Athlete 5e

Published on August 14, 2023

Scaling walls and jumping short distances – is the Athlete feat really worth it?

An athlete attempts a running jump during the arena games

Jason Chan - Wizards of the Coast - Athlete

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What Is Athlete 5e?

The Athlete feat is designed for characters who wish to slightly enhance their physical capabilities. While it does offer a minor boost to Strength or Dexterity and some mobility improvements, one might wonder if it’s worth the investment compared to other, more impactful feats available in D&D 5e.

How Does Athlete Work?

The Athlete feat is a half-feat that provides the following benefits:

Get an ASI for Strength or Dexterity.
When you are prone, standing up uses only 5 feet of your movement.
Climbing doesn’t halve your speed.
You can make a running long jump or a running high jump after moving only 5 feet on foot, instead of 10 feet.

Breaking it down:

The Strength/Dexterity ability score increase is available in plenty of other better feats.
The quicker stand-up from prone isn’t particularly great because D&D’s baseline penalty of 10 feet isn’t that detrimental to begin with.
Faster climbing speed can be handy, but many spells and abilities can easily bypass the need for climbing.
The reduced run-up for jumps is a minor convenience at best.

Is Athlete Worth It?

Is Athlete Good?

We gave Athlete a D Tier rating In our 5e Feats Tier List, making it an underwhelming feat in most cases.

The only thing in this feat really worth anything (apart from the STR or DEX ASI) is the elimination of extra movement cost to climbing. Only take this feat if that stipulation is extremely important to your class build.

For most campaigns, this is an automatic pass, but for a low-level, low-magic, city-based campaign, the parkour possibilities are quite fun to think about.

Which 5e Classes Make the Most of Athlete?

The color code below has been implemented to help you identify, at a glance, how good the Athlete 5e feat is for a specific class/subclass.

Red isn’t going to contribute to the effectiveness of your character build at all
Orange Situationally good, but a below-average option otherwise
Green is a good option
Blue is a great option, you should strongly consider this option for your character
Sky Blue is an amazing option. If you do not take this option your character would not be optimized

While any class can technically take the Athlete feat, it’s hard to argue its benefits over other available options. Classes with inherent mobility features or spells that enhance movement might find Athlete even less appealing.

Artificer: Nothing here for an artificer.

Barbarian: You get an ASI to Strength and some minor movement buffs, but nothing amazing for a barbarian.

Bard: Nothing here for a bard.

Cleric: Nothing here for a cleric.

Druid: Nothing here for a druid.

Fighter: You get an ASI to Strength and some minor movement buffs, but nothing amazing for a fighter.

Monk: You get an ASI to Dexterity and some minor movement buffs that may make your monk feel more "ninja-like," but nothing amazing.

Paladin: You get an ASI to Strength and some minor movement buffs, but nothing amazing for a paladin.

Ranger: You get an ASI to Strength or Dexterity and some minor movement buffs, but nothing amazing for a ranger. If you find your ranger is always looking for the high ground for their ranged attacks, the climbing boost can certainly help. But, that depends on how intricate the environments your DMs provide for combat are. If you're really set on attacking from on-high, just choose a race with a 1st-level fly speed.

Rogue: You get an ASI to Dexterity and some minor movement buffs that can certainly improve your Stealth and infiltration game. If you're playing a ranged rogue and are always looking for the high ground for your ranged attacks, the climbing boost can certainly help. But, that depends on how intricate the environments your DMs provide for combat are. If you're really set on attacking from on-high, just choose a race with a 1st-level fly speed.

Sorcerer: Nothing here for a sorcerer.

Warlock: Nothing here for a warlock.

Wizard: Nothing here for a wizard.

Mike Bernier

Mike Bernier is the lead content writer and founder of Arcane Eye. He is a Adamantine best-selling author of Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery on DMs Guild and is a contributing author at D&D Beyond. Follow Mike on Twitter.