Is Elemental Adept really the only feat you can take more than once?

[Greywander]

I always assumed that certain feats could be taken more than once (Magic Initiate and Resilient in particular come to mind), but now I find myself second-guessing. I was reading through the epic boons in the DMG (pages 231-232), and it specifically says, "Unless a boon says otherwise, a character can't gain it more than once." The things is, unless I missed it, none of the boons say anything about taking them more than once. I checked the section on feats in the PHB (page 165), and it says something similar: "You can take each feat only once, unless the feat's description says otherwise." Only one feat (Elemental Adept) actually says anything about taking a feat more than once.

Using common sense, I would think that any feat/epic boon that lets you choose from several options would allow you to take it multiple times. For feats these would be:

Elemental Adept (this feat actually does mention being taken multiple times)
Linguist (but you'd only get 3 languages each time after the first, maybe with the INT boost as well)
Magic Initiate
Martial Adept
Resilient
Ritual Caster
Skilled
Weapon Master

For epic boons it would be:

Boon of Planar Travel (choose a different plane each time)
Boon of Quick Casting
Boon of Spell Mastery

Somehow, I intuitively know that you shouldn't be able to take, say, Mobile more than once, yet I don't see why any of the others listed here couldn't be taken more than once. Is Elemental Adept really the only feat or epic boon that you can take more than once, RAW and RAI?

[Asmotherion]

By RAW yes.

I also believe the RAI intention was this, in order to make those choices more "special". Someone taking "Magic Initiate: Wizard" for example could get a couple of cantrips and a 1st level spell, representing studing a bit of arcane magic for a time, but without the comitment of a full level of Wizard. Anything more than that would need a Wizard Level (Dip) of commitment.

The same holds true for the Mobile feat and Monks, the Skilled feat and Rogues/Bards, Weapon Master and Martial Classes, Martial Adept and the Battle Master etc.

RAF I think a DM can allow this without really affecting game balance a lot, as it does take the investment of an extra feat. It's just there for thematic reasons mostly*.

*Perhaps indirectly implying that the training worth of something between twice and 3 times a magic innitiate feat is worth that of a level in a full caster class? Just an afterthought/evaluation.

[Thrasher92]

There are plenty of feats I would want to take more than once that wouldn't be game breaking.

I think a fighter would want to take Martial Adept a couple times to get more combat superiority dice and some more maneuvers.

Some of the feats that shouldn't be allowed to be taken twice would be mobile and tough. If you took those too many times then you would either be getting a TON of movement every round or have an insane amount of hit points for your level.

If I was the DM I would certainly allow players to take feats more than once, with exceptions.

[Oramac]

By RAW, you're correct. Only Elemental Adept can be taken more than once.

That being said, I'd have no problem allowing my players to take those other feats more than once as well. They are giving up an ASI for it, after all.

[MrStabby]

Yeah, I wouldn't allow things like resilient, mobile or tough to be taken multiple times. Skilled? Sure. Linguist? Fine.

[brainface]

I'm going to take something of an opposing stance: taking weapon master or linguist multiple times is... bad. It's a bad choice. At some point I'd just tell the player that sure, they know a lot of languages, now increase your stats already. How many martial weapons do you want to know how to use as a mage? How many hands do you think you have? Increase your smarts magic guy!

Magic Initiate and ritual caster I could almost see, but most feel like a waste of a feat or stat points for flavor reasons, and I don't like the idea of someone having to sacrifice mechanics to look cool. Like if someone wants to focus all in on being language guy, at some point they need just some houseruled comprehend languages/tongues ability.

[MrStabby]

I'm going to take something of an opposing stance: taking weapon master or linguist multiple times is... bad. It's a bad choice. At some point I'd just tell the player that sure, they know a lot of languages, now increase your stats already. How many martial weapons do you want to know how to use as a mage? How many hands do you think you have? Increase your smarts magic guy!

Magic Initiate and ritual caster I could almost see, but most feel like a waste of a feat or stat points for flavor reasons, and I don't like the idea of someone having to sacrifice mechanics to look cool. Like if someone wants to focus all in on being language guy, at some point they need just some houseruled comprehend languages/tongues ability.

Or the ritual caster feat.

In my games I tend to have some language specific spells you can learn if you speak the language so there is often more of a mechanical impact.

[Greywander]

I'm going to take something of an opposing stance: taking weapon master or linguist multiple times is... bad. It's a bad choice. At some point I'd just tell the player that sure, they know a lot of languages, now increase your stats already. How many martial weapons do you want to know how to use as a mage? How many hands do you think you have? Increase your smarts magic guy!

