Starting Feats

[Laserlight]

Giving players a bonus feat at L1 seems to be a common house rule. If you do it, do you limit that in some way --for example, "must be a feat rather than a +2 stat increase", or "must be from a specific subset of feats" --or can they choose whatever they want?

(No comments about "Giving feats at L1 is wrongfun", please)

[nickl_2000]

Giving players a bonus feat at L1 seems to be a common house rule. If you do it, do you limit that in some way --for example, "must be a feat rather than a +2 stat increase", or "must be from a specific subset of feats" --or can they choose whatever they want?

(No comments about "Giving feats at L1 is wrongfun", please)

I've done it once. The ruling on it was that it must be a feat, no +2 stat ASIs.


If I were to do it again, I would probably give a free feat at level one from a specific set of feats (or more likely specific feats removed. E.g. SS, Shield Master, CM, GWM, etc, basically the combat feats). I would do it to give the PCs something to develop their characters more in a non combat perspective.

[Flashy]

I do a free L1 feat (no ASI) for everyone but choose not to allow Vuman. Apart from that, no limitations.

[Aett_Thorn]

Giving players a bonus feat at L1 seems to be a common house rule. If you do it, do you limit that in some way --for example, "must be a feat rather than a +2 stat increase", or "must be from a specific subset of feats" --or can they choose whatever they want?

(No comments about "Giving feats at L1 is wrongfun", please)

I don't think I've ever seen a DM that allows for a free feat that allows players to instead choose an ASI (+2 to a stat) instead. The point is to choose a feat.

I have heard of some of the people on this forum who do limit the feats that can be chosen, however. I think that limiting them to 'flavor' feats might be popular (so Actor is fine, PAM isn't, etc.), but I think that for most, the feat at first level allows for players to realize their characters sooner than they'd otherwise be able to and so everything is on the table.

[hymer]

Giving players a bonus feat at L1 seems to be a common house rule. If you do it, do you limit that in some way --for example, "must be a feat rather than a +2 stat increase", or "must be from a specific subset of feats" --or can they choose whatever they want?

(No comments about "Giving feats at L1 is wrongfun", please)

While I don't give a 'free' feat as such, you can start with a feat at level in my current campaign. I limit it to a specific list of feats, which disinclude Heavy Armor Master (because it's much more powerful at level 1 than level 4), and the -5/+10 feats along with Polearm Master and I think a few others. Those are feats the PCs should earn along the way in my view.


I don't think I've ever seen a DM that allows for a free feat that allows players to instead choose an ASI (+2 to a stat) instead. The point is to choose a feat.

I do something very similar to that. You choose your stats from a list of arrays. You may then reduce the highest number in the array by 2 to gain a feat. In effect, this is choosing between +2 ASI and a feat. But it maintains the starting level of stats well below 20 so there's room for improvement.

[mer.c]

I've let my players pick one at character creation without any real restrictions, other than that it needs to be worked into the PC's backstory. We're all really RP-oriented, so it's worked well for us.

[UrielAwakened]

I think it's a great idea and would do it if I hosted a 5e campaign.

There just isn't enough freedom in character creation.

[JellyPooga]

I think it's a great idea and would do it if I hosted a 5e campaign.

There just isn't enough freedom in character creation.

Not enough freedom :smallconfused:

Between what? Roughly a dozen Races, Classes and Backgrounds, at least 2 sub-classes per Class and 6 choices to be made from each of four categories of traits for each Background. Just by some paper-napkin maths, that's somewhere in the region of 124,000 possible characters, ignoring Ability Score distributions and skill choices, at level 1 alone. That figure goes up significantly as level rises and if you also factor in stylistic choices such as weapons, armour and spells.

...and that's just from the PHB.

[UrielAwakened]

All level 1 characters are basically the same cookie-cutter stuff. You can multiply numbers all you want but a level 1 Fighter that's a human and one that's an orc are not appreciably different.

Adding a free feat gives you tons more freedom in terms of interesting and customized build options.

5e is way too stingy with feats in general. If I ever DM I'm going to let my players take a feat and get an ASI at every level benchmark, and just remove the +1 ASI from feats instead.

[Laserlight]

5e is way too stingy with feats in general. If I ever DM I'm going to let my players take a feat and get an ASI at every level benchmark, and just remove the +1 ASI from feats instead.

Either Kryx or Zman, I believe, has implemented half-feats. For instance, +1 to a stat is a half feat, and the rest of the stuff that went along with the +1 (from, say, Keen Mind, or Linguist) is a half feat. Presumably you can take a half feat every two levels, although I don't recall how they work it with classes such as Fighter that get extra ASIs, or how they split things like Inspiring Leader that don't have a stat boost.

[UrielAwakened]

Either Kryx or Zman, I believe, has implemented half-feats. For instance, +1 to a stat is a half feat, and the rest of the stuff that went along with the +1 (from, say, Keen Mind, or Linguist) is a half feat. Presumably you can take a half feat every two levels, although I don't recall how they work it with classes such as Fighter that get extra ASIs, or how they split things like Inspiring Leader that don't have a stat boost.

Yeah there really should be two classes of feats: Minor and Major.

