The Proficiency System FrogComposband has a number of independent proficiency systems - weapon proficiency, spell proficiency, riding proficiency, martial arts proficiency and dual-wielding proficiency. All of these are closely related and have many similarities; in particular, your proficiency is indicated by the rough labels [Un]skilled, [Be]ginner, [Sk]illed, [Ex]pert and [Ma]ster, and you have proficiency caps which are usually class-dependent and denote the highest proficiency you can actually attain. There are also some key differences between the systems, though; the practical meanings of the five labels vary from skill to skill, as do the ways in which proficiency can be gained. Weapon Proficiency You have an independent proficiency for each kind of melee and missile weapon in the game - one proficiency for daggers, another for small swords, a third for maces, a fourth for light crossbows, and so on. You also have independent proficiency caps for each kind of weapon, though there tends to be a fair bit of correlation: if your cap is high for a particular weapon, it is probably also high for similar weapons. You can view both your current proficiencies, and the proficiency caps, through the ~ Knowledge Menu's Proficiency section. You can press M to toggle between four different display modes: current proficiency (displayed first), proficiency caps, current proficiency as a percentage of caps, and current proficiency as a percentage of full mastery. The percentage displays allow you to track your progress in finer detail than the five rough labels alone. The most important difference between weapon proficiency and other proficiencies is that [Be]ginner is acceptably good as a proficiency cap for a weapon. This is not the case for most other proficiencies; for riding and dual-wielding you really want a Master cap or at the very least Expert. But the weapon caps are not nearly as important, and only an [Un]skilled cap should really worry you. Weapon proficiency is gained by hitting or attempting to hit a monster with a weapon. High proficiency can only be attained by fighting high-level monsters. New players are occasionally mystified by why their proficiency does not seem to improve in the early game; this happens if you start the game already having Beginner proficiency or better, as the first monsters you meet will then be too low-level to allow proficiency improvement. The effect of weapon proficiency is a moderate bonus or penalty to your accuracy, ranging from -20 to-hit at 0% proficiency to +20 to-hit at full mastery. Dual-Wielding Proficiency Dual-wielding proficiency, and its proficiency cap, are extremely important for any character who wishes to dual-wield (unless they do so with no intention to melee). Like weapon proficiency, dual-wielding proficiency can be checked through the ~P menu. Dual-wielding proficiency is gained by fighting monsters in melee while dual-wielding. As with weapons, high dual-wielding proficiency can only be attained by fighting high-level monsters. Low proficiency gives a sizeable penalty to your accuracy, plus (unless you have gloves of Genji) a moderate penalty to your damage. For nearly all characters, dual-wielding proficiency starts at an extremely penalizing level; it takes quite a while of missing on all your hits to reach a point where your damage output from two weapons is even close to what it would be from a single weapon. Because of this, it is a good idea to check your cap before you start dual-wielding on a melee character; if your cap is low, all that effort will have been in vain, as you will always be better off with a single weapon. Even at very high mastery, dual-wielding is only rarely your best option in terms of pure damage. The main allure of dual-wielding is in the opportunity to gain the bonuses and resistances of two weapons. Martial Arts Proficiency Martial arts proficiency is essentially just weapon proficiency in the special case of unarmed combat; and like weapon proficiency, it can be viewed through the ~P proficiency menu. The only difference is that proficiency gain is somewhat different for martial arts: weapon proficiency gain requires the monster fought to be sufficiently high-level compared to existing proficiency, while for martial arts the monster must be sufficiently high-level compared to the player's character level. The speed at which proficiency is gained is also slightly different for martial arts. Riding Proficiency Riding proficiency is the key to everything about riding a monster; it determines which monsters you can ride, how much of your mount's speed you gain, how likely your mount is to throw you off, how rapidly your mount recovers from various status effects, how negatively riding impacts your spellcasting, how much you are penalized for fighting with unsuitable weapons. Consequently, your proficiency cap is very important if you plan to ride; for characters with low caps, riding is only viable in the early game, if at all. Riding proficiency can be improved in several ways: through meleeing sufficiently high-level monsters while riding, through shooting high-level monsters while riding (conditions easy to meet, but improvement very slow), and by experiencing situations where you can be thrown off a challenging mount. Riding proficiency follows a slightly different labeling system compared to the other proficiencies; [Be]ginner, [Sk]illed and [Ex]pert correspond to lower percentages of full mastery in it. As with the other non-spell proficiencies, riding proficiency and its cap can be viewed in the ~P proficiency display. Spell Proficiency Spell proficiency affects spell fail rates and mana cost. The main difference between spell proficiency and the other systems is that most characters can (if they wish) gain proficiency extremely rapidly by studying the same spell repeatedly. Spell proficiency caps are also mostly independent of your class, although your class does affect fail rates and mana cost in other ways. See [a] for a more detailed explanation of the spell proficiency system. Original : FrogComposband 7.1.liquorice