DM request i dont take the observent feat, what to do.

[Night Eternal]

So we started the game at 5th lvl and i took the observant feat because i was a blade singer wizard and have 19 in int and i wanted to max it out. I looked at the feats and only found 3.

keen mind
observant
linguist

I took the observant feat because the i like to play a fighter/ rogue type character. I stealth, steal and kick ass in battle lol. And being able to notice detail to avoid traps if very useful. So my wisdom is 14 so that give me a +2 i have proficiency in perception so i have a +3 at 5th lvl. And then observant give a +5 making my passive perception at 20

My dm ask me later to think about changing the feat because he would have to make the traps almost impossible to find in order to keep the game interesting. Otherwise he would just have to hand me a map of the traps ( his example). He told be he had someone else who played took this feat and pretty much walker through a dungeon.

Now i like my dm and he is really cool about things. So this must be a serious thing if he asking me to do this. So i want to comply.

Here is the problem. keen mind sound boring and useless to me. I want to be a charming thief who handles himself well in a fight. I have 20 dex so my ac with mage armor my ac is 13+5=18 when i have blade song active i get a my int mod added to that. So i need to have int maxed out. it's at 19 so i need to either spend the asi on it or get a feat . But what feat?

Maxing out my int brings my ac to 23 and the haste brings it 25. That not including my shield spell. So you can see what type of character im going for. I duel wield to scimitars. my charisma is 18 so and i have perception on deception, etc to make myself more roguish.

So do you guys have any suggestions on what to do for this problem. Or the character in general.

I do plan to get mobile feat to increase my walking distance. right now i have 30+10 when i blade song +10 when i haste =50 normal movement. mobile would bring that to 60 with out dashing and i could take my 3 attacks to different people without an attack of opportunity.

any spell suggestions?

[Xetheral]

So we started the game at 5th lvl and i took the observant feat because i was a blade singer wizard and have 19 in int and i wanted to max it out. I looked at the feats and only found 3.

keen mind
observant
linguist

I took the observant feat because the i like to play a fighter/ rogue type character. I stealth, steal and kick ass in battle lol. And being able to notice detail to avoid traps if very useful. So my wisdom is 14 so that give me a +2 i have proficiency in perception so i have a +3 at 5th lvl. And then observant give a +5 making my passive perception at 20

My dm ask me later to think about changing the feat because he would have to make the traps almost impossible to find in order to keep the game interesting. Otherwise he would just have to hand me a map of the traps ( his example). He told be he had someone else who played took this feat and pretty much walker through a dungeon.

Now i like my dm and he is really cool about things. So this must be a serious thing if he asking me to do this. So i want to comply.

Here is the problem. keen mind sound boring and useless to me. I want to be a charming thief who handles himself well in a fight. I have 20 dex so my ac with mage armor my ac is 13+5=18 when i have blade song active i get a my int mod added to that. So i need to have int maxed out. it's at 19 so i need to either spend the asi on it or get a feat . But what feat?

Maxing out my int brings my ac to 23 and the haste brings it 25. That not including my shield spell. So you can see what type of character im going for. I duel wield to scimitars. my charisma is 18 so and i have perception on deception, etc to make myself more roguish.

So do you guys have any suggestions on what to do for this problem. Or the character in general.

I do plan to get mobile feat to increase my walking distance. right now i have 30+10 when i blade song +10 when i haste =50 normal movement. mobile would bring that to 60 with out dashing and i could take my 3 attacks to different people without an attack of opportunity.

any spell suggestions?

You could always just take an ASI, put one of the stat boosts into int and the other into some other stat. If all of the other stats are even, find a feat you want that gives a +1 to a different stat and boost that stat now and then take that feat at 8th level.

[brainface]

Ask your DM to make up some interesting half feet, or some other ability to replace observants passive perception bonus

[Sianthus]

You could always just take an ASI, put one of the stat boosts into int and the other into some other stat. If all of the other stats are even, find a feat you want that gives a +1 to a different stat and boost that stat now and then take that feat at 8th level.

I second this. Stat boost feats like Resilient (X) would be great as an example.

[Night Eternal]

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/20.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

[Sigreid]

Linguist could really help with the smooth thief image as you comfortably speak fluently in several languages. Creating and breaking ciphers is also very upscale thiefy.

