Categorizing Feats

[Celcey]

Greetings Playgrounders! I, like many of you, am a fan of feats. I think they're super cool. So cool, in fact, that I like to grant my players some just for funsies, including one at first level (so no v.human in my games). However, in doing this, I realized that some feats really shouldn't be given to first level characters, because they're a little bit too OP. So that got me to finally get off my butt and create this thread. So in honor of that and this month's UA (http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/UA-Feats-V1.pdf), the goal of this thread is to put feats into categories: the very powerful ones that everyone always seems to take/promote (Sentinel, Polearm Master, Great Weapon Master), ones that are great for specific builds (War Caster, Mobile, Resilient) and ones that no one ever seems to take (Dungeon Delver, Mage Slayer, Skulker).

So I want to categorize these feats: which ones do you think are mechanically good enough to absolutely require you to give up you ASI for them, and which ones do you think are okay to be granted for RP reasons?

Actor

Alert

Athlete

Charger

Crossbow Expert

Defensive Dualist

Dual Wielder

Dungeon Delver

Durable

Elemental Adept

Grappler

Great Weapon Master

Healer

Heavily Armored

Heavy Armor Master

Inspiring Leader

Keen Mind

Lightly Armored

Linguist

Lucky

Mage Slayer

Magic Initiate

Martial Adept

Medium Armor Master

Mobile

Moderately Armored

Mounted Combatant

Observant

Polearm Master

Resilient

Ritual Caster

Savage Attacker

Sentinel

Sharpshooter

Shield Master

Skilled

Skulker

Spell Sniper

Svirfneblin Magic

Tavern Brawler

Tough

War Caster

Weapon Master

These feats are less about the crunch of battle, and therefore are less likely to break you game if the players don't have to sacrifice a ASI for them.

Actor: This is an RP heavy feat, and crunch wise, it's definitely fine to give a character just because.

Linguistics: This feat can come in super useful, but isn't really going to be game breaking, and if it fits with the character's backstory, I think this feat is a good choice.


These feats have some great fluff for them, but might have too much power in the to have the DM just give them out for free.

Tavern Brawler: This feat has a lot of cool fluff behind it that can really enhance your character, but it might be too crunchy to give out freely.

Weapon Master: This isn't too terribly OP, because it's essentially what Elves and Dwarves get, but that's already balanced into the race balance. Would this to, say, a dragonborn or gnome, be too OP if they start out with it plus all their other racial abilities?


These are feats that tend to be taken solely to increase your battle prowess, and therefore I don't think should be allowed at first level or DM gifted feats. I think these should require an ASI.

Crossbow Expert

Great Weapon Fighter

Polarm Master

Sentinel

Sharpshooter

[Lollerabe]

Hey :) we have done something very similar at our table, every player was allowed to pick a feat from a list me and the dm made.
Our logic was that there were a slew of feats that would never see play as we considered them kind of meh, that and we are playing a rather brutal campaign so we agreed that we needed a little power boost.

My dm (Skylivedk) has the entire list and I'll see if he can post it once he has time. Off the top of my head however, here are some of the feats that were eligible as 1st level free feats:

Durable (as is)
Savage attacker (with a +1 str)
Actor
Weapon master (+ 1 str/dex)
Martial adept (+1 str/dex)
Charger (+1 str, the charger feat got turned into a default option for pcs and monsters alike down the road tho)
Healer (as is)
Keen mind ( as is)
Tavern brawler ( +1 str/dex, pretty sure it gives str by default, can't remember atm)
Linguist ( as is)

We made a bunch of other feats half feats - medium armor expert fx but they are not eligible from 1st lvl.
We have also house ruled two weapon fighting so it's a competitive option, if you don't maybe you should consider putting dual wielder on the free list.

Well we have a bunch of house rules - 16 being allowed with point buy, versatile warhammer/battle axe/longsword are considered heavy weapons for small races (my rock gnome EK is rocking GWM with his 1d10 'maul')

So far non of the free feats have broken anything and they have added a lot of fun.

Our malar Druid picked actor (he would lure drunken teens into the woods to be hunted by his malar pack, all while acting as a Druid of some good hearted nature deity)
Our high elf wiz took keen mind (has really helped that he has perfect recall when we have gotten close to lost in dungeons etc)
Our rouge thief took healer (former combat medic, without fast hands + healer we would've TPK'ed multiple times)
My gnome Ek took durable, A bit more boring but without that guaranteed hp from hd's I would've died.

