Ranking EVERY Feat in D&D 5e: PHB Part 1
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
- If you like what I do and would consider supporting this channel through Patreon:
/ treantmonkstemple
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:46 Actor (39)
1:43 Alert (62)
2:23 Athlete (43)
3:25 Charger (20)
4:10 Crossbow Expert (80)
5:35 Defensive Duelist (37)
6:59 Dual Wielder (40)
8:45 Dungeon Delver (19)
9:48 Durable (35)
10:32 Elemental Adept (31)
11:42 Grappler (20)
13:55 Great Weapon Master (63)
14:53 Healer (50)
15:53 Heavily Armored (35)
16:47 Heavy Armor Master (45)
17:38 Inspiring Leader (48)
19:22 Keen Mind (39)
20:08 Lightly Armored (32)
20:58 Linguist (26)
21:59 Lucky (70)
22:34 Mage Slayer (38) 
Игры
Ah Grappler. The feat that should just be baseline rules for grappling.
I've tried giving it to martial classes and anyone with strength ≥11; both have worked well.
(I miss the days when ability scores got you things other than a bigger modifier)
Honestly Heavy armor master should be baseline for heavy armor...and the feat should make it 3+Half Proficiency. Heavy armor is pretty bad.
@@MeepOfFaith In what sense? Full plate is the highest baseline AC in the game.
@ATMOSK1234 Medium armor is nearly as effective and can be worn easily by essentially NY class without all that much investment. For how expensive full plate is and heavy armor requiring strength I think heavy armor should be far more effective if the AC bonus is only going to be a point or two above medium armor
@@MeepOfFaith Plate only requires 15 strength (or none if your a dwarf) so the investment is pretty comparable and the gold cost shouldn't be a problem by level 4-5. I think the only substantial difference is that dex confers alot of other benefits besides AC while strength doesn't. But that is more to do with the relative balance between stats and not armor categories.
Heavy Armor Master would be fine if it reduced damage by an amount equal to your proficiency bonus without the "nonmagical attacks" restriction (as you point out). It would no longer go from OP at level 1 to largely redundant later on.
redundant is the wrong word here, largely not applicable, or saying its useless would be the right phrase/word, as i'm assuming that you mean that quite a lot of attacks become magical, and there-in make the feat largely useless.
I am playing a duet game ATM and Heavy Armor Master has saved my life so many times already.
That is a problem that will no longer exists after September
I think it would fit the themes and style of D&D better if your armour must have innate magic to work against magical attacks as well. In effect "when you are wearing enchanted or otherwise magical heavy armour damage is reduced from magical attacks as well". Perhaps even to keep it more relevant in the latter game where elemental damage comes in more often too against all incoming damage but psychic (again to fit with the usual theme of D&D where Psy is almost never resisted).
I could see it being a prerequisite for a really good leveled feat, even with just 3 damage but yeah throw away non-magic. I love the idea of an armored fortress feat, reduce damage on an attack by your level using a reaction. And/ or allies within 5-feet of you gain half-cover. Kinda busted, but leveled feats can have a bit more power creep.
For Heavy Armor Master our table made small but significant changes.
You resist damage equal to your proficiency bonus + the magical bonus of your armor. If your armor is magical you also apply the resistance to magical piercing/slashing/bludgeoning damage.
We are quite happy with the changes.
Note: we also give adamantine armor a damage resistance value of 1, which stacks with HAM. Only one player at our table has adamantine armor (but not the feat...yet).
I took Dungeon Delver for the rogue I played in Tomb of Annihilation and I can tell you that in a trap heavy campaign it might rise as high as B tier. It did not disappoint.
I've always thought that with Mage Slayer, that reaction attack you get should have them roll concentration or something and if they fail the spell is interrupted. Like a different version of counter spell. I think that would make the the feat a lot more interesting and useful.
I'd take away the damage, maybe make the attack roll a DC that the spellcaster has to beat, but otherwise it's a good idea.
that used to be the case in 3.5. Mage Slayer and it's follow-up feats used to make you an actual threat vs casters, as their defensive buffs would not apply and get dispelled, and you could force them to make a check for every spell or lose it. And casters couldn't take them as they'd basically lose 4 levels of spellcasting progression for every feat in the Mage Slayer line they took.
you'd still be lower in the absolute power department, but if you moved next to a caster you'd at least be relevant in combat by locking down casters and dealing them a ton of damage. Grappling also would let you gag them and prevent them from grabbing material components, so you could disable their spellcasting entirely too.
Now, you said a downside to Heavy Armor Master is that it requires you to constantly ask your DM if things are non-magical weapon attacks. I think you are perhaps overlooking how absolutely hilarious it is when a giant throws a chunk of wall at you and you get to say, "And walls are nonmagical weapons, right?"
Stuck in a tsunami and thrown into a yak? "Yaks count as nonmagical weapons, right?"
Hit with a fireball? "Fireballs are nonmagical weapons, right?"
I can tell you from experience, this is a top tier bit.
I feel attacked...by a non-magical weapon?
It does specify bludgeoning, slashing and piercing damage so,
Giants stone throw, yes, it’s bludgeoning damage and the wall isn’t enchanted.
Tsunami, if it’s the spell no, if it’s natural yes.
Fireball, no, fire is both not listed as a valid target but is magical because it comes from a spell.
