew feats on DDB, and I’m assuming anywhere else. Take a dive through DDB Public Homebrew (just remember your hazmat suit first) and you’ll find three hundred versions of ‘Take a Fighting Style’. None of which are implemented properly because you can’t do that in DDB’s magnificently shitty homebrew editor, but that’s a different conversation.
‘Initiate’ style feats granting a little splash of some other class’s identifying features have been consistently and strongly among the top options players invent for themselves since the edition launched. These UA feats seem to be slanted towards being official versions of the popular homebrew, which explains the presence of Chef. Chef seems a very weird inclusion in a list of otherwise combat-related feats...until you realize that almost all of these are adaptations of very common/popular homebrew options many tables adopt, at which point you remember that every single table in D&D has had to come up with a variation of Super Cooking for the foodie with Cook’s Utensils who wants to be his party’s gourmand.
What that says to me, when combined with the CFVs UA from last year alongside several things I’ve heard from Crawford and the team as a whole since then, indicates that the 5e design team may be trying to pivot a bit on their design principles. If you can call anything in 5e a ‘design principle’, anyways. Wizards isn’t worried about feature bleed or Diluting Class Identities(C) at this point. They seem to have realized that class identity is nothing more than a function of character identity; the one serves the other, and the latter is by far the more important of the two. Even the common player arguments against diffusing metamagic out of the sorcerer class have more to do with sorcerer players feeling like their class doesn’t give them enough ways to carve out their character identity than the idea that metamagic is a sacred cow. “This is the only thing that gives me something different, don’t give it away” is not an argument against diffusing Metamagic out, it’s an argument for making sorcerers more enticing to play.
Many of the unceasing monsoon floodtide of half-designed UA character classes explicitly call out that the player gets to choose how many of their features manifest. Class Feature Variants (provided it ever gets published, and in turn ever gets implemented in DDB) allows you to edit your class’s core features in pursuance of a specific character vision (and of fixing the damned ranger, but mostly vision). The artificer class was in many ways built with these goals specifically in mind, with each subclass gaining ways to manifest their standout features differently and their entire spellcasting feature explicitly designed to invite the player to go nuts with thematics and theatrics.
There seems to be a push within the last year or so of 5e development for being less pushy. Less ‘this is OUR world, OUR lore, OUR rules, and we’re graciously letting you play with them’ and more ‘hey, it’s okay for you to do you.’ Perhaps it’s the release of Pathfinder 2e. Perhaps it’s watching the runaway freight train success of shows like Critical Role that do their own thing in their own worlds. The PHB has always said “feel free to modify these rules however fits best for your game”, but only in recent times has it felt like the devs are specifically building that idea into the rules themselves.
Gotta say, I’m a fan. This idea of shifting more towards tools to build the character you want to play, rather than 5e handing you rules and archetypes and prebuilt characters and saying “this is what you’re allowed to do, deal w/it”, is enormously enticing and I hope we see more of it. This next player options book coming up may well be The Shit.
My major issue with the Metamagic Adept as it is currently written is that it is so darned good that it is almost an autoinclude for actual Sorcerers. If the feat that’s supposed to give you “a taste of Sorcery” is so strong that players of the actual Class will feel like they kinda gotta take it. That means it’s too strong. By comparison, a Wizard/Sorcerer/etc could gain benefits by taking Magic Initiate in their own class, but they wouldn’t get so much that it’s dumb not to take it. Metamagic Adept would give a Sorcerer a full 50% increase in their availability Metamagic options. Is too stonk.
My major issue with the Metamagic Adept as it is currently written is that it is so darned good that it is almost an autoinclude for actual Sorcerers. If the feat that’s supposed to give you “a taste of Sorcery” is so strong that players of the actual Class will feel like they kinda gotta take it. That means it’s too strong. By comparison, a Wizard/Sorcerer/etc could gain benefits by taking Magic Initiate in their own class, but they wouldn’t get so much that it’s dumb not to take it. Metamagic Adept would give a Sorcerer a full 50% increase in their availability Metamagic options. Is too stonk.
You say that, and yet Sorcerer is one of those classes that people have been crying for a boon for a while. If this helps them that much that they need to take it, I'm not seeing why that's a bad thing.
