Feats you miss from 3.5/3.0

[Spacehamster]

So thought it would be fun to see what ppl miss and maybe discuss how said feats could be changed to fit 5e.

Me myself I miss the leadership feat, animal cohort and the feat from book of exalted deeds that gave you a heirloom weapon that you could improve by giving up other items and/or valuables. :) the heirloom feat could be put in working like it did in 3.5 with added "can only pick this with DM approval or alternately in a high magic campaign".

[hymer]

Natural Spell, though I fully realize it would be badly OP on moon druids at least. And it wouldn't work well with the philosophy of 5e in general, being for one specific class. Still, I miss it.

[Flashy]

Natural Spell, though I fully realize it would be badly OP on moon druids at least. And it wouldn't work well with the philosophy of 5e in general, being for one specific class. Still, I miss it.

Especially since it has been rolled into the normal druid progression, just much later.

[hymer]

Especially since it has been rolled into the normal druid progression, just much later.

True. I doubt I'd ever play long enough to regret taking it, so it'd be entirely worth it.

[Daishain]

Combat reflexes is the one I end up missing the most while creating a melee oriented character (though not so much the feat chain needed to get to it)

[Spacehamster]

Combat reflexes is the one I end up missing the most while creating a melee oriented character (though not so much the feat chain needed to get to it)

Chain feats could be fine in 5E but with one condition, every feat in the chain
should be useful or powerful so you are not forced to go through 2 ****ty feats to get to
one good feat. :)

[Flashy]

The problem with feat chains is that they sort of implicitly promote imbalance. If you're doing a feat chain with three feats in it then you will probably expect the one you're taking last to have more oomph than the others. After all you've given up 2-3 ASIs for it. Even if the ones before it are useful they still probably aren't really the reason you've been taking the feats. You're now level 12 and still have your starting stats. So either the late feats are straight better than the non-chain feats, which is a questionable idea from a balance perspective, or they aren't and you have to sacrifice +4 or +6 to your various stats for an ability no better than what you would get without the chain, which is a questionable idea from a balance perspective.

[Seruvius]

There are a few class specific feats that I miss, but I don't really see a place for them in 5e's feat system. However, there are a few general feats I do miss that could probably be implemented in 5e in one way or another.

- Combat reflexes for slapping fools that want to get past me to the more squishy party members.
- Shock Trooper. for the risk/reward of lowering your AC in exchange for bonus damage. If you mix in soemthing akin to the dungeoncrasher feat alongside it, this could be rather nice, though might have issues with the minotaur PC race.
- Knowledge devotion. Powerful and flavourful. I think this feat would in particular be nice to have in 5e. If it keyed off say arcana religion history and nature it would give people a reason not to just dump INT. If say Medicin also keyed into the feat, then yet again it would give people a reason to take a rather lacklustre skill. While any bonus to hit in 5e is pretty powerful, encouraging hard choices in which skills to be proficient in could be interesting.

[Nifft]

Combat reflexes is the one I end up missing the most while creating a melee oriented character (though not so much the feat chain needed to get to it)

It has no prereqs: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#combatReflexes

[pwykersotz]

Chain feats could be fine in 5E but with one condition, every feat in the chain should be useful or powerful so you are not forced to go through 2 ****ty feats to get to one good feat. :)

The problem with that idea is that different people and even just different characters value different feats. What's great for one build might be bad for another.

I miss the Arcane Archer feat from the playtest.

I went over one of the many feat lists for 3.5 to refresh myself on what I might miss. I really don't miss any at all. I'd much rather have a subclass or class with a given ability fully integrated than take most of the listed feats. I suppose if I had to pick a feat, it would probably be Run, just because it seems like one of the more universal feats, even if it isn't very powerful.

[Demonic Spoon]

Natural Spell, though I fully realize it would be badly OP on moon druids at least. And it wouldn't work well with the philosophy of 5e in general, being for one specific class. Still, I miss it.