[Specter]

Your DM is being a bit lazy, I guess. Even by seeing traps, there still has to be an investigation check to figure out how to disarm the trap. Some other hazards, like green slime, require a bit of trickery to go around. And sometimes you won't get a chance to see the trap until it goes off (like if it's behind a door).

But still, if you think it would bug the game, take something else.

[ad_hoc]

This is a perfectly reasonable request.

It is also perfectly reasonable to not have any feats at all. They are optional for a reason.

That said, at 5th level you have 20 Dex and 19 Int. The game is already broken, so I don't see the harm in breaking it some more.

[Night Eternal]

Ask your DM to make up some interesting half feet, or some other ability to replace observants passive perception bonus

Any ideas for a half feat

[beargryllz]

ASI. Adding to stats is never a bad idea. If the choice is between bad feats and good stats, go with the stats. A good feat is also never a bad idea...

[Axorfett12]

He also has an 18 Charisma and a 14 wisdom. God stats have been rolled, the game is already hard enough to balance. I think requesting no Observant so as to keep the game as minimally broken as possible is completely reasonable.

I will second Linguist as an option. Speaking more languages can be charming.

Alternativily, ask your DM to homebrew. Maybe something like this:

Cunning Trickster:
You are an intelligent and sophisticated charlatan, gaining the following benefits:

- Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
- You may add half your proficiency bonus to Deception, Persuasion, and Intimidation checks you are not proficiency in.

[Night Eternal]

He also has an 18 Charisma and a 14 wisdom. God stats have been rolled, the game is already hard enough to balance. I think requesting no Observant so as to keep the game as minimally broken as possible is completely reasonable.

I will second Linguist as an option. Speaking more languages can be charming.

Alternativily, ask your DM to homebrew. Maybe something like this:

Cunning Trickster:
You are an intelligent and sophisticated charlatan, gaining the following benefits:

- Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
- You may add half your proficiency bonus to Deception, Persuasion, and Intimidation checks you are not proficiency in.

thanks for the suggestion that actually pretty good. ill have to ask him


I agree i don't think my dm is being mean or anything . I think its reasonable request. And i do have god stats. The dm lets us reroll 1 or 2 and im great at rolling d6. Usually roll either a 6 or 5 or 1 He aslo lets us roll 7 times and take the best stats. So yeah my dm is great.

I just looked at my character sheet stat follows

s17
d20
c18
i 19( 20 with the feat)
w17
c18

[Night Eternal]

oh if i do take linguist what would you guys suggest

i have elven and common already. Im a high elf so i actualy have to choose another language

if i take linguist i get +3 languages

i was thinking

dwarven

goblin ( he usually throws goblin and hobgoblins at us)

but got stuck there

[Finieous]

So yeah my dm is great.

I just looked at my character sheet stat follows

s17
d20
c18
i 19( 20 with the feat)
w17
c18

I don't agree this is great DMing, but it's not my game so that's irrelevant. I do think it's hilarious that the DM produces these ability scores, and then a) thinks Observant will send the game careening into the Abyss, and b) that you have these stats and think you need the Observant feat.

[ruy343]

So yeah my dm is great.

I just looked at my character sheet stat follows

s17
d20
c18
i 19( 20 with the feat)
w17
c18

I... um... feel the need to inform you that 5e caps player stats at 20 (with some notable but rare exceptions) for player characters. It's about having good game balance and bounded accuracy. Additionally, the game recommends that even with point buy, you have a maximum base stat of 15 (+2 to 17 if a racial bonus is involved). No PC should be able to start with a single 18 per 5e's recommendations.

That said, were I in your shoes, I would just do a regular ability score increase to bring your wisdom up higher, and later take an athletics-boosting feat to take advantage of such a high strength...

[RaynorReynolds]

I just looked at my character sheet stat follows

s17
d20
c18
i 19( 20 with the feat)
w17
c18

Your DM is complaining about a feat breaking the game when he let's you have these kind stats at level 4? The game is already broken. I would point out to him the PHB's recommendation regarding starting stats. You should try to convince him to let you keep the Observant feat.

Those stats are just soo bad. I am seriously confused why he thinks Observant would break the game.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Just go ahead and get Mobile; your stats don't need any improvement and ASIs are boring anyway.

