Training Feats

[Greywander]

Page 231 of the DMG has a section on training as an alternate quest reward, with one of the possible results being that the character gains a feat. I can see DMs offering this rarely when they want to give a player a little something, but I'm curious if anyone has ever made heavier use of it. In fact, you could restrict ASIs to just boosting ability scores, with training being the only way to learn feats.

The way the DMG frames feat training, it is something only offered by the DM whenever they see fit. However, I could also see players seeking out someone to train them in a specific feat, especially if the DM has let them know that this is an option that is available to them. Obviously, though, such training would not be easy to come by. Getting trained in a feat would likely be its own sidequest.

Here's how I envision such an endeavor playing out:

The player needs to work out, in character, what they are lacking and how they plan to improve. E.g. "I keep getting charmed/dominated. I need to learn discipline." (Resilient (WIS)
The party then does some investigation to find out if there is anyone in the area that might be capable of training the character. This could work like some of the other downtime activities in XGtE, such as looking for someone selling a magic item.
The party then has to travel to the trainer and persuade them to offer their services. Some trainers may more or less willing than others.
Before the training can happen, the player or party must complete a quest for the trainer. This might range from simply proving they are worthy, to helping the trainer with a problem.
Once the quest is complete, training can begin. You can use the same rules from page 134 of XGtE, so 10 weeks - your INT mod. Depending on the outcome of the quest, the trainer might waive the gold cost.

A lot is going to depend on the specific feat to be trained. For example, Weapon Master or Lightly/Moderately/Heavily Armored will probably be pretty easy to find a trainer for. In most cases, a trainer won't be interested in training more than one character (i.e. you can't cheese it to get your whole party a feat), as they can only train one character at a time and training already takes quite a long time.

There's also a trade-off in player-spotlight-hogging: after a sidequest focused around getting a feat for one specific PC, that PC is now training and unavailable while the rest of the party can keep adventuring. In other words, that player gets the spotlight for one quest, then sits in time-out while the other players get to do stuff. It might be best to have that player run an NPC or temp PC during the interim, but care must be taken that this NPC or temp PC doesn't hog the spotlight. For example, an NPC from another player's backstory might be a good choice, as the narrative can focus on that player instead.

Anyway, regardless of how you go about doing it, I'm curious how often people use feat training. I don't really get the opportunity to DM, but I feel like I might be rather permissive in allowing such things. I also like the idea of starting with a feat at 1st level (Vhumans get two), both because it broadens up end game builds and because it makes your build at 1st level more interesting (as you have more options). Feats are pretty great, and a lot less boring than +2 to an ability score. Ability scores are quite powerful, though, so it's usually worth it to get your main ability score to 20, which cuts down on how many feats you can get. Having the option of training a feat lets you pick up something without agonizing over whether you should boost an ability score instead. It's also an opportunity to get less optimized feats that offer more personality, like Linguist or Keen Mind.

[Man_Over_Game]

The way I've done stuff like this is through time lapses, usually after the players have done some grand quest and have earned themselves some time off.

Sometimes, I've implemented a time lapse when the players are still relatively low level, so they earn some gold or some fame on the side. Other times, they get some time to enhance their home base with things like Druid's Grove or Hallow.

Feats are something that haven't come up, but other things (like training an animal) has, and I'd just work it in the same way, during these long breaks. That way, one person isn't stepping out of the spotlight, but the entire team is.

When something shortens the length of time that an activity takes (like, say, an intelligent person wishes to learn a feat), they can spend their remaining down time doing something else. Like crafting an item, for instance. I would probably put a hard cap on it and say you can only learn one feat per time lapse. That way, someone with Intelligence of 20 isn't learning 2x more feats than everyone else.

Some of the characters have families, or want to create families or communities, so time lapses really help to put some of the life into the game.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Our DM (and table in general) is rather liberal with feats. The DM of the Dungeon of the Mad Mage game I'm currently in allowed us to spend some downtime training feats, we used the favors we'd gotten throughout Dragon Heist to get trainers.

My Paladin was given a recommendation through the previous party leaders connection to the lords alliance to be tutored in tactics by Jalester Silvermane, gaining the Martial Adept feat. Our Monk took up the favor offered by the Black Viper to get Observant trained.

One thing we tried to avoid was feats we couldn't come up with a plausible way to train for (Resilient being the top contender in this front) or feats that were high impact like Sharpshooter or GWM.

[GlenSmash!]

In Adventure's in Middle Earth I allow downtime for feats (Fellowship Phase Undertakings to be specific).

It only happens after the adventure phase is over, so it pretty much feels like an adventure reward.

I like it.

I will probably have to scale up some encounters in the future, but that's pretty easy.

[Bjarkmundur]

I actually, unknowingly, flavor standard feat-taking as "you are training for this feat". I, however, do love giving out feats as rewards, and have done so since 4e. Most of them are custom feats that have a special connection to the quest they just finished. Closing a shadow crossing in an explosive ritual might result in the characters being touched by the shadowfell. Then I'd create a small benefit based on that flavor, corresponding with each of my player's play style. This kinda messes with the balance of the game after a couple of these boons, but it's really fun to get these legendary boons added to your character.