I was wondering how my fellow GMs handle advancement in the Three Powers (Ki Dominions, Magic Levels, Psychic Disciplines)

The game seems to vary wildly concerning when a character should be able to access new powers, spells, and disciplines. Of all three, magic seems to be the most heavily regulated, while Ki and Psychic development are essentially unlimited for a starting character. I have created some guidelines of my own for use in my own campaign, and have outlined them here -

Bear in mind:

1. I do not have Dominus Exxet, nor Arcana Exxet, so if there is anything like this in those books, I have been unaware of it. I do hope there are some methods presented for moderating character growth. If not, I will continue using my system.
2. These are designed for a long-term campaign, where characters roleplay, have adventures, and gain levels over time. Games that are set up just for combat would ignore these rules obviously.

Magic: the suggestion in the core rulebook is that a starting character could buy individual spells at a point for point cost in Magic Levels. The GMs Toolkit adds the option of limiting the availability of your starting spells to 50% of your total Magic Levels (25% if your a hybrid class).
- There is no well defined method for obtaining the knowledge and use of more spells except for Arcana Exxet (thanks Elric for translating this part), which suggests that a character can buy access to more of their existing Magic Levels with DP in blocks of 5..

• What I have done in my campaign is to require long periods of training with access to proper resources in order to learn Magic. In most of the anime and fantasy lore I'm familiar with, these powers are learned very carefully, and operate on principles that ordinary people do not know about or understand. Moreover, the secrets to accessing and unleashing these powers are usually kept very well hidden by an elite, such as a school of wizardry or a witches coven. This being the case, unless a character obtains a tome of arcane knowledge or is worthy to attend a hidden school (through roleplay), even if they have DP, Magic Levels, and time, they wont be gaining any new spells.
• Access to High Magic should be a major event, require some special quest, or only become possible after some interaction with a major NPC, event, or creature. At the very least, it should never happen before experience level 3 regardless of circumstances.

Ki: aside from making certain basic abilities required to use Dominion Techniques, the notion is presented that the character has spent years in training to learn their arts, but otherwise, they can have whatever they can dream up as long as they have the DP to create whatever it is, and the GM permits it.
- As they level, they can create whatever they want - again, as long as they have the DP to spend, and GM approval.

• I have interpreted Ki development as being very similar to magic, in that it is governed by secret principles which are only taught to a select few. A level 1 character should not start with more than one custom Dominioin Technique (IMO), and should not develop new ones faster than 2 per level thereafter. Without a lot of training time and access to a Master who has approved their worthiness to learn (through roleplay), even if they have time and DP, they should not be able to learn anything new.
• Access to Esoteric Techniques should follow the same basic guidelines as High Magic

Psychic: there are no limits in the game for access to psychic development aside from capability. If you have one level 1 discipline, you qualify to buy a level 2, and once you have one of those, you qualify for a level 3. As long as your Psychic Potential and/or Psychic Projection are high enough to use the powers successfully, you can have the power.
- There is practically no structure at all surrounding how characters learn about these powers, how they are developed, or who teaches them. The assumption is that any psychic is a natural born master, just waiting for the DP to become Tetsuo from Akira. In practice, this would be the case according to the rulebook.

• In my campaign if a character is learning psychic powers in the same environment as a mage (with the help of a master Wizard-Mentalist), they can start only with Level 1 Disciplines. The chracter's level should determine minimum requirements for the level of Psychic Discipline they learn. The teacher will make them aware of their new potentials at the appropriate time, help them discover what possibilities exist, and then assist them in mastering the power(s) they choose. This is necessary because without guidance, an unprepared psychic can hurt themselves pretty badly if they fool around with these powers - a prime reason why the art would be kept secret, to protect the un-initiated.

Natural Knowledge

Any character wishing to pursue one of these three paths to power using a 'natural knowledge' Advantage or just wanting to be a lone wolf, will have absolutely no access to any powers, spells, or disciplines except those they qualified for at the start of the game. The only way they will be able to learn anything new is under special circumstances. They will start the game only being aware of a small portion of their current abilities, and have to discover the rest instinctively - as it says in the Advantages, the character's powers are only known unconsciously .

Magic/Psychic: If the adventure puts the character in a situation where they might *instinctively* reach out or lash out for some inner power, they may cast a previously unused and unknown spell or discipline they have 'Natural' access to. Natural Knowledge is unconscious, and therefore is NOT known consciously. Because of this, the character will never really know what they can actually do until it happens - when the right circumstances require them to respond in a certain way. That said, such a character would not push themselves over a high cliff just to force themselves to use an innate ability to fly, because there would be no tangible reason to believe this is likely enough to risk their lives to find out. To do so anyway would be serious meta-gaming.

• The development path of a natural psychic or mage should be very slow, and they will likely never gain access to all the powers they would otherwise have if they had been trained. If they gain access to a trainer, then they would be able to borrow the guidelines set up for those types of mages/psychics (while they have access to the knowledge/trainer).

