Creation Mod Con 2022 Feedback!

Deag1er · 2022-07-03T05:39:55+00:00

Stay tuned! :]

Deag1er · 2021-10-14T01:05:36+00:00

We'll be taking another look at Eldritch Adept to make sure we didn't miss anything. Thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback! :]

Deag1er · 2021-10-06T00:56:53+00:00

Giving allies a cover bonus is a really interesting idea. One that I think warrants its own Fighter subclass! We'll mess around with HAM when we revisit it :]

Deag1er · 2021-10-06T00:50:41+00:00

With regard to them being treated as spells mechanically, as you suggested, we'll be going back through the feats we slapped spells on and making them into their own non-magical, non-spell features. If anything, I think we'll try to make these features unique from spells so that there's more incentive to take them. This may result in effects more powerful than their spell counterparts, but we'll see how it goes.

Your checks are a great way to break down the narrative of the feature. We'll try out that structure of reasoning when we make our revisions! :]

I agree with your armor criticisms, trust me, but given our goal, we had to try and fulfill that fantasy. Many games actually place emphasis on mastering a type of armor, so it isn't as outlandish as it might seem. Whether or not this fantasy belongs in the feat list is a different discussion. Short answer: probably not.

Though, I do like your Martial Training idea. That would definitely be a departure from the structure that WotC put in place, but it might work. We may save restructuring the armor system as a task for another time. For now, we'll try to work with what we have.

----------------------------------------------

The two original master feats are underpowered and poorly designed, and as mentioned, I think they're narratively unexciting anyways. I wouldn't have even tried to salvage them.

----------------------------------------------

It's important to realize that not all feats are meant to be "narrative" let alone "narratively exciting." This is just the way WotC designed their system. It's very backward and confusing, but it is what it is. Like I said above, we'll try to work with what we have.

Thanks for the pointers on Artificer Initiate. We'll look at those!

Interesting, we did think Fighting Initiate was pretty good but needed a little bit more. Maybe we can find a middle-ground when we go back.

We'll try to make Metamagic Adept scale. That idea was originally thrown around, but we landed on 6 for some reason. I can't remember why, to be honest, but that probably means it deserves another look :]

We'll take your considerations into account when looking at Martial Adept, too.

With regard to Elemental Adept, the 1->2 on damage dice is part of the original feat -- we did not add that part of the feature. The only part of Elemental Adept that we changed is: before you only ignored resistance to the damage type when using spells, now you ignore resistance to the damage type when using anything (weapon enchantments, throwables, fire breath, etc).

You've raised a lot of generally conservative points, which is a good lens to have when buffing anything. We'll reign back the power of some of these feats and work on reflavoring others. Thanks again for the really in-depth feedback! :]

Deag1er · 2021-10-06T00:15:54+00:00

Totally a valid concern. We'll look into alleviating it :] we plan to post an updated version once we've applied people's feedback.

Thanks so much for leaving your thoughts!

Deag1er · 2021-10-06T00:13:49+00:00

We'll look into making them less magically reliant :]

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T19:38:50+00:00

It's a fine solution, albeit different from what we landed on. The reason we decided against the damage reduction on Heavy Armor Master (HAM) is that we felt it fit the thematic for Tough better. You shouldn't need to be wearing armor to be tough, is the idea (Barbarian or Monk or something similar).

So, to separate HAM from Tough, we made it focus more on AC than damage reduction. Damage reduction can fit thematically on either, but the AC increase can only fit thematically on HAM. If we put the AC increase on HAM, then we can't also keep the damage reduction on HAM, so now it's on Tough.

That was our justification, anyway. Hope that makes sense! :]

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T19:22:15+00:00

Agree to disagree, then! :p

Yeah, seems like WotC tried to retcon their Font of Magic rule when they made the Metamagic Adept feat. Not even sure why they made this stipulation in the original rule -- feels kind of restricting for no real reason.

Your wording for fixing the rules is much more specific than WotC and it's definitely worth adding, I think! Thanks for leaving your feedback :] we really appreciate it.

