Training Feats by Requiem

# Using Downtime for Feats

##
Player Characters are able to do many things during downtime besides carousing or getting ready for the next quest. Finding a good book could lead to bonuses after reading it; tattoos are a welcome, if pricy way to express yourself and get an additional bonus of some kind; training feats, however, is also a good use of one’s time, whether training on your own at camp or with the help of a trainer in town.

What is this mechanic meant to do exactly? Firstly, in quite literal terms, it allows you to train over a period of time and gain access to feats. Secondly, in an RP heavy campaign, it’s meant to give you a chance to try out other feats you normally wouldn’t take on level up, enriching RP more than combat. A number of feats are simply untrainable and must be taken on level up, while others require you to find a trainer, so this should hopefully push those less desirable feats into a new light now that you have a better opportunity to take them.

In short, there are many little benefits to be gained during downtime via reading books, getting tattoos, or other things that take less time comparatively, but for those of you willing to train and spend much time developing your character’s capabilities, you can gain access to feats you might not have previously. ****This is meant to take a long time. If there’s a feat you want for your character’s build, take it on level up and not through training.****

> Meet the prerequisites of a feat and one may learn it on level up, like normal. No standard mechanics have been changed.

## Training Feats
Some feats come from within your character, such as the Resilient feat, and cannot be reasonably “trained.” This means they can only be acquired through level up. Other feats, such as Mounted Combatant, require you to have not only a rideable animal companion, but also a trainer who can properly teach you to fight while riding. Finally, there are some feats which you are able to train on your own, but do keep in mind that solo training comes with a chance of failure.

All feats take time and effort when training, but different factors can alter these elements. If you are already proficient with Perception, training the feat Observant would be easier for you. If you were blind or had bad eyesight, Observant might instead be harder to train, if not impossible.

### Guided Training

Trainers are capable of teaching your character many things, usually at the cost of their own personal time if they don’t teach for a living. They (usually) guarantee you success, so long as you find a properly skilled and capable trainer. They also require payment, 25 GP per work week.

\columnbreak

| All Feats | |
--- | --- |
Acrobat | Mage Slayer |
Actor | Magic Initiate |
Alert | Martial Adept |
Animal Handler | Medic |
Arcanist | Medium Armor Master |
Athlete | Menacing |
Bountiful Luck | Mobile |
Brawny | Moderately Armored |
Charger | Mounted Combatant |
Crossbow Expert | Naturalist |
Defensive Duelist | Observant |
Diplomat | Orcish Fury |
Dragon Fear | Perceptive |
Dragon Hide | Performer |
Drow High Magic | Polearm Master |
Dual Wielder | Prodigy |
Dungeon Delver | Quick-Fingered |
Durable | Resilient | 
Dwarven Fortitude | Ritual Caster |
Elemental Adept | Savage Attacker |
Elven Accuracy | Second Chance |
Empathic |  Sentinel | 
Fade Away | Sharpshooter | 
Fey Teleportation | Shield Master |
Flames of Phlegethos | Silver-Tongued |
Grappler | Skilled |
Great Weapon Master | Skulker |
Healer | Spell Sniper |
Heavily Armored | Squat Nimbleness |
Heavy Armor Master | Stealthy |
Historian | Survivalist |
Infernal Constitution | Tavern Brawler |
Inspiring Leader | Theologian |
Investigator | Tough |
Keen Mind | War Caster |
Lightly Armored | Weapon Master |
Linguist | Wood Elf Magic |
Lucky |

\columnbreak

\pagebreakNum

As Xanathar's Guide To Everything, page 134, states, "Receiving training in a language or tool typically takes at least ten workweeks, but this time is reduced by a number of workweeks equal to the character's Intelligence modifier (an Intelligence penalty doesn't increase the time needed). Training costs 25 gp per workweek."

While ten workweeks are the suggested amount of time for training languages and tools, training feats will take a longer amount of time due to the benefit it gives your character. The price of the training could potentially be haggled as well, though perhaps don’t anger the people who might be teaching you to kill from hundreds of feet away!

### Solo Training

This method of training can always be attempted, provided the character doing the training is in a safe location, like camp or in town. Solo Training might seem like a more attractive option at first glance, but a chance of failure is always present. Unlike training with a Trainer, you must roll a d20 and pass a DC determined by the DM when training in any given day. This DC can be decreased by doing related reading to what you’re attempting to learn, finding those who might have knowledge to pass on, or even training with a fellow PC, if they’re willing. However, training with a fellow PC does not guarantee success, it simply helps lower your DC. A certain number of successes are required to train the feat, but every failure will be felt as the time spent training that day is essentially wasted on a failed roll.

