Homebrew Feat: Overuse [PEACH]

[John Cribati]

I thought of this a while ago but never put it in writing until now. I tried to word it well, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I overlooked something.

Overuse
Prerequisite: A Proficiency Bonus of at least +2

When you have a Class Feature, Racial Feature, Magic Item, Weapon, or Feat that —after a set number* of uses or activations— requires a long rest** to be used or activated again, and you have activated or used the feature or feat that number of times, you may take a -2 penalty to your Proficiency Bonus to use or activate the feature once more.

The penalty lasts until you complete a long rest, and you may use this feat, for an additional -2 penalty, as many times as you wish, provided that taking the penalty will not reduce your Proficiency Bonus below 0.

* An example of a set number would be “once,” or “twice.” “A number of times equal to your proficiency bonus” or “A number of times equal to your Charisma Modifier” are not.
** The feature or feat must specify a long rest only, not, for example, “a short or long rest.”

NOTE 2: I was considering a -1 penalty for anything that would recharge on a short or long rest, and those penalties would last until a short or long rest was completed, but that would just mean another column of math to keep track of.

[sandmote]

This breaks at high levels. A warlock can now have foresight up perpetually, for instance, because they could use their 9th level mystic arcanum "once," before the feat applies. Same for a bunch of other higher level features.

[Angelalex242]

Eh. Permanent Foresight at level 18 isn't going to break much of anything.

We're talking about tier 4 play, after all.

[Composer99]

Never mind foresight. Genie warlock gets wish. Which they could now cast up to four times a day (once for their normal use, three with Overuse).

And if a warlock doesn't want to use this feature on Mystic Arcanum, they can use it on Eldritch Master to completely refill their spell slots multiple times.

I can't think of how this is going to affect other classes, off the top of my head, but this feat is simply too good on high-level warlock. It's not the first feat I would take, but it's an amazeballs pick for 16th-level ASI.

[Catullus64]

There are a few places this feat could be cleaned up with respect to readability. The prerequisite part is unecessary, as every character will have a proficiency bonus of at least +2.

There's also something that just nags me about the "fixed number of uses" restriction. If a major restriction of a feat needs a footnote to be clear, it might be worth reconsidering that restriction. Also, this feat will likely only become more restrictive with time, since Wizards is clearly moving away from "fixed number of uses per rest" as a design paradigm, in favor of "proficiency bonus number of uses" or "fixed number of uses, but can be refreshed by expending class currency." The inclusion of magic items in the feat's purview seems especially weird, since there are no magic items I'm aware of that regain uses on a long rest rather than at dawn.

I would also criticize this feat on the basis that it seems to stem from a purely mechanical idea. Most feats have a sentence at the beginning that describes the character skill or trait that the feat is meant to represent; I think you'd be hard pressed to do so coherently with this feat. The best feats not only give new options to a character, but also help tell a story and use the mechanics to express a theme. I don't feel like this feat really accomplishes that; it feels more like a mechanical patch on certain game features than a real extension of anyone's character.

[Tvtyrant]

There are a few places this feat could be cleaned up with respect to readability. The prerequisite part is unecessary, as every character will have a proficiency bonus of at least +2.

There's also something that just nags me about the "fixed number of uses" restriction. If a major restriction of a feat needs a footnote to be clear, it might be worth reconsidering that restriction. Also, this feat will likely only become more restrictive with time, since Wizards is clearly moving away from "fixed number of uses per rest" as a design paradigm, in favor of "proficiency bonus number of uses" or "fixed number of uses, but can be refreshed by expending class currency." The inclusion of magic items in the feat's purview seems especially weird, since there are no magic items I'm aware of that regain uses on a long rest rather than at dawn.

I would also criticize this feat on the basis that it seems to stem from a purely mechanical idea. Most feats have a sentence at the beginning that describes the character skill or trait that the feat is meant to represent; I think you'd be hard pressed to do so coherently with this feat. The best feats not only give new options to a character, but also help tell a story and use the mechanics to express a theme. I don't feel like this feat really accomplishes that; it feels more like a mechanical patch on certain game features than a real extension of anyone's character.

I don't know, I like the fluff of becoming worse at everything as you force yourself to use your powers again and again. It's very urban fantasy/shonen/psionics feeling, abusing a power until you have a severe concussion and can barely climb a rope or walk straight.

I don't know that the cost works here, I think levels of exhaustion would be better as they are hard to get rid of and mechanically potent. You can kill yourself by overabusing the power too, which is fluffy.

[Angelalex242]

I wouldn't lose sleep over the wishes. Even if a Warlock did use 4 wishes, they're rolling a d6 for every one, and their wishes will be cut short if it comes up 1 or 2.

[Composer99]

I wouldn't lose sleep over the wishes. Even if a Warlock did use 4 wishes, they're rolling a d6 for every one, and their wishes will be cut short if it comes up 1 or 2.

What are you talking about? Wish works every time without fail if you use it to duplicate a spell of 8th level or lower. Which this feat would allow you to do up to 4 times a day, every game day, in contravention of pretty well every design principle with respect to spells of 6th level or higher.

For starters, imagine wish-simulacrum cheese with a warlock, whose Mystic Arcana are explicitly not spell slots.

[Angelalex242]

Eh. They're still not doing anything a wizard couldn't do with enough downtime.

We're really talking about 4 8th level spells, once you're done doing what any wizard can do.

[Anymage]

For multiple reasons, I wouldn't expect to see anyone using this before sixteenth level. Maybe a warlock might grab it at twelfth, but that's still late in the game. Too many things (lack of temptingly powerful features at low levels, lack of proficiency bonus to spend on recoveries, and the simple fact that other feats and ASIs are much more meaningful early on) mean that it's unlikely to be used early on even by the characters best able to make use of it.

At which point I have to ask, do you gain something by making this a feat instead of a houserule? Have it cost exhaustion to give the overuse cost real teeth. (Someone could overuse at the end of the day for an extra hit of something big and then immediately rest to recover. But the end of an adventuring day by definition means you've finished off all the encounters, and using it at the end of a downtime day means little when the party could just spend a bit more downtime.) That way it's more likely to see actual use, lining up with the seeming intent of someone exhausting themselves by pushing just a little too far. Making it a feat means that most people won't have the option because they'd be better served spending the ASI on something more directly useful, and the people that do take it will be built around multiple daily uses of powerful single abilities (like the aforementioned mystic arcanum) as their default instead of overuse being a desperation move.