My major issue with the Metamagic Adept as it is currently written is that it is so darned good that it is almost an autoinclude for actual Sorcerers. If the feat that’s supposed to give you “a taste of Sorcery” is so strong that players of the actual Class will feel like they kinda gotta take it. That means it’s too strong. By comparison, a Wizard/Sorcerer/etc could gain benefits by taking Magic Initiate in their own class, but they wouldn’t get so much that it’s dumb not to take it. Metamagic Adept would give a Sorcerer a full 50% increase in their availability Metamagic options. Is too stonk.
You say that, and yet Sorcerer is one of those classes that people have been crying for a boon for a while. If this helps them that much that they need to take it, I'm not seeing why that's a bad thing.
Because Sorcerer Players should not feel compelled to give up an ASI to get something that their base class should already offer. Because an Eldritch Knight shouldn’t get half the Metamagic options that a Sorcerer gets by taking a single feat. Because feats are “optional rules” and a DM can nix them if they want to. It’s poor design. The feat should give one Metamagic power, and Sorcerers should just get five (instead of four) from their base class.
My major issue with the Metamagic Adept as it is currently written is that it is so darned good that it is almost an autoinclude for actual Sorcerers. If the feat that’s supposed to give you “a taste of Sorcery” is so strong that players of the actual Class will feel like they kinda gotta take it. That means it’s too strong. By comparison, a Wizard/Sorcerer/etc could gain benefits by taking Magic Initiate in their own class, but they wouldn’t get so much that it’s dumb not to take it. Metamagic Adept would give a Sorcerer a full 50% increase in their availability Metamagic options. Is too stonk.
You say that, and yet Sorcerer is one of those classes that people have been crying for a boon for a while. If this helps them that much that they need to take it, I'm not seeing why that's a bad thing.
Because Sorcerer Players should not feel compelled to give up an ASI to get something that their base class should already offer. Because an Eldritch Knight shouldn’t get half the Metamagic options that a Sorcerer gets by taking a single feat. Because feats are “optional rules” and a DM can nix them if they want to. It’s poor design. The feat should give one Metamagic power, and Sorcerers should just get five (instead of four) from their base class.
Sorcerers should get certain things (Metamagic shouldn't have been set in stone when you choose them IMO, and they should get more of them to work with, and they should have been able to choose spells that fit the theme of their origin without gimping themselves outside of a few exceptions), but it doesn't mean they will. Also I'm in the camp that feats shouldn't have been an optional rule in the first place. It's frankly telling that so many people use them, to the point that it's easy to forget that it's optional.
It kinda speaks to the fact that sorcerers don't get enough metamagic. Until tenth FREAKING level, a sorcerer has no more versatility with their metamagic than someone with this feat. The sorcerer has better endurance, but not better options. At no point does a Magic Initiate feat completely equal the original spellcasting list, nor does Martial Adept ever outright equal the Battlemaster.
People like to kvetch about the ranger being bad, but really...the poor sorcerer needs just as much work.
If anything, this UA is a demonstration that Wizards knows that feats are a common thing in games, and (outside of giving paranoid DMs an excuse to ban them) making feats optional was about as insightful as making multiclassing optional. Multiclassing has a lot that's funky about it, but it's still a thing that they should have anticipated would be used, and thus should have designed the classes with that in mind IMO.
Because Sorcerer Players should not feel compelled to give up an ASI to get something that their base class should already offer. Because an Eldritch Knight shouldn’t get half the Metamagic options that a Sorcerer gets by taking a single feat. Because feats are “optional rules” and a DM can nix them if they want to. It’s poor design. The feat should give one Metamagic power, and Sorcerers should just get five (instead of four) from their base class.
I don't disagree with you that Sorcerers should just get more metamagic, but I'd be very surprised if XGTE2 had a new version of metamagic that's a straight buff as a "variant." I'd certainly welcome it or an errata to the same effect though, but to be honest, I think MA+origin spells is about as good as we can hope for.
I recall a figure somewhere saying that over half of all games/characters on DDB don't use feats. Which seems...insane to me, but every time I start thinking there's hope for the 5e community I'm reminded that it is literally impossible to make this game too simplistic or reductionistic in the designer's eyes. That SOMEHOW, some inconceivable way, not just a few of the game's players but a majority of them if we're to believe Wizards' statements believe that a Champion fighter with no feats and no multiclassing is still too complicated to figure out, and so they have to keep pulling back on cognitive load and depth of design.
