"Why would you buy healing potions ever?" My rogue, with a bandolier of healing potions, Keoghtom's Ointment, and the healer feat: Because you die when I say you die
I always insist that my party have 1 healing potion per person, distributed out. The idea being, when there’s one person who can’t heal left standing at the end of combat and everyone’s bleeding out, the solution is right there.
@@rcschmidt668 I believe "r/whoosh" is an appropriate response to your comment! Unless of course you were just trying to make a joke and it FAILED miserably!
Lol. I wanted to make a glass cannon wizard. He has a con of 5. But he's variant human so at 4th lvl I have alert and spell sniper. I just fire bolt from 200 feet away
Important to note about Lucky is that when you have advantage/disadvantage, you roll the d20 in addition to the two you already roll. You then choose wich of the three rolls to use since the feat does not have a limit to amount of rolls to use and choose from. What this means is that you can turn disadvantage to super advantage ( best of three rolls). Jeremy Crawford has confirmed this is how it works RAW and RAI.
What about when you have neither advantage nor disadvantage? Perform the titular spray and pray… close your eyes to force disadvantage and use luck to get super advantage.
You missed the most important thing about warcaster that is casting with your hands full. Pretty much obligatory in sword and board paladins and some hexblades
I was thinking exactly the same. Concentration is super important for melee casters, and this helps with that, but being able to perform somatic components while holding weapons is godly for certain classes/builds.
Dual-wielding casters appreciate it too; and in games where damaging cantrips are outlawed or nerfed (for any number of reasons), casters with bows, crossbows, and firearms almost require warcaster.
agreed, it's less about full on casters like wizard and sorc doing opportunity attacks and more about more martial oriented casters now being able to cast while having sword and shield or dual wielding.
@Bart Devogel Eh, Artificers need a set of artisan's tools, thieves' tools, or an Infused item for all spells, you'll likely have one of your Infusions on your weapon or shield if you're consistently using one, so no juggling necessary there.
As others have mentioned, Elven Accuracy should at least have gotten a mention. Having 3d20 where you pick the highest is super good, and every class that would attack with dex, int, wis, and cha can get a lot of out of this. Even half-elves can take this feat.
I feel like Observant should get some more love. So long as you can see somebody talking and you know their language, they pretty much can't hide any verbal secrets from you at all. Add that to the Perception bonus, and that shady advisor whispering something to the guard captain is about to have his plans revealed real quick
We played a death dungeon where the goal was for the DM to kill us before we made it to the bbeg, and that was the day my DM learned to loath three things: Halfings, Lucky, and *"GOD DAMNED MONKS"* For reference, I was a halfling rogue with the lucky feat, and my friend was a human monk. We reached a hallway that basically seesawed into a lava pit with next to no chance of survival. My halfing immediately grabbed the dragonborn cleric next to him, and stood rooted in place with slippers of spider climb while spamming lucky any time I felt my roll was too lol, *and* refilling any ones as a halfing. The monk.... The god damned monk.... He stabbed his sword into the ground/wall as he was falling, and proceeded to hang there while my halfing and the cleric balanced things out. The DM decided to use this to shake him loose, saying he had to make another strength check to hold on. He fails, but has misty step as a racial to just.... Teleport back up to stand on the handle. Dex check, fail, fall. Welp, now he's going through ki points like I go through coffee in order to stop his fall and run *back up* the now slanted floor and get back to us as everything settles into position. His final words regarding the situation? "Oh, and (DM)? I still have 3 ki points left."
@@TheLordNeko I assume it's one of the Dragon Marks from Eberron. They're basically alternate racial traits for some races, and one of them lets a human cast Misty Step.
I take it this is before level 9 when monks can just run up walls or over water and was using ki for step of the wind to climb faster or the fall was high enouph they needed to use the dash to get up even with the running up walls without costing extra movement
@@kyzer42 Passage is definitely one of the ones I preferred the pre Rising version. Instead of just normal self only 30 foot Misty Step once per Long Rest it was essentially non spell "Misty Step" *that scaled to your walking speed* and allowed you to bring a willing creature your Size or smaller that wasn't over its carrying capacity once per Long Rest. Didn't have the "Spells of the Mark" feature, but the old version was insane and awesome for a Monk
For those of you who don't get the reference, the Arcbound Ravager Skullclamp combo was essentially a way to keep sacrificing a creature to add attack and defense bonuses to arcbound ravager, essentially making it the most OP card in the game stat-wise after just a few rounds
Opinion: Sentinel should baked into reach polearms and GWM should be baked into two handers. Then bake in polearm master into the quarter staff. This makes weapon classes unique past "two handed or one handed?" and "pick the highest damage die". In one of the books I remember hearing about flail mastery and how it adds a modifier if the opponent has a shield or something along those lines. Add that as a baseline as well, one handers should get traits as well. The punture/slash/blunt damage does come into play sometimes but it doesn't change on paper mechanics so I don't include it to the uniqueness of weapons. (Although trying to cut a rope with a maul is hilarious)
@@SkyNinja759 You're saying weapons should come with free feats as features innate to the weapon? Sounds OP unless it's some kind of magical weapon. It'd be more balanced if you had to take a feat specifically for that weapon that has those abilities
@@SilentlyWe It isn't over powered if everyone has them. It creates more diverse combat besides "I hit the guy", without taking battlemaster. The only people who wouldn't benefit from this is wizards and other spell heavy classes, which are already diverse when it comes to actions in combat.
@@SkyNinja759 Well martials are already vastly superior to casters in combat, especially early game, so that would further upset that balance. But also, those features would just add pure power without actually adding diversity. If you wanted more diversity in physical combat, adding features that were situational and also had drawbacks would be the way to go to make things more interesting
@@SilentlyWe Dice wise, that can be argued. Especially early game. Rework casters to have unique cantrips and we're set. A lot of direct damage cantrips are vanilla, much like regular weapons. I want to see unique roles to make martial classes even more varied. Much like how casters can specialize in different schools.
@@rirriuk8401 i hav and although I haven't played with her much and don't have alert yet but do have booming blade added as a cantrip so ya know max dmg on a surprised enemy is over 100 in one hit at 5th level. i play her in a server with many other pc's and can one-shot almost all of them if I get lucky enough. (they go till 10th lvl.) also thinking about adding mobile like Tennessee Ponderer suggested.
Not gonna lie, I still think taking magic initiate for just "Find Familiar" (not even considering the game-breaking cantrips) is worth more than most of this list, because familiars are kinda OP and can use the "Help" in and out of combat
Not to mention if you're playing classes like Rogue, (or even Cleric or Druid if you decide to be weird and play them as Melee casters) it can be highly beneficial in boosting overall melee damage output. It is the only feat that has the capabilities of increasing melee damage output without a penalty to hit attached to it (asides from Martial Adept, but that one doesn't count because it's a once per short/long rest ability). For instance, if you are a Rogue Assassin with this, you can get Find Familiar + Booming Blade and one other Cantrip of your choice Not only can you make your familiar give you advantage on your attack roll, but if you're 5th level or higher, Booming Blade starts adding d8's of additional thunder damage when you hit with it. So, when you manage to get Sneak Attack to trigger on an enemy, assuming you're at 5th level and you used Booming Blade on your turn, you can deal a pretty alarming 3d6+2d8 damage before modifiers at effectively no cost to you the player. Then of course if you surprise an enemy as a Rogue Assassin, you can turn that into 6d6+4d8 before modifiers. That can leave a nasty wound on most creatures your dm would throw at you at that level, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume it would outright kill most normal creatures. Then it has the added effect of dealing bonus thunder damage if the target decides to move on their turn, you basically get to hold an enemy hostage with d8's of Thunder damage, unless they're an absolutely vicious brute of an enemy that can afford to ignore that threat, it's enough to force them to consider whether or not they should or shouldn't move. Then you have the versatility of a familiar that can be used as an Advantage bot or as a scouting unit for your party. The Magic Initiate feat got brushed over in this and I feel like it got treated pretty unfairly. Not to mention, in the context with Lucky, it can compete on even terms with it because of the fact that it can throw out Advantage on a nearly constant basis, and it allows the party to see what's going on in the room ahead of them without exposing themselves or blowing their cover so they can see exactly what they are getting themselves into and gives themselves a chance to plan their entry.
Let me revise that last bit about it being an Advantage bot. This is assuming that the DM DOES NOT completely rip into it by having one of the enemies try to kill it, but even then it's kinda valuable to just have because even if it's getting attacked, it can make an enemy waste an attack on a 1HP creature instead of the far more threatening player. And yeah, it sucks getting it killed, but if it helps land a few attacks, do some scouting, and absorb one attack that would've normally gone towards a player, it's still highly valuable and more than worth 10GP
I'd recommend Ritual Caster over Magic Initiate. You still get Find Familiar, and you also get up to FIFTEEN additional utility spells that you can cast without using spell slots: Alarm, Water Breathing, Detect Magic, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Comprehend All Language, etc. I'll take the open opportunity to acquire a dozen more spells, vs learning 2 cantrips.
The Bugbear Barbarian in my dungeon crawl discovered the one reaction thing difficult so I allowed him to remove the "AOO for enemies attacking adjacent allies" from Sentinel for "a number of reactions equal to his proficiency." I must say I like the fact that now instead of being swarmed by 3 enemies of appropriate level he gets swarmed by 6-8 enemies of appropriate level. DM giveth and taketh accordingly. The player loves the character so much more now so the rebalancing was worth it.
Yeah, the sentinel polearm master is a trap combo IMO. Is not bad by any means. They seem to have synergy. Until you remember that you have a single reaction, so you either use one or the other, and the whole combo falls apart against more than a single enemy, or against most enemies with legendary actions or any way of ranged attack. Sure is cool and fun when it works. But just going either polearm master or sentinel and +2 str is probably stronger overall
I agree with most of these, but I do think you underestimate the fact that you can pick "Find Familiar" with either Ritual Caster or Magic Initiate, which (RAW) you can then have take the help action to give you advantage on most rolls. I would argue this could be the best feats or should at least take one of the top spots. I know you gave Magic Initiate an honorable mention but you did not mention the possibility of picking "Find Familiar", which would not require you to invest in a spellcasting ability score either.
@@VoltCruelerz healer can heal your whole party maybe 10hp out of combat every short rest. good berry can heal 10 hp total per day. the not eating or drinking if you don't have a druid or ranger in the party is really good though
@@VoltCruelerz problem with using it for goodberry is that you only have one cast of it a day which means if anyone goes down more than 10 times in a day you are kinda screwed where as with the healer feat bringing someone up to 1 hp from dying doesnt actually cost a use of the healer's kit you just have to have one on you
Healer + Thief Rogue is how you break the game. Yes, I would like to get downed character back up using bonus action and cheap, easily renewable resource.
I can definitely attest to Lucky being the #1 feat. I created a Dragonborn Monk whose background / monastery was the Drunken Master. The lucky feat compliments his background and personality perfectly. As long as you can identify the key moments to use your luck points it will never fail you. Key moments to consider are situations where you could change the dynamic of a fight, maintain stealth when enemies are near by (I.e. life threatening situations ) if you start using them to do cool things that are not out of necessity you will short yourself. I also, try to refrain from using them early in the day to save from having to plan out your next long rest.
