Feat for taking features from another class

[Greywander]

A frequent occurrence when I'm trying to build a character to fit a concept is that I might want certain specific features from another class, but I'm not really interested in anything else that class gives. Worse, I might need to dip rather deeply into that class to get that feature, when I really want to have more levels in my main class. On rare occasions, you might need to take a particular subclass, but really want a specific feature from a different subclass. This was just a random thought I had, and it probably has many balance issues, but it might be viable as a quick fix if your DM approves your specific class feature picks.

Here's a write up for the feat:


Cross Training
You've received special training in another class or subclass, allowing you to learn a specific feature from that class without putting in the dedication to master that class. Choose one feature learned by a class or subclass at the same level or lower as when you took this feat; you then gain that feature. If that feature improves as your level increases in that class, treat that feature as if your level in that class was equal to your proficiency bonus, unless your proficiency bonus is lower than your level in that class.

If you use this feat to take a feature from a class, and then later gain that feature from that class, you may choose a different feature from a different class or subclass. The feature must be one that is learned by that class at the same level or lower as when this feat was originally taken.

You may take this feat more than once. If you take this feat more than once, you may choose the same feature or a different one. If you choose the same feature, you may treat your level in that class for the purposes of that feature as being equal to twice your proficiency bonus. You can't choose the same feature more than twice.

Potential pitfalls:

Spellcasting. You can grab magic from any full caster class and get up to 3rd level spells for the price of one feat (and up to 6th level spells for two feats). I makes Magic Initiate look really lackluster in comparison, and Magic Initiate is actually a really good feat. This could also cause confusion regarding what your caster level is.
This allows you to potentially combine traits that wouldn't normally be available on the same character. My go-to example for this is a full fighter using Improved Divine Smite to add 1d8 radiant damage to four attacks. This is amazing value for a feat, and you could grab it at 12th level.
Invocations. Similar to spellcasting, this is technically one feature that gives access to multiple benefits. For one feat, you get up to three invocations, including access to invocations that require a 5th level warlock, and with two feats you get up to six invocations that require a 12th level warlock. Note that Lifedrinker requires Pact of the Blade, so to get that you'd need at least three levels in warlock or another feat to grab the pact boon. I do kind of think Eldritch Adept is a bit on the weak side, but this makes it look like a joke.
Same-class enhancing. Imagine a warlock who can get two or more pact boons, say, Pacts of the Tome and Chain. Or, grab a juicy feature from a subclass you didn't take. If it's one that scales with your level, well, you are that class, so you get the full benefit.
High level features. This one is kind of intentional, and it does require you to be at least that level anyway. But it almost guaranties that people are spending their 19th level ASI on a high level class feature from another class.

All in all, I think it's an interesting quick fix, but should probably always include DM supervision. It would be easy to call out spellcasting specifically as not being allowed, but some of these other issues would be trickier to address.

Is there a better way to do this, aside from manually converting individual class features into feats?

[luuma]

A frequent occurrence when I'm trying to build a character to fit a concept is that I might want certain specific features from another class, but I'm not really interested in anything else that class gives. Worse, I might need to dip rather deeply into that class to get that feature, when I really want to have more levels in my main class. On rare occasions, you might need to take a particular subclass, but really want a specific feature from a different subclass. This was just a random thought I had, and it probably has many balance issues, but it might be viable as a quick fix if your DM approves your specific class feature picks.

Here's a write up for the feat:


Cross Training
You've received special training in another class or subclass, allowing you to learn a specific feature from that class without putting in the dedication to master that class. Choose one feature learned by a class or subclass at the same level or lower as when you took this feat; you then gain that feature. If that feature improves as your level increases in that class, treat that feature as if your level in that class was equal to your proficiency bonus, unless your proficiency bonus is lower than your level in that class.

If you use this feat to take a feature from a class, and then later gain that feature from that class, you may choose a different feature from a different class or subclass. The feature must be one that is learned by that class at the same level or lower as when this feat was originally taken.

