Getting a consensus of opinions here. What are your thoughts on tying the number of bonus attunement slots a character has to their Intelligence modifier? Baseline of 3 as normal, so a 14 INT would have 5 attunement slots while and 8 INT would only have 2. Yes, this benefits the Wizard (and the Artificer) more than other classes, but I feel like that's thematically appropriate for their archetype(s).
I feel that Intelligence is too easily made into a dump stat in this edition (no bonus languages, no bonus skill points/proficiencies) and I hope that a house rule like this will address that.
I would never use such a rule at my table. Characters like Barbarians who already need to boost Str, Dex, and Con should not be penalized because they had to put a low number somewhere. And Artificers can already attune up to 6 items which is ridiculous. Your proposed rule would meant they could eventually attune to up to 11 magic items.
Three is plenty for a standard campaign IMO, except for Artificers for whom that's one of their things.
If you're playing a campaign where you expect to hand out a lot more magical items, and face tougher enemies accordingly, then it'd be better just give everybody in the group a bonus attunement slot at the same level. Otherwise if your intention is to help out a player with a weak build, then give them a non-attuned magic item that grants an extra attunement slot.
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Three is plenty for a standard campaign IMO, except for Artificers for whom that's one of their things.
If you're playing a campaign where you expect to hand out a lot more magical items, and face tougher enemies accordingly, then it'd be better just give everybody in the group a bonus attunement slot at the same level. Otherwise if your intention is to help out a player with a weak build, then give them a non-attuned magic item that grants an extra attunement slot.
Eh, having played a game from 1 to 20, I've found that the attunement system doesn't really work as intended, at least insofar as making magic items more "special" goes. Lugging around Mjolnir (hammer of thunderbolts) in a bag of holding because we lacked the attunement slots to equip it and a limited ability to even sell it made this legendary item feel like literal garbage and not special at all. I've used other solutions in the past (usually giving everyone attunement slots equal to their proficiency modifier). During the Next playtest, attunement slots were at one point tied to a character's CHA modifier, so I didn't think tying them to INT instead was too out-of-line.
That's beside the point of this thread, which is more about trying to make INT less of a painless dump stat. The other idea I had was to reduce the amount of downtime needed to learn new proficiencies.
That's beside the point of this thread, which is more about trying to make INT less of a painless dump stat. The other idea I had was to reduce the amount of downtime needed to learn new proficiencies.
INT isn't a dump-stat for Arcane Tricksters, Artificers, Eldritch Knights, or Wizards, and probably a few I've forgotten about; it's also used by some fairly useful skills, though that will depend on whether your DM uses them frequently or not. Arcana for example is how you're supposed to figure out if something is magical, and details about the magic, just as History is how you're supposed to recall information your character might know, and Investigation is how you find clues you might otherwise miss, but it's up the DM of a campaign to ask for these checks.
If a DM is handing out weapons that nobody wants more than the three items they're already attuned to, then that's not a problem with the attunement system; in fact it's a sign that it's working exactly as it's supposed to, by forcing players to consider what they attune to. If they're passing up a legendary hammer for what they already have then it suggests they're happier with what they've got and see no use for it. If the players then can't sell it, then that's a DM issue; they need to be given a way to offload stuff they don't want, or put on a path to going somewhere they can (e.g- a magic guild or such).
No house rule of X ability means more attunement slots can work unless it's tailored to a specific ability that a specific group isn't using, it can't work as a general rule, as all it takes is one player to go one the classes I mentioned and they could be rocking around with 8 items attuned (11 for an Artificer) while purely martial characters that want to maximise other stats more will feel unfairly disadvantaged.
If a campaign group needs more attunement slots, then a DM can just say "You can now attune to one more magic item", I don't see the need to try to tie it to anything else.
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That's beside the point of this thread, which is more about trying to make INT less of a painless dump stat. The other idea I had was to reduce the amount of downtime needed to learn new proficiencies.