Sharpshooter is hands down a better feat than GWM for one major reason: the Archery fighting style. Being able to get that +10 damage at a -3 to hit instead of a -5 is a massive advantage, and should not be overlooked.
theres much better ways to get temp Hp or even raise the max Hp of your party for a little while. Aid when cast at 3rd level will allow you to imbue three creatures with an additional 10 Hp. assuming you are maxing your Charsma then at this point the feat is about the same yes you can technically get more creatures but lets be frank most groups are 4 to 5 players so you can still cover the squishy players and let the barbarians rage cover him. aid lasts 8 hours so it covers a short rest just like Inspiring leader but it does take a spell slot but from there it solidly starts leaning towards aids favor cause each spell slot after that grants an additional 5 Hp. Aid only takes an action to cast and when you are heading towards a bbeg or chasing after them you dont always have time to sit around for ten minutes listening to your paladin or warlock or sorcerer give a rousing speach
@@fernandofuentesmoreno5149 the numbers sound nice when you add them together but im looking at effective negation of damage lets take this for example party level 9 fighting 2 stone giants average damage per swing 19 bludgeoning 2 attacks per turn two giants. Inspiring leader 14 temp Hp Random ass Npc's not included cause everythings great under the right senario your looking at 14 THP per player = 56 TMP total (never played in a game where that many short rests occurred in a single session so either your gm runs a vastly different style of game than me and most of the people i know do or you've not actually gotten to play which hey no shame in that.) temp Hp doesnt stack with other Temp HP period. so assuming everyones taking damage over an even spread each player is taking 19 points of damage of which the temp Hp covers 14 of everyone took 5 damage and the Temp Hp is gone that sounds great you've reduced damage by 3/4 for one round but realistically 2 two people are gonna be targeted down usually the front line fighters by the gaints so instead you have 2 players each take 38 damage take off the 14 THP and you're left with 24 points of damage to soak so you've effectively reduced the damage by roughly 1/3. now while your right and both are better id rather take the healer feat as he said 5 gold for (characterlevel+ 5(wisdom)) x 10 heals its exactly the same amount of Hp as inspiring leader and can be used just as often medkits are super cheap and dont weigh that much so keeping a bunch on hand is not an issue and its more useful for any given situation like a party member being down coming across a wounded person or animal. Inspiring leader might even be good but you can go past its absolute limit by the time you have access to 5th level spells.
@@madmanwithaplan1826 the game tells you how to setup and adventuring day. If the players face 8 or so encounters (not all of which need to be combat) the players should get 1 to 2 short rests. You can have less or even none but the frontline will get screwed and need to heal and anyone who gets stuff back on a short rest will you know want more shit. Preventing them from being able to get anything back usually just means they will attempt to save it as far as they can and just nova the boss anyway. As well as making the players want to min max more to avoid getting killed.
Hey Cody, you actually got something slightly wrong about the Halfling’s bountiful luck trait. You said you can use it to negate disadvantage, however in the PHB on page 173 it specifically says things like Halfling Luck (Calls Halfling Luck out by name), that reroll, can only reroll the die (or dice) that got a one. Then the disadvantage still is applied as normally. This means that, let’s say, you roll a nat 10 and a nat 1. You reroll the 1, and it turns into a 15. You then still have disadvantage, so you rolled a 10, and rerolled the 1 into a 15, meaning your roll before modifiers is a 10 in this situation. Otherwise good video, just figured I should point this out as it seems no one else did.
I believe that's how he was trying to describe the ability. I didn't get any indication from his that Bountiful Luck turned Disadvantage into a normal roll, just that you could reroll the 1 and that the 1 wouldn't count.
@@aodhstormeyes No, Cody literally describes the exact opposite of how rerolls affect rolls made with advantage or disadvantage. jellyfish0112 has got it right and that comment deserves a lot more upvotes. I've had to let a couple players in my game down because misconceptions like these. Though, when they realized it meant that halflings could still reroll the one if they got a 1 and a 2 with advantage rather than just taking the two it seemed to soften the blow a bit.
No, disadvantage settles on one dice. It's the same with advantage, really. When the situation for the multiple rolls comes up, the lower or higher is decided on the moment it's rolled by the game and its mechanics; at disadvantage, when you roll the lower of the two dice, the game has decided based on the rules for THAT to be the dice you have rolled. Using any feat or adjustment to that does not magically pre-empt the disadvantage system. The second dice is just no longer in play, once the system has settled on the greater or lesser roll, and dealing with the roll afterwards proceeds as normal.
I honestly think this could be split in to two seperate lists. Best Character Defining feats, and Best Universally Brilliant feats. Because it is so hard to compare, say, Sentinel or Crossbow Master, which make an entire archetype work, to Lucky or Alert, which are probably not going to be the first feat you pick on your character, but you are liable to take for pretty much every character eventually. It's like comparing steak and icecream. They're great for totally different situations, and best if you have one and then the other.
You could also break the Character Definers down further into Best Feats For Melee Weapon Characters, Best For Ranged Weapon Characters, Best for Spellcasters, Best Utility, etc.
I took alert right away, my character was always surprised, always near the bottom of iniative list and always getting hit before they could do anything. So id say alert was justified
I've often taken Mage Armor as well for my high dex characters, as it essentially gives them free +1 studded leather armor that they don't even have to wear. Add in the 8 hour duration, no concentration, and the free once a day casting that you never have to spend a spell known or a prepared spell slot, the spell really makes use of that feat. Find Familiar is almost certainly the better choice, but I typically prefer learning that with ritual Caster: wizard, so that I can change its shape throughout the day.
And consider getting Mage armor for something like a moon druid. All those big animals with 12 AC suddenly have better armor all day without concentrating on Barkskin.
Find familiar on any class with Cure Wounds seems like a god send, to simply ignore the whole pesky touch range. Would have been alot stronger if Clerics where more blasty then sword and boardy. Just my take on it.
Yeah. Just get healing word and make the healer feat nearly obsolete before even counting the 2 cantrips. Even if you pick a bard spell list for it while you have 0 in charisma, it's still better than healer.
What about using the new choronurgy wizard instead? While early levels you can just make a roll into disadvantage or advantage, but at level 14 you can as a reaction just straight up force a roll to succeed or to fail at the cost of gaining exhaustion.
Someone I’ve played with have combined the Sentinel feat with Polearm Master, Hordebreaker, and Tunnel Fighting to destroy pretty much any encounter and to protect us squishies. Most overpowered ranger ever.
One feat worth mentioning is Inspiring Leader. It is very close to Healer but instead of being reactive its proactive, granting temp hp to the entire party. Another one to make your DM cry early game is heavy armor master, reducing (almost) every hit to you by 3 early game is a huge deal, especially when most enemies will average 4-8 damage per attack
Personally, I really like the Telekinetic feat from Tasha’s Cauldron. I don’t even necessarily think it’s amazing lol, it’s just so fun to mess around with, and it’s interesting flavoring to add to your character. I wish more people talked about it
Resilient is indeed one of my favourite feats. Suddenly my druid has more health and resistance, or my dex knight fighter suddenly is as good at dodging as the rogue.
My friend found a pretty neat combo with the Alert feat and that Warlock Invocation that causes you to not need sleep anymore/be put to sleep magically. Now he has all the benefits of Alert all the time.
Lucky is the only feat I ban. It also can give you “super advantage” when used on a dice roll that is supposed to be with disadvantage. According to sage advice, you take the best D20 regardless. Specific beats general.
Personally, I think the Sentinel-Polearms master combo flameing is overblown. If the GM builds encounters (knowing what feats the party has) and their only option to fight the party fighter is for a single mob to rush forwards and attempt to attack, then they probably should have built an encounter with more mobs, or ranged attackers. Even if it comes down to a situation where the only option for the GM is to rush the opponent with a single mob to get into reach, the player's combo still comes down to a single attack roll to see if they can stop it, and that attack roll can fail, or be sabotaged by the particular monster's abilities. Compared to so many other things in 5E, I don't see why this is viewed as some unbeatable combo, especially when it's an inherently defensive tactic.
I will say that my defensive pally might take sentinel just to make him the threat that everything tries to murder. I say try cause ac19 is beautiful. And there is the 4 healing capable party members in the group.
by level 5 you probably get extra attack. You get a bonus action attack with polearm master every turn (and add strength to damage as usual). And you get a AoO almost every turn. So one feat, 4 attacks per turn by level 5, all at 10 feet range. Take variant human for the sentile feat to be extra annoying. My point is that polearm master is very broken as it is. Even just the basic damage is rediculous. 3d10+1d4+12 just from halberd+strength using PM.
I feel like Elven Accuracy is pretty cool for elven sneak builds. Planning a Ranger/Rogue that will be using stealth, surprise, etc. to get advantage and this feat basically gives you three rolls anytime you have advantage
One thing about Lucky you didn't mention unless I missed it, RAW it turns Disadvantage into Elven Accuracy style Super Advantage for anything that doesn't specifically require you to not have Disadvantage such as Sneak Attack
@@aplcrz I agree that it's good but I don't know why people think it's THAT good when the bonus isn't that big and effectively less than war caster until later in the game when your proficiency bonus increases. +1 to con is also nice, but if you're a gish it's no contest and one could argue that war caster is a top 3 feat for them.
Sentinel is very clearly limited by the Opportunity Attack rules which State that the character must use a reaction to take an opportunity attack. It‘s a very powerful feat and totally worthy of being on this list, but it is very clearly limited in effectiveness to the first mob that provokes.
Totally agree with Lucky as #1. I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't mention what I call "super advantage" though: Let's say you want to really make sure you hit the next attack, just declare that you are closing your eyes (giving you the blinded condition), attack with disadvantage, activate Lucky to roll another die, and then pick any of the 3 results! This give you a 14.26% chance of critting, by the way (27.1% if you are a Fighter Champion).
You didn't mention inspiring leader, I think that inspiring leader is a great feat that scales very well, very strong for 5+ parties. At level 4, it's about as strong as giving every single party member a free cure wounds before a big fight breaks out, every day, giving the healers more free hands to do other stuff than healing.
While I'm unsure what would be taken off (or moved down), I believe War caster deserves a spot on the list. Playing as any sort of melee spellcaster with war caster is broken. Someone leaves your range to go beat up the back line? No, Hold Person. A Demon suddenly runs wild in the town center and it runs by you to munch on some civilians? Banishment. Because of its sheer versatility in casting single-target spells as opportunity attacks, I believe it deserves a spot on the list. PS: Its other abilities aren't half bad either, especially if your DM is very much into RAW and is saying that you can't use somatic components while holding a weapon and a shield and while I mentioned it's not as good as resilient for constitution, advantage shouldn't be taken lightly.
canis Canem Which is really why a human variant Warlock with Warcaster and Sentinel (minimum of two attacks per turn, and the ability to cast Eldritch blast twice (one with your action, once with your reaction) if an opponent either moves out of your space or attacks an ally) is the best thing to play (strictly for winning battles, not necessarily role play).
Dont forget paladins who use their spells for things other than smites. They have great spells that do more damage than smites over the course of 3 or 4 turns, but people dont like doing the math to realise they can better use their spell slots.
Yeah I took war caster on my sorcadin, so I could booming blade any fools that tried to run away and to keep my bless and other concentration spells running. Plus I already had max CON. Clearly the better option in that situation.
Because it (and bountiful luck) DONT do it by RAW. Altering 1 of multiple rolls used for a check, attack or save =/= advantage and disadvantage altering which of the rolls is used for the result.
@@ANDELE3025 "You have inexplicable luck that seems to kick in at just the right moment. You have 3 luck points. Whenever you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can spend one luck point to roll an additional d20. You can choose to spend one of your luck points after you roll the die, but before the outcome is determined. *_You choose which of the d20s is used for the attack roll, ability check, or saving throw._* "
@@Dharengo one could argue that you resolve the disadvantage as one roll and then can lucky an additional roll, but that the potentially superior roll that was lost in the disadvantage is not "recoverable" for the purpose of the luck ability.
Matt O'Kane The text says nothing about treating multiple dice as one roll. It says in no uncertain terms that 1) you roll an additional die, and 2) you choose which die to use.
@@Dharengo when you "make an attack roll" with disadvantage only one roll goes through. Say you roll a 5 and a twenty, your roll is 5. That IS your attack roll. Then you may use your lucky feat to make a SECOND attack roll and chose which you prefer. The rules on advantage/disadvantage doesn't say "make two attack rolls", it says "roll a second dice when you make THE[singular] roll".
I think Eleven Accuracy could deserve a mention. Basically rolling with triple advantage... or double advantage depending on how you want to look at it. That is 3 dice you can roll when you have advantage. That is 3 chances to roll a Crit. I don't know the percentages, and what not. But that is amazing.
Life Cleric Goodberry is really only useful if you can cast Goodberry more than once a day. For battlefield pick-me-ups it's only as useful as... Healer, actually. Shield is also only useful if you can use it more than once a day.
The reason I love War caster is because it allows you to have sword and shield (or 2 handed weapon) and still cast spells. Without it, you can't swap freely to/from spell-casting and hitting stuff.
