Supra's Complete Guide to the Feats of Faerûn

A comprehensive guide to the feats available in Baldur's Gate 3 and how the games systems have affected them.

The Basics of Feats

In Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, the system that Baldur's Gate 3 uses, feats are specific features and abilities that every class is able to choose at certain levels. They can be used to represent the aspects or acquired skills of a character or the choice can be purely mechanical, but regardless of the reason, they can be a definitive cornerstone to many builds.

However despite using the 5e system, Baldur's Gate is not entirely a 1/1 copy. It's not as simple as looking at which feats work in the tabletop and using those. Being a video game changes aspects of what makes certain feats good or bad, either because of new/different mechanics or because the feats themselves have been slightly altered. Which is why I am making this guide.

First of all it's worth mentioning that the level cap in this game is 12, this reduces the number of feats you'd normally be able to get compared to a level 20 character. Secondly you get feats at CLASS level 4, 8, and 12. Fighters get an extra feat at 6, and Rogues at 10. Keep this in mind if you multiclass since you will not get feats for your total level. Overall no matter your build you "should" have at least 2 feats, although you might try and have 3 if you can make your build work, pure Fighters and Rogues will have 4.

Personally I try to start with my main stat at 17 and then get a feat that gives 1 point at level 4 and then choose whatever else looks interesting later. Go with 16 if you use Int or Wis, or if you are going to pick a feat that does not give +1. Remember you can respec whenever you want if something isn't working.

Also I won't be rating them on a scale, I'll let you know if a particular class benefits from something. However I'll at least be sure to make clear which are just not very good for this game. I'll also have the in-game text in quotes for each one.

Recommendations

Here's a quick TL'DR of which feats may be the most useful to look at.

Ability Improvement
Actor
Athlete
Dual Wielder
Great Weapon Master
Lucky
Moderately Armoured
Polearm Master
Sentinel
Sharpshooter
Tavern Brawler
War Caster

Ability Improvement

"You increase one Ability by 2, or two Abilities by 1, to a maximum of 20."

Basic but effective for everyone. Many people will recommend that you almost always take this to get your main Ability up to 20, however I've found that 18 is more than fine. Especially since you have a lot of other ways you can increase your odds, including gear that can take you over the cap of 20.

This is best taken if your main stat needs to go from 16 to 18 to 20, or if you need to raise two odd stats such as 17 -> 18 and 13 -> 14. Not worth it if you're not raising your main stat in some way or you're raising it up to an odd number such as 17/19 (Outside of very specific and not always amicable circumstances).

A lot of builds will probably grab another feat at 4 and then take this every time after. Really the only option you have to raise certain stats too, like Intelligence or Wisdom.

Actor

"Your Charisma increases by 1, to a maximum of 20.

Your Proficiency Bonus is also doubled for Deception and Performance Checks.

Grants Deception Proficiency and Performance Proficiency."

Very on brand for Bards. There are only 3 feats that give a point in Charisma and this is the best of them so it's also potentially an option for Sorcerers or Warlocks too. Oddly it means Bards taking this should not start with Performance at creation since it will be wasted, maybe you're just addled from the worm in your brain.

Alert

"You gain a +5 bonus to Initiative and can't be Surprised."

Useful for anyone although there are a lot of encounters where you can get surprise on the enemy instead. Best if you really really want your Rogue to always go first or if you really really do not want someone to go last.

Athlete

"Your Strength or Dexterity increases by 1, to a maximum of 20.

When you are Prone, standing up uses significantly less movement. Your jump distance also increases by 50%."

The main feature of this one is the 50% jump boost. Jumping is very fast in BG3 and combined with high strength and the Enhanced Leap spell you can do some pretty silly things. However at the same time you really need to know where you're going since it could land you in hot water very fast. Best if you need to speedrun an area as a Strength Wizard.

Charger

"You gain Charger: Weapon Attack and Charger: Shove."

Honestly not that good, in theory it's a nice way to move further and still get an attack but it doesn't benefit from a lot of movement buffs and you can only attack once. You're better off stacking jump buffs if you keep having trouble getting into melee. However the Shove from this is a lot more effective, could probably use it on certain enemies for easy fall kills.

Crossbow Expert

"When you make crossbow attacks within melee range, the Attack Rolls do not have Disadvantage.

Your Piercing Shot also inflicts Gaping Wounds for twice as long."

Super niche and honestly not that good. The tabletop version affected all ranged attacks made in melee so it was pretty good for casters. Now it only works with Crossbows so if for some reason you're only using Crossbows, stop.