@@AtelierGod wait, is the Tsunami spell somehow enchanting the Yaks that got picked up in it, or did the spell also magically summon the yaks? Maybe the yaks are illusionary, so the damage isn't real, but it's still magic...
@@tobyakers2936 yes, it’s magic it doesn’t make sense.
@@tobyakers2936 Heavy Armor Master actually only works against attacks, so unless it's like a targeted tsunami slam attack it wouldn't benefit you. Speaking from experience with that feat and having had to go through a hallway of dex save darts -several times...
D and F tier feats are good free feats for the dm to handout with little risk to upset game balance. Feel good rewards for role play, minor challenges, backstory, etc.
That's really clever
I award players that take the time to write a good backstory that is campaign related and interesting with a free low-value feat because good backstories give me good story material later on. 😏
That's what I do: half feats, without their ability score increasing parts, work great as the results of characters training, learning, or otherwise achieving them outside of levelling.
I think they should separate feats from ability scores in the base game too for this reason. There are many half feats that are niche, circumstantial and flavourful and that could be given out by a handful without upsetting the balance, if not for their ability boosts.
Sure are bro. They can be more rewarding than gold and magic items even.
It would be good to see what the D and F feats have in common to see why they scored so low - perhaps like perpetually failing students, there's something going on there that isn't being addressed, or things that should be only be looked at it terms of pass/fail are instead being elevated to the level of Feat that should be extracurricular. Like, how can you get a C in gym, really?
I think the second point on Actor is more valuable than a simple ribbon ability because someone taking the feat is doing so to make those kinds of skill checks a lot (including point 3 where mimicry creates a skill contest that point 2 gives you advantage in). One thing worth mentioning on Dual Wielder is that the feat gets more powerful if your DM likes to give out magical weapons; suddenly you're going from replacing your super-powered sword with something even stronger to exploiting their combined might!
I have found players are often willing to try classes and subclasses that aren't the strongest, but when it comes to feats the same few options at the top of this chart are consistently picked.
it's in order to mitigate the weakness of said classes and subclasses
A suboptimal class or subclass like Sun Soul Monk may provide a gameplay feel the player seeks, or may fit particularly well with the player's character conception. That's less likely to happen with something like Dungeon Delver.
Feats are by far more limiting because by picking an underwhelming feat you lose out on the basic ASI that makes you better at doing what you are meant to do. A Sun Soul monk might be the weakest of all monks but even they have a unique niche amongst monks, ranged spell like attacks.
I think it's because there are so few opportunities to pick up feats. If ASI levels were an ASI AND a feat instead of or, I think you'd see more variety. That plus gating the really strong feats by level but that might be more controversial.
Honestly because a lot of the subpar feats are *boring* as well as weak. A subpar class may let you do something unique but a lot of subpar feats will do absolutely nothing. You're just throwing an ASI away without any gains.
I'd say standing up for only 5' of movement is rather more valuable and a touch more than just a ribbon. That is usually 10' of extra movement you get every time you get knocked prone or elect to drop prone for defence against ranged attack, and it is an even bigger gain for the folks with lots of movement speed, as that 'give up half your movement' really hurts the faster folk more. Mobility won't always matter, and you probably are not prone all the time, but both often matter a great deal...
It's moderately useful, but only relevant if/when you get knocked prone. In terms of relative value, features that are "online" af your convenience are just better. Features that mitigate problems are nice, but I'm not looking to get knocked prone often enough for it to be useful
@@tdarassp You can and in many cases may well be advised to go prone deliberately if getting up on your turn again isn't so expensive - all those ranged attackers probably wont' hit you, and all it cost was 5' of your movement next turn. Your DM will also probably rule being prone counts as partial cover and you may be able to actively hide while prone where you couldn't while on your feet fairly often (etc). So its more than just when you are knocked prone. Obviously not everyone is going to play going prone a great deal, but for the more skirmish tactic builds it might well come up all the time.
@@foldionepapyrus3441 100% agreed on all of the tactical benefits. I think some of them can get kinda cheesey, but hiding and taking cover is totally viable
The main issue with this, is that you can already do this by default. The only benefit is getting up with slightly more movement. Which IS useful, but I'd just argue that it's only really moderately useful on top of being situational
I've put it on an Aarakocra grappler who can knock people prone "for free" by dropping on them. Getting back up again by spending 5 ft. of my 50 ft fly speed is amazing
@@funnyman359 that is pretty awesome, and sound hilarious and fun. It's also one situation where it's useful lol
Nice to see Healer ranked so high. I so rarely see anyone else take it, but it's a scaling, mundane Potion of Healing, so it just can't be countered and, while admittedly extremely circumstantial, you can't even stop it in anti-magic zones.
Hell yeah, rank em all, one by one.
Read this in the Mr pilnkett voice
Read this in the Mr pilnkett voice
@@unchartedexe How did you know?
About the Athlete feat, standing up from prone using only 5ft of movement isn't entirely a ribbon feature. It lets you impose disadvantage on all ranged attacks by dropping prone at the end of your turn for only a very minor movement penalty. Of course, provided that there aren't enemies that are in walking distance. It can be a very good intentional strategic tool especially for a mobile character that can already kite or keep distance.
I agree, and compared to how grappler was scored, think it should've been scored higher.
The overall ranking is fine, just should've had a couple more points in its favour.
Inspiring Leader tip: Necromancer Wizard.
Most undead don't have to take long rests, so you can inspire your undead minions, even the ones that you aren't maintaining control on and they will keep the temp HP essentially forever.
