But having the skills be temperary isn''t very realistic. If you learn how to swim, would you later forget? If you learn how orcs behave would you later forget that information? No. Skills are permament. Once you learn a skill, you don''t forget it.

You could loose strength or endurance if you don''t exercise, but a skill itself is knowlege. If the skill requires physical activity, then perhaps that skill can only be performed a short time before you tire out, if you havn''t been practicing. But you should still be able to do it.

E:cb woof!

I see acquiring skills as something separate. I agree it''s not realistic to learn and then forget skills - of course neither is it realistic to learn new skills in the short time it takes in most games. But that''s another issue.

The bonuses are intended to add directly to the skills the player already has.

So the player has a swimming skill. And lets say he has two quests at the moment.

As he proceeds along quest 1 (save the village from the orcs) he accumulates bonuses that apply to all skills, but only when he is pursing a task related to solving quest 1. They don''t apply to quest 2 (searching for a lost puppy).

So if the player needs to swim down a river to sneak into the orc chief''s house (bad example) then he gets the bonuses accrued under ''Quest 1'' added to his swimming skill. If he is instead chasing after quest 2 - diving to the bottom of a well to look for the lost pup - then any bonuses accumulated under ''quest 1'' do not get added. (He would get anything accrued under ''quest 2'').


Is this realisic? Of course not. I was simply modeling the pace of fiction (movies and books), where this sort of stuff happens all the time.

No offense personally, but this isn''t realistic, I''ve never seen abilities appear and disappear in books or movies without a reason, and I think it would aggrivate players who find out they can no longer do whatever. And yes it isn''t realistic to learn skills as fast as they do now...do they? The only games I''m aware of have classes and perhaps a small spread of skills that you could add to the class''s skills.

If you''re trying to find a decent system to model skills with, see my post about The Skill Web.