a feat analysis; first impressions of a wannabe optimizer [Archive]

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Beige

2014-09-04, 02:00 AM

Disclaimer: this thread will not be the be all and end all of threads about feats that will let you know everything their is to know about them and how to supercharge your character; I'm not that good at character building :smallbiggrin:

feats are a very different kettle of fish in 5E than they where before. Now rather than being an intergral part of the mechanics, their a replacement for something else. Instead of giving one toy, they now provide a slew of abilities each, and now none of them require you to jump through hoops to pick them up.

But the human still gets one at first level, and the fighter still gets the most, because some things will never change :smallamused:

Here, I'll be going over the feats and giving my opinion on them, their uses, the downside to using an option on them, and what sort of builds I feel they can work well in, as well as a personal rank out of 5, with a 2.5 representing what I feel the +stat is worth - I'm only going to be going over the PhB right now, not any feats - if any do indeed exist - in Hoard of the Dragon Queen as I don't own that one, merely having read a friend's copy.

I am happy to discuss this if you disagree

rankings:
1: a waste of a feat slot - you'd be better of throwing the points into a dump stat than take this
2: situational but useful - it's not exactly wasting your points, but your not getting your monies worth
3: Solid - this feat will serve you well, being helpful most of the time and serving it's job well
4: good - this feat is either situational but awesome, or offers a great, reliable boost
5: Amazing - I love these feats and want to marry them, they provide great bonuses and can work well with most builds

Alert 3/5
Prerequisites: none - anyone can pick this up, which is a boon to it's usefulness.
benefits: The combination of +5 to initiative and the fact you cannot be surprised compliment one another nicely. Taking this feat will help ensure you act each combat, you act quickly, and help avoid nasty surprise rounds - and with how easy folks fall in 5e, surprise rounds can be crippling, especially if your DM throws an assassin at you. This feat gets a second bonus in utility later when invisibility comes into play (or when facing lot of lightfoots), as hidden creatures no longer gain advantage to hit you - and hidden rogues still need friends to sneak attack you :smallbiggrin: offensivly, you act sooner in the turn, which can be a major buff to anyone who needs to do their job quickly, such as a tank throwing themselves in harms way, or an assassin hunting down a caster
Cons: The feat can be situational in its defensive applications; not every DM will run invisibility, and we've yet to really see if its worth maintaining invisibilty with the new concentration system, so that might not be as good. Furthermore, if you have two or more decent wis characters in your party, surprise rounds should be rather rare.
Builds: any class can make good use of this feat (besides maybe barbarians due to getting or negating most of the bonuses already through class features) and it offers a nice boon in survivability. It also works well for characters who need to act quickly to get into position, such as caster-hunters or tanks.

Athlete 2/5
Prerequisites: None
Benefits: you gain +1 to either your strength or dex -which helps negate the sting of an odd starting number, and even if it dosen't improve your modifier, it helps make a buffer or sets up some of the other feats that give +1 to str.
The main advantages of this feat are a major boost to mobility of not speed - being tripped no longer really bothers you, and the option to go prone now provides a decent defensive option if there's a ranged attacker you can't get to. You can jump and climb with ease, meaning you can get nearly anywhere.
Cons: Outside of being a little more agile, and maybe making a stat high enough for a multiplier, this feat doesn't change your options - you can reach new places easier, but you could reach them before. you can spring up from the ground, but you only get a small increase to movement.
Builds: If your stats are all even except for an odd str or dex, this is a better option than taking a flat stat up and making something else odd with the remaining point, but there are better feats for that. I find it hard to pin down a build where this would be useful, instead seeing a setting - if your going to be doing a lot of movement through three dimensions, this is good to have. if your going to be sticking to corridors and castles, look elsehere

Actor 4/5
Prerequisites: none
Benefits: +1 cha - a stat used for some good skills, and the most common caster stat. score.
The advantages to being a lying git are great for any face - you can bluff yourself almost anywhere thanks to the advantage (need to get into a mansion? your a cousin of the lord, or a newly hired servant), and the ability to imitate voices can be great to sow discontent, get others to do your dirty work, and make some enemies more touchable, such as helping "expose" the scheme of the corrupt baron to the head of the guard :smallamused: - and unlike using spells such as friend or charm person to get the advantage, this doesn't bite into your active resources, and doesn't have the nasty fact that they now you cheated when it runs out
Cons: This feat has very limited utility outside of social situations, and is almost useless in a hack and slash or the like. furthermore, unless you like splitting the party, layering up face skills onto two members is pretty inefficient.
builds: This is a brilliant face skill - it will add major oomph your abilities in that role, and has a skill about talking that can boost your stealth skills :smallbiggrin: If you plan to run a sneaky git, I heartily recommend this feat.

Charger 1/5
prerequisites: Still none - this feat has a redeeming factor
Benefit: When you use the dash action, you can use a bonus action as well to make a melee attack, or shove the target. You also get a reasonable boost to the attack/shove, which can make shoving actually viable.
Cons: I racked my brain for times when I'd ever want to use this in place of a regular move and attack, and all I could think of was a class that was making melee attacks but only had one attack- so either a class that shouldn't be melee attacking anyway, or a class that is 1 level away from making this feat obsolete.
I'd never choose it over regular attacks - every melee fighter matches or outperforms the +5 damage with their second attack assuming even a +2 to the attack stat and a 1d6 weapon, and that doesn't require a bonus action.
It does offer a little utility in mobile damage, but not enough to be worth a feat slot - you can grab mobile instead for some extra speed without needing to give up effective damage
Builds: None. Avoid this piece of excrement. it is just not useful - I think it may be this editions dodge; looks OK on paper, but doesn't work when you think about it. Maybe on a rogue, as you get an extra bonus action** to dash (in fact, can you use cunning action to dash, then regular bonus action to use this feat, then make a normal action. hmmmmmm, maybe it might push for a 2 if that is effective enough), and your damage comes from sneak attack, but even then, what's good is cunning action, not this piece of manure.

Crossbow Expert 3/5
prerequisites: none. don't even need to be able to use em to be an expert :smalltongue:
benefits: The crossbow becomes a viable ranged weapon - you can make multiple attacks, and making attacks at melee range isn't as dangerous. Lastly, the hand crossbow becomes useful as a support weapon to a melee fighter, letting you wail on someone up close then sting someone a little further away. This feat gives you the highest damage from your ranged attacks.
Cons: You need to take a feat to really compete with a longbow wielder, who does not need a feat to be effective, limits this - as the difference between d8 and d10 is so small on average that until you can make many, many attacks is almost unnoticeable. and for the same resources, the longbow wielder can pick up sharpshooter.
Builds: If you want to be the best ranged attacker over all, there are better options, but if you want to be as damaging a ranged attacker as possible, then the heavy crossbow is your friend. It works better for a fighter (more attacks) than a ranger (damage comes from outside bonuses on each attack) so the higher damage dice from the heavy crossbow can come into play - though an argument can be made for volley having enough attacks to make it work.

Defensive Duelist 1/5
Prerequisites: 13+ dex - our first feat with a prerequisite! does this limited availability make it more amazing that it's peers? hah no
Benefits: A minor increase in survivability - you can, once per turn, add your proficiency bonus to your AC. I do like that you can choose to use this after the attack roll, so your not risking it.
Cons: lIt requires a finesse weapon, which are generally worse than non-finesse weapons, and it's limited to melee attacks. Furthermore, it can only be used against a single attack per round due to needing a reaction. Not even a single attack action, a single attack. Going off how most monster's work in the currently published materials, they either rely on a large number of weaker AC attacks (hordes), a moderate amount of mid-strength attacks (things like the vamp or dragon) or just skip AC all together - defencive duelist os of no use in two of those situations, and of limited use in one.
Builds: Like charger, just don't - it costs too much, for much to little. Maybe when more splatbooks come out to give more reactions and/or more monsters that focus one one big hit, it might jump in viability, but right now it's just not good

Dual Wielder 2.5/5
Prerequisites: none
Benefit: You become all around better at fighting with two weapons. Using two weapons nets you half the bonus of a shield, you can use d8 weapons in place of d6, and you no longer need to take two turns to get both weapons ready. so good things all round, right?
Cons: Even with the feat, dual wielding is less effective for most classes than using a two handed weapon, due to being stuck with weaker weapons for only 1 extra attack, and that attack doesn't even get stat bonuses. You'll match the performance of someone using a sword and shield, but you'll have lower AC and have used your bonus actions. You'll be slightly tougher than the chap with a great weapon, but he deals around 1.5 times as much damage a turn and has bonus actions. and both those other options have a feat free
Builds: if you decide to go two weapons, this feat is a must. It works best with classes that get bonus damage on each of their attacks, such as a ranger hitting hunters mark, or a paladin with no sense of self-control, as extra attacks means extra triggers of these abilities.
Another thing to consider is comboing it with mounted combat and grabbing two lances - it negates the issue of your weapon being weaker, and your much nastier to people your own size; 3-5 attacks with advantage and d12 damage can wreck peoples shizz, but if your mount bites it, you'll be in a fair amount of trouble

Dungeon Delver 3/5
prerequisites: none
Benefits: Dungeon delver lets anyone take over one of the rogues's roles from older editions - sniffing out traps and secrets. A dungeon delver in the party will help make sure no-one misses any secret areas in both a dungeon, and in something like a rogues hideout or other stealty-investigaty type games. The bonus to saves, and the resistance to traps, means you can likely rest easy when exploring dangerous areas without having to worry to much about triggering something and killing your chara with a random spike pit.
Cons You get no advantage to disabiling traps when you have found them - your better at clearing them than anyone else, but you still have to use your face.
Builds: Much like Athlete, this seems more appropriate to suggest for campaigns than character builds, but unlike Athlete, traps and secret doors show up fairly commonly in settings using them, and the benefits gained are much more tangible - defending your precious hit points and ensuring you don't miss something - than the improvement to secondary movement from athlete this one gets a 3 from me.

Durable 1.5/5
Prerequisites: none
Benefit: you gain a small boost to con, and your healing during a short rest is more reliable, which can be a major boon to the healer's limited resources
Con: Healing potions and healing spells are much more effective and don't need a 1 hour break to work - the fact you need to survive the encounter for this to even have a chance at taking effect can be worrisome for your tank. Your still limited by the downsides of the hit dice system, so your not going to heal too much damage, and you need a good con score to make it really worth having
Builds: Not Many. Durable works best with characters that take a fair number of short rests anyway, so your not slowing the group down as much and can refesh multiple features at once - Fighter and Warlock spring to mind most here. It scores lowly due to overall inefficiency, and much better defensive options for feats. It's nice if you no healer, but if you have one it quickly looses effectiveness.

Elemental Adept 4/5
Prerequisites: able to cast a single spell
Benefit: You ignore resistance for your chosen element - this is pretty awesome, as from what I've seen so far, most high level monsters are resistant to everything. You also make your damage with the chosen element much more reliable, which is good, because the changes to spell mechanics make evocation more useful than ever.
cons: your limited to the basic elements, which means some classes don't get much from this. most elemental types tend to stay grouped together in effect radius (lightning is lines, fire is bursts etc), so you do risk pidgeonholing your shot's if you specialize completly with the chosen element. lastly, it only negates resistance, not immunity - but since right now immunity is rare, that's less of a concern
Builds: I feel Elemental Adept adds a kick to any caster - even the best caster can only maintain on real CC/buff at a time, so they may as well spend the rest of their turns blasting. I feel fire is the best choice here as it's the element that most uses lots of d6s, rather than d8s or above, and thus you guarantee at least 1/3 max damage :smallamused: it also combo's brilliantly with the dragon sorceror, as he already specializes in a single element. tieflings need to remember that if they do pick up fire adept, they loose the relatively safe option of fireballing themselves as a last resort

Grappler 3/5
prerequisites: str 13 or higher, though if your planning to grapple, you should have this anyway
Benefits: you can grapple with anyone, and if you do succeed on grappling a creature, are capable of locking them down and wailing on them with everything you've got. The attack advantage on creatures your grappling can rack up some serious damage for a foe that can't escape, and you can take a hit yourself to really pull something out of the fight.
cons: Your not actually any better at grappling, odd as this seems, and even if you can grapple a dragon/giant etc, chances are their strength will be high enough to not even bother. Furthermore, since the victim gets to choose it's save between dex and str, it's only gonna work about 50% of the time
builds: any high strength melee build can make good use of this feat, but I find barbarian best due to advantage to str rolls. Catching a foe may not be too common, but if you do catch them they're either going to need to waste their turn escaping, or they're going to take a crap-ton of damage the next turn and possibly be dragged out of position. I can see this being effective on a high speed assassin - zip next to the target as quick as you can, hit em with a grapple as one of your attacks (most priority targets will be squishy but deadly), and go to work
Odd as it may seem, it does not combo all that well with tavern brawler, as tavern brawler requires you to limit your attack damage to 1d4... even for a monk, they can just use martial arts to make a bonus grapple anyway.

Great Weapon Master 5/5
prerequisites: None
Benefit: Cleave and Power Attack in a single feat, where do I sign :smallbiggrin: this makes the already very effective great weapon combat style even greater - the additional attack, if unreliable, is nice and doesn't suffer from TwFs downside of low damage per hit and no bonus attribute. The real selling point is how flat out painful this can be - a +10 bonus to damage and I can still make my full number of attacks, meaning redundancy due to hit penalty. from monsters so far, hit bonus still seems to scale faster than AC, so your attacks are still pretty reliable when you take the penalty, and the damage is tremendous
cons: the additional attack is unreliable, and you might find yourself avoiding the big hit if your fighting lots of high AC enemies - but most nastly enemies this edition have average AC and a crapé ton of health, so its less of a downside.
Builds: much like crossbow master and twin wielder, if your using that weapon type pick this up! unlike the other two however, Great weapon fighting is as standard the top of it's class, so when buffed up its outstanding. as stated before, attack bonus still outscales AC, so the huge, ridiculously powerful hit, is still brilliantly effective. I see no reason not to use this

the barbarian has advantage, so the -5 ends up giving the same hit chance as if he didn't have either. plus, potential 24 str
The fighter does take the penalty to hit, but he also has the most attacks
Ranger and paladin can both use bonus actions to boost their accuracy, thus negating the penalty - though ranger is still most likely better off at range with a bow and hunters mark
and this boosts the average damage (assuming 20 str) from 12 per hit, to a whopping 22 per hit

Healer 2/5
prerequisites: None
Benefits: When you save someone using a healer's kit, they get back a hit pint and as such are no longer at death's door and can get back in the fight, boosting the party's action economy. Furthermore, once per long rest, you can spend a healer's charge for a fairly stable, if none to impressive, healing shot.
Cons: You get someone with 1 hp back in the fight - which risks them being knocked back down to 0 straight away and you starting up a never ending loop of you using your turn. The heal isn't good enough to be more than a desperate patch up, and much like Durable, anyone capable of using healing spells - or healing potions - drastically out performs you. Lastly, most people proficient with the healer's kit can cast healing spells, bringing up the problem from a second ago.
Build: Like Durable, this can be useful in a party without a healer, but if you have one it's kinda terrible. The fact you need to be a healer and thus have little reason to want this, or choose it through your origin, also lowers it's viability.

Heavily Armoured 2/5
Prerequisite: Can wear Medium Armour
benefit: you gain the ability to wear heavy armour, potentially allowing you the highest AC (+3 armour = 24) in the game - tied with Medium Armour mastery, but without needing 16+ dex, or a barbarian with maximum dex and con. In a game with bound AC and so far the proficiency system compared to the AC scores putting you more likely to get hit in the face than not even at max, the benefit really helps. Oh, you also get some strength.
drawbacks: plate mail is expensive, and all heavy armour gives disadvantage to stealth. Lastly, if you don't have the strength for it, it slows you down, but the str requirements are pretty low and since it gives a point of str anyway... so if it offers such good buffs, and so few drawbacks, why is it rated so low? see below
builds: if you have the gold to spare for platemail and already know how to use medium armor, you would do well to pick this one up - unless your a fighter or paladin, where you already have it, or a monk or barbarian where it would screw over your class features, or a druid who can't wear any heavy armor due to metal. it also doesn't work if you have a decent dexterity score and thus can get the same effect with medium armour master, and not get the disadvantage to stealth or more expensive gear. It's pretty good for valor bards and clerics, however, as well as mountain dwarf locks, sorcs and wizzers, or if you multi-classed and gained med armour that way, though you may take a hit to movement. It's a good feat, but spoiled by availability.

Heavy Armour Master 3.5/5
Prerequisites: Can wear heavy armour
Benefit: you can safely stand against the horde, reducing all non-magical physical damage you take by 3 along with the aforementioned max AC, meaning it takes magic or something big to really rile you. You also buff your str some more, so by now you should be able to walk full speed in heavy armour :smalltongue:
cons: Magic and big things become pretty common later on in the game, so depending on the foes this risks becoming dead weight
builds: If you plan on tanking in early game, this is a great feat and even late game it will save your ass from a lot of situations.

Inspiring Leader 4/5
Prerequisite: Cha 13
benefit each long or short rest you grant your party - unless said party is huge - bonus hit points with which to survive getting their face walloped. Since character in 5e are squishy and there is less CC flying around, bonus health is a great boon.
drawbacks: It takes 10 minutes game time, and your limited to 6 targets - don't forget the enemy can be preparing as well whilst you are :smallwink:. it also dosen't work if your party is deaf
builds: Bards, locks and sorcerors can make good use of this since they'll have high cha anyway. You don't even really need all that good charisma to make this one work, but it definably helps, so if you have a floating feat slot and want to help out I'd recommend picking this one. This also has good syenergy with classes that want to make a lot of short rests anyway - such as the lock or fighter - and ritual casters, as it takes just as much time.

Keen Mind 1/5
Prerequisites: None
Benefits: You get a point of intellect. that's about it really; OK, you know which way is north - which is a 1gp compass - you know exactly how long it is till dawn dusk, which is pretty useless save for a vampire with no patience, and you can recall everything you read in the last month, so you can be a little more lazy
drawbacks: seriously, besides having odd intellect and wanting to buff it, when would you use this? maybe the memory part might be useful once in a blue moon, but if you need to remember something and the DM says "it was a week ago, you can't remeber it" he deserves food throwing at his face
builds: technically, if you just need to get your int up one and all your stats are even, this would be better than just taking +1 int and throwing the other half away - in the same way getting a book with a fancy sleeve version of the front cover is technically better than the one without it. and even then, there are better feats for +1 int.

Lightly Armoured 1/5
Benefit: the wizard or sorcerer doesn't need to spend on of their limited spell slots on mage armor - and sets up getting medium armour if you want it, but that's a lot of feats. you also get a point of dex, because why would a wizard or sorcerer spend it on strength...
Drawback: light armour is pretty useless if you have mage armour, or if your a dragon sorcerer as they have base AC of 13 when not wearing armour anyway, and you can use the same feat slot to get Magic Initiate and use that to learn Mage Armour AND two cantrips - so taking this feat for just light armour is automatically inefficient, so its only worth having if you want medium armor.
Builds: Unless you don't want mage armour for some reason, or your planning to build up to better armour and don't want to multi-class*, I'd avoid this like the plague

* I'm sure if your DM is letting you use feats, they'll let you multi-class, and cleric/druid will get you flat medium armour, more cantrips and you don't even give up a spell-slot, and neither of the classes have the best capstone - so if you want armour on a wizard, be a cleric :smallbiggrin:

Linguist 2/5
Benefits: Like - but much better than - Keen Mind, you get +1 int. You also get the ability to speak more languages, and languages are brilliant to be sneaky sneaky, or spy on people, or to talk the orc tribe out of eating your skin. Lastly, and just as good at helping you be stealthy, is the ability to make hidden messages.
Drawbacks: like Keen Mind, the other abilities aren't the best skills, but they're better than keen mind XD the hidden message is pretty easy to decipher, and probably won't see much use.
build: Like Keen Mind, this is really only for a character that needs the +int but it's much more flavorful and useful than Keen Mind

Lucky 4.5/5
Benefit: You can be a halfling without needing to be 3 feet tall! This is pretty much the same as the halfling racial feature - between each long rest you get 3 rerolls you can spend on any d20 OR for your opponents attack rolls to screw them over :smallamused: this lets you make those horrible natural 1s a thing of the past.
drawbacks: you can only reroll d20s - they're likely the more important one for mechanics, but nothings more annoying than having floating rerolls you can't use on other things.Furthermore, the feat dosen't offer any new options, just gives a security blanket
Builds: do you roll dice? if so, this feat is good for you - if nothing else it provides a nice saftey net on your saves from being fried by the dragon, but it also lets you reroll something like initiative, or any over vital 1d20 that's going to stick your ass if it dosen't work

Mage Slayer 4/5
Benefits: You can work as an effective neutralized to mages with CC spells or the like - casters have a disadvantage on concentration checks and since most caster's aren't proficient in Con Saves, this can lead to a very good chance of them blowing the check and loosing the spell. Better yet, you can use your reaction to hit them and make them take a save as soon as they cast anything that needs concentration, and since you can only cast a single spell a turn without a fighter multi-class, if you can reach them they're likely limited to blasting or disengaging them bonus spells. Furthermore, if they get frustrated at you and try to fry you, you have advantage on saves if your within punching distance :smallcool:
Drawbacks: Most mages are ranged fighters - and spells such as expeditious retreat or flight will help keep them out of your reach, though since maintaining those still prevents concentration spells, I suppose your still doing your job.
Builds: If you can get good mobility - such as a monk (way of shadows optional but optimal for this), barbarian or the like - you might do well by picking this feat up. It goes a long way in preventing mages from being able to wreck your day as eaisily - they'll still be able to wreck your day, but it's harder for them. This is useless for anyone who's not a melee fighter though, as its limited in its entirety to 5ft. As I said earlier, this combined with Alert will let you get to your target as soon as the fight starts and lock it down quickly.

Magic Initiate: 3/5
Benefit: Upon taking this feat, you gain access to two cantrips of your choice from any of the primary casting classes, as well as a single first level spell you can cast once per long rest. This helps expand your options, as well as provides spell's you want but wouldn't need to cast more than once a day (mage armour springs to mind) without eating a spell slot.
Drawbacks: You cast the chosen spells using the stat from that class, rather than your own casting stat (if any) - so chances are it'll be rather low unless you go for another class that uses the same stat - tough luck wizards :smalltongue:
Builds: As cantrips are infinite use tricks for anyone, everyone can get a slight boost to their versatility with this. Clerics can make good use of it as it lets them get an attack cantrip besides Sacred Flame - and attack rolls are better than saves against single targets.
As for good cantrips; Blade Ward gives anyone beside barbarians some defence against melee attacks, Chill touch can negate enemy creatures from healing themselves - eldritch blast and fire bolt are good attack spells, choice depending on if you'd rather have fire or force damage, poison spray and divine flame are powerful if unreliable, and thorn whip messes with your enemies formation.

Martial Adept 2/5
Benefit: you learn two manouvers from the battlemaster, and can use one of them each rest as a D6. This can add some versatility to a class, but less than Magic Initiate I feel, as it's one action per short rest. The Manouvers are pretty nice, however, so this can give some nice tricks.
Drawbacks: you only get 1 action dice, and it's a D6. that means you won't get to use this much, and the extra kick it provides is pretty small if you choose the wrong manouvres. Furthermore, the save DC is str/con based, so a caster can't really make use of this in place of cantrips for a turn.
Builds: funnily enough, the build to get the most out of this is the Battlemaster - his class features already buff the size of his dice up to a d12 at high levels as opposed to the D6, he has a great range of options due to the number of manouvres he already has, and the bonus dice per short rest makes it almost feel like you can do things. Locks and other characters who make a lot of short rests can rock this as well. As for manouvres to take, Menacing Strike, commander's strike and distracting strike can provide good party buffs, parry will help save your skin, and riptoise can ruin someones day. Like I said before, however, for providing utility Magic Initiate works better and is useable more often.

