Training up levels, feats, new skills, est.


Rules Questions


I'm doing shackled city adventure path (so far so good changing for 3.5 to pathfinder is being slow and two i did only 3 chapters) (and played only chapter 1, now stating chapter 2)
get back to the point why i start this at chapter 4 say some time will pass like weeks

Quote:
Many weeks should pass between the events of chapter three and this one (chapter 4). Winter is over and spring is beginning.

the fast way to make time pass is to get them to training up levels but the death of me i can't find in the core book or any other book.

two weeks for one feat; 1 week = to your int mod to training skill; 50 gp per week; something like that. can you tell me were i can find it?

thank you
Chaoskin


There is no level up training system in pathfinder. Feel free to create your own. There is retraining system listed in ultimate campaign book. for players that want to swap feats, and other option for off time activities such as earning money, earning XP to catch up with rest of the party, if one of the players is behind from missing a few sessions ect. Generally you level up when you have enough xp to level no cost.

Most common xp is giving out at end of a session. Some GMs do it after every encounter, some do it at the end of chapter in story. Spending money to level went the way of the dodo in 2ed Ad&d it was option rule same in 3.0. It is not used is because it effect wealth of character. Wealth in 3.x and pathfinder is directly related to character power. See expected per wealth by level guide lines. It influences the entire game so when you charge to money to level up you are actually weakening the characters.

If the character are not of level for the next part of AP, you can just level them if you so choose or add side events that happen in-between that down time, such as the character took up guarding a shipment of supplies, and give them a few encounters where that shipment gets attack and they can earn missing XP.


As KainPen mentions, Pathfinder doesn't really have a 'train-up' system. When you gain the requisite XP to reach the next level, you automatically* gain the abilities granted by that next level in whatever class you choose to take.

*I say 'automatically' because by RAW there's no implication that training is required to use these new abilities; you achieve the next 'plateau' of experience and they become available:

Classes - Character Advancement wrote:
A character advances in level as soon as he earns enough experience points to do so—typically, this occurs at the end of a game session, when your GM hands out that session's experience point awards.


I would be careful of setting time/gold costs for going up levels.

Read the entire Shackled City book (or take my word for it) - without giving spoilers, there are definitely chapters where there is no time, nothing more than an overnight rest, between chapters but the characters are expected to level up - even in some cases where they are stranded literally in the middle of nowhere with nobody and nothing around but themselves.

So if you establish some weird house rule that it takes two weeks to learn a feat, etc., then during these later chapters you'll have to ignore that house rule or your players will be screwed and unable to level up when they need to - or you'll need to modify the adventure drastically to allow them to spend weeks or months between every chapter even when it really makes no sense at all for them to do so.

I suggest making no such rule.

Instead, let them maybe start a business, or create magic items, or anything else that adds depth to their characters and the campaign without restricting their ability to train up their new levels.


Ok thx for the info i may have to make/thank of something

thank you
Chaoskin


chapter 2 yes but at the end of chapter 3 going into 4 weeks you have tip DM Blake?


By the way, I am running that AP myself. My PCs are 12th level now. I remember the chapter-break you're talking about. Here's what I did:

Spoiler:
I nudged them toward converting the Lucky Monkey into a home base, but they had other ideas and purchased a farm about a day outside of Cauldron. They hired farm hands to run the place and grow crops, enough so that their profits covered their expenses (in short, the farm runs itself and costs them nothing). This became their home base and it still is. This works out nicely because the enemies know it too...

I also did some RP foreshadowing and introduced them to the Stormblades. I also nudged them toward building relationships with Fario and Falian (of the Pathfinder Society, venture-captained by Ashstaff - I converted the old "Striders of Farlanghn" into Pathfinder Society), and with Shensen (who is now an NPC cohort), and with Underpriestess Jenya of the church of Iomedae (who is now High-Priestess Jenya - I converted the old 3.0 gods in the book into the gods used in Golarion).

I'm pretty sure the party wizard made a couple magical items in that time too, but they weren't very wealthy at the time so he didn't use the whole time for crafting.

Basically, the PCs built relationships and built a home base during these months - we only spent about a half a session on it and I told them how much time went by and then we started the next chapter.


Why do you need to 'do' anything? In-game time passes in the blink of an eye. Outside of catching up characters who are lagging behind on XP and allowing them to re-stock their goods and\or create new magic items, armor, etc., downtime really shouldn't be necessary.

To echo DM_Blake, if the intention is to require downtime to actively gain new skills, abilities, and such that are normally granted 'automatically' upon gaining a level, I would advise against it, simply because there almost assuredly will be times when the characters may have leveled but they won't have downtime.


The general assumption is that PCs are self-taught, using off-camera time to practice, study, research, and what not. It's glossed over because, well, it's not that interesting.


were did you play your in Golarion? or are you using the map they gave you

Fario and Failan they bypass (High-Priestess Jenya to ghelve's locks no orphanage at all)
thank you for the help i will change in my next game

Quote:
Fario and Falian (of the Pathfinder Society, venture-captained by Ashstaff - I converted the old "Striders of Farlanghn" into Pathfinder Society), and with Shensen (who is now an NPC cohort), and with Underpriestess Jenya of the church of Iomedae (who is now High-Priestess Jenya - I converted the old 3.0 gods in the book into the gods used in Golarion).

did u change the other churchs?

Chaoskin


If you're going to have downtime training, may I suggest using a carrot instead of a stick? Instead of requiring gold and time expenditure to acquire the normal levels and abilities they would receive, give them opportunities to perform tasks that can take large amounts of time that adventurers usually don't have, such as

[list]

  • Craft items
  • Perform spell research
  • Initiate or advance progression toward story feats (see Ultimate Campaign)
  • Retrain existing abilities (also see Ultimate Campaign). Hit points in particular are a useful option in case they rolled poorly.

    Alternately, give them an opportunity to form (or begin to form) a stronghold or other base of operations; later on, this is a good way to RP the recruitment and assignment of followers for any PCs with the Leadership feat.

    If the PCs seem underpowered (either XP or treasurewise) for their position in the adventure path, find a module that you can recast into the current game without breaking verisimilitude--or make one up. Think of it like a standalone episode in a book or TV series, an episode that doesn't really mean much in the continuity but offers a chance for the characters to develop a bit.

    Finally, you can always just advance the clock. There are campaigns where years go by without any "adventuring". Let them know that you're doing this in case they want to play something out in particular.

    I can't recommend Ultimate Campaign enough if you're looking for uses for downtime. In my experience, a lot of GMs brush aside such GM-oriented books as "helpful aids for people who are bad at GMing", but in fact they're quite useful even for experienced GMs who want to broaden their storytelling vocabulary.

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