Discussing 4e Subsystems: Retraining

[Ycore Rixle]

Who the heck cares about the logistics of retraining?

Oh! Me! Me!

Seriously, there are lots of people who care about world-building and self-consistent milieux. There are lots who don't. To each his own!

I like retraining a lot. The pros outweight the cons for me. One pro that is not often mentioned is the ability to play a "redemption" or "fallen" story arc. What do I mean by that? I mean that point where the paladin falls from the light and suddenly gains a suite of demonic powers to replace his angelic ones. I mean that point where Darth Vader throws the Emperor into the shaft and trades his force lightning for spiritual immortality. In other words, with retraining, you can have one big defining moment in the campaign and come out of it with a radically changed character.

The trick is to make it self-consistent with the world. One means is to say: it's magical. Magic is very common even in PoL D&D, so magic works for me. Either there is a prophecy, or a goddess, or a place where ley lines converge, or a journey to the outer planes, or a latent magical reservoir within the character that suddenly bursts - something, anything magical to trigger, moderate, and direct the retraining. Something self-consistent to explain it. Such a thing is possible, I think, in a magic world, and it serves to enhance gameplay by better aligning players' visions and characters' statistics.

I understand what people are saying when they point out, "What I find unrealistic is a world where skills never get rusty." But that is different point. Let's focus on re-training rules and what they do and do not bring to the table. "Decaying skills" rules are a related matter, but a separate one.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Actually, Ycore Rixle your comment reminds me of one idea I had, in the severe shift of personality, etc. I have been toying with the idea of having a series of Skill Challenges with some players to try and fend off a posessing spirit within them from taking over (right now be multiple-personality somewhat).

One aspect of this is if they fail a Skill Challenge and more of their personality is taken over they have to Retrain some aspect of their character and choose from a list of choices. This shows another aspect mechanically of the spirit-personality taking over slowly.

Obviously this idea would have to be approached first to the players to see if they are fine with it but could be quite neat.

 

[RefinedBean]

No problem with the retraining system; it's a tool to be used to keep characters effective as well as a GREAT opportunity for character development and roleplaying.

D&D is supposed to be a fun, no-hassle game. If a player made a choice that makes the character un-fun, it's easier on both the player AND the DM to have the character retrain to something they can enjoy, if that's what they want.

Re-training fits the 4E model perfectly, and is a definite improvement from "Well, crap...guess I'll make a new guy."

That's all opinion, though, so you can't yell at me for it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I like retraining.

An interesting aspect is that it fixes two issues in 3E
1) New Feats/Powers/Spells come out and fit your character concept or power-gaming needs better then the old ones. Swapping out in 3E is only possible for some spellcasters.
A great boon when getting a new source book - a lot of the material can be quickly put to good use.

2) Characters created at higher level are better than characters created at lower levels and advanced to the same level. You can easily optimize all your choices when creating a high level character, ignoring weak spots that would have occured at lower levels. With one retrain per level (plus automatic retraining for powers) this is much less likely to happen in 4E.


Of course I also like the fact that you're not forced to keep a bad choice you once made. It removes a lot of the "character building homework" I experienced in 3E. Calling it "homework" is a little hyperbole, unless you were one of the kids that liked doing homework . Still, a lot of your characters effectiveness was determined when you're at home creating him - and you're stuck with any bad choice you made. Allowing retraining creates a better "feedback" loop.

---

For "consistency" issues.
Most of the feats have relatively "weak" effects on actual gameplay. A +2 damage bonus from Astral Fire doesn't affect the in-game story much, since no one in the game world can measure your damage with the precision of each hit point. Linguist might be the most obvious feat, since you're "forgetting" 3 languages - but in most scenarios, will this ever happen? If you needed this languages a lot, it's unlikely you want to lose access to them. If you never used them, it's a typical "atrophy" problem.