You can cast spells with a two-handed weapon. You only need 2 hands to attack with a 2 handed weapon, holding it with 1 is fine. So when not attacking with your weapon you have a hand free for casting a spell. You will use your "once per turn free item interaction" for putting away or drawing your spell focus though.
@@deborahphillips500 look: you start with a 2 handed weapon in one hand and focus in other. 1st turn: you attack by taking of your focus or you cast and take it off for attacking next turn. 2nd turn: you either attack or take your focus in your hand to cast. 3rd turn: you cast and take your focus off or you take it off and attack. See how its easy to swap around without any problem
Brother, keep doing what you do, the way you do it. I've been playing since AD&D and I love listening to smart, articulate, and fun discourse about the game. You're great!
Dear Taking20 Just wantet to say that I love your videoes and all of your content. It is so refreshing to see a joyful and positive gaming channel who promotes the best aspects of our hobby. I am a soon to be 41 year old man who has been dm'ing on and off for the past 25 years. I had a 10 year hiatus of dm burnout syndrom, but was brought back into the fold when 5ed hit. When I look for inspiration, I turn to your videoes. Thank you for being here on youtube with your intertaining and highly informational content.
Now for the actual 10 best feats =p (I understand it is not objective, but here is my preference): - 1) Elven Accuracy 2) Lucky 3) Sentinel 4) Polearm Master 5) War Caster 6) Sharp Shooter 7) Resilient 8) Great Weapon Master 9) Crossbow Expert 10) Mobile - 3 Honorable mentions Alert, Magic Initiate, Healer (Healing people is good, but a feat that just effectively reduces the cost of healing potions is just not going to make my top 10) Bountiful luck is just not good in my opinion. it can only target allies within 30 feet, takes your reaction, and can only change the rolls of Nat 1s. In addition it does not work with disadvantage like you think it does: - From the PHB on advantage and disadvantage: - When you have advantage or disadvantage and something in the game, such as the halfling's Lucky trait, lets you reroll or replace the d20, you can reroll or replace only one of the dice. You choose which one. For example, if a halfling has advantage or disadvantage on an ability check and rolls a 1 and a 13, the halfling could use the Lucky trait to reroll the 1.
For some explanation on these choices: Elven Accuracy: gives you Super Advantage on anything not strength based. Without flanking rules this is a nice feat and can be built around, WITH flanking rules this is bonkers. - Lucky: You know why this is good, I know why this is good, we all know why this is good. - Sentinel: Combos with Pole Arm Master, and is just outright good on it's own. Protect your allies and keep enemies from fleeing - Polearm Master: Combos with War Caster , Great Weapon Master (more strikes, and a weaker attack to slap that +10 damage on) and Sentinel. More opportunity attacks are always good and makes sure you can always do something with your bonus action - War Caster: If you are a caster and want to hold a weapon this is a must. If you need to make sure you hold concentration, this is a must. want to hit enemies that are running from you as a caster? you get the idea. - Sharp Shooter: Are you using a bow? you need this. You also better have chosen archery as your fighting style. - Resilient: Con is the big one here, but honestly, if you are at an odd number on one important stat you aren't proficient with saving throws in? Don't forget to look at this. - Great Weapon Master: The less accurate version of Sharp Shooter. The bonus attacks are sometimes relevant, but I honestly would never take this before Polearm Master so... - Crossbow Expert: Are you using Crossbows? then this is MANDATORY. Do you sometimes cast ranged attack spells in melee? then this is good. - Mobile: Several good abilities for melee DPS. Melee combatants need speed to get on casters, they need to avoid damage getting to casters, and they need to prevent casters from slowing them down while getting to casters. This feet helps with all of these. It also helps run away when you bite off more than you can chew
ashtonthemelon No, you only use that reaction when creating an opportunity attack for yourself off of an enemy attacking your ally, otherwise you can have unlimited opportunity attacks if unlimited enemies (tbh having unlimited enemies in melee range requires playing in hyperbolic space) try leaving melee range around you. You could also get shield master to create an opportunity attack for both yourself and an ally if you also have Sentinel.
Evan Nibbe No, under Oppurtunity Attack in the PHB it clearly says that taking an Opportunity attack uses up a reaction. So this sentinel/pole arm combo would only be effective against one enemy. There is nothing in either of those feats that grant the character extra reactions per round.
@@DesignerJTillman There's one way to get more opportunity attacks, but it requires being a level 18 Cavalier, so not something you would normally see.
@@mafarett Technically, you could also get a divine blessing or fiendish boon (even one in the samples that can be given by any Marilith does exactly that: Serpentine Reaction. This creature can take an extra reaction each round, but this reaction can be used only to make an opportunity attack."), but those are id say about as rare as a 18 Cavalier. The much more common option would be being a melee drood with the Shapechange spell.
I feel like the fact that Polearm Sentinel requires 2 feats to get going makes it at least a tad more reasonable. Still too strong but a tad more reasonable. For most players that means 8th lvl. That's after people get access to stuff like Wall of Flame, Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility and Polymorph. Also just 1 lvl before stuff like Wall of Force, Mass Cure Wounds and Greater Restoration. At that point you're probably getting pretty used to fighting larger creatures and not having the chance to up your stats at that point is starting to sting. For Variant Humans it's still a broken fucking combo tho, getting all that at 4th lvl is insane.
Also Polearm Master only works against melee enemies, does nothing special against ranged attacks. Remember, if the pole arm master DOES go to within 10ft of an enemy with a ranged weapon... the ranged-attacking enemy don't have disadvantage to shoot at the polearm user who is 10ft away. The ranged penalty only applies when shooting a hostile (and non-incapacitated) creature who is FIVE feet away from you and it doesn't provoke like in 3.5/PF1. Sentinel is irrelevant as well as they don't need to escape and while Sentinel would oblige that they shoot at the polearm master that's still dealing damage.
It's not incredibly strong for a 2 feat drop. Basically it only works if you're fighting one on one with another medium creature without any access to ranged attacks. Plus, according to RAW, the enemy could still use disengage to close the distance to you, so you're basically using 2 feats to occasionally cost 1 creature an action
I like the Spell Sniper feat as like Sharpshooter it nullifies half and 3/4 cover, and doubles your spell range and gives you an attack cantrip of your choice from a selection of classes.
With half elves as boosted as they are, elven accuracy is an option that turns on the cheese with several builds, most notably warlocks with magic darkvision, and gloom stalker rangers
Love to see the MTG reference. your content is so helpful, i just got into dnd because I have nothing else to do during isolation so it's greatly appreciated
I will add an option with Magic initiate Wizard, taking Booming Blade and going Tempest Domain with the same combo you mentioned. Since Great Weapon Master does NOT require you to have taken the attack action for it to go off or to choose to take the -5, you can use Booming Blade, max the thunder damage, score the free critical with Hold Person and get the bonus action attack all on top of each other.
Well, I ran a war cleric. They start off feeling very strong and fall behind after level 5. Falling into a regular casting role when you can take things like spirit guardians and spiritual weapon and you can use guiding strikes on others at 6. The extra damage at 8 feels underwhelming. Unless you rolled incredibly well and have high str, con and Wis while using an ASI for GWM and another on resilient con/warmaster to maintain conentration in melee .
if you ever play a high level pvp one-shot: play a sorcerer (preferably stone), and grab a 9-lives stealer and as high of a strength boost item as you can (preferably belt of storm giant strength). quicken hold person, attack with your 9-lives stealer (booming blade), auto-critting and ripping their soul out of their body... I definetely don't speak from expirience ;)
I think Shield Master is worthy of an honorable mention, with bonus action knock an opponent prone+shield bonus to DEX saves+no dmg on passed DEX saves that normally do half. It is limited to sword and board characters but that didn't stop other build specific feats from making the list.
to push the combo with Pole arm and sentinel, you can also add Great weapon master for additional dmg and the Charger feat to push back a foe even further, resulting in an almost untouchable character when in comes to Duels.
I agree. Additionally, I think the feat is more suited for tanking damage rather than dealing it. Yes, you do get to make attacks with it every now and then but that's more like a slap to any enemy that dares to attack someone other than you.
Magic Initiate is cool and all but I feel like people with Eberron should really look at the Abberant Dragonmark Feat. If you aren't trying to get a class-specific spell like Find Familiar, Healing Word, or Hex and just want a ranged attack option along with an ace up your sleeve then Abberant Dragonmark is great for a tank. The spell is based off your *Constitution* instead of a spellcasting stat, so you can still min-max your Champion Fighter. There's other features too but I really recommend people look at the feat.
That's not very useful since every party that lives past level 5 has either multiple casters, or enough gold to hire as many casters as they want. Plus, ritual casting is kind of a shit mechanic anyways.
A few of my other favorite uses for resilient is Dexterity saves on fighters, Wisdom saves on Barbarians, fighters, monks, and rogues, and strength saves on rogues. Resilient good.
Mounted Combatant is another really good one. Very underused and very powerful, specially for paladins using the find steed and greater find steed spell.
When Mobile doesn't work on all builds. I love it on a swords bard with longstrider. Any Gish char who has longstrider. Really. I find it makes you much safer then you normally are. Instead of moving into combat, getting stuck in melee you can go in, do some poking them roll back out of the fight making them having to come to you and in any time where you're trying to run away. Mix in 2 levels in rogue then you can just attack then BA dash when moving away for 80 ft move which not many npcs can match with out dashing their selves. That is with out longstrider. I made a half elf Wood elf. Got the 5 ft move speed. Mobile, Pre cast longstrider and picked swords bard and at 10 I picked up haste. When Tabaxi are bursty. This set up makes my elf able to fly around on the ground like it's nothing. "It's rough turain are you sure you have enough mo- oh you have over 100 move speed per dash? You also have 2 dashes you can take and still able to cast a spell or attack? Ok." < Every dm when I run this set up in an high level game.
I have a 9th lvl hunter ranger with this and it's honestly awesome, especially if you pick up zephyr strike. I'm also planning on picking it up with a monk character I'm whipping up
The UA tunnel fighter fighting style for fighter makes sentinal+polearm master seriously good. By lvl 4 you can have a very nice build if you are the varient human
I know it's very specific, but getting High Drow Magic as a Drow Sorcerer is incredible useful. Sorcerers don't get a lot of spells known, and it's their biggest flaw. You get Detect Magic at will, and you learn two spell (Levitate and Dispel Magic). And you can cast both spells once for free, every long rest. If you get this at level 4, your spells known go up to 8 from 5, and they're all good spells.
Its really just a bit more HP right? If it doesnt let you do anything and you might not need the extra bit of HP Then i dont see it as very usefull atleast not top 10 kinda usefull.
more hp is never good. It gives nothing useful... to be clear, more hp are fine, but if you need to waste a feat on those, it means your party is not working right.
@@NoZignature For context, it is EFFECTIVELY +4 CON (+2 HP per level retroactively). Paired with Resilient (+CON), you are getting Prof with CON and a massive HP boost. I've urged fellow players (and very recently my own players) to not underestimate it. I would take Tough over a +2 CON any day. Imagine: V. Human Wizard/Sorc/Warlock w/ Warcaster @1 (as most people do). At level 4 taking Resilient, at 8 take Tough for that sexy +16 HP. While it doesn't sound like much, at 20 it is +40 HP and ideal for the squishiest characters. Add in it gives ZERO fucks if you have a negative CON mod.
It's +4 con.... Without the additional bonuses that +4 con gives you. If it gave that bonus it'd be absolutely broken. As is, it's.... Pretty niche. Especially when at most you'll only get 40 extra hp *at lvl 20*, and I've watched things hit for 70+ with minimal effort well before that. Sometimes it'll help, but I'd rather just take the asi or lucky if I'm especially feeling like making my DM hate me.
@@Samagryn That's why I said it as I did. It has a HUGE value for those with the lowest HP (especially if your DM doesn't let you take average if you roll under it on level up) but is better when paired with Resilient. If you have a negative CON modifer, you are literally losing HP every level and if you have a 20 CON (and therefore in RAW cannot get more CON), Tough helps to break the game even more. Tough is one of those YMMV Feats.
