Your character will improve - or simply change - with time. The longer you play your character, the more opportunities you will have for such development.

Improvement Through Adventure

After each game session, the GM will award you 'bonus' character points - the same kind of points you used to create your character. You may spend these points immediately to improve your character, or you can save them. You can save unspent points for as long as you like, but you should ignore them when you add up your character's point value.

The following rules apply when you spend bonus character points:

- To add a new trait with a positive point cost, pay points equal to the trait's usual point cost.
- To improve an existing trait with a negative point cost, pay points equal to the bonus originally earned when you took the trait.

In all cases, increase the point value of your character by the number of points spent.

Improving Attributes and Secondary Characteristics
For each level by which you wish to improve a basic attribute (ST, DX, IQ, or HT) or a secondary characteristic (HP, Will, Perception, FP, Basic Speed, or Basic Move), you must spend character points equal to the cost to raise that score by one level.

If you improve an attribute, secondary characteristics and skills based on that attribute improve as well. For instance, if you raise your HT by one, you gain 1 FP and 0.25 point of Basic Speed (which might in turn increase Basic Move), and all your HT-based skills go up by one!

Increases in ST do not affect height (except for a child), but if you wish, you may gain additional weight to go with higher ST.

Adding and Improving Social Traits
To improve social traits, you need an in-play justification in addition to the expenditure of sufficient points. Some examples:

Allies, Contacts, and Patrons: You must meet such NPCs during your adventures and earn their trust through your actions. You cannot hire true Allies, Contacts, or Patrons.

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Improvement Through Study

You may add or improve skills by spending time studying them, if an opportunity for study is available. In the discussion below, 'skills' refers not only to ordinary skills, but also to spells, techniques, and even some advantages (see Learnable Advantages).

Improvement through study does not depend on earning bonus points. You could build a character, keep track of his age and income, and let him study for 40 game-years without ever bringing him into play. Of course, this would not be much fun... and things that happen during play can offer great opportunities for study. If you aid a master wizard, his gratitude might take the form of magic lessons!

Normally, it takes 200 hours of learning to gain one point in a skill. You may study any number of skills at once, but a given hour of time counts towards study of only one subject, unless the GM allows an exception.

Some forms of study are more effective than others. This means that an hour of study does not always equal an hour of learning - there is a conversion factor between the two. Some guidelines appear below.

Learning on the Job
If you have a job, time spent on the job counts as 'study' of the skills used in the job. However, since most time on the job is spent doing what you already know, not learning new things, every four hours on the job count as one hour of learning. You may claim a maximum of eight hours on the job per day (four hours per day at a part-time job.) Your actual working hours may exceed this, but fatigue limits learning to this level. Thus, a year of full-time work will give you two to three points to spend on job-related skills.

Self-Teaching
You can teach yourself a skill, unless the skill description attaches specific conditions that would preclude this (such as 'only taught by the military' or a prerequisite of Trained By A Master). Every two hours of reading, exercises, practice, etc, without an instructor count as one hour of learning. This must take place in time not used for adventuring, working, eating, sleeping, or taking care of personal hygiene. The GM should limit self-teaching to 12 hours per day - or 8 hours/day for those with part-time jobs, only 4 hours/day for those with full-time jobs.

Education
Every hour of instruction by a professional teacher counts as one hour of learning. A 'professional teacher' is someone with Teaching skill at 12 or higher. In order to teach you a given skill, he must either know that skill at your current skill level or better, or have as many or more points in the skill as you do. Ordinary instruction rarely exceeds eight hours per day. A college semester (21 weeks) of classroom study equals around one point per subject, and a full-time student could study up to five subjects per semester. A semester of night school would give one point in one subject.

Intensive Training
Full-time study with expert teachers and lavish training materials is the most effective type of 'normal' learning. An expert teacher has Teaching skill at 12 (or higher), plus a higher level and more points in the skill being taught than you do. Quadruple all costs and tuition fees! Every hour of intensive training counts as two hours of learning. Intensive training is rarely available outside the military, where you have little control over the skills taught or the scheduling of courses. It can last for up to 16 hours per day. You must have HT 12+ to make it through such training without 'washing out' (the Fit advantage does increase effective HT for this purpose.)

Adventuring
Adventuring time can also count as study of suitable skills. The 'conversion factor' is up to the GM, who should be generous. For example, a trek through the Amazon might count for every waking moment - say, 16 hours a day - as study of Survival (Jungle).

Learnable Advantages
You can learn certain advantages as if they were skills (200 hours = 1 point), provided you have a suitable instructor (professor, kung fu master, etc.) Use the standard rules for skill learning; in particular, anyone teaching an advantage must possess it himself.

