Discussing 4e Subsystems: Retraining

[Imban]

I'm generally 100% okay with 4e's retraining. Hell, in 3e I let people rewrite their character sheets any time they wanted as long as they didn't do anything stupid or do it all the time, just as long as they kept playing the same character in a story sense. This is because these games have a lot of complicated options that you might find you really want later. Or you might take something frickin' stupid and not want it any more.

I've only ever had two problems with retraining - one is that some people can be kinda twits about it, especially if they think they know what's coming up beforehand ("Hey let's all retrain to trained in mountain-climbing for this one adventure! "), and... well, 4e D&D is still a traditional roleplaying game with a game master and everything, not an MMORPG. If it's stupid and making people have less fun, your friends or your GM have the right to tell you to quit it.

The other is if you can retrain more frequently (or more deeply) than 4e allows, like in Guild Wars, there's literally no difference between any two characters of the same class and level. In Guild Wars, for instance, stepping into town for 30 seconds is long enough for me to completely swap my character's entire build for another because it's more effective for what I'm doing next.

 

[Shroomy]

We've had two instances of retraining. Our warlock gave up his training in Streetwise (which he never used) for Diplomacy (which we sorely needed); he also had the Jack of all Trade feats and a decent Charisma, so it wasn't all that bad for him. The other involved our fighter trading in Sure Strike for Cleave; let me tell you, if that wasn't possible and he hadn't done it, we would probably have had several deaths in our last combat. For me, re-training seems like a good thing and even though it didn't come up at the table, rational for both of these changes could have been easily made up (I came up with reasons while I was typing this post).

 

[GnomeWorks]

So while I feel kind of bothered by the idea of High-Climbin' Carl, the best mountain climber in the land, retraining his feats and forgetting how to climb mountains (without in game justification), well, who's fault is that? The game, for failing to forbid this? Or Carl's player?

I think it greatly depends upon the social contract you're working with.

For some groups - mine included - the rules are an abstract representation of how the in-game world works. For these groups, the sorts of things you see in OotS are not unreasonable: take away the obviously metagame references and abuses, and you have a world that is reasonable given the 3.5 ruleset.

Saying that "$x shouldn't happen, even though it's in the rules, because it doesn't make sense" is an argument against such behavior, sure, but it doesn't appease folks like myself. It is in the rules - it is part of the system - therefore it is an acceptable thing-to-do for PCs and NPCs alike.

Of course, the argument to that is that we shouldn't be slaves to the rules, or somesuch. Well, that's all well and good - but there are rules for a reason, and there is presumably a reason that rule Y exists in the ruleset to begin with, despite its seeming nonsensibility. If the social contract is such that it is agreed that the ruleset represents the "physics" of the gameworld, then even seemingly-nonsensical rules are accepted, because it is agreed that the rules are an abstract representation of the "reality" of the gameworld.

As such, in your example, for folks such as myself, it is not really Carl's fault for making use of the rules as presented - it is the fault of the ruleset. Carl's abuse may be frowned upon, because it "doesn't make any sense," but it is allowed because it is in the rules, which are a mechanical abstract representation of the "reality" we're playing in.

"In-game justification" is - presumably - a reference to story reasons, but there is no ruleset-based reason for this to be necessary, and hence is not required, from my stance. If the justification is not rules-based, it is not solid enough for me; it is too easy to manipulate such non-mechanical means, and you get into a rather fuzzy area that is generally unpleasant to deal with and adjudicate.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

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.

Cool idea. I'd play in that game!

 

[yesnomu]

Feats do not begin to cut it. If characters are balanced by thier core abilities (powers) there is no reason that every class cannot opt to study any skill without penalty.

Not a fan of any other D&D edition, I guess? It makes some sense to me that certain classes will be naturally inclined to be better or worse at some things.

Not really. Any game with classes and levels have sudden leaps of improvement which are not realistic but are simply part of that process. Hotswapping is different.

