Feats and would you buff or nerf some of them

[JohnDaBarr]

It is a often asked question because some feats are obviously to much while others virtually never get used, so I would like to know what does this forum think? Not looking for perfect balance just for possible suggestions to implement in home games.

IMO Medium Armor Master should get an increase in Dex score by 1 and Skilled should get an increase in any score by 1, while Lucky should be just one reroll per short rest.

Funny enough Lucky is banned everywhere I go and I do wonder why :D

[JNAProductions]

PAM should not be able to combined with GWM.

GWM and Sharpshooter should be once per turn, -Prof/+2*Prof, or both.

Skilled should have an option to trade two proficiencies for Expertise.

[Rebonack]

The various Power Attack feat effects should be a special weapon proficiency for classes that get Extra Attack that lets you drop your Prof bonus ToHit in exchange for ProfX2 damage. Then either add some new feature to GWM and SS or make them half-feats. The bonus attack on PAM should be some other tactically interesting thing to use your bonus action for that isn't an attack. I'm partial to stuff that would make the user better at zone-control like 'increase your reach by 5 feet and enemies treat the area inside your reach as difficult terrain'.

[Hrugner]

No, not really. I'd rule more flexibly in favor of the narrative focused feats, but that's about it.

[lunaticfringe]

Buff a few maybe, like Medium Armor Master, nerf none. If SS & GWM are ruining your plans, make better plans. The player is spending a limited resource for a trick or gimmick, let them have fun with it.

Also nerfing combat feats makes even more players go the "Spells are the End All, Every character I make needs Spells or I'm useless" route. Which I'm bored of seeing if I'm being honest.

[Zman]

Heck out my tweaks located in my signature, I've tweaked lots of feats, added some more, and tweaked the UA racial feats as well. Should give you a decent resource for the creation of your own list, but given your take on lucky and skilled we might be starting in. Similar place.

[Talionis]

Buff a few maybe, like Medium Armor Master, nerf none. If SS & GWM are ruining your plans, make better plans. The player is spending a limited resource for a trick or gimmick, let them have fun with it.

Also nerfing combat feats makes even more players go the "Spells are the End All, Every character I make needs Spells or I'm useless" route. Which I'm bored of seeing if I'm being honest.
I mostly agree with this. Some feats will be better than others. In general, i would like to see more powerful feats made do we get more choices. So I hope more feats are printed to allow more weapons to shine.

If anyone were to nerf feats my suggestion would be to put level requirements on certain feats. So they function like Warlock invocations and can not be taken til a certain character level.

[Malifice]

I make SS and GWM useable only 1/turn.

Sharpshooter reduces cover by one step (half becomes none and 3/4 becomes half). Same deal with spell sniper.

Archery F/S doesnt give +2 to hit. It allows a single shot to be taken as a reaction to a hostile creatures turn starting on round 1 (assures an opening volley).

Martial Adept grants 2 dice (I like superiority dice) not 1.

A few other minor tweaks here and there. New feats added (Weapon specialisation).

Most + damage class features also get nerfed to 1/turn (sneak attack RAW, plus superiority dice and paladin smites).

Long rests no longer auto heal. You get back 1/2 HD and can spend as many as you want. You only get back 1 slot of levels 1-5 plus 1 slot/arcanum of 6th+. Short rests are 5 minutes long (but not more than 1 every 4 hours) and let you spend up to 1/2 HD to heal.

All found here (http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/B1ufjiBCl).

[Jerrykhor]

When people ask me which feat deserves a buff, my top choice is always Keen Mind.

[Specter]

Skilled is fine. I've used it to great results (e.g. being the guy with all the cool skills).

What is absolute garbage: Charger and Grappler.

Charger should give you +10 to damage, or at least trigger the danage whenever you move closer, a la Pounce.

Grappler would be good if you could restrain spellcasters without an extra action, or if you at least got +1 to STR, or if life was bad for grappled folk, but it isn't.

[Kane0]

Savage Attacker and Weapon Master also need work.

[JBPuffin]

Buff a few maybe, like Medium Armor Master, nerf none. If SS & GWM are ruining your plans, make better plans. The player is spending a limited resource for a trick or gimmick, let them have fun with it.

Also nerfing combat feats makes even more players go the "Spells are the End All, Every character I make needs Spells or I'm useless" route. Which I'm bored of seeing if I'm being honest.

Agree with the second part. Is "mass murdering with any form of ranged weapon" considered a gimmick, though?

[lunaticfringe]

Agree with the second part. Is "mass murdering with any form of ranged weapon" considered a gimmick, though?

The last line of the first paragraph is more about Feats in General, not specifically SS or GWM. I suppose I shoulda broken it into it's own little separate line, but **** It, interwebs forum.

[Foxhound438]

The various Power Attack feat effects should be a special weapon proficiency for classes that get Extra Attack that lets you drop your Prof bonus ToHit in exchange for ProfX2 damage. Then either add some new feature to GWM and SS or make them half-feats. The bonus attack on PAM should be some other tactically interesting thing to use your bonus action for that isn't an attack. I'm partial to stuff that would make the user better at zone-control like 'increase your reach by 5 feet and enemies treat the area inside your reach as difficult terrain'.

I feel like a shove is more appropriate as a BA with a polearm, more than anything else because it can be used to knock cavalry off their mount. It's basically what halberds were used for IRL, while in DnD for some reason shields are the thing that do that? awkward.

But in general I would take the route of buffing feats to compete with the better ones, like making shield master give the bonus to dex saves against all damaging effects, rather than just ones that "target only you", so fireball and such. Make 2wf get more attacks later on with the feat, like 2 attacks as a bonus action at level 11. That would be maybe more powerful on some classes than others (ranger getting more chances to get hunter's mark damage), but without power attack 2wf would otherwise never compete in damage.

[JohnDaBarr]

I don't get all the hate dmg buffing feats get... I mean players need to have a way to deal with low AC high HP threats.

And mostly this isn't a problem for feat balance but when people get access to all the variant rules options. Allow feats, multiclassing, magic items and variant rules and then start to wonder why bonded accuracy is having problems... :smallamused:

[Galactkaktus]

I wouldn't nerf anything the result would only be longer fights and there are other things i would like to spend that time on than fights.