Player intends to have Magical Lineage to reduce metamagic penalty. Throughout her career the spell selected for this reduction will change. I note that traits cannot be retrained and the trait itself doesn't have text that allows for it to be revised to work with a new spell.
It's a once-you-pick-it-you're-stuck-with-it sort of thing.
Player says, "But I'm not retraining a trait. I got Magical Lineage via the Additional Traits feat, so I'm retraining that feat using the normal rules for retraining feats." During retraining, her idea is to drop the feat, then repick the same feat with the same traits but with a different spell selected for Magical Lineage.
Seems to me that it's... by the rules at that point. Am I wrong? Is there something I'm missing?
Yes, this is a kosher-per-RAW way of being able to retrain traits. This is kinda cheesy because it arguably violates RAI but not RAW, so expect some DM's to ban this.
Half-Elves do that all the time with Paragon Surge to get Additional Traits, don't they?
Half-Elves do that all the time with Paragon Surge to get Additional Traits, don't they?
Sure, if it involves traits that are useful when you only have them for a few minutes per day. There aren't that many of those.
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Some retraining options require you to work with a trainer. If no suitable trainer is available, the GM might allow you to retrain yourself by spending twice the normal time.
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You may change one feat to another through retraining. Retraining a feat takes 5 days with a character who has the feat you want.
So:
You need a trainer with the feat you want. That isn't simply the Additional Traits feat. It is the Additional Traits feat with the traits you want. And one of those traits must be different from one of the previous traits, as you need to train a different feat.If and how hard is to find the appropriate trainer is all in the hands of the GM. You can easily say that there is no trainer with the appropriate feat.
Retraining takes all your attention for 8 hours per day for a number of days based on what you’re retraining. You can’t perform any other strenuous activities while retraining, such as marching, adventuring, or crafting magic items.
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Abandoning unfinished training means you lose all progress toward that training’s goal and all costs associated with that training.
The character must spend 5 uninterrupted days doing only that.
Again, the GM can easily disallow that. Personally, I wouldn't like to do that, but it depends on how much they abuse retraining.
It is way simpler to say: "No, it is against the RAI." or even "It is against how I want this campaign to be played."
Playing should be a pleasure for everyone, GM included.
You need a trainer with the feat you want. That isn't simply the Additional Traits feat. It is the Additional Traits feat with the traits you want.
No. Stop making stuff up just because you don't like it.
Sure, if it involves traits that are useful when you only have them for a few minutes per day. There aren't that many of those.
There are quite some gems out there. Due to the power level difference between S-rated/blue-rated traits (e.g. adding bonuses to saving throws or initiative) and lower-rated traits (e.g. "+1 bonus to climb once a day when in unnatural rainy weather on a famous pirate ship while being in combat with green-haired aquatic creatures"), most traits in the game are simply ignored.
But when going through all the traits looking specifically for short-term/once-a-day/rare-occasion abilities, you'll find a lot that is worth keeping in mind for Additional Traits via Paragon Surge,
especially all the "+1 trait bonus & becomes class-skill" (e.g. Caretaker) that can give you a +4 bonus on a skill you need right now,
or "use X-ability modifier instead of Y-ability modifier on skill" (e.g. Wisdom in the Flesh);
others of note are for example:
Thoughtful Wish-Maker, Dealmaker, Hedge Magician, Spark of Creation, Tenacious Shifting, Shrouded Casting, Pragmatic Activator, Beast of the Society, Fortunate, Alchemical Intuition, Alchemical Adept, Heirloom Weapon, Empyreal Pantheon, ...
I think they should have made the Additional Traits feat a level 1 feat only, and with the ability to take a 2nd drawback for a 3rd trait, and then make it incapable of retraining due to the intention of how Traits are supposed to work. My 2cp.
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Seems to me that it's... by the rules at that point. Am I wrong? Is there something I'm missing?
