Being taught skills you do not have.

[RunningMountain]

I'm wondering what everyone thinks about this?  If you're getting taught like a warrior but you're not a warrior class, and you are getting these roleplay sessions of skills you do not have, should you e-mail staff and ask to have it added after so many logs are done? Or should you wait until it branches and just take all those teachings as if it helped you branch the skills?  This is hard to look at from a code/ic point of view and I'm wondering what others think about stuff like this.

-RM

[UnderSeven]

This is a grey area to my understanding.  I know in the past it's been possible. I've had it happen, but it was very costly.  I had to trade another skill for it PLUS having to make it very ic that I learned.  I believe what the cost will be, along with if it's going to be possible at all will be at the complete discretion of the staff and dealt with on a case by case basis.  Not nessciarily much unlike a special app request.

[Agent_137]

from an IC point of view, skills aren't just what you grew up doing, but also what you have a talent for.

So just because you got taught by your sergeant how to use a slashing sword, you can roleplay just having NO talent whatsoever for it.


Ever tried to learn something you had no talent for?
It's a bitch. You have to spend a -LOT- of time on it.


Keep that in mind when asking for having skills added.

[Larrath]

It depends on your skill, your character's guild/subguild (how close they are to this skill), your wisdom and how well (and frequently) you were taught this skill.

If your character is being taught a skill they could branch, I think that three or four serious lessons should be enough.  This goes for moderate skills, nobody should learn Greater Deathstrike in day 7 after four lessons, but if your character can parry well and fight, learning how to disarm, assuming that they worked a lot on it, could be possible, though I would expect it to be capped fairly low.

If it's a merchant who is being taught how to disarm, though, just forget it.  Maybe your character can understand how it works in theory but is still not able to do it on their own.


Use your judgement and when in doubt, just ask on a case-by-case basis.

[Dresan]

From what i've read and heard, it goes like this, first you got to put a few Ic years into learning something, and i don't mean one or two sessions, i mean two or three Ic years, of regular play. On top of that the more benifits the skill gives you the harder it will be to get.  For example, a merchant joins the byn wanting to learn kick.

      He practices & survives for 2 IC years and practices and gets trained at kicking.  The player can then ask the mud for kick and he might get kick (capped at subguild level most likely too).  However what is more practical is the player ask for a complete change in main guild this i've read is more common.

             If your thinking of a warrior getting backstab or an assassin getting the uber fighting abilities of a warrior then that is very rare and extremely hard to get (your talking RL year or two of dedication), i say hard but from what i've seen nothing is impossible in this game.

         Skills that are easier to get added or get boost on, are those that have absolutely no benifit to your character except to make innocent RPing easier. For example your a burglar hired as a cook at noble house, who has given the life pedge of loyalty ,  an IC year might pass and you could ask the mud to boost your cooking cap, something like this they might probably give you without too much hassle.

[Bestatte]

It also depends, Dresan - you don't always have to put in years of work.

Case in point: Once upon a time, I played a gemmed rukkian. She was a pacifist and had no desire to ever use a weapon. However, she did appreciate the need for self-defense. That was irrelevent at the time however - it was just one of those things in her mind.

Meanwhile, she had a friend who was teaching her how to play darts. He had given her several sessions of lessons, including one where he actually used the "teach" command, I submitted a request to staff.

I figured - I should at least have enough skill with a small throwing weapon by now, to know HOW to aim it (even if I sucked at aiming it due to lack of skill). I asked for the "newbie-level" ability - and agreed totally with the staff that it would be capped at that newbie level.

I would never get better - but I was better than if I hadn't had the skill at all. And that is one way you can ask for some skills without spending years game-wise trying to RP it out.

[Dresan]

Right Bestatte that's why i said :

Skills that are easier to get added or get boost on, are those that have absolutely no benifit to your character except to make innocent RPing easier.

In your case your a magiker with most likely amazing ways to hurt or kill someone.  Newbie level throw skill really is no real benifit to your magiker, as in you won't be able to rack in major sid off it or use it to become an uber PKer or have a huge unfair advantage against other players.  Your karma level had another factor in deciding whether you get a new skill.  Again it would probably be a different story of you were a ranger asking for something like assassin level backstab, then you would need the RL year(s) of training before the imms will stop laughing at your request and seriously consider it. In this newbie's humble opinion at least  

[Xamminy]

If you want to learn a skill that would normally not show on your character's skill list, try to learn it and send us logs.  We will decide if you've done what is necessary to learn the skill in question.  Keep in mind that some skills will be more or less likely to be picked up through roleplay.  These could vary from character to character for various reasons.

[Savak]

Note also that the general feeling is that people may ALREADY choose not only their main guild, but also a subguild, reflecting a minimum of 13yrs of previous life experience (usually 20+, the age you start playing them).  Subguilds were added very much so you CAN, automatically, do this sort of thing, without resorting to emailing as many special requests.

In other words, unless you want to try to learn it for MANY years, you probably should pick your guild/subguild choices carefully to begin with.

-Savak

[Anonymous]

Learning a skill for years should make you very good at it. Its actually not that difficult learning the basics of a new skill. This of course depends on the skill in question. Some skills wont make sense until you got all the skills surrounding it requiring longer time. Thus polejump is probably harder to learn than longjump.

When I started boxing, for example, I picked up the basic skills in a fairly short time. Say, five sessions, one hour each. This gave me enough knowledge of the skills to practice and finetune the moves (and physical reqs) on my own up to a novice level. I learned the theory if you want in the lessons.
After that it took perhaps 5 months before I started to feel I could relax and let the body do the moves instead of the brain, taking me to yet another level.

But the point is, after the first perhaps 10 sessions I was significantly better at boxing than a non-boxer.

This is the same in all martial arts, in my experience. You learn the theory and then starts to execute the moves, getting better and better until suddenly you feel you 'know it' and get quite good at it. In more complex styles of fighting it takes longer because you learn a great number of moves, each of which has to be practiced.