Top 10 Most Powerful Feats in DnD 5E 

“What’s your passive perception?” “Uhh 32” “I think your misunderstand passive. It’s 10+ the ability” “Ya I know. I calculated it right” “Ok ya you just see the invisible enemies in the next room. You also see 5 large giants sitting above you, with books open, and they appear to be rolling dice and moving some plastic replica of yourself and your friends in response to those rolls” “...”

I once had a player with 27 passive perception. At one point, I just sent them the notes I'd written for the entire dungeon.

I had a druid with amazing passive perception but he was so ignorant and loved making friends so half the time I would just start talking to things and the party would be like "??? are you talking to yourself? OH SHIT AN ENEMY" and we'd start combat

1 clarification: Polearm master doesn't increase your reach with opportunity attacks to 10ft, most polearms are reach weapons and therefore have a range of 10ft. Polearm master let's you make an opportunity attack when an enemy enters your reach with a polearm instead of only when they try to leave it.

You don't need to dual wield Hand Crossbows for the Crossbow Expert extra attack, you can do it with only one and a free hand.

Having observant and alert basically give your character the sharingan.

"This action is not once per turn" Duellog Vietnam flashbacks

I would like to point out one more thing. IF your goal is to have find familiar, get ritual caster instead. Your party will thank you for being able to cast shit without the others having to worry about detecting magic, identifying, even Limonds tiny hut.

Some errors here: Alert: There is no surprise round in 5e, there's the Surprise condition. And you can't tell your party members that enemies are coming if they are surprised but you're not. The condition will end at the end of the creature's first turn. xBow Expert: the feat doesn't specify it can't be the same weapon to attack twice with. Hand Crossbows are one handed weapons, so if you have a Hand xBow and a free hand, you can attack with it as an action, and attack once with it as a bonus action. No need for further complications Elven Accuracy: the hit% increase (you used 10% in your example with min roll of 10) increases as the enemies' AC increases. And your example can be shown from a different perspective. It goes from 80% to 91%. That's 11% overall, but 13% more hits for the player. With a minimum roll of 15, its goes from 51% to 66%. Sure, its 15% difference, but it means the player is hitting 29% more attacks than he did before. If you could only hit with a crit, a 10% hit chance would increase to 15%, so you would hit 50% more of your attacks. That's a giant relative increase!

Surprised the mobile feat didn’t make it on the list. It’s great for melee classes in a magic heavy campaign. I do agree with most of the list tho.

If you're taking Magic Initiate for Find Familiar, you'd be better served by Ritual Caster in most situations, unless you have something really important in mind for the Cantrips (and you prefer that instead of every other Ritual spell up to 5th level).

Of course lucky is number one. I still remember Zee Bashew Bill Murray build. Halfling Divination Wizard with Lucky Feat.

War Caster DOES NOT combo with Sentinel's feature to reduce the creatures speed to 0 as the War Caster feat gives a special reaction to allow you to cast a spell IN PLACE OF an opportunity attack.

One of my players in a game I ran had Observant as their feat from being a Variant Human. I also let them all start with 1 uncommon magic item. Let's just say, a level 3 should never have a 23 Passive Perception again.

One of my friends almost always rolls low, so she took the Lucky feat. She once used all three points in a single round, and her highest roll was a 6.

One tip from a seasoned caster: use spells that require a save when within 5 feet. There's no attack roll, therefore no disadvantage. Also, I prefer to just use a shield and dump stats Casting stat > Dex/Con.

For crossbow expert, wield just 1 hand crossbow and get 3 attacks with extra attack. Nowhere in the feat does it say the bonus action has to be with a separate crossbow, just one you are wielding, thus one hand crossbow for all attacks

Another good pick for the magic initiate feat is mage armour as the 8hr duration means you'll only really use it once per day anyway

I saw this video pop up in my recommended and I thought “Oh, this could be something worth learning”, then I hear the voice, and go “Wait.. isn’t that?” And I check the username and sure enough it’s TheDuelLogs’s D&D account! Why didn’t I know of this earlier

never forget that as an artificer you could just use the loading weapon infusion (or whatever it's called) with the crossbow expert so you don't need to have a free hand open, allowing you to wield a shield and hand crossbow, and be fairly competent, or whatever other weapon you want should you decide to do offense over defense.

