How long to learn or improve a skill, spells, etc?

[bluesguy]

My proposed approach

Skills

• Improving an existing skill is based on the character taking the time to consistently practice. I am thinking the first +1 would take a week. The next +1 a month. And every +1 after that would take 6 months. I am basing this on my own experience of improving skills I already have. I tend to learn the skill and then get better at it pretty quickly but then it starts taking a while to get even better.
• Learning a new skill is based on finding someone who can teach you. I was thinking a familiarity (1pt) would take two weeks. To get the full skill (+2 pts in skill) would take another month. Again going back to my own experience learning something.
• Combat skills would be based on the following and would require training. No one can have more than +6 CV with any attack.
  
  • Weapon Familiarity - for each 1 pt in familiarity it would take one week for common weapons. At least 2x that for unusual weapons.
  • +1 w/ a single weapon would take a one week. The next +1 would take two weeks. The next +2 would take 1 month each. After that each +1 would take 2 months.
  • +1 w/ a small group would take two weeks. The next +1 would take one month. The next +2 would take 2 months each. After that each +1 would take 3 months.
  • +1 with a large group of attacks would take 1 month. The next +1 would take two months. The next +1 would take 2 months. After that each +1 would take 3 months.
  • +1 with all HTH or Ranged would take 3 months. The next +1 would take 6 months. After that each +1 would take 1 year.
  • +1 with all Attacks would take 6 months. After that each +1 would take 1 year.
  • I am also thinking that if a player had a professional skill that was combat oriented (warrior, archer, knight, etc) they could attempt to make their PS roll and for each point they make their roll by they can reduce the time by one level from the above. But it can never be shorter than the base time.

Spells - I am thinking about the following for spells. There are apprentice/novice and master spell casters.

• Many spells in my campaign have between 20 and 40 active points and are between 2 and 7 real points.
• Every spell caster has a skill roll they have to roll to 'activate' the spell.
• For Apprentice/Novice
  
  • If they have someone teaching them the spell the time is Hours = (Active Points * Real Cost) / 4. During the time the character is in intense study and can spend a minimum of 4 hours of day and up to 8 hours a day studying for the new spell. They cannot take a break longer than one day otherwise they have to start over again.
  • If they learn the spell based on self study and some kind of written material (scroll or spell book) the time is Days = (Active Points * Real Cost) / 4. During the time the character is in intense study and can spend a minimum of 4 hours of day and up to 8 hours a day studying for the new spell. They cannot take a break longer than one week otherwise they have to start over again.
  
  
• For Master the time is cut by 50%
• Halfway through the learning process the spell caster can roll their skill roll. If they make the roll by -3 they cut the remaining time in half. If they miss their roll by +3 the time remaining will double. If the roll is between -3 and +3 then it takes the remaining time to finish.

Special Combat Skills - Whirling blades of death; parry/riposte based on a trigger; etc

• Need someone to train with
• Must train ahead of time
• Training time is Hours = (Active Points * Real Cost) / 4
• Halfway through the learning process the character can roll their professional 'combat' skill roll. If they make the roll by -3 they cut the remaining time in half. If they miss their roll by +3 the time remaining will double. If the roll is between -3 and +3 then it takes the remaining time to finish.

Here is what I would like to accomplish with these rules.

1. Encourage skill development and improvement.
2. Encourage developing a variety of knowledge and language skills
3. Encourage a variety of combat skills
4. Buy skills like teamwork
5. Have the players plan out when they want to 'spend some down time' to train. i.e. let some 'campaign time' pass while they train.
6. Find mentors
7. Buy contacts, favors, and save points for followers

Opinions? What you do you do in your own campaigns?

[Manic Typist]

Very interesting. I might steal for my own use, if I ever get to run/play again.

[Hugh Neilson]

Some uses of xp seem not to be covered.

Where do spells (or combat skills) come from? This system does not allow me to develop my own.

How do I train in Martial Arts (remember that I must buy 10 points in maneuvers for initially gaining the skills)?

How do I train to increase my stats? It should presumably take longer to add 1 to my OCV or DCV than to add a skill level with Daggers.

What about 1 level with all Interaction Skills, as opposed to +1 with Charm?

Here is what I would like to accomplish with these rules.
[LIST=1][*]Encourage skill development and improvement.

I'm confused by your Skills description. OK, so I take 2 weeks to learn, say, Lockpicking as a Familiarity. Then it takes a month to upgrade to a full Skill. But it only takes a week to add +1 to that Skill, then a month for another +1 and 6 months for each added +1? With such a huge jump after the first two bonuses, "Skill Improvement" seems de-motivated, rather than motivated.

