Feats Don’t Fail Me Now is a humorous supplement for 5e by Gordon McAlpin, M.T. Black, Andrew Cawood, Jeremy Forbing, Chris S. Sims, and Laura Hirsbrunner. As you can guess from the name, it is a collection of 42 (plus one more) feats – although they aren’t exactly what you might expect.

I’ve been a big fan of feats in 5e; I’m pretty sure I’ve picked one or two in every single character I’ve made. They allow you to give some extra flair and uniqueness to your character through special mechanics, and quite a lot of them also give a +1 to an ability score, so picking the feat over the improvement isn’t a great loss. Usually, these feats mean your character has extensively studied and trained with a specific skill or weapon, becoming an expert in it after a lot of hard work. (Or he’s just born Lucky, but let’s not talk about that feat). The feats in this supplement are… a bit like that, I suppose; but you will notice a difference in how “serious” they are. For example, you will find feats that allow you to harness the power of:

• Wearing a fursuit
• Vomiting
• Farting
• Being G O T H
• Eating meat… all kinds of meat.

And more.

Before we get into the feats themselves however, let’s talk very briefly about some other things –  namely, editing and art. Let’s start with editing, done by Laura Hirsbrunner and Chris Sims. It is done very well – impeccably, might I say. There’s not a hint of errors, and the layout is very well done, with no large empty spaces or parts where a sentence from a feat scoots over to the next page making it annoying to read. As for art (done by Gordon McAlpin), it’s certainly evocative of the theme, with cartoonish characters and expressions as people fart, puke, and in general get into all sorts of situations.

Now let’s get into the main course, the feats. There are two questions here: firstly, are these feats funny? And secondly, are they well-executed in terms of mechanics? I can say with confidence that the answer is yes to both these questions. The names and descriptions are well-written and quite humorous, while still retaining the somewhat dry writing style that describes mechanics, making the contrast funnier. Not all of the feats will be funny for everyone, but I don’t think they aim to; some of them are jokes themselves, while others are simply amusing references or descriptions.

As for the mechanics of the feats. Obviously, there is a variation in power between them – some are stronger, some are weaker. However, I think this is within the limits of what we see in the PHB. The effects are quite imaginative, without becoming overcomplicated and bogged down in lengthy explanations of how they work. In addition, you can use most of them in perfectly serious games as well; something that I feel is very important to note. You might have to alter the descriptions a bit, but the mechanics themselves are perfectly fine.

To wrap things up; Feats Don’t Fail Me Now is a great supplement that I believe can inject a bit of fun into your games, be it in a humorous one-shot adventure or in a normal campaign. Feats are something I really really like, so the more new feats we get, the better!

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