A character's capabilities represent what he/she can or cannot do during an adventure. A character will, as he/she survives adventures, increase his/her capabilities (e.g. through learning new skills). In Age of Magic, this process is achieved through experience points (eps).
Experience points are the means by which characters become more powerful. During an adventure (or at the end of it), the referee will award experience points to each character involved in the adventure. The player then adds these to the character's unused experience points bank and to the total number of experience points the character has received to date.
The player may then use unused experience points to increase the character's capabilities. Experience points are spent exactly as if they were character points (1 ep = 1 cp).
A fundamental principle to Age of Magic is that every character should always balance.
For characters immediately following character generation, this means:
For characters who have been on some adventures since character generation, this means:
The starting cp value never changes during later play. The total experience received to date starts at zero and then increases throughout later play. The total cps value and unused experience points will tend to fluctuate up and down between adventures.
A character uses experience points to increase the character's capabilities. Certain capabilities (e.g. characteristics, talents) tend to remain the same from one adventure to another. Others are more likely to change. Examples of situations where a character would normally use experience points to increase capabilities include:
Each unused experience point can be used as the equivalent of 1 cp. For each cp spent, the value of the character's abilities increases and the amount of unused experience points decreases, leaving the character in balance. A character's starting cp value and total experience received to date are unaltered.
A character's unused experience points bank should always be at least zero; so, if a character wishes to acquire more new capabilities than his/her available unused experience points, he/she should acquire some new disadvantages to make up the difference. In very rare circumstances, the referee may allow a character to temporarily spend more experience points than he/she has available; this should only be allowed for situations where the referee has caused the change in the character's capabilities (e.g. through a prince becoming king on the natural death of his father) rather than the player choosing to increase the character's capabilities.
A character may only increase his/her skill score after an adventure if he/she either used the skill score extensively during the adventure or if he/she receives successful teaching in that skill score.
As a result of a character's activities, he/she may acquire new disadvantages or lose some of his/her capabilities. For example:
When this happens, the total value of the character's capabilities decreases. To keep the character in balance, the character receives an equivalent increase in his/her unused experience points, which can then be spent on increasing other capabilities.
The referee may also give character's new background bonuses to reflect time spent in particular locations or additional time spent in a particular occupation. When this happens, the background bonus reduces the total value of the character's capabilities and hence increases the unused experience points available, but the character must then spend double this amount of unused experience points to increase the skill scores required by the new background bonus.
For example, on an adventure, Cogan spends a few months in the Southern Deserts. The referee rules this is enough to warrant a -1/2 cps background bonus. This reduces Cogan's total cps value by 1/2 cp and therefore adds 1/2 ep to his unused experience points. However, Cogan must then immediately spend 1 cps on the regional knowledge skill for Southern Deserts; this increases his total cps by 1 cp (making a net increase of 1/2 cps overall) and decreases his unused experience points by 1 ep (making a net decrease of 1/2 cps overall).