Oh hey, new UA. This time about feats. Neat.
I’ve not been fond of feats in 5e. There’s only a couple that are worth not getting an ASI. Maybe more options will make them more palatable.
Artificer Initiate
Oh, interesting. I might have to wait for the Sage advice, but this feat is worded differently than Magic Initiate, and makes it seem like the 1st level can be cast with regular spell slots. Other than that possible change, it’s a serviceable Feat. More tool proficiencies are always good.
Chef
This feels like Chris Perkins giving a Feat to Strix for her pies. A choice of 2 stats to boost. (I feel like this will come up a lot in this UA) And then we have the crux of the feat: Role play activities giving mechanical benefits that fit the narrative. I think it’s also good to note that we have basic rules for cooking now in this, even for people without the feat. That’s useful to a DM.
Crusher
Boosting Str or Dex (see?) means this is a useful feat for all sorts of bludgeon-wielding fighters, clerics and barbarians, but also for rogues and monks. Monks get a free 5 ft push with their fists, but it’s also worth noting that this works off of a slingstone or other hurled rocks.
It also just says “Attack,” which means that procs off of spells that deal bludgeoning. And druid wildshapes.
This is very versatile feat, before we get to part 3, which is a crit via a bludgeoning attack gives attacks on the creature advantage until the end of your next turn. Now, in earlier editions, this would have been a condition, like “Staggard” or something.
I’m really glad this isn’t a stun. It feels like something that was a stun, but they scaled it back in playtesting. That’s because it’s already powerful. This part of the feat makes it an almost stupid-not-to choice for monks, and I can see a party of Blugeoning spec crushers surrounding the BBEG and keeping advantage up.
It’s not that hard to get advantage, so this isn’t a gamebreaking ability, but it looks really fun to have and to own when it triggers. I really like the design of this feat.
Eldritch Adept
So it’s a feat to get you a Warlock Invocation. Sigh. Fair enough, I guess, but I think this is just going to mean that even more people will have crazy immune to magical darkness powers. And if you’re a warlock, you can pick options just as if you had a full Invocation slot, which I like a lot. I have a warlock I rolled somewhere who had all her invocations full and wanted to pick more. Warlock is almost a point-buy class, and this extends that.
Also, I noticed that this Feat has a pre-req of spellcasting, which keeps some of the powerful stuff out of mundane hands, which is cool enough.
Fey Touched
Woo, I like this feat. I love teleporting, so the more ways to get that for non-arcane characters, the better. Sadly, Fairy Fire is Evocation (apparently)
Fighting Initiate
Everyone gets access to fighting styles! (Pre-req: a Martial weapon (Meaning some Elves and Dwarves can get this as wizards))
Gunner
A feat to provide proficiencies, and also removes the only reason to ever take Weaponmaster. This feat also give you some things from Crossbow Expert, so that makes things cheaper.
My opinions on Guns in D&D depends on the setting. But I think this is a useful feat to have in the library.
Metamagic
I think the key part of this feat is this going to let sorcerers be even better at twisting magic. I like that it lets other people pick up some interesting tricks. Being a cleric who can twin-cast healing word, or being a full warlock who can quick cast Eldritch Blast will make it so there’s a bit less multiclassing for small benefits.
As a guy who likes kitchy builds, this is a fun feat.
Piercer
The sister of Crusher, for piercing weapons. Str/Dex again, and where Crusher was about Control, Piercer is about damage.
It’s interesting that this is a lot like Savage Attacker, but just different enough to be worth having both, I think.
I don’t think there are any builds where this is a priority, but anyone with a bow, a lance, a rapier, or any rogue with a piercing weapon is going to want this feat.
Poisoner
I was just complaining to people about Poison in D&D. Look, a feat that fixes things for a player. This whole feat is just… good. It fixes so much about the idea of a poison attacker. Why wasn’t this in the game 5 years ago?
Practiced Expert
It’s not quite as good as Prodigy, but it’s basically the same thing. And since prodigy is the best feat in the game, that instantly makes this the 2nd best feat. So well done.
Shadow Touched
The sister of Fey Touched. This makes me want to run a game where these come up. And I hope we get Feats for more of the planes!
Shield Training
Man, this is good feat design. It looks like a bunch of minor things, but if you’ve ever tried to do a shield based build, all of these things are really annoying to have to deal with. Adding a shield gives a character +2 AC, which is always useful.
Slasher
The final sister of our physical damage trio. I can see plenty of bored barbarians picking this up to have a 10% chance of removing the downside of Reckless attack.
Not bad, but I think it’s the weakest of the three.
Tandem Tactician
I think we have the first dud of this PDF! It could be okay, for some people and builds. If you’re trying to do a pacifist build, it could be useful. idk.
Tracker
Ooh, this one is good. Hunter’s Mark isn’t the end all be all with spells, but the fact that this says “You can cast this with other slots” clears up things like the Artificer, which doesn’t say that.
Thoughts
We’re nearing the 5 year anniversary of 5e, and I think we’re going to hear an announcement of something like a player handbook 2. They probably won’t call it that, of course, and it might end up looking a lot like Xanathars. Which is fine. But expect it to have feats, the new class options, probably the Psionic class archetypes, some psychic spells, a reprint of the Artificer so it’s not locked in Eberron
Actually, I think it might be called something like “Elminster’s Manual of the Planes” or something like that, where half the book is DM lore for running planar adventures, expanding the few paragraphs we’ve gotten in the DMG to full and useful things, will all sorts of information on how to run a plane-hopping campaign.
That would explain the fey and shadow touched, the Gunner Feat, as well as some of the psionics and subclasses like the Fey Ranger.
(Honestly, I can also draw lines to Darksun and Spelljammer, but those seem unlikely. )
I like these feats, I want them in my games.