I used this in my BBEG necromancer build. He maintains a haunted house where he invites adventurers to visit. All the undead are created by various spells, including True Polymorph, but they all are buffed with Inspiring Leader.
As a DM I'd look forward to how you'd roleplay that to justify it. Not saying I'd block it(I hate DMs who do that), but I'd definitely wanna see it refluffed accordingly. Do you lean into the meme status and go full Thriller or play it serious that you have some kind of special ability to connect with the dead?
He's doing this as the GM @@Garresh1
@@Garresh1 I definitely actually played thriller music during one of the zombie fights lol.
But he's the bbeg, not a player character, so it generally happens offscreen.
I'd probably flavour it as him telling the undead their purpose and inspiring them to live up to it as he creates them.
In any case it's a good investment in 13 charisma, so that you can meet the requirements of the feat.
@insertphrasehere15 Apparently I failed on reading comprehension haha. That's amazing though. Good stuff
Inspiring leader is way better than he gives it credit for.
Was looking for part 2 put realized you did this 40 minutes ago .. haha good job I love your videos
More to come!
All the remaining videos are already available at Patreon if you can't wait...
It's funny the little things that I find end up being more useful in the tables I play at. Trying to overhear conversations in other languages in situations where you can't just cast a spell for social or stealth reasons comes up fairly regularly in games I play and run as just... A natural course of the campaigns we play. So languages become more desirable. Always knowing the exact time has helped for timing in settings where methods of accurate timekeeping are harder to come by - especially if you've been underground or in a dungeon for a while. I haven't taken Keen Mind since my first 5e campaign, yet I've repeatedly wished Ive had it... Just not enough to take it over something else.
In my experience it’s only a plot point in games with a DM that can speak multiple languages as people who don’t often don’t realize the usefulness of such interactions.
Agreed on all counts.
Keen mind is for me something I wish every party would take, as it means when the time between sessions and shoddy note taking by the players gets in the way of them putting the puzzle together one of them can spend a moment to recall that detail as the player asks the DM, and to some extent can roll retroactive investigation to understand the meaning of what they saw. Also the always knowing the time means the players tend to care more about its progression so that mostly handwaved 2 weeks on the ship or whatever ends up really sticking with them. So when they get back to the same place a session or two later, but a few months of travel happened the seasons have moved on and everything is a little different. It just helps keep a game with any real narrative elements from getting bogged down, and as I very much love putting in subtle political intrigue, personal goals and the like to help bring my NPC to life even in the game that is more combat focused. It brings some reality to it for me, even when the players don't notice, and when they do manage to turn Raiding Orc Tribes A against B or something because they caught the hint the players love it.
Actually being able to speak the language properly will help reinforce any attempt to pass yourself off as one of 'them'. Magic is great and covers most eventually rather well, but it doesn't just work passively all the time (usually anyway). So you will or at least should if you don't actually speak the language miss potentially important details in any conversation you overhear while you cast the spell. Those sort of subtle limits on the power magic, and giving the players incomplete information so they have to guess really brings the world to life, and places more value on the mundanely skilled. Which is something I think most DM's forget, magic is powerful when prepared, but true skills are ever ready.
Very informative.
I tend to prioritize half feats as my stats often are created with them in mind, but you've made me reevaluate the ones you put high.
It's an interesting trade off for some feats; half feats are called that because, generally (though not always) the idea was that half feats didn't give you as many benefits or features as some full feats do. In practice, though, I think power creep has lead to certain half feats like Fey Touched being extremely strong options.
I think that after the new Player Handbook, any feat that is not half feat will be complete unchooseble
@@kedraroth Yeah, there's a reason I'm not looking forward to that book or the new changes. There's a couple of hand picked things that seem cool, but I largely do not like some of the decisions that they've been making with this "new edition" or "One D&D" or whatever they've decided to call it. But maybe I'm just too attached to old 5E at this point
@@kedraroth I’m pretty sure they’ve mentioned that all feats are gonna be half feats.
@@AtelierGod in the new PHB? Yeah, after that I only can hope. The Planescape book sadly has feats that are not half feats, wich is very sad because the feat is cool but is complete unpickable because you would be far away of your entire party
I wish WotC would evaluate the old feats like that and adjust their value so the new versions are way more useful compared to each other. It just gets so old so quickly if everyone plays a human variant or custom lineage who uses hand crossbows or polearms when you have seen or heard that a hundred times already. I'd rather have a plethora of good choice with which you can realize any build you can envision playing yourself and feel good about it. Anyways enough yapping, thank you Chris for taking your time to come up with a method to evaluate all the feats, and sharing it with us in your videos. Keep up the great work! 😊
I'm hoping the revised rules will eliminate the huge advantage for hand crossbows and polearms over other weapons.
Most feats were improved to be half feats and the ones who are not are background feats that you could get for free at lvl 1
Yeah, that would be nice. As a player, I actually prefer Skill Expert, Fey Touched, or Chef if I have an ASI that doesn't have to go to a +2 to my primary stat. Lots of good role-play opportunities with feat like those three.
Athlete: stand from prome with only 5ft is indeed pretty situational, but it has come in clutch more than once for my eldritch knight with Sentinel scrambling across the field to frontline for his allies.
I agree. A ribbon feature... no way. This is quite a useful feature. Losing half your speed from getting up is painful. It's especially useful for Monks and Barbs who lose more movement by being knocked prone.