Booming blade + war caster is a deadly combo though, and essentially is like having part of sentinel but instead of reducing their speed you’re just making them take more damage to move
Pretty sure you've got the ruling on disadvantage wrong. It literally says you roll an additional die (AKA two seperate dice) and pick the lowest. Halfling luck triggers AS SOON as you roll a one. Meaning you roll two dice, say a 12 and a 1. You then reroll the 1, and THEN you take the lower number. Don't get me wrong, still a great feat, but the order really does make a difference. That also means that if someone rolls a 1 and another bad number like a 3 or something, you probably shouldn't use your luck to reroll it.
Healer Feat Rocks! One of my favorite characters I have played was a Rogue Thief with the Healer Feat. What? A party member goes down from a melee strike? I'll just run over CUNNING ACTION heal them to 1 hp and then sneak attack the baddie because I have an ally there. Awesome!
Came to post about Healer. Another great advantage of it is the fact you can save your spells for other stuff. I played a celestial pact of the tome warlock who was able to use healer for minor stuff and use the bigger healing magic and other spells for graver wounds and kicking butt.
I'm playing an arcane trickster rogue in a low magic setting where a long rest is a week and a short rest is one night and healing potions are hard to come by. My healer feat was the one thing preventing over half the party for dying, and in the latest session was targeted by one of out BBEG and was killed off, specifically for healing potential. My party laughed at me at first but now, they respect it so much and its very underrated imo.
-Resilient is also a good pickup for Wisdom on tank characters, Fighters and Barbarians in particular. Nothing worse than wanting to protect the party and the enemies can just forbid you from engaging via Frightful Presence or the Fear spell. Let's not talk about getting dominated... -By the rules as written, Warcaster actually lets you use a spell in place of the opportunity attack granted by Polearm Master. If this is permissible, this lets you toss a lockdown spell at anything trying to approach. Treantmonk featured a build from one of his Discord users taking advantage of this interaction. -Sentinel isn't just holding a creature in place but also staggering, battering or hamstringing it in some way that it stumbles in its movement. No herculean physics required. -On the topic of Polearm Master, the feat is also legit with a spear. While you no longer have extended reach, you do get to hold a shield as well. -Elven Accuracy becomes a whole lot more deadly with a Hexblade which can give double advantage on weapons normally limited to Strength.
I really like the new Eldritch Adept because it can be used for good combos and to make up for weaknesses. E.g. Devils Sight + Shadow Monk to not be affected by your own Darkness spell. Or Armor of Shadows to generally make up for low AC. It also makes for interesting character design, because you'll have to explain how your character got the invocation. For example, if you take it with variant human, you could say that your character once freed a sealed eldritch creature that granted him a wish in return.
I think you overestimate the crossbow expert feat. I had myself hopes for it in the past, but I searched because there are some details that were bugging me. And then I found it; in a Sage Advice, Jeremy Crawford said that even if the Crossbow Expert feat let's you ignore the loading property, you still need a free hand to reload it for extra attacks (or next turn attacks). So, you can't dual wield hand crossbows or shortsword + hand crossbow, so this is a -100 to fashion. You are stuck with a single mini crossbow, doing pew-pew from behind a corner. LAAAAME
You can do the dual wield hand crossbows or shortsword and hand crossbow for 1 turn and then must drop one of the hand crossbows/shortsword. So yea, it was more designed to make hand crossbow an effective combat weapon than to increase stylistic play.
@@Hon_cb1kr Yes and no. While on the whole, it's kinda meh, it's great for role-playing. I can also think of examples of times where being able to perfectly remember everything in the last month could be busted. But the real time it shines is for a Sherlock Holmes detective type character.
I've just started a new campaign as a sword-and-board paladin, variant human, and I took the Heavy Armor Master feat for the +1 to STR and some additional damage soaking. I fully expect that, at higher levels, the 3 damage soak on nonmagical bludgeon/pierce/slash will fade to irrelevance. But holy crap at low levels it's been great. The rest of my party has a cleric, a sorcerer, a divination wizard, a bard, and a warlock. I mainly just run up to the best chokepoint and dodge while the party blasts everything around me, and they and keep me topped up with heals and stacked buffs. And whenever the divination Wizard has a pocket 20 to go I can reliably do MASSIVE burst DPS on some unsuspecting BBEG by staking a smite spell with divine smite. It's been a blast. But in any case: The damage soak at low levels where you're frequently taking lots of attacks from low-damage enemies is insane for my PC's normal combat role. Loving it.
The healer feat comment resonates so much with me. I play a bard in a group where all the other players are new players and as healing I have only healing word I(which is the only healing magic we have in the 4 PC party) and right now I had to change my character slightly to give them some tough love, as they would like to be healed when they lose hit points and I only heal when they go down. My character was an easy-going grandpa guy looking for a last hurray, now he looks at his blood-covered friends and says you still stand on your own, you are good, let's go
I thought you only got one reaction, and attacks of opportunity counted. So Sentinel wouldn't be generating so many attacks of opportunity because you can only use your reaction on one
Spell Sniper is really good and fairly versatile for almost any caster or caster-multiclass. It gives things like Firebolt, Eldritch Blast, and Chill Touch (which in and of itself has a great utility in blocking the target from healing until your next turn) a ridiculous range of 240ft. It also increases the range on melee attack spell rolls, like for Thorn Whip (which has a 60ft range w/ SS), and cantrips like Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade increase to 10ft if your DM goes by rules as written. Plus you get to pick an attack-roll cantrip from *any* spell list minus Paladin.
We have a doctor themed character that is an artificer. He puts sanctuary on himself and basically just feeds people potions, healer feat for using the healing kits, or heals with spells. The character is opposed to hurting anything that can think for itself so he doesnt really attack but is definitely the party mvp.
Thanks for the shout out, I'm looking forward to delivering some awesome maps for your Patreon!
Guessing #1 is Lucky
Edit: Didn't even need to spend a luck point lol
yep i guessed it to lol
Same
When people play dnd, does anyone actually take the lucky feat anyways?
@@nyjel2813 I have 5 players all with the lucky feat
Same
"Why would you buy healing potions ever?"
My rogue, with a bandolier of healing potions, Keoghtom's Ointment, and the healer feat: Because you die when I say you die
I always insist that my party have 1 healing potion per person, distributed out. The idea being, when there’s one person who can’t heal left standing at the end of combat and everyone’s bleeding out, the solution is right there.
Holy cow, and my old monk never could afford even 1 potion 😂
FYI: "Shapshooter" is what we call it in Boston.
Shahp-shoouta
And you don't have to be Wicked Smaht to take it, but taking it is "wicked Smaht"
LMAO
Spellcheck! Lol
@@rcschmidt668 I believe "r/whoosh" is an appropriate response to your comment! Unless of course you were just trying to make a joke and it FAILED miserably!
As a rogue with sharpshooter, lucky, alert, and crossbow expert: I have no idea what you’re talking about; this isn’t broken at all ;)
Your Abilities Scores are probably not the best though, am I right? 😂
@@mamneo2 at level 12 you can have these feats and an 18dex, not terrible. at 10 you can have these feats and a 16dex, with variant human.
Lol. I wanted to make a glass cannon wizard. He has a con of 5. But he's variant human so at 4th lvl I have alert and spell sniper. I just fire bolt from 200 feet away
We rolled stats
@SaviorOfNirn I have terrible luck. I'd end up with my main stat being like 12.
Important to note about Lucky is that when you have advantage/disadvantage, you roll the d20 in addition to the two you already roll. You then choose wich of the three rolls to use since the feat does not have a limit to amount of rolls to use and choose from. What this means is that you can turn disadvantage to super advantage ( best of three rolls). Jeremy Crawford has confirmed this is how it works RAW and RAI.
Now pair that with elven accuracy. 4 dice roll... that as a rouge with sneak attack or an Paladin with smite...
What about when you have neither advantage nor disadvantage? Perform the titular spray and pray… close your eyes to force disadvantage and use luck to get super advantage.
@@royjaskowski905 your eyes can deceive you don't trust them
The rules say you dont compound advantages or disadvantages. So is not using luck when you have advantage not braking that rules?
@@Donkeyearsa Lucky doesn't give you advantage, it gives you an extra roll and you choose which roll to use.
Yes, you are reading that correctly.
You missed the most important thing about warcaster that is casting with your hands full. Pretty much obligatory in sword and board paladins and some hexblades
I was thinking exactly the same. Concentration is super important for melee casters, and this helps with that, but being able to perform somatic components while holding weapons is godly for certain classes/builds.
Dual-wielding casters appreciate it too; and in games where damaging cantrips are outlawed or nerfed (for any number of reasons), casters with bows, crossbows, and firearms almost require warcaster.
@@havokmusicinc people outlaw damage cantrips?
agreed, it's less about full on casters like wizard and sorc doing opportunity attacks and more about more martial oriented casters now being able to cast while having sword and shield or dual wielding.
@Bart Devogel Eh, Artificers need a set of artisan's tools, thieves' tools, or an Infused item for all spells, you'll likely have one of your Infusions on your weapon or shield if you're consistently using one, so no juggling necessary there.
As others have mentioned, Elven Accuracy should at least have gotten a mention. Having 3d20 where you pick the highest is super good, and every class that would attack with dex, int, wis, and cha can get a lot of out of this. Even half-elves can take this feat.
TBH it is bit of an overkill. You rarely miss at advantage anyway
@@bizzybuzz2198 its more for crit fishing
ooh i like that since i use a assassin
welp sht its for elves god damnit
@@firstnamelastname7298 Yeah if it didn't have that restriction it would be even crazier.
But then I’d have to play an elf...
"I'm going number and rank them in order"
Me: I wish you good luck in the wars to come
I feel like Observant should get some more love. So long as you can see somebody talking and you know their language, they pretty much can't hide any verbal secrets from you at all. Add that to the Perception bonus, and that shady advisor whispering something to the guard captain is about to have his plans revealed real quick
You don't even have to actually know the language, just understand it (so combo it with the spell comprehend language and it becomes even better)
@@danielerbe8515 take it as a monk and easily have passive perception above 20...this is how you achieve the knowledge of the universe
I think it is a little appreciated feat because it requires role playing.... and is not just about maxing damage...
We played a death dungeon where the goal was for the DM to kill us before we made it to the bbeg, and that was the day my DM learned to loath three things: Halfings, Lucky, and *"GOD DAMNED MONKS"*
For reference, I was a halfling rogue with the lucky feat, and my friend was a human monk. We reached a hallway that basically seesawed into a lava pit with next to no chance of survival.
My halfing immediately grabbed the dragonborn cleric next to him, and stood rooted in place with slippers of spider climb while spamming lucky any time I felt my roll was too lol, *and* refilling any ones as a halfing.
The monk.... The god damned monk.... He stabbed his sword into the ground/wall as he was falling, and proceeded to hang there while my halfing and the cleric balanced things out. The DM decided to use this to shake him loose, saying he had to make another strength check to hold on. He fails, but has misty step as a racial to just.... Teleport back up to stand on the handle. Dex check, fail, fall. Welp, now he's going through ki points like I go through coffee in order to stop his fall and run *back up* the now slanted floor and get back to us as everything settles into position.
His final words regarding the situation? "Oh, and (DM)? I still have 3 ki points left."
That just sounds awesome!! A super wily halfling and monk doing monky things.
"Human monk" "Has misty step as a racial" Dah what?
@@TheLordNeko I assume it's one of the Dragon Marks from Eberron. They're basically alternate racial traits for some races, and one of them lets a human cast Misty Step.
I take it this is before level 9 when monks can just run up walls or over water and was using ki for step of the wind to climb faster or the fall was high enouph they needed to use the dash to get up even with the running up walls without costing extra movement
@@kyzer42 Passage is definitely one of the ones I preferred the pre Rising version. Instead of just normal self only 30 foot Misty Step once per Long Rest it was essentially non spell "Misty Step" *that scaled to your walking speed* and allowed you to bring a willing creature your Size or smaller that wasn't over its carrying capacity once per Long Rest. Didn't have the "Spells of the Mark" feature, but the old version was insane and awesome for a Monk
For those of you who don't get the reference, the Arcbound Ravager Skullclamp combo was essentially a way to keep sacrificing a creature to add attack and defense bonuses to arcbound ravager, essentially making it the most OP card in the game stat-wise after just a few rounds
we love a mtg nerd
@@joeygorman3174 :)
Don't forget the crazy card draw it gives you. Even without the combo skull clamp is so nutty
@@BimdoeDoll Everything about the combo is absolutely nutty.