Powers are often replaced with powers that are higher level but are similar in effect. Most D&D spellcasters are used to changing their power suite anyway, so losing an older power is not much more then no longer preparing it.
Martial Powers would be hard to identify in the game world - could you really distinguish between a Brute Strike and a Basic Attack, if both result with the death of a the target? And if a character no longer uses the "Knockdown" maneuver he had, how much would anyone in the game world notice?
The only "consistency" issue here is: "Why does the character never ever again use a maneuver/power he used a lot earlier". But this can be explained in game - he no longer likes the spell/maneuver/power, or he found a better way to use his skill or arcane power.

A "Consistency Bugfix" to the system could be this: You never lose a retrained power. But if you want to use it, you can't use the power you retrained it for. So technically a Fighter still has his Brute Strike Daily Power, but that he's using it instead of his higher level Daily Power he retrained it for is highly unlikely.

The game system just takes away the highly unlikely out of the equation since it keeps your character sheet more manageable - do you really want to list all those powers you probably will never use again?

 

[Mallus]

Why should the retraining rules work in a logical and consistent way when the training rules traditionally didn't (skills don't atrophy, they're acquired in a binary way, practice isn't modeled at all). The closest thing to 'realist' training D&D got was the old 'gold per level' training rules in AD&D, and those were primarily a gold-soak, a way to monetize, well, money, in real adventurer's economy based around magic items.

Training was always abstract in D&D. The retraining rules merely add a wonderful layer of utility on top of that (and as people pointed out, there are plenty of ways to describe retraining in more realistic ways, if that's important to you).

 

[vagabundo]

Why should the retraining rules work in a logical and consistent way when the training rules traditionally didn't (skills don't atrophy, they're acquired in a binary way, practice isn't modeled at all). The closest thing to 'realist' training D&D got was the old 'gold per level' training rules in AD&D, and those were primarily a gold-soak, a way to monetize, well, money, in real adventurer's economy based around magic items.

Training was always abstract in D&D. The retraining rules merely add a wonderful layer of utility on top of that (and as people pointed out, there are plenty of ways to describe retraining in more realistic ways, if that's important to you).

This was the post I was formulating in my head, thanks for saving me the effort.

I'll add that the retraining rules could also add a bit of character to the, um, character. If you have think of reasons for no longer having the use of a skill/power/feat.

Anyway, I like 'em and we've already used them in my group - when our rogue discovered he forgot to train in perception and the warlock was doing all the perceptiony stuff...

 

[Mallus]

This was the post I was formulating in my head, thanks for saving me the effort.

You're welcome. I suffer from occasional bouts of clarity.

 

[LostSoul]

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.

I think that Stalker0 made some great points that could aid consistency in the campaign world.

Characters who are injured retrain to represent that injury.
Characters who are, let's say, inducted into Courtly society retrain Diplomacy (and lose another skill to show how they don't have the time for that any more!).
Characters grow and develop emotionally - maybe Intimidate is retrained for Diplomacy.

You could forget about consistency if you want, but if you want to do that then I guess you don't care about consistency in the first place so it's not a big deal.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I think that Stalker0 made some great points that could aid consistency in the campaign world.

Characters who are injured retrain to represent that injury.
Characters who are, let's say, inducted into Courtly society retrain Diplomacy (and lose another skill to show how they don't have the time for that any more!).
Characters grow and develop emotionally - maybe Intimidate is retrained for Diplomacy.

You could forget about consistency if you want, but if you want to do that then I guess you don't care about consistency in the first place so it's not a big deal.

Rather than unlearning I prefer to run systems that support growth and development for skills and abilities. As player, I can live with whatever retraining rules the DM uses without a problem.

If I ever run a Total Recall fantasy game I will keep the retraining rules in mind.

 

[LostSoul]

Rather than unlearning I prefer to run systems that support growth and development for skills and abilities. As player, I can live with whatever retraining rules the DM uses without a problem.

If I ever run a Total Recall fantasy game I will keep the retraining rules in mind.

I think the system does support character growth and development. Not as much as some games, but more than earlier editions.

My scary, hard-hearted fighter who finds peace with his demons might swap out Skill Focus: Intimidate for Skill Training: Diplomacy, going from Intimidate +9, Diplomacy +1 to Intimidate +7, Diplomacy +7.

This reflects my character's personal growth.