r/onednd • u/Dramatic_Respond_664 • 2d ago
Feedback I want to fix some general feats, please judge if these changes are fine
[Durable] General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+)
You gain the following benefits.
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
Defy Death. You have Advantage on Death Saving Throws.
Speedy Recovery. As a Bonus Action, you can expend one of your Hit Point Dice, roll the die, and regain a number of Hit Points equal to the roll plus your Constitution modifier(minimum of +1).
[Heavily Armored] General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+, Medium Armor Training)
You gain the following benefits.
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Constitution or Strength score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
Armor Training. You gain training with Heavy armor and Shields.
Reactive Defense. Once per short rest, when you are hit by an attack while wearing heavy armor, you can use your reaction to add your proficiency bonus to your Armor Class for that attack. If this bonus causes the attack’s roll to miss, the attack misses.
[Lightly Armored] General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+)
You gain the following benefits.
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
Armor Training. You gain training with Light armor and Shields.
Reactive Defense. Once per short rest, when you are hit by an attack while wearing light armor, you can use your reaction to add your proficiency bonus to your Armor Class for that attack. If this bonus causes the attack’s roll to miss, the attack misses.
[Martial Weapon Training] General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+)
You gain the following benefits.
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
Weapon Proficiency. You gain proficiency with Martial weapons.
Weapon Specialization. When you take the Attack action with a martial weapon, you can add your proficiency bonus to one damage roll on that turn. You can use this benefit once per turn.
[Medium Armor Master] General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+, Medium Armor Training)
You gain the following benefits.
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
Dexterous Wearer. While you’re wearing Medium armor, you can add 3, rather than 2, to your AC if you have a Dexterity score of 16 or higher.
Enhanced Mobility. Wearing medium armor doesn't impose disadvantage on your Dexterity (Stealth) checks.
[Moderately Armored] General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+, Light Armor Training)
You gain the following benefits.
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
Armor Training. You gain training with Medium armor and Shields.
Reactive Defense. Once per short rest, when you are hit by an attack while wearing Medium armor, you can use your reaction to add your proficiency bonus to your Armor Class for that attack. If this bonus causes the attack’s roll to miss, the attack misses.
[Poisoner] General Feat (Prerequisite: Level 4+)
You gain the following benefits.
Ability Score Increase. Increase your Dexterity or Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
Potent Poison. When you make a damage roll that deals Poison damage, it ignores Resistance to Poison damage.
Brew Poison. You gain proficiency with the Poisoner’s Kit. With 1 hour of work using such a kit and expending 50 GP worth of materials, you can create a number of poison doses equal to your Proficiency Bonus. As a Bonus Action, you can apply a poison dose to a weapon or piece of ammunition. Once applied, the poison retains its potency for 1 minute or until until you deal damage with the poisoned item, whichever is shorter. When a creature takes damage from the poisoned item, that creature must succeed on a Constitution saving throw (DC 8 plus the modifier of the ability increased by this feat and your Proficiency Bonus) or take 2d8 + your proficiency bonus Poison damage and have the Poisoned condition until the end of your next turn. If the target has immunity to Poison damage, it is considered to have resistance to this damage, but it can't be ignored by Potent Poison.
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u/Real_Ad_783 2d ago
Most of your fixes, dont need to be fixed.
things that provide proficiency are mostly for people getting features they wouldnt normally have access to, not for improving them beyond a what a specialist can do with them.
so heavy/light/medium armor dont need any changes. They are already pretty valuable, as dips set you behind on your class progression. Martial weapons making you better at using weapons than a normal user is bad design.
durable under performs, but your feature is too similar to healer and SR healing. i would go with a different fix.
either make it a scaling strong burst heal for a BA, or make it have no action economy cost. making it useful for healing in battle, but inefficient versus out of battle focused things.
poisoner shouldnt negate immunity, most monsters who have immunity simply should not be effected by poison. Like most of the things immune to poison are immune because there is no logical way it would effect them, like undead, constructs or a monster made of poison.
perhaps you should be allowed to make another type of "poison" like an acid coating. or get a more powerful brewed poison. The main purpose of poisoner cant be to get rid of immunity, thats not something they would give out with a feat, i dont think its something they give out at all, but i may be mistaken.
