Experience Expenditure per Story

At the conclusion of a story, if a player wishes to spend experience on attributes/techniques/abilities, he may increase any ability by one dot.  This encourages a gradual improvement in a fighter's skills over time, rather than leaving experience dormant for several stories and suddenly spending it all to raise Kick from 0 to 4.  Larger increases are possible if there is an extended game downtime before the next adventure, during which the character can practice intensely and receive instruction.

Buying Attribute Points

One of the major flaws in the Street Fighter system is the curve for experience expenditure for raising attributes.  The system as is encourages fighters to place all available points into 1 or 2 attributes per category and take the rest at 1 or 2.  The reason for this is the speed with which such a deficiency can be made up, as opposed to a gradual improvement of "average" attributes.  For instance:

A character starts with Strength 4, Dexterity 4, and Stamina 3.  Raising himself to 5-5-5 would cost a total of (16+16+12+16)=60 experience points, exclusive of trainers.

A character starts with Strength 5, Dexterity 1, and Stamina 5.  Raising himself to 5-5-5 would cost a total of (4+8+12+16)=40 experience points, exclusive of trainers.

Tony Faber once proposed that in order to combat this, any attribute increase from 1 to 5 should cost a flat 20 experience points, switching to the (6 x attribute's current level) system once you get beyond 5.  This idea has merits in that a character's concept, based on his attributes, will remain fairly constant through his early career, and the "Ryu target" of 5-5-5 will be a long time coming for anyone, encouraging more expenditure on things like maneuvers, techniques, and abilities.  However, this system may seem unduly harsh to low rank characters who are scraping experience together so they don't get their asses kicked all the time.  The GM can thus take a more midline approach as follows:

Therefore, a character with physical attributes of 4-3-3 who wished to raise his Dexterity to 4 would pay [(4+3+3)+3]=13 points.  A character with social attributes of 2-2-2 who wished to improve Appearance to 3 would pay [(2+2+2)+2]=8 points.  A character with mental attributes of 5-3-5 who wishes to improve Intelligence to 4 would pay [(5+3+5)+3]=16 points.

Using this approach, the example above narrows in margin by a bit.

A character starts with Strength 4, Dexterity 4, and Stamina 3.  Raising himself to 5-5-5 would cost a total of (15+16+16+18)=65 experience points, exclusive of trainers.

A character starts with Strength 5, Dexterity 1, and Stamina 5.  Raising himself to 5-5-5 would cost a total of (12+14+16+18)=60  experience points, exclusive of trainers.

For superhuman attributes over 5, you can keep using the (6 x current level) formula.

Time for Maneuver Learning

Learning maneuvers is a lengthy process, far more lengthy than one would expect when considering real world personal combat training.  However, it should be taken into consideration that the techniques of Street Fighters are nigh-mythical, and learning a maneuver implies total mastery of it.  They never miss.  (Well, maybe if they get 0 damage or botch.)

A guideline in The Perfect Warrior gives a training time of one intensive month per 2 experience points required for the maneuver.  Thus, someone learning a simple maneuver like Throw, requiring 4 experience points, must train for 2 months to the exclusion of other activities while doing so.

Senseis and Training Maneuvers

(Modified from Player's Guide)  A Sensei can reduce the experience cost (and thusly training time) of a new maneuver to 3 experience points per power point instead of 4, assuming he knows it himself.  The Sensei must roll Charisma + Instruction and get a number of successes equal to or greater than the maneuver point cost of the maneuver, so a Shotokan sensei would need 4 successes to reduce the cost of learning Dragon Punch, but a Kung Fu sifu requires 5.  As a general guideline, the Charisma + Instruction total for any Sensei is approximately the Sensei's base value in Background points + 5, so a 3 dot Sensei generally gets a pool of 8 dice.  This ignores the cost break for "hard to reach" masters, so a great master who is hard to reach (cost 4) effectively is a 5 dot Sensei once the character gets to him, giving him a pool of 10 dice, not 9.  This is just a guideline; a merely "good" Sensei might be a dedicated teacher and have many dots in Instruction, and a Master may have Instruction and Charisma higher than 5 each.

Note that difficulty increases with Power Point costs, unlike the rules for teachers given in Player's Guide.  This is to balance out the incredible potential for abuse with super cheap 5-point maneuvers.  However, the rule is still to the advantage of the player, considering that there was no rule for Sensei benefit in the basic book.

The maneuvers known by a Sensei depend on his competence, reflected by his Background cost.  It's difficult to generalize about maneuvers known by levels of Sensei by Background value vs. Power cost, since there are styles with a limited range of maneuvers and costs (i.e. Jiu Jitsu has 2 free maneuvers and no 5 point ones, and The Pankration has no maneuver costing over 3).  The GM should make up full character sheets for each Sensei using the guidelines on page 59 of the Street Fighter rules to determine maneuvers known, maneuvers from outside the style, and the possibility of unique maneuvers created by the master.

Senseis and Combos

A Combo is a reflexive stringing of maneuvers and tends to be highly individual to the fighter who uses it.  For this reason a Sensei may not reduce the point cost for a Combo he does not possess himself.  A Sensei may try to teach a combo he does have, rolling Charisma + Instruction, number of successes = the number of Power Points in the combo.

