Character Development

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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 that comes in levels, pay points equal to the difference in cost between the new level and the old level.
• To remove 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. Some additional rules apply to specific classes of traits.

Traits Gained in Play

The GM may rule that you have suddenly acquired a new trait – most often an advantage or a disadvantage – as a consequence of events in the game: social interaction, combat, divine intervention, etc. This has nothing to do with bonus points!

When you acquire an advantage this way, write it on your character sheet and increase your point total by the value of the advantage. You do not have to pay for it with bonus points. For instance, if the GM rewards you with a 10-point Patron after you save the life of a powerful duke, your point value goes up by 10 points and the game goes on.

The GM may allow you to refuse such an advantage if your character could refuse it in the game world. You could refuse wealth, but if the gods granted you Magery, you wouldn't have much say in the matter! If you refuse an advantage, you do not get equivalent bonus points to spend on other things.

Similarly, when you acquire a disadvantage this way, just write it down and lower your point value accordingly. You do not get any extra points for it – that's just the breaks of the game! For instance, if you lose an arm in battle, add One Arm [-20] and reduce your point value by 20 points; you do not get 20 points of new abilities to compensate.

The GM may allow you to "buy off" a disadvantage acquired in play. Save up enough character points and then talk to the GM. If he is feeling merciful, he may arrange game-world events to eliminate the disadvantage.

Money

You may trade bonus character points for money – see Trading Points for Money. Each point is worth 10% of the campaign's average starting wealth. The GM should provide a suitable explanation for your windfall: tax refund, buried treasure, gambling winnings, etc. Be creative. A spy under cover as an athlete might earn the money through product endorsements!

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.

Clerical Investment, Legal Enforcement Powers, Rank, Security Clearance, Status, etc.: An individual in a position of relative authority must bestow such privileges. This might require a background check, qualification course, valor in combat, years of service, or a large bribe.

Reputation: You must earn this through deeds and works. You cannot buy a Reputation until you have done something to merit it!

Signature Gear: You must acquire a suitable item in the course of your adventures.

Tech Level: You can raise your personal TL (see Technology Level) by living in a society of a higher TL than your own – but only if you are free to attend that society's schools and benefit from its conveniences (being an alien abductee, prisoner, etc. doesn't count). The GM should consider limiting improvement to one TL per year of game time.

Wealth: To improve your Wealth, you must amass money equal to the starting wealth of the desired wealth level after paying any necessary bribes, taxes, etc.

Adding and Improving Mental and Physical Advantages

Most mental and physical advantages are inborn; you cannot buy them after character creation. However, there are some exceptions.

You can learn some advantages as if they were skills; see Learnable Advantages. If the GM feels that adventuring is as good as training to acquire such an advantage, you may buy it with bonus points.

Other advantages require extraordinary circumstances: divine revelation, ritual ordeal, etc. This is typical of Magery, Power Investiture, and True Faith. In addition to points, these traits require the GM's permission and suitable in-game events!

Of course, the GM can allow you to buy any advantage, if the results are in keeping with his vision of the game world. The GM may also challenge you to provide a good explanation (dramatic, logical, or both) for why he should let you buy a new advantage.

Buying Off Disadvantages

You can get rid of most beginning disadvantages by "buying them off" with character points equal to the bonus earned when you originally took the disadvantage. This generally requires a game-world justification in addition to the point expenditure.

Dependents: When you buy off Dependents, you or the GM should provide a game-world explanation of where they went – died, grew up,moved away, fell in love with someone else...

Enemies: If you wish to buy off Enemies, you must deal with them in the game world: kill them, jail them, bribe them, flee from them, make friends with them...whatever the GM deems necessary. You can never permanently dispose of Enemies unless you buy them off...they will return or new Enemies will appear in their place.

Mental Disadvantages and Odious Personal Habits: You may buy these off at their original bonus value. Assume that you simply got over your problem.

Physical Disadvantages: Your game world’s tech level – and the supernatu- ral powers available – determine the degree to which you can buy off these traits. Consider Hard of Hearing. At TL5 or less, you would have to settle for an ear trumpet. At TL6-8, you could buy a hearing aid that would solve your problem while worn, allow- ing you to apply a Mitigator limitation (p. 112). At TL9+, surgery could fix the problem permanently. And in a fanta- sy world, the right wizard could cure you with a powerful Healing spell! The GM has the final say as to whether it is possible to remove a specific physical disadvantage . . . and if so, what the cost and time will be.

Social Stigma: You cannot get rid of this with points alone. You must either change your position in society or change your society. The GM will tell you when you have succeeded – at that time, you must pay enough points to buy off the original disadvantage.

Adding and Improving Skills and Techniques

You can use bonus character points to increase your skills and techniques. Each point is the equivalent of 200 hours of learning. This is not to say that you found time to hit the books during your adventures – only that the genuine experience of an adventure can be equivalent to a much longer period of study.

You can only spend character points to improve skills or techniques that, in the GM's opinion, saw signifi- cant use in the adventure during which you earned the points. If the only thing you did on an adventure was trek through forests and slay monsters, you can only improve Hiking, Survival (Woodlands), and combat abilities.

When you improve a skill or a tech- nique, the cost is the difference between the cost of the new level and the cost of your current level – see Improving Your Skills (p. 170). You may only add a skill if you attempted a default roll (see Quick Learning Under Pressure, box) or if you spent most of the adventure around people who were constantly using the skill. For instance, a city boy on a for- est trek with a group of skilled woods- men could add Survival (Woodlands). You may add a technique if, during the adventure, you made significant use of the skill to which it defaults. In all cases, the GM has the final say