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I will say, definitely ask your DM before trying to pull up with strixhaven initiate or the knights of solamnia feats. Not all tables necessarily allow setting specific content, especially backgrounds that come with free feats attached.
yea mine told me i could just remove the free feat it comes with and just say the background gives me access to the knight feat. and i could always take that feat too if i wanted the stuff it gave.
It helps if your DM has an imagination and you can talk to them about reflavoring the faction based backgrounds for their setting. There's no reason not to use the Boros Legion in place of the Baldur's Gate Flaming Fist or the Dimir Syndicate in place of the Harpers. Each of the 5 Strixhaven colleges can be slotted into any one of a dozen magic libraries or schools in the Forgotten Realms. And if "this background has a feat" is the only complaint then it's a non issue. The feats tied to the Backgrounds in Strixhaven and Dragonlance are little more than ribbon abilities. Strixhaven Initiate gives you a choice of 2 cantrips from a list of 3, but one of those cantrips is always either light or prestidigitation and none of them are eldritch blast. It also let's you pick one 1st level spell from wizard, cleric, or druid. The offset of this is that the bonus spell lists in the Strixhaven backgrounds are 3 spells shorter than all the Ravnica backgrounds. If you're looking for combat cantrips Ravnica is going to help you more than Strixhaven. The most "OP" thing Strixhaven gives is putting both Mage Hand and Guudance on the Quandrix Initiate list. That and Lorehold can potentially give any caster Spirit Guardians. As for Dragonlance... the squire feats are less useful than half the ribbon abilities in the PHB backgrounds. The feats in the Strixhaven and Dragonlance backgrounds are nowhere near as powerful as polearm master, sentinel, crossbow expert, great weapon master, and warcaster.
@@CitanulsPumpkin i unno power of a feat is weird to measure as some may have other ideas on it, personally i have never used pole arm master when i have so many other options to do things, thats really only a specific build feat, so i tend to value more universal feats like observent. in fact i consider alert far more powerful then polearm master in this regard, no surprises is powerful cause allot of enemies like ooxes can gain that with ease. the precise strike from the salommnia for example has turned every weapon i use it with into a far more powerful weapons, and eachh of the things those feats give you work separatley, so at level 4 you could have 3 uses of the precise and 3 uses of the feat attack with sword for example, while polearm you have to choose to do the special attack and hope it doesnt miss the knights features does things even on misses, so it really comes down to ones perspective i think. sentinel is fine unless you fight things like rouge swash buckler and many many more that by pass the "disengage" action and just let you attack and run off not getting the proc for an AOO like flyby for example a few class features and spells too, still good in gen tho.
@@DrankoiiDo not care, I’m playing an Astral Drifter, swapping out Longevity for Wildspacer’s Wildspace Adaptation feature and getting both Magic Initiate and Tough granted to me by my background.
I need everyone to know about the telekinetic feat. Especially its 5ft shove. The amount of mileage that I have gotten out of telekinetic and especially that feature is insane. It’s literally free movement for my allies, bonus action disengage for myself, and occasionally shove baddies into bad spots. On any given turn that I am not using my bonus action to cast spells, I have the option to just move the battle wherever I want.
@@Klespyrian how exactly do you suggest you move away from yourself exactly? And in any case, is it even forced movement if you're doing it to yourself? So either you can't do it or you trigger an opportunity attack anyway. You are willfully misinterpreting the rules and taking advantage of your DMs innocence to abuse this feat. It's a balancing issue.
Or use the actor telepathy combo to mimic your targets voice, so they can't even trust their own mental voice. Edit, so one of the replies brought up the point that it only allows you to mimic voices you can hear, so if this combo is to work, then you would also need to use detect thoughts.
I DM, I use D&D in my school, I absorb and have thought of everything (yeah right...). I have not thought of this. Here's a gift back I've never come across in any of my research...... using the commonly known Devil's Sight/Darkness combo and a whip(or rope or whatever), cast Darkness on the end (or a small thing tied to it), so you can move the sphere of darkness around easily. It can help avoid teammates, cover more enemies, and honestly keep the DM "guessing" (whether they trust you to admit whether they hit the right space or require to know but run the enemies appropriately as guessing) where you even are within the sphere, so is it an attack at disadvantage or does the arrow fired in the space just fly through an empty space without a roll? I also like the idea of making the whip used by a paladin or rogue multiclass so it's useful and deadly with added smites or sneak attacks. Cheers!
I'm so glad you brought up the fact that the Gunner feat has applications outside of people who want to replicate Percy de Rolo. It works on bows, too.
This is also crazy. It's finesse, so STR or DEX. Whether you use it as the 1d6 spear melee, or the 1d4 sling ranged. 1d6 melee finesse, sure, that's fine. 1d4 ranged strength? hearty kek
@@g80gzt lol yea, spear tho? i thought it was a q staff so it can also be used as a magic focus haha (sage advice says a staff and a q staff can be the same object) but yea str based sling is neat never even thought about that part haha, barbs gonna get a boost now
Your videos where you look for the fun side in things most people look past (like suboptimal feats & multi-class combos) are my favorites. Keep up the awesome work! 😀
When you suggested pairing the actor feat with the telepathic feat my first thought was using it to imitate the person I was talking to telepathically to pass myself off as thoughts that they were thinking, pair this with the previous suggestion of following someone around and speaking to them nonstop and you could probably cause any person of your choice to go crazy
So that Knight of the Sword feat also has a prerequisite that you are playing the Dragonlance Campaign, as well as being either a Fighter or Paladin Class or Knight of Solamnia Background. I think that's why it doesn't get talked about too much. I'm currently playing the Dragonlance adventure and going with "Initiate of High Sorcery (Lunitari)" + "Adept of the Red Robes" on a Watchers Paladin 7/Swords Bard 4 build.
I cannot stress enough how much I love this channel. Your content is 100% my favorite DnD related content that's not Actual Play. Thank you very much for what you do!
Quill from "High Rollers" has abused the Observant feat ever since he got it. He would regularly read people's lips and get information the party wasn't intended to get so easily, and one time skipped an _entire plotline_ with his ridiculous Passive Perception. Strixhaven Initiate has been vital for my Owl House character builds.
Telepathic is a must-have on a druid, because of wildshape sure, but also because (as a wisdom-based character) you're likely to be one of the best in the party at Insight checks. You can silently inform the entire party if the NPC you're talking to has hidden motivations or if you suspect they're lying. (Then again, your component-free Detect Thoughts might be able to reveal this as well!)
I use a Revenant Blade with my Protector Aasimar Profane Soul Blood Hunter 😁 it's great! And my DM has even allowed me to modify/enhance it to have a +1 AC when wielded normally, but then also being able to split it upp to two Scimitars making it loose the +1 AC but instead lets the Bonus Action Attack deal 2d4 damage instead of the normal 1d4 😊
The ad read for Ryoko’s Guide made me think of one of my home games. My friends first time playing he made a Ranger with celestial as his favored enemies so he could kill them and take their weapons thinking it would be super effective against demons.
In my opinion the most underutilized feets are the two(most of the time) attached to your body. I played an Aven Monk and it was so fun to describe my combat because unarmed strikes doesn’t have to be a punch. I was doing flying backflip kicks, wing slaps, roundhouses. Then my DM would reward my creativity with an extra D4 damage
I am planning on getting telepathic on my current character and one of the things I can't wait for is the detect thoughts without components effectively letting you read people's mind without anyone knowing
Colby over at D4 used the Revenant Blade feat for the Blender half of his Battery and Blender team build. The Blender was a Wood Elf Barbarian/Rogue that was able to Rage and Sneak Attack at the same time. While Rage and Reckless Attack only work with Strength, Sneak Attack only states that you must be wielding a finesse or ranged weapon, not that you must be attacking with Dexterity.
Another overlooked feature of Telepathic is that when you use the 1/long free cast of Detect Thought it requires no components so no one can tell you're casting it. The target won't have any idea until you attempt to dive deeper.