We don't hear from those folks because I imagine none of them are willing to put in the time to learn how to use a forum. On my more uncharitable days I find myself wondering who forced them to put in the time to learn how to use a keyboard. Clearly they do know that much, since they keep destroying cool UA ideas with survey feedback bellowing "2 HARD MAYK EZR"
I recall a figure somewhere saying that over half of all games/characters on DDB don't use feats. Which seems...insane to me, but every time I start thinking there's hope for the 5e community I'm reminded that it is literally impossible to make this game too simplistic or reductionistic in the designer's eyes. That SOMEHOW, some inconceivable way, not just a few of the game's players but a majority of them if we're to believe Wizards' statements believe that a Champion fighter with no feats and no multiclassing is still too complicated to figure out, and so they have to keep pulling back on cognitive load and depth of design.
We don't hear from those folks because I imagine none of them are willing to put in the time to learn how to use a forum. On my more uncharitable days I find myself wondering who forced them to put in the time to learn how to use a keyboard. Clearly they do know that much, since they keep destroying cool UA ideas with survey feedback bellowing "2 HARD MAYK EZR"
Unless I'm missing something, I believe there's a pretty mundane answer to that: most characters and campaigns don't get that far. Unless you're variant human, you don't get one until level 4, and it's perfectly reasonable to want to max your main scores first.
I recall a figure somewhere saying that over half of all games/characters on DDB don't use feats. Which seems...insane to me, but every time I start thinking there's hope for the 5e community I'm reminded that it is literally impossible to make this game too simplistic or reductionistic in the designer's eyes. That SOMEHOW, some inconceivable way, not just a few of the game's players but a majority of them if we're to believe Wizards' statements believe that a Champion fighter with no feats and no multiclassing is still too complicated to figure out, and so they have to keep pulling back on cognitive load and depth of design.
We don't hear from those folks because I imagine none of them are willing to put in the time to learn how to use a forum. On my more uncharitable days I find myself wondering who forced them to put in the time to learn how to use a keyboard. Clearly they do know that much, since they keep destroying cool UA ideas with survey feedback bellowing "2 HARD MAYK EZR"
Unless I'm missing something, I believe there's a pretty mundane answer to that: most characters and campaigns don't get that far. Unless you're variant human, you don't get one until level 4, and it's perfectly reasonable to want to max your main scores first.
And Sposta brought it up as a counterpoint, but I sometimes wonder if making people sacrifice their ASI for a feat was really the best approach they could have taken. I've even read of cases where DMs allow their players to take a feat to start with, even if they aren't a Variant Human.
If one Feat nullifies the entire class, maybe the class should fall to the wayside to make room for better things. Why gimp future content just to preserve a class that was poorly designed from the very beginning?
Of course, if the Class Feature Variants go into effect, the Meta Magic Feat might not seem so bad.
And Sposta brought it up as a counterpoint, but I sometimes wonder if making people sacrifice their ASI for a feat was really the best approach they could have taken. I've even read of cases where DMs allow their players to take a feat to start with, even if they aren't a Variant Human.
Oh, I absolutely don't think ASI vs Feat is the best approach. I'm a huge fan of PF2's system, but that would be such a radical overhaul for D&D that it'll never happen in 5e.
I've not heard of just giving every player a feat right out of the gate, but... I'm honestly not opposed to it. For veteran players, it would make the lower levels more interesting, I think.
I recall a figure somewhere saying that over half of all games/characters on DDB don't use feats. Which seems...insane to me, but every time I start thinking there's hope for the 5e community I'm reminded that it is literally impossible to make this game too simplistic or reductionistic in the designer's eyes. That SOMEHOW, some inconceivable way, not just a few of the game's players but a majority of them if we're to believe Wizards' statements believe that a Champion fighter with no feats and no multiclassing is still too complicated to figure out, and so they have to keep pulling back on cognitive load and depth of design.
