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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide
Chapter 1: Gamemastery Basics / Running Downtime

Retraining

Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 26
The rules and suggestions for retraining are covered thoroughly in the Core Rulebook. Your primary responsibility here is to determine the time, instruction, and costs of retraining, as well as adjusting details to align cohesively with the story and world. Consider what effort each PC puts forth as they retrain, so you can describe how they feel their abilities change. What kind of research and practice do they do? If they have a teacher, what advice does that teacher give?

You can run a campaign without retraining if you want the PCs to be more bound by their decisions or are running a game without downtime. However, if your campaign doesn’t use downtime rules but a player really regrets a decision made while building or leveling up their character, you might make an exception for them.

Teachers

Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 26
Most of the abilities PCs gain come through adventuring. They’re learning on the job! Retraining, on the other hand, is dedicated study that might require a teacher’s help. You don’t have to use teachers, but it gives you a great way to introduce a new NPC or bring back an existing one in a new role. The role of a teacher could also be filled by communing with nature for a druid, poring through a massive grimoire for a wizard, and so on. The important part is the guidance gained from that source. The following list includes sample teachers.
  • Archwizard Koda Mohanz, wizard academy proctor
  • Bagra Redforge, aged artisan
  • Baroness Ivestia II, tutor in etiquette and social maneuvering
  • Byren Effestos, Esquire, advisor in matters of law, politics, and finance
  • Dr. Phinella Albor, professor of medicine and surgery
  • Dr. Revis Enzerrad, mystic versed in the occult
  • Grita the Swamp Sage, purveyor of strange draughts and cryptic riddles
  • Jeballewn Leastfire, tutor in alchemical experimentation
  • Kpunde Neverlost, retired veteran adventurer
  • Lyra, teller of legends and master of handicrafts
  • Major Venaeus, instructor of military tactics
  • Mother Elizia, high priest and religious scholar
  • Professor Kurid Yamarrupan, senior university lector
  • Quintari Solvar, coach for fitness and healthy living
  • Ragged Sanden, hermit and speaker for nature
  • Silent Flame, Master of the Seventeen Forms
  • Tembly the Daring, veteran acrobat and circus performer
  • Twelve Fingers, experienced thief and spy
  • Wen Hardfoot, well-traveled scout and naturalist
  • Zuleri Gan, conductor, playwright, and music scholar

Extreme Retraining

Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 27
By the default rules, PCs can't retrain their class, ancestry, background, ability boosts, or anything else intrinsic to their character. However, you might be able to find a way to make this happen in the story, going beyond the realm of retraining and into deeper, story-based quests. Class and ability modifiers are the simplest of these to justify, as they could come about solely through intense retraining. Especially at low levels, you might let a player rebuild their character as a different class, perhaps starting by retraining into a multiclass dedication for their new class and swapping into more feats from that dedication as partial progress towards the class change. Just be mindful that they aren't swapping over to switch out a class they think is great at low levels for one they think is stronger at high levels. Retraining a class or ability scores should take a long time, typically months or years.

Changing an ancestry or heritage requires some kind of magic, such as reincarnation into a new form. This might take a complex ritual, exposure to bizarre and rare magic, or the intervention of a deity. For instance, you might require an elf who wants to be a halfling to first become trained in Halfling Lore, worship the halfling pantheon, and eventually do a great service for halflings to get a divine blessing of transformation.

Retraining a background requires altering the game's story so that the events the PC thought happened didn't. That can be pretty tricky to justify! The most likely scenario is that they had their memory altered and need to get it magically restored to reveal their “true” background—the new retrained background.

Of course, in all these cases you could make an exception and just let the player make the change without explanation. This effectively acknowledges that you're playing a game, and don't need an in-world justification for certain changes. For some groups it might be easier, or require less suspension of disbelief, to ask the group to adjust their ideas of what's previously happened in the game than to accept something like an elf turning into a halfling via magic.