But the retraining only happens at level-up. So it's just another part of the improvement leap, which you're ok with for some reason. (Why, incidentally? They both sound fairly immersion-breaking, to me.) What's different about this part that it's so offensive?

Is it just that you've internalized the idea of a level-up as natural, but not that of retraining? Neither is especially faithful to reality.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Not a fan of any other D&D edition, I guess? It makes some sense to me that certain classes will be naturally inclined to be better or worse at some things.

But the retraining only happens at level-up. So it's just another part of the improvement leap, which you're ok with for some reason. (Why, incidentally? They both sound fairly immersion-breaking, to me.) What's different about this part that it's so offensive?

Is it just that you've internalized the idea of a level-up as natural, but not that of retraining? Neither is especially faithful to reality.

I am a fan of skills but not that much of any implementation D&D has tried so far (at least without tinkering)

It has nothing whatsoever to do with reality. If Joe the wizard gains a level and suddenly knows a new spell he has added knowledge and power to his character. This is addition. If Joe has to give up and old ability to learn the new one that is subtraction. This process is simply spinning the wheels. 1-1=0. Joe is not learning, he is being reprogrammed. I don't think its fair to require that a player forget skills in order to learn new ones. In games I run it will not happen. In this repect, D&D is being "dumbed down". At least the characters are.

It occured to me that this process might have been implemented to help make how much alike higher and lower level powers are a bit less obvious.

 

[Lacyon]

I don't think its fair to require that a player forget skills in order to learn new ones.

Happily, this isn't required.

 

[Shroomy]

It occured to me that this process might have been implemented to help make how much alike higher and lower level powers are a bit less obvious.

Personally, I think the rules were implemented so that players could reverse decisions that they were disatisfied with for some reason. I'd give more credence to your idea if low level powers and higher level powers resembled themselves more often.

 

[yesnomu]

I am a fan of skills but not that much of any implementation D&D has tried so far (at least without tinkering)

Fair enough. I don't really think the game would be broken if all skills were class skills for all classes. It just never really bothered me.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with reality. If Joe the wizard gains a level and suddenly knows a new spell he has added knowledge and power to his character. This is addition. If Joe has to give up and old ability to learn the new one that is subtraction. This process is simply spinning the wheels. 1-1=0. Joe is not learning, he is being reprogrammed. I don't think its fair to require that a player forget skills in order to learn new ones.

Both addition and subtraction are basic arithmetic. I don't really see a difference where character building is concerned. And neither seem like a problem at all if your concern is not immersion/versimilitude, which I guess it isn't for you.

So if your only problem is that you don't like losing abilities you once had, how would you keep the game balanced while still letting you mitigate bad choices? If 3.5's Toughness is making me curse the loss of a valuable feat, how would you balance getting something better with not losing the original choice?

If your answer is "I wouldn't" (either to allowing the change or balancing it), then that's fine. It just means we don't see eye-to-eye on game design.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Fair enough. I don't really think the game would be broken if all skills were class skills for all classes. It just never really bothered me.

Both addition and subtraction are basic arithmetic. I don't really see a difference where character building is concerned. And neither seem like a problem at all if your concern is not immersion/versimilitude, which I guess it isn't for you.

So if your only problem is that you don't like losing abilities you once had, how would you keep the game balanced while still letting you mitigate bad choices? If 3.5's Toughness is making me curse the loss of a valuable feat, how would you balance getting something better with not losing the original choice?

If your answer is "I wouldn't" (either to allowing the change or balancing it), then that's fine. It just means we don't see eye-to-eye on game design.

Well....I wouldn't. Seriously though, I wouldn't worry about cursing the loss of a valuable feat either. I guess I just have more fun organically building a character through play than optimizing for the moment. My characters are not high performance vehicles. If my character is not as "ZOMG da bomb" as I could make him at each and every level of play then I can live with that.

As a DM I would use a system that permits character growth and development and not require such reboots to maintain a reasonable balance.