Hello adventurers! My website is open to you! In any case today we’re looking at dnd5e chef feat. Which is an interesting concept and i’ve seen a lot of homebrew versions of this long before wizards of the coast announced it. It is interesting to see the different routes they took. It’s got a lot going on as a lot of these new unearthed arcana feats seem to. In any case it’s in an unearthed arcana. I’ve alluded to it a couple times already but what that means in case you’re unfamiliar as it is play-testable material. So What that means is you are not suppose to use it really unless you gain DM super approval and i wouldn’t recommend a lot of the unearthed arcana stuff for new players. It’s just got a lot going on and there’s a reason it’s not official yet, In any case let’s dive into it’s description here.
Description
Although there is no precondition for this feat, there are four essential elements. You can choose which one, or add Constitution or wisdom. You can also learn to use cooking utensils. You don’t get them outright. So you’re gonna have to find them somewhere or make them yourself if you’re able to. But you don’t get you just get the proficiency with them.
In a short rest, you can make special food. You will be able to prepare enough food for four + proficiency bonus creatures if you have the right ingredients. You can take a short break. The extra 1d8 hitpoint is granted to any creature that consumes the food and who spends one or more hit dice to regain hitpoints.
This is some great stuff. I’ve always found hit die to be relatively underused in terms of a resource. There are many other uses for them. They can be used only for short periods of times, as everyone knows. But i’m always in favor of mechanics and features that use them for other things as well.
After an hour, or when you have completed the long rest, you will be able to make delicious treats equal to your proficiency bonus. These special treats can last up to 8 hours. A creature can take a bonus act to gain temporary hit points equal to or greater than its proficiency bonus.
I’m not a huge fan of how this works not really. So i don’t like using the proficiency bonus in this way because it never gets all that high you know! The higher your rank, the less this bonus is worth. I honestly like mechanically or conceptually i get what they’re going for. It’s not hard to sacrifice your time for something that will benefit the party in the long-term.
But the thing is, is you don’t really get that many of them you know. Like for example you’re a 20th level character, you you’re at the point where you can kind of arm wrestle any modal in the world really. Cast spells to alter the universe and you can create six cookies which give you six temporary hitpoints. It doesn’t really make sense right!
They’re temporary hit points so they’re non-stackable so it’s not even like you can eat all the cookies, you can only eat one right and it’s a bonus action i get. It’s not the worst but i don’t know man that’s a rough one. Temporary hit points can help you sort of get over it. I’ll get to that in the thoughts section actually i’m getting ahead of myself here. Let’s go through the walkthrough really quick and just explain this in simplified terms.
Walkthrough
Add +1 to CON/WIS to be able cook with utensils. While resting, food equals 4+ your proficiency. The creature that eats the food earns 1d8 hit point.
In one hour you can make treats equal to your proficiency and amount. These treats can be given as a bonus act and then eaten by the creature for temporary hit points equal to your proficiency bonus.
That’s the part i don’t really like too too much to be honest with you. But i’ll talk about that in a little bit here. With that being said of course let’s take a look at my personal thoughts on the matter.
Thoughts
It’s great to see the goals of a chef. It is nice to see wizards from the coast listening to their fans. It’s great to have some advantage over the other parties. This is because many parties have culinary skills. As so far as to say there’s always seemingly one party member that prepares meals and they always scavenge remains and if they hunt beasts they’ll often pillage said beasts for various meats and cooking ingredients.
It is logical and can add a new dimension to any game. You could make it fun as a dungeon master by explaining the process and making them roll. This could provide additional benefits, such as an advantage during perception checks in the next eight hours.
Something to that effect would be really neat and super interesting and would and could potentially…i preface it with potentially because it’s not guaranteed but it could potentially lead to some pretty interesting role play moments you know. You could mention to the chef that you gave a difficult person a meal, or some similar gesture to build camaraderie.
Mechanically however i don’t know i’m fine with the bonus to stats, i’m fine with the proficiency, i’m fine with the short rest stuff. It’s as it relates to the one hour or the long rest that i don’t like. It was something I mentioned earlier: i find the proficiency bonus to be unbelievably boring.
Like once again at 20th level you’re kind of demigod in more ways than not and you can only make six cookies in an hour and those cookies only provides six temporary hit points. Yah no thanks, you’re better off just getting inspiring leader or even the healer feat at that point.
As usual, to reduce this, I would prefer it to be in the same location as the treats. It can be made one plus your proficiency bonus to make it more useful at lower levels. Temporary hits points allow you to trade your hit dice for another temporary hit point.
Like let’s say your barbarian and your hit dice is a d12 and you sacrifice four of them over the course of the long rest and each cookie or each treat you provide allows each party member to gain a 4d12 worth of temporary hit points. That’s how i would go about it, but i’ve always been a fan of using hit points as a resource or hit dice as a resource rather. That’s my personal thought on that particular part but overall i like it, it’s a good feat. I find it’s a little wordy but that’s to be expected it’s still kind of in its rough draft form.
As long as the other party/person using it understands it, I am open to it. I wouldn’t personally have an issue with it. I would, however, change the treats to match what i stated earlier.
Conclusion
Are you able to suggest ways to improve it? let me know down beneath i’m really curious to see what you guys will come up with. It’s a fantastic idea. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Please let me know which animals you think are the best in the comments section. With all that being said i hope you have a wonderful day and as always happy adventuring everyone.
