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Corvidae
2018-07-12, 07:40 PM
Hi everyone! Just joined today, and a relative novice in dnd. Was hoping to get some feedback from you guys about a few Homebrew feats I have, bits and pieces I picked up from other homebrew campaigns.


For lore reasons a character can only pick one from this list, their "profession" in a way. So I'd like them to be pretty decently balanced so that people won't all just pick the same one? Here's the eleven!


Would appreciate any comments or suggestions on how to balance.


Unlock Feat "Explorer": Increase your Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20. Luck seems to smile at you, you may re-roll a skill check or save, you must take a long rest before using this skill again. Your instincts of discovery are well honed, you can precisely recall the exact route you've travelled over the past three weeks.


Unlock Feat "Guardian": Increase your Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20. You have a keen eye when it comes to safety. You and your companions can travel at a normal speed through crowds. When you enter combat your body instantly responds releasing a heavy dose of adrenaline into your system. After rolling your Initiative roll, you gain temporary hit points equal to 10 + your Constitution modifier.


Unlock Feat "Incredible Inventor": Your knack for creation has lead to you creating companion constructs. You may choose any beast with a challenge rating of 2 or less. The companion uses that beast's statistics, but are considered constructs. They don’t need to eat or breath, they are immune to poisoned/charmed/exhaustion and are immune to poison damage. The companion obeys your orders to the best of its ability. In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own. Over the course of a long rest, you can repair a slain construct with 5gp if you have access to its body. It returns to life with 1 hit point at the end of the rest. If the construct is beyond recovery, you may build a new one over the course of a week (8 hours each day) using 500gp of materials.


Unlock Feat "Keen Eye": You gain proficiency in History or Investigation. If you are already proficient in it, you gain expertise and double your proficiency bonus on that skill. You can cast the spell Identify at will, but only on items. Your skills in trade means you can usually find better prices for buying or selling items and services.


Unlock Feat "Fearless Warrior": You have Advantage on saving rolls against Fear effects. Whenever a creature makes an attack roll against you with a melee attack, you have Advantage on attack rolls against this creature on your next turn.


Unlock Feat "Fiery Temper": You gain an additional +2 on attack rolls with weapons or spells that deal fire damage. For any Attack you make unarmed or with a non-magical piercing, slashing, or bludgeoning weapon, you may choose to deal fire damage with it instead. The bonus to attack roll does not apply to any weapon modified in this way.


Unlock Feat "Knowledgeable": You are learned in all subjects, having mastered the very art of learning. Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20. Choose a skill you are proficient in, you gain expertise in that skill, doubling your proficiency bonus. Additionally, when you make a roll for any skill or ability check, you may choose to add your Intelligence modifier to that roll. You may only do this once per long rest.


Unlock Feat "Bounty of the Water": You gain the spell Water Breathing if you do not already have it. You may cast it at will without expending a spell slot, in which case the spell affects only yourself. Additionally, any healing spells you cast is far more effective. Whenever you use a spell to restore hit points, you may choose another target within range (including yourself), this target will recieve half the spell's recovery effects (rounded up). If they were already targeted by the spell, they gain 1.5x the amount of hit points instead.


Unlock Feat "Scent of the Wild Lands": You gain proficiency in using the Poisoner's kit. While in forested terrain, you may ignore any disadvantage applied to your rolls. Additionally, you may cast the spell Plant Growth once per long rest without expending a spell slot.


Unlock Feat "Shadow Training": You have trained in the ways of Yaksha and you can become with the shadow. You are permanently under a spell of Nondetection. You may dismiss this effect for a duration by maintaining concentration. You may cast Disguise Self or Silent Image once per long rest without using up a spell slot.


Unlock Feat "Magical Teachings": (Requirement: Must have at least 2 levels in a spellcaster class) You gain one extra spell slot with level equal to half your total spellcaster levels rounded down (An extra 4th level slot at 8 spellcaster levels, 9th level slot at 19 spellcaster levels etc.).

demonslayerelf
2018-07-12, 10:18 PM
So, these are stupidly unbalanced.
In order:

Explorer is an immediate downgrade from Keen Mind. There's no system for the first half(The " you can almost always find your way to a point of interest when traversing natural environments, such as sources of water or unusual disturbances.") meaning it does nothing. There's no survival or intelligence or wisdom or ANYTHING checks, and "Point of interest" is never actually defined. The whole line becomes flavour text. The second half is a weaker version of Keen Mind, which while useful, is also a relatively weak feat on it's own.

