Some feats are just clearly OP over others. There are also many 5E feats that go from good to brokenly OP when they are combined together. Why give the DM minor difficulties with one feat when you can combine two to give him huge headaches during the campaign? Half-jokes aside, a few of these combos are well known, while a few others haven’t wrecked nearly as many tables…yet.
There are so many potentially interesting feat combos in 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons that can be used to create some pretty insanely powerful characters. Take a look at these five feat combinations and start letting your imagination roll!
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5 Most Overpowered Feat Combos in 5th Edition D&D
There are plenty of feats that are incredibly powerful all by themselves – and are an outstanding choice for many different builds. However, if you’re looking for an actual combo that does even more than its powerful parts, then read on.
Polearm Master + Sentinel
This is the first one that comes to mind when looking at feat combos that are overpowered, and there’s a really good reason for that. This was one of the first combos that gained widespread popularity and for the right melee character this is a devastating combo. Especially for clerics with spells like spirit guardians.
What These Feats Do
Sentinel reduces an enemy’s movement to 0 when they get hit with an opportunity attack, forcing them to stay there for a full turn, creatures provoke an opportunity attack even when they take the disengage action, and when the enemy makes an attack at a target other than you, you then get to use a reaction (if you have one) to make a melee attack on them.
That’s a deadly feat in and off itself, but it gets even nastier when combined with polearm master. Polearm master allows the character (as long as they were using a glaive, halberd, or quarterstaff) to follow a melee attack with using a bonus action to do a 1d4 attack with the other side of the weapon, and all creatures who enter a 10 foot range provoke an opportunity attack.
Why Are They So Powerful Together?
Well this should be obvious at this point, but basically everyone within 10 feet of the cleric is likely screwed. Entering within 10 feet? Opportunity attack. A hit means zero movement – which means a character with this who hits charging enemies who only have a 5 foot attack range can stop all of them before they get to do anything.
Trying to retreat? Opportunity attack. Trying to move around? Opportunity attack. Enemy within reach somehow dodges your first attack but attacks someone by you? Reaction-based opportunity attack.
Every enemy hit is stuck there in place as the character gets tons of extra attacks every single time they try to move. I’ve seen rounds where a cleric legally used 8 attacks in turn (5 from movement into range, 1 action, 1 bonus action, 1 reaction). Insane.
The character with this combo becomes a black hole for enemy movement and extra damage dealt, creating an utter zone of control. This on a cleric with a backline bard focusing on battlefield control makes a surprisingly deadly 2-person D&D team.
There’s a reason this is the granddaddy of all the OP feat combos.
The coup d’etat: A heavy armored cleric with this combo who casts spirit guardians. With this feat combo and this spell he will tear up anything a DM can throw at them. Spirit Guardians does 3d8 damage and scales up. Even successful saves take half that damage. Anyone within 15 feet of the cleric must make that save immediately, take the damage (full or half), those who don’t save have their speed halved.
THEN they have to avoid getting hit when moving in to the cleric who gets to attack them before they get in range to attack (assuming they don’t have halberds). If they fail, they’re stuck.
The spirit guardians hit anyone who gets within 15 feet, anyone the cleric moves that circle around him into, and anyone starting a turn in that circle. If your movement speed is 0, that’s going to be a really bad time.
Yes it’s a concentration spell which means wisdom save if hit – but good luck getting to the cleric to hit him, good luck hitting him, and good luck getting him to fail a save.
Even if you do all of those…there are still movement issues and he can just recast the spell next turn.
Keen Mind + Observant
Each one of these feats can be very powerful individually. When combined it makes a scary Sherlock Holmes style of character who sees everything. If that character is a divination wizard to boot…wow. Just wow. See everything, know everything, and use that information to make life brutal for a DM who tries doing anything beyond a dungeon hack and slash.
What These Feats Do
Keen Mind basically makes it so you’re more intelligent, always know which way is north, always know the exact time until the next sunrise or sunset, and can accurately remember anything seen or heard within the past month.