IMO it's not a pure rules question. Magical Lineage is overpowered for a trait (already covered by Lelomenia). Retraining is a flawed system since a) it draws rather arbitrary lines what can be retrained, b) officially gives players more power over their PCs just to immediately undermine that with time requirements and c) finally has the potential to hurt immersion by allowing to remove well-established facets of a character.
Beyond that, your player aims for "moah powa" even though they might not need it at all. Magical Lineage sounds like full caster, and this kind of classes is usually fine after some levels (and rather broken after some more levels). Maybe they overestimate the campaign's difficulty. Maybe they underestimate their own skill as a player. Maybe they got carried away with power fantasies, no longer realizing this game is supposed to be fun for everyone. It can be tough to convince a player that they are smart enough to be fine even when they don't take "TEH BEST" options. But it's worth it for both sides - they are more free to play what they actually enjoy, and you have to bother less with overpowered PCs.
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It can be tough to convince a player that they are smart enough to be fine even when they don't take "TEH BEST" options.
It took me a while to learn this for myself.
Now, I just kind of shrug. Damage will happen. I focus more on accuracy. And utility. And flavor/fun.
These days I don't even want to use, include, or take Power Attack/Deadly Aim/TWF/Rapid Shot unless it is prerequisite to something cool or fun.
But trying to tell someone else that they don't HAVE TO BE a stupid freaking Knifemaster UnRogue, or whatever, can be difficult.
Retraining, in general, is clownshoes shenanigans. And I much prefer you bring me a new character to introduce, rather than rebuilding your present character mid-game.
I don't see what part you are claiming he made up.You need a trainer with the feat you want. That isn't simply the Additional Traits feat. It is the Additional Traits feat with the traits you want.No. Stop making stuff up just because you don't like it.
"That isn't simply the Additional Traits feat. It is the Additional Traits feat with the traits you want."
There is no such requirement; he simply pulled that out of his... bag of holding.
I don't really get the animosity toward retraining. Level progression is inflexible and retraining gives you some space to get around that. I don't want someone to have to gamble on whether a campaign is going to reach a certain level to take an ability that will otherwise be a waste.
It fits narratively too. Like how many kung fu stories are there that follow the basic arc of guy gets defeated by technique, goes away for a few days and trains a new move specifically to beat that technique, comes back and wins. It's like half of them. It makes sense for characters to be refining their moves to suit their situations as they go
Personally, I usually just let players change their builds if they want, and save retraining for maxing out HP and stuff. I mean I guess if someone came to me wanting to change their Magical Lineage constantly I'd probably shut it down (why would you even), but usually it's gonna be like, once. Otherwise it just depends what they want to do and how it will affect the game. Magical Lineage is usually doing its best work on lowish level spells anyway.
Anyway, as far as the topic is concerned, it's been said that it works by RAW, and I agree with that.
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You need a trainer with the feat you want. That isn't simply the Additional Traits feat. It is the Additional Traits feat with the traits you want.No. Stop making stuff up just because you don't like it.
I don't see what part you are claiming he made up. Other than maybe the trainer requiring the feat, but I think that's strongly implied by common sense.
Retraining a feat requires you to spend gp, takes time, requires a trainer, and can happen as often as you want.Assuming the GM wants to allow retraining a feat that effectively retrains a trait, then the PC will have to spend the time (5 days), money (50 gp x character level), and get a trainer to do so. If the GM wants to be nice and say the PC can retrain without having a trainer to teach them (which is not intended or implied, but maybe if it was some simple feat, like Toughness or something), then it would take twice as long (this increased time doesn't affect the cost, but you still need to pay the cost, and have an appropriate training facility or location).
Some retraining options require you to work with a trainer. If no suitable trainer is available, the GM might allow you to retrain yourself by spending twice the normal time. Even if you train yourself, you must still pay the cost for training (though you don’t double the cost as you do the time). Any option that requires a trainer also requires some kind of training facility for that activity.I wouldn't, however, require a PC to learn a different feat and then have to learn Additional Trait, I would likely let them just retrain Additional Trait, similar to how I would let someone retrain Weapon Focus from one weapon to another without requiring a transition feat in the middle.
