Restrictions on Experience Point Use

Story Arc places some trust in players to make logical decisions about their character's development. It is theoretically possible, for example, for a character to save experience points for a while and then suddenly jump from, say, a Brawl skill of 1 all the way to a Brawl skill of 12. To prevent this sort of thing, GMs may wish to require players to inform her when passing a certain rating in each Skill or Attribute — say, 8.

Optionally, a GM may also want to require players to have some justification for gaining increased Attributes, Skills, extraordinary abilities, and so on, since it isn't very realistic for characters to suddenly leap up several notches in ability without having had any experience with performing a related action. Learning spells may require locating a copy of the spell first and spending some time studying it; increasing a Skill might require having had some experiences performing that Skill — either practicing or using it while adventuring. Developing mutant powers might require, for example, falling into a vat of radioactive gunk. And some abilities (psionics, for instance) might be impossible to acquire after character creation, depending on the game in question.

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