10. Fighting Initiate
Nothing like a couple dozen bruises to remind a student about the importance of a good defence!
Clerics and Paladins, besides having access to great spells and esoteric class features, also excel at melee combat, and lots of the feats in this list would have some great crossover with the main melee-focused class, the Fighter.
So if you have a cleric in mind that utilizes a specific weapon type, or even if you’re just looking to increase your overall combat effectiveness, taking the Fighting Initiate to gain one of the fighter classes' great Fighting Styles is an awesome addition.
Being effectively passive buffs focusing on melee combat, the list has a range of effects that increase defence, give bonuses to movement and of course add in a bit of extra damage, so theres something in it for everyone!
With the Dueling style giving you a +2 to damage with a one-handed weapon,, Interception letting you reduce a nearby ally's incoming damage by 1d10 + your proficiency bonus, and Blind Fighting giving you blind sense up to 10 feet, the options in this feat will make your martial focused cleric builds even more impressive.
9. Heavy Armor Mastery
When in doubt, just add more metal plates!
Any damage reduction is helpful as a tank, but when this reduction comes with the addition of a stat increase, the bonus is all the better.
This feat is pretty simple, you gain a +1 to strength, and if you’re wearing heavy armour, you reduce any incoming non-magical piercing, slashing or bludgeoning damage by a flat 3.
The bonus strength is nice and can bump you up to another stat bonus tier, but if you’re fighting early-game bosses and later-game swarms of minor enemies, 3 damage can mean a lot of HP saved throughout a fight.
So if you take this feat at level 4 you’ll most likely have a 14 AC with Ring Mail, with most goblins, kobolds and smaller creatures having an average of +4 to hit and rolling an average of 5 damage, if they do manage to break through your defence they will still only do 1-2 damage most of the time, a more then reasonable amount for a healing class like Cleric!
8. Shield Master
Despite the circumstances, she suddenly couldn't help but worry that she had left the fire burning at home.
Shields are already pretty great to have around, giving a flat +2 to AC, but the Shield Master feat elevates these decent armaments into absolutely life-saving blockers.
The first feature is okay but situational, being able to push an opponent of Large size or smaller 5 feet with a bonus action, but the other two effects are always useful, especially if you’re wearing heavier armors!
As long as they’re not incapacitated, the feat adds the user’s Dexterity modifier to any saves against harmful effects that target only them and need a Dexterity save, and in the case that they fail the check and would take half damage (even if it’s an AOE attack) they can use their reaction to use their shield for cover and take no damage instead.
This single feat not only takes one of the Rogue's best features in their 7th level Evasion , but it adds onto it with the player’s ability to add their Dex to related saving throws in general. An insanely helpful bonus, even for those who don’t have a particularly high dexterity score.
7. Crusher/Piercer/Slicer
"I know the painter said not to move so he could capture our warrior spirit, but that hawk is giving me a really nasty look..."
I know this is kind of cheating, but when Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything introduced feats that gave bonuses to bludgeoning, piercing or slashing damage on top of a stat increase, it gave characters partial to a certain weapon type a great new option to expand their kit.
And since the three are fairly similar, I thought it made sense to put them together in the list. All three feats give the character a +1 to strength, dexterity (for piercer and slasher) or constitution (for crusher), which could bump players up a tier in ability score modifiers, a pretty sweet bonus already, and when you add in each features unique bonuses to attack, it gets even better.
Crusher not only lets you move any creature up to one size larger then you 5 feet away on a hit, it also makes it so if you land a critical hit dealing bludgeoning damage, any attack rolls against the enemy you hit will have advantage until the start of your next turn! So no only are you bullying your enemies around the battlefield, but you’re also setting up your party to do some crazy damage!.
For piercer, you can reroll one of your damage dies used in an attack once per turn, and for critical hits with piercing damage, you can roll an additional die for damage, which can also be adjusted by the feat’s reroll option.
This can be a major buff for polearm users, but it’s even better if you’re a ranged fighter, where every weapond besides the sling does piercing damage with their arrows!
And finally, with Slasher you can reduce a hit target’s movement speed by 10ft until the start of your next turn, and critical hits with slashing weapons give that creature disadvantage on any attack rolls until your next turn. This is another great enemy control move, especially if you’re fighting nimble dodgers or creatures who do lots of attacks in a turn like Otyughs or Flail Snails
With Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything giving a lot of love to some outdated or underused mechanics, it’s about time players can really lean into a certain weapon type and make their favoruite attacks even better.
6. Eldritch Adept
My holy deity said never to talk to strange, ethereal voices, but I can't deny that you make a compelling argument on the "unlimited power" bit.
While the warlock may be much more limited in their spell-casting options compared to other magic-based classes, they have one of the funnest and most versatile class features in the game; eldritch invocations.
Eldritch Invocations are a list of abilities or buffs that Warlocks get to help offset their weaker casting, and can do anything from giving you a new spell to passive buffs that increase your senses or magic attacks! With such a wide array of bonuses, when we add these great invocations to a cleric build, we can expand the class’ spellcasting options even further.
With options like Mask of Many Faces letting you cast Disguise Self at will and costing no spell slots, Devil’s Sight giving you darkvision in both magic and non-magic darkness up to 120ft (an absolutely insane bonus) and even Beguiling Influence giving you proficiency in Deception and Persuasion, there are so many combinations players can use to tweak their cleric as they like.
Plus, when you add in the role-play potential that arise from a holy warrior suddenly getting strange, eldritch powers and this is a no brainer for role-players looking to boost their character background as well as their meta abilities!
5. Martial Adept
Being a cleric of the God of War had some great perks like lots of good fights, the sharpest weapons and great health and dental benefits.
