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A question arose in our group about the retraining rules from Ultimate Campaign.

Retraining takes all your attention for 8 hours per day for a number of days based on what you're retraining. You can't perform any other strenuous activities while retraining, such as marching, adventuring, or crafting magic items. You can retrain only one thing at a time; you must complete or abandon a particular training goal before starting another one. Abandoning unfinished training means you lose all progress toward that training's goal and all costs associated with that training.

The question here is: what if you want to train twice in one day? Can you spend 16 hours in 2 consecutive sessions to decrease the number of days you have to spend training? It seems like the rules lean against allowing that, but there's nothing forbidding it either. The character in question also has a Ring of Sustenance, so he can rest between every session if that is relevant.

Zhayne and TriOmegaZero- I'm curious how the Paladin works in your alignment-free system, if he exists at all. I really like Paladins, so it would make me sad if getting rid of alignments meant getting rid of Paladins.

LordofBacon wrote:

Whether or not a Monk has to be disciplined is irrelevant to the alignment restriction. I've read and re-read the alignment section of the Core Rulebook several times, and the Lawful alignment says nothing whatsoever about discipline. The alignment restriction does mean that Monks have to be honorable, trustworthy, and reliable.

And I don't think that should be baked into the class, because you don't have to be honorable, trustworthy, or reliable to punch people in the face real good.

Nor do you have to be a Monk to punch people really good. Fighters and Barbarians can also make excellent unarmed combatants. That's what I mean about the system being flexible enough to allow plenty of creative freedom as is. Let's say I want to keep the alignment restrictions on Monks, and I have a player who wants to play a more chaotic unarmed combatant. There are still options for him available. This is basically exactly what you said that Monk[class]=/=monk[concept]. In fact I'm no longer certain where exactly the point of contention lies But I agree about the alignment restriction on the Monk being unnecessary and unhelpful.

Robert Carter 58 wrote:

It seems to me that you have a problem with the alignment system in general. Why not just remove it in your game.

Already did, thanks. Doesn't mean I'm not going to discuss it here. Sorry if that bothers you.

I'm interested in what your experience in playing without the alignment system has been, since I've never actually done that myself.

Whether or not a Monk has to be disciplined is irrelevant to the alignment restriction. I've read and re-read the alignment section of the Core Rulebook several times, and the Lawful alignment says nothing whatsoever about discipline. The alignment restriction does mean that Monks have to be honorable, trustworthy, and reliable.

The reason I disagree with the alignment restriction for Monks is because I think the flavor given with the Monk class is more open than just lawfully-aligned characters. I think that classes in general are pretty open concepts. It's more when you get down to specific mechanics that they have their own distinct flavor.

I use the alignment system, though I admit it's hardly perfect, and I prefer to keep alignments and class restrictions for the most part, like with Paladins. Of course, a GM running a home game can change both the mechanics and the flavor to suit his game, but if we're speaking in general or for the default Pathfinder setting, I think the connection between mechanics and flavor is something worth hanging onto.

LordofBacon wrote:

I'm not sure I see why people are so adamant that mechanics and flavor ought to be strictly separate. I don't see what you get out of that.

Creative freedom

Are you saying that if people adhere to the general flavor presented with the mechanics, they don't have creative freedom in Pathfinder? I would definitely disagree with that. It might be a bit more challenging to find the right mechanics to match with your concept rather than just arbitrarily change the flavor, but, at least for me, taking on that challenge has always led to more interesting, well developed characters.

Pathfinder has a wide variety of mechanics to build your character with, with a high degree of customization possible. Classes aren't so locked in to one concept mechanically or flavor-wise that you have to play them that way, and can't make your own character. Monks don't have a monopoly on "disciplined guy who punches people", nor do you have to be a "disciplined guy who punches people" to be a Monk. But if your character concept is "disciplined guy who punches people", I don't think it's unreasonable for that to be reflected in the mechanics of the character.

I think I've started rambling, so I will just say that I think the mechanics are versatile and customizable enough that you don't lose any significant amount of creative freedom by adhering to what flavor that the mechanics do have.

I'm not sure I see why people are so adamant that mechanics and flavor ought to be strictly separate. I don't see what you get out of that. Mechanics do have some flavor built into them. Not necessarily just one flavor or concept, but I don't think you get much if you just disregard the mechanics of the character when deciding fluff. The two work together to create an RPG.

I don't see how deciding you want to play a sophisticated, well-traveled character, then making him a Wild Rager Barbarian and dumping all his mental stats adds anything to the game. That's not to say that the Barbarian class precludes any idea of being intelligent or sophisticated, but you should build your mechanics to match your fluff, and vice-versa, IMO.

As to the OP, I think the alignment restriction on Monks is unnecessarily restrictive, as the Monk class is open to more concepts than Lawful Monks, so get rid of it in your game if you so desire. Alignments do have meaning, and they should, but if he's playing his character to his alignment (or his current alignment accurately reflects his character's actions, either way), then I don't think there's any problem.

I was reading through this thread, mentally weighing different arguments in a kind of distant, academic way. And then it suddenly hit me.

Oh my god. This is me. I'm doing this.

I realized that I had been subconsciously targeting a specific player in my games for purely absurd reasons, like his playstyle didn't conform to mine or he got into long-winded rules debates with me (which he usually won).

I don't know how this thread will end, in tragedy or punctuation marks, but I thought you should know, RD, that whatever else happens, you have helped one fool of a GM see the error of his ways.

Can a Barbarian with Jotungrip dual-wield two-bladed swords and get four attacks with them? And can you imagine Darth Maul trying that style of fighting?

I am very interested. I am thinking of making a Maenad Soulknife, who finds an outlet for his wild emotions by forming them into weapons.