Medium Armour Master 4/5
Prerequisite: can wear medium armour
Benefit: You join the ranks of the heavy armoured and the barbarian who dislikes his str based class features as tied for highest possible AC for player characters. As AC is limited this edition and PCs are squishy, this is brilliant as you might survive. In fact you have an advantage of the heavy armoured version due to no stealth disadvantage, and your gears cheaper.
Drawbacks: you need dex 16 to really make this worth it - otherwise all you get is to drop the disadvantage, which is less of an issue with group checks. If you fit the other prerequisites, I'd recommend looking at heavily armoured instead
Builds: If you have medium armour and decent dex, I see no reason not to pick this one up. You only get one life outside a diamond supply, after all :smallwink: sure the AC bonus is only the same as say TwF, but unlike there you don't shackle yourself into something otherwise sub par. however, if you already have heavy armour proficiency outside feats an can afford full plate, I'd reccomend skipping this - if the choice comes between the two of them, then I recomend this one unless you also want Heavy Armour Master

Beige

2014-09-04, 02:39 AM

Mobile 3/5
Benefits: As the name may imply, this feat makes you much faster overall, netting you +10 movement and the ability to dash through difficult terrain without penalty – with the easy flow of movement in 5e, the extra speed in nice. Furthermore, upon taking this feat Disengage and Attack are fused into the same action – as anyone you target[/it] with a melee attack cannot make OAs against you until the next turn
Cons: The extra speed falls short compared to beasts or flyers, meaning they can keep you pinned down just as easily, and there's not enough difficult terrain in most games to make the dash boost as nice as it could be.
Builds: This feat does exactly what it says on the tin – your mobility skyrockets, and you have an effective safety net for hit and run attacks, or to slip past a tricky foe without having to blow extra movement. A melee rogue with this feat can pretty much ensure their safety – run in, sneak attack, slip out with your remaining move then use your cunning action to dash or hide depending on position, rather than needing to use it to disenage. It can also work well for a tanking fighter, letting you hit a foe with one of your attacks, slip past it safley then park yourself where you wanted to be without eating an attack or wasting movement.
Sadly, the AO denial only works on a melee attack, so this won't work as a replacement for Crossbow Expert, and mages will probably get the same benefit from a flat disengage.

Moderately Armoured 2/5*
[I]*4/5 without multi-classing in game
Benefit: You gain both medium armour (pretty funky) and shields (also funky) in a single feat, giving you a potential increase to AC compared to just light armour of an outstanding +5 – survivability ahoy!
Drawbacks: Taking the best med armour will impose a disadvantage to your stealth, but group checks can help get around that. More damning is you can pick up proficiency, along with other goodies, from multi-classing if your not to bothered by your capstone without giving up one of your four stat/feat slots.
Builds: If your running a game without multi-classing, I'd probably recommend this for anyone with light armour proficiency, as the boost to defense is brilliant (unless your a dex char, where its the same). If you are running multi-classing – which I'd assume you would be if you have feats – it's not as useful as most classes with just light or worse would benefit more from mutli-classing to a class with this as standard as their capstones aren't that impressive.

Mounted Combat 5/5
benefits: You become a true terror whilst mounted, with one of the few feats where all of the bonuses are truly useful – netting yourself an advantage against foes smaller than your mount with melee attacks, your mount take zero damage on dex saves, in place of half, and even a random horse can survive as you can take hits for it.
Drawbacks: You need some reliable way to get yourself a steed that sticks to your level – regular horses might work at low levels, but by level 4-5ish, their going be too squishy to really be worth it when AoEs start flying (you can only retarget attacks that target it - AoEs don't). By mid-high level, only very few classes can really make use of this as a single fireball will put most of the steeds from the PhB in mortal danger
Builds: Find Steed + this feat = nastiness. Netting a mount that will be reliably survivable at any level negates the one real limiting factor on this feat. A paladin or bard (particularly valour, but even lore will like the extra health) with find this a great bonus, especially since it lets you use a lance – a reach weapon tied for the highest damage – single handedly, for great melee damage and survivability with a shield, or with two lances to make dual wield almost competitive. and that's not even getting into the fun find steed can already do :smallbiggrin:
This can also be pretty good for a small-sized beastmaster ranger – they get the boosted survivability, they have the scaling mount if they choose to ride it, and only having to make one move between the two of them will help remedy the movement issue they have. The only downside is since animal companion is limited to medium, you won't be getting advantage too often.
Lastly, if you have a moon druid in the party who doesn’t mind ferrying you around, this'll net him evasion and you a mount. just, ask first XD

Observant
Benefits: One of only two feats that give a +1 wisdom, A buff to your passive perception and investigate helps ensure you spot anything important along the way, and should help ensure your whole party avoids surprise attacks. Perception may be boring, but it's vital, and this feat combined with proficiency will gave you a passive perception of 21 minimum, 26 if you have max wis; people without stealth prof can't get past you, and even people with proficiency besides a rogue/bard are gonna find it hard. oh, and you can read lips I suppose...
Drawbacks: The lip reading won't be of the best use, and Alert will let you personally reap the main benefit of high passive perception much better, even if the rest of the group falls behind.
Builds: If you need to up your wisdom by a point, this is probably the best choice in the game – resilient is nice, but of the three classes that use Wisdom, cleric and druid have save prof as standard, and monk gets every proficiency at lvl 14, and a blown perception check can be much more painful than a blown wisdom save. Besides that, this feat will ensure you don't miss much of anything, detecting secrets, traps and hidden doors thanks to higher passive investigate, and ensuring your rarely surprised due to super high perception – though as noted if you don't care about the rest of the party, Alert will do that better. Do note, however, if you don't have proficiency in investigate/perception, then from 8th level onwards Skilled will net you nearly the same benefits plus and additional skill.

Polearm Master 4/5
Benefits: You can use the bonus reach of your polearm on opportunity attacks for creatures entering your reach as well as leaving, and can spend a bonus action to make an additional melee attack at D4 damage plus strength modifier, so another feat that lets you dual wield better than dual wielder.
Drawbacks: Not much, really, but to note your still limited to one opportunity attack a round, and as should be obvious, you need to be using a polearm, so I hope you like D10s.
Builds: This combos brilliantly with sentinel – you can hit things as soon as they come into your range, and if you do they stop dead, meaning you and your allies should hopefully be safe.
Due to adding your ability modifier, you can spend any spare bonus actions for a nice solid whack that'll outdamage TwF any day of the week (except for fighters). If your using a glaive or halberd, this is a brilliant feat

Resilient 4/5:
benefits: +1 to one score of your choice, and proficiency to the save tied to that score. picking this up means youll be much more resilient to many more types of attacks.
drawbacks: most score your interested in buffing will already have save prof for most classes, meaning chances are you waste half the feat, and some scores that are vital to some classes are pretty useless for saves (looking at you, intellect)
Build: This really depends on what score your using it on. Dex saves are the most common, followed by wis/con around equal, then cha/strength, then the very rare intellect. Still, if you have a stat to boost and don't have save prof in it, this is brilliant for making you live longer. Its also helpful for casters to pick up con, so they can hold on to their spells. It's probably not that good if your playing a monk you know will hit 14th level, as when you do this feat becomes obsolete.

Ritual Caster 3.5/5
Benefits: This one is going to take a deep breath. Upon taking this feat, you gain the ability to learn and cast a wide range of helpful utility spells drawn from wizard a class of your choice (so wizard, or maybe cleric for divination) without needing to expand a spell slot, or even have a spell slot, at the same level a full caster would get access to them. Yes please! This feat dosen't offer power, but it does explode with versatility.
Drawbacks: you pick a single class when you take this feat, and you only get their rituals, so you don't get all rituals – furthermore, a three (well, four, because feat) level dip into 'lock of tome can net you every ritual for the ultimate utility caster, which would make this obsolete, but that's a big dip so...
Builds: if you don't have a member of the class you chose in your party – or if the ritual in question is one that will last a full day anyway so preparing it would be a waste of a spell slot - this will grant the entire team some great downtime versatility to perform during short/long rests. It's more useful for a class that doesn’t need to many of said short rests, of course, but even then I'm sure the party wouldn't mind to much waiting 10 minutes afterwards for buffs

sorcerer and warlock are not listed because every one of their ritual spells is also on the wizard list

Bard
Animal Messenger, comprehend languages, detect magic, feign death, identify, illusory script, leomund's tiny hut, magic mouth, silence, speak with animals, unseen servant

Cleric
Augury, Commune, detect magic, detect poison and disease, divination, feign death, forbiddance, gentle repose, meld into stone, purify food/drink, silence, water walk

Druid
Animal Messenger, Commune with Nature, Beast Sense, detect magic, detect poison and disease, feign death, locate animals and plants, meld into stone, purify food/drink, silence, speak with animals, water breathing, water walk

Wizard
Alarm, comprehend languages, contact other plane, detect magic, Instant Summons, feign death, find familiar, gentle repose, identify, illusory script, leomund's tiny hut, magic mouth, phantom, steed, telepathic bond, Floating Disk, Unseen Servant, water breathing, water walk

Savage Attacker 3/5
Once per turn, you can reroll the dice from a melee weapon attack, and choose which of the two to stick with. It's not the best, but will probably give better overall damage than taking the +2 to your melee stat – though you'll hit less often. About draws even
Drawbacks: melee only and only one attack per turn, so quite a few characters can't benefit from it
Builds: This is alright for any melee attacker, letting you ensure you do some damage. It's best for folks with bigger weapons so the result of the dice matters most, but if it comes to a toss up between this and great weapon master, go for the later

Sentinel 5/5
Summary: Who says you can't effectively tank in tabletop? Sentinel disagrees – their opportunity attacks lock down the targets movement, and they laugh at someone trying to disengage. Furthermore, if a critter attacks a non-sentinel in your reach, they can use a reaction to hit it for being rude – though this isn't an opportunity attack (or a typo, as the feat obviously knows what an OA is), so they can still try and run afterwards. If only combat reflexes was in 5e, this would make anyone's day, but right now you can only bully one target a turn :smallamused:
Builds: This is the tanking feat in 5e – you can ensure a creature stays where you want it too, letting your allies position themselves safely to take it down. This combo's well with mage slayer, as even then trying to cast a spell ends up with them not moving the rest of the turn to get pummeled. Lastly, and perhaps best, you can create the ultimate roadblock with this and Polearm Master, since you get an opportunity attack when something enters you reach, which will then stop them in their tracks 5 feet away from you and your allies (and thus out of range for most melee attacks) wondering what happened.

Sharpshooter 5/5
Summary: Hitting people with arrows has never been better than 5e, and this feat just makes it even better. You no longer get disadvantage from long range, letting you pick people off from ridiculous ranges where they can do little to retaliate, and even if they hide like cowards, they need full cover for it to matter any more. Lastly, when your certain you can hit the target – say when your 360 feet away with them unaware – you can take a -5 penatly to hit for a +10 penalty for damage; which could be even nicer than Great Weapon Mastery, because the archery combat style gives bonuses to hit
Builds: Are you using a ranged weapon as your primary means of attack? If the answer is yes, get this. That is all

Shield Master 3.5/5
Summary: Shields are great, they provide a good bonus in this edition of bound accuracy, they look stylish, and with this feat you can use them to knock people over and block fireballs. Upon learning this feat, you can add your shield bonus to a save against something targeting just you, and you have evasion if you have a shield, though you still need to be able to make the dex save in the first place for that to matter. Lastly, you can spend a bonus action when attacking to try and knock your foe down – useful to set up your allies, or yourself if your DM lets you make the bonus attack first. Though since you need to use both a shield and weapon for this, casters need not apply until they get War Caster, and of course shields aren't as damaging as great weapons even with advantage.
Builds: This a good boost to your survivability against things that would normally ignore your AC, meaning you can tank better than ever, and grants a bonus buff against save or die effects. If you use a shield, this is a good thing to pick up.

Skilled 3/5
summary: Pick three skills of your choice and gain proficiency in them. Can be nice depending on the skills, and this will help buff your out of combat usefulness as well as some in combat support. Perception and hide are the skills that jump to mind as the most useful, as surprise rounds are nasty, but the others are good as well.
Builds: how useful this is depends on the group. Stealth is nice, but if your in a stealthy group, a group check should see you through fine, so that falls short. if you already have someone with perception and good wis, then a second eye won't really help, and two people trying to face it up leads to confusion. It's best use is to patch holes the party has, but that can feel like a bit of a let down from your limited feat options. Bards should really avoid this, due to jack of all trades meaning you end up with +3 not +6 compared to anyone else.

Skulker 3.5/5
Prerequisite: Dex 13+
Summary: Stealth is nice – its fun to use, it saves your skin, and advantage is devastating in the right hands. Skulker lets you be as stealthy as possible, netting the ability to hide when lightly obscured – so no more searching high and low for a hiding spot – budget darkvision, and lets you make ranged attacks with less risk of blowing your cover if you blow the attack. It won't cover for you if your a clunker with no dex in full plate, but if you could hide before, your better than ever at it now.
Builds: Rogues with this feat are scary as heck; you can almost guarantee advantage on your attack roll, which means an almost guaranteed sneak attack – and even if you fail the sneak attack, you don't give yourself away. This can combine will with Sharpshooter to make a reliable and deadly ranged assassin. Even for everyone else, the ability to hide when lightly obscured is nasty for setting an ambush or sneaking past a guard etc

Spell-sniper
Prerequisite: at least one spell
Spellcasters can get in on this long range action as well – their spells with attack rolls get double range (240 ft eldritch blast... mmmmmmm), and they can ignore all but full cover when shooting folks with spells for maximum chance to hit. Lastly, to ensure you can use this ability, you learn eldritc one cantrip that requires an attack roll.
If your playing a blast-caster, particularly a 'Lock, this will make you more effective as foes will find it harder to avoid your attacks. It doesn’t combo very well with a caster focusing on buffs, or on spells that give saves, such as a cleric, but it's nice if you do plan to make attack rolls.

Tavern Brawler 1/5
this, despite the cool idea, is a terrible feat. You get proficiency with improvised weapons – but improvised weapons suck even if they can look awesome. Your unarmed attacks deal the same damage as a 1st level monk, but you lack martial arts to make the unarmed attack in addition to your weapon attacks all low level monks use, and lastly when you use your low damage unarmed strike, you can use a bonus action to try and grapple the foe. You do get a point of str or con, though, so it's not a complete waste, I guess
Builds: I can't recommend a tactical build for this feat – the abilities don't synergise to well, as to make use of any of them you need to limit yourself to 1d4 damage per attack. This dosen't even combo well with Grappler, as you give up to much damage the advantage is next to useless. It's not even good for a monk to help em grab people, as they can use martial arts for that already.

Tough 3/5
summary: you gain +2 hit points per level – equal to +4 con points, though with the bonus to con saves or the rare effect tied to constitution. This can help add beef to any squishy character, and will at later levels contribute more than the +1 save for survivability, in my opinion.
Builds: If you want more HP and have a decent enough con score, this is the best bet for survivability. If you want more HP and only have a con of like 10-12, I'd say the extra save point to at least get +1 would serve you better. overall though, it's about equal to +2 con.

Warcaster 3/5
summary: Concentration means most mages need to avoid the front lines like the plague lest they loose their fancy spells – the warcaster feat helps get around that, granting advantage to concentration saves. Beyond that, it grants the ability to use somatic spells with your hands full, but that's really only useful for eldritch knights, war clerics, arcane tricksters and the occasional valor bard – everyone else either dosen't use somatic parts, or would be better of using cantrips for turn to turn stuff than weapons. Lastly, to greatly expand your tactical repertoire , you can use a 1 action spell in place of opportunity attacks, so long as it hits only one critter
Builds: if your worried about concentration, resilient (con) will probably work better to buff it against the occasional hit, leaving this feat more useful for someone who expects to get hit a fair bit and wants some reassurance – same with the ability to have weapons and spells. It's definatly designed for front line fighters with magic support, rather than primary mages.
Putting that aside, this could make an interesting combo with polearm master to spell things that get close – charm on a creature in the middle of its action trying to hit you can make a lot of changes, or just four full rays of eldritch blast to the face for maximum pain to hopefully drop em before they hit you. Now if only sentinel gave full opportunity attacks, ah well, the ability to blast people running and root em in place is still a nice extra :smallbiggrin:

weapon master 1/5
summary: you gain +1 str/dex, and get proficiency with four weapons of your choice. This could be nice, but weapons are too samey right now for options to matter, and almost all available classes right now start with all the weapon profs they need – or pick them up based on their archetype for melee clerics and bards.
Builds: none whatsoever – every melee class already has the weapons it needs as standard, and every caster shouldn't be using weapons. The only class where an argument could be made is for the rogue to pick up a longbow/heavy crossbow for the bonus range over their simple versions (the potential 2 higher damage from the weapon means next to nothing to a rogue), but even then you could spend this feat on sharpshooter for better overall range, better accuracy and better damage - so a case cannot be made for it :smalltongue:

and thats all the feats in the PhB. thank you for reading :)

Giant2005

2014-09-04, 03:41 AM

Man you were needlessly harsh to Alert. It makes you immune to Assassins and considering they are pretty much the scariest thing in the game, that reason alone is to make it one of the best Feats around. Placing it below average is criminal.

Also, Dual Wielder isn't really about Dual Wielding... It is about getting a bonus to AC on characters that can't use Shields.

Beige

2014-09-04, 04:24 AM

Man you were needlessly harsh to Alert. It makes you immune to Assassins and considering they are pretty much the scariest thing in the game, that reason alone is to make it one of the best Feats around. Placing it below average is criminal.

I think someone's mothers have been telling them scary bed-time stories :smalltongue: assassins are gonna be just as dangerous with or without this feat because what kind of sucky assassin attacks someone when they're awake and looking around.

and like I said, someone with good wis and perception in your party should nullify most sneak attacks whilst awake, making the worry of the death attack even rarer

plus, considering PCs as your most common enemy in place of monsters is misguided for most campaigns. At most you'll likely face 1 or 2 assassins high enough leveled to really be a bother, and a rare - albeit dangerous - enemy that you can use a limited option of customasability to counter is situational - which is 2 out of 5 :smalltongue:

I also still maintain it's best for the assassin in the odd case he is spotted to shiv someone before he gets fried :smallamused:

Also, Dual Wielder isn't really about Dual Wielding... It is about getting a bonus to AC on characters that can't use Shields.

no, no it's really not :smallconfused: it's a full package that must be judged all together, including the viability of the combat style from all angle, not just the AC - and the full package is something cool but ineficient compared to a two handed weapon (1 less ac, greatly increased damage, no need to burn bonus actions) or sword and shield* (save average damage, better AC, no need to burn bonus actions). I rate it at 2.5 because even though the feat itself is good, the fighting style you need to use it is sub-par compared to the others, and that limits duel wielder to being sub-par regardless.

especially since 1 point of AC over someone hitting 1.5 times as hard and having a feat/stat points to spend on say +2 dex for the same amount of AC, and the much stronger force, is not as good. Also, I'm assuming you meant chose not to use shields, because there are much more efficient defensive feats and options for a character without shield prof other than duel wield;
tough gives you many more hit points with which to survive attacks, which is much more efficient overall than +1 to ac (dual wield gives 19 ac max (outside magic things), but hit rolls cap at +11, meaning a roll of 8, or 60%, will hit. ac 18, or a 7, will be hit 65% of the time, BUT the extra 40 hp increases the resilience of even the toughest character by around 16% - a 5% drop in evasion for a 16+% boost in resilience is a good trade)
resilient will give you bonus saves, which will save your ass much more often against attack types of your choice than being 5% dodgier
med armour master also gives you +1 overall DC, but dosen't sacrifice attack effectiveness
heavy armour master grants damage res, which helps tank through swarm attacks
or you can spend the +2 stat on +2 dex (if you don't have shield prof, you don't have medium armour, so every drop of dex helps) for +2 dex without having to give up your free hand -and thus still being able to cast spells.

if we just look at it defensively, duel wield is literally the second worst defensive feat in the game, after defensive duelist

* assuming character has access to combat styles, otherwise dual wield is better in a vacuum of other bonus actions, but most classes have combat style or better uses for bonus actions)

LordVonDerp

2014-09-04, 07:33 AM

Mistake on the Dual Wielder feat: it Actually does allow you to add your attribute to damage with off hand attacks because your no longer using light weapons.

Person_Man

2014-09-04, 08:48 AM

Just speaking as someone who has written a lot of guides, I would suggest that you be much more succinct in your analysis, and use color coding. The Wall of Text repels casual reading, which is what most people do on a forum. Also, posts have a maximum number of characters, and its not a lot. So you're unlikely to be able to provide a summary and analysis of every feat if each of them is as long as the ones you've posted so far.

You should also be mindful about using Fair Use summaries instead of actual bonuses and exact descriptions, because its against forum rules and copyright law, and the thread will be locked.

For example:

Alert: Provides a large bonus to Initiative, and you cannot be surprised. 5E combat is quick and deadly, so this provides a useful benefit to any class. If you act first, you can kill an enemy before they can act at all. Its particularly worthwhile for Assassin Rogues or any character with a particularly low Wisdom (Perception) check. Its even more useful when Invisibility becomes a common problem at mid-high levels.

Now obviously you might disagree with my analysis. But I get my entire point and recommendations across in five sentences.

Sir_Leorik

2014-09-04, 09:05 AM

Mistake on the Dual Wielder feat: it Actually does allow you to add your attribute to damage with off hand attacks because your no longer using light weapons.

No, it doesn't. The Fighting Style Option Two-Weapon Fighting (PHB p. 72, 91) grants that ability. The Dual Wielder feat grants a +1 AC bonus when wielding two separate melee weapons in each hand; allows a character to fight with two separate weapons in each hand even if they aren't light weapons; and allows a character to draw or stow two one handed weapons rather than one.

Beige

2014-09-04, 10:11 AM

Mistake on the Dual Wielder feat: it Actually does allow you to add your attribute to damage with off hand attacks because your no longer using light weapons.

no, you don't

You don’t add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative.

the feat allows you to not use light weapons, but this statement - that you don't get your stat bonus, is an entire different sentence. The feat removes the restriction to light weapons, but does nothing for the bonus damage.

Oscredwin

2014-09-04, 12:54 PM

WRT Charger and Defensive Duelist:

Charger is intended to be used when a move doesn't get you all the way to your foe. That's why you charge.

Also, Defensive duelist is, by level 9, almost an at will shield spell, the wizard capstone. It's vs one attack instead of all round, but I want to see the MM before determining how much that matters.

rlc

2014-09-04, 01:33 PM

Elemental Adept is 4/10, when it should be 4/5.
Other than that, good list.

eastmabl

2014-09-04, 02:05 PM

Re: Durable

Wizards and sorcerers have d6 hit die now, not d4.

obryn

2014-09-04, 02:17 PM

BRC

2014-09-04, 02:24 PM

Dark Tira

2014-09-04, 02:28 PM

You're undervaluing Crossbow Expert, IMO. First, you get your stat mod to damage on your bonus attack. Second, you can - in theory - only use a single crossbow in your off-hand. And at higher levels, Sharpshooter exists.

I'm also puzzled as to why Elemental Adept is continually rated so highly, here and elsewhere. I'm not seeing it.