A spell will take between 10 [2x20/4] hours and 70 [7x40/4] hours of training, so 2 to 8 days, as will a special combat maneuver. That bumps to 10 - 70 days if I have to study from written materials. Why would I spend 6 months gaining +1 to a skill (especially if I can study a spell to give me a SuperSkill)?

[*]Encourage developing a variety of knowledge and language skills

Really? When I have to choose between a month of time to gain a base roll in KS: Orc Society or a week to a month to learn a spell, you think I'll choose the KS?

[*]Encourage a variety of combat skills

It seems likely the PC's will specialize rather than take broader skill levels. But will they take lots of specialized levels (ie with Longsword, with Crossbow, with Short Sword, with Short Bow) or will they focus on a couple? Or will they just demand more down time and spend 6 months or a year to get broad-based skill levels? "I've accumulated 8 xp - time to take a couple of years off for training".

[*]Buy skills like teamwork

Spend a month on that instead of a month honing my own combat skills, or learning new spells/combat maneuvers?

[*]Have the players plan out when they want to 'spend some down time' to train. i.e. let some 'campaign time' pass while they train.

"We stop adventuring for three years to spend our xp. What happens three years later?" I can see players becoming very irked when time-sensitive adventures prevent them benefiting from their xp. I can also see serious merit playing a long-lived character - Longevity for a few points will buy me way more years to train in before my character is too old to continue adventuring.

[*]Find mentors[*]Buy contacts, favors, and save points for followers

Buy contacts who can train me, maybe. Buying followers with the skills I wanted is probably way more efficient and faster than buying the abilities for myself. Change my concept from "Powerful, knowledgeable wizard" to "Charismatic leader of a troupe of gifted wizards!"

Seems like this encourages spells and combat skills - these require way less time to train than skill levels or skills. Contacts to have a trainer available will be an absolute must (and probably some Wealth so I can afford to pay this trainer to work with me for weeks and months teaching me these skills).

It seems like it may be more realistic, but realism in a cinematic game is often not all it's cracked up to be. And "realistic" learning of spells and Whirling Blades of Death seems oxymoron fodder to me.

[bluesguy]

Hugh,

First of all excellent feedback. This is exactly what I was looking for...

Some uses of xp seem not to be covered.

• Definitely didn't think about Martial Arts, Stats, Interaction skills, etc.

If my goal is to encourage more skills (basic skills + knowledge skills), your feedback basically is saying

1. Make the act of learning a new skill faster. So maybe learning a familiarity just has to be logical. For instance I have been providing the players w/ 1 pt AK for the area where they live or where they adventure - just because that is where they hang out. If they say, I want to increase my AK to a full skill roll I would want to say ok you can have that now. Another one would be the Lockpicking. Learn the familiarity of lockpicking (on their own with help) pretty quickly and if they use it then they can put points into quickly.
2. Combat skills - Maybe the deal is that it takes the same amount of time to gain a +1 with any kind of CV since saving up the points for a +1 w/ All Combat vs +1 w/ swords will take 5x longer to acquire the experience. With this approach that means if someone wants to go from learning a new weapon, for instance a mace and wanted to be a master (+6 CV is highest in my campaign) would take 7 months to occur.
   
   1. Weapon Familiarity - for each 1 pt in familiarity it would take one week for common weapons. At least 2x that for unusual weapons.
   2. +1 would take a one week. The next +1 would take two weeks. The next +2 would take 1 month each. After that each +1 would take 2 months.
   
   
3. Spells - I think I would leave them the way I had them. The big deal with the spells is finding someone who knows the spell you want. In my world find a mage is tough, they are few and far between.

So what do you think about this adjustment?

[Hugh Neilson]

If my goal is to encourage more skills (basic skills + knowledge skills), your feedback basically is saying[*]Make the act of learning a new skill faster. So maybe learning a familiarity just has to be logical. For instance I have been providing the players w/ 1 pt AK for the area where they live or where they adventure - just because that is where they hang out. If they say, I want to increase my AK to a full skill roll I would want to say ok you can have that now. Another one would be the Lockpicking. Learn the familiarity of lockpicking (on their own with help) pretty quickly and if they use it then they can put points into quickly.
Combat skills - Maybe the deal is that it takes the same amount of time to gain a +1 with any kind of CV since saving up the points for a +1 w/ All Combat vs +1 w/ swords will take 5x longer to acquire the experience. With this approach that means if someone wants to go from learning a new weapon, for instance a mace and wanted to be a master (+6 CV is highest in my campaign) would take 7 months to occur.

