RuneQuest II House Rules::Live Projects
This is an untested system.
Once you have increased a characteristic through training this way you cannot do so again until the characteristic has been altered permanently some other way (e.g. through the use of IRs or possibly due to losses from ageing, spells and so on). The cost to do this is based on the usual cost of hiring a teacher for 2 weeks.
If you wish to train a characteristic during downtime then you must use a skill related to that characteristic and find a teacher who is at least 20% higher than you in that skill. The skills for each characteristic are:
STR - Brawn
CON - Resilience
INT - any advanced Lore
DEX - Evade
POW - Persistence or Meditate
CHA - Influence.
To attempt a characteristic increase through training the Adventurer spends two weeks in full time training with their teacher or mentor. At the end of the time the adventurer makes a 1D100 roll and compares it to their current score in the skill being used. The adventurer gets a bonus to the skill equal to the teacher's critical score in that skill. Only one characteristic at a time can be increased through training.
If the skill test is a failure, the adventurer has made no progress though they will gain +1% in the skill that was used.
If the skill test is a success then the adventurer rolls the normal dice for the characteristic and adds the teacher's critical score with their Teaching skill to the dice roll. If this roll exceeds the adventurer's current characteristic value then the characteristic increases by 1. If the roll does not exceed it, then the skill increases by +1% instead.
Example, Cedric the unhealthy is CON 8 and Resilience 43%. He heads to a teacher who knows Resilience 80% and teaching 57%. After two weeks, Cedric's player rolls a skill test for the adventurer and succeeds with a 33. As human's CON is rolled on 3D6, the player then rolls a 2, 1 and a 3: only 6. Normally this wouldn't be enough but the teacher has a critical score of 6% in Teaching so adds 6 to the dice roll for a total of 12. As this is more than Cedric's current sickly 8, Cedric gains +1 CON.
Adventurers can attempt to increase a characteristic through solo training montages if they can't find a teacher. However they get -20% to the initial skill roll to see if they can roll for an increase and, of course, get no bonus to the characteristic increase roll. Kindly GMs may let such adventurers add enough Hero Points (or Improvement Rolls) to the characteristic increase roll to make up the difference. E.g. Cedric is spending time hauling carriages around to try and increase his STR. He makes his Brawn roll by -20% easily and has a STR of 12. He only rolls 11 however. The GM lets him spend 2 Hero Points to make his roll 13. By the time the music finishes, Cedric is ready to go and kick sand in a bully's face.