Feats (4E)

4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons

This article lists new feats for use with 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons.

Genre feats are used to describe different settings and genres. Feats with this descriptor should only be included in a campaign if the effect of the feat is something the DM wants to be a trait of the campaign world. You should ask the DM before taking genre feat.

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 and advances in level as any other monster does, except that it can be advanced by more than five levels. Animal companions cannot equip magic items.

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 [Rogue]

Prerequisite: Sneak attack ability.

Benefit: You can use any weapon with rogue powers and Sneak Attack. You can use Sneak attack with damaging non-rogue powers that do not use weapons.

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.

Brutal Throw

Benefit: When using a heavy thrown weapon with a power that normally bases its attack roll and damage on Dexterity, you can use Strength instead.

Cantrip

Prerequisite: Trained in Arcana

Benefit: You learn to use one wizard cantrip.

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.

Channel Divinity [Cleric, Paladin]

Prerequisite: Channel Divinity feat or class feature

Benefit: You learn the channel divinity power of a god you worship.

Special: A cleric can worship several gods, and can learn this power several times. Each time, you learn the channel divinity power of another god you worship.

Comment: This is a generic feat that replaces the specific channel divinity feats with a single unified feat; moving the deity-specific channeling powers into the description of the religions.

Contortionist

You have the extraordinary ability to contort your limbs and dislocate your bones in order to squeeze through openings to small for ordinary people to move through.

Benefit: You count as one size smaller when using the squeeze action. Decrease the DC of all escape artist stunts by 10.

Dread Strike [Warlock]

Prerequisite: Warlock

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

Favored Channel

Prerequisite: Trained in Religion, patron god

Benefit: You can use your patron god’s channel divinity power once per day.

Fencing [Genre]

Prerequisite: Dex 13.

Benefit: When wielding a single melee weapon in one hand and not using a shield or two weapons, you get a +2 shield bonus to armor class. You can still wield an implement or missile weapon in the off hand.

Special: This does not work along with the Swordmage's Swordmage Warding ability.

Fencing Stance [Genre]

Prerequisite: Dex 15, Fencing.

Benefit: When wielding a single melee weapon in one hand and not using the other hand for anything, you get a +2 shield bonus to reflex defense.

Firearms training [Genre]

You are proficient with guns and other blackpowder weapons, perhaps through use, love of noisy mechanical weapons or natural talent.

Prerequisites: Dwarf or Human

Benefit: You are proficient with all firearms, and gain a +2 feat bonus to damage with such weapons.

Improved Channel Divinity

Prerequisite: Channel Divinity class feature or Favored Channel feat

Benefit: You are not limited to using the Channel Divinity class feature once per encounter. You can still use each channel divinity power only once per encounter, but you can use all your channel divinity powers each encounter.

Practiced Defense [Genre]

Prerequisite: Proficiency with leather armor.

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

Notes: Shields are not armor and shield proficiencies are not armor proficiencies.

Rapid Reload

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

Repeating Crossbow Blast

Perquisite: Proficient with the repeating crossbow.

Benefit: You gain the use of the Repeating Crossbow Blast power.

Repeating Crossbow Blast Feat Power

Yanking the fire lever furiously, you fill an area with crossbow bolts.

Encounter ✦ Martial, Weapon

Standard Action      Close blast 3

Requirement: You must be wielding a repeating crossbow. Target: One or more enemies in burst you can see, no more than you have bolts left in the magazine. Attack: Dexterity vs. Reflex Hit: [W] damage. At 11th level, increase to 2[W] damage. At 21st level, increase to 3[W] damage.

Staff Fighting

Prerequisite: Wis 13, proficient with quarterstaff.

Benefit: You can treat the quarterstaff as a double weapon. As a double weapon, the staff deals 1d8/1d8 damage and gains the defensive and off-hand properties.

Official: This is now an official feat. It is described in Dragon 368 and presumably Book of Martial Power.

Unarmed Combat [Genre]

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.

Weapon Finesse [Genre]

Prerequisite: Dex 13

Benefit: When using a light blade or unarmed attack, you can substitute your Dexterity bonus for your Strength bonus for the hit and effect lines of powers and basic attacks.

Weapon Training

Benefit: You gain proficiency in all simple and military weapons.

Comment: This might seem overly useful, but actually is rarely attractive compared to simply learning a superior weapon.

Paragon Tier Feats

Deadeye Shot

Your foes seldom survive a shot from your guns.

Requirements: Dex 17, Wis 13

Benefit: You treat all firearms as high crit weapons.

Note: The name of the feat is taken from the ability of the same ability of the Master Thrower in the third edition of the rules. The effects are similar (the Master Thrower ability increased the critical multiplier by one) albeit for different weapons.

The ability requirements are based on the Deadly Axe feat but adapted to ranged weapons.

Flashing Blade

Prerequisites: Dex 17, Str 13

Benefit: If you miss with a melee attack with a rapier or sabre 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.

Ritual Extension

Prerequisite: Ritual Casting.

Benefit: When you cast or support a ritual with a duration of 1 hour or more, the duration of the ritual is extended to 24 hours. Rituals without a fixed duration are not affected. This increases the cost of ritual components by +100%.

Ritual Multitarget

Prerequisite: Ritual Casting.

Benefit: When you cast or support a ritual that normally affects only the caster, or that affects a limited number of allies less than eight, now affects up to 8 targets. This increases the cost of ritual components by +100%.

Epic Tier Feats

Threatening Reach

Prerequisite: Str 17, Wis 17

Benefit: You have threatening reach with reach weapons.

Multiclass Feats

See also Weapon mastery.

Cantrip [Multiclass Wizard]

Prerequisite: Trained in Arcana

Benefit: You learn to use all wizard cantrips.

Combat Mark [Multiclass Fighter Paladin]

Prerequisites: Student of the Sword or Soldier of Faith.

Benefit: Every time you attack an enemy, whether the attack hits or misses, you can choose to mark that target. The mark lasts until the end of your next turn. While a target is marked, it takes a –2 penalty to attack rolls for any attack that doesn’t include you as a target. A creature can be subject to only one mark at a time. A new mark supersedes a mark that was already in place.

Combat Superiority [Multiclass Fighter

Prerequisites: Student of the Sword.

Benefit: An enemy struck by your opportunity attack stops moving, if a move provoked the attack. If it still has actions remaining, it can use them to resume moving.

Divine Channel [Multiclass Cleric Paladin]

Prerequisites: Initiate of Faith or Soldier of Faith.

Benefit: Gain the Divine Channel abilities of the class you have multiclassed into

Human Versatility [Multiclass Human]

Prerequisites: Human, any class-specific multiclass feat

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.

Pact Curse [Multiclass Warlock]

Prerequisites: Pact Initiate

Benefit: You gain the pact boon of your chosen pact. Once per encounter, you can use the Warlocks’s Curse class feature. The curse lasts until the end of your next round.