[+]Training and Reward, not Assumed Advancement

[Lanefan]

Honestly, training aside, this sounds a bit like the old school "you only earn xp for what you do" approach instead of the more modern "everyone gets xp at the same rate". In other words, actually use xp; don't give it to absent pcs; don't use milestones or story based advancement; and add training time and cost back in. I like the first half of it, but adding in training time and costs is... ehh... a bit problematic.

I like all of it.

For example, let's say you are going to require one week of downtime to gain a feat. (An arbitrary amount of time, I know.) Does that include ability score increases? When only one pc qualifies to gain a feat, what do the rest do with that time? What if all of them qualify but only one has enough money to pay for the training?

Ability score increases should IMO just happen, separate from feats and anything else; on the in-fiction assumption that the character has been working all along to improve that stat and now here's the result. ASIs should also IMO not be on a predictable schedule; instead you roll on each level bump (or equivalent) to see if your stat has gone up on, say, a 25% chance, when it does you don't get to roll next level for that same stat but can begin rolling again the level after. End result: some people will get lucky, some won't.

When only one PC needs training, the rest can spend that time doing whatever they want - carousing, info-gathering, treasury division, or even adventuring.

If they can't afford training then they just might have to forego it until they've acquired the funds somehow. Or their trainer(s) might demand a service in payment: "I'll train you now on the binding condition that the next thing you do in the field is task X I heed done", or similar.

Are you allowing pcs to gain training in a feat irrespective of whether their level allows it?

That would depend on whether feats/abilities are level-tied or not in the system in use.

I'll also point to the downtime rules for gaining proficiencies, which already exist (250 days, 1 gp/day), though I think by RAW they are only for tools and languages. You could easily adapt them to allow for more skills, weapon and armor proficiencies, and the like- but then, do you care if the pcs take 9 years off to gain proficiency in ten things? How does this compare to just buying/training in a feat for armor proficiency?

The type of things that would use that 250-day guideline would generally be things that could be learned side-along with other activities. For example, someone in the party could slowly teach you a new language over the course of 250 days of other activities e.g. adventuring, travel, etc.

Things that need actual training, such as most new abilities, feats, etc., instead require a short period of dedicated time in a safe place (and probably with a professional or more experienced trainer); field activities don't usually allow this.

 

[Lanefan]

The only problem with it is that some skills you can end up using much more frequently in the field than any training supplies, of course. Horsemanship is an obvious case, but if you spend a whole lot of time out in enemy territory perception skills and the like apply too, or in a seaborn campaign, Seamanship. But then, nothing is going to be simple about this sort of thing.

Perhaps...or while you might never use a boat or ship while in the field, you spend every moment of between-adventures downtime out on the water honing your boating skills.

Or while you'd never take a horse into a dungeon you still otherwise spend as much time with/on horses as you can, slowly increasing your riding/horsemanship skills as you go.

That way, if-when the need does arise in the field for those skills, you got 'em.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Perhaps...or while you might never use a boat or ship while in the field, you spend every moment of between-adventures downtime out on the water honing your boating skills.

Yes, but the point is sometimes you have less training time than you have field use. With some skills its pretty consistent in a lot of situations.
This is even more true with characters who simply don't have a lot of downtime.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes, but the point is sometimes you have less training time than you have field use. With some skills its pretty consistent in a lot of situations.
This is even more true with characters who simply don't have a lot of downtime.

Yeah, the latter can be a problem if the DM (or the players) make it so. Sadly, hard-line adventure paths (a la most of Paizo's or WotC's offerings) tend to frown on downtime; and they've become a popular type of campaign.

That's one thing I really like about training rules - having to stop and train tends to force parties to take some downtime; even more so if not everyone has to train at the same time.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The only problem with it is that some skills you can end up using much more frequently in the field than any training supplies, of course. Horsemanship is an obvious case, but if you spend a whole lot of time out in enemy territory perception skills and the like apply too, or in a seaborn campaign, Seamanship. But then, nothing is going to be simple about this sort of thing.

That is mitigated somewhat in Crossroads by the fact that running a boat would fall under the Vehicle Ops skill, and the Water vehicles specialty, and so any training in VO would add to checks even without training in WV. (The system runs on d12+skill rank number of d6+specialty rank number of d6, with a success ladder with 4 tiers plus “critical”)

Perhaps...or while you might never use a boat or ship while in the field, you spend every moment of between-adventures downtime out on the water honing your boating skills.

Or while you'd never take a horse into a dungeon you still otherwise spend as much time with/on horses as you can, slowly increasing your riding/horsemanship skills as you go.

That wa, if-when the need does arise in the field for those skills, you got 'em.

Yep.

Yes, but the point is sometimes you have less training time than you have field use. With some skills it’s pretty consistent in a lot of situations.
This is even more true with characters who simply don't have a lot of downtime.

The training dynamic certainly works better in a game that assumes plenty of downtime.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, the latter can be a problem if the DM (or the players) make it so. Sadly, hard-line adventure paths (a la most of Paizo's or WotC's offerings) tend to frown on downtime; and they've become a popular type of campaign.

You don't have to have an adventure path to have that; just a setting/situation where there's a lot of intrinsic time pressure. Most campaign-quest setups for example.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You don't have to have an adventure path to have that; just a setting/situation where there's a lot of intrinsic time pressure. Most campaign-quest setups for example.

One way to ensure that extended rests are taken is to make them the only way to get important resources back, and to provide rules and guidelines for Rivendell type “Havens” mid adventure where downtime stuff can happen with the help of allies to speed it up from normal.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Blades in the Dark is excellent at mechanizing downtime actions. Characters have choices to heal, train, or work on some other kind of project, and there is mechanical support more or less for resolving all of those choices. I did try to port something similar over to a b/x game that I was running, but it was a little hard because advancing outside of explicit level advancement is not really supported (there is a supplement called Old School Stylish that attempts to make b/x work with modular advancement via training). I would expect trying something similar in 5e would you would run into similar problems, especially given that 5e is concerned about game balance.

Another way to think about "advancement" is simply through diegetic character growth. In a OSR game this is usually applied less to training than to sword and sorcery style magic items and situations. That is, you 'advance' by acquiring sometimes overpowered magic items, or items that have a benefit but also a cost.

Heroes of Myth & Legend works like this in a sense. Players define quests, accomplishment of a quest results in a boon. Every major boon received grants a level increase. So all advancement is inherently diegetic. The nature of the boon is based in the fiction and most of what you get from advancement is the boon itself. There's no 'training' per se, but a quest consisting of finding a master to teach you some specific thing is pretty natural in this system.

 

[Thomas Shey]

One way to ensure that extended rests are taken is to make them the only way to get important resources back, and to provide rules and guidelines for Rivendell type “Havens” mid adventure where downtime stuff can happen with the help of allies to speed it up from normal.

I wish I thought that was true, but my observation has been that any time there's any time pressure, one or more players will find any downtime unattractive unless they're actively forced to it (travel by ship, for example).

 

[Lanefan]

I wish I thought that was true, but my observation has been that any time there's any time pressure, one or more players will find any downtime unattractive unless they're actively forced to it (travel by ship, for example).

One of the players in the game I play in is like this: if it's not adventuring, it's not of interest.

Bugs the hell out of me, to whom downtime is often more interesting than adventuring once the characters gain enough levels and wealth (which ours have in that campaign) to be able to make a difference in the non-adventuring world.