I don't think so @@nicolastracz3793 . Awakened mind lets you talk at people, but not hear them; telepathy feat is the same right? I was in a party with another GOOlock, the DM let us text each other when we were speaking telepathically
@@BouncingTribbles Nice! I just started using Awakened Mind for pulling out bullshit or just trash talking NPC'S. It's also pretty handy for sharing information. I usually have to state that I'm using it tough; since I'm the only one who's psychic and there's no reason for using text messages.
I do the Telepathy + Actor feat thing with my Halfling Soulknife, and it's so much fun. Especially for setting up Sneak Attack, since all you need is someone Hostile to your target adjacent to them. Imitate the target's voice in their head with a yo mama joke. Or rumormongering, forging Sending spells, or impersonating intrusive thoughts.
I like the combination of having one player taking both Observant and Telepathic. That way they can recreate the cool story feature of some Batman and Superman joint comics, where they communicate privately because Superman can hear Batman's subsonic whispers while Batman can read Superman's lips when he goes to reply without making any noise at all. If you take both of those feats, you can do that with anyone at any time. Provided you're somewhat close and can see that person.
Ever since I learned of the telepathic and telekinetic feats. I have been plotting on how to include them on several of my character wish list. My favorite is my Changling Djinni-lock. Built with utility from the pact of the tome. I also went with the actor-telepathic combo for shenanigans. And with telepathic, they gain more things to do aside from Eldrich Blast. Knight of the Sword(with Squire of Solamnia) and Revanant Blade are feats I never even heard of. But damn, do I want to use K.o.t.S. on my fighters and conquest paladin. And Revanent Blade is fine with or without the Elf only restirction. I have considered Observant. I would love to take it on a character with an espionage campaign. Gunner is my goal when the DM allows it on my G-onks. I have about a dozen characters with Strixhaven initiate as one of their feats. That is some amazing content and I would love to find a DM who would let me use it to the fullest.
Using Telepathy with _Words of Terror_ from the Whispers Bard is nasty. And just Telepathy on an infiltrator character - a Changeling, Whispers Bard, and/or Warlock with the _Mask of Many Faces_ Eldritch Invocation... or all of the above (although there's also a place for the plasmoid Whispers/Hexblade). Telepathy allows an underrated but possibly vital ability - being able to tell the Party _who you are_ should you cross paths... "Hey guys, it's me. Third guard on the Baron's left, the one with the red moustache." The same trick could even be used in combat with enough Party coordination so that you can go _Mistique_ on the enemy, changing into one of them, without worrying about friendly fire [besides the usual ☄️].
I love rhe telepathy feature of GOO warlock, like coordinating a surprise attack or luring an enemy into a trap, warn allies silently, or spice up the deception/intimidations
My DM homebrewed the half-orc version of the revenant blade feat to give more flavor to my barbarian and his orcish double axe (also homebrewed). Very nice feat indeed
I actually took observant on my rogue ranger cleric multiclass and got my passive perception up to nearly 30. I could see more stuff innately than most dragons with that character X3 Great video btw ^w^
I mostly let my players take a feat at level 1 that fits to their background/backstory (just explain why you have that particular talent). I love to DM high-power games and my players got creative with this home rule. Once, for example, one player who choose monk for his class took the tavern brawler feat because of his 'drunken master' subclass. His weapon was a frying pan and he hhd the TF2 pan hit/crit sound effects ready every session😂
Honestly, inspiring leader i feel is in this sort of underrated feat, because of how week the amount of temp hp you can give, and the fact it grinds the session to a halt.
Its free temp HP per short rest that lasts the entire day. On a high charisma character its amazing padding in a dungeon that at even mid tier levels gives the party 12+ temp hp. As a DM you can literally just ask your player to give some inspiring quote of the day or something if you truly want to RP it. It's more that it just takes up 10 minutes of your in game time.
@@OmegaTrooper1 true. I was given inspiring leader at level two at the start of the campaign. I'm playing a reborn necromancer with a +2 charisma. The DM saw that out of the party I had the lowest HP. So gave it a slight boost to it by allowing me to also add my intelligence or wisdom. As a Necromancer, naturally intelligence.
The telepathy bit reminds me of something that happened in a game of ShadowRun back in the 90's, our group was trying to steal a new prototype Police Banshee variant from some corporate test facility for client so-and-so, and there was a group of guards to get past, two trolls and the rest were human. We had two mages in the group and they used telepathy and some kind of impersonation skill checks to convince some of the guards that others were talking shit, and started a mini-race riot between the trolls and the humans, and we got past the fighting guards without them knowing until they heard the turbines start up on the aircraft as we prepped to fly the Banshee right out of the facility.
My Necromancer is telepathic and the audacity you can have while using this is so funny. It might be a little more powerful since I convinced my DM that I can speak Verbal Spell Components mentally. But seriously just walking up to a guard, telling them to look left in their head and then slipping by right has had me get past so many initial hurdles when trying to contact people, it's hilarious
"I can speak Verbal Spell Components mentally" That's a great use of the feat! (unless you have the blinded condition)! Maybe it's TRDSIC, but it RoCs!
Everyone can talk in their own heads by default. Wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks all have to speak the verbal components of spells even though they can talk in their own minds. How would talking in someone else's mind remove the need to speak spell components? That doesn't add up lol
One of my players wanted to get Revenant Blade for her human character. The only restriction I gave her was: "Make sure that, in your backstory, your master was an elven Double-Bladed Scimitar master!" That way, I got her to do cool stuff with her backstory while allowing a great feat.
Observant is definitely very fun, in a Strixhaven campaign where I was working at the newspaper, I used observant not only to get the scoop on fellow students easier but also to figure out what a suspicious figure was up to!
I used Telepathy with actor in a campain to speak into people's head in their own voice. Used it to implant some ideas that they should help the party and became "their conscience"
Observant as a Divination Wizard makes a wonderful fun "all seeing wizard" You enter a room and can read the room passively, giving you another mystical 4th dimensional wizard feel
Revenant Blade reminds me of a TWF build I did back in 3.5 Started with a Sylven Elf, dipped 2 levels of fighter for bonus feats (Exotic Prof: Double Bladed Sword & Weapon Focus) before embarking upon a journey of madness through Barbarian into the Frenzied Berserker prestige class. Armed with a power attack that hit hard enough to force a save vs massive damage, and a plethora of attacks courtesy of my greater two weapon fighting and supreme cleave, my elven rage machine was a whirlwind of death and insanity upon the battlefield. My friends never made fun of elves ever again, and I got banned from playing melee characters within that group. Good times.
Tavern Brawler turns the world into your weapon and is great for unarmed/MMA/ Baki character builds. It also allows you to add your proficiency to thrown items like acid, alchemist fire, bear trap on a rope, get creative or watch Baki for ideas.
I miss 3.5 where you could take the improvised weapon feat and the monkey grip feat and then start a bar fight, politely excuse yourself to the outside of the bar and then supplex the entire bar with your opponent still inside of it into the building across the street.
Currently doing a Revenant Blade Wood Elf Ranger in a campaign, the funny part is they are blind and can only see through their drake from drakewarden making things kind of trippy sometimes.
I love how you list THREE feats I love using. Telepathic, Observant and Strixhaven Initiate are all feats I love using for characters. Want to play a Druid who can talk via telepathy and use some wizard spells while reading lips from far away... take all three! lol
I'm waiting on the book but already making plans. I like the idea of investigating monster weaknesses, such that I am going to build this into many monsters. Chuul, oozes, hook horror. All sorts. Yummie!
Another crazy thing about Telepathic: you gain the ability to cast it without components, essentially gaining the Subtle Spell meta magic ability. Even after your 1/LR cast, you can still use it this way by expending a spell slot. Wild.
I’m currently playing a wildfire Druid with a gun and having the gunner feat was a must get for me, but this character is some of the most fun I’ve had in a while
@@nicheva417 yeah it’s not very conventional, but it’s a space campaign so we kinda threw a lot of traditional stuff out the window. I have a lot of really fun combos with it though, like if I use flame arrows, I can do my guns damage which is a d10, plus the d6 from flame arrows, plus a d8 from enhanced bond if my wildfire spirit is out
On Revenant blade the Elf only restriction makes sense for Eberron lore reasons. The thing is that double-bladed scimitar is used primarily by elves of Valenar who have deep and long warrior culture. These scimitars are passed through generations as heritage. Wielding such weapon means you are following the code and you are quite able warrior. Anyone from Valenar can challenge you for a duel and if you lose they are allowed to take your scimitar and call it their own. If you stole a scimitar (the indication of that is most likely the fact that you are not an elf), you are dire criminal and must be eliminated at sight, after which the scimitar must be returned to family who owns it.
