I had always wondered how most GM's handle that... about left-over gear from a PC that dies and then the player wants or decides to intro a different PC. In game, it makes sense the survivors have access (if they have access to the body), but I also realize it screws up the whole WBL situation.
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Depending on your particular situation (what the feat is, if you cast spells) here are some ways you might still get use out of that teamwork feat.
Ring of Tactical Precision is expensive but lets you share a teamwork feat you possess with one other person.
The coordinated effort spell lets you temporarily share a teamwork feat with multiple allies. Shared training is similar but utterly and completely better.
I think your party member should pay for the retrain, since he didn't take the teamwork feat again.
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I had always wondered how most GM's handle that... about left-over gear from a PC that dies and then the player wants or decides to intro a different PC. In game, it makes sense the survivors have access (if they have access to the body), but I also realize it screws up the whole WBL situation.
It only screws up wbl if you let it. You (the GM) have 100% control over what treasure your pcs find. If it's that big of a deal to you, your players just got 10,000gp of gear from a party member dying? Fine whatever, just remove 10,000gp of treasure you were going to give out and done, balanced.
Forcing decisions on your players that should be their call is always the wrong move as a GM. Let the players do what they want to do and adapt, it's why we're playing a role playing game.
I had always wondered how most GM's handle that... about left-over gear from a PC that dies and then the player wants or decides to intro a different PC.
We have a "gentleman's agreement" that we don't take stuff off our dead comrades. The in-game rational is: Their stuff is sent to their families, or their stuff is burried with them, or their stuff is lost in the explosion that killed them ... you get the idea.
If there's something particularly appropriate for your character you can keep it - even just something you'll use a lot - but we don't get to sell their stuff wholesale just to buy new loot.
Honestly though, if your characters are dying often enough for this to seriously unbalance the game they probably need the extra gear.
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The alternative is to simply not give the new character full WBL choice of equipment. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I think a PC dying shouldn't be a cause of celebration for the player because now they get a free rebuild and can pick any gear, while the other PCs have to wear what had been found and are stuck with their choices...
A few different things to comment on in this thread now:
-Tesuji2, what your GM decided on is accurate to the rules but disappointing and, depending on the style of game, I'd be frustrated too. Is it easy to get 5 days of downtime? If not, I'd be more frustrated. If it's simply solved by "hey, rest of the group, let's pass 5 days so that I can switch this out," then it's easy and not something to get worried about.
You have a feat that is now (mostly) useless due to a character death. A GM making it difficult to switch it out means that people are less likely to take teamwork feats / abilities that help out a specific type of character other than their own. And depending on the severity of it, players may stopping taking options that hep out other people. (EG: Spellcasters may stop taking "Enlarge Person" because it mostly only helps martial characters and what if the martial dies and the player makes a character where enlarge person isn't as useful?)
-When a PC dies it's understood that all of their gear (unless it's plot significant) goes with the body or sent to the family.
Losing a character isn't a bad thing to some people as it allows them to make a new character they want to try. I've played with someone that would look for any excuse to "valiantly sacrifice" themselves every few months because they were bored of the character and wanted to try something else. WBL is quickly thrown out of whack with players like that and, depending on the frequency of it, so much loot would need to be removed that it would stand out as being weird. (EG: "So we're attacking this castle and other than combat gear there's nothing in this entire place? How are they paying the mercenaries? How come there's nothing of value in here?")
-To build on what Derklord said, perhaps allowing the players to keep the gear of the deceased giving a new PC the wealth of an NPC (heroic) as they should have some amount of gear would make sense. Except for very early levels it wouldn't unbalance anything and would allow a GM to easily adjust loot down a little without it being obvious to the players.
And then revisit the idea if it becomes a problem due to a PC dying every few sessions due to players trying to abuse this (in such a way that you're not comfortable calling them out on their bad behaviour).
I don't see how you aren't being punished for another player's decision. The idea of teamwork feats is awesome and promotes something I rarely see at most tables. Why would anyone want to stymie that?
The whole WBL/character death debacle just confuses me. If the PC's have an appropriate amount of wealth for their level, then a new character with the same isn't an advantage. It's the same. So just...give better/more/effective/meaningful rewards for encounters, and...problem solved.
I also don't understand how death isn't at least something of a setback. Don't people get attached to or invested in their characters? Most of the character death in my games is met with something at least resembling real grief. Even in a less serious story, it's like a glass of cold water in your face.
I think it's ok to be angry at both the GM and the fellow player, at least for a moment. The GM retreats to the rules instead of really assessing the situation. The fellow player either doesn't care about the consequences of their class change or isn't capable of communicating / helping to find a solution.
On the other hand, a GM who deviates from the official rules often has to deal with unwanted consequences: For example what about the next player who wants free retraining? And other players should have the right to choose their PCs' options as freely as possible.
Personally, I'd ask the other player about their impression on teamwork feats. Maybe they don't consider them worth the trouble. Maybe they enjoyed them, but the feats don't fit to the new character.
And maybe there is someone else for teamwork - a cohort, a GMPC, another PC, whatever...
I've always found the "old pC's gear disappears/ is sent home to their family" thing pretty unreqalistic. We're in the middle of the ninth level of hell, Bob the fighter just died, and suddenlty a post office appears to send his things home... That is just silly.