We don't hear from those folks because I imagine none of them are willing to put in the time to learn how to use a forum. On my more uncharitable days I find myself wondering who forced them to put in the time to learn how to use a keyboard. Clearly they do know that much, since they keep destroying cool UA ideas with survey feedback bellowing "2 HARD MAYK EZR"
Unless I'm missing something, I believe there's a pretty mundane answer to that: most characters and campaigns don't get that far. Unless you're variant human, you don't get one until level 4, and it's perfectly reasonable to want to max your main scores first.
I prefer to max out at least my primary score before getting feats, unless it is a feat that also buffs ability scores.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
If one Feat nullifies the entire class, maybe the class should fall to the wayside to make room for better things. Why gimp future content just to preserve a class that was poorly designed from the very beginning?
Of course, if the Class Feature Variants go into effect, the Meta Magic Feat might not seem so bad.
I think this is so true for the Tracker feat and the Ranger! Like, I can get Favored Enemy or just take tracker and have advantage on ALL survival checks to track any creature. My Ranger would just take this feat, get Hunter’s Mark for free so I don’t have to use a spell known to get it and take another spell, and never ask the DM if I get advantage for something being my Favored Enemy again.
Are you done? anything constructive to add? Or just more ranting how you are better than the WotC design team, and they're all morons ruining it.
Keep going Superboy Prime, we're all riveted and taking you seriously.
What? People aren’t allowed to voice their opinions about a thing in a forum dedicated to discussing people’s opinions about that thing?
while likely overly curt, this was aimed at Yurei's tendency to decry the whole system as terrible, and rail about how design decisions were only made because designers were idiots, rather than you know... constructive specific criticism. admittedly, what that comment and now this one too I am guilty of the same crime.
That’s okay, I am guilty of the crime of generally agreeing with Yurei about all of that. And it’s not that they’re “idiots” by the way, but their process of “design by comunity comity” is inherently flawed.
Are you done? anything constructive to add? Or just more ranting how you are better than the WotC design team, and they're all morons ruining it.
Keep going Superboy Prime, we're all riveted and taking you seriously.
What? People aren’t allowed to voice their opinions about a thing in a forum dedicated to discussing people’s opinions about that thing?
while likely overly curt, this was aimed at Yurei's tendency to decry the whole system as terrible, and rail about how design decisions were only made because designers were idiots, rather than you know... constructive specific criticism. admittedly, what that comment and now this one too I am guilty of the same crime.
Yurei's tendency is to describe the system as overly simplistic, sacrificing too much depth and making cuts in the wrong places, and the game's design team as chained to far too many masters to do their job effectively. She feels like the actual game design people Wizards employs are very talented folks who love the game and simply want it to shine, but they have to answer to the WotC executive team, who are...not good people, let's put it that way...and to the howling cacophony of self-destructive insanity that is "Community Feedback". Yurei is puzzled that anybody could make any sort of functional game in those circumstances, given the bloodsucking money-crazed executives on one end and the Maw of Madness on the other end.
Yurei also put up a nice little micro-essay back in post #64 that, overall, praised the direction said design team seemed to be heading over the last yearish and expressing interest in the next player options book that all this UA seems to be building to. Yurei's gut instinct is that documents like CFVs and this new Feats UA is potentially one way Jay-Craw and co. are trying to introduce their message of "do what works in your game, and damn what we wrote if it gets in your way" into the rules themselves, rather than as brief asides everybody ignores. Yurei didn't bother with a feat-by-feat breakdown and analysis of everything in the document because twenty other people had already done that and nobody gives a shit about her opinion of those specifics anyways, and was attempting to engage with other posters on their ideas after putting up a take from a different direction on what the document might mean for the future of the game.
But, y'know. Sure. Good thing you were there to spike Yurei's naysaying this time, Zoken.
ANYWAYS.
On the subject of "Let every player take a feat at level 1, not just Variant Humans": I've done that for my current campaign, and the DM who runs the game I get to play in has done the same. It is, in fact, a standard and accepted part of character generation at our table, with the caveat that heavy combat feats - Crossbow Expert, Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master, and the like, as well as a few notable standout Super Feats - are barred from that pick. The intent is specifically to let players take a flavorful background-y feat, or a species feat out of Xanathar, that otherwise would never see the light of day from the start and enjoy its benefits.