You may take this feat more than once. If you take this feat more than once, you may choose the same feature or a different one. If you choose the same feature, you may treat your level in that class for the purposes of that feature as being equal to twice your proficiency bonus. You can't choose the same feature more than twice.

I know it's clunky, but it's perfectly suitable to just write a banlist for certain features in the feat. I'd put "you can't use this feat to choose Extra Attack, Spellcasting, Divine Smite, (edit:)Aura of Protection, or any features gained at 5th or 11th level." or, alternately "Your DM has the final say on whether or not you can take a particular feature with this feat." I would also say, personally, I think the feat should probably just treat your level as one (not PB), and I'd then remove the final paragraph.

[Anymage]

Can you give some examples of features you'd want to poach? It might be better to create ad hoc feats for those rather than have one super broad catch-all, because "pick any one feature from any class" is pretty much the definition of cherry picking.

And honestly, sometimes it might be better to straight up ask the DM about being able to swap around class/subclass features instead of tying it to feats specifically. Your bard who wants Timeless Body could probably find some ribbon or minor class feature that'd be a good equivalent trade. Your bard who wants Aura of Protection will have to give up something much more essential than just an ASI. These sorts of judgement calls should absolutely require DM greenlighting to a much greater degree than normal feats involve.

[KittenMagician]

i feel like there is potential here but also a whole lot of balance issues. I wouldnt mind using this to take reckless attack (from barbarian) and Improved critical (champion fighter ) on a rogue to guarantee sneak attack and a higher likely hood of a critical. Which could be very silly. Also taking improved critical and sneak attack or cunning action on a barbarian can be a bit ridiculous. I agree that this more or less should be a feat you CANT take unless you have DM permission and you have to work closely with the DM about what you are doing. Overall this needs some serious polish.

P.S.: this is a great feat for human variant fighters as they get 3 more feats than any other class/race combination.

[Breccia]

I agree with KittenMagician, that taken as written, there's a lot of imbalance potential here.

The first thing I'd do is point out the Feat Martial Adept. You'll see it's not as strong as that subclass feature. I thereby submit that a Feat is, generally speaking, weaker than a class feature. Having a Feat that's one-size take-any therefore seems like it's not using, um, "character points" properly.

But that's just one feat/feature. Let's look at some others.

Let's start with some immediate, obvious (to me) restrictions I'd put on it.
1) You can't take "spellcasting". Way too dangerous. Includes Cantrips and Ritual Casting.
2) You can't take "Improved XXX" when you don't have XXX.
3) A subclass is not a feature. You can't take, for example, a Paladin's Sacred Oath.
4) Cannot take Ability Score Improvement, although...why would you?
5) Cannot take Extra Attack. That feels like it'd be too strong too soon -- I'm picturing a Wild Shape T-Rex or the like making two or three bite attacks.

Now let's go through class by class and see what's left.

Barbarian
1) Rage -- yeah, that's a biggie. A Fighter taking Feat:Rage is getting a significant damage boost and a highly beneficial defense boost, with no real downsides.
2) Unarmored Defense -- no real danger here. It doesn't stack from multiple classes, and that leaves basically the Wizard who probably has a suck Con score.
3) Reckless Attack -- smells like it could be a Feat anyhow.
4) Danger Sense -- advantage on most Dex saves is pretty cool, but I'm guessing there are better uses.
5) Fast Movement -- I'd just take Mobile.
6) Feral Instinct -- just take Alert
7) Brutal Critical -- doesn't seem too bad
8) Relentless Rage -- requires two Feats since you have to be Raging to use it. This would be particularly strong on a Paladin who would almost certainly make the first four or five saving throws, then burn Lay on Hands immediately (it's not a spell, they can do that).
9) Persistent Rage -- nobody would do this
10) Indomitable Might -- nobody would do this, either

