-1

I think that for what they give, fey and shadow touched seem a lot better than the +1 to an ability score you sacrifice for them, but not quite good enough to justify sacrificing a +2, do you think changing them to a full feat while increasing the number of uses by one is fair and balanced?

Muhammad hiari
  • 308
  • 2
  • 9

1 Answers1

5

Fey/Shadow Touched are fine as they are

Nobody can tell you what you should do. You are the DM, you do what you want to. If your question is if these feats are balanced as they are, or would be unbalanced if you changed them:

The feats could be called balanced by definition, because they are official feats, and the published, official feats set the baseline for acceptable power levels. That said, there are of course feats that are much stronger, and others that are weaker, even among the published feats.

To try and evaluate how strong they are, I will use Detect Balance. While this tool is normally for evaluating races, it provides point values to various abilities that we can use to compare them.

  • The value for a +2 ASI is 8 points, and for a choice of a +1 ASI 5 points.
  • The value for a level 2 spell once per day is 4 points.
  • The value for a level 1 spell once per day is 3 points.

The Fey Touched feat provides a +1 ASI choice, a really good level 2 spell in misty step, plus a level 1 divination spell of choice once a day. The point values for that would be 5 + 4 + 3 = 12 points. This is a strong feat, that does not need additional help compared to an +2 ASI, weighing in at a full 4 points more.

Likewise for the Shadow Touched feat, which provides invisibility instead of misty step, and a choice of illusion or necromancy spell instead of divination.

If you replaced the +1 ASI with another use of the level 2 spell per day, the point values would not change much, so it would be a relatively neutral change, at least by the measure of Detect Balance. Especially if you believe that the high value the +1 ASI is too good in the Touched feats, making this change should be fine.

However, giving them an additional use of both this and the level one spell would give them 7 points of value instead of 5, for a feat that already is healthily strong. I think it would be a little too much.

In the comments you added that your concern is that these feats are too good in their listed state. And indeed, the point values show them as better than a +2 ASI, which is seen as better than many weaker feats. Supporting that line of thought (as @DarthPseudonym commented), usually you pick these feats with a build that has an uneven value in the attribute of choice, so in effect it delivers the exact same improvement benefit that a full +2 ASI would give you, plus adds access to two spells.

I do not think you need to nerf them, though. I agree they are strong, but other feats also can be very strong (I'm looking at you, Sharpshooter, or you Lucky), and these don't break out of that range in a way that would be unbalanced.

Jack
  • 31,646
  • 13
  • 112
  • 200
Nobody the Hobgoblin
  • 112,387
  • 14
  • 326
  • 684
  • 3
    If you believe all official feats are balanced simply because they're official then you are sorely mistaken, that statement is easily disproved by the fact that some feats dwarf others in terms of power. As for the rest of your reply I thank you for the input. – Muhammad hiari Jun 30 '23 at 15:38
  • Although if you use that calculator it says a choice of an ASI is worth 5 points and at character level 3 (RAW characters get feats only at level 4) a 2nd level spell is worth 3 points a first level one is worth 2. – Muhammad hiari Jun 30 '23 at 15:44
  • @Muhammadhiari You are likely right on the Choice of ASI, I updated that. On the spells, you looke at those spells if you get them at level 3. I am using the spells, without a level modifier - for example, if you are a variant human, you can get the feat at level 1. I fully agree there is wide disparity between power levels of feats. – Nobody the Hobgoblin Jun 30 '23 at 18:43
  • but that contradicts what you said about them being the baseline for it is balanced. AS for the Vhuman, yeah, but I'm trying to balance it in general not the specific case of VHuman, so for the sake of this argument let's consider Vhuman banned and the game starts at level 3, most experienced groups start at level 3.

    And by the way thanks a lot, I was looking for that calculator for a while, I found it a year ago then lost it.

     – Muhammad hiari Jun 30 '23 at 19:13
  • 1
    @Muhammadhiari What I mean is that any feat that is not worse than an exisitng official feat, or better than one, in a way can be considred to be balanced by criterion of the the power levels already available in the published materials. Glad I could help with the link. – Nobody the Hobgoblin Jun 30 '23 at 19:16
  • @Muhammadhiari Yes, some feats are stronger than others but that's okay, "balanced" doesn't necessarily mean "equal". Nor is it a binary category, things can still be called balanced if they're in an acceptable range. And I argue that's a good thing, if everything was "over-balanced" to be as close to equal as possible, the game would be far more boring, and choices far less meaningful. – biziclop Jun 30 '23 at 20:19
  • Fey Touched is so powerful that even when you remove the +1 ASI (-5 points) it is only 1 point weaker than +2 ASI. If we take 8 points as benchmark then a 12 point feat (+50%) is a huge increase of power. So arguably it would be a lot more balanced to remove the +1 ASI – Slaves_of_the_Coast Jul 02 '23 at 10:55
  • the +2 ASI is 10 points not 8 since you can choose to what ability you assign them, the 4 points per +1 is for fixed ASIs that you can't change (before tasha's customizing your origin) – Muhammad hiari Jul 02 '23 at 13:19