Okay I'm half joking, if you duel wield hand-crossbows this might be decent but that sort of has to be your whole thing to get value out of this.

Defensive Duellist

"When attacked while wielding a Finesse Weapon you're Proficient with, you can use a reaction to add your Proficiency Bonus to your Armour Class, possibly causing the attack to miss."

Unfortunately unlike the Shield spell this only works for 1 attack, so later in the game when there are more enemies with more attacks each you're not going to be getting much out of it.

Dual Wielder

"You can use Two-Weapon Fighting even if your weapons aren't Light, and you gain a +1 bonus to Armour Class while wielding a melee weapon in each hand. You cannot dual-wield Heavy Weapons."

Absolutely great for any Strength class looking to use two weapons. Fighter or Str Ranger will love this, also an option for Paladin. Pairs great with the Defensive or Two-Weapon Fighting traits these classes can get allowing you to still keep up your AC or Damage respectively. Since you have two weapons you can use your bonus action to attack giving you 3 attacks per turn at Class level 5. On top of that once you have two strong magic weapons you can get the most out of both effects at once.

Even though it doesn't give an ability point you probably want this at 4 if that's your build.

This is also good if you're a Dex build looking for dual rapiers, but there are probably other things you'll want first.

Dungeon Delver

"You gain Advantage on Perception Checks made to detect hidden objects and on Saving Throws made to avoid or resist traps.

You gain Resistance to the damage dealt by traps."

Completely useless. Everyone in your party is always passively checking for these things anyway and at least 1-2 already have good perception. So you're only roughly going from 4 checks to 5. You can literally cast the Enhance Ability spell on someones Wisdom to get the same thing.

Durable

"Your Constitution increases by 1, to a maximum of 20.

You regain full hit points each time you take a Short Rest."

Not great despite raising Con. The problem here is that if you're short on healing you can just group everyone up really close and throw a potion at the ground to make up for what this would do.

Elemental Adept: Acid/Cold/Fire/Lightning/Thunder

"Your spells ignore Resistance to a damage type of your choice. When you cast spells of that type, you cannot roll a 1."

Just to be clear, you only can't roll a 1 on damage dice. This is okay if you're forced into an element by your class/subclass, Light Cleric for example gets a lot of fire. Pretty much most Sorcerers. Druid has a lot of Lightning/Thunder. But really the main problem is even then you still have other options and if an enemy is immune to your damage type instead then this does nothing.

Great Weapon Master

"When you land a Critical Hit or kill a target with a melee weapon attack, you can make another melee weapon attack as a bonus action that turn.

Attacks with Heavy melee weapons you are Proficient with, can deal an additional 10 damage at the cost of a -5 Attack Roll penalty. (You can toggle this on and off.)"

If you're a Barbarian with a Two-Handed weapon, you take this ASAP. Barbarian Reckless Attack pretty much nullifies the -5 you get from this so you're left with the huge damage. Other melee characters also get a lot of use out of this but you'll have to find another way to avoid that -5. Solid choice.

Heavily Armoured

"You gain Armour Proficiency with Heavy Armour and your Strength increases by 1, to a maximum of 20."

Rather than take this just start as a class that gets heavy armour and multiclass at level 2. Not only will you get more out of it but you'll also have the benefit of that and 2 feats by level 9 instead of wasting a feat on this and getting to 12.

Heavy Armour Master

"Your Strength increases by 1, to a maximum of 20.

Incoming damage from non-magical attacks also decreases by 3 while you're wearing heavy armour."

Solid early game feat but might drop off later, also stacks with other things that reduce damage. Probably should respec when you get more HP though.

Lightly Armoured

"You gain Armour Proficiency with Light Armour and your Strength or Dexterity increases by 1, to a maximum of 20."

Again you're just better off starting as something that has proficiency in this and multiclassing. Most classes that can only wear cloth have ways to get more AC than light armour anyway, like the Mage Armour spell.

Lucky

"You gain 3 Luck Points, which you can use to gain Advantage on Attack Rolls, Ability Checks, or Saving Throws, or to make an enemy reroll their Attack Rolls."

A very good feat, anyone can make use of this. Forcing an enemy to reroll an attack is particularly good to avoid being crit. The points recharge on a long rest.

Mage Slayer

"When a creature casts a spell within melee range of you, you have Advantage on any Saving Throw against it, and you can use a reaction to immediately make an attack against the caster.

Enemies you hit have Disadvantage on Concentration Saving Throws."

Good on anyone that has both range and melee, allows you to take out any annoying effects with a bow before running up next to the caster. Not so useful in the early game though.