For a story-telling DM this feat can be powerful enough but then add in Observant which increases intelligence or wisdom, let’s you read the lips of any creature whose language you understand, and adds +5 bonuses to passive perception and passive investigation scores.
Why Are They So Powerful Together?
Because common magical items like the helm of comprehend languages or first level spells like, well comprehend languages, means a player realistically should be able to understand anything any characters are saying. Add in keen mind’s feat of accurately recalling information means there can be no “You misunderstood,” “You misheard,” or “You couldn’t understand them” excuses meaning if any information at all is dropped, you have that for the next 30 days.
If the DM dropped more than intended or assumed ya’ll wouldn’t be able to put the pieces together in time, this becomes devastating. Add in the extra passive perception and investigation, that is then ALSO imprinted into your photograph memory and it is going to be very, very hard for the DM to slip anything past you.
Can work for a divination wizard, but also a deadly combo for classes like rogue or a monk who takes on the rogue’s role since both these classes should have insane perception and investigation scores. Add in the boosts from Keen Mind and Observant and they basically can’t get lost, have perfect timing, and remember everything…for 30 days.
Which mine as well be for the entire section of campaign some information matters.
This combo is overpowered for different reasons than most the others, but the clerics, fighters, and barbarians taking the other feats will be that much more effective as you can direct them past the DMs straps as the Fantasy world equivalent of Sherlock Holmes makes the DM Moriarti.
Learn more by checking out our 5E Observant feat guide, or our 5E Keen Mind feat guide.
Mobile + Charger
Charger is a feat that gets a lot of slack for one and only one reason: reducing the player’s action to one attack on the first turn when it’s used. But what if you have an experienced DM who frequently starts fights when you are more than 30 feet away? What if you are playing a low level campaign that spends a lot of time before getting that extra attack? In that case this combination of feats can be incredibly powerful.
But more on that belongs in our 5E Charger Feat Review.
Even if this isn’t the case, there’s still arguments for why this is a deadly combo when the fight starts in a small room. Why charge into the fighter when you can run around him and smack a spellcaster with that extra damage, possibly one-shoting the most dangerous enemy on turn one?
What These Feats Do
Mobile does just that. It increases movement speed by 10 feet, makes your dash action immune to difficult terrain, and after making a melee attack prevents opportunity attacks. Charger adds +5 dmg to any melee attack after using the dash action to close a distance of 10 feet or more to attack or allows a hard shove.
That can combine in a pretty powerful way, especially since mobile lets you ignore difficult terrain and stacks on a character’s natural movement – including monks and barbarians.
Read more about the 5E Mobile Feat.
Why Are They So Powerful Together?
The extra movement is nice, but it’s the often forgotten modifiers that make the combo freaking deadly. Not only do you get to charge and do extra damage (and if you’re a Paladin who can choose to add a smite if you roll a critical, this gets ridiculous at low levels) but you can then step away from the enemy and fall back to a better location without invoking an attack.
“But Shane?” You say, acting unusually familiar around someone you likely haven’t met in person but it’s okay we’re all friends here, “What if the enemy as Sentinel? What then smart guy?”
Mobile’s benefit trumps Sentinel’s because Sentinel was designed to deal with the dash action and does not just activate. Since mobile doesn’t create an opportunity attack, Sentinel doesn’t come into play.
If only there was only official word on this….
So this combination lets you add a lot of extra damage without taking a penalty, get to move around the enemy pieces in ways they don’t like, cover extra ground with no penalty for rough terrain, and cover extra distance on top of that.
For classes that get extra movement in later levels like barbarian or monk, the mobility plus ability to close in, attack with bonus, and then retreat or keep moving depending on the situation.
Magic Initiate + Spell Sniper
No surprise here. For non-warlocks the combination of picking up Eldritch Blast with spell sniper to get that extra distance creates an incredible cantrip that scales and gives a high damage, highly versatile cantrip that keeps on doing work up to the highest of levels. Even many warlock builds involve grabbing spell sniper, which makes this combination deadly.
