Experience

For the game command, see EXPERIENCE.

Experience, or exp, is the general term for all of the skill learning your character has attained.

In DragonRealms, your ranks in a skill are increased by using it. This is manifested by experience being granted for each action your character takes. The amount of experience gained is scaled to the difficulty of that action for your character at that time, and how successful your character is in performing it. It is common for a task that is very simple or unchallenging to grant zero experience.

Experience can potentially be lost as a consequence of character death, although this can be easily avoided.

Experience Pools and Pulses

Experience Pools

Every skill has its own individual pool, which fills with field experience as you obtain it. The current amount of field experience in your pool ranges from empty (clear) to mind lock (full).

Factors that determine maximum pool size (in descending order of importance):

1. whether the skill is in your primary, secondary, or tertiary skillset
2. the number of ranks you have in the skill
3. Intelligence
4. Discipline

As of July 10, 2009, there are now 35 experience pool states:

Amount Learning	Mindstate Fraction	Amount Learning	Mindstate Fraction
clear	0/34	analyzing	18/34
dabbling	1/34	studious	19/34
perusing	2/34	focused	20/34
learning	3/34	very focused	21/34
thoughtful	4/34	engaged	22/34
thinking	5/34	very engaged	23/34
considering	6/34	cogitating	24/34
pondering	7/34	fascinated	25/34
ruminating	8/34	captivated	26/34
concentrating	9/34	engrossed	27/34
attentive	10/34	riveted	28/34
deliberative	11/34	very riveted	29/34
interested	12/34	rapt	30/34
examining	13/34	very rapt	31/34
understanding	14/34	enthralled	32/34
absorbing	15/34	nearly locked	33/34
intrigued	16/34	mind lock	34/34
scrutinizing	17/34

Experience Pulses

This field experience is gradually converted into actual ranks. When field experience is converted to ranks, it is called a pulse. The size of the pulse is calculated as a fraction of your total pool size. The primary factor affecting this fraction is whether the skill is primary, secondary, or tertiary; higher Wisdom also increases this fraction.

Skillset	Time to Pulse From Mind Lock to Clear
Primary	40-60 minutes
Secondary	50-80 minutes
Tertiary	70-100 minutes

Skills pulse in groups every 200 seconds, with each group being offset from the previous one by 20 seconds. These skill groupings are arranged by skillset in the order they appear in the experience list in game. The order and timing of the pulses is fixed, meaning the pulses happen at the exact same time for the same skills for every single player in the game.

Relative Time Offset	Skill Group
0 sec.	Shield Usage, Leather Armor, Light Chain, Heavy Chain, Light Plate, Heavy Plate, Cloth Armor, Bone Armor
20 sec.	Parry Ability, Multi Opponent, Light Edged, Medium Edged, Heavy Edged, Twohanded Edged
40 sec.	Light Blunt, Medium Blunt, Heavy Blunt, Twohanded Blunt, Slings, Staff Sling, Short Bow, Long Bow, Composite Bow, Light Crossbow, Heavy Crossbow
60 sec.	Short Staff, Quarter Staff, Pikes, Halberds, Light Thrown, Heavy Thrown, Brawling, Offhand Weapon
80 sec.	Primary Magic, Harness Ability, Power Perceive, Arcana, Targeted Magic
100 sec.	Evasion, Climbing, Perception, Scouting
120 sec.	Hiding, Lockpicking, Disarm Traps, Stalking, Stealing, First Aid, Foraging, Escaping
140 sec.	Backstab, Skinning, Swimming
160 sec.	Mechanical Lore, Musical Theory, Appraisal, Teaching, Trading, Animal Lore
180 sec.	Percussions, Strings, Winds, Vocals, Astrology, Empathy, Thanatology

Stats and Learning

Mental statistics now have a greater effect on the experience system. Intelligence and Wisdom affect all skills equally and have diminishing returns that are not logarithmically diminishing.

• Intelligence: Maximum size of experience pools
• Wisdom: Pulse size
• Discipline: Experience pool size, minor effect.

The effect of Intelligence and Wisdom is a percentage and not dependent on how many ranks you have in the skill. The effects of these stats can't be "tested" in an hour. This is something that assists you over the course of your entire career.

Soft Caps: Because of the recent changes to the experience system, the point of diminishing returns is no longer known. However, even if it were known, each of these stats affects other systems, so it's usually not a good idea to stop training mental stats. Discipline, in particular, affects many things.