I think this touches on one of the things lost between 3.5e and 5e:

In 3.5e, a druid could choose to play as a primary caster with some wildshape potential, or a more martial-esque character with the utility of full casting. Both were supported. However, of course, the druid did this in 3.5 by being broken and great at both rather than really choosing one or the other.

In 5e, we have the full caster druid, and the slightly-weaker-full-caster-with-better-wildshape druid. Moon druid wildshape is pretty good, but in terms of martial prowess they don't hold a candle to "real" martial classes, and can't cast in their wildshaped form. This is important because allowing a martial shapeshifter that is close to as good as other martials while also having full caster utility would be broken (see: 3.5).

A lot of people want to play a character that is first and foremost a shapeshifter, and 5e does not have that. Instead of trying to introduce "natural spell" as a feat, what we really need is a new base class that has something like 1/3 casting, but good shapeshifting and the ability to cast while shapeshifted.

[kaoskonfety]

The problem with feat chains is that they sort of implicitly promote imbalance. If you're doing a feat chain with three feats in it then you will probably expect the one you're taking last to have more oomph than the others. After all you've given up 2-3 ASIs for it. Even if the ones before it are useful they still probably aren't really the reason you've been taking the feats. You're now level 12 and still have your starting stats. So either the late feats are straight better than the non-chain feats, which is a questionable idea from a balance perspective, or they aren't and you have to sacrifice +4 or +6 to your various stats for an ability no better than what you would get without the chain, which is a questionable idea from a balance perspective.

Why would I expect this? if its a set of abilities/features that quietly complement each other taking them all would be its own reward - and each point can easily remain a decision between raw power (STATS) and utility/options (maor feats). The sort of complexity and forethought needed for character builds in 3rd always kinda bothered me as they blocked out new players and often punished those who did power though it as the "good" options were not always obvious and some of the *awful* options looked really good to scrubs who quickly got sick of the DM "making their character for them" by trying to steer the process away from "toughness" and its buddies in the "ok-good for level 1, bad the rest of the way up" camp.

Mostly the old Ravenloft feats come to mind as things I miss, character changing less in the stats and more in the characterization:
Deathly Pallor
Dead Man walking
Voice of Wrath
Ethereal Empathy

Here's hoping they get to a Ravenloft release for Christmas (but I'm not placing bets on it.)

[Shining Wrath]

I second knowledge devotion as not too OP and flavorful. It was a good fit on a Warblade.

[Michael7123]

Tomb tainted soul, and while I'm on the topic, the removal of the positive vs negative emery dynamic as a whole. My dread necromancer with that feat was the favorite character I've ever made, even though I've only played him in 3 sessions.

[MadGrady]

A lot of people want to play a character that is first and foremost a shapeshifter, and 5e does not have that. Instead of trying to introduce "natural spell" as a feat, what we really need is a new base class that has something like 1/3 casting, but good shapeshifting and the ability to cast while shapeshifted.

Well said Spoon, perhaps this is what we might see with a Shaman class?

[Atalas]

oddly, almost all of the feats I 'miss' were rolled into normal class features. Bards can use their instrument as a focus, druids can cast in wild shape (not something I ever did since I've yet to play a druid in any edition, but I always thought was cool), and Weapon Finesse becoming an actual weapon property/game mechanic instead of a feat for specific weapons. The 'lack' of feats seems to be felt more strongly because, to me at least, players aren't seeing that a lot of old feats became game mechanics for either a particular class or in general. But that's just me, and I could be mistaken.

[Nifft]

A lot of people want to play a character that is first and foremost a shapeshifter, and 5e does not have that. Instead of trying to introduce "natural spell" as a feat, what we really need is a new base class that has something like 1/3 casting, but good shapeshifting and the ability to cast while shapeshifted.

Sounds awesome.

If half-casting progression is acceptable, maybe make it a Ranger subclass.

[Rhaegar14]

Combat Reflexes would be bonkers levels of broken in combination with Sentinel or Polearm Master (or both). On its own it isn't really overwhelming but you could get some mean synergies out of it.