### Trainers, PCs, & Difficult Feats

Trainers are any person in the world who could reasonably help train you, given enough time and money. If other PCs wish to aid in your training and are capable, they may do so, but at the DM’s discretion (some feats might require the trainer to know the feat or a proper space for the training to be conducted, amongst other potential factors determined by the DM). The PC does not gain any benefit from helping you unless they are working on a feat of their own that is similar to the feat you are training, like training Shield Master against your training Great Weapon Master through nightly sparring.

Some feats can be trained solo, but are yet difficult for your character to reasonably train at first. They might require extra work, time, necessary ingredients and materials, or further study to make proper headway with them on one’s own effort. What this means in game terms is that the DC to succeed on a solo attempt at training will be high at first, but can possibly be brought down through extra work done on the PC’s part, such as reading on the subject or getting instruction from a trainer.

There are pros and cons to both methods of training. Guided Training means a guaranteed success, but a drain on monetary resources, as well as most downtime spent with the trainer. It requires you to be consistent and show up for training every day, a luxury most adventurers do not have; Solo Training, on the other hand, means potentially wasting down time entirely on a failed dice roll or needing to spend that time better preparing yourself for the necessary training.

\columnbreak

### Determining DC

This section is for Dungeon Masters in particular. However, should players want to read this section and learn how DC is determined for training or how many successes are required in order to gain a feat, they should be encouraged to do so!

To begin, the DC of a training check is determined loosely by the DM based upon a number of factors. From the status of your character to the difficulty of the feat being trained, what might be easy for one PC could be hard or even impossible for another.

With this in mind, DCs for training checks are determined using a number between 10-20 (though the DM could choose to drop or increase the DC outside of those thresholds for various reasons). 10 is considered to be Easy, with 15 being Moderate, and 20 being Hard or even nearly Impossible. For example, a character with the Moderately Armored feat could train the Shield Master feat with a potential DC of 12. Another character who only has a proficiency in shields might then have a DC of 15. Further, a character with no feat or proficiency would have a DC of 20 to train the Shield Master feat, if not be outright blocked from training it at all.

## Training DC

| | |
 --- | --- |
 ****Easy**** | 10-13
 ****Moderate**** | 14-16 |
 ****Hard**** | 17-20 |
 
 When determining the DC of a PC's training check, the DM should factor in many things. First, the DM should consider the source of the Feat. Some feats are racial, such as the Flames of Plegethos. While training this feat might be Hard at first due to it being a Racial Feat, a fairly smart player could research the subject of unlocking a Tiefling's inner fire or learn how to meditate and channel their innate infernal energy for the purpose of eventually gaining this feat. The DC would be determined by the source of the feat as well as whatever other factors the DM thinks should be considered.
 
 However, players can decrease the DC required to succeed on a training check through many things. Reading books related to the subject or being taught by a teacher or trainer are both solid methods of doing so. Even though the Flames of Phlegethos feat is racial and difficult to train on its own, with proper preparation, a player may drop the Training DC. While FoP may start out at a 20 DC, it could be dropped much lower by finding a fellow Tiefling trained in magic, bringing it to a 16 or even a 14. Doing further reading on the subject might drop it by a point, bringing it to 13. More reading may potentially be done, but diminishing returns must eventually come into play.
 
 With this in mind, DMs may also take into account a character's Ability Scores when determining Training DC. A Cleric with a high WIS might be more than capable of training such a difficult feat. As most characters' most important Abilities will normally relate to the feats they take, it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility to simply decrease the Training DC by the related Ability Modifier. 
 
 \pagebreak
 
 A Cleric with a +5 in WIS might find that 20 DC training check simply dropped to 15. Should the DM choose to, they may mix both methods of decreasing the Training DC. Through proper preparation and strong Ability Scores, players should have a method of reliably dropping their Training DC at their disposal.
 
 ### Total Successes
 
 After determining the Training DC, the DM must decide how many successes a player must achieve in order to fully train a feat. Earlier, Xanathar's Guide was used to explain how long it takes to train a language or tool: roughly ten workweeks or 50 days in total, with the character's INT modifier used to decrease the total number of weeks needed. Feats, on the other hand, are much more powerful than a language or tool proficiency. Understanding this, it's recommended that the DM decide whether a feat is "difficult" or not. If languages or tools take 50 days to train, a normal feat should take roughly 100 days to train and a difficult feat 150 days. This speed can be altered to match the playstyle of a given party, however.
 
 Using the Tiefling Cleric example, with Flames of Plegethos as a racial feat requiring an indirect training method like meditation and much preparation to drop the Training DC down, it would be recommended to set the Total Successes for the feat to 150. However, if that same Tiefling Cleric wanted to train the Medium Armor Master feat instead, they would only require 100 successes as there is a more direct method of physical training and little extra preparation needed.
 