When you are describing the Telepathic feat and how to use it offensively (in both sense of the word) all I can think about is the scene from Ghost with Patrick Swayze and Whoppie Goldberg where he follows her around singing "I am Henry the VIIIth I am" for HOURS until she agrees to help him LOL! From Wikipedia - the movie was in 1990 In the 1990 film Ghost, Sam (Patrick Swayze) sings this song on a continuous run in a bad Cockney London accent all night long, to Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) to annoy her into helping him.[5]
I have Observent on my knowledge cleric and it is magnificent. Went with the variant human to pick up preception proficiency and observant at level 1 putting his passive perception at +10. Acolyte background with cleric grants further proficiency into, insight, religion, medicine, history and 2 more languages. Knowledge domain adds arcana and nature at double proficiency and increases the total of languages to 4. Pairing all this with the knowledge domain abilities and spells he can track anyone anywhere...
Never heard of the first one, but I'll have to try it out! Because martials need more interesting utility. I just realized the telepathic feat can actually combo with a handful of spells, specifically the ones that stipulate 'the target needs to hear you'. Such as: compulsion, dissonant whispers, geas, modify memory, suggestion, and vicious mockery. Combined with subtle spell . . . and oh boy! I love observant, but the catch is it has to be a language you can speak, still pairs great with linguist or any background that gives you an extra dialect. And entirely agree about your comment using setting specific options outside their intended campaign, that simple flexibility grants quite a bit of variety for flavor and minmaxing; though our homebrew is throwing out race restricted classes feats and equipment. Don't know if you've covered these feats already nor remember if I've brought up farland's before. The combo of 'expert medic' and 'hard to kill' turn any character into a passive life cleric. EM gives you a +1 wisdom, and as long as you're within 50 feet of an ally they gain advantage on death saving throws, and they get a free success roll. HtK raises your constitution by +1, once a day you can roll a death save with advantage, and all of your death saving throws get a +1 bonus. There's also the 'punisher' feat which raises strength by +1, and once per round you can make an attack of opportunity without spending your reaction. Great on magical martials as they can use their reaction for the shield spell or some other retaliation while not forfeiting your guard. 'Avenger' raises any ability of your choice by +1, and whenever an enemy inflicts a debilitating condition or critical hit on an ally, your next attack roll gains advantage. Neither feat has a limit, so you could use them both every round but might be more situational. The 'shield grand master' feat is the only one of the bunch to require another feat as a prerequisite, obviously 'shield master'. SGM adds +1 to your armor class so long as you have a shield equipped, and you have advantage on dexterity saving throws against all area of effects. It helps you survive things you have no business beating, even when dexterity is your dump stat XD
Imagine the look on your DM's face when you tell them that an enemy has to succeed on three saving throws to resist the frightened effect and be unable to move because you're playing a Conquest Paladin/Undead Warlock with Knight of the Sword and Wrathful Smite. If you really wanna be extra and your DM allows UA content, take the Menacing feat for Expertise in Intimidation and the ability to substiute an attack with an Intimidation check contested by your target's Insight check. On a fail, the target is frightened until the end of your next turn. If you're a level 5 Warlock you can pick up the Eldritch Invocation Cloak of Flies to give yourself advantage on the check in addition to dealing poison damage equal to your Charisma mod to anyone within 5 feet of you at the start of their turn. It stands pretty nicely with Aura of Conquest which stops frightened enemies from moving and deals damage equal to half your paladin to frightened enemies in the aura.
I'm playing a Kenku Soulknife and use the telepathy strategy. Kenku comes packed with mimicry, which gives you that utility of actor right away. Soulknife Rogue gives you telepathy, and therefore that combo, at level 3. Now when you hit 4 you can use the feat on Telepathy to gain an element of Arcane Trickster as well :)
i haven't had a chance to try it yet because i've been exploring all sorts of different classes, but i've got an idea in my head for a something like a bard or rogue that has high performance or deception to telepathically get enemies to start fighting each other by telepathically mimicing them to each other by insulting them. Or another idea i had in my head that used the telepathy feat was to play a high stealth rogue or a character that turns invisible and do that thing in anime and movies where a person is fighting someone and they turn invisible but their mocking voices are still heard.
An extremely simple but amazing feat for combat is Savage Attacker. Simply letting you roll a damage dice twice and take either number. Its incredibly good on monks and fighters who tend to attack more than twice per turn
I used Telepathic on an Awakened Gecko because they knew 4 languages but couldn't speak, I also got offered a magical item and I took a ring that bumped my magical healing up a die class so d4 > d6. I played as a Bard to really bump up on the cuteness aspect and played my background as a Familiar that had been granted their freedom by an Archmage that had specialized in healing and took Goodberry from the Druid Class with my Bard features so I could have essentially 10 mini potions a day for 1 spell slot that would heal 1d4
Revenant blade has a cool build option - by multiclassing Fighter 1/Rogue 19 - and taking a Great Weapon Fighting style - now you can reroll 1s and 2s on your sneak attack! And considering that weapon has 2d4 damage - you will have a chance to increase the damage by +1/+2/+3 50% of the time! (+rerolling sneak attacks). And it scales by level with your SA!
I'm running a game where my partner was playing a Ranger and wanted to play a deaf character, so they took the Observant feat for the lip reading and I let them take sign language as one of their language proficiencies. They were definitely a lot of fun to play with, though that character died recently. Their wolf companion is still traveling with the group, so I decided to bulk up the wolf a bit to make it a semi-functional member of the party on its' own, since the group only has three characters, so I gave the wolf some barbarian levels. Haven't had the opportunity to make use of that yet, but we'll see how it goes
I was already thinking of mixing battlesmith artificer and inquisitive rogue. To make a gunsling detective, this has just sold me on taking observant and gunner.
I have a passive perception of 26 based on smell and hearing with a wisdom of 14 on my level 1 werewolf barbarian. Keen smell and hearing gives advantage on perceptions that are smell and hearing based perceptions which in turns give you a +5 to your passive in those areas.
I found that the biggest problem with Observant is that it's entirely up to the DM how it gets used. The DM decides what your character can, and cannot, observe. The other trouble with it is that it can completely diffuse a lot of the plans and schemes the DM might have cooked up for the party, good or bad. High passives are a shortcut that doesn't always improve gameplay but can actually have a negative effect on the experience
For the telepatic feat I figured out a similar scam with the warlock invocation that lets you use sendings by writing in your book. I, a changeling change into a preacher, asking for donations and promising people that what they donate will return to them tenfold. Then I ask them to write their name in my book of donations, then later that day I change my voice and send them a sending pretending to be a god rewarding them for their generosity, leaving some hidden treasure somewhere for them to find, so they can come next day and donate a larger sum of money to me so I can run away with it :D
i wanted to play so many characters but all the DM's i played with were so lame and p*ssys and crybabies because "Strixheaven isn't allowed because to broken blablabla" and "that feat works well just for that race so you choose it like that or choose another feat". i wanna play with you!! you are way cooler and creative than any other DM i ever seen!!
I actually have a character I love role-playing. He is an arcane trickster based on the MTG character Lazav. He is rocking the feats Actor, Observant, keen mind and linguist. Next will be telepathy. He prides himself on being able to walk into any room, read it them become anyone he needs to be in it
The cat with a gun reminded me of the web novel "Kitty Cat Kill Sat", featuring a sentient cat on a HILARIOUSLY well-armed space station. At one point the cat triggers a security drill in a particularly run-down part of the station and needs to get past the guard bots now patrolling the hallways. Thing is, the bots can see and aim too well to sneak or run past, and the cat doesn't have hands and so can't actually work a gun. Cat's solution? Pile about thirty guns pointing at a zone that the bots will pass through, run a string through the trigger guards, wait/bait a bot into the zone, then yank the string and watch the entire hallway get shredded.