Guardian actually does nothing for anybody with a city-dwelling background(Especially Criminal or Urchin). Other than walking through crowds at a normal speed... I mean, that almost never happens(I've only seen it happen once in all my time of playing AND watching Critical Role, and it happened on Critical Role). Spotting slums and gang spots should probably come to an "Urban Application" of survival, or something similar.

Incredible Inventor basically gives a slightly better version of a 1st level spell. For an entire feat. Real-talk here, Magic Initiate is garbage, and this is basically a worse version of Magic Initiate. If you wanna use this flavour, look into the Clockworks in Mordenkainen's book, and other little constructs.

Keen Eye turns you into a tool kit. This is basically a thing that turns the character into a Jeweler/Painter/Smith critic. Not even a painter/jeweler/whatever, just a critic of them. For an entire feat. And again, there's no roll or anything involved here, and "Interesting" is never made clear. Could you tell something is magical? Cursed? Could you tell that a sword is actually not a longsword, but a one-handed broadsword? That's kinda interesting.

Fearless Warrior combines something analogous to a barbarian's Reckless Attack, only it's better, the Champion Capstone ability, and gives advantage on effects which frighten you. Holy hell is it too much. Especially compared to "Walks through crowds and sees ghettos" or whatever. Like, this one needs a full revamp, every single element is too much for a feat. You actually changed this mid-post...
Fearless Warrior actually isn't bad now. Advantage on all your attacks against one creature, but only after they attack you... Watch it, but I don't think it's too much.

Welcome Company is basically a background... I think it was folk-hero? Along with some minor info-dumping on the DM's part, which you could easily get with a Perception check. And again, you DON'T LIST ANY ROLLS OR EXAMPLES. Really starting to irk me here.

Knowledgeable is a slightly altered Prodigy, from Xanathar's guide. Prodigy gives a language, a skill, a tool, AND an expertise. This gives a skill or an expertise, and comprehend languages one/day, but it's also a half-feat. Seems weak, but that's why it's a half-feat, I guess.

Bounty of Water is stupid. Cleanly doubles all of your healing, and basically makes you Amphibious. It's not so much that it's broken, but it's just... No and why? You could theoretically restore 1400 hit points to a single creature with this and a 9th level spell. It's basically a permanent Twinned Metamagic on all of your healing spells. No and why.

Scent of the Wild; "Basic survival"; "Cast a 3rd level spell once/day" Ignoring that... I actually don't see many problems here. Plant Growth is a good spell, but it's certainly not game-breaking. You might consider what it does to the lore, though. If every farmer takes this feat, they basically double(Or more) their crop yield, and that's gonna do a lot in the long run.

Shadow Training; Invisibility or Disguise Self once/day. Invisibility every time. Well, almost every time, at least. Might change it to be a worse spell, comparable with Disguise Self. Like... Magic Aura, maybe? I dunno.

Magical Teachings No. This is a second Wish every day, and LITERALLY A GODLY BOON. Cap it at some point, probably 5th or 6th level.

Corvidae
2018-07-12, 10:51 PM
Thanks for replying, and I know they're unbalanced, it's why i made an account here to ask for help on them aha xP

Ty for the feedback, i'll make some adjustments to them :)

Crisis21
2018-07-13, 12:11 AM
General guidelines for Feats:

Try to stay away from 'roleplaying' or vague effect features. That's the kind of thing that is more suited to a Background feature. Try to be specific as to what the Feat allows the character to do and/or how it affects certain actions.

Don't have a Feat 'allow' or 'grant' an action that a character could feasibly do anyway without it.

Balance your Feat against an ASI (+1 to two different ability scores or +2 to one ability score), because that's what Feats generally take the place of in 5e. If your Feat is granting +1 to an ability score, the rest should be roughly equivalent to +1 to an ability score in terms of how valuable it is to the player.

Try not to create a Feat that too closely resembles an existing Feat released by WotC. For example, they've already released a set of Feats that grants proficiency/expertise for every current skill and a few tools (Thieves' Tools, Alchemist Supplies, Cooking Utensils, and Disguise Kit).

Be careful about handing out spells. Two cantrips and one extra first level spell slot per long rest may be considered lackluster, but I personally wouldn't hand out anything over second level this way.


Since you're trying to make these 'profession' Feats, may I suggest looking into some of the other Tools that 5e uses? For example, your Explorer Feat could make use of Navigator's Tools and perhaps grant the ability to read any map regardless of language or origin.


Tools so far not used in any Feat released by WotC: 15 different Artisan Tools, Navigator's Tools, Forgery Kit, Herbalism Kit, Poisoner's Kit, Vehicles (Land or Water), four different Gaming Sets, and no less than 10 different musical instruments.

