House rule: When do you need to train?

[DragonBelow]

Hi, I was talking to my friends about training below are my opinions, what does everyone think?

Personally, I would like a system of training that makes sense and
accommodates for lack of downtime, and role playing, without being boring.

The following comments are my thoughts on the matter, not a proposal for us
to adopt in our game:

You need training each time you learn a new skill, with certain exceptions,
like Craft (Blacksmith), it can be taught by another PC during adventuring,

You need to train for feats, however training every feat is not fun, here
are some suggestions:

* Once you've seen someone perform a feat, it becomes available for you to
learn on your own.
* If a feat begins a chain or tree of feats, you only need to train for the
first one if you want to learn it. The others represent techniques you can
develop on your own.

You need to train for new base classes, a base class can be taught by
another PC during adventuring (this includes feats and skills as well).

You always need to find a master if you want to learn a Prestige Class.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I have found that detailed training rules tend to bog down or get abusable.

My prefered, for my normal campaigns, is to enforce 1 month of downtime per current level. This means to gain second level you spend one month in training.. when gaining 7th level you have to spend 6 months in 'training'. Learning a new skill requires having a 'teacher' available who has ranks in the skill, whether another PC or simply working with an artisen off-screen. This avoids the 'where did you learn *that* language from?' problem..

This has worked alright and kept the 'poof, I gained 20 levels over the summer!' out of the picture. It also gives the magic users time to do any item creation type stuff or for PC's to chase thier own agenda's.

Currently I am running the War of the Burning Sky, and this method would not fit into the flow of the game at all

 

[Flynn]

I have found that detailed training rules tend to bog down or get abusable.

My prefered, for my normal campaigns, is to enforce 1 month of downtime per current level. This means to gain second level you spend one month in training.. when gaining 7th level you have to spend 6 months in 'training'. Learning a new skill requires having a 'teacher' available who has ranks in the skill, whether another PC or simply working with an artisen off-screen. This avoids the 'where did you learn *that* language from?' problem..

This has worked alright and kept the 'poof, I gained 20 levels over the summer!' out of the picture. It also gives the magic users time to do any item creation type stuff or for PC's to chase thier own agenda's.

Currently I am running the War of the Burning Sky, and this method would not fit into the flow of the game at all

Wow! My normal pattern is just like this, except substitute "day" where you have "month". It works well, though I might try "week" instead, as you seem to be doing well with the extended range here. (A month per level is just too long for the type of games I like to run, I think. I will consider it, though, just in case the idea starts to appeal to me.)

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I like the extra time to put seasons into play... basically using months the fastest advancment takes a year to level 5 {1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10 months).. 2 months of adventuring..

My last campaign was set in Eberron and the post-war state meant a 'war fo the roses' feel where conflict followed the agricultural seasons.. fighting off brigands around harvest time and focused on planting in Spring.. leaving winter to huddle together for warmth/survival and summer for political wars/conflict/adventures.

It also helps develop long term plots as NPC's and nations have time to react to the meteroic rise of the PCs...

 

[RangerWickett]

I really struggled with the decision of how aggressively to pace War of the Burning Sky, but it ultimately came down to the thought that in a war, people wouldn't be interested in down time. Actual military boot camp is pretty swift, and this is on the job training. If that means you go from a grunt to a bad-ass mofo in a year's time, so be it.

One of my friends used to joke about 'Uncle Bob,' a commoner who falls into a portal to the Abyss, and comes home a month later, a 1st level commoner/19th level cleric.