D&D: Five Feats Full Of Flavor And Power
In D&D, feats are a great way to make your character stand out from others. These five flavorful feats are also solid mechanically.
Feats in D&D can make your character feel distinct. This can be because of abilities they grant you, like a Magic Initiate’s extra spells, or because of the narrative “flavor” that comes along with the feat, like with the Skilled feat. Some of D&D’s feats, though, mix both together.
If you want to make a character that feels distinct both in terms of mechanics and story, these five feats are a great way to do that.
Keen Mind
First up we have Keen Mind. This feat is for all you would-be sages and scholars out there. It lets you increase your Intelligence, but oon top of that, it lets you take the Study action as a Bonus Action. This means you can size up a creature in combat without wasting your action. If you’ve ever wanted to roll to see what you would know about a monster, this is the feat for your D&D character.
It also gives you Expertise in a knowledge skill, or proficiency in the event that you aren’t proficient at whatever skill you pick. Pretty simple, but being able to Study someone as a Bonus Action and haveing Expertise with something like Arcana means you can really lean in to super scholar.
Athlete
Athlete is a lot more useful in combat. Especially in 5.5E when there are more creatures that can knock you prone. Athlete delivers on the promise of being a powerfully physical character. With this feat, you can increase your Strength or Dexterity by one, and you gain three different abilities. First, you gain a climb speed, which is pretty amazing. No more worrying about climb checks. Second, you gain the ability to stand up from Prone for just 5 feet of your movement speed. And finally, you can make a “running jump” after only moving five feet.
Not bad for a single feat.
Skulker
Skulker is a Feat for D&D characters that want to embrace their shadowy side. Skulker makes you an excellent thief, assassin, or pretty much any other Rogue archetype (even if you’re not playing a Rogue). Skulker increases your Dexterity by one. Then it grants you Blindsight out to 10 feet, as well as the ability to Hide in combat at Advantage. And last but not least, it lets you stay hidden if you miss with an attack while you’re hidden.
Fey-Touched
What if you want to be a character who’s been marked as a little different by the world around them. Well. Fey-Touched might just be for you. This spell is for characters who have had the magic of the Feywild transfigure them.
This grants you an increase to your Int, Wis, or Cha, as well as two free bonus spells that always count as prepared. The first is Misty Step, meaning that your character can teleport 30 feet as a Bonus Action once per day without needing to use up a spell slot. And even then, they’ll still have Misty Step prepared, so you can cast it using your own spell slots without sacrificing other prepped spells.
Actor
Finally, there’s Actor. This makes you almost supernaturally good at impersonating someone. First and foremost, it grants you Advantage on Deception and Performance checks made to convince other people that you are, in fact, the person you’re meant to be impersonating.
But then on top of that, an Actor is also a perfect Mimic, potentially. They can mimic the sounds of other creatures, including speech. Anyone hearing the mimicry has to make a Wisdom save or else believe that the mimicked speech/sounds are the real deal and react accordingly.
Which of these will you take for your next character?
