[Design] The Experience System

So, while I'm here, I figure I should reveal the specifics of my experience system.

Characters in The Awakening grow organically. Skills that they use during play will improve, while skills that they ignore will not.

All skills begin play at a base rating of 20 (this rating ignores a character's training or base attributes, so even if you focus on a skill, your base score will begin play at 20). When they reach a rating of 30 and 50, (and 40, if the character has declared that skill his expert skill), they grant a special ability, similar to a feat in D&D.

For example, and these are just quick notes that could change later, if you can get your Firearms skill up to 30, all firearms you use will deal one more point of damage. If you get it to 40 (possible only if you made firearms your expert skill), you can fire a weapon three times per round, instead of two.

Of course, you use firearms more than you'll use Barter. Because of this, skills that are very commonly used give less of a bonus than rarely-used skills (Barter, for example, gives you some great discounts on gear, and lets you spend an adrenaline point to just happen to have a piece of gear "on hand").

Each psychic power relies on one of four psychic skills. As your psychic skill improves, it unlocks new uses of your psychic power - sort of like different "levels" of a related spell. In D&D, this would be something like starting with Burning Hands, building it up to Flaming Sphere, and then unlocking a Fireball.

Now, how does the actual process of improving a skill work? Basically, whenever you roll a "0" in the ones column of a percentile roll, whether you succeed or fail, you make an immediate "levelling check".

If that result is HIGHER than your base rating in the skill (again, this base rating ignores any bonuses you may have from training or a high attribute; if you allocate points to them in Character Creation, your chances of improving a skill will not be affected), it improves by 1%.

This results in a slow rate of progression, but players will feel a definite sense of reward as their skills improve. Of course, there will be variants (each increase is by 2%, or maybe if you roll a "0" on either the tens or ones column will trigger a possible levelling chance, or maybe something else).