The gaining of experience points and the resulting increase in levels is the usual way to track a character's learning and growth. However, this is generally non-specific learning - the character's new abilities and higher bonuses are the net result of everything that he has gone through, and are not directly attributable to any incident in particular.

However, I believe that being able to tie a bonus to a specific incident in the character's past helps the players to recall key events that happened to character and makes his learning and growth seem more real and tangible.

Hence, I'm thinking of introducing a learning bonus. After any significant event that occurs to the character, the player can describe a lesson that the character has learned, and the DM can award a bonus depending on how significant he feels the lesson to be, and the circumstances under which the bonus can be used. Any time that the circumstances arise, the player can ask the DM after he has made a d20 roll whether his learning bonus will make any difference to the outcome. If the DM says that it will, he may decide to use his learning bonus (this expends the bonus). A character may only have one learning bonus at a time, but he may replace his previous bonus with a new one any time he gains one.

The simplest, most straightforward trigger for a learning bonus would be critical hits in combat. If the PC scores a critical hit in a fight, he may choose to gain a +1 learning bonus with the power he scored the critical hit with. If a critical hit is scored against the PC in a fight, he may choose to gain a +1 learning bonus to the defence targeted by the critical hit. If the DM feels that an incident is significant, but the player does not propose a learning bonus tied to the event, the DM may prompt the player to do so.

As a further house rule, a character could have a maximum number of learning bonuses equal to his Intelligence modifier (minimum one).

FireLance