Pretty much my thoughts here. Crossbow Expert only really shines with a hand crossbow and the sharpshooter feat so it is fairly situational but I was expecting 4/5. I could see it being rated 3/5 overall but then Elemental Adept being even more situational and generally weaker getting a 4/5 makes no sense.

DeAnno

2014-09-04, 02:34 PM

I'm not so crazy about Elemental Adept myself. The damage boost is pitiful (#Dice/DieSize), and it doesn't do anything to help with immunity.

On the other hand Alert seems very strong due to the large initiative bonus and other goodies. Tough also seems really good at first glance.

Beige

2014-09-04, 03:52 PM

Beige

2014-09-04, 03:57 PM

I'm not so crazy about Elemental Adept myself. The damage boost is pitiful (#Dice/DieSize), and it doesn't do anything to help with immunity.

it's more for reliability than damage boosts - the most common dice are d6s (which do benefit from always having at least 1/3 damage) and d8s (not as good, but still nice) - plus, resistance is rather common in the printed monster so far. the only thing printed with an immunity to any of the listed elements is the leaked terrasque, and the ancient red dragon, with its fire immunity :smallwink:

On the other hand Alert seems very strong due to the large initiative bonus and other goodies. Tough also seems really good at first glance.

everyone praising it is pushing it further forward for me

BRC

2014-09-04, 04:11 PM

I rate crossbow expert as a 3 rather than a 4 or higher because the bonus damage isn't enough to really make it more viable than a longbow - because for the same number of feats, a longbow user already has sharpshooter. The fact you can use the crossbow in combat is nice, but with the 100 ft range of crossbows now and the ability to run and shoot, I doubt your going to be in too many situations where it comes up - and the lack of ability to shoot safely in close combat is less of a problem for the 150ft longbow. It's still a 3, so it's still good - just not outstanding

You're assuming the fight is taking place in an open field where the Longbowman can shoot and move as they wish, easily staying out of range. There are plenty of circumstances where an archer does not have the luxury of staying out of melee reach of enemies (Ambushes, fights in confined quarters, lack of sightlines, ect).

Not saying Crossbow Expert needs to be more than a 3, but I wouldn't say Longbows invalidate it. Especially with how rare Magic Items are in 5e, a Crossbow Expert is the only character who can use a single weapon for every situation, that weapon also happens to be the most powerful dex-based weapon in the game.

Yes, Longbows have more range, but most combats take place at significantly shorter range. As much fun as sitting back and sniping from max distance sounds, it's often a bad idea in regular play. Even if you can do it, the rest of your party probably can't engage from those ranges.

So while YOU are safely shooting from 150 away, the rest of your party is mixing it up in melee (taking more damage, since the enemies are splitting their attention between a smaller number of viable targets). If you want to get close and lend some form of support (Stabilizing a dying ally with a heal check, covering the retreat of a wounded ally, interacting with the environment in some way, ect) you are three rounds of movement away from the fray. Most combats take place at ranges less than 60 feet in my experience.

Crossbow Expert seems underwhelming at first, but the ability to have a single, all-purpose weapon (The heavy crossbow) should not be underestimated.

Dark Tira

2014-09-04, 04:29 PM

Crossbow Expert seems underwhelming at first, but the ability to have a single, all-purpose weapon (The heavy crossbow) should not be underestimated.

While true, the main advantage for Crossbow Expert is really getting a bonus attack with a hand crossbow. It's by far the easiest way to get a bonus attack with a ranged weapon and once sharpshooter comes into play it is a huge damage boost.

BRC

2014-09-04, 04:37 PM

While true, the main advantage for Crossbow Expert is really getting a bonus attack with a hand crossbow. It's by far the easiest way to get a bonus attack with a ranged weapon and once sharpshooter comes into play it is a huge damage boost.

As somebody currently playing a swashbuckling rapier-and-hand crossbow fighter, I Can also confirm it is stylish as any hell you care to name. It's ALSO basically duel wielding, but you get your dex to damage on both attacks even without the fighting style, and you can use your bonus attack to hit anybody within range.

The only downsides compared to duel wielding are you lose out on +1 AC, an average of one damage, some flexibility in terms of the damage types you can deal, and the ability to draw/sheath two weapons instead of one.

obryn

2014-09-04, 04:38 PM

While true, the main advantage for Crossbow Expert is really getting a bonus attack with a hand crossbow. It's by far the easiest way to get a bonus attack with a ranged weapon and once sharpshooter comes into play it is a huge damage boost.
For any dex-based character, it also out-damages any other off-hand weapon choice. You wouldn't get your stat bonus to damage with a shortsword, but you will get it with that hand crossbow.

Envyus

2014-09-04, 04:44 PM

On the Two Weapon Feat. You forgot the note that the character no longer has to use Light Weapons with it. Added on Several classes can choose a feature that lets them add their mod to the off hand weapon.

Beige

2014-09-04, 06:02 PM

OP updated - both a few changed opinions, and hopefuly improved readability

numerek

2014-09-04, 09:18 PM

Another thing to think about with Crossbow Expert is flexibility.

If you have it, a Heavy Crossbow is basically a 1d10 weapon (one step below the heaviest two-handed weapons) that you can use with your Dex bonus, and that works just as well in melee and ranged (Except you can't make Attacks of Opportunity with it). With 5e's greater focus on mobility, you may find yourself switching between ranged and melee combat quite frequently, Crossbow Expert lets you instantly engage at melee without dropping your ranged weapon.

You could use the heavy crossbow as a improvised weapon for Opportunity Attacks(Under ammunition it specifically talks about this). Of course without tavern brawler you wouldn't be proficient, and it would be strength based but better than nothing. Although there would be a case that a crossbow expert should be more proficient at beating someone up with the crossbow than a tavern brawler. But you still wouldn't be able to use your dexterity. You could also maybe make a case for using a bolt as an improvised finesse weapon.

Naanomi

2014-09-04, 09:35 PM

Not that this should adjust your ratings on this, but Defensive Duelist is one of the few ways to get a reliable AC boost; something that can mean a lot more in the world of Bound Accuracy

Shadow

2014-09-04, 09:45 PM

Not that this should adjust your ratings on this, but Defensive Duelist is one of the few ways to get a reliable AC boost; something that can mean a lot more in the world of Bound Accuracy

And a big, scaling reliable AC boost at that. Basically it will allow you to ignore one attack every round if you have any sort of defense to begin with.

Symphony

2014-09-04, 10:11 PM

I disagree with you on Charger.

First of all, there are situations for certain classes and class builds where Charger allows you to actually attack when you otherwise would not have been able to. Most characters have a speed of 30 feet, which means any time you want to hit someone ~40-60 feet away with a melee attack, Charger allows you to do so where you would otherwise need to wait until next round (and that's assuming that your target doesn't retreat). Furthermore, I would expect this to come up quite often, because 40 feet is actually quite a short distance in reality, and most ranged attackers (both mundane and magical) will be at least that far away. The extra damage at this point is just a nice bonus that you will almost always qualify for (10 feet is only a few steps).

Now, there are certain classes and class builds were this is not the case. For example, Monks can spend a ki point to Dash as a bonus action (leaving their regular action for a normal attack), and Barbarians that take the Eagle totem at level 3 can also Dash as a bonus action while raging. Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers can all only do this through Expeditious Retreat (for Eldritch Knights) or multiclassing.

Second, this is a straight damage increase for a Rogue. There is no opportunity lost by a Rogue using Dash as their action with a single Attack as a bonus action, because they only get a single attack anyway. Even if a Rogue was to dual wield, and even if they took the Dual Wielder feat, they are at best adding an average 4.5 damage to their attack, at the cost of not being able to take any other action that turn. Now, this changes a bit when you include multiclassing, because a single level of Fighter allows for the Two-Weapon Fighting style, which increases the bonus action attack's damage by at least 1, but more likely 3-5, putting it over the damage gained by the Charger taking the Duelist style.

Of course, the Charger still gets a 1 AC advantage from a shield (in this case from the Fighter level), and never has to give up their extra damage if they need to close the distance to an enemy (and gives up less damage if they want to use their Cunning Action to do something other than Dash and still Attack on the same round). Then you can throw in the Mobile feat and the Rogue can charge the same enemy every round without worrying about AoO...

Anyway, I wouldn't say Charger is great, but it can be useful.

Shadow

2014-09-04, 10:19 PM

Any rogue that takes charger is a fool.

When you use your action to Dash, you can use a bonus action to make one melee w eapon attack or to shove a creature.
You're using an action and a bonus action to use Charger. Or you're using an action and a bonus action to Dash and attack as a rogue.
The only difference is the +5 damage (or shove), which is good, but isn't worth wasting a feat on considering the situational use of it IMO.

obryn

2014-09-04, 10:39 PM

Not that this should adjust your ratings on this, but Defensive Duelist is one of the few ways to get a reliable AC boost; something that can mean a lot more in the world of Bound Accuracy
Yeah, and in some contexts (like, say, an actual duel), it can be extremely helpful.

It's just too bad it takes your reaction, but weighing it against other reactions, it looks like a solid option.

Symphony

2014-09-04, 10:41 PM

Any rogue that takes charger is a fool.

You're using an action and a bonus action to use Charger. Or you're using an action and a bonus action to Dash and attack as a rogue.
The only difference is the +5 damage (or shove), which is good, but isn't worth wasting a feat on considering the situational use of it IMO.

It's a consistent damage increase. Combined with Mobile you can do it every single round without drawbacks. How is that situational?

Shadow

2014-09-04, 10:56 PM

It's a consistent damage increase. Combined with Mobile you can do it every single round without drawbacks. How is that situational?

With two feats. And no possibility to make an off-hand attack if your attack (with sneak attack) misses.
Or you could spend a single feat on Crossbow Expert, save a feat, do more damage with that secondary attack than Charger applies, and also get to apply your sneak attack if your first attack missed.
Crossbow Expert is exceedingly and clearly superior to Charger and Mobile combined. Crossbow Expert and Mobile is even better than that.
Charger is useless to a rogue.

Symphony

2014-09-04, 11:07 PM

With two feats. And no possibility to make an off-hand attack if your attack (with sneak attack) misses.
Or you could spend a single feat on Crossbow Expert, save a feat, do more damage with that secondary attack than Charger applies, and also get to apply your sneak attack if your first attack missed.
Crossbow Expert is exceedingly and clearly superior to Charger and Mobile combined. Crossbow Expert and Mobile is even better than that.
Charger is useless to a rogue.

Again, off-hand attacks take your bonus action. In the case where you do not want to use any of the actions allowed by Cunning Action, dual-wielding is indeed better. If you want to use an action allowed by Cunning Action that isn't dash, the two options are equivalent. If you want to Dash on the same turn as your attack, Charger is clearly the better option because of the extra damage.

This all only applies to melee attacks, anyway. If you are planning to focus on ranged attacks, there is obviously no question that Charger is useless. Otherwise, Charger is at the very least situationally useful (even for melee characters with multiple attacks), and in the case of a melee rogue very much not useless.

Shadow

2014-09-04, 11:09 PM

If you want to Dash on the same turn as your attack, Charger is clearly the better option because of the extra damage..

Oh, you mean under one specific situation which will probably only happen once per encounter, if that much? And won't happen at all if you have a ranged off-hand weapon?
So much for it not being situational....
Charger is useless for a rogue.

This all only applies to melee attacks, anyway. If you are planning to focus on ranged attacks, there is obviously no question that Charger is useless. Otherwise, Charger is at the very least situationally useful (even for melee characters with multiple attacks), and in the case of a melee rogue very much not useless.

I was specifically talking about finesse melee & hand crossbow, meaning melee rogue (as I believe that RAI on the extra attack while wielding a one handed weapon only applies to melee weapons and disallows the use of dual wielding hand crossbows). Otherwise Mobility is also useless.
My previous argument stands.
Charger is useless on a rogue.

Symphony

2014-09-04, 11:36 PM

Oh, you mean under one specific situation which will probably only happen once per encounter, if that much? And won't happen at all if you have a ranged off-hand weapon?
So much for it not being situational....
Charger is useless for a rogue.

Yours is at least as situational, in that if you ever want to use your bonus action for anything you give up that extra damage (and a Thief Rogue has a lot of different bonus actions they might want to take). Mine preserves the extra damage if you need or want to Dash. Yours gives you a ready option to attack at medium range if necessary.

I was specifically talking about finesse melee & hand crossbow, meaning melee rogue. Otherwise Mobility is also useless.
My previous argument stands.
Charger is useless on a rogue.

Alright, let's rewind this discussion. My original post mentioned explicitly pointed out that I did not think Charger was great, but that it could be useful, this was in response to Beige rating Charger at 1/5, which equates in this rating system to "a waste of a feat slot - you'd be better of throwing the points into a dump stat than take this". He argued that it was completely useless. A situationally useful feat under this rating system is at least 2/5.

Next, you have not countered anything in my first post, because you have merely pointed out that there exists a feat option that provides slightly more damage (using a completely different method that I in fact pretty much pointed out in my first post).

So what?

If you build a Rogue specifically to utilize Charger (which is to say: melee and not ranged), you get a consistent damage increase that doesn't really cost you any options (besides the feat spent on Charger). That's it. That's the sum of my argument.

Beige

2014-09-05, 07:10 AM

I'm going to expand shadow's comments: charger is useless on anyone.

I did muse it might be useable on a rogue as it grants the same number of attacks per turn as dual wiled, but even then when I thought about it, I found myself drawn to dual wield instead because it frees up my cunning action for escaping, and doesn't cost a feat, and the damage difference is pitiful

If you build a Rogue specifically to utilize Charger (which is to say: melee and not ranged), you get a consistent damage increase that doesn't really cost you any options (besides the feat spent on Charger). That's it. That's the sum of my argument.

but the damage increase is 5 points - for a feat slot. yes, it could be useful if you don't have other options, but you do have other options, and I have to take those into consideration when raiting these and the game does not exist in a vacuum. So it's a total waste, and is the reason this is staying red :smallamused:

Giant2005

2014-09-05, 07:22 AM

I'm going to expand shadow's comments: charger is useless on anyone.

I did muse it might be useable on a rogue as it grants the same number of attacks per turn as dual wiled, but even then when I thought about it, I found myself drawn to dual wield instead because it frees up my cunning action for escaping, and doesn't cost a feat, and the damage difference is pitiful

but the damage increase is 5 points - for a feat slot. yes, it could be useful if you don't have other options, but you do have other options, and I have to take those into consideration when raiting these and the game does not exist in a vacuum. So it's a total waste, and is the reason this is staying red :smallamused:

It isn't just a 5 point damage increase, it is a 5 point + ability mod increase due to not receiving that ability mod damage while using the dual-wielding alternative.

Edit: Although after looking at the feat, it is really quite crappy and doesn't act as an alternative to dual-wielding. With dualwielding you could attack and then attack again as a bonus attack with your off-hand weapon. With Charger you could charge and then attack as a bonus action inflicting your normal damage +5.
Charger sucks.

Beige

2014-09-05, 07:37 AM

Charger sucks.

He can be taught! :smallamused:

I did use some logic when rating it. not much, but some - so yes, I said dual wiled is better because your getting two (or more) attacks, not one with a small boost :smallbiggrin:

LordVonDerp

2014-09-05, 10:32 AM

No, it doesn't. The Fighting Style Option Two-Weapon Fighting (PHB p. 72, 91) grants that ability. The Dual Wielder feat grants a +1 AC bonus when wielding two separate melee weapons in each hand; allows a character to fight with two separate weapons in each hand even if they aren't light weapons; and allows a character to draw or stow two one handed weapons rather than one.

Go read the rules on fighting with two weapons. you only lose the attribute bonus on the offhand weapon if you're using two light weapons.

hymer

2014-09-05, 10:42 AM

Go read the rules on fighting with two weapons. you only lose the attribute bonus on the offhand weapon if you're using two light weapons.

PHB p. 195, Two-weapon fighting:
"When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand. You don't add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative."

And then there' something about how this works with thrown weapons.

DrLemniscate

2014-09-05, 10:57 AM

Go read the rules on fighting with two weapons. you only lose the attribute bonus on the offhand weapon if you're using two light weapons.

When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand. You don't add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative.

The feat basically lets you ignore anywhere it says "Light". Not getting the ability modifier on the damage is not a condition of the weapon type, it is baked in to the bonus attack itself.

Still, this feat is basically required if you are going for Two-Weapon Fighting. Otherwise Dueling is better for Fighters (extra damage on every attack vs one bonus attack. It surpasses TWF on the second extra attack). With Action Surges, Dueling edges out even TWF with the feat. With Dueling, you also have an open hand for a Shield, or for Grappling.

edit: Heck, for ultimate cheese, you could make your first attack with TWF with the feat, drop your offhand weapon as a free action, then proceed to use Dueling for your 3 extra attacks. This surpasses even Great-Weapon Fighting (without feat), but requires the two fighting styles and feat. Probably not going to get your DM to agree to this.

Beige

2014-09-05, 12:00 PM

Go read the rules on fighting with two weapons. you only lose the attribute bonus on the offhand weapon if you're using two light weapons.

ummm, no. I'll highlight the full stop since you've managed to ignore it three times already.

When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand <FULL STOP> You don’t add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative <FULL STOP>

You can use two-weapon fighting even when the onehanded melee weapons you are wielding aren’t light.

please, if it is there and I'm missing it, highlight the part where it says you can use your ability modifier.

So I did read the rules, and you really, really did not. the statement you cannot add your ability modifier to the second attack is an entirely different sentance and is in no way, shape, or form related to the fact it can only be done with light weapons without this feat

so, please. go learn how grammar works :smallsigh:

pwykersotz

2014-09-05, 02:00 PM

I'm blind!

Can you change the colors to be a little darker on the greyscale? I love color coding, but my eyes are swimming right now.

Mellack

2014-09-05, 02:24 PM

Why is this have only some of the feats? I would like to hear peoples opinions on the others also, such as linguist and keen mind.

hymer

2014-09-05, 02:36 PM

Why is this have only some of the feats? I would like to hear peoples opinions on the others also, such as linguist and keen mind.

They both suck pretty bad as feats go IMO. Maybe if you have, say, 19 int and all other relevant abilities are even I'd consider them if there are no better options available.

Beige

2014-09-05, 03:01 PM

Why is this have only some of the feats? I would like to hear peoples opinions on the others also, such as linguist and keen mind.

because I haven't gotten to those yet :smallbiggrin:

I probably should have done all the feats before posting any, but... I claim CN as my excuse

Mellack

2014-09-05, 03:02 PM

I agree, I also think they seem rather weak, but I would like to see them ranked along with the others and discussed. Along with all the others.

Beige

2014-09-05, 04:33 PM

updated OP once more

pwykersotz

2014-09-05, 04:49 PM

Ah, you are kind to replace the green. Thank you. :smallsmile:

DrLemniscate

2014-09-05, 06:34 PM

Mellack

2014-09-05, 07:15 PM

Thanks for the update.

JamesT

2014-09-05, 07:21 PM

This is great - Looking forward to seeing the rest

Beige

2014-09-05, 08:26 PM

Just a small gripe. You mentioned something about max AC in the Heavy Armor Master feat.

The highest Heavy Armor wearers can get is 21 without Magic items (18 Full Plate + 2 Shield + 1 Defense fighting style).

Barbarians can get up to 24 (10 + 7 CON mod + 5 DEX mod + 2 Shield). In fact, a Fighter tank would benefit from taking a Barbarian level to get to 22 AC when unarmored, as well as some Raging for resistance to physical. This lets Dexterity do double duty in contributing to AC and Magic avoidance.

I'd argue major no - your only getting to 22 AC with maximum dexterity and constitution, and most classes will not reach 20 in two stats, even fighter will only just get it if you use all your stat ups for defence, and its only beating the 0-stat investment of heavy armour + shield by 1 point. I'd still say dipping barbarian is brilliant for tanking, but not for the unarmored defence but for bear totem, because why just get physical resistance when you can get resistance to everything but psychic? :smallamused:

furthermore, you can get your equipment AC up much earlier than maxing two stats, which makes it a bit more practical early on. Afterall, you always start the show fully dressed, the clothes come off as it gets to the exciting part :smallwink:

though I will admit I forgot about the barbarian's version of unarmored defence and used the Monks for my calculations - which caps at 20 so is tied with full plate excluding combat styles - except substituted wis for con, and I didn't think about the barbys capstone and those 2 extra points it gets...

...though I highly doubt we'll ever really see a dex-barbarian because the rest of the class focuses on buffing str, and your a good enough tank with bear totem anyway that eating the odd face punch isn't that big a deal.

edit: Plus, I did say MAX ac, not max without magic items, and since the DM supplement online says magic items will go up to +3 you can get a +3 full plate and get the same AC as a full barbarian without having to max a dump stat and have 20 levels in a class :smallamused: so my comment was still valid :smalltongue:

still, will edit that into the OP

MeeposFire

2014-09-05, 08:57 PM

I'd argue major no - your only getting to 22 AC with maximum dexterity and constitution, and most classes will not reach 20 in two stats, even fighter will only just get it if you use all your stat ups for defence, and its only beating the 0-stat investment of heavy armour + shield by 1 point. I'd still say dipping barbarian is brilliant for tanking, but not for the unarmored defence but for bear totem, because why just get physical resistance when you can get resistance to everything but psychic? :smallamused:

furthermore, you can get your equipment AC up much earlier than maxing two stats, which makes it a bit more practical early on. Afterall, you always start the show fully dressed, the clothes come off as it gets to the exciting part :smallwink:

though I will admit I forgot about the barbarian's version of unarmored defence and used the Monks for my calculations - which caps at 20 so is tied with full plate excluding combat styles - except substituted wis for con, and I didn't think about the barbys capstone and those 2 extra points it gets...

...though I highly doubt we'll ever really see a dex-barbarian because the rest of the class focuses on buffing str, and your a good enough tank with bear totem anyway that eating the odd face punch isn't that big a deal.

edit: Plus, I did say MAX ac, not max without magic items, and since the DM supplement online says magic items will go up to +3 you can get a +3 full plate and get the same AC as a full barbarian without having to max a dump stat and have 20 levels in a class :smallamused: so my comment was still valid :smalltongue:

still, will edit that into the OP

Ah but you forget bracers of armor that boost non-armored characters by +3 as well.

Vowtz

2014-09-05, 09:18 PM

I don't agree with your interpretation of defensive duelist.

It's uses are limited, true, but when it works it shines.

If you are a fighter with a heavy armor, a shield and defense bonus, that's AC 21, against melee attackers, if you get hit, you can use your reaction to make your AC jump to 23~27, depending on level.

That is a lot! If you opponent is a melee attacker with one attack you are almost guaranteed to win, if he's got two attacks you will have a huge advantage. I'm not just in theory domain, I used this is actual play and it's useful.

It' highly situational thou, ranged attacks and magic will ignore this feat, so I would rate it 2/5 or 3/5 depending on character build.

Charger, well, it really sucks, but it's aplication is not to get aditional damage, it's to pursue people that run away from you.
For now it's almost completely useless, but in the future maybe someone will create a "scare and charge" build for it to work.

I'm with Person_Man on Alert, you will get a great bonus to act faster IN EVERY ENCOUNTER FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, you have a chance to kill people before they get to use their abilities and harm you/escape/harm innocent/press self destruct button.

The fact that it comes with uncanny dodge is just too good, I would say this feat is a must have for high level casters.

Beige

2014-09-05, 09:44 PM

I don't agree with your interpretation of defensive duelist.

If you are a fighter with a heavy armor, a shield and defense bonus, that's AC 21, against melee attackers, if you get hit, you can use your reaction to make your AC jump to 23~27, depending on level.

true, the numbers look nice and...

