Retraining?

[Griego]

Haven't seen this come up yet... 5e should definitely consider incorporating retraining rules. As the composition of my group has changed from vets to a mix of vets and newbies, one issue that crops up is the newbies are reluctant to choose class features, feats, etc due to fear of picking "the wrong one." I hope the retraining rules from 4e carry over into 5e, regardless of the flavor or style the edition takes on. If not, I'm gonna house rule 'em in anyway. Thoughts?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Hmm, i generally don´t like retraining as a hard coded thing. I rather like story based retraining. Or upgrading of skills. But unlearning something on a level up is not so flavourful in my opinion.
I´d rather have not so many choices where you can do something wrong for beginners. And the possibility that you can earnnew skills through roleplaying... (maybe replacing one you didn´t use for a while)

 

[ahayford]

Why do you need rules for this? If a new player realizes they made a mistake, why wouldn't the DM allow them to change it? And for experienced players, it should allowed or disallowed at the DM's discretion.

 

[gloomhound]

I find retraining rules an unnecessary complication.

 

[am181d]

I find retraining rules an unnecessary complication.

Agreed. Really the most that's needed is a few sentences in the DMG that say "Players may want to change out a feat or skill here or there. Let them do it, if you don't think it'll cause too much trouble."

 

[Dragonblade]

Agreed. Really the most that's needed is a few sentences in the DMG that say "Players may want to change out a feat or skill here or there. Let them do it, if you don't think it'll cause too much trouble."

Players should always be able to swap out a poor feat choice, or skill point allocation, or whatever. You don't need retraining rules for this at all. Nor do I think it should necessarily require some kind of DM permission.

Generally speaking, why should a player be forced to stick with a feat choice or whatever that they are no longer happy with? That's my personal DMing philosophy. Now, granted if every session a player is showing up with a completely revamped character sheet, then I would have a talk with them about what the deeper issues are with their lack of satisfaction in their PC.

But if the intent in limiting retraining is to stop powergaming, I think thats a non-issue. The powergamers I know already map out their entire PC's progression from 1st to 20th level on an excel spreadsheet before the campaign begins.

In my experience, the only people hurt by disallowing retraining are usually the players who don't min/max and haven't memorized the books and thus make a poor choice they later regret. Why punish them for it?

 

[Tallifer]

Why do you need rules for this? If a new player realizes they made a mistake, why wouldn't the DM allow them to change it? And for experienced players, it should allowed or disallowed at the DM's discretion.

Indeed. Our group has always ignored the complicated restrictions on retraining. It punishes a player. I experienced first hand the pain of severely restricted retraining in the massively multi-player on-line roleplaying game Dark Age of Camelot: players were better off starting again on a new avatar. Eventually the gods changed the rules, but still not enough.

I can see however that many people are bothered by the unreal aspect of completely free retraining. How did my Warlord learn ritual magic and several rituals and then suddenly forget it? If I use my imagination, I can come up with a good answer (Vancian forgetfulness?), but some people will not be satisfied with that.

 

[the Jester]

I think retraining is a fine bolt-on option.

 

[delericho]

When I first read the retraining rules in 4e, I hated them with a passion.

Having played the game some and made some use of those rules... actually, I quite like them. They seem to work well enough, and allow for any mistakes in character generation to be gradually fixed.

Removing the rules, and instead suggesting that the DM should just allow mistakes to be fixed is okay, I guess... except that many DMs simply won't allow this. I think this is an area where perhaps the players should be empowered.

Actually, I might go further than 4e, and allow retraining to occur at the end of each adventure, and not necessarily just when the PCs level-up.

 

[Deset Gled]

Like others, I agree that retraining rules aren't completely necessary. However, it might be nice to have a short section on guidelines for it in the DMG. There should be some tips on checking the build to make sure it's still legal, such as making sure the character would have qualified for feats/abilities at the time they needed to be taken. It could also discuss things like how much retraining should be allowed before you start a new character, how to explain the training in-game, etc.

Basically, retraining should be "soft" rules, not "hard" rules. Optional, situational, and completely up to the DM, but still acknowledged as something that can happen.