Ranking the New Feats in Tasha's Cauldron Of Everything

this week's episode of our show has been sponsored by the deck of many and their amazing big bad booklet series this booklet is a monthly release that includes all the information lore imagery and stat blocks that you need to run an epic boss monster in 5th edition available as both a digital print and play and in hard copy this month's release features the god of kings a terrible entity in prison in a stone prison for their attempt to try to take over the divine pantheon every monthly release has a print and play pdf and all the reference cards that you need to role play and run an incredible epic boss battle at your game table so check it out in the description below or head to bigbadbooklet.com to sign up now and now onto this week's episode greetings my name is monty martin and i'm cali mclaughlin and we are the dungeon dudes welcome to our channel where we cover everything dungeons and dragons including advice for players and guides for dungeon masters we upload new videos on tuesdays and thursdays so please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode so we've been delving into the brand new book for dungeons and dragons 5th edition tasha's cauldron of everything last week we looked at the new spells and this week we are going to take a look at the new feats there are 16 of them in this book let's see what they do we're going to be looking at all 16 feats today and we are going to be giving our ranking system based on whether we think the feat is a must-have is good is niche or is bad we're going to just give our initial reactions to what we think these feats are good at and who we think they're good for one of the cool things about all the feats in this book though is that almost all of them there's a few exceptions also come with a plus one ability score boost usually to an ability score defined by the feet so that raises the stocks for a lot of these feats because they're always half of an ability score increase which can be quite valuable when you gotta round up one of those audibility scores so let's bust open this new book and look at the amazing feats presented there's a lot to discuss today so let's get rolling so the first feat is artificial initiate which basically reads like magic initiate but for artifice or spells you get an artificer cantrip you get a first level artificial spell of your choice and you can also cast that first level spell once per day without using a spell slot and then use your regular spell slots to cast it you can also use artisan tools as a spell casting focus all these spells are based on your intelligence score for your spellcasting ability pretty pretty niche feat i think i was even willing to say it might be bad i don't really know what makes this feat stand out to me i don't know what you're gonna take from artificer initiate that you're not gonna get from magic initiate wizard because there's a pretty big overlap between the two that said this could be a sneaky way for a wizard to get some of the artificer cantrips that wizards don't get maybe there's a case to be made for an elders knight or arcane trickster taking this to get a specific cantrip or a first level spell from the artificer list but nothing really stuck out to me as being a particularly must have about this feat my thoughts on this feat are that it is tacked on here in an attempt to bring artificers more into the foreground because they were a later addition to the game that's all that this feat feels like to me yeah it's it's fine but if you weren't going to take magic initiate you're probably not gonna take this feat either next up we have chef chef allows you to increase your constitution or wisdom score by one to a maximum of twenty you gain proficiency with cook's utensils if you don't already have it during a short rest you can prepare food to help heal your teammates and you can create treats to give to them later to gain temporary hit points these temporary hit points only equal your proficiency modifier though people are going to love this feat because people love cooking and i love food and i love eating treats i think this feed is bad i was willing to give it niche i think it's straight up worse than inspiring leader for almost everybody inspiring leader gives temporary hit points equal to your level which is way better than temporary hit points equal to your proficiency modifier and that will probably also outstrip the extra healing that you get from this so this is basically giving up a lot of what inspiring leader gives you to get a plus one to your wisdom or constitution which are key ability scores take this one for funsies but it's a bad feat in my book you might be right um i want to like chef because i love the role play potential behind this but i probably wouldn't pick it over most other feats available so we've talked about this with each other i think that proficiency in chef's tools should just do this i agree i this is an attempt to make a tool more valuable because tools don't have enough value in d yeah i really like the chef feet but i don't know if i would take it so next up we come to the first of three of the weapon based feats and that is crusher which is all about the bludgeoning damage you increase your strength or constitution by one when you take the feet once per turn when you hit a creature with a an attack that deals bludgeoning damage you can move it five feet to an unoccupied space and finally when you score a critical hit with an attack that does bludgeoning damage attacks against that creature are made with advantage until the end of your next turn all right here we go this feat in my opinion is good but if you're playing a monk it's a must-have if you're playing a monk this feat is amazing you get to knock people around with your fists all the time and the critical hit thing is just gravy for you this is a must-take feat for a monk i think absolutely i think otherwise it's good if you're playing a character that relies on bludgeoning damage specifically then yeah this feat might be the must-have option for you i'm going to point out as well that this feat doesn't restrict itself to weapons so if you have some other way of dealing bludgeoning damage perhaps with a spell you can use this feat with it i didn't think of that next up we have eldridge adept this feat does have a prerequisite you need to either have spell casting or the