Magic Initiate: Bard/Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer/Warlock/Wizard

"You learn 2 Cantrips and a Level 1 spell from the [class] spell list. You can cast the Level 1 spell once per Long Rest. Your Spellcasting Ability for all 3 spells is [classes]"

Despite having a lot of choices there are only really a few particular spells that are worth it. You're probably just better off taking a level in the class unless you don't want to hold your spell progression back.

Martial Adept

"You learn two manoeuvres from the Battle Master subclass and gain a Superiority Die to fuel them. You regain expended Superiority Dice after a Short or Long Rest."

The fact you only get 1 Superiority Die from this feat but two manoeuvres really limits the potential. Ironically best for Battle Master Fighters since you're be able to use the extra die with the ones you already have and you can fully use the extra manoeuvres per short rest. Everyone else can skip it.

Medium Armour Master

"When you wear Medium Armour, it doesn't impose Disadvantage on Stealth Checks. The bonus to Armour Class you can gain from your Dexterity Modifier also becomes +3 instead of +2."

This is an odd duck, to get the most out of this you'll need 16 Dex exactly, any more and you'd just be slightly worse off in Light Armour and much better off with a different feat. Problem is that if Dex is your main stat it will be over 16 and if it isn't then you're going to have to not put points in your main stat in favour of it. If you CAN fit the points like that it may be worth it but you can do better.

Mobile

"Your movement speed increases, and difficult terrain doesn't slow you down when you Dash.

If you move after making a melee attack, you don't provoke Opportunity Attacks from your target."

A very strong feat in the tabletop but in BG3 it loses a bit of its shine. Best on skirmisher builds like Rogue and Monk. However if you're just looking for a movement buff then the Longstrider spell is far better, unlike the tabletop it can be cast for free outside of combat and lasts until a long rest. It does stack with this feat but at that point it's a bit overkill. As for opportunity attacks, both Rogue and Monk have other ways to deal with them and a lot of the time you can manipulate who enemies can reach. Sadly not a must have feat here.

Moderately Armoured

"You gain Armour Proficiency with Medium Armour and shields, and your Strength or Dexterity increases by 1, to a maximum of 20."

Unlike its Light and Heavy brothers this one actually has some use. Warlocks and Lore Bards will get a lot out of this since they don't need a Dex any higher than 14. For context good common light armour has 12+Dex AC for an average of 14 AC on these classes, this feat will allow Half Plate + Shield for 15+2+Dex (up to +2), for 19. A pretty huge jump.

If you're multiclassing from something that has medium armour you can ignore this, but for the pure Warlocks (especially Pact of the Blade) and Lore Bards absolutely consider this and start with 13 Dex to round it up to 14.

Performer

"You gain Musical Instrument Proficiency, and your Charisma increases by 1, to a maximum of 20."

This is just a worse version of Actor, you can get Musical Instrument Proficiency for free by helping a Bard in the Druid grove at the start of the game. You need a decent Performance skill anyway to get the most from it.

Polearm Master

"When attacking with a glaive, halberd, quarterstaff, or spear, you can use a Bonus Action to attack with the butt of your weapon.

You can also make an Opportunity Attack when a target comes within range."

This feat is okay on its own, the bonus attack is nice and the Opportunity Attack is more consistent. But if you want this to truly stand out you will also need the Sentinel feat.

Resilient

"You increase an Ability by 1, to a maximum of 20, and gain Proficiency in that Ability's Saving Throws."

This is generally a level 8/12 feat. There are 2 reasons to take this, you need Proficiency in Wisdom saves, or Con Saves. Wisdom Saves are important because a lot of the strongest spell effects target them, Con Saves are important for spell-caster concentration checks. You're free to ignore this feat if these don't come up a lot for you.

Most classes have either Wisdom or Con saves already, some have neither, and no class has both.
Neither: Bard, Monk, Ranger, Rogue
Wisdom: Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Warlock, Wizard
Constitution: Barbarian, Fighter, Sorcerer

General rule is if you cast spells grab Con, if you don't then grab Wis. If your class already has one then grab the other. Just make sure to respec if it would bring your stat to an odd number. If your Con is already an even number you should probably have a look at War Caster instead.

Ritual Caster

"You learn two ritual spells of your choice."

Ritual Spells are a type of spell that can be cast without using a spell slot. In the tabletop version only Bards, Clerics, Druids, and Wizards can cast spells as rituals without this feat. In BG3 any class can cast a ritual spell as a ritual if they can get it as a spell, without this feat or even having spell slots at all. The only requirement is that you aren't in turn-based mode.

