Revamped Leveling System

[The Lace of Ages]

Please note: this is a work in progress, with placeholder names. Input is appreciated!

• When designing your character, you may choose to leave your character room to grow in terms of channeling or martial pursuits. You should apply with your requested maximum total, then decide where in the course of their development you would like to begin.
  

• Progress is divided into tiers, each representing a third of your character’s maximum skill in channeling skills. A beginner would have up to 1/3rd of their total skill, an intermediate would have 2/3rd, and advanced would have all of it.
  

• Advancement occurs once per year, at at any time during the year, so long as each skill your character needs to improve is used at least once. Once this has happened, you may message your relevant faction mod to advance at your discretion.

• Each tier will provide a number of skills depending on your total—for instance, a channeler with a strength of 7 has a total of 35 points, for a total of 11-12 points per tier. If your character has shown a particular affinity for fire, the majority might be applied to fire.

• These tiers map onto the ranks used for the Towers. A Novice will always be a beginner channeler, an Accepted intermediate, and Aes Sedai advanced (the same is true for Asha’man:). In addition to their faction specific raising requirements, they must also be able to advance their tier. This mean that when applying as a trainee for the Tower (novice/soldier), you should expect to spend a minimum of two years in and out of character before reaching Aes Sedai/Asha’man, and should structure your backstory accordingly.

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   The martial system is slightly looser; applications should still include starting and planned max strength in given skills, but these are not set in stone and may be adjusted as your character advances.

• Martial progress is not divided into tiers; any given weapon skill may increase between 1 and 3 points per year, the exact amount and which stat at the player's discretion, so long as this growth can be evidenced through in character posting.

• Specifically to address the likelihood of blademaster candidates, the blades skill *must* max out at 6 for a character's first year, with an advancement to 9 being appropriate after one year. Exceptions to this policy are rare, and held to a similar standard as restricted ranks/adoptables.
  
  
  

[Cirus]

I'd like to preface this with that I think this system is good overall. I can clearly see the decisions and effort put into it and I appreciate the effort the staff put forth. Overall I think it's a good system, that being said here are a few thoughts. Some might just be me misunderstanding, and maybe the staff has answers.

1. The divided system for skill points: This definitely works well for channelers but not so well for martial aspected characters. while I might have a general idea of where I want certain skills to fall for a character, what if something happens that drastically shifts that character's motivations and ideals? Having set numbers for different skills could make it harder to set them up a certain way, especially if those skills have to be divided into being set up at certain times. In general, having a max in mind when you write the character doesn't strike me as a great idea for martial skill. Perhaps a maximum amount of points could be laid out that a character could eventually receive in said skill might work better: I.E. If you choose your character may have 40 points (number pulled from thin air, don't know how high it would actually go) in martial skill to divide as you see fit. This isn't a number that would be decided at upon character creation, but rather a maximum for any character laid out by the staff. This might require tiers to be drawn up of what sort of effort would constitute advancement to the next tier, but it should also prevent us from having a blademaster run around after only 3 years sort of deal as well.


2. Growth only occurring during the time skip: This could be a problem for some members as we all know we have lives, while I get the whole being present for a year to advance a year's skills, maybe it could be easier for a member to say "I've been here a year, can I get these points put up?" That way it's not relying on an artificial time skip for someone to advance their skills, but it's on them to say "hey I've done these things can I get a boost to my character?" and Staff might not be so overwhelmed when the time skip comes with everyone submitting their changes at once. We all know our site staff are only human, after all.