A feat that I think is VERY underrated, is the Healer feat. Which reads. You are an able physician, allowing you to mend wounds quickly and get your allies back in the fight. You gain the following benefits: • When you use a healer's kit to stabilize a creature, they also regain 1 hit point • As an action, you can spend one use of a healer's kit to tend to a creature and heal 1d6+4 hit points to it, plus a number of hit points equal to the creature's maximum number of Hit Dice. That creature can't regain hit points in this way again until they finish a short or long rest. Getting the ability to apply a single 1d6+4 + hit dice (Basically level), on a creature is like having a super version of Cure Wounds. If you are a level 4 party (First ASI), and you take this. You can heal every single person in the party outside or inside of combat with an action for 1d6+8 (4 from the base, and 4 from maximum hit dice) giving it a range of 9-14. Now yes, it can only be used on one creature PER short/long rest. But in a scenario where you have a skirmish, and 2 players get hurt. Boom. 9-14 healing on both of them. Essentially restoring between 18-28 hit points for ZERO spell slots and just 2 uses of a healers kit. The Healer's kit is worth 5gp, and can be used 10 times. So having 2 sets of it means you have 20 uses of this ability. It also gives a character that may not be able to bring someone back into the fight that ability. And healer's kit ignores medicine checks to stabilize people. At lower levels, it is borderline broken. But still useful at higher levels, as at 11th level, it heals for 1d6+15. For an average of 19-20 hp for free per person. Also, on the Rogue/Thief Archetype, you can use it as a bonus action. So the rogue mid-combat could just bring a downed character up as a bonus action while still being able to attack.

Alert is one of my favorite feats. I was playing a Swashbuckler with 19 Dexterity and Charisma. My Initiative had 4 from Dexterity, 4 from Charisma (thanks to being a Swashbuckler), and 5 from Alert. With +13 Initiative, I was always going first, unless I rolled something like a 2. Even then, I probably wasn't going last.

Your channel was just recommend to me and I love it. Well thought out and how you explain everything in detail, I love it. Thank you, keep up the great work. I hope you continue to put out videos for a long time.

I remember a story of a DM introducing a revolving crossbow, or something similar to his group, removing the reload property, and subsequently end the campaign because of this self-introduced homebrew weapon. IIrc even the hardest encounters were over within 2 rounds of combat, because 1 Player already had all the ranged, crossbow Perks, so he couldn't just use, but abuse it.

Polearm master no only extends your range for the Op Attacks, but also grants Op Attacks when creatures enter your range! This can be pretty big, as this feat makes sure you can pretty much always use both your BA and your reaction

The sassy editor notes and stories were great!

Just found your channel. While I may not be an Adventurer League or min / max sort of player, I really appreciate the music, editing and work you put into these videos. Had a stressed out night and something about combing over mechanical details in D&D with such a relaxing backtrack was extremely grounding and calming. This is great stuff, who knows maybe I’ll end up trying out other ways to play our favorite table top RPG. All the best

Really like how this videos are structured! And the „cards“ are great!

Another great aspect of Polearm Master is that it combos excellently with Great Weapon Fighting. Since you’re only rolling a d4, without GWF, you’ll roll a lot of 1s and 2s. But with GWF, that butt attack becomes a lot more useful, especially if you miss with the main attack, and you’re only damage on a turn is the butt attack

The background music was so peaceful

My immediate thought upon starting this vid: “wait a sec, this isn’t a Yu-Gi-Oh list 10 video, why am I hearing this voice” then I looked at the channel name; oh yeah, it’s all coming together.