 ## Training Speed
 | | Fast | Normal | Slow |
 | --- | --- | --- | --- |
 | ****Normal**** | 50 | 100 | 150 |
 | ****Difficult**** | 100 | 150 | 200 |
 
 ### Optional Rule: Decreased Workweeks
 With the general rule of thumb provided by Xanathar's Guide in relation to the overall increase in "power" that languages and tools provide, DMs are able to more easily classify what makes a feat "difficult."
 
 After determining this, the DM may choose to decrease the Total Successes required to train it. Just like with languages and tools, using the related ability modifier, the DM may decrease the Total Successes required by one workweek (5 days) per +1 modifier, with a minimum of 5 days. 
 
 That same Tiefling Cleric from before might see 25 days taken from their overall Total Successes with a +5 WIS modifier. However, a Bard training Athlete with a -1 modifier to their STR would not see an increase to their Total Successes needed. The DM need not add more days as the potential for failure when Solo Training does that adequately enough on its own.
 
 > Note: It's recommended to use this rule when using the "Slow" Training Speed.

## Feats by Category

Though nearly any Feat could be trained with the right amount of convincing of the DM or a good training regiment created by the players, Feats are still meant to be powerful boosts to a character's capabilities and thus some are not able to be trained or must require the aid of a Trainer or fellow PC.

### Untrainable Feats

Untrainable Feats tend to give very strong bonuses to characters, requiring that they must be taken on level up rather than for "free," as it were, through training. The DM might consider allowing a character to train in one of these feats, but they should be warned that it will almost always have a high DC, regardless of how much study is put in beforehand.

| Difficulty: Hard to Impossible | |
| --- | --- |
| Alert |
| Bountiful Luck |
| Dragon Fear
| Dragon Hide
| Drow High Magic
| Durable
| Dwarven Fortitude
| Elemental Adept
| Elven Accuracy
| Infernal Constitution
| Inspiring Leader
| Keen Mind
| Linguist
| Lucky
| Mobile
| Orcish Fury
| Prodigy
| Resilient
| Second Chance
| Skilled
| Squat Nimbleness
| Tough
| Wood Elf Magic

\pagebreak

### Guided Training Feats

Guided Training Feats may only be trained when a character is actively aided by a Trainer, a PC who already has the Feat in question or could reasonably aid in Solo Training due to having similar Feats, or when the character has made substantial effort to study and learn what it takes to train the Feat, either from a teacher of some kind or through research.

| Difficulty: Moderate to Hard | |
| --- | --- |
| Dungeon Delver
| Flames of Phlegethos
| Healer
| Heavily Armored
| Lightly Armored
| Mage Slayer
| Magic Initiate
| Martial Adept
| Moderately Armored
| Mounted Combatant
| Ritual Caster
| Sentinel
| Sharpshooter
| Shield Master
| Skulker
| Spell Sniper
| War Caster

### Solo Training Feats

Solo Training Feats can reliably be trained "right out of the box." This does not, however, guarantee that they are "easy" to train. While one could train these feats without extra effort, it would still be a good suggestion to require characters take some time to study what it takes to train something like Polearm Master as opposed to never doing so.

| Difficulty: Easy to Moderate | |
| --- | --- |
| Acrobat
| Actor
| Animal Handler
| Arcanist
| Athlete
| Brawny
| Charger
| Crossbow Expert
| Defensive Duelist
| Diplomat
| Dual Wielder
| Empathic

| | |
| --- | --- |
| Fade Away
| Fey Teleportation
| Grappler
| Great Weapon Master
| Heavy Armor Master
| Historian
| Investigator
| Medic
| Medium Armor Master
| Menacing
| Naturalist
| Observant
| Perceptive
| Performer
| Polearm Master
| Quick-Fingered
| Savage Attacker
| Silver-Tongued
| Stealthy
| Survivalist
| Tavern Brawler
| Theologian
| Weapon Master

\pagebreak

### Skill Feats

These feats are Unearthed Arcana playtest material. They improve your skills, giving you a +1 in the related ability score as well as giving you proficiency (or expertise if you are already proficient). All of these skills also have a third benefit detailed in the original [UA Document](https://media.wizards.com/2017/dnd/downloads/UA-SkillFeats.pdf).

| Difficulty: Varies | |
| --- | --- |
| Acrobat
| Animal Handler
| Arcanist
| Brawny
| Diplomat
| Empathic
| Historian
| Investigator
| Medic
| Menacing
| Naturalist
| Perceptive
| Performer
| Quick-Fingered
| Silver-Tongued
| Stealthy
| Survivalist
| Theologian

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