packed magic feature so you're either going to be a warlock or another spellcaster this feat lets you choose an eldritch invocation there is one important sentence here that you need to take note of though and that is the sentence if the invocation has a prerequisite of any kind you can choose that invocation only if you're a warlock who meets the prerequisite to clarify many eldritch invocations such as agonizing blast which boosts the damage on electric blast or forceful blast or anything like that these don't have any level requirements but they do require you to know eldritch blast by the wording of this feat even if you were a non-warlock that knew eldritch blast you wouldn't be able to take agonizing blast you can only take the eldritch invocations that have absolutely no prerequisites whatsoever if you aren't a warlock already i made a list i went through the books so up on screen here's the full list so out of these invocations there is one that i think makes this a pretty standout feat still and that is the ability to take devil's sight the ability to just be able to take a feat and now see in magical darkness can be game-changing for certain classes i know that we've already thrown it out to the monks before but a shadow monk who could see in their own darkness would be way better lots of lots of classes that are built around the darkness spell could be enabled by being able to take this feat and if you've got that build in mind i think this is a must-have i also think that this is just a must-have feat for warlocks because they don't get a lot of eldritch invocations and they're staggered across your level progression and there's a couple times as a warlock where you really want to get one of them a lot earlier or pick up a couple of the extra higher level ones and in those specific cases particularly involving devil's sight and darkness combinations might be some must-haves in there so next up we come to the fae touched feet this allows you to increase your intelligence wisdom or christmas score by one and allow and also grants you the misti step spell that you can use using whatever spell casting ability modifier you chose to boost with this feat but you also get to learn an enchantment or divination spell of first level of your choice which spell casting ability is tied to the feat as well you can cast both misty step in this spell without using a spell slot once but then you can also use your regular spell slots to cast these spells this is a pretty good feat you could get hunter's mark or hex with this feat i think this is good i don't think it's groundbreaking or must-have but i think that there are reasons why you might want to pick this feed up i think this is a perfect feat to round off a 17 or a 19 in your intelligence wisdom or charisma to boost that up so if you're playing a variant human or the custom lineage this would be a really great feat to consider at first level to just round out your ability scores and in addition to that i think that there's some interesting combos that could be enabled by taking this feat i think it's good next up we have fighting initiate the prerequisite for this one is proficiency with a martial weapon so you only need to be able to use like a long sword or something yeah okay and it allows you to choose one fighting style option of your choice from the fighter class luckily the fighters get majority of the fighting options available and whenever you reach a level that grants an ability score improvement you can replace this feats fighting style with another one from the fighter class that you don't have i think this is niche i think that there's some characters that might want this again there's now the new fighting style that gives you a very short range blind sight so again if you're a class that's going to use like a fog cloud effect or a darkness effect and you need to be able to see in the area of your own spell if you're going to use a combo like that this could rise the stock of this also it just might be cool to take a character that doesn't normally get the archery fighting style but is going to play a sharpshooter they might want this there's some marshall based classes like barbarians and hex blades and blade singers that don't normally get a fighting style but might love to have one if you're looking for a specific character build this might be a great choice and there are builds out there that could use this feat to do really cool things but i think those are limited and for those people it's going to be amazing but it's not for everybody so next up we got gunner you increase your dexterity by one you get proficiency with firearms you ignore their loading property and you don't have disadvantage on attack rolls uh ranged attack rules when creatures are within five feet of you this is crossbow expert for guns with the bonus action shaved off and instead giving you a plus one to dexterity i think this is niche it really depends on the place of firearms in your campaign setting that that's really it is like this is a feat that's only an option in certain campaigns and that that really is the limit of it do you have firearms in your campaign this might be a great pick do you not have firearms in your campaign then ignore this feat yeah i wonder if this feat is any good for like matt mercer's gunslinger maybe next up we come to metamagic adapt the prerequisite here being you either have spell casting or packed magic features and you get to learn two metamagic options of your choice from the sorcerer class and you get two sorcery points to use on those metamagic features those sorcery points come back on a long rest only and you don't get the sorcerer's ability to like convert your spell slots into sorcery points so you only get two you know who this is a must-have for sorcerers yeah this is amazing for sorcerers like this is the must-have feat you should take this as a sorcerer at level four so that you get two more doubling your number of metal magics giving you extra metamagic points to use on your metamagic abilities getting more metamagic options for a sorcerer is really good for everybody else though you got a problem you only got two sorcery points so you have to be really choosy with your metamatrix because some of them actually cost more than two sorcery points for their best features i might take something like um empowered spell and uh subtle spell yeah and then you get to settle