The card combo's with itself even without the Ravager - for one mana you sac a card and get 2 cards. So broken. I love it when in all of my EDH decks.
Oh wow. Skullclamp, they changed it to the -1 because they thought the +1 was too strong. I greatly appreciate the reference
Issue is that the -1 means it can kill itself, and it basically is it’s own engine.
Yeah, the fix that was intended to make it more balanced inadvertently made it arguably more powerful, and definitely more ubiquitous.
As a former magic player, when you say broken magic card (combo implied) I got it immediately even if I don't know the combo directly.
Skullclamp plus old Krenko is so annoying in Commander.
@@davidsuda6110 I still shiver when I hear the words Channel and Fireball.
Sentinel is the "I'M NOT FINISHED WITH YOU!" feat.
Opinion: Sentinel should baked into reach polearms and GWM should be baked into two handers. Then bake in polearm master into the quarter staff.
This makes weapon classes unique past "two handed or one handed?" and "pick the highest damage die".
In one of the books I remember hearing about flail mastery and how it adds a modifier if the opponent has a shield or something along those lines. Add that as a baseline as well, one handers should get traits as well.
The punture/slash/blunt damage does come into play sometimes but it doesn't change on paper mechanics so I don't include it to the uniqueness of weapons. (Although trying to cut a rope with a maul is hilarious)
@@SkyNinja759 You're saying weapons should come with free feats as features innate to the weapon? Sounds OP unless it's some kind of magical weapon. It'd be more balanced if you had to take a feat specifically for that weapon that has those abilities
@@SilentlyWe It isn't over powered if everyone has them. It creates more diverse combat besides "I hit the guy", without taking battlemaster. The only people who wouldn't benefit from this is wizards and other spell heavy classes, which are already diverse when it comes to actions in combat.
@@SkyNinja759 Well martials are already vastly superior to casters in combat, especially early game, so that would further upset that balance. But also, those features would just add pure power without actually adding diversity. If you wanted more diversity in physical combat, adding features that were situational and also had drawbacks would be the way to go to make things more interesting
@@SilentlyWe Dice wise, that can be argued. Especially early game.
Rework casters to have unique cantrips and we're set. A lot of direct damage cantrips are vanilla, much like regular weapons.
I want to see unique roles to make martial classes even more varied. Much like how casters can specialize in different schools.
Me playing a dex build paladin rogue with alert: *laughs in sneak smite*
I don't know if you thought about this, but please take assassin archetype. Automatic crit on surprised enemies
@@rirriuk8401 assassinating paladin? uuuuuuuuh. lol
I’m playing a rouge paladin with mobile, run in, sneak attack smite, bonus action dash out.
@@rirriuk8401 i hav and although I haven't played with her much and don't have alert yet but do have booming blade added as a cantrip so ya know max dmg on a surprised enemy is over 100 in one hit at 5th level. i play her in a server with many other pc's and can one-shot almost all of them if I get lucky enough. (they go till 10th lvl.) also thinking about adding mobile like Tennessee Ponderer suggested.
@@rirriuk8401 auto crit + assassinate + smite + death cleric(eyes) = DIE
Not gonna lie, I still think taking magic initiate for just "Find Familiar" (not even considering the game-breaking cantrips) is worth more than most of this list, because familiars are kinda OP and can use the "Help" in and out of combat
Not to mention if you're playing classes like Rogue, (or even Cleric or Druid if you decide to be weird and play them as Melee casters) it can be highly beneficial in boosting overall melee damage output.
It is the only feat that has the capabilities of increasing melee damage output without a penalty to hit attached to it (asides from Martial Adept, but that one doesn't count because it's a once per short/long rest ability).
For instance, if you are a Rogue Assassin with this, you can get Find Familiar + Booming Blade and one other Cantrip of your choice
Not only can you make your familiar give you advantage on your attack roll, but if you're 5th level or higher, Booming Blade starts adding d8's of additional thunder damage when you hit with it.
So, when you manage to get Sneak Attack to trigger on an enemy, assuming you're at 5th level and you used Booming Blade on your turn, you can deal a pretty alarming 3d6+2d8 damage before modifiers at effectively no cost to you the player.
Then of course if you surprise an enemy as a Rogue Assassin, you can turn that into 6d6+4d8 before modifiers. That can leave a nasty wound on most creatures your dm would throw at you at that level, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume it would outright kill most normal creatures.
Then it has the added effect of dealing bonus thunder damage if the target decides to move on their turn, you basically get to hold an enemy hostage with d8's of Thunder damage, unless they're an absolutely vicious brute of an enemy that can afford to ignore that threat, it's enough to force them to consider whether or not they should or shouldn't move.
Then you have the versatility of a familiar that can be used as an Advantage bot or as a scouting unit for your party. The Magic Initiate feat got brushed over in this and I feel like it got treated pretty unfairly. Not to mention, in the context with Lucky, it can compete on even terms with it because of the fact that it can throw out Advantage on a nearly constant basis, and it allows the party to see what's going on in the room ahead of them without exposing themselves or blowing their cover so they can see exactly what they are getting themselves into and gives themselves a chance to plan their entry.
Familiar is cool, but I dont think 100g is worth one help action.
Yes, but bear with me here for this obscure counter: Fireball.
A familiar has about 3 HP, so it will die to absolutely any AoE effect.
Let me revise that last bit about it being an Advantage bot.
This is assuming that the DM DOES NOT completely rip into it by having one of the enemies try to kill it, but even then it's kinda valuable to just have because even if it's getting attacked, it can make an enemy waste an attack on a 1HP creature instead of the far more threatening player.
And yeah, it sucks getting it killed, but if it helps land a few attacks, do some scouting, and absorb one attack that would've normally gone towards a player, it's still highly valuable and more than worth 10GP
I'd recommend Ritual Caster over Magic Initiate. You still get Find Familiar, and you also get up to FIFTEEN additional utility spells that you can cast without using spell slots: Alarm, Water Breathing, Detect Magic, Leomund's Tiny Hut, Comprehend All Language, etc.
I'll take the open opportunity to acquire a dozen more spells, vs learning 2 cantrips.
Oh yes. Fear my polearm master + sentinel combo. What? What do you mean I only get one reaction per round?
Yeah, I don't get why that's a game breaking combo: just throw four opponents against him and he's done
The Bugbear Barbarian in my dungeon crawl discovered the one reaction thing difficult so I allowed him to remove the "AOO for enemies attacking adjacent allies" from Sentinel for "a number of reactions equal to his proficiency." I must say I like the fact that now instead of being swarmed by 3 enemies of appropriate level he gets swarmed by 6-8 enemies of appropriate level. DM giveth and taketh accordingly. The player loves the character so much more now so the rebalancing was worth it.
That’s why you need a friend next to you with Shield Master to create an opportunity attack for you (that doesn’t use your reaction) via Shield bash.
@@evannibbe9375 shield bash doesn't provoke opportunity attacks; its forced movement
Yeah, the sentinel polearm master is a trap combo IMO. Is not bad by any means. They seem to have synergy. Until you remember that you have a single reaction, so you either use one or the other, and the whole combo falls apart against more than a single enemy, or against most enemies with legendary actions or any way of ranged attack. Sure is cool and fun when it works. But just going either polearm master or sentinel and +2 str is probably stronger overall
I agree with most of these, but I do think you underestimate the fact that you can pick "Find Familiar" with either Ritual Caster or Magic Initiate, which (RAW) you can then have take the help action to give you advantage on most rolls. I would argue this could be the best feats or should at least take one of the top spots. I know you gave Magic Initiate an honorable mention but you did not mention the possibility of picking "Find Familiar", which would not require you to invest in a spellcasting ability score either.
Magic Initiate with Find Familiar (Owl) or Goodberry is easily better than Healer.
DM: "The goblin uses his readied action to shoot a bolt at your owl"
Player: "Oh"
his point was that most classes can get magic, so you can get find familiar other ways even if it's only a wizard spell lol
@@VoltCruelerz healer can heal your whole party maybe 10hp out of combat every short rest.
good berry can heal 10 hp total per day.
the not eating or drinking if you don't have a druid or ranger in the party is really good though
@@VoltCruelerz problem with using it for goodberry is that you only have one cast of it a day which means if anyone goes down more than 10 times in a day you are kinda screwed where as with the healer feat bringing someone up to 1 hp from dying doesnt actually cost a use of the healer's kit you just have to have one on you
Healer + Thief Rogue is how you break the game. Yes, I would like to get downed character back up using bonus action and cheap, easily renewable resource.
I can definitely attest to Lucky being the #1 feat. I created a Dragonborn Monk whose background / monastery was the Drunken Master. The lucky feat compliments his background and personality perfectly. As long as you can identify the key moments to use your luck points it will never fail you. Key moments to consider are situations where you could change the dynamic of a fight, maintain stealth when enemies are near by (I.e. life threatening situations ) if you start using them to do cool things that are not out of necessity you will short yourself. I also, try to refrain from using them early in the day to save from having to plan out your next long rest.
Sharpshooter is hands down a better feat than GWM for one major reason: the Archery fighting style.
Being able to get that +10 damage at a -3 to hit instead of a -5 is a massive advantage, and should not be overlooked.
Then again, we have reckless attack.
Also, great weapon fighting makes the average damage bonkers.
Sharpshooter is at a -5 the same as GWM
@@kidthegeek archery fighting style was mentioned
@@gromaxe ah, I sorry I missed that part
Also the combination with ignoring cover eliminates the main reason why Ranged attacks are "harder" then melee attacks.
High Chr characters should look at Inspiring Leader feat IMO
I made speeches all the time as the Paladin. XD
theres much better ways to get temp Hp or even raise the max Hp of your party for a little while. Aid when cast at 3rd level will allow you to imbue three creatures with an additional 10 Hp. assuming you are maxing your Charsma then at this point the feat is about the same yes you can technically get more creatures but lets be frank most groups are 4 to 5 players so you can still cover the squishy players and let the barbarians rage cover him. aid lasts 8 hours so it covers a short rest just like Inspiring leader but it does take a spell slot but from there it solidly starts leaning towards aids favor cause each spell slot after that grants an additional 5 Hp. Aid only takes an action to cast and when you are heading towards a bbeg or chasing after them you dont always have time to sit around for ten minutes listening to your paladin or warlock or sorcerer give a rousing speach
The only issue with this is that it really doesn't scale at higher levels
@@fernandofuentesmoreno5149 the numbers sound nice when you add them together but im looking at effective negation of damage lets take this for example party level 9 fighting 2 stone giants average damage per swing 19 bludgeoning 2 attacks per turn two giants. Inspiring leader 14 temp Hp Random ass Npc's not included cause everythings great under the right senario your looking at 14 THP per player = 56 TMP total (never played in a game where that many short rests occurred in a single session so either your gm runs a vastly different style of game than me and most of the people i know do or you've not actually gotten to play which hey no shame in that.) temp Hp doesnt stack with other Temp HP period. so assuming everyones taking damage over an even spread each player is taking 19 points of damage of which the temp Hp covers 14 of everyone took 5 damage and the Temp Hp is gone that sounds great you've reduced damage by 3/4 for one round but realistically 2 two people are gonna be targeted down usually the front line fighters by the gaints so instead you have 2 players each take 38 damage take off the 14 THP and you're left with 24 points of damage to soak so you've effectively reduced the damage by roughly 1/3. now while your right and both are better id rather take the healer feat as he said 5 gold for (characterlevel+ 5(wisdom)) x 10 heals its exactly the same amount of Hp as inspiring leader and can be used just as often medkits are super cheap and dont weigh that much so keeping a bunch on hand is not an issue and its more useful for any given situation like a party member being down coming across a wounded person or animal. Inspiring leader might even be good but you can go past its absolute limit by the time you have access to 5th level spells.