I play goblins a lot. My DMs really enjoy replacing attack actions with shoves, because it's funny when the goblin falls down. Also prone is really good. So Squat Nimbleness and Athlete are a lifesaver in my games.
yeah, and it's necessary on the satyr jump fall mario bros build
if you're ever fighting ranged characters you can make yourself fall prown to give them disadvantage then only use 5ft instead of half your movement to stand back up. idk how often y'all fight ranged but it seems like a great plan to me. lol
Also the wording of the climb speed completely removes the centaurs climbing penalty. So they go from being the worst to one of the best thanks to their increased walking speed
Another thing about Grappler that people often forget is that restrained also gives disadvantage on dex saves so you're not only helping your range partymembers have advantage against a foe that can't come closer to them anymore you're also helping out your magic buddies which is something that's very rare.
Especially disintegrate fans are going to love you
I wouldn't say it's good but it's hella underrated and doesn't at all belong in the f tier
Holy crap. What a fantastic series so far! I’m now re-examining my dnd life choices lol
I love that you are doing a video series to rank feats! There are just so many out there it's overwhelming, and it's hard to find the good feats in the flood of mediocre ones.
One suggestion though, have you considered uploading these in article form, so people can read through them? If you didn't want to organize it you could even just upload your notes and the community could handle it, maybe even with like a wiki dedicated to it. Actually I think I'll go register the domain wikifeat right now!
Good morning Chris! I had forgotten that today was Monday, I'm so excited for this new series!
Alert has become a new favorite feat on an elf for me because Trance specifically calls out remaining conscious during it, so i can long rest without worry of ambush! (Well... I'll notice it coming at least 😂)
Thanks for the new vid, have a great week good sir! Until the next one! 💜
You mention crossbow expert doesn't give you a weaker bonus action attack the way polearm master does, but I'd argue it kind of does. It only works with hand crossbows, which have the smallest damage dice and least range of all crossbows/bows. This is probably a fine trade in the vast majority of combats, but it seems worth mentioning. It can become a significant limitation if acquiring a magic hand crossbow specifically is difficult for some reason too. I don't disagree with its rating per se, but these weaknesses feel relevant to me.
2d10+1d4 (halberd/glaive) is 13.5 average, 3d6 (hand crossbow) is 10.5 average. So you're absolutely right.
The power lies in Dexterity, Ranged and Sharpshooter. Dexterity is a very powerful score informing several skills, Attacks and damage, while strength has one skill who’s uses are very limited when some of them can be used with dexterity like with escaping grappling to which you get a choice of Athletics or Acrobatics, but also most enemies have crap ranged options except the biggest most dangerous like dragons so staying at range and pummeling them with max range hand crossbows which in most games is about the range you are expected to fight in and Crossbow expert and Sharpshooter basically eliminates all negative side effects of the hand crossbow, multiple attacks due to ignored loading property, ignored long range rules, and extra damage, and if you’ve got the archery fighting style the -5 is negligible.
@@AtelierGod Of course. I know it's a great feat and deserves its place for many reasons. I just think the specific point "you don't get a smaller damage die for the BA attack" isn't a good one because it ignores that all your main action attacks are now using a smaller damage dice than you'd normally have.
It would be interesting to see a ranking where each feat is sorted by **its single highest-value feature**. It seems to me that a great feat with a single, awesome 35-point feature would be ranked behind a lesser feat with three 15-point features. The three-15 feat wouldn't be a bad pick, but most often feats are taken for a specific purpose and having the one-35 feat fall behind might diminish the abstract value of the rankings. The idea of ranking feats by assigning values at all is a practice in abstraction, so I'm not asserting that this method would be *better*, but it could provide some additional interesting insights.
I think this would be super useful for DMs looking to dip their toes into giving out free feats. So far, The F/D tiers are mostly about flavor and concepts. I don't think anyone really uses any of these when feats are so hard to come by. I'm curious to see how Resilient is going to score. Then we can pretty fairly gauge it against just taking an a.s.i
Heavy Armour Master can be useful if your DM or campaign throws a bunch of weak mooks. Even at levels 6-11 our DM would throw a couple goblins, etc. alongside bosses and minibosses, and this allowed my character to brush them off (not necessarily the best option even in that case, but better than the Tough feat or Con buff in that case)
Your DM should refresh their memory on grappling. That swarm shouldn't be swinging at you. They should be grabbing you. :)
If you're wearing heavy armor you likely have a high strength, and if you have a high strength you probably have proficiency in athletics. It's *very hard* for mooks like goblins to grapple such a character, and even if they do it's often easy to kill the one mook that landed a grapple before it really leads to anything.
Thematically I love the playtest version, because a very high level warrior using it is almost impossible for much weaker opponents to damage at all, regardless of the numbers. Like even if you are fighting a bunch of bandit captains, 50% of their attacks that hit do no damage when your PB is 6.
@FabulousJejmaze give it a try with your players. It's crazy how 15 goblins, each with a low chance to grapple and shove can effectively pin down a single player.
I have a stupid build I've sadly never had a chance to use that uses Heavy Armor Master. Basically use Eberron races to get Armor of Agathys on an Abjuration wizard with only a level 1 dip in Life cleric for heavy Armor prof(and no loss of slot progression.
