Between Adventures
Epic Path \ Between Adventures
In Epic Path, it is always possible for any character to work on self-improvement. The Wizard can cloister himself in a high tower and study the arcane mysteries. The Druid can meditate at length upon the glory and might of the Nascent Seed. The Fighter can go to the Fighter's Guild and have a training montage of rapid-fire smash-cuts set to 80's rock-metal. There is always stuff to do, ways to make yourself better, and that's just fun.
All standard re-training and self-improvement is carried out using the Abstract Encounter rules. The Feat, Ability, and/or Skill roll required per Interval is defined in the sections below. All Re-Training and Self-Improvement takes place in an Interval of one day, IE, you can make a skill (or ability) roll once per day, obtain Action Dice based on that roll, roll those Action Dice for pips and bank pips, all once per day. As always, you can only be working on one Abstract Encounter at a given time. If you are in the middle of your hard-rocking montage at the Fight Club and the orcs lay siege to the town, you must choose if you will interrupt your training, or skip the siege.
Most Re-Training and Self-Improvement also costs money: This represents rare books, ungeunts, arcane materials, fees to specialists, etc, to enable the character to re-forge themselves in a newer, better, mold. The exact costs are detailed in each section below.
Things you can Re-Train
Hit Points
It is possible to train up your hit points. This is applicable to all characters, although the more hit points you have to begin with, the longer this takes.
To train up your hit points, you must have an appropriate place to train, be it a peaceful grove, a quiet meditation temple, a shrine, a gymnasium, a patch of howling wilderness, a deep, dark sewer, courts of intrigue, whatever is applicable to your character. Once the GM adjudicates there is an appropriate location, it requires one day to make any progress. All Characters must roll their class Bailiwick skill (or the one they prefer if they have more than one) and divide the result by five to obtain their Action Dice for each day of training. The target number to increase your hit points is 10 + your current hit points.
The monetary costs of re-training your Hit Points is equal to your current character level cubed, IE, multiplied by itself three times. Thus, at first level the cost per interval is 1 times 1 times 1, or, 1 gold piece per day. At second level, it becomes 2 x 2 x 2, or eight cold pieces per Interval. At fifth level, it is 5 x 5 x 5 or 125 gold per day, at eighth level it is 8 x 8 x 8 or 512 gold per day, at 30th level it is 30 x 30 x 30 or 27,000 gold per Interval, etc.
Moving a Skill Point
It is possible to move a skill point from one skill to another skill after you have placed the skill point at level-up. We have all made a choice of a skill point that we've later found questionable, and this allows your character to realistically grow and change as time passes, as you get better at some things and lose some proficiency in other things. In general, it is easier to train up skills you have fewer Ranks in than Skills you have invested a large number of Ranks. Note that you may not train out an ability that is a prerequisite for another ability.
A player may not use the retraining rules to swap out a skill, ability or feat taken at an earlier level for a skill, feat, or ability that they only qualify for now, but wouldn't have qualified for when they originally took the skill, feat, or ability.
The only metric that counts for Re-training rolls is the number of Ranks in the skills being worked on. Class skill bonuses, item bonuses, racial and class bonuses, none of those things have any impact on re-training at all: Re-training only affects the Ranks, and moves those ranks from one skill to another skill. All skills being re-trained must be ones that you already know: Re-training can NEVER grant you a new skill. Both skills involved in moving a point must be one that you already know and have at least one Rank in. Yes, this means you can never Re-train a Skill to zero ranks and forget how to do it completely. You may NOT move points if doing so will give you more Ranks in a Skill than you have Character Levels.
The Interval to retrain a Skill is one day.
To move a Skill Point, no Feat is required: Anyone can do this action. You must make an Ability Roll with an Ability that is involved with at least one of the two skills involved. Roll the Ability Roll, a D20 roll plus the Stat mod of the Ability in question, and divide the result by five. Gain that many Action Dice. You then roll the Action Dice and expend the Pips to move the Skill Point, or, spend dice to bank the pips for the next interval. The target number to move a Skill Point is the total Ranks you possess in both skills being affected: This means that the target to move the points remains constant as you progress in the Re-training, unless you spend more points on one or both of the Skills. It is possible to Re-train skill points from multiple skills to a single skill, in which case the target number is calculated separately for each move. In all cases, you may never move a Skill Point if doing so leaves you with zero ranks in a skill, or more ranks than you have class levels.
The monetary costs of re-training a Skill Point is equal to your current character level cubed, IE, multiplied by itself three times. Thus, at first level the cost per interval is 1 times 1 times 1, or, 1 gold piece per day. At second level, it becomes 2 x 2 x 2, or eight cold pieces per Interval. At fifth level, it is 5 x 5 x 5 or 125 gold per day, at eighth level it is 8 x 8 x 8 or 512 gold per day, at 30th level it is 30 x 30 x 30 or 27,000 gold per Interval, etc.
Changing a Feat
Note that you may not train out an ability that is a prerequisite for another ability. Backing down a feat tree in this manner can be done, but may take several re-training actions.
A player may not use the retraining rules to swap out a skill, ability or feat taken at an earlier level for a skill, feat, or ability that they only qualify for now, but wouldn't have qualified for when they originally took the skill, feat, or ability. For example, upon reaching 21st level, a character gains access to Epic feats, but may not use retraining to swap out an earlier non-epic feat for an epic feat. Similarly, a high-level rogue may never retrain to have fewer than 4 basic rogue talents, even after she qualifies for advanced or epic rogue talents.
The Interval to re-train a Feat into another Feat is one day. In all cases, you must have and retain all prerequisites for a legal character before, during, and after the re-training process for Feats.
To change a Feat you have into another Feat you qualify for requires you to make a Skill Roll with your class Bailiwick skill (or the one you prefer if you have more than one) and divide the result by five to obtain your Action Dice for each day of training. You then roll the Action Dice and expend the Pips to move the Skill Point, or, spend dice to bank the pips for the next interval. The target number to change a Feat is equal to three times the Impossible Skill Check DC of your character level at the time you finish your retraining rolls. It is possible this target will increase during training if you are leveling rapidly!
The cost of retraining a Feat is equal to your Character level cubed at the time you finish the retraining. If you are leveling rapidly, this cost may change during the time you are making your skill rolls in the Abstract Action. At first level the cost per interval is 1 times 1 times 1, or, 1 gold piece per day. At second level, it becomes 2 x 2 x 2, or eight cold pieces per Interval. At fifth level, it is 5 x 5 x 5 or 125 gold per day, at eighth level it is 8 x 8 x 8 or 512 gold per day, at 30th level it is 30 x 30 x 30 or 27,000 gold per Interval, etc.
Changing a Class Ability
Note that you may not train out an ability that is a prerequisite for another ability. Backing down an ability tree in this manner can be done, but may take several re-training actions. (This action applies to Talents, Tactics, Rage Powers, Spells, etc.)
A player may not use the retraining rules to swap out a skill, ability or feat taken at an earlier level for a skill, feat, or ability that they only qualify for now, but wouldn't have qualified for when they originally took the skill, feat, or ability. For example, upon reaching 21st level, a character gains access to Epic feats, but may not use retraining to swap out an earlier non-epic feat for an epic feat. Similarly, a high-level rogue may never retrain to have fewer than 4 basic rogue talents, even after she qualifies for advanced or epic rogue talents.