D&D 5E Training to Level Up

[aco175]

When we used to play with training, one of my favorite sessions involved a dream-training session. The party came to a monastery of some sort and were expecting to start training the next morning, but overnight we were attacked in the rooms we were resting in. It worked out well since there was a few parts of the encounter where each class were able to use their skills. The thief needed to disarm a trap that enclosed his room and the mage needed to arcana which spell he needed to escape his room before both were able to assist the rest of the party.

We do not use training now and I'm not sure if that is good or not based on above answers. It did lead to great NPC interaction and allies. PCs received quests and met foes, or at least frenemies, there training on their own. Overall it led to a better world around the group.

The problem was that it sucks not being to level up because you need to go find someone to train. We used to have it get harder to find someone as you go higher in level since you needed a higher level NPC to train you. We did allow you to pre-train a level to counter this.

 

[Horwath]

Training to level up after you got that exp seem downright dumb. You already learned better fighting by fighting a dozen of ogres 2hrs ago. Long rest is sufficient.

Only training would be for getting exp while in downtime.

 

[jasper]

I did training in 1E/2E. I dropped the need for the trainer. Roll 1d4 for number of weeks. I forget the gp cost. But this was after they had leveled up, and more of a calendar time waster and gp drain than anything else.

 

[the Jester]

I used the 1e training rules briefly (in the 1e era), but discarded them very quickly upon discovering that they didn't fit well with 1e's xp system- for instance, a rogue needed 1,251 xp to hit 2nd level, and you got 1 xp per gp you earned, plus xp for defeating monsters; but you needed 1500 gp to train to level 2, which meant that you had to have earned at least 1500 xp. And the odds were very good that you'd earned several hundred xp for killing monsters, too. So you were getting close to th 2,501 xp you needed to level to 3rd before you could pay for training to 2nd.

I've never used training times since, although I do use the downtime training rules for 5e (and have expanded them to include pretty much any proficiency and sometimes other special abilities). I think instead of "you must train to level up", I'd probably use a "train for bonus xp" system in 5e. You would need a higher-level member of your class as a trainer (which might be a big issue for some classes very quickly), and could earn 1 xp per day by training. It would cost at least 1 gp per day; the higher level the trainer, the more expensive it would be.

OTOH if you want to use "must train to level" rules, then watch out for the party to have to stop what they are doing to go train, especially at low levels. You might consider a sort of "partial level without training" system in which they gain new HD and hps, but nothing (very little?) else until they train up.

Forcing pcs to train before leveling has serious pacing implications for your campaign. If you want to mark the passage of time and see years pass between first level and 20th, that's probably a plus. If you want a fast and furious campaign with lots of time pressure, it's probably a big negative. It really depends on your playstyle. But yeah, "We're in the dungeon and we need to go train" is something you can definitely expect to see if you're using xps.

Milestone leveling would probably eliminate a lot of the problem, but it's not appropriate for all playstyles. (Personally, I am not a fan of it.)

 

[JonnyP71]

I stuck with having to pay to gain levels for one key reason - the published adventures were written with that in mind, which I believe, is why they were laden with magic items and treasure. We frequently had the scenario that a PC had enough XP to gain a level (especially low level Thieves as per The Jester's post above), but not enough gold to pay for it - which meant that they had to sell a magic item if they wanted to train. This had the beneficial effect of whittling down the magic item supply in the party, and keeping them somewhat cash-poor at lower levels.

We played U1 - Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh using 1E rules recently, and despite being thorough in their searching of the house and ship, this is precisely what happened - with a Ring of Protection being sold to pay for 2 PCs to gain levels.

 

[AngryTiger]

I like using training to level up. I use it mostly for pacing to create downtime between adventures and have years or decades pass during a campaign. The quick advancement from level 1 to high level in month or 2 always bothered me a bit. It also depends on the type of campaign, if the campaign involves megadungeon next to(or under) a big city, character will advance pretty fast. If the campaign involves lots of traveling from one place to another, years can pass quickly without much playtime or experience gain. It also lets me plan my adventures a little easier, if i use training requirement to level up, i know that the character will be that level the entire adventure without chance to level up, and i can plan all the obstacles for that level.

 

[manduck]

My group has never used training to level up. We go with the "on the job training" lots of others have mentioned. Besides, if you go out and defeat a horde of goblins, or a few ogres or slay that dragon, what's some yahoo who sits around a training camp going to teach you?

