Something you didn't mention is that the Polearm Master reaction attack is no longer an Opportunity Attack, so it doesn't synergize with Sentinel. Still really good, but worth considering.
This is a fantastic point that I certainly should have addressed. I was trying to cover a whole lot in not too much time so certain things definitely got left out but that shouldn’t have! Thanks for bringing it up :)
It's a tradeoff imo. Now disengage, the rogue's withdraw ability, the speedy feat, or anything else that affects opp atks doesn't bypass polearm master. Plus, heavy reach weapons tend to have mastery effects like topple, and push that synergize well with the feat. And hey, Goliaths can now become large sized for a while. 10ft×10ft space plus10ft reach practically guarantees someone is getting stabbed if they approach the party.
Was just about to make this same point, but you beat me to it ;) Question. Do we think this was intentional? It must have been. The lack of overlap with 'Opportunity Attack' *must* have been purposeful. @insightcheck Do you know if there are unlimited Opportunity Attacks per round? Or is that you can cash your one Reaction into one Opportunity Attack? Otherwise, Sentinel becomes a "Oh no you don't!" Feat that's game breaking.
Athlete is underrated on ranged builds. Climb to hard to reach vantage points, attack normally, then drop prone at the end of your turn to make all other ranged attacks against you have disadvantage. Then come your next turn just spend 5ft movement to stand and rinse and repeat. Hell, if your DM rules so, you dropping prone at an elevated position could put you behind total cover to most of your enemies.
When migrating my sorlock to the 2024 rules, I am thinking of grabbing Tough as my Origin Feat. I was considering Magic Initiate, but I will already have 9 or 10 cantrips so I don't really need 2 more. Getting 1 extra known 1st level spell would be nice, especially with tree 1 free use per day. Maybe switching my Shield spell over to that would be good so I can use it for free once a day and then use my learned spell to be something higher up? I'm not sure. The extra HP might be the better pick. I'm pretty squishy and get close to death pretty often. It would be a major health increase.
Crossbow Expert - A cool part about this is that you can effectively dual wield hand crossbows, sure. But the feat also rewardd you for using this as a melee option as well with the Nick weapon mastery. You don't have disadvantage for firing into melee, meaning you can point blank someone with your hand crossbow and then attack with an off-hand Nick weapon like a scimitar as part of the same attack, keeping your bonus action free. Ritual Caster - Notably, the feat, unlike in 2014, isn't limited a specific class spell list. So a Sorcerer can freely take Cleric, Druid and Wizard rituals with this feat. And really odd that you didn't the once daily "free" ritual cast ability that this feat aped from the Scribes Wizard, which also applies to *any* ritual you have prepared, not just the 1st level ones you received with this feat. Meaning in a pinch, you can drop a ritual without the +10 minute casting time and, if in the middle of a combat, it's another example of "slotless spellcasting" which by the new rules means you can still cast a spell with a spell slot on the same turn if able. I would say at minimum it's Niche, edging closer to Build Dependent. Polearm Master - It's reaction attack from someone entering your reach is notably not an opportunity attack anymore. Meaning the synergy with it and Sentinel is gone. Not enough to dock its position imo but worth noting. Spell Sniper - It is pretty Niche but like Ritual Caster, I think you can argue it for Build Dependent more than just bad. With buffs to things like the Evoker's Potent Cantrip, the Sorcerer's new "mage rage" feature giving it advantage on spell attacks, and new/reworked spells like Sorcerous Burst and especially Witch Bolt, I think the buffs are very useful and especially to spells with naturally lower ranges. Considering the 2014 Spell Sniper doubled the range, you're looking at spells with a 10 or 30ft range only going to 20 or 60 ft, whereas now they are going to 70 or 90 ft. The only ones "hurt" by the change are spells like Fire Bolt that already have 120ft range. Weapon Master - Counterpoint: monks do not get weapon mastery, and neither do Blade Warlocks or War Clerics. Considering those classes only use maybe one weapon anyway (Bladelocks especially), they can easily benefit from the bonus utility with their melee focus. Bladelocks in particular with their new invocation letting them gain a 3rd attack on their Attack action and being able to swap what weapon they want as their Pact Weapon to take advantage of the mastery they prefer on the day if necessary.
Valor Bards don’t get weapon mastery either. And only the fighter gets three WM choices, so if you’re playing a character that dual-wields dissimilar weapons and occasionally swaps out for a ranged weapon, or one that swaps weapons frequently to suit specific encounters, you *might* find this to be a useful feat. (I find the "just multiclass to fighter for a level" argument lacking - it’s just not appropriate for every character concept, and unless you do it pretty early, you’re unacceptably slowing progression in your main class.)
@@brilobox2 Wouldn't go that far, but some of them could definitely be changed that way: chef, keen mind, observant, even the ones giving you some weapons and armor proficiencies.
Interesting point. GWM's benefit for extra damage only calls for the weapon to have the Heavy property, no stipulation for also being a melee weapon. That means longbows and heavy crossbows would benefit from this feature.
True. That said, now that all general feats give half ASI there is no reason for a lv12 fighter, ranger, or rogue to say no to a +4 dmg boost/atk, that will become a +5 one level later, in exchange for a dump stat boost.
Might be good on a barbarian. using your longbow, extra attack, and great weapon master feat to attack distant enemies is better than not reaching them and dealing 0 damage. Barbarian will usually have a +2 dex mod with proficiency for accuracy. better than nothing.
I just realized that there was a stealth nerf to Sentinel. Since it's now triggered on the creature taking the disengage action (rather than you getting to ignore that they disengaged) you can't attack creatures that disengage 10' or more way from you and then run past you.
Agreed, sucks to see an enemy can disengage 10' away to pass by a sentinel user. Also, reach weapons are absolutely nerfed by this, opportunity attack procs when enemy attempt to move 15 away from a reach weapon, so enemy moves 5' then disengage, unpunishable.
Basically it made the spirit of that feat be: "I'm gonna stay next to that big ennemy, to make sure they can't move nor threaten anything besides me without being punished."
I wish these features just GAVE YOU a specific mastery property that you can apply to your weapons, increasing the benefits if you already have it on your weapon; and that weapon mastery was either an origin feat, or gave you 2-3 weapons to have mastery with.
@@AnaseSkyrider crusher and slasher are fine as is. But yeah weapon mastery should have been an origin feat. A lot of general feats should have been origin feats.
@@solarkhan484 sry but i prefer 100% not concentrate in the spell (2024 wrathful) and give for at least one round the condition then the old version for sure
It is important to note that Polearm Master does NOT provide an "opportunity attack". This is an important distinction, due to how it would interact with other features, such as those provided by the Sentinel feat. Also, Tough is like Ability Score Improvement: boring and mediocre, but ALWAYS GOOD.
Defensive Duelist isn't Always Good. It's Build Dependent or Build Defining. It's a great feat IF you choose to wield a finesse weapon in combat, but that's a big IF. How many martials go around wielding finesse weapons? Rogues and dual wielders mostly. And rogues try to stay out of melee for the most part. I've taken this feat, and I barely use it. It's great when it happens, but my rogue generally tries to stay out of melee range.
This, him putting GWM so low compared to other weapon feats as well was just weird. Sharpshooter I understand since CBE will just be the go to for range, but Shield Master, GWM, PAM, DefDuel, and Duel Wielder should all be on the same level. You could certainly order them within the tier, but they are all build defining.
This is a totally fair point. To clarify my point from the beginning of the video, I want to say that Always Good are not necessarily the “best”. Build Defining feats can be “better”. I saw Defensive Duellist as a very powerful feat that is very easy to make work with just about any character. You’re not wrong though, the restriction Finesse weapons could probably lock it out of “always good” but still quality as defining.
@@InsightCheck Considering that the highest damage finesse weapons are 1d8, though, it's a good feat in any build that wants to use a shield to raise their AC, whether martial or GISH.
@AnaseSkyrider that’s a reasonable point but it’s also worth considering that something doesn’t have to be the best to be always good. The term “always” is probably a bit too strong and is causing unnecessary problems so I can totally see that.
You don't have to attack with the finesse weapon, just hold one, I am definitely going to be taking this to a monk that is never going to attack with the finesse weapon, just using it for defense and attacking with unarmed strikes. And I will specifically have it be a fan (basically just reflavored dagger). The extra ac from this + dodge is going to make it very hard for enemies to hit.
There needs to be a section of the DMG that talks about all the "you need X gp worth of stuff" features and makes it clear that those things can potentially be harvested from nature or other places.
Re: Crafter - It is worth mentioning it applies to very expensive consumed material spell components. Diamond Dust, Heroes Feast Plates, Force Cage rubies etc....
Yup, that alone makes it Always Good, but it also allows for crafting free gear, grants three artisan's tool proficiencies (you know, like Skilled, only exclusively for the tools), and while we're at it... Plate Armor, Vehicles, Saddles, arming your Keep, furnishing your bedroom, all at a 20% discount.
@InsightCheck the bastion rules I assume will also require great expense plus the new artificer when it arrives potentially might benefit greatly. I can see every team looking around and saying right who is I'm the musician and who is the crafter? You only need one of each but the party as a whole will benefit hugely.
Plate mail, half plate, materials for spell scrolls and health potions. Its work great with the poisoner feat. The discount is good, and the crafting rules are a little better now. It's a shame the fast crafting part is so poor with the strange expiration date. Someone who takes this wants to RP someone who's good at crafting. A craftsman who's creations break in a day is not good at crafting.
The greatsword is now officially the ultimate “I hate bad rolls/wasted turns” weapon and I love it for it. Combined with the great weapon fighting style and GWM at level 8 you will be doing a bare minimum of 14 damage on a hit and 4 damage even if You miss entirely because of the graze weapon mastery. Also, funnily enough a former part of sentinel is now built into polearm master: since a creature entering Your reach now just lets You make a melee attack instead of provoking an opportunity attack from You, disengage does nothing to protect a creature from it.
I would argue that mounted combatant is build defining since paladins have find steed, sometimes beast master Rangers can mount their companion, Wizards have Phantom Steed to share and any melee character could team up with a moon druid or centaur PC to make it work to another level
The Musician feat almost feels like just a Bard feature which makes it extra fun as an Origin Feat since 90% of Bards are probably gonna take this feat.
Ritual Caster's Quick Ritual works on any Ritual Spells you've prepared, even outside this feature. Silence can be great from Clerics or Rangers. Quick Ritual essentially saves you a Spell Slot, especially with Action Rituals. Sure, it's not Divine Intervention Ceremony 6 second Shotgun Wedding but it is viable.
@@guamae To simplify the wording and not have to define what a hostile creature is. However the interaction comes from war caster and opportunity attack both having rules updates, and I imagine the interaction between the two was an oversight. There's no way imo they intended for this in the same update that saw them revising twinned spell because "casting two spells in a single round, even though it cost a bunch of sorcery points, was still too strong"
I don't understand the criteria if Defensive Duelist is “Always Good” when it's only useful for martial characters, and not even ALL martial characters since half the time, that aren't going to be welding finesse weapons. Yet, War Caster isn't when its only real downside is that it's only useful for casters. That doesn't seem consistent.
Defensive Duelist is incredibly easy to make work on pretty much any character, even a spellcaster. A dexterity of 13 isn’t exactly a high bar and neither is wielding a finesse weapon. In retrospect, it probably could have gone in defining but due to the ease of which it can work, the power it provides and the potential ubiquity of the feat, I slotted it in Always Good. But, again, I can see an argument otherwise. War Caster requires spell casting or pact magic so immediately it is harder to make work since it would necessitate a martial character to multi class to be able to use it. Again, like I said in the intro, Defining feats can actually be more “powerful” than always good feats, the distinction largely due to ubiquity and availability. If I had to power rank them, I would put War Caster above Defensive Duelist.