INT isn't a dump-stat for Arcane Tricksters, Artificers, Eldritch Knights, or Wizards, and probably a few I've forgotten about; it's also used by some fairly useful skills, though that will depend on whether your DM uses them frequently or not. Arcana for example is how you're supposed to figure out if something is magical, and details about the magic, just as History is how you're supposed to recall information your character might know, and Investigation is how you find clues you might otherwise miss, but it's up the DM of a campaign to ask for these checks.
If a DM is handing out weapons that nobody wants more than the three items they're already attuned to, then that's not a problem with the attunement system; in fact it's a sign that it's working exactly as it's supposed to, by forcing players to consider what they attune to. If they're passing up a legendary hammer for what they already have then it suggests they're happier with what they've got and see no use for it. If the players then can't sell it, then that's a DM issue; they need to be given a way to offload stuff they don't want, or put on a path to going somewhere they can (e.g- a magic guild or such).
No house rule of X ability means more attunement slots can work unless it's tailored to a specific ability that a specific group isn't using, it can't work as a general rule, as all it takes is one player to go one the classes I mentioned and they could be rocking around with 8 items attuned (11 for an Artificer) while purely martial characters that want to maximise other stats more will feel unfairly disadvantaged.
If a campaign group needs more attunement slots, then a DM can just say "You can now attune to one more magic item", I don't see the need to try to tie it to anything else.
I see what you're saying about those skills, but in practice Knowledge checks are usually made to gather lore and can generally be handled by a single character, leaving everyone else to dump their INT. Also, in my experience, more so than most other skills, DMs will require proficiency in order to even attempt Knowledge check, further isolating the value of INT. There's an argument to be made for CHA in this same vein, but quite often a character will find themselves in circumstances they need to talk their way out of (see Nott, especially in the early eps when Sam seemed to forget that he wasn't playing Scanlan anymore). Investigation is indeed useful to anyone for general adventuring purposes, but I just don't feel like that's enough.
The DM in that game relied on random treasure tables, which is how we ended up finding that hammer in a dragon's hoard. He would very rarely tailor any of the loot drops to his players, which is a perfectly valid way to run the game.
If making players choosy about which items they attune to is your goal, then the attunement system is dandy for you, but that wasn't the primary intent during Next and it's not something I found enjoyable as a player. It made magic items feel less special and more disposable, which the attunement slot system was supposed to get rid of. Your experience apparently differs.
Just because you have the attunement slots available doesn't mean you have the items to fill them, much less enough powerful ones to really tilt the balance too much in the wizard's favor. The martial characters with at least a 10 INT won't lose anything over the standard rules and if they take pause before dumping their 8 into INT instead of CHA or another stat, then my house rule is working as intended. ;)
All of that aside, the consensus is tilted against the house rule so far, which is what I wanted to know.
I see what you're saying about those skills, but in practice Knowledge checks are usually made to gather lore and can generally be handled by a single character, leaving everyone else to dump their INT. Also, in my experience, more so than most other skills, DMs will require proficiency in order to even attempt Knowledge check, further isolating the value of INT. There's an argument to be made for CHA in this same vein, but quite often a character will find themselves in circumstances they need to talk their way out of (see Nott, especially in the early eps when Sam seemed to forget that he wasn't playing Scanlan anymore). Investigation is indeed useful to anyone for general adventuring purposes, but I just don't feel like that's enough.
Part of the problem is that in D&D most classes only get 5 ability score improvements; Rogues get 6, and Fighters get 7. If there are feats that you want then the number of ASIs you can take are limited even further. Most classes therefore want to focus on only two ability scores as much as possible, and that IMO is fine, as really you want a party of specialists who are each good at their own things and work together to fill gaps. If you force players to split between more scores then they will limit their ability to progress in the core areas for their class.
The DM in that game relied on random treasure tables, which is how we ended up finding that hammer in a dragon's hoard. He would very rarely tailor any of the loot drops to his players, which is a perfectly valid way to run the game.
