Retraining Rules

[Will.Spencer]

The Retraining Rules are the most awesome rules additions in recent memory.

Looking back, not being able to retrain never made any sense. I've retrained many times in my life. If I can do it, my character should be able to also.

[Porridge]

I agree.

It’s so great for ideas that don’t come together until level X. Instead of having to suffer through X-1 levels of being mediocre or terrible to make it work, you can play something fun for those levels and then retrain.

Likewise, great for when something that seemed like it would be fun or a good idea doesn’t pan out (dipping a level of fighter and rogue to make your wizard more well-rounded!). Instead of feeling like you’ve permanently marred or even ruined your character, you can refrain out of it.

One of the best parts of a great book.

[John Mechalas]

Yes they are.

Sometimes, plans for your character just change. It's unreasonable to expect a player to know their entire character arc over the course of the campaign before you even start. Sometimes events happen that change your character plans. Sometimes you just get a better idea. Or maybe a new rule book comes out and it's just the thing you want.

Retraining frees you up. You aren't locked into a choice that looked good at Level 1.

[Derek Vande Brake]

I simultaneously agree they are awesome but disagree that they make sense.

Will.Spencer mentioned that he has retrained in his life... but I bet he still has access to some of the old skills.

Retraining doesn't make sense because in real life, the experiences and skills we gain are additive. We might get rusty at something we haven't done in a long time but we don't entirely lose it. We just layer more stuff over it.

But because of the abstraction of the game, that option doesn't exist. We don't get new skill points or feats or class abilities until we level up, and once we hit level 20 we can't level up any more. If a level 20 character studied for decades he still couldn't learn a new language because it would require putting a skill rank he will never get into the linguistics skill.

So really, retraining is is nonsensical way to make another nonsensical part of the game less nonsensical.

Which is also awesome in its own way. :-D

[Moonclanger]

I don't like the retraining rules, nor does the other Pathfinder GM in my group. We think they encourage power-gaming and devalue class features like the fighter's ability to swap combat feats or the sorcerer's ability to swap spells.

However we are sympathetic to players who wish to make changes because they made a mistake or when there are compelling roleplaying reasons for a change. In such cases we've been permitting changes since before the retraining rules came out. Indeed I first allowed a PC to retrain his class back in 1st ed AD&D.

[blahpers]

Retraining is fantastic. It makes no sense to be stuck with a class feature that you never use because "oops, you learned this instead of that and are incapable of adaptation over time".

[Will.Spencer]

Derek Vande Brake wrote:

Will.Spencer mentioned that he has retrained in his life... but I bet he still has access to some of the old skills.

I might give myself a 50% reduction in the retraining time required to re-learn PRIMOS and VM. ;)

[pauljathome]

I like them in general but I have a couple of significant issues with their implementation

1) Some of the costs make no sense to me. The most egregious example is training out of one archetype into another. It just seems totally silly to me that it is often MUCH cheaper to train the class to another class and back again than to just change archetypes.

2) I think it is both silly and abusive that you can end up with characters that could NOT be built without retraining. Multiple feats with high level pre-reqs, for example, should not be possible.

[Gallant Armor]

I like the rules for builds that don't work out as planned, but I dislike the practice of designing a build with the plan to retrain later.

[Zautos']

I like the rules a lot. Sometimes do not make sense like the archetype one.

I will use it a lot an upcoming druid X + medium 1.
At level 5 I will retrain animal bound from animal companion to get feather domain.

At level 9 when I have picked up the feats for an animal companion I will retrain feather domain to eagle domain to get an eagle familiar.

So changes his roc animal companion to a weaker animal companion + other domain stuff like spells.

Then at higher level change the domain to eagle domain.

So the character affinity for Eagles grows with the levels and the character can use a Roc to rid from level 1 and will be able to keep it throw out his career.

This is my first character where I have planned for retraining.

[Porridge]

Like many, I’ve tweaked the rules a bit: I don’t allow refraining for more HPs, I don’t allow retraining to build characters you couldn’t build without the retraining rules, and I don’t use the prices — I just require players to write up a short narrative describing in-world how the retraining took place.

That said, I think that planned retraining in order to allow you to get a character that best fits your idea without having to play a terrible character for several levels makes the game more fun for many players (which, of course, is what it’s all about).

For example, say your concept is that of a weak, but nimble and charming Halfling Swashbuckler (no archetype). One option is to start that at level 1, and suffer through 2 levels of dealing 1d4-1 damage and feeling useless before you can pick up Slashing Grace at lvl 3. Or you could start as an Inspired Blade, feel like you’re contributing for your first two levels, and then retrain at level 3.

In my experience, anyway, the latter route seems to be more fun for everyone involved.