Thoughts on Xanathar's feats

[MrStabby]

I thought I knew which feats in Xanathar's guide were good. I had seen them before but recently I thought I would take another look and on further thought I have certainly changed my mind on some of them. A number are quite a bit better than I initially thought.

My estimate of the good ones:

Bountiful luck. This is actually pretty powerful. If you are a halfling in a party you maybe make on average about 3 d20 rolls per round, between attacks and saves - depending on class. If you get to use it in a party of 4 and they are all in range this can scale to about 12 per round, possibly more if there are a lot of things going on. This means that you get a lot of chances to reroll those ones. If you are getting to use this ability every other turn it is pretty powerful. It isn't a sexy, flashy ability so it loses out there, and you cant really build round it. I guess it makes the idea of a halfling fighter a bit more attractive so you can make use of this with the spare feats.

Dragon Fear. Well this kind of looked pretty good at first anyway so not really a change of view for me. The fear effect is good and recharges on a short rest. The stat boost is always welcome. Now best use of this is hard to judge, but I would guess a strength based swashbuckler rogue would appreciate the versatility that a crown control ability would provide and a chance to exploit a mental rather than a physical weakness.

Drow high magic. I dismissed this a bit at first reading, partially as I am not such a fan of drow but there are some solid upsides to this. For sorcerers this gives three spells known. OK, sure you might not have chosen to spend your precious spells known on these particular ones but it really does relive the pressure a bit. More generally Dispel magic in particular can be a very useful spell to have when you need it. One casting per long rest might not cover your needs but it can open up a lot. Like before, a swashbuckler rogue might be a good place to find something like this - opening up more and useful options, using that high Cha you expect to have. Paladins might also find it a useful additional tool although they are sufficiently feat starved that they might not make room for it.

Dwarven fortitude. I think most people recon this is decent if you are taking damage a lot. Likewise for monks who can use a bonus action for this.

Elven Accuracy. Another generally thought to be good - again nothing more to add.

Fey teleportation. The half stat is always good but it is the misty step that is interesting. For a general purpose feat this could be very interesting. A bonus action teleport can get a fighter into combat, can get you out of unpleasant environmental effects and out of things like forcecages (with a decent charisma save). You can use this pretty often and it can have a big effect on what you can do (even just once per short rest not needing a dash action to get into combat can be good). Some classes will like to add this to the spell list they have for more regular use.

Prodigy. Well this opens up a lot more concepts. Combat-wise all attention will be on athletics, potentially saving a level of rogue. More a good option from an RP perspective though.


All in all, I think these are a better designed set of feats than I originally gave credit for.

[LudicSavant]

Wood Elf Magic is pretty decent; both Longstrider and Pass Without Trace are great non-stat-dependent spells. And getting a Druid cantrip of your choice means you can pick up Shillelagh (fits with the Wood Elf's Wis bonus), Guidance (skills and initiative), or Create Bonfire (for hazard comps). Better than Magic Initiate for some builds.

I did a bunch of math a while back on Dwarven Fortitude for Long Death Monks and concluded it's not as good defensively as just maxing out your Dex and Wis.

[JackPhoenix]

Notably, you can take Drow High Magic one level before you would gain access to Dispel Magic normally. Not big difference, but hey.

[Amechra]

You're missing a couple of my favorites:

Flames of Plegethos: Don't knock it unless you give it a go - rerolling 1s on your fire damage rolls is a decent perk, bundled with a brief flame shield whenever you cast a fire spell and a stat boost. What's not to love?

Orcish Fury: Start with an odd Strength or Constitution, then slap this bad boy on. Notably, you can use that mini-smite to boost any weapon attack, and having an extra attack for when you are overwhelmed is neat.

[Sception]

I love the idea of dragon fear, but the skornergy with aura of conquest makes it kind of frustrating to use on the one subclass that I would otherwise most want to combine it with.

[DarkKnightJin]

I love the idea of dragon fear, but the skornergy with aura of conquest makes it kind of frustrating to use on the one subclass that I would otherwise most want to combine it with.

Agreed. Which is why I'm tweaking it to allow another save at the end of their turn if they take damage. Might refine it a bit, if it seems too strong.

[Sigreid]

I took prodigy on a high charisma half elf wizard...just so he could be better at gambling in his down time.

[Jerrykhor]

I thought most of the Xanathar's feats are pretty rubbish, except a few. I gave them out for free to my players when they hit level 4, and they thought nothing of it.

The feats i gave out were: Dwarven Fortitude, Squat Nimbleness, Wood Elf Magic, and Infernal Constitution. So far, they haven't use or made use of the feats yet.