Corvidae
2018-07-13, 12:20 AM
So, these are stupidly unbalanced.
In order:

Explorer is an immediate downgrade from Keen Mind. There's no system for the first half(The " you can almost always find your way to a point of interest when traversing natural environments, such as sources of water or unusual disturbances.") meaning it does nothing. There's no survival or intelligence or wisdom or ANYTHING checks, and "Point of interest" is never actually defined. The whole line becomes flavour text. The second half is a weaker version of Keen Mind, which while useful, is also a relatively weak feat on it's own.

Guardian actually does nothing for anybody with a city-dwelling background(Especially Criminal or Urchin). Other than walking through crowds at a normal speed... I mean, that almost never happens(I've only seen it happen once in all my time of playing AND watching Critical Role, and it happened on Critical Role). Spotting slums and gang spots should probably come to an "Urban Application" of survival, or something similar.

Incredible Inventor basically gives a slightly better version of a 1st level spell. For an entire feat. Real-talk here, Magic Initiate is garbage, and this is basically a worse version of Magic Initiate. If you wanna use this flavour, look into the Clockworks in Mordenkainen's book, and other little constructs.

Keen Eye turns you into a tool kit. This is basically a thing that turns the character into a Jeweler/Painter/Smith critic. Not even a painter/jeweler/whatever, just a critic of them. For an entire feat. And again, there's no roll or anything involved here, and "Interesting" is never made clear. Could you tell something is magical? Cursed? Could you tell that a sword is actually not a longsword, but a one-handed broadsword? That's kinda interesting.

Fearless Warrior combines something analogous to a barbarian's Reckless Attack, only it's better, the Champion Capstone ability, and gives advantage on effects which frighten you. Holy hell is it too much. Especially compared to "Walks through crowds and sees ghettos" or whatever. Like, this one needs a full revamp, every single element is too much for a feat. You actually changed this mid-post...
Fearless Warrior actually isn't bad now. Advantage on all your attacks against one creature, but only after they attack you... Watch it, but I don't think it's too much.

Welcome Company is basically a background... I think it was folk-hero? Along with some minor info-dumping on the DM's part, which you could easily get with a Perception check. And again, you DON'T LIST ANY ROLLS OR EXAMPLES. Really starting to irk me here.

Knowledgeable is a slightly altered Prodigy, from Xanathar's guide. Prodigy gives a language, a skill, a tool, AND an expertise. This gives a skill or an expertise, and comprehend languages one/day, but it's also a half-feat. Seems weak, but that's why it's a half-feat, I guess.

Bounty of Water is stupid. Cleanly doubles all of your healing, and basically makes you Amphibious. It's not so much that it's broken, but it's just... No and why? You could theoretically restore 1400 hit points to a single creature with this and a 9th level spell. It's basically a permanent Twinned Metamagic on all of your healing spells. No and why.

Scent of the Wild; "Basic survival"; "Cast a 3rd level spell once/day" Ignoring that... I actually don't see many problems here. Plant Growth is a good spell, but it's certainly not game-breaking. You might consider what it does to the lore, though. If every farmer takes this feat, they basically double(Or more) their crop yield, and that's gonna do a lot in the long run.

Shadow Training; Invisibility or Disguise Self once/day. Invisibility every time. Well, almost every time, at least. Might change it to be a worse spell, comparable with Disguise Self. Like... Magic Aura, maybe? I dunno.

Magical Teachings No. This is a second Wish every day, and LITERALLY A GODLY BOON. Cap it at some point, probably 5th or 6th level.

I've made some adjustments based on your comments. Bounty of Water is just for the water guys lulz xD And uh, still thinking over Magical Teachings. But take another look at the first post when you get a chance? :)

Thanks~

Composer99
2018-07-13, 09:43 PM
Hi everyone! Just joined today, and a relative novice in dnd. Was hoping to get some feedback from you guys about a few Homebrew feats I have, bits and pieces I picked up from other homebrew campaigns.


For lore reasons a character can only pick one from this list, their "profession" in a way. So I'd like them to be pretty decently balanced so that people won't all just pick the same one? Here's the eleven!


Would appreciate any comments or suggestions on how to balance.

What does the "Unlock Feat" part of each feat's name mean?

General suggestions:
- Place all the "fluff"/non-mechanical descriptions first (ideally very concise), then make a bullet-point list of the feat's game-mechanical benefits. It's distracting having descriptive text sprinkled throughout the feat description, and potentially leads to ambiguities.
- When revising the feats, thoroughly review the PHB and Xanathar's feats and try to match them overall for power level and flexibility. The official feats aren't all balanced themselves, but your feats will be better if they're a closer match to existing content. Conveniently, you can see them (along with the Unearthed Arcana feats) here (http://engl393-dnd5th.wikia.com/wiki/Feats).