The Battlemaster Fighter is one of the game's most versatile sub-classes thanks to its list of battle manoeuvres; actions added to the fighter's already expansive list of battle options that allow them to further control the battlefield, destroy their enemies and save their friends.
So it only makes sense that adding these amazing bonuses to a tanky class like cleric makes the character all the better, especially when paired with other feats on this list.
When you take this feat, you get to pick two different manoeuvres, and you receive one d6 superiority die. Admittedly this d6 doesn’t seem like much, especiallyl at higher levels, since most of the manoeuvres aren't at all reliant on these dice to succeed and instead only use them for extra damage or incresed effectivenessthe low die really isn't an issue.
With manoeuvres like Sweeping Attack giving you the always useful option to cleave and hit multiple opponents, Menacing Attack potentially making your enemies take on the Fear condition, or Bait and Switch letting you change position with a friendly creature within 5 feet of you to protect them from damage, being able to pick 2 from the huge list of manoeuvres gives you so many options to help your party stay alive longer, and for you to do some extra damage as well!
4. Tough
Being a cleric of the Life Domain, Kellena knew that sometimes people had to be reminded just how precious life could be.
Being both healer and the frontline for your party can take its toll, and even if you roll high every level for hitpoints you can still end up taking too much damage to keep up with.
That’s where the Tough feat comes in; you gain a number of maximum hitpoints equal to twice your level when you take the feat, and for every level afterwards you gain an additional +2 HP on top of your hit dice increase.
This is equivalent to having an additional 4 points in Constitution to get a +2 modifier, and with that bonus applying both retroactively and for every level after, even if you take this feat at level 4, you’re getting an additional 8 free maximum hit points then and there.
This is an underrated feat in general, and while consistent maximum hit point increases are always welcome from any class, adding it to tanky builds like the Forge Domain cleric makes this an outstanding support for any frontline fighter looking to stay up a little longer.
3. War Caster
"Have you heard about our lord and savior Bahamut? No? Don't worry, I'll introduce you, he's more of a face to face kind of god anyways."
As a class with a ton of choices for spells both offensive and defensive, it’s important to keep in mind that some of the best support spells in the game have the concentration condition attached, making anyone who gets hit while using these spells have to roll a Constitution saving throw in order to keep that magic going
This means that taking any amount of damage has a chance to disrupt majorly important spells like Spirit Guardians, , Banishment, or Enhance Ability (and even cantrips like Guidance), which can lead to some major issues for other characters who need the boost.
War Caster addresses this and more; it gives you advantage on Constitution saving throws to maintain concentration, which on its own is a great help, but it also has two additional effects that are equally helpful.
You can use spells that normally require somatic components while using a shield or dual weapons, meaning that you no longer have to sacrifice defensive or offensive power to have your hands free to hold your spell focus and cast spells.
But perhaps most useful of all three is, when an enemy would provoke an opportunity attack, you have the option of casting a spellwith a casting time of 1 action instead of a regular attack.
When you consider spells like Guiding Bolt, Bane, Fire Bolt and even Banishment costing 1 action to cast, you can now add an additional spell attack to your turn or even give the enemy some kind of debuff inbetween turnsan incredible addition to any spell caster’s kit.
2. Lucky
"Whew, good thing I got here just on time! Oh c'mon, that's funny!"
Listen, some abilities or feats in 5e are just universally good, and Lucky may be the most universally useful one of all.
The feat gives you 3 luck points per long rest which can be used to reroll attacks, ability checks, and saving throws, as well as having the option to use this after rolling but before learning if it succeeds means that it’s potentially more useful than regular advantage.
With the Lucky feat, instead of having to potentially waste a spell or class ability to get advantage and roll high with both anyways, you can make your roll, and if it's high you don’t need to use a Luck charge.
But if it’s low, you effectively gain advantage, being able to choose which of the rolled d20s you want to use. But this feat gets even crazier when you learn you can use one of your luck dice to affect an enemy's attack roll targetting you.
No matter what they roll,even if they get a critical hit, if you use a luck point and roll lower, you can force them to not crit or even not hit at all. Additionally, since this ability isn’t technically using advantage or disadvantage, it bypasses abilities that can negate these modifiers, which means that things like the Grave Cleric’s “Sentinel at Death’s Door” can’t cancel it if you get a critical hit.
Having basically 3 points of inspiration per day is such a powerful ability, there isn’t a class or build out there that wouldn’t benefit massively from having this feat, especially when you’re a frontline fighter the team is relying on to both do damage and succeed on spell checks!
1. Sentinel
Sometimes, the best you can do to help a holy warrior bent on smiting the unclean is to just get out of their way.
Sentinel is one of the most infamous and universally great feats available to players who prefer martial classes.
The feat makes any fighter in the thick of the fight able to lock down enemies, bringing any hostile creature hit by your opportunity attack’s speed to zero. On top of this, you can make opportunity attacks against opponents even if they take the disengage action, which is an absolutely insane buff.
Not even rogues can escape you anymore, and weaker monsters that often rely on the Disengage action in order to run away and hide are now without their trump card.
Additionally, Sentinel gives you a buff to your oppurtunity attacks and let’s you strike at an opponent if they target any creature other then you with an attack, still punishing enemies too scared to target you.
This feat means that no matter who you’re fighting against, if they want to try and escape or even try to attack they have to either be incredibly lucky or have some other spell or ability that lets them leave your weapon reach without triggering an opportunity attack.
Pair this with other feats like Polearm Master to make your effective range twice as large, or the War Caster feat above to make spells an option for opportunity attacks, and you’ve got a recipe for complete control of anything within your range.
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