However, if it was just one spell, no matter how effective, this would not be one of the deadliest combos. That said, there are many other examples of cantrips and first level spells that become scary good with that extra distance from spell sniper. Not to mention the versatility it brings with allowing casting classes to pick up spells they otherwise wouldn’t have access to.
Take a look at what catapult (from Xanathar’s ) can do. That’s a low level spell that does some serious potential damage. Add in extra range and that’s pretty terrifying…not to mention a spell that can first appear like an attack from a sling or some other weapon that would be at a closer range than where your party is located.
What These Feats Do
Magic initiate allows a player to learn two cantrips and a 1st level spell from the bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list. All these spells must be from the same class. Spell Sniper doubles the range of spells that require an attack roll, ignore all but full cover, and allow the learning of another cantrip requiring an attack roll from bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard.
Why Are They So Powerful Together?
Three new cantrips and a once per long rest cast of a first level spell from any major casting class? Double the attack distance? Dip into another class’s spells? There’s so much that can be done with this. Take a level one healing spell that the sorcerer can scale up to give one burst of healing. Add vicious mockery to the retinue of a high level caster.
Grab Eldritch blast plus extra distance to mimic your favorite warlock. Grab catapult and sling those d12 damage rocks. There’s all kinds of things you can do when you pull three total cantrips (especially focusing on one’s that scale based on total character level, not caster level) and a first level spell from another class to supplement what you already have.
Look at the spell lists. Think about what you could do if they were with different classes. If you had sorcery points. The ideas that are suddenly spinning in your head are just the beginning.
Lucky + Defensive Duelist
Okay in fairness Lucky plus anything could be considered strong as the Lucky feat is the single most banned feat in all of DnD. However, it can be a special level of brokenness when combined with Defensive Duelist.
What These Feats Do
Defensive duelist allows a player to use their reaction to add their proficiency to their AC, thus potentially turning a hit into a miss. Lucky has multiple uses for re-rolling three dice per long rest but the main one we focus on here is the ability to re-roll the enemy’s attack.
You have three luck dice a day that can be used to impose disadvantage on an enemy’s roll to hit you and your elevated AC.
Why Are They So Powerful Together?
Did the enemy roll a 16 and just barely hit you even with your proficiency bonus?
Re-roll the die – you have a 75% chance of rolling a lower number, thus forcing a miss. At the lowest levels this is +2 or +3 AC AND up to three imposed disadvantages on the enemy attacking you. In high level campaigns this scales with the proficiency bonus meaning you have a +6 AC from your reaction in addition to STILL being allowed to force re-rolls.
That is going to make any dexterous melee PC with studded leather armor very, very hard to hit even in the best of circumstances. Which your uncanny luck will make sure is very unlikely to ever actually happen 🙂
Learn more by checking out our full Lucky 5E feat guide.
Or our 5E Defensive Duelist guide, if that’s more your jam.
In Conclusion
These combinations of feats can do serious work when they are combined together and used in creative ways. If you haven’t tried out a build around one or more of them, give it a try! You’ll want to thank us for the fun combos and great sessions ahead.
Your DM will hate us.
But we can live with that 🙂
These are the most overpowered feat combinations in D&D. Try them out and as always, good gaming!
Other DnD Articles You May Enjoy
- 5E Fighter Vs Barbarian
- 5E Sorcerer Vs Wizard
- How to Deal with the Lucky Feat as DM
- What Feats Are OP in 5E
- 5E Actor Feat
Proud to embrace the locally created moniker of “Corrupt Overlord” from one of the all time great Lords of Waterdeep runs, Shane is one member of the Assorted Meeples crew and will be hard at work creating awesome content for the website. He is a long-time player of board games, one time semi-professional poker player, and tends to run to the quirky or RPG side of things when it comes to playing video games. He loves tabletop roleplaying systems like Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Werewolf, Fate, and others, and not only has been a player but has run games as DM for years. You can find his other work in publications like Level Skip or Hobby Lark.