We play that the party can do what they like with the dead character's equipment, and whilst it may, technically put them over WBL, in practice it doesn't give a huge advantage because you can only wear one suit of armour / wield one weapon / wear one belt at a time. Yes it can be sold at the next settlement, but giving the party a bit less treasure from the next few encounters will balance things out.
That said, with most of my groups, if a PC dies the party will do whatever they can to bring that character back from the dead, including doing deals with some dubious entities if that's the only option. Consequently I haven't seen many cases of a character being dead and replaced in the last couple of decades.
If X PCs have appropriate WBL each, and then one of them dies and they get to keep the dead characters wealth and bring in a new character with full wealth, then X PCs will have wealth appropriate to X+1 PCs.
That's not quite what I was referring to. I was talking about the issue where a character that starts at lvl1 and works their way up to lvl10 is said to have less optimal/desirable equipment than one starting out at lvl10. But that only flies if the other character hasn't been given the chance to acquire said optimal/desirable equipment. Just give your players a chance to get the stuff they want/need.
As for having the wealth of another character added to the other players, I still don't get it. Yeah, that puts them above the wealth by level mark. So... give them less treasure for a bit? Or do people honestly try to maintain a constant and exact WBL for each character? Do you gain 0gp worth of valuables between levels, and then gain all of the difference between your previous level and the next in one big, exact lump sum the moment your xp bumps you into the next level?
There's obviously going to be times you're ahead and times you're behind. The death of a comrade and the subsequent rolling of his cadaver is one of the times you're ahead.
As for the original post, I don't like the "be careful when you stray from the rules, who knows what the consequences may be?"-sort of stuff. You're the GM. Run the game as you see fit. Being consistent is great. But being consistently fair and reasonably and being consistently in line with the rules are not the same thing. Free retraining? No. If this came up at my table, I'd 100% give the OP a chance to swap out their feat and have 0 issues with telling the next person no. Unless, of course, their reasons for wanting to switch were equally odd and outside of their own control.
WBL is just a guideline for building characters at the level. Most adventurers will have significantly more or less wealth depending on the adventure and how they use the wealth distributed in the game.
I've noticed that it's fairly easy to keep encounters challenging to the party, regardless of wealth, simply by maxing HP on the bad guys and if needed, adding a couple of extra bodies. In my experience, optimal builds, and tier 1 classes played by experienced players makes much more of a difference that too much gear.
As Quixote said, if this were to happen at my table, I'd allow the player to make the change about his/character. This is a meta-game issue about player satisfaction, it has nothing to do with the rules. I don't see it any different than letting a player know the party won't be facing say a lot of undead if I hear a player wanting to gear her character towards being efficient at fighting undead.
The dead feat will achieve nothing good but make the player sour. With such an attitude, what prevents the player from creating a new character, identical in all points but with this feat altered?
This isn't rules, this is gameplay, quality of life, this is about each player enjoying playing the game.
I really don't see it different than never providing a character with a worthwhile weapon of the kind the character specialises in. Letting the character hang with a dead fear for a while as this is one of the possible drawbacks of teamwork, the lack of team-mate, is fine, just like throwing rust monsters is. Leaving the characters gear-less ever after isn't.
I also don't understand how death isn't at least something of a setback. Don't people get attached to or invested in their characters?
Not everyone, no.
I've always found the "old pC's gear disappears/ is sent home to their family" thing pretty unreqalistic. We're in the middle of the ninth level of hell, Bob the fighter just died, and suddenlty a post office appears to send his things home... That is just silly.
I didn't see anyone imply that the gear immediately disappeared nor that the body was instantly sent home, but I guess that wasn't made clear enough.
The group isn't likely to just leave the body where it fell so they would collect it, and the gear, and continue on until they're in a position where they could give it a proper burial or some such thing.As for having the wealth of another character added to the other players, I still don't get it. Yeah, that puts them above the wealth by level mark. So... give them less treasure for a bit? Or do people honestly try to maintain a constant and exact WBL for each character?
One PC dying and the group keeping the gear isn't much of a problem and can sometimes be easy to adjust for. But as I said, I've been in games where someone is constantly looking for excuses to die and make a new character. Most of his character would last a couple of months so keeping all of his gear would've vastly skewed the wealth of the group. There was one campaign in particular that the player made a new character at least once every two levels. No, we're not stringent on ensuring everyone has exactly the WBL amount and that everyone has an exact equal share of the treasure. If anyone thinks that's the case they're thinking too extreme in either direction and they're likely to have a hard time understanding where anyone in this thread is coming from with their opinions.
This isn't rules, this is gameplay, quality of life, this is about each player enjoying playing the game.
Totally agree with this!
Yes, making changes will be a case-by-case basis, and just because one person was allowed to doesn't mean the next person automatically can."So-and-so completely changed his character and now this ability I have is pretty useless" is quite a bit different from "okay, we're about to go kill a bunch of undead so I want to change my ranger's favoured enemy from what we've been killing for the last 3 levels to undead. Oh, and I'm going to do the exact same thing 2 levels from now once we get past the undead and move on to the giants that we know are coming"