Bard
1) Bardic Inspiration Dice -- this feels fairly good with RPG flavor. Caps out at 1d8 with a single Feat so I think this is probably okay.
2) Jack of All Trades -- this is an undervalues ability in my opinion. However, a player could take "Skilled" and become with most of the Skills anyhow.
3) Song of Rest -- an extra 1d6 per character per Short Rest doesn't seem like a problem.
4) Expertise -- this feels stronger than Skill Expert or Prodigy.
5) Font of Inspiration -- you'd need to burn 2 Feats to get this. I don't think anyone would.
6) Countercharm -- probably simpler to use the Paladin list below.
7) Magical Secrets -- effectively dead. The spells you take count as Bard Spells, and I ruled out Spellcasting earlier, so you don't have any Bard Spells. Also, adding two spells of your choice to your non-Bard list would get a hard "no" from me. Compare to Mage Initiate which spells out 1st-level spell.

Cleric
Yeah, it's Channel Divinity. You're spending a Feat to get Turn Undead because everything else is locked in a Divine Domain. At most, get to use it twice/Long Rest. I guess you could spend 2 Feats to do it three times. Also worth noting, since Multiclassing doesn't give you an extra use, neither would this Feat.

Druid
1) Wild Shape -- due to the class level assignment of this Feat, and the lack of augments (locked in subclasses) this will be a utility ability. I'd argue that Wild Shape is stronger than a 1st-level spell and therefore this feels too strong.
2) Timeless Body -- well, it doesn't have combat power, at least.

Fighter
1) Fighting Style -- I'm surprised this isn't a Feat already.
2) Second Wind -- again, the obvious comparison is to a 1st-level spell. Yes, you can only use this on yourself, but it's a Bonus Action. Even though there is an arguably much better option, this still feels too strong.
3) Action Surge -- the only reason Fighters get this is because, otherwise, they don't get a lot to work with. Giving this to other classes seems horribly unfair. The only reason I'm not just filling this line with "no" over and over in all caps is the restriction on spellcasting.
4) Indomitable -- the ability to re-roll one failed saving throw is pretty strong. Even halflings can't do that. Feels stronger than a Feat should be.

Monk
This is where things get nuts. You have to burn this Feat once just to get Ki points, and then again per ability you want to spend them on. Let's assume nobody does that, or that it gets lumped in with Spellcasting and it's flat-out prohibited. What's left?
1) Martial Arts -- compares stronger than Tavern Brawler to me.
2) Unarmored Movement -- the no-armor restriction is hefty. Probably better to take Barbarian. Or Mobile.
3) Deflect Missiles -- the one-hand free is a strict limitation on its use, basically only Rogues would do this. Probably better off getting the Shield spell.
4) Slow Fall (and its friends) -- too situational for most people to take. Also, you could just take the Feather Fall spell.
5) Ki-Empowered Strikes -- nobody would take this.
6) Evasion -- I'm actually not sure who'd take this. Most Dex-heavy classes already have it. Others can take Shield Master. This still feels stronger than a Feat.
7) Stillness of Mind -- too situational for players to take.
8) Purity of Body -- nobody would pass Paladin to take this.
9) Tongue of Sun and Moon -- one of the best abilities in the game. Way stronger than a 1st-level spell.
10) Diamond Soul -- proficiency in all saving throws is incredibly strong. Way stronger than any Feat in the game.
11) Timeless Body -- interestig in an RPG setup to combine with druid's Timeless Body. One could easily take the other. But, again, no combat benefit.