If making players choosy about which items they attune to is your goal, then the attunement system is dandy for you, but that wasn't the primary intent during Next and it's not something I found enjoyable as a player. It made magic items feel less special and more disposable, which the attunement slot system was supposed to get rid of. Your experience apparently differs.
It's not about making player's picky, as much as it is about preventing players from just becoming a walking wall of magic items by encouraging them to choose only the ones that fit their character the best. It's also worth keeping in mind that there are a lot of magical items that don't require attunement, so you can still have quite a lot, you just can't have ten legendary rings, some of them will need to be lesser uncommon ones.
Part of the issue in your example is that clearly the players in your group had no need for the magic hammer; presumably they all either had attuned weapons that they preferred, or were characters who wouldn't have been able to use it anyway, so I'm not clear on how having more attunement slots would have solved that problem?
Many of the classes that might like to have a spare magic hammer probably wouldn't have high INT anyway (except maybe an Eldritch Knight). If the issue is making magic items feel more special, then I'm not sure how allowing a player to drag around a sack full of magic hammers achieves that?
All of that aside, the consensus is tilted against the house rule so far, which is what I wanted to know.
I'm not sure I'd call two responders a consensus! Also to be clear, I'm not trying to rubbish the idea, I'm just a bit confused as to what exact problem you're trying to solve, though I do think tying attunement to an ability score may not be the best solution mechanically.
I think if your goal is to give players a choice to gain more attunement, then a feat like IamSposta's might be more appropriate. I also thought of this possible alternative:
Attunement Master
You have mastered the ability to attune to weapons, gaining the following benefits:
Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You can (re)attune to two magic items during a short rest.
You have advantage on Arcana checks to guess the possible enchantment(s) on an unfamiliar magic item.
This half-feat presents a complementary alternative to more attunement slots, by making it easier to attune to a new/different item whenever the situation might demand. So if you know you might be going into battle with a spellcaster, you can quickly re-attune to an anti-magic items you might have but don't normally keep attuned, but it still takes a long time to completely switch out your arsenal. The INT bonus also encourages throwing an odd number at INT if you plan to take this so you can get a modifier boost into the bargain. The advantage on Arcana to guess at a magic item's effect(s) potentially saves you from having to use Identify (if you even can), but there's no guarantee your DM will tell you everything, especially on a bad roll.
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I would not use this personally, because of it being unfair for ASI's, and those who need more int because of class features. Think about your dumb, vhuman polearm master champion fighter. They probably want at least a plus one weapon, plus one armour and probably a utility item. But with 8 int, they ate forced to be redundant in combat, it utility and RP. Meanwhile, the artificer with Max int can attune up to 11 items, and are better at combat and utility and RP than the fighter. It makes it unfair for most people, rather than making int based build better. Int is no dump stat, and doing this doesn't make it more likely to change builds. I would like prof bonus, so you are more powerful at later levels. Start off ok, then grow with the weapons. (So you have 2, not 5).
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You have mastered the ability to attune to weapons, gaining the following benefits:
Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You can attune to one magic item during a short rest.
You have advantage on Arcana checks to guess the possible enchantment(s) on an unfamiliar magic item.
The part I highlighted is already RAW. Did you mean two?
No… as I just realised that I and my group have been attuning on long rests for years and didn't need to 😳
Doesn't make for as impressive a bonus in that case, so yeah, probably two.
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i'd use Wis not Int, and like others said, just allow more, no <3 penalty. but keep in mind your just giving an advantage to one set of classes who already use that ability as its primary so you're actively unbalancing things (unless you go the feat route like others said).
and i wouldn't allow so many more, like maybe 1 more if you get to 20 wisdom.