[EvilAnagram]

If you really want to be a smooth-talking thief, take Liguist to double the number of beds you can talk your way into.

[Tauguy628]

I would most likely take mobile now followed by +1 int and +1 con, followed by resilient(con) in your situation, but with stats like yours, you will probely be fine with anything.

[Anderlith]

Ask your dm to homebrew a feat call it Keen Insight or something, that allows you the same bonuses for spotting traps instead to be applied to spotting lies or half truths. Remembering facial reactions to things said etc. Allowing you to have much deeper insight into social settings. And then the +1 stat. Makes your character a bit of a marysue, a fighting wizard charmer with insight into those around them whilst walking around with top tier stats in every score but if thats what you want go with it.

[djreynolds]

Multiclass with rogue and take expertise in perception and arcana if possible, that will really irk him then.

or just even up intelligence and wisdom.

But you have awesome stats, and maybe just play ball.

[dropbear8mybaby]

My dm ask me later to think about changing the feat because he would have to make the traps almost impossible to find in order to keep the game interesting.

Ugh, I hate DM's that think that way.

[JellyPooga]

I just looked at my character sheet stat follows

s17
d20
c18
i 19( 20 with the feat)
w17
c18

If I rolled these stats, personally, I'd re-roll them to get worse numbers. I don't think I'd enjoy playing a character so...perfect.

That said, I would go with your GM's request and take a different feat. It's not like you actually need the stat boosts; you are as near to godlike as you'll ever practically need to be, so sorry to say it but play nice. Your GM has already granted you a lot of leeway with your character, so it'd only be courteous to return the favour.

[Anderlith]

Ugh, I hate DM's that think that way.

A bit off topic, but i once rolled up a character in shadowrun 5 with a bunch of sensory powers, he was designed to be a passive party leader who could always see what was coming for the team & react, named him Overwatch. The GM autobanned him beacause he felt he wouldnt ever surprise the party or thow us through a loop if i played him, i told him that was half the point of the character, but ended up playing a beserker orc phys-ad named Azura Oni

Dms need to find other ways to challenge characters if their prefered is rendered moot

[Sigreid]

Ugh, I hate DM's that think that way.

Eh, some DM's have a particular bugaboo. In a Cybortech game I had a DM that hated that I built a character for sensory enhancement so the group always saw everything coming.

[dropbear8mybaby]

A bit off topic, but i once rolled up a character in shadowrun 5 with a bunch of sensory powers, he was designed to be a passive party leader who could always see what was coming for the team & react, named him Overwatch. The GM autobanned him beacause he felt he wouldnt ever surprise the party or thow us through a loop if i played him, i told him that was half the point of the character, but ended up playing a beserker orc phys-ad named Azura Oni

Dms need to find other ways to challenge characters if their prefered is rendered moot

If it's a system balance issue, I have no problem with a DM nerfing something to bring it into line. But when it's specifically, "Oh, you can do that... well, now I'm going to completely nullify it because reasons!" That I hate. 5e specifically tried to address a related issue via bounded accuracy because it was found that players never actually got better at doing anything since the goal posts were constantly shifted.

[Anderlith]

Eh, some DM's have a particular bugaboo. In a Cybortech game I had a DM that hated that I built a character for sensory enhancement so the group always saw everything coming.

Lol are we the same person?

[Hrugner]

I'm honestly having trouble thinking about playing a character with stats like these and wanting to improve them further. But...

You could check out the alchemist feet. I don't like it, but you may as well take a look. http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/UA-Feats-V1.pdf
for a homebrew maybe something like this.

Detective
+1 int
Making investigation checks to spot an illusion can be done with a bonus action or reaction rather than an action. Once per long rest the Detective can spend one action to improvise one charge of one mundane consumable item such as antitoxin, caltrops, or one charge of a healer's kit.

[Cespenar]

So is it more "fun" if you fail to see the traps and get damaged by them?

There are many actually more fun alternatives:

Put traps into combats. That way, passive can't be used, and you'd have to see/think on your feet. Also gives you a lot more memorable fights/shenanigans. That goblin group seems to avoid that patch of ground there, why could that be? Stuff like that.

