5e: Two New Feats—Mental Focus and Physical Conditioning

Last week's article on skilled dwarf and elf variants had me thinking about other ways a character's expertise might manifest. In particular, I got to thinking that 5e features in general are about excellence—a character stands out from other people because when they attempt a task, they do it with greater style and power.

But what if a character's mastery took a different tack? Perhaps their best is on the same level as anyone else's, but they succeed where others fail because they have trained themselves to approach things correctly and make less mistakes?

The two feats I ultimately came up with and present to you below are therefore not about flashiness, but about damage control. When conditions are already unfavourable, a character in possession of one of these feats can limit the weakness of their current position and come out relatively unaffected.

Mental Focus

You have honed your mind and practiced keeping your cool in unexpected and distracting situations, allowing you to maintain your complete focus when things are at their worst. 

• Increase your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20. 
• Once per short rest you can roll a Concentration check with advantage.  
• Whenever you roll an Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma ability check and have disadvantage, you roll three d20s and use the middle roll (if two or more of the dice roll the same number, use that number). 

Physical Conditioning

You have trained your body to the peak possible condition, and know your strengths and weaknesses inside and out. Your movements and stances are always optimal for the task at hand, and depending on the nature of a threat to your body you know just when to tense your muscles, relax them, or explode into movement. 

• Increase your Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
• Once per short rest, you can reduce the damage from any physical or energy source, but not psychic, by a number of hit points equal to twice your Proficiency bonus. 
• Whenever you roll a Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution ability check and have disadvantage, you roll three d20s and use the middle roll (if two or more of the dice roll the same number, use that number).