Comment on “A Training Idea, At Last”

Oh, I see. It's not that you're defining an additional status between combat-trained and 1st level, it's that you're coming up with an idea to parcel out the 1st level abilities, so that they can be incrementally gained. And if you can gain them all, then that's the very definition of 1st level. Not getting them all means never making 1st level but you've still got more training than the average combat-trained dude.

Perhaps the prime requisite for the class in which the trainee is acquiring skills, could be the die roll to see if each bit of training takes hold. Or perhaps Intelligence needs its day in the sun.

So the core concept is "gaining XP and then you roll to see if you acquired one of the class features at each 100 XP bracket." I like this a lot. And under this model, failure to gain first level simply means you have gained lots of chunks of 100 XP but just haven't yet had enough successful rolls to acquire a piece of the class benefits. Correct?

In that case, you could have a follower who keeps gaining 100 XP after 100 XP but he just can't succeed on those ability acquisition rolls. Time drags on and he stays stuck below 1st level. By sheer probability he may manage to pick up maybe a weapon proficiency or his sage specialization (or even individual sage points if you want to get ultra gritty) but as the XP mounts up and all of it going to get zeroed out if they ever DO make it to 1st level ... the player character to whom the follower is attached might think twice about keeping him around, even with so much time invested already, in favor of someone with the right scores to hit their ability-acquisition rolls.

That's a good dynamic.

(RE multiclassing. That's what I meant, that an Expert would be able to contribute to training a multi-classed person, not that they'd somehow be able to train someone in another class's abilities. The reason I thought this ability to participate in training a multiclass might be relegated to Expert is because they have to not only be able to take a trainee all the way up to 1st level, but also be able to teach the trainee such that they can synthesize their training usefully with that of the other class.)