SOURCE: Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons

Rating the Benefits of Gift of the Gem Dragon

Benefit #1 – 

+1 to Intelligence. Wisdom, or Charisma, up to a maximum of 20 

Half an ASI is a common bonus, letting a character continue their stat growth or even out odd stats while still gaining feat bonuses. 

Finding one here, in the Gift of the Gem Dragon feat, though, feels bizarre, because neither of its contemporaries need to offer stats. Instead, they offer a powerful list of benefits. 

Benefit #2 – 

Telekinetic Reprisal – After taking damage from a creature within 10ft, spend a reaction to blast them with your mind. The creature has to take a Strength save, or take 2d8 force damage and be pushed back 10ft

5e has many abilities similar to this one; reactive damage that triggers once you’ve been attacked. This one in particular stacks up pretty well. 2d8 damage is on the high end for an ability that can be used multiple times per day without consuming resources, and Force is a very rarely resisted damage type.

The push effect is possibly less useful, but might still have a role in some builds.  

Mechanics and Requirements

Understanding How It Functions

Half an ASI

The first of two benefits from the Gift of the Gem Dragon feat is half an ASI; a boost of +1 to either Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. 

This is a great spread of stats to choose from. Almost every character in the game will want one of these. Even the big, dumb Barbarian with an Intelligence of 8 and the Charisma of a brick wall probably wants some more Wisdom, both to boost his saves and to use skills like Survival. 

The problem is that neither of the feats released alongside this one (Gifts of the Chromatic and Metallic Dragon) have half an ASI as part of their benefits. 

To us, that’s a telling sign that the designers of this feat didn’t know what to do with this. 

Both Gift of the Chromatic and Metallic Dragons offer a pair of powerful bonuses, each of which offers a serious reason to consider taking the feat. 

Gift of the Gem Dragon only has one ability, paired with an ASI. While that’s not terrible, it is disappointing. We’d have liked to see a secondary benefit here, the same as its contemporaries. 

Telekinetic Reprisal

The second benefit granted by Gift of the Gem Dragon is a retaliatory blast that can be triggered when a character is attacked. 

Whenever a character with this feat takes damage from a creature within 10 feet, they can spend a reaction to trigger this ability. The ability:

• Costs a reaction to use, meaning this can only be used once per round
• Forces the target to take a Strength save, (DC 8 + Prof Bonus + Stat Bonus boosted by this feat.)
• The ability deals 2d8 force damage. Creatures that pass their saving throw take half damage
• A creature that fails its save is also pushed 10 feet away from you
• The ability can be used an amount of times per day equal to a character’s proficiency bonus

So, the good. Firstly, Force is an excellent damage type. Almost nothing resists force damage, and only 1 creature is immune. That means the damage from this ability is almost always going to go through. 

But, the damage, while not bad, is still relatively low (2d8 is lower than most similar abilities.)

The damage numbers also don’t scale. At all. Around level 5, the 9-10 damage average of Telekinetic Reprisal might be enough to cause an enemy to think twice. But at later levels, it’s barely going to dent the HP total of many enemies. 

Second, this costs a reaction, meaning it doesn’t eat into your general action economy. Any damage delivered outside of a character’s turn is decent, even if it’s not overbearingly strong, like this. 

Finally, the ability can be used multiple times per day, scaling with Proficiency, meaning it starts at just 2 daily uses, finishing on 6 uses per day at level 17. That’s a fair number of times this can be triggered, and on a standard adventuring day could see this used in around half of all of the combat rounds a character sees. Even the 3 uses per day at level 5 is 6d8 total force damage, which starts to look and feel a little more impressive.  

Several abilities in 5e look and feel similar to this one. Examples include: Hellish Rebuke and the Battle Master Fighter’s Riposte ability. Generally, they’re a good pick for characters that intend to take hits and don’t have another ability that costs a reaction.

But now, the bad. 

Unfortunately, the save is tied to Strength. Many enemies, especially the big, smashy ones, tend to have a high Strength save, or failing that, a high Strength bonus. (Which works out much the same.)

So, realistically, a lot of the enemies that are most likely to trigger this ability are the ones that are also most likely to pass their saving throw, taking limited damage and ignoring the move effect. 

The other big issue is with the push. Unless you’re specifically setting the situation up, finding an enemy that walks up to your character, hits them with an attack, gets pushed away, and somehow doesn’t have the 10ft of movement needed to get back into attack range, is vanishingly rare. 

Adding to that, most characters in melee range don’t generally want to push enemies away from themselves. Not only does that mean the enemy is out of your attack range, but it also means that the enemy can freely wander off and attack a target of their choosing, without taking an Attack of Opportunity. 

Overall, Telekinetic Reprisal is a passable ability. The damage is reasonable, though enemies passing their saves can reduce that down to surprisingly low, the effect might be useful, but probably won’t be, but that’s all saved by a large number of total uses per day,  

Key Stats

The Gift of the Gem Dragon offers a character +1 in either their Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma. 

The save DC of the feat’s Telekinetic Reprisal ability is tied to the ability score boosted by this feat. Generally, a character will be increasing their primary spellcasting stat, but it’s a worthwhile consideration for spellsword types to bear in mind. 