or empower two spells and i'm not convinced that being able to quicken a spell once per day is worth a feat i will tell you who it's worth it for other than sorcerers warlocks that might be so warlocks have a limited number of spells that they can use being able to add metamagic to the limited casting they already get is going to be really useful so i think sorcerers and warlocks this is a must-have so next up is piercer which gives you plus one to your strength or dexterity once per turn when you hit a creature with a piercing a piercing damage attack you can reroll one of the attack's damage die and when you score a critical hit you deal an extra die of damage with piercing attacks is this this is really good is this a must-have for rogues this is a must-have for rogues because or any ranged character i i think rangers could benefit from piercer i think like anybody who's a dexterity based fighter uh because if you're using bows and then if you get into trouble in close hands you're usually using a rapier or something of that sort this is a very useful feat i think it's a must-have for dexterity based combatants i think if you're playing a crossbow expert sharpshooter this is your third feat yeah and this is the fee and hopefully you get a plus two to your dexterity and so this is the feet that rounds you up to 18 or 20 on your dexterity and then you're sailing from there i yeah this is a this is a total must-have next up we have poisoner this adds a few attributes to the poisoning options available in dungeons and dragons now when you make a damage roll that deals poison damage it ignores resistance to poison damage you can apply poison to a weapon or piece of ammunition as a bonus action instead of an entire action pretty helpful and you gain proficiency with the poisoners kit if you don't already have it you can also make a number of vials of poison equal to your proficiency bonus that do 2d8 poison damage on a failed dc14 constitution safe i want to like this feat i want to love this feat most monsters are immune to poison damage not resistant to it there are a lot of monsters that are resistant um but it's almost like five to one the ratio of resistance versus immunity bypassing that resistance is not as valuable as it might otherwise be i think this is a niche feat i i can agree with with niche my problem is that and i've said this so many times i want to love the aspect of poison existing in dungeons and dragons i want more classes that do stuff with poison i want people to use poison i think it's really cool i think the idea of poisoning your weapons is really neat and i think this feat almost got there yeah i just i wish there was something more that we could do with poison and this this tries but it doesn't fully succeed i think that there needs to be a feat that lets you brew like a poison that does necrotic damage i would take this for a very special type of character who is focused like if i'm making a character like the witcher who's brewing poisons to take out foes then yeah cool so next up we have the shadow touched feet which is in many ways the shadow twin of fae touched same ability sword boost plus one to intelligence wisdom or charisma but instead of misty step you get invisibility and instead of choosing from enchantment or divination as a first level spell you choose from any necromancy or any illusion spell i think that shadow touched is niche because invisibility is a good spell it's one of my favorite spells in the game but it is harder in its wide scale application than misty step as a spell and the spells that you can take at first level from the schools of in of illusion and necromancy are much more narrow than the spells for fae touched with fey touched you could get blessed bane or hunter's mark there's a lot of like crazy good stuff that you could get there what do you get with shadow touchdowns color spray or inflict wounds okay false life i i was gonna give this good because in my mind it was just like the the dark scary version of faye touched but i see your point i see your people yeah i i think faye touched is the better of the two uh i think it just offers more potential shadow touched isn't bad it's just niche because you have to want something specific from it and i think that more characters are going to be like oh i want to get bless i want to get hunter's mark i want to get missy step then they are going to be about invisibility and inflict wounds so next up we have skill expert this one's a pretty standard feat you get to increase an ability score of your choice by one up to a total of 20 you gain proficiency in one skill of your choice and you can take a skill that you're proficient with and give yourself expertise in that skill i think this is a pretty bread and butter feat and i'm willing to say that it's it's good i think it's niche yeah if you're rounding up an ability score let's say you're playing any character is how many feats would you rather take instead of this feat okay true true true true um like if you have something specific in mind if you need to have expertise in a specific skill because that's going to really define your character in an important way and you need to bump up one of your ability scores by one perfect that's niche that is the definition of a niche yeah i would probably pick a lot of other things before this so next time we come to the third and final of the three weapon damage typey s feats but remember you don't necessarily have to use them with weapons because they don't say weapons just slashing damage or attacks that deal slashing damage slasher boosts your strength through dexterity by one when you hit a creature once per turn with an attack that does slashing damage you reduce their speed by 10 feet and when you score a critical hit against them they have disadvantage on all their attack rolls until this the uh until the start of your next turn slashing damage is probably one of the higher ones for for melee combatants yeah it's is it good or is it must-have guess what all the good slashing damage weapons are two-handed weapons guess what people that with two-handed weapons want to take great rap and match weapon master possibly pole arm fighting if you're if you're taking a pull arm this i still okay i i'm willing to say that this is highly good it's your it's your second or third choice for a few it is if i was using a great sword or a great axe would i take this over