BITD (back in the day)
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Post Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 12:06 am 
 

bbarsh wrote:
Our group had several DMs and one of the guys decided he would use the training rules. Too bad this particular DM was also the stingiest DM on planet earth. Treasure was always at a premium and dead PCs were not.

On the rare occassion we laid our hands on a magic item, we generally had to sell it to help pay for training. You see where this is going...By the time we hit lower mid-level, say 3-4 and started running into those pesky monsters that require our PCs to actually have a magic weapon, guess what...no dice. Slaughter city. Then our jovial DM actually has the balls to wonder why we got slaughtered and hit us with comments like, "You guys really messed up that encounter." or. "You should have run away." Nevermind, defeating said wights was the entire point of the scenario.

Sure, kinda difficult to go toe to toe with a few wights when the only character with a magic weapon is our magic user who has that ripper of a +1 dagger.

Training. Sucked.


Jeez. No wonder I only liked to DM. Everytime I tried to roll up a character and play I ran into those sorts of clowns. That DM was in dire need of a serious ass kicking.

Yeh training went out the window pretty darn quick in my campaign also.  

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Post Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 12:22 am 
 

I like the concept of training. In my games, if you actively seek it, there are benefits, selectable by the player. For example, you might want to gain a HD re-roll, or improve or gain an ability (including ability scores a la the Cavalier's percentile system, to a maximum of 16 in the stat -- beyond that, only magic will help); the only characters that are semi-required to train are spellcasters, but I never have anyone want to play one so its not come up and I'd have to look at my binder to see what I even do with them anymore.

I think it was an edition of Gamma World that hooked me on this... just seemed to make sense then, and I've always liked the idea since.


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Post Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 8:37 am 
 

Mike- I agree. For the most part, I was one of the primary DMs. I generally preferred to DM - call it a sickness...

The other problem I had with training was the timing. Every character class generally advances at a different pace. Those damn thieves seem go up a level every time an orc goes down. In general, characters are going up levels at inopportune times (as far as training goes). Inevitably, certain character classes are always behind the others and they often start an adventure at a lower level than most of their comrades. Not too many players want to stop an adventure in mid-stream so Mr. Paladin or Wizard can go off and train.

Then we have the whole geographic problem. I don's seem to remember a whole lot of training stations laying around as the PCs roll through the GDQ series.

Training as concept may make some sense, but logisticly, in most campaigns, it is at best a pain in the a.. and more likely impossible to implement with even a splinter of common sense.


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Post Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 11:06 am 
 

bbarsh wrote:Mike- I agree. For the most part, I was one of the primary DMs. I generally preferred to DM - call it a sickness...

The other problem I had with training was the timing. Every character class generally advances at a different pace. Those damn thieves seem go up a level every time an orc goes down. In general, characters are going up levels at inopportune times (as far as training goes). Inevitably, certain character classes are always behind the others and they often start an adventure at a lower level than most of their comrades. Not too many players want to stop an adventure in mid-stream so Mr. Paladin or Wizard can go off and train.

Then we have the whole geographic problem. I don's seem to remember a whole lot of training stations laying around as the PCs roll through the GDQ series.

Training as concept may make some sense, but logisticly, in most campaigns, it is at best a pain in the a.. and more likely impossible to implement with even a splinter of common sense.


Heh...

In my previous example of the D&D campaign I was in. My training location was approximately a six week journey away from our starting town (whereas most of the PC's training locations were 2-3 weeks away...).

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Post Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 12:35 pm 
 

The other problem I had with training was the timing. Every character class generally advances at a different pace. Those damn thieves seem go up a level every time an orc goes down. In general, characters are going up levels at inopportune times (as far as training goes). Inevitably, certain character classes are always behind the others and they often start an adventure at a lower level than most of their comrades. Not too many players want to stop an adventure in mid-stream so Mr. Paladin or Wizard can go off and train.


That is the benefit, at times, of playing a faster-advancing class like thief. I am not a fan of the later D&D tropes of "balanced, unified advancement."

Then we have the whole geographic problem. I don's seem to remember a whole lot of training stations laying around as the PCs roll through the GDQ series.


That's easy -- if you implement self-training. Make it take longer, but it reduces the costs. But, I am also the type that will let you get your immediate effects, like more Hit Points and better saves and attack rates, but make you train for anything else, like a brand new spell, or improving a specific class-based trait like picking pockets. This way, you're not completely screwed by not training -- you improve, but you also don't get everything. Oh, and I think, and could be wrong, that at the levels of the finish of the GDQ, training is no longer necessary...

But, like I said, I'm a fan of training requirements.


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