Paladin
1) Divine Sense -- feels pretty comparable to a 1st-level spell.
2) Lay on Hands -- when I read the description this is where I went immediately. The minimum, 10 hp/day, is great for emergencies and better yet at stabilizing people. Or, it's two cures of poison/disease. Again, compare to a 1st-level spell, and this is a serious red flag to me.
3) Fighting Style -- see Fighter
4) Divine Health -- feels stronger than a Feat should be. Especially when some non-divine character gets it.
5) Divine Smite -- this is the one you called out. Believe it or not, I'm worried about a War Cleric getting their hands on this. The ability doesn't call out Paladin spell slots, after all. Thankfully, the wording rules out Wild Shaped druids.
6) Channel Divinity -- see Cleric, except for the part where you'd have to skip over Cleric to take Paladin's, and why would you?
7) Aura of Protection -- this is a huge bonus. Way too strong to be a Feat.
8) Aura of Courage -- useful but too situational for anyone to take.
9) Improved Divine Smite -- costs two Feats to do +1d8 radiant with each melee weapon attack. Under my version it's not as strong as you were thinking, but still strong. That said, bear in mind the real danger was a full spellcaster in melee is the real danger here from Divine Smite alone.
10) Cleansing Touch -- I love this ability, but it's too strong to be a Feat.

Ranger
This class is already weak and my restrictions mean there's nothing left worth taking.

Rogue
It's all about that
1) Sneak Attack. The main fear I have hear is shared with Multiclassing: the Rogue/Monk. These guys will land a Sneak Attack every single round. But leaving that issue out, it's still pretty dangerous. Yes, the Barbarian can't Sneak Great Axe, but a Fighter could go rapier and shield and lose nearly nothing. And be nearly as dangerous as the Rogue/Monk. Sneak Attack is way too strong to be a Feat, considering the restriction (another ally next to the target) is almost a given.
2) Cunning Action -- Disengaging as a Bonus Action is ridiculously useful for most non-melee types. Dashing as a Bous Action is ridiculuously useful for everyone else. Too strong.
3) Uncanny Dodge -- how to make your Barbarian or Fighter unkillable.
4) Evasion -- see Monk
5) Reliable Skill -- I don't know who'd take this, but it still feels stronger than a Feat.
6) Blindsense -- tough call. "Know the Location" doesn't seem all that bad.
7) Slippery Mind -- there's a better Feat
8) Elusive -- feels stronger than a feat, but also, a lot of monsters don't typically get Advantage.

Sorcerer
First, you have to burn a Feat on Magic Font. This, in turn, is an extra 1st through 4th spell slot per day. That's already strong for a Feat, maybe too strong.
Second, you can take Metamagic aaaaaaaaaaaand that's when things go from "maybe too strong" to "ridiculous". In particular, a Cleric with this could be an amazing healer.

Warlock
I just flat-out don't want to do this one. But there's already Eldritch Adept, so, there's an easy comparison.

Wizard
Without spellcasting, not much left worth taking.

So I think I've found the issue:
1) Class features get stronger with level.
2) Feats generally don't.

Basically, all the class features anyone would be allowed to take, are strong or overpowered compared to a Feat, because Feats are safe for anyone to take regardless of class and level, and class features are not.

Ask yourself: would anyone multiclass, just to take this class feature? A level is way more "expensive" than a Feat. If a player would pick a character and intentionally Multiclass to do something, than making that something a Feat is going to make their job much easier, and as a direct result, their character more powerful. There's a reason Extra Attack (2) is level 11, past the halfway point.

My recommendation? Follow the Martial Adept. Make a separate, specific, toned-down version of each "useful" class feature that anyone'd want to mimic. Make one Feat per. Word it so it either doesn't stack with the same class feature, or doesn't stack usefully. Limited uses/day might help. Letting a Bard steal the Paladin's Aura of Protection constantly seems wrong. Letting him borrow it for a single fight isn't as bad. A defender Fighter or Paladin with Uncanny Dodge is impossible to kill. A defender Fighter or Paladin who get one half-damage attack per Long Rest is just slightly harder to kill (it becomes a Get Out of Critical Hit Free card).

This could also be an excuse to take the class features that you don't think are all that bad, and make those into Feats. Level-restricted ones, perhaps. Song of Rest isn't so bad. Fighting Styles don't seem that bad either. For added fun, lock the Feats behind specific trainers in guilds, locations, or quests. This will effectively follow the level restriction you already put in place. Or, follow the Multiclass restrictions on stats for who can take which Feats (i.e. no Uncanny Dodge with a Dex of 8).