I second Knowledge Devotion. It would be nice for Int to not be the automatic dump stat; I can't stand playing stupid characters.

[Naanomi]

Weapon Specialization, but mostly because it is a very old tradition; but I acknowledge it might be hard to implement with bound accuracy

[AvatarVecna]

Although it wasn't ever a real 3.5 thing (I think), I'd like to see a feat emulating the Dashing Swordsman PrC Elan has, partially because I love Valor Bards, and partially because there's not many feats giving a bonus to your Charisma stat. Something like...

Dashing Swordsman
It doesn't matter whether you win or lose...as long as you look really cool doing it!

You gain +1 to your Charisma attribute, to a maximum of 20.

Whenever making a melee attack roll with a one-handed weapon, you may use your Charisma modifier in place of your Strength or Dexterity modifier for the attack and damage roll.

(If this second part is considered too weak, for being a slightly broader Shillelagh, you could also give them the Dueling fighting style.)

[JoeJ]

A lot of people want to play a character that is first and foremost a shapeshifter, and 5e does not have that. Instead of trying to introduce "natural spell" as a feat, what we really need is a new base class that has something like 1/3 casting, but good shapeshifting and the ability to cast while shapeshifted.

Forget the casting. I'd rather have a shapeshifter that doesn't cast spells at all, but is really good at using multiple shapes in and out of combat. I want to play Beast Boy.

[Coidzor]

Wild Cohort and some variant on the theme of Leadership would be nice to have, yeah. Even just an NPC ally that got additional HP and HD when the PC leveled and a core nucleus of loyal non-scaling mooks would be nice.

But I always liked the idea of Henchmen and having minions who followed your character for reasons other than just being paid to do so or magically bound to the character. And having an animal friend or mount that one has a strong bond with that scales with your character is always good.

If anything, I think bounded accuracy would mean it doesn't have to scale as hardcore as it would have in previous editions, too, while maintaining its usefulness to some extent. So it'd have a nice blend of, yes, the PCs are clearly better, but, no, it's not so useless I might as well forget about it unless I can just spam an endless horde of them. I think.


Especially since it has been rolled into the normal druid progression, just much later.

When I saw that, I wondered how much it was because people joked about how Druids in 3.X didn't have a feat at 6th level, they just got Natural Spell instead all the time.

[Lappy9001]

Blessed By Tem-Et-Nu. I mean, you can turn and rebuke hippos! +2 AC versus Chaotic creatures with the (Fire) subtype! And how many feats can cause you to take damage if bitten by a hippopotamus?

That feat probably exemplifies the uselessness of so many 3.5 feats. But seriously, most of the [Psionic] feats because Psionic Focus abilities are pretty great, although they wouldn't mesh well with 5e's design philosophy.

[Gwendol]

I don't really miss any feats, since most of them were crap/trap/tax and others have either been rolled up in 5e feats or class features, or freely available.

That said, things like dreadful wrath, dragonfire inspiration that provides flavor and effect would be fun to see. Also cleave, love cleave.

[JoeJ]

But I always liked the idea of Henchmen and having minions who followed your character for reasons other than just being paid to do so or magically bound to the character.

But do you really need a feat to do that? I'd think that you could get followers just through roleplaying. The next time you rescue some innocent bystanders, don't just send them home and forget about them. Go back and check up on them a few days later. And then again the next time you're in town. Become friends with them and help them out whenever you can. At least some of them will probably be up willing to help you out in return. Keep building those relationships, and before long you'll have your loyal followers.

[djreynolds]

Improved critical would be nice. GWM, does work somewhat like the power attack chain and doesn't need a heavy weapon for all aspects. And metamagic, though then who would play a sorcerer?

[Kryx]

Also cleave, love cleave.
Cleave exists in GWM.

[EroGaki]

I miss Blind-Fight.

I was surprised that 5e didn't have a version of that feat.

[georgie_leech]

I miss Blind-Fight.

