Discussing 4e Subsystems: Retraining

Because I like writing and debating I thought it would be fun to go into a discussion about each of 4th edition’s new subsystems and hashing out the good and the bad. So we will start with a small one to jump things off.

Retraining
While the concept of retraining isn’t a new one, it’s the first time (I believe) that this has become a core part of Dungeons and Dragons. At its heart the retraining rule says the following: “The character you started with doesn’t have to be the character you end up with.”

The mechanic is a simple one, and from a flavor point of view has several consequences. At its best, the mechanic allows a player to model the changes in his character as he advances in levels, learning new lessons while discarding old ones. A fighter can learn to focus on a new weapon while losing ability in the old one due to lack of practice. At its worst, the mechanic can provide changes that chaff against the flavor of the game. An example would be an elven ranger known for his key eyesight that suddenly trains away perception and for no good reason stops having good eyesight.

As with many things in 4th edition, flavor seems to be the realm of the DM and players more than the rules. The retraining rules offer an opportunity, but its up to the DM or the player to fill in the blanks about how it happened in game. In the example above, the DM and the player could say that the ranger takes a powerful eye injury during a fight, and so loses a bit of his eyesight. Should the player ever decide to retake perception, his eyes eventually heal.

To my mind, one of the great flavor things about retraining is that it provides a mechanic to deal with a temporary change to a character. We have all seen stories when a character got a temporary power or suffered a temporary pain that enhanced or limited his stable abilities. The retraining rules permit this flavor while providing the DM a balanced way to go about it.

From a mechanics standpoint, I think the retraining rules offer several advantages.
1) Reducing the penalty for limited use feats and powers. No system is perfect and there will always be feats and powers that do not scale appropriately, and so are useful to a character for a while but then eventually become useless. Retraining helps this issue, by ensuring a feat or a power that becomes useless can be retrained out of.
2) Decreasing the gap between organic and inorganic characters. If you have ever played a one shot high level game versus starting at low levels and making it to high ones, you have likely seen the difference in previous editions between characters made for both. Inorganic characters are optimized for high levels, while organic ones suffer the baggage of surviving lower levels. Retraining allows the organic character to keep up, which I think is a good thing.
3) Provides the DM a pace to allow character change. The idea of a player changing his character is certainly not a new concept, but always the question of “how much” comes into play. Some DMs don’t like players making radical changes to their characters, as they feel it hurts the continuity of their games. Retraining provides a “system pace” for character change, giving the DM a guideline as to how fast to allow change. For more experimental DMs, it provides a baseline that they can change to create their own pace.

Conclusion: Overall, I think the retraining rules are a solid addition to 4th edition that provides plenty of benefit, assuming the DM takes a bit of care to ensure that players don’t retrain ad hoc.

Another aspect too is the fact that since the level amount is higher, it makes sense that there should be some tool to represent gaining/lose of knowledge with now having a longer base-level range.

I was sceptical when retraining was introduced in DMGII. But these rules will clearly be a boon to my players (they need all help they can get), and don't really hurt me. So net win.

I like the retraining rules. We used things like this in most of the games I've played to great effect. I like that it doesn't dictate how much moiney and time retraining takes. Many times that sort of thing got in the way of adventuring.

Stalker0, you've got a good mind for looking at game systems, love what you've done with skill challenges (I use Obsidian in my games), so you applying that same rigor to other aspects of the game is certainly something I will sign on for.

On retraining, I'd add a numbered point -

4) Allows PCs to keep up with changes in the system. Something comes out a year after you started your 1st level character that fits the concept perfectly (a paragon path, feat, class option) but you don't meet the requirements? Retrain.

Justifying the changes in game is fairly easy, new powers require no explanation, just an evolution of training or style. More radical changes require more radical explanations, I like the idea of a ranger losing an eye to explain the retraining of his perception skill.

Of course, many groups are comfortable not worrying about the need to explain such things at the table. My group's like that. We've been re- purposing all through 3e. My players were never interested in full 20 level builds when creating 1st level characters and didn't like to have to plan so far ahead to meet prestige classes, feat chains, etc. So it wasn't uncommon for someone to decide at 6th level that they found their perfect prestige class, and then not be qualified for it. Heck, each of my players has had a character at some point completely change classes. The first was the player of a druid character who just wasn't getting what she wanted with the druid and her concept, so we converted her to a rogue. The group joke became that the druid finally took a bath. Such changes are just not something that bother my players, so my group wouldn't have much need of explanation. Still, not bothering at all would lose out on a good, built in source of character growth and flavor.

If the game is played as a boardgame skirmish exercise they work great. If I wanted to build a consistent campaign world, have the characters become a part of that world, and see them grow and develop then they don't work at all. This subsystem is one of the biggest reasons why I will play 4E but not run a campaign with it.

ExploderWizard said:

If the game is played as a boardgame skirmish exercise they work great. If I wanted to build a consistent campaign world, have the characters become a part of that world, and see them grow and develop then they don't work at all. This subsystem is one of the biggest reasons why I will play 4E but not run a campaign with it.

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Can you expand upon this? I don't see how a character retraining a power or feat would hurt the consistency of a campaign world, or a character's involvement in it.

ExploderWizard said:

If the game is played as a boardgame skirmish exercise they work great. If I wanted to build a consistent campaign world, have the characters become a part of that world, and see them grow and develop then they don't work at all. This subsystem is one of the biggest reasons why I will play 4E but not run a campaign with it.

Click to expand...

Waa? I don't get this, how does retraining not allow for a consistent world/campaign.

Look at some of the reasons that Stalker0 put up on his initial post. What about his examples not make a consistent world? Those are just a couple of a endless amounts of examples, whenever one ability/skill is lost and a new one is gained because of some reason it works perfectly.

Call me an id: 10-T/[insert gaming term here], I don't really like the retraining concept.

While for a game aspect it allows to cover yourself from earlier mistakes, but completely disrupts continuity and believability.

To think someone completely forgets something to learn something else, just doesn't mesh well with me.

It seems like in some cases even forgeting how to do the mundane steps to get to the larger ones. Take a punch with the left hand. You have known how for quite a while.

You learn how to throw a punch with a left then a right, and somehow you forgot how to throw a punch with only the left hand.

What?

This is even where it makes the most sense in that learning beyond an older skill would add to it to grow the skill. When you talk about forgetting how to throw a pounch with your right hand to learn how to throw a punch with your left hand, it just loses all aspects of making any sense.

So while it does fill some purpose in the game to allow players to cover up their earlier choice screw-ups, for me it seems to ruin the entire game.

This of course is only looking at retraining powers, and that is currently what is being looked at by me in playing. What could make it work to make more sense and not have the game and story end up draining like a sieve because of some mechanic that just doesn't make any sense.

Retraining other things I have not yet scrutinized.

I think one difference is whether or not you view the change as instantaneous or not.

For myself when the change actually takes place could be after days, weeks even years of the old skill slowly (or quickly) falling out of practise and being replaced by something else.

I also never view it as being "completely forgotten", it is simply fallen so far out of practise it no longer has a measureable amount. Say someone used to be a quite able hiker, if he spent years instead learning say painting instead his abilities with hiking would severely diminish and be replaced by his ability to paint. Now obviously he can still go hiking but it is decreased to a point that it no longer has any measurable worth.