That is a lot! If you opponent is a melee attacker with one attack you are almost guaranteed to win, if he's got two attacks you will have a huge advantage. I'm not just in theory domain, I used this is actual play and it's useful.

that is also true, however, the problem is the action economy - most encounters will have the PCs facing a large number of weaker attacks - where defensive duelist is near worthless - an enemy with a fair number of high power attacks - where it is debatably good - or attacks that ignore AC anyway.

it also limits you to a rapier, but that's not as annoying

It' highly situational thou, ranged attacks and magic will ignore this feat, so I would rate it 2/5 or 3/5 depending on character build.

and here we have the main part that kills it - it works against a single one of 1/3 attacks per turn, and only against 1/3 of those is it worth it - and since it doesn't work on magic or things using saves, it's useless against any really dangerous attack such as a fireball or dragon-breath.

an option using 1 of your 4 feats to defend against a single attack - that only has a 1/9 chance of being something it can defend against each round - is flat. out. useless.

The most frustrating thing is I want to like the feat - duelists are my favorite type of character, but it's just not useful enough to be worth a look.

Charger, well, it really sucks, but it's aplication is not to get aditional damage, it's to pursue people that run away from you.
For now it's almost completely useless, but in the future maybe someone will create a "scare and charge" build for it to work.

but it offers pitiful advantages over just dash alone.

also, what could potentially come out in the future does not effect right now. I can't judge based on theoretical feats that may never be actualized - and if I can, then man are slings the best weapons in the game because did you see the broken BS sling master gets you. every character should just use both :smalltongue:

I'm with Person_Man on Alert, you will get a great bonus to act faster IN EVERY ENCOUNTER FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, you have a chance to kill people before they get to use their abilities and harm you/escape/harm innocent/press self destruct button.

The fact that it comes with uncanny dodge is just too good, I would say this feat is a must have for high level casters.

but its notably less useful for less squishy people - and this is judging feats for everyone, not just the subset that gets the best use out of it :smallamused:

it has been bumped up from when personman gave his comments - it was a 2 because I forgot about invisibility and Assassins. It's now a 3, because if your DM kills you in a surprise round with you being unable to do anything about it, he deserves to be "given" an extra slice of pizza quite forcefully.

Vowtz

2014-09-05, 10:20 PM

I was writting other points to promote "defensive duelist", like the fact that, if you have a high AC and face multiple weak enemies you will be hit by monsters like 30% or 25% of the time, and defensive duelist could reduce this hits to 10% or less.

This way you could save your precious hit points for more important ocasions.

Then I remembered that recovering hit points is not hard at all in 5e, you are in fact protecting an abuntant resource, it's not really useful to spend aditional feats to defend yourself in this edition.

I grew up in an Ad&d enviroment, there, not taking hits was a priority, you would get your AC as low as possible as fast as you could just to survive.

So yes, now analyzing things in a new perspective, you are right, defensive duelist is not so great.

I would rate it 2/5 since it's still not completely useless.

Shadow

2014-09-05, 10:26 PM

I disagree completely.
If you have any sort of defense at all (and if you're considering taking a defensive feat, it should follow that you already have decent-to-good defense), then this feat basically allows you to completely ignore one melee attack per round.
That's pretty damn amazing if you ask me.

DeAnno

2014-09-05, 10:28 PM

but its notably less useful for less squishy people - and this is judging feats for everyone, not just the subset that gets the best use out of it :smallamused:

If that's the case I really can't understand why Actor is rated so high. Sure, it's a decent "half-feat" for Cha primary classes, but it emphasizes a very specific sort of social interaction only some characters are even going to want to involve themselves with. I could see a similar edge argument for Keen Mind, taking a broad reading of the last bullet similar to what is commonly done with Eidetic Memory in some Whitewolf Circles.

Vowtz

2014-09-05, 11:01 PM

If that's the case I really can't understand why Actor is rated so high. Sure, it's a decent "half-feat" for Cha primary classes, but it emphasizes a very specific sort of social interaction only some characters are even going to want to involve themselves with. I could see a similar edge argument for Keen Mind, taking a broad reading of the last bullet similar to what is commonly done with Eidetic Memory in some Whitewolf Circles.

I agree, actor is useless to most, and very good to some.

Alert is good to everyone, very good to most, and critical in many circunstances.

Some high level battles can be won just by initiative:

Contagion -> action surge magic missile

For me alert deserves a 5/5, I was always a fan of improved initiative, even in 3.5, where it's underrated.

Naanomi

2014-09-05, 11:29 PM

The real strength of Defensive Deulist is that it is rolled after results are given; so a character already build for defense (whom opponents will miss more than half the time anyways) can help negate even the lucky rolls that get through, and thus it does have value even in horde fights for a dedicated defensive character.

Vintrastorm

2014-09-13, 05:47 AM

Beige, I think you did a great job here and look forward to seeing your take on the rest of the list. :)

Beige

2014-09-13, 10:23 AM

Beige, I think you did a great job here and look forward to seeing your take on the rest of the list. :)

thank you kindly :smallsmile:

my take on the rest of the list is now up there in post 2 :smallbiggrin:

Angelalex242

2014-09-13, 01:16 PM

Heavy armor master is the best feat in the world for somebody in heavy armor at 1st level...but I admit there's diminishing returns.

Giant2005

2014-09-13, 01:45 PM

I think Tavern Brawler is being sold a bit short - you raved about the tanking abilities of Sentinel but Tavern Brawler is almost its match in that regard. It gives you proficiency in using animal traps as weapons which gives okay-ish damage (1D4 for the attack +1D4 for the trap) and more importantly, it renders your victim unable to move more than 3' away from you and of course it looks pretty cool too.

Beige

2014-09-13, 02:29 PM

Heavy armor master is the best feat in the world for somebody in heavy armor at 1st level...but I admit there's diminishing returns.

and diminishing returns end up reducing the overall score. I still rated it highly, just not as the best feat ever - because by end game, it sadly is not the best feat ever :smallsmile:

I think Tavern Brawler is being sold a bit short - you raved about the tanking abilities of Sentinel but Tavern Brawler is almost its match in that regard. It gives you proficiency in using animal traps as weapons which gives okay-ish damage (1D4 for the attack +1D4 for the trap) and more importantly, it renders your victim unable to move more than 3' away from you and of course it looks pretty cool too.

right, a few issues here

first, it takes an action to activate a hunting trap. Without doing so, it will not snap shut on the critter as it will not be active and primed to do so, so its just an improvised weapon without the catching and extra damage. so your plans already in ruins because your spending two full turns to do this, during which the monster wondered off...

secondly, once it's been used once and snapped on a critter - if you did blow the action to prime it - you'd loose the ability to use it as a weapon since it's then attached to the enemy - unless you can use them as an improvised weapon as well, which I don't think even the most monty haul of DMs will allow. You can't even pull a second in a round as your only allowed to interact with one item per action.

thirdly, the chain of an animal trap restricts a creatures movement because it is attached to a heavy object such as a tree or iron spike driven into the ground, not by some magic forces - this isn't even applying logic to an item in the book taken our of concept, it's stated in the item mechanics. if your swinging it as a weapon, it's secured only by you, and your much easier to move. while this is a fun image, it lacks the control of sentinel as rather than having 0 move, it can move as much as it wants if it's stronger than you - and if your tanking it, chances are it's stronger than your 20 capped strength :smallwink: it defeats the point if the dragon's response is to fly in the air with you attached and following 3 ft behind getting air sick. that's not restricting the dragon, that's restricting you. to say nothing if it flies in the air, then undoes the trap and sends you plummeting to your doom from the sky...

lastly, unlike sentinel,you can break a trap - and with a decent str it becomes easy to do. that's not as good by any stretch of the imagination.

so your plan to match sentinel eats two turns compared to sentinel's none, is far less effective, requires a new item every round, and can end with you being on the receiving end of movement control rather than the other way around. brilliant replacement, eh :smallamused: though I'll admit it's cool, sadly coolness does not win points

JamesT

2014-09-13, 02:30 PM

DeAnno

2014-09-13, 03:09 PM

Seeing Intellect Devourers and Pixies only makes me raise my already high opinion of Alert; 5e is very rocket-taggy even at low levels. I do agree with your high assessment of Lucky though; I think Alert and Lucky are probably the two best general feats in the game, and will tend to outshine specialist options for a lot of characters if their priority is survival.

Lord Kristivas

2014-09-14, 06:29 AM

Martial Adept 2/5
Benefit: you learn two manouvers from the battlemaster, and can use one of them each rest as a D6. This can add some versatility to a class, but less than Magic Initiate I feel, as it's one action per short rest. The Manouvers are pretty nice, however, so this can give some nice tricks.
Drawbacks: you only get 1 action dice, and it's a D6. that means you won't get to use this much, and the extra kick it provides is pretty small if you choose the wrong manouvres. Furthermore, the save DC is str/con based, so a caster can't really make use of this in place of cantrips for a turn.
Builds: funnily enough, the build to get the most out of this is the Battlemaster - he buffs the size of his dice to d10, he has a great range of options due to the number of manouvres he already has, and the bonus dice per short rest makes it almost feel like you can do things. Locks and other characters who make a lot of short rests can rock this as well. As for manouvres to take, Menacing Strike, commander's strike and distracting strike can provide good party buffs, parry will help save your skin, and riptoise can ruin someones day. Like I said before, however, for providing utility Magic Initiate works better and is useable more often.

Martial Adept Feat - Pg. 168
"If you already have superiority dice, you gain one more; otherwise you have one superiority die, which is a d6."

So, this feat doesn't raise your SD to d10, but it does give you one die. A whole extra maneuver between rests.

At level 10, all of your Superiority dice become d10, and d12 at 18 if you're a Battlemaster. Including the extra one gained from this feat.

Vowtz

2014-09-14, 07:25 AM

Beige

2014-09-14, 07:27 AM

So, this feat doesn't raise your SD to d10, but it does give you one die. A whole extra maneuver between rests.

ummmm, that's what I said. the battlemaster gets an extra dice, and his own abilities increase it's size. I'll admit I forgot size capped at d12 rather than d10

nowhere did I say this feat changes the size of dice. I said it works best for the battlemaster because he has larger dice, and more of them. hence the use of the word "he", as opposed to "this feat".

Reading people, it's not hard :smallsigh:

Vintrastorm

2014-09-14, 09:13 AM

Mounted Combat 5/5
benefits: making your mount a major boon to your hit points by being able to re-target attacks to it

Drawbacks: By mid level, only very few classes can really make use of this, so I can't rate it too highly

Just a few notes: 1. You re-target attacks from your mount TO you (to increase survivability of the mount), not the other way around. 2. If you can't rate it too highly then you shouldn't have rated it 5/5. ;)

Beige

2014-09-14, 09:39 AM

Just a few notes: 1. You re-target attacks from your mount TO you (to increase survivability of the mount), not the other way around. 2. If you can't rate it too highly then you shouldn't have rated it 5/5. ;)

looks like I'm now the one who can't read :smallredface: well, that actually makes it more viable XD

also, I was sure I removed that last line...

DiBastet

2014-09-14, 09:48 AM

Animal trap as weapon???

lolwut

But well, you did spend a feat to do exactly this kind of ****...

Dark Tira

2014-09-14, 12:46 PM

Your analysis of Lucky has an error. The luck points recharge on a long rest, not a short one.

Beige

2014-09-14, 01:33 PM

Your analysis of Lucky has an error. The luck points recharge on a long rest, not a short one.

that is - in fact - what I said

Dark Tira

2014-09-14, 01:46 PM

that is - in fact - what I said

Might want to clarify this sentence then:

"drawbacks: you only get 3 uses of it between each rest"

Fixed now.

Angelalex242

2014-09-14, 02:00 PM

Heh. I wonder what it does to a game when the whole party, as a group, takes alert at 4th level.

An entire type of encounter is then vanished from the GM's arsenal.

Falka

2014-09-14, 03:00 PM

Cambrian

2014-09-14, 05:34 PM

You're more or less on track with most of the feats. There are a few though...

Alert is really, really good. 3/5 seems low.

Actor might be overrated. It's good, but is certainly worse than Alert. Most of the effects can be mimicked by spells including the cantrip minor illusion. Yes Actor is more effective than minor illusion, but minor illusion only used up a cantrip (and has additional uses), while Actor required a feat.

Charger probably should be a 1.5-2/5. It gives several classes the ability to make a melee attack against a target 50+' away and adds 5 damage. It might not be ridiculous to claim that it's "a waste of a feat slot" but it is ridiculous to say "you'd be better of throwing the points into a dump stat"; the average fighter would gain significantly more from Charger than pumping up their Intelligence or Charisma. All that being said, it's not a great feat, but it's better than a 1/5.

Defensive Duelist however is a highly useful feat. A mid level character with a sword n' board can use it to basically negate the odd attack that does hit them. I can't fathom how being able to stack defense (after knowing it otherwise will hit you) is considered useless in the edition with bounded accuracy and limited stacking options. I wouldn't rate it lower than 3/5.

The rest more or less looks about right (or isn't rated :P). At my table Tavern Brawler might be a bit better ("Of course you can use the goblin you're grappling as an improvised weapon") but it pretty unimpressive RAW. Thanks for taking the time to do this!

edge2054

2014-09-16, 09:10 AM

I really like Magic Initiate mostly because I can take Find Familiar on a wide variety of classes.

The owl familiar is my current favorite. 120ft Darkvision, +3 and advantage on perception checks, 60ft fly speed. Plus it doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity when it moves out of an enemies reach which lets it deliver touch spells and Help allies with little risk to itself.

Granted, ten gold every time the familiar dies.

Snails

2014-09-16, 12:51 PM

I think Alert deserves a 4. The fact you cannot ever be surprised is outstanding. A caster will this feat, also, has a tactical advantage and can reliably expect to go first most of the time (who doesn't play a Wizard with high Dex?).

I agree. This gives a lot of love to both ends of the spectrum. And in between.

The classic glass cannon classes will love, love, love the +5.

But this feat is very attractive to slowish tanks who do not want to bother with Dex or perception. I can live with a Dex 8 and get the main advantage of Perception.

MukkTB

2014-09-20, 04:35 AM

We're seeing more monsters than there were around when you did this. Alert need a better score. Those monsters are scary. There are things that can take you out really quickly and the best defense is to autosucceed perception, win initiative, and kill them before they eat someones brain. (And no I'm not just talking about the ID.)

Torched Forever

2014-10-05, 09:26 PM

While yes this is my first post I have played 3.5 for quite a while and 5e a bit. Hopefully this isn't just a naive rant by some newbie. Overall a good guide.

Alert seems a bit undersold. +5 to init means that you will go first quite often and with Dex builds near certainly first turn. Not being surprised removes the threat of Rouges or the like and keeps your party from being decimated on surprise attacks.

Actor I admit is good for the party face but really isn't that good. This seems like it will be dropped on any caster or social bards but that's it. Any Cha caster would simply take +2 to Cha instead. It deserves more of a 3 to 3.5 in my view.

Crossbow Expert is very good in my eyes. While you don't take it early on it allows you to get better dpr than a longbow at the sacrifice of range. I have never encountered a scenario where a ranged combatant was limited by their range.

Dual Weilder's best advantage is the one handed weapon thing. Going off a Dex build rapiers give you equal dpr to a greatsword and the extra Dex and bonus improve you're AC.

Great Weapon Master's -5 to hit for +10 damage seems near useless to me. The only time where you could hit something at -5 is if you are fighting a huge group and can one shot each enemy with the damage buff. Also, with attack and AC progressing much slower than in 3.5 the exchange rate isn't that outstanding. Finally, being limited to only -5 for +10 it is pretty situational.

Inspiring Leader means wasting way too much time on extra health for fights you only know are going to happen. Also, the 10 minutes thing just seems to slow things down and lose sense of reality. Never has someone RPed a long speech standing in front of the big locked door to the boss fight in my experience. I would have liked to see it being more of the old veteran hero giving his speech to the men just before they embark on some task where most will die instead of some Bard droning on to his party.

Magic Initiate is either a way for a caster to get some extra spells or for human commoners to pull off some hilarious cheese. Cats don't stand a chance when the human can shoot lasers.

Mounted Combat you say is an amazing feat. However, how many dungeons can fit your mount? There was a reason why 3.5 paladin was best outdoor.

Observant wasn't rated but it was color coded.

I agree Polearm Master + Sentinel = ultimate tanking wreck combo as reach weapons can hit adjacently. However, it takes at least level 4 to get both of these.

Resilient allows you to get proficient in probably Con, Dex, or Wis as they are the most common saves and not bad to get a bonus in.

Savage Attacker is replacing +1 to your melee stat with about a 37.5% damage increase for a 'stock' (no magic) weapon.

Skilled makes for some weird tricks like dipping Rouge for double prof in 2 out of the 3 you gain. However, once you get so many skill profs there is not much you can do.

Spell sniper is not rated but is color coded.

I agree with Tavern Brawler, improvised weapons were a lot better in 3.5 with CW were tables dealt 2d6 were good at tripping and provided cover.

The fact that Tough progresses means that its better early on.

Weapon Master is pretty bad but not quite a 1. You get +1 to your combat stat and allows simple only or simple + a select few to get some of the weapons necessary for a full combat build. This might be used on valor Bard to build a powerful martial with spells and skills.

Strill

2014-10-05, 09:56 PM

and of course shields aren't as damaging as great weapons even with advantage.That's not true. Longsword + Dueling is the same damage as a greataxe. Even Great Weapon Fighting Style is only about a +10% to +15% overall damage increase. 1-hander + advantage is absolutely more damaging than a great weapon.

Tavern Brawler 1/5
Tavern Brawler is the ideal feat for a grappling specialist. It's way better than Grappler. Also note that proficiency with improvised weapons includes Alchemist's Fire and other consumables.

Daishain

2014-10-05, 10:16 PM

Granted, ten gold every time the familiar dies.

Could be worse, my understanding was it was 100 gold during playtesting

Symphony

2014-10-06, 09:15 AM

Weapon Master is pretty bad but not quite a 1. You get +1 to your combat stat and allows simple only or simple + a select few to get some of the weapons necessary for a full combat build. This might be used on valor Bard to build a powerful martial with spells and skills.

Valor Bards already get all weapon proficiencies at level 3.

Ramshack

2014-10-06, 09:30 AM

Alert should definitely be ranked higher. My Rogue has Alert and when im stealthing ahead to scout and something gets the drop on me they don't get a surprise round no advantage on their hit, no sneak attack die etc. Saved my ass so many times. I took it before any combat feats and don't regret a thing.

I also disagree with you on charger.

My first level fighter took Charger for the LMoP run we did. Good lord I was a king in that campaign. Along with the Dueling feat I was getting something like +12 damage minimum on attacks once i found the magic long sword. It really made the character shine at low levels and once I hit level 5 I could still move twice and attack and let me still make an attack when i otherwise wouldn't have.

At the very least 2/5 but I really endorse the feat and feel it deserves a solid 3/5 and even 4/5 in a low level campaign when you might otherwise only get 1 attack anyway.

MaxWilson

2014-10-15, 03:14 PM

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned about Alert is that it is one of the only ways to get heavy obscurement to provide you with a defensive advantage. Without Alert, Fog Cloud/Stinking Cloud/Darkness-without-Darkvision/etc. affect attacker and defender equally, resulting in no net advantage. With Alert, your attacker has disadvantage to attack you for being in heavy obscurement and you don't (thanks to Alert) provide your attackers with advantage to attack you from being able to see them, ergo they have disadvantage.

This makes Alert mandatory for high-defense tanks. 5/5.

Edit: you could also be a Moon Druid who shapechanges into something with Blindsense (Giant Constrictor Snake), but those things tend to have poor AC. Alert is the only way to do it well AFAIK.

Easy_Lee

2014-10-16, 09:46 AM

I find it funny that defensive duelist, which is basically infinite shield spell at higher levels, is ranked lower than dual wielder. Whereas before the feat you were using 1d6/1d6, now it's 1d8/1d8, a one-damage increase per swing.

The duelist fighting style grants a 2 damage increase per swing, and works off of mainhand attacks (meaning the damage increase scales, unlike dual wielder). You can't use both together, and duelist lets you use a shield, so I don't see how TWF is worth it. The only way I can see it being useful is dual wielding lances, a shaky proposition at best. And 1d12/1d12 both consumes your bonus action and doesn't stay ahead of duelist forever for fighters. Paladins would be the most obvious dual-lancers if they got twf style...

hecetv

2014-10-16, 10:54 AM

Oscredwin

2014-10-16, 10:56 AM

Or offhand magic weapon proc, or offhand poison, or.... But yes those are pretty specific scenarios. TWF gives you basically another attack action for your bonus action which is pretty powerful, can hit two enemies.

I think this is another example of how there aren't really absolute best options in 5e...

Offhand sneak attack seems like the best. I assume a rogue should always have a dagger in their offhand to attack with iff they miss with their first attack. If they hit, they should cunning action or something.

Easy_Lee

2014-10-16, 10:58 AM

Or offhand magic weapon proc, or offhand poison, or.... But yes those are pretty specific scenarios. TWF gives you basically another attack action for your bonus action which is pretty powerful, can hit two enemies.

I think this is another example of how there aren't really absolute best options in 5e...

You can still dual wield without dual weilder, the feat just lets you DW more weapons. In the event that you specifically encounter two holy flaming longswords, it's definitely worth it. But I don't think it's useful as often as DD.

I personally would have combined dual wielder with the TWF fighting style, but that's just me.

hecetv

2014-10-16, 12:42 PM

You can still dual wield without dual weilder, the feat just lets you DW more weapons. In the event that you specifically encounter two holy flaming longswords, it's definitely worth it. But I don't think it's useful as often as DD.

I personally would have combined dual wielder with the TWF fighting style, but that's just me.

Good point. I guess it's another specific feat for a specific build.

Honestly the most useful seeming feats to me are the one which gives you more languages, +1 stat feats for variant human in point buy (ie 1 feat to replace like 3 point buy points to up a stat), alert seems kind of broken and unrealistic but it's obviously powerful, lucky, and skilled to pick up tool proficiencies.

I feel like pole arm mastery is unbalanced and I don't really get why they made it so good.

Magic initiate is interesting. Two extra cantrips is pretty intense. That's like a whole extra class almost, with that level one spell 1/day. Or maybe half a class.

But I don't know.

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 01:02 PM

Crossbow Expert is very good in my eyes. While you don't take it early on it allows you to get better dpr than a longbow at the sacrifice of range. I have never encountered a scenario where a ranged combatant was limited by their range.

A typical spell goes 60' to 120', which is about as far as the distance between two telephone poles on the road. Even a longbow only goes 600', which is about the distance between signs on the freeway (where I live). It's less than 1/8 of a mile. Visibility in all but the hilliest terrain is typically at least half a mile, sometimes two miles or more on a downslope. The upshot is that anyone with Sharpshooter is likely to get 10 to 20 rounds of free attacks against any attacker without teleportation or horses. (Horses reduce it to 3 or 4 rounds of free attacks.)

I can't remember if Crossbow Expert provides you the same benefit to range, but my point is that ranged combatants should be limited by range relatively often unless you are indoors/underground, and in most cases there should in fact be a lot of waiting for the other guy to come into range before you can even begin to engage. I can't explain why you would never have encountered such a scenario--maybe your DM has a skewed sense of how big 100' is in the real world?

obryn

2014-10-16, 01:13 PM

A typical spell goes 60' to 120', which is about as far as the distance between two telephone poles on the road. Even a longbow only goes 600', which is about the distance between signs on the freeway (where I live). It's less than 1/8 of a mile. Visibility in all but the hilliest terrain is typically at least half a mile, sometimes two miles or more on a downslope. The upshot is that anyone with Sharpshooter is likely to get 10 to 20 rounds of free attacks against any attacker without teleportation or horses. (Horses reduce it to 3 or 4 rounds of free attacks.)

