Talk:Perfect Focus (5e Feat)

Explanation

This is a feat I made for monks only. The idea is they are masters of focus. Mind over matter is their bread and butter. So they don't lose Concentration...ever. Through rage or spell effects or what have you, as long as they can think (aren't incapacitated) they can hold concentration. I added a few flavor effects that made sense and a "zen state" to make use of their concentration. (since I noticed most monks don't have anything to concentrate on.) Obviously I wanted the more monk you are the better at focus you are but I wanted multi class monks to have access to feat and it be tempting... just not be as powerful for them as full monks so I made the concentration check DC tied to the monk level. and there you have it my first feat. I will note someone was nice enough to fix my formatting errors after I put it up. :) (happy with overall design but welcome to balance discussions or edits) --Chenault87

Comments

Hello, Chenault87! As you requested, here are my comments on the previous version of the Perfect Focus feat:

• Premise. After I saw your comments on my user talk page, I found the explanations of the feat at your user page. It explicitly states, "[monks with Perfect Focus] are masters of focus. Mind over matter is their bread and butter. So they don't lose concentration... ever." I love the concept of it, yes, but obviously you and I had some difference in approaches. What I thought was yes, mind over matter is what makes monks monks, but monks already have Stillness of Mind class feature to demonstrate it, and like you said, they don't have anything to concentrate on in the first place.

I'm not saying that your idea is wrong or anything. I just wanted to say that you and I had some different points of view, hence my edits were rather... deviant from the previous version.

• Adding Wisdom Modifier to All Concentration Saving Throws? I am overly cautious at not making any of the abilities "dump stat" - something you can "dump" without any risks. From what I saw, adding Wisdom modifier (and a bit more, in previous version) to Constitution saving throws was, even if it was restricted to maintaining concentration, very risky. And it could be applied to any Constitution saving throws, includes resisting diseases and poison (which a monk would be immune to anyway after 10th level, but still), some monsters' attacks, some spells, and many others. Note that Constitution and Wisdom are two of the three "good" saving throw abilities (the other one being Dexterity) and this feat is exclusive to monk, who is supposed to have high Wisdom score.

• Maintaining Concentration? I am terribly sorry to say this, but this downright defies the fundamental rule of spellcasting, as stated in the SRD, "Casting a Spell" page. I believe that there must be a reason 5th edition decided to add the one-concentration-at-a-time restriction, because back in older editions, spellcasters could stack a multitude of spells as much as they could, making buff spells absurdly strong and very hard to overcome.

The previous version (and the current version) even enables you to maintain concentration on two different sources at a same time, which is a no-no to 5e standards. This makes a character who multiclasses into 1st-level monk and nth-level spellcaster class absurdly potent compared to other spellcasters. Maintaining concentration on two spells might look a bit meh, but when you consider that the only reason D&D spells have so many restrictions in the first place is because spells are that powerful, chances are spellcasters would dig this feat. In short: This makes this feat terribly exploitable, something that I do not find rather feasible.

Oh, and the DC calculation is somewhat unorthodox, but I don't mind that much on it. Actually, I thought it would be better if it was 10 or 21 minus your monk level, whichever is higher, because after you reach 11th level, the DC would be even less than most of the other DCs you'd see from other sources.

• Zen State. I'm not a big fan of adding ability modifier to attack rolls, but it's mostly because in 5th edition, even magic weapons give a +3 bonus at maximum. Besides, I found that Zen state is exquisite for monks, so as you can see, I did some formatting jobs.

Well, that's it for now. In short: I found some of the benefits from the feat are rather overpowered, and even not feasible for 5e standards. Yet, I apologize for my rather hasty edits without any comments or questions, it was rather rude of myself. I hope my comments could help you improve your works. --WeirdoWhoever (talk) 12:47, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Oh, and I'm copy-pasting your explanations of the feat from your user page. --WeirdoWhoever (talk) 12:47, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Perfect Focus. discussion

I see. You make some good points. I'm rather new to this site so I apologize for my rather plain reply.

I agree with several of your points once you wrote it all out, though not all. I'll try to list them in order so it's easy to understand my viewpoint.

I personally think stillness of mind is a reference to the monks spiritual center. able to resist fear and charm isn't really mind over matter it's mind over mind. Mind over matter to me is that through focus (eg wisdom) they can surpass their physical limitations. the Concentration effect that comes with this feat was my attempt to add to that. though if you went multiclass you might find another effect more beneficial.

I see your point about making it too "safe" but monks are rather notorious for needing a lot of stats anyway. so making a wisdom a bit more appealing (as opposed to dex and con which they also need) doesn't seem like a bad idea to me however I agree there needs to be risk.. so I think rather than a per time period restriction I'll keep it tied to the characters reaction and add a ki cost to adding Wis to a saving throw. that way they will have to use it sparingly and it will be weighed against attacks of opportunity and the missile snaring thing they do. Sadly I'm not experienced to know if it would be to OP to add to ANY or just con. but balancing risk and cost could help. for now I'll try with Con and see how it works.

I agree on that having multiple concentration effects could get out of hand very quickly and it was never something I intended. I'll be sure to add that restriction in. but I really think that monks should be the best at keeping concentration. I do like your "10 or 21 -monk level whichever is higher" tweak to my rule." I may use that on my Barbarian feat as well. I never want the check to be meaningless but a high level monk should have an advantage.

Regardless of our individual opinions I greatly appreciate your time and effort on my feat, and hope to work with you again. I'm always happy to listen to another perspective as well worded and thought through as yours.