[LudicSavant]

I thought most of the Xanathar's feats are pretty rubbish, except a few. I gave them out for free to my players when they hit level 4, and they thought nothing of it.

The feats i gave out were: Dwarven Fortitude, Squat Nimbleness, Wood Elf Magic, and Infernal Constitution. So far, they haven't use or made use of the feats yet.

If a player got access to spells like Guidance and Pass Without Trace and never used them, then that probably says more about the player than the ability.

And what does it even mean to go without using Squat Nimbleness? Do they just like, never move 30 feet? Never make Athletics or Acrobatics checks?

Or are you saying that you just now gave them the feats and they haven't gotten to play with them yet?

[Crucius]

I did a bunch of math a while back on Dwarven Fortitude for Long Death Monks and concluded it's not as good defensively as just maxing out your Dex and Wis.

Do you have a link to this? Because it sounds like a nice combo I would use, so I'm curious where it falls flat!

[Spacehamster]

I thought most of the Xanathar's feats are pretty rubbish, except a few. I gave them out for free to my players when they hit level 4, and they thought nothing of it.

The feats i gave out were: Dwarven Fortitude, Squat Nimbleness, Wood Elf Magic, and Infernal Constitution. So far, they haven't use or made use of the feats yet.

Infernal constitution is amazing, resistance to two common damage types, +1 CON and advantage on poison saves, what’s not to love?

[stoutstien]

Do you have a link to this? Because it sounds like a nice combo I would use, so I'm curious where it falls flat!

It's not that the combo is bad but rather it's not a good choice until after you max your Dex/wisdom. The long death features l work better the higher your defense is. The THP last longer if you don't get hit and the master of death works better the less times it's required. It's sounds counter intuitive but the same hold true for the feat. The less it's needed the better it gets.

[Willie the Duck]

Prodigy. Well this opens up a lot more concepts. Combat-wise all attention will be on athletics, potentially saving a level of rogue. More a good option from an RP perspective though.

I get the impression that the designers expect a lot more (or just feel they should support) games where feats are allowed but multiclassing is not.

[RickAllison]

Plus it means that the heavy armor fighter who dumped Dex can still get Expertise in a favored skill.

[LibraryOgre]

Infernal constitution is amazing, resistance to two common damage types, +1 CON and advantage on poison saves, what’s not to love?

I've been talking with a player who wants to take it with a VHuman, so he can pretend to be a Nord.

[MilkmanDanimal]

Elven Accuracy "wins", just because it's so incredibly useful. It would be great if it wasn't a half-feat and still gave you super-advantage alone, but the stat boost makes it utterly great. Playing a character with Bountiful Luck, and it's pretty great. People will love you at the table when you suddenly erase those 1s. I like the Dragonborn feats, but, well, if they just went ahead and made those parts of the core racial features, the race wouldn't suck quite so much. Being your breath weapon is realistically speaking more or less useless after level 1 due to the minimal damage, some other effect like fear would make it actually practical.

[Spiritchaser]

Elven accuracy is very bipolar. On a build, or in a party that can regularly and reliably generate advantage, on a character with the capacity to leverage that extra accuracy through something like GWM or to leverage that extra crit chance (smites, sneak attack) and you’ve got a very strong feat indeed.

On characters without these things the feat is much weaker.

Now: you could argue that most feats are like this... good for some builds, not for others, and I think that would be true, but I feel that where EA works, it works better than it needs to, and that this tends to drown out some of the discussion about how often it wouldn’t make sense at all.

[RickAllison]

Elven accuracy is very bipolar. On a build, or in a party that can regularly and reliably generate advantage, on a character with the capacity to leverage that extra accuracy through something like GWM or to leverage that extra crit chance (smites, sneak attack) and you’ve got a very strong feat indeed.

On characters without these things the feat is much weaker.

Now: you could argue that most feats are like this... good for some builds, not for others, and I think that would be true, but I feel that where EA works, it works better than it needs to, and that this tends to drown out some of the discussion about how often it wouldn’t make sense at all.

Darkness + Devil's Sight + Elven Accuracy = Constant triple advantage unless they have blindsight or Devil's Sight as well.

[Spiritchaser]

Darkness + Devil's Sight + Elven Accuracy = Constant triple advantage unless they have blindsight or Devil's Sight as well.

And this is one of the places it works VERY well (I have one of these builds at my table, he hits things like a train), with the caveat that EA as well as GWM on a half elf forces res CON or warcaster to a very late level which can be fairly miserable.

