Custom feat (Balance)

[carrdrivesyou]

So I was talking to my DM and we came up with this idea for my rogue. Would like to hear y'all's thoughts before we move forward with it though.

Pickpocket's Delight
+1 Dexterity
+5 to passive investigation
Advantage on sleight of hand rolls to steal something from someone.

Verbiage needs to be cleaned up, but I don't think this is too overpowered or unbalanced compared to other options.

[LudicSavant]

So I was talking to my DM and we came up with this idea for my rogue. Would like to hear y'all's thoughts before we move forward with it though.

Pickpocket's Delight
+1 Dexterity
+5 to passive investigation
Advantage on sleight of hand rolls to steal something from someone.

Verbiage needs to be cleaned up, but I don't think this is too overpowered or unbalanced compared to other options.

Seems fine to me. Especially since the value of both the bullet points is pretty DM-dependent and presumably your DM is on board, here. https://forums.giantitp.com/images/sand/icons/icon_thumbsup.png

[Greywander]

Seems fine, but I'm not sure why this feat boosts passive Investigation. Observant also boosts passive Investigation, so one thing I'd be wary of is someone grabbing both feats in order to just know what everything is without needing to roll. Perhaps a different, more thematic bonus would work better?

[Segev]

Yeah, I also am curious about the +5 to passive Investigation. What's the use case, here? This is, presumably, customized for your character; why do you want +5 to passive investigation on him? (Nothing inherently wrong with it, but I am curious if this is targeted to a specific thing you want for your PC, or if it was a thing put in there as part of a holistic concept for the feat, and isn't necessarily what you were originally looking for in designing it.)

[LudicSavant]

Seems fine, but I'm not sure why this feat boosts passive Investigation. Observant also boosts passive Investigation, so one thing I'd be wary of is someone grabbing both feats in order to just know what everything is without needing to roll. Perhaps a different, more thematic bonus would work better?

Just say they don't stack. *Shrug*

[carrdrivesyou]

The idea is to be able to size someone up at a glance, immediately dissecting their clothes, weapons, weight distribution, stance, etc. It's not something I would say should stack with the observant feat for the sake of balance. It's just how the character operates. Very little planning, but always a step ahead. He just understand people by the nuances of their presentation.

[Segev]

The idea is to be able to size someone up at a glance, immediately dissecting their clothes, weapons, weight distribution, stance, etc. It's not something I would say should stack with the observant feat for the sake of balance. It's just how the character operates. Very little planning, but always a step ahead. He just understand people by the nuances of their presentation.

Okay, that's about what I figured. My next question, then, is one aimed at whether this feat accomplishes that: do you typically roll or use passive Investigation to size NPCs up in the game? Does the DM check your passive Investigation and tell you, "By the way he's standing and how his clothes hang, he's probably got a concealed dagger in the small of his back, and his real coin purse is hidden in the exaggerated paunch of his belly?"

Because if not, I don't think the +5 to passive Investigation will actually help with this, and you'd be better off with a bullet point that explicitly states what it is that your ability to evaluate somebody "at a glance" tells you. Moreover, in my experience, the kind of evaluation you're asking for tends to be active, not passive, so players say they want to do that and the DM asks them to roll Investigation (or Insight) to see what they can pick up.

But this comes down to what your DM runs things as. What do you hope this dissection of "their clothes, weapons, weight distribution, stance, etc." will tell you? And how does your DM give you this information already? By "how," I mean what mechanics (if any) does he invoke to determine what (if any) of this information to give?

[carrdrivesyou]

Okay, that's about what I figured. My next question, then, is one aimed at whether this feat accomplishes that: do you typically roll or use passive Investigation to size NPCs up in the game? Does the DM check your passive Investigation and tell you, "By the way he's standing and how his clothes hang, he's probably got a concealed dagger in the small of his back, and his real coin purse is hidden in the exaggerated paunch of his belly?"

Because if not, I don't think the +5 to passive Investigation will actually help with this, and you'd be better off with a bullet point that explicitly states what it is that your ability to evaluate somebody "at a glance" tells you. Moreover, in my experience, the kind of evaluation you're asking for tends to be active, not passive, so players say they want to do that and the DM asks them to roll Investigation (or Insight) to see what they can pick up.

But this comes down to what your DM runs things as. What do you hope this dissection of "their clothes, weapons, weight distribution, stance, etc." will tell you? And how does your DM give you this information already? By "how," I mean what mechanics (if any) does he invoke to determine what (if any) of this information to give?

So this kind of depends on the situation. If my rogue is actively looking to steal, he hops onto a rooftop and surveys the marketplace, using an active roll. But there have been several times where he just bumps into someone or is walking down a hallway and he just passively notices things: strange notches in a wall, second coin purse, hidden weapon, wizard trying to hide something they found behind their back, etc.

In most cases, I can substitute my passive investigation for my passive perception to notice hidden things. He just notices that things do not mentally "add up" and it gives him the same information as perception would. He tends to miss the bigger picture for smaller details, but can usually arrive at the same conclusion, albeit a bit slower.

Example: DM threw an assassin at us acting as a ship captain. The cleric noticed they were missing a particular finger, but failed the history check. My rogue examined them top to bottom as they approached, and figured out almost instantly that he was not a sailor (callouses in the wrong places, missing finger, wrong stance, etc.). Figured out his nature before we even got on the boat. At this point, the DM lets me use my active or passive investigation when meeting new folks, just kinda depending on how my rogue feels about them in that moment. Pretty neat honestly.

[Segev]

So this kind of depends on the situation. If my rogue is actively looking to steal, he hops onto a rooftop and surveys the marketplace, using an active roll. But there have been several times where he just bumps into someone or is walking down a hallway and he just passively notices things: strange notches in a wall, second coin purse, hidden weapon, wizard trying to hide something they found behind their back, etc.

In most cases, I can substitute my passive investigation for my passive perception to notice hidden things. He just notices that things do not mentally "add up" and it gives him the same information as perception would. He tends to miss the bigger picture for smaller details, but can usually arrive at the same conclusion, albeit a bit slower.

Example: DM threw an assassin at us acting as a ship captain. The cleric noticed they were missing a particular finger, but failed the history check. My rogue examined them top to bottom as they approached, and figured out almost instantly that he was not a sailor (callouses in the wrong places, missing finger, wrong stance, etc.). Figured out his nature before we even got on the boat. At this point, the DM lets me use my active or passive investigation when meeting new folks, just kinda depending on how my rogue feels about them in that moment. Pretty neat honestly.

In that case, it sounds perfectly reasonable. Just make a caveat that it can't stack with the Observant feat, because otherwise you're going to wind up with the possibility of +10 to passive Investigation. (This does mean that you don't want to take Observant, most likely, along with this feat.)

[stoutstien]

- +1 dex
- you have advantage on intelligence (investigation) check regarding creatures you can see.
-any time you make a Dexterity (sleight of hand) check involving an item being worn, carried, or placed by you on another creature's person, you can choose to abort the action as a reaction. You can decide after the d20 is rolled but must decide before the DM says whenever the roll succeeded or failed.

Works out similarly numbers wise and doesn't need special exceptions for stacking with observant. Still can stack up to +10 Passive investigation but only in specific circumstances.