Universal feats

[Lupine]

During the thread about the new WotC survey, I saw a few comments about giving the GWM and SS feats to people automatically, to reduce the feat tax.

Also I was filling out the survey, I went through each feat to remind myself of them (I'm a forever DM, so I don't get to see the unpopular ones very often), and I noticed the feat Martial Adept. It gives a d6 superiority die, and two manuevers from the Battlemaster subclass.
For a while, people in 5e have been complaining about how fighters and other martials typically have a turn which falls into the loop of "I move, I swing," with little variance of tactical complexity.

With GWM and SS being automatically given to some people, I wonder if the solution to the "turns are too simple," is staring us in the face, in the form of "give everyone martial adept for free."
Sure, you'd need to give some more dice for it to entirely fix the problem, but this would really help with making martials more varied and tactically interesting.

As an idea, maybe give proficiency bonus number of superiority dice? Battle master would still have a lot more, but converts all those dice to D8s, still giving them more maneuvers per combat.

Thoughts? Do you guys oppose universal feats in general?

[MoiMagnus]

Thoughts? Do you guys oppose universal feats in general?

I'm fine with it as long as it doesn't favour too much some character builds. I have the feeling of "this is what I want to do and this is objectively better, but they're both different".

With Tasha's manoeuvres, I'm pretty sure there is enough variety so that almost every character can find something interesting enough, so martial adept looks fine to me.

Additionally, I feel like the mounted combatant is made to be a universal feats. It works much better when either no one or everyone has it. There might be a few others like that but that's the first that come to my mind.

[Pildion]

During the thread about the new WotC survey, I saw a few comments about giving the GWM and SS feats to people automatically, to reduce the feat tax.

Also I was filling out the survey, I went through each feat to remind myself of them (I'm a forever DM, so I don't get to see the unpopular ones very often), and I noticed the feat Martial Adept. It gives a d6 superiority die, and two manuevers from the Battlemaster subclass.
For a while, people in 5e have been complaining about how fighters and other martials typically have a turn which falls into the loop of "I move, I swing," with little variance of tactical complexity.

With GWM and SS being automatically given to some people, I wonder if the solution to the "turns are too simple," is staring us in the face, in the form of "give everyone martial adept for free."
Sure, you'd need to give some more dice for it to entirely fix the problem, but this would really help with making martials more varied and tactically interesting.

As an idea, maybe give proficiency bonus number of superiority dice? Battle master would still have a lot more, but converts all those dice to D8s, still giving them more maneuvers per combat.

Thoughts? Do you guys oppose universal feats in general?

I like the idea of giving Martial's a little help. But I do think giving the -5\+10 on any attack would not only fix the mandate of GWM\SS but really help DW and S\B builds stay competitive.

[KorvinStarmast]

It is my opinion that all fighters, rangers and paladins have as an embedded class feature that Mounted Combat feat. Maybe barbarians also, still pondering that.

[Leon]

During the thread about the new WotC survey, I saw a few comments about giving the GWM and SS feats to people automatically, to reduce the feat tax.


Its not a tax, its people of a certain mindset being unable to look out of the box and only use what makes the numbers bigger, they are nice feats they are also not actually needed to play at all.
Playing a character that may eventually take the sharpshooter one but ive a lot of other interesting choices to consider for the character before that.

[Ulsan Krow]

Like the idea, Martial Adept is incredibly weak anyway so it wouldn't be gamebreaking but it could still be slightly unbalanced, it'd be a free feat after all.

E.g. I wouldn't give it to Paladin, they're strong throughout. Most martials except Monk aren't terrible at low levels anyhow so straight up MA, again, not going to destroy the game but in terms of power level not immensely necessary.


You could buff Superior Technique and Martial Adept for players to do want to use them, that won't change balance because those two options are already weaker than the tradeoffs you have to take them. At the very least 2 uses per SR/LR over a measly 1

[Stangler]

Feat balance is all over the place where sometimes it is just basically extra flavor and other times it is integral to builds and establishing DPR. That is ultimately the problem with the current feat system as it is implemented. Some of the most popular feats are simply too good to be balanced against other options. Feats should be about a fun choice but really powerful choices effectively reduce choice.

[OldTrees1]

I wonder if the solution to the "turns are too simple," is staring us in the face, in the form of "give everyone martial adept for free."

Ask your group. For some players, Martial Adept is a dead feat because "one attack per rest" is a dealbreaker. For others, the list of 5E maneuvers cause them to fall asleep mumbling about "they are all boring". However if your group likes them, then one additional attack per rest is more than they had before.

I do not think a free Martial Adept is a solution for me personally. I don't think it would break anything (unless you make it mandatory). I would rather something like "Oh you can replace any of your attacks with a combat maneuver check to imposes a condition from a list. The condition lasts 1 round. You can do this at will. Available conditions and DC are tweaked for balance."