Unfortunately that means that a large part of this feats utility (eg, saving spell slots on half casters like Ranger or Eldritch Knight Fighter) is gone. The other main benefit was that when you picked this feat you could choose a specific class and continue to learn rituals from that class after the first 2. This meant that a Wizard could learn Cleric exclusive Rituals for example.

In BG3 this feat only gives you 6 spell choices, most of which are low level spells that you have easy access to through items, potions, classes, subclasses, etc. Because of this the best ones are Longstrider and Enhance Leap but you only need one person to have them and most casters can get them easily without this. If someone else has those two grab Find Familiar, less general use for it but it can be fun. Overall this feat is very limited now.

Other sources for the rituals from this feat

Speak with Dead: Bard, Cleric, Warlock. The Amulet of Lost Voices (very early game item)

Find Familiar: Wizard, Ranger (Natural Explorer), Fighter (Eldritch Knight), Rogue (Arcane Trickster), Warlock (Pact of the Chain)

Longstrider: Bard, Druid, Wizard, Ranger, Fighter (Eldritch Knight), Rogue (Arcane Trickster)

Enhance Leap: Sorcerer, Druid, Wizard, Ranger, Fighter (Eldritch Knight), Rogue (Arcane Trickster), Potion of Glorious Vaulting

Disguise Self: Bard, Sorcerer, Wizard, Ranger (Gloom Stalker), Cleric (Trickery Domain), Fighter (Eldritch Knight), Rogue (Arcane Trickster), Warlock (Eldritch Invocation), Mask of the Shapeshifter (Deluxe Edition)

Speak with Animals: Bard, Druid, Ranger, Warlock (Eldritch Invocation), Barbarian (Wildheart), Paladin (Oath of the Ancients), Cleric (Nature Domain), Potion of Animal Speaking

Savage Attacker

"When making weapon attacks, you roll your damage dice twice and use the highest result."

Pretty much just raises the average damage you do. Decent on weapons with big damage dice or on crit builds. Otherwise you can safely ignore this.

Sentinel

"When an enemy within melee range attacks an ally, you can use a reaction to make a weapon attack against that enemy. Target ally must not have the Sentinel Feat.

You gain Advantage on Opportunity Attacks, and when you hit a creature with an Opportunity Attack, it can no longer move for the rest of its turn."

You really only want 1 person with this feat, good for stopping something from running past your front line. As I said earlier this is the feat that you want to pair with Polearm Master. With both feats you are able to make an Opportunity Attack with Advantage in a larger area and stop something from moving past you. An amazing combo that works great on a Fighter since they have an extra feat and can get both very early.

Sharpshooter

"Your ranged weapon attacks do not receive penalties from High Ground Rules.

Ranged weapon attacks with weapons you are Proficient with have a -5 penalty to their Attack Roll, but deal an additional 10 damage."

Great Weapon Master but for bows, outstanding. It's pretty easy to ignore the penalty from this if you grab the Archery Fighting Style and/or have high ground. Also great with advantage on surprise attacks. Fighter, Ranger, and Rogue get a lot out of this and should take it ASAP if you don't use them in melee. Best with dual Hand Crossbows.

Shield Master

"You gain a +2 bonus to Dexterity Saving Throws while wielding a shield. If a spell forces you to make a Dexterity Saving Throw, you can use a reaction to shield yourself and diminish the effect's damage. On a failed Saving Throw, you only take half damage. On a successful Saving Throw, you don't take any damage."

Nothing special here. In the tabletop this feat also allowed you to shove as a bonus action but in BG3 that's just a thing everyone can do so this is a lot less useful.

Skilled

"You gain Proficiency in 3 Skills of your choice."

What it says on the tin. If for some reason you need more skills, this exists. But you can also just use the Enhance Ability spell or if you're a Gith they have a racial feature that does the same thing as that.

Spell Sniper

"You learn a cantrip, and the number you need to roll a Critical Hit while attacking with a spell is reduced by 1. This effect can stack."

Use this with other ways to increase crit range and you have a lot of damage on your hands. Just make sure most of your spells are attack rolls and not ability saves or this won't come up often. Best to grab Eldritch Blast with this unless you're already a Warlock since even without the invocations or Hex it's the best option.

Tavern Brawler

"Choose +1 ability score in Strength or Constitution.

When you make an unarmed attack, use an improvised weapon, or throw something, your Strength Modifier is added twice to the damage and Attack Rolls."