I haven’t played DnD in 20ish years and I still love your videos. Keep it up my dude

I am enjoying the straight forward nature of this video and the piano in the back ground. this is my first viewing of the channel and I will be looking into other videos now.

Elven accuracy increases the chance to crit your sneak attacks by 50%. If you're doing two dagger attacks with advantage on each, your chance to crit on either or both of them is 27% (as opposed to 19%). Considering a crit doubles your once per round sneak attack damage, that's an increase in overall damage output on 8%, on top of the 10% increase from attacks that don't miss.

wow it took you a long time himu ! finally a DnD video

Of course, where the Lucky feat *REALLY* shines is when you give it to a halfling Divination wizard ... ;)

Well done. Quick and concise 😊

I personally think war caster is a much better feat on a utility caster, and even better if it's a cleric or druid as they have more touch/single target spells with better effects

Great stuff, and I love that Skywalker joke!

With Observant I managed to get my Inquisitive Rogue a Passive Perception of 25 at 5th level. 10 +3(WIS) +3(prof) +3(Expertise) +5(Observant) +1(Stone of Good Luck)

Excellent video !! Thank you.

In a system called anima beyond fantasy, there is an advantage called sharp senses or something like that, which gives you a +50 to Notice and Search, and a +1 por perceptcion roll, its so incredibly good just for the amount of points it saves from those two skills, which you can then put somewhere else, pretty much like observant

Nice vid, keep up the good work.

Editing on these videos is just top notch!

Great video!

Do my ears decieve me or is that Hiru doing DnD videos? My life just got better :D

Great video! I would add on the lucky part, the possibility to turn an advantage attack against you in a "Super Disadvantage". And now... imagine if anyone is attacking you with Elven Accuaracy... Oh, boy...

Buddy how come i found you on both my favourite topics: World of Warcraft and D&D 5e! I was like "wait, i recognize that voice!" :D

ritual caster - > wizard - > magic mouth - > profit I just love that spell (it may have been a bard spell obly/as well I am unsure)

clarification on Crossbow expert, since you said you could only do the bonus action attack once per combat. The feat doesn't require **another** onehanded weapon, just any onehanded weapon. lets remember that the handcrossbow itself is a one-handed weapon and thus triggers it's own bonus action attack. You can't dual wield them, but you don't need to to use the feat.

the tune that plays during the neon lights is so good

My rouge with alert Dm: you get ambushed by a group of rouges! Me: can I backflip over them and ambush... Them? Dm: Well you can try Just uno reverse and you'll never get suprise attacked again

Well Paladins are not really limited to only verbal spells when wielding a weapon+shield as the video said on the topic of War Caster, they can also use material spells without specified costs (as Holy symbols can be used in their place and unlike other magic focuses just needs to be visible like on a belt or on the shield and not held). So it's the somatic spells they're locked out of without sheeting/drawing their weapon constantly. Also polearm master + great weapon master combos nicely since you can add that -hit/+dmg to the small bonus attack since even if the dice is small, since most of the polearm master weapons are in the heavy category too.

Elven Accuracy is insanely good with the Samurai subclass for fighter. At 3rd level, you can use a bonus action to give yourself advantage on ALL attacks till the end of your current turn. Super fun!

awesome hirumaredx is narrating :)

Try mixing Elven Accuracy with Two-weapon fighting and the Ranger subclass that aloes you to be invisible to darkvision

I've been using Observant along side my Eldritch Knight fighter, in a gritty realism campaign, and I just gotta say, it is a good combo. With his Find Familiar spell, he gets an additional +5 to passive perception, thanks to it granting advantage, as well as being able to get advantage on perception checks when using the birds perception, all this whike being able to read lips of anyone I'm spying on, gives me a lot of options. Id also suggest with the crossbow expert to use it along side walloping arrows at low level to force a save to go prone.