The trainer having the feat is a requirement to train feats:
FEAT
You may change one feat to another through retraining. Retraining a feat takes 5 days with a character who has the feat you want.
Weapon focus with a longsword is a specific feat and you can retrain weapon focus with a warhammer for it.
Additional traits with Magical lineage and Armor focus is a specific feat and is different from Additional traits with Magical lineage and Axe to grind (my argument).If Theaitetos argument is that Additional traits is the same feat regardless of the additional traits chosen, then it is not possible to retrain Additional traits into Additional traits, as it is necessary to choose a different feat when retraining.
Theaitetos position actually seems to be "Player should have more power, how you dare to say the shouldn't!" and he has an ax to grind with people that doesn't agee with him.
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I don't see what part you are claiming he made up.You need a trainer with the feat you want. That isn't simply the Additional Traits feat. It is the Additional Traits feat with the traits you want.No. Stop making stuff up just because you don't like it.
"That isn't simply the Additional Traits feat. It is the Additional Traits feat with the traits you want."
There is no such requirement; he simply pulled that out of his... bag of holding.
Then it is the same feat and you can't retrain it directly. You can't have it both ways.
It can be tough to convince a player that they are smart enough to be fine even when they don't take "TEH BEST" options.It took me a while to learn this for myself.
Yeah, same here. I spent quite some time and energy on optimizing eidolons and sneak attack before I realized I could go for other goals, too.
@Saffron: I offer my players free retraining unless they try to abuse it. So switching class to a related one in the middle of a campaign is ok if discussed with me, but changing favored enemies every other session is not. Worked pretty well so far.
I am not happy with the concept of "retraining HP" - since it seldom means an interesting choice. Taking these additional HP is an obvious decision, unless downtime is limited and there are competing options of equal (or superior) value. Obvious choices shouldn't be choices at all - so I rather give them full HD or go with PFS rules for HD, with no HP retraining allowed.
Finally, if they want to develop new powers against an overwhelming challenge, they can level up elsewhere or get themselves some items. The kung fu protagonist's improvement could also be explained with a level up.
I don't see what part you are claiming he made up.You need a trainer with the feat you want. That isn't simply the Additional Traits feat. It is the Additional Traits feat with the traits you want.No. Stop making stuff up just because you don't like it.
"That isn't simply the Additional Traits feat. It is the Additional Traits feat with the traits you want."
There is no such requirement; he simply pulled that out of his... bag of holding.
Do you need a trainer with just any ole weapon focus to teach you weapon focus (longsword) or do you need the guy who specifically knows longswords? Any time a feat has you pick a subchoice within it, its a different feat than another subchoice within the feat.
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It can be tough to convince a player that they are smart enough to be fine even when they don't take "TEH BEST" options.It took me a while to learn this for myself.Yeah, same here. I spent quite some time and energy on optimizing eidolons and sneak attack before I realized I could go for other goals, too.
@Saffron: I offer my players free retraining unless they try to abuse it. So switching class to a related one in the middle of a campaign is ok if discussed with me, but changing favored enemies every other session is not. Worked pretty well so far.
I am not happy with the concept of "retraining HP" - since it seldom means an interesting choice. Taking these additional HP is an obvious decision, unless downtime is limited and there are competing options of equal (or superior) value. Obvious choices shouldn't be choices at all - so I rather give them full HD or go with PFS rules for HD, with no HP retraining allowed.
Finally, if they want to develop new powers against an overwhelming challenge, they can level up elsewhere or get themselves some items. The kung fu protagonist's improvement could also be explained with a level up.
