I'm going to agree with Tahren. My first character (Smoke) was a complete newbie, never practiced, was tattooed, caballed and immed.(yay me) All I did was roleplay. I learned enough that I later came back as Aarakocrus, who might be on the pillar of battle. He was considered real tough. Never practiced. Kah, emperor of thera, shaman. Never practiced. Practicing is a waste of time that should be spent roleplaying. If the two can be combined, well done. I think Shimae was my most recent character that anyone might have heard of, she spam practiced, and I ended up getting bored of her before I could hero. If you don't "power rank" skills go up naturally. The main discipline is in using all your strengths, not improving a few of them. Of course requiring certain percentages in skills and spells to allow you to learn new skills and spells doesn't make sense to me in this light.

Kah