Weapon Familiarity - for each 1 pt in familiarity it would take one week for common weapons. At least 2x that for unusual weapons.
+1 would take a one week. The next +1 would take two weeks. The next +2 would take 1 month each. After that each +1 would take 2 months.

Again, it comes back to what then players are motivated towards. seems like it's a lot quicker to learn cool combat tricks than to buy a new skill/enhance my existing skills. It's too slow to use an unusual weapon, so I'll stick to the old standbys. Or I'll try to load up on all the things that take a long time with my base character, rather than grow into them, so I'll buy all 6 levels up front, and short myself on cool combat maneuvers and base-level skills, since I can buy those faster as the game progresses.

Spells - I think I would leave them the way I had them. The big deal with the spells is finding someone who knows the spell you want. In my world find a mage is tough, they are few and far between.

So investing in a Mage Contact that has other Contacts (a wide circle of wizardly correspondents), or a group contact (the Guildenford School of Wizardry) becomes a must for the wizard wanting to spend his xp on spells.

[bluesguy]

Again, it comes back to what then players are motivated towards. seems like it's a lot quicker to learn cool combat tricks than to buy a new skill/enhance my existing skills. It's too slow to use an unusual weapon, so I'll stick to the old standbys. Or I'll try to load up on all the things that take a long time with my base character, rather than grow into them, so I'll buy all 6 levels up front, and short myself on cool combat maneuvers and base-level skills, since I can buy those faster as the game progresses.

At this point I have to ask how do you handle characters learning new skills in your campaign? And what is the goal/rationale for learning those skills in your campaign?

So investing in a Mage Contact that has other Contacts (a wide circle of wizardly correspondents), or a group contact (the Guildenford School of Wizardry) becomes a must for the wizard wanting to spend his xp on spells.

I am running the Valdorian Age campaign. Since the players are in Valdoria there are no 'magic schools'. The one player who has a mage spent a long time finding someone who is willing to teach him more magic. At some point in the future he may find a scroll or book of spells so he can learn new spells.

[Glupii]

We have toyed around with ideas similar to this in the past and have always opted to not use them because of the effect it had on playability and the primary focus of a Hero game (or any rpg game for that matter), as Steve Long has quoted so many times, the story. We assume that skill raises come from the use of the skills during play. New skills/spells have to be justified but largely are accepted.

One thing we HAVE started doing is keeping track of specific areas of use and awarding XP's accordingly. It adds a little overhead to the GM but he wrote a little program to ease this burden.
The program works like this, Each night, the GM awards our XP or at least a portion of our XP into the program, then records our uses of certain things. Character A did some melee combat and some missile weapon combat so each of those gets a use, he also used his conversation and other presence based skills to gain information so that may get one or two uses. Finally he was stealthy in sneaking around the mansion gathering clues, so dex based skills gained a use.

Melee Combat Skills: 1
Ranged Combat Skills: 1
Presence Based Skills: 2
Dex Based Skills: 1

Total uses: 5. Since he was awarded 1 point, this is split up among these uses accordingly so the program adds to previous totals:

Melee Combat Skills: .2
Ranged Combat Skills: .2
Presence Based Skills: .4
Dex Based Skills: .2

So when a player has a full point in one of those areas, he is award that point to be spent on skills in those areas. So if when these are added to his previous totals he ends up with a full point in Presence based skills, he can use it to either up his presence or one of his presence based skills. The GM has final say on if a skill qualifies for it or not.

(Note, I have no idea if these are the actual categories he uses, I am just summarizing)

On occasion he also awards us general points that can be spent on anything. But we have found this really helps us focus out characters and we have enjoyed it. Is it for everyone? probably not. But it works for us and we have fun with it and after all, isn't that the point? Forcing story changes (allowing for lengthy downtime so the characters can train) bleeding resources (Forcing them to pay for training), all of these things we tried and found they simply added nothing to the game and ins some cases took away from it.

[Hugh Neilson]

At this point I have to ask how do you handle characters learning new skills in your campaign? And what is the goal/rationale for learning those skills in your campaign?

Typically pretty free form. The player would generally indicate what the character is working on. Perhaps he has training, maybe discussions with other PC's, personal studies, courses where that's practical, could be self-study. For myself, I'm a fan of only spending 1 xp at a time on any given change (including buying up SPD with activation rolls to make a very limited investment each time xp gets handed out; buying Familiarity, then Proficiency, then Full Skill, etc.), but others like to buy the full skill at once and reduce the lag time. If the GM is going to impose a requirement to buy Familiarity and stick with that for a while, I think the GM also needs to ensure opportunities to benefit from that familiarity occur in-game, not just snicker as he says "so, roll your 8-".