I was surprised that 5e didn't have a version of that feat.

Well, Alert covers the no advantages thing, there is no percentile miss chance, and there's no penalty to movement for not being able to see, so...

[Gwendol]

Cleave exists in GWM.

Ah yes, so rolled up.

[Santra]

Zen Archery and Improved Familiar are two I miss. I dont want to have to dip warlock for my wizard to have an imp familiar.

[Socko525]

Wild Cohort/Leadership and Improved Familiar for sure. I'd love to gain access to a Winter Wolf familiar like I had as a hexblade back in 3.5e.

It doesn't really have a place in this edition, but I'd love to see the return of things like Daring Outlaw, Swift Ambusher, etc...something to help/encourage multiclassing if you wanted to go that route.

Divine metamagic would be cool and I think it could work fairly well in this system. Basically burn a use of channel divinity to gain access to one of the sorcerer's metamagic abilities. This would be extremely useful for OotA paladins since their channel divinty options are fairly lacking.

Lastly I'd like to see Draconic Auras make a return...or maybe just a Dragon themed paladin that has a draconic type aura, specifically the energy shield aura

[pibby]

I'd like to see Vow of Nonviolence return in some form. Any feat that changes up the play style of a character or promotes other play styles is always welcome.

[Submortimer]

There are a few class specific feats that I miss, but I don't really see a place for them in 5e's feat system. However, there are a few general feats I do miss that could probably be implemented in 5e in one way or another.

- Combat reflexes for slapping fools that want to get past me to the more squishy party members.


I do wish there was some way to get more reactions in a round, but I can see how that would make certain builds (polearm master+sentinel, for example) totally broken.



- Shock Trooper. for the risk/reward of lowering your AC in exchange for bonus damage. If you mix in soemthing akin to the dungeoncrasher feat alongside it, this could be rather nice, though might have issues with the minotaur PC race.

This is a thing already. It's the Barbarian's Reckless Attack. Granted, it's all about to-hit vice bonus damage, but still.



- Knowledge devotion. Powerful and flavourful. I think this feat would in particular be nice to have in 5e. If it keyed off say arcana religion history and nature it would give people a reason not to just dump INT. If say Medicin also keyed into the feat, then yet again it would give people a reason to take a rather lacklustre skill. While any bonus to hit in 5e is pretty powerful, encouraging hard choices in which skills to be proficient in could be interesting.

Agreed

[ryan92084]

instantaneous rage- rarely super powerful but always fun. I'd be inclined to give it to frenzy barbs just because.

[Strill]

Zen Archery and Improved Familiar are two I miss. I dont want to have to dip warlock for my wizard to have an imp familiar.

The DMG has you covered. Just find an imp in the wild and convince it to serve you.

[JackPhoenix]

Dragonmarks from Eberron, though we'll get them in some form when Eberron splat comes out. For now, Magic Initiate works.

I liked various racial feats, though they would be hard sell with much more limited number of feats we'll get now. But one already exists with Deep Gnomes, so who knows what the future have in store?

[Waazraath]

I miss the heritage related feats: devil toughed, chaos heritor, aberant feats (fiendish codex 1 and 2, lords of madness), and the like. Feats that gave you powers because some dark (or light) racial heritage. Cool abilities, not overpowered, not really like 'feat chains' but if you took more they became more powerfull... flavorful, and a way for the non-casters to gain some 'casting like' powers. Those were fun!

Don't know if it's possible to do them in fifth though.

[hymer]

Don't know if it's possible to do them in fifth though.

You could fluff a lot of feats to be because of something like this.

[Socko525]

Dragonmarks from Eberron, though we'll get them in some form when Eberron splat comes out. For now, Magic Initiate works.

Did you see the various Dragonmarks that were released in the Eberron Unearthed Arcana article?

[JackPhoenix]

Did you see the various Dragonmarks that were released in the Eberron Unearthed Arcana article?

Huh...you're right...I've seen that article, though I was paying more attention to races/artificer that I either skipped or totally forget the Dragonmarks.

