Jester David
Hero
How would you handle retraining in 5e?
Has anyone written up anything?
Has anyone written up anything?
Retraining??
- Thread starter Jester David
- Start date
Li Shenron
Legend
Normally I dislike retraining options.
Players retrain mostly for 3 possible reasons:
- they made a mistake
- they get bored with their choices
- they have a devious plot to exploit retraining rules
I don't think it's easy to get bored in 5e, considering that you always get something new at every level. If you really are bored, retraining a couple of things is probably not enough, so I'd suggest to just make a whole new PC to replace the current.
If one of my players genuinely makes a mistake, for example has chosen a character option without realizing that it was going to be of little use in the current campaign, I don't have problems in flat-out allowing to swap it with something equivalent, tax-free.
I don't think we need rules for that. I'd handle it on a case-by-case basis, just wait until a player happens to ask if it's possible.
Settling rules for retraining has one major disadvantage for me: it publicly advertizes that retraining is an option. Maybe nobody was thinking about retraining, and after you mention the rules now people start thinking about it, and the powergamer certainly starts brewing the devious plot above. That's why I prefer to just not mention it.
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BTW, I am not completely sure, but I think that the only retraining option appearing in 5e core book is that of replacing one known spell with a new one for all classes with limited spells knowledge except Wizards (thus Bards, Rangers, Sorcerers, Warlocks, Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters). However IMHO this is not truly a retraining option, but something more, because you don't have to replace the spell with another of the same level! If you have higher spell slots now, you can drop a weaker spell in exchange for a stronger one. That's more than retraining, it's an actual strategic feature.