I am running the Valdorian Age campaign. Since the players are in Valdoria there are no 'magic schools'. The one player who has a mage spent a long time finding someone who is willing to teach him more magic. At some point in the future he may find a scroll or book of spells so he can learn new spells.

How happy might that player be if a new character comes in with a Wizardly Mentor written into his background, and a contact on his character sheet as a result? That seems a good way around a GM who makes finding someone who knows new spells an onerous obstacle. And he MUST have had a wizardly mentor who taught him the spells he knew at the start of the campaign, right?

We have toyed around with ideas similar to this in the past and have always opted to not use them because of the effect it had on playability and the primary focus of a Hero game (or any rpg game for that matter), as Steve Long has quoted so many times, the story. We assume that skill raises come from the use of the skills during play. New skills/spells have to be justified but largely are accepted.

That's my typical bias. Keep it playable.

I like that bonus xp system, but I also note that, often, the PC may be trying to improve his weaknesses, making in-play use less likely. Of course, he can use his "general xp" for that.

BRP required the skill be used in play to have a chance at improving, so players would switch weapons regularly, artificially try to create opportunities to roll for a skill they hadn't used yet, etc. to skew their ability to improve. To me, much of the point of Hero is that I design the character, and that should extend to spending xp.

My first question is how the system will add to the game. If the players love the interaction and role playing opportunities of seeking out trainers, and using extensive down time to train, Bluesguy could have a great system. If they find repeated trainer searches repetitive and monotonous, and get frustrated with the inability to grow their characters or spend their XP without aging them so rapidly the characters quickly reach retirement age, or refuse to take adventure hooks because it would pull them from their training, then it's detrimental to the game and should be eliminated.

[bluesguy]

Thank you for all the feedback. I am definitely adjusting what I was planning on doing. Hugh thank you so much for pointing out the big flaws in the approach I was going with. There will still be training time but it will be 'cinematic' - think Karate Kid, Eragon, etc.

[Glupii]

I like that bonus xp system, but I also note that, often, the PC may be trying to improve his weaknesses, making in-play use less likely. Of course, he can use his "general xp" for that.

It seems to have worked moderately well since we have limited the number of categories that the XP's can be tied up in. And I think you need to limit the number of uses you give for straight combat or you end up with very combat heavy, powerful characters that are not balanced and unbalance the whole game. It does require a little extra work on the GM's part to actually keep track of the skill uses, but our GM seems to do it pretty well without alot of effort. It could be that he has just gotten used to doing it and it is second nature now? No idea. Tancred will have to speak for himself on that. But as a player I have enjoyed the storyline structure it has given my character and the other characters in the game.

[tancred]

My inspiration for the use-based awards to XP came from the Wizardry 8 computer game.
In that game, every time you use a skill (and it includes magic skills under that) there is a chance that the skill will increase.
My progam works as Glupii has said, dividing the number of XP I award each session over the number of uses for each character.

It rewards the players for using skills and helps aim their development along skill-based lines.
I don't award lots of uses for combat; we learned the hard way that that does focus characters into strictly combat mode, AND tends to unbalance the game as one character gets too powerful.

I use the Skill Categories in the rulebook (5ER, page 48), although I just decided to add back the General category that went away between 4th and 5th Edition.
This allows me to handle non-INT-based Knowledge Skills, for example, and accumulate General experience points without awarding them separately.

We definitely did find that listing each skill separately is NOT the way to go; it takes too long to get an increase in a skill unless the player uses it constantly or the GM awards a LOT of points. Neither worked well for us, so I switched to the categories.

We've used this system the most in my PA game which is a heavily skills-based game to begin with.

I should add, I threw in code at the last second in my experience program that also awards a few fractions of a point toward characteristic increases.
The percentage is small so the points accumulate slowly.

[Glupii]

I should add, I threw in code at the last second in my experience program that also awards a few fractions of a point toward characteristic increases.
The percentage is small so the points accumulate slowly.

This seems only fair to me since as you are using the skill, you are also building up the characteristic that it is based on. And they are small enough that they do not add up quick unless you spend an overwhelmingly large section of gameplay using all of one skill type, for example, constantly rolling knowledge skills and sciences, etc. And to me, if a person is doing that, it is the essence of Role play and I gladly concede awards for that.

[bluesguy]

My progam works as Glupii has said, dividing the number of XP I award each session over the number of uses for each character.

....

I should add, I threw in code at the last second in my experience program that also awards a few fractions of a point toward characteristic increases.
The percentage is small so the points accumulate slowly.

Is your program available for others to use?