That's not a core rule, right?
Why not make the cost and time fixed? Seems more fun, than Player A needing to pay double as much and take double as long for his level up than Player B just because he rolled worse.
Nope. Not core. It is a home brew rule based on (1) the training for levels variant in the DMG, (2) with pricing adjusted based on a suggestion by [MENTION=12377]77IM[/MENTION] in another thread I started (
click here for his post), (3) and
EN5ider #23 - Master & Apprentice: Gaining New Levels With Style. I replaced the EN5ider "mojo" mechanic with an award of inspiration for a exceptional training results. Going into the full details would be tangent for this thread, but you are correct. My rules for training to level up are very much home brewed.
Now, I've found that in discussions like this I often have the concern raised that I will be harming the fun by using rules that lead to unequal results, especiall if the rules do not give equal opportunity to all characters. May it has something to do with my only having played OD&D and AD&D (1e) before a long period of time with no D&D, but this way of thinking feels alien to me.
While I like the modernization of the rules, bounded accuracy, and the overall better balance of modern D&D, even in 5e two characters are not going to have equal opportunity to do all things unless they are playing clones.
My rules are certainly more "fair" than OD&D and AD&D that capped levels for certain races, had race requirements for certain classes, and which had different XP requirements to level up for each class. I'm not bringing any of that into 5e. I'm simply using a mechanism that will make it possible for training to tougher (more time and more money needed to level up) if you roll poorly on training roles and also makes it possible for training to go very smoothly (less cost and time) and result in perks and inspiration.
I mean, in the spirit of "fairness" should I do away with all rolls for selling and buying non-mundane items. Just remove CHA roles for bargaining?
If my players hated this, sure, I could see sticking with a base non-variable cost and making the roles only apply to whether or not they get perks and inspiration from training. But the variable cost and time rewards players to take non-combat skills. If concerns are raised, rather than completely scrapping variable costs and time for training, I might provide other ways to improve a characters chances of good results during training. Already I allow inspiration to automatically bump a character up to next result tier. I could also see allowing self-study (Research downtime activity) to be used to help with training roles.
If a halfling school of Divination Wizard with the lucky feat and a saved point of inspiration has a chance for exceptionally good training results that no other character can match, well, I'm okay with that. It is his time to shine and anyone who has gone to school long enough has met someone who seems to "get all the breaks", breezing through their studies and careers on dumb luck.