As far as I've found, there are no rules for learning skills in Rifts. I know that there are in some other Palladium games, such as TMNT, but they don't seem suitable to me. Here are some rules for skill learning that I'm thinking of using.
Oh, by the way, I don't mean learning skills by level advancement, those rules are fine. What I'm talking about is if character #1 has a skill, and character #2 wants to learn it. How long does it take for #1 to teach #2.
My idea: After one day of studying/teaching, both character #1 and #2 roll percentile dice. If both roll under their IQ, then #2 has successfully learned the skill. If one or both fail, then they must continue their teaching and learning further....
If they fail, then the next day of teaching/learning, they must repeat their rolls, but this time against IQ+2, so every day, they have a 2% better chance of learning it. This is repeated, with the +2 bonus/day, until the skill is learned.
Example: #1 has Dancing, and #2 wants to learn it.
They both spend a day together, with #1 teaching #2 how to dance.
At the end of the day, we check to see whether #2 has worked out how to dance.
#1 rolls percentile against his IQ of 12. He rolls an 11, so he taught well.
#2 rolls percentile against his IQ of 15. He rolls a 65, meaning he just cant understand how to dance.So they must continue the lessons the next day...
After one more day (total of two days) of instruction:
#1 rolls percentile against IQ + 2 (total of 14). He rolls under it and so has again done a good job of teaching.
#2 rolls percentile against IQ + 2 (total of 17). He rolls an 8. Therefore he succeeds and thus learns the skill.Had either of them failed again, then it would require yet another day, and they would have to roll under their IQ + 4 (IQ + 2 + 2).
How to figure out the starting skill %
Once #2 succeeds on the leaning roll, he has learned the skill. But what skill percentage does it start at? New skills learned this way have a base starting percentage of the difference between their IQ and their success roll (minimum of 1%):
Base skill = (IQ - success roll) % How does the skill increase?
Once a skill is learned, additional days of teaching will help improve the skill. For each additional day of teaching, increase the base skill by 2% up to a maximum of the base skill listed in the Rifts Main Book.After this maximum is reached, the skills advance normally with each level increase.
Example 2 continued from previous example.
On the success roll #2 rolled an 8. His IQ is 15.
Therefore the starting skill percentage is:(IQ - success roll) or (15 - 8) = 7%
So #2 would start with a base skill of 7%.
If #2 gets taught the skill for 3 more days, then the skill would increase to 13% (7 + (3 * 2))
Note: GMs may decide that a bonus or penalty is required to learn some skills, reflecting the fact that some skills are easier to learn than others.
Note 2: To qualify as a "day" of teaching, the day must be almost totally devoted to the teaching of the skill. Also, more than one skill cannot be taught in the same day.
Concept by Adam Mansbridge (m3070164@student.anu.edu.au).
Additional ideas provided by Chris Curtis (curtis@thepentagon.com).