So the S, A, B, C rating that others use. In all seriousness, I like your specific definitions and using a descriptive name for them instead of the just the letters. Dual Wielder - "...which must be a Melee weapon that lacks the Two-Handed property." The Bonus Action attack does not have to be another Light weapon the way I read this. Well done video, as usual. Keep on keepin' on, man!
Correct, Dual Wielder specifically makes it so that you can dual wield any one-handed melee weapons, not just Light ones, whereas two-weapon fighting without it requires that both weapons be Light.
On heavily armored: you can only get heavy armor training through cleric by multiclassing into a class. Only other way would be to start fighter or paladin, so if you can't multiclass cleric (or don't want to) thats your only way
This is true, it just feels like a whole lot of potential to give up just for Heavy Armor training. I can’t imagine it being “worth it” like 99% of the time.
@@20storiesunder Full casters should never, under any circumstances, be allowed to have reliably high AC, because the primary balancing measure against the power and efficiency of concentration spells is the need to focus on defense to maintain concentration. Clerics get some of the most impactful concentration spells in the early to mid game and continue to be strongly relevant afterward, and since war caster hasn't been touched, you can pretty much give up any hope of breaking a Cleric's concentration. My hope was that the new edition would at least make a passing effort at addressing the martial/caster divide, but it all amounted to just handing the martials a participation award so they don't feel as bad when the casters trivialize the adventure.
How is everyone glimpsing over how Observant lost its Lip Reading. That part was the reason I had chosen this feat for a character, its a huge deal in campaigns that play in cities and among civlization. Sure doing skills in combat as bonus action is nice, but just able to know what some people say by looking at them is a game changer. To me, this feat got nerfed into the ground.
The purpose here wasn’t to be comparative. It was largely to look at the 2024 feats in isolation. Someone who has never played D&D prior to these books won’t know what Observant did before so the “nerf” isn’t relevant to them and the discussion at hand. On a personal note, I hate that it’s gone. One of my players used it to great effect!
Moderately Armored and Heavily Armored should have just been one feat. Ritual caster should have been a origin feat. 😂 Along with Martial Weapon Training, Weapon Master and Durable.
I'm a little annoyed that the best part of Tavern Brawler was transferred to Grappler, but I'm pleased that Grappler is now actually worthwhile to take. I would've liked to be able to role-play as a crocodile monster from level 1, but I guess I can just wait for level 4 before I get the abilities that I wanted my character to have from the start.
Really like the new skulker for rogues. Gives blind sight, which means dropping a smoke bomb gives automatic advantage and gives disadvantage to attack you and free stealth on a cunning action or free disengage without using a cunning action.
I do not get the hate on savage attacker. You often only hit once per turn anyway as a martial so it’s not wasted to just use the feature when you hit. Plus I don’t get why people say they’d rather reroll a 1, the whole point of advantage is to make getting low rolls very unlikely in the first place. Lastly, the damage increase is often better than increasing your ability modifier by 1.
I’ve mentioned this a few times but to be clear, *what* Savage Attacker does isn’t so much the problem as the *way* that it does it. Not knowing whether it’s necessary to use before you use it is just not a great experience, particularly when SO many features in the game have been converted to ones that let you see the result. In any case though, there are a plethora of ways to make multiple attacks on a turn, even early such as with the Light weapon property, Monks with Unarmed Strikes, the Dual Wielder feat, Polearm Master, Extra Attack and Action Surge. So having to randomly pick one of those and hope it pays off is kinda lame. Again, it’s not so much the feat itself as the experience of the feat.
Mmm it really is mostly about the feel of it. But I think it's important to point out that in the Best case scenerio for Savage Attacker vs increasing an ability mod by 1, SA on average adds 0.2 more damage compared to an ASI. And that's *Only* true when you can only make one attack. The moment you can attack twice, SA is utterly irrelevant. Especially since an ASI apllies to your skills and saving throws to boot. In 2024, it somehow also got worse? In 2014, it was a reroll, then could pick. Now, when you roll for damage, you roll the dice twice and can pick. A slight difference, but it means that you don't even get to see if you want to reroll it. Since if you rolled well, you could at least save it for your second attack to try to increase that ones damage. You can't do that now, since you roll both die at the same time. It's a feel bad mechanic, because you are uncertain if you're even getting the best value out if it. And what makes it worse is that mechanically it is genuinely worse, and gets worse the higher an enemy's AC is. (The test case for this is assuming 65% chance to hit with a d12 weapon, which is the die that has the Biggest increase from using SA and comparing it to the damage and accuracy increase of an ASI)
@@MrSeals1000 Am I just missing something here? You decide to use SA after you know if you hit, not before. That’s why I pointed out you usually will only hit once per turn (due to hit chance and extra attack) so it won’t feel bad to just use it when you actually hit. I was making a comparison to ASI because it’s a full feat that people pursue to increase damage and SA is a damage origin feat. Of course you’ll get more out of the ASI overall but I’m only talking about damage. I didn’t utilize the accuracy bonus in my calculation and just assumed an average of one hit per turn, mostly because I couldn’t decide if the assumption of 65% hit chance should stay constant (since this figure is fairly consistent at all lvls of play) and figured the individual likely turn experience was more important to look at. I’ve never heard someone say advantage is a feel bad mechanic because they could have gotten it on a roll that needed it more. The point of advantage is to limit the chance of bad rolls in the first place, and since you’re rolling at the same time, you don’t know which d12 would have been the original roll. It could have been the 12 or 1 but either way it’s a 12 now.
@@russelldavis1359 I think there was some confusion on what I said about how 2024 is worse. Both 2014 and 2024 SA can be activated after you have a confirmed hit. The difference, is that in 2014, you roll your damage die and then After you see the result on the die, you can decide to reroll it. The 2024 version says that you make the choice to roll twice Before you roll any damage die. This mainly matters for classes that get more than one attack, as something that scaled poorly now scales even worse since you can't save it if you didn't need it on your first attack. It's a downgrade on an already mediocre feat. Yes, and I was using that same comparison because that's what you chose to compare. Showing that it actually *wasn't* "often better than increasing your ability modifier by 1." But I'll admit, comparing it to an ASI used to be a better measuring tool when SA wasn't an origin feat, since in 2014, it really was a choice between SA and an ASI. A better comparison would be to the new Origin feats, where you have feats that let you get proficiency in and swap initiative order, have on demand actual advantage, or give the whole party Heroic Inspiration. Advantage for damage is cool. But along with only being able to use it once per turn, not knowing if you're getting good use of it, and the lack of scaling, the true heart of the feel bad is that it pales in comparison to the other things you gave up to have it.
If you play a spellcaster take alert. I guarantee you that nothing is better then to throw that Web,Thorns, Sleet Storm, Wall of Stone to separate the enemies , a big AOE damage spell before your frontliners go to attack. Is also good for defense if you are ambushed or overpowered is great to cast that teleport and escape or to make your party invisible. The fact that you can swap your initiative it make also a great feat for a Dex class to take just to swap your initiative with your spellcaster.
I would like to plead the case for a couple of these: - Ritual Caster: The Level 1 spells you can choose from here include Alarm, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, FIND FAMILIAR, Identify, and Speak with Animals, among others. Throughout your adventuring career you'll get between 2-6 of these you can use. For any Non-Wizard caster or any half-caster, this is a significant boost to out of combat versatility and utility. In some campaigns this could prove to have a lot of value, while in others maybe not so much, all dependent on how much your DM stresses exploration and social interaction. Also, even a Wizard might look at this feat for the once per day "Instant" ritual feature it gives. - Weapon Mastery: I see this feat mainly benefiting 3 specific classes: the Ranger, Rogue, and Monk. If you are the Ranger or Rogue, you may want to pick up this feat at some point so you can dual-wield two melee weapons with their unique weapon masteries (probably those with the Nick and Vex properties) and pick up the Weapon Mastery for a ranged weapon. This helps round you out so you can switch between melee and ranged. For the Monk, you may want to pick up weapon mastery with a quarterstaff to add that to what you can do on each turn. I actually need to find out more about all the different other options (which weapon masteries go with each weapon), as there might be another Monk weapon you would prefer, but the Quarterstaff is the first that comes to mind. - Crafter: I think a number of people have already said it, but there are some costly components of spells that you can get your party a discount on. It's a nice quality of life improvement for the party, and so it could be helpful for one person to pick this up. I admit it wouldn't be my first choice, but at least it will continue to benefit a party even in high levels when some items can get very costly.
There's definitely a case on weapon masteries for monk. Among the nice possibilities: 1 free trip attempt per turn with staff, +1 extra attack with Attack action with a scimitar (remember that its damage scale with martial die, up to D12...), disadvantage on next attack roll with spears,... The scaling with martial die is especially interesting as it allows you to pick weapons just for their masteries and combine them. That said, I still feel they should add the reworked Kenseï as a subclass with access to those.
I would argue that piercer is actually pretty good and worth it if you are any sort of ranged build or anyone else using piercing weapons. The nice part with puncture is you can use it to reroll any of the damage dice from that attack, including sneak attack or smite. Also extra dice of damage is always nice for making your crits feel more impactful. Overall it is good for trying to maximize your DPR. I would bump this one up to build dependent at least.
It wasn’t highlighted but the bonus damage from GWM doesn’t get applied to bonus action attacks or opportunity attacks. I think it’s dumb and will homebrew that restriction away but buyer beware.
I would probably put Savage Attack in Niche or Build Dependent. Savage Attacker is good for greataxes and muskets (the latter of which it now works on). Especially with greataxes on Barbarians. Yes it only works on one attack per turn and you have to declare it beforehand, but it significantly reduces your likelihood of a bad roll with d12 weapons. It also works on an opportunity attack which is great if you have the Sentinel feat (since you can attack in response to enemy attacks). What's valuable is not so much its impact on your average damage roll but rather anything you can do to reduce your likelihood of a low roll with the very swingy damage weapons. Greataxes are also a lot more viable now as a weapon now that you have viable options besides polearm mastery. Edit: I meant muskets.
Yeah I mean I hear what you’re saying and I can totally see the potential value. What Savage Attacker does isn’t really the problem I have it’s just more the actual usage mechanic. Needing to decide before you roll is a tough sell when most other features have dropped that requirement, and it’s once per turn. If it works, great. But even if it does you’ll never really know since which die is the SA die lol?
I came here to say the same thing. People keep dissing it by saying it's only a couple of damage points per round, but it's Advantage on damage every turn including opportunity attacks for the rest of your character's life. There are few feats that are so universal. Definitely is best on d12 weapons.
I decided to calculate the expected/average damage for each damage die. My results: d4: 3.125 (as opposed to 2.5) d6: 4.47222 (3.5) d8: 5.8125 (4.5) d10: 7.15 (5.5) d12: 8.4861111 (6.5) So you're looking at an average of almost +2 damage on a d12 weapon. On a d10, you'd see ~1.5 extra damage. Downside is that since it's only once per turn, it won't scale with extra attacks (though extra attacks will increase the chance that you'll get a hit)
I have a dumb question. How does it significantly reduce your likelihood of a bad roll? It's advantage on damage but it's once per turn, has to be declared before rolling, and it's solely for the weapon's damage die specifically. I don't really know how it will impact a 1d12 but on a 1d20 (it's more complicated than a simple number) but wasn't advantage a boost of 3-5 on the roll (which would be a 15%-25% boost)?
I’m playing in a West Marches style game. With multiple DMs and 30 players and really frequent games. Still 4-6 players per game. It involves a lot of in world time passing between each game for the story they’re building. This really makes it PERFECT for that crafter feat. There is plenty of time to craft items. A niche game. But, the group should have access to basically any item that can be crafted. Anyone wants ANY armor or weapon with a spell usable a few times a day? SURE! Just need money and a little time.
On Poisoner Luckily my table homebrews that all poisons follow the basic poison 1 melee weapon / 3 pieces of ammunition rule. But even then, it pairs pretty well with Hunter Ranger and Battlemaster Fighter, where you can see if an enemy is resistant or immune beforehand so you dont waste doses that way.