And/or, make traps into puzzles themselves. When you "notice" them via passive perception, give them a hint of the trap instead of fully revealing it. Then have the player describe their actions to correctly disable it, instead of just making a check.

[djreynolds]

If this is a homebrew adventure, the DM can simply up the ante and make the traps D/C higher.

This is a DM problem. Take the feat and tell him to raise the stakes.

[dropbear8mybaby]

thanks for the suggestion that actually pretty good. ill have to ask him


I agree i don't think my dm is being mean or anything . I think its reasonable request. And i do have god stats. The dm lets us reroll 1 or 2 and im great at rolling d6. Usually roll either a 6 or 5 or 1 He aslo lets us roll 7 times and take the best stats. So yeah my dm is great.

I just looked at my character sheet stat follows

s17
d20
c18
i 19( 20 with the feat)
w17
c18

Wait, wait, wait... the DM allows you to have those stats and yet is complaining that he won't be able to challenge you?

I think that ship sailed aeons ago, mate.

Out of curiosity, is he inexperienced? Short of ramping things up to insane levels, he's not going to be able to challenge the group regardless of whether you have high perception or not.

I think he's bitten off more than he can chew to be honest. Messing with system balance that severely causes a huge amount of homework to be done in order to bring things back into the realm of sanity.

[odigity]

If I rolled these stats, personally, I'd re-roll them to get worse numbers. I don't think I'd enjoy playing a character so...perfect.

That was my first thought, too. I'd feel as silly playing these stats as playing a game on god-mode, or getting free re-rolls all night because it's my birthday...

[Saeviomage]

Personally I would ban observant because it breaks passive checks. Instead of just using passive checks when I don't want to roll a die, I have to worry about whether the observant guy is better off with a passive check.

Don't underrate keen mind. The ability to perfectly recreate anything you saw in the last month with illusions, use teleport circles after glimpsing them and class anywhere you've recently seen as a well studied teleport target are all awesome benefits for a wizard.

If you can convince your dm to also let you memorize and copy spells from a glimpse, bonus.

[Daishain]

19 in Int at that low level is fine for now. You can take an ASI if it really bothers you, but my suggestion for the moment would be to let it be until level 8, and take a feat that is fun in other ways.

Alert for instance is really good for Wizards, keeps those nasty assassins from dirtying your robe with your life's blood, and helps you set the stage by acting first. You might also look into feats that improve your martial ability as a bladesinger. Sentinel for instance.

[MBControl]

Your stats are insane at LVL 5.

It won't hurt you to wait until the next ABI to max out, and take a better feat in the mean time. If you are determined to max out, take the Linguist skill. It's not sexy, but it can help you in your sneaky spy games. What good is eavesdropping if you can't understand a word they say?

[Sigreid]

Lol are we the same person?

Hehe, you must be my equally devious and charming twin. :smallbiggrin:

[JAL_1138]

I just looked at my character sheet stat follows

s17
d20
c18
i 19( 20 with the feat)
w17
c18

ASI, split between two stats (allowed under the ASI section in the class description). +1 Int, +1 Wis.

Or, since you're low level, any #%^&ing feat you want (EDIT: other than Observant since your DM requested you don't take it). These stats are in-gorram-sanely good and you'll be more than fine if you wait until the next chance for an ASI. Rolling stats in 5e only works well with "best 3 out of 4d6" with occasional do-overs from scratch in the event of unplayably bad stats (like a 3 Int for example), not with rerolls of 1s and 2s.

[djreynolds]

Take observant, and take a level of rogue for expertise in perception.

Why?

Because this is a legendary hero in the making, maybe he gets novel out of it.

Tell your DM to up the ante. Tell him this is WAR!!!!!! Come and kill me!!!!

[Foxydono]

I'd say just do what your DM asks. Feats are optional to begin with and your DM probably has good reason to ask this. The argument "your character is already broken so it doesn't matter" seems wrong to me. Firsty because stats don't matter that much really. There are plenty of ways for the DM to make it challanging. Secondly, because it has nothing to do with your stats. It has to do with a requist from your DM.

The game resolves around everyone having fun. The players and the DM. If the DM feels this feat breaks his campaign, whether this is true or not doesn't really matter, then you should let it slide and pick another feat. Plenty of good feats to take, so it's all good.

