# The retraining rules in PHB II



## harperscout (Jun 13, 2006)

Morning all,

I am just curious whom among us has read and/or implimented the retraining and redesign rules in the PHB II (retraining allows characters to switch out one feat, some skill points, a class feature, a language, or their speciality schools, when they gain a new level. Redesign allows characters to change up their race and class but requires them to undertake a quest.)

 I am considering implimenting the retraining rules from that book, so I was wondering if anyone has had any horror stories allowing characters to swap out feats, skill points, or class features? I am mostly concerned that these rules will hurt the storyline, and will impact character role playing as well.

Any thoughts? Thanks ahead of time!


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## shilsen (Jun 13, 2006)

I've allowed players to swap skills and feats and class levels before, and it's never been the least bit of a problem. I'm not sure what you mean by the rules hurting the storyline. Unless you're writing a novel for a large number of fans who you expect will complain about continuity, there should be no problem.


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## Piratecat (Jun 13, 2006)

I've done this before, too -- both swapping out individual feats and letting someone rebuild their character from scratch (after a life-changing in-game event). Both of them have only improved my game.


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## Crothian (Jun 13, 2006)

Like PC, I've done this.  I watch over it to make suer the player isn't abusing the rules and is making choices based off of character and not pure power.


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## Rashak Mani (Aug 4, 2006)

A quick read told me the rules as written seem very free form and up to DMs judgement... do they seem balanced ? Any recomendations ?


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## shilsen (Aug 4, 2006)

Rashak Mani said:
			
		

> A quick read told me the rules as written seem very free form and up to DMs judgement... do they seem balanced ? Any recomendations ?



 I think it's fine to let PCs swap out skill pts, feats, classes, etc., without using any rules for doing so, so I don't think any added rules for it could unbalance things. I'd recommend letting PCs make such changes without bothering to use retraining rules, or use the retraining aspect as flavor rather than mechanically.


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## BlueBlackRed (Aug 4, 2006)

We've somewhat always had redesign rules.
If you had a feat or skills you never used or were not happy with, you could swap them out.

Any affect on the story would be minor if there were any.


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## MarkB (Aug 4, 2006)

I like the rules, and intend to allow them in most of my future campaigns. To me, they don't break story continuity or suspension of disbelief any further than the existing class and level rules.


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## evilbob (Aug 5, 2006)

It -is- possible to get a little bit of an advantage when specifically planning on using this strategy, since some feats are more useful at low levels than upper levels.  Skill focus and the PHB toughness are two feats in particular that are really good at level one and really horrible at high levels; intentionally switching these later levels is much more useful than being forced to stick with them.  On the other hand, it actually gives players a reason to take these awful feats, so it's probably not too bad.

The item creation feats are also open to a slight bit of abuse, since you could take a feat, make a bunch of items, then swap it out for something else; you still are getting the "benefit" of the feat, but now you have a different feat.  And if you want to make more items, just switch it back next level.

Overall, however, I like the concept a lot and I believe that the flexibility is more than worth the occasional min/max abuse.


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## 0-hr (Aug 5, 2006)

I've decided not to use the retraining rules except as a guideline for when *the DM* decides that a character has a reason & opportunity to change something.

Though I often allow things along the lines of retraining, I don't like the rules in the PHBII because they make a player _entitiled_ to retrain. Before, the DM was the nice guy when he let a player occassionaly swap out a feat for something else. Not the DM can only be a bad guy by taking away what is now a WotC-given right.

I also feel that the retraining rules encourage power gaming. Why not take Toughness at 1st level for your wizard and then swap it out for Empower later on? It's a great munchkin move and there's no rules-reason not to do it (and sure, players will come up with a great story reason to support the munchkinism, but it is still munchinkism).