great weapon master no um would you take it to complement great weapon master yes yes but then you run into that tricky situation of where all all your ability score boosts coming from right now this might be really cool as well though for a sword and board character because it reduces speed so i could see a really interesting character that uses this and sentinel in a long sword and a shield and now you're kind of cooking with gas because if you're a defensive character if you're that front-line bulwark giving your enemy disadvantage on attack rules on a critical hit helps you out defensively and slowing their speed down stops them from getting away so i think this sentinel defensive base character shield longsword next up we have telekinetic telekinetic lets you increase your intelligence wisdom or charisma score by one up to a total of 20. you learn the mage hand can trip and it is an invisible mage hand which is really cool and as a bonus action you can telekinetically shove creatures around five feet here and there which can have a lot of really useful applications they get a strength saving throw to resist this against a spell saving throw dc that is basically calculated based on whatever ability score you boosted i i think this is good i think i think this is a must-have yeah this is a crazy good feat dude if you're a wizard what are you doing with your bonus action as a wizard exactly exactly what do you want to do all the time as a wizard shove people around into your awful battlefield control effects shove people into prismatic wall shove exact prismatic wall bump web bump wall of fire bump oh those two enemies i can't get them both in my force cage but the chess player brain of the battlefield control wizard is salivating at the possibility of this spell okay okay even if you're not a spellcaster and you're fighting some dudes that are on a bridge above you and they're shooting at you with arrows and you just go boop and knock them off the bridge and an invisible mage hand is always useful yeah mage hand is one of the most versatile cantrips in the game having it be invisible okay all right i'm sold this is a must-have yeah it's amazing so finally we come to telepathic again intelligence wisdom or charisma by one you can speak telepathically to any creature you can see within 60 feet they're always in a language you know um and the target has to understand that language and it can't respond to you telepathically and you can cast detect thoughts requiring no spell slots or components which means you can cast detect thoughts without verbal somatic and material components so people can't see you casting detect thoughts that could be very useful in many circumstances you can do that once per day but then you can use spell slots afterwards to keep casting detect thoughts good i want to say that this is a good feat i do think it's niche in a little bit because i think telekinetic kind of pushes it over but i like it i really want to make a character that has telekinetic telepathic mind sliver tash's mind whip synaptic static wall of force and is maybe a clockwork soul sorcerer i don't wanna dm for you yeah it's it's good it's good yeah i think it's really good overall i think this offers a bunch of awesome feet options i think the biggest problem now is that we have so many amazing feats in dungeons and dragons 5th edition and we don't have enough slots to take these feats this makes me want to play a fighter a weird fighter that has like slasher and telekinesis and like just random feats let's throw chef in there too i don't know why not let's let's let's go crazy with some feats there's some really fun options and even the ones that we didn't like as much as the others still have fun role play applications or are applicable to certain builds i think that the feats in tasha's cauldron of everything have once again just like a lot of things natasha's cauldron of everything broadened the potential for versatility in character creation in dungeons dragons so many of these feats come with a plus one ability score modifier that there's no reason not to take them as long as you're rounding up that ability score or rounding up another one and generally speaking most characters are going to be able to take these feats because you're going to have an odd ability score of some kind somewhere so that in the context of all these feats means that the good feats are really easy to take it really is the question of can you get this in while maxing out your primary ability score should you take this feat instead of maxing out your ability score primary ability score i don't think that i i think that all of these feats for the most part i still want them to either contribute to maxing out my ability score or come later so that i can max out a secondary yeah there's only a handful of these like metamagic adduct that i would truly take ahead of an ability score increase that's fair but that that's the argument with feats in general is what you're going to do at those level up options yeah i think it's great i think these are great feats and i think you should consider looking into the options presented in this book so this has been our rankings on the feats in tasha's cauldron of everything tell us what your favorite feats in this book are in the comments below the videos that we create on our channel are made possible thanks to the incredible generosity of our patreon supporters a big thank you from kelly and i to all of you out there on patreon and if you enjoy our work consider joining us on our patreon community by following the links in the description below and don't forget to check out our live play shadows of drakenheim which is tuesday nights at 6 p.m eastern at twitch.tv dungeon underscore dudes you can find all the previous episodes of that campaign right up over here we've got plenty more coverage on tasha's cauldron of everything coming up right up over here please subscribe to our channel so that you never miss an episode thank you so much for watching and we'll see you next time in the dungeon

Channel: Dungeon Dudes

Views: 412,819

Keywords: dungeons, dragons, tabletop, gaming, roleplaying, games, accessories, rules, rule, gameplay, play, game, rpg, d20, player, character, D&D, 5e, DM, PC, tips, advice, guide, guides, review, dice, books, book

Id: 33IYuWjwp44

Length: 27min 13sec (1633 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 03 2020