I was talking to one of my players and a question on retraining came up. The question is this" can you retrain at anytime during a level if you have not already retrained for that level?". My first impluse is no but, after talking it out and looking at the book, I am inclined to say you can. It does state (pg. 28 of PHB) "Every time you gain a level you can retrain your character" and "you can make only one change at each level". This is all up to intrepretation but I am interested on what others think.
Retraining question
- Thread starter Belares
- Start date
abyssaldeath
First Post
PHB 27 said:
This paragraph pretty much tells you that when they say "gain a level", they mean the act of leveling up your character.
keterys
First Post
Fwiw... I'd suggest just allowing retraining up to any sane amount whenever it makes people happy. As long as folks don't abuse it, I'd rather someone tossed out the feat or power they just took ('Blech, that didn't work like I thought it would at all!') than sat on it for a level or more, possibly screwing up other things.
That's how I do it, as well. The pcs can take their retraining option after a long rest.
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Yeah, I pretty much agree. As long as the player isn't holding back all the time simply because they can gain some flexibility by doing so. With people who haven't played 4e before making up a character the first time I'm even willing to sometimes let them change their minds on something if it doesn't seem to suite them, again as long as they don't try to take advantage of it. I'd present it as more a DM favor than as a standard house rule, that way people won't count on it, but if you see that they player isn't satisfied with a power, then give them the option. If they play a lot and should know what they want though, I'm a bit less forgiving. One level isn't always a whole lot to wait.
eamon
Explorer
I'd allow most retraining (even of class features and minor point-buy choices) so long as the retrained character remains faithful in flavor - i.e. minor differences are OK, big differences need some explaining. It's not just that people change their minds, it's also that some choices are mostly irrelevant at low levels, and later, at high levels, with splat-books that weren't out for the low levels, they suddenly do.
If a player is better off rolling a new character, the game isn't healthy. (In a similar vein, a DM should make sure he either gives out sufficiently relevant loot, or more loot than per the guidelines, to give chars some flexibility). If the changes aren't abusive (say, dumping Con in heroic, but suddenly maxing it out when hammer rhythm comes by), then I don't think it's problematic to allow retraining beyond that in the books. It makes for a better balance between old+new characters, and it avoids chars becoming stale.
If a player is better off rolling a new character, the game isn't healthy. (In a similar vein, a DM should make sure he either gives out sufficiently relevant loot, or more loot than per the guidelines, to give chars some flexibility). If the changes aren't abusive (say, dumping Con in heroic, but suddenly maxing it out when hammer rhythm comes by), then I don't think it's problematic to allow retraining beyond that in the books. It makes for a better balance between old+new characters, and it avoids chars becoming stale.
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