You have 3 HP bars which further stretched the heavy Armor master benefits. Your casting progression is only 1 level behind, but your wizard is now tankier than a Barbarian.
I'm not sure I've ever paid attention to the third rule on Alert before. If you built around that third point, you could be attacking creatures in a Fog Cloud or magical Darkness with straight rolls while they all have disadvantage against you. If you also took the fighting style that gave you Blindsight, you could have advantage (in melee) and they would have disadvantage. Obviously something you'd want to talk to your party about, though, because it's pretty disruptive.
From the channel that brought you “The Best Race Tier List,” comes, “The Most Desirable Feat Tier List”. Just when I didn’t think it could get any better.
I took dungeon delver when i was a ranged character with a sickly disposition (8 con) and we played an old module where traps were frequent. Saved my life twice ^^
Lots of feats down the bottom that needed to be half feats and then along side them some very sad ones that already are :(
I would rather most of them gain new thematically-appropriate features that make them distinct than just tacking a stat on with them. Open up new builds and possibilities!
I'm so glad to see you put Healer and Inspiring Leader up there. I did a guide back in the day on healing optimization(I know lol). Both of those feats are amazing if applied correctly. Inspiring Leader because it is completely free from an action economy standpoint(preemptive healing before combat). Healer because of the sheer amount of healing meaning you can top people off in between rests without touching your slots, which lowers the chance of needing to healing word someone and allows more efficient resource allocation.
A lot of people thought(and still do think) those feats are rubbish but they tend to pay off massively in resource efficiency. Great analysis.
I find charger an interesting feat for DMs. You can give it to certain melee foes to make them harder to kite.
This sort of insight is what makes you the expert's expert.
Repeating my suggestion to do this with magic items, monsters and maybe even spells.
Just having a framework for how to think about evaluating these things is very useful and might even lead to better magic item pricing, monster CR and identify broken spells.
I love how Actor is very situational, only useful to a specific type of build that is trying to disguise themselves as other people, but if you are doing that build it is going to come up ALL THE TIME.
4:13 Yeah, Crossbow Expert is an amazing feat. I've recently been thinking about building a Battle Smith artificer, and CBE has a lot of synergy with their Repeating Shot infusion (which automatically loads a weapon with the ammunition property) and a Hand Crossbow. With Extra Attack you can attack three times per turn, while holding a shield and still being able to cast spells (since the infused Hand Crossbow itself is a spellcasting focus, and all artificers spells have the M component automatically added to them, which means you can still cast S component spells even with both hands full). If you add Hunter's Mark on top of that (from Fey Touched), you're basically doubling your damage dice.
I could see several of these lower graded feats being more useful for a specific build as an NPC. I would use a few of them when building encounters, but I agree not so much for a PC build. Great job, looking forward to part 2.
Good point!
This format is fantastic for contextualizing homebrew abilities and giving ideas for tweaks as well. Absolutely love it.
yeah, breaking the feats down into their component parts (i.e. bullet points) and those values would be invaluable overall for homebrewing - but it would also necessitate transcribing 400 bullet point values!
I think the Healer is often underrated by people. For instance, the Inspiring Leader feat got 48 points for giving the party extra HP equal to Level+Charisma once per short rest. Healer got 25 points for giving the party extra HP equal to Level + 1 + 1d6 once per short rest... which is the same amount. Putting both feats on a single character makes a character with healing potential that's comparable to a Life Cleric... using two feats. Yes, it costs money to use the Healer feat, but at levels 1-5 it provides better healing than a common healing potion at 1/50th the cost. By level 20, you're pumping out 25 HP per heal, which is the equivalent of a 4th level Cure Wounds. Remember that you said a 1st or 2nd level spell would net a feat at least 20 points. This is a level-scaling Cure Wounds that can be used on a party of 4 players up to 12 times per day on average. It's worth way more than 25 points.
I think the temp HP of Inspiring Leader compared to normal HP of Healer makes a big difference. Most of the time you won't get the full potential of Healer, but you can always get the full potential of Leader.
I really enjoyed this type of series with the races! Glad to see the feats now. What I liked about it was that the scoring system tends to align with the general opinions of the optimization community, however there are a few that come as a surprise with the system. I think that’s a good thing because it forces things to be more objective (granted, it is by the specific standard) than we’d all usually be when looking at feats and whatnot.
The benefits for discussion is it’s harder to disagree just on the basis of feel with any one score, and the disagreement would have to be with the scoring methods, which just shift many other scores and probably line things up more or less the same way. Great video!
I see a Treantmonk Tier list and immediately watch. After I share this to my peeps the discussion alone will become a major part of my session zeros and for newer players to not fall in trap feats. Thanks once again Chris for making my life easier! Excellent list!
Thanks Treantmonk! ❤
Mage Slayer on a high level rogue against an evil cult was my highlight with the feat. I'm honestly hoping they dont go with the revised version in the UA and just slightly buff the feat as is.
Thanks for your hard work on this topic. I tried something similar in the past, but could not come up with a decent evaluation system. Hopefully you will follow up with a feat workshop video, for improving and creating feats with the acquired data.
Actor is one of my personal favorites, but I only ever take it on characters built to be deceptive. So C rank I agree with. It was definitely useful when I framed the mayor after he taxed our reward money 😂.
Be a Psionic race and use this feat to trick them into thinking they are the ones making the evil decisions.
It combines insanely well with the warlock invocation Mask of Many Faces (disguise self at will).
