Designing a Knife Fighter/Small Weapons feat. Feel free to join in, PEACH, whatever!

[AdAstra]

So basically, the goal is to make a feat that will help out characters who use small simple weapons like daggers, handaxes, etc. This should ideally help both throwing weapon builds, and open up viability for less commonly used weapons. While not specifically intended, it should also be a solid feat for Monks.

Shanker

You have been in enough scraps to master the art of fighting within a hair's breadth. Compact weapons are engines of death in your hands.

When making an attack roll with a club, dagger, handaxe, light hammer, mace, or sickle, you gain the following benefits:

-You have a +2 bonus to the attack roll.
-Attacking at long range doesn't impose disadvantage on your ranged attack rolls.
-If your attack roll exceeds the target's Armor Class by 10 or more, you can roll one of the weapon’s damage dice one additional time and add it to the damage. This damage is also multiplied by a critical hit.

[JNAProductions]

Get rid of +2 to-hit.

The second bullet point, as written, applies to all ranged weapons, but not thrown weapons.

The third bullet point is fine, if a little finicky.

[GalacticAxekick]

The second bullet point, as written, applies to all ranged weapons, but not thrown weapons.No it doesnt. It only applies "when making an attack roll with a club, dagger, dart, handaxe, light hammer, mace, or sickle"

[JNAProductions]

No it doesnt. It only applies "when making an attack roll with a club, dagger, dart, handaxe, light hammer, mace, or sickle"

Fair enough-but it still doesn't apply to thrown attacks, only to ranged weapon attacks. They are melee weapons that can be thrown.

Now, admittedly, the intent is clear, so I was just being pedantic. The intent is fine. But the feat, overall, needs work for sure.

[AdAstra]

Considering how the purpose of the feat is to make fighting with smaller weapons somewhat competitive with larger ones, I feel that something along the lines of a +2 to hit is kinda necessary to do that. If you have other suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them, but I think a bonus to hit seems like the most thematic choice.

[JNAProductions]

Considering how the purpose of the feat is to make fighting with smaller weapons somewhat competitive with larger ones, I feel that something along the lines of a +2 to hit is kinda necessary to do that. If you have other suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them, but I think a bonus to hit seems like the most thematic choice.

Well, they already are competitive, for Rogues at least. The 1 point of average damage they lose from going to Daggers from Shortswords is paltry compared to their damage totals, and the ability to throw a dagger is a lot more valuable than it.

But this changes it from "Daggers are better for versatility, but lose on pure damage compared to dual shortswords or a single rapier," to "Daggers are the best, 10 times out of 10," because +2 to-hit is huge when you only get one attack.

If the feat is intended for Fighters and the like, then the feat is competing with the likes of GWM and PAM, which are debatably the most powerful feats in the game. If you can compete with them with a small, easily hidden, and incredibly cheap and easy to acquire weapon... That's a problem.

Edit: Rereading my initial post, though, I do see that I came across as probably rather mean.

So sorry about that! I did not intend to cause any offense. The feat, however, doesn't fit well with 5E's design principles, and as I said above, has issues even with ignoring that.

[Edea]

I feel like the only characters who are really going to look at something like this are ones of a Small race, so it might be a racial feat of some sort (like halflings being stupidly good at beaning things with thrown rocks)?

[GalacticAxekick]

Fair enough-but it still doesn't apply to thrown attacks, only to ranged weapon attacks. They are melee weapons that can be thrown.

Now, admittedly, the intent is clear, so I was just being pedantic. The intent is fine. But the feat, overall, needs work for sure.Although these thrown weapons are melee weapons, thrown weapon attacks are ranged weapon attacks.

Dont think of it as [ranged weapon] [attack] (an attack with a ranged weapon)

Think of it as [ranged] [weapon attack] (a ranged attack with a weapon).

I realize I'm being equally pedantic. My point is that not only was the intent clear: the choice of language was perfect.

[AdAstra]

Well, they already are competitive, for Rogues at least. The 1 point of average damage they lose from going to Daggers from Shortswords is paltry compared to their damage totals, and the ability to throw a dagger is a lot more valuable than it.

But this changes it from "Daggers are better for versatility, but lose on pure damage compared to dual shortswords or a single rapier," to "Daggers are the best, 10 times out of 10," because +2 to-hit is huge when you only get one attack.

If the feat is intended for Fighters and the like, then the feat is competing with the likes of GWM and PAM, which are debatably the most powerful feats in the game. If you can compete with them with a small, easily hidden, and incredibly cheap and easy to acquire weapon... That's a problem. As a nice side effect, it makes it easier to tell when you should get the damage bonus.

Edit: Rereading my initial post, though, I do see that I came across as probably rather mean.

So sorry about that! I did not intend to cause any offense. The feat, however, doesn't fit well with 5E's design principles, and as I said above, has issues even with ignoring that.

For Rogues, I'm not too bothered if this feat gives them a new "best style" so long as it's not too far ahead. Except at early levels, Rogues are hardly kings of DPS in the first place, and the weapons the feat covers are pretty iconic for Rogues. There are definitely better ways of increasing Rogue DPS than this feat (5 levels of Fighter and the Crossbow Expert Feat come to mind).

How much does it compete with GWM and PAM, though? Does a +2 to hit and a damage bonus actually put this ahead of those builds, or even equal to them? I used a Crossbow Expert with Archery as my benchmark, and I'm not seeing how this feat is significantly better, if at all. The Crossbow Expert can also take Sharpshooter later to further improve, whereas this feat doesn't really have anywhere else to go.

The only place where I can see this feat creating a build better than those already out there, is Rogues and when using Handaxes. That one might be going too far, but since it's only a benefit for Strength-based characters I didn't want to reject it out of hand.

EDIT: Ah! Caught an issue with my math about the damage bonus. Changed the damage bonus to be when you are 10 over the AC rather than 5. That reduces its effect substantially and should bring it better in line with other things. Also removed Dart from the list to prevent combining with Sharpshooter.

[John Out West]

Shanking, to me, often implies grappling, since you're so close. I would have made the Shanker feature related to grappling.

Shanker:
-When you are grappling an enemy, you have advantage with any attacks made with Light Weapons.
-Creatures you are grappling have disadvantage on attacks with non-natural or non-light weapons.
-A creature breaking your grapple allows you to make an Attack of Opportunity, as a reaction, on the creature that broke the grapple.

This kind of turns them into a controller. The enemy might have a giant burning axe, but swinging it against a creature whose in your grill is going to be tough. The Shanker can essentially eliminate a high-damage enemy from the fight by grappling them.

Thats how i would do it, anyway.