Just wanted to bring up one build, samurai with elven accuracy and sharpshooter with a longbow. 3 rolls on advantage and a way to reliably have advantage at least once per a battle on an entire turn's worth of attacks. -Samurai's ability fighting spirit gives advantage to all attacks in one turn at the cost of a bonus action. It can be used 3 times per a long rest at level 3. At level 10 you regain 1 use if you roll initiative and have zero. (Also gives some temporary health points.) -Elven accuracy and sharpshooter in the video. -Action surge lets you act again in the turn per a rest. Once at level 2 and twice at 17. -Extra attacks gained at level 5, 11, and 20 So at 20 dex with fighting spirit, each attack will do 15+D8 w/ close to 15% chance to crit. You'll have three less bonus to hit than a normal attack, but 3 rolls per attack more than makes up for that. You also gain a bonus to your persuasion equal to your wisdom modifier, along with proficiency in wisdom saves. And at level 18 you can refuse to die and immediately gain an extra turn if brought to zero, once per a long rest. All in all, a good build with solid combat potential (especially for nuking) and decent social use.

Wooooo I love these Videos ♡

For crossbow expert I fixed the free hand issue but using thrown weapons. Darts are considered one-handed and therefore I am able to both shoot and load the crossbow once the dart is thrown. And since it’s considered ranged, I get the crossbow expert disadvantage bonus.

LET'S GO DND VIDEOOOOOO

I think the real reason elven accuracy is banned so often is because there is -no- limit on how many times you can use it, so if you're a elf rogue that is a range fighter you can give yourself real double advantage every turn at level 3, which means you have 3 chances to roll a crit and double your sneak attack dice basically every attack you make

Lucky didn't make sense as number one until you explained the disadvantage into super advantage. Very legit

You can tact on stuff like Battle Master Maneuvers with the bonus attack from Polearm Master, so that weak attack can be buffed nicely.

Two things. First Polearm Master. A huge thing is that attacks of opportunity can happen when a foe enters your reach. Thus with Sentinel you can hit and immobilise the brute at 10'. Before it closes to standard melee range. With your reaction. Second. Lucky can be called after the roll, but before the DM adjudicates. So roll the dice. Get an 18? No prob, let it slide. Roll a 4? Shout out "Lucky" before the DM says "You miss". Really helps stretch out the luck points.

Observant also still benefits from the +5 for having advantage in a passive check.... this usually only applies to things like passive stealth with elvenkind gear (advantage on all stealth checks), but if you have something that gives you advantage on all perception checks, then you've got a maximum passive of.... roughly 41?

You can use a casting focus you are holding to perform somatic components (i.e. a wizard's staff or a druid's sprog of mistletoe). You can attach an emblem (a cleric & paladin casting focus) to a shield, effectively making that object a casting focus. So the only benefit of taking war caster on a Paladin would be the Con saves (as Paladins don't get cantrips and can just Smite on an opportunity attack). It's better on Cleric, but the rules on casting focuses mean Paladins lose a huge number of buffs (if I remember rules as written properly)

Alert also gives huge benefits in a fog cloud or a darkness spell, your opponents will have disadvantage on their attacks against you, and you’ll have normal rolls against them, because of advantage of you being unseen, and disadvantage if not being able to see them

When you talked about Elven accuracy, It "only" increases your chance to hit by 11%, yet it basically causes you to miss 50% less than you did before. If your hitchance goes from 80% to 90% that means your chance of misses is halved. From 20% to only 10% now.