I do like Gunner because its just like Crossbow Expert with a ASI. I know there was a build talked about in another video where there was a Rogue/Artificer. I suggested going Artificer first if guns were allowed so you could get a gun as a Rogue, or 2 guns if you went Artilerist, but you could get this feat instead and open up your infusions. It is a good feat, I wasn't exactly sure if it could be taken if guns weren't allowed but even if you can't use a gun the ASI and getting rid of the penalty for close range is worth it for some builds.
Re: using telepathy and acting to mimic the voice of a dead spouse: I'd make it an incredibly hard roll penalty or just rule it impossible if the character has never heard the spouse speak in person. And I would definitely give a chance for the deity or one of its minions to have their attention attracted by someone telepathically lying about being a god. Having their worship hijacked is literally stealing the food out of their mouth or the blood out of their veins. They'd definitely be finely attuned (even if it's just in the way your skin is attuned to detecting mosquito bites) to the feeling of having their vital source of energy swiped. And considering what happens to mosquitos when *they* get detected, well, the results would vary by how vengeful or merciful the god is, but it would be likely to be interesting, and not in the good way.
The double bladed scimitar restriction is because the only in universe way you'll ever see that weapon used in in the Eberron setting with one of the elven nations as a cultural weapon to make them stand out from the inevitable 'All elves are brilliant at archery' trope. Would be nice Sea elves & Triton got something like that with Tridents as you also rarely see those in a game and it would give more players an opportunity to give them a go.
Man, the observant feat combined with the alert feat is one of the most busted combinations that I've done for one of my characters. I put this combo on my twilight domain cleric, maxed my wisdom, and a couple other things. Now, my passive perception is 30 and I can't be surprised.
Love Observant. Reminder: your Passive Perception is the lowest you can get on a Perception Check, acting as a "floor", since making an active perception check doesn't 'turn off' your passive perception. If you roll a perception check and get a 15 total when your passive is 18, you'll use the 18 since you would passively have that much perception anyways! This means that, with proficiency and expertise in perception, +5 Wis, the Observant feat, and advantage, you can have a Passive Perception that's essentially a Nat20 every time, since having Advantage on a perception check *Also* gives +5 Passive Perception as well! (A total Passive Perception of [ 10 + 5 WIS + 6 Prof + 6 EX + 5 Observant + 5 Adv = 37 ] )
3:43 Pretend to have THEIR own voice So they would start to believe those are intrusive or subconscious thoughts, you can basically make them do what ever you want while they THINK they are doing it because they want
I have a character based around the telepathic feat. They are a Tiefling wizard that has had an injury that makes them unable to talk so being telepathic is how they speak.
I used Actor for a Great Old One Warlock in a One shot and used to speak telepathically in their own voice to some NPCs. Simply said " I should pay them more" during the negoation for example.
The telepathic/actor combination idea is good, if you knew the dead wife. You need to have heard someone talk for at least a minute before you can mimic them
had telepathic on my warlock illusionist who basically carried his patron with him. the shenanigans you can do with a character whos pretty much 90% lies and masks. to this day my favorite character. it was never about do i lie or now but rather "what flavor of BS am i gonna pull today"
I have seen a lot of knee-jerk reactions over strixhaven initiate, because it came from a specific setting. But the feat really is just an updated magic initiate. That's it, it doesnt need to be attached to the background or the lore. You just know an extra 1st level spell, and two cantrips from a short list of 3. It's not even a half-feat like fey-touched, which gives you misty step and a 1st level spell. Most times I'd put this below upping your casting stat, grabbing resilient (Con), warcaster, metamagic adept, telekinetic, etc.
So i had a funny story with Observant. I wanted to play a relatively weak druid subclass Circle of Dreams. She was the party Mom of a bunch of murderhobos which went as well as you would have expected. I took the observant feat and the sentinel shield(wood of course) and got decent AC and more importantly advantage on perception checks! So the way passive perception works with advantage is you get a +5 bonus to the roll meaning pared with observant you get a total of a +10 to your perception! I wanted to break that so i went and triple dog down and got the Skill Expert feat to get myself Expertise in Perception! at level 8 i had +4 wisdom, expertise in perception, observant and advantage on perception checks with a grand total of a +20 to my perception checks! Nearing the end of the game when i was level 14, the DM asked me what my passive perception was. I said 35. The look on the DM's face will always make me smile to this day and i have been banned from using broken perception builds! XD
I have the Knight of the Sword feat with my Rune Knight. But instead of it having the original prerequisite we renamed it and made it so I can only trigger it while enlarged with Giant's Might.
revenant blade is great for hexblade warlock, I mentioned this in a different video comment, but because hex weapon, improved pact weapon and lifedrinker all focus on buffing up the damage per hit, that extra 1d4 damage attack becomes 1d4+11 at level 12 with lifedrinker, which is a lot for 1 bonus action, while you also make another 4d4+22 with your action, and you only lose 1ac to buff your per turn damage from 2d8+22 with shield and longsword/rapier/warhammer/whatever d8 damage one handed weapon you are using, to 5d4+33 with the double bladed scimitar while also looking so much cooler and the massive size of the weapon is no problem bacause you can summon it to your hand for free without carrying that great big thing around with you all the time.
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Phew, finally remembered to back it. Really looking forward to the Kaiju rules.
When can we no longer back it? As I plan to do so but need to wait a couple of weeks to do the big one and want to make sure I won't miss it.
@@jacobwatson7855 it's on the Kickstarter page, was 20 days left yesterday evening for me.
Will the books be compatible with DnD beyond. I play online games.
🤓Actually, can't grab bullets because they break on impact.
I will say, definitely ask your DM before trying to pull up with strixhaven initiate or the knights of solamnia feats. Not all tables necessarily allow setting specific content, especially backgrounds that come with free feats attached.
yea mine told me i could just remove the free feat it comes with and just say the background gives me access to the knight feat. and i could always take that feat too if i wanted the stuff it gave.
It helps if your DM has an imagination and you can talk to them about reflavoring the faction based backgrounds for their setting. There's no reason not to use the Boros Legion in place of the Baldur's Gate Flaming Fist or the Dimir Syndicate in place of the Harpers. Each of the 5 Strixhaven colleges can be slotted into any one of a dozen magic libraries or schools in the Forgotten Realms.
And if "this background has a feat" is the only complaint then it's a non issue. The feats tied to the Backgrounds in Strixhaven and Dragonlance are little more than ribbon abilities. Strixhaven Initiate gives you a choice of 2 cantrips from a list of 3, but one of those cantrips is always either light or prestidigitation and none of them are eldritch blast. It also let's you pick one 1st level spell from wizard, cleric, or druid. The offset of this is that the bonus spell lists in the Strixhaven backgrounds are 3 spells shorter than all the Ravnica backgrounds. If you're looking for combat cantrips Ravnica is going to help you more than Strixhaven. The most "OP" thing Strixhaven gives is putting both Mage Hand and Guudance on the Quandrix Initiate list. That and Lorehold can potentially give any caster Spirit Guardians.
As for Dragonlance... the squire feats are less useful than half the ribbon abilities in the PHB backgrounds.
The feats in the Strixhaven and Dragonlance backgrounds are nowhere near as powerful as polearm master, sentinel, crossbow expert, great weapon master, and warcaster.
Yeah, lol. "You don't need..." you certantly do, unless said otherwise.
@@CitanulsPumpkin i unno power of a feat is weird to measure as some may have other ideas on it, personally i have never used pole arm master when i have so many other options to do things, thats really only a specific build feat, so i tend to value more universal feats like observent. in fact i consider alert far more powerful then polearm master in this regard, no surprises is powerful cause allot of enemies like ooxes can gain that with ease. the precise strike from the salommnia for example has turned every weapon i use it with into a far more powerful weapons, and eachh of the things those feats give you work separatley, so at level 4 you could have 3 uses of the precise and 3 uses of the feat attack with sword for example, while polearm you have to choose to do the special attack and hope it doesnt miss the knights features does things even on misses, so it really comes down to ones perspective i think. sentinel is fine unless you fight things like rouge swash buckler and many many more that by pass the "disengage" action and just let you attack and run off not getting the proc for an AOO like flyby for example a few class features and spells too, still good in gen tho.
