The retraining rules in PHB II

[Ics]

I tend to agree more with Ki Ryn, that the retraining rules could be abused, but with a group of players that i am familiar with, i wouldn't mind giving them this freedom. I've never used the rebuilding rules, but retraining can be used to change the purpose of a character (for instance, if the role the character fills is already filled by another PC) to fit another niche, rounding out the group and allowing everyone to have more fun.

 

[Pickaxe]

Though I often allow things along the lines of retraining, I don't like the rules in the PHBII because they make a player entitiled to retrain. Before, the DM was the nice guy when he let a player occassionaly swap out a feat for something else. Not the DM can only be a bad guy by taking away what is now a WotC-given right.

I also feel that the retraining rules encourage power gaming. Why not take Toughness at 1st level for your wizard and then swap it out for Empower later on? It's a great munchkin move and there's no rules-reason not to do it (and sure, players will come up with a great story reason to support the munchkinism, but it is still munchinkism).

Well, the rules are in PHB II, not a core book, so they are effectively at the DM's discretion anyway (beyond Rule Zero). So, there's no "entitlement" unless you grant it.

I also don't think these rules actually encourage power-gaming; they just provide another avenue for the "power-gamer" to exploit. It's not as if power-gaming wouldn't exist without them.

We've started to use retraining, and, overall, we have no problem with it. It encourages characters to take feats that have utility limited to certain levels. It allows players to adapt their characters as they learn more about the game, rather than having to live with a bad choice. And it gives parties flexibility to adapt to a changing campaign.

--Axe

 

[DarkMaster]

I also feel that the retraining rules encourage power gaming. Why not take Toughness at 1st level for your wizard and then swap it out for Empower later on? It's a great munchkin move and there's no rules-reason not to do it (and sure, players will come up with a great story reason to support the munchkinism, but it is still munchinkism).

I think it's actually good. With this rules there is almost no difference between a character that was actually played from level 1 and one that is created from scratch at a higher level.

So the power gamers have less a reason to let die their initial character to come back with a better one. Also I think the rule specifically says that you can only swap a feat with one you could have take at that moment, so no toughness for weapon supremacy

 

[Someone]

I used them a couple years ago, when the party decided that they needed a better cleric and I let the ftr/clr to swap one or two levels of fighter for cleric levels. There was no problem.

Retraining seems a good solution for poor though concepts, or player regret (it can save a lot of character creation time if you allow players to retool their characters a bit), but as it´s been said several times the players shouldn´t be counting on it as a way to powergaming.

 

[evilbob]

One extremely big loophole:

Casters are technically able to retrain spells known. This goes over and above the normal retraining for bard/sorcs, but it seems to imply that any caster can retrain spells.

If you're a wizard, you can copy all the spells you know into scrolls, then "retrain" and learn new ones, and then relearn all the ones from the scrolls you created. Rinse, repeat, know all spells. This should probably either be more clearly forbidden or errata'd.

 

[MarkB]

One extremely big loophole:

Casters are technically able to retrain spells known. This goes over and above the normal retraining for bard/sorcs, but it seems to imply that any caster can retrain spells.

If you're a wizard, you can copy all the spells you know into scrolls, then "retrain" and learn new ones, and then relearn all the ones from the scrolls you created. Rinse, repeat, know all spells. This should probably either be more clearly forbidden or errata'd.

The retraining option allows you to swap spells known. That term is never applied to wizards - they have spells in spellbooks and spells prepared. Therefore this retraining option does not apply to them.

 

[evilbob]

The retraining option allows you to swap spells known. That term is never applied to wizards - they have spells in spellbooks and spells prepared. Therefore this retraining option does not apply to them.

Ah good - that did seem horribly wrong!