Top Feat Changes That Every D&D Player Should Know About!

[@xiongray]

Ritual Caster is pretty solid too. It provides x/PB of 1st-level Rituals & the ability to Ritual Cast once a day as the normal casting time.

[@ThisCrits]

Yea! I read ritual caster a few times but ultimatley decided to include spell sniper

[@hathus5536]

Another one to consider is the update to Great Weapon Fighter (not Master)...before could reroll a 1 or 2 on a damage roll but now I think it says a 1 or 2 is counted as a 3. May not seem like too much but use it with something like the Double Bladed Scimitar that deals 2d4 (+ PB/mod) and you are doing a minimum of 6 damage plus modifiers...combine with Revenant blade feat to use double bladed Scimitar with dexterity instead of strength

[@ThisCrits]

Yea, there were a lot of good feat updates and it made this video more difficult than expected lol

[@RussellPearce-cu6vw]

players are becoming gods waiting for the monster manual to see how they stack up

[@ThisCrits]

1000% can't wait for my DM toys!

[@ericpeterson8732]

I love the changes to durable. The old wording was confusing, as people weren't sure if your complete hit dice was 2x your Con bonus or 2xCon bonus plus your Con bonus, since spending a hit dice is 1dx +Con mod. The new version omits all that for advantage on death saving throws and a healing factor by allowing you to spend a hit dice as a bonus action. No more needing Dwarven fortitude feat and take the dodge action to do that. Much cleaner, better benefit. As a melee character, I would rather use my hit dice in combat than wait until afterwards to take a short rest.

[@ThisCrits]

Yea! There were a bunch of great (and not so great) changes so narrowing it down to 5 was rough.

[@someoneonyoutube8622]

Honestly I can get behind the defensive dualist if its nerfed slightly. Like the first attack allows you to add your proficiency to your Ac and each attack after that goes down by 1 until your proficiency is no longer added

[@ThisCrits]

I wouldn't be too upset if it were nerved slightly either. Currently it's a free shield spell every round

[@someoneonyoutube8622]

@@ThisCrits plus I think it adds some nice flavor like your stamina is being pushed to keep up with the flurry of attacks and wearing you down until you have a few seconds on your turn to regain your composure

[@ericpeterson8732]

I disagree. We are talking about the cost of a feat and still using your reaction to gain a nominal AC bonus until higher levels. +2 until lvl5, +3 until level 9, etc. Considering dex based melees usually wear lighter armor, this accounts for the difference between light armor AC and heavy armor AC. Considering many of the characters who will take this feat (rogues, monks) have defensive reactions that this will conflict with, as well as never getting opportunity attacks if they use this every round. I love the changes. In 2014 rules, only deflecting one attack with your reaction was costly and ineffective. This new defensive duelist feat is what I wanted for my swashbuckler character.

[@someoneonyoutube8622]

⁠​⁠​⁠@@ericpeterson8732you already got the ability score improvement with it that can boost your dex and potentially your Ac, Saves, and attack/damage rolls permanently by 1. So until level 4 you actually have +(2-3) ac and till level 9 you have +(3-4) so if you want to exploit it you can get the level 9 benefits at level 1 and level 12 benefits at level 6. This could be an issue for scaling encounters but even so this is in no way limited to only dex builds you can still do this in heavy armor with a shield so it is highly exploitable for Ac stacking. Imagine a paladin in full plate with a shield casting shield of faith, also being buffed by the sorcerer and wizard with haste and Fizban’s platinum shield. This is already 24AC and by the time they have acess to fizban’s they’d need to be at least level 11 so the proficiency bonus is +4 or higher meaning with this feat they have an Ac of 28 not including any magical buffs from magic items or enchanted armors. On top of this they also gain resistance to elemental damage and evasion with advantage on dex saves double movement and an extra attack. And on top of that we also haven’t taken into account silvery barbs. Even If we take fizbans out of the picture and focus on lower levels then you can by the end still have a hasted paladin with 26AC by level 5 or a paladin with a perpetual 24AC. not counting magic items or armors. This is far too abusable and doesn’t actually do anything to make Dex based fighting more viable than heavy armor. If we really wanted to make that happen though we could say the bonus lets you double your dex mod as it is applied to your AC instead and the bonus doesn’t begin to decrease by until after a number of attacks equal to your proficiency score. This would mean heavily armored individuals that can’t add dex to their Ac wouldn’t be able to double it and so couldn’t use it, likewise medium armored individuals would only gain a partial benefit from it but light armored players would see the biggest increase in utility and it would still be a reliable source of protection and not permanent.