It almost never can because leveling up makes next to no sense outside of games that use it. Imagine if Rocky training to box right handed meant that he locked himself out of the training he did for Drago because he'd spent a couple levels on abilities to win one fight (which he ended up not even using). For that matter, you don't have level ups on demand. You can go retrain a feat in a handful of days, you can't just level up on demand. You would only ever hamstring yourself that way. Retraining gives players a chance to do some different things, and honestly makes more sense than leveling up anyway.
The only weirdness with retraining in that respect is that you lose something.
As for retraining HP, that's down to personal taste. I like it because it helps prevent animosity from forming between players getting good rolls and players getting bad rolls, but also because it gives them a reason to seek downtime and lets me throw bigger and badder monsters at them longterm.
As for abusive, I mean what's abusive here? If they're not retraining into builds that would be broken anyway, what's actually abusive? It's not like you can just do it in the middle of a fight. If you come up against a monster that's immune to your best move and you don't think you can win, so you flee and use the new information to practice a new trick without having to go do a bunch of arbitrary encounters to level up, that's just like, engaging with the problem on a higher level than just pass/fail. Like that's something I *want* players to do. Or research the dungeon beforehand, find out there's a monster immune to fire there and retrain your magical lineage to admonishing ray or something. I can't see how this is worse than trying to level grind.
The most egregious retraining thing I can think of on the spot is spending a month to swap out four feats for dimensional savant the instant you get access to dimension door, and I don't think that's terribly unreasonable. As far as magical lineage goes, I mean, I struggle to think of why I'd put it on anything high enough level to merit retraining as opposed to having it on something like shocking grasp or scorching ray that I can just use over and over again forever. Otherwise, the main reason I can think of to swap something like that around is like if I picked scorching ray and the GM decides to spend the next year of sessions making me fight the efreeti mafia
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Even though it doesn’t make sense, by RAW i think anyone with Weapon Focus(anything) can retrain you in Weapon Focus(longsword).Agreed.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new
type of weapon.
I would say that that shows that it is considered a different feat every time you take it.
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It almost never can because leveling up makes next to no sense outside of games that use it. Imagine if Rocky training to box right handed meant that he locked himself out of the training he did for Drago because he'd spent a couple levels on abilities to win one fight (which he ended up not even using). For that matter, you don't have level ups on demand. You can go retrain a feat in a handful of days, you can't just level up on demand. You would only ever hamstring yourself that way. Retraining gives players a chance to do some different things, and honestly makes more sense than leveling up anyway.The only weirdness with retraining in that respect is that you lose something.
Retraining is very different from learning new ways to fight exactly because you forget the old way of fighting. The guy that is an expert at using a hunting shotgun doesn't forget how to use it because he learns how to use a bolt action rifle.
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Player intends to have Magical Lineage to reduce metamagic penalty. Throughout her career the spell selected for this reduction will change. I note that traits cannot be retrained and the trait itself doesn't have text that allows for it to be revised to work with a new spell.
It's a once-you-pick-it-you're-stuck-with-it sort of thing.
Player says, "But I'm not retraining a trait. I got Magical Lineage via the Additional Traits feat, so I'm retraining that feat using the normal rules for retraining feats." During retraining, her idea is to drop the feat, then repick the same feat with the same traits but with a different spell selected for Magical Lineage.
Seems to me that it's... by the rules at that point. Am I wrong? Is there something I'm missing?
The rules of retraining technically allow it.
The rules of retraining technically allow me to retrain my sorcerer from earth elemental bloodline to impossible... or, in fact, from a sorcerer to an eldritch scoundrel unrogue -> arcane trickster. (But not in PFS, of course.)
The rules of retraining allow you to say "if no trainer, then no training" wherever trainers are called out:
Some retraining options require you to work with a trainer. If no suitable trainer is available, the GM might allow you to retrain yourself by spending twice the normal time. Even if you train yourself, you must still pay the cost for training (though you don’t double the cost as you do the time). Any option that requires a trainer also requires some kind of training facility for that activity (such as a Dojo—see Rooms).
