Please offer some feedback on the balance of this homebrew feat

[Doctor Despair]

Hey friends; 3.5 player going into a 5e campaign. I want to run something by my DM, but I want to make sure that I'm not just proposing total overpowered garbage to him, and I have little experience with how 5e is balanced. I was hoping you'd be able to offer some feedback or suggestions! My goal was to create the feeling of a Maquar Crusader 1 with Karmic Strike/Combat Reflexes as a feat using Sentinel as a prerequisite:

You have developed an uncanny ability to predict and sometimes even create gaps in your enemy’s guard, granting you the following benefits:

A. Once per short rest, as a free action, you may designate another creature as your charge as a bonus action. As long as you are adjacent to your charge (and your charge doesn’t have this feat), whenever a creature makes an attack against your charge, before taking any actions or reactions, you may exchange places with your charge to block the attack. Instead of attacking your charge, you become the target of their attack. Your designation of a creature as your charge lasts until you designate another creature with this ability.

B. At the start of your turn, as a bonus action, you may choose to enter a stance that lowers your guard in exchange for enabling you to make devastating counterstrikes. Until the start of your turn, you gain the following effects:

If your AC is greater than 8, it becomes 8.
Whenever a creature successfully hits you with a melee attack, if that creature is within your threatened range, you may immediately make a melee opportunity attack against that creature. These attacks do not count as reactions, and you may make a number of such attacks equal to your dexterity modifier.


You have developed an uncanny ability to predict and sometimes even create gaps in your enemy’s guard, granting you the following benefits:
A. Once per short rest, as a free action, you may designate another creature as your charge as a bonus action. As long as you are adjacent to your charge (and your charge doesn’t have this feat), whenever a creature makes an attack against your charge, you may exchange places with your charge to block the attack. Instead of attacking your charge, you become the target of their attack. Your designation of a creature as your charge lasts until you designate another creature with this ability.
B. At the start of your turn, as a bonus action, you may choose to enter a stance that lowers your guard in exchange for enabling you to make a devastating counter strike. Until the start of your turn, whenever a creature successfully hits you with a melee attack, if that creature is within your threatened range, you may immediately make a melee opportunity attack against that creature as a reaction.

For reference to the 3.5 abilities:

* Combat Reflexes offers attacks of opportunity for times = 1+dex mod/turn instead of just 1. I know the closest parallel to that is Tunnel Fighter fighter (a 1 level dip) that gets you infinite opportunity attacks, but also that opportunity attacks are rarer in 5e. One could take a tunnel fighter dip to get the unlimited cap anyway, so I thought making it 1/dex mod would make it viable for other classes and not just a tunnel fighter buff.

* Karmic Strike lets you take a -4 to your AC to get an AoO against anyone that hits you. I know strict additions/penalties are rarer in 5e outside of proficiency. At first, I thought of using disadvantage, but I understand that's quite a bit worse than just -4, so I settled on setting AC at 8? Not sure if that's an appropriate parallel or not.

* Maquar Crusader does the bodyguard ability from part A.

Any ideas on which of these is more fair, and how to improve it? Thanks for your ideas!

[Greywander]

The wording on these is a bit odd. I assume this is down to differences in writing conventions between 3.5e and 5e. First, free actions aren't a thing in 5e. Second, in a couple places you use wording like, "as a free action... as a bonus action." So which is it, a free action or a bonus action? Free actions aren't a thing, but I'm not sure what you were trying to do. Or, "At the start of your turn... as a bonus action." Again, does it happen at the start of your turn or when you use a bonus action? As you become more familiar with the rules and more experienced writing homebrew, you should see these sorts of quirks popping up less and less, so it's just a matter of practice. But it is important to try and match the language used by 5e, as it helps make the homebrew more clear as to what it's supposed to do.

Second, there are already several options that you might find accomplish what you're going for. The Sentinel feat is a great place to start, but there's also the Protection and Interception fighting styles. Cavalier eventually gets infinite OAs, but it comes extremely late. There's a reason Tunnel Fighter never got published. Redemption paladin and Peace cleric offer ways of taking damage in the place of an ally. Some classes, like Armorer Artificer or Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, have ways of imposing disadvantage on attacks against anyone other than you. The Battle Master Fighter has a number of maneuvers that can stand in for a lot of different abilities, Riposte being the one that allows you to make OAs against an enemy who misses you.

