First 5E Feat.

[Metahuman1]

So I have an IRL group that's been demoing 5E. Our last session for 5E is this Thursday, and at the end of the previous session, we defeated the 2nd to last boss, so now all that's really left is a bit of travel and prep, a final boss battle, and the immediate aftermath.

When we beat the last boss, we leveled, and this time, the GM gave us the option to pick up a feat instead of an ability score increase. I've got a good solid Con, enough Str to use Plate mail, and I've got maxed Charisma on a Hexblade Warlock/Paladin Multy class.


So, what feat does the playground recommend? Current feats I'm considering are Shield Master, Mage Slayer, Lucky, Inspiring Leader, Alert, and Heavy Armor Master.

Am I barking up the wrong tree? Have I over Looked something particularly good? (My main tactic is to get into the face of the biggest bad on the map and smite him with Hexblade Curse and Smite uses for the most part, for whatever that's worth.). And if not, which of these feats does The Playground Recommend?

[sophontteks]

Depends. Don't know your level or your stats.
EDIT: I missed where you said you have maxed CHA.

There are a lot of good options. Sentinel is nice if you want to make the enemy stick to you more. This is a good chance to give your character more flavor too. If you can pick prodigy, its a fun feat. Gives you a new skill and expertise.

[Mitsu]

More info please. Planned build, role in team, preferences, distance vs melee fight, tank vs burst vs dpr. Roleplay or combat.

We need more infor to help you with that. There are tons of good feats but for different builds.

[Aquillion]

What's your race? Many racial feats are very powerful.


Lucky is incredibly powerful. Some would say overpowered, though its power varies a bit depending on your typical adventuring day. Taking it is never a bad idea.
Inspiring Leader is always worth having around - lots of bonus HP, which you can refresh after each short rest. Just make sure nobody else is taking it, and remember that bonus HP don't stack.
Elven accuracy is amazing on a Paladin / Hexblade if you qualify, since it greatly increases your chance of getting a critical.
Warcaster is a lot of fun with Booming Blade and will also protect your concentration (important for a melee caster.) Note that if you use Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade to take an attack of opportunity, you can still smite as well.
Resilient (Constitution) is boring but practical, protecting both your concentration and your, well, you, since Constitution saves are usually the nastiest ones to fail. This is generally a good choice if your constitution is odd, but not if it's even.


From your list, I would avoid Mage Slayer and Heavy Armor Master. They're too situational (especially Heavy Armor Master, which gets steadily weaker as you go up in level and encounter more and more damage that it doesn't work on.)

[Particle_Man]

If you don’t have a specific thing you are going for, try Lucky.

[Mitsu]

Well, till we get more info I will give my gerenal recommendations:

1. General useful feats:

a) Inspiring Leader if you have high CHA and you will invest in it
b) Lucky - best choice when you have no idea what to take
c) Mobile - great talent for melee especially when using BB and you can go back without using Disengage.

2. Great feats for front liner, aka tank:

a) Shield Master - chance to prone is nice, but best is bonus to DEX save from shield AC (which on higher levels means easly +3 to even +5) when you are targeted by single target damage effect that requires DEX save and on reaction you can totally mitigate any damage effect that requires DEX save for half-damge take (example: fireball or dragon's breath). Tons and tons of monster attacks in 5E has DEX save for half damage so it's great.
b) Warcaster - great on front-line gishes like Sorcadins, Hexadins, Wizard/Fighters etc. Makes you more sticky.

[Metahuman1]

We are 9th level. We just bumped up 2 levels (GM had miscalculated experience according to him for the thing, and had planned on us being 8th level, not 7th, for the last fight we had, and 9th for the big final battle. So he decided to just bump us up.).

I've got Str 16, Dex 10, Con 18, Wisdom 9, Intelligence 11, and Charisma 20 on a half elf.

Paladin 3, Warlock 6. Paladin has Oath of the Ancients. Warblade is a Hexblade Warlock, with Pact of the Blade.



