Retraining

Sometimes a choice you made for your character turns out to not work out the way you'd hoped it would, or perhaps your character took a different direction than you were expecting it to. Maybe you just stumbled upon a feature or class you didn't previously know existed and is exactly what you want for your character, but you didn't make the choices you need to meet requirements for it. Retraining allows your character to change course on some of these decisions and branch into a new direction. There are limits to what can be retrained, as well as costs associated with such retraining.

Note:
Retraining is intended to make small to moderate tweaks to a character to get them more in line with what you want to play. If you have issues with broad strokes of your character (you no longer enjoy the class, backstory, personality, general build, etc.) talk to the DM about doing a more extended redesign or even bringing in an entirely new character. Even if some retconning is required to make it work, the biggest goal is for everyone to enjoy play at the table, and that requires having a character you enjoy playing.

Retraining Process

The first step to retraining is to talk to the DM about what you would like to retrain, and why. Depending on how much retraining is desired, a cost of resources or time may be assigned, as well as a possible quest or task (such as finding a trainer to help or proving your worth to a divine entity) relevant to the change. In general, one option can be retrained each level for free, with more dramatic retraining requiring more from the character (see Downtime for times and costs). The retraining options table summarizes what retraining is generally available to characters. Free retraining occurs when a character levels up, before making any choices for their new level.

Class Features

Some class features offer two or more different options, such as the choice of combat style a ranger must make at 2nd level. Class feature retraining allows you to swap out one such option for another. Maybe your ranger would prefer to be an archer instead of a melee fighter, or your cleric of Heironeous feels that the War domain would be a better option than the Law domain. The character remains basically the same, since his class levels haven’t changed, but he’s now highlighting a different aspect of his class.
Each instance of this retraining allows you to exchange one class feature option to another legal one. The new option must be a choice you could have made at the time you made the original choice. Talk to the DM first if there are any future choices that are invalidated by this change, as they will have to be changed as well. The Class Features Retraining Options Table offers some examples of class features that can be retrained.

Feats

Sometimes a feat choice looks great on paper, but it just doesn’t work for your character in practice. Maybe an early feat choice reflected the character’s personality and style, but a little experience changed his outlook. For instance, you might have selected Improved Initiative for your 1st level character because you pictured him as ambitious and a little reckless. But after falling victim to a wight’s touch because he just couldn’t wait until the cleric turned the undead, he decides it’s better to use a little more care in combat, causing you to regret your early feat choice.
Each instance of this retraining allows you to exchange one of the feats you previously selected for another feat. If the new feat has prerequisites, you must meet this pre-requisite.

Languages

Each instance of this retraining allows you to exhange one of your known languages for another. It does not matter how you acquired the previous language, and the new language must be availiable to learn in some manner (taught by a party member who knows it, learned from a book of it, etc.)

Skills

Some skills that are particularly valuable at lower levels become less useful later on, and vice versa. For example, when everyone in the party is carrying a bag full of antitoxins and potions of cure light wounds, the need for successful Heal checks drops dramatically. Whether your character has skill ranks that aren’t as necessary as they once were, or you just want to adapt them to new challenges, skill retraining provides a simple method of adjusting your character’s capabilities in a small but measurable way.
Each instance of this retraining allows you to subtract up to 4 skill ranks from one skill and add an equal number of ranks to any one other skill (excluding speak language). The skill you are adding ranks to must be a class skill for one of your classes, and can include class skills for a class you are about to select as part of your level up.
Alternatively, this retraining can be used to gain back points spent on cross-classs skill that are about to become class skills. In this case, you are refunded all the skill points spent on the skills, and must respend enough (at the class skill rate of 1 to 1) to raise each skill to the same rank it was at previously. The remaining skill points are added to your pool of available skill points to be spent with your level up.

Spells and Powers

Much like feats, magic spells and psionic powers sometimes look better when you select them than they do after you’ve used them for a while. And when you’re playing a character with a limited number of options (such as a sorcerer or a psychic warrior), every spell or power you choose represents a significant percentage of your character’s overall options. You can’t afford to have dead weight taking up valuable spell slots, so ditch that sleep spell now that the party isn’t facing foes with low Hit Dice anymore and replace it with the niftier 1st-level spell you just found in another supplement.
Each instance of this retraining allows you to exchange two currently known spells or psionic powers for other spells or powers. Each new spell or power must be usable by the same class and be of the same level as the spell or power it replaces. Wizards, Archivists, and other classes that can already learn new spells from scrolls or other sources may not use this form of retraining. This retraining works above and beyond any replacement options already available as a class feature.

Substitution Levels

Substitution levels offer characters interesting ways to adjust the benefits granted by their classes. A wizard with elf wizard substitution levels, for example, seems a bit different from a traditional wizard, and that difference reinforces thier racial identity. Since most substitution level options are offered for relatively low class levels (many at 1st level), you might already have missed one or more chances to add such flavor to your character. Revising a character to incorporate this feature amounts to a combination of retroactive continuity (“Of course I’ve always been a dwarf fighter!”) and getting back to one’s roots (“I can’t believe I forgot/never learned that trick!”).
Each instance of this retraining allows you to trade one of your current class levels for a substitution level, or exchange a current substitution level for a normal class level. The character must have been eligible to obtain the new choice at the time the level would have normally been taken. As a substitution level can have many mechanical effects on your character, use the following guidelines to any necessary changes. In all cases, “current level” refers to the class level currently occupying that level slot, and “new level” refers to the class level the character is gaining through retraining.

Hit Points

If the new level uses a different Hit Die from the current level, add or subtract 1 hit point from your current maximum hit points for each step of difference between the two die sizes (or 2 hit points each if the old level was the character's first level).

Skills

If the new level offers more or fewer points than your old level, you must add or remove points to match the new amount. If the old level was your character's first level, the change is multiplied by 4, as it was at level one. If the change results in a loss of skill points, ranks must be subtracted from current skills to meet the new, lower total. If the new level offers any new class skills the old level didn't, you can subract up to 4 ranks from any currently ranked skill to add to the new skill.

Spellcasting

If the new level changes some aspect of your character's spellcasting ability, apply these changes as appropriate. If you must lose one or more spells known, you can select the spells lost from any legal options.

Class Features

If the new level offers a different class feature in place of one from the current level, treat the situation as if you had used the Class Feature retraining option detailed above. If the new level alters one of your existing class features, then simply apply the alteration.