We love the rule and will never change it. My archaeologist Battlesmith, a well traveled and better read scholar of history and the arcane, took Linguist as her 'flavor freebie' to represent all that world-traveler, rakish-science-adventurer experience, and it's awesome. Our table's seen Keen Mind a couple of times, we have a Grappler, and people other than me have occasionally allocated Skilled. Amongst many different species feats. It hasn't caused any sort of balance issue at our table, and it's meant Variant Human is not the automatic default choice for eighty-three percent of all possible builds.
It's an awesome house rule and I highly recommend it. We've experimented with lots of different varieties of character generation and advancement, many of which grapple with the issue of "do I take a feat and feel like I'm making a cool choice for how to develop my character, or do I take an ASI even though it's super boring just so I don't fall behind?" What we've settled on is what I term Enhanced Standard Progression, which I also highly recommend. Details in spoiler boxes below, as it's only really partially relevant to the thread at hand.
Enhanced Standard Progression is exactly that. Characters start with stats generated either via Standard Array or by-the-book point buy, with the Flavor Freebie feat as discussed above. In some cases 'Flaw Feats' are used (see the homebrew 'Flaw' feats from PenguinInAJar for excellent examples of how these work), and/or players who want to drop their 8 to a 6 can do so in exchange for one extra point to put somewhere else. A character cannot start with a score higher than 17, after species stat bonuses are taken into account - no playing an elf, putting 15 in Dex, and then sinking Strength to 6 to start with 18 Dexterity.
Whenever a character attains a 'regular' ASI, i.e. the one their class grants at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th levels, they must take that as an ASI. They cannot select a feat with that ASI. Instead, characters gain a feat of their choice (that they meet the prerequisites for) at character levels 1 (Flavor Freebie), 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19. The bonus ASIs granted by the fighter and rogue classes can be taken as either an ASI or feat, as is normal, as those are special class features rather than Standard Progression.
This approach allows players to freely take cool, character-defining feats and fun abilities without sacrificing their character's ability to function at higher levels and is less punitive to multiclass characters that may not get as many ASIs overall and cannot spare any of them for feats. The system does delay most multiclass characters' stat growth, allowing single-class characters to shine in their own ways. It butchers the game math less than the usual fix for this issue, i.e. Heroic Stat Rolls, since characters are still generally within a point or two of where the game expects them to be ability-wise. It also enforces the feeling of progression and rising strength that a Hero's Journey is supposed to have, since your character cannot help but gain in both specific powers and raw ability as they progress. At least, if you don't multiclass Abserd-style and never take more than three levels in a class.
My table's found this to be an excellent compromise, and honestly more fun than Heroic Rolls that leave you feeling like there's nowhere for your character to go. There's more to look forward to as you level up and gain power, and a real sense that you're becoming a legendary hero rather than having always been a legendary hero who just didn't know how to do her job.
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Am I the only one, who's still missing something like:
Close quarters caster:
increase Wis/Int/Cha +1
Cast any spell from melee range without disadvantage.
I mean the gunner now gives me Dex+1, wich is kinda good as well. But as a Warlock i am never going to use a firearm, since i can also use eldritch blast from melee now.
So I want to talk eldritch initiate. You have access to any eldritch invocation without prerequisites, unless you are a warlock.
that means all characters could choose from the following:
armor of shadows: At will mage armor, wizards and sorcers will snap this up in a heart beat
beast speech: Druids and ranges grabbing this elft right and center I predict
beguiling influence: I don't see this being too interesting to people
devil's sight: This might be popular for variant humans
eldritch sight: Finally wizards can do what they always feel they should be able to do.
eyes of the rune keeper: This could solve a lot of puzzles straight away, especially given the very broad wording: You can read all writing. that would include codes
fiendish vigor: Meh
gaze of two minds: I mean, if you don't already have a familiar, this could be helpful
mask of many faces: Shape-shifting!
misty visions: If an illusionist wizard DOESN'T"T take this, kick them out of the game.
Mostly a lot of at will first level spells, which is pretty awesome.
My Paladin would love to quicken a Hold Person to gain auto-crits on my hits that round instead of having to wait until the next round.
Empower and Extend were also my next two choices.
ALL RIGHT. Now that I’ve had a bit of time to digest, let’s examine this a bit differently, shall we?