Domine: unless the character sees another technician using a technique, they will have no basis with which to build a technique of their own. Only after they have witnessed power can they strive for it. Exposure to the various types of effect - seeing them firstthand - will be required in order to put those capabilities on their 'map'. The other path for the lone wolf is to put themselves into the path of death, and only when they are within moments of defeat will they be able to take a small step towards greater power. For every battle that brings them within 20 Life Points of death, they gain access to an effect in the Ki section, which they can use to develop a technique.

• Either way this exposure occurs, the character will need to be training rigorously every spare minute of every day, slowly grinding away at their boundaries of ignorance, until even that gives way to new forms of martial knowledge. This seems to be how Guts did it in the Berserk series.

Thats all I have for this, but I'd be very interested to hear how you guys handle this type of development, and/or any suggestions or comments about what I've written here.

Am I way off base with this post, or does no one really have any thoughts about rate-of-gain or requirements for supernatural powers?

Both Dominus Exxet and Arcana Exxet have extensive rules about how to manage Ki Dominion and Magic learning. There are even a couple advantages that speed-up the learning process (one for Ki, the other for Magic).

As far as I'm concerned, I had no problem allowing my 1st level mage to handle his full magic array (I believe he has Illusion up to 60-70 and Creation up to 20-30...right now I can't remember). Actually a Level 1 mage will almost always be stuck using low level spells anyway, since using high level spells would require exceedingly long preparation (very unconvenient during a fight) and consume vast amounts of zeon, which won't be recovered easily. Somehow I feel magic is self-regulating.

By the way, after creation, if the Illusionist is going to gain any more ML (either by CP or by rising his Intelligence or by spending DPs on it) I'm going to require the character to "study" for it (meaning he will have to find grimoires or masters to gain access to either new spells or the Arcana Sephira abilities)...I've not still decided on a hours of study/ML ratio, I believe I'll manage it somehow when the time comes.

About High Magic, well, you require Gnosis 25 to access it (or have access to it by a Metamagic ability from the Arcana Sephira which requires Lev10)...so it should be some limit by itself. Besides finding books/masters able to teach those spells should be pretty difficult. Anyway, my Illusionist isn't anywhere NEAR it, so, no problem.

As for Ki, again I let all MK be spent at Level1 as chosen by characters and I assume characters have already studied enough to gain access to whatever they've bought. Of course to gain NEW abilities and techniques, I require the characters to spend hours of training with a master knowing them. Actually for my technician I'll apply different rules for learning the following techniques of his school. Being a Duk'Zarist with Kagutsuchi's Blood (meaning he's somehow bonded to the fire Aeon), he's chosen a specific Duk'Zarist school from Dominus Exxet (Tanathos). Right now he's only able to use the two Level1 techniques, but I assume he's already witnessed the performing of the others. Since he's lost his master (due to background), he'll be allowed to train on his own for the following techniques. I'll allow it, both because he's bonded to the Fire Aeon, so the learning of anything related to fire is more "instinctual" for him, and because he's already "theorical knowledge" of the techniques. Of course, he'll require more time to train in them than he would if he still had a master teaching him.

For psychics...there's absolutely no hint about how much a psychic should study to get full control of his powers AND since I never had a psychic character in my party (well there's a character using a Natural Psychic Power, but that's an entirely different thing), I simply had not to solve this issue. Actually the aforementioned Duk'Zarist is a psychic...I let him begin the game with knowledge (psychic points provided) of his Create Fire Intensities power...Anyway he won't spend DPs on Psychic and he'll only make his power stronger with free PP I suppose (or buy an Innate Slot, perhaps), so again I don't have to really manage the issue.

RIght, Ki and Magic seem a lot easier to manage from a GMs perspective, its just a matter of setting down the RP requirements of time and access. But the real dangerous item is Psychic, and its mostly for the sake of Psychic that I made this post to be honest.

We've had 3 psychics in our group so far. The first one just had 2 simple level 1 Pyrokinesis powers, and almost destroyed the entire party several times, and that was by accident. The second one was just awakening to his powers when we all realized that the group would be wiped out pretty soon. He was erasing and rewriting character's memories, and he had a really bad temper - you can see where that was going. Now there is a 3rd character, a full Mentalist.

When you read through the rules for psychic, it becomes very clear that they are terrifyingly powerful, easy to develop, and unless they make a lot of fumbles and run out of Fatigue, these powers can be spammed repeatedly at will, with no build-up time or cost in Ki or Zeon. The only inhibitor is the higher rolls required for the higher level abilities, but since PP are so cheap, its very easy to get there.

I found that I was more than willing to let my players get a lot of their power quickly. Martial fighters are very tough, and a magic/psychic/pure ki character needed their abilities to compete with them. This all being said, I made the acquisition of new abilities into plot rather than boring downtime development, and the players seemed to like that arrangement.