[TheUser]

So wait, you take a feat to be good at doing a certain thing and overcome a specific obstacle and your DM is salty that your overcoming this specific obstacle rains on his parade? How about he actually lets you find traps and feel like your feat is useful? Sounds like your DM doesn't get it...

[Joe the Rat]

The argument "your character is already broken so it doesn't matter" seems wrong to me. Firsty because stats don't matter that much really. There are plenty of ways for the DM to make it challanging. Secondly, because it has nothing to do with your stats. It has to do with a requist from your DM.

The game resolves around everyone having fun. The players and the DM. If the DM feels this feat breaks his campaign, whether this is true or not doesn't really matter, then you should let it slide and pick another feat. Plenty of good feats to take, so it's all good.This is the internet - everything is binary. "Perfect" and "Forever Broken don't bother with damage control" are your only options.

I agree with Foxy. DM screwed up with Godmode statting, and doesn't have a handle on how to run findable traps as a challenge. If you want to get the game to work, a little give and take is needed. If you still want to be an obnoxious All Seeing Eye, take Alert. You're trading "seeing all traps" for "seeing all ambushes."

[Plaguescarred]

It's reasonable request from your DM and if he prefer to ban the Observant feat, i'd take two ability score increase to bring your intelligence to 20 and another by 1. Then you can take the Mobile feat later if you want.

[Citan]

So we started the game at 5th lvl and i took the observant feat because i was a blade singer wizard and have 19 in int and i wanted to max it out. I looked at the feats and only found 3.

keen mind
observant
linguist

I took the observant feat because the i like to play a fighter/ rogue type character. I stealth, steal and kick ass in battle lol. And being able to notice detail to avoid traps if very useful. So my wisdom is 14 so that give me a +2 i have proficiency in perception so i have a +3 at 5th lvl. And then observant give a +5 making my passive perception at 20

My dm ask me later to think about changing the feat because he would have to make the traps almost impossible to find in order to keep the game interesting. Otherwise he would just have to hand me a map of the traps ( his example). He told be he had someone else who played took this feat and pretty much walker through a dungeon.

Now i like my dm and he is really cool about things. So this must be a serious thing if he asking me to do this. So i want to comply.

Here is the problem. keen mind sound boring and useless to me. I want to be a charming thief who handles himself well in a fight. I have 20 dex so my ac with mage armor my ac is 13+5=18 when i have blade song active i get a my int mod added to that. So i need to have int maxed out. it's at 19 so i need to either spend the asi on it or get a feat . But what feat?
any spell suggestions?
Frankly, the most simple way would be that your DM allow you to take another feat but tweak the "score bump" part of the feat.
Considering that you said you want to be a charming thief, I'd suggest the Actor feat, but with a bump in INT instead of CHA (which could be justified by the fact you use your great knowledge and analytic intelligence to adapt your behaviour on the fly depending on corporal language).

Another tweaky alternative would be to keep Observant, to drop the "bonus to Perception part" but give instead Expertise in Investigation.

Resilient could technically be adapted but it would bee too much of a gift for you imo.

If your DM does not want any tweak but you still want to access his demand, then the only thing I see is just bumping INT and another stat by 1. This could still be a good choice, for example if you could with this even Constitution with a later Resilient: Constitution feat (which is always good for a caster).

EDIT: Catched back the thread, what are those frigging stats??? Frankly, the DMs digged his own grave with these roll rules. Also, you really should not stay pure Wizard with such golden stats.
(I usually advise to stay pure Wizard because it's a great single class, but there are so many great combos to make with such a godman...)
So your best choice to comply imo is definitely bump +1 INT and +1 CON, then take Resilient Constitution.
Then dip one level of Barbarian so you don't even have to waste Mage Armor anymore, with AC 20.
Or Way of Long Death Monk 3+ to get nearly as good AC (19) and bonus movement along with permanent bonus action attack.
Or...
My god, you could do such an improbable and fluff-wise unexplainable mix of classes with these stats... XD

Bladesinger Wizard 5
Barbarian 1
Devotion Paladin 6 (Fighting Style Mariner if allowed otherwise Dueling)
Shadow Sorcerer 1 if allowed
Undying Light Chain Warlock 3
Long Death Monk 3

