Moving pathfinder Downtime Activities to 5th edition


4th Edition


Training HP has become a staple in our games and as such that is a valuable activity to convert over. But also things like retraining would be nice.

Any ideas on converting them over?


One thing that needs to change is adjusting the cost of retraining to the WBL in 5e. I would see if changing the basic 10x multiplier to the training cost would be enough.

Skill ranks needs to be converted to Skill and Tool Proficiencies. Just say the 5 day period allows a the player to reassign one of these proficiencies.

Feats are more powerful per piece in 5e than in PF, roughly equalling two PF feats. So I'd just put the retraining time at 10 days rather than 5. I'd also allow exchanging a feat to the ability score increase it replaced. If you want to allow the opposite you will have to require players to have their original starting Ability scores noted somewhere.

The rest I imagine should be pretty straightforward.


Threeshades wrote:
Skill ranks needs to be converted to Skill and Tool Proficiencies. Just say the 5 day period allows a the player to reassign one of these proficiencies.

Hmm, that doesn't make sense to me in terms of the story. How would one forget an old skill or proficiency just due to learning a new one?


Dustin Ashe wrote:
Threeshades wrote:
Skill ranks needs to be converted to Skill and Tool Proficiencies. Just say the 5 day period allows a the player to reassign one of these proficiencies.
Hmm, that doesn't make sense to me in terms of the story. How would one forget an old skill or proficiency just due to learning a new one?

Retraining makes very little sense in general, it's just a mechanic that allows players to respec their characters if they are unsatisfied with their build.


Dustin Ashe wrote:
Threeshades wrote:
Skill ranks needs to be converted to Skill and Tool Proficiencies. Just say the 5 day period allows a the player to reassign one of these proficiencies.
Hmm, that doesn't make sense to me in terms of the story. How would one forget an old skill or proficiency just due to learning a new one?

Lost through lack of use.


Grey Lensman wrote:
Dustin Ashe wrote:
Threeshades wrote:
Skill ranks needs to be converted to Skill and Tool Proficiencies. Just say the 5 day period allows a the player to reassign one of these proficiencies.
Hmm, that doesn't make sense to me in terms of the story. How would one forget an old skill or proficiency just due to learning a new one?
Lost through lack of use.

I think the kicker is that you can forget your skills in a matter of 5 days, which is why it seems so implausible.


I'd probably just say that a character can switch one skill or tool proficiency each time they get an Ability Score Increase. Then the player or DM could give the impression that they'd been working on the new skill for a while.

Or, I might just handwave it and say the character had always been proficient in ____, never mind that we remember them using the ____ skill instead.


Dustin Ashe wrote:


Or, I might just handwave it and say the character had always been proficient in ____, never mind that we remember them using the ____ skill instead.

They just happened to roll really well back then.

But when it comes to changing an entire class it becomes a little immersion breaking if it just suddenly happens.


Threeshades wrote:
Grey Lensman wrote:
Dustin Ashe wrote:
Threeshades wrote:
Skill ranks needs to be converted to Skill and Tool Proficiencies. Just say the 5 day period allows a the player to reassign one of these proficiencies.
Hmm, that doesn't make sense to me in terms of the story. How would one forget an old skill or proficiency just due to learning a new one?
Lost through lack of use.
I think the kicker is that you can forget your skills in a matter of 5 days, which is why it seems so implausible.

The funny thing is you can already learn a new tool without losing an old one in the system already (or a new language), it just takes 250 days and 250 gp unless you have some kind of boon to speed things up (like learning from a true master of the craft, an optional reward in the DMG). The PHB doesn't give a method to learn new things for normal proficiencies though, just tools and languages.


Grey Lensman wrote:
The funny thing is you can already learn a new tool without losing an old one in the system already (or a new language), it just takes 250 days and 250 gp unless you have some kind of boon to speed things up (like learning from a true master of the craft, an optional reward in the DMG). The PHB doesn't give a method to learn new things for normal proficiencies though, just tools and languages.

Wow, that's a long time. Sure, it's realistic. But the campaign I'm in has taken the PCs up five levels in only 5 -in-setting days.

We'll never make it to 250 days.

By the way, do you have a page number for that rule? DMG?

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

Yeah, if you want to use that rule it would be between arcs where the party might disband until the next big threat.


Dustin Ashe wrote:
Grey Lensman wrote:
The funny thing is you can already learn a new tool without losing an old one in the system already (or a new language), it just takes 250 days and 250 gp unless you have some kind of boon to speed things up (like learning from a true master of the craft, an optional reward in the DMG). The PHB doesn't give a method to learn new things for normal proficiencies though, just tools and languages.

Wow, that's a long time. Sure, it's realistic. But the campaign I'm in has taken the PCs up five levels in only 5 -in-setting days.

We'll never make it to 250 days.

By the way, do you have a page number for that rule? DMG?

The downtime activities, including training rules are on page 187 of the PHB, with additional options on pages 127-131 of the DMG


Also 227-231 of the DMg for optional rewards.

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