@@DrankoiiDo not care, I’m playing an Astral Drifter, swapping out Longevity for Wildspacer’s Wildspace Adaptation feature and getting both Magic Initiate and Tough granted to me by my background.
Telepathy + Scrying, + being an Elf (only needing 4 hours of long rest a day) = target dies of exhaustion? Awesome.
I need everyone to know about the telekinetic feat. Especially its 5ft shove. The amount of mileage that I have gotten out of telekinetic and especially that feature is insane. It’s literally free movement for my allies, bonus action disengage for myself, and occasionally shove baddies into bad spots. On any given turn that I am not using my bonus action to cast spells, I have the option to just move the battle wherever I want.
I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to shove yourself with telekinesic
@@nacl4299"you can try to telekinetically shove one creature you can see within 30 feet of you"
I think I'll have to agree with you
@@rayzerotYou ever looked down before? You are a creature you can see.
@@nacl4299 No you can. It's broken and powerful.
@@Klespyrian how exactly do you suggest you move away from yourself exactly? And in any case, is it even forced movement if you're doing it to yourself? So either you can't do it or you trigger an opportunity attack anyway. You are willfully misinterpreting the rules and taking advantage of your DMs innocence to abuse this feat. It's a balancing issue.
Or use the actor telepathy combo to mimic your targets voice, so they can't even trust their own mental voice.
Edit, so one of the replies brought up the point that it only allows you to mimic voices you can hear, so if this combo is to work, then you would also need to use detect thoughts.
This is the way
I DM, I use D&D in my school, I absorb and have thought of everything (yeah right...). I have not thought of this.
Here's a gift back I've never come across in any of my research...... using the commonly known Devil's Sight/Darkness combo and a whip(or rope or whatever), cast Darkness on the end (or a small thing tied to it), so you can move the sphere of darkness around easily. It can help avoid teammates, cover more enemies, and honestly keep the DM "guessing" (whether they trust you to admit whether they hit the right space or require to know but run the enemies appropriately as guessing) where you even are within the sphere, so is it an attack at disadvantage or does the arrow fired in the space just fly through an empty space without a roll?
I also like the idea of making the whip used by a paladin or rogue multiclass so it's useful and deadly with added smites or sneak attacks. Cheers!
Or make them take decisions you want by letting them believe they are listening to their own internal monologue 😂
@@Walthanarsounds like the Gov't and 5g towers.
Yeah I thought about fucking with clerics like this.
I'm so glad you brought up the fact that the Gunner feat has applications outside of people who want to replicate Percy de Rolo. It works on bows, too.
Double Bladed Scimitars aren’t the only 2 handed finesse weapon anymore, the hoopak from Dragonlance now also fits that niche
def a fav of mine, the sling on top of it too mmmmm
This is also crazy.
It's finesse, so STR or DEX. Whether you use it as the 1d6 spear melee, or the 1d4 sling ranged. 1d6 melee finesse, sure, that's fine. 1d4 ranged strength? hearty kek
@@g80gzt lol yea, spear tho? i thought it was a q staff so it can also be used as a magic focus haha (sage advice says a staff and a q staff can be the same object) but yea str based sling is neat never even thought about that part haha, barbs gonna get a boost now
also note that a hoopak is for a Small critter, so get one for a Med critter--1d8/1d6.
@@thekaxmax i cant find where that info is can you point me to the page or info?
Your videos where you look for the fun side in things most people look past (like suboptimal feats & multi-class combos) are my favorites.
Keep up the awesome work! 😀
When you suggested pairing the actor feat with the telepathic feat my first thought was using it to imitate the person I was talking to telepathically to pass myself off as thoughts that they were thinking, pair this with the previous suggestion of following someone around and speaking to them nonstop and you could probably cause any person of your choice to go crazy
So that Knight of the Sword feat also has a prerequisite that you are playing the Dragonlance Campaign, as well as being either a Fighter or Paladin Class or Knight of Solamnia Background. I think that's why it doesn't get talked about too much.
I'm currently playing the Dragonlance adventure and going with "Initiate of High Sorcery (Lunitari)" + "Adept of the Red Robes" on a Watchers Paladin 7/Swords Bard 4 build.
yeah, it's not that the feat is underrated, there's just too many restrictions on it ^^
I am running this campaign right now. My group is lv 3. As a lv 11 how have you enjoyed the campaign module so far?
@@LoreFoundry sorry, we're at lvl 3, too. I've just planned my PC out to 11. So far so good though.
@@goodgulfgas ah, so I imagine you are in Voglar right about now. Maybe enjoying some festivities?
I cannot stress enough how much I love this channel. Your content is 100% my favorite DnD related content that's not Actual Play. Thank you very much for what you do!
Quill from "High Rollers" has abused the Observant feat ever since he got it. He would regularly read people's lips and get information the party wasn't intended to get so easily, and one time skipped an _entire plotline_ with his ridiculous Passive Perception.
Strixhaven Initiate has been vital for my Owl House character builds.
Telepathic is a must-have on a druid, because of wildshape sure, but also because (as a wisdom-based character) you're likely to be one of the best in the party at Insight checks. You can silently inform the entire party if the NPC you're talking to has hidden motivations or if you suspect they're lying. (Then again, your component-free Detect Thoughts might be able to reveal this as well!)
I did the revenant blade feat on an Aasimar Paladin. It was a blast. Especially when you add Devine Smit to every blow
I use a Revenant Blade with my Protector Aasimar Profane Soul Blood Hunter 😁 it's great! And my DM has even allowed me to modify/enhance it to have a +1 AC when wielded normally, but then also being able to split it upp to two Scimitars making it loose the +1 AC but instead lets the Bonus Action Attack deal 2d4 damage instead of the normal 1d4 😊
Divine. Devine is italian for "of Wine"
....Do you mean REVENANT? Learn to spell ffs.
@@smashbrandiscootch719 Thank Webster
@@smashbrandiscootch719 🤨 why so bloody hostile? Everyone can make mistakes and not everyone has English as their first language. CHILL ffs
You're a monster for using that spider animation. I can't believe you've done this
The ad read for Ryoko’s Guide made me think of one of my home games. My friends first time playing he made a Ranger with celestial as his favored enemies so he could kill them and take their weapons thinking it would be super effective against demons.
In my opinion the most underutilized feets are the two(most of the time) attached to your body. I played an Aven Monk and it was so fun to describe my combat because unarmed strikes doesn’t have to be a punch. I was doing flying backflip kicks, wing slaps, roundhouses. Then my DM would reward my creativity with an extra D4 damage
I am planning on getting telepathic on my current character and one of the things I can't wait for is the detect thoughts without components effectively letting you read people's mind without anyone knowing
Colby over at D4 used the Revenant Blade feat for the Blender half of his Battery and Blender team build. The Blender was a Wood Elf Barbarian/Rogue that was able to Rage and Sneak Attack at the same time. While Rage and Reckless Attack only work with Strength, Sneak Attack only states that you must be wielding a finesse or ranged weapon, not that you must be attacking with Dexterity.
I love the observant treat. I love making high passive characters and observant is the way to go if you want a passive that’s 20+
Another overlooked feature of Telepathic is that when you use the 1/long free cast of Detect Thought it requires no components so no one can tell you're casting it. The target won't have any idea until you attempt to dive deeper.
Telepathy for evil/pranks? Yes please hehehe
I played an old one Barblock because it came with prank whisper, I mean telepathy...
Imagine combining this with actor and/or a changeling, you can imitate their inner voice and give them intrusive thoughts
Bonus points for getting everybody at the table to take telepathy so that you can effectively DDOS the bad guy once you get him in sight. LOL
I don't think so @@nicolastracz3793 . Awakened mind lets you talk at people, but not hear them; telepathy feat is the same right?
I was in a party with another GOOlock, the DM let us text each other when we were speaking telepathically
@@BouncingTribbles Nice! I just started using Awakened Mind for pulling out bullshit or just trash talking NPC'S. It's also pretty handy for sharing information.
I usually have to state that I'm using it tough; since I'm the only one who's psychic and there's no reason for using text messages.