You get unarmored AC=20 (Barbarian) +5 (Bladesong), you can use quarterstaff as a wizard focus if you find one, you can either just drop 4 attacks per round consistently with Haste (Paladin Extra Attack + Haste + Monk bonus action) or 3 with Hex, with sure-hit thanks to +5 to attack roll, and you just a load of buffs/debuffs/heal/AOE/single target spells to use with a lvl 9 spellcaster.
You'd be very hard to drop thanks to THP on kill (Monk) and extra save on hp to 0 (Sorcerer), and you get extra CHA on radiant and fire spells (smite spells, fireball, GFB etc). Your familiar can cast invisibility on self and hide while on you (or just above), so you can get magic resistance.
And you get +5 to all saves (Paladin).
And it's reasonable in terms of alignement fluff-wise (because Undying Light)

Or for a terribly offensive build with dual-wield
Wizard 5
Barbarian 1
Oathbreaker Paladin 7
Shadow Sorcerer 1
Fiend Chain Warlock 3
Swashbuckler Rogue 3 OR Hunter Ranger 3

Still same AC and bonus THP, you trade +5 to bonus roll with pre-fight buff for permanent +5 damage on melee weapon attacks.
You also get either +5 to initiative and "mobile feat" effect (Rogue), or Two-Weapon Fighting Style and Horde Breaker (extra attack) along with Longstrider with Ranger.



By the way, I hope your DM also forbids multiclassing, otherwise you could just dip Rogue 1 and get Expertise in Perception then "spam" Perception checks as often as possible. ^^

[JAL_1138]

So wait, you take a feat to be good at doing a certain thing and overcome a specific obstacle and your DM is salty that your overcoming this specific obstacle rains on his parade? How about he actually lets you find traps and feel like your feat is useful? Sounds like your DM doesn't get it...

Imagine how boring an old-school trap-filled dungeon crawl would be if nobody ever had to try to find the traps. Prodding around with a 10ft pole and trying not to die is a fair amount of the fun.

[Vogonjeltz]

So is it more "fun" if you fail to see the traps and get damaged by them?

There are many actually more fun alternatives:

Put traps into combats. That way, passive can't be used, and you'd have to see/think on your feet. Also gives you a lot more memorable fights/shenanigans. That goblin group seems to avoid that patch of ground there, why could that be? Stuff like that.

And/or, make traps into puzzles themselves. When you "notice" them via passive perception, give them a hint of the trap instead of fully revealing it. Then have the player describe their actions to correctly disable it, instead of just making a check.

I agree with Cespenar's sentiment.

Traps punish the unobservant, and noticing a trap leads to the roleplay opportunity to figure out how to bypass/disarm it


Personally I would ban observant because it breaks passive checks. Instead of just using passive checks when I don't want to roll a die, I have to worry about whether the observant guy is better off with a passive check.

That's not how scores work.

Scores are compared by the DM before the player makes any decisions at all and without any player input.

Example from the DMG (pg 103):

"Detecting a Secret Door. Use the characters' passive Wisdom (Perception) scores to determine whether anyone in the party notices a secret door without actively searching for it. Characters can also find a secret door by actively searching a location where the door is hidden and succeeding on a Wisdom (Perception) check. To set an appropriate DC for the check, see chapter 8."

Example 2 from the DMG (pg 120-121):

"A character actively looking for a trap can attempt a Wisdom (Perception) check against the trap's DC. You can also compare the DC to detect the trap with each character's passive Wisdom (Perception) score to determine whether anyone in the party notices the trap in passing."

In any case, for the example traps given in the DMG an observant character would for the most part either notice the trip wire, or a pressure plate and that's it. In some cases (poison needle in a lock) there's no indication at all.

[Night Eternal]

Wait, wait, wait... the DM allows you to have those stats and yet is complaining that he won't be able to challenge you?

I think that ship sailed aeons ago, mate.

Out of curiosity, is he inexperienced? Short of ramping things up to insane levels, he's not going to be able to challenge the group regardless of whether you have high perception or not.

I think he's bitten off more than he can chew to be honest. Messing with system balance that severely causes a huge amount of homework to be done in order to bring things back into the realm of sanity.

