What Makes A Good Feat?

Anything that gives you a new feature is generally going to be a solid feat, though some of them are a bit odd. The ones that give you proficiency in something and a slight stat increase, those can help, but they aren’t as good. Instead, I look for the feats that will give me something that can help in most situations, or help a lot in combat. Combat is a large part of D&D, so picking something that specific, it works. But other things, like a feat that gives you a +1 in Intelligence and proficiency in Arcana, that isn’t that much better than taking a +2 in Intelligence, and could be worse depending on the other skills you are proficient with.

So What Are Some Good Ones?

I have a number that I really like, but let’s hit on a few of my favorites.

Alert

This one is more combat focused, but not only combat focused. There are two big things that it does, firstly, you cannot be surprised. This is great for combat. No one can get the jump on you and get that attack before anyone else. Not only that, but you get to add +5 to your initiative. Is it possible you’ll roll poorly and not go first, sure, but is it likely, most certainly not. You are going to be going fast in combat, this is great for a Rogue, especially an Assassin who gets bonuses for going faster than everyone else.

Crossbow Expert

Another one that is mainly for combat. The Crossbow Expert makes a Crossbow fighter really deadly. They can dual wield crossbows and attack with both of them on a turn. Plus it doesn’t take a bonus action to reload. And there is still more, it won’t give you disadvantage if you are firing in melee. Great for a fighter who wants to have range but also gets into the fray of things as the tank.

Dual Wielder

This is similar to the Crossbow Expert, very good in combat. It allows one of your weapons not to be light when Dual Wielding, which means you can hit harder. You also get to add in +1 to your armor class (AC) when Dual Wielding, so it’s kind of like a mini shield. There is also the ability to draw and stow two weapons at once, but for my games that is less important, but for some it could be. Super good for combat, and allows rogues to hit more often or get hit less often.

Great Weapon Master

Also good for the fighter, this one allows them to pump out more damage. Great Weapon Master allows you to cleave through an enemy you kill to do another attack. But what it is often used for is a -5 penalty on attack and then +10 to the damage. It takes a hard hit and makes it extremely punishing on some monsters. Good for those tanks like Fighters and Barbarians.

Lucky

You can choose your own fate, kind of. When you make an attack, ability check, saving throw, anything really, you can spend one of your three luck points, before you know if you succeed or not. Makes for a fun time of hitting more often, but also that saving throw that you really need to make you are more likely to make. The points also refresh every long rest, so you can spend them pretty often during a day.

Magic Initiate

This one can be used for combat, but can be an all around good one. This allows any character to learn a spell. For a spell caster, it allows them to dip into another classes spell list and grab something they want. For a non-spell caster, they can grab something to help them in combat or heal them up. Plenty of options and gives your characters some spell casting ability without needing to multiclass.

Resilient

This breaks one rule slightly, it gives you a +1 to the ability score of your choice. However, the added bonus is that you gain proficiency in that saving throw type. So maybe you aren’t dexterous, well, there are a lot of spells and things that require that type of saving throw. Now you can give yourself a +2 or more as you level up to your saving throw and start taking less damage.

Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter plays out much like Great Weapon Master. You don’t have disadvantage at shooting at long range. You ignore partial cover. But you mainly take it for a -5 to your attack to do +10 damage. This is for that ranger or ranged fighter who really wants to hit hard.

What Feats Do You Like?

These are ones that I pulled from the Player’s Handbook that I really think are interesting. There is a lot of combat focus, but there can be a lot of other good ones. For a Wizard, a feat allowing them to wear better armor, that isn’t bad because they are a bit squishy, for most other characters, getting up to medium armor isn’t that big a deal. And I didn’t even touch on the other feats out there, so there are plenty of interesting options to look at.

I also like some of the feats when they are thematic for a character. While these might be the “best” feats out there, you can also find some that will give you new role playing opportunities as well. It all goes back to building the type of character that you want.

So, which Dungeons and Dragons feat is your favorite?

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There has been a terrible accident at the magic school of Geeblegaren the most prestigious magical school in all the land. You as the important adventurers that you are have been tasked with investigating and fixing whatever might have befallen the halls of Geelblegaren.

The players show up, and were basically doing a silly multi-part dungeon crawl as the players find out that someone, on the 42nd floor has unleashed a monster on the tower, a monster known as the Puppet Master. The Puppet Master has turned all of the wizards there into children.

The problems for the players arise because not all of the children are good little kids, some of them are friends (fiends) who has Puppet Master has brought up with him in disguise. Mix that in with the kids now having to defend themselves and they used to be magical students and teachers, so they have a very good arsenal of tricks and traps up there sleeves. And a few of them, those who might have decided to help The Puppet Master are now under the Puppet Master’s control.

The players aren’t powerful enough to just undo the spell, they need to find the headmaster of the school, they need to get components, they need to figure out who might be trying to trip them up and who are the actual kids, and who are the teachers, so that they can get everything undone. I’d try and keep this light, even with there are fiends in the school, they aren’t torturing people, they are there, looking for something or someone and they are caring more about impersonating the kid version of the students or the teachers so that they can find what they need.

As for the traps and stuff like that, this is a magical school, these are powerful wizards, but they are generally nice people. We’re going home alone style on this. Traps should be “none lethal” for the most part. Make them weird with using the full array of wizard spells, so that there are now magical creatures or mirrors that if you look into them you get polymorphed into a chicken, things like that.

This whole thing will end when two things are done. The first being that they have to rescue the head master whom the Puppet Master is obviously going to have tucked away somewhere or mind wiped to not realize who they is somehow. So the players need to either rescue them or get them to remember somehow. Once that happens, they need to get to the top floor, the 42nd floor, where the Puppet Master is in order to complete the spell with the headmaster and banish the Puppet Master. However the fiends in disguise are now going to be more aggressive to the party now that they have the head master.

Facing off against the Puppet Master can work two ways. If they are just going to banish him, it’s about surviving X number of rounds, 5 or 6, and keeping the kid version of the head master alive so that they can complete the spell. If it’s not about banishing the Puppet Master, it’s still going to be about holding out for a number of rounds, 3 or 4, before the head masters spell is completed and the Puppet Master is weakened enough so it’s an appropriate CR for the players.

That’s about where the story will end. Once the players have defeated the big bad Puppet Master, the students and teachers all return to normal and the fiends will be banished.

This is a game to really keep light and fairly silly. Go as full Home Alone as you can. Make the fiends play pranks, just a bit more deadly than the wizards are doing. Do what you can to keep it light hearted as you can and make the thing that the Puppet Master and the fiends want something that’s a bit absurd, maybe even something that has some cool but weird magical power that the players can discover along the way.

How would you keep this game light and silly?

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