Combat Reflexes: The GM may rule that fighting is the only way to 'learn' Combat Reflexes before TL7, and require adventurers who want this advantage to pay for it with bonus points. At TL7+, realistic military simulations can teach it as if it were a skill.

Cultural Familiarity and Languages: Time spent in a foreign land counts as four hours per day toward both Cultural Familiarity and the local Language, no matter what else you are doing (even studying skills - an exception to the 'one skill at a time' rule.)

Eidetic Memory: By apprenticing as a bard or doing daily mental exercises, you can 'learn' the first level of this advantage. This requires an hour a day, meaning it takes a little less than three years of constant practice to gain this trait.

Enhanced Defenses: Only those with Trained By A Master or Weapon Master may 'learn' these advantages. The GM should handle them as if they were martial-arts skills.

Fit: You can acquire either level of Fit through exercise - on your own or with a trainer - just as you would athletic skills like Hiking and Running.

G-Experience: The standard way to 'learn' G-Experience is to visit planets that have different gravity fields. Highly advanced societies that can manipulate gravity might be able to teach this advantage as if it were a skill.

Psionic Abilities and Talents: In some game worlds, "psi academies" teach psionic Talents and abilities. The rules under Gaining New Psi Abilities (p255) apply to learning psi advantages as well as to buying them with earned points: you must possess Talent or abilities in a power to acquire new abilities, and you must have abilities to acquire Talent.

Trained By A Master and Weapon Master: See Finding a Teacher.

Optional Rule: Maintaining Skills
Realistically, if you do not use a skill, you will forget it or your knowledge will grow obsolete. At the GM's option, if you haven't used or practiced a skill for at least six months, you must make an IQ roll to avoid skill degradation.

Modifiers: +5 for Eidetic Memory, or +10 for Photographic Memory; -2 if you learned the skill through intensive training (your training was good, but also brief).

On a failure, the skill drops by one level. The points spent on that level are gone, which lowers your point value. If a skill with only one point in it degrades, it drops to default level (that is, you are no better than someone without training) and cannot degrade further.

If you go another six months without using the skill, roll again... and so on.

Extreme skill levels are even harder to maintain. Chess masters, star athletes, etc. spend a lot of time honing their 'edge'. If you know a skill above attribute+10, you must make the above IQ roll every day you go without using the skill 'in the field' or spending one hour in practice (this hour does not count as study). Once your skill drops to attribute+10, use the normal rules for skill degradation.

This rule is intended for harshly realistic campaigns, where verisimilitude justifies the extra bookkeeping. It is poorly suited to larger-than-life games where old soldiers come out of retirement to go on adventures and wizards live for centuries.

(Arcydean Note: This rule is not going to be used in most campaigns, though a similar rule will be used for skills gained through certain techniques...)

Finding a Teacher

It is most efficient to learn new skills from a teacher. For some skills, finding a teacher is automatic; for others, it can be difficult. The GM should adjust availability to suit his concept of what is 'reasonable.'

Most education costs money. The price is up to the GM. If the teacher wants to be paid, see Jobs to determine what his time is worth. Multiply all fees by 4 for intensive training! Barter may be possible, or the teacher may demand a service in exchange for his aid - there are endless adventure possibilities here.

Learning Magic
In a world where magic is common, you can learn a spell just as you would any other IQ-based skill. You may apprentice yourself to a wizard to learn his whole craft... or hire a magic instructor to teach you a few spells.

In a setting in which magic is secret or rare, finding an instructor is much harder. Most wizards shroud themselves in secrecy... or belong to reclusive, mysterious cults... or prove to be fakes!

You can learn magic without a teacherl use the rules described under Self-Teaching. You must be able to read and have access to good textbooks. Magical grimoires are often deliberately complex and obscure - especially in rare- or secret-magic settings! The GM is free to slow the pace of self-teaching as much as he wishes to reflect this.

Learning Secret Martial-Arts Techniques
To acquire Trained By A Master or Weapon Master, you must first find an appropriate school or teacher - an adventure in itself, often involving a dangerous pilgrimage to an exotic locale. Once you locate a master, you disappear from play for 1d+1 game-years. After that, you might have to pass a series of hazardous tests, or make a final quest to yet another remote land.

When you emerge from your training, you have the desired advantage, plus 20 character points to spend on any special skills allowed in the campaign. The GM can treat these points like those gained from any other kind of study, or he can 'balance' them with an equal number of points in additional disadvantages - perhaps an Enemy (e.g., a rival school), or a Duty or Sense of Duty to your school or teacher.