The intent of the house rule is not to just give out more attunement slots; I have an existing house rule (total attunement slots equal to proficiency modifier) that benefits everyone equally. The primary intent was to make a decent INT score more valuable by giving it a substantial side-benefit. Several of you disagree with that assessment, and you're entitled to feel that way, even if I remain unconvinced.
As I alluded to earlier, the other idea I had for making INT more valuable was to reduce the amount of downtime needed to learn a new proficiency. This hearkens back to the old-school bonus languages and skill points, so I like it more anyway, but since I've rarely had a DM other than myself actually use Downtime, I wouldn't expect many DMs to bother with adopting it.
As I alluded to earlier, the other idea I had for making INT more valuable was to reduce the amount of downtime needed to learn a new proficiency.
i think it already does "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). "
As I alluded to earlier, the other idea I had for making INT more valuable was to reduce the amount of downtime needed to learn a new proficiency.
i think it already does "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). "
OK, this is odd... and not a little bit disturbing. I very specifically remember the RAW to be 250 days to learn a new tool or language proficiency at the cost of 1gp per day for the teacher, but now I can't find that rule anywhere in the DMG. (o_0)
Yeah, I found it there. The rule I remember reading existed before Xanathar's came out (or so I thought), so I'm doubly perplexed. Maybe it existed during the DMG playtest, but up until tonight I was certain that it was in the DMG.
You can spend time between adventures learning a new language or training with a set of tools. Your DM might allow additional training options.
First, you must find an instructor willing to teach you. The DM determines how long it takes, and whether one or more ability checks are required.
The training lasts for 250 days and costs 1 gp per day. After you spend the requisite amount of time and money, you learn the new language or gain proficiency with the new tool.
Didn't realize this rule was revised in Xanathar's. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
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Fair Winds and Following Seas
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Getting a consensus of opinions here. What are your thoughts on tying the number of bonus attunement slots a character has to their Intelligence modifier? Baseline of 3 as normal, so a 14 INT would have 5 attunement slots while and 8 INT would only have 2. Yes, this benefits the Wizard (and the Artificer) more than other classes, but I feel like that's thematically appropriate for their archetype(s).
I feel that Intelligence is too easily made into a dump stat in this edition (no bonus languages, no bonus skill points/proficiencies) and I hope that a house rule like this will address that.
Fair Winds and Following Seas
I would never use such a rule at my table. Characters like Barbarians who already need to boost Str, Dex, and Con should not be penalized because they had to put a low number somewhere. And Artificers can already attune up to 6 items which is ridiculous. Your proposed rule would meant they could eventually attune to up to 11 magic items.
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Three is plenty for a standard campaign IMO, except for Artificers for whom that's one of their things.
If you're playing a campaign where you expect to hand out a lot more magical items, and face tougher enemies accordingly, then it'd be better just give everybody in the group a bonus attunement slot at the same level. Otherwise if your intention is to help out a player with a weak build, then give them a non-attuned magic item that grants an extra attunement slot.
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Eh, having played a game from 1 to 20, I've found that the attunement system doesn't really work as intended, at least insofar as making magic items more "special" goes. Lugging around Mjolnir (hammer of thunderbolts) in a bag of holding because we lacked the attunement slots to equip it and a limited ability to even sell it made this legendary item feel like literal garbage and not special at all. I've used other solutions in the past (usually giving everyone attunement slots equal to their proficiency modifier). During the Next playtest, attunement slots were at one point tied to a character's CHA modifier, so I didn't think tying them to INT instead was too out-of-line.
That's beside the point of this thread, which is more about trying to make INT less of a painless dump stat. The other idea I had was to reduce the amount of downtime needed to learn new proficiencies.
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That’s why I wrote this:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/265761-attuned
And I know some folks who grant extra language, tool, gaming set proficiencies based on Int.