However if doing something interesting 2-6 times per rest is enough, go for it.

[Ulsan Krow]

For more Fighter superiority die without actually directly buffing the power level of the class, could try:

1. Superior Technique, learn 1 maneuver + 1 dice per rest --> 2 maneuvers + 2 dice per rest

2. Martial Adept, learn 2 maneuvers + 1 dice per rest --> 2 maneuvers + 2 dice per rest

3. Second Wind --> 2 maneuvers + 2 dice per rest


Variant Human, level 1 Fighter =
6 maneuvers + 6 superiority die at level 1. At the levels where you have no options, and when you have 1 attack per turn that might be able to scratch the itch

[Gurgeh]

Martial Adept already gives two manoeuvres (though only one die).

While I would like to see manoeuvres - or at least something a shade more involved than "I attack" - get a bit more traction, the specific suggestion above is staggeringly overtuned.

With the changes suggested above, a third-level Battle Master will have 10d8 superiority dice every rest; more than the currently printed Battle Master can get at any point in their progression. And unlike a current high-level Battle Master, this character can just say farewell to the Fighter class and shift over to Paladin or Rogue or Barbarian or even a full caster and get this outrageously powerful package tacked on to a brand new class.

[Ulsan Krow]

Martial Adept already gives two manoeuvres (though only one die).

While I would like to see manoeuvres - or at least something a shade more involved than "I attack" - get a bit more traction, the specific suggestion above is staggeringly overtuned.

With the changes suggested above, a third-level Battle Master will have 10d8 superiority dice every rest; more than the currently printed Battle Master can get at any point in their progression. And unlike a current high-level Battle Master, this character can just say farewell to the Fighter class and shift over to Paladin or Rogue or Barbarian or even a full caster and get this outrageously powerful package tacked on to a brand new class.

Yes my mistake, was a typo on my half.


And I totally disagree, it's not overtuned. Because 10d8 sounds tremendously strong in comparison to the current 4d8. But it takes Superior Technique + Martial Adept + loss of Second Wind, so the notion of a 10d8 is not remotely broken in comparison to the actual tradeoff, which is

4d8
Second Wind
Fighting Style
Another feat at level 1




I.e. if 10d8 is egregiously overpowered, the idea is an additional 6d8 is that much stronger than an Archery's +2 to every attack roll, Duelling's +2 to every damage roll, + Sharpshooter or Great Weapon Master or Polearm Master, on top of the utility of a bonus action 1d10 + 3 health or higher. Wherein the vanilla build still looks tremendously favorable, and proceeds to outstrip the superiority die centred build once you hit higher levels.

Below level 5 there can be an argument that its overtuned, not in terms of sheer DPR compared to other optimizer builds, but from the comparative utility of having 9 different maneuver options versus 3. In which case you can streamline the BM's progression to be less frontloaded, by giving 2 dice at level 3 only, but giving an extra die at levels 10 and 18.

[Nounverber]

For specifically the battle master feat and fighting style, make the feat give two dice and two maneuvers with an optional change one maneuver a rest but keep the dice d6s. That way, the feat itself is still weaker than half the battle master level 3, they get to use a maneuver more than once a rest, and they don't feel locked into bad beginning choices. Making it stronger than the fighting style also helps people decidedly not just pick the any fighting style feat so they can get even more options whenever they want. If you wanted to make battle masters better with the feat so they don't feel weaker for not double dipping, make the feat scale with their other BM dice at level 3 BM since it already does that at higher levels but that may introduce a lot of level 4 battle master multi classes (which may or may not be a problem)

[Toadkiller]

Its not a tax, its people of a certain mindset being unable to look out of the box and only use what makes the numbers bigger, they are nice feats they are also not actually needed to play at all.
Playing a character that may eventually take the sharpshooter one but ive a lot of other interesting choices to consider for the character before that.

Been playing 5e for quite a few years. I don’t think I have ever played a game with them. It has never come up as a “obvious choice”.

Edit: I don’t mean I haven’t played them. Nobody has played them. Or mentioned them.

[MoiMagnus]

Its not a tax, its people of a certain mindset being unable to look out of the box and only use what makes the numbers bigger, they are nice feats they are also not actually needed to play at all.
Playing a character that may eventually take the sharpshooter one but ive a lot of other interesting choices to consider for the character before that.

I can see it being a tax with certain GMs that actively expect the characters to be able to output huge amount of damage against low AC enemies.

In my previous campaign with an Hexblade, the GM did give us the -5/+10 for free (for any kind of weapon), but given that the enemies had really high AC in average, I only used it an handful of times during the whole campaign.

[Glorthindel]

It is my opinion that all fighters, rangers and paladins have as an embedded class feature that Mounted Combat feat. Maybe barbarians also, still pondering that.

I would add Charger and Mage Slayer to that list.

[Khrysaes]

Rather than -5\+10, you can do -prof/+2*(prof). This makes it less powerful at lower levels and equally powerful at. 14? I think?

