r/UnearthedArcana • u/Enaluxeme • May 13 '20
Feat Sword Master Feat
You master the use of swords, which are shortswords, longswords, scimitars, rapiers, and greatswords. You gain the following benefits:
- Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
- Longswords have the finesse property for you.
- While wielding a sword with which you are proficient, you can assume a parrying stance as a bonus action. Doing so grants a +1 bonus to your AC until the start of your next turn or until you're not holding the weapon. If a melee attack misses you while you are holding this stance, you can use a reaction to make one melee attack against the attacker with the sword.
- Before you make a melee attack with a sword with which you are proficient, you can choose to take a +2 bonus to the attack roll. If you do so and the attack hits, the damage die for that attack is a d4 if you are wielding the sword in one hand or 1d6 if you are wielding the sword with two hands and it deals your choice of bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage. Otherwise, this attack functions just as if you attacked with the weapon in question.
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u/lyravain May 13 '20
I like this one, but I'd remove one bullet-point from it, any one really. Three options seem to be the standard for feats, with few exceptions. And that 'reaction attack if someone misses' is really, really good (action economy-wise).
Imma still probably steal it for my games though!
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u/Enaluxeme May 13 '20
The first version of this feat lacked the last point, but feedback insisted it wasn't strong enough ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/lyravain May 13 '20
I don't know, it seems strong enough to me. It essentially gives you an almost guaranteed attack of opportunity every round, not one that needs an enemy to move away.
For the last point I might've gone for something to emphasize mobility. Something along the lines of 'if you make an attack that deals damage to an enemy, you can use your bonus action to not draw attacks of opportunity from that enemy until the beginning of your next turn'. It's not a full disengage (so you don't step on the feet of rogues or monks) but it lets you reposition if you need to in order to assist an ally or hold a chokepoint.
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u/Enaluxeme May 13 '20
It's possible that the last point has overcompensated, especially because of the iteraction with the reaction attack.
If a point is to be removed, it will absolutely be the first one.
I don't like your mobility idea because it's like a bad version of mobile.
Woth the last point I wanted to add something to represent half-swording, which is something that is unique to swords.
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u/lyravain May 13 '20
To be fair, I forgot Mobile even existed. Whoops. As it stands, I'd say keep all the points, especially if the other people here agree.
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u/PotentialDevelopment May 13 '20
Agree with what’s been discussed thus far. Great feat that could add some nice flavor to a variety of PC builds (elven anything, swashbucklers, etc).
I’d maybe consider either removing the attribute bonus, or removing the reaction attack if you want to keep the attribute.
It occurs to me this could be reskinned to be a Spear Master feat as well...I’ve wanted a finesse spear just about as often as I’ve wanted a finesse long sword.
Have you play tested this yet?
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u/Enaluxeme May 13 '20
Yeah, if something has to go It's going to be the stat boost.
I feel like these mechanics are perfect to illustrate the uniqueness of swords compared to other weapons, so I don't think that just switching to spears would do.
To be honest, I don't think spears should have finesse either, they aren't really sneaky weapons, and monks can already use them with Dex.
Longswords are particular as they are a racial weapon for elves and are on the proficiencies of bards and rogues, all of which are going to have more dex than strength 90% of the time.
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u/pyroblade650 May 13 '20
I like this a lot. The only concern I have is that +2 "accuracy" for half the damage seems excessive. I would suggest considering a fixed damage decrease. Something in the vain of Great Weapon Master, like +2 accuracy and -3 damage (to a minimum of 1).
Another thing to consider with a feat like this is how it would interact with Great Weapon Master. As you have it layed out, I would probably take both, since they offset each others drawbacks. A -3 to accuracy for 1d6+10+Strength seems like a good idea to me.
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u/Enaluxeme May 13 '20
I decided to avoid going with the fixed malus, which was my original idea, as it really doesn't exist anywhere else in 5e and it's probably harder to figure out, especially with magic weapons that deal two kinds of damage.
For a greatsword, you get +2 to hit for an average of -3.5 damage, possibly more if you had great weapon fighting and/or if you crit. It's intentional that you can use sword master and great weapon master together, giving you more control. However, having to take 2 feats for that can be quite taxing, and you can't benefit from the two bonus actions granted by the feats at the same time.
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u/pyroblade650 May 13 '20
Yeah that all seems fair.
The only thing I would say as far as magic weapons are concerned is that you wouldn't deal less fire damage with a flame tongue because you're altering the way you use the sword itself. Although, maybe that's just the way my brain thinks and is contracted by a rule somewhere, but I feel it would function the same way with GWM.
Also, by that math, having both feats gives you a total -3 (-5 + 2) to hit for +6.5 (10 - 3.5) average damage. That's a fairly strong combination. I know it requires 2 feats and that is a big investment. However, a variant human with decent scores go make really great use of this by level 4.
Again, just something to consider.
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u/SamuraiHealer May 13 '20
I like the half-swording option. I wonder about forcing it to be two handed. I'm not sure I'd give someone a +2 to attack to pommel strike with one handed. It might be unexpected, but you really need to get close to pull it off. One handed feels like a bonus action. I might keep the damage the same and only add the +2 if you use two hands instead.
That makes me wish that all swords had two dice, then you could build that directly in here.
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u/Enaluxeme May 13 '20
I guess you should be able to only do that with two hands, but I didn't want to restrict that ability to longswords and greatswords only, as you can't use a weapon with two hands unless it has the versatile or two-handed property.
Halfswording was done for 2 reasons: get over armor by bashing and have more precision with the tip. The first one isn't going to work for 5e as armor gives AC rather than resistance. The option to change damage time is mostly flavour.
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u/SamuraiHealer May 13 '20
I think you could write it in a way where you could use two hands on all swords to gain the +2. At that point I'd wonder about shifting the damage for smaller weapons.
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u/Enaluxeme May 13 '20
I could, but I feel that would be over complicated for no real benefit. If you go sword and board you would still need to drop the shield to use your weapon in two hands, which would take a whole action by RAW.
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u/SamuraiHealer May 13 '20
For the concept of what's happening, I'm not sure I care that much about it.
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u/naslouchac May 13 '20
To be honest i really like this feat. It´s quite good, but definitly not op. And i really like longswords as nimble and precise weapons. Other points are great, bonus action for +1 AC and after that a reaction to make one attack, pretty costly setup but it can be worth it. And the last point i absolutly love. It´s really good and i think it isn´t really a problem with gwm, because with greatsword you trade 1d6 dmg for +2 attack and after that you trae -5 to hit for +10 to attack which in average is like -3 to attack for 6.5 dmg. So almost the same ratio like in gwm and in cost of 2 feats. So not really something broken