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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 249837" data-attributes="member: 172">I think you misunderstand the approach. It's not that the character "spontanously learns" within the mileu. It is merely that the character has a talent that has not been expressed in the game yet. Basically, what I am doing is saying that most character stats are subject to change until demonstrated... in otherwords, the character sheet is not the final word on what abilities the character really has, but what happens in the game is.Edit:A question you should ask yourself is "when does a character design decision become true/irrevocable." Let's say your DM hands out experience that night, your character advances, and you get a feat. You go home that night, and you add the new skills and feats to your character. The next day, you get to talking with one of the other players, who tells you about this prestige class that would fit your character so well. But since you already set pencil to paper, are you going to say "naw, I took the wrong feat last night"? I think not.AFAIAC, no character design decision becomes "true" until it enters the continuity of the game. If you contradict that continuity, THEN it becomes illogical. I find your claims that this approach is illogical unsupportable, because I am not changing the past, because it never was the past until it enters the continuity of the game.It's not like this technique would always apply. You typically only get one new feat every 3 levels. Taking a feat that you think will be useful and ends up just decorating the paper is worse, IMO, than tolerating the fact that the character sheet is not set in stone.Bifurcation. The methods are not mutually exclusive.Don't be so sure. I typically don't, because I consider spell selection to be an in-game choice vice a character design choice and thus less mutable. But there are cases in which allowing flexibility on that score results in a better game session than sticking to your guns would. See the Lady Despina's Virtue story hour for a glittering example.Could be. But like all things, DM fiat applies--and my players know that. I think are projecting the situation as rather more haphazard than it is. I have used this technique 3 times in the game that I can recall. But that is three characters that are more interesting for the effort, vice being saddled with abilities that in hindsight were ill-considered. I really don't think the game should be about punishing players for making less than optimal character design choices. I say give them a little leeway (a little, mind you.) The game is supposed to be fun.</blockquote>

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