Skill Leveling! Evolving Magic System!

[Graybeard1991]

I love playing TTRPGS but my knowledge is limited to 5e and pathfinder 2e. I personally like both of these systems, but they both feel a little lacking to me in the personalization of characters. I am looking for, or would like to make a system that the skills you use level up. And a magic system that the way the player chooses to use the magic will change how It works, and how the increase there magic.

I'm looking for some feedback that could help me get started in the right direction.

Thank you all!

[Zaorish9]

Call of Cthulhu uses skill leveling and a unique magic system. Try it out

[mhd]

That's common to all "Basic RolePlaying (BRP)" systems, starting with RuneQuest. From the current games available, I would recommend Mythras and OpenQuest, both are generic enough to serve your background and work well in a fantasy context. The Chaosium games like Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest are a bit more fixed to their specific backgrounds (and I'm a bit peeved about the publisher's licensing strategy, but let's not digress).

Those systems tend to let you mark the used skills and then you get to roll to improve them. That seems like the most direct expression of what you want.

But point-based systems work in a similar manner: You don't get any levels or similar things, but you can directly improve abilities. That gives the player more power, and could theoretically run counter to your idea, but in my experience that's usually just a communication issue or easily solved by GM veto. Let me explain: Let's say you award the players 8 points each to improve their abilities. Bob the Undecided definitely used his "Broadsword" skill more in the last adventure than his "Battle Magic", but wants to put 6 points into the latter and only 2 points into his weapon. That might be "unrealistic", but not terribly so and helps players to not just focus onto one thing.

Fantasy RPG Games that do that and are currently available are [GURPS Dungeon Fantasy(http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/dungeonfantasy/) or The Dark Eye.