I tend to be focusing more on trying to tank (and often failing as I think the GM has missed a sum total of 3 attacks since we started at level 3 that were not thrown by mooks at my character. And 2 of those were Charisma Saves that I had advantage on due to a spell buff from the wizard, Bardic Inspiration Dice or Bless Dice on respectively to boot.), and being really good at focus bursting damage on big targets with Hexblade Curse and Smite.

Invocations are Eldritch Sight. Mask of Many Faces. Thirsting Blade. Spells are seldom used because I try to save them for when I need to smite as the whole thing is taking place on a ticking clock, and the bad guys do NOT wait for us to catch our breath, so the short rest benefit of the Warlock/Paladin has been somewhat mitigated.

Noble Background, most of my skills are spent either being a good face, or trying to be a decent secondary knower of stuff a noble with magic should know, like history and medicine and Arcana.

I'm sword and boarding, with the duelist fighting style, Plate Armor (This does basically nothing to not cause me to get hit so far as I mentioned above.), and I have a Magic sword. +1 Wounding.


Were gearing up to run through a now defeated necromancers tower to the bottom layer, extract an elephant that the Bard in the party's player accidentally summoned with a Wand Of Wonder item she found (she refuses to leave it behind cause it's a poor defenseless animal, like Dumbo, she says. My character wants to bring it around cause he wants to see if he can get barding made for it and teach it to fight and ride it into battle after the immediate crisis is over. Otherwise I'd consider mounted combat but there's not enough time to get it in Barding.). And on the way we get to stop at the Necromacers Vault and see what loot he might have, including possibly more magic items.

Then we get to run through a city of the undead back to the porthole we used to get here in the first place, so that we can try to get back to the town this all started in.

And with that done, we get to prep for a final battle, have said final battle, against forces unknown beyond at least 1 big bad bruiser that the other missions have been geared around making weaker when he shows up so that he'll be killable at all. And then we get to settle aftermath stuff.



Party is a bard who's player can't make the last session, thus, I don't know what the GM's going to do about her.

2 Rangers, a High Elf who JUST found a magic bow and doesn't even know what it does yet Horizon Walker and a Drow with 2 magic dex based weapons.

An Elf Wizard.

A Wood Elf Moon Circle Druid who has a Belt of Stone Giants Strength, and will NOT cooperate with letting anyone ride her in Wildshape for ANY reason.

A Dwarf Cleric.

A Avian or whatever the bird people race is called Barbarian who has a Flame tongue Greatsword she's favoring.

And me.


That's about all the relevant information I can think of.
And that's

[R.Shackleford]

So I have an IRL group that's been demoing 5E. Our last session for 5E is this Thursday, and at the end of the previous session, we defeated the 2nd to last boss, so now all that's really left is a bit of travel and prep, a final boss battle, and the immediate aftermath.

When we beat the last boss, we leveled, and this time, the GM gave us the option to pick up a feat instead of an ability score increase. I've got a good solid Con, enough Str to use Plate mail, and I've got maxed Charisma on a Hexblade Warlock/Paladin Multy class.


So, what feat does the playground recommend? Current feats I'm considering are Shield Master, Mage Slayer, Lucky, Inspiring Leader, Alert, and Heavy Armor Master.

Am I barking up the wrong tree? Have I over Looked something particularly good? (My main tactic is to get into the face of the biggest bad on the map and smite him with Hexblade Curse and Smite uses for the most part, for whatever that's worth.). And if not, which of these feats does The Playground Recommend?

So, your class actually will give you a lot of fun combat options so I would go with a feat that expands your social skills so you don't have to use spells on that side.

Actor.

Actor is one of the most powerful feats in the game, even when used conservatively. Needing to get into a place, messing with an NPC, or stopping a fight before it happens... Actor.

[SVamp]

I think war caster or sentinel would be pretty useful. Might also want to consider going sorcerer for 1 level to get shield to seriously boost your AC when needed.

To be perfectly frank if I were making your character I’d have gone Pali 2/hexblade 1/rest sorcerer, eventually maybe going up to paladin 6, although it’s not really needed. The extra slots mean lots of smiting, quickened bb/gfb keeps you competitive vs second attack, and shadow blade puts you way ahead, all the while having more slots to smite or use shield spell with.

