I will bite... What or where are you talking about retraining rules?
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There's an item in Ultimate Equipment that lets them do this for 20k a pop.
I find it weird, too. The bloodline is supposed to represent some sort of ancestor or happening in the distant past, and retraining who your ancestors were or what that happening was feels rather odd, to say the least.
As for why people don't discuss it.. The book is brand new; a lot of people don't have it yet (like me), or haven't had the time to read it.
@ Are - I totally agree.
Retraining feats and classes makes sense. Changing your blood does not.
Maybe I'll go home and come back tommorow as Black instead of White. /facepalm
Remember that the Bloodline isn't a literal bloodline. It could just be magical influence on the person, which does fit with this use.
Pathfinder Sorcerers: No Fornication Necessary (Tm)
Huh I always thought it was because you know...the name ; )
I don't doubt you at all though, you know your shat Cheapy.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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*shrug* A number of reasons, in game.
Hmm, isn't that the reason that you can have two bloodlines for a sorcerer? Seems off to me. I just got the book yesterday and glanced at it while grading papers.
*shrug* A number of reasons, in game.
Your ancestors got it on more than you realized. That dragon wasn't the only thing shaking your tree
You were mistaken. That Abyssal bloodline? Maybe you discover it's actually a fiend in the past.
Exposure. You have a celestial bloodline because daddy was a paladin. After being level drained enough times, you feel a, different, calling in your blood.
1 is crossblooded, 2 begs to ask why you would manifest infernal powers if you actually have an abyssal bloodline, and 3 is an in-game event that justifies retraining.
Retraining bloodlines is a mechanical ploy.
Scions of innately magical bloodlines, the chosen of deities, the spawn of monsters, pawns of fate and destiny, or simply flukes of fickle magic, sorcerers look within themselves for arcane prowess and draw forth might few mortals can imagine.
See! Only one of those is explicitly about fornication. The bloodline feature itself says that grandfather simply signing a fiendish contract was enough. And I don't think it meant a contract of love.
I agree that in most cases it's probably what people think of, but they've included quite a few examples of non-monster/human 'interactions' so it's reasonable to assume that they really don't want that to be the only reason.
Magic can do weird things, yo.
But if you have a bloodline because your grandfather signed a contract with a devil, it would be rather strange to retrain that into something else. It's not like you could go back in time and tell your grandfather to sign a contract with an angel instead, after all :)
This is problem only when taking retraining literally. Just represent it as series of magical rituals designed to attune the sorcerer to a different bloodline while severing her old affinity.
But you might discover that you also have a maternal great-grandma who was in service to a dragon, another ancestor who served a powerful fey, and that the very same gramps who signed the contract with a devil only did so in order to escape the abyss. You then retrain to emphasize a different portion of your heritage.
Retraining doesn't eliminate the other events from your family tree, it just says you're choosing (or perhaps unintentionally manifesting) a different emphasis from among many possibly options.
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"Now, the Star-Bell Sneetches had bellies with stars.
The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars."
Yep, sorcerers now have their very own Sylvester McMonkey McBean with his Star-Off Machine.
In Ultimate Campaign it gives rules for retraining various class features (feats, spells known, archtypes etc). And being able to retrain your bloodline without a major event/quest seems off to me.That it seems nobody else is bothered by this is even stranger to me.
I wouldn't have any problem doing a ret-con for something like a bloodline, but to call it retraining seems a bit odd.
Retraining should always involve the song "You're the best around" and/or running through snow while carrying a heavy log.
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I think retraining requires a montage.
K well in game of fantasy of spell and magic I think anything ones mind can think of could exist or be possiable. You just have to fill in the back story as a player.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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*shrug* A number of reasons, in game.
Your ancestors got it on more than you realized. That dragon wasn't the only thing shaking your tree
You were mistaken. That Abyssal bloodline? Maybe you discover it's actually a fiend in the past.
Exposure. You have a celestial bloodline because daddy was a paladin. After being level drained enough times, you feel a, different, calling in your blood. 1 is crossblooded, 2 begs to ask why you would manifest infernal powers if you actually have an abyssal bloodline, and 3 is an in-game event that justifies retraining.
Retraining bloodlines is a mechanical ploy.
You may choose to only have one way of doing things. Fortunately the rules are (now) more flexible.
Retraining feats and classes makes sense. Changing your blood does not.
Maybe I'll go home and come back tommorow as Black instead of White. /facepalm
Interesting. So, that means you're OK with a sorcerer who has a specific bloodline where a distant ancestor results in the sorcerer having power spending a little time training to become a cleric instead of sorcerer, and he still has the blood of that distant ancestor, but now that blood gives him no power?
Isn't it the same thing? Why does he have to stop being a sorcerer for his blood to become powerless? If it's really his ancestor's blood that gives him power, then that blood doesn't care what class he is, it should give him power all the time, regardless of class.
Can't he still be a sorcerer and still lose the power of that blood and, through training, magical rituals, or just the random influence of universal fate, he taps into a different power source he didn't know he had?