Oh boi new trentmonk content to binge. Snacks ready time to aquire knowledge.
I think I agree with everything but Healer. I would have scored it slightly lower, for three reasons:
1) Cost and Weight. I know it's 10 uses per, but if you are away from town for a while and want to stockpile, they add up. It's 5gp a kit, and each is 3lbs. Though how flush the players are with coin depends on the setting and the party level. Weight might not matter at all, or it could mean leaving something behind. Not a deal breaker, but worth mentioning.
2) Free Hands. How many hands does it take to use a healer's kit? At least one, though honestly I don't think I would fault a DM for saying two. Any flavor I personally imagine for a healer's kit (even something simple like wrapping bandages) is involving two hands. Though I would probably rule it as using one since it doesn't specify. Regardless, unless you have a free hand, that means dropping something.
3) No double dipping. As far as I can tell (and have seen ruled,) using the second part of the feat prevents you from using the first part of the feat on the same creature until a rest. "The creature can't regain hit points from this feat again until it finishes a short or long rest." It says 'this feat', not 'this feature.' To me, a common use case for the kit is when you don't have time to short rest, and instead want to patch up quickly with consumables before something dangerous. If a fight follows before the next rest, it means you cannot use the kit to stabilize anyone that was healed prior if they go down.
I'm not sure if combined these would drop it a tier, but I think it has enough minor drawbacks to make a dent.
Thanks for this!
Poor Dungeon Delver. It really tried.
Did it though?
@@TreantmonksTempleI suppose if you are playing in a mega dungeon campaign where the entire campaign takes place inside the dungeon it would gain bonus points as it’s technically always on.
@@AtelierGod yeah I think if 5e played like 1e and 2e, this feat would be phenomenal actually
@@AtelierGod Agreed, its rather campaign dependent. In a campaign where you aren't really ever in a dungeon, its terrible. In a campaign where you'll spend a majority of your time in one, its basically a must have for at least one character (le sacrificial rogue).
In very specific campaigns it can be useful, I ran a dungeon crawl once that it would have helped
Actor below Athlete feels wrong to me. I've definitely had a player pick Actor and make good use of it, using disguise self, or being out of sight. Including using Actor to essentially neutralize a combat encounter with some people they knew well but were in the process of betraying.
Admittedly, I haven't seen Athlete in action, none of my players ever picked it, but it's hard to imagine it would feel as impactful.
I tend to agree, but you have to remember TM plays in combat heavy games, so feats that primarily impact roleplay are less valuable.
Actor is ranked a little lower here because Chris felt the specific conditions for those deceptions were fairly niche, but in an RP heavy group those niche conditions are still coming up a lot more often than jumping or standing from prone etc.
It's not that Chris or you are wrong, but that we each have to view this list with the knowledge of how much combat vs RP our group does, and adjust accordingly.
I actually love long videos like this
I don't know how often anyone would make use of this route, but if defensive duelist became a half feat, I could see it be a bonus to Dex or Con, symbolizing that even when you're hit, it's not as bad (My wording is so bad here, it's a play on how HP isn't like... centiliters of blood lost, but overall ability to keep fighting, so more con, more able to keep fighting)
I remember back in 2017 when the Healer feat was amazing to grab after grabbing Warcaster/Resilient Con for spellcasters, many guides recommended picking it up for spellcasters due to the increased ASI/Feat flexibility. Unfortunately I think although A tier, there will be more feats in Xanathar's and Tasha's that aren't build defining but are picked over the Healer Feat now (Fey Touched, Eleven Accuracy). Now I don't see the feat at all, though it's a good feat.
I think we'll see a lot of the common feats in S tier and pretty much everything under it will be feats if we had more ASI improvement slots unless for a specific build/interaction (Elemental Adept for an Elemental Spellcaster Concept).
I think also rating ASI improvement would be nice to see the baseline of when do people pick an ASI Increase over a feat and vice versa. I'd probably give ASI Improvement a 55/60 because although an ASI improvement on a feat is worth 20 (22 with diversity), ASI increase getting 2 stat point increases always guarantees that a stat is improved or allows two stats to hit the next break point for an increase. In addition there is no limit on where the stat increase has to go.
I took _Defensive Duelist_ on my Dex Fighter. It's come in clutch quite a few times. I considered _Dual Wielder_ and _Medium Armor Master_ instead, but both would have only raised my AC by one point, at which point I could just as easily have gotten by investing in Dexterity instead.
My wife took Dungeon Delver when we played the Tomb of Annihilation. She was the party rogue and, as you can imagine, in that campaign it was an outstanding choice. I would say that Dungeon Delver would not necessarily be the first feat you take, but traps and secret doors are the bread and butter of a lot of dungeon crawls so it can actually be very powerful.
I'm sure we have all known this, but what I think that this once again highlights is the spread between Feats. There is always going to be some feats better than others. Certain things will generally rank higher. The problem is when you have the top feat being 80-points, and the bottom feat being 19-points. When an ASI would basically be 60-points (30 for 1 ability score of your choice, times 2 for being two ability scores), the spread is more than a full ASI. That's bad design.
If the designers decrease the spread, by adding more features or making them half-feats, it would allow for more realistic choices for specific build options. Otherwise, the choice that we're being presented with is do we want to pick-up a bad feat that might be fun or interesting for a niche build at the cost of being detrimental to our PC's progression. That's neither fun nor interesting.