@@madmanwithaplan1826 the game tells you how to setup and adventuring day. If the players face 8 or so encounters (not all of which need to be combat) the players should get 1 to 2 short rests. You can have less or even none but the frontline will get screwed and need to heal and anyone who gets stuff back on a short rest will you know want more shit. Preventing them from being able to get anything back usually just means they will attempt to save it as far as they can and just nova the boss anyway. As well as making the players want to min max more to avoid getting killed.
As a commander & D&D player, I appreciate the skullclamp reference. Mistakes were made
I'd say Commander is the one place Skullclamp isn't broken tho. Then again I might be biased because I fucking love it in my Hapatra EDH
Personally a big fan of heavy armor master, while only useful for martial classes it's amazing to see that horde of kobolds do little to no damage
This is a top tier feat at low levels, when you get up there a bit its less effective, but still useful, for sure
Hey Cody, you actually got something slightly wrong about the Halfling’s bountiful luck trait.
You said you can use it to negate disadvantage, however in the PHB on page 173 it specifically says things like Halfling Luck (Calls Halfling Luck out by name), that reroll, can only reroll the die (or dice) that got a one. Then the disadvantage still is applied as normally.
This means that, let’s say, you roll a nat 10 and a nat 1. You reroll the 1, and it turns into a 15. You then still have disadvantage, so you rolled a 10, and rerolled the 1 into a 15, meaning your roll before modifiers is a 10 in this situation.
Otherwise good video, just figured I should point this out as it seems no one else did.
I believe that's how he was trying to describe the ability. I didn't get any indication from his that Bountiful Luck turned Disadvantage into a normal roll, just that you could reroll the 1 and that the 1 wouldn't count.
@@aodhstormeyes No, Cody literally describes the exact opposite of how rerolls affect rolls made with advantage or disadvantage. jellyfish0112 has got it right and that comment deserves a lot more upvotes. I've had to let a couple players in my game down because misconceptions like these. Though, when they realized it meant that halflings could still reroll the one if they got a 1 and a 2 with advantage rather than just taking the two it seemed to soften the blow a bit.
No, disadvantage settles on one dice. It's the same with advantage, really.
When the situation for the multiple rolls comes up, the lower or higher is decided on the moment it's rolled by the game and its mechanics; at disadvantage, when you roll the lower of the two dice, the game has decided based on the rules for THAT to be the dice you have rolled. Using any feat or adjustment to that does not magically pre-empt the disadvantage system. The second dice is just no longer in play, once the system has settled on the greater or lesser roll, and dealing with the roll afterwards proceeds as normal.
@@Levyathyn The rule I am referencing literally calls Halfling Luck out by name, and clarifies that the way I described is how it works.
PHB Pg. 173
Halflings Luck and Bountiful Luck are 2 completely separate things. and cody and you both got it right.
I honestly think this could be split in to two seperate lists. Best Character Defining feats, and Best Universally Brilliant feats. Because it is so hard to compare, say, Sentinel or Crossbow Master, which make an entire archetype work, to Lucky or Alert, which are probably not going to be the first feat you pick on your character, but you are liable to take for pretty much every character eventually. It's like comparing steak and icecream. They're great for totally different situations, and best if you have one and then the other.
You could also break the Character Definers down further into Best Feats For Melee Weapon Characters, Best For Ranged Weapon Characters, Best for Spellcasters, Best Utility, etc.
I took alert right away, my character was always surprised, always near the bottom of iniative list and always getting hit before they could do anything.
So id say alert was justified
Sometimes those kind of feats can be really cool for making characters, I love making and seeing characters built around those kind of feats
You can take some really great spells with magic initiate that don't rely on an ability score. Minor Illusion, Mage Hand, Find Familiar for example.
I've often taken Mage Armor as well for my high dex characters, as it essentially gives them free +1 studded leather armor that they don't even have to wear. Add in the 8 hour duration, no concentration, and the free once a day casting that you never have to spend a spell known or a prepared spell slot, the spell really makes use of that feat. Find Familiar is almost certainly the better choice, but I typically prefer learning that with ritual Caster: wizard, so that I can change its shape throughout the day.
And consider getting Mage armor for something like a moon druid. All those big animals with 12 AC suddenly have better armor all day without concentrating on Barkskin.
Find familiar on any class with Cure Wounds seems like a god send, to simply ignore the whole pesky touch range. Would have been alot stronger if Clerics where more blasty then sword and boardy. Just my take on it.
Yeah. Just get healing word and make the healer feat nearly obsolete before even counting the 2 cantrips. Even if you pick a bard spell list for it while you have 0 in charisma, it's still better than healer.
Honestly taking it as a low level artificer to give you some wizard cantrips to work with rather than just the 2 you get is nice
I still wanna play a Halfling Divination Wizard with Lucky and Bountiful Luck.
Me too.
If you ever do that, I hope your DM repays you’re cruelty 😂
I hope it's a one shot cuz there might be a homicide during a campaign lol
TOO MUCH POWER!
What about using the new choronurgy wizard instead?
While early levels you can just make a roll into disadvantage or advantage, but at level 14 you can as a reaction just straight up force a roll to succeed or to fail at the cost of gaining exhaustion.
Someone I’ve played with have combined the Sentinel feat with Polearm Master, Hordebreaker, and Tunnel Fighting to destroy pretty much any encounter and to protect us squishies. Most overpowered ranger ever.
Tunnel Fighter is so incredibly broken with PAM and Sentinel. I guarantee you it will never see a true release in its current UA state.
"Alright son, just, hold the spear in front of you. When they walk into it, you 'll hit them." Broken in fantasy worlds.
It is pretty similar in real life tbh.
One feat worth mentioning is Inspiring Leader. It is very close to Healer but instead of being reactive its proactive, granting temp hp to the entire party. Another one to make your DM cry early game is heavy armor master, reducing (almost) every hit to you by 3 early game is a huge deal, especially when most enemies will average 4-8 damage per attack
Me, a wizard in a party with no healers: laughs in artificer initiate
Personally, I really like the Telekinetic feat from Tasha’s Cauldron. I don’t even necessarily think it’s amazing lol, it’s just so fun to mess around with, and it’s interesting flavoring to add to your character. I wish more people talked about it
Resilient is indeed one of my favourite feats. Suddenly my druid has more health and resistance, or my dex knight fighter suddenly is as good at dodging as the rogue.
I use war caster primarily for ability to do somatic components with your hands occupied by weapons. It allows you to sword and board and cast shield.
Yeah he missed the boat on that one.
Loving the quarantine look, dude.
"screw it, I don't need a hairdresser if I don't have hair."
My friend found a pretty neat combo with the Alert feat and that Warlock Invocation that causes you to not need sleep anymore/be put to sleep magically. Now he has all the benefits of Alert all the time.
Lucky is the only feat I ban. It also can give you “super advantage” when used on a dice roll that is supposed to be with disadvantage. According to sage advice, you take the best D20 regardless. Specific beats general.
to be honest, while it's op, it kinda is fitting that this super lucky dude can make the most dire problems into an advantage
Personally, I think the Sentinel-Polearms master combo flameing is overblown. If the GM builds encounters (knowing what feats the party has) and their only option to fight the party fighter is for a single mob to rush forwards and attempt to attack, then they probably should have built an encounter with more mobs, or ranged attackers. Even if it comes down to a situation where the only option for the GM is to rush the opponent with a single mob to get into reach, the player's combo still comes down to a single attack roll to see if they can stop it, and that attack roll can fail, or be sabotaged by the particular monster's abilities. Compared to so many other things in 5E, I don't see why this is viewed as some unbeatable combo, especially when it's an inherently defensive tactic.
It's not unbeatable but imagine if you have lucky as well or are a handling. That's when the combo becomes unbeatable
Its good but I agree, not that extreme, you only get one reaction and the combo is very feat costly.
Wizards have good spells fighters have feats etc. part of life!!!!
I will say that my defensive pally might take sentinel just to make him the threat that everything tries to murder. I say try cause ac19 is beautiful. And there is the 4 healing capable party members in the group.
by level 5 you probably get extra attack. You get a bonus action attack with polearm master every turn (and add strength to damage as usual). And you get a AoO almost every turn. So one feat, 4 attacks per turn by level 5, all at 10 feet range. Take variant human for the sentile feat to be extra annoying. My point is that polearm master is very broken as it is. Even just the basic damage is rediculous. 3d10+1d4+12 just from halberd+strength using PM.
I feel like Elven Accuracy is pretty cool for elven sneak builds. Planning a Ranger/Rogue that will be using stealth, surprise, etc. to get advantage and this feat basically gives you three rolls anytime you have advantage
One thing about Lucky you didn't mention unless I missed it, RAW it turns Disadvantage into Elven Accuracy style Super Advantage for anything that doesn't specifically require you to not have Disadvantage such as Sneak Attack
“*not sponsoret by the resilient feat” btw thanks for the likes
I feel this. Resilient is too versatile to ignore.
69 likes lol
Nice speling
@@aplcrz I agree that it's good but I don't know why people think it's THAT good when the bonus isn't that big and effectively less than war caster until later in the game when your proficiency bonus increases. +1 to con is also nice, but if you're a gish it's no contest and one could argue that war caster is a top 3 feat for them.
@@evansmith2832 the good part of it isnt the +1 it's that it gives you proficiency in your con
Sentinel is very clearly limited by the Opportunity Attack rules which State that the character must use a reaction to take an opportunity attack. It‘s a very powerful feat and totally worthy of being on this list, but it is very clearly limited in effectiveness to the first mob that provokes.
true, but to be fair, when dealing with a horde or similar, stopping one enemy probably doesn't matter anyway.
You could let little ones past if you think the big one is going to move next. You don't have to take the AoO immediately
Yeah, was looking for this comment. Seems to be a rumor/myth that sentinel gives unlimited action economy.
If you're a Bugbear with a pole arm, you get to stop them at 15 feet which is pretty cool. Lol
Totally agree with Lucky as #1. I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't mention what I call "super advantage" though: Let's say you want to really make sure you hit the next attack, just declare that you are closing your eyes (giving you the blinded condition), attack with disadvantage, activate Lucky to roll another die, and then pick any of the 3 results! This give you a 14.26% chance of critting, by the way (27.1% if you are a Fighter Champion).
You didn't mention inspiring leader, I think that inspiring leader is a great feat that scales very well, very strong for 5+ parties. At level 4, it's about as strong as giving every single party member a free cure wounds before a big fight breaks out, every day, giving the healers more free hands to do other stuff than healing.
While I'm unsure what would be taken off (or moved down), I believe War caster deserves a spot on the list. Playing as any sort of melee spellcaster with war caster is broken. Someone leaves your range to go beat up the back line? No, Hold Person. A Demon suddenly runs wild in the town center and it runs by you to munch on some civilians? Banishment. Because of its sheer versatility in casting single-target spells as opportunity attacks, I believe it deserves a spot on the list.
PS: Its other abilities aren't half bad either, especially if your DM is very much into RAW and is saying that you can't use somatic components while holding a weapon and a shield and while I mentioned it's not as good as resilient for constitution, advantage shouldn't be taken lightly.
canis Canem Which is really why a human variant Warlock with Warcaster and Sentinel (minimum of two attacks per turn, and the ability to cast Eldritch blast twice (one with your action, once with your reaction) if an opponent either moves out of your space or attacks an ally) is the best thing to play (strictly for winning battles, not necessarily role play).
Dont forget paladins who use their spells for things other than smites. They have great spells that do more damage than smites over the course of 3 or 4 turns, but people dont like doing the math to realise they can better use their spell slots.
@@novaiscool1 You say "over the course of 3 or 4 turns" I hear "I like letting them live too long"
@@TheLordNeko honest opinion, the nonspell smites are trash in most circumstances.
Yeah I took war caster on my sorcadin, so I could booming blade any fools that tried to run away and to keep my bless and other concentration spells running. Plus I already had max CON. Clearly the better option in that situation.
He didn't even mention the part that Lucky turns Disadvantage into Hyper Advantage.
Because it (and bountiful luck) DONT do it by RAW. Altering 1 of multiple rolls used for a check, attack or save =/= advantage and disadvantage altering which of the rolls is used for the result.
@@ANDELE3025 "You have inexplicable luck that seems to kick in at just the right moment.