On to the individual feats.


Unlock Feat "Explorer": Increase your Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20. Luck seems to smile at you, you may re-roll a skill check or save, you must take a long rest before using this skill again. Your instincts of discovery are well honed, you can precisely recall the exact route you've travelled over the past three weeks.


The Charisma modifier is not thematic for a feat named "explorer". Since Intelligence and Wisdom are tied to skill proficiencies that actually help you explore, adding 1 to either of those abilities (your choice) seems more appropriate.
I know it's mechanically distinct from the Lucky feat, but the re-roll part of the feat just seems like it's stepping a bit on the Lucky feat's niche. I suppose it makes sense for an explorer to need some luck to get by, but it just doesn't feel as thematic for a feat about being an explorer as it could.
"You can precisely recall the exact route you've trave[l]ed over the past three weeks" is IMO just not the kind of benefit feats hand out. It's more like a feature from a background.
Overall, to be honest, it feels like the Unearthed Arcana Survivalist feat does the job this feat is meant to to in a more thematic and effective way.




Unlock Feat "Guardian": Increase your Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20. You have a keen eye when it comes to safety. You and your companions can travel at a normal speed through crowds. When you enter combat your body instantly responds releasing a heavy dose of adrenaline into your system. After rolling your Initiative roll, you gain temporary hit points equal to 10 + your Constitution modifier.

This feat (a) just doesn't make one think of a guardian, except for the modifier to Constitution, (b) is redundant if it is meant to evoke "be a guardian" because of the Sentinel feat, and (c) besides that, it's kind of all over the place.

I'm away from my DMG, but unless it specifies there that crowds actually impose a penalty on your movement... there's no rule actually saying so, that I recall.
Given spells such as heroism, the temporary hit point effect is fine. Just not what springs to mind when one thinks of "guardian".



Unlock Feat "Incredible Inventor": Your knack for creation has lead to you creating companion constructs. You may choose any beast with a challenge rating of 2 or less. The companion uses that beast's statistics, but are considered constructs. They don’t need to eat or breath, they are immune to poisoned/charmed/exhaustion and are immune to poison damage. The companion obeys your orders to the best of its ability. In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own. Over the course of a long rest, you can repair a slain construct with 5gp if you have access to its body. It returns to life with 1 hit point at the end of the rest. If the construct is beyond recovery, you may build a new one over the course of a week (8 hours each day) using 500gp of materials.

Given the CR and lack of limits on action economy, this is basically a straight-up upgrade on the Beastmaster Ranger's 3rd-level feature. For instance, you could get a construct polar bear with full use of its multiattack feature. Sure, it's missing out on adding your proficiency bonus to a bunch of its rolls, and possibly to extra hit points at higher levels, but still. Feats that replicate class or subclass features just aren't, and indeed ought not be, this good.


Unlock Feat "Keen Eye": You gain proficiency in History or Investigation. If you are already proficient in it, you gain expertise and double your proficiency bonus on that skill. You can cast the spell Identify at will, but only on items. Your skills in trade means you can usually find better prices for buying or selling items and services.


Either the Alert or Perceptive (UA) feats seem to do the job this feat's name suggests it should do already, and do a better job of it, to boot. Maybe this feat should be renamed "Haggler" or "Appraiser" or something if you want to keep its current theme.
This seems like a feat where adding 1 to your Wisdom score seems appropriate.
Perception would be a better option than History given the feat's name; if this feat is really meant to be a feat for haggling/appraising, than History is fine.
Identify is a ritual, so anyone with ritual casting or who is willing to pick up the Ritual Caster feet can cast identify at will anyway, without the limit on what you can cast it on.
The price discount benefit is much too vague: it needs a specific number attached to it.



Unlock Feat "Fearless Warrior": You have Advantage on saving rolls against Fear effects. Whenever a creature makes an attack roll against you with a melee attack, you have Advantage on attack rolls against this creature on your next turn.

The only "at will" effects bestowing advantage to attack rolls that don't require spell slots or Battlemaster's Superiority Dice to use, if memory serves, are the advantage a barbarian gets with Reckless Attack, and the advantage that a barbarian grants to others with Wolf Totem's 3rd-level combat feature. All that's to say that you need some sort of resource cost to get advantage on all attack rolls against a creature, especially once you start having extra attacks. Eating your reaction would be a suitable cost, in my view.