Anyways, thanks for the video, and tackling this series. I look for to the next videos!
Yes, there will always be some feats that are better than others, but the spread in 5e is too much.
Great overview, but I'd like to challenge the point value of 60 for an ASI. I think it'd be harmful to consider it that valuable. When we're looking at a half feat (+1 for any score), we're almost always considering this to be an increase to the modifier. Everything the half feats beyond that can be huge, because ASIs far more often than not are just getting one ability score modifier to go up. For a number of reasons with how Point Buy, Standard Array, and Racial Ability Scores work. Though mainly just with what ends up being optimal--you're often going to kick things off with one odd ability score at most. Even when the stars align and the build does find itself wanting to different +1s for their ASI (typically through stat roll generation), there's still one primary score you'll care a bit more if not a lot more than the other, and to allocate equal points to each increase feels off.
I think the prone feature in athlete is a little underrated, because it makes dropping prone at the end of your turn to avoid ranged attacks a very viable strategy
It could be interesting to rank the standard ASI, just for comparison.
I was thinking the same. My gut assessment is that it would be somewhere between 45-50. You get to choose which we have a few examples from in the video, so 22 times 2 equals 44. I would then put the ability to put them both in the same score as probably worth 6 points.
@@eepopgames2741yeah 50 seems about right.
Healer is such a sleeper feat. It really is great and for pretty much any character. Though for thief rogues it is S tier.
HOLY SNAP! I"m here for them all!
Babe wake up Treantmonk uploaded a the second Feat Ranking video
Athlete's move=climb, if you can talk your DM into it, could allow some CRAZY movement.
Mobile+Haste+Dash+Unarmored+(race-specific like Tabaxi double movement)=foes above you on a canyon wall are within striking range.
Tabaxi already have the climb speed, would be great for a centaur that wants to climb though. You go from needing 25' per 5' climbed to a straight 5' per 5' climbed
Even better second time listening. Thank you
Inspiring leader is just someone yelling “Carthago Delenda Est!” After every dialogue
While I neither took Dungeon Delver nor saw anyone take it, there were 3 characters already, who died to disintegrate traps. So in a campaign about dungeons, it can be something like Greater Restoration prepared - you hope it will never be needed, but in rare case it saves you.
The eyebleeding red on the tier list is brutal.
"Get over thar. GetOverrrTHArrrrrr!"
Elemental adept: fire, I’d put in low C or high D, the others lower in F tier
Might try out the Healer feat at some point now. When your opportunities to play and thus try/get feats are limited you're more strongly disincentivized to take weaker feats. But I never realized how much healing can be done with a healer's kit until now. Maybe with fast hands this could be something interesting?
That's a common play: give the thief the Healer feat.
Do you know if the timing of when we like a video has any effect? I'm in the habit of hitting it first thing so I don't forget, but does the algorithm like certain times more?
No idea, but I appreciate an upvote no matter when you do it
This video is great, but I already know that I need to get "Weapon Master" for my fighter, just like Tasha's told me to.
**shudder**
Inspiring Leader: "You talk about your grandfather's hammer for ten minutes"
Keen mind: "You Force Matthew Mercer to tell you everything you should have noted down yourself".
People often complain about Keen Mind but this is a very underrated feat.
+1 to Int makes this decent, but roleplaying potential is great. Being Team Wikipedia/GPS (with photographic memory!) is fun and cool, a really unique trick.
But it should allow for longer time than a month
Tarantino approves this video!
The odd thing about the charger feat is that the second point does not say you have to move closer to the enemy. You can use this feat while going in circles around the enemy, you just have to start at a corner and move across.
I would personally say that for alert, not being surprisable is great, but rarely comes up. While unseen attackers not getting advantage is a feature one can use intentionally (cast fox/darkness etc)
Seeing "inspiring leader" behind "healer" is bonkers
Hi there Chris, Just wanted to let you know that the playlist you made for these videos seems to be backwards. If you autoplay them it goes to the previous video instead of the next one.
New serieeeess!!!
is there any chance you can increase the resolution/sharpness for the tier chart for future videos? I already see issues with readability coming.
Outlined text would be a big help here.
Can‘t believe I‘m saying this, but I think you undervalue lucky…
The way it‘s worded, you can use it to turn disadvantage into super advantage (or elven advantage).
And you can chose to roll the lucky dice AFTER you see the result of the first dice!
Example: You have disadvantage on an attack roll (because reasons). You roll a 7 and a 19. The 19 with bonuses most likely will hit and the 7 will not, so you roll a lucky die. It doesn‘t matter what you roll, since after the lucky roll you can choose which die to take, so you take the 19 (unless you roll a 20 ofc…). You just turned a sure miss into a sure hit. That‘s pretty insane to me!
There‘s a reason lucky is often banned.
Great vid, can‘t wait for the next in the series :)
"I close my eyes and swing!"
Heavily armored is either S or F, depending on characters.
If you are playing STR based Ranger or Bard (Swords or Valor), it is S tier, because you can have STR 8 instead of 14, which saves you a lot of ability points in character creation and when you take it it increases your AC by 4 (and is still 1AC better than med armor characters).
If you are anything not STR based and don’t have MED armor prof, it is utterly useless…
Yeah, keep it coming.
What program are you using to make these tier lists? I'd love to be able to do tier-ranking videos myself someday but I don't have the skills to do something like this.
tiermaker.com/
@@TreantmonksTemple It’s a website!? That’s amazing! Thank you!
