Talk:Shield Master, 2nd Variant (5e Feat)

Rebalancing the Feat

Hey there! I am on a quest to make things as balanced as possible here on the Wiki, and I stumbled across this feat. I wanted to edit this feat for a couple of reasons. First of all, I know it is a revision of the Shield Master feat, but that feat is already incredibly strong. You do not need to make it even more powerful by adding even more features. Second of all, the ability to get advantage on Dexterity saving throws while you aren't moving is incredibly powerful. Dexterity saving throws are undeniably the most common kind of saving throw in D&D, so getting advantage on them indefinitely as a bonus action is very strong. And finally, you made the core feature of the original feat- the ability to add your shield bonus to Dexterity saving throws against you- even more powerful by making it against not only effects that target you, but effects as a whole, meaning you can add it to a Dexterity saving throw against Fireball, for example. THis completely changes the balance of the feat, making it undeniably much more OP. I am going in and editing it now to make it more balanced. Thank you! --MarshDASavage (talk) 14:42, 16 February 2021 (MST)

Response

Hello again! I made this revision due to the recent nerf of shield master. I'll list out some points

• 1. The original ability to shove as a bonus action was removed from the original feat, this is the main reason it was so popular amongst the player base
• 2. The original ability to make it against effects that only target you was incredibly specific, it was an incredibly niche trait and does not occur very often in the game. I reworded it so that it was more viable in general.
• 3. The idea behind shield stance was to allow the tank to act like a tank. They cannot move, this includes attacking as well.
• 4. I believe it is balanced as is, please do not edit any further thank you, again like the last time you edited one of my homebrew I made this feat specifically for a westmarch and I would appreciate no editing without further discussion.

I'm glad for your response in such a polite manner. I'll try to do the same in similar fashion:

• 1. The ability to shove as a bonus action was in fact present on your version of the Shield Master feat, so, no change occur in this aspect.
• 2. The bonus to dexterity checks is supposed to be niche. This is not made to give you what amounts to basically a new saving throw proficiency, but to grant you a bit of an edge against certain cantrips and spells.
• 3. The shield stances is a nice touch, but if you are going to add new functions to an already powerful feat, you need to remove also, therefore creating balance.
• 4. Although is polite for other users to not simply edit articles left and right, the edits made to your feat weren't unjustified, and you must remember that this is a wiki, after all, and anyone should be able to edit anything in it. But you can always utilize your user page for personal homebrew, if you don't want anybody changing what you create. Anastacio (talk) 15:45, 16 February 2021 (MST)