Homebrew Feat - Natural Weapons Master, looking for feedback/balance

[griffinguy24]

Hey folks, recently I've been playing some 5e (Mostly as Moon Druids) and wanted to try and come up with some new feats. I've come up with one, but I'm not sure if it's balanced or indeed very useful. It is as follows...

Natural Weapon Master
Prerequisite: Natural weapons
You have trained to use your natural weapons with deadly accuracy. You gain the following benefits:

Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20
You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes when using a natural weapon
When you hit with an attack using a natural weapon, you can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice an additional time and add it as extra damage of the weapon’s damage type. Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.


This is primarily usable by races that have natural weapons (aarakocra, lizardfolk, tabaxi, tortle) or that can have natural weapons via other feats (dragonborn with Dragon Hide, orcs with Tanarukk Blood). It might also be useful for Druids in wildshape or anyone using a polymorph spell, though I'm not sure whether it's balanced or not.

Basically, is this broken? And if not, is it useful?

[Angelalex242]

Monks might want it for their unarmed strikes, which count as natural weapons (Cause hey, it's your fist.)

[griffinguy24]

I suppose? The idea of monks taking this feat seems odd to me since one of the benefits is literally taken from the monk's most basic characteristics. Getting an extra damage die is good, yes, but is that enough to justify this feat over another, or a +2 to an attribute?

The only way I could see this being useful for a monk is if you were a monk from a species with a natural weapon and your DM told you that your bite or claw attack couldn't be used for martial arts, and you took this feat to, essentially, make your attack into a monk's weapon.

[Jakinbandw]

Gives a stat increase and adds 5.5 average damage to attacks that a 17th level monk make without an accuracy penalty. That puts it flat out better than great weapon master.

I rate this as overpowered on monks. I don't know what types of damage other natural weapons do, but even an extra d6 is a pretty big boost.

[KeilFX]

I rate this as overpowered on monks. I don't know what types of damage other natural weapons do, but even an extra d6 is a pretty big boost.

Ooooooooh yeah, this would be ridiculous on a Monk. A lvl4 Monk would pick this every time, dealing 2d4+Dex, then suddenly they level up and are dealing Greatsword levels of damage -- with extra attack, and bonus action flurry of blows /or/ martial arts attack. That's 6d6+(DEX × 3) every turn without any ki points. And the dice scales up from there? That's action surge levels of power.

I'd change it so it's just a flat +1d4 or +1d6. And maybe even take off the +1 to Str/Dex. Otherwise, my inner Tabaxi Monk loves this~~

[Lunali]

Oddly enough, you may want to remove the restriction requiring natural weapons as it means most druids can't take it.

[Daghoulish]

Ooooooooh yeah, this would be ridiculous on a Monk. A lvl4 Monk would pick this every time, dealing 2d4+Dex, then suddenly they level up and are dealing Greatsword levels of damage -- with extra attack, and bonus action flurry of blows /or/ martial arts attack. That's 6d6+(DEX × 3) every turn without any ki points. And the dice scales up from there? That's action surge levels of power.

I'd change it so it's just a flat +1d4 or +1d6. And maybe even take off the +1 to Str/Dex. Otherwise, my inner Tabaxi Monk loves this~~

Are you talking about this?



When you hit with an attack using a natural weapon, you can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice an additional time and add it as extra damage of the weapon’s damage type. Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Something you can only do once per short or long rest? It doesn't seem anywhere near as strong as GWM or SS when you can use those anytime and without limit.

[KeilFX]

Something you can only do once per short or long rest? It doesn't seem anywhere near as strong as GWM or SS when you can use those anytime and without limit.

Ah, well then yeah that definitely changes things. This is pretty underpowered, and I'd sooner turn this into a racial bonus trait, or make a feat that just adds a +1d4 / 1d6 to unarmed strikes of animalistic PC races. Only one per long rest is underwhelming for a feat.

[Lunali]

Could make it a bonus action to activate the damage bonus for a round and remove the rest restriction.

[KeilFX]

Could make it a bonus action to activate the damage bonus for a round and remove the rest restriction.

Or make it a 1 minute effect?

[griffinguy24]

Thanks for the feedback, everybody. This gives me a better sense of how the feat plays out. I basically mashed together an aspect of the monk's Martial Arts with one of the benefits of Orcish Fury (the half-orc Xanathar racial feat).

So, it seems this is underpowered. When I was trying to determine how to enhance the attack, I was worried about being OP and went too far in the other direction, it seems.

I initially thought of straight-up upgrading the damage dice, either by going up one step (d4 to d6, d6 to d8, etc), or adding an additional die to all damage rolls, but those seemed too much, especially for monks and druids...

Another thought which may be too much is granting Expertise to your rolls with natural weapons.


Oddly enough, you may want to remove the restriction requiring natural weapons as it means most druids can't take it

I was initially unsure about whether this would be OP for druids or not, thus debating whether or not to include them. I went through the animal stats with a fine-toothed comb and realized very few have more Dexterity than Strength. I'd probably specify that this is usable if you have natural weapons by your race or if you get it through magic (so, if you cast polymorph, you can use it).

[Amdy_vill]

Hey folks, recently I've been playing some 5e (Mostly as Moon Druids) and wanted to try and come up with some new feats. I've come up with one, but I'm not sure if it's balanced or indeed very useful. It is as follows...

Natural Weapon Master
Prerequisite: Natural weapons
You have trained to use your natural weapons with deadly accuracy. You gain the following benefits:

Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20
You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes when using a natural weapon
When you hit with an attack using a natural weapon, you can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice an additional time and add it as extra damage of the weapon’s damage type. Once you use this ability, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.


This is primarily usable by races that have natural weapons (aarakocra, lizardfolk, tabaxi, tortle) or that can have natural weapons via other feats (dragonborn with Dragon Hide, orcs with Tanarukk Blood). It might also be useful for Druids in wildshape or anyone using a polymorph spell, though I'm not sure whether it's balanced or not.

Basically, is this broken? And if not, is it useful?

i like it.

[griffinguy24]

All right, I think I have a possible fix to make this feat more useful without being terribly broken. Here we go...

Natural Weapon Master
Prerequisite: Natural weapon attacks (through race, feat, class feature, spell, or magic item)

Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20
You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your unarmed strikes when using a natural weapon
When in combat, other creatures provoke an opportunity attack with your natural weapons from you when they enter your reach


So, I traded a benefit from Orcish Fury to a benefit from Polearm Master. Some points of clarification to the last point, in case the wording is weird...

When someone enters your reach, they provoke an opportunity attack, but that attack must be with a natural weapon. This opportunity attack can only be made if that weapon is available to use. Bite attacks, this usually isn't a problem. Claw attacks require an open hand, so if you have a sword in one hand and the other is open, you're fine, but dual-wielding/two-handed weapons/sword and board, it won't work. Kicking with claws might be allowable, but as always, ask your DM.

I'm willing to let DMs decide whether or not monk martial arts count for this feat, but I'd personally say yes. I would also say that monks with natural weapons can use Dexterity for their natural weapon attacks without requiring this feat, but that too is up for DMs to decide.

In any case, I've also tried to explicitly state that any character that has access to natural weapon attacks qualifies for this feat. Tabaxi? You qualify. Dragonborn that took Dragon Hide and its retractable claws? You qualify. Elven druid? Qualifies. Wizard who casts polymorph a lot? Qualifies. Hit with a case of lycanthropy? Qualifies. Got some kind of magic item that gives you claws? As long as you still have it, you qualify.