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INT isn't a dump-stat for Arcane Tricksters, Artificers, Eldritch Knights, or Wizards, and probably a few I've forgotten about; it's also used by some fairly useful skills, though that will depend on whether your DM uses them frequently or not. Arcana for example is how you're supposed to figure out if something is magical, and details about the magic, just as History is how you're supposed to recall information your character might know, and Investigation is how you find clues you might otherwise miss, but it's up the DM of a campaign to ask for these checks.
If a DM is handing out weapons that nobody wants more than the three items they're already attuned to, then that's not a problem with the attunement system; in fact it's a sign that it's working exactly as it's supposed to, by forcing players to consider what they attune to. If they're passing up a legendary hammer for what they already have then it suggests they're happier with what they've got and see no use for it. If the players then can't sell it, then that's a DM issue; they need to be given a way to offload stuff they don't want, or put on a path to going somewhere they can (e.g- a magic guild or such).
No house rule of X ability means more attunement slots can work unless it's tailored to a specific ability that a specific group isn't using, it can't work as a general rule, as all it takes is one player to go one the classes I mentioned and they could be rocking around with 8 items attuned (11 for an Artificer) while purely martial characters that want to maximise other stats more will feel unfairly disadvantaged.
If a campaign group needs more attunement slots, then a DM can just say "You can now attune to one more magic item", I don't see the need to try to tie it to anything else.
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I see what you're saying about those skills, but in practice Knowledge checks are usually made to gather lore and can generally be handled by a single character, leaving everyone else to dump their INT. Also, in my experience, more so than most other skills, DMs will require proficiency in order to even attempt Knowledge check, further isolating the value of INT. There's an argument to be made for CHA in this same vein, but quite often a character will find themselves in circumstances they need to talk their way out of (see Nott, especially in the early eps when Sam seemed to forget that he wasn't playing Scanlan anymore). Investigation is indeed useful to anyone for general adventuring purposes, but I just don't feel like that's enough.
The DM in that game relied on random treasure tables, which is how we ended up finding that hammer in a dragon's hoard. He would very rarely tailor any of the loot drops to his players, which is a perfectly valid way to run the game.
If making players choosy about which items they attune to is your goal, then the attunement system is dandy for you, but that wasn't the primary intent during Next and it's not something I found enjoyable as a player. It made magic items feel less special and more disposable, which the attunement slot system was supposed to get rid of. Your experience apparently differs.
Just because you have the attunement slots available doesn't mean you have the items to fill them, much less enough powerful ones to really tilt the balance too much in the wizard's favor. The martial characters with at least a 10 INT won't lose anything over the standard rules and if they take pause before dumping their 8 into INT instead of CHA or another stat, then my house rule is working as intended. ;)
All of that aside, the consensus is tilted against the house rule so far, which is what I wanted to know.
Fair Winds and Following Seas
Part of the problem is that in D&D most classes only get 5 ability score improvements; Rogues get 6, and Fighters get 7. If there are feats that you want then the number of ASIs you can take are limited even further. Most classes therefore want to focus on only two ability scores as much as possible, and that IMO is fine, as really you want a party of specialists who are each good at their own things and work together to fill gaps. If you force players to split between more scores then they will limit their ability to progress in the core areas for their class.
It's not about making player's picky, as much as it is about preventing players from just becoming a walking wall of magic items by encouraging them to choose only the ones that fit their character the best. It's also worth keeping in mind that there are a lot of magical items that don't require attunement, so you can still have quite a lot, you just can't have ten legendary rings, some of them will need to be lesser uncommon ones.
Part of the issue in your example is that clearly the players in your group had no need for the magic hammer; presumably they all either had attuned weapons that they preferred, or were characters who wouldn't have been able to use it anyway, so I'm not clear on how having more attunement slots would have solved that problem?
Many of the classes that might like to have a spare magic hammer probably wouldn't have high INT anyway (except maybe an Eldritch Knight). If the issue is making magic items feel more special, then I'm not sure how allowing a player to drag around a sack full of magic hammers achieves that?
