Southernskies wrote:
Tangent. I've always wondered about that. Can you explain more about why Continued Training was banned? I suspect I'm missing something because I don't see what makes it so broken it needs to be banned.
IIRC there were several issues that sank it.
1) Some people thought it stole some of the mojo from the Expert Archetype. I suspect this line of objection would be dropped if the debates started again, but there were some posters who felt strongly about this at the time.
2) Depending on the background skills made available by the talent, it would then make it possible for the arcane and divine archetypes to gain 4 skill ranks (instead of 3) per tier in knowledge or social skills respectively. For some people this was a big deal, and I can see where an extra 5 ranks of Bluff or Knowledge "Everything" (with the talent Encyclopedic Knowledge) would be a major advantage.
3) The talent also granted 3+passive logic skill ranks upon taking it (including your Arcanum or Combat skill if you had the right background). Many people, including myself, thought this ranged from too generous to gratuitous. By way of comparison Sabatical potentially gives you your passive Logic in skills (and nothing else by way of future access).
IIRC there were also some other arguments based on misinformation about what it was supposed/alleged to do...it's was not clear to me that everyone sat down and really read what the heck it was all about in the "fine print."
I think The general idea of making your background more relevant to ongoing development was a good one, but my opinion is that the execution of that idea in this talent was half baked.
I believe it was banned because there was fierce opposition and no agreement on how to fix it. If you stridently took position #1 then the talent was just an "evil abomination" to begin with. Further the potential fixes to problems with #2 ("hey you know what, no matter how clever your build you get to raise your skills by 3 per tier barring paths...") were different from potential fixes to problems with #3 ("does it need extra skill ranks given? How many is enough...or too much"). And if you thought 2 and 3 both needed to be addressed then you were essentially rewriting the whole thing...
I believe it got banned for complexity and contentious more than "broken-ness." I do support the decision to ban. I have an idea for how I would water it down for possible inclusion if I ever do a home game.