And I second the heritage feats, I kinda counted them together with racial stuff.

[charcoalninja]

Combat reflexes exists if you're using the optional marking system.

[Spacehamster]

Wild Cohort/Leadership and Improved Familiar for sure. I'd love to gain access to a Winter Wolf familiar like I had as a hexblade back in 3.5e.

It doesn't really have a place in this edition, but I'd love to see the return of things like Daring Outlaw, Swift Ambusher, etc...something to help/encourage multiclassing if you wanted to go that route.

Divine metamagic would be cool and I think it could work fairly well in this system. Basically burn a use of channel divinity to gain access to one of the sorcerer's metamagic abilities. This would be extremely useful for OotA paladins since their channel divinty options are fairly lacking.

Lastly I'd like to see Draconic Auras make a return...or maybe just a Dragon themed paladin that has a draconic type aura, specifically the energy shield aura

Would almost say that stuff like daring outlaw have a bigger place in 5e as multiclassing is in many cases sub-optimal compared to just sticking to one class. So if anything feats like that feels more needed. :)

[georgie_leech]

Would almost say that stuff like daring outlaw have a bigger place in 5e as multiclassing is in many cases sub-optimal compared to just sticking to one class. So if anything feats like that feels more needed. :)

That's generally due to missing Class Features though, not just scaling. When I multiclass from Monk, I miss the earlier access to new Ki uses than I do getting slightly more Ki and increased US damage.

[tsotate]

Does missing the Dark Chaos Feat Shuffle count as missing feats?

[Steampunkette]

I miss the tactical feats. Oddly enough, they'd work great in 5e, or at least its feat structure

[Kryx]

I miss the tactical feats. Oddly enough, they'd work great in 5e, or at least its feat structure
Any examples?

[Steampunkette]

I'm at work. But I'll try to find a few in a couple of hours, here, when I go home.

[Coidzor]

The DMG has you covered. Just find an imp in the wild and convince it to serve you.

In a game with Downtime, sure.

Otherwise that's a sidequest you have to drag the party on, which is not universally appreciated.

[Steampunkette]

http://dndtools.pw/feats/categories/tactical/

[KorvinStarmast]

Miss nothing from 3.0 / 3.5. The bloat was part of why D&D got put on the shelf for a while.

[Drackolus]

Leadership, augmented healing, and all the draconic feats. I've thought about homebrewing the draconic feats into appropriate class-seperate 5e appropriate feats. Maybe I will. I'm already working on converting all the draconic material into 5e.
I think I'll work on that today.

[JoeJ]

I definitely don't miss Leadership. I think gaining followers should be done through roleplay, not simply happen because you have a certain build.

[Seruvius]

I do wish there was some way to get more reactions in a round, but I can see how that would make certain builds (polearm master+sentinel, for example) totally broken.

This is a thing already. It's the Barbarian's Reckless Attack. Granted, it's all about to-hit vice bonus damage, but still.

Agreed

Fair point on the extra reactions. Maybe if it just gave one extra reaction and something else , rather than bonus reactions = DEX modifier like in 3.5. But Sentinel and Polearm combo already fulfils the Melee area denial build quite well.

Well I must admit to having completely forgotten about the Reckless Attack, despite there being a Barbarian in one of the campaign's I am currently DM-ing. Would indeed be strange to have a feat that resembles a unique class feature closely.

Well including yourself that's 3 people that have seconded the idea of Knowledge Devotion. As others have said, I personally hate playing a stupid character. 5e seems to have made quite a bit of effort in its design to reward Roleplaying (Inspiration dice, mandatory backgrounds etc.) but generally speaking one is mechanically punished for playing an intelligent character. Why put a high score into int, when it could go into Dex, Con or Wis ?
A feat that keys off INT that is useful for many different classes would be a rather simple way to change this.
Strength low? Doesn't matter, you are smart enough to figure exactly where to poke the bugger to make the most of your puny muscles.