How do you handle retraining?

[Alabenson]

One of the player's in my current campaign has made some...less than optimal feat choices, and now is asking if I'd be willing to let him retrain a few of them to improve his effectiveness. I have nothing against letting him do this, but I'm not sure how to actually handle the retraining ingame, and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions or advice on the subject.

[Amphetryon]

There are rules for retraining in chapter 8 of the Player's Handbook 2. Personally, I allow everyone a single 'free' retcon of a character build choice, before dipping into those rules, but I run a game with a bunch of relatively new players.

[Acanous]

a montage works nicely. Give your characters some down time. They'll craft things, make some money working, do a little RP, shop, and retrain.
Ask them what all they're doing, take it all down, find whatever takes the longest to do, and tell them they're all doing things for that long.

Bam! You're done.

In time-sensitive adventures, this can be a problem, but remember that down time IS part of the game and an anticipated resource.

[house.au]

There are rules for retraining in chapter 8 of the Player's Handbook 2. Personally, I allow everyone a single 'free' retcon of a character build choice, before dipping into those rules, but I run a game with a bunch of relatively new players.

That's of interest to me, sadly I haven't got my hands on the Players Handbook 2, what are the basics?

[Calanon]

Nothing says "retrained" like a good old fashion mindraping :smallwink:

[Lord.Sorasen]

For what it's worth, if they're retraining into superior editions of the same basic concepts, you could easily just do it without it showing up outside the metagame. Weapon Specialization -> Power Attack, for instance.

[Serpentine]

Not technically "retraining", but one of my players wanted to go from a normal Druid to a volcano-themed Druid. So I homebrewed her up a Magma Druid, and then gave her a terribly dramatic moment where she was dragged into lava by a dragon, and then had a powerful burst of natural divine magic which fundamentally altered her very form in tune with and to protect her from the red-hot molten stone around her so that she emerged glowing red-hot herself and infused with the power of volcanoes. Mechancially speaking, she dumped her Druid levels and replaced them with Magma Druid levels, but kept all her skill choices and the like.
But that was pretty much a whole new character change, not just feats...

Can you tell us what feats he wants to forget and what he wants to take up? That could help us give ideas for fluffiness.

[Curmudgeon]

That's of interest to me, sadly I haven't got my hands on the Players Handbook 2, what are the basics?
If you don't have access to this book, you can always hire an NPC manifester to use Psychic Reformation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/psychicReformation.htm) to accomplish the same end.

[sreservoir]

there's also dark chaos shuffle in I think fiendish codex I? much more expensive, of course.

[Amphetryon]

That's of interest to me, sadly I haven't got my hands on the Players Handbook 2, what are the basics?

Because it's not OGL, my answer's going to feel hopelessly vague. It provides a variety of processes to swap out Class features (but not for features your Class doesn't provide), Feats, Languages, Skills, Spells, and/or Substitution Levels.