D&D 5E Dramatic character changes and retraining

[Li Shenron]

Just finished watching season 3 of Sabrina, where a lot of characters are witches/warlocks and someone's (no spoilers) patron changes. In D&D this would be a very dramatic change in stats and abilities, but can make for a good story. I don't think the PHB mentions the possibility but the DMG talks about changes to or from the Oathbreaker archetype.

Generally speaking I think this is a form of character retraining. While I generally hate having hardcoded retraining rules (because they grant players the rights to decide), I have always allowed a player to back-change something in their character design, even without a story justification. IMXP it's always been minor things, like a feat or a spell, which the player realized they never used and regretted their choice, so I never had a problem allowing a silent change (i.e. without narrative explanations). For bigger lack of satisfaction, I'd rather suggest to design a new PC from scratch.

That said, some big story-driven character changes can be cool. I am not considering here basic multiclassing where you keep all your previous abilities, but actual replacements. I can imagine how losing previous abilities can be most easily justified for characters whose powers are of an external origin (clerics and warlocks at least), but not exclusively.

So, have you had such case at your gaming table? How did you handle it? And did it work or did it break suspension of disbelief?

 

[DND_Reborn]

Interesting idea.

We have been discussing an idea of subclass versatility given all the new concepts in the last UA.

Subclass Versatility
When you reach a level and gain a subclass feature, you can change your subclass to a new one within the same class. You lose any subclass features you already know in that class, and gain the ones appropriate for your new subclass.

We were thinking about coupling this with some downtime training, at least 30 days and maybe as long as 250.

This came up because at level 2 a wizard picked war mage to be "combat" oriented. Several levels later (he was then 7th), we got the SCG, and the player found out about the features of the Bladesinger. Since the character was an elf, he felt this would more fit the vision for the character.

 

[Shiroiken]

In general I don't like having characters retrain, because it can create some strange paradoxes. However, our group has allowed minor changes when things haven't worked out as planned. For example, we had a player who wanted to be an archer ranger, took the archery fighting style, but found himself needing to be in melee to protect the wizard and sorcerer. I allowed him to switch to the two-weapon fighting style, because he did that more than archery. In our current campaign, our bard picked a social based sub-class (we started at level 3), but the campaign was more exploration and combat based, making his choice very unhelpful. The DM allowed him to switch to a different subclass after 2 sessions, because it was obvious that his character didn't fit the campaign. The other option was to retire the character, but the personality and story of the character was very enjoyable.

As for the example of a major shift, I could see something like that happening under very rare circumstances. I remember the 3E Blackguard, where a paladin taking the prestige class could switch many of their abilities over to the Blackguard abilities. A warlock that somehow switched pacts or a cleric that switches to a new deity would switch sub-classes to fit the new master. A paladin that breaks their oath could switch to the DMG Oathbreaker. Outside of that, most classes really aren't going to have an instance that's going to radically alter their fundamental rules.

 

[TwoSix]

I let my PCs change all the time; fundamentally, I'm not concerned with the integrity of the "character build" portion of the game. I just want the players to have abilities that are reflective of how they view their character.

Details that aren't really reflected in the narrative I have no problem with swapping. If you haven't used a spell very much, you can swap it out. If a feat isn't making sense, switch it for another one. If the balance of your class levels doesn't fit, we can swap them around. If a narrative event happens that justifies a radical change in the character's capabilities, we can rebuild the character around those new capabilities (a new mechanical PC, essentially) while keeping the character's overall concept coherent.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I've got no problem swapping character options. Just a few sessions ago one of my players changed his barbarian from a berserker to a survivor (homebrew subclass) because he never ever used the berserk ability. But full mechanical rebuilds kind of rub me the wrong way. I feel like there should be some continuity of character, even if they do undergo some dramatic life-changing event; after all, the past always leaves its mark on you. Matt Mercer and one of his players handled it well in Critical Role S2: when the character changed their path and started multiclassing, they refluffed the abilities of the old class to look more like the new class, like the character's old training and experience were simply being filtered through a new power source.

A rebuild might be appropriate if a character is literally reincarnated. Gandalf the Grey might be a wizard and Gandalf the White a cleric, for instance.