Locating Instructors

Finding an instructor should be one of the first adventures that a zero-level character has. Finding clerics and fighters to teach a player character shouldn’t be too hard. Finding mages is a little more difficult, and finding thieves and the rarer character classes is very difficult.

In exchange for their services, instructors will expect the character to work. There are always odd jobs that NPC instructors need done. These tasks should provide many of the beginning adventures the zero-level character has: fighters always need their equipment fixed, mages need spell components gathered, thieves need lookouts, and clerics need their temples cleaned.

Earning one instruction point takes one week.

When a PC is studying, he must finish his studies in one area and not break up that study time. This means a PC studying to be a fighter must study for two consecutive weeks (to earn two instruction points) or lose all the information he has gained. As long as he keeps studying, a character remembers everything he has learned. If the character drops his studies in an area, however, he retains the instruction points he earned for three times as many months as the number of points. When a zero-level character earns six points toward magic use, for example, and then stops studying magic, he remembers his lessons for 18 months. When the time expires, the character must begin studying again from scratch. The character always retains instruction points earned through luck, however.

Study Time Table

Type of Skill	Study Points for Success
Fighter	2 points
Mage	6 points
Cleric	4 points
Druid	6 points
Paladin	8 points
Ranger	7 points
Bard	10 points
Thief	3 points
Monk	10 points

Learning Table

Percentile Roll	Luck Roll	Instruction Points	Result
01-10	01-10	None	Terrible Failure
11-49	11-55	None	Failure
50-75	56-80	3	Partial Success
76-85	81-87	6	Learning
86-97	88-95	9	Insight
98-100	96-100	12	Great Insight

When trusting to luck, the player rolls percentile dice and takes whatever result he gets. The DM works the result into the adventure. When the PC is relying on instruction points, the player rolls percentile dice also. If the PC has earned enough points for the result, it happens. If he doesn’t have enough points, the DM must work in the Failure result.

Terrible Failure: The character fails and breaks or losesany equipment involved. The DM should also create a special penalty, unique to the situation. For example, a beginning archer might shoot one of his friends, or an amateur sorcerer could flood his mentor’s laboratory.

Failure: The character learns nothing from the attempt but suffers no penalty.

Partial Success: The character may perform this one ability as a first level character. Ifa character achieves this result by blind luck and later studies the same ability, he automatically earns two instruction points during his first week of study.

Learning: The character may be regarded as a first level character with respect to this one ability. Characters who achieve this result through luck and then go on to study the ability further earn three instruction points during their first week of study.

Insight: The novice not only succeeds with the skill, but uses it as a 12th-level character. If the skill in question is a weapon proficiency, the character attacks as a 12th-level fighter with a weapon specialty. Non-weapon proficiencies can be performed with a bonus of -4 to the die roll. After one hour per point of intelligence, the character forgets this special insight. Characters who achieve this result through luck and later study it automatically earn four instruction points after one week of study.

Great Insight: The character gains all the advantages of insight, above, and retains them for one week per intelligence point. Then he forgets this special ability. Furthermore, the DM is encouraged to invent some special bit of good luck. For example, as a result of a single shot, an archer might rout an entire bandit gang. Similarly, an artisan could produce a beautiful item which is also magical.

If a character got this result using luck, he loses the associated abilities after two weeks (four weeks for magic-user spells). If a character studies a skill in which he had great insight, he gains six instruction points after one week of study.

The character can perform the task he was trying when he achieved great insight at the 12th level for two weeks even if he has never studied that skill. For example, if a cleric was trying to turn undead and achieved great insight, he could turn undead as a 12th level cleric (but could not necessarily perform any other clerical functions at 12th level).

Note that this table never allows the impossible. A character cannot cast spells without a spellbook or pick locks without tools, no matter how much luck or training is applied. Also note that results on this Learning able apply to one specific skill only. A character who learns the thief ability of picking pockets still cannot hide in shadows.

Sages make the best possible mentor because they can teach any of the many skills they have studied. The typical sage’s fields of knowledge are shown in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Two other branches of knowledge exist which sages might know and teach to zero-level characters. These are “Weapons & Warfare” and “Crime & Criminals,” both of which are special categories studied as fields of human- kind, demi-humankind, and humanoids/giantkind. To determine if a sage can teach a given skill, use the table in the DMG which shows the percentage chance that a sage might be able to answer a question. Sages have the same chance to teach a skill as they have to provide exact information about it. Many of these fields overlap. For example,a sage with the major field of humankind has a 57%-60% chance of understanding a clerical spell well enough to teach it (using the special category Theology & Myth) and an equal chance to teach pickpocketing (using the new category, Crime & Criminals). His students could pursue either ability without needing to find both a cleric and a thief to teach them.