I can't remember if Crossbow Expert provides you the same benefit to range, but my point is that ranged combatants should be limited by range relatively often unless you are indoors/underground, and in most cases there should in fact be a lot of waiting for the other guy to come into range before you can even begin to engage. I can't explain why you would never have encountered such a scenario--maybe your DM has a skewed sense of how big 100' is in the real world?
The problem is that once you expand everything to ranges where only 1 or 2 combatants can participate, it becomes (1) dull for everyone else, and (2) inevitably spread out across crazy distances.

Keeping things close in lets everyone at the table play.

Easy_Lee

2014-10-16, 01:16 PM

I can't remember if Crossbow Expert provides you the same benefit to range, but my point is that ranged combatants should be limited by range relatively often unless you are indoors/underground, and in most cases there should in fact be a lot of waiting for the other guy to come into range before you can even begin to engage.

I think it's more the case that you seldom decide to attack someone who's 600' away. I've personally seldom had encounters where we saw the enemy way off in the distance and said yeah, let's get it. Could be awesome for hunting orcs or fighting armies, not so much for dungeon delving.

Crossbow expert doesn't increase range. The main benefit is the bonus attack, gaining TWF-level dps (on top of the archery boost) from long range with no penalty. Add sharpshooter and the damage beats any variant of TWF save double lances.

That said, there's no reason why a crossbow expert with sharpshooter couldn't also carry a longbow (or heavy crossbow) for situations where range is a major factor (fighting armies, hunting orcs on open plains, etc). I could see a variant human hunter ranger crossbow expert sharpshooter (16+ dex) being a very potent force from 4 onwards.

Oscredwin

2014-10-16, 01:17 PM

The problem is that once you expand everything to ranges where only 1 or 2 combatants can participate, it becomes (1) dull for everyone else, and (2) inevitably spread out across crazy distances.

Keeping things close in lets everyone at the table play.

This actually shows a general rule. Characters who have abilities that let them act when no one else can are either more powerful (to the extent this time window exists) or are wasted (to the extent they had to pay for the capacity).

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 01:20 PM

The problem is that once you expand everything to ranges where only 1 or 2 combatants can participate, it becomes (1) dull for everyone else, and (2) inevitably spread out across crazy distances.

Keeping things close in lets everyone at the table play.

It doesn't have to be dull--you're not obligated to use the full combat rules unless the situation calls for it. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Sharpshooter, take three free rounds of attacks while the Mongol patrol charges towards you. Everyone else, declare any buffs right now. At the end of three rounds they'll be in shortbow range and start shooting back."

I think it's more the case that you seldom decide to attack someone who's 600' away. I've personally seldom had encounters where we saw the enemy way off in the distance and said yeah, let's get it. Could be awesome for hunting orcs or fighting armies, not so much for dungeon delving.

Running away has its uses even in dungeon delving, if you station one guy a ways back with orders to provide covering fire and the advance scouts have orders to break contact when spotted and retreat back under cover. Most monsters besides orcs can't move 60' and attack in the same round, so if your scouts are retreating 60' per round your snipers get free shots. If this kind of thing weren't intended to be part of D&D, feats like Spell Sniper wouldn't exist. Caltrops and pre-placed Web spells can be part of this too. The key thing for making this work is a willingness to spread the party out (I won't say "split" because you're still coordinating via Message cantrips and other signals) and a willingness to take tactical retreats when necessary. If you're always clumped up in a 40' ball, of course ranged attacks never come into play, unless the enemy chooses not to close.

This actually shows a general rule. Characters who have abilities that let them act when no one else can are either more powerful (to the extent this time window exists) or are wasted (to the extent they had to pay for the capacity).

Yep. So if you pay for these capabilities, make sure to exploit them.

BTW, Alert is a terrific complement to Sharpshooter, because while Sharpshooter tends to let you act at long range when no one else can (including your enemy), Alert lets you act in close quarters when no one else can. In both cases the disability for not having the feat is not absolute (anyone can carry a longbow and shoot with it, and anyone can make a surprise check), but the point is that they go well together in a party, although they don't have to be on the same character. You could have a Sharpshooter Eldritch Knight and a raging Barbarian with Alert.

obryn

2014-10-16, 01:39 PM

This actually shows a general rule. Characters who have abilities that let them act when no one else can are either more powerful (to the extent this time window exists) or are wasted (to the extent they had to pay for the capacity).
Yep, this is true.

It doesn't have to be dull--you're not obligated to use the full combat rules unless the situation calls for it. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Sharpshooter, take three free rounds of attacks while the Mongol patrol charges towards you. Everyone else, declare any buffs right now. At the end of three rounds they'll be in shortbow range and start shooting back."
This is still not really covering the issue - which is that everyone gets a chance to play their own character.

Bobby charges for the horde, though, while Hank's shooting them. So Eric runs along with Bobby. Diana does, too. Sheila heads up towards whatever cover is there, and Presto keeps his distance behind them. So at the end Hank is maybe 150' away, still. Presto is closer. Sheila is who knows where. And the horde might converge on Bobby, Eric, and Diana. Or they might split into a few different groups, some flanking the trio while the rest charge at Hank and/or Presto (though I'd probably drop Hank first, frankly, unless Presto manages to pull Tiamat out of his hat again).

At which point it's just a nightmare to track, so Venger shows up and Tiamat chases everyone away.

MaxWilson

2014-10-16, 01:55 PM

This is still not really covering the issue - which is that everyone gets a chance to play their own character.

Bobby charges for the horde, though, while Hank's shooting them. So Eric runs along with Bobby. Diana does, too. Sheila heads up towards whatever cover is there, and Presto keeps his distance behind them. So at the end Hank is maybe 150' away, still. Presto is closer. Sheila is who knows where. And the horde might converge on Bobby, Eric, and Diana. Or they might split into a few different groups, some flanking the trio while the rest charge at Hank and/or Presto (though I'd probably drop Hank first, frankly, unless Presto manages to pull Tiamat out of his hat again).

At which point it's just a nightmare to track, so Venger shows up and Tiamat chases everyone away.

Well, sure. If Bobby charges for the horde ("I'm not buffing, I'm charging"), he'll enter shortbow range 1 round sooner, and so will Eric and Diana ("we're following Bobby"), no matter that Hank is screaming at them to come back. (I have no idea WHY Bobby would do such a dumb thing but yes, sometimes players do amazingly dumb things for no reason at all.) And yes, that means that Hank is 120' feet further from the action when contact is made. Etc., etc.

I don't see why this is a problem except for Eric, Bobby, and Diana.

Kerleth

2014-10-17, 11:55 AM

I don't think charger is down to a 1. My understanding is that a 1 means that even if you want this sort of thing, it is still a horrible option. I think there are a couple of things that aren't being given proper weight on charger.
1) It's purpose is to let you hit stuff when normally you just couldn't. A fighter that makes one attack is dealing more damage than a fighter with no attacks. I think this is directly tied to how often the character is going to dash, which changes a lot based on character design AND group play style. It's not uncommon in our games for characters to need to dash at the start of combat.
2) A fighter can easily have a 17-20 AC, maximum constitution, and maximum strength/dexterity by 12th level, with 3 more ability increase and feat options left open to choose as they level. This leaves room for a more niche feat, that is handy but not OMGAWESOMESAUCE. Alternate Humans also help here.
3) On a more general note I think a lot of feats are better on humans since you can start off with them, build around them from level one, and can't take a 2 point ability increase in their place.
4) Don't forget the shoving benefit, throwing someone back 10 feet instead of 5 could matter, especially on a turn where they normally couldn't have been touched by a melee attack at all.
5) As far as builds go, it isn't rogue, but cleric that works best with charger. They don't gain multiple attacks, but the domains with divine strike gain bonus damage to their single attack, so no power is lost compared to a normal attack. War also gains the ability to pump it's attack rolls so that you could charge in, +10 to damage, +5 attack (including the penalty) if you really need it, and then attack just as well as normal. Warrior cleric is definitely a doable build, not some weird niche concept.

While I still think charger is only meh, I though a 1 meant useless. To me charger seems more like a 2.

Edited for my numeric dyslexia

LucianoAr

2014-10-23, 12:24 PM

Rezby

2014-10-23, 02:25 PM

I believe Crossbow Expert ought to be a 4. It lets you shoot with your ranged weapon while you are yourself in melee, with no penalty. That's a pretty nifty feature. But the real benefit comes with the crossbows benefits: Ignoring loading, and shooting a hand crossbow as a bonus action.

Consider the following build: Start out as a level 1 variant human fighter. Take Crossbow Expert right off the bat. Start with a 16 in Dexterity after the +1, and grab leather armor + longbow as your starting armor. As your two martial weapons, grab two Hand Crossbows. They're both one-handed martial weapons, so you are allowed to pick them as your two martial weapons from Fighter's starting equipment and they do both qualify for the one-handed weapon in the feat. Then take a light crossbow as well, for even more bolts. Take archery style. Get two attacks per round immediately off the bat by being able to fire both hand crossbows at +7 to hit. Sure, its only 1d6 + 3 damage, but you can do it twice every round, and keep moving. Add in action surge and certain maneuvers once you get to 3 and you're just firing bolts all over the goddamn place. And when you don't have long enough range for your hand crossbows, you can just drop 'em and pull out your longbow. Enemies coming in close? Who cares. Keep shooting 'em with your bolts. I think its probably the most reliable large damage dealing build at level 1.

Here's a level 2 version of this build I made for a campaign:

Sannaea, Female Medium Human Criminal Fighter 2
XP: 300
XP to next level: 900

Stats:
HP: 20 (max 20)
HD: 2d10
AC: 14 (11 leather armor, +3 dex)
Speed: 30 ft
Size: medium
Proficiency bonus: +2
Initiative: +3
Passive Wisdom (Perception): 14
Languages: Common, Sylvan

Ability Scores
Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
Intelligence
Wisdom
Charisma

Starting
12
15
14
8
13
10

Final
12
16
14
8
14
10

Bonus
+1
+3
+2
-1
+2
0

Increases: +1 dex, +1 wis (human variant)

Skills proficient in:
Acrobatics (Dex) + 5
Athletics (Str) + 3
Deception (Cha) +2
Stealth (Dex) + 6
Perception (Wis) +4

Saving throws:
Str +3, dex +3, con +4, int -1, wis +2, cha +0 (prof in str, con)

Weapon Attacks:
Hand Crossbow (25 bolts) : +7 to hit, 1d6 + 3 piercing damage, range 30/120 ft, light
Hand Crossbow (25 bolts) : +7 to hit, 1d6 + 3 piercing damage, range 30/120 ft, light
Light Crossbow (10 bolts): +7 to hit, 1d8 + 3 piercing damage, range 80/320, two-handed
Longbow (20 arrows): +7 to hit, 1d8 + 3 piercing damage, range 150/600, heavy, two-handed

Features and Traits:
Skills: You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice (Perception)
Feat: You gain one feat of your choice (Crossbow Expert)
Crossbow Expert (feat): You ignore the loading quality of crossbows with which you are proficient. Being within 5 feet of a hostile creature doesn’t impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls. When you use the Attack action and attack with a one-handed weapon, you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded hand crossbow you are holding.
Criminal Contact (Background feature): You have a reliable and trustworthy contact who acts as your liaison to a network of other criminals. You know how to get messages to and from your contact, even over great distances, specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you.
Fighting Style: You adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty: Archery (+2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons)
Second Wind: On your turn, you can use a bonus action to regain hit points equal to 1d10 + 2 (fighter level). Must finish a short or long rest before using again.
Action Surge: On your turn, you can take one additional action on top of your regular action and a possible bonus action. Must finish a short or long rest before using again.

Equipment + tool proficiencies:
Simple Weapons
Martial Weapons
Light armor
Medium Armor
Heavy Armor
Shields
Gaming Set
Thieves’ Tool

Equipment possessed:
Leather Armor
Longbow and 20 arrows
2 Hand crossbows and 40 bolts
Light crossbow and 20 bolts
an explorer’s pack:
-backpack
-bedroll
-mess kit
-tinderbox
-10 torches
-10 days rations
-waterskin
-50 feet of hempen rope
Crowbar
Set of dark common clothes including a hood
belt pouch

Currency owned:
65 gp

Background: Criminal
Criminal Specialty: Blackmailer
Personality Trait: I am incredibly slow to trust. Those who seem the fairest often have the most to hide.
Ideal: People. I’m loyal to my friends, not to any ideals, and everybody else can take a trip down the Styx for all I care
Bond: Someone I loved died because of a mistake I made. That will never happen again.
Flaw: An innocent person is in prison for a crime that I committed. I’m okay with that.

After a third level in fighter for battle master's Precision Attack, Trip Attack, and either Distracting Strike or Disarming Attack or Pushing Attack (tbh all of them after the first two seem subpar for a ranged character), she'll dip rogue for sneak attack and expertise, and then go trickster domain cleric the rest of the way, but thats more for roleplay reasons than pure mechanics. If I wanted to really optimize Sannaea, I'd have her go 9 in fighter, and 11 in hunter ranger. (maybe not in that order).

the tl;dr of that large block is I essentially recreated a 4e twin-strike ranger with hand-crossbows in 5th. Even besides this nice niche build, being able to continue to fire your ranged weapon that you spent so much time into maining while in melee without having disadvantage is also worthy of being a 4, for ranged weapon builds.

Easy_Lee

2014-10-23, 02:37 PM

Rezby

2014-10-23, 03:00 PM

@Rezby RAW you only need one hand crossbow, for the bonus action. Attacking with a one handed weapon lets you attack with a crossbow you're holding as a bonus action. The crossbow counts as a one handed weapon, so it can bonus off of itself.

Heavy crossbow may be the best long range option for that build.

That's... pretty amazing actually. A rereading of the feat shows me I did miss that. Now to figure out if I want to replace my second hand crossbow with the heavy crossbow's d10 for long-range gunfights bowfights or just give her a shield to get her mildly squishy AC to more survivable ranges...

Thanks for the help!

Easy_Lee

2014-10-23, 04:07 PM

That's... pretty amazing actually. A rereading of the feat shows me I did miss that. Now to figure out if I want to replace my second hand crossbow with the heavy crossbow's d10 for long-range gunfights bowfights or just give her a shield to get her mildly squishy AC to more survivable ranges...

Thanks for the help!

Some considerations:

Shield I believe takes a full action to don, not sure about doffing.
Heavy crossbow only works if you have two free hands, so it might be best to strap your hand crossbow to your belt or something so you can just release it when it's time to draw the heavy crossbow (a complicated retractable wrist mount might also work).
You can carry a f-ton of bolts by weight. Space could be a consideration. RAW you can retrieve something like half after combat.
Be sure to explain to your DM how you're loading the crossbow so fast. A thumb-notch that lets you quickly hook and load a bolt, some mechanism similar to the RL chu ko nu, or a boatload of training are explanations I might offer.
If you hold a shortsword in your offhand, you get OA's

Firechanter

2014-11-01, 07:00 AM

@Rezby RAW you only need one hand crossbow, for the bonus action. Attacking with a one handed weapon lets you attack with a crossbow you're holding as a bonus action. The crossbow counts as a one handed weapon, so it can bonus off of itself.

No you can't, because Crossbow Expert only allows you to do that when the Hand Crossbow is _already loaded_ at the time you declare your attack.
Check out the wording. If you attack with the HCB as your Attack action, it is obviously no longer loaded, so you can't take the bonus action.

Yes, I know the feat allows you to ignore the Loading property, but still -- the wording is "...you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded hand crossbow you are holding". Why would it say "loaded" when the feat would allow you to load the weapon _after_ your main attack?

Todasmile

2014-11-02, 01:55 AM

I think you can fix Charger, maybe even make it good, by making one simple change,. The feat specifies that if you move 10-feet in a straight line immediately before taking the bonus action, you gain +5 damage. I'd change it to say that if you moved 10 (or 20, or whatever) feet immediately before making any attack, you get the bonus damage (or the larger shove).

MeeposFire

2014-11-02, 06:31 PM

No you can't, because Crossbow Expert only allows you to do that when the Hand Crossbow is _already loaded_ at the time you declare your attack.
Check out the wording. If you attack with the HCB as your Attack action, it is obviously no longer loaded, so you can't take the bonus action.

Yes, I know the feat allows you to ignore the Loading property, but still -- the wording is "...you can use a bonus action to attack with a loaded hand crossbow you are holding". Why would it say "loaded" when the feat would allow you to load the weapon _after_ your main attack?

Well the obvious answer is that you need to have a loaded crossbow to fire. The sentence does not say that it needs to be loaded at the time of the first attack action (though technically it WOULD be loaded at the time the action is taken because the crossbow is loaded until after you fire not before) it says it needs to be loaded before you use the bonus action after the attack action. You are adding a part where you say that you cannot take the time to reload the weapon between shots (despite no action cost and the fact you could be spending time doing other things like moving no problem between those shots). You are attributing something that isn't actually there that sentence could be redundant and we have precedent with that before such as with the paladin smiting with multiclass spell slots.

Could they have meant that? It is possible. It could also be redundant or not intended but not be a bad thing either. All of those are possible.

Shadow

2014-11-02, 06:44 PM

It could also be redundant or not intended

It was not intended that one single hand crossbow can be used to get a second attack via the feat. It was intended that the feat allows the use of any one handed weapon and a hand crossbow (not a hand crossbow alone).

Easy_Lee

2014-11-04, 01:32 AM

It was not intended that one single hand crossbow can be used to get a second attack via the feat. It was intended that the feat allows the use of any one handed weapon and a hand crossbow (not a hand crossbow alone).

How do you know that? People always talk about what was intended, as if there's some accepted method for reading a writer's mind...

The way I see it, it doesn't matter at all what the writers intended, anyway. The only thing that matters is: does your DM allow it? If he doesn't, play a different build. No amount of showing him the RAW is going to fix a DM who just doesn't want you to do X. And if your DM does allow it, then it stands. No amount of saying it's impossible is going to convince a DM it's not cool or doesn't belong in his fantasy game. DM rule is everything in 5E.

Shadow

2014-11-04, 01:34 AM

Calm down.
I didn't say that it should never be allowed. I said that it wasn't intended. Whether or not it's allowed will vary from table to table.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-04, 01:42 AM

Calm down.
I didn't say that it should never be allowed. I said that it wasn't intended. Whether or not it's allowed will vary from table to table.

And I asked exactly how you know it's not intended. Were you on the writing team?

Shadow

2014-11-04, 03:48 AM

And I asked exactly how you know it's not intended. Were you on the writing team?

You really want to start this yet again?
Fine.
I know that it wasn't intended because of the word loaded, that's how. And everyone else knows it because of that word as well. You guys go on and on about how the feat specifies that you ignore the loading property, but you never stop to ask yourself why that VERY SAME FEAT which tells you that you ignore the loading property also states that it must ALREADY BE LOADED in order to get the attack.
It seems paradoxical until you realize one very important thing.

Loading. Because of the time required to load this weapon, you can fire only one piece of ammunition from it when you use an action, bonus action, or reaction to fire it, regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make.

It's simple.
It's because the loading property has absolutely nothing to do with the fact of whether or not a crossbow is actually loaded at any given time or not. The loading property does one thing and one thing only. The loading property restricts you from taking multiple attacks with that weapon.
Ignoring the loading property removes the restriction on the number of attacks, and that's ALL that ignoring the loading property does.

Q: Why would the feat tell you to ignore something and then immediately tell you that the thing you ignore is a factor?
A: Because the two are completely separate and have nothing to do with each other, that's why.

Once again:
Loading. Because of the time required to load this weapon, you can fire only one piece of ammunition from it when you use an action, bonus action, or reaction to fire it, regardless of the number of attacks you can normally make.

It says you ignore that feature. The stipulation stating you can only fire the weapon once is removed. It does not say that your crossbow is always loaded, at all times, no matter what.
Everyone that makes that claim needs to read the Loading property over and over and over again until it sticks in their mind that the Loading property does NOTHING except restrict the number of attacks you can make, and that ignoring the Loading property does NOTHING except remove that restriction.
The Loading property doesn't have anything to do with loading the weapon. The Ammunition property is the one that deals with loading the weapon.
The Ammunition property states that drawing (and by extension, loading) the ammunition is part of the attack. But in the case of crossbow expert, you only get that attack if it's already loaded. Normal operation is declare attack, draw>load>fire. Because that's what Ammunition states.

You need to fire the weapon to trigger the extra attack. But the extra attack only triggers if the crossbow is loaded, which it is not because you just fired it.
If you only have a single hand crossbow, the action that triggers the bonus attack also disqualifies it from being taken.
That's how we know that it was never intended to be used with a single hand crossbow. Because a single hand crossbow excludes itself from the feat's use due to the unusual requirement that it be loaded prior.

If you want to be really technical about it, this is how it plays out:
You have a one handed weapon and a hand crossbow. You need to spend your free interact with an object to load the off hand (or secondary, whatever you want to call it) hand crossbow.
You then use your action to attack. If you're dual wielding hand crossbows, the main handbow gets loaded and fired as part of the attack. Because you used your free interact to load the second hand crossbow, it is loaded already and can be used for the bonus action attack.
If you use your free interaction for anything else, at any time, you can not use the bonus action to attack that round because it isn't loaded.

You can use the free bonus action to load a single hand crossbow if you want to, but it doesn't do you any good because the bonus action never triggered because it was not loaded when the bonus action would have triggered.

Once again, if a DM wants to allow it then that's his or her prerogative. But it's quite clear that the bonus action attack was intended to be used as a ranged alternative to TWFing in one or both hands, and was not intended to allow a single weapon to be fired more times than anyone else could fire it under normal circumstances.
If that were the case then where is the feat which allows me to attack with my single dagger another time as a bonus action?
Hint: It doesn't exist....

Firechanter

2014-11-04, 06:15 AM

Conversely:
If it had been intended that you can shoot twice with a single crossbow, then the feat would simply have said so.

Longcat

2014-11-04, 08:50 AM

I read Crossbow Expert's "loaded" condition as requiring proficiency with the Hand Crossbow, since the feat only allows ignoring the Loading property with crossbows you are proficient with.

It's also a matter of making sure the feat is actually worthwhile. By reading "loaded" as the Hand Crossbow being loaded at the start of the attack, the feat becomes a trap option, as it allows you to use that option once during the entire fight. Allowing single/dual wielded Hand Crossbows to have a bonus attack every round is hardly unbalancing, and would actually justify the weapon's premium price tag.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-04, 09:38 AM

You have a one handed weapon and a hand crossbow. You need to spend your free interact with an object to load the off hand (or secondary, whatever you want to call it) hand crossbow.
You then use your action to attack. If you're dual wielding hand crossbows, the main handbow gets loaded and fired as part of the attack. Because you used your free interact to load the second hand crossbow, it is loaded already and can be used for the bonus action attack.
If you use your free interaction for anything else, at any time, you can not use the bonus action to attack that round because it isn't loaded.
snip
You can use the free bonus action to load a single hand crossbow if you want to, but it doesn't do you any good because the bonus action never triggered because it was not loaded when the bonus action would have triggered.
snip
If that were the case then where is the feat which allows me to attack with my single dagger another time as a bonus action?
Hint: It doesn't exist....

I highlighted the parts where you made up a term. "Free interaction" doesn't exist. Ignoring the time required to load a weapon means it's loaded when you say it's loaded.

Furthermore, the bonus action doesn't have to immediately follow the triggering attack. It can occur at any time during your turn, including firing once, moving your full movement speed, and firing again as a bonus. The bonus action doesn't "trigger" until you, the player, decide to use it. This much is obvious.

