D&D 5E Downtime Training for Feats?

[ArwensDaughter]

I'm wondering about possible rules for using downtime training to develop certain feats, instead of/in addition to swapping ASIs for feats. Has anyone done this? Any guidance on how to work out the math/requirements?I see that the Skilled feat lets you choose 3 skills/proficiencies, so I would suppose tripling the costs of training for a skill would be one approach.

 

[MechaPilot]

I allow PCs to train in feats, ability score increases, as well as skills and other things. I generally don't bother with an increased gp cost because I make the character find a mentor, which may require persuading the mentor to teach her the feat in question. It pretty much works out as if it were a treasure reward, as if I were handing out a magic item (although the gp and time training costs from the PHB are retained).

 

[Athinar]

I would stay with the books, they have been play tested, but if you do it, then do it for the creatures too

Learning a language is what 300 days and 300 Gps; so for the ASI - 300 days and 3000 Gps, maybe or 30,000 or 300,000 or even 3,000,000. the price depends on how much treasure you give out

if you are not using the book for the ASI who knowns how much treasure you give

 

[Giant2005]

Page 231 of the DMG has rules for being trained in feats.

 

[77IM]

I allow this as a house rule at my table although no-one has accumulated enough downtime for it yet. It also costs twice as much as a skill (in gold, not downtime) and you can only do it once per 4 levels. I also allow people to train weapon and armor proficiencies and spells known, but again, it just takes so long that it hasn't become relevant yet.

 

[Jester David]

30 days should be more than long enough. Otherwise you risk slowing down the campaign or making fears less attractive than ASI.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm wondering about possible rules for using downtime training to develop certain feats, instead of/in addition to swapping ASIs for feats. Has anyone done this? Any guidance on how to work out the math/requirements?I see that the Skilled feat lets you choose 3 skills/proficiencies, so I would suppose tripling the costs of training for a skill would be one approach.

IIRC to learn a tool or language it takes 250 days of downtime. If you equate a skill with them and a feat to 3 skills, then you get about 2 years to learn a feat.

But in addition, chapter 8 of the DMG says you can let the PCs learn a feat (or skill) as a reward for a quest, rather than standardize how to get more skills/feats than the ones you get from levelling up.

Consider that those times for downtime activities in the PHB/DMG are meant to be reasonable from a narrative point of view, but are impossible to "balance" simply because downtime is a resource as vague as it gets... one gaming group might have LotR-style adventures where action is separated by months or years of idleness, while another group might have an endless series of adventuring days where all you get is long rests. Those activities could have been balanced against each other, but to me it appears they preferred to just go with the narrative.

All said, the easiest and safest option IMO is just to grant the same boon to all PCs, and then wing the time to simply fit to whatever downtime you happen to have right now. Thus let every PC choose an extra feat and/or ASI, and count on the fact that there are feats to get various proficiencies (for those who aren't interested in a feat-feat). Make this happen when they do have reasonably long downtime and good facilities (e.g. they are going to stay at least a few months in a large city) and stress that there are favorable conditions (e.g. friendly trainers available), just to make it more believable, but don't worry about making it a formal rule.

Remember that if you make it a rule, then the players will believe that it is always repeatable, and this might work against you.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

It depends. How available is downtime in your game?

In a game where the players can say at any time, "After this, my character goes off and trains for 9 months", allowing downtime for feats is probably too excessive. Imagine a player that says, "My character trains for 10 years, now I have every feat."

In a game where downtime is extremely scarce, allowing downtime for feats might be OK.

Remember, though, that feats are supposed to be scarce. Most characters will only get 5 of them (more for humans, rogues and fighters; less for multiclassed characters). My feeling is that a player should not be able to get all the feats they want - they should be forced to choose, to accept the tradeoffs.

 

[ArwensDaughter]

Thanks for the input. The immediate context is that my (players') characters may well have some wait/downtime coming. They each received a high quality weapon capable of being enchanted, and are eager to make arrangements to have them enchanted. As part of their current adventure/quest, they will find a temple/magic school where that can be done, but it will take time. Even if they continue with other aspects of the adventure while this is happening (assuming they have the gp to pay for the enchanting), they will have time on their hands if all 4 weapons are to be enchanted.

With access to both a temple/magic school and a healing temple during that time, it occurred to me that feat training might be an option for the downtime.

 

[Illithidbix]

I think saying the DMG has *rules* for training in skills or feats is a bit of a exaggeration. It briefly *mentions* it as an idea for an alternative reward on page 231, then points at a different set of optional rules for "Training to gain levels", which means you don't level up immediately... which has a chart about... how much time and gold it costs to go up a level.
It doesn't actually give guidelines about the cost/time to gain a skill or feat, or what the implications for allowing it to happen would be.

A tool proficiency or language isn't really a big deal (even if it still takes 250 days and 250 gold in the PHB)
It isn't *useless*, but it's not really an increase in "power" in the sense of increasing combat potency. It may provide *some* use in overcoming environmental or social challenges.

A similar argument could be made for Skills, even though their benefit (esp. with exploration and social encounters) is more tangible.

Feats however seem far more linked to class abilities, armour & weapon proficiencies, spells, ability scores and similar direct measure of a character's combat proficiency.
So yeah, if I gave players an extra feat, it would be with the acknowledgement I had permanently improved them, and I'd only do it for the whole party.