Thinking about how to fix that “using a luck point to turn disadvantage into super advantage” thing.. 1.) You could rule that, when rolling with disadvantage, they have to use the luck point before rolling, and this allows them to make a offset the disadvantage and make a straight roll. The problem is that this requires using the luck point before rolling, which goes against how luck points are designed. 2.) You could also break it down into steps, ruling that if the player uses a luck point after rolling with disadvantage, the lower roll becomes the official result of that roll. Then the luck point allows you to roll once more and choose between the two. This honestly seems like what “rules as intended” would be. It still basically allows disadvantage to be just as good as a normal roll, because either way you’re choosing the better or two rolls, so it kind of prevents any repercussions of disadvantage (it’s a little worse than using a luck point on a straight roll, but basically if using a luck point on a straight roll bumps the roll up one degree to advantage, using a luck point on disadvantage bumps it up like 1.75 degrees to almost advantage.. still way more balanced than bumping it up 3 degree to super advantage) 3.) Another option. Player rolls at disadvantage, decides to use a luck point, they roll again with disadvantage, then choose the better of the two disadvantaged rolls. This almost seems like the best option.. maybe it is. It basically just lets them reattempt the exact same roll, which seems fair. It seems like it might be not quite as good as the lucky feat is supposed to be, but then again, the roll is at disadvantage for a reason. The PC is doing something especially difficult or unlikely, so it makes sense that even a lucky roll would reflect that. 4.) Finally, you could choose to let the luck point add a static bonus to a roll that had disadvantage. This allows the disadvantage to still have its impact, but also allows lucky to impact the roll as well. However, this seems like the least viable option to me. So I guess I like options 2 and 3 the most. Option 3 seems like the most balanced option, but not quite as much “fun for the players.” Option 2 seems like the most “fun for the players” but not quite as fairly balanced. I think I like option 3 the most, but if my players were the sort who would have their experience negatively impacted by, say, using a luck point on a very important roll that had disadvantage and having the luck point fail because it was also at disadvantage, then I might choose to go with option 2 just to prioritize the overall experience over balance for balance’s sake.

Valor Bard with War Caster and Polearm Master is a hilarious build for a frontliner. Because Valor Bard can actually combine the two Feats Use Dissonant Whispers to get opponents to just turn around and run back away as they are trying to run to your backliners. Though any single target spell that costs an action to use works

Discovering that DuelLogs also makes DnD content completely changes the game

Im sure many people have pointed this out. BUT Polearm master GIVES you the REACTION WHEN THEY ENTER YOUR RANGE. So it not only gives you a bonus action to smack people with, but it gives yous a reaction pretty much every turn.....So as long as you walk up so your target is within 10( the range of a polearm) smack them then step back. when they come to you, you get to smack them. pretty damn strong.......it does not increases your range.... combod with sential yes, you would get more Attack of Oppurtines. Not needing to walk back a few feet.... However i would like to point out. Polearm master with Sential makes it so you can "Kite" enemies. 1. You walk up so your ten feet apart. smack em. 2. Step back they enter your range of 10 ft their speed is reduce to 0 cant move anymore. your next turn you smack them. 3. Step back so your 15 away. 4. They move forward. 5. Repeat step 2 then 3.

"One of the 4 polearm weapons" Pike is sad

Pole arm master doesn’t just increase reach on opportunity attacks. It allows opportunity attacks on approaching enemies who enter your range not just enemies who try to move away. The crossbow expert allows an extra attack as a bonus action if you just wield one hand crossbow.

Quick thing to mention about PAM is that the bonus action attack can still benefit from Great Weapon Master (so long as you’re using the glaive or halberd) as it is still with the weapon, so while it does the smaller die its easily mitigated with the +10 that makes Sentinel, PAM, and GWM a commonly banned feat combo, because frankly, its supremely strong at low levels and just pummels just about everything on level.

Oh, remembered a game where even on level 1 I just managed to spot and alert the party about every single one surprise attack the DM had on him

“So with a high PP - passive perception get your mind out of the gutter -” I DIDN’T THINK OF IT UNTIL YOU POINTED IT OUT DAMNIT, now I have to live with that mental image…

Unless you want the cantrips for one reason or another (Minor Illusion+Ranged cantrip being my favorite for my non-casters to cover any range weaknesses, but I don't always need it) Ritual Caster is an awesome feat to take instead if you have high enough soft stats. You learn any ritual spells (Including find familiar) you can find and copy down to replicate later up to I believe about fifth level spells. Wizard spells alone gets you, Tiny Hut, Phantom Steed, Find Familiar, Identify, Detect Magic, Alarm, Water Breathing, Contact other Plane, Unseen Servant, and more. For ONE FEAT. Sure, you have to ritual cast, but what's an extra 10 ingame minutes during some down time. Different Classes net you different things obviously, so you can really customize this for a TON of different options too.