So we have a character who may fire his crossbow X times per round and may, as a bonus action, take an additional shot. Let's see which of the following makes the least sense:

Character A is holding one hand crossbow, and makes three attacks with it in one round. He loads the bolts immediately, making this possible.
Character B is holding two hand crossbows. He fires and somehow reloads the first crossbow without a free hand, then fires the second crossbow, then somehow reloads both in an instant. Before the next round.
Character C, who interpreted the rule the same as B, uses two attacks to fire each hand crossbow he's holding since they have different enchants and he wants to use both. But he forgot that he has to be holding a "loaded" crossbow for the option of a bonus attack, so now he doesn't get his due to DM fiat.

And honestly, what's the difference? A clever player will just wear the crossbows strapped to his belt, Cadderly-style, with a shield in his left hand. At the start of the round, he holds the main crossbow in his right hand. He also picks up and fumbles with the other in his shield hand, technically counting as holding it. He fires the first, switches hands for free, and fires the second as a bonus action. At the end of the round, he releases both and has a free hand open to do whatever, picking them back up (loaded, somehow) at the start of his next round.

The only difference between this and just using one crossbow is that it's unnecessarily silly.

silveralen

2014-11-04, 10:42 AM

im currently not sure if great weapon master is at all that good.

-5 to hit on 5e is HUGE, and unless you have advantage youre problably not making a hit. cleave is not too bad, but again, i havent seen many hordes in 5e, but that might just be my table.

im wondering if i should take that or sentinel with my lvl 4 pally... really i would just take lucky (that is sooo broken!) but it wouldnt match the flavor of the character

That aspect is somewhat questionable unless you have a good way of guaranteeing advantage (you are a barbarian, you have a shield master/wolf totem buddy, etc). The extra attack option comes in if you either critical a lot (champion fighter or someone with a constant source of advantage) or face weak hordes. For my money, Honestly I'd say it is a no-brainer choice on barbarian, questionable elsewhere.

But I honestly wouldn't recommend grabbing a feat at 4.

Longcat

2014-11-04, 10:50 AM

Great Weapon Master, by RAW, seems to allow its Bonus Action attack to trigger with any melee weapon, such as a dagger. It also seems to allow thrown attacks to both trigger and be used as a Bonus Action if triggered. Not sure if that is RAI, and it certainly doesn't seem unbalanced, but it seems very odd.

Shadow

2014-11-04, 12:51 PM

I highlighted the parts where you made up a term. "Free interaction" doesn't exist. Ignoring the time required to load a weapon means it's loaded when you say it's loaded.

Half my post was dedicated specifically to this point. And it was a pretty large post, so half of it is a considerable amount. I'm not sure how you missed it.
You do not ignore the time required to load the weapon. You ignore the Loading property of the weapon.
Ignoring the Loading porperty does NOT mean that it's loaded when you say it's loaded. Ignoring the Loading property removes the restriction on how many times you can fire the weapon.
That's ALL that ignoring the Loading propertry does. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Read the Loading property. It's in the book. It's listed in my post above TWICE. Read it. And then when you take a feat that tells you to ignore that property, read it again and tell yourself "I don't have to pay attention to this one thing any longer."

Furthermore:
Use an Object
You normally interact with an object while doing something else, such as when you draw a sword as part of an attack. When an object requires your action for its use, you take the Use an Object action. This action is also useful when you want to interact with more than one object on your turn.

You get one free interaction per turn, while you're doing something else. If you want to interact again, it requires your Action to Use an Object, so the first one is free.

Furthermore, the bonus action doesn't have to immediately follow the triggering attack. It can occur at any time during your turn, including firing once, moving your full movement speed, and firing again as a bonus. The bonus action doesn't "trigger" until you, the player, decide to use it. This much is obvious.
Wrong.
The bonus action triggers when a specific scenario happens. If you meet all of the requirements to trigger the action, then you are allowed to take the action.
One of the requirements IS NOT MET when the action triggers, and therefore the bonus action cannot be taken.
If I do not have the Dual Wielder feat and I draw one weapon and attack with that weapon, am I allowed to draw another weapon and attack with it as well for TWFing on the same round?
No, I'm not. Because when the bonus action was triggered, I did not meet the requirements to take the action. When I attacked, I didn't have a weapon in my other hand, so the bonus attack doesn't trigger.
Same thing here.
Bonus action attacks are designed as such:[If this] scenario is met, [then this] extra action is allowed to be taken.
You do not meet the [If this] portion of the requirements, so the [then this] portion is not allowed. Yes, IF the bonus action were allowed you'd be able to take it whenever you wanted. But it's not allowed, because you didn't meet the [If this] portion of the requirements, because the crossbow was not loaded when the bonus attack triggered.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-04, 01:49 PM

MaxWilson

2014-11-04, 01:51 PM

FWIW, Shadow's argument is very strong. I would rule the same way he argues in this thread.

Shadow

2014-11-04, 01:54 PM

@Shadow, you can interpret it however you want to. I'll never be in a game with you, so I don't really care. Hopefully, you're no one's DM.

To everyone else, ignoring the "loading" property means you ignore the word "loaded"; as far as your character is concerned, the weapon is always loaded. Anyone who disagrees is being pedantic and unnecessarily limiting the players. This is not MTG or an MMO, it's a tabletop game and the rules are clear enough.

Yes, the rules are clear enough. And the rules state that the Loading property means what the Loading property means.
You are attributing things to the Loading property that simply aren't true.

The Ammunition property is the one that deals with loading a weapon. The Loading property only adds a limitation on how many times a weapon can be fired.
Ignoring the Loading property does NOT tell you ignore the word loaded. Ignoring the Loading property tells you to ignore the restriction on the number of attacks you are allowed to make.
Nothing more, nothing less.

Finieous

2014-11-04, 01:58 PM

It was not intended that one single hand crossbow can be used to get a second attack via the feat. It was intended that the feat allows the use of any one handed weapon and a hand crossbow (not a hand crossbow alone).

How do you know that? People always talk about what was intended, as if there's some accepted method for reading a writer's mind...

http://thesageadvice.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/hand-crossbow-and-shield/

Rule on it in your game however you like, but Shadow is right that the designers didn't intend for a hand crossbow to be able to trigger its own bonus action attack.

Shadow

2014-11-04, 02:04 PM

http://thesageadvice.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/hand-crossbow-and-shield/

Rule on it in your game however you like, but Shadow is right that the designers didn't intend for a hand crossbow to be able to trigger its own bonus action attack.

Thank you Fin.
See? Not intended. If it were intended, then the designer would allow it in his game.

JoeJ

2014-11-04, 02:05 PM

http://thesageadvice.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/hand-crossbow-and-shield/

Rule on it in your game however you like, but Shadow is right that the designers didn't intend for a hand crossbow to be able to trigger its own bonus action attack.

Also, just based on an ordinary English reading of the feat, it seems pretty clear that the intent is you use a hand crossbow plus another weapon, not the same hand crossbow twice.

Shadow

2014-11-04, 02:52 PM

Also, just based on an ordinary English reading of the feat, it seems pretty clear that the intent is you use a hand crossbow plus another weapon, not the same hand crossbow twice.

Exactly. The feat's intention is quite clear to anyone that isn't trying to game the system. It's only ambiguous in any way if you are specifically searching for a loophole. If you're not specifically searching for a semantic loophole, the intention that the bonus action attack from this feat was designed for two different weapons couldn't be more crystal clear.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-04, 04:06 PM

Exactly. The feat's intention is quite clear to anyone that isn't trying to game the system. It's only ambiguous in any way if you are specifically searching for a loophole. If you're not specifically searching for a semantic loophole, the intention that the bonus action attack from this feat was designed for two different weapons couldn't be more crystal clear.

Someone trying to "game the system" has a wide variety of other builds that would be superior. Using a single hand crossbow is RAW regardless of what you or anyone else says; if it wasn't intended, they should have written the rule better to specify. And besides, how beneficial is this over two hand crossbows strapped at the hip? Minimally, it's just simpler.

I don't know why it is that every time someone suggests something the least bit advantageous, people like you attack it and go hunting for any source that will prevent the "exploit". The fact that such unusual or interesting mechanics are possible is a big part of the reason many play D&D at all.

I remain convinced that most of those arguing against this strategy are trying to exert control over other people, rather than actually trying to balance the game. Mearls and co. have already been discredited as a source for rulings, repeatedly, due to their tendency to rule against the player in all cases. I personally don't much care what someone says on Twitter, and I certainly don't care what someone posts in a forum.

To those who would use this strategy, RAW supports you. To those who would ban it, what do you hope to accomplish beyond irritating a fellow player? The game isn't about you, it's about everyone. The normal response to "can I do this" should be yes, not "let me interpret the rule in such a way as to prevent that because I didn't think of it / it's slightly stronger than X".

I've said my piece. The rest of you can disagree all you want, but you're wasting your time if you're trying to convince me.

Shadow

2014-11-04, 04:19 PM

Using a single hand crossbow is RAW regardless of what you or anyone else says

To those who would use this strategy, RAW supports you.

I've said my piece. The rest of you can disagree all you want, but you're wasting your time if you're trying to convince me.

1) No, it isn't RAW. Not unless you ignore the fact that it specifically states that the crossbow must be loaded to get the attack.... which by definition, ignoring that line makes it decidedly not RAW.
2) No, RAW doesn't. And neither do the designers, for that matter.
3) I'm not trying to convince you of anything. You asked me how I knew that it wasn't intended. I explained my piece (quite strongly according to some) and was then gifted with link to a tweet from a developer confirming that my interpretation of the intent was correct.

You quite literally have zero ground to stand on after the linked tweet was revealed. Your interpretation of the RAI is wrong. Your reading of the RAW is wrong because of a misinterpretation as to what the Loading quality is. Both have been proven.
There's no point in trying to convince you because you'll never admit that you were wrong even after the lead designer effectively said excactly that.

Finieous

2014-11-04, 04:21 PM

I don't know why it is that every time someone suggests something the least bit advantageous, people like you attack it and go hunting for any source that will prevent the "exploit". The fact that such unusual or interesting mechanics are possible is a big part of the reason many play D&D at all.

That's fine, as long as I don't have to play with you.

I remain convinced that most of those arguing against this strategy are trying to exert control over other people, rather than actually trying to balance the game.

That's fine, because I won't force you to play with me.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-04, 04:23 PM

1) A pointless reply.

Your reply is pointless due to the fact that I don't care whether you like my interpretation, and neither does any other DM who plans to allow it. You strike me as someone who absolutely has to "win" internet debates. Keep it up, for I'm done replying to you.

Shadow

2014-11-04, 04:44 PM

Your reply is pointless due to the fact that I don't care whether you like my interpretation, and neither does any other DM who plans to allow it. You strike me as someone who absolutely has to "win" internet debates. Keep it up, for I'm done replying to you.

That's fine. We'll both likely be happier this way.
But stop saying that something is strictly supported by the RAW even though you explicitly have to IGNORE part of the RAW to have it make any sense.
That makes it decidedly not RAW, no matter how often or how loudly you say that it is.

Fwiffo86

2014-11-04, 05:33 PM

Your reply is pointless due to the fact that I don't care whether you like my interpretation, and neither does any other DM who plans to allow it. You strike me as someone who absolutely has to "win" internet debates. Keep it up, for I'm done replying to you.

I support Shadow's interpretation. Not because I think an additional attack per round is overpowering, but because your explanation is entirely on the "EXPLOIT!!!!" mentality. It isn't even an ambiguous reading.

Longcat

2014-11-04, 05:58 PM

Shadow

2014-11-04, 06:04 PM

Regardless of what is RAW/RAI or whatever, the only way Crossbow Expert is worth the feat expenditure is if it allows a bonus action attack every round. With a strict reading of "loaded", you can only get it once the entire fight, regardless of single/dual crossbow. After you shoot your loaded hand crossbow the first time as a bonus action, it is no longer loaded, and in subsequent rounds, you can't ever trigger the feat since you apparently load add part of the shooting.

Which, quite frankly, seems seriously underpowered on and badly written on the level of Grappler. I hope there will be an official errata that rectifies the wording.

As I stated in one of the posts above, you get one free interaction with an object as a part of another action every round.
A strict reading of the feat requires that you use that interaction every round to load the crossbow, as that's the only way to do so and still get the bonus attack. If you use that free interaction for anything else, no bonus attack that round.

That's an extremely strict reading of it, but a strict reading is arguably (and in my mind far better than) saying "It's loaded because I said it is, and I ignore the word loading because I can't tell the difference between an abstract concept and a specific rule about a weapon's property."
I wouldn't require that in my game, but I would require that the feat be used as intended, which means with two different weapons.

CyberThread

2014-11-04, 06:05 PM

You all are so silly.

Draken

2014-11-04, 06:41 PM

You all are so silly.

The whole discussion makes me want to pit a party against a riot squad made of soldiers armed with a hand crossbow, a shield and all the benefits of CbEx.

silveralen

2014-11-04, 08:41 PM

As I stated in one of the posts above, you get one free interaction with an object as a part of another action every round.
A strict reading of the feat requires that you use that interaction every round to load the crossbow, as that's the only way to do so and still get the bonus attack. If you use that free interaction for anything else, no bonus attack that round.

So wait, even if you ignore the loading quality you can never have more than two crossbow attacks per round?

Or every normal attack gives you the number of free reloads needed to fire every time?

In the latter case, why can't they reload it one extra time after they fire and thus have a loaded crossbow for the bonus attack?

JoeJ

2014-11-04, 08:42 PM

silveralen

2014-11-04, 08:46 PM

Being able to fire a heavy crossbow up to eight times in one round, and with no penalty for standing right next to an enemy is underpowered?

8 times? How?

I'm seriously confused, the crossbow can be reloaded multiple times in one attack action, but for some reason can't be reloaded one additional time to have a loaded crossbow and qualify for the bonus attack?

I'm seriously lost.

JoeJ

2014-11-04, 08:58 PM

8 times? How?

A fighter at 20th level gets 4 attacks every time they take the attack action. With action surge, they get an additional action, for another 4 attacks.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-04, 09:06 PM

8 times? How?

I'm seriously confused, the crossbow can be reloaded multiple times in one attack action, but for some reason can't be reloaded one additional time to have a loaded crossbow and qualify for the bonus attack?

I'm seriously lost.

People in this thread are extremely pedantic. That's the gist of it. As far as how the feat works:

Ignore the loading property of crossbows - you treat crossbows the same as any other bow, period. That means you can make exactly as many attacks with a heavy crossbow as you could with a longbow (Up to 8 with fighter + action surge, more with buffs or somehow getting a bonus action). This in itself is not too good (heavy crossbow is only 1 damage better than longbow), unless you use hand crossbows.
Can fire a loaded hand crossbow you're holding as a bonus action after making an attack - people disagree on whether this means you can take a bonus action with the same hand crossbow you just fired (since you ignore the loading property), or whether you have to use a different weapon to make the first attack(s). Many interpret it as requiring two hand crossbows; if you're not careful, the same people will then get in an argument over whether its possible to reload one crossbow while holding another. Ask your DM; his is literally the only opinion that matters.

Regardless of how many crossbows you're holding, the bonus adds your modifier (DEX). There used to be a debate about this, but people have finally agreed (for the most part) that bonus attacks count as a regular attack (with modifier) unless otherwise stated (dual wield melee bonus attack without the feat).

No melee-range penalty - so your crossbows are kind of like very-long reach weapons, but with no AOOs allowed. AOOs are the main reason why a melee build has higher potential damage than a (mundane) ranged build.

That's really all there is to it. People will try to muddle the issue, but just remind them that RAW trumps anyone's house rules, except your DM's house rules.

silveralen

2014-11-04, 09:06 PM

A fighter at 20th level gets 4 attacks every time they take the attack action. With action surge, they get an additional action, for another 4 attacks.

Okay, so without loading, reloading is a free part of the attack action that doesn't use up the "interact with one item per turn" bit.

So why can't the handcrossbow be reloaded an additional time, using the free interact, for the bonus action attack?

MaxWilson

2014-11-04, 09:10 PM

Okay, so without loading, reloading is a free part of the attack action that doesn't use up the "interact with one item per turn" bit.

So why can't the handcrossbow be reloaded an additional time, using the free interact, for the bonus action attack?

Because at the time when the trigger action occurs (making an attack), the condition isn't satisfied (crossbow isn't loaded). That's the gist from this thread anyway; I'm AFB and can't check.

silveralen

2014-11-04, 09:20 PM

Because at the time when the trigger action occurs (making an attack), the condition isn't satisfied (crossbow isn't loaded). That's the gist from this thread anyway; I'm AFB and can't check.

But when you take the attack action it'd be loaded, right? Afterwards between the attack resolving you'd get a free reload as well. Idk. If the intent wasn't to allow it they did an awful job of wording it, especially considering its hardly an OP ability anyways.

MaxWilson

2014-11-04, 09:35 PM

But when you take the attack action it'd be loaded, right? Afterwards between the attack resolving you'd get a free reload as well. Idk. If the intent wasn't to allow it they did an awful job of wording it, especially considering its hardly an OP ability anyways.

Agreed on the poor wording, since it uses a word ("loaded") which isn't defined in the game system (loading weapons consume ammunition, but have no rules for when they are/are not loaded) and a time frame which doesn't match up with the ruleset (does it have to be loaded when you begin your attack, or after your attack is completed?). When I read the feat I initially thought it was a one-shot-per-combat deal since you can't reload while your other hand is occupied with a sword or another crossbow.

So yeah, it's written so poorly as to be ambiguous--but I think Shadow's argument is very strong when it comes to resolving that ambiguity.

Shadow

2014-11-05, 12:43 AM

Agreed on the poor wording, since it uses a word ("loaded") which isn't defined in the game system (loading weapons consume ammunition, but have no rules for when they are/are not loaded) and a time frame which doesn't match up with the ruleset (does it have to be loaded when you begin your attack, or after your attack is completed?).

There are indeed rules regarding loading. They're under Ammunition.
Ammunition. You can use a weapon that has the ammunition property to make a ranged attack only if you have ammunition to fire from the weapon. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack. At the end of the battle, you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield.

The Ammunition property states that you draw ammunition as part of the attack. In between the drawing and the attack is obviously when the ammo gets loaded.
So ranged weapons requiring ammunition are never loaded unless you attack with it (at which point you load it as part of that attack), or unless you take a specific action/interaction to load it.

Declare attack: draw > load > fire
It's not loaded unless you take specific action to have it loaded, which is pointless unless you need to use a sling as an improvised melee weapon.... or unless your DM is very strict and you want to use the XbX feat's bonus attack.

MaxWilson

2014-11-05, 12:50 AM

There are indeed rules regarding loading. They're under Ammunition.
Ammunition. You can use a weapon that has the ammunition property to make a ranged attack only if you have ammunition to fire from the weapon. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack. At the end of the battle, you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield.

The Ammunition property states that you draw ammunition as part of the attack. In between the drawing and the attack is obviously when the ammo gets loaded.
So ranged weapons requiring ammunition are never loaded unless you attack with it (at which point you load it as part of that attack), or unless you take a specific action/interaction to load it.

Declare attack: draw > load > fire
It's not loaded unless you take specific action to have it loaded, which is pointless unless you need to use a sling as an improvised melee weapon.... or unless your DM is very strict and you want to use the XbX feat's bonus attack.

Another good argument from Shadow. Thanks.

BTW, in case anyone hasn't seen it, watch this technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zGnxeSbb3g

After watching that video (10 arrows in 4.9 seconds) it actually isn't too difficult to imagine an Action Surged fighter shooting 8 arrows per round.

silveralen

2014-11-05, 12:52 AM

There are indeed rules regarding loading. They're under Ammunition.
Ammunition. You can use a weapon that has the ammunition property to make a ranged attack only if you have ammunition to fire from the weapon. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack. At the end of the battle, you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield.

The Ammunition property states that you draw ammunition as part of the attack. In between the drawing and the attack is obviously when the ammo gets loaded.
So ranged weapons requiring ammunition are never loaded unless you attack with it (at which point you load it as part of that attack), or unless you take a specific action/interaction to load it.

Declare attack: draw > load > fire
It's not loaded unless you take specific action to have it loaded, which is pointless unless you need to use a sling as an improvised melee weapon.... or unless your DM is very strict and you want to use the XbX feat's bonus attack.

So then, does anything strictly disallow full attack, one free interact to load, and then bonus attack? Or even declare (which is how we define take), bonus action, normal attack routine, reload.

It really seems to come down to how you define "when you take an attack action". As in, must it be loaded before the attack begins or immediately when the attack concludes. My group plays it where, if you say declare an attack action while using sword and shield and have shield master, you can shove first then make two attacks. So far as I can tell this is never strictly allowed or disallowed. I'm curious now if their is some bit of the rulebook that specifically calls this out a illegal.

Shadow

2014-11-05, 01:02 AM

So then, does anything strictly disallow full attack, one free interact to load, and then bonus attack? Or even declare (which is how we define take), bonus action, normal attack routine, reload.

It really seems to come down to how you define "when you take an attack action". As in, must it be loaded before the attack begins or immediately when the attack concludes. My group plays it where, if you say declare an attack action while using sword and shield and have shield master, you can shove first then make two attacks. So far as I can tell this is never strictly allowed or disallowed. I'm curious now if their is some bit of the rulebook that specifically calls this out a illegal.

This is all going to come down to DM ruling. It's his or her call.
And that's a good thing. Too many rules slows the game down. Some people disagree with that sentiment, but decades of gaming has proven it true time and time again. The game moves along much faster and much more fluidly/organically if people aren't flipping through seven different rulebooks trying to find that obscure line of text to prove the DM wrong.
That's disruptive and slows down the game, so good riddance to that style of game play and the legal document style rulebooks that lead to that style of game play.

But the previous argument wasn't about whether it would/should be allowed.... it was about whether or not it was intended.... and the answer to that is a resounding No.
Whether or not it's allowed, and the order of operations between the parts, is all gonig to be the DM's call, just as it should have always been.

Scirocco

2014-11-05, 03:09 AM

RAI is definitely Van Helsinging it up with twin hand xbows, no question at all there. The rest of it... *shrug*.

Maxilian

2014-11-24, 11:01 AM

Shadow

2014-11-24, 05:57 PM

You're right, but... have in mind what was said about it (is not RAI), so don't dig to deep on it, cause it doesn't make sense that you can reload 8 times for your normal attacks but not once again for your bonus action... in the end, leave these to your DM

I'm pretty sure that the lead designer of the game requiring a second weapon makes the RAI perfectly crystal clear, so yes, it is indeed RAI that XbX requires a second weapon and that a single hand crossbow was not intended to proc its own bonus action attack.

silveralen

2014-11-24, 06:27 PM

I'm pretty sure that the lead designer of the game requiring a second weapon makes the RAI perfectly crystal clear, so yes, it is indeed RAI that XbX requires a second weapon and that a single hand crossbow was not intended to proc its own bonus action attack.

RAI gives us a fighter who can:

1. Reload and fire a hand crossbow four times in six seconds.

2. Can fire a second hand crossbow during this same period, then reload it as well

3. Do both of the above while holding a handcrossbow in each hand.

It also gives us a fighter who cannot:

4. Reload and fire a single hand crossbow 5 times in a round, even if that's the only weapon he is holding

The short version? If that was actually intended, we should make note of who responded so we can never listen to them again, as anyone who intends for that to be the case has their head firmly betwixt their buttox.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-24, 06:36 PM

The short version? If that was actually intended, we should make note of who responded so we can never listen to them again, as anyone who intends for that to be the case has their head firmly betwixt their buttox.