[bid]

We are 9th level. We just bumped up 2 levels (GM had miscalculated experience according to him for the thing, and had planned on us being 8th level, not 7th, for the last fight we had, and 9th for the big final battle. So he decided to just bump us up.).

I've got Str 16, Dex 10, Con 18, Wisdom 9, Intelligence 11, and Charisma 20 on a half elf.

Paladin 3, Warlock 6. Paladin has Oath of the Ancients. Warblade is a Hexblade Warlock, with Pact of the Blade.
Officially, you should only get an ASI/feat when you reach paladin 4 or warlock 8. But considering how high your rolled stats are, your GM might use home rules.

Inspiring Leader is hard to beat, that's 14 thp on every member of your party (well, up to 6).
Sentinel is good to punish enemies who ignore you.
Shield master is nice for a tank too.

[Metahuman1]

Officially, you should only get an ASI/feat when you reach paladin 4 or warlock 8. But considering how high your rolled stats are, your GM might use home rules.

Inspiring Leader is hard to beat, that's 14 thp on every member of your party (well, up to 6).
Sentinel is good to punish enemies who ignore you.
Shield master is nice for a tank too.

His logic is he said no to the stat increase at Warlock 4 on the grounds it wasn't character level 4, so now that we've hit and passed character level 8, it's ok to get it.

[Citan]

So I have an IRL group that's been demoing 5E. Our last session for 5E is this Thursday, and at the end of the previous session, we defeated the 2nd to last boss, so now all that's really left is a bit of travel and prep, a final boss battle, and the immediate aftermath.

When we beat the last boss, we leveled, and this time, the GM gave us the option to pick up a feat instead of an ability score increase. I've got a good solid Con, enough Str to use Plate mail, and I've got maxed Charisma on a Hexblade Warlock/Paladin Multy class.


So, what feat does the playground recommend? Current feats I'm considering are Shield Master, Mage Slayer, Lucky, Inspiring Leader, Alert, and Heavy Armor Master.

Am I barking up the wrong tree? Have I over Looked something particularly good? (My main tactic is to get into the face of the biggest bad on the map and smite him with Hexblade Curse and Smite uses for the most part, for whatever that's worth.). And if not, which of these feats does The Playground Recommend?
Hi!

First...

What's your race? Many racial feats are very powerful.


Lucky is incredibly powerful. Some would say overpowered, though its power varies a bit depending on your typical adventuring day. Taking it is never a bad idea.
Inspiring Leader is always worth having around - lots of bonus HP, which you can refresh after each short rest. Just make sure nobody else is taking it, and remember that bonus HP don't stack.
Elven accuracy is amazing on a Paladin / Hexblade if you qualify, since it greatly increases your chance of getting a critical.
Warcaster is a lot of fun with Booming Blade and will also protect your concentration (important for a melee caster.) Note that if you use Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade to take an attack of opportunity, you can still smite as well.
Resilient (Constitution) is boring but practical, protecting both your concentration and your, well, you, since Constitution saves are usually the nastiest ones to fail. This is generally a good choice if your constitution is odd, but not if it's even.


From your list, I would avoid Mage Slayer and Heavy Armor Master. They're too situational (especially Heavy Armor Master, which gets steadily weaker as you go up in level and encounter more and more damage that it doesn't work on.)
I'll have to disagree on two feats.
- Lucky is not "incredibly powerful" (so not overpowered either). It's a bland feat that just happens to be usable in whatever situation you are in. By far the weakest feat you could take mechanically though.
- Mage Slayer is not necessarily situational. It depends on campaigns and DM style. And when you have at least one caster every four-five fights it's worth it, especially on a ranged character. For a melee, hard to predict in general...


We are 9th level. We just bumped up 2 levels (GM had miscalculated experience according to him for the thing, and had planned on us being 8th level, not 7th, for the last fight we had, and 9th for the big final battle. So he decided to just bump us up.).

I've got Str 16, Dex 10, Con 18, Wisdom 9, Intelligence 11, and Charisma 20 on a half elf.

