I started thinking about this after playing PFS where item creation feats are banned. For my home game I thought it might be fun if they were not banned, but rare. This would help me control the scarcity of magic items, for one thing.
From there I thought why not extend it to all feats? This would act as an engine to drive NPC interaction and RP.
Leveling up would be as normal, and give you "feat slots". You would fill the slots by finding someone who knows the feat you want, and getting trained by them. This could provide seeds for all kinds of quests as well.
Would you enjoy this kind of game as a player?
Excuse the cryptic response but...
"Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
Someone had to invent the feat. Which means someone can re-invent the feat. Especially since feats are not entirely assured to be the exact same technique that everyone else practices but may have the same effect mechanically (perfect example would be Improved Unarmed strike).
Ashiel it's not cryptic, just very much already covered upthread :p
I have no objection to the need to take time to learn a feat or new ability. As long as the campaign supports taking that time, of course. If I can't take my important feat for 2 levels because we're so busy racing around trying to solve a crisis, and instead I spend those levels with an empty feat slot, I'd be very annoyed.
This.
More so if that happens to only some PCs while others find their teachers much sooner.
What could be a possible solution would be to allow the training in advance.
Like, if you know you will want to train combat reflexes some time in the future and happen to meet a trainer for it you take your training course and from then on are allowed to take that feat. Be it two days later or 15 levels later.
But that could lead to the fighter taking every training course he can get just in case he needs the feat some time in the future.
Another point that could get problematic is the option of retraining feats the fighter has.
If you can save up feat slots till you have the training, can you save up retraining bonus feats as well?
And if so under what circumstances can he retrain?
If he has a free retrain open and suddenly finds himself in need of some feat he has training in but has never chosen. Can he just go and say "I now choose re activate my retraining option to swap cleave versus feat xy, which I trained for last month"?
I started thinking about this after playing PFS where item creation feats are banned. For my home game I thought it might be fun if they were not banned, but rare. This would help me control the scarcity of magic items, for one thing.
From there I thought why not extend it to all feats? This would act as an engine to drive NPC interaction and RP.
Leveling up would be as normal, and give you "feat slots". You would fill the slots by finding someone who knows the feat you want, and getting trained by them. This could provide seeds for all kinds of quests as well.
Would you enjoy this kind of game as a player?
Excuse the cryptic response but...
"Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
Someone had to invent the feat. Which means someone can re-invent the feat. Especially since feats are not entirely assured to be the exact same technique that everyone else practices but may have the same effect mechanically (perfect example would be Improved Unarmed strike).
Ashiel it's not cryptic, just very much already covered upthread :p
That's what I get for just paying attention to your post. ^.^"
Another thought might be to use something like this to allow access to some of the regionally restricted feats: You find a trainer in or from that region who's willing to teach.
I wouldn't be using this in Golarion but it would let me do something similar to what your describing by restricting certain feats to make regions in my own setting feel more distinct. For example there is a large part of my setting where magic item crafting is a closely guarded secret.
That's what I get for just paying attention to your post. ^.^"
I usually just pay attention to your posts too (-_-)
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It's something you need to be very careful with. If this makes it harder to get a feat a player wanted to take (because they don't get along with the NPC teacher for example), you're basically denying the player his class/level abilities, which sucks.
Another risk is that by the time you've learnt all the stuff from level X, you're already level X+2 and haven't yet gotten to the level X+1 stuff. Especially if multiple players need to work to get access to new abilities, the effort might take longer than the actual level-gaining.
I had this kind of problem in a Mage: the Ascension campaign a while back; to learn new magical powers took a certain amount of time, but after a while the players had a 2-5 powers backlog; they'd already gotten the XP for the powers but couldn't spend it because there wasn't enough downtime. Sitting on XP you can't spend sucks.
But on the other hand, characters just magically hearing a big "Ding!" in the sky and getting new powers is weird too.
So, a solution:
1) Assume that when a character gains a level, all the training that previously happened paid off, and the new feats he's getting are stuff he's been trying out between the scenes, but now it's finally working. You don't start training when you gain a level; when you gain a level, it's a sign that the training is completed.
2) Let the player make up a story of how he learned this new ability. Give the player a lot of editorial freedom; as long as he doesn't do anything too cheesy, let him decide if he taught himself, spent a few months learning from a hermit on a mountaintop, read a book, or had dreams in which his ancestors explained the family techniques to him.
Don't make the player roll any dice; as long as the story isn't too crazy, just accept it as fact. Give the player control over this small side story.
Reward the player's efforts by listening and using this later; if he mentions a mentor, that's an NPC that you can later use to notify them of an upcoming plot. If he's got ancestors, leak rumors about an old family heirloom that's been sighted.
