I have a player who wants to acquire a headband of intellect for the sole reason to train languages or tools faster.
Per Xanthar's in the Downtime Revisited section, the Training subsection says training takes 10 weeks at 25 gp per week, but the character can reduce this by 1 week per INT mod.
This player wants to wear the headband only during training for learning the new tools/language. He does not intend to wear it for any other purpose.
My question is: should I allow this? Granted it's a savings of 100 gold for learning new tools/languages. But if I allow him to use it, the group will probably pass it around to learn such things. It's not a large amount of gold, but it smacks of cheese. Like he's exploiting a loophole in the rules, and that irks me.
I mean, they can't all pass it around during the same training period obviously, so unless you're giving them months worth of downtime in a short period of irl time, they're not going to have a ton of opportunity to use it. And, frankly, tools and languages are not particularly game-altering features. Honestly, if you want to counter the immediate cheese of him saving 100 gp on the training, just price it at like 400-500 gp so truly benefitting from the savings is a long term investment.
I don't see why not really. Keep in mind that the language training takes 10 work weeks. This is studying all day as if you were taking an intense class in learning the new language. The headband also requires attunement and takes an hour to attune.
How do they pass it around to get multiple folks using it? Does one person study at night while the other studies during the day? I'd charge extra if someone wanted night lessons.
Also, saving 100gp is typically not a big deal once the characters are level 3 or so, they tend to be finding far more treasure than that relatively quickly. Languages are also a bit of a ribbon ability since a ritual caster with comprehend languages can obtain many of the benefits of knowing a language at a cost of 10 minutes of spell casting rather than 10 weeks of learning and a few hundred gold pieces. (though languages are more fun to add to your character sheet).
Keep in mind too that the character will need to find someone to instruct them in the language they wish to learn. Dwarvish, elvish, halfling might be relatively easy but the less common languages like abyssal, primordial, undercommon, dark speech, etc might be a little more difficult to find.
Your game, so if you want to allow it, go for it. Money is only as useful as a DM makes it, so it is either valuable... or not at all.
Personally, I'd only allow one person to use this at a time. As the headband only works when using it, and passing it around multiple times throughout the day seems to be a bit against the whole 'I'm smart so its easier to learn' process. But, if its fun for your game... do it!
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Remember there are Rules as Written (RAW), Rules as Intended (RAI), and Rules as Fun (RAF). There's some great RAW, RAI, and RAF here... please check in with your DM to determine how they want to adjudicate the RAW/RAI/RAF for your game.
I have a player who wants to acquire a headband of intellect for the sole reason to train languages or tools faster.
Per Xanthar's in the Downtime Revisited section, the Training subsection says training takes 10 weeks at 25 gp per week, but the character can reduce this by 1 week per INT mod.
This player wants to wear the headband only during training for learning the new tools/language. He does not intend to wear it for any other purpose.
My question is: should I allow this? Granted it's a savings of 100 gold for learning new tools/languages. But if I allow him to use it, the group will probably pass it around to learn such things. It's not a large amount of gold, but it smacks of cheese. Like he's exploiting a loophole in the rules, and that irks me.
Thoughts?
I don't see anything game-breaking about this. Training in additional languages & tools isn't going to disrupt the balance of the game, or else they wouldn't have included such a straightforward way for characters to do so. If you're giving them enough downtime that they'd be able to train multiple times like this, and that's all they want to do with that time, I say let them. They're also going to have to find instructors, so that's another element that could slow them down or at least impose some rationality on things.
Its allowed, the Headband of Intellect increase intelligence and the higher your intelligence the faster you learn. Once training's knowledge is learned intelligence is not a factor anymore.
As DM you can always limit it if you feel its abusive use you can always say attunement work once per item.
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I have a player who wants to acquire a headband of intellect for the sole reason to train languages or tools faster.
Per Xanthar's in the Downtime Revisited section, the Training subsection says training takes 10 weeks at 25 gp per week, but the character can reduce this by 1 week per INT mod.
This player wants to wear the headband only during training for learning the new tools/language. He does not intend to wear it for any other purpose.
My question is: should I allow this? Granted it's a savings of 100 gold for learning new tools/languages. But if I allow him to use it, the group will probably pass it around to learn such things. It's not a large amount of gold, but it smacks of cheese. Like he's exploiting a loophole in the rules, and that irks me.
Thoughts?
I mean, they can't all pass it around during the same training period obviously, so unless you're giving them months worth of downtime in a short period of irl time, they're not going to have a ton of opportunity to use it. And, frankly, tools and languages are not particularly game-altering features. Honestly, if you want to counter the immediate cheese of him saving 100 gp on the training, just price it at like 400-500 gp so truly benefitting from the savings is a long term investment.
I don't see why not really. Keep in mind that the language training takes 10 work weeks. This is studying all day as if you were taking an intense class in learning the new language. The headband also requires attunement and takes an hour to attune.
How do they pass it around to get multiple folks using it? Does one person study at night while the other studies during the day? I'd charge extra if someone wanted night lessons.
Also, saving 100gp is typically not a big deal once the characters are level 3 or so, they tend to be finding far more treasure than that relatively quickly. Languages are also a bit of a ribbon ability since a ritual caster with comprehend languages can obtain many of the benefits of knowing a language at a cost of 10 minutes of spell casting rather than 10 weeks of learning and a few hundred gold pieces. (though languages are more fun to add to your character sheet).
Keep in mind too that the character will need to find someone to instruct them in the language they wish to learn. Dwarvish, elvish, halfling might be relatively easy but the less common languages like abyssal, primordial, undercommon, dark speech, etc might be a little more difficult to find.
Your game, so if you want to allow it, go for it. Money is only as useful as a DM makes it, so it is either valuable... or not at all.
Personally, I'd only allow one person to use this at a time. As the headband only works when using it, and passing it around multiple times throughout the day seems to be a bit against the whole 'I'm smart so its easier to learn' process. But, if its fun for your game... do it!
Remember there are Rules as Written (RAW), Rules as Intended (RAI), and Rules as Fun (RAF). There's some great RAW, RAI, and RAF here... please check in with your DM to determine how they want to adjudicate the RAW/RAI/RAF for your game.
I don't see anything game-breaking about this. Training in additional languages & tools isn't going to disrupt the balance of the game, or else they wouldn't have included such a straightforward way for characters to do so. If you're giving them enough downtime that they'd be able to train multiple times like this, and that's all they want to do with that time, I say let them. They're also going to have to find instructors, so that's another element that could slow them down or at least impose some rationality on things.
Its allowed, the Headband of Intellect increase intelligence and the higher your intelligence the faster you learn. Once training's knowledge is learned intelligence is not a factor anymore.
As DM you can always limit it if you feel its abusive use you can always say attunement work once per item.