The retraining rules in PHB II

[harperscout]

Morning all,

I am just curious whom among us has read and/or implimented the retraining and redesign rules in the PHB II (retraining allows characters to switch out one feat, some skill points, a class feature, a language, or their speciality schools, when they gain a new level. Redesign allows characters to change up their race and class but requires them to undertake a quest.)

I am considering implimenting the retraining rules from that book, so I was wondering if anyone has had any horror stories allowing characters to swap out feats, skill points, or class features? I am mostly concerned that these rules will hurt the storyline, and will impact character role playing as well.

Any thoughts? Thanks ahead of time!

 

[shilsen]

I've allowed players to swap skills and feats and class levels before, and it's never been the least bit of a problem. I'm not sure what you mean by the rules hurting the storyline. Unless you're writing a novel for a large number of fans who you expect will complain about continuity, there should be no problem.

 

[Piratecat]

I've done this before, too -- both swapping out individual feats and letting someone rebuild their character from scratch (after a life-changing in-game event). Both of them have only improved my game.

 

[Crothian]

Like PC, I've done this. I watch over it to make suer the player isn't abusing the rules and is making choices based off of character and not pure power.

 

[Rashak Mani]

A quick read told me the rules as written seem very free form and up to DMs judgement... do they seem balanced ? Any recomendations ?

 

[shilsen]

A quick read told me the rules as written seem very free form and up to DMs judgement... do they seem balanced ? Any recomendations ?

I think it's fine to let PCs swap out skill pts, feats, classes, etc., without using any rules for doing so, so I don't think any added rules for it could unbalance things. I'd recommend letting PCs make such changes without bothering to use retraining rules, or use the retraining aspect as flavor rather than mechanically.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

We've somewhat always had redesign rules.
If you had a feat or skills you never used or were not happy with, you could swap them out.

Any affect on the story would be minor if there were any.

 

[MarkB]

I like the rules, and intend to allow them in most of my future campaigns. To me, they don't break story continuity or suspension of disbelief any further than the existing class and level rules.

 

[evilbob]

It -is- possible to get a little bit of an advantage when specifically planning on using this strategy, since some feats are more useful at low levels than upper levels. Skill focus and the PHB toughness are two feats in particular that are really good at level one and really horrible at high levels; intentionally switching these later levels is much more useful than being forced to stick with them. On the other hand, it actually gives players a reason to take these awful feats, so it's probably not too bad.

The item creation feats are also open to a slight bit of abuse, since you could take a feat, make a bunch of items, then swap it out for something else; you still are getting the "benefit" of the feat, but now you have a different feat. And if you want to make more items, just switch it back next level.

Overall, however, I like the concept a lot and I believe that the flexibility is more than worth the occasional min/max abuse.

 

[0-hr]

I've decided not to use the retraining rules except as a guideline for when the DM decides that a character has a reason & opportunity to change something.

Though I often allow things along the lines of retraining, I don't like the rules in the PHBII because they make a player entitiled to retrain. Before, the DM was the nice guy when he let a player occassionaly swap out a feat for something else. Not the DM can only be a bad guy by taking away what is now a WotC-given right.

I also feel that the retraining rules encourage power gaming. Why not take Toughness at 1st level for your wizard and then swap it out for Empower later on? It's a great munchkin move and there's no rules-reason not to do it (and sure, players will come up with a great story reason to support the munchkinism, but it is still munchinkism).