I had a frontline sorcerer with giant blood origin which Gives you access to shillelagh. Armed with quarterstaff and PAM was alot of fun.

I disagree on Elven Accuracy. Going from an 80% chance to hit ->91% statistically halves your chance to miss, which is insane. Also, effectively doubling your crit chance with one feat seems very strong when you already have an ~25% chance to crit, especially when you attack 3 or 4 times as a fighter in that scenario

A note on the math about advantage vs. "super advantage" - stating that the bonus is "just 10%" misrepresents how good the perk is. It might only be ~10%, but if that 10% moves the needle from 80% to 90%, you've cut your chance to fail in half. That's why the perk is banned often - in some scenarios it can essentially guarantee that you never miss an attack, and in most others it makes it *extremely* unlikely that you miss multiple in a row (or even multiple in a combat).

16:02 RAW, the same hand used to perform material components can be used to perform somatic components and the holy symbol turns a shield into a spellcasting focus, which means clerics and paladins are actually the only ones who dont need this feature

I got around the ammunition rule by having wrist crossbows, one on each arm. So in game, I'd grab two bolts, shoot the first while reloading the second. Not sure this would fly in every game but my DM was cool with it.

Would love a list of the tracks used in this video. Whatever the tune that kicks in at crossbow expert is cool.

I watched through half the video before realizing this is not a WoW or Yugioh Video, after I clicked on the title because it's D&D. Well, thats another channel to subscribe to I guess

I am sorry, but this is a massive pet peeve of mine. Passive Perception does not replace active Perception checks. You can have an insane passive perception, but it does not replace active perception or investigation checks (like many seem to belive). You can still miss someone sneaking up on you even if they dont roll higher than your passive perception score. The passive perception score is not a replacement for actual rolls, but more so for the DM to determine if things that occur more "passively" could be noticed by you without the need for a check. For example, most ancient dragons may have a passive perception score of 20 or higher, so just by looking around and listening to their enviorment they could notice all sorts of details a normal creature couldnt, however, when you want to sneak past it, as long as you stay out of its field of vision, you can still manage to sneak past the dragon because at that point the dragon's active perception takes over and it has to contest with your active stealth check.

Pair Alert with any of the Elven Races, and you cannot be surprised unless you’re at 0 HP. Because Trance keeps you conscious during a Long Rest, and Fey Ancestry prevents you from being magically put to sleep. Add Twilight Cleric or Gloomstalker Ranger on top of that, and you’re moving first all the time.

I've found Observant nice not just for the passive perception which is great of course, but for the handy reminder in the feat itself that passive forms of other skills exist too. I feel a lot less like a rules-lawyer if I can just point to my feats and ask if I can use part of it as written, instead of having to dig through the books to find exactly how the rules about passives are written.

My last character was a Rogue Scout level 8 planned to go up to 17 and a Ranger Gloomstalker level 3 Wood Elf. With Observant and Alert while having expertise in Perception, with the Survivalist ability from scout also doubling the proficiency bonus to perception. My DM used RAW except with a couple exceptions one being that he allowed us to take a racial feat at a certain level, I took Elven Accuracy. Though for those who don't know, having Gloomstalker with an already high Wisdom mod and Alert will give you a possible +15 to Initiative, with a weapon of warning to add advantage. Needless to say, I went first in combat. My DM also had his own way to get back at me for the ridiculousness of my character. He made it so that my characters seemingly unnatural sense of hearing and sight would make him prone to developing migraines. Which were mainly minor rp penalties and hardly ever came into play, plus I thought it was kind of funny so I didn't mind.

One of my players was a loxodon which didn't have War caster because his trunk counted in respect to somatic components. Which is completely fair and balanced.

