Feats and how to get them early

[JohnDaBarr]

I'm probably going to run a 5ed campaign soon and knowing my players most of them would like to get an early feat waay before lvl 4. Now to stop them all from taking a Human with the optional feat rule I am thinking of extending that option to all other races.
Now to make that work I need to know is -2 on an ability score for a feat a fair trade?

[hymer]

I'm probably going to run a 5ed campaign soon and knowing my players most of them would like to get an early feat waay before lvl 4. Now to stop them all from taking a Human with the optional feat rule I am thinking of extending that option to all other races.
Now to make that work I need to know is -2 on an ability score for a feat a fair trade?

Generally speaking, no. Take it from Int (unless you're an Int-using class) and you've lost next to nothing, while gaining a sizeable, hand-picked pack of boni. Take it from your primary stat and the price may be too high if you don't have any obvious good feat choices. Neither would be a fair trade.
Maybe disallow the optional human trait and give everyone a free feat at level 1? Just a thought.

[Malifice]

I'm probably going to run a 5ed campaign soon and knowing my players most of them would like to get an early feat waay before lvl 4. Now to stop them all from taking a Human with the optional feat rule I am thinking of extending that option to all other races.
Now to make that work I need to know is -2 on an ability score for a feat a fair trade?

My solution is to allow a feat at 1st, but at the price of 4 less ability score points (i.e only spend 23 points on starting ability scores instead of 27).

Humans can also use this option to start with 2 feats.

[Angelalex242]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If your campaign ends up with everyone being human...that's not a bad thing. It will shape your campaign world, because if no PCs are nonhuman, then nonhumans might well be rare in your world...it might even lead to a 'humans are the master race' sort of world, with all other races subject to them. Kind of like Dragon Age.

Like the Empire in Star Wars, as well.

[EternalHobbyist]

For my players, I gave a simple option:

A) Pick your race and class normally and use the standard 27-point buy in for Attributes, or
B) Roll either (or both) race/class (on my custom race/class spreadsheet) and you can choose a bonus for rolling - either 3 extra points to spend when buying attributes, or one free feat. A couple of guys rolled both race and class, and thus got both bonuses.

It's simple, elegant, and doesn't risk my players becoming terribly overpowered, while still giving them good options.

[mgrinshpon]

As a caveat, I haven't DM'd many games of 5e. At my table, there were 5 players of which 2 people wanted to be clerics and 2 people wanted to be bards. I decided to allow my players to each take 1 free feat at start up (yes, humans got 2 feats if wanted) to vary the characters up a bit, especially since this was a one-shot adventure. Truthfully, it didn't feel unbalanced. I increased the encounter difficulty and for the most part it was fine, except for the TPK at the very end.

Depending on how your party plays, you may not even need to ramp up the difficulty, either. The players I play with never power game so perhaps increasing the difficulty as much as I did wasn't a good thing.

[Thrudd]

I'm probably going to run a 5ed campaign soon and knowing my players most of them would like to get an early feat waay before lvl 4. Now to stop them all from taking a Human with the optional feat rule I am thinking of extending that option to all other races.
Now to make that work I need to know is -2 on an ability score for a feat a fair trade?

If they want a feat at level 1, let them choose Human. What's wrong with that?

If you just want a more high-powered campaign, give all the players a feat to start with, and Humans get +1 to all stats and the feat.

[TheOOB]

Feats are powerful, really powerful, you can't cost them by lowering starting attributes, because then you'll just have characters who are more powerful in their focus area, yet with less versatility to them. No character really needs all 6 attributes.

If a character really wants to start with a feat, the variant human is great. If, as a DM, you want all your characters to start with an extra feat, start them with an extra feat(just don't do that with new or casual players).

[JohnDaBarr]

Feats are powerful, really powerful, you can't cost them by lowering starting attributes, because then you'll just have characters who are more powerful in their focus area, yet with less versatility to them. No character really needs all 6 attributes.

Well the PHB values Feats in Attribute points at lvl 4, 8 and so forth, and it simply occurred to that it would be a simple way to achieve this.


If a character really wants to start with a feat, the variant human is great. If, as a DM, you want all your characters to start with an extra feat, start them with an extra feat(just don't do that with new or casual players).

Yes it seems that would be the best course of action.
Thx on the reply everyone.

[rlc]

there's also nothing stopping you from starting with a level 4 party, if you want to go with the rules

[Theodoxus]

I just thought of an idea and raced to the boards, and here was a thread about it - but no one mentioned my idea, so brilliant!

This is what I'm planning when I run a game: Everyone at first level can choose any feat that grants a +1 attribute bonus (the 'weaker' feat options), but humans can still grab any feat.

So non-humans can choose from:
Athlete
Actor
Durable
Heavily Armored
Heavy Armor Master
Keen Mind
Lightly Armored
Linguist
Moderately Armored
Observant
Resilient
Tavern Brawler
and Weapon Master

Humans can then choose these, or any other feat. Still gives a bit of advantage to humans, but doesn't screw non-humans out of useful feats. (seriously, I wanted to play a dwarf fighter for reasons, but felt Heavy Armor Master at 1st and Great Weapon Master at 4th were too good to pass up for the concept I had. - this would alleviate that.)

[Mr.Moron]

If everyone wants a feat you could just let everyone have a feat. Since as the GM you can adjust up or down difficulty somewhat to challenge players if they're more or less powerful than expectations, it's not really all the bad to hand out a universal power boost. No one person in the party is making out all that better than any other.

Really feats in this edition are so powerful I'm inclined to work it such that I largely leave the feat variant out and at some point give characters a chance to gain a single feat seperate from the usual advancement. A single 5e feat is enough to be a unique ability that actually stands out as unique, particularly when it's unlikely everyone is spending their one feat on the same thing. At the same time it tamps down on numbers/powers bloat you'd get from them trading in all of their stat advancements for feats.

[Falka]

I've tried this and I regret doing so. Some feats give a massive power boost to some characters if picked correctly, so I would NEVER ever give one for free at Level 1 anymore, especially if the PC isn't a Human.

The variant Human tries to balance the fact of having little to none racial traits in exchange for a skill profiency and a feat. Trust me, it's worth every penny for some characters, as the feat alone can greatly increase their damage output.

Right now I'm thinking about GW Specialization (Cleave + Power Attack +10 at the cost of -5 to Attack Rolls? When most ACs are 10-12? Yes please), Heavy Armor Master (3 damage reduction vs piercing, blungeoning and slashing... lvl 1 mobs usually deal a d4) and Sharpshooter (Ignore cover rules, long distance pen rules, and ranged Power Attack...). Any of these three are kinda gamebreaking at low levels.

[Chambers]

This is what I'm planning when I run a game: Everyone at first level can choose any feat that grants a +1 attribute bonus (the 'weaker' feat options), but humans can still grab any feat.

I'm not sure those are the weaker feat options. Instead of completely sacrificing your ability score improvement you still get a +1 to one score and some minor ability. The abilities gained aren't as impressive as the feats with no stat bump, but a feat that grants even a +1 stat bump shouldn't be discounted in this system given how tight ability scores are controlled.