Discussing 4e Subsystems: Retraining

[Cadfan]

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

Right, and as your president I would cut your taxes down to negative fifteen percent while increasing expenditures on the troops and kittens and apple pie by a billionty dollars a year and simultaneously balancing the budget and paying off the national debt.

Now, back in the real world where aspirational statements do not substitute for solid plans, what would you actually do differently in order to allow growth and development, and would it permit players to get rid of unwanted prior choices, whether that be for mechanical reasons or roleplay reasons, and if so, how would you do it?

 

[yesnomu]

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.

Alright, we know where we stand. That's cool, I respect your opinion. It's not really about optimization for me, I just think that retraining is a ton easier for people new to the game, and a lot more lenient if they make bad choices. It hurts my immersion a bit, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to lower the learning curve. Like I was saying before, about Ray of Frost and Thunderwave. I didn't have any experience with 4e wizards before this game, and I'm glad that the game didn't force me to stick with Ray of Frost when it became clear to me that it wasn't very useful for me.

Ideally, there would be no bad choices in an RPG, and anything you picked would allow you to contribute as much as you wanted. But I'm enough of a realist to doubt that would ever be possible, at least in any game with meaningful options available to players.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Right, and as your president I would cut your taxes down to negative fifteen percent while increasing expenditures on the troops and kittens and apple pie by a billionty dollars a year and simultaneously balancing the budget and paying off the national debt.

Now, back in the real world where aspirational statements do not substitute for solid plans, what would you actually do differently in order to allow growth and development, and would it permit players to get rid of unwanted prior choices, whether that be for mechanical reasons or roleplay reasons, and if so, how would you do it?

Well, if we need to get political............If elected I would kick all players who whine like little babies because they were not optimized at every moment in the campaign to curb and have a better campaign for it. Any player unhappy with a character is free to create another one.

I am Exploder Wizard and I approved this message.

 

[GlaziusF]

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.

And if Joe sells his subcompact Honda to buy a shiny Porsche, what difference does that make? He's still got a car.

 

[Thasmodious]

For one thing, that half level bonus to skills totally changes the meaning of what a trained skill represents. Adventurers are good at all skills. The trained ones are the ones where they spend a lot of practice, attention, and other effort. I can't see how anyone that could accept the half level bonus to all skills could also reject the retraining of skills. It sees to me that the former is more intrusive to representing the continuity of the campaign than the latter. ("So really? Your wizard spent six months and sea, gained two levels, and got actually got better at everything?)

This is very good perspective and an angle that hasn't been brought up in this thread. The trained skill marker only represents +5. Even by 2nd level that +5 starts playing a less significant role to the other midifiers, by level 4, with a +1 in two stats and +2 from lvl, the +5 won't make up half of some trained skills that mesh with primary abilities. A fighter's str based trained skill would likely sit at 4 (str) +2 (lvl) +5 (trained). From late heroic through paragon levels (where I imagine most retraining will take place), that +5 isn't as big a deal.

Carl the Climber at 9th level would have an athletics check somewhere around (+5 str, +4 lvl, +5 trained) +14. That represents a guy who is a pretty amazing climber, who can succeed at level dependent climb DCs in the thick of battle. But why is Carl considering retraining at 10th level? It's doubtful that if Carl has spent many a combat clinging precariously to cliff walls while fighting flying beasts that he is going to give up his advantage. Retraining is for things we don't find very useful, that we once thought we would. If Carl is looking to stop being as climby, it is likely because being climby has not been nearly as useful for him as he thought (and his DM should be smacked). So, he hasn't used it much. The in game reasoning for level based benefits has always been the same - it's assumed that PCs train constantly and levels represent that 'moment' where some of it comes together and improvement can be quantified. Retraining is the same.

Carl was once a great climber, but circumstances found him in cities and tight corridors a lot more than the wall scaling habits of his youth. He has learned a lot about urban life though, how to find things out, how to get the lay of a city quickly... Carl has retrained athletics to streetwise. He has not forgotten how to climb. He can still easily scale most walls or cliffs with his +9. He's just lost some edge (keeping his training current) because he is focused in more relevant areas to his current experiences and would find level dependent DCs are more of a challenge for him than they once were.

It's not just that it's easy to justify retraining, it's that it actually fits well into D&Ds system of abstracting character growth through the leveling mechanic.

 

[Imban]

It's not just that it's easy to justify retraining, it's that it actually fits well into D&Ds system of abstracting character growth through the leveling mechanic.

The "problem", such as it is, is when people are playing Carl the Climber and, hearing that the next adventure is going to be urban, immediately retrain Climbing to Streetwise, then as soon as it ends retrain it back to Climbing.

 

[Mallus]

The "problem", such as it is, is when people are playing Carl the Climber and, hearing that the next adventure is going to be urban, immediately retrain Climbing to Streetwise, then as soon as it ends retrain it back to Climbing.

You could always ask people not to do that.

It's what I do in the 3.5e game I've been running for almost 5 years. Players are free to rewrite/respec their PC's, but I ask them to refrain from doing so solely to gain an advantage in specific upcoming encounters. It's worked like a charm so far...

 

[Turtlejay]

The heart of the problem exposed? Those opposing retraining seem to play with uberpowergamers and twinks and that is bound to irritate anyone. In my current campaign we just hit 3rd level. The wizard is switching one at will to scorching burst. Is this a game breaking problem? NO! Nor is it narratively that difficult to explain away. The ranger discovered that careful attack was pretty rotten and wants to retrain. Since 95% of the time he is doing twin strike anyways, it is likely that nobody at the table will even know that he retrained!

And how are your players 'finding out' about future adventures? If they think they have you in a corner and they *know* you are doing x, then do y and suddenly the twikeriffic characters are on par with what they should be.

And honestly, having had a slew of 3.5 characters with less than stellar choices at early levels become baggage at later levels, I welcome retraining and it's warts to at least make me want to ressurect my characters again, rather than let them die to bring in an optimized newbie (usually he is named bob2, right, right?)

Jay

 

[Cadfan]

The "problem", such as it is, is when people are playing Carl the Climber and, hearing that the next adventure is going to be urban, immediately retrain Climbing to Streetwise, then as soon as it ends retrain it back to Climbing.

Since I'm the one who invented Carl the Climber, I'd like to remind everyone that the choice of doing this is entirely the player's responsibility. The rules can't render illegal every unrealistic decision a player can make. The players (and the DM) have to be relied upon to not do certain unrealistic things.

I'm filing this with Camel Joe, who's lived in the desert all his life and who has never seen a body of water larger than a shallow oasis pond, being trained in Swim. Rules to make this illegal are more trouble than they're worth, so you have to rely on voluntary compliance.

This is, by the way, one of the advantages of tabletop RPGs. A computer game doesn't have that option.