So...where does retraining fit in?

[eamon]

Sounds like a "go to thumb by way of elbow" method of doing it, in my opinion. I have a harder time with figuring out why a mid-or high level group would just accept a new person into their ranks, than just handwaving that they had one feat instead of the other all along.

Why even handwave? I think it's totally normal for people (and PC's) to change a little all the time. What's wrong with a PC just changing his focus from hitting hard to hitting accurately? It's just fine-tuning his fighting style, which makes perfect sense both in-game and meta-game. Even if he does it every day I don't think it would really be a problem. It's only a problem in the first place because people feel uneasy "breaking" the rules, which is why this kind of flexibility should be explicitly encouraged.

 

[Balesir]

Retraining seems to work excellently in 4e, but that is in part due to how the rest of the system works. How it will play out in 5e is hard to say without knowing how 5e character building and advancement will work.

One thought/concern I can see is that it may be something much more desirable for fighters and rogues than for wizards and clerics, if 5e is going back to "vancian" casting. A major element/use for retraining in 4e seems to me to be to bring the variety of spell effects that wizards were "used to" in older editions in a controlled and limited way. An upside is that the other classes also gain this sort of flexibility; a fighter whose schtick used to be roundhouse swings can shift to trip-based attacks later on, for example, which feels generally more rounded and organic than being stuck to one "speciality" for the whole of the character's career.

Wizards with "vancian" spellbooks have no need of this - they get all the options, all the time. But fighters with "manoeuvres" and rogues with "tricks" might well feel a lot more "organic" if they can switch out those schticks from time to time as they level.

 

[pemerton]

I think all the players in my game have used retraining at one time or another. We've also had one PC rebuilt from the ground up, when the hybrid rules came out (went from ranger multi-classed cleric to hybrid ranger-cleric).

One player in particular uses retraining extensively, to tweak his PC from level to level as his conception of what he wants his PC to do/be changes, or if it turns out that an option didn't work as well as he hoped it would.

It doesn't seem to do the game any harm. It certainly increases the number and variety of mechanical elements that see play. I can see how this helps WotC's bottom line (in selling those mechanical elements) but it also contributes in a modest way to fun at the table too - part of the attraction of a mechanics-heavy game, after all, is seeing the mechanics in use.

There's no denying that this retraining player is also the player who takes the most interest in mechanical minutiae in the game. He is the same player who, playing a quickdraw samurai in Rolemaster, had Excel graphs to determine his optimal distribution of combat bonuses between initiative, to hit, to crit, and defence for various numbers and varieties of foes and situations. But it is also this same player who circulated among the group the most recent and up-to-date version of the players NPC/location/god/stroyline tracking lists. So there's no evidence at all that his interest in the mechanical side of his character is at odds with his participation at the table.

Ultimately, if you want to play a game in which players don't pay regard to the mechanics, you need to play a mechanics-free game. D&D is not that game, and has not been for some time now (I'd say at least since the Survival Guides were published for AD&D).

 

[eamon]

There's no denying that this retraining player is also the player who takes the most interest in mechanical minutiae in the game. He is the same player who, playing a quickdraw samurai in Rolemaster, had Excel graphs to determine his optimal distribution of combat bonuses between initiative, to hit, to crit, and defence for various numbers and varieties of foes and situations. But it is also this same player who circulated among the group the most recent and up-to-date version of the players NPC/location/god/stroyline tracking lists. So there's no evidence at all that his interest in the mechanical side of his character is at odds with his participation at the table.

This sounds very familiar.

 

[pemerton]

This sounds very familiar.

Do you mean that you've also GMed a player like that? Or that you are a player like that?

I've personally played in games where I've had the best handle on both the mechanics and the storyline and the moment-to-monent play at the table. In my own case, simply because I was the most experienced player in the group.

 

[Blackwarder]

I played in groups that tended to change their characters between sessions without telling anyone... Was a complete disaster.

Warder

 

[Balesir]

I played in groups that tended to change their characters between sessions without telling anyone... Was a complete disaster.

Yeah... I can see how that would be a problem!

I like 4e's approach to retraining; it happens at level-ups (so you are changing the character a bit anyway) and it allows some control and predictability (normally, only one character ability changes at a time) but still lets players tweak and play with their characters. And, if a player is really having major issues, as a DM I'll happily discuss bigger and more fundamental changes to let a player have fun.

 

[pemerton]

I like 4e's approach to retraining; it happens at level-ups (so you are changing the character a bit anyway) and it allows some control and predictability (normally, only one character ability changes at a time) but still lets players tweak and play with their characters. And, if a player is really having major issues, as a DM I'll happily discuss bigger and more fundamental changes to let a player have fun.

I'm happy as a GM to permit changes outside the rules where something has gone wrong in PC building (eg I've allowed four stat-reallocations, I think, as it turns out that the original choices have been slightly invalidated by subsequent feat paths opening up, etc).

But the good thing about ordinary retraining is that I don't have to get involved. I'm frequently being surprised by the new things the players can have their PCs do. Overall I find 4e to put a very low burden on the GM as far as oversight of PC building is concerned, and I quite enjoy that!

 

[eamon]

Do you mean that you've also GMed a player like that? Or that you are a player like that?

I've personally played in games where I've had the best handle on both the mechanics and the storyline and the moment-to-monent play at the table. In my own case, simply because I was the most experienced player in the group.

Both. The players that have the most convoluted, power-gaming PC builds tend to have decent flavor & backstory as well, and track the campaign occurences well.

In my anecdotal evidance it's not so much experience as interest: some people come for the game; others for the social evening (an exaggerated dichotomy, but you get the idea, I hope...). If you're there for the social factor, you might still be fun to have around, but your characters won't be as well built nor the backgrounds as fully-fledged.

It's one of the reasons I want simple characters to be workable in the next-gen D&D - something like the 3e fighter, but preferably even simpler . It just helps keep everyone at the table happy with the minimum of fuss. That way the powergamers can tweak every knob (and frequently make minor retrainings), and the guys that want the social experience or just the story can take a simple build.

 

[eamon]

I played in groups that tended to change their characters between sessions without telling anyone... Was a complete disaster.r

What kind of changes did they make, and what problems did that cause? (And why did that seem OK to them at the time?)

I mean, this doesn't sound like a rules-problem, but I'm still curious about the context - I've never had the experience...