Opinions on Player Rebuiilds

[sithlordnergal]

So, I'm suddenly very curious. I know that AL allows you to completely rebuild your character, from race to class to even ability scores, from between levels 1 to 4 as many times as they like. And I, myself, allow players to rebuild as many times as they like until we reach level 6, and we just go on as if the PC was always that new build.

What do you other DMs feel about rebuilds like this? Are they good or bad? Do they break immersion too much, ect.? Do you even allow them in the first place?

[Blood of Gaea]

Sure, why not? So long as they give me a decent reason, such as "I dunno man, this just isn't much fun".

If they're just trying to munchkin a strong low-level build through 1-6, I'm going to hit them with a stick.

[Evaar]

If it’s in good faith, why not? DnD characters can be a years long commitment. If they can find a way to enjoy it more, do that.

About the only reason I can see to bar it is if they’re trying to game the system and play a viable character in early levels and then swap to a weird multiclass build that comes “online” at the level they happen to be. That seems a little bad faith.

[bendking]

If they're just trying to munchkin a strong low-level build through 1-6, I'm going to hit them with a stick.

Why though? If that's the way the player enjoys the game, and as long as it doesn't affect other people's enjoyment of it, I don't see a reason to prohibit such behavior.
I'm always in favor of rebuilds.

[Maelynn]

Depends on the nature of the rebuild and how strong they can make a case for it. At my table, roleplay is important and you create a character, not just a build with a name slapped on it. I'd want to know how much of an impact the desired changes have on the story, the setting, the party.

- do you want to optimise your build? No sorry, should've given it a bit more thought at creation.

- is there a serious flaw in your build? Maybe, let's take a look and see just how gimped you are. We could find a way to work around it, or maybe you can turn it into some unique character trait, or perhaps there's a magic item that solves it and we'll make a side-quest out of you going after it.

- do you find you're really not liking the class/archetype you picked, or is it not working within the party? Probably, let's hear your preference and we can see whether we can retcon your char's story or even write up a new character to introduce to the story.

- did you read about some new race/class and think it's way cool? Hell no. Use it for your next character.

[Black Jester]

The mechanical aspects of a character are only of secondary or tertiary importance. As long as the core background of the character remains the same and is expanded, and not retconned, adjustments are okay.

What makes a character is not the numbers, it is the background and personality. You can change the numbers easily, but once you have created a personality, you cannot simply redo it without breaking it.

If the core concept of the character is broken, the player murdered the character anyway and defecated on the corpse, so there is no reason to treat it as the same character. Start from scratch with a new one (which means Level 1, 0 XP as usual) and don't impose your disaffection with your very own creation on the whole group.

[Laserlight]

My players became devotees (sort of) to a god of chaos and trickery, and I offered them a complete rebuild, just keep the same race (but adjust the racial stat bonuses if appropriate). Generally I'd rather rebuild the existing character and keep the relationships, than bring in a completely new one.

[Waazraath]

I don't know about complete rebuilds; in that case, I'd just let the player make a new character of the same level. Small changes: why not? If somebody wants to change a feat, fighting style of metamagic choice, I don't think I'd object.

3.5 had really nice retraining rules for this.



If the core concept of the character is broken, the player murdered the character anyway and defecated on the corpse, so there is no reason to treat it as the same character. Start from scratch with a new one (which means Level 1, 0 XP as usual) and don't impose your disaffection with your very own creation on the whole group.

Wait, what? If somebody wants to play something else, he or she has to start at 0xp again? Why? :smalleek: That hardly seems to me to be in favor of the whole group....

[Innocent_bystan]

Sure, why not? So long as they give me a decent reason, such as "I dunno man, this just isn't much fun".

If they're just trying to munchkin a strong low-level build through 1-6, I'm going to hit them with a stick.
This. Except I want to use a bat instead of a stick.
I have one player that tries to do this at almost every level up. Now I force him to retire the character and rebuild a new one. He now owns a whole roster of really similar characters, each with an optimal stat/feat/level split for that level.
At least he can't transfer magic items between builds.