I'm not sure I'd call two responders a consensus! Also to be clear, I'm not trying to rubbish the idea, I'm just a bit confused as to what exact problem you're trying to solve, though I do think tying attunement to an ability score may not be the best solution mechanically.
I think if your goal is to give players a choice to gain more attunement, then a feat like IamSposta's might be more appropriate. I also thought of this possible alternative:
This half-feat presents a complementary alternative to more attunement slots, by making it easier to attune to a new/different item whenever the situation might demand. So if you know you might be going into battle with a spellcaster, you can quickly re-attune to an anti-magic items you might have but don't normally keep attuned, but it still takes a long time to completely switch out your arsenal. The INT bonus also encourages throwing an odd number at INT if you plan to take this so you can get a modifier boost into the bargain. The advantage on Arcana to guess at a magic item's effect(s) potentially saves you from having to use Identify (if you even can), but there's no guarantee your DM will tell you everything, especially on a bad roll.
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I would not use this personally, because of it being unfair for ASI's, and those who need more int because of class features. Think about your dumb, vhuman polearm master champion fighter. They probably want at least a plus one weapon, plus one armour and probably a utility item. But with 8 int, they ate forced to be redundant in combat, it utility and RP. Meanwhile, the artificer with Max int can attune up to 11 items, and are better at combat and utility and RP than the fighter. It makes it unfair for most people, rather than making int based build better. Int is no dump stat, and doing this doesn't make it more likely to change builds. I would like prof bonus, so you are more powerful at later levels. Start off ok, then grow with the weapons. (So you have 2, not 5).
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The part I highlighted is already RAW. Did you mean two?
For players that really really want an extra Attunement slot, I wrote this feat:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/feats/265761-attuned
Maybe it will help.
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No… as I just realised that I and my group have been attuning on long rests for years and didn't need to 😳
Doesn't make for as impressive a bonus in that case, so yeah, probably two.
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😂😂 Happy to help. Sorry it didn’t happen sooner.
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i'd use Wis not Int, and like others said, just allow more, no <3 penalty. but keep in mind your just giving an advantage to one set of classes who already use that ability as its primary so you're actively unbalancing things (unless you go the feat route like others said).
and i wouldn't allow so many more, like maybe 1 more if you get to 20 wisdom.
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The intent of the house rule is not to just give out more attunement slots; I have an existing house rule (total attunement slots equal to proficiency modifier) that benefits everyone equally. The primary intent was to make a decent INT score more valuable by giving it a substantial side-benefit. Several of you disagree with that assessment, and you're entitled to feel that way, even if I remain unconvinced.
As I alluded to earlier, the other idea I had for making INT more valuable was to reduce the amount of downtime needed to learn a new proficiency. This hearkens back to the old-school bonus languages and skill points, so I like it more anyway, but since I've rarely had a DM other than myself actually use Downtime, I wouldn't expect many DMs to bother with adopting it.
Fair Winds and Following Seas
i think it already does "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). "
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OK, this is odd... and not a little bit disturbing. I very specifically remember the RAW to be 250 days to learn a new tool or language proficiency at the cost of 1gp per day for the teacher, but now I can't find that rule anywhere in the DMG. (o_0)
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that's a XGE quote btw
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Yeah, I found it there. The rule I remember reading existed before Xanathar's came out (or so I thought), so I'm doubly perplexed. Maybe it existed during the DMG playtest, but up until tonight I was certain that it was in the DMG.
Fair Winds and Following Seas
OK, phew, I'm not crazy. The rule I remember was in the PHB, not the DMG:
Training
You can spend time between adventures learning a new language or training with a set of tools. Your DM might allow additional training options.
First, you must find an instructor willing to teach you. The DM determines how long it takes, and whether one or more ability checks are required.
The training lasts for 250 days and costs 1 gp per day. After you spend the requisite amount of time and money, you learn the new language or gain proficiency with the new tool.
Didn't realize this rule was revised in Xanathar's. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Fair Winds and Following Seas