Crafter is broken, so the moment you said Crafter was bad I had to take a second to remember this video was made before the DMG 2024. Tinker's and Woodcarver's are the two best crafting tools in the game due to what you can make with them. Additionally you can just take Alchemist's with a custom background to be the ultimate downtime character. So long as you remember you can make Common and Uncommon items very quickly you can make a party very powerful with one or two Enspelled items.
^This. With the new crafting rules, Crafter is insanely strong. Especially if you're an Artificer as they get Tinker's Tools and one artisan's tool proficiency at level one and their subclass also grants one (this is true for both the TCE and the new UA version). With this feat, they have six tool proficiencies, so with enough resources there is only a handful of magic items they won't be able to craft and someone else in the party will need to chip in on that front. Or have two characters in the party with this feat and the rest can fill in where needed. The 20% discount is also strong as it applies not only to the cheap stuff but to expensive non-magical items as well, including base armors, diamonds and other consumable non-magical spell components. Granted it's not as flashy as Alert, Lucky or Magic Initiate given it's limited use in one-shots and short campaigns with little or no downtime, but it's definitely a Build Defining (or at least a Build Dependent) feat in a longer campaign.
I think crafter can be great, if you know ahead and be creative with the tools you can get a bit of use for them, as you can make them every morning. Also i feel they would be amazing with a thief rogue, many of these items you can make every morning (like caltrops and balls bearings) can be used to great effect with their bonus action
We're about to do MadMage and it looks like I picked bad feats! My arcane trickster has skilled, magic initiate and ritual casting. The other members of the party are a fighter and an eldritch knight. I thought it would be nice to take ritual casting for the utility spells like detect magic and comprehend language; and skilled... to be even more of a skill monkey. Do you have suggestions for an arcane trickster build in 2024e? Thanks!
Fey Touched or Shadow Touched can be excellent for some extra free casting! Also Mage Slayer doesn’t hurt since it can give you a once per short rest “legendary resistance” which can be extremely clutch!
I was thrilled to find out that Telepathic and Telekinetic were in the new book. As well as Psi Warrior because, the character I’ve been using recently is a Variant Human Psi Warrior Fighter Investigator. The one sad part is, I wouldn’t be able to have Telepathic at 1st level anymore. The idea was that he was like born with psionic abilities. But now I would have to wait until level 4. At level 5 right now I have Telepathic and Telekinetic, but that wouldn’t work now. But what I can do, is take Magic Initiate. Shield spell for sure, then cantrips are tricky. I want Mind Sliver for some ranged psychic damage, but Mage Hand and Message would kinda give me a bit of the abilities that the Feats originally gave me until later. Tricky tricky. But I like the idea of having Magic Initiate and maybe Skilled at first level.
11:54 Replenishing meal is meh. Basically 1 extra hit die use for heals, but need to use 1 to gain the heals anyway... Fix it by not requiring a hit die, and a hit die adds your proficiency and either Con or Wis (Min 1) to the healing. It's a feat, not a free feat the dm gave... Bolstering Treats this is basically a Temp Health free Good berries.. To fix the language and make it streamlined. Let the treats last for 24hrs. Like the Good Berry Spell that someone can get with Magic Initiate. Let the Temp health be based on your Con or Wis (Min 1), with them stacking if eating 1 or more of these specific treats. Creating amount of treats equal to your proficiency + Con or Wis (Min 1). Given I'd like these as changes. The Bolstering treats part is 100% better. It's temp HP and free. The Replenishing meal cost a hit die. Yes you'd probably use 1 anyway. But it's a waste if you are down like 1-5 HP.
Actor plus mask and many faces is amazing, check out season 2 of dungeons of drakkenheim, Shadows of drakkenheim, they have a gray old one Warlock who took actor in mask of many faces and the shenanigans felt almost endless.
Crafter feat has the potential to break the game RAW. The 20% discount on buying non magical items combined with the rules on selling items allows the player to buy things like gems at 20% off but sell them for the full 100% value. This means they are constantly making a profit and will basically get stupid rich RAW. A DM will have to judge these situations carefully to prevent being unfair yet also not allowing the players to just become ridiculously wealthy. Also I'm baffled that you put observant in niche. You get 1 of the 3 most used skills in the game and you are expert in that skill. The bonus action search check is niche but when was the last time you played a game and didn't make multiple perception, investigation or insight checks? Also it raises your passive scores in that skill as well. Expertise in any of these is good but expertise in perception is huge and everyone can benefit from that. Ritual caster should have just been an origin feat. If they are going to make it a leveled feat then it should have had the half level maximum of the original feat. I don't think i would put this in bad. Ultimately you're gaining up to 6 extra prepared spells with a free cast of one, so it's useful to casters to pick up all those little ritual spells that are nice but possibly not worth taking up a precious prepared slot. It's build dependent i would think.
The rules on treasure items say that they "retain their full value" when sold. The key word there is "retain". If it was sold to you at less than its nominal value, then you can expect to sell it for the same price. An item cannot "retain" value that it didn't have to begin with. However, even without this obvious ruling, I really fail to see this as problematic. The rules repeatedly stress how difficult it is to sell expensive items quickly. Eventually your arbitrage scheme slams into a wall as you wait months at a time for someone with enough disposable income to take an interest.
If you told a 2014 player that magic initiate was good because they can use it to get true strike they would laugh at you. Kind of impressive how much better it is now
Polearm Master now gives you a Reactive Strike instead of a Opportunity Attack. Functionality the same for the most part, but it doesn't combo with the Sentinel Feat anymore.
If you’re playing RAW the crafter feat is essentially an infinite money glitch. You buy something with the discount then sell it to someone else without the discount. Most reasonable DMs wouldn’t allow this but still good to note.
Would put tavern brawler in build dependent since the reroll on 1s never even reaches .5 dmg for an unarmed strike. I would only take this to retreat for free as a monk by pushing my enemy 5ft away but MI wizard for bladeward still feels better. Would also put gwm in build defining since it scales well as you progress. It also doesn't specify melee for the +prof dmg so longbow can technically work.
Okay, there's some notable sections I disagree with here, so I'll break it down into subcategories. I think you got the origin feats pretty much on the nose, but there's a lot of inconsistency imo in relation to the general feats and bias toward combat. I think if you ranked things within the tiers it would've made things easier, as a lot of decisions scream to me as you feeling the need to put a feat higher just cause it's slightly better than similar types of feats. I get it though, this likely already took a good bit of time to put together, and the more specific you rank things the more discourse it creates. For the feats that specifically benefit certain martial loadouts, I think you give too much value to DefDuel & not enough to GWM. Both of these fwats are pretty much essenital to any build using these, and while O agree that the buff to DD is awesome it still has the drawback of melee only and requires finesse. Both should be in Build defining as they are basically must picks for martials of that kind, same as PAM, Duel Wielder, Shield Master, and CBE. I understand putting SharpS down a tier cause CBE is just the better choice in almost every way, but GWM definitely shouldn't be down there with it as it's still really potent. Another grouping of feats I think you underrate is the OoC utility feats. Telepathic, Skill expert, and Skilled all at least deserve to be moved up a tier as their impact can immediately be felt and useful in pretty much every session. Just cause they don't do anything in combat doesn't make them still quite valuable, especially when so many feats are martial focused, so these feats are in some cases your best options later on at levels 12 and beyond. Keen Mind & Observant are more understandable though, and I wish they had kept some part of the original features. There are a few other scattered feats I just personally think you rated one tier off like Ritual Caster, Sentinel, and Fey Touched, but I won't go in depth on that, just my opinion. Weapon Master in particular though I will disagree with as Monks and Certain casters I think will be looking to that feat quite a bit in the coming years. A lot of people underrate these weapon masteries in general, but in some scenarios I see the value having the half-feat over taking the Fighter or Rogue 1 tax slowing down your class progression.
All of this is great and totally valid feedback and perspective :) I tried to give as much context as I could in the beginning but also didn’t want things to run even longer than it already did. Combat certainly weighed more heavily in my rankings as nearly 100% of tables will experience combat in their games on a regular basis but I can’t know for certain how much the benefits of Actor or Keen Mind will, so as a result, combat does tilt the scales a bit more (for me at least). I was also trying to frame this as “most people will probably…”. If I was rating things for me and the way me and my group specifically play then let me tell you, the rankings would look a WHOLE lot different haha. In any case, I appreciate the feedback and comment :) thank you for sharing your perspective!
I think I might homebrew Savage Attacker so that when you roll a 1 on the damage die, you can roll a second one and also add that one to the damage. That's gonna make those super disappointing 1s rolled on a d12 a bit more fun.
Believe it or not, the new lucky is actually better in one respect, for rogues at least. Before, if for whatever reason you had disadvantage on atk rolls, lucky couldn't save you, sneak atk was off the table for you. Now, lucky will actually cancel the disadvantage and allow you to set sneak atk by other means. Also, with many skill checks going over the minimum success roll has tangible rewards, and advantage will on average yield better results than just a plain reroll.
My houserule for elemental adept adds 1 to any die below half the average. Comes out to .5 damage per die and my players actually get to use it, which they like.
For classes, tough has the effect of increasing the average up 2 dice. A d6 average is 4 (3.5 for the sticklers), with Tough it becomes 6. A d10 average is 6 (or 5.5)
Wizard loves ritual caster bc wizards can cast ritual spells as rituals without having them prepared, they just need to be in their spell book, and ritual caster lets them cast a ritual spell without using it as a ritual, which basically means a wizard can cast any of their ritual spells at their normal casting time without needing to have them prepared
There aren't many wizard spells that are rituals and anyone wants to cast them at their normal casting time often enough to pick this over other feats. There is a reason why this was only a small part of the order of scribes wizard's level 2 subclass feature...on it's own it's next to nothing.
There may be a lot of creatures overall with poison resistance, but if you’re in a campaign where the majority of your enemies are humanoids, that may not matter as much. Also, taking Telekinetic could potentially help you get around the problem of reusing poisoned missiles, depending on the range you’re firing from. (Or use an Unseen Servant if you have that spell available, which pretty much anyone can due to Magic Initiate.)
I think you’d be quite surprised actually. I will assume that you think I’m a power player/optimizer or something along those lines based on how I organized things? If so, couldn’t be further from the truth haha.
@@InsightCheck Nope! The vibe I got is a table that generally knows their mechanics but doesn't obsess opting way more on narrative and story. If I had to guess further, combat is generally on the tough side but deaths are very unlikely. (Otherwise you'd be valuing extra hp waaaay more :D)
@20storiesunder lol well damn, this is pretty much dead on and now I’m slightly concerned you’re seeing our sessions somehow lol! The amount of people that assume I must be an optimizer because I say that typically powerful things are powerful is wild. I misjudged!
I really find myself torn between Shield Master, Heavy Armor Master and Speedy for my last Feat before I get my boons. I like that more Feats feel viable now.
Match speedy with charger (and maybe booming blade)? With a dex based martial class, perhaps. No save for the push action and with a nick weapon too, good chance it will land.
Why Weapon Master is Better than you think: Pact of the Blade Warlock: No weapon masteries. Can gain a fair bit out of being able to oppose disadvantage to hit on the next attack, given only getting light armor. Or having the means to always deal some damage, even when you miss, could make for a more reliable damage dealer overall. Monk: No weapon masteries. With the Nick weapon mastery, A monk can attack up to 6 times per round using their martial Arts Die by level 11. Backwards Compatible Blade Singer wizard: No weapon Masteries. Having the weapon mastery of a Vex property weapon and procking advantage to hit on a booming blade/green flame blade/truestrike by level 6 could make for an effective frontline gish build. Backwards Compatible College of Swords Bard: No weapon masteries. Seeing as It gets the Duel Wielding fighting style, having access to nick sures up the doubt of a bards wanting to deal damage. College of Valor Bard: No weapon masteries. Seeing as Conjure minor elementals exists, attacking a lot could be really strong. It's build dependent at the worst because not everyone who wants it gets weapon masteries.