A Dex vengence sorcadin with shadow blade can pull a similar stunt for some really silly crit smites, really often. It doesn’t matter what your opponent’s con save was when you do 80 or 90 damage with a single attack.

[Willie the Duck]

And this is one of the places it works VERY well (I have one of these builds at my table, he hits things like a train), with the caveat that EA as well as GWM on a half elf forces res CON or warcaster to a very late level which can be fairly miserable.

That and the minor increase in DPR for increased hitting, and for increased crits (with normal critting, or with 19-20 critting because of cursing, but still only regular weapon damage doubled on the crit) is simply not that great a contribution to the damage total. To 'hit like a train,' I'm guessing this build also has something like Eldritch Smite, or levels of paladin. In which case you are dedicating additional invocation selections, class choices, and/or dumping spell slots into the math, in which case it better be impressive (given what you've dedicated to it).

A Dex vengence sorcadin with shadow blade can pull a similar stunt for some really silly crit smites, really often. It doesn’t matter what your opponent’s con save was when you do 80 or 90 damage with a single attack.

A Dex half-elven or elven rogue, fighter-rogue, or dexbarian-rogue also can do some amazing crits with this one.

[Spiritchaser]

A Dex half-elven or elven rogue, fighter-rogue, or dexbarian-rogue also can do some amazing crits with this one.

All fair, but a build like this likely won’t happen by accident.

Being able to use EA, really use it, is likely the product of two other class features/feats/spells in addition to EA itself.

Something to generate advantage regularly
Something that especially benefits from those extra rolls.

And yes there will be multiple ways to have both of these, but a whole heck of a lot of good builds that don’t have them.

[Willie the Duck]

All fair, but a build like this likely won’t happen by accident.

Being able to use EA, really use it, is likely the product of two other class features/feats/spells in addition to EA itself.

Something to generate advantage regularly
Something that especially benefits from those extra rolls.

And yes there will be multiple ways to have both of these, but a whole heck of a lot of good builds that don’t have them.

Yes, I probably should have mentioned that I was thinking grapple-rogue. I thought the fighter-rogue or barbarian-rogue references made that clear (clearly not).

A regular rogue would make it work if optional flanking rules are in effect, although 'most obviously crit-fishing-beneficial optional rule incentivizes crit-fishing builds' might be too much a tautology to bother mentioning.

[jas61292]

Personally, I actually think Eleven Accuracy is horrendously overrated and actually a very weak feat. Now I'm sure part of that is bias on my part due to the fact that me ans my group see Hexblade, Great Weapon Master, and Sharpshooter as three of the most poorly designed elements of 5e and have always banned them. But even with those in play, it's still not that special a feat. The difference between a normal roll and advantage is huge. The difference between advantage and double advantage is comparatively small. So simply as a means being more accurate, it's really not that special. It's a boost, yeah, but it's a small boost at the cost of a feat.

Really, ther only thing that is great about the feat is that it enables crit fishing. That's pretty nice for a few niche builds. But that is mainly for smiting or sneak attack. Not bad, certainly, but hardly any different from most feats.

Really, the only true saving grace of EA is that it's a half feat. If you were going to boost a stat by one and only that stat anyways, it's a great thing to have. But the actual power gets way overblown, imo.

Now as for ther other feats. I've seen two in play. I'm currently playing a Dwarf with Stout Nimbleness, and while I'd hardly say it's powerful, it's come I'm handy a few times, and that extra 5 feet of movement just feels so good. I also played with someone who had the halfling feat to force rerolls (forget the name). It was really good. Add something who was not a frontliner, he was able to actually avoid most damage in most battles. It was surprisingly powerful.

[Spiritchaser]

A regular rogue would make it work if optional flanking rules are in effect, although 'most obviously crit-fishing-beneficial optional rule incentivizes crit-fishing builds' might be too much a tautology to bother mentioning.

I actually didn’t think about flanking rules. I really don’t have much of an excuse since my DM uses them, though I do not use them at my table.

[Yakmala]

The two I've had the most fun with on various characters I play:

1: Bountiful Luck: Halfling Grave Cleric with Bountiful Luck and Sentinel at Death's Door. Cancel 1's rolled by the party and 20's rolled by the DM. Your party will love you!

2: Prodigy: Variant Human Barbarian with Expertise in Athletics. No one is escaping his grapples!

[Sception]

me ans my group see Hexblade, Great Weapon Master, and Sharpshooter as three of the most poorly designed elements of 5e and have always banned them.

Hexblade is fun and interesting and worth allowing in your game. Yes there are some flaws in its design owing to the developers cramming a blade pact fix into the new patron. But if those flaws are too much for your campaign, I recommend trying the simple fix of simply removing hex warrior from hexblade and adding the bulk of that feature (proficiencies, cha attack with pact weapon) to the blade boon in and of itself.