This is a solid list. If only some of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything feats would have been included

Inspiring Leader. A). Roleplay. Simply amazing and worth the price of admission. Try Circle of Stars Druid and giving inspiring speeches based on constellations is incredibly fun. A). Healing absorption Party of 6. 1st short rest- 60 hit points. 2nd short rest- 90 hit points. (Party and 3 npcs, including the familiar (which enabled the familiar to survive some arrow fire and continue to scout and help win the fight). Calculate how many heal spells a lvl 6 Druid needs to cast to heal 150 hit points of damage and you’ll see the value of Inspiring Leader. B). When there’s no time for even a short rest… this is THE Goto Feat for party survival, protecting npcs, and prevention of tpks. For those that say that at higher level hits blow right through it… 1). You need to survive to GET to high level to begin with and this feat does it 2). Any damage that prevents you from being whittled down IS effective. Saves can reduce damage. And this extra cushion can prevent a knockout , death saves, loss of actions, time to stand up, prevent prone condition, etc. Anything to delay the point where you’re knocked out and taking death saves is critical.

Magic initiate can also use the Shield or Silvery Barbs spell as the pick, specially if you are a half caster. But Find Familiar is also a great pick.

Played a variant human battle master fighter who picked up magic initiate at creation and ritual caster at 4th. His backstory was a failed eldritch knight candidate. Accepted to the academy as a squire, but washed out of the program in shame due to his dump stat intelligence. He still insisted magic was his shtick, wore robes over his armor and took great pains to use his magic at every opportunity. He was fun to play, and despite the character joke factor those various cantrips and ritual spells were DAMN useful. I got some serious mileage out of that feat combo. Not so low-key meta gaming, the spells he could perform also freed up slots for the real casters in the party quite effectively. I had intended to multi class him to warlock, sorcerer or bard at level 12 (he had a decent charisma) to finally realize his lifelong dream of pursuing magic. Sadly that campaign fizzled out before we got there.

Train the town gaurd to have the polearm master and/or crossbow expert feats, they're low enough level that they will get the most use out of that. Then your base of operations will be safe from some of the random stuff that could happen to it.

For Crossbow Expert, a hand crossbow is a one handed weapon that you are holding, and so it activates the ability to be able to use a hand crossbow as a bonus action. So a 5th level fighter with this feat and a free hand could shoot twice with their Attack action and then shoot with their bonus action, as they have satisfied the requirements of the feat. This is RAW and RAI.

Hey you’re that YuGiOh guy as well. Pretty neat that you do dnd stuff too.

Ok so, as great as shutting off an approaching opponent with Polearm Master + Sentinel is, another combo I often use is Polearm Master + War Caster, if you're a warlock that can cast Booming Blade. PoAM allows you to make an opportunity attack when a creature enters your reach, so if an enemy approaches you - which most beast-like and/or creatures who lacks viable ranged attacks usually do - you can make one attack of opportunity when they enter your reach, then, since they still have to make one more step to be able to attack you (unless they too have reach or something) it would immediately trigger Booming Blade's effect and deal them additional damage. Now that is already pretty cool on its own, but things get even crazier if your DM allows UA's Tunnel Fighter fighting style. That feat allows you to make multiple attacks of opportunity per turn, AND to make attacks of opportunity against creatures who move within your reach. Which means that, if you combo that with the previous Polearm Master + War Caster, you can have a Booming Blade when they enter your reach, then they'd make another step to get closer, and not only that would trigger Booming Blade's effects, it'd also allow you to make another opportunity attack - potentially another booming blade! At level 5, it's 4d8 bonus damage baseline and two attacks outside of your turn! If you're a bugbear, you can have long limbed and increase your reach to 15 feet, which would mean 3 attacks, or 7d8 bonus damage, though you would need to be 8th level to get two feats like that.

With observant if you get the stat buff up to 30 with the post level 20 xp gain stuff in the DM's guide you can get 37 passive perception befroe you even look at the Tome Of Understanding.