5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Feat Trees- Do We Dare Go There

March 17, 2016

Prestige classes, feat trees, and endless multi-classing are things that got quite out of hand in previous editions of Dungeons and Dragons. Do we dare bring them back? Recently a fellow Nerdarchist and myself had a discussion pertaining to creating feat trees and the possible ramifications.

Our specific discussion was about adding an Improved Ritual Caster Feat to the game. Check out the discussion in the video below.

I know the argument I always hear is that the more options and supplement books added to the game will cause bloat just like in Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 and Pathfinder. Interesting enough 5th edition really does have some built in mechanics that prevent a lot of the abuses of previous editions of the game.

Why 5th Edition is a lot harder to break.

The multi-class system of 5e does a great job of shutting down cherry picking classes. A lot of the abilities don’t stack and you only get certain features when you first multi-class into another class. Also the fact that stat increases are tied to class levels and not character level is a huge deal. You really have to pick and choose how you multi-class very carefully.

Now we’ve only have a glance at prestige classes with the Rune Scribe. Taking a prestige class works exactly like multi-classing and has it’s own set of

Release 3.5 of the three core rulebooks (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

prerequisites. I love the example of the Rune Scribe. Even though it is designed to be caster class, but any class really could work towards it. What I like about it is anyone can open up these options to their characters with any number of combinations.

In the case of the Rune Scribe you can’t take your 1st level until you are a 6th level character. This is a big deal because it effects your stat bumps which there isn’t that many of. So it really takes a level of commitment from a player to make the decision to take this prestige class. When I design them in the future I’ll be taking this into consideration a prerequisite of 5th, 7th, and 10th will mess with these stat bumps.

This is the same reason I’m not concerned with with feat trees. A variant human fighter can get access to the most feats in the game at 8 stat bumps that could be traded for feats. Human variant rogue comes in second with 7 stat bumps. Non humans with any other class is at 5 stat bumps.

As you can see it doesn’t come up nearly as often as in previous editions of D&D. Not only that but you have to decide to take two +1’s to a stat or stats or take that feat. So even if you go feat heavy there is a cost.

Creating our First 5th Edition Feat Tree

Master Ritual Caster

Prerequisite: Must have the Ritual Caster Feat

You are a master of ritual magic and can cast any spell with the ritual tag that you have in your ritual book. When you take this feat you may add any two ritual spells into your ritual book that you are capable of casting. As a Master Ritual Caster you can add any written spell you find from scrolls or spell books that you are capable of casting to your ritual book.

You can only add spells of half your character level (rounded up) into your book. You must pay the normal cost of 50 gp per spell level per ritual spell. It takes two hours per spell level to scribe a ritual spell into your book.

Until next time “Stay Nerdy”

-Nerdarchist Dave