I am in firm agreement with this sentiment.

Shadow

2014-11-24, 06:38 PM

RAI gives us a fighter who can:

1. Reload and fire a hand crossbow four times in six seconds.

2. Can fire a second hand crossbow during this same period, then reload it as well

3. Do both of the above while holding a handcrossbow in each hand.

It also gives us a fighter who cannot:

4. Reload and fire a single hand crossbow 5 times in a round, even if that's the only weapon he is holding

The short version? If that was actually intended, we should make note of who responded so we can never listen to them again, as anyone who intends for that to be the case has their head firmly betwixt their buttox.

Right. And all of the above things that the fighter can do coincide with his normal number of attacks per action with one weapon.
The one that the fighter cannot do grants him extra actions above and beyond that which coincide with his attacks per action.
One weapon, the attack action grants X number of attacks.
Two weapons, the attack/bonus actions grant X+1 number of attacks.

Except I'd like to point out that (2) is incorrect. He can't fire a second one and reload it as well. Loading happens when the attack is taken.
As per the description of the Ammunition property, you draw (and thus load) the ammo as part of the attack. So no, by the RAW he can't shoot and then reload. You could houserule that, but it isn't RAW.

And before you bring up polearm master, I'll point out the the PM is effectively using the haft as a second weapon, so it still follows this system.

silveralen

2014-11-24, 06:46 PM

Right. And all of the above things that the fighter can do coincide with his normal number of attacks per action with one weapon.
The one that the fighter cannot do grants him extra actions above and beyond that which coincide with his attacks per action.
One weapon, the attack action grants X number of attacks.
Two weapons, the attack/bonus actions grant X+1 number of attacks.

And before you bring up polearm master, I'll point out the the PM is effectively using the haft as a second weapon, so it still follows this system.

A polearm is one weapon. Great weapon fighter and barbarian both give an extra bonus action attack with one weapon. These are also situations where you can make a case for two weapons being easier or at least no harder than just swinging one more rapidly. But two crossbows is without a doubt harder than one.

Shadow

2014-11-24, 06:48 PM

These are also situations where you can make a case for two weapons being easier or at least no harder than just swinging one more rapidly. But two crossbows is without a doubt harder than one.

Then I guess it's a good thing I'm not trying to argue which is easier.
I don't care which is easier. I care what was allowed and intended by the rule.

silveralen

2014-11-24, 07:32 PM

Then I guess it's a good thing I'm not trying to argue which is easier.
I don't care which is easier. I care what was allowed and intended by the rule.

So...

It isn't more powerful to have one handcrossbow instead of two, it is as realistic or more realistic, and your reasoning is "well that's not what was intended".

Who cares? It's written ambiguously, so there is no reason to not interpret it as working with one handcrossbow.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-24, 07:35 PM

Then I guess it's a good thing I'm not trying to argue which is easier.
I don't care which is easier. I care what was allowed and intended by the rule.

Allowed and intended are two different things. If I'm reading the tweets right, the only thing the developers intended with this rule was for someone to hold a melee weapon in one hand, take some swings with it, then make exactly one attack with their crossbow. Presumably they reload the crossbow somewhere in-between rounds. What they wrote and what they intended are two different things.

As written, the feat allows firing two hand-crossbows. It also allows for one, if we interpret the word "loaded" and "loading" to be past and present tense of the same verb (feat says ignore that word).

But you know what the funny thing is? It doesn't really matter what any of us think. The only thing that matters is what a specific DM thinks when his player attempts to do it. But if I was in the player's shoes, I'd much rather try to explain how I reloaded one hand crossbow one extra time vs loading two at once.

Shadow

2014-11-24, 07:37 PM

Who cares? It's written ambiguously, so there is no reason to not interpret it as working with one handcrossbow.

And that's fine. Do that for your game if you want to. But some people like to argue that it explicitly follows RAW, when it most certainly does not.
Making claims that "this is RAW' when it is neither RAW nor RAI will lead to battles at the table.
Play your game however you want to, but if you suggest anyone uses a single hand crossbow and still gets a bonus action attack, make damned certain that you tell them flat out that what you're doing breaks the rules.
It's not OP to allow it (unless you also allow a shield IMO), but it absolutely isn't what the feat was designed for.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-24, 07:38 PM

Play your game however you want to, but if you suggest anyone uses a single hand crossbow and still gets a bonus action attack, make damned certain that you tell them flat out that what you're doing breaks the rules.

Your interpretation of the rules is not the same as everyone else's. Not everyone agrees with you. What you say, what someone on twitter says, those have no more truth to them than anyone else's reading. Realize that simple fact, and please stop derailing every thread that mentions crossbows with this pointless argument.

Shadow

2014-11-24, 07:40 PM

Your interpretation of the rules is not the same as everyone else's. Realize that simple fact.

I thought you were done talking to me.

silveralen

2014-11-24, 07:45 PM

And that's fine. Do that for your game if you want to. But some people like to argue that it explicitly follows RAW, when it most certainly does not.
Making claims that "this is RAW' when it is neither RAW nor RAI will lead to battles at the table.
Play your game however you want to, but if you suggest anyone uses a single hand crossbow and still gets a bonus action attack, make damned certain that you tell them flat out that what you're doing breaks the rules.
It's not OP to allow it (unless you also allow a shield IMO), but it absolutely isn't what the feat was designed for.

It isn't breaking the rules because the designers couldn't even properly write the damn rules to represent what they intended. Nothing explicitly prohibits a single handcrossbow except your interpretation of "when you attack etc" so no, by raw it's ambiguous and up for indvidual interpretation, no rules breaking at all.

It is breaking the intent of the designer who was too incompetent to actually write the rule properly, and who explcitly tried to exclude something for no apparent reason, but that sentence should make it obvious why his opinion is irrelevant on the issue.

Shadow

2014-11-24, 07:51 PM

his opinion is irrelevant on the issue.

I absolutely LOVE that people claim that the opinion of the Lead Designer of the game is irrelevant. Someone that posted earlier once said that he was not a reliable source.
Both of those statements are laughable.
Claiming that the Lead Designer's opinion is irrelevant and unreliable, coming from the mouths of random forum users. These random forum users somehow think that their opinion is more relevant and reliable than the Lead Designer of the game.
That's hysterical to me.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-24, 08:07 PM

These random forum users somehow think that their opinion is more relevant and reliable than the Lead Designer of the game.
That's hysterical to me.

"New Criticism, as espoused by Cleanth Brooks, W. K. Wimsatt, T. S. Eliot, and others, argued that authorial intent is irrelevant to understanding a work of literature. W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley wrote in their essay The Intentional Fallacy: "the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art."[1] The author, they argue, cannot be reconstructed from a writing - the text is the only source of meaning, and any details of the author's desires or life are purely extraneous. Such thinking essentially states that the author's intended meaning and purpose for the exposition are fundamentally unnecessary to the reader’s interpretation. This view is extremely useful in a postmodern relativistic framework as it successfully makes the reader or the consumer of the story the only authority on its meaning as opposed to the author or creator of the work."

Straight from the wikipedia page on Authorial Intent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intent#Literary_theory).

In other words, when analyzing a body of literature (the Player's Handbook counts), many feel the author's opinion is of no importance. Not just "no more important than a reader's", but literally of no importance. In other words, you argue that only "intended" readings are viable. New Criticism would say authorial intent doesn't matter at all. Many on this board would say that authorial intent matters no more than a player's, and less than a DM's.

Regardless, criticizing someone for disagreeing with you, saying it's "hilarious" that "random forum users" think their opinion is "somehow" more "relevant" than [insert Shadow's tweet-backed opinion here]...you're being extraordinarily rude.

silveralen

2014-11-24, 08:07 PM

I absolutely LOVE that people claim that the opinion of the Lead Designer of the game is irrelevant. Someone that posted earlier once said that he was not a reliable source.
Both of those statements are laughable.
Claiming that the Lead Designer's opinion is irrelevant and unreliable, coming from the mouths of random forum users. These random forum users somehow think that their opinion is more relevant and reliable than the Lead Designer of the game.
That's hysterical to me.

Oh?

Remind me again what's unbalanced about allowing one handcrossbow five attacks rather one handcrossbow four attacks and a second crossbow one attack?

Remind me why that should be limited?

Remember how he couldn't even convey his intent properly in the feat?

Shadow

2014-11-24, 08:15 PM

Oh?

Remind me again what's unbalanced about allowing one handcrossbow five attacks rather one handcrossbow four attacks and a second crossbow one attack?

Remind me why that should be limited?

Remember how he couldn't even convey his intent properly in the feat?

OK, I'll remind you again what's unbalanced about allowing one handcrossbow five attacks rather one handcrossbow four attacks and a second crossbow one attack.
What's unbalanced about it is that you are allowing more attacks than are intended and allowed by the rules if he only has one. The extra attack requires a secondary weapon specifically to preclude the use of a shield.
That's why it should be limited. One per attack until level 5. Two per attack beyond that unless you're a fighter. Use of a bonus action attack is disallowed entirely unless you have a second weapon in hand (and remember, Polearm Master uses the other end of the haft as a second weapon).
If you think it's cool that crossbow users get an extra attack with a single crossbow, then why can't I take an extra attack with my single scimitar?
Easy, I can't do it because I'm limited to what the rules say that I can take with a single weapon.

As for the last point, you seem to think that he personally wrote the entire book apparently.

As for Easy's wonderful wikipedia section: That applies top literature, sure. We're not talking about literature where the author might want to make me feel happy. We're talking about a rule book where the authors want us to play a game within the rules the prescribe.

silveralen

2014-11-24, 08:33 PM

OK, I'll remind you again what's unbalanced about allowing one handcrossbow five attacks rather one handcrossbow four attacks and a second crossbow one attack.
What's unbalanced about it is that you are allowing more attacks than are intended and allowed by the rules if he only has one. The extra attack requires a secondary weapon specifically to preclude the use of a shield.
That's why it should be limited. One per attack until level 5. Two per attack beyond that unless you're a fighter. Use of a bonus action attack is disallowed entirely unless you have a second weapon in hand (and remember, Polearm Master uses the other end of the haft as a second weapon).
If you think it's cool that crossbow users get an extra attack with a single crossbow, then why can't I take an extra attack with my single scimitar?
Easy, I can't do it because I'm limited to what the rules say that I can take with a single weapon.

As for the last point, you seem to think that he personally wrote the entire book apparently.

You can't get an extra attack from getting a critical with a scimitar either, therefor great weapon fighter is unbalanced. You can't smash someone with the hilt of your scimitar, so polearm master is broken, right?

But with your scimitar and shield you can knock them prone with a bonus action and a feat. Which is worth an attack (and no, RAW you can't turn a bonus action attack into a trip, has to be an attack as part of an attack action) which is equivalent to the hand crossbow. Duel wielding sucks this edition compared to everything when feats are allowed, no idea why this would be different.

If he didn't write that passage how can he comment on the intent of the author?

Shadow

2014-11-24, 08:38 PM

If he didn't write that passage how can he comment on the intent of the author?

I made no claims about the intent of the author, even though you and Easy seem to think that I have. I made claims about the intent of the rule, and that claim was supported by the Lead Designer of the game.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-24, 08:50 PM

silveralen

2014-11-24, 08:52 PM

I made no claims about the intent of the author, even though you and Easy seem to think that I have. I made claims about the intent of the rule, and that claim was supported by the Lead Designer of the game.

If he didn't write that particular rule, he doesn't know the intent with which it was written.

Lead designer of the game gets tossed around a lot, but 5e isn't a design heavy system, it's rules light and designed to depend on DM interpretation. That's how he intended it.

You don't see the irony in telling someone that isn't how something works, because the designer said so, when the same designer created a system designed to be open to indvidual interpretation?

Especially when, as established, it is no more powerful than other options that already exist.

Shadow

2014-11-24, 09:00 PM

Especially when, as established, it is no more powerful than other options that already exist.

But it is.
Show me one other example of when you can take a bonus action attack every single round with a single weapon.
Great Weapon Master? Nope, that's only with a crit.
Sword & board user? Nope.
Polearm Master? Nope, because for the purposes of this exercise the haft is a second weapon.
So go ahead. Martial Arts notwithstanding, show me one other example besides your misinterpreted XbX user, where a single weapon grants a bonus action attack every single round.

That interpretation is more powerful, because it allows the use of a shield and grants an extra attack on top anyway. It's the best of both worlds. Better defense and more attacks both at the same time.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-24, 09:12 PM

But it is.
Show me one other example of when you can take a bonus action attack every single round with a single weapon.
Great Weapon Master? Nope, that's only with a crit.
Sword & board user? Nope.
Polearm Master? Nope, because for the purposes of this exercise the haft is a second weapon.
So go ahead. Martial Arts notwithstanding, show me one other example besides your misinterpreted XbX user, where a single weapon grants a bonus action attack every single round.

That interpretation is more powerful, because it allows the use of a shield and grants an extra attack on top anyway. It's the best of both worlds. Better defense and more attacks both at the same time.

A dual wielding character who picks up defensive duelist instead of crossbow expert gets an equal number of attacks and has up to +6 AC for the <1 attack per round that would otherwise hit him. Notice all the complaints about dual wield being broken, and finding ways to "fix" dual wield, and you'll understand why a crossbow and shield doesn't suddenly become broken by adding one attack. And oh, by the way, the dual wielder gets opportunity attacks.

Polearm master with a quarterstaff, dueling, and shield is arguably stronger. But I don't see you trying to argue that that's not RAW. You seem fixated on this one issue.

Shadow

2014-11-24, 09:19 PM

A dual wielding character *and then I stopped reading because I specifically asked for a single weapon*

Polearm master with a quarterstaff, dueling, and shield is arguably stronger. But I don't see you trying to argue that that's not RAW. You seem fixated on this one issue.

Arguing RAW? Nope.
But that is also clearly not intended. The intention is that the staff be wielded via its versatile property, with both hands, to get the bonus attack.
We've gone over this. You know that we've gone over this.
You're on Ignore, sop don't bother quoting me and expect a response.

silveralen

2014-11-24, 10:09 PM

Arguing RAW? Nope.
But that is also clearly not intended. The intention is that the staff be wielded via its versatile property, with both hands, to get the bonus attack.
We've gone over this. You know that we've gone over this.
You're on Ignore, sop don't bother quoting me and expect a response.

Oh that's easy, tavern master and the duel wielding fighting style and feat. Confused? Use your shield as an improvised weapon with duel wielding. This doesn't prevent the AC bonus from applying unless I'm overlooking a passage somewhere.

Or quarterstaff and shield. Or use the shield to get a trip action instead of an attack with shield master, which is equivalent to an extra attack.

Duel wielding is awful in this edition, it's strictly worse than using a polearm (it also makes no sense you arbitrarily decide polearms don't count because it uses a different part of the weapon).

Also, consider someone taking crossbow expert could get the duel weapon feat anyways. So... 1d8+mods five times a round with a +1 AC or 1d4+mods five times a round with a +2 AC. That's not exactly unbalanced.

Shadow

2014-11-24, 10:34 PM

Oh that's easy, tavern master and the duel wielding fighting style and feat. Confused? Use your shield as an improvised weapon with duel wielding. This doesn't prevent the AC bonus from applying unless I'm overlooking a passage somewhere.

Or quarterstaff and shield. Or use the shield to get a trip action instead of an attack with shield master, which is equivalent to an extra attack.

Duel wielding is awful in this edition, it's strictly worse than using a polearm (it also makes no sense you arbitrarily decide polearms don't count because it uses a different part of the weapon).

Also, consider someone taking crossbow expert could get the duel weapon feat anyways. So... 1d8+mods five times a round with a +1 AC or 1d4+mods five times a round with a +2 AC. That's not exactly unbalanced.

So our example of a single weapon granting a bonus attack action every single round consist of:
--Tavern brawler with a shield used as an improvised weapon attacking unarmed.
Well that fails because he isn't using a single weapon. He's using unarmed strike (on the weapon table) and a shield. That's not single weapon, that's sword/board with the sword swapped for a fist.
--Staff & shield.... fails for the same reason, to say nothing of the fact that it wasn't intended at all that you get the bonus attack wile holding a shield....
--Polearm master, using the haft as a bludgeoning weapon, which by definition effectively makes it a secondary weapon, so not a single weapon for these purposes. Fail again.

And your numbers are off between dual wield and crossbow. Hand crossbows deal 1d6, not 1d4 ,and they do it from the relative safety of range.
The DW feat doesn't offer mod to damage, and requires you to be in melee.
And comparing everything with a fighter is unfair. Compare with a single extra attack, as that's more reasonable.
The dual wielder with extra attack and a feat spent would get (1d8+mod)*2 +1d8 = 23.5 and +1 AC, but needs to be in melee.
The crossbow user with extra attack and a single feat spent would get (1d6+mod)*3 = 25.5 and +2 AC, which is more damage AND better defenses from the relative safety of range.

But regardless, I'm still waiting for you to show me one other example besides your misinterpreted XbX user, where a single weapon grants a bonus action attack every single round. Because you said it was easy.... but you haven't actually done it yet.

silveralen

2014-11-24, 10:48 PM

But regardless, I'm still waiting for you to show me one other example besides your misinterpreted XbX user, where a single weapon grants a bonus action attack every single round. Because you said it was easy but yet you haven't actually done it yet.

I'm showing that you can do the exact same thing mechanically. The issue you presented was that the hand crossbow could be used with a shield, unlike duel wielding. Thus, you have someone get tavern brawler to become proficient with improvised weapons, duel wielder to duel wield non light weapons, and the fighting style to add mod. This gives you a +3 AC, as you have a shield in your hand as well as two weapons, and you get a bonus action attack every turn at 1d4+mod, as well as your normal one handed weapon attacks. Cost you an extra half a feat to accomplish I admit, but you can grapple and are better in a bar fight as well so you got some extra goodies. Functionally similar.

If you aren't worried about mechanics but only in finding something that is a single weapon getting a bonus attack every round, polearm master qualifies because the haft of a weapon is not a separate weapon. It is one weapon. You have a halberd, you aren't duel wielding a halberd and a halberd haft. Are you going to rule the Halberd haft doesn't have the magical enhancements of the halberd? I certainly wouldn't, which makes it hard to claim separate weapons.

Polearm master+quarterstaff+shield qualifies in both ways besides you disqualifying it on the basis you dislike it (do you even have a developer tweet for this one?)

So I've illustrated it occurring in three ways, one through similar mechanics, one through your strict definition of a single weapon, and once through both.

Shadow

2014-11-24, 10:54 PM

silveralen

2014-11-24, 11:14 PM

I don't care about anything involving a shield.
Show me an example with one weapon in one hand and nothing in the other (like you are saying is possible with XbX).
Show me one other example, excluding Polearm Master (because the haft is effectively a secondary weapon), and excluding Martial Arts (because I think we can all agree that MA should be exempt from this exercise).

So.... you start by asking me to show an example... then immediately disallow examples of it for no adequate reason?

A haft is not a secondary weapon. A haft is part of the same weapon. Is the hilt of a sword a separate object form a sword? No. Don't be absurd. It's one weapon. Like I said, are you giving a +1 halberd the bonus to hit and damage with haft attacks? If yes, one weapon. If no, that's neither RAW or RAI.

Unarmed strikes are more iffy, but I fail to see why it is clearly off the table.

You also forgot to say no to barbarian's bonus action attack. Unless you are trying to force me to use that as an example by arbitrarily removing all the other options, then pointing out it adds exhaustion as proof the feat is too good, ignoring the fact the barbarian ability is considered bad in comparison to other abilities, the same as duel wielding.

If you don't care about the shield, their is no difference between one hand crossbow with five and two hand crossbows, one with four and one with one. It'll be the same since off hand penalties aren't a thing unless you use the melee duel wield rules (which don't apply here).

Shadow

2014-11-24, 11:23 PM

So.... you start by asking me to show an example... then immediately disallow examples of it for no adequate reason?

I have a very good reason.
I don't want examples which use a bunch of misinterpreted feats. I don't want examples which use specific features from specific classes.
The polearm master feat effectively turns one long ten foot plus pole into two weapons.
I don't want two weapons.

I want you to show me one single way to get an extra attack with one weapon in one hand and nothing in the other.
I want you to show me one single way that a single weapon grants more attacks than you would normally be allowed, which is what you're trying to say XbX does.
I want you to show me how I can have one dagger/sword/mace/club/rapier/spear/scimitar/throwing.dagger/handaxe/dart/whatever in hand and get an extra attack.

silveralen

2014-11-24, 11:36 PM

I have a very good reason.
I don't want examples which use a bunch of misinterpreted feats. I don't want examples which use specific features from specific classes.
The polearm master feat effectively turns one long ten foot plus pole into two weapons.
I don't want two weapons.

I want you to show me one single way to get an extra attack with one weapon in one hand and nothing in the other.
I want you to show me one single way that a single weapon grants more attacks than you would normally be allowed, which is what you're trying to say XbX does.
I want you to show me how I can have one dagger/sword/mace/club/rapier/spear/scimitar/throwing.dagger/handaxe/dart/whatever in hand and get an extra attack.

Single handed quarter staff+feat does this. It is one weapon with an extra and weaker attack. I don't care if you claim it functionally turns it into two weapons because you are 100% wrong, it is a single quarterstaff with no room for interpretarion. It does not split into two halves and turn into a pair of nunchucks.

And yeah, numerous class abilities do exactly this, heck extra attack could count (technically fighter lvl 11 counts if we use two per round as the baseline). Spells do it (haste and swift quiver are strictly better ways to do it). Barbarian can do it with one archetype. Monk can do it if his fist counts as a single weapon. Ranger can with more restrictions as well.

So very many ways to do this. But obviously you are going to restrict one feat because you think a haft isn't part of a halberd but a different weapon, GWF doesn't count because it doesn't happen every round, shield master or tavern brawler+shield don't count because they have a shield, plus you disallow all spells and clas features.

Yes, you managed to restrict it in absurd ways to limit every comparable option. That means nothing. Literally nothing. It has no bearing on anything relevant.

How about we do a test to see if you know the days of the week. The criteria is you have to name a day of the week in English, but it can't end with day because those are to obvious. Can you do it? No, because of the criteria I established restricted things to the point the actual test was garbage. The same thing you are doing now.

Shadow

2014-11-24, 11:41 PM

How about we do a test to see if you know the days of the week.

Welcome to my Ignore list. We won't have to deal with each other any longer.

GWJ_DanyBoy

2014-11-25, 10:56 AM

Easy_Lee

2014-11-25, 10:58 AM

Thinking about a paladin build I just realized, why the heck does Polearm Master include the Quarterstaff, but not the Spear? They're nearly identical, except the spear can be thrown, and the spear seems much more thematic to me.

Presumably it's because spears are piercing, like the also-not-included pike. But I don't much like that detail, either.

Justin Sane

2014-11-25, 11:50 AM

Declare attack: draw > load > fireI believe this is the crux of Shadow's logic. The exact same rules text that support that order also support "Declare>Fire>Draw>Load", which has the benefit of being more believable, because hey, if you're going into somewhere dangerous, why isn't your crossbow loaded already?

Shadow

2014-11-25, 12:03 PM

I believe this is the crux of Shadow's logic. The exact same rules text that support that order also support "Declare>Fire>Draw>Load", which has the benefit of being more believable, because hey, if you're going into somewhere dangerous, why isn't your crossbow loaded already?

Nope.
Ammunition. You can use a weapon that has the ammunition property to make a ranged attack only if you have ammunition to fire from the weapon. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack. At the end of the battle, you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield.