I do the Telepathy + Actor feat thing with my Halfling Soulknife, and it's so much fun. Especially for setting up Sneak Attack, since all you need is someone Hostile to your target adjacent to them. Imitate the target's voice in their head with a yo mama joke. Or rumormongering, forging Sending spells, or impersonating intrusive thoughts.
I like the combination of having one player taking both Observant and Telepathic. That way they can recreate the cool story feature of some Batman and Superman joint comics, where they communicate privately because Superman can hear Batman's subsonic whispers while Batman can read Superman's lips when he goes to reply without making any noise at all.
If you take both of those feats, you can do that with anyone at any time. Provided you're somewhat close and can see that person.
Ever since I learned of the telepathic and telekinetic feats. I have been plotting on how to include them on several of my character wish list. My favorite is my Changling Djinni-lock. Built with utility from the pact of the tome. I also went with the actor-telepathic combo for shenanigans. And with telepathic, they gain more things to do aside from Eldrich Blast.
Knight of the Sword(with Squire of Solamnia) and Revanant Blade are feats I never even heard of. But damn, do I want to use K.o.t.S. on my fighters and conquest paladin. And Revanent Blade is fine with or without the Elf only restirction.
I have considered Observant. I would love to take it on a character with an espionage campaign.
Gunner is my goal when the DM allows it on my G-onks.
I have about a dozen characters with Strixhaven initiate as one of their feats. That is some amazing content and I would love to find a DM who would let me use it to the fullest.
I wish some did this in my campaign. Rolling deception or persuasion checks from thoughts you put in others heads sounds dope af.
I Love your Channel. My best Inspirationen for DnD. Thanxxx and Greetings from Germany
Using Telepathy with _Words of Terror_ from the Whispers Bard is nasty.
And just Telepathy on an infiltrator character - a Changeling, Whispers Bard, and/or Warlock with the _Mask of Many Faces_ Eldritch Invocation... or all of the above (although there's also a place for the plasmoid Whispers/Hexblade).
Telepathy allows an underrated but possibly vital ability - being able to tell the Party _who you are_ should you cross paths... "Hey guys, it's me. Third guard on the Baron's left, the one with the red moustache."
The same trick could even be used in combat with enough Party coordination so that you can go _Mistique_ on the enemy, changing into one of them, without worrying about friendly fire [besides the usual ☄️].
I love rhe telepathy feature of GOO warlock, like coordinating a surprise attack or luring an enemy into a trap, warn allies silently, or spice up the deception/intimidations
My DM homebrewed the half-orc version of the revenant blade feat to give more flavor to my barbarian and his orcish double axe (also homebrewed).
Very nice feat indeed
Combine the unsleeping + telepathic + familiar combo with vicious mockery, and you can talk someone to death from anywhere ☠️
The range of that cantrip is 60ft
The range of telepathic is also 60ft, whats your poiny here?@@d_andrews
I actually took observant on my rogue ranger cleric multiclass and got my passive perception up to nearly 30. I could see more stuff innately than most dragons with that character X3
Great video btw ^w^
the best telepathic torture is to sing "Henry The Eighth, I Am" repeatedly.....forever.
I mostly let my players take a feat at level 1 that fits to their background/backstory (just explain why you have that particular talent). I love to DM high-power games and my players got creative with this home rule.
Once, for example, one player who choose monk for his class took the tavern brawler feat because of his 'drunken master' subclass. His weapon was a frying pan and he hhd the TF2 pan hit/crit sound effects ready every session😂
Ah, your player is the green soul from undertale
Honestly, inspiring leader i feel is in this sort of underrated feat, because of how week the amount of temp hp you can give, and the fact it grinds the session to a halt.
Its free temp HP per short rest that lasts the entire day. On a high charisma character its amazing padding in a dungeon that at even mid tier levels gives the party 12+ temp hp.
As a DM you can literally just ask your player to give some inspiring quote of the day or something if you truly want to RP it. It's more that it just takes up 10 minutes of your in game time.
"grinds the session to a halt"? Does your DM make you perform an actual inspiring speech?
@@OmegaTrooper1 true. I was given inspiring leader at level two at the start of the campaign. I'm playing a reborn necromancer with a +2 charisma. The DM saw that out of the party I had the lowest HP. So gave it a slight boost to it by allowing me to also add my intelligence or wisdom. As a Necromancer, naturally intelligence.
@@2MeterLP the last DM did.
@@patrickdees5256 Oof. Did you also have to do pushups to succeed athletics checks?
The telepathy bit reminds me of something that happened in a game of ShadowRun back in the 90's, our group was trying to steal a new prototype Police Banshee variant from some corporate test facility for client so-and-so, and there was a group of guards to get past, two trolls and the rest were human. We had two mages in the group and they used telepathy and some kind of impersonation skill checks to convince some of the guards that others were talking shit, and started a mini-race riot between the trolls and the humans, and we got past the fighting guards without them knowing until they heard the turbines start up on the aircraft as we prepped to fly the Banshee right out of the facility.
My Necromancer is telepathic and the audacity you can have while using this is so funny. It might be a little more powerful since I convinced my DM that I can speak Verbal Spell Components mentally. But seriously just walking up to a guard, telling them to look left in their head and then slipping by right has had me get past so many initial hurdles when trying to contact people, it's hilarious
"I can speak Verbal Spell Components mentally" That's a great use of the feat! (unless you have the blinded condition)! Maybe it's TRDSIC, but it RoCs!
Everyone can talk in their own heads by default. Wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks all have to speak the verbal components of spells even though they can talk in their own minds. How would talking in someone else's mind remove the need to speak spell components? That doesn't add up lol
@@rayzerotSounds like he tricked his DM more than the NPCs lol
One of my players wanted to get Revenant Blade for her human character. The only restriction I gave her was:
"Make sure that, in your backstory, your master was an elven Double-Bladed Scimitar master!"
That way, I got her to do cool stuff with her backstory while allowing a great feat.
Observant is definitely very fun, in a Strixhaven campaign where I was working at the newspaper, I used observant not only to get the scoop on fellow students easier but also to figure out what a suspicious figure was up to!
Observant is kickass. I'd say a must have to a ranger. Especially with tasha's optional class rules
I used the reverent double bladed scimitar with a tabaxi Swashbuckler 3 / Hexblade 2 / bard 1. So much fun!
I used Telepathy with actor in a campain to speak into people's head in their own voice. Used it to implant some ideas that they should help the party and became "their conscience"
i just came here for the new ryoko ad (backed first day, but those are just too funny and well made)
Holy shit strichaven initiate is crazy... druidcraft + guidance! You get 2/3 of the best utility cantrips (these 2 being badically class locked!)
Observant as a Divination Wizard makes a wonderful fun "all seeing wizard"
You enter a room and can read the room passively, giving you another mystical 4th dimensional wizard feel
When Your beanie tag lines up with your eyebrow i literally thought it was apart of your eyebrow and was like wtf is going on here xD
I came here to comment the same thing.
Revenant Blade reminds me of a TWF build I did back in 3.5
Started with a Sylven Elf, dipped 2 levels of fighter for bonus feats (Exotic Prof: Double Bladed Sword & Weapon Focus) before embarking upon a journey of madness through Barbarian into the Frenzied Berserker prestige class. Armed with a power attack that hit hard enough to force a save vs massive damage, and a plethora of attacks courtesy of my greater two weapon fighting and supreme cleave, my elven rage machine was a whirlwind of death and insanity upon the battlefield. My friends never made fun of elves ever again, and I got banned from playing melee characters within that group. Good times.
Tavern Brawler turns the world into your weapon and is great for unarmed/MMA/ Baki character builds. It also allows you to add your proficiency to thrown items like acid, alchemist fire, bear trap on a rope, get creative or watch Baki for ideas.
I miss 3.5 where you could take the improvised weapon feat and the monkey grip feat and then start a bar fight, politely excuse yourself to the outside of the bar and then supplex the entire bar with your opponent still inside of it into the building across the street.
GUN KATA! OMG! EQUILIBRIUM IN DnD!
Thank you for giving me the feat I never knew I needed. GUN MONK will be had.
