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Could a knight (or even a Paladin) train someone in their form of horsemanship? Let's say a nobleman's kid or someone whom the knight serves.

I do allow it, with it taking an extra elective skill for each upgrade level, so if you can get horsemanship general it takes an extra 2 elective skills to upgrade to paladin. I do allow ingame training but it takes a long time that adventurers generally do not want to do as their friends get to go off and keep adventuring.

I'd also allow it, treating it somewhat like hand to hand skill upgrades; Horsemanship: General is HTH Basic, Knight is Expert, and Palladin is Martial Arts (in terms of cost, at least).

I don't see any reason not to allow it, though I gotta agree with the idea of time investment on the part of the teacher. The Palladin would have to take at least a couple of weeks out of his adventuring schedule just to give his student a rundown of just the basics. Anything beyond that means more time taken off to continue teaching and sharpening those skills. Plus, you're looking at an even longer time invest.e t if your student wants to get into the Palldin's Way of the Horse ability, which the Palladin may or most likely may not wish to pass on. Unless of course the student is his apprentice or squire.
Good luck k and great gaming

I'd allow it. It could be during adventuring. Lectures during meal times. Practical training while travelling. It'd still take time but the adventure wouldn't have to stop.

Well, I am not a fan of picking up skills willy nilly. Most of the skills are the kind of thing that take a lot of time to learn. Like years of practice to learn. Some aren't but I think the specialized horsemanship skill would take a lot of time. Historically, being a knight was a very expensive and specialized thing and it took a lot of training and practice. So, a knight/palladin could teach (where else would you learn?) but it would take a lot of time. Just during the downtime wouldn't cut it in my opinion. You'd need the horse and equipment, but those are likely provided by the knight instructor. But you also need open ground, and likely another horse and rider to practice jousting. Oh, and a lot of time to practice.

-Vek
"But it still could be done, just not in the downtime of adventuring."

the mounted combat skills of real world knights took years to learn. there was a reason that they were started as very young boys, and didn't usually see combat until they were young men. the basic training alone usually took 4-6 years, though this also included physical training and weapons training. (as well as social training along the way) but that other training was important to the horsemanship. the physical training was geared to building up the physique that was required to ride and fight from horseback, the weapons training taught the skills of how to actually fight from the back of a moving horse and use said horse to maximize their fighting ability, even the social training was important because it taught not only the discipline needed to learn the other skills but also to operate as a unit, give and take orders, etc.

even if we assuem that someone already has the core parts of those other elements, just training in how to ride and fight on a horse in armor effectively is going to take several years of training to do well.

i would presume that the paladin's training is similar, just focused a little differently.

On the other hand, how long does it take to learn HtH: Expert or Martial Arts?

Two years according to Ninja & Superspies.

Two years according to Ninja & Superspies.[/quote]

And how long did it take a knight to learn his combat skills (which would be the time frame for HtH in Palladium Fantasy)?

Well, the Hand to Hand skills for Palladium are way out of whack. I don’t know what something like the military or police training would qualify in Palladium terms. Basic? Expert? But that’s something like 40 hours of training or so. That, to me, seems like it would be relatively easy to learn while adventuring. Working with a medieval weapon would take longer, especially the blades. Blunt weapons would be easier, I think. But things like wrestling and boxing seem like they’d take more time to derive the bonuses. Do you have to be at least an amateur boxer to get the extra attack? Can you do it with just a few classes at the gym? That would really change the amount of time needed to learn the skill. There is no real rhyme or reason to how long it takes to learn a skill.

A good corollary for the horsemanship would be W.P. Longbow. It’s as restricted as the horsemanship skills, but how long would it take to master that weapon? It takes more than just learning the mechanics. But, I think you could learn to shoot a crossbow rather quickly.

-Vek
“Just no rhyme or reason.”

The thing that takes the longest to learn in my games is automatic parry, as that is a learned automatic response, and to be able to attempt that on all attacks that come for is pretty tough. Imagine being in front of 3 people with swords stroking at you constantly and you having the ability to attempt to parry each one.
Autoparry is the big thing the fighter classes get in my games. Any non-men at arms classes do not get it (wizards, priests, druids etc). This is to represent the time they spent studying magic instead of waving a wooden sword around.
I have a perk system where a non-men at arms can get autoparry with one type of weapon, ie falchion or arab mace, but not all small swords or blunt. This also reduces their effectiveness as a caster as they aren't taking a perk that buffs casting.

I think the question is essentially posing a much wider one; essentially this:
Can a person learn any skills that are not normally selectable for their O.C.C.?
Can a person learn any special abilities of another O.C.C.?

For the first part, there are instances in the books that allow a person to learn new skills outside the normal rules. For instance, in a town (I forget which one; in Timiro I think), there is a training facility that enables someone to learn the boxing skill after a defined period of study. There is no mention of any prerequisites or O.C.C. limitations. There are other examples in the books of people or organisations allowing players to learn other skills in a similar way. So, there is precedent for learning new skills.

However, like Vek, I am not a fan of player characters just picking up skills willy-nilly. If we allow players to teach other players anything they like just by saying that they are practicing with them every night, it could lead to abuse. However, I would consider a house-rule that allowed player characters to teach each other a normally unavailable skill, that the student could select next time they have a skill slot available as they progress in experience. So, role-playing the "I am training with my teacher every night", but not being allowed to complete their training (select the skill) until they advance sufficiently in experience.

Unfortunately, the way the rules work, a character can just pick up skills willy-nilly, because almost every O.C.C. gets new skills as they go up levels, without requiring any training or role-playing. I just try to explain that as "yeah, this skill was part of my O.C.C. training back in the day, but I didn't really get it at the time, and never focussed on it until now". I try not to force a player to justify every new skill selection, as the rules don't require it, and it seems restrictive and unfair.

As for "can they learn special abilities of another O.C.C.?", I have to say no. That's why they're special.

Perhaps something like Horsemanship: knight, could be selected using two new skill slots, as others have already said, as that is technically just a skill, and it fits with the hand to selections. After all, a squire also knows horsemanship: knight. But if an O.C.C. can't pick two skills at a time as they level up, they would be unable to use two skill slots to learn this elite ability.
But I would not allow them to learn any other knightly abilities, or other O.C.C. specific abilities.

Hope that helps.

For the extra elective and secondary I just say the character has had them from the start and only practises them a little bit after the initial training, and it has taken the amount of time it takes them to get to the lvl needed to get the skill to get to the point where you are noticeably better than someone without the skill.
In first ed using 1 or 2 skills to get a bonus that isn't constant is pretty expensive and most times the players won't do it, in preference to just taking the class that has it.

When I did some alternate non-xCC psionic skills rules, I had a rule about skills expenditures that I think works pretty well.

If you use an Elective/xCC related skill, you get the power at your current level.
If you use a Secondary skill, you get the power at 1st level, and it increases from there.

Now, obviously, at 1st level, this doesn't make any difference, skill or power. And, of course, this also wouldn't matter for some psychic powers... Sixth Sense doesn't get any better just because you're 12th level. But, if you get a power (or skill) at 5th level with your new Secondary skill, you get it at 30%*. If you used an OCC Related skill, you'd get it at 50% (i.e. 30% + 5% for levels 2, 3, 4, and 5).

This maintains a difference between xCC related skills and secondary skills, even as levels increase.

*Or whatever the percentage is.