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A sort of magic class room would be nice - where you learn to know a "teacher" in form of a witch/mage with the unskilled dedication of Corinna the Summoner. A sort of tutorial for mixing spells, just so the gamer gets a hunch which possibilities she/he has - and the danger this has.

And this person pops up throughout the game when you try new combos.

Imagine: You're in the midst of a fight, you're in real trouble - this "Corinna" appears suddenly and blabs you full with all what you're doing wrong - how it should be done correctly - bringing you into more trouble.

Same could happen with a clumsy warrior teacher, when you try out new combat combos, lacking one skill or lvl etc - hitting your own party members.

Or a survivor teacher, telling you about the danger of creaking plate boots when you want to sneak or backstab - "displaying" what happens if you lack agility.

I think, these teachers could be permanent NPC, dreaded and feared, causing trouble and making the game not so easy (and a source for the Larian humour <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" />).
Kiya


I like how you think! Behold Rage of Mages. I loved those 2 games! you increased your skills by going to a school. Int his case it was a simple system where you clicked what you wanted to boost and sacrificed the points for it you earned.

I am thinking that perhaps it is possible to allocate a percentage of your exp to study. So a monster that gets you 100 XP now gives you only 80% of that whilest the other 20% is sacrificed for studying. And the more you study the more you can do. yet if you are busy fighting with orcs or whatever you just pull the slider up because you want to collect all the juicy XP and boost your warrior side some more.

also, added to that why not make some foes' stats determine what the min and max experience range is. A boss monster will get ou a huge study bonus. So in a way XP is divided into the arcane study points and the warrior's expertise/weapon skill points.

Your idea about a teacher could really add to the game! perhaps not during battle but it can be an NPC that you meet on certain points in the game, to give tips and advice. Some kind of Lore Master, a starter of quests and an in game tooltip. Alos, documents shold be around like in DD with stories about alchemy etc so you can get hints aa to what you can combine.