Otherwise, i think you might be forgetting that elven accuracy is a half feat. On an elf build you can start with 17 dex, or a half elf can start with 17 cha, and then either can take elven accuracy effectively for free as it won't slow their stat progression compared to just taking stat boosts. When you compare Elven Accuracy to other half feats specifically, and not just to feats in general, it looks not just good but exceptionally so.

Not so much that I personally consider it to be a *problem*, but then again I don't personally find hexblade or the -5/+10 feats to be big enough problems to worry about them either.

[malachi]

Personally, I actually think Eleven Accuracy is horrendously overrated and actually a very weak feat. Now I'm sure part of that is bias on my part due to the fact that me ans my group see Hexblade, Great Weapon Master, and Sharpshooter as three of the most poorly designed elements of 5e and have always banned them. But even with those in play, it's still not that special a feat. The difference between a normal roll and advantage is huge. The difference between advantage and double advantage is comparatively small. So simply as a means being more accurate, it's really not that special. It's a boost, yeah, but it's a small boost at the cost of a feat.

Really, ther only thing that is great about the feat is that it enables crit fishing. That's pretty nice for a few niche builds. But that is mainly for smiting or sneak attack. Not bad, certainly, but hardly any different from most feats.

Really, the only true saving grace of EA is that it's a half feat. If you were going to boost a stat by one and only that stat anyways, it's a great thing to have. But the actual power gets way overblown, imo.

Now as for ther other feats. I've seen two in play. I'm currently playing a Dwarf with Stout Nimbleness, and while I'd hardly say it's powerful, it's come I'm handy a few times, and that extra 5 feet of movement just feels so good. I also played with someone who had the halfling feat to force rerolls (forget the name). It was really good. Add something who was not a frontliner, he was able to actually avoid most damage in most battles. It was surprisingly powerful.

I agree with you n EA. On my High Elf AT/Bladesinger, every time I look at EA, I think back to the number of times I have missed an attack when I had advantage (0). Then I look at the number of times I roll INT checks, or save spells, or get hit by 1 despite 20 Dex + Shield + Bladesinging (a decent number of times). I always want +2 INT over EA.
(Unrelated: my accuracy with advantage is 100%. My accuracy without advantage is about 15%. It's ridiculous.)



On my Drow Evocation wizard, I'm enjoying Drow High Magic. At-will Detect Magic is fun, and fits my character. Having Dispel Magic at level 4 seemed fun, but was ultimately irrelevant (we're now level 5).
EA would be useless with him, because the campaign is on the surface, and he's compensating by not learning many (if any) attack-based spells.

[Spiritchaser]

Not discussing/including crits for the moment:

Campaigns that ban GWM and SS will definitely reduce the value of EA.

The exact value varies with hit chance but just one data point as a general guideline:

No GWM or SS, level 20 vs. AC 20, Elven Accuracy will add 11.4% more damage than straight advantage alone. I’d argue that this is actually reasonable for a half feat, but it’s clearly not as good as:

Using GWM or SS, level 20 vs. AC 20, Elven Accuracy will add 25.6% more damage than straight advantage alone. That is exceedingly solid for a half feat.

Again, this does not include crits or crit fishing

[LudicSavant]

Do you have a link to this? Because it sounds like a nice combo I would use, so I'm curious where it falls flat!

I don't have a link, unfortunately. The analysis I did was for satisfying my own curiosity when building a Long Death character, rather than for a forum post.

However I can tell you where it fell flat.

Spoiler: Dwarven Fortitude Long Death Monk Stuff

Show

it's not a good choice until after you max your Dex/wisdom. The long death features l work better the higher your defense is. The THP last longer if you don't get hit and the master of death works better the less times it's required. It's sounds counter intuitive but the same hold true for the feat. The less it's needed the better it gets.

Basically. There are quite a few factors at work here that all add up.

1) First, being a Hill Dwarf delays your Dexterity progression, which is absolutely crucial for a Monk both offensively and defensively. Taking Dwarven Fortitude aggravates this drawback, to the point that with point buy you won't even have enough ASIs to max Dex and Wis by level 20.

So for example, in order to compete with a Dex/Wis race Monk, you'd need Hill Dwarf's benefits to be comparable to +2 AC, +2 initiative, +2 Dex saves, +2 to hit, +2 damage per hit (for a class that has many attacks), more Deflect Missiles reduction, +5 speed, and the benefits of a different race. Even things like your poison resistance won't matter once your Monk gets straight up poison immunity at level 10.