That said, I understand of RAW options aren't appealing for one reason or another. Let me see if I can take a crack at writing something up that gets you what you're looking for.


Royal Guardian
You've trained to serve as the shield for another, ready to give your life for theirs and strike down any who would threaten them harm. You gain the following benefits.

At the start of each of your turns, you gain one additional reaction until the start of your next turn. This special reaction can only be used to make an Opportunity Attack.
When a creature within 5 feet of you is the target of an attack, you may use a reaction to switch places with that creature and force the attack to target you instead, but also giving the attacker advantage on the attack roll.
On each of your turns, you can choose to lower your guard to goad others into attacking you, which lasts until the start of your next turn. All attacks made against you are made with advantage, and if you are hit by an attack, the attacker provokes an Opportunity Attack from you.


How does that look? As for balance, I'm not sure, it's just something I threw together real quick, but it doesn't seem too crazy.

[MrStabby]

Hey friends; 3.5 player going into a 5e campaign. I want to run something by my DM, but I want to make sure that I'm not just proposing total overpowered garbage to him, and I have little experience with how 5e is balanced. I was hoping you'd be able to offer some feedback or suggestions! My goal was to create the feeling of a Maquar Crusader 1 with Karmic Strike/Combat Reflexes as a feat using Sentinel as a prerequisite:

You have developed an uncanny ability to predict and sometimes even create gaps in your enemy’s guard, granting you the following benefits:

A. Once per short rest, as a free action, you may designate another creature as your charge as a bonus action. As long as you are adjacent to your charge (and your charge doesn’t have this feat), whenever a creature makes an attack against your charge, before taking any actions or reactions, you may exchange places with your charge to block the attack. Instead of attacking your charge, you become the target of their attack. Your designation of a creature as your charge lasts until you designate another creature with this ability.

B. At the start of your turn, as a bonus action, you may choose to enter a stance that lowers your guard in exchange for enabling you to make devastating counterstrikes. Until the start of your turn, you gain the following effects:

If your AC is greater than 8, it becomes 8.
Whenever a creature successfully hits you with a melee attack, if that creature is within your threatened range, you may immediately make a melee opportunity attack against that creature. These attacks do not count as reactions, and you may make a number of such attacks equal to your dexterity modifier.



You have developed an uncanny ability to predict and sometimes even create gaps in your enemy’s guard, granting you the following benefits:
A. Once per short rest, as a free action, you may designate another creature as your charge as a bonus action. As long as you are adjacent to your charge (and your charge doesn’t have this feat), whenever a creature makes an attack against your charge, you may exchange places with your charge to block the attack. Instead of attacking your charge, you become the target of their attack. Your designation of a creature as your charge lasts until you designate another creature with this ability.
B. At the start of your turn, as a bonus action, you may choose to enter a stance that lowers your guard in exchange for enabling you to make a devastating counter strike. Until the start of your turn, whenever a creature successfully hits you with a melee attack, if that creature is within your threatened range, you may immediately make a melee opportunity attack against that creature as a reaction.

For reference to the 3.5 abilities:

* Combat Reflexes offers attacks of opportunity for times = 1+dex mod/turn instead of just 1. I know the closest parallel to that is Tunnel Fighter fighter (a 1 level dip) that gets you infinite opportunity attacks, but also that opportunity attacks are rarer in 5e. One could take a tunnel fighter dip to get the unlimited cap anyway, so I thought making it 1/dex mod would make it viable for other classes and not just a tunnel fighter buff.

* Karmic Strike lets you take a -4 to your AC to get an AoO against anyone that hits you. I know strict additions/penalties are rarer in 5e outside of proficiency. At first, I thought of using disadvantage, but I understand that's quite a bit worse than just -4, so I settled on setting AC at 8? Not sure if that's an appropriate parallel or not.

* Maquar Crusader does the bodyguard ability from part A.