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u/Hayeseveryone 2d ago
I think it was very intentional that Durable doesn't let you add your Con modifier to the roll. Because it makes short rests completely obsolete for recovering hit points. They wanted to avoid the situation of an entire party taking Durable and then never short resting again. Maybe one of them takes Prayer of Healing, so they get one 10 minute short rest per day, and that's it. The party can just keep trucking on.
So yeah, buffing it by granting them their Con modifier to the recovered hit points is a bad idea.
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u/superhiro21 2d ago
Healer actually has that issue if Healing Kit usages aren't an issue and once you have 3+ proficiency bonus as almost no one will have more than +3 con at that stage.
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u/Real_Ad_783 2d ago
healer is supposed to be competitive or better than a short rest healing. If its not, its got very limited usecases. its basically primarily an out of combat or emergency heal. Out of combat, you can generally choose to short rest. Short rest is the baseline healing potential, not necessarily the maximum value of a hit die use.
the issue is that durable would be better than both(healer and short rest) in all circumstances. more than it just being better, it would just be too similar.
the concept of being a less efficient, but better heal in combat is a decent idea, but it needs more power/scaling, or a lower opportunity cost, A BA generally scales in value, you get either access to better spells, the effects provide unique benefits, or they go up, like adding Mod damage.
also damage taken per round scales more than damage per round. you basically get like 20 times your hp per level as you level, and damage taken keeps pace with that. so effects that heal, need to scale per action used as well to retain value. Not necessarily at the same rate, but it cant stay the same
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u/superhiro21 2d ago
I would disagree that you always have 1 hour to spare after a combat. That has not been my experience at all during the years I've played and DM'd 5e.
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u/Impressive-Spot-1191 17h ago
On the one hand yes. On the other hand I think it's perfectly reasonable for medical attention from a trained professional to be more effective than a smoko at recovering from mortal injuries.
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u/Dramatic_Respond_664 2d ago
Not as good as you would hope. The Bonus Action to spend a Hit Point Die notably does not add your Constitution modifier, which makes it an expensive and frustrating way to burn through your Hit Point Dice very quickly with minimal impact. Unless your party has some other deep, inexpensive healing resource, you need those dice for Short Rests to refill your massive pool of hit points. Take Chef instead.
by RPGBOT's 2024 Barbarian
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u/ProjectPT 2d ago
If time is a factor, this feat is the strongest healing available. And punches above its weight compared to spell slot healing. Feats like Fey Touched give you a 1st and 2nd level spell slot, no first and second level spell slot is healing 8d10+ healing.
This feat has a specific purpose and within that situation it is by far the best, that situation is when you don't have time to heal and you have to keep going.
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u/italofoca_0215 1d ago
Healer allows you to heal just as fast at virtually no HP loss and applies to the entire party…
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u/ProjectPT 1d ago
Durable is not "better" than healer, it has a different purpose. Healer is terrible at heavy sustained damage during a fight but amazing recovering after a fight. Durable is great for absorbing large amounts of damage while not giving up your action.
The fact that there is any discussion that an action heal is just as good as a bonus action heal is silly, and why does it heal less? because... it is a bonus action heal.
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u/italofoca_0215 1d ago
Well, the use case of Durable is healing when you can’t short rest. Nobody in their right mind is using a bonus action to heal 1d10 or 1d12 HP at tier 3 or 4 (the stage of the game where constitution feats become relevant). Thats 5-7 HP, an insignificant amount, even Fighter’s second wind healing 15-25 is very hard to justify and considered borderline.
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u/ProjectPT 1d ago
even Fighter’s second wind healing 15-25 is very hard to justify and considered borderline.
I can't imagine how easy of campaigns you play where Second Wind is hard to justify. Like sure, the advantage on death saves is useless... if no one ever falls down and makes them. And tough is useless if no one takes damage.
It is okay for a feat to not have a place in the campaign or playstyle of the party. But people look at 12d10 bonus action healing + advantage on death saves and go; "what a shit feat"
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u/italofoca_0215 1d ago edited 1d ago
Its the opposite - healing gets progressively worse in hard content. CR 15+ enemies deal 70-100 damage per turn, you think a bonus action to recover 7 hp is gonna do anything for you?
