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The third benefit of the Mobile feat says (PHB, p. 168):

When you make a melee attack against a creature, you don’t provoke opportunity attacks from that creature for the rest of the turn, whether you hit or not.

If I take the Mobile feat, can I choose to allow an enemy to make an opportunity attack against my character, even if the feat would normally allow me to avoid it?

Regarding the rationale, mechanically my character sometimes tries to draw OAs that might otherwise hit others, and it often reinforces the roleplay of the character's personality. Is it possible to "turn off" this benefit of the feat in order to encourage enemies to use up their reaction?

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    \$\begingroup\$ I think another way to phrase this question might be, can a player choose to "turn off" a feat in general, or at least in cases where they need to actively do something for the feat effect to happen? \$\endgroup\$
    – WakiNadiVellir
    Jun 1, 2020 at 19:58

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By RAW, No

The language there is clear, you do not provoke opportunity attacks after you've made a melee attack. Full stop. It's not a "can choose not to provoke", it's just that you don't provoke them.

As an aside about hard choices, I had a paladin with the sentinel feat, which sets the movement of a creature to 0 when I hit them with an opportunity attack. There were instances that I wished I could have let them go when making my decision to do an OA or not, but that wasn't an option. Personally, I like it when the decisions are hard, it makes my tactical strategy planning more interesting.

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    \$\begingroup\$ That said, deliberately trying to provoke OAs from an enemy (presumably to try and bait them into using their reaction and prevent them from OAing a softer target or doing something else with it) seems like a sensible battlefield tactic and I'd definitely allow a character with Mobility to do that in any game I ran. You can still do almost the same thing RAW without, as long as you're willing to sacrifice a few feet of movement to step back and forward again to provoke the OA before you attack. \$\endgroup\$
    – Carcer
    Jun 1, 2020 at 16:52
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Medix2 I'd rather leave that up to individual tables. Not everything is 100% awesome and there are drawbacks to making some decisions. This is a drawback that's in the game rules and whether or not a table wants to remove it will be up to the table. While it may be fine, I'd rather just answer the question asked. \$\endgroup\$
    – NotArch
    Jun 1, 2020 at 16:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ I wondered if there was something more specific somewhere outside the feat description that might take priority (errata, etc) . In the absence of such, I agree that the wording of the feat is clear & RAW the answer is no. \$\endgroup\$
    – Pikalek
    Jun 2, 2020 at 15:11
  • \$\begingroup\$ I could swear there was an existing question and answer that established that using your feats is always optional, but I can't find it. Still, I really don't like this answer - "you learned how to avoid opportunity attacks, therefore you are required to use that knowledge every time without fail" just doesn't seem like a fun way to play the game. \$\endgroup\$
    – gatherer818
    Jul 17, 2020 at 6:09

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