D&D 5E (2014) Starting Feat - new players vs. veteran players

[Larnievc]

I let my group redefine anything they like. I could be a feat or spell or sub class option.

I don’t see how keeping them bound to a decision they regret months ago is fun for them.

 

[DND_Reborn]

If that were put into a book as a rule, I'd ban it at my table instantly. So what if your character takes a less than optimal path? Decisions have consequences.

This is a good point actually. We generally allow major changes only in session 1 or 2, and minor changes up to level 3. Once you select your subclass, your character is defined and if you really don't like it that much, make a new character you will like. Your "penalty" is you come in with a slight setback in XP, but that isn't really a big deal and good role-playing can make up that XP quickly.

 

[Blue]

If that were put into a book as a rule, I'd ban it at my table instantly. So what if your character takes a less than optimal path? Decisions have consequences.

This thread is explicitly about finding a balance between new players and old. So I have to assume you mean this for a brand new player as well as an experienced one.

What I am reading from your comment is you would actively penalize a new player for the entire life of their character for not having the a high level of system mastery and for their lack of practical experience.

That seems rather unwelcoming to grow our hobby.

 

[Blue]

I like it. I agree with @Umbran's general point that you don't "need" formal rules to make character tweaks or rebuilds, but giving the players explicit permission can help make them feel empowered.

AL seems to disagree with you. They have formal rules for changing the character around.

At the very least, would you put it in as advice?

 

[Blue]

Always has been and always will be. New players to D&D (or nearly any tabletop RPG) ALWAYS need to accept that they will be doing a LOT of reading and learning. The rules books are hundreds of pages. Even if they are not going to play a full caster themselves they are doing themselves a severe disservice by not reading up on and paying attention to how full casters work within the game.

Pish tosh.

Expecting all new players to have read hundreds of pages before ever playing is not only a huge barrier to entry, it's not at all founded in real life.

I can give anecdotal examples left and right, including four that I run for and one I play with, but I urge you to talk to people who can come to D&D via friends, if they read the whole book before making their first character.

I'm sorry, I have to dismiss this out of hand. "Some" definitely will. "All" or "most" is a different story.

If experienced players failed to advise new players about avoiding the worst of poor feat choices nobody at the table gets to act surprised when characters don't work well.

In some circumstances, sure. Someone getting invited into a home group. But a big place lowering the barrier to entry to new players is AL. If a new player shows up at a FLGS wanting to try this new game, you're saying in every case the expereience players will take time fromt he slot to instead critique the character, change it mechanially without alienating a new player who just made a character and may resent "oh don't play a beastmaster and you should have picked a race that gives you a bonus to dex and while you may want a high CHR it leaves you with odd numbers so you should redo you scores like this".

And any player can say at any time, "This PC isn't working out. I'm going to make a new one." The player can then effectively just make the SAME character, just with one or two different choices. Only thing that prevents that kind of thing from happening is an obnoxious DM, and better DM's will simply say, "It's still early in the progress of the campaign, just go ahead and change your feat."

So it's better to only have the option to trash a character, rather than the options to trash it OR fix it.

And "Sir Brandar the II, exactly the same as Sir Brandar but I changed a few mechanical things" is now a best practice.

And the exact thing you are having an experienced DM saying is what I was saying all DMs could be saying. So the player-turned-DM who's nervous and not confident in making rulings and doing everything by the book has guidance that's okay.

No DM worth gaming with really wants to be the one who says, "Ha! You were stupid enough to pick a lame feat! Eat it! It doesn't matter if you spend the rest of the campaign feeling like your PC sucks. The rest of us get to wallow in your disappointment and ineffectiveness and laugh at you. Stupid newbs..." If there is a change to be made it is to simply add relevant advice along these lines prominently in the DMG.

This is a quote from this thread, today, where a DM is saying exactly what you said no DM would ever say:

If that were put into a book as a rule, I'd ban it at my table instantly. So what if your character takes a less than optimal path? Decisions have consequences.

 

[Blue]

Yep. So, when my group picked up a new system (Ashen Stars) a couple years back, I told them, "Folks, some things in how you built your character you might not like. Talk to me if you aren't satisfied, and we can work stuff out."

There you go - explicit permission without a game rule.

But that explicit permission is only for your game. Not every DM will do this. An example I used earlier was the new player-turned-DM who is not confident in making rulings and sticking as close as they can to the books.

I don't understand why something that you point out several times as something reasonable DMs do is suddenly not a reasonable rule if put out there so that newbies, both on the player and DM side, have it in front of them as an option.

 

[Blue]

Retraining feats as their own special take? Why should feats get special retraining and other choices not? You cannot rethink your subclass and it's a much bigger early decision that feats. Whst about subclass choices like totem abilities?

Respectfully, the post was about getting feats at/near character creation. When you talk about getting subclasses before feats that's not the case in what is being discussed.

I in no way was advocating or not advocating retraining subclass. But that's a choice that a brand new player will make (again, baring exceptions) after they have some practical experience with their character under their belt. They will uniformly be in a better place to understand the mechanics of what are being offered (which don't always match with the vision the fluff promises) specifically as it applies to a character they have been playing for the last two levels.

 

[Blue]

This is a good point actually. We generally allow major changes only in session 1 or 2, and minor changes up to level 3. Once you select your subclass, your character is defined and if you really don't like it that much, make a new character you will like. Your "penalty" is you come in with a slight setback in XP, but that isn't really a big deal and good role-playing can make up that XP quickly.

So it sounds like you already do what I was suggesting - allow new players to tweak their characters after they hit play and they have a better understanding of what how it actually all fits together.

 

[DND_Reborn]

So it sounds like you already do what I was suggesting - allow new players to tweak their characters after they hit play and they have a better understanding of what how it actually all fits together.

Yep. When we began our table about a year ago, the DM and myself were the only two experienced gamers. The five others we've had come at one time or another were all newbies, not only fresh to 5E but D&D and RPGs in general. Even he and I were new to 5E! We've lost two (one moved away, another had romantic differences with a player who is still with us),

Now, even if someone brings in a new character like I mentioned in my other post, he has a session or two to make major changes, minor tweaks for slightly longer as long as the DM approves. However, once the character seems "set", you are stuck with what you have.

But, as I said, you can always have a character leave and bring in a new one if you aren't happy with what you have. Our DM might make you wait a session or two until he can write one character out and bring in a new one, but otherwise you are free to change characters at a whim.

I am currently playing my second character in the campaign. The first went off with another group when our party split. I might play him again someday, the DM might use him as an NPC, or he might fade away into obscurity...

 

[TwoSix]

AL seems to disagree with you. They have formal rules for changing the character around.

At the very least, would you put it in as advice?

Oh, absolutely. I don't have a problem with formal rules; informal rules are really only good for groups with already high levels of trust. And even then, a formal rule will help players who are less comfortable speaking up and "asking for favors", as it were. This is especially true if the change in question might not be viewed as "power neutral". There are already rules in the PHB for changing your known spells, for example; I can certainly see why a player might be leery of asking for additional changes beyond those already within the scope of the rules because of a concern of looking like they're powergaming.