It says that drawing the ammunition that you expend on the attack is part of the attack.
The ammunition. As in, one specific piece. As in, the one just referenced a moment ago. The one you fire as part of the attack.
It does not say that drawing ammunition that you will fire later is part of the attack.
Go ahead and houserule it that way, but it's not supported by the RAW.

Justin Sane

2014-11-25, 02:01 PM

So you're saying nobody walks around in dangerous situations with a loaded crossbow, or with a nocked bow?
Also
Drawing the ammunition from a quiver isn't
Drawing that specific piece of ammunition from a quiver
EDIT: Also,
Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack. at no point contains mention of when, relative to the actual attack (release of the arrow in case of a bow, pull of the trigger in case of a crossbow), the reload *must* happen. Therefore, logic indicates it can be either before firing (you prefer to walk around without a loaded weapon) or after firing (you prefer to walk around with a loaded weapon).

pwykersotz

2014-11-25, 02:19 PM

"New Criticism, as espoused by Cleanth Brooks, W. K. Wimsatt, T. S. Eliot, and others, argued that authorial intent is irrelevant to understanding a work of literature. W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley wrote in their essay The Intentional Fallacy: "the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a standard for judging the success of a work of literary art."[1] The author, they argue, cannot be reconstructed from a writing - the text is the only source of meaning, and any details of the author's desires or life are purely extraneous. Such thinking essentially states that the author's intended meaning and purpose for the exposition are fundamentally unnecessary to the reader’s interpretation. This view is extremely useful in a postmodern relativistic framework as it successfully makes the reader or the consumer of the story the only authority on its meaning as opposed to the author or creator of the work."

Straight from the wikipedia page on Authorial Intent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorial_intent#Literary_theory).

In other words, when analyzing a body of literature (the Player's Handbook counts), many feel the author's opinion is of no importance. Not just "no more important than a reader's", but literally of no importance. In other words, you argue that only "intended" readings are viable. New Criticism would say authorial intent doesn't matter at all. Many on this board would say that authorial intent matters no more than a player's, and less than a DM's.

Regardless, criticizing someone for disagreeing with you, saying it's "hilarious" that "random forum users" think their opinion is "somehow" more "relevant" than [insert Shadow's tweet-backed opinion here]...you're being extraordinarily rude.

I think this excellent point deserves a reply. It's correct, authorial intent really doesn't matter for the interpretation unless one wishes to rely on it. There is the caveat that our authors are actively commenting on their works, providing an avenue of interpretation for anyone who doesn't want to rely on their own judgement (which is another valid interpretation).

We're all random forum users. Everything we say is worth only as much as what others will take from it. Just like the tweets. Just like the books themselves.

Sindeloke

2014-11-25, 02:38 PM

Thinking about a paladin build I just realized, why the heck does Polearm Master include the Quarterstaff, but not the Spear? They're nearly identical, except the spear can be thrown, and the spear seems much more thematic to me.

Yeah, I would at least slap a longspear on the table (call it a 6 lb pike or something) and let it apply to that. Single most common pole weapon in history etc etc.

I try not to even touch the quarterstaff this edition, though. In all of 5e I think ~versatile quarterstaves~ might be the single most bizarre and nonsensical thing they did. Probably it's an issue with the difference between a short, flimsy wizard's staff (traditionally, a walking stick-type object, 5 feet tops with decorative gems and whatnot) and an actual strong, dense, 6-9 foot pole weapon designed for keeping enemies at distance and battering knights to death inside their armor. WotC wants those two things to be the same so that wizards can use "quarterstaffs" as weapons, so we lose the reach and defensive properties of the genuine article and get this weird one-handed stuff, but they still try to call it a polearm for the feat, even though it's blatantly just an awkwardly long club at this point.

pwykersotz

2014-11-25, 02:44 PM

Yeah, I would at least slap a longspear on the table (call it a 6 lb pike or something) and let it apply to that. Single most common pole weapon in history etc etc.

I try not to even touch the quarterstaff this edition, though. In all of 5e I think ~versatile quarterstaves~ might be the single most bizarre and nonsensical thing they did. Probably it's an issue with the difference between a short, flimsy wizard's staff (traditionally, a walking stick-type object, 5 feet tops with decorative gems and whatnot) and an actual strong, dense, 6-9 foot pole weapon designed for keeping enemies at distance and battering knights to death inside their armor. WotC wants those two things to be the same so that wizards can use "quarterstaffs" as weapons, so we lose the reach and defensive properties of the genuine article and get this weird one-handed stuff, but they still try to call it a polearm for the feat, even though it's blatantly just an awkwardly long club at this point.

Maybe it would help if you considered Kilik from Soul Calibur?

GWJ_DanyBoy

2014-11-25, 02:58 PM

Maybe it would help if you considered Kilik from Soul Calibur?

His korean counterpart, Seong Mi-na, used a spear ;)

Edit to add: I think i may house rule this one, adding that 1) the quarterstaff must be used 2-handed to get the bonus attack, and 2) Adding the spear to the list of acceptable weapons in the second part of P.Master (the opportunity attack).

Shadow

2014-11-25, 03:10 PM

Edit to add: I think i may house rule this one, adding that 1) the quarterstaff must be used 2-handed to get the bonus attack,

I would argue that this was the intention to begin with.

Sindeloke

2014-11-25, 03:21 PM

Maybe it would help if you considered Kilik from Soul Calibur?

You mean the guy who uses a bo two-handed? :smallconfused:

I mean I'll give you that in a couple games he's got one or two moves that have him one-handed at the point of impact, for flair or whatever, but they come off the momentum of two-handed swings. Try to imagine him doing any of his moves with a shield in his off hand, or while he had one hand hanging on to the side of a cliff face, or any of the other situations where an actual one-handed weapon like a arming sword would do just fine.

Now, Ivy, there's a character who suggests some bizarre one-handed reach weapon behavior....

Regulas

2014-11-25, 03:27 PM

I think this excellent point deserves a reply. It's correct, authorial intent really doesn't matter for the interpretation unless one wishes to rely on it. There is the caveat that our authors are actively commenting on their works, providing an avenue of interpretation for anyone who doesn't want to rely on their own judgement (which is another valid interpretation).

We're all random forum users. Everything we say is worth only as much as what others will take from it. Just like the tweets. Just like the books themselves.

To me then the catch is that PHB isn't so much a literary work as a rules book. Rules are by definition created with a specific purpose and in as such the authorial intent is extremely relevant.

Shadow

2014-11-25, 03:28 PM

To me then the catch is that PHB isn't so much a literary work as a rules book. Rules are by definition created with a specific purpose and in as such the authorial intent is extremely relevant.

Which is exactly what I said when the point was raised.
The intent of the author may not be important, but the intent of the rule most certainly is important.
The rule book was written by many different people. They all may have had different intentions, but the rules themselves have one intention. The intention of the rules are extremely important.

Easy_Lee

2014-11-25, 03:35 PM

To me then the catch is that PHB isn't so much a literary work as a rules book. Rules are by definition created with a specific purpose and in as such the authorial intent is extremely relevant.

And in any other game, players wouldn't care about what was intended so much as what the system allowed. Interpretation is best left to the table. Imposing one's own house rules on others, because one feels they're better, is the highest form of scrubbing.

silveralen

2014-11-25, 06:12 PM

To me then the catch is that PHB isn't so much a literary work as a rules book. Rules are by definition created with a specific purpose and in as such the authorial intent is extremely relevant.

At the end of the day, the intent of the game is for people to have fun with the system. That intent matters far more than intent regarding specific feats.

Draken

2014-11-26, 09:51 AM

Nope.
Ammunition. You can use a weapon that has the ammunition property to make a ranged attack only if you have ammunition to fire from the weapon. Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack. At the end of the battle, you can recover half your expended ammunition by taking a minute to search the battlefield.

It says that drawing the ammunition that you expend on the attack is part of the attack.
The ammunition. As in, one specific piece. As in, the one just referenced a moment ago. The one you fire as part of the attack.
It does not say that drawing ammunition that you will fire later is part of the attack.
Go ahead and houserule it that way, but it's not supported by the RAW.

I just want to point out that this interpretation means you can never have the crossbow pre-loaded and can thus never use the bonus action attack granted by the feat.

And thus contradicts one of the points you have defended most vehemently over the course of the thread.

Shadow

2014-11-26, 12:21 PM

I just want to point out that this interpretation means you can never have the crossbow pre-loaded and can thus never use the bonus action attack granted by the feat.

And thus contradicts one of the points you have defended most vehemently over the course of the thread.

That's not what it says at all.
Follow the link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?370020-a-feat-analysis-first-impressions-of-a-wannabe-optimizer&p=18356044&viewfull=1#post18356044)and read the conversation included within. The link is from this very thread.

Draken

2014-11-26, 01:47 PM

That's not what it says at all.
Follow the link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?370020-a-feat-analysis-first-impressions-of-a-wannabe-optimizer&p=18356044&viewfull=1#post18356044)and read the conversation included within. The link is from this very thread.

In that case let me get the argument you propose straight.

Possible
1. Draw ammunition.
2. Load weapon.
3. Fire weapon.

Or.

1. Draw ammunition.
2. Load weapon.
3. Leave weapon aside for future shooting.
(...)
0. Have loaded weapon.
1. Fire weapon.

Not possible
0. Have loaded weapon.
1. Fire weapon.
2. Draw ammunition.
3.Load weapon.

The zeroes indicate a non-step in your attack action and I believe that further elaboration is unnecessary.

Is this model about right?

Easy_Lee

2014-11-26, 02:47 PM

In that case let me get the argument you propose straight.

He doesn't actually have a step-by-step model for using a crossbow. His only argument is that WoTC doesn't intend the feat to work with a single hand crossbow. It's possible that the only intended usage of the "bonus attack" is wielding a hand crossbow and one handed melee weapon at the same time, like one of Salvatore's drow.

The only debate is which of the following is more important to you (and your DM):

RAI - what the designers intended
RAW - what the text actually says
Variety - more player options

I bolded the last two because everyone knows where I stand on this.

Shadow suggested using a hand crossbow and shield is broken. If that's the case, a DM could just require that when the feat is used to fire a single hand crossbow, the player must have a free hand for loading. That makes the most sense to me.

Shadow

2014-11-26, 03:05 PM

In that case let me get the argument you propose straight.

Possible
1. Draw ammunition.
2. Load weapon.
3. Fire weapon.

Or.

1. Draw ammunition.
2. Load weapon.
3. Leave weapon aside for future shooting.
(...)
0. Have loaded weapon.
1. Fire weapon.

Not possible
0. Have loaded weapon.
1. Fire weapon.
2. Draw ammunition.
3.Load weapon.

The zeroes indicate a non-step in your attack action and I believe that further elaboration is unnecessary.

Is this model about right?

Not entirely. Let me edit some changes.

Possible
1. Declare attack.
2. Draw ammunition as part.
3. Load weapon as part.
4. Fire weapon.

Or.

1. Use a specific action or interaction as part of another to load.
2. Draw ammunition as part.
3. Load weapon as part.
4. Leave weapon aside for future shooting.
(...)
0. Have loaded weapon.
1. Fire weapon.

Not possible
0. Have loaded weapon.
1. Fire weapon.
2. Draw ammunition.
3.Load weapon.

The Ammunition property states that the ammunition expended is drawn and fired (and thus loaded in between) as part of the action.
Ranged weapons are therefore never loaded with two exceptions:
1. The moment between declaring and firing, during which the ammunition property states that you have loaded it as part of the action.
2. You take a specific action to load the weapon.

silveralen

2014-11-26, 03:21 PM

It's such a pointless and tedious thing to bother with and completely breaks immersion. "Yeah you can fire your main crossbow four (or eight) times in a round, loading a new shot each time. That one in your offhand? Nope, gotta manually reload it each time as your item interaction."

It makes zero sense, needlessly complicates things, makes duel wielding even more tediously limited, and is general just an awful way to handle it.

Shadow

2014-11-26, 03:25 PM

Note above, once again from this very thread.

That's an extremely strict reading of it, but a strict reading is arguably (and in my mind far better than) saying "It's loaded because I said it is, and I ignore the word loading because I can't tell the difference between an abstract concept and a specific rule about a weapon's property."
I wouldn't require that in my game, but I would require that the feat be used as intended, which means with two different weapons.

silveralen

2014-11-26, 04:11 PM

Note above, once again from this very thread.

So pointlessly following a rule that may interfere with character concept or player enjoyment despite causing no balance issues because you read one of the deaigner's orginally meant for it to work as such seems reasonable?

There is no reason to require them to be separate handcrossbows, you are blindly going by what someone said the way you accuse others of blindly following what is exactly written. Both are stupid and based in an appeal to authority rather than common sense and clear judgment.

Demonic Spoon

2014-11-26, 04:35 PM

Single hand crossbow lets you use a shield, which is blatantly superior.

Justin Sane

2014-11-26, 04:40 PM

Single hand crossbow lets you use a shield, which is blatantly superior.Using a longsword also allows you to use a shield, does that mean they're blatantly superior to greatswords?
The Ammunition property states that the ammunition expended is drawn and fired (and thus loaded in between) as part of the action.See, here's the thing: "As part of the action" doesn't meant before the attack.

Shadow

2014-11-26, 04:40 PM

Single hand crossbow lets you use a shield, which is blatantly superior.

Quite so. But more importantly, single hand crossbow disqualifies itself from the bonus action attack because of the word loaded.

See, here's the thing: "As part of the action" doesn't meant after the attack.

That's right, it certainly does NOT mean AFTER the attack. I means before. The word "expended" in the previous sentence gives us context. The ammo loaded during the attack is the piece of ammo that was expended. So in this case, "as part of the attack," when read in context, does indeed exclude loading it after the attack.

silveralen

2014-11-26, 04:43 PM

Single hand crossbow lets you use a shield, which is blatantly superior.

Then say no shield to get the extra attack.

Though I'd argue that it is only blatantly superior to duel wielding, by far the worst option in the entire game combat wise. If you want me to do a run down again I will, but being better than duel wielding in 5e is called "being a decent option".

In fact, considering feat investment, a duel wielding character would be 1d8 with every atatck and a +1 AC, vs 1d6 every attack with a +2 ac. He also ahs access to a ranged option (hand axes) for 1d6 and a +1 ac, meaning the only time it is directly inferior is when one player invested in a feat but the other didn't (as would be expected) or the duel wielding character is competing with the handcrossbow at range, it which case it's slightly weaker.

Quite so. But more importantly, single hand crossbow disqualifies itself from the bonus action attack because of the word loaded.

No it doesn't. You can load the single crossbow just as easily a the hand crossbow, and the nature of bonus actions means that the specific wording is vague, as when the crossbow needs to be loaded to qualify is inherently ambiguous. If it needs to loaded when the attack is declared it can qualify, or if it needs to be loaded simultaneously with the attack it can qualify (when you attack with a crossbow, the crossbow will generally be loaded). Only f you think "when you attack" means "immediately after the attack resolves" does it work as you claim, and to be frank that's what I would consider the obvious reading.

You can explicitly use your free item interaction to reload the crossbow and have it loaded during the attack action.

Justin Sane

2014-11-26, 04:58 PM

snipApologies, lack of caffeine got to me. Edited my post.

Edit: Also,
The word "expended" in the previous sentence gives us context.If both those sentences were meant to be read as a single statement, isn't there a better punctuation mark to use than a period?

Tvtyrant

2014-11-26, 05:07 PM

I think the charger feat isn't so bad if you are going for a single alpha strike. Combine with Greatweapon Master and a Barbarian (likely with the Lucky feat as well) and you can get +15 to a hit and an extremely high chance to hit (basically roll 4X and pick the highest with the Barbarian's reckless attack). If you are going for lots of movement and one big splashy attack that seems like a good fit.

If only we still used DR I would see major benefits to that, but resistance kind of ruins it.

Shadow

2014-11-26, 05:14 PM

Edit: Also, If both those sentences were meant to be read as a single statement, isn't there a better punctuation mark to use than a period?

This is one of the main problems that people have when reading D&D rule books, and it's because of they style of previous editions that it's become a problem.
Don't read single sentences. Read the entire entry in context.
WotC had to cut word count and page count down to make publishing the book fiscally reasonable. If the wrote it as a legal document then it would cost them 2-3 times more to publish, and it would cost us 2-3 times more to purchase.
Don't read individual sentences. Read complete descriptions in context.

edit:
It's the same thing with Pact Blade Warlocks.
The very first thing that the book tells you is that your pact weapon must be a melee weapon.
You can use you action to create a pact weapon in your empty hand. You can choose the form that this melee weapon takes each time you create it.
Then people seem to think that they can make a bow their pact weapon.
No, the very first thing they told you was that it must be a melee weapon. They don't say it in every single sentence because they shouldn't need to. They've already told you.
Read things in context.

Justin Sane

2014-11-26, 05:28 PM

Don't read individual sentences. Read complete descriptions in context.That's exactly what I did. Why you're assuming your interpretation is Word of God is beyond me.

Edit: Concerning your edit, that the pact weapon has to be a melee weapon is actually the second thing it says, not the first :smalltongue:

Shadow

2014-11-26, 05:30 PM

That's exactly what I did. Why you're assuming your interpretation is Word of God is beyond me.

This was never about the word of god. That entire discussion, if you care to read back to it, was about the intention.
And the lead designer of the game supported my reading as being the intention.
Play your game how you want to. I don't care.
I care when people start saying that things are RAW or RAI when they are neither.

Justin Sane

2014-11-26, 05:32 PM

I care when people start saying that things are RAW or RAI when they are neither.My point exactly. Your interpretation isn't RAW.

Shadow

2014-11-26, 05:36 PM

My point exactly. Your interpretation isn't RAW.

The descriptions of Loading and Ammunition in conjunction with the requirements of this particular bonus attack disagree with you.

silveralen

2014-11-26, 05:57 PM

The descriptions of Loading and Ammunition in conjunction with the requirements of this particular bonus attack disagree with you.

The requirements are loaded handcrossbow during a attack action.

You fire as part of an attack action, use your item interaction for a manual load, use the bonus action attack with it, then finish your attack action.

This is 100% RAW. It's 100% balanced with the other feats. There is no point in disallowing it (unless you think 1d8 3 times with a +1 AC is just mind blowingly worse than +2 AC and 1d6 three times).

Justin Sane

2014-11-26, 06:04 PM

I could go "no, it doesn't" all day, but that would get us nowhere.

Instead, consider that this thread as proof that the RAW is, at least, ambiguous (if it wasn't, then we'd all agree, correct?). If the RAW is ambiguous, it follows that there's more than one possible interpretation (again, if there's only one possible interpretation, this discussion wouldn't have happened). If there's more than one interpretation of RAW, it means neither is the "right" one (as they're both plausible). With me so far? Good.

You claim a crossbow can only be loaded a) immediately before firing or b) as a separate action.
We claim a crossbow can be loaded a) immediately before firing or b) immediately after firing or c) as a separate action.

Your claim is based on the text of the Ammunition property, more specifically these two sentences "Each time you attack with the weapon, you expend one piece of ammunition. Drawing the ammunition from a quiver, case, or other container is part of the attack".

Our claim is that those sentences do not rule out the possibility of reloading immediately after firing. As an example, it is perfectly reasonable to attack with a dagger, then as part of the attack sheathe it after having killed that orc, for style points.

So, no. The text doesn't disagree with me.

MaxWilson

2014-11-26, 06:53 PM

Instead, consider that this thread as proof that the RAW is, at least, ambiguous (if it wasn't, then we'd all agree, correct?).

Apparently you're new to this forum or you wouldn't say such optimistic things.

pwykersotz

2014-11-26, 10:07 PM

Apparently you're new to this forum or you wouldn't say such optimistic things.

I laughed, then I sighed.

magwaaf

2015-08-08, 10:16 PM

Martial adept is a great feat. Its only d6's but it gives you maneuvers and lets your class be more diversified. Yes your wizard can't use it well... he is a f'ing wizard its irrelevant. How about if you are already are a battle master you get 2 more maneuvers which makes you awesome. It is free class features, you are just wrong

Dreadfull

2016-01-27, 09:40 AM

Does Crossbow Expert let you fire a hand crossbow and then fire it again as a bonus action? It does! Take a look at the feat’s third benefit. It says you can attack with a hand crossbow as a bonus action when you use the Attack action to attack with a one-handed weapon. A hand crossbow is a one-handed weapon, so it can, indeed, be used for both attacks, assuming you have a hand free to load the hand crossbow between the two attacks.

Above is a ditect quote from sage advice here:
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/sageadvice_feats

Edit 2: appearantly that is written by the co-lead designer. So even the co-lead designer and designer don't agree.

Edit; on topic: great guide for feat use. Although i do think some of the mentioned feats are over or undervalued. This list helped out my players a lot in picking their feats.

Sir cryosin

2016-01-27, 09:56 AM

Go back and reread the feats again because the healer feat refresh on a short or long rest and it is very more useful them you think. A healer kit cost 5gp and it has 10 use befor it's gone. The heal you get is not bam your full heal but it's not here you got 2 hp. It gives you a nice amount of healing for cheap cheap.

KorvinStarmast

2016-01-27, 10:02 AM

2: situational but useful - it's not exactly wasting your points, but your not getting your monies worth

Editorial remark: the term is 'getting your money's worth' if you want to correct that.

User remark: thank you for the effort of laying this out for discussion and consideration. :smallsmile: You offer some good food for thought, as do those who have responded.

Martial adept is a great feat. Its only d6's but it gives you maneuvers and lets your class be more diversified. Yes your wizard can't use it well... he is a f'ing wizard its irrelevant. How about if you are already are a battle master you get 2 more maneuvers which makes you awesome. It is free class features, you are just wrongNo, not quite free. There is an opportunity cost to choosing a feat: you can't choose a different feat, or you can't get an ASI, etc.

In your opinion, this one has a great payoff for a Battle Master fighter. (If it indeed adds two more maneuvers on top of already existing maneuvers, I can see your point). Would you suggest to Beige that the grade/score be increased based on your analysis?

Snowfalcon

2017-09-27, 04:19 PM

Apologizes if these have already been addressed.

Unless I missed something in the PHB the Healer Kit does not require proficiency. If low level or only one healer, the feat r rather shines as it can save the spell healer's slots and attacks for other things.
Crossbow Expert is very handy for casters. Most casters get crossbow expertise but not longbow. It makes their middle attacks more effective and per SA allows casting attack spells at close range without penalty. Rogues do well with it too.

Mobility is very good as the fighter or barbarian can hit and run like a rogue.

Last, Keen Mind can save your bacon. Glance at a map and recall it later. Force the DM to revisit details from three sessions back, etc.

Mysticalamity

2021-05-18, 12:41 AM

Mobile is at least 4/5 if not 5/5 for the melee rogue. This build is all about moving far and fast, hitting hard, and then getting out of reach so that your opponent based to one of your allies can't fight back. First and most important, auto disengage vs. your sneak victim is HUGE; it means you have your BA to use on dash, an off hand attack in case #1 misses, or hide when you can get to some cover/obscurement thanks to the +10 speed boost. Secondly, +10 speed is doubled when dashing, which this rogue is constantly doing, and then is effectively +20; hardly insignificant. Thirdly, dashing at normal rate through difficult terrain effectively doubles your movement through it vs. other creatures and means it can be essentially used as a melee space buffer vs. walking opponents...dash 20' through it both ways with your base 30' move, and a 30' move opponent can't reach you on its turn without taking its action to dash. Ha, so fun that you've arrived but can't play, stab, now have a great day, dash three moves away. You really have to play this to understand how much it improves the melee rogue.

truemane

2021-05-18, 10:29 AM

Metamagic Mod: double Necromancy!