Why does this solution work? It solves the timing problem; abilities manifest when the levelup-sound chimes, but there's a story of how the PC got those abilities. The PC doesn't just get stuff from out of nowhere, but there's no risk that you unfairly limit the player by torturing one PC with an evil mentor while the other one gets an easy time. The player is free to describe an incredibly annoying old man on a mountain eating fish heads, with only the PC, not the player, suffering. The player isn't forced into doing anything he doesn't want to, to get the stuff he earned by leveling up.
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Of course, for abnormal rewards, it's fine to put the DM in the driver's seat. If the player wants a non-standard spell, third-party feat or anything that isn't normally assumed available by the game, that's questing time. But the player should just have uncomplicated (but not flavorless) access to standard stuff.
Ok, I would not make it NPC taught exclusively but maybe require the PCs to take downtime to learn new feats and skills, they can be self-taught but this will end up being significantly slower than having a tutor help them out.
All players should have similar 'cost' and time requirements to level up though, don't screw the rogue or fighter over because they have more feats and/or skill points than the cleric for instance.
Keeping that in mind :
* maybe restrict it to 2 skill points per level, since everyone gets that, any skill points over that are counted as natural progression of the character's experience.
* Only feats that are gained by character level, thus not fighter bonus feats or rogue talents for instance.
* optionally you can catch the rest of their abilities under some general class skill training time between adventures, if they are the highest level characters around this will be a slower process than having tutors to guide them along the way. it is too much work to codify all of the different character's abilities in training time, and it might be better to assume the classes are more or less equal in this respect, this also includes the wizard adding two new spells to his books and expanding his mind to contain more spells.
* possibly have them train / study for ability increases as well
* Maybe add in some reward for the 'dead' training levels, this will help to rally support for your training experiment. I suggest either pick a feat from a list of less desirable feats or have them pick an increase in ability score just like they get every 4 levels except that they can not pick the same ability twice in a row. So fighter increases strength at lvl 2, constitution at lvl 4 and strength again at lvl 6.
so 2 sp every level
feat at lvl 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19
ability increase at 4, 8, 12, 16, 20
dead levels 2, 6, 10, 14, 18
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I would enjoy it quite a bit. I'd like more games to have more downtime between adventures to allow for this kind of stuff.
Actually have the characters age a bit, get married, have kids, then go back out on the road to kill stuff with a new look on life.
This is the kind of thing I don't like applying a blanket rule to. It really depends on the feat and how the player is playing their character.
I like the idea generally of expecting the PC to practice or train the things the player plans to improve upon leveling -- but the entire purpose of experience points is to be a mechanical reflection this practice and training as the PC adventures. Adding additional requirements beyond gaining XP can start to look unfair IF it is not handled well.
Going back to my first point, you really have to consider a lot of individual circumstances before you add training requirements. My general guideline in my games is that the PCs must practice the thing they want to improve. In some cases, this just goes along with the adventure--if you're a spellcaster and you cast spells a lot, your spellcasting ability improves. If you're a warrior and you keep hitting things with a sword, you become better at swordsmanship. Sometimes it's a little more tricky -- if you've been roleplaying out trying to talk to people and butter them up, sure putting points into Diplomacy makes sense. But if you've been isolated in a dungeon for six months with no one to talk to but spiders, I might ask you to rethink that temporarily. And likewise, if you're a warrior and all you do is hit things with a sword, but then say, "I want to take a level in wizard," I'm going to want to recount to me the times your character was studying a spellbook and asking the party arcanist for lessons. And/or, you may not get all your class features right away.
But usually all a player needs to say to me is, "Assume whenever we have downtime that I'm practicing my knitting," then I'm not going to worry about your putting skill points into Craft (Fluffy Scarves).
As for feats -- SOME of them might make sense to require a degree of training. I doubt while clearing out the cursed cathedral of doom with channel energy it suddenly came to you in a dream how to craft magic arms and armor. Seeking out a trainer -- or even just a book (perhaps in the library of that very cathedral) -- might be called for to explain how you learned this craft.
But if you're a warrior who's been doing nothing but stabbing things with his longsword for the last several sessions, I'm not going to say, "Sorry, you need to head 15 miles into town and pay 1,000 gp to a trainer to take Weapon Focus (Longsword)." That doesn't make any sense, and is likely unfair to the player who may well have chosen to work with that weapon exclusively while planning to get Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization, etc.
Likewise, if you've been sneaking around and pickpocketing a lot, I don't see a reason to make you find a trainer at the Thieves' Guild before you can take Deft Hands, etc. etc.