Paladin 3, Warlock 6. Paladin has Oath of the Ancients. Warblade is a Hexblade Warlock, with Pact of the Blade.



I tend to be focusing more on trying to tank (and often failing as I think the GM has missed a sum total of 3 attacks since we started at level 3 that were not thrown by mooks at my character. And 2 of those were Charisma Saves that I had advantage on due to a spell buff from the wizard, Bardic Inspiration Dice or Bless Dice on respectively to boot.), and being really good at focus bursting damage on big targets with Hexblade Curse and Smite.

Invocations are Eldritch Sight. Mask of Many Faces. Thirsting Blade. Spells are seldom used because I try to save them for when I need to smite as the whole thing is taking place on a ticking clock, and the bad guys do NOT wait for us to catch our breath, so the short rest benefit of the Warlock/Paladin has been somewhat mitigated.

Noble Background, most of my skills are spent either being a good face, or trying to be a decent secondary knower of stuff a noble with magic should know, like history and medicine and Arcana.

I'm sword and boarding, with the duelist fighting style, Plate Armor (This does basically nothing to not cause me to get hit so far as I mentioned above.), and I have a Magic sword. +1 Wounding.


Were gearing up to run through a now defeated necromancers tower to the bottom layer, extract an elephant that the Bard in the party's player accidentally summoned with a Wand Of Wonder item she found (she refuses to leave it behind cause it's a poor defenseless animal, like Dumbo, she says. My character wants to bring it around cause he wants to see if he can get barding made for it and teach it to fight and ride it into battle after the immediate crisis is over. Otherwise I'd consider mounted combat but there's not enough time to get it in Barding.). And on the way we get to stop at the Necromacers Vault and see what loot he might have, including possibly more magic items.

Then we get to run through a city of the undead back to the porthole we used to get here in the first place, so that we can try to get back to the town this all started in.

And with that done, we get to prep for a final battle, have said final battle, against forces unknown beyond at least 1 big bad bruiser that the other missions have been geared around making weaker when he shows up so that he'll be killable at all. And then we get to settle aftermath stuff.



Party is a bard who's player can't make the last session, thus, I don't know what the GM's going to do about her.

2 Rangers, a High Elf who JUST found a magic bow and doesn't even know what it does yet Horizon Walker and a Drow with 2 magic dex based weapons.

An Elf Wizard.

A Wood Elf Moon Circle Druid who has a Belt of Stone Giants Strength, and will NOT cooperate with letting anyone ride her in Wildshape for ANY reason.

A Dwarf Cleric.

A Avian or whatever the bird people race is called Barbarian who has a Flame tongue Greatsword she's favoring.

And me.


That's about all the relevant information I can think of.
And that's
Honestly?

I'd go for...
- Inspiring Leader first if your party usually gets a chance at short rest when it wants (or at least often enough to follow adventuring guidelines). In a party that large, 14 THP is a reasonably good buff when you evaluate overall (>85 HP). Of course it's useless if you're the only one ever getting hit, but I doubt that. However, it can really cushion a bad hit such as an unlucky critical.
- Mage Slayer I would have suggested in other circumstances, especially since your big bad guy is a caster. For you in particular (extremely melee-geared, not the Warlock's invocation to smite), I'd say it's worth considering only if in your experience you manage to quickly get into close range to your target. Otherwise, forget it you have other better choices.
- Elven Accuracy mainly (only) if you have consistent and reliable way to gain advantage over enemies (like Wizard using Hold Person/Monster, Barbarian using Shove, Moon Druid?).
- Shield Master otherwise: with three other people (four maybe with Cleric) being melee-geared, even if DM follows Twitter rulings, it's still worth helping at least your friends getting advantage.
Bonus point of Shield Master: since you fight a Necromancer, you'll face hordes of small fry (yet dangerous as a group): with the "Evasion-like" ability, you can maybe accept being in the zone of a Fireball or the like, knowing that best case you won't take any damage, worst case it will be an amount you can easily survive.
- Finally Warcaster, since it always helps, especially as a shield wielder, and especially if you use concentration spells like Bless (and better for you than Sentinel since you probably know Booming Blade).