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## Ics (Aug 5, 2006)

I tend to agree more with Ki Ryn, that the retraining rules could be abused, but with a group of players that i am familiar with, i wouldn't mind giving them this freedom. I've never used the rebuilding rules, but retraining can be used to change the purpose of a character (for instance, if the role the character fills is already filled by another PC) to fit another niche, rounding out the group and allowing everyone to have more fun.


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## Pickaxe (Aug 6, 2006)

Ki Ryn said:
			
		

> Though I often allow things along the lines of retraining, I don't like the rules in the PHBII because they make a player _entitiled_ to retrain. Before, the DM was the nice guy when he let a player occassionaly swap out a feat for something else. Not the DM can only be a bad guy by taking away what is now a WotC-given right.
> 
> I also feel that the retraining rules encourage power gaming. Why not take Toughness at 1st level for your wizard and then swap it out for Empower later on? It's a great munchkin move and there's no rules-reason not to do it (and sure, players will come up with a great story reason to support the munchkinism, but it is still munchinkism).




Well, the rules are in PHB II, not a core book, so they are effectively at the DM's discretion anyway (beyond Rule Zero). So, there's no "entitlement" unless you grant it.

I also don't think these rules actually encourage power-gaming; they just provide another avenue for the "power-gamer" to exploit. It's not as if power-gaming wouldn't exist without them.

We've started to use retraining, and, overall, we have no problem with it. It encourages characters to take feats that have utility limited to certain levels. It allows players to adapt their characters as they learn more about the game, rather than having to live with a bad choice. And it gives parties flexibility to adapt to a changing campaign.

--Axe


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## DarkMaster (Aug 6, 2006)

Ki Ryn said:
			
		

> I also feel that the retraining rules encourage power gaming. Why not take Toughness at 1st level for your wizard and then swap it out for Empower later on? It's a great munchkin move and there's no rules-reason not to do it (and sure, players will come up with a great story reason to support the munchkinism, but it is still munchinkism).




I think it's actually good. With this rules there is almost no difference between a character that was actually played from level 1 and one that is created from scratch at a higher level.

So the power gamers have less a reason to let die their initial character to come back with a better one. Also I think the rule specifically says that you can only swap a feat with one you could have take at that moment, so no toughness for weapon supremacy


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## Someone (Aug 6, 2006)

I used them a couple years ago, when the party decided that they needed a better cleric and I let the ftr/clr to swap one or two levels of fighter for cleric levels. There was no problem.

Retraining seems a good solution for poor though concepts, or player regret (it can save a lot of character creation time if you allow players to retool their characters a bit), but as it´s been said several times the players shouldn´t be counting on it as a way to powergaming.


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## evilbob (Aug 7, 2006)

One extremely big loophole:

Casters are technically able to retrain spells known.  This goes over and above the normal retraining for bard/sorcs, but it seems to imply that any caster can retrain spells.

If you're a wizard, you can copy all the spells you know into scrolls, then "retrain" and learn new ones, and then relearn all the ones from the scrolls you created.  Rinse, repeat, know all spells.  This should probably either be more clearly forbidden or errata'd.


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## MarkB (Aug 7, 2006)

evilbob said:
			
		

> One extremely big loophole:
> 
> Casters are technically able to retrain spells known.  This goes over and above the normal retraining for bard/sorcs, but it seems to imply that any caster can retrain spells.
> 
> If you're a wizard, you can copy all the spells you know into scrolls, then "retrain" and learn new ones, and then relearn all the ones from the scrolls you created.  Rinse, repeat, know all spells.  This should probably either be more clearly forbidden or errata'd.



The retraining option allows you to swap *spells known*. That term is never applied to wizards - they have spells in spellbooks and spells prepared. Therefore this retraining option does not apply to them.


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## evilbob (Aug 7, 2006)

MarkB said:
			
		

> The retraining option allows you to swap *spells known*. That term is never applied to wizards - they have spells in spellbooks and spells prepared. Therefore this retraining option does not apply to them.



Ah good - that did seem horribly wrong!


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