But it really seems like doing this blanket, or even with a specific restricted list, isn't going to end well. As noted above, Fighters get a stupid high number of Feats. Letting them pick and choose class features is going either end with Bob the Sneak Attack Smiter or Ray the Uncanny Dodge Rager.

[Kane0]

-Snip-


Good analysis here. A blanket feat for everything is going to be messy no matter how you slice it, what you might want to consider is expanding on the specific multi-in-a-can feats that already exist.

For example:
Barb-in-a-feat: watered down rage plus unarmored AC, +5' speed and/or some other ribbon versions of their features
Fighter-in-a-feat: martial adept and fighting style feat already cover this, but you could merge them as theyre half feats or swap the +1 stat for a long rest version of second wind or action surge
Bard-in-a-feat: inspiration and song of rest seem pretty good, countercharm even for a ribbon portion
Rogue-in-a-feat: limited use cunning action and lite-sneak attack, throw in thieves cant to round it out
Paladin-in-a-feat: watered down smite, aura and lay on hands
Monk-in-a-feat: lots to choose from here, basically pick two or three and provide ki following the superiority/metamagic precedent
Ranger-in-a-feat: either fav enemy, nat explorer or wildsense coupled with fighting style, evasion or both of the late stealth features.
Artificer-in-a-feat: infusions just like sorc/warlock has metamagoc/invocations are found in feat form.

Cleric/wizard/druid-in-a-feat: magic initiate and ritual caster already covers to an extent, you could do a feat version of channel, wildshape or spell recovery though
Sorcerer/warlock-in-a-feat: already covered metamagoc adept and invocation initiate.

Any features left that you might really want to tick off?

Edit: the important part is that feats dont scale, so if they replicate features that do you have to adjust for that

[Kuulvheysoon]

You know, it really surprised me when there wasn't a "pick a single infusion" feat in TCoE along with feats like Eldritch Adept.

Artificer Adept was instead the much more boring and generic "pick a cantrip and a first level spell".

[GeoffWatson]

1) Fighting Style -- I'm surprised this isn't a Feat already.

It's in Tasha's as Fighting Initiate.

[Kane0]

You know, it really surprised me when there wasn't a "pick a single infusion" feat in TCoE along with feats like Eldritch Adept.

Artificer Adept was instead the much more boring and generic "pick a cantrip and a first level spell".

Couldve just been an update to magic adept to include artificer as an option of spell list but they have this thing about not changing the core books...

[Greywander]

Couldve just been an update to magic adept to include artificer as an option of spell list but they have this thing about not changing the core books...
They could have also written Magic Initiate to read something like, "Choose a class whose spell list contains cantrips. You learn two cantrips of your choice from that class's spell list." This would future proof the feat to include any future classes with their own spell list, such as the artificer.

[quindraco]

There's an attempt at this you can easily Google up, turning every class in the game into feats, but you may not like all aspects of their approach. I know I didn't. One of the things they did is refuse to address how some feats are much better than others, like how Skill Expert is much better than Skilled. Not a fan of that, myself. But one thing they did right, that you'd need to do as well, is have different feats for different class features, rather than trying to write a generic one. If you want to look it up, just look up the Adventurer homebrew.

Something you do have to decide on is how you want to handle imbalanced abilities in the core rules. The Adventurer homebrew takes a hands-off approach: no attempt is made to address the fact that feats are not remotely balanced against each other, but whenever a class feature can be neatly assigned to an existing feat, it is. Meanwhile, when two classes are very imbalanced against each other, no attempt is made to fix this. So, for example, I believe both Barbarian Unarmored Defense and Monk Unarmored Defense are just independent feats, with no attempt to balance them against each other.