Feats are of this sort. If you don't allow self-training for feats, then your player will have to find a trainer who has Additional Traits. NPCs can take this (in fact, they generally can't start with traits, so this feat is usually the only way for them to have traits,) so a trainer could be available.
There's a reason why you might also require that trainer to have Magical Lineage, maybe even for the spell the player wants to swap to. Consider an AM TROO KELRICK OF GORUM! barbarian who helps the party's sorcerer to retrain into Additional Traits... and she chooses something that gives a bonus to craft (artsy stuff) and a religion trait of Shelyn. That... wouldn't make a lick of sense, no matter what RAW technically allows!
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You also have discretion to be nice. Sure, Magical Lineage has no business being a mere trait; but nothing stops you from allowing the player's Magical Lineage to be "evolved" via retraining.
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But to the question of the rules as written: as munch as it sucks, if you allow self-training for feats, then your player can in fact self-retrain Additional Traits. He might need to train out of it to something arbitrary (skill focus appraise?) and then back in order to avoid "you can't just retrain X into itself, unless you could take X in multiple variants like Weapon Focus," but RAW would be on his side here.
tl;dr: Can they? Yes, I think so. Should you allow it? Maybe, with limitations based on the character.
RAW, it looks like the player can do it.
RAI, it seems weird, but that's because it really does seem like traits should be fixed things, and "Additional Trait" should be a level 1 only feat. (But growing and developing your traits can make sense too, so sometimes it totally makes sense as a feat you take later). But retraining is a weird thing anyways. (And I mostly see it as something that's used when a player has either grown bored of their character and wants to change things up or thought something would be used often and they've never once been able to actually do it.)
Someone retraining often is likely cheesing the system and trying to get away with it "because the rules say I can".... which, as a GM, is disappointing and, if it's consistently done over time, may lessen my fun due to the one player and I'd start looking for someone to replace them with.
Now, specifically for retraining Additional Trait and switching out and replacing Magical Lineage with itself, I'd suggest talking to the player (as is nearly always the case with things like this) and finding something that makes sense within the game.
Is it always Fire-based spells they want to do it with?
Is there something about their parents that was passed down to them so that there is some sort of guidance as to the theme of the spells they're going to apply Magical Lineage to?
If the GM and player work together it can be done as something that makes sense.
Yes, there are ways that, by the rules, you can find excuses that the player can't retrain. Heck, you could simply say "No. Retraining is fine so long as people aren't trying to abuse the system, which you're obviously doing." or a nicer way of saying it is "traits can't be changed and therefore I've decided that even traits gained through feats can't be changed either because I believe that's how the rules are intended." (The player might still complain because "but the rules!"... it's up to you how you want to handle that though.)
In the end, if you decide that retraining the feat requires a trainer and there just isn't one around you could end up with a player more focused on finding a trainer than playing in the campaign which will lessen the fun for everyone and will create a player vs GM mentality so I'd avoid going down that route at any cost.
I think it's also important to keep in mind the point of retraining rules:
They were created to let PFS players be able to back out of a character choice for different one that works better in whatever next random module their GM threw at them. It's basically the same thing as buying a consumable in terms of WBL utilage, you get a benefit temporarily that makes you better at say "defending against X" and when you leave the corner of Golarion that is found on, you retrain to perform better wherever else you're headed.
Aside from the difference of player mentalities to be found among those who play society games and those who don't, the rule is meant to keep choices like Favored Enemy (Gnoll) from being worthless where Gnolls aren't found, Spell Focus (enchantment) from being worthless in a module entirely centered around undead, and a fire sorcerer from being worthless in a trip to the Fire Plane. It was not meant to be able to cheese prerequisites, reselect niche overpowered spells, or replace things from birth/character history because something else is suddenly better.
If you're GM is telling you "No, you have to die to make your actually worthless character better." that's one thing, but as a ruleset meant for a niche of players, I strongly favor any GM telling a player no when they're up to some "but it wasn't good for me then..." antics.