[@bluelionsage99]

Well, a +1 bonus to dex or str only adds anything if the value is odd. Even numbers will leave you in the same two number catagory. With the healing feat, it used to grant you healing past anything already in hand. Now you use up the hit dice that a short rest could spend. In my current campaign a ranger took the feet, so getting to re-roll "1"s would do him no good.

[@ThisCrits]

Yea, the feat itself pretty much got an entire overhaul and is really not comparable to its former state lol

[@coreymcnaught]

Time stamps would be great for videos like this.

[@ThisCrits]

Ahhh I always forget to add stamps! Sorry I will try to remember for future videos haha

[@natcal4979]

Great weapon master effects heavy weapons not husr just melee

[@ThisCrits]

Thats a good call out!

[@shadowmancer99]

GWM is NOT an improvement. The risk/reward was part of the fun. And the damage caps at much less. If it was double the Prof bonus then you might have something. This version is worst, period. Because at higher levels, you are rarely going to miss given the pathetic AC of nearly all monsters. Secondly, need to get over this idea of "feeling" when it comes to the use of spells or such....when you roll dice, you sometimes will roll low. People need to accept that not everything is going to roll high, win, survive, etc....

[@MannonMartin]

It's not stronger, but I would argue it is an improvement. GWM and Sharp Shooter needed a nerf. They were overtuned and effectively punished players for using weapons that couldn't use these feats.

[@shadowmancer99]

@@MannonMartin I disagree with that they were too powerful. I WANT things to be powerful, and there is nothing wrong with some features just being plain better than others. But then, I HATE nerfs.

[@MannonMartin]

@@shadowmancer99 I don't think everything should be perfectly balanced at all times, certainly. But if you're someone that cares about your character's damage output playing in 2014 rules you pretty much have to take GWM or SS. It means that all other weapons and fighting styles are gimped by default to a degree just due to two feats. I'm not really a fan of that. It's not like you can't make powerful characters under the 2024 rules. If anything characters are even more powerful for the most part. But they did tone down those two feats. Yeah I'm not a fan of nerfs either, but when you have 40 ish feats and 2 standouts it's pretty hard to argue that you should buff the other 38 instead of nerfing the 2. Especially when it would be very difficult to actually match the power levels of the 2. I'm a bit sad to see the -5 atk +10 damage go, but I can understand it. Of course some DM's balanced it by giving all weapons that capability without needing a feat. If your DM's down for the home rule you can still have the gameplay of it, and let everybody enjoy it. Though your DM may be inclined to use it against you as well.

[@shadowmancer99]

@@MannonMartin I am not a fan of everyone getting to do everything for free just to save feelings. If someone invests in a feat, no issue, but if not, they dont get the benefit anyway. I have no real issue with outlier features, good or bad. It, to me, keeps the game interesting, hence why I dont worry about balance as much as most others. Its usually more effort than its worth..unless someone is getting wish spells every short rest, I dont think a -5 +10 is game breaking.

[@MannonMartin]

@@shadowmancer99 I wouldn't call it game breaking either. But to just arbitrarily heavily favor two types of weapons with very, very strong damage feats I don't think makes the game more interesting. I find it makes the game less interesting by making all weapons not of those types inherently worse. +10 damage on a character that will eventually get loads of attacks per turn is really really strong. Maybe if it was an additional d10. But a flat 10 damage is pretty hard to compete with and it very much gimps sword and board, duel wielding, finesses weapons, ect... by comparison. It also makes feats less interesting when there a an objectively best feat. Maybe you're using a great sword or other heavy weapon. Sure, you CAN take other feats than GWM... But you will be objectively worse in combat for most situations if you don't take it. It doesn't have to be perfectly balanced. There will always be better and worse choices, especially when you look at synergies, but if something is strong enough you feel stupid not taking it then how much real "choice" do you have? You have a situation where you have player agency to pick other things, but you have to pay a heavy tax to exercise it. Hence I don't have a problem with moderately nerfing these two feats a bit, especially when players and particularly martials have gained so much in 2024 rules. Having said that, there's no law against just running with the 2014 rules if you want to. Honestly no two tables really play the game the same way anyway.

[@bravojr]

What every Dnd player should know, there is better than Dnd. Forget the WOTC, Enjoy anything else.

[@ThisCrits]

I enjoy multiple TTRPG, including D&D! People can enjoy whatever they like :D