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My character has 20 charisma in one of my DND games, but I want to take the Actor feat. This question kind of has two parts:

  1. RAW, can I take it and change the stat increase to another stat?
  2. If I take it and change the stat increase to another stat is it balanced still?
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    \$\begingroup\$ What has your DM told you, and are you playing an Adventurer League Character? \$\endgroup\$
    – KorvinStarmast
    Feb 26, 2020 at 19:58

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(1) RAW, no, you cannot take it and change the stat increase to another stat.

(2) Yes, this is balanced -- with slightly better planning, you could have put one of your previous ASIs into that other stat, so that your CHA would be 19 and could be boosted to 20 with the Actor feat. It's reasonable to let you make this change so as to not penalize you for previous bad planning.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Regarding the 2nd part: keeping your stat at 19 would have meant keeping your ability modifier at +4 instead of +5 for at least the previous 4 levels. This trade-off is eliminated if you allow increasing another stat when taking the feat. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ryan C. Thompson
    Feb 26, 2020 at 20:28
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    \$\begingroup\$ @RyanC.Thompson: While you are right that the trade-off is eliminated, there's something to be said for avoiding player's frustration. A player has much invested in a character, so telling them that no, they should have planned for it 3 months ago, is just plain frustrating. \$\endgroup\$
    – Matthieu M.
    Feb 27, 2020 at 14:30
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    \$\begingroup\$ @MatthieuM. Yes, it definitely depends on what kind of players you have. If any of your players is a min-maxer who would take advantage of this, then it's probably a bad idea to allow it. If not, it might be fine. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ryan C. Thompson
    Feb 27, 2020 at 15:25
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Yes, you can take the feat

The feat's first bullet point is:

Increase your Charisma score by 1, to a maximum of 20.

If your character's Charisma is already 20, then the feat will not increase it further.

Feats have minimum ability score prerequisites, but not maximum ones.

No, you can't use the increase on another ability score

If you could then the feat would have said so.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ My thought also, no reason you cant take the feat, as long as you go by the letter of its text limit (increase is to a MAX of 20 in an attribute). Might want to "add" that "all other effects" would still be as text. But perfect answer. Me answering to add it would be toe stepping at this point \$\endgroup\$
    – Jeffrey Witty
    Feb 26, 2020 at 20:16

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