Looks about right. I think the tier labels are a little weird because all the feats are technically always good. War caster is a lot undervalued on this list. ASI is kind of the baseline. You take a feat if it’s better than the ASI. Rating ASI so highly implies that you should never prioritize anything else, when many feats are easily higher value than an ASI for level 4.
The only thing i can think Ritual caster feat is useful is for third or half casters to use out of combat spells like find familiar, identify, or commune with nature without consuming thier extremely limited spell slots.
Crossbow Expert has actually received a pretty heinous stealth nerf you alluded to but glossed over. Getting your hands on a magical hand crossbow is pretty difficult but the feat now requires you to use _two_ of them. There is a good possibility that change just occupied one of your attunements, making it an extremely bad change to the feat.
I’d say there’s atleast a niche for Durable on Fighters since it would give a slightly weaker version of their second wind that they can use for healing while saving their proper Second Wind dice for their other uses. There’s also the fact that it can be a weaker second wind that anyone can get without dipping into fighter
I like the idea of playing a character like the Wolverine with Durable feat on Zealot Barb. At level 3 Zealot with Warrior of the Gods that gives him 7d12 die to roll to get back hp. So while wielding a Greataxe you can use one 1d12 as your bonus action on every round to heal for 7 rounds in a row or 1d12 for 3 rounds in a row and 4d12 all at once with Warrior of the Gods if you took a big hit. It's like having 7d12 more hp.
I have many issues with feats. 1 I would remove all the +1 from all the feats and just add them to the level where charcters get it Now ASI feat be more useful and competitive with +3 to stats and all feats including origin feats and fighting stile feats dont feel less like a waste taken at later levels. and just open way more creativity why mage slayer is only Dex and Str why not improve mental stats . why sentinel and other feats doesnt let you raise Con what if I want to take a martial feat on a spell caster gish . all these problems get fixed. and all the weeker feats need buffs like come on savage attacker could been to reroll 1 always and hick proficiency times a day max out weapons damage . give that savage side. heavy armor profincy feat you could have added your speed cant be lowered or could put you ignore the strength requirement of armor and profincy or even once a day when you make stealth check you ignore the disadvantage from the armor and so on. I will make a doc and hopfully start a youtube channel to go in all of that just need that book soon
I have wondered about a new type of feat where you can gain a second subclass of one of your current classes. I don’t know if the second subclass should go straight to the level you currently are or you only get the first subclass features and then keep grabbing the same feat to get the next level of subclass features
Hum... even gaining the benefits of 1 level of said subclass already sounds extremely powerful and I didn't even try to dive into the insane possible combinations. Realistically, you could only take it once, with each subclass needing its own specific version (like that old feat that give you access to Battle Master manoeuver with a couple of D6).
I say Crafter should be little higher because 20% off is still really good and early game. For example, if your Party wants better armor such as Splint Armor, Breastplate, Studded Leather Armor. That really good.
Charging (10) Crusher (5) Warhammer Push(10) Barbarian (15): 40ft push away from you Also works with a pike (reach +5ft) if you have polearm mastery, as the opposite end hit is bludgeoning Combine Skyrim's Whirlwind Sprint and Unrelenting Force => FUS ROH DA!!!
I think a category "always decent" would have been a great addition for this kind of tier list, as example tough is always decent, no one says no to more hp, but does not define anything in a build, same for lucky, the new version can't be IMHO in always good.
why is martial weapon training in the list? also perhaps you forgot but you didn't mention how the shield bash from shield master no longer takes your bonus action to use or that the interpose shield no longer requires you the be the only target of the effect that causes the save but for example could now be used against a fireball or a breath weapon
Martial Weapon Training is on the list because it is a feat in the 2024 PHB. The 21st General Feat on the list alphabetically. As for not mentioning the change to Shield Master because as stated at 3:47 the intent of this is to look at 2024 feats and not be comparative looking backward.
Crossbow Expert got a huge nerf. Petite all you needed was 1 weapon to get the bonus action attack. This meant you can cast spells without needing War Caster because you had a free hand. Now you need 2 weapons and if you want to cast spells you need War Caster and even then there’s some spells like Hex you can’t cast because of the material component. It’s actually just worse now, even if it allows you to wield two identical crossbows. (Which doesn’t give you more damage)
I would put savage attacker at a higher teir i may be wrong but it looks like the more damage dice the stronger it becomes so a great sword with a rune knight that went big is 3 d6 to reroll if you multi class in to barbarian and get that d 10 when you reckless attack it would get very strong but if im wrong on how it works it would stay in bad
This is correct. Neither spell exists in the 2024 PHB but are still useable through backward compatibility. So you can use either in 2024 just as they were if you so choose!
Forgive me if I'm being super dumb but is Dual Wielder not just the rules for Two Weapon Fighting? The wording is ever so slightly different from 2014 but did they change or remove the base Two Weapon Fighting rules for 2024?
Essentially, yes, its mostly just Two Weapon Fighting from 2014, with a slight difference. The main differences being 1. In order to activate it, you Must attack with a Light weapon during your attack action 2. The bonus action attack can be made with Any *one-handed* melee weapon. The 2nd point is what makes it different from the 2024 Light weapon property, since in the Light property, the bonus action attack Has to be made with a different Light weapon. Btw, Two Weapon Fighting now IS the Light weapon property in the 2024 rules.
@@MrSeals1000 thanks for the clarification! Now, I don't know about anyone else but taking two weapon fighting from a single core rule and spreading it out over a weapon property, a weapon mastery and a feat, all of which do Kinda The Same Thing But Not Quite is an unnecessary complication and not an upgrade!
I don't understand how does weapon mastery fit in niche the way you talked about it. You basically said it's never useful but didn't put it in bad. However, great video, I agree with most of your choices and would maybe move some feats one tier up or one tier down. Your considerations on these feats are very interesting and the war caster used on allies for healing or buffing allies is pure geniality. You can build your healer around this concept and with the help of your allies exploit your reactions to the max doubling the amount of spells you can cast per round.
Due to the fact that Savage Attacker allows you to use either roll, I don't think it should be classified as bad. It might not be an amazing boost, but rolling twice and taking the best is always good.
Mage slayer can go in always good, everyone that is not strength reliant can always use the plus dex and legendary resistance is incredible. Between this and musician you can be sure to be almost never shut down in one round for one bad roll.
All the feats that just give you training with armor can easily just be replaced with asking your DM nicely if you can get that training in your background or during downtime.
I mean, no? There's a reason why each class gets the training they get. I'd 100% make the feats better, but I'm not giving you better armor for free. Otherwise you're stepping on someone else's toes. How will the fighter feel when the ranger gets heavy armor for free? How will the valor bard feel if the dance bard gets medium armor for free? Etc etc. Armor training is a perk of certain classes and sub classes. It's a major feature of the game. It shouldn't just be handed out willy-nilly. I might do it as a special reward for a quest or something, but it would be the equivalent of getting a magic item.
@@NateFinch None of that matters if there is no Fighter or Valor Bard in your game. I never said it should be handed out willy-nilly but treating it like a magic item seems like a great idea. Another player might get to start the game with a a Rare or Uncommon magic item. It all depends on the campaign. As long as all the players are having fun, I've done my job as a DM.
Just want to point out that Dual Wielder feat does NOT allow you to make 4 attacks from level 4, only 3. This is because you can only do ONE light weapon property extra attack, so even if you have two Nick masteries, you can only make that nick attack once. Because of that, without extra attack, you can do 3 attacks per turn at most, using your bonus action.
I like the idea of playing a character like the Wolverine with Durable feat on Zealot Barb. At level 3 Zealot with Warrior of the Gods that gives him 7d12 die to roll to get back hp. So while wielding a Greataxe you can use one 1d12 as your bonus action on every round to heal for 7 rounds in a row or 1d12 for 3 rounds in a row and 4d12 all at once with Warrior of the Gods if you took a big hit. It's like having 7d12 more hp.
Great weapon master was better before the change, the only change is it removes the very mild negative (especially at higher levels) for significantly less bonuses, and the second part just has a name now. Honestly only getting prof bonus to all hita isn’t worth a potential +10 to every hit, even if that +10 comes at a -5 to hit
I have to say tough is always good, i can't think of a situation where it wouldn't be useful, even if you're a caster that spents most of the battle in the backline, those extra hit points might save you from ranged opponents.
I disagree with the Crafter being flat bad because there are some campaigns that focus on crafting a fair bit. For example. I'm in a nitty grotty survival campaign where my barbarian knowing how to cook and woodwork and navigate is super helpful from crafter. I'd say niche at highest though. But i do agree most tables won't ever use it
Something you didn't mention is that the Polearm Master reaction attack is no longer an Opportunity Attack, so it doesn't synergize with Sentinel. Still really good, but worth considering.
This is a fantastic point that I certainly should have addressed. I was trying to cover a whole lot in not too much time so certain things definitely got left out but that shouldn’t have!
Thanks for bringing it up :)
It's a tradeoff imo. Now disengage, the rogue's withdraw ability, the speedy feat, or anything else that affects opp atks doesn't bypass polearm master.
Plus, heavy reach weapons tend to have mastery effects like topple, and push that synergize well with the feat.
And hey, Goliaths can now become large sized for a while. 10ft×10ft space plus10ft reach practically guarantees someone is getting stabbed if they approach the party.
😊@@InsightCheck
Was just about to make this same point, but you beat me to it ;)
Question. Do we think this was intentional? It must have been. The lack of overlap with 'Opportunity Attack' *must* have been purposeful.
@insightcheck Do you know if there are unlimited Opportunity Attacks per round? Or is that you can cash your one Reaction into one Opportunity Attack? Otherwise, Sentinel becomes a "Oh no you don't!" Feat that's game breaking.
@thecrossroadstavern1447 Opportunity Attacks are still tied to your Reaction, so one per round.
Athlete is underrated on ranged builds. Climb to hard to reach vantage points, attack normally, then drop prone at the end of your turn to make all other ranged attacks against you have disadvantage. Then come your next turn just spend 5ft movement to stand and rinse and repeat. Hell, if your DM rules so, you dropping prone at an elevated position could put you behind total cover to most of your enemies.
Tough is always good
Agreed. No no one is ever going to be sad about those extra HP
There is beauty in simplicity
Dwarf with tough is such a bag of hit points. ❤
Agree, and a nice way for a MAD character to take a lower Con
When migrating my sorlock to the 2024 rules, I am thinking of grabbing Tough as my Origin Feat.
I was considering Magic Initiate, but I will already have 9 or 10 cantrips so I don't really need 2 more.
Getting 1 extra known 1st level spell would be nice, especially with tree 1 free use per day. Maybe switching my Shield spell over to that would be good so I can use it for free once a day and then use my learned spell to be something higher up?
I'm not sure. The extra HP might be the better pick. I'm pretty squishy and get close to death pretty often. It would be a major health increase.
Crossbow Expert - A cool part about this is that you can effectively dual wield hand crossbows, sure. But the feat also rewardd you for using this as a melee option as well with the Nick weapon mastery. You don't have disadvantage for firing into melee, meaning you can point blank someone with your hand crossbow and then attack with an off-hand Nick weapon like a scimitar as part of the same attack, keeping your bonus action free.
Ritual Caster - Notably, the feat, unlike in 2014, isn't limited a specific class spell list. So a Sorcerer can freely take Cleric, Druid and Wizard rituals with this feat. And really odd that you didn't the once daily "free" ritual cast ability that this feat aped from the Scribes Wizard, which also applies to *any* ritual you have prepared, not just the 1st level ones you received with this feat. Meaning in a pinch, you can drop a ritual without the +10 minute casting time and, if in the middle of a combat, it's another example of "slotless spellcasting" which by the new rules means you can still cast a spell with a spell slot on the same turn if able.