Currently doing a Revenant Blade Wood Elf Ranger in a campaign, the funny part is they are blind and can only see through their drake from drakewarden making things kind of trippy sometimes.
I love how you list THREE feats I love using. Telepathic, Observant and Strixhaven Initiate are all feats I love using for characters. Want to play a Druid who can talk via telepathy and use some wizard spells while reading lips from far away... take all three! lol
I'm waiting on the book but already making plans. I like the idea of investigating monster weaknesses, such that I am going to build this into many monsters. Chuul, oozes, hook horror. All sorts. Yummie!
Another crazy thing about Telepathic: you gain the ability to cast it without components, essentially gaining the Subtle Spell meta magic ability. Even after your 1/LR cast, you can still use it this way by expending a spell slot. Wild.
That revenant blade feat made me think of a fun build of a folk hero swashbuckler rogue who is a expert duelist that challenges big bads
I’m currently playing a wildfire Druid with a gun and having the gunner feat was a must get for me, but this character is some of the most fun I’ve had in a while
Druid with a gun. Bit of an oxymoron.
@@nicheva417 yeah it’s not very conventional, but it’s a space campaign so we kinda threw a lot of traditional stuff out the window. I have a lot of really fun combos with it though, like if I use flame arrows, I can do my guns damage which is a d10, plus the d6 from flame arrows, plus a d8 from enhanced bond if my wildfire spirit is out
I love taking Strixhaven Initiate on wizards, being able to viciously mock enemies and having healing word as well!
On Revenant blade the Elf only restriction makes sense for Eberron lore reasons. The thing is that double-bladed scimitar is used primarily by elves of Valenar who have deep and long warrior culture. These scimitars are passed through generations as heritage. Wielding such weapon means you are following the code and you are quite able warrior. Anyone from Valenar can challenge you for a duel and if you lose they are allowed to take your scimitar and call it their own. If you stole a scimitar (the indication of that is most likely the fact that you are not an elf), you are dire criminal and must be eliminated at sight, after which the scimitar must be returned to family who owns it.
When you are describing the Telepathic feat and how to use it offensively (in both sense of the word) all I can think about is the scene from Ghost with Patrick Swayze and Whoppie Goldberg where he follows her around singing "I am Henry the VIIIth I am" for HOURS until she agrees to help him LOL!
From Wikipedia - the movie was in 1990
In the 1990 film Ghost, Sam (Patrick Swayze) sings this song on a continuous run in a bad Cockney London accent all night long, to Oda Mae Brown (Whoopi Goldberg) to annoy her into helping him.[5]
Never expected revenant blade to pop up.
I found the feat, and just HAD to make a character using a double scimitar because of it.
I have Observent on my knowledge cleric and it is magnificent. Went with the variant human to pick up preception proficiency and observant at level 1 putting his passive perception at +10. Acolyte background with cleric grants further proficiency into, insight, religion, medicine, history and 2 more languages. Knowledge domain adds arcana and nature at double proficiency and increases the total of languages to 4. Pairing all this with the knowledge domain abilities and spells he can track anyone anywhere...
As soon as he said « the creature is frightened of you » I was like :
New character ! Variant human Hexadin of conquest... now !
Never heard of the first one, but I'll have to try it out! Because martials need more interesting utility.
I just realized the telepathic feat can actually combo with a handful of spells, specifically the ones that stipulate 'the target needs to hear you'. Such as: compulsion, dissonant whispers, geas, modify memory, suggestion, and vicious mockery. Combined with subtle spell . . . and oh boy!
I love observant, but the catch is it has to be a language you can speak, still pairs great with linguist or any background that gives you an extra dialect.
And entirely agree about your comment using setting specific options outside their intended campaign, that simple flexibility grants quite a bit of variety for flavor and minmaxing; though our homebrew is throwing out race restricted classes feats and equipment.
Don't know if you've covered these feats already nor remember if I've brought up farland's before.
The combo of 'expert medic' and 'hard to kill' turn any character into a passive life cleric. EM gives you a +1 wisdom, and as long as you're within 50 feet of an ally they gain advantage on death saving throws, and they get a free success roll. HtK raises your constitution by +1, once a day you can roll a death save with advantage, and all of your death saving throws get a +1 bonus.
There's also the 'punisher' feat which raises strength by +1, and once per round you can make an attack of opportunity without spending your reaction. Great on magical martials as they can use their reaction for the shield spell or some other retaliation while not forfeiting your guard. 'Avenger' raises any ability of your choice by +1, and whenever an enemy inflicts a debilitating condition or critical hit on an ally, your next attack roll gains advantage. Neither feat has a limit, so you could use them both every round but might be more situational.
The 'shield grand master' feat is the only one of the bunch to require another feat as a prerequisite, obviously 'shield master'. SGM adds +1 to your armor class so long as you have a shield equipped, and you have advantage on dexterity saving throws against all area of effects. It helps you survive things you have no business beating, even when dexterity is your dump stat XD
Imagine the look on your DM's face when you tell them that an enemy has to succeed on three saving throws to resist the frightened effect and be unable to move because you're playing a Conquest Paladin/Undead Warlock with Knight of the Sword and Wrathful Smite.
If you really wanna be extra and your DM allows UA content, take the Menacing feat for Expertise in Intimidation and the ability to substiute an attack with an Intimidation check contested by your target's Insight check. On a fail, the target is frightened until the end of your next turn. If you're a level 5 Warlock you can pick up the Eldritch Invocation Cloak of Flies to give yourself advantage on the check in addition to dealing poison damage equal to your Charisma mod to anyone within 5 feet of you at the start of their turn. It stands pretty nicely with Aura of Conquest which stops frightened enemies from moving and deals damage equal to half your paladin to frightened enemies in the aura.
I'm playing a Kenku Soulknife and use the telepathy strategy. Kenku comes packed with mimicry, which gives you that utility of actor right away. Soulknife Rogue gives you telepathy, and therefore that combo, at level 3.
Now when you hit 4 you can use the feat on Telepathy to gain an element of Arcane Trickster as well :)
i haven't had a chance to try it yet because i've been exploring all sorts of different classes, but i've got an idea in my head for a something like a bard or rogue that has high performance or deception to telepathically get enemies to start fighting each other by telepathically mimicing them to each other by insulting them. Or another idea i had in my head that used the telepathy feat was to play a high stealth rogue or a character that turns invisible and do that thing in anime and movies where a person is fighting someone and they turn invisible but their mocking voices are still heard.
An extremely simple but amazing feat for combat is Savage Attacker. Simply letting you roll a damage dice twice and take either number. Its incredibly good on monks and fighters who tend to attack more than twice per turn
The black tag on your cap aligns perfectly with your eyebrow, making it look extra long😂.
Sick transition to the sponsor
I used Telepathic on an Awakened Gecko because they knew 4 languages but couldn't speak, I also got offered a magical item and I took a ring that bumped my magical healing up a die class so d4 > d6. I played as a Bard to really bump up on the cuteness aspect and played my background as a Familiar that had been granted their freedom by an Archmage that had specialized in healing and took Goodberry from the Druid Class with my Bard features so I could have essentially 10 mini potions a day for 1 spell slot that would heal 1d4
Revenant blade has a cool build option - by multiclassing Fighter 1/Rogue 19 - and taking a Great Weapon Fighting style - now you can reroll 1s and 2s on your sneak attack! And considering that weapon has 2d4 damage - you will have a chance to increase the damage by +1/+2/+3 50% of the time! (+rerolling sneak attacks). And it scales by level with your SA!
Take the fighting initiate feat from Tasha's. Gives you a fighting style without having to multiclass.
@@vederianl9723 true
I'm running a game where my partner was playing a Ranger and wanted to play a deaf character, so they took the Observant feat for the lip reading and I let them take sign language as one of their language proficiencies. They were definitely a lot of fun to play with, though that character died recently. Their wolf companion is still traveling with the group, so I decided to bulk up the wolf a bit to make it a semi-functional member of the party on its' own, since the group only has three characters, so I gave the wolf some barbarian levels. Haven't had the opportunity to make use of that yet, but we'll see how it goes
I was already thinking of mixing battlesmith artificer and inquisitive rogue. To make a gunsling detective, this has just sold me on taking observant and gunner.
