Proposal: Retraining for New Material

[Oni]

I think there should be opportunity for mechanical rewrites of characters as there will be a regular influx of new material. This is essentially retiring a character and making another of the same level but keeping the same backstory and gear and conditions. I think continuity of characters should be rewarded rather than forcing retirement to tryout new things.

I mentioned this back on page 1, when this topic was first floated and it didn't gain much traction, but the talk seems to be kind of heading in that direction again.

Not allowing it punishes established characters in regards to new materials. Arcane Power is a great example of this, there are a lot of great feats in there that fill out the terribly shallow caster choices prior to that, however they seem to have gone nuts on the stat prereqs. So if you want to play your wizard that you've been playing for the past year as effectively as the fellow that decided to retire his character after AP's approval and make a wizard you essentially have to nuke your backstory.

I think it also allows for some interesting things that 4e itself is kind of missing. You can have fallen paladins, clerics who've lost their faith and moved on, or wizards who delved too deep and have warped the magic they're tapping into. It allows you to have a fundamental shift in a characters story, something you can't have just throwing out the old backstory.

As currently presented I think the charter does nothing to prevent the optimizer, since continuity is probably not his top concern, he'll just make a different character. It just limits people are more attached to their character on a story level than a mechanical level.

 

[covaithe]

Someone ought to make a proposal for allowing changes of ability scores in the overhaul. There seems to be support for it.

As for occasional mechanical changes... Yeah. I see the need. We're in a situation kind of parallel to MMORPGs, where they do allow occasional rejiggery. But -- and correct me if I'm wrong; I'm years out of date on the MMORPG scene -- there's usually a cost of some kind, or a limit on the frequency of overhauls, or something like that, yes?

For our needs, I'm thinking in terms of a ritual powered by residuum, in an amount keyed to your level. It ends up costing about as much as retiring, at least in terms of wealth, but keeps continuity. I'd think that it would probably only be good for changing things that can't be changed by level-up retraining, like ability scores or class feature choice.

This isn't a proposal or anything, just thinking out loud.

 

[Don Incognito]

Let's talk WoW for a second.

In WoW, you can "respec" your talents for a fee. This is the D&D equivalent to paying gold to re-select powers and feats. Class, though, CANNOT BE CHANGED. If you roll a Warrior to 80 and decide that you really wanted a Shaman, you need to roll a Shaman.

Really, though, this is not an MMORPG, this is D&D, and the rules are different here. I think the main reason people are against retraining to change class is fear of a person wearing classes like a person wearing clothes (What, you want a paladin for this adventure? Sure! Let me just retrain to paladin and we'll be on our way!).

By the same token, I think you should be able to change your class without having to roll up a new character if a new class gets approved that you like better, or if the class you chose just isn't working out the way you'd hoped.

So how's this: you can retrain to change class and stats, but only if you can present your case as to why you want to, and the community will vote to let you or not. This solves everyone's problem; now Sessadore won't need to start over at level 1 for his Avenger, he can just retrain Raiyek (perhaps Raiyek spent some time at a monastary, adopting new combat styles).

 

[Atanatotatos]

An approval on a case-by-case basis seems reasonable to me.

 

[renau1g]

I'd suggest a limit of 1/character overhaul. You really shouldn't need it more than once. If Raiyek is really an Avenger, but due to the lack of it being available Lord S. made a Pally, then he re-trains as one. If in a year all of a sudden Lord S says no wait he's actually a [insert PHB3 class of awesomeness here] then the judges say sorry you already played that card if you want to play new PHB3 class you have to make a new PC.

Again thinking out loud and this by no means is meant to be directed at Lord S, but rather to use a more specific example than just PC X & player Y.

On a side note, I see Murphy more as an assassin than warlock, maybe I need to bug a friend to download that for me

 

[Lord Sessadore]

I think it might be a good idea to have a "once per character" stipulation on class changes, if we do decide to allow them in general. That would easily prevent people changing classes like changing clothes; if you get one class retraining in a character's life, then that stops what Don was talking about.

Another idea to throw out there - what if class retraining required that the end result character be multiclassed into the original class? For example, if you wanted to change your class from Ranger to Rogue, you need to become multiclassed into Ranger. You could retrain the multiclass feats as you level up as usual, I just thought it'd be a neat way to make the change a little more gradual.

Here's something else to consider. What if the character originally was multiclassed into the class they want to switch to? Do we just straight reimburse those feats and let them pick other ones? If we went with my required-multiclassing idea above it's simple enough, but if we don't we should consider how to deal with this.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

Again thinking out loud and this by no means is meant to be directed at Lord S, but rather to use a more specific example than just PC X & player Y.

No worries, Raiyek won't be changing classes anyway. Most I'd do is multiclass to Avenger; he's very much a paladin

On a side note, I see Murphy more as an assassin than warlock, maybe I need to bug a friend to download that for me

I can see Murphy as an assassin, he is a rather dastardly fellow. I should get my hands on that class too ... when does it come out?

 

[Ozymandias79]

My suggestion is that we allowed ONE(!!!) Overhaul per User/Player that must take place when you lvl up Character and it cannot be on an adventure.


Ozzy

 

[renau1g]

Allegedly October in Dragon.

Man I miss my hard copies

 

[fireinthedust]

PH2 upgrade: Woo hoo! Yeah, I'll do that. I have a paper to get in, then I'll go over the current rules.

so PH2 isn't even approved yet? Is there a thread? I'll have to speed this up.