Part of that is figuring out scaling - someone in this thread claimed feats never scale, I think, but that's not true at all. Tough and Skill Expert both do. If you want to make a feat worth taking, you may need to give it non-flat scaling, but you also don't want to make it OP. Part of defining what it means to be OP is deciding if you want the feat to be deliberately way worse than taking the core class - the Adventurer homebrew deconstructs the game to avoid having a class-based architecture, so of course feats are never nerfed in order to make the core class they came from more enticing.

Here are some ways to write the Barbarian Rage ability as a feat that showcase what I mean:

RAGE
Prerequisites: Str 13
You can rage like a Barbarian. See below for Rages per Day and Rage Damage.

Version 1: No scaling, so Barbarian levels are better than the feat, provided you have enough of them: 2/Day, Damage +2
Version 2: Rage scales with level, like Tough or any skill proficiency does: Rage max(pb,str mod-1)/day, Damage max(2,sqrt(level)). That's the same damage scaling as Barbarian Rage and slightly slower rages/day scaling (Barbarian rages/day scaling fits no sane algorithm, but you need a sane algorithm for a feat so players can obey it).
More Versions: You can peg Rage Damage to proficiency bonus to fix its very poor scaling (Barbarians are underpowered in Tiers 3 and 4, and Rage Damage having quadratically bad scaling is one reason for that), like how Bardic Inspiration dice scale with proficiency bonus. You can also peg it to an ability modifier - str mod -1 gets you the same min and max (2 to 4) but faster, leaving room at higher levels for other features. You can likewise peg Rages per day to an ability modifier, like Paladin Divine Sense - str mod +1 gets you to 6 faster. In either or both cases, you can use Con mod instead to pick up WOTC's dropped ball where at level 1 they started emphasizing Con more and then forgot about it - RAW Barbarians have de-emphasized Con, because of their larger hit dice. All of these changes reflect an attempt to make Barbarian Rage a better ability on a fundamental level, which might be out of scope for what you want. If you do do this, you'll want to modify Barbarians so they get the improved version.

[Breccia]

someone in this thread claimed feats never scale, I think, but that's not true at all.

That was me, and I stand behind that, but mostly due to specific definitions of the word "scale". Basically the difference between us is cosmetic phrasing/fine print on a contract.

[Greywander]

There's an attempt at this you can easily Google up, turning every class in the game into feats, but you may not like all aspects of their approach. I know I didn't.
I've seen this, and thought I referenced it in the OP, but it seems like I only mentioned the idea of converting class features into individual feats. I didn't like how some class features were implemented in the adventurer class, although I really like the general idea. But yeah, it seems like there's basically no way a "quick fix" feat like what I proposed here is going to work.


That was me, and I stand behind that, but mostly due to specific definitions of the word "scale". Basically the difference between us is cosmetic phrasing/fine print on a contract.
Defensive Duelist also scales with proficiency bonus.

But anyway, feats don't really need to scale due to bounded accuracy. For the most part, any feature or spell that is good at 1st level is still good at higher levels. There are some counter-examples, such as the Sleep spell, but that one at least is due to HP and damage not being affected by bounded accuracy. As such, the only things that truly should scale are things related to HP and damage. Feats like Mobile or Magic Initiate or Actor are all just as useful, regardless of your level.

I think you're correct about class features generally getting stronger as you reach higher levels, while, as noted, feats generally retain the same power. However, this isn't necessarily always the case. Stronger class features are generally gated behind higher levels, but not every class feature is this way. I think you could easily shuffle around the order in which certain class features are gained and it wouldn't have a huge impact on the game balance. This is for much the same reason as with feats: a good class feature is generally good regardless of your level. Cunning Action is really good for anyone, and yet it's only a 2nd level feature. Timeless Body is kind of crap, but it's gated behind a high level because thematically it's something you'd associate with a really powerful character. So stronger class features aren't always gated behind higher levels, and higher level features aren't always stronger. Class features in general don't appear to be balanced against each other in any way; instead, the class as an entire package is balanced against other classes.