Need assistance with Expert Longevity

[WesBan]

The Elven Ancestry Feat Expert Longevity, located on page 41 of the core book is causing me some issues. I understand the premise of the feat chain and I think it's pretty cool.

However, the second paragraph states that once the effects of Ancestral Longevity and Expert Longevity expire, you can retrain one of your skill increases. What exactly does this mean?

Does it mean that after the first day of use when they expire before the next daily preparation, one of those skill increases is now permanent, then, on the second day two new skills are chosen and once they expire for the following days daily preparations, one of those new skills becomes permanent as well? This reads to me like the character is going to end up Expert in every skill very quickly.

I sincerely hope that I have missed something or have misread something as if that is what is intended then it is far far too powerful. Any assistance with this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[David knott 242]

If you are retraining a skill increase, then one skill proficiency is going down and one skill proficiency is going up. You can change your skill proficiencies around endlessly, but there is no net gain in skill proficiency ranks.

[WesBan]

Oh... Right. I did misread it. I read it as retain, not retrain. Thank the gods and thanks for your assistance David knott 242.

[Tendentious]

Just seeking some clarification on these feats.

Ancestral Longevity - I original thought that it meant that each day you can pick a skill and become trained in that skill, so you could change the skill every day. Considering how Expert and Universal Longevity work, I now take it to mean that when you select the Ancestral Longevity feat you also select a single skill to which it applies. In effect it gives one extra trained skill with limitations (not counting as a prerequisite).

Expert Longevity - First paragraph, fine: when you select this feat you pick a skill in which you are trained. During your daily preparations you become expert in that one skill (and trained in you Ancestral Longevity skill). All good.
Second paragraph - so you can retrain a skill increase. Does that mean it can't be used on any skill that you had at 1st level? For example, if a character is trained in Arcana at 1st level then they can't become untrained in Arcana to become trained in their Ancestral Longevity skill by retraining. That seems odd, and also means you need to keep track of initial skills vs skill increases.
Also, and it doesn't say it, I assume that if you do retrain, then you need to select a new skill that will apply to the relevant feat, now that you are actually trained (or expert) in the skill that was attached to the feat.

[Hiruma Kai]

Tendentious wrote:

Ancestral Longevity - I original thought that it meant that each day you can pick a skill and become trained in that skill, so you could change the skill every day. Considering how Expert and Universal Longevity work, I now take it to mean that when you select the Ancestral Longevity feat you also select a single skill to which it applies. In effect it gives one extra trained skill with limitations (not counting as a prerequisite).

I read it your original way.

"During your daily preparations, you can reflect upon your life experiences to gain the trained proficiency rank in one skill of your choice."

Your choice is made at the time of your daily preparations a skill. Not at the time you pick the feat. So its definitely intended to let you to pick a new skill every day. The other way makes it half as weak as many other feats which give you real permanent training in two skills.

Tendentious wrote:

Expert Longevity - First paragraph, fine: when you select this feat you pick a skill in which you are trained. During your daily preparations you become expert in that one skill (and trained in you Ancestral Longevity skill). All good.

Same thing as above. You pick your skill to become trained in with Ancetral Longevity during daily preparations, not when you pick the feat. So you pick a skill you have training in (which could be any you got at any level) and it increases to expert.

Tendentious wrote:

Second paragraph - so you can retrain a skill increase. Does that mean it can't be used on any skill that you had at 1st level? For example, if a character is trained in Arcana at 1st level then they can't become untrained in Arcana to become trained in their Ancestral Longevity skill by retraining. That seems odd, and also means you need to keep track of initial skills vs skill increases.

Also, and it doesn't say it, I assume that if you do retrain, then you need to select a new skill that will apply to the relevant feat, now that you are actually trained (or expert) in the skill that was attached to the feat.

By selecting the skills at daily preparation time, it clears up the confusion with what skills you can use with Ancestral Longevity after retraining nicely, since you just pick new ones at daily preparation time.

Skill increase vs any skill. It does look to limit the retraining to skills you've gained or increased from the skill increase class feature (i.e. the increases at 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc levels). Don't have much to say about the complexity of that limitation. Given no class can start with expert in a skill at 1st, you do need to just keep track of your starting skills (and if you retrain them the old fashioned way to other choices).