I would say at minimum it's Niche, edging closer to Build Dependent.
Polearm Master - It's reaction attack from someone entering your reach is notably not an opportunity attack anymore. Meaning the synergy with it and Sentinel is gone. Not enough to dock its position imo but worth noting.
Spell Sniper - It is pretty Niche but like Ritual Caster, I think you can argue it for Build Dependent more than just bad. With buffs to things like the Evoker's Potent Cantrip, the Sorcerer's new "mage rage" feature giving it advantage on spell attacks, and new/reworked spells like Sorcerous Burst and especially Witch Bolt, I think the buffs are very useful and especially to spells with naturally lower ranges. Considering the 2014 Spell Sniper doubled the range, you're looking at spells with a 10 or 30ft range only going to 20 or 60 ft, whereas now they are going to 70 or 90 ft. The only ones "hurt" by the change are spells like Fire Bolt that already have 120ft range.
Weapon Master - Counterpoint: monks do not get weapon mastery, and neither do Blade Warlocks or War Clerics. Considering those classes only use maybe one weapon anyway (Bladelocks especially), they can easily benefit from the bonus utility with their melee focus. Bladelocks in particular with their new invocation letting them gain a 3rd attack on their Attack action and being able to swap what weapon they want as their Pact Weapon to take advantage of the mastery they prefer on the day if necessary.
pretty sure Rogues do not get Weapon Mastery either, not sure why two full martials didn't get any at all while the 2 half casters do.
@@GuardianKoran It is confirmed that Rogues do get Weapon Mastery from level 1 in the new PHB
Valor Bards don’t get weapon mastery either. And only the fighter gets three WM choices, so if you’re playing a character that dual-wields dissimilar weapons and occasionally swaps out for a ranged weapon, or one that swaps weapons frequently to suit specific encounters, you *might* find this to be a useful feat. (I find the "just multiclass to fighter for a level" argument lacking - it’s just not appropriate for every character concept, and unless you do it pretty early, you’re unacceptably slowing progression in your main class.)
Chef should have been an Origin feat (without the stat bump of course). Even then the Temps should have been buffed a bit.
100%
Its easy enough to allow any feat to be an Origin feat if you think its appropriate, just strip out the ASI and any ability score requirement.
@@brilobox2 Wouldn't go that far, but some of them could definitely be changed that way: chef, keen mind, observant, even the ones giving you some weapons and armor proficiencies.
Interesting point. GWM's benefit for extra damage only calls for the weapon to have the Heavy property, no stipulation for also being a melee weapon. That means longbows and heavy crossbows would benefit from this feature.
You could also throw a trident just for the style points. If you had the thrown weapon fighting style it would even stack with the feat.
True. GWM doesn’t have the best synergy with ranged weapon though bc it gives a +1 to str only and ranged weapons use dex
True. That said, now that all general feats give half ASI there is no reason for a lv12 fighter, ranger, or rogue to say no to a +4 dmg boost/atk, that will become a +5 one level later, in exchange for a dump stat boost.
@@michaellavy4482 maybe for fighter/artificer multiclass. +1 str to reach 15 str and use heavy armor while hitting with Int.
Might be good on a barbarian. using your longbow, extra attack, and great weapon master feat to attack distant enemies is better than not reaching them and dealing 0 damage.
Barbarian will usually have a +2 dex mod with proficiency for accuracy. better than nothing.
I just realized that there was a stealth nerf to Sentinel. Since it's now triggered on the creature taking the disengage action (rather than you getting to ignore that they disengaged) you can't attack creatures that disengage 10' or more way from you and then run past you.
Yep, it's extremely specific now. The creature taking the action Has to be within 5 feet of you too. Shame.
Agreed, sucks to see an enemy can disengage 10' away to pass by a sentinel user. Also, reach weapons are absolutely nerfed by this, opportunity attack procs when enemy attempt to move 15 away from a reach weapon, so enemy moves 5' then disengage, unpunishable.
Sentinel was also buffed in that it doesn’t turn off if you’re working with an ally that also has the feat.
Basically it made the spirit of that feat be: "I'm gonna stay next to that big ennemy, to make sure they can't move nor threaten anything besides me without being punished."
Crusher & Slasher stacking with weapon mastery is so good. Reduce a creatures speed by 20 then push them 15 feat away.
It totally sounds like a very fun combo!
@@InsightCheck the fighter is looking better everyday. Being able to get an extra feat at 6th is huge.
Absolutely! Fighter is going to have some incredible combos to watch out for!
I wish these features just GAVE YOU a specific mastery property that you can apply to your weapons, increasing the benefits if you already have it on your weapon; and that weapon mastery was either an origin feat, or gave you 2-3 weapons to have mastery with.
@@AnaseSkyrider crusher and slasher are fine as is. But yeah weapon mastery should have been an origin feat. A lot of general feats should have been origin feats.
With Shadow touched u can get wrathful smite now... Its 100% great for Arcane trick, EK and rangers for sure
@@TheBlink182ify sad that wrathful smite got nerfed
@@solarkhan484 sry but i prefer 100% not concentrate in the spell (2024 wrathful) and give for at least one round the condition then the old version for sure
Wrathful Smite isn't very good though, it's one of the least useful smites now that it's so easy to get rid of the condition.
@@Klaital1 "easy to get rid of the condition."...roll to save at the end of its turn, u lose "just a turn" for that, u right its so bad ☺
@@TheBlink182ify Yes it is easy to get rid of compared to how it used to be, which was spend your action to make an ability check with disadvantage.
It is important to note that Polearm Master does NOT provide an "opportunity attack". This is an important distinction, due to how it would interact with other features, such as those provided by the Sentinel feat.
Also, Tough is like Ability Score Improvement: boring and mediocre, but ALWAYS GOOD.
Defensive Duelist isn't Always Good. It's Build Dependent or Build Defining. It's a great feat IF you choose to wield a finesse weapon in combat, but that's a big IF. How many martials go around wielding finesse weapons? Rogues and dual wielders mostly. And rogues try to stay out of melee for the most part. I've taken this feat, and I barely use it. It's great when it happens, but my rogue generally tries to stay out of melee range.
This, him putting GWM so low compared to other weapon feats as well was just weird. Sharpshooter I understand since CBE will just be the go to for range, but Shield Master, GWM, PAM, DefDuel, and Duel Wielder should all be on the same level. You could certainly order them within the tier, but they are all build defining.
This is a totally fair point. To clarify my point from the beginning of the video, I want to say that Always Good are not necessarily the “best”. Build Defining feats can be “better”. I saw Defensive Duellist as a very powerful feat that is very easy to make work with just about any character. You’re not wrong though, the restriction Finesse weapons could probably lock it out of “always good” but still quality as defining.
@@InsightCheck Considering that the highest damage finesse weapons are 1d8, though, it's a good feat in any build that wants to use a shield to raise their AC, whether martial or GISH.
@AnaseSkyrider that’s a reasonable point but it’s also worth considering that something doesn’t have to be the best to be always good. The term “always” is probably a bit too strong and is causing unnecessary problems so I can totally see that.
You don't have to attack with the finesse weapon, just hold one, I am definitely going to be taking this to a monk that is never going to attack with the finesse weapon, just using it for defense and attacking with unarmed strikes. And I will specifically have it be a fan (basically just reflavored dagger). The extra ac from this + dodge is going to make it very hard for enemies to hit.
There needs to be a section of the DMG that talks about all the "you need X gp worth of stuff" features and makes it clear that those things can potentially be harvested from nature or other places.
Re: Crafter - It is worth mentioning it applies to very expensive consumed material spell components. Diamond Dust, Heroes Feast Plates, Force Cage rubies etc....
A great consideration actually!
Yup, that alone makes it Always Good, but it also allows for crafting free gear, grants three artisan's tool proficiencies (you know, like Skilled, only exclusively for the tools), and while we're at it... Plate Armor, Vehicles, Saddles, arming your Keep, furnishing your bedroom, all at a 20% discount.
Definitely not always good, but I can see it being bumped up to Niche
@InsightCheck the bastion rules I assume will also require great expense plus the new artificer when it arrives potentially might benefit greatly. I can see every team looking around and saying right who is I'm the musician and who is the crafter? You only need one of each but the party as a whole will benefit hugely.
Plate mail, half plate, materials for spell scrolls and health potions. Its work great with the poisoner feat. The discount is good, and the crafting rules are a little better now. It's a shame the fast crafting part is so poor with the strange expiration date. Someone who takes this wants to RP someone who's good at crafting. A craftsman who's creations break in a day is not good at crafting.
The greatsword is now officially the ultimate “I hate bad rolls/wasted turns” weapon and I love it for it. Combined with the great weapon fighting style and GWM at level 8 you will be doing a bare minimum of 14 damage on a hit and 4 damage even if You miss entirely because of the graze weapon mastery.
Also, funnily enough a former part of sentinel is now built into polearm master: since a creature entering Your reach now just lets You make a melee attack instead of provoking an opportunity attack from You, disengage does nothing to protect a creature from it.
I would argue that mounted combatant is build defining since paladins have find steed, sometimes beast master Rangers can mount their companion, Wizards have Phantom Steed to share and any melee character could team up with a moon druid or centaur PC to make it work to another level
The Musician feat almost feels like just a Bard feature which makes it extra fun as an Origin Feat since 90% of Bards are probably gonna take this feat.
There's a crazy stacking push distance build
I can absolutely see an insane push build taking shape. I kinda wanna try it haha
Tavern brawler, charger, crusher and shield mastercan get you up to 25 feet push i think I might be wrong on the calculations
@InsightCheck
You can also throw thunderous smite on top for an extra 10
Ritual Caster's Quick Ritual works on any Ritual Spells you've prepared, even outside this feature. Silence can be great from Clerics or Rangers. Quick Ritual essentially saves you a Spell Slot, especially with Action Rituals.
Sure, it's not Divine Intervention Ceremony 6 second Shotgun Wedding but it is viable.
I never thought of using Warcaster to cast beneficial spells on allies as they move past you...
Interesting idea...
It wasn’t possible until the 2024 rules came out!
100% useful with cleric buffer builds.
I've gotta believe that it isn't intentional
@@Flaraen then why did they change it?
@@guamae To simplify the wording and not have to define what a hostile creature is. However the interaction comes from war caster and opportunity attack both having rules updates, and I imagine the interaction between the two was an oversight. There's no way imo they intended for this in the same update that saw them revising twinned spell because "casting two spells in a single round, even though it cost a bunch of sorcery points, was still too strong"
I don't understand the criteria if Defensive Duelist is “Always Good” when it's only useful for martial characters, and not even ALL martial characters since half the time, that aren't going to be welding finesse weapons. Yet, War Caster isn't when its only real downside is that it's only useful for casters.
That doesn't seem consistent.
Defensive Duelist is incredibly easy to make work on pretty much any character, even a spellcaster. A dexterity of 13 isn’t exactly a high bar and neither is wielding a finesse weapon. In retrospect, it probably could have gone in defining but due to the ease of which it can work, the power it provides and the potential ubiquity of the feat, I slotted it in Always Good. But, again, I can see an argument otherwise.
War Caster requires spell casting or pact magic so immediately it is harder to make work since it would necessitate a martial character to multi class to be able to use it. Again, like I said in the intro, Defining feats can actually be more “powerful” than always good feats, the distinction largely due to ubiquity and availability. If I had to power rank them, I would put War Caster above Defensive Duelist.
@@InsightCheck for the record, I think War Caster is in the appropriate place; is defensive Duelist that doesn't seem right to me
@SonicTheHedgedawg yeah that’s completely fair!
So the S, A, B, C rating that others use. In all seriousness, I like your specific definitions and using a descriptive name for them instead of the just the letters.