We also file stuff like this under our "off camera" area of the game. We assume that the group makes repairs, resupplies, gets fed and rested, uses the bathroom or any other mundane tasks get taken care of in between combats, adventures or when taking a rest. Table time is for fun and adventure, not the boring stuff. No one cares if Superman stopped at the grocery store on his way home, just that he smashed that giant robot rampaging through Metropolis.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[l0lzero]

If I were to use training, then I would have characters require training at ASI levels; you train in an ability score(s) or a technique (feat). During this time, your class trainer will teach you concepts and ideas that your character will piece together throughout their experience adventuring. They would gain HD, proficiency bonus, learn new spells (as they gain a better understanding of the manipulation of magical energies), and new class abilities (as the metaphors and concepts their instructors taught begin to piece together in the character's mind). I feel that the ASI levels, varying wildly from class abilities (a fighter could take magic initiate druid, and their regular instructor wouldn't really have any good reason to be able to teach them that, barring special circumstances), are the most appropriate levels to require training for, aside from the subclass levels.

For a planned multi-class build, I would have the character still have an instructor who utilizes a similar build, and just make a name up for the build and call that their class. For an un-planned multi-class choice, I'd only grant them the hit die, proficiency bonus, and any abilities they could learn from another party-member (divide casting into arcane, divine, primal, and one like-type member could give basic instruction in the spellcasting, but restrict it to cantrips if the class gives cantrips, then there are classes that grant skill proficiencies, if a party member has the skill they want the other party member could teach it), and then make them search out a teacher and convince them (persuade, deceive, bribe, threaten, whatever) to instruct them, and then follow the above "at ASI level seek me out again" guideline. Feats you seek out specialist teachers for, pay them, and then they teach you the skill. I don't know what kind of timeline I see being appropriate. I feel like a month, flat, across all levels is appropriate, and during that month, you have to make time to spend two-weeks learning a feat as well, so you can only really rabble-rouse for a solid week when you get home, start training your main skill during your afternoons, then you start to take it seriously and start training during the day, and then for two-weeks your evenings are spent training a feat or ASI, and then to celebrate and get some partying in before you head back out, you start training in the afternoons and partying during the nights for the last week before you head out on another adventure. Gives you roughly 30 days to put towards a skill or tool proficiency as well if you don't spend all your free time carousing.


Tangent:
I have never run it the above way. I did run one game where it was the general consensus "on the job" style, that game was a side-scroller and I ran it like a cooperative Metroidvania game; you level up at the end of a fight or when you get XP sufficient to gain a level, you get full HP, and if you would get new slots, you get the slots you gain. I just wanted to see what kind of problems (aside from platforming with the way jumping works) a side-scroller design might pose, and without flat-out banning flying type effects, and radically changing jump mechanics (basically, no roll jumping, you jump x squares based on str or dex, far or tall it's squares equal to modiifer, but then you can actually do some pretty fun platforming, and archers are the straight up bomb to use as enemies when you can include so much more verticality in your encounters and limit the path options and maneuverability in general), I don't think it's particularly great. At low levels it's fine, you can have some really fun encounters, but once you start to get up in level, especially with the video game style buy whatever you want if you got the gold setting, things escalate quickly. Started them out at level 3, by 6 all but one person flew, and I gave him a hookshot type item because he was a cleric and had low str and dex and couldn't really platform very well. He rolled a lot of athletics checks to climb since he could just reach ledges with his strength. Flanking isn't as easy to set up either since melee tend to group up, which makes it less powerful to allow. Players start looking into ranged options as well really quick once they've been in a combat or two and realize that they're not always going to be able to get in to melee and get off the ol' stabbity stab.

 

[Tony Vargas]

5e finally brought us some nice downtime rules, so incorporating training into them shouldn't be hard. The main point of training in 1e was in large part to siphon off money so the adventurers would need to continue adventuring, and, along with exp for gold, emphasized the treasure-hunting aspect of the game both as goal, and as IC motivation. It also gave the party a reason to just not adventure constantly, so while some characters were training (everyone was on a different exp schedule, afterall) others could be doing spell research or overseeing the building of their castle or whatever - and the DM could have time pass in his world at a reasonable rate.

5e already lets you blow money on downtime activities, even if just living the good life for a while, and, since gold is divorced from both exp and magic items, it doesn't have a strongly-implied economy to gauge the cost of training against - so any cost should be tailored to the individual campaign. Time to train could be a way of rendering adventuring careers less meteoric for DMs who wanted longer storylines (campaigns covering years or decades) and/or to cut into the use of downtime for other purposes.