D&D: Five of the Best Feats (That Also Get You an Ability Score)
Feats and 5th Edition go hand in hand. Especially since the new 2024 rules are giving everyone a feat. And potentially, a stat boost.
If you’ve played D&D at all, you know that feats add, often quite powerful abilities, to your character. But one of the tradeoffs is that when you take a feat, it’s in lieu of increasing one of your ability scores by +2 or two of your ability scores by +1.
But you don’t always have to give that up. Some feats, colloquially called half-feats, give you a cool ability AND a +1 to an attribute associated with the feat. This means, depending on your stats and what you’re trying to do, a half-feat is often just as good, if not better than just bumping your ability scores. Take a look!
Crusher
Crusher is a great feat for characters who use Strength OR Constitution. In addition to giving you a +1 to one of those stats, it also lets you just push someone, once per turn, for free. No contest. No save. You just shove them. Which is a huge ability on its own. But then you also gain an extra rider to your critical hits, making the target you hit easier to attack until the start of your next turn. Solid feat all around.
Agent of Order
One of the new Plane-touched feats out of the Planescape campaign setting. This feat requires you to have the 1st-level starter feat Scion of the Outer Planes. Which is easy enough to get. When you pick this feat, you gain the ability to deal an extra 1d8 force damage to a target you damage (not hit with a weapon attack or spell attack, but one you damage at all, in any way) and it has to save or be restrained until the start of your next turn, making it easy to hit. Extra damage, restraint, and it gives you a +1 to any stat you choose. Great feat for any class.
Elven Accuracy
Elven Accuracy is one of the most powerful feats in the game. It’s Elf-only, sure, so only Elves and Half-Elves need apply. But. You gain +1 to your Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. Already good. But the real deal here is that you can reroll one of the dice you make whenever you have advantage on an attack roll using one of those stats, which is effectively rolling with 3d20 and picking the highest. A fantastic way to fish for crits. And it’s compatible with archers, spellcasters of any stripe, and hexblades.
Fey Touched
Fey Touched gives you +1 to one of your mental statistics, which is great for most classes. No one ever is sad about getting a boost to Wisdom saves, even if they don’t cast spells. On top of that, you get Misty Step and a 1st-level divination/enchantment spell of your choice. Super solid mobility and then a free spell on top of it make this a great choice.
Telekinetic
Finally Telekinetic. Which is the Cleric’s best friend. But it’s useful to a number of characters. As with Fey Touched, you increase one of your mental stats by one. You also get Mage Hand (and it can be invisible), and you can, as a bonus action, telekinetically shove one creature you can see. It gets a save, sure, but you can just use your bonus action to do it. Clerics love it because it gives them an extra way to trigger Spirit Guardians on their turn. But it’s fantastic for pretty much any caster.
What feats do you go for when you want to boost that ability score just a little?