In short, I'd encourage the GM to consider the circumstances and the experience gained (not necessarily literal XP) by the PCs already before they require training. It might work well and make a lot of sense, it might not.
thanks grimmy.
another thing related that i just remembered, this variant rule allowed us to retrain feats/skills/spell/ability long before there was a rule for it.
people could build their characters to the level they were at, then retrain for the long haul (high levels) and qualify for a specific kit/prestige class without it impeding on the story : "yes. thorkin skullsplitter, the barbarian of the uthgart tribes traded his great club for a battleaxe when he saught out training from the dwarven battlehammer clan"
so there was another plus.
also, except for the gold/downtime cost, there really was no extra work into it barring one sentense that time lapsed meeting with a trainer and learning the feat/skill/spell/ability. if we had time to really roleplay it out ( meeting drizzt to learn two weapon fighting, khelben for spells) then good, otherwwise it was in the background as a foot note, no more important then the last named troll barbarian you killed.
it was never a drawn out adventure, just to qualify to get it.
the way i see it, the hardest pitch to your sell of the idea is the gold cost and down time associated, because the gold cost accumulates fast, and the time drags longer the higher level you are.
another bonus is the players make contacts with epic heroes. i remember the shock i got when i had the chance to play as wulfgar for a day in second edition after a tpk, and the mission was of course to collect the fallen party. =]
wulfar, drizzt, cattie, regis, and the heroes of icewind dale were invested into our party as much as we were to them, the npc's heroes now had even more meaning and purpose in a game where most of the rpg community thought that heroic npc's in a game were lame.
I started thinking about this after playing PFS where item creation feats are banned. For my home game I thought it might be fun if they were not banned, but rare. This would help me control the scarcity of magic items, for one thing.
From there I thought why not extend it to all feats? This would act as an engine to drive NPC interaction and RP.
Leveling up would be as normal, and give you "feat slots". You would fill the slots by finding someone who knows the feat you want, and getting trained by them. This could provide seeds for all kinds of quests as well.
Would you enjoy this kind of game as a player?
I like the idea, or at least something along those lines. You might never get anything done if you had to do this for every feat.
Possibly a better idea is you dont have to train for every feat, only acknowledge how you get it. Some feats might require exactly what yu posted though.
What ive done in the past is between sessions do email roleplay, and describe what my character is doing. When he got cleave, he had learned it by spending a week between addventuring at a local "fight club"
When the character faced a foe in session who used the same weapon, maybe he noticed a special trick the guy used, and that how he earned weapon focus or specialization.
Maybe fighting a troll unlocked the secrets of toughness.
I do this with very specific feats only; the "Bladesong" elven style of fighting is one such feat, and so are certain monk fighting styles. I really caution against doing it with too many things, however, for many of the reasons listed in the posts of others.
I believe that this could open up another set of adventure/RP hooks from what I've seen so far. Generally the focus has been on PCs getting NPC mentors, but as the PCs grow in power NPCs may want to be mentored by a PC. This could bring many adventure and role play hooks IMO. The NPC could use the knowledge gained for evil ends, what if anything would the PC(s) do in response? The NPC may just be using the appeal for mentoring to get into position to steal a valuble item or information fromt the PCs. This could also partially cover the costs (if any) paid for training.
I have a question, and its an important one. How easy will it be to find these people that can train you in the feats you want? How would you go about doing it in the first place? Do you have to use knowledge or the gatehr info part of diplomacy to find them? Because some classes will have an easier time then others with this.
Classes without the skills to find these people might be left in the cold with regards to this houserule. And it is REALLY campagin dependant. Even if the game is sandboxy and not story driven, what if that sandbox is in the middle of no where? How will the player's find the 'trainers'?
What about feats that dont dranslate well to training, things like eldritch heritage, or racial feats like ironguts, or physical things like say improved natural weapon.
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I would advise against it, I have played systems where things like that were RAW.... and after sometime we ignored it, since it didn't mesh very well with playing the adventures.
To give a better example, look at some of the recent paizo APs:
-Serpents Skull not a lot of teachers after adventure 2
-Jade Regent, you are on the road there is really no time to visit teachers
-Skulls and stuff.. can't see space for a lot of teachers on that backwater
-Kingmaker.... could work, but in that AP your characters are supposed to be the highest level characters in the area
In pretty much every adventure your characters advances some levels, there isn't really any time to pause and get some lessons.
Of course limiting players this way is really not my style. If I limit any feat, race, class... I do so before the game starts, and explain these limitations to my players. I don't really need any ingame justification. Of course my players have come to trust me when it comes to things like that, just like I trust them when they don the GM hat (it's not really a hat, it's just the best place in the room).
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For the control of magic items i think a better idea would be to restrict the "recipes" to build one.
The feat only allows you to build them, but you need the "recipe" to build a specific one (like a wizard need the spell known to cast it).
Then you can hand over the recipes as rewards/treasure
For the control of magic items i think a better idea would be to restrict the "recipes" to build one.
The feat only allows you to build them, but you need the "recipe" to build a specific one (like a wizard need the spell known to cast it).
Then you can hand over the recipes as rewards/treasure
That is brilliant in its simplicity. I rather like the idea.