And it's not like the Dex/Wis races are short on racial features. That Wood Elf over there gets +5 movement instead of -5, plus all the things that make elves good in general in 5e, and took Elven Accuracy without even slowing down their Dex/Wis progression. The VHuman just straight up gets an extra feat (which can easily be something like Tough, if they actually valued raw max HP above other things). The Aarakocra just sort of... does the unholy aarakocra things that inspired Alfred Hitchcock to direct horror classic "The Birds."

2) A Hill Dwarf will have more hit points, but each hit point they have is less valuable.

This is both because they're easier to hit (both with attacks and Dex/Wis saves) and have less active defenses (e.g. deflect missiles, initiative, stunning, movement, fear DC, stealth, simply killing the enemy sooner by doing more damage, etc).

3) The Dodge action basically multiplies how hard it already is to hit you. If your AC sucks, (such as by being a dwarf Monk that's at -4 on their Dex/Wis progression), the way the math works out is that the Dodge action helps a lot less.

Basically this curve is even more pronounced with Dodge.

4) The effectiveness of Long Death features are multiplied by Dex/Wis, too.

Every hit point generated by Touch of Death is more valuable if it's harder to take those hit points away. And you'll generate more of them if you have a better offense (such as by having +4 Dex or Wis, +10 movement speed, and Elven Accuracy on that Wood Elf). And you'll generate more of them from having a higher Wisdom modifier, too.

Likewise for Death Mastery. Once you're at the 0hp gate, it doesn't matter how much HP damage an enemy's doing per hit, only how often they hit. So if the enemy's missing your AC or Evasion-enhanced Dex saves more, it's gonna be meaningfully harder for an enemy to chew through your ki.

5) The healing aspect of Dwarven Fortitude has a few factors that limit it.

Dwarven Fortitude only does anything while you're actually Dodging in combat, which won't always be the best defensive choice compared to things like Stunning Flurry of Blows or Hour of Reaping or the like. Depends on the situation.

It also doesn't actually increase your total amount of healing throughout the day; it just lets you use one of your hit dice sooner rather than later in the adventuring day.

Also, you're always going to be getting 1d8+4 per dodge action (assuming point buy build). That doesn't increase as you level up.

This small amount of healing, especially attached to a specific action choice, can be rather situational for a Long Death Monk in practice. For example: Got knocked to the death gate and stayed up with Mastery of Death? Well, now you can Dodge and go up to 9 hp! Which... may not actually change the number of hits it takes to trigger another Mastery of Death ki point being used up.

Or tl;dr: Dwarven Fortitude Monks will have inferior AC and 'active defenses' than the likes of a Wood Elf or VHuman Monk, and having a chunk of extra max HP doesn't really counteract the fact that they're getting less mileage per hit point. The impact of a lower AC is increased when considering Dodge.

Also, Dex/Wis synergizes with the Long Death Monk kit in a way that makes its defenses more than the sum of its parts, while getting some extra max HP doesn't do anything more than that max HP would do on any other character (actually it'll do less, because your AC may well be the worst in the party).

[MrStabby]

You're missing a couple of my favorites:

Flames of Plegethos: Don't knock it unless you give it a go - rerolling 1s on your fire damage rolls is a decent perk, bundled with a brief flame shield whenever you cast a fire spell and a stat boost. What's not to love?


Orcish Fury: Start with an odd Strength or Constitution, then slap this bad boy on. Notably, you can use that mini-smite to boost any weapon attack, and having an extra attack for when you are overwhelmed is neat.

Wood Elf Magic is pretty decent; both Longstrider and Pass Without Trace are great non-stat-dependent spells. And getting a Druid cantrip of your choice means you can pick up Shillelagh (fits with the Wood Elf's Wis bonus), Guidance (skills and initiative), or Create Bonfire (for hazard comps). Better than Magic Initiate for some builds.

I did a bunch of math a while back on Dwarven Fortitude for Long Death Monks and concluded it's not as good defensively as just maxing out your Dex and Wis.

So flames of phlegthos and wood elf magic were nearly on my list but I felt I had to cut off somewhere. Flames of Phelegthos seemed too similar to elemental adept and the stripping away of resistance seemed the better part of that feat. 3 extra damage on a fireball didn't excite me that much but things like light sources seemed pretty cool (party can wander in the dark and then pull out the light when combat happens.

Wood elf magic just seemed a little less good to me than the others. It seemed like it naturally compared to magic initiate - essentially swapping another cantrip for tying your L1 spell to longstrider and giving you pass without trace instead of a cantrip.