[Black Jester]

Wait, what? If somebody wants to play something else, he or she has to start at 0xp again? Why? :smalleek: That hardly seems to me to be in favor of the whole group....

XP strictly represents individual experience that must be earned to be fully valued. If players are not entitled to XP, but feel that they achieved them through pain and hard work, they work as a reward; and grant a feeling of actual accomplishment that is impossible to simulate through free XP. So yeah, Characters with 0 play time start with no XP, because they haven't earned any yet. That is the only fair way to handle this sort of reward mechanism, by directly and exclusively linking it to the actual contributions of that character.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I play dominantly with new players with no experience, in a school club environment. So of course I allow rebuilds with no penalty up to level 5 (we normally make it to level 6 in a school year campaign due to restricted play time). So far only one has taken me up on that (changing from circle of the land to circle of the Moon), but it's always an option.

[Benny89]

I always allow it because what I gain as DM from player that doesn't enjoy playing his charcater? Should force him to play it from level 1-20 even though he doesn't like it anymore? It's just a game. As long as players have fun with their characters I don't mind rebuilding. Sure, rebuilding every session or two would be annoying, but if from time to time someone is like "meh, I thought this would be more useful, now I feel useless" - I say "just change it, I don't care".

As for munchkins, they are the ones that don't rebuild at all, 99% of true powergamers have build in mind optimized and planned from level 1-20.

[Keltest]

I'm never going to force a player to play a character they don't like. However, if theyre switching to a new build every other session for three months straight, there will come a point where I sit down and have a serious talk with them about what they actually want out of the game, because theyre clearly having trouble deciding what they want to do.

[ThatoneGuy84]

We actually solved this issue pretty easily at my table.
I'm sure most people remember FF2 "Mount Ordeals".
A similar place has been imputed into our games, you have to first - Quest to get to the temple, then B - beat the encounter.
Encounter is always considered a Deadly encounter, and multiple people can enter (scales on party)
Allows for Class change and re-distrub of origional "rolled statistics"
No race change has been added. But you can always loose the encounter die and remake.

[Sigreid]

I like it because it gives players a chance to try something a bit outside their wheelhouse without having to reroll or be stuck with it if they find they don't like it.

[False God]

For role-play lite, and beer & peanuts games I don't really care (this is what 99% of AL is IMO) how often a player retools, rebuilds or completely recreates their character. For non-AL home games where players are expected to invest a little more heavily I allow feat/class/subclass re-selecting during some downtime, but for complete character revamps (ie: I was a human fighter-man now I'm a dragonborn wizard-woman) I enforce "retiring" the character.

I'm never going to make a player play a character they don't like, I myself often find I need to go through at least three characters before I develop one I really like. But I will enforce some degree of narrative consistency, once a character is created, they exist and have in-game connections that sometimes need to be maintained.

[Nagog]

I typically allow rebuilds, but I usually have it with retiring one character and introducing a new one. If a character wants to completely recreate the same character as a different class, I'd consider it depending on how closely the classes feel. For example, Hexblade to Paladin is an easy yes, as is Divine Soul to Cleric. However something like Wizard to Barbarian, I'd require a bit more than just "I want this character to be this now", as those classes are wildly different in themes, Ability Score focuses, and party role. It simply wouldn't make sense for Alavander the Illusionist to cast aside his learning and robe in favor of Hide armors and boiling wrath.

[MoiMagnus]

No problem with rebuild.
No problem with retcon of background either.

In case of major change past the first few levels, I would strongly advise recreating a character of the same level.
(We play without XP. I hate D&D-like XP as a progression system, both as a player and a DM.)

Oh, and if you want to change something that have a significant influence on other players characters, you have to consult them first. (Example: if you retcon your character to have been religious in order to prepare a multiclassing, please consult the cleric of the group beforehand, because it would have changed a lot of your relationship with him).

[Tanarii]

Depends on the nature of the campaign. If it's open table multi-party, there shouldn't be any rebuilds allowed. Leveling up to 5 is lightning fast, it only takes 7 sessions. Frankly AL has no reason to allow it.

In a one-party campaign, a DM should probably figure out how to handle character replacement. Be it rebuild, rerolls, death, or absenteeism.