A long time ago I stumbled on a system that makes a reasonable skill level setter and skill limit setter. It dawned on me when I learned that you have to use your muscles to get stronger.
This can be used in skill management as well. I think it is a very good system. Heres how it goes:
(summed up at bottom)
1) start out at a level determined by your genes or, in PS, your family history. That seems to be implemented.
2) Practice makes you better, and straining yourself can make you exhausted and overworked + more skilled. You also have to get warmed up a certain amount depending on how often you use the skill. (a little bit of bio-stimulation based on energy use)
3) you have a max level you can do anything at, you decide how well you want to do between your \'low average\' and your maximum. I believe there is a slider bar for magic as an example.
side note: Of course you have a chance of failing, but it becomes less as you get experience, and much less, as you use the skill really often.
5)Here is where bio-stimulation comes in. You have an unknown limit to how well you can do, example: how strong you could be.
You have a regimen of walking around the block every day, but you can\'t seem to work off those last 10 pounds, and you don\'t get stronger.
You then try hours at the workout center lifting weights until you faint, and you end up getting stronger every day.
6)You do get much stronger, but you only get so strong because there is a thing called bio-degradation which makes you weaker as you don\'t use your strength, and there is always a highest limit, a sort of bio-stability limit.
That is where things get chemical instead of talking about your cells, chemical reactions only go so fast.
7) You are very tough, so you decide to live on the couch watching TV and eating doughnuts and you get weak and fat...
To sum it all up: your maximum level depends on frequency (how often) of skill use, and, the overall draining of your energy using that skill. that is an equasion... Also, \'residual skill\', or the minimum skill is set by how long you spent on really working hard on the skill. As the saying goes, as you have heard, \"easy come, easy go.\"
P.S. I think you can attach this to another post, if it is not alright to post this as new... sorry, if so.