For example, Bob's Sensei knows the combinations Jab to Strong, Block to Backflip Kick to Rolling Attack, and Jumping Short to Forward Flip Knee to Head Bite (Dizzy), and Bob wants to learn them.  Assume Bob already hass all of the prerequisite maneuvers (Backflip Kick, Rolling Attack, Jump, Forward Flip Knee, and Head Bite) and enough free experience to buy the combinations at their base cost (total 24 experience).  The Sensei tries to teach the combinations.  Jab to Strong is a 1 power point combo and requires one success on Charisma + Instruction; the Sensei succeeds (Bob pays 3 experience and spends 1.5 months in training).  Next he tries Block to Backflip Kick to Rolling Attack, a 2 power point combination; the Sensei gets 2 successes and succeeds (Bob pays 6 character points and spends 3 months).  Jumping Short to Forward Flip Knee to Head Bite (Dizzy) is a 3 power point combination; however, the Sensei only gets 2 successes this time, and Bob must pay the full cost for the combo:  12 experience and 6 months in training.  Bob gets his 3 combos, with a total cost of 18 experience and 9 months in the dojo.

Although the chance for success in teaching a combo will generally be far better than for teaching a maneuver, this is balanced out by the fact that Street Fighters (even Senseis) will not usually have 50 combos to pick and choose from, and player characters will usually tend to want to formulate their own combos to give flavor and individuality to their fighting styles.

Non-Sensei Instructors

Any character who knows a maneuver can try to teach any other character the maneuver.  There is no point or time break as with a Sensei, except in the unlikely event that the teaching character is also the player character's Sensei.  The maneuver is bought normally, and only an "any" maneuver or one in the character's style can be learned, as usual.

Note that a maneuver common to two styles may be performed differently, and a traditional Kung Fu practicioner learning the Shotokan version of the Dragon Punch may be frowned on by his Sensei and peers.  There may be associated penalties.  For example, a Kung Fu character who learned Dragon Punch from his Shotokan teammate acquires a Sensei later in the chronicle, who then insists on taking some time in order to "fix" the character's Dragon Punch technique.

Also note that a character learning a maneuver pays the point cost for his own style, not the style of the person teaching the maneuver, in this fashion.  The Kung Fu character in the preceding example would pay 5 power points, although his Shotokan buddy paid 4.

Self-Teaching Maneuvers

Street Fighters without an accessible Sensei, as well as Street Fighters wishing to learn a maneuver in their style their Sensei doesn't know (or an "any" maneuver), have the option of self-teaching.  This is to allow the concept of completely self-taught fighters, and to allow players without benefit of instruction to grow.  There is no experience cost break for self-teaching, and so the only thing to determine is whether or not the maneuver can be learned at all.

The GM must use common sense here.  Obviously, even the most complex of maneuvers must be self-teachable to some degree, since somebody came up with it in the first place, unless your campaign subscribes to martial arts traiing through divine inspiration.  The thing to keep in mind is that the more complex maneuvers like Dragon Punch, Whirlwind Kick, etc., should be assumed to have been formulated by true masters with a comprehensive knowledge of their fighting styles.  At one time, Gouken was the only known master of the Dragon Punch, and only taught it to Ken Masters and Ryu, who are not known as teachers.   However, judging from the hordes of NPC's that litter Street Fighter supplements who also have this maneuver, it can be discerned that someone managed to pick it up through careful observation and deduction, and passed it on to students.  Naturally, the student with a Sensei is better off, but there is no reason to disallow someone from learning the maneuver through observation.  It's just hard.

A suggested system is as follows:

• The character must meet the requirements for the maneuver, in terms of style, techniques, prerequisite maneuvers, free experience, etc.
• He must then be able to observe the maneuver he wishes to copy.  This "conception" roll is made based on Perception + Style Lore (or other ability designated by the Gamemaster), difficulty 7 for quick observation (say by watching matches briefly), 6 for prolonged and close-up observation (having the technique used on him many times and/or watching many matches), 5 for careful scrutiny over a long period of time (i.e. a willing demonstrator, watching a fighter practice for a month, or peeking into the training hall a la Shaolin Temple).  The number of successes required is equal to the power point cost of the maneuver to the observing character.  For instance, a Special Forces fighter wants to try and pick up the Backflip Kick his Wu Shu opponent has beat him up with for the past few fights.  He must roll Perception + Style Lore, difficulty 6, and must get 3 successes.  If a character fails this roll, he may be allowed another at some later point by the GM.  It is suggested that a character who botches the roll only thinks he has it down and can train fruitlessly, or alternatively just doesn't get it at all, and cannot learn the maneuver without specific instruction from a Sensei.
• The character must then begin to practice the maneuver in earnest, training as for any other maneuver in terms of time, but must make a successful Intelligence roll every month in order to proceed.  A failed roll just means that that month was wasted and the training time is extended.  A botched Intelligence roll indicates a flawed concept has taken root and must be corrected, extending the training time by 2 months.  GM's may lower the difficulty of the Intelligence check for considerations like continued observation of the maneuver, etc.  When the training time is completed, the maneuver has been learned.