Many of these are not new. Not really. “Gain a single choice of Fighting Style”, “gain an Eldritch Invocation”, “gain a little Metamagic”, and the like are all amongst the most common and popular homebrew feats on DDB, and I’m assuming anywhere else. Take a dive through DDB Public Homebrew (just remember your hazmat suit first) and you’ll find three hundred versions of ‘Take a Fighting Style’. None of which are implemented properly because you can’t do that in DDB’s magnificently shitty homebrew editor, but that’s a different conversation.
‘Initiate’ style feats granting a little splash of some other class’s identifying features have been consistently and strongly among the top options players invent for themselves since the edition launched. These UA feats seem to be slanted towards being official versions of the popular homebrew, which explains the presence of Chef. Chef seems a very weird inclusion in a list of otherwise combat-related feats...until you realize that almost all of these are adaptations of very common/popular homebrew options many tables adopt, at which point you remember that every single table in D&D has had to come up with a variation of Super Cooking for the foodie with Cook’s Utensils who wants to be his party’s gourmand.
What that says to me, when combined with the CFVs UA from last year alongside several things I’ve heard from Crawford and the team as a whole since then, indicates that the 5e design team may be trying to pivot a bit on their design principles. If you can call anything in 5e a ‘design principle’, anyways. Wizards isn’t worried about feature bleed or Diluting Class Identities(C) at this point. They seem to have realized that class identity is nothing more than a function of character identity; the one serves the other, and the latter is by far the more important of the two. Even the common player arguments against diffusing metamagic out of the sorcerer class have more to do with sorcerer players feeling like their class doesn’t give them enough ways to carve out their character identity than the idea that metamagic is a sacred cow. “This is the only thing that gives me something different, don’t give it away” is not an argument against diffusing Metamagic out, it’s an argument for making sorcerers more enticing to play.
Many of the unceasing monsoon floodtide of half-designed UA character classes explicitly call out that the player gets to choose how many of their features manifest. Class Feature Variants (provided it ever gets published, and in turn ever gets implemented in DDB) allows you to edit your class’s core features in pursuance of a specific character vision (and of fixing the damned ranger, but mostly vision). The artificer class was in many ways built with these goals specifically in mind, with each subclass gaining ways to manifest their standout features differently and their entire spellcasting feature explicitly designed to invite the player to go nuts with thematics and theatrics.
There seems to be a push within the last year or so of 5e development for being less pushy. Less ‘this is OUR world, OUR lore, OUR rules, and we’re graciously letting you play with them’ and more ‘hey, it’s okay for you to do you.’ Perhaps it’s the release of Pathfinder 2e. Perhaps it’s watching the runaway freight train success of shows like Critical Role that do their own thing in their own worlds. The PHB has always said “feel free to modify these rules however fits best for your game”, but only in recent times has it felt like the devs are specifically building that idea into the rules themselves.
Gotta say, I’m a fan. This idea of shifting more towards tools to build the character you want to play, rather than 5e handing you rules and archetypes and prebuilt characters and saying “this is what you’re allowed to do, deal w/it”, is enormously enticing and I hope we see more of it. This next player options book coming up may well be The Shit.
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My major issue with the Metamagic Adept as it is currently written is that it is so darned good that it is almost an autoinclude for actual Sorcerers. If the feat that’s supposed to give you “a taste of Sorcery” is so strong that players of the actual Class will feel like they kinda gotta take it. That means it’s too strong. By comparison, a Wizard/Sorcerer/etc could gain benefits by taking Magic Initiate in their own class, but they wouldn’t get so much that it’s dumb not to take it. Metamagic Adept would give a Sorcerer a full 50% increase in their availability Metamagic options. Is too stonk.
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You say that, and yet Sorcerer is one of those classes that people have been crying for a boon for a while. If this helps them that much that they need to take it, I'm not seeing why that's a bad thing.
Because Sorcerer Players should not feel compelled to give up an ASI to get something that their base class should already offer. Because an Eldritch Knight shouldn’t get half the Metamagic options that a Sorcerer gets by taking a single feat. Because feats are “optional rules” and a DM can nix them if they want to. It’s poor design. The feat should give one Metamagic power, and Sorcerers should just get five (instead of four) from their base class.