In the tabletop this feat is a generic underwhelming way to use unarmed attacks, however in BG3 it has been completely changed. Now it is far more specialised and FAR more powerful. If you're throwing things with a Berserker Barbarian or an Eldritch Knight Fighter, or doing Strength Monk punches, this is the first feat you take, no questions.

Tough

"Your hit point maximum increases by 2 for every level you have gained."

Good for anyone. This gives you the same amount of HP per level as if you raised your Con by 4. Effectively it's about enough HP to take an extra hit and by 12 it's 24 extra HP. Up to you if you think you need that.

War Caster

"You gain Advantage on Saving Throws to maintain Concentration on a spell.

You can also use a reaction to cast Shocking Grasp at a target moving out of melee range."

Good on all casters. If your Con is an even number then this is a far better option over Resilient to make sure you don't lose Concentration. You don't really need both this and the Con Saves/Resilient feat so pick whichever you prefer. The reaction is okay, in the tabletop you could cast any spell with it but Shocking Grasp isn't bad.

NOTE: There's light armour in Act 1 that gives advantage on Constitution Saves. All 6 non-custom origin characters are able to wear light armour by default so you may be able to skip this feat on one of your spellcasters if you end up finding it.

Weapon Master

"You gain Proficiency with four weapons of your choice, and your Strength or Dexterity increases by 1, to a maximum of 20."

Individual weapon proficiency is a hold over from older editions of D&D and is hilariously useless for 5e. If you don't have proficiency in a weapon then your class does not need it, if you want proficiency you should probably multiclass. Don't even take this for the ability point.

Conclusion

That's everything. Hopefully you found this useful or at least learned a thing or two from it. Feel free to leave a rating and/or a comment if you have any questions.

Keep in mind that some of these could be bugged as of writing this guide since the game only just came out. I'll try to keep this guide updated if anything is patched, changed, or discovered. Hopefully we get an expansion of some kind since there are a lot newer feats for 5e that are very fun.

Thanks for reading!

[SupraVector]

@Dangercrow I added a short list of feats that are generally the more useful picks.

[Dangercrow]

I appreciate the depth with which you've done into these, but its a long-old list. I'd love if there were some summary where you highlighted ones that might be good without needing to read all of them and take notes!

[bob]

@SupraVector, from what i've noticed, via feats, you can only get familiars via Magic Initiate: Wizard or via Ritual Master. Pretty sure, Ritual is better for keeping them up, and being able to pickup another ritual with it can be nice, depending on the party, while Magic Initiate is probably the better choice in most cases, as you can pair it with stuff like friends, minor illusion, bone chill, mage hand or dancing lights/light.

If its something the person wants, and their class doesn't get it, it becomes weighing getting another level in their current class or give up a feat for it. Probably the feat is more useful elsewhere. Ritual Master is probably an okay choice on like a Warlock that didn't go pact of the chain, while Magic Initiate, might be okay on a summon/necro cleric just wanting more bodies.

[SupraVector]

@bob I'm considering adding more information on other sources of the rituals to that section. Also good point on Find Familiar, I find that if you really want it you probably take it from a class but the feat is really the only other choice if you don't do that.

[bob]

I have found the ritual master to be minorly useful to have all the talking abilities on 1 character on demand, but as Supra has pointed out, it is very easily replaced by items. 1 speak animal potion per long rest completely removes the need for ritual master doing that. If you harvest mats in the wilderness by the druids, and maybe buy/steal mats from merchants, you can make several of those potioins easy. Between the speak to the dead necklace by withers and looting scrolls, and the fact that you can use 1 casting to recast for basically everything until a long rest, you don't need to use the ritual master for that either. The very best use, and this is more opinion than anything else, is to use it to get summon familiar on characters that don't get it.

Even then, its not optimal, but familiars do add some fun options at times.

[SupraVector]

@Proffessor Yellow, I don't quite understand your reasoning here, not only are there items that can be used to replicate those spells but some classes even get them for free as features. You're suggesting using a whole feat on something you get for free most of the time. Also the spells Ritual Caster lets you pick can already be cast for free, the feat doesn't add that to them.

[N-cromancer]

Its super convenient, and if your willing to cast detect thought, and use an arcane recovery on a second level spell point, your just set to go, conversations or instances be damned, your ready for any hidden detail.

[N-cromancer]

I disagree with your take on ritual caster. With the necromancy of thay forbidden knowledge perk, choosing minor disguise and speak with animals allows your character to interact with a huge amount of game content without spending any spell slots. If you want you could enact this earlier than the book of thay using the amulet in withers tomb.