Dual Wielder - "...which must be a Melee weapon that lacks the Two-Handed property." The Bonus Action attack does not have to be another Light weapon the way I read this.
Well done video, as usual. Keep on keepin' on, man!
Correct, Dual Wielder specifically makes it so that you can dual wield any one-handed melee weapons, not just Light ones, whereas two-weapon fighting without it requires that both weapons be Light.
On heavily armored: you can only get heavy armor training through cleric by multiclassing into a class. Only other way would be to start fighter or paladin, so if you can't multiclass cleric (or don't want to) thats your only way
This is true, it just feels like a whole lot of potential to give up just for Heavy Armor training. I can’t imagine it being “worth it” like 99% of the time.
Build dependant 👀@@InsightCheck
Clerics now can get Heavy Armor Training through one of their Divine Orders at level one. It's horseshit and I hate it.
@@DistortedSemance How come? Cleric dip for heavy armour has been a thing for a while
@@20storiesunder Full casters should never, under any circumstances, be allowed to have reliably high AC, because the primary balancing measure against the power and efficiency of concentration spells is the need to focus on defense to maintain concentration. Clerics get some of the most impactful concentration spells in the early to mid game and continue to be strongly relevant afterward, and since war caster hasn't been touched, you can pretty much give up any hope of breaking a Cleric's concentration.
My hope was that the new edition would at least make a passing effort at addressing the martial/caster divide, but it all amounted to just handing the martials a participation award so they don't feel as bad when the casters trivialize the adventure.
How is everyone glimpsing over how Observant lost its Lip Reading. That part was the reason I had chosen this feat for a character, its a huge deal in campaigns that play in cities and among civlization. Sure doing skills in combat as bonus action is nice, but just able to know what some people say by looking at them is a game changer. To me, this feat got nerfed into the ground.
The purpose here wasn’t to be comparative. It was largely to look at the 2024 feats in isolation. Someone who has never played D&D prior to these books won’t know what Observant did before so the “nerf” isn’t relevant to them and the discussion at hand.
On a personal note, I hate that it’s gone. One of my players used it to great effect!
Moderately Armored and Heavily Armored should have just been one feat.
Ritual caster should have been a origin feat. 😂 Along with Martial Weapon Training, Weapon Master and Durable.
i feel like the orignal savage attacker feat was really good. Imagine a rogue rerolling even higher sneak attack or a paladin rerolling divine smite
I'm a little annoyed that the best part of Tavern Brawler was transferred to Grappler, but I'm pleased that Grappler is now actually worthwhile to take. I would've liked to be able to role-play as a crocodile monster from level 1, but I guess I can just wait for level 4 before I get the abilities that I wanted my character to have from the start.
Really like the new skulker for rogues. Gives blind sight, which means dropping a smoke bomb gives automatic advantage and gives disadvantage to attack you and free stealth on a cunning action or free disengage without using a cunning action.
I do not get the hate on savage attacker. You often only hit once per turn anyway as a martial so it’s not wasted to just use the feature when you hit. Plus I don’t get why people say they’d rather reroll a 1, the whole point of advantage is to make getting low rolls very unlikely in the first place. Lastly, the damage increase is often better than increasing your ability modifier by 1.
I’ve mentioned this a few times but to be clear, *what* Savage Attacker does isn’t so much the problem as the *way* that it does it. Not knowing whether it’s necessary to use before you use it is just not a great experience, particularly when SO many features in the game have been converted to ones that let you see the result. In any case though, there are a plethora of ways to make multiple attacks on a turn, even early such as with the Light weapon property, Monks with Unarmed Strikes, the Dual Wielder feat, Polearm Master, Extra Attack and Action Surge. So having to randomly pick one of those and hope it pays off is kinda lame. Again, it’s not so much the feat itself as the experience of the feat.
Mmm it really is mostly about the feel of it.
But I think it's important to point out that in the Best case scenerio for Savage Attacker vs increasing an ability mod by 1, SA on average adds 0.2 more damage compared to an ASI.
And that's *Only* true when you can only make one attack. The moment you can attack twice, SA is utterly irrelevant. Especially since an ASI apllies to your skills and saving throws to boot.
In 2024, it somehow also got worse? In 2014, it was a reroll, then could pick. Now, when you roll for damage, you roll the dice twice and can pick. A slight difference, but it means that you don't even get to see if you want to reroll it. Since if you rolled well, you could at least save it for your second attack to try to increase that ones damage. You can't do that now, since you roll both die at the same time.
It's a feel bad mechanic, because you are uncertain if you're even getting the best value out if it. And what makes it worse is that mechanically it is genuinely worse, and gets worse the higher an enemy's AC is.
(The test case for this is assuming 65% chance to hit with a d12 weapon, which is the die that has the Biggest increase from using SA and comparing it to the damage and accuracy increase of an ASI)
@@MrSeals1000 Am I just missing something here? You decide to use SA after you know if you hit, not before. That’s why I pointed out you usually will only hit once per turn (due to hit chance and extra attack) so it won’t feel bad to just use it when you actually hit.
I was making a comparison to ASI because it’s a full feat that people pursue to increase damage and SA is a damage origin feat. Of course you’ll get more out of the ASI overall but I’m only talking about damage. I didn’t utilize the accuracy bonus in my calculation and just assumed an average of one hit per turn, mostly because I couldn’t decide if the assumption of 65% hit chance should stay constant (since this figure is fairly consistent at all lvls of play) and figured the individual likely turn experience was more important to look at.
I’ve never heard someone say advantage is a feel bad mechanic because they could have gotten it on a roll that needed it more. The point of advantage is to limit the chance of bad rolls in the first place, and since you’re rolling at the same time, you don’t know which d12 would have been the original roll. It could have been the 12 or 1 but either way it’s a 12 now.
@@russelldavis1359 I think there was some confusion on what I said about how 2024 is worse. Both 2014 and 2024 SA can be activated after you have a confirmed hit. The difference, is that in 2014, you roll your damage die and then After you see the result on the die, you can decide to reroll it. The 2024 version says that you make the choice to roll twice Before you roll any damage die. This mainly matters for classes that get more than one attack, as something that scaled poorly now scales even worse since you can't save it if you didn't need it on your first attack. It's a downgrade on an already mediocre feat.
Yes, and I was using that same comparison because that's what you chose to compare. Showing that it actually *wasn't* "often better than increasing your ability modifier by 1." But I'll admit, comparing it to an ASI used to be a better measuring tool when SA wasn't an origin feat, since in 2014, it really was a choice between SA and an ASI.
A better comparison would be to the new Origin feats, where you have feats that let you get proficiency in and swap initiative order, have on demand actual advantage, or give the whole party Heroic Inspiration.
Advantage for damage is cool. But along with only being able to use it once per turn, not knowing if you're getting good use of it, and the lack of scaling, the true heart of the feel bad is that it pales in comparison to the other things you gave up to have it.
If you play a spellcaster take alert. I guarantee you that nothing is better then to throw that Web,Thorns, Sleet Storm, Wall of Stone to separate the enemies , a big AOE damage spell before your frontliners go to attack. Is also good for defense if you are ambushed or overpowered is great to cast that teleport and escape or to make your party invisible. The fact that you can swap your initiative it make also a great feat for a Dex class to take just to swap your initiative with your spellcaster.
I would like to plead the case for a couple of these:
- Ritual Caster: The Level 1 spells you can choose from here include Alarm, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, FIND FAMILIAR, Identify, and Speak with Animals, among others. Throughout your adventuring career you'll get between 2-6 of these you can use. For any Non-Wizard caster or any half-caster, this is a significant boost to out of combat versatility and utility. In some campaigns this could prove to have a lot of value, while in others maybe not so much, all dependent on how much your DM stresses exploration and social interaction.
Also, even a Wizard might look at this feat for the once per day "Instant" ritual feature it gives.
- Weapon Mastery: I see this feat mainly benefiting 3 specific classes: the Ranger, Rogue, and Monk. If you are the Ranger or Rogue, you may want to pick up this feat at some point so you can dual-wield two melee weapons with their unique weapon masteries (probably those with the Nick and Vex properties) and pick up the Weapon Mastery for a ranged weapon. This helps round you out so you can switch between melee and ranged.
For the Monk, you may want to pick up weapon mastery with a quarterstaff to add that to what you can do on each turn. I actually need to find out more about all the different other options (which weapon masteries go with each weapon), as there might be another Monk weapon you would prefer, but the Quarterstaff is the first that comes to mind.
- Crafter: I think a number of people have already said it, but there are some costly components of spells that you can get your party a discount on. It's a nice quality of life improvement for the party, and so it could be helpful for one person to pick this up. I admit it wouldn't be my first choice, but at least it will continue to benefit a party even in high levels when some items can get very costly.
Rogue and ranger get weapon masteries on lvl 1
There's definitely a case on weapon masteries for monk. Among the nice possibilities: 1 free trip attempt per turn with staff, +1 extra attack with Attack action with a scimitar (remember that its damage scale with martial die, up to D12...), disadvantage on next attack roll with spears,...
The scaling with martial die is especially interesting as it allows you to pick weapons just for their masteries and combine them.
That said, I still feel they should add the reworked Kenseï as a subclass with access to those.
As a DM I will editing the Ritual Caster. They will be given a book and they will be allowed to add rituals into said book.
I would argue that piercer is actually pretty good and worth it if you are any sort of ranged build or anyone else using piercing weapons. The nice part with puncture is you can use it to reroll any of the damage dice from that attack, including sneak attack or smite. Also extra dice of damage is always nice for making your crits feel more impactful. Overall it is good for trying to maximize your DPR. I would bump this one up to build dependent at least.
It wasn’t highlighted but the bonus damage from GWM doesn’t get applied to bonus action attacks or opportunity attacks. I think it’s dumb and will homebrew that restriction away but buyer beware.
I would probably put Savage Attack in Niche or Build Dependent. Savage Attacker is good for greataxes and muskets (the latter of which it now works on). Especially with greataxes on Barbarians. Yes it only works on one attack per turn and you have to declare it beforehand, but it significantly reduces your likelihood of a bad roll with d12 weapons. It also works on an opportunity attack which is great if you have the Sentinel feat (since you can attack in response to enemy attacks).
What's valuable is not so much its impact on your average damage roll but rather anything you can do to reduce your likelihood of a low roll with the very swingy damage weapons. Greataxes are also a lot more viable now as a weapon now that you have viable options besides polearm mastery.
Edit: I meant muskets.
Nah
Yeah I mean I hear what you’re saying and I can totally see the potential value. What Savage Attacker does isn’t really the problem I have it’s just more the actual usage mechanic. Needing to decide before you roll is a tough sell when most other features have dropped that requirement, and it’s once per turn. If it works, great. But even if it does you’ll never really know since which die is the SA die lol?
I came here to say the same thing. People keep dissing it by saying it's only a couple of damage points per round, but it's Advantage on damage every turn including opportunity attacks for the rest of your character's life. There are few feats that are so universal. Definitely is best on d12 weapons.
I decided to calculate the expected/average damage for each damage die. My results:
d4: 3.125 (as opposed to 2.5)
d6: 4.47222 (3.5)
d8: 5.8125 (4.5)
d10: 7.15 (5.5)
d12: 8.4861111 (6.5)
So you're looking at an average of almost +2 damage on a d12 weapon. On a d10, you'd see ~1.5 extra damage. Downside is that since it's only once per turn, it won't scale with extra attacks (though extra attacks will increase the chance that you'll get a hit)
I have a dumb question. How does it significantly reduce your likelihood of a bad roll? It's advantage on damage but it's once per turn, has to be declared before rolling, and it's solely for the weapon's damage die specifically. I don't really know how it will impact a 1d12 but on a 1d20 (it's more complicated than a simple number) but wasn't advantage a boost of 3-5 on the roll (which would be a 15%-25% boost)?
