Retraining Powers - Need help

[jhilahd]

So I asked my group for updated character sheets, so I could have a backup copy in case anyone was out a game.
I haven't done this since we first started, as most of the time we ran "generic" replacements or had the absent player's character out of harms way.

I got my Fighter's character sheet in this morning. She using a homemade sheet with all her goodies and cross referenced pages, looks nice.
Then I noticed her encounter powers.

She had retrained(which I knew she was thinking about) her first level power. The kicker is the now has two 3rd level encounter powers.
This threw up a red flag for me, as I didn't think per RAW, you couldn't retrain like that.

At 1st level you get a 1st level Encounter Power. At 3rd level you get a 3rd level Encounter Power. If you want to retrain your 1st level power, you may pick another 1st level encounter power to replace it with, not retrain into another 3rd level power.

Or am I waaaay off base, and in fact you can retrain like that.

Basically, she has two 3rd level Encounter powers on her sheet, and I'm trying to sort out how. I assumed it was through retraining. If so, how?

This is, firstly, my fault for not staying on top of my characters and not catching it sooner. Because now I have to explain why I allowed it for the last 3 levels of play and didn't mention it earlier. Oy....

Help?

 

[Aspeon]

Your interpretation of retraining is correct- per RAW, you can replace a power with a power of the same level or lower. There is one way to have two powers of the same level, by giving up a higher level slot- at level 7, you could take a level 3 encounter power instead, if you liked them better than the level 7 options for some reason.

(What is a little screwy is that you can do something like this with feats. At level 11, you get one paragon tier feat, then can retrain one of your heroic tier feats into a second paragon tier feat now that you meet its prerequisites. But that's because powers have "slots" and feats don't.)

I'd talk to the player about it- just say "Hey, I missed this before", and ask her to find a level 1 encounter power that works for her. (If she was looking to retrain her old one, you could even look at the options and suggest one that might work better for her build)

 

[Rune]

She had retrained(which I knew she was thinking about) her first level power. The kicker is the now has two 3rd level encounter powers.
This threw up a red flag for me, as I didn't think per RAW, you couldn't retrain like that.

At 1st level you get a 1st level Encounter Power. At 3rd level you get a 3rd level Encounter Power. If you want to retrain your 1st level power, you may pick another 1st level encounter power to replace it with, not retrain into another 3rd level power.

Or am I waaaay off base, and in fact you can retrain like that.

You are correct. You can retrain down but not up. Or, to put it a different way, retraining does not allow you to build a character that you otherwise could not.

This is, firstly, my fault for not staying on top of my characters and not catching it sooner. Because now I have to explain why I allowed it for the last 3 levels of play and didn't mention it earlier. Oy....

Help?

Simple explanation: "I didn't realize you had done this. It's wrong, because [see above point], and for the sake of game balance and parity, you'll have to change it to something that's right. Sorry for any confusion, but think of it as an unintentional 3-level bonus."

 

[Mad Hamish]

You can't retrain a 1st level power to a 3rd level power,
The most likely situation is that they've misunderstood the retraining rules but it's possible they've picked up a level 3 encounter power instead of a higher level encounter power.
So check what other powers they have and see if that's the case

(my money would be on the misunderstanding retraining but ...)

 

[drothgery]

You can't retrain a 1st level power to a 3rd level power,

Well... that's not quite true. It's just that when you can retrain a first encounter level power to a 3rd level power, you could also retrain it to a 13th level power.