Introduction

The Zhentarim Tactics feat leans even harder into Opportunity Attacks, building on Zhentarim Ruffian’s Exploit Opening. You also get a special version of Expertise, which you can change daily, which is a great utility outside of combat. If you want the skill stuff, you’ll get more out of Skill Expert, but that doesn’t make this feat less amazing.

Based on the Ability Score Increases from the Zhentarim Background and from Zhentarim Tactics, Dexterity-based and Charisma-based melee builds are the best fit. Dexterity-based Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins will all do very well, as will Pact of the Blade Warlocks.

Monks and Rogues are obvious choices for Zhentarim Tactics, but Monks get Deflect Attacks and Rogues get Uncanny Dodge, both of which compete for your Reaction. Monks rely on large numbers of attacks with relatively low damage, so a single additional attack will rarely have a big impact compared to the incredible damage mitigation of Deflect Attacks. Rogues might choose to take full damage in exchange for dealing a huge pile of Sneak Attack damage, provided that they can qualify for Sneak Attack and hit reliably with the attack.

Zhentarim Tactics requires Zhentarim Ruffian.

Ability Score Increase

The options make sense for the Zhentarim, but a lot of Strength-based melee builds would get a lot of value out of this. This is good enough that you might still take this on Strength-based builds after you reach 20 Strength.

Retaliate

This is fantastic for nearly any melee build.

The Retaliate feature works especially well with Sentinel and a reach weapon, such as a Whip. If your enemies attack an ally within 5 feet of you, you get an Opportunity Attack. If they attack you, you get an Opportunity Attack. Either way, the target’s speed is reduced to 0.

If you have War Mage, you can still use this to cast a spell in place of the Opportunity Attack. Remember that Zhentarim Ruffian will let you roll the damage twice and choose the higher.

Versatile Merc

Expertise, and you can change it on a daily basis. Most characters won’t get much value from changing Expertise frequently, but a character with a lot of skill proficiencies might use this to adapt their capabilities to the day’s activities, such as taking Expertise in Persuasion when you’re in a social situation or taking Expertise in Perception when you’re traveling through a dangerous area.