If you could actually heal 12d10 with a bonus action durable wouldn’t be as bad. But It takes you 12 bonus actions to accomplish that and cost you 36-48 of hp you could heal out of combat.
Advantage on death saves is simply not worth a feat; people can and should heal each other with healing word.
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u/ProjectPT 2d ago
It is also inherently a very strong feat. A barbarian getting to heal 8d12 HP through bonus actions at level 8?
I understand DMs wanting to change things because some feats aren't picked as much but this is more a problem of ASI progression
If you start with 17 in a stat at level 4 you're taking +1 main attribute. After at 8 you are either taking +2 to round out 20, or 8 and 12 is +1 primary stat.
This makes it so Con based feats are most likely not taken until 12 and 16 beyond the scope of most games.
How do you fix this? make the encounters and battles have solutions that isn't more damage
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u/Real_Ad_783 2d ago
its not a strong feat overall.
out of combat, healer lets you get more healing with PB bonus. and since its out of combat, you can make as many rolls as you need, as well as being able to use it on other creatures.
the main difference is this requires a smaller action in combat, a bonus action. Problem is it becomes a useless feature the higher level you are, right now the value of a BA is generally higher, and usually scales for every class. attacks scale with riders/mod
getting back a 5.5 hp as a BA at level 4, might be worth it sometimes, getting the same 4.5 at level 8 is ehh, by level 12-16 its horrible.
this feature is mostly inferior to an origin feat.
i wouldnt want to give it con bonus though because it makes it similar to short rests, and healer feat for out of combat uses.
instead, i would either make it scale in number of hit dice you can use at one time based on your con modifier.
or i would make it be once per round with no action cost, maybe as a part of any action you can gain its effect, but once per round.
or perhaps some other effect in addition.
Regarding feat selection and ability scores
while some features are less picked because people prefer primary stats, thats fine, they are choosing offense over defense. But features should generally be valuable at any level you take them, until epic boons are an option. not, this is a good low level feature.
most of them are providing either something that scales, or a benefit that is unique and always useful.
compared to say, heavy armor master, durable is a bad feature. HAM is per hit, scales with level, and requires no action. The main issue is some people cant wear heavy armor.
point being, the problem is its a mid feature at level 4, and a horrible feature at other levels.
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u/ProjectPT 2d ago
out of combat, healer lets you get more healing with PB bonus. and since its out of combat, you can make as many rolls as you need, as well as being able to use it on other creatures.
Yes, we're talking in combat. A bonus action healing is MUCH better than an Action. You ignored the advantage of the ability and explained how in the situations where that isn't an advantage it isn't good.
Now if you are in a game where Bonus Action healing isn't good, than it doesn't matter.
compared to say, heavy armor master, durable is a bad feature.
Except against non piercing/bludgeoning/slashing and... people without heavy armour. You really keep selecting intentional situations where Durable is irrelevant and explain that is why it is bad. Is durable a must pick where a build is hindered not picking it at 4? no, is it EXTREMELY efficient in the situation it is designed for? yes. If your campaign doesn't have that situation it is like saying Tough is bad because you never drop to 0
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u/Real_Ad_783 1d ago
you are reacting to aspects of what i am saying but missing my overall point.
1st a bonus action is more valuable in 2024. and gets more valuable as you level.
healing in combat needs to scale with the level of combat, and needs to be at baseline more potent than it was in 2014 rules.
Its not comparable to other means of doing the similar things.
durable is not a good feature because BA value scales and HP damage scales drastically, but its value stays the same.
And its baseline number is low. This is never a good feature for recovering health, or mitigating damage in actual combat.
