I'm sure this has been addressed elsewhere, but a search didn't turn up anything useful.

In the skill section under Instruction, (SR4 p123) it says I can use instruction to help people make extended tests to learn/improve skills. I can't find anything else about these tests, though. Is it because I have a FanPro SR4?

I'm hearing that I have to make extended tests to improve skills using Karma, with the risk of losing the Karma if the test fails. I thought I just spent the Karma and the skills went up. Can somebody set me straight here?

To learn or improve a skill or skill group, the character must succeed
in an Extended Intuition + skill Test, with a threshold equal
to the new skill rating x 2 and an interval of 1 week (1 month for
skill groups). A teacher can add bonus dice to this test (see Using
Instruction, p. 134).

Page 270 of SR4A, its under Character Improvement in the Running the Shadows chapter. Not sure about SR4 page number

Intervals of WEEKS? Holy smoke--we've played like seven game sessions now, and I think a week and a half of "game time" has passed.

If you're enjoying the game with such a hectic pace, no reason to change it now. Until someone says, "wait, it's kinda silly to learn all the basics of how to set explosives in a day," then you can say, "well, how about we make the interval a week?" Then you can be the hero of the group and nobody has to stop having fun.

Heh, the hectic pace is not up to me. I wouldn't mind slowing down a little, seeing as how I've only been able to fully heal up one time since we started, but it's how our GM is running it.

The longer learning curve makes sense for some skills, but others it seems one might be able to pick up quicker, especially when we're just talking about one rank.

Someone had also mentioned to me that there is a limit on how many tries you can make on the extended tests, based on how many dice you have, and that a critical glitch is automatic failure. Is that correct? What happens if you fail? You just straight out lose the Karma? That seems kinda crappy.

For example, one guy has a 2 Dodge and 1 Intuition. To raise it to a Dodge 3, he has to have six successes on the extended test, right? Rolling 3 dice once a week, with a limit of three attempts (because he has three dice?) means he needs six successes on nine dice or loses six Karma?

Sorry, still learning 4E, and my FanPro book isn't much help...

I don't think you lose karma for a failed test, you just lose the time spent and would have to restart.

Also realize that the general thought is that runners are doing 1-2 runs per month. More if they are small runs, much less if they are very large ones. I try and give my players enough downtime to get there skills up without eating up a ton of game time. Which often means the runners are fast forwarding several weeks at a time between runs.

But, if you are taking 2-3 jobs a week (which is certainly possible), then you are going to find it hard to spend your karma on skills...

I guess as long as you don't lose the Karma it's not SO bad, but it sure seems like it's gonna be awful rough to bump up that Dodge. What are the odds of six successes on nine dice? Taking three weeks every time, it's gonna take that guy like four months of game time to get to Dodge 3.

This would be one of those points where you ignore the optional rule for extend test limit and let them keep rolling till they get the successes.

Or he needs to get Tutorsoft ware to help him.

You have some options...pay for an instructor to get a few bonus dice. Pick up a Tutorsoft (which acts like an Instructor) and especially for low level skill increases, its much cheaper. Talk to your GM and if he wants to stick to the core rules for training, maybe you could talk him into allowing you to use edge. Or, you could ask for him to lower the threshold time to something less than a week...maybe a set number or he could get creative and tie to to an ability, maybe something like Logic (which doesn't get used enough anyways). 7 - Logic days as the interval, minimum 1 day. So, someone with a low logic takes a long time to train, but that guy with a high logic is gonna "get it" that much faster.

Now one house rule I have put into play at my table is to allow players to queue up training skills equal to their Logic rating. So, while it still takes weeks to train, they can train multiple skills at the same time based on their Logic.

Yeah, I'll definitely try to work something out with him. Not holding out a lot of hope, though--he likes to play rough when he can, refreshing just a point or two of edge after a run, chaining runs together, etc.

Thanks for the help, everyone. This place rocks.

The extended test limits for learning skills/complex forms/spells/etc. is one of those rules I have personally ignored from the very beginning, as well as every GM for every group I've played in. It's just unnecessary for my groups.