You have 3 luck points. Whenever you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can spend one luck point to roll an additional d20. You can choose to spend one of your luck points after you roll the die, but before the outcome is determined. *_You choose which of the d20s is used for the attack roll, ability check, or saving throw._* "
@@Dharengo one could argue that you resolve the disadvantage as one roll and then can lucky an additional roll, but that the potentially superior roll that was lost in the disadvantage is not "recoverable" for the purpose of the luck ability.
Matt O'Kane The text says nothing about treating multiple dice as one roll. It says in no uncertain terms that 1) you roll an additional die, and 2) you choose which die to use.
@@Dharengo when you "make an attack roll" with disadvantage only one roll goes through.
Say you roll a 5 and a twenty, your roll is 5. That IS your attack roll.
Then you may use your lucky feat to make a SECOND attack roll and chose which you prefer.
The rules on advantage/disadvantage doesn't say "make two attack rolls", it says "roll a second dice when you make THE[singular] roll".
I’m surprised you didn’t mention Thief Rogues using the Healer feat to become combat medics.
I think Eleven Accuracy could deserve a mention. Basically rolling with triple advantage... or double advantage depending on how you want to look at it. That is 3 dice you can roll when you have advantage. That is 3 chances to roll a Crit. I don't know the percentages, and what not. But that is amazing.
War caster also allows you to use somatic components when you are carrying a shield. That can be huge.
Healer is #7 but magic initiate (goodberry) didn't make it on the list? 10 free heals with no limit on how many times per PC.
Combo that with just 1 level of life cleric and each of those berries heal for 4.
Shield and Find Familiar are also fantastic MI picks. I feel this spell is underrated.
This is a very fair point.
Life Cleric Goodberry is really only useful if you can cast Goodberry more than once a day. For battlefield pick-me-ups it's only as useful as... Healer, actually.
Shield is also only useful if you can use it more than once a day.
@@CovaDax Also a swashbuckler rogue can take this and gain access to Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade and a once per day free shield spell.
The reason I love War caster is because it allows you to have sword and shield (or 2 handed weapon) and still cast spells.
Without it, you can't swap freely to/from spell-casting and hitting stuff.
You can cast spells with a two-handed weapon. You only need 2 hands to attack with a 2 handed weapon, holding it with 1 is fine. So when not attacking with your weapon you have a hand free for casting a spell. You will use your "once per turn free item interaction" for putting away or drawing your spell focus though.
Maarten Tops Then you have your spell focus in one hand and your weapon in the other hand.
@@deborahphillips500 look: you start with a 2 handed weapon in one hand and focus in other. 1st turn: you attack by taking of your focus or you cast and take it off for attacking next turn. 2nd turn: you either attack or take your focus in your hand to cast. 3rd turn: you cast and take your focus off or you take it off and attack. See how its easy to swap around without any problem
Brother, keep doing what you do, the way you do it. I've been playing since AD&D and I love listening to smart, articulate, and fun discourse about the game. You're great!
Awwwwwww shucks
Dear Taking20
Just wantet to say that I love your videoes and all of your content. It is so refreshing to see a joyful and positive gaming channel who promotes the best aspects of our hobby. I am a soon to be 41 year old man who has been dm'ing on and off for the past 25 years. I had a 10 year hiatus of dm burnout syndrom, but was brought back into the fold when 5ed hit. When I look for inspiration, I turn to your videoes.
Thank you for being here on youtube with your intertaining and highly informational content.
You are far too kind!
Now for the actual 10 best feats =p (I understand it is not objective, but here is my preference):
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1) Elven Accuracy
2) Lucky
3) Sentinel
4) Polearm Master
5) War Caster
6) Sharp Shooter
7) Resilient
8) Great Weapon Master
9) Crossbow Expert
10) Mobile
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3 Honorable mentions Alert, Magic Initiate, Healer (Healing people is good, but a feat that just effectively reduces the cost of healing potions is just not going to make my top 10)
Bountiful luck is just not good in my opinion. it can only target allies within 30 feet, takes your reaction, and can only change the rolls of Nat 1s. In addition it does not work with disadvantage like you think it does:
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From the PHB on advantage and disadvantage:
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When you have advantage or disadvantage and something in the game, such as the halfling's Lucky trait, lets you reroll or replace the d20, you can reroll or replace only one of the dice. You choose which one. For example, if a halfling has advantage or disadvantage on an ability check and rolls a 1 and a 13, the halfling could use the Lucky trait to reroll the 1.
For some explanation on these choices:
Elven Accuracy: gives you Super Advantage on anything not strength based. Without flanking rules this is a nice feat and can be built around, WITH flanking rules this is bonkers.
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Lucky: You know why this is good, I know why this is good, we all know why this is good.
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Sentinel: Combos with Pole Arm Master, and is just outright good on it's own. Protect your allies and keep enemies from fleeing
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Polearm Master: Combos with War Caster , Great Weapon Master (more strikes, and a weaker attack to slap that +10 damage on) and Sentinel. More opportunity attacks are always good and makes sure you can always do something with your bonus action
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War Caster: If you are a caster and want to hold a weapon this is a must. If you need to make sure you hold concentration, this is a must. want to hit enemies that are running from you as a caster? you get the idea.
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Sharp Shooter: Are you using a bow? you need this. You also better have chosen archery as your fighting style.
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Resilient: Con is the big one here, but honestly, if you are at an odd number on one important stat you aren't proficient with saving throws in? Don't forget to look at this.
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Great Weapon Master: The less accurate version of Sharp Shooter. The bonus attacks are sometimes relevant, but I honestly would never take this before Polearm Master so...
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Crossbow Expert: Are you using Crossbows? then this is MANDATORY. Do you sometimes cast ranged attack spells in melee? then this is good.
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Mobile: Several good abilities for melee DPS. Melee combatants need speed to get on casters, they need to avoid damage getting to casters, and they need to prevent casters from slowing them down while getting to casters. This feet helps with all of these. It also helps run away when you bite off more than you can chew
I think Elven Accuracy should have at least been a notable mention, especially because Half Elves can get it too.
I was disappointed that it wasn't even mentioned
My half-elf assassin rogue has it, and it is great! I have it to offset sharpshooter's attack penalty.
Changeling intensives
@@plazmathunderbolt I use it on my Sea Elven Samurai Fighter and it's freaking bonkers, especially with Sharpshooter.
Totally agree. Especially now that rogues have the option with Steady Aim to generate advantage on demand. Very strong option.
Sentinel's big cap is a single reaction. Sure, it's powerful when you combo with Polearm, but you still only have one attack of opportunity a turn.
ashtonthemelon No, you only use that reaction when creating an opportunity attack for yourself off of an enemy attacking your ally, otherwise you can have unlimited opportunity attacks if unlimited enemies (tbh having unlimited enemies in melee range requires playing in hyperbolic space) try leaving melee range around you.
You could also get shield master to create an opportunity attack for both yourself and an ally if you also have Sentinel.
Evan Nibbe No, under Oppurtunity Attack in the PHB it clearly says that taking an Opportunity attack uses up a reaction. So this sentinel/pole arm combo would only be effective against one enemy. There is nothing in either of those feats that grant the character extra reactions per round.
@@DesignerJTillman There's one way to get more opportunity attacks, but it requires being a level 18 Cavalier, so not something you would normally see.
@@mafarett Technically, you could also get a divine blessing or fiendish boon (even one in the samples that can be given by any Marilith does exactly that: Serpentine Reaction. This creature can take an extra reaction each round, but this reaction can be used only to make an opportunity attack."), but those are id say about as rare as a 18 Cavalier. The much more common option would be being a melee drood with the Shapechange spell.
Yes I agree, my understanding is a character gets 1 reaction & or bonus action per turn.
I feel like the fact that Polearm Sentinel requires 2 feats to get going makes it at least a tad more reasonable. Still too strong but a tad more reasonable. For most players that means 8th lvl. That's after people get access to stuff like Wall of Flame, Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility and Polymorph. Also just 1 lvl before stuff like Wall of Force, Mass Cure Wounds and Greater Restoration. At that point you're probably getting pretty used to fighting larger creatures and not having the chance to up your stats at that point is starting to sting.
For Variant Humans it's still a broken fucking combo tho, getting all that at 4th lvl is insane.
Unless variant human so 4th level
@@terribletitan5024 Ye i already said that :)
Also Polearm Master only works against melee enemies, does nothing special against ranged attacks. Remember, if the pole arm master DOES go to within 10ft of an enemy with a ranged weapon... the ranged-attacking enemy don't have disadvantage to shoot at the polearm user who is 10ft away. The ranged penalty only applies when shooting a hostile (and non-incapacitated) creature who is FIVE feet away from you and it doesn't provoke like in 3.5/PF1. Sentinel is irrelevant as well as they don't need to escape and while Sentinel would oblige that they shoot at the polearm master that's still dealing damage.
Treblaine If you’re clearly facing a ranged enemy, switch to a quarterstaff (still listed under polearm master) and lock them down in your 5’ reach.
It's not incredibly strong for a 2 feat drop. Basically it only works if you're fighting one on one with another medium creature without any access to ranged attacks. Plus, according to RAW, the enemy could still use disengage to close the distance to you, so you're basically using 2 feats to occasionally cost 1 creature an action
I like the Spell Sniper feat as like Sharpshooter it nullifies half and 3/4 cover, and doubles your spell range and gives you an attack cantrip of your choice from a selection of classes.
With half elves as boosted as they are, elven accuracy is an option that turns on the cheese with several builds, most notably warlocks with magic darkvision, and gloom stalker rangers
Love to see the MTG reference. your content is so helpful, i just got into dnd because I have nothing else to do during isolation so it's greatly appreciated
Ahhh Skullclamp my old friend, and enemy, my old frenemy.
War Cleric with a greatsword, hold person, and great weapon master. Throw in some Paladin and you will infuriate every dungeon master in existence.
I will add an option with Magic initiate Wizard, taking Booming Blade and going Tempest Domain with the same combo you mentioned. Since Great Weapon Master does NOT require you to have taken the attack action for it to go off or to choose to take the -5, you can use Booming Blade, max the thunder damage, score the free critical with Hold Person and get the bonus action attack all on top of each other.
Swashbuckler with a level of fighter and magic initiate and you become the ultimate 1v1 dueler
Well, I ran a war cleric. They start off feeling very strong and fall behind after level 5. Falling into a regular casting role when you can take things like spirit guardians and spiritual weapon and you can use guiding strikes on others at 6. The extra damage at 8 feels underwhelming. Unless you rolled incredibly well and have high str, con and Wis while using an ASI for GWM and another on resilient con/warmaster to maintain conentration in melee .
if you ever play a high level pvp one-shot: play a sorcerer (preferably stone), and grab a 9-lives stealer and as high of a strength boost item as you can (preferably belt of storm giant strength). quicken hold person, attack with your 9-lives stealer (booming blade), auto-critting and ripping their soul out of their body... I definetely don't speak from expirience ;)
I think Shield Master is worthy of an honorable mention, with bonus action knock an opponent prone+shield bonus to DEX saves+no dmg on passed DEX saves that normally do half. It is limited to sword and board characters but that didn't stop other build specific feats from making the list.
to push the combo with Pole arm and sentinel, you can also add Great weapon master for additional dmg and the Charger feat to push back a foe even further, resulting in an almost untouchable character when in comes to Duels.
0:23 my mind went "rank them down from number 10 to lucky" xD
"Skullclamp". Played Mirridon block standard, got that reference *golf clap*
I think that the action economy of having only one reaction makes Sentinel acceptable.
I agree. Additionally, I think the feat is more suited for tanking damage rather than dealing it. Yes, you do get to make attacks with it every now and then but that's more like a slap to any enemy that dares to attack someone other than you.
Magic Initiate is cool and all but I feel like people with Eberron should really look at the Abberant Dragonmark Feat. If you aren't trying to get a class-specific spell like Find Familiar, Healing Word, or Hex and just want a ranged attack option along with an ace up your sleeve then Abberant Dragonmark is great for a tank. The spell is based off your *Constitution* instead of a spellcasting stat, so you can still min-max your Champion Fighter.
