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Retraining has been live for a little bit and I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts and experiences with it so far.
Speaking personally, it's allowed me to course correct on my L15 Oracle (my first PFS character) and fine-tune his feats/spells after EoTT, something absolutely appreciated on a character with 150+ hours game time invested.
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Speaking personally, it's allowed me to course correct on my L15 Oracle (my first PFS character) and fine-tune his feats/spells after EoTT, something absolutely appreciated on a character with 150+ hours game time invested.
I had a very similar situation to this. Having played an "APG and earlier" Cavalier built around Bodyguard, having an archetype that does what I did better was irritating. Then, before playing him in the 13-14 S5 special, I retrained him into an archetype. It cost a LOT of prestige (and limited me from going into a different archetype that I wanted, but Houndmaster has a LOT of class abilities.) All in all, he's still horribly outdated on abilities and pales in comparison to AC-boosting PCs now, so he's all but retired, but it made him feel a little more legitimate.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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I've retrained 15 hit points over 9 levels. It's cost me... (math without the sheets)... 45 prestige and probably about 4000 gold? I don't recall exactly at what levels the retraining was done at.
I think the gold price is very reasonable -- I've effectively gotten Toughness a second (and almost third) time for 4000 gold, which is a steal. The prestige cost is also at a fair level. It's not too step to prevent me from doing it, but it's enough to make me not want to do it on every character -- which is a good thing.
I think retraining has been implemented quite well in PFS!
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Speaking personally, it's allowed me to course correct on my L15 Oracle (my first PFS character) and fine-tune his feats/spells after EoTT, something absolutely appreciated on a character with 150+ hours game time invested.I had a very similar situation to this. Having played an "APG and earlier" Cavalier built around Bodyguard, having an archetype that does what I did better was irritating. Then, before playing him in the 13-14 S5 special, I retrained him into an archetype. It cost a LOT of prestige (and limited me from going into a different archetype that I wanted, but Houndmaster has a LOT of class abilities.) All in all, he's still horribly outdated on abilities and pales in comparison to AC-boosting PCs now, so he's all but retired, but it made him feel a little more legitimate.
I've retrained two characters. It allowed me to correct poor feat choices on my Sorcerer (now level 13). I think Dodge became Quicken Spell and Extra Arcana became Uncanny Concentration (itself and its prereq not great feats, but they save me from having to make a concentration check when flying around on my magic carpet).
The other character I retrained was a level of Fighter on a Fighter 1/Oracle 5 into a level of Warpriest, because it's conceptually and mechanically the better choice, even with the uncertainty on what might change for the class. I was considering a Cleric dip anyway, since it's a negative energy based character (Black-blooded curse), and I was trying to figure out how to get a negative energy equivalent to lay on hands. Thank you, Fervor.
I've thought about many other retrains, but I have ultimately decided against them. Getting rid of Spit Venom on my Nagaji Monk, for example. Conceptually, I love it, but the mechanics of it make it close to useless for a character that already has Stunning Fist. If I ever do retrain it, it will be to Toughness, because he'll have been captured and enslaved by the Dark Naga again. Out of cruelty, they'd remove his venom sack, and the entire experience would result in him emerging tougher than before.
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Retraining came and went. The apocalypse that folks were moaning about never occurred. Life is good.
I'll save my I-Told-Ya-So's for another thread. =P
Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
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Retraining came and went. The apocalypse that folks were moaning about never occurred. Life is good.
I'll save my I-Told-Ya-So's for another thread. =P
If you want to say I told you so for a post made 9 months before ultimate campaign was released, then go ahead I guess. If you take my post you linked in context, it is talking about 1st level retraining being added to the guide before Ultimate campaign was even on our radar for PFS.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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@trollbill Did you find the PP/GP costs reasonable? At level did you retrain?
Yes and no. I think the retraining cost was fair but I felt a little gipped due to a quirk in the rules. The character I wanted to retrain was level 9.1 when the retraining rules came out. I wanted to train out of an Archtype but it gave me a necessary feat. Had I just hit 9th I could have simply chosen that feat as my 9th level feat and would have only had to retrain out of the Archtype, but I was one adventures into 9th and didn't want to wait another 5 adventures to get the feat back. So I felt a little gipped in that regard.
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I know of 2 cases where players didn’t get the memo about days = PP cost since it’s not written that way in the campaign book they thought just pay the cost and change it. When they asked me to GM sign off they were completely unaware of the PP cost. I didn’t even get to the part about did they actually own the ultimate campaign and did they have it with them. So far I have not signed off on a legal change yet.
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I've retrained one character. He is a paladin/monk Champion of Irori. At level 5 he was monk 4/paladin 1 so as to benefit from the Monks Ki pool. After he got 2 levels of CoI ( and hence the Ki pool) he retrained a level of monk to paladin to get Divine Grace and Lay on Hands.