I’m playing in a West Marches style game. With multiple DMs and 30 players and really frequent games. Still 4-6 players per game.
It involves a lot of in world time passing between each game for the story they’re building.
This really makes it PERFECT for that crafter feat. There is plenty of time to craft items.
A niche game. But, the group should have access to basically any item that can be crafted.
Anyone wants ANY armor or weapon with a spell usable a few times a day? SURE! Just need money and a little time.
Fey touched is borderline something you build because it can give Hex or Hunter’s Mark, and some martial characters love it
Nice video! Loved the new warcaster feat!
On Poisoner
Luckily my table homebrews that all poisons follow the basic poison 1 melee weapon / 3 pieces of ammunition rule. But even then, it pairs pretty well with Hunter Ranger and Battlemaster Fighter, where you can see if an enemy is resistant or immune beforehand so you dont waste doses that way.
Crafter is broken, so the moment you said Crafter was bad I had to take a second to remember this video was made before the DMG 2024.
Tinker's and Woodcarver's are the two best crafting tools in the game due to what you can make with them. Additionally you can just take Alchemist's with a custom background to be the ultimate downtime character. So long as you remember you can make Common and Uncommon items very quickly you can make a party very powerful with one or two Enspelled items.
^This. With the new crafting rules, Crafter is insanely strong. Especially if you're an Artificer as they get Tinker's Tools and one artisan's tool proficiency at level one and their subclass also grants one (this is true for both the TCE and the new UA version). With this feat, they have six tool proficiencies, so with enough resources there is only a handful of magic items they won't be able to craft and someone else in the party will need to chip in on that front. Or have two characters in the party with this feat and the rest can fill in where needed.
The 20% discount is also strong as it applies not only to the cheap stuff but to expensive non-magical items as well, including base armors, diamonds and other consumable non-magical spell components.
Granted it's not as flashy as Alert, Lucky or Magic Initiate given it's limited use in one-shots and short campaigns with little or no downtime, but it's definitely a Build Defining (or at least a Build Dependent) feat in a longer campaign.
Excuse me, what exactly can you do with alchemist's supplies? I get we can craft potions (which is nice) but isn't it very expensive?
I think crafter can be great, if you know ahead and be creative with the tools you can get a bit of use for them, as you can make them every morning. Also i feel they would be amazing with a thief rogue, many of these items you can make every morning (like caltrops and balls bearings) can be used to great effect with their bonus action
We're about to do MadMage and it looks like I picked bad feats! My arcane trickster has skilled, magic initiate and ritual casting. The other members of the party are a fighter and an eldritch knight. I thought it would be nice to take ritual casting for the utility spells like detect magic and comprehend language; and skilled... to be even more of a skill monkey. Do you have suggestions for an arcane trickster build in 2024e? Thanks!
Fey Touched or Shadow Touched can be excellent for some extra free casting! Also Mage Slayer doesn’t hurt since it can give you a once per short rest “legendary resistance” which can be extremely clutch!
I was thrilled to find out that Telepathic and Telekinetic were in the new book. As well as Psi Warrior because, the character I’ve been using recently is a Variant Human Psi Warrior Fighter Investigator. The one sad part is, I wouldn’t be able to have Telepathic at 1st level anymore. The idea was that he was like born with psionic abilities. But now I would have to wait until level 4. At level 5 right now I have Telepathic and Telekinetic, but that wouldn’t work now.
But what I can do, is take Magic Initiate. Shield spell for sure, then cantrips are tricky. I want Mind Sliver for some ranged psychic damage, but Mage Hand and Message would kinda give me a bit of the abilities that the Feats originally gave me until later. Tricky tricky. But I like the idea of having Magic Initiate and maybe Skilled at first level.
11:54 Replenishing meal is meh. Basically 1 extra hit die use for heals, but need to use 1 to gain the heals anyway...
Fix it by not requiring a hit die, and a hit die adds your proficiency and either Con or Wis (Min 1) to the healing. It's a feat, not a free feat the dm gave...
Bolstering Treats this is basically a Temp Health free Good berries..
To fix the language and make it streamlined.
Let the treats last for 24hrs. Like the Good Berry Spell that someone can get with Magic Initiate.
Let the Temp health be based on your Con or Wis (Min 1), with them stacking if eating 1 or more of these specific treats.
Creating amount of treats equal to your proficiency + Con or Wis (Min 1).
Given I'd like these as changes. The Bolstering treats part is 100% better. It's temp HP and free. The Replenishing meal cost a hit die. Yes you'd probably use 1 anyway. But it's a waste if you are down like 1-5 HP.
Feat that requires specific weapons and being in melee: always good. Feat that requires specific armor and being in melee: build dependent.
Actor plus mask and many faces is amazing, check out season 2 of dungeons of drakkenheim, Shadows of drakkenheim, they have a gray old one Warlock who took actor in mask of many faces and the shenanigans felt almost endless.
Crafter feat has the potential to break the game RAW. The 20% discount on buying non magical items combined with the rules on selling items allows the player to buy things like gems at 20% off but sell them for the full 100% value. This means they are constantly making a profit and will basically get stupid rich RAW. A DM will have to judge these situations carefully to prevent being unfair yet also not allowing the players to just become ridiculously wealthy.
Also I'm baffled that you put observant in niche. You get 1 of the 3 most used skills in the game and you are expert in that skill. The bonus action search check is niche but when was the last time you played a game and didn't make multiple perception, investigation or insight checks? Also it raises your passive scores in that skill as well. Expertise in any of these is good but expertise in perception is huge and everyone can benefit from that.
Ritual caster should have just been an origin feat. If they are going to make it a leveled feat then it should have had the half level maximum of the original feat. I don't think i would put this in bad. Ultimately you're gaining up to 6 extra prepared spells with a free cast of one, so it's useful to casters to pick up all those little ritual spells that are nice but possibly not worth taking up a precious prepared slot. It's build dependent i would think.
The rules on treasure items say that they "retain their full value" when sold. The key word there is "retain". If it was sold to you at less than its nominal value, then you can expect to sell it for the same price. An item cannot "retain" value that it didn't have to begin with.
However, even without this obvious ruling, I really fail to see this as problematic. The rules repeatedly stress how difficult it is to sell expensive items quickly. Eventually your arbitrage scheme slams into a wall as you wait months at a time for someone with enough disposable income to take an interest.
If you told a 2014 player that magic initiate was good because they can use it to get true strike they would laugh at you. Kind of impressive how much better it is now
The grappler feat makes me wish the Fighter subclass Brawler had worked out.
The Brawler concept was so fun but was very half baked. I’m also sad it didn’t even get a second pass.
Polearm Master now gives you a Reactive Strike instead of a Opportunity Attack. Functionality the same for the most part, but it doesn't combo with the Sentinel Feat anymore.
If you’re playing RAW the crafter feat is essentially an infinite money glitch. You buy something with the discount then sell it to someone else without the discount. Most reasonable DMs wouldn’t allow this but still good to note.
Would put tavern brawler in build dependent since the reroll on 1s never even reaches .5 dmg for an unarmed strike. I would only take this to retreat for free as a monk by pushing my enemy 5ft away but MI wizard for bladeward still feels better.
Would also put gwm in build defining since it scales well as you progress. It also doesn't specify melee for the +prof dmg so longbow can technically work.
I wonder what the damage is for a monk as it scales. It goes down per attack as the monk die grows but then again there's many more attacks
Okay, there's some notable sections I disagree with here, so I'll break it down into subcategories.
I think you got the origin feats pretty much on the nose, but there's a lot of inconsistency imo in relation to the general feats and bias toward combat. I think if you ranked things within the tiers it would've made things easier, as a lot of decisions scream to me as you feeling the need to put a feat higher just cause it's slightly better than similar types of feats. I get it though, this likely already took a good bit of time to put together, and the more specific you rank things the more discourse it creates.
For the feats that specifically benefit certain martial loadouts, I think you give too much value to DefDuel & not enough to GWM. Both of these fwats are pretty much essenital to any build using these, and while O agree that the buff to DD is awesome it still has the drawback of melee only and requires finesse. Both should be in Build defining as they are basically must picks for martials of that kind, same as PAM, Duel Wielder, Shield Master, and CBE. I understand putting SharpS down a tier cause CBE is just the better choice in almost every way, but GWM definitely shouldn't be down there with it as it's still really potent.
Another grouping of feats I think you underrate is the OoC utility feats. Telepathic, Skill expert, and Skilled all at least deserve to be moved up a tier as their impact can immediately be felt and useful in pretty much every session. Just cause they don't do anything in combat doesn't make them still quite valuable, especially when so many feats are martial focused, so these feats are in some cases your best options later on at levels 12 and beyond. Keen Mind & Observant are more understandable though, and I wish they had kept some part of the original features.
There are a few other scattered feats I just personally think you rated one tier off like Ritual Caster, Sentinel, and Fey Touched, but I won't go in depth on that, just my opinion. Weapon Master in particular though I will disagree with as Monks and Certain casters I think will be looking to that feat quite a bit in the coming years. A lot of people underrate these weapon masteries in general, but in some scenarios I see the value having the half-feat over taking the Fighter or Rogue 1 tax slowing down your class progression.
All of this is great and totally valid feedback and perspective :)
I tried to give as much context as I could in the beginning but also didn’t want things to run even longer than it already did. Combat certainly weighed more heavily in my rankings as nearly 100% of tables will experience combat in their games on a regular basis but I can’t know for certain how much the benefits of Actor or Keen Mind will, so as a result, combat does tilt the scales a bit more (for me at least). I was also trying to frame this as “most people will probably…”. If I was rating things for me and the way me and my group specifically play then let me tell you, the rankings would look a WHOLE lot different haha.
In any case, I appreciate the feedback and comment :) thank you for sharing your perspective!
I like the scaling with proficiency that they introduced in some of the Design
You forgot to mention that spell sniper doesn't impose disadvantage to you if enemies are 5 ft. from you.
I think I might homebrew Savage Attacker so that when you roll a 1 on the damage die, you can roll a second one and also add that one to the damage. That's gonna make those super disappointing 1s rolled on a d12 a bit more fun.
Believe it or not, the new lucky is actually better in one respect, for rogues at least.
Before, if for whatever reason you had disadvantage on atk rolls, lucky couldn't save you, sneak atk was off the table for you. Now, lucky will actually cancel the disadvantage and allow you to set sneak atk by other means.
Also, with many skill checks going over the minimum success roll has tangible rewards, and advantage will on average yield better results than just a plain reroll.
My houserule for elemental adept adds 1 to any die below half the average. Comes out to .5 damage per die and my players actually get to use it, which they like.
For classes, tough has the effect of increasing the average up 2 dice. A d6 average is 4 (3.5 for the sticklers), with Tough it becomes 6. A d10 average is 6 (or 5.5)
Wizard loves ritual caster bc wizards can cast ritual spells as rituals without having them prepared, they just need to be in their spell book, and ritual caster lets them cast a ritual spell without using it as a ritual, which basically means a wizard can cast any of their ritual spells at their normal casting time without needing to have them prepared
There aren't many wizard spells that are rituals and anyone wants to cast them at their normal casting time often enough to pick this over other feats. There is a reason why this was only a small part of the order of scribes wizard's level 2 subclass feature...on it's own it's next to nothing.
Poisoner might change once the new MM comes out. One of the things I hope to see is less poison resistance from the suite of monsters.
Alert is good. Prof bonus + advantage if you have a familiar
There may be a lot of creatures overall with poison resistance, but if you’re in a campaign where the majority of your enemies are humanoids, that may not matter as much. Also, taking Telekinetic could potentially help you get around the problem of reusing poisoned missiles, depending on the range you’re firing from. (Or use an Unseen Servant if you have that spell available, which pretty much anyone can due to Magic Initiate.)
I always find it interesting how with videos like these you can kinda tell what style of play the video maker typically has 😊
I think you’d be quite surprised actually. I will assume that you think I’m a power player/optimizer or something along those lines based on how I organized things? If so, couldn’t be further from the truth haha.
