Hello adventurers of all shapes and sizes! Welcome to my spellbook and thank you so much for checking out the 48th episode of our feat series. Today we’re going to be taking a look at one of the most popular feats in the game. Today we’re looking at dnd 5e sentinel feat now this is mostly used in combination with polearm master and some DMs allowed, some don’t i’ll get into why there’s a little bit of controversy over it a little bit later on here.
That being said, this is just great for almost anyone to look at, it is any melee character to like that allow me to rephrase and it is found in the players handbook. Let’s take a look at the description here and kind of break that what makes us so good available later on.
Description
First and foremost worth noting there is no prerequisite. What that means is anyone of any race, of any skill or ability level, of any prior background can take this feat with no problem. The dnd 5e sentinel feat description reads as followed.
You have mastered techniques to take advantage of every drop in any enemy’s guard, gaining the following benefits: When you hit a creature with an opportunity attack, the creature’s speed becomes 0 for the rest of the turn. Creatures provoke opportunity attacks from you even if they take the Disengage action before leaving your reach. When a creature within 5 feet of you makes an attack against a target other than you (and that target doesn’t have this feat), you can use your reaction to make a melee weapon attack against the attacking creature.
Really really cool stuff and super awesome. Let’s take a look at the walkthrough and kind of breakthis down a little bit more.
Walkthrough
So after you would hit an enemy whack them in the head or what have you. Their speed immediately reduces to zero. Now notice how this doesn’t specify walking or running speed just as speed in general. That’s a little bit important to know for later on as well.
A tax of opportunity can also be made even when the creature takes a disengage action. A tax of opportunity can also be made whenever a creature within five feet of you attacks another target. Really really cool stuff! Honestly i just really liked all of this. The reason why there’s a little bit of a controversy over whether or not this can be stcked with polearm master is for this third bullet there.
The one that says you can attack creatures when they make it an attack against another target within five feet. That’s a hard limit that five feet. That being said, the second bullet when they just leave your reach that would stack with polearm master so a lot of characters like to argue that both of them qualify for polearm master in my games only allow the one and some DM is just straight up saying no.
It applies to the weapon and not to your personal reach, i don’t really agree with that one but i’ve heard the argument made both ways. That being said, let’s take a look at my personal thoughts on this.
Thoughts
I think, this is absolutely amazing. Especially if you’re a character that doesn’t use their reactions a whole lot. In terms of who would benefit most i’d probably say paladin’s, they just because the only things they could really use reactions for would be a couple spells and they like to reserve those spell slots for their smite so wouldn’t really make a whole lot of sense from. That being said, this would be great use of it, they could also technically pardon this up with their smites as well. Making extra damage, which is never a bad thing when you’re a heavy hitter in the group.
This would also make a lot of sense for groups where there’s only one or two mate or only when there’s a small amount of melee characters how about that. Just because this lets you kind of keep aggro on yourself and at the same time prevent enemies from reaching other targets if they try or punishing them if they do even, which is awesome. Honestly this whole feats pretty good.
That being said, it might be worth noting that there is some comments about it in the sage advice here. Firstly in order to gain benefit from the third part, it happens after the attack is made. So whoever the creatures targeting still takes damage it’s unfortunate but it’s the way it works or unless they miss i guess but still.
And the second question that is addressed on sage advice is how does this work with the mobile feat and the fancy footwork for the circle adventures but guides swashbuckler i believe. In any case the ruling on sage advice is that those two ways around it will not trigger that second bullet point there. Unless they take the disengage action. Which is really interesting, if you really think about it.
Before i let you guys go today i just wanna quickly address why that speed reduction is so overwhelmingly powerful and fivey especially with the way it’s worded. It essentially allows you to drop targets stright out of the air and send them plummeting towards the earth like some kind of crazy comet.
I’ve heard tales whispered amongst DMs of parties who have essentially outright defeated dragons by hitting them once as a reaction. Honestly i find this feat to be super awesome, you can also use it to deal with pesky spiders or anything of that nature as well, at the very least i’d certainly allow that in one of my games.
Conclusion
In any case guys if you have any crazy combos, cool ideas, comments or questions regarding sentinel please take it down in the comments below. I love reading them and i know everyone else checking this article does as well. That being said, thank you so much guys have a great day and as always happy adventuring.