There's other features too but I really recommend people look at the feat.
for the combo of polearm+sentinel, you can replace the 2h polearm with quarterstaff+shield nicely if you use vengeance paladin
When you brought up OG skullclamp I liked and subscribed 😂
I literaly fist bumpped and said "F**k Yeah" when the healer feat got on here.
Never underestimate ritual Caster
It is a good feat if your party has no caster, but basically only then.
Or for a campaign where you may not get a lot of rests to replenish spells.
That's not very useful since every party that lives past level 5 has either multiple casters, or enough gold to hire as many casters as they want. Plus, ritual casting is kind of a shit mechanic anyways.
@@LordBrittish It takes 10 m to cast a ritual, 1 hr for a short rest. Usually, you can just take the rest.
A few of my other favorite uses for resilient is Dexterity saves on fighters, Wisdom saves on Barbarians, fighters, monks, and rogues, and strength saves on rogues. Resilient good.
Mounted Combatant is another really good one. Very underused and very powerful, specially for paladins using the find steed and greater find steed spell.
Depending on build choice, tavern brawler is actually a pretty effective feat and just as fun.
Man you are rocking your new hairstyle!
When Mobile doesn't work on all builds. I love it on a swords bard with longstrider. Any Gish char who has longstrider. Really. I find it makes you much safer then you normally are. Instead of moving into combat, getting stuck in melee you can go in, do some poking them roll back out of the fight making them having to come to you and in any time where you're trying to run away. Mix in 2 levels in rogue then you can just attack then BA dash when moving away for 80 ft move which not many npcs can match with out dashing their selves. That is with out longstrider. I made a half elf Wood elf. Got the 5 ft move speed. Mobile, Pre cast longstrider and picked swords bard and at 10 I picked up haste. When Tabaxi are bursty. This set up makes my elf able to fly around on the ground like it's nothing. "It's rough turain are you sure you have enough mo- oh you have over 100 move speed per dash? You also have 2 dashes you can take and still able to cast a spell or attack? Ok." < Every dm when I run this set up in an high level game.
I have a 9th lvl hunter ranger with this and it's honestly awesome, especially if you pick up zephyr strike. I'm also planning on picking it up with a monk character I'm whipping up
Mobile got my Bladesinger wizard out of so many scrapes.
#3 is my favourite feat when I'm not playing a rogue archetype (which is rare). So glad that it made the list
The UA tunnel fighter fighting style for fighter makes sentinal+polearm master seriously good. By lvl 4 you can have a very nice build if you are the varient human
I know it's very specific, but getting High Drow Magic as a Drow Sorcerer is incredible useful. Sorcerers don't get a lot of spells known, and it's their biggest flaw. You get Detect Magic at will, and you learn two spell (Levitate and Dispel Magic). And you can cast both spells once for free, every long rest. If you get this at level 4, your spells known go up to 8 from 5, and they're all good spells.
I'm surprised tough didn't make the cut, it's one of my go to feats, especially for squishy casters
Its really just a bit more HP right? If it doesnt let you do anything and you might not need the extra bit of HP Then i dont see it as very usefull atleast not top 10 kinda usefull.
more hp is never good. It gives nothing useful... to be clear, more hp are fine, but if you need to waste a feat on those, it means your party is not working right.
@@NoZignature For context, it is EFFECTIVELY +4 CON (+2 HP per level retroactively). Paired with Resilient (+CON), you are getting Prof with CON and a massive HP boost. I've urged fellow players (and very recently my own players) to not underestimate it. I would take Tough over a +2 CON any day.
Imagine:
V. Human Wizard/Sorc/Warlock w/ Warcaster @1 (as most people do). At level 4 taking Resilient, at 8 take Tough for that sexy +16 HP. While it doesn't sound like much, at 20 it is +40 HP and ideal for the squishiest characters. Add in it gives ZERO fucks if you have a negative CON mod.
It's +4 con.... Without the additional bonuses that +4 con gives you. If it gave that bonus it'd be absolutely broken. As is, it's.... Pretty niche. Especially when at most you'll only get 40 extra hp *at lvl 20*, and I've watched things hit for 70+ with minimal effort well before that. Sometimes it'll help, but I'd rather just take the asi or lucky if I'm especially feeling like making my DM hate me.
@@Samagryn That's why I said it as I did. It has a HUGE value for those with the lowest HP (especially if your DM doesn't let you take average if you roll under it on level up) but is better when paired with Resilient.
If you have a negative CON modifer, you are literally losing HP every level and if you have a 20 CON (and therefore in RAW cannot get more CON), Tough helps to break the game even more.
Tough is one of those YMMV Feats.
Elven accuracy is pretty dope when you can crit on a 19 or 20 though ngl.
Booming blade + war caster is a deadly combo though, and essentially is like having part of sentinel but instead of reducing their speed you’re just making them take more damage to move
Lol I have warcaster AND sentinel AND booming blade ;-)
Pretty sure you've got the ruling on disadvantage wrong. It literally says you roll an additional die (AKA two seperate dice) and pick the lowest. Halfling luck triggers AS SOON as you roll a one. Meaning you roll two dice, say a 12 and a 1. You then reroll the 1, and THEN you take the lower number.
Don't get me wrong, still a great feat, but the order really does make a difference. That also means that if someone rolls a 1 and another bad number like a 3 or something, you probably shouldn't use your luck to reroll it.
Also means it's still useful when rolling at advantage
Healer Feat Rocks! One of my favorite characters I have played was a Rogue Thief with the Healer Feat. What? A party member goes down from a melee strike? I'll just run over CUNNING ACTION heal them to 1 hp and then sneak attack the baddie because I have an ally there. Awesome!
Came to post about Healer. Another great advantage of it is the fact you can save your spells for other stuff. I played a celestial pact of the tome warlock who was able to use healer for minor stuff and use the bigger healing magic and other spells for graver wounds and kicking butt.
I'm playing an arcane trickster rogue in a low magic setting where a long rest is a week and a short rest is one night and healing potions are hard to come by. My healer feat was the one thing preventing over half the party for dying, and in the latest session was targeted by one of out BBEG and was killed off, specifically for healing potential. My party laughed at me at first but now, they respect it so much and its very underrated imo.
You mean Bonus Action? That's not what Cunning Action does.
@@gabrielrockman cunning action allows you to use certain actions as bonus actions. So, yes. It's just different names for the same thing.
Skullclamp was a mistake, way to powerfull. I love it in Edgar Markov xD
Gronk think Halflings make good Goodluck charms. Hmmmm. Gronk wonder, would a Halfling foot work like a rabbit foot?
-Resilient is also a good pickup for Wisdom on tank characters, Fighters and Barbarians in particular. Nothing worse than wanting to protect the party and the enemies can just forbid you from engaging via Frightful Presence or the Fear spell. Let's not talk about getting dominated...
-By the rules as written, Warcaster actually lets you use a spell in place of the opportunity attack granted by Polearm Master. If this is permissible, this lets you toss a lockdown spell at anything trying to approach. Treantmonk featured a build from one of his Discord users taking advantage of this interaction.
-Sentinel isn't just holding a creature in place but also staggering, battering or hamstringing it in some way that it stumbles in its movement. No herculean physics required.
-On the topic of Polearm Master, the feat is also legit with a spear. While you no longer have extended reach, you do get to hold a shield as well.
-Elven Accuracy becomes a whole lot more deadly with a Hexblade which can give double advantage on weapons normally limited to Strength.
I really like the new Eldritch Adept because it can be used for good combos and to make up for weaknesses. E.g. Devils Sight + Shadow Monk to not be affected by your own Darkness spell. Or Armor of Shadows to generally make up for low AC.
It also makes for interesting character design, because you'll have to explain how your character got the invocation. For example, if you take it with variant human, you could say that your character once freed a sealed eldritch creature that granted him a wish in return.
I think you overestimate the crossbow expert feat. I had myself hopes for it in the past, but I searched because there are some details that were bugging me.
And then I found it; in a Sage Advice, Jeremy Crawford said that even if the Crossbow Expert feat let's you ignore the loading property, you still need a free hand to reload it for extra attacks (or next turn attacks).
So, you can't dual wield hand crossbows or shortsword + hand crossbow, so this is a -100 to fashion. You are stuck with a single mini crossbow, doing pew-pew from behind a corner. LAAAAME
You can do the dual wield hand crossbows or shortsword and hand crossbow for 1 turn and then must drop one of the hand crossbows/shortsword. So yea, it was more designed to make hand crossbow an effective combat weapon than to increase stylistic play.
It's absolutely perfect for an artificer with the repeating shot infusion though.
Maybe the feat should say, "if you have a crossbow in one hand and nothing in your other hand you. An ignore the reload time"
dual wielding xbows would get you 2 attacks per round. Xbow expert gets you 2 attacks per round. whats the point?
@@Briansgate Never seen an Action surged Crossbow Expert Archery Fighter, did you? HOLY HELL. That shit makes Bosses run to mommy
#7 on a thief prevented a tpk on our table
The ability to use a healer's kit with the healer feat as a bonus action is bonkers.
ARE YOU KIDDING. YOU LEFT KEEN MIND OFF THIS LIST?!
Caleb Widowgast is already aware of your location....
@@bskec2177 ya, if his location is north
I was thinking about keen mind on 2 campaigns on my wiz and paladin but im new to dnd - sooo is keen mind good ?
@@nerfedirl keen minds is as good as smelling athletes foot
@@Hon_cb1kr Yes and no. While on the whole, it's kinda meh, it's great for role-playing. I can also think of examples of times where being able to perfectly remember everything in the last month could be busted. But the real time it shines is for a Sherlock Holmes detective type character.
I've just started a new campaign as a sword-and-board paladin, variant human, and I took the Heavy Armor Master feat for the +1 to STR and some additional damage soaking. I fully expect that, at higher levels, the 3 damage soak on nonmagical bludgeon/pierce/slash will fade to irrelevance. But holy crap at low levels it's been great.
The rest of my party has a cleric, a sorcerer, a divination wizard, a bard, and a warlock. I mainly just run up to the best chokepoint and dodge while the party blasts everything around me, and they and keep me topped up with heals and stacked buffs.
And whenever the divination Wizard has a pocket 20 to go I can reliably do MASSIVE burst DPS on some unsuspecting BBEG by staking a smite spell with divine smite. It's been a blast.
But in any case: The damage soak at low levels where you're frequently taking lots of attacks from low-damage enemies is insane for my PC's normal combat role. Loving it.
The healer feat comment resonates so much with me. I play a bard in a group where all the other players are new players and as healing I have only healing word I(which is the only healing magic we have in the 4 PC party) and right now I had to change my character slightly to give them some tough love, as they would like to be healed when they lose hit points and I only heal when they go down.
My character was an easy-going grandpa guy looking for a last hurray, now he looks at his blood-covered friends and says you still stand on your own, you are good, let's go
12:43 Only 50 viewers? you already have 70k views on this video, surely we have more old school mtg nerds than that in your fan base :P
i got it! LOL
Im not even an old school player, I started playing like 5 years ago,and I know how busted it is
I thought you only got one reaction, and attacks of opportunity counted. So Sentinel wouldn't be generating so many attacks of opportunity because you can only use your reaction on one
It means they couldn't use their reaction on anything else, but one is all they need to use the lockdown strategy.
WotC: Nooooo you can't just draw your deck and kill your opponent with Disciple of the Vault triggers!
Ravager Affinity: Haha Frogmites go clampclamp
Spell Sniper is really good and fairly versatile for almost any caster or caster-multiclass. It gives things like Firebolt, Eldritch Blast, and Chill Touch (which in and of itself has a great utility in blocking the target from healing until your next turn) a ridiculous range of 240ft. It also increases the range on melee attack spell rolls, like for Thorn Whip (which has a 60ft range w/ SS), and cantrips like Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade increase to 10ft if your DM goes by rules as written. Plus you get to pick an attack-roll cantrip from *any* spell list minus Paladin.
We have a doctor themed character that is an artificer. He puts sanctuary on himself and basically just feeds people potions, healer feat for using the healing kits, or heals with spells. The character is opposed to hurting anything that can think for itself so he doesnt really attack but is definitely the party mvp.