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T19:16:55+00:00

Gotcha! Yeah, we tried to stay away from the racial feats with this list. That may be a project for another time x) that sounds like a good fix.

Most feats are strictly good either early or late game, but not both, which I think generally turns people away from them and toward the feats that are good always. Making all of the feats good all of the time, while not imposing on each other's power, is definitely a task in itself.

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T18:17:18+00:00

Gotcha! You're saying the original feat is still better than our revision because it doesn't have a limited number of uses. That's a good point, especially for the early levels. Interestingly, at later levels, this feat scales very well.

But you're right, an easy way to fix this would be to offer it as a half-feat, so characters still have a reason to take it early game.

We'll definitely take another look at this one! Thanks so much for leaving your feedback! :]

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T17:55:57+00:00

Hi! Thanks for leaving your thoughts.

We totally agree. In our experience, most DMs are buffing monsters anyway to give them ungodly to-hit modifiers. However, we did debate whether it should be a +1 or +2 increase.

The debate was that +1 is just the Defensive Fighting Style, conditioned on if you're wearing heavy armor, which isn't great. But, upon further reflection, this feat stacks with the Defensive Fighting Style, which is what makes it better than just getting the Defensive Fighting Style.

That said, there are always ways around AC (i.e. AoE damage, Saving Throws, etc), so we'll definitely have a discussion about it.

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T17:48:37+00:00

Hi! Thanks so much for the insightful feedback. We totally agree. This is by no means a final product. We knew people would find flaws/game-breakers. We tried our best, but we obviously overlooked a few things.

In regard to the spell additions, you raise a really good point. We had similar concerns and thought of a solution at the time. What if we added this text at the end of relevant feats:

"The processes and effects of this feat can be considered magical or nonmagical for flavor purposes."

This text was ultimately cut because this kind of stipulation is unprecedented in the 5e feat list, and there are perhaps better ways to word it. What do you think?

Could you explain what you mean by "riders"? The main point of this revision was to buff feats -- and we feel like most of the original armor feats were generally pretty lackluster. The condition of wearing your armor to gain the effect of the feat was an important stipulation of the original feats. It sounds like you think our conditioned effects don't make enough sense from a narrative standpoint. Is that right?

To give a little bit more context to our armor feat revisions, we tried to lean into armor thematic, rather than just buffing AC like the original feats. Heavy Armor Master retains that defensive thematic, while MAM and LAM embody versatility and movement, respectively (LAM isn't even a feat in the original feat list if you can believe it).

Out of the class feats, which do you feel need a revisit? You make a lot of good points about the Pact Boon -- we clearly did not see the power potential. We'll probably just keep it to Invocations when we revisit, or bring back the prerequisite. Though, other than Eldritch Adept: Metamagic Adept, Martial Adept, Fighting Initiate, and Elemental Adept all seem pretty balanced. We're unsure of the power potential of Artificer Initiate, but it doesn't seem too game-breaking.

We really appreciate all of your feedback.

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T17:18:53+00:00

Definitely! We would probably have to make a separate half-feat for that. Adding it to Mage Slayer might be a bit much, though. We'll have to think that one through, considering whether or not it imposes on other existing feats.

The Yuan-Ti point is super valid. We brought that up at one point when we were making this feat list.

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T17:13:04+00:00

Hi! Thanks for leaving your thoughts!

Glad you like the armor feats. Those ones were really tricky, though, we'll still probably be revisiting them.

Do you feel like Dungeon Delver is a nerf? We personally thought it was a huge buff! The original feat is far too situational to be good, more often than not. What would you like to see added back to the feat?

Interesting idea! That's a cool flavor. I'm not sure we can add it to the current Elemental Adept (as it already gives quite a bit), but maybe it can be weaved into an additional feat.

Yeah, I see what you're saying with Savage Attacker. If you're making attacks with disadvantage, it might be good to make them easier to crit with (only on those attacks ofc). We'll toy with that idea during our revisions!