He has been doing this for a while and he is actually pretty good at it. Most of the time people dont actually roll this high with the group. My last game following the same rules i had a 16 17 14 18 19. When i got to 4th lvl i uped my dex. Anyway there was a character who was brought in from another game with stats that where almost all 18 with 2 20. And we had a very rough time with enemies.

Some where easy other were not. He likes to through a lot of groups at us. At one point we where fighting 25 enemies at once. Mostly hobgoblins. But there where archers, and i died rolled a nat 20 to get back up to kill the person that killed me.

I find the game challenging and alot of fun. He says there reason we roll like that is to make out characters feel epic. any way i caused a total party kill. As god like as the stats seem they really only give me an edge. I really nice edge but only and edge.

We started the game in a tournament and i fought a barbarian orc who kicked my ass in 3 round. He was another player but damn. He literally rolled a nat 20 and hit for 40 points. his first attack hit for 11. I have 50 health and he wiped me out. And I've seen monster hit really hard. there was a worc that frinkin bit me for 23 points of damage and my frikin ac was 28. i had bladesong on and mage armor, (18+5). then threw up shield. Half my health was gone in the second round of battle. And there was goblin on top of the damn thing that i just finished blocking. This is while the rest of my team is dealing with there own bad guys. I think there was only 4 or 5 mounted goblins. With saying much even with these awesome stats he makes the game challenging and fun.

[Night Eternal]

I should state this clearly. My dm is awesome and does a great job challenging us. He doesn't run focus things only on traps. I don't know why he asking me to change this, cuase he pretty relaxed. He said something about me being able to percieve to much and not wanting to me it to easy for the rest of the party. he would up the trap lvl but the rest of the party wouldn't stand a chance.

But needless to say. I'm not going to take the feat, im just trying to figure out to do in its place for the updated int. My bladesong ac adds my int modifier so i need to have that as high as i can. its also my spell casting modifier and at lvl 14 i get to add it to my weapons damage.

[Night Eternal]

This is the internet - everything is binary. "Perfect" and "Forever Broken don't bother with damage control" are your only options.

I agree with Foxy. DM screwed up with Godmode statting, and doesn't have a handle on how to run findable traps as a challenge. If you want to get the game to work, a little give and take is needed. If you still want to be an obnoxious All Seeing Eye, take Alert. You're trading "seeing all traps" for "seeing all ambushes."

He said that he would up the traps but he doesn't think that would be fun for the other players.

[Night Eternal]

Frankly, the most simple way would be that your DM allow you to take another feat but tweak the "score bump" part of the feat.
Considering that you said you want to be a charming thief, I'd suggest the Actor feat, but with a bump in INT instead of CHA (which could be justified by the fact you use your great knowledge and analytic intelligence to adapt your behaviour on the fly depending on corporal language).

Another tweaky alternative would be to keep Observant, to drop the "bonus to Perception part" but give instead Expertise in Investigation.

Resilient could technically be adapted but it would bee too much of a gift for you imo.

If your DM does not want any tweak but you still want to access his demand, then the only thing I see is just bumping INT and another stat by 1. This could still be a good choice, for example if you could with this even Constitution with a later Resilient: Constitution feat (which is always good for a caster).

EDIT: Catched back the thread, what are those frigging stats??? Frankly, the DMs digged his own grave with these roll rules. Also, you really should not stay pure Wizard with such golden stats.
(I usually advise to stay pure Wizard because it's a great single class, but there are so many great combos to make with such a godman...)
So your best choice to comply imo is definitely bump +1 INT and +1 CON, then take Resilient Constitution.
Then dip one level of Barbarian so you don't even have to waste Mage Armor anymore, with AC 20.
Or Way of Long Death Monk 3+ to get nearly as good AC (19) and bonus movement along with permanent bonus action attack.
Or...
My god, you could do such an improbable and fluff-wise unexplainable mix of classes with these stats... XD

Bladesinger Wizard 5
Barbarian 1
Devotion Paladin 6 (Fighting Style Mariner if allowed otherwise Dueling)
Shadow Sorcerer 1 if allowed
Undying Light Chain Warlock 3
Long Death Monk 3