Any ideas on which of these is more fair, and how to improve it? Thanks for your ideas!

I think you have a few problems here.

The odd wording has already been picked up on, so I will ignore some of that... but there are some power issues and some big issues around stepping on the toes of other classes. Some of these might be solvable others might be a bit trickier.

So the first version:

A: So a useful and cool ability to take hits insead of an ally. Is good and its going to be useful, but the issue is it steps on the toes of other classes hard - specifically the redemption Paladin. This hurts because you can pick up a feat at level 1, six levels before the paladin gets their signature ability. In some ways, this is a bit worse and in other ways a LOT better.

B: This time you are screweing over the cavalier... only instead of limited extra attacks from the cavalier and each of which uses a bonus action, you have unlimited action-free attacks. Possibly - the equal to dexterity modifier, is that per round, per short rest, per day?

The AC of 8 looks a serious downside, unless you build around it, in which case its less of an issue. The feat on a barbarian that can rage is one obvious use - tank as many attacks as you can from as many enemies as possible and with your huge HP pool and damage resistance you will be exceptionally powerful over many levels in the game. Alternatively, as a caster you can be looking at features like mirror image such that you can still shrug off many hits or Armour of Agathys to double-punish someone for this. Another, slightly more narrow use is a race that gets lots of resistances - though few enough attacks will be doing the poison/fire/psychic etc. damage races are resistant to. High level forge clerics though...

The whole extra opportunity attacks thing is potentially very easily abused - these things are always reaction locked for a reason.

All in all I think that this is a very powerful feat - one interesting thing is that it isn't really leaning into being a martial character rather than a caster. The only thing you need to take advantage of this is being tough - and there are plenty of sells for that. I would also add that something like warcaster that gives you cantrips/spells as opportunity attacks also becomes obscene.

Honestly, I would suggest restarting - of particular interest would be abilities that the Cavalier AND Redemption Paladin would like, so the adition of this to the game gives them something.

I would maybe go for something like:

1) You get an extra 1 maximum HP per level, in addition your maximum hit die pool is increased by 1; that die is a d12.
2) Once per short rest, when an ally is hit by an attack, you may interpose yourself, taking that damage instead of the original target. You must make a dexterity save with DC equal to the attack roll. On a success you take half the damage.
3) Other allies within 5ft of yourself get a +1 bonus to AC

Now I am not going to pretend that this wouldn't also be a very strong feat... but it doesn't screw with the action economy. It compliments the existing Cavalier and Redemption Paladin (who would love to tank with a bigger pool of HP, and it gives a limited active ability and a limited passive ability also. Hopefully it doesn't step on the toes of existing ablities, is fun to use, is broadly thematically similar and isn't game-breakingly powerful.

[Just to Browse]

Both of these seem a little nutty in the correct conditions. I would probably want to see them spread across 2 feats, because they offer a lot of "spikey" power in one small bundle. Bear in mind that, in 3e, the Maquar's Harm's Way came online at level 6 at minimum, and consumed 2 mediocre feats. This extracts the strongest bit of Maquar lv1 + Combat Reflexes + Karmic, all achievable at level 4 thanks to VHuman. And the prereq for all this (Sentinel) is already considered pretty baller. This is all in an edition where actions & attacks are even valuable, so I think the feat is too strong by a good margin.

I'd like to compare a little bit to existing 5th edition content first, even though some of what I'm bringing up is significantly different from what you're planning.

Protective Bond compares to the Harm's Way feature. This is from the Peace cleric, and comes online at 6th level. When you buff your allies with Emboldening Bond (3/day), any of them can perform the Harm's Way swap if they are within 30 feet of each other as a reaction. They also get the usual buffs from Emboldening Bond.

This is weaker than your version of Harm's Way in that:
It comes a 6th lvl
It's usable only 3/day in 10min intervals
It requires a reaction
It does not allow allies to switch places
But stronger in that:
It comes with a low-key bless effect
The range is 30'
It applies on any instance of damage taken.
This is not the greatest comparison in the world, but looking at the downsides & upsides, it seems like a Harm's Way style feat would probably need to use a reaction.

