Mano a Mano:Developing Abilities

Developing Abilities through Training and Experience

An experience point (XP) is one percent (1% or 1/100) of a character point (CP). Experience points are used to improve abilities by small increments. Characters can gain experience points from training, as a reward for completing an adventure, or from other experiences that improve their abilities. An experience point can represent an hour of intense training with experts, or three hours of relaxed training on your own.

Experience points can be given to improve a specific ability, or characters can receive flexible experience points which their players decide how to use. Experience points are added to an ability's CP. Then the ability's modifier is updated. Experience points can be added in four steps:

1. Convert the ability's CP into XP and add the new XP. The ability's XP is 100 times the abilities CP. If the ability's CP is 6, it's XP is 600. If the ability's CP is 8.5, it's XP is 850. If the ability's CP is 3.14, it's XP is 314. After finding the ability's XP, add the new XP to it.

2. Find the new ability level. A character's ability level is the difference between their personal ability modifier and their template's ability modifier. The following table shows the CP required for each ability level. If fractions of ability levels are allowed the table also shows how much CP is required for each additional fraction of an ability level.

 Whole          Add       Add      Add
Ability  XP     1/2      1/10     1/100
 Level       for each  for each  for each

   1    100   100 XP     20 XP     2 XP
   2    300   150 XP     30 XP     3 XP
   3    600   200 XP     40 XP     4 XP
   4   1000   250 XP     50 XP     5 XP
   5   1500   300 XP     60 XP     6 XP
   6   2100   350 XP     70 XP     7 XP
   7   2800   400 XP     80 XP     8 XP
   8   3600   550 XP     90 XP     9 XP
   9   4500   500 XP    100 XP    10 XP

3. Find the new ability modifier. The new ability modifier is the character's new ability level plus their template's ability modifier.

4. Convert the ability's new XP into CP. The ability's new CP is the XP divided by 100. For example, if the new XP is 314, the new CP will be 3.14.

Examples:

• A character has an ability with 3 levels and 6.00 CP. They add 400 experience points (4.00 CP) for a total of 10.00 CP. Their ability level is now 4.

• A character has 2.00 CP in some ability. The whole number part of the ability is 1. The game allows the character to have half ability levels, so the player finds the difference between the Ability's CP and the CP of the whole number part (2.00 CP - 1.00 CP = 1.00 CP.) The next whole ability level is 2, so increasing the ability level by a fraction requires 2 experience points for every percent of fractional ability level. Increasing the ability by one half (50%) requires 2 experience points times 50 percentage points which equals 100 experience points or 1.00 CP. So the character has just enough points for ability level 1.5.

• A character uses 550 experience points to develop a new ability. The new ability's CP is 5.50. The whole number part of the new ability's level is 2 (which requires 3.00 CP while the next whole number level requires 6.00 CP.) The game allows tenths of ability levels. The difference between the ability's CP and the CP of the whole number part is 5.50 - 3.00 = 2.50 CP, or 250 experience points. The next whole ability level is 3, so the ability can be increased ten percent for every 30 (3 times 10) experience points in the difference. 8 times 30 experience points is 240, which is less than 250, so the characters new ability level is 2 and eight tenths (2.8).

• A character has an ability with 3.55 CP and is allowed to have hundredths of an ability level. The whole number part of the ability's level is 2, and the difference between the CP of that whole number part and the ability's total CP is 0.55, or 55 experience points. The character can have an extra percent of an ability level for every 3 experience points (3 is the next whole ability level.) 19 percent of an ability level would require 57 experience points, which is more than the 55 experience points available. 18 percent of an ability level would only require 54 experience points, so the character's ability level is 2.18.