If not, then it doesn't make sense to retrain into a different class either, unless you let him keep the power of the bloodline in his new class - I think pretty much everyone would agree that doing so would be a questionable idea.
I'm not really a fan of retraining in general (for instance, I never installed the last Diablo II patch, among other reasons because it included randomly dropped retraining items and added retraining as quest rewards), although I can see the appeal for a retraining system. I have myself allowed retraining now and then in my games (usually when someone discovers that they've never actually used feat X or spell Y, and want to swap it for something else).
Most GMs I've played with would much rather have me change some options about my character rather than have a constantly changing character. I think it's there for those reasons.
You may choose to only have one way of doing things. Fortunately the rules are (now) more flexible.*shrug* A number of reasons, in game.
Your ancestors got it on more than you realized. That dragon wasn't the only thing shaking your tree
You were mistaken. That Abyssal bloodline? Maybe you discover it's actually a fiend in the past.
Exposure. You have a celestial bloodline because daddy was a paladin. After being level drained enough times, you feel a, different, calling in your blood. 1 is crossblooded, 2 begs to ask why you would manifest infernal powers if you actually have an abyssal bloodline, and 3 is an in-game event that justifies retraining.
Retraining bloodlines is a mechanical ploy.
How do I only have one way of doing things? I was just responding to your specific examples of how retraining might be justified in-universe.
I call it a mechanical ploy, because it seems to just be a way of fixing PC problems (poorly built characters) or to satisfy people who want to otherwise change their character. Also, what Cheapy said above.
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—Ultimate Combat page 188, paragraph 7
Nice. Yeah, a quest sounds about right for something like that :)
—Ultimate Combat page 188, paragraph 7
Sounds entirely reasonable. Up to the DM _how_ these things work, but here are the mechanics of it sort of thing.
Retraining quests was the mechanic in 3.5; that seemed sensible as well.
Given the info regarding Bloodlines not necessarily being blood, I'm not concerned with retraining it now. It makes sense.
@DM Blake
Let's be real...the entire mechanical game structure of this simulation is horribly unrealistic. Of course it doesn't really strive for realism, so we all have to pick and choose how "real" we want to hold things. With the original interpretation being that it was "blood", I think retraining the bloodline should not be possible. Given the expanded description however, I have no problem with it.
And regarding your last comment, I actually believe they should keep their bloodline power if you change classes, unfortunately the mechanical advantages would cause a problem, but from a story perspective they absolutely should.
@Cheapy
I am the GM for my group, and I entirely agree with what you said. When I plot a campaign, I write them like a novel, with long term plots, goals, and agendas. Retraining is a much better option than musical chairs of characters which potentially damages your plotline.
And regarding your last comment, I actually believe they should keep their bloodline power if you change classes, unfortunately the mechanical advantages would cause a problem, but from a story perspective they absolutely should.
LOL, yeah, we both know where that would lead. Everyone would immediately whip out all the class optimization guides and rewrite them so that we all start as sorcerers, retrain but keep the bloodline, etc. Now even the guide for barbarians would list which sorcerer bloodlines work best with which rage powers...
When I plot a campaign, I write them like a novel, with long term plots, goals, and agendas. Retraining is a much better option than musical chairs of characters which potentially damages your plotline.
Totally agree. I have players who do both. Some guys can can play the same character from level 1 to 20, other guys get bored and have their character retire, go home, leave the campaign, only to be replaced with something different - it's very hard to create long-term plots, goals, and stories specific to characters for these players.
My favorite was in Shackled City where a specific character gains a curse/benefit that gets used later on as a huge part of the plot- yep, that's the character who retired leaving nobody in the group with that plot device, and it was sooooo phony to whip up a way to get it on someone else.
And regarding your last comment, I actually believe they should keep their bloodline power if you change classes, unfortunately the mechanical advantages would cause a problem, but from a story perspective they absolutely should.LOL, yeah, we both know where that would lead. Everyone would immediately whip out all the class optimization guides and rewrite them so that we all start as sorcerers, retrain but keep the bloodline, etc. Now even the guide for barbarians would list which sorcerer bloodlines work best with which rage powers...
When I plot a campaign, I write them like a novel, with long term plots, goals, and agendas. Retraining is a much better option than musical chairs of characters which potentially damages your plotline.Totally agree. I have players who do both. Some guys can can play the same character from level 1 to 20, other guys get bored and have their character retire, go home, leave the campaign, only to be replaced with something different - it's very hard to create long-term plots, goals, and stories specific to characters for these players.
My favorite was in Shackled City where a specific character gains a curse/benefit that gets used later on as a huge part of the plot- yep, that's the character who retired leaving nobody in the group with that plot device, and it was sooooo phony to whip up a way to get it on someone else.
Yup, the crunch would trash Pathfinder.
I've allowed some loose retraining for the last year and it has dramatically reduced the number of players changing characters. Trogdor decides he's tired of beating Saranrae's drum, so he spends some time apprenticed to Gargamel the Mighty and becomes a wizard.
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—Ultimate Combat page 188, paragraph 7
Oh, sure. It's easy to answer these kinds of questions if you cheat and look in the book. Newb.