All in all it has added flavor and depth and I can highly recommend the concept, plus you get to see feats that otherwise (at least at my table) would never see play

[Kryx]

I did something very similar: Split out fluff feats to "Traits" and gave them a progression of their own.
I also split feats into smaller parts as I find that works much better.

http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/H19CLykV

Traits/Fluff feats imo:
Actor
Athlete
Linguist
Dungeon Delver
Keen Mind
Magic initiate (cantrip that doesn't do damage)
Medium armor master (no more disadv on stealth isn't worth a feat imo)
1 skill
Skulker (minus the sniping from stealth part)
Weapon Master (unsure on this one - it has some mechanical benefit, but doesn't seem worth a feat. Granted there may be some crazy combinations with this so I may have to scratch it).

[X3r4ph]

This is a great idea. And good job Kryx! It adds balance and options. I really really like it! I wish my group was more open to house rules. I would implement this this second and not look back.

Lucky still smells like feat tax. But, maybe that depends on play style.

[Specter]

Weapon Master, Savage Attacker, Lightly Armored, Keen Mind and Linguist could be given for free to players if they didn't give ability points. The first two, especially, are absolute garbage.

[Kryx]

Savage attacker not limited to once a round is actually pretty good (as a half feat like my system)
Weapon master can increase the damage of several builds. For example the benefit of war cleric (bonus proficiencies) is lessened a bit if a nature cleric can pickup a greatsword. Only a bit though - not sure how impactful it would be.
Lightly armored means every class has light armor prof - doesn't really fit the fluff or balance. Sorcerers have class features to make up AC which become severely devalued. Wizards no longer have to burn a resource for mage armor.

Linguist and Keen Mind are indeed Fluff feats though.

[DeAnno]

I did a very opinionated run of the feats. Half feats are rated mostly for situations where you want the half-ASI they're providing as a primary, secondary, or your Con.

Tier S: These feats are probably better than a main stat ASI for a character that can get good use out of them.

Crossbow Expert
Great Weapon Master
Lucky
Polearm Master
Sharpshooter


Tier A: These feats are often quite good and competitive with main stat ASIs for characters that will get a lot of use from them.

Alert
Magic Initiate
Mobile
Moderately Armored
Resilient Con or Wis
Sentinel
Shield Master
Tough
War Caster


Tier B: These feats are useful but struggle to be competitive with main stat ASIs. They might have slight mechanical difficulties associated with frequent use or might just not come up very often.

Defensive Duelist
Elemental Adept
Healer
Heavy Armor Master
Inspiring Leader
Mage Slayer
Resilient Str or Dex


Tier C: These feats are usually not mechanically competitive, but in certain fringe builds they can be quite useful and so shouldn't be ignored as options. Usually you need to really work to put yourself in a position to want them though. It is quite rare to want one of these before maxing your primary stat.

Grappler
Heavily Armored
Lightly Armored
Martial Adept
Mounted Combatant
Observant
Ritual Caster
Skulker
Spell Sniper
Tavern Brawler


Tier D: These are feats that are like Tier C, but sort of punishingly worse. Even in builds that find themselves needing to patch holes with them or looking for filler they can be painful to take. They struggle to compete with ASIs to secondary stats or Con.

Charger
Dual Wielder
Dungeon Delver
Durable
Medium Armor Master
Resilient Int or Cha
Savage Attacker
Skilled
Weapon Master


Tier F: The rest of the feats are either mostly fluff, or mostly fluff plus half an ASI.

EDITS:

With regards to Lucky: It's great for everyone, but most useful to characters who make low numbers of very pivotal attack rolls. Paladins and Characters with Sentinel come to mind, and for them it is very likely better than an ASI. If your DM lets Lucky turn Disadvantage into Super-Advantage that would be another reason to definitely take it instead of a main ASI.

Most others could make the choice to take ASIs in their main stat first if they wanted, but if you tend to make attack rolls at all you could probably justify Lucky instead. Characters that use Eldritch Blast and Fighters make enough attack rolls that it dampens the impact of Lucky relative to ASIs somewhat, and characters that rarely make attack rolls at all probably should max their main stat first.

I take no offense at people disagreeing or debating this list, it was basically something I threw together from my own preconceptions and ideas to provoke debate. People that disagree with things should feel free to bring up points and my mind could very likely be changed. The only part of the list I really feel sure of is Tier S. Maybe Alert could gain a place there, I doubt anything else could.

[Lollerabe]

I very much disagree with your list DeAnno but hey.