Unlock Feat "Fiery Temper": You gain an additional +2 on attack rolls with weapons or spells that deal fire damage. For any Attack you make unarmed or with a non-magical piercing, slashing, or bludgeoning weapon, you may choose to deal fire damage with it instead. The bonus to attack roll does not apply to any weapon modified in this way.

This is fine, mechanically. I'm just not a fan thematically, especially not of the "damage type substitution" benefit. What if you had it deal 1 fire damage on weapon attacks? A +2 to an ability score adds 1 damage to attacks (most of the time) plus a +1 bonus to all ability checks, attack rolls and saving throws using that score, so this wouldn't be overpowered. If you did make that change, I would recommend ditching the attack roll benefit and replace it with something else; perhaps resistance to fire damage.


Unlock Feat "Knowledgeable": You are learned in all subjects, having mastered the very art of learning. Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20. Choose a skill you are proficient in, you gain expertise in that skill, doubling your proficiency bonus. Additionally, when you make a roll for any skill or ability check, you may choose to add your Intelligence modifier to that roll. You may only do this once per long rest.

Unearthed Arcana has a suite of feats that give you expertise with individual skill proficiencies, so this is probably redundant. Beyond that, it's fine. As a nitpick, 5e doesn't have skill checks: they're just ability checks to which you may add your proficiency bonus on account of having a pertinent skill proficiency.


Unlock Feat "Bounty of the Water": You gain the spell Water Breathing if you do not already have it. You may cast it at will without expending a spell slot, in which case the spell affects only yourself. Additionally, any healing spells you cast is far more effective. Whenever you use a spell to restore hit points, you may choose another target within range (including yourself), this target will recieve half the spell's recovery effects (rounded up). If they were already targeted by the spell, they gain 1.5x the amount of hit points instead.


I would just give the ability to breathe water as well as air to the person who picks up the feat. Water breathing isn't the most powerful 3rd-level spell, but it's still a bit much giving at-will casting of a 3rd-level spell when almost no other feat does anything like that. (The racial feat for deep gnomes is IMO over the top power creep, but at least you have to be a deep gnome to get it.) I mean, you can get water breathing with Ritual Caster feat, but not immediately: you have to find a scroll or spellbook, be of an appropriate level, and spend some money.
The healing effect is (a) IMO not thematic and (b) too much. Just get rid of it. If you want something healing related, I would suggest allowing you to recover some hit points, or pick up temporary hit points, by immersing yourself in water, with some limit on usage (once or twice in between short or long rests would be fine, I daresay). Otherwise, I would suggest letting you do something cool, like if you're near a body of water at least 10 feet x 10 feet, you can use a bonus action to make a grapple or shove special attack with the water against a Medium or smaller creature within 5 feet of the body of water. Or something else, whatever you can think of.



Unlock Feat "Scent of the Wild Lands": You gain proficiency in using the Poisoner's kit. While in forested terrain, you may ignore any disadvantage applied to your rolls. Additionally, you may cast the spell Plant Growth once per long rest without expending a spell slot.

Proficiency with poisoner's kit just... doesn't seem to fit the theme. Proficiency with your choice of either Nature or Survival seem like a much better fit.
The ignoring disadvantage thing is mechanically fine, I guess? I don't know, it just seems like it could really either be too good, or too sucky, depending on the setting and DM discretion. As such, it could probably do with some revision.
As I've noted, feats anyone can get shouldn't be giving out casting 3rd-level spells without a slot, even weaker spells like plant growth. Entangle would IMO be a much better choice.



Unlock Feat "Shadow Training": You have trained in the ways of Yaksha and you can become with the shadow. You are permanently under a spell of Nondetection. You may dismiss this effect for a duration by maintaining concentration. You may cast Disguise Self or Silent Image once per long rest without using up a spell slot.
This is practically the Svirfneblin Magic feat, only with one less spell and available to anyone.


Unlock Feat "Magical Teachings": (Requirement: Must have at least 2 levels in a spellcaster class) You gain one extra spell slot with level equal to half your total spellcaster levels rounded down (An extra 4th level slot at 8 spellcaster levels, 9th level slot at 19 spellcaster levels etc.).

You may have noticed by now that spellcasting features that give you more spell slots - Wizard and Land Druid slot recovery features, warlock pact magic spell slots, and sorcerer's sorcery points - cap out at 5th level. You have no business getting an extra spell slot of 6th or higher level with a feat. Period.

If you want to give extra slots, I would consider giving 1 level worth of slot recovery à la the wizard or land druid feature. Otherwise, this could be a weaker version of, say, bardic magical secrets, as long as you include, for instance, adding 1 to your spellcasting ability score.