I didn't see any link to the previous video. Just wanted to let you know.
Now for a video series on how to buff the D’s and F’s, and nerf the S’s.
I liked Keen Mind in Critical Role. "Liam doesn't member but Caleb does" was a great line. Mostly possible due to amazing rolled stats though.
What feat to choose for my Ravanite Dragonborn Sun Soul Monk? Grappler it is!
Hears my defense for heavy armor mastery.
It does sort of scale based on the amount of attacks you take, if you take one attack per level you will be out performing durable by half. It's Niche but if you're attacked multiple times in a turn it's probably one of the phys triad so I think it's still a pretty reasonable buff.
I have limited high level experience but if you have a good tanky class/subclass, say fighter rune knight giving you a resistance to blunt/pierce/slash you really don't need that many attacks to get real value out of it, plus it does stack with durable so if you want to be one MEATY boy (or girl) you could take both. Tbh you're a fighter in this ideal scenario. It's not like you are pressed for feat slots.
Played a Battlemaster/Forge Cleric all the way to 20 and the feat holds up better than people give it credit for. Only a handful of creatures have magic weapon attacks. Dragons don't. Mariliths, Star Spawn Manglers and Four-Armed Gargoyles don't. Minion-level adds in a fight almost certainly won't.
Every 3 or 4 hits you take is a Cure Wounds that doesn't need to be cast or a potion you can save for later.
If Charger was a Bonus Action Dash and +5 damage to your first attack after moving 10 feet on your turn, that would be so much better. I also think it should just be a feature that Barbarians get intrinsically.
I would argue not having the -5 to passive perception in Dungeon Delver is even worse than 5 points, because it only cancels it out for you, not for your entire party.
Chris, the Grappler feat is actually worse than you give it credit for. The thing with Grapple + Prone is that, usually, characters that wanna grapple are gonna be ones that have multi-attack (barbarians, fighters). So they can actually grapple+prone in one turn and then continue attacking on another turn. While Grappler requires a whole additional action. So, at best, you're giving up 3 attacks as opposed to 2, and if you're a fighter, possibly 6 as opposed to 2 (1 for the grapple, 4 attacks for the main action attack and 1 attack with a Bonus Action if you can do so). So, yeah, basically the only upside is that the feat makes ranged characters not have a penalty. I'd actually give this feat 12 total points, and if you think that's too stingy, then I'd go no higher than 15 total xD It's literally a dissynergistic feat with how the game works.
The first bullet of the Grappler feat (adv. against a creature you have grappled) doesn't take an action. Only the second bullet requires an action.
@@TreantmonksTemple ahhh, I okay, I understand. I thought you were talking about giving others advantage, too, through prone+grappled
Defensive Duelist should’ve worked like one I remember from a stat block but not which one, where it lets you add a fixed number to your AC for the round but I can’t remember which one it was.
Healer, Inspiring Leader, Dual Wielder, and especially Elemental Adept should all be higher. Feats that bolster your entire party should not be underestimated. Dual Wielder enables a ton of specific and/or magic weapons to be used two at a time (and remember what was said about bonus action attacks?), and negates part of two-weapon fighting's weakness, that being you can't use a shield.
Elemental Adept is invaluable if your subclass/build has a specific damage type it bolsters, such as for Dragon Ancestry Sorcerers and Tempest Clerics. Sorcerers can transmute spells into that damage type as well. Getting past the fire resistance all creatures have while submerged in water is situational, but insanely useful when it comes up. Increasing your minimum die rolls is not that bad, as I can personally attest, having witnessed a 9 damage Fireball. It also applies after rerolling damage via Empowered Spell or other features. It doubles your minimum damage. I had never even imagined someone saying this feat is F tier. What a weird day.
Already watched on patreon, liking for engagement
Legend!
Finally! Someone being honest about Lucky! It's a good feat! But it's not broken or even the best feat in the game! Thank you, Treantmonk!
it's always a good option though, which is very nice
I ban it in my games not because it's op but because it's too universal, I simply don't like that all characters can take it
I don't think it's busted. I think it's just really hated by DMs for being annoying. The DM also wants to have fun, getting excited about critical hits or about to do something cool to add tension to the encounter. Then the player wiggles their finger and says, "I roll my luck dice". Same thing goes for silvery barbs.
It's not the core feat for many builds, but it's always a good one to take.
I think it is even too high here. I disagree that it has two different abilities that should both get 35 points. They share the same 3 luck points, so I think the more accurate rating compared to the other scoring of feats 50 points total. That to me puts it more in line with how it actually plays at the table. Yes any character can take it, but Treantmonk specifically has said these ratings are not based on prerequisites.
While I know that Charger is kinda dookie I still can't help but imagine a funky build with it on a Swashbuckler Rogue that just hunts down the isolated enemies one by one. You try to run away? He just hits you that much harder.
Honestly i think the Dungeon Delver feat was done dirty here. While i won't argue that its features are universally useful i think in a campaign with large amounts of dungeon crawling you could really find a lot of mileage with it on a party scout.
Actor is a wonderful combo with disguise self.
Alert is even more OP in Baldurs Gate 3!
A video game for DND just highlights how going first in combat is just THAT GOOD. mostly because they dont setup scenarios often where the players truly get ambushed or surprised very often.
Helps when init rolls are a d6!
@@garion046 d4 actually.