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Regarding the "kindness" of allowing players that purchase a $40 dollar book to use content from it in a game organized by the manufacturers of that book, I'm not really sure I follow. Especially when very little else from that book is legal for PFS play.
Seems like lowering the PP cost of retraining would encourage players to purchase the Ultimate Campaign book, if they haven't already, so I'm kinda surprised the PP cost is as high as it is.
Regarding balance, Unless the player has played a scenario before, there really shouldn't be any way to tailor a character to an encounter. And since PFS is very restrictive regarding allowing players replay scenario, it doesn't really seem like there is any risk regarding characters tailored for each session.
And regarding gold costs of retraining, while the initial costs are low, I think with constant retraining, the minor gold costs will eventually bankrupt any character. Aside from the HP one, I think the gold costs alone would prevent players from heavy use of the retraining system.
And, as currently written, they can only retrain at the start of the session and only if the GM deems themselves to have enough time to spare on auditing and initialling the retraining of a character. So even if you intend to retrain every session, the GM can just say 'no' within the current system.
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Besides, I think most people would say a single trait is worth the price of the book/pdf. At least until the reprint errata kills fates favored.
UC still has a ton of great traits that don't come up all that often. Honestly, I've gotten way more use out of Pragmatic Activator and Bruising Intellect. Then again, I don't play a Warpriest...
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Looking at it from a 'mechanical' perspective, that PP is the Society helping to *find* someone to retrain you properly, setting up the appointment, and your character spending time retraining.
Given that for 5 PP you can have a 'body retrieval', that's the sort of range most retraining would cost.
20PP for a new language hearkens back to the concept that even the best linguists take a while to pick up a new language.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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Regarding the "kindness" of allowing players that purchase a $40 dollar book to use content from it in a game organized by the manufacturers of that book, I'm not really sure I follow. Especially when very little else from that book is legal for PFS play.
You're right. Very little of that book is legal in PFS. But a lot of it is legal in multiple Paizo published adventure paths and however many home games GMs think it fits into. I'd even wager that Ultimate Campaign is probably being used by people that don't play Pathfinder, who use it as a guideline for campaign construction or to help with character backgrounds.
I don't think usefulness of a book in PFS should be the sole driving factor for content in the material Paizo publishes, since PFS represents a weird unique group of Pathfinder participants. If it were, we wouldn't have things like Mythic Adventures, any of the unsanctioned APs, or the latest AP where you can play as evil PCs, to name a few.
It wasn't a gotcha gimmick, or anything done to spite PFS players that more of UC wasn't made legal in PFS. The fact is, had more of the content been appropriate for PFS, more of it would have been made legal. Simple as that.
No one is required to get Ultimate Campaign. No one is required to retrain. But if you want to retrain your PFS character using these rules, you need to have the resource those rules come from. Just like the Guide to PFS states. Heck, before that book came out retraining wasn't even an option and we all did fine.
*shrugs*
Thems the rules we agreed to when we decided to participate in PFS. And it's unfair to others who do follow the rules not to follow those rules or to expect special treatment.
Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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I think most are just fine and I understand it's to prevent changing your build completely between scenarios, but I think it's a bit too restrictive. I have a fifth-level character with an archetype that in retrospect wasn't that great, but he has so many class features I simply don't have the PP to spend. And I calculated, when I have enough to get rid of the class features I have right now, I'll have gained three levels and gained two more class features I need to retrain. And that's excluding possible loss of PP for buying stuff, losing out on success conditions, and so on.
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I do agree that 5PP for a single skill rank is too much. The typical character gets a feat every other level; in the same time, the typical character probably gets 8 or more skill ranks; at least four. So, retraning a feat for 5PP is a way better deal than retraining a skill rank for 5PP.
I'd put the cost of retraining a skill rank at 1PP or 2PP.
That being said, it makes sense in-world that you can't retrain a skill rank in a day or two. The "1PP per day of retraining" cost is a simple rule that covers most things. It'd be nice to have a PP exception for skill ranks, though. A boon for those bards who want to retrain several skill ranks after getting Versatile Performance.
(OK, who wants to argue that Bards are seriously overpowered?)
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I do agree that 5PP for a single skill rank is too much. The typical character gets a feat every other level; in the same time, the typical character probably gets 8 or more skill ranks; at least four. So, retraning a feat for 5PP is a way better deal than retraining a skill rank for 5PP.
I'd put the cost of retraining a skill rank at 1PP or 2PP.
That being said, it makes sense in-world that you can't retrain a skill rank in a day or two. The "1PP per day of retraining" cost is a simple rule that covers most things. It'd be nice to have a PP exception for skill ranks, though. A boon for those bards who want to retrain several skill ranks after getting Versatile Performance.
(OK, who wants to argue that Bards are seriously overpowered?)
Actually I think they are one of the most powerful classes, particularly in PFS 1-11 scope
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Besides, I think most people would say a single trait is worth the price of the book/pdf. At least until the reprint errata kills fates favored.UC still has a ton of great traits that don't come up all that often. Honestly, I've gotten way more use out of Pragmatic Activator and Bruising Intellect. Then again, I don't play a Warpriest...
Yeah, I've got a warpriest and inquisitor, and I considered taking Fate's Favored for both, but in both cases, there were more important traits to take. But for my witch, Pragmatic Activator was my first choice of trait.
Also, for that witch, I decided I like the idea of taking the Ward hex at level 1, even though it becomes useless at higher levels, since it doesn't stack with rings of protection and cloaks of resistance. So I'll take Ward at level 1 and probably retrain it at level 5, since there are a few hexes that hit their stride at 5 (Flight, Tongues, Healing), and the 5 prestige cost seems reasonable for something like that.
So I finally bought the pdf of Ultimate Campaign for $10 just for that witch.
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Have retrained a feat to qualify for a prestige class after bad build planning. And after getting a discounted retraining boon I did an intentional retrain to get greater grapple at lvl 8 instead of 9, and to trade out an animal companion for a druid domain. On my cleric I've decided not to retrain bad feats and instead spent the PP on consumables.
So yes, class features and feats feel right cost wise. Skill points remain prohibitive. I never even considered retraining hp.
