Feats (4E)

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons

New feats.

These feat descriptions can be moved to separate pages once layout and templates have been finalized.

Heroic Tier Feats

Animal Companion

Prerequisite: Trained in Nature

Benefit: You have an animal companion of unusual strength and toughness. Select a beast of helpful attitude and with an Intelligence of 3 or less and of a level no higher than your own. This creature will serve you to the best of its ability. It will move as you move, always returning to your side unless you order it to stay in a specific place. This is the only action it can perform on its own. It can serve as a mount, pet, companion, and beast of burden. In a fight, it will stay next to you, possibly acting as cover and as a hindrance to enemies, but it cannot attack and will not take opportunity attacks (except if you have Mounted Combat and it has an appropriate mount power). It acts on your initiative, to follow you. As a minor action, you can order it to stand still, come to you, or take a minor action, but it cannot follow complex orders.

The animal companion starts with the game statistics of a regular animal of its kind. For every level you are higher than the animal companion, it gains one point to all attacks and defenses, as well as eight hit points.

If your animal companion is killed, you will want to retrain this feat.

Animal Guard

Prerequisite: Animal Companion

Benefit: Your animal companion can make opportunity attacks. Once per round as a minor action, you can order it to take a standard or minor action, including attacks. You cannot order it to charge or to move – it will follow you just as an animal companion does.

Battle Rogue

Prerequisite: Sneak attack ability.

Benefit: You can use any weapon or attack with rogue powers and Sneak Attack.

Campaign: This opens up many multiclass options for rogues.

Beast Master

Prerequisite: Animal Guard

Benefit: You can order your animal companion to move or charge. As a minor action, you can order it to take a standard, move, or minor action, but it can only take the normally allowed number of actions each round. You can give it orders as long as it remains within hearing. If it is not adjacent to you and you do not give it an order, it will take move actions as needed to return to your side.

Cantrips

Prerequisite: Trained in Arcana

Benefit: You learn all the wizard cantrips.

Comment: This should probably be as encounter powers rather that at will (given the way multiclassing works in 4E). Cantrips are not that powerful, so keeping then as at-will powers should be fine.

Dread Strike [Warlock]

Prerequisite: Warlock

Benefit: You can use any warlock ranged attack power as a melee power instead.

Fencing

Prerequisite: Dex 13. Benefit: When wielding a single light blade in one hand and not using a shield or two weapons, you get a plus one shield bonus to armor class and reflex defense. You can still wield an implement or missile weapon in the off hand.

Campaign: This is a style feat for modern fencing. Don’t include it if you want a dark ages or even renaissance feel.

Practiced Defense

Benefit: As long as you are wearing only cloth armor, you gain a bonus to armor class of one point plus another point for each type of armor you are proficient in.

Special: Shields are not armor and shield proficiency feats are not armor proficiency feats.

Campaign: This is a style feat for swashbuckling, low-armor campaigns. Don’t include it if you want a dark ages feel.

Rapid Reload

Benefit: Reload time for weapons is reduced one step. Reload minor become reload free, reload move becomes reload minor, and reload standard becomes reload move.

Staff Mastery

Prerequisite: Con 13, proficient with the staff, medium size or larger.

Benefit: You can use a staff as if it were two separate melee weapons, each with the Off-Hand quality and dealing normal staff damage. You can use feats and powers requiring two weapons with a staff. You gain the benefit of the Two Weapon Defense feat when you wield a staff.

Unarmed Combat

Benefit: You gain a +2 proficiency bonus with unarmed attacks. Your unarmed attacks deal 1d6 + Strength modifier damage.

Comment: The proficiency bonus and damage is lower than the monk conversion note. This makes the character a skilled brawler, but it is clearly worse than weapons even at low levels.

Paragon Tier Feats

Flashing Blade

Prerequisites: Dex 17, Str 13

Benefit: If you miss with a melee attack with a rapier and you wouldn’t otherwise still deal damage on the miss, you deal damage to your original target equal to your Dexterity modifier. This damage receives no modifiers or other benefits you normally gain on weapon damage.

Comment: This is the equivalent of Scimitar Dance for rapier. The ability prerequisites have been changed to fit light blades.

Epic Tier Feats

Threatening Reach

Prerequisite: Str 17, Wis 17

Benefit: You have threatening reach with reach weapons.

Multiclass Feats

Human Versatility

Prerequisites: Human, any class-specific multiclass feat, 6th level.

Benefit: Replace one of your at-will powers with one from your multiclass.

Comment: This works with paragon multiclassing since it would still leave a human with at least one at-will power from his base class.