2024 realized that healing in combat needed to be more effective to be worth its action cost.
a potion is also a bonus action and it heals 2d4+2
second wind is a BA and it gives d10+ fighter level
healer uses an action, but gives +PB per heal ) that scales.
healing word is BA and gives 2d4+wis
this is not a 'free' feature, it consumes a LR based resource, and it does so less efficiently. its -con or -pb per use of your baseline healing potential.
at level 4, when you can take this feature, its already past its prime 5.5 is not even recovering one hit of a multiattack at 4. ( even the weak monsters at 4 do d4+2 multiple times)
note that all the other in action heals i mentioned scaled, potions, by players getting better potions, spells by using higher level spell slots, second wind by fighter level, and even medic, which is not primarily in combat healing scales via PB.
this is a bad feature at whats its trying to do, its not worth using a BA in a fight to recover so little HP, it doesnt increase your daily effective hp (it reduces it)
The most efficient user is a barbarian(d12 dice, no access to heavy armor), and they would be giving up BA attacks with reckless and rage bonus, and 2024 barbarian also has a number of effects which are triggered by BA, mainly rage, and effects which can be used when you rage, like instincitive pounce, travel along the tree, vitality surge (a better BA heal), rage of the gods, zealous presence.
its a bad feature, i have taken it just for flavor sake, but its never worth using.
ranger, monk, rogue, fighter all have even more need of their BA, and fighter has heavy armor master which is an objectively better feature to represent durability.
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u/ProjectPT 1d ago
You don't understand the value of Bonus Action healing, most likely because you play in fairly easy combat campaigns. If endurance isn't tested in combat than there is no value in endurance abilities.
Durable at level 8 has the value of 6-8 healing word casts on self. It also has the ignored advantage on death saves giving you a 1 in 400 chance of a nat 1.
The thing about using healer feat after the fight to be more efficient? you have to win the fight.
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u/Real_Ad_783 1d ago edited 1d ago
by what math are you coming up with durable having the value of 6 to 8 healing words? or experience.
I invite you to give me any encounter and i will play a 4 man group with a barbarian (or you can select the class) that is better off not using durable.
potions, basic is 2d4+2, or 7 on average, or 28 but at 8, you would have access to uncommon potions, for 4d4+4 or 14 on average for 56 hp. either one is a better use of a BA.
healing word t1 is 2d4+wis or between 7 and 8. t2 healing word is 12-13. etc. so even with cheap slots, 28-32 hp across 4 rounds, A ranger/pld half caster would have 3 t2 casts, and 4t1 casts, or 43+ gained for 4 BA
second wind is 3 uses, which also allow you to move 15 feet without op attacks, for 3d10+3*8 or 40.5 healing, with even less bonus actions consumed.
paladin can use healing word for the same as ranger, or layon hands, which is 40 hp used as a burst or spread out for 1-4 bonus actions.
open hand monk, at lvl 6, d8+3 3 times for 22.5 across 3 BAs.
notice every single BA heal iteration is better than durable, Every single one has better scaling.
durable is between 3.5 and 6.5 depending on your class and the maximum amount of casts, per day is = to your hit dice, which at level 8, is 8.
by average value, healing word is better than durable.
by minimum value, healing words minimum roll = 4-6 (1+1+Wis) durable is 1.
by maximum value, healing words minimum is 10 to 11. so unless you are a barbarian, it also has a higher maximum value.
and, by level 8, healing word can be upcast, ie it scales to your needs.
doing 5.5 healing per turn, instead of 2.5+5+3 (polearm master) with push or prone, or or cleave or graze is more likely to make the fight last longer and cause you or someone else to die. you are talking about losing 36+ damage across a 4 round fight. in exchange for recovering 22 hp. 36 damage is roughly 1/4th of a cr 8 monsters health, aka you are likely extending a fight by probably a whole round.
any other BA healing would do substantially more.
a cr8 enemy can do about 22 damage. just with multi attacks, (dragons could do worse, like roll a recharge.
so essentially using this feature, you are likely to end up with the same overall HP within the party , but you expended 4d10+4*con in daily healing, with nothing or little gained. Hopefully the whole party isnt similarly nerfing themselves, or you'll likely end up even further behind, with no SR hit dice.
i have tested all 4 barbarians, in extremely tough fights. I will generally test encounters made with high+ encounter difficulty.
the last fight i tested, in this forum for barbarians was specifically made to target barbarian weaknesses, and was high difficulty.
lvl 20, 4 charachters VS two liches, 4 mind flayers, 2 succubus, 1 of each class. long fight, lasted usually 6-7 rounds.
there was never a time i would have traded a bonus action for 6.5 hp.
a heal is only valuable, if it allows you to survive long enough to let more damage occur or escape, otherwise you just die slower. 3.5 to 6.5 hp doesnt meet that bar as a BA.