Ideal Characters for Gift of the Gem Dragon

Top Classes

Monk – It may sound strange, but the Monk is a superlative user of this feat. A Wisdom boost is perfectly in line with what the class needs and an ability that triggers when hit is useful, as most builds will only have average AC, and don’t like taking too many hits up close. 

The Way of the Long Death is a fantastic subclass paired with this feat, isolating enemies and beating them down, absorbing the HP they’ve lost as they kill their foe. The Way of Mercy is also exceptional, helping to disable key enemies while also being able to heal themselves if the situation starts to turn. 

Tempest Cleric – One of the best “warrior” Cleric subclasses, the Tempest Cleric gains another reactionary damage burst, plus weapon and armor proficiencies perfect for wading headlong into enemy formations. 

Even if choosing a different subclass, the base Cleric class is just a good foundation for the feat. Boosting Wisdom is almost essential for the class to do its job. Defenses are a strong spread, balanced between AC, HP, saves, and spells. Plus the class is as comfortable swinging a weapon as it is blasting with magic. 

Artificer – Combining great defenses with a spell and ability list packed with movement and disabling power, many Artificers can slot this straight into their build. 

The Armorer is actually a bit of a beast with this feat, already wanting to take enemy focus, with a ready source of temp HP on hand, and able to attack with their Int modifier instead of needing to boost physical stats. 

Race or Subrace Choices

Half-Orc – The half-orc is a racial package that’s built around being the most effective warrior possible, crowned by the ability to just not die once per day. 

Hill Dwarf – It might sound dull, but the bonus HP granted by the Hill Dwarf race is a significant boost. (It raises the average HP of a class by 10-15%!)

The Dwarven racial package also boasts a ton of subsidiary defensive benefits, proficiencies, and resistances. 

Hobgoblin – Two great things. A bonus to saves or attacks multiple times per day, and a bonus action Help that can throw disadvantage on an enemy, or slather temp HP on two party members, both of which go a long way to making your people a lot harder to kill. 

Combos, Tactics, and Synergies

Complementary Feats

Sentinel – If they hit you, you spend a reaction to blast them. If they don’t hit you, you spend a reaction to hit them. Nice. 

Giant’s Strike/Follow-on Feats – Trigger blasts of elemental damage when you hit enemies, then possibly take subsequent feats that can add a lot of power to a martial character.  

Tough – You’re having to take hits to fire off this feat. More HP is almost essential for that to work without undue risk. 

Spells that Synergize

Shield – A huge +5 reactionary bonus to AC, for the times you really don’t want to take a hit. 

Shield of Faith – Another AC bonus, this one a constant +2. 

Heroism – You’re going to take hits. Scaling, and regenerating temporary HP that triggers at the start of the turn will go a long way toward keeping a character alive. 

Strategies for Maximizing Draconic Effectiveness

Interesting Uses For Knockbacks

The knockback effect from Telekinetic Reprisal can lead to some interesting situations. Here’s a few illustrative examples:

• Stand at the edge of an area of the battle grid that’s hostile, like a Wall of Flame, or an Entangle. When enemies try and escape, knock them back in
• Forced movement automatically breaks grapples. An enemy that grabs you and then deals damage can be punched backward 10ft and lose its grapple without any further tests
• Technically, you don’t have to move enemies that fail the save. Useful to know if you’re insistent on staying in melee with a target. 

Gem Dragon and Spellcasters

There’s a strong argument that Gift of the Gem Dragon is best in spellcasting classes. It’s not incorrect. A boost to the primary spellcasting stat is great, especially as a half-feat that can even out scores or add abilities while increasing a statistic. 

But there are some serious caveats. 

First off, consider that most of the classes that appreciate a mental stat boost, and want enemies not in combat with them, can’t really afford to take the hits that trigger the Telekinetic Reprisal ability. Low HP totals, low to middling AC and poor physical saves do not a tough character make. 

On top of that, if you’ve got reactions to spend, and you’re a spellcaster, you should probably be spending them on defensive abilities like a well placed Shield, rather than throwing out a relatively low amount of damage. 

Lastly, if the melee enemies are up in the Wizard’s face, that normally means something has gone terribly wrong. Once he’s peeled himself up off of the floor, that Wizard is likely to be having strong words with the sword swinging members of his group about things like “positioning and tactics.”

Final Thoughts on Gift of the Gem Dragon

There’s a big problem with Gift of the Gem Dragon. 

It’s not that the feat is bad. It’s that it’s so overwhelmingly overshadowed by everything else, especially the two other Draconic Gift feats. 

Reactive damage is never a bad thing, especially not several times per day for the cost of half a feat. Tying that to a pushback effect might just save a character’s life. 

But therein is the problem. The ability is reactive, and to use it, you have to get hit. If you’re spending feats, it’s much better to spend them on things that keep you alive, or deal damage before you ever take hits. 

Rule of thumb. When you’re creating a character, it’s generally better to build offensive power, rather than hinge your battleplan around taking hits to the face.