You should get twice as many minors as majors. I would imagine a minor feat would be anything that gives an ASI of +1.

[JellyPooga]

All level 1 characters are basically the same cookie-cutter stuff. You can multiply numbers all you want but a level 1 Fighter that's a human and one that's an orc are not appreciably different.

Adding a free feat gives you tons more freedom in terms of interesting and customized build options.

5e is way too stingy with feats in general. If I ever DM I'm going to let my players take a feat and get an ASI at every level benchmark, and just remove the +1 ASI from feats instead.

A Human Fighter and an Orc Fighter can be wildly different.

Human Fighter, Outlander Background, Archery Style, Dex and Wisdom focused vs. Orc Fighter, Criminal Background, Great Weapon Style, Str and Con focused. Very different indeed.

[Mikal]

A Human Fighter and an Orc Fighter can be wildly different.

Human Fighter, Outlander Background, Archery Style, Dex and Wisdom focused vs. Orc Fighter, Criminal Background, Great Weapon Style, Str and Con focused. Very different indeed.

Except that the Human can do the same thing the Orc can, and vice versa, which was his point.
Just like you can have two Humans with that loadout, or two Orcs.

The important thing though, is that each one of them will have almost the same stats and styles chosen, if going the same route- i.e. once you pick your path, there's little to no customization and races don't do much to differentiate it.

[UrielAwakened]

Except that the Human can do the same thing the Orc can, and vice versa, which was his point.
Just like you can have two Humans with that loadout, or two Orcs.

The important thing though, is that each one of them will have almost the same stats and styles chosen, if going the same route- i.e. once you pick your path, there's little to no customization and races don't do much to differentiate it.

And more importantly than that, your actual choices in-game are not going to be any different depending on what you pick for your race, or your background, aside from one or two isolated incidents. If you're a Fighter, you're going to play like every other level 1 Fighter.

If you could take Resilience at level 1, maybe your Fighter is more willing to go toe-to-toe with that enchantress than the Orc fighter would be.

Feats give you wildly different decision points than any of these other cookie-cutter class and race selections.

[Laserlight]

Feats give you wildly different decision points than any of these other cookie-cutter class and race selections.

Which is probably why people often hand out feats at 1, but the original question rather assumes that feats of some sort are already happening.

[Scathain]

My players may pick a free feat at level 1.
My personal rule is any feat that does not give a stat bonus is kosher.
Exception: racial feats

I find this gives my players access to feat options they normally wouldn’t, and helps my players fully realize their characters.

The racial feat exception just makes sense to me. If you want to play a stereotypical dwarf, you should start the game dwarfier than other dwarves, if that makes sense.

EDIT: I know this opens the door to GWM/SS shenanigans, but i’ve never had a player try to abuse my system. I guess my players know there’s no real way to game my campaigns without playing by my rules, but then again I’m pretty lucky as far as groups go. I also don’t care about Vumans having an extra EXTRA feat. In fact, I’ve specifically made a human only campaign including this rule, and nothing broke.

[Mith]

What I would do with hosting a homebrew game is give a free racial feat to all but V. Human, and probably limit the feat choices for V.human to not include certain weapon feats.

[Waterdeep Merch]

I've allowed it in every non-AL game I've run. I still allow variant humans for anyone that wants to start the game with two feats. I even allow every UA feat except for the weapon UA feats, and that's more because I don't want anymore essential feat baggage than already exists with GWM and SS.

Though if someone tried to pick an ASI instead, I'd deny that. I said feat, I meant feat.

[JellyPooga]

Except that the Human can do the same thing the Orc can, and vice versa, which was his point.
Just like you can have two Humans with that loadout, or two Orcs.

I beg to differ. The Human in this example has probably dumped Str. The Orc has focused on it. As a result, the Human is wearing lighter armour and isn't using a terribly good melee weapon. Likewise, the Orc has nowhere near the Dex of the Human with everything that entails. They, by no means, are capable of doing the same things, despite being of the same Class.

Now, if you take Race out of the equation, ability scores are still making the characters different most significantly, but Background is still playing its part as is Skill choice, etc. The point is that Race is just one factor that makes a small difference. Background and Skill choice, among other things (including Feats) are other factors. Add up a lot of small factors and you have a significant difference.

Giving Feats at level 1 is just adding another small factor on top of many others.

@OP: sorry, this turned into a bit of a "what's the point?" argument, when you asked not to do that. I didn't mean to! I'm not saying it's badwrongfun, I'm not inclined to prefer either way to be honest; I just question the "lack of variety" argument because there is a ton of variety without including level 1 feats, making them uneccesary IMO if adding them is for the sole purpose of including variety where there is none perceived; to that I say "you're not looking hard enough".

[Laserlight]

@OP: sorry, this turned into a bit of a "what's the point?" argument, when you asked not to do that. I didn't mean to!

I hope you feel terribly, terribly guilty.

In this case, we're all half elves, and the DM is giving us a 6x6 grid from which to choose our stats, so not as much variety as usual.

(Although there will probably still be a significant difference between the LG Divine Soul whose coming was prophesied, and my whatever-I'm-playing who had Weird Stuff happen and is desperately in need of therapy).