You get unarmored AC=20 (Barbarian) +5 (Bladesong), you can use quarterstaff as a wizard focus if you find one, you can either just drop 4 attacks per round consistently with Haste (Paladin Extra Attack + Haste + Monk bonus action) or 3 with Hex, with sure-hit thanks to +5 to attack roll, and you just a load of buffs/debuffs/heal/AOE/single target spells to use with a lvl 9 spellcaster.
You'd be very hard to drop thanks to THP on kill (Monk) and extra save on hp to 0 (Sorcerer), and you get extra CHA on radiant and fire spells (smite spells, fireball, GFB etc). Your familiar can cast invisibility on self and hide while on you (or just above), so you can get magic resistance.
And you get +5 to all saves (Paladin).
And it's reasonable in terms of alignement fluff-wise (because Undying Light)

Or for a terribly offensive build with dual-wield
Wizard 5
Barbarian 1
Oathbreaker Paladin 7
Shadow Sorcerer 1
Fiend Chain Warlock 3
Swashbuckler Rogue 3 OR Hunter Ranger 3

Still same AC and bonus THP, you trade +5 to bonus roll with pre-fight buff for permanent +5 damage on melee weapon attacks.
You also get either +5 to initiative and "mobile feat" effect (Rogue), or Two-Weapon Fighting Style and Horde Breaker (extra attack) along with Longstrider with Ranger.



By the way, I hope your DM also forbids multiclassing, otherwise you could just dip Rogue 1 and get Expertise in Perception then "spam" Perception checks as often as possible. ^^

lol He allows multi classing by very grudgingly. He prefers straight classes. I must say with these stats i really have though about just multi classing into rogue or fighter. I'm mostly a melee front line fighter. So when i get to level 6 with haste my ac would be 25 or 30 with shield spell and i would be able to attack 4 times. blade song give the extra attack, hast give me one more melee attack and then i use my bonus action for a second attack since i duel wield. ( even with disadvantage i hit more than not).

If i dip into fighter and get action surge i could attack 7 or 8 times. I not sure if i would get another bonus action with action surge?. And then choosing battlemaster to really mess with them. I would be able to crit at 19. And the maneuver could really piss off my enemies.

I also thought about rogue like you suggested and just steal thing by way through thinks which i already do anyway. Getting sneak attack seems like alot of fun and the proficiency bonus is awesome.

I was thinking about multi classing once i hit lvl 14 because i don't really care about anything a wizard gets after lvl 14. I might hold off for the asi to gain an extra feat but it depends on what id be missing in the other class. 14th lvl is where i get the int mod to my melee attacks.

Feat wise i was thinking about doing the actor like you suggest if he would change it. Then moblie, and blade mastery . Any other suggest you might have?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Just go ahead and get Mobile; your stats don't need any improvement and ASIs are boring anyway.I second getting Mobile ASAP. Then Alert, to mitigate the fact that your DM clearly wants to force surprises on you. Honestly, with that array you pretty much never need ASIs.

[Zorku]

lol He allows multi classing by very grudgingly.

Every thing I hear about this guy upsets me more than the last. Next thing you're gonna tell me is that he gives you both an ability score increase and a feat each level where you get those...

Anyway, I can relate to the problems observant causes. If somebody gets expertise in perception that's the end of any creature ever hiding from them, traps might as well be affected by faerie fire, and all of the secret doors are just doors. (Observant +20 wis = 20 passive perception, before adding proficiency bonus to it, twice.)

On one level there's a case for the player being good at the things they choose to be good at, but a lot of campaigns tie too much to perception for a character to be THAT good at it. It's more of a tradition killer than a complete game breaker, and it gives you incentive to definitely require other skill checks to DO something about what's been perceived, but if the tension of the unknown is an important part of how you DM, then this forces you into a binary decision: give that up, because this player is already a god at perceiving things, or rely more on things that weren't possible to see.

The second option is alright, to some extent, but if you use it as a bandaid for this problem then you've gone and invalidated the character development from choosing the feat.


As for other feats on a skirmisher- I'll second alert, though your DM might hate it for similar reasons. Warcaster gives some useful options to you, and oddly enough magic initiate might be desirable so that you can hex opponents for extra damage.

[Sigreid]

Don't know why this would upset you Zorku. It's just a play style and if the group is having as much fun as it sounds like they are, it's as good a way to play as any.