[Silly Name]

The thing with GWM and SS is that they don't really feel like feats, and rather like combat options that could just work as part of the baseline combat rules that are available to anyone - sacrificing accuracy for damage isn't exactly a flashy deal. But the numbers are way too big to work as an embedded option for all classes, there needs to be a cost if the feats stay as they are.

On Martial Adept: All Fighters should've had Maneuvers as part of the class package from the get-go. Battle Master may learn more and get bigger superiority dice, but being able to use them multiple times a day should be something that all Fighter do. Other martial classes could do without, since they have some more complexity to take advantage of already, but I also think that stuff like disarming and tripping should be part of the normal combat rules, with stuff like Disarming Strike and Trip Attack giving you a bonus on the DC or whatever.

[Ulsan Krow]

The thing with GWM and SS is that they don't really feel like feats, and rather like combat options that could just work as part of the baseline combat rules that are available to anyone - sacrificing accuracy for damage isn't exactly a flashy deal. But the numbers are way too big to work as an embedded option for all classes, there needs to be a cost if the feats stay as they are.

On Martial Adept: All Fighters should've had Maneuvers as part of the class package from the get-go. Battle Master may learn more and get bigger superiority dice, but being able to use them multiple times a day should be something that all Fighter do. Other martial classes could do without, since they have some more complexity to take advantage of already, but I also think that stuff like disarming and tripping should be part of the normal combat rules, with stuff like Disarming Strike and Trip Attack giving you a bonus on the DC or whatever.

Hopefully I'm not patronising, but in case otherwise you haven't come across it there's actually a Disarm rule in the DMG already, and some other, somewhat slightly obscure sounding ones on pg 271

https://5e.tools/variantrules.html#action%20options_dmg


Climb onto a Bigger Creature

Disarm

Mark

Overrun

Shove Aside

Tumble


So on top of Grapple and Shove there's actually a decent amount of unlimited combat 'maneuvers' already written from the getgo. Of those options though I would probably ban Mark or only give it to Martials who are struggling to keep up in fights, its just a straight upgrade to opportunity attacks as written, + is kind of needless and annoying extra bookkeeping. But for static and underpowered martials it'll help them lock down enemies alot better.

Those other ones are pretty nice to think about.

[Chronos]

Certainly having "universal feats" is not, in itself, an inherently broken idea, since compared to 3rd edition, we already have several: Everyone in 5th edition already has the equivalent of Weapon Finesse and Spring Attack, and I think a couple of others, that were feats in 3e.

[Pildion]

Its not a tax, its people of a certain mindset being unable to look out of the box and only use what makes the numbers bigger, they are nice feats they are also not actually needed to play at all.
Playing a character that may eventually take the sharpshooter one but ive a lot of other interesting choices to consider for the character before that.

You do to have any prayer of keeping up with casters though, so I do think its a good idea.

I do like Khrysaes idea of doing -prof\+2*(prof) over -5\+10, as this makes it scale and not be OP during tier 1 play. though it would end up -6\+12

[Khrysaes]

You do to have any prayer of keeping up with casters though, so I do think its a good idea.

I do like Khrysaes idea of doing -prof\+2*(prof) over -5\+10, as this makes it scale and not be OP during tier 1 play. though it would end up -6\+12

Alternatively, the player can choose how much to lose/gain with the prof only being a maximum. So -1/+2 OR -2/+4 at tier 1.

They dont always have to take the maximum this way.

[Sorinth]

You do to have any prayer of keeping up with casters though, so I do think its a good idea.

I do like Khrysaes idea of doing -prof\+2*(prof) over -5\+10, as this makes it scale and not be OP during tier 1 play. though it would end up -6\+12

Feat or feature I find the whole thing to be just fairly bad design. If it's a question of balancing martials vs casters I'd much prefer a different approach then trading accuracy for damage.

[Leon]

You do to have any prayer of keeping up with casters though, so I do think its a good idea.


Maybe be less concerned with "keeping up" and more about achieving the goals the party is working on.

[Kane0]

- Anyone can opt to add their prof bonus to an attacks damage roll instead of the attack roll if they are proficient. GWM and SS improve this to double prof on the damage roll when doing this.

- Anyone can learn and perform rituals

- Anyone can use Inspiration as a Luck Point

- Anyone proficient in heavy armor can ignore stealth disadvantage in medium armor

- Anyone can draw weapons woth the Throwm quality without using their interaction (like drawing ammo)

- Anyone can use light ranged weapons as well as light melee weapons for TWF

- Anyone wielding a weapon or shield can use their reaction to add their prof bonus to AC against a single melee attack

- Anyone not spending hit dice during a short rest can give 'advantage' on any hit dice one ally rolls during that short rest

- Anyone taking Dash with their action in a straoght line can make an attack or shove at the end of that dash

Of course, not all in the same game.