Magic Initiate and ritual caster I could almost see, but most feel like a waste of a feat or stat points for flavor reasons, and I don't like the idea of someone having to sacrifice mechanics to look cool. Like if someone wants to focus all in on being language guy, at some point they need just some houseruled comprehend languages/tongues ability.
Thing is, this isn't an argument over whether or not it should be allowed, but whether or not you should actually do it. And in most cases maybe you shouldn't do it. But it's nice to have more options. Maybe I need spells/cantrips from two different classes, so I need to take Magic Initiate twice (or multiclass).

But in any case this argument becomes virtually moot once you reach 20th level. By RAW (possibly variant, but eh), you get an epic boon every 30k XP, and can spend the boon on a feat or ASI (and ASIs can boost ability scores up to 30 now) instead of an epic boon. So it becomes not a question of if you should double dip a feat or epic boon, but when you should double dip a feat or epic boon. Most campaigns never reach 20th level, and those that do usually don't last much longer. But if you had a sustained campaign that continued well past 20th level then you're not really restricted on the number of feats or boons you can get, and you can still boost all ability scores to 30, to boot.

Which brings us back to the original question: should taking certain feats or epic boons multiple times be allowed or not? I'm of the opinion that, yes, more options is better, and in any case taking a feat/boon multiple times always has diminishing returns since you'll always pick the best choices first. Generally the first time a wizard picks up Resilient, it will be for CON proficiency. They might take Resilient again later, but proficiency in CON saves was the one they wanted the most, so taking the same feat twice will always provide less value the second time. But sometimes that still provides more value than the other options available to them. From a balance perspective, I don't see a reason not to allow this.

I do agree that some feats/boons shouldn't be allowed to be taken more than once. Mobile, Toughness, Boon of Fortitude, and Boon of High Magic are obvious. Likewise, I would assume any feat or boon that causes an effect once per short or long rest could also not be taken multiple times, i.e. you can't get 2 per long rest or 3 per long rest (although this might be an interesting option to explore).

[TheUser]

When you consider wildshape allows you to retain feats that apply narratively then taking multiple feats repeatedly is suuper jenky. For instance, Jeremy Crawford will insist that Toughness should not apply in Wildshape but Mike Mearls insists that the rule around wildshape using feats and features is done in the spirit of permissiveness (additionally the order of operations would dictate that after you gain the statistics of the beast form you apply your feats and features). So imagine taking the Tough Feat over and over again. By level 12 as a human Variant you are gaining 8hp per level meaning each time you wildshape you gain +96 HP. Mobilty could provide the same issues (+40 movespeed on a beast that already has a fly speed of 60ft....). Stacking Heavy Armor Master would be fantastic too; minus 12 to all damage taken and +4 strength? Yes please.

[Naanomi]

So... Variant Human Champion 20, 16 CON, takes Tough 8X.... average 524 HP? Auto-regen from Champion up to 262 after every fight?

[KorvinStarmast]

So... Variant Human Champion 20, 16 CON, takes Tough 8X.... average 524 HP? Auto-regen from Champion up to 262 after every fight?
Why not? Tanking is a very old archetype for a Fighter. :smallbiggrin:

[MxKit]

Yeah, I basically houserule that any feat that would stack, you can't take more than once. Any feat where you can choose something different, you can.

So yeah, most of the feats wouldn't be possible to take twice with this rule. I basically agree with your list, and I'd do it this way:


Elemental Adept, quoting exactly from the book, "You can select this feat multiple times. Each time you do so, you must choose a different damage type."
Linguist, adding to what the book says, "You can select this feat multiple times. Each time you do so, you increase your Intelligence by 1, to a maximum of 20, and you must select three different languages. The DC of your ciphers does not increase or stack."
Magic Initiate, adding to what the book says, "You can select this feat multiple times. Each time you do so, you must choose a different class's spell list to learn your spells from."
Martial adept, adding to what the book says, "You can select this feat up to three times. Each time you do so, you must choose two different maneuvers from the Battle Master archetype, and you gain one 6d superiority die. Your saving throws and the power of your superiority die do not increase." OR "Each time you do so after the first, you must choose two different maneuvers from the Battle Master archetype, and your superiority die increases (first to d10, then to d12). Your saving throw does not increase, and you cannot gain more than one superiority die using this feat."
Resilient, adding to what the book says, "You can select this feat multiple times. Each time you do so, you must choose a different ability score."
Ritual Caster, adding to what the book says, "You can select this feat multiple times. Each time you do so, you must choose a different class's spell list to learn your spells from. The spells you choose are added to the ritual book you already own. The power of your spells does not stack, and the amount of time and gold to copy a spell into your ritual book does not decrease."
Skilled, adding to what the book says, "You can select this feat multiple times. Each time you do so, you must select three different skills or tools. You cannot double your proficiency in any skill using this feat."
Weapon Master, adding to what the book says, "You can select this feat multiple times. Each time you do so, you increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20, and you must select four different simple or martial weapons. You cannot double your proficiency with any weapon using this feat."