What does this feat do? As far as I can tell the only effect, mechanically, is that your character saves 5 SP by not having to buy a Material Component Pouch. You still need to have a hand free. You still need to pay the price if a spell has a listed cost. If you have a component pouch it automatically refills after resting so eschew materials doesn't help there either. Sorcerers and, I believe, some other classes get this for free but a wizard can select this as a feat. Why?
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If you're ever for some reason unable to access your component pouch, you can still cast Material component spells. Say if it gets taken from the caster. Not that there are even a ton of relevant spells to worry about in the first place.
It's not great.
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If you ever want to cast 3-action spells while imprisoned, then this is the feat for you.
So um...yeah.
It does draw a distinction between the nature of various classes, but it's not a distinction worth taking a feat to overcome.
It is exactly as good as it was in first edition: almost completely useless in any situation you can think of, especially since the situations it is useful in are very rare.
Eh, it's a feat that does exactly what you would expect from the name. Nothing more, nothing less.
If you're in a niche sort of game where you're worried about things like not carrying around a pouch of weird stuff and may actually get mileage out of the feat, you probably know that.
Thank you for the replies. Good to know I haven't missed anything. I vaguely recall 5e also having some redundant rules around material components so I guess these things sometimes hang around from previous editions but it's not a "material" issue, ha, see what I did there?
Would it be worth it if it also allowed you to forego your spellbook, essentially storing the knowledge of all your spells in your head? Kind of like the old Spell Mastery feat of yore (but for all your spells).
The idea that if you've lost your spell component pouch you have also likely lost your spellbook (effectively rendering the feat worthless) seems to be the only real big issue with this feat to me.
A change such as this would divorce you from all physical necessities except expensive component costs. It still wouldn't be the most powerful feat, but it would certainly have a place in the game.
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I don't like this feat at all. In general, I greatly dislike player options and abilities that do nearly nothing whatsoever, and even less so when they're not upfront about this fact. Eschew Materials is basically worthless, but a new player isn't going to learn this from just looking at the feat - instead they are going to assume it does something (why wouldn't they? It's kind of ridiculous to assume a feat does nearly nothing whatsoever if you don't know for sure). Therefore, this feat hurts new player rule comprehension by causing people to get the wrong idea about how it works by default - whatever a new player thinks Eschew Materials does, they are probably wrong and will be sad when they learn the truth. I felt the same way about Witch's playtest Cackle.
On the broader topic of material components, I think this is an area where 2E actually dropped the ball pretty hard (with the reservation that I adore 2E as a system overall, and material components are pretty minor all things considered). Imo, material components have always carried fantastic and fun flavor while being just horrible to deal with in terms of mechanics in the past. In my opinion, 2E should have went the route of trying to keep as much of the flavor as possible while getting rid of all material component mechanics. The opposite occurred - all of the flavor was removed (spells use nondescript material components) while a few of the fiddly mechanics were inexplicably kept even though they seem to be written in such a way as to have as little impact on the actual game as is humanly possible.
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Eh, it's a feat that does exactly what you would expect from the name. Nothing more, nothing less.
I disagree about nothing less. It compares unfavorably even to the similar Sorcerer class feature, that definitely feels like an undersell to me. When I first saw the feat I had to reread it a few times because I kept assuming I was missing something.
Kinda flies in the face of feat design conventions I saw developers talking up before the game was released too.
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Eh, it's a feat that does exactly what you would expect from the name. Nothing more, nothing less.I disagree about nothing less. It compares unfavorably even to the similar Sorcerer class feature, that definitely feels like an undersell to me. When I first saw the feat I had to reread it a few times because I kept assuming I was missing something.
Kinda flies in the face of feat design conventions I saw developers talking up before the game was released too.
To really hammer the point home they even included a full 1/2 page piece of art EXCLUSIVELY to showcase Eschew Materials in the CRB as well only to have it exist as the primary example of a Trap Feat.
Whether the feat is a 'trap' feat or not comes down to a design choice at some point where only 3 action spells might require a trivial material component. They could've come to the idea that spells which affect Matter essences didn't require only somatic components but also required material components.
It would've made the four essences more interesting from a design component as you could see the four essences affecting the casting requirements. But it would've added GM/PC overhead to remember if a certain spell required a free hand for casters who hold weapons and shields.
It's possible they'll do more in this space in the future, but for now, only 3 action spells seem to be affected as the 3rd action is invariably about material components. Maybe Secrets of Magic will have more three action spells. *Shrug*
I think the worst part is the added "you still must have a hand completely free." Like, this was so good without that addition?
I imagine that was put in to make it work the same way as other casters' methods of skipping material components. Clerics can skip them if they're holding their divine focus (takes a hand). Druids can skip them if they're holding their primal focus (takes a hand). Bards need a hand for their instrument. Only sorcerers don't need a hand to deal with material components, because they have magic in their blood or whatever. I forget what the APG casters do.
Of course, none of the others need to spend a feat to get their substitution to work. IMHO it'd be reasonable to let that replace the free hand requirement.