Vigilant Defender compares to the Combat Reflexes feature. This is a level 18 Cavalier feature that grants 1 AoO every turn, but doesn't have that "please hit me" trigger and doesn't reduce your AC like Karmic Guide. I think this is a good sign that your effect belongs significantly lower than 18th level.

Tunnel Fighter also compares to the Combat Reflexes feature. It's a fighting style (accessible at level 1), which requires your bonus action in exchange for (1) making AoOs free, and (2) giving you a reaction attack when someone moves next to you. It's generally considered far too powerful for area control.

If we look at some fairly popular homebrew, we can use Accelerated Reflexes from the Savant (LaserLlama). This comes online at 5th level, and is meant to combine with the lv2 feature Wondrous Intellect to give the Savant Tier-2-appropriate damage output. Bonus reactions have been a hot topic on various 5e forums in the last several years, and this (https://www.enworld.org/attachments/1585771409736-png.120344/) solution seems to be fairly popular, with positive (if limited) playtest feedback. Neither of these restrict what the reaction can be spent on, either.

Now to look at some (much) less popular homebrew, I've explored a similar idea with the Entice feature of the Danaan Scion (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25597591&postcount=6), which is only relevant in that I tried to playtest it a little bit at home so I have some opinions. This effect is almost exactly what you're looking for, and it comes at level 3. But unfortunately, I found free OAs against attackers to be very, very strong. As a result, Entice is (1) class-locked, (2) costs a bonus action, and (3) competes on power with the Scion's major class feature. With your feat, players can optimize around #1 and #3, and they'll even be able to get a trigger for free.

Worth noting here: you do have 2 big sources of power budget. Dropping AC to 8 should lead to ~15% more damage taken compared to Entice (assuming a fighter in a chain shirt), and the feat won't trigger unless you get hit which means no free damage. But there's still a crapload of power in this feature... also I'm hesitant to suggest an AC override effect in this context.

Suggestion

Based on the above analysis, I suggest spreading the use cases across multiple feats. This gives you an opportunity for long-term progression as a fighter, while also opening up the power budget to make these features all as cool as possible. I would also add reaction requirements across the board, with 1 free usage per turn to add a solid baseline.

Harm's Way
When you complete a short rest, you may choose an ally as your Charge. When your Charge would be hit by an attack, you may use a reaction to switch places with them. You then become the target of the attack instead.
You have an additional reaction each round, which you can only use to activate the feature of Harm's Way.
Karmic Strike
As a bonus action, you can enter an aggressive stance that lasts until the start of your next turn. While in your aggressive stance, reduce your Armor Class by 4. If a creature within your reach successfully hits you while you are in this stance, you can make an opportunity attack against them.
You have an additional reaction each round, which you can only use to activate the feature of Karmic Strike.
I would also add Reactive (from the link above) to the list, but it's less important if these feats are partially self-sufficient.

Spreading the feat power out like this has 2 more benefits: (1) because the power is less spikey, Sentinel probably doesn't need to be a prereq anymore. Go be a suicide tank at level 1! (2) you may need to make tough decisions in combat. Do you take advantage on your Sentinel, or save your flexible reaction for a second use of Harm's Way?

If this isn't your speed, it might be possible to make a single feat that's balanced and includes both Harm's Way + Karmic Strike, but I think it will need to be significantly watered-down. One or both of the effects will probably need to be rest-limited.

[Kane0]

I think Greywander has the right of it. You can pick something like Crown Paladin or Interception fighting style plus the Sentinel feat to get the same feel without homebrew, and the suggested Royal Guardian plugs in pretty well on top of that.

[Yakk]

I'd not mess with the action economy.


Guardian
You've trained to serve as the shield for another, ready to give your life for theirs and strike down any who would threaten them harm. You gain the following benefits.

* As a bonus action you can choose to guard a creature within 5' of you. They remain guarded by you as long as they remain within 5' of you, or you use this action again.
* If a creature you are guarding is attacked, as a reaction you can swap positions with them and force the creature to attack you instead.
* If you are not incapacitated and a creature hits you when they have advantage on the attack, you can make a melee weapon attack against them. Once you have done this you cannot do it again until the start of your next turn.