I was just asked if you could use the retaining rules on a half elves skill focus, and make it into something else like power attack.is this possible by the rules? Could someone give an explanation why or why not please?
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You could retrain it to another Skill Focus, but not Power Attack.
There are 3 different circumstances? restrictions? qualifications (can't find the right word) for being able to retrain a feat.
If it was a feat gained from regular progression, such as at 1st/3rd/5th/etc, you can retrain that feat using your new level and prerequisites to qualify for it.
So a 3/4 BAB class could retrain their 1st level feat into something like Power Attack, as they now have a BAB of +1 or higher.
But that doesn't work for Human or Half-elf Bonus Feats, which were locked in at character creation.
A Half-elf couldn't take Power Attack regularly, so they can't retrain into it. If you selected Exotic Weapon Proficiency, or Skill Focus, you could select another version of that, as that would have been possible at character creation.
The 3rd restriction is the inability to retrain into a feat that could only be taken at 1st, such as Fey Foundling.
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Those 3 bullet points were each clarified during the discussions after Ultimate Campaign was released, when the forums were alive with Developer clarifications and posters trying to break the system.
It's going off of my own memory, and I haven't the time today to thumb through all those threads, but if you want a quote or link, it should be able to be found.
(my apologies, since I usually try to provide those sorts of things)
Now, what if he trades Skill Focus for Exotic Weapons Proficiency, as per the Ancestral Arms alternate racial trait?
As a DM I'd PROBABLY allow that, since it doesn't really break anything and they're both racial options.
But, yeah, Skill Focus for Power Attack or something else that's not an Alternate Racial Trait would be right-out disallowed.