I have a passive perception of 26 based on smell and hearing with a wisdom of 14 on my level 1 werewolf barbarian. Keen smell and hearing gives advantage on perceptions that are smell and hearing based perceptions which in turns give you a +5 to your passive in those areas.
I found that the biggest problem with Observant is that it's entirely up to the DM how it gets used. The DM decides what your character can, and cannot, observe. The other trouble with it is that it can completely diffuse a lot of the plans and schemes the DM might have cooked up for the party, good or bad. High passives are a shortcut that doesn't always improve gameplay but can actually have a negative effect on the experience
The telepathic feature makes me think of the brain that doesn't make its owner sleep because it asks paradoxes
For the telepatic feat I figured out a similar scam with the warlock invocation that lets you use sendings by writing in your book. I, a changeling change into a preacher, asking for donations and promising people that what they donate will return to them tenfold. Then I ask them to write their name in my book of donations, then later that day I change my voice and send them a sending pretending to be a god rewarding them for their generosity, leaving some hidden treasure somewhere for them to find, so they can come next day and donate a larger sum of money to me so I can run away with it :D
i wanted to play so many characters but all the DM's i played with were so lame and p*ssys and crybabies because "Strixheaven isn't allowed because to broken blablabla" and "that feat works well just for that race so you choose it like that or choose another feat".
i wanna play with you!! you are way cooler and creative than any other DM i ever seen!!
I actually have a character I love role-playing. He is an arcane trickster based on the MTG character Lazav.
He is rocking the feats Actor, Observant, keen mind and linguist. Next will be telepathy. He prides himself on being able to walk into any room, read it them become anyone he needs to be in it
I already scream in my head. It starts every damn day when I wake up for class 😂
The cat with a gun reminded me of the web novel "Kitty Cat Kill Sat", featuring a sentient cat on a HILARIOUSLY well-armed space station. At one point the cat triggers a security drill in a particularly run-down part of the station and needs to get past the guard bots now patrolling the hallways. Thing is, the bots can see and aim too well to sneak or run past, and the cat doesn't have hands and so can't actually work a gun.
Cat's solution?
Pile about thirty guns pointing at a zone that the bots will pass through, run a string through the trigger guards, wait/bait a bot into the zone, then yank the string and watch the entire hallway get shredded.
Can confirm about actor + telepathy: combined with a good deception roll, it basically gave my warlock a no-resource jedi mind trick!
I do like Gunner because its just like Crossbow Expert with a ASI. I know there was a build talked about in another video where there was a Rogue/Artificer. I suggested going Artificer first if guns were allowed so you could get a gun as a Rogue, or 2 guns if you went Artilerist, but you could get this feat instead and open up your infusions. It is a good feat, I wasn't exactly sure if it could be taken if guns weren't allowed but even if you can't use a gun the ASI and getting rid of the penalty for close range is worth it for some builds.
The brown of his beanie meets up with his eyebrow in a funny way at time and I can’t unsee it
Re: using telepathy and acting to mimic the voice of a dead spouse: I'd make it an incredibly hard roll penalty or just rule it impossible if the character has never heard the spouse speak in person.
And I would definitely give a chance for the deity or one of its minions to have their attention attracted by someone telepathically lying about being a god. Having their worship hijacked is literally stealing the food out of their mouth or the blood out of their veins. They'd definitely be finely attuned (even if it's just in the way your skin is attuned to detecting mosquito bites) to the feeling of having their vital source of energy swiped. And considering what happens to mosquitos when *they* get detected, well, the results would vary by how vengeful or merciful the god is, but it would be likely to be interesting, and not in the good way.
The double bladed scimitar restriction is because the only in universe way you'll ever see that weapon used in in the Eberron setting with one of the elven nations as a cultural weapon to make them stand out from the inevitable 'All elves are brilliant at archery' trope. Would be nice Sea elves & Triton got something like that with Tridents as you also rarely see those in a game and it would give more players an opportunity to give them a go.
Man, the observant feat combined with the alert feat is one of the most busted combinations that I've done for one of my characters. I put this combo on my twilight domain cleric, maxed my wisdom, and a couple other things. Now, my passive perception is 30 and I can't be surprised.
Big investment to essentially gain a round of combat.
@@nicheva417 it helps out a lot since it was out of the abyss
thanks for mentioning observant, my dm loves and hates my inquisitive rogue with 30 passive perception
Love Observant. Reminder: your Passive Perception is the lowest you can get on a Perception Check, acting as a "floor", since making an active perception check doesn't 'turn off' your passive perception. If you roll a perception check and get a 15 total when your passive is 18, you'll use the 18 since you would passively have that much perception anyways! This means that, with proficiency and expertise in perception, +5 Wis, the Observant feat, and advantage, you can have a Passive Perception that's essentially a Nat20 every time, since having Advantage on a perception check *Also* gives +5 Passive Perception as well! (A total Passive Perception of [ 10 + 5 WIS + 6 Prof + 6 EX + 5 Observant + 5 Adv = 37 ] )
So theoretically a telepathic College of Whispers Bard could cause a lot of havoc?
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Pretend to have THEIR own voice
So they would start to believe those are intrusive or subconscious thoughts, you can basically make them do what ever you want while they THINK they are doing it because they want
I took Revenant Blade on my Blood Hunter and it's amazing. Get the extra BH damage on both attacks is nice!
I totally slept on knight of the sword, Now to find a way to smash that into the conquest paladin I'm building.
I have a character based around the telepathic feat. They are a Tiefling wizard that has had an injury that makes them unable to talk so being telepathic is how they speak.
I used Actor for a Great Old One Warlock in a One shot and used to speak telepathically in their own voice to some NPCs. Simply said " I should pay them more" during the negoation for example.
The telepathic/actor combination idea is good, if you knew the dead wife. You need to have heard someone talk for at least a minute before you can mimic them
had telepathic on my warlock illusionist who basically carried his patron with him. the shenanigans you can do with a character whos pretty much 90% lies and masks. to this day my favorite character. it was never about do i lie or now but rather "what flavor of BS am i gonna pull today"
I have seen a lot of knee-jerk reactions over strixhaven initiate, because it came from a specific setting. But the feat really is just an updated magic initiate.
That's it, it doesnt need to be attached to the background or the lore. You just know an extra 1st level spell, and two cantrips from a short list of 3. It's not even a half-feat like fey-touched, which gives you misty step and a 1st level spell. Most times I'd put this below upping your casting stat, grabbing resilient (Con), warcaster, metamagic adept, telekinetic, etc.
So i had a funny story with Observant. I wanted to play a relatively weak druid subclass Circle of Dreams. She was the party Mom of a bunch of murderhobos which went as well as you would have expected. I took the observant feat and the sentinel shield(wood of course) and got decent AC and more importantly advantage on perception checks!
So the way passive perception works with advantage is you get a +5 bonus to the roll meaning pared with observant you get a total of a +10 to your perception! I wanted to break that so i went and triple dog down and got the Skill Expert feat to get myself Expertise in Perception!
at level 8 i had +4 wisdom, expertise in perception, observant and advantage on perception checks with a grand total of a +20 to my perception checks!
Nearing the end of the game when i was level 14, the DM asked me what my passive perception was. I said 35. The look on the DM's face will always make me smile to this day and i have been banned from using broken perception builds! XD
I have the Knight of the Sword feat with my Rune Knight. But instead of it having the original prerequisite we renamed it and made it so I can only trigger it while enlarged with Giant's Might.
revenant blade is great for hexblade warlock, I mentioned this in a different video comment, but because hex weapon, improved pact weapon and lifedrinker all focus on buffing up the damage per hit, that extra 1d4 damage attack becomes 1d4+11 at level 12 with lifedrinker, which is a lot for 1 bonus action, while you also make another 4d4+22 with your action, and you only lose 1ac to buff your per turn damage from 2d8+22 with shield and longsword/rapier/warhammer/whatever d8 damage one handed weapon you are using, to 5d4+33 with the double bladed scimitar while also looking so much cooler and the massive size of the weapon is no problem bacause you can summon it to your hand for free without carrying that great big thing around with you all the time.