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Content Troubleshooting
Sorcerers should get certain things (Metamagic shouldn't have been set in stone when you choose them IMO, and they should get more of them to work with, and they should have been able to choose spells that fit the theme of their origin without gimping themselves outside of a few exceptions), but it doesn't mean they will. Also I'm in the camp that feats shouldn't have been an optional rule in the first place. It's frankly telling that so many people use them, to the point that it's easy to forget that it's optional.
It kinda speaks to the fact that sorcerers don't get enough metamagic. Until tenth FREAKING level, a sorcerer has no more versatility with their metamagic than someone with this feat. The sorcerer has better endurance, but not better options. At no point does a Magic Initiate feat completely equal the original spellcasting list, nor does Martial Adept ever outright equal the Battlemaster.
People like to kvetch about the ranger being bad, but really...the poor sorcerer needs just as much work.
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If anything, this UA is a demonstration that Wizards knows that feats are a common thing in games, and (outside of giving paranoid DMs an excuse to ban them) making feats optional was about as insightful as making multiclassing optional. Multiclassing has a lot that's funky about it, but it's still a thing that they should have anticipated would be used, and thus should have designed the classes with that in mind IMO.
I don't disagree with you that Sorcerers should just get more metamagic, but I'd be very surprised if XGTE2 had a new version of metamagic that's a straight buff as a "variant." I'd certainly welcome it or an errata to the same effect though, but to be honest, I think MA+origin spells is about as good as we can hope for.
I recall a figure somewhere saying that over half of all games/characters on DDB don't use feats. Which seems...insane to me, but every time I start thinking there's hope for the 5e community I'm reminded that it is literally impossible to make this game too simplistic or reductionistic in the designer's eyes. That SOMEHOW, some inconceivable way, not just a few of the game's players but a majority of them if we're to believe Wizards' statements believe that a Champion fighter with no feats and no multiclassing is still too complicated to figure out, and so they have to keep pulling back on cognitive load and depth of design.
We don't hear from those folks because I imagine none of them are willing to put in the time to learn how to use a forum. On my more uncharitable days I find myself wondering who forced them to put in the time to learn how to use a keyboard. Clearly they do know that much, since they keep destroying cool UA ideas with survey feedback bellowing "2 HARD MAYK EZR"
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Unless I'm missing something, I believe there's a pretty mundane answer to that: most characters and campaigns don't get that far. Unless you're variant human, you don't get one until level 4, and it's perfectly reasonable to want to max your main scores first.
And Sposta brought it up as a counterpoint, but I sometimes wonder if making people sacrifice their ASI for a feat was really the best approach they could have taken. I've even read of cases where DMs allow their players to take a feat to start with, even if they aren't a Variant Human.
Unpopular Opinion Incoming:
If one Feat nullifies the entire class, maybe the class should fall to the wayside to make room for better things. Why gimp future content just to preserve a class that was poorly designed from the very beginning?
Of course, if the Class Feature Variants go into effect, the Meta Magic Feat might not seem so bad.
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Oh, I absolutely don't think ASI vs Feat is the best approach. I'm a huge fan of PF2's system, but that would be such a radical overhaul for D&D that it'll never happen in 5e.
I've not heard of just giving every player a feat right out of the gate, but... I'm honestly not opposed to it. For veteran players, it would make the lower levels more interesting, I think.
I prefer to max out at least my primary score before getting feats, unless it is a feat that also buffs ability scores.
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I think this is so true for the Tracker feat and the Ranger! Like, I can get Favored Enemy or just take tracker and have advantage on ALL survival checks to track any creature. My Ranger would just take this feat, get Hunter’s Mark for free so I don’t have to use a spell known to get it and take another spell, and never ask the DM if I get advantage for something being my Favored Enemy again.
That’s okay, I am guilty of the crime of generally agreeing with Yurei about all of that. And it’s not that they’re “idiots” by the way, but their process of “design by comunity comity” is inherently flawed.
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Content Troubleshooting
Yurei's tendency is to describe the system as overly simplistic, sacrificing too much depth and making cuts in the wrong places, and the game's design team as chained to far too many masters to do their job effectively. She feels like the actual game design people Wizards employs are very talented folks who love the game and simply want it to shine, but they have to answer to the WotC executive team, who are...not good people, let's put it that way...and to the howling cacophony of self-destructive insanity that is "Community Feedback". Yurei is puzzled that anybody could make any sort of functional game in those circumstances, given the bloodsucking money-crazed executives on one end and the Maw of Madness on the other end.