Retraining definitely let him get the best of both worlds. At quite a cheap cost for what he gained.
I think the PFS implementation of the base rues is good but I think the base rules are too good.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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I've used it extensively since UC.
I think the GP cost (and everything has a GP cost even if not listed) and the PP cost is reasonable.
I find myself wanting to spend more PP, so the limiting factor is by far Prestige.
If it were not limited by PP, then it would be broken and I'd have spent thousands on it.
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I think it is working as intended :)
I made a mistake with the development of my cleric. Luckily retraining allowed me to re-do my class level dip and stick to my niche better. This has meant a better character in combat, so he's more survivable. Sometimes you have a plan for how your character will operate but the game has other ideas. Retraining has been good to erase mistakes when they're made.
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I'm surprised that more people aren't talking about spell retraining for their spontaneous casters. I’ve retrained several low level spells for my bard and find the cost to be a fantastic deal. Getting rid of now-worthless 0 levels spells, like Daze, to replace them with potentially-still-useful spells, like Message, is something I am definitely enjoying.
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I've retrained a Feat on one of my characters into a very necessary Toughness. That's the extend of my retraining to date, but I'm exceedingly grateful for that alone.
I'm considering a more drastic rebuild of a level 5 character that I haven't played since January of last year (and hadn't played for four months before that).
I'm also considering retraining a couple levels and/or Feats in my freshly minted level 12, correcting a few mistakes I've made along the way.
The price seems quite balanced to me. The gold is trivial; the PP cost is tough but fair.
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I've used retraining two times. Once, on my level 9 Paladin of Iomedae, removing the Sword of Valor archetype (it's awful!).
The biggest retraining was on my level 16 Wizard (first ever PFS character, whom I've always roleplayed as a Signifier, so when Paths of Prestige came out and I was already playing EotT, it was pretty annoying. Although quite expensive (41 prestige!!), it allowed me to me to retrain 6 class levels, 3 feats and 1 class feature to make him Wizard 10/Signifer 7.
It's a definite worthwhile addition to the campaign.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Florida—Melbourne
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I'm surprised that more people aren't talking about spell retraining for their spontaneous casters. I’ve retrained several low level spells for my bard and find the cost to be a fantastic deal. Getting rid of now-worthless 0 levels spells, like Daze, to replace them with potentially-still-useful spells, like Message, is something I am definitely enjoying.
That's because:
Upon reaching 5th level, and at every third bard level after that (8th, 11th, and so on), a bard can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows. In effect, the bard “loses” the old spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell's level must be the same as that of the spell being exchanged, and it must be at least one level lower than the highest-level bard spell the bard can cast. A bard may swap only a single spell at any given level and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for the level.
Why would you spend gold and PP on something you can get for free?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I know of 2 cases where players didn’t get the memo about days = PP cost since it’s not written that way in the campaign book they thought just pay the cost and change it. When they asked me to GM sign off they were completely unaware of the PP cost. I didn’t even get to the part about did they actually own the ultimate campaign and did they have it with them. So far I have not signed off on a legal change yet.
I've had two. (Not counting Ksenia) Amusingly, one person bought the PDF then and there (for 10 bucks, it's a good investment even 'just' for PFS)
Also had to explain to a player *why* retraining is the way it is, as well as the honour system. :-(
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I'm surprised that more people aren't talking about spell retraining for their spontaneous casters. I’ve retrained several low level spells for my bard and find the cost to be a fantastic deal. Getting rid of now-worthless 0 levels spells, like Daze, to replace them with potentially-still-useful spells, like Message, is something I am definitely enjoying.That's because:
Upon reaching 5th level, and at every third bard level after that (8th, 11th, and so on), a bard can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows. In effect, the bard “loses” the old spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell's level must be the same as that of the spell being exchanged, and it must be at least one level lower than the highest-level bard spell the bard can cast. A bard may swap only a single spell at any given level and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for the level.Why would you spend gold and PP on something you can get for free?
Obviously, I meant in addition to the free retraining. The free retraining is very limited. One can completely readjust one's low levels spells for a very reasonable cost.
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Thank you to James Risner who pointed out the FAQ that states you can't replace base class levels with prestige class levels.
That's pretty disappointing! I don't understand why the FAQ isn't more along the lines of: "You can retrain a base class level into a prestige class level if your base class satisfies all the requirements for entering into the prestige class." as opposed to the blanket ban.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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I've used retraining only on feats so far; my melee cleric gave up Extra Channel (which he was never using) to get Additional Traits (for some very on-theme selections). My Eldritch Knight retrained Additional Traits into Additional Traits so I could take advantage of Magical Knack becoming legal mid-career, and also retrained Reach Spell into Quicken Spell because what he was doing with Reach Spell stopped being fun/interesting/worthwhile about 3 levels ago. :/