In short, either Inspiring Leader (if short rests are managed, to buff party resilience), Shield Master otherwise if nobody is giving advantage to melee yet, Warcaster "by default".

Also, if you're really trying to tank, and you actually manage to be the target of majority of enemy's threat, then simply ask your Dwarf pal to use Warding Bond on you. As a Cleric, and as a Dwarf, he should have enough HP to stand strong in the face of that half damage taken. He can also just Dodge or Cure Wounds himself while using Spirit Guardians in close melee to help you (maybe already doing it). And that way you can tank much more reliably for everyone (although I hope at least Barbarian is also actively trying to aggro).

Good luck ;)

[Man_Over_Game]

I tend to be focusing more on trying to tank (and often failing as I think the GM has missed a sum total of 3 attacks since we started at level 3 that were not thrown by mooks at my character. And 2 of those were Charisma Saves that I had advantage on due to a spell buff from the wizard, Bardic Inspiration Dice or Bless Dice on respectively to boot.), and being really good at focus bursting damage on big targets with Hexblade Curse and Smite.


I just wanted to let you know that your AC will almost never matter against high level enemies. In fact, your AC is mostly a deterrent to the mooks. With how 5e is designed, low level enemies are always relevant, and always able to deal relevant damage.

4 CR 1 monsters is a MUCH bigger threat than 1 CR 4 monster for this reason. Those CR 1 creatures will be able to attack 1 time each turn, and the CR 4 creature will be able to attack about 2 times each turn. Even if the CR 4 creature did slightly more damage on each hit (maybe 50% more than the CR 1s), the CR 1 swarm is going to be launching twice as many attacks in a round. The deterrent to these tactics is having a higher AC. If the boss hits 80% of the time, and the mooks hit 30% of the time, the Boss is now starting to appear as a greater threat.

This is unless your DM stops using low level enemies (which is a common DM mistake, especially if they're used to 3.5/PF), in which case your AC isn't ever going to be very relevant.

[Metahuman1]

I just wanted to let you know that your AC will almost never matter against high level enemies. In fact, your AC is mostly a deterrent to the mooks. With how 5e is designed, low level enemies are always relevant, and always able to deal relevant damage.

4 CR 1 monsters is a MUCH bigger threat than 1 CR 4 monster for this reason. Those CR 1 creatures will be able to attack 1 time each turn, and the CR 4 creature will be able to attack about 2 times each turn. Even if the CR 4 creature did slightly more damage on each hit (maybe 50% more than the CR 1s), the CR 1 swarm is going to be launching twice as many attacks in a round. The deterrent to these tactics is having a higher AC. If the boss hits 80% of the time, and the mooks hit 30% of the time, the Boss is now starting to appear as a greater threat.

This is unless your DM stops using low level enemies (which is a common DM mistake, especially if they're used to 3.5/PF), in which case your AC isn't ever going to be very relevant.

Huh. A big deal was made to me that in this system you didn't need to worry about it cause it was really balanced and a 20 AC was suppose to be REALLY good. Interesting that that's not the case and were back to the old 3.5 thing of "AC is pointless don't even bother with it.". If we ever play 5E again, I'll have to remember that.

[djreynolds]

If you fight S&B, you might actually need war caster with full hands.

[R.Shackleford]

Huh. A big deal was made to me that in this system you didn't need to worry about it cause it was really balanced and a 20 AC was suppose to be REALLY good. Interesting that that's not the case and were back to the old 3.5 thing of "AC is pointless don't even bother with it.". If we ever play 5E again, I'll have to remember that.

Later levels enemies will have +10 or more to their attacks... You're getting hit.

Most games don't make it that far tho. 5e works rather well at low levels but then numbers get weird once you get into later levels.

It is, what it is.

So while AC is important, it's only important to things you would run into at lower levels as they can still miss. Which is great because if you're fighting a bunch of minions, you don't want to have to worry THAT much about them.

5e isn't all that balanced, it just isn't as bad as 3e, but then again you could put an elephant on one scale and an ant on another and that would look more balanced than 3e.