@@InsightCheck Nope! The vibe I got is a table that generally knows their mechanics but doesn't obsess opting way more on narrative and story.
If I had to guess further, combat is generally on the tough side but deaths are very unlikely. (Otherwise you'd be valuing extra hp waaaay more :D)
@20storiesunder lol well damn, this is pretty much dead on and now I’m slightly concerned you’re seeing our sessions somehow lol!
The amount of people that assume I must be an optimizer because I say that typically powerful things are powerful is wild. I misjudged!
I really find myself torn between Shield Master, Heavy Armor Master and Speedy for my last Feat before I get my boons. I like that more Feats feel viable now.
Spell sniper allows a warlock to use Eldritch Blast + repelling blast from melee range without disadvantage.
Match speedy with charger (and maybe booming blade)? With a dex based martial class, perhaps. No save for the push action and with a nick weapon too, good chance it will land.
Why Weapon Master is Better than you think:
Pact of the Blade Warlock: No weapon masteries. Can gain a fair bit out of being able to oppose disadvantage to hit on the next attack, given only getting light armor. Or having the means to always deal some damage, even when you miss, could make for a more reliable damage dealer overall.
Monk: No weapon masteries. With the Nick weapon mastery, A monk can attack up to 6 times per round using their martial Arts Die by level 11.
Backwards Compatible Blade Singer wizard: No weapon Masteries. Having the weapon mastery of a Vex property weapon and procking advantage to hit on a booming blade/green flame blade/truestrike by level 6 could make for an effective frontline gish build.
Backwards Compatible College of Swords Bard: No weapon masteries. Seeing as It gets the Duel Wielding fighting style, having access to nick sures up the doubt of a bards wanting to deal damage.
College of Valor Bard: No weapon masteries. Seeing as Conjure minor elementals exists, attacking a lot could be really strong.
It's build dependent at the worst because not everyone who wants it gets weapon masteries.
Looks about right. I think the tier labels are a little weird because all the feats are technically always good. War caster is a lot undervalued on this list. ASI is kind of the baseline. You take a feat if it’s better than the ASI. Rating ASI so highly implies that you should never prioritize anything else, when many feats are easily higher value than an ASI for level 4.
The only thing i can think Ritual caster feat is useful is for third or half casters to use out of combat spells like find familiar, identify, or commune with nature without consuming thier extremely limited spell slots.
Crossbow Expert has actually received a pretty heinous stealth nerf you alluded to but glossed over.
Getting your hands on a magical hand crossbow is pretty difficult but the feat now requires you to use _two_ of them. There is a good possibility that change just occupied one of your attunements, making it an extremely bad change to the feat.
I think crafter combo'ed with the new magic item creation rules really bumps its value up.
I’d say there’s atleast a niche for Durable on Fighters since it would give a slightly weaker version of their second wind that they can use for healing while saving their proper Second Wind dice for their other uses. There’s also the fact that it can be a weaker second wind that anyone can get without dipping into fighter
I like the idea of playing a character like the Wolverine with Durable feat on Zealot Barb. At level 3 Zealot with Warrior of the Gods that gives him 7d12 die to roll to get back hp. So while wielding a Greataxe you can use one 1d12 as your bonus action on every round to heal for 7 rounds in a row or 1d12 for 3 rounds in a row and 4d12 all at once with Warrior of the Gods if you took a big hit. It's like having 7d12 more hp.
I have many issues with feats. 1 I would remove all the +1 from all the feats and just add them to the level where charcters get it
Now ASI feat be more useful and competitive with +3 to stats
and all feats including origin feats and fighting stile feats dont feel less like a waste taken at later levels.
and just open way more creativity why mage slayer is only Dex and Str why not improve mental stats . why sentinel and other feats doesnt let you raise Con what if I want to take a martial feat on a spell caster gish . all these problems get fixed.
and all the weeker feats need buffs like come on savage attacker could been to reroll 1 always and hick proficiency times a day max out weapons damage . give that savage side.
heavy armor profincy feat you could have added your speed cant be lowered or could put you ignore the strength requirement of armor and profincy or even once a day when you make stealth check you ignore the disadvantage from the armor
and so on.
I will make a doc and hopfully start a youtube channel to go in all of that just need that book soon
I have wondered about a new type of feat where you can gain a second subclass of one of your current classes.
I don’t know if the second subclass should go straight to the level you currently are or you only get the first subclass features and then keep grabbing the same feat to get the next level of subclass features
Hum... even gaining the benefits of 1 level of said subclass already sounds extremely powerful and I didn't even try to dive into the insane possible combinations. Realistically, you could only take it once, with each subclass needing its own specific version (like that old feat that give you access to Battle Master manoeuver with a couple of D6).
Based off Crawford's Duel Wielder clarification, yeah, anything that can add extra damage to an attack wants Duel Wielder.
I say Crafter should be little higher because 20% off is still really good and early game. For example, if your Party wants better armor such as Splint Armor, Breastplate, Studded Leather Armor. That really good.
Charging (10) Crusher (5) Warhammer Push(10) Barbarian (15): 40ft push away from you
Also works with a pike (reach +5ft) if you have polearm mastery, as the opposite end hit is bludgeoning
Combine Skyrim's Whirlwind Sprint and Unrelenting Force => FUS ROH DA!!!
I really like your categories!
Thank you! :)
It was important to me that it wasn’t just a “best to worst”. Context really matters for these!
Wait did they change the advantage on jump checks back to running long jump on 5ft for athlete? Or do you have the old feat there?
I think a category "always decent" would have been a great addition for this kind of tier list, as example tough is always decent, no one says no to more hp, but does not define anything in a build, same for lucky, the new version can't be IMHO in always good.
why is martial weapon training in the list?
also perhaps you forgot but you didn't mention how the shield bash from shield master no longer takes your bonus action to use or that the interpose shield no longer requires you the be the only target of the effect that causes the save but for example could now be used against a fireball or a breath weapon
Martial Weapon Training is on the list because it is a feat in the 2024 PHB. The 21st General Feat on the list alphabetically.
As for not mentioning the change to Shield Master because as stated at 3:47 the intent of this is to look at 2024 feats and not be comparative looking backward.
Crossbow Expert got a huge nerf.
Petite all you needed was 1 weapon to get the bonus action attack. This meant you can cast spells without needing War Caster because you had a free hand.
Now you need 2 weapons and if you want to cast spells you need War Caster and even then there’s some spells like Hex you can’t cast because of the material component.
It’s actually just worse now, even if it allows you to wield two identical crossbows. (Which doesn’t give you more damage)
I would put savage attacker at a higher teir i may be wrong but it looks like the more damage dice the stronger it becomes so a great sword with a rune knight that went big is 3 d6 to reroll if you multi class in to barbarian and get that d 10 when you reckless attack it would get very strong but if im wrong on how it works it would stay in bad
Ritual caster, just for find familiar can go in always good.
Fighting initiate could have been added as an Origin feat. Good alternative to Savage Attacker, since they didn't change it at all
I was looking through the New PHB last night and i couldn't find neither Green flame blade nor booming blade. Are they no longer spells?
This is correct. Neither spell exists in the 2024 PHB but are still useable through backward compatibility. So you can use either in 2024 just as they were if you so choose!
Ritual caster being gutted is sad, one of the coolest feats out there.
Forgive me if I'm being super dumb but is Dual Wielder not just the rules for Two Weapon Fighting? The wording is ever so slightly different from 2014 but did they change or remove the base Two Weapon Fighting rules for 2024?
Essentially, yes, its mostly just Two Weapon Fighting from 2014, with a slight difference.
The main differences being 1. In order to activate it, you Must attack with a Light weapon during your attack action 2. The bonus action attack can be made with Any *one-handed* melee weapon.
The 2nd point is what makes it different from the 2024 Light weapon property, since in the Light property, the bonus action attack Has to be made with a different Light weapon.
Btw, Two Weapon Fighting now IS the Light weapon property in the 2024 rules.
@@MrSeals1000 thanks for the clarification! Now, I don't know about anyone else but taking two weapon fighting from a single core rule and spreading it out over a weapon property, a weapon mastery and a feat, all of which do Kinda The Same Thing But Not Quite is an unnecessary complication and not an upgrade!
I don't understand how does weapon mastery fit in niche the way you talked about it. You basically said it's never useful but didn't put it in bad.
However, great video, I agree with most of your choices and would maybe move some feats one tier up or one tier down.
Your considerations on these feats are very interesting and the war caster used on allies for healing or buffing allies is pure geniality. You can build your healer around this concept and with the help of your allies exploit your reactions to the max doubling the amount of spells you can cast per round.
Due to the fact that Savage Attacker allows you to use either roll, I don't think it should be classified as bad. It might not be an amazing boost, but rolling twice and taking the best is always good.
On a d8,10,12 the damage boost is actually greater than bumping your ability modifier by 1 assuming you only really hit once per turn
Mage slayer can go in always good, everyone that is not strength reliant can always use the plus dex and legendary resistance is incredible. Between this and musician you can be sure to be almost never shut down in one round for one bad roll.
All the feats that just give you training with armor can easily just be replaced with asking your DM nicely if you can get that training in your background or during downtime.
I mean, no? There's a reason why each class gets the training they get. I'd 100% make the feats better, but I'm not giving you better armor for free.
Otherwise you're stepping on someone else's toes. How will the fighter feel when the ranger gets heavy armor for free? How will the valor bard feel if the dance bard gets medium armor for free? Etc etc.
Armor training is a perk of certain classes and sub classes. It's a major feature of the game. It shouldn't just be handed out willy-nilly. I might do it as a special reward for a quest or something, but it would be the equivalent of getting a magic item.
@@NateFinch None of that matters if there is no Fighter or Valor Bard in your game. I never said it should be handed out willy-nilly but treating it like a magic item seems like a great idea. Another player might get to start the game with a a Rare or Uncommon magic item. It all depends on the campaign. As long as all the players are having fun, I've done my job as a DM.
Crafter means all the spell components of all the party cost 20% less. It's quite good
Just want to point out that Dual Wielder feat does NOT allow you to make 4 attacks from level 4, only 3.
This is because you can only do ONE light weapon property extra attack, so even if you have two Nick masteries, you can only make that nick attack once. Because of that, without extra attack, you can do 3 attacks per turn at most, using your bonus action.
I know, I misspoke :)
The 4th attack was with Extra Attack at level 5 for those that get access to it.
@InsightCheck oh, I see :)
Great video still!
Durable combo with periapt of wound closing is not bad. Especially if you have d10 or d12 HD.
I like the idea of playing a character like the Wolverine with Durable feat on Zealot Barb. At level 3 Zealot with Warrior of the Gods that gives him 7d12 die to roll to get back hp. So while wielding a Greataxe you can use one 1d12 as your bonus action on every round to heal for 7 rounds in a row or 1d12 for 3 rounds in a row and 4d12 all at once with Warrior of the Gods if you took a big hit. It's like having 7d12 more hp.
Great weapon master was better before the change, the only change is it removes the very mild negative (especially at higher levels) for significantly less bonuses, and the second part just has a name now. Honestly only getting prof bonus to all hita isn’t worth a potential +10 to every hit, even if that +10 comes at a -5 to hit
New mage slayer 👏🏼👏🏼
I have to say tough is always good, i can't think of a situation where it wouldn't be useful, even if you're a caster that spents most of the battle in the backline, those extra hit points might save you from ranged opponents.
Build Challenge for Colby: A Rogue with the Grappler Feat!
I disagree with the Crafter being flat bad because there are some campaigns that focus on crafting a fair bit. For example. I'm in a nitty grotty survival campaign where my barbarian knowing how to cook and woodwork and navigate is super helpful from crafter. I'd say niche at highest though. But i do agree most tables won't ever use it