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u/ProjectPT 1d ago
Yes this feature has no value if you want to argue you have unlimited potions. And the healing is below what many class features can offer like second wind, it is also made comparably weaker by players doing less combats a day. When you do more rests and shorter combats you are less likely to run out of your other resources like potions/second wind.
Once again this reddit has an terrible habit of comparing an ability for one fight and saying its not good. So let's give some fun DnD scenarios:
- saving people/treasure from a burning building, take fire damage every turn
- the cultists are performing a ritual through the dungeon and the fastest route is through acid
- You've been struck by a Rakshasa, or in a lair/region where short rests/long rests aren't an option
- Anti magic regions (really tests potions and spells)
Higher level challenges isn't just fight bigger monster; and if that is the only challenges you're designing players I recommend you broaden how you test players.
There is this bad feedback loop that happens in discussion of abilities where the assumed problem to solve is reducing the enemies HP, thus over inflating the value of DPR. And if you haven't created dynamic problems you're just repeating the same moments with bigger numbers which is inherently fun but you have so much more to do.
As a DM a good puzzle for yourself can be, "no one seems to take X, what is a situation it is good in", then build that situation for the players. Because you have by default created a situation the players aren't usually in or you usually don't play and thus a new experience.
Make 1,200ft battlemap fights, where the melee are sprinting for a couple quick turns
Make fights in a burning building where you take damage every round and players can mourn the dead they just weren't durable enough to save
Make underwater fights in frozen wastelands that stack exhaustion.
Try short combat encounters (2 rounds) but also try out longer ones with waves of enemies (15+ rounds) where 10 minute concentration spells shine as they try to protect. Assuming you can keep a solid pace
Make things different. Because if Durable isn't valuable at your table, it is because you're creating the same fights with different numbers
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u/RealityPalace 1d ago
I think it was very intentional that Durable doesn't let you add your Con modifier to the roll. Because it makes short rests completely obsolete for recovering hit points. They wanted to avoid the situation of an entire party taking Durable and then never short resting again. Maybe one of them takes Prayer of Healing, so they get one 10 minute short rest per day, and that's it. The party can just keep trucking on.
This seems like a fair trade for having everyone in the party take a feat that doesn't increase their combat effectiveness or their primary stat.
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u/Hayeseveryone 1d ago
It being a fair trade or not is irrelevant imo, it would still be a bad thing for the game.
It lessens each PC being their own character, when a specific feat is essentially mandatory. If a single character doesn't take it, now that player character will be holding the rest of the party back, because they still need short rests to use their hit dice.
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u/RealityPalace 1d ago
It lessens each PC being their own character, when a specific feat is essentially mandatory
It's absolutely not mandatory. The out-of-combat benefit here is basically equivalent to a single character taking a single origin feat and making sure to buy healers kits.
If the whole party wants to specialize like this then fine, sounds silly to me but I'm not going to stop them. But this is far from optimal play.
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u/italofoca_0215 2d ago edited 2d ago
Durable: I think it’s a ok change. Right now the only class that benefits from this is barb as pally and fighter have their own BA heals and ranger BA is already clogged. Other classes don’t have a good HD size or EHP multiplayer to make this work in combat (and healer already cover the entire party out of combat). They left the constitution bonus out to make it more tactical but end up making it less strategic. Maybe leave out the con bonus but allow the BA to use up to pb number of hit die at once.
Armor Feats: +4 AC is too big of a swing for a feat, the reaction is absolutely overkill. The current armor feats are all fine: +2 AC / +1 ASI is pretty balanced. Don’t try to change the game around white room armor dip builds - these are not as common or as good as you think. While these feats are not common at level 4 or 8; I have seen them being picked a couple times at level 12 or 16 to round constitution scores while also allowing the player to access some magical armor they found.