Yurei also put up a nice little micro-essay back in post #64 that, overall, praised the direction said design team seemed to be heading over the last yearish and expressing interest in the next player options book that all this UA seems to be building to. Yurei's gut instinct is that documents like CFVs and this new Feats UA is potentially one way Jay-Craw and co. are trying to introduce their message of "do what works in your game, and damn what we wrote if it gets in your way" into the rules themselves, rather than as brief asides everybody ignores. Yurei didn't bother with a feat-by-feat breakdown and analysis of everything in the document because twenty other people had already done that and nobody gives a shit about her opinion of those specifics anyways, and was attempting to engage with other posters on their ideas after putting up a take from a different direction on what the document might mean for the future of the game.
But, y'know. Sure. Good thing you were there to spike Yurei's naysaying this time, Zoken.
ANYWAYS.
On the subject of "Let every player take a feat at level 1, not just Variant Humans": I've done that for my current campaign, and the DM who runs the game I get to play in has done the same. It is, in fact, a standard and accepted part of character generation at our table, with the caveat that heavy combat feats - Crossbow Expert, Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master, and the like, as well as a few notable standout Super Feats - are barred from that pick. The intent is specifically to let players take a flavorful background-y feat, or a species feat out of Xanathar, that otherwise would never see the light of day from the start and enjoy its benefits.
We love the rule and will never change it. My archaeologist Battlesmith, a well traveled and better read scholar of history and the arcane, took Linguist as her 'flavor freebie' to represent all that world-traveler, rakish-science-adventurer experience, and it's awesome. Our table's seen Keen Mind a couple of times, we have a Grappler, and people other than me have occasionally allocated Skilled. Amongst many different species feats. It hasn't caused any sort of balance issue at our table, and it's meant Variant Human is not the automatic default choice for eighty-three percent of all possible builds.
It's an awesome house rule and I highly recommend it. We've experimented with lots of different varieties of character generation and advancement, many of which grapple with the issue of "do I take a feat and feel like I'm making a cool choice for how to develop my character, or do I take an ASI even though it's super boring just so I don't fall behind?" What we've settled on is what I term Enhanced Standard Progression, which I also highly recommend. Details in spoiler boxes below, as it's only really partially relevant to the thread at hand.
Enhanced Standard Progression is exactly that. Characters start with stats generated either via Standard Array or by-the-book point buy, with the Flavor Freebie feat as discussed above. In some cases 'Flaw Feats' are used (see the homebrew 'Flaw' feats from PenguinInAJar for excellent examples of how these work), and/or players who want to drop their 8 to a 6 can do so in exchange for one extra point to put somewhere else. A character cannot start with a score higher than 17, after species stat bonuses are taken into account - no playing an elf, putting 15 in Dex, and then sinking Strength to 6 to start with 18 Dexterity.
Whenever a character attains a 'regular' ASI, i.e. the one their class grants at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th levels, they must take that as an ASI. They cannot select a feat with that ASI. Instead, characters gain a feat of their choice (that they meet the prerequisites for) at character levels 1 (Flavor Freebie), 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19. The bonus ASIs granted by the fighter and rogue classes can be taken as either an ASI or feat, as is normal, as those are special class features rather than Standard Progression.
This approach allows players to freely take cool, character-defining feats and fun abilities without sacrificing their character's ability to function at higher levels and is less punitive to multiclass characters that may not get as many ASIs overall and cannot spare any of them for feats. The system does delay most multiclass characters' stat growth, allowing single-class characters to shine in their own ways. It butchers the game math less than the usual fix for this issue, i.e. Heroic Stat Rolls, since characters are still generally within a point or two of where the game expects them to be ability-wise. It also enforces the feeling of progression and rising strength that a Hero's Journey is supposed to have, since your character cannot help but gain in both specific powers and raw ability as they progress. At least, if you don't multiclass Abserd-style and never take more than three levels in a class.
My table's found this to be an excellent compromise, and honestly more fun than Heroic Rolls that leave you feeling like there's nowhere for your character to go. There's more to look forward to as you level up and gain power, and a real sense that you're becoming a legendary hero rather than having always been a legendary hero who just didn't know how to do her job.
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