The only reasonable modification I could think of to his scheme is the following. I'm not sure I really prefer it to what exists now, but it at least retains some of the "flavor" of the current system:


1. Practicing with a guild master stays the same.

2. Remove the current system of random improvements on level gain.

3. Set level-based skill percentage caps as follows:

a. At the level where the skill can first be learned the cap is 85%.

b. At level 42 the cap is 100%. In other words it disappears.

c. The cap increases linearly from (a) to (b).

4. When a character gains a rank, for all skills whose cap is going to increase, automatically bump up his current percentage by the same amount.

5. Exempt certain skills. Namely, those that are eminently spammable (e.g. hide, sneak, peek, etc.) and those that can't be spammed at all (e.g. assassinate, cleave, pwk, etc.) For those that are "eminently spammable", consider just starting them at 100%.


This system has the following properties:

1. It retains the fact that a character can gain an advantage by spending time using his skills. It just places a cap on how much advantage he can gain. In my example this is 10%. If you spam pincer up to the 85% cap right at level 29 then you won't receive any more "use-based" improvements at pincer. Your pincer percentage will linearly increase from 85% to 100% as you rank from level 29 to level 42.

2. Per the above, this system it retains the learning advantage to smart races and learning penalty to dumb races. The smart race will earn his 10% quota of "use-based" improvements faster than the dumb race. The relative advantage of being smart, or penalty of being dumb, is reduced from where things are currently, though.

3. It mostly reduces the need to spam, since characters are going to see a much higher percentage of their skill improvements coming in an "automated" fashion. In this system, a character is only "accountable" for 10% worth of "use-based" improvement, instead of the current 25%. With most characters and most skills, this 10% should be achievable just through normal ranking.