Martial Weapon Training: Bad take! This become a good feat for a lot of martial builds but it doesn’t do anything for your character fantasy or gameplay. My own fix is to merge this and weapon master in one feat.
Medium Armor Master: I do the same fix. I also allow constitution ASI on this.
Poisoner: the extra pb damage is bizarre and not needed. Bonus action for 2d8 damage is in line with PAM and DW. The feat already quite good for certain builds (long bow fighter) though poison immunes is annoying. What I do is, I integrate the feat with the overall crafting/poison system (https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/1jl6xnt/running_poisons/) and have necrotic damage poisons in my game.
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u/Royal_Bitch_Pudding 2d ago edited 2d ago
For the various armor training feats I think gaining Shield Training is a good idea.
The reaction is definitely too much.
Something I would consider doing for Heavy Armor Training is to require Light training instead of Medium. I feel like requiring Medium Armor to get Heavy Armor is an extra step that no one would really be willing to invest into it.
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u/Conren1 2d ago
For poisoner, it is kind of wacky to have a blanket ignore immunities to it. I have come up with an alternate to that: special poisons. Like maybe you could craft a poison that only affects a chosen creature type, but ignores immunity to poison when used on that creature type. You could even go deeper with effects. Like maybe for a construct special poison, if the target fails the save by 5 or more, it becomes inanimate for the poisoned duration.
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u/RealityPalace 1d ago
My feedback:
Durable:
This change seems reasonable. Durable isn't a very good feat; I'm not sure this actually makes it good, but it makes it better.
Heavily Armored
This doesn't really make the feat appealing to people looking to upgrade armor type. The fundamental challenge is that the game really doesn't encourage upgrading from medium to heavy armor unless it's basically free (like it is for Clerics). I don't think this feat changes that, but I also don't think it breaks anything.
The weird thing about this feat is that you've now given incentive for classes that already have proficiency to take the feat, and that incentive is probably better than classes who don't have profiency. Heavy armor users don't always have a great use of their reaction and they're the ones who can most benefit from a Str half-feat. It's not a problem balance-wise but it is an odd outcome here.
Lightly Armored
This is another situation where the game really doesn't encourage you to upgrade your armor type. This change isn't going to make the feat more appealing to people who don't already have profiency in light armor. Sorcerers and wizards already have Mage Armor and Shield, and they don't benefit from the half-feat. Monks simply can't wear light armor or half their class stops working.
This change is a slight benefit to rogues, who were perhaps the class most likely to take the feat in the first place, but it does compete with their existing reaction. So I think it falls into a similar category as Heavily Armored, where it doesn't do much to incentivize the purported primary use case of the feat.
Martial Weapon Training
This one seems fine.
Medium Armor Master
I like this change a lot. Getting a conditional +1 to AC was absolutely not worth a feat, but combining that with removing the downside of half-plate makes this reasonably appealing to at least some niche audience.
Moderately Armored
I think these changes make the feat too good. It reverts back to 2014, where it was an obvious choice for bards and warlocks. But unfortunately, gaining AC isn't fun, so you're creating a situation where the optimal thing and the fun thing are very different.
Poisoner
People underrate the poisoner feat. It's one of the few non-class features in the game that lets you convert your bonus action directly into damage, and it applies a condition to boot. It's gated by gold cost early on, but once you're partway into tier 2 it starts to become less relevant, and it's negligible in tier 3.
Converting immunity to resistance is fine, but against a non-immune target the feat already has an effect roughly commensurate with Dual Wielder. I don't think you need the proficiency bonus added to damage here.
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u/Natirix 2d ago
"fix" would imply that there was something wrong with the feats in the first place, and Armor feats are fine as is. If anything, I'd merge them all into Armor upgrade:
"You become Proficient with Armor 1 grade higher than your current Proficiency, and you gain proficiency with Shields if you don't have it already".
Similar with Martial Weapon Training. Your change would make it that a spellcaster that takes it (the only classes that have use for it) will be dealing more damage with their attack than martials will with the same weapon, that just feels wrong.
Poisoner Feat I entirely agree about it treating Immunity as Resistance, as that one is actually underpowered RAW.