Highlights
- Certain D&D feats are often overlooked but provide unique abilities and flavor to characters, such as the Observant feat for gathering intelligence in urban environments.
- The Tough feat is perfect for tank characters or those concerned about their character's HP, as it increases maximum HP and provides additional HP with each level up.
- Underrated feats like Chef and Elemental Adept offer useful abilities, such as healing and bypassing resistances, that can benefit a variety of characters in different situations.
In Dungeons & Dragons, players have access to a multitude of means of customizing their characters to make them unique. One of the most frequently overlooked means of character customization is definitely a player's access to feats.
Feats are effectively extra abilities that a character wouldn't have access to otherwise, and they can be a great source of additional flavor for a character. However, while some feats are highly regarded for their effectiveness, there are plenty of underrated feats that players tend to sleep on.
Updated August 14, 2023 by Harjit Singh: There are many feats you can acquire in Dungeons & Dragons, but some players may turn their noses up at those they consider to be less useful. We've updated this list to include a few more handy feats that frequently get looked over. From class-specific to more general abilities, here are underrated D&D feats you should try
12 Observant
Passive perception and passive investigation are an important yet often overlooked part of D&D, and can often dictate what information a party has access to. While this feat provides a character with +1 intelligence or wisdom and the ability to understand what a creature is saying by reading its lips if they speak the same language and it bolsters a character's passive perception and investigation by +5 each.
This feat is incredible for any Rogues or campaigns that are in urban environments a lot like cities and towns, allowing you to become masterful at gathering intelligence.
11 Tough
Tough is a perfect feat for players looking to play a sturdy tank as well as those who are particularly worried about how much HP their character has. When a character gains this feat, their maximum HP increases by an amount equal to twice their level.
Additionally, every subsequent time that character levels up, they are treated to an additional +2 to their maximum HP, providing additional padding. So if you feel like you're low on Constitution, then definitely get Tough to bolster yourself.
10 Chef
A somewhat recent addition to D&D, the Chef feat was included in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, allowing players to make food for their party and make the most out of short rests. In addition to gaining proficiency with cook's utensils, a character with the chef feat gains the ability to feed their party during a short rest, healing everyone who eats their food by 1d8.
Additionally, they can spend an hour to prepare treats that when eaten, provide an amount of temporary HP equal to the chef's proficiency bonus for eight hours. This means you can basically give free healing to your party at the cost of no spell slots or important resources.
9 Fey Touched
Fey Touched is another handy feat that you can pick up for virtually any character. The feat allows you to increase Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma by 1 point, and you automatically learn Misty Step, as well as a 1st-level spell from any class, so long as it's either a Divination or Enchantment spell.
Misty Step is perfect for anyone to use, allowing you to get in and out of places as a bonus action whilst offering a selection of good spells to use in a pinch from Detect Magic to Silvery Barbs.
8 Dragon Fear
Dragon Fear is a unique race-exclusive feat only available to those playing as a Dragonborn. This allows a Dragonborn to expend a use of that feature to let out a loud roar, causing any creatures within thirty feet of the Dragonborn's choice to make a Wisdom saving throw, becoming frightened on a failed save.
Frightened is great to use against your enemies, forcing them to retreat or have disadvantage on attacks so long as you're in the line of sight, possibly turning the tides of any combat.
7 Alert
When it comes to combat in D&D, rolling initiative can be a make-or-break moment for some characters, especially those that have spells and abilities they must activate quickly to stay safe. Alert is a feat that allows a player to dominate initiative rolls.
Not only does this feat prevent a character from being surprised while conscious, it prevents hidden targets from attacking them at an advantage while also supplying a +5 bonus to all initiative rolls made by that character.
6 Orcish Fury
Another race-exclusive feat like Dragon Feat, Orcish Fury is a feat available to those playing as half-orcs. An excellent choice for half-orc fighters, barbarians, and paladins, Orcish Fury allows a character to roll an additional damage dice with a simple or martial weapon once per day, adding the result as bonus damage to an attack.
Additionally, after using the relentless endurance trait, that half-orc can use their reaction to make a weapon attack. This feat can significantly help a half-orc's damage output and deal additional damage in key fights.
5 Elemental Adept
It seems most people overlook this feat as something of a waste because it would probably only apply to Sorcerers. Actually, Elemental Adept is perfect for any spellcaster and shouldn't be ignored.
The feat allows you to choose any type of elemental damage from fire to thunder and automatically ignore resistances any creature has to that element. As well as this, all 1s on damage with that element are now a 2, and you can even select this feat multiple times. Trust us, choosing fire with this feat is a godsend as so many enemies end up resisting it.
4 Healer
While many default to viewing clerics, paladins, and druids as a party's healer, the Healer feat allows characters of any class to offer healing support in one's party. While normally healer kits only stabilize a dying creature, this feat allows a character to provide a creature it stabilizes with one HP.
Additionally, this feat provides a character with the ability to use their healer's kit as an action to mend a character's wounds, healing an amount of HP equal to 1d6 plus four, plus an additional amount equal to that creature's maximum hit die. This is perfect for any healers to rely on instead of spell slots.
3 Eldritch Adept
Though Eldritch Adept is a feat only available to those capable of casting spells, it is a feat that any spellcaster would be more than happy to have. Upon being gained, this feat allows a character to gain one eldritch invocation from the warlock class as long as they meet that invocation's prerequisites.
Some of these invocations can offer some incredible abilities such as the ability to cast Mage Armor at will without expending spell slots, the ability to comprehend ALL writing, gain dark vision, or even breathe underwater!
2 Resilient
While Resilient is easily the most straightforward feat on this list, it is perhaps the most frequently applicable and helpful. Increasing a single ability score by one, Resilient provides a character with proficiency in that score's corresponding saving throw.
This can be a lifesaver for characters with glaring weaknesses in certain saves, or even characters looking for a more well-rounded defense against different types of potential offense.
1 Tavern Brawler
Tavern Brawler is an underrated feat that doesn't just reward creative players, but it rewards creative DMs. Providing a character with proficiency with improvised weapons, players with this feat become quite effective when it comes to using their surroundings to fight off foes in interesting ways.
As a DM dictates how much damage various improvised weapons deal, there is a great deal of potential if players use their head when thinking of unique offensive strategies. Additionally, this feat increases a character's unarmed attack damage to 1d4 and allows them to grapple a target they hit with an unarmed attack or an improvised weapon as a bonus action!