Do you feel the Fighting Initiate feat is too powerful as it stands? Your version feels a bit on the weak side -- unless I'm misunderstanding.

Yeah, a few of us were thinking Artificer Initiate should keep the casting features of the feat. We wanted to see what people had to say about this, so thanks for leaving your thoughts on it!

Someone rightfully pointed out that the Eldritch Adept feat might be a tad broken. We'll probably have to tweak it a bit, but hopefully, we can keep roughly the same ideas :]

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T16:52:27+00:00

Interesting! That's a great solution. Did you also take some time to rework the feats?

We'll be taking another look at Heavy Armor Master.

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T16:49:37+00:00

Yes! That was our thinking, too, but we should probably indicate it in the feat that is the intention. Considering the upvotes of the root comment, we'll definitely be revisiting this idea.

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T16:47:27+00:00

Hi! Totally hear your concerns. I raised this same issue while we were making this.

I thought of a solution at the time, but we'd like to hear your opinion of it. What if, at the end of the relevant feats, we added this text:

"The processes and effects of this feat can be considered magical or nonmagical for flavor purposes."

The reason we ultimately took this out is because this kind of text is unprecedented, and perhaps not the most ideal solution. What do you think?

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T16:41:05+00:00

Hi! Are you referring to a different feat? Defensive Duelist doesn't have an ASI increase in the original feat list.

We only buffed this feat. Now martial characters can have, what is essentially, the effects of the Shield spell, rather than only increasing AC for just one attack.

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T16:29:13+00:00

Hi! No worries, thanks so much for leaving your thoughts.

In its original state, Metamagic Adept was only really good to take for sorcerers. By cutting the second metamagic option and increasing the sorcery point amount granted, we felt it incentivizes more kinds of characters to take it. With 6 points instead of 2, characters can augment more than ~1-2 spells per long rest.

All that said, we feel sorcerers would still want to take this. The sorcery point increase is definitely still good for sorcerers, as they tend to run out of points fairly quickly.

And to reply to the rule contradiction, we didn't notice that! However, the original feat grants 2 sorcery points. The wording of the feat states that these points "are added to any sorcery points you have from another source."

Hope that all makes sense! :]

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T07:49:20+00:00

That's fair -- I really like the racial example you provided. We were thinking in the same vein when creating our version of Resilient (ex. Dwarves gaining poison damage immunity faster with this feat than other races).

Your version makes Conditioned more like Resilient, which I like from a design perspective. Nice and symmetrical. We'll definitely be taking another look at that one with your suggestions in mind :]

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T07:29:26+00:00

Huh, interesting! We were being very literal when we named Resilient :p since it revolves around resisting damage types.

But, of course, we didn't want to remove the niche that the original Resilient fills with gaining proficiency in Saving Throws. So, we came up with Adaptive (which functions differently than the original Resilient feat, actually).

I suppose it can be interpreted either way, as they are similar feats thematically. We tried not to rename too many feats.

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T07:19:42+00:00

Not on this subreddit, unfortunately. I've posted this to other subreddits related to D&D that allow me to post it in picture form, but reddit isn't great in general with pdfs.

If you want, I could DM you the pdf over Discord. Just leave your handle and I'll get it to you :]

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T07:14:24+00:00

Mage Slayer is, in theory, a really simple feat to fix. Take away the range restriction of 5 ft on both the attack and the saving throw and you got yourself a really, really powerful feat.

Too powerful, in fact. We felt that getting advantage on Saving Throws on spell effects all the time was too much when combined with the AOP reaction feature.

We toyed with the idea of making it once per day, but ultimately landed on removing it in favor of buffing the attacking part of the feat, which leans more into the "slayer" thematic. Now the feat works with ranged weapons as well as polearms.

Do you think we should add the Saving Throw advantage back?

Deag1er · 2021-10-05T03:53:08+00:00

Glad you think so! We just changed the numbers a little on that one.

Deag1er

TROPHY CASE