Experience Drain at Login

Experience drain at login is based on when you last logged out of the game. Starting at 30 minutes, you will drain a percentage of your experience equal to the number of minutes that you have been logged out divided by 480.

When you're logged out, experience drains at a static rate, regardless of skillset placement, ranks, or stats. (Technically, the experience doesn't actually pulse until you log back in.)

Time Logged Out	%Pulsed
30 minutes	6.25%
1 hour	12.50%
2 hours	25%
3 hours	37.50%
4 hours	50%
5 hours	62.50%
6 hours	75%
7 hours	87.50%
8 hours	100%

Players who have received a warning within the last six months will not drain experience at login.

Obsolete Experience Mechanics

Discipline used to affect pool size (along with Intelligence). Now, it has no effect on the experience system.

Mind States

The mind state system was temporarily disabled in July 2009, meaning that your mind state will always be "clear." Mind murk will return in some form at an unspecified time.

Mind states decreased the rate at which you absorbed experience into new ranks. Whenever you were "mind locked" in a skill, you could not gain new experience in that skill until you absorbed some of your field experience. If you continued to gain experience while you were mind locked, the experience spilled over into the "mind state" pool. When you were mind locked in skills for an extended period of time, your mind state worsened.

When the new experience system was released, mind states were disabled. At the time GMs stated that the mind state system would return, but not in the way it was previously implemented.

The mind states were as follows:

1. clear
2. fluid
3. murky
4. very murky
5. thick: penalty begins
6. very thick
7. dense
8. very dense
9. stagnant
10. very stagnant
11. frozen: no longer absorbing experience
12. very frozen

The learning penalty increased as your mind state worsened until you stopped absorbing any experience at "frozen." (Being "very frozen" simply meant that it took even longer for your mind state to improve.) The only way to improve a poor mind state was to stop gaining field experience for a while. This gave your mind state pool a chance to drain.

If you improved your pool size or pulse rate, it took longer to mind lock, and therefore, you could train for longer periods of time without filling your mind state pool. However, the best way to avoid a poor mind state was to avoid being mind locked in multiple skills for an extended period of time.

Wall Cycle

Under earlier versions of the DR game engine, the rate of experience absorption varied by rank depending on skillset placement, following a two- (primary), four- (secondary), or eight-rank (tertiary) cycle. The last rank of the cycle was known as a "wall rank" since it was the slowest and hardest to gain, most especially for the tertiary skillset eight-rank cycle.

The wall cycle paradigm for experience gain was removed in the mid 2000's ^{(precise date?)}. Now, primary skills always pulse better than secondary skills which always pulse better than tertiary skills. However, under 50 ranks, skills will all drain like primary, and under 100 they will all drain at least like secondary.

Experience Pool States

The experience pool states under the old system were:

1. clear
2. learning
3. thoughtful
4. pondering
5. concentrating
6. muddled
7. very muddled
8. perplexing
9. perplexed
10. bewildering
11. bewildered
12. dazed
13. mind lock

RP Messaging

Ranks in each skill are numerical. However, there is also a role-playing system of nomenclature set up for skills, to make it easier to integrate into game-play.

Ranks 1-49 / Novice

Within the above range:

• + 0-09 = Lowly
• + 10-19 = Promising
• + 20-29 = Able
• + 30-39 = Trained
• + 40-49 = Full

Ranks 50-99 / Practitioner

Ranks 100-149 / Dilettante

Ranks 150-199 / Aficionado

Within the above ranges:

• + 0-09 = Beginning
• + 10-19 = Competent
• + 20-29 = Proficient
• + 30-39 = Experienced
• + 40-49 = Skilled

Ranks 200-299 / Adept

Ranks 300-399 / Expert

Within the above ranges:

• Rated by degrees 0-99

Ranks 400-499 / Professional

Ranks 500-599 / Authority

Ranks 600-699 / Genius

Within the above ranges:

• + 20-39 = Exceptional
• + 40-59 = Outstanding
• + 60-79 = Renowned
• + 80-99 = True

Ranks 700-799 / Savant

Ranks 800-899 / Master

Ranks 900-999 / Grand Master

Within the above ranges:

• + 20-39 = Distinguished
• + 40-59 = Venerated
• + 60-79 = Exalted
• + 80-99 = Transcendent

Ranks 1000-1249 / Guru

Ranks 1250+ / Legend

